#learning photoshop through play
Note
Why reblog machine-generated art?
When I was ten years old I took a photography class where we developed black and white photos by projecting light on papers bathed in chemicals. If we wanted to change something in the image, we had to go through a gradual, arduous process called dodging and burning.
When I was fifteen years old I used photoshop for the first time, and I remember clicking on the clone tool or the blur tool and feeling like I was cheating.
When I was twenty eight I got my first smartphone. The phone could edit photos. A few taps with my thumb were enough to apply filters and change contrast and even spot correct. I was holding in my hand something more powerful than the huge light machines I'd first used to edit images.
When I was thirty six, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo class that used Lightroom Classic and again, it felt like cheating. It made me really understand how much the color profiles of popular web images I'd been seeing for years had been pumped and tweaked and layered with local edits to make something that, to my eyes, didn't much resemble photography. To me, photography is light on paper. It's what you capture in the lens. It's not automatic skin smoothing and a local filter to boost the sky. This reminded me a lot more of the photomanipulations my friend used to make on deviantart; layered things with unnatural colors that put wings on buildings or turned an eye into a swimming pool. It didn't remake the images to that extent, obviously, but it tipped into the uncanny valley. More real than real, more saturated more sharp and more present than the actual world my lens saw. And that was before I found the AI assisted filters and the tool that would identify the whole sky for you, picking pieces of it out from between leaves.
You know, it's funny, when people talk about artists who might lose their jobs to AI they don't talk about the people who have already had to move on from their photo editing work because of technology. You used to be able to get paid for basic photo manipulation, you know? If you were quick with a lasso or skilled with masks you could get a pretty decent chunk of change by pulling subjects out of backgrounds for family holiday cards or isolating the pies on the menu for a mom and pop. Not a lot, but enough to help. But, of course, you can just do that on your phone now. There's no need to pay a human for it, even if they might do a better job or be more considerate toward the aesthetic of an image.
And they certainly don't talk about all the development labs that went away, or the way that you could have trained to be a studio photographer if you wanted to take good photos of your family to hang on the walls and that digital photography allowed in a parade of amateurs who can make dozens of iterations of the same bad photo until they hit on a good one by sheer volume and luck; if you want to be a good photographer everyone can do that why didn't you train for it and spend a long time taking photos on film and being okay with bad photography don't you know that digital photography drove thousands of people out of their jobs.
My dad told me that he plays with AI the other day. He hosts a movie podcast and he puts up thumbnails for the downloads. In the past, he'd just take a screengrab from the film. Now he tells the Bing AI to make him little vignettes. A cowboy running away from a rhino, a dragon arm-wrestling a teddy bear. That kind of thing. Usually based on a joke that was made on the show, or about the subject of the film and an interest of the guest.
People talk about "well AI art doesn't allow people to create things, people were already able to create things, if they wanted to create things they should learn to create things." Not everyone wants to make good art that's creative. Even fewer people want to put the effort into making bad art for something that they aren't passionate about. Some people want filler to go on the cover of their youtube video. My dad isn't going to learn to draw, and as the person who he used to ask to photoshop him as Ant-Man because he certainly couldn't pay anyone for that kind of thing, I think this is a great use case for AI art. This senior citizen isn't going to start cartooning and at two recordings a week with a one-day editing turnaround he doesn't even really have the time for something like a Fiverr commission. This is a great use of AI art, actually.
I also know an artist who is going Hog Fucking Wild creating AI art of their blorbos. They're genuinely an incredibly talented artist who happens to want to see their niche interest represented visually without having to draw it all themself. They're posting the funny and good results to a small circle of mutuals on socials with clear information about the source of the images; they aren't trying to sell any of the images, they're basically using them as inserts for custom memes. Who is harmed by this person saying "i would like to see my blorbo lasciviously eating an ice cream cone in the is this a pigeon meme"?
The way I use machine-generated art, as an artist, is to proof things. Can I get an explosion to look like this. What would a wall of dead computer monitors look like. Would a ballerina leaping over the grand canyon look cool? Sometimes I use AI art to generate copyright free objects that I can snip for a collage. A lot of the time I use it to generate ideas. I start naming random things and seeing what it shows me and I start getting inspired. I can ask CrAIon for pose reference, I can ask it to show me the interior of spaces from a specific angle.
I profoundly dislike the antipathy that tumblr has for AI art. I understand if people don't want their art used in training pools. I understand if people don't want AI trained on their art to mimic their style. You should absolutely use those tools that poison datasets if you don't want your art included in AI training. I think that's an incredibly appropriate action to take as an artist who doesn't want AI learning from your work.
However I'm pretty fucking aggressively opposed to copyright and most of the "solid" arguments against AI art come down to "the AIs viewed and learned from people's copyrighted artwork and therefore AI is theft rather than fair use" and that's a losing argument for me. In. Like. A lot of ways. Primarily because it is saying that not only is copying someone's art theft, it is saying that looking at and learning from someone's art can be defined as theft rather than fair use.
Also because it's just patently untrue.
But that doesn't really answer your question. Why reblog machine-generated art? Because I liked that piece of art.
It was made by a machine that had looked at billions of images - some copyrighted, some not, some new, some old, some interesting, many boring - and guided by a human and I liked it. It was pretty. It communicated something to me. I looked at an image a machine made - an artificial picture, a total construct, something with no intrinsic meaning - and I felt a sense of quiet and loss and nostalgia. I looked at a collection of automatically arranged pixels and tasted salt and smelled the humidity in the air.
I liked it.
I don't think that all AI art is ugly. I don't think that AI art is all soulless (i actually think that 'having soul' is a bizarre descriptor for art and that lacking soul is an equally bizarre criticism). I don't think that AI art is bad for artists. I think the problem that people have with AI art is capitalism and I don't think that's a problem that can really be laid at the feet of people curating an aesthetic AI art blog on tumblr.
Machine learning isn't the fucking problem the problem is massive corporations have been trying hard not to pay artists for as long as massive corporations have existed (isn't that a b-plot in the shape of water? the neighbor who draws ads gets pushed out of his job by product photography? did you know that as recently as ten years ago NewEgg had in-house photographers who would take pictures of the products so users wouldn't have to rely on the manufacturer photos? I want you to guess what killed that job and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't AI)
Am I putting a human out of a job because I reblogged an AI-generated "photo" of curtains waving in the pale green waters of an imaginary beach? Who would have taken this photo of a place that doesn't exist? Who would have painted this hypersurrealistic image? What meaning would it have had if they had painted it or would it have just been for the aesthetic? Would someone have paid for it or would it be like so many of the things that artists on this site have spent dozens of hours on only to get no attention or value for their work?
My worst ratio of hours to notes is an 8-page hand-drawn detailed ink comic about getting assaulted at a concert and the complicated feelings that evoked that took me weeks of daily drawing after work with something like 54 notes after 8 years; should I be offended if something generated from a prompt has more notes than me? What does that actually get the blogger? Clout? I believe someone said that popularity on tumblr gets you one thing and that is yelled at.
What do you get out of this? Are you helping artists right now? You're helping me, and I'm an artist. I've wanted to unload this opinion for a while because I'm sick of the argument that all Real Artists think AI is bullshit. I'm a Real Artist. I've been paid for Real Art. I've been commissioned as an artist.
And I find a hell of a lot of AI art a lot more interesting than I find human-generated corporate art or Thomas Kincaid (but then, I repeat myself).
There are plenty of people who don't like AI art and don't want to interact with it. I am not one of those people. I thought the gay sex cats were funny and looked good and that shitposting is the ideal use of a machine image generation: to make uncopyrightable images to laugh at.
I think that tumblr has decided to take a principled stand against something that most people making the argument don't understand. I think tumblr's loathing for AI has, generally speaking, thrown weight behind a bunch of ideas that I think are going to be incredibly harmful *to artists specifically* in the long run.
Anyway. If you hate AI art and you don't want to interact with people who interact with it, block me.
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When I got to this photo in Katrina's collection of vintage family imagery, I was pretty stumped as to how to approach it.
There is a major problem when you zoom in to 100%.
The paper it was developed on has little micro bumps. When it was scanned, the light from the scanner caused a highlight on one side of the bump and a shadow on the other. This causes a pattern which is nearly impossible to eliminate using traditional techniques.
The easiest way to fix this is actually quite clever. You scan it once, then turn it upside down and scan it again. The second pass reverses the side the highlight and shadow appear on, so you can combine the images in Photoshop and blend them together, essentially canceling out the bumps. It's weirdly analogous to noise canceling headphones.
But I don't have access to the physical copy of this image.
So... now what?
Enter Fast Fourier Transform or FFT.
This is a filter that uses extra fancy math to recognize patterns in the image and eliminate them. There is a pretty good filter for Photoshop, but it does not work easily with newer Macs with Apple Silicon. I really did not want to figure that out, and I also was too tired to go downstairs to my PC. However, I learned that a Photoshop competitor, Affinity Photo, has this filter built in. So, I downloaded a trial copy and started the process of trying to figure out how to fix this image.
It was amazingly simple. It brings up these star patterns and you just paint black circles over every one but the center. It literally felt like magic. (Full screen with sound recommended)
So once I did this process I ended up with this...
The paper still had a rough texture but it was much easier to work with using traditional techniques. I started with a black and white conversion and meticulously went through the photo zapping scratches and flaws and balancing tones and sharpening facial features. All of my photo restoration tricks were needed.
I eventually landed here...
I then thought maybe I should match the sepia tone of the original print, so I got to here...
I think the black and white looks nicer in this instance, but I always like having options and this is the most faithful representation of how the photo originally looked.
But there is something else I have been playing around with lately. Photoshop has these experimental neural filters that use cloud processing to do various tricky enhancements. Most of them are in beta and they can be very quirky. But they have a colorizer that tries to detect people and things and adds color to them. Not every black and white photo is a good candidate. I have found these professional portrait photos work decently, but the filter is very hit-and-miss. And there are tools within the filter to help you make a miss more of a hit, but often I have to accept the photo isn't going to work.
But I decided to give it a shot with this one and surprisingly, the colorizer got me most of the way there.
I can work with that.
The one thing it does well is skin. Manually painting color onto skin is tricky and requires more skill and knowledge of traditional painting techniques than I have. But if a filter can do that part for me, I can do the rest.
So after my touchups, I got the image to here.
All I have left to do is my standard color enhancements to make them a little less ghostly and a little more human.
And I present to you where I started and the finished product. I encourage you to flip back and forth.
I'm not sure how, but I was able to go from an image I thought was impossible to edit to a beautiful colorized memory for my best friend's mom. I cannot wait to show her.
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Behind The Screen
[TWST AU]: Self-Aware AU, but with logical takes.
[Synopsis]: In this timeline, MC/Yuu/[Y/N] was playing TWST one day and then something off-putting happens.
[TW]: Mild cursing
[(A/N)]: I know. This AU has been done multiple times with most of them being…possessive. I decided to try the concept, but with my own take on it. Also MC/Yuu/[Y/N] is around 16-18 years old in this AU.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N] is just your ordinary gamer who loves the game, Disney: Twisted Wonderland.
They played that game almost everyday ever since it was first released.
They get to experience everything from leveling up the characters (especially their favorites who may or may not be bias towards) to collecting items.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N] fell in love with the storyline and laugh at the humor whenever something ironic and sarcastic happens.
All fun and literal games until one day something happens.
As MC/Yuu/[Y/N] logs into TWST and expected a character greeting them with a gift each day, there wasn’t anybody on the screen.
They thought it’s probably a glitch. It happens.
Shrugging off the weird occurrence, they continue the game as usual, leveling up the characters and winning in battles.
As they were reading through a chapter, something slips up.
Ace Trappola, everyone’s favorite little bastard accidentally mentioned how MC/Yuu/[Y/N] look stupidly cute today with their new haircut.
They freaked out a little.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Okay. I may need more sleep or did I hear Ace right about my looks for today?
Ace: *Sweatdrops*
Deuce: *Whispers* Ace, say your line. You’ll blow our cover.
Ace: *Whispers back* You too, Dunce-face. You’ll get us in trouble.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: …I’m not dealing with this shit.
Ace: No wait-
They exit out of the game and starts texting to a friend of theirs asking advice on what to do with a possibly possessed app game operated by the Japanese branch of the huge corporation.
[MC/Yuu/[Y/N]’s Bedroom]
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Okay, that’s it. I’m reporting this to the development team and possibly FBI because what kind of sick game is this?
Riddle: No wait! Prefect!
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Don’t “Prefect” me! I know how this shit goes, and it ends badly.
Lilia: Oh dear. You read too many Yandere fics, haven’t you.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: …How do you know that?
