#also yor shows up in so many of my gif sets

[peri-requiem]

Bond Is Always Happy to See Anya !

Season 2, Episode 8

[hb-writes]

TAG GAME: EIGHT SHOWS TO GET TO KNOW ME

Tagged by @twvstedsouls Thank you for the tag! ❤️ This sat in my drafts for a good bit of time with an extensive list of shows. Such a struggle to get us down to 8. 😅

PEAKY BLINDERS - The first time I tried to watch, I didn't get past the first scene, tbh. Then, a year or so later, I tried again and it became a fixed piece of my personality. 🤣 For me, it's really the family dynamics and the unrelenting mental health issues so present throughout.

SUITS - Once upon a time, I really wanted to be a lawyer. Not one like Harvey Specter, but still. Love the found family aspect and that it's set in NYC. And just feel like Harvey's assertiveness and sarcasm is something I always vibed with. And the ladies!! I love Jessica, Donna, Rachel, and Katrina!

SPYXFAMILY - Again, found family. I love love love this show so much. I started binge watching the first time I got COVID and was quarantined in our guest room and it definitely helped me through. Anya is so fucking cute and I'm a whole-ass adult, but I would let Loid and Yor adopt me in a heartbeat.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS - I was lowkey obsessed with this show when I was in high school. I remember there being a scene with Kevin and Scotty getting hot and heavy and my mom walking in and being like wtf are you watching??? 🤣 Anyway, again for me it's the dysfunctional family relationships that drew me in. And that I was obsessed with Kitty & Senator McCallister.

COMMUNITY - Literally got me through the pandemic low of holiday season 2020 when I thought I would be going home to see my family but ended up being sick so I couldn't and...it was a dark time, but we started watching Community and it was just a ray of sunshine in a dark time of a seasonal, COVID, and regular depression wave. And Troy & Abed are everything! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

WHITE COLLAR - I do not feel like White Collar is a very good show. It's cheesy as hell, but I love the characters. I love the nonsense. And Neal is so pretty to look at and he's clever and annoying. Peter & El are goals and such tired parents. Satchmo is my dog. I would pet him forever. Mozzie is delightfully odd. Diana and Jones are my bestfriends. I want to live in June's NYC apartment. I love the bad guys. The only person I couldn't stand was Kate tbh.

ANNE WITH AN E - I watched all of the PBS specials and read Anne of Green Gables as a kid so this series just touched something special in my heart. It was just so wholesome and delightful and I wanted more.

SHAMELESS - Shameless was such a funny show about very not funny content. I laughed a lot, but also felt a lot of pain and sadness about so much of it. It felt like a very real representation of so many issues, a lot of which touch on some issues very central to the work I do in my career. And again, family dynamics, which is very clearly something I'm drawn towards.

Anyone who wants to should share their own 8!

[giggly-squiggily]

Pillow Fort (Spy x Family)

Heyo! It's official: I love Spy x Family! The characters are absolutely adorable and the show is hilarious! Naturally I couldn't resist writing a fic for the series!

This is a bit of an impromptu collab with the wonderful @helloitsghost! Thank you so much for convincing me to watch this show friend! We've decided to do a drawing + Fic for the series, and here we are! I hope you like it!

Summary: It's raining, canceling the day's plans for Anya and her family. Thankfully Yor has a backup plan for such days!

“Anya, do you want to make a pillow fort?”

It was the weekend, the rain outside pounding at the windows of their little apartment. Anya had been sitting by said window, hand pressed against her cheek gloomily as she watched the dreary weather. They had made plans- a little picnic for the three of them to go on when Loid got back from his work. At the time, the sky was as clear as it could be.

Now it was gray and thunderous. Anya was sure it changed on purpose.

