#ali replies

[thyandrawrites]

Hmm would you recommend the summer hikaru died? Ive wanted to read it for a while but always got too lazy but now with the anime i might try it again

(tl;dr at the end)

I do! Honestly I'm neither a horror nor a MCD fan. But between the gorgeous artwork, the nuanced character writing, the eerie atmospheres, the (relatable for me) feelings of alienation as a queer person in a small rural town, and the unfolding mystery of the Great Brainsnatcher's real origins and the Indoh family's sin, it snatched my attention enough to keep following, and now I'm glad that I did.

Fair warning tho, this manga deals heavily with the theme of the loss of a loved one you didn't get to grieve properly (cause he's still around for everyone else, even if it's just a fake replacing him) and the helplessness that follows. So if you're sensitive to that topic, it might not be a story for you. The titular Hikaru dies before the story even starts, but you get to know him through Yoshiki's (his best friend and MC) memories and his (unrequited?) feelings for him, and you get attached anyway.

I'll admit that it was a rough read for me at first because of this, since I can't handle MCD that well 😭 but the story is an underrated gem and I recommend sticking with it, cause it's about so much more than just grief imo. The exploration of Yoshiki's internalized homophobia and self-hatred through the theme of alienation, of never quite fitting in, of belonging with the only other person who doesn't, who later ends up being a literal monster that can't belong in your same place of existence, lest reality as you know might crumble with him.

I have only one criticism of this story and it's the fact that the queer angle becomes a lot less overt in later volumes (tho not entirely dropped). Later on, Yoshiki's initial feelings of alienation as a gay guy in a small rural town shift into the alienation he faces at being the sole person knowing the truth about 'Hikaru'.

I've seen people dismiss the anime after learning that it's "a BL" but that's such an asinine take cause this story isn't that. It's so much more. It's not a romance, it's the story of Yoshiki's internal journey, the way he processes his romantic feelings as something shameful, something to keep quiet, to bear alone even if it tears him apart inside. Which later on becomes less a theme and more literal.

TL;dr: It's a fascinating story. An underrated gem, which I recommend to anyone who likes psychological horror and nuanced character writing, as well as the trope of monsterfucking as an exploration of queerness (that last one is a half-joke, but not quite 😂)

[eddiediaaz]

Hi! Can I ask how you did the double exposure gifs for your merlin set? They're beautiful btw!

heyy, thank you!! of course!

it's actually not very hard, the trick is to find the right shots for this. here's how i did it (reference gifset), under the cut.

for this tutorial i will be: — using photoshop cs5 on windows — assuming you know how to make gifs using the timeline — have basic coloring, sharpening, groups, and layer masks knowledge

I. CHOOSING THE RIGHT SHOTS

the ultimate trick to pull this off is to choose the right image. in order to do the double exposure, you need a silhouette shot that has these:

a defined and dark silhouette with a background that is not too busy

enough contrast between the silhouette and the background

the silhouette should take at least 50% of the space

not too much movement

here are a few examples of why they work and why they won't:

gwen: perfect example since this shot is already quite contrasted with a defined silhouette. there won't be a lot of work needed to make this one work.

merlin: not a great example because even tho there's a somewhat good contrast between him and the background, the silhouette is just too bright, not dark enough.

arthur: another good example, even if there are some bright spots on his face and armor. since he's not moving too much, you can definitely brush some black over him to make his silhouette darker (i'll explain/show later)

morgana: this one could work because the contrast is great, but of course her skintone is very bright against the black clothing. that being said, since the movement is not too bad, it could be possible to brush some black over her and move these layers with keyframes (as mentioned for arthur's example). i haven't tried it tho, but i think it would work well enough.

once you have your silhouette shot, you need another gif for the double exposure. what works best, in my opinion, are:

wide, large shots

shots with no to little camera movement (no pan, zoom, etc), but the subjects in the shot can have little movement of course

pretty cinematography/scenery shots

i find these are easier to find and make it work, it's not as "precise" as with silhouette shots. it's mostly just trial and error to see what works best with the silhouettes.

