#and i though “this is probably so much easier if you know the keyboard shortcuts”

[dravidious]

Typing Tips That I Stumbled Upon Randomly:

The Ctrl key lets you jump between words really quickly. If you hold Ctrl and press the left or right arrow keys, instead of moving your cursor 1 character you'll move it a whole word; if you want to edit that word that's 3 words back, you can just hold Ctrl and left-left-left, and you're there.

Even more useful in my opinion, if you hold Ctrl and press Backspace you'll delete the entire word you're on. That's just really nifty because a lot of the time when you're deleting you want to delete the whole word, so this is much faster.

Also, idk how well-known this is but holding Shift and moving your cursor will make you highlight any characters you move over. That's useful on its own, but combining that with Ctrl lets you quickly highlight whole words or sentences, so you can easily copy+paste them. You can also hold Shift to edit any selections you made with your mouse or something.

Also it took me too long to realize that the Home and End keys are actually really nice sometimes. Home takes you to the start of the line you're on, and End takes you to the end. Hold Shift while doing that and you can highlight the whole line. Very nice for programming. Also holding Ctrl and pressing Home or End takes you to the top or bottom of the page, but I barely use that.

A similarly useful key that I also overlooked is the Delete key. It's like the Backspace key, but it deletes the character in front of your cursor instead of behind it. Just like with Backspace Ctrl+Delete lets you delete a whole word in front of your cursor.

Also Ctrl+A lets you highlight the whole page.

Also even when you're not typing and instead just browsing a web page or something, you still technically have a cursor; if you click a piece of text, then hold Shift and press the arrow keys, you'll start highlighting text.

Practice Exercise: Click on the t in this word, then hold Shift and press left and right on the arrow keys! Now try holding Ctrl+Shift while you press the arrow keys! Hold Shift and press Home or End! Hold Shift and use your mouse to left-click on different spots in the paragraph and see how your selection changes!

[nikki-writes-stuff]

Beauty In the Blood - Part 5

Summary: One day your friend convinces you to join a dating website that matches people based on their search histories, and when you match with Loki Odinson, a handsome, intelligent coroner who’s a fan of your murder mysteries, you’re absolutely thrilled. But there’s something off about Loki, and as your relationship progresses, you discover that his dark side is even darker than you could ever have imagined…

Pairing: Serial Killer!Loki x Writer!Reader

Read part four here! 

A/N: This story is based off of this post! I hope you guys enjoy; this is my first time writing Loki, and this will probably be the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Please let me know what you think as the story progresses!

*Please read to the end for another author’s note!*

A/N: Warning, folks! Here be smut! Nothing too dark in this chapter as far as gore or violence goes, though. Which... I suppose is a plus, considering this story. I hope you guys enjoy!

Too good to be true.

That was the thought that kept plaguing you, even four months later. He’s too good to be true. This relationship is too good to be true. What happens when I figure out that this is too good to possibly be true?

And yet, day after day, Loki continued to prove you wrong. It wasn’t all just the big romantic overtures that you found out he loved to make. (Like the time he had a dozen red roses delivered to your door on your one-months anniversary. Or the brand new matching wireless keyboard and mouse he got to make writing easier for you. Or the time he took you to a quaint, tucked away speak-easy to treat you to a night of drinks and slow dancing.)

It was in the little things, too. How he would come over on days where you felt less-than-good to hold you and watch your favorite movies. Or how he would send you texts throughout the day to tell you about an interesting case at work, or to ask you what you wanted for dinner on date night, or just to tell you that he was thinking about you.

In fact, some would even say that he was too attentive, too perfect, and were it anyone else, alarm bells would be going off in your head. But there was something about him that made you keep coming back for more, and even with months now behind you, you still couldn’t get enough.

And maybe that was why you were so nervous right now. Pacing back and forth across the length of your bedroom, you stared down at your stocking-clad feet as you tried frantically to tamp down the butterflies batting around your rib cage. You knew, consciously, that even if tonight were a disaster, Loki would still care about you. He wouldn’t just up and leave, even if Thor ended up despising you.

But you still really hoped he wouldn’t.

A gasp parted your lips when the tell-tale sound of your doorbell echoed throughout your home, and after one more deep breath, you pulled your heels on and made your way down the stairs. With one last glance in the mirror and a quick, silent prayer to whoever might be listening, you threw your purse over your shoulder and opened your front door.

His smile still caught you off guard sometimes. As you stepped out into the darkness of the evening, you felt heat flood your cheeks as Loki grinned up at you. He was dressed impeccably as always, sporting a dark green suit with a crisp white shirt, and if the way his eyes raked over you was anything to go by, he was more than pleased with how you looked, as well.

“And you must be the woman I’ve heard so much about!”

A loud, booming voice took you off guard, and you watched as annoyance flashed over your boyfriend’s face at the outburst. As he turned to shoot a glare over his shoulder, you caught a flash of the other man waiting at the base of your front steps, and though you already knew that Loki was adopted, you were still briefly taken aback by just how different the two brothers were.

Thor was just as large as Loki had described, and although the two stood at about the same height, his shoulders and build were so broad that he would have been quite intimidating, were it not for the large grin on his face. His long hair was pulled up into a loose bun, showing off a pair of blue eyes that seemed to radiate genuine happiness, and despite your still-present nerves, you couldn’t help but let a matching smile come over your features.

“Hi, Thor. Loki’s told me so much about you.”

“And I’m sure all of it is incredibly flattering, right?” He sent a conspiratorial glance back to Loki, who only raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever could I tell her about you that wouldn’t be flattering, brother?”

“Nothing comes to mind, seeing whereas I’ve never done anything wrong or questionable.”

“Thor Odinson? Perish the thought.”

The man in question let out a bark of laughter before turning back to you and extending his arm for a handshake.

“Well, my brother has nothing but glowing remarks about you,” he remarked, all but crushing your hand in his grip. “And I couldn’t be more thrilled to finally meet the woman who’s stolen Loki’s heart.”

Once more, you felt heat rising in your face, and you let out a nervous chuckle as Thor dropped your hand. From your right, you felt an arm slither around your waist, and you leaned into Loki’s warmth.

“Thank you so much! It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”

“You don’t need to lie for his sake, love,” Loki stage-whispered into your ear. Rolling your eyes, you gave him a nudge with your elbow, though Thor seemed to be used to his brother’s sass. Without a glance in his direction, Thor reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys, clicking a button on them until you heard a car beep close by.

“Shall we be off, then?” he asked. “We have about twenty minutes until our reservation.”

“That is if his driving doesn’t kill us along the way,” Loki snarked, guiding you towards the car with a hand on your lower back.

“I didn’t hear you offering to drive earlier, Loki,” Thor commented, sending his brother a look that elicited a scowl in response.

“Only because my car is in the shop. Remember?”

“Excuses, excuses.”

You giggled at the pained look your boyfriend sent you, pecking his cheek as Thor made his way around to the driver’s seat. Loki offered to sit in the back, but after a few moments of deliberation, you ended up sitting in the back with Loki on the passenger side next to Thor. Your seating arrangements ended up working out perfectly, though, because you had the perfect vantage point to watch the two brothers bicker over how to get to the restaurant. Loki was doing his best to navigate, but… Well. You quickly learned that it was of no use with Thor behind the wheel.

“I said take a left at Sycamore, Thor.”

“I heard you. But there’s a shortcut between Sycamore and Highland Street.”

“No, there’s not. Have you even driven through this part of New York before?”

“You forget I used to live here, too, brother. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Oh, just like you did when we were driving through London, yes?”

“That was your fault. If you hadn’t had tried to-“

“WATCH FOR PEDESTRIANS, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!”

Needless to say, the twenty minute drive was eventful to say the least, and you were only mildly traumatized by the way Thor was bobbing and weaving through the thick New York traffic. Even Loki looked a bit green from it, and you’d never seen your boyfriend shaken by anything. When both of you had your feet once again on solid ground, he wrapped an arm around you once again and whispered against your hair.

“I really do apologize for all of that, darling.”

“No, please don’t. It was funny,” you assured him, pecking his cheek as Thor rounded the vehicle towards you. “Usually you’re so…unperturbed. It was nice to see you a little ruffled.”

He sent you a bemused smile, but it vanished as Thor clapped him on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward a few steps.

“Well, nothing ruffles Loki’s feathers like me. It took an entire month of convincing for him to even agree to me visiting.”

“A decision I’m regretting more and more as the minutes tick by…”

Soon enough, the three of you were sat at a table in one of the nicest restaurants you’d ever been to. Surprisingly enough, Thor had recommended the place, and after your waiter came by to take your drink orders, you rested your hand on top of Loki’s and turned towards the blonde.

“Thank you for the restaurant suggestion, Thor. How’d you hear about this place?”

“My girlfriend actually told me about it. Usually when I’m in New York on business, I just go to local food trucks or pizza parlors. But Jane said that I should take you two somewhere nice. She apologizes for not being able to make the trip, by the way. She was just as curious about you as I was, but she had an important conference to give a lecture at.”

“That sounds amazing! And no worries; I’d love to meet her next time you’re in town. What do the two of you do for a living?”

“Well, Jane is an astronomer – one of the best in the entire world, actually,” he started, his eyes lighting up at the mention of his partner. “She’s lecturing on a new design she’s invented, some sort of spectrometer. Honestly, it all goes way over my head, but that’s why she’s the genius.”

“To be fair, most things go over your head, brother.”

Thor rolled his eyes at Loki’s quip, and when you turned towards your boyfriend, you saw that he had a small smile on his face to match the mischievous glint in his eyes. You knew better than to take him seriously; anyone would be able to see how close the two were, despite their back-and-forth.

“And what about you, Thor? Loki’s never told me what you do for a living.”

“I work for Stark Industries,” he replied, taking a sip of the large pint of beer he’d ordered. “It’s not much, but it keeps me busy.”

“Not much, indeed,” Loki interjected. “You’re only in charge of the entire marketing department, after all.”

Your eyes widened at that; Stark Industries was one of the biggest, most well-known brand names in the world. From appliances to electronics to clean energy, it was right up there with Google and Disney as far as most were concerned, and to think that Thor was in such a high-ranking position, well… From the things Loki had told you about Thor, you hadn’t expected such a career for him.

“Wow. That’s…incredible. So you know Tony Stark?”

“Oh, me and Tony are great friends. But I don’t ‘run’ the marketing department by any means. Just the UK faction of it.”

“’Just’?”

After that, the waiter stopped by to take your respective orders, after which Thor settled his attention on you once more.

“So, Loki has already told me about your writing. It’s funny to think of him dating the author responsible for those books he’s obsessed over for years.”

“I’m not obse-“

“Has he asked you to sign any of his copies yet?”

He had, jokingly, at one point. But you didn’t tell Thor that.

The rest of the evening passed by without incident, and your nerves quickly evaporated as the three of you laughed and talked through the rest of the meal. Loki liked to joke at Thor’s expense, but it was clear that he held his older brother in high regard, and Thor clearly loved Loki very much. More than a few times, you caught him watching you and Loki closely, a discerning, considering look in his eyes that belayed an intelligence you hadn’t expected. He might not be as book smart or as well-spoken as his younger sibling, but Thor obviously was good when it came to reading people. Whatever he was looking at, though, it didn’t disappoint, because any time your eyes met, he would send you a small, encouraging smile that would immediately dissipate any worries you might have had.

In what felt like no time at all, the three of you were piling out of the car at your house again, and you didn’t hesitate to return Thor’s hug as he said his goodbyes.

“It was wonderful to meet you,” he assured you. “Loki’s never let me meet any of his girlfriends before, but I see now that he was just waiting for the right one to come along first.”

Taken off guard by his genuine compliment, you could only blink up at him for a few moments in surprise before your brain kicked back in.

“That’s…so kind of you to say, Thor. Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

After clapping you on the shoulder, Thor said his goodbye and got back into his car, giving you and Loki some privacy. As soon as his blonde head disappeared into the vehicle, you felt two cold hands cup your cheeks, and before you knew it, you were being pulled into a deep, toe-curling kiss, and you let yourself melt into your boyfriend’s embrace as he held you against him.

“That went well, I would say,” he murmured as the two of you finally parted. “He likes you, if that wasn’t already obvious.”

“I like him, too,” you smiled. “Thank you for letting me meet him.”

“I should be the one thanking you, love.”

He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but you watched as uncertainty began to creep along his features, and after a few moments of considering, his mouth snapped shut once again.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head. “I forgot what I was going to say, is all. I think driving with Thor still has my brains slightly scrambled.”

“Hm.” You didn’t believe him, not for a second, but whatever it was left your mind as soon as his lips came down onto yours once more. This kiss was slower than before, and lingering; his hands slid up over your hips to settle on your waist, and he let out a soft sigh through his nose before pulling away to set his forehead on yours.

“I should probably head home,” he whispered. “But Thor leaves out tomorrow morning. Would you like to come over tomorrow?”

“For dinner?”

“And dessert.”

You grinned, pressing one last kiss to his lips before taking a step towards your door.

“I love you, Loki. Have a good rest of your evening.”

“I will, darling. But only because I’ll be thinking of you.”

_______________

The two men drove in silence back to Loki’s house, leaving him to think back over the evening. It couldn’t have gone better, in his opinion. Thor liked you, but Thor was a bit like a golden retriever in that way. He loved most of the people he met, whereas Loki had always been more comparable to a cat; he needed to trust someone before deciding whether or not he liked them, typically, and his trust was not easily gained. In fact, there were only two people in the world he truly trusted, and now, they’d both finally made the other’s acquaintance.

The silence was finally broken when Thor parked in front of Loki’s home. As they both sat there, illuminated by the dashboard and streetlights, his elder brother turned to face him fully.

“I like her,” he announced, as though Loki couldn’t already tell that. “Does she know?”

Loki arched an eyebrow before getting out of the car and fishing his keys out of his pocket, striding up to his door as his brother scrambled to catch up with him.

“I have no idea what you could be alluding to,” he replied, opening his front door and bending down to scoop up Lovecraft, who had a habit of swiping at Thor anytime he tried to enter the house.

“Oh, I wonder,” Thor countered, shutting the door behind him before peeling off his winter coat. “I suppose I could be talking about your allergy to dogs. Or perhaps your aversion to the color orange. Or, oh, I don’t know, your habit of murdering innocents. Who knows?”

With a roll of his eyes, Loki hung his coat up beside Thor’s and started striding towards his basement stairs, trusting Thor to follow him.

“How many times must I tell you – there’s no such thing as ‘innocent’. Not in today’s world, at least.”

“Try telling that to a jury.”

“Hopefully it’ll never come to that point,” Loki sighed. He bypassed the first room of his basement, not giving a second glance to the old, miscellaneous pieces of furniture and the stacked boxes of keepsakes from childhood. No, instead he focused on the large, dusty bookshelf that covered the far wall of the room, reaching for the thick compendium of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets that hid the keyhole.

“I’ll never get used to being down here…” Thor’s voice was uncharacteristically small in here; usually, his baritone could be heard from several rooms away, but his mood always took a dark turn when he was reminded of Loki’s…’proclivities’.

“You can always wait upstairs, you know,” Loki uttered without a backwards glance, fitting the small key into the lock and twisting until he heard a click.

“I know,” his brother assured him. “But I promised I’d help you, so let’s just get this over with.”

Smirking, Loki pocketed his keys and pulled the hidden door open, watching a section of the bookcase separate from the rest and turn on the hinges he’d installed so long ago. The creaking shriek they elicited made him wince, and he made a mental note to grease them before his next houseguest.

Luckily for Thor, the only beings alive or dead in Loki’s house were the two of them and Lovecraft, who pattered in after them before jumping up onto the chair in the corner. He typically didn’t allow his cat entry to this room, for obvious reasons, but he decided to leave her be as he knelt next to the detached backseat from his car that was sitting in the middle of the room.

“I’ve already replaced the stuffing; you just need to help me reupholster, and then I can do the rest.”

Thor knelt beside him with a grumble, grabbing a staplegun from his wall of power tools and torture instruments as he kept his eyes stubbornly focused on the seat.

“You know, if you used plastic tarps like any self-respecting serial killer would, you wouldn’t have to reupholster anything in the first place,” he groused. Loki knew that he had a point, and he usually did use plastic when transporting his victims.

“…This one was a bit of a last minute decision,” he finally conceded. “But I’m handling it, as you can see.”

Thor’s lips turned white as he pressed them together, pausing in his struggle to roll out more fabric.

“Loki, you can’t afford to make many last minute decisions with this sort of thing,” he muttered, all joking gone from his voice. “You promised me you’d be careful if and when you get these…urges.”

“And I am,” Loki assured his brother. “Truthfully. No one has ever suspected me of anything. Not once, and you know that.”

