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reiderwriter · 6 months

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Unhappy Holidays

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Summary: You're unlucky enough to run into Spencer Reid at holiday celebrations four years in a row. In the New Year, you're resolving to rid him from your mind forever, but you never were one to stick to resolutions 👻🦃🎄🎆

Warnings: SMUT 18+ minors dni, enemies to lovers, low-key work rivals, semi-public sex, car sex, hate sex, fingering, thigh riding, creampie, unprotected sex (no condoms but contraceptive mentioned), slight spoilers for s4 of Criminal Minds (but not really).

Prompt Request: #50"You're so fucking obsessed with me.” #82"Really? Because your pussy is saying something different, sweetheart.” #93"Use my thigh. You've been staring at it all night anyway.”

A/N: This is my first submission for @imagining-in-the-margins November/December Office Party writing challenge! I'm sorry I've been so busy recently, but the holiday season really does take a lot of effort to get through at work lmao. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more over my vacation! For now, enjoy some very unserious smut~♡ (as if I write any other kind).

Here's a link to my masterlist, where you can find all my work!~☆

Working with the FBI was no walk in the park, which, from your desk at the opposite corner of the bullpen, Spencer Reid sure made it look like.

Working on adjacent teams for the last three years had become gradually infuriating. You were forever in the man's orbit, stuck dealing with the other women on your team sat giggling about him and his many stupid haircuts, and wondering just how far you'd fallen to have to stare at his stupid face 5 days a week.

If you were unlucky. His team did happen to be out on cases a lot more, whereas yours handled correspondence and consulting cases, a cushy and safe job.

It annoyed you to no end that you had multiple field-based qualifications, extensive fire arms training and were top of your class at the academy only to be relegated yo desk duty whilst boy wonder with his doctorates was allowed to trip over his own feet catching actual killers.

Other people wondered where your dislike of the man sprang from, and you could only let out a disgruntled squeak and tell them your horror stories.

A few months into your job, your been fresh faced and bushy tailed or however that saying goes, and overly eager to take any assignment that came your way. Even if the assignment was baby-sitting an injured Doctor Spencer Reid. He'd been shot whilst out on a case whilst trying to talk down an unsub, and you'd jumped at the chance to get to know him.

He was an office legend, of course, though those days it was more for his characteristic lack of social graces rather than the beauty he'd grown into. You'd been so eager to get to pick his brains, find out how he'd managed to score the position on the BAU at such an early age.

Reality had hit you square in the face when he'd spent a week ignoring you, making you run around like a headless chicken searching for hard copies of documents the FBI had digitised a millennia ago, and hadn't so much as spared you a glance.

The straw that broke the camel's back came as you were running back to him triumphant with a document he'd requested eight hours before and had let yourself into Penelope Garcia’s office quietly, only to hear him bad mouthing you.

“She makes me uncomfortable. I've had her out searching for useless files all day because I don't know what to do with her.”

“She's trying to help, Spencer, it's her job right now, cut her some slack.”

“Her job is currently getting in the way of mine. I even tried writing my own doctor's note so I could get rid of her, but Hotch wouldn't allow it.”

You'd dropped the file loudly on the table, watched the two spin around with horrified looks and turned silently and left the room.

He hadn't once tried to find you after that, and you let your apprenticeship under Doctor Reid quietly fizzle out as you got back to your regular work.

Your resentment still burned though.

Each time you'd been caught in the same elevator with him, you'd ignored him to an almost insane degree, enjoying the way he squirmed and tried to make small talk.

You'd been in contact with JJ and his Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner as well, through cases you'd recommended, but always maintained your cold shoulder.

The one place you could not ignore him, however, was a Penelope Garcia party.

After you'd slammed the file down on her desk, Penelope had guiltily sent you a gift basket filled with sweet treats and books, and had hounded you for a week to make sure your feelings weren't too damaged by her friend's stupidity.

You actually liked her, and found at least one silver lining to the storm that was Spencer Reid ripping through your life.

In the three years since the “incident,” you'd found yourself at three parties where Penelope in all of her heartwarming ways had tried her best to force a reconciliation between the two of you, to disastrous results.

The first was a Halloween party, and you'd been incredibly proud of your Princess Laia costume when you'd arrived. Only until you'd gone to the kitchen to top up your drink to hear Spencer Reid boring some guest or the other about how Star Trek was more advanced, and had a richer plot line.

Penelope had stepped into the kitchen just as he'd caught a glimpse of your (rather skimpy) outfit - yes, you'd chosen swimsuit Laia, yes, you were going to own it - and had immediately jumped into introductions, as if you weren't already intimately acquainted.

“Spencer! This is Y/N! She loves Halloween, too, she makes all of her costumes. You guys should talk.” She'd led the other guest away and left you there with Spencer as you'd awkwardly looked upon his own costume.

“Are you the Tenth Doctor?” You asked begrudgingly, noting his pin-striped suit and the shorter hairstyle he'd chosen.

“Are you a fan? I prefer the original show run more than the current stuff, but David Tennant has really been doing a wonderful-”

“I'm sorry, let me stop you there. I don't watch Doctor Who. I guess I prefer something with a… How should I say, richer plot?”

He'd snapped his mouth shut and didn't have chance to open it again before you turned dramatically and walked away from him.

The second party you'd been cornered into was just over a year later.

Having been stuck in the office over Halloween, Penelope was determined to get in one last celebration before Christmas steam-rolled every other holiday, and thus you'd been invited to her single-people-only-friendsgiving-potluck, and you'd found yourself having to navigate knocking on her door with a casserole dish in your hands.

Luckily a large hand had appeared from behind you and knocked on the door for you. Unfortunately, the sudden shock from the silent appearance of a man right behind you startled you so much that the dish fell straight from your hands anyway.

Penelope opened her door upon hearing the crash and you whirled on your would-be attacker.

It was Spencer again, eyes round in shock, hand still curled into a fist.

You took a calming breath as you gathered yourself, trying not to bite his head off. You wanted to scream and shout and rip his head out but you didn't, instead letting the fury drip into your voice as you finally opened your eyes again.

“That dish took me four fucking hours to make.” You huffed in anger once more as Penelope guided you into the apartment and poured you a glass of wine before you moved back to the entry hall to clean it up again.

Needless to say he didn't care to converse with you after that.

A few small parties in between had been blissfully Spencer-less and you'd lulled yourself into a false sense of security. That's when you accepted the Christmas party invitation.

As one of the unlucky few members of the FBI who had to stay out over christmas in case of some emergency or the other, you'd been grounded in Virginia, unable to travel home for the holidays. So Penelope Garcia's singles-only-Christmas-fun-time-Party was your last ditch effort to spend the holidays actually resting and eating good food.

Learning from last time, Penelope reassured you that there was no potluck, that she had prepared all the food herself, and all you'd need were a bottle of wine and a willingness to party.

You'd taken those recommendations as law and had immediately let yourself into a glass of mulled wine as you arrived, and - noticing that the party was Reid-free - had allowed it to raise your Christmas spirits slightly more than you usually would.

By hour two of the event, you were full of yuletide joy and swaying freely along to the tune of Silent Night.

Spencer’s late entrance really would have gone unnoticed by you had you not bumped face first into his chest as you spun yourself around in your dance, his hands quickly falling to your hips to steady you.

The few moments it took you to gather yourself were about as long as you needed to realised that he'd caught you in his arms underneath the mistletoe. And with your mind fogged by mulled-whatever-it-was-Penelope-mixed-into-that-punch, the part of your brain that objected to the very existence of Spencer Reid went silent, and the incredibly tiny and somewhat damaged part of your brain that instead saw him as attractive started shouting loud instructions.

Before your common sense could return, you pushed yourself up on your tiptoes to kiss the very warm, very close man holding you upright.

“Mistletoe,” you muttered as you clawed his arms off of you and took yourself straight to Penelope's bathroom to throw up.

So yes, your acquaintance with Spencer Reid had never been good, and you were perfectly fine with resenting him from afar, privately.

With three years of bad experiences under your belt, you weren't excited at completing your yearly tradition of horrendous interaction. Which is perhaps why you immediately and loudly protested Penelope’s New Years Eve party invitation.

“Y/N, it's a party. What's the worst that can happen?” She pleaded as she followed you down the corridors of the office building.

“I could see Spencer Reid. I could be forced to converse with Spencer Reid. I could get absolutely wasted and kiss Spencer Reid. There, three options, please accept my resignation from partying.”

“Y/N we both know you don't drink anymore, so at least one of those is unlikely to happen. And Spencer might not even come, he has tickets for an indie theatre from 6pm onwards, they're playing some Russian movie from the 60s that's like 4 hours long or something. So u retire yourself and tell me you'll come?” She had to take three or four steps for each of your own, not that you were so different in height but because you were practically marching in order to avoid the topic.

But you finally stopped and let out a sigh as you turned back to Penelope who stopped just before she ran into you.

“You're sure he won't be there?”

“I'm sure he RSVP’d no.”

“Fine. But I'm not drinking and I will still be expecting the Penelope Garcia virgin punch experience.”

“Bring the party poppers and you have a deal.”

“Done.”

–X–

Over the week since you'd accepted the invitation, you'd made peace with it. For the most part, you did love a Penelope Garcia production. There was something wonderful about your friend and her ability to brighten anyone's mood, an ability that was only heightened at holidays. She was like a glittered goddess gaining power when worshippers used her altar, except the altar was her house and the worship was a range of hallmark-induced holidays.

You arrived at the party at 10pm, and though that was the start time you'd been given, you weren't surprised to see a full house of Penelope’s team mates already in attendance. Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau and Emily Prentiss sat spread across the sofa in the living room area, and you noticed a few techie friends also grabbing drinks and chatting.

“Y/N, I'm so glad you're here! You remember everyone on the team, right?” She pulled you into a hug and then sat you down in the middle of the group, waiting for you to mingle and become comfortable before she ran off to more hostess duties.

“Of course, nice to see you guys.” You grabbed your promised punch and sat back comfortably, striking up a conversation with Emily about how bleak the dating scene had been recently.

“It seems like all the men around me are jackasses,” Emily muttered and you giggled along.

“I'm wounded,” Morgan shot back, a hand pressed to his chest in faux pain.

“Good. You're like a lion out there in the clubs stalking gazelles, it's like watching a nature documentary when you're out there.”

You almost snorted your entire drink up your nose as Emily finished, needing to compose yourself for a second.

“I guess the men on our team aren't great with romance,” JJ laughed and took a swing. “Hotch and Rossi have four divorces between them, and Derek here is a lost cause.”

“Our only hope is young Spencer. May he grow into a respectful young gentleman and break out curse,” Emily toasted.

“Oh that ship has sailed,” your laugh this time was bitter, your mood immediately growing sour with even the smallest mention of Spencer Reid.

“Ah, Penelope mentioned you had a problem with our boy wonder. Care to share?”

