#hello! i'm still just messing around in photoshop :') have these

[j-ustkeepdriving]

<3

[good-beanswrites]

Hello 🎬👋!! Haha, I’m glad you enjoyed the thoughts, I loved these so much! Thank you!

LMAO I think a few of them would have real good taste in song titles, but others… not so much 😅 I actually think Yuno would have some pretty solid ideas. Though Haruka has some nice thoughts too, I heard both his titles are specific plays on words that I don’t think he’d come up with himself…

Omg yes! The prisoners would have such a good time planning mv outfits! I can definitely see it being bittersweet for Fuuta – exasperated by, but also homesick because, they all remind him so much of his sister ;-; Mahiru is devastated she's not getting a new outfit for I Love You and so she enjoys styling vicariously through helping the others. Shidou’s outfit was even more painfully Dad before the group helped tone it down. Before the mv color scheme was decided, they cycle through a few different colored marching band uniforms for Amane. Muu doesn’t quite understand the flower dress, but the team promises her it will all come together to look great.

>:O The birthday art can be au canon!! The previously mentioned fashion crew makes everyone dress up like their cake, and designer Mikoto photoshops them into a pic of it aww. Even after watching the t1 videos, it would be the nicest they've seen everyone get dressed up. They're shocked seeing the boys clean up so nicely in their suits, and the girls are just shining in their fancy dresses and heels. And maybe Es’ “birthday�� pic was a pre-experiment candid shot of them chillin with the bunny off set :’)

On a slightly darker note, I wonder if those pv shots of the restraints are canon too. Milgram had a few ideas for worst-case restraints and took a few shots for reference during an early fitting…

ADFGGH rip Haruka 😂😂😂 I love the idea of a whole group of them sneaking around looking for tasty goo and fun props, and instead stumbling upon The Mannequin Room. And waait I'm so emotional over Kazui loosening up and having a bit of fun with his tricks :’D With all the themes about certain characters growing up faster than they should, it would be so lovely to see them giggling and messing around in a blooper reel! I’m imagining someone trying to twirl Amane’s baton as well as her and epically failing at it.

Yeah, I have a lot of different predictions for Amane’s t3 changes – but no matter what happens, she starts accepting help just a little bit more behind the scenes >:) It’ll still take her a really long time to break away from the cult’s beliefs (no one in the cast/team really knows proper cult deprogramming strategies at this point, but they start looking into it as soon as the experiments ends.) Still, she finds a balance of keeping most of her religion and also realizing that the others genuinely care for her. 

And oooh I really like that 👀 I always pictured the prisoner Es hints to be leading toward them being a prisoner in the future (accused of executing prisoners), but that would add so much more drama if it relates to a past imprisonment. The ten would make a perfect heist team, hacking the system, snooping around, and charming facility members in order to find paperwork detailing past experiments featuring Es. And Kotoko would certainly be leading the investigation – I love how closely she’s monitoring everything, it would fit so well if she were the one to see the truth first. Between the realization that Milgram hasn’t been fully honest, and the threat that Es may be there for even longer, the jailbreak would erupt much quicker than the current timeline. Although the au is nicer overall, I really like keeping Milgram a pretty shady organization hehe 

[the-jade-palace]

Hello :) I was wondering, has any effort been made (as far as youre aware) to datamine finfin? I'm assuming some datamining has already been done by you to translate the 6 worlds version, but was just curious if anybody has looked through the files yet. If not; any advice/insights you could give to someone who might try to? (I'm afraid I don't have the skills to try it myself sadly, but I am still very curious) thanks in advance <3

I have done some work in terms of datamining, though it has mostly been for the translation. I do not know if anyone else has done any work in terms of data mining outside the author of the custom German 6 worlds made back in 2010. But here is what I do know!

All the menu graphics are stored in the game file "map_XXX.db" where the "XXX" is the language, in the case of my translation, "map_eng.db". These images are stored in the form of raw bitmaps without the headers or palettes

This can be seen here in this program, 010 editor, which has a byte visualizer. This also contains all the text, and is what I had to edit for the translation.

However, by exporting the bytes to a raw image and adding a header in photoshop, you can actually recreate the original, though to reinsert it back into the file it has to be stripped back to its raw bytes again. This header can be obtained by extracting it from a .bmp, which in turn needs to be extracted from the main game executable with a resource viewer.

Here was a little test I did while messing around, changing the text for the nest to just say "Weather"

I have also found the backgrounds for all the levels, which are stored in these files, with one for each level respectively

The way these are setup is not uniform across the board, and varies depending on what is needed for each world.

However, from what I can tell the way they generally work outside of any level specifics is through palette shifting to change the colors based on time and weather. This information is almost definitely stored in the file "color.db", which just outside the name seems to be made up of many color palettes

The rest of the sprites and animations are almost definitely stored in the file "film.db", but I really have not put much time into trying to datamine this as outside of it likely being more complex, I in all honesty I don't want to completely dissect the game. A lot of what makes it special to me is the strangeness and mystery that surrounds fin fin, and having everything laid bare doesn't interest me.

On a somewhat related note I have also done work on reverse engineering certain parts of the game code for modifications, and work on analyzing and replicating the Smart Sensor. Here is a photo of a the signals it sends out when working!

I'm pretty unfamiliar with it myself, but if you want advice the best I could give is to familiarize yourself with reading and editing binary / hex data and research file headers

[billpottsismygf]

That was a really well written episode, with some great sci-fi concepts and amazing character work. It obviously gives a slightly Midnight energy, with these mysterious creatures copying people, but it manages to be completely its own thing. The only place it really fell down were the effects, which is such a shame.

