#cropped & blown up through Tumblr

[rabid-dog-steve-horn]

[jplupine]

Beast of Sunagakure: Part 2

Pairing: Gaara x AFAB Reader Word Count: ~8k Date Published: July 19, 2024 WARNINGS: 18+ MDNI, Monster!Gaara, Exophilia, Size Difference, Feral Behavior, Underwear Stealing, Marking, Vaginal Sex, Hair Pulling, Vaginal Fingering, Creampie, Getting Caught; Reader is AFAB but no gender is specified, Terms such as pussy/cock/etc. get used.

A/N: The art above was drawn by me! Gotta crop to make it Tumblr friendly </3 If you'd like to see the full image, you can follow the links here or read it on AO3.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Bonus You can also read it on AO3!

  "Oh, this is just wonderful." Your voice was heavy with sarcasm as you threw your clothes around.

  "What's wrong?" Gaara asked as he watched you from a few feet away.

  "Have you seen my underwear? I left them on that rock to keep sand out of them and now they're gone!" You picked up your bag to search it just in case they had been placed inside and you had simply forgotten. Gaara shrugged before glancing toward the opening of the cave.

  "The wind did pick up for a little while earlier."

  "You've got to be kidding." You went to the edge of the cave and peeked outside. Your eyes scanned the sand to see if the wind had blown the garment away. If it had, you couldn't see it. You groaned in frustration before going back to your bag. "Whatever. At least I have more."

  Pulling out a clean pair of underwear, you then got dressed to finish the journey home. Gaara would be returning with you as the beast to make it seem as if you had found him and were bringing him back. To make it more convincing, he was putting his shackles and muzzle on before he shape-shifted back into his cursed tanuki form.

  He shook out his fur and stretched before you both headed out into the desert and went in the direction of Sunagakure. Gaara used his larger body to provide you shade from the blazing sun crawling across the sky. It was easier crossing the desert with his help and much faster.

  When you could see the village in the distance, you took hold of the chain dangling from Gaara's muzzle. He huffed through his nose but followed your lead.

  Nearing the village, you could hear people yelling and rushing to get out of the way when they saw Gaara coming. A few screamed, but Gaara remained behind you. You swallowed while trying to maintain a calm appearance as you walked through the village. Your grip on the chain tightened.

  Best case scenario, you could get Gaara back to his cage before any elders or other village officials could interfere and have as little fuss as possible. In reality, you didn't make it far before you were stopped by the Kazekage himself standing in the middle of the road. His expression was firm as his gaze was settled on Gaara.

  Panic made your heart beat faster when his eyes drifted down to you.

  "You were taught to control the curse seals? I was not told anyone took you on as an apprentice."

  "Um, no." You cleared your throat. "I-I found him wandering the desert on my way home. He recognized me and thought I would have food for him. Thankfully, I had a lot of provisions from my cousin's wedding to give him." You hoped talking about Gaara as if he were more like an animal would be enough to convince Rasa that you didn't know the truth about Gaara. There was a stretch of silence as you were scrutinized before the Kazekage stepped to the side.

  "Come. We should have him properly fed before he gets the urge to hunt." You felt relief wash over you. "It must have been terrifying being alone with him." Rasa spoke while walking.

  "Oh, yeah." You nervously laughed. "When he charged at me, I thought I was done for until he was shoving his head into my bag to get the food. The muzzle got in the way, so I had to help him." You were quick to spin your story and add details to lower suspicions.

  "You're not going to ask how he escaped?"

  "I wasn't sure I should. I was guessing something must've gone wrong while he was being transported because of the muzzle."

  "I commend your ability to stay calm in such a situation. I'll take it from here. This is where you live, is it not?" The Kazekage stopped outside of your home, and you glanced at it before looking back at him.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Go. Rest. You must be exhausted." Rasa took the muzzle's chain from you only to have Gaara resist. The Kazekage looked Gaara in the eye with a silent, threatening expression.

  "Thank you, Lord Kazekage." You bowed out of respect before turning to go inside. When you looked back, Rasa was dragging Gaara away.

  The next time you saw Gaara was when you returned to your work duties. He looked okay as he could be, alert and with his ears perked in your direction. His bright eyes were a welcome sight compared to when he was aggressive or indifferent.

  "Good morning, Gaara." You greeted him while unloading his breakfast from the bucket you carried. Judging by his behavior, you truly didn't need to worry about being attacked anymore. You got his food through the bars before taking off your gloves as Gaara came over to eat. "I don't know about you, but I could hardly get any sleep last night. I was too worried about what the Kazekage might be doing to you."

  Gaara huffed and started eating.

  "I'm serious!" You leaned against the bars. "I could barely bring myself to leave you alone with him. He looked pissed." Gaara's ears tilted down before he nodded, letting you know the Kazekage had indeed been very angry with him. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" He shook his head. "Good. That's a relief." You sighed.

  Having Gaara finally responding to your idle chatter also felt nice. Talking to yourself before was a bit hollow.

  When it came time to clean his cage, you were more comfortable being in there with him than last time. Gaara also seemed more relaxed while watching you scrub the floor. His gaze didn't feel as predatorial either.

  Rattling came from behind you along with metallic scraping. Looking over your shoulder, you saw Gaara in his human form and pulling the shackles off his ankles. Your eyes widened and darted around to make sure only you two were there.

  "Gaara? What are you doing?"

  "I want to talk to you."

  "About?"

  "I want to help. Show me how to do this." Gaara guided you further away from his bed. You were immediately suspicious as he took the scrub broom from you.

  "What are you hiding?" His eyes locked with yours and he looked like a caught mouse.

  "What? I'm not-"

  "You think I'm not used to you hiding crap in your bed? I have to change out your bedding today, so you better tell me. I swear if I find another slobbery bone-"

  "You won't!" Gaara waved his hand as he blushed.

  "Right." You had a dry tone before going to his bed to look.

  "I'll change the bedding!" He tried to stop you, but you knew exactly where he tended to hide things among the straw. You pulled up the floral fabrics you already knew he had.

  However, with the headscarves was something else you knew belonged to you but didn't know he had. Holding it up, you spun on your heel to look at Gaara who now had a bright red face.

  "Gaara!" You yelled while shaking your fist clutching the garment. "Is this my underwear?!" He averted his gaze while crossing his arms. "You are a pervert! And a little liar! Wind blew them away, my ass."

  "I can explain."

  "Yeah. Explain why you stole my dirty underwear. Pretty sure I can guess." You then looked at the underwear you held as your brows furrowed with confusion. "Wait, how did you even steal these? You don't have any pockets." Gaara lowered his head as his jaw clenched.

  "I....tucked them into one of my shackles." His ears were nearly the same shade of red as his hair.

  "You didn't think this through past doing that, did you?"

  "I won't argue about my actions being impulsive. They were."

  "You need to learn to ask for permission instead of just taking my things." You pointed at Gaara, and he looked at you with wide eyes. "Being a little pervert is one thing, a thief is another."

  "You say that as if you would give them to me."

  "I don't know. I seem to like how you want me so badly you act like an animal." You shrugged. "It makes me feel better about the thoughts I've had about you." He was visibly caught off guard by your words. There were a few seconds of utter silence as Gaara stared at you before you raised your eyebrows at him.

  It was hard to tell what was going through his head.

  Then he took a step closer. His eyes now looked hungry as he was stalking toward you. He only stopped when he stood close enough that you could feel his breath on your skin and his gaze studied your face.

  "You have thoughts about me?" His voice had dropped in tone as he cocked his head to the side.

  "I do."

  "Then in the cave.... That wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment thing?"

  "I'll admit I did have ulterior motives at first. But I meant it when I said that I was coming back to you. I worried about you the whole time I was gone." You were being honest and hoped that he could tell.

  "What ulterior motives?" His brows slightly furrowed.

  "To tell the truth? I was planning to jerk you off so you'd be less inclined to maul me." There was another pause before the corners of his mouth curled up and he laughed. Gaara's laugh was sweet and reached his eyes; it made your heart skip a beat.

  He was a pretty beast and a pretty man. The way his eyes seemed to glitter in the sunlight coming through the barred windows made you momentarily forget your circumstances. Gaara covered his mouth with his hand while still smiling. His closeness and expression had your heart beating faster.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't expect you to be so blunt."

  "Is that smile worth a kiss?"

  "You want a kiss?"

  "Well, it's either you give me a kiss, or I steal one like you've stolen my things." You waved your underwear and headscarves.

  "Is this threat also with ulterior motives?" His question made you lean in closer until your noses were only centimeters away from each other.

  "Yes. To get you to kiss me." You saw his eyes drift down to your lips. "I won't tell if you don't." You whispered with a smirk.

  Gaara closed the distance between your mouths to kiss you. One of his hands came up to cradle the back of your head as his fingers laced through your hair. His other hand grabbed your hip to pull your body flush against his. You tossed the garments you held behind you to drape your arms over Gaara's shoulders.

  As his lips moved in time with yours, you slid your fingers up the back of his neck. You knew you shouldn't be doing this with Gaara given the chances of getting caught being a lot higher than back in that cave. But one little kiss couldn't hurt, could it?

  The way he kissed you was hungry; full of craving as he held you impossibly close. It made your knees feel weak. After tasting this forbidden fruit full of desire, no other man could compare.

  Gaara pulled away only to kiss along your jaw and down your neck. He inhaled your scent and softly growled.

  "You smell sweeter."

  "What?"

  "Stress is bitter." He muttered before grabbing the back of your thighs to lift you. A gasp left your mouth when you found yourself on your back and Gaara on top of you. His face was buried in your neck and shoulder as the straw beneath you rustled. "I've watched you get plumper and sweeter. It makes my mouth water." His lips were on your skin when he pulled your collar to the side. "I tried to behave. But I could never forget your touch or the way you sounded."

  "Tried to behave? You stole my underwear, Gaara." You scoffed.

  "I didn't think I could have you." He grazed his teeth over your exposed skin, his sharper canines causing goosebumps to rise in their wake. Gaara's tone and his mouth on you made you realize keeping it to 'just a kiss' would be harder than you thought; how quickly things had escalated and you were now in his bed.

  You both were dancing on the edge, pushing just how far you would go. It was only supposed to be a one-time thing in that cave, but as Gaara had said, you also could never forget what happened between you two then. It was hard to think straight with him so close.

  "But you want me. That much I know is not a trick." Gaara brushed his nose right under your jaw while slipping one of his hands between your thighs to cup your core. Your eyes fluttered closed as you took in a shaky breath. Your grip on his shoulders tightened from his fingers rubbing over your pussy through your clothes. "That scent doesn't lie."

  Opening your eyes, you pulled Gaara's face away from your neck to look at you. The silence between you was sparking before you pulled him in for a kiss. Your tongue slipped past his lips to caress his, and Gaara yanked your apron off. He pulled at the rest of your clothes to have skin-to-skin contact and threw them to the side.

  You moaned into the kiss while grabbing his hips to pull his body closer to yours. Feeling the warmth of his skin as his palm ran up your side made a shiver of delight go up your spine. His erection was pressing against your inner thigh until you spread your legs more, allowing him to get comfortable while lying against you.

  His weight on top of you was bliss as you nipped his bottom lip. Your hands on his hips moved to go up his back. Gaara's breath faltered before he pulled away from the kiss for air. His deep blush had reached his ears and made his pale eyes stand out even more.

  He lowered his head to kiss down your throat, and you leaned your head back to make it easier. His hands wandered, touching and groping anywhere he could reach. Gaara craved with his entire being, memorizing your body with his hands and lips as his kisses went lower.

  He bit down on your chest hard enough to leave a mark near your heart. Gaara then licked the bite to help soothe it. Something about the bite made your skin buzz with excitement. His desire to mark you, to leave some evidence of his touch that lasted longer made you feel good.

  You watched him kiss and nip more places over your torso. Gaara's lips were so gentle before the sting of his teeth followed, then the soothing wet heat of his tongue. It drove you wild, made worse by thinking of what else he could do with his mouth even in his beast form.

  Gaara turned his face up again to look at you while holding your hips in place.

  "I can't wait any longer." His voice was breathy as he panted.

  "Go on, then." You bit your bottom lip while looking at his hard cock hovering over your core. Your hands were on Gaara's shoulders again as you watched him penetrate you. Being smaller in his human form made it easier, and his hips were soon flush against yours. Your hands on his shoulders moved to cup his face and guide him into another kiss.

  His hunger for you was insatiable as his tongue slipped into your mouth and his hips began to rock. He was slow at first, processing every sensation at once before his hips snapped. Gaara had you moaning into his mouth over and over again just to devour the sound. His chest rumbled with a low growl when your fingers tangled in his hair and pulled, the sound vibrating not only his body but your own as well.

  You quickly forgot about everything else; your chores, your circumstances, and even the risk of being caught was no longer on your mind. Gaara was all you could think about as he pistoned his cock and grabbed the back of one of your knees to raise it higher.

  The new position allowed him to go deeper and grind against your clit. Gaara rested his forehead on yours while moaning and panting, breathless from the kiss. He leaned on his elbow placed near your head while still holding your knee up.

  "You may need to keep my cage locked when you ovulate. I don't know what I might do now knowing how you feel and taste." Gaara groaned while going balls-deep in your pussy as arousal leaked down over your ass. The thought of him driven feral with need for you made you clench around his cock.

  You moaned and let the waves of pleasure wash your worries away. Gaara rolled his hips, putting more pressure against your clit to make you squirm beneath him.

  "Fuck~!" You cried out while tugging on his hair. "Please- Oh, fuck!- Please do that again." Gaara obliged, making you clench around him again.

  You pulled his hair to bury your face in his neck. His grip on your leg tightened as he went harder, making you moan louder into his skin. Gaara growled with satisfaction and maintained his heavy pace to keep hearing you.

  Your nails dug into his skin as your toes curled. Gaara bucked when you began to leave sloppy kisses on his neck. You nipped his warm skin, and hearing the way his breath shook, you bit harder, making him groan.

  Gaara was falling apart on top of you, grinding and thrusting while moaning near your ear. When you bit down hard enough to leave a mark, he couldn't take anymore. His cock was buried to the hilt as he was coming. You licked the bite while smirking and holding him close.

  Listening to him panting, you could feel his racing heart against your chest. Your fingers in his hair loosened their grip and began to gently rub his scalp to help him calm down.

  "I'm sorry." His voice was quiet.

  "Hm?"

  "I'm sorry." Gaara let go of your knee. "You didn't get to-"

  "Stop. It's okay." You cut him off and kissed his cheek. "If it really bothers you," You grabbed one of his hands and raised it. "you can use your hands." He watched as some of his fingers disappeared in your mouth. His chest rumbled with his eyes locked on your lips and tongue.

  You weren't able to leave until hours later, body still buzzing and delightfully exhausted. Gaara wanted to explore you and had done just that. The fact that you left without underwear also meant you had to go straight home and get cleaned up.

  It was clear things between you and Gaara would never be the way they were before. You began to bring him more gifts, starting with a small potted succulent to put in the window. When asked about it, you would say that it was an attempt to make the place less barren and easier to work in. The elders would roll their eyes but let you keep the growing number of plants in the windows.

  All the while, you would sneak into Gaara's cage to spend time with him when no one else was around. From cuddling and sharing stories to sex that left you breathless, your relationship with Gaara grew. When he was in human form, you loved it when he smiled and clung to those moments.

  "Who would have known this was all it took?" A woman's voice made you look up while you were wiping your hands off on your apron. You had just cleaned up after feeding Gaara and returned to see a blonde woman standing near one of the windows, touching one of the potted succulents.

  "I'm sorry, I don't understand." You said, and the woman looked back over her shoulder at you. You froze when you realized she was the Kazekage's daughter.

  "You've been his caretaker longer than most. He even seems to like you." Her gaze drifted over you before she glanced at Gaara. "I wanted to know why. You don't seem all that special. You can't even control his curse seal." Temari's tone was steady as she spoke. "You also aren't the first to try being kind to him. In fact, the last person who tried to be kind to him ended up unrecognizable. So I couldn't understand what made you different." She then looked at the plants in the window again.

  "I wish I could tell you." You chuckled nervously while shifting your weight on your feet.

  "There's no need. I can see it now that I'm here." Temari crossed her arms. "You actually mean it. I heard you talking to him earlier. You were genuine in asking him how he slept and how he was feeling. Being genuine is something I've never seen anyone do for Gaara." She turned to face you and got closer. "You walked with him right into the village without being attacked or anyone else getting hurt. It has people asking questions."

  "What? Why?"

  "Do you really have to ask?" Temari suddenly grabbed you and shoved you against the cage bars. With one hand on the back of your head, she had your face pressed against the bars. Gaara was snarling with his hackles raised as he paced the cage. "He won't attack you. He attacks everyone if given the chance. My brother and I have scars to prove it. Gaara isn't some stray dog who starts obeying after being fed, and we all know it. People are thinking you're a witch."

  "I'm not!"

  "I know." Her grip loosened as she looked at Gaara. "But you should be careful." Temari backed away from you and moved to leave. "The Kazekage always puts the village first. If what you've done has weakened Sunagakure's greatest weapon, he won't take kindly to that."

  The silence that followed her warning was tense.

  "She knows, doesn't she?" You muttered while staring in the direction Temari had gone. "About you, I mean." Looking at Gaara, you saw him turning into his human form before grabbing the cage bars.

  "Yes. I wasn't always locked away. Hurting them is how I got here." Gaara averted his gaze to look at the ground. "It was harder to control when I was younger. People hurt me, so I hurt them."

  "Then Temari and Kankuro aren't going to be on your side anytime soon."

  "No." Gaara shook his head. "Which means you need to make sure no one learns that you know."

  "Do you never want to leave this cage? You don't have to keep going through this." You cupped his cheek in your hand while studying his expression.

  "It's better that I'm here."

  "How? You're not some wild animal, Gaara." He didn't respond while holding the back of your hand as he turned his face to nuzzle your palm. You sighed through your nose and didn't push the matter any further.

  Your heart ached seeing him remain here like this. He looked at you and softly sighed through his nose.

  "There's more to that story."

  "What?"

  "The last person who tried being kind to me. Temari doesn't know what really happened." Gaara looked away as his grip on your hand tightened. "He tried to kill me. What I did was in self-defense."

  "I believe you." You muttered while brushing your thumb over his cheek. Getting to know Gaara, the real Gaara behind the raging beast, you learned that he was full of pain and had been lashing out his entire life. However, he was always honest about the things he had done even if it hurt.

  After Temari's visit, it didn't seem as if she was planning to make regular appearances. It was like before when she avoided Gaara. It didn't seem as if she told the Kazekage her thoughts about you possibly making Gaara weaker either given the fact that you retained your position as his caretaker.

  And when you stood in front of his cage with another potted succulent in your hands, holding it in front of your face while peeking over the plant, you knew. Hiding your smile with the succulent, you watched as Gaara's eyes softened and a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. He made a joke about how many plants were now filling the windows and spilling onto the floor but it wasn't a complaint. Hearing his light tone and seeing his soft smile, you knew you were in love.

  You also knew that could get you in so much trouble. Had you fallen in love with any other man in the village, it wouldn't be an issue. But you had to go and fall in love with the Beast of Sunagakure.

  What sort of future could you two possibly have? You didn't want to be sneaking around all the time just to be with him. What you wanted was Gaara out of that damn cage.

  Your concerns for Gaara would keep you awake some nights. You would toss and turn, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, but your mind wouldn't stop racing. On one of those nights, you couldn't take it anymore and got up.

  The silence of the night surrounded you as you walked through the empty village with only a few drunkards stumbling about on their way home. It didn't take you long to reach the building where Gaara was kept far away from the rest of the villagers. Using your keys, you got inside without being seen and locked the door behind you.

  Quietly making your way deeper into the building, you entered the room with Gaara's cage. He was sound asleep and curled up in bed. Moonlight through the barred windows provided enough light for you to find your way to the front of his cage to unlock it.

