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dragons-and-magic · 8 days

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(Please check out the close ups for less blurry images. Tumblr butchered the quality. Sorry.😭)

Anyways, the main cast of Dragons Of Sodor is here! These are their designs right now, but are subject to change. Also, here's some lore about each of them! I'll put it below the cut! (@hkpika07😁👋)

Edit: I've been tired all day and I just realized this has a ton of typos.🤣 Also, some info I meant to put down is not there. *Sighs* Oh well. I tried. Lol.

Note: The stories mentioned here actually have a LOT more going on than what is mentioned. This is just a more watered down version so it doesn't get too long of a post. Have fun reading!

Thomas: Out main man! The big hero! So what is Thomas's role in this story? Well, here's the thing. Notice how Thomas's eye are gold, like gold dust? That's because he's Lady's next champion. Aka, the chosen one. Lol, all jokes aside, Thomas has an incredible destiny of being the one to protect all of Sodor someday! And lead the clan! This comes with a number of challenges he must face as he grows and learns what it takes to be a hero. Another important part of Thomas's story or his relationship with his adopted Father Edward, and how they navigate the rapidly changing world, that is becoming less and less safe for all dragons.

Percy: Thomas's bestie and resident messenger from clan Gold Scale! Percy is a very curious dragon and enjoys writing his observations in journals. He also very empathetic and cares about everyone. No matter where they are from. Unfortunately, he's also a bit gullible. And this combined leads to some nasty trickery from the Gold Scales rivals (The Iron Hides), somewhere down the line. (Fun fact! He's also a bit deaf. Hence why he sometimes mixes up long complicated words. Him and Thomas will sometimes use sign language to communicate.)

James: Thomas and James have a complicated relationship. At first, they were on okay terms. But something very important happened. Gordon is James mentor. And since Gordon is the Clan's Patriarch, this lead James to thinking he may have a chance at becoming the next one. But when it was revealed Thomas was meant to become leader next, James became bitter and wasn't as friendly as before. However, this changed after he was caught up in a forest fire, (This Au's version of James crash) and Thomas saved him, despite being on bad terms with him. After that, he had a more brotherly relationship. Competitive, but still care about each other's well-being. (Fun fact! James is a rare hybrid between a Dragon and Wyvern. So he's got scales and fluff!)

Edward: Edward is the one of the clan's elders and a talented wizard. His dragon species, a Moon Moth Dragon, are known for being very close to Lady Arcana, and magic in general. He has quite a large library of spell books and general historical records. And plenty of old artifacts as well. Thomas was adopted by him at a very young age, and the two are inseparable. Edward made sure to teach him plenty of skills he would need as Lady's next champion. Especially since he was the last one. Edward also adopted Bill and Ben, two twin dragons that are Thomas's adopted brothers.

Gordon: Out of all the dragons, there is no denying that the most regale, fastest, and proudest dragon, is Gordon, Clan Gold Scales Patriarch. Gordon has a mysterious past that he seldom talks about. Edward and Henry know everything about it. But all everyone else knows is that he is pretty much the last of his kind, as all others were killed off by humans years ago. This trauma, he clearly doesn't talk about, has definitely effected his relationships. As he has a hard time opening up or showing any softness. It's not that doesn't care about them. It that he doesn't know how to show it. But that does change. Eventually. He also played an important role in James's life. James was found as a youngster by Gordon and Edward a long time ago. The patriarch saw potential in this rare dragon and wyvern hybrid. And took him under his wing. James looked up to him and wanted to be just like him.

Henry: Sodor's local tree hugger! Henry loves the forest and is pretty much their guardian in this story. He even lives beneath a large tree's roots in a cozy burrow. (The Wishing Tree to be exact!) He also has some sort of really rare plant magic? Nobody even knows why he even has it. Especially since Titan Class dragons don't have any sort of magical abilities. But regardless, he has it. And it's a good thing too, since he has a few health issues that his powers can help him with. For example, he uses his plant magic to form his prosthetic back leg whenever he needs it! Oh, and he can also talk to any nearby trees and connect into their communication system. Meaning he can pretty much find out what's happening in every part of the forest whenever he wants... It's pretty crazy. You may also notice he has a beak rather than fangs. That because he eat mostly plants. In short, Henry is the clan's lovable but slightly weird woods man that lives in a tree and has over a ten thousand squirrel friends.

Emily: In this story, Emily is an apprentice under Victor! I thought it would fit with her personality and how she's usually the one looking out for the groups health. And also rescuing them a lot. Her and Kevin both train under Victor as the clan's apprentice medicine dragons. Emily is the closest thing Thomas and Percy have to a sister. They love her to bits, and she's always looking out for them. She's also close with Henry. The two share a close bond, almost akin to a grandfather and granddaughter relationship. Henry will sometimes help he needs the herbs she and the other medicine dragons need for cures and stuff.(Fun fact! Since she's Scottish in this AU, I was inspired by the legend of Nessie and the Loch Ness. Hence the reason she's a sea dragon. I was also inspired by Leafy Dragons!)

Toby and Henrietta: Toby and Henrietta have been mates for many years. They are the clan's only wyvern couple and are also part of the clan's elders group. Toby and Henrietta love each other dearly, and have raised quite a few children of their own over the years. For now though, they are simply just enjoying each other's company on Sodor as the local retired couple. (I feel like I should put down more for them. Because they do have roles to play. But, I can't seem to get it all out of my head at the moment. Hopefully I'll solidify their roles better later! Also, Toby is based off of owls, and Henrietta is based off of robins and cardinals! They are heavily associated with birds, so it just fit.)

Bill and Ben: These two young dragon twins are a handful! Luckily, Edward (Their adoptive father,) is very skilled in the art of handling chaos and disorder, and can usually sort things out quickly. These two are the adopted siblings of Thomas, and they always seem to be getting into and/or making trouble. Even more so than Thomas!

And, that's it for now! Hope you all like this! I worked super hard on it! Bye!

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7grandmel · 9 days

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Todays rip: 30/04/2024

guess what????????

Season 2 Featured on: Haltmann's Highest Quality Video Game Rips

Ripped by alden wolf

youtube

Requested by eg_9371! (Request Form)

It's Gonna Be May!

Saying that SiIvaGunner has in-jokes is perhaps the most obvious statement of all time - it is an in-joke upon which the entire channel is built upon. Yet there's obviously always different LAYERS to each joke, how obvious each of them are - and even today, there are many running gags on the channel that fly over people's heads despite having followed along for so long. Indeed, such is the case today with guess what????????, as requestee eg_9371 made me aware of a channel in-joke that's been running quietly in the background for the better part of seven years as of today. All of it built on one simple truth - tomorrow, it's gonna be may.

To reiterate - beyond the funny ha-ha memes we all know like Mr. Grand Dad and more, the SiIvaGunner channel is filled with little nods and gags that oft go overlooked. I of course covered 5 Nights of Snop Dog recently which is a great example of one, there's how rips like Kill & Learn (Recut Ver.) reference a running joke by long-time mashup artist Triple-Q about how Sonic Adventure 2 and Kill la Kill have an immeasurable amount of similarities, rips like Kermit in the Ocean being spiritual successors to very specific years-old rips on the channel - you get the jist. Some of these gags eventually get special attention on the channel through specific channel events, but such has not yet been the case with guess what????????'s joke - it's a gag that's stayed in the background since its very beginnings, and is only being kept running by a select few rippers. If you're listening to the rip now and it still hasn't landed yet, you may need to be enlightened to the ways of hit boy band *NSYNC. Or, well, really the band itself matters very little compared to the song of choice - It's Gonna Be Me.

Boy band music has a pretty interesting track record on SiIva in general, honestly. One Direction, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, *NSYNC - to me the typical audience that obsesses over these kinds of bands feels at odds with my image of the average SiIvaGunner fan, and yet whenever they're prominently pushed I get reminded of just how good their music can be when wielded by good rippers. We've had two explosively quality events focusing on two bands in particular, the Big Time Rush takeover of Season 5 with Famous Surprise and the One Direction day of Season 7 with Beautiful Dreamer. *NSYNC hasn't had the same explosion of notoriety, but It's Gonna Be Me in particular has stealthily appeared on the channel every year since 2017 on April 30th. The joke is originally an ancient Tumblr meme from 2012, based on the way singer Justin Timberlake (yes!) pronounces the titular line in the song as "It's gonna be May" - the joke writes itself, and so Tumblr users have annually celebrated the day-before-May in Timberlake's honor.

eg_9371 writes in his request for this post that he's actually one of the most active rippers in keeping this joke going on SiIva for all these years, which I find extremely commendable, and it all started in Season 2, with guess what????????. It's a rearrangement of the song in the style of Donkey Kong Country 2's Mining Melancholy, a track most notable for its rhythmic percussion of steel drums sounding like steadily-working pickaxes deep in the mines. Its a fantastic track on its own, yet that percussion especially is a shockingly natural fit for the harpsichord(?) backing prominent throughout It's Gonna Be Me. Mining Melancholy's usual percussion and other parts of its melody stick around for large parts of the rip, making it more of a melody swap/mashup of the two than a full rearrangement a la Sog-Gee Ambiance - but it only serves to enhance the two tracks used, giving It's Gonna Be Me a more melancholic sound and Mining Melancholy a more self-assured feel in return, a super interesting blend of moods. I don't think the It's gonna be May bit would have worked nearly as well if the rip it was paired with wasn't of high quality, and guess what???????? clears that threshold effortlessly - its a great rip that's made me appreciate the quality in both songs used.

*NSYNC rips have, again, continued to show up in all the years since, always on the dot, often even deliberately placed as the LAST rip of April 30th to drive the joke home. I think it's really sweet that the joke has stuck with eg_9371 in particular, likely in part due to alden wolf's initial contribution to the bit - he's even made It's Gonna Be Me rips on dates completely unrelated to the beginning of May, just because its a genuinely fun song to listen to. There's tons of these "secret" gags left to find on the channel, reoccurring dates or rips that reference jokes from other rips that are years-old by now - and really, a huge part of the fun in running this blog is getting to discover so many turning gears of the channel that I'd never been made aware of. Keep an eye out for these gags yourself - and keep an eye out on SiIvaGunner channel itself later today, to see if It's Gonna Be May for yet one more year.

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flightyquinn · 11 months

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I'd like to share something with you, Tumblr.

When I first played D&D 3.5, many years ago now, I played a bard named Wren, using a homebrew race that you could find on the official Wizards forums around that time called the Kassuri. He was a goofy little manlet with the ears and tail of a fox who knew no fear. He got to ride on the back of a luck dragon.

He tamed a shocker lizard and named it Tazer. He once drank a whole bucket of dwarven ale without getting drunk, and then shouted, "I said a large glass!" and another time bluffed a group of elven soldiers that the Half-orc paladin was his pet. When a demon killed his mentor, he avenged them and made a coat out of the demon's wings.

He fought his former friend turned enemy, almost died, and won. He got knighted by his king after starting the campaign exiled from his homeland, and then prayed so hard to be a better person that his alignment shifted right before going to face the final boss. When he realized the BBEG was sensitive to sounds and played a heavy metal lute solo so sick that it literally caused their Fortress of Evil to collapse.

It was a silly game, played fast and loose by a group that only half understood the rules, but it was a blast to play. After having some not-so-good experiences with AD&D (may I never forget The Exploding Cleric), it was the first game I ever played to the end of a campaign. I loved the game, and I love my group from back then...Hothgoth, Lios, Pixie, Elena, Leif, and even the others who came in later and didn't stick around as long. I've held onto those memories, and my beloved "first successful character", ever since.

Until the tail end of last year, I never had any decent art of him.

This is Wren, almost perfectly as I envisioned him all those years ago.

The sad truth is, unless you're an artist yourself, it can be hard to get character art for TTRPGs. Most people I know in the hobby don't have a lot of money, and even if they do you never know how long a character may last before getting killed by bad rolls. Back in the day, for the game Wren is from, we just used a text description and imagined the character. These days, most people I know use a virtual table top. Characters need tokens (and usually profile pictures for when other players check the sheet), and for hardcore players like me that are in several games a week, that's a lot of art that could need swapped out on a moment's notice.

