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amtrak12 · 2 months

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Recently, I realized grief is my primary theme in my Lucifer fics and ideas. More than the theme even, grief is the entire plot of a one-shot I'm editing and the sequel to my current epic WIP. But I'm firmly in my mid-thirties now, so I figured that's just where my head is at in recent years. You go through cycles in life and I'm simply in my 'grief era' as some might say.

Except that's not actually true. I am successfully writing complete stories centered around grief right now, yes, but I've actually been trying to write about grief for a full decade.

Not in my Doctor Who fics, though grief is embedded in the plots.

Not in my Ghostbusters fics either. Those were written out of a mix of spite and love and explore… well I don't really know what they explored. shrug

No, my focus on grief got started back around 2014 (or 2013??) with a Bering and Wells AU that (honest to Jo) was inspired by an innocent Casper gifset @itcameuponamidnightqueer reblogged. I spent YEARS trying to write that AU. I had a ton of worldbuilding and plot elements, but I just could never find the story. There was a clear beginning (er mostly clear) but no obvious middle or end. The concept was just too big and amorphous for me to wrangle at the time. But damn if there isn't something still haunting in it.

When I remembered this, it made me want to put all the story elements together in one place again. Now, I certainly talked about this AU idea before on Tumblr. You can dig back into my 2014-2015 archives, possibly even 2013, and find messy rambles about it. And I haven't actively worked on the idea since Ghostbusters 2016 was released so some of the details are fuzzy now. But in case anyone can spot the story this was trying to be or if anyone's simply curious, here's what I had for this Bering and Wells ghost AU:

Like I said it was a Casper gifset that sparked the inspiration. Specifically, the 'Can I keep you' scene if I remember correctly. With it being late 2013, I was obviously utterly drowning in WH13/B&W feels, and we were all writing and brainstorming full-fledged alternate settings AUs. So of course, my immediate thought was 'ghost Bering and Wells AU' -- except I thought 'what if Myka's the ghost?' Because HG is the obvious candidate, being the historical figure, but I wanted to put a twist on it and then got really obsessed with the idea of ghost!Myka… and it all spiraled from there.

I decided on a modern setting, 2014, and then went college aged -- possibly because I was only a few years removed from my own college years at the time, but also Myka's relationship with her father/family as a whole ended up playing a huge factor in the world-building so that could've influenced the ages. I don't even know where to begin here because again, I never had a real plot, so let's just dive in I guess.

Helena Wells, age 20, an engineering (? of sorts?) student who Caturanga took on as an intern for his work. Now, Caturanga is effectively studying ghosts, though he dresses it up in fancier terms. I can't remember what his research goals were, but identification and communication were certainly the first two steps.

Usually when I age HG down, I make Christina a baby sister who she either lost or is estranged from to keep that aspect of her backstory. This time I decided to center her grief on her father who I made up for this story as also someone sciencey and someone Helena really admired and was close to. But he died in a car accident a few years ago (technically he might have been hit by a car while crossing the street but I can't confirm that). So Helena is interested in Caturanga's research because she would love to at least talk to her father again and refuses to believe he's fully gone. Resurrecting him is not currently her goal, though could easily come up given later events.

Caturanga isn't looking for the flashy haunted locations. He's looking for the mundane and preferably newer ghosts because they would be closer to the living and thus easier to talk to. He hears about a house in Colorado Springs in the US that can't keep a resident longer than two years so he chooses to study it. He and Helena rent it with plans on staying for a year.

Obviously this is Myka's childhood home and she is the ghost haunting the house. So what happened to Myka?

It's 1994 and Myka Bering is 19 years old. Her father still owns a bookstore, though they live in a separate house rather than an apartment above it. She still has her sister Tracy who I believe I made 15, so four years younger. Myka had been enrolled in college at the University of Colorado - Denver, but when she decided to switch majors from pre-med to pre-law at the end of her freshman year, her father complained about her indecisiveness and wasting money and pulled her out of school. He said, she could return to college when she had saved up enough money to pay for it herself.

Myka was gutted because she wanted to finish her degree so badly. She also hated leaving the friends she had made and tried to visit them as much as possible once school started back up that fall. One night when she drove up to visit her friends and boyfriend (Sam, of course), she lingered too long and arrived back home after curfew. Her father locked her out of the house as punishment, leaving her to sleep in the car in the garage where she left the overhead light on. There was an electrical fire that night. Myka didn't wake up in time to get out and she died.

Okay here's one of the rabbit holes I got super distracted by while trying to plot this out: Tracy's reaction. Because this whole thing is supposed to be a Bering and Wells AU, so clearly Helena and Myka are the main characters, right? But the more I obsessed over this story, the more prominent Tracy's role became. This was a tale of two sisters, dual POVs, each grappling with their rough childhoods in different ways. Except, there's also still the plot of Helena finding Myka, befriending her, and ultimately resurrecting her (more on this later), so how the hell were these things supposed to be balanced and woven into one coherent plot?? It was beyond my skill level. :S

In my head, Tracy had managed to skate under their dad's strict thumb throughout her childhood, largely because she just didn't care what her dad said and always opted to do her own thing. Myka did care what their father thought and tried to follow the rules which made the times when she didn't seem like more of an offense. Oldest child syndrome was also definitely at play where the youngest just gets away with more. So when Myka got pulled out of school, Tracy was less sympathetic and more 'you brought that on yourself.' I mean, it's not like Myka even needed to admit she changed majors. Colleges don't send report cards to your parents. She could've kept her mouth shut and stayed in school.

Tracy 1000% blamed their dad for Myka's death though. The electrical fire was an accident and no one was to blame, but he locked the door and didn't let Myka sleep inside that night. Therefore it's his fault. Myka was right about him this entire time. He's not just an annoying or strict dad, he's abusive. (Something Myka never said and will later disagree with though her own feelings towards their dad are certainly complicated.) Tracy's grief becomes anger and even hatred and builds until she emancipates herself from her parents and leaves home at 16. She spirals for a while (partying, reckless sex) before pulling herself out and finding some help to deal with her grief. She puts herself through school and becomes a social worker. By 2014, she's married and has two very young kids, one of which I'm 99% certain I named Micah after his aunt that he never got to meet. Tracy periodically takes them to visit Myka's grave, and did I write one of those visits in my multiple drafts? Yes, yes I did.

Making her a social worker both seemed fitting for her arc in this setting and is a helpful connection to ghosts when a certain little 10-12 year old (can't remember the exact age I made Claudia but it might have skewed towards 10) continually gets flagged in foster care because she insists she's talking to her brother's ghost.

On that note, let's jump back to the actual ghost plot. So in this universe, ghosts exist as amorphous blobs that can't be seen or touched by the living. At best, you can talk to them. Claudia can talk easily with Joshua because he's only been dead for a few years and immediately began following his little sister around. He's never been isolated. Other ghosts often are. It can take up to a couple of years for a ghost to become aware of their surroundings and new existence and if their loved ones are no longer in the same place, they might forget about their previous life.

This is what happened to Myka. Her family left the house immediately after the fire. Her room was empty when she regained awareness after her death and so her memories slipped away. After twenty-years of isolation, Myka doesn't remember ever having a physical body and doesn't even remember her name.

But she reads still. She remembers books and has stolen many from whoever was currently living in the house. She stashes them all away in the closet of her old bedroom and when these stashes are found and thrown out/reclaimed, she just starts again. Sometimes she only had one book to read over and over and over again. Other times, she had many. The reports of moved/missing books is what flagged this house as haunted.

Now, I said the living couldn't touch ghosts and that's because ghosts can't really interact with objects. It involves remembering being alive and corporeal well enough to remember what touching something like a doorknob feels like. Most ghosts can't do this without a lot of interaction with living people to jog their memories. Myka being able to touch books (only books but still) is rare and a huge discovery.

Helena finds Myka first. (Well, she finds the open book on the floor with pages moving on their own.) Communication is slow because Myka isn't used to speaking, so Helena has to figure out who this ghost is on her own with some good old fashioned cross-checking property records against obituaries. It's a bit of a gut punch to learn the quiet, book-obsessed ghost is a girl around her age.

(By book-obsessed, I don't mean just reading them. Ghost!Myka is very, very territorial and protective of her books because they're the only things she's owned since she's died.)

Helena and Caturanga's research involves a lot of equipment to try and sense a ghost. They manage to fine-tune a scanner to see the invisible ghost. This is when they learn ghosts are really just blobs and not a full-fledged body like the stories. Though, over the course of their tests, they do see Myka form pseudo-hands to carry and read her books which brings up all kinds of new questions for them to pursue.

I remember Myka never went through walls either. She could pass right through solid objects and would whenever a door was unexpectedly closed on her. But it always pinged her mind as Wrong so she would skirt under doors and around objects to get around the house. She never left the house -- though again, experiments with Helena later prove she can leave. It's a mental block. This is her house, even if she can't remember living there.

Helena works hard to get to know Myka and slowly befriends her as Myka re-learns how to talk to someone. The more she talks, the more Helena asks her questions, the more her memories return. Some of them return easily. The more painful ones, she fights and tries to forget again. She never looks out the kitchen door at the side of the house where the garage once stood. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Eventually, as Myka's learning how to grasp other objects and open doors herself and Helena's getting more and more attached to her (and feeling more and more outraged that Myka died so young), we hit a tipping point where Helena tries to take Myka's hand. Or more accurately, she asks Myka to try and take her hand since she still can't see Myka. The time Myka finally manages to touch her is when she suddenly returns with a physical body, alive once again. Apparently, a living person touching a ghost leads to resurrection.

This is where I got lost down another big rabbit hole. I was absolutely obsessed with Myka's struggles to adapt back to the world of the living. Think about it, right. She's existed without physical sensations for twenty years. Now suddenly, she has a body again. Everything's too loud, too bright, too much. Clothes hurt. Having to use energy to walk, hurts. Food???? A sensory nightmare. And when I was brainstorming this and noodling around with google, I learned about sensory processing disorder and OH MY GOD did that just send me deeper into the rabbit hole. I was so, so distracted by this topic and wanted to spend forever exploring Myka's initial months alive again. Do you understand why I could never find the plot? I was way too lost in the details to find the tent poles of this story.

Once Myka has learned to take care of herself again and has some coping mechanisms in place to help with the constant 'too much' struggle of being alive, her first desire is to return to college. Not see her family. It's been twenty years and that's still too much to tackle. But she'd been desperate to return to college when she died so that's the first thing she wants to do now that she's been resurrected.

This is when Pete and Mrs Frederick come into the picture -- though technically Mrs Frederick has been in play the whole time. Let's start with her. See, I thought a warehouse equivalent organization that was fully aware of ghosts and trying to help them would be handy for this story. But I was convinced at the time that a government funded agency didn't make much sense. Every secret organization in TV shows and movies are always government funded -- but the US government hates funding anything that isn't corporations or the military.