  Gaara stirred when he heard your key turning in the lock with a twitch of his ear. He tiredly blinked while raising his head to watch you come closer.

  "I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep." You muttered while rubbing the back of your neck. "If you want me to go, I will." Gaara shook his head, much to your relief. His tail straightened out as he was shifting his body as if to get up. "Actually," You stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

  He raised a brow in question, and you set the keys on the floor before timidly slipping under his arm while crawling into his bed. Gaara rolled onto his back with you lying on top of him. He looked down at you as you rested your cheek on his chest and heavily sighed.

  The sound of his beating heart beneath your ear filled the silence. You relaxed against him, and Gaara draped one of his large arms over your back while crooning. Running your fingers through the soft fur on his chest, you listened to his heart.

  Gaara nuzzled the top of your head, comforting you as your stress began to ease. Your fingers twirled around his fur, his warmth soaking into your bedclothes and reaching your skin. You wished you could stay like this without having to sneak back home before the morning light.

  You raised your head to look at Gaara with your chin resting on his chest. His head tilted as he looked at you. With a soft smile, you leaned up to kiss the tip of his nose. He huffed through his nose before licking your cheek.

  Chuckling, you grabbed his face to litter it with kisses. On his cheeks, forehead, nose, and temples. Gaara's chest softly rumbled with a growl that nearly mimicked a purr. He was loving the attention and your touch.

  Gaara made a sound like a rolling chirp when you rubbed the base of his ears. His arm over your back pulled you closer to his face. Burying his head under your chin, he was breathing in your scent as your fingers went through his hair and fur.

  "Look at you being so sweet." You cooed, and his tail curled. Rubbing one of his ears, you smiled. "You should've been nicer to me sooner if this is what you wanted." Gaara huffed through his nose again, the warm air hitting your neck and chest and making you chuckle.

  You wanted to be able to do this every night.

  "My lovely Gaara." Your voice was soft as you traced your fingers along his jaw. Gaara gave a pleased rumble as his tail slowly swayed, letting you know that he was still enjoying the contact. "Maybe next time I'll sneak you out to my house." His ears perked up. "Oh, you like that idea, do you?" You chuckled, and he nodded. "I could bring a cloak to disguise your human form. Then I could make us dinner."

  Gaara was quietly listening to your musing as you ran your fingers through his hair. His tail coiling rustled the straw in his bed.

  "After dinner, we could have a bath. Nice and warm. You'd end up smelling like me, though, unless I get you your own soap." You hummed but felt Gaara shake his head. "No? You don't mind using my soap?" He shook his head again. "All right, then. We could even help each other wash up. I often have some trouble getting my back. You'd help me with that, wouldn't you?" You asked as your hand went down the side of his neck and over his chest to his shoulder.

  Gaara nodded after a short pause. His ears were low and his heart was beating faster. Looking at Gaara, it didn't take you long to figure out why he wasn't as relaxed as before. While you were talking, he was imagining.

  "See? You're so sweet." You pretended not to notice the changes in Gaara and continued to talk. "My bathroom is pretty small, so it'd be a tight fit for both of us in there. We can make it work if you don't mind being close to me. Hmm. I won't have to fill the tub as much with you in there, though. If I did, there'd just be water getting everywhere." Your fingers traced lazy circles in his short fur. "And then we could cuddle in my bed. It's not as spacious as yours, but you should be able to fit with me in your human form."

  There was a quiet groan from Gaara that made you scoff in amusement.

  "What? Don't want to squeeze in? Sorry, prince. I can't afford a luxurious house. It's also a good thing you don't think I stink because everything smells like me in there too." You softly sighed but watched as Gaara's ears moved and his breath faltered. "I'm beginning to think you like that idea; being surrounded by me. Well, you'd have to behave for me to be able to sneak you through the village. Think you could be a good boy for me?" Your voice went softer, and his ears turned back as his hold on you tightened.

  Gaara nodded to answer you while turning his face toward your neck. You knew his mind was racing now even if you couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking about. Flattening your palm against his chest, you heard his tail twitch across the straw. His tongue slithered out to lap at your throat.

  "Is something on your mind, Gaara?" You asked as a smile pulled at your lips. He gave a soft whine from the back of his throat. "Are you uncomfortable? I can lay beside you instead-" You moved to sit up only to have Gaara pull you back into him. Chuckling, you kissed his temple. "So if that's not your problem, what is?" He huffed, his warm breath rolling over your skin.

  There was another soft whine as Gaara nuzzled your jaw.

  "Oh, I think I know what it is." Your fingers circled the dark spot on his chest. "You're thinking about me naked, aren't you? Soaking wet from a bath. Skin warm and soft beneath your hands." You purred as your hand went down his torso. "The smell of fresh soap clinging to my hair. Sheets soaked in my scent." Gaara groaned low, making his chest vibrate beneath you. "I can sneak you over tomorrow if you're that interested. But for tonight...." You trailed off while lifting your tunic higher up your thigh.

  Gaara's gaze followed your hand, watching as more of your skin became exposed. When you glanced back, you saw that Gaara's hard cock was already leaking with precum. Looking at him with a smile, you scooted down his torso to press yourself against his erection. He moved his arms to give you more room.

  Slipping off your underwear, you then took off your tunic. Straddling Gaara's hips, you leaned back while placing a hand on his thigh for stability. His cock was pressing against your ass while your other hand traveled over your body.

  His breath quickened as he watched you. Your hand went down your torso before your fingers spread yourself wider. There was a low growl from deep in Gaara's chest as he stared at your pussy on display for him. His tongue hungrily licked his maw while watching your fingers glide through your arousal. You circled your entrance and up to your clit.

  Your breath faltered from how you touched yourself. Gaara couldn't look away, drinking in how the moonlight lit your skin and made your wetness glisten. His eyes were begging for more.

  Letting your head fall back with a groan as you rubbed the throbbing bud beneath your fingers, you bared your throat to Gaara. He sat up, taking his chance to taste your skin with his long tongue curling around your neck. Your hand on his thigh moved to push against his chest.

  "Lie back down." Gaara hesitated with a whine before doing as told. He was eager, needy, and you had been teasing him with fantasies. You made him watch as you slid your fingers into your pussy and coated them in your slick. Gaara looked so close to snapping.

  Pulling your fingers free, you lifted your hips to bring Gaara's cock in front of you. Your wet fingers smeared your arousal along his shaft as he groaned. You hummed while swiping your thumb over the tip of his dick, using his precum along with your slick as a lubricant.

  Placing one hand on his stomach, you lined up his cock, running the head between your wet lips until it slipped into place. Lowering your hips, you felt yourself stretch to accommodate his thickness. Gaara whimpered when you took all of him as his fingers twitched and his claws flexed.

  Closing your eyes with a sigh, you took a few seconds to adjust. Gaara rested his arms above his head to dig his claws into the straw. Raising your hips, you sank back down to the hilt. You set a slow and steady pace at first while readjusting to get a better angle.

  Gaara grunted as his face twisted with pleasure. You rode him with your hands running up his sides. His back arched off the bed when you clenched around him, his sharp intake of breath making you smile. He couldn't keep still beneath you, twitching and groaning with your arousal dripping down his balls.

  You picked up speed after planting your hands on his chest. Rising and falling on his cock, you moaned and panted, feeling his soft barbs from deep within. His head rolled to the side as he panted and his claws left scratches on the bed beneath the straw.

  His mouth hung open from his heavy breathing as drool dripped from his fangs. Gaara's gaze drifted down, his muscles twitching as he watched your body move. His eyes settled on his wet cock you were busy bouncing on. He groaned as his keen ears picked up the slick sounds coming from between your thighs along with your shaky breaths and moans.

  He could see how your body stretched around him and felt how it clenched and squeezed. You liked how lost he looked. He could easily roll over and mount you if he wanted, but he was instead letting you ride him as he squirmed.

  Gaara bucked, driving his cock deeper when his tail smacked against the bed and floor. You moaned as your nails dug into his fur. His chest rumbled beneath your hands, sending vibrations up your arms.

  "Does it really feel that good, pretty boy?" You purred, and Gaara's ears turned back as he whimpered. You knew that if he was in human form his blush would be spreading down to his chest from how he was acting. He managed to nod before licking his maw with a groan. "I can't believe just talking about- Ngh!- spending the night together got you this riled up. You're so cute." One of your hands slid down his torso, fingers ghosting over his abdomen and around his belly button before going lower.

  His body arched toward your touch as if seeking more of it. Gaara rocked his hips up, giving more of an impact when you sank down on his cock. You cursed through a moan and leaned back to place your other hand on his raised knee. Gaara continued to thrust his hips in time with your movement while gripping the edge of the bed above his head. Your hand that had gone down his torso now went up to your clit.

  Rubbing circles over it, you felt yourself clench around Gaara's dick. His entire body tensed as his lip curled into a snarl to bare his fangs. He watched your hand work while trying to keep his hips moving steadily.

  Your grip on his knee tightened. It was difficult to focus while seeing the way Gaara looked at you and hearing his sounds of pleasure as his cock filled you. You could feel your orgasm building and added just a little more pressure to your clit. You bucked, Gaara's name spilling from your lips with a breathy voice.

  Gaara's grip on his bed was harsh enough to break a piece off in his massive hand. The damage wasn't enough to make either of you stop, so close to the high that nothing else mattered. Your thighs burned and clenched around Gaara's hips. Your blunt nails were digging into Gaara's thigh when you finally climaxed.

  Your orgasm was the last straw for Gaara, his head rolling back as he bellowed. You were locked in place by his barbs while feeling his cum flooding your core. Your body was buzzing and sensitive, feeling every twitch of his cock buried inside you. He groaned as his body relaxed, and you let your gaze wander over Gaara.

  The rise and fall of his broad chest, the drool leaving a sheen on his jaw, and the way his fingers spread and closed into a fist as if to keep himself grounded. When his cock and barbs began to soften, his body began to shrink from him shifting into human form. More of his cum spilled out and dripped down his balls before he propped himself up on his elbows to look at you.

  Seeing the little smile on your face was all it took before he reared up and grabbed your face to kiss you. It was sweet and hungry, his arms wrapping around you to hold you against his chest. Your fingers slid into his hair to deepen the kiss, but then you caught a glimpse of the chunk missing from his bed and began to laugh.

  Gaara was confused for a second before realizing what you were laughing at. His lips curled upward with a laugh bubbling up that made your heart flutter. His pretty eyes glittered in the moonlight as you both laughed together over the broken piece of the bed discarded on the floor.

  Until Gaara suddenly stopped and his head whipped in the direction of the windows. He tensed, making you follow his gaze to see what he was looking at.

  Never did you think someone other than you would come to see Gaara in the middle of the night. He was feared by nearly the entire village; who other than you would possibly dare come here in the dark? And yet, despite everything, someone was standing outside and looking in through one of the barred windows with eyes wide in shock.

  Dread settled in your gut. How much had this person seen? You were naked in the arms of a man in the Beast's cage; it wouldn't be hard to figure out what was going on.

  "Gaara, what the fuck?!" The man outside whisper-yelled before looking away as if to check his surroundings. Gaara quickly leaned over to grab your tunic and shove it into your arms.

  "Get dressed." He rushed to move you off him before getting up. You did as told, pulling your tunic over your head before searching for your underwear. Gaara remained in human form, and it wasn't until the man outside came inside that you recognized who he was. Seeing the man's face made you feel even worse.

  "What in the fuck is going on here?!" Kankuro hissed while standing outside of the cage. The silence that followed was deafening. Gaara grabbed your wrist to pull you closer as if he was worried something might happen. He stood straight with his shoulders squared and a serious look on his face.

  "We were having sex."

  "No shit."

  "Then why ask?"

  "Are you kidding me? We all know what you're like, Gaara. I'm asking how the fuck this happened." Kankuro waved his hand.

  "Do you seriously want me to answer that?"

  "Yes!"

  "I became aroused, and then they took my penis-"

  "Are you stupid?! I don't need you to tell me how sex works!" Kankuro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose while his other hand was on his hip. You had to cover your mouth to keep from laughing. You weren't sure if Gaara was trying to frustrate his older brother on purpose or not. "You nearly took out my eye once, so finding you giggling and balls-deep in someone is the last thing I expected to ever see. Temari said you took a liking to your caretaker, but I didn't think it was to this degree."

  "What are you doing here anyway?" Gaara asked while crossing his arms.

  "I was coming to talk to you about what Temari told me. Wasn't sure you'd talk to me, but clearly, I got my answer regardless." There was an awkward silence as they looked at each other. Even if they were brothers, they were not close, and Gaara stood unmoving and unspeaking like a statue.

  A naked statue with bits of straw sticking out of his hair.

  "Could you at least cover up?" Kankuro sighed, and Gaara lowered his hands to hold them over his crotch. "You know this is going to cause problems."

  "Don't push me, Kankuro. I won't waste time with threats if you put them in danger."

  "Look, I'm not saying I'm gonna tell. But if you two plan on fucking next to uncovered windows, I'm not gonna be the only one seeing something. Now can we backtrack to how this even happened to begin with? You're not exactly known for being the cuddly type."

  "....It's complicated."

  "I got that already." Kankuro glanced at you. Your hands were clutching the sides of your tunic as you kept quiet to let Gaara handle whatever this situation was developing into. It was looking as if Kankuro was going to keep your and Gaara's secret.

  You just couldn't figure out why. With the brothers not being close, what reason did Kankuro have to keep what Gaara was doing hidden from the Kazekage?

  "Just tell me what you want." Gaara's tone was steady and cold.

  "We can talk about that in private." He then looked at you again. "I can walk you home."

  "They're not going anywhere with you until you tell me what you want." Gaara remained firm. He was suspicious and acting with caution. Should you worry about what Kankuro might do?

  "Gaara...." He trailed off before sighing with both of his hands on his hips now. "Seriously?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine." Kankuro paused while looking at the ground until he finally looked at Gaara again. "I'm next in line to lead the village, but I have no desire to do so. I want you to find someone to take my place when the time comes."

  "That's a lot to ask of me. I wouldn't think you'd entrust such a task to me either."

  "Well, I've got quite the bargaining chip now. Even if I don't want to tell our father about your secret little nighttime visitor doesn't mean I can't." Kankuro raised his eyebrows, and Gaara glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

  "I'll do it."

  "Good." The sealed deal left you a bit confused, but you weren't going to ask Kankuro why he didn't want to be the next Kazekage. Not at the moment, at least.

  "It's late. You should go home." Gaara turned to you before cupping your face in his hand to kiss your forehead. "I'll see you tomorrow." He then kissed your cheek before whispering to where only you could hear him. "I'm sorry you have to clean up the mess by yourself." Your cheeks burned, well aware of what he meant since his cum had been soaking into your underwear the entire time you patiently stood by as he and Kankuro talked.

  Kankuro did indeed walk you home after leaving Gaara. It was quiet and awkward given the circumstances. What were you supposed to say to the man who caught you having sex with his younger brother?

  "So....why don't you want to be Kazekage?" You asked after turning a corner.

  "I'm just not cut out for it. I've seen what it's done to my father trying to manage everything all these years. I know I couldn't do that." Kankuro heavily sighed while putting his hands into his pockets. "So....you and Gaara?"

  "What about it?" You averted your gaze, not sure what he was going to ask next.

  "How did that happen? I know you're his caretaker and all, but I can't see how you decided a beast was a good idea for a lover."

  "Gaara's more than just a beast." You muttered. "Like he told you, it's complicated. One thing just seemingly led to another."

  "I'm kind of jealous."

  "What? Why?"

  "I'm still single, and yet Gaara who spends most of his time snapping and growling somehow got you." Kankuro sighed with slumped shoulders. You couldn't help but laugh at his pouting but tried to hide it behind your hand. "Yeah, laugh it up. At least I'm not dumb enough to have sex next to open windows."

  "At least I am having sex." You popped off without thinking and immediately regretted your words. If you angered Kankuro, he could go back on his deal with Gaara and tell your secret.

  To your relief, he burst into laughter.

  Entering your house, you went to get some light in the dark room. Gaara slipped in behind you, shutting the door and locking it before he reached up to pull back the hood of his cloak. He took in his surroundings as you walked to the cupboard to get out ingredients for dinner.

  "I think you're right."

  "About?" You asked while setting out food.

  "Me leaving the cage. For good." Gaara's words made you look at him.

  "Really?"

  "I want to...." Gaara glanced away for a second before locking eyes with you. "I want to be the Kazekage. But I'll need your help." You froze while processing what he'd just said. "Will you help me?" There was some uncertainty in his eyes until you gave a reassuring smile.

  "Of course I will."

[lokisasylum]

The hate against Jimin & PJMS is so forced....

In fact its SO forced that now ANYONE can drag ANY member & instead of the guilty party suffering the consequences they can just switch their pfp to Jimin's and say "pjms started it" and army are such SHEEP that they'll believe it and keep on parroting "pjms are the most vile creatures"

But you know what I've seen in the last 48hrs?

Jikookers dragging Taehyung for no apparent reason, knowing that kths will only attack Jimin, not the golden boi wonder who's album is coming up.

So after they get Jimin dragged, who has to come and clean the mess? That's right, pjms through all the ReportForJimin accounts.

I reported over a 100+ accounts yesterday between Targeted Harassment & Hateful Speech (most of those accs had been reported NUMEROUS times before & were still around), while I was still streaming FACE and trying to keep ya'll informed here on tumblr about random Jimin news. And while reporting I saw NOT A SINGLE jikooker OR ot7 reporting. It was always us while at the same time being attacked by everyone.

The next nasty thing I saw were actual Army OT7s who are Palestinians, expressing their discomfort at being pressured to buy and support JK's album when a lot of them were caught in this awful war and it was more important for them to fight for their lives and their families than focusing right now on an album that will still be available for purchase and streaming weeks and months from now.

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED????

The got dragged AND ratioed by everyone; "ot7s", JK solos & Taekookers alike.

I saw them get messages like:

"So go k*ll yourself then."

"I hope you get blown off along with your family."

"You all deserve to d*e anyway."

"Jungkook's album is more important than your pity-war, cry about it"

Yeah, those were legit messages being said to these armys. And all it took was one of them fighting back by stating that armys were stupid for defending an album that had Scooter Braun's disgusting hands all over it. The same Zionist who's on Israel's side & gives money for these wars disguised as "wanting peace", instead of standing up for people who were actually suffering or being killed as a result of this war, for the narrative of these JK solos, Taekookers & even some "armys" to switch to:

"Oh, that explains it. They're just jealous of JK because Scooter is helping him"

"Its prolly a bitter pjms who's afraid that Golden will surpass Face next week."

And the whole thing just went to hell from there with Jimin getting called animal names, pjms getting blamed for EVERYTHING AGAIN.

And the stupidest part is, they're acting as if there aren't any Palestinians within PJMS/Jimin stans side who ARE boycotting, who ARE participating in protests, who ARE risking their lives too.

I did also see a large group of armys openly declaring being Zionists & those were cancelled pretty quick. But why does it take so long for regular antis to get cancelled as well? They just get to roam free, spreading their one-sided hate around for weeks, months, years to come.

And in the end its always "pjms are the worst" when all we're trying to do it to keep supporting Jimin with streaming/buying parties every day. The majority of us don't even keep up with what the other members are doing, we're just here for Jimin only. But still we get dragged into pity-fights between the other solos.

ESPECIALLY that BlockForV acc who acts as an ot7, but is actually a solo acc day in and day out targeting Jimin & pjms for attention (they're the ones trying to drag Jimin into that issue with gdragon over that Nike Dinner Party where BOTH Jimin & RM got invited alongside other Idols and Hybe employees, by cropping pictures of that dinner party to make it look like only Jimin was there. We didn't even know they were doing this because apparently Taehyung is also under investigation for something?? So they're trying to divert attention by getting Jimin dragged)

It's tiring, man...