To get that out of the way, the body stretching stuff could have been really effective and creepy, but it mostly just came off very silly. After the incredible production values last episode, it's such a jump down. My suspicion is that The Star Beast and The Giggle were incredibly expensive, and that this was the budget-saving episode - just our main two actors and a spaceship set - but they tried to combine it with a story that required body horror to work, and sadly that element just didn't. Funnily enough, I noticed as the opening credits rolled that it was directed by Tom Kingsley, the original director of Ghosts, and I remember that the reason Ghosts hired him was because of his ability to do special effects on the cheap. Sadly, while I think he could get away with ghosts walking through walls in a budget-saving manner, here it just looks like David Tennant and Catherine Tate have been messed around awkwardly in photoshop and it totally took me out of the horror and the tension the episode was trying to build. It would have been far better, and still would have saved money, if we had barely been shown what they actually looked like and instead focused on Donna and the Doctor's reactions. Once the creatures started to stabilise and to look basically human, it was a fantastic episode, though.

Catherine Tate and David Tennant were on top form throughout, bringing so much comedy and also drama when necessary. I love the subtlety of their performances as the entities. When Donna started monologuing about how her family would react to her being gone, I thought it was an odd acting choice for the Doctor to be slightly smiling, but it turns out it was a genius acting choice.

Speaking of genius choices: Flux! Ahhhh, I cann't express how pleased I am with the way this episode tackled it. Trust RTD to do what Chris Chibnall totally failed to do and actually give it weight (gravity, one might say). Actually seeing the Doctor express emotions about it and have a complicated guilt over the whole thing was so goddamn cathartic. I've posted extensively in the past about how disappointing it was that the Flux seemed to not matter at all once it was over (Half the universe was destroyed, hello? The Doctor committed triple genocide without batting an eyelid, and both that and the destruction of the universe might as well have not happened by the next episode???), and RTD just swooped in and made it work with one scene. I also liked the acknowledgement that the Doctor doesn't know where they're from. I think that was perfect. I know there are people who want Chris Chibnall's run to be ignored, but I'd much rather the approach RTD is taking, which is to take those things and turn them into character moments.

This is one that I'm really looking forward to rewatching. Despite the goofy effects taking me out of what are meant to be suspenseful moments, it was a really effective episode, and what a joy to see David and Catherine at the height of their abilities bouncing off each other for an entire hour.

Small things:

Not so small, but Wilf! Wilf! Wilf! Wilf!!!! I'm so happy to see him <3 And the episode was dedicated to Bernard Cribbins' memory <3

Seeing Donna getting left behind genuinely had me terrified. I'd seen people speculating about Donna dying in these specials, which I rejected as not going to happen, but oh boy I really thought they might just do it here. My headache ramped right up as my heartrate did!

I loved seeing the Doctor having to get by without the TARDIS and the sonic, especially given how many new powers the latter was given last week.

The TARDIS was so extra this episode. Why was she playing Wild Blue Yonder as they arrived and left? I liked the anti-war discussion with Donna's teacher vs Wilf, echoed somewhat in the entities' experience of the universe, but I wonder if it'll have any further relevance.

The whole 'mavity' thing was very silly, but I also kind of liked it. Newton going for 'mavity' over gravity doesn't really make sense, given that gravity had an etymological reason to be called that - as my friend said, something like 'gravitude' or whatever would make more sense - but whatever. It was silly and kept making me laugh. I wonder if, as with the salt thing, there's an implication that messing with history might have a hand in summoning the Toymaker...

Oh, on the topic of Newton! Canon queer Fourteen! I like that the Doctor continues to be canonically queer now. I mean, my personal favourite Doctor headcanon is aro-ace all the way, but if I can't have that I'm overjoyed to have him think Newton is hot.

[hansolz-moved]

hello, my loves! today marks 2 months since i began creating gifs (and the occasional gfx) on tumblr and i also reached an incredible milestone last night; 500 followers! i cannot help but feel extremely honored and appreciative of every single one of my followers and mutuals. it shocks me that i've grown and improved so quickly as a content creator, and especially that there are so many people who are willing to come on board with me to support me and observe my growth. i cannot express my gratitude enough. ♡

unfortunately, i am tremendously busy and cannot find the time outside of weekends to do anything fun to celebrate :( but at the very least, i wanted to take the time to come and thank some very special people who have contributed so much to my account's growth and to my improvement as a cc

first, some of my darling mutuals — ;

@dokyeomblr miss elv, ily! my very first mutual and one of the kindest, most pleasant people i have ever met. you never fail to make me smile with your tags and comments <3 i have admired you for so long and am so honored to be your friend and moot

@97chwe tris, who is such an inspiration to me and so very talented, who i have been in awe of for the longest; whose tracking tag i will spam endlessly and whose support i will always appreciate so genuinely

@caratonce isai, one of my first mutuals and my caratblr server buddy (we joined almost simultaneously and your familiarity was so helpful to my anxious self), i love u sm. your personality is phenomenal and your work follows. im so happy to know you and call you a friend

@soonhoonsol chey, who so consistently reblogs my content and always has the sweetest things to say. i looked up to you prior to joining as a cc and i feel so lucky to be your moot!

@jminwook bbie, one of my newer mutuals and another victim of my tracking tag spamming, who is so very supportive and so sweet

@junranghae noa, my milestone buddy (congrats again!!0 and fellow huihui! i appreciate you so much, you are so dope and always so supportive of my content! it doesn't go unnoticed at all, thank you.

