#the wonders of making gifs in photoshop | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

userpeggycarter · 2 months

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COLORING + SHARPENING TUTORIAL

someone asked for a coloring tutorial and my sharpening settings, so here it is! there are also a few tips to achieve more HQ gifs. :)

tutorial under the cut!

FOR HIGH-QUALITY GIFS

FILE SIZES

it doesn’t matter what your sharpening settings are if the file you’re using to gif is too low quality, so i tend to look for the best that i can get when downloading stuff.

usually, movies (+2h) look better if they’re 5GB or more, while an episode (40 min/1h) can look good with even 1GB. the minimum definition i try to find is 1080p, but i gif with 2160p (4k) when available. unfortunately, not every computer can handle 4k, but don’t worry, you can gif with 1080p files just fine if they are big enough. contrary to popular belief, size does matter! which means sometimes a bigger 1080p file is better than a smaller 2160p one, for example.

SCREENCAPPING METHOD

this can too influence the quality of your gifs. as a gifmaker, i’ve tried it all: video frames to layers, directly opening video clips, loading files into stack, and i’ve finally settled down with opening screencaps as an image sequence. with bigger files, it doesn’t matter much what technique you use, but i’ve noticed with smaller files you can do wonders if you screencap (either by loading files into stack or opening as an image sequence) instead of using video clips. for example, this gif’s original video file was only 4GB (so smaller than i’ve usually go for), if you can believe it!

here’s a tutorial for setting up and screencapping with MPV, the media player i use to screencap. again, you can keep using video clips for bigger files, but you’ll find this useful when dealing with dire causes. i don't file loads into stack, though, like the video does. i open as an image sequence (open > screencap folder > select any image > click the image sequence button). just select OK for the speed. this will open your screencaps as a video clip (blue bar) in timeline mode (i'm a timeline gifmaker, i don't know about you). you will need this action pack to convert the clip into frames if you're a frames gifmaker. i suggest you convert them into frames even if you're a timeline gifmaker, just convert them into a timeline again at the end. that way you can delete the screencaps right away, otherwise you will delete the screencaps and get a static image as a "gif".

ATTENTION if you’re a Mac Sonoma user, MPV won’t be an option for you unless you downgrade your system. that is, if you have an Intel chip. if you have M1 Max chip (or even a better one), here’s a fix for MPV you can try while keeping that MacOS, because nowadays MPV is skipping frames in its latest build. or you can use MPlayer instead for less hassle. here are two tutorials for setting and using MPlayer. Windows users are fine, you can use MPV without trouble.

FOR EVEN MORE QUALITY

ADD NOISE

here’s a tutorial for adding noise as a way to achieve more HQ gifs if your original material is too low quality.

REDUCE NOISE WITH CAMERA RAW

instead of adding noise, you can reduce it, especially if your gif is very noisy as it is.

the path is filter > camera raw > detail > nose reduction. i do this before sharpening, but only my video file isn't great to begin with. because it’s a smart filter, you can reduce or increase its opacity by clicking the bars next to its name in the layers panel.

TOPAZ AI

i use Topaz Photo AI to increase the quality of my screencaps when i need to. it’s paid software, but there are… ways to find it for free, usually on t0rrent websites. if someone’s interested, i can make a tutorial solely about it in the future.

SHARPENING SETTINGS

here are my sharpening settings (filter > sharpen > smart sharpen). i sharpen things twice: 500% 0.4px + 10% 10px. here's an action for it, for more convenience. here's a tutorial on how to use Photoshop actions. for animated stuff, i use this action pack.

COLORING

here’s the gif i'm gonna use as a base. it’s already sharpened like the way i always do it.

LIGHTNING THE SHOTS

half of the secret of a good coloring is good lightning. i always useCurves (layers > new adjustment layer > curves) and Brightness & Contrast (layers > new adjustment layer > brightness & contrast). the settings depend on the scene you’re giffing, but i always try make my gifs bright and with high contrast to make the colors pop.

CURVES

besides lighting your scene, the Curves adjustment layer has four automatic options that will color-correct it for you. it’s not always perfect and it doesn’t mean you won’t need to do further coloring, but it’s a great start. it’s a lifesaver for most ridiculously yellow scenes. look at the difference! this gif uses the 3rd automatic option (the screenshot below isn't mine btw so that's why the fourth option is the chosen one), from top to bottom. what automatic option you need to choose depends on the gif.

sometimes i like to tweak my Curves layer. not everybody does that, it’s not that necessary and if you’re not careful, it can screw your gif up. to modify your layer by hand, you will need to click and drag points of that straight line in the position you desire. this is the concept behind it:

basically, the lower part of the line handles the shadows, while the upper part handles the highlights of the image. if you pull a highlight point up, the image’s highlights will be brighter. if you pull it down, it will make them darker. same thing for the shadow points. you should play with it to get a grasp of it, that’s what i did when i first started giffing.

BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST

then i added a bit of brightness and contrast.

CHANNEL MIXER

the scene looked a bit too yellow, so i used the Channel Mixer (layer > new adjustment layer > channel mixer) adjustment layer. here’s a tutorial of how it works. not every scene needs the Channel Mixer layer though, i mostly use it to remove heavy overall tints. in this particular case, the Curves layer got rid of most of the yellow, but i wanted the gif to be just a bit more blue so the Channel Mixer tweaks are very minimal.

SELECTIVE COLOR

now, this adjustment layer i always use: Selective Color (layer > new adjustment layer > selective color). this is THE adjustment layer to me, alongside the Curves one. this is how it works:

ie, you can separately edit a color this way, giving it tints. for this gif, i wanted to make the colors more vibrant. to achieve that, i edited the selected colors this way:

for the reds, i added even more red in them by moving the first slider to the right, making the color more vibrant. for his hat to have a more warm tint, i added yellow to the reds (third slider, moving it to the right). finally, to make the reds stronger, i moved the last slider to the right (more black).

for the yellows, i made them brighter by adding white to them, thus making the tile wall and Paddington more bright as well.

for the cyans and the blues, i just added the maximum (+100) of black that i could.

i wanted for Paddington's nose to be brighter, so i added more white to the whites.

lastly, i added depth to the blacks by increasing their own blackness.

you should always play with the Selective Colors sliders for a bit, before deciding what you want or need. with time, you will automatically know what to change to correct the color grading. it all takes practice!

HUE/SATURATION

i don’t know if you noticed, but there are some green spots on the blue wall behind Paddington. to correct that, i added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > hue/saturation) and made the saturation of the greens 0%, making that unwanted green disappear from the background.

while the green spots on the wall are specific for this gif, i use hue/saturation a lot to tweak, well, hue and saturation. sometimes someone’s skin is too yellow, i made it redder by tweaking the reds and the yellows, or vice-versa. the hue bar follows the rainbow bar, so the maximum settings (+100 and -100) give the selected color to change its hue to something more red or pink (the rainbow extremities). changing hue can give pretty whacky results, like turning someone’s skin tone to green, so you will need to play with it to get the hang of it. you can also tweak the opacity of your hue/saturation layer to further improve your gif’s coloring. i didn’t do it in this case, the opacity is still 100%. the reds and the blues had their saturation increased to make them pop just a bit more, without affecting the other colors.

COLOR BALANCE

the highlights of the gif still had a green tint to it due to the automatic correction of the Curves layer, so i used Color Balance. this is how it works: instead of giving specific colors some tints, you can give them to the shadows, highlights, and mid-tones. if your shadows are too blue, you counterbalance them with the opposite color, yellow. same thing with the cyan-red and magenta-green pairings. in my case, i added a bit of magenta.

B&W GRADIENT MAP

now, if this gif was a dish, it’s time for the salt and pepper. i always add a Gradient Map (layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map) (black to white gradient) with the Soft Light blending mode, thus giving my shadows more depth without messing with the mid-tones and highlights. it also doesn’t “deep fry” (you know those memes?) the gif too much by adding even more contrast. usually, the opacity of the layer is between 30% to 70%, it all depends on the gif. it always does wonders, though!

COLOR FILTER

finally, i like to add Color Filters (layer > new adjustment layer > color filter) to my gifs. it’s very handy when giving different scenes for the same minimalistic set because it makes them kind of match despite having completely different colors. in this gif’s case, i added a “deep blue” filter, opacity 50% density 25. you can change the density and the opacity of the layer for further editing, again, it all depends on the gif.

VIBRANCE

if i feel like it, i add a vibrance layer (layer > new adjustment layer > vibrance) to make the colors pop. this can ruin your coloring sometimes, especially when regarding skin color, so be careful. i didn't do it in this gif because i felt i didn't need it.

TA-DA! 🥳

AN OTHER EXAMPLE

the color grading of the original scene it’s pretty good as it is, to be honest. let’s see a worse scenario, a VERY yellow one:

no channel mixer this time because the automatic curves option dealt with the yellowness, but you can see it made the gif too green. i needed to correct that with the following adjustment layers:

curves (automatic option) (gif 2) >> same curves layer (tweaks) (gif 3) >> brightness & contrast (gif 4) >> hue/saturation (tweaked cyan+blue+green) >> selective color >> color balance (gif 5) >> b&w gradient map >> (sepia) filter >> vibrance (gif 6)

i added a hue/saturation layer to remove the blues & greens before my selective color layer because i thought that was more urgent than tweaking the tint of all colors. color balance (gif 4) was the real hero here, though, by removing the green tint. the selective color layer was meant to make the red pop more than anything else, because the rest looked pretty good, especially her skin tone (despite the green tint). you can notice that tweaking the curves layer (small gif 3) also helped A LOT with the green problem.

tl;dr 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

here's a list of my go-to's while coloring and lightning gifs. it's not a rule, just a guide. there are gifs in which i don't use all these adjustment layers, or use them in a different order. it all depends!

1. curves (automatic option + tweaks) 2. brightness & contrast 3. channel mixer 4. selective color 5. hue/saturation 6. color balance 7. b&w gradient map 8. color filter 9. vibrance

i'll suggest that you study each adjustment layer listed for more info, either with other Tumblr tutorials or YouTube ones. the YouTube ones focus on images, but you can translate what they teach to gif making very easily. you can ask me to further explain any adjustment layer, too! i was brief to keep this short (which i kinda failed lol).

feel free to ask me for clarification or something else about gifmaking wise, i always like to help. ❤️

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erysium · 3 months

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Do you have any tips for making gif comic pages? Whenever I make them the file is so huge and different than the other pages...

I was wondering bc I really like the Kochab pages and they maintain their quality!

yeah, it's just hard to make them without a huge file size :') some things I do to lessen it a little:

I make gifs in Photoshop and save them by going to File > Export > Save for web (legacy), lowering the amount of colors as far as possible without losing too much quality, same with dithering, and try to keep the image size under 1000px wide or tall at most, if possible. you can play around with the settings in those panels to see how they affect the file size, and make changes.

keep the animations to about 20-25ish frames. less frames = smaller files I think

after I'm done in PS, use https://compressor.io/ to lower the file size a bit more. I do that for big illustration jpgs, or illustration gifs, as well as comic page gifs ✨

#ask #if anyone has other tips please let us know #hope this helps at least a little!!

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nvrsaidiwasinurcloset · 2 months

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https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMAb4KUo/

Smut w biker Ethan Landry ?!