[tendaysoftenzo]

TEN DAYS OF TENZO: TENZOVEMBER EDITION 

Every year, we are blown away by incredible submissions featuring our favourite adult ninja taxpayer. In keeping with that tradition, we will be hosting the event again in 2022! 

We invite you all to share your fantastic Tenzo (aka Yamato) content from November 1st to 10th, 2022. There are prompts for each day, but if you think of something else for Tenzo and want to share it, the more the merrier! Hosted by @keepyourpantsongohan, @sloaners and @ohayohimawari.

(Art above courtesy of the wonderful @sloaners.)

Submission

All content formats are welcome! Art, fic, graphics, podcasts, AMVs, an interpretive dance shown through claymation. As long as it fits the vibe, go for it! Tag @tendaysoftenzo and/or use ‘#tendaysoftenzo’ as one of your first five tags on tumblr if you’d like us to see and share your work.

Prompts

Day 1, November 1st: Tenz-O-Ween (Holidays) | Supernatural 

Day 2, November 2nd: I’m Helping | ANBU Casual Friday

Day 3, November 3rd: Here We Go Again | Home 

Day 4, November 4th: Science Fiction | Wild West (Cowboys)

Day 5, November 5th: Kakashi | Marry Your Dad 

Day 6, November 6th: Global Arts and Culture | What If 

Day 7, November 7th: Hanakotoba (Language of Flowers) | Bonds

Day 8, November 8th: Tenzo’s Delivery Service (Ghibli) | Odd Jobs

Day 9, November 9th: Columbzo (Mystery) | Vacation

Day 10, November 10th: Tenzo’s Quarter Birthday* | Free Day

(*What’s a quarter birthday? Since we’re hosting this event in the fall, we are celebrating Tenzo’s birthday three months later! Like a half-birthday, but sillier.)

For more notes about prompts/submissions, please check our FAQ.

Rules

Both gen and pairing content are cool! Keep it reasonable and healthy.

Reader/self-inserts are not generally in the spirit of this character-focused event. 

NSFW entries are allowed, provided they are clearly marked and under a cut. It goes without saying, but you must be 18+ if you are submitting NSFW content! Add warnings to any entry where necessary. Crop images and link externally as needed.

We won’t be accepting adult/minor or sensei/student romance of any kind, including ones where the characters are aged up. Depictions of rape/dub-con, incest, or explicit underage are not permitted and will not be considered as submissions. As always, we want to keep this event as inclusive of everyone’s comfort zones as possible. In the spirit of that, we hope you will create works that celebrate Tenzo!

If you have any questions, feel free to send us an ask! Have fun creating!

[ghostbellies]

Earthworms

(SFW SHORT STORY)

(A story I wrote about Engines. Yes, it’s Thomas and Friends, Get off my ASS. If you like it, drop me a comment! i love writing but don’t do it often! ALSO bear in mind that this is NOT my usual content, i’m just using Tumblr to post this to world lol)

It was a warm, drizzly day on the Isle of Sodor.  Rain fell in shimmery sheets over the island, the smell of new greenery and rich earth mixed in the air with the scent of petrichor. The sun shone through breaks in the clouds, spilling a golden light on the awakening countryside.

“The devil is beatin’ his wife”, Some Sudrians would say as they lifted their eyes skywards.

The engines on the Fat Controller’s railway hardly had time for such meteorological observations - they were busy at work as always, the Spring season bringing eager tourists from the mainland looking to enjoy the milder weather; trucks laden with paint and fresh thatch for Spring cleaning; and of course, lots of post.

Percy The Little Green Engine found himself pulling an additional afternoon mail train on every Wednesday, bringing priority post from the mainland. Although eager Percy would have rather blown his throttle valve than complain out loud, he couldn’t help but be a touch grumpy over the additional load, as it was always a rush job and always just shy of ‘absolutely bloody late’.

On that wet Spring Wednesday, Percy was hauling a particularly heavy priority mail train, running 8 and red-faced as the gentle rain became stinging needles against his plump cheeks.  Percy offered meek praise to the Maker when the mail depot finally appeared on the horizon. The porters were already racing around with carts in anticipation of the mail delivery, but he could also see a tall lady waiting patiently on the platform. She was wearing a lumpy raincoat, dirty overalls and muddy green boots.  Her brassy blonde hair was grimy, plastered to her forehead in the humid air.  As soon as Percy labored up to the platform, wheezing with the effort of hauling the laden trucks, the woman waved to him.

“Hello, Little Six!” she said in her big, brash northerner’s voice. Percy beamed, immediately feeling ten cars lighter. “Hallo Miss McColl!” He chirped brightly.

Amelia McColl was Farmer McColl’s eldest daughter. Only a few seasons prior she had taken over a good deal of the farm duties that pertained to the growing of crops, and she took it very seriously.  She was rarely seen without a healthy dusting of dirt on her clothes or a big box of seasonal produce and flowers to share with her neighbors. Percy liked her. She seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to the engines; sharing stories about troublesome crows in her corn or photos of her army of barn cats. 

Amelia stood aside as the porters hustled to unload Percy’s freight. One of them rushed over to her. He nodded to her curtly with a mumbled “ma’am” and handed her a clipboard, which she scrawled her signature on and traded back for a smallish crate. It was stamped with blue ink - RUSH DELIVERY: KEEP COOL.

“Thank you, Percy!” She said, bringing the crate ‘round to Percy’s front so she could look into the green engine’s earnest face.

“You’ve no idea how excited I’ve been for my worms!”

Percy raised an eyebrow as he watched the dirty farmer tear into the crate like Christmas morning.

“Worms?” He said incredulously. Suddenly he realized he had little to no idea what a worm even was other than the most basic wormy-understanding. He’d barely even seen a worm. Even as the smallest of the engines at Tidmouth, they were simply too far beneath his line of vision to see.

“Those little squiggly things??” 

Amelia laughed a big barking laugh - “I’ll have you know these are pedigreed squiggly things! All the way from Scotland!”

Percy’s furrowed brow communicated his absolute bafflement.

She pulled off the lid of the crate with the edge of her pen-knife and thrust her hand inside; she pulled up a handful of rich dark earth and held it up close to the curious engine’s pug-nose. She sifted the dirt out between her fingers, and as he peered closely, pale pink somethings twisted and writhed in her hands.

“These little beasties live their whole lives underground, eating dirt and keeping the soil loose and airy so the roots can breathe. They’re wonderful for a vegetable garden - a farmer’s best friend!” Amelia said it with a touch of pride, pleased with her purchase, clearly thinking the engine would agree. 

But Percy’s eyes were wide as dinner plates. He couldn’t look away from the strange things squirming desperately, as if the light burned their slick skins.

Suddenly he heard the sound of the mail truck doors creaking and slamming shut.  The porters had almost finished their frantic dance, and he would need to carry on with his daily duties. Amelia replaced the worms in their dirt bed, then patted Percy’s cheek affectionately. “Right! I better let you get on with it! I’ll bring you a bright bunch of posies for your cab once they sprout - all thanks to your hard work, and my worms!”

Percy smiled half heartedly. “Thank you Miss McColl, I certainly would love to see the flowers.”

But not so much the worms…

He thought to himself as he pulled away from the station, feeling a queasy rush of cold in his pump injector.

***

Later that evening, the engines were all bedded down at Tidmouth Sheds. They’d had the clinker cleaned off their grates, their flues brushed, and were cooling comfortably in their berths. The nightly indignation session was in full swing.  

“…I’ve had an ache in my flank since this morning…Driver says it was nothing but oh, I KNOW it’s a loose rivet…I shall come apart at the seams…”

“… A whole filthy team of footballers, all jostling and climbing in MY coaches!!! I could just DIE…”

“…I want racing stripes! Bertie says they’ll make me go faster…I’ve no idea how paint can do that but you bet your buffers I’ve GOT TO HAVE IT.”

Edward The Blue Engine listened patiently, the grumbling chorus of engines providing a familiar backdrop to the rain that was pattering on the tin roof. But one voice was missing.  He turned his gaze to his left where Percy sat silently, letting Thomas’ inane chatter about paint rush past him like a countryside view.

“It was Wednesday today, wasn’t it? Priority Mail day. Anything extraordinary?” Edward prompted gently, watching Percy’s eyes refocus as if he had been staring a thousand miles down the track.

“Worms.” Percy said hollowly. “I brought Miss McColl a crate of Scottish P..Peppertree worms…”

“Worms?” Thomas blurted out, a touch of jealousy piping up. “You’ve hauled a load of worms?! I’ve never hauled so much as ONE worm!”

Percy’s chassis rattled. Now that the seal was broken, he blurted the rest of his story out in a torrent.

“No you don’t understand…they…they looked so horrible! All pink and strange and slimy! She had a crate of smelly wet dirt, and they came packed inside in a horrible tangle… She said they live their whole lives underground…in the dark…”

“Ugh!” James The Splendid sniped, turning his bulbous nose up in disgust. “You wouldn’t catch ME living in the dirt!” 

“No respectable engine would have anything to do with worms. Pitiable tiny things. They haven’t even any arms.” Gordon huffily contributed to the worm deriding.

Once again the shed was ringing with cantankerous voices as the engines, big and small, provided their expert opinions on the merits (or lack there of) of worms. Percy seemed to shrink in on himself as the others talked over him.  Thunder shook the shed, and Edward seized his chance in the ensuing silence. He raised his voice only slightly.

“Oh, I don’t know. This reminds me of stories from the mainland about strange trains.”

All that could be heard was the soft tick-ticking of cooling fireboxes, and the air was thick with the engine's collected curiosity. Edward’s lined face crinkled with his gently mischievous grin. Now I’ve got them.

“Edward, I don’t like such frightful stories before bed!” Henry groused, screwing up his face in a look of distaste.  Edward just continued, knowing they’d all be hooked by the time he took his first pause.

"Driver told me on the mainland there are cities built over vast, gloomy tunnels underground. They tried to explore the tunnels, but they were so long and dark that anyone who set foot in them was swallowed up by the great yawning black, never to return.  So many were lost trying to navigate the tunnels, that they realized something had to be done. So the Great Controllers on the Mainland and the Makers got together to create a  plan.  They would tame the dark. Yoke it for their use as they have the great expanses of Sudrian countryside.  They brought in builders and iron workers and brick layers and engineers, but it was still so utterly alien and foreboding that they realized they had only one choice…to build engines to help.”

Thomas blinked in confusion.

“Engines? Underground? Away from the sun and fresh air? What kind of an engine could stand that misery?!” He knew the dark was not a friend to a locomotive.  Unseen hazards lay in it, waiting to derail an engine who carelessly rolled into it without their lamps, or worse. Tunnels had their own hazards, flooded lines or bad track that lay in wait. To The Iron Horses of the rails, the thought of a dank, endless dark was as unpleasant as a cold water washdown.

Edward cleared his throat of a bit of soot, and continued as his friends leaned in as if trying to breathe in his words.

“Underground engines.  Strong as the greatest LNER, and as fast as one as well. Great big beasts with wide, luminous eyes, though they are blind as a dead end. They haven't any fireboxes, because they do not need to eat…."

"Not eat?!" Muttered Gordon with a huff, already fuming over the implication of a faster engine than he.  "Nonsense. no proper engine could run without coal!"

 "...Or diesel!" Henry piped up helpfully, fully invested in this strange tale.

Edward continued quietly.  "Not a single lump of coal or drop of petrol. No - these monsters get their power from cables and coils…electricity.  They pull trains so long their tails are like rivers.  The Makers created the perfect engine for these inhospitable depths…the subway train. Never sleeping, stopping only to pick up passengers. They hurtle down these subterranean tracks, screaming into the dark like banshees, searching constantly for someone, anyone, to relieve their toils.”

Thomas spoke up with faux-bravado.

“Oh Edward. You’re yanking our Johnson Bars! No controller would allow their engines to be treated so unfairly! Afterall, if they are strong and fast and pull such huge trains, they must be really useful!” His tone seeked affirmation from his fellow engines, but they seemed to doubt his conviction.

Edward just smiled, another rumble of thunder punctuating his artfully crafted pause.

“When the Makers built the engines, they only knew to make them really useful for the underground.  And no man, brave or strong, can live in the tunnels with them all the time.  As a matter of fact…Driver told me he witnessed a subway train break down.  The poor engine had been rushing through the foul tunnels at full speed when it derailed on a length of uneven track.  It lay on its side, bellowing in pain for days before they finally found it. They had to use a huge crane to pull it through the tunnels and haul it above ground to the works….”

“Did…did they fix it?” James squeaked fitfully, the trio of big engines shook like shivering trucks on a shaky track. Henry rolled backwards as far as he could go into his berth, hiding his face completely behind Gordon’s bulk.

Edward’s voice dropped to a low rasp.  The dying embers of the engine’s smokebox cast strange shadows behind him, making his careworn face seem hard and angular in the low light.

“They drug the pitiful thing up to the surface slowly, carriage by carriage. The whole time they could hear it’s soft, mournful moans. At last they arrived at the head… But those poor fools, the lot of them - they didn’t know, just couldn’t know…once the engine was in the full light of the sun…”

Edward SHOUTED in a manic voice!

“PUT ME BACK! PUT ME BACK UNDERGROUND! MY FACE! MY FACE IT’S BURNING!!”

The shed erupted in noise. Thomas startled back like a nervous horse, giving a fearful wheesh of steam. The Big Engines hollered, Gordon’s whistle blasting a strident, hectic shriek. 

Throughout the whole ordeal… Percy had been staring tightlipped with mounting panic. As the others turned their ire to Edward for startling them, the old blue engine looked at Percy…and winked cheekily.

Percy’s face finally broke into a wide, genuine grin. He giggled, realizing suddenly that he and Edward had shared a brief moment of solidarity. He was grateful to his old friend.

“So there you are, Lads” Edward said, chuckling at his rioting comrades. “You see, Percy was rather brave to face those worms unprotected!”

***

The Engines on the Isle of Sodor always work hard and want to be really useful…but every so often, when the rains come and they care to look downwards to the wet soil where strange pink snouts poke out of the earth…They remember the alien worlds of the subways and their fireboxes cool a degree or two…

All except Percy of course, who now knows that pedigreed worms really do help grow wonderful flowers!

[automaticneon]

Hunting Season

Helmut Zemo X Fem!Reader

Summary: Going into hiding isn’t easy, and you and Zemo have to find new ways to entertain yourselves. Your Baron wants to introduce you to something a little different today.

Warnings: Very not safe for tumblr lmao. BratTamer!Zemo comes out in full force, inappropriate use of a riding crop, impact play, Zemo in leather gloves (that deserves its own warning in my opinion), oral (fem receiving) but with ✨added spice✨

When your new partner Zemo had said that you were going to have to lay low for a while, there was evidently an error in communication.

You see in your world flying under the radar meant months travelling between safehouses and run-down apartments, living out of your rucksack and calculating how long you could make your rations last before you had to emerge to restock. 

In Zemo’s world that meant something entirely different.

After his escape in Riga the two of you had rendezvoused and begun the long drive to Austria, hesitant to take the jet out of fear the Dora Milaje would be keeping tabs on it. After two days of driving and an overnight stop in Poland the two of you had finally arrived at the location Helmut had deemed sensible for your hiding place. 

A sprawling country manor somewhere between Vienna and Graz. 

“I inherited it from my mothers side,” he told you when you first entered the light airy entry hallway, as if it was a common occurrence that someone would inherit such a place.

It was times like these that you were reminded that you and Helmut were not cut from the same cloth, he was a literal Baron and you were only an agent of S.H.E.I.L.D. 

Had been. You had been an agent of S.H.E.I.L.D. You were now technically a fugitive of the law, wanted for aiding and abetting the escape of your criminal boyfriend.

It took a lot of time to adjust to your new life in the manor, but Zemo was ever so patient with you. He never berated you for getting lost in the long hallways, was always patient when you asked about the difference between a Baron and an Earl, and humoured you when you quizzed him about the events frequented by aristocracy. 

Eventually you began to feel at home. You and Helmut fell into a happy routine of exploring the house and grounds and enjoying each others company. 

Of course these activities were all interspersed with a healthy dose of fucking. Frantic, groping sex hiding behind marble statues in the sculpture gallery, giving fashion shows to Zemo in all the new clothes he bought you just so he could tear them off you again, kneeling between his thighs in the parlour whilst he enjoyed his evening whisky. 

The two of you couldn’t get enough of each other.

“I should take you to see the stables tomorrow” he muses one night, trailing the tips of his fingers over your exposed back  “I want you to meet the horses before I take you out one”

“You should know then that I can’t ride to save my life” you warn.

An amused smile spreads across Zemo’s tired face.

“I beg to differ” he quips roguishly, breaking out into a smug laugh when you slap his chest in admonishment, 

“Don’t be crude, I’m being serious!”

“And so am I, you broke me tonight my love. You can be a cruel mistress when you want to be” he says, pressing a tender kiss on the top of your head.

“I learnt from the best” you say, and return the kiss with a brief peck against his chest.

“And I’m sure you’ll learn a lot more”

-

The sun over the grounds the next morning was bright and crisp, dispelling the mist from the lake and leaving behind a pleasant climate for your walk.

“You look lovely,” Zemo says as you meet him in the entry hall. He’s fixing the lapels of his long brown overcoat in one of the ornate mirrors and his warm eyes find the reflection of yours as you approach from behind. He picks up his trusty pair of worn leather gloves and slides them on, flexing his fingers to soften the material.

Ever the gentleman he offers you the crook of his arm.

“Shall we?”

-

The two of you make pleasant conversation as Zemo leads you through the grounds of the estate. Today he’s full of promises about the future, it warms you to know he intends to make this last.

“I should take you into Vienna soon, I know a place where they perform Mozart by candlelight”

“Have you been to any races before? We could visit Monaco, or perhaps somewhere in Spain would be less conspicuous”

“I promise we won’t always have to hide like this”

The stable was an old building, as old as the house, but impeccably well maintained. The stalls, of which many were empty, were arranged around a courtyard and as you wondered around the perimeter Zemo pointed to the various amenities.

“Back when we still hosted the hunting season this place would have been filled with horses. My mothers side of the family took great pride in their collection” he said as you stopped to pet the nose of a great black horse.

“You hunt?” 

“Not personally, my parents were fans of the tradition of it all”  he says, his gloves creaking as he flexes his fingers “I joined the army very young. I suppose when you start killing out of necessity, killing for sport becomes somewhat repugnant.” 

You knew very little about Zemo’s time in the army. From what you could gather it had been a particulalry unpleasant time in his life, one born from a sense of duty to his country and a need to establish his place in the world before he took up the mantle of Baron. 

Helmut’s aversion to hunting didn’t seem to impact his care towards the horses, he told you each of their names and ages and you admired how healthy and shiny their coats looked. 

As you walked he kept a hand on the back of your neck, a possessive little gesture that he had taken to recently. The warm leather of his gloves a relaxing presence as he lead you through the tack room, a clean and chalky white room with a high vaulted ceiling. Your footsteps echoed on the stone floors as you admired the expensive riding gear mounted on the wall, stopping at a collection of leather riding crops.

“Oh Baron,” you teased, plucking one from the wall “very kinky” 

Helmut gave you a lazy smile as you reached out and tapped the flat end of the crop against his cheek, huffing out a little laugh before taking it from you. 

“Careful there my love, you could do real damage with that.”

You laugh and move to perch on the sturdy wooden worktable in the centre of the room.

“As if I’d ever want to hurt your pretty face, Helmut” 

“I’m flattered, but it’s hardly a matter of if you’d want to,” he says, fixated on tapping the crop in his open palm “you need good training to use these properly.”

You narrow your eyes. You’re fairly sure that he’s sizing you up right now, trying to figure out if you’re down for whatever it is he has planned. 

You decide to bite the bait.

“Do you think you’re well trained, Baron?” 