You opened your mouth to give your standard non-answer and move the conversation along, but you were interrupted.

“Yes, Y/N, care to share? I am slightly curious about that as well.” You turned around and there he was, and your stomach turned in disgust.

Just one time, just one party. You'd been having fun, and here he was to ruin it.

“What are you doing here?” you gaped up at him, unsurprised to see him still decked out in sweater vest and slacks even in his down time.

“I was invited.”

“You declined, Penelope said you had movie tickets.”

“Ticket, singular. And it was cancelled so here I am. What's your problem with me, Y/N?” His jaw clenched and he grabbed the back of your chair and leaned down. It was supposed to be intimidating, but you rolled your eyes. When he looked that attractive, veins in his arms popping out of the sleeves he'd pulled up, you couldn't see him as intimidating. His arms were distracting yes, but God that was nothing compared to his thighs. His pants were tight, and you thanked whatever Clueless tailor had sewn them, because you now allowed yourself a momentary lapse to enjoy the appearance of his lower body.

You tried to shake the thought of his attractiveness from your mind, reminding yourself where you were and in what company.

“I don't think I need to answer that. I think I'll enjoy holding it over your head instead,” you said, standing up and beginning to gather your things.

“Wait, Y/N, where are you going? New Year isn't for another 30 minutes.” Penelope scrambled over and grabbed your hand, pleading with you to stay.

“I'm sorry Pen, but there's just this very annoying bug buzzing around me, and I think I need to get away from it.” You said your goodbyes and excused yourself from the party, happy to have walked away relatively undamaged.

Fate had other plans, and as you stepped out of the apartment building ready to walk yourself home, a hand caught yours from behind as a voice chased you.

“Y/N, wait. I'll go. You go back inside.”

“And return with my tail tucked between my legs after making a grand exit? I'll pass, thanks boy genius.” You shook yourself from his grasp and made to walk away again, but he quickly matched your pace and stepped into your path, cutting you off.

“I can't let you walk home. It's like 40° out here, and your coat is more style than substance.”

“Get into a car with a stranger? I'm sure you of all people know how stupid that sounds.” You stuck a finger out and poked his chest, but he grabbed your hand and held it in place as he spat out his next words.

“I'm not a stranger, I'm the man you're obsessed with, Y/N. Big difference.” You laughed, mostly in shock at his indignance, but he stared at your face as serious as could be.

“Me? Obsessed with you? I'm not the one who followed a woman they're barely acquainted with out of a party filled with all of my friends. Sounds like you're projecting, Spencer.”

“Am I?” He questioned, stepping closer and grabbing your hip as he continued his questioning. “I wasn't the one who was sat there talking about me with all of my colleagues.”

“Well, I wasn't the one who turned up to a party I'd declined an invitation to.”

He was imperceptibly close now, hand gripping your hip so tight you wondered if it'd leave you with a mark.

“I certainly was not the one who initiated a kiss last year, Y/N. You need to face the facts, you're so fucking obsessed with me.” If his hands had you feeling dizzy, his words were completely knocking the sense out of you. Suddenly you returned to the person you'd been under that Mistletoe, and everything from his closeness to the rough edge to his voice begged you to do it once again.

“Go fuck yourself,” was about all the words you could manage as he finally let his lips fall down and crush into your own.

You should've pushed him away, but instead your traitorous body wanted to prove his point, opening up for him faster than you'd opened up to anyone else before.

His tongue flicked against your lips and you gladly let him explore your mouth, opening up to tangle your tongue with his.

He tasted sweet, like the punch Penelope had handed you earlier, only now you wondered if someone had accidentally laced it with how free you were being with your affections.

He resurfaced for air, but you didn't care if there was nothing in your lungs at all if it meant that his lips would engage your own in battle once again.

“Look how much you want me,” he smirked. “Look how needy you are after a single kiss, chasing my lips like that.”

“You and your big fucking mouth. I wish you'd shut up once in a while.”

“I'll make it my new year’s resolution.” His lips joined your own again, and you clashed hard, exploring as much as you could muster as he pulled you in the direction of his car.

“I'm not driving… home… with you,” you growled between kisses, trying not to put your teeth to his neck and bite down hard. You're not sure if that impulse was a murderous one or a kinky one.

“I'm not putting you in the front seat, Y/N, I'm putting you in the back. You should be familiar with the idea.”

Heat sparked between your legs, and you allowed yourself to be manhandled into the beat-up trash heap of a car.

He'd not taken his hands off you as he got you in, pushing himself in first and then pulling you by the hand that you'd unconsciously gripped hard. You immediately straddled his hips, skirt naturally riding up in the process. He noticed and looked curiously down at you, growling as you pressed your lips against his neck and grabbed you instead by the hair gathered in a ponytail at the back of your head.

“See, you're obsessed with me. Just admit it.” Without breaking eye contact, he dug his fingers into the material of your tights and pulled in opposite directions, leaving your underwear exposed to his wandering eyes.

“I'm not obsessed with you,” your voice needed conviction to land, but it came out as a lusty whisper, especially as he slipped his fingers inside your underwear and finally touched your aching cunt.

“Really? Because your pussy is saying something else, Princess.” He found your clit faster than you'd ever expected, rubbing slow circles into your skin as you began rocking your hips back and forth.

It was becoming hard to disagree with him, with each flick of wrist growing the heat between your legs. You attacked his neck again, hands practically ripping at his top buttons so you could muffle the sounds of your arousal against his neck, collarbone, chest, any stretch of that pale skin available to you.

He forced your hips to a stop with one hand as he slipped a single digit inside of your hole, gathering your arousal as he set a steady pace, thumb keeping your bundle of nerves occupied.

“Listen, Y/N, can you hear that?”

“I can't h-hear anything.” You had to grind your teeth together to get the words out with minimal interruptions of moans bursting from the pit of your stomach.

He leaned in close to your ear, nuzzling your neck and placing chaste kisses up towards your ear, finally pulling away just enough to whisper a single word in your ear.

“Liar.”

His hand stilled and pulled off you quickly and your eyes broke open, hands unconsciously fitting into his shirt as if you were worried he was going to leave you there like this, on the edge of pleasure but still so far away.

“Use my thigh. You've been staring at it all night anyway.”

“Jackass. You've only been here for like 20 minutes.”

“You can climb right out of this car if you want to, Y/N.” He tried to keep his tone light, but the death grip he had on your thighs, the very obvious tent pitched in his pants and the way his eyes couldn't go five seconds without undressing you told you you had more power in this interaction than he wanted to give you.

There was no way either of you were letting the other go unused tonight.

You relaxed your grip on his shirt and shifted your weight to one of his thighs. Lithe he may be, but lowering yourself down there was an unexpected strength there. He watched on curiously as you rocked experimentally against him. Back and forth you rocked, trying desperately to keep up his momentum or tempt him to help you out again.

It was time to let your voice back out, and you did, moaning without a care as you hummed his leg like a bitch in heat.

“You're enjoying this lot, huh, Y/N,” he muttered, and you watched as his hand worked his pants zip open, removing one of the barriers in the way between the two of you, as he began palming himself.

“What's that saying? Anything you can do, I can do better?” He growled at that response but didn't stop you. Instead he bought a hand down on your ass as you moved, so hard you jolted at the sudden pain. Your eyes shot open as your hips stilled, but you felt warmth grow between your legs.

“Yes, you definitely enjoyed that. Should I do that again, or do you think we should hurry this up and go back up for the countdown?”

You hesitated only a second before you pushed his hand off his lap, shifting your hips further towards his knees before letting your hand reach for where his had just been.

You didn't let yourself think about how big he was as you pulled his cock free, didn't let yourself wonder how he measured up against anyone you'd been with before. You didn't let yourself waste time thinking about how various office rumours were true, and definitely not a second was wasted feeling jealous about how those rumours were spread in the first place.

Instead you simply slammed your lips back against his, mouth opening to let your tongue engage his as you lifted your hips with his help and lowered yourself down on him.

You didn't have to rid yourself of sinful thoughts after that as he purged every single brain cell from your head, filling you so contently that there was simply no space for anything but him.

You locked up on top of him, clawing at his shoulders as you whimpered at the stretched, falling so he was balls deep inside you. You wanted to move, to use him for your pleasure, but your walls tightened every time you even thought about it as he stroked your hair through it all.

It had been some time since you'd last had a sexual partner, and you needed the few minutes to overcome the first uncomfortable bliss of it all.

“That good?” he whispered, but the harsh tone of earlier was gone, replaced only by unsure humour to break the silence.

“Been a while.” He nodded, kissing you again to distraction as he shifted your positions.

Cradling your neck and securing your legs comfortably around him, he lowered you against the backseat, pulling out slightly as you adjusted to the new angle.

“Better?” You nodded quickly, because it was. There was no more pressure on your legs, and despite the cramped space in the car, you had enough space to lie almost flat.

“Yes… thank you.” Just as his cutting tone had escaped him, you also heard your own tone softening, the sigh of contentment slipping past your lips almost sweet. Almost.

“Are you going to fuck me now, or what?”

He let out a shocked laugh, but lent down to shut you up with a kiss nonetheless. Bracing himself against the car door, his hips softly rocked into you, pace increasing until you were back to the edge of cumming, nails pressed hard into his skin until you were sure he was going to complain.

He didn't though, but kept up his thrusts, until your vision suddenly darkened and stars exploded in them, rolled back in your head as they were.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, where should I…?” He panicked, but you wrapped your legs around him, grabbing him by the tie and pulling him down to swallow his moan as he shot his load inside of you.

“Birth control.” You whispered when you finally let him go, gasping for air. “Contraceptive pill. No need to get the car dirty.”

He collapsed on top of you then, forehead resting against your own as you both caught your breaths.

The moment was silent, and you found the synchronicity of your breaths almost calming. Eventually you had to break apart, and he helped you up to a sitting position, but didn't break eye contact as fell back into his lap.

His hands stroked your back, dipping to your ass at times, but he didn't talk. Neither of you did.

The eye contact between the two of you was possibly the most pleasant conversation you'd ever had.

“I'm sorry.” He blurted, just as fireworks erupted into the night sky. Your heart shook, and you weren't sure of it was the shock of the sound, or the way the rainbow of lights illuminated his sincere expression.

“You don't have to apologise for cumming in me, Spencer.”

“Not that. Before. The casserole and the mistletoe, and the Halloween costume.”

“Wow. Um, okay. Apology accepted, I guess, though I'm not entirely sure why you're apologising now.”

He took a deep breath just as another set of fireworks went up.

“I pulled you under the mistletoe. It was Penelope’s idea, she knew how stupid I was being around you and sent me over. I saw it and took the chance.”

“Fuck. Why?”

“Because I was pretty useless at being chivalrous the year before.”

You climbed off his lap in a scramble and sat on the seat beside him, mind racing, trying to figure out where the hell he was going with this.

