#anyways. i love you diffusion models

[blubberquark]

Auto-Generated Junk Web Sites

I don't know if you heard the complaints about Google getting worse since 2018, or about Amazon getting worse. Some people think Google got worse at search. I think Google got worse because the web got worse. Amazon got worse because the supply side on Amazon got worse, but ultimately Amazon is to blame for incentivising the sale of more and cheaper products on its platform.

In any case, if you search something on Google, you get a lot of junk, and if you search for a specific product on Amazon, you get a lot of junk, even though the process that led to the junk is very different.

I don't subscribe to the "Dead Internet Theory", the idea that most online content is social media and that most social media is bots. I think Google search has gotten worse because a lot of content from as recently as 2018 got deleted, and a lot of web 1.0 and the blogosphere got deleted, comment sections got deleted, and content in the style of web 1.0 and the blogosphere is no longer produced. Furthermore, many links are now broken because they don't directly link to web pages, but to social media accounts and tweets that used to aggregate links.

I don't think going back to web 1.0 will help discoverability, and it probably won't be as profitable or even monetiseable to maintain a useful web 1.0 page compared to an entertaining but ephemeral YouTube channel. Going back to Web 1.0 means more long-term after-hours labour of love site maintenance, and less social media posting as a career.

Anyway, Google has gotten noticeably worse since GPT-3 and ChatGPT were made available to the general public, and many people blame content farms with language models and image synthesis for this. I am not sure. If Google had started to show users meaningless AI generated content from large content farms, that means Google has finally lost the SEO war, and Google is worse at AI/language models than fly-by-night operations whose whole business model is skimming clicks off Google.

I just don't think that's true. I think the reality is worse.

Real web sites run by real people are getting overrun by AI-generated junk, and human editors can't stop it. Real people whose job it is to generate content are increasingly turning in AI junk at their jobs.

Furthermore, even people who are setting up a web site for a local business or an online presence for their personal brand/CV are using auto-generated text.

I have seen at least two different TV commercials by web hosting and web design companies that promoted this. Are you starting your own business? Do you run a small business? A business needs a web site. With our AI-powered tools, you don't have to worry about the content of your web site. We generate it for you.

There are companies out there today, selling something that's probably a re-labelled ChatGPT or LLaMA plus Stable Diffusion to somebody who is just setting up a bicycle repair shop. All the pictures and written copy on the web presence for that repair shop will be automatically generated.

We would be living in a much better world if there was a small number of large content farms and bot operators poisoning our search results. Instead, we are living in a world where many real people are individually doing their part.

[reachartwork]

[private please, if thats alright] i used to follow you for your ai stuff back in 2021/22 when things were first kicking off (actually i thought you'd quit because of all the scandal lol) and the models and output were a lot 'sloppier' and kinda illegible but as far as i can see the stuff you're working on now is clearer looking and more coherent, so i was wondering - do you have any thoughts on the 'aesthetics' of AI and what specifically brings it unique merits and strengths as an art tool? for example i personally find a lot of modern ai art to be boring and soulless looking because it has neither stylistic interest (compared to the blatant 'inhumanity' of older models) nor a human person making base-to-base decisions about what it looks like, but i also havent been really paying too much attention to the AI scene except when it comes up in images searches. also, sorry if its not a question you want to answer, but do you do any more traditional styles of art as well? i find my art sensibilities are really effected by the mediums i work with so i would love to know if you have any similar experiences wrt ai and non ai works. thank you!

this is a side account so i can't answer privately, but, that being said;

i actually agree! for general purpose arting i preferred the secret horses style of total illegibility, and my main goal in my secret projects is to be able to reorganize around that style but with sharper, crisper lines and higher resolutions. part of why the whole "secret horses" style of ai medium fell through the cracks was because a: diffusion models were significantly faster and b: diffusion models scale upwards significantly better - they can produce higher resolutions and perform upscaling, which CLIP + VQGAN (the old method that made all the jank we all used to love) can't really do.

i think people whose sole interest in ai is making shitty advertisement images, or giant anime boobs, or some other lowest common denomenator slop, like... okay. you do you, the saying is "90% of everything is shit" for a reason, but obviously i think that's incredibly boring. i think the reason we see a lot of it is because a: the Good Artists who use AI are still effectively social pariahs, particularly on twitter and tumblr, just via dint of their medium, and b: ai puts art making in the hands of EVERYONE and it turns out not everyone has good taste (see: 90% of everything is shit), so you just see a lot more shit by volume.

anyway in terms of "traditional art" i am an author (READ CHUM) and a bassist, although i haven't been in a band in many years as my arthritis prevents me from playing for very long or very well anymore. if you mean traditional art as in like... paint and easel, or pen and paper, the answer is no. i've never had the ability to comfortably grasp anything with my hands even before the arthritis happened and now i lack not only the fine motor skills for it but also the pain threshold. i do like legos though, and i'd love to start making lego dioramas.

thanks for asking :)

[dejasenti99]

well hi :3 welcome to deja’s skinblending guide. this is my first full written tutorial so excuse me if its not very good LAWL before we get started, here's the tools i'll be using

sims4studio

tray importer

photoshop 2022 (theres cracked version everywhere on tumblr)

blender 4.1

sims 4 ripper

blender + the ripper aren't required to make skins, plenty of people don't go that extra step, but i love using it for placement help

okay lets fuckin go gamers heres my very in depth process for making my ocs skins

miss dolly is gonna be our model today. she already has a skin but im gonna add some little details for the sake of example + some tats cause ive been meaning to anyway.

so when i first get started on making someone a skin, ill find a good base to use and then add details from other categories like nosemasks, eyebags, contours, etc.

my fav skin creators are @sims3melancholic and @thisisthem. my bases are usually thisisthem, and then i'll pick through a couple s3m skins and make notes on my phone about what parts i wanna take off of them (like, say, i like how a certain s3m skin's nose looks. i'll use that instead of a nosemask)

my goal when im gathering things i wanna add is to free up as many slots as i can. id rather add cheshire's freckles onto her skin than use up the freckle slot in skin details that i could use for something else, yknow?

ill repeat this process for makeup next. obviously im not giving my ocs permanent full glam, but some lipsticks can add better texture, you can get highlights/blush from........the blush section LOL and i love using this obscurus eyeliner at a low-ish opacity

just adds an extra level of detail i love. i think what keeps my sims looking consistent next to each other is that i tend to use some of the same details all across the board

make sure for all makeup/skin detail/tattoo category swatches you use, you make note of what swatch it exactly is. when you go into s4s to export the file, you're gonna have to manually select it and if u cant remember what skintone u chose out it can be annoying :/

note that she is completely nakey aside from her piercings while i pick what im gonna use for her skin! no clothing but u can keep on their hair. this is so we have a clear view of everything (and i mean EVERYTHING) for blender.

after you make sure u save the sim/household to ur gallery, you can close out of cas and save ur game! i forgot to do this bc im a fucking idiot but its okay bc you will not. its not REALLY necessary to do this as long as you know exactly what packages you need to locate for texture exporting

step one is done!!!! close out ur game

i have a million fucking characters so i made a deja senti skinblending folder to keep it all organized :-)

this is what it looks like inside. gives u a pretty good overview of what ur gonna be doing tbh. the 't' folder is all the textures we're about to export

thankfully i do have a version of dahlia saved in my gallery so even tho i didnt go it before i closed my game i can still show u what to do in tray importer lol. i have multiple sims in one household, so i narrowed it down by going up top and selecting dahlia / human / and her everyday outfit.

since im gonna give her this blush, i right click and hit open w package viewer so itll find it and open s4s for me

anime wow sound. im gonna change the color manually in photoshop so it doesnt matter to me what swatch i export. hit that green export button under the list of diffuse/shadow/etc (u dont need to worry about all those options, just diffuse) and save it to ur folder!

once ur done gathering ur textures ur good to close out of tray importer and s4s(we'll come back to s4s later tho)

thats step two! the quickest step lawl

this is where i start being a little extra. u dont have to rip ur sim and use blender if u dont want to, but i think it can rly help bc the default sim in s4s doesn't have ur sims facial features and can make ur skins look wonky/wont give an accurate representation of how itll look in game. this cuts out having to go in game/out of game over and over to check

so in simripper once u load up ur sim, the important part is to make sure u have it set to export the dae with separate meshes. once thats done u can import it into blender and there's plenty of other tutorials out there how to use simripper n all that.