Hi💕 I hope you like it! I got out of the hang of writing over the last few days so I might go back and make a few changes once i re-read over this at some point lmao

Roll Up - Ethan Landry x Fem!Reader

This Contains SMUT - Minors DNI

Summary: Your boyfriend's new hobby scares you, but he shows you it isn't that bad.

Contains: Oral(f receiving), p in v, rough-ish sex.

A/N: We're going to pretend that this isn't based off of the photoshopped pics of Jack lmao. If this sucks, don't let me know. I'm sensitive👉👈

When your boyfriend mentioned getting his motorcycle license, you thought he was crazy. You even created a power point presentation, showing him how dumb of an idea it was. He just rolled his eyes every time you made a good point, because he knew it was what he was going to do regardless.

“You aren’t going to break up with me if I get a bike, are you?” he asked, putting on his shoes as he got ready to go take the driving test. “I think it’d be a lot of fun to have one.”

“It’d take a lot more for me to break up with you…but what if something happens to you? I’d just be worried the whole time you were out,” you sighed, getting a little anxious.

You heard a knock on the door, as Ethan walked away from you to answer it. You took a deep breath when Chad walked in, carrying his extra helmet for Ethan.

“Why’d you have to corrupt my sweet boyfriend?” you asked, as Chad smiled at you.

“I think you’ll like it…Tara does,” he said, smirking at Ethan as he handed him the helmet.

“Yeah, what if I get one and you can’t keep your hands off me?” Ethan asked, cocking his eyebrow as he looked at you. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, and I’d not like to hear the sound of your eulogy being spoken,” you said, as Ethan scoffed.

“You’re so overdramatic,” he said, walking over to kiss you. He placed a kiss to the tip of your nose, your lips, and your forehead before he pulled away. “I love you, baby. Wish me luck.”

“I love you, too,” you said, as both boys walked to the door. Ethan stood in the doorway for a minute, waiting for you to hear the other thing he needed you to say. “Fuck it, fine. Good luck. Please, just be careful.”

“I will, babe,” he said, chuckling as he walked out.

One thing about Ethan was that the second he got an idea in his head, you knew he was going to stop at nothing to get what he wanted. This was by far the scariest thing he’d ever wanted to do, and you’d done nothing but panic whenever you thought about it.

It all started when Chad brought Ethan to his friend’s garage, and they were talking about Chad getting his license. At first you laughed it off, thinking it was about Ethan wanting to have more in common with his best friend, but once you saw him browsing for bikes online, you realized how serious he was about it.

Once he got his learners, he started to spend more time with Chad and his friend. He’d lay in bed with you until you fell asleep, then sneak out of the bed once he’d get the text from Chad that he was outside. You hated it when you’d roll over and he wasn’t beside you, but you wanted him to practice when there were a lot less cars on the road.

He was always in the best mood when he’d come back home, still feeling the adrenaline. He tried to be quiet when he snuck back in, but you always woke up. You’d jump out of bed once you heard the shower cut on, strip off your clothes, and join him in the steamy bathroom. He’d tell you all the things he did and new stuff he learned as you sleepily listened, but it always ended in the hottest shower sex you’d ever had.

You kept checking the time on your phone, wondering what was taking Ethan so long to get back home. It’d been a few hours, and you were trying to prepare yourself. As worried as you were for him to get his license, you knew you’d be excited for him. But the possibility of him not getting it worried you more than if he did. You knew how much he wanted it, and you knew he’d be upset if he didn’t get it.

Once you saw Ethan’s name and picture flash across your phone screen, you quickly answered the call.

“Hey, babe,” you said, “How’d it go?”

You heard traffic passing him and sirens off in the distance.

“Come outside, I want to show you something.” You could hear the happiness in his voice, and you kind of had a hunch about what your boyfriend had done. Once you made your way down the stairs of your apartment complex and saw him standing there, a helmet under his arm and the matte black bike behind him, you didn’t know how to feel.

“I guess you passed,” you said, your eyes squinting as the early afternoon sunlight hit them just right. “I’m proud of you, baby.”

“I can still tell you’re mad,” he teased, as he leaned down to kiss you. “but thank you.”

“This is yours, isn’t it?” you asked, as he tried to fight off the excited smile.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t hate me because I didn’t talk to you about it first,” he said, reaching around and grabbing the extra helmet off the bike seat. “I want you to go on a ride with me.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, his smile dropping at your words. “Not right now, can we go out later tonight? I’m a little scared and I’d feel better if I didn’t feel like we were going to get hit.”

“Of course,” he said, his smile appearing on his lips again. “I think you’ll love it.”

“Whatever you say,” you said, as he grabbed your hand and led you inside.

As it got darker outside, Ethan got more excited. He knew how close he was to taking you out to see what made him almost as happy as you do. As much as you were freaking out, you knew he’d never put you in danger, and you really wanted to know what the big deal was.

“Okay,” Ethan said, as you slipped your hoodie over your head. “Just a few quick things…I know it’s a little scary, but you need to lean into any turns we take. Don’t ever let go of me and sit as close to me as you can.”

“If we lean, won’t you lose control?” you questioned, as he shook his head.

“We’re not doing anything crazy so don’t think I’m going to take you on any super curvy roads…but if you stay upright when we need to lean, that could cause me to lose control.”

“Okay,” you sighed, as he handed you the helmet.

He looked you over to make sure nothing on you was loose fitting and made sure your helmet was good before he slung his leg over the bike.

“You coming?” he asked, his hand reaching out to help you on.

“There’s not a lot of room back here,” you said, as he slid his helmet over his head.

“I already told you, just hold on to me, and stay as close as you can. I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, his words a little muffled. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” you said, as he started the bike. Your arms tightly wrapped around him, his hand rubbing against your thigh to let you know he had you before he pulled off.

He took you on a few of the streets he first learned how to drive on, not wanting to freak you out too much. Once you came to a stop light, he started to yell over the hum of the bike.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand moving to rub against your thigh again.

“Yeah, you aren’t going very fast, though,” you yelled back, as he started to laugh to himself.

“You want me to go faster?” he asked, “I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“You can go faster, just don’t kill us,” you said, as the light turned green.

He revved the engine before he sped off, going significantly faster than he did before. You didn’t feel scared though, you were…turned on? You weren’t sure if it was the vibrations coming from the bike, or how hot your boyfriend was at that moment, but you knew you were going to jump him as soon as the two of you got back home.

He started to drive out of the city, taking you to one of the back roads he’d always pull off at with his friends. He stopped in the gravel area and helped you off the bike before he got off.

“Was that too much?” he asked, pulling the helmet off of his head. You quickly pulled yours off, mumbling a “No” as you stood on your tippy toes to kiss him. Your hands went up to his curls as his tongue brushed against your bottom lip to deepen the kiss. You stood there making out, the only light coming from the full moon and the glow of the headlights.

“We need to go home soon,” you said against his lips, “I understand why you always want sex after your late-night rides.”

“We’ll head home soon babe,” he said, his hand reaching down to squeeze your ass as he pulled you closer. “Or…we could do it right here.”

“I know this is a back road, but someone could still see us,” you said, glancing at the road for any other cars off in the distance.

“So what?” he asked, as his lips moved to your neck.

He pulled away once he heard the familiar loud hum heading up the road, slowing down a little once it got closer to where you and Ethan were.

“Is that Chad?” you asked, as Ethan nodded.

“Tara’s with him,” he said, noticing her tiny frame tightly clinging to him. “Good think I didn’t get you naked yet,” he laughed a little, thinking about how awkward that would’ve been.

“You know how I am when I want sex and I don’t get it,” you said, giving him a warning look. “Please don’t get caught up in talking for too long.”

“I won’t, babe,” he said, as Chad pulled in and took his helmet off.

“She didn’t kill you!” Chad yelled, as you rolled your eyes.

Ethan walked up to him as you walked over to Tara. She had the biggest smile on her face when she saw you standing there.

“Ahh! We can go on late night rides together, now!” she said, pulling you into a hug. “Isn’t this fun?”

“Yeah, I thought it was going to be scary,” you said, glancing over to Ethan to see him smiling at you. “Now I just have to convince him to take me home soon.”

“I get it, I feel the same way,” she said, picking up on your suggestiveness.

When Ethan walked around to you, he looked a little nervous as Chad motioned for Tara to get back on the bike.

“I hope you don’t mind, but Chad wants to ride around for a little bit. There’s this straight, flat road near here that we like to go way faster than we should, but if you’d rather go home, we can.”

“As long as we go home soon, I’m fine with it,” you said, as Ethan started to smile.

“Put your helmet back on,” he said, walking you back over to his bike.

He slid his over his head and helped you get on the back before he started it again and took off. You got a little confused once you hit a certain point in the road. Chad and Ethan both came to a stop on opposite sides, as you felt his hand grip your thigh.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, the question making you nervous as Chad gave him a thumbs up.

“Yeah,” you yelled, as he said, “Hold on tight.”

He revved the engine again before taking off, going way faster than he’d gone before, at least while you were on the back. The way you were rested against Ethan made it easy for you to see that Chad was keeping pace with him before he dropped a gear and flew past Ethan. Ethan did the same, your grip on him getting even tighter as you felt the adrenaline coursing through your veins. He quickly caught back up to Chad and passed him before he started to slow down a little.

“You okay, baby?” he asked, once he came to a stop and your grip on him relaxed.

“If you don’t take me home and fuck me, I’m not going to be okay,” you said, as Chad pulled up beside you and pulled his helmet off.

“Fuck, that thing’s fast,” he said, as Ethan pulled his helmet off.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it. We were going over a hundred,” Ethan said, your eyes going wide as you listened to him speak. “I’m going to take her home.”

“You coming back out later?” Chad asked, as Ethan shook his head.

“No, I have other plans,” he said, as Chad nodded.

“You guys have fun. Don’t be an idiot,” Chad said, putting his helmet back on before speeding off.

“Over a hundred?!” you yelled, as Ethan started to laugh.

“Yeah, and I wasn’t going as fast as I could’ve,” he said, putting his helmet back on. “Let’s get you home.”

As soon as he got you home, you both were so needy. Various clothing items were scattered across your apartment, from the front door to the bedroom you shared with Ethan. He wasted no time, burying his head in between your thighs as soon as he pushed you back on your bed. Your fingers ran through his curls as soft moans slipped past your lips. His hands were kneading at your thighs as his tongue swirled around your sensitive clit.

“Use your fingers, babe,” you gasped out, as he suckled on your clit. He did what you said, sliding two of his fingers into your soaked, dripping pussy with ease. “Fuck, just like that.”

“Did being on the back of my bike turn you on that much?” he asked, his eyes boring into yours as he curved his fingers to brush against that spongy spot inside of you. “Yes,” you said, letting out a low moan. “You were just so fucking hot.”

His mouth went back to your clit as you tugged at his curls, the sounds of him fucking you with his fingers and your moans filling the room. His free hand was roaming your body, from your thighs up to your breasts. Once he started to pinch one of your nipples, you felt that familiar feeling starting to build inside of you.

Ethan knew you were close. Your legs were starting to shake as his fingers moved against your g-spot faster. He sucked your clit into his mouth, hard. Your back arched up off the bed as you pulled his hair so hard that it hurt. He didn’t let up though.