He turned to you, trying to keep your attention as he stumbled over the words.

“You couldn't knock on the door, so I wanted to help you, but I didn't think I'd scare you so much you'd drop it.”

“You didn't scare me it was a momentary lapse in my observational skills.”

“You shrieked,” a smile threatened to pull his lips up, they twitched as you flushed red.

“And Halloween?” You looked at him again now, trying to figure out what the hell was going on between the two of you.

“You refused to look at me for a year after we stopped working together,” he shrugged quickly running a hand through his hair and expelling a breath. “I don’t really know how to talk to women.”

“You just know how to piss them off?”

“Morgan says it comes naturally.”

“Yeah, well, Morgan is very wise.”

A brief silence stretched between you, or as silent as a night full of cracks, pops, whizzes and bangs could be.

“I don't get it. You tried your best to get rid of me when I was there to help you. I wanted to impress you, and you kept sending me on meaningless errands, and now you're saying what? You wanted my attention?” There was a quiet anger to your voice, but you were surprised to find it diminished and tired.

“I wanted you gone because you were distracting me, Y/N, not because I hated you.”

“Well, what's the difference, Doctor Reid? Please indulge me.” You huffed a little but kept your eyes on him, trying not to seem too desperate for his answer.

“I have an IQ of 187. Emily says when I'm around a pretty girl it's more like 52,” he fidgeted with his pants, forcing the words out.

“You're a pretty girl. We had a case to work and all I could think about was how to get you to like me. Hotch chewed me out like three separate times for being absent minded.”

He was looking anywhere but you, trying his best not to appear like a fool but you were locked onto him.

“Oh my god you're an idiot.”

“When you're around, yes.”

“And that means I'm equally stupid.”

“No, you just jump to conclusions and hold grudges. There wasn't anything really that stupid about your actions, though it could be suggested that not thoroughly thinking through the wording of the conversation you overheard-”

You cut him off with a kiss, pulling him down again mlby his tie.

“Oh my god, shut up,” you whispered as you broke apart.

“Does that mean we can do this again? Because I'd like to do this again?”

“Stop talking, start kissing jackass.”

He finally didn't argue with that, pulling you back into him as you sat under the stars in his car welcoming the new year.

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #mgg #spencer reid smut #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid criminal minds #dr spencer reid #criminal minds smut #cm writing challenge

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kinnbig · 4 months

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✨ Simple Gif Colouring for Beginners ✨

I wrote up my basic gif colouring process for a friend recently, but a couple of people here mentioned they'd also find it helpful! so, as requested, this is a beginner-friendly walkthrough of the way I colour my gifs :) it's aimed at brand new gif makers with no prior experience with photoshop or photo editing.

when I first started gif making I found colouring and photoshop in general suuuper daunting, so I've tried to simplify everything here as much as possible. hopefully this will be relatively easy to follow and not too intimidating!

a couple of things to begin with:

I'm only talking about colouring here - this is not a full gif making tutorial. I've linked to some of my favourites of those here!

I personally like to make bright, 'clean' looking gifs with vibrant but natural colours, so that is the style of colouring this tutorial is geared towards. most of gif colouring is subjective and about personal taste - the only thing that I'd say is possible to get wrong is skin tones, which I talk about a lot in this guide.

as I mostly gif Thai dramas, most of the advice is geared towards colouring for East Asian/South East Asian skin tones - but the techniques should be fairly universally applicable (and here are some tutorials that talk about gif colouring for other skin tones).

I'm not an expert! I'm not claiming this is the best or the only way to colour gifs - it's just how I do it.

this post is very image-heavy. if the images aren't loading (or the gifs are running slowly or cutting/looping weirdly), then try viewing the post in its own tab (rather than on the your dash or someone's blog) and refreshing the page.

okay, full walkthrough beneath the cut!

contents:

1. intro a. natural gif colouring goals b. very very basic colour theory 2. super simple colouring (the essentials) a. curves b. selective colour (and skin tone correction) c. hue/saturation d. saving and reusing colouring e. another simple colouring example 3. other adjustment layers a. brightness/contrast b. levels c. vibrance d. colour balance e. channel mixer 4. troubleshooting a. curves b. saturation 5. fin!

1. intro

the colouring part of gif making can be super overwhelming, especially if (like me when I first started!) you're completely new to photoshop and/or have no experience with colour theory or photo/video editing.

if you're opening photoshop and making gifs for the first time, I highly recommend getting used to making a few basic, uncoloured gifs to begin with. just to practice, rather than post anywhere (though you can always come back and colour them later if you want) - but it'll make the rest of the process much easier if you're already beginning to get used to working in timeline mode of photoshop. give yourself a bit of time to practice and get a feel for things like how many frames you tend to like in a gif, where you like to crop them for the best loop, what kind of aspect ratio you like etc* - so that you're not trying to navigate all of that for the first time on top of everything else!

* frames: for me between 60-90 frames is ideal, but 40-120 frames is the absolute min-max I'd personally use in a normal gifset loops: for the smoothest loops, try to avoid cutting someone off mid-movement or mid-word if possible. aspect ratio: for full-size (540px) gifs, I tend to go for either 8:5 (slightly 'skinnier' gifs), 7:5, or 5:4 (particularly big, thick gifs lmao)

✨ natural gif colouring goals

part of what can be so daunting about starting gif making is not knowing where to start or what you want to achieve. this is definitely something that gets easier with practice - the more gifs you make, the more you'll get a feel for what kind of look you like and the more instinctively you'll know how to get there. it also helps to see if any gif makers you like have made "before and after colouring" posts - these can help with getting a sense of the kinds of changes made through gif colouring. here's one I made!

in general, I like to make my gifs bright and 'clean' looking, with vibrant but natural colours. these are the things I'm usually hoping to achieve with colouring:

brighten dark scenes

remove muddy, yellowish lighting or filters

saturate colours

correct any skin lightening filters or overexposure

make lighting and colours as consistent as possible between gifs within a single gifset, especially gifsets featuring gifs from multiple scenes/episodes/videos

this guide is focusing on natural colouring, but of course there are many cool ways to make stylised/unnaturally coloured gifs. imo you'll need to master these basics first, but if you want to learn how to do things like change the background colour of gifs or use gradients or other cool effects, then @usergif's resource directory has loads of super helpful tutorials!

✨ very very basic colour theory

[disclaimer! I don't know shit about fuck. I do not study light or art. this is just an explanation that makes sense to me exclusively for the purposes of gif making.]

the primary colours for light/digital screens are red, blue, and green. having all three colours in equal measures neutralises them (represented by the white section in the middle of the diagram).

so to neutralise a colour within a gif, you need to add more of the colour(s) that are lacking.

in practice this usually means: the scene you want to gif is very yellow! yellow is made of red and green light, so to neutralise it you need to add more blue into your gif.

it can also mean the reverse: if you desaturate the yellow tones in a gif, it will look much more blue.

looking at the colour balance sliders on photoshop can make it easier to visualise:

so making a gif more red also means making it less cyan.

removing green from a gif means adding magenta.

taking yellow out of a gif will make it more blue.

tl;dr:

neutralise yellows by adding blue (and vice versa)

neutralise reds by adding cyan (and vice versa)

neutralise green by adding magenta (and vice versa)

2. super simple colouring (the essentials)

starting with a nice sharpened gif in photoshop in timeline mode. (these are the sharpening settings I use!)

some scenes are much harder to colour than others - it helps to start out practising with scenes that are bright/well-lit and that don't have harsh unnaturally coloured lights/filters on. scenes with a lot of brown/orange also tend to be harder.

I usually save a base copy of my gif before I start colouring just in case I end up hating it, or find out later that it doesn't quite fit right into a set and need to redo it etc.

so here is my base gif!

it's an okay gif, but it has a bit of a yellow tint to it that I want to reduce.

colouring is easiest to do in adjustment layers, which can be found under layer -> new adjustment layer - or for me they are here:

there are lots of different types of adjustment layers that do lots of different things - but for me the absolute essentials for colouring are curves, selective colour, and hue/saturation.

I also use brightness/contrast, levels, exposure, vibrance, colour balance, and channel mixer sometimes, depending on the gif - but I use curves, selective colour, and hue/saturation on every single gif.

✨ curves layer

the first thing I always do is a curves layer. when you first open one it will look like this:

first I usually click the ‘auto’ button, just to see what happens. sometimes it makes a big difference (it usually brightens the gif a lot) - but on this gif it didn’t do much.

if it had made the gif look nicer then I would have kept it and added a second curves layer on top to do the rest of these steps.

the next step is selecting the white and black points with the little eyedropper tools.

the bottom eyedropper lets you pick a white point for the gif. click somewhere super light on the gif to see what happens - for this gif, I clicked on the lampshade on the left. if it looks weird, I just undo it and try somewhere else - it usually takes a few goes to find something that looks good.

here's what that did to the gif:

then I pick the top eyedropper and use it to pick a black point by clicking somewhere really dark, again playing around until I find a black point that looks good.

here's what the gif looks like after picking the white and black points:

this can take some experimenting, but you can make super easy drastic changes to your gif just with this. in this case, the curves layer took out a lot of that yellowy tint.

and this is what the curves graph looks like now:

you can click and drag those lines to make further changes if you want - I usually leave them alone though. the colours of the lines indicate which colours have been changed in the gif - for example, you can see from that steep blue line on the graph that blue has been added to neutralise those yellows.

next I usually do another curves layer and just press the ‘auto’ button again to see what happens. usually it brightens the gif a bit more, which I like.

‼️if nothing is working: usually with a bit of fucking about a curves layer works well - but sometimes you can’t find a good white and black point anywhere, and instead your gif turns wacky colours and nothing looks good. this happens more often with very heavily colour tinted scenes :( the troubleshooting section at the end goes over some options, including starting with a levels layer instead.

✨ selective colour (and skin tone correction)

skin tones are made up of a mixture of yellow and red.

removing yellow (or adding blue or red) to a gif will make the skin-tones too red - and removing red (or adding cyan or yellow) to a gif will make the skin-tones too yellow.

adding blue to this gif with the curves layer took out the yellowy tint, which I wanted - but it also took the yellows out of Kim's skin tone, which I don’t want. so I need to put yellow back into the skin tones specifically - without putting it back into the rest of the gif.

selective colour layers let you select an individual colour and adjust the levels of other colours within that colour. you can change how yellow the green shades are, or how much cyan is in the blues, for example.

I need to add yellow back into the red tones to correct the skin tones on this gif. this is the case for most gifs in my experience - the vast majority of the time, unless a scene is very heavily tinted in another colour, a curves layer will add blue/remove yellow.

in the 'colors' dropdown, select the 'reds' section and drag the 'yellow' slider higher - this will add more yellow into just the red shades within the gif.

the amount of yellow you need to add back into the reds depends on how much yellow was taken out of the gif initially - I just play around with the slider until it looks right. if you're not sure, it helps to have some neutrally-coloured (not white-washed!) reference photos of the people in your gif to compare to.

here's the result. Kim's skin is a lot less pink toned and much more natural looking:

✨ hue/saturation

this adjustment layer lets you adjust the hue and saturation of the gif as a whole, and also of each colour individually.