With a huff, Thor nodded and continued his work, his movements echoing in the concrete chamber. In the back of his mind, Loki knew that his brother was right, though. Five months ago, he never would have been so careless as to get a victim’s blood on his suede car seats. But, now that he had you in his life, all of his passions seemed to be reigniting. For one, he’d never had as much sex in his previous relationships as he was having with you. He also never felt the need to talk to someone as much as he spoke with you; he hadn’t had many girlfriends or boyfriends in the past, but the ones he’d had always complained about him being too distant, too aloof, too ‘unfeeling’. Now, though, he found himself craving you and your company at all times during the day, and his alone time was less and less precious to him as he considered how much better it would be having you by his side.

However, as those passions rose, others did as well. You and your newest novel were a constant source of inspiration to him, and his lust for blood had grown considerably. If he kept up the pace that he was at right now, he knew it would only be a matter of time before he slipped up. But he pushed that thought aside, as he always had. That was a bridge he would cross when he came upon it.

“…Will you ever tell (Y/N)?”

Thor’s question was sudden, and it made his hands still as he reached for the staple gun.

“…Are you suggesting that I do?”

“Of course not.” Thor shook his head, biting back a curse as he tried stretching a length of suede over the car seat’s frame. “At least, not right now. I think both of us know that it wouldn’t end well. But this is a…mammoth secret to keep from a significant other, Loki. And if you weren’t able to hide it from me, there will come a day when you won’t be able to hide it from her, either. Not if you’re going to keep her in your life.”

“You didn’t find out until I was twenty,” he countered. “And you only found out because I got sloppy.”

“I still knew that there was something off. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I suspected the truth for years before I caught you in the act.”

Loki’s eyebrows rose, and he didn’t know what was more surprising to him – the truth, or the fact that his brother was still able to take him off guard, even after all of the years spent together.

“…Truthfully?”

“Of course, Loki. I knew you weren’t sneaking out at night to go clubbing.” He chuckled a bit at the thought, though his laughter died the second he saw the look Loki shot him. “I saw you burning your clothes once, in the field behind our house. We were 17 at the time, I think. And I knew you wouldn’t burn them unless it were to hide…well. Bloodstains. It was the only explanation for why you decided to burn them in the middle of the night, at least.

“But I told myself that I was wrong. People do that, you know; when someone you love hurts you, or when they do something wrong, you know it. But you lie to yourself anyways.”

There was a long, heavy silence before the two brothers got back to work, one that was only broken several minutes later, when they were mostly finished.

“Loki?”

“Mm?”

Loki looked up, catching a solemn expression on Thor’s face that immediately didn’t sit right with him. For all of his sociopathic tendencies towards most people, he didn’t like to see his typically jovial sibling so serious.

“I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to be you,” Thor sighed. “I’ve never fully understood how your mind works, but I know that it’s hard for you to let people in. So I’m happy for you and (Y/N). I am. But I also know that, someday, she’s going to find out. It can either be from you slipping up, or from you telling her outright. But, someday, she’s going to find out.

“I meant what I said – when you find out that someone you love is bad, and that they’ve done bad things, you lie to yourself before accepting the truth. Just…promise me that you’ll look out for when she starts lying to herself about you. Alright?”

Loki swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he thought about you, about how your face would twist into an expression of fear, of disgust, of hatred, when you finally found out about him. And his heart sank as he pictured the fragile reality you two had been living in all of a sudden crumpling into ash. He couldn’t even bear the thought of losing you, but what other choice would he have if you found him out?

“What are you suggesting I do when she finds out?” he asked, a slight waver making its way through the syllables despite his best interest.

“I’m asking what you’re prepared to do, brother. Think it over, and please, just be careful.”

____________

You woke up the next day to find a text waiting for you from an unknown number, but as soon as you opened it, a wide smile came over your face.

Loki wouldn’t give me your number, so I had to get it out of his phone while he slept. But I wanted to tell you before I fly back to London that it was lovely meeting you, and I’m very happy my brother finally found someone he loves. -Thor

The text was sent at 6:14am, so you knew that Thor was likely already on his plane, but you still tapped out a message before getting up and starting your day.

It was great to meet you, too! Have a safe trip back.

With that, you finally dragged yourself out of bed and went about your morning routine, sending Loki a quick good morning text as you ate breakfast. You were planning on finishing up the last chapter of your coroner story, and you were excited to let him read it that evening when it was done. He’d been so supportive throughout the entire writing process that you were making record time on it; even your editor was surprised at how productive you’d been lately, and you were anxious for his thoughts on the ending.

As you sat down at your computer to type it up, though, you saw that you had an email from your publisher, and your heartrate skyrocketed as you opened it up. You’d sent them the first five edited chapters a few weeks back, and even though you already had several published books, you still got excited anytime you heard back from them.

Your heart only beat faster as you read through their email, and though you’d only just sat down, you were soon leaping out of your chair once you were done. They were going to publish it! At least, they were going to as soon as you had all of the chapters. You’d been concerned that your main character wouldn’t have as much appeal as others of yours had in the past, but as it turned out, they loved Olivia.

Before you even realized what you were doing, your phone was out of your pocket and you were dialing Loki’s number, your fingers trembling in excitement. You tapped your foot anxiously as you waited for him to pick up, and when he finally did, he barely had time to say hello before you were telling him the good news.

“Hello, darling-“

“LOKI I HEARD BACK FROM MY PUBLISHER!” you cried, grinning from ear to ear. “Also hello! Good morning, my love.”

Loki’s velvety laugh only added to your elation, and you quickly ran up to your bedroom to start getting dressed.

“Good morning to you, too. I take it the news was good?”

“It was amazing news! Fantastic news, actually. I was going to finish the final chapter today, but now I’m too excited to focus!”

“Well, love, I’m sure that if you want to just take today to celebrate, it won’t put you too far behind schedule.”

“Speaking of celebrating, can I bring lunch by today on your break? If work isn’t too busy for you, that is.”

“That should be fine, darling; work is actually quite slow.”

“Perfect! I’m going to start getting dressed, but text me which restaurant you’d like, and I’ll pick it up. My treat!”

“Alright, love,” he chuckled. “I’ll see you around noon, then.”

After you two said your goodbyes, you flew through getting ready and ran a few errands before lunch time came around. Loki, as usually, had told you that he was fine with anything and that you should pick the restaurant, so you swung by your favorite bistro before taking a cab to Bellevue Hospital, waving at the front desk staff as you passed by. They all recognized you at this point from your previous visits to see Loki on his break, and they all smiled and waved back as you made your way to the elevators.

“(Y/N)!”

You turned to see one of the receptionists calling you over, and so you shifted the food boxes in your hands and approached the desk.

“Dr. Odinson asked me to tell you that he’s in his office – it’s on the same floor as the morgue, but take a left instead of a right when you get out of the elevators. His is the third office on the left.”

After thanking her for letting you know, you headed down that way, shivering as you stepped out into the cold basement floor. His office had a bronze name placard on it that had Loki’s name on it, and so, after a quiet knock, you walked in to find him sitting behind a tidy desk, tapping away at his laptop furiously.

“I come bearing gifts!” you announced, causing his head to pop up from staring at his screen.

“Come in, love,” he smiled, standing up to help you with the food. “Thank you so much for lunch.”

“Don’t mention it! I wanted to celebrate the latest book, and I can think of no way I’d like to celebrate more than to spend time with the man I love. …And that was incredibly cheesy, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Loki laughed, pulling the chair in front of his desk out for you. “But it was also very sweet, and I appreciate it more than you realize.”

After setting your food down on the desk, you sat down, not realizing that Loki wasn’t going back to his side of the desk until you heard the click of a lock sliding shut behind you. Turning around, you watched as Loki stepped away from the door, approaching you with a conniving glint in his eyes.

“Did…you just lock the door?” you asked, taking a sip of your drink.

“I did,” he confirmed. He didn’t elaborate further before sinking down onto his knees in front of you, and you only caught on to his intent after he gently took the to-go cup out of your hands to rest it on his desk.

“…Am I stuck in here with you, or are you stuck in here with me?” you joked, starting to squirm in your chair as Loki’s hands came down onto your knees.

The only answer you got was a wink before his lips were on yours, and all other thoughts fizzled out as his palms started creeping up your thighs, getting closer and closer to the waistband of your jeans. His tongue tasted like coffee as it glided over your own, and a small moan escaped your lips when his teeth gently nipped at your bottom lip.

“Are you sure about this?” you whispered as he started unbuttoning your pants. “I mean… What if we get caught?”

“We won’t get caught, love,” he assured you, slowly dragging your zipper down before beginning to slide your jeans off. “No one can stop us from having a little celebration. As long as you can keep quiet, that is.”

You lifted your hips as he tugged your trousers down your legs, taking your panties with them, and you shivered when you felt the cold leather chair against your exposed skin. Biting your lip, you slowly nodded your head, spreading your legs wider as Loki stooped down to place open-mouthed kisses along your inner thigh. It was wrong; you knew that there were other doctors in the offices right next to his, and you had no idea how thick or thin the walls were. Could they hear how hard you were suddenly breathing? Would someone passing by be able to hear the low, muffled groans Loki was making as he nipped and sucked hickeys into your skin?

As if sensing your thoughts, Loki glanced upwards as he spread your thighs even further apart, his lips twitching up into a smirk before he suddenly grabbed your hips and pulled, forcing your ass closer to the edge of the chair. In the same instance, he leaned down and buried his face between your legs, his nose just barely brushing against your clit as his tongue started lapping at your entrance. Your eyes rolled back he slipped it inside of you, the vibrations from his voice like bolts of lightning as he let out a guttural growl. He’d commented before on how much he loved eating you out, and you had no reason to doubt him as he thrust his tongue deeper and deeper inside of you.

“Loki…” You kept your voice at a soft whisper, gripping his hair as his tongue started alternating between thrusting into you and tracing patterns into your clit. Your hips jolted every time he swirled his tongue over your swollen bud, and it wasn’t long until they started rocking up against his face of their own accord. If you were at home, you’d already be begging for more or moaning his name over and over again, but now you were acutely conscious of every sound the two of you were making.

The panting of your breath and the obscene, slick noise of his tongue moving against you seemed to echo in the small room. With every shift of your hips, the chair you were in creaked, and you were soon fighting not to move too much for fear that it would be too loud. You were biting your lip so hard that you wouldn’t be surprised if you suddenly tasted blood, but the pleasure Loki was bringing you overshadowed any pain or discomfort.

Just as you felt the edge of your orgasm starting to approach, though, he was pulling away, licking his lips and watching your pussy clench around nothing as you tried to guide him back with the hands you had locked in his hair.

“Please,” you whimpered, “fuck, I was getting close-“

“Don’t worry, love,” he interrupted, leaning up to press a quick kiss to your lips. “I’m far from through with you.”

And that was all the warning you got before he scooped you up, setting you down onto his desk before you could do anything but let out a surprised gasp. At some point while he was eating you out, he must have taken his cock out of his pants, and now he was pushing you to lay on your back as he lined up with your entrance.

You gripped the edge of his desk so hard that your knuckles turned pale, but you still weren’t fully prepared for him to abruptly shove his cock inside of you, so hard that it pushed the air out of your lungs and pried a sharp moan from your lips. His hand came down over your mouth at its sound, and he leaned over you until your face was only inches from his.

“You have to stay quiet,” he panted, pulling out almost entirely before thrusting back into you. “You don’t want us to get caught, do you?”

You hurriedly shook your head no, and he nodded before pulling his hand away and sliding it between your bodies. You nearly moaned again once his fingertips found your clit, though, and you pressed your own hand to your mouth as he began playing with it in time with his thrusts.

“Good girl,” he purred, his own voice fighting back a moan as he started a fast rhythm. “Of course… Maybe you do want us to get caught.”

He punctuated his statement with a hard buck of his hips, and you pressed the back of your hand even harder to your lips as it startled another cry out you. The desk was beginning to creak in time with his movements, and you knew that anyone who walked by outside would be able to hear it. You just hoped that they couldn’t also hear Loki’s raspy breathing, or the way his balls were smacking against your ass with every thrust forward.

“Maybe you do want someone to hear me fucking you. Is that it?” he continued, his voice not once rising above a low growl. “Do you want them all to know that you’re mine? That you’re letting me use you, fuck you, right here in my office? Anyone with a key could get in, love. A janitor, another doctor… Anyone could come in and see what a good little slut you’re being for me. And you love that, don’t you?”

His thumb was moving faster and faster against your clit, and you were rapidly approaching your orgasm; you couldn’t remember the last time a partner had brought you so close so quickly. This was so different from how Loki usually was; typically, he was gentle with you, treating you like you would shatter if he were to grip you too tightly or kiss you too hard. But there were times, you’d found, when something else would peak through the cracks; some nights, his hand found its way around your throat, or his voice dropped into something predatory, threatening.

This was one of those times, evidently. And it always made something else rise up within you – the desire to submit, to bend to him completely, to let him have you and use you however he wanted. And so you did.

With a long, loud moan, you felt yourself cumming around his cock, so hard that it made your eyes roll back and your back arch up off of the desk, bending at an almost unnatural angle as your cunt clenched around him. Through the ringing in your ears, you heard him let out a muffled curse, and his thrusts began getting even harder, even faster, and through it all you laid back and took it. Your body was limp and pliable from your orgasm, and you watched through half-lidded eyes as he took what he wanted from it.

It wasn’t long, though, until he pulled out, stroking his cock a few more times before you felt his cum against your thighs and belly, staining your shirt with his release as he leaned heavily over you, catching his breath. After letting out a deep, heavy sigh, he leaned over, kissing you gently before resting his head on your chest.

“…Wow,” you breathed, settling one of your hands on the back of his head as your other arm drew him closer.

“I agree with that assessment,” he murmured, pressing a kiss over your heart before lazily turning towards you. “You did say you wanted to celebrate, though.”

A giggle escaped your lips at that, and he smiled softly before kissing you once again and slowly drawing himself up to full height.

“I’m…sorry, if I was too rough,” he began, but you sat up and pressed a finger to his lips, shaking your head.

“I liked it. Loki, I know you’d never hurt me,” you assured him. “And I know you don’t really mean it when you do things like call me a slut.”

“Good,” he nodded, his eyes skating over your face. “Because I don’t. And I would never, ever, hurt you.”

“Then don’t apologize for getting a little rough,” you countered, pecking his cheek before starting to stand on wobbly legs. “Because you better believe I enjoyed it.”

“Mm. I could tell.”

You swatted playfully at his arm before straightening your jeans and grabbing a tissue from his desk, dabbing at the cum he’d left on your shirt before giving up on the task entirely and deciding to just keep your coat buttoned up on the ride home.

“…(Y/N)?”

You turned to find Loki staring at you, having already smoothed his appearance back to its usual unrumpled state. The look in his eyes gave you pause, though – it was the same look that he’d had the night before, when he’d looked like he had something to tell you before deciding against it. Unbidden, fear suddenly swept over you, and you had the worst feeling that he was going to break things off, that he was going to tell you that he’d rushed into things and that he didn’t feel the same way as you.

Gulping, you stepped closer, fighting against the trembling in your hands as he took them between his, pressing a kiss to each of your palms before looking up at you once more.

“I’ve…been doing a lot of thinking, and Thor’s visit yesterday made me realize something,” he began.

“I haven’t ever felt this way about anyone before. And, if I’m being honest, sometimes it terrifies me. There are… There are things about me that I haven’t told anyone besides Thor, and even then, there are things he still doesn’t know.

“I came to the realization last night, though, that I want you to know everything about me. I want you to accept me, fully, as I’ve accepted you. And even if I’m not ready to share it all with you, I know that I want us to grow to that point together. I want you to be mine, yes, but I want to be yours, too. Wholly and completely.”

He took a deep breath, then, and your eyes grew wide as he reached into his pocket, taking out a small box and handing it to you.

“I had this made earlier today, after I dropped Thor off at the airport. And I realize that, yes, this is rushing things a bit, and I want you to know that it’s alright if you need to say no or if you need to think it over. But I’m ready to take the next step, whenever you are.”

Feeling as if time was suddenly moving in slow motion, you opened the box, tearing your eyes away from Loki just long enough to look down…

…and see a key waiting for you.

Immediately, your heart soared, and you looked up to see a tiny, hopeful smile on his lips.

“Will you move in with me, my love?”

And even though, yes, it was probably too soon, even though you’d only known Loki for four months, even though all of the logic inside of you was screaming against it, you didn’t hesitate before answering him.

“Yes!”  

____________

A/N: WOW it took forever to write this. I am so sorry! 2020 has really had its way with me, as it has with all of us, and I can’t apologize enough for letting my writing get so far behind. THANK YOU to anyone and everyone reading this, though. I hope you all are having a safe holiday season, and please don’t hesitate to contact me if you ever wanna talk! You guys are the best readers in the world, and I appreciate every single one of you! 