… So why wouldn't the secret organization actually be disguised as a for profit company instead? Insert Mrs Frederick as CEO of a long-running and ever-evolving company that currently brags about being at the cutting edge of smart home devices and appliances. Except the smart home technology serves a secondary purpose of finding new ways to communicate with incorporeal ghosts who are slowly being lost to time. The company (I'm sure I had a name for it but I can't remember it anymore) gains its funding through product sales and government tax cuts/hand outs to pursue its true goal of locating these lost ghosts and reconnecting them back to their loved ones or at least reconnecting them with community. They want to re-socialize them, help them find purpose and meaning. No one knows how to help ghosts move on or if they even should move on, though if ghost decides to try, they certainly don't stop them. They also had never found a way to resurrect a ghost. Some ghosts had asked if it was possible, so the company is researching it. But they're researching in laboratory settings and with Myka's resurrection, it becomes clear that there needs to be a personal connection between the ghost and living person to successfully resurrect them. (Hence, Claudia and Joshua being the second ones to successfully manage a resurrection.)

I'm losing steam and this wasn't super thought out in detailed back in the day anyway -- but Mrs Frederick helps Myka enroll in college in Colorado Springs and her living expenses are all funded by Mrs Frederick's company. Caturanga's research was also being funded by Mrs. Frederick, though Helena wasn't fully aware of how big this operation was until after Myka's resurrection.

Myka meets Pete at college and they become fast friends. Mostly because Pete's too chatty to care about Myka's silences and easy-going enough to roll with her quirks and continued struggles with being alive. At some point, he finds out she had died and been resurrected, but I don't remember if I ever fleshed out that reveal.

I did flesh out the sister reunion. In my head, Tracy would get pulled into the ghost aspect because Claudia is one of her cases. But she wouldn't learn about Myka until Myka decides she's ready to see her. That takes about a year (or even longer) and happens after Myka's started attending college. Tracy is shocked to learn her sister is alive again, obviously, but also happy. Myka is happy to reunite with her too but also feels awkward because Tracy is all grown up with kids and she's still 19 (well now 20). Sometimes, it seemed like their reunion should be the end point. But then there's also still so much story to explore after their reunion too. Their father has died by 2014. Warren died of a heart attack several years earlier. Tracy has no regrets over never reconciling with him. Myka does regret that he died before she came back to life. They have different opinions and feelings about their shared childhood and it creates friction between them. Their mother is still alive though, and I played through Myka reuniting with her too. That's awkward in a different way than reuniting with Tracy. The 20 year time gap still plays a role of course, but mostly it's sits strangely with Myka because her mother keeps telling her how much her father regretted that night and how much he missed her and wished he could apologize. And while Myka doesn't blame him for her death like Tracy does, there's a lot of other hurt she does still blame him for and hearing that he's sorry from Mom instead of getting to talk to him herself -- it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't make anything better.

Not to add it like an after thought, but Sam has died too. He still grew up to join the Secret Service and was still killed on duty. It hits Myka hard when she finds out. She hates that he died too soon too. It's not fair.

And… I think… that's everything I ever came up with for this AU concept? I spent most of my time on Helena and Myka pre-resurrection, Myka immediately after the resurrection, and Tracy always. I had a pretty fleshed out world and a ton of pieces that could count as plot -- but I never had the throughline that turned it into a proper narrative.

If you see the narrative in this mixed soup or if you see something in here that inspires you -- please! By all means, run with it and write your own fic for it! Do not feel like you need to ask my permission, because I guarantee you, I will never turn this into a real story. But it was nice to revisit and maybe you can still get some enjoyment out of what is here. :)

#Bering and Wells #Myka Bering #Helena Wells #Warehouse 13 #my fic #my meta #I guess????#but it's also totally up for grabs if you're inspired to do something with it #Run free little plot bunnies!#Run free!

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grey-sides · 2 years

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I saw this post you reblogged and in the tags you said how Billy is tired from riding Tommy's dick and let's Steve know it.

Could you do a fic where Steve and Billy try to setup a three-way but Tommy is the only one available. Steve sits on the side while Billy rides Tommy and he gives Steve a similar bored look like the one in the post

This is so, so late, but here it is! I am mean to Tommy in this one, I choose to believe he likes it.

(Also for those not in the know, that gifset is from S2 when Billy's driving the Camaro, suledins grabbed it and made it look nice and pretty)

~700 words, lemon, CW for cuckolding that doesn't work and Tommy Hagan being there

Cuckolding. Steve wanted to try cockolding and apparently Billy was really into that idea. Maybe more into it before it turned out that Tommy H was pretty much the only person willing to agree to the idea. But still.

It was supposed to be fun. Steve getting to watch Billy, but not touch. Billy getting a little extra spice in his life. Something to make their relationship just that much more exciting.

But it's Tommy Hagan. Tommy Hagan who can't ever keep his eyes off Billy's ass anyway. And who can't help but try and neg Steve like Steve actually likes it.

It was probably a bad formula from the start. Steve doesn't like being forced out of his own relationship and he definitely doesn't want to capitulate to Tommy over everything.

And he had been feeling a little mean. Had hoped it would be fun to rub into Tommy's face later. Billy saw his dick and still didn't want it at the end of the day.

Instead, it's kind of going nowhere. Sure, Tommy's laid out on the bed, seemingly having a grand old time. Steve's naked in his armchair, his dick flagged a long time ago.

And Billy looks like he might just fall asleep on Tommy's lap. He'll turn every so often, look up at the artwork hanging above their bed and open his mouth. Let out a huff or a sigh or something, enough to keep egging Tommy on.

But he keeps looking at Steve. Mouth drawn tight, lips pursed together as his eyes drop to Steve's lap and his less than impressive lack of a boner. Steve wants to feel bad about it, but mostly he wants Tommy to get off his fucking bed and go home.

"That's it, baby," Billy coaxes. His voice is sugary sweet, breathless with desire as he moves. But his eyes are dead and annoyed, staring at Steve, pinning him to this armchair.

They're definitely never doing this again. Steve drops his cheek to his fist, looks over at Tommy who has his eyes squeezed shut.

"Fuck him good, Tommy," Steve adds, trying to make himself sound as enthused as Billy seems to be able to do. "Make him see stars."

Billy laughs, shakes his head and his impressive mane of hair back. He looks up at the ceiling again, curls his fingers around his cock. He's ready to be done.

He squeezes down around Tommy a little more, glancing down at him. "Come on, Tommy, show me what Carol's always gushing about."

Tommy's eyes fly open and he snarls at Billy. "Leave her out of this!"

"Baby's got bark," Billy says, looking unimpressed. Tommy and Carol are on the rocks again, it's probably the only reason he's allowed to be here.

"Get the fuck off me, bitch," Tommy snaps. He shakes his head and shoves at Billy, wiggling out from underneath him.

Steve chuckles under his breath as Tommy gets out of the bed, taking off the condom and tossing it into the trashcan. It seems like no one is having a good time at this point.

Billy lays back on the bed, stroking his cock as he watches Tommy. He doesn't want to fight him to get back in bed, but he does want to know if he can get Steve to get it up again.

"See ya later, Tommy," Steve says when he gets dressed. Tommy flips him off as he heads to the door, slamming it behind him. Their front door slams a moment later.

Steve snorts, shaking his head. He looks at Billy and spreads his legs, really leaning into the armchair now.

"I always did like your solo work more," Steve says.

Billy bites his lip, arches his hips into his hand and begins to work himself up for real this time. He keeps his eyes locked on Steve sitting across from him and getting steadily aroused himself. This time, though, his eyes are alive and dangerous.

#harringrove #tomgrove #i think thats the ship name #keg gang #atomrose #stranger things #fic #greye writes #lemon

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aerialworms · 1 year

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hello dear mutual! I have a question. I'm no longer in the fandom but I like watching from the sidelines. there was a poll asking if destiel will still be made canon and my question is: how. isn't the prequel planned about the parents? I would love an explanation cause I don't understand. thank you so much!!

Hello there friend!! I'm happy to explain, I love rambling about this batshit show so much!

So yes, the prequel is about the parents, but I'm not sure how much you know about it so here's a little primer: from what I've seen, it's actually Dean telling the story of how his parents met and fell in love, presumably while he's up in Heaven post-finale (y'know, where Cas is also supposed to be). Jensen and his wife Daneel are executive producing, and the prequel is being showrun by Robbie Thompson, known for writing such episodes as Goodbye Stranger (the crypt scene my beloved!!!!!!), Meta Fiction ("What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext?"), and Fan Fiction (the musical ep! With Sam teasing Dean about destiel!). So from the get-go everyone was like 👀 because Robbie has always been a destiel-positive writer! Plus, apparently, Daneel's favourite character is Cas, so it would make sense for them to bring Cas back if they (and Misha) wanted!

Please bear in mind that I haven't actually watched any of the prequel, i've just been living vicariously through my dash. People who have actually watched it/know more than me please feel free to add on/correct me!

So, to my knowledge, the reasons people are thinking they might make Destiel canon in the prequel are (in no particular order):

a) A few weeks ago there was an episode that had Gabriel (as played by Richard Speight Jr) as the MOTW and also had a background cameo from Rob Benedict in a very bad wig (unclear if that was Chuck or not), and there have been quotes from (i think) Robbie saying that they're only having cameos from OG SPN actors if it's relevant to the story they want to tell (and since the Rob cameo was not explained or plot-relevant people are thinking they're possibly going to do a Chuck won scenario? It could turn out that he was never actually defeated in 15.19 and now Dean has to show up to fight him again (and get Cas back?? maybe??))

b) In that same episode, there was a scene where Mary and John look at a picture of some dude who'd given them a clue or talked to John or something - it was Dean! So he's alive again, briefly, in the 70s. Could be time travel, could be he's escaped from Heaven. So if Dean is around in the show, whether just as narrator or as a character in the story, he has the potential to go rogue and look for Cas, or be telling the story to Cas up in Heaven. In either case, there is the potential for canon destiel, if they (Jensen, Daneel, Robbie, Misha, etc.) decide they want to do that.

c) Jensen has said various things at cons recently which are kinda 👀, including that he'd have been happy to keep going on SPN for another 6 years, and, most recently (this weekend), which I think sparked the poll you were talking about - that if Dean and Cas reunited Dean would say "Hey, can we talk about that goodbye a little bit?" and then joked that nah, it would be more like "hey, buddy, good to see you, old pal" but THEN said "I don't know, maybe we'll get to see that, that would be interesting" (Here's a gifset of him saying that if you're interested)

Also this:

[ID: Tweet from Toni @JensFloofHair.

JENSEN WANTS TO FILM A NEW ENDING FOR SUPERNATURAL, THE ONE HE HAD DREAMED OF. ABOUT A 2 DAY SHOOTING, HE SAYS.

Misha: I mean, you have the Impala.

Damn right, nothing stopping them!!