The sad truth is, people just steal it. Even the people I know who are artists steal art, only really drawing characters they get attached to. We discuss what images would be good for characters, show one-another what we've found, and it's not uncommon to decide details about a character based on what kind of a picture you can find for them. So...when AI art started becoming a thing, I got excited.

Artist Tumblr probably noticed right away that the picture up there is AI generated. It's a pretty good output, but there's still telltale signs. Yes I notice them, and no they don't bother me. It's better than any of the attempts I ever made at doing a picture myself, and even if I could afford a picture of that level of quality, who knows if the artist I found would be able to fully understand my description the way I see it in my head, or if they would be willing to put in the time and effort to revise it to my satisfaction. It was going to be imperfect either way, but I was able to take time (a frankly ridiculous amount) to tweak things and start over and try different approaches until it was to my satisfaction.

...and like I said, I make a lot of characters. Now, instead of just finding some picture I like and stealing it wholesale, I end up generating a lot of character art. It's just for my personal use either way, and thanks to AI, I get to express my own ideas.

I know some people out there are abusing the technology to make a quick buck, but please remember that's a fault of those people. There are people abusing just about every technology out there. For other people, who are only trying to use it to express themselves or to do things without needing an additional skillset they don't have, AI art is a godsend.

#tabletop gaming #roleplaying games #dungeons and dungeons #dungeons & dragons #my character #my oc #character art #ai art #ai art generation #maybe rant #personal nostalgia #also some conditions make it hard to be an artist #like poor color vision #so ai tools are literally an accessibility option #don't be mean #blame corporations not people

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girlingseason · 1 year

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this blog isn't like, SECRET secret or anything like I'll post my face if I feel like it and if someone I know stumbles across it who cares etc. but I haven't used insta or twitter since mid-2018 which has been absolutely a net positive in my life and overall beneficial to my artistic mind because the pressure to churn out a high volume of micro content at the cost of quality was poison to my mind. Especially as a girl trying to escape poverty, the hustle culture/meritocracy myth was far too alluring. Work hard, be consistent, above all be SEEN and youll make it. But i wasnt making shit I wanted to "make it" for. I couldnt give myself permission to slow down and surrender to my natural inclination for sculpture - not literal sculpture but it's an image I've carried with me for a long time in regards to my process. I am a slow, careful and detailed creator. The things i really want and need to make take TIME to reveal themselves as I chip away. years. so for that reason and many others, instagram didnt feel like a positive creative outlet for me anymore. The only negative is that i havent had really ANY outlet at all since then, and it has weirdly impacted my motivation. Its so weird tho like?? Instagram made me feel like i had to make too many little things, but without it the little things feel like kind of a waste of energy, and since the big things are taking so fucking long to come to fruition im not getting any sense of accomplishment, or FEELING like a person who makes things. Ive just started to feel the need for a place to put the little things I make on the road to the big things, so there is some witness or at least documentation to confirm that, yes, I am still an artist. I could have started posting on instagram again but I fucking hate the algorithm and ui now and furthermore I remembered the restriction I felt on there knowing there were family, ex friends and god knows who else I knew irl following me, plus feeling like I had to be a ~brand~ always polished and consistent. Tumblr feels fixed yet ephemeral at the same time. I barely expect my posts to even be seen, but it still feels like a solidifying act, just to put something out there. I remembered too what a sanctuary tumblr was for me back in the day. Albeit a radioactive one, but I've never had that level of freedom and semi-anonymity again on the internet. I've never been able to start from scratch and just be whoever I want to be. Or post a poem without worrying whether it's perfect or fits the image I want my artistic persona to have in the future. Or post a photo I took just because it's beautiful or evokes something within me, without worrying whether it's interrupting the aesthetic of a grid. Maybe even post some music !! I want a place to stretch my legs, share things just because I made them and someone might just like it, without a single thought towards gaining followers or earning money (as much as I'd love the money!!!!! I'm liberating my art from capitalism as much as humanly possible cos it's fucking miserable otherwise!!!!!!!!). cos that's the other thing, I've gotten SO out of practice at sharing!! I don't share ANYTHING I make with ANYONE anymore and it's killing my slowly. I don't create just to express something and move on, I create because I want to connect with people. I've got such bad fucking posting paralysis ESPECIALLY if it's anything I've made. So I'm hoping this will help me get over that. Maybe feeling a little too hopeful about this considering life truly fucking sucks right now but I do currently have a hunger for creation though I don't quite know how to direct it, I'll try my best to guide it somewhere good.

#text #personal #posting this without fixing the mistakes lol otherwise I'll lose motivation to post it at all

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vivienna-vivid · 1 year

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I posted 24,364 times in 2022

74 posts created (0%)

24,290 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@strideerandflashlightgirl

@the-stray-liger

@captain-lovelace

@hotvampireadjacent

@bitterrosebrokenspear

I tagged 7,322 of my posts in 2022

#fate series - 1,527 posts

#catto - 515 posts

#video - 448 posts

#chainsaw man - 375 posts

#ultrakill - 284 posts

#his majesty prince dumbass - 209 posts

#guilty gear - 203 posts

#encanto - 187 posts

#tf2 - 161 posts

#milgram - 144 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#casual reminder that karna mames a great villain in the mahabharata because his more extreme awful side is contrasted with genuine kindness

My Top Posts in 2022:

Kafka's Metamorphosis shows the true nature of humanity for without crushing capitalism weighing on us we would be skittering up the walls and ceilings like the little weirdos we truly are

38 notes - Posted June 27, 2022

In this house, we commit to jokes

39 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

Okay okay okay okay hear me out.

I think it's fair to say that Saber!Hektor would be buffed by Apollo just like babie!Paris is. But unlike the lad, be won't be kiddified and I can give you a lore reason for it.

In the Iliad, Apollo has this line to Hektor:

The way he speaks here makes it sound like he sees Hektor as an equal; as a partner. Apollo is willing to play second fiddle to Hektor and he keeps his word! This is a stark contrast with how he blessed Paris with the Achilles-killing shot by basically possessing him.

With Paris, Apollo takes his free will — shown in FGO with how he forces Paris to take a cuter form. With Hektor, he honors his free will. If anything, "Phobus Apollo of the golden sword" would become Saber!Hektor's weapon, fusing with the golden sword Durindana.

48 notes - Posted January 19, 2022

Arjuna's weakness is his family.

Arjuna can go through life as this distant, cold, but capable prince but that projected image crumbles easily when in the presence of a family member — for better or for worse.

With his brothers, he is an endearingly flappable middle son who teases and is teased often. He almost seems bratty in their presence.

With his elders, he is a soft and shy boy who cannot help but gaze at his own feet and fidget in their presence. Tense as he is, his smile radiates nothing but genuine adoration.

With his lovers, spitfires as they are, he is relaxed and somewhat clueless. In the presence of people so sure of themselves, so unlike Arjuna (and yet they chose him), he can't help but play second fiddle and try his best to keep composed as he basks in their passion.

With his sons, he is an attentive father. There's no use in projecting an image, he only wants to hold them close. There is an audible spring in his voice anytime he speaks with them, eyes bright and his smile genuine.

And with Karna, the brother he never knew he had... Well, we know that answer.

Which makes it all the more sadder when Arjuna Above Gods, the Final Lonely God, cannot crumble so easily. No endearing brattiness, no shy fidgetings, no awkward smiles, and no gentle attentiveness.

140 notes - Posted March 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I know that Arjuna is designed to be young and prince-like so he can have that boyfriend-like quality to him so his kids are never mentioned, but honestly it'd be fucking HILARIOUS if FGO explored Arjuna as a dad.

Cuz, Arjuna is a fuckin chuuni. And he also tries his best to be a good dad but he's also a deep overthinker so if — say — Abhimanyu gets to Chaldea you bet your ASS Arjuna is gonna hide every chuuni part of him.

It'd be an inverse of the "I need to hide my cringe side from my parents". Arjuna desperately hides his cringy chuuni nerd side from Abhi because he doesn't want Abhi to judge him.

And meanwhile, Abhi is just shamelessly being a normal cringeass 16-year-old so really Arjuna has NOTHING to worry about but he's fucking overthinking dumbass and just suffers in his foolishness.

239 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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cillianmurphy · 4 years

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GIFFING 101 - YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE ON HOW TO GIF

I have gotten many, many asks before about how I gif and I finally decided to make a tutorial. This is going to be very long, very image heavy and with a lot of details and examples. I mean it, I’m going through every, single aspect of giffing that I can possibly think of. From start to finish. And please read the disclaimer at the very start.

* I use a macbook pro but this should probably work on windows too!

I hate doing this but if this helped and you want to, please consider donating to my ko-fi or if you want, commission a theme or page from me at @amaanat <3

tutorial under cut, I hope it helps!

★★★★★

- CONTENTS

disclaimer

what will you need to create gifs?

how to download videos?

extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

opening in photoshop

trimming, cropping and resizing videos

sharpening

colouring and psds

masks

adding subtitles

editing frames / timeline speed

multiple gifs in one grid.

actions

exporting the gif

last minute tips and extra links.

★★★★★

- DISCLAIMER

First off, this is not meant as a post where I am saying look here, this is the only and perfect way of giffing. Not at all. When I started out, there were many tutorials available that helped me figure out how to gif, and I slowly developed my own style and I would like to create an in depth tutorial that helps you grasp the basics. Heck, make your gifs whatever way you want, go absolutely crazy on colours or whatever, this tutorial is just here to guide you through the process of gifmaking, because I know it can be very intimidating to people who are just getting into it. That is why I made this and why I spent 8 hours writing this, because I want others to know too and this is the kind of in depth tutorial I needed when I was starting out 4 years ago. Thanks for reading, hope it helps and go crazy ahhh go stupid.

★★★★★

- what will you need to create gifs?

photoshop. I use photoshop CC 2020 on a mac and I pay monthly bc of student discount. There are many, many links you can find on @completeresources for downloads. You can use any photoshop you like, as long as you have the timeline option.

Handbrake. This nifty program is used mostly to convert MKV files to MP4, but I also use it to quickly extract the part of the video I want, because opening an entire movie in photoshop can quickly clog up space bc of cache and it’s a pain to find that one second scene you want with that tiny scrollbar. Download it from here.

your video (downloading explained down below)

extras: VLC, just to find how many seconds the scene is at, so we can input the time in Handbrake. You can use any other player though for that step, I use VLC or Quicktime. Download VLC from here.

★★★★★

- how to download videos

Ok so I will quickly go through a few methods here for getting your clips.

1. t*rrenting.

This is the most popular method for getting your film or tv episode. I personally get my t/rrents from rarbg dot to or if I am having trouble finding one, I go to 1337x dot to, because they compile them from different sites. I copy the magnet link and go to the qbittorrent application, import magnet link, choose the files I want and it downloads. Remember, the higher the seeder leecher ratio, the quicker it will download.

But which file should I choose?? there’s so many? Well yes there are many many files for different movies. On RAR, I found more than 40 t/rrent files for Endgame. I think that generally, the 4/5 GB 1080p copies are just fine. I have compared giffing with a 60GB Interstellar Remux (which is directly ripped from bluray) file to giffing from a 4GB 1080 file, it literally gave me the same quality and the 1080 looked crisper. So yeah don’t kill your computers space, just go for those 3/4/5GB files.

hot tip - don’t download from yify, the quality is way worse.

2. movies from twitter accounts such as logolessHD.

these accounts post MEGA links to movies and shows, but you will have to request to follow them to be able to get the links. Then you can download the movie from there. The accounts you can get these links from are here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. The quality can be a bit less though compared to t/rrents. Here is a link to a tumblr blog with these kinds of downloads too.

3. downloading from youtube.

ok, use 4kvideodownloader for this. It is incredibly easy to use, you just need the youtube link. Always Always go for 1080p, if you can’t then 720 at the most because otherwise quality gets really bad really fast.

