#i give up trying to make the black less grainy D:

[itsclowreedsfault]

Are you angry?

I’m not angry. Not angry.

What are you thinking about, then?

#the ancient magus bride #mahoutsukai no yome #mtnyedit #dailymtny #allanimanga #mtny edits #mtny spoilers #i give up trying to make the black less grainy D: #i really love this coloring #so why must the black always look bad aaaah #6k

[soonhoonsol]

Welcome to soonhoonsol’s gif tutorial!

As a nice anon asked me how I make my gifs, I thought it’d be cool to create an in-depth tutorial :) Perhaps this can help some others enter the gif-ing world too!

What we’ll be using for this tutorial:

Software: Bandicam, Avisynth, Photoshop CC 2018, Topaz Labs

File Format: .mp4

Operating System: Windows

Disclaimer: This is just my method. Every gif maker works differently and has different preferences. What works for me may not work for you, and that’s completely okay!

Let’s get into it!

1. Find the best quality video you can find

This really depends on the content you want to gif. For variety shows, music videos or photoshoots, any video of [1080p] should be sufficient. Try not to use anything below 720p.

For stage performances, fancams tend to have higher resolutions [1440p, 4k]. Use these if your computer can handle it. If not, usually 1080p works fine. The best option would be to download .ts files, which provide clearer and less grainy videos.

For Seventeen, you can get .ts files from The Rosebay on Twitter :)

2. Screen recording

As a Windows user, I don’t have a built-in screen recorder on my laptop. So, I use Bandicam, which is a free screen recording software. The only con to it is that it has a watermark.

To combat the watermark, I always have the boundary box a little bigger than the video itself so that I can crop it out of the gif.

This is what the recording would look like:

Just record the scene(s) that you want to gif so your video file doesn’t end up too large! Your recording should be in .mp4 format.

(You may use pure .ts files in Avisynth but it never worked well for me so I usually screen record the .ts video and move on)

You can find your recorded videos in Documents > Bandicam.

3. Avisynth

I followed THIS tutorial to download Avisynth. This software is really helpful if you want sharp and clear gifs! I recommend to follow the steps in the tutorial as the below method stems from it.

- Once you have downloaded it, open up your recorded video from Step 2 and watch it. Take note of the duration you want to gif. (e.g. from 00:01 to 00:05)

- Drag your video file into normalwebrange.bat. On Windows, you can find this in File Explorer > Local Disk (C:) > video. For other .bat files, you may check out THIS tutorial.

- In the pop-up box, key in the start time for your gif (e.g. 00:00:01). It has to be in hh:mm:ss format. Press “enter”.

- Key in the end timing and press “enter” again. A resizer should pop up in an Internet Browser. I found that Firefox works best for me.

- In the resizer, you may indicate the size of the gif you’d like to make. You can also click and drag the video to resize and frame it to your liking. You may refer to THIS post for Tumblr dashboard sizing.

(These are some common gif sizes for stage performances):

1 gif - 540px by 540px (square)

2 gifs - 268px by 350px

3 gifs - 177/178px by 250px

- Under “Preprocessor”, select “debilinear” for the second box. For the first box, you may pick between qtgmc 30 (same frame rate as video) or qtgmc 60 (doubles the frame rate; smoother).

- You will also see “fast” or “slow” options. These are just how long the video will take to render. “Fast” will give you slightly lower quality as compared to “slow”, but usually is good enough.

(You can see that his features are sharper and more defined in the “slow” gif as compared to the “fast” one.)

- Copy the code in the white box. Navigate to the scripting window (it should have popped up with the resizer) and paste the code at line 17. Type a “#” before qtgmc on the same line. This will prevent the software from lagging.

- Click on the inverted triangle at the bottom of the screen. Your video will now appear in the scripting window. Drag the slider to the intended starting point of your gif and press the “home” key on your keyboard.

- Drag the slider again to the intended ending point of your gif and press the “end” key on your keyboard. This blue area you see is the duration of your gif.

- On an empty line (I usually go to line 8), place your cursor there and click “Apply” in the mini pop-up window. Afterwards, remove the “#” from line 17.

- Go to File > Save or press Ctrl + S to save the code. Close the scripting window. The video renderer will pop up. When it’s done, it will automatically close by itself.

4. Using Photoshop and Topaz

I’m using my school license for Photoshop 2018, but if you don’t have that, there are plenty of cracked versions for free. I don’t have any to recommend though so I’m sorry about that :(

I followed THIS video tutorial to download Topaz plug-ins for free. I use Topaz DeNoise (the most helpful) and Clean, but you may use others if you’d like :)

Alright, let’s dive in to the steps!

- Open up Photoshop and go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers.

- A pop-up will appear. You can find your deinterlaced Avisynth video in File Explorer > Local Disk (C:) > video > temp > video.avi. Follow the settings in the picture and click “OK”.

- Go to Window > Timeline to open up the timeline. You should be able to see your gif spread out in frames. If you press the play button, it should play like a video.

- (Quick optional step I learned from THIS tutorial) Go to Image > Canvas and set the Resample option to “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.)

- Select the first frame of your gif in the timeline. Shift select the last frame. Go to Window > Layers. Shift select these layers as well.

- With everything selected, click the 3 lines at the top right corner of the timeline. Select “Convert to Video Timeline”.

- At the top of the screen, select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. Your layers will condense into one layer. Don’t worry, your gif is fine.

- Now it’s time to sharpen the gifs. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. Play around with the settings to your liking!

- If you’ve downloaded Topaz correctly, it should appear under Filter > Topaz Labs. If a pop-up asks you for an activation key, you may use THESE to activate it for free.

- Go to Filter > Topaz Labs > DeNoise and/or Clean and play with the settings until you’re satisfied.

5. Blurring

If your gifs have captions/logos that are distracting, you’d want to blur them out. Don’t be like 2018 me that blurred out the logo frame by frame; it’s very tiring. Instead, using this method from @scoupsy‘s tutorial, you’ll save lots of time.

- In the Layers tab (Windows > Layers), select the “New Layer” icon. It should be blank.

- Select the Brush tool. Make sure the “Hardness” setting is below 20%. This will blend the blurring nicely into the gif.

(For the sake of this tutorial, I will be blurring out the Bandicam logo to show you.)

- Paint over the captions/logos. Make sure this is on the blank layer!

- Duplicate (Right Click > Duplicate) the gif layer and drag it so that it’s on top of the blank layer.

- Right click on the duplicate layer and select “Create Clipping Mask”.

- Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and play around with the settings until you’re satisfied with the level of blurring. Click “OK”.

6. Flattening & Colouring

- Once you’re done with sharpening and/or blurring, click on the 3 lines on at the right corner of the video timeline and go to Convert Frames > Flatten Frames Into Clips.

- Topaz layers and blurring will take some time to render so you can just chill for now~

- When it’s done rendering, click again on the 3 lines and go to Convert Frames > Make Frames From Clips.

- Convert it back to the gif timeline by clicking on the 3-box icon at the bottom left of the timeline.

- Select the first frame of your gif. It must be the FIRST.

- Scroll to the top of the layers and select the layer at the top. Any other layers you add should be on top of this layer. VERY IMPORTANT!!

- In the Adjustments Tab (Window > Adjustments), there are many different things to play with. There’s a high chance you won’t use everything, but here’s a few of my favourites.

Levels - Adjust the brightness and contrast of your gif in depth.

Hue/Saturation - Useful for changing colours, or switching it to black and white.

Color Balance - Tweak the colours to your liking.

Colour Lookup - Comes with built-in LUTs that you can use as a preset. Great starting point for colouring. Saves time too. You can even download plug-ins for this. 11/10 tool.

Selective Colour - Adjust the vibrancy of specific colours.

- Colouring is completely up to the gifmaker. Go crazy go stupid :D

7. Exporting

We’re almost to the end!

- Set the timing for your gif.

If you used qtgmc30, the best timing would be 0.04s / 0.05s / 0.06s.

If you used qtgmc60, the best timing would be 0.02s / 0.03s / 0.04s.

- Once you’re satisfied with everything, go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).

- Follow the settings in the picture below:

- Tumblr’s gif limit is 10mb per gif. Check the gif size at the bottom left of the pop-up window. Make sure it’s below 10mb; the smaller the better.

- Click “Save”. Choose where you’d like to save the gif.

- Done!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that’s it! You’ve successfully made a gif! Good job you :D

I hope this tutorial was helpful! Please leave some feedback if it helped, or if you have other methods you’d like to share :)

Lastly, if you have any questions, feel free to send in an ask or DM me!! :)

Good luck and happy gif-ing :’D

#gif tutorial #kpop gifs #avisynth tutorial #topaz tutorial #gifs #chey.resource #kpop #idk what else to tag so... #i finally posted the tutorial yay!! #please spare a reblog if you find this even remotely helpful thank you <3 #also to spread it hehe i spent a lot of time on this #if anyone has any questions please feel free to DM me!! #i apologize if there are any spelling errors

[sahbibabe]

A Mission For One

A Mission For One

Soulmate AU

Sephiroth/Fem! Reader

You are given the details of your mission. It wasn't your intention to be crippling the last of the previous AVALANCHE's funding, nor was it to face the risk of seeing Hojo ever again.

RENO, JUST LIKE RUFUS had said, showed up the very next day, just shy of seven in the morning. He didn't have Rude with him, which was unusual, and instead had a lowly grunt with him. He had a briefcase in one hand and his weapon in the other, shooting you a grin when you opened the door.

     "Ready to get started?" He asked, pushing past you to set up on one of the tables. He opened the briefcase with a flourish. "Might wanna sit down because I have a lot of stuff to tell you and not a whole lot of time."

       You locked the shop door and sat down across from him, eyeing the grunt who positioned his back to it with a rifle in hand. "Was it necessary to bring the gun inside?"

      "Him? Nah." Reno pulled out a file as thick as your fingers put together and set it aside. "Right, first thing I have to tell you is to hold out your arm."

        You did so obediently. "What for?"

      "This." Reno gave you no warning other than a smirk, and plunged what looked like a five gauge needle into your wrist. He injected a clear substance into you and, before you had time to jerk away, was done. "There. Your Shinra access chip. After the fiasco with keycards and AVALANCHE last year, we decided on these bad boys to secure the system. As long as you're alive, calm, and healthy, you can get anywhere you want to. I think the boss gave you B-Level clearance until you pass your physicals, then will up it to A-Level after that."

       You felt dread settle in the pit of your gut. You had never owned anything as much as D-Level access in your entire life, and that was just to attend a small court session to set up your tea shop and legally sell tea from Shinra suppliers. B-Level was a high jump, and giving you A-Level access after? Those were the same permissions that only Rufus's seconds in command got, only less to Rufus himself.

      "Reno," you asked slowly,"what the hell am I going to be doing that requires A-Level access?"

      "A lot of things," he whistled, thumbing through a plastic card case and pulling out an ID card with your face plastered on it. "Assassination, murder, espionage, sabotage, take your pick. The things we Turks can't do and get away with easily."

       The bad feeling in your stomach told you it was a bit more than that. You let it slide when he handed you the ID, noting the fluorescent finish on it and the expensive plastic it was made of, as well as the giant Shinra logo printed beside your head with a script reading 'VIP: DO NOT ENGAGE' along with your VIP permissions underneath, which extended to free hotel stays, you noticed.

       "What's this?" You asked, watching it shine in the light. "I already have an ID."

      "Yeah, but not one that's special like that." Reno then pulled out a manilla file almost as thick as the one he had brought out before, except this one had giant red confidential stamps all over it and was sealed with Rufus's personal seal. "It can get you anywhere and everywhere, just like the Turks, and more. Flash that thing and anyone will think twice about stopping you. Murder is easy with a card like that."

      "I'd imagine," you said, a little choked. You had, quite literally, just gotten federal permission to commit murder. Freely. In an effort to distract yourself from the fact that you'd just been given a 'free for all' card, you tapped the first file he'd pulled out. "And these?"

      "Paperwork for the doctor who does the exam." Reno shrugged when you gawked at the sheer size of it. "I know. It's a lot. But it only takes an hour. Drug tests and blood tests and all that. Even STD tests."

      You placed it aside in favor of the packet he now held. "I'm guessing those are my mission details?"

      "More like your trial targets," Reno supplied vaguely. "You won't officially start them until next week. You'll have a month to finish all of them. You can read up on them and memorize them until then."

      In Reno's hands laid the lives of the people you were about to take forever. Permanently. And it wasn't even what you were being recruited for; they were tests. That was it.

      He handed it to you and you broke the seal, pulling out one of the targets. A photo had been blown up to visible proportions, blurry and grainy, but you could make out the face well enough, recognized it even: one of AVALANCHE's older benefactors, a man by the name of Michael Dallien.

       He had donated a total of three million gil to the cause shortly after the mako reactor went down, you read, and had been funneling smaller sums to them ever since under the guise of fundraisers. At the bottom, stamped in blue, was the price of his bounty: four million gil, plus a bonus for delivering visceral proof.

       Which meant Rufus wanted his head. Literally.

       "As you can see, you'll get paid more than the three million gil for whoever you kill," Reno explained, pointing to a section near the bottom. "There will be others competing with you, though, but they aren't doing it with the accesses that you have. They work for other corporations wanting to overthrow Shinra. If you get to them first, the other corporations won't be able to nab their resources and bam, you get paid and you move on to the next one."

       The more people you found in the packet, the higher the bounties became, until you came upon a bounty on Rufus Shinra himself, priced right around one million gil.

      "What the hell?" You breathed, showing Reno the picture. "What does this mean?"

      "That leads me to your official assignment." The redhead plucked the paper from your hands and pointed to the list of mercs slated for the job; you weren't on it. "Our little Public Relations guy, Heidegger, put this up a few weeks ago. I doubt he knew we bugged his personal computer, but he's enlisted several attempts on the boss's life in the next couple of months. Now, the Turks aren't invincible, some are bound to slip through the cracks. That's where you will come in."

       "You want me to protect Rufus Shinra," you deadpanned,"because the Turks can't."

       "Hey, it isn't for lack of trying. He has so many enemies it's hard to keep track of. We keep eyes on the outside, you keep eyes on the internals. Simple."

      "You mean people like Heidegger and Scarlet," you supplied, realization dawning on you. "It's not because you can't, it's because you can't do it without everyone knowing who did it."