#JIB11 /End ID]

It's no secret that Jensen Did Not like the finale, apparently Eric Kripke had to talk him into it and he still makes salty jokes about it even now. Add the fact that he got someone else to film the confession for him because he wanted to have a record of it, and has said they cut out key parts of his performance in that scene (which is why the editing of it is so janky). So it's possible that he intended for there to be actual reciprocation in that scene and, well, now he's got the reins. He could do it if he wanted!!!

d) The prequel finale - airing next Tuesday, Jack help us - is titled "Hey, that's no way to say goodbye". Which was already kinda 👀 before the con this weekend, but combined with Jensen saying Dean would say "can we talk about that goodbye a little bit?" is um. Look I don't wanna get my hopes up. But also........ 👀👀👀

I think the prevailing theories at the moment (from what I've seen on my dash) are that either:

a) They're baiting us to keep interest in the prequel (I trust Robbie but I don't really trust Jensen, so this seems likely)

b) They really are gonna bring Cas back, either as him being the one Dean is telling this story to up in Heaven, or using that Rob Benedict cameo to retcon the finale and make the show about breaking free of Chuck's control for realsies this time (which hopefully means Cas actually showing up and not being explained away in one line like the finale)

Like I said, I don't wanna get my hopes up because I don't quite trust Jensen. But. Given Robbie Thompson showrunning and Daneel loving Cas and Jensen dropping all these maybe-maybe-not hints. If they DID make destiel canon. I would not be surprised.

Well maybe a little bit but in an "I can't believe I was right" way.

#my asks #artie talks #spn #jensen #bts #spn prequel #this got long lmao like i said i love to ramble #i tried to cover all the points! let me know if you want me to elaborate on anything though #personally i think that if they do decide to bring cas back they'll have him do a “hello dean” or something in the prequel finale #to hook people for the next season #or if they cant get misha for whatever reason this season they'll have dean show up and mention off hand that he's looking for cas #im leaning very far toward “oooooh i think theyll do it” but also. ive been burned before *tjlc flashbacks*#ill never trust a showrunner again #unless robbie does make destiel canon in which case im gonna marry him #also i think this is my first time talking to you hi hello! you activated my hyperfixation trap card i hope i dont scare you off 😅#my dms are open if you wanna chat more!#meta #destiel

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tuiyla · 1 year

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Nearly a week ago I published a gifset I’m really proud of and am happy has resonated with people. I started working on it on New Years Eve, just before going off to my end of year celebrations and worked every day towards that January 12 goal even as life got busy because I felt like this was the most fitting tribute I could give on a birthday that Naya herself sadly never got to see. While putting the pieces together, I thought it’d be interesting to document at least a slice of the process that took so long.

This video you see now is on times 64 speed so you can imagine how long some of these segments took in reality. By my calculation this is little over 4 hours of footage but the actual thing took about 3-4 times as much. It’s hard to say, really, but I will share that I listened to the audiobook of Naya’s autobiography while making this set, and could have probably done so twice or three times. The most important thing isn’t time, of course, I just wanted to share that piece of information, too.

In particular because listening to Naya talk about her life while trying to encapsulate some of it in the form of gifs was strangely yet understandably cathartic. I’ve listened to bits and pieces of the book before, when else if not in 2020 but I wanted to “save” the whole thing for later. Save it for what, people often asked me when I told them. The right time, I suppose. And sometimes, those right times just click, as was the case here. I couldn’t have chosen a better time to immerse myself in the book and Naya’s voice and a whole life being contained in so little. Though that second gif of her early career is not featured in the footage as that was the one I started with, I will say that I knew this was the only way to do this when giffing The Royal Family as she recalled her experience on set. Giffing this particular tribute and listening to the book, these two could only come hand in hand and how fitting it is that they did.

Anyway, the point of this post is really just to share, as a sort of fun fact and also as further catharsis, the behind the scenes of one of my most important sets. When I originally thought of the idea and envisioned the layout of her credits, I thought, nah, too complicated. But a voice in my head said that it was doable, that it deserved to be done and I’m glad I listened because even though you can’t capture the essence of a life, even a tragically short one in a gifset, I’m glad to have created this tribute. I have more thoughts on this set, as well as a first draft version of the very first one I started working on. And thoughts like the TV sets changing to reflect the passing of time or the attention to detail I tried to pay to every role, every small aspect. How the Glee gif especially just clicked. How the second gif background is her first TV interview and the fourth is, in a way, her last. But, I suppose, that’s enough yapping for now and I can always just come back to this later. For now, be safe and be cool.

P.S.: sound on maybe

#adventures in gifmaking #gif werk videos #idk new tag? i think i've published like two videos so far #three now #i have a few but i move on from sets so quickly #naya rivera #gif wip video

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clickbites · 7 months

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✧ ˚ · –– YOU READY TO MAKE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR?

the spooky season might be coming up, but the members of rock bottom seem to have the sparks flying all around like cupid's got his arrow aimed right at them!

if you've been feeling the sting of love lately, let it be known you're not the only one...

miss lucy dacus is never beating the being in love with [her] best friend allegations on one miss julien baker's birthday after allegedly having to medicate to get through. it seems as though she wants anyone who isn't the three of them (perhaps the three members of boygenius?) to fuck off and might want to spend time with her best friend aka her home's "face in [lucy's] neck, feeling [their] breath keep[ing] [lucy] grounded" by this ellusive j... could it perhaps be nodding to one julien baker whose birthday was had recently? we think so... but feel free to let us know otherwise, miss dacus!

speaking of sad girls with impeccable vocals from the south, hayley williams has been a bit more blunt about her feelings as of late. it's as simple as her boldly stating "i miss my best friend" just two days ago, with an associated gif presenting her and former alleged flame miss taylor swift noting that it was indeed miss williams that "tore them apart". it appears both tennessee-bred darlings are reminiscing upon their days together, back when head banging dissolved into giggling and kissing, back when all one-another could think about was pretty red lips. unfortunately, it appears both stars think little of their ability to come back together, with doubt rising at every corner. miss swift has stated she wonders if she's now a stranger to the pop punk redhead after spending the night following this year's mtv video music awards in her estranged lover's arms. keep us updated, ladies.

when it comes to pining, it seems as though parker cannon has a certain sweet jada jones looking like the definition of it. in case we need a quick refresher on what pining means: a strong sense of longing or yearning or...posting what if it doesn't end well by chloe moriondo with no other context. we hear you, girl. that one absolutely speaks for itself. i mean, with a line like "another year being your best friend/feels like you always knew me" and then just a little later on, "would you still stay?/what if i fuck it up like i always do?" we can't help but wonder what kind of hoops parker's making he jump through to win his affection. what we do know is that it seems like he often leaves her feeling stupid. when's your not-yet-man gonna finally dedicate to actually being your man, jj?

the summer i turned pretty star christopher briney laid it out for us pretty plainly just yesterday with a gifset from normal people. hey, can we take a second to talk about how heartwrenching that show is? it seems like we're not the only ones marianne and connell have by the neck. the gifset is simple, just the scene in the show where the two main lovers are in the kitchen discussing who connell thinks his best friend is. marianne wonders if it's someone from his friend group and he tells her, quite confidently, that it's her. the gifset ends there, but if you've seen the show a million times like we have, you know that connell gets up to kiss marianne immediately after. it's not tagged for anyone in particular, but if we had to guess? we're linking it to madison beer, who's sweet (but vague) posts about love seem to line up with his.

on the opposite end of the spectrum, while some friends are falling in love, we hear some others might be falling apart. reports say lucy dacus has ended things with a close friend, perhaps a member of a closely linked band who also smooch on stage from time to time, who has feelings for her that she does not reciprocate. in fact, in her words, she says she will never reciprocate. so she’s opted to cut off the friendship entirely. ouch. that one’s a punch to the gut if we’ve ever heard one, pals. based on what we’ve heard, could this perhaps be because lucy’s a little too busy being head over heels for her littlest of bandmates who may or may not be a little stuck thinking about a certain fellow 5 foot nothing ex of hers whom she used to call home and she believes deserves the moon and the stars and hangs up flowers that she bought for this former partner who now has heartburn seeing jb’s name? only time will tell.

tune in later this week for more details on everything going on in the rock bottom sphere, tensions are high as cuffing season comes 'round, exes are pining and situationships are... situationship-ping... give us all the details via your sideblogs, lovelies.

spooky month's just getting started and no one is safe.

xx 👾

#rb.gossip #drugs #death

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vegancas · 1 year

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think i'm going to take a bit of a break from tumblr. if my migraine yesterday is any indication, my iron deficiency and whatever else i might have going on healthwise is not about to just get better on its own. when i spoke to my doctor a few months ago i was pretty close to being anemic and since i don't think i've got any better since then, i think i really need to actually take care of myself lol. the lack of sleep and the not eating enough are not tumblr's fault but i know all the time i've been spending here has not been helping. i need to get some more balance into my life and learn to live without this place (that i love sooo much), because right now i would spend every waking moment here if i could and that is not good for me lol

i will still be around, checking my notes, messages, mentions, etc., but i probably won't reblog anything until i'm actually back (maybe? idk! we'll see). i'll probably still be making gifs as well, but if i post any it'll mostly be for the prequel (i have a couple cas gifsets that are already in my queue but that might be it for a while). i've already hidden the app on my phone so if i'm here it'll hopefully only be on desktop and i cannot let myself open the actual dash or my resolve on this will break 😫😫😭

PLEASE keep tagging me in things!!! i definitely don’t want to miss anyone’s art or edits or writing!!!!!! and send me posts even!! idk how i'm going to survive not knowing about everything that's going on here while i'm gone, i already have fomo over the last couple days while i've been too tired to be online. i will be so grateful to see everything you send me! whether it's cast or prequel news, new scripts, destiel goes canon again, updates about your lives, whatever!!! if you think "hmmm i wonder if ruth might want to see this?" the answer is yes!!!! PLEASE lol

if you tag me on your posts also, i'll check #vegancas (that might be easier so i don't miss things?). i'm not sure how long i'll be gone, hopefully no more than a few weeks, but it just depends how long it takes me to like form good habits i guess. but i'll definitely be back!!! i could never really leave tumblr or spnblr and i would miss you all too much!!!

#i think this post has gone on long enough lol sorry for rambling #it's like 10pm and i'm so tired already so good night and i miss you all already <3333 #pinned

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lunar-insanity · 2 years

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HOKAY

I ended up... spending a lot of time just making a ref for this new OC while continuing to flesh things out for him and his story.

So! Backstory behind this guy. A friend of mine is streaming Marvel’s Spiderman Remastered for me to watch him play. And I am loving it so far, it’s great, it’s gonna make me cry when we get to Otto xD

Anyway so for some reason, clips of No Way Home have been popping up in my youtube dash, and some time ago I remember a gifset featuring Otto and OG!Peter. And I wanted to find more bits of the scene and stuff...

So then I was inspired xD

I’d like to introduce you to

Wes Wheeler! Your friendly neighborhood, wheelchair bound, Spiderman! He’s best friends with Peter Parker, a journalist, and Harry Osborn, local rich boy trying to make Oscorp better than it is.

He also works with Anna Maria aaaaand //drum roooooooll//

Doctor Otto Octavius.

Y’all ready for more under the cut? Cause settle in, I got a lot to try and write cohesively.

Now I’m drawing from the game, and said friend’s suggestions, here since that is the... most amount of knowledge I have rn so bear with me as I stitch together different scenes that I liked and a character.

Also I liked Into The Spiderverse and multiverse stories in general.

So Wes! He’s a new computer engineer specializing in AI and programming, and works with Doc Otto after having started as an intern while still studying. It was Otto that first made the wheelchair for Wes!