I don't use the hue or lightness sliders unless I'm trying to do something more complicated with the colouring.

clicking the dropdown menu that says 'master' lets you edit the saturation of each colour individually. this is useful if your gif is still super tinted in one colour.

I thought the yellows on this gif were still slightly too bright, so I switched to the yellow channel and desaturated them slightly. (remember if you do this then you need to go back to selective colour and add more yellow into the red skin tones to balance out the desaturation!)

then I increased the 'master' saturation of all the colours to +5:

I usually find the right amount of saturation is somewhere between +5 and +12, but it depends on the gif.

‼️if the gif feels undersaturated, but the saturation slider isn't helping/is making the colours worse, try a vibrance layer instead.

done!

✨ saving and reusing colouring

you can copy and paste adjustment layers between gifs to make your colouring even across each of your gifs for one scene - so if you're making a set of multiple gifs of the same scene, or you think you might want to gif the same scene again in the future, you can save it as a psd so you can reuse the colouring again later.

each gif's colouring will then still need tweaking - different cameras/angles/shots of the same scene can still start out with slightly different colouring.

I recommend uploading the gifs as a draft post on tumblr so you can see what they all look like next to each other and catch any inconsistencies.

✨ another one! (speedrun!)

HI KEN!

the white point for the curves layer was in the window behind them.

the curves layer removes the muddy yellow tint, but again it makes their skin tones (especially Ken's) very red toned, which is adjusted by the selective colour layer.

3. other adjustment layers

imo many many gifs can be coloured really nicely with just those three adjustment layers, but some need different adjustments.

✨ brightness/contrast

pretty self explanatory!

I personally usually avoid using the 'brightness' slider because I rarely like the effect - I only tend to use the 'contrast' one.

the 'auto' button is sometimes useful though, especially if you’re struggling with the curves layer.

✨ levels

levels alters the white and black points of the gif, like curves - but unlike curves it doesn't also alter other colours.

use the sliders beneath the graph to alter how dark/light the gif is. you can slide the black slider further to the right to make the blacks darker, and the white slider to the left to make the whites lighter.

levels is a good place to start if your curves layer isn't working.

(I'm going to hit the image limit for this post lol so here are some screenshots of a table I made to demonstrate this rather than actual gifs. sorry!)

on both sides, I dragged the sliders up to where the big jumps are on the graph - this is usually a good place to start!

✨ vibrance

vibrance... makes the colours more vibrant. it's more subtle than saturation.

it's really helpful for gifs that feel grey. sometimes adjusting saturation just makes the greys kind of weirdly tinted, but a vibrance layer can fix that.

vibrance is much more subtle!

✨ colour balance

colour balance affects the overall balance of colours within a gif.

it's good for scenes with heavy tints.

I tend to stick to the 'midtones' dropdown, but you can also alter the colour balance within the shadows and highlights if you want.

✨ channel mixer

I avoided channel mixer for such a long time because it scared me. but it's great for scenes that are very heavily tinted in one colour.

basically, it works with the levels of red, green, and blue within a gif. you select an output colour and then play around with the levels of the colour you selected within each other colour.

kind of the reverse of selective colour?

so in the 'blue' channel, the levels of blue are at 100%, and the levels of red and green are at 0% - but you can impact how much blue is in the reds and greens and blues.

this tutorial explains it well - but imo the best way to get to grips with channel mixer is just to play around with it a bit (sorry)

(when I made this guide for my friend, I also made a slightly more complicated gif colouring walk-through that included using channel mixer. there isn't space to include it within this post, but if anyone is interested I could always upload it as an 'intermediate' gif colouring tutorial - lmk!)

4. troubleshooting

‼️curves

usually with a bit of fucking about a curves layer works well - but sometimes you can’t find a good white and black point anywhere, and instead your gif turns wacky colours and nothing looks good. this happens more often with very heavily colour tinted scenes :(

for example, with this base gif:

using many of the brightest points as a white point turn it wacky colours, like this:

yikes :(

some options for these cases:

try brightening the gif first with the 'auto' button on the curves layer or with a levels layer. having a brighter gif to start with can give you better options for picking a white point.

try finding an alternate, whiter/brighter white point. look for places the light reflects - on this gif, using the light on Porsche's cheekbone works well as the white point. it also helps to find places that would be white if the scene wasn't tinted - the lightest part of a white shirt is often a good place to start, for example.

skip the curves layer, and instead use a levels layer to alter your white/black points, and colour balance or channel mixer to balance the colours.

‼️over/undersaturation

if your gif (especially the skintones) is looking a little washed out or lifeless, it might be undersaturated. boost that saturation - or if that's not working, try a vibrance layer.

oversaturation is often easiest to spot in the mouths and ears of any people in a gif. if the mouths are looking unnaturally, vibrantly red, then you've gone too far with the saturation.

5. fin!

and done! I hope this was coherent helpful to somebody.

if there's anything that I've missed or that doesn't make sense pls feel free to shoot me an ask or a message and I'll do my best to help! I've also collated a bunch of additional reading/resources below.

happy gifmaking 🥰

✨ some links!

photoshop basics by @selenapastel

gifmaking for beginners by @hayaosmiyazaki

gifmaking guide for beginners by @saw-x

dreamy's gif tutorial by @scoupsy-remade (includes instructions on how to blur out burned-on subtitles or annoying video graphics)

beginner's guide to channel mixer by @aubrey-plaza

how to fix orange-washed characters by aubrey-plaza

colour correcting and fixing dark scenes by @kylos

does resampling matter? by usergif

how to put multiple gifs on one canvas by @fictionalheroine

watermarking using actions by @wonwooridul

resource directory by @usergif

#i got a couple of asks about this so i figured i'd type it up as a post #it's been sitting in my drafts for a while now though i'm so sorry omg.#i had to replace my laptop and it took me a while to get round to downloading photoshop on the new one #but i hope this is helpful!!#gif making #tutorial #photoshop tutorial #colouring tutorial #coloring tutorial #gif colouring #gif coloring #photoshop resources #gif tutorial #gif resources #userbunn #uservik #darcey.txt #darcey.gif #usergif

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decepti-thots · 12 days

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The Transformers Fic Rec community!

With Tumblr rolling out its Community function in beta, I'm jumping in to experiment with whether it's a good platform for an old idea I had to run some kind of fic rec event/feed for Transformers. Because I miss when fic rec communities were a bigger thing in fandom!

What is it?

So first off, communities are a new Beta feature Tumblr is rolling out which allows members to post and reblog to semi-public, curated feeds here on Tumblr. (If you were around when Livejournal was a thing, or use Dreamwidth, it brings a little of the way comms work(ed) on those platforms over here.)

Posts made to the community are visible when you visit it, but don't go into the wider public search. You can comment on and react to posts, and members can reblog posts from elsewhere on Tumblr into the community. The idea is for this to be a dedicated little feed you can proactively check and post to when looking for fic recs and related discussion, somewhere between a forum and a blog feed! Slower and more public than a Discord server, but more curated and targeted than just throwing stuff out there. I also hope to start doing fic rec theme/challenge weeks on there at some point, if I can get things going!

The community will be 18+ only, due to it accepting mature and explicit fic recs. Users will need to have some kind of indication on their blog they are an adult to join. A set of basic guidelines is on the new community page as the pinned post for now and can be read before choosing to join if you like.

So how do I join?

At the moment, communities are invite-only while the beta testing continues. (They are currently working on letting admins use invite links to let people join, hopefully very soon.) This means that if you would like to request to join, you will need to send me an ask so I can add you. (Or comment on this post, or... you get the idea. You have to ask me.) In the future, you'll be able to request to join yourself. As mentioned above, this community is 18+, and blogs that do not verify you are eighteen or older will not be added. (Unless I know you, I guess? But otherwise: say you're old, please, lmao.)

Anyway. Check out the community here and if you want in, hit me up! I'll go make some example posts sometime later today or tomorrow, probably. :) Let's get the ball rolling! (And if you have any suggestions and/or feedback, let me know if you want, I'm all ears.)

#maccadam #transformers #yes i HAVE been waiting since they announced the communities beta for this lol #i was gonna kickstart my previously-paused idea of TF fic rec Stuff and then heard about this and was like #'hmmm. would be a good thing to test it with' lol

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ebodebo · 23 days

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summary: you're in a secret relationship with your brother's bestfriend.

a/n: HI! i was tagged to do #cali's namless challenge created by @the-californicationist to celebrate her reaching 500k on ao3! congrats cali and hopefully you all enjoy what i cooked up:)) (make sure you guess who you think it's about in the comments lmao) ALSO this is actually way longer that it's supposed to be, so i apologize. i just can't summarize to save my life!

if you want to particpate.. check out cali's blog linked above for the rules!

wanna be on my taglist ? fill out this form !

❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。

Crossing Lines

Heavy gray clouds obscured the sky, the trees and bushes were bending and whipping in the wind, rain was pouring down, splashing off the pavement. You peered out of the car window, you were resting your head on, observing rain droplets that slid down the window, listening to weather forecasters talking about the massive storm to come. You carefully observed the droplets, delicately choosing the one you thought would win. Silently, you cheered your drop on, but, alas, it was too slow.

You heard your parents talking in the front seat about the graduation you were attending. A military graduation to celebrate the recruits, your brother included, hard work and dedication through basic training. An outstanding achievement indeed. But something you had been dreading.

It wasn't because you weren't proud of your brother—no, no. It was because his best friend would be in attendance to watch him graduate. It might not seem so bad, but you had been secretly with him for four months and counting without anyone knowing. Though you hadn't really talked to him in a little over a month since he'd been doing some "top secret work," he would say, and service was terrible where he was.

"We're here!" Your mom chimed from the front seat, absolving you from your thoughts. You open the car door to immediately be met with raindrops falling onto your skin, offering you some sort of comfort.

You follow your parents closely as you all walk into the venue. Large tables covered in red satin tablecloths and large flower decorations were among the first things you saw. It was honestly quite beautiful. Flags hung slightly over the large arched windows, still giving you a view of the pouring rain outside.

You followed your parents to a table with a white nameplate in the middle with your last name on it. Taking your seat, you noticed a group of people hovering over the door you came in through, each greeting whoever came in. You tried to move your head to look at the person who walked in, but all the people obscured your view.

You sat with your hands in your lap, playing with the ring on your middle finger. "He's here, honey!" Your dad announced to your mom. You turned your head to see him waving to your parents, walking towards them. You hadn't seen him for a while, but, God, could he get your pulse to quicken just as fast as the first time you'd met.

