#i'm still trying to figure out how to use tumblr on my laptop

[visionofhope04]

Here for the angst of neglected batsis, imagine or hc them of moving out if the house when they are 18 and let's say they meet some spirit and they have their memory wiped and transfer to the marvel universe to restart their life and more happy, then the dc/marvel merge together because of a big threat and batfam sees batsis is heavily pregnant and married to our favorite deadpool charater Colossus?

How would they reached if batsis just can't remember them and keeps on telling them they have the wrong person?

I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK. Guess who's back!! Sorry it took me so long to get this out, I haven't had the motivation to write until recently. Also OOC warning bc I don't really know him well besides the Deadpool movies. I almost freaked out bc I haven't used the tumblr website in so long and it got updated so I thought I lost all my drafts. So glad they're still here, whew. Not beta read so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes!

---

It's been a year since moving into your apartment and you couldn't be happier. College was going well and you were taking classes you enjoyed. However, you haven't made any friends yet which led you to spend your free time reading or surfing the web. Jason didn't come by much due to having his own life and vigilante things, which you understood. It didn't mean you couldn't be a little bit sad about it though.

Even though you were enjoying your life, you still felt as if there was something missing. You'd been trying to figure out why you had felt this way but nothing came to mind. Any time you tried to brush off the feeling, it came back stronger. You did your best to ignore it and continue on with life, but it was always there, nagging you.

It had been a long day. College was so stressful. Your professors kept hurling projects at you that had deadlines that were practically impossible to meet. You just wanted it to end already and be on summer break. Then, you’d be able to sleep how long you wanted to without the fear of being late for class or forgetting to complete an assignment.

You sat down at your desk and pulled out your laptop, preparing to continue an essay that was due in three days. Suddenly, you began to feel nauseous. Confused, you attempted to ignore the feeling in favor of completing the essay. A few seconds after trying to focus on your laptop screen, you saw a bright light.

"My child, you will be saved from this life." A strangely comforting voice said.

Then everything faded to black.

---

"Hello?!"

A voice. A voice? But you live alone and no one has the spare key to your apartment. You slowly opened your eyes, groaning and quickly shutting them again once a bright light blinded you.

"Oh you're alive, thank God. Can you speak?" Whoever this was seemed to have been panicking before, slightly less though now that you had indicated you were alive. You groan as you push yourself up off of what seems to be concrete. Concrete? You're definitely not in your apartment. You crack your eyes open again, this time with less difficulty, and come face to face with white lenses of a mask. Blinking again, you register that the lenses are attached to a red material with black lines.

"Ah!"

"AH!" The figure yells and jumps back, startled by your sudden surprise.

"What the hell are you supposed to be?" You asked, tilting your head slightly to the side.

"What do you mean? I'm Spiderman." His voice was a bit high pitched, he sounded like a teen at most.

"Spiderman? You've got to be joking. There is no Spiderman. Go home kid, crime fighting isn't a game." Sure, you may be a hypocrite, seeing as you are an ex-assassin who began learning how to kill at around 5, but at least you had training. What did this Spiderman have? From how startled he was, you assumed he had barely been trained, if at all.

“What? I'm literally Spiderman! I'm Queens' hero!"

"Queens, New York?" You thought you'd still be in New Jersey at least.

"Uh yeah. I don't think there are any other places called Queens that have a Spiderman."

"Again, Spiderman? Seriously? You couldn't think of a better name at least?"

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with Spiderman!"

"Sure kid, keep telling yourself that."

He was about to protest when suddenly, someone else dropped into the alley.

"Hey Spidey, who's this lovely lady?" A person in an all red with black suit with two swords on his back and guns strapped to his waist called out. The person seemed to be a male, around 30 years old.

"This 'lovely lady' is very confused. Who are you?" They keep multiplying, and you'd never seen this person either.

"Did you hit your head or something? You've never heard of or seen Deadpool? The most handsomest, most awesomest, funniest, killer crime fighter?"

"Uh nope. Also, I'm from Jersey, how did I end up here?"

"Good question. What's your name?"

"Oh, it's-" You stopped in confusion. "I actually don't remember. It was just at the tip of my tongue but I don't remember."

"Oh great! Amnesia! Just what we need. I'll let you handle her Spidey and I'll go stop some bad guys, 'kay?"

"What! No, don't leave me here!" Deadpool was already sprinting away.

"Let's get you to the base. Colossus and the others will know what to do."

---

They did not, in fact, know what to do. Colossus sent Negasonic and Yukio to contact Professor X, while Spiderman went to contact Tony Stark (I'm still emotionally scarred from Endgame so no, he won't be dead, this is my fanfic and I can keep him alive if I want to) and Deadpool went back out to patrol. You were left alone with Colossus.

Uncomfortable silence sat between you. Just as you were beginning to get antsy, Colossus broke it first.

"Do you remember anything at all?"

"I'm... a college student. I live alone in an apartment in New Jersey, I think. I used to fight crime until... I don't know, it's fuzzy. I'm an ex-assassin who has been training since I was 5. That's all I remember."

"You can remember that but not your name?"

"Look, I don't know okay? I don't know what's happening or why I can't remember anything else. I want to remember who I am, but I can't. And it's so... so frustrating! Your suspicion is understandable, but it is not helping."

"I apologize. This is a stressful situation for you. I will be more considerate."

"Thank you."

---

They could not figure out what happened to you or why you suddenly appeared in Queens one day. Your memory remained fuzzy, so you were stuck. As time passed, you and Colossus grew closer. You became so close that he told you his real name, you became a couple, and you got married. Seven years passed, you were 25 and you'd been trying for a baby. You both felt the time was right and that you'd be able to handle parenting.

Colossus came home from work one day, spent and tired. There you were, waiting for him at the door as usual.

"Hi my love, long day?" You fiddled with the positive pregnancy test behind your back.

"Yes darling, when is it not?"

"Well, we're going to have to figure something out, because there's no way I'll wake up every night to take care of our baby."

He looked confused, then realization hit. "You're..?" He looked so happy and hopeful, you couldn't contain your happiness. A huge smile lit up your face.

"Yes, we're finally going to be parents!" You pulled out the pregnancy test and held it up to him.

He laughed a joyful laugh, tears began to fall from the corners of his eyes as he embraced you. It must've been infectious because you began to tear up too. You remained in each other's embrace for a while, just existing in the moment. Time felt irrelevant as you basked in your shared delight.

---

8 months later, your belly had swollen and grown. Everyone was happy for the both of you. You and Colossus were both eager for your little one to arrive. You'd both decided to wait for birth to find out the gender. It didn't matter to you whether it was a boy or girl, just that they were healthy (gender's a construct anyway). The pregnancy had been going great so far, but this time of easy-going was about to get ruined by your husband's job.

---

Your world had merged with another because of some cosmic threat. Great! Your husband would be preoccupied trying to fix the situation, which meant that you'd be alone. Selfishly, you wished that they could let your husband stay with you so close to your due date, but you knew he had a role to play in saving two worlds.

Seeing your loneliness, Colossus decided to bring you with him to the Avengers' base. He hoped you'd be able to befriend some of the people there. You entered the compound and your eyes were drawn to some men standing beside a set of double doors. They all had suits on, black hair (one guy had two white streaks in his hair) and most had blue eyes, except for one man who had green eyes. He was also noticeably the darkest of the group. They felt familiar to you, especially the man with green eyes. Have you met them before? Who were they?

As your husband was discussing some details about the meeting, you couldn't help but watch the group of men. Not knowing why you thought you knew them annoyed you. As if they could feel your eyes on them (they could), they turned around in sync and locked eyes with you.

Their eyes widened and they all exclaimed your name in various degrees of disbelief. They rushed over to you and your husband protectively stepped in front of you

"How do you know my wife?"

"Wife?!" Some of them shouted. They were beginning to cause a scene.

"You're pregnant." The one with green eyes observed. He seemed to be having some sort of crisis.

All their eyes darted to your belly, making you uncomfortable. You placed your hand over your stomach and attempted to discretely hide behind your husband. This did not go unnoticed by them.

"You don't remember us?" The shortest of them questioned.

"No, I've never met you guys." You were very confused.

The man who appeared to be the oldest said your name. You stared at him as he studied your eyes, presumably to see if you were lying. It made you feel vulnerable and unsettled, couldn't they leave you alone?

"We're your family."

The guy with the white streaks in his hair scoffed. "You didn't treat her like she was family. I was the only one who cared for her when she was younger while you all ignored her and let her suffer. I'm glad she doesn't remember what you all did to her. She's clearly living a much better life without you lot in it."

This was getting more confusing by the second, although you felt there was truth to his words. Did you forget these people? They seemed very convincing if they were lying.

"I'm sorry but I really don't remember you guys. Maybe you have the wrong person?"

"No we don't! You disappeared one day and now that we've finally found you, you're saying you forgot everything!"

"That is enough. Please leave my wife alone, she does not know you, and she does not need the unnecessary stress of trying to remember people she's never met. Do not approach her anymore." Colossus guided you away from the men, who stared longingly at you. The heartbroken expressions they had after your husband's speech would follow you often. Were you sure you'd never met them before?

---

Words: 1,847

#batfamily #batfam #batfam x reader #dick grayson #bruce wayne #jason todd #avengers x platonic reader #colossus #colossus x reader #tim drake #damian wayne #batfam x neglected!batsis!reader

[luvrrszn]

and they were roommates *

COLLEGE ROOMATE!MIGUEL O'HARA x FEM READER (18+)

summary miguel o'hara is your roommate, and then he's more than that

warnings [all sexual themes are at the bottom end of the post] explicit/18+ (smut), unprotected sex, dom!miguel, not proofread

a/n (gif posted originally by @/cantstoptheimagines, can't figure out tumblr's gif shit so i'm doing this instead, hope that's okay :)) guys i'm so bad at writing smut please go easy on me also if u have requests PLEASEEE send them in i'm so bored

masterlist

"oi! you left your panties on the countertop again, you goblin! take it back!" miguel yells at you from your shared bathroom.

