#the colouring is slightly different in each gif...

[expelliarmus]

#mine #doctor who #dwedit #matt smith #jenna louise coleman #the colouring is slightly different in each gif... #but i hope it all looks like it matches lol #anyway here is my dotd gifset for the month #can't believe this special is going to be 9 years old soon #i had quite the day yesterday #my friend's wedding and then rushing to the hospital to see my dad??? #(he's ok though) #and then we all ended up at my brother's place to have turkey dinner #and i went out to get desserts with my mom #and we got these huge cream puffs and some crepe cake slices #they were very delicious #and then today i had to wake up at 5am to send my mom to the airport #but tomorrow's a holiday so no work #ok that is more than enough tags!!! #2 weeks until dw is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #good night friends hope you've all been well~

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm an A-Level student and so many of my classmates use ChatGPT for essays in Law and RS and stuff - like, they sound proud of themselves, as if they're cheating the system and being clever? Just makes me feel very bleak. What are we doing man

Well, the unfortunate news for them is that they are going to struggle if they make it to uni.

This is the big problem with AI - it cannot analyse a single thing. If I were to say to you "What are the features Tumblr users would most want and why?", you are a human being with a brain and experiences and decision-making skills, and you could probably sit and come up with an answer. You would base that answer on things you personally find lacking, or want to see; you would also base it in things you have seen others bemoaning on the site.

For example, I reckon I'd say something like:

The permanent ability to boop people with a cat paw, which is implemented as opt-in. Also customisable, so you can choose whether you want a random cat paw to appear on your screen each time it happens to you. Also a different animation for super boop/evil boop, and maybe more boop options than those two, and maybe also different paw colours.

Actual enforcement of hate speech rules. We all agree to them when we join, so it's perfectly legal to delete someone for spouting Nazi shit AND YET.

No more banning or censoring queer folks' accounts

More ability to adjust the interface for disabled bloggers, e.g. colour and contrast, font, layout, switching off moving GIFs or other animations by default, etc.

Tag editing, it's frustrating having to delete whole tags.

Tag memory! Where have my tags gone??? For a year now I have slightly better luck on desktop, but for the most part, which of my tags are remembered by autofill and which are never, ever offered to me has been wholly divorced from how often I've used them. And my tags are often lengthy and odd, so it's become much harder to use mobile.

No data scraping. This is the anti-cap site thank you. Also on that note, get rid of the For You section and any other algorithmic tracking, because it's just as likely to show you a Nazi blog as an anti-Nazi one as long as you have spent any time at all discussing Nazism.

Better blocking ability, on that note.

Better search function

I could go on, but you get the idea. That's analysis that I've done, based on discussions I have seen and taken part in, and my own experiences.

I just asked ChatGPT. Here's what it had to say:

"Tumblr users have diverse preferences, but there are several features that many users would likely appreciate: 1. Improved Content Discovery: Tumblr is known for its vast array of content, so improving content discovery mechanisms such as personalized recommendations, trending topics, and enhanced search functionality can help users find more of the content they enjoy. 2. Enhanced Customization Options: Tumblr users value the ability to customize their blogs extensively. Providing more themes, layout options, and customization tools can empower users to express themselves creatively and make their blogs unique. 3. Integration of Multimedia Formats: Tumblr is a platform where users share various types of multimedia content, including images, GIFs, videos, and audio. Enhancing support for different media formats, improving media upload and management features, and optimizing the viewing experience can enhance user engagement. 4. Improved Mobile Experience: Many Tumblr users access the platform via mobile devices. Therefore, optimizing the mobile app for better performance, usability, and feature parity with the desktop version can greatly enhance the user experience. 5. Community Engagement Features: Tumblr has a vibrant community, so features that facilitate interaction among users, such as improved messaging, reblogging, tagging, and commenting functionalities, can foster a sense of community and increase user engagement. 6. Content Moderation Tools: Given the diverse content on Tumblr, providing users with robust content moderation tools, including options for filtering, blocking, and reporting inappropriate content, can help ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all users. 7. Monetization Options for Creators: Many Tumblr users are content creators who would appreciate opportunities to monetize their content. Introducing features such as ad revenue sharing, subscription-based content, or integrated e-commerce capabilities can incentivize creators to produce high-quality content and invest more in their Tumblr presence. 8. Accessibility Features: Improving accessibility features such as alt text support for images, screen reader compatibility, and customizable text sizes and color schemes can make Tumblr more inclusive and accessible to users with disabilities. 9. Privacy and Security Enhancements: Enhancing privacy controls, data protection measures, and account security features can help users feel more confident and secure when using the platform, which is especially important given concerns about online privacy and security. 10. API and Third-Party Integration: Opening up Tumblr's API and allowing for easier integration with third-party services and apps can encourage innovation and development within the Tumblr ecosystem, providing users with more options and flexibility in how they use the platform. Overall, focusing on improving content discovery, customization options, community engagement, and user safety while also providing opportunities for creators to monetize their content can help Tumblr retain and attract users in a competitive social media landscape."

It's possible that feels alright, on first glance. But take a closer look.

Every point made is vague, and disconnected from any real life examples. In the very first point, it thinks we want better search functions (yes!) but also more algorithmic recommendations (no!). It wants us to have personalised recommendations AND better security, in fact, which are incompatible - but an LLM doesn't and can't know that. Monetisation of the platform is something that has historically faced appalling backlash from users, and this thing is suggesting ad revenue sharing and subscription services.

Because, its suggestions are generic suggestions. These are not Tumblr-specific. No mention of queerphobia, no mention of Nazis, and absolutely zero understanding of what the specific users on this site actually want.

... all of which is to say...

It's what is academically known as descriptive work. It lays out some facts, but there's no depth, no analysis, no interpretation of those facts at all. Why would we want third party integration? What apps are we calling for? Give examples. Would that aid ad-blocking? Search functions? In that case, wouldn't third-party integration be tackling the symptoms and not the cause? Shouldn't we work better ad-blocking and search functions into Tumblr at a base level?

And in school - even up to A Level - that's okay. You won't get top marks for that, because it's all too vague and too descriptive, but it's fine. School-level assignments tend to be more broad and less applied, too, which LLMs fare better with.

But in university, you start with descriptive facts, and then you are expected to analyse. If you cannot analyse, you run a very real risk of failing. Which means if you've spent your GCSEs and A Levels not bothering to learn those analytical skills and letting ChatGPT do the work for you, you are going to face an extremely uphill struggle when the expectations of study increase.

So, to round off, try not to get too discouraged. You know you aren't doing it, which means you are the one actually learning and developing and growing. Others will learn eventually, and probably more painfully. You do you!

#asks #chatgpt

[darkdemeter]

WOLF AT YOUR DOOR Pt. 2

The DARK DEMETER WRITING CATALOGUE, WANDA MAXIMOFF COLUMN (ONESHOT) #2 —

—- not my gifs, credit to original posters! -—

Wanda Maximoff x Werewolf! GN/Female/Male Reader

A/N — So this took a fucking while because I was very sick and then by the time I could write I had lost the ideas I had and the inspiration to write it. Anyway this is considered as part 2 to Wolf At Your Door but can be read as standalone I suppose. Also there is no smut for this one because I just couldn't see it being in this part. I've got 2 other Wanda oneshots coming up that will have smut, one of which may be quite long... like Habits II if I can.

WORD COUNT — 2.9k

READER DISCRETION — fluff — slightly possessive reader — Wanda and reader being a grump x sunshine couple — profanity — mention of protective reader — all about them pups really — small mention of Wanda's backstory — there's SITCOMS HERE — reader acknowledges the cheese of romcoms — marking — confessions and feels — I think that's it?

PREVIOUS COLUMN(S) — WOLF AT YOUR DOOR

SUMMARY — Never did you ever imagine that pups would become your future. No less, to Wanda Maximoff. Despite your odds and differences to begin with, perhaps you're willing to give this thing a shot.

“No.” 

It’s as simple as that as you push the trolley forward. Wanda pouts and as an act of defiance, she throws the colourful, tiny suit into the metal basket on wheels. You aren’t quick enough to repress the almost disgusted sigh. 

“What’s wrong with it?” she asks behind a scowl as you both continue your voyage down the aisle. “Yellow hurts me. Deeply.”

Was that a lie? Maybe. But did you instantly regret your answer when you see the flicker of disappointment in Wanda’s eyes? There’s no doubt about it. She reaches back into the trolley for the tiny suit, amongst the array of others you both had already picked out, most likely to place it back on the rack when you stop her. 

“Leave it.” She looks shocked when you prevent her from fishing it out of the selection. You only roll your eyes, the faintest of smirks on your lips. “I’ll just have to be blindfolded when I hold them.”

Wanda smiles a toothy smile - that perfect smile - in regards to your humour. You’d never been one at the party to crack jokes but sure as hell would win a joke match against Rhodey. Him and his fucking tank story. 

But Wanda is entertained deeply by the mental picture of you with a literal blindfold over your eyes as you cradle little wolf jr. A picture perfect snapshot already archived in the album in her mind. 