Ace: Duh! It’s obvious. We’re in your phone. We sometimes sneak into your search history.
Jack: I’m afraid to ask questions about your…free time.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: You don’t have to know, Jack.
Vil: You need a better wallpaper, honestly. Who edited this abomination?
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Uhh…I did the wallpaper.
Vil: …You need to work on your photoshop skills.
[MC/Yuu/[Y/N]’s Bedroom]
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: You’re telling me you listened to everything I spoke about this past year?
Riddle: Unfortunately, yes.
Leona: You cursed at us for being “too handsome” and “how stubborn” we can be.
Azul: Let’s not forget you spilled some secrets nobody else would know. You still sleep with a stuffed dolphin after 4.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Luckily nobody ask for my phone.
Kalim: Your world sounds a lot of fun to learn about. I always wonder what it’s like outside with no magic involved.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Believe my words, it’s not pretty.
Vil: I heard you talked about some fashion brands. Louis Vuitton?
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Yeah…That and other brands are expensive as Hell here.
Idia: I was wondering about your Otaku culture…
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Oh! There is enough to talk about with new anime and manga coming out everyday.
Malleus: *Peeks into images of Gargoyles*
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Tsunotarou? What are you doing on Google Images?
Malleus: Oh. Forgive me, Child of Man. I was curious about your device.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Nah, it’s fine. Just be careful when you’re searching for something.
[MC/Yuu/[Y/N]’s Bedroom]
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: *Fanning over a character* Jesus Christ! I can’t with this guy!
[Insert an image of Yoru from Valorant.]
[(A/N): I couldn’t help myself.]
Deuce: Huh? Hey, isn’t he from-
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Oh, yeah. I sometimes dabble into Valorant and he’s one of my mains.
Ace: So your type is the edgy bad boy type~?
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Don’t even try, Ace.
Ace: *Threw his hands up in defense* What? It’s not like I can leave here.
MC/Yuu/[Y/N]: Touché.
✨[Reblogs helps creators and creates for more content]💫
#disney twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland#twst#twst au#TWST Self-Aware#Self-Aware AU#twisted wonderland mc#twst mc#twisted wonderland yuu#twst yuu#twisted wonderland headcanons#twst headcanons#twisted wonderland x reader#twst x reader
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Yandere Stardew Valley- Sebastian
I've been playing some Yandere Stardew mods recently. While I love them..... I feel like they do my husband (Sebastian) wrong. The citizens of Pelican Town are telling me that they can't hang out with me because Sebstian threatened them. That they've noticed some weird behavior. That he's physically violent. I disagree with all of these for Sebby.
He's our hot programmer boyfriend who lives in his basement bedroom, and only emerges to enjoy a smoke break, or to go see his friends. Now, while again, I do enjoy playing the mods...... I think his cannon behavior sets him up to be the perfect chronically online yandere. Pelican Town isn't exactly the most connected (6 out of the 11 rivals have access to a computer), but there's still potential. Obviously they're gonners if they have a computer. Sam finds himself doxed after making a comment about the gifts you gave him this week, and poor Haley's socials are blowing up with hate comments- from her personal insta to her photography blog.
But what about the other 5? The ones who are more disconnected? Well. It's easy enough to get Shane fired from joja. A little email to Morris from "HQ" saying he either fires Shane or his own pay gets docked..... well. Suddenly, everyone's favorite alcoholic doesn't even have a job anymore. Elliott suddenly has all these taxes he hasn't paid on his little shack..... beachfront properties cost a lot, you know. The parents stop letting Penny watch their kids after some..... explicit photos get leaked. It doesn't matter that they're edited. These people don't know about Photoshop. All they know is apparently Penny's making ends meet to support her mother..... and there's a new favorite subject to gossip on between all the older women. The other rivals are equally taken care of. All you need to focus on now is how Sebastian is the only reliable option in the whole damn town.
And he knows you so well, doesn't he? You, who lived away from it all until now. You, who WAS connected to the internet. Who had their entire life detailed through Facebook updates and Instagram posts. Honestly, Sebastian thinks that maybe he DOESN'T need to leave Pelican town... looking at the life you lived before coming to the valley, he thinks its much easier to keep you safe when he can control everything that goes on. There were too many factors to your old life. Too many parties to go to, coworkers to talk to, ex-boyfriends/girlfriends worry about. No. Sebastian thinks that city life isn't fit for the two of you to start you life together.
While he enjoyed seeing the trip down memory lane of who you were before becoming the farmer, and learning more about your likes and dislikes, he much prefers this version of you. The version of you who he found bouncing on their toes outside his door, excitedly shoving a frozen tear at him. Who eventually became the only person he was genuinely excited to have come barging into his room unannounced. And the thought of moving into the farm with you was all together far too tempting. He can picture it already. He'd set up a little area to work on his bike, he'd help out around the farm for you (he saw your hands covered in scrapes and splinters one day, and you sheepishly told him your fences had started wearing down.... but fixing a fence was another first for you. So you ended up scraping yourself up a bit on the old wood. Now, Sebastain, who, while he doesn't enjoy it, grew up with a carpenter mother..... well. He's going to make sure you never have that many splinters again.) Oh and he can already imagine it. The two of you, far away from the rest of the town, from prying eyes, no one to hear what you two would get up to as he helped you relax after a long day of working the feilds.....
This fantasy would sustain him until you eventually asked him to marry you. I don't think he would rush anything. To you, and the rest of the citizens, he was just normal Sebastian. Showing up for band practice, playing pool at the bar (although he seemed to play much better when a certain farmer came to watch). He just realized that the best way to control all the factors in town would be to remain anonymous. Avoid suspicion. After all. In a small town like that, it would be all too easy to turn against him if he decided to publicly threaten someone. And how would you react if you came to drop off some fresh sashimi to your boyfriend, only to find him being dragged out of his house by Clint, with Marlon standing nearby, ready to ship him off to face justice in the adventurers guild? No. That wouldn't do. He can't add any more stress to you like that. He'd remain the puppeteer, pulling the strings of the valley.
This isn't to say Sebastian never stalks you in person or anything like that. He can't help himself. He's a night owl. He knows the villagers schedules, has since before you even came to town. So, he knows he can get away with digging in the trash to find the straw you threw away at the bar. And if someone does hear him.... well. Linus is going to be everyone's first thought. He does, however, start adopting a stricter routine as far as monitoring your house after you mention how you sell your produce.
Sebastian was rightfully horrified when you explained that Mayor Lewis comes by your farm at night to collect anything you wish to sell. How it's such a relief to be able to just chuck things in the the bin as you're rushing to bed at 1:50 in the morning, only to get up first thing and start your day again, and not have to worry about lugging all your goods to the store. Sebastian won't criticize you for the lack of sleep..... no. That's not what's worrying. What's worrying is that this old man who has a gold statue of himself and who gets it on in the bushes with his secret girlfriend (of course Sebastian knows about that) is showing up to your house sometime after 2 am. His mind flashes back to his fantasy of the two of you, completely alone on the farm.... and then is mortified as this fantasy morphs into a nightmare where he looks up from bed with you, and sees Lewis' wrinkled face peering through the window. Yea. No. Sebastain installs some hidden cameras to make sure Lewis doesn't get up to anything funny while you're defenseless, asleep, alone..... ok he might need to get a new mayor elected. The old man might just have to go. Perhaps to a home outside the town. Regardless, he makes sure Lewis stops coming by as frequently. Frustratingly, he isn't able to completely stop it, but that'll be an easy fix once the two of you are married. He'll act surprised, "wow Lewis, that's so kind of you to help out the farmer all this time. But hey, don't worry, I'll take over. I'm up late anyways, and it's the least I can do!" But Sebastian still wakes up in a cold sweat and frantically rushes to check the cameras, making sure you're OK. That Lewis really is just checking the shipping bin.
Once y'all get married, he shows a bit more of that possessive side to you. But you chalk it up to just bedroom spicy time, and honestly find his hand tightening on your waist as Elliot asks you to read his latest poem hot.
Just. Yandere Sebastian brain rot.
#yandere#yandere stardew valley#yandere blog#yandere imagine#tw yandere#obsessive yandere#stardew valley#yandere sebastian
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love love LOVE your The Sign gifsets. im still a newbie in giffing lmao and your gifs are like reaaally pretty so i was wondering how you do your gifs? i really like how it's sharp and the colors pop up beautifully (only if you don't mind sharing ofcc <333)
bun this is the kindest thing you could have said to me, thank you so much <3 i wanted to write down my giffing process for a while in case anyone would find anything in it helpful, so thanks for giving me a push!
guzhu-furen's photoshop gifmaking process (kinda oriented on saving up time)
from
to
1. Downloading a video. i prefer to download video files instead of making screen recordings because the latter usually leaves watermarks/captions and makes image quality lower. i will not be linking the downloading websites themselves directly, but they are all easy to find through search engines if you know what to search for! i download ql dramas from:
youtube:
if the video you need is above 1080p quality, search for youtube4kdownloader
if the video is age restricted, search for 9xbuddy
both these websites work for normal videos too!
mkvdrama usually has 1080p episodes of most asian dramas.
dramacool also has downloading options in case the show is not available on other websites!
2. Screencapping (i learned it through this tutorial)
i screencap using KMPlayer. here is the installer i used, but you can find versions of this program on various websites and torrents too! install the program and proceed.
screencapping steps: open KMPlayer > press "CTRL + G" to summon the Frame Extraction window > set identical settings to these:
note which computer folder the screencaps will go to (it has a label "Extract to") > go to that folder on your computer and create a bunch of numbered folders there, for example ten folders named from 1 to 10, these would be our separate folders for ten gifs > write "1" or a name of another numbered folder after the backslash in "Extract to" bar in kmplayer > go the timestamp that will be the beginning of your gif in KMPlayer > press "Start" in the Frame Extraction window and press play on the video > when the moment you need to gif is over, press pause on the video and press "Stop" in the Frame Extraction window. great, you now have your folder of screencaps!
3. Importing screencaps to Photoshop
i use Adobe Photoshop 2023, but had used Adobe Photoshop CS5 for a long time before that, so you can use any version you have or find! it's available on various websites and torrents.
open Photoshop > Scripts > Load Files into Stack > press Browse in the "Load Layers" window that was opened
open your screencaps folder (and pin the KMPlayer Capture folder for faster future access) > pick the screencaps you want for your gif by clicking on the first one, and then clicking on the finishing one while pressing Shift on the keyboard > click OK and let them load for some time! i have 65 screencaps loading at the moment
when the screencaps finish loading go to Window > press Timeline > press Create Video Timeline in the opened sidebar > press three dots that will say "Convert to frame animation"
4. Sizing & making the base of a gif
next part will be automatic. i use actions for almost everything from this moment. download the basic action pack here and my additional action pack that we will need here. load them in your photoshop actions window (Actions > Load Actions).
play the Script action to create frames.
now onto sizing your gif. these are tumblr's width dimensions for 3 types of gifs
my gifs are usually 540 px in width and 640, 400 or 345 px in height. i added a 400 px action (Sizing 400) in the action pack, you can use it! or you can follow the steps by hand:
Image > Image Size > put in the height you want and add 4-6 pixels there (mine will be 406 for a 400 px high gif) > OK
now we need to crop the gif for it to fit tumblr's dimensions:
Image > Canvas Size > change Width to 540 (or 268 or 177) and take away the 4-6 pixels that we left in the previous step in Height
when you figure out which gif dimensions work best for you, record an action and use it to save up time!
after sizing use the action Smart Object. now we have the base of our gif!
you can move your gif left or right if you want! i will be doing this because i would like to show more hips in the gif.
press Ctrl + T > move the layer however you need (not in height though) > press Enter to save
i moved it to the right and my gif looks like this now:
5. Sharpening (i use Tan's sharpening settings explained here)
i added two sharpening actions in the pack, they are called Sharpen Spicy and Sharpen Spicy 12. you can use one of them or you can sharpen your gif by hand, i will explain how to do it below.
Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen > 500% amount, 0,2 px radius > OK
Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen > 17% amount, 10,0 px radius > OK (you can change 17% to lesser or bigger, depending how intense you want your sharpening to look. i use 17% for 4k footage and 12% for 1080 px or less videos)
to smooth the sharpening a bit i use Gaussian Blur (this is optional, you can leave the sharpening as it is if you want your gif to be sharper).
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius 1,0 pixels > OK
now change blending intensity to let only a bit of the blurring effect stay (you need to change this by hand if you used the sharpening action also).
press Blending Options (the highlighted place) twice > change Opacity to 10%
this is what my gifs looks like with sharpening now!