II. PREPPING THE SILHOUETTE

for the effect to work, we want a silhouette that's dark as possible. i'm gonna use the gwen and arthur shots as examples.

for the gwen gif, i started by sharpening, and then upped the contrast by quite a lot so her silhouette is mostly black, while retaining some nice details. i've used only 3 layers here:

selective color layer: in the blacks tab, playing with the black slider (value: +10)

brightness/contrast layer: added a lot of contrast (+61) and a bit of brightness (+10)

black and white layer: on top, its blending mode set to soft light and at 20% opacity. gives a bit more depth and contrast

then for the arthur example, i've also sharpened it first, and added contrast layers in this order (the skintone looks horrible, but it won't matter soon lol):

levels layer: black slider at 0, grey slider at 0.76, white slider at 104

selective color layer: in the blacks tab, black slider at +10

brightness/contrast layer: brightness at +1-, contrast at +47

black and white layer: on top, its blending mode set to soft light and at 20% opacity. gives a bit more depth and contrast

as you can see, half of his face is still quite bright. to correct that, create a new empty layer and put it between the gif and the coloring layers.

using a really soft brush and the black color, brush some black over his face and body on that new empty layer. you can edit the layer's opacity if you want, i've set mine to 71%. since arthur doesn't move much here, there's no need to keyframe this layer's position. for the morgana example, this is where you'd need to play with keyframes to make it work. here's where i'm at now after this:

you can always edit this layer later if you need, after doing the double exposure blending.

once the silhouette is all ready, you can put all layers in a group and rename it (i've renamed mine silhouette).

III. BLENDING

now the fun part! import the wide/scenery shot in photoshop, then resize it to the same height of your silhouette gif. make sure the gif is a smart object layer, and sharpen it. finally, bring this gif onto the silhouette canvas (by right clicking the smart object > duplicate layer). once you have both gifs onto your canvas, put the wide shot gif layer in a group, and set this group's blending option to screen.

you can then position the wide/scenery gif the way you like it in the canvas. this is how it looks for both examples after i've done that:

if the blending mode screen doesn't give you the best result, so you can play around with other blending modes (such as lighten and linear dodge in these particular cases), but generally speaking, screen is the real mvp here haha.

IV. COLORING

now that the double exposure effect is done, we need to color the gifs to bring them together. i went with simple coloring here, simply enhancing the colors that were already there. just make sure that the coloring layers for each gif are in their respective groups. here's how i've colored both examples:

gwen silhouette group: i added a gradient map layer on top of the contrast layers in black to green and set the blending mode to color

scenery shot group: multiple coloring layers, with a green color fill layer (blending mode set to color), with a layer mask so it only affects the top half of the gif

for the arthur gif, i did something very similar but with warmer colors. i didn't use a gradient map for arthur though:

arthur silhouette group: i made the yellow warmer, closer to orange/red, with a hue/saturation layer, and added more vibrance. didn't feel like it needed a gradient map layer here though.

wide shot group: basic coloring layers to enhance colors from the merlin & daegal shot, and an orange color fill layer set to the color blending mode.

at this point you're pretty much done. just need to add some final touches and typography (if you want).

V. FINAL TOUCHES

a small and completely optional detail, but i wanted to soften the edges of the wide gifs. to do so i've duplicated the smart object gif layer and removed the sharpening filters (right click on smart filter > clear smart filters). put this layer on top of the other smart object layers (but still below the coloring).

then with this same layer still selected, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur... > 10px. this will give you a very blurry gif, but we only want the edges of the canvas to be softer. so add a layer mask to this layer. with a very large and soft brush (mine was at 0% hardness and about 800px size), brush some black onto the layer mask to remove the blur in the middle of the gif.

you can play with this layer's opacity or gaussian blur amount if you want (by double clicking on the gaussian blur smart layer filter). here how both examples look with this gaussian blur layer:

you can also mask some of wide/scenery gifs if you'd prefer, so it shows less outside of the silhouette. just put a layer mask on that whole wide shot group and brush some black or grey on the layer mask. it's what i did for the gwen gif, with a very soft brush and i set the mask density to 72% (i kept the arthur one as is tho):

and that's how i did it! hopefully that was clear enough :)

[duusheen]

Thank you! Could I please make a sim request for 2 sims? A man and his adult (almost elder) mother. They are both african American and ranchers. Sorry for being thirsty on anon but I would really like if the male sim was really beefy? (Muscular but with a tummy type). His mom is also really sweet (all the kids in town call her grandma). other than that, please feel free to add your own spin.