so once u get the dae loaded into blender im gonna send u on a little side quest over to this ask i answered where i explain how i separate eyes from the head mesh. next thing ur gonna open is photoshop! or whatever u have thats similar

say hi to flat dahlia. u should have ur own guy but flat open now too :-) along with everything else ur gonna combine. in my case its blush and a titty mask. im gonna start w the blush so i zoomed into her face in blender. i went into the blush file and copied, then back into my base skin file and pasted into place with crtl+shift+v

please do not be like me. make sure u rename ur layers as you copy and paste them into the main skin file. do this because it DOES matter what order ur layers are in. u dont want to put ur highlight under ur nose mask cause the nose mask will just cover the highlight etc etc. i already lost what layer the new blush i added is. what is wrong w me

so when u have ur first detail pasted on and in place, ur gonna save the base skin file as a psd. then go into blender, and in the little textures window ur gonna replace the diffuse file ur dae came loaded with with ur new psd file

u should see the change u made but mine was super subtle so im gonna show it to u when i put on the cleavage overlay

when it comes to stuff like this, ur obviously gonna want to pick the closest to ur skintone swatch as u can. i did not do this, because again, im an idiot

mine is way too pale LAWL whoops. we can fix this tho

i add a hue/saturation adjustment and make it a clipping mask using that square w the arrow so the adjustment will ONLY affect the mask

from there i just make little adjustments until the color match up is as perfect as i can make it. for example for this, ik that it needs to be a little warmer and a little more saturated, so im gonna bump the hue and saturation sliders to the right and it was pretty much perfect

tiddies with no mask > with mask no adjustments > with mask and adjustments

and ur gonna go ahead and repeat that process with every single thing u wanna add to ur skin.

so as for tattoos! this is another thing ur gonna wanna rename the layers for because depending on how heavily ur sims can be tatted it can get A LOT

here's psyche's neat little tattoo folder. its separated into where the tattoo is and then

what it is

i find all my tattoo inspo on pinterest using flash sheets/keywords in the search. my ocs usually have sub-boards that i hoard inspo in for them specifically. dahlia doesnt have one bc ive never seen her as the most tattooed person, but i think she'd have some at least

this process is pretty much the same as putting on skin details! its all about adjusting to what u like. for example, i like when my sims tattoos are a little faded and a bit blurred at the edges cause it looks a little more real

when it comes to images i find on pinterest, ill save the image and first try to make it as clean as i can

for example, this lil guy

a curve mask made the whites brighter and the blacks darker as u can see. then ill go into filter > reduce noise to soften the harsh edges

then i flatten it, copy and paste to the skin file, n place it wherever i want it to go :-)

louder anime wow!!!

okay so now ur gonna want to make sure u .psd file is saved (it should be bc we've been checking our progress w blender) and then merge the visible layers (NOT flatten, merge visible. we need the transparency around the skin to be in tact)

ur done in photoshop and blender!!! good job :-)

step whatever number we're on. back into s4s!

ur focus is over here. make sure the option filled is the top one, and then hit the cas button

this menu will open, ur gonna go up to part type and find the option skin details, forehead. pick the first forehead wrinkle option that appears and hit 'next.' itll prompt you to save ur new file n give it a name, i usually just make it my sim's name cause i have a folder in my mods folder for specifically my cc

remember wayyyy back when we were exporting the skin details? ur gonna go back to that same section and hit 'import' instead of export. select ur skin's .png file, and poof !

ur skin :DD it looks great man good job

this part is EXTREMELY important. go up to the warehouse tab

in the 'data' section ur gonna see a box at the top labeled 'filter.' thats where i typed in 'compos' just so it would show me JUST the compositionmethod section since theres a lot of shit in there lawl. yours is initially gonna say '3,' but we're gonna change it to '0' mind you, this is because MY skins are all alpha. maxis match overlays do not show up on my skins because my comp method is set to 0, meaning it has top priority essentially.

after you do that, you can hit save and place that .package file you created into your mods folder!!! and GUESS WHAT BESTIE UR DONE!!!!! U DID IT :DDDD

of course, as always, you can always dm me if youre stuck on anything or need any more clarification. i am always open to help as much as i can. i rly hope this helped :-)

[lsdunesarchive]

hey, everyone. first of all, i'd like to thank all the support this archive's been receiving since day one. it's so rewarding and motivating to see something that was made with no intent of being an actual project that people would even care about getting so much support. i'm truly thankful for every single one of you and you all have my gratitude forever for believing in this project. but the thing is, the past events regarding the disastrous "AI art" video for old wounds truly disappointed me, not only as a STEM student who works in a research about how harmful AI can be to personal data if it's used recklessly and as a l.s. dunes fan, but also as a person who's truly appreciative and respectful of art and artists and understands how much REAL art can be underrated and disrespected. i love them wholeheartedly as people and as artists and i've been following their work for years, way before l.s. dunes, but everything they stated in their last two posts, especially in their last post, is the opposite of my views of ethics in technology, and i don't think i will change my mind on that matter. AI art is not real art, it's just a processed "copy" of someone else's artworks via stable diffusion, a deep learning model to generate images, and to train that model, you have to input REAL images (in this case, art pieces). tl;dr: "AI art" works through other REAL people's REAL art, regardless.

that being said, i'll give myself a break from this archive. i won't be posting anything related to the video, or anything about them, at all, starting today. this hiatus may last a week or two, or a month, i don't really know. it will be on a hiatus for an undetermined amount of time.

again, i'd like to say thank you SO MUCH to everyone who followed and/or interacted with this archive and i hope things better, 'cause i still love this band so much, but this whole thing is just really disappointing.

anyway, i'm hoping to see you all in the future really soon if things don't get even worse. thanks so much for reading. <3

[lggy]

I usually get a skin tone via taking all the colors and then smudging the living shit out of them because the actual blending tool on the app I use is kind of shit

my rule of thumb is never ever color pick directly off minecraft screenshots bc they are never 100% accurate (ESPECIALLY episodes with shaders). not even the models in the early thumbnails are 100% safe as the artist's thumbnails uses AO and what looks like c4d viewport shading and also photoshop(and hey if he sees this i'd kindly love to see the og skins files if still available ;-; <3) aaand also their cube shaped bodies give a super slim window of where you see the accurate diffuse color anyways

still you can find an accurate-enough skin tone if you try hard enough but its annoying HAHA i just eyeball it and that's usually enough. there are allegedly canon skin textures uploaded by jess herself on the wiki but i have zero sources confirming that and also some of the said skins have been compressed to hell and are unusable anyways. by the way i'm just talking 100% accurate to the hex code colors, i trust everyone can eyeball colors :3

[claire-starsword]

Breakdown of Deviantart’s new AI policies

if anyone still thinks the deviantart thing is just miscommunication, i took the time to read carefully all their infuriating word salad, and here’s the important thing about their new AI:

“While DreamUp is based on third-party technologies (like Stable Diffusion) which have trained their models with the open web, DeviantArt does NOT and WILL NOT add images submitted on DeviantArt to these training sets, on or off the platform.”

Translation: of course we wouldn’t ever steal you art! We’ll just use the thing that has already stolen your art. The thing we said we disagree with. We doing it. Yeah.

Also, about that opt out form going around:

“Artists should be able to choose whether or not AI-images can be generated in your style. Artists who meet the criteria in our manual human review of applicants will be able to request an opt out of their username along with several desired pseudonyms linked to them be unavailable for use in DreamUp prompts.”

Translation: artists should be able to choose if their art style can be used by AI or not. But screw them, we’re choosing. Meet our criteria if you want to opt out. We’re not telling you what the criteria is. Except we kinda do, in the form, and it’s beautiful:

“Currently, we'll be approving this ability for free to artists who are most likely to have been sourced by Stable Diffusion. In this first version of the opt-out process, we will only be considering accounts that follow best practices, including but not limited to:

An up-to-date email (must be the same one associated with your DeviantArt profile)

Any social accounts linked in your DeviantArt profile’s about section”

Currently = this criteria may change at any time I guess! They will protect your art! They love artists! They’re just keeping their options open in case they wake up tomorrow loving them less. Reliable business model!

including but not limited to = they legit don’t wanna tell the whole criteria lmao. I know people are already filling out this form and I hate to say it, be ready for disappointment, because they clearly are paving the way to be able to deny it for literally any reason. This should be a case study of obfuscation via stupid vague legal wordy stuff.

The “for free” part is also terrifying as it implies they have considered and are still considering paywalling this. You’ve heard of $8 for blue checkmark, now get ready for $8 for basic art rights! Except for that part I covered early where your art is already stolen, of course.

The up-to-date email thing again means that people locked out of old accounts are being opted in against their will, and they know, and they’re deliberately enforcing it. Note that this form isn’t about your art being used in datasets though, it’s about your style being used as a prompt for the AI. Nevertheless both things should be opt out by default, as that how consent works.

I legit don’t know what to say about the social accounts linked in your profile. They are likely gonna say it’s to help verify the person’s identify, and it makes no sense at all as social media isn’t for that, as recent events have taught us more than ever. The email tied to your account should be all a service like this needs. As I said, they clearly wanna keep their options open to deny people through whatever criteria they pop out of a hat that day.

TL;DR everything DA says about avoiding art theft in their AI is word salad to confuse their users, their AI is based of one that has trained on stolen art anyway, and their opt out processes are way too convoluted to not be intentional.

[jbird-the-manwich]

The artist vs ai debate (im referring to it as that because thats how those people refer to it not understanding entirely that ai encompasses multiple unrelated fields) is kinda seemingly based on the same theorhetical money model companies use to calculate and insist upon their own losses due to things like piracy and shrinkage.

Namely its a fallacy to assume that someone using an image generator totally wouldve paid an artist a living wage to hand ink every single silly meme they thought would be funny if only image generators hadnt stolen that traffic.

Anyway as somebody who has and does commission artists from time to time its fallacious to think that image generators have replaced that market.

