#i know we're about to have a million and one gifsets of this moment but you know i had to throw my hat in

[chinzhilla-main]

choices were made...

7.03 - Capsized

[winderlylandchime]

Hi, hello, hi. I have a question that was triggered by that beautiful prom gif set you just reblogged. And since I still, months later, have a post from you stuck in my head- The Brian Kinney one about his education and how he became The Brian Kinney- I can’t help but to ask you. The pause!!! What do you think would’ve happened between Britin and with Brian after prom had the bashing not happened? I mean Brian got in the car and was all smiley and looking in the mirror to watch Justin!! And the PAUSE! And now I am going through a million feelings because of the what ifs.

Hello dear sweet anon! Thank you for your patience while I gave this question some thought.

First off, let us acknowledge and thank @sophsun1 for this incredible gifset that captures THEE MOMENT

Everyone go reblog it and show it some love.

So I think the first question here is why did Brian show up at prom? I think he showed up to make Justin happy. Which is not something Brian is known for, right? But here is this kid who has "snuck in under the wire" (I know that's S2 but it's no less true here) and Brian wants to do something to make him happy. Just purely for his happiness. And it will make Brian happy - you pointed out he's all smiley - and isn't that the kicker? He found someone that making him happy makes Brian happy. Not Justin makes Brian happy (little nod to my beloved OFMD, RIP), but making Justin happy makes Brian happy. I think that's important.

I think what Brian is communicating here (and, importantly, Justin is understanding) is those three words that Justin spent later seasons wanting so badly.

So I think Justin would have felt more reassured in Brian's love than he did in S2. I think he always wanted to feel like his place was with Brian and of Brian's own volition. I know Brian says during their negotiation about "coming home to you" but I think that gets lost in Brian's tugging to keep some of his freedoms.

I think Brian would be less trigger shy about doing romantic gestures for Justin after prom. I think prom proved to Brian his worst fears - if you make yourself vulnerable and admit to loving someone, it will only hurt you (and what's the best way to hurt Brian? Hurting Justin).

I think Justin would have been more confident about his place in Brian's life both feeling like he was truly wanted there (not just there because he got bashed) and because he had this irrefutable proof of Brian's feelings. Yes, he's heard about the romantic dance and the kiss from Daphne but she wasn't by the Jeep and I don't know if she would have picked up on the significance of The Pause.

Let's talk about that, actually. When has Brian ever paused? When has he ever, in a sexual context, sought someone's eyes before kissing them? (Not to imply that Brian didn't get consent.) Never. He is not the type of guy to pause. He barrels forward. I don't think the pause is insecurity or even about consent, it's "we're on the same page here, right? okay? All those things you said that I felt, you were right. Here I am, baring myself before you you, more naked than being naked (bc lbr naked is not vulnerability to Brian... it wouldn't be to me if I looked like Gale either), showing you my soul. I am trusting you."

The reason this took so long to answer is that I'm completely torn about whether there would have been a break up. Or at least the Ethan break up. Maybe the break up would have looked more like a combination of S2 and S5 break ups. But the other thing? I don't think they would have reunited. I think the bashing is something that ties them together, in a sense. I think without it, with everything more on the surface, without the effects of PTSD on Justin's abilities and his need for Brian's care (and Brian's care bonding him to Justin), Justin would have thought "this is all there is, I've gotten everything I can from him and I need more." But I could be wrong, maybe there would have been zero drama. Justin would have gotten what he needed from Brian the night of prom and they would have lived happily ever after.

This is certainly a fic waiting to be written. I've read fics where the bashing doesn't happen or it's less severe but that's because other circumstances are different. What would happen if canon is canon but the one divergence is the bashing doesn't happen?

[backslashdelta]

13, 19, 26 and 42!

Oooh omg okay I love these questions we're getting into process and organization this is fantastic thank you

13. Where or from whom did you learn how to gif?

When I first started, I think I had found some tutorial somewhere that I was using and I wasn't having a great time of it lol. But then @itstruthtime linked me to this tutorial and it pretty much changed my life tbh. 20/10, would recommend to anyone who wants to learn to gif. Of course there are lots of other little tutorials and various tips and tricks I've picked up along the way, but as for the basics, it's that tutorial. And also just like, I would like to make a point to shout out Cim in general who has been very patient and helpful and encouraging as I've been learning things, and is always happy to kindly let me know when I have been doing things I didn't even realize were wrong, like always posting my gifsets as text posts instead of image posts lmao.

19. What is your giffing process like?

Well, it's basically like the tutorial I linked in the last question. I plan out my concept, including scenes and any text that will need to go with each gif, and I usually just write that down in a notepad file that I don't even save. Then I check to see if I have screencaps of the scenes I want to use - sometimes I'll end up finding a different scene to use that way as well, but if I don't already have the scene I want screencapped and I don't find an alternative, then that's my next step (screencapping my beloathed). Then it's loading all the frames in and converting them to a smart object with the gif action I have. And then the fun begins!

Usually I start with a curves layer and maybe levels just to get the brightness right, and then I start playing around with hue/saturation and selective colour to adjust the colouring. About a month ago I realized that you can actually adjust the hue/saturation of individual colours rather than the whole image at once so uh... thanks for Cim for helping me come to that realization lmao. The option was literally right there I just didn't look so WHOOPS. Once I have the colouring right I move on to any typography that needs to be added, which is basically just a process of cycling through a million fonts until I find one or two that feel right, picking colours and setting styles, switching it screen or vivid light or exclusion or whatever else makes it look the best. I do all of that on just one gif, and then I usually drag those layers over to the other gifs as a base and just tweak them until everything looks like it goes together well.

Then I export them all to gifs and load them into a post draft, and this is the point where I usually realize that I forgot to set them to loop so they just play once or stop, or I didn't adjust the end of the timeline so it just goes white and the typography is there without an image behind it for a moment lol. So then I go back and fix that and save the gifset as a draft. I take a look at the post there to see how it looks all together, and I also look at it on my phone (I've realized that some of my gifsets are probably too saturated because for some reason everything looks so much less saturated on my laptop than on my phone, so this is an important step). And then it's just a matter of tweaking things until it looks good in both places!

26. How many un-posted sets are in your drafts right now?

I've answered this already, and the answer remains: none. I'm too impatient for that lol. If I had anything in my drafts, you would know because I would be making posts complaining about it (see: 1, 2, 3, 4)

42. How is your gif folder organized? Is it organized at all?

Yes it's very organized!!

Okay so first in my main gif folder I have a folder for everything I've posted, a folder for templates and just other useful things to come back to, a folder my things I make for my own blog (basically just my header I guess lol), and a folder for things I make for the KurtbastianArchive blog. And then any other folders are just for gifsets that I am working on at the moment. You can see in this screenshot that I'm planning an alignment gifset (like an alignment chart of Glee characters) and a Kurtbastian gifset with Mr. Brightside lyrics... I have not touched either in a long time lmao so they won't be happening anytime soon.

And then within the posted folder, I have a folder dedicated to each gifset I've ever posted. I have sort of standard naming conventions, where I generally start with the character or ship it's about, and will also include if it's for a specific event or a specific person usually, and then some other detail to describe it (which, as you can see, is usually a song name lol).

And then inside each of those folders, I have the PSD and the GIF file for each gif in the set :)

I also have a really organized file structure set up for my screencaps! Each episode gets it's own folder, and then within the folder there are subfolders for specific scenes. That way once I screencap a scene, I don't have to do it again, I can just come back and reuse the same screencaps. I usually try to screencap a whole scene at a time rather than just the specific moment that I plan to use for exactly that reason.