He’s a chill, focused boi who loves his work with Otto. Good person (trust me, I am just... bad at describing his personality other than vibes)

One day he’s invited by Peter and Harry to some special event Peter is going to be covering, which has our wayward radioactive spider. Peter narrowly dodges getting bit, and instead Wes gets bit instead.

And bing bong bang

We have Spooderman

So Wes does his best to adapt to his new abilities and responsibilities as Spiderman. It first started out with him helping people out because he happened across them, and wanted to help since he could. Which then progressed into fighting villains. So he accidentally took on that responsibility.

And then the incident with Otto happens.

When Doc turns, it hits Wes hard, because those two were actually pretty close ever since Wes started interning for him. Otto wanted to help people like Wes and Anna in a world that wasn’t built for them. In this world, the arms were actually meant for WES.

But when the Doc’s funding was pulled by Norman Osborne, he got desperate. He needed SOMETHING to work so that they could get the funding to continue their work. So he tested the arms on himself... and things went haywire

(I have spent a long time coming up with my own explanation for what went wrong, believe me when I say I accidentally got really attached to Otto)

This is when responsibility REALLY clocks Wes in the head.

... At a very bad time because now is the starting point for a depressive spiral.

He’s the AI guy. He programmed the AI in those arms (He didn’t know it was for the arms, but it was AI for the prosthetics in general to connect to the brain). What happened?

He wants to figure out what happened, and fix it and help Doc, BUT! He can’t do it exactly without the current AI in those arms. He can make simulations and run those (and he has) and try to use those on Doc Ock (and he has) but they could never work (as they haven’t)

Harry and Peter do their best, with Harry recovering several chunks of tech his dad took from their lab (Harry is VERY pissed off with his dad, and blames him for what happened to Doc Otto), while Peter (and Anna, who discovers Wes is Spiderman after catching him passed out one late night in the now abandoned lab) provides emotional support.

But it then goes to hell in a hand basket.

(Shamelessly taking THIS from the video game because it is an excellent plot point)

Wes is with Peter again, attending some outdoor ceremony when spidey sense kicks in that there’s danger. But Wes is trapped in a crowd. He can’t move, he can’t quite see being so low compared to all the standing people, he’s stuck there as Wes.

He only has enough time to get Peter to the ground before the attack and he blacks out.

He wakes up at hospital, having to hear the news of what happened from Peter, who also (unfortunately) tells him that the readers have been flooding the line with questions as to where Spiderman was.

He was there. But he couldn’t do anything.

This just hits him harder. He can’t do everything alone. He’s only one person. What is he supposed to do?

So here is where he starts making the Drones and Spiderbot

So prior to the attack, Wes had been job hunting for a higher paying job because he kinda needs the money to continue his work to try and help Doc and also LIVE.

After the attack, ironically enough, he does get a job! It’s an emergency acceptance as they need another AI programmer for a game they’re behind on. But this added work just stresses Wes out even more!

He can’t help the city, work on a cure for Otto, and his day job all at once!

So he repurposes an armored suit (I will explain later trust me) and makes the Drones at first who can keep an eye on the city and handle smaller scale stuff, equipped with web bombs and their tiny size (and wings sometimes)

Then when the work gets harder, he makes Spiderbot. Spiderbot does the bigger stuff, like fighting villians n’stuff.

The workload gets lighter and the city is still safe. Win win! Right?

Well.. for everything EXCEPT Wes’ mind. Because when things finally ease up, he tries (admittedly half-heartedly cause depression) to get back into it with Spiderbot, He just... can’t.

The bot is better at this.

Better than him.

So Wes steps away from being Spiderman.

(I would like to add that Anna AND the Bot do not approve of this? But the Bot does what he’s told and Anna does her best)

6 months pass (from the Attack, a year after Otto becomes Ock) (note I have a poor sense of time and have no idea how long a time gap should be), life has gone on, when suddenly SHENANIGANS

MULTIVERSE SHENANIGANS (yes here’s the spiderverse shenanigans)

(Idk if it’ll be the actual spiderverse crew or other ones but basically-)

So at the back of all this, Norman has had a team working on a big ... dimension opening collider (probs not a collider but I just started calling it that) and the first few tests go... Not as planned? The targeting system is off so it accidentally pulls in other Spiders and sends them scattered around the city.

They all manage to get together by running into Peter, who then introduces them to Wes! They end up hanging around Wes and start to rekindle the fire in him (even though he’s still really reluctant, thinking the bot can do better)

Until a good chunk of his villains come out in full force, headed by Wes’ main villain (Other than Ock) (Said villain I have dubbed Mirror cause they’re... not quite a mirror character? more like a foil? but basically they’re similar to Wes) and are aiming for the Collider! The spiders try to fight, but then get hit with the celular decay which throws them off just long enough to get beaten and caught

And Wes, who is at this point desperately working with Spiderbot from afar to try and win, is not having a good time! Not at all. Because the bot gets defeated from, ironically, being the only one there. The bot tried but got beat bad.

So now it’s only him.

His phone buzzes with messages from Harry that SOMETHING is going down at some facility he just found out was there, and is basically calling for Wes, Peter, and Anna to come back him up on the grilling he’s gonna give his dad when he gets there.

Anna calls him about what’s going on and Wes panics cause there’s no way he can do this, he can’t do it on his own. To which Anna verbally smacks him and says he had Spiderbot, he had the other Spidermen, and he HAS them. Even if Harry and Pete don’t know, he’s always had them to fall back on. It’s Wes who now has to properly believe in himself, cause everyone else does.

He’s mulling this over after the call when the drones drag in the half busted Spiderbot and Wes helps the poor thing in all the way, trying to find all the repair tools he can. Finally the bot itself tells him that he can do this, he did all this after all, don’t give up now.

This finally kicks Wes in the ass and he gears up to head out, the Bot hanging onto the back of the wheel chair as the drones try to repair it.

And here he rediscovers the joy of being Spiderman. Because of all things, he missed swinging around the city, seeing the view from so high up. Because up here, not even the wheelchair is a burden.

And he’s honestly missed helping people, even if it was the small mundane things.

So Wes as Spiderman shows up to the Collider and the whole group that’s there (Harry, Peter, Anna, and now him) get the run down from Norman and the scientists about shit, and they find out that both the CONTROL PANEL and the EMERGENCY PANEL are INSIDE the open portal to the multiverse (because it’s open to the space between all the dimensions and not one specifically)

Harry gets Spiderbot up and running with some magical nanites (to his father’s chagrin) and Wes goes in to A: Find the other Spiders, B: Subdue the villains inside, and C: Shut the thing down cause it’s ripping up the world bit by bit.

Wes heads inside and finds that in this middle space, several things from other universes are being pulled out from their dimensions by Mirror at the very end of this strange train of buildings n shit with that control panel.

So Wes goes through, trying to stay unknown to the villians for as long as he can. He sends the Bot after the other Spiders while he makes his way to Mirror.

Things go as plan until the Spiders get caught up by 2 villians and Wes ends up facing Ock in a building above them. Wes manages to hold his own against Ock and pins his arms to the large glass window behind them with the spider bombs he had created, and all the other gear he had made when he went MIA from the city.

So he pins the arms and pulls Ock back away, driving back up this floor-now-wall to stretch the arms to the limit and hold Doc in place, right up to him. (the reason is to keep the arms from thrashing just long enough because now, he has a chance to try and extract the AI in those arms, which is what a drone is doing at that moment.)

He ends up having a (one-sided, but Wes needed to say this) talk with Ock about maybe feeling abandoned, he sure abandoned being Spiderman, but he hadn’t stopped trying to save Doc Otto. Because this really isn’t him, they-he were going to make things better dammit. So he isn’t going to stop trying to help Otto.

And, once the Drone is done, he releases Ock in order to send him crashing through the glass and into the battle that was GOING ON BELOW THEM and buy the spiders there some time to get the upper hand while Wes keeps going for Mirror.

More fight shenanigans, the other Spiders do get the upper hand and Bot sacrifices parts of himself to send the webbed up villains back towards the portal entrance and out of the space. The whole group then joins up with Wes, who is in battle with mirror, trying to get to the Control Panel.

They get the upper hand again with Wes’ different fighting style and actually break the control panel, which starts reversing all the stuff that Mirror did, and send Mirror ricocheting back towards the entrance.

The spiders find they’re also being called back home (along with all the stuff and buildings in this space) and bid Wes farewell as he takes on the task of shutting down the machine with the emergency panel cause THINGS HAVE BEEN GETTING KINDA CRAZY BACK HOME.

So they all head home, Wes reaches the emergency panel, hits shut off, and slingshots himself back through the portal in time before the machine shuts down and the portal closes.

Portal closed, day saved, Wes has renewed life in him, and the thing he’s been trying to get his hands on since Day 1: An extracted copy of the arms’ current AI.

Harry declares that he’s taking on this part of Oscorp (After all, he’s probably going to run this place someday, he might as well start learning now) but he swears to god if his dad has more dangerous world ending projects he is going to flip (spoilers, he does)

And this post is getting very long so I will.. summarize the rambling xDD

Wes starts work on the AI, goes to Harry with Anna to reveal himself and ask for help, they start work together, Peter’s work place gets infiltrated by a Spy, Mirror persuades Ock to work with them, at some point there’s a miscommunication and Mirror thinks that Spiderman and Harry have the thing she’s after

They break in, Wes has to choose between saving their prototype (big clunky thing rn) or saving Harry and Anna, chooses to save his friends, He and the bot branch off, saves the friends, villains get away, Harry absolutely lays into his father about what the hell was it that he was nearly KILLED over this time (Because the villains went to gloat at Norman)

Mirror opens the box, finds the prototype instead of the thing she was after, smashes it, shards get stuck in Ock (which actually help)

More shenanigans, Wes gets the shards out and they make a cure proper, Mirror gets the mcguffin, final fight, Spiderbot handles Mirror while Wes goes for Ock, manages to subdue him, gets the fix on //points to No Way Home// and THEN goes to deal with Mirror as Doc Otto reveals he actually was working on a counter mcguffin because no way do you trust Mirror completely. They go get the mcguffin counter as Wes fights, they get it to him, Wes gets crafty with a mannequin, wins the fight, day is saved- HOORAY WE WIN

...

Here you can read my more incoherent ramblings about this here, and you can see all the bits that influenced this.

I mixed up the two constants a bit actually. The two constants are that Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, and they lost someone close to them.

In this case, the 2nd followed the first way later in the form of losing Doc Otto.

Anyway Imma put the rest of the art I got here (it’s just the suit and other bits) and talk about THOSE NOW

Wes’ suit! + Optional armor. The armor used to be part of a suit that was given to Wes (the origin and explanation for the suit is in that google doc) that was eventually turned into the drone, braces, and the arm guards. They all click and snap together and to him in different configurations. Like if Wes needed, he could potentially turn the hip armor into full on gloves (this is thanks to the tech already in the armor, he just reprogrammed them.)

And now, for Wes’ powers, some other stuff about Spiderbot, and the wheelchair.