      Reno winked and pointed a finger at you. "Bingo. I knew you'd put it together. Rude owes me fifty gil."

      "That explains the ID," you sighed, waving the card around flimsily. You tucked everything into a neat pile in front of you. "Anything else?"

      "Yep. I took the liberty of pulling some strings and getting you a female doctor to perform your physical." Reno leaned back and crossed his arms, the grunt shifting nervously behind you. "Figured you wouldn't want Hojo snooping around in your insides again."

       The sudden horror you felt had you speechless. Hojo was supposed to do your physical? Hojo had none of the specifications for that, last you had heard, and that was when he was injecting your eyeballs with some dark fluid. To have him examining you from head to toe, even for the gynecology exam because it had to be on there too, made you want to throw up at the idea.

      "Other than that, though, all you have to do is get your Shinra tech fitted and your uniform. It's all unbranded so no one will be able to trace us if you get caught, and made with synthetic material that also can't be traced. You'll have to check with the boss about your weapons. Can't go to Scarlet." Reno seemed to be checking off some list and nodded to himself. "That's it, I think. Rude will drop by later and give you your rental keys."

      You were still caught up on Hojo doing your physical exam, even after Reno dismissed himself and headed out of the shop. It disgusted you on so many levels that as soon as you tucked your files away into your floorboards and put your ID in your wallet, you went to the bathroom to hurl up your breakfast.

      None of what Hojo did to you was memorable after the initial injection, but you recalled him speaking of something like,"Let Her see through your eyes," but it was muffled behind the wall of pain you felt. You remembered the pinch of an IV, trying to open your eyes and only feeling your eyelids as swollen as golf balls, and feeling nurses walk in and out to switch your dressing gown.

      Hojo would check, occasionally, prying your swollen lids apart and testing the tears and occasional pus that would stream out, ignoring your crying and screaming indignantly. He pressed the swelling, irritated them, scraped samples from your waterline, and then fed tubes into them to drain the pus out. It never ended well, because it would soon grow clogged with that black material he had put in, like a coagulated gummy pile of rot. You never bled, but the sheer amount of tears you produced left you dehydrated and desperate for water.

      You were one hundred percent certain he had also done something to your reproductive system, because after that, your cycles just became nightmares, even more so towards you leaving after he deemed you a failure. You never checked, though, too scared and poor to afford an exam, even when you now had the money and means to do so.

     But now you had to because of the stupid physical exam. Hojo had ruined you in more ways than you could say, and it was no wonder you lied to everyone in your life. You were petrified of trust because you, once upon a time, had trusted him to help you. That had been a mistake.

       Never again.

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 remake #sephiroth x reader #soulmate au #soulmate

[nerdybubblebee]

Falling in Love Under the Stars

Jonerys The Mummy AU

Thanks to the inspiration from a certain image of Emilia’s from a photoshoot and @ashleyfanfic for bringing up the need for an AU with Dany as Evelyn and Jon as Rick from The Mummy, this little fic was born :D. 

This is my take on the very iconic scene with Evie screaming “I am a librarian!”. It’ll be Dany this time though hehe. Spoken dialogue taken and adapted from the movie with additional ones of my own creation. 

Moodboard made in collaboration with my partner in crime @midqueenally. Love you sunflower~

I hope you guys like this! Can be read on Ao3.

“Take a swing at me. Try a right hook. Hit me right here.” Pointing at his open right palm with his left index finger, he waved it before his student’s face. “Like you mean it.” Mister Snow was giving her an impromptu lesson in self-defence. How fun! Her alcohol addled mind cheerily supplied. Shifting her weight, keeping her legs firmly planted as best as she could to the shifting sand with her hands balled up into fists by her cheeks, Daenerys Targaryen pursed her lips, a look of determination slipping onto her face. Taking a deep breath, she swung her fist at him as instructed. Only to miss her target completely. The momentum of her punch however, sent her toppling forwards. Not into the sturdy body of her coach, but just off to the side. “Oopsie!” Her giddy voice came out from behind her broad grin on the backs of a giggle and down she went. With nothing but air and a solid ground of sand awaiting eagerly to receive her face. 

Thankfully, what would have been an ungraceful landing was averted by a strong, muscular arm shooting out to catch her. One across her chest and another around her back, coming around to clutch at her shoulders. Effectively saving her from enjoying a mouthful of grainy particles. 

“I think you’d better take a seat. Time for another drink?” Jon offered, chuckling to himself whilst pulling the woman in his arms to stand upright. More or less. Her teetering new born fawn like legs and imbalanced equilibrium from the alcohol meant he had to prop her up with his whole person. Though the warmth of her petite body aligned along the entire length of his front was not the least bit unpleasant at all and if he kept his arms around her longer than necessary, well, desert nights were rather chilly. He needed to keep her warm. “Unlike my brother, Sir, I know when to say no!” Through the haze in her tipsy state, she could sense the heat radiating from Jon’s fingers around her arms, holding her in case she took another tumble. She didn’t need assistance for she wasn’t even drunk yet! Batting lazily at his hands, Dany stumbled out of their confines, wobbly legs carrying her back towards the seat she had chosen as her own by the fire. Spotting the bottle of whiskey cradled within said snoozing brother’s arms, Dany reached for its neck and yanked it free from his embrace. Viserys merely snuggled deeper into his makeshift beds barely stirring at all. Triumphantly, with bottle in hand, Dany plucked the cork stopper off and took a swig. The amber liquor coursed down her throat like liquid fire. But, she didn’t mind at all. “Unlike your brother, Miss, you I don’t get.” “I know.... what you’re wondering.” Clumsily swiping at the dribble of alcohol escaping from the corner of her lips with the back of her hand, Dany shifted off of her knees to sit on her bum. “What’s a place like me doing in a girl like this?!” “Something like that, yes.” Jon watched her sway, body rocking to and fro beside him. How had he not seen that the very moment he clapped eyes on her? Under all that English sensibility was a gorgeous, intelligent, courageous, not to mention feisty rose waiting to bloom. This woman was adorable. Even while dozing on the back of a camel with her mouth agape and a little drool dribbling down the side.

“You see, Egypt is in my blood” Daenerys told Jon, tugging at the chain around her neck until she located the oval shaped object hanging from it. Her fingers found the familiar grove along its side. Prying the halves apart, she presented it to the man before her, gingerly placing it in his hand. The locket contained the faces of her darling parents that she carried with her everywhere she went since they passed. “My father was a famous explorer. He loved Egypt so much that he fell in love with an Egyptian woman, who later became my mother.”

By the light of the fire, Jon’s eyes could make out a pair of miniature black and white faces. On the left, a strapping man in a dark coloured suit with piercing, intelligent eyes that seemed to hold an immense amount of knowledge within them stared right back at him. To the right was a woman who looked nothing like the typical women of the desert. Very different, almost the complete opposite in fact. Her skin was fair and her hair was light. Jon imagined it would have been just like Daenerys’. Silver locks interwoven with gold. The woman was smiling, not at the camera but at the bundle in her arms. He could see so clearly, the happiness and love this woman held for the infant she had pressed close to her heart. She must have loved her children very much. Daenerys and Viserys were very lucky to have had both their parents in their lives for as long as they did. Parents who cared for them and protected them and watched them grow. Closing the locket gently, he released it from his grasp, letting it dangle from Daenerys’ neck once more. 

“I get your father and your mother. I even get your brother. But you. What are you doing here?” Jon asked earnestly. This place, this journey they were on was treacherous and not the safest for a lady, not safe for any human no matter how brave they were.

A scowl came over Daenerys’ face. Was he implying that she wasn’t good enough?

“Look here!” She yelled. Her entire being was thrumming with agitation. She was a very capable woman in her own right for goodness sake! Did he not see that? Scrambling to her feet, Daenerys glared down at the man sitting cross legged on the ground. She would just have to attempt to set him straight. “I may not be an explorer or an adventurer or a treasure seeker or a gun fighter, Mister Snow! But, I am proud of what I am!” “And... what is that?” “I am a... a…” What was that word again? A furrow took its perch between her brows as Daenerys swam through her murky mind searching for it. Oh yes! Throwing her head back, she shouted her profession for all the world to hear. “Librarian!”  The blatant pride in her voice tugged on Jon’s heartstrings, pulling his lips into a smile. Her exclamation drifted away up towards the inky black midnight sky but not before his ears caught hold of each syllable. If he could see himself, he would have noticed the softness in his deep brown orbs as well. 

Her display seemed to suck all the energy from her and she plopped back down onto her knees soon after. This time much, much closer to him than before. Daenerys was so near that he had to tip his head down to look at her. So close now that Jon could feel the warmth of each exhalation of breath from her parted lips caressing his face like the fingers of a lover. The intimacy of her proximity had a thrill swirling up his spine. Once again, he was struck by how stunning this woman was. Through lowered lashes and bleary eyes, Dany couldn’t help lingering on those lips of his. Too pretty to belong to this filthy, rude, complete scoundrel of a man. Who cleaned up really, really well. His shaggy hair and bread caked with dirt and who knows what now still looked shaggy but in a good way. A ruggedly handsome kind of way. Those deep brown eyes of his were so changeable. A steely near black as he cocked his gun just before a fight. A mellow, lighter brown, the tint of a perfectly brewed cup of Earl Grey that sparkled in the light of the setting sun when he smiled at her as they raced each other towards Hamunaptra. She longed to watch them all day to see what array of tones she could find within those orbs. 

The more time she spent in his company, Deanerys realised that this man was growing more endearing and less insufferable by the minute.She wasn’t even mad anymore about the kiss. 

That first kiss that he robbed from her, catching her off guard, pulling the air right out of her lungs and made her heart stop. It was a peculiarly wonderful sensation one which she had never in all her life experienced before. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the sensation of his lips on hers, no matter how hard she tried. Pouting, the librarian sighed wistfully. It certainly didn’t help now that those lips of his were right in front of her, right there, like an enticingly juicy ripe peach dangling before her eyes, close enough to nip a taste. Oh, how she wanted another taste and this time, she was going to get one from him instead.

“I’m going to kiss you, Mister Snow.” The huskiness in her tone would have ordinarily brought on a wave of shame but in that moment, Daenerys couldn’t care less.

The hungry gleam in her eyes, staring intently at his mouth had him swallowing nervously.

Oh boy.

“Alright. Umm... Only if you call me Jon.” Even so, smirking, he couldn’t resist a tease at the lovely woman who had all but glued herself against the side of his arm, much like a cat asking for a good cuddle. Was this actually happening?

Peering down at Deanery’s face, Jon’s breath did a jaunty little jig. How could someone be so effortlessly beautiful? Her dazed violet eyes glittered like the stars above their heads with a dance of fire light within them. That pert little nose of hers. Those defined eyebrows. The comely flush in her cheeks and those lips of hers. They looked so tantalizingly plump with the lovely pink hue of a desert rose blooming wild in the heart of an oasis. He desired another sample. “Jon....” Daenerys tested the feel of his name upon his tongue like a child enunciating their first word. Just saying it aloud made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Her lips curled up on their own, reacting to an involuntary reflex into a broad goofy grin. She liked his name very much. Just like how she was growing to like his person. No one had stolen an archaeologist’s tool kit for her before. He’d be the first. Now, for that much anticipated kiss that was agreed upon. Eyelids at half mast, Jon observed with bated breath as those pretty lips approached his own. Just a bit more now. So close, he could practically feel her petal soft touch already. Almost simultaneously, their eyes slid shut. Inching forward as one, each tilting their heads incrementally to the side, they moved in anticipation for the contact they most craved. There was naught but a finite space between their lips. A little bit more now! And.... There was nothing.

Eyes snapping open in astonishment, Jon blinked owlishly. Where did her lips go? Where was that zing that he had experienced the day before? Where was that spark he knew would come from her touch? A solid weight landed with a thump and a sleepy groan in his lap. Looking down, stunned, all Jon could do was laugh. This woman would be the end of him. Using his lap as a pillow, Daenerys wriggled to find a comfortable position in the sand before promptly diving into the realm of sleep. Her shiny silver locks flowed like the glittering Nile River reflecting the glow of the moon, down her back. The ends mingling with the sand beneath her. Under the watchful eyes of the stars above, Jon tenderly sifted through those locks of silver with one hand. The strands were so smooth like spun silk. Tucking some of her hair behind her ear, he smiled again. His eyes traced over her features, completely relaxed in peaceful slumber. This lady truly was magnificent. Her bravery and wits impressed him to no end. So passionate was she in her search of ancient knowledge that even in the face of more than one gun aimed at her head she stood her ground and acted as the voice of reason, settling an argument with her own brand of feminine wisdom ensuring no violence or blood was shed. Even in the midst of a gun battle, she still persisted. Any lesser woman would have given up and insisted she be escorted back to civilization. Perhaps, she’d make it out of Hamunaptra after all. 

Either way, he’d do his utmost best to make sure she remained unharmed. If not for her own sake, then for his. If he lost her to the horrors that lay dormant in stone tombs beneath the sand, he was certain that his heart would surely shatter into bits. And then, like dunes crumbling under the blow of a gust of wind, there would be nothing left of him. Whether he liked it or not and whether she knew it or not, that beating organ within his chest belonged to her already.

#jonerys au #jonerys fic #jonerys fanfic #jonerys #jon x daenerys #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #the mummy au #got fanfiction #this was a fun one heheh #short but fun #gave me the chance to rewatch the mummy

[vagrantblvrd]

Shakedown (1/1)

Summary: It becomes clear very early on that Agent 14 hasn’t been informed about the particulars regarding the terms of Gavin’s...retirement.

Notes: Prompt fill for Anon who asked for Retired Hitman Gavin and Jerevinwood. :D?

(Read on AO3)

It becomes clear very early on that Agent 14 hasn’t been informed about the particulars regarding the terms of Gavin’s...retirement.

No.

The man is charismatic with his friendly smile and amiable tone of voice, the way he peppers in jokes and wry asides. Very savvy, Agent 14, but he’s new, isn’t he.

That he’s been sent to brief Gavin about this latest “favor” from his former superiors is obviously some sort of test. (For Agent 14 or Gavin himself, that’s still to be determined.)

There’s a problem they seem to think Gavin can resolve for them given his set of talents and skills.

A pair of operatives for one of the government's more clandestine agencies who have been sighted in Los Santos.