@junkwan jenna, my evil twin (or am i the evil one?) — i miss seeing u around the server! you are so fun to be around and i love being ur mutual and ur friend!

@aceofvernons xan, who is normal by no stretch of the imagination yet kind and supportive of their friends on a level that is incomparable. i truly appreciate you

@wonublr & @knnovations lee and mars, creators with truly mind-blowing skill and talent... who i would still be screenshotting without the help of. i owe you guys so much credit and appreciation &lt;3

other mutuals who i thoroughly appreciate — ;

@jeonwonwoo | @woozification | @shuatonin | @injunnies | @usershua | @xuseokgyu | @shuatm | @seunievrse | @isdokyeom | @blondesoobin | @sunflower-hae | @yeonjuins | @seungkwan-s + many more

and of course, all of my caratblr server friends!

i would also like to say a quick thank you to the following people:

@melanielogs for being a phenomenal friend, for being one of my first followers, and for always believing in me and encouraging me when i didn't believe in myself and wanted to give up.

@taetheists for always listening to my ratio woes and helping me out even if i didn't request it. and yknow.. for letting me use ur photoshop. you're a good friend ♡

and,

@woozi because though i've already told you this, the fact that you so consistently engage with my content and boost it means so much to me. i don't think it's an understatement to say i owe a lot of my success here to you. and what i appreciate more than anything is that you haven't just been supportive of my works since i got good — you were right at the front of the line reblogging my grainy 'i got a free trial of photoshop, lemme mess around' gifsets. it really, truly means a lot to me and I hope you know I will always be grateful.

and with that, I'm done because this is starting to get a little Oscar's acceptance speech-y of me. thank you all so much, i hope that this is just the beginning and that i will be around to be annoying on your dash for a long time to come. ♡

[markantonys]

Hey! How do you make your gifs?

hello! when i make gifs, i need only the following tools: 1) photoshop (my version is cs5), 2) a high quality video to gif from, and 3) a screenrecording program to get that video. super serious giffers will tell you that you shouldn't make gifs of anything less than a 4k downloaded file, but i'm lazy and don't have infinite storage space on my laptop and don't care if my gif is only 720-1080p instead of super HD or 4k, so if i'm giffing wheel of time, for example, i will just screenrecord a small clip straight off the prime video player rather than download the entire episode. i use the xbox windows app to screenrecord, which is free - not sure if there is an equivalent for macs.

i did a gif tutorial a couple years ago that should still be pretty accurate! just 2 updates i would add now: 1) over the summer tumblr added something that made gifs fucked up, i forget the details but my takeaway was that in order to preserve gif quality, i need to change the speed of just 1 frame of the gif. so if my gif has 50 frames, i will make 49 frames a speed of 0.06 and 1 a speed of 0.07 or 0.05. i'm not sure if this is still necessary or if everybody hated the gif update so much that tumblr changed it back, but i still do this every time to be safe. i think it was that if your gif is all 1 speed then tumblr would change it into some bizarre file format to compress it or something, with the result that it looked awful. so just change the speed of 1 frame to get around this (it's totally unnoticeable in the final product if 1 frame has a speed that's 0.01 different from the others).

2) the coloring psd pack i linked in the old tutorial worked great for medici, the main show i was giffing at the time, but it doesn't look good for wheel of time. instead, i have created my own psds for wheel of time - i'm not going to do a coloring tutorial because i'm an amateur and i just mess around until i get something i like, and i wouldn't be good at explaining that mess around process haha so instead i will link the 2 psds i've made! with the following TOU:

please like/reblog if downloading

do not reupload, claim as your own, or use it as a base to make a new psd which you then upload and claim as your own

the 2 psds are very similar - the difference is that #1 is brighter, more vibrant, and closer to the original colors, while #2 is a bit subtler and has some alterations to decrease greens (since the original scene had a green tint)

psd #1: download here

psd #2: download here

[sungtaro]

hello! i really love your gifs!!!! im still learning how to do some effects and i wanted to ask if you could make a tutorial on how you did the blending for this post? https://www.tumblr.com/jikyu/733643818578198528/baby-dont-stop-2018-nct-u-for-berryjaellie?source=share i understand if you dont wanna hehe thank you so much for sharing your work <33

hi, thank you so much ! i'm not like amazing at tutorials but i'd be happy to share with you my layers & process for this particular set (she saved a psd for once ... everyone cheered!) and give some general advice + i'm going to direct you to this tutorial by @woozis who i think does a great job of explaining things and has more experience with gif blending specifically (this was my first set using 2 gifs in this way; normally i use blending for static gfx or using overlays that aren't 2 gifs from the same source content, which are both great ways to practice) . i highly recommend utilizing multiple resources to get a feel for how different creators do the thing you want to learn, but at the end of the day i basically just start throwing stuff into photoshop and watch it come together in real time with anything gfx related lol . anyways, with that big intro out of the way, let's talk about how we made this set using this gif as the example:

so step one for me working with this content aka music video was just picking out the clips i liked and knew i wanted to use in the set . when it comes to gif blending the 2 gifs you're using need to be the same exact amount of frames or you need to be able to get them there, so basically after i had just pulled as many gifs out of the mv as i roughly thought wanted to use, i imported all of them into ps to see the frame rates and started mix-and-matching the ones that were around the same length to see what would look the best layered over each other. this is very personal preference based but in this case i liked that they were executing similar choreography from different angles and in different outfits and settings. for this gif, i ended up with these 2 separate ones:

these are sharpened but no coloring added yet - as you can see one of the clips is black and white so that can be a great option for blending because you can add whatever color you want over it. of course, if the original content isn't b&w you can just put a b&w filter on it and do the same thing - i recommend this if you want to put gifs together that aren't already color compatible. anyway, once you have your gifs you convert them both to timeline and just drag and drop one over the other. it's usually not going to matter which one you put on top, but that's the one you're going to use the blending effect on, so i went with the black and white gif over the color.