You let out a whimper as the feeling washed over you, your pussy fluttering around his fingers. He gently lapped at your clit until you started to come down from your high.

The grip you had on his hair relaxed as he sat up to look at you, his mouth coated in your arousal.

“Do I still have hair?” he asked, running his fingers through his curls. His scalp was so sensitive that he winced when he touched it.

“I’m sorry, baby,” you mumbled, as your breathing started to get a little more regular.

“It’s worth it if I made you cum that hard,” he said, smiling at you. “I loved having you on the back of my bike. It’s like you weren’t scared at all.”

“I wasn’t. I trust you.”

As much as Ethan loved watching your face when he fucked you, he wanted to be as deep as he could inside your warm, wet pussy. He positioned you so your ass was sticking up in the air for him as the side of your face rested against the cool comforter.

“So fucking perfect,” he said, rubbing the tip of his cock over your wet folds. “You ready, baby?”

“Yes,” you said, as he started to inch himself inside of you. The slight burning feeling as he stretched you out made you gasp, his hand roaming over your lower back as his hip bones met the curve of your ass.

He started out with slow thrusts, still giving you time to adjust. Once you whined out to let him know you wanted more, he moved faster. You heard the soft slapping of his skin against yours as the head of his cock hit that special spot inside of you. You glanced back to see him watching his cock disappear inside your pussy, slide himself out, head and all, before he started to pound into you.

“Fuck,” you whimpered, your eyes still on him as your hands grabbed at the sheets.

He looked up to watch your body as you started to roll your hips back, meeting his thrusts. His cheeks were red as his mouth hung open, a few of his curls sticking to his forehead. One of his hands tightly held your hip as his other hand reached around brushing against your lower stomach. You soon felt two of his fingers strumming against your clit, your moans getting louder by the second.

“Harder,” you whimpered, a smirk playing on his lips as he started to mercilessly pound into your pussy.

“That’s it, baby. You take it so fucking well,” he said, some of his words getting broken by the random grunts slipping past his lips.

Once he put the right amount of pressure on your clit and started to roll his fingers in circles, you felt your body start to tense up, your orgasm sneaking up on you. You were a whimpering mess as the slapping sounds got louder, echoing off the walls. He was getting close, but he was trying so hard to fight it.

He watched your fists ball up in the fitted sheet, pulling it lose as you cried out. Your pussy was squeezing him so tight that his thrusts started to falter.

“Where do you want it?” he rushed out, but you couldn’t form words, completely fucked out.

He slid out of you, releasing his hot cum all over your ass and lower back. His hand ran through his sweaty hair before he flopped down on the bed beside you. Your hips started to relax as you eased the lower half of your body to lay flat across the bed.

“Jesus,” he sighed, catching his breath. “That was amazing.”

“Was it as good as the shower sex?” you asked, smiling as you turned your head to face him.

“Well, we do still need to shower…”

#ethan landry #ethan landry x reader #scream smut #ethan landry smut #smut

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usergif · 7 months

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HOW TO: Cross-Fade Multiple Gifs

Hi! In this tutorial, I'm going to go over how I typically do a fade transition that works with Video Timeline. Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of gif-making in Photoshop and requires the use of keyframes.

Before I start, if you're wondering "why don't you just use the cross fade tool on the Timeline?" — this thing:

It doesn't work for me 🤷🏻‍♀️ Something happens when converting from Video Timeline back to Frame Animation (the converting everything into a smart object step) that completely negates the cross fade whenever I use it. I'm not sure why, but this is why I do fade transitions the way I'm about to explain.

PHASE 1: THE GIFS

1.1 – Determine how many frames you need. There are 3 things to remember here: 1) Ideally, each gif section should have the same amount of frames, so the transitions feel evenly spaced. 2) The gif's dimensions and total number of frames affect file size. Your final exported gif needs to be under 10MB (Tumblr's limit), so you should consider the total number of frames in relation to the size of your gif. My example gif is 540x540px and 60 frames total; final file size = 7.8MB. 3) Add 4 extra frames to each section to account for the cross-faded portion. (The reason I chose 4 specifically is because Video Timeline works in 0.03-second intervals. The typical duration of my fade transitions is 0.06 seconds — which, when converted back to frames, is 4 frames.) I knew 60 total frames would be a safe bet for a gif this size. Since I had 3 gif sections, each would be 20 frames. I added 4 additional frames, making each one 24 frames (before removing duplicates in the exporting process, which will be explained in Phase 3). You can make your transitions longer than 0.06, but I recommend keeping it to intervals of 0.03 due to the way Timeline works. Every 0.03 seconds = 2 frames, so use this when deciding how many extra frames you'll need.

1.2 – Import frames, crop, and resize. Do this as you normally would! If you need a tutorial for the basics, here's my tutorial. :)

1.3 – Move all gifs onto one document/canvas. Right-click the gif layer and select "Duplicate Layer:"

Then choose the appropriate document from the dropdown list:

Do this for each gif section so you can work on one document for the rest of the process.

1.4 – Put each gif into its own group. Select each layer and use the shortcut Command+G or right-click and select "Group from Layers." In Phase 2, we'll be putting the opacity keyframes on the groups instead of the individual layers.

1.5 – Arrange each gif's group on the Timeline. At the end of Gif 1, move backwards 6 times. Move the starting point of Gif 2 to this spot. At the end of Gif 2, move back 6 times and make this Gif 3's starting point. Here's how my gifs look arranged on the Timeline, animated so you can see the 6-space distance:

We'll be adding keyframes to these overlapping sections in Phase 2.

1.6 – Set up the last transition. At the very beginning of the Timeline, hit the forward button 6 times and click the scissors to divide the clip. Move the starting point of your gif to the newly trimmed beginning as shown below:

Then, move the original beginning chunk of Gif 1 — that tiny 0.06-second clip — to the end of the timeline above the rest of your layers, aligning its end with the end of Gif 3. Put it in a group like you did in Step 1.4:

Note: This screenshot shows my final workspace with the coloring layers in groups and the keyframes already placed.

1.7 – Color your gifs. Do this however you want, just keep all your adjustment layers and any other effects within their respective groups:

Duplicate the adjustment layers from Gif 1 and move them into the folder Gif 1 - Beginning (where your tiny 0.06-second clip is). Be sure the adjustment layers line up with the rest of the group so those adjustments don't affect your other gifs! You may want to trim the adjustment layers to match the duration of the clip or just move them so they start at the same spot as that clip.

PHASE 2: THE KEYFRAMES

2.1 – Place a 100% and 0% keyframe at the beginning of each gif's group. Drag the playhead (red vertical line) to the end of Gif 1. Expand the Gif 2 group to reveal the opacity keyframes on the left side of the Timeline panel, then place a keyframe by clicking the icon that looks like a stopwatch. This opacity keyframe is at 100% by default; leave it like that. Drag the playhead to the beginning of Gif 2 and drop another keyframe. While that new keyframe is highlighted yellow, go to the layers panel, make sure Gif 2's group is selected, and reduce the opacity to 0%.

Repeat these steps for each gif's beginning, including the tiny chunk we moved to the end! Here's a gif to show the process:

(Btw, if you click this gif, it should expand to full size so you can get a better look! I made it 1080px.)

PHASE 3: THE DUPLICATES

3.1 – Convert back to Frame Animation. If you're not sure how to do this, I've written out the steps here. But I recommend using an action in your general gif-making process to make this step a lot faster. The one I use is linked in my tutorial which I linked earlier!

3.2 – Delete duplicate frames. Remember, at the beginning I set out to make my final gif 60 frames total. With the keyframe animations, I now have 66 frames:

Palpatine's number 👎 Anyway, that means I have 6 duplicate frames. This is what the gif looks like without removing these duplicates:

Watch closely during the transitions; there's a tiny lag. It doesn't look smooth to me. It's the clones!! Here's why we have these duplicates:

For every 0.03-second long keyframe animation, you'll get 1 duplicate frame. Unfortunately, that's just how Video Timeline works with any kind of animated keyframe. Since our fade transition is 0.06 seconds, we have to get rid of 2 duplicate frames per transition section (2 x 3 transitions sections = 6 total duplicates. Ew, math!).

There's not really a way to avoid this step that I know of, but it's not a big deal in the long run. You just have to look at each transition section, eyeball the duplicate frames yourself, and delete them. It's usually the first frame where the fade starts and then two frames after that. I already deleted the duplicates from the first two transition sections, so here's how it's done for the last transition:

Side note: I set up keyboard shortcuts so I can quickly move forward and backward by one frame and delete frames. You can do this by going to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and editing these:

And now I have 60 frames like I originally said I would!

If you want the transition sections to be quicker, you can even decrease the frame delay for the 3 transition frames only — 0.03 or 0.04 might be up to your speed 🥁 but I don't usually do this since I'm fine with the way it looks already.

3.3 – Export. That's it!

I hope this tutorial is helpful. As always, if you have a specific question about this tutorial, feel free to send us an ask!

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adventuringblind · 5 months

Note

Hi, I noticed (mainly bc u read a lot of your work) that you write a lot of dark/ self harm based/themed fics so I was wondering if you would be comfortable with writing a lestappen x reader with an Ed. It’s totally fine if you don’t want to so ofc feel free to ignore

(Your work is always very well written and I look forward to reading what you post next)

One for you and One for me

Lestappen x Reader

Genre: Angst/hurt comfort

Summary: Nobody is immune to the toxicity of social media, Charles and Max help their girl through it

Warnings: HEAVY ED, toxic media, body dysmorphia, sexual acts are mentioned but nothing happens

Notes: You must be psychic because I you sent this while I'm struggling with my own ED. I hope this helps you as much as it did me! 😊

Masterlist

Social media is something that everyone seems to revolve around. In theory, it could be great. Getting to see photos of friends and family and updates from celebrities you wouldn't otherwise interact with.

But here's the catch: in practice, the entire thing falls apart. People are left with images of things that are unachievable. Photoshop and filters have become everyone's new best friends. People put only their best foot forward and try to look as perfect as possible.

And those who don't? The ones who are criticized? The ones who will never meet that expectation? They are left trying to swim to the surface of a never-ending ocean. Drowning under the weight never being enough.

So, they do what they can. Nothing can be that bad if it makes them feel better, right? What's one meal skipped every day to cut back on calories?

In her case, she'd cut it all out. The idea of perfection and control weigh heavy in the pit of her stomach. The one that is currently growling as she weighs herself for the fifth time that day alone.

It's addicting, really, the feeling she gets from having gone another hour without a meal. The elation of seeing the scale drop in number.

The media and fans had been all over her appearance after going public with Max and Charles. She'd tried to ignore, but there was a piece of her looking for an excuse to dive back into the habits of her teenage years.

Her mother said she never looked like she had an eating disorder. Her father only started compliment her on her appearance once she was significantly underweight.

Max and Charles had been there for the fall. Her habits finally catching up to her when she started working with Redbull. She didn't have the energy to keep up with the schedule and one day had simply collapsed.

She'd gotten better. Promised the two boys they would never be on the verge of losing her like that again.

Now here she is, breaking that promise over the triple header by not eating at all. She'd started slowly, but now she has a chance to speed things up before the two boys notice anything. Too busy to really pay attention to her weight.