You commission an artist when a piece has meaning. Im not handing my sister a beatiful watercolor and saying "here bing shit this out the inkjet happy birthday". Just like im not paying 200$ for a hand inked human work to capture an absurd joke from a conversation for my desktop background.

And for the love of god figure out real fast that just because YOU assume these can only be accessed via some huge server cluster that literally everyone shares your level of technological mystification that would require outsourcing the use of these technologies to some wasteful server farm. Stable diffusion has 4000 forks on github jan. It installs with a requirements file. Touch grass. Some of us diy firmware for fun. Its a scary mystery to YOU. And i dont fuck with cops.

[snickerdoodlles]

Don’t you feel that if you go on the “loves ao3 more than their own mom” website aka the “can't throw a rock without hitting a writer” website and put in the main tag the opinion that AI writing models are no big deal and don’t do any harm and nobody has any reason to feel hurt over their unethical training in a tone that distinctly resembles the “toughen up snowflake” rhetoric, you might, in fact, just be the one out of line and also an asshole?

*rolls eyes* not what i did nor what i said.

there are many concerns to have with generative AI, such as the ability to extract privatized information from their training datasets, the exploitation of human workers for AI services (tho this one frankly goes for all internet services, not just AI), AI's reinforced biases and lack of learning, and the current lack of regulation against AI developers and AI usage to name a few. in terms of a direct impact on the creative industry, there are several concerns about the uncompensated and unregulated use of copyrighted materials in training data (paper discussing BookCorpus, courtlistener link for writers suing over Books2), the even worse image scraping for diffusion models, screen production companies trying to pressure people into selling their personal image rights for AI use, and publishers getting slammed with various AI generated content while the copyright laws for it are still massively in flux.

i said fanfic does not intersect with AI. actually, i vaguely whined about it in the tags of an untagged post, because i'm allowed to do that on my personal whine-into-the-void space. (which, tumblr is bad about filtering properly in tags and i'm sorry if it popped up anyways, but i also can't control tumblr search not functioning properly.)

there are concerns to be had about AI training datasets (developers refusing to remove or protect private information because it weakens the training data even tho this is a bigger issue for bigger models is my primary concern personally, but the book shadow libraries and mass image scraping are shady ass shit too). but AO3 was never used to train AI. there is a lot of sketchiness involved with AI training data, but AO3 is not one of them.

i get irked when people compare AI generated writing to AI generated art, because the technology behind it is different. to make art, AI has to directly use the source image to create the final output. this is why people can reverse the process on AI art models to extract the source images. written models (LLMs) learn how to string words into sentences and in terms of remembering the specific training data, LLMs actually have a known issue of wandering attention for general written training material like books/articles/etc. (re the writers' lawsuit -- we know AI developers are pulling shady shit with their use of books, AI developers know they're pulling shady shit with their use of books, but unfortunately the specific proof the writers' are using for their case very closely resembles the summaries and written reviews on their books' wikipedia pages. the burden of proof for copyright violation is really hard to prove for books, esp because copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea or individual sentences of a work, and LLMs do not retain their written training material in that way.) these are different issues that can't truly be conflated because the methods in which the materials are used and the potential regulation/the impact of potential regulation on them are different.

anyways, back to my annoyances with fanfic x AI -- fanfic is not involved in its development, and if you don't want to read fic made by AI, don't click on fic that involves AI. ultimately, if you read a fic and it turns out AI was involved...nothing happens. if you don't like it, you click a back button, delete a bookmark, and/or mute a user. AI just strings words together. that's it. acting like AI will have a great impact on fandom, or that fandom will be some final bastion against it, is really fucking annoying to me because fandom does not have any stakes in this. there are legitimate issues in regards to developing and regulating AI (link to the US senate hearing again, because there are so many), but "oh no, what if i read a fic written by AI" is a rather tone fucking deaf complaint, don't you think?

[trickster-whim]

We left the house today! In a car! To somewhere that wasn't the vet! We went to Crossroads, which has some places, and we got a couple things, but mostly it was just to look 👁️👁️ at everything.

It's Halloween season almost, and we wanted to take a look at things for sale and also maybe things to diy. Mostly things to diy, tbh. Things cost much money.

Michaels always has... something for Halloween, and I found a lot of stuff I want to paint or otherwise diy at home!

Okay, first up are two things that I probably can't diy but are really cute cats! That statue would have come home with me if it was a decent price, but this is Michaels lol.

Now, these bad boys are replicatable! There were a bunch of atmospheric, spooky, moody prints, and I loved them all. A lot of pale and subtle, as well as the dark academia look.

I'm not a fan of how Michaels doesn't print the artists on the tags, at least anywhere I can easily find them. Maybe they do list who made the original art, but it would be nice to see their names front and center. If I'm going to be copycatting them, I want to know more than just the brand that I'm copying!

The last thing I saw that would be rad to diy is this wrapped skull:

I just love it. There were a lot of wrapped skeletons and draping designs, which is a vibe for sure.

It looks like a simple skull model that was wrapped in a rough, loose-weave fabric and a mold was cast from that, if that makes sense, so you could just stiffen some fabric with glue, wrap a skull up artfully, and have a cute little wrapped skull, I'm pretty sure. I'm willing to try it at least.

Lastly are these two mugs. First one is a mood.

I too am AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This next one, however, uh. Ain't it, I think. Should maybe have considered the optics on this one.....

Eugh. Anyway.

Next was the hand sanitizer store, because we buy way too many little bottles of hand sanitizer. And we bought more. But just look at the extra in these candle displays!

I didn't check the price on that huuuuge candle house, but it was probably first- AND second-born child. Also those green eye bags were a hell of a look. I love green, especially this deep green, and as usual they had a bunch of Tevinter vibes that I also love. But I really only get hand sanitizer here, and even that is overpriced (but treat yourself, obvs).

This last thing I think might have been one of those wall diffuser things? I don't remember because we're not allowed to use any sorts of scents around the house anyway. But it was a bookcase with a cat so it was perfect. I really want it, lol.

We tried to be restrained with buying stuff, so apart from the hand sanitizer restock, it was mostly little things at target. And then we got chicken wings and went home, and I've had a headache ever since, yaay...

[whoiwanttoday]

How about some Emily Ratajkowski today? She doesn't show up nearly as much as she did... Jesus, I guess like 7 or so years ago now cause that's the nature of celebrity. She models far less and instead has slid more into being famous for being famous, which seems to be what happens with models in general now because there is instagram, they don't need magazines and I guess things like making your own swimwear is just more lucrative. This is probably a good thing for them but in terms of them showing up here it probably hurts. It's just the general diffusion of culture. I love that music for example is so varied now and a much wider variety of sounds exist in a readily accessible means thanks to the internet but I do miss the both ease of finding stuff and the cultural conversations when everyone really listened to the same few things. Am I saying that the world was better when your options were to listen to Poison sing Nothin' But a Good Time or to change the station to the Beach Boys singing Kokomo? No, of course not, it was a hellhole devoid of taste. But you know... every rose has it's thorn, and there is a thing we miss out about shared experiences. And even when Emily Ratajkowski broke is a very different time than now. Like for example I discovered her because gossip blogs were still very much in full swing in 2012 when she was modeling for bigger brands and some of them started to post her. Then Blurred Lines happened. It's somehow a different world than today even though it wasn't that long ago. Do I think the world was a better place with gossip blogs ruling the internet and Victoria's Secret Angels being a cultural touchstone? No, not really. All destructive forces long term. I guess it's just that with any change, even ones for the better, some things are lost that were good too. I guess that's the entire basis for conservatism, nostalgia with blinders on. Like, I get it but it definitely comes from a willful desire to ignore a lot of the world. Like, there used to be giant dinosaurs that roamed the planet and now there aren't. The benefits are clear, even the nice ones would step on stuff all the time and break it. The mean ones would be eating us right now if they were still around. But on the other hand dinosaurs are fucking rad, so we miss out on seeing totally sweet dinosaurs doing totally awesome stuff. And I guess some people only think about the second part. Or are self deluded enough to not realize they'd be the first thing a T Rex would eat because of an inflated sense of their own abilities. Either way, we are definitely better without giant lizard creatures stomping around eating us but I understand how you could let yourself sorta fantasize about how cool that might be if they just ate the dickheads who take up two spaces in a parking lot. So you know, I used to post Emily Ratajkowski more cause the world catered more to giving me pictures of her I really liked. It's a minor loss though if the world is better for most people. Anyway, that's a long way of staying she is at Fashion Week in Milan and walked for Versace so I was thinking of her again. None of these pictures are from that but that was the inspiration. Today I want to fuck Emily Ratajkowski.

[kerasines]

GIF Tutorial for Beginners

People keep asking me to teach them how to make gifs and I end up writing them long confusing messages, so I figured maybe it’s time to just write up an actual clean tutorial instead! This is supposed to be for total beginners! (Or people who want to switch to a new process that I’ve curated and streamlined over 8 years of making gifs.) I’ll try to keep this as barebones as possible, and won’t include all the advanced stuff I usually add. I hope it’s easy enough to follow, and I’ll include some links at the end for more stuff. I really do think it’s better to make a few simple gifs before doing more complicated stuff though, just to get used to it!