“You can imagine everyone’s surprise, I’m sure,” Agent 14 says, smile in his voice like he’s letting Gavin in on a private joke. “They were declared KIA a few years back while on a mission.”

There’s a long and – frankly speaking – boring rundown of the whole debacle. A power grab from within the agency that failed, but not before said operative(s) were sent on what amounted to a suicide mission.

It reads like a terrible summer blockbuster movie, with rather predictable twists and turns.

While the takeover had failed, it also caused a radical shift within the agency. Secrets and the like they’d rather not reach the public at large, including those the two operatives were pri<vy to.

Dirty little secrets. Missions not officially sanctioned that would damage the agency's reputation were they known. Things the agency didn’t have to worry about until it they learned said operatives aren’t quite as dead as expected -

Gavin tunes Agent 14 out as the man rambles on and pages through the files he’s been given.

Highly classified and entire portions have been blacked out entirely. Redacted this and that, and so on. More than enough to realize why Agent 14 has been sent to enlist Gavin’s skills.

“You want them terminated?” Gavin asks, studying the glossy photos in front of him.

Grainy and out of focus, take from a traffic cam if Gavin’s any judge Lucky moment where Gavin’s new target’s face is in profile.

Clear match to the photo from his official files, and the whole situation is something of a mess.

Which is why Agent 14 is here, isn’t it.

“Terminated is such an ugly word,” Agent 14 says, grimace on his face. “We prefer ‘neutralized’.”

Gavin raises an eyebrow.

“Semantics is it?”

Agent 14 smiles, offers a little shrug.

“Nature of this business, I’m afraid.”

Gavin sighs, because he does have a point.

Sounds better on paper, doesn’t it. Less harsh, lets the squeamish ones reading the reports later sleep better at night or some nonsense.

“Any requests I should know about?”

It’s not unheard of for Gavin to be handed a list of challenges for these little favors asked of him. Tend to come from agencies that haven’t worked with him prior, as if they suspect what they’ve been told of him has been embellished in some way.

Agent 14 cocks his head, doesn’t seem to get what Gavin’s angling at.

“Uh, no. I was told to inform you it would be up to your discretion.”

Gavin looks back at the photos spread out in front of him and feels himself smile.

========

Los Santos hasn’t changed much since the last time Gavin was here.

Still hot as hell during the summer months and this pervasive feeling of being watched, or perhaps that’s just years of well-deserved paranoia at work.

Gavin doesn’t waste time once he’s off the plane, can’t afford to with the way the city works. Busybodies everywhere and it’s a sure thing word will get out once the right (wrong) people know he’s here.

Doesn’t bother with the rental car Agent14 and his people arranged for him after collecting his luggage and hails a cab instead. Lucks out in that the driver’s not the talkative sort even if he turns out to be as mental a driver as anyone else in the city and gets Gavin to his destination far sooner than should be possible.

And then -

Well.

And then.

It’s a quaint little apartment building in a quaint little neighborhood. Kids playing basketball in an empty lot and fat dogs trotting after them.

Gavin flashes a charming smile when he gets suspicious looks. Couldn't be more of an outsider to their community if he tried, but there’s merit in that tried-and-true bit about acting like you belong somewhere and such, and they let him pass without comment.

It allows him to enter the building and climb several flights of stairs – wonky elevator and Gavin’s paranoia ticks up a bit more because the timing of it – until he reaches the floor he wants.

No one in the halls to see him as he brings out his lock picks and a moment, two, before the doors locks roll over for him pretty as you please, clickclickclick and he’s inside.

The curtains are pulls shut, air conditioning wheezing away and Gavin makes it a few feet past the entrance before he hears the floor creak behind him. Faint scuff of a foot and cool press of metal against the back of his head.

“Hands where I can see them,” someone says, threat in the low growl of their voice and Gavin complies. Sets his bag down and holds his hands out to the side as he straightens. “Turn around.”

Gavin turns, nice and slow, and -

“Gavin?”

Smiles at the surprise on the face of the man facing him.

Tall bastard, broad shoulders and hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Faint lines on his face and this look about that says he was sleeping not too long ago, and this furrow between his eyes.

“Hi, Ryan,” Gavin says, bright and cheerful and this faint touch of annoyance to it because the idiot’s not been careful enough, has he. “I’m here to kill you.”

There’s noise down the hall, soft scuff of sleepy footsteps and then Jeremy’s there too. Blinking sleepily at Gavin around Ryan’s frame.

“Gav?”

Gavin sighs, because honestly.

“You’re on the list too, Jeremy love,” he adds.

Waits for Ryan to muddle through the implications of that, of Gavin’s presence here and so on and isn’t disappointed when Ryan’s eyes widen and he belatedly lowers that gun of his so it’s no longer pointed at Gavin.

“Uh,” Ryan says, sheepish note to it. “Oops?”

========

“Wait, wait wait,” Jeremy says, still half asleep and trying to catch up. “You’re here to kill us?”

Gavin looks up from his lapful of cat and levels a wholly unimpressed look at Jeremy.

“Well, yes,” he says, and scritches the little tortoiseshell under her chin, earning a deep rumbling purr from her. “I mean, I didn’t expect it to happen quite this soon, but here we are.”

Ryan is watching him, inscrutable expression on his face and Gavin is hard-pressed not to laugh at him for it.

“You seem pretty okay with it,” Ryan says after a moment. Careful, so damn careful.

Gavin doesn’t quite roll his eyes, too much of a professional and all, but it’s damn tempting.

“We knew this might happen,” he points out. That whole bit about the terms of Gavin’s retirement and his agency unable to relinquish their hold on such a valuable asset warring with the debts owed, given what Gavin had done in their name. Unlikely compromises and offers too good to refuse. “You told me you’d be careful.”

There’s an accusatory tone in Gavin’s voice even though he’s not surprised things turned out like this.

Not when it’s Ryan he’s talking about, and especially  not when Jeremy’s part of things. Dammed Battle Buddies who have a passing acquaintance - at best- with subtlety.

Surprising as hell they’ve gone unnoticed until now, really.

Gavin’s been working on the sidelines to untangling the whole sordid mess, get the two of them free of this mess not of their own making, but it’s slow-going and his recent mission is only complicating matters further.

“We have been,” Ryan insists, indignant of all things. “Just. You know. Stuff. Happened.”

Gavin eyes him until Ryan looks away, jaw clenching.

He’s well aware of what’s been going on out here. Ryan and Jeremy getting involved with a crew on the rise. Caught on camera during a daring heist or bout of shenanigans and failing to keep a low profile even with Ryan’s ridiculous mask and Jeremy’s terrible fashion choices.

“So they know we’re alive,” Jeremy says, dismisses, as though it’s unimportant. “What do we do now?”

Gavin looks at him, at Ryan.

Right pair of idiots he happened crossed paths with years ago now and got far too close too. Broke a fair amount of rules for as well. Professionally and personally, and it’s just as long and terribly cliché a story as the one Agent 14 spun for Gavin back in his apartment in Liberty City.

All of it boils down to Gavin being the kind of idiot who fell in love with people just as stupid as he was, and it’s finally blown up in their faces.

Or will, once Ryan and Jeremy’s former agency realizes what Gavin’s been up to all this time. Decide whatever deal Gavin made with his own agency regarding his retirement don’t mean a damn thing and come after all three of them.

“Well,” Gavin says, grasps at the one bit of good news left to them at the moment. “Agent 14 said they were leaving the mission to my discretion, so we have a bit of time yet.”

Not much, nowhere near what they need, but it’s something.

And from what Ryan and Jeremy have told him in those rare and precious moments they’ve been in contact since they went into hiding, this crew they’re working for might be able to help. Want to.

Ryan turns his head to look at Gavin, glimmer of something like hope in his eyes.

Gavin gives him a smile, soft and fondly exasperated because Ryan tries, he does, he’s just. He’s so very Ryan about things, isn’t he.

Stupid bastard who loves his shiny little weapons and has a noted penchant for chaos and destruction that gets away from him sometimes. Draws the wrong kind of attention and gets him in all sorts of trouble time and again.

Inevitable that their bastard of an agency would find out about them eventually.

“We’ll sort it out,” he says, confident he’s telling the truth.

The three of them are more than capable of unraveling this mess, exposing Ryan and Jeremy’s former agency for what it is, it’ll just take some doing on their parts.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, finally relaxing enough to smile back. “We will.”

#jerevinwood #ragehappy #Anon #Kings of Nowhere #vagrant fic #Prompt Fills

[filmandtubes]

Developing E-6 without E-6

So I was incredibly curious how the E-6 process worked and how the process of getting a positive image on film worked. I had been doing some research on this when TheDarkroom finished developing my E-6 film I'd shot and revealed that my LC-A 120 was for some reason giving overlapping exposures (unintentionally, that is). I've never had that problem before, but this was also the first time I'd shot Fuji slide film. I figured maybe this was some issue that happened with that specific brand of slide film but I needed to reproduce it. So, I needed to waste a roll of film either way. I didn't want to pay for processing, and I already knew cross-processing "worked" to produce negative images... but what would happen if you took E-6 film, and did a reversal process on it in C-41? I couldn't find a good reference for what would happen, so I figured I should try it. Also, spoilers. I couldn't reproduce the overlapping exposure problem.

So, first of all I shot an entire roll of brackets of ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 for 10 shots, and the last 2 I did 100 and 200 I think. Then, I figured these are throw away pictures anyway and I just want to see if I can get something out of it. So, I cut the roll up. Basically I'd load it onto plastic reels until it was almost a full loop, and then I'd cut it. Also, when loading go against the curl. It's harder to load, but trust me. You'll see why this is so useful in a minute.

I've developed just 2 strips of film this way and I figure I have either 1 or 1.5 strips left. Anyway, so the first strip I developed like so:

Pre-soak for a few minutes (62F)

Stand develop in B/W developer (Arista Premium Liquid, at working stregth). 40 minutes total, with agitation the first minute, and agitation at the 30 minute mark, 62F

Rinse

Open tank and take out the reels, take the film partially out of the reels because I loaded it wrong (went with the curl) and the emulsion is facing the inside of the reel

Take to a tungsten lamp (technically my dining room light) and expose for 4 minutes (these were like 40W bulbs) rotating the reel around and such

Put back in the tank.

Pre-soak again in distilled water (avoid contaminating developer with ANYTHING)

C-41 stand process - Developer at 62F for 48 minutes, agitation first minute and again at 30 minutes

Blix as normal at ~100F

Rinse and open the tank and look (no need for stabilizer if there's no images)

And the result? Not good at all. I thought the film was just straight up black when I pulled it out, but holding it over a bright light and squinting I could see that there was some very faight images on the 100 and 200 ISO exposures. So, I scanned it and well, it's not good looking, but it is a picture... and it is positive.

This is after some adjustments in photoshop to get as much detail as possible:

So, not great. Reading up on the process, people seem to warn "too much black/white developer will result in a completely clear image, but too little will result in too much dye clouding"... So I figured I had the latter problem. That and most people were absolutely scorching their film with black/whtie developer... Using more concentrated solutions, higher temps, and incredibly long times. One suggested XTol at 110F for 12 minutes! So, I adjusted my development time, loaded the second strip of film (this time properly going against the curl) and came up with this:

Pre-soak with ~101F water

B/W developer at 101F for 10 minutes, agitating 4 times per 30 seconds. (My stuff is usually a bit stronger than XTol so I figured a bit less time)

Rinse

Open tank and take out the reels. This time the black and white image is incredibly clear on every single exposure (though I believe I only have ISO 100-400 on this strip)

Fog the film over my iPhone flash light for ~2 minutes, rotating reels to try to get it pretty even (apparently tungsten makes the purple/blue cast worse, which kinda makes sense)

Put back in the tank

Presoak again, develop again in C-41 as before (stand style)

Blix for 2 extra minutes at 100F (seemed to have no effect)

Rinse and open

This result is much more promising, and maybe even useable for scanning, definitely not projection though. There is still a very high dmin with the deep purple mask, and upon scanning, the colors are definitely... interesting. One incredibly surprising thing to me is how incredibly fine grained it is. Even at 6400 DPI, the grain is still rather subtle. I've tried traditional xpro before with E-6 film and the result was a grainy mess, so what did I do in this process to make it so fine grained!?

Here is what it looked like when I pulled it out and held a phone backlight to it:

And here is the unadjusted and then adjusted scan of the ISO 100 image (note I had to use very high exposure on my scanner, though not the absolute max)

And just so you can see what this grain looks like, here is a 100% crop at 6400 DPI. I'm sure my scanner softens it some, but in every other film I've developed you can see some obvious grain doing this.

So, these are awesome results. I'm still developing CD3 using E-6 film in CD4, so I never expect perfect color rendition, but with this process I get a major leg up on the traditional x-pro process by being left with an incredibly sharp albeit high dmin image, instead of a grainy mess as is usual. I still get the crazy color shifts, but surprisingly no out of control color saturation with this process as usual either. However, one thing you don't seem to gain by processing in C-41 chemistry as usual is exposure latitude. With slide, apparently you can get around 1 or 2 stops more over and under exposure latitude when cross processing. With this, it is not the case. 1 stop of under exposure might be usable as it is with E-6, but 2 stops you're toast. Unfortunately I don't have the means yet to test how well this handles over exposure since I don't own a camera that goes below 100 ISO.

I still have that 1 or 2 strips to develop and run further tests. I'm trying to figure out what I can do to reduce the purple mask or even what it's origins are. I know C-41 bleach isn't as strong as E-6 bleach and that probably has something to do with it.. but it could boil down to not having done as much B/W development. It seems to be that "black" in these exposures means this deep purple mask, so with even more aggressive development, I could get images where white isn't also tinted purple. I know there are some small marks on the edge of the film (from the factory?) where the film is almost perfectly clear. Either way, if anyone has any ideas, give them to me.