Maybe it would've been better if they hadn't been caught eating together. The fans might have a little less leverage to use on her. Maybe if she wasn't wearing something more revealing to a party in Monaco then they wouldn't have noticed how she looks.

The number on the scale is far from perfect, but it'll do for now. She slips on her teamwear that is looser than it was a few days ago. A satisfied but tired smile plays on her lips as she walks out the door.

The paddock is busy prior to the race. cameras are everywhere and she does her best to avoid them. Thankful her job is away from the majority of people. The less the cameras see of her, the better. A small part of her wonders if it would simply be better to disappear or become invisible. Maybe if she's thin enough, she'll be invisible from the side.

The day seems to drag on. The race is good and ends with both Max and Charles on the podium. It's the last race of the triple header meaning they will want to celebrate properly tonight. Maybe they will compliment her more now that she's lost weight. There is a prominent gap in her thighs and maybe will even be light enough for them to carry. The though makes her swoon.

The cheery conversation in the car quickly turns to logistics. Plans for dinner are made and she claims to have eaten while finishing up her work. To hungry to wait any longer.

There is a hesitant pause. They like knowing she ate with visible proof. That being the reason they eat together or at least someone is there to tell she ate if asked. Even if it's a bite.

They don't mention it. Charles orders in while Max drags her out of ear shot. She assumes it's because he is pent up, nothing surprising after a race. But nothing happens and she is left mildly disappointed.

Max cups her face. "I'm sorry we've been so busy."

"That's not your fault."

"No, but-" Max looks hesitant. "We know you haven't been eating. You're exhausted and your clothes don't fit. We can feel your bones when we hold you at night." She looks at Max in horror. "We thought maybe if we just made sure you felt comfortable that you would come to us but it's bad again."

Charles puts hands on her hips. "We'll take it slow, like last time. But please, we love you too much to see you become a shell of yourself again."

They say in that embrace until there is a knock at the door. Max is quick to answer it. He comes back holding their dinner. An extra box sits on top. One she assumes is for her.

"We got you a small salad. Nothing massive, no dressing, just vegetables." Max sets it all out on the table. They keep up casual conversation, so she doesn't feel horribly uncomfortable. Until they notice she is just playing with her food.

"How about, we continue talking, but we take turns taking bites? If you manage three, we'll call it a night," suggests Charles. Goal setting was helpful last time around. One week she took one bite of every meal, the next was two, and so on.

She manages three bites. Each of her own followed by one of theirs.

They all clamber into bed afterwards. Exhaustion hits her hard.

No, it's not perfect or straightforward. Relapses happen but healing is full of ups and downs. But she has people who care and who love her for who she is, not what she looks like. They'd rather her be healthy then bringing herself to the brink of collapse. And she loves them enough to try her best which is all they can ask for.

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cal-kestis · 1 year

Photo

HOW TO: Do a Motion Blur Transition Using Timeline or Frame Animation

Hi! Someone asked me for a tutorial on the transition effect in the second gif of this set (also featured in this set and the text on this set). So, here it is! This is one of the easiest and least tedious of the gif transition effects in my opinion — and I’m going to go over how to do it both in Timeline and Frame Animation (using the screencap method). Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of gif-making in Photoshop.

PHASE 1: PREP

This phase applies to both the Timeline and Frames method!

1.1 – Prepare your caps. (New to gif-making? Check out my basic tutorial here!)

The key to this kind of gif is making sure your final gif, with all the transitions, won’t be too long or too big of a file to post (Tumblr’s limit is 10 MB).

If your gif is going to be big like mine (540x500px), you might want to keep your total frames between 50-60. I decided to try getting away with a whopping 70 frames total... because I like to test fate (spoiler: my final gif ended up being 9.6 MB 🙈). Since my gif is transitioning between two scenes, that means each scene was 35 frames.

If you aren’t doing screencaps like me, just make sure your clips are equal in length. And if you’re transitioning between more than 2 scenes (like the Mando example I linked at the beginning), you’ll have to use shorter clips/fewer frames per scene. In my Mando gif, each scene was 16 frames and my final gif was 64 frames.

1.2 – Crop, sharpen, color, etc. as you would. For this, since you’ll probably have 2 more more sets of coloring, just make sure your coloring is only being applied to the appropriate gifs. The way I do that is by aligning my adjustment layers with my gif as you can see in the screenshot in 1.3 below.

1.3 – Arrange your frames or clips. If you’re working in Timeline, drag the clips/layers of your second gif so they’re immediately after the ones of your first gif. I like to keep things separated in Groups:

Note: I’m keeping my text layers separate because I don’t want the motion blur to affect them. But if you wanted to make your text transition from one word to another, you can either follow the same steps I’m about to show you and apply them to your text layers, or simply merge your text layers with your gif and adjustment layers, so they can all get the motion blur filter applied to them!

If you’re working in Frames, simply paste the frames of your second gif after the frames of your first gif. Again, you can either keep your text separated or part of the motion blur.

METHOD: TIMELINE

T.1 – Divide the Timeline. Using the Scissors Tool, you’ll want to divide each gif so there are 3 small segments at the beginning and end. (3 is my go-to, however, for my Mando gif, I actually only did 2 segments because each section was already so short.)

Now there are two options for this:

OPTION 1: Simplest, 00:01 Seconds Each, Makes Duplicate Frames

You might be wondering, why on earth would I want duplicate frames? You wouldn’t, usually. But this method only causes the duplicates to happen on the blurred frames, so it’s not noticeable at all! However, if you’re like me (read: Type A) — just knowing there are duplicate frames may bother you. If that’s you, go to Option 2.

Each of these segments are the absolute smallest Photoshop will allow, a duration of 00:01.

Sometimes Timeline won’t let you cut things that short (for me, this typically only happens at the end of a clip). So my work around is to cut the segment so it’s 00:02 seconds long, then drag the clip until it’s as small as it can be. Here’s a gif showing that process:

You can see that after I dragged the clip so it would be 00:01, I also dragged the big clip over so it would still continue as normal. Timeline is neat because, even if you divide a clip, each segment can be dragged back to its full length.

OPTION 2: 00:02 / 00:01 / 00:02, No Duplicate Frames

Timeline works in a weird way... when you move forward one frame by clicking the right arrow, you don’t always see movement in your gif. And if you don’t line up the clips properly with the movement, it can create duplicate frames. The easy way to fix this is by making the 3 segments 00:02, 00:01, and 00:02 seconds respectively. This goes for the segments at the beginning and end.

You can see the duration of each segment and an example of how the gif doesn’t move on certain frames in this gif of my workspace:

T.2 – Apply the Motion Blur filter in varying distances or strengths. Now that we have all of our segments, it’s time to apply the blur. Motion Blur is under Filter > Blur > Motion Blur!

This is the window you’ll see when you click it:

Note the fields where you can change the angle and distance.

The angle is basically the direction in which you want the blurred effect to stretch. I always do 0 because I want my gifs to blur together horizontally — I just think it looks smooth. You can play around with it if you want to get a different effect!

The distance is what I like to refer to as the strength of the blur. But really, it’s distance because it’s how long the blurred effect is being stretched.

The rule of thumb here is to apply the filter in a gradation. The part at the beginning of one gif should go from strongest (greatest distance) to weakest (least distance). The part at the end of one gif should go from weakest to strongest.

I keep things easy to remember and do 20, 15, 10 for the beginning and 5, 10, 15 for the end. The reason the numbers aren’t the same is because I don’t want the end of Gif 1 (which is blurred 15px distance) to be the same as the beginning of Gif 2 (which is blurred 20px distance). If they’re the same amount of blur, I don’t think the transition looks as smooth.

Here’s my entire timeline and the strength of blur I used for each of the transitional clips:

T.3 – Export That’s it! Convert from Timeline to Frames, export your gif, and there you go!

Reminder, if you decided to do Option 1, you’ll have duplicate frames, and therefore more frames than you started out with when you initially imported caps.

METHOD: FRAMES

F.1 – Apply the Motion Blur filter in varying distances or strengths. In Timeline, we created segments. But in Frames, each frame acts as one of those segments — so we don’t need to divide anything. We can just get straight to the filter!

Now, disclaimer: the way I’m working with Frames right now is with the adjustment layers merged with the frames. I typically work in Timeline, so I colored in Timeline and then converted into Frames for this. However you work, just make sure the coloring from one part of your gif doesn’t affect the other part.

Anyway, here’s where to find Motion Blur again:

And here’s what the window will look like:

Now just apply the filter in increasing and decreasing degrees. In case you didn’t read the Timeline section, I’ll paste exactly what I said there:

Note the fields where you can change the angle and distance.

The distance is what I like to refer to as the strength of the blur. But really, it’s distance because it’s how long the blurred effect is being stretched.

Here are all my frames and the strength of the blur I used for each of the transitional frames:

Note: I wanted to mention again that I kept my text layers in a separate group and didn’t apply the transition to them:

F.2 – Export Finished! Easy peasy!

EXPORTING TIP

If you’ve read my other tutorials, you already know this tip — but since I’m part of Discord servers where members are encouraged to share embed links to their creations, I often rearrange the order of my frames before saving them. (This tip is also handy for making sure the best frame of your gif is visible for Tumblr users who turn off auto-playing gifs.) In this case, I made frame 27 my new frame 1 because I didn’t want my embed preview to look like a blurry gif. Everything will still be in the same order, but anywhere your gif is paused, the best frame will be displayed!

Anyway, that’s it! If you have specific questions about this tutorial, my ask box is open. Hope this helps! <3

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mastofnone · 5 months

Text

I FINALLY got to participate in the @bumblebybigbang this year! Really excited to share these works, I had the extreme pleasure of getting to team up with @pugoata and @askjar to make something wonderful. Please go and enjoy the fic here, its dark, its moody, it's a dramatic one folks, bring tissues! This was a lot of fun, got to try some new things out with animation in different platforms including Unity, After Effects, Photoshop Animation, and Procreate.

#procreate #digital artist #digital art #bbb #bbb2023 #bumbleby fanart #bumbleby #rwby bumbleby #rwby blake #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #rwby yang #bmblb #blake x yang #blake and yang

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from-the-clouds · 1 year

Text

texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. 1

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist |

summary: When you let your new neighbor’s daughter inside to call her father from your landline, you never expect to be dealing with the fallout twenty years later. Series will take place before and after the outbreak, and is partially inspired by this request. Slow-burn(ish), eventual smut. pairing: pre-outbreak!joel miller x f!reader words: 6.4k chapter warnings: mentions of/encounters with a drunk person, references to absent parents, i imply that both reader (and joel) like pineapple on pizza. a/n: i need to get my shit together and make a proper masterlist/post for this series but i'm absolute garbage with photoshop/making collages so that is a project for another day!! for now, i wanted to get this first part out to ya'll. i watched a playthrough of the game too so ill be including some references to that throughout the series. this will be some hallmark-movie ass romance so strap in!! this chapter was super fun to write and i loved writing for reader and sarah, give it a read and let me know what you think!

-March 7, 2003-

“Excuse me? Ma’am? Excuse me?”

The voice behind you is so timid you don’t hear it right away, especially not when your phone is pressed to your ear with your shoulder as you sort through the mail, your coworker droning on and on…

“Ma’am?”