[kylos]

Finding high quality film/tv rips, saving the large files, and screencapping them are half the battle for gifmakers when setting out to make a gifset. Here’s a little guide on this process, including my advice on

Where to download stuff

Where to store your movies/shows

Screencapping programs

Making gifs as HQ as possible, including tips for picking out what to download when you have multiple options (not all 1080p rips of the same movie or tv episode are the same quality and I explain why)

Why screencaps of 4k movies can look weird and washed out and how to fix that

and more

✨ You can find my gifmaking 101 tutorial here and the rest of my tutorials here.

Where can I download movies and shows?

First off, I prefer direct downloading rather than torrenting stuff because it’s faster and with torrenting, there’s more of a risk. Other people downloading the same torrent can see your IP address. This means movie studios can find out you’re downloading their content and can send you a warning letter. The download speed also varies depending on how many other people are seeding it. I would only do it if it’s your only option and you have a VPN or something.

This is THE best guide for pirating I’ve ever seen. I use it for finding sites for books, music, you name it. The part of the guide you’d want to look at is where it says Direct Downloads Link (DDL) sites. My favorite place is Snahp. These ddl sites will have links to their movie/tv rips that are typically hosted on one of these two sites: google drive or mega.nz. You can download stuff from both of those sites for free, but with mega, they have a 5GB file download limit unless you have a premium account. I personally pay the $5 a month membership for mega because it’s worth it imo. You can buy a subscription through the mega app found on the iphone app store (so you’re billed through apple and it’s less scary than giving a random site your credit card info lmao) and as for androids I think mega has an app on there too.

So basically, if you go to http://snahp.it, they’ll have rips for different movies and shows.

You click on the movie title and it’ll take you to a page where they have links for the video which they have uploaded on a variety of sites (including mega).

How do I make my gifs as HQ as possible?

It’s best to gif things that are 1080p. And usually the higher the file size, the better. A really important thing to note is that not all 1080p bluray rips are the same. The piracy groups that rip these files take uncompressed .mkv rips from discs that are anywhere from 10gb to like 50gb, and then run that through video converters to compress the file down so that they’re 2-8gb. Sometimes when that happens, the video quality goes down a LOT. The same goes for TV episodes. One rip could be 800mb, the other could be 3gb and both could claim to be “1080p” but the quality would be NOTICEABLY different. Your best bet is to always pick the rip with the highest file size.

I’ll show you an example with this scene from You’ve Got Mail.

I downloaded 2 different 1080p rip versions of the film. Both claim to be 1080p, but one is 2.41 GB and the other is 9.75 GB. After taking screencaps, it’s obvious that there’s a BIG difference in quality.

(these pictures are best viewed on desktop tumblr)

When it comes to Blu-ray rips, download remux versions of films and shows if possible. Remux means .mkv files that are uncompressed and straight from a Blu-Ray disc. Giffing remux rips cuts down on the possibility of seeing pixel-y effects a LOT in my experience. It’ll take a bit longer to download than typical 1080p rips but it’s worth it imo.

For TV episodes, if you can’t find a Blu-Ray rip, uploads with the word AMZN in it are usually the highest quality and your best bet (unless you see another upload that’s higher in file size - again: always try to pick the highest file size). 'AMZN’ means they’re from a person that ripped the episode from Amazon Prime Video.

Also, even better than 1080p is 4k (2160p). I only really recommend this though if you know you’re going to gif something up close and crop it a lot - like if it’s a big 540x540px close-up gif of a person. You’ll REALLY see the difference if it’s a 1080p vs 4k rip in that situation. I usually don’t bother with giffing 4k files unless it’s the case above because my laptop lags when taking 4k screencaps and it takes longer to load them into photoshop (4k screencaps are usually about 60mb each!)

⭐️ Another thing that’s important is making sure that when you actually make your gifs, you set them to the correct speed (.05 for movies and most shows, and .04 sometimes for reality tv and live broadcasts). Here’s my gif speed guide. Having the right gif speed is really important for making a gifset HQ. You don’t want it to look too slow or too fast.

What’s your favorite video player to take screenshots with?

MPV player, hands down. And I’ve tried a TON of programs over the years. I’ve tried KMPlayer and found that it added duplicate frames (and even missing frames) which is horrible, and I’ve tried GomPlayer which is.....I’m just gonna say it, I’m not the biggest fan of it. It’s a little overly complicated in my opinion and it has ads. If you like these programs, more power to you! Use whatever you’re comfortable using. I just like MPV the most because it doesn’t have ads, it’s simple, you can take sequential screencaps with a keyboard shortcut, and it can play 4k movies.

Screencaps I take of 4k 2160p movies look so dull and washed out, like the colors aren’t right. Why is that?

That’s because your computer can’t handle HDR 4k video files. It probably can handle SDR 4k video files, but unfortunately, 99% of 4k rips out there are HDR.

[picture source]

Now, HDR displays just fine on computers that have 4k-HDR capabilities, but most older computers don’t have this ability. Having said that, MPV - the video player I mentioned above can take a 4K-HDR video and fix the colors/lighting in real time so it displays correctly AND take screenshots of it with the fixed colors. If you have an older version of MPV, make sure you download the newest update for this. In my general gifmaking tutorial, there’s a portion on how to install this program on macs. I also just made a video tutorial on how to install it on pcs here!

High quality TV and Movie rips can take up a LOT of space on my computer. Where do you store your files?

I store them on external hard drives. External hard drives are like flash drives but they have a MUCH higher storage capacity. You just plug them into your computer via a usb cord when you need access to the files and it’s that easy. I have two of these Seagate 4TB hard drives in different colors so I can easily pick out whichever one I need. I have silver for my movies (because it makes me think of “silver screen” lmao and it’s easier for me to remember) and then I just have a blue for shows. Now, external hard drives of this size can be $$$$ but it’s worth it imo. Look out for when they’re on sale.

What’s the size limit for gifs now?

It’s 10mb! It used to be 3mb and then last year Tumblr upped it to 5mb. Some gifs initially had distortion because of Tumblr’s switch from the .gif to .gifv format, but they’ve fixed the problem AND increased the upload limit to 10mb.  Just make sure not to add any lossy to a gif.

Lossy is basically a grain you can add to a gif to lower the file size down. Gifmakers (including myself) used to use this as a trick to get the file size down under 3mb. However, since the .gifv update on Tumblr, any gifs with Lossy added will look distorted like it’s a gif made on a phone app or something.

_________________________________

That’s it for this guide! Again, feel free to check out my other tutorials on photoshop, how to center subtitles, download hq movie trailers, and more ✌️

UPDATE 6/23/20 ⚠️

I’ve gotten an ask about this problem 3 times since I’ve uploaded this tutorial, so I thought I’d add this in. If you are experiencing duplicate and/or missing frames in mpv, it is a glitch with the latest version of mpv. download an older version like 0.29.0. this happened to me on my mac and downloading an older version fixed the problem.

[ryuuug]

(*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

MUN INFO

name/alias: may age: 18+ pronouns: she/her timezone: GMT+8 (but i’m asleep like,,, never so...Y e s)  discord: msg me nd i’ll tell *wink wink* little trivia fact about you: i misspelled the band name (commes instead of comme) when i first sent my app in so like,, Very Dumb May. altho now that i think about it my character would probably make the same mistake once or twice :’-)

CHARACTER INFO

character name: aoyama ryōhei ryū (or just “ryuu” in the future,, much easier to type. tbh i’m clueless when it comes to keyboard shortcuts so idrk if there’s one for letters w/ macrons,, and i personally find it a pain to keep searching “u with bar” on google ASFDGD) age: 24 zodiac sign: pisces (LMAOOOOOO) group/band/position: drummer 4 comme les filles info links or quick points about your character: profile + other short stuff here and bio (???) here (then there’s also that text post wc is rlly just an Edited version of the para sample i sent in,, basically ryuu and his ex-almost-boyfriend having a Moment)

as for plots hMMM

possiblY some1 who’s availed of his old “I’LL MAKE YOUR WORLD BETTER IN JUST ONE HOUR” service (like Yours for an Hour by Hic iacet Mori yes before rp i was a massive naruto fan gOD) but ofc this one doesnt have to be romantic

people who’ve known him since he first arrived in kr so they Know he’s totally different from the Hard and Edgy persona he’s currently fabricating (humor him or dON’t!)

drinking buddies, given the drinking culture (note: he cannot hold his liquor)

on tht note, a friend w/ a place he often crashes at, intentionally or unintentionally

tbh he’s kind of a freeloader; would love a friend/senior he bugs constantly to buy him drinks/food/basic necessities! there’s an underlying fear of not having enough money, as much as his parents still deposit in his acct; i hc he has a habit of checking his trust fund when he gets antsy for whatever reason. it’s like he’s living the middle-class nightmare of being one accident/hospitalization away from poverty when in truth it’s all mostly in his head.

also a friend he just likes hanging out with. i’d say w my whole chest that ryuu is a lot like a dog; he tends to follow people around, gets very lonely when left alone for an extended period of time. a very nice, very social dog. (though recently he’s been trying to kick it and go full Lone Wolf, pt of that dumb rockstar transformation.)

mb a fellow drummer he’s met in the scene! another hc i have is that he was just starting out when CLF was formed, and it’s possible the prospect of being in a band was what made him try drumming in the first place. cld be someone who’s been at it longer than he has, and now they have to endure his pestering for tips and pointers (compensation?? is a michelin-star-worthy omurice enough for you??)

that’s all i have for now  (*/_＼) lmk if any of those ideas interests you, or if you have ideas of ur own!! my dms are open for plotting/ooc talk, and i can’t wait to get the ball rolling w ug! c h e e r s  (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

[lexosaurus]

What would the Danny Phantom Title Theme sound like if I were hired to score a reboot, and couldn’t use any of the copyrighted music?

This was made using entirely FREE music scoring software. And if you follow me, you may have heard me mention it before!

Of course, I’m talking about the famous Musescore.

So what do I actually think about this program? Do I recommend people interested in music download this? Is it easy to learn? Is it, like many free music programs, too limited to even use properly? Or is it worth the time and effort to learn?

Here is my 100% honest review of Musescore 3:

To start off, I will say Musescore does know I am making this review. However, they are not paying me money, and little do they know, I’ve actually been using their software since they were still on Musescore 1. 

So yeah, I know this software inside and out.

And even though I’m not a professional composer and I barely have a grasp on my music theory rules (I just found out how polyrhythms work like two weeks ago), Musescore is actually the reason I got into music writing at all. And that’s because their product is for people like you and me, just casual music fans or aspiring music professionals who maybe wanna try their hand at writing something cool.

Musescore is designed for people who are interested in writing music and don’t want to be babied by these basic softwares that genuinely barely sound listenable, or the “free” softwares that only allow 1-3 instruments at a time. That doesn’t mean that Musescore doesn’t have its flaws, which I will get into, but it is a serious software designed to be easy to use for the beginner, and still entertaining and useful for the advanced user.

And for those who are worried about not being able to read sheet music, let me tell you a little secret: ear/listening skills are just as, if not more important than reading skills are! If you can’t read sheet music yet, that’s fine! Trust your ears, and your eyes will follow!

Opening up this software can seem intimidating. But once you break it down, it’s not so hard! 

In fact, here is a really awesome tutorial for new users on how to use these tools!

Like any software, there is a learning curve. But I HIGHLY recommend you learn some keyboard shortcuts because those will be your friend! 

My absolute favorite thing about this is how Musescore allows users to add and delete an unlimited amount of instruments (well, as many as your CPU will allow). You can adjust your viewing mode from “page view” to “continuous view” if you end up with more instruments than can fit on the page. Which I do a lot. You can also go into “page settings” to adjust this as well.

And the Palettes sidebar organization tool is really great because it allows you to drag-and-drop your different tools in whichever order you want. You can also hide different tools you never use. Like I personally never use guitar tabs, so I have them hidden.

One useful feature I recommend all users get familiar with is the mixer which is located under “view.”

Basically, this allows fine-tuning for instrument volume levels, allows you to adjust the master gain to avoid clipping (aka when your audio hits 0 decibels and then makes a cracking noise), and allows you to pan your audio to one ear and another, so as to allow instruments to “get out of the way” of each other.

Another super cool thing with this is the ability to load in different sounds onto the instruments.

Because while Musescore’s default sounds are pretty impressive given the price of $0, there are other sound packs out there that independent creators in the Musescore community have made.

This is where I’ve gotten a bunch of mine.

Now for criticisms! I’ll put my three biggest constructive feedback on the software here:

1) The reverb and chorus sliders have been in the mixer there for years, but they’ve never seemed to do anything? I know I’m not the first person to be confused by their function, and I’ve tried poking around the forums to see if I’m missing something, but I haven’t found an answer.

2) When you have an instrument, say a violin, playing a whole note, you can’t actually crescendo or decrescendo through that whole note. This posed an obstacle for my colligate music group because I would send people mp3′s of their parts as written for easier learning, but the dynamic markings wouldn’t play back correctly on held notes. I know Musescore is aware of this, and I thought I saw something in a patch a bit ago saying they had fixed it or were working on it, but as of today (11/19/19), it is still an issue.

3) With any sort of line such as a crescendo or 8va marker, it would be really great if we were able to drag the line out past one measure. We currently can aesthetically for the PDF, but in the physical score itself in order to playback correctly, you have to place in a line on each measure, make them invisible (pressing ‘V’ on the keyboard), and then drag the first one out for the desired length. You can probably see how this might be a little slow and cluttered.

Overall, my criticisms of the software don’t devalue how much I love it and how much I enjoy using it as a casual user. Pretty much 90% of the music theory knowledge I have now is just through playing around with Musescore, testing out different instrument combos, and actually downloading other people’s scores online (which you can do if you make a free account on their website). 

Just for kicks, here is the VERY FIRST score I ever wrote. Which I called “Bottled Water” because I guess young me wanted to be quirky?

I love the community around the software, I love how everyone’s just in it to learn as much as they can, and I genuinely recommend this product to anyone, regardless of composition ability, who wants to get into writing music.

And if you want an audio editing software to pair it with, I highly recommend Audacity, which is actually the program I used when editing this audio to make it a bit brighter and compress it a little! It’s also a free program, and I think these two softwares really pair well together.

This was a pretty long post, but I hope for those of my followers who have been wanting to get into music writing, or if you’ve downloaded the software but haven’t really gotten into it yet, I definitely recommend you try it out. 

And here is my DP Title Card Theme score if you want to check it out or download it for your own use!

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

Music

“I think you should learn to play the piano.”

Lukas turned his head to see that Vanessa had walked into the music room. “Why?” he asked, lowering his bow and violin.

“Because I can play the piano and I want you to play with me. Plus, piano music goes better with my singing voice. So, I want you to learn to play the piano instead of that.” She pointed to his violin as if it had offended her somehow.

Lukas frowned down at it himself. His playing didn’t sound that bad, did it? He’d only been practicing for a few weeks now but is instructor said he was doing well. And he’d known how to play cello for years now so he didn’t have to go through the hurdle of learning the basics of playing a stringed instrument. So his playing, though definitely not the best was nowhere near being as offensively awful as Vanessa’s tone suggested it was.

He didn’t want to learn to play the piano. Not that he had anything against pianos or the way they sounded but… he preferred string instruments played with a bow. He liked the way they looked and sounded and he felt fancy when he played them. And piano was the most commonly played instrument in this part of the world, he liked playing something different. Besides…

“You already know how to play the piano,” he said, looking back up at Vanessa. “So why do I need to learn it?”

“Because I want you to. We can sit next to each other and play together. We’ll be super cute and everyone will be jealous. So put that silly thing away or heck go ahead and get rid of it. I’ll teach you how to play piano instead, okay?”

Lukas looked back down at his violin. He didn’t want to get rid of it, he wanted to keep at it until he was good at it. He didn’t have any dreams or really the talent or dedication to become a professional musician but it was a nice way to relax sometimes. Vanessa wanted him to play the piano though so… piano it was. Perhaps learning to play an instrument that was so different from the instrument he’d already mastered would be good for him. He could pick up the violin again later.

[Many, many years later]

Snatcher frowned down at the violin in his hand, stolen from an unfortunate contractor who’d thought taking a shortcut through Subcon Forest was a good idea. Or maybe it was a viola or a fiddle. It had been a long time since Snatcher had held one and his large size made it seem rather small no matter what.

He never had gotten back to learning the violin. Vanessa hadn’t let him. In fact, she hadn’t even let him play his cello anymore once she’d finally gotten him on the piano. She’d complained anytime he’d tried to play it until eventually he’d given up and only played the piano with her just like she’d wanted him to. … He hated the piano now.

He was free of her now though and anything she didn’t want him to do he had to do just to spite her. So he teleported to his giant reading hollow and shrunk down to be closer to the size of a normal person. But… he didn’t have a chin anymore so how was he supposed to hold it? And would his less than normal arms make a difference in how he held it too? What about fingers? … Ah, whatever, he’d figure it out eventually by just messing around with it.

[Less than an hour later]

“That sounds like a dying cat.”

Snatcher almost flinched as he looked up to see Hat Kid in his hollow. He frowned at her, annoyed that he’d been too focused to see or even notice her approach. “What do you want kid?” he said, lowering the violin.