#film photography #film #darkroom #analog

[samwinlover-blog]

Hiding in the Impala Part Two

Pairing: Sam x Reader Characters: the Reader, the Reader’s ex, Sam, Dean  Warnings: reference to past abuse, violence, swearing, angst Word count: 2284 Summary: After the Reader has been taken back to Sam and Dean’s motel, her ex finds them again. However, this time, Sam and Dean notice something off about him, something supernatural.  A/N: Again, the original idea isn’t mine! This is an adaptation of @writingthingsisdifficult ‘s original work, which is seriously awesome and you all should check it out:) Tag List: @jessabro101  @deascheck @cwstandsforcaswinchester @fralackles @danandphilforlife112 @rdy4thevoid @disneychic8 @deepbreathssammy @amanda-teaches @myplaceofthingsilove @evyiione @gallifreyansass @star-arm-and-shield @macymoosesuniverse @rosep16​ @arianacullen2008 @spectaculicious @spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches @myplaceofthingsilove@evyiione @mogaruke@aliensdeservebetter@27bmm@craving-cas @spnfanficpond​ @amanda-teaches  @myplaceofthingsilove  @spectaculicious@bambinovak @bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@padackles2010 @mamaredd123@milkymilky-cocopuff @iwantthedean@zeppo-in-a-trenchcoat @spntrista @d-s-winchester@just-another-busy-fangirl@winchesterprincessbride@waywardjoy@supernaturalyobsessed@whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname@sandlee44@fangirl1802@kittenofdoomage @evyiione @winchestersmut@purgatoan@mogaruke @therewillbeblood @megansescape @taste-of-dean@leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid  @scarlet-soldier-in-an-impala@deathtonormalcy56@wildfirewinchester @notnaturalanahi@jensen-jarpad@impalaimagining@fangirlextraordinaire@itseverythingilike@jesspfly@lovekittykat21@mysteriouslyme81@mrswhozeewhatsis@aiaranradnay@supernatural-jackles@girl-next-door-writes@spnsasha@27bmm@spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches@myplaceofthingsilove@spectaculicious@bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@spn-imagines-to-feel@spn-ficfanatic@cleverdame@saxxxology@jensen-jarpad @keepcalmandcarryondean dancingpanda137

When you got into the bathroom you hurriedly locked the door behind you, hands shaking and fumbling for the nob. Turning around you found there were no windows, no way out. If Sam and Dean failed to keep Zach away, or decided to turn you in, you’d be trapped. Your only options would be to either fight and lose, or willingly go with him. You decided right then and there that you’d put up a fight, no matter what it cost you- and it would probably cost a lot. 

The bathtub was white and spotless, you decided it would be a good place to hide. So, with a screeching noise of metal on metal, you moved the shower curtain aside and settled onto the floor of the tub. The smooth basin was cold against your back, bare from your shirt. You hugged your knees to your chest and put you head down, taking slow breaths. But even though you tried, you couldn’t hide yourself from the panicked thoughts swirling through your mind. Clutching your knees tighter and breathing deeply did nothing to keep them at bay. They danced and twirled in fiendish glee- what if he finds me? What if he takes me with him? What if he hurts Sam and Dean? What if he convinces Sam and Dean that I am crazy? What if he kills them? What if he kills me? 

Your breaths were coming out in sharp pants now, you gasped and sputtered as if you were drowning. You felt like you were drowning. Choking and coughing as quietly as you could, you pressed yourself further into your knees- trying to make yourself as small as possible. As if, if Zach broke through the lock, maybe he wouldn’t notice you. Maybe he’d forget to check the bath tub. Maybe he’d give up, maybe he’d leave. Maybe Sam and Dean would scare him enough so he’d be gone for good. Maybe they wouldn’t. They probably wouldn’t. 

A loud bang and the sound of objects clattering onto the floor snapped your head up. You heard punches landing and a loud “Shit, Sammy!” echoing through the room. What was happening out there? You wanted to run out and help, but fear paralyzed you. You couldn’t move from your curled up position, much less stand up and leave the bathroom. So you just sat there, listening to the commotion happening outside, and praying that Sam and Dean were winning. Because you knew if they weren’t, you’d be next. He’d probably kick down the door with ease when he found it locked. He’d rip the shower curtain from where it hung and then it would all be over. 

A gun shot. Another one. You nearly jumped out of your skin. You’d never heard an actual shot before. And it was so different from how it’s shown on television. In the movies it’s a single loud bang, none of the characters flinch, and the show goes on. In real life it’s so different, so much worse. The shot wasn’t simply loud, it cracked into the air and echoed throughout the room. You heard its aftershocks ringing through your ears for the minutes that followed. 

A stilling quiet settled throughout the motel, and you knew that could mean one of two things. Either Sam and Dean had killed Zach, or he’d killed them. You held your breath and clenched your body as tightly together as you could. With a knock on the door, you gasped, eyes darting around the room. 

“(Y/N), it’s me. It’s okay, let me in.”, Sam’s voice caused you to let out a sharp breath. 

“Is he gone?”, you asked, sounding quieter than you intended. 

“Yeah, he’s gone, got away.” 

You stood up from the floor of the bathtub, limbs stiff and aching from how long you’d been in the same position. You kicked back the shower curtain and opened the door with a click. Sam’s face greeted you and you let out a sigh of relief. He was smiling, but you instantly saw that his lip was cut and bleeding. 

“Oh my god”, you put a hand to his face, knowing Zach had caused the injury. You were no stranger to bloody lips, their ache was familiar and, overtime, dulled. You felt terribly about what happened, what Zach had done. Because of you, Sam was now hurt. His lip was definitely going to bruise, if it stopped bleeding anytime soon. 

But he just shook his head and smiled.

“It’s okay”, he said, taking your hand in his own. You almost flinched at his touch, but then did not. Sam is not Zach, Sam is not Zach, Sam is not Zach, you reminded yourself on an endless loop. 

“I-I heard gunshots”, you spoke again, remembering the horrible ringing that had followed them. 

You saw his face turn cold, lips tugging downwards and eyes refusing to meet your own. Those beautiful, mischievous eyes of his were looking at the floor and not at you. You tried to meet his gaze, trailing your eye line from his lips to his forehead and hoping he’d meet your stare somewhere along the way. But he didn’t, so you gave up. 

“Yeah, that’s that I, um, wanted to talk to you about. Dean and I both wanted to”, he replied, turning to leave and beckoning you to follow. You could sense something was wrong, but couldn’t wrap your head around what it was. Was Zach dead? If he was, you’d feel nothing but relief. As harsh as that sounded, you’d be glad to be rid of him. Glad to move on and start an actual life, not this perpetual nightmare of running and hiding- always moving and always looking over your shoulder. 

Sam led you to to the kitchen area where Dean was dabbing a washcloth over his forehead. Oh no, you thought, Dean can’t be hurt too. You felt even worse when you saw that Dean’s forehead, similar to Sam’s lip, was cut and bleeding. 

When they both beckoned you to sit down, you knew something was wrong, but sat anyways. The leather was rough under your legs, and even though you had jeans on you felt it’s abrasive scratch. You felt like a child in the principals office, as if you’d done something wrong and your parents were going to be called. 

“What is it? If you guys don’t want me here anymore that’s fine I can go, really it’s no troubl-”, you started rambling and pointing towards the door until Dean cut you off. 

“No, it’s not that- stay as long as you like.”, his voice was warm, yet even gruffer than before. 

When both of them remained silent, Sam shifting awkwardly and Dean just staring at you, you spoke up again, “Well,what is it??” 

Sam took a breath before saying, “Okay, so um, what me and Dean do for a living, it isn’t something you’d normally see. What I mean by this, is um, I mean, well-” 

Dean cut him off with a roll of his eyes, “Come on, Sammy get it out. See if she’ll run away screaming, maybe she’ll prefer to stay with that psycho.” 

You shifted in your chair, starting to fiddle with loose threads on the sleeves of your shirt. You knotted and unknotted your fingers through them, all the while staring up at both Winchesters. 

Sam gave his brother a look that promised death as he replied, “Dean shut up, you’re scaring her!” 

“She should be scared. Go on, tell her, unless you want me to- and I’m not gonna ease into it.”, Dean quipped back, jerking his chin in your direction. 

With that, you started getting scared, what if these guys were dangerous? You’d so foolishly befriended Sam, instantly trusting the first person who showed you kindness. And you didn’t know much about his brother either, this Dean could be a serial killer. The Winchesters could have saved you from Zach just to do things infinitely worse. 

With pleading eyes, you turned to Sam, “Wh-what is it?” 

He took another breath before saying, “We’ve kind of been following your ex for a while now...” his voice trailed off as you gave him a confused look. 

“What?”, you breathed, instantly tensing up. 

Once again, Sam refused to meet your gaze, while saying, “Well, he’s not exactly, um, normal. He, well, I mean, he’s, a, um, demon.”

What?! These guys were crazy, absolutely insane. You started to stand up, deciding that you were going to get the hell out of that motel and take your chances at your own. But Sam stopped you by handing you a piece of paper. It was a picture clearly taken from a surveillance camera. Grainy and in black and white, there was Zach. He was standing in the middle of what looked to be a grocery store, grinning. At first you didn’t understand the point of the photo, he was literally grocery shopping. But then your stare trailed to his eyes, and you let out a small gasp. They were pitch black. Without pupils or irises, there was only a swirling, perennial, blackness. You tried to convince yourself it was a glitch in the camera, a coincidental smudge on the lens. But the looks on both the Winchester’s faces told you it was not. 

“What? You’re... the both of you... this is crazy!”, you scoffed, trying not to believe them even though you definitely did. 

“Told you she’d freak”, Dean answered, talking more to Sam than you. 

You were glad you’d decided to sit down, if you had been standing you’d be on the floor by now. Your body felt wobbly and had gone limp, the room was practically spinning around you. You felt as if you were on one of those carnival rides, whirling around and around and unable to get off.  

Sam approached you apprehensively, putting his hands out in front of him. Your eyes darted wildly towards him, and this time you did flinch from his touch. He saw this and backed off, a look of what you read as hurt flashing across his face. You just shook your head silently to yourself, utterly stunned. Gripping the scratchy leather of your chair as if it was your sole tether to the world you were about to fall off of, you squeezed your hands. 

You were certain that was it, how much stranger could this get? But Dean proved you wrong when he spoke up with a sympathetic look, “We’re hunters, Sam and I. We hunt and kill things going bump in the night, and, trust me, there’s lots of them. We think your ex made some sort of deal, his soul in exchange for the ability to track you- aka he’s a demon.” 

Your hands moved to grip your arms tightly, and, again, you shook your head. Unable to form coherent sentences you just sputtered, “What? Zach....demon....souls???!” 

After a few minutes you found your bearings and started wrapping your head around the idea. Demons, souls, hunters, deals. It truly was insane, but made some sense. Zach was always finding you, it was eery. When you’d first left you kept nothing, thrown away all previous belongings. You’d driven for hours and told nobody where you were going. But, days later, there he had been. Over the past few months he’d gotten faster, finding you in places you couldn’t even pronounce. You’d always wondered how he did it, but never even considered the truth as a possibility. 

“Um, I have questions”, you glanced up at Sam and Dean. 

“Yeah! Yeah, of course, ask away. I’m sorry, I know it’s a lot.” Sam piped up, eager sounding and nervous looking. 

“What’s a deal? How do you make one? What were you saying about a soul?!”, you launched into a string of questions. The three of you sat there like that for hours, them trying to explain as gently as possible the dark reality of the world, and you interrupting them and asking a new question as soon as they finished speaking. When it was over you didn’t know what to feel. For one, you were scared. You’d been living in a world with fucking vampires for christ’s sake, vampires and werewolves and ghosts. Really, it was practically out of a fictional tv series. But you also had a sense of determination, determination to stop Zach. Sam and Dean had told you what he’d done. He’d sold his own soul in exchange for the ability to track you, which came in the form of him being a demon. They’d told you that demons are completely driven by their ids, unable to think about or feel anything that wasn’t their uttermost desire. And apparently, Zach was driven by you. He’d left a trail of bodies behind while following you throughout the country, enough to attract the attention of the Winchesters. They’d been following him for a while, around half the time you’d been running from him. It was oddly comforting to you that they had been there the whole time, as if you hadn’t gone through it completely alone. 

By the time the three of you were finished talking, the clock read 12 PM. Despite how late it was, your eyelids weren’t the least bit heavy. You were awake. Alert and ready, with this alarming new desire to right wrongs. You realized that you wanted to do what Sam and Dean did, even though you’d never admit it. 

Dean decided to cook dinner while you and Sam settled into the couch. The two of you talked and pondered about how to face the next day, Zach, and the threats they both would inevitably bring. 

#Sam Winchester x Reader #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester Imagines #supernatural fanfiction #sam winchester #supernatural #spn #writing #fanfiction #prompts #angst #fluff #smut #introspection #aesthetic #books #authoring #author #writes #creative writing #creativit #creativity #writing ideas #writing prompts #supernatural writing #sam winchester writing #write #sam winchester write #deep writing #thoughts

[njtechreviews]

There comes a time in any market when the products available start to become similar– I believe that this point has come and gone a few times with phones and 2018 is no exception. Phones can only be so different from each other if one company makes an improvement in design or with a camera, it is expected that competitors will follow suit. 

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ represent a refined version of design blueprint that has been around for several years. In a move similar to Apple, the smaller and larger devices now have a core difference besides for battery size.– The camera. And after a few weeks with the Verizon Galaxy S9+ and I am ready to render a verdict. 

Unboxing

A Refined, but Similar, Design

If something works well, there isn’t really a need to change it. While it might be a fingerprint magnet, the design of an Infinity Display with a glass design looks phenomenal. And Samsung kept the design mostly the same on the S9+. Bezels surrounding the display have become much smaller since this ethos was first introduced with the Galaxy S6. Unlike Apple’s implementation of a notch with the iPhone X, Samsung is sticking with core bezels above and below the display, albeit they are smaller. 

The sides are now a metal design which gives the S9+ a more sturdy feel that also should eliminate some fingerprints from the sides of the device. Metal sides give it a sleek design transition to the glass back. Samsung’s offering the S9+ in Lilac Purple, Coral Blue, Midnight Black and Titanium Gray. I have an S9+ in Coral Blue, and an S9 in Lilac Purple, both of these offerings are undoubtedly unique colors, and I get the feeling that Samsung is trying to start a new craze around these colors. Given the glass backs, the colors look different depending on lighting conditions and the way the sun hits the device. 

A crucial issue with the S8 and S8+ would be the terrible placement of a fingerprint sensor located directly next to the primary camera. It resulted in users getting smudging photos and having a tough time unlocking the device. Samsung has moved the sensor to below the camera on the back of the S9+. It’s a better spot and fits in with the broader Android design themes.