There will be three sections in this tutorial: #1 Basics - How to make a gif in PS at all #2 Sharpen - How to use sharpen/denoise filters in an easy way #3 Colouring - Just a few very basic adjustment layers

What you need:

A video (most common formats should work, although .mkv doesn’t always)

Photoshop (I use PS CC 2018 - this one because I'm morally opposed to Adobe’s subscription model - but versions aren’t super different from each other)

In the end, you should hopefully be able to make something like this:

This is gonna be so long. Sorry. You can make a gif with just part #1! The rest is just to make it look better.

#1 Basics

If any of the tools/functions aren’t where they should be for you, your best bet is googling it, you might need to change something in your preferences!

Make sure to save your PS file... often. PS has a tendency to crash, especially on laptops.

First, you need to get the video file. I recommend a shorter video, a few minutes long, if it’s longer you might want to cut it into shorter parts beforehand. This is just because PS’s video import tool sucks.

I chose the Butter MV, specifically Jungkook’s body roll at 1:24 because that’s what I want to look at for the duration of this tutorial. No further questions, thanks.

1. Open PS, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers

2. In the little pop-up, choose the part of the video that you want to gif. This will import every frame of the video into PS as a layer, so it has to be a relatively short part, or it’ll take ages (and gifs can’t be that big anyway). Now you can also see why it’s almost impossible to select the correct part if the video is too long.

The little controls at the bottom are for trimming, the one in the middle just for the preview. Make sure “Make Frame Animation” is selected! Then click OK.

3. Now you have your layers, and you have a frame animation! On the right are your layers, that’s where we’ll apply the colouring etc. later on. On the bottom, that’s your timeline or frame animation - that’s what the gif will be in the end! So if you delete frames, the layers will still be there, but they won’t show up in the gif. If you click on a frame, you can see the little eye checkmark on the layer that’s currently visible.

4. The timeline controls at the bottom that are relevant right now: set to “forever” so the gif will loop, you can play the animation with the play button, and you can delete the selected frame(s). The number on each frame is the speed of the gif, depending on the video I usually set it to 0.05 or 0.06 (photoshop lies to you when you play the animation, the only way to test this is to open the finished gif, preferably on tumblr or wherever you want to upload it).

5. As you can see, the animation starts a bit before the actual part that I want, so go ahead and delete all the frames in the animation that you don’t want! You can delete the corresponding layers too if you want, to make the PS file smaller, but it has no influence on the gif. (Hold Shift to select multiple frames as usual)

6. Next, we’re gonna crop the gif however we want! You can do this with the crop tool in the left sidebar, but with gifs like this where there’s a lot of moving parts, I sometimes just use the selection tool in the left sidebar, like so:

When you click on different frames, the selection stays, and you can check to make sure Jungkook doesn’t suddenly go out of frame if you crop it like that!

At this point, make sure the selection/crop isn’t smaller than you want the gif to be! For tumblr, what matters is the width (in pixels) of gifs. In the end, the width dimensions on tumblr should be 540px (1 gif per row), 268px (2 gifs per row), or 177/178px (3 gifs per row). Anything else will lead to very shitty resizing!

For this gif I’m going full sized, meaning 540px wide, so I made sure my selection isn’t smaller than that.

Then just go to Image > Crop, and it’s done!

7. Check to see if this is what you want, then resize: go to Image > Image Size to resize the picture. Make sure the little “link” between Width and Height is active (to keep the same aspect ratio), then set the width to 540px or whatever you chose. I always set the resample option to Bicubic.

Once that’s done, set the zoom to 100% right above the timeline, to see what it really looks like.

Almost done! A little note about the sizing: width is the important part for tumblr, but if you want to make a whole gif set (especially with more than 1 gif per row!!!) make sure to make all the gifs the same height, otherwise they won’t line up and tumblr will do whatever it wants.

I ended up making mine 540 x 400 and ended up with this:

8. Time to save the gif!! Go to File > Export > Save for Web (OR just use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S) (or whatever it is on Mac).

In the pop-up, you can change things about the gif, but most things should already be the way you want it (Image size, Looping option forever). Selective should be the default, just like the rest.

You can choose between Pattern and Diffusion, some gif makers swear on one or the other, I go back and forth.

On the bottom left, you can see the size of your gif. Keep an eye on that! I believe Tumblr allows every single gif to be up to 10mb, but I try to keep mine under 5mb or close to it, because I think tumblr adds compression if it gets closer to 10mb?? Anyway back in my day you couldn’t upload anything over 1mb. You’ll never know our struggles.

Then just save it, and that’s it, you made a gif! Well done!! Here’s the end result:

:)

#2 Sharpen

There are countless ways out there to make gifs as smooth and clean as possible! Here I’ll show you the easiest way, but it also provides a good basis for other methods. The main difficulty is that you you need to sharpen the layers, but you don’t want to 100 layers one by one. So what we’re gonna do is convert the layers into a Smart Object, which functions as one layer!

1. Convert the frame animation timeline to a video timeline with the little button right underneath on the left:

It should look like this, and I’m sorry but I can’t explain this one because I’m not an expert here, but you can just ignore it:

2. Select all layers: Select > All Layers, or just manually. 

Then right click on the layers > Convert to Smart Object. Now there’s only one layer left, but don’t worry, the frames are still there!

3. De-noise! It reduces noise, takes away some of that grain. More necessary in some videos. It also makes it less sharp, so I do this one first. Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise

My default settings are, Strength: 6, Preserve Details: 60, Reduce Color Noise: 45, Sharpen Details: 25, Remove JPEG Artifact: No. But you can play around, especially with the strength, and see how the little preview looks. Don’t apply too much of it! Or it will look weirdly smooth with no details in the end.

4. File > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. 

Settings: I usually have mine at Amount: 500, Reduce Noise: 5, and Radius at either 0.2 or 0.3, depending on the video. I’ll actually do 0.3 here, because I find it a bit blurry otherwise. If you sharpen more, it can quickly get grainy.

The difference isn’t huge, but here’s a little before and after denoise & sharpen:

5. Technically you can just save it as a gif (save for web) as shown above now, or you can convert it back to a frame animation, which I’d recommend especially if you use certain other sharpening methods (I’ll show you how to convert it back at the end of the colouring part), but for now, let’s go straight to the next part:

#3 Colouring

Now, you CAN do this part right after part #1, still in frame animation, without a smart object. I prefer it like this because sometimes PS acts weird, but if you want to skip the smart object stuff: select all frames, and add the adjustment layers at the very top, above all the other layers. (It only affects selected frames; and it only affects the layers under it.)

The adjustment layers should be above the layer tray, and these are the ones we’ll use today: Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Vibrance, Color Balance, Selective Color.

All of these are optional! You can do one, or all, or any combination. This is just the very most basic for me to get a gif to a point that I like. I’d recommend sticking to these for a start, but once you get the hang of it, definitely feel free to play around! It’s fun! Every gif maker has different preferences here, too, so there’s tutorials for everything.

1. Curves: Just click Auto, tbh. You can play around, but Auto works fine for me as a start, just to brighten or darken some parts as a base.

2. Brightness/Contrast: Usually videos are a bit dark, and contrast can help to make it seem sharper AND cut down on gif size, so I usually just up both of them a bit (but not too much! Or it’ll look cheap). Here I put them at B: 19, C: 23

3. Vibrance: I love very vibrant and colourful gifs, so I usually up the vibrance (and sometimes the saturation). This one is already very vibrant, so I only put +5, but if you try to colour, say, a very moody tv show, this can help wonders, especially if you want to work with the colours more later.

If you prefer less vibrant gifs, you can also lower the values here!

4. Color Balance: getting a bit more complicated now. Often, videos will have a slight yellow or green or blue tint, and this is where you can correct that. This video is a bit yellow, so I added +17 Blue. It was still too warm, so i added -11 Cyan as well. This neutralized the yellow tint, but I wanted some of the reddish tone back, so I added -5 Magenta. I usually do a similar process like that, depending on the tone. 

Instead of Midtones, you can also do this for Shadows and Highlights individually.

5. Selective Color: now this is the most complicated, but also the most fun to play around in my opinion! Be careful here, if you do something too extreme it’ll look like shit or make the gif super grainy. I some rough goals in mind here: make the blue hair as blue as possible, make their skin tone a bit less pale, and enhance the black and white (which I always do).

You choose a colour at the top, and then add or subtract cyan/magenta/yellow/black values for that colour.

Skin tone: yellow and red. For this gif, I just added black to both, making them darker. Sometimes, if you change one or both those colours for a different part of the gif (for example, if I wanted to make the background less yellow, I’d subtract yellow from the yellows - but then I’d add yellow to the reds, to make the skin tone natural again.)

Blue hair: Just ramp up the cyan for the blues. Be careful with putting anything to +100, but here it’s already so bright that it should be fine. His roots are more purple, so I changed the magentas by adding cyan and black, and subtracting magenta and yellow. It’s not super clean, but fine for our purposes.