She turned to her momma now, green eyes curious. “What’s that?” She asked, earning a shocked look from Yor. “Wha-you’ve never made a pillow fort before? Why, it’s possibly the greatest thing since an actual fort!” Smiling, Yor stood and struck a pose. “When me and your uncle Yuri were children, I was known as the great fort crafter! No one could beat my grand designs!” Despite her proud words, her smile seemed almost sad. Still, she carried on, offering a hand to the small girl before her. “Would you like to come and see what your momma can do?”

Anya didn’t need much of a push, giggling in delight as she jumped from her spot by the window, taking Yor’s hand. “Let’s do it! Pillow fort! Pillow fort!”

~~~

Yor wasn’t kidding when she said she was a fort master. Granted, she hadn’t had much competition growing up, but that didn’t mean her skills were shabby.

Together, the pair gathered blankets, pillows, couch cushions, just about anything and everything you could think of for a fort. They dragged away the coffee table to make space, and using the now barren couch, began their work. Anya was a creative genius, Yor decided, the little girl knowing exactly where she wanted each blanket and cushion for the inside of their fort. Her little face was screwed up in concentration, and she practically glowed whenever Yor complimented her work.

For her own task of building the structure, the assassin went all out. She dragged over chairs to increase the height, and created a “door” of sorts with two different blankets. By the end of their hard work, they had assembled what to be a dome-like multicolored masterpiece.

“It’s perfect!” Anya cheered, clapping her hands as she took it all in. Yor laughed, holding up a hand. “Great job Anya!” she told her, grinning when Anya high fived her. “Why don’t you get everything inside set up while I make us some fort snacks?”

At the mention of snacks, Anya was practically jumping for joy. “Oh yes please! Can we have the treat papa made? The peanut bwittle?”

“Brittle, dear, and of course we can.” She booped her nose and turned to the kitchen, leaving Anya to get cozy. Just as she was about to sort things, the door opened, Loid shuffling in. “Oh, Loid! Welcome back.” She called.

“Papa!” Anya practically sprinted from the fort, clinging to Loid’s leg and nearly sending the man tumbling. “Whoa- careful! Hello Anya.” He laughed when she shuffled higher, picking her up and hugging her close. “Papa! Momma and I made a fort!” She cheered right into his ear, making him cringe. “I see- wow, what a great fort.” He nodded at the mass of blankets, both surprised at just how many they had but also impressed. “Have you picked a name for it?”

“A name?” Anya considered this, humming in thought. “I don’t know. What’s the fort name, Momma?” She asked Yor, who had just finished getting the snacks in order. “The name…we haven’t picked one yet, have we?” She stepped forward. “We’ll think of one-”

That was when disaster struck. Yor’s foot caught on one of the chairs she placed, sending her off balance. Her assassin instinct kicked in, saving her and the plate of snacks she was holding.

What had not kicked in was Loid’s own reaction time. “Yor-” He darted out to steady her, his foot accidentally kicking into a support pillow. Within the span of five seconds, one of the walls had collapsed, thus bringing down the fort.

“Oh no…” Anya whispered, voice sad. “Momma’s fort…”

~~~

Yor blinked at their hard work, taken down within seconds. Loid looked absolutely guilty, shame coloring his cheeks at the disaster he unintentionally created. “Oh- oh man, I’m really sorry- it was an accident, I’ll help you rebuild it-”

“Anya.” Yor spoke, something in her voice made the pair freeze, turning to her. “It seems a monster has invaded our fort…”

The little girl gasped, understanding flooding her eyes. “Oh no! Where is it?” She looked around, acting as a scared princess amongst an attack.

“I’m not sure, but they’ve made their attack.” Yor slowly started to approach the pair, eyes dangerous. If it weren’t for the twitching smile on her lips, Loid would have been convinced she was about to kill him. “Yor…what are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m saving the princess...,from the monster!” She darted forward, hands latching onto his sides and tickling. “Take this, foul being!”

“Ah! Wahahahit! Whahahait nohohoho fahahhahair!” Loid cried, twisting away as Yor got him under the ribs. Of course she’d wait until Anya was in his arms before attacking! Speaking of, he felt the tiny girl’s hands reach out, scribbling at his chest and neck with mischievous intent. “Hehe, Papa’s the monster!”