to blend the gifs, i set the blending mode to 'screen' on the top gif. for this one i kept the opacity at 100% but on other gifs in this set i brought it down to around 85% depending on how it looked. then i added my coloring to the base gif + i deepened the blacks on the top gif (note that you need a clipping mask for anything you want to do to the top gif without doing it to both). this is where you'll want to start messing around as you go, screen is my most used option for these purposes but sometimes overlay or multiply looks cooler, and you can mess with whatever opacity you think looks best. here's what my layers look like at this point with that top gif selected + what the gif looks like blended before and after coloring:

already pretty cool! but i wanted to add color to the black and white to really bring the effect home. i used the eyedrop tool to grab the blue from the lighting in the bottom gif (for the other color overlays in this set, i used the red from taeyong's hair) and added that into a solid color layer over the b&w gif with a clipping mask, and set the blending for that solid color layer to 'overlay' (again, you can try different ones for the look you like best)

this is my finished blended gif, from there i just added the text! the actual process of making the gif isn't what is so time consuming imo it's more just about finding the clips that will work together and testing out what you like the look of. this one is probably my favorite blending result from the set and there are plenty of things that i feel like don't look perfect, but ultimately i'm happy with the result and i think the set looks cool anyways -- so i encourage you to just give it a try and chances are it's going to turn out looking nice!

hopefully this was helpful, happy giffing (and feel free to tag me in your works if you try this out) !!

[killingsboys]

hello!! i love the coloring you did for this community gifset https://poppywright.tumblr.com/post/670127928464605184/ill-have-to-make-some-adjustments-to-my-film could you describe how you did it or perhaps direct me to a tutorial? if not, thank u anyway :>

hi there!!! thank you so much, you're so kind!!! i can definitely help you out <3 luckily, i actually still have these psds (very rare for me) so this should be a very quick lil tutorial!!!

program used: adobe photoshop 2021 difficulty: easy (beginner gifmaking skills required)

so here is what the abed gifs look like at first:

this scene has pretty good lighting, so i don't have to fix that up too much before i move on!! here is all of my coloring for this gif:

just three layers!!! i used 2 levels layers just to brighten the scene while keeping the contrast at a natural level so now it looks like this:

and now all that is left is the hue/saturation !!! it's a lil intimidating at first but honestly it's one of my favorite adjustment layers. you can find it right here:

and when you open it, it looks like this!!

then you click on where it says "Master" and you select whatever color you wanna get rid of. for these gifs, i wanna de-saturate every color except red & magenta, so i start with yellow and work my way down. the list. all you have to do for each color is change the saturation to -100.

(side note: i won't always mess with yellow, because sometimes it can really mess up the skintone of the person in the gif you are working on. for this gif, it didn't, but i recommend playing it by ear.)

so i take the saturation down to -100 for yellows, greens, blues, and cyans, add your text, and voila! this is where we end up!

i hope this helps!! i'm always around to answer more questions 💛 i hope you have a lovely day/evening!!

[tcmmykinard]

Hello 💚 for gif maker ask 4, 21 & 28?

4. What do you enjoy about making graphics / gifs?

i love how calming and distracting it is to be on photoshop!

21. How much time do you spend on a single graphic / gif?

that kind of just depends on what kind of gif i'm making / the level of difficulty - typically about an 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what it is i'm doing

28. Advice for any beginner graphic / gif makers?

to just remember to have fun and be patient - it took me a while to get the hang of it and i'm still learning new things even after years of making gifs! and always mess around with different settings and layers on ps to help yourself learn quicker and to find your best rhythm at gif/graphic making ❤

send me gif maker asks

[pbandjesse]

We just got home from seeing Bob Dylan. It was absolutely chock full of boomers and I couldn't understand a goddamn thing this man said. But I still had a really nice time. James described it as a blues set. And I agree. It was a really nice way to end the night.

Last night didn't end as well. I started not feeling good around 10 and the game didn't end until like 1130. And then everyone left. I was mostly hidden away so only Brandon said goodbye to me. And then once everyone was gone I absolutely lost it. And I cried for like an hour. I was so exhausted. And like all that build up from weeks came out and I was a mess. I'm sure I terrified James a bit. I was like at the I can't breath point and he did his best buy eventually I was just so tired and I fell asleep. But I woke up with my eyes so swollen I couldn't go to work. I thankfully was just shadowing someone at the museum so telling Jessica I couldn't come wasn't horrible. Even though I felt really bad. I just had to keep sleeping. Where I had very vivid stress dreams. But at least I wasn't as swollen at 10.

I got up and spent a little time with James before he had to leave. But I felt in higher spirits. I am trying to cut down on dairy. And I did a pretty excellent job. I didn't have any until dinner. Which I think will help me feel a bit better.

And I did feel pretty good. I was still half weepy. But okay enough.

I took a Lyft because it was so cold and windy. And I felt slightly catfished. Because my driver has clearly photoshopped her picture to be 50lbs lighter. Like darling. You don't look like this.