He reached them, and your mom gave him a hug. "Were all those people greeting you?" she laughed out, playfully hitting his arm. "What can I say? I'm kind of a big deal around here," he joked as your dad brought him in for a hug, too.

You slowly stood up. "Hi," you quietly said, suddenly feeling shy. He looked down at you, a smile tugging at his lips. "My, my, what do we have here? I can't believe you came." He chuckled, bringing his arms out to hug you. "It's my brother's graduation. Of course, I came." You laughed, wrapping your arms around him.

"Fuck. I missed your laugh." He quietly grunted near your ear before he let go. You felt hot goosebumps travel down your arm at the roughness of his voice. You heard a female voice call your boyfriend’s name behind you; you turned to see a pretty brunette waving her hand in the air. The sight made your stomach drop. He nodded to her. "Scuse' me." He politely said, gently touching your mom's arm.

He noticed your soured expression, which you didn't realize you were making. He let out a soft laugh before pulling out his phone, pointing to it to signal you to take your phone out. You quickly pulled out your phone as he walked away, typing on his.

Peabrain: She's the captain's daughter. You're the only woman for me. Got that?

Me: good because i thought i was going to have to kick someone's ass. mostly yours though.

Peabrain: Ouch, baby.

Peabrain: I would never do that to you. Your brother would fucking kill me if I did.

Me: i would fucking kill you if you did.

Peabrain: I know. My tough girl.

You felt yourself heat up at the sentiment. "Is everything okay, honey?" your dad questioned. You quickly looked up to meet his worried expression. "Huh? Oh, ya, just a little hot." You picked up one of the graduate pamphlets lying on the table and fanned your face with it, silently cursing your boyfriend for getting you all hot and bothered.

❀・。.。* ❀ *。.。·* ❀ *·。.。* ❀ *·。.。* ❀ *。.

The ceremony had been going on for about an hour, and there was definitely at least one more hour left. Though your brother had already crossed the stage, you had to stay and wait for the other graduates to walk.

You noticed your boyfriend sitting beside some other military personnel in the front. God, he was so hot. His hair was slightly messy from running his hand through it too many times. He was in a tuxedo with a red tie, and his legs were spread pretty wide, giving you a nice view between his legs. You looked up at his face to see his eyes were focused on you, a cocky smirk on his lips. Your eyes widened as you shifted your attention to the graduates walking across the stage.

You felt your phone vibrate in your pocket, so you discretely reached for it and looked at it under the table.

Peabrain: Meet me in the bathroom.

Me: ya right.

Peabrain: Bathroom. You, Me. Now.

Me: i'm not listening. blah blah blah.

Peabrain: I will drag you in there.

Me: you wouldn't.

Peabrain: Oh, trust me, I would.

Me: fine. you're so needy.

Peabrain: You have no fucking idea.

So, that's how you ended up sitting on the sink of a cramped bathroom. "This fucking dress." Your boyfriend purred, gently pooling the fabric up around your waist. He connected his mouth to your neck. "What do you have against my dress?" You questioned, bringing your hand up to thread through his hair.

He brought his lips to kiss along your jaw until he reached your lips. "It's short. I could see your thighs when you sat down." He groaned into your lips. "Why were you looking that low?" You whispered, tone dripping with seducation. He didn't answer; he just grabbed the back of your head and pushed your lips onto his.

As you were kissing, his hand dropped to graze your lower thigh, slowly going higher and higher until he was grazing your cunt over your underwear. You let out a soft moan before pulling away slightly.

"We shouldn't be doing this here." You breathe out, lightly massaging the back of his head with your fingers.

"No, I agree. This is just despicable behavior." He stated as he slipped his hand under your underwear to draw soft circles over your dripping cunt. "Just despicable," he breathed into your ear. You let out a moan as you pull your hands out of his hair to grip his shoulders. "I mean, anyone could walk in." He said as he leaned closer, his lips hovering over your ear. "They could see my fingers in you." He whispered as his finger slipped inside you. "Fuck." You choked out, gripping him tighter.

"See you begging me for more." He lightly nipped your ear, carefully pumping his fingers in and out of you, grazing your sweet spot. You quickly connected your lips again, his tongue battling yours. You jump a little at the sound of a ding from your phone.

"Leave it." He said, gripping your jaw to bring your lips back to his. You nodded and continued kissing him. His fingers are now pumping a little quicker in you—another ding. You groan. "Let me just check real quick." He groaned and begrudgingly pulled his fingers out of you.

Stinky: Hey, sis! Where’d you go?

Stinky: The ceremony ended early. Mom and Dad want to grab some dinner. Food sucks here.

Me: hey! went to the bathroom rq. be right there!

He peered into the mirror to see who was taking your gaze.

"Mmh. Should we tell em' ?" He sarcastically said as he threaded his fingers through your hair. "You're an asshole." You roll your eyes as you carefully jump off the sink. You look up at him. "He could kick your ass, you know?" You matter-of-factly say. "Something tells me I could take 'em,' " He plainly states, wrapping his hands around your waist.

"You wanna come eat with us?" You question, raising your hands to gesture for him to bend down. He obliges as you bring your hand up to fix his hair. "Mhm. Are we gonna sneak away to the bathroom during dinner?" He questions, with a smirk.

You pull your hands down and rub them over his chest. "Ya.. and I'll even let you finger me under the table." You seductively say.

"Really?" His eyes brighten.

"No. Not really." You drop your hands as you let out a laugh.

"You're a cruel woman." He pouts.

"Fine. Maybe I'll let you play footsies with me under the table." You say as you turn to fix your lipstick in the mirror.

"Deal." He instantly says, bringing a smile to your lips.

❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。

also, just tagging everyone on my taglist! so, this has nothing to do with who the story is about...

taglist: @artemis-b-writes @starsofang @sceletaflores @yuenity @minihotdog @theloneshadow24 @harpsinfinity @mrs-marc-spector @babygirl-riley @contractedcriteria @yyiikes @hilmiponken @bleached-punk @IMASLUTFORFICTIONALMEN @chonkaydonkay @lunars-somehow-alive @gowno1wysrane

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johnbleepingzoidberg · 1 year

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UNTITLED EVIL LUIGI AU COMIC THING | Page 2 & 3 of (???)

Eggman Bowser’s come to make an announcement. Particularly to shut down any premonitions Mario may be holding onto a little too tightly. Bowser and Mario are able to set aside their differences (for now, at least) so that they can work together on a common goal-- figuring out where the hell Luigi is.

(A/N under cut)

---

believe me when i say i really wanted to link all the pages together in a neat, practical way so that everything would appear more organized than it actually is, but tumblr hates me and won’t let my posts show up in the tags if i include a hyperlink of any kind. :D

i read somewhere that tumblr only disallows posts from showing up in tags if it includes an external link (vs an internal/link to another tumblr page), which, in theory, shouldnt be an issue since the pages i’d be linking to are also on tumblr but regardless it’s not cooperating with me anyway. i’ve been on tumblr for what feels like a million years but this is the first time ive tried to make my posts cohesive like this so if anyone knows how to fix this issue im all ears 🙃 for the record, everything related to this au will be going into the following tags on my blog: #my art, and #evil luigi au. we’ll just have to sort things that way for now, i guess 😭

i start work tomorrow so can’t say when there will be a new page but i do have a lot planned out already. so hopefully i’ll be able to continue what ive started for at least a handful of more pages 🤠 next page will be fun to work on. for a bowuigi-centered story, where’s the luigi?! he’ll show up soon. just in the form of a flashback for now though 👀

also sorry if my handwriting is evil. it’s just personally easier/faster to write out everything by hand than type everything out but i may try to type the next page’s dialogue to see how it goes and to see if it makes things look ✨cleaner��

(also also i spent so much time trying to figure out how to draw them doing a handshake for the “truce” panel. i ultimately failed. therefore.... fist bumps LMAO)

#bowuigi #bowser x luigi #bowser #mario #super mario bros #super mario movie #bowuigi comic #my art #mine #evil luigi au #remember how i said last time there will be absolutely no consistency to this in any sense of the word #these 2 pages really showcase that LOL #love how i go from drawing bowser with a full set of teeth to like. 3 #maybe i really should consider typing out the text thatd probably help #anyway i hope i can keep this going for a bit #i do plan on writing an original comic someday so this is good practice/is a good confidence booster for me #i love drawing bowser holding teeny ass cups. it is so funny to me. why #also working on trying to better distinguish this story from mr L's story #because when i started it i did not really know about the whole mr L thing LOL #so im hoping it doesnt seem like im trying to like.......rip off that whole concept #that would be sad :(

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catboymoments · 2 months

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Why do you dislike Vivziepop if I may ask? Because there are reasons to dislike her that I think are valid, but some come from drama she's already cleared up and/or apologized for

Largely the controversies stem from art she made in 2016 that she has since apologized for in 2018 and 2019, sometimes she gets hate due to false information people spread about her and her ocs, and more of the recent issues get more complicated than one perspective can give.

A video that you'll find a lot of information for many of the most common things ppl bring up to cancel Viv are covered in this video:

"Why Everyone Hates Vivziepop" by ayy lmao on YouTube -> https://youtu.be/XrWiFcz1yzc?si=WhnmQy6AJUpOHY5Z

This is a whole playlist (by ayy lmao) discussing various situations you can educate yourself on:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOWIXPh0p7CzgQoUIl7rqd8oz2Ym6V9XY&si=o4u_RoNgBjVTouyk

(if you don't want to search the links since I'm on anon, which is fair enough, then you can just look up "ayylmao Vivziepop drama" on YouTube and you'll find them.)

She is seriously overhated and I'm not gonna share this to change your mind, but just to spread a little awareness just in case. Many ppl bring up stuff from the past when new updates for Viv and her stuff happen

I get not liking Vivziepop and as I said Im not gonna try to change your mind, but I hope you can agree some of the efforts to cancel her are blown out of proportion. Please educate yourself if you haven't already.

Putting this in your inbox JUST IN CASE your reason for disliking her stems from bad faith haters that won't look further to realize many of these dramas have already been resolved.

Hopefully they are helpful pls educate yourself if you haven't already. Then after you do, I hope you remind & inform others

I think the sausage party Nazi ocs and the fact that everyone who’s worked with her says she’s a nightmare to work with and the way she treats her friends just puts me off from liking her at all

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sapphoismywife · 1 month

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i keep rereading my button blossom upcoming fanfic and it is almost perfect, i fixed all plot holes, the diction is (hopefully) in character, and i just need to look for typos 🥹 here is a small segment with jax being an asshole LMAO (for context, caine is starting his own dating show)

Edit: Since this has gotten a few likes, I would like to say that the first chapter is out now! Link:

#tadc jax #jax #tadc ragatha #tadc pomni #the amazing digital circus #ragatha x pomni #buttonblossom #jesterdoll #ragapom #pomni x ragatha #digital circus #amazing digital circus #ragatha #the amazing digital circus ragatha #the amazing digital circus pomni #the amazing digital circus caine #tadc caine #caine

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ghouljams · 11 months

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I'm really late to the party with this, but I have a fae-like character to share if you're interested 0w0

Basically, he was originally a human who tried to outsmart a fae by tricking it into giving him powers. Sadly, this didn't go too well for him and he ended up reduced to a monster roaming the woods in search of its next meal.