The bite did biological changes to dear ol Wes. He can still climb stuff, he’s got more strength, and the Spideysense.

But also doesn’t need webshooters. Wes can generate his own silk, and a lot of it (He needs to use a lot of web). He just needs to drink more water a lot more often to keep it up. So he keeps water bottles on hand.

His freckles also ended up mimicking spider eyes, somewhat. They still look like three big spots under each eye, but they can function. So if he’s ever blinded, he can still SOMEWHAT see. It’s not perfect but can still do it.

The web he shoots also is very stretchy, allowing for Wes to use it like a slingshot ooooor make a battle yo-yo to hit with.

And of course, THE CHAIR

Wes’ wheelchair was at first made by Doc Otto sometime after Wes started working for him. When Wes became spiderman, this thing needed a LOT of modifications, most of it coming from lab materials or Harry. He can now also use it to whack people around with it if he needs to, but more importantly, this thing can handle impacts, landings, and can drive up walls.

ANYWAY SO THAT’S WES PLEASE ENJOY SPOODER BOI I WORKED SO LONG ON HIM ;W;

#my art #spiderman oc #I will always maintain that I am easily inspired #but holy shit i kinda went in hard on him #i can't think of what i wanted to put down here anymore #okay bai

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gohoubi · 2 years

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Swinging a bat at a hornet's nest #blessed

Buckle up because I have brakenight thoughts, that one ask wasn't enough, and I just wanna rant about them for a little while…if you like Audrey/Till/brakenight/not being annoyed about stuff I would suggest you don’t read the rest of this. (Ok but please read. I spent a long time making this look nice and reasonable and not like a raging chaos gremlin wrote it, so…) @train-pirate did this first and honestly their's is better but im still gonna say my thing now.

By the way, these are all MY OWN OPINIONS, and don’t count against anyone in the fandom! All my criticism is levied against the writers who made these characters this way. Frankly the writing of the fandom is often better than what the writers put out, so there’s that.

I have problems with this ship and they have only gotten more intense the more I think about it, and the more I see gifsets and the more I see the ways the show could have gone, I’m made more and more mad about by the goddamn day! I need to rant about it and then I won’t say anything more about it (at least not like this). But here are three valid/maybe not so valid reasons I don’t like this ship:

It represents how damn LAZY the writers have gotten.

Honestly nothing about this relationship makes sense and it is so egregiously rushed. in 3x01, Audrey and Till really don’t like each other. Audrey is firmly on Wilford’s side, she’s bitchy and backstabby and generally isn’t very nice to anyone around her. Till doesn’t like her in return; she’s constantly sniping and acting like Audrey is an annoyance (which she is!). And yet, contrast that to 3x10 when Till gives up her CHANCE TO NEW EDEN with all her friends and all her supporters for one girl who a few weeks ago she didn’t even like - and disliked enough to conk her over the head with a hammer, even! And this is the crux of it; the relationship is rushed and unbelievable and hastily cobbled together to give Audrey and Till character development which they couldn’t be bothered to take the long way around for.

Audrey needs a redemption and to become nice again - so instead of apologising to those she has hurt, trying to be better, she just gets slapped with a girlfriend so she can become a soft uwu lesbian. Yay, she's good again, because she spent a few days sadly playing guitar and doing therapy with Till! Yuck.

Till…not sure what they wanted for her but she is the epitome of wasted potential, holy shit. Again I think they just wanted to tie her down a little more, so they give her a relationship that a) she never really gave an indication of wanting and b) with someone she does not deserve to be saddled with. LIKE HELLO? Also she got turned into a soft uwu lesbian as well, like yeah she was a bit naive and innocent before but where the fuck has her character gone?

Fucking…I just…don’t like the soft uwu lesbian trope.

I don’t know why but that trope drives me up the damn wall, and I don’t even have a good reason why. It just icks me out, which is ironic considering that was pretty much all I wrote for a solid six months, if not a year. Idk like…it just seems antithetical to their characters. But that’s just me. Too many puppies and kittens and shit, lol. I don’t like happy stuff (jk)

Way too much! Way too fast!

WHY??? They’ve known each other for six months, sure, but why are they all getting cuddly and deep about their feelings so soon? Honestly they should have made Brakenight be a thing in the pirate train arc, that would have made more sense. Also it just feels like a waste of screentime - so we don’t get Asha but we get this? Sorry, dislike it!

I don't exactly want either of these characters to be alone. That's not a good feeling for any character! (as any Ruth-lover can attest) however I want the characters to be in considered, realistic relationships that seem more respectful to their arcs and journeys and not just shoved together because they happen to be the Only Gays in the Village Death Train. Honestly this is weird because I do actually care about these characters; I wouldn't be so mad if I didn't care about them this much, I just wanted so so much for them and it kills me that they've become the new casualties of lazy and unconsidered writing.

#snowpiercer #snowpiercer tnt #snowpiercer netflix #miss audrey #bess till #gohoubi talks

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sleepymarmot · 9 months

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I haven’t giffed for a while, so making the previous post was a bit of an adventure.

I started this gifset in February 2021. Back then I ripped every frame and the gifs were too big for tumblr, so I had to delete every other frame by hand. It looked so choppy that I put the post on ice, and it got buried under other drafts. Evidently I found the post again months later but didn’t fix it and left it to rot again.

I found the post again this week and almost published in that state, but thought it’d be too embarrassing to post a gifset with every second frame in 2023. I then tried to remake it in proper quality. I discovered that I had one of the gifs ripped with every second frame, and had to re-rip it again (and remember how to crop them). For some reason, the new screenshots were brighter, so I had to use a different coloring for them. I also had to split that gif into two, but that’s easy.

The gifs were still way past the Tumblr limit, and I was on the brink of losing hope and shelving the post again when I realized that I can just reduce the number of colors. This is b/w! There are 64 and even 32 colors per gif in that post and it all looks perfectly fine. So my big problem from two years ago was finally solved. (Too bad this solution would not work with normal color gifs.)

The original version was also awfully slow. For the new one I started experimenting with frame delays since I’m unfamiliar with giffing every frame. At first I tried to abandon frame animation altogether and set the FPS on the timeline the same as original video, but that didn’t work (in two different ways). Then I realized that gif exporting ruins frame delays anyway, rounding them up/down to either 0.03 or 0.07. 0.03 looked perfect in my desktop image viewer but too fast on Tumblr in the browser. 0.05 looked too slow. Then it finally occurred to me to do the math, and 1 second / 23.976 fps indeed equals 0.04 (rounded). So I adjusted the gifs to have 0.04 as frame delay and it still looks wrong somehow, even though objectively it should be the best option.

By the way, I had to carefully replace gifs one by one in the original post buried like fifty pages deep within my drafts, and not just because I didn’t want to make a new one: that draft is in the legacy photo post format, and I don’t have access to it for new posts anymore.

After finishing and uploading all that, I realized that I never cropped out the black border, and it’s quite visible at the edges of the gifs. But I already wasted way too much time to go through every gif again.

In the end, the only thing I had to redo from scratch was the final gif (now split in two). For all the others, I used the same psd, adjusted the export settings, then redid the frame delay of the exported gifs. The real time-consuming part was not the editing process itself, but figuring out what I needed to do.

All this was for an extremely simple gifset, by the way. The kind that requires no actual creativity or hard work, only a bit of technical know-how. If you know what you’re doing, and not blindly poking at the settings you’re not used to, it should take no time to make. I just want to share how much I’m overthinking everything. (And also to journal for my own sake, because this has been An Experience.)

#photoshop woes #blah blah blah

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many-gay-magpies · 2 years

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THANK YOU FOR THE PLAYLISTS THEY ALL LOOK LIKE THEY SLAP INCREDIBLY HARD !!!!!!! I WILL STREAM THAT SHIT. also thank u for the bisexual lighting songs that is Also a fantastic list. i’ve seen your posts about synesthesia and i think the way you perceive the world is so damn cool !!! i don’t have actual synesthesia the way you do but sometimes voices really do have colors that suit them idk okay they just Do. but srsly though i love seeing you talk abt how you perceive sounds and colors it’s all so interesting!!

loona rly does have some Shit going on i sat down w my friend jack and i was like “okay can you explain at least some of this story” and he just went “okay so first off heejin is god-“ AND I WAS LIKE “WHAT???” i understand a good amount of it now but it’s rly so unhinged

i remember you reblogging gyehyeon gifsets in the very beginning !! he rly is so pretty. i may end up going the same way w e’last because choiin,,,, that man. Whew. he is . very very attractive .

i am also not entirely sure about noa?? i think i read something about him being able to control shadows/darkness and i think . it would be Very funny . if he just caused a power outage in decelis because he didn’t want to go to class that day. just boom it’s dark in all the classrooms suddenly. on a similar note, imagine an Actual power outage due to storms or something (i live in a beach town, we get outages from hurricanes frequently </3) and jino being used as a human flashlight bc he can literally light up the rooms. just fun little thoughts

- vrvr anon, who is very touched that you make all your followers feel welcome and represented even if you’re not part of that group itself <3

ehehehe ywc!! and also thank you im glad u think my rambly posts abt people and sound and colors r cool :> i like the way my mind sees things i think its pretty cool too!! its especially fun when im first getting into a group and my brain slowly starts assigning colors to the members like "okay ur gold and ur red and ur this very specific shade of purple and—"

"okay first off heejin is god" bro???? what a WILD fuckin sentence to hear first thing when being introduced to a group's lore wow. i mean i knew their lore was a LOT but i never bothered to look into exactly HOW it was a lot, i just knew that it WAS. but heejin god??? really??? good for her. its nice that u have a friend that was so willing to sit down and explain all that to u dhfjhfjf (altho to be fair id probably be the same with enha or vrvr lore lol) (kinda like your asks when you first explained the vrvr lore to me actually!!)

yea gye!! i honestly dont entirely remember the progression of how i got into vrvr, even tho it was only a couple weeks ago . like i think i mightve seen ONE gye gifset on my fyp or smth at first, then i decided to go into the gye tag to reblog more bc i thought he was pretty, then i remembered liking get away and O a lot so i figured "why not listen to their other tts?" and then came YOUR asks and now im . well. now im here HSJFBFJFB

NO SERIOUSLY WITH CHOIIN i think it went pretty similarly for me too ..... i didnt know e'last all that well but i thought he was pretty (its the expressions when he dances i swear--) and i liked their music and now im a full-blown stan with like three biases hgsjfhfjhdhf

i think ive heard abt noa maybe manipulating shadows somewhere too-- like a mutual told me abt it or something idk. that sounds like an absolutely badass and potentially terrifying power to have but also the idea of him just using it to cause power outages so he doesnt have to go to school is great-- AND YES FLASHLIGHT JINO. that is a brilliant idea with lots of potential for things being burned down by accident (like he sets the entire school library on fire or smth and shion is like "well at least we can SEE now" while hes just crying.)

<33333333

#asks #anon 📝#vrvr anon #dark moon nonsense

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backofthebookshelf · 3 years

Text

The DMCA and You; or, why Tumblr won’t get sued over Post+

I keep seeing people saying “doesn’t Tumblr understand they’re inviting an avalanche of lawsuits” and being baffled that people think this, and then I remembered that most of you were not both alive and in fandom in 1998 and therefore probably haven’t spent hours reading through the DMCA trying to figure out exactly how it was going to screw us. (Turns out we were right, but not nearly pessimistic enough.) So gather ‘round, children, it’s time for another bout of fandom history.