4. netflix / screenrecording

If you don’t want to download / can’t find something, try using netflix and screen recording. In my experience, SC only works on google chrome and not safari so jsyk!! Here is a tutorial on how to screen record on mac (or for quick access, click command+shift+5) and windows.

NOTE: quicktime screen records at 60fps, which is nearly thrice the frame rate of movies and shows, so at the end you may end up with duplicate frames in the timeline of photoshop, so you will have to delete those frames one by one sorry.

★★★★★

- extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

muahaha here’s where the magic starts to happen. Open handbrake and import your video. For this part I am going to use a scene of Keanu Reeves from the 2019 movie Always be my Maybe. I will demonstrate with that scene up until colouring, because then I will show how I colour different scenes!

So when you have opened the image in HB, you get this layout. (link to imgur)

it is a bit intimidating, I know. So basically, first, click on where it says chapters near the top right and click seconds. then, input the time you want to extract from the entire video. For the Keanu scene, that scene starts at 00:57:18 and ends at 00:57:21. These are not exact timings, I usually add an extra second so the entire scene is captured and I heavily recommend you do the same.

Now down below, you can click browse and edit where your new video will be saved and you can also change the name of the new clip. Always ALWAYS remember to keep the .mp4 ending do not cut that part out!!! If the ending says .m4v change it to mp4!!

Ok then I undertake the following steps to ensure the video that will be exported is of the highest quality possible:

Firstly, I uncheck all these three boxes:

Then you see this bar here right? Well I will edit the dimensions, filters and video now. You don’t have to do anything for audio, subtitles or chapters so leaving that alone is best. Lets go to dimensions first.

Here are my settings for dimensions:

The storage size depends on if your file is 1080p or 720p. Most movies are shot in a ratio of 2.35:1, so if it does not say 1920x1080 like a 1080 file should be, don’t fret. The cut off parts are just the black bars you see when watching the movie. Handbrake doesn’t recognise nor convert them so that’s one less thing we have to worry about.

Now onto filters. Literally do NOT change anything there. Leave the settings as they are, which is like this:

Finally, go to video. You will see this kind of window and these are my settings (imgur)

Firstly, leave video encoder at H264 or 265 depending on how your video is encoded. For the FPS, choose same as source for the framerate and click constant instead of variable!!! This will ensure your video is smooth. For quality, bring the slider all the way to the right. RF0 means it will be at the best quality possible. I didn’t edit the settings at the bottom at all so just leave them be.

Now click this green icon (imgur) at the top and your video will start encoding! It does not take long at all and then your video is ready to made into a nice lil gif!

★★★★★

- opening in photoshop

woohooo we got our video!! Ok now open photoshop. Click on file -> open:

now search for the file you extracted from VLC and import it! Now your screen will look like this (imgur). With a different video, of course lol.

★★★★★

- trimming, cropping and resizing videos

ok so firstly, we will trim the video. As you can see in the image I linked in the step before, the screencap you see is of someone else in ABMM, not Keanu, like I want. So use this slider:

and click and drag it to where your scene begins and shows up in the window. Then, click the following button to split at playhead.

This will split the clip and so the timeline and layers section will look like this (imgur) (mine has three sections because there was space before and after the keanu scene so I cut two parts which made three clips)

so now all there is left in trimming is delete the layers of the video you do not need! For me in that image it was layer 1 and 3!

cropping and resizing

This depends on the kind of gifset you want to make. This picture is a handy guide for resizing:

This post is also very very useful for resizing info

Ok now I will crop my gif. Click on this tool:

and now my interface looks like this. I am using the ratio 6 by 4 but you can use whatever you want.

Ok now you may need to crop some black bars but since I don’t have to, I just moved the crop area around a bit and clicked enter to crop it. Just play around with sizes and whatnot, and get a feel of what you like!!

cropping tip: crop as close as you can to the edges. The more you zoom in, the more pixels that will be visible and it will make your gif extremely grainy!!

So now for resizing, go to image -> image size or click command-shift-i

and you will get this window.

A LITTLE NOTE - I personally do not use automatic but a friend who shared her sharpening psd would prefer if I kept it secret, but automatic is what most people use and it is what I used up until november 2019 and it worked just fine.

Ok anyway now I want to make my gif 268px wide so I will input that as width and make sure you click this!! It makes sure your height and width are proportional!

ok now we have this. After you’ve done that, click ok!

congrats, you just resized a gif!! Your gif probably looks smaller now in the main window once you click ok, just zoom in to it! don’t worry about it looking bad quality, sharpening is next!

This is how my gif looks with trimming, cropping and resizing (with 0.05 speed)

★★★★★

- sharpening

Now we sharpen! Make sure your layer is selected Go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen and this window will pop up:

These are my settings which most people use. Just remove gaussian blur

I have more accurate and use legacy checked too!

click ok! Now ... your gif might look a bit oversharpened. That’s why we use a bit of gaussian blur. Go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur.

now I think most people also use a 1.0 radius so set that and click ok.

But now your gif looks too blurry. Lets fix that. Double click the icon below in the layers panel

and adjust the opacity! My go to is between 25 to 35, just so the gif looks smooth!

Now we’re done with sharpening! This is how our gif looks with sharpening with 0.05 speed:

sweet right? Now .... the best and hardest part ... colouring!!!!

★★★★★

- colouring and psds

First I will shortly talk about psds. They are photoshop files, that save the entire document which means you can share it with someone after uploading it and when they download and open it, they can edit the layers, tweak things just like they made the file in the first place. Many people upload psds of gifs with colouring so others can use that colouring. You can find so many psds on completeresources (I only linked gif psds but they have psds for icons and headers too) or allresources. I do not use psds but colour from scratch every time so I will not be explaining them further, sorry.

So for colouring, I will go very in depth into different styles. Here are the main types of colouring I have noticed people use on here:

simple - I normally use this for scenes with people in it

vibrant, bright - I use this for scenes with lots of colours in them

pale

black and white

gradients - I use this to spice scenes up a bit

colour palette

I only go for simple, vibrant and gradients and never do cp, pale or black and white, but I will link a few tutorials by talented creators who do and after that I will explain the three ways I colour by showing you three different examples :)

Some useful tutorials I have found for pale/bw/cp colouring are:

this pale tutorial by @samecoin. Especially useful read because Tippy explains how to avoid whitewashing in pale edits.

this pale tutorial by @kateausten. Very easy to read and to follow.

this colour palette tutorial by @freddyfreemen. They explain the basics and provide a psd too.

this colour palette tutorial by @stenbranlons. Very image heavy which guides you through every step of the way.

A blog dedicated to pale resources is @finesources and is definitely worth checking out!

this tutorials page by completeresources has many many tutorials on how to do different kinds of styles

Btw, this is a useful website that explains all the different adjustment layers in photoshop if you’re still getting the hang of them

ok now onto my examples for the colouring. I will first do simple colouring for which I will use the keanu gif. For vibrant and gradient I will use two different gifs. I usually put my colouring into a group so first, close the video group layer and click this to make a new group which will contain the adjustment layers for our colouring:

SIMPLE COLOURING

First I will brighten the gif up with some curves. That is this tool:

Then you get this window:

As you see, I have selected that white eyedropper tool. Using that I will brighten the image. Basically, you want to click on the whitest part of the gif using that tool. This is because wherever you click, the eyedropper will turn that part into white and adjust the entire gif that way so if you click somewhere dark, you’ll get this white bright fuzzy mess. So I clicked on the lightest place which imo is the white specks near the glass in front of his hand and now my gif looks like this:

Ok now if you look at the above image, there is a black eyedropper two steps above the white one. You want to use that to click on the darkest place of the gif bc it’ll turn that to pure black. Here is my gif when I did that:

not a massive difference but it balances things out. Now I will add some saturation. Click this icon:

which brings up this window. I have already set saturation to around 15 to make it a bit warmer:

and the gif looks like this now:

I think it looks nice, but I would like to add something extra. That is why I am going to play around with selective colour to make the background pop a bit and make the black colour more dark. So click this icon:

and you get this window and these colours (imgur). You can play around a lot with selective colour and manipulate colours! So if I turned the black dial on reds to +100, they would become wayyyy darker. However because I want the background to pop, I would use the colours magenta and blue (and black for the final touch). For those my settings are this: 1 - 2 - 3 (imgur). So now my gif looks like this:

And now i think we are done! For comparison, this is what the gif looked like with absolutely no colouring or sharpening:

And that was all for simple colouring!! Lets move on to vibrant colours!!

VIBRANT COLOURING

For this I will use an example from Thor: Ragnarok bc thor is my soft bb. I did not do much for this first example except play around a lot with selective colour and I used the exact way of adding saturation and curves as shown before. Honestly just playing around with selective is the best bet to get vibrant colouring. The gif without sharpening etc was this:

the gif after colouring and sharpening is this:

pretty sweet huh? Just play a lot with saturation, hue and selective colour and channel mixer and you can create a lot of styles that way!

GRADIENT

for this I will use another clip from Thor, but from The Dark World. It is a bare clip where it is raining and I will add a gradient on it. This is the gif without colouring nor sharpening:

now we will do the sharpening and colouring. I already applied a basic curves and saturation layer so now it looks like this:

It looks a bit better right? Ok lets get that gradient applied. Click here:

and click on gradient, NOT gradient maps bc those are different things and I honestly dont know how maps work.

now this is what will appear, I haven’t changed anything to this yet:

What style, colours, angle you choose is up to you. I personally am going for 0 angle because I want it going right. Now, to choose colours, double click on the colour shown next to the word gradient. This window will show up:

The fun part is you can do what you want here. Just experiment, click the buttons, adjust opacity etc. When you click at the bottom of the bar somewhere another stop marker appears meaning you can have even more colours! Just click on the bottom markers and edit to your hearts content! Use the top button to adjust opacities. Personally I went for this gradient:

Ok but now we have a problem because our gradient is fully covering the image and you can’t see anything. That is where blending modes come in. Right click on the gradient layer and click blending options. This window will pop up (ingur). When you click blending mode, these options appear (imgur).

Here is a good guide explaining the blending modes

I just recommend playing around seeing which one suits you. I went for overlay, which makes my final gif look like this:

and that was that on colouring!! Let me know if u have questions about it! Onto the next part, masks!

★★★★★

- masks

I will not go in depth here, but instead I will link some tutorials but the amazing @thepunisher who has explained it much better than I ever will be able to. The tutorials are all in this link. If you have any questions do lmk but idk how I could explain it.

★★★★★

- adding subtitles

although we wish we could, we can’t all lip read so we need subtitles also I’m hard of hearing and need them anyway but yeah, I will quickly highlight how I add subs! I use the font Arial Rounded MT Bold Regular.

I will first link to this post because it helped me a lot and may explain stuff better than I do.

Lets take the keanu gif we had earlier. In it, he says ‘fish flakes’. Now what I do is this. Click on this icon:

and drag a box around the gif fully. Add your text. Mine looks like this now:

Well that ... does not look like a subtitle. BTW my settings are:

*when there are two people speaking I change the colour of the second person to #ffff00 - also for 540px gifs I usually use 12/13px text.

Ok now I will add the stroke and drop shadow. Right click on the layer of text, click blending options and change your stroke and drop shadow settings to this and this (imgur). Now just click the move tool or hit V on keyboard to select it and drag the gif down wherever you want. Now my final gif looks like this:

Ok, now if you have two gifs and you want them to be the same distance from the bottom, right click the text layer of the first gif document, click duplicate layer and you will get this window:

now click on destination and depending on what files you have open in PS, you will get this window:

now just choose where you want the text to go and if the gifs are the same sizes itll appear exactly where it did in the first one and you can edit the text for the second. You can do this with adjustment layers, groups etc too!!

Now text is done! Off to the next part!

★★★★★

- editing frames / timeline speed

We are done editing, now time to convert to frame animation and edit the speed!

Ok click on the four bars on the right side of the video timeline. It will bring up a menu. From there, select this:

This will make individual layers of every frame into clips. Now, click this at the bottom left side of the video timeline:

This will convert your video timeline to a frame animation timeline. Now it looks like this (imgur). you’re probably wondering wait where the heck did my layers go well don’t fret, lets click the four bars on the right side again and click this:

now look! We have got all our frames into the timeline! Just delete the excessive frames at the front. Now click the four bars again, select all frames and then click the number at the bottom and change it to 0.05 or 0.06 or whatever speed you want:

Now we are done with this step!