“Nohoohohohhow hoohohohohold on! Wahhahahahahait! Gahahahahhaaha! Nohohohohot thehehehehere!” He giggled helplessly when Yor found a particularly bad spot just behind his ribs. He wasn’t getting out of this anytime soon.

Time for drastic measures.

“Wahahhahhahahait, whahahahhait time ohohohohout!” He cried, taking a breath when Yor and Anya stopped. Quickly he put Anya to her feet, twisting so he was facing the wide eyed brunette. “A monster, huh? Fine then- allow me to show you my true form!” He roared playfully before grabbing Yor around the waist, squeezing along her hips and earning a shriek of laughter. “Loohohohohohohohid! Wahahhahahahhhait! Ahehahahahahhahaha! Ahahahahahahnya heheheheheelp mehehehhehe!” She cried, cheeks flushing a lovely pink as she weakly pushed against the bigger man’s chest.

“Ha! If you think it will be that easy to escape, you're sorely mistaken!” Heh, her laugh’s kinda cute, his thoughts played out.

Momma and Papa are flirting, Anya decided, feeling herself smile.

“I’ll save you Momma!” She cried out determinedly, grabbing a nearby pillow and smacking Loid’s legs with it. The older man gasped in mock shock, acting out as if he’d just been weakened. “Oh! Oh no- going down!” He cried, slowly falling to the ground as Anya hit him with her pillow once more. “Ah, it’s too much! The pillow! Gah!” He let himself fall backwards, a monster finally slayed.

“He’s down Momma! Get him!” Anya cheered, dropping her pillow and tickling Loid once more, making him spasm with a laugh. “Ay! I’m ahahhahahahready deahhahad!” He cried, catching her in his arms and tickling her in return, making her squeal. “Ahehahahhahahha! Mohohohohoohmma hehehehehelp!”