“I want to ask why you’re playing the guitar so bad.”

“It’s not a guitar, it’s a violin. What kind of idiot doesn’t know the difference?”

Hat Kid frowned and shrugged. “Mu has a stringed instrument that she calls a guitar, specifically an electric guitar implying there might be non-electric guitars somewhere. I thought that that might be one. I’ve never seen one before though or one of those so how was I supposed to know what it was? I’m an alien, remember? We don’t have those things where I’m from.”

Well, that did make sense. “What kind of instruments do your people play?”

“I don’t know. I’ve spent my whole life learning how to fly and repair a spaceship. I barely had time to listen to music on the radio, let alone anything else. But anyway, is the violin supposed to sound like that or are you just bad?”

Snatcher scowled. “It’s been a long time since I last played, okay? Like since before I died. I just need a bit of time to get a feel for it again. Also, I would like to add that it’s a right-handed violin, I like to play with my left hand.” He was ambidextrous these days but back then he’d been a lefty, meaning he was inclined to hold it wrong on top of the already awkward position not having a chin forced him to hold it in. “And how about you try playing a stringed instrument when your hands don’t like to form proper fingers and see how well you do.” Making round fingers was much harder when his hands wanted to make claws which would’ve probably cut the strings so he had to fight against that. “And to top it all off I’m pretty sure it’s out of tune.” And he didn’t remember how exactly each string was supposed to sound while in tune so he’d just been fiddling with the knobs every now and then, hoping the information would come back to him eventually and/or he’d somehow get it right on accident. “So, shut up.”

Hat Kid smiled up at him. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. I didn’t know you played instruments though. But I guess that explains that giant violin that’s frozen or whatever in the ruins part of the forest.”

“That’s not a violin, it’s a cello.” And Snatcher should probably get back into playing that too. It’d probably be easier because of how long he’d played the cello before Vanessa had taken it away from him.

“But… it looks a lot like the violin just bigger. Why not just call it a big violin?”

“Because it’s a cello. It’s an entirely different instrument kid, it sounds different and you hold it differently, meaning you play it differently too.” Though as large as Snatcher could make himself, he could possibly get away with playing a cello like a violin. … He’d have to try it one day for sure because it sounded like fun.

“Hmmm… fine I guess, whatever. But are those the only two instruments you can play?”

“No, I can play the piano too. And since I can sort of sometimes play the violin, I should be able to play the viola too because they’re very similar. I also played the trumpet as a kid but that was a very long time ago so I doubt I still can.”

“You’re like a musical genius.”

Snatcher opened his mouth to contradict her because he wasn’t anywhere even close to being a musical genius but stopped himself. “Yep, I sure am kiddo,” he said instead because admitting to his flaws wasn’t his thing.

Hat Kid thought for a few moments before her expression brightened as if she’d just thought of something which he probably wasn’t going to like. “Oh, I know. Let’s start a band.”

Yep, Snatcher didn’t like it. “Why?”

“Because you can play a bunch of instruments, Mu can play the guitar and Bow is learning how to play what’s called a keyboard from one of the moon penguins, I think she’s pretty good. And I recently also learned that the Conductor can play drums and of course DJ Grooves has a nice singing voice. That’s enough for a band. Though we could maybe use one or two more people, we’ll have to ask around.”

“Uh… what will you do?”

“I’ll be the person who leads with the wand thingy. I did it with the marching band in one of Grooves’ movies, he showed me how. It was a lot of fun. So how ‘bout it? Want to do it?”

Snatcher had much better things to do than start a band. Especially one led by Hat Kid of all people. She didn’t even know the names of most instruments or what a music conductor and baton were. But…

“Pretty please with lots of cherries on top,” she said, her expression far too cute for its own good. “It’ll be fun. And since you’ll be the first official member, you’ll get to help me make decisions and stuff. And with Grooves’ and the Conductor’s help we can get on the big screen and then we’ll be famous. And I can tell you from experience that being famous is pretty fun. And it’ll be…

“Fine,” Snatcher cut in. “I’ll join your stupid band mostly just to get you to shut up about it.”

“Yes!” She literally jumped for joy. “Thank you!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Snatcher would let her have her happiness for now because there was no way it could last. The others she’s mentioned probably wouldn’t want to join, except for Bow and maybe Mu. So really, he wasn’t agreeing to anything too bad which was why it was okay for him to do so. When her dumb bad idea inevitably failed, he’d have a good laugh at her. If it succeeded then he might be stuck. It wouldn’t succeed though… probably.

[recsbylotte]

Kristine Froseth gifs full tutorial

As requested ever so kindly, I will explain to you both my gif processes for the Kristine Frøseth gif packs I’ve made recently. My process probably doesn’t differ that much (or at all) from other tutorials out there but this is mostly a way to explain the specifics of these particular gif packs and a chance for me to give credit where credit is due as well: to the wonderful @insomniacgifs​ for their help with sharpening and gif colouring and the equally talented @jojorphs​ whose gif icon colouring psd I used for the Kristine gif icons.

REQUIREMENTS: - Photoshop CC (other versions probably work as well!) - My used gifmaking action: here (original here) - My used gif icon psd: here (original here) - My used small gifs psd: here (original here)

Downloading the footage: I use torrent sites for this and the program Bitlord to download them with - you’ll have to message me privately if you want me to share the websites themselves because this is, in fact, an illegal way of obtaining footage. Especially the Americans or others who have strict regulations about this in their countries, beware and I advise you to use a VPN. Tip: Try to find the best high-quality version - I always opt for 1080 or more, especially when making small gifs.

Cutting the footage into pieces: To make my life easier, I cut movies and tv shows and anything longer than 5 minutes basically, into smaller scenes via a program like Windows Movie Maker ( there are probably better options out there but it works for me ). It may seem time-consuming but it saves you a lot of hassle later when selecting and importing scenes into photoshop (3). Tip: you don’t have to do it all at once, you can easily save it as a draft and get back to it later when you use movie maker. You can recognize a movie maker project by .wlmp as a file extension. As soon as only my wanted scenes are left in the project, I start saving them one by one by selecting all the scenes (Ctrl+A), clicking on those scenes that I want to save (so that they are unselected) and clicking delete so only those scenes are left. (don’t worry we’re going to get them back after saving the scenes by using the ‘step back’ function (Ctrl+Z)) Tip: Always save them with the highest definition possible. After saving, you click Ctrl+Z, then delete the scene(s) you just saved and do it all over again until you’ve saved all scenes. (Again, there may be a video editing program out there who can save them all separately at once. I don’t know!)

Importing into Photoshop: I use the import frames to layers option. Click on File > Import (near the bottom) > Video Frames to Layers. You choose the video you want to gif and then select the exact scene with the pop-up window that comes up. Make sure the ‘Make Frame Animation” box is selected!! Then click OK. Tip: I always select a bit of scene before and after my selected scene if possible - then I can just delete the unnecessary frames and be sure I have the whole scene but again, that’s just extra time-consuming.

This is where the process becomes just a tiny bit different:

Gif icons

(Deleting frames you don’t need): By going into your timeline, you can delete any frames at the start and end that you don’t want. Tip: Don’t use the delete shortcut on your keyboard! It will delete your layers instead of your frames. Rather select them and drag them to the bin at the right bottom or right-click and delete them.

Cropping: First off, I cropped the gifs by choosing a square ratio (1:1) and selecting as best as I could to make sure Kristine was completely visible in every frame.

(Loading an action:) Open the action window by clicking Window > Actions (or Alt+9). Click the menu-button in the top corner (three horizontal lines) > Load actions > choose the action you’ve downloaded and you won’t really get notified but you’ll see the folder amongst the rest of your action folders. That’s it!

Applying gifmaking action: To make things easier for myself, I put together an action that takes care of everything (mostly based off of @insomniacgifs​ their action!!) - including resizing. All you need to do is click on it and press play. The process is done when all that’s left is a folder labelled ‘gif’. You can download it HERE if you haven’t already. ➝ If you’d like to resize by hand, my settings are: bicubic (smooth gradients) ➝ If you’d like to use a different size but still use the action: just click within the action tab, (open the folder and the action labeled “sharpen + blur”), the first step is called Image Size - double click on it and it’ll give you the resize pop-up display, allowing you to change the size to your preference. NOTE: Make sure you’ve got the first frame selected on your frame-timeline before you click play on the action - otherwise you’ll end up deleting frames and have blank frames when the action’s finished.

Colouring: I used @jojorphs​ gif icon psd as a base. You can download mine HERE if you haven’t already but it’s basically their psd so please show your support to them!!   ➝ The orange layers represent those I added. ➝ The blue layers represent those I toggled depending on the scene. Tip: For really dark scenes ➝ Add an exposure layer instead at the bottom and adjust the opacity of the brightness layer at the bottom and/or the levels and selective colour layer. Tip: For scenes that weren’t dark but rather had a lot of natural shadows ➝ adjust the selective colour layer.

Small gifs

Cropping until gifmaking action is the same as explained above. Just the cropping ratio is 268x150 + the action is different which you can find HERE.

Colouring: I used @insomniacgifs​ gif psd. You can download the different adjustments I made for some scenes HERE if you haven’t already but it’s basically their psd so please show your support to them!! ➝ I mainly changed the blue layers - both brightness/contrast layers

Saving

Click on file > export > save for web or use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+S

These are my general settings (though you can play around with selective/adaptive and pattern/diffusion in my opinion, depending on the gif):

[space-geranium]

How I Translate IkeSen

It makes plenty sense, darling! I’ll be happy to show you my somewhat clumsy methods. Keep in mind that my Japanese is limited, but I’m familiar with it and can read Hiragana and Katakana.

Also, I’m sorry if this is long. I hope it helps!

There are be apps out there that can translate things you take pictures of, but IkeSen is a mobile game so that won’t do. Thus, I transcribe every line myself. That’s the TL;DR version of it; I take screenshots from the Japanese version (available on Google Play), type it out, and then translate. I wish it was as easy as copy and pasting, but it gets easier the more Japanese I learn doing this. lol

Here’s a few tips~

Tip #1: Learn to read Hiragana and Katakana

Definitely important. You’ll be able to read more Japanese than you think! Plus, you don’t want to be copying and pasting each character you need from the Hiragana Wikipedia article into the translator. (Totally not saying this because I used to do this years ago... hahaha...)

Tip #2: Search for Kanji by their radicals

There aren’t many hiragana and katakana, but there are literally thousands of kanji. Even if you learned to read hiragana and katakana perfectly, that only helps with simple sentences; you’d still be stumped without knowing kanji.

Since I don’t know much myself, it’s necessary to look them up. But if I can’t read it, then how can I search for them? It’s more simple than you think! 

Kanji are made up of radicals; think of them like little puzzle pieces.

This is the kanji 嬉 (as in 嬉しい or ureshii, meaning ‘happy’). If you break it down, you can find the radicals or even other kanji! (In this case, the radicals are 女, 士, 豆, and 口).

Some online dictionaries allow you to search for kanji based on the radicals. They list them all, and you pick the radicals you think belong in the kanji you’re looking for. It is a lifesaver! With this, we can write anything we need.

Tip #3: Typing in Japanese

Installing a Japanese keyboard is essential and way easier than I thought it would be. On my PC (Windows 10), I went into Language Settings and added Japanese. Boom. Done.

Once you do that, the option will appear at the bottom right corner of your screen. You can also toggle between languages by pressing left Alt and Shift. (Another useful shortcut is Shift and Caps Lock. This switches between English and Japanese on the Japanese keyboard, which is super useful to me since I also have a Korean keyboard installed. Keeps it simple instead of juggling between the three keyboards.)

And the more you translate, the more kanji you learn. By the end of my first run of Mitsuhide’s route, I was able to write down entire sentences just with my own knowledge!

If you can’t install a Japanese keyboard, no worries; Google Translate allows you to type in Japanese. Just make sure you select “Japanese to English” and click the あ icon (which is ’A’ in Japanese Hiragana).

Tip #4: My Translating Tools

Jisho and Google are my best friends in this endeavor:

Jisho (or any other Kanji dictionary)

This site allows you to look up kanji by their radicals. If you have a hunch what a kanji means, you can also type out the English word and it’ll search for relevant kanji and phrases.

And if you search an entire sentence in Japanese, it’ll break it down piece by piece (nouns, verbs, etc.). However, it won’t give a full translation. You’ll have to figure out the meaning based on what’s given and what you know, or use another translator.

Seriously praise Jisho I love it and wouldn’t know what to do without it. I used to go page-by-page in other online dictionaries to find kanji. (No wonder I stopped translating...)

Google Translate (for reference)

I know, I know; it’s Google Translate and it’ll give you something incorrect or downright incoherent half the time. But that’s why I only use it as a reference.

I personally like to take the sentence apart to see what Google gives me. On some occasions, it can give helpful suggestions or synonyms. Most times... it’s an amusing hot mess. lol

Google Search (for research)

Occasionally, your translators will fail to translate a particular phrase or word. This is when you have to search it up yourself.

Use something like “Japanese phrase ___ meaning” or whatever works for you. You might find other websites that meet your translating needs as well. I just stick with Google and Jisho for simplicity.

Often times, it’s informal speech.

Sound effects are also common. IkeSen likes using them, even in the middle of a sentence, so look out for that. (e.g. “I looked up and, swish, the sliding door opened.”; “Crunch; with that, he bit down on the candy.”)

Once I’m satisfied, I repeat the process with the next line. And that’s the basics! 

There must be more efficient ways of doing this, as it still takes me hours due to my amateur Japanese. But I had time and really wanted to translate Mitsuhide’s route. >< Where there’s a will, there’s a way...

An example is under the cut. Hope this post helps! (or makes you think twice about translating instead of waiting around for the English version. lol)

Translating time~

Bonus: Example

This is a random screenshot from Mitsuhide’s route, though he isn’t saying anything spoilery, so don’t worry.

You will learn to recognize all the warlords’ names in time. It’s just Mitsuhide and MC in this scene, so it’s easy to tell who’s who. Thus, Mitsuhide is 光秀.

If we know hiragana and katakana, we can get most of this sentence sorted out right out the gate.

...Oide. _ wo, yoku _sero

Typed out in Japanese:

…おいで。＿を、よく＿せろ

We only need to find two kanji in this line. I already know these by heart since they’re pretty common, but let’s open up Jisho in a tab and break it down.

The first kanji:

As you can see, there’s quite a lot of radicals to get used to. But the more radicals you select, the more fade out as you narrow down what kanji it can be. I narrowed it down to one by picking three radicals I recognized.

This kanji is 顔, pronounced kao, meaning ‘face’.

The second kanji is much simpler. It’s actually a radical, too, but I’ll look it up anyway:

It often won’t be the first or only one listed. But once you find what you’re searching for, just click it and it’ll appear in the search bar.

So now we have the whole sentence!

光秀：…おいで。顔を、よく見せろ

Mitsuhide: ...Oide. Kao wo, yoku misero

Time to figure out what this means. We can look it up if we can’t do it on our own. Even if you’re certain, it’s good to double check. It gives me ideas on how to translate it into English, in addition to finding it’s meaning.

When you plug the whole sentence into Jisho...

You get this. You can click parts of the sentence to look at each word or phrase. If you can’t click it, then it doesn’t have it in its dictionary and you’d need to look elsewhere (or check spelling).

Based on this, Mtisuhide is telling MC to come to him because he wants MC to show her face properly. There isn’t any “him” or “her,” so this is a guess based on context... because that’s how Japanese be. If I personally had a better handle on the grammar, perhaps it’d be easier for me, but I’m still new at this.

Now I do a little research and use what I personally know. His use of “Misero” instead of “Miseru” is informal, and “-seru” means something along the lines of “made to” do something. (Wikipedia’s article on Japanese verb conjugations says “Miseru” means “definitely do” or “show that I do”.)

What does Google Translate have to say?

A little awkward, and a bit literal, but it’s enough to let us know that I’m probably on the right track.

This is the point where I get tired and impatient and, unfortunately, I make more assumptions instead of ensuring the sentence is as accurate as possible... But these translations are mostly for me, so I try not to worry too much. Besides, hopefully the English version will come out eventually~.

My rough translation would be along the lines of...

Mitsuhide: Come. Let me get a good look at your face

or maybe “Come here. Show me your face”

And that’s it!