★★★★★

- multiple gifs in one grid

I myself am not going to explain this, instead here are links to a few amazing tutorials that will help you further

this tut by @brolinjosh

this tut by @futurist

★★★★★

- actions

Now actions ... man they make everything so much easier. Basically actions are a sequence of steps you undertake in photoshop that are recorded which you can then save and use on multiple files. This makes the giffing process much much faster!!! For instance, these are the actions I have saved (mind the doubles lol I am experimenting a bit!)

As you can see, I have one for undertaking the entire video timeline to frame animation process and one for sharpening and the subtitles. It has saved me around 75% of the original time I put into creating sets before which is a lifesaver.

I cannot explain how to make actions bc I am really bad at explaining stuff, but here are some tutorials:

- https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/creating-actions.html

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/66560261468/how-make-action-%D0%B7

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50583786863/how-to-use-an-action

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50362731526/how-to-use-actions-on-gifs

https://www.creativebloq.com/adobe/create-own-photoshop-actions-61411918

★★★★★

- exporting the gif

now we’re at the final stage! When you have your gif ready, go to file -> export -> save for web legacy

ok now the next window is this which looks intimidating I know

Well basically, those are my settings above. Make sure the looping option is set at forever. Also on the left size you see how big your gif is, make sure it is under 8mb but tumblr is unstable so keep it under 5MB and it should be fine.

I use different exporting types at times. Sometimes I use selective and pattern, sometimes diffusion or adaptive+dif. Just remember that the gif size depends on which you choose so keep that in mind. Here’s the difference (if u can even spot it).

selective + pattern

selective + diffusion

adaptive + diffusion

Personally I mostly only use selective + pattern!

btw make sure your matte is at NONE!!! This is because otherwise you have those whitish transparent borders on your gif, esp noticable on dark gifs, like shown in this tutorial by the talented @joewright !

And congrats, you have officially made a gif! Now go experiment, have the time of your life and do whatever the heck u want with your gifs. And if you want me to see them, tag me!! I track #usernums !!!

★★★★★

- last minute tips and extra links

man idk what to say here really but here goes:

@completeresources and @allresources are amazing places to learn more about gifmaking, pls take advantage of the opportunity

reminder: quicktime records at 60FPS, so unless you want a laggy gif delete the extra duplicate frames in the frame animation timeline!!

When opening import video frames to layers, do not click skip every second frame!! do not!!!!

Do not steal gifs. Try making them. I know it takes time and it can get frustrating but don’t post someone elses gifs as your own. Even the ugliest gifset in existence made originally by someone is better than a stunning set put together full of stolen gifs from various users. Don’t be that person

Don’t be afraid to ask for help pls just go on anon if u want!!

use the tumblr dimensions!!! I cannot stress enough how important this is because if you don’t, your gifs will look stretched af and lose quality so like .. don’t do that

#completeresources #itsphotoshop #tutorial #resources #gif tutorial #allresources #my tutorials

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scoupsy-remade · 4 years

Text

For this gif tutorial I’m going to try to keep it as basic as possible, I may add a few tips for coloring at the end, but for the most part this is going to be how I make my basic gif. Also I’m not going to use my vapoursynth to process the video beforehand, just because I know not everyone uses it and it’s harder to learn. This is going to be just a downloaded mp4 video through the gif process. Don’t let the idea that this is a BASIC TUTORIAL fool you, I’m going to try to teach you a lot of things. It’s gonna get wordy, but i will try my hardest to keep the process easy. I’m just going to explain what things do instead of having you just copy + paste my method and not know what it means. okay? okay.

Before we start though, if you plan of giffing live stages you either need to accept the they will not be super crisp and clear OR learn how to use avisynth/vapoursynth to resize the videos without quality loss.

If you just want to gif music videos or variety shows then this should still give you HQ gifs.

Other notes:

try to ONLY use 1080p and up video if possible, maybe 720p if you’re really desperate, but anything under that... it’s not going to look good at all, so try to avoid using them.

The Photoshop I am using is PS 2020, so all my screenshots will be from that version and with my weird set up. But I’ve been using pretty much the same method since cc 2015 so other than the fact that some placements and names are tweaked, it’s the same. (If you can’t find something on your version shoot me an ask and I’ll try to help! And asks I get on this tutorial I’ll link HERE for future reference)

CUTTING VIDEO

To cut videos I’ll just use my quicktime player.

I use edit > trim to select the portion of the video I plan to gif and save that as it’s own new mov file.

which pops up this tab

that you just slide until the part you want to gif is selected

then just save it as a new video and your done with part 1

ENTER PHOTOSHOP

Now what we’ll do is open our photoshop and import that clip into layers

FILE > IMPORT > VIDEO FRAMES TO LAYERS and select your video.

A small pop up will appear to show the clip you’re opening, you can trim it further here or just keep going by clicking okay

my setup is weird for drawing BUT you should have it looking remotely like this:

The things you will DEFINITELY need to see are TIMELINE, LAYERS, ADJUSTMENTS. If you don’t have these sections you can add them to your screen by clicking on the WINDOW tab at the very top menu bar and clicking on them

LAYERS - this is pretty self explanatory but each row is a layer in the gif. the more layers the bigger the gif will end up, the longer it plays. So bigger clips will have more layers and end up as larger gifs in the end.

TIMELINE - This is where you can edit the gifs timing (make it faster or slower)

We’ll be doing a bit of work with it so it’s important to know it well

ADJUSTMENTS - Best friend and worst nightmare. this is where ALL the tedious recoloring is done. VERY rarely would you not use these. 99.9% of kpop things are filmed through a green or blue lense so you’ll want to fix that to not have ghost idols

So, Let’s make a gif

Step 1 - In the top right corner of your timeline is a set of lines, click there and then click SELECT ALL FRAMES

under each frame is a time stamp (this video’s is 0.04) this decides how fast each clip goes by, or how quickly the gif moves. Personally I prefer slower gifs, but I say anywhere between 0.04-0.06 is a decent speed.

Step 2 - with all the frames selected, click on the small down arrow next to any of the frames and change the speed to your liking. (I’m going to use .06)

Step 3 - in that same tab of lines we’ll now click CONVERT TO VIDEO TIMELINE, which will change our Timeline to look like this:

Step 4 - Back in our very TOP menu we’ll click SELECT > ALL LAYERS, then on the TOP menu click FILTER > CONVERT FOR SMART FILTERS (this might take your computer a minute since our File is still pretty large.) Now our Time line will look like this:

Step 5 - Sharpening

This one is VERY MUCH something you’re going to have to play with to get your settings to be how you like them. It’s also where I’d use topaz adjustments, BUT since I said we’re doing basic PS gif we’re just going to be using smart sharpening. SO:

in the TOP munu again, click FILTER > SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN

A pop up window will appear and you can edit the settings to your liking. Mine:

Step 6 - Resize your gif or crop it to tumblrs standards: big singal gifs have a 540px width || Two gifs use 268px || and three gifs use 177/178px

To do this we’ll use the crop tool and type in our dimensions in the menu bar:

and then crop to your liking. (this doesnt resize the gif it just crops to the correct ratio so we still have to shrink the gif)

Next, we’ll resize the gif to that size in the TOP menu click IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE a pop up menu will appear and you’ll type in your resize ratio and click enter.

Now technically thats a gif. it’s TECHNICALLY done. but mine is white washed and there are words on it that I dont want so onto the coloring and blurring.

First I’m going to show you how I blur text on gifs. because text is EVERYWHERE in kpop content and it’s hideous and I hate it. so lets kill it.

BLURRING LETTERING

First we’re going to add a new blank layer to our LAYER TAB by clicking the little box with the + inside at the bottom

Sometimes doing this can mess up the timeline’s selection but its SUPER easy to fix so lets do that.

So in our timeline we have these two bars on each side that select what part of the gif will play. this is also where you can readjust your gif if it has extra frames at the end, or it ends up being too large and you have to make the gif smaller to save it. Just click and drag the bars back to where our gif actually ends, and all is fixed!

Now on our new layer we’re gonna take a paint brush (one of the ones with a lot of fade NOT the solid circle ) and paint over where the words are like so:

MAKE SURE ITS ON OUR BLANK LAYER AND NOT THE GIF LAYER!!

I know it looks stupid but trust me okay.

Now in your LAYER tab we’re going to duplicate our gif layer by right clicking on it and selecting duplicate.

Then we’re going to drag the new gif layer so that it’s above the paint layer in our LAYER tab :

Now, right click on the top gif layer and select CREATE CLIPPING MASK. it should put a little down arrow to the left of the picture, toward the paint layer. This means the gif is ONLY visible where that paint is now.

So we’re going to click on FILTER in the TOP menu again (while we still have that top gif selected!) and Go to BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR. a pop up menu will appear and you can just drag the radius until the text is as blurry as you want it to be. (also IF you missed part of the text, you can just go add more paint to your paint layer and it will blur wherever you paint!)

so now my gif is like so:

So now we’ll color him, because he’s pretty washed out.

ADJUSTMENTS

This is where I’m going to be the least specific about what I do and more about what tools do, so that you can learn how to color things the way you like them!

The Adjustment tab on Photoshop has 16 options but I’m really only going to talk about 6 of them. We’ll do it in order though. All the actual adjustment tools will open in the PROPERTIES tab

Brightness / Contrast - Pretty self explanatory, but definitely should be toward the end of your coloring, as if can effect the quality a lot. Small adjustments do A LOT so don’t go crazy,

Levels - Levels is all about the balance of how dar or light your gifs will be if you adjust in the RGB layer it will adjust for the entire image, but if you change the selection to RED/GREEN/BLUE it will adjust just those colors hues. Also there are three small droppers to the left of the graph. using those you can select which part of the gif you want the image to recognize as the lightest/darkest part of the gif, and the tool will adjust the gifs coloring to that point. ( play with those droppers! magic happens i swear!)

Curves - Kind of like levels but instead of how light or dark the entire image is it works more on contrast. REALLY play with the curves options, i’m sure most things you can do with other tools can also just be done in curves if you’re patient enough to learn

Vibrance / Saturation - Vibrance will make duller parts of an image higher contract and brighter and saturation will make everything a more neon shade. or in reverse lowering vibrance will dull out the things that were already neutral and saturation will dull out the more vibrant parts of the image (usually reds)

Color Balance - Good for fixing tones. so if a live stage is SUPER BLUE!!!!! you can readjust and calm down the blues to dull them out or get rid of them completely. Again play with this its insane what it can do

Selective Color - adjusts the different colors in your image without touching the other colors. if you wanna touch the reds, make them pinker but not change the blues and greens, you do it here

If you want MORE drawn out explanations of what each of the 16 adjustment layers do here and here are actual articles you can look at. But it’s all about practice. playing with all the adjustments alone and together. Finding out what you like to do!

Now when you gif is ALLLLL colored and you’re ready to save it we do FILE > EXPORT > SAVE FOR THE WEB and a whole new window of options pops up. I’ll give you two examples of how to play with those options and then we’re done!

keep in MIND tumblr’s gif limit is 10MB which is pretty huge now, but still watch your gif size!!!!

AND SAVE your done!

I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions,again I’ll have an ask tag for it and it’ll get linked HERE if people end up needing help!

Happy giffing!!!

#drm.pst #drm.txt #Gif tutorial #this is LONG okay please be aware of that before you open it #als i did NOT reread it because it took me 3 hours to type out so it's probably a grammatic nightmare #BUT i'm JUST under a new milestone so i'm gifting this early because i had the patience to do it today lmao

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arcanaheadcanons · 4 years

Photo

i traced the portraits for some sort of roleswap au

(edit: tumblr predictably ate any image quality so i separated the pictures)

*clears throat*

COUNTESS PORTIA <----> HEAD SERVANT LUCIO

Like the canon version of Lucio, Portia spent several years as a (pirate) mercenary and then settled down and become Countess of Vesuvia through ambiguous means. Her reign is relatively the same with the exceptions of a) the Coliseum has been toned down to non-lethal combat, b) the menagerie of awesome pets is much better trained, c) the Palace’s party budget has been cut, and d) there is a distinct lack of plague.