For a fraction of a second he doesn’t respond, keeping you trapped in his levelled gaze instead. His nostrils flare and he puffs his chest ever so slightly.

“Get up,” he says in a tone that verges on cold. 

You obey, but the sparkle of a challenge still glints in the deep of your eyes. If Zemo notices he doesn’t make it known, simply clenching his jaw as you come to stand before him.

“Turn around and put your hands on the table,” he instructs, and you can feel his gaze on you as you comply. 

“We’re going to try something new today. You can always say no if you want to,” he says, placing his hand between your shoulder blades and pushing, bending you slightly over the table.

Experimenting wasn’t anything new with you and Zemo, over the last few months the two of you had tried just about everything that took your fancy in the bedroom. You were fairly sure you knew what he had planned, particularly from the way he was using the riding crop to tease the inside of your leg, but you still wanted him to say it out loud.

“What do you have planned?” you ask, and your voice gives out just a little when Helmut uses the crop to make the tiniest slap against your leg.

“Five hits. If you can take five hits I’ll give you something special in return” he says, lifting the hem of your floaty skirt with the crop until it rests on the small of your back and leaves you exposed to him.

You know he’d give you something in return no matter what happened. If you noped-out after one swat? No problem. You had complete faith in this man to make sure you stayed happy and satisfied and so you arch your back a little in anticipation. 

Helmut smooths his gloved hand over the globe of your ass, lulling you into a soothed state before stepping back. You don’t look back at him; the silence and the tantalizing suspense only adding to the excitement growing between your legs.

You register the sound of the hit before you register the pain.

The soft whoosh and harsh crack echoes around the high ceilings and bounces off the white-washed walls. It’s not a strong hit, barely even a swat. Zemo had used more force with regular spanks before yet the harsh bite of the leather crop still startles you.

“Alright?” He asks, and finally you turn your head to face him.

A rogue strand of hair dangles over his forehead and his pupils have blown to swallow up his hazel eyes. Helmut looked as though he was holding onto his sanity by a thread, and that was a thread you wanted to break. 

You nod, not trusting your voice to remain levelled and instead turn to face forward again to await the second hit. 

The next swat was just the same as the first, but with the now tender condition of your skin it hurt slightly more. The third was ever so slightly harder, forcing a yelp out of you and making your nails dig into the wooden table. 

Zemo puts down the crop for a moment, coming to stand behind you and hovering his hand over the welts you’re sure are forming on your ass. You peer over your shoulder at him, watching the way his breath comes in quick pants as he examines his handiwork.

His eyes flit up to briefly meet yours before using his teeth to pull off one of his leather gloves and he tentatively brings his fingers between your legs, careful not to touch the tender flesh of your rear. His fingertips gently run along the clothed seam of your pussy, feeling the way your arousal is soaking your underwear.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he quizzes as you tremble under his touch. His fingers find your clit through the fabric and begin to circle it, letting out a low chuckle the way you moan and slouch at the contact. 

“God your wet,” he berates, and that momentarily sated spark reignites at his tone. 

“I’d be a lot wetter if you actually put your back into it” you quip, and Helmut’s fingers still. You keep pushing.

 “I assumed you were trained well with these. I guess I was wrong” 

Your Baron doesn’t respond, and you can practically hear the last strands of his self restraint snapping. 

Grabbing his discarded glove, Zemo presses himself against you fully, using his weight to pin you down against the table. The expensive material of his trousers rub against the sore skin of your ass, and you can feel his arousal pressed into you as he uses one hand to grasp your jaw.

“You’re going to regret that, мали зека” he warns against your ear, tightening his grip to force your mouth open and stuff it with his leather glove. 

Zemo steps back, pulling his other glove off and pressing it into your palm.

“You drop that glove and this all stops. If you don’t, then I don’t want to hear anything else from that smart mouth” he says, picking up the crop and taking his place again. 

You love it when he gets like this. When you’ve broken down that cool and collected exterior you know that both you and your pussy will be paying for it for days to come. Not that you have a single complaint about that, though.

The next hit catches you entirely off guard. It’s much harder, causing your skin to warm instantly and your body to jolt against the table. Helmut waits, probably to see if you drop the glove.

When you don’t he delivers the final hit, so harsh that the tears pooling in your eyes spill over, trailing down your cheeks and mixing with the drool that has begun to dribble from the corner of your gagged mouth. 

You don’t realise that your face had pressed itself against the table-top until Helmut is pulling you back up. He pulls the glove from your mouth, using one had to smooth your hair away from your face in a soothing gesture. 

“It’s over,” He says, pressing his lips to yours in a frenzied kiss “you did so well.”

He shrugs off his coat, placing the material on the table and guiding your head back down, giving you a soft place to rest your head.

“Do you want your reward?” he asks, stepping back behind you again.

“Uh-huh” you nod against the soft coat, all of the fight had been drained from your body, evidently the ability to speak had gone with it too.

You feel as Helmut slowly pulls your underwear over the curve of your ass and down your legs, shushing you softly when you whine over the soreness of your skin. He nudges your feet apart, and you feel him kneeling down behind you. 

His hands find purchase around your waist, and he presses a kiss to the skin of your ass, being careful to find a place that doesn’t have any welts. His breath fans across your skin as he moves to press a kiss directly on your pussy, pulling away to listen to your breathy sigh. After the pain, soft and pure pleasure felt so good. 

Helmut buries himself into the warm wetness, feasting on your pussy whilst you moan into his coat. His signature smell clings to the fabric and fills your nose, fisting your hands into the silky lining you pull the coat closer to you.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he manages to make you cum like this. All he has to do is bring one of his fingers to circle your fluttering, soaked hole and he has you falling apart on his tongue. 

He holds you up as you practically sob into his coat, pressing fleeting kisses against your swollen pussy until your aftershocks stop. Helmut raises to his feet, gently pulling up your underwear and fixing your skirt, trailing kisses up your back until he reaches your head.

“How was that?” he asks, his voice quiet and tender.

“Good,” you push yourself up from the table shakily, letting Helmut keep his hands on your arms to keep you upright “you’re waiting on me hand and foot for the rest of the week though” 

Helmut laughs, picking up his jacket and draping it over your shoulders.

“Of course,” he says, pulling you in for a tender kiss “your wish is my command”

You kiss him back, smiling into the embrace as a few ideas for revenge spring to mind.

[anasticep]

Why Julie and the Phantoms is a masterpiece of a show. Part 2. Heroes and Villains or Let that foil shine

NOTE: Thanks again for your kind response to Part 1. I never expected that. It being my first tumblr post and a first meta in quite a long time I was blown away. I read all the tags, some were really hilarious. About having more than one brain cell xDDD I laughed so hard. It means a lot.

NOTE2: Please remember that the gifs are made by me, so don't crop, edit or give as yours.

Part 1.

Before diving into meta, I have to mention that the Villain of the story is actually one of the best in the decade. He’s cool, evil from the start, we understand his motives and we certainly are not supposed to love and make excuses for him. The writers made sure of that. So back to the main topic.

A foil is a character who contrasts with another character; typically, a character who contrasts with the protagonist, in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities of the protagonist

Foils in literature are not necessarily antagonists. A friend can be a foil or sometimes even a thing, a song. Whatever can make a good and real contrast to the protagonist. But it’s not very simple to use this author’s device and not fall down a deep hole. Because you have to make sure you did just the right amount of work to make it understandable for a reader, the things you want to contrast are definitely there and still you don't waste a character. On TV it can be even harder given limited air time. And, well, I don’t come across this device being used in full very often nowadays. It’s usually good and evil fighting for the plot. That’s why I personally appreciate JaTP so much.

Caleb is clearly a foil to Luke. As much as I’d love to say that Julie also has one, that’s not entirely true, at least not this season. Carrie is not her foil though it may seem so, and I really think that’s cool as Julie’s journey is being presented through her own demons and I'm going to cover that next. That being said, of course Caleb doubles as an antagonist plotwise, but I personally consider him being written more as a contract to Luke so we could see and appreciate his character and journey better.

1. Origins

Caleb and Luke have extremely similar backgrounds. They are both natural performers. They know how to deliver, because c’mon, “Now or Never” is something and so is “The other side of Hollywood”. Stage is their natural habitat, their element, power. Although they channel this power from completely different places.

Let’s start with our little ball of energy. It’s emphasized TWICE that he doesn’t care about the money aka the physical side of art.

All Luke wants is to make music. Connect with people. He is so happy just to be heard despite him loving to perform. Making music is what makes him feel alive and basically that’s enough. I think if there was no “hologram” magic at all, Luke would have still been extremely happy to make music with and for Julie. Because that’s the way he is.

But Caleb doesn’t know that. He knows, and I’m standing by that, right away that Luke is the one to aim at. Because we always feel the similarity in people. If Luke said yes, Reggie and Alex would have followed. So Caleb recognizes the passion and shoots at them what he thinks is appealing. And, oh boy, he delivers.

“The Other Side of Hollywood” is a perfect song to emphasize Luke and Caleb being foils for each other. Follow me here:

But these lines come from very different places. For Caleb the only thing that matters is himself. He owns the show, he IS the show. It’s about being famous, drowning in applause, admiration. Look at how he performs. Confident, yes, but still very much in control. He must keep his perfect face. No flaws, no real emotions, no real connection (Did you miss ME? I did too // This band is back). Whereas Luke is simply living the best time of his life each time he performs. Is it just jamming? Bring it on. Doing fun riffs? He’s all for it. He doesn’t care how he looks (though who could deny gorgeous sweaty Luke), he owns the show just because he is a natural.

So back to the business. Caleb immediately puts the boys in his own shoes:

On the other side we live like kings // Your soulprint on the walk of fame on the boulevard of your wildest dreams // I got your glamour, got your gold, got all you’ll ever need

And, I mean, he is not that wrong. You can see the appeal on the boys’ faces. They are young, passionate, handsome, talented musicians. Of course they wouldn’t deny fame. Of course they would want all that to some extent. And Caleb is very sure he pulled the right strings.

Watch me make a move, I’m your number one choice

Also I have to mention, as we are talking about TOSOH (IKEA name again) and it being a foil for Luke, thy lyrics still don’t forget about what is important for Reggie and Alex (we’ll talk about that just a bit later):

Welcome to the brotherhood -> Reggie

Where you won’t be misunderstood -> Alex

Then again, lots of foreshadowing in the song, if you listen carefully the lyrics are stressing the true colors of the offer:

A tomb with a view

Man, what a metaphor. I would have run out of there the minute I heard this line. But our boys share one brain cell (I can’t get over how funny this is) and it’s currently taken by Julie, so I don’t blame them.

Disappointment is huge. Caleb read it all wrong. So we are moving to the next point in our Heroes and Villains essay.

2. Recruitment

It’s very cool that Caleb offers the boys to join his band right after Luke offers Julie to join Sunset Curve. They both are going out of their ways to get that (although have different budgets apparently. But look, they live in a garage). Luke made a hit with a bunch of Julie’s not very well structured lines (I love Flying Solo with all my heart as a song, but as a poem it just looks weird to me) to impress her, and we all saw the show Caleb had thrown to impress the boys. Plus food. And fancy dancing. But here is where contrast comes again.

Caleb offers to join the band, yes, but only as backup singers. It’s his show, remember? It’s only about him. He doesn’t care if they are even good. He wants their magic under control.

Share the spotlight with ME / How do you like MY new band?!

Luke offering Julie a spot in the band is a completely different story. He saw what she is capable of. He instantly knows she must be the key to a new sound, a new level. And he, a natural performer, frontman, lead guitarist, steps back and gives the spotlight to Julie. To think about it, he could have just got her magic under control by giving her simple lines, incorporating piano in the songs and that’s all. They would be visible, he would still be a center of attention, and Julie herself wouldn't mind that much. But that’s not who Luke is. Yes, there is a funny scene of “Hey, I’m your lead singer” and “you don’t have to be mean”, but it’s just messing around. Because right after that he finishes Flying Solo, writes several other songs with Julie, seeks her approval of Sunset Curve songs and basically follows her around like an adorable excited puppy.

Moving on and back to the rejection. Again the writers are mirroring them. Julie quits the band & the boys decline the offer. What does Luke do? Well, he tries the way he knows: books a gig, makes Reggie and Alex sing in perfect harmonies and does his puppy eyes thing. And it doesn’t work. And Luke goes to reflect and then probably try to come up with a plan. But something tells me he would not have haunted Julie until she joined them.

What does Caleb do after the initial rejection? Puts a cursed stamp that leaves them no choice but to join HGC. You don’t need to say more.

But in fact the more I think about it, the more I suspect Caleb also not possessing enough mental capacity for a human being. Like, if it wasn’t for Willie, how would they even know? Has Caleb planned to simply show up one day and casually explain? Look, foils in everything.

“You’re in a tough spot… So, you wanna join the band?” | “Looked like it hurt… you know where to find me”

But we sidestepped a bit.

3. Pulling the strings

After the song Caleb comes out to consolidate his success. What he does is clever and, btw, that’s the only time he becomes Julie’s foil. They are stating basically the same thing.

Again, Julie is concerned about the band and the boys, while Caleb is only concerned about having them under control. But they both are pulling basically the right strings.

What is interesting, Caleb actually impressed the wrong person (and that person is our sweet Reggie). Luke follows the string Julie pulled. Although the offer is tempting, he insists twice that they are in a band already directly to Caleb and then in Eats&Beats he says "It's like Julie said, we have a new band, a new sound». No matter what Caleb promised, Luke is not affected at all although Caleb’s offer is a very-very safe choice.

Speaking about using friends as foils, Alex and Reggie also serve as contrast characters for Luke at some points. Luke’s indifference to money is first stressed through Alex who is clearly the chief accountant for the band. His lines about not getting tips, living in a garage and «it’s a little bit about the money» are waved aside by Luke. Reggie is clearly the most affected by the whole Bobbie thing. His lines «I don’t care what Julie said, I’m glad we scared Bobbie», «So we’re gonna forget about getting back at Trevor?» are getting a clear contrast by Luke’s «It’s what Julie said, we have a new band, a new sound» and «He has to live with that guilt».

While editing the article I realised a very cool thing I haven't noticed before. How badly Luke wants to go on tour. And again that's another thing Caleb offers as if reading his mind. That's actually brilliant, to think about it.

Caleb is a VERY good reader. He tests the waters with a speech about disappearing from stage and going around the world and all dreams coming true. Still he doesn’t know the boys and especially Luke, so his phrase “no real connection” doesn’t register that much.

But he learns. Remember the lines I’ve marked before?

Reggie is afraid they will not be together after they cross over. He is in desperate need of a family. So wouldn’t it be nice to spend the rest of your afterlife with your brothers? (Reggie's main insecurity is loneliness, feel of a broken family. That's why he is the most concerned about crossing over. Will his family stay intact?)

Alex is insecure, and not being understood by the people closest to him will always hit hard. So welcome to a place where you won’t be misunderstood. And actually we know there is a guy you like and find comfort in. (Alex's insecurity is growing up in times when he could not truly be himself even with his family and for sure not believing he would ever be able to find someone meant just for him)

That mirrors the whole Luke’s beach speech perfectly. Only comparing them we can truly appreciate why Luke is the leader. He shuts down his own demons to make Alex and Reggie remember that they are not alone (“and I believe in you”. sorry. Olicity fan).

Caleb makes them suffer to get what he wants. But this time he is careful with the words aimed at Luke. Yes, he repeats his words about vanishing and applauses BUT he makes sure that his words about CONNECTION are the key words for Luke. Intense look, calming voice, touching - these are all elements of hypnosis. And Luke is in a daze. (Continuing the parents' thing, for Luke the main insecurity is not managing to connect with his mom. Maybe that's such a big thing for him: through all these people he wanted to find that connection with her)

4. The Hero’s journey

That’s the best part actually but I won’t be saying anything new or that you don’t know. Luke is made of lyrics and music. That’s his soul, heart, that’s the feeling running through his veins. He doesn’t need anything other than that in his life. Playing for eternity is “a gift no musician would ever turn down”. But he actually does turn it down. As well as his dream to go see the world with his band (is there covid in jatp universe?). He is the one who resists the hardest to the pull. Luke, who always has a guitar in his hands, doesn't want to play. Because it’s not only about the music now. He has this amazing girl in his afterlife who was willing to accept them for who they were, helped Luke battle his own demons, eased his pain and made him open up. And it doesn’t make sense any longer without her anymore. “And you’re a part of me now till eternity”.

Caleb, being Luke’s foil, completely misses the whole point of connection. It’s not in his nature. His house band are just recruits (Just so happens you’re in luck we’ve got a vacancy). For Luke his band is his family (We are the only family we ever gonna need). The Connection theme is one of the main in the show. And it’s so cool to show it focused through Luke whose best way of interaction is a touch. But not being able to touch Julie Luke has to find other ways, although it’s not that simple for him. And Julie backs that up: We connect in so many other ways. They literally touched each other's souls. Without knowing she put a stamp of her own on Luke, Alex and Reggie. They’ve never felt loved enough, appreciated enough, supported enough. They’ve only had each other. And Julie’s stamp is love. And for Luke (as well as Reggie and Alex) from now on this girl is worth dying for all over again.

_______

So yeah. I hope you enjoyed it, as I for sure enjoyed writing. There is gonna be a part 3 about Julie and a few honorable mentions of parallels of the Pilot and the Finale (I hope at least to do all that). I’ve also figured very very cool connections in the songs and I can’t wait to share.

Also as I was heavily speaking about The Other side of Hollywood, @catty-words has a wonderful meta on rain metaphors here (sorry for tagging, if you don't want to be tagged), check it out if you somehow missed it. It's super clever.

[dramaticsnakes]

The Revived: Chapter 21: Observations

This is chapter 21 of the Dream SMP multichapter fic @rainbowbutterfrosting​ and I wrote together! I hope you’ll enjoy!

AO3

Read in order (on Tumblr)

Characters in this chapter: Wilbur, Ghostbur, Ranboo

Word count: 3551

Cw: intrusive thoughts about hurting others, overworking, isolation, food, mentions of burning, tension between characters, arguments

Fic summary: Wilbur was alive, and it was such a magnificent feeling, that made his mind spark with anticipation. It didn’t take long, however, for Wilbur to realize that this new breath of life, was not just his own. An echo-y voice hides in the back of his mind, and before he knows it, the transparent version of him he saw at the endless train station, is a lot more ingrained than he’d expected him to be.

And Wilbur really shouldn’t care. Because he’d be damned, if he spent the life he’d awaited for so long, babysitting a lost cause of a ghost, stuck in the very same limbo Wilbur spent so long in. It was an even exchange, and one Wilbur wasn’t going to mess with. Why exactly he ends up setting out to get the ghost out of his mind, in order to save the both of them, however, is beyond him. And perhaps Wilbur’s past isn’t as easy to leave behind, as he’d hoped it would be.

The ticking of the clock became a constant to Wilbur, in the days that followed. It filled the silence when there was no dialogue between the two. The stacks of books next to him grew, as he tried to sort through them. The information wasn’t very useful for the most part, but there were always more books. More incomplete notes and recounts to look through.

Occasionally he would venture downstairs, to harvest some crops and settle his growling stomach. Once he took some of the remaining blaze rods and made some strength potions that joined their place next to the remaining instant health ones. He placed a finger on the glass bottles of potions, just to make sure they were still there, and then he would return to his seat.

He read whatever he found out loud, perhaps to remind Ghostbur of his presence. To fill the train station with something other than emptiness. He let out a quick breath, whenever the silence was broken by the ticking of the clock, that reminded him to get back to work, instead of letting his mind drift off into prime knows where. Into the void, and to the walls, that he could claw at all he wanted to no avail. 

The ghost spoke less and less as he read, and Wilbur’s hands shook, as he tried to pay attention to the way the arms of the clock moved. The words seemed to flow off the page as he read each one, incomprehensible to him aside from their sound. Information. Work. He needed to do something. Anything.