6. Colouring (i learned how to colour the way i do through this tutorial)
to make it easier for you to learn i will share my blank colouring file. i created it to save as much time while giffing as possible, so whenever i need to colour a gif i simply duplicate all the blank adjustment layers to the base of my every gif and start colouring! once you figure out which adjustment layers work for you best, i recommend creating a blank colouring file too to save time.
if you want to go the easy way, open my colouring file and duplicate selected layers to your gif file by Layer > Duplicate Layer > insert gif's document name
if you want to learn by hand, create the adjustment layers that i will be naming in the process on your own, you can find them all in Layer > New Adjustment Layer
now we will use adjustment layers for our colouring from the bottom to the top! first, Exposure layer to add a bit of light to the gif. i don't always use Exposure because sometimes shots are bright enough on their own. i will, however, use it here. don't use it on your gif too much, because in the next few steps we will also be brightening the gif with other adjustment layers. i added +0,49:
next, Hue/Saturation layer. i use it in gifs with neon lighting to color correct overly bright colours. for example if your characters are standing in neon pink, you might want to lessen Saturation in Magentas and Reds to make the final gif less pixelated, and etc. i will not use Hue/Saturation on this gif, cause it doesn't need it.
proceed to the layer Levels. this layer usually does most of my colouring. click on the lowest white dropper in your Levels window:
now choose a light place on your gif and click on it with the white dropper. it works especially well if you use the white dropper on the lightened parts of face skin. you can play around by choosing different bright spots and seeing what works best. here is the spot i chose and the resulting colouring:
this is too light, so now we need to balance it out with the black dropper:
choose one of the darkest places this time and click it with black dropper! once again, you can play around and click different spot to see what works best. i will be clicking the highlighted spot and you can see what my gif will look like with this Levels settings
as you can see, darkest places became darker and other colours were corrected a bit! now, this is still too bright, so i will be decreasing the opacity of Levels layer from 100% to a smaller number:
i will have to continue in another post because tumblr only allows 30 pictures per one post in the new editor now and i'd like to explain everything in visuals. click to continue
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No, but think about putting SaShiSu in an Avatar: The Last Airbender AU... 🥴
Waterbender!Gojo, Waterbender Healer!Ieiri and Firebender!Geto Imagines😭 Hear me out!
They go on adventures together, get in trouble together.
Plus, if SatoSugu friendship blossoms into romance, it's so Romeo and Juliet-coded ✨💖
I like the idea of the three of them being childhood best friends.
Imagine this takes place during peace time, and there's no war (YET), and it's just the four nations being normal.
So Satoru, Shoko, and Suguru definitely met as children during an official visit to each other's country or something.
Suguru Geto is Fire Nation nobility who knows a thing or two about manipulating body heat and more...
🔥 Listen... It's the bun istg... Because why does his hairstyle remind me of Ozai, lowkey?
🔥 He's a talented firebender, martial artist, and adept scholar.
🔥 His mom and dad are political figures and I imagine his mom is a lady-in-waiting to the Fire Lord's wife, while Suguru's father actually sits in the Fire Lord's council. The man is an admiral in the Fire Lord's navy.
🔥 Suguru would be a nerd about Wan Shi Tong's library. 🦉
🔥 Suguru would be good at war strategy. It comes from his obsession with Pai Sho.
🔥 You know, his uncle may or may not rope him into joining the Order of the White Lotus at some point in his life.
🔥 Suguru in RED Fire Nation armor~ 🥹🥴🤤
🔥 Also, if I was skilled in photoshop, I will not be above photoshopping Suguru's head on top of Ozai's body. As in, I just need that image of Suguru Geto as a Fire Lord. 😩
Shoko Ieiri is a talented and renowned waterbender for her healing prowess and knowledge in human anatomy.
💧 She is from the Northern Water Tribe, like Gojo, and was raised alongside Satoru, so they're basically siblings.
💧 Her knowledge of human anatomy is unmatched. As in, yes, there are skilled waterbending healers, but Shoko is iconic because she goes beyond practicing healing on human mannequins. Our girl does autopsies and often ponders how the human body works. She's a legit doctor, okay?
💧 She practiced healing on Satoru a lot while they were growing up too, because Satoru acquired plenty of scrapes and bruises and dislocated bones through the years. He was a rambunctious child who had way too much power in his menace-causing hands. (more on Satoru later).
💧 What Satoru lacks in healing prowess, Shoko makes up for in buckets and buckets.
💧 Shoko is a decent waterbender in combat, but she would really rather her two friends do most of the fighting.
💧 Not like Satoru or Suguru would let her on the field that much anyway. She's too valuable to risk. Shoko knows it and plays that up to her advantage A LOT.
💧 Aside from escaping the arranged marriage her parents set up for her, Shoko eagerly ran away from home with Satoru at 18 in pursuit of scholars who eagerly studied human anatomy like her.
💧 Shoko is interested in how the other nations tend to their wounded and sick when they can't find a waterbending healer.
Satoru Gojo is blessed by the spirit of the moon and the ocean.
🌊🌕 He is literally Yue 2.0, but better! Still the Honored One in any universe. 😍 The white hair and blue eyes... Need I say more?
🌊🌕 Okay, so... I'm thinking... Satoru Gojo in ATLA universe is just like his JJK counterpart. He was highly favored by the spirits from the moment he was born.
🌊🌕 His parents look like typical Northern Water Tribe people. Dark-haired. Satoru is the only one in the family who is pale and white-haired.
🌊🌕 He's a Prince, of course... Prince Satoru of the Northern Water Tribe sounds hell'a good.
🌊🌕 He grew up sheltered, he's a waterbending prodigy, and he's still a menace.
🌊🌕 Gojo is also definitely a blood-bender, but I like to think he learns that skillset later on in their adventures or something (kind'a like how Katara learned it, but with less guilt). Also, Choso definitely taught him right?
🌊🌕 Satoru does not know how to heal other people. It's one of his greatest flaws. He can heal himself just fine, but using water to seek out illness and heal it for other people? Yeah... He sucks at that... (Not different from JJK in other words, where Gojo can't output Reverse Cursed Technique to heal other people. He only knows how to use RCT on himself).
Their Adventure Backstory...
➼ At 18, Satoru starts to get antsy about seeing the world and whatnot. He's sick of the family politics and the arranged marriages about to be shoved down his throat.
➼ Shoko is in the same boat. If the arranged marriages are suffocating for a prince, it's even worse for a talented young woman of noble birth.
➼ Shoko's situation is what pushes Satoru to say "Fuck it!" and run away from home.
➼ So against their parents' wishes, these 2 reckless teenagers devise a plan to run away for a much needed world tour. Satoru's reasoning is that they won't be gone forever... He and Shoko will come back eventually.
➼ First destination in mind: the Fire Nation... to see Suguru and rope him into their grand plans, of course!
➼ Satoru and Shoko steal a ship from the Water Tribe fleet and go on their merry way. (I like to think they got there fast because Satoru was manipulating the water underneath the ship to propel them faster to where they need to go).
➼ By the time they reach the Fire Nation, word has already spread of the Northern Water Tribe's runaway Prince.
➼ Shoko thinks Satoru is being stupid, but hey, according to Satoru, "What can my parents do about it at this point?"
➼ Sure, Satoru is a highly valued individual that could fetch a high price if kidnapped by pirates (he's a Prince, after all), but he's also an insanely powerful waterbender and combatant. I'm sure he'd say something like, "I don't need my bending to win."
➼ Satoru and Shoko make it to the Fire Nation unscathed, meet up with Suguru, and convince him to come along on a grand adventure.
➼ They switch out the Water Tribe ship for something a little more discreet from Suguru's own father's fleet. (Side-eye the kiddies using their parents' resources carelessly to do whatever they want. 😆 They're nepo-babies... all 3 of them.)
➼ I like to think Suguru's parents don't mind though. His mom, in particular, thinks it's a good idea for Suguru to go out and see the world and shit.
➼ Where are they going? Satoru didn't actually know.
➼ Suguru suggests a visit to the legendary knowledge spirit's library, since he's a nerd about that, but also, Shoko wants to see if she can find anything that indulges her curiosity. So that's where they're headed first.
➼ It would be a cute idea for a coming-of-age story... where SaShiSu grow up through the experiences they've had and they realize they have responsibilities to attend to or something.
➼ Because as much as they would want to, there's no such thing as traveling the world as nomads forever. Satoru is a Prince, and Shoko and Suguru are of noble birth. They have stuff to do...
➼ OR... OR... OR.... They're 3 stupid teenagers who ran away from home right on the brink of a war happening. Like, they had no idea conflict was rising, so shit hits the fan and Suguru just receives word from his father via messenger hawk, telling him to come home because there is a war.
It's embarrassing how I'm thinking about their combat prowess + the trouble the three of them get into too...
➼ Gojo and Geto enhance each other's combat. They're so in sync.
➼ Of course, they started out pretty rough... Water vs Fire and all that.. But as they train together more and inevitably encounter situations where they had to fight their way out, they learn to work together and be so in sync.
➼ Watching them fight each other, or fight alongside one another is a treat. It's like a dance -- a perfectly choreographed movement of legs and limbs.
➼ Suguru's fire can burn hot enough to evaporate water. It burns hot enough to destroy tightly packed walls of stone. He is not a stranger to carrying out executions on the most heinous criminals in the Boiling Rock, so yes, Suguru has burned a man alive and/or electrocuted a criminal in prison in the name of justice.
➼ Satoru is the perfect support to Suguru when Suguru launches a lightning attack.
➼ At some point in their adventures, Suguru pointed out how Satoru could try sucking moisture out of plants or draw water from the air and Satoru figures it out.
➼ I like to think Shoko put the idea of bloodbending in Satoru's head. It was a hypothetical thought that led to Satoru actually trying to figure it out and eventually running into someone who does that.
➼ It all started with Shoko randomly saying, "Hey, did you know that water takes up 3/4 of the human body?" as they sat around their campfire one night.
➼ Also... something something shenanigans happen where Satoru keeps waterbending boiling water out of a pot to fling at something -- the little shit that he is.
➼ After they left the Northern Water Tribe, Satoru has become Shoko's impromptu combat waterbending teacher.
➼ Shoko always complains about it during training days because Satoru HAS NO CHILL. He's also banking on the fact that Shoko can heal herself, so he finds little use in holding back.
➼ Shoko and Satoru have definitely pulled water-based pranks on Suguru multiple times. This is gross, but.... piss-bending. Satoru did it once as a prank. 🤢🤮
➼ On a brighter note, Satoru definitely makes silly water sculptures/giant puppets in the middle of the ocean for his and his companions' begrudging entertainment. Suguru and Shoko roll their eyes at it, but honestly, it's kinda cute when a water serpent or a water squid rises out of the sea to greet their ship once in a while. Yeah, it scares the shit out of ocean wildlife and maybe nearby ships and such, but at least Satoru is having fun. 🥴😁 (the unhinged wittle baby)
➼ Shoko thinks the Moon and the Ocean Spirits regret blessing the Prince when he was born. Suguru agrees...
➼ But hey, they make each other proud in their own ways.
➼ Shoko once stalled their trip and stayed in a remote fishing town for a week to heal the sick, and Satoru and Suguru were there as her assistants. (Satoru was complaining about the poor amenities and Suguru had to remind him all over again that though he was raised in a noble household, it was his duty to protect and care for those who cannot do that for themselves).
➼ Satoru once helped mediate a political issue that was severely affecting several neighboring towns in the Earth Kingdom.
➼ Suguru cracked a criminal case that was unsolved for months in a town in the Fire Nation, and was personally responsible for delivering the serial killer to the Boiling Rock. (Satoru saw the boiling lake and definitely played around with it, much to the chagrin of Suguru and Suguru's uncle).
Side note for my peeps who are familiar with ATLA lore:
You know how they say no prisoner has ever escaped the Boiling Rock? Suguru told Satoru and Shoko about that, and Satoru definitely bets that he could do it.
Prince Satoru argues it's only because, "None of you waterbend."
They're visitors to the high security prison, but it doesn't stop Satoru from doing dumb stuff, like sneaking out without alerting the guards.
To prove his point, Satoru did what Sokka and Zuko did to escape the Boiling Rock: Use a cooler as a boat.
So in the dead of night, Suguru, Satoru, and Shoko do it, and Satoru successfully ferries the three of them across the Boiling Lake.
Afterwards, Suguru's like, "You've proven your point, Satoru. Let's head back."
Satoru is laughing and flashing his friends that cheesy, cocky grin he's known for and brags, "'No one escapes the Boiling Rock, highest security Fire Nation prison' my ass. All you needed was a waterbender!"
Shoko rolls her eyes at her friend's antics and speaks to him in a matter-of-fact voice, "Sure, but it wouldn't make sense for waterbenders to be kept here anyways or to be stuffed in coolers as punishments. It's meant to hold a firebender, not for people from the Water Tribe... and especially not for you."