You have to understand what the internet looked like in 1998. Most people didn’t have internet access at home, and for those who did, you got a whopping 54 kbps (yes, that’s kilobytes per second) (compare that to 4G wireless, which 14 Mbps, not to mention, you know, wireless) unless you wanted to shell out for ISDN, which was twice the speed and five times the cost. Only 47% of American adults “went online” at all, never mind the two to six hours per day that current internet users are estimated to spend.

And I mean, why would you? There wasn’t that much there. If you wanted to post something online, your first and best option was to pay for web hosting of your own, or mooch off a friend’s. Or you could get a Geocities site, which would be plastered with ads and limited you to such a small amount of storage that you couldn’t have more than a couple dozen low-resolution images at best, or you could post on a message board (which would be essentially mooching off of a friend’s paid web hosting, because most sites that hosted message boards were just some guy who wanted to have a place to chat with his friends that wasn’t a Yahoo! email list), where you might get permission to post three or four images at a time. Music? Rude, takes up too much bandwidth, don’t do that to people. Video? You’re hilarious. (I once left my computer on for a week while I attempted to illegally download a copy of Velvet Goldmine but I finally gave up and got it from the video store instead.)

But still, at the time that was magic, and as more and more stuff found its way online, somebody who held a copyright somewhere (read: music studios and Disney) realized they had to get out in front of things. And into this brave new world came the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998 and was already skewing the shape of the internet of the future when it came into effect in 2000.

It did a lot of dumb things but the one we’re concerned about is the “safe harbor” provision, which basically says that in the case of an online copyright infringement, there are three parties: the infringer, the copyright holder, and the internet host, and the host is not a part of the copyright dispute.

Prior to this, if Sony or Disney or whoever found an illegal copy of their intellectual property (read: an mp3 or an avi) online, they’d go after whoever owned the server it lived on. Which made sense! If you find stolen TVs in someone’s basement, you go after the guy who owns the basement, and “I didn’t know my deadbeat brother in law was stealing TVs” is something you’ll have to prove in a court of law.

But internet companies like Geocities and Yahoo! and anyone else who offered random users the chance to post things on the internet using a free account said wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense. Because the internet is not like a physical basement; we have no reason to see someone carrying stolen mp3s down the basement stairs, and the scale is such that we couldn’t see all of them if we tried (unless we banned all mp3s, which means goodbye, MySpace, and goodbye indie bands). You wouldn’t go after a landlord in New York because their tenant in New Jersey is stealing TVs, would you?

So the DMCA said fine, we understand that the internet as it currently exists, and as it is attempting to exist (remember this is still the height of the dot.com boom and people are making money hand over fist by just owning websites), can’t operate if we try to do this. So instead of letting big companies sue big companies over copyright law, we’ll let big companies sue individual humans over copyright violations. That’s much more fair.

Of course most of what resulted wasn’t lawsuits at all; it was individuals getting threatening letters from Sony and Disney promising them that they were planning to sue but if you, Joe User, will just delete the thing you posted from the internet, we’re willing to make this all go away. And people did, because fuck, who’s going to duke it out with Disney?

The DMCA is the reason tumblr exists in the first place (not to mention twitter, and facebook, and essentially the entire part of the internet that isn’t either an ad or a news website). Technically, if tumblr was responsible for copyright violations, they’re already a prime target for a lawsuit, because they’re running ads on a website where people post copyright violations on a daily basis. Adding the opportunity for you to make money off your copyright violations doesn’t make them any more liable than they already are, which is not at all.

So here’s what predict will happen with Post+ at the beginning: absolutely nothing. A few people will monetize gifsets or fanfiction or vids and no one will pay attention and no one will care. But some small creators, people who post original fiction, people who post craft patterns, people who post insightful analysis, will start using it as part of their actual revenue stream. Sooner or later someone will be making enough money that it pings someone’s radar, and sooner or later someone making money will slip up and post something that could plausibly be a copyright violation, and they won’t get sued. They’ll get a takedown notice, a threatening letter from whoever owns the thing they infringed upon (...so Disney), and they’ll pull the thing. But it’s hard to pull things from the internet, much harder than it used to be, and nearly impossible the way tumblr works. So they get another takedown notice. Or Disney’s lawyers go through their blog with a fine-toothed comb and they start getting more and more unreasonable takedown notices, but now they’re scared and fuck, who’s going to duke it out with Disney? So they take their blog down entirely, and now that person is a little bit poorer and Disney is out the cost of four or five stamps and envelopes and the time their lawyer spent fifteen years ago drafting the takedown notice template.

I guarantee you that the people who decided to implement this know that this is going to happen, and they do not care. We’ve reached the “we could make this website work if we could just get rid of fandom” stage, which never ends well for the website but they never seem to learn that. So please, please don’t try to monetize fandom content on the assumption that tumblr is going to be the one to get slapped with a lawsuit for it, that’s just not how it works. It never has been and it never will be.

#tumblr is a website #fandom history #copyright law #psa

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redxblueihateloveyou · 3 years

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how do you think rinharu will solve this issue? having rin stay in japan won't solve haru's abandonment issues and i wonder if competitive swimming is meant for haru, he seems to struggle a lot

Nah-ah, competitive swimming is not the problem here. He has the same amount of struggles with it as Rin and Ikuya. He actually as we saw in s3 surprisingly likes it a lot, and he was very excited about taking on Albert and he wasn't even upset about losing to him, he got worked up. It's like yeah, he takes pressure from others worse than Rin, but Rin for example is taking loses far worse than Haru. But this in fact doesn't mean they can't handle those. They both know that it's just how competitions are and they both knew what they were going for. And when Haru is happy, trash-talking opponents make him go lol and he just has his fun with this too.

The additional stress just simply unlocked the real reason why he's hurt. If it wasn't for this Rin thing he carries with him for like 10 years this would be nothing. Stress from the competition, but more specifically the fact that Albert kinda took away his main stress-relief by "polluting" the water just gave it a rise, but it's not the cause of that. Thinking of Rin easily resolved the "water pollution", letting him pass the free race. It's watching Rin lose and taking it this way that just triggered his ptsd.

The problem was and is what Aki said back when they were little “Nanase-kun seems like he can do anything all by himself, doesn’t he? He’s good at studying and sports and even art. He really can do anything, right? That’s why everyone relies on him, but it would really be something for Nanase-kun to rely on anyone, wouldn’t it?”

It's the fact that he feels too much, feels for everyone and his inability to ask for help in this case from the only person who can help him and from whom he needs it the most.

The problem is that last year when Hiyori decided to laugh about Rin leaving him into his face, rubbed salt into his deepest wound, Haru in return only gave him positive energy, swam with him, gave him happy Ikuya back and watched them being happy while smiling. Did Hiyori maybe say that he didn't mean those words? No. Did someone else the moment he said it corrected him? No. Where do you think stuff like this go?

The problem is that s1 drama was resolved just for Rin. It was never resolved for Haru. It's been just piling up for like 7 years now. I once again will say it, Rin only told Rei that none of that was Haru's fault, Haru still to this day thinks it is.

As for the second part, in my opinion, this isn't quite just about his abandonment issues, it's about his Rin issue. Bc it really doesn't matter if he's in Japan or not in Japan, in a free race or not in a free race (bc whether Rin chose to swim free or not, Rin is right there, and they can still be on a relay team together, and travel together etc). This is only partially about his fear of him leaving.

The problem here is that for Haru it's never enough. When everything was fine and he could swim against Rin and had a great relay team of his friends, he wasn't satisfied.

Rin was near the whole season, he still missed him.

They spent whole days alone together, was that enough? No. He still didn't want him to leave.

But saying stuff like "I know we came here to support our kohais, but please, don't leave, sit with me, not with them" is selfish, no matter how much you want it.

Here he is right next to him. Still not enough.

My point is.. thats not what this is about and I'm pretty sure that's not what Haru's talking about. It's bc he always does everything to stay with him for as long as possible, but Rin is blind as a bat and deaf as a doornail.

And I don't really know what else you can say in some situations. Bc like when Rin spent the night at Haru's and Haru asked him to wake him up at 5am just to spend more time with him Rin answered with something like "hahaha that's great, good night".

And I will never in general understand how Rin even translates what Haru says. Bc when Haru asked him to call, Rin read it as "let me disappear for 5 years, go home for each holiday and avoid you like a plague".

And this outburst of "the greatest pain of my life is when you leave" was read as "let me just leave again".

The problem is Haru tried and tried to ask and show things in many different ways (which was pretty hard considering how he is), but couldn't ask directly for what he really wanted for obvious reasons. And no joke, there is a chance that Rin still wouldn't get it even if he did.

Rationally I think the resolve would be pretty simple, Rin will just enter the free race, bring him back and they'll talk after that.

It's just that with the way this set up right now, for Haru to be happy... I only see one option for how this talk can go, that I always was sure this anime can't give us. But then again I also do not quite get why even go there then.

I guess what I mean is with all my imagination I can't understand how he can ask for help in this situation, except for like I wrote here to ask him "just... be with me. I really need you to just be with me." If he already admitted how much it hurt him each time he left, idk what he's supposed to say at this point.. "please, stay and love me"? also "please, tell me what happened all those years ago isn't my fault" (he won't, bc he thinks it is), "please tell me you painfully missed me each time you were away too" (not to this extent, no, at least first times)?

What I personally want is same thing as in a fic for Rin to ask him to just tell him the truth, ask him to "please, I need you to talk". Gradually, step by step, from the beginning, all that's been eating him up all this years. Just to please tell Rin everything, so he could honestly reassure him, clear up all their misunderstandings, just TALK.

Bc if he let it all out, Rin can easily erase all of Haru's doubts and that nonsense that he is the reason why Rin never stays, that he was the reason he left in the first place etc, and eradicate the root of the problem, after this Haru would stop reacting to each time Rin leaves for a grocery store as if it's WW3.

P.S. I honestly think everyone should just go turn on Sam Smith - My Oasis and cry with Haru, bc this is probably the closest it can come to explain how he feels and just the whole mood for this situation rn. Like I've made a gifset to this a while ago, but rn the whole song is just super on point.

P.P.S. what I'm saying shortly is we all know how you can stop Haru's struggles easily, but what they would come up with hell if I know.

#answered #anonymous #free! the final stroke #nanase haruka #rin matsuoka #rinharu #harurin #free!

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blush-and-books · 3 years

Text

i’m sorry, but i fell in love tonight

short fic based off of this gifset by @juliesmolinas and the song is there somewhere by halsey. in fact it is mandatory that you listen to the song/read the lyrics/both before/during reading this. yes i said mandatory.

angst with a sappy ending, julie goes through a lifetime of emotions in less than 3k, was originally gonna write when i was in a more emotionally raw state but writing this made me emotionally raw so... enjoy <3

warnings: swearing

Julie made the promise at some point -- she just doesn’t know exactly when.