"my bad." you mumble, a piece of toast in your mouth as you shuffle into the bathroom, in a hurry to grab your underwear off the marble countertop.

miguel watches, amused, as you scramble to get your things together before your 8am class. it's 7:48am, and it takes you at least 15 minutes to drive to campus, and that's if you make every green light on your way there.

you're lacing up your sneakers by the door as miguel pours himself a cup of coffee. he walks over to shut the door behind you after you leave. as you run down the hallway to the elevator, he calls out after you, "buy some juice on the way back, we're out of that."

you give him a thumbs-up before disappearing around the corner.

—

you're cooking your favourite homemade meal—pesto pasta. turning off the stove, you turn around to grab a bowl from the shelves. when you turn back around, you see miguel hunched over your pan of pasta, mouth stuffed with food. YOUR food.

you slap him away from the pan, as he feigns hurt, "ow, ow, that hurts. now you gotta give me pasta to make up for it."

"you ate two bowls of instant noodles already, how are you still hungry? get away, boy." you swat his fork away.

"c'mon, please?"

you roll your eyes and give in.

you were never truly going to say no to miguel o'hara. you had cooked enough for two because you knew this was going to happen, and you knew you weren't going to say no to miguel.

—

"miguel! stop using my shampoo! and my lotion! you know they're super expensive, get your own!" you yell at him from the bathroom, inspecting the fullness—or now, emptiness of your body care products.

"hey, mami, what can i say? those are the real deal." he replies, barely looking away from his laptop.

"yeah, and they cost a shit ton. stop using my stuff and go back to your nasty 30-in-1 soap or whatever." you huff, glaring at miguel angrily.

—

saturday evenings are spent at the dining table going over the grocery list, preparing for your weekly sunday grocery runs.

saturday nights are spent on the sofa in the living room, watching a movie.

sunday mornings are spent at the grocery store, wandering down the aisles even though you've been there every sunday for the past year and a half, ever since you moved in with miguel after a mutual friend introduced the two of you upon finding out you were both looking for a roommate.

sunday noons are spent unpacking the bags of groceries, which more often that not contain bags of junk food that miguel somehow managed to sneak into the cart.

sunday afternoons are spent doing laundry. miguel loads the washing machine while you handwash the delicate pieces that require extra care. afterwards, you toss what can be put into the dryer into the dryer while miguel hangs up the rest of the clothes to dry. then, the two of you settle into a comfortable routine of folding laundry.

that's just how it was. every week, without fail.

—

the moment you fell for miguel was when you caught a horrible cold and he took care of you.

despite you trying to shoo him away multiple times, he never gave up.

"come on, princesa. you're sick, let me help you."

"i look like a hot mess right now, miguel. just leave me alone, i'll be okay." barely finishing your sentence, you broke out in a fit of coughs and wheezes.

"no can do. you're sick, so get your ass back into bed. i'll bring you some chicken soup, so for now, just rest." miguel replied, placing a bottle of water and some cold medicine on your bedside table.

when he returned, he found you curled up in your bed, duvet tucked under your chin. he placed the bowl of soup on your bedside table, before placing the back of his hand on your forehead, only to realise that you were burning up.

"take your meds, princesa. you're running a fever."

with his help, you washed your fever medicine down with a gulp of water. then, you snuggled back under the duvet. when miguel turned to leave, your hand shot out from under the duvet, grabbing his wrist. you croaked out a "stay".

without a word, miguel got into bed next to you, slipping his arm under your head. you curled into his chest, falling asleep to the steady rhythm of his heart beating.

—

the moment miguel fell for you was when you left to visit family during summer break and he opened the refrigerator to find each shelf lined with containers of food.

you had left that morning, hand gripping your suitcase handle as you said to miguel, "try not to die, finding a new roommate with such short notice would be hard."

miguel grinned and flipped you the bird as you turned around and disappeared down the hallway to the elevator. closing the door behind him, miguel beelined for the refrigerator. maybe there was some yogurt he could have for a quick breakfast.

upon opening the refrigerator, he found that each shelf was packed containers of home-cooked meals, all prepared by you. well, that answered the question of why the apartment smelled so good when he got home last night.

there were containers of pasta, rice, chicken, salad, whatever you could think of, it was there. turning around, miguel spotted the sticky note you had left on the kitchen island. he picked up the light pink sticky note and read your note.

"seriously though, miggy. try not to die. i'd be a little sad if you did."

he couldn't help but let out a little chuckle.

—

you are the one who first confesses your feelings. on saturday night, after movie night, you gather all your courage and say, "miguel, look, i-i have to tell you something. and when i do, or even after i do, i need you to promise you won't hate me."

miguel's heart is racing. worries fill his head and his heart, and he can't help but wonder if you are going to tell him that you want to move out. he takes a deep breath, and replies steadily, "i could never hate you. go ahead, princesa."

you turn to look at miguel, and you say, "you're my best friend, and there's nothing i wouldn't do for you. you know that, right?" he nods.

taking in a shaky breath, you continue, "i like you. and it's okay if you don't feel the same way. i can't remember a time where i didn't know you, and i'm not sure i want to either. so if you don't feel the same way, can we at least still stay—"

"shut up," miguel cuts you off.

you're taken aback, stammering, "w-what?"

"just shut up," miguel repeats as he moves towards you, encasing your lips with his. you let out a slight gasp, and miguel takes that opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.

the kiss is everything you've imagined and more. it's hungry and passionate, but also gentle and reassuring. words were no longer needed; words weren't enough for miguel to express how much he liked you back.

you let miguel take control. you surrender, savouring every moment of the kiss.

and it leaves you breathless.

—

from that night on, nothing much changes. but at the same time, everything changes.

your weekend routines remain the same, but throughout the week, there's sex. so. much. sex.

miguel's sex drive is crazy, and you can barely keep up. not that you're complaining.

"miguel," you let out a breathy moan. your left hand is tangled in his hair, your right hand littering his back with scratches. miguel fucks you relentlessly, pulling his hips back and slamming into you in one fluid motion.

his hands slide downwards towards your nipple, and he toys with them, tugging gently and rubbing them between the pad of his thumb and his index finger. one of his hands slides even further downwards, and traps your clit. he rubs slow circles on it, drawing a moan past your lips.

his coordination is crazy, and you're stimulated in all the right places.

miguel senses that you're near your climax, and he speeds up, slamming into you with such tenacity that you almost believe he's in such a rush because the world might be ending in two seconds.

miguel goes faster, rougher, deeper, helping you chase your finish. the knot in your stomach tightens, tightens, tightens—then it snaps. you scream miguel's name as you cum all over his cock and go limp, seeing stars from what you think might have been the best orgasm of your life.

still deep in you, miguel feels every contraction of your pussy around his cock. you tighten around him, and after two more strokes of his hips, you're milking his cock for every drop of his cum.

out of breath, you lay there on the bed while miguel cleans up the mess on the bedsheets.

—

that afternoon, as you take out the trash, you bump into your next door neighbour, mrs palma. she looks and you and chuckles, "glad the two of you finally got together, but keep it down, wouldya, sweetheart?"

you turn as red as a tomato.

#📓—juniwrites #miguel o’hara fic #miguel o'hara fluff #miguel o'hara smut #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #atsv miguel #atsv #miguel spiderverse #miguel ohara #across the spider-verse

[quohotos]

Okay so there are some things I really miss about reddit...

You don't really miss it until it's gone, but (at least using a third party app) it was really easy and immediate to control exactly what you saw. The process of blocking a tag on tumblr is a little bit clunky. I have to go into a sub menu in the settings and then type out the tag I can't just right click and filter it out.

It's really difficult to modulate how much horny content you want to engage with here. I don't think reddit users were any more or less horny than tumblr users, I just think it was easier to keep the separated. Obviously everyone's experience is different, but it was really easy to feel out the tone of a community and sort them into categories of horny and not horny. When something was a little risque or inappropriate it was very easy for the poster or moderator to mark it as such. I felt safe browsing reddit on my laptop in class because I knew that as long as I didn't click on anything marked as such I wasn't gonna get any weird looks from the person behind me. I'm not trying to be puritanical about the morality of horny content or anything like that, I just liked being able to very clearly chose how much of it I wanted to engage with. If I wanted to seek it out, it was easy to find, but it wouldn't come to me when I wasn't asking for it. Maybe with time and experience I'll figure out how to do that here, but it's still something I miss.

The third party app that I used didn't render profile pictures. I thought it was pretty neat to not have much of an identity. Idk, I'm a shy jealous person and seeing all these pretty talented people is very intimidating. I didn't mind being a nobody when it felt like everyone else was a nobody.

I do not know where to find the good memes here. I'm sure they exist, but I don't know where they are. There were just some amazing injoke shitpost subs that I really vibed with and I haven't found out an equivalent here.

I thought of some more things so I've edited them in

I miss having an easy distinction between NSFW blur and spoiler blur. It made discussing media so much safer, I felt like I could participate in am evolving discussion without risking ruining the surprises. You could also use it creatively for memes, like making osha violations be tagged as NSFW and blurred so you'd click on it expecting to see some ass but instead it's like dude standing on a swivel chair.

Putting tags (well, they were called flairs, and you could only have one) up front on a post was so nice. When talking about a show I could immediately see what seasons were being discussed before even reading the title. It could also serve as a hint about what was actually behind a spoiler/NSFW blur. The tags on tumblr are so much fun, and are very versetile but I feel like they're an addendum to the actual post content, whereas reddit flairs were a heads up.