It’s a little more forceful this time, a little closer too, and that’s when it finally gets your attention. Turning around on your heel, you find a young girl standing behind you, one hand hooked in the strap of her backpack that hangs off of one thin shoulder, the other worrying about the butterfly pendant of the necklace she’s wearing.

You recognize her immediately as one of your neighbors, the girl from across the street whose name you didn’t know yet, because you only moved in about two months ago. You’d met the man who you assumed was her father – Joe? Or was it Joel?, you couldn’t remember – the first day you’d moved in, but there had been so much going on that you were too flustered to be engaged.

It’s a Friday, but apparently that doesn’t keep you safe from work calls after you leave the office, because you’re getting an earful of a whole lot of hot air, so much so that you’re probably unintentionally frowning at the girl in front of you while you try to follow the conversation.

“....I think you’re right, but they’re not going to budge unless we sweeten the deal somehow-”

“Can I call you back?” you blurt, ultimately thankful for the interruption. You don’t even wait for his response before you click off your blackberry, sighing, looking up. “Hi, yeah, sorry. Can I help you?”

“Uhm, I’m Sarah…..Miller….I live across the street?” her voice goes up slightly at the end of the sentence, like she’s unsure, even as she points to the home behind her, a two-story place that’s considerably bigger than your own, but maybe a little older. “I uhm…I locked myself out and I was wondering if I could use your phone…to call my dad at work? Please?”

“Oh, yeah,” you say. “That’s fine. Just uh..follow me I guess.”

Tucking the stack of mail in your hand under your arm, you wave her after you, your kitten heels clicking on the hard pavement of your driveway.

“Be careful here,” you warn her as you step over the middle step to your front porch that has rotted, and gives easily under any amount of weight. You’d learned about it the hard way, last week, and still had the bruise on your leg to show for it.

Your front door is open, and Sarah pauses to take off her shoes when you do, a pair of beat-up white Converse that have been doodled on in Sharpie.

“Here, phone’s right there,” you lead her into the kitchen and point to the landline. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Uhm, could I just get some water…please?” She stands rigidly in your kitchen, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“Of course,” you reach into the cabinet. Once the glass is filled and placed in front of her, you retreat to your front living area to give her some privacy while she makes the call, sitting on the couch and scrolling through unanswered emails on your blackberry. Sarah mumbles indiscreetly, until you hear her call out again.

“Uhm…ma’am…I’m sorry, Miss…uh-what’s your last name?”

“Oh,” you sit up, giving her your first instead.

“Okay….Uh, my dad wants to talk to you…could you-”

“Sure,” you stand, stepping back into the kitchen, and accepting the receiver from the girl.

“Hello?”

“Hey, this is Joel Miller,” you’re greeted with a low, gruff drawl. “You’re the new neighbor, I believe introduced myself a while back”

“Joel,” you repeat. It’s Joel. Joel, Joel, Joel, you force yourself to remember. Joel and Sarah Miller. “Yes, we met very briefly.”

“And it sounds like you met Sarah.”

“Yeah.”

On the other end of the line, you hear him hesitate, let out a long sigh. “Look, I hate to put you out, but she lost her key to the house, and she tells me the Adlers aren’t home. Do you think she could stay at your place until I’m able to get off work in a couple hours? I know it’s a big ask, but-”

“Of course she can,” you cut him off, peering over your shoulder at Sarah, who’s staring up at you expectantly with wide, terrified eyes.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal.”

“She’s probably got homework so I’ll make sure she stays quiet and out of your way. I’m so sorry, she should know better than this. It’s the second time this month this has happened, I keep tellin’ her-”

“Like I said, it’s not a big deal,” you cut him off, unintentionally, before wondering if it was rude you didn’t let him finish. It’s the native New Yorker in you, always in a rush and uninterested in drawn-out excuses. It’s an unfortunate instinct you’ve been trying to train yourself out of, particularly now that you’re living in the southwest. You soften your tone. “She can stay as long as she needs to, seriously. I don’t have anything planned.”

“Okay,” the voice on the other end sounds relieved. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I should be home by nine, I’ll call if anything changes. Thanks so much.”

“Of course, we’ll be fine. See you soon.” You hang up.

Sarah is still behind you when you turn around, clutching the glass of water she’s got in both hands like a vice. “You can stay here until your dad gets home,” you tell her.

“Did….did he sound mad?”

“Maybe a little stressed,” you’re honest. “But….not mad. I also don’t know him, so…”

“I bet he’ll be mad. This is the second time I’ve locked myself out this month because I forgot my key, and I already got lectured once that last time because he had to leave work early.”

“You made a mistake, people forget things…” you shrug. “I’m sure he’ll get over it.”

Her shoulders relax slightly, and she looks around like it’s the first time she’s actually registered where she’s at. “You have a nice house. It’s cozy.”

“Thanks,” you put your hands on your hips and look around too. “I’m still settling in, so not everything’s unpacked, but I could give you a tour if you’d like?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Ma’am. That tickles you. The address is still not something you’re used to hearing, even though you’ve only been in Austin a few years. “You can just call me by my first name, you know? Ma’am makes me feel old.”

“Really?” she grins, following you down the hall. “I can’t wait to be old.”

“You’ll feel differently someday,” you answer. “But…I guess it’s not so bad.”

Compared to the house you grew up in, your new house is nothing special, but it’s yours, and you couldn’t be prouder that you’d bought it all on your own. It’s a three-bedroom ranch, and you’d converted one of the rooms into an office for yourself. There’s a kitchen, living room, and den. But your favorite part is your large, screened in back porch that overlooks your yard. Now that it’s getting closer to summer, you sit outside in the mornings with a cup of tea and read the newspaper, listen to the birds.

“Can I do my homework at your kitchen table?” Sarah asks once you’re finished showing her around.

“Make yourself comfortable wherever,” you answer. “I could probably stand to get a little work done myself.”

Sarah sits at your dining room table, spreads out her books, and works quietly while you answer some emails and look over some contracts. You’ve got a big meeting Monday with a potential client, and a giant stack of term sheets to go through, but if you could manage to get some of it done tonight it might actually help you down the line. As much as possible, you try to avoid doing too much work outside of your office’s standard hours, but sometimes, it’s inevitable.

The subject Sarah has homework in is algebra, which renders you useless. Even when you have to do any accounting at work, you’re used to having a calculator nearby. It’d been awhile since you spent time with anyone as young as she was – in sixth grade, she told you – and it was starting to serve as a confirmation of your own dysfunctional childhood, because her carefree, sweet nature was so drastically different from anything you remembered feeling.

After about an hour, Sarah slowly starts to close her notebooks, zipping her pencils back up in plastic pouches. You look up from making revisions on a contract, the smell of blue ink heavy in the air around you. “I’m done,” she announces. “Could I sit on your couch and read?”

“Of course,” you answer. “Give me five and I’ll join you.”

It doesn’t take long for you to find a good stopping point, and you pack up your messenger bag, and join Sarah in the living room. “So…I’m starting to get hungry,” you tell her. “Are you?”

Sarah nods sheepishly.

“I could order us something,” you said. “What do you like?”

You aren’t much of a chef, though you can generally figure your way out around any recipe. However, cooking for one is notoriously tedious. If you had multiple mouths to feed, maybe you’d be tempted to hone your skills in the kitchen a little more. Most nights you usually treated yourself to a depressing, hastily thrown together salad, scrambled eggs, or a PB&J. Tonight, you had actually been planning to take yourself out to dinner – there’s a cute little French bistro down the street and you were hoping to treat yourself to a cocktail and a nice meal while you read.

Sarah closes her book, contemplating. “Could we….get a pizza?”

You think about it. “Sure, yeah. Pepperoni…cheese?”

“Can we get….one of both?” she tests.

“Yeah, we can do both,” You smile. “I bet your dad will be hungry, too, he can have some if he wants.”

“Maybe…he likes pineapple on his,” Sarah wrinkles her nose.

“He has good taste. I do too.”

“Gross.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep them separate,” you call over your shoulder as you retreat to the kitchen.

Once the pizza is ordered, you return to your living room and curl up on the opposite side of the couch from Sarah, who is engrossed back in her book. “They told me about 30 minutes. What are you reading?”

“To Kill A Mockingbird,” she says, showing you the cover.

“That was one of my favorites growing up.”

“I have to read it for school…but it’s pretty good so far.”

Your phone pings with another email, and you glance at it quickly.

“Is that work?” she asks.

You nod. “Yeah. It still finds you, even when you leave.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“No way!” Sarah perks up. “Like on the tv shows? That’s so cool.”

You snort, shaking your head. “No, not exactly. I’m a corporate lawyer so it’s not as fun, actually, it’s just a lot of paperwork and meetings…”

“So…you don’t like it, then?”

“It’s….” you think about it. “....Fine.” Did you like your job? It wasn’t really something you thought about in that way, you’d always seen it as a means to an end. “I went to law school because my dad wanted me to…he wanted me to work for him someday. And…that didn’t pan out so…yeah. But you know…it pays well, and….”

“You get to wear cool outfits,” she gestures to you.

“Yeah, I guess I do. Although the heels do get a little uncomfortable.”

Sarah’s eyes shift behind you for a second to the hallway leading to your bedroom, then widen excitedly. “You have a cat?”

You turn around to see what she’s looking at, the white and gray ball of fluff that you’d found underneath a dumpster one late night in college.

“Yeah, that’s Martini.”

“Martini,” she giggles, and the cat approaches her cautiously. He’s notoriously shy and quiet, and not even particularly cuddly, but he likes to sleep at the foot of your bed and will sit next to you on the couch if you stay still for long enough.

The cat sniffs Sarah’s outstretched hand, then presses his face into Sarah’s palm so she can scratch him under his chin, his favorite spot. “He’s not usually a fan of strangers, he must like you.”

“I love animals,” she says. “My dad won’t let me get a pet because he says he’ll end up taking care of it.”

You chuckle. “Cats are pretty easy…at least, he is.”

Martini allows himself about twenty seconds worth of affection before he darts out of the room and heads to his food bowl.

“I’m gonna go change out of my work clothes, I’ll be right back,” you push yourself off the couch and walk down the hallway. Any other night and you probably would’ve been in pajamas awhile ago but that’s probably not acceptable, so you settle for jeans and a sweater, which is much more comfortable than the dress and tights you had been in before.

The pizza arrives and after you tip the driver, set it on your kitchen island and pull some plates out of your cupboard. You and Sarah are both long settled with full plates when you speak again.

“Wow….I forgot how good pizza is…” you say, staring at the half eaten piece in your hand.

“You don’t eat pizza?”

“Usually only when I’m drunk,” you say, then immediately realize you’re talking to an eleven year old. “Oops, I…probably shouldn’t be telling you that.”

She giggles. “It’s okay.”

“So, it’s just you and your dad across the street?” you ask. “Does your mom live with you?”

The second the question registers, you immediately regret asking. Sarah shrinks before you, her face dropping, shaking her head. “No I…I don’t really have a mom.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, softly. You just assumed she existed although you’d never seen her, and you feel guilty, racking your brain for something that might help make her feel better. “I understand, my mom wasn’t really around growing up.”

“She wasn’t?” Sarah asked, looking up.

You shake your head. “My parents got divorced when I was young, my dad took us, and she moved across the country, so….I didn’t see much of her.”