But she still got me to school safe. I was helping Marcus cut out pictures. When my hands started shaking. My thumbs specifically. And then I went to get up and full fell over? I fell on my knees. I have no idea. It was a bit distressing. I didn't say anything to anyone for a few minutes. But then I got worried and told Marcus and then I felt like I should walk it off. So I did that. Was slightly distressed.

The day went well beyond that. The kids were good. I had a nice time drawing with some of the girls. Besides a few small incidents it was good with the kids.

My issue is really with the school. The principal sent an email implying we don't have a handle on our kids. And it made me so mad. This is a woman who barely, if ever, says hello to me. She really is just trying to find a reason to kick out program out of the building I swear. Taking away the classrooms. Sticking us in a filthy closet. Constantly telling us we don't watch the kids. Introducing rediculous standards we can't keep. It drives we crazy.

It makes me not want to be there. I've pretty much decided I'm not going to do summer camp there. I'm just over that. I'll keep my commitment for the school year. But I'm applying for that professor ship. And if I don't get that I'm going to work on something new.

We finished the day strong. And I called a car. To take me to chipotle.

There was just a few flurries. And my food was very good. And then I went back out into the cold to see James. I stopped at 711 to get him a coffee. And drop that off. Looked around the store a little. Then went to rite aid to waste time.

I got a couple things. A new game for us. And then soon enough his parents were there and we were off to Bob Dylan.

The show was really nice. We got there a little late. And some people were in our seats. So we couldn't see anything in our seats. But Tucker is a force to be reckoned with and made them move. And the show was great. Even if the woman we made move bitched about not being able to see and then got scolded for taking pictures. I still had a really really nice time.

Getting out the the theater was a hassle. And then Tucker tried to buy a patch but they gave him a different one and he was annoyed but it was all good. There was stress getting out of the parking lot and back to the highway. But we made it and they took us home.

I was very glad to see my cat. And now I'm gojng to go shower. We have the morning off together. I'm looking forward to breakfast with my boyfriend. I hope it's a stress free day.

I hope you all have a good day tomorrow too. Sleep well. Stay warm.

[happyminyards]

Hey there. I'm one of those folks reposting your break-up-wait-why-did-we-break-up posts. Because they are SO GREAT! Part of what draws me in is how this/your Andrew finds another way to respect Neil's boundaries + agency. You said you're primarily writing academic work now. Well, IF you are so inclined/have time to make room, would you consider writing more in this vein? Maybe what happens next when they *are* calling + visiting? Maybe they try sexting? Don't care WHAT, but I do care for MORE❤

arrives seven months late with whatever this is, part 1 here but not really needed, this is just long distance shmoop and feelings

hello yes one order of long-distance communication coming up. thank you SO MUCH for your kind words!! 

“You know Aaron actually send me a meme yesterday, you think he’s forgiven me?” Neil asked, curled up at the end of the couch, his laptop on the coffee table showing Andrew’s somewhat pixellated face. 

“Aaron said he’d steal my knives and stab you himself if you, and I quote, ‘mess this shit up again’,” Andrew replied, leaning back against his pillow, “I told him that I called dibs on that five years ago.” he shifted again, probably trying to get the blanket wrapped around his feet like he refused to admit he liked, and Neil ached to brush his fingers over the skin behind his knees

“I’m still putting memes down as progress, and according to Robin it was a good one at that.”

“There’s a ranking?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m just a lowly exy captain with no taste in internet humour, apparently” Neil smirked when he hears Andrew huff a laugh, but looked down, swallowing to build up the courage to ask “Hey, Drew?” 

“Hmm?”

“Can I keep the phone on again tonight? Just. It’s been a weird week.”

Maybe Neil imagined it, but the corners of Andrew’s eyes seemed to soften the tiniest bit, “Yes, you can. I don’t mind.”

Neil had left Andrew’s place with a new stolen jersey, two worn soft hoodies that he didn’t plan to put into the wash, and his emotions in a swirling mess 

They had spent the weekend talking, slowly rekindling themselves, Neil doing his best to skirt around the issue of basically no sleep and trying to keep the rest of the Foxes from figuring out his slow collapse. But Andrew could still see through his smoke and mirrors, could draw out a sigh and an honest answer with the touch of his thumb to Neil's cheekbone

So they talked about the future, where they’d go from here. 

“It’s simple. every time you thought about telling me something, sending me a message or a picture, you do that. You don’t ignore it, you just send me a picture of that stupid sign at the coffee shop.” Andrew had summed it up, the way he stared at his cup for a few seconds before the only indicator of his unease with the open talk. He had gotten better at it over the years, but Neil suspected that the break hadn’t exactly helped in healing old wounds.

“I just don’t want to annoy you. Or distract you.”

“Neil. as much as you annoy me sometimes, I much prefer that over not knowing whether you’re about to keel over from sleep deprivation.”

Neil blew out a huffed breath “That’s not what I want it to be about. We’re not doing this because I apparently function better with you around. If I send you something or call you I want it to be because we both enjoy it.” he shifted uneasily, keeping his toes tucked under Andrew's thighs, trying to ignore the way Andrew kept drawing small circles on his ankle almost unconsciously, “I don’t want you back just so I can sleep. I could have figured that out. I want you back because having you there makes everything easier, yes, but it also makes everything better. I love having you around, I want to talk to you just because it’s you and you’re, well, you’re my favourite person.” 