Lucio initially took a position with the Palace as a servant when the Devil started talking to him about potentially overthrowing the Countess and replacing her. Soon enough, though, he ended up befriending Portia, becoming head servant through sheer force of personality, and putting the whole overthrowing thing on hold. He hasn’t taken any deals yet, thankfully, but the Devil won’t stop nagging him and he’s considering cutting ties with that annoying goat out of spite.

COMPANION MURIEL <----> RECLUSE NADIA

After Muriel was sent away from his tribe, he was picked up by a group of slavers and sold to the Coliseum, being forced to kill to survive until Portia rose to power, realized her champion fighter wasn’t doing this voluntarily, and shut the whole thing down. She offered to let Muriel stay in the palace. He spends his time tending to the menagerie and roaming the quieter sections of the gardens.

Nadia, sick of her family and needing to get away from it all, left Prakra and had her contemplation tower built in the woods surrounding Vesuvia. She still gets the occasional visit or message from her family, but she has made it clear to them that she needs time to herself. The people of Vesuvia have come to see her as an enlightened sage figure, and every now and then someone will trek to her tower to consult her for advice.

DOCTOR ASRA <----> COURT MAGE JULIAN

Asra is an extremely competent doctor, though his enigmatic personality and cryptic sense of humor often keep people from trusting him with their health. He doesn’t seem to have any true friends, though he has many friendly acquaintances. There are some nasty rumors about what he does in his downtime (everything from bedroom preferences to “dark science”), but none of it is backed up by any evidence. This kind of gossip just comes with the territory of being mysterious and elusive 24/7.

Julian is the court’s official magician... largely due to his sister being the Countess. He is powerful, to be sure, but he is also absolutely terrified of his own magic. Magic doesn’t seem to obey him all that well. If he attempts to cast a spell without knowing exactly what he’s doing, it always ends up turning into necromancy somehow. The only way he can reliably control his magic is to bind it to items (weapons, golems, etc) so that he can think of magic as a rational, scientific process similar to programming. Because of this, Julian has studied under Salim and Aisha as an artificer.

#the arcana #roleswap au #asra #nadia #julian devorak #muriel #portia devorak #lucio #my posts

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lioconvoy · 4 years

Text

My Fellow Boomer Community Members Are Being Dumb

I saw a clip on YouTube of the TMNT from Rise fighting Shredder. Showing off their new weapons (mirroring their original ones, mind you) in the spectacular animation the series is known for. Only to find this genius in the comments section.

Now, he, of course, can’t really DEFINE what he means by “better”, so he resorts to posting about the original cartoon and how it was so much better. Now, I’m an 80′s kid. And I’m not about to dog on the original cartoon. That’s reductive and speaks ill of the people that worked on it at the time. But I WILL say this: it’s not the most hardcore thing in the world that your 8 year old brain thought it was. As far as designs go, the identical designs for the turtles has always been an issue in both the original show towards it’s animation AND the comics. But this guy can’t think that deeply, nor does he understand WHY the turtle’s have been designed the way they have in the new show.

But here is where we get to the crux of the problem; his issue is that the show is, in general, a kid’s property. And not the TOTALLY MACHO HARCORE SHOW FOR ADULTS HE WANTS IT TO BE GRRRRRRR! Look how AGGRESSIVE and POWERFUL they look in this art! That’s totally what the turtles should be so I can feel like an adult for liking this property! This totally isn’t about my own insecurities! Not at all!

“Improvement” apparently means the turtles all have the stock “angry” expressions that shows even the team goofball, Mikey, as having rabies. Granted, the art in and of itself is fine; good fan art. Several levels above what I’m capable of.

But here’s the deep, DARK truth about TMNT that no one wants to address......it’s experimented from the START. That 80′s cartoon people say should be the bases for modern interpretations? COMPLETELY off from the original comics. Remember Splinter, the kind, wise father figure to the turtles? Yeah, in the original comic, he literally just raised them so they could kill Shredder for him. Pure revenge. I’d post scans, but Tumblr’s interface is dumb and makes things like that difficult unless you go in already knowing what images you need. Anyways, TMNT has always experimented and operated differently than the original comics. If your issue with, say, April is that she’s Black in this new one, but you don’t care that she was changed to be a news reporter in the 80′s cartoon, then I’m likely just going to make fun of you for being inconsistent. Transformers and TMNT have MORE than earned the right to experiment in how they do shows. The argument should be for the quality of the show in writing and animation. Rise is a genuinely good show, a fresh take on the turtles, etc. You want to complain about a show? Go complain about that new Netflix Transformers show which is GENUINELY trash. Heck, even complaining about ROAR makes more sense because ThunderCats hasn’t been treated well since the 80′s. But RISE? No. Sit down and shut up. The only people I won’t say that to are the few that think anything that’s not 100% spot-on for the original Mirage comics isn’t their taste. Because at least THEY have standards.

#tmnt #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #nostalgic #fred wolf tmnt #rant #cartoons #animation

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violetlunette · 4 years

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All Might and Bakugou Rant Chapter 8-11

Okay, before I start this rant I want to say that I LOVE All Might; he is a sweet sunflower man and I love him! He is in my top 3 favorite BNHA/MHA characters. HOWEVER, just because I love and adore him doesn’t mean I’m not going to get upset when his actions, or in actions in this case, potentially cause serious harm!

As for Bakugou--I like him when I’m not forced to like him if that makes sense? He has a lot of good qualities and I love that he has a unique backstory for rivals. There’s no angsty reason for his assholeness he’s just a brat who got a big head from being praised all the time and for actually being talented. I really want to see him grow which is why I get super angry when the story ruins his potential growth moments.

The rest of my thoughts I’m saving for a future post.

For those who are confused, I started a post series where I’ve been collecting every image I can find to explore Izuku and Bakugou’s relationship because it’s a big thing in the BNHA/MHA community and I wanted to judge myself. This rant is about Chapters 8-11 and how All Might handles things. Spoilers ahead! I should also warn that this is also very, very Bakugou critical as we are dealing with early gremlin Bakugou who goes overboard with Boom-boom. Also this is a rant, so things might not be very coherent and may repeat.

Oh and this is a LONG rant so I wouldn’t open on tumblr search. New tab suggested.

And finally; no beta reader. We die like dumbasses. Enjoy if you like rants.

The set up;

So here’s the stage; Bakugou vs Izuku. All Might tells Bakugou to adapt a villain mindset, and BOY

DOES

EVER

Because of Bakugou’s temper he unleashes an explosion that both he and All Might admit could kill Izuku. Not just injure or maim, but KILL. And this wasn’t a small attack ether;

Look at this;

A large chunk of the building was taken out and the structure on the rest was damaged and cracked. I don’t think the building will collapse, but I’m not an architect and this is still serious damage.

And in this test run the area is supposed to be a nuclear plant. I’m not going to say too much considering Japan’s history with nuclear stuff, but I will say that if this was a real run Japan would be in serious trouble all because “King Explosion Murder” is having a hissy fit!

But this is a test, so I’m just going to focus on the fact that Bakugou used a literal killing move on Izuku and All Might did nothing!

Remember this part? “I will stop you if you take things too far?”

How

THIS

NOT TOO FAR?!

Is it just me here? I get we’re dealing with some value dissonance /blue and orange mentality as this world isn’t like ours, but come on!

YES!! Listen to Kirishima, the only one in the whole class that seems to care about the potential death of a classmate!

Even if Bakugou wasn’t intending to kill, he was going in to severely injure and maim Izuku. And what if Izuku tried to dodge the wrong way and it was a direct hit? What then? The only reason Izuku’s blood isn’t everywhere is because in anime world people are durable as fuck.

Isn’t it their job to teach these kids not to use moves that could kill someone, or at least be responsible and not use said moves on classmates during a training course?

Yes! You should!

Okay, to be fair to All Might it’s clearly stated by everyone around him that while All Might is smart and knows how to hero he doesn’t know how to teach very well at this point, though he does improve later on. And I do understand his thinking; if Izuku told him about the bullying then this is Izuku’s chance to get back a little at Bakugou and show him what he’s made of. That’s what he’s thinking here;

Yeah, that’s one way to describe it.

It’s also shown very clearly that Izuku wants this fight, to finally be able to challenge Bakugou on equal ground for once in his life.

I also understand that the UA teachers are getting these kids ready to fight real villains, so they are pretty lax on things to help them. That’s why I give Aizawa a lot of slack with his teaching methods.

And All Might does warn Bakugou not to do it again;

Also calm? Petty? Really? THAT’S what you see? Yeah, he’s “calm” and thinking clearly (which makes everything worse, btw), but “petty?” The word is genocidal, All Might. Bakugou does use the attack again! RIGHT ON IZUKU’S FACE.

Even if this was a different attack, how is this not too far? Okay, I guess Izuku blocked it as we see below;

But Bakugou didn’t know he would block and look at Izuku’s eye; did that attack do eye damage?

And what really irritates me is that All Might wasn’t going to do shit until he saw that Izuku was going to use OFA.

So, explosion fist that took out part of a building was fine, but using OFA that’s just too far!

Kirishima has to plead with All Might to stop things before he starts to give in. (And seriously? WHY IS HE THE ONLY ONE?! Does no one else care??)

But I’m not even that mad that he allowed the fight to continue. I wanted Izuku to have a chance to prove himself and beat Bakugou’s ass (he deserves it here. FIGHT ME). I also like that with Izuku’s hard earned victory Bakugou is momentarily humbled.

I agree that for both Izuku and Bakugou this fight needed to happen (but only if Izuku won). Bakugou needed this moment for character development.

He really needed this.

No, what I’m mad about is that BAKUGOU WAS NEVER SCOLDED FOR HIS ACTIONS. Hell, All Might goes the opposite way and tries to comfort Bakugou as we see here;

which okay, maybe he needed a little. He needed to hear these words, but he also needed a major scolding! But he never got that.

Izuku was carried away on a stretcher and severely damage, but does he care? No! What does he care about? Bakugou’s fragile ego!

Yeah, I know Izuku’s body is broken, but poor Bakubabe’s not feeling very confident. SERIOUSLY ALL MIGHT?!!

Why is this a big deal? Why am I so mad? Same reason why I was mad at the other teachers. By not telling Bakugou what he did was wrong and making him listen he did what every. Single. Damn. Teacher. Has done so far; taught him there was nothing wrong with his actions; it was okay that he unleashed an attack that could KILL on someone, especially on Izuku. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. Because no one ever tries to correct Bakugou he keeps acting this way, losing his temper and hurting people, mostly Izuku. And it doesn’t just hurt Bakugou, the inaction of no one ever scolding Bakugou teaches Izuku that it’s okay for him to get hurt. It’s okay that others hurt him, no big deal. It’s no wonder Izuku is always breaking his bones! Why would he listen to others telling him to to take better care of himself when the world keeps saying that it’s okay for people like Bakugou to hurt him?

There’s also the fact that Izuku was severely hurt here;

These are not comical anime wounds, these are serious, oh shit wounds so bad he has to be carried away on a stretcher.

No. Don’t laugh it off! You are hurting Izuku and Bakugou for reasons I already stated.

Even Recovery Girl tells him that what he did was stupid!

See what a good scolding can do? All Might made a mistake and he’s being called out on it.

An ego trip does not make this okay. Just like All Might needed to be told that his actions were wrong, so does Bakugou. Hell, Bakugou needs it even more!

I love RG. If she was there I’m willing to bet Bakugou would have gotten at least a time out. She’s the best teacher. She knows when to be kind, when to bee strict, and when someone needs to be called out. LEARN FROM HER All Might!