“My mom… she left when I was a baby.”

“I’m sorry.” You say again, staring at the girl in front of you.

For a moment, looking at her, you see yourself, and you wonder how a parent can wake up one day and choose to ignore someone that’s one half of themselves. Someone they made. If they really understood what that might do to a person’s psyche, growing up thinking that they weren’t wanted. You had always told yourself that your mother, your parents must have not understood, because if they did, and they still chose to do it…

“Are you married?” Sarah asks, and you’re snapped out of your train of thought.

Taking a bite of pizza, you shake your head no.

“So you live here alone?”

You nod, chewing.

“Do you like it?”

You nod, swallow. “It’s better than having a roommate, or living in the city.”

Standing up, you walk towards the fridge for a can of sparkling water. It hisses while you open it, and you lean over the counter while Sarah continues to drill you. “Do you ever get….scared? Like at night?”

“No….not really. I have locks. And this is a safe neighborhood. And uh, I may or may not have a nightlight still.”

Sarah giggles. “Me too.”

There’s a sturdy knock on your screen door, which you’d left open to let in the cool spring breeze, and you notice Sarah’s eyes widen. “I bet that’s my dad.”

As if he heard her, and maybe he did, the guest calls out. “It’s Joel!” It’s the same voice from over the phone, but much clearer.

“Come in,” you answer.

The screen door creaks open, the sound of boots shuffling inside. “Sarah?” It’s the same voice from the phone. Joel steps into the warm light of the kitchen.

When you first met it had been from a distance, you were carrying boxes and he was loading something into the back of his truck. It’s clear you hadn’t gotten a good enough look at him, wouldn’t have forgotten his name, because fuck, he’s kind of gorgeous…tan skin, dark wavy hair, and a sharp jawline covered in stubble. In the archway to your kitchen he looks huge, taller than you remembered.

“Hi Dad,” Sarah says. “Miss-“

You cut her off simply by saying your first name. “Nice to meet you…again.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, and thank you so much for keeping an eye on her. We’ll get out of your ha-”

“We got you pizza,” Sarah pipes up, looking at him. You can tell that she’s trying to stall. Or at least, trying to offer him something that might soften the inevitable lecture she’s going to get. It’s a smart play, and definitely not something you would’ve been above trying at her age.

Joel looks at the three pizza boxes spread across your countertop. “You didn’t have to feed her, really, like I said, she should’ve known better,” he turns to look at her pointedly.

“I had to eat anyway. Please, help yourself. There’s a ton of leftovers,” You really did not want cold pizza in your fridge, because it’d be too tempting to eat as a late night snack or even breakfast on your way out the door in the mornings.

Reluctantly, he looks at you before taking a plate. “Thank you,” he turns to his daughter while he opens one of the boxes. “Did you get your homework done?”

Sarah nods. “And I got ahead on my reading for English.”

“That’s good.”

Joel turns back to you, settles in a chair with the plate of food in front of him at the island. You do the same. “I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to come over and properly introduce myself. Sarah too.”

You shrug. “I’m the new neighbor, that’s probably my responsibility anyways. It’s been kind of hectic settling in.”

“Where’d you move from?”

“Well, I’ve been in Austin for the past few years, but originally I’m from Manhattan.”

Joel nods. “Why Texas?”

It’s far away from my insane family, you think, and then settle on something else. “Work.”

Sarah is staring at her plate and tearing a piece of crust into tiny pieces. Joel eyes the slice of pizza he’s just taken a bite of.

“Pineapple?” he looks over at Sarah. “Are you tryin’ to bribe me so you don’t get in trouble?”

“It’s my favorite, too,” you offer, then wink at Sarah when Joel isn’t looking. She tilts her head down, her hair hiding the grin on her face from her father.

A buzzing sound cuts through the room before Joel can answer, and he digs in his pocket to fish out his cell phone. “Hold on, I gotta take this.”

When he steps out of the room, you begin to clear the empty boxes and plates off your kitchen island and bring them over to the sink. Sarah brings her plate over as well, stands next to you at the sink while you rinse them off and load them in the dishwasher.

“Thank you for dinner,” she says.

“Of course,” you answer.

“I just really hope he’s not disappointed with me.”

Placing your hand between her shoulder blades, you give her an encouraging pat. “I don’t think he is….” you hear Joel on the phone in the other room, his voice rising in volume. “....and honestly….it sounds like he might have bigger fish to fry…”

“Tommy…are you fucking kidding me? Again? How many times is this gonna happen? Okay…fine. fine. I’ll be there soon, but you can’t keep doing this shit.”

Sarah grimaces, and you both turn back to the sink sheepishly when you hear Joel’s footsteps returning. She bumps you with her elbow while you clear your throat.

You’re sure there’s still a residual smile on your face when you turn around to face Joel, who has his hands on his hips. “Alright, Sarah, we gotta get going.”

“Is everything okay with Uncle Tommy?”

“No, I’ve gotta pick him up at the police station.”

“Did he drink too much again?”

“Sarah!” Joel exclaims. “Please, it’s gettin’ late and you’ve got a soccer game tomorrow, you need to get to bed.”

You’re biting your lower lip so hard to keep from laughing you almost taste blood. It’s not funny, definitely not funny to Joel, who you can tell is having a rough night, but it’s objectively funny as an outsider, watching all their familial drama being put on blast by his daughter who doesn’t quite have a filter yet, and is first and foremost trying to protect herself from getting into trouble.

“She’s a lawyer, I bet she could help Tommy,” Sarah looks over at you. “Couldn’t you?”

Joel frowns. “That’s not how that works-”

“What’d they bring him in for?” you ask.

Joel runs a hand through his hair. “Public intoxication. Are you really a lawyer?”

“Well…I’m a corporate lawyer so that wouldn’t really be my specialty. But uh…I’ve definitely been able to talk my friends out of that kind of thing before.”

“But this is not the first time,” Joel says. “It’s probably useless.”

“Didn’t you say you can’t afford to keep-”

“Sarah, enough.” Joel’s voice is as stern as you’ve heard it, and he digs into his pocket, producing a keychain. “Go home and get ready for bed. I’ll be home in a minute.”

Sarah sighs, defeated. “Okay.”

Joel stands dead still while she shuffles to the door, cramming her feet in her shoes with her backpack slung over her shoulder.

By this point in the evening, you’d usually be curled up on your couch by the fireplace with your latest knitting project, moderately stoned, watching bad reality television and sipping sleepytime herbal tea. But your night has already gone drastically different from your expectation. Why stop now? “If you wanted…I could try to help.”

Joel shakes his head, looks at the floor. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“You didn’t ask,” you shrug. “I offered.”

He looks up, a soft smile breaks across his face, revealing a row of straight, sparkling teeth, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It’s the first sincere smile you’ve ever seen from him, and your knees feel a little weak at the sight of it. You think you might offer him anything just to see it again. “It’d be a huge favor. But….I’d appreciate it.”

“Alright well…” you look around, push yourself off the countertop. “I probably should change before we go. I don’t think I’ll be taken seriously in this.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, I need to make sure Sarah gets to bed alright, how ‘bout you meet me on my porch in ten?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thanks again,” he raps his knuckles on the counter twice before retreating, and you stay in place until you hear the screen door close behind him.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“I feel like you’re meeting us all at a very chaotic time….I promise, things aren’t usually like this.”

Joel’s not sure why he feels the need to clarify this to you on the drive to the police station. In fact, he might be saying it more to convince himself, because he thinks ever since Sarah’s mom ran off, things have never not been chaotic.

In some ways, he’s glad it happened. It was a doomed relationship from the start, they’d both been far too young to understand the consequences of their actions, so it was probably for the better that she was no longer around. But he was caught in a constant state of feeling like he could never quite get a handle on things.

Joel glances over at you in the passenger's seat of his truck. He decides that you look a little out of place there, dressed in a black pantsuit, a messenger bag tucked between your heel-clad feet. He can’t remember the last time there was an adult woman in his car. Three months, maybe? It had been a date, a third date, and subsequently, a last date. But right now the context is different.

Your head is tilted towards the open window, the breeze casting stray pieces of your hair around as the radio cuts in and out of an old Eagles song and then to static, and then back into music again. He needs to get his damned stereo fixed but unfortunately it hasn’t exactly been high on his priority list. His gaze travels down the slope of your neck, where your skin dips into the collar of your silky blue blouse, then back to your profile, your lips moving as you mouth the words to the song, but don’t sing.

I get this feelin' I may know you

As a lover and a friend

You stop when his words register, turning to look at him, and he averts his eyes back to the road. “No offense or anything….” you say. “But compared to the family I grew up in….this is all pretty tame.”

Joel ponders that for a moment, notices the way your eyes are narrowed, the corners of your lips quirking. “What, you got a problematic little brother, too? A precocious eleven-year-old?”

“No kids,” you answer. He didn’t think so. “But I do have a problematic older brother. And the stress he’s caused has definitely taken years off my life.”

At least you seem like you understand.

He’s shocked you’re in this car with him, that after entertaining his daughter all night, you’d offered to help him out with this Tommy mess. Though, he assumes you’re doing it out of guilt because Sarah made it sound like he was broke.

“You know for the record, I actually have the money to bail him out.”

“I figured.”

“Then why’d you come?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. My life has been pretty boring lately. I can’t remember the last time I did something exciting on a Friday night.”

“This is exciting to you?”

“It’s objectively exciting,” you sound assured. “Maybe more exciting than being the person who got arrested for public intoxication.”

Despite the stress of the evening, he can’t help but laugh.

“And whether you’re broke or not, bailing someone out of jail is no joke. If you can at least try to talk your way out of it, you might as well.”

Joel can’t argue with your logic.

“What is it you do again?” you ask, eyeing the protective glasses he has in the cup holder of his front seat. There are nails stuck between the rubber grooves of the mat beneath the seats, a pair of thick gloves resting on the dashboard.

“I’m a carpenter.”

“Makes sense,” you answer. “So you’re handy?”

“You could say that,” Joel lifts the can of flat, warm seltzer from his lunch break to his mouth, just to take a sip.

“That’s hot,” you say, and he nearly chokes when he hears it. Are you….flirting? Though, you can’t be, because when he looks over at you, you’re staring at the road, face neutral.

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t make the rules of what’s hot and what isn’t….it’s just a fact. Everyone knows that.”

“Do they?”

“Uh-huh,” you respond. “I mean, I wish I was handy. I’m pretty much a lost cause in that department.”

“If it paid the bills, you’d figure it out.”

“If it paid the bills, I can tell you, I would not be living in our neighborhood.”

Joel puts his blinker on, preparing to pull into the police station. “You probably still could, it’s not that nice of a neighborhood.”

“Shut up,” you snort, rolling your eyes. “But in all seriousness, it is peaceful. It’s quiet.”

“See, but you still didn’t say nice.”

“It is nice. I like it.”

When he parks the car, you straighten up, unbuckling the seatbelt and exiting without a word. On the opposite side of the truck, he observes how you rebutton the front of your blazer, smooth down its lapels and shift your shoulders back before turning to him.

“You ready?” you ask.

He nods.