If you hope to translate something yourself, then best of luck! Liveblogging helped me be more thorough instead of skipping around the story, but it does take a lot of time, so only do what you think is the most fun and interesting! And prepare for a lot of scowling at a screen and mumbling Japanese to yourself lol

[unproduciblesmackdown]

you said random number so.. gimme 5, 17, 24, 26, 38, and 43

#epic thank you!!!! sorry this is so long, gang, but you know me. press J if you have that keyboard shortcut option

5)favorite fics?

soph nothingunrealistic’s!! click the link & peruse any of the dozen gifts to this world on ao3. also just go right to her writing tag

17)a fandom you wish more people were in/you had more people to talk to about?

well i don’t Really have an answer for this one, but just yesterday it was once again time to talk abt how jaclyn moriarty’s 4-book ashbury/brookfield YA series is a lot of fun and unusual in good ways, but like, i guess what with being published throughout the aughts and like, not being super obscure but also not being explosively popular, and idk maybe they were also more Known in australia than the US, and, idk, but there’s not exactly what you’d call a Fandom online, or even very many traces of one. and i just like to mention the series as Fun To Read because they are very lively and focus on girls and have a real variety of Girl Characters (and also some boy characters who are also varied and fun but that’s just a bonus) and in particular i like to talk about how the third book has a really Unusual Choice Of Protagonist (the unfun unpopular Best Grades by-the-book overachiever etc etc etc nerd girl, kinda having the personality that ppl misinterpret alana beck’s personality to be lol, like something of a killjoy goody-two-shoes lol, but also with that earnestness and drivenness that alana has as well)......and the format of each book is Epistolary, but in different and creative ways each time, and it’s fun how like, the characters who are telling the story (the ones whose letters are used and etc) rotate with each book [tho emily and lydia are Storytellers in the 2nd And 4th books] and it’s very neat how like, you do get that sense that just b/c someone’s not being Focused On as much from different people’s perspectives doesn’t mean they aren’t still existing and present and doing stuff and having their own story, even when that’s not being mentioned by whoever’s writing down the events that we’re reading. we love that sentiment. anyways i just like to always Promote them.

24)who are you at the end of this decade?

hmmm!! i mean in many ways i am who i have been the whole time but yknow, 2009 - 2019 was a tumultuous period. i was always furiously trying to think through Who Am I As A Person for various reasons, even though like, when you’re in ur mid-teens that’s always In Progress rather than there being a really set answer to be discovered, and for a while it was a lot of frustration with myself all “why are you like [this], why can’t you do [that] right,” etc etc. but eventually i had like, a better frame of reference for a lot of what was going on, and even why i never quite felt like i had a great sense of Who I Am and What I Like and etc in the first place, and more understanding and respect for myself lol. even now it’s like, yknow i’m ~self-consious~ in ways often lol and i’ll sometimes Use that to be like, okay try to improve [this thing] about yourself!! and yknow on the one hand i feel like stuff i’ve been Working On for years Has paid off in ways, but then recently it’s like......okay hang on but like, it’s not a bad thing to like, have some traits that maybe aren’t gonna be seen as “perfect” or might be annoying or yknow, your Demeanor and Vibe isn’t always like, the most important thing to focus on lol or something where like, oh being sweet & saintly & coming across as utterly pleasant to everyone always gets to be The Objective Ideal. like, i’m opinionated and can be argumentative and sometimes impatient?? like, there’s a balance here between “good to be trying to Improve Yourself always or whatever lol” and “but also everyone is People with Traits and Different Personalities and everyone doesn’t have to just sand themselves down into an edgeless smooth sphere” and like, sure it’s like “haha i’m a bit more temperamental than i’d like still” but also i sure sympathize w/ the fact that like, oof, depression makes it tricky sometimes! and i do pretty okay at like, being Aware of when my mood is cursed and trying to be as chill about it as poss! or like, “haha wish i was better at conversation lmao” but yknow also understanding that like.....i’m just kinda Not great at it and that’s what’s Natural for me and like, again, a balance between “trying to be easier to talk to, lol” and “being okay with the fact that i’m not super easy to talk to and most ppl aren’t very easy for me to talk to either, lol”

im trying to be a bit less cagey lol which i guess might not be the first word someone might use to describe me for a variety of reasons, But......and but then also, i just like, for me there is no simple Be Yourself, Just Talk Naturally As U Would conversation mode lol, but you know. it’s hardly a pressing issue, and at the same time, like, sometimes when i find it hard to talk to people it’s like “well this is just you needing to Be Nicer” or whatever, or like, well you’re just not used talking to Anyone so like, push through it, and then it takes me a while to realize like, well no you just don’t love talking to them, lmao......and at the same time i’m Really slow to realize when people *do* actually enjoy talking to me, lmao, i am just not used to it And used to people like, not really being super interested in interacting with me even if they think i’m alright lol. lord! so i’m still slightly surprised whenever Anyone likes me, but also like, then again there’s sort of always these repeated scenarios where it’s like [Glum Trombone Noise] i’m also the recipient of various ppl’s various contempt for various reasons........which like, i sure don’t Absorb that as like “way 2 go, you deserve that” but also like, sure also never is the most fun experience of your life. but i have a way more solid sense of the fact that like, i don’t inherently deserve that, and an understanding of Why people will be Like That sometimes, and that’s all been acquired knowledge from the whole journey of this decade lol

also like, i have always been and continue to be like, Basically A Cat lol.....cats-sonas for everyone, ___ the ___ cat, But Seriously Folks........like, oh, there’s a lot of ppl and/or noise around?? unless i have chosen to put myself in that situation for fun, i’m probably gonna be finding whatever quiet / distant corner to hide out in and try to remain as undetected as possible.......kinda wary about interacting with people sometimes, though then also, i like to be friendly w/ strangers (if they’re friendly with me) and won’t necessarily mind spontaneous interactions but only if it’s Plausibly Expected in the situation, and even then, i might just prefer that Nobody Talk To Me......and i’ve yet to be Really comfortable in a group of ppl if i’m there *with* that group lmao, like, i don’t like to take the lead or compete for attention or anything and just kinda will try to do my own thing on the outskirts, whereas if i’m by myself it’s just like, i feel a lot more comfortable and like i can just do whatever lmao..........and also i don’t like to make noise lol. unless again, it’s deliberate, and it’s Fun. like at a concert? i will be the death of whatever nerd like, wants it to be like a solemn “listening to a record” occasion or wants everyone to yell out complete sentences if a performer asks an Arena full of people How Are You Doing 2nite or whatever. i’m gonna yell!!! anyways. idk. i am always like “oh i am Very Much [this way], except for all the times i am totally [the would-be Opposite way]”........i can’t really opt out of having Anxious Qualities and that’s alright, even though it does get in the way of things sometimes for sure. like, c’est la vie!!! i understand why i am like this, and that like, while for my own sake i can try to hold my own hand here and encourage myself to be a little bolder, it’s totally fine that like, i have Problems and Difficulties. 

i’m also at like, maybe the lowest levels of Impending Dread that i’ve had since i was like, 8 or some shit lmao............like again kind of a Wild Decade and one where like, it was totally all like “wow am i even gonna make it to [a few yrs in the future] -> [a year in the future] -> [half a year from now]” aaand it hasn’t been a full year yet since i was last thinking like “lmfao oof i might not be alive by __, who knows!!” but even while that was going on it was at least an improvement from the times i thought i might like, hmm hope i don’t off myself. and like, this is probably the first Start Of A Year in like. well possibly the past decade lmao, where yknow, it hasn’t felt quite as dire. i mean im not really out here a cockeyed optimist about anything, and like, i’m aware that things are always a little tenuous and there’s other factors i’m always nervous about, but That’s nothing new, and i’m kinda more like, neutral about the future rn lol? feeling less Dread and Doom is new-ish lmao and like, allowing that yknow, despite how crappy the past decade has been re: how i felt in my Outlook, there’s been a bunch of surprising Good Things to come along, and i totally allow for the fact that that could easily continue to happen. having Less(ened) Bad Feelings about Things might not = Absolutely Thriving but i appreciate it!! i also try to be appreciative lmao. like, what with the dread and doom & (hope i don’t die this year, i guess,) feelings, it’s wildly hard nowadays for me to like, anticipate stuff in a ~fun~ way or at all, but yknow when anything nice, even a really small / unspectacular / ordinary moment and/or detail, is being experienced by me, i try to enjoy that. i like to be Appreciative. and i think i’m also sort of like, sharing more of myself than i’ve probably gotten to or felt capable of doing in the past, and i appreciate that a lot too. like, it can be really Depressing for sure to think of like, hmm i haven’t had the chance to like, feel in control of things and like things are Totally Fine and i feel Totally Okay & like i’m enjoying everything, and i can choose to pursue [things i might enjoy], and maybe i Won’t have that chance? [another glum trombone noise] but like. i appreciate the good experiences that i Do and Have gotten so far. and the fact i’ve ever been in situations to connect with people and enjoy things the ways that i can and like, it’s really nice that My Presence in other ppl’s lives, even as just like Some Online Rando re: some ppl lmao, has had some positive effect for them or even just been enjoyed is like, wow, this is pretty great lol.........not sure where i was taking this tangent but like, i am someone who appreciates this a lot.

hmm i am also a passionate person at the end of this decade lmao!!!! that has definitely always been true. i am Of That Temperament. it is funny b/c like, the fact that i am A Motormouth Actually But Often Not Saying Anything In The Least To People, they think i’m like, of this very mild disposition and Not someone with strong opinions that they will launch into, or else i would have been doing that already........but you know!!! here i am online, fully able to just dive into things and start talking about whatever for one million years. and i sure latch onto stuff in a Big Way sometimes, which is why anyone follows me at all lol, b/c if you like [whatever particular content] and i am just all about that too, it’s a beneficial situation for us both i guess lmao. i can get really excited and focused about stuff, obviously, and i sure Also Obviously like to explore the emotional aspects of things. which is a vague thing to say lmfao but you all know what i mean!!! it continues to be the only reason i draw lmaooo like i draw so much and like, Making Fanart And Sharing It Online has i think also been a journey of this decade for me, and i really only draw a) exactly that fanart that i feel like making, and b) what i feel like making is always also probably abt Feelings somehow, like the Three Emotions: kissing (aka gay), crying (sad), and angry (angry)........great news if you want to see the stuff i already happen to be drawing lol!!! bad news i guess if you were hoping i’d draw anything but whatever i end up wanting to draw. i cannot be diverted. and i don’t even draw for its own sake lol like, i’ve always doodled for fun and all that, but like, ive never been a “wow i want to make my own __ someday” or whatever, and if i’m trying to draw something which is anything other than [the exact thing i might feel like drawing] it is Such a chore that like, i just don’t do it except for like, total Exceptions. except exceptions lol. don’t ask!! anyways why did i get on that drawing tangent there........yeah it’s definitely lucky that i’ve been giving myself that Drawing Experience so that i can connect w/ ppl that way, cuz i’m godawful at like, necessarily providing other stuff lol Or at being the one to Make Connections Happen otherwise......and also of course sometimes it is easier to convey/communicate something via drawing. woohoo!!

anyways yeah i’m a bit excitable lol and i sure guess i’ve got that Chaotique energy at times, for better or worse lol........like sometimes my Contribution can be like, just an absolute wild card thrown into the pile, or just like, maybe adding some Boost to a situation that other people can run with if they so choose. just throw things out there sometimes and enjoy when other ppl find that fun lmao

what else is there about me??? lol.......oh yeah i’m always sort of an Office Goofaround (not actually in an office ever, though). like, when ppl Don’t have that sense of Collaborative Humor where like, if someone does something a bit silly u just roll with that bit, or if god forbid they have Exhausting Cishet Guy humor where they think everything is about Dry, “Intelligent” Sarcasm and that being “funny” is about making yourself look like the coolest or cleverest person there who Wins the Center Of Attention spot?? it’s like, eff that, where are my Get Silly gang. also puns are funny but also only b/c they are silly. you have to really lean into it lol. 

well anyways!!!! and when i am asked to talk about myself i can be very extensive and yet not necessarily cover everything. here we are

26)favorite look you had?

my look hasn’t changed too much! Tees n Jeans (or shorts? or jorts? lol) are pretty much my thing altho you Know i have at times added in A Layer, or even accessories.......as always, part of the first few years of the decade for me was the whole “aha, yeah okay i’m trans” process, but before that i wasn’t ever really trying to be more “””””””””fashionable”””””””””” than the tees n jeans type of look anyway lmao, and even nowadays like, i have some Wardrobe Items that like, ppl might consider ”androgynous” or whatever when cis dudes wear them, like leggings or a v-neck sweater........really some of the only significant Changes was getting binder/s eventually (by 2012?? ugh idk) and also like, by 2011 i cut my hair relatively short, and from there on i just like, every year went “ugh god i need it to be shorter” and even now i’m like, hmm, do i want it shorter or is this fine?? but also i’m somewhat limited styling-wise b/c i just continually cut it myself in a bathroom mirror, true chaotic. and! i’ve been like, god i wish i had a baseball cap that’s just like, solid [my fave blue] or yknow, black or something, or idk. one that i like. and also someday it would be nice to like, not only have an updated prescription of lenses but also Multiple Glasses Frames to choose from, even though my current ones are alright still lol.......this is me just talking abt my past looks and how i’d like to potentially update my look lmao i did Not answer the question but, as usual, i also don’t have a great direct answer lol

38)a prediction you had for this decade that came true?

lol this was not a decade where i was ever looking ahead to 2020 and making any assumptions about this Block Of Time as a whole.......i mean like, i was Really starting to suspect byyyy 2012 for sure that like, i could not like, be able to exist And have my parents be in my life at all lol and by 2013 it was just like. increasing confirmation of that. and i last saw / spoke to them prior to me just effing out of there at the end of 2015. snaps for me

43)an important relationship (of any kind) you had?

well a couple i appreciated that might not be obvious were pretty brief and fairly impersonal lol. so in 2015 i had this Nightmare Job for five whole months which was obviously miserable in most ways, but there was this other guy who wasn’t even a Coworker, we just had the same job and had similar routes of Stores to go to, so we would run into each other a lot of mornings, and he would talk to me and i’d talk to him and he was totally good-humored about everything and that was helpful lmao b/c it’s great to have Someone you enjoy seeing. i also struck up a rapport with a baked-goods stocker at one particular store, and that could be an enjoyable 14 seconds. it was a godawful job lmao and like, Any pleasantness at all / decent treatment from other people was very helpful