On the whole though, people have been nice and helpful here, and I'm really grateful for that. Hopefully I'll learn to adapt and feel as at home here as I was there... but man I just keep staring at my dash and thinking "you're not my real dad".

#new to tumblr #reddit blackout #reddit migration #tumblr #tumblr etiquette

[youredreamingofroo]

For those awaiting an answer on one of my more recent posts, and whether I'll be leaving, here it is. .....Under the cut, as it, in my usual fashion, gets lengthy, you can skip to the end for a TL:DR :)

I'm not going to leave tumblr/simblr, I'll be floating around and still liking people's posts, I'm probably gonna unfollow some people (not my mutuals ofc ilya) just because it's hard to keep up with my dash when I get over 10 notifications every 2 minutes or so especially when if I'm not going to primarily consume Sims 4 content. I'm going to put my mods folder into my external HDD, in order to preserve them ykwim, and I'm going to uninstall TS4, I'll try to make one more sim before the sims 4 gets poofed off my laptop, although as it stands even after freeing up 20 GBs of space, my space went back down to 400 MBs so 😭😭 I will probably be posting variety content, even though I know all my followers are primarily Sims content consumers (some of ya'll do other stuff, but I mean as a whole, my audience tends to be more Sims 4 related), I might play and share some of my Sims 1 content, which is not story oriented, it's just a little gameplay of Roo in the Sims 1 :) I'll also probably post Baldur gate stuff (if I can free up the storage for it LMAO), I'll post witcher content maybe, and plenty of other things, and like I said, I'll continue to float around, and I'll continue to reblog any Sims content I see and enjoy... as well as other things. .... So what about W.A.S? Yea. I dont know, while W.A.S IS supposed to be a fleshed out story, and while I know I AM leaving sims 4 behind, completely limiting what I can and cannot make story-wise (just cuz I don't know how to make scenes and stuff lmao), I will ATTEMPT to make W.A.S content, I will still make and post the Official teaser, and I'll probably introduce the characters myself sometime after the teaser (I'll take screenshots in CAS and just hope my storage doesn't dip TOO low). I may release some of the story in just text form, as I do really want to continue to post about the story. I'll try to come up with something tho, don't worry :)

I may also start getting back into art, I still need some hobby to preoccupy my time that isn't gaming, I will still do blender stuff (since I have a bunch of my Sims' DAEs) and I will maybe make more edits, but regardless, I still enjoy art and Sims 4 kinda consumed the time that I wanted to spend doing art, soooo yeah.

For the unrooleased tag, I have a bunch of sims that I've never posted, as well as renders that I've never posted, and I may, as Sims 4 filler, post those to fill the void that will become my Sims 4 content

and FINALLY. LAST THING I promise :) I know all of ya'll LOVE Roo, and I do want to reinforce the fact that ROO IS NOT A SIMS CHARACTER, I did NOT make him originally from the Sims, if you were at any point worried I would stop posting about him, I will not be, I will continue to share about Roo, probably with a lot less pictures considering I really only used TS4 as a visual assistant for his story, I do have his DAEs, so I can make SOME Roo blender content, albeit limited with Scenes and stuff. Roo is a character that I will continue to be passionate about, I never mentioned this but I LOVE to make Roo in pretty much every game I play (besides Skyrim................ and ofc games where u dont have customization), like Animal Crossing, I made a variant of Roo there, and in Stardew! You get the point, he will always be a prominent figure of my content. I may also bring back some characters I made from TS4, like Nirvana, I LOVE her character and would LOVE to continue to post about her, as well as Roo's family, I love posting about his family members and sharing their own story and what importance they are to Roo.

WOW, okay that was a lot, if you're skipping here for a clear answer, or a sort of TL:DR, here ya go, I don't want to leave tumblr, so I won't, and I won't necessarily leave the Simblr ring, TS4 is going to be uninstalled, but I WILL preserve my TS4 mods in my external HDD, and be on the look out for the last sim I make in TS4 :)

#not a goodbye to tumblr but a goodbye to sims 4 🫡 #yapping

[scyllas-revenge]

Hi there! Just wanted to reach out as I'm going to start my annual re-read of BLCI and thank you for this work of art (no joke here) you have put out into the world :)

Know its been a while since the last chapter and completely understand that life can get in the way but I sincerely sincerely wish you do have plans to continue it :) If you have any Beeromir (?? not sure if there is a ship name? Can't figure out how to do the squared symbol on my laptop for B squared...) tidbits that you are willing to share I would be forever grateful.

Thank you again!! :)

ANNUAL REREAD??

I'm trying- and failing- to find the right words to express how much this means to me. Thank you so much!! I am hugging this ask to my heart (or I would if I wasn't scared I'd break my laptop). And thank you for not giving up on me- I never meant to go on a hiatus at all, although I did realize that there were still some plot points I needed to iron out before I could move forward with the fic. And then yeah life got in the way. Still, things are looking up- I turned 30, found a therapist, am taking ADHD meds, got an inhaler, traveled solo overseas for the first time, saw the northern lights- I am unstoppable!! XD

ANYWAY! I am very much still working on this fic, and I have a good chunk of the next chapters done. I don't trust myself to give a specific date lol, but it'll be updated again, I promise!

I'm pretty sure at some point I shared the first few paragraphs of the next chapter on tumblr in another ask, but I'll post the beginning of the chapter here as proof that progress is underway and as a thank you for such a wonderful ask! Feel free to reach out any time to chat about fanfics or fandom stuff in general <3

Chapter 33 snippet:

Damn it, the AC is out again.

That was my first disoriented thought as I woke up, overheated and uncomfortably flushed. I tried to wipe the perspiration from my forehead, but my right arm was trapped at my side, numbness buzzing down my fingers. Huh? Sluggishly, my eyes creaked open—and all at once my heartbeat accelerated so fast the cabin seemed to spin.

Boromir’s chest was pressed against my face. The warmth of his skin nearly burned through his rumpled undershirt, and the weight of his torso was squashing my nose into a pancake. He must have rolled over in his sleep, because he was nearly sprawled out on top of me now, his chest and shoulder pinning the right half of my body to the mattress, one of his legs thrown over mine from inside his crumpled bedroll. He was snoring softly.

Oh. A giddy, guilty laugh bubbled up in my chest, and I smiled against his skin. How had I thought this was uncomfortable? I could have stayed here forever, Boromir’s body draped over me like a weighted blanket, his slow exhales ruffling my hair. 

But beyond the bulk of his torso and our tangled mess of blankets, a weak ray of sunlight had filtered into the cabin through the crooked shutters hanging over the window. It was morning. 

Arm’s length, I’d promised myself. Keep him at arm’s length, starting tomorrow. And now tomorrow was here.

My heart sinking, I poked at his side with my free hand. “Boromir? Hey—Boromir? You have to wake up.”

“Y’r voice…” His voice was thick with sleep, slurred and low, and his right hand slid blindly along my bedroll to splay possessively against my hip. “Mmm, Valar, say m’ name again…”

Heat of an entirely different kind flooded my limbs, and I shoved at his chest in a near panic. “Boromir, wake up!”

“Eh?” Boromir staggered to his feet so quickly I thought the bed frame might break under us. “Beatrice!” He was breathing hard as he turned to face me, dashing a hand through his hair. 

I stared up at him, unable to move, trying and failing to look as though I wasn’t about to burst into flames. “Good morning,” I croaked.

#answered! #burn like cold iron #lotr fanfic #boromir x oc #i have the nicest mutuals i want to cry

[herotome]

Special Informal Devlog

Hi-ho, Wudge here! Aaaa. I missed the update last week... as we crawl closer and closer to release, it's become harder for me to write devlogs. I'm making progress every single day, and that makes me so frustrated that it isn't done yet, you know? 😭 Something something curse of perfectionism...

Anyway.

I thought I'd try something a little different with this post by chronicling a specific screen I've worked very hard on, from start to finish!

(Pictured: a preview of where we're gonna end up)

It all began on... August 2021?! Yowza, two years ago! When I posted a poll on tumblr and on itch about how I should handle flirt indicators. The votes were split 50/50 between two popular options, and I was able to surmise that yall would really, really love an option to toggle between the two.

It didn't take me long to figure out how to implement the toggle itself.

The following year (September 2022), I came up with the idea of putting in an illustrated tutorial on how my flirt indication system works - after all, poll participants had told me that they loved the idea and had never seen it before in other games. I was on a treadmill at the time, so I quickly doodled the idea on my phone. It looks like this:

Then when I got home, I did a rough pen draft to solidify the idea...

I worked on the digital version over the next 2-3 weeks, and asked my friends for help with editing the text to ensure clarity.

.... Then I took a looong break from the infographic to, uh.... write, edit, playtest the game, draw expressions for Griffin CG, draw expressions for the landlord, work on a new Clammy Lady sprite, playtest the game again, make all the characters blink, make the first glowing animation for Jade's powers, code in Griffin's CG expressions, stress about paypal making changes in my country, do concept art for upcoming npcs, write some more, playtest some more, draw a birthday picture for Dart, write devlogs every single week, make sure all my files were safely transferred to my new laptop before my old one completely died... etc.

So it was February 2023 by the time I came back around to try implementing the infographic in code :')

... It was functional, but no matter what I tried, I didn't like how it looked with everything crammed into one page.

... Then I got really sick... but after I recovered and did some more work (drawing, writing, playtesting, etc) I came back to the infographic with the intention to learn how to code pages in renpy.

Still didn't look phenomenal, but there's a whole lot more breathing room! This was in April 2023.

I took another "break" (worked on a million other things) and then... FINALLY... in late August 2023, just a few weeks ago, I had an art breakthrough!

I had garnered a better understanding of color and poses, and as a result my chibis became a LOT cuter! I was able to redraw most of them without too much hassle - whereas when I first started, it would take me all day to draw a single one.