“I’m coming princess Anya! Hang on!” Yor was back in the fray, a battle of tickles reigning on.

~~~

They hadn’t known how long it’s been, but soon the three found themselves lying in the mess of blankets, breathless and giggly. Anya had fallen asleep against Loid’s chest, soft snores echoing from her lips. Yor was on his opposite side, her long hair scattered behind her like black wings as she smiled softly up at him. “She’s so sweet, isn’t she?” Yor asked, nodding to the pink haired girl snoozing softly.

“She really is. Hey um…I really am sorry. For breaking your fort.” Loid turned to her, that earlier guilt touching his eyes. “You guys worked really hard on it, so…”

“It’s alright. Forts are made to be taken down.” Yor nodded, snuggling over and resting her head against his shoulder. “Besides, what mattered was that Anya had fun. Fort or no fort, we made her day great. So thank you for that.”

A warm feeling settled in Loid’s chest, and he felt himself smile. “Yeah. Thank you too.”

Thanks for reading!

[burningblake]

show your process

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you'd like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

I have been tagged by @lordbelacqua to talk about this gifset (thank you sm, I always wanted to make my own sort of gif tutorial hehe). Also, shout-out to lordbelacqua’s gifset here.

Since this is going to be long, I put everything under the cut.

planning: so since this is an inspired gifset, obviously the idea came from another post, this one here and as you will see this post has an insp credit on its own, but the user changed their url so I had to do some search to find their gifset. anyway, it’s here. the first gifset includes the greek words ‘eros’, ‘philautia’, ‘storge’, ‘philia’ but you will notice in my gifset I have an extra word which is ‘agape’ (my personal favorite as a greek person), this extra word I saw from the second gifset. 

At first, I wanted to do this with #alina starkov from #shadow and bone, but I realized that the word ‘eros’, i.e. romantic love would go for #darklina, whilst ‘storge’, i.e. familial love, would go for alina and mal, and becaure of the ship wars in the fandom, I didn’t want to potentially attract haters from doing this. btw, someone else did this after I posted the yennefer gifset and I was really happy to see it, especially because they used many moments/relationships I had in mind, so shout-out to @darkstarkova for the gifset. 

anyway, I also ended up choosing yennefer because for me it just felt much more meaningful to do such a gifset for her, since she has so much love to give and so few chances to do so. I also wanted to do right by it and use quality frames, so I went the extra mile and downloaded higher quality episodes. then I had to choose the shots that would work. some of the words, like “eros” and “storge” and “agape” I already had an idea what they would be, but for the words “philautia” and “philia” I had to fast-rewatch some episodes again. long story short, I first planned to blend this gifset for “philautia”, i.e. self love:

but then I rewatched the scene at the end where yennefer burns it all and as she was remembering all the times she’d been abused and maltreated, I teared up (I always do) and that scene just felt much more powerful to me, because it was then that she truly accepted herself and “let her chaos” be unleashed. 

giffing: to sharpen my gifs, I used the light sharpening action from this post. for the coloring and blending I’ll use the first gif as an example, but more or less, I didn’t follow any specific color palette, but went with what looked nice and what didn’t. so at first I had this gif: 

after I finished staring at this (took me a few minutes), I actually focused on the coloring. so first I used a curves layer and chose the light and dark areas (left pic below). Basically you choose the marker in the yellow circle to choose the lightest spot on yor gif, and the marker in the dark circle to choose the darkest spot respectively. I also play individually with the greens, blues and reds (right pic below) until I get a lighting base that I like:

Now at this part I usually just add a levels and brightness layer to further enhance the light and dark spots. At this point the gifset looks like this: 

personally I didn’t like the red tint on their faces and the cyan tint on geralt’s hair, so I used a selective color layer and turned up the cyans in the reds and turned down the cyans in the cyans like below. I also turned down the yellows in the cyans but I see that this didn’t change much, so it’s something I simply forgot to turn back to normal. 

I also added a color balance layer. With this I usually increase the blues, the magentas and cyans for midtones, shadows and highlights. So now: 

At this point, I add a gradient map layer in b&w, right-click on it, select ‘blending options’ and turn it to soft light, then play with the opacity if necessary:

Usually this is where my coloring ends, but I still didn’t like the result so I played around some more and ended up adding a second gradient map layer in b&w, left it at normal blend mode and turned the opacity down to 47%. So this is what I have finally:

So then I colored the second gif similarly and blended it in. For blending gifs, I follow this tutorial here. So now I had this:

As you can see, the coloring and light of the blended gif doesn’t match the base gif. Adding a similar second gradient to the blended gif didn’t really work nice. Then I decided to turn it b&w with a simple black and white layer and voila, the result just clicked. 

For the text I downloaded various fonts from here. So the title line “eros” is in the Bellerose font and the rest are in the Avenir font from here. I used the gradient text effect described here for the title line. And as for the second subtitle text, I simply opened “blending options” again, set the fill opacity to 0 and used a white stroke of size 1 px. Final result:

For the rest of the gifs I did similar coloring and blending.

arranging: To arrange, I simply play around with what looks good. The size I used is 540 x 450, because in the first gif I needed yennefer’s dark hair to take quite a large proportion of the gif, so that I could place the blended gif on (it does not show on light areas), so this determined the dimensions for the gifset. 

posting: I always “save as draft” before I post any gifset because I want to make sure all gifs play out correctly and also I want to see if the mobile app shows them correctly as well. So after I verify this, I add the caption and I search the necessary blogs to tag to spread awareness. 

I’d say it is my most quality gifset yet and I am kind of proud of it :) 

I’m tagging: 

@starkkov​ for this gifset | @captainheroism​ for this gifset | @swanthief​ for this gifset | @aleksander-alina​ for this gifset | @the-darkling​​ for this gifset

of course you can just ignore this or choose another creation of yours to show the process for <3