also at this other job the next year which was a lot less hellish, there was this customer lady who like, i can’t remember at what point she started talking to me but yknow it got to be that if we’d run into each other she’d kind of update me on her life. and she would be like “sorry i’m talking to you, a stranger, about all this stuff all the time, but my life is a mess and i don’t really have anyone to talk to” and i would be like, lmfao mood, do not even worry about it, and yknow this was someone i only ran into usually once every few weeks at my job, and could only listen to for however long, but she was Going Tf Through It all the time and as much as i am a chatterbox who will go on for a century about myself b/c i can’t be concise abt anything ever, i’m also decent at being in Listening Mode lmao or yknow, i was like No Truly i don’t mind you venting, and also yknow, i’m like well i know how much it sucks to have Nobody to talk to about Big Problems. and i am this random restaurant worker and if i’m one of the only people this lady can talk to, you can bet i’m going to listen lol.......and she was really goin through it all One Thing After Another and yknow i’d catch her two weeks later and she’d be all like, well [this situation] has gotten worse, or This One Problem is over but now New Problem has replaced it, etc, and a whole issue that i got updated on was like lol. she had this boyfriend who she’d kinda mention early on when she was talking abt trying to find a job, or losing a new-but-terrible job and once again being back in that Job Hunt Stress, and idk like. i just sort of have decent Relationship Instincts lmfao of like “hmm this doesn’t sound great” but like, a month or two later she’s straightup Married to this dude, and i’m like oh congrats :) and then when a month or two after That she’s talking about how like, she’s maybe having Job Probs again and her now-husband is really giving her shit for like, not having found a new one yet, i’m like internally all [ :)))))) Not Surprised :))))))) ] but i’m like. yknow you Sympathize n Validate but if you just up and tell someone who’s being treated real bad like “you are being treated terribly, this person is acting terribly” then they might just want to defend them like oh it’s not That bad, or minimize it, and blame themselves for making their terrible partner “look bad”.......and by extension when she once was in our restaurant With said husband and introduced us i was like, just getting further confirmation abt this dude’s shittiness from his Immediate Vibe lmao like....whenever i feel uncomfortable enough in someone’s presence in a [not just universal level of Anxiety] way, it’s like, that instinct is pretty reliable & accurate lol.....but i had to pretend Not to hate him or act too standoffish towards him lmao cuz like!!! i figured i could “get away with it” but yknow, this lady had already said how isolated she was and the husband sure seemed Controlling and like, yknow, if you act like you don’t Like the shitty partner or said shitty partner catches wind of you maybe telling this person that “hey your partner is being shitty” then it’s all, them telling their partner “don’t go around that person who is so obviously Against me >:(” and like. yknow i figured as Random Restaurant Employee this dude wasn’t about to be super on guard about me but i still was not wanting to risk it but luckily i only met him the one time and only had to casually pretend i didn’t think he was shit that one time. and anyhow! soon enough the lady is talking to me about how she thinks getting married to him was a mistake but like, again, she was real isolated and didnt have family or friends or ppl in the area to talk to, and like, yknow she would be pretty sure her husband was cheating on her but of course He was the one all like, wanting to be controlling and invade her privacy and accuse Her of cheating on him, and i’m like, internally screaming but again yknow, i’m just letting her vent to Anyone (me) and sympathizing. and iirc her talking about her “uh oh my husband sucks” was like, i had come back from this delivery so we were in the parking lot lol and she was so upset about all of it and like, “sorry i’m just this random person talking to you for twenty minutes in a parking lot and crying lol” and i’m like. i mean yknow if the only person you can vent to about this terrible situation is me, this random person in a parking lot, absolutely i am glad to do it, even though i would’ve done it anyways lol...........and i was so mad at our General Manager this one time lmao b/c. yknow it’s a couple weeks later and wouldn’t you know it, The Lady is really stressed b/c her husband was yelling at her and broke a window in their apartment, and the Cost Of Repairs added to their monthly rent meant they might not be able to make that rent, and she was in that crappy situation that gets pulled on Tenants Who Probably Don’t Have Much Money, where you’re supposed to get 5 Days Notice or whatever when they’re like “get out b/c your rent is overdue” but you get that Notice on like, friday afternoon when your Last Day is supposed to be the following monday, and nobody is at the office all weekend, so obviously that’s not five days and it’s really only One Day and that Last Day that you’d even have a chance to talk to anyone, which is also a monday when you’d probably have work, and yknow, good luck finding help over the weekend, when probably ppl will just want to spend that time rushing to just pack their shit up and leave anyways.....ANYHOW it’s just some particular heinous bullshit and it was like, the saturday after it had happened to her, and i sympathized entirely b/c that had happened to me and i now lived in my car but i figured i wouldn’t bring that up lmfao.......and anyways i was sitting down with her to listen to her b/c it’s an Insanely Stressful Situation and again like, whenever she’d show up i’d let her talk to me abt her Problems for however long she felt like. and anyways of course eventually the one By-The-Books manager gives me shit all like “what are you doing daring to Sit Down and Not be doing restaurantly actions, ugh” and i’m like. i mean, unsurprising lecture to get lol, of course, but i was just so impatient like. well this person was having a crisis so i prioritized that above keeping the coffee stirrers fully stocked at all times, bite me. ENNYHOW and i didn’t see her for a minute after that and i Was a bit worried b/c like. of course i had every reason to be and she was just always looking so completely exhausted but then like, actually the last time i saw her she was actually more upbeat than ever b/c like! turns out that during an argument her husband had assaulted her and had been arrested. which is of course like. i was like oh i am completely sorry about that trauma but congratulations at this person being separated from you!!! and like, i wish i could have kept up with her beyond that, but i couldn’t, but like, that was the first Improvement in her life that i’d heard since i met her, and it was a way better last-thing-to-hear-from-her than her stressing out abt eviction thanks to her abusive husband breaking shit. and like, weird relationship lmao but!! idk i did feel lucky that i could be The One Person This Lady Gets To Talk With b/c like, god forbid she have absolutely nobody to talk to about this shit or treat her with any sympathy, even if it was just me, the rando she only got to see on occasion. and i hope she’s doing okay still! wish i knew for sure of course, but i’m glad i at least got to be there for her in a tiny way for a period of time and did eventually like, Know that she both knew that this was a bad person to be with, and got that Reason to be separated from him.

[redvelvetreel]

Red Velvet Reel 11.2: Amorfino

Pairing: [Married] Spicyhoney (Underfell Papyrus x Underswap Papyrus)

Summary: Edge explains the PregHUD to Stretch, complete with a demonstration of it’s most annoying, well-meaning feature.

Characters: Stretch (Underswap Papyrus) & Edge (Underfell Papyrus)

Contains: Mpreg/Skelepreg!  Mood swings! Lots of pseudo-magic-science fudging and videogame logistics! So many headcanons!

Rating: Teen and up! (I guess?)

Note: This is the PregHUD, the default menu of all Souling related things, from Edge’s perspective! C: Stretch’s HUD is a little different, hehe!

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What was this thing?!

This display was unlike anything he had ever seen before! For whatever reason, this one didn’t need to be locked on any one particular target to be used- it was just sort of this pop-up in front of Edge. Kinda like a stat menu, although Stretch didn’t think other people could usually see those. He could see Edge’s, sometimes, but that was only because their souls were literally linked. Was this the same thing or not?

Stretch carefully picked his husband up, depositing him on his feet in the middle of the room. This was way too exciting to sit down for! Edge could be cute later.

“This is so cool!” He made a circuit around his nonplussed husband, looking at the menu from all angles, “Why can I see it? Can anyone else see it?”

“Of course not!” Edge looked almost scandalized, “No one else is ever going to see this!”

“Yeah, okay,” Stretch nodded agreeably, squatting down so he was eye level with the Souling. That was a minor curiosity, he wasn’t willing to push for it.

Even through the thick fabric of Edge’s sweater, he could clearly see the bright, white glow. He lifted up the hem of his husband’s top, noting the Souling’s glow was the same underneath the fabric, too.

“Huh.” He let his hands drop as Edge batted them away, “I wonder why they’re glowing through the clothes-“ Oh! Duh! It was locked onto Pancake! He shot up so quickly Edge startled and nearly clocked him in the face, “HUDs are closest to a BATTLE setting, so it makes sense their soul would react the same way! Souls don’t typically glow in battle, but then again, we tend to have a physical form when we engage in battles! It all makes so much sense.”

Stretch rested his chin on Edge’s shoulder as he pulled his husband into a backwards hug, patting the ectomagic with a smile, “You’re a bright kid, huh? Taken a real shining to-“

“Enough!” Edge pushed him away by his face with an irritated huff, “Do you want to know how this thing works or not?!”

“Yes please! .... light of my life.” Stretch pressed a kiss to the side of his husband’s head, looking at the screen obediently... as he rested his chin on Edge’s shoulder, again. And pulled Pancake into another hug. “I’m listening. How do you use it?”

Rolling his eyes almost audibly, Edge pointed to the screen, “This is the main screen.”

It was like a mixture of an HUD with phone technology in an intangible, manipulatable rectangle. There was a big bar in the middle and over a quarter of it was filled in white. On one end was a picture of an upside down heart, and on the other was a percentage. It wasn’t labeled, but... that was obviously Pancake’s load bar.

“That’s Pancake’s-“

“Uh, why are our names in these tabs?” Seemed kind of silly to attach that information to the load bar. As though they, or the Souling, needed any reminders.

“They’re shortcuts to Pancake,” Edge literally waved his question off, “But the squares around it are more important!”

A shortcut to Pancake (whatever that meant) seemed plenty important, but what did he know? Around the load bar we’re a variety of boxes with small icons in them, some of which were gray and appeared locked.

“So, this first one is a general notes program-“

“Wait, so you click them and you can access different... programs?” He felt Edge nod, even as Stretch poked at a locked square. “And these are ones we can only access once were in the right quarter?”

“Yes, but you would know that if you stopped interrupting me!” Edge punctuated his annoyance by suddenly jostling his shoulder, which ow, point taken. Stretch rubbed at his chin quietly.

“So, that’s Notes, to remember everything important: dates, milestones, gifts, events, etc. That’s Information, which has manuals and explanations about monster pregnancy, including symptoms for non-pregnant partners.” Stretch pointedly avoided that look sent his way. “This is Family Health, which is like a CHECK for all of us and some extra information too. And that last one is Souling Theme.”

Edge pointed at each little square in turn, pausing on the first square at the bottom. It featured a little white heart surrounded by slices of all the base magic colors in a cool little heptagon. All the icons to the right of it were still locked gray. What was up with that? “And I don’t know what this one is. It unlocked itself recently, but it’s weird. It might be like a minigame? Oh, and I don’t understand the Souling Theme either. It just has a list of everyone we know. You can write things next to their names, but I don’t know why.”

“Oh, that’s probably for the Baby Band.” Stretch  waved his hand, “That’s not until the last quarter, though, so we don’t need to worry about until later. Let’s ask Undyne about the heptagon though.”

“What? Baby band? Heptagon?” Edge looked confused and a little concerned, which was not good and the opposite of what he had been trying to do. That was supposed to be reassuring! Time for a topic change.

“This all seems unusually straightforward...” Stretch squinted at it, as though that made things any clearer. Monsters loved puzzles and complicating their lives. “You just click and it opens up the tools? What’s the catch? Aren’t there any puzzles anywhere?”

“Yes! These!” Edge started swearing something unintelligible, angrily jabbing at the first square. “Goals!”

Stretch rubbed his husband’s shoulders soothingly, watching a new, much more colorful screen pop up. It looked like a bunch of paper, with a nearby pencil poised and ready to write. Before he finished taking in the rest of it, some kind of mascot danced onto the middle of the screen.

“Hey, it’s the egg! Right? The one from the Dating HUD?” Stretch hadn’t even realized it had been missing! Weird, since he had started checking it daily while he waited for his husband to wake up from his little naps. “It got legs! And a little hat!”

“Yes, and it changes what kind of legs it has every! Time!” Edge glared at it for a few more seconds, before reluctantly tapping on it. A little dialogue box popped up below it.

「HELLO, PAPYRUS “EDGE”!」

“I am not your friend!” Edge snarled, tapping at it again, more aggressively than before, “I don’t owe you any explanations!”

「ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR DAILY CHALLENGE?」

“No!” Edge tapped on it again anyway, moving restlessly as the egg danced into a corner, starting to pull something out of its hat. “Don’t laugh- it’s not funny!”

Stretch angled his face so his smile was pressed against Edge’s shoulder instead, trying very hard not to laugh. His husband seemed to be having a difficult time not smiling himself.

「HERE’S YOUR PUZZLE!」

It was a word scramble, a lot like the Minor Mixup Stretch used to do as a kid.

「 RNDKI smeo LIKM!」

Edge made a sound between a groan and a growl, counting out the letters before starting to type his answer into the space below.

「QMCJH rldn KHJL?」

Huh? Stretch frowned as the egg started dancing sadly in the corner. Stretch felt sorry for it when if finally fell down. (And a little irritated at it for making Edge so obviously annoyed, of course.)

「TRY AGAIN!」

“I hate these,” Edge seethed, crossing his arms as he glared at the screen, “There’s never a pattern! How are you supposed to solve this without a pattern?! At least a hint!”

“That’s...” What was the best way of phrasing this? “I think it might be a word scramble, Babe.” Stretch pointed to the first string of letters, “Have you tried plugging the letters they gave you in a different order to make new words?”

“Like león- I mean, lion... kim- skim...?” Edge looked adorably confused, “There aren’t enough vowels!”

“How about word by word, then?” Stretch put his hand over the last two words, gently nudging his husband’s shoulder, “What word does「 RNDKI」look like?”

“I don’t know-“ Edge sighed impatiently, “Kindr, dinkr- oh!” He positively lit up as he tapped the right order into the keyboard, “Drink? Is it drink?”

“Yeah!” Stretch cheered, clapping his husband on the back, “Good job! The next should be a little easier-”

“How dare you make fun of me?!” Edge elbowed him in the chest, and Stretch staggered back with a gasp. That was gratitude for you. “The stupid egg never said it was a word scramble! It just said it was a puzzle- and word scrambles are difficult! I don’t care what Red says, crosswords are a lot easier than this thing- and you’re wrong if you think that too!”

“I never said anything about it not being hard or anything,” Stretch rubbed at his chest ruefully, but completely ignoring rational self-preservation, went back to leaning on Edge’s shoulder. “Just that I think the solution might be more apparent if you look at it like a word-by-word scramble. I didn’t mean to imply anything- I think crosswords and word scrambles use different skills and understanding, and can be very difficult in different ways.”

“Hm.” Edge looked at him suspiciously over his shoulder, before turning back to the screen with a frown. He grabbed his husband’s hand, repositioning the fingers over the final word, “So you think the next word is... some?”

“Try plugging it in.” Shrugging, he watched Edge type it in and get the font to change color.

“Hm...” Edge still looked far from convinced, but typed ‘milk’ into the last space anyway.

「 DRINK some MILK!」

[punkcalf]

Oh Anon! I don’t know how old this because Tumblr doesn’t notify me at all when I get an ask but here is a little tutorial!  [Assuming you talk about my gifs but the final few steps of my gif making and image editing are quite the same!]

Program used: Photoshop CC 2019 (Though the steps are probably the same in every version of Photoshop) Also I use a MacBook but since I wrote this tutorial without keyboard shortcuts it should be the same on Windows. 

Without further ado; how to make a gif that doesn’t become blurry, under the cut!

Step 1: Import video frames from layers! Depending on how big your video is, this may take a while, let it do it’s thing! 

[Step 1.5: Especially when I’m giffing big videos, like say movies, I like to cut the clips I plan on using. You can use iMovie or VLC, which I can make a tutorial for if you guys like! I find this makes the whole giffing process a little easier because I already cut all content I don’t plan on using)

Step 2: Pick a part of the clip you want to gif, frames ize is limited to 500 and can make your laptop / computer fans go buckwild so make sure they have some room to vent!, This step can take a while, so just let Photoshop do it’s thing.]

Step 3: Make sure you have a video time line. If it’s missing you can go to Window > Video time line.

Step 4: This will open up! And now the magic happens!  First of all click select all frames. This is. important because if you have different delays your gif will look wild and not in a good fun way, 

Step 5: Time to find what works! With all the fames selected click one of the down pointing arrows. Which one you pick doesn’t matter! 

Step 6: Now I always select other, and set the settings to 0,06. I find it works best! Look how it looks with 1: 

I mean that’s just way to slow?

This is with 0,01 but it’s still not what I want, so 0,06 it is. Honesty with this is just trial and error on what works for you and your source media, Sometimes slowing it down is actually what you want. The gif above this, for example can be used to look at the animation frame by frame. 

Step 7: Now that we know how fast our gif is going to be we need to edit it. First pic is the same as before, I know, we just need it again but this time click ‘convert to video timeline’ 

Step 8: Now select all layers, right click on them and select ‘Convert to smart object’ 

Step 9: HARD PART’S OVER!  Your window should look like this, you can drag the edges to make your gifs shorter! But there is still much to be done! 

Step 10: Resize your image. I go with 700 by whatever, so make sure the size lock is ON. This way the width and height will match no matter what you do. You can do other sizes as well but since I usually make big gifs, 700 is my go to. 

Step 11: And I guess this is why your images come up blurry, anon, this took me a while to learn but add a sharpen filter. It goes from meh.. to crispyyyyy. This step is important because that image went to hell and back so far and needs a little TLC, sharpen usually does the trick but be careful NOT to oven sharpen it as it will look.. well.. ugly. 

Step 12: Now the fun part, and this is a free for all, adjustment layers, for my gifs, and images as well, I use two; Brightness and Contrast and a Curves layers. NOW PLEASE KEEP IN MIND; that this step will change the color of the image, so be smart and do not overuse this, always keep skin color in mind and stay as close to the original as possible. Don’t whitewash your gifs.

You can play around with the settings and judge what you like best based on your source material. 

BEFORE ADJUSTMENT LAYERS:

Not bad but we can do much better.

AFTER ADJUSTMENT LAYERS:

 WOAH, SO VIBRANT, SO COLORFUL! 

Step 13: YOU. ARE. DONE! Time to save! You HAVE to do it like I did... Otherwise you get a static image. 

Step 14: This screen will open, there are some things you need to keep in mind;

1. The size. The new limit for Tumblr is 7MB, but sometimes gifs bigger than 5MB will not move on mobile or desktop. It will either have a blank space or just shows the first frame. To see if your gif works, make a new post on Tumblr and select ‘preview on blog’ if it moves on your preview, it will move on people’s dashes! If it’s too big you can go back to the editing phase and shorten it. 

2. The looping options. Set this one to FOREVER. If you do not do this, it will play once and then stop, unless people refresh the page! 

AND YOU’RE DONE! ENJOY, CLICK SAVE AND GIF TILL YOU CAN’T GIF NO MORE! 

I have never written an tutorial before so i hope you can read everything and understand, I like this method because it makes editing so easy! You can easily go back and forth between steps and it also makes it SUPER easy to crop your gif: 

If you have any questions let me know!

[pixlpit]

Hiya Robin. 💚 Firstly, I love your vids, you're super talented. Secondly, in your opinion, what would be the easiest editing software to start with? My boy is 8 and wants to get into making movies and editing. He has trouble reading, so I would have to learn the basics then show him how to do it.

I do personally prefer Adobe Premiere Pro, but that’s in part because I know Premiere Pro, I know the keyboard shortcuts and how the effects work. You can always try out a free month trial, if you want to give it a go, but it does require a monthly subscription fee to use past that.

Though, there is a free editing program called “DaVinci Resolve” which is actually pretty good! I tried it out briefly, and it’s very easy to get into, the interface is well designed and tracks are clear and color coded so it’s easy to keep track of what’s going on. Plus, you know, it’s free so there’s not much “risk” to trying it out :)

There’s also another free video editor called “Kdenlive” which I have no experience of myself, but I’ve seen it around and it does look pretty good. It’s Open Source so I can see it being updated a lot as well.