“Ghostbur, you said you liked writing books?” Wilbur had asked, once his mind had nearly succumbed to the silence.

“Oh, yeah?” Ghostbur had said quietly, a bit of curiosity creeping in. “It helped me remember and understand things better.”

Wilbur had smiled to the best of his ability. “How about we write one! We should keep track of what we know about everything somehow.” he said, finding that the words made more sense than he had originally anticipated, “We could write down what we know about our connection, and eventually figure out how to… Separate us.”

The ghost had gasped, “That’s a great idea!” he said, sounding a little more excited, even if  he still seemed tired.

And so, that was exactly what they’d done. In a chest downstairs, Wilbur had managed to find a dusty old empty book and quill, and had set it down on the nearest table. It dawned upon him that it had been quite a while since he’d written anything at all. Memories of declarations, and lighthearted words of victory, flooded his mind momentarily, until he managed to make sense of the quill’s movements. 

Ghostbur can communicate verbally with me, and I with him. The words seem to be clearer once they are directed at Ghostbur, though it is possible that the connection has simply become clearer over time. In addition to this, Ghostbur can hear the words and sounds of anyone and anything nearby, including muffled versions of them while I am unconscious.

As they wrote down more observations, the ghost seemed a lot more excited by his inclusion in something. By having a project to work on.

Wilbur thought, the self-centered bastard that he was, that perhaps this partially came from himself. That perhaps the ghost’s interest in keeping track of information in a library, or having a plan or something to complete, were some of the remains of Wilbur’s presence. Whichever part of Wilbur’s soul, however faint, that had stayed behind, upon his exit from this world. 

“You should mention that I see you sometimes too!” Ghostbur had chimed in.

Wilbur’s grip tightened around the pen, as he tried his best to remember some of his past interactions with Ghostbur regarding that. “Right…” he said quietly, “When have you seen me, again?”

“First time was right before Phil gave you that gapple, when you were really cold,” Ghostbur began, “Then after Phil left the mansion and you were on the ground shaking a little bit, then that one time with Niki,” Wilbur found his limbs turning heavier at each instance the ghost listed, and Ghostbur’s voice seemed to gain a tint of uncomfortable realization as he spoke as well, “During that conversation with Tommy where he… Got upset, shortly after you were shot, and uh… Under the table in the bunker a few month- days ago.”

Wilbur swallowed something in his throat, pressing the quill harder against the paper than he intended. “Got it.”

Ghostbur is apparently able to see me when I am experiencing intense emotions or experiences. We are uncertain if this works both ways.

Wasn’t that pathetic? That all those times, Wilbur hadn’t even looked up, or paid attention to his surroundings enough, to catch a certain glimpse of the one he had been speaking to ever since he returned? Did it work when Ghostbur was feeling intense feelings as well? Had he been so dense, as to not even pay attention to that?

Wilbur shook the thoughts off, and added a side note at Ghostbur’s request, detailing how it felt to pet Friend. It made Wilbur smile, ever so slightly, that that was something that was considered of utmost importance. 

Ghostbur feels what I feel physically to a certain degree. It seems to be related to the feeling’s intensity, however the longer I’ve stayed alive, the connection to touch seems to have grown stronger. Once again, we are uncertain if this works two ways.

With shaking hands, he added:

If it does work two ways, water appears to be an exception, as it burns Ghostbur regardless of which world it touches us in, without burning me.

He hardly punctuated the last sentence, before he shut the book, memories of pleas and apologies filling his mind. The addictive feeling of control, that was so incredibly unearned, yet appealing nonetheless. Submerging himself in water, until silence was all he would ever hear, and he would be alone. Alone in his mind, alone with his thoughts, and the ghost would never stop feeling the pain.

He kept his hand on the cover of the book, and his other tightly wrapped around the quill, until it felt too much as if both were burning him.

Instead, Wilbur sought out the bookcases, and the information that wouldn’t make Wilbur’s mind overflow with thoughts of the control he had. Because if Wilbur was always mere moments away from grasping at said control, the least he could do was postpone it, until such would only affect himself. Not that he cared particularly, but he could weave a few fragile threads of something that resembled it. Just for the time being.

And when even that became too much, he would lie down on a mattress, or lay his head down at the table, tossing and turning as he tried to drift into oblivion. The comforting darkness, that seemed more and more inaccessible to him each moment, and all the more tempting each day. He would eventually succeed, and would wake up to read a new time on the clock. Sometimes minutes later, sometimes hours, but always enough for him to hesitantly get up and keep going.

Totems weren’t any good for revivals. Apparently they’d tried using them to get Wilbur back. Nearly finding it in himself to ignore the strange improbable fact that there had been attempts to bring him back at all. Was his revival Dream’s own doing? Or the doing of wishes from others? If it was the latter, why had the reaction he’d gotten been so tense?

It was funny that, despite the attempts to revive him, everyone looked to him as if he brought himself back into the world. As if they didn’t spend hours if not days trying to bring him back. How their plans had changed and shifted constantly, and how the universe didn’t care.

There was also a bit of irony placed in Dream and how he hadn’t given a direct account on any historical events, since before L’Manberg. He found a few from George, but none of them were about Dream himself.

So that was what it had taken to take that perspective away from history, Wilbur had thought, ignoring that anything he might’ve said on the matters himself, had likely been blown up along with the nation in question.

Absent-mindedly, Wilbur had reread the parts of the book on Pandora’s box, about how he could gain access.

Not that anyone would let him. Not that the gist of memories didn’t fill him with dread that wasn’t his own. Not that it wasn’t a last resort. Though he latched onto the information nonetheless.

He was about to flip the page when the familiar echoing whisper filled his mind, “Wilbur?”

His voice was hoarse when he first tried to speak. He cleared his throat before responding once again, “Yeah?”

A hesitance lingered in the back of his mind. It oddly didn’t feel like his though. It was a soft blue contrary to his warm browns and occasional reds. 

“So…” Ghostbur took a deep breath, “Y’know how we aren’t going outside and stuff like that?”

Wilbur nodded, though confusion was portrayed on his face, “Mhm, why do you bring it up?”

“Oh! I- well, I was thinking about us going outside again?” Although it was a suggestion, the tilt at the end made it sound like a confirmation of thought. 

“Why would we do that? There’s enough food in here to last a while.” His eyes flickered across the page, “I would read to you again, but this book is about Dream.”

Ghostbur’s breath hitched as he stayed silent for a moment. “That’s fine. I was just wondering about seeing someone again.” Ghostbur quietly added near the end, “It’s been a while.”

“Don’t you want to get out of limbo?” Wilbur felt his words come off as disinterested with a hint of annoyance, but he frankly didn’t mind.

“I mean- yeah, but that doesn’t have to be our main priority right now. You can still enjoy your life.”

The life that no one wanted to be in. The life without a purpose. Well- he wouldn’t necessarily say that. His goal was to get the ghost out of his mind. Preferably, out of limbo as well.

“My life can be put on hold temporarily.”

Ghostbur hummed in a slight agreement, but it oddly lingered in distaste, “What if I want you to live your life?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Living my life won’t give me information.”

“Interacting with people gives you information.”

“I can’t interact with people when there’s a ghost in my head constantly asking what I’m doing.” 

The moment he said the words, he was about to apologize when Ghostbur sharply spoke, “Maybe you could interact with people if you stopped running away and talked it out.”

A scowl melted onto Wilbur’s face with ease, “You haven’t even spent a day in my shoes so don’t act like you know everything.”

“Well- maybe I would know things if you talked to me more!”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Wow, Ghostbur, feeling upset right now. Wow, Ghostbur, feeling pain again.” He mocked Ghostbur’s voice as if he was imitating a small child, “Oh no, what’s that feeling? I have to react to absolutely everything because I’ve got nothing better to do!”

“I-” Ghostbur sharply cut himself off before taking a sharp inhale, “Maybe I don’t have anything better to do! Especially when you keep on throwing yourself directly into danger without even trying to give me a warning.”

Images flashed through Wilbur’s mind to dunk his hand in the cauldron that was only a few long strides away. Screams that echoed through his mind. The pain would be longer for Ghostbur as well since time passes differently in limbo. Just a few quick moments. Just a few seconds of his time and Ghostbur would finally shut up. 

His legs stood up automatically before he forced himself to sit down again. “Maybe it’s hard to give you a warning. Surprise, surprise, I don’t know when someone is going to shoot me!”

“It’s not about knowing when the moment comes! It’s about you putting yourself in dangerous situations that hurts us.”

“Oh. My. Fucking. Prime. Have you ever thought of why I stay in this bunker? I’ve found a place that’s safe and you just keep on complaining about it. We’ve only been here- what a few days?” Wilbur exhaled out of his nose in astonishment, “I’m trying to do something to help the both of us and you’re just whining like a toddler would.” All he had to do was walk to the cauldron. Just a few seconds of his time. It would be so easy. 

Ghostbur’s astonished voice cut through his thoughts, “Whining?” Ghostbur bitterly laughed once, “I’m just offering a suggestion to you, and you’re not even bothering to listen. If anything you’re- you’re the one acting childish!”

“I’m not!” His eyes focused on the cauldron, no longer looking at the air as he usually would when talking to Ghostbur.

“If you really aren’t childish, then go to someone and genuinely apologize!” Wilbur couldn’t even get a word in as Ghostbur continued, “You’ve constantly been running place to place without even thinking how others feel. That includes me! It includes the fact that you don’t tell me what you’re doing and you keep on hurting me with your recklessness!” 

Silence. 

But the silence was oddly different this time. It lingered on Wilbur’s end more than it did Ghostbur’s. He blinked a few times, attempting to pull his thoughts together before they wrapped around the cauldron. It would be so easy to pull a few screams out of Ghostbur. His breath hitched when he imagined pretending to injure himself, just to wash it off with water. The ghost would believe him too. He would believe Wilbur was hurt and willingly let the water be put on him.

Yet, it gave a much different feeling to not warn him. He wanted to hold an ice cube in his hand, explaining it to Ghostbur as he did it. The naive ghost wouldn’t even know what would happen. There would only be the faint burning as the ice cube melted. Even more so if he squeezed it. Sure, Wilbur would feel a bit of pain from the action, but he could always switch hands. He’d hear some new pleas if he did that. More crying if he continued doing it. The ghost would become so incoherent near the end, just begging for it to-

“Wilbur?” A voice made him jump as he looked over to see the source of it. The one and only Ranboo was staring near him, his hands were wrapped around a book he held to his chest. It looked similar to the other books Wilbur had been flipping through, but the cover seemed newer than the other ones. Slightly thinner as well.

“Ah- yes, I suppose that is me,” Wilbur stated.

“I… thought Tubbo didn’t really want anyone down here?” 

Wilbur slowly nodded, “Oh. Yeah, I guess he did say that.”

Ranboo awkwardly bounced on the balls of his feet, “Do you need help leaving?”

Wilbur glanced at the books remaining on the bookshelf, “I’m good.”

Ranboo laughed for a few moments. The sound filling the air rather than joining a joke, “Are you though? This place is a bit funny.” Ranboo quickly added, “I mean, not funny as in a joke kind of funny. But I guess I mean funky in a way, like it’s just sort of weird if you get what I’m saying. When I said funny, I just meant that it was funny the way it messes with your head, not that it’s actually-” Ranboo cut his own rambles off as he appeared uncomfortable, hunching slightly over his book.

“Don’t worry, I’ve gotcha.”

“Yeah, cool.” Ranboo met Wilbur’s eyes for a quick moment, the green one almost mesmerizing Wilbur. “So, is Tubbo asking you to help out?”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow before his eyes flickered to the book Ranboo was holding. A look of realization came across Wilbur’s face as he pieced together that Ranboo was probably helping Tubbo with the library. The boy seemed rather reserved, so he supposed that made sense. “Not exactly.” Wilbur continued after a few seconds of the clock next to him ticking, “I just figured I’d stay here a few days.”

Ranboo tilted his head slightly, “You don’t have a house? I thought you ran a nation and all of that stuff.”

Wilbur shrugged, “I don’t know, man. Houses aren’t really my thing.”

Ranboo exhaled sharply in a way that could have been interpreted as a laugh, “So you’ve been sleeping here for how long?”

“I’d say a few days now? Not sure, I haven’t really been keeping track.”

Ranboo nodded, “What do you do for food though? I don’t really see a pantry anywhere around here.” Ranboo inspected his surroundings once more as if a magical kitchen was going to appear right behind him.

“There’s some carrots and melons downstairs. I did see some wheat seeds in one of the chests though. I might start making bread.”

A confused expression came across Ranboo’s face, “Do you know how many rooms our mansion has? You can just go into one of the hundreds and we wouldn't know for weeks.”

Wilbur’s astonishment bounced off of Ranboo’s, “I didn't know I was supposed to break into your home and sleep in a random room?”

Ranboo was speechless for a moment as he starting talking and then cutting himself off before he simply stated, “Or you could have asked?”

Wilbur’s mind went back to Tubbo. The failed comfort as he went downstairs. He shaky arms around Ranboo’s torso as he left. The uncomfortableness that radiated whenever Ranboo was alone with Wilbur. 

Yeah, he’d rather pass on their fake smiles.

“I’m alright.”

Ranboo stayed in silence with him for a moment. It took a few seconds before Ranboo changed the topic, “So you know Michael right?” Wilbur nodded. “Well, we were just inviting some people to our house since we’re throwing a little party for him. Would you like to come?”

Wilbur seemed surprised that he would even get an invitation as Ghostbur quickly chimed in, “Okay, I don’t want to stay quiet anymore. Can we please go? Please, please, please, we’ll get to see everyone again!” Ghostbur’s pleas hit differently this time as they were colored with bright yellow excitement that he hadn’t heard from the ghost in awhile. 

Almost automatically he responded, “Sounds fun, we’ll go.”

“We?”

Embarrassment shot through Wilbur. “I meant I’ll go, my apologies.” He could hardly hear his own words as the back of his neck felt warm and Ghostbur cheered in excitement. 

Ranboo seemed slightly lost in his mind as well, as he quietly mumbled, “Right, yeah…” His face perked up when he added on, “It’s at our house- y’know the whole mansion thingy that you’ve been to a few times- at about noon.”

Wilbur looked to the clock subconsciously as if it was about to turn noon at that moment. He strangely found it was four o’clock in the morning. “Wait, what are you doing here so early in the morning?”

Panic glazed Ranboo’s eyes before he quickly mentioned, “I could ask you the same thing.”

Confusion filled Wilbur’s mind. He felt like the living embodiment of a question mark as he asked, “I already told you I don’t have a house. You have one though. That’s why I’m asking why you’re here since we established I’m technically homeless.”

Ranboo nodded, the movements seeming jerky. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Wilbur was about to press more about the topic until he saw Ranboo’s shifting movements along with the raw fear evident on his face. Perhaps that was a side-effect of being a centrist- never explaining yourself or your views properly. Wilbur awkwardly supplemented, “It’s whatever. Thanks for inviting me to the party.”

Ranboo seemed to immediately relax, “No problem.”

“Is it noon as in six hours from now, or noon as in tomorrow?”

Ranboo looked at the clock. “I didn’t even realize it was four in the morning- wow- but yeah, six hours from now. Wait- four plus six is ten and that’s not noon.”

Wilbur felt like an idiot, but in the kind that made him laugh gently at his mistake, “Oh, fuck, you’re right.”

Ranboo let out a short laugh, “Mood.”

Wilbur nodded, “But, yeah that time works for me.” After a short sigh, he realized how exhausted both of them were. The eye bags were present on Ranboo’s face after he looked for a moment. The boy seemed to constantly shift as Wilbur looked away with a yawn.

Ranboo yawned as well, but an enderman vwoop came out instead of the typical human noise. Wilbur wanted to ask why the strange sounds came out of him, but he felt his eyes droop slightly. 

Ranboo noted the energy in the room as he started walking towards downstairs, “Alright, I’m gonna head out.”

“Good night- or rather good morning.”

Ranboo chuckled, “Good morning to you as well, Wilbur.” Ghostbur chuckled along in the back of his mind, seeming much happier than before.

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

My GIF making process!

I’ve been asked many times for a tutorial, but because I get really detailed, I always get overwhelmed by the idea. But I finally decided to buckle down! 

Just so you know: I don’t use PSDs in this, and I don’t import layers to frames or anything like that. I like the hard way—at least in gif making, I believe you get higher quality gifs. Join me as I show you how to make gifs by loading videos directly into the Photoshop timeline and my coloring and sharpening techniques.

Tools used:

Mac OS X (only necessary for the first step, and there are other ways around it with a PC)

Adobe Photoshop

YouTube Purchases (any streaming service will work)

Topics covered:

Obtaining the Source Material

Loading the video file into Photoshop

Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

Adjustment Layers

Sharpening

Exporting

Obtaining the Source Material

There are a few different methods for obtaining video to work with. Proper YouTube videos are nice, but finding any major motion picture in that format is difficult, if not illegal.

Once I realized I could get really great quality video by doing screen recordings from streaming services, I stopped worrying about finding (and pirating) high resolution video files. So now, I just go to whichever streaming service I need to, pick out the movie or show, find the spot, and record small snippets.

Mac screen recording instructions:

On a Mac, Command+Shift+5 will bring up the screen recording dialogue. 

Resize the frame of what you want to record within the browser. 

Go to a second or two before, press the “record” button, and then begin playing the video, remembering to keep your cursor out of the recording box. 

Use the Space bar to pause your video when you’ve gotten the snippet you need. Stop the screen recording by clicking the ⏹ button that is in your menu bar at the top of the screen.

Important: when the recording appears in the bottom right of your screen, click on it, and then trim the video on either end. This will help your computer convert the video file to the type that can be opened by Photoshop.

Click “done” and it will appear on your desktop, ready to be used!

PC Users: ??? Here’s a Google search I did for you

 Loading the video file into Photoshop

Lots of people use this process for making gifs (a great tutorial!). I didn’t even know it existed until last summer, when I’d already been giffing for years. I wish I could still do something like that with these screen recordings, but the files are absolutely HUGE, especially on Macs with double retina displays, which actually increase the dpi by a lot. Making screencaps of them fills up my hard drive, almost immediately—even when I’ve got 20 gigs of free space to work with. So what do we do? We just. Open the file. In Photoshop. Et voila!

You can do this with any type of video, not just screen recordings.

 Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

When Photoshop loads your videos up, it makes the video hilariously fast (something about frame conversion). You must slow it down for it to look natural. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE YOU RESZE. Your Photoshop timeline window should be at the bottom of the screen. See that little triangle in the top right of the video? 

Click on it, and a menu will appear to change speed and duration.

Change the speed first- usually between 80-85% will seem realistic. (I actually went a little faster than I usually would on this at almost 86%—I don’t recommend this)

Press the button next to duration and pull the toggle all the way to the far right (if you don’t do this, full length of the video will be cut off).

Now you’ll want to crop it. Ever since Tumblr upped its GIF size limit, I have been playing around with 7:5 ratios, but let’s go with 3:2 for now. Use the Crop tool, pick out 3:2 in the top left (it may say 2:3, but you can switch that) and then find the most suitable spot in your gif for that. Hit enter on your keyboard.

Some things to keep in mind when cropping:

Most videos come in 16:9 ratio (BoRhap is even wider). If it’s a wide shot, you’ll need to do the full 16:9 to not lose anything. Of course, experiment and find what’s right for you!

As you can see above, I moved forward in the timeline and made the crop to a point in the video when the broadest movement was happening.

Certain videos WILL have a black or red bar that may be imperceptible until you’ve already exported the gif. Just crop in a little tighter on top and bottom to avoid them.

Now you’ll need to resize your gif to be the correct size for Tumblr. If you don’t use Tumblr’s exact dimensions, your gifs (as uploaded) will appear blurry or pixellated. We’re doing a full-width gif here, which is 540px. On a Mac, I use Command+Option+I (for “Image Size) to open the resize dialogue. You can also find it under Image->Image size...