Already midway through the second trimester. Time is flying by so quickly. You both still hadn’t sorted out the crib yet and by that, you hadn’t. But all the cribs you and Wanda saw were made for one baby; two at best if you were really set on them sharing. 

But human cribs never accounted for four pups and you weren’t very impressed by the idea of building four separate cribs. Uh uh, that made your wolf brain go crazy. Your pups separated from each other? How would they bond with each other?

That was how you and Wanda got on the topic of a ‘den’ and nesting. Surprisingly she was on board with the idea from the start when you first told her your concerns about the pups being kept away from each other, that their bonding time would be hindered greatly if you both went about it the human way.

She’d agreed wholeheartedly. Not a huge case it took to convince her. 

Wanda and yourself roll into the next aisle and the first few racks were rows upon rows of socks and shoes meant to be fitted to tiny feet. 

Wanda laughs at the expression on your face and you give her a puzzling furrow, head tilting to the side like a confused dog. 

“What?”

“You,” she giggles, “didn’t expect our little rendezvous night to take so well, did you?” You merely shrug with a small noise, quick to cover it up you clear your throat loudly. 

“You brought it out of me. You should have known never to do that to a werewolf.”

Wanda smirks with a slight nod of her head. She’s double sure she doesn’t regret a single thing. There’s nothing she would trade for this feeling of her hand running over the large bump of her stomach that ferociously kicks with your pups. Four, healthy pups. 

There were still remnants of the aftershock back at the compound. The reveal that you and Wanda had slept together was talk of the compound for weeks before Wanda grew sick and with that, the test coming back positive. When you were able, Banner executed some further tests and you almost fainted right there on the spot when he congratulated on the four additions.

And not to mention the overstimulation on your part. Not only was Wanda a walking ball of ever changing hormones but you were in overdrive as well. Anytime someone made Wanda upset in the slightest you were on them in a matter of seconds. Fury had to call an emergency meeting in regards to keeping yourself in line throughout Wanda’s pregnancy. Not that it helped, you only grew to become fiercely protective over Wanda and your unborn pups. 

But for Wanda it was all she could want. Not to lie to yourself - your counsellor advised that lying to yourself is a bad habit - but you were happy as well. This was a secret dream come true. Wanda’s interest is piqued when she spots a set of black footed pyjamas with crescent moons on the pads of the feet and little pawprints scattered across the body. 

“Y/N, look!” she gapes as she holds the suit up for you to look at. Out of some maternal habit, she holds it against her bump and in that moment, it all hits you like a freight train. 

You were going to become a parent. A wolf parent. You wouldn’t be so alone anymore now with Wanda carrying your lineage within her womb. And she’s excited for it. Has been since the very beginning. To have such an opportunity before you now, you realise just how alone you were before. How fine you’d been being so alone before. 

But if you had a chance to go back in time, to stop yourself from entering Wanda’s dormitory that night, you realise now that you wouldn’t. 

Your lips part but no words come to mind. You’re drawn at a blank. All you can do is marvel at the inevitable coming of your pups. “I think we should get them, the pups will look so cute.” She grabs three more and places them in the trolley. 

‘Fucking hell…’

Wanda looks up from the haul and tilts her head curiously at the look you give her. Eyes wide, unblinking and just simply admiring her. Right there in that aisle of baby supplies. Not exactly one of those times in movies where the misunderstood, hardened love interest finally sees the sunshine protagonist in the highlight of their epiphany and has a complete one-eighty on their entire reality; but fuck, it was close enough. 

Seeing Wanda swollen large with your pups. It’s something that cannot - will not - be robbed from you. “You okay?” she asks softly and you nod slowly. 

“Yeah. Really good, actually.”

Ugh, those sitcoms and romcoms she’s made you watch are starting to rub off on you. You sound so fucking cheesy. She smiles wider this time and using a hand to flip some loose hair behind her shoulder, she beckons you to follow her. 

Maybe yellow isn’t such a bad colour. You can make it work.

Dinner time is rolling around and you check the time, just ten minutes past six. Wanda happily prepares dinner for both of you and your invited guests, her eyes occasionally lifting to watch the sitcom she’s adamant on watching.

At first, you didn’t get the fascination with a cast of characters just doing mundane things in one space only to have the laugh track and fade effect transition into the next location. 

However, Wanda was quite open with you about her life before Hydra took her and her brother. That she adored sitcoms from a young age, and one of the last memories she has is sitting down next to Peitro in front of the TV to watch an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show, her parents cuddled together on the couch. 

It was a raw scene to bear witness to. Her eyes flooded with tears. The only thing you could do in that moment was pull her to you in a tight embrace. The rest is history. One of your personal favourites was Bewitched, but you refuse to admit that to anyone. 

“How’s the project coming along?” Wanda asks as she stirs the contents in the pot around, giving it a little taste test. “It’s good,” you answer with a focused grunt, expertly working one of the last screws into place. 

“You’re following the instructions, right?” You don’t need to look at her to know her attention is elsewhere, she’s not even looking over at you. You roll your eyes, gaze momentarily glaring down at the booklet. 

You grumble to yourself under your breath. “Don’t need the instructions, werewolves don’t need fucking instructions.”

Wanda can’t suppress the grin on her lips at your huffing and wolfish grumbling. The pups were in for a treat with you, she can tell already. 

“Do human babies actually like these… knick knacks?” you ask rather unsurely. You stand the changing station up and brush your hand along the mobile. The colourful, plastic bits clink and sway. 

“Yeah!” she answers with enthusiasm. You only raise your brows more with worry. You weren’t set on having those little things dangle in front of your pups, just begging to be grabbed and chewed to bits. But that was a worried conversation for another time, a knock on the door alerts you both of your arrived company. 

You call out for them to enter as you busy yourself with putting aside the table. Natasha all but swaggers on inside, a box in her hands as her eyes glance between you and Wanda. 

“Good evening, how did the shopping go?” 

Wanda giggles at your reaction before she uses her stirring spoon to point at the haul you both had garnered today on your big voyage to the great danger beyond: the public. Sam, Steve and Clint walk in after Natasha, each wearing a smile of their own.

“You ready to have a crack at parenthood, Wolf?” Clint jokes and you shrug. “As ready as I could ever be.” 

Wanda begins serving up dinner when her eyes squint, accusation on the tip of her tongue. “We’re missing one,” she drawls and Steve chuckles lightly under the scrutiny of the witch’s gaze. 

“Bucky had to cancel last minute, small mission briefing.” Steve’s explanation is supposedly good enough for your little witch to accept but you see the judgement in her eyes. You chuckled, the wolf in your eyes spelling mischief as you look at Wanda from across the way.

“So lucky. If only I had a mission briefing too.” 

Wanda flicks her fingers at you, the tips of her fingers glowing with her scarlet magic when a knife flies your way. You catch it with a surprised guffaw. “Sweetheart, I thought we would save the knife play for later.”

Wanda looks at you with a narrowed gaze but her smirk speaks volumes to you. She’s silently challenging you and all you do is raise your brows, your tongue in your cheek. 

Sam is clearing his third plate of the masterpiece dish he insists is of five star quality. You hum teasingly under your breath, “I dunno, I think she tried to poison mine.” 

The others share in the banter with small laughs and their own opinions of their dish, all of which praise Wanda’s skills around the kitchen. 

But what was all your teasing but a mere altered projection of your deep, underlying affection for Wanda? As you talk and catch up with your friends at the dinner table, your hand seeks out Wanda’s under the table. When you find hers, your fingers intertwined together. A simple and small action but for you, it held more affection than many things that could overly express one’s love. 

You weren’t the type to show up at the door with a giant bundle of roses and balloons, with music blasting the greatest love song hits of the century. You always prefer to keep it small. Private. Intimate. 

So after another hour or so, your friends call their leave. “And remember, Tony’s hosting that huge baby shower for you guys next week,” Natasha reminds over her shoulder. A shudder attacks your spine and you inwardly growl. Tony would of course play out the entire thing as an act of being the ‘fun and cool uncle’ but really, it was another dig for getting the car done up good on your mission. 

“He knows I hate his parties,” you mumble to her once you’re both alone. She’s in the kitchen finishing up the washing when you walk up behind her. It’d been a big day for you both. It feels good for it to just be the two of you know. 

Your arms circle around her waist and pull her in close, her back flush against your front you take the opportunity to bury your nose into her neck. She giggles loudly, cringing as she tries to wriggle away from you.

“What’s wrong?” you coo with a playful nip to the shell of her ear. “I’m ticklish there!” she squeals but you continue to feign knowledge.

“Oh? Are you now?”

“Yes!”

You laugh, cool, rich and deep. A husky drawl while you continue to nuzzle into her neck, inhaling her calming scent. Your hands balance on the rise of her swollen stomach, the kicks strong and prominent against the light pressure of your hands. 

“They know it’s you,” she cannot help but say with a smile. Something about your pups being able to recognise your touch makes her heart flutter and it makes something in you inflate. Pride. 

Your pups knew you by touch already. You just knew they were excited by the mere presence of your hands - of you - being so near. You smile. “Because they know I’ll protect them. Protect you.”

“You know… you never did mark me.”