He wanted the power to change his appearance and, the fae, angry at the human for trying to deceive them, gave him exactly what he asked for. The man wanted to test out his new powers and turned himself into a moose, only it didn't work out quite right. His new body was deformed and monstrous and he found he could no longer return to his old human form.

The man can now no longer be considered human, rather a mimic that looks like a 's pretending to be a moose. While he can no longer change his form, he can mimic the sound of people's voices when he hears them, often using them to call out to friends and family, luring them into the woods to be consumed.

He can't speak in his own voice anymore, having long since forgotten how it used to sound, instead just copying the dying screams and begs for help of its prey. (Think the bear monster from annihilation).

I have a picture of him here if you're interested. (Hopefully this link works!)

I wonder if the Witch would encounter the Mimic at any point since she lives near the woods. LMAO I'm just imagining how fun it would be for it to try mimicking Price's voice to lure her over. Or perhaps one of the other darlings considering the Witch might be a little too clever to fall for such a thing.

Oooh I love this, love the horror, plus annihilation is one of my favorite movies. I hope you don't mind if I write a little something because this absolutely inspired me :)

You don't know what it is, but you've seen it, heard it. The crying, the wailing sob of a young woman, the screams of a child. The echoes of it through the thin limned trees and snow. You've watched, crouched behind your garden wall as the moose that isn't a moose wanders past with its strange and horrible cries. It scares you enough to pour salt along your wall, the purest barrier you can think of, a defense actually visible to you. You trust your threshold, but better safe than sorry.

You don't call Price, you should call Price. At least ask him to shoo the thing away. It keeps hanging around. Almost as bad as Price himself, but at least when Price spooks you, you know how to combat it. This thing is... you can't describe the feeling of it. Slick like oil, the magic simply doesn't mix with yours. Even the wisps of it through the cold of Winter give you a clear enough picture to not want it near your fence.

But it feels like it's getting closer.

Price left a little bit ago. You're back to your gardening, crouched next to the asparagus breaking off stalks with practiced fingers. You produce is coming in well this season, probably all the extra time you've been spending in the garden.

"Witch," Price calls behind you, you hum in answer, he must have forgotten something. "Sweetheart," He tries again, almost pleading. You blink, you've never heard that tone before. You stand and turn to face him.

Turn to face the dead glassy eyes of the Moose that isn't a moose as it snuffles at your salt barrier. Your ribs clench tight, stopping your breath before you can draw in a gasp. It's mouth opens to speak again, to croak out Price's voice from behind rows of needling teeth, its lips drawing too far back, predatory. It's ears twitch, listening for any sound of you. It can't get through your barrier, you remind yourself.

That doesn't stop it from trying. It's overgrown and stained horns scraping against the threshold, as it follows the line of the wall. The soft crunch of snow that follows it is too delicate for a beast that size. You turn to watch its path, the sickly matted fur, the raw musculature, you try your best to breath shallow and even. The slick magic around it is so at odds with everything you know about magic. The corrupted wild magic of human ambition and hubris where it meets a petty fae. If you weren't rooted in place you might throw up.

You press a hand to your chest, trying to feel for the strands you'd been steadfastly ignoring. Something to ground you to a feeling of safety and not this overwhelming fear. You don't know what to do but hold onto one of your ties to Price and wait for the creature to give up and leave.

When it finally does go it's with the same wailing cry you've heard so many times. It seems to be directed at you. The punishing sound of it for your ears only, crying over a lost meal. The scratches you feel on the threshold as it continues dragging its horns along it are raw and throbbing. The only solace you have is that for now your barriers have held up. You only hope that the creature is smart enough to recognize this failed attempt as a futile one, that it will find a new area to hunt in.

You'll work on a banishing spell just in case.

#oc: witch #fae au #oc talk #oh spooky scary moose we love you #Price feels his tethers light up with fear and is like: probably not a good sign #I imagine Price shoos the moose away from Witch's house with a broom #go on get outta here #just so tired of dealing with aggressive fae all day

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onboardsorasora · 4 months

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I made a random post a few weeks ago about Daniel needing to have an existential crisis over a grey pube hair (if I find it I'll link). Weeks later @yesloulou made this post and I was immediately compelled all over again.

Dedicating this brain rot to @arturleclerc. I hope you enjoy it💕 (also I haven't reread it so hopefully it makes sense and is actually good. If it's not good we can pretend it didn't happen lmao)

Max paused in the doorway of their bedroom, eyebrows pulling to his hairline the longer he watched Daniel turn this way and that in front of the full length mirror.

Naked.

“Uhm, Daniel?” He asked, biting back his grin when Daniel jumped in surprise and slapped his hand over his dick to cover it.

“Jeepers Maxy.” Daniel held his chest.

Max tilted his head when Daniel’s eyes strayed back to the mirror. He never took Daniel to be the ‘check himself out in the mirror naked’ type. Considering he hadn’t seen him do it once in the entire time they’ve been dating.

Daniel furrowed his brow as if annoyed before grabbing a pair of shorts from his drawer, what he had attempting to do in the first place.

“What are you doing?” Max asked again, walking further into the room.

“Nothing babe— can’t a guy check himself out? Still good looking, hot, sexy.” Daniel replied, Max knew him long enough to clock his uncomfortable babbling.

“Are you looking at your gray hairs again?” Daniel had been weird for the last week, ever since Max pointed out a couple grey hairs that had started growing in his beard.

Daniel stilled and unconsciously glanced at himself in the mirror again. He didn't look any different than he did a minute ago but clearly time and his age were catching up to him. He was 34, 35 this year. And greying.

Sure his job was stressful. Sure the last three years of his career were particularly stressful among other heightened emotions. But for his body to outwardly tell him that he wasn't providing a proper working environment for his cells was a slap in the face.

And his balls.

A handful of grey hairs in his beard by his jaw. He can handle that. Eventually. He eventually learned to accept it. Ok he hasn't accepted it yet but he was getting there.

Sure he was shaving his beard more so he didn't have to see it but Max liked him with a mustache so it was all great.

But this was just egregious. 34 wasn't like all that old. He didn't even know that greying ‘early’ happened in his family! Grey hairs on his head he could manage (eventually). But grey hairs anywhere else should be illegal.

It was fine, his day was going great. He had a productive meeting, went for a run, and came home to manscape a little in the shower, hoping to maybe lure Max off of the sim for an hour or so.

Sure, Max didn't care if he had pubes or whatever but Daniel didn't like his shit growing too wild and free. A trim here and there was fine for him. Max made him promise not to wax anymore.

Anyway, he was just about to go through his almost meditative process when he saw something that he hoped was maybe just glare from the light. He'd almost fainted dead away right then and there when he'd brushed the hair with his finger and it continued to glint grey against the rest of the dark hair.

He had a grey hair beside his dick.

He had a grey hair beside his dick!

His dick had a fucking grey curly q.

“Daniel?”

Daniel jumped, surprised to see Max so close. He hadn't even realized he'd spaced out.

“Daniel you are not old, of course.” Max smiled, cupping his cheek and swiping the stumble at his side burns that had started to betray him.

“Maxy I'm old as fuck apparently.” Daniel grumbled, soothing the ache in his chest with Max's giggle.

“Well I still love you.”

“Maxy...” Daniel trailed off because he wasn't yet willing to admit that his greatest fear was Max would come to his senses and realize that Daniel was too old. That these greys would be a warning sign to Max that Daniel's best years were officially behind him while Max's were yet to come.

“Daniel, you are being silly I think.”

“Maxy you say this now but I don't think you're ready to deal with old man balls.”

“Daniel!” Max's eyes crinkled as he laughed. “You do not have old man balls.”

“Nah yeah. I like really do Maxy.” Daniel sighed.

Max rolled his eyes, Daniel was being so dramatic. He dropped to his knees in lieu of saying anything else.

“Max!” Daniel squawked. Sure this had been his plan maybe a half an hour ago but he hadn't gotten rid of that pesky grey hair and he couldn't let Max see.

“Daniel, you are being silly and I love you and you do not have old man balls.” Max started tugging at Daniel's shorts, snorting when his boyfriend grabbed at the waistband.

“Max– it's– no.” Daniel struggled, biting his lip when Max looked up at him curiously.

“Daniel?” Max furrowed his brow, Daniel was being more squirrely than usual. Something wasn't right.

“I–” Daniel's mouth opened and closed a couple times and no more sounds came out. He sighed explosively and his shoulders slumped. Max's eyes widened.

“Daniel what–”

Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, there was nothing for it. He may as well rip the band-aid off and just let Max see. He let go of his shorts, allowing the fabric to fall down his legs.

“I really do have old man balls Maxy.” Daniel said morosely. “A whole old man dick!” Max bit his lip so he wouldn't laugh at his boyfriend who truly was going through it. He couldn't figure out the trigger though.

“I don't understand, Daniel.”

“It's there!” Daniel, aggrieved, pointed aggressively to the thatch of hair surrounding his still soft dick.

Max followed his finger, stopping himself from leaning in to suck it into his mouth or to kiss Daniel's still lovely non old man dick. If only to apologize to the organ for how ungrateful Daniel was being.

He mentally rolled his eyes and paid attention to what Daniel was trying to show him. Max didn't see anything wrong, Daniel's pubes had grown out a bit and Max wanted nothing more than to just press his face into the wiry hair– feel the burn of it against his chin. Then he saw it, and oh.

“Yeah– oh. Old man dick and balls. The whole package. I'm ancient Maxy. A fossil–” Daniel continued to babble, dragging a hand down his face.

“Daniel you are being silly. You are not old.” Max gave into the urge to press his face into the crease of Daniel's thigh, pressing a kiss to the section of skin that the lone (and apparently offending) grey hair was growing.

“Max–” Daniel was exasperated that Max wasn't getting it. Wasn't picking up what he was putting down. Even though he didn't want him to…he was confusing himself. The fact was he was old and Max finally knew and he was steeling himself for the inevitable.

“Oh!” Daniel shuddered when Max licked a wet stripe along his soft dick that wasn't very soft anymore. Max smirked and continued, sucking Daniel's half hard dick into the warm wet heat of his mouth.

Daniel gripped Max's hair to steady himself, moaning when Max swallowed him whole and pressed his nose into the curls at the base of him. Max looked up through his lashes, humming long and deep.