Make sure to also have “Resample” checked. Lately I’ve been playing around to see if different options are better. Most GIF makers use “Bicubic Sharper (Reduction)” and they are not wrong to do so. I’ve just been unhappy with it lately, so I have been trying this other setting out, “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.

Click OK. A dialogue may come up that asks if you want to convert to a Smart Object. The answer is yes, okay, do it. The only major caveat is that you can’t go back and change the timeline speed. That’s why we did it first. But you can preview the speed now that it’s smaller, and if you don’t like it, use Command+Z (or “Undo”) and go back a couple steps to get the speed you like.

You may find, especially on a Mac screen (and possibly other displays), that at 100% your gif looks too small to be 540px. That is the curse and blessing of working with super-high resolution hardware. Zoom in to 200% and proceed about your business. This is what it will look like on Tumblr.

You may find it helpful at this point to begin by defining the beginning and end of your gif by moving around these bumpers. It’s safe to keep gifs under 02:00f in length. Under half of 01:00f will be way too short. (I tend to overshoot in length and then trim the beginning and the end once I see how big the gifs are upon exporting.)

 Adjustment Layers

Now the creativity and fun begin!

There are a LOT of ways to get creative here. I’m going to keep it simple, very simple, but I strongly recommend opening up a new adjustment layer of each type and trying to figure out what each does!

You’ll find the adjustment layer menu at the bottom of the Layers window.

Curves

There are a lot of ways to make Curves work for you! It can do the job of Brightness/Contrast, it can do Levels, it can do Color Balance! We’re going to use it mainly to help with brightness here, but also to level out some of the tones. One of the quick tricks you can do is use the droppers on the left side of the Properties window. There are three- one with a white tip, one gray, one black. These can help define what your white tones are (and whether they need to be more of one color or another), and so on with your blacks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t; in this case, I think it doesn’t:

That looks totally blown out and somehow also too dark!

So instead, we’re going to use that little hand with the finger pointing out and some arrows pointing up and down. This lets you define which sections you want to get brighter or darker, and how much. It doesn’t do color correction. In the example below, you can see I dragged up on a white spot and down on a dark spot. Then, I moved points around on the curve itself to refine (which the gif here doesn’t show...).

Vibrance/Saturation x2

Next, I’ve been using @gwil-lee​‘s Vibrance/Saturation trick (I know you said you learned it from someone else, but I learned it from you!). 

Create a Vibrance Adjustment layer, bump the values up a bunch, and then change its Fill to somewhere between 2-9%. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then make a copy of that layer keeping everything the same, but make it Color Dodge. I can’t quite define what these do, but it makes it punchier!

Color Balance

Most people are familiar with this. For this gif, I’m going to make the shadows more Cyan/Blue and the highlights more Red/Yellow. Just a few points each. 

Exposure

I brought the Exposure up a bit, but not enough for you to need to read about, haha.

Selective Color

Here’s where you make fine adjustments to colors. This particular scene is extremely simple, color-wise, so keep it simple. I’m going to bump up the cyans/blues, take up the black by just a point or two, and maybe bump up the yellows and reds a tiny bit. (And as always, remember, the “opposite” of cyan is red, the opposite of magenta is green, and the opposite of yellow is blue. CMY/RGB!)

I think at this point I’m going to call it with the adjustment layers. You can go absolutely hogwild with more of them! But at this point, I’m ready to start sharpening!

 Sharpening

I do three sharpening filters these days. These are all under Filter->Sharpen. Make sure your media layer (default called Layer 1) is selected as we go through this! (Also, this can really take a toll on your processor, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Sharpen- This layer does the basic job

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 10%, Radius: 10, Reduce Noise: 4% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives texture

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 500, Radius: 0.3, Reduce Noise: 12% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives refined sharpening and smoothing

Fiddle with these as needed! Let your gif play all the way through- this may go slowly as your processor works on it. Make sure the beginning and end points make sense.

 Exporting

After You’re going to have to use File->Export->Save For Web (Legacy)... or use the shortcut of Shift+Option+Command+S. This could take some time for the dialogue to pop up! Be patient.

In my opinion, these are the best gif export settings for crisp edges and no noise:

Now you see how big the file is in the bottom left. Tumblr won’t let you upload anything bigger than 10MB and it’s safer to stay under 9MB, in my experience. When your gif is too big, you have a couple options. You can close the dialogue and change the length of your gif. 

OR, you can uncheck “Interlaced” and bump up the lossy to 1 or or more. This will create noise. Sometimes, that’s a good thing!

Here’s without lossy:

Here’s WITH lossy: (Honestly in a fast moving gif like this, it’s almost imperceptible, but I can see it!)

And now that I’ve exported, I can see what there’s a little black line on the bottom! So I’m going to trim that off and call it good! You can see the full gifset here.

Hope you enjoyed! Reblog if you try this out or learned anything. Feel free to reach out with questions any time!

[nexmakesquestionablefics]

Dash wants to romance Phantom and he should do it - Chapter 1

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Tags: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton, Kwan, Fluff, ship, Danny is an idiot, hurt/comfort, angst, dating, secret exposed

Summary:  Dash had a big secret: he was a hopeless romantic. Taking that a step further, he was hugely pansexual. Put those together and you had a big idiot that had lots of love to give, but nobody to spoil with it. What else could he do but fall hard and fast for Amity Park's hero, Danny Phantom?

you can read it on Ao3 here, along with several new chapters, but otherwise i figured i should get this tumblr running properly and i figured why not do it with a ship fic

Dash Baxter had a terrible, horrid, mind-blowing secret; probably the biggest secret in all of history. The truth is, he was a giant sap. Furthermore, and perhaps worse, he was an absolutely hopeless romantic.

He watched the romance channel every night, eyes glued to the screen with his chihuahua, Pooky, sat in his lap, gazing with the same rapt attention as his owner. It was his favorite time of the day, when he could go home and be himself… well, sort of. His parents would definitely skin him alive if they knew about what he fantasized about (cruises in the moonlight… wide-blown confessions… desperate tears as his lover is begged to stay…). They probably wouldn’t appreciate his sexuality much, either, which he’d figured was pan at this point.

And here was where the main problem cropped up: when Dash fell for someone, he fell hard. Snap his nose, shatter his skull, brain oozing out the ears hard. To make matters worse, he just happened to be attracted to the one man literally all of Amity Park was after as well- Danny Phantom.

Everybody else just wanted Phantom because he was a hero, Dash was sure, but there was so much more to the teenage hero than just the heroics (even though they were fucking amazing!). For instance, the way he grinned after finally beating down a stubborn ghost and it seemed to light up the sky. How he went cackling into a battle at his own horrible jokes. How his hair fluffed cutely when he slowed down to land. How his eyes literally shone with determination and bravery.

Suffice to say, Dash could go on for hours.

Phantom was strong where Dash was weak, brave where he cowered, and beautiful where he was rough.

It was honestly pathetic how badly Dash swooned for the ghost.

---

Dash slid in beside Kwan at their usual table; they were the first ones there, and simultaneously glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot.

“So I got the pictures,” Kwan mumbled, sliding them over face down like some sort of shady dealer.

“Thanks, Kwan. I knew I could count on you.” Dash palmed the photos and tried to discreetly look at them under the table. Looking back at him were several snapshots of Danny Phantom in the middle of battle; most stunning was the one where Phantom was inches from fucking roundhouse kicking some ghost in the face.  

“I thought you’d like them,” Kwan said, a little too smug, having seemingly have seen some reaction in Dash’s face, “they were in super high demand when I got there.” He sighed, looking over Dash’s shoulder at the pictures, “Phantom’s just so damn flexible… ”

“Imagine all the spider-man kisses…” he mumbled without thinking, but Kwan just sighed in sympathy.

Kwan was the absolute one and only person he’d ever told about the whole romance thing. Dash had been worried he’d laugh, but he was his best friend. They’d both been sat in front of the tv watching the romance channel within the hour. He couldn’t ask for a better best friend.

Finally, the other A-listers began to join them, so Dash tucked the pictures away and settled into the routine of gossip.

---

It’d been a long, long , wait, chocked full of flustered planning, working part time jobs, and reciting, but Dash finally had everything ready to confess.

To fucking confess!

“I’m gonna throw up,” he told Kwan through the bouquet of flowers he was clutching to his chest.

“No you’re not,” he reassured, “you know why?”

“Why…?”

“Because Danny Phantom is waiting for you!”

“...No he’s not? I haven’t told him yet.” Was this some kind of metaphor? He didn’t get metaphors.

“Huh? No, I meant, uh…” Kwan visibly struggled to salvage the conversation, “I meant kinda figuratively? Like… he’s waiting but he just doesn’t know it yet?”

Dash scratched his head, “I guess…?”

“...Whatever,” Kwan flapped his hands at him, shooing him toward the door, “go get in position and I’ll track him down, okay?”

“Alright. Good luck out there!”

“You too, Baxter,” Kwan called, waving optimistically over  his shoulder.

Dash took a deep breath in, then out, both ways trembling, before finally turning and jogging off to the confession site.

---

If everything went right, the plan would go as following: Kwan tracks Phantom down after a fight and asks him- begs, if necessary, that the ghost come to Amity Park’s gardens for ‘something important.’ There was a trail of roses at the entrance, leading deeper in until it came to the secluded spot that Dash sat waiting on one of the fancy benches, wearing one of his Dad’s fancy jackets and his best clothes. Dash would stand, give him, the bouquet, and then his speech… and ask him out.

In theory it was fine… but now that he was here, it felt like he was gonna pass out. He went too far, didn’t he? The trail of roses was too much- way too sappy. And what the hell kind of bouquet was he even holding!? He’d tried to use flower meanings to his advantage, but now it looked like all the colors were clashing. There was way too much. It was actually kind of heavy- or was that just his nerves? Dash lowered the bouquet to rest in his lap and wiped his forehead with his forearm.

Oh god, was he going to sweat through his clothes? Was he about to confess to his only love while there were growing sweat stains under his pits? It was about time to call this off; it was fine, they could reschedule, Phantom popped up several times a day and-

Dash flinched as his phone buzzed in his pocket, alerting him to a text from Kwan. ‘Hes coming ur way!!!’ it read.

Dash scrambled to make himself look halfway decent, sitting ramrod straight on the edge of the bench. A second later he smacked himself and leaned back, trying to look confident. He threw his arm over the back of the bench, but second guessed it after remembering the sweat.

Just be polite, he snapped at himself, before settling back with his hands in his lap, bouquet leaning against his chest.

He liked it when the characters in his shows were nervous to confess, but absolutely hated it for himself. How did they deal with this?

Dash waited for about another five excruciating minutes before he caught a bit of movement in the corner of his eye and saw Phantom coming around the corner- he hadn’t even heard him coming, oh god.

The A-lister stood, quickly smoothing down his clothes. Phantom seemed to have been collecting the roses as he went, now holding a small handful of them close to his chest. There also seemed to be a nasty looking bruise on his neck, just barely visible thanks to the high neckline of his suit. When the ghost finally looked up and saw Dash having an internal crisis a ways away, his eyes went comically wide (actually that was really cute…).

“Phant-om,” he began, his voice cracking on the very first fucking word, “uh, first of all, I’m really, really happy you could meet me here. Second…” Dash trailed off;  his nerves were frying his memory. He saw Phantom take a breath to speak and panicked, quickly thrusting the bouquet toward him. “This is for you!”

The ghost fumbled it for a second, what with already holding the other flowers he’d picked up along the way. The bouquet looked huge in his hands; it also looked prettier in his hands. Less child’s-hateful-crayon-art and more graceful-rainbow-over-the-sea.

Dash tried to take a steadying breath and spoke softly, “so I know you definitely have a lot of  admirers… like a lot a lot, but… I decided that I couldn’t live without- that I couldn’t go on without at least trying. ” He felt a hot wash of shame at the slip up, but he couldn’t stop now, “I-I see you fight and you make me brave, I see you smile and my whole world lights up. You’re just- you’re beautiful and amazing and- and…” Dash finally made eye contact, remembering that confidence in these situations was important, when his mind blanked. Oh god- oh god- Phantom was blushing a green glow. That was kinda weird- actually nevermind- that was fucking adorable.

Phantom glanced away and laughed nervously, “Dash, I uh-”

“W-wait, let me finish,” he cut in quickly, in a bit of a panic, “please,” tacked unhelpfully onto the end. Phantom shifted awkwardly, but nodded; Dash would have missed the way he held the flowers a little closer to him, if not for the subtle crinkle of their wrapping.

He huffed and forced himself to continue, “the- the point is! ...It’s…” the script was a mess at this point… “it’s that you mean more to me than you’ll ever know and… I want you to go out with me. Please. I-...” he nodded with finality, blushing madly. He’d botched that so bad. He screwed up, hadn’t he? Oh god… Kwan was gonna be so disappointed in him…

Phantom took a deep breath and shifted the bouquet to one arm so he could rub the back of his neck. “...I, uh,” he began after awhile, “I really, really appreciate this, but,” Dash’s heart sunk in his chest- more realistically, actually, it hit the bottom of his stomach with a loud clatter. Phantom must’ve heard it, because he quickly went on, “a relationship with me of all would get really complicated really fast. I, uh, I don’t wanna pin that on anybody. Especially not you. Dash. So…”

Dash blinked stupidly for a second. “...You mean the ghost fighting? I know- I know! A-and I’m prepared for that! I thought it all out- you could go out and fight ghosts, no problem, but when you’re done, I’d be waiting for you back at home!”

Phantom gave him an odd look, “...home?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Dash fumbled, suddenly embarrassed again, “I figured you lived in the ghost zone or something and that you could just come to my place whenever we wanted to hang. ...That! Also! Solves the whole thing about you being super famous and all, y’know?” Dash began gesturing wildly, his nerves getting the better of him at this point, “you don’t even have to tell anybody we’re dating! I know everybody’d be super pissed if you did. This whole thing can just be our little secret!”

The ghost winced before he could cover it up, “about secrets… there’s a lot I can’t tell you. About myself. About ghosts. It’s just… Dash. You’re- you’re a great guy and all, but… a relationship with me would seriously be a bad move.” Dash was about to cut in, but Phantom talked over him, “can’t you do better than a secretive, dead guy, who fights other dead guys for a living? Your still in highschool. Uh, aren’t you? So- so at the very least, go and like… be with somebody that can actually contribute to the relationship.” He shrugged awkwardly, “or, I dunno, marry some rich dude and ride out life with money instead. Whatever suits you.”

Dash saw his chance and snagged it with both hands, “ you suit me,” he blurted.

Phantom gave him a look and Dash would’ve fainted right then and there if it weren’t for the telling blush that came with it (those piercing green eyes could give grown men heart attacks, honestly).

“That’s not- ugh. Dash-” Phantom huffed in frustration.

“No! Okay, listen up, Danny Phantom,” the ghost seemed to twitch at the use of his full name, “I think you’re fucking amazing! I’ve been a huge fan since you just started out saving people. And the day that we both got shrunk super puny and had to run around a lot- that was really really tiring, but not the point! That was the best day I ever had!” Was he shaking? He was definitely shaking; he was practically yelling at Amity Park’s hero to date him. “There’s nobody else that I would even dream of being with other than you! I- I’ve…

“I’ve fantasized this moment a thousand times.” Dash swallowed thickly and deflated. “And I just… it would make me so happy if you agreed to go out with me.”

Phantom looked terribly conflicted- maybe even a little dazed. The longer Dash looked at him, the more he started to notice how banged up he seemed. Oh, right; Kwan had pulled him right out of a fight, without even giving him a chance to go rest up. Dash was swamped with a sudden guilt- Phantom had dragged himself way out here to listen to his blabbering while all Dash had been worried about were sweat stains and color coordination… oh god.

Quickly, Dash began patting his pockets, some of his nerves finally falling away now that he realized how bad he’d fucked up. He pulled out an antiseptic spray and bandages before offering them to Phantom. “I’m so, so sorry- I didn’t think you’d actually be, like, hurt hurt…”

“What? It’s fine, it happens all the time, uh…” the ghost awkwardly set the bouquet on the bench (very gently…) and took both items.

Shit, the ghost. “Wait, do ghosts even use that stuff? Dammit, I’m sorry…!”

“Again, it’s fine, chill. Just… why do you carry these around with you?”

“...Uhhh-”

“Duh, nevermind, most haunted city in America. My bad.” Phantom devolved into mumbling as he tore off a bit of bandages and reached below his neckline to press it, presumably, to his collar bone. When he pulled back, the bandages were dripping with green. He tore off more and repeated the process.

Dash watched for a moment before the guilt finally overtook and any hope of romance steadily fell away. He shuffled to the bench and sat down with a long sigh. “You can keep those. And… and you don’t have to answer all my earlier stuff. Not now- and… well, I guess not ever. ...Though I doubt I’ll stop coming to your fights.”

Phantom watched him warily for a second before floating to the bench and sitting down as well, leaving the bouquet to rest between them.

This is where there would be some beautiful parallel drawn between love and their relationship or some such, but Dash sucked at poetry and he wasn’t anywhere near smart enough to make metaphors on his own. So he just looked around the garden while Phantom dealt with the wound.

“...I didn’t take you for the romantic type…” the ghost mumbled after awhile.

Dash found his face flushing slightly, “uh, yeah… it’s sorta my secret.”

“I didn’t take you for being, what, gay? Either.”

“I’m pansexual,” Dash watch the collection of wadded bandages glow a collective, soft green, “and yeah… I guess that’s my other secret. I’m part of the A-list at school- they’re the best of the best. Cream of the crop. We’re the cool kids. The best- ”

“I get it,” Phantom huffed, but didn’t seem upset at all.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. But yeah, I’d definitely get kicked out of the A-list if they knew about this stuff… well, my best friend knows, but he’s cool.”

Phantom hummed and they fell into silence. Dash felt like he should be apologizing, but he didn’t want to ruin this more than he already had. It’d just be a broken record anyway. He sort of wanted to go home and try to forget this ever happened (a lost cause), but he didn’t want to just ditch Phantom after all he’d suddenly sprung on the wounded ghost. That would just be downright unforgivable. Could he walk Phantom home? Was that possible?

Just when he was working up the courage to ask, Phantom spoke first, “what would you even want out of dating me?”

Dash blinked owlishly at him, though the ghost wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Uh, duh! You? I already said all that stuff about you being super cool and heroic and awesome and pretty, didn’t I?” Phantom seemed to choke a little at that last one; he’d have to remember that. “I just wanna get to know you and, like, do stuff with you and… y’know! Dating stuff! We could watch movies together late at night, we could kissss? We could, uh, share food, share stories, just… date! We could make each other happy and all that.”

Phantom seemed to visibly flounder for a long moment, having set aside the bandages in favor of resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. A scowl slowly stretched across his face until, finally, he groaned and leaned back into the bench. “...Y’know what,” he mumbled.

“What,” Dash parroted, even though he was pretty sure that was rhetorical. For some reason, his heart was pounding again.

“...I’ll date you,” Phantom mumbled, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

A grin broke across Dash’s face, but he had to slap a hand across it before he squealed in front of his crush like an idiot.

[starswordartblog]

Super duper late thing for @oc-growth-and-development​ OCtober day 14, Cornered. I was super busy this week.

This can be read on its own but it’s a direct sequel to Day 4′s piece. Because tumblr is tumblr I’ll put a link to that in a reblog.

Also, content warning for religious trauma, I think? I did not base the Cavesong Cult on anything real but I think some warning is necessary for this.

Silvana didn't know why the men of the Cavesong Cult had her cornered. She was a simple village woman in the middle of her daily chores, getting some water from the river through her usual path, one familiar enough for her to navigate in her blindness.

"Miss Silvana, it's an honor to finally be in your divine presence," one of them said, voice trembling with delight.