You freeze for a moment, hesitant on how to answer her. What could you say to that? But Wanda turns around to face you and draws you into a deep, passionate kiss. Her lips capture yours and her tongue teases the line of your mouth. 

“I don’t care what reservations you have about this relationship, or that you plan on sleeping with other people. But please, I just want to feel some semblance of love, that I belong to you.”

You frown at this and immediately, your hands find the edges of her jaw to lift your tearful eyes to yours. “Wanda,” you sigh in disbelief, “take a look inside. What do you see?”

She gives you a look of scepticism and you huff deeply through your nose, a wolf behaviour to further urge her to comply. She does so, closing her eyes and taking a moment to read your thoughts. This is the first time you’ve given her permission to take a look inside your mind.

“You see anyone else?” She shakes her head in response. “That’s because there is nobody else. There’s only you.”

You sink to your knees so you’re at eye level with the baby bump. Wanda watches you, eyes wide and jaw slack. Whatever antics you were getting up to, she’s at a loss. When has she ever seen you become a mushy mess for anything? When Wanda looked at you, she never put affection as part of your resume. You and the factor of affection or anything to do with a loving relationship were just two opposite ends of the spectrum.

She didn’t believe you were ever capable of such adoration and devotion. “There’s never been anyone else. It’s always just been me. That’s how it used to be before… this.” Your nose pushes against her bump and you feel the pups kick again. 

You grin this time before your eyes lift up to see Wanda, her button lip jutted out in a pout. Her bright eyes coated with hot tears.

“Little witch, I’m not… I’m still very new to all this. But I’m telling you now that I want to have a go.” You pause and swallow thickly. “I don’t want it to just be me anymore. I want it to be us.”

“Then make it an us. That’s all I want.” 

You hear the plea in her whisper and you rise up to your full height, staring down at her. Your hands cradle her face in your hold, you simply take the moment to admire in her eyes what you once mistook for lust; that you now see as love. 

“It’ll hurt for a second,” you inform her as you slowly tilt her head so her neck is bared for you. “But I promise it’ll be for just a second.”

She nods and you take that as your go ahead. This is where the lone road ends for you. No more being alone. 

She closes her eyes with the growing anticipation and you bare your prolonged fangs, inching them closer to the sensitive skin of her neck, hovering over the spot you’d nuzzled just prior. Right where she was ticklish. 

With a final, deep breath you close the distance and plunge your canines and her body locks up, a yelp on her lips you tug her in closer to you. Your body is a silent assurance that she’s alright. That she and your pups will be alright. 

She feels it in her core, a whirlwind that sweeps her like a heavy storm. Like wind blowing in her face and drawing the air from her lungs. Right beneath the surface of her skin tingles and becomes ignited with that binding fire. When you pull away with a breathless exhale, your dazed eyes glowing, it takes you a moment of swaying to become stable again.

“Fuck,” you both groan softly, noses brushing together as your lips dance over one another, their connection ghostly but the radiance of your new connection a fiery and passionate spark to the touch. 

Wanda smiles and her flushed cheeks indicate her flustered embarrassment. You chuckle deeply and lift her chin up with your fingers so she meets your hungry, wolfish gaze. 

“You’re mine now.” Her hand finds purchase on her stomach, and yours falls over the top of hers. “And they are our pups.”

Thank you for Reading! (◕ ᴥ x)

TREEHOUSE TAGLIST —

@alexawynters

#female reader #gn reader #male reader #treehouse taglist #the dark demeter writing catalogue #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x you #wanda x reader #wanda x werewolf! reader #werewolf reader #marvel #wanda maximoff #wanda marvel #wanda x y/n #werewolf #pups #pregnant wanda #marking #wanda maximoff x you

[rosamundpkes]

hi :) i love ur buffy gifs so much! they always look so nice!! would you be willing to do a coloring tutorial to show how you usually color btvs? or perhaps save the PSD the next time you gif buffy and share that?

oh i feel your pain!! and thank you so much <3

i colour each gif from scratch and don't save psds so i can't offer you something there but i've done up a buffy colouring tutorial here!!

Here's the uncoloured gif.

Step 1: The nice part about giffing Buffy is there is usually a grey or blueish grey pixel in the whites of her eyes that is perfect for a white point curves. I played around with different pixels on different points on the gif until I found one I liked.

Step 2: I always like to do the brightening first so I added on Levels and Exposure layers. BTVS has weird highlights where its very prone to white or yellow/white patches so I try to use as little as Exposure as possible but I like the Gamma Correction part.

Step 3: Channel Mixer is a lifesaver for Buffy because it usually has such a warm tint. I pretty much only use the Red and Blue settings but it helps make the gif cooler without the effects on shadows and midtones like Colour Balance.

Step 4: Selective Colour is mostly just to fix skintones and background colours. I typically wind up adjusting the cyan and yellow sliders for the reds and blues until her hair and skin looked normal. Sometimes BTVS has magenta in the shadows on her face so I increased the yellow there (while it makes sense to actual reduce the magenta, I'm going to a natural skintone not green).

You can also see that there are some white spots on her shirt, right arm, and the right part of her face. On the white, I increased the blacks and reduced the yellows to fix the colour and reduce the brightness.

Step 5: Hue/Saturation doesn't make a hugely noticeable difference here but it's a good opportunity to make final tweaks to colours and reduce overall warmth saturation. My personal preference is to have lower red/yellow saturation so I lowered that and made slight Hue adjustments (the yellows were still a little red for my liking). There was also some magenta in her eyes and teeth so I completely lowered the saturation and upped the brightness to fix that.

Step 6: The gif is still a little dark for my liking so I threw on a final Levels layer to brighten up her face. Usually, I would use exposure but if I did that I would end up with some serious white patches.

And that's it!! Each Buffy gif is slightly different but I would suggest making the gifs cooler and increasing the brightness through Curves and Levels without using Exposure.

#gif tutorial #tutorial #tutorials #photoshop tutorial #coloring tutorial #hella's inbox #anonymous #hope it helps!!

[tommykinrd]

abi! I love this buddie x reputation set you made a few months ago! (/post/716233266609438720/) I was wondering how you did the two-column text that runs along the right side of each gif? thank you!!!

ahh thank you renee!! here's a quick tutorial for how to get this newspaper effect from my reputation gifset! luckily i saved the resources i used for this, but it's also easy enough to find on google if you want a different look!

Explanation under the cut!

Prepare your base gif + your overlay

So here i've got my base gif prepared with the colouring, and I'll be using a newspaper image as my overlay.

This is the overlay I used, but I'm pretty sure I just googled "New York Times" and cropped the heading out. I found that actually googling a newspaper gave me better results than just searching "newspaper overlay" because I wanted the text to be small enough to be illegible while also having an 'old' newspaper look.

2. Applying the overlay

So I open up the overlay in photoshop, and then copy and paste it onto my gif and position it where I want it to go.

I then hit command + i (ctrl + i) to invert the colours of the overlay so that it becomes white text on a black background.

Now I just set the layer's blending mode to screen and set it to 70% opacity (depending on your preference).

3. Fade-in mask (optional)

I didn't like the hard edge of the text and wanted it to match the reputation cover which has a slight fade in for the overlay. So all I did was create a layer mask using the icon at the bottom of the layers panel.

I then used the gradient tool with the black to transparent gradient set.

And then with your layer mask selected, draw a straight line (click on the shift key while you're drawing) from slightly outside your newspaper to slightly inside your newspaper. So in the screenshot below I clicked where the left side of that red line is, and dragged my gradient tool to the right side of the red line.

This is how the overlay looks after, as well as my layers panel.

Hopefully this made sense! Let me know if you have any questions!

#answered #swearphil #*tutorial #alielook #userdean #usernik #userriel #usersalty #userraffa #usercats

[drinkcrywrite]

"When I’m queen, I will create a new order."

ID under cut

[image description: 4 large blended gifs of Rhaenyra Targaryen from House of the Dragon. Each gif is a blend of 2 different gifs and coloured dark red. Gif 1: A shot of young Rhaenyra from the end of episode one, standing in front of the Iron Throne in full regalia as she is named heir. She opens her eyes, looking at the floor, and takes a deep breath before looking forward. Blended over the left side of her face is a shot of adult Rhaenyra from episode 10, standing in the hall in Dragonstone wearing her crown. She looks down at the painted table before, assessing their position, before looking forward. Over the middle of the gif is the word "Rhaenyra" written in red capital gothic style letters. Gif 2: A shot of young Rhaenyra from episode two, standing on the walkway to dragonstone. She tilts her head as she speaks to Daemon off-screen. Blended over the right side of her face is a shot of young Rhaenyra from episode 3, sitting in the small council room. She tilts her head, eyes just slightly teary, as she talks to Viserys off-screen. Over the middle of the gif is the words, "The Realm's Delight" written in red script. Gif 3: A shot of adult Rhaenyra from episode ten, standing in the hall at Dragonstone, looking forward in shock after hearing that Viserys has died. Blended onfer the left side of her face is a shot of adult Rhaenyra from episode ten, standing on the walkway to Dragonstare, glaring at Otto off-screen. Over the middle of the gif is the words, "The Half-Year Queen" written in red script. Gif 4: A shot of adult Rhaenyra from episode seven, sitting in her room at Driftmark after having her arm stitched up, looking at Laenor off-screen. Blended over the right side of her face is a shot of young Rhaenyra from episode two, standing to the side in the Small Council room, looking betrayed after learning Daemon stole her dead brother's egg. Over the middle of the gif is the word "Targaryen