“Fuck.” Daniel hissed and Max clutched at his thighs. He created a rhythm, coaxing Daniel to fuck his throat. Daniel snapped his hips forward eagerly, groaning as he watched Max swallow his dick in the mirror. Max winked up at him before doing that thing with his tongue that Daniel loved.

Daniel was a goner, curling over Max's head while he came– hard.

After, he staggered backwards, watching dazedly as Max licked his swollen, pink lips. Daniel wanted to swallow him whole.

He dragged Max to his feet and planted a sloppy kiss to his lips, tasting his come and Max's lips. He was about to push him onto the bed so he could eagerly return the favor when

“Of course it's exactly what I thought.” Max said smugly. Daniel raised a brow curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know what you're talking about earlier, Daniel. Your old man dick still works.”

Daniel couldn't help it, he laughed. Because in his own way, Max just alleviated Daniel's fears.

“I love you, y'know?”

“I know Daniel.” Max pressed a deep kiss to his lips before pulling back. “My young man dick needs attention, of course.”

Max grinned when Daniel laughed.

#maxiel #max/daniel #literally stopped everything to write this lmao #😂🥴🥴#my ficlet

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concerningwolves · 11 months

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Hey! Do you have any tips for breaking writers block when you're adhd and/or autistic? Be it your own tips or a link to another post? My friend and I need help haha

Ahh sorry you got buried under spam and old ask game asks. (I... really need to sort my ask box >.<' ). But here we go, a month late, and hopefully better late than never:

Quick ideas for beating writer's block when autistic and/or ADHD

I've got this old post I wrote on writer's block and focus troubles. Ironically, this was before my autism diagnosis but the tips still happen to be things I, an autistic person, did to manage writing when faced with executive dysfunction (except I didn't know what executive dysfunction was at that point lol). I'm linking this with one important caveat, though: if you have ADHD, "stepping away" might do more harm than good; struggling to start tasks is a Big Thing with ADHD, so not starting the task at all is entirely counterproductive. (Unless you're in burnout! Here's a post about the differences between block and burnout with some ideas on what to do for each, in case that's at all helpful to you).

And here's something yoinked from another old ask-answer:

sometimes a break from more “serious” writing is what you need. Maybe try and take the characters from your main project and drop them somewhere else for the hell of it. I like to throw my characters into the MCU without warning like “lmao have fun in a strange modern world where there are gods and a guy in an iron flying suit bye.” Or, if fandom cross-overs aren’t your thing, find a writing prompt or take an idea you like and use it to form a short story with your characters instead.

Some other ideas I've seen around for writer's block with ADHD/Autism are:

Try voice recording or text to speech (i.e., absolute stream-of-consciousness unfiltered brain-to-mouth, giving yourself permission to 100% bullshit if you like, and see what rattles loose in the brain box)

Stream of consciousness writing in general, not even necessarily about a particular prompt or particular project. This one can be done in combination with:

Writing sprints! One minute timers, two minute timers, five minutes – set it for as long as you want, but when you're fighting executive dysfunction and/or difficulty focusing, the burst of urgency that comes from a shorter timer is very helpful.

And speaking of the sense of urgency: gamify your writing! There are different ways to do this, with varying elements of risk. I'll link some ways to do this at the end under "resources".

Exercise. I don't necessarily mean hitting the gym, but a quick burst of exercise prior to writing to get the heart rate up can help wake your brain up a bit. (Or, if you find repetitive exercise mind-numbingly boring like I do, the writing sure does start to look appealing lol).

Meditation. Okay, this one is sort of 🤔 for me, because I do often hear from fellow autistics and our ADHD cousins that meditation is literally impossible for us. It is for me. But! Like with exercise above, if meditation bores you instead of helping relax and ""clear your mind"", you can probably use that boredom to your advantage. Or, it might work as intended.

Change your workspace/situation/routine. Sometimes the problem is that you need new sensory input, or that your brain has gotten thoroughly bored and decided not to tell you. Use a different chair. Move to the kitchen table. Write at a different time of day. Have a different snack (or try having a snack while writing...). Basically, look at what you're currently trying, and see how you can do it differently.

It's also really good practise to get comfortable with Being Bad At Writing. Perfectionism and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria are the biggest, meanest brain weasels with the sharpest teeth. Don't let them bully you. It sucks. It takes a lot of time and effort and internal work, which is why I was loathe to include this on a post of quick solutions, but. It is important.

And getting comfortable with this doesn't necessarily mean learning how to accept critique, or accepting that sometimes you'll write things that suck. It means accepting that sometimes you won't handle critique or feedback well, and also accepting that you won't always manage to beat the writer's block or be productive. Sometimes you have to make peace with the fact that you're going to feel horrible, feel your feelings, and try to remind yourself on the other side that none of it means you're a talentless hack.

Resources

Anything with a 🪙 next to it is paid only (I've tried to limit these and find alternatives).

The resources are split into things that "gameify" writing (i.e., hack your dopamine/serotonin in ways that reaaaaallly help autistic and ADHD folks), writing programs that are designed to help you focus, writing programs that track your habits and appeal to the "ohhhh numbers going up" brain, focus-aiding apps, and some miscellaneous stuff. Under the cut to save your dashes.

"Gamifying" your writing:

The Most Dangerous Writing App – You can't stop typing before your set timer runs out, or you risk losing your work. Excellent for warming up, stream-of-consciousness, or if you're feeling reckless, working on your actual project. I did a lot of the second draft of When Dealing with Wolves on this thing (it was terrifying yet highly effective).

Written? Kitten! – Get rewarded for meeting your set writing wordcount with kitten pictures. Haven't used this one personally, but heard wonderful things about it.

4TheWords 🪙 – This one gamifies writing in the most literal sense. As in, it's an online game where you defeat monsters, explore and level up by writing words. I did the free trial a couple years back, and I've heard there are a lot of different ways you can lower the subscription cost. The only reason I haven't gone back to it is because I feel like I can't justify spending money on it when I'm doing fine with Scrivener and free resources, but maybe one day I will purely for the fun factor...

StimuWrite – similar idea to Written Kitten; the app provides visual/audio stimulation while you write, which is great for many ADHD-ers and autistics. There's a progress bar, soundscape options, typing effects and emoji reactions as rewards, among other features.

Write or Die – This is The Most Dangerous Writing App meets Written Kitten. As far as I can figure out, the basic web version is free to use; you can set the parameters like how how long you want to write for, how many words to reach, and whether you want rewards for meeting goals or punishments for failing to meet them. There's also a stimulus mode, where the nice auditory stimulus goes away if you stop writing.

Minimalist/Focus writing programs:

Focus Writer [Windows] – thoroughly stripped-down minimalist word processor. As far as I know, it has basic functions like find-replace, but mostly it's designed only for writing. Not for formatting, spellchecking or editing.

iA Writer 🪙 [iOS] – Similar to Focus Writer, it's designed to fill your screen with a simple workspace. Allows you to use markdown formatting, and has a feature called Focus Mode that blurs out everything except the sentence you're typing. (If I could find a Windows-friendly alternative to this with that same feature I would be so happy). A cheaper alternative is 1Writer, but that doesn't have the focus mode.

Typewrite Something – Absolutely bare minimum web-based typewriter simulator. Basically just a blank screen that you start typing on, and the words appear in a typewriter font. Great for stream-of-consciousness without the risk level of TMDWA because you can't backspace. If you don't like the clacky sound, turn off your volume.

Focus Apps

Cold Turkey – Block applications and websites on your laptop/computer for a specified period of time. You can even block the entire internet.

Forest – Similar to Cold Turkey in that it stops you from seeking distractions or getting distracted. Set a timer and the app starts growing a tree. If you leave the app, the tree dies. Once you have a tree, you add it to your forest.

Habit-building writing programs:

Novlr – Simple, minimal layout, and tracks your writing goals per month and day, and your daily streak. There are more features in the plus and pro versions, and you can only have five projects in the free version, but otherwise it looks like a good free alternative to the next two programs:

750 Words 🪙 – Made for free writing, but also very useful for drafting. I had it for a month or so a while back on the free trial. It tracks writing streaks and gives you fun graphs and statistics at the end of each session, including number of distractions, actual typing time vs total time and average words per minute. Also, it analyses the mood of what you wrote, which I always found delightful.

Writing Analytics 🪙 – If writing streaks, badges and analytical graphs get your dopamine going, then I really recommend this one. The writing screen itself is very minimalistic, but it still shows your writing speed (I loved watching that go up) and your goal progress. In terms of analytics, it tracks a LOT of different things, including time spent writing vs revising, average wordcounts per day/month/year, and words written vs words deleted. I used this for about a year before I switched to Scrivener, and the switch was purely because I needed something that wasn't subscription-based. (Apparently since I stopped using it there's also a new feature that lets you create private writing rooms and see other writer's progress).

Misc.

WriteTrack – Not a word processor, but it has very good tools for tracking and planning your writing. Again, if graphs going up helps your brain, this is excellent, but you can't see it in real time.

10 ADHD-friendly brain tricks for writers – what it says on the tin: ten tips for writers with ADHD; I'm particularly fond of "Put away one knife", which breaks the nebulous task of "start writing" into something really simple like just... pull out your desk chair.

#autism stuff #adhd #writer's block #writing advice #writing resources

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bonefall · 6 months

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Hearing Loss Research Dump

Heyo!! You probably reached through the footnote at the end of the Hearing Loss Guide for Warrior Cats! I often get asked questions like, "How do you make these guides?" and "Do you have sources?" So this time, I tried to keep a bit of a loose "journal."

Unfortunately it got disorganized after a few sessions (since this project ended up taking about 2 - 3 weeks to do) but, hey, hopefully it helps.

I have dumped all of my sources here and explained my thought process as I went along, so that you have a good foundation to go forth and do your own research.

I may update this post with more information and links, or remove sources if, for some reason, it is revealed that the source was harmful or not credible. SO, PLEASE feel free to recommend good educational organizations, documentaries, and blogs here on Tumblr willing to take questions.

This post is set to "no one can reblog" so that you're always seeing the most current version of this post. Just in case a source gets challenged, or one of the sensitivity readers wants their name removed, or I end up adding important corrections, etc.

This is Version 1.0, and it was updated on 1/2/2024.

The research "dump" post is messy, because it's a Bonus Thing that's supposed to go along with the very pretty and ~concise~ Herb Guide that I created.

Session 0

I had wanted to do this for a while, but this RIDICULOUS thing that was said to an Anon and then shared with me almost gave me an aneurysm. I asked if my followers wanted this boosted to the top of my priorities, they said yes, and here we are.

In the process I also looked for input, especially from deaf/HOH followers. I made a note to include tinnitus, unilateral (one ear) hearing loss, and I'm considering doing a second guide just for how to TREAT the ear infections I mentioned would lead to a lot of hearing loss in RiverClan.

An outline of the Herb Guide post was written just before I did any real research, so I had a general idea of the aspects of hearing loss I wanted to talk and learn about.