It may have been when he appeared at her school, all shy smiles and soft glances, professing that she made him a better writer. Or, more definitively, it could have been when she forlornly pulled him into her arms a moment before she was positive that she was to lose him forever.

All that she knew was her time with Luke was fleeting. So she swore that her butterfly-wing crush was not allowed to fill her chest or dizzy her thoughts; that his lyrics would mean nothing more next to hers than words on a page and his touches would bring her little to no comfort.

Luke Patterson could not complete her.

The universe wouldn’t allow it -- and neither would Julie Molina.

But -- either Luke was blissfully unaware of their impending doom or he genuinely didn’t care -- he forced himself through every barrier she attempted to erect. And it was driving her nearly insane, because she made a promise to protect herself.

Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to do it. Or maybe the universe, despite refusing to give Julie Luke in his entirety, did not want her to be protected.

It was all in the little things-

When she stayed up with him in the garage, playing him all of the songs he’s missed in 25 years, and he danced around on the slippery floor in his socks and grinned at her with wide green eyes. The neon emerald in the dim light was reminiscent of driving on the highway and passing sign after sign leading to the exits she could have taken, but couldn’t bring herself to.

How New Years Eve arrived and the Molina family gathered in the driveway to light sparklers; Luke’s hand brushing hers as he passed off one of the two in his hands.

In his head lulling onto her shoulder while she was trying to finish some homework with his help on the torn couch and his lips moving against her bare skin as he mumbled that she needed to take a break before driving herself insane; followed by her braiding her hair to get it out of her face.

She already had driven herself insane -- but not over her homework.

(His mouth on her shoulder was the answer to a prayer she never dared to murmur aloud.)

Luke never failed to be present when he was needed. If she was sick or stressed or depressed, he knew when to fuse to her side and when to offer some space. Through careful observation rather than conversation, he knew which of her many sweatshirts were reserved for illness or emotional support.

In most of those situations, she needed him, too. Her fingernails would curl into his biceps through a cramp or wave of tears and he would wrap her in his embrace and swarm her with warm words that dried her eyes.

She hated it.

When they wrote music, it felt as though they were already reading each other's minds before either of them had spoken a word about their plans. Their journals contained inky black waterfalls spilled from an intimacy that Julie did not want to dissect.

Again, she hated it. She loved it more than anything and hated that she loved it all -- because it could never be real.

She would always play second fiddle to death.

Julie made the promise to herself to not let Luke complete her because, while she had him for now, the night of the Orpheum was a reminder that the universe would not hesitate to snap it’s fingers and eliminate him from existence.

The universe, being the confusing, stubborn bitch it is, just didn’t get the memo on that promise.

Because Luke filled every crack and restored every gap in her being, and he shouldn’t.

The hopeless, pining romantic in her that constantly argued with her realist side said they were meant to meet. Even if it was brief and heartbreaking and had the power to hurt her in a way she didn’t understand, it had to happen. If it wasn’t supposed to happen, then how and why did he cross space and time only to fall at her feet?

(Soulmates, a taunting voice whispered. Soulmates.)

((The voice was locked in a closet as punishment.))

She didn’t want to entertain the word. It had too much of a forlorn, wistfully romantic sound to it that Julie didn’t need to associate with Luke when she spent most moments with him at this point convincing herself that she wasn’t in love.

Until tonight.

It is past midnight, which is when anyone’s mental state starts to alter. Things that would be labelled as bad ideas in the daylight could very possibly become fair game when shrouded in a darkness that made everything private. The two of them, Luke and Julie, Julie and Luke, are nestled together on the piano bench as her fingers tiredly press each cut of ivory in a working melody.

“I have an idea,” Luke says, gently shifting his left hand to cover hers on the keys. “Why don’t we press pause on this song for a minute?”

Then, she finally looks up at him. Her eyes probably have crescents like the dark side of the moon crossing her skin, and her hair is all over the place, but he’s staring at her in one of the rare ways that she hates.

She hates it because the look convinces her that she completes him.

This time, however, there’s a hope. A hope, and a hesitance, and she’s simultaneously extremely nervous and beyond curious as to what his plans are.

“Did- Didn’t you want to finish this tonight?”

Regret strikes across his face, but he recovers. The softness is back. “Yeah, I just think we need a change of pace.” Right hand on the back of his neck: A telltale sign of a confession of some kind. She’s seen it more times than is healthy. “There was another song I wanted to show you, actually.”

“Oh.” She blinks, he waits. “Yeah, uh, I mean, yeah. Show me. What do you have so far?” He clears his throat as he thrums through the pages to find his target. “The whole thing.”

Julie doesn’t have time to react -- although she’s already in a panic -- before the leather-bound book is being awkwardly shoved into her hands, and the first thing she sees at the top is Luke’s nearly illegible scribble of Dark Room (song for Julie).

“Luke-”

“Just read it.” His voice is significantly raspier than it was a minute ago. “Please.”

She can’t. If he feels the same way and the confession is undeniably in front of her, then what is she supposed to do? Would she rather break Luke’s heart now to save them both down the line, or delay the misery a little longer?

It’s not that she doesn’t want it -- she does. But she doesn’t know if she’s emotionally equipped for any of the options that are offered to her. The destination of any path she chooses leads to a world of heartache.

So, she does the only thing she can think in the moment: She reads the song.

Instantly, the lyrics are blurred from the tears in her eyes because she sees the words “love” and “together” and her greatest fears and grandest wishes are coming true. The sonnet proclaims that she’s his light that illuminated his once-dark forever, and that he was hers when they didn’t even know each other, and that he will be hers wherever he ends up next.

He just wanted her to know that he would have waited another lifetime in the blank, limitless limbo he was in for 25 years if he knew she would be there when he was set free.

And, in the moment, Julie allows herself to acknowledge that her promise is broken.

She’s fallen in love.

And, apparently, he has too.

(Maybe they can claim just one night. The universe owes them that much, doesn’t it?)

“Julie?” God, he sounds so worried. A shaking finger trails up her jaw to catch falling tears, and his contact makes her gasp. He pulls away and shoves his hands together to fidget in his lap. “Julie, are you- Fuck, I’m sorry, I just fucked this up, didn’t I? I fucked it all up. Fuck, I-”

When she chances a look up at him for the first time in the couple of minutes that she’s been staring, hopelessly, at the song in her lap -- he’s got his face covered by his hands pressing roughly into his eyes, and he’s turned to face the piano instead of her.

He takes a deep breath, and it sounds…

Stuffy.

Three more tears leak from Julie’s eyes. More build up every minute as her right hand runs along his shoulder, “Luke…”

“No, Julie, please just drop it.”

“Luke.”

“I clearly misread a lot of stuff, and I’m tired, so maybe you can just go to bed and forget-”

Her hand wraps tightly around his upper arm like it’s done so many times when she has been in distress. “Luke.”

There’s a crack in her voice from sheer desperation. She needs him to look at her, so that she can wipe his tears and smile through the sobs and tell him he didn’t misread a single thing. She would wait a lifetime for him to come out of the dark room, she loves him too, and she’s going to forget all about it.

And ask him to do the same.

At least the scratch of his name catches his attention long enough, because he angles back towards her, and swallows thickly before meeting her eyes. Salty teardrops linger against his eyelids and eyelashes; the red rimming illuminating the oceanic green to look like a gemstone. Her grip relaxes.

“Yeah, Julie?”

She attempts a smile. “The song is beautiful, Luke. I love it.”

I love you.

“That’s it? It’s beautiful, and you love it, but you don’t… I’m not in your dreambox, huh?”

He clearly hasn’t dug through it in awhile. He’s everywhere. Discarded guitar picks and notes he’s left in her school journals and plenty, plenty of songs.

It’s funny, because she told him her dreambox was for things that didn’t make her sad. Luke was a double-edged sword -- making her happy every day in a new way, and making her cry into her pillow at night.

How does she explain this? There’s a whirlwind of responses running through her brain and she can barely coherently comprehend any of them.

“No,” she finds herself sighing as she raises her hand to his cheek, followed by her other hand so that he can’t try and turn away. “No, Luke, no… You’re wrong.”

“What do you mean ‘I’m wrong?’”

Her bottom lip starts to shake. “You think I don’t love you back.” Both of them feel their breath catch at her use of the word out loud. It feels like a secret that shouldn’t be repeated. “And you’re wrong.”

“... I’m wrong.”

“Of course you’re wrong! You really think I don’t love you back?”

“Why are you crying if you love me?”

“Because we can’t do this!”

He scoffs, and Julie’s heart is racing in her chest as he pushes himself off of the piano bench and her hands fall from his face. What has she done?

“That’s bull, Julie.” His fingertips tug at his hair. “You don’t need to make a big dramatic show to convince me it’s wrong just to let me down easy. You aren’t going to talk me out of this.” Dead-on, he stops pacing back and forth, and looks her in the eye. “I love you.”

Listening to him say it, the way his mouth moves and his voice ticks with conviction at each syllable, is what makes her break.

“And I love you too.”

He reels back. He probably wasn’t expecting her voice to raise from their odd, in-between whisper and normal volume.

“But don’t you get it? Luke, we aren't in some magical place where we can meet each other in the middle. A place like that doesn’t exist. You’re dead, and I’m alive, and any future here ends with both of us losing each other.”

“Julie-”

“You said you would wait another lifetime, right?” Using his own lyrics against him. She watches his hands twitch before nodding; the movements of his head barely visible. “Then wait. Another lifetime, another two -- the fucking universe clearly didn’t want us to have this one, so we’re stuck waiting for the next one.”

Even through his clear and fighting need to argue, to talk with her about this, he stiffly nods his head. It’s obvious that she has thought way too much about this from the way she’s barely choking out each word before crumbling into tears before his eyes -- but then again, he’s thought about it too.

Callused hands are running along her neck to tilt her face up out of the blue. She was too busy crying to notice that he had crossed the distance between them to stand right in front of her and assure that she was meeting his eyes.

“Luke-”

“No, Julie, it’s my turn. Please.”

She won’t argue with him. So, with a tender swipe of his thumbs under her eyes, he proceeds.

“Look, I get it. You think I don’t get it? I fucking hate being dead, for so many reasons, Julie. But if I never died, I never would have met you.” Her lips part, and maybe he thinks she’s going to protest because he smoothly lifts a finger in front of her lips that barely makes contact.

(Julie almost presses her lips into it.)

“And you’re right. I wish there was somewhere that we could meet in the middle, but we don’t have that. I wish so many things, Julie. But none of them involve a life where I don’t have you.”

She whimpers, because listening to the man that normally chains his emotions in a cage bare his soul to her at nearly one in the morning is a seriously more out-of-body experience than she expected. She knew, deep down, that she loved him. But she never allowed herself to feel the all-encompassing warmth that she feels now.

“But hey, Julie, look at me,” he coaxes her with a tone that drips with affection. The pads of his fingers are nearly kneading into the back of her neck. “Like you said: The universe didn’t want to give us this lifetime. They couldn’t let us have all the fun, right?” Both of them let out a watery chuckle. “But they still brought me to you, didn’t they? They let me know you in this lifetime, even if we couldn’t have forever. I said I would be yours wherever I am. So even if this,” he gestures to his ghostly form, “isn’t forever, even if we don’t have this lifetime… You know I’ll love you forever, right?”