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotdedit #houseofthedragonedit #targaryensource #targnation #rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyratargaryenedit #userbbelcher #chewieblog #cinematv #femalecharacters #ladiesofcinema #userbecca #*gifs

[pumpkzsafeplace]

a│s : agere & headspaces

sometimes those who are unfamiliar with agere can get a little confused when they discover that there are a varied amount of different headspaces one could have as an age regressor.

so pumpkin's here to describe & explain them so it makes a little bit more sense! <3 (fyi, these are my own descriptions with my own nicknames! your's may be different & that's okay!!)

what are headspaces?

headspaces are what littles experience when they age regress.

each headspace can differ depending on what age they regress too, how they regress etc <3.

no little is the same, but it's a good idea to have a broader knowledge on the topic so you can pick up on similiar characteristics! <3

what causes different headspaces?

headspaces can differ depending on why the individual is regressing in the first place. for example, a vast majority of littles regress to the time when their inner child suffered the most. some others may just feel more comforted and safe in that age bracket!

it completely depends on the little <3

age regression vs age dreaming.

age regression and age dreaming are two terms that are commonly mixed up, so here's a simple explanation for those who are wondering!

age regression is when an indivudal regresses to a younger mindset.

age dreaming is when somebody enjoys child-like things, child-like aesthetics but doesn't actually regress into that younger mindset.

both are completely valid, just a little different! <3

involuntary vs voluntary vs impure regression

involuntary & voluntary are also terms that can sometimes be confused, so here's another simple description <3.

voluntary regression is regression that happens because you want to regress. it's usually filled with usual regression acitivties that create a fun and happy experience for the little.

involuntary regression happens when you're not expecting it, when regression takes you by suprise suddenly. for example, when you're in school, work, or just in an environment where you don't want to regress right now.

impure regression is a negative experience that littles can sometimes experience. it can be a trigger response to a certain topic that can result in panic attacks, feelings of claustrophobia, dizzyness & sickness.

the different age headspaces

these are all my own adapations! they may not be completely accurate!! <3

baby bee headspaces (baby)

baby bee headspaces are headspaces where the regressed individual has reverted back to a baby-like state of mind. their speech will be limited, if not used at all & they will rely on specific gear to help!

little ones headspaces (1 - 5)

little ones headspaces will have more speech involved, but it may be broken and they may struggle with certain words. they enjoy acitivties such as colouring, watching cartoons, playing hide n seek etc! <3

baby bugs headspeaces ( 5 - 10)

baby bugs headspace are for littles who regress to a slightly older age. they may be able to speak a little better and they may enjoy more physcial activites such as going on walks, playing outside etc!

they might still enjoy the comfort of their gear though! particually on bad days! <3

bigger bugs headspaces ( 10 - 15+ )

those who regress to bigger bug headspaces may enjoy some older activties! such as playing their favourite video games to regress, enjoying their favourite book, i've known some to enjoy horror (like watching video game playthroughs of their favourite youtuber/streamer!)

like i said earlier, headspaces differ to each indivudal. you don't have to stick to the specific descriptions of your headspace. do what makes you feel comfortable & happy! since that's the end goal of regression <3

gif isn't mine

#age regression #sfw age regression #sfw little community #sfw agere #safe agere #sfw little blog #agere community #agere blog #agere little #sfw little post #age regression blog #age regressor #age re safe space #age re blog #age regressive #agere sfw #sfw agereg #agere #agere lifestyle #sfw regression #ageregression #sfw little one #sfw interaction only #sfw furry #sfw little stuff #sfw littlespace #sfw only #sfw blog #pet regression #sfw caregiver

[madame-fear]

⚠️ GIF NOT MINE, CREDITS TO OWNER / I DON'T TAKE REQUESTS FOR GOT ⚠️

─────────────────────

“You've been pushing me away the whole week, Brandon! What in the Seven Hells is wrong with you?”

Tension continously grew in the room. After noticing how Bran kept avoiding you through the entire week, you finally found a moment where you could discuss about it, without anybody bothering you. He didn't answer to you, or even look at you. He kept staring through the window.

“What's wrong, Bran? Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry–” Before you could continue speaking, Bran finally turned around to look at you. “You didn't do anything wrong, (Y/N).” You slightly tilted your head to your side at his simple response. “Why would you want to be with me, anyways?” Having known him since childhood, you knew that by the look his eyes were giving you, he was being serious. You slowly walked towards him, grabbing a chair that was sitting nearby, and placing it right in front of him so you could sit. “Bran, I don't understand–”

“Why would you waste time being with a cripple? We can't do anything fun together. I can't go out and explore the world with you, we can't climb together like we used to, we can't do anything together!” You tried to catch his attention in the middle of his self-ranting by calling him by his name, but it passed as unnoticed. “How can someone like you possibly want to be with someone like me? I'm just a burden, I should've died–”

“Brandon! Stop it, listen to me!” Cutting him right in the middle of his speech, you finally snapped at him, whom stared at you with surprise and wide eyes. Pinching the bridge of your nose and deeply sighing, you tried to properly rearrange all the thoughts racing through your mind. You had so many things to show him just how much you loved him, but you didn’t know where to start. “I. love. you, Brandon Stark. I love you because you’re different to the other boys I’ve met in my life. I don’t care if your legs work or not, I love you because of just who you are, and I couldn’t possibly want you any other way.” Leaning closer to him, you reached for his hand ─ lightly squeezing it, and with your free hand, you softly began to caress it. Before you kept speaking, you guided his hand to your lips, and placed a gentle kiss to his knuckles, smiling to yourself as you noticed how a rosy shade began growing on his cheeks. “I promise, I’ll always stick to your side no matter what happens. I’ll stay with you in the good, and the bad moments. My love for you is beyond any possible barrier, it’s free from all earthly and mundane stains. There are no words that could truly define and express the way I feel for you...I love you.”

You meant every single word. It didn’t matter to you if he returned back the feelings, the only thing you could hope for, was that he realised how lovestruck you were for him. It was rather a love confession, in proper terms.

“Do you...really mean it?” A spark of hope shined in his coffee-coloured eyes. Positively taken aback from your sudden confession, Bran hoped that each one of your words were all true, even if deep down inside, he knew you were being purely honest. Smirking, you slightly scoffed at his sweet, remaining innocence. Without having anything else to tell him, your free hand reached to lovingly stroke his soft, slightly reddish cheek. Leaning closer to him, you took a few seconds to admire his plushy, pink lips; before you crashed your lips into his. You had been desiring for too long to kiss his lips, and here you were.

As amused as he was at first, it didn’t take him long to slowly melt under your touch, giving into the kiss. The kiss was intoxicating by how needy it felt, making it obvious to you, that he had been desiring for this moment to happen as well. His hand reached for your face as well, sloppily tucking a strand of hair that covered your face behind your ear. The kiss tasted like pure, needy young love. A type of love you would’ve never thought you’d ever feel or meet in your entire life. As much as you wanted it to continue, you had to gently break the kiss apart due to lack of air from both of you. Pulling apart from the kiss, he slowly opened once again his eyes, bringing himself back to reality. Bran deeply sighed, being absolutely lovestruck for you, and stared at you with the purest type of love you could ever see in someone's eyes.

“Does this answer your question, Bran?”

─────────────────────

hi hi!! oh god this was my very first Bran Stark imagine. This turned out to be a bit longer than i expected! But anywayssss, hope you all enjoyed it! :"") <33 It's also the first time using the 'imagine' banners and you all have NO idea how proud i am of itttt

also, not proofread; so if you see any grammar or spelling mistakes, big apologies! I wrote this while i was supposed to be in uhm – virtual classes. But in my defense!! I quickly wrote (finished, actually) this in a 5 min break the teachers gave us, so it's all good i suppose :)

#game of thrones x reader #game of throne imagines #game of thrones imagine #bran stark x reader #bran stark x you #bran stark imagine #bran stark imagines #brandon stark x reader #brandon stark imagine #Brandon stark imagines #got x reader #Got imagine #Got imagines #house stark x reader

[saw-x]

how do you blend your gifs so well? this is something ive been trying to learn but it's so hard. when the gif starts over again and the background that i hadn't deleted shows up it just becomes annoying and covers up everything and is a mess

thank you so much!!! I actually used to have so much trouble with blending gifs (I still do a little tbh) so this means a lot to me 🥺.

Here are some links to tutorials which helped me out when I was learning (x, x, x) plus one I found now which may also be helpful (x).

I've also included my own basic process below the cut with screenshots of what I do to get the below gif. I hope this helps :)

I'm going to keep this fairly basic as I don't have any of my psds saved - so not going to show any of my colouring or basic gif process. A side note: typically I find if you want to do like double exposure gifs I find I have better results if one of the gifs is in bw. This is just a basic blending tutorial and will not go that much into that - but there are similar basic principles applied to making those gifs.