“After you.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

When Joel spots you again, Tommy is walking a few paces behind you. You turn your head over one shoulder, smirking at whatever he’s saying. From where Joel is sitting in the lobby, he can just make out the soft curve of your hips, the tops of your thighs over the barrier that separates him from all the desks of the officers and staff at the station. You’ve got an easy, relaxed gait and you give Joel a wink when he catches you staring.

He can tell it’s just meant to be celebratory thing, since both you and Tommy seem to be in good spirits, but he likes the sight of it anyways, the idea that you’re both in on some secret that no one else is.

Joel stands to greet you and his brother to get the download, but as he approaches, your group is intercepted by one of the cops that had been hanging around reception.

“Miller,” he says lowly to Tommy. “This better be the last time I see you in here.”

When Tommy doesn’t answer right away, you pipe up.

“I assure you my client will be on his best behavior.”

The cop turns to you for a minute, turns back to Tommy, contemplating. “You’re lucky you have a good lawyer…” he says. “Although I’m still not convinced you’re really paying someone to get you out of a public intoxication charge.”

“I-” Tommy opens his mouth but you cut him off.

“Alleged…intoxication,” you interject, stone-faced.

“He can hardly walk straight.”

You purse your lips. “But….you never did a sobriety test, so, would it hold up in court?” you grimace. “If I had to guess….probably not.”

The cop narrows his eyes at you. “Don’t push it, princess.”

Despite the infantilizing nickname, You respond with a polite smile. “Thanks again, officer. Have a nice evening.”

“Mhm,” he murmurs before backing away.

You turn to Joel, your smile fading, and Tommy cuts in. “We should get the fuck out of here before he changes his mind.”

“That’s it? You’re free?” Joel asks.

Tommy nods.

“Tommy’s right, we should definitely leave.”

It’s a mad scramble, the three of you settling back into Joel’s truck, and if he was feeling a little less angsty about the way the whole evening had gone, he might’ve even peeled out of the parking lot for dramatic effect. But at this point, his patience is wearing thin.

He’s back on the main drag, en route to Tommy’s place, with you on the passenger’s side, and his brother in the back, leaning forward with his elbows resting on your seats when his brother speaks up.

“Holy….shit!” Tommy turns to you. “That was fucking awesome, are you kidding me? Joel, where the fuck did you find her?”

He’s still drunk, words slurring together, and he shakes both of your shoulders ferociously. You actually giggle — the sound of it is fucking adorable and Joel wishes that these are not the circumstances for hearing such a noise. He rather it be because of something he said, but he knows Tommy has always been more charming, even when drunk

“She’s my neighbor, Tommy.”

“No way! How come I’ve never seen you around before?” Tommy asks, and Joel can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“I’m kind of new to the area,” you answer.

“Dammit, oh my god, Joel, I wish you coulda seen it.”

Joel looks over at you, and is thankful that he catches your eye. “What’d you say?”

“Never underestimate your negotiating power when the cop you’re talking to’s shift ended over an hour ago, and he doesn’t want to fill out any more paperwork.” You cross your arms, look over your shoulder at Tommy, who is leaning back against the seat with his head in his hands, laughing, before looking back at Joel. “I told you, I have experience.”

“Oh my god,” Tommy pokes his head back between you. “How’d he even get you to come down here? What’d he have to do, offer to paint your house or somethin’?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Sarah got locked out again,” Joel explained. “And I was over at her place when you called. She’s a corporate lawyer.”

“Ah, that makes sense. You know, Joel’s always liked the smart ones,” Tommy starts, and Joel has to contain the urge to slam on the brakes and send his brother face first into the back of his headrest. Unfortunately, he can’t do that with you in the car. “Too bad he’s dumb as a box of rocks.”

“Okay, watch yourself!” Joel snaps, and he’s only halfway kidding. “You got off easy, but you’re on fuckin’ thin ice, and I’m still pissed that I’m spending my night bailing you out again.”

Tommy doesn’t even catch on to Joel’s irritation – or maybe he does, and has just decided that he’s going to be the Annoying Younger Sibling and see how far he can push it. “Don’t let him fool you, okay?” Tommy continues, and you’ve angled yourself towards him, amused. “It’s not always him lookin’ after me. Before he had Sarah, he was crazy.”

“Alright, alright that’s enough, Tommy.” Joel shoots daggers towards his brother in the rearview mirror, and he watches Tommy’s smile falter, finally deciding to back down.

“Is that true, Joel, were you really crazy?” you ask after Tommy grows quiet, tilting your head. “I can’t see it.”

“Well we’ve all have our moments, right?” he says sheepishly.

“We do,” you agree, and then it’s finally silent.

Joel is thankful to see Tommy’s driveway straight in front of him, and his car lurches up the curb. “Alright, alright, this is your last stop,” he says to his brother. “You’ll get in okay?”

Tommy takes a deep breath, settling himself after all his bravado and sinking back against his seat. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at Sarah’s game.” He slinks out of the truck and slams the door behind him.

Normally, Joel would’ve chewed him out after something like this, but he knows being hungover tomorrow at a middle school soccer game, sandwiched between screaming parents and the ear-splitting whistles of the referees will be punishment enough.

“I’ll see you then.” He watches his brother stumble up the steps to his home, unlock the door, and give a wave before disappearing inside.

Joel’s left alone with you. “Should we get you home, now?”

“Yeah, we should.”

Joel puts the car in reverse, puts one of his arms over the back of the bench seat to look for cars behind him, and catches you staring. You don’t even seem embarrassed that he notices, either, you just shift your gaze away to outside the window.

He feels a little self-conscious about the first impression he’s probably made, which is a feeling he’s not used to…caring about what people think.

“Sorry about him, he’s….a good guy but a real piece of work.”

You giggle. “Like I said, I have a brother, too.”

It’s been awhile since he’s interacted with anyone outside of Sarah, Tommy, and his coworkers, and his day was exhausting. He wants to ask more questions, see if he can hold some kind of conversation, but words fail him, so you spend the short drive on the way back home mostly in silence. You’re so quiet that by the time he pulls into your driveway, he thinks you might be asleep. If you were, he doesn’t even get the chance to wake you, because you immediately sit up straight once the truck has come to a halt.

“Thanks for everything tonight,” he says.

“You’re welcome, it was no problem,” you get out of the car, sling your bag over your shoulders, and close the door. “Have a good night.”

Joel’s listening to the retreating click of your heels up the driveway when he rolls down his window all the way to speak again. It’s clear you’re tired, your shoulders are slouched, and he feels incredibly guilty. You worked all day and then had to put up with his entire crazy family.

“Hey,” he says. “How much do I owe you for the pizza?”

You turn around, still stepping backwards. “Nothing.”

“Look, you’ve done too much for me tonight to say that,” he says. “I’m startin’ to feel bad.”

You stop in your tracks then, the smirk on your face fading a little bit as you slowly step forward to where he leans out the truck window. It’s only a few feet, but you’re much closer now than you’ve been to him all night, and there must be jasmine in your perfume. It smells expensive, he thinks, as your hands lift to rest on the door next to his elbow. “You shouldn’t feel bad,” you say softly, voice low.

God, you’re fucking beautiful, he realizes, basked in the glow of the moon, a smile creeping along the edges of your lips. Of course, he knew you were attractive, had definitely registered it at some point before – maybe when he’d walked in on you and Sarah giggling in the kitchen. He was just too busy being worried to even notice until now.

This isn’t a date, but you’re so close he could kiss you, kind of wants to just to see what would happen, but he doesn’t. You’re his new neighbor, and if he’s reading this wrong, he doesn’t want to be reminded of the mistake everyday, first thing in the morning when you’re picking up your newspaper at the end of your driveway and he’s leaving for work.

“But uh…if it would make you feel better…one of the steps on my front porch is rotted. Maybe you could come over sometime and fix it? That a fair trade?”

Joel nods, and you stick out your hand. “It’s a deal,” he says, ignoring the jolt of energy he feels when your palms press together, like you’re a kid wearing a hand buzzer, trying to shock him.

“Great,” you step away. He’s about to put the car in reverse when you speak again.

“Oh, and Joel?” you ask, he looks back at you. Before you speak again, your eyes shift to the ground, like you’re mustering up the courage to ask him something, and when they return to his again, your expression is somber. “Go easy on Sarah….she’s a good kid.”

Joel nods, understanding.

“I know.”

volume ii

taglist: @yaskna @venomous-ko @lomljigg

#joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller series #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal #tlou hbo #tlou fanfic #tlou series #texas sun

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bakuslove · 11 months

Text

OUR LITTLE SECRET

﹒ॱ˖ 🖇️ FEATURING. pro hero!bakugo x f!reader

﹒ॱ˖ ☆ CONTENT. fluff, sfw, established relationship, pro hero!bakugo, fem pronouns are used for reader themes of marriage ahead WC. 1.096

﹒ॱ˖ 💬 SYNOPSIS. privacy's hard to come by nowadays, all thanks to social media. luckily, you and your darling have found a way cheat the system. at least... a little bit.

It’s not easy being the girlfriend of one of the highest ranking pro heroes in the world but you’d gotten used to a majority of the daily inconveniences.

Paparazzi somehow finding you no matter how many layers you wore to cover your face that day, crazy fans who were just a little too friendly following you from a distance as you made your way to and from the supermarket, the constant, and I do mean constant, private message requests and comments and responses on posts from fans and haters alike on every form of social media you own. It was hard to keep track of, to say the least.

Sometimes you’d forgo using your phone entirely just to avoid the snarky comments or prying eyes and questions of loyal fans. And that was just from those who wanted to know about you. Bakugo’s fans were far more insatiable.

However, there were moments you two were able to bask in your solitude together. Peace and quiet filled your dining room and Katsuki stood over the stove, keeping an eye on a frying pan filled with vegetables as he seasoned a bit of pork you laid out earlier for dinner.

You sat by his side as you always did, phone in your hand as you snacked on whatever he handed you in the midst of his cooking. Your phone was buzzing with notifications just as always, but you did your best to ignore them as usual. At least, until a certain headline caught your eye.

You tapped on it, waiting as anticipation caused your knee to bounce. There’s no way they saw it... right?

Your last trip out with Katsuki had been two nights ago when he had planned an extravagant dinner just for the two of you at that new expensive place that opened up just down the street. It was the best night you two had spent together in a very long time, no thanks to his ever-changing, bustling hero schedule.

Your eyes widen as the page finally loads and you zoom in on the little detail everyone seemed to be talking about.

It was blurry to say the least and you had to really be looking for it to make it out, but it definitely difficult to ignore now with the bright red circle photoshopped over your hand.

Fans had noticed the little silver band conveniently placed on the ring finger of your left hand and seem to have been going insane about its implications since the last time you and Katsuki had been out in public. Which you were sure had to be about... three days ago.

A groan leaves your lips as you scroll through the comments of fans and haters alike wondering if you and Katsuki were finally planning on tying the knot or if it was all just a coincidence. Either way, many of the comments further down the line seemed to speculate more, pointing out that your boyfriend hadn’t been seen wearing anything on his hand, and while many pointed out that he probably wouldn’t be so careless with an engagement ring while on the job, various pictures of him in casual dress since then proved that he still wasn’t wearing a ring.

Too bad they didn’t spark conversation about the new black chain he frequently sported around his neck. Katsuki was rather proud of it, seeing as it was the newest addition to his daily wardrobe.