Suguru is smirking at them both, "Theoretically speaking, precautions would be in place to prevent you from bending water. So that means pumping dry air and probably suspending your hands and feet before you're given anything to drink."
Shoko was nodding. "It'll take more than getting stuffed in a cooler for you to escape actually, so this little plot proves nothing, Satoru."
They got caught regardless because they lingered on the edge of the Boiling Lake on the opposite end of the island for far too long, and a watchman saw them and alerted Suguru's uncle.
Needless to say, SaShiSu were thoroughly scolded when they made it back to the prison.
Satoru's paying for damages to one of the dismantled coolers that were used as boats.
➼ I seriously need to stop, but yo...
Somebody please write a JJK X ATLA AU for real... 🙏
#jujutsu kaisen#avatar the last airbender#jjk x atla#jjk x atla au#sashisu#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#geto suguru#suguru geto#shoko ieiri#ieiri shoko#wbad blog#wbad fanfiction
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My Pretty Girl ♡
Idol! Seungmin × afab reader (established relationship)
Seungmin comes home one day, exhausted from a full day of recording and tiring choreographies, to see y/n crying. Being the concerned boyfriend he is, of course he immediately approaches and asks her what's wrong...
CW: Mentions of insecurities, reader was a victim of bullying and is extremely insecure of their appearance, suggestive(???), fluff
Seungmin sighed in relief as he stepped into the apartment, the heated interior providing a pleasuring contrast to the chilly weather outside. After a long day of recording new tracks and learning vigorous dance choreographies, he was looking forward to coming home and spending time with you, his favourite person (not counting the 7 Idiots that he worked with on a daily basis).
He walked into the living room, surprised that the lights were off. Usually when he came home late from his idol job, you would be up watching a movie or playing video games, nevertheless awaiting his arrival home. He shrugged off his winter jacket, squinting through his brown fringe as he glanced around the apartment.
"Y/N? I'm home!"
Silence. Seungmin furrowed his eyebrows, clearly confused.
"Y/N?"
His sensitive ears perked up at a small sound coming from your shared room down the hallway. He quietly padded over to the entrance, and looked round the slightly ajar door. The confusion on his face turned to shock when he recognised your silhouette shaking underneath the covers on your shared king-sized bed, accompanied by muffled sobs. He immediately strided over to the bed, sitting down next to your hidden figure and bending over to hug the lump of blankets that was you. You, on the other hand, snapped out of your sobbing trance the moment you felt your boyfriend's familar weight on you. You quickly ducked out from under the blankets, subtly using the back of your hand to wipe at your face. You threw back the covers and came face-to-face with Seungmin's dark, puppy-like eyes.
"Seungie? You're home earlier than usual..."
"What d'you mean? It's nearly midnight. I always come home around this time on weekdays?"
Your breath hitched at his words. Have you been crying for that long? You unknowingly started fidgeting with your nails, which were short and chewed down. Seungmin noticed this, and lightly gripped your wrists to stop you. Your teary eyes met his once more.
"Y/N, did something happen? Why were you crying?"
"...I wasn't crying."
"Don't lie to me, pup. Your eyes are red and still teary, and I could hear you just now."
Your gaze dropped, and you continued to stare silently at your hands in his larger, warmer ones. Nothing could ever get past Kim Seungmin, you knew that. Yet you still tried to hide things from him. You were snapped out of your thoughts by Seungmin's voice again.
"Why were you crying?"
"I...I just happened to come across some old screenshots from high-school, while I was clearing my gallery storage...it was screenshots of some old messages and photos that these girls in my class had sent to each other...they were all making fun of me and trash-talking me..."
Hot tears sprouted at your eyes as you recalled the cruel text messages and crudely photoshopped images of you from nearly a decade ago. Seungmin was quiet. Did he think you were being oversensitive, or something? Your heart almost jumped to your throat when he spoke.
"What...what did they say about you?"
"I don't know...they were calling me ugly, and...and making fun of my appearance...whatever, its fucking stupid, I know I'm overreacting-"
"You're not ugly."
You looked back up at your boyfriend, tears already starting to slide down your face at the painful memories. He kept a firm grip on your wrists, moving one hand to your shoulder to pull you into his chest.
"What?"
"I said, you're not ugly, Y/N. I tell you that you're the most gorgeous and sweetest girl I've ever met, everyday. Even if people still say bad things about you now, I'll stick by your side and defend you, because I love you and cherish the person you are on the inside-out, okay? You may not see it that way, but I do. You may find it hard to accept, but that's why I'm here."
He leaned down to your eye-level, flashing his signature dorkily adorable grin.
"You're probably not feeling too good about yourself now, aren't you?"
"No, Seungie..."
"Okay. Then let me remind you that you're anything but ugly, and that whoever says otherwise, I'll find them and beat them into their senses."
"...Seungie, you don't work out."
"...okay, I'll call Changbin-hyung to deal with them."
Your pout spread into a smile as your laughter filled the room. Seungmin smiled in satisfaction and cupped your face.
"There's that smile. My pretty girl's smile."
A blush made its way to your already flushed face as his thumb swiped over the remaining tears on your face.
"Even if you want to cry, don't cry alone. You're too beautiful for that. Promise me whenever you feel down, you'll tell me right away. You know I'll do whatever I can for you, right, pup?"
You nodded at his words, and he leaned back. He seemed satisfied.
"So, is there anything else you'd like your amazing and loving boyfriend to do to cheer you up?"
"Could you...would you help me forget those girls from high-school?"
Seungmin raised an eyebrow, taking a second to realise what you were asking for. A cheeky smirk appeared on his face as he pushed you onto your back, leaning down to graze your ear with his teeth. You sighed in relief as he peppered reassuring kisses down your neck and your exposed collarbone under your unbuttoned collar. Memories of your bullies and your insecurities evaporated into thin air as Seungmin got to work on you...
Hahahshshshshs idk where I was going with this 💀😭 I wasn't feeling too well about a similar bullying situation in school that happened recently, and my therapist called to remind me to take my delulu pills 😻 (jokes...partially...I have terrible humor omg-) Just some light fluff,, hope it could cheer you up if u were feelin down 😭😭
#seungmin fluff#kim seungmin#skz#stray kids#seungmin#seungmin x reader#skz imagines#stray kids fluff
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Ikevamp bois playing modern games part 2
Vincent
Vincent is way into.. gartic phone
Qnd perhaps skribble.io
Like way into it
He would sit down 12 hours in front of the computer and guess what HES BEEN PLAYING GARTIC PHONE AND SKRIBBLE.IO IN A LOBBY OF RANDOMS
12 HRS IN HES STILL NOT DONE WITH BOTH GAMES
Hed obv speedrun a drawing in a short period of time and manage to make it look *chefs kiss*
Imagine if skribble.io had a vc feature tho
No no, like imagine if people were actually toxic in this goofy ahh game
They would yell down vincent down the mic telling him to go play with photoshop
Randoms are salty that vincent can draw and portray even the most ridicilous prompts which results him with the highest score always
Not to mention hes really good at guessing even the shittiest drawimgs from other ppl
"Broer how- that persons drawing looks ridicilous, even arthur's dog could draw that"
"Don't be mean theo! I could guess the drawing from the emotional connection i felt from it"
Jean
Jean has a shitty brick nokia phone
And he really loves playing snake II
No im serious
Well i suppose momte doesnt trust him with any other phones than that
the last time he was given a smartphone he downloaded some hack and slash game
took the word slash literally and then proceeded to cut the phone into two
comte was too stunned to speak
momte didn’t want his kids to miss out on gadgets but he cant have jean destroying his smartphone
BINGO! a nokia 3310 it is!
jean didnt know how to react at first, but he found it easier to navigate and thats when he found out baout snake II
found it a bit pointless at first but despite saying that, he doesnt realize that thats the only thing he does besids fencing
snake II is his pre workout
the only thing he will be doing before his fencing practice
before meals
and before bed
‘‘jean are you sure you haven’t had enough of snake II..?’‘ comte asked causiously as he never know how his son Jean would react
jean looked at comte and stayed silent for a hot minute
‘‘no’‘
Napoleon
OK FLASH BACK TO MY E BOY NAPOLEON FANART FROM 2021
its official
He plays league of legends
Napoleon is deffo a jungle/top main
Jungle preferabbly
Bros actually cracked coz hed turn any non meta champs into an absolute beast
I see him being especially good with pantheon jungle
Hed play league with jean tbh
And jean would be a dedicated top
But i dont see jean being the best player..
No, like imagine napoleon defending jean from "top troll" and getting spammed "?" On his lane
Napo would literally go to that persons lane just to steal their minion last hits
If hes feeling extra hed even use pantheons ult to yeet over to that player to ks all the minions on that person's lane 😭
"Jgl troll gg"
Ok napo is actually not toxic and is rly nice to play with
Hed even supp for you if ur learning a new champ
Hes only toxic to people who are toxic to his buddies
Comte
Ill be honest
Comte looks like someone who would download all games from every ad pop up he gets
And im talking about anything gacha related
He does not care whether the game is explicit or not as long as he can collect pretty characters
Is he interested in the gameplay??? Probably not.
"For what reason did you spend $$$$$$ on xxx game???" Leonardo asked as he scrolled through comte's in game billings, cocking an eyebrow
"Hm? Well i simply wanted to collect all of these lovely looking characters."
"Without leveling up your characters?"
"Non"
"Do you understand how to play this game?"
Comte only looked at him with his unwavering smile
"honestly this is the most ridicilous spending ive witness from you, heh" Leo snorted
"Much appreciated, but i dont recal asking for any input, old friend" comte retorted
Leo looked at him and sighed
"Honestly at this point i shouldn't be surprised"
.
.
This took me forever to upload because i coulndn't figure what type of game comte would play then one day i was like AHAAAAA
Also i didn't proof read as always so pls dont chop my head off :"))
#ikevamp#ikemen vampire#ikevamp vincent#ikevamp napoleon#ikevamp jean#ikevamp comte#ikevamp leonardo#ikemen series#cybird#ikevamp headcanons
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"We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the Earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that."
Buenaventura Durruti (July 14, 1896 – November 20, 1936)
Painting Artist: Alex Schaefer, Riot: Wall St., 2011
#oc#learning photoshop through play#fuck capitalism#anti capitalism#anti capitalist#anarchy#anarchism#anarchist
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Let me preface this: I'm an architecture major
I used to be a big LO fan but obviously fell out of love of it like a lot of us did, and I know LO uses SketchUp for backgrounds. That is not an issue I have with the comic or any comic, I want artists to have an easier time in any way they can. I was always under the impression Rachel imported the models into Photoshop and drew over them like you can see in the early episodes with the sketchy lines. Well, school just started recently for me and I now have access to SketchUp for my coursework, and I made a few discoveries:
1. Photoshop cannot read SketchUp files, and while you can import them into Clip Studio through some configuring, they can be finicky and will lose parts in the importing process, so they are best used into the original SketchUp program to export as PNGs.
2. Many of the models Rachel uses are incredibly easy to find, especially if you put "modern", "luxury", or "classy" before the main part of the search. Many of the houses and rooms for example are first page results.
3. The biggest discovery: You know how we all assumed Rachel was hand-drawing all the lines over the SketchUp models and how she gave up the longer LO went on? Well, it's actually worse. It turns out SketchUp has a thing called "Styles" in it, which means you can mess with the lines and look of the model, such as making it look more like a blueprint or playing with the colors. Well, they have a lot of styles on SketchUp known as "sketchy lines", which are the exact ones Rachel used early in the comic to fit with her style, and it takes a literal click of a button to do. All she would do is pose the model, click the sketchy line style, and export the PNG. That's it.
So, yeah, Rachel is so checked out of the comic that she can't even bother to click a single button to make the models fit into the comic's style anymore. Use that information however you like.
Ouhhh sorry OP, I'm about to like, undo all the work you just put into that ask. We've already known about the 3D background problem for a long while now.
First off, it's more likely LO doesn't use SketchUp but actually Acon3D, which is a website that offers 3D models both for free and at cost, which are actually compatible with software like Clip Studio. As soon as you open it up you'll likely see a lot of very familiar backgrounds that are often used in romances, isekais, and period pieces. It's literally the go-to spot for Webtoon Originals creators. Like, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if Naver was partnered with them because of how many of their creators use it.
Second, there's plenty of up-to-date evidence to support the fact that Rachel doesn't exclusively stick to one software, sometimes she's drawing in Photoshop, sometimes she's drawing in Clip Studio Paint, sometimes she's drawing in Procreate. She's undoubtedly using Clip Studio for her paneling, speech bubbles, and backgrounds, as there are built in tools to utilize and convert 3D materials into lineart, among other features that are recognizable as coming from CSP because they're not available in PS or Procreate.