So I start with two gifs that I want to blend. I generally make these gifs the same size and roughly the same number of frames. If your gifs aren't the same number of frames you'll end up with an empty spot on your canvas when the shorter gif finishes (not what we want of course).

Typically if I want my two gifs to be next to each other on the final product I will crop them towards one side so they are easier to lay on top of one another (see below for how I have cropped them). This also minimises how much you will have to delete.

I then colour these gifs as normal - if they are from two separate scenes I do this separately for each gif. Once I am done with the basic gif colouring I highlight all the layers and right click to bring up menu options. I then select 'covert to smart object' so it is easier to work with. For these I am going very minimal with just a curves layer and then I'll add a vibrance layer on top of the canvas with both gifs.

After that's done I have my two basic gifs. I drag one out of the workspace so I can drag the smart object I have created from the layers panel on top of the other gif.

After placing the gif on top I set the layer blending mode of the top layer to 'Screen'. This results in something like this:

In order to erase some of the background that I don't want in the gif I create a layer mask on each layer by clicking on the layer and clicking the layer mask button (the little button highlighted with a circle inside the rectangle).

This gives you this:

Now basically I go on the masks and 'erase' bits of the gif I don't want to show up by using a black paintbrush. I can restore anything by painting over it in white. A really useful tip I've also picked up if if you use lighter/darker shades of grey the blending result will be different (the darker it is the more masked it is).

For the below gif I moved the left gif slightly more to the left and painted a mask over the gif border. I also masked over the background that was covering Ricky's face. The below example is using a black mask for both.

If I were to use grey in the layer mask I would get something like this:

The background is not as prominent but you can still see it coming through. Typically when I make my gifsets I use a lot of different shades to get the exact result I want.

You can also see in my vid timeline that I specifically used the same number of screencaps for each scene so the blending should be seamless.

If the scenes were slightly different lengths I would just move the timeline bar to end where the shorter gif ends (like below).

this is the final result i end up with:

I really hope this makes sense - I kinda suck at explaing things so if you have any other questions feel free to ask :)

#asks #ps help #resources #tutorials #completeresources #allresources #usergif #resourcemarket #chaoticresources #photoshop tutorial #*mine

[renjunniez]

Hiii, just gotta say, I LOVED your Wendy gifset and I was wondering how you got them to look that pretty?? They looks soft and detailed and like, real? Hehe I hope you can help me out, idk what I've been doing wrong with mine that are looking like shit so, help me out please

henlo anon!

when i first started gif-making, my gifs weren't the bestest either! it's a process and i think you'll get better at it w practice and trying new things !! <3 i'll throw in a bunch of pointers a lot of CCs gave me when i first started giffing and some of my opinions under the cut!

also this is definitely Not a link to download photoshop 2022 for free that i definitely didn't use as an upgrade two weeks ago

what you'll need to know before going through this long long rant of mine:

basic photoshop giffing skills

knowledge of smart filters and blending options

some patience (to hear my nonsense)

interest in maybe picking up new software

disclaimer: image heavy!

1. always use videos in their highest quality!

hq videos = hq gifs! i do not recommend using videos below 720p! also if you use photoshop, the number of colours in the gif is limited 268, meaning that sometimes your gifs can lose quality in export, and that could make lower quality videos look worse! (for eg. the video i sourced the wendy set from was 4k that i downloaded from 4kvideodownloader)

here's links to download:

4kvideodownloader

sophistagram (for vlives)

weverse lives download tutorial

twitter video downloader

a smol opinion: i've seen a lot of users use tumblr mobile, and noticed that gifs on tumblr mobile are always a little blurred out? this kind of makes the gifs look less clear </3 so using higher quality videos always helps!

2. vapoursynth / avisynth / km player!

these are softwares to sharpen and denoise your videos! they're completely optional (i used to gif with photoshop alone for the longest time) but they do make quite a lot of difference!

i highly recommend you to check the tutorials below!

gif-making with vapoursynth tutorial by @wonublr

gif-making with avisynth tutorial by @soonhoonsol

gif-making with km player (and vapoursynth!) tutorial by @woozi

a smol opinion: i've never used km player, so i don't have much to say about it. as for avisynth, it's pretty easy to work with, the only down side is that there are no denoise options. vapoursynth has both and is very user-friendly, but i found the shift from avisynth to vapoursynth slightly confusing!

these are my usual settings for vapoursynth:

3. gif sizes!

a very big (and maybe bullshit) opinion:

now, tumblr recommends you size your gifs this way:

(img src)

but it,, doesn't necessarily have to be that way 👁

i really like to fuck around and use whatever size i want for my 268px and my 177px gifs, and the wendy set was no exception! the size of each gif in the set was 400px X 580px!! this, in my opinion, makes it easier to view them (a lot more clear, you could say) :o

as for my 540px gifs, they remain the same size!

4. sharpening on photoshop!

i would always recommend you to sharpen your gifs again on photoshop. tumblr LOVES reducing gif quality, so i resharpen to give my gifs some 'depth'

this is how i usually sharpen my gifs:

(the gif above was sharpened and denoised on vs w the settings mentioned above!)

step 01:

after you're done converting your gif into a smart object on photoshop, we'll add a layer of smart sharpen. these are my settings:

step 02: more... smart sharpen :eye: :

step 03: high pass (optional tbh)

imp: don't forget to change the blending to soft light / overlay (i prefer the former)

now the gif looks like this:

something to note: i like switching up my opacity levels on these settings, and usually only ever change the radius and strength of the sharpening!

here's a few more sharpening tutorials:

sharpening tutorial by @/woozi

tutorial by @/hellboys

tutorial by @yutaslaugh

5. colouring!

colouring plays a huge role in making your gifs look sharper and cleaner! this is your playground, and this is the area you have the most freedom to change, and zuzsh up things the way you like them!

generally, i like to draw the attention to the person i'm giffing, so i make sure to set the contrasts right! i also extremely like making the colours cooler, so that it seems more natural!

the layers i use most are:

curves (on auto)

more cuves (using the eyedroppers to set my black, grey and white points)

selective colour (to change contrasts, to recolour skin)

colour balance (to balance my shadows and highlights)

levels (for brightness, contrast and depth!)

i'm not extremely good at colouring either, so here are some more in depth colouring tutorials (i'm terrible at explaining i'm so sorry sksjkd):

colouring tutorial by @/jihan

south-east asian celeb colouring tutorial by @/blueshelp

and here's some pre-made psd packs!:

psd pack by @/kpopco

psd pack by @shuatonin

psd pack by @coupsnim

psd pack by @/wonublr

closing ments:

if you've made it this far, thank you! i'm not extremely great at explaining things, but i hope you found this 'tutorial' useful! (extremely confused what this is tbh it feels like i'm rambling sgkfjsh)

here's a few more tutorials (kinda unrelated) that i found useful and fun!:

tutorial to fix grainy gifs

tutorial to remove panning from gifs

animated text tutorial

gif + more effects tutorial

#n.asks #from: anonie #i really hope i made some sense to you fjkshkfjhs :sob:

[branzinos]

I really love your colouring on the ww and m& Gary gifset… what did you do?

Nothing special! Abbott sometimes has some fairly harsh colour grading but different colours and levelsfor each scene so I don't have a one size fits all psd for it. so first off I use selective colour to try and reduce that - usually scenes are too yellow or too blue, so I slide around to whatever is opposite on the colour wheel to reduce it. when skintones and stuff look more normal I then can change it to look more how I like it, which typically means I use another selective colour layer to noodle around with the red and yellow channels to warm it back up. often I go by Melissa's hair as a yardstick, which I tend to push more into a slightly pinker/purpler auburn tone instead of orange. and I also futz with the black and white levels in selective colour which sharpens the overall contrast. I then add a curves layer and increase the exposure to lighten.

with this being a black centric show it's important to be mindful of not whitewashing or making black characters appear too pink - there are some tutorials and premade actions on Tumblr for how to avoid this if you Google search - bare in mind most premade psds and tutorials on here, especially pastelly ones, are designed almost exclusively for white/pale skintones and you see a lot of Abbott gifs where unfortunately the black cast members' skin is grey or pink toned as a result, because people use presets not designed for dark skin. If you want to use premade colouring layers you can look for packs that specify being dark skintone friendly or designed by poc creators - most PSD archive blogs now have tags for this - but I don't use any premade psds I just go by eye. For gifs with Ava, who's skintone is cooler, I manage blue levels because that's complimentary for her, but for gifs with Barbara I manage the red and yellows and try to keep her from looking too pink - the black slider on all the colour channels in selective colour is your friend here, don't be afraid of it - it increases the vibrancy and contrast without being overly saturated. exposure is important for this too.

if necessary I also might up the vibrancy in the saturation levels but selective colour usually manages that. finally I go through the various channels in the hue/saturation slider to reduce some colours that arent really needed (often magenta, green, cyan) which cuts down on the gif filesize and makes the overall rendered gif clearer when you're trying to get under 10mb - you can see what colours are artifacting and increasing the colours unnecessarily by temporarily setting saturation to full and reducing the levels accordingly (like one area will have a bunch of green spots for no reason). and of course I also sharpen, usually two smart sharpens and sometimes a high pass filter. I do have an action for this and don't know my settings off the top of my head but there are downloadable actions people have shared on here similar to mine. but that's about it!