Bakugou’s quirk is EXPLOSIONS. It’s just as dangerous as Thirteen’s Black hole, or Shigaraki’s dissolve quirk and just as deadly! He needs to be taught to understand that along with controlling his temper especially because he’s going to be a hero, but he’s not going to learn if his ego is always babied and never faces consequences. I’m not asking for All Might to turn Bakugou over his knee or anything, just to tell Bakugou that what he did was wrong. Especially since he’ll be dealing with civilians in the future.

But no, instead of focusing on the fact Bakugou needs to control his temper All Might decides he needs to nurse Bakugou’s ego. I highly disagree because in addition to everything I stated above. Bakugou’s case a little ego bruising might teach him some humility which he SORELY NEEDS. He needs love and care, but when he does something dangerous and deadly, he needs a kick in the pants or at LEAST a strong NO, DON’T DO THAT.

How is he going to learn otherwise? Seriously, does anyone ever scold Bakugou for his temper? His ego is always called out, but what about his temper?

Again, I adore All Might. He is a great hero and he gets better, but I wish he bought that teacher’s hand book before his first class.

Rant finally over, I swear I didn’t intend for it to be this long, but oh well.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #Rant #bakugou critical #All Might critical #baby I love you #but pls buy that book soon!#poor izuku btw #chapter 8 #chapter 9 #chapter 10 #chapter 11 #long rant btw #I was angrier than I thought

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segersgia · 4 years

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Looking back: Part 2 - Death Guard - Infantry

8th edition needed a big baddie for the new Primaris Marines to combat, and Mortarion was very eager to oblige in this front. The Death Guard are by far my favourite Heretic Astartes faction just by aesthetic alone. Nurgle is my #1 Chaos God. I like his focus on pestilence and decay and the fact he is technically a rather benign god.

I love the Death Guard because of their doctrines and their design. They make use of chemical warfare and just slowly advance like a poisonous cloud towards their foes.

So it was very exciting to see a full army being made out of them.

This army is very difficult to rate and review, because unlike the Space Marine line, every little model in their range is unique in some way. Every little miniature you get for this army has different weapons, helmets, and different armour patterns. This means that one unit will both have ace looking models and models that look like hot filthy garbage (in a bad way).

Let’s begin...

Plague Marines:

The main boys of the Death Guard army are definitely the much-loved Plague Marines. These are your mainline infantry boys and make up the majority of the Death Guard Army. They are a result of what happens when a Chaos Space Marine starts worshiping Nurgle a little too much. They begin transforming into these bloated and disease ridden humps of rotten flesh and rusted armour. The Plague Marines themselves love this. They feel no pain and see every little malady as another gift from their god.

The first Plague Marines came into existence during the Horus Heresy. When the Death Guard attempted to join the Siege of Terra, their fleet got lost in the Warp and the legion became infected with Nurgle’s Rot and the Destroyer Plague. Their Primarch Mortarion, in an attempt to save his legion from the torture and suffering, sold his soul and his legion to Nurgle.

Plague Marines slowly advance on their enemies, bolters firing without mercy. Some carry rusted weapons that are infused with Nurgle’s Rot. One small cut and your infected. When injured, they won’t even flinch, since they absolutely feel no pain whatsoever.

Plague Marines are a truly decisive bunch of miniatures. You have four different kits to choose from (three, since Dark Imperium has been discontinued) and each of them has some very good models and some very bad ones.

I do think that they are very busy and in some parts overdesigned. Some models have like three different Plaguebearers fused to their armour for example. I do like their armour though and the ones wearing the Mark 2 helmet are by far the best looking of the bunch.

I would say that the best box out of the four would be the basic Multi-kit, since they are the most consistent in quality. However, all of my favourites strangely come from the discontinued Dark Imperium Box Set.

7/10

Poxwalkers:

The Walking Pox is a very infectious disease that is just awful to have. Your organs start failing one by one and you eventually turn into a zombie, fully conscious of your actions yet without any control over your body.

Poxwalkers shamble like undead in search of flesh to consume. They have these long horns sprouting out of their heads and all of them constantly smile like they’ve been injected with Joker laughing gas. The worst part about them is that their groans and roars can infect those who hear it with the Walking Pox disease.

The walking Pox spreads auditory. It can spread through the vibrations of sound.

I love these models. There is nothing really bad to say about them. They completely succeed at what they are supposed to convey and resemble. Some of them hint at their former professions, like the one dressed as a doctor. Some of them also wear clothing similar to that the Genestealer Hybrids, so they stay very consistent. They look creepy and disgusting and I love it.

10/10

Blightlord Terminators:

These fellas are even more diseased than their normal Plague Marine counterparts. Their steps corrode and rust the ground beneath them and even being touched by them could spell your very painful death.

Blightlord Terminators excel at ship-to-ship-combat and boarding actions against enemy spaceships. Since they are Terminators, they can teleport aboard enemy vessels, and they use this tactic to cause mayhem and to spread the gift of Nurgle.

The Blightlords are surprisingly less busy than I would’ve expected and it makes them a better looking unit for it. These models found a way better balance between clean and diseased. I think that some of their weapons do look a bit oversized. Overall though, the designers aced this unit.

My favourite one out of the bunch is the Insectoid Blightlord with the extra limbs. That is just clever design and a fun way to visualize Nurgle’s corruption.

8/10

Deathshroud:

In the olden days of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, the Deathshroud were the personal bodyguards of Mortarion. They were his version of an Honour Guard and were chosen out of the sole survivors from destroyed Space Marine squads. They completely forsook their identity, never taking of their masks and conducting a vow of silence. They are considered at that point killed in action.

They still largely form Mortarion’s personal guard even after his ascension to Daemon Prince. However, Mortarion also sends them to check up on those he favours. They fight alongside Chaos Lords and the like and act like judges. If a Chaos Lord does well, the Deathshroud leave in peace, but if the Chaos Lord failed in the eyes of Mortarion, then he gets executed by these bodyguards.

Deathshroud carry Power-scythes called Manreapers, which are rumoured to be dipped in the filth of Nurgle’s Throne itself. They also come equipped with custom Hand Flamers that shoot chemical ammunition.

The Deathshroud have a very good design that is very similar to the Blightlords. There is however some waste in potential. These are Mortarion’s most trusted warriors and they just look like a hooded version of the Blightlords. I kind of wished the designers took some inspiration from this artwork and made them have more ornate features.

It would certainly distinguish them more from their brethren better.

I also take some offence that in the images, one of them has no helmet on, which kind of ruins the point of a voiceless and faceless warrior. You do have the option of giving the squad leader a helmeted head, so this is kind of a none-issue.

7/10

Plague Marine Icon Bearer

The Icon bearers of Nurgle carry an Icon of Despair. This banner creates an aura of hopelessness around the area, and the thoughts of surrounding foes become filled with the idea of inevitable death. It basically turns enemies into nihilists who’ve become depressed.

What makes me sad about this unit is that there is no mention of these guys anywhere on the different wiki’s, which is kind of a bummer since he looks like a solid Plague Marine. Yes, it is just a Plague Marine with a Chaos Icon, but he should at least be mentioned somewhere. Don’t be mean to him. He is a good looking Plague Marine.

I do wish that the Icon he carried didn’t have the weird helmet pressed in it. The fly motive is nice though.

8/10

———————–

So all in all, outside of some outliers, the Death Guard infantry is a very solid line of miniatures that is very varied in appearance. You could apply the “Goldilocks Effect” to it; some are too busy, some are not busy enough, and some are just just right.

Next up, I’m going to tackle the Craftworld Aeldari Faction, which will be a short one and will probably come a little sooner than normal. After that, I’ll be looking at the Vanguard Primaris infantry units. I want to spread them out somewhat so that everything stays interesting, but I also want to get the Primaris overviewed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for reading my stuff so far. It is fun to overview the design and lore of these different factions. It also is a learning experience for me. For example; Tumblr has a Max-10 image cap per post and this means that this series will probably list a lot longer than I’d imagine. Still, it will be a fun ride for me.

‘Till next time.

previous posts: Primaris Mainline Infantry

#warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #Death Guard #8th edition #Chaos #Nurgle #Plague Marines #Infantry #warhammer #rating #Range overview

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plushpixels · 4 years

Note

Hi again :) I was wondering if you have any tips on editing? I’ve been reading your story since the beginning and you have improved greatly!! I just started using photoshop, so still figuring everything out.

Hello-hello :) First of all, thank you for reading my legacy, I feel really grateful, honestly :3 Now to the business.

I’m not sure how useful of tips I can give to someone who’s just starting with PS, cause there’s a lot to look into about it.

• If I were new to PS I’d start with understanding adjustments layers and their effects, cause these guys will be the main thing in every editing. There are a lot of tutorials out there, especialy videos on youtube, which explain it so much more efficiently than I could possibly do in a tumblr post. If you’re not feeling like getting too deep into this whole topic, look for different .psd and photoshop actions for editing, tthere are a lot out there, they’re also good as a base to understanding the whole thing.

• Then I’d look into Topaz Clean plug-in, this one helps to clean and sharpen your images, I wrote about it and how I use it >here

• Then, it doesn’t really have anything to do with PS, but pay attention to in-game lighting. And I don’t only mean all kinds of No-Blu lighting mods, but actually all the lamps in your sims’ house. I realized the whole power of this instrument not so long ago, and it affects the quality of my screenshots so much, it’s ridiculous. Here’s a link to a very helpful tutorial, which explains this topic in detail. Basically, the better your source screen is, the easier it will be to edit it, so I wouldn’t ignore this step :3

• Avoid too bleached lights as well as too dark/black shadows, unless you’re going for the effect. Both of these will make later editing hurt..

• Mind your sharpening tools - sharpness is good, it gives your image polished look, but over-sharpening will kill your every effort.

• Look into overlay textures (google it x) there are light effects, dust effects, noise effects, scratches, shadows, blooms, camera bleaches, vignettes, color gradients - find what you like and go for it, they will no only give your images depth, but may also help you find your own style.

•This will be my last tip, but not least. Go for your own thing, ask this same ask to different simblrs who’s editing you like, see what different answers you’ll get, try all the different stuff and make your own mixture out of it, so people would come to you asking for your unique tips :)

This was it for boring general tips x) If you were referring more to what I personally do for my images, then my routine after taking a screenshot is:

• I crop my image to what I need it to look like;

• I run Topaz Clean actions from the post I linked you to;

• Resize to 1200 px wide for my story posts, and to whatever else for the rest of them;

• Run my own sharpen action which is for the High Pass filter of PS;

• At this point I do the basic editing: I fix the contrast/brightness balance, tune the colors to my liking. (I prefer cooler shades of skin for example, and love when my pictures have a little bit of periwinkle/pinkish tint). I mostly use Curves, Levels, Color Balance, Selective Color, Photofilter adjustment levels here, it really depends of the quality of the source image here.

• Next step is my curse, cause I draw shadows, highlights, hair strands on my images. I tried it once, got addicted and I wish I could not be doing it, but alas. I do it by hand on my tablet, it’s time consuming, I wouldn’t recommend 😝

• Final part are overlays I mentioned above, sometimes I make light rays, sometimes I draw dust particles, sometimes I do noise; it all depends.

And that’s about it, I think, I hope it was helpful? :)

#wcif #reply #editing #replies

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nkechi-sims · 4 years

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June Candis for @boomchicapopdatsims‘ Love is Blind

“Oh I’m sure I could get along with anybody! It’s just a matter of when I finally wear them down!”

age: 29

sexuality: bisexual

gender: female

hometown: oasis springs

occupation: primary school teacher (gr. 3)

traits: cheerful, jealous, family oriented

dietary needs: “peanuts are my secret weapon for my best impression of a hot air balloon!”

sign: libra sun, sag moon, virgo ascendant

PERSONALITY

Scrapbooking, meditation, and “inside” voices. If sunshine was a sim it’d be June Candis. Affectionately called “Ms. Candy” by her students, June more than lives up to the name. Bordering on saccharine sweet in her temperament, people either love her or wish she’d shut her cheerful behind up. June is the head of every Welcome Wagon you’ve never wanted, toting a poorly-baked fruitcake for your enjoyment. It’s hard to tell if her sunshine-y outlook was a product of her career as a primary teacher or if it developed on it’s own, but one thing is for sure; once June kills you with kindness, she buries you with benevolence.