Third, yes, she just uses filters to turn her backgrounds into lineart, this has been apparent since S1. The only backgrounds she's ever 'hand drawn' were the ones involving lots of nature and even those are mostly just Photoshop brushes stamped on.
Like I realize I'm probably bursting your bubble here and I apologize for that lmao but these buildings were never hand-drawn, this is not new information (￣﹏￣；) I appreciate you mentioning your own experiences with it as you're learning it though, I find once you start to learn the process yourself you really start to notice what others are doing. Even I've gone through that over the past couple years as I started to use 3D models and more advanced tools specifically for drawing webtoons.
I will mention btw, there's nothing wrong with using 3D models for your character drawing and backgrounds. The only time it tends to get frustrating is when you're reading a comic that isn't making any attempts to blend the background in with the art style.
Like, The Kiss Bet probably uses 3D models to help with perspective and laying out scenes quickly without second-guessing, but you can tell they still hand-draw over the models because they look natural and like they belong to the comic's stylization. The characters don't look out of place sitting in a living room and the living room doesn't look distracting.
But then you get stuff like Lore Olympus, Let's Play, and Midnight Poppy Land, and it becomes a bit more obvious they're not giving a shit about backgrounds lmao
I get it, WT's deadlines are cutthroat as fuck, but if it's getting to the point that you have an entire team behind you and you're literally just copy pasting video game models from Phantom Hourglass, then it's probably time to re-focus your priorities a bit. There are comics with as few as 1-2 assistants (and even in some cases no assistants at all!!) pulling off backgrounds better than this, even when they're taking shortcuts.
(Nevermore and City of Blank)
But a lot of that does come down to how WT manages its expectations as well as support for their creators. The deadlines and requirements WT puts their creators under are insane and awful in the long-term, and they're not acting with the amount of professionalism they ought to be for a platform that's trying to breakout as a major publisher here in the West. I feel like it comes down to WT loosening the choke chain around their creators, but also creating a standardized level of quality to ensure it's not suffering for the sake of quantity. The traditional literature industry has real editors and stages of quality control for a reason, whereas WT is more interested in just throwing as many series at the wall and dumping all their stock into the ones that stick.
#lore olympus critical#lo critical#webtoons critical#antiloreolympus#anti lore olympus#ama#ask me anything#anon ama#anon ask me anything
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Seeing your art on my dash literally nakes my month oh my god so beautiful and stylish!!!
Idk if you've discussed this, but how do you find such cohesive and vibrant color palettes for big pieces?
Oh wow got to ask the hard questions huh. Lol I don't think I've talking about this. Becuase it's hard to articulate. A lot of what I do in art is just trial and error. I don't have a set formula or pretext color palettes for each mood or setting (tho I really should would save me a lot of time)
I mainly mess around with a ton of color layers in Photoshop on various blending modes at various opacity levels add in adjustment layers (mostly Selective Color) and play around with the values of the file and I let my artist intuition lead me to the atmosphere I'm trying to portray.
Here's a snapshot of just how many I used to get to the base color scheme for my Mueasume picture. ( and I used more later on in the piece.)
But I know that doesn't help you so here are some tips.
Know your mood and your setting for your piece (Time, Weather, Indoor Outdoor, Sad, Happy, Angry, etc.)
Learn the color language for each mood and setting Pintrest is great for this. Make some boards.
If your colors are not cohesive and you working digitally make a new layer Fill that layer with whatever color is the main mood of your piece (red for anger blue for sad etc.) and set that layer to like 50% opacity and then just go down the list of your layer options until you find something you like.
You can repeat this step with other layers and become the basket case like me and also have 20+ layers in your file lol.
You could add a color fill layer set it to Hue, flatten the image, then cut that whole image revert back to before you made the color fill layer paste your monochrome picture on top of your original piece, and then play with the monochrome layer on different layer settings and opacity
And if you have the option to use Selective Color do it and play with the sliders. The ability to tone down a hue in each value is a game changer.
You can also use Hue and Saturation tho you need a light hand if you're going to play with this setting.
I hope some of this help and I'm sorry if it wasn't clear feel free to send me another ask or message me through the chat feature and I can try to clarify.
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These photos of Robert Smith of The Cure sat forgotten in a negative binder for over 35 years until I rediscovered them last fall while looking for something else. I had, in fact, done my level best to forget about them, as they were evidence of what I remembered as a massive fail made during my earliest years working as a photographer. They were a major stumble on a steep learning curve, and I was sure all evidence had been lost. But let's start at the beginning, when I was assigned to interview Robert Smith and The Cure when they were passing through town on what was apparently called the Beach Party Tour, playing the Kingswood Music Theatre just outside Toronto on July 13, 1986 with 10,000 Maniacs opening.
Another writer at the magazine, Perry Stern, was a huge Cure fan and phoned begging me to let him do the interview; I agreed, provided I still got to take the photos. (I also asked if he could give me a ride to and from the venue.) I had an idea: I'd seen an article in a photography magazine showing how you could get interesting colour washes on your backgrounds by putting complimentary coloured filters in front of your lens and flash. This might have produced interesting results if I bothered doing a test shoot, but I was too cheap/rushed/arrogant for that sort of thing, so I showed up with green and red filters on my Pentax Spotmatic and my Vivitar flash and shot away in a fenced-off grassy area beside the stage.
It's worth talking about the unusual look Robert Smith was rocking during at least part of 1986 - trainers and golf shirts and jeans and short hair. If I still had the transparencies I shot that day including the rest of the band I'd be able to tell you if the Cure as a whole were taking a vacation from their Goth image and dressed down similarly, and if this was one of the few artifacts attesting to a brief sportswear period in the band's history. But the results were awful - overexposed, with a greenish tint, mostly because I had no clue what the ideal ratio between the bright sunlight and the flash strength should have been. The magazine might have reluctantly printed one remotely salvageable frame but my ambition had definitely overstripped my skill and I tried to forget about this shoot.
But at some point a few months after my disastrous Cure shoot I thought I might be able to salvage the results by converting the slides to black and white negatives. I either found someone who could produce an internegative or borrowed the gear to do it myself, but inexperience won again and the four portraits of Robert Smith that I produced were too overexposed for me to work with all those years ago, so I filed them at the bottom of a negative sheet and forgot about them.
Until last fall when I found them again and decided to see if they could be saved with scanning and the neural filters that were recently added to Photoshop. The film grain that was so hard to deal with back in 1986 suddenly became a feature, adding to the retro feel the shots had acquired either with time or in my own mind. With some judicious application of the restoration filter these frames cleaned up nicely, but I decided to push things one stop further by using the colorizing filter as well - making sure Smith's signature smeared lipstick wasn't just retained but highlighted. Now I like to imagine that these shots were taken in 1937 with an old Kodak folding camera like my Jiffy Six-20, and hand-coloured by some underpaid darkroom assistant working for a developing lab in a building down in the warehouse district of town. It's certainly a better story than the one about the kid photographer who screwed up on a big job nearly forty years ago.
#robert smith#the cure#1986#portrait photography#portrait#photography#photographer#film photography#portraiture#black and white#old photos#early work#adobe photoshop#ai filter
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BoSS Dami is like the same character but rather than serious and grumpy they play up his arrogance into him being boastful and cocky and I love it. He's having so much fun in the film, he loves fighting. He's bloodthirsty in a way that makes the audience happy for him which is pretty funny. I love the way they animate his facial expressions it's so good, and I love his voice. It's a little bit serious and broody while still being arrogant and youthful it's great. Jon sounds a little too old to be ten but I like his voice other than that. I love how Jon thinks he's cool and how quickly they bond despite clashing early on. And they're so cute. So. Cute.
The colorism thing is a big problem and it's par the course for Damian, when given the full range of color options for a character of his heritage they will always choose the lightest unless they're actively fighting their subconscious racism and colorism.
I went off on a rant on DC colorists colorism under the cut this post really got away from me, but READ THIS IF YOU DRAW DAMIAN!!↓
I get that you draw what you see and if you see a lot of white and lightskinned people you end up getting good at only drawing white people, and light skin has been purposely highlighted in visual media for centuries in this country, but USE GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH GOD DAMNIT, FOLLOW POC ON SOCIAL MEDIA, HIRE POC. Go out of your damn way to learn this shit. If you can't do it good now, learn!
I went through this with homestuck, all the human characters have #00000 skin so you're free to have whatever race headcanons you want of them, but that's not actually representation. I was influenced by this style because coloring skin is hard so I just shaded it with my pencil and left it uncolored but then I realized by refusing to color the melanin in someone's skin, that's colorism. Fuck that. So I decided to learn, and mess up a lot of otherwise pretty works, because it would be worth it in the end. I'm still learning but I've learned so much already.
For example a lot of colorist societies draw pale skin far too desaturated. If you compare actual skin to the skin in anime, nearly all Asians that aren't photoshopped or wearing make up/bleaching look so much darker. Bleached paper being what we draw on and light skin being the presumed default in our culture has made white people (and others) way too comfortable doing the bare minimum in coloring skin. You don't still use the yellow crayon for blonde hair so why do you still use the very light peach/tan as the default skin tone? You're not even coloring light skin right let alone approaching properly drawing dark skin right.
I'm so fucking tired of every company doing this when I learned how to do better in middle school. Get out of your fucking comfort zone and draw diversely, or you're a coward and you're not doing anything to combat your culturally inherited racism.
Most DC artists are good at drawing 1 or 2 skin tones, maybe 3. There are so many more undertones and shades than that. I'm not counting rainbow colors. If you want Damian to be paler than his mother to reflect his mixed heritage that's totally fine! But it should be darker than Bruce's and Jon's. I've compared them and paid attention to the shadows being cast and he's really not darker than Jon and only rarely darker than Bruce because they drew Bruce especially pale.
I want you to understand that removing melanin from a character is erasure of their identity and actively harmful. There's a broad range of skin tones that the son of Talia and Bruce might have but choosing the lightest possible option is favoring white skin over dark skin, not realism. Just because you've seen more light skinned mixed kids doesn't mean there aren't darker skinned ones. The light skinned ones get more attention on social media and commercially because of social bias + algorithms + intentional racism. Most people who are colorist think that they're not racist because they're representing nonwhite people not bothering to notice that the people they represent have the most european features and light skin in their group. Yes those people are oppressed too but you're not fixing anything by only showing racially ambiguous people.
Mariner on star trek is a relevant example from animation. Both her parents have dark skin but she has much lighter skin because she's a main character. Stop it. Stop it. Don't think just because you see something highlighted a lot that it's the most common thing that's so dumb. How many mixed people do you think you see that you assume aren't mixed? There's confirmation bias at play.
I just wish I could beam this message into everyone's thick fucking skulls. Dark skin is beautiful. My number one coloring tip for any artist is this: don't be afraid to go too dark. You'll ruin the contrast and legibility and dynamic if you keep everything light and mid tones.
If you go too dark, you can filter it later.
I hate the argument "there are plenty of mixed people who dadadadada" stop. there are such a variety of people in numbers you literally cannot fathom with your human brain. You cannot picture all of the people that look exactly like whatever it is you're saying is more uncommon. Race is made the fuck up but its impact and cultural significance is real as hell. Genetics are so fucking diverse. I know a biologically related pair of siblings, one super tall dark skinned black dude and one super short freckled white girl, they have the same parents you cannot tell that they are related if you're thinking that mixed race children are like taking the skin tones and mixing them like paint.
Colorism is physically dangerous. People will assume that a mixed race child is being kidnapped by their parent because they so look different to them.
Damian could look the spitting image of Talia, I can tell you that with 100% certainty. He also could look the spitting image of Bruce, or Thomas Wayne, or Martha, or Ra's. All we know is that he's Arab, Chinese and white, he has black hair and green eyes, and he's short and good looking. Taking that and making the most european looking version of that guy as possible is fucking racist. I'm so serious.
If you want to do your part to combat racism and make a society where everyone can get attention and be seen as beautiful regardless of skin tone, then draw Damian with dark skin.
If you don't want to do that.... I don't understand you. Learn empathy, it will be useful to you.