[expelliarmus]

#mine #doctor who #dwedit #matt smith #jenna louise coleman #flashing gif #the colouring is again slightly different in each gif lol #the doctor: this is fine #clara: NO IT'S NOT #so today i tried to buy sdcc tickets and i managed to get in right when all the badges sold out u____u #i will try again in november with the open registration but.... BIG SIGH #and then i went to vote in the civic election #and then i got some jabs in my arms #and i had some starbucks with my friend and then later i got some bubble tea with my family #it was a very busy day!!!!!

[hardlyinteresting]

No Rest For the Weary

(GIF from @pedrohub )

Frankie Morales x Female!reader (no Y/N)

And then the baby cries. He can't help the way his body nearly jumps at the sudden burst of noise through the baby monitor. But in a way, it soothes him, a final reminder of where he is, who he is. A reminder that there is life beyond the chaos and bloodshed played on repeat in his head. Warnings: nightmares, mentions/description of blood/violence, Tom, the reader is Frankie's wife and mother of his child (implied afab reader), implications of past drug use, mention of religion (Christianity) I think that's everything. If you want me to add anything just let me know!

“Frankie, Frankie!” his name is being called from somewhere in the distance, somewhere beyond the howling wind. It’s cold. So cold. “Frankie!” the voice calls again. His eyes snap open. Tom? The man shakes him by his shoulders. “What’s happening?” Frankie begs for an update, “Tom?” He gets no response, just Tom shaking, shaking, shaking him. Staring blankly down at him, blood dripping from his face. “Tom? Talk to me! What’s going on?” His heart pounds as he tries desperately to sit up and look around, but Tom holds him down, not moving. Not speaking. The wind howls. “Frankie!” The voice from before calls again. “Pope?” Frankie tries, “Will? Benny?” Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Just Tom. Bleeding. God, he’s bleeding so much. “Frankie!”

His eyes open again, only this time it’s for real. He hopes it’s real. The familiar cream-coloured walls, a soft pillow beneath his head. His skin is sticky with sweat, his heart racing, breaths coming in huffs and puffs. “Frankie?” the voice is closer now. Softer, gentler, but more in focus, more tangible than his dream. “Precosia?” “Yeah, I’m right here,” she whispers. It takes him a second, but then he’s taking her hand. Holding tightly, grounding himself to the feeling of her thumb rubbing gentle circles on the back of his hand, the other hand combing through his curls, as they have many times before. He missed this when he was gone. 

They lay like that, only silence between them. The speed of his breathing slowly returns to normal, and he’s reminded of all the times they’ve laid like this before. An uncountable number of nights long before this last mission, long before the baby was born, before they got married. Just being, trying to reconnect with real life in the aftermath of their traumas. Nightmares and flashbacks, both of their minds so vicious in the limbo of sleep. They hold each other, real-life seeping back in. 

And then the baby cries. He can't help the way his body nearly jumps at the sudden burst of noise through the baby monitor. But in a way, it soothes him, a final reminder of where he is, who he is. A reminder that there is life beyond the chaos and bloodshed played on repeat in his head.

“I'll get her,” she speaks softly, giving his hand a good squeeze before pulling away. Rolling out of bed, leaving the left side of his body cold. 

“Can you bring her in here?” He hesitates to ask.

But she smiles softly, nodding, “she probably just needs fed. I'll be back in a second”. 

He watches in awe as his wife feeds and burps, and changes the baby. Her smile is infectious as she helps him settle the baby against his chest, before snuggling back down into the duvet, tucking herself against his side. She does her best to stay awake, but he can see the way her eyes start to betray her, fluttering shut. “Sleep,” he whispers. “You okay?” She asks, eyes still shut. “I’m okay. Sleep. I love you”. “Love you, Frankie”. 

He doesn’t dare to fall asleep again. Instead, he occupies his mind thinking of things that need to be done around the house; he makes a mental inventory of errands to run, lightbulbs to change, and dripping taps to fix. The baby stirs, wiggling into a slightly different position, her big brown eyes peering up at him. “It’s too early to be awake, sweetheart,” he mumbles as she nuzzles against him. He pays more attention to her breathing, waiting until she’s fallen asleep again before bringing his hand up to rest on her back. She’s grown so much since he last saw her, but she’s still so tiny, so fragile. He thinks about how his hand covers most of her little body. He thinks about how he wishes that he could hold his wife impossibly closer than she is already. His whole world is laying in his arms right now. This is what he lives for. 

It had been easy enough for him to convince himself that the nightmares would pass. That these flashbacks were going to fade. He'd worked so hard to “get better” before, he could do it again. Right? But they don't pass. They get worse; more vivid, more violent. It's been two weeks now and he tries not to sleep. He holds his wife, and stares at the ceiling. Insisting that he'll get up and look after the baby when she cries, or starts to stir. And then he sits in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, the tiny baby curled against his chest, tucked beneath his chin. He relaxes his shoulders inhaling the soft scent of baby powder. Placing gentle kisses to the top of her head, holding back his breathy laughs when the soft tufts of her hair tickle his nose. But calm as he is, he doesn't sleep. He holds himself to wakefulness. Keeping watch.

His lack of sleep doesn't go unnoticed. The dark circles under his eyes seem to get darker every day. Each morning she wakes to find his side of the bed vacant, and the nursery empty. Frankie greets her in the kitchen with their daughter. Pouring coffees and making breakfast. He's shaky and high-strung. An anxious energy follows him like a low-pitched ‘buzz’. She does her best to ignore it. To let him work it out on his own. If he wants her help, he'll ask for it. Right? But her own anxiety builds as weeks become months. She tries to remind herself that they've been here before, that this too shall pass. But still, she worries. And him too taking phone calls and leaving the room, and his new habit of late-night drives set off the alarm bells in her head. They've been here before, and her heartaches at the thought. She tries to shake it, push it to the back of her mind, and push the nausea back down. 

It's not that she's ashamed of him, or cross with him. Never. Not Frankie. But the idea of him being in that much pain again; the idea of him using again to escape that pain is what makes her angry. Furious. 

She listens as the front door opens and closes downstairs. The sound of Frankie checking the lock before he pads as quietly as possible up the old farmhouse steps to the second floor. So quiet, so precise, so careful with every step. There's no question that he was a soldier, passing silently through the house for anyone with an untrained ear. But she hears him. He passes their bedroom and continues down the hall to the nursery. 

And that's where she finds him, leaning over the crib. 

“Frankie?” She whispers as she enters the room not wanting to startle him. 

“What are you doing up, baby?” He asks turning to look at her, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Sweet, sweet, soft she thinks, a gentle smile gracing her lips as she nears him, wrapping her arms around his middle, her face squished against his back. 

“She's so peaceful,” he says, one strong hand resting so gently on the sleeping baby's belly, rising and falling with her little breaths. 

“I love you,” he says after a moment, “both of you. So much”.

“I love you too Frankie. And the baby does too,” she assures him, giving him a squeeze, “I was thinking about her name. Her birth certificate has to be sent in by the end of next week”.

“I can't believe it's been three months already,” Frankie sighs. 

“I was thinking we should name her after your mother, Frankie”.

He stills, thinking for a moment, “you would do that for me?”

“Your mother was a wonderful woman, and Isabella is a beautiful name. Our daughter deserves a beautiful name”.

“Isabella,” he mumbles, looking down at his daughter, trying out the name. It's perfect. 

It's the first time since he's been home that he looks truly relaxed even if it's just for a moment. 

“Come to bed,” she says. 

“I will in a minute,” he promises. 

It's almost an hour later before he crawls into bed with her. He knows she's still awake so he just holds his arm open knowing she'll tuck herself against his side. She does.

“Frankie?”

“Mm?” 

“You know you can talk to me about it, right? You know that?”

His breath hitches, “yeah, I know Cariño”.

His promise calms her enough for her to submit to sleep. He lays awake. 

He's been meeting his sponsor every night for weeks now. The nightmares got worse, and his sobriety token started to weigh heavy in his pocket. He knows she worries. He should tell her. But, he can't bring himself to. A deep and sinking part of him feels more ashamed now than he ever has for needing help. In the past he had opened himself up, let her in, let her help shoulder the load. But it doesn't feel so simple anymore. This wasn't a mission he went into with the flag on his shoulder, it was about greed and self-profit. The choices he made weren't orders from his superiors; or his government. And there's a guilt that lingers every time he looks at Isabella. How many weeks had his wife looked after her all alone, without rest? She asked him not to go and he should've listened. He can't ask for her help now. What good has he done? What has he done to deserve her help? He’d only agreed to go because they needed the money because he fucked up badly enough that his license was in jeopardy. And what good did that do? He came home with no money, a license still under review, and nightmares that he knows he's letting dig a trench between him and her. He doesn't deserve her.  How could he? Right? 

His mind wanders from one self-deprecating thought to the other until the sun starts to rise and his eyes finally flutter shut. 

