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jjaeong · 3 years

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Color-Correction Post (50 Followers Edition).

(Posting this through my laptop because my phone kept crashing when I change the colors or even link the source?)

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional, this is post was created just to put into perspective how I always tweak the colors in each GIF I attach to my fics. I just wanted to share this because it’s honestly satisfying with the end result (and in celebration of 50 followers).

Before I got into this entire GIF in fics thing, I thought that it was cool how there’d always be a GIF attached into what I’d always read on this site—I’ve observed how it somehow made it easier to get into whatever it was you were reading when there was some visualization attached to it (no matter how lightly written the fic is). And I’ve done this “writing template” with the two borders and the gif in the middle—but I don’t consider the fic on my other account as influenced as this account because it was just literally one drabble (if you find it—hmu lmao).

Also, I think I mislead you guys about my last writing account being back in 2014 (but honestly, I don’t remember any other time than my last drabble in the Summer of 2020—I had a lot of things going on since I started attending University).

But that’s a story for another time.

I just like the idea of incorporating the right visuals in my fics because—other than I don’t seem to have anything else to do (lmao)—I just found it easier to write with what I can see with the imagery, and so I thought that it would be cool if my readers would get to experience the same thing and not just in my head, you know?

Honestly this sounds so taxing and it looks like I’m putting too much effort into it but.. It’s art? This blog is a passion project that had just been brought to life— something we can always come back to when we feel like doing so.

Anyways, here’s the step by step process of making the GIFS.

One. Finding The Right Visualization.

I’m not strict in finding a source, usually I’d be watching loonatv and I’d suddenly be hit by the scene like—oh, that looks like it’ll fit in this idea that I thought about earlier. But what I am strict about is if I can find a better angle (this goes with the fan site sources and etcetera), because it usually starts from “this looks nice” and should end with “okay, it’s time to write about it” but sometimes, sadly it would end with “I don’t feel that great about the plot idea though”.

But for the series stuff (such as The Heiress which is currently ongoing) it’s harder to find more cinematic shots that fit the mood. I try my best on finding a video that would set the foundation of the fic before going ahead and downloading the videos from a separate online video converter.

I also make sure to take note of the dates, the links and specially the channel name or basically the source because if I found the shot pretty and just took it without giving credit—I admire these non-profit(?) fan sites (I love vantablack’s fan cams of Hyunjin the most) so that’s why I started to include sources. Simply appreciating the craft.

Two. Color Correcting By The Fic’s Tone.

The thing that I honestly do not like the most is the fade(?) effect that loonatv adds to their videos, I’ve noticed how they always applied this because it makes the girls somewhat “brighter” but it takes away their more.. Natural colors. The lighting in this shot was bright enough to somewhat strengthen the fading effect that they put—but the thing I keep feeling upset for is that you lose a bit of the natural setting that the girls themselves make brighter.

So if it’s a light fic, a happy one shot like Rest Easy Love, I’ll Always Be Your Favorite Girl, I added a warmer tone to the GIF.

(I think I corrected it some more after recording this on my screen, but you guys get the point lmao sorry).

And when it’s a more darker type of fic, this is an example of how I envision the lighting would be like The Heiress effect (which I applied to this exact GIF just for comparison). That’s all to it when I CC—just keep in mind the vibe of the fic, adjust the lighting and etcetera, and finally add the effects if you have them.

Three. The Cinematic Border And Final Export.

I found it easier to just adjust the video itself under the border to fit it instead of cropping because it really takes so much space when you crop it. You’d barely get a full decent view so I just drag and adjust it.

After I’ve finished the video, I then export the file and send it to my online archives or via cable to my phone (when I’m in a hurry). The reason why I upload it on a cloud is that sometimes after I edit the video, I tend to burn myself out so I can’t be bothered to turn it instantly into a GIF.

I use my phone to convert the video into a GIF because whenever I use my video editing software it tends to not upload in this site, and after looking for the reason why—turns out you can only upload up to 15MB of your GIF here—I just convert it on my phone because it’s the quickest when it comes to compressing the file.

Then I open my drafts and attach it there along with my borders, and that’s about it.

At this point I think now you guys know why I take my time to post and follow through my chapters (because I like to wait for the inspiration to hit before I start writing, and that I look for clips that will help me visualize better)—but I just want to say that one day we’ll reach a bigger audience, there will be more people expecting quality from this blog and as much as I’d hate to admit it, I am aware that it will take a toll on me.

But that will never stop me from loving these girls because they’ve been nothing but a positive source of happiness from me—I’ve been through so much last year and they somehow made me feel like myself again, and that’s such a big impact in my current situation right now and this is how I want to express myself in loving them.

I want nothing other than to give these girls a positive light in this blog, and though times may be rough we’d still have these Y/N fics to come back to when we feel like we’re not living the Y/N life in reality.

And I know this is a lot of talk for a small following—but someone out there will always read your notes, no matter how silly it will be there will always be a reader that will like your work even if you don’t feel confident in your writing.

Because if your following is the reason you’re writing, then write for them.

If you’re writing for yourself just as I am—do it.

As long as there is passion inside of you, pursue it. Even if it’s just writing Y/N fics while you’re balancing too many things at once.

Stay passionate, that’s all I truly had to say.

You guys are cool.

Laters,

>ovc: loonatheworld (171212)

https://youtu.be/eUeFUBy40ow

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thinking-in-symbols · 3 years

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Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years. When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog. Today I thought I’d revisit that. I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames. I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station! Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this. I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things. I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic. But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm. “Proficient” is a relative term. But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages. I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this. If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused. More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what? I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial. So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish. I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently. Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room. So there’s more work to do. More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point. I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man. I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment. I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories! Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place. I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this. I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected. This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect. Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet. Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket. I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much. Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep! Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years. I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position. More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious. Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately. But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this. That’s a cool idea. I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle. I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money. No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop. That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career. Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others. No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope. I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird. Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right? Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating. So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it. I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues. Just kidding. But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done! Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French! But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao. I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself. How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post. But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done. I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever. I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this. I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive. But a van? Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort. This has actually been front-of-mind for a while. I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point. I do have other thoughts on this, though. Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term? Three months? If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school. However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet. I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through. We’ll see where this goes. It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done. It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes! :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated. But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing. So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years. Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it! Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-)

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet. I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat. Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad! I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”. I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself. The point is, they got done. That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships. I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying. And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life. I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh. I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing. I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect. These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life. I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap. Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change. I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds! Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development. The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort. For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two. The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science. Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas. I mean, I’ve done some. But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree. I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school. Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now! So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list. I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate. I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more. I know what I need to know. It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news. I’ve always been scared about entering the working world. All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have. But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term. So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done. What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished. I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest. But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life. Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK. There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames. Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

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