#battle of the super sons#damian wayne#damian al ghul wayne#text post#jonathan samuel kent#jon kent#super sons#supersons#dc comics#damian al ghul#remember how i said i didn't come on here to rant about colorism “yet”? well the time has come#it will not be the last time im sure. i care about this a lot#batfam#batman
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busy streets and busy lives • ralph penbury x reader
A strange day at work gets even stranger when you meet a man who claims he's from 1926. With no certainty as to when he can get back, you decide to take him in until that time arrives.
masterlist | prev. | next
Tags: Timewasters (series), modern!au, slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love™, fluff, some angst, swearing and mentions of adult themes throughout, eventual adult content, alcohol content, penbury is a fanon surname
Word count: 9.2k
A/N: Thanks for being patient! I know this one took longer than the other two, but yeah. Back pain is no joke, and also, as you can see, this became somewhat of a monolith lol. This whole fic is my most favourite thing to write. I hope you enjoy this chapter! <3
Also, apologies for the horrific photoshop job I did trying to recreate a certain social media layout, lol.
The first few weeks of living with Ralph are certainly… An experience. You’re able to teach him how to cook basic freezer meals, how to use a hob and the importance of never taking your attention away from food when you’re preparing it. He’s got his favourite TV shows, especially now that you’ve trusted him with access to your streaming services, too - though you did have to make him a separate profile on your account when your current obsession had been drowned out in your Continue Watching queue by Ralph watching half an hour of whatever was showing up first, giving up and moving onto the next thing. He’s got a rapport as “that eccentric young man who lives in flat 912”, who befriends all the local outdoor cats and bows to everyone he makes eye contact with. Plus, with all the extra attention Ralph gives them while you’re not there, your plants have been thriving more than ever.
Another morning of waking up on the sofa. You reach blindly for the pain relief and water bottle you now keep close to you and chug them down before peeling yourself away. At least today is a day off. Except it isn’t really, as you’re reminded when you hear the shower going. You’re still a full-time Ralph-sitter. You decide to treat the pair of you to a full breakfast, something that your new housemate had considered “grotesque” as “grease is not a food group”, but you’d acclimated him to it eventually. As long as you cut him some bread soldiers to dip into the yolks of his eggs. That’s his favourite part.
You scroll through Spotify on your phone to see what playlist you’ll ask your Echo to play for you. It recommends, based on your recent listening (by which it obviously means the battle your algorithm faces trying to find common ground between your music taste and Ralph’s), an electro-swing playlist. Excited, you ask Alexa to play the playlist as it’s titled, and start bouncing along to it as you get everything out to start cooking.
Ralph emerges, hair still wet, with a smile on his face. “Good morning!” You understand and appreciate his efforts to try and blend in a little more aesthetically, but arguably the worst thing your friends have convinced Ralph is that he looks better with a bit of facial hair. Which, of course, is true, but that’s what makes it so terrible for you. “What is this?!”
You shrug, “Dunno, it said electro-swing and I figured that sounds like the perfect mix of both of us. You like it?”
Ralph nods, “I mean, it’s certainly not the classics, but I could definitely get used to this!” He starts moving his feet in very deliberate ways, and you smirk at him.
“Did you ever learn how to swing dance, by any chance?”
“Guilty!” he lilts, rolling his eyes up. No matter how much he may try to look like a 21st century man, he’s still unmistakably Ralph. “Yes, Mother got Victoria and I enrolled in a school to get us out of the house. Father wanted me to join some new-fangled group, the Scouts?” You’d think you’d be used to all the culture shocks by now, but hearing that Ralph could have been one of the first ever Scouts still knocks the wind out of you a little. Ralph, completely unaware, continues rambling, “Yes, but it was all… Swimming and climbing and… Outdoor survival,” he shudders. “So, Mother sent me away with Victoria to her dance classes.”
“Were you any good? Or did you enjoy it, at least?” you ask.
Ralph smiles as his head bobs with excitement, “I was rather exemplary, yes! Ms Lillian often paired Victoria and I together, knowing we could practise at home as well, though when we got to a… Certain age, Victoria decided she would rather have other male partners.” You can tell from the sadness in Ralph’s tone what he’s about to say next. “And, well, she was on such good terms with the other girls in the group that… Well, none of them wanted to be paired with little brother Ralph, so the teacher was my partner. ‘Little brother’, I ask you, only by twelve minutes!” he starts to mutter under his breath.
An urge swells within you to find Homeless Pete, insist he find a way to fix that time machine up as soon as possible, and travel back to that time just to shove every one of those rich little brats. Instead, you focus that energy on comforting Ralph, reaching your arms around his shoulders in a quick hug. “I’m sorry, mate. Though, I don’t suppose you remember those moves you learned?”
His eyes light up. “I certainly do! Did you want to learn how to? The teacher did say I was quite the natural, I could teach you if you wanted!”
You grin, “I’d love nothing more.”
You spend the best part of an hour learning how to do things like the Charleston Step, the bow tie and the one that Ralph calls one turns, two turns, which you can tell is his favourite based on the smile he gets when it’s his turn to get twirled around.
Eventually, you heave with exhaustion. “Well, that’s worked up the old appetite, though I dunno how I’m gonna cook when I can barely feel my legs!”
Ralph giggles, “Oh, please, that was nothing! Ms Lillian would have you in tatters.” You give him a death stare and he stops laughing immediately. “Would you like me to get us something from the baker’s? I could get you some of those doughed nuts that you enjoy.”
“For the last time, Ralph, doughnuts don’t actually contain nuts and you can have some yourself, too!” you groan as you start replacing everything you’d taken out of the fridge.
Ralph tuts, shaking his head. “I have no interest in your nuts, thank you.” That’s one to send to Scott and Connor later, you think to yourself as you open up your phone and add to the note “Ralph Quotes”. “Perhaps the nice old lady who calls me chap will be there,” he muses with a small smile, “I like her.”
“Hop to it, then, old sport,” you say in a mock-posh voice, earning you a glare from Ralph, which only makes you laugh as you make your own way to the shower.
When you’re out and dressed for the day - in the clothes Ralph had worn on his first night with you, but only because they’re your go-to comfort clothes anyway and you don’t exactly plan on leaving the flat - you go through your usual routine of checking the news app for the headlines, and then the trending topics on Twitter, just to see if there’s anything your friends will be talking about.
You giggle at the fact that the name Ralph is trending, screenshotting it to send to the group chat later. Out of curiosity as to which Ralph the internet is obsessing over today, you tap it and scroll through. It’s mostly people in fandoms, making threads called ‘[series] as ralph tweets’. The “ralph tweets” in question seem to be of someone tweeting as though they think Twitter works in the same way as Google.
Your stomach drops as you realise some of them look a little too familiar. Almost as though you know a Ralph who’d be this far out of touch with the modern world. Almost as though you could track the very conversations that would lead to some of these to that particular Ralph.
You click through to the profile @RalphOnTwitter and scroll all the way down to see exactly when he must have gotten an account:
You send a single message in the group chat: GROUP MEETING, MY FLAT, ASAP. ALL MUST ATTEND.
Your friends all arrive relatively quickly after that. You simply herd them all onto the sofa one by one until the last of them has arrived, but just as you’re about to lay into them, the man of the hour arrives, having fumbled with the lock for a good minute with his arms full of baked goods.
“Ah, good morning, all! It’s a good job you’re all here, it was that young woman serving today and she always gives me extra food even though I don’t ask for it or pay for it, I don’t know why -”
“It’s ‘cause she fancies you, mate,” Connor grins, causing Ralph’s ears to turn a vibrant shade of red.
“Can we please discuss Ralph’s love life another time?!” you interrupt. “I need to know which of you is responsible for giving him access to a Twitter account.”
You know Anna’s in the clear, you’d been helping her in the kitchen, but the other three look at each other shiftily. “Well, it was sort of all of us? We just thought it might be fun to teach him,” Grace explains. “It’s not often you meet someone who’s never heard of social media.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose, squeezing your eyes shut. “Ralph,” you call out, eyes still closed, “what do you do when you need to know the answer to something?”
“I do what you taught me when you first gave me my phone,” Ralph answers, perplexed. “I tap the very last square, I type in my question and I wait for an answer. A lot of them are just people being rude, but eventually someone will be helpful.”
“Sounds about right,” you groan, rubbing your face.
“Wait, you mean, you still do that even after we put - you didn’t think to just move one to the -” Scott’s eyes widen. “Oh, god.”
“Why would it move?!” Ralph asks, taking a bite out of his favourite pastry and chewing anxiously.
Anna starts giggling as she scrolls through his account, “Aww, but it’s so funny! And it’s not hurting anyone, what’s the damage in it?”
The fact he’s not supposed to be alive and yet he’s suddenly very much perceived, maybe? The fact he could accidentally tweet something that would give him away? The fact he could tweet something vastly inappropriate at any moment?
“Yeah, you could really capitalise on him while he’s here,” Connor smirks. “Get him on Instagram, too, get those brand deals coming.”
“Yeah! Ralph On Twitter’s face reveal, make it a whole thing,” Grace grins.
You sigh. “I dunno. It feels like a really bad idea.” You look at Ralph, who looks blankly back at you. “But… Maybe we could make something of you. As long as I’m your PR manager, obviously, and you don’t go talking directly to anyone.”
“I don’t think I know how,” Ralph shakes his head, “I thought it was the searching thing that you’d told me about.”
“Good. Never learn,” you point at him, “and give me your phone.” Your friends all cheer as they crowd around you, watching you download Instagram onto his phone, as well. You give him the handle @ralphoninsta “to keep the brand alive,” you explain as you set up his profile.
“Now we need a good first photo,” Scott holds his fingers and thumbs up in a rectangle shape to frame Ralph in his own field of vision. “Let’s get him into some good lighting.”
Sitting him in the best-lit corner of the flat, Scott insists on playing photographer, telling Ralph to sit and smile. However, Ralph does not seem to do well in front of the camera. He sits bolt upright, every part of him looking stiff and uncomfortable, and his smile isn’t right. It’s far too forced, it shows all his teeth and yet somehow the smile itself stretches beyond them. “Maybe we should take him out and about, get some candid shots of him,” Anna suggests.
You groan, having just started on your second doughnut. “Fine! I’ll leave the house today, but I won’t be pleased about it!” You shake your half-eaten breakfast at your friends, who laugh. “And you guys better come eat these, too, Ralph wasn’t kidding about these freebies.” You hold out another doughnut and wave it in Ralph’s direction, “Sure I can’t tempt you with one?”
He leaps onto his feet and backs away from you, “How many times must I ask you to keep your doughed nuts out of my face, please!” As expected, Scott and Connor crease up in laughter.
“You’ll love ‘em when you try ‘em, Ralphie,” you grin, taking another bite of your own, but Ralph isn’t as amused by it all.
Once you’re all adequately full, you begrudgingly throw on a hoodie and go out with everyone else, trying to find the right lighting, the right backdrop. Even with everything, Ralph just doesn’t seem to pose very well. His posture becomes so much more awkward and his facial expressions just aren’t… Ralph.
When he starts to express his apathy for the whole thing, you think of one more thing that might help. Standing him in front of a brick wall, you position Scott and set his phone camera to video, earning you an, “Ahh, good shout.”
Scott starts recording as Ralph stands in place, looking over at all of you. “So, what is it I’m supposed to do, now? Do I have to pose again? How?”
You shrug, “I dunno, just… Be Ralph. Stand however you want. Look however you want. Just, keep it moving around, yeah?”
He may still look a little awkward but you’re able to get him to do plenty, at least. Getting him comfortable is easy enough, you start getting him talking about his new favourite TV programmes and he very vaguely - and mostly not entirely correctly - describes the plots of them, with all the excited sincerity of a lifelong fan. Grace also asks him about his favourite local cats he’s befriended whenever he’s been out and about, which he lists happily and extensively.
When Scott feels as though he’s got some good angles, he stops recording and you all crowd around him to review the footage together. While you all have different opinions on which angles are best, you can all agree on one thing - Ralph certainly photographs far, far better candidly. You all eventually settle on pausing and screenshotting at two specific moments, though Ralph is still perplexed. “But I’m not posed for either of those pictures, doesn’t that make them bad? I mean, I’m not even looking in that second one!” He points to a shot where he’s looking down, itching his jaw.
“No, trust me, it’s fine, they’re great,” you insist, maybe a little too quickly. Nobody seems to have noticed, though. Thankfully.
“And in this one, the sun is in my eyes! I’m all squinty!” He frowns, swiping to the previous shot.
“That’s called a smoulder, babes, everyone loves a smoulder.” You watch in amusement as Ralph’s ears turn pink at Grace’s words. No matter how many times you’ve told him that Grace calls everyone by that name, it still gets Ralph all nervous to be referred to by it himself. “You’re a natural, when you’re not actually trying.”
“Is that a good thing?” Ralph asks, his eyes darting around the group to gauge everyone’s reactions.
Anna nods, “It shows promise, right, Scott? Scott’s big into his photography shit, he’s got a proper camera and everything, don’t you?”