On the rare occasion that June meets a sim she just can’t smile into submission, she’s prone to fold her hands and freeze them out, after all, if you have nothing kind to say, scream it in your head until it goes away. FAMILY

June’s upbringing was one of a kind. In a small, sandy, desert town, the rumor mill works overtime, so when little ‘June-Bug’ was asked to draw a picture of her family and produced a (quite lovely) crayon picture of her four parents, all sorts of gossip circled about. A commune, a cult, polygamists, infidelity, the works. It was really much more simple than that. June was born with a loving mother and father, who later in life realized they just weren’t the ones for each other, they went on to marry the men of their dreams, and with June being so young, she really couldn’t differentiate between Poppy, Dad, and Aba. Three dads is a lot to some people, but not too odd. It was the “all living under one roof” part that did it for most folks. But June didn’t mind the whispers or looks. For her, being her parents’ only child (so far), meant always having a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on and three times as many Christmas presents. PREFERENCES + ROMANTIC HISTORY When it comes to her type, June loves a project. Whether it be a shy and sweet wallflower who needs coaxing out of her shell or an adorable momma’s boy who needs a little more independence, June’s your girl, much to the chagrin of her friends and family. The Oasis Springs school teacher believes everyone and anyone is capable and worthy of love. It’s not to say June isn’t discerning, she just wishes to see the best in people (even when it’s not really there). She’s definitely not a casual dater, when you grow up surrounded by so much love, you’re bound to be a romantic. And so she is. soulmates, the one, June believes in all of it. And she wants it for herself. June’s ever present cheerfulness does not extend to her love life. Naturally quite jealous and sometimes a little too invested in settling down, June is interested in being a wife A.S.A.P. and has mastered the art of playing it cool and aloof until she can snap the trap closed. Her enthusiasm for romance has resulted in a trail of messy and turbulent breakups behind her, chief of all, being her ex-fiance and current “good friend”, Ben sitting atop the pile like the king of the world. In June’s mind, Love is Blind, Deaf, Mute or whatever else it has to be for her to drag someone to the altar, kicking and screaming if she’s got to. June is a firm believer in the transformative properties of a good romance, and Love is Blind is the perfect test of faith. just had to submit a sim, under the wire of course and of course tumblr thanos snapped the image quality

#love is blind challenge #sims 4 #boomchicapopdatsims #she is a clown #but wants love SO BAD #nat's challenges?#sensational

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spnfanficpond · 5 years

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October Angel Fish Awards

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle or Mana to check and make sure we got your submission.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE OCTOBER’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nominated by @impala-dreamer

Lay All Your Love on Me (oneshot) by @idabbleincrazy

Very very tasty Sam smut here. Love him just letting go and getting into it. Very good work!!

For Tonight (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence

Amazing. Simple yet beautiful and oh the sweet pain. I loved it.

Nominated by Anon

Ride with Me by @katehuntington

This story is amazing! Kate is weaving such an intricate little AU while still remaining true to the characters. Her descriptions are spot on and the dialogue just feels so…perfect. I adore the insight we are getting from Dean’s perspective too. This is such a unique story and now I just want to go on a trail ride (and find me a cowboy *winks*)!

Nominated by @manawhaat

Dessert Then Dinner (oneshot) by @atc74

HOLY SHITBALLS! I generally am not a slut for Rob, but this made me the absolute biggest slut for Rob. Oy vey. The inspiration was fucking there! That picture did things to me and the fic that followed definitely did things to me. It’s hot, it’s fucking ACCURATE representation of lust for the way a man is dressed. Ay ay ay, these words and image are just happen to be exactly what makes my brain explode.

Witches Fuckin’ Suck (oneshot) by @crashdevlin

This. Fic. Is. Fuckin’. Weird. It’s weird. It’s absolutely weird. IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY. OMG. I have never related to all parties in a fic so thoroughly. It’s hilarious. It’s ridiculous. There’s a funniness and curiosity that bleeds into sexiness in such a light and honest way. The way this scenario presents itself is so damn real within the realm of Jody and Donna and me. Fucking fantastic!

Nominated by @slytherkins

River (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Love me some Denny, but this one is almost better because it’s just implied. There are all sorts of references to Dean’s past, but they are subtle, and the fic itself is understated. It’s also hawt. :p And Dean is so in character. I just…I just like this. Is just good. Bittersweet and sexy.

Drabble #5 (oneshot) by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters

I loved this drabble. It’s so understated. Big responses in these types of situations are great and all, but I think the fact that they were so reserved made it all the more touching. And particularly in character for Dean, imho. Read it! Be moved. :p

A Dangerous Game ch.6 (series) by @risingphoenix761

Ooooooh Myyyyy Gaaaaaaawd. Y'all. New chapter. Smut…so hawt. Character dynamic…so fun. Crowley…so, so secksy. Magic…so magicy. :p Remusly, this series just blows me away.

Nominated by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing

About A Boy (series) by @percywinchester27

I would like to nominate Ana’s About a Boy series. It has me on the edge of my seat already. Ana is such an insanely smart writer and she really knows how to build a story. She also know her character super well and she is wicked at writing them as kids/young adults. It’s not a reader insert which I know turn a bunch of people off which is a huge shame cause this one really deserves a lot of love and attention.

Nominated by @lovetusk

A Little Hide and Seek (series) by @iflostreturntosteverogers

Can I nominate this new series that Carrie is working on? She’s really growing as a writer lately, and so far this series really showcases that.

Nominated by @princessmisery666

Blood In Bed (oneshot) by @slytherkins

So I don’t support @slytherkins as much as she supports me and my writing so I wanted to read something of hers, even though it’s not my ‘usual’ cup of tea!!

And god damn I’m so f******g happy, scrap that, ecstatic that I did. This was fun, engaging, funny, sweet and heart breaking. I know she knows Crowley, she quite literally is his Queen 👑. She gets him spot on and this could quite easily be canon. I can see it happening.

I wish I had the words to tell you how brilliant this is, how much I really like it. Demon Dean is perfectly portrayed and I just can’t express how good this is. Mark as my favourite and one I will return to, many times.

Not Always The Way (oneshot) by @kittenofdoomage

THIS WAS PERFECTION!! Yes I know I’m shouting but I need to!!!

Sweet, fluffy, smutty, perfectly Sam, cute and awkward and kind and patient and just yeah!

Nominated by @ellen-reincarnated1967

A New Fall (series) by @iwantthedean

It's autumn themed, full of the apple pie life, orchards, pumpkins, cinnamon rolls that you can eat as well as the human cinnaroll Jensen post season 15. The family history of the reader really puts you right at the farmer's market and you'll feel cozy. There's also a twist. Looking forward to the rest, but the chapters up now, are addicting like apple pie!

Nominated by @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish

Blood and Water (series) by @crashdevlin

This story is fan-freakin-tastic! I love everything about it. I’m all about Dark!chesters and Crash is killing it, especially since the boys still feel in character despite the whole ‘screwing their sisiter’ thing. Bravo Crash! Can’t wait to see what else is in store for these three.

His Property (series) by @negans-lucille-tblr

How do I begin to describe this amazing work of fanfic? Dirty? Kinky? Delicious? Dramatic? Angsty? Smutty? Surprise conflict? On point characters in a very very alternate universe? Yes, I think one of those is a good place to start. Bottom Line: READ THIS FIC (and its sequel Yours)!

Mr. Impala (mixed media) by @evansrogerskitten

I don’t even remember how I stumbled across this gem but I was shook! I totally thought I was looking at the real thing! And then I read the article, and I was absolutely reading the real AU thing! Such an awesome work of art and fic combined! I was blown away by the quality of it! Props to Ash (and all the other art people) for such an awesome piece and even more props for merging art and fic flawlessly!

Nominated by @stunudo

Smokestack Lightning (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

I’m nominating MJ’s awesome Sam/Rowena fic because it was what we needed after The Rupture. It is real, but also fun and flirty. She is a master at layering the emotions into her fics, especially the smutty ones.

Nominated by @wi-deangirl77

Stages of Grief (drabble) by @plaidstiel-wormstache

I’m nominating this drabble by my gal Jessie because it’s so different than a lot of the fics out there. The way she coveys the pain and sorrow that the characters feel after such a loss is palpable. And the way she jumps forward to the future that neither of the remaining characters could have even thought possible at the beginning of the story is very bittersweet.

What’s Left of Me (drabble) by @waywardjoy

Once again the Queen of Angst (as I’ve so lovingly dubbed her) brings it to the next level. Writing it all from Sam’s POV she sets up this dark, DARK fic (heed the warnings peeps) for one hell of a ride. You can’t help but feel as confused, scared and out of control as our hero Sam does as she takes you down the spiraling track that is the plot of this fic. Well done, dear Joy…well done.

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

As with the BFAs, these are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

#angel fish awards #afa masterlist #spn fanfiction #spn fic rec #spnfanficpond #afas

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chispas-and-broken-bindings · 4 years

Text

I’m posting a preview of the next chapter of Know The Love - Part II. This chapter is taking me longer to write than I anticipated, and I have a crazy busy week coming up at work, so it is looking less and less likely that I’ll have the full thing posed to Ao3 as soon as I would like.

So, I thought I’d share the WIP to anyone who follows me on Tumblr, below the cut:

Sansa relaxed into the hot, spring-fed bath, settling back until only her lips and nose breached the steamy surface. She closed her eyes, remembering.

Jon, what are you trying to tell me? That there's another secret Targaryen, vying for the Iron Throne?

(Not a trueborn Targaryen…)

Stars danced behind her lids.

(And he has no interest in ruling the Seven Kingdoms, I promise you.) What are you saying?

Slipping completely below the water, she let the weight of his secret pull her down.

(I keep telling you…I'm not a Stark. I'm not your brother, Sansa. Trueborn or half.) Stop, Jon. You're the very image of father. (It is not uncommon for a nephew to resemble his uncle.)

Days had passed since Jon's revelation, but her blood still pounded in her ears, hot and heady, like he'd only just told her. It had taken her a foolishly long time to understand what Jon was trying to say as she stared at him across his solar, her eyes flitting helplessly to Lord Reed, who only gazed back, stoic as ever.

(Lord Eddard was my uncle.) But you're too young to be Uncle Brandon's, and Uncle Benjen was too young to be a father…

Jon looked pained as understanding reached her at last. Her chest strained, painfully.

You're Lyanna's...Winter's rose. (Yes.) Stolen by the Dragon Prince. …and Rheagar Targaryen's… (Bastard.)

When he said it, she had been too thrown, too off balance to hear the loathing Jon bit into the word. The ground had shifted beneath her feet, the sky slanting so she was sliding down once more, drowning, and all she had the sense to ask, in a keening breathless voice, was, Who else knows?

"Sansa!" Her name came, muffled, through the water, but when hands disturbed the warm void, grasping at her arms, she woke from her reverie and resurfaced with a gasp. "For heavens sakes, Sansa! Are you trying to scare me witless! I'm already frantic over Theon's trial." She blinked into Jeyne's concerned, fire agate eyes, as rivulets raced down her brow and into her heavy lashes.

"Sorry Jeyne, I was only daydreaming," she sighed.

"I implore you, dream with your head above the water, please." Jeyne stood, shaking her head and frowning at her now soaking sleeves. "You're as bad as Arya used to be when we'd swim in the godswood. She'd challenge the other girls to try and hold their breath as long as she. Once, long after the others had given up, she floated to the surface, face down. When I turned her over, with tears burning my eyes, mind you, Ayra sprang to life, spouting water in my face, cackling like the Crone."

"I was just wetting my hair, not attempting a lark." Sansa squeezed her heavy locks, before twisting them together over the tub's edge, to dry.

"Be that as it may, you are not a fish, Sansa. You won't sprout gills beneath the surface if you stay down too long. You'll drown."

"Duly noted." She closed her eyes again, trying to recall her train of thought, but Jeyne continued prodding.

"Are you feeling well, my lady? You're flushed."