I also drew custom heart icons (a plain heart, a golden heart, and a broken heart), figured out how to make text buttons look more fun and intuitive..

And here's where we're at now!!! I still need to draw eyes for Dart.... but I researched and absorbed a lot about screen compositions, and had a rather late realization that I could re-use backgrounds and assets I already have in the game.

That's it for the special edition. I'll update with more soon!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

#herotome update #herotome highlights #interactive fiction #indie game #oelvn #otome #visual novel #otome game #english otome #indie #chibis #anime

[rk1k-moved]

okay! this took a bit to type out, but here we are!

disclaimer: my way might not work for you and that’s okay! there’s no right or wrong to make gifs, so long as you enjoy the way you make them then that’s all that counts. this is only a detailed look into my own personal process and things i’ve learned along the way. i'm also an idiot who sometimes doesn't know what he's talking about, so if something doesn't make sense let me know so i can fix it!

but these are some of the things i'll be going into a little more detail than before:

tools

importing & converting to smart object

smart filters

coloring (lighting, basic, and gradient)

exporting

tools

there are a few things i use in the process, some new and some old. whether you want to use them is entirely optional, given that it can be a lot to take in at once.

photoshop 2024

if you use an older version of photoshop, then i think the layout is similar to newer versions. though iirc some older versions don’t have the timeline function so you might have to look that up yourself since i’m not familiar with any ps version without it.

handbrake

i only use handbrake if the recorded video is super long. usually i try to record each scenery shot (4-8 seconds at a time) or an entire cutscene so i don’t have to use handbrake to trim the video. if i do, then i have the settings set to export as super hq with 60 fps, deselecting align a/v start and passthru common metadata. the rest i leave alone.

vapoursynth

this is really useful and makes coloring easier imo. you can download it from the official site, but i found a portable version (i have the 200722 one) for windows here. i’m not sure how to set it up for mac users, and, truthfully, to this day i still don’t know how to use it entirely. i just followed a tutorial i i found on youtube and only changed the amount for the denoise filter and turned off the sharpen filter since i do that in photoshop itself. so it’s trial and error, and i’m erroring a lot sometimes ajdkjasvjdas. it’s also where i crop the video to my preferred dimensions, unless you choose to crop in ps.

jsfiddle code playground

if you want to have the text in the tumblr post be a gradient, then type whatever you want in the first box on the bottom right, change the color from red to your starting color of choice, then the same of the green for the ending color. hit run, copy the code, and paste it inside the text post while in html mode. ngl, i stared at the site for like ten minutes before i figured out how to use it asjdjasdasd

nvidia shadowplay

i use shadowplay since it comes with my laptop’s gpu, set to record in 1080p60. i’ve seen other giffers use obs for recording, but i don’t have any experience with it. there are scenepacks and gameplay walkthroughs on many sites, which you can use as long as you have the uploaders permission and credit them as they ask! please don't steal their videos!

reshade

i’ve started using reshade recently to tone out the blue tint of the game and sharpen it up a bit more. it makes a big difference and helps with coloring if you start out with near neutral colors. the effects i use are: • deband • clarity • sharpcontrast • emphasize • amd fidelityfx contrast adaptive sharpening • fxaa • prod_80_04_colorisolation • adaptivetonemapper i'm pretty sure some of these are redundant, but i’m too lazy to go back and see which ones i don’t need lol. but it’s all personally preference with how you want the game to look, and there are many effects to choose from.

importing & converting to smart object:

my preferred method is the video frames to layers, which is: file > import > video frames to layers, and then select the video. if you use vapoursynth, then there might be duplicates frames (or at least there are for me) so when the popup window appears i check the box to limit the frames to how ever many duplicates there are of each frame. usually in my case, it’s three.

after the video has been imported, i select all frames in the timeline and change the frame delay to either 0.03-0.04 depending on how fast or slow i want the gif to be. for converting to smart object, i recorded my own action set to save time by clicking on a couple of buttons, but the process is: select all layers currently > convert frame animation > convert to smart object.

let me know if you want the action set! it saves a lot of time in the process

smart filters

i don't think sharpening before or after coloring matters, but definitely do not sharpen before cropping if you haven't done already.

vapoursynth combined with the in game reshade sharpening effects doesn’t require as much sharpening as i normally use. just note that it varies from scene to scene, and whatever you're giffing. these are just the settings i used for the pirates’ cove set.:

smart sharpen #1: 500% with a radius of 0.2 px

smart sharpen #2: 10% and 10 px radius

gaussian blur: 0.7 px at 30% opacity

add noise: 1% uniform at 30% opacity

on to the coloring, which i'm breaking this up into three sections: lighting, basic coloring, and gradient coloring, with a brief description and the result after each section.

something to note is that all coloring is personal preference, and how you want your gifs to look. if you're just starting your giffing journey, here's a site i bookmarked that explains pretty well the adjustment layers and what they do if you have questions for how they work. but i'd be more than happy to answer any that you guys have!

lighting:

brightness/contrast:

with this, i’ve found that changing the blending mode to screen brightens it up well enough without having to move any on the sliders. if it’s too bright, then lowering the opacity should do the trick.

curves:

before, i used the white and black point with the eyedropper tool, but now i’ve started using the auto function that can be found in the four horizontal bars in the top right of the adjustment properties. i choose the find dark & light colors options and check the enhance brightness and contrast box. if it’s too bright or tinted too much one color, then i fiddle with the rgb curves individually to get it as neutral as i can.

levels:

with levels there’s not much to adjust other than moving the sliders for the shadows and midtones to give it a little more contrast.

basic coloring:

selective color #1:

for the first selective color set to absolute, i use it for the white/black colors to make them as white and black as possible. increasing the black can make it too dark, so i limit the increase by two or three. sometimes i change neutral if it needs it, after all the coloring is done if it still looks too much of one color that the other adjustment layers can’t fix. i don’t know exactly what the difference is between absolute and relative is, i just remember it being part of a tutorial i read and have been doing it ever since.

color balance:

i only change this as minimally as possible, usually one for cyan, one for magenta, and one for blue for all tones. sometimes i increase it more, but it all depends on how you want it.

selective color #2:

the last selective color i use it for all the other colors, set to relative, usually for reds, yellows, and blues. if there are people in the gif, then i focus mostly on skin tones, bringing out reds and yellows to make it look as natural as possible. a hue/saturation layer can be useful to even out darker skin tones by lowering the saturation for red or yellow. with scenery, i boost whatever dominate color pops up while lowering the other colors by adding in a lot of white if the lighting is bright, or adding black for dim scenes. again, if it needs it, adding in an optional hue/saturation layer, but this time to lower the saturation for less prominent colors.

gradient coloring:

if you’re satisfied with the coloring of your gif, then this step can be skipped!

i’ve recently fallen in love with using gradient fills. there are several preset gradients available, but if you search around online there are other gradients available to download and use. or you can make your own gradient of your colors of choice.

for me, i often use blue/pink or blue/purple gradient fills. the blue/pink preset is the one i used in this case.

gradient fill:

after adding the gradient fill and choosing the colors, i change the blending to soft light and lower the opacity anywhere from 30%-50%. with darker skin tones it might be tricky as it would involve more tweaking of the settings until it looks nice.

gradient map:

i follow it up with a gradient map to help with the sharpness (i think? i’ve forgotten exactly) set to soft light again with varying opacity given how dark the scene is.

vibrancy

this is completely optional here, but i like the colors cranked to the max, boosted to 80% or slightly lower. some minor adjustments might have to be made after this, usually with it being too red or possibly yellow.

exposure

the final adjustment layer to top it all off is exposure. i like my gifs to have a matte-ish look, so i change the offset anywhere from +0.0010 to +0.0030. if the gif is still a little on the dark side, increasing the exposure helps.

the gradient coloring takes the longest to get the colors to look good, but i love my colors so much and the end result is so worth it.

logo:

this is optional of course, but since there's quite a few people out there who love to steal gifs, it's probably a good idea to put your logo on the gif to help deter them. mine's simple and uses either the font code bold or moon. i have it saved as a png so that i can go to file > place embedded and resize it to my liking before moving it to the bottom right corner.

but for me those are too many steps to do for each gif, especially if i’ve been working on them for hours. so i open up an old psd with the same dimensions and duplicate the logo layer for each gif to save time.

exporting:

under file > save for web (legacy) the window for it should pop up. i don't usually mess around too much with the settings here, keeping it at selective diffusion and changing the matte to none.

sometimes the size will be too large for tumblr's limit since i like bright colors, and depending on how many frames are in each gif, most of them end up on the large side. i have to fight photoshop sometimes to make it work by either trimming a few frames or messing slighting with the lighting. occasionally i end up having to go back and reimport the videos to divide the frames equally if i don't want to trim any off. it’s a pain, and it’s something i should honestly try to plan out before that point lmao.

but if you're satisfied with how it looks, save, and you're good to post!

[dandelion-wings]

Process & Commentary: Betrayal's Daughter

Being very navel-gazey tonight! I've been thinking about trying to break down some elements of my writing process for a while, in response to a Discord discussion about editing a while back, and another Discord discussion tonight brought the idea back up.

The thing is, despite my tendency to keep old drafts, I don't have a lot of documents that show the non-writing part of my process, because I usually delete in-doc notes as I go along, and my edit notes are usually on paper and get lost easily. But I do have two pieces where, for very different reasons, I did preserve some element of those notes! I may or may not come back and do a similar showing/commentary of Cursed Transformation later; for now, it's going to be Betrayal's Daughter.

This is a mix of 'introductory notes' for each whole draft, here on Tumblr, and in-draft commentary done in comments on a Google Docs. Hopefully it isn't too dire to navigate! I have, if I've set it up right, enabled comments by viewers on the Docs, on the premise that people may want to ask questions about things I didn't commentate. So feel free to do so!