He's pressed against a rock wall, the path only barely a foot wide. The wind hisses, and the cold mountain air burns his cheeks. 

“Keep moving!” Tom yells nudging him forward.

“I can't! There's nowhere left to go!” He yells back his heart racing as he looks down at the valley in front of him, and the rocky drop beside him. 

“We need to keep going!” Tom says. 

“Keep going!” Tom insists. 

“I can't!” Frankie pleads.

Tom nudges him again, the mountain shelf crumbling beneath him. 

Pop! 

Blood rushes down Tom's face and he stumbles forward, blank-faced, falling against Frankie. And then they're both falling. Falling. Falling. Falling. It doesn't stop. Just falling into pitch blackness. 

When Frankie's eyes open, his heart is pounding, and he can hear his own breathing. It's light outside now, and he can hear his wife in the kitchen downstairs. This is the third nightmare in the last couple of days. Weeks since he's returned home, and still, nothing is normal. His breathing slows as he lays on his back staring at the ceiling fan, but the shaky feeling lingers in all of his limbs. His fingertips feel like tv static and he can't make it stop. 

Dressed in his usual jeans and t-shirt he's quick to head downstairs throwing on his baseball cap, his truck keys in hand. He does his best to ignore his wife's concerned gaze when he kisses her, 

“Gotta run some errands. Home soon,” is all he says before he's out the door.

Talk to me! She wishes. Don’t lay awake. Don’t walk away. Tell me where you’ve been going. Anything more than one-word answers would be enough. But, the silence is suffocating.

There was a rocky period just before the baby was born when he relapsed. It probably didn't even count as a relapse because he never even ended up using what he had bought before he got caught. But, it's been years since she's seen him this bad. So nervous, so shaky, and uncertain with every move. So afraid to sleep, to share what's been haunting him. She realizes that he hasn't told her everything about what happened on the mission, but she knows it wasn't good. Tom came home in a body bag, and Santiago ended up in Australia. She hadn't seen the Miller brothers since they came home, but she imagines they aren't feeling great either. 

The idea of Frankie using again haunts her. It gnaws away at the back of her mind, and she can feel tears gathering at just the thought of him being in that much pain again. Frankie deserves better. 

The worry, while it feels selfish, lingers too. A worry that she isn’t enough for him. That her support and her love might not be enough to save him this time. She tries to stop it with all of her might, but the fear also creeps in. A fear that one day, one night, he might not come home. She had been half-frozen by that prospect every time he’d been deployed, that one day it would be a folded flag returning home instead of him. But now, her unease manifests in visions of a police officer knocking on her door late at night, the chance of her having to raise their daughter alone. It’s been more than a month since he returned home, and now she begins to wonder how long this can go on before one of them breaks. 

Tears spring to her eyes regularly over the course of the day, and she finds herself sniffling while she makes dinner, rocking the baby in one arm, stirring the pot of pasta sauce with the other. And when Frankie shuffles in, shoulders more relaxed than they had been when he left, dinner has been ready for more than an hour. Isabella bathed and laid down for the night. They eat in silence and go to bed, tracing the crown moulding with their eyes, unable to fall asleep. His hand envelopes hers. They stay silent.

Six months. He’s still unable to believe that Isabella has been in the world for half a year. She’s grown so much right in front of his very eyes, without him noticing. He’s never felt love like he does when he holds her. Being a father isn't something he ever expected for himself. In his younger years, he'd never considered a future. He lived one day to the next. And every day after his first deployment was uncertain. His only goal had been to get the job done and stay alive. His wife had stumbled into his life and had changed things; it put the longevity of life into perspective, tomorrow was suddenly something to look forward to, something to plan for. And the baby. Looking down at his daughter cooing and wiggling in his arms, he knows that he needs to be around. To see her continue to grow. In the five weeks, he'd been on the mission he'd missed so much. He won't let that happen again. 

“I think it's time for bed,” his wife smiles in the doorway to the nursery, loving the happy noises the baby is making at the silly faces Frankie pulls. 

“It's a big day tomorrow,” she continues, crossing the room to stand next to Frankie. Her hand rested on his back, mindlessly rubbing soothing circles. 

“Your Mama wants to ruin our fun,” he whispers to Isabella. As he settles her down. Despite her clapping and giggles moments earlier she's clearly tired, her eyes falling shut almost as soon as he puts her down in the crib. 

“You're a good dad, Frankie”.

“I hope so”.

“You are,” she promises. 

He watches as she moves silently around the room collecting what she’ll need for tomorrow, laying the Christening gown out flat across the top of the dresser. It won’t be a big affair, it’s more of a technicality anyway; for his mom and dad. Devote until their last breaths, Frankie knows it would’ve been important to them. And luckily, his wife agreed, more than happy to sift through boxes of stuff in the attic to find the same Christening gown that Frankie had worn as a baby. He doesn’t know what he believes in anymore. Bits and pieces of a lot of things. He has faith, but it’s been hard not to let it shake. He just hopes and prays he can be half the husband, and father he wants to be. 

“Frankie,” a voice calls in a near whisper, somewhere in front of him. It’s hard to see, a thick layer of fog settling into the valley where he walks forward blindly. He walks towards the voice. “Tom?” Frankie calls spotting him about ten feet away. The man doesn’t answer, his back turned to Frankie. “Frankie,” the voice breathes again. He looks to his left and right, Pope, and the Millers stand next to him, all three entirely silent. He addresses them, but no response, their eyes fixed on where Tom stands. Waiting. Waiting for what? Tom’s hands wave animatedly, he’s speaking to someone. Who? Frankie tries to move forward but he can’t it’s like his legs are frozen, completely unwilling to move from where they’ve stopped. “Tom?” he tries again, his voice straining this time. Pop. Pop. 

Two shots. Tom falls. And there she is. No. No. She can’t be here. His darling wife. Why is she here? “Frankie!” she screams, the cry echoing through the hills, reverberating in his chest. She clutches her chest, blood seeping out from between her fingers. No. No. No. She can’t be. She shouldn’t be here. “Frankie!” she sobs. He wills his legs to move, but they don’t. He tries to yell but no sound comes out. Reaching out with both hands in a desperate attempt to touch her, his own hands suddenly covered in blood, dripping down his forearms. All he can do is watch as she collapses. 

He bolts upright in bed, immediately staring at his hands. It was a nightmare. Thank God it was a nightmare, He thinks. “Nightmare?” her voice startles him. He swallows hard willing the tears to leave his eyes. He nods. In an instant she’s scooting closer to him, leaning over him to turn on the bedside lamp. “What do you need?” she asks genuinely. Eyes wide with worry, he knows there isn’t a single thing she wouldn’t do for him. “I just want to hold you Precosia. Is that okay?” “Yeah baby, that’s okay,” she smiles, burrowing down into her favourite spot against his side. “I love you so much,” he says suddenly. “I love you too, Frankie. So much”. 

As planned, and predicted the Christening service is short and sweet. No big fuss, no big crowd. Santiago flew in from Australia, more than happy to be Isabella’s Godfather. The Millers are there too. A couple other friends and family members lined the first row of the church. They gather in the Morales family backyard for a BBQ. Will fires up the grill and Frankie busies himself with making sure the cooler is full of cold beers for everyone. Isabella enjoys all of the attention she’s getting, passed around from one person’s arms to the next. Giggling when she’s set down on the large picnic blanket for tummy time. Life is good. Frankie thinks. This is everything he’s ever needed, and never knew he’d get. But the gnawing reminder of last night’s nightmare eats at him. The thought of how quickly it could all be taken away. A deep, dark, twisty fear. It has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, a ringing in his ears; the sound of his own blood pumping. Heart pounding. He crouches next to the blanket, pressing a kiss to his wife’s cheek. “I’m going to go and get more ice,” he says. “I think we have enough,” she laughs pointing at the overflowing cooler and metal bucket he’d filled earlier. He doesn’t respond. He freezes. His out is gone. Her brows furrow, and she takes his hand in hers. Santi seems to notice Frankie’s startled look because without missing a beat he’s plopping down in the grass. “There’s my goddaughter!” he grins, laughing as she attempts to crawl towards him. He nods. A silent agreement to watch the baby.

Frankie follows without thought, as he’s guided through the back door into the kitchen by his hand. “Frankie?” She asks cupping his cheeks in both of her hands, “Talk to me”. “I--I’m afraid,” he chokes out, bowing his head, “there’s so much you don’t know”. She nods, not wanting to press him for more than he’s willing to give. “It was so bad down there-- nothing went to plan. And I keep seeing Tom in my nightmares. He holds me down or he pushes me, he’s always blee--” his words are caught by a sob, “I haven’t used. But I’ve wanted to. I don’t want to fail you”. “You could never fail me,” she assures him, tilting her head so she’s in his line of vision.

“You asked me not to go. I shouldn’t have gone. I left you alone with the baby”.

 “I know you, Frankie. I know that whatever you did needed to be done. And I’m proud of you for getting help instead of using. But, please, don’t hold all of this alone. Let me in,” she pleads. He doesn’t speak, he just cries, gathering her into his arms. She grounds him, and tethers him to reality. “One day at a time,” she whispers, “We’ll take this one day at a time”. “One day at a time,” he confirms. 