Black/white: depending on the gif, I often either add or subtract black to the whites. Adding makes the highlights less blinding, a bit darker, and flatter (I like to do that if one side of the face is bright white in the sunlight, for example). Subtracting creates contrast, makes it brighter, can wash it out. It can also lessen the gif size, and here it’s mostly just the tracksuit instead of important details, so I subtracted black. For the blacks, I almost always just add a bit of black, to make it more intense. Just like adding contrast, this can make the gif seem sharper and less grainy.

And done! 

6. You could just save it as gif now, but as I said, I prefer to convert it back to frame animation timeline first, if only because I like to let it play through before I save it, and it works better for me there than in the video timeline.

Select all frames, then click the little menu on the top right of the video timeline > Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips

7. When you scroll down to the bottom of the layers now, the old smart object + adjustment layers should be at the bottom, under all the new layers. Delete the old ones, we don’t need them anymore.

8. Convert the timeline back to frame animation, by clicking the little button at the bottom left of the video timeline:

9. Click on the menu top right of the timeline again > Make Frames from Layers

10. Now, just some potential cleaning left to do. Sometimes, there’s a doubled or empty frame or layer at the beginning or end, just delete those as necessary. The timing of the frames is probably off, too, just select all frames and set the delay time to 0.05 (or whatever).

Now your done! Save as gif, and you should get this:

I included some bonus links and tips after this but tumblr ate that whole part so I guess it’s going into a separate post. (Here is is)

Anyway, I tried to make this as easy to follow as possible for beginners, but feel free to send me an ask for clarification anytime. Hope this helps, now go make gifs and have fun!!

[mystical-marauder]

Painting stars

Sirius enters an art shop, hoping to finally buy the supplies he'd been saving up for for months, but walking through that door brings him much more than expected

This is my first oneshot and I hope you like it and I'll post more writing like this hopefully and my writing can also be found on ao3 my username is @loveglowslikethemoon hope you enjoy :)

Today had been pretty quiet with only a couple customers and the shop was closing in 10 minutes, I was ready to go home...

Ding!

I look up from my book, ‘What kind of customer turns up this late?’ I think. I look around to the door, standing there is a tall, handsome young man, his grey eyes excitedly glancing over the shop, his black hair tied up into a bun. His fair skin is disrupted only by a small beauty mark, under his eye. The confident smile that suddenly splits his face as he turns to me, brings out two dimples that break his otherwise smooth cheeks.

"Afternoon! I'm looking for art supplies, I mean I am in an art shop" he says, chuckling. "I actually need some advice, you have a very wide selection and I'm not quite sure what to pick." he gestures vaguely at the shelves full of pencils and brushes, paint and charcoal, canvases and sketchbooks... "You see I love painting but I have no idea which brushes to use, it's embarrassing really."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, actually it's quite common, that’s what I’m here for” I reply with a smile “So you said you paint, right? What do you need, brushes, paint, canvases…?”

“I… um… I actually need everything… You see my parents, well, they kicked me out… and I left everything there… but I've finally saved up enough money to buy new supplies so here I am” he explains chuckling nervously. I look around nervously, unsure what to answer to that but I try to remain as steady and professional as possible.

“That's… terrible, I’m so sorry.” I say, smiling nervously, trying to seem comforting.

“It’s alright, it’s a good riddance I guess.” he replies cheerily “so about those supplies, what do you recommend?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you my recommendations. You’ll have to tell me a bit more about your style of painting so I can give you my best advice.” I say, leading him over to the shelves.

I quickly give him an overview of the different supplies before giving him a more detailed review of each product and advice. We slowly go through the shop and I don’t even notice the minutes fly by. As I walk to another shelf, I catch a glimpse of the clock. I should’ve closed the shop half an hour ago but I decide to leave it. I was having fun. What was the harm of staying open a little while longer? As the minutes pass, our chatter becomes less professional and more friendly. We talked and laughed together and soon enough, we’d picked out all his new art supplies.

“Well there’s everything you need!” I say, walking back to the counter. I start counting the price while chatting to him. “That’s £81.99, the easel is on the house for being such an amiable customer. Do come back if you ever need anything else, it was a pleasure to serve you.” I smile sadly, it had been more than a pleasure and I wish we didn’t have to say goodbye now.

“Thank you” he answers, giving me another of his confident smiles “I- I was wondering if umm… this might sound a bit weird but-” his piercing grey eyes quickly shift away, his normally confident appearance fading to show a childlike nervousness. “Before I left home, well, before I was forced out, I was studying anatomy, and well… I think you'd make the perfect model… Would it be alright if I painted you? If you don't mind, of course. Please don't feel forced to accept anything, but I'd love it if you do. And we could get a chance to get to know each other a little better, maybe somewhere where you don't work.” he clears his voice, as though happy to get this over with, and shifts his grey eyes back to me, his confidence returning. A new childish smile splits his face, as though it had never left it.

My eyes widen as I register what he just asked, and I quickly look away, embarrassed. ‘Perfect?’ as the word races through my mind again and again, I feel my face heat a little. Perfect? Me? No one had ever even called me pretty, let alone perfect, but now this man, who looks like a model himself, wants me to model for him and used that word to describe me. I return the smile, although mine is more nervous than childlike. He tilts his head slightly as though reading my emotions but seconds later, he lets out a small laugh which I quickly copy, trying to diffuse the awkwardness that flourished in me throughout this interaction.

“Are you sure you want me? I mean-” I cut off as I watch him nod confidently “alright I'd love to then!” I answer him, flattered, yet I can't stop the slight shake of my hands. What if I mess up? What if he ends up hating me?

“See you then” he says happily, turning away with a wink. I watch him as he walks out, finding myself to be grinning like a child, like him. I only have one thought left, ‘I don't have to say goodbye.’ I stay standing there for a few minutes with this thought before I snap back to reality. My eyes snap to the clock.

“Fuck” I whisper as I work out the time. If my boss finds out I closed the shop two hours late, I'm done for. ‘Oh well, it was worth it’ I think ‘and anyways he might not even find out.’ I start packing my bag when I suddenly realise he didn't give me a name let alone an address, how was I ever going to find him?! My eyes trail back to the door but of course he is long gone by now… I look around, panicked, as though expecting something to magically give me his address and that's when I notice the folded piece of paper on the counter. I slowly open it, my fingers trembling at the thought that it may not be what I think. I flatten out the paper and quickly read the snippet of writing. I smile inwardly, holding the small, unfolded piece of paper, relief slowly flooding through me as I trace the sentence again and again with my eyes, struggling to believe the evening's events.

19:30 tomorrow room 29 Mirror Hotel - Sirius Black

“Sirius Black” I whisper softly, smiling. “It's nice to meet you, Sirius Black”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I try to steady my hand as doubt rises in me again, one thought racing continuously through my mind ‘What if I mess up?’ I reach out and knock on the door hesitantly. I wait for a few seconds, yet it feels like an eternity, before the door is swung open.

“Found my note I see!” he exclaims, standing in the doorway with a huge grin lighting up his face. I smile back, trying to look as confident as he did.

“Here I brought you this” I reply, showing him my bag. I take out a small black book and present it to him, “it’s my favourite book, actually I was reading it when you came into the shop, I thought that maybe...” I trail off, embarrassed. I rub the back of my neck, feeling the warmth radiating from my palm. “I just thought maybe you'd find it interesting, I've read it so many times I practically know it off my heart” I laugh quietly, quickly glancing up at him “sorry I'm rambling”

Sirius looks at me, curiosity in his eyes. A small laugh escapes his lips before he turns to me and takes the book. He flips it, seemingly interested before looking back at me and taking a step back, to free the entrance. “Well why don't you come in?” he asks, before marking a pause, “I'm sorry I don't think I caught your name.”

“I'm Remus.” I respond, looking back up at him.

“Remus, that's a nice name.” he comments, his grin never leaving his face “the book seems interesting! I'll be sure to give it a try” I listen to him talk while I walk into his room, which is surprisingly organised. There isn't much, a table with an old laptop on it, two chairs, a bed, which takes up most of the space, a set of drawers, a small window and, in the corner, the art supplies he'd bought the day before. “You can sit here” he tells me, pushing one of the chairs towards me, I take it and sit down, putting my bag down next to it, unsure what to do next, I watch him walk over to the corner and pick up his art supplies.

“What do I need to do?” I ask, my hands still trembling slightly in my lap.

“Nothing, don't worry” he replies “just sit there and relax, there's nothing to be scared of” he addresses a friendly smile at me, pulling up the other chair to face me and setting up his easel in front of it. He takes out a brush and some paint, mixing them on his palette, and starts moving his hand up and down the canvas in big yet careful gestures. As the minutes pass, I start to feel more relaxed, watching his movements getting smaller and slower. “So, tell me a bit about yourself” he says, his eyes not moving from the canvas.

“Hmm oh well my life isn't very interesting. I grew up here with my parents, they're both gone now. I work in an art shop, as you know, I really like reading and I don't know what else to tell you…” I answer, thinking that my life must be too boring for him.

“That sounds interesting to me, you must know the surroundings pretty well then! Maybe you could show me around a little, I've been here for a few months but I still manage to get lost sometimes.” he tells me, chuckling.