The prompt for this fic was an interesting one to pick up, because while the prompter had a premise I loved, and I adored Kujou Sara as the core character, the additional characters they listed for the prompt were not, for the most part, ones I would have chosen for the premise. Which made it more challenging to write, but also more interesting, since I had to figure out how those characters would interact with Sara on this emotional journey, and I got to go places I didn't expect! But the first draft was, uh, rough, because I had no idea how to put any of that together at first.

I knew from the start that I was going to have to break it into sections, and that what I wanted was what I (because I get very strong visuals for scene structure) call a "folding fan" pattern of scenes--a frame story with two outer framing scenes and a central bridge, with scenes that mirrored each other in some way on either side of the bridge. And while that's what I came out with, I had no idea how to structure it when I started, so this first draft has a 'frame' that leans entirely on Sara's character story 5 and doesn't appear in later drafts.

Draft 1 - Google Doc

The reason my initial outline notes, which I usually delete from a document as I turn them into scenes, remain in this draft is also because of that uncertainty; I knew most of these scenes weren't doing what I wanted yet in this draft, and wanted to be able to refer back to my initial ideas in the second draft, so that I kept track of what I was trying to do. Those initial notes are at the top of each scene I had such notes for.

The second round of notes, my edit notes, are there because I usually write those on paper, but was traveling at the time and knew I would lose them if I did; they are at the bottom of each scene I had such notes for.

As a processes-and-procedures note, I physically rewrote this fic between the first and second draft. I have two computers, and I usually have it open on the desktop and retype in a fresh document on the laptop. This is fairly commonly something I do for something I know I'm going to make big changes to between drafts; it helps me to make the big departures if I'm not deleting text in the text editor to do so, for some reason, and also lets me rethink individual lines as I type them.

By the time I got to the second draft, I had a pretty good idea of my overall structure, and so this draft is much closer to the finished product. The primary difference is the first scene, because I was still struggling with framing (some notes on which are at the bottom of the first draft), and I started this draft thinking I was going to do a frame using scenes with her brothers.

(Oh. Oh that's what "boat framing" meant in those ending notes on the first draft. The pattern I had in mind when I started the second draft was "Masahito - Yoimiya - Ayaka - Yae - Kamaji - Masahito - Yae - Ayaka - Yoimiya - Kamaji"! Why this looked like a boat in my head, I cannot tell you. I come up with some weird fucking visualizations for stuff.)

As you'll note, there is no final Kamaji scene, and there's a middle Yoimiya scene that isn't in that pattern. I realized the actual shape I wanted and went back to the "folding fan" frame pattern mid-second-draft. Because, unlike the first draft, I didn't need to tell myself anything by writing the final scene I didn't want to use anymore, I didn't need to write it just to throw it out.

Draft 2 - Google Doc

There aren't any notes in this draft (that I didn't delete as I was writing as usual), and there's less for me to comment on that I didn't cover in the first draft, but it is a transitional stage between the mess of the first draft and the final product, so I'm still linking it for the purpose of side-by-side comparisons! There is technically a third draft, but it's identical to the final fic posted on AO3, down to the typos, and there was no commentary to make there that wouldn't fit into the second draft, anyway.

#going to steal canonical-transformation's tag: #why write when i can talk about writing #(although also my own relevant tag:) #fic nattering #i haven't been able to make myself write for a while now (for rl reasons i don't want to get into) and this scratched some of the itch #it is genuinely interesting to look back on that first draft more than a year later #and think about why i did what i did

[cellsshapedlikestars]

So I'm not creative to think of prompts on my own but I saw an underated prompt thing on tumblr and see if you'd like to take a crack at it:

Music Student Playing Violin Each Night On the Quad X Fellow Student Who's Goin Thru It Right Now But the music student picks a different alcove/corner each time, and the fellow student can never figure out where the music is coming from

Student Skipping Class to Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender On Their Laptop In the Cafeteria X Student Who Stopped To Sit At The Table Behind Them and Watch Along

Puts Things Into The Microwave Irresponsibly" X "Lives Across The Hall From The Person Who Puts Things Into The Microwave Irresponsibly" "Can you tell me in the future when you're about to use the microwave so I'm not in the shower when the fire alarm inevitably goes off"

Take your pick or do them all if you're feeling inspired, I thought I'd give options so you don't feel like you have to force inspiration. But now reading them I wanna see it all so the struggle of not being creative enough to write my own and having to poke other authors... Annnnyyywayyyyyssss, I know you write when stressed and as much as I've been loving the updates, I hope things are better now! Summer has begun so hopefully you get a bit a of a breather at least

oooh boy, I'm trying to bust through some of my writing woes by working on some prompts! That's genuinely why I love doing these - they're light and fun and there's no pressure.

Thank you for sending these! They were super fun, but I had to choose one, so I chose: Puts Things Into The Microwave Irresponsibly" X "Lives Across The Hall From The Person Who Puts Things Into The Microwave Irresponsibly"

read on ao3 here:

ephemera, chapter 32

.

Jon stands in the quad and stares at the students still filing out of the dorm building, fire engines idling in front, their lights flashing. Luckily it's the middle of the day, so most students are in class, but there's still quite a few people standing around watching.

“How long is this going to take?”

Jon turns to look to the right and slightly behind him, to a girl in a bathrobe, her wet hair gathered over and soaking one shoulder.

“Hopefully not as long as last time,” he answers when he realizes there's no one with her, and so she must be talking to him.

Except, no, she seems to startle, and when she looks at him, he realizes she was talking to herself. Still, though, she gives him a tentative smile and steps forward, and he realizes her feet are bare.

“You must be freezing,” he says, trying to ignore the way her robe gaps a bit when she crosses her arms over her chest. It's too thin for the early spring weather, and she's pretty clearly wearing nothing under it.

“I panicked and ran out without thinking,” she admits, a reddish tint to her cheeks as she looks down at her state of dress. Jon unzips and pulls off his sweatshirt and hands it to her, though it's only when she wrinkles her nose ever so slightly that he realizes he's been wearing that sweatshirt since yesterday afternoon and it probably smells a bit musty. Still, though, she pulls it on over her robe, so she must really have been cold.

“I heard someone lit a microwave on fire,” she says after a few moments of silence, and Jon tries to keep his face neutral.

“Oh?”

“What kind of moron lights a microwave on fire?” she whines. “I don't even know how you'd do that!”

“Aluminum foil,” he answers, and when she looks at him, he backtracks and says, “or, that's what I've heard. You know, metal in microwaves?”

“Right,” she nods. “I didn't realize that would cause an actual fire.”

“Apparently.”

“What floor are you on?” she asks after another few minutes of silence. He's getting the picture she isn't someone who likes silences, always needs to fill them up. Not that he minds – he's always preferred people who can do all the talking for him. As proven so far in this interaction, he's not the best with social stuff.

“Four.”

“Three,” she responsds, and gives him another smile. Then it falls and she says, “wait, I think the fire came from the fourth floor.”

“Did it?” he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels, unable to look at her. He keeps his eyes fixed on the building, where the firemen are currently doing a sweep of the whole thing before they're allowed to go back inside.

“Makes sense,” she says, a teasing tone to her voice now. “Obviously some idiot boy started the fire.”

The floors are single-gendered and alternating, though there have been discussions about changing that recently to be more inclusive, but for now it remains.

“You aren't going to argue?” she asks, a smile still on her lips as she looks up at him.

“Argue about what? We're pretty stupid up on four.”

“Stupid enough to start three fires in the last month,” she says, no longer teasing. She just sounds annoyed.

“You don't know they were all the same person,” he argues. “This one was a microwave fire, the other two were trash can fires. Different Mos. Two different people.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh,” he looks around the quad, but doesn't see Sam. “One of my best friends is an RA, he told me how the other two started when they happened.”

“Can he find out who set this one? I'd love to give them a piece of my mind,” she grumbles, looking down at her soaking wet hair.

“I'm sure it was just a mistake,” he protests, hands still shoved deep into his pockets, and he tries not to fidget too much.

“A mistake?” she scoffs. “How does one mistakenly put so much aluminum foil into the microwave that it causes a full on fire?”

“You know, if they were really tired,” he says, still staring at the building and not looking at her. “Like if they just got back from a morning calculus lecture after working a night shift and not getting any sleep and all they wanted was late breakfast but they were so tired, they forgot to take the foil off their leftovers and then they left the room for just a second to pee...” he trails off when he realizes she's staring at him. “Hypothetically.”

“Right,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “So, who do you think it was?”

“What?”

She keeps her suspicious eyes on him. “Well, hypothetically, the firestarter should be around, right? They would have had to evacuate with us.” She gestures at the quad, the students standing around and waiting to be let back in.

“Maybe he ran,” Jon shrugs, still not quite able to meet her eyes. “I'm sure he's really fucking embarrassed.”

She makes a humming noise and says, “so he's a coward, too?”

Jon's shoulders bunch up around his ears in a shrug.

“I'll just have to keep my eye out for hypothetical calculus students,” she says.

“Physics,” he corrects. “Calculus is a pre req class.”

She lets out a burst of laughter when he realizes what he's admitted. “Are you sure you're a physics major?” she giggles. “Aren't they supposed to be really smart?”

He can feel his face getting hot and he turns back towards the building. “You would think,” he mutters, which only makes her laugh more, and she puts a hand over her mouth to stifle it.

It's then that a firefighter announces they're alright to enter the building again, and Jon takes the opportunity, hurrying back towards the front entrance so he doesn't put his foot even deeper in his mouth and embarrass himself any further.

It doesn't work, because she catches up to him at the elevator. He should've taken the stairs.

“I'm Sansa, by the way,” she says, as they crowd on with a load of other returning students.

“Jon.”