Here are Marcos and Alycia for you, nonny! Hope you like them 😭 I imagine Marcos as one of those gentle giants 🥺 Kids are probably scared of him when they first meet him, and people give him side-eyes when he goes into town to buy seeds and supplies for the farm 😞 oh and his mom bakes pies for the neighbors and makes Marcos deliver them lmao

DL

[miss-conjayniality]

YOO!!!!

In s1e2, were Ali and Sangwoo thrown to the streets together??? In their underwear???

Cause we see Saebyeok and Gihun thrown together and then cut to Ali and Sangwoo!!! Did they....no, right? RIGHT??

I mean…I’d assume so cuz sangwoo was seen buttoning up his blazer 👀👌🏼

[somegirlnamedalicia]

I can't find the original, but there was a poll going around about which would be more surprising to find knocking at your door: a fairy or a walrus. It's sparked a surprising amount of debate.

Hey what the fuck is going on with fairies and walruses???

[deusfoundry]

not to get sappy at fucking 8 30 in the morning but i just wanna thank u for the all the love for popstar!reader and actor!sylus. when i made a post saying that its something ive been thinking about for a while back in october i was so scared that i was gonna get dragged for it bc i remember a few days before or after that seeing a post saying they dont like non mc!readers in fics and so many people were agreeing w them HSHDHD so i dropped the thought but i picked it back up again in nov and well!!! the rest is history lol so thank u thank u thank u sooo much chat i love u all MWAH

[rubyfunkey]

Hi I just want to let you know I love your art style a lot and your webcomic (I've been reading heart headed on ComicFury for a while, it's really good!!) and your stuff inspired me to start drawing my OCs more and in general I've just been very inspired by your art style, so thank you so much!!

this message means everything to me please take this doodle page for Dare Max and Alis that i found last week that i never posted and dont remember drawing at all despite it clearly being many months old

[alpali]

i love beomgyu

I LOVE HIM TOO

we all say in unison

[izzyfishie]

I think people don't take the marbles scenes between Sang-Woo and Ali in the right way because for me, Ali could have killed Sang-Woo if he had to . Of course, both were trying to survive but with a part of the fandom talking of Ali like a baby, i don't see often someone talk about it . Of course, i completly bawled my eyes out at this episode and i didn't really loved how Sang-Woo killed Ali (it was well written but so painful to watch )

And it was showed how terrified Sang-Woo was here . When he grapped Ali and yelled at him, it was the first Time he had broken his composure . That maybe, the mix of fear and adrenaline had gave him for a little time a will to live . And we see Ali apologise, but don't stop playing, wich is completly normal. So i wonder if maybe Sang-Woo though it would be more easy to win against Ali, since he was not Korean and so , haven't played marbles in his childhood. And i think seeing something he haven't planified a solution for scared Sang-Woo a lot .

So that's it ! So , for me , Ali could have win if Sang-Woo didn't manipulate him . I think this episode showed for the last time that Ali was trusting Sang-Woo, maybe one of the lasts person to do it . And i think this tourmented Sang-Woo a lot .

(And it was ones of the only main duo were both wanted to live since for Sae-Byok and Ji-Yeong, Ji-Yeong sacrified herself and for Gi-Hun and Oh Ill-Nam , well, the old man was safe )

HI!! i think you did a wonderful job of explaining this. 💗💗

one thing that pisses me off a lot is how people will target sang-woo for betraying ali, yet completely ignore gi-hun cheating against il-nam. yes il-nam was evil but that’s literally not the point. they were fighting and playing FOR THEIR LIVES. ugh. we always need to look at both sides of the coin.