“I'd love to, but only if you show me how to paint” I reply, nodding happily. As the minutes turn into hours and his painting progresses, we keep talking, about everything and nothing. It felt easy to talk to him, no not easy, right. Soon enough, I knew him like he'd been my friend for years. While we talk, his eyes tend to stay on the painting but sometimes they glide over to me, snapping back to the painting seconds later. In what felt like a short period of time, yet was a few hours, the painting was finished.

“Are you ready? If I'm honest, I'm a little nervous but if it's bad, blame it on the fact I couldn't paint for the past few months.” he admitted with a nervous chuckle, grabbing the canvas and hesitantly turning it towards me.

‘wow’

That's it. That's the only thought that went through my head as my eyes met themselves on the canvas. It's so beautiful and…

“Well? What do you think?” he urges nervously. I suddenly notice his hands trembling slightly and his eyes watching me intensely. He always seems so confident, yet I can see the fear in his eyes now.

“It's so… It's stunning… I'm speechless” I reply, looking him in the eyes quickly before turning back to the painting. The painting looked so realistic, my light curly brown hair and pale green eyes standing out against my pale skin, there is only one alteration. Instead of the freckles that normally sprinkle my face, are little stars. They're beautiful, shining like the stars I can now see from the window.

“Your freckles, they're beautiful, they look like the stars in the night sky. I thought I should paint them as such… They're like little beacons of hope and friendship, when I walked into that shop, I never thought I'd make a new friend, and well, thank you for giving me hope.” Sirius looks at me, his eyes sparkling with the same hope he was talking off. As I look at him, straight into his eyes, I feel a smile reach my lips, knowing my eyes have the same sparkle in them. And as our eyes dig deeper into one another, as we share a smile of happiness of who we found, the minutes slow, as though this moment was frozen in time, which I wish could be the case. Suddenly, we both break eye contact, as though embarrassed by the connection we'd both felt in that second. We both look back up to the painting, our eyes meeting again for a second, causing my face to heat a little. I slowly lift myself out of my seat, taking a step towards the painting to get a closer view of the talent etched on the canvas in front of me.

“It's- it's really stunning” I mutter, still speechless, taking yet another step forward. As I slowly edge forward, I notice something, something that had escaped me at first glance, as it usually escapes others' attention. A thin scar, tracing along the bridge of my freckled nose. Freckles which usually hide it, making it hardly noticeable, especially at first glance. A scar that had been given to me when I was only five, by an overexcited grey dog at the park. It's claw had scratched against the skin of my nose, after it had ambushed me. It had left me with a gash, one that never properly healed and could now be observed under the shape of a scar. This scar. The one he had noticed, when no one else had.

“You got my scar” I whisper in amazement. I slowly reach out to touch it, feeling like all that matters now, is this single detail. A small detail yet seeing it there had given me hope. At the last second, I pull my arm back, like an instinct, and, remembering the paint is still wet, I drop my hand to my side.

“Of course I got it, how could I miss it?” as his voice reaches my ears, I glance to my left to find him standing next to me, admiring the same spot as I was. Him. The man who, right now, felt like a dream come true. We both turn to face one another at the same second, almost as though we're in tune with one another. I find myself getting lost in his stormy grey eyes again, knowing that he was looking straight back into my emerald green ones. For a moment, there's no movement, we both stand there in silence, our eyes sparkling at each other, knowing that this is right. A shadow suddenly masks one of his eyes and I understand that a lock of his hair escaped his small bun. I watch it sway slightly before I instinctively take a step forward, closing what little distance is left between us, and reach out. I mark a pause, waiting to see if he'll reject the movement, but nothing happens. Carefully, I grab the small lock of hair and delicately brush it behind his ear.

As I hesitantly move my hand away, Sirius lets out a low throaty laugh, and I suddenly feel compelled to do something I'd never dreamed of. Instead of pulling my hand back, I instinctively slide it down to the back of his neck, cradling it carefully in my hand, and lean forward, closing the distance between us centimetre after centimetre until we collide. It was a short kiss but our movements were coordinated perfectly.

We pull away, almost reluctantly, and I watch his face quickly turn a deep crimson, knowing mine isn’t much better. I watch his eyes, like two storms lost in the middle of all this redness.

“That was… something” my eyes move down, as I utter these two words, as though expecting them to close the distance again. Our faces were still within centimetres of one another, making me struggle not to kiss them again.

“Something utterly spectacular” Sirius laughs breathlessly, intensifying my impulse to lean in again.

The room falls silent again, as I continue to watch the slight quiver on his lips. The only disturbance in the otherwise perfect silence is the sound of light rain splashing against the window and pavement along with our shallow breathing.

For a long while, we stand there, gazing quietly into each other's eyes, not uttering a single word, yet I feel complete, everything I need is right here, in front of me. This man, who has the most luscious hair, elegance and grace radiating from his unpolished appearance, a mischievous yet friendly glint in his eye, who is staring up at me with those mercury eyes.

And in that second, I feel certain that this is where I belong. That being with Sirius is right.

[coconut-tree-cafe]

Brothers night time routines and favorite sleeping positions!

This kinda turned into skin care/bathing routines plus night time routines lol

Lucifer

Lucifer actually has a pretty intensive night care routine

He always showers in the morning rather than at night but he does wash his face, brush his teeth and apply a mask before bed

When he’s done with his routine he always smells divine, like firewood and something earthy.

He needs to de-stress at the end of the day and keep himself from getting dry skin and wrinkles

He’s meticulous at self grooming and it shows despite the amount of stress and work he accumulates over his daily life

If you ever catch Lucifer sleeping you probably wouldn’t even know

He sometimes sleeps with his eyes open, he sleeps sitting up, he powernaps for 15 minutes at a time sitting up and with his eyes open

someone help this man

When he turns in for the night though, he gets 7 hours of sleep almost exactly if he has plans for the next day which 99.9% of the time he does

He sleeps on his back and is pretty stiff and doesn’t move much

He doesn’t like being stuffy when he sleeps so he usually just sleeps with the sheets on

He has some silk pj’s

Mammon

Mammon showers at night so his nightly routine consists of his usual shower routine

He hates sleeping with wet hair though, so he blow dries his hair before bed

He also has a pretty intensive skin care routine as well, he uses two different facial cleaners plus a face mask while he brushes his teeth

Sometimes he forgets but he’s pretty good about it, he needs his skin to be clear for his modeling gigs

Mammon doesn’t wear pj’s he just sleeps in a t-shirt and boxers because for some reason when he sleeps his body temperature SKYROCKETS

This boy... kicks and turns and flips and does gymnastics when he’s asleep, he’s always moving and mumbling to himself as he dreams

The only thing to stop him is having something to hug as he sleeps, he will bundle up his blankets to cuddle with at night, a pillow, MC

As long as he has something to squeeze at night he will sleep like a baby

He likes laying on his side spooning something

Unless there’s money or his ass on the line, Mammon doesn’t set alarms and sleeps for as long as he wants to

He is naturally a morning person, however

Leviathan

Levi’s night time routine consists of either

Playing a game until he falls asleep in the middle of it

Watching a show until he falls asleep in the middle of it

Playing a game while watching a show until he falls asleep in the middle of it

He doesn’t really have a skin care or bathing routine

He mostly just does it when he wants to or needs to

Levi practically exists in his pajamas anyways, so he rarely needs to change out of his clothes unless he’s wearing his uniform

He sleeps in a tub

The reason is because he enjoys the feeling of something behind him pressed against his back

He likes sleeping on his side and def would like to be a little spoon or lay on someone’s chest

(He’s gotten a lot of experience from his body pillows)

He will either sleep for 4 hours or 14 hours and no in between

Satan

His routine relies completely on his mood, 80% of the time he has a pretty regular regimen (washes face, brushes teeth, puts pj’s on)

While on the other hand sometimes he’s so frustrated he just says eff it and goes to sleep in a pout

He’s usually reading before bed regardless of his mood, however

Satan... talks in his sleep

Like full on sentences, voice totally normal but totally incoherent in subject

Throwback to when Satan was dead asleep on the couch with Asmo and Mammon in the room and he says out of nowhere

“No, you have to come over here first”

Cue confusion

He lays on his back usually, with one leg up

Asmodeus

Before bed and after bed Asmo’s regimen is...

Awe inspiring, for lack of a better word

You could almost say he never finishes his regimen throughout his day, as he has different products to use for different times throughout

I am going to leave everything that he uses up to your wildest imagination

Whatever you have in mind for his skin care routine, double it

Asmo is 50/50 split in how he sleeps, he has plenty of pajamas but he also really likes sleeping completely naked

Asmo also tries to go to bed around the same time every night (on school nights)

On the weekend he’s much more loose

Asmo moves around quite a bit when he sleeps, he doesn’t really change position but he does wiggle and shift around a lot

He likes sleeping on his back the most

Beelzebub

Beel’s nighttime routine involves eating the entire kitchen before bed

No but seriously him going to bed on an empty stomach is unheard of

He doesn’t shower before bed, he showers after his morning workout

Beel doesn’t have much of a routine before bed only the basics

He doesn’t wear much to bed either just his t-shirt and boxers

One thing of particular note though...