“Here, you can have this back.” She pulls his hoodie off and he, once again, tries not to stare at the neckline of her robe that pulls dangerously far apart with the movement. “Thanks for keeping me warm, Jon the hypothetical physics major.”

The elevator dings at the third floor and then she's off, and Jon wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

A week later, after harassing Sam into giving him her dorm number, Jon finds himself in front of room 3-12, and he hangs a shopping bag from the handle. Inside is a new fluffy robe instead of that thin terrycloth one she'd been wearing, along with a note.

To keep you warm, hypothetically

-firestarter

#jonsa #jonsa fic #prompt fic

[27dragons]

9 People You’d Like To Get To Know Better

I was tagged by @weethreequarter, who for some reason I can't properly tag back. Though while I was trying to figure out why, I discovered that somehow tumblr had randomly un-followed them for me (so helpful, tumblr is!) so I'm glad to have fixed that!

---

Last song: I mostly only listen to music in the car, so according to my playlist randomizer, the last thing I was listening to was "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by the Eurythmics.

Favorite color: It's hard to say. Blue was my favorite color for a long time, but it was red for a while, too, and I'm super fond of, like, peacock blue-green and rich purples. Mostly I just really like jewel tones.

Currently watching: Not really anything at the moment. I finally got around to watching Staged (just S1) but I binged that all in one night; before that I'd seen S2 of Good Omens (and am still processing the heartbreak) and the second half of S3 of Witcher.

Last movie: In the theater? It was either Across the Spider-Verse or Honor Among Thieves (the D&D movie); I can't remember which order I saw them in. On my laptop, @monobuu and I co-watched No Reservations because she had an AU idea.

Currently reading: Fanfics, pretty much entirely. I've been poking back through my older bookmarked fics and re-reading them, and keeping up with new/ongoing fics as they hit my notifications.

Sweet/spicy/savory: I'm a massive wimp when it comes to spicy things, though I like a little bit of spicy from time to time. And my sweet tooth has been forcibly dialed back over the last year or so because sugar is one of the primary triggers for my heartburn, which is not just unpleasant but super painful when it hits my stomach ulcer. (But I still really like sweet things, I just hit the "okay I've had enough now" limit a lot sooner than I used to.) And savory is nice, too. Look, I just really like food.

Relationship status: divorced, officially 10 years next month, actually. I sort of wouldn't mind dating but I don't want to put any actual work into finding someone to date. Anyone want to be my extremely low-effort long-distance significant other? 😂

Current obsession: Good Omens is currently front and center, but it's not like I've stopped obsessing about my favorite ships in other fandoms (Dreamling, Geraskier, Winteriron)

Last thing I googled: How to do a thing I was trying to do LibreOffice. Before that, looking up whether some minor health issues I'm currently having might be related to oncoming menopause.

Currently working on: Teaching myself some bookbinding, and a cross-stitch project. I have several writing projects open in their tabs, but every time I look at them, my brain says, "....nah, not feeling it."

---

I never know who to tag in these things. I love reading them, though, even if they're not a mutual or anyone I've ever interacted with. It's so fun, seeing little slices of other lives from all over the planet. So if you've read this, please consider yourself tagged!

#tumblr games #pique queue

[slowestlap]

i have to shoot my shot and ask - HOW on earth do you make your gifs so crisp. they're so clean its literally out of this world!!!!!! when your gifs are on my dash i almost always know its you just by the QUALITY of the gif. help a girl out!!!

Hii! Thank you!! <3 I'm happy with the way my giffing process now goes but it's taken years and a few different fandoms and stumbling upon good tutorials which is why i decided to make one of my own too.

I still love figuring out new things to try and hopefully you can get some new tips to your process from me too. Under the cut is a long af post about gif making, focusing on some basic stuff and sharpening/coloring tips.

________________________

WAY TOO LONG INTRO

Before i get to the photoshop part, the base stuff is super important: You can't turn a very bad video into great gifs since there's only so much photoshop can do BUT you can turn a good video into great gifs. So, obviously the original video quality matters a lot.

I religiously stand by the correct tumblr size dimensions (see example, the numbers mean the width. Height doesn't really matter). However in 3 column sets i’ll sacrifice that one pixel and would make them all 177px. The empty space between gifs in 2 column sets is 4px, in 3 column sets it's 4px + 4px.

Since tumblr can only properly handle 540 gif pixels in the same row, sets with two wide gifs side by side can be laggy to scroll by. So for example, 268px gif will not be as sharp as 540px gif (if you click on it to see it bigger), since it legit has only half of the pixels, but if you plan to post 2 gifs in the same row, the 268px will look better on the dash in the gif set since it’s correctly sized for the best dash result.

I download videos when i can (dl is always better than screen recording), so that's youtube, instagram/twitter etc. Streaming sites/broadcasts i have to screen record and i use OBS to do it. It's the best i've tried for hq recording. I record with 60fps and use display capture. OBS is a heavy program, as is photoshop, so a good enough computer is also super important imo. I used to make gifs with a laptop of 4gb ram/128gb emmc and lost my mind after all the crashing and spent 1k€ on a new one. Basically, have as much performance as you can afford, and editing experience will be much much more pleasant. Of course gifs can be done with an average computer too, it'll just likely be slower and clumsier and you need more patience 😫

Also, i've gotten rid of the urge to be the first to post a gif set when new content drops. I'm not the fastest, i always do every coloring from the scratch. I save to drafts to see how it looks like on mobile, i go back to ps to correct the things that don't look right (too dark/bright, too green/yellow/red, too slow/fast), i make the changes, then save to drafts again and then post. I'd rather post a set i'm happy with than to post quickly knowing i could've made it look better with just a bit more time. (It'd bother me and i'd go back and re-color for my own peace of mind 😅) And i just wanna say it's totally fine when people make gifs of the same stuff!! The more the merrier, no need to think only the first to gif something somehow now has the rights to that moment. I just never get the best result if i try to hurry, so i’ve stopped trying to get my sets out asap. I’ll post when i’ll post.

________________________

SHARPENING

All these words and i haven't even gotten to the point yet 🫣 But fine tuning the details won't work if they don't have a proper base at first. Which!!! Finally brings us to your question:

I'm not sure if the order really matters but the main steps i do in this order: once the layers have been converted to video timeline and video timeline is converted into a smart object -> smart sharpen -> crop -> resize -> coloring

I like to sharpen things first, to me it makes sense to do it before resizing because after resizing you've already lost some pixels, so feels better to sharpen when you still have all the original pixels.

All the above steps (sharpening, cropping, resizing) will affect how the gif looks, so i do the coloring as the very last thing so i can better see how the end result will look.

To me sharpening and coloring go hand in hand, and you use both of them to get the best result. Sharpening obviously does what it says but good coloring will help to make the gif look cleaner and smoother too.

Finally, examples!! The key to a sharp result in my process is 2 sharpening layers. The main layer and the second layer.

Enjoy looking at judgy max f i giffed last year and chose to use as an example here. The source video quality was 1080px and i screen recorded with OBS.

I use photoshop CC2019 so cannot guarantee that these will work the same way in other ps versions. As always, it's about fuckin around and findin out 🙏🏻

__________________

1. Example with resizing done, but no sharpening or coloring (blurry and ungood)

2. Example with resizing and main sharpening layer (already much better)

3. Example with second sharpening layer included (more depth, dark spots are darker, almost too strong of an effect but coloring will fix that)

4. Example with all of the above + coloring (the final result)

5. The final result as a gif

And how did we get that result?

Main sharpening layer settings (yes, it’s in finnish but i think the options are in the same place in every language):

Because the sharpening is quite heavy, I double click on this thingy (red circle) in the layers panel to lower the opacity to 50-70%

The middle layer is gaussian blur, which i’ve set to 0,2.

So basically i intentionally oversharpen the gif and use the opacity function and blur to soften the effect. Dumb or smart, who knows not me, but it’s working for me so i’m rolling with it.

The top layer is the second sharpening layer. A godsend trick i’ve learned along the way: (the difference between the example photos 2 and 3 above)

(I've created an action, so i just gotta push one button and it'll run thru these sharpening settings, ie. i don't have to manually click thru these every time, saves crazy amount of time)

Wasn't sure at which point i'll mention this so i'm just putting it here: when saving the gif for web, i almost always use adaptive and diffusion.

________________________

COLORING

I’m not gonna go thru every coloring thing in my process since this is already so long hsdkfjdkjgkd but i’ll give some info on what i usually do and some tips i've found helpful.

My style is quite natural and i prefer colder tones. I hateeeee overly green/yellow/red skintones that are caused by bad lighting so I always try to correct that. The below stuff is more or less what i did to color that example gif too. (Everything is down to preference, these are just the way i like to color)

My most commonly used coloring layers:

Curves. Utilize the eye dropper tools, pick white eye dropper and click on a white spot on the gif (not pure white tho since it won’t do anything) and it will turn that spot to 100% white and correct the other colors at the same time. Black eye dropper will turn a dark spot you picked to 100% black. It can be super effective, just try a spot, undo, try another spot, undo, until you find what looks good. If you like the result but it’s too strong, lower the layer opacity. And of course you can just simply drag the curve up and get brightness that way. There are times when the eye droppers won't work nicely but it's always worth a try.

Levels. Works similarly to curves, they are basically the more efficient brightness/contrast combo.

Color balance. No gif of mine has been made in the last 3 years without dragging the blue in the midtones to the right. I also often drag the green to magnetas side. 

B&W gradient map. I set the blending mode to soft light and lower the layer opacity. Gives the gif a bit more depth and pop to the dark/light parts.

If the dark parts in your gif are too dark, for example details around eyes look messy but you don't want to lower the contrast, then try adding light colored gradient map (light yellow-white or light blue-white etc) and set it to soft light and play with opacity. It will give light and brightness to the gif without making things blinding and not losing much contrast.