The Core Change Is a Dual Camera

Samsung’s Galaxy S9+ is the first true “flagship” device from the company that has a dual camera on the rear. Up until now, Samsung hasn’t made many advancements regarding hardware with cameras. Instead, they focused on software. Something that Google has perfected most recently with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. But, Samsung has a pretty remarkable camera on the S9+ to say the least– A 12-megapixel lens that combines a wide-angle and a telephoto lens into one setup. I should note that the S9 can still do bokeh effect photos and they look eerily similar to that of the S9+–The main difference is you don’t get an extra-wide-angle shot and lose some framing options.

The star of the show with the S9+ camera is the technology of a Dual Aperture lens, while this is marketing jargon, it’s pretty neat. You get in both lenses on this model, while the S9 gets it in a single lens. Dual Aperture works similar to the human eye in that in darker situations, more light it lets in. Samsung’s camera can automatically adjust the f-stop, or in Pro mode, you can change it yourself.

It will adjust from f/1.4 to a f/2.5, at times it works out well and other times images will appear blown out from too much light or grainy from not enough light. But for the typical photo, this auto mode will perform well, and the shots are impressive. Helping with these grainy shots and for overall noise reduction, Samsung has packed 6GB’s of RAM into the S9+, which helps these camera processes to complete faster. I did notice that Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL photos came out with less noise and less grain from a larger sample of shots, but for a typical user, the S9+ takes excellent images.

Samsung’s other party trick would be 960 frames per second slow motion video, which is really epic. But similar to last year’s Sony Xperia flagships, in auto mode, it will detect the motion in a square and choose when to film. It can be a bit frustrating when it doesn’t always catch the right moment or results in making the wrong part slow-mo. With any slow-mo videos, you need a ton of light, and they don’t perform well in low-light situations.

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Bixby and AR Emojis Need Work

There is still a dedicated Bixby button on the left-hand side of the Galaxy S9+, and you will always hit it by accident several times a day. Bixby needs work, and for any company entering the virtual assistant race this late, you need a ton of R&D behind it. Samsung is doing it’s best, but Bixby is not yet ready for prime time, especially when the Google Assistant is readily available on the same device. Bixby also has a level system now, which appears to be that they are trying to gamify the experience– spoiler alert it doesn’t make you want to use it anymore.

AR Emojis need work and can be a bit creepy. The setup process is relatively simple and makes use of an 8-megapixel camera on the front. They don’t look all the great, and typically after taking a selfie, there is a lot of customizations that need to be done. With that being said they offer more customization than the of Animojis and work across the device, not just in messages.

Emotions are exaggerated and generally can’t bring the point across, I find them to be a gimmick. I think if you end up with an S9 or S9+ you’ll use them for a bit and then be tired of them. But most flagships devices come with a gimmick or two, and at least this one provides a good laugh now and then.

Network

The Galaxy S9+ certainly takes advantage of Verizon’s nationwide 4G LTE network, one that has many cell sites and the AWS spectrum. I did not experience any lag or service interruptions during my weeks of testing. Verizon’s network is impressive especially when it comes to video streaming, both on the upload and download. There was not much buffering when watching Hulu or YouTube, and on the flip side, there wasn’t a lag when completing an Instagram live.

The Rest of the Galaxy S9+

A 6.2-inch Quad HD + Curved Super AMOLED Infinity Edge Display still impresses. Colors are very vibrant, blacks are very dark, and image reproduction is accurate. I would have like to see Samsung go the route that Apple and Essential have gone, but I expect with the next Note or the direct successor to these devices, something will be implemented to that effect. For now, the S9+ has a gorgeous display that is on par with the Pixel 2 family and the iPhone X. 

Powering the Galaxy S9+ is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Processor with 6GB of RAM, and this helps to ensure a fast user experience. The device performed exceptionally well in benchmarks and on paper beat out the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. You will not experience much lag on the S9+. Samsung’s new user interface is definitely farther away from clean Android, but this is to be expected. 

Like Samsung’s physical design, their user interface design is a refinement from years past. Most of the changes come in the land of Bixby, but those updates will be arriving the Note 8 and S8 some point soon. And don’t expect future Android updates to arrive quickly, as Samsung is notorious for being quite slow with them. 

Lastly, you have a 3500mAh battery inside, which should last longer thanks to the Snapdragon 845 processor. It is a relatively safe battery size given the Note 7 fiasco, but it performed pretty well. It is on par with the Pixel 2 XL, iPhone X, and iPhone 8 Plus. There were some days where it did die faster depending on application use, but fast charging performs well.

Conclusion

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 is a refinement of there flagship device, it is perfection for the company, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect for the market. The S9+ has a great camera that is on par with competitors; it has a good display, a fast processor, and an average battery. But there is not a landmark new feature that makes it, to use a Samsung phrase, “the next big thing.” It is refinement rather than groundbreaking, and as the first flagship of 2018, they might be setting the stage for more devices like this. 

The Galaxy S9+ is a solid device all around that performs well, but you shouldn’t rush out to upgrade to it if you have an S8 or S8+, or maybe even an S7. Other devices have a less fingerprint magnet design, a cleaner experience, and a just as good camera. Samsung’s Galaxy S9+ is good, but I would look towards a Pixel 2 or iPhone X if you are in the market to get a new phone. 

From Verizon, the Samsung Galaxy S9+ is available in Lilac Purple, Coral Blue, or Midnight Black for $38.75 a month the device payment plan or $929 at full retail.

  Verizon Samsung Galaxy S9+ Review There comes a time in any market when the products available start to become similar-- I believe that this point has come and gone a few times with phones and 2018 is no exception.

#Android #Galaxy S9 #phone #Reviews #Samsung #Samsung Galaxy S9 #Verizon #Verizon Galaxy S9+ #Verizon Samsung Galaxy S9+

[bestillmybeefyheart]

Camera Knowledge

Every once in a while I hear someone say something or see them type something I just feel like I have to correct. Sometimes they thank me, sometimes they block me, and sometimes their fans attack me. Even though I was right and they were wrong, sort of like our current political situation. So, I'm having a conversation elsewhere online and this guy keeps talking about his DSLR over and over. Then he shows a picture and it's a EVIL mirrorless camera. So I politely corrected him that he had a mirrorless camera, not a DSLR, and told him why, that his camera does not have a single lens reflex system, instead it's just a sensor, not even a mirror. He proceeds to tell me I am an idiot and cusses me out. So, lets go over what these terms mean so people like this numbnuts can get a little knowledge. First of all, there's the SLR, or Single Lens Reflex. This kind of camera is what most people are used to seeing. You look through a viewfinder, which has a mirror that is angled down into another mirror, and that 2nd mirror flips up exposing the film or sensor behind it. Add a D to that and its specifically a Digital SLR. Same as a film one, but with digital insides. Then there are the EVIL mirrorless and standard mirrorless cameras. EVIL stands for External Viewfinder Interchangable Lens, meaning, it's a camera with no mirrors that you can change lenses on it, and when you do, you see the sensor inside right there. A FujiFilm XE-2 is a good example of a EVIL mirrorless. A standard mirrorless has a fixed lens, and these often are point and shoot cameras, but some are powerhouses with nice lenses, like FujiFilms X100s. TLR - this is an older style of camera which uses two lenses stacked on top of each other. The top lens is the lens you see through when you peek inside the viewfinder looking down. And the bottom lens is the one where the film hides behind. See my post below about my Yashica MAT-124G to see what a TLR looks like. MINT, who makes a nice but overpriced TLR that shoots Instax Mini film is also a TLR, no D needed, because it shoots film. RF or RangeFinder. This is something like a Leica, Voigtlander or similar where you use a viewfinder to see your subject, and what you see there is not through the lens. These can also be a point and shoot style camera, but usually those are considered PNS or Viewfinder cameras instead since they dont use the VF for anything more then framing a shot. Vs a RF which your RF has a little patch you see and focus by moving that patch until it aligns. Some modern digital EVIL and mirrorless cameras fake this same focus method, trying to be like a rangefinder. GAS. Also known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome, is commonly used in camera circles as a overwhelming urge to purchase cameras and lenses and other gear. it can also apply to any kind of gadget or toy, but is most commonly used in camera speak. I don't personally have any GAS experience ::coughbs:: as I only have about 80 or so cameras and a fridge full of film (and freezer). Some times people associate GAS with OCD, but GAS can affect anyone. And once you get the bug, you will buy buy buy. Again, I don't know anything about this, as I am in total control of my camera purchases I swear. Push Processing - this is a film term, and it is the process of shooting a film at one speed, say ISO 400, but then developing it as if its ISO 1600, pushing it 2 stops (400->800->1600). The opposite of this is Pull processing. This lets you shoot in low light and then bring out the image better. Sort of like adjusting the exposure on your digital images in LightRoom or photo app. Pull Processing - this is when you shoot a film at say ISO 400, but then develop it like it was 200 ISO. This is common in certain higher speed films when shot in bright light, or to make certain films look less grainy and give them better overall tones. BS - Bullshit. This is a vulgar term used to express a general attitude about people who think they know everything about cameras and you call them on it, saying "BS!" And then proving them wrong. Red Dot - This is a joking reference to Leica branded cameras which had a big red "steal me" dot on them with the Leica logo. Many rich shooters who use $9000 Leica bodies put black tape over their red dot so thieves don't realize its a $9000 camera, not realizing that the thieves dont give a shit and will steal it anyway. In some circles, this is also called "Rich Asshole Syndrome", especially if the Red Dot shooter mentions his 2-4 Leica digital RF cameras in one conversation. Such as "I was going to bring one of my 2 Monochrom's but I decided to bring my two M9's instead today". There you have it, a short and sweet camera summary to help you understand what the hell people are talking about.

[chvrchesrp]

Welcome to CHVRCHES’ fifth event!

This event is our second missive event, which means a little bit of what happens tonight will be assigned to your muse. This event is a finale of the “Pestilence Chapter” and will be served to you in two parts. For the first part, your muse has been assigned a specific thread topic to explore. It’s up to you to delve into the interaction! 

For now, we ask that for this night, you explore just this assigned thread—and not to make more threads during the time of the Escape Room. (There’s more to be revealed; after Part 2 drops, you can make your own independent threads.) You can, however, make threads and starters before the clock starts at your Escape Room location if you wish.

The date stamp for the event is Thursday, January 26th, for timeline purposes (though you aren’t restricted to beginning threads tomorrow, of course, you can even begin them today). Assignments are considered game canon, whether or not you explore them deeply. If you have an issue with an assignment, let an Admin know! For after, please do not write past January 26th for any thread yet—the drop of Part 2 might affect your muse’s future outlook. 

Escape Rooms are a beloved past time for adrenaline junkies, gamers, team-builders, and competitive folks of all sorts. The premise is that you are shown to a room and then locked inside of it; within are a series of puzzles you have to figure out as a team in order to get released from the room. You must do this within one hour or your team fails the room. (You’re released, but you fail and take a shameful photo - you are the weakest link, goodbye.)

Escape Rooms are meant to foster trust, connection, cooperation, and critical thinking. Meant to.

ROOM ONE: MURDER MYSTERY INC.

“Love is clockworks, and it's cold steel, fingers too numb to feel, squeeze the handle, blow out the candle—blindness.”

After arriving at the Escape Room headquarters, you are ushered into a sleek black limousine; you are asked to put all of your cellphones in a velvet black bag, which will be returned to you at the end. After the 8 people in your party are all settled in, 1920s music filters through the stereo system, grainy and warbled and nostalgic. A champagne aperitif is offered to you, if you dare to drink it. The car smells of polished leather and money—the actual scent of money, as if a great amount of it had been there recently.

You are driven for about fifteen minutes: do you drink? do you laugh? do you speak? Suddenly, the car screeches to a halt, hitting the breaks hard. The lights in the limo go dark and the music stops playing. And then one by one, each of you is led from the limousine. When it’s your turn to exit the limo, you step outside and find a dark bag placed immediately over your head and your hands bound in front by lead-rope: and you are led, stepping on concrete toward somewhere else. You hear door open, and you are pushed inside, then your hands unbound. You can remove the bag from your head.

The rest of your team is there. As your eyes adjust to the dim lighting, you can see a room dazzled with 1920s opulence. There is even a chandelier hanging over a running fountain—it’s ridiculous in its mockery, it’s entreatment. You find there is a stranger in your midst: a ninth person, who welcomes you to his humble home. Then, the lights flash, and he screams, and the actor lies on the floor, ‘dead,’ the echo of a gunshot hanging in the air like a question mark as blood pools around him.

The clock starts and you must all discover who has ‘killed’ your generous host—before that person ‘kills’ you for witnessing! Search the room, leave no painting hung, no chair upright, no drawer unopened—

Assignments:

Shibah/Donato: Shibah naturally begins by observing the paintings on the wall—they seem out of place for a 1920s theme. She identifies them as The Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony, but realizes they are out of order. Near by, Donato has found a small lock that requires a 3-number code to open a drawer in a stately foyer desk. They must work together to crack the code—inadvertently drawing them into a required long-awaited reunion neither of them would prefer to have right now. Conflict emerges and it isn’t long before the two are full of rage and angst.

Belial/Babylon: Babylon notices eggs hiding all around the room—golden-painted eggs, silver-painted eggs, rhinestone-covered eggs. Collecting a few, she realizes by shaking them that there might be something inside, so she breaks them open, revealing the following strands of paper:

without one friend, alone

I cannot come down

world without end. Below me

young lovers Tread the sweet ground—

in my purity

But I am God—

Belial is studying the book case, noticing that among the many authors there, almost all of the books look faded and worn except one, which peeks out slightly. It’s marked as a book of poems. Perhaps if they can determine which poem Babylon found, they could find another clue on its page. That is, if they could cooperate—it seems Babylon hasn’t yet had the opportunity to confront Belial for “damaging” Dom. Belial engages in her argument, but has no trouble reminding her that he’s her boss.

Maria/Isadora: Maria turns over a heavy, ornate sitting chair to find that the base of the seat is hollow and that there is a latch she can undo; she finds a series of love letters from the now-deceased host to a woman named Chanterelle, who appears to have been a singer at a jazz club. For all of the letters, there are no post marks, no envelopes. Were they never sent? Some random letters are in all caps, and if she arranges them in order of date written, it spells out:  C H E C K T H E D R A I N. Maria shouts to Isadora, who has been studying the fountain. Isadora is less than interested in helping Maria, but for the sake of the task waves Maria over when she realizes there’s a key in the drain of one of the shallow trays. They have to figure out how to get it—but Isadora can’t help letting drop that she knows the cure exists.