He gets up and out of bed at the very least twice a night for snacks

Either MC or Belphegor will have to tell him to not eat in bed or else there will be crumbs everywhere

Beel sleeps on his stomach, he usually has his arm dangling from the bed as well because he gets pretty warm when he sleeps

He drools and snores sometimes too

Belphegor

Belphegor’s nighttime routine is his entire daily routine, as he’s always getting ready for bed at all times

Belphegor will fall asleep just about anywhere and at anytime, at school, at the table, on the couch

But his favorite time is right before bed who could have guessed

It means he gets at the very least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep

Before bed Belphie showers, puts on a different set of pj’s and goes right to sleep

He has some diffusers that smell of lavender, his bedsheets are always velvet soft and he sometimes listens to nature ASMR while getting to sleep

Belphie does NOT mess around with sleeping, he’s a pro

He loves sleeping in all positions, on his side, on his back on his stomach, ect

He loves the most is 3/4′s between back and side with a blanket squished under his back to prop him up and a pillow to cuddle with

He has it down to a science

[hermannsthumb]

Lo and behold, HERMANN is the one with a long list of hunky ex-boyfriends (and it drives Newt a little nuts)

a req sent in by @k-sci-janitor and filled TIMELY ENOUGH on their BIRTHDAYYYYY 🎉🎉🎉🎉 s/out to them for discussing this fic concept w me months ago and also today 👀

-----------------------------

It’s a relief to find out Hermann is gay. It’s not even because of Newt’s weird, repressed feelings for the guy—though he admits it’s equally a relief to know that he’s not barking up the wrong tree entirely. The thing is that Newt’s really not sure what he would do if Hermann wasn’t. Hermann has the distinct honor (displeasure?) of being Newt’s only friend in the Shatterdome, after all; this means aside from usual friendship duties (sitting with Newt at lunch, listening to him complain about his day, allowing himself to be dragged along to bars and movie theaters when they finally have a second to breathe), he’s also the person Newt goes to with tales of his romantic conquests (not that he has any), requests for dating advice (not that Hermann has any), and reassurances that whoever Newt has his eyes on that week is hot enough for him (could they ever be?). It’s just, like, easier to do that kinda shit with someone who would also be (hypothetically) eyeing up and dating dudes, if Hermann ever managed to take the stick out his ass and relax long enough to do stuff like that.

Hell, Newt would be first in line if he ever did. As it is, he just has to settle on knocking knees with Hermann under the mess tables and—for lack of a better phrase—checking the latest batch of ranger hopefuls out. Newt doesn’t normally go for the tall, built, and athletic type, but Shatterdome transfers are usually the only way he can score a date, because all the seasoned personnel know to avoid the weirdo biologist in the basement by this point. There’s a war on; desperate times call for desperate measures. Newt hopes at least a handful of them are desperate.

“He’s kinda hot, don’t you think?” Newt says under his breath to Hermann. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at one of the new ranger trainees in line for soup behind them. He has dark hair and a nice smile, and—more importantly—Newt’s sure he’s been making eyes at their table for the better part of five minutes. He’s one of the latest batch that has only just arrived two weeks prior, and the smallest batch by far. Not many people are enlisting in the PPDC these days. Bad for the state of the world and Newt’s libido.

“Hm?” Hermann says.

“The guy behind us,” Newt says. “No, don’t be obvious about it—”

But Hermann turns, conspicuously, so (deciding it can’t get any more awkward than it already is) Newt sighs and turns with him. The dark-haired ranger notices: his smile hitches up an extra centimeter, and he winks.

At once Newt feels his ego swell. He winks back. “Still got it, dude,” he crows to Hermann, and is just rising from his chair to swoop into action when he realizes something; the ranger was not making eye contact with Newt. He was—and is—making eye contact with Hermann.

Hermann scoffs. “Oh, please,” he mutters to Newt. “If he thinks that’ll get him invited over again—”

But the ranger is abandoning his spot in line and jogging towards them, smoothing down his hair as he goes. He’s brimming with a palpable mixture of excitement and anxiety. “Hey, Dr. Gottlieb,” he says. “So, uh, last week was pretty fun?” It’s an invitation for approval, one which Hermann ignores in favor of jerking his shoulders noncommittally. The ranger presses on anyway. “It’s cool to see you. Haha. I, uh, just wanted to make sure you have my email, in case you want to get together again.”

“I have it,” Hermann says.

An awkward tension settles between them. Newt clears his throat in hopes of diffusing it, and the ranger’s eyes dart over to him. “I’m Newt,” Newt says. “Hermann and I work together.”

“Cool,” the ranger says. Disinterested. “Anyway, Dr. Gottlieb, I’m free whenever, so?”

“Yes, I’ll certainly email you,” Hermann says. He picks up his dinner roll and begins to spread butter over it, not bothering to look up when he adds “Lovely to see you again.”

The guy nods, and hurries back over to his friends, who begin debating something with him in hushed voices. Twice the group glances back at Hermann. Hermann’s—uh—friend seems to be blushing. Hermann begins to butter the other half of his dinner roll. “What the hell was that about?” Newt says.

Hermann sets down his roll and furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“That,” Newt says. “Who was that guy?”

“Oh,” Hermann says. “Him.” He rolls his eyes, and to Newt’s alarm goes pink in the cheeks. “We had a, ah, a date, I suppose you could call it, last week. He turned out to be a bit rude, actually, not the very, er, courteous sort. Attentive. Or at least not as courteous as I like. You know.”

“I don’t,” Newt says.

“You know,” Hermann repeats, with more force on the know. His pink blush spreads down his neck. “In the—coupling—sense.”

“You hooked up with him?” Newt says, too loud. A few heads swivel in their direction, including Hermann’s quote-unquote date and his friends; Hermann whacks Newt in the shin with his cane, clearly mortified.

“Keep your voice down! I don’t want the whole bloody Shatterdome to know, do I?” Hermann hisses. “Yes, I had sex with him. I do occasionally take time to enjoy myself.”

Newt stares at Hermann in amazement. Hermann hooks up? Hermann hooks up with hunky guys? Hermann hooks up with hunky guys and then ghosts them? “I didn’t know,” Newt says. “That you…did that.” Months and months of talking about his shitty love life to Hermann and Hermann has never once bothered to volunteer information of his own. Newt always just assumed Hermann had put his emotional (and physical) needs on hold for the sake of the war. Apparently not.

“You never asked,” Hermann says. “Is it important?”

Yes, it is. Newt shakes his head. The rest of their dinner is quiet and without any further interruptions. It’s also without their usual bickering, though, which makes it feel oddly lonely, and when Newt gets back to his bunk that night, he can’t help but wonder what else he hasn’t discovered about Hermann yet. Or, really—what about Hermann’s love life he hasn’t discovered yet.

A bouquet of flowers arrives for Hermann at the lab a week later. Newt is the one to take the delivery, Hermann being too absorbed in his calculations and boring graphs, and also because Newt is harboring a secret hope they’re for himself from a secret admirer. No such luck. To Dr. Gottlieb, the heart-shaped label proclaims in pink cursive, and a few sentences of the sappiest attempt at poetry Newt’s ever seen follows. Love, Pedro. Newt smirks through a suffocating wave of jealousy, whether to be the one giving or getting the flowers he’s not sure. “Hey, Hermann,” he calls across the lab. “Your boyfriend getting persistent. Want me to stick these in water for you?”

Hermann grumbles something, then says “Boyfriend?”

“From the mess the other night,” Newt says. “The uncourteous one.” Newt double-checks the note. “Pedro. His heart is yearning for you, Hermann. Listen to this—”

But Hermann scoffs loudly before Newt can even start on the poem. “Don’t be daft,” he says. “That wasn’t Pedro. That was Jason.” He scribbles over something on his chalkboard and starts again on the line below it. “And Pedro is hardly my boyfriend—it was only dinner.”

“Dinner?” Newt squeaks.

“And drinks,” Hermann says.

“You’re seeing another guy?” Newt says.

Hermann finally turns around. “Does it matter if I am?” he says.

“Yes,” Newt says. “No? I don’t know?”

“I’m a grown man, Newton,” Hermann says. “I date. You ought to try it yourself—it does wonders for the nerves.” When Newt is clearly still unsatisfied, Hermann sighs. “I met Pedro on an errand to LOCCENT last month, and I found him charming. You’d recognize him—you actually, er, caught us in a bit of a compromising position the other night. Remember?”

Newt frowns. He hasn’t caught Hermann with anyway in any compromising situations recently—the only thing he can think of that could be considered remotely embarrassing is when he stepped out into the hallway the same time Hermann’s physical therapist did, and they ended up bumping into each other. But that was—oh, God, Newt’s an idiot.  “That was him?” Newt says. He just assumed anyone stopping by Hermann’s room after work hours would be there for physical therapy, okay? And there had been a lot of…noise. Well, he’s not going to think about that now. “But he was so hot! Do you only date, like, hunks or something?”

“Really, Newton,” Hermann says. “You’re making yourself upset over nothing.” The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Though one of my old ex-boyfriends did become an underwear model…”

“Dude,” Newt says, and before he can help himself, blurts out “Shit, maybe I should start going to the gym.”