Photo filter. I’m almost always going for cold blue and 10-20 setting. (Orange filters can give a nice effect too, if you want to bring some warmness to the gif.)

Vibrance. Always adding at least a little bit, helps colors to pop and makes skintones look nicer.

Selective coloring. Just drag them sliders to left and right to see what works, that’s really the best advice i can give. If you want reds to pop, go to red and play around. If you think the white spots are a bit blinding, go to white and then slide the bottom one (black) to the right. If you want some more contrast, go to neutral and slide the bottom one (black) to the right. Same with black (black).

Also, i don't like to do too much with one layer. I tend to do different colors with different selective coloring layers, so if needed i can lower the opacity and it will only affect that one color. Also it's handy to duplicate layers if you really want a certain color to pop, one layer often isn't enough in that case so duplicate it and if it's too strong then play around with opacity.

(Left image below). If you want to correct overly yellow/green skintones, go to yellow and you can try these settings. Then lower the layer opacity to see what looks good. 

(Right image). If you struggle getting rid of very red tones, you can use hue/saturation layer, go to red and just drag the middle slider to the left. (This is also a good tip with POC, when you think their skintone is overly orange/red but you are afraid of white washing. This setting will usually correct the orange and red tone without taking the dark/black color away.)

______________________

THE END

Wheew this is what happens when you give me an opprtunity to talk about giffing 😅 I hope it was easy to follow, feel free to ask if i was unclear about something!! And hopefully you got to learn something new. 

Also these are obviously just my way of doing things, not the Only Correct way, do whatever you like and enjoy and don’t worry too much if other people do things differently. Most important thing is to have fun creating 🫡

#slowestlap's lowkey gif tutorial of sorts #answered #one thing about me is that if i start talking about photoshop #i simply do not know how to stop hdjdjdjdk #ok to reblog btw if you found this helpful #(thank ya again for the nice words anon <3)

[spacexcowgirl]

rose i've come here to bug u w questions 🐛

first of all what are ur thoughts on james potter 👀

2. u have to fight one of the marauders (think long and hard about this), and they get to use magic BUT you get to be a vampire (like twilight style with the sparkly skin and vampire powers). who are you fighting and what would your vampire magic trick be to fight them. both u and the character are at full potential

and 3. what is ur hottest marauders take?

MAGGIE

I was on the Tumblr app and I had to grab my laptop and pull up Tumblr.com just to respond to this first one. I have all the thoughts about James Potter. Always. Everyday. Everywhere.

James Potter to me is just. He is everything. He is naturally charismatic, and lovable, and maybe he doesn't even think about it, but he brightens spaces. But, in my head, he's also trying so fucking hard. Because he's had it so good, he loves his parents, he loves his friends, and everything is right, but it shouldn't be, you know? Sirius is struggling, Remus is struggling, Peter is (quietly) struggling, and James sees that, and he's just. trying to pick up the slack. he is trying to rest the world on his shoulders for the people he loves, and that's beautiful to me.

BUT. what's most beautiful to me about James, in my head, is the way he feels. Obviously we are limited with what we know about him in canon, but even canon aside, he's just this character that to me is operating under the pretense of helping/"fixing" the people he loves, and he's fucking it up. He's making it harder for himself. He's causing collateral damage. he's doing what he can and what he can do isn't always enough.

He's trying, and it's slipping through his fingers.

I DONT KNOW MAGGIE. I've gone on plenty of James rants to you, but I love him deeply, and I see him clearly in my head, and I just get him. I get his struggles, I get his guilt, I get his arrogance, I get all of it. He's doing his best, and he's a kid who's always had it easy, and he's learning now that sometimes your best isn't always enough. Sometimes it's out of your hands. Sometimes you hurt people. It's all growth, and I love that.

2. Maggie BABES thank you for this question.

I'm not even worrying about the marauders character yet. I am first and foremost thinking of my twilight vampire power, and I think the answer is obvious.

I can have any power in the twilight universe world? I'm taking Zafrina and Senna, who have this visual projection power. Like these bitches can completely change your perception of reality with their MINDS. That's what I want.

I could fight anyone with that power and still win (cocky assumption probably idc) but like. You wanna point your lil wand at me? where am I? you don't know. We are now in the amazon rainforest and there are 6 of me. Try to figure it out.

to completely finish your question, though, I will choose someone. I'm gonna go with mmmm... James. my angel. I think I hc ADHD (bc same) onto him, so this is unfair, but I could just completely overwhelm him and win. and if the goal is to win, that's the choice I'm making.

3. oooooh my hottest marauders take. I feel like I could go a few ways with this.

first of all, I think the fandom as a whole is too discourse-y. Especially for a fandom that is like. completely made up. Like how are you about to argue about how a character is portrayed when we have almost 0 basis in it? just let people think what they think. it does not matter that much, just don't engage with what you don't agree with.

for a hot take on the actual characters??? I think that Sirius would not freak out about jegulus. SORRY. but like. I love the idea of dramatic Sirius, and I get it, but also, no. Maybe I'm just biased because I have younger sisters and I can't imagine being that dramatic over what they do, but idk. Realistically, I imagine Sirius would just be like "ew. Okay. don't hurt each other bc I don't want to deal w it." and that would be that. I can still accept a dramatic Sirius freak out, but it's just not the way I see it typically going. (this is also based on the backstory, and I do think there is sometimes reason for Sirius to freak out, but usually it would be more for James than for regulus. idk)

anyways! thank u for the questions Maggie I love writing random essays <3

#rose speaks #maggie tag #marauders hc

[tastyfishistasty]

13 years on Tumblr retrospective

Having looked through all the posts I personally made since 2010 I can see so many changes and so many things that have stayed the same. It's been sad and interesting and also some good bits!

The world spins ever on.

Followers and Following

My lovely lovely mutuals and followers have always been so kind and so helpful 💜💜💜, so many posts and conversations that I forgot, but were like little treasures to find!

It makes me so sad to know some of the people I interacted with so often are no longer here and I have no way of finding them. I miss them and I hope they are happy and doing well.

I've still never broken into having 100 followers, but those that do follow me are the best 🎉

Fandoms etc

I miss some of the fandoms I used to care so much about! Merlin, Bluestone 42, HTTYD, supernatural, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Brooklyn 99, Narnia...

Some I will watch occasionally, some not with a barge pole.

Then of course the big two that I can't touch anymore that make me sad because people are awful.

There's a post I saw about the first RTX UK which I couldn't go to in the end and I'm gushing about you know who and it makes me sick to remember how much I loved them. I watch Jeremy on twitch and I love him, but I can't watch the back catalogue anymore and I used to watch them on repeat.

I used to have the tag "Achievement Hunter is saving my life". And it did. It gave me things to look forward to and it was good and happy and positive and safe. But it wasn't. It's ruined and it's never coming back.

For the other one... I wrote fan fic, it was how I got into fandom at all! I made my own fandom merch (embarrassing as fuck now), but all that care and effort was not deserved by the creator and I hope she rots away and stops hurting people I care about.

Dragon age has been around for me such a very long time and I wish it worked on my old laptop now EA has updated their app thing.

My MCs have really changed and grown and I see so many mistakes and misunderstandings in my own view of the world, seeing how they've changed and I've changed is really rewarding!

Me!

Looking back at some of my OG posts, I was so good at hiding that I was ace. I assumed I was normal, I'd had a serious boyfriend!

Yeah no. You can track my nonsense as I figure it out, the "thirst" posts disappearing and my Sherlock phase was getting worse (yes, that's how I figured out what Asexual was, when someone said Sherlock Holmes was... the shaaaaaaame 🤦).

And by "thirst" posts, I mean "isn't X pretty? I like his face". That's it.

My dude, that is aesthetic attraction not romantic or sexual. You are asexual as fuck, stop trying to not be.

Then there's the "I'm double A not triple A, what a shame!" posts. Shockingly, wanting to be Agender too but feeling it can't be you, because it's only for people who know exactly what they are... is a sign you might actually be Agender.

It's both more complicated and not complicated at all with my gender, but Agender works and I like being a tiny battery, so I got here eventually.

Most recently there's the mental health side. I use a side blog for that, but it's still on Tastyfishistasty. It's so sad to look and see me trying so hard to fight my "atypical cyclic depression" and feeling so lazy and broken.

It was ADHD and emotional dysregulation, doc, not a fancy depression.

If my ear doctor hadn't said anything, I don't know if I'd ever have realised. It's scary to know how much of myself was revealed because I didn't actually have hearing problems, I have attention problems and auditory processing issues...

Thank you to anyone that has been on this journey with me, either my lovely followers and mutuals or just for reading this long post!

I'm not going anywhere unless they kick me out as they close the building, this post was born from finally receiving the "made 100 posts" badge and wanting to see how many I'd actually made. (It's 210 original and 15,090 reblogs... so Tumblr needs to learn to count.)

I wish I had time to back this blog up, or at least go through and find the important stuff I don't want to loose, but that's a lot of work and Tumblr does not like me going too far on my own blog, so unless there's a way to put it somewhere else to look... who knows.

Anyway

Thanks everyone 💜

And Tumblr:

#Tumblr #personal #retrospective #looking back at my blog #I've changed in good ways #the world has changed in both ways #i am both happier and have lost more than then #i didn't mention my dad #finding the rants about fathers day and his actions #don't help me #but it doesn't make it less true #he's dead #he can't change #i miss him #but he wasn't a good dad #thank fuck for therapy eh

[elenajournals]

Coming back for 2023!

I'm journaling again, with both words and art.

I let a lot of things go this year, for a lot of reasons. My author platform disappeared--no blog posts since March, a barely-there tumblr where I reblogged stuff in spurts but never promoted my work. I stopped reviewing books and posting to my booklr as well. (I am still reading, all the time, but I even stopped recording my books on Goodreads, which I had been using consistently since I found in 2015.)