Raziel/Cassiel: Cassiel finds a piece of old film in a jewelry dish that has a few frames, seeing what appears to be a woman singing at her own wedding. The man she marries is not the now-deceased host. She wonders what it could mean, but Raziel swoops in with a film reel he found taped under the desk that holds Donato’s drawer. Raziel and Cassiel must splice together the footage to discover the ‘end’ of the story—except Cassiel doesn’t even think Raziel can do that right, so how can he possibly do anything in Heaven right? Raziel obviously spats back, saying Shibah has been absent and done nothing to earn the throne. That if she wants to be God so badly, she should act like it.

ROOM TWO: JEKYLL AND HYDE.

“Say hello to something scary, the monster in your bed, just give in and you won’t be sorry, welcome to my other side.”

After arriving at the Escape Room headquarters, you are shown through a door marked Authorized Personnel Only. Your party winds down a sterile looking white concrete hall, fluorescent panel lights above, flickering. Your shoes squeak and squick as you walk; even the floors seem too clean. You even feel a weird urge to not touch the walls. At the end of the hall is another door with the glass of its window frosted over: you’re shown through that, too. On the other side is the outdoors, actually: you can see a dirt driveway with haphazard gravel and unkempt, half-brown grasses. Lined up are 3 stately town cars, each pristine and white, freshly washed.

Each town car has a driver with white gloves, opening the door for your party. Three folks in the first two, two in the last. The car door is shut behind you and, as the engines revv to life, the windows of the car and a divider between you and the driver goes up—pitch black and opaque. You can no longer see where you’re going, but you’re comfortable enough. In what feels like forever—or is it only ten minutes?—you finally park and the car doors open. So rushed you can barely take in the outside, you are brought into what looks like a small house, and then down a flight of stairs. Your party is put into what would be a basement, the door behind you locked.

The basement itself is hardly grotesque: rather, it, too, is very stately. It looks instead like an office. There is a heavy oak desk with a green lamp and a laptop on it, an expensive throw rug, an assortment of pads and papers, a pad for prescriptions. Chairs opposite it, as if to invite guests or consultations. Locked pristine white metal medicine cabinets, a wall with shelves of scientific books, specimen jars carefully arranged and labeled. The floor is interesting: under the rug, there is a pattern of alternating colour tiles, grey and white, almost resembling a checkerboard.

The clock starts and you must figure out how to escape the basement, or else be charged for trespassing on Dr. Jekyll’s property! Search the room, leave no cabinet locked, no rug arranged, no jar unturned—

Assignments:

Abaddon/Olivia: In an almost metaphor moment, Abaddon discovers that the tall Grandfather clock in the room has no hands. Even this broken clock can’t be right twice a day—and she’s running out of time. In a fit dissonance, she overturns the clock and breaks it. From the loudspeaker comes one of the managers: “Please do not break any items in the room that do not easily break themselves.” Abaddon curses under her breath: seemed easily broken to her. Olivia, by a cabinet requiring a 4-number code lock, tries to distract Abaddon into helping, thinking maybe the clock and the nearby cabinet are related. How could the clock help solve the code? To tempt Abaddon into being helpful, Olivia tries to create a rapport, and soon the two enter into a muffled, whispered conversation about trading secrets as they try different number combinations. Olivia reveals to Abaddon that she thinks she might really be possessed this time—Abaddon gives her secret: back in August, during the chaos, she ripped off Gabriel’s wings without authorization.

Kiara/Jairus: Jairus has gone to studying the laptop; when he touched the trackpad, the computer asks for a Password. He types in a few attempts, but nothing comes of it; in fact, he has one try left before the computer gets entirely locked. Kiara notices his struggle and comes over to brainstorm and observe: she notices the keyboard, which seems unusual. After studying it a moment, she realizes she must have the Password—but can’t help jabbing Jairus over it. She, a young girl, figured out the answer when a hundreds-year-old man couldn’t. It sounds shakily familiar to their current situation... as she wryly types in the password that unlocks the computer (can you figure it out?), she throws out how hard it must be to have a young girl finding easy answers to all of his problems: the cure and the password both. How long can Jairus keep his calm when she’s hitting his rawest nerves?

Adele/Crowley: Adele is studying the book case, trying to see if anything seems particularly out of place. After shuffling through some of the books, she finds no discerning markers, no torn pages, no handwriting, nothing dog-eared. She puts each book back and tries for another: methodical, thorough. Crowley sees her doing this and laughs at her. Crowley does not like a sheep who bends over backwards, who does things as expected, so she proceeds to throw barbs at Adele as she looks. Adele is not really sure how to deal with someone not liking her, even every demon and sinner she has ever met does. Adele quips back that at least she’s trying—to help, to solve the puzzle, anything, trying—and all Crowley does is nothing. Glowering, Crowley leans on the bookcase as they argue... only to find the bookcase moves. Swinging open the book case like a door, another, heavier door is revealed—but there seems NO visible way to open it.

Elijah/Ethan: Elijah is studying the small, framed medical diagrams on the wall. He sees there are four and wonders if the order of them might be some kind of code or combination—each one is labeled strangely: H7, A4, D5, E2. He can’t seem to locate anything that might use and 8-digit code—none of the drawers have locks or combinations, none of the locked cabinets need that many. He shouts to the room for help, thinking he has something, just not sure what. Ethan—used to working for what he gets—isn’t adverse to helping. But when he starts, Elijah just sits back and watches, waiting. It starts a contentious argument between them, where Ethan says that all Elijah wants is an easy life of fame and hasn’t worked for anything in his life—and Elijah gets defensive and says he doesn’t know him. Meanwhile, Ethan does figure out that removing the throw rug reveals the floor—which looks just like a chess board. The edges are even marked 1-8 and A-H. Maybe if each person in the party stands in one of the designated squares... something will happen.

ROOM THREE: ZOMBIE OUTBREAK.

“Don't know what I'm after but the pressure driving me insane, searching for a different ride, had a funny feeling I can't hide, do the zombie stomp.”

After arriving at the Escape Room headquarters and checking in, you are sent directly right back out the door you came in. Out front is a school bus, yellow and beat-up looking, with spray paint all over it. It says things like “Turn back now!” and “QUARANTINE” and “Don’t open, dead inside.” Of course, you go inside. There’s no driver that you can see, but the thing can’t possibly be automated, so you just sit on the empty bus and wait as the rest of your party shuffles in. After everyone is seated, suddenly, each of you feel hands on your feet, anchoring you to the ground by the ankles—as you look down, a black cloth is placed over your head and zip-tied on. You can breathe, but the effect is obviously jarring and you can’t get it off.

The ride is a bumpy one, but any childhood notions of yelling ‘drive it off a cliff’ or similar to increase the ‘fun’ bumps of the ride have all but left your mind. You keep reminding yourself that of course, none of this is real, and maybe you even think some of it is hokey, but it’s hard not to get caught up as your body’s natural response is already flooding your mind with adrenaline and other survival neurochemicals. The bus slows to a snail’s pace, almost to the point where you think you’re not moving any more, and then begins to shake left and right, as if trying to be toppled over by forces you can’t see. Slowly, you start to feel tipped, and then suddenly righted, jarring. There’s a sound of the zip-ties being clipped off. Immediately, you take off your bag.

When you can see, the lights on the bus are all flickering, but you see no people except those in your party—no driver, no one to have tied the bags, no one to have held the feet, no one to have jostled your bus. You all get out, a little worse for wear, and head to what looks like a small warehouse. Entering, it’s all one room. You get to look around for about 3 minutes with the warehouse door still open. There’s an actor on the floor with his ‘guts’ ripped out, fake blood pouring from his entrails, appearing dead, a chain attaching him to the wall. There are 2 other, empty chains. There are 4 flashlights in various places in the room—4 too few. As you start to dart for the nearest one, the door slams behind you and locks and all of the lights go out. You’re in total darkness.

The bright, lit-up digital clock starts and you must figure out how to escape the warehouse, or else become zombie food! Search the room, leave no crate unopened, no shelf ignored, no stomach untested—

Assignments: (For clarity, those with flashlights are: Josh, Naomi, Dom, and Zoe.)

Josh/Magda: Magda immediately disregards the flashlight and heads for what she knows has to be a clue: she shoves her hands into the ‘stomach’ of the dead man. Triumphantly, she comes up with a key, but not what it goes to. Josh meets her with a flashlight, just in time for them both to jump back: where there once was an empty chain, now there is a living zombie trying to attack. They back away from the area and advise everyone else to do the same—but the zombie gains more chain (and more range to attack) the longer they’re in the room. Josh searches for something to put the key in among the warehouse crates and calls her reckless—that he should have done that, because if it was real, he’d be safer. She argues she isn’t fragile and has been through a lot herself—even lets drop she’s been sleeping with Crowley. How does that make him feel?

Satan/Naomi: Naomi, given her history, goes immediately for the flashlight. She starts to examine the shelves and begins to figure out that some boxes are marked with red dots. She starts to collect the boxes of varying sizes; they’re taped so well they can’t be opened by manual strength. Satan sees her struggling and goes to try himself, to the same lack of avail. This, of course, immediately gets under his skin: he can’t be foiled by boxes. Making them an unlikely team, the two bicker constantly as they try to figure out the puzzle—Satan making cruel and degrading remarks, Naomi biting back, but Satan’s blood starts to boil under the surface. By the time they find an empty shelf with red dots marked 1-6, it’s unsure if they can figure out the order without one of them snapping.

Renee/Dom: Renee and Dom both headed for the same flashlight and immediately start fighting. Renee, preferring to retain class and composure, lets him keep the flashlight, but not before she starts artfully picking him apart for his poor attempt to take her Church from her. How does Dom hold up under her acute interrogation? Perhaps in a moment of deflection or denial, Dom finds a lone object out on a crate: a skull, but one of those fake, glittery Halloween ones clearly not meant to resemble a human. It’s overt in its nonconformity, which means it’s a clue. Meanwhile, Renee notices a scale that had a small velvet bag on it—in front, instructions read that removing the bag without placing equal weight will detonate the warehouse. Perhaps they can solve this together, if they can stop tearing each other apart.

Zoe/Noah: Zoe gets one of the flashlights while Noah disregards and immediately gets to searching well away from the zombie. He finds a crate that seems to have a knocking coming from it. A knock sounds once, at even intervals, and figures the crate must mean something. Zoe, feeling the stress of everyone fighting about God and particularly creeped out that she's locked in a small room with Satan, tries to get Noah on her side. It does not go as planned. She flashes light on the box and sees there’s a sheet outlining Morse code. If they can figure out what code to ‘knock’ back to the box, perhaps it will open—if they can focus on the task and stop having an intense debate, that is.

Enjoy, darlings!!

#chvrchesrp #original rp #lsrpg #literate rp #bio rp #event #missive event #event 005 #blood tw

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 1.28.18

First, a heartfelt thank you for the kind, supportive words about Power Plates this week. I’m so grateful for them, and to those of you who have been cooking and sharing on Instagram, I can’t tell you how much joy it gives me to see the recipes take life in other peoples’ kitchens.

It’s been interesting to observe the feelings that have come up since the book came out. I felt a little jittery before the release, which is probably normal, but the flow of support I’ve received in the last few days has brought up some different and interesting fears. Specifically, it has invited me to think about my relationship with abundance and celebration—with letting goodness flow.

This brings to mind a broader internal dialog I’ve been having lately about my relationship with hope and gladness. I’ve noticed that it’s often easier for me to write or speak up about strife than it is for me to articulate things I’m happy or expectant about. It’s not that I don’t welcome good things with open arms; I do. I try to, anyway. It’s just that receiving them is a process complicated by fear, which of course seems unreasonable or even ungrateful when I write it down.

I think it’s fear of a loss, of becoming attached to goodness or love lest they slip away or change shape. I tend to develop outsized expectations and hopes easily, which leaves me vulnerable to equally outsized disappointment. I wonder if this tendency is rooted in childhood, when my wants and desires were often problematized if they didn’t align with what those around me wanted or liked for me. I learned to become protective of my hopes, to hold them closely and privately, which may have been fertile ground for my amplifying them too much.

I’ve spent much of the last year learning to focus in on the present, on small pleasures and daily rituals, to stop grasping at lofty goals or expectations. I’ve recognized the ways in which grandiosity crept into my thinking in the past and to soften this tendency. I’ve found a humbler and more grounded way of being.

Still, I don’t want to let go of hope, or excitement, or the capacity to visualize a bright future. What I want is to develop hopes that are tempered by the ability to be open-minded and flexible and un-clingy, so that when and if things do change—or turn out differently than I’d hoped for—I can adapt.

I’m very far from knowing what all of this will feel or look like, but I’m trying to cultivate the balance in small ways. My therapist encouraged me recently to share positive events or small hopes with friends more often than I do, and I’m trying that, even when I’m nervous about jinxing things by verbalizing them. I’m trying not to catastrophize loss or the unexpected, trusting that when one thing doesn’t materialize, something different will.

Most of all, I’m making a promise to myself that I’ll accept and receive sweetness without questioning it or darkly imagining its disappearance (which makes me think back to this post, right before the new year). Anything less is such a shame—such a lost opportunity to savor being alive. In the last few days I’ve been doing more gratitude journaling than usual and stopping very often to savor the good stuff.

If any of you has a practice or source of inspiration in the realm of accepting happiness without fear, or a tempered experience of hope, I welcome sharing. In the meantime, here’s something that stuck with me.

I recently asked my mom about her own experience of hope. Like my late grandmother, my mom has a profoundly optimistic outlook on life, which doesn’t prevent her from acknowledging hardship honestly. When I asked her how she maintains this perspective without tending toward attachment (or retreating into discouragement when hardship strikes), she said, “I wake up each day, and there’s the sun and the air, and I’m alive. I’m alive.”

There are certain things loved ones say to us that we know right away will always be with us. For me, my mom’s bright-eyed, animated utterance of “I’m alive“—her capacity to practice hope through the simple fact of being present at the start of a new day—is one of them.

Wishing you all a bright start to a fresh week. And I hope you’ll enjoy the recipe roundup and reads.

Recipes

First, Kimberly’s easy vegan cauliflower curry is a perfect, flavor-packed meal for a weeknight schedule. I love the crunchy cashew garnish, too.