He knew his head must have been fire engine red at this point, and his eyes kept flickering over to the book on the shelf, the cat dish by the door, the picture of the twins at graduation day on the wall 

(He remembered Nicky beaming at finally getting a picture of the two of them, how he kept calling out obscene things to try and get them to smile until Aaron finally cracked and started laughing, leading to Andrew throwing his brother a look that could be called slightly bemused, the corners of his mouth twitching. He also knew Nicky had his own copy of the picture at his house in Germany, and according to Erik kept showing it off as “My cousins, the doctor-to-be and the exy star”) 

Andrew looked at him, his hand closing around his ankle, biting his lip before letting out a slow breath: “I have pictures on my phone. Of the cat, and some random Exy magazine with Boyd’s badly photoshopped face on it that I wanted to send to you. It could fill a whole wing at the damn MOMA at this point. I told you yesterday that I would have driven down to see you. I’m not here to be your sleeping pill, and I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.”

And Neil had inched forwards, dropping his head on Andrew’s shoulder and pressing a kiss against the hinge of his jaw. “It’ll work this time, right?”, he whispered against Andrew’s skin, slightly timid in the face of his own vulnerability. 

“We want it to,” Andrew replied, pushing his nose into Neil’s hair, “We’ll make it work.”

[n] - “i hate this.”

“i’ll be home in ten, i’ll call you.”

[n] - “no, don’t. it’s fine. i’m fine. i just.”

[n] - “i miss you so goddamn much.”

[n] - “i just want to see you. no pixels no phone no anything. just see you”

[n] - “sometimes i wake up and i think you’re there because the blankets you left when you moved out are all bunched up behind me and i can feel them at my back and i go to touch you and there’s nothing.”

[n] - “and it just hurts.” [n] - “but it’s almost worth it because for that split second i think you’re there. i dream about you and then i wake up and for a second you’re actually here.”

[n] - “but you’re not.”

[n] - “i’m sorry. i know you’re busy and this isn’t the right place. and it isn’t your fault. this is all just screwed up.”

“i miss you too”

[n] - “andrew”

“i’ll call you, okay? i’m almost home.” 

“I can’t believe you actually send me a care package.” Andrew drawled, but Neil could hear the undercurrent of amusement and found himself squishing the phone closer to his ear

“I have half your closet in my drawer at this point. Figured it was time to even the score a bit,” he replied, lazily stirring his pasta around and watching the bubbles break at the surface.

“That explains the jersey and the hoodie, but not the rest.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been missing those bars, the café basically went bankrupt without you buying up their stock.”

 Andrew had gotten weirdly obsessed with the chocolate oat bars the small coffee shop just off campus sold in his fourth year, and Neil blamed Renee entirely. She had dragged him there the first time, after all. Neil still found the occasional crumb in some of his jackets from Andrew smuggling those things, “And the book looked like something you’d be interested in, that’s all.” 

“It is,” Andrew answered after a small pause, and Neil considered how he could manoeuvre around draining his pasta one-handed before he decided to just drag it off the heat. Let it be soggy. The speaker on his phone was rubbish anyway.

Neil leaned back against the counter, absentmindedly rubbing at a stain with his thumb. “Do you like it? Not just the book, the whole thing. I just thought it’s one of those things, right?. I wanted to send you some of my clothes. And I wanted you to have those bars and the book. Just like the pictures.”

Andrew huffed a small breath, his voice quiet, and Neil wanted so badly to just see his face, “Yeah Neil, I liked it.”

They stayed silent. Neil in his shoddy dorm kitchen, his pasta slowly turning cold and mushy, his roommates discarded plate in the sink. He could imagine Andrew in his house, on the couch or just out the back door, twirling a cigarette between his fingers. He had given up smoking before graduating, but his hands still needed something to hold on sometimes. Or maybe he was in his bedroom, the unpacked contents of the package around him. Neil wanted to be there, regardless. 

“The cat toy was unneeded though.” 

“That cat needs something to play with, even I know that.”

“She’s not my cat, Josten.”

“You sent me a picture of her sleeping on your chest literally a week ago.”

“That was confidential.”

“That was adorable, Andrew. I made it my home screen. She’s your cat. Take the damn toy.”

Neil woke up with a start, only realizing his phone vibrating on the bedside table had woken him up after a second of startled panic, picking it up and squinting at the brightness of the screen

[andrew] - “can i call you?”

He hit call on Andrew’s number before he could even think about it, dread rising back up at the back of his throat. 

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was low, and it took Neil a moment to place the forced calm in it. 

“Hey,” he replied softly, scooting out of bed quietly and making his way to the couch in the living room. There was a blanket on there that Nicky had left behind when he went back to Germany that always reminded Neil of him, and he wrapped his legs in it now, “Hey, I’m here.”

There was nothing on the line apart from Andrew’s shallow, fast breathing, so familiar to Neil after years of sleeping in the same bed and waking up to nightmares creeping at the edge of the window. 

“D’you want me to talk?”, he asked, voice soft and quiet both for the sake of his roommates and Andrew.

Neil could hear Andrew shifting, the almost-not-there sound of his feet on the wooden floor of his bedroom as he went over to the window, the slight creak in the handle as he turned it to let some air in. 

“Yeah. Talk.”

“Dan stopped by today, she was on her way to a conference,” Neil knew this game from too much practice, knew the exact sort of topics and tone to use, “Some of the freshmen wanted to pin her down and force her to be our new coach, but I guess that’s what happens if you don’t know her drills” 

He could hear Andrew huffing and felt himself relax the tiniest bit. Reactions were good, and he didn’t know if he could live with himself if his voice wasn’t enough tonight. 