Scott nods. “If you ever wanted to try and get more comfortable with it, we could definitely shoot together sometime.”
Ralph shuffles over to you to whisper in your ear, “What do guns have to do with -”
You interrupt him to quietly explain, “You shoot photos on a camera.”
“Ah. Thank you.” Addressing Scott, he smiles and claps, bouncing on the balls of his feet, “If I am still around, I should rather enjoy that!”
“Fuck, I forgot we’ve only got you on borrowed time,” Anna complains, before gasping and clapping her hands, addressing you. “This is your weekend off, right?!” You nod, and she squeals, holding her face in her hands. “So, we have to show Ralph what a good night out is, right?!”
Excited reactions from the entire group, except one, obviously, but the others seem too keen on planning tonight now to respond to any of his reactions. “So, do we just take him out, or out-out?” Connor asks.
You look over at Ralph’s face, trying not to laugh too loudly at him looking as though he’s been asked to solve quantum equations in his head. “You trying to figure out the difference there, mate?” you ask, and he nods. “Right, so going out usually means just to the local pub, pretty casual attire, you say you’re only going for a couple of beers but then it’s approaching midnight, the poor sod behind the bar is calling last orders and you’re five deep, trying to gather everyone for the walk home where you drop them all off one by one. Going out-out is dressing up, it’s going into the city itself, it’s going to bars and nightclubs and getting super overpriced cocktails until it’s 3am and you’re sat outside a McDonald’s waiting for a taxi home with whichever stragglers you’ve managed to hold onto by the end of the night.”
“Dressing up, you say?!” Ralph lights up at the idea, but you put a hand on his arm.
“Not in the suit and tie way, I’m afraid.” You frown, “I don’t actually know if we’ve got any out-out clothes for you at home, you know. I haven’t had a chance to get you to any shops where you can try nice clothes on yourself.”
With a collective gasp, Grace and Anna each loop an arm around each of Ralph’s, with Scott joining in their chorus of, “Shopping trip?!”
You groan, “Can I at least go back and get changed if you’re gonna keep making me leave the house?”
“I mean, you don’t have to come with us, if you want a break,” Anna suggests. “You trust us with Ralph, right?”
“So what, just the four of you will be going, then?” Connor asks, to the others’ groans. “Oh, come off it, what use would I be?!”
“Connor,” Anna starts. “How often are we ever likely to ask you for your opinion as a straight man again? You need to come with, for your people.”
Connor sighs in resignation, though he can’t fight his own smile. “Alright, fine, but you lot are buying all the coffees I’m gonna need to get through this.”
You slip Ralph your bank card, mutter to him that the others will teach him how to use it, and salute the others as they all make their way to the high street before turning on your heel and heading back to the sanctuary of an empty flat.
Straight away, it feels too empty. Too quiet. Sure, you’ve trusted Ralph to just pop across the road and back, but you’ve got way more alone time now. You ask your Echo to play your favourite playlist as you make a start on the chores you normally can’t do with Ralph around.
Though you expect that to take up until they return, you’re done before the hour is up. You let out a long exhale, tutting through it as you look around your little living space and wonder what on earth to do with yourself. You start watching the next episode of the show you’d been watching, but even that didn’t feel right without the constant interjections, feeling as though you have to explain who characters are, what plots have already happened and why certain scenes are especially important.
You text the group chat a few times, but only Connor ever responds, and as is on brand for him, it’s always a sarcastic comment about how Ralph is obviously going to show up in the most garish outfits known to man. You take comfort in Connor being the one to make those jokes, at least, as if anyone else were to, you might be more inclined to worry that Ralph’s own tastes might just be a little too eclectic for the South London nightlife. At least Connor will be there to talk him down into dressing somewhat appropriately.
You also ask Scott to send you the photos for Ralph’s Instagram profile, telling him you’re happy to edit them to pass the time before eventually getting them onto Ralph’s phone to upload them. He sends you the screenshots, along with the video itself. One little watch, you tell yourself. Then to editing.
An indeterminable amount of time later, you’re replaying a part where you’re constantly correcting Ralph on the actual plot of Gilmore Girls versus what he seems to have retained that it’s about, where you’ve reached the point of uncontrollable laughter and he’s laughing at your laughter. His smile is so pure when he’s genuinely happy, and yet it’s so rare to see it that way. Even without his manufactured pose, when he’s smiling amongst you and your friends it still feels stilted. You often wonder whether he misses the familiarity of home, whether you’re doing a good enough job at helping Ralph to fit in. But seeing that look on his face, it fills you with an overwhelming sense of relief. It’s the first time you’ve been able to really notice him looking comfortable. You take a screenshot of that moment, but not necessarily to add to Ralph’s profile. Maybe this one stays as a memento of Ralph’s time here, just for you.
When you get the text in the group chat letting you know that a) they’re finished, and b) everyone’s getting ready at Grace’s since her housemates are all out for the evening, you hurriedly edit those two photos Scott sent, empty your wardrobe of all your “out-out” clothes into a duffel bag, throw in whatever toiletries and cosmetics you can find and make your way over there.
Scott, Anna and Ralph are nowhere to be found, at first, but Grace assures you that they’re simply helping him “look the part”. You’re more worried about checking in with Ralph, seeing if he’s overwhelmed at all, and most importantly, making sure he hasn’t blown his cover.
Grace is more than happy to help you pick out your outfit for the night, while Connor’s input remains a constant and totally helpful series of grunts without even looking up from his phone. Grace helps you get your face and hair ready, too, though not without scolding Connor for not participating either way, despite his constant rebuttals that he is taking care of “the most important thing”. You quickly shoot him a text thanking him for helping to take Ralph off your hands for an afternoon, and reassuring him you’ll buy him a drink to show your appreciation. The absolute wordsmith that he is, Connor sends a thumbs-up emoji in response.
There’s a ring at the doorbell, which even Grace is puzzled at. That fills you with a sense of concern, too - if Grace isn’t expecting someone at her door, who could it be? Connor seems pretty confident at going to open it, though, and you see why when he eventually shows up with the pizzas that he clearly ordered. “You didn’t have to be so cryptic about it!” You shake your head at him as you make sure everyone has drinks made up as well.
Scott’s head pokes out of a door to ask, “Everything okay? Who was at the door?” You and Connor both point to the food and Scott grins, “Ah, nice! Right on time! Okay, folks, are you ready to meet The New Ralph?”
The three of you clap and cheer as Scott and Anna make a big show of revealing Ralph, and thankfully you weren’t holding any of the glasses you were making drinks in, or you’d have surely dropped them. Wearing a dark fitted polo, very well-fitting jeans and some crisp new Adidas trainers, Ralph stands between your friends, looking around at the three of you. When he catches your eye, he only makes very fleeting eye contact before looking your own outfit up and down and then hastily looking back at the others. He rubs at the tops of his ears - you can’t quite see from this distance, but you wonder if he’s blushing, and whether he’s doing it over everyone’s reaction, or just yours.
You set everyone’s drinks up around the living room, deliberately seating you and Ralph together. “I wasn’t sure what kind of fancy-schmancy drinks you’re used to, and none of us exactly have champagne on tap, but I thought you might like a martini?” You say to him as he takes his seat on the sofa next to you.
Ralph’s eyes light up. “I do rather enjoy a martini!”
“That’s my guy!” Connor cheers from his corner, raising a slice of pizza in a toast of sorts. Ralph tentatively takes a slice and does the same, but you hurriedly follow it up by grabbing a plate and holding it beneath Ralph’s slice for him.
“Don’t want to ruin your nice outfit before you’ve even been seen out in it, do you?” You fuss, and Ralph nods, taking the plate from you and holding it directly under his chin as he eats, which makes you laugh. He could literally look like anyone in the world, but little mannerisms like that will always tell you that that’s your Ralph.
When he’s had enough to eat, you take the plate from him to take it out to the kitchen, though Grace is quick to whip it out of your hands, too. That’s when you notice the plate seems to have moved something underneath the collar of Ralph’s shirt. You move it aside slightly and, with all the might of keeping any kind of flustering behaviour at bay, you ask, “Is that a neck chain you’re wearing?” Is this what manifesting is?
“Yes! Do you like it?” Ralph scoops it out into view with his finger. “Just a plain one, but Anna said it really brought the whole outfit together, didn’t you?” He asks her excitedly, and she nods back.
“She’s got a good eye, that one,” you grin. “You look so good, Ralph.”
“As do you,” he mutters, gesturing quickly to your outfit. “I see what you mean about dressing to the nines, now. It’s nice to see this side of you, too. All of you, really,” he stammers, looking around.
“Right, last minute hair and make-up touches and then I want photos of all of us!” Grace announces.
Ralph’s face falls as he asks you quietly, “Would you like to teach me how to take them, since I’m not good at being in them?”
“Don’t be silly,” you nudge him. “We’ll get some good ones of you tonight, trust me. And if you wanna see a bad photo, wait until you see the atrocities this lot take by the end of the night.”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. We’ll prepare a slideshow of your finest moments for him, shall we?” Scott retorts, to both yours and Ralph’s laughter.
“Maybe we should save that for a special occasion. A birthday, perhaps?” Ralph asks with amusement.
“Yes, Ralph!” Connor and Scott cheer in unison, both slapping his shoulders excitedly as you gasp in mock offence.
“The betrayal!” You can’t actually be mad at Ralph, though, not with how good he looks when he’s this happy. It’s even more captivating in person.
You shake your head as you go to make sure you’re all freshened up after your meal. You can’t keep thinking these things when you’re sober, or else who knows how that’ll manifest when you’re less so.
Your friends all love learning how to get Ralph distracted enough that he doesn’t even realise half the time that his photo is being taken. Scott, being the photography setup genius that he is, even gets his phone out, sets it on a timer, and manages to get Ralph laughing while looking at the camera, in the middle of the group, all while successfully running into the shot himself. Everyone’s in love with that photo, even Ralph, and when Scott sends it in the group chat, you promise him you’ll print one for the flat, and an extra one just for his room.
“What about the other ones that everyone else took?” Ralph asks. “Could I get those ones on my phone, too?”
“I’ll do that tomorrow. Ooh, speaking of! Before we go! Gimme, gimme,” you make a grabby hand at Ralph, who eventually takes the hint that you want his phone as he hands it to you. You send over the two edited shots - and that’s all - and, on his phone, successfully upload them:
“No caption?” Anna asks, looking over your shoulder.
“Well, it’d look a bit dodge if he’s tweeting to ask his phone to stop changing his words for him, but then he’s a total whiz at Instagram, wouldn’t it?” You explain, to everyone’s agreement.
Finally, you’re all piled into an Uber and on your way to your favourite bar. It’s in the car, cramped between you and the door, that Ralph realises something in a panic. Frantically tapping your arm, he whispers, “Won’t they ask me to prove I’m of age to drink there?”
You shake your head. “Don’t sweat it. The staff know us like the backs of their hands, they’ll trust us that we’re not bringing in some teenager. Besides, you look far less baby-faced now,” you wrestle your arm out enough to ruffle the beard he’s starting to grow with your fingertips. “So we’ll be fine. Promise.”
Ralph, too, wrangles a hand out to hold his little finger towards you. “Promise?”
With a small laugh, you link your own with his. “Yes, but less of that around the people we have to convince that you’re not a kid, okay?” Ralph nods with a very serious expression, and you copy him before settling back into conversation with your friends.
It takes a few bats of the group’s eyelids and some convincing c’mon, mates but the bouncer soon lets Ralph in with you all, to which he enthusiastically thanks them over and over again. You hurriedly rush him in ahead of you before he arouses too much suspicion.
Connor makes a point of letting Ralph know where the toilets are, and Ralph immediately disappears off into that direction. You ask the boys if one of them should make sure he’s okay getting there, but everyone scolds you for fussing over him too much and moves you along with the rest of them to order everyone’s drinks. You want to hold onto Ralph’s for him but, as Scott reminds you, it’s safer for him to, so that you can look after your own. Just in case.
Soon enough, as with every night out, the group starts to scatter. Scott is happily chatting between Connor and a girl you don’t recognise, most likely playing wingman. You can spot Anna and Grace in amidst a small group of people whose heads are turned away from you. Still no sign of Ralph for a while. Ringing his phone does nothing, but the music is quite loud, he might not be able to hear. The bar is small enough, you tell yourself. He’ll find you eventually.
As you’re craning your head around the bar one more time, you don’t realise anyone is in your immediate vicinity until you almost trip over someone behind you. They catch you with a, “Whoa, easy there! How many have you had?!”
“Barely any, that’s the scary thing!” You laugh.
The man smiles at you. “Sounds like I ought to buy you one then, eh?”