Comfort food cravings? Jess’ hearty lentil bolognese, which features umami-packed mushrooms along with the lentils, is winter dream-come-true food.

Traci always has the most wonderful sandwich ideas (seriously), and I’m loving her latest, which is a mashup of sweet roasted beets and tangy sauerkraut, and grainy mustard. Yum!

I use barley all the time in salads and pilafs, but I love the idea of piling it on top of a hummus for a textured dip. Sasha also adds roasted squash wedges and pomegranate seeds to this colorful creation.

Finally, Emily’s black bean sweet potato grain bowls with herbed tahini dressing is exactly the kind of balanced, nourishing meal I love. Can’t wait to make it soon.

Reads

1. This is a short video—almost a fragment, especially given all of the long-form stuff on Aeon—but I was so touched by it. A nine-year-old boy recalls taking in a wounded bird, illustrating what it’s like to learn the art of letting go.

2. It’s so important to ensure that teens get enough Vitamin D in their diets as their bone matrix develops. This article reports on the potential injury hazards of D deficiency in high school athletes. I’ve seen similar coverage of the deficiency among track runners, but this is the first I’ve seen that pertains to football players, and I’m glad it’s out there.

3. Katie Hawkins-Gaar shares open, brave reflections on how the loss of her spouse actually helped her to heal from sometimes crippling anxiety and to embrace life in a new way.

4. An interesting Q&A with neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, whose most recent book is called The Strange Order of Things. It explores the intersection of mind, feeling, and body, and while I haven’t read it yet, the interview has me intrigued.

I Damasio’s thoughts on what love is for, from a neurological perspective: “[t]o protect, to cause flourishing, to give and receive pleasure, to procreate, to soothe. Endless great uses, as you can see.”

5. I know I don’t usually link to audios or podcasts, but I’m really interested in Frank Ostaseski’s work, and I so enjoyed Vox’s recent conversation with him. Ostaseski runs a Buddhist hospice in San Francisco, and he has rich and interesting thoughts on what death can teach the living.

On the cooking agenda for this week is a savory, one-skillet meal featuring seitan, bulgur, and what I hope will be a flavorful mix of seasonings. I’m trying it out tomorrow, and if all goes well, I’m excited to share. Happy Sunday.

xo

  The post Weekend Reading, 1.28.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 1.28.18 published first on

[ntrending]

You should develop your own black-and-white film. Here’s how.

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/you-should-develop-your-own-black-and-white-film-heres-how/

You should develop your own black-and-white film. Here’s how.

Got a yen for film? Good luck getting those pictures developed. Even as analog photography experiences a serious renaissance period, few locations remain to turn that exposed film into pictures. The good news, however, is that developing film at home is pretty easy and extremely fun. It mixes chemistry, art—and probably ruining at least one of your T-shirts.

Buying the film

For this DIY process, you’ll want to work with black-and-white film. (While you can develop color film at home, this process is much finickier and requires bleach-based chemicals, so it’s a lot less pleasant than the process for developing monochrome images.) Specialty stores may stock the film you want, but the easiest way to shop will be online.

Each roll of 35mm black-and-white film can produce 36 pictures and should run you about $5. There’s a chance you’ll totally ruin at least one roll by accident, so buy a couple at a time.

I recommend you start with something classic like the Kodak Tri-X ($5.30 from B&H) or Ilford HP5 ($5.20 from B&H). Both brands have been around forever and make it hard to screw up so badly that your pictures are totally ruined. If you want to try a product from another manufacturer, just make sure you get black-and-white film that’s D-76 process, not C-41.

Tools

The bare essentials for film processing will cost roughly $50 to $75. For a higher price, you can get much fancier equipment, but starting with the cheap stuff is a great way to learn. In addition to the links we include here, you can also check Craigslist for old darkroom supplies, which often include developing gear.

Here’s a list of exactly what you need. It’s not a small pile of gear, but that’s part of what makes it fun.

A developing tank and reels

This is where the magic happens. You load your film into one of two plastic reels that sit within the light-tight tank, holding the roll in an evenly-spaced spiral so the developing chemicals can cover its entire surface. The Paterson tank we recommend ($28 from B&H) has enough room for two rolls, but to develop one roll at a time, simply leave the second reel empty.

Dark bag (optional)

You’ll need to load the film onto the reels in pitch black. A dark bag ($29 from B&H) lets you do this without blacking out an entire room in your house.

Bottles for chemical storage

Fancy Datatainer bottles ($3.50 from B&H) are ideal, but relatively expensive. To start cheap, any clean container will work—just keep it in the dark if it’s translucent.

Thermometer

A basic thermometer is fine for our purposes. You don’t need to go past full-degree accuracy.

Scissors

You’ll need to cut the leader off the film and then later cut the negatives into strips. To do so, you want sharp blades with no nicks, which can mess up the edges of the film.

Can opener (optional)

You can pry the film out of the can with your fingers, but it’s not fun.

Chemicals

In addition to photography gear, you’ll need a stock of chemicals to develop your film. Some DIY guides recommend substituting liquids like coffee and orange juice for the actual chemicals. These ingredients will totally work, but the specialized chemicals will give you much more consistent results—and they’re still pretty cheap.

Developer

You can buy powders or pre-mixed liquids. I learned on Kodak D-76 powder ($11.50 for one gallon from Amazon), which is versatile and lasts for a long time.

Stop bath

A single bottle of pre-mixed stop ($14 for eight gallons from Amazon) will last you a very long time. You can also use a thorough water rinse if you run out.

Fixer

Kodak Fixer ($16 for one gallon from Amazon) is an old standard, but the Ilford pre-mix ($10 for 34 ounces from B&H) will also work.

Photo-Flo (optional)

At the end of the developing process, you can give the film a quick dip in this wetting agent ($17 for 16 ounces from Amazon) to help prevent streaks or water marks. It comes as a soapy liquid and requires heavy dilution, so it lasts for a long time.

Distilled water (optional)

If you’re buying powdered chemicals, you’ll eventually need to mix them with H2O. Because tap water can leave mineral deposits on your negatives, consider buying a jug or two of the distilled stuff.

Instructions

It can seem intimidating, but developing film is actually a little easier than making chocolate chip cookies. The trickiest part is when you load the film into a light-tight tank, which requires that you work in complete darkness. After that, the rest of the process simply involves adding chemicals to the tank in a certain order, leaving them in for a specific length of time, and then removing them. The process takes a little getting used to, but after five or six developing sessions, you’ll be able to do it in your sleep.

Step 1: Prepare for lights out

You’re going to need complete darkness to load the film into the tank. If you set up your darkroom correctly, it should be extremely hard, if not impossible, to tell whether your eyes are open or closed. I use a bathroom with no windows and block off the seams of the door with tape, but you can also manipulate the film in a dark bag like the one mentioned in the tools list.

Before you hit the switch, arrange the pieces of your tank where you can easily find them without knocking them onto the floor. Once the film is out of its canister, you won’t be able to turn the light back on, and searching around the floor in pitch black darkness isn’t fun.

Once you turn out the lights, sit with your eyes closed for a few minutes before re-opening them into the darkness. You might see dim light sources you couldn’t before your eyes adjusted. If you do, then block off those sources to prevent even faint light from filtering in.

Step 2: Load the film into the tank

When the darkness is complete, pry one end off of the film canister and take out the roll. It will unravel as you do so, which is fine. As long as your fingers are clean, it’s safe to touch the film a little, but try not to handle it too much. Don’t let the actual film drag on the floor, because you can scratch the emulsion and scrape your pictures clean off.

With the film out of the canister, find the leader—the uneven part at the end of the roll of film—and cut it flat across. This snip doesn’t have to be perfect, but make sure you don’t cut too deep and ruin your first picture.

Turn to the tank, slide the film in between the nubs and then rotate the reel back and forth to pull the rest of the film into the spool. This takes some practice. Before you try it in the dark, I recommend sacrificing a single blank roll of film so you can practice loading film in the light. Then you’ll be ready when there are pictures on the line.

Put the reel on the center column, push it into the tank, and then put the funnel cap on. It should click into place when you turn it. This seals the container, making it light tight. At this point, so you can turn on the lights in the room, but first, put the extra cap on just in case you flubbed something with the funnel.

Step 3: Mix the chemicals

Now for the fun part! Be sure to mix the chemicals according to the instructions that come with them. Powdered chemicals really do mix best at the temperatures on their instructions. Use water that’s too cold, and you might end up with chunks of powder floating around in the bottle, which can get stuck to the negatives and ruin them.

To keep your negatives free of mineral deposits, you should mix them with distilled water. You can get away with tap water if need be, but depending on the mineral content of your water, this might leave spots on your film.

Many films include development guides inside the cardboard boxes. If not, you can usually find them by searching for the name of the film and “developing guide.” This will tell you the exact temperature the chemicals need and the length of time you need to keep them in the tank.

For instance, if you’re developing Tri-X 400 (a true classic for its grainy, high-contrast, black-and-white look) and developing with D-76, you’ll have to leave the film in the developer for 6 minutes and 45 seconds at 68 degrees. Dev times are longer at colder temperatures and grow shorter as things heat up.

Step 4: Develop the film

The first chemical you add is the developer, which makes the actual image crystallize on the film. As soon as you pour the developer into the tank, tap the bottom of the tank on the counter a few times. This knocks out air bubbles that may have formed around the film and prevents them from leaving ugly spots on the pictures.

As time passes, you should agitate the tank for roughly 10 seconds every 30 seconds to a minute. Doing it more often will give your pictures more contrast and slightly more grain because fresh chemicals will be touching the film on a more regular basis. Although the image should be on the film at this point, it can still be ruined by light.

Once the time is up, pour the developer back into the bottle, then pour in the stop bath. The time on the stop is much shorter, because it’s simply cancelling out the effects of the residual developer.

When you pour out the stop, it’s time for the fixer. When the fixing time is up, take the negatives out of the tank. If they look too pink or purple, it might mean that you didn’t fix them long enough or that your fixer is losing its potency. Put the negatives back into the tank for extra time.

After the fix, it’s time to wash the negatives. Running tap water (no need for distilled H2O at this point in the process) through the tank for five minutes should do the trick, but I’ve also just filled and emptied the tank a few times while swishing the water around inside. It works out fine—and uses a lot less water.

At this point, you can use a wetting agent like Photo Flo to prevent water spots from appearing on the negatives.

Step 5: Dry the negatives

The last step in the dev process is hanging the negatives up to dry. You can buy special film clips, or just put clothes pins on your shower curtain rings like I do. You should keep wet negatives away from dust and animal hair, as well as fluctuating temperatures.

To prevent the film from curling, take the empty film can you pried open earlier and slide it onto the bottom of the film strip. It’ll add enough weight to keep the film straight. Don’t worry if it looks weird during the drying process—uneven drying can cause negatives to warp and curl in weird ways. Leave the film until it’s bone dry, and it should flatten out.

I store negatives in plastic pages ($8.30 from Amazon) because they’re easy to catalog and look at that way. You can also just roll them up into the canister that the film came in, but that way, you’re more likely to attract dust, scratch the film, and curl your negatives, making them much harder to scan down the line.

Once the film is good and dry, you have to get the images off it with a scanner. If you get serious about shooting film, it’s worth investing in something like the Epson V600 ($205 from Amazon) or one of the high-end film scanners that cost well into the range of thousands of dollars. But if you’re sick of spending big money on film stuff by now, you can use something like this smartphone film scanner ($49 from Lomography). It won’t get you museum-grade masterpieces, but it will produce files big enough for small prints or social media.

This process is a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it, it goes quickly. With a couple double tanks, I can process two rolls of film in less than half an hour, from turning off the lights to hanging up the negatives to dry. Just make sure to clean up any chemicals that you spill: Even if they look clear when you’re pouring them, they will stain things brown. This is also a really cool excuse to wear a darkroom apron.

See you in the dark!

Written By Stan Horaczek

#DIY

[healthcaretipsblog]

There were many great films in 2017, and while most of these movies find themselves embraced as the end of the year rolls around, a few have slipped through the cracks. The following list will attempt to give these forgotten films their due, and also shine a light on some of 2017’s most interesting, challenging films that audiences (and sometimes critics) ultimately rejected. These are the Most Underrated Movies of 2017.

While most end of the year Best Of lists have a correlation that results in the same group of films ending up on multiple lists, there are outliers. These are the films that somehow have slipped through the cracks; the films that audiences and critics have forgotten. The following list of the Most Underrated Movies of 2017 does not regard a film by its arbitrary Rotten Tomatoes rating – that’s not what we’re focusing on here. Instead, we’re focusing on the movies that have somehow been rejected by audiences as a whole, or in some cases, films that have vanished from the public’s collective consciousness. There will be no finger pointing here; no blame, or shame. Instead, this list will seek to celebrate and highlight some excellent 2017 movies that haven’t received nearly as much attention or praise as they deserve.

13. Wheelman

Netflix apparently blew their 2017 advertising budget on the abysmal fantasy cop flick Bright. That’s the only way to explain why the streaming giant has done such a terrible job promoting their other, better films. This year alone Netflix released excellent original films Wormwood, First they Killed My Father and Okja, but good luck finding those particular movies when you fire up the Netflix app. That said, while those three aforementioned films have managed to receive acclaim and attention, Netflix’s Wheelman received little to no buzz.

Which is a damn shame, because it’s a highly entertaining, efficiently made action flick that’s better put together than most movies that choke up the multiplex. Like the bastard love child of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and Michael Mann’s Collateral (with a little Thief thrown in for good measure), Wheelman has Frank Grillo as a getaway driver who gets in way over his head.

Wheelman spans the course of one night, and takes place almost entirely within the front seat of Grillo’s car. This may not sound entirely appealing, yet Wheelman is full of surprises that keep the premise constantly afloat. Also helping matters is Grillo, who turns in an intense, quick-thinking performance that channels a young Robert De Niro. Wheelman eventually shifts one gear too many in its third act, but these few minor sins are forgivable because everything that came before them is so much damn fun. Next time you’re scrolling through Netflix, try to find this film – it’s buried on the platform somewhere.

12. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage

We certainly didn’t need another xXx sequel. And I doubt anyone was clamoring for the return of Xander Cage, one of Vin Diesel’s least memorable characters. Yet xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is so gloriously goofy and unapologetically over-the-top that you can’t help but fall for this flick. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage opens with Diesel’s super spy skiing down a (snow-free) mountain to steal a WiFi signal, and only gets more ludicrous from there.