[tayloralisonswift]

today i learned what knotting is. excuse me while i take time to process my life and the choices that got me here

[softtdaisy]

🎧

I feel so bad because I totally forgot to reply but here I am 😭🫰🏻

It only takes two lonely people to fuck love up and make it evil

(Pretty obvious but this lyric has been driving me insane for more than a decade now) I am the biggest Marina lover I’m so happy to talk about her!!!

🎧 Music game

[thyandrawrites]

hi! you don't have to reply to this or anything but i have a feeling that ukiyo-e dabi you reblogged might be ai generated. the artists other works have strange things going on with the hands etc and on that piece he's missing fingernails. the belt area where the trousers and top meet also make no sense.

i dont know your sentiments on ai art etc but just wanted to bring it to your attention if it's something you wouldn't want to support! obviously make your on judgements on it

Hi! Thanks for bringing attention to this. I indeed hate AI with a passion and don't want to accidentally support art theft by sharing anything made with it, so I appreciate the heads up. I didn't clock anything weird with that dabi artwork, but looking closer at their other works, I think I see what you mean 🤔 there's a mikasa drawing with something weird going on with her hand and a ryuzaki with odd looking feet. I'm also a bit wary of the fact that op seems a new user, but all their posts here and on their twitter have links to a shop, with no other activity (wips, timelapses, anything that shows a process basically). It might be nothing, but just to be on the safer side, I'm gonna delete my reblog and leave this reply here in case anyone else wants the heads up / to check for themselves!

[eddiediaaz]

Hi! Would it be possible to post a tutorial of how you created the white text in this set /post/695221752725422080/buckpendragon-911-verse-coc-week-day-1 thank you :)

hiii! you mean the text in the first gif, right? it's actually a pale green so i hope that's what you meant 😅

i somehow still have that psd so i was able to go grab the exact settings for the two text layers used here:

(if you meant the little white text, it's simply the font candara with different values of tracking/letter spacing)

the font i used is called letter magic, and i've given my bare text a bit of warp (right click ont the text layer > warp text > style: twist). by the way, the color of the text doesn't matter, so no need to pick one.

BASE LAYER

first, put the text layer's opacity to 100%, and the fill to 0%. the text will become transparent, it's what we want. then double click on the layer to get to the layer style options. you'll want to add a drop shadow, a color overlay, and a thin stroke:

DUPLICATED LAYER

i found the stroke a bit too thin on my gif, so i duplicated the base layer (right click on the layer > duplicate layer > destination should be the same canvas), put its opacity to 50% and kept to 0% fill. and disable the drop shadow and color overlay by clicking on the little eyes on the layer:

voilà :)

[nosensedit]

⊹ ִ࣪ এ credits on twitter ִ࣪ ⌁ like or reblog if you save! ♡ ¸. • *

[miss-conjayniality]

Okay, who from the SQ characters do you hc as Ali and Sangwoo's kids?

Cause we see a lot of Junhee and Saebyeok as Inho/Gihun kids and Daeho as Jungbae's kid

hmm…..interesting question!!! this is so hard to answer 😭

I can’t exactly see any of them as aliwoo’s kids. but I just KNOW that ali would totally be besties with daeho and hyunju.

however….if I had to choose, aliwoo would adopt hyunju and youngmi, move to thailand with them, and raise them with love and tact. ali would be the cool and fun-loving dad, he’d be exactly like joey gladstone from full house. goofy, kind, easygoing, and hospitable.

contrarily, sangwoo would be the tough love dad who pushes them to be their best and not fall prey to society’s expectations of them. they balance each other like yin and yang!

[deusfoundry]

fic so bad i had to mute it bc i couldnt stand seeing it in my notifs lmfaoo 😭😭

edit: CHAT THIS IS ABOUT MY FIC IM SORRY IF I MADE ANYONE THINK THIS IS ABOUT THEIR WORK 😭😭😭