So he kept talking, about Dan’s commentary on the team’s form, about her ruffling his hair when she hugged him goodbye, about the pictures Allison had sent him from her trip to Portugal. 

Nothing too complicated, nothing too emotional. Nothing about how he’d had a nagging worry at the back of his head all day when Andrew didn’t reply to his messages, or the fact that he had once again found himself staring at the prices for last minute plane tickets, toying with the idea, the team and school be damned. Neil could see the clock in the corner lazily shifting from 2 to 3 am, and settled in deeper into the couch cushions. 

“Oh, and Dan brought me something, actually,” he found himself saying, the end of the sentence trailing off into the darkness of the room.

“What did she bring you?” Andrew asked, his voice rough but had lost the tension that was all over it just 15 minutes ago. 

“Some pictures, of your graduation party.” Neil could basically feel the slight hitch on Andrew’s next breath and leaned his forehead on his drawn up knees. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but the night apparently made him lose his head just a little bit. “She hadn’t sorted through them yet when she was here the last time, but she found a few she thought we might want. She’ll send the rest to Nicky and Aaron.” 

Dan had mentioned the rest of the pictures, of Nicky in his sparkly graduation cap chugging a bottle of champagne at 3am and Aaron falling asleep on the couch next to his twin, snuggling an oversized plush toy bear dressed as a doctor that the cheerleaders had gifted him. But Neil had only nodded, staring at the pieces off glossy photo picture she had stuffed into his hands. 

“There’s a few of us,” he started, clearing his throat slightly, “On the armchair. I don’t really remember it, it must have been late.”

“During the karaoke.” Neil could basically see him, the faint light from the streetlights spilling on his hair, the cowlick near his ear that always appeared after sleeping, the crinkles in his old faintly blue sleep shirt and he closed his eyes, willing to keep the longing at bay. 

“Probably,” he replied, shifting his head on his knees so he wouldn’t muffle the phone, “they’re not perfect, some of them are out of focus and the colours are all weird from the lights the girls dragged in but,” he cut himself off, pressing his mouth closed. This had never been supposed to be so hard. 

He could hear Andrew breathing out again before his voice came through the phone, “You were in my lap, sideways. You had been wound up all day, but you were relaxed then. Laughing at Boyd murdering Holding Out For A Hero. There was glitter in your hair from all the horrid party hats. Your shirt kept slipping off your shoulder because you mixed them up and put on the bigger one that morning.”

“You kissed me,” Neil whispered, not wanting to interrupt Andrew but the words slipping out anyway, “When Nicky and Katelyn were doing Summer Nights. Dan got it in the background. Everyone’s looking at the two of them, but we’re just. There. Together. Your hands are under my shirt”

“I didn’t want to leave,” Andrew said, and the words seemed to crackle in hundreds of miles between them. 

“I didn’t want you to leave either,” Neil replied, feeling his heart clench, “I thought about that night a lot, you know. When we were,” he paused, biting his lower lip, “Not us.”

“Me too.” There was a pause before Andrew spoke again, his voice just a bit less vulnerable than a minute ago. Neil admired his ability to try and dredge them up from below, “Give some of them to me, when I’m coming down.”

“Two weeks,” Neil smiled slightly, half bitter half happy, at the mention of Andrew’s nearing visit. There was a countdown on his phone, but hearing it made it seem more real. 

“Two weeks.” 

Neil sat up, trying to blow the hair off his forehead. It was almost 3:30 am, but he knew he couldn’t just go back to sleep now, and he knew Andrew would be feeling the same way. 

“Hey, you wanna watch a movie?” he asked, already pushing the blanket off his legs, “I just need to get my laptop.”

Andrew huffed, “Yeah, I do. My choice, though. I’m not watching another Mission Impossible.”

“Admit it, you like them,” Neil said, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth while he got up and padded to the desk to retrieve his laptop. 

“Lies and slander,” 

A few minutes later Neil was curled up again, his laptop on his legs and the phone on speaker on his shoulder, the world not looking quite as blurry with the shine of the laptop screen and the sound of Andrew navigating the Netflix menu through the speaker. 

“Hey, Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re trying. We’re making it work.”

“I know. And just two more weeks. I don’t think I’ll let you leave the room.”

“And what if I want to say hello to our darling coach?”

“I think you’ll be quite happy here, with me.”

There was a pause before Andrew’s reply came back, sending a river of molten sunshine through Neil’s core, “Yeah, I guess I will be.”

[taestxny-blog]