#frankie morales x reader #catfish morales x reader #frankie catfish morales #frankie morales #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal character x reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal #triple frontier

[metaldragoon]

hello! i love your gifs. how do you make them look so good? what settings do you use in photoshop? i'm a beginner when it comes to gifs and i could use some help!

How 'bout go fuck yaself, huh?!

Just kidding. Hello! Thank you for the message, I am easily swayed to do anything in the name of praise. Before I get started, although by the time you've read this I've already finished, feel free to IM me and I would be happy to very finely detail explicitly how I do things for anyone with the nose for knowledge in GIF making.

The first and most important thing is to capture whatever you can in as high as quality it comes in. 720p? Don't even waste my time. So anyways, you've got your crispy beautiful animation imported, it's time to resize it.

The two important things are to go slightly over the final canvas size you want (500px wide) and to adjust the resample to Bicubic Sharper (or Bicubic, I don't notice any difference). I'm sure it's not universally the best option to use Bicubic Sharper but I've never bothered double checking. Then adjust the canvas size, knock off at least 2 pixels to trim a pixel from the top, bottom, and sides of the GIF. Since GIFs are binary with their transparency, when you resize it the edges can get ugly-looking as some pixels are 100% opacity and some are 0% opacity, that's why I crop that extra pixel from each side. I happen to be using a pretty poor example with my Slam Dunk GIF I'm making since it's not a standard 16:9 ratio, so mine will actually be cropped to 500x268 instead of a standard 500x280. If you're working on something that's 4:3 which is like old school anime style, crop it before adjusting the image size so it's 1440x1080, then resize it and it should be 502x377, to which you would then crop it to 500x375. I actually often crop even wide screen things to a 4:3 ratio because it's usually just unnecessary space on the sides and it makes our focal point pop more!

This is less relevant with digital animation, it's much cleaner and doesn't have as much noise, but if we're in our hand-drawn era, frames be shakin' and grainy! We only have 256 colours so any non-vital frames should be removed so they're not hogging up our sharp colours. I have quite a small GIF here, 36 frames is no big deal, so the quality won't be necessarily important, but if you're doing something that's 200 frames it'll definitely losing a bit of colour and wasting a tonne of space.

Again, a tiny 36 frame gif isn't the best, but by picking out shaky frames or ones that have blips you can see a bit of a contrast difference specifically in the clouds in this example thanks to having those extra colours, and the start of the GIF doesn't shake as much. The first GIF is also twice the size (1.92 MB vs 954 KB) which means I could make a GIF twice as long with doing this before worrying about size issues. This is what my final timeline looks like:

Beyond that, I wouldn't really do anything. I specifically adjusted each frame to match the original speed just so they would sync up the same for my comparison but normally I would have just re-timed every frame to be 0.12 seconds and adjust it using my own personal eye test to see if I think anything needs to be sped up or can be cut out even further.

You can also add some overlay adjustments if you want, depending on the show I'll bother with that but usually it affects the quality, but dark scenes can sometimes need it. The only four I ever touch are brightness/contract, vibrance, hue/saturation, and colour balance. I don't have any specific numbers I use, I just slide them around until I'm happy with the result. Ultimately, I like to just keep shows as they were originally because my main goal is archival of things I like, but it can be nice to add some pop with brighter colours on shows with a dull palette. But yeah, feel free to message me in IM if you want more help. I'll help with a specific GIF so what I've said is maybe a little easier to understand how to apply things. There's lots of more other things you can do if you are more dedicated like blurs and sharpens but I don't really bother with that anymore.

#i'm very tired so i tried to proof read but am giving up half way #my eyes can't manage any longer #hopefully this makes sense

[xofeno]

How do you make gifs? They look sooo flawless btw

That is so kind of you to say. Thank you!!

How do I make gifs? Well...

Acquire a high quality copy of the show.

Convert it to mp4 format.

Find the exact scene I want to gif within the show.

Import that scene into Photoshop using the Frames to Layers option.

Pick out exactly which frames I need and delete the rest, but leaving some extra frames in so I can tweak later.

Crop if changing the dimensions or cutting out opening credits covering the bottom of the picture.

Resize to the exact width tumblr will display the gif, plus 1 extra pixel on each edge.

Crop off those extra pixels to clean up the edges.

Sharpen. Sometimes twice. I use a Photoshop action for this... which I made.

Adjust the brightness and contrast using various adjustment layers.

So many layers.

Adjust the colouring using various adjustment layers.

So many layers. (Or sometimes just one. Each scene is different. Even within the same scene, each shot is often different.)

Add text if needed.

Adjust the frame rate.

Sweat over the colouring and brightness some more.

Decide it's decent enough I guess.

Tweak exactly which frames to include for optimal looping and filesize.

Export as .gif using as high quality settings as possible while keeping within tumblr filesize limits. (10 MB maximum, or under 5 MB for best display quality on mobile. I think. This is always changing so who even knows.)

Repeat that process for each additional gif.

Easy Peasy. 😅

Some people use a slightly different process but that’s basically how it’s done. If you want to start making gifs yourself, I suggest you find some tutorials. They explain each step in detail and are very helpful!

#answer #gifmaking

[hollygl125]

Summer Reading / Writing / Arting Tag

Tagged by: @coping-via-clint-eastwood. (Fun! Thank you!)

1. Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I’m planning to submit a story for the ficwip 5k AU challenge, but I wrote that two days after it was announced (I have absolutely zero control over my mind), so now I’m just waiting for sign-ups and posting. I consider it a pre-canon divergent, canon convergent modification of a coffee-shop AU (not that I’ve ever read a coffee-shop AU). I think it’s pretty cute. But, since it’s already complete, I won’t exactly be working on that over the summer….

I will still be working on my ongoing series. It was ostensibly finished last August, but it’s grown in length by at least 50% since then (by adding to the middle—the end point is roughly the same). I currently have two unfinished sections (sections where I started adding something but need to fill in the rest).

In a dream world I would make a video to accompany the fic series, but I am an extreme perfectionist and don’t currently have the patience, so I think I would likely just drive myself crazy in the attempt.

I’d love to learn to make gifs in Photoshop, with pretty colours and layers and I don't know what…. I made a gif-set in PS once, but the end result was really big and unusable for most purposes because I didn’t really know what I was doing.

I’d also kind of like to embroider something. I bought some embroidery kits while slightly out of my mind during the height of the pandemic, and I think it would be fun to try using them and then, after learning a bit, make up something on my own. (Would it involve bees and butterflies? Probably.)

2. Rec a book!

Fiction: Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland. I haven’t read this in forever, but I meant to recommend it to someone about a decade ago and never got the chance. So I’m recommending it now to y’all instead.

Non-Fiction: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi, which is about the development of racist ideas and non-racist ideas alongside each other. I think this is one of the last books I read before I broke my brain.

3. Rec a fic (outside your character tag)!

How cute of you, question-asker, to think I read any fic outside GSR!

4. Rec music!

I’m terrible at recommending music, but I do have a Spotify playlist for my GSR series. (The Spotify playlist is only current to the stories I’ve posted so far. My private iTunes playlist has about 100 more songs. The Spotify playlist will get there eventually.)

5. Share one piece of advice!

I did my undergrad in History and English Lit, but I have no background in creative writing (aside maybe from previously running my dog’s Instagram account), so I don’t know if I’m in much of a position to give advice, but I’ll tell you how I approached my writing process (and had a lot of fun with it!), and maybe that’ll help someone.

Writing fan fiction was not something I seriously considered doing until the day before I started doing it. On the day before I started, I thought of it as something I might do quite a ways in the future, when I’d prepared more. But then the next day my brain was like, actually, no, we’re doing this now.

The reason I’d decided to write fanfic was that I had all these little romantic GSR scenarios running around my head at night (and in the morning, and in the afternoon, and in the evening…), and it was getting really tiresome having to recreate the dialogue every night.

When I started I did an outline in a Word doc with story or chapter headings, based on the different aspects of the GSR story I knew I wanted to address. After I had the outline, I didn’t fill in the story linearly, though. I first wrote whatever scenario was most pressing to get out of my head. Then I wrote the next thing, then the next, then the next, all based on what was most urgently trying to escape my head. Sometimes I added more headings when I had new ideas.

But it was never work; it was always fun. I probably looked a little goofy. I kept thinking… oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. (You have to keep in mind that, until January 2022, I had not read any fic since (or before) I read fic for Josh and Donna when they were taking their own sweet time back in the mid-2000s.)

Eventually I had to write some sections that were more functional—stuff that was simply necessary to get from Point A to Point B—but that was really minimal and still relatively enjoyable. (I have a hard time even remembering what those sections were anymore, but I think the chapter explaining how they got from the year of honeymoons to the events of season 13 was definitely one of them).

So I guess my advice would be that you should just do whatever works for you. (E.g., you don’t have to start at the beginning.) I think this works well with c-v-c-e’s advice: “This is art. There ARE no rules, especially ones restricting flexibility and expression.”

And, most importantly, please remember to try to have fun!

Tagging: If you would like to participate, please consider yourself tagged!

#about me #tagged #tag game