"Um, excuse me?" She tried her best to hold back the shocked yelp she wanted to give, it would probably be rude around those important men. "I'm sorry but you must be mistaking me for someone else, I'm, I'm no holy woman, I'm but a humble villager under the grace of our God," she explained. No one had been forced to join the cult, but the people all came to accept the Cavesong God in some way. After all, His followers brought prosperity to all the villages in the area in name of their God, and had their magic as proof of His power. The more His influence spread, the more dangerous it seemed to be to invoke His wrath, and some defiant people had already paid the price, having been cursed with bad luck or illness or dried out crops.

"Oh, but you have been chosen to be so much more," the man said, getting close enough to caress her face. She recoiled from the sudden touch, and the man grabbed her by the arm. "There's no need to be afraid. You will finally be saved. You will be the next priestess."

"N-no, I..." the whimper of protest came out before she could stop it. She trembled in his strong grasp, terrified of what could happen if she upset him.

He pressed a finger to her lips. "Now, why would you deny it? God has chosen you to bless all the people in this land. If you reject your duties, surely terrible things will befall the village. You wouldn't do that to your people, would you?"

Why her? The priestess was vital to them. She would seclude herself in the holy grounds and dedicate body and mind to God and magic, securing their holy powers. Even the common people had several prayers to thank her for such an important role.

Why would they chose one this way? How could she shoulder all that? She would fail one way or the other.

But shaken by the man's words, she couldn't find it in herself to voice any more fears. She let herself be dragged away, head low to hide the fearful tears forming in her eyes.

She had never walked that far in her life, so she had no clue where they were anymore, she could only assume she had been taken to the holy grounds in the mountains, where the cult had been born. It was said it was once only a cave, but with magic, they had turned it into a mighty sanctuary, overseeing the passage between the region they oversaw and the rest of the world.

If any of the men had seen her cry, they had thankfully said nothing. She had had time to get used to their voices by then, they were four besides the men who held her, and didn't have the same grave tone as him. In fact, they sounded relaxed, complaining that the priest was getting a bit too paranoid sending so many to escort a single lady, and playfully joking about how special she was. To her humiliation she had also heard they laugh at her tripping countless times along the way, as she struggled to keep up with the hurried man pulling her along.

"Be at ease," he said, to no effect, "there will be no need for you to see or walk. You will only have to listen."

The words hadn't become any clearer or less ominous by the time they finally arrived. At first she heard their fellow holy men greet them, and felt the air change as they came indoors. Then all noise died down. The men behind her no longer cracked jokes or said anything at all, even their footsteps sounded more regular. Were they approaching the priestess' dwelling? She didn't know what to expect. Not for the first time she wondered what had happened to the priestess to start all of that.

She heard someone close a heavy door behind her, and the man who had guided her spoke.

"We have brought her, holy priest."

That actually gave her small relief. She knew the priest. Not only did he often preach in the village and lead the cult's magical effort, he had helped her personally when she needed the most, when she buried her old mother a mere year ago. Maybe with him there things could be cleared up, she was sure it had been only some big mistake.

She was pulled further into the room, her escort having adjusted himself to be at her side instead of in front as he had been so far.

She heard something in front of her move, the scratching noise of rock against rock. It grazed against her mouth, and the man finally let go of her arm to instead grab her head and press her against the stone shape.

"You will not talk," said the voice in front of her. She could barely recognize it as the priest's voice. It had no warmth, no energy, and was followed by a raspy noise.

"You will not run. You will not fight. You will not ask or beg. You will not cry. You will not harm yourself. You will not wish or desire. Should you do that, you and your village will be punished until not even rubble remains. No one will come for you. You will be proclaimed dead tonight, any sighting of you a haunt to be banished."

The stone shifted slightly, scratching her lips. Her arm ached. Her legs trembled. He continued in the same grave, monotonous voice.

"You will kneel in the depths of that cave, until your hear God's voice. You will listen, and the only words that will escape your lips will be His. You will listen to His songs, His magic. You will listen to His every whisper and secret. You will listen until you can tell all of His miracles, His cures to every ailment."

The stone pulled back. Her legs gave in, though her escort caught her by both arms this time, twice as inescapable. Once again she let herself be dragged by him, with no tears this time. She was shocked well past that.

Before walking away without a word, the man set her body to sit against some rocks, but she let it slip and fall to the floor without resistance. Without resistance was her chosen behavior for the day, and possibly her life from there on. It wasn't that part that bothered. She knew she was weak, every peasant should accept that from birth. She didn't mind bowing to higher powers, facing unfair hardships, and being dragged into pointless things. Her entire life was pointless, and it had been peaceful and lovely just like that.

This fate however, was a cruel mockery of her. Thrown into a fancy title, passed around by cruel people who expected so much of her, things she couldn't do. No humbleness, no peace, some futile turmoil where everyone would be doomed. What would happen when she failed, as she was obvious no real priestess? Who would be hurt? How many would be hurt? Why would they hurt the villagers for her mistakes, she had no family anymore and was too shy to have close friends, no one had reason to be involved in this, why not just her? She'd gladly stay with them if they didn't touch anyone else, why make her shoulder so much?

Footsteps approached, and someone wordlessly left a bowl next to her, leaving immediately after that. She recognized the smell of common fruits, freshly peeled. The fruits she grew herself in her small patch of land, the ones she'd eat at breakfast, the ones she'd serve to weary travelers in need of some hospitality.

It was the smell that belonged to a loving home, and the last straw for her. She wailed and wept into her hands, knowing they would disapprove of the noise, they'd warned her, but the guilt only made her cry more. She had worked so hard, no matter how much others looked down on her, all she wanted was an honest life, and now she had no clue what to do, if she'd ever have water to replace all those tears, if she'd ever get to cook again, if she'd ever feel a fresh morning breeze again.

The stale air of that chamber felt like poison. Back in the river they had cornered her. Here they had buried her alive. And that seemed like a long, long death.

Her screams died out into weak sobs, then even those dried out, and she was still alone. Time passed and more time passed, and she was still alone. Her stomach grumbled, and she was still alone, still with no intention of touching any food. Would they force her? Were they even real, had today been just a long nightmare? In that silence, nothing mattered, only the panic inside her mind wouldn't shut up.

"Eat."

She thought she had imagined the whisper, but the wind caught her attention. A weak breeze had blown from somewhere, and her relief was immense. Where did it come from, she assumed she was in a closed off place. She got up to her knees and ran her fingers along the wall, looking for some crack or hole.

It blew again, playing with the curls of her hair around her ear. "Eat," she heard, a little louder.

Silvana took a fruit from the bowl, understanding now the order, even if she didn't know where it came from. She hadn't heard anyone approach, nor did she feel any presence near her.

She felt once more that anguish in the pit of her stomach, that food was now something to be ordered to eat, no love, no care, hosts who didn't even bother to stay around. She clasped the fruit tightly within both her hands and held her head down.

"Please, please," she whispered, "I don't know what to do, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please talk to me, please just tell me what to do." The weakest breeze caressed her face for a little longer and then, defying logic, twisted and picked up strength only around her arm. The pain she felt from her escort's endless grip was soothed. She touched her lips; the scratches there were also gone.

"I am God," the voice said. "Worship me, pray to me. That will be all."

It was only more orders, but Silvana held tight to the brief kindness the healing miracles had shown her.

"Thank you," she said, and murmured a simple prayer before eating. She hoped that would be enough. She hoped God did not leave her in that silence again.

Theodora risked turning on the dimmest of magical lanterns for a moment, to see the sleeping face of the human woman she had taken pity on. For weeks she had sneaked around in that endless maze of caves and tunnels, unable to escape the watch of the Cavesong Cult enough to leave the mountains. The shame of lying and hiding away burned her spirit, but it wouldn't destroy her. She wasn't throwing her pride away; that was all for the sake of surviving as the last Air Elemental left, her father's beloved Sky Gift.

The Cavesong Priest was an utter fool who had killed her father to conquer the hidden power of the mountains. Even now as it consumed his flesh he still wouldn't repent, strengthening his hold on the region and believing himself holy enough to win a miracle cure. Theodora was a miracle cure yet had no intention to serve him, but if he was desperate enough to beg for messages in the wind she'd gladly play along.

What of the new priestess, though? She was a regular human with almost no magic, what did he expect to gain from her? Maybe he just didn't want to expose himself out there in the mountains, but how would a weak woman protect him more than his subordinates? It was pointless cruelty.

Her father always told her it was a duty of Elemental Spirits to protect humans as the weaker creatures they were. Having only seem the greedy, murderous lot of them, she hadn't had the chance. The young priestess however was merely a victim. Maybe she could be just as evil and corrupted if given the right temptation, but Theodora would say the same of herself if she had looked at the weeping human without a sliver of compassion.

She was no real god, but she could hopefully do something to keep that one safe. One day they'd both escape that hell.

[pack-the-pack]

Any thoughts on the aftermath of mating bites? I have a headcanon that taking care of the other's bite until its healed is a huge part of strengthening a pair's mating bond. Do you think Alphas would take pride in changing the Omegas bandages every day? Or feel guilty for for causing them pain? Would Omegas fret over using the best salves and anti-inflammatory medicine?

Honestly I adore this idea. But as in most of the asks I answer my response is not just “yes, pretty much” or “No” lol Yeeea, sorry about that guys… I do think that overall the biting and the care for it is an intimacy majority of couples take pride on, but I also think the process and importance itself might change depending on personal preference of the couple, culture, time period and social and economic status. Yes We are going there again, fasten your seat belts kids, cause it’s time for a History lesson, Pack style!!!

Warning: Mentions of death, abortions, mental illness, sexual stuff and all sorts of ancient hi jinks in an incredibly lengthy post (cut possibly unavailable on mobile cause tumblr is garbage).

Disclaimer: A lot of what I’m basing these fictional concepts in is very eurocentric because that’s what I know best, I am not a historian, I am not an archaeologist or a biologist, I have no degree on no nothing let alone an specialisation on anything relevant enough to be used as educated sources for what I’m about to write. This is just for fun okay, guys? So no need to rub your years of hard work and experience on my face or be like “well actually-!”, cause it will be like just, cool to know? But very unlikely taken into account past that, so just, relax m’kay? Thanks…… Also a lot of my knowledge on these things just comes from the “History of the entire world I guess” video so yeaaa.

So first and foremost, the types of things one would use to treat mating bites. Again, I think there are variants regarding time period and culture, but I think every culture would end up coming up with rather similar things, or overlapping methods of treating such scarring, and I made a little drawing for it :3 Nothing, great, nothing awesome, but because this ask inspired me to draw something. 

(Kind of messy, my pottery is kind of crooked and I totally intended for the background to be grey and didn’t just  fuck up cleaning up on the wrong layers and had to pretend that was the original plan, you’re imagining, but it’s from the heart c’mon).

Before people had this fancy thing called modern medicine, they had to rely solely on instinct, anecdotes and superstition to make their medication, and of course, bite treatment wasn’t any different. 

Whenever an Alpha would bite an Omega or a Beta or vice verse, the glands around the bite area would get irritated, itchy and achy. The most ancient method of soothing these aches was mud, just plain out wet dirt, applied to the area and left there to dry and reapplied only when the entirety of the first batch cracked and fell off naturally during daily activities. It was the hottest trend amongst packs 50.000 b.c. - Though there is also evidence of animal fat being used for the same purpose as well as snow. 

With the end of the Paleolithic period and the invention of agriculture things started to get more advanced, now people have bowls, and lots of seeds… and grains! Grains and seeds that they can squeeze really hard and it makes residue come out of them. This is when various types of oils started to pop all around along with various simple mixtures of flour and water. Many clay statues and other rudimentary paintings from these periods show a variety of deities and rituals that existed around the manufacturing of these products and there are indications that the importance of treating bite wounds only then started to become somewhat of a significant part of mated couples’ lives. It was believed that these smaller human settlements created by the first sedentary packs, aka warrens, didn’t make distinction between the Eleusinian¹ and Asterian² dynamics when it came to mating bites and the treatments of such. Omegas would bite and care for the marks they inflicted on Alphas just as much as Alphas and Betas to one another or other Omegas. It was only when these warrens started to grow into full blown villages and subsequently distinctive cities that these differences started to develop. 

Once these villages and cities started to gain shape and power, social hierarchy took on a new dimension beyond sole survival. Alphas no longer concerned themselves solely with the survival of their own small pack and hunting food to provide for their mates and children, Betas no longer concerned themselves with just assisting Alphas and Omegas in their daily activities as well as primarily caring for crops and animals, and Omegas no longer only cared to make sure their children and pack were in good health and cared for. Farming and the domestication of animals allowed everyone to have more time for architecture, writing, laws, politics, dancing, music, religion and most important of all: Figuring out how to divide people in a way that totally doesn’t benefit everyone equally, as one do. So now you got social classes and cultural diversity, and these come with different ways of treating mating bites. So around the period of the Bronze age to when the Greeks were like really important (specially cause a lot of the terminology and ideas about the dynamics carried nowadays comes from them and the Romans in western society) methods and materials started to shift a bit, but not drastically. Herbs like mint and parsley, flowers like lavender and aconite, roots like ginger and marsh mallow, and oils like that from olives, frankincense or sesame seeds as well as animal derived products such as wax from bees or blood and fat from animals and sometimes even metals like iron started to pop up all around from east to west as cures for all sorts of ailments and diseases. Brought through the sea or through land by merchants (rhizotomiki) who crossed nations and continents, carrying with them they brought all sorts of new superstitions and beliefs about mating bites. Flowers said to be born from rivers or lakes of eternal youth, roots and spices made of fire itself, honey directly from the mouth of deities or roots that’d kill any spiritual disease started gaining popularity quickly with pretty much everyone seen as a lot of these were said to provide for good fortune and happy and prosperous marriages if incorporated on biting rituals. Oracles and religious leaders would advise their followers and rulers to consume certain things before mating and to care for their bites and their partners with extra amounts of care because all of a sudden they started to become super important. Deaths, famine, bad luck, abortions and mental illnesses started to be blamed on the lack of care or the improper care of mating bites, said to either cause the body to perish in account of some malignant aspect of a specific plant or to have angered the gods in some manner. 

The high mortality that could come with infected mating bites became more and more apparent the more society advanced, but they didn’t know it was because of the infection itself yet, so surviving these was not only a sign of strength or luck, but a sign of status, power, money and higher spirituality. Emperors, Empresses, feudal lords in the orient, etc. All took pride in having enough money to buy rare ingredients from merchants from far away lands as well as hundreds of slaves and servants to care for their gardens, plantations and animals which provided them with an immense diversity of always available plants, herbs and roots that gained favour in aiding with biting marks. To be the chosen mate of one of these people would grant one with a similar status and privileges, such as not dying and having better flavoured bread or something. 

This also meant that they didn’t really want other people but them using these miracle medicines, because they thought that for the common people to use “divinely provided” forms of care would inevitably result in corruption of said methods and subsequently the fall of society. So now you had:

The rulers of nations and cities/nobles: Using and manufacturing refined powders from roots, grains and metals from far away nations in order to bind and cure mating bites. Rare Oils from plant eradicated anywhere but the palaces and gardens belonging to the highest circles, bandages made from the finest silks and sown and painted with all sorts of religious meanings. Concoctions that took hours, months or even years to be finished for a single claiming treatment, with recipes and processes kept secret and many times lost forever with trusted doctors/shamans that’d tend to royalty only. 

Generals, Priestesses, Shamans, Politicians: Using plants and roots that were common, but difficult to come by, expensive, difficult to use or “required” a specific ritual that’d grant them some sort of untapped potential from these plants otherwise, providing them “enlightenment”, “strength”, “wisdom” and “spiritual clearance” in order to win all things from wars, to new knowledge and insight on the gods’ wants and needs to political feuds. Alcohol and other fermented blends such and wine and grape must with marsh mallow, made to clean and close wounds as well as soothing burns were prioritized here. The immediate pain was considered cleansing and efficiency. Mandrakes were rather popular as well, but for treating “deep spiritual diseases”, such as when ones mate falls ills some hours or a day after the bite is consummated, or to ensure healthy and strong offspring coming from the union since it was considered to aid on sexual prowess. However given its “immense” power and magical properties it was rarely ever given or prescribed to the masses without the supervision or blessing of a highly spiritual attuned authority. 

Lords and wealthy merchants: Using, manufacturing and selling all sorts of blends, mostly creams and perfumes said to help with pain and itching. These would change depending on the city and the deities they worshiped and superstitions they carried as well as the plants naturally available in the lands (the ones that haven’t been eradicated or hogged by other classes of people). These were the ones usually gifted by acquaintances, and friends of the newly mated couple as offerings of good fortune, prosperity and fertility. These varied hugely in ingredients and price as well. Though there were other ingredients and recipes guarded with an amount of secrecy by these as well, gifted and used just by the family to other members of the same, these tended to be tended to and made with a higher degree of care, utilizing plants one would have at their disposal in their own home.

Common soldiers, artisans and lesser merchants, sailors and farmers: The people that didn’t really have much money, time or social status to dedicate to bite wounds would resort to simpler and cheaper methods of soothing their pains. Simply dousing the wounds with olive or fish oil was a common practice, as well as using salt water to wash the area. Clay of various kinds as well as coal and ground up seashells were popular on various cities as ingredients for lotions and creams and many times were offered to the gods as well as a form of prayer for good health and happy mateship. Lamb and goat fat was also very popular with the poor for its healing and relaxing properties, people would collect an array of herbs and flowers that’d fancy their partner or the both of them to incorporate into it, in order to symbolise their union as one as well as to mask the strong foul smell from the fat.  

Slaves: Slaves were usually prohibited to mate by their masters, but the ones that happened to mate someone or being mated would be punished with not being able to treat their wounds. It was seen as a disgrace and distasteful to not treat ones bite wounds, and people thought only fitting that slaves who step out of line would have their favour taken from them entirely on the eyes of their gods or polite society. As a result slaves had to resort to only using water and cool mud, many succumbing to the infections and fevers that were attributed by most as a corruption of the spirit and not worthy of pity. 

So as you can see, there was a divide in how they treated their wounds based on many things, and while some of these methods and rituals sometimes overlapped between classes the distinction was stark enough that you could clearly tell what type belonged to whom. It was around that time as well that the Eleusinian and Asterian dynamics started to get divided more and more as time passed. Omegas were treated as borderline property and in many places like Athens were not granted the right to mark their mate back, with exceptions occurring just in certain occasions (such as the soon departure to a losing war on the mate’s part, or to save the mate’s life though a spiritual treatment), Beta females and poor Omega females being forbidden to use certain plants and to take part in certain rituals by law claimed to be belonging solely to Omega females of higher social status, Omega males being prohibited of using any sort of soothing agents if not prohibited of being bitten altogether. Alphas having or not marks as a form of weakness or a show of strength varied ridiculously from city to city and from nation to nation (So much so that to this day there is not full agreement on that in society). And a whole lot of other rules and random crap just around mating bites alone. 

With the invention of modern medicine, these things started to change obviously, people had a better grasp of what helped and what just made things worse, creams, pills, oils,,and ointments started being patented and people would gradually only look to more naturalistic methods of treating claim bites as an element of a different all-natural life style or a belief (misguided or not) that natural = better. With all that said one thing has remained true: Yes, caring for ones wounds is something that is and was believed to strengthen and solidify ones bond with their mate. People always tended to care a great deal for it, doing everything in their power to provide for their mates in the best way they knew how, if it were through giving them private care by more servants then they can count, with the best ingredients in the world at the moment, or simply by choosing smells and things that they’d like in order to show how much they care, they took and still take great pride in caring for that very fragile wound in their necks. As whether or not this is more an Alpha thing or a Omega thing, or if Alphas hate or take pride in causing pain to their partners, that varies in belief, culture and time period. I particularly think that overall it’d be a mixture of both. They don’t want to cause excessive pain to their partner but they also want their bonds to be solidified forever. The Eleusinian dynamics were always the ones more intimately connected with the production and rituals surrounding bite soothers so to me it makes sense they prioritize its quality more than Asterian dynamics, but that also is a highly individual thing. 