“What’s wrong?” Katsuki calls from the foot of your bed, and you’re blessed with the sight of him fresh from the shower, a fresh towel hanging low on his hips as he drys his hair with a smaller towel that drapes across his broad shoulders.

How was this man, your man, so breathtakingly beautiful.

“Nothing, just... the media,” you huff, opting to let your screen grow dark before placing it on the nightstand to your left.

Bakugo only raises an eyebrow as his eyes trail along your exposed legs, a common indicator you’ve learned to mean he wants you to continue.

“They saw,” you sigh, crossing your arms across your chest as you gauge his reaction. But, instead of him rolling his eyes in annoyance or grumbling about ‘never getting any goddamn privacy these days’, he simply runs the towel over his damp hair one last time before hanging it back onto its rack. As if he’d ever leave even a towel out of place.

“They were gonna find out anyway, not let’s just make sure we don’t give ‘em any more than they need, yeah?”

The bed shifts as he crawls onto the sheets next to you, his large hands finding the soft plush of your thighs as he pulls you against him. You’ll never get over just how perfectly you fit against him. The way his arms could so easily wrap you in his embrace, keeping you safe and warm each and every time.

“Well, at least we don’t have to hide the fact that we’re engaged,” you smile, making a quite note about how all of your fans will probably want to know the details of just how you got engaged.

“That’s why it’s our little secret,” he muses, a smirk morphing onto his soft, pink lips before they meld against your own.

You hum against him as his hands move to rest on your hips, the rough pads of your thumbs sliding along your sides as he effortlessly clears your mind of everything and everyone else in existence. Just as he always does.

“Let ‘em wonder, those nosy ass extras,” he breaths once you pull away, and you hum again in agreement, watching as Bakugo finally slips off his black chain over his head- he only ever took it off while sleeping -and you smile giddily as you spot the wedding ring it sports.

It’s a simple thing, a black band without a lot of shine or sparkle, but it fit him perfectly in your eyes. If there was one thing your fans got right, it's that his ring was a little harder to spot since it usually hid underneath the neck of his t-shirt and hero costume. Bakugo would be damned if he entered the field without your ring somewhere on his body, and with his quirk being so dependent on his hands, it only seemed logical to keep it on a chain around his neck.

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Bakugo,” you smile as he places a kiss to your temple before pressing his body against yours under the sheets.

“G’night, Mrs. Bakugo.”

If only your fans knew...

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tommykinrd · 8 months

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hi! i was wondering if you could share the overlay and/or explain how you made the first gif in the last set you posted? thank you very much in advance <3

Hi anon! I'd be happy to share how I created the ripped paper effect in this gifset !

You’ll need a basic knowledge of gifmaking and photoshop, and I’ll put the rest of this under the cut.

1) Creating your gifs

So to start off you're going to create your gifs in separate canvases. I work in timeline mode and I add my sharpening and colouring, and I put both gifs in groups (explained here).

Here are my gifs on separate canvases. For reference, I've called the one on the left "grocery store" and the one on the right "parents".

You'll then want to copy and paste your gif groups onto the same canvas. This is what my canvas and layers panel looks like once that's done. From here, you're ready to start the ripped paper effect.

2) Ripped paper overlay

For this step, you want to obtain your ripped paper overlay. You can find various ripped paper textures/overlays using google, but I used these overlays by @peytonsawyers !

You open up the overlay you want to use, and either copy and paste or just drag it onto your gif canvas. You can then resize and rotate the texture and orient it where you want.

I then drag the ripped paper layer so that it's placed between my two gif groups. I also hid the top group just so that I can see the overlay, but this is only temporary. Your canvas and layers panel should now look like this:

2.5) Filling in the overlay

So as you can see we have an issue because the ripped paper doesn't cover the entire area where we want our top gif to show. To fix this, I just use a white brush at 100% hardness and paint in the area that needs to be covered, making sure the ripped paper layer is selected (this doesn't have to be perfect, just make sure that the entire area is filled.

Now this is what it should look like:

3) Masking the top gif

Use the command (or ctrl) key and click on the thumbnail in the layers panel for your ripped paper layer (the square highlighted in white in that last screenshot). You should get a marching ants selection around the ripped paper like so:

Now reveal your top gif group (by clicking on the eye icon), and make sure you have the group selected in the layers panel. You should still see the selection around where your ripped paper is, like so:

Now go to the bottom of your layers panel and click on the little mask icon:

And now you should get a mask on your top group in the shape of the ripped paper, and you should be able to see both gifs simultaneously on the canvas:

If the black and white areas on your layer mask are flipped after you click on the mask icon, just click on the layer mask and use the command + i (ctrl + i) keys to switch it back so that you can see both your gifs.

4) Final touches

Now if you're happy with the result so far, you can absolutely stop here. However, I wanted to show the uneven rip (like how when you rip a piece of paper you can see some white bits on the edges).

To do this, select your move tool (shortcut: click the v key on your keyboard) and making sure your ripped paper layer (NOT the mask) is selected, use your arrow keys to move it slightly until it shows between the two gifs.

It currently looks a little too clean for my liking, so I like to move it slightly up/down as well so that it looks more uneven and natural. If your overlay is too small, just use the transform function (command + t or ctrl + t) to resize it so that it fills the canvas. This is what mine looks like after I mess around with it:

And you're done! If you want to adjust any colouring, just go into the gif group and you can edit the layers from there.

Hope this helps anon! Let me know if you have any questions!

#answered #Anonymous #*tutorial #alielook #usernik #userdean #usersalty #userriel #userraffa #usershreyu #userbess #userrobin #usercats #tuserheidi #userkimchi #userelio #usershale #usercharisse

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eddiediaaz · 11 months

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Hey!! I just wanted to say that your recent speak now gif set is sooo stunning. I was wondering how you managed to create that cassette tape effect if it isn’t any trouble? It’s really so pretty.

Have a great day! ✨

ahhh thank you so so much! first of all, i cannot take any credit for this effect, as it was greatly inspired by this amazing yellowjacket gifset by @thewintersoldier!!

but here's how i recreated the effect, from a cassette png (found on pngwing here), to this animated cassette effect (as seen in my speak now set):

psst: i usually always create in photoshop cs5, but for this effect you need a recent version of photoshop because it's using transform keyframes (i think cs5 doesn't let you do that, or i just don't know how to lol). i used cc 2019 for this.

sorry if this is lengthy or has too much or too little details haha, but i hope it's comprehensible! english is not my first language so i also apologize in advance for any mistakes!

I. PREPARING THE CASSETTE

so, starting with the png here:

i removing everything i didn't want on the cassette png with the brush tool by just drawing the right color over the unwanted text. for the color, i then went to image > adjustments > hue/saturation and in the red tab, i played with the hue slider to get that purple color. finally, i added some text to my liking, and this is what i ended up with:

(not necessary but: i also selected the white lines on each side with the magic wand tool because i wanted these lines to be transparent. once your selection is done, go right click > layer via cut. it will create a new layer of the cutout you just made. you just need to disable or delete the layer to make the selection (lines) transparent.)

at this point you want to have only 2 layers: the revamped cassette and the text layer. you can remove the text layer actually, and just add the title back at the end, as it is not necessary for this effect. i just like to have the visual.

if you have multiple layers, you need to select all of them (except the song title layer), right click on the png layer and click on merge layers. this will create one layer with all the editing you made on the cassette. if you think you will need to edit this later though, i would save the file as a psd before merging the layers.

II. THE EFFECT

okay, so now that you have your cassette, make sure your video timeline is activated, not frame animation, and you are ready to go.

first, you want to create a perfect circle shape around one of the reel with the elliptical marquee tool (hold shift while dragging the circle). make sure it covers the entire area that will later be rotated. make sure this circle is perfectly centered around the reel or otherwise the animation will be a bit lopsided.

then right click on this selection and go "layer via copy". this will create a layer of only that circle selection. important step: right click on that new layer and go "convert to smart object". the layer should look like that, i've renamed mine:

now if you go to your timeline and open that new smart object layer, you will see that you have 3 keyframe options. we only need the transform one.

go to the start of the timeline and activate the transform animation by clicking on the stopwatch button. a keyframe will be created automatically.

to create the actual animation, move the position of the cursor on the timeline further, i put mine at the 01:00f mark so it's easier to create the right timing.

then what you want to do is select the reel smart object layer and hit ctrl + T. a box will appear and this is how you will make the reel rotate.

to rotate the reel shape, move your cursor near the blue box on your canvas and drag it until you have rotated the shape halfway through and hit enter. another keyframe will be created and if you play your animation, the reel should rotate on itself for half a turn

move your position on the timeline to 02:00f and do the same thing: select the left reel smart object, hit ctrl + T, rotate for another half turn, and hit enter. this third keyframe should be the last one needed for the animation and you should have a full animated rotation of the reel.

play your animation, and adjust the speed to your liking by dragging the keyframes on the timeline (but make sure they stay within the same distance from each other). the closer the keyframes are, the faster the animation are, and the further they are, the slower it'll be.

then you can just trim the smart object to your animation's length, and duplicate (right click the smart object > duplicate layer) this layer the amount of times needed (i find this less finicky than duplicating keyframes), and placing them one after the other. three full turns should be enough. this is what my timeline looks like right now:

and my animation for the left side looks like this:

as you can see, we can see the little "dents" peeking through behind the animation. we don't want that! to remove it, select the revamped cassette layer (that should be under the reel smart object), and create another perfect circle around it with the marquee tool. this time make sure it's smaller than the previous one, it just needs to cover these dents.

then right click on this selection on your canvas and go "layer via cut". this will create a new layer with that selection, and all you need to do is to disable it. this is removing the information in that circle.

once you are happy and the animation works, you can just delete that cut layer. now the animation is done and looks like this:

III. SECOND ANIMATION

one you have done it on the left side, you just gotta do the same thing on the right side. you can also try duplicating it, but i found it finicky for some reason (or maybe i'm just not used to the controls of this 2019 photoshop version?).

this is what i have once i've done the same thing on the right reel:

once i am happy with the speed and everything, i want to have only one layer so it's easier to use on gifs. first, i will save this animation as a psd file, in case i want to reuse it. then i am removing the song title layer and will be flattening everything and creating frames from this animation. to do so i am using the "save" action from here.

i'm not sure why it does that, but it's creating a couple of frames where the reels are a bit offset from their position everytime there's a full circle done, so i just delete these 5-6 frames. you can also change the speed here, but by default it should be 0.05.

once you are happy with it, just turn these frames into a smart object with the video timeline again (convert frame animation to video timeline and select all the frame layers > right click > convert to smart object)

now you have a smart object that is ready to be used anywhere!

IV. FINAL TOUCHES

for my particular speak now gifset, i have multiple layers of the animated cassette on each gif:

1, bottom one - cassette layer set to the blending mode "hard light" and set to opacity 86%:

2, middle - this same cassette layer set to hard light, but with the opacity at 100%, AND with a layer mask so it's only applied to the animated reels (i wanted them to show up more):

3, top one - and finally a third layer with another layer mask because i wanted the white label and speak now area to be less see through. it's set to the normal blending mode and the opacity is at 75%

and then i just added the song title on top at 100% opacity and normal blending mode, and added some drop shadows, and tada!

there we have it, i hope this was helpful <3

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