Sat down to start my research the next day.

SESSION 1: The Basics

My first step is always just a basic internet search, including a pit stop at Wikipedia to read the article, and then follow the sources or find a place that explains the concept more deeply.

Because my project's about anthropomorphic cats, I always start with humans first, then swing over to a search on felines. I'm usually alternating between them because that is how my mind works, hearing something in one and then linking that to some sort of question about how that would look in cats.

From Wikipedia, the World Health Organization, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, I learned that "Hearing Loss" is the blanket term for all lack of hearing, and "Deafness" is when it totally prevents you from understanding speech.

Like blindness, most deaf people can hear a little. Stressed that.

It's also here that I started with cat hearing. First I looked at Purina, but it wasn't a great find, besides a link to common signs of ear infections which I put in my back pocket lmao. I came across Dr. Pippa Elliot's article for Petful.com, and this one is MUCH more informative.

I started thinking critically about a lot of that info. Cats have a much higher range of hearing than humans, a feline society would actually catch hearing loss loooong before humans would catch it in a pet cat. Plus the whiskers. The article actually mentions that when you check a cat for hearing loss, you have to avoid blowing wind on the whiskers or even vibrating the ground.

Very sensitive animals, fascinating. Anyway, back on humans,

There's also FOUR TYPES of hearing loss. Conducive, Sensorineural, Mixed, and Auditory Neuropathy. I also went and found a good explanation from the CDC to double-check Wikipedia.

And it's a good thing I did! Wikipedia did not mention Type 4 at the time of my research, and the CDC's article is VERY straightforward and informative.

Types;

Conducive: Sound can't get through the canal. Usually a blockage.

Sensorineural: A problem with the hearing organs or the auditory nerve.

Mixed: Both of these at once

Auditory Neuropathy: The ear detects the sound, but doesn't send the signals to the brain properly.

From what I can tell from the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Auditory Neuropathy is less well defined and can have overlap with Sensorineural. Sometimes it has to do with damage or malformation of the inner ear hairs, other times it's completely unknown and just assumed to be a brain issue.

So according to that definition, Auditory Processing Disorder is a type of auditory neuropathic hearing loss.

Then I started watching Christmas movies and forgot I was doing research oops. Time waits for no man, nor muppet. Very important that once a year you watch movies that make you cry and also Gonzo is there.

BUT. Throughout this project, I was constantly finding new sources on "the basics" that explained things in different ways. I didn't find all of these in that one session, but I will dump them in a straight list here.

Straight statistics of prevalence of hearing loss in the UK

Two types of inner ear infections (got cut from the guide because I was trying to stay focused on the disability itself, not causes and ear ailments)

Congenital deafness (Helpful, but again, was trying to keep the guide focused on general disability writing advice, not explain every single reason why a person could be deaf. That's for one's own research!)

Degrees of hearing loss (But notably I've also seen these thresholds shift around. This one says deafness starts at 95 DB, but I did also see 81 elsewhere.)

A guide on soundproofing which put the affects of noise on your ears into perspective (helpful with comparisons to degrees of hearing loss)

REALLY GOOD GUIDE ON HERTZ AND DECIBELS (And also comparisons of different decibel levels, in relation to the thresholds of hearing loss)

Tinnitus

SESSION 2: Comparing human and cat hearing

I felt like I had a good understanding of the basics here. The four types, some considerations for cat biology, some tidbits to mention like most people with hearing loss still being able to hear a little, etc.

NOW I'm going to finish reading any sources I opened up in side tabs, and learn about the side effects of hearing loss that I've seen so far. Tinnitus was requested specifically.

But, I felt pretty confident at this point, so I started actually working on the guide itself. It's good because that's when I start getting really specific questions like, "Just how sensitive IS a cat's hearing next to a humans?"

Found this article comparing human and feline hearing, and also went for a source on common causes of ear infections in cats, and compared them to common causes of ear infections in humans. Basically everything WE get, and more. I also remembered a vet that I worked with explaining that humans don't get ear mites because our ear canals are shorter, but honestly I don't really want to hunt down a source on that.

Bottom line is that it seems that cats get ear infections significantly easier than humans.

SESSION 3: Paying attention to deaf and HOH experiences

Started loading up some videos on Youtube, and follow along with presentations from deaf speakers, awareness charities, and so on.

ADHD protip: If you're like me and often feel the need to get up and walk around when you're trying to focus on something, playing flash games on Neopets or a similar petsite while keeping a video popped out is a great way to help with executive function impulse stuff. Firefox and the program Freetube both allow for you to pop open a small window that you can move around your screen.

I absolutely adored this video from Montfort University, which collected experiences from people who were actively losing their hearing. I'm feeling that a lot of folks are probably anticipating the Herb Guide with the expectation it'll talk about fully deaf warriors like Snowkit (And BB!Whitewing, who is deaf in Better Bones), but one of the most important things I'm learning is that partial and unilateral hearing loss is both common, and important to talk about.

That section on people forgoing hearing aids is so bitter. The way that they were reluctant to even "admit" they had a disability (feeling as if it "doesn't count"), felt like hearing aids were for "old people" so they resisted getting a device that would really help, and that one woman who finally realized what her own mother must have been going through when she was in her shoes...

Jeez, man. Ableism really hits us all, doesn't it? You'll reject the small bits of help that were SHAKEN out of the pockets of an uncaring world, just so you don't have to admit you might need it.

I am vaguely aware that there's buzz within the deaf community about hearing aids, with some deaf people actually having extremely negative feelings on them. I didn't manage to find those people though, besides what I remembered from Tumblr posts explaining that cochlear implants tend to destroy what little hearing remains. I also didn't know what sorts of hearing aids exist, just basics.

In any case, it's not what my guide's about. Clan cats wouldn't be able to make devices like that-- so to compensate, I tried to stress that forcing warriors to "assimilate" to able-bodied society is bad compared to "accommodating" them. But I did make a little aside note on the guide itself as a PSA.

ANYWAY I'm keeping that pinned in my mind as I go through this. A LOT of these speakers are talking about their implants and how much they changed their lives, so I'm taking things with a teeny grain of salt, knowing I'm probably not getting the entire hearing-impaired community's feelings on this.

Rachel Kolb's Tedx talk was DEEPLY insightful, she is an absolutely fantastic presenter and her statistics are gutwrenching. I'm also paying close attention to how she described her speech therapy classes, how tactile the lessons are, how she had to hold her hand to her teacher's throat and learned that the trick to an N and an M was to speak it through the nose...

The theme of this part of my research has really been "heartbreaking," honestly. Next I watched this one from a BBC interview, where the speaker talks about how much EFFORT they have to make to listen to others. The casual cruelty of hearing people just not caring enough to reach out and make sure she can follow along in the conversation.

I know it's maybe not the same thing, but I teared up a bit at some parts, because that's something I've also felt as someone who's ADHD/Autistic. How much it hurts when people won't even take the goddamn time to clue you in. Like you're not worth it

Even if it's just for a silly cat community, I really hope the weeks of effort and hours of reading I put into this guide and journal makes someone feel seen. You're worth the time. I promise I mean it

Anyway,

Like The Basics, I kept finding more things as I went through my research, outside of this session.

Struggles of deaf people in life and the workplace

Social struggles, particularly in the digital age

Cochlear implants: Pros and Cons (It was really not relevant to my project here, BUT, I figured it was important enough to even mention in an aside on the main guide.)

Really interesting passage from a married couple losing their hearing

"What is it like to be deaf?" Mentions the link to memory loss in people who are hard of hearing due to the brain "discarding" misheard sentences.

SESSION 4: Relevant questions.

This is the point I was asking more targeted questions, as I was actively writing the bulk of the guide, because in spite of everything this remains a cat project. If I was about to write something and then realized I didn't actually know like... WHAT causes it, HOW it happens, How COMMON a thing is, I would go and find out.

For example I knew that Snowkit had a higher chance of being born deaf, but didn't exactly know why, or how it happens, or how much higher of a chance that was. So, I looked up white cats with blue eyes, and looked up the percentages associated with deafness in them.

Apparently it's rapid degeneration, instead of the inner ear just not forming properly. I could go down that rabbit hole and learn more about why, but at this point, I'm far enough along that I need to start deciding when something isn't really helpful but just interesting. It's REALLY easy to get distracted at this point in making these guides.

That lead to to look at how people tend to handle their deaf cats and make their lives better, which also lead me to a good source on how to clean a cat's ears. That's another thing I had to halt at; because this guide is about DISABILITY, not about treating ear ailments.

When you're doing research this way, I find it helpful to "limit my scope." I've mentioned this technique/skill/advice in the past with some of my cultural expansions for the Clans too. You can see how maaaaassive the guide I wrote got even while staying on topic; it easily could have gotten bloated by even MORE tangential knowledge.

But I do plan to make an ear treatment guide at some point, as well.

I then started trying to learn more about rodent squeaks. How high in hertz they are, when different animals make them, how loud in decibels, etc. I couldn't find very much, because sound/hearing in general is actually WILDLY understudied, especially in terms of non-human animals.

But I did find this article on mouse vocalizations, specifically, and this webpage on various animal hearing ranges.

(though the webpage begs ppl to be careful about making comparisons between the numbers on the page, because they come from different studies with different parameters. But like. somehow i think this is good enough for funny cat project)

Lastly on this topic, I tried to find a good source on whiskers and how well they can "replace" hearing, and ended up finding this EXCELLENT article on allllll sorts of hearing loss related things in cats. It's got it all. Whiskers, common causes, tests. It's great.

SESSION 5: Sensitivity readers

I'm trying to be extra careful with this guide, with the knowledge in mind that this one was highly requested and likely will get decent reach. So, I figured it was more important than usual to speak to disabled individuals who could advise me, to my face, instead of only relying on what I'd seen in my research and secondhand information.

(especially since my style in writing these guides tries to be "simple," trying to limit how much medical speak I use and explaining terms in-depth when I need to use them.)

I spoke to @sylsoddsandends, @s0ulfulsapph1cf, and one more. While talking to them, they brought up even more to me that I hadn't considered.

For example, I did not know that unilateral hearing loss (affects one ear more than the other) actually resulted in a loss of "distance perception," the same way that I don't have depth perception because I've got low vision in one eye. I grabbed a scientific paper to read about it and went forth.

I also got a ton of good feedback about how much I stressed that lipreading is difficult, added some advice on a unilateral HL cat would stand, brought in some notes about chronic pain, so on. I then went to preview it to a bunch of personal friends to give it a couple more once-overs for typos and flow and such.

The last thing I did was reach out to those sensitivity readers again, and ask their permission to link them here. I don't have permission from the last reader yet (which is on me, I should have asked sooner). So there will be an update here if/when they get back to me.

POSTMORTEM

Nothing here yet! I will make an attempt to collect any follow-up questions and such down here.

#bone babble #hearing loss

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