But I'm telling you the truth

Word count : 1.227 Request : Heyy please can I get a scenario with Rosé from Blackpink. Female reader. Mostly angst + really heated argument + fluffy ending. Thank you! The longer the better for my Blackpink soul Angst/ Fluff Member : Rosé from Blackpink A/N : Hello :) I hope you’ll like this even if it turned out not too well. I tried to keep it long as you wanted but I had a rough time writing this lol.. also this wasn’t very.. a kind of heated argument? I’m sorry if you dislike it :( You can always ask for scenarios with any member from any group listed in my biography. ( I DO NOT DO SMUT. ) “I’m home, love,” you called out as you came home from work. You heard no one answer, no loving greeting from Rosé as always. She always immediately ran towards you when she was home. It was sweet, she was acting like a puppy. She was off from practice today so she must’ve been home, but as you asked no one answered. “Honey?” you asked again, putting your bag away, looking around after closing the door. You looked through every room until you found her in your bedroom sitting on the bed, staring out of the window. “What’s off? Are you okay?” you quickly got to your girlfriend and sat down next to her, hugging her tightly. “Hmh. How was work,” she asked without any emotion. She seemed rather mad than sad, you just didn’t know why yet. “It was okay like everyday. Now tell me what’s wrong,” you looked at her beautiful face. “Nothing,” she answered, still not looking at you. “I’m not stupid, Chaeyoungie.. I know you’re hiding something. Please tell me what’s off..” you said. “You lied to me,” she replied. “I lied to.. what? I never lied to you!” you defended yourself. “Where were you saturday night?” finally she looked at you. She stared deeply into your eyes, looking hurt and mad. “I was at work, I promise,” you said. “Oh yeah. Work. So, were you alone?” she continued asking, still staring into your eyes. “Of course not, other people from the office were around. Chaeyoungie! Why are you like this.. I did nothing wrong!” you pouted. Pouting always helped but not today, she didn’t accept your cute acting. “Oh you did not? How can you still lie to me in this situation?” she asked, getting a bit louder. Now you knew, you were dead. She was going to freak out sooner or later. No matter how hard you thought, you didn’t know what you did wrong. “So you weren’t with Jisoo that night, do you want to tell me that?” her hands formed to fists and she bit her lip. “I wasn’t with her that night,” you answered. You were getting serious, you didn’t know what your girlfriend was talking about and why she was so mad. “Oh hmh. Tell me the truth or it’s over!” she shouted at you. “What? But Chaeyong, I’m telling you the truth! I don’t know what’s going on, please, don’t end us..” you looked into her eyes while yours were filling up with tears. “You and Jisoo kissed!” she screamed at me. “We never kissed!” you screamed back while some tears were falling down your cheeks. “Jisoo told me you were with her this saturday night. She even sent me a picture,” she sounded hurt, so hurt she didn’t even shout, she just sighed while showing me the chat. “She is the one who is lying! Why don’t you trust me? We’re a couple for two years by now and you don’t trust me? You rather trust Jisoo with a rumor that we kissed?!” you took her phone and scrolled through the chat and looked at the picture. “Damn this looks real but we did not kiss and I swear to god I was working off my ass saturday night!” you shouted at her phone and handed it back. The picture looked real, yet it probably was good photoshop. You don’t remember getting this drunk to kiss her nor being even close to her lips. “You kissed for so long! There is not only this picture, here! Take a look and remember this!” she showed me more pictures. “I never kissed her! Do you think I’d cheat on you? Yes? I, with a little dumb rumor made up by your friend and you, who actually kissed Lisa once!” you stood up, getting mad now, remembering that issue. It was such a mess, you two were on a party thrown by Jennie and of course the squad came. The squad included Jisoo, Lisa, Jennie, Rosé and you. Nayeon, Momo, all their friends came as well. You were gone for a bit and Rosé drank a little bit too much. You just were a bit tipsy but she must’ve drank alot and as you returned you caught her kissing your two’s best friend, Lisa. She was pretty drunk as well so she didn’t realize. The anger in you was real, everyone was even cheering for them, it was like they replaced you with Lisa. So instead of saying anything you just left home and avoided everyone for a while, you also ignored Chaeyoung for a bit. Now you were here, never kissed anyone except your Rosé in your relationship. You understood, she was more worried than she should be as normal since she wasn’t there very often because of her career, yet she always found time for you. “That was an accident! Y/N! That’s the past, that happened a year ago just forget it!” she started crying too. “Ohh! Forgetting it? Would you forget it if I kissed any of our friends?” I asked. She didn’t say anything anymore. “Whatever. Stop lying to me, I don’t want to see you anymore, get out of my eyesight,” she threw a pillow at you. “Why are we even arguing? I hate when we argue, it’s so stupid. But good to know that you trust Jisoo more than me. And Fine, I’m leaving,” you caught the pillow and threw it back, leaving the room. You sat down in the kitchen and stared out of the little window. It was late already and you had a rough day. And now.. you argued with the love of your life. You didn’t argue very often but when you did you always felt down. She wasn’t there very often already, it was a shame that you two had arguments. After a long time has passed you slowly heard someone enter the kitchen. Of course it was Chaeyoung and she was sobbing loudly. “Y/N..” she whispered. You wiped some of your tears away and turned around. Rosé showed you more pictures where you kissed Jisoo’s cheek. “It’s just her cheek. Why do you overreact like this?” you asked. “I’m just.. so super jealous. I love you so much Y/N. I have issues sharing you. I barely see you.. it feels bad when you’re with others who are close to you. I worry alot more, too, because Jisoo likes you..” she stroked her right arm and looked at you. You sighed a bit. “I’m jealous, too, at times. Chaeyoung, I love you. I don’t want to argue with you, I just want to love you, be happy with you. Work is rough for us two already.. we should spend our freetime together happily,” you stood up and cuddled her. She cuddled back and still sobbed. “My love. I’m sorry for shouting at you.. I always feel so guilty while arguing with you.. Please forgive me, I just was so angry/ mad/ frustrated/ jealous, whatever..” she looked away. You made her look into your eyes and kissed her. “Everything’s forgiven.. Just don’t forget that I won’t ever cheat on you. I love you, and only you.. remember that,” you said while looking into her beautiful eyes. She nodded. “I’ll always love and cherish you..” she smiled and pecked your lips. You smiled as well. “Me too..”