"Of course I'm flushed. I'm poaching in a steaming bath." Irritation seeped into her voice, and she glanced at her friend, contrite. Jeyne did not deserve her sullen mood. Theon's trial was only a few hours away, and Jeyne had stayed awake half the night, fretting over him. Now, she was fretting over Sansa.

"It's only, you haven't seemed entirely yourself, the past few days. You've been-" Spinning like a top into oblivion? "-distracted."

When Sansa rose, Jeyne and one of her maids came to either side, wrapping her in a robe and helping her step from the copper tub. She laced her fingers through Jeyne's, relaxing her face into an easy smile. "I suppose I'm just tired. In the songs, they always leave out the verses where Jonquil spends her days mediating the lords' petty disputes or counting sacks of grain." Jeyne squeezed back.

"Well, when your Florian returns, you must beseech the king to appoint someone else to those duties. You and your knight will need time to reacquaint yourselves." She winked, playfully, and Sansa's belly dropped. She had no Florian; only an over-eager, impatient heir with more ambition than advantage, and a trail of ruined women behind him…and ahead. He was due back to Winterfell any day, after a decisive victory at the Dreadfort. Her stomach roiled at the thought, but she mustered a smile, nonetheless.

"Alas, the king works harder than us all. He does not deserve a princess who eschews her duties for any knight, especially while she is still wed to another."

Jeyne pushed her to her vanity, where her maids began to dress her. "Where is the romance in that, princess? Think on it. This may be your only chance for a true love affair." Sansa gaped at her friend, scandalized. "And wouldn't it be sweet, to be lovers first, before you are man and wife?" It would not be sweet. She'd had a glimpse at what an affair with Harry would entail, and she saw no appeal, with him.

"I must stay a maid, to annul my marriage to Tyrion," she reminded her friend, who only pursed her lips a moment, before responding.

"There are ways to take a lover and still preserve your maidenhead." Jeyne whispered, and Sansa marveled at the young woman's coy suggestion. After all she had endured, Jeyne had a spirit as hardy and irrepressible as the yellow yarrow that spread across the North in the summer, sprouting wherever the sun kissed the earth, from barrow to marsh, ditch to crag, no matter the quality of the soil or the quantity of rain. It stirred something within Sansa, and her cheeks burned at Jeyne's bold words. She pressed her eyes shut, but it was not the Young Falcon she imagined, standing before her. Grey eyes caught her. A kiss, searing and too brief, whispered across her lips. See? What consumes you, devastates me too.

I'm not your brother, Sansa.

Her eyes snapped open. She was being foolish, to conflate the Jon she knew before with the Jon she knew now. The Jon who chased her smiling lips with his own down a dark corridor, and burned through her restraint over darker waters, was wooing a different woman. The Jon she knew now had only meant to convey essential information to the only family left to him.

Who else knows? (That lives? Myself. Howland. Now…you. Your father was the only other, as far as we know. Sansa, this is a dangerous secret. The kind that starts wars and kills thousands.)

As if she didn't understand. Only minutes before, the northern lords had packed Jon's solar, railing against two unknown Targaryens, half a world away. She knew how the North viewed the disgraced house. Madmen. Rapists. Inbred Dragonspawn. If they learned that their own king, already holding together a fragile kingdom, was the son of the man who had kidnapped and raped the beloved Lyanna Stark, sparking the flames that led to Brandon and Lord Rickard's deaths and a rebellion that changed the face of Westoros…why, they would turn on Jon like rabid dogs.

Then, why are you telling me? She had asked him, eyes flying again to Howland in desperation.

(No more secrets, remember? We promised.) He had looked at her with such intensity that she was forced to look away once more, imploring Lord Reed for assistance.

If anyone else finds out, you'll lose the North! She turned to Jon. You must remain Ned Stark's son. The lords will never back a Targaryen. The look in Jon's eyes was positively mutinous as his advisor nodded back at her, and she continued to shake her head, in horror.

(You think I don't know that! That's why I'm telling you. You, of all people should know whose claim you are actually backing. There is still time-) No! You are still a Stark. This changes nothing.

But it changed everything. She had fled Jon's solar a short time later, her thoughts too jumbled to handle more than an awkward pledge to keep his secret safe and a hasty word of gratitude that he had entrusted her with his true identity. Only now, after days of strained interactions, and painfully polite run-ins with the king, did she begin to understand. She had asked the wrong questions and offered only the weakest absolution. You are still a Stark. This changes nothing.

-----

Later, she observed him, from a distance, in the Great Hall, as the lords and ladies filtered in for the upcoming trials. The king stood apart, head bowed in discussion with Val, who had returned with the Ironmen held in Torrhen's Square. Though Sansa had never seen a Targaryen in the flesh, Jon had none of their oft-recited characteristics. In the dim light, his dark brown hair and grey eyes appeared as black as the cloak resting on his shoulders, his face as long and drawn as the stone kings of winter standing sentinel deep beneath their feet. It would be easier to believe Ned Dayne was a secret Targaryen, for whatever Prince Rheagar had left Jon, it was buried deep inside.

Now, questions burned at her lips. What really happened to Lyanna? How did Jon come to be raised by Howland Reed? And how long had he known the truth of his birth? And how did he feel about it? How did her father feel about it? And why had he not shared the secret with her mother? Perhaps, these were the questions she should have asked when Jon first told her the truth. Perhaps she should have asked them at any point in the past few days, when the revelation was new and her curiosity would be expected. But, whenever there was a moment where they found themselves alone, her body would rebel with unknowable emotion and her heart would beat in her like a caged bird in her chest, her tongue heavy and thick in her mouth, and she would flee the room before whatever was growing within her, had an opportunity to bloom.

"Princess, are you well?" She startled at Baelish's words, too close, before tilting her eyes away from Jon to the lord beside her.

"Quite, my lord. And you?"

"Quite. They make a stunning pair, do they not?"

"Hm?" She asked, distractedly as Baelish's lips twisted in a knowing smirk.

"Why the king and the wilding princess, of course. Were you not just watching them?" His eyes narrowed, and she flashed Jon and Val another glance, before smiling faintly back at the lord.

"I hadn't noticed where my eyes has settled. I was lost in thought, my lord."

"Hm. Well, still, my questions stands. Would not the wilding princess make a fine wife for your half-beast brother?"

"Half-beast?" She raised an eyebrow. "Be careful with your words, Lord Baelish. There are those that would take offence to you speaking of your king so." Her voice was mild, though, and his green eyes glinted slyly back at her.

"I meant no harm, my Princess. The north will need a fierce, beastly leader to keep its hard-fought independence. Eyes in King's Landing may be turned inward for now, but that cannot last forever…And you still evade my question. What do you think of my match?"

"Val is no princess and Jon has already more or less gained the wildings support. He needs a wife with more to offer."

"Ah. In that case, here comes another enticing option." Sansa followed Baelish's eyes to Lady Wynyfryd Manderly, gliding into the Great Hall in a gown of deep blue, offset by a string of rose pearls gracing her slender neck. She stopped before the king, falling into a graceful curtsy and Sansa watched Jon's eyes sweep down her form with a sour taste in her mouth. "As I understand it, the king in the North has still not fully won over his wealthiest, most well-connected lord. There can be no argument against the advantages in him marrying the Manderly maid."

Satin caught Sansa's eye across the hall, gesturing for her to take her place. "Excuse me, my lord, it looks like the trial will soon commence."

Before she could extricate herself, however, Baelish leaned close, whispering, "Careful little bird. He is your brother. Unnatural relations have toppled kingdoms more stable than his." She pulled away, her heart racing and legs weak.

I am not your brother, Sansa.

He should never have told her.

----

She barely registered the accusations against Asha Greyjoy, Theon's sister, and the leader of the Ironborn who invaded Deepwood Motte and were defeated by Alyssane Mormont. Beside her, the king sat, just as in the previous trial, but this time his hand did not bridge the distance between them, nor did she reach out for him. Instead, she sat, staring out at the accused, yet seeing nothing. She was frightened. Littlefinger already watched them with suspicious eyes, and now she suspected Jon's secret was writ across her face every time she looked at the king. He should never have told her. It was hard enough to see him as her brother when she believed it to be true. Now, she didn't know how to meet his eyes.

She was snapped to attention when Asha Greyjoy was given a chance to answer to the charges against her.

"I'll take the black." She called out, with a wry smirk.

Sansa felt Jon's eyes light on her, but she stared straight ahead, so he responded. "There are no women in the Night's Watch."

"Well then, I choose freedom." The crowd chittered, and once again Jon tried to catch Sansa's eye before Asha continued. "I heard you let the Frey men, men who aided in raping women and mutilating children, choose the black, yet I, who simply held a castle that had been abandoned by its lord, and kept my men from harming a single hair on an innocent's head, am not afforded the same opportunity? Because I don't have a cock between my legs?" Gasps from the crowd. "Where is the honor in that?"

"And if we banish you from the North, you'll only return one day to raid our lands again. It's a tired tale. The Ironborn's broken promises." Jon called.

"Well then. I suppose you'll have to take me as a thrall…though again, I thought the North was too honorable for an arrangement so close to slavery." Her tone was mocking, and Sansa looked closer at the Ironborn woman. She was lean and long legged, in black breeches, her short black hair, tied loosely at her neck, revealing a thin face and a hawkish nose, tempered by a wickedly impertinent grin. "I suppose you have only two options left, Wolf King. Take off my head or take me to bed."

Again, the crowd chittered, and Sansa burned. The Greyjoy captive was making a mockery of their justice.

"As fascinating as your offer is," Jon answered, "the wolf is not tempted by the squid." The crowd truly laughed this time, but he rose, cutting them off. "Asha Greyjoy, you are hereby fined five thousand gold dragons. Until which time the debt is paid in full, you are forbidden from leaving our lands. You are free to live and to earn your repayment by any lawful means, though if you should break our laws again, I will be taking your head."

The Hall stood silent now, and Sansa hazarded a glance in the king's direction. His face was calm but stern, and there was no uncertainty to find on his face. After a moment he nodded to Maege, who prodded her men-at-arms to action, cutting away the Greyjoy's wrist binds.

"And what of my men?" Asha asked, before she could be fully dismissed from the Hall.

"I suggest they choose the black," was all Jon offered before holding a hand out to Sansa. "Bring the other Greyjoy. We'll resume shortly." Sansa stood, and let herself be led into the privacy of the gallery.

"Are you well, my Princess?" He asked, as soon as the door closed behind them.

"What…yes, of course. Why does everyone keep asking me that?" She couldn't meet his eye. He was standing too close. She could feel herself flushing. Everything was flushing. She tried to step away, but his hand was at her elbow.

"You lie." He murmured, low, and why was she so warm? "It upsets you. That I'm not a Stark."

"You are a Stark." She snapped, still trying to pull away subtly, but he only led her closer to the checkered windows.

"Sansa," His words came out in an anguished flood. "My grandfather murdered your uncle and grandfather. My father raped your aunt. You have every right to be upset. I'll give up the crown. Just say the words and I'll make you queen. I'll leave the north. Just tell me what you want me to do." He didn't understand anything, and he was standing too close.

"Jon!" She hissed. "You are not my enemy. Your grandfather murdered your uncle and grandfather as well! Your father…" Why must he be so obtuse? "Lyanna Stark was your mother. You are a Stark, regardless of who your father was. I've already told you, this changes nothing. You are King in the North! I want you to be king." It felt like her veins were lifting from her body.

"Then why can't you look at me? Why do you flinch every time I draw near? You hate that I'm a Targaryen. Admit it. It is I who should be standing before you in the Great Hall, to answer for the crimes of my family." A shiver ran down her spine and she pulled away once more, trying to think of anything that wouldn't reveal her true thoughts.

"You are mistaken." She blinked up at him, trying to disprove his point, and it would be so much easier if he weren't looking at her like he was; like her words mattered, like her opinions mattered. And it would also be easier too, if he didn't have so much power over her, she admitted weakly to herself; if she didn't notice the breadth of his shoulders as he leaned closer, or the way his lashes seemed impossibly long around his smoky grey eyes.

#know the love #part ii #wip excerpt #jonsa fic #jonsa fanfiction

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