A lot of times, when someone disappears from social media and come back, they cite depression, and given my history, I'm surprised to say--no, I wasn't depressed, I was busy with a new job, I was focusing my energy elsewhere, but also I was creatively stagnant in my writing and grappling with my lack of "success," and that damaged my motivation to do other creative things.

I needed the time off to figure out what I really wanted to get out of my creative practices, because the pipe dream of making money from it wasn't happening. (Y'all didn't see that part, because elenajournals was never trying to make even the slightest bit of money, this was the safe space where I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, be inspired by anything or nothing, and be answerable to no one. Those of you who found me randomly and followed me for pretty art journal pics would be forgiven for not even knowing I was an author, as I rarely self-promote here.)

But recently, a few things have changed. The one most relevant to this platform is that I found a (lightly used) guided transformation journal at a thrift store on Small Business Saturday during their half-off-everything sale. Sure, the first two pages of lessons, someone had already written in, but they gave up on the journey almost immediately, and I dearly love "used" things that have a history I can share in.

I've been writing in that journal every day since, and I'm not going to share those pages online. They're too personal, too intense in self-examination, and I'm simply not comfortable opening up publicly to that degree.

What the first three weeks of guidance have taught me, though, is that I have, for various reasons, completely cut myself off from anything spiritual, and that I need to make space for meditative practices in my life.

Hence, the return of art journaling. (Also slow stitching, which I may or may not talk about or chronicle here. Stitch journals are a thing, even a thing I've tried before, but I'm still figuring out if that's a good fit for me and if/how it would be practical to share here.)

Later today, I will finish the final spread in my Rose Journal, the found poetry one I started in 2017, and before this past week, hadn't worked on since January of 2021.

I picked that one to finish because it was the closest to done, it has small pages that I don't feel intimidated by (large blank spaces can feel so challenging sometimes!) and though I tried out many techniques and styles over the course of filling it, it was primarily a zentangle book and I felt comfortable returning to it with the goal of meditation-as-art, rather than Making Art to Maybe Impress Other People.

Over the next few days, I intend to photograph and post those pages, plus the usual finished-journal retrospective of my favorites. Also to talk about some of my journal-related goals and practices for next year.

Then it's going to be radio silence for a week, because holiday vacation with no laptop and limited time to be online. So yes, I will disappear again for a bit, if I haven't gotten enough done to queue. Though I'm sure I can find enough stuff from others to queue for inspiration, which was always half my blog (when it was active) anyway.

So that's the update. I know that I've said before that I'm coming back, and then little or nothing happens. That's why I waited until I actually had done some journaling before I said so, rather than feeling vaguely inspired, saying so, but not following through.

#elena rambles #personal

[hime-memes]

Hi, it's the anon requesting a PSA for non accessible rules pages, because I don't own a laptop. When I send it in, I was in a bad mindset after a couple of incidents in the rpc stressing me out. I was highly frustrated. I understand that using your inbox for venting wasn't right and I apologize for making you feel uncomfortable with my aggressive tone. What I won't do, is acknowledge that I felt entitled. Which I don't. I literally said I'm poor, I can't afford a laptop, I can't afford a smartphone, I live off little. I'm not privileged. When my mistake was to not say please and thank you, I get that. I'm usually very polite. I've been raised to be polite and kind to everyone, and honestly I'm surprised I didn't include this in my ask. And this is what I apologize for.

Thank you anyway for posting a very coherent, kind and relatable PSA. Have a nice day and don't worry, I won't reach out again.

Anon, everyone has bad days - no harm no foul, my own nerves were rattled by a lot of different askbox bullies and abuse a few days ago from multiple sides, so I imagine that heightened my own sensitivity to the the implied tone of the request and I apologize for that. You aren’t the first person to need to vent, I highly doubt you’ll be the last. I don’t think you’re a bad person for coming at it the way you did. We all lash out in frustration. The anon function stays open for a reason, we all have less than stellar moments and this way, no one has to be the wiser who that is - just know that’s a double edged sword on my part. Not everyone has good intentions behind the frustration and they really mean to hurt feelings when they ask for things. I can typically parse through those quick - but tone gets muddled in an ask. I don’t have to tell you, I know, that people hide behind it with the goal of trying to be truly mean and nasty. There’s just a lot to consider when sending an anon ask that everyone should be aware of.

I whole heartedly sympathize and empathize with your current situation. I was in very similar circumstances for about five years - and I sincerely wish you well and hope things get better for you! I’m terribly sorry you took my entitlement statement to mean your circumstances - that wasn’t what I meant at all. It was the the wording and the way it seemed to demand everyone understand HOW to be accessible on this shapeshifting hellsite. As it stands, that’s a hard thing to do - I’ve been kicking around on tumblr in some form or fashion for around a decade. Trying to figure out how to STAY accessible for everyone is tricky when tumblr wants to roll out new features every few months and throw everyone into a tailspin. I know, it’s difficult to thrive in a community where aesthetics and looks are the driving force of interaction ( typically ) and everything else comes second. It’s hard to ask for accommodations, and harder still to find people willing to do the accommodating - but, if you sent them an IM or inbox message asking for that plain text set of rules/mun information/muse information I think they’d understand and be willing to do so. If not ? Keep looking, you’ll find the right RP squad for you that can meet your needs !

I would hate for you to feel discouraged from asking for memes and such in the future over a misunderstanding, but I completely understand. My own words were hurtful and out of line - I will correct this going forward. Thank you for reaching out anyway to clear the air, I appreciate that. If I’ve misinterpreted anything you said in this ask, please IM me and let me know. It would tear me to pieces of you came away from this thinking things had an unsatisfactory resolution.

#not a meme

[all-or-nothing-baby]

Every night you dream that you talk to a genie, when you wake up you can't remember what you wished for. One morning you wake up with a giant crab pincer replacing your right arm. What do you do?

I call Kafka on his mobile and ask how best to proceed. Only Kafka doesn't answer, the shit. He never answers.

So. I phone in sick to the garage—thanking Mexican baby Jesus and Philip K. Dick for the invention of the speaker phone because, you know, only one hand—and try to get dressed without hacking off any skin with the new serrated limb. But then it hits me: why on earth am I getting dressed? Am I really going to leave the house like this? No, I realise, I most certainly am not.

Instead, I call up my good buddy Cate Blanchett, because she gets the best dope. Cate is filming but I ask her assistant if they can drop me off some Salvia, pronto, which they do; I have to get high af if I'm to figure out what to do next.

Smoking with a pincer is actually easier and cooler than you might imagine.

While off by tits and talking to a chair, I realise that I'm talking to a chair, and it then tells me to get my damn shit together. Thinking really, really hard (honestly it almost hurts in this state), the solution to the issue of WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK DO I DO NOW?! hits me: dreamwalking. Obviously.

Humming like George Harrison playing a sitar, I manage to drift off...

"Nanu-Nanu!" says Mork of Mork & Mindy fame when I open my eyes.

I smile and answer, "Wrong Robin Williams character! Sorry, Dream Robin Williams!" and swim away through the dream to the next realm...

"Oh captain! My captain!"...

"To Live would be an awfully big adventure!"...

"Make your life spectacular!"...

Floating, floating.

Until, finally, "To be my own master..."

"Genie! It's me, Crab Dream boy!"

The genie sighs, deep and audible. How very out of character, you think.

"Oh, yay. You're back. What do you want this time, hmm? Knees of an ant? A snake's chin?" He laughs to himself, a little cruelly.

Something is very wrong.

"I don't remember how I remember but somehow, I know this: you tricked me into asking for the pincer, didn't you?"

"Why, watever do you mean, child?"

A sick feeling washes over me. "You're not him, are you? " but it's not really a question, and the so-called genie, they know it.

And it's at that moment that Thor, the God of Thunder (MCU version) arrives on the bifrost, wielding Stormbreaker which, yeah, is cool af and everything, but in all honesty you'd be lying through your perfectly straight teeth if you said you weren't just a little disappointed it isn't Mjolnir.

He looks at me. Looks at my pincer-hand. Looks at the 'genie'.

Then, like a lightning bolt slicing through the atmosphere, it clicks.

The genie tricked me. The genie is mean. The genie is blue (and yeah, okay, that last bit tracks but still).

"Loki!" both Thor and I exclaim simultaneously.

... and that's where I wake, the sound of maniacal yet loveable laughter already fading like the sound of ocean the crab pincer came from swooshing in an invisible seashell.

A dream within a dream. How very Inception of me.

Blinking furiously, the laptop comes into still blurry view.

"Back in the walking world I see, Parrish."

Ronan.

"Barely. Ego had mirabilem somnia..."

Ro looks at me like I'm a clown.

"You had the strangest of dreams. Really."

Ronan had up dreamed live crabs only last month, filled my dorm room with them. Along with my new motorbike. Being the boyfriend of a dreamer who actually brings back the objects he drabs shit does have its advantages, as well as the opposite.

"Do you think it's possible my dreams feel more real when I sleep next to you?"

Ronan scoffs. "If they are, that has to be the least weird thing about us, Adam."

I smile. "The least weird thing about us, Ronan Lynch, is the combined amount of time you spend on Tumblr while in a magical farm yard, and how many times I can half-consume the Marvel movies while studying for never ending tests and at the same time manage to low-key vibe with local leylines," I tell him.

"Touché."

As Ronan texts Gansey, Blue and Henry, I attempt to get back to my trifecta of unrelated tasks, trying my very best not to fall asleep again.

#show and tell time #show and tell #satt #satt-prompt #satt-writing-prompt #satt-genie #wtf is this tumblr?! #love it #pynch #trc #mcu #fic #fiction #drabble #short stories #i have no idea what the hell this is lol #robin williams #my beloved <3 #cw drugs mention #inception #dead poets society #jack #aladin #hook #mork and mindy