There certainly is some semblance of plot here, but it doesn’t matter, at all. Instead, The Return of Xander Cage is just an excuse to stage one stupid-yet-entertaining action set piece after another. You want a motorcycle chase sequence where the motorcycle wheels turn into jet skis so that the chase can continue across the ocean? You’ve got it. You want a scene where a sniper is thwarted by a DJ’s sick record spinning moves? Here you go!  You want to watch Toni Collette ham it up big time while likely collecting a big paycheck? Watch this movie!

Diesel’s Xander Cage is the least-interesting element here, but that’s okay, because the film surrounds him with super-cool supporting characters played by super-cool actors, including Tony Jaa, who gets to bob his head to music at a funeral, and Ruby Rose, who doesn’t have a whole lot to do but still looks incredibly badass anyway. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is without a doubt one of the most entertaining movies of 2017.

11. Stronger

On paper, Stronger looked like another hagiography; a film that treated a real-life person like a marble saint, void of flaws, trotted out to wave a flag and provide little to no insight. But David Gordon Green‘s biopic focusing on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman is a surprisingly honest, warts-and-all look at a flawed individual going through a traumatic experience.

Rather than present Bauman as a straight-up hero, Green’s Stronger instead takes care to reveal how ordinary, and even flawed, the real Bauman was before the bombing. After the bombing costs Bauman his legs, he suffers from intense PTSD that he at first refuses to even acknowledge. This decision begins to play hell with his life, and his relationship with his girlfriend.

Jake Gyllenhaal, one of the best actors working right now, plays Bauman, and he’s remarkable. This is an intense, difficult part to play, and Gyllenhaal nails every single facet of it, from Bauman’s working class Bostonite life before the bombing, to his traumatic recovery in the aftermath. Gyllenhaal is matched turn for turn by Tatiana Maslany, playing Bauman’s long-suffering girlfriend. Gyllenhaal’s performance, filled with big, emotional moments recreating painful scenarios, is the more front-and-center of the two, but Maslany’s subtle, sad performance still shines through.

It would’ve been very easy to turn Stronger into a cheap, sentimental, blemish-free portrait of Jeff Bauman. Instead, Green and screenwriter John Pollono created something far more interesting, and more realistic. Their film deserves more attention because of it.

10. Wonderstruck

I never thought we’d have a year where Todd Haynes would make a new movie and cinephiles would regard it with a shrug, yet here we are. I guess it makes sense that the hell year that is 2017 would be the one that has apparently no real time for Haynes’ charming Wonderstruck, but maybe folks in 2018 will give it the attention it deserves.

Haynes tells the story of two children from two different eras: Rose (Millicent Simmons), a deaf girl living in 1927, and Ben (Oakes Fegley), a boy living in 1977. Both children run away from home on their own individual quests, and little by little, Haynes and the screenplay by Brian Selznick (adapting his own book) reveal the ways these stories connect. This is a charming, gorgeous movie, with an altogether lovely score from Carter Burwell.

Haynes and cinematographer Edward Lachman portray each individual era with stark visual styles – a black and white, silent movie feel for the ’20s, a washed-out, grainy vibe for the ’70s  – making Wonderstruck a feast for the eyes. In addition to all of this, young actress Millicent Simmonds is something of a revelation – put her in more movies. ASAP. Honestly, I’m kind of at a loss as to why Wonderstruck has been virtually ignored. Is it too simplistic? Perhaps. But that doesn’t make the movie any less special.

9. It Comes at Night

While most critics reacted positively to Trey Edward Shults‘ haunting, disturbing end-of-the-world drama It Comes At Night, the film underperformed at the box office and earned itself a dreaded D Cinemascore. Most of the film’s failure to connect with audiences was blamed on the marketing: trailers for this A24-released indie touted it as a straight-up horror movie with supernatural themes.

While It Comes At Night is without question a horror film, its horrors are more cerebral and internalized than your standard jump-scare laden scary movie. The film is also unrelentingly bleak, with no real hope to grasp onto. In a year that already felt plenty hopeless to begin with, audiences were likely not in the mood for the misery that Shults was selling.

Now that the film’s release has come and gone, it’s time for audiences to give it a chance (it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video). Yes, It Comes At Night is bleak to the extreme, but it’s also a finely tuned instrument of anxiety – a jarring, unnerving nightmare movie that’s highly effective and full of lingering existential dread. It’s not going to be for everyone, but if you’re willing to give in to It Comes At Night‘s unpleasantness, you’ll find one of the best films of the year.

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Note: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15583075.Scotland__39_s_myths_and_legends__vampire_fairies__shape_shifting_Selkies__monsters_and_other_mysterious_creatures_of_the_deep/ Note 2: headline is cut off in the article itself.

Scottish myths and legends: vampire fairies, shape shifting selkies, the Loch Ness monster and other mysterious creatures of the d Karin Goodwin

Chilling, magical, bloodthirsty and beautiful by turn... it is argued that Scotland's myths and legends still help us make sense of our wild, weird and crazy world. As Halloween draws nearer we bring you the essential guide to a more mystical realm.

Watery monsters and other creatures of the deep

In a contest of the world's best known mythical monsters Nessie would be one colossus of a contender. Loch Ness's celebrity monster was first spotted in the 6th century by Irish monk Saint Columba, on his way to Inverness to visit the King of the Picts. Apparently he found the terrifying creature scaring the locals on the loch shore and, while making the sign of the cross, he successfully commanded it to return to the water.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15583075.Scotland__39_s_myths_and_legends__vampire_fairies__shape_shifting_Selkies__monsters_and_other_mysterious_creatures_of_the_deep/

Sightings of the creature, supposedly lurking in the shadows of the 754-foot deep body of water, continued through the centuries, as Nessie morphed in the popular imagination from a sea serpent to aquatic dinosaur. In 1933 construction began on the loch side A82, with numerous glimpses reported and a grainy photograph of her head and neck rising above the surface of the water produced by RK Wilson in 1934. Since then many others claim to have captured her image but she's still never been found.

It's said Nessie's origins may lie in the ancient Scottish myth of the Kelpie, the loch-living water horse who tricked unsuspecting victims to mount him, only to find that the melancholy horse dramatically increased size and power,and its mane turn to serpents which wound themselves around their victim. The great beast, so the story goes, would then gallop back into the loch where riders met their watery deaths.

Beware too of the beautiful Selkies, shape-shifting seals found around Scotland's most northerly isles, who can slip off their soft seal skins to inhabit human form. Powerfully seductive Selkies capture human hearts, it's said, but the call of the sea is always greater than the lure of landlocked love. Tales tell of possessive Selkie lovers who have hidden their shed skins in a vain attempt to prolong their stay but often end up alone and broken hearted regardless.

Scottish tales of Merpeople also come in the form of the Blue Men of the Minch, who swim the stretch of water between the northern Outer Hebrides and mainland Scotland, looking for sailors to drown and stricken boats to sink.

Fairies, sprites and elves

Scottish fairies dance capriciously through many Scottish folk tales. Originally thought to be evil – take care not to fall asleep in a fairy circle, especially after sunset, if you want to live to tell the tale – ancient stories of little people have them stealing away babies and leaving a changeling in its place. Others are properly vicious. Baobhan Sith – or vampire fairies – devoured their male victims and ripped out their hearts. Yet treat the Sidhe (pronounced Shee) well and they would repay acts of kindness with good luck. Skye's Fairy Glen, with its almost supernaturally green, grassy knolls, is said to to be a favoured spot to find them.

Fairies, too, come it different shapes and forms according to legend. The Ghilli Dhu is a male faerie living deep in Scottish forests where distinctive birch trees grows. Living alone he camouflages himself in clothes of leaves and moss and only comes out at night.

This wild little tree sprite is kindness itself to children who find themselves lost in the woods – one story tells of how he found a little lost girl, Jessie Macrae, crying because night had fallen and she had lost her way and he led her to the edge of the wood and her home beside the loch.

Others tell of his wrath for older trespassers. In some versions the Ghilli Dhu has moved away from the forest and into the parks and gardens where he now performs the role of a Scottish tooth fairy.

The Brownie, meanwhile, is as good natured as other mythical little people are malevolent. The little brown elves, or household goblins, supposedly live in country houses across Scotland and do the household chores while people sleep, disappearing only if they are treated badly.

Vampires, werewolves and devils

Though Eastern Europe is considered the natural stomping ground of vampires Scotland was once a hotspot for gore. Glamis Castle (the childhood home of the late Queen Mother) has its very own blood suckers with one story claiming that within each generation of the family a vampire is born and hidden away in a secret room.

In another tale dating back hundreds of years ago a serving woman was said to have been caught leaning over a body and drinking the victim's blood. In this telling she was also walled-up alive in the castle.

The legends may be rooted in truth. Somewhere in the 16-foot-thick (4.9m) walls is the famous room of skulls, where the Ogilvie family, who in 1486 sought protection from their enemies the Lindsays, were walled up and died of starvation.

Not all Scottish vampire stories are ancient or concern the rural chattering classes. In 1954 a strange rumour did the rounds in the school playgrounds of the Gorbals in Glasgow about a man with iron teeth who had abducted and eaten two local young boys. One night in late September hundreds of children gathered at the Southern Necropolis, armed with whatever they could find and determined to track down and kill the Gorbals' Vampire.

Scottish werewolves were arguably less fierce, at least according to the tales of the Shetland Wulver, who took the form of man with a wolf's head and left fish on the windowsills of poor and hungry families. Covered in a layer of thick brown hair, unlike the werewolf, the Wulver was never human but, claimed the ancient Celts, a creature half way between man and wolf.

While there are plenty of tales of goddesses, often associated with nature, the devil also stalks our mythical landscape. In some stories he takes the form of Black Donald, a shape-shifting, terrifying beast.

Master of disguise he may be but there's truth in the myth that you can tell a lot about a man by what he wears on his feet. The devil's cloven feet cannot be shod. Steer clear.

Meet the Nessie Hunters

Adrian Shine saw his first monster when he was eight years old looking out to sea as he stood on a Norfolk beach with his family, who were holidaying there.

"We saw this fast moving line of dark humps," he said. "It was the first time I'd ever heard of a sea serpent. Only a day later we spoke to a local who told us it was just an illusion caused by birds flying in line, the common scooter to be precise."

It was then, he claims, that he first became aware of the controversy caused when scientists deny the existence of something that eye witnesses claim to have seen.

He became fascinated by the work of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau, which used RAF-surplus searchlights, massive telephoto lenses, a bright yellow mini-submarine, underwater sonar sweeps and gelignite charges in its search for the monster during the Sixties and early Seventies.

When he heard intriguing rumours of a small boat that had been attacked by a monster in Loch Morar he decided to check them out for himself and arrived in 1973, aged 24, and ready for adventure. Finding clear waters quite unlike the dark and peaty ones of Loch Ness he built a mini-sub the next year and dived under the depths to find hidden worlds full of plankton and fish.

He was hooked, moving to the shores of Loch Lomond in 1988 where he has made it his life's work, not to find a monster, but to make the loch's hidden world better understood. He describes himself not as a cynic but a "sympathetic sceptic". He puts down sightings to real-life phenomenon like boat wakes and birds but "I believe we do actually see something that conforms to our expectation, " he says. "It's not pure imagination."

Steve Feltham, meanwhile, sold his Dorset home in 1991 to fulfill his own Nessie-hunting boyhood dream– inspired by a family holiday to Loch Ness in the early Seventies – and has lived ever since in a ex-mobile library (which has neither running water or electricity) on Dores beach. Within the first year he had a possible sighting, lasting about 10 seconds, "of water splashing off the back of something", that he says defies explanation. He is still waiting for his second sighting.

Now he spends his days with his binoculars and camera to the ready, talking to tourists on the beach about their possible sightings and selling Nessie models he makes to fund his hunt. As the years roll on has become increasingly convinced that the monster sightings are actually glimpses of a small population of Wels catfish, introduced to the UK about 130 years ago, which can grow to five metres long.

"That would explain the peak in sightings," he says. "But it doesn't mean there couldn't be an alien or a dinosaur in that loch. There are still lots of possibilities."

He admits he's unlikely to give up the hunt. "I always wanted to try to solve one of the world's most enduring mysteries," he says. "And there is such joy in living the life that I always wanted to live."

Why we still love folk tales

Mythical stories in Scotland are like catechisms. Robert the Bruce? The spider taught him to try, try and try again. Sawney Bean? Lived in an Ayrshire cave (sometime between the 13th and 16th centuries according to which version you believe) with his incestuous cannibal clan and ate some 1000 local humans for tea. St Mungo? The patron saint of Glasgow managed to arrange the capture of the salmon that swallowed the ring of the 6th century Queen of Strathclyde Languoreth – thrown into the river by her young lover and returned to her before it could be missed by the king.

These folk tales run in our blood according to Donald Smith, director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival. "People have been continuously passing on stories here for about five thousand years, and each new culture adds its ingredients to a fantastically rich brew," he says.

"Understanding our environment and experiences has always been the key. For example, stories of the Selkies or seal people brought comfort to those who lost loved ones at sea. Giant and dragon tales are often about the way the landscape is formed – by dramatic elemental forces. The ‘wee folk’ may reflect ancestors and perhaps gods and goddesses.

"We may interpret the world differently in modern times, but we still connect in the language of story."

Another storyteller, David Campbell, believes tales which survived in Scotland with the help of the travelling tradition of oral storytelling, hold an essence of ancient wisdom. Amongst his favourites are Ossian's tales of the warrier Fionn mac Cumhaill [or McCool] who has had some of our most famous geographical features attributed to him. Legend has it he built the Giant's Causeway as stepping-stones to Scotland, so as not to get his feet wet. Fingal's Cave is also named after him.

"The stories of Finn McCool can be traced back to the 8th century," says Campbell. "They carried a worth, sifted by time, that literary stories didn't have."

Fellow storyteller Daniel Allison explains it this way. "The landscape our stories portray isn't the one we see – it's the landscape of our psyches and dreams. These stories speak a deeper truth."

#Scottish Folklore #By Karin Goodwin #Selkies #vampire #fairies #sprites #elves #loch ness monster #werewolves #devils #folklore #tags preserved for commentary of OP