I would probably recommend trying out DaVinci Resolve first, since it is free and it it’s been aroud for a while (they’re currently on version 15). It’s got a lot of similar features to Premiere, so learning the basics through that would make it easier to move to Premiere in the future if this is something that stays interesting. Good luck! :)

[oppressiveliberator]

romance headcanons.

→  repost, do not reblog.

((FOREWARNING I do mention a protag ship as well as an incest ship, but aside one or two other implications it only comes up once I think. Also this is a fucking mess so it’s under a cut. Someday I’ll write concisely but today is not that day!))

name: Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius nickname:  Ghetsis; G-Cis; Lord Ghetsis; [Holy] Father gender: Male romantic orientation: Debateable. Gray-Aromantic? May not experience romantic attraction, but enjoys or will get into relationships to some degree. Will definitely indulge someone’s feelings for fun. preferred pet names: Lord. Master. Sir. Father. Basically, if it’s a dominance-expressing petname, he’s good with it. Depending on who it’s from something like ‘dear’ could also be acceptable.

relationship status: Single, but has or has had repeated partners and hookups. May be or have had been married in some verses? favorite canon ship(s): Canon as in officially shown or implied?  The closest we’d have is probably Ghetsis/Zinzolin lmao. . . . favorite non-canon ship(s) so far:  I mean I ship more or less anything as long as it’s interesting/has potential and my muse wants to roll with it but.  I fuckin love me some Ghetsis/Hilda. Ghetsis/Zinzolin, Giovanni/Ghetsis, Lysandre/Ghetsis, a hard to explain one but I like the concept of like Ghetsis/Reader, not in that I’m the ‘reader’ but that the reader is a ‘fan’, grunt, etc, so I guess Ghetsis/ghetsis fandom, and I have a real big ‘guilty’(read: i enjoy it and it’s harmless fiction so i don’t really feel that guilty, but people will definitely be real unhappy to hear it but fuck it it’s not like I’m forcing it on anybody) love for Ghetsis/N or other members of his family.  But Ghetsis goes well with like everybody tbh depending on what you’re after.  opinion on true love: Ghetsis finds that romantic feelings are, in general, for weaker persons.  True love is self-love, and letting yourself love or enjoy as many others as you’d like.  Of course, true love directed at him isn’t shameful or pathetic at all, and if he finds himself attached to somebody. . .well, he’ll admit to feeling weak for them, but it’s not something that makes him in any way less perfect.

opinion on love at first sight: You’ll love him at first sight. How weak do you have to be to just see somebody and be romantically infatuated with them?  You don’t even know anything about them.  Pathetic.  You’re going to get yourself into trouble, silly pet! 

how ‘romantic’ are they?: MMMMMMM Ghetsis is. . .willing to be romantic and would probably enjoy doing so because it makes him feel impressive.  Plus, pleasing a partner or object of affection increases the likelihood they’ll be attached to him, and thus he can benefit off of or use them for longer. . . .  So if you mean like in terms of reasoning, uh, he’s not super prone to thinking about other people more than himself at all. .. but in terms of actions and what he’ll be willing to do, he’s gonna be a big show-off and treat you real nice and spoil you.

ideal physical traits: Smaller and/or physically weaker than him. Feminine, especially with long hair, especially girls with long hair.  Shapely/curvy girls are good.  Healthy, strong, but weaker than him--strong enough to put up a fight, maybe. Expressive--shows a lot of emotion and reacts openly. Traditionally attractive, especially in a feminine way? I imagine he’s oddly attracted to people he can identify as having similar features to himself. . .not sure if that’s narcissism or something else entirely.   But, to be honest, he’s not too picky--he’ll act like he is, and he’ll certainly talk like he is, but. . .so far he isn’t. female: No specifics

male: No specifics ideal personality traits: Intelligent. Submissive.  Expressive.  Eager to please. Interesting. Fighty. Honestly, he’s attracted to people who’re either easy to use or hard to get.  Depends on how hard he wants to work for it.  To an extent, materialistic--being easily won over with expensive things and fancy dates.  Clingy. Loyal. Faithful. Lost. Exploitable.

unattractive physical traits: In general he’s more attracted to traditionally attractive people, so if you’re traditionally unattractive, he’s fairly likely to be offput by it? Unhealthy, unclean, generally not caring about your appearance at all? But he remains not too picky.  If you’re unattractive in some way, it just makes him look better--and gives him something to hold over you.  So he won’t be too bothered by it unless you’re, like, disgusting in some way he doesn’t want to put up with.

unattractive personality traits:  If you aren’t obedient, subservient, willing and/or wanting to see him as your superior, try and dominate him (and not have anything worth him letting you do so for,) etc. . .well, you’ll have lower chances.  Unintelligent(and yet, you’d be so much easier to mess with if you were. . .)  Gossipy, bad at keeping secrets(bragging is okay, telling the world his plans is not--it’s okay if you tell him about what other people do, though, that’s fine.)  Bossy, although he’s willing to put up with some of this. . .it’s hard to say, because he’s interested in people who’re subservient to him or express a lot of interest in him, but also in people he’d have to chase/who he’d have to struggle to have. . .but if you intend to get in the way of his plans or you’re uninteresting(and not physically appealing or you don’t have anything to offer/for him to gain, if you try and, like, overthrow him or take command of him without him seeing benefit to it(for example, RR!Giovanni is allowed to dominate and order him around because Ghetsis wants him to feel in charge to better take advantage of him) then you’re gonna have a harder time getting his interest.

ideal date: He loves to spoil a motherfucker.  Fancy restaurants, shows, trips, whatever you’d like as long as he won’t hate it himself.  Also, spending time at his castle, lavishing him--uh, you in attention and affection, parading you around, evangelizing and liberating Pokémon together, things that mean he gets to show off. . .he’d probably like an escape room if you were competent enough not to infuriate him through the whole process. Although, in his current, fragile, sickly, weakened state. . .the idea of something simple like a walk outside, going to a park, something lowkey seems especially nice. . .but also if you just stay in and hang out, that’s good too.  He’s not so open with it, but since he’s not in his usual position of power, he’s a lot happier than he lets on if you’re just. . .with him.

do they have a type?: Weak-willed men and spunky women.  Or something like that lol.  People he can gain something from. People he can’t have?  He may have incestuous personality disorder????  i have it in my head that he’s somewhat attracted to his own family due to having this understanding of historical royal families intermingling to keep their bloodlines ‘pure’.  But it’s not an active part of the blog character, like you’d probably never find out if I hadn’t said it just now, yeah?  

average relationship length: Until he gets bored or you outlive your usefulness or you break up with him when you realize he’s abusing you.  So, like, hookups are regular, but if they don’t count. . .a few months to a year.  But it’s probably not exclusive.  On his end.  If you’re fucking somebody else and finds out rather than you just telling him. . .he probably won’t be too pleased about it.

preferred non-sexual intimacy:  Worship him. Obey him. Being leaned against. Being held onto. Putting an arm around you or on your lower back or near your neck as if leading you or showing possessiveness of you. Being kissed.  Petting on the hair and back and so on.  Whispering. Leaving marks.  Things that make you respond, especially if they fluster you.

commitment level: You belong to him now. You are his until he's no longer interested.  It likely won’t be an exclusive ordeal, but you’re stuck with him until he decides otherwise.  Even if you leave him, expect him to pursue unless you have reason to believe he’s lost interest.  Then again, choosing to leave may spark his interest in chasing you. . . .

opinion of public affection: Public affection is an expression of his ownership of you and of your affection towards and desire of him.  It’s good shit.  He’s into it.  Expect surprise kisses, his arm around you, holding your hand if he’s able, close proximity and disregard of your personal space, pulling you into his lap, him openly referring to you as being his or with him. . . .

past relationships?: He’s definitely had plenty.  I say he and Zinzolin definitely had some kind of D/s shit going on.  I’m open to other preestablishments too, if they can be explained in some way.

tagged by: everybody’s doing it, so I stole it from everyone tagging: Do things I would do, like steal memes.  But not things that I would do like accidentally use the ‘post’ keyboard shortcut before you even finished clearing the formatting of the post.  Don’t do that.

[vetyr]

do you have an idea of a checklist for learning how to create digital art? like i know practice is essential, but i don't really know where to start or where to go from there. thanks so much xox

I think I can toss some stuff out here that might be of use.  Assuming an artist learning digital art starts from the beginning–owning a tablet & drawing program but not knowing how to use them–here’s an inconveniently long list of stuff that could help them.

TL;DR: 1, mess around till you’re used to drawing digitally. 2, study and create ad infinitum. 3, a bunch of tips that are pretty hard to TLDR so you should probably just go over em.  Step 2 is basically what you asked me NOT to tell you (“practice”!), but unfortunately it’s all I know how to do :,(

1) If you own a tablet that you plug into your computer (i.e., you don’t draw directly on the screen), feel free to spend a few weeks or even a month+ just getting used to it.  When you first start out, it’s really freaky drawing in one place and seeing things appear somewhere else, but trust me in that you won’t even notice the disconnect after a few months of consistent digital drawing.  I’ve been painting digitally for about 2 years now, and it’s actually slightly easier for me to draw digitally than traditionally.  [If you have a cintiq, or you use an iPad with Procreate, or something similar, then you probably don’t have to spend as much time in step 1.]

Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter how good you were with traditional drawing when you start digital; the mental disconnect you have will make it very difficult to think about proportions, values, edges, colors, etc.  You’ll probably notice yourself making mistakes that you wouldn’t normally make on paper.  Don’t worry about them, just keep drawing as you usually would.  Digital you will catch up to traditional you in time.  

For now, get used to blending colors, drawing somewhat steady lines that go in the correct direction, and fooling around with brushes and brush settings.  If you come across a brush that you like (easy to work with + pleasing results), it may help to stick with it as you continue to learn.  Digital doodles and sketches are good for this stage; though try to keep doing traditional work so your base art skills don’t atrophy.  

If you’re just starting out with Photoshop or Sai or Krita or whatever software you’re using, you’re gonna be intimidated by all the funky buttons and settings that you first see.  If it makes you feel any better, I use maybe 0.1% of the tools that Photoshop offers me.  When you start, all you need to worry about is the brush tool and control-z, maybe the eraser too.

2) Do studies as well as pieces from imagination.  You can move into step 2 as early as you please; you don’t have to wait until you think you’ve become “skillful” at digital drawing (in fact, this step is what will probably help you become the most comfortable with digital).  It’s alright if your colors are icky looking and your values are off (tip, occasionally turn the saturation of your drawing to 0 to check the values), because as long as you keep studying reality and appealing art & continually learn from your mistakes, you’ll get better. 

Always remember to study or at least appreciate the qualities of art you enjoy.  It’s the same thing that people always tell writers–you have to read a lot to write well.  You probably shouldn’t shield yourself from the influence of other artists; while you may think that this action would help you develop artistically in the manner most true to yourself, in reality the vast majority of the process of learning art will be honing in on what you find visually pleasant so that you may, in turn, express your artistic taste in your work.  If you look at other people’s art, you can pick out tiny aspects of it that you like and incorporate that into your style.  It’s a bit trickier to build a style without the “help” of other artists, though you can always turn to nature for help. On that note, I also recommend referencing nature as much as you can, because we as human beings are sort of wired to find natural designs, colors, and structures beautiful.  Look at nature for the universally beautiful, and look at art for the subjectively beautiful (i.e., enjoyed uniquely by you).

If you find yourself getting burnt out pretty quickly, then just paint/draw simple and small things for period of half an hour to 1 ½ hours a day (and switch back to traditional).  You can spend this time mapping out proportions, creating thumbnails of values/colors, drawing linework, or whatever.  Add complexity to your pieces as the months go by, and if you already have a decent foundation in drawing aim to create somewhat finished pieces after maybe four months to a year.  Please note that the second part of that sentence was something I completely made up out of my head, because I’m trying to quantify pretty unquantifiable concepts such as a “decent foundation in drawing” and a “somewhat finished” piece of art.  If you find it unrealistic, or just too easy of a goal, disregard it entirely.  It can take you half a decade to learn to make finished digital art, or you can get it down in a couple months.

3) Fun fact, there’s not really a step 3 as you stay in 2 forever, always studying and creating.  But there’s a few other things about digital art that you ought to know, so here they are:

• If your computer doesn’t make a fuss about it, I’d recommend working on a decently large canvas (at least 3000 by 3000; I personally prefer 6000 by 6000). You’ll get less defined edges and colors if you go below 1000 by 1000, from my experience.

• If you have a tablet with pressure sensitivity (you probably should otherwise digital painting is kinda hellish), go to your brush settings and set ‘transfer’ to ‘pen pressure.’  This is what makes it possible to blend.  

• If you’re having trouble matching colors while studying, you can always color pick the ref (in photoshop: bring the pic into PS and use the eye dropper tool) and compare its colors to your colors.  Some people add too much red to their skin tones, some people draw their highlights with overly desaturated colors, some people make trees and grass in their landscapes too green; whatever the case, take note of and correct errors that you consistently make.  

• Get used to using the transform/warp/liquify tools (liquify is technically a filter but you get what I mean).  They’re lifesavers for fixing proportion mistakes that you’ve only noticed 8 hours into a piece. 

• Give layers a shot.  I only work on one layer, but I’ve heard from people who divide their piece up into multiple layers that they’re damn useful (until you draw on the wrong one). 

• Flip your canvas horizontally every once in a while to make sure stuff hasn’t gone awry. 

• Screw around with color modes; they can do some really fancy things that are difficult to duplicate with normal digital painting, let alone traditional.  On the topic of colors, don’t be afraid to use somewhat desaturated colors (near the center of the color picker square in PS). There are some very aesthetically pleasing color combinations that you can make out of somewhat dulled colors.

• If you’re using PS, bind ‘step backward’ to control Z, not ‘undo.’  This is under keyboard shortcuts.  Set up a bunch of shortcuts that are the most convenient for you–personally, I only keep my left hand near the lower left region of my keyboard (my right hand is away from the keyboard and off to the right, drawing on the tablet), so I have all of my necessary shortcuts in that area.

This was a bit longer than I expected, but I figure that someone out there can get something out of it.  Cheers to you, if you do.

[katsdsstudies-blog]

So studying. Studying with a capital S. Something we’ve all got to do for class. Something we’re not all taught how to do. Something we sometimes don’t think we have to do at all.

It’s a challenge, that’s for sure. It becomes an impossibility almost when you’re dealing with mental health issues, disabilities, and problems with socialising. I should know.

How do you study though, Kat? How do you manage to still get decent grades when you don’t sit at the front of class? You don’t take a bajillion notes? You don’t write them out by hand 24-7?

How. Are. You. Not. Failing???

Studying isn’t just about pretty notes, it’s not about writing everything by hand, it’s not about fancy playlists and colour-coordination. It’s about understanding the material you’ve got to learn and engaging with it in a way that helps you remember it.

I’ll be honest, studying for exams is impossible for me now. I just can’t do it. My memory has gone to hell after years of living with chronic pain with hardly any support. It sucks. Luckily though my course is all coursework and internal examinations. That’s the beauty of my Masters. I know it’s not the same for everyone though.

That means I’m going to do my best to help ya’ll with exam studying, class notes, revision, reading assignments and so on. Basically, anything I can think of.

Lets get started then shall we.

1. Figuring out how to take class notes in class:

Don’t bother with fancy. You won’t have the time. Your handwriting just needs to be legible to you. I cheat a lot and write in block capitals. It’s pretty quick and easier to read than my scribbled cursive half the time.

Typed notes are basically the same. Bullet points and bold titles etc… do those later when you have the time to spend on it. Hit tab for each ‘bullet point’ you’ll make in class for a specific topic, don’t bother fighting with Word or whatever other note-taking programme you use. Just use tab, then hit backspace to go back to the normal width of the document.

For subheadings, use colons ( : ) they save a lot of time and you don’t need to hit bold, italic, or underline. If you have problems with keyboard shortcuts then this is probably a brilliant idea. Use semi-colons ( ; ) for lists and fake-bullet-points-ala-tab. So much time saved.

If you know a shorthand method to take notes, use it. If you don’t, I sometimes take the vowels out of words leaving only the cnstnts bhnd. It can take a bit of time getting used to, especially when writing by hand, but it can help if you have a tutor/professor/lecturer who talks a mile a minute and flies through slides at the same time.

2. Using in-class slides/materials along with your own notes:

One thing I find very useful is printing out the slides for my classes before I get there. It makes keeping focused on whatever we’re discussing easier. Also, you can number your notes with the slide (S10 or Slide12) you’re making notes on. This makes writing your notes up later way easier.

If your lecturer doesn’t provide copies of the slides, email them. Most of the time they’ll be pretty decent and let you have a copy. Sometimes they won’t. If they refuse… well, if you can take pictures of the slides on your phone that can solve that problem. Otherwise, I’d suggest arguing the toss with them and pulling them up for being discriminatory or blocking your learning. Some might not take kindly to this though. If that fails, you can always try a class mate or record the lectures.