Overall I hope this wasn’t a complete departure from what you asked >.> But I really wanted to explore this a bit more and your ask gave me the opportunity to. Remembering this is all just my interpretation and applies to my verse (PTPverse) which is completely open for creative use in fanfictions, RP sessions and others, so if you don’t agree with what I said here that’s 100% fine, to each their own, I just hope this somehow was able to help anyone ;) any lingering questions try checking out my other history posts such as the Ancient Greece Headcanons one or make another ask on my inbox for clarity. Peace. 

¹ - Eleusinian dynamics: Referring to Omegas (of either gender) and Beta females.

² - Asterian dynamics: Referring to Alphas (of either gender) and Beta males.

[tendaysoftenzo]

TEN DAYS OF TENZO: 20TENZY-ONE

Thanks again to everyone for sharing their love of Tenzo in 2020. Once again, we were blown away by the amazing submissions featuring this wonderful tree man. We loved it so much, we decided to keep it going!

We invite you all to share your fantastic Tenzo (aka Yamato) content from August 10th to 20th, 2021. We realize this is technically eleven days of Tenzo, but we see this as a fun bonus! There are prompts for each day, but if you think of something else for Tenzo and want to share it, the more the merrier! Hosted by @keepyourpantsongohan, @sloaners and @ohayohimawari.

(Art above courtesy of the wonderful @sloaners, who allows me (Mod Gohan) to be silly with it.)

Submission

All content formats are welcome! Art, fic, edits, AMVs, an interpretive dance shown through claymation. As long as it fits the vibe, go for it! Tag @tendaysoftenzo and/or use ‘#tendaysoftenzo’ as one of your first five tags on tumblr if you’d like us to see and share your work.

Prompts

Day 1, August 10th: Tenzo’s Birthday | Growth

Day 2, August 11th: Building Bridges | It’s Not Easy Being Green

Day 3, August 12th: Friendship | Generosity

Day 4, August 13th: Seasons | Tenzo Yamato’s Day-Off

Day 5, August 14th: ANBU’s Most Wanted | Plantology

Day 6, August 15th: Tenzo’s Beefy Heart | Pinocchio (Fairy Tales)

Day 7, August 16th: That 70s Tenzo (Decades AU) | Anime Swap

Day 8, August 17th: D-Rank | Kakashi

Day 9, August 18th: Coffee Shop AU | BEES!!

Day 10, August 19th: Berry Helpful | Creative License (Free Day)

Day 11, August 20th (Bonus Day): Tenzo the Musical | Cats (Not the Musical)

Rules

Both gen and pairing content are cool! Keep it reasonable and healthy.

Reader/self-inserts are not generally in the spirit of this character-focused event.

NSFW entries are allowed, provided they are clearly marked and under a cut. It goes without saying, but you must be 18+ if you are submitting NSFW content! Add warnings to any entry where necessary. Crop images and link externally as needed.

We won’t be accepting adult/minor or sensei/student romance of any kind, including ones where the characters are aged up. Depictions of rape/dub-con, incest, or explicit underage are not permitted and will not be considered as submissions. We want to keep this event as inclusive of everyone’s comfort zones as possible. In the spirit of that, we hope you will create works that celebrate Tenzo!

If you have any questions, feel free to send us an ask! Have fun!

[kyouminaine]

what is the most overrated ship, in your opinion?

ship asks | @aonemanarmy​ 

Before I get started, let me make this clear: I don’t hate this ship. I actually like it. It’s cute and I enjoy the interactions between them. When I played the Remake, I greatly enjoyed how the two interacted and how they played off each other. However... I do think sometimes it gets blown up into more than it is. 

I’m talking about our favored blond mercenary and the flower maiden. (I’m not using the official ship name because I’m tired of getting shit on by random people digging through Tumblr’s search feature looking for blood.)

I have quite a bit I can say about why I think it’s overrated but ultimately it boils down to the fandom itself. I’ve bounced around different fandoms over the years, but VII is one I’ve never given up when I first played the game back during its original release. The ship war then was much more linear, and it certainly hasn’t died, especially now that old fans have returned with the Remake’s release. Newer fans who either didn’t play any of the other games or only joined after playing CC and/or watching AC have entered the fray and that war has become a chaotic knot of people seeking representation, pushing forth certain ideals, or even attempting to stitch up old wounds by bringing in new twists or pairings. 

I’m fine with people shipping their own thing. What you like and what I like may be the same or it may not be, I don’t mind. Diversity is a good thing. I enjoy it. But here’s the thing: just because you’re allowed to like something doesn’t mean you can shove it down someone else’s throat or completely disregard the value of a different ship just to bolster the validity of yours. I don’t know how many posts I’ve seen across the internet --- here on Tumblr, Twitter, gamer sites, review videos, you name it --- pushing for this ship as being considered the best ship in FF existence. This is an issue I’ve seen crop up a lot since the Remake came out and I imagine it won’t die anytime soon, so I’ve kinda just accepted its existence.

I’m not saying every fan of this ship is a bad person. That would be like shooting myself in the face since I like the ship too. I just wish certain groups or individuals who adore that ship would just... idk, tone it down a little? Let other ships have a chance to breathe? Accept that other relationships have validity as well? I suppose it’s nice to think that fairy tale, Disney-esque destined/fated love is a thing, but I believe in logic and practicality when it comes to ships and a concept like that is bullshit to me. Love comes and goes, partners change, it’s okay to be hurt, it’s okay to move on. 

These two characters have a right to fall in love during their journey. They should be allowed to explore that level of partnership. It’s just that certain fanatics can make it hard to properly enjoy that ship when all I’m hearing is a brat trying to beat down all other opinions and trash talk the value of those other relationships. (How am I supposed to openly admit I like the ship when I might be categorized with the same brats? How can I critique it without someone wanting to rip my throat out? I don’t like that sort of headache...)

Again, this ship won’t be one I’ll ever hate. I’ll just get very annoyed at those certain people who need their megaphone thrown in a trash compactor. 

[three-course-fillorian-feast]

I saw on someone else's post that you offered to show them how to make gifs? I am super interested in making The Magicians gifs so I was wondering if you could teach me as well? Or even make a public post or tutorial or something? Thank you!!!!

Yeah, of course! There are a lot of ways to make gifs, some of them undoubtedly better than what I do. But, for me, I have a couple methods I generally use, one with Photoshop (when I want very specific control over the colors, composition, type styles, etc.), and the other with just a free tool (when I just want to make a gif that looks decent and not sink a ton of time into it). 

I’ll go over the free tool method here; it’s more straightforward and limited, but wayyyy friendlier for someone just starting out. Also, again: it’s free. (But lemme know if you wanna talk Photoshop and I’m always happy to open that giant can of worms.)

One nice thing about gifs becoming the one true currency of the web is that a lot of gif-oriented sites have built gif-making tools in the past couple years and made them free and easy to use, so we can all become gif-producing worker bees, constantly toiling to keep up with the internet’s insatiable demand for gifs.

I use Gif Brewery 3 for mac, built by Gfycat. (There’s also Giphy’s GIF Capture which I’ve used a few times and didn’t hate.) So for the purposes of this tutorial, Step 0: Download and install Gif Brewery 3

So! Now let’s make a gif. Let’s say I want to make some gifs of Margo taking her throne as high king. 

Step 1: Open Netflix in Google Chrome (i.e. not Safari because it blanks your screen if you try to record your screen while a video’s playing) or play a DVD on your computer, or pull up the scene you want on YouTube. Basically get a video of the scene you want playing on your computer screen in whatever fashion you prefer.

Step 2: Open Gif Brewery and select “Record Screen.” Resize the window that Gif Brewery then opens up so that it frames the video, hit record, and then play the part of the video you want to gif.

Step 3: When you’re done with video, click “Stop.” Gif Brewery will then open the video clip that you made in their interface. You can close your browser and the blue frame window. You can see the full clip you just recorded in Gif Brewery. Trim the extra bits off of the clip by dragging the green bar to define your start point and the red bar to define your end point.

Step 4: Resize! Tumblr’s main content box is 540 pixels wide. So if you’re making a gif that’s meant to be full width, you can size down to that width. Make sure “Maintain Aspect Ratio” is checked. (Now’s a good time to also crop if you want to, say, gif only Margo’s face without the space to her left and right.)

Step 5: So now we have something that’s the size and shape of a gif. If you want to add text, now’s a good time to do it. Use the “Text” button at the top of the window to open the Text box. Here you add your text, adjust the font weight, size, color, and border if you’re using one. I’m going to use a Billie Eilish lyric for this example because I’m cliche as hell. 

If you’re making a standard-style gif with a text caption, you’ll use a bold san serif font like Helvetica, with a black border around it to make sure it’s readable, and then keeping it small and centered at the bottom of your gif, like so:

But! if you’re feeling Artsy, go nuts with your font choice and placement. Find a font that captures the tone your message and clip are conveying. You can find a wide range of free fonts on Google Fonts or good old DaFont. I want that badass Margo ‘tude, so I’m using a grungy font and Margo’s signature bright fuschia. Drag the text box to move and resize it until you’re happy with it.

Step 6: Time to fix your colors! Screen captured images basically always look more dark and muted than they should. The fix is to fuss and fuss and fuss and then fuss some more over the colors. Gif Brewery has limited color controls, but as I’ve learned, you can still spend an inordinate amount of time fussing over them. The Magicians makes this an especially good exercise in finding the limits of your patience because they’re always backlighting scenes in a way that blow out your brightness when you try to make even small edits. (Which is why I’m switching over to a different shot that’s easier to work with for this example. Margo’s hella backlit in our gif.)

Exposure Adjust: Increase exposure to make your brights brighter

Gamma Adjust: Increase gamma to make your darks richer

Saturation: Increase to make the colors as rich as they can be

Vibrance: I also like increasing vibrance for even more of a pop of color

Hue Adjust: their hue controls are funky, but you can make some minor adjustments if at this point your gif looks weirdly too red or yellow.

Play around until you find what looks good to your eye. For a gif that’s meant to look like it’s colored normally, watch out for things like: the whole thing looks too dark and you have to squint to see the details; you overbrightened and now the white is blown out and blinding; or you oversaturated so much things look pixely and glitchy. 

Step 7: Open the Settings panel with the button at the top right. Time for more fussing to make sure the timing, frames, and settings are how you want them.

HERE’S THE THING: Tumblr does NOT let you upload gifs larger than 3mb. So everything you’re doing in this panel is a balancing game to keep your gif under 3mb without letting it look like trash. These are the settings you’ll fiddle with most often:

Speed is set to 100% by default. But you may want to slow it down, especially if your clip is only a couple seconds long. Slower means it’s easier to see the subtle changes in a character’s expressions and it makes the action look less jerky. The slower you set your speed, the more frames will be added to the gif, so keep an eye on that.

Frames per Second is what it sounds like. The lower you set this number, the fewer frames you’ll use, but the animation will look jerkier. You want enough frames per second that your animation looks as smooth as a hot knife sliding through butter. 12 is their default. I try to not go lower than 10. When I’m feeling particularly luxurious, I’ll set this to 15.

Color Count: Gifs can use as many as 256 colors and as few as 2, if you don’t care about your gif being an offense to nature. You can set it to the low 200s without compromising on quality, though, so that’s what I did here.

Step 8: Hit “Create” and wait an inordinate amount of time while your gif renders. When it finally, finally does, check the filesize on the bottom right. In the above gif, you’ll see my gif was 2.1mb. Perfect. So I can hit save and it’s done. But if it had said anything larger than 3mb, I’d have hit “Cancel” and then fiddled with the settings some more to get the number of frames down.

Alt-Step 6B: If I want to do anything fancier/artsy-ier/more unique than this kind of gif, this is when I’d usually crack open Photoshop. But there is some room for creativity within Gif Brewery. Let’s go back to Margo and look at some of our options:

In the Filters menu, you can see there are a number of bre-built Photo Effects to play with. Sometimes they look awesome; sometimes they look like trash. So experiment! There’s also rando filters like Halftone effects. And the Color Effects can give you options like adding a vignette, fading the colors to old-timey sepia tones, or creating a duotone like I ended up doing. 

Have fun with it and look for effects that will support the tone you’re setting with clip and text you chose. So like for this Margo example, going black and white, or dark and heavy, etc. would not have been tonally consistent with the badass vibe I’m going for.

And I… think that’s it? At least to get started. Hopefully that helps, let me know if you have any questions! Or want to talk about anything beyond the basics. I’m always happy to dive into the specifics of how a particular effect was made, or how to add more advanced refinements.

[bobbyischill]

My Relationship With Andi Mack

Two years ago, when I was in 10th grade, my GSA advisor was telling me and a friend about a Disney Channel show. She hadn’t watched it yet, but apparently one of the main characters had just come out as gay! I was really happy for Disney and glad that queer kids all over the world had someone like them to look up to. However, I, a 15 year old, a mature teenager, wouldn’t really enjoy a kids show, right? So I went about the rest of my day without giving it a second thought....

Until I went home and opened up Tumblr. One of the first posts I saw was someone giving props to Disney for making such a diverse, inclusive show that was actually GOOD. They said it reminded them of Girl Meets World, except it was a million times better and diverse. Okay fine, I thought. I guess I’ll check out Andi Mack. (BOOYY I HAD A BIG STORM COMING)

I opened up my iPad around 10:30pm and decided to watch an episode or two, depending on how tired I was. After the very first episode, I recognized that this show was special. Like, REALLY special. The characters were fleshed out and unique. There was the “twist” about Bex being Andi’s mom. The friendships and relationships felt real. I knew I was going to binge the whole show that night.

That night, as I continued on with the show, I fell in love with each one of them. They all had their own quirks, they were all nuanced. I fell in love with how competitive, protective to a fault, and caring Buffy was. I fell in love with how awkward and goofy and relatable Cyrus was. I fell in love with how kind and oblivious Jonah was. I fell in love with how hard-working and funny Andi was, and how much she cared about certain things and the people around her. I fell in love with the dynamics between certain characters and how they were always changing. I loved how it tackled racism in school (Buffy had to change her hair or be sent home), how unfair dress codes are to students (especially girls), how you need to take a stand for what you believe in (the prison uniforms), and how stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing, even if you get hurt (Andi watching a horror movie and being terrified, but not regretting it). This was all in the first season.

This show already meant so much to me. And then Cyrus looked back at Jonah. In the words of Jonah Beck, “I cried”. Just that hint of representation was more than I had ever scene on Disney or any other show marketed to kids.

And then Cyrus came out to Buffy. I, a pansexual who was out to my friends but not any of my family and who still struggled with intense internalized homophobia, burst into tears. I related to how ashamed and afraid Cyrus looked. I needed to hear Buffy’s heartfelt response. “You may be weird, but you’re no different.” That phrase was constantly bouncing through my head for at least the next few days (and if I’m being honest, it still is). I wrote it all over my notes and assignments because it was literally all I could think about for such a long time. I saw the sign on the wall that said “G: for General Audiences.” That showed me that Disney (or at least Terri Minsky, my queen) truly felt that I wasn’t a freak. I didn’t need to hide my identity from anyone if I didn’t want to. My identity wasn’t a mature subject; it was for general audiences. (Also, I just want to add that Sofia and Josh’s acting in this scene was absolutely fantastic. It was so raw and emotional, and it still makes me cry every time I see it.)

And then in that same episode Cyrus and Buffy talked about his crush on Jonah. They did it so casually, and my mind was blown. At this point, I had honestly never seen so much gay representation in a show as this.

That night, I stayed up until 5am. I was rewatched Cyrus’s coming out scene about 10 times. I fangirled about it on Tumblr. I added “Tomorrow Starts Today” to my Spotify playlist. I even wrote a diary entry about it. (I only write in my diary when I’m feeling very intense emotions that I need to write down in order to figure out.)

The next day at school, I told all my Gay Friends about Andi Mack and how amazing it was. A few of them got into it, and it was fun talking to them about it, but after a while I was pretty heavily hyperfixated on it and I needed more. And I felt like I was bothering my followers with constant posts about how much I loved Andi Mack. So I made this blog. @cyrus-made-tshirts. I haven’t changed the name since. That’s how I became an official part of the friendom.

I love this fandom. I don’t even know many people personally or have made many friends through it, but this fandom was everything to me. I loved the posts, the crackhead theories, josh’s account. I loved the crackships, the real ships, the overanalyzing of every line, of every movement, of every promo. I loved watching the reactions on YouTube. I loved making posts about the show and having hundreds of people relate to it or find it funny, especially the gay ones. My very first post to get more than 50 notes was one about how Miranda and Bex would make a cute couple (this was before Miranda was revealed to be a snake.)

For the past year and a half, Andi Mack has been my life. I have survived the many ship wars. I have survived the months-long hiatuses. I have survived the ominous tweets and posts Josh has made and the frenzy of panicking everywhere that followed it. And I have loved every minute of it.

I’ve seen these characters I love grow up before my eyes. They’ve all changed and evolved and matured so much. There’s so much more representation since I started watching the show. There’s a character with a learning disability, characters with anxiety, a homeless character, a deaf character. There’s been multiple episodes celebrating Jewish and Chinese culture. I’ve seen Cyrus go from nervously nodding in agreement that he liked a boy to unprovokingly telling his friend he liked that boy to flat-out telling his ex-crush he is gay to holding hands with his crush in public. I’ve seen all of Cyrus’s friends support him unconditionally. I’ve seen him find his happily ever after (for middle school, at least).

And then the last episode aired. I knew I was never going to be prepared for it, but HOLY SHIT, it’s over. And the finale was like a fanfiction it was so good. I watched it live on Thursday night at midnight. I freaked out about it online for three hours, then watched it on Disney Now. I pulled an all-nighter because I just kept rewatching it online until Friday night, when I watched it air on Disney. The way Cyrus and TJ sang Born This Way with the rest of the characters cured my depression, cleared my skin, and watered my crops. The bench scene was so fucking beautiful and romantic it caused me to hyperventilate. The acting from both Luke and Josh was incredible. Honestly, Luke crushed it the entire time as TJ and the bench scene was the icing on top. This scene meant more to met than some people could ever know.

A couple months ago, I was in a pretty shit place emotionally and mentally. Literally the only thing stopping me from killing myself was the guilt of leaving my friends and family behind. I needed another reason to stay, something to keep me grounded. And that reason became Andi Mack. I promised myself I would live to see the day Tyrus became canon. And I did it. I’m in a much better place now, and I’m not going to do anything stupid now that Tyrus has become canon (TYRUS HAS BECOME CANON!!! AAKDBEISSHSB I STILL HAVENT PROCESSED THAT YET!!!!). But at the time, I really needed Andi Mack to help me keep fighting. And it was there for me. And I will always be indebted to it for my life.

This show has helped me in so many other ways. It’s helped me drastically reduce my internalized homophobia. It’s given me a community of people that understand me. It’s created so many characters that I love. So thank you to Terri Minsky for creating this show and amazing characters that I will love forever. Thank you to Disney for funding it and not completely censoring it. Thank you to the crew for working tirelessly to make this happen. Thank you to Peyton, Emily, Asher, Josh, Luke, Lilan, Trent, Garren, Sofia, and every other actor for pouring their heart into this show. A special thank you to Josh and Luke for making me feel safe and loved and for caring so much about their story arcs. (And their political activism is pretty awesome, too.)

I’m really going to miss screaming about this show with you guys. I really hope that some people keep creating fanart and fanfics and keep making memes and crackships. I hope the friendom never dies. Because every one of you is so special and fun to hang out with online. And I’m really gonna miss it. And now I’m crying, and this is getting WAYYY too long, so I’m gonna stop talking now lmao. But I want to say this show has changed me in so many ways and I’m grateful to every single person involved, including the amazing friendom. I’ll love you all forever. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️