It was a monologue straight from one of her dreams that left her waking up with a manic smile and tears running down her face.

Unable to form any other response besides an unaware nod, Julie waits for him to continue.

“And maybe, the universe will give us the next lifetime, or a whole new universe, or… Just somewhere where we can get forever.”

Abruptly, his hands slide from her neck and grasp her hands like he needs to hold on firmly enough to believe that she’s still real in front of him. Julie is still speechless and teary, and in the most sentimental gesture, Luke kisses the back of both of her hands.

“We’ll get forever, Julie.” His warm breath puffs against her skin. “I promise you.”

And, well, if he promises forever in the next life -- then why can’t she take what she can get in this one?

tags: @bluefirewrites @willexx @unsaid-emily @lydias--stiles @moreflowersthanweeds @pink-flame

#this will also be posted on ao3 lmao #jatp #julie and the phantoms #juke #jukebox #palina #juke fanfic #jatp fanfic

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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 18, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Hey OP where’s the funny header gif for this post? Sorry, it was murdered by an angst demon and the framing of these shots.

My Found Family Came to Find Me

Continuing our flashback from last time, we see Baby Wei Ying up a tree, refusing to come down because he's afraid there are dogs. Eventually he falls out of the tree, like a dumbass a child, and Yanli tries but fails to catch him.

Unlike his grownup counterpart, Baby Wei Ying doesn't pretend he's unhurt when he is hurt. I'd like to put the change at Yu Ziyuan's door, but actually he admits to being hurt during his Gusu summer - he mimics Lan Zhan's stoicism when they're getting beaten, but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he whines a lot afterwards.

By the time of the Animatronic Dog incident, however, he's laughing off obvious injuries that have secret trauma behind them. By the time he comes back, coreless, from the burial mounds, he won't confide in anyone about his hurts any more, except possibly Wen Qing.

Yanli carries Wei Ying, in a sequence that will be echoed much later in his life when Lan Zhan carries him (gifset here). While they head back, she tells him that Jiang Cheng has a bad temper and to ignore whatever mean things he says. This will also be echoed in the future, when Wei Wuxian says it to Lan Zhan after their argument with Jiang Cheng in the shrine.

Yanli also explains that Jiang Cheng loved his dogs and that he's been very sad since Jiang Fengmian sent them away, demonstrating once again that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father. Yanli says that Jiang Cheng will be happy to have a friend with him, though. This kind of makes Wei Wuxian's role in Jiang Cheng's life "replacement dog."

Jiang Cheng, after getting over this particular snit, got worried about Wei Wuxian and woke up Yanli to find him, and then went wandering around in the dark like a dumbass a child, and is banged up and crying when the other two find him. Yanli encourages him to apologize to Wei Wuxian and he does, which will not happen again until the very end of the show.

They all smile and laugh together, as Wei Ying looks to Yanli to guide him through the insanity that his life has suddenly become.

(more behind the cut!)

They head back to Lotus Pier in a sweet montage of walking and smiling together, with Jiang Cheng carrying the world's most beautiful candle holder with the world's most wind-resistant candle in it, to light their way back. Back in the present day for a brief moment, Jiang Cheng pretends to sleep and listens to his sister insisting that the three of them should always stay together, while a single tear rolls down the side of his face.

Soup is Love, Chapter 1 of 1000

Then we head to the past again. In Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying's now-shared room, Wei Ying sits on the bed trying to figure out how to deal with his grumpy new roommate.

Wei Ying is unsure what to do when confronted with pajama game this strong. Tiny Jiang Cheng is already a fashion king.

Then he tells Jiang Cheng he's not going to narc him out to the clan leader, since it was his own fault that he hurt his leg. This is all Jiang Cheng needs to hear to decide Wei Ying is all right, and he says that he will help Wei Ying chase away dogs in the future. In fact, Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng from punishment basically forever, while Jiang Cheng will continue to threaten Wei Wuxian with dogs...forever.

They shake hands on their new understanding and then jump up and down laughing, Wei Ying's leg being all better now, apparently. When Yanli arrives (carrying a tray of...can you guess? I'll let you guess), they stop jumping. Wei Ying dives in to give Jiang Cheng a little tickle/embrace in an adorable moment that would have me saying "oh, my ovaries!" if I hadn't surgically sent my ovaries to hell a few years ago.

Yanli introduces Wei Ying to the emotional and gustatorial miracle that is her lotus and ribs soup. He hesitates a long time before tucking in because he's so unused to being fed.

Consent? I Don’t Even Know Her

The flashback wraps up with Yanli conked out on the table from the drugs in the incense burner, while Wei Wuxian, who is somehow unaffected despite sitting almost as close to the smoke as she was, checks on her. Jiang Cheng and his Uggs period-appropriate sock thingies get out of bed to come stand with Wei Wuxian, and have feelings about sending Yanli away after she JUST said she doesn't want to be parted from them.

Wei Wuxian: If she didn't want us to do this, she shouldn't have signed that blanket consent-to-medical-treatment form. Jiang Cheng: Wen Qing made me sign one of those plus a durable power of attorney, is that bad?

This episode is all about people overriding each others' agency and making massively important decisions without the consent of the people who will be affected. But in a feudal context, it's not a violation, no matter how it feels to the person being controlled. In feudal life, your body belongs to your lord -- your sect leader, in the world of CQL. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng's choices are overridden by their clan leader's final command to Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian's core is arguably Jiang Fengmian's property--Wei Wuxian certainly sees it that way, just as his hand was Yu Ziyuan's to take if she wished.

The brothers tenderly tuck Yanli into bed in the rolly cart and hand her off to Song Lan. They talk about how important it is to get her to Lanling and that she's probably going to be mad, as they thank Song Lan for helping them.

Yanli listens while she sleeps and, in what is becoming a trademark Jiang move, lets a single tear roll down the side of her face. Jiang Cheng points out that Yanli never gets mad at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is like, true dat.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Song Lan is always so emotional about every damn thing, I love him. Here he's like OH GOD NO DON'T FORMALLY THANK ME! STOP!!!

Then he starts to ask Wei Wuxian to pass a message to Song Xingchen for him, but then decides not to say anything, making it super obvious that they fought and aren't together.

Wei Wuxian reacts to this with confusion and distress, probably because he doesn't want to imagine ever having a breakup with his own soulmate. Which he soon will be having. But possibly he's just upset that his OTP broke up.

After Song Lan takes off, Jiang Cheng gives Wen Qing a rude & perfunctory thank-you bow, turning away before she can return it. Wei Wuxian tells her not to take it to heart - basically everyone who deals with Jiang Cheng gets a version of the "ignore what he says" speech. She says she understands and that in his place she would have behaved worse, which is so totally not true.

Then she asks Wei Wuxian if he's sure about the core transfer (not in so many words, because the script is being kind of being vague about it, without actually hiding what's happening). His reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then he and Jiang Cheng walk off, with Jiang Cheng giving us a rear view that had me googling Wang Zhuocheng's fashion shoots to determine if that wagon he's draggin’ is really as delightful as this belt makes it look. Alas, there is not a wealth of photographic evidence for this research, as compared to, for example, photos of Xiao Zhan's outstanding ass.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning see them off, with Wen Qing wishing they valued their lives more. Although, what she and Wen Ning are doing is massive treason, so their lives will be pretty much forfeit if they're caught, so...

The Sunshot Campaign of Like 60 Dudes

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng walk up the mountain for the whole beginning of the Sunshot campaign, which...okay. Maybe it's like Dunkirk or The Witcher where they intercut stuff that is happening in different timeframes, which is one of my least favorite new film style thingies.

You know, for a guy Wei Wuxian constantly calls "peacock," Jin Ziyuan really doesn't wear a lot of adornment; just some subtle metalwork on his belt with no dangly bits at all, and a single reasonably-sized hair crown. Compared to the extremely fancy Lan Wangji he's almost plain. We already know that Wei Wuxian is a massive hypocrite when it comes to his idea of a perfect boy, however.

So, this is the Lanling Jin army, which consists of literally 60 guys, including the ones on the stairs and Jin Zixuan and Douchebag Dad. How are they going to fight a war with this tiny group? Why do they have such a big plaza? Hasn't anybody on this production learned CGI cloning?

That’s better.

Nie Mingjue and his best bitch Baxia make quick work of the 4 Wen guys who were assigned to hold the Unclean Realm.

Hello, Daddy Da-Ge!

Squeeee, it's Lan Wangji! He's taking back Cloud Recesses! Ooooohhh we've missed you Lan Wangji.

Look guys he's here! Look how beautiful he is. He's looking at the gate of cloud recesses and thinking thoughts that Lan Xichen or Wei Wuxian could probably see in his bewitching eyes if they were here to see him, which they aren't. But at least he is here!

....and now he's gone again. *cries*

Hares On The Mountains

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian continue roaming prettily around this pretty mountainside. The locations in this show are such eye candy.

Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains If I was a young lass I’d soon go a hunting

Jiang Cheng starts to have doubts about the whole Baoshan Sanren thing. Wei Wuxian's reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then we have just the tenderest blindfolding scene, (more gifs here), which is fodder for your ChengXian dreams, if you have those.

Here's a good place for a sidebar about what is and isn't incest. Whee! In the CDrama context, relationships tend to be more clearly defined than in western media. The mechanism of confession & acceptance means that people either are or are not in a romantic relationship, with few grey areas. So a character can literally say "we grew up as brother and sister, but now we are dating" and when someone looks startled they just say "there's no blood relation" and everyone is like "cool cool" and that's the new definition of the relationship.

For a strong example of this, the extremely wonderful Go Ahead is about a contemporary family in which a girl and two boys, who are not blood relatives, are all raised together, and call each other brother and sister. When they become adults, they and everyone around them expect the girl (now a woman) to marry one of the two men who have been her brothers, while whichever one she doesn't choose will carry on as her sibling. It's treated as the most natural, logical thing in the world; the only question is whether she wants to make that transition, and with whom.

Looked at through this lens, Wei Wuxian's relationships with his adoptive siblings have just as much potential to turn into romances as his relationships with his friends do, and there's nothing creepy about it. As such you can expect my meta to always get into ChengXian moments without treating it as a wrong or forbidden love. Hopeless, of course, because Jiang Cheng is such a prick the power of WangXian is stronger, but that's a different matter.

What is wrong is wearing this fantastic hat & veil combination when the most fashionable person on the mountain is blindfolded and can't see it.

In the course of this blindfolded encounter with Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng gets to kneel before a powerful woman, be led along by a length of silk that's placed in his hand, and then knocked the fuck out and operated on. He'll wake up in a hotel room in a tub full of ice with "we took your kidney" written on the mirror in lipstick, and he'll love every minute of it.

Soundtrack: 1. Still Fighting it, by Ben Folds 2. Hares on the Mountain, by Steeleye Span

Writing Prompt: The NEXT time somebody blindfolds Jiang Cheng

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #chengxian #cql #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs

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