One thing I’ve had to do before was actually record myself reading the slides in my class out to myself. I was sat at the back and incredibly quiet with my phone almost attached to my chin, but it worked. So that’s an option.

USE. THE. HEADINGS. ON. THE SLIDES. IN. YOUR. NOTES. I can’t express this enough. It keeps your notes organised, focused and when/if you come across tests or exams, you can use those notes to study specific things way easier than if you use your own headings.

3. Re-writing those notes from class:

I’ll admit, I’m a perfectionist. A pathetic, disastrous perfectionist. If my notes don’t look right to me I will literally trash them and restart. Doesn’t matter if it’s one page or fifty. It’s a problem. I’m working on it.

I’ll give you this piece of advice though: don’t try to make your notes super fancy. You might be writing these ones out a second time, making them more consistent, organised, detailed etc, but that doesn’t mean you should go overboard on fancy. You still need to be able to use them and write them in a decent time.

I give myself about an hour or so to write or type my notes from class, including the stuff on the slides.

That hour is spent focusing on making sure I make it clear what are keywords, important terms, definitions, and names, dates, and places which I’ll need to remember or find easily later on for doing assignments.

Stick to using one or two colours. Black ink for the main notes is usually best I’ve found. Red, green, blue, any other colour in the rainbow can work for the important ones I need to notice. But be. consistent.

Give yourself breaks when writing. I know we all get into The Zone™ when writing and studying. You blink and it’s been six hours and you’re desperate for the loo, food and some water. Don’t let yourself do that. Set alarms. One hour tops then break.

The pomodoro studying method is good. 5-10 minutes breaks between study sessions.

Change up which notes you write after each break. I have the choice between disability, disability, and disability, so this doesn’t exactly work that well for me, but it is a good idea for anyone doing more than one subject or course of study. Physics then English? Excellent. Maths then Chemistry? Good, go for it. Crying then weeping? Bit too much alike but if it works.

The simpler the better. Clean notes that don’t devolve into chaos are good for our brains to look at. We take in and process information a heck of lot easier when it’s presented neatly and in an organised way than if you essentially word-vomit all over the page. This is why too much colour can be a bad thing btw. Your brain just goes ‘lol nope’ and quits on you. Problematic to say the least.

4. Where to sit in class in a lecture hall:

This depends on the way you are as a person tbh.

Do you get distracted easily? Sit right at the front. Less distractions.

Do you talk to people a lot and don’t pay attention? Sit at the front or a bit away from people. One seat space away can work for this. You can still interact but it’s a bit more awkward to lean across a seat than it is to just turn and whisper in someone’s ear.

Do you find crowds a problem? Sit at the front away from everyone or at the back. The middle tends to be full of those who want to try but get distracted easily enough that they want to socialise. I sit at the back because too many people around me is a problem.

Do you have problems with processing what your lecturer is saying? The front is the best for this. If you have problems with crowds, attention, etc, then the front does contain sides to it. If you can sit against a wall while still at the front, then it still counts and can help somewhat.

The walls also have plug sockets so win-win if you use a laptop and it’s dying.

4.1. It’s not a lecture hall so where to sit:

If your classrooms are like the ones I’m in for my MA then I’m guessing they’re gonna have groups of tables together so six-ten people can sit around them and work in groups. If they’re not I’ll address that in 4.2 next.

Get distracted easily? Sit as close to the front as you can with as limited a view of the rest of the class as you can. Focus on the lecturer who will be Right There in front of you.

You’re a talker and have a squirrel’s attention span? The front again. Hard as heck to talk to people if you’re lecturer is Right There Judging You.

Crowd issues? The back or the sides tend to be a bit easier to handle for this. The benefit of being in a classroom setting for your classes is that it’s easier to hear your lecturer than in the lecture hall. Sitting at the back doesn’t have as many problems then. Also helps if you can see the entire class just so you can keep an eye on them and Know They’re There They Won’t Just Magically Appear.

^ That helps with anxiety issues btw. Though the reverse does as well if you speak up in class. Personal preference really comes into play here.

Processing problems? The front is usually best. But so is the back amusingly. Sound travels and if you’re lecturer can project their voice then the back is actually pretty good for focusing. Only challenge is your class mates and how loud/distracting they are. Personal preference again here.

Use a computer? Walls. Sit by the walls. Attach yourself to them. Those plug sockets are precious, rare creations and you will Fight To The Death For Them.

4.2. In a classroom where it’s single tables, ala American-style classrooms:

Sorry to say but I have limited experience with this sort of set up but I’ll do my best.

Distraction issues? The front, near the middle if you can. You can focus on the board right in front of you and on the lecturer right there with it. Also you’re pretty close to the door so Freedom Is Close And Easily Accessible.

Talkative squirrel? Front again. Maybe closer to the door. Scoot your table away from others a bit (before they get to class or when everyone is sitting down, try not to make it obvious; someone will be offended otherwise). Your lecturer will catch you chatting away if you’re at the front. They always do…

Crowding/anxiety? Sides, front to back. Closer the door the better. Right at the front can be Problematic with the whole people-are-staring-at-me-oh-god thing, but the back can be the same because oh-god-they’re-turning-to-look-at-me-while-I’m-talking. Sides are a little of both but at lease the exit is closer.

Processing issues? Just go with the front. Anywhere along the front. First two rows. The middle might be best but not always. Don’t sit near the door. Sit on the opposite side of the room to the exit. You might be the last to leave class, finishing a note or packing your stuff. Don’t rush unless you have to. It messes up your brain too much otherwise.

Computer? I’m not sure if this is allowed in American classrooms but if it is, plug sockets or sit away from the windows. You can manually control your screen brightness then and the light from the windows will force you to keep it bright and waste battery life. The Darkness Is Your Friend.

5. Reading assignments and note taking:

Not gonna lie, I hate reading assignments. They’re usually boring and I’m forced to read articles that use far too many fancy words and waffle so much my brain dribbles out of my ears. It’s an attention and a processing problem. That said, here’s some tips I’ve developed over the years.

Scientific papers, humanities, etc: Read the introduction and conclusion. This is where most of the info is anyway. The introduction tells you the purpose of the research, the background, what the researchers wanted to figure out/learn and what methods they use to do so. The conclusion tells you what they found out, some of the issues they had and future research ideas. Only look at the middle if you have to or want to for curiosity. Otherwise, give it a quick read and leave it be.

Literary criticisms and such: Start with same approach as above. Introduction and conclusion. Notes on the main things from both. Then read the rest. One read through first. Put it down, go away and do something (make a drink, eat a food, go for a walk, whatever). Then come back to it. Be ready with a pencil.

Underline things you think are important as you read through. Don’t use the highlighter. You’ll decorate the page otherwise. Once you’ve been through it once, go through it again. Underline the things you think are really important a second time. Those things you highlight.

Make notes on the things you double underlined and highlighted. Those are gonna be the important things. The rest is bonus material.

Stories and poems: break it down.

5.1. Stories:

Lets start off with the story. Find out the setting, the characters, the history of the time the story is written, things about the author etc. Make a poster or something visually easy to read for this. It’ll help you focus when you’re reading the story.

Read the story through without stopping to make notes. You need to have it in your head first before you go back to make notes on it. Remember to take a break when you’re done as well.

Pencil time. Underline important things, phrases, quotes you might use later.

Go through it again. Underline those Uber Important Things. Then hit it with your hightlighter.

Asterisks ( * ) are good for if something is a major point, or you have A Thought about it. You can put it in the story then reference it in your notes. *1 *2 *3 is how I do it. Page numbers are a good idea to include as well at the end of each notation.

5.2. Reading Poems:

And now onto poems. They’re a bit more difficult. Figure out the structure first. Is it a set of rhyming couplets? Freestyle? Does it have a set number of verses? Does it have a refrain? These are things you should notice immediately.

Put that information into a poster or at least write it down so it’s easy to read. Tables are a good idea.

Learn a little bit about the poet. Have they written other poems? Are they like this? Do they have a similar theme? Is there anything out there about the theme of this poem? This info can help a lot when considering the structure and meaning behind the poem.

Focus on individual verses. Make a note as you go of your instinctive response to each verse, to the refrain (if it has one), to the flow. This can help you in an exam when you have to explain or include your own thoughts on the poem.

Look at the language used. Is it polite? Is there a crassness to it? Does it seem modern or is it Pride And Prejudice in poem form? This all connects to structure and intent.

Use a dictionary and thesaurus when looking at the words used. Sometimes a poet will use a word that has a very unique meaning No One Knows. You might assume the meaning you know for that word is what they mean. Dictionary and thesaurus is a must for poetry analysis imho.

For notes on poems and stories, break it down: structure, setting, author, characters, important quotes/phrases… these are things you might have to compare to other poems/stories later on.

It’s good to put these in a very visual form.

If you’re comparing multiple poems/stories: big. ass. poster. table. It’ll save you so much hassle I s2g.

6. Exam studying/revision:

The notes you’ve made throughout your class/term/course will be useful here. The difference is you’re not going to be able to memorise all of them.

That’s where flashcards, summary sheets and tables come in handy.

6.1. Using flashcards:

These are small and force you to keep to a point.

Give each one a specific title – definition, structure, researcher name etc – and bullet-point your notes on it.

If you manage it well enough you should be able to get several points into a single bullet-point using keywords that’ll trigger your memory and association with the more detailed notes you’ve taken in the past.

Don’t put too much info onto each one. If you have a lot of stuff for a specific topic – for example, professional practice – then it’s better to use several flashcards than it is to shove it all onto one and find it a mess of information you just can’t process.

Look at them whenever you have the time.

Waiting for the bus? Pull ‘em out.

On the bus? Yeah, got time there to kill.

Lecturer is late? Sod it, go for it.

Can’t sleep? Maybe not… warm milk or hot cocoa and dark room would probably be better.

6.2. Summary sheets and tables:

Summary sheets should be one-sided, simple and clear. Don’t bother with fancy, but do bother with neat.

Capitals for headings and subheadings. Don’t use more than one line for each heading (seriously, you don’t have the space to use 16pt font on the paper at this point).

Keywords should be clear and easy to notice. Not eye-popping colours but something that is noticeable compared to black text. Red, blue, green… these work well and are easier to see.

If you’re colour blind or have issues with coloured text then change the font, angle of writing, capitalisation etc. Anything to make those keywords stand out.

Tables are brilliant for comparing lots of things together. Research articles, poems, stories… all of them. A3 sized posters are some of my favourites to make. You can have colour and such on them because they’re meant to be aesthetically pleasing and also noticeable.

All the tricks you can use for summary sheets and flashcards work for tables as well. They’re not meant to be super-detailed things. You need to be able to look at them and basically get a cliff-notes version of the material.

Okay so, this is the end.

Questions? If you have them then send them my way. I’ll answer them no problem.

Advice needed? Same as above.

Anything you want me to address or give tips about? Message me and I’ll make another post of tips and advice.

Question not related to studying? That’s fine. I’ve done and lived through enough in my life that advice and help is something I’m always willing and happy to provide.

Hope this has been helpful to ya’ll though!

[olgagarmash]

Are You Guilty of Any of These Flawed Fitness “Shortcuts”? – InsideHook

Here in the land of life hacks, we’re always on the prowl for automators, money-savers and better ways to multitask. Need a last-minute speaker? Place your iPhone in a cup for an instant volume increase. Forgot to chill a soda or beer, but don’t want to water it down with ice cubes? Wrap a wet paper towel around the bottle, pop it in the freezer and set a timer for 10 minutes. Hungry but low on food (and also frugal)? Beeline to Costco or another store that’s generous with the samples, and knock out your grocery shopping while filling up on free snacks.

I can’t argue with any of those tactics, or deny using them myself a time or two. But I will argue that some domains reward shortcuts more than others. Morning routines and keyboard shortcuts are ripe for hacking. Fitness, unfortunately, is not. Just think about your last attempt to get in shape or lose weight quickly. You probably started out with a flourish, full of motivation and willpower and bikini body dreams at the start, but more than likely you fizzled out before reaching your goals or enjoying them for long. (Buzzkill, yes, but true: studies show that nearly eight out of 10 New Year’s resolutions don’t even make it past February.)

The issue is that physical fitness is a lifestyle, and it requires gradual adaptations, a sustainable approach and a tolerance for delayed gratification. Much of the journey is uncomfortable and unglamorous, and progress can feel agonizingly slow. But as I see time and time again in the marathoning world I inhabit, the athletes that spend years paying their dues, slowly chipping away at their goals and clinging to the belief that their time is coming, are the ones whose careers both last the longest and shine the brightest. Sara Hall, Des Linden, Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor are my personal posterchildren for the long-game approach.

The best defense against a crash-and-burn is awareness of the common pitfalls of fellow fitness-chasers, and an understanding of why they’re not the quick fixes they seem like. Here are four of the most tempting hacks in this arena that often end up doing more harm than good.

Force a certain body size

It’s not hard to assume, based on the looks of elite athletes, that what makes them successful in their sports is the size and composition of their bodies. It’s the most visible difference and an easy one to fixate on. As one example, all else being equal, propelling a 130-pound body across the pavement for 26.2 miles is objectively easier than heaving a 180-pound body down the road, right? 

Well … kind of, but not exactly. First of all, no athlete succeeds solely because of his or her size, and very few achieve elite physiques overnight (or in a single season). Some may be genetically predisposed for sprinting thanks to a surplus of fast-twitch muscle fibers, or for endurance activities thanks to small calves and a monstrous aerobic engine. But even they still have to develop those gifts and strengthen the rest of their bodies so that it all works together harmoniously. I can also rattle off plenty of examples of phenomenal athletes whose figures defy the traditional mold within their sport. The point is that it’s not the way your body looks, but how you train it and what you believe about it.

Go hard on recovery days

We all know them: the guys and gals that train hard nearly every day, with not a lot of fluctuation across a given week. As an extreme example, I have a friend whose dad has been doing the exact same gym workout seven days a week for decades: 45 minutes on the elliptical, 45 minutes on the stationary bike and an unchanging strength circuit, all of it pretty hard. No matter where in the world he is, what holiday he’s celebrating or whether he’s feeling under the weather (or worse), he simply will not adjust that routine.

If all you’re after is maintaining a baseline level of fitness, as I presume is the case with him, then doing the same thing every day is not a terrible idea. At least you’re being consistent with it. But in addition to becoming mind-numbingly boring after a while, your body is smart enough to adapt to whatever workload and exercises you regularly throw at it. A better approach, if you care about continual gains or maximum performance, is to diversify your training and keep your body guessing. How that looks is unique for every activity, but weightlifters alternate arm days and leg days, just as endurance athletes build in recovery days between hard sessions, with some days shorter and some days long. Many athletes train differently depending on where in a season they are, too. Whatever you do, I beg you: shake up your routine at least once a decade.

Ramp up training quickly

It’s difficult to reason with a driven athlete. He puts a key race, game or competition on the calendar, formulates an idea of what it’ll take to show up at his best, and puts together a rigorous training program that will no doubt get him there. Then he goes to town, ticking every box he can think of each day, feeling his confidence soar alongside his progress. You probably know what comes next: more than likely, his motivation flags well before the event comes around, or his body breaks down before he even has his go.

Anyone can start off strong out of the gates and exhibit superhuman dedication for a period of time. Much harder is rationing out that energy and enthusiasm over the long haul — a necessary skill for high performance at anything. Rather than trying to do everything better all at once, a wiser way about it is to choose a variable or two to manipulate, and then proceed cautiously. Change too much at once, and not only do you risk injury or burnout, but you also make it difficult to pinpoint what’s “fluff” and what’s worth keeping.

Buy all the gear first

I’m always astonished when I see a casual gymgoer or recreational jogger rocking a pair of supershoes — usually some iteration of Nike’s NEXT% racing shoes. What gets me isn’t just the $250-275 price tag (although that’s definitely part of it); it’s the value that these athletes place on top-of-the-line, edge-giving gear, even for everyday workouts. I don’t blame them for getting suckered into shelling out the big bucks for a promised 4% improvement. But I’m afraid that what’s getting lost in the obsession with shoes and other increasingly high-tech equipment is the good old-fashioned method of getting better through hard work and dedication.

Here are some cheap, if not free, things that I wish more people would do before pulling the trigger on another pair of carbon-plated shoe (or your sport’s equivalent): go to bed a little earlier, gradually build up your weekly training volume, spend more time on “the little things” (like mobility and core), work on improving your form and prioritize homemade, high-quality fuel. To me, only once you’re doing all those things does it make sense to invest in cream-of-the-crop gear. And even then, don’t forget that there’s also an edge to be gained from the Rocky approach — though it probably will never be marketed online or measured in a lab.

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source https://wealthch.com/are-you-guilty-of-any-of-these-flawed-fitness-shortcuts-insidehook/