Hermann gives him a strange, searching look, and Newt immediately clamps his mouth shut in horror. He’s really gotta start working on his brain-to-mouth filter. Or at least work on not sticking his fucking foot in it every five minutes. “As I said,” Hermann says, cryptically, and turns away (apparently satisfied with whatever he saw in Newt), “you’re making yourself upset over nothing. I hardly find the need to limit myself to ‘hunks’.”

“Uh,” Newt says. “Right.”

Whatever that means.

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

<<Prev | Next>>

Ao3

Phagophobia Pt. 2

Summary: There's more off the grid than bloodborn.

Words: 1,425

Warnings: Insomnia due to anxiety, emotional distress, brief reference to suicide

Sensible plan or no, Isaac laid awake in one of the two motel beds, back-to-back with Curry, for over an hour before accepting that the Sandman had stood him up. The hybrid foam of the mattress muffled his movements as he slipped out of the starched, scratchy sheets. Perched on the bed’s edge for a minute, he studied the room’s blandly functional décor. Nothing touched by a sense of the personal. Someone could die of a stroke, overdose, eat the end of a pistol and all traces of them would disappear. Be discarded and scrubbed away in time for the next anonymous occupant to take their place. There wasn’t even enough history or character for a ghost to tether to.

Just like the townhouse he’d escaped from. Had been allowed to escape from. Isaac’s stomach rolled over like a dead fish, bloated with nausea. Bending in half, he rested his clammy forehead on his knees until he was sure he wouldn’t either burst into tears or copious vomiting. Once the bout passed, he wobbled to his feet. Shuffling across the carpet in his socks generated enough of a charge to spark a nasty shock when he reached for the top drawer of the desk across from the beds. Isaac cursed under his breath, shook his tingling fingers out, and tried again. The drawer slid out silently. Inside lay what he wanted: an eight by eleven magpad. No question whether it worked—it still bore a drawing of a huge dick left by some artistic soul who’d passed that way before. Smiling to find a stamp of humanity on the place at last, Isaac picked the magpad up and flicked the erase tab on its side. The virile imagery vanished, leaving a clean rectangle of gray to work with. Isaac slid into the desk chair, took the steel stylus in hand, and began to exorcise the thoughts haunting him in the only way he knew how.

Name/Alias: Dimas, Renato F

Type: Bloodborn (unregistered)

Age: 100+ estimated

Pronouns: Not stated

Height: 5’ 8” estimated

Weight: 150 lbs estimated

Hair: Brown

Eyes:

Little spikes of magnetic dust radiated around the point of the suddenly still stylus. How could he articulate the awful fascination that struck him when he’d met Renato Faria Dimas’s eyes? The way it had diffused through his body like a neurotoxin, paralyzing him? Their ability to reflect human emotion despite the monstrous intent lurking in the mind behind them?

After a moment of hand-wringing, Isaac decided to stay practical. He only had so much space, and anyway, he wouldn’t give the bloodborn the satisfaction of turning him poetic.

Eyes: Blue-green

Maker: Unknown

Affiliates: Possible magic user(s), possible brood

Assets: Sufficient money to purchase current model of car, electronics, and maintain real estate. Possible access or knowledge of high-level sorcery. Access to drugs and medical supplies.

Threat Assessment: Enhanced speed + strength. Some formal training, style unknown. Claims 16 human deaths.

The stylus summoned another tiny ring of dust while Isaac’s ethics struggled to elbow past his rage and disgust. He grimaced as, with a final jab, it won.

Displays some capacity for reason. Violence not 1st option, however, no show of remorse when it’s used.

Then, because he’d earned it, and the emotional poison needed to be drained:

Notes: Smug asshole. I’d love to shoot the stupid, bland smile off your face. Why me? You knew I was Coven but you came after me anyway. Do I look that weak? Or do you think you’re that untouchable? I guess so if you let me get away and call for help. What the fuck is your glitch? Are you getting off on having power over life and death? You can’t seriously think you can take the entire Coven on. I take that back. You probably are that delusional. You ruined my life and I hate you. I hope I get to watch you being staked.

Head empty and quiet at last, Isaac shivered and slumped in the desk chair, suddenly exhausted. No way could he sleep in that room, though, with its affordable, impersonal furniture and bland walls. Not even with people he trusted nearby. Lurching up from the chair, he made a beeline for the door.

Desert heat wrapped around him like a security blanket despite the shade of the motel’s veranda. Everything from the unvarnished boards scratching his bare feet to the buzz of flies socializing around a puddle left by the ice machine reassured him this was real. He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t trapped. Squinting against the glare of the sun off windshields and chrome in the parking lot wasn’t the only reason for the tears welling in the corners of his eyes, but no one else had to know that.

Tiny tremors shivering through the veranda floorboards behind him sent a different message.

His head whipped around, pulse hard in his throat. Tina Yi showed no surprise that he’d sensed her footsteps or at his reaction. She only met his eyes for a couple of seconds before averting her own to the shimmering parking lot, running a hand over the bristles of her closely shorn hair, and clearing her throat.

“Can’t sleep?” She made it a question more as a courtesy, judging from the grim smile.

Embarrassment grabbed one corner of Isaac’s mouth, apology the other, both pulling it into a grimace. “Not in there.”

Yi nodded before tossing something at him. He made a grab, sent the object bouncing out of his palm, but managed to scoop it up on the fourth try. Not too pathetic, considering the kaleidoscopic tattoos of sacred geometry relating to speed and strength interlinked from her shoulders to her wrists. Shoulders and wrists that could bench about as much as Isaac weighed.

The car’s key fob rested in his hand when he looked down.

“With it plugged in and the panels out you should be able to run the AC without depleting the batteries,” the corporal told him. “Plus, you won’t roast. Me or Curry will check on you every hour or so.”

Relief helped wash down the lump of guilt in his throat. “Thanks, Yi.”

She shrugged. “It happens to all of us the first time we get in over our heads.” For a second, she glanced at her geometric tattoos. “You might not think so, but you did the best anyone could’ve, Soto. Survival’s like anything else. You don’t have to be the best, just good enough. And…here you are.”

This time. But Isaac made himself nod.

“Get some winks. There’s more out here off the grid than bloodborn.” She turned and went back inside the room.

Thus reassured, Isaac managed to make himself comfortable enough in the passenger’s seat of their company car, seat reclined and AC cranked up. He woke three times, the last being a need to use a bathroom rather than from amorphous nightmares. Pushing open the door, a sharp smell stabbed his nostrils. Alarmed and still functioning on dream logic, he looked at his lap. Dry and accident-free. Frowning, he took a good whiff, then coughed and pressed his sleeve to his nose, eyes watering. The smell had the bite of too much ammonia to be human. Like cat piss with oily notes of musk from a big mammal. Underneath festered just a hint of the poisoned sweetness of rotting meat. He took shallow breaths until he made it back inside the motel room.

Only after he’d concluded his own business did Isaac’s sleep-slowed brain follow the trail of breadcrumbs. He’d no sooner flushed and washed his hands—not stopping to wipe them dry—than he was standing at the foot of the beds.

“Yi. Curry.”

Neither bolted upright. They rolled to a sitting position, hands on the guns holstered against their ribs, in one efficient motion. Isaac didn’t move a muscle until both started to blink, instinct waning in their eyes as humanity returned.

“What’s up, Soto?” asked the sergeant, letting his hand fall from his weapon’s safety.

“I think you’d better smell for yourselves.”

One sniff from the edge of the veranda proved enough. Curry and Yi swapped tight-lipped looks.

“Pack up. We’re out of here. Let’s hope this is a fluke and four wheels is enough to outrun four legs.”

[cozymochi]

Oh thank goodness! I thought and was worried something bad had happened that made you turn asks off under-the-radar, I’m glad you’re okay!!!

No worries at all! ^^ And now that we’re back, how about an ask! What is your fav smol reference or detail incorporated into Zama? Design or otherwise?

You’re amazing as per usual and I hope you have a nice week!

NOTHING BAD up here 😳 just tumblr being a webbed site. ANYWAY YES I LOVE THIS STUFF and thank u for thinking i did include a specific detail 😳👉👈…cuz I did. I like doing that

In Catalyst AU (based on the stuff that was made but not posted) Oz Ama is kinda meant to be slightly off visually. You can kind of see what I mean with her more saturated color scheme, and her eye thing mentioned briefly on her model sheet here but if I’m not being clear I’m referring to this:

OKAY SO, 👏 I cheat on this a lot mostly for the sake of clarity, but, normally, Vortian eyes are just these beady little things. The “pupil” seen in their goggles isn’t a pupil at all so much as just their actual eye.

Anyway, all this to say that those rings aren’t her eyes. And I wrote up there that the lens of her goggles creates a “semi-translucent ring pupil” for her. And in most of her colored art, they’re mostly invisible, which is the point 😩 It might not seem like much to note, but I promise it’s significant enough. It says something about her 👉👈 A regular in-universe thing (cuz there’s a reason, tho not that important since it doesn’t affect anything in a significant way), then a more meta thing (which is significant). WHAT EXACTLY? I can’t say rn, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it 😳

But to diffuse this real quick, has eyes trust me lol