You shrug, “Sure, what’s a free drink?” You gesture that you’ll walk up to the bar with him and order your drink. He tries to make small conversation, and you start to get into it a little, until he starts trying to flirt. He’s not exactly your type, anyway, and his total lack of game really doesn’t help matters. You try and get away with a simple thank you, a promise that you’ll find him later to buy him one back but you really must get back to your friends.
“Ah, what’s the rush? Surely it’s easier for them to come and find you if we stay here, right?” He asks. You look around desperately, trying with all your might to use some of that manifesting power you seemed to have earlier to will one of the boys back, both to rescue you and salvage Ralph.
~~~
Ralph was having quite the experience. Having heard the other boys talk of the bathroom, he assumed that was a prompt for everyone to go, but only once he could see the door to it did Ralph turn around and realise he was completely on his own. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes. What seemed dimly lit now appears almost pitch black. There are lights of all colours shining everywhere. Music that doesn’t quite sound like music thumps in the background. Twenty conversations happening around him turn into white noise, until someone approaches him. A total stranger. Two of them, actually.
“Alright, mate? Do me a favour?” One asks, despite Ralph’s expression clearly being one that should let anyone know that he is in no position to be giving out any favours. They continue anyway, “Look, I have to draw something, and you have to guess what it is, okay?” Ralph, still bewildered, does not respond in the slightest, but before he knows it, the other person has turned around so that their back can be used as a surface. The original asker now splays a napkin of sorts against their friend’s back as they try and draw something.
Ralph tries his absolute hardest, but as no amount of squinting and focusing can help him, he tells them, “Oh bother, I’m terribly sorry, chaps, I’m honestly trying but I’m really coming up trumps, I do apologise.”
They give him looks of confusion and concern. “Are you on something?”
“Why does everybody assume that of me, just because I’m ever so slightly more well spoken than the average resident here?!” Ralph complains with a frown. “Can this not just be how I talk?”
“Oh my days, you’re a right laugh,” the other grins. “Here, come and do a shot with us, you have to!”
“I- Do I?” Ralph asks, and they nod. “Well, I really should get back to my friends -”
“Oh, c’mon, one shot and we’ll help you find them. Deal?” They ask.
“Well… Alright,” Ralph sighs in defeat. If he can’t find you, he can at least find a constant to anchor onto in the meantime.
“Oi, lads!” The two call out as they approach the table they’re leading Ralph to. “Time out on that game for a minute, we’re doing shots with this legend!” They both look at Ralph expectantly, waiting for him to introduce himself.
“Oh! Yes! Hello, everyone. My name is Ralph. Fabulous to meet you all,” he smiles as he looks around the table.
“Isn’t he sick?!” The artist of the pair grins at his friends.
“Quite the picture of health, actually,” Ralph retorts with a side glance.
“Oh, isn’t he a cutie,” a girl coos from the table. The other of the pair starts to clench his jaw.
“Oi, come off it,” another comforts from around the table. “Any bloke that uses the word fabulous isn’t exactly stealing your girlfriend, is he.”
Ralph’s not even sure how to answer to that, but he isn’t given much time to, either, before being whisked away to the bar with this new group. They hand him a tiny glass filled with clear liquid. Ralph wonders if a shot is perhaps some sort of palate cleanser, a mouthful of water between drinks.
The fiery sensation that travels down his throat as he drinks teaches him that it certainly is not. But once the unpleasantness clears, the strange comfort of alcohol starts to fill Ralph with warmth. It’s certainly happening a lot faster than he’s used to, but then these drinks are far stronger than Ralph’s usual tastes.
Briefly forgetting his own arrangement, he returns from the bar with his new acquaintances - and another martini in hand - and sits back at the table with them as they continue playing their game. It’s played on one of their phones. Someone taps through prompts and reads them aloud. Sometimes it’s challenging a player to do something themselves, sometimes it’s challenging them to approach a stranger, as they had done with Ralph. Sometimes it’s asking them completely arbitrary questions to vote upon amongst the group. They all certainly seem to be having a great time playing, anyway.
Once they declare a round over, they ask Ralph if he wants to join in the next one. “Oh, I’m rather… Old-fashioned, I don’t think I’d be a good fit for this, but I’m sure my friends would love it! Shall I go and find them?”
“More the merrier,” one shrugs.
Ralph excitedly jumps up and starts patrolling the bar to find a familiar face amongst the crowd. He’s yet to see any at all, until one makes his heart drop. He sees you, in the arms of another man. Ralph had really been priding himself on repressing his feelings around you. He wasn’t going to repeat what happened with Lauren. He wasn’t going to scare you off too soon. He was going to keep it to himself. He had tried so hard. And yet, this sight is truly unbearable.
Biting at his quivering lower lip, he storms back into the direction of the bathrooms and keeps going, shoving the first door he finds open as he tries not to cry.
His sorrow is quickly replaced with horror as he finds several women all standing in various places around the room. Some just standing and chatting, some calling to friends in the stalls, some checking themselves in the mirror. After the scene finally sets in for Ralph, he lets out an ultimately high-pitched shriek, swivels around and immediately starts scolding himself. “Oh, bother and blast! Please, forgive me, girls, oh, what an absolute cad I am, I’ve truly disgraced myself, just when it couldn’t get any worse!” His voice gets shakier with every word, and he flinches when a hand appears on his shoulder.
“Sorry!” One of the girls apologises hurriedly. “I just wanted to let you know it’s okay. Are you alright?”
“Please do not ask me if I have taken any sort of drug just because I am well-spoken!” Ralph half-cries, and the hand squeezes him comfortingly.
“We won’t, promise. Did you need a wee, or just a wind down?”
“I’m not sure, I just… Ran. I’m terribly sorry,” Ralph sighs.
“It’s fine,” the voice reassures. “Wanna turn around and talk to us? I promise, there’s no better therapy than a night in the girls’ loos. Right?” A chorus of agreement fills the room.
Ralph slowly turns around to see an awful lot of smiling faces. He sniffs harshly and nods, “Good evening.”
“Hi!” The one who had approached him smiles. “I’m Lauren!”
Of all the names! “L-Lauren?” Ralph practically squeaks out as he feels himself start to well up, and her own face falls in some kind of realisation as she shakes her head.
“Or Loz! Just call me Loz! All my friends do! Forget the other name entirely. Sound good?”
Ralph nods. “I’m Ralph. A pleasure to meet you, despite it being under my most horrific actions.”
The other girls introduce themselves, as well. “So, Ralph, this, uh… Girl With The Forbidden Name, is she why you’re all upset?”
“Is she?” One pipes up from the very back. “Because you point her out and I’ll sort her out, no holds barred.”
“See, this is what I tell you, you get like two vodka red bulls down you and you’re ready to throw hands at any inconvenience,” her friend groans next to her. Ralph very quickly taps the square with the bird on it and types a message out to ask the internet “why do people throw hands at each other”, quickly followed by “what sort of hands do people throw”. He decides he’ll check people’s answers later, so as not to appear rude.
“Look at him, though!” The more hot-headed one gestures to Ralph as he wipes away the tears that had been threatening to fall. “Look at those eyes! Like melted chocolate, they are. What kinda sadist would possibly make that happen?!”
“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s all futile,” Ralph shakes his head, but his new friend Loz points at him.
“Oi. Nothing’s futile here. This is a safe space. Let it out.”
Ralph starts to explain that he had fallen for a Lauren, dove in headfirst, had his heart broken and vowed not to let it happen again, but that seeing the housemate he cared so deeply for in the arms of another just brought all of that sadness back up again. The girls are all very sympathetic, and very good at knowing exactly what to say to make Ralph feel better. The rather boisterous one keeps trying to speak negatively of you, but Ralph won’t have any of that. You’re your own person, and it’s up to Ralph to get over his own feelings. The girls commend him on his emotional maturity. Apparently not a lot of men have that.
They ask if he wants to talk it through with you, but he shakes his head, telling them that he isn’t certain how long it is before he can go home again, and so he doesn’t want to commit to anything or risk either staying with you with such an emotionally charged elephant in the room at all times, or being turfed out indefinitely.
"That's quite the predicament you've got yourself in, Ralphie, babes," Loz hugs him arm, and he allows himself the comfort of leaning against her.
Suddenly, a stall door swings open violently, and a whole new girl appears, holding her phone up to her face. Before anyone else can ask if she's okay, she gasps loudly, "I bloody knew it!"
Everyone looks at her quizzically, including Ralph, and she continues. "Well, I thought, guy called Ralph who sounds really old-fashioned, I wonder if… And then some of the things he's said kind of sounded like those tweets, have any of you seen that Ralph On Twitter guy?"
A few more gasps of realisation dot about the room. Ralph's ears turn pink as he recognises the word Twitter from the conversation you’d had with the other four this morning. Loz frowns, "Are you sure it's -"
"Is this your insta?" She turns her phone around to show Ralph her screen. It says Instagram on the top, so Ralph takes out his phone and presses the square that also says that, showing it around to see if that's right. Excitedly, all the girls crowd around to make sure they get Ralph's handle right so they can follow him.
One girl - Ralph's already lost track of them, honestly - announces, "So what I'm hearing is, girls' room photoshoot with Ralph from Twitter?!"
Ralph laughs nervously, "Oh goodness, I'm flattered, but those are all taken candidly, would you believe! I am certainly no poser, I have been told this enough times today already."
"Bollocks to that!" The loud one shouts. "We'll teach you how, won't we, girls?"
Before Ralph knows it, he's squatting amongst all his new friends who are trying to teach him how to do the smoulder look he was doing in his photo on purpose when the main door opens to reveal you standing there, looking absolutely bewildered. "Oh my god, Ralph! You're okay! Thank fuck for that!"
As you frantically update the group chat that you’ve found Ralph safe and well, Loz reaches for his hand to squeeze it. The loud girl starts to tense up behind him but Loz waves her down from behind his back. “Yeah, he’s just been having some drunk girl therapy,” she explains calmly.
“God, I could do with some of that right now,” you groan. “Honestly, you trip and fall onto a guy one time and he thinks you’re soulmates, it’s horrendous!”
Ralph’s face lights up all of a sudden. “You’d… You’d fallen on him?” Concern falls back onto his expression. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, physically, I’m fine, but I don’t know how I’m going to mentally recover from listening to one man talk about himself so much,” you groan into your hands as you hold your face. “I forgot why I stopped dating in London.” You notice that one of the girls puts her arm down after having held her phone up at a particular angle. “Oh my god, wait, you guys were taking photos together?” A few of them nod. “Would you like me to take them for you? Rather than one of you trying to fit everyone in at arm’s length.”
“Oh my god, would you?” one of them sighs with relief.
You nod, gesturing to Ralph to hand you his phone again.
Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the presence of so many other people in the photo with him, but Ralph blends in so much more naturally in the photos you take now, even when you suggest different poses and expressions. One of them - Ralph quickly introduces her as Loz, and no other name - asks around for phone numbers of the girls that, you assume, had all just met and bonded over whatever Ralph was in here for. You take over the role of adding everyone’s numbers into Ralph’s phone, and see that Loz adds him to a group chat that she names “Ralphie’s Angels”. You laugh at the name, and send all the photos you’ve taken into the group chat.
“Right, I can feel myself sobering up now, and we can’t have that,” one of them calls out, making the rest of you laugh. “Shall we all go and face the music?”
You pull a face, “Ugh, that means I have to go back and face… Him.”
“Nah, you stick with us, hun,” the one who seemed hostile with you at first suddenly seems to be fighting your corner now. “He even looks in your direction when I’m around, I’ll make him wish he didn’t.” You give her a comforted smile in response and the whole horde starts making its way out of the bathroom.
Your friends also catch up with you at the bar, grateful to see Ralph’s face again, too. Grace is hanging off some new guy’s arm, Anna is half-present in the whole conversation but also half-texting somebody, and Scott is catching up with Ralph. You spot that Connor isn’t talking to anyone and head over to him, “What are you drinking?” you ask loudly over all the music. “I still owe you, remember!”
Connor shakes his head, “Nah, don’t sweat it. Ralph’s a good’un, it was no bother.” Speak of the devil, Ralph excitedly hands you and Connor drinks that one of his new friends insists on buying for everyone, then grabs his own glass from Scott who’s followed him to clink against yours and Connor’s before hurriedly rejoining his group. You and your friends laugh in unison before Connor downs his martini, gives you a quick hug and heads home for the night. Grace and her new friend are the next to leave - you never did catch his name, and you’re not sure you’ll have a reason to remember it anyway.
You dismiss Anna and Scott, telling them that Ralph will probably be a while yet, and that they don’t have to wait up for him just because you do. At first they insist on staying with you, but eventually tiredness consumes them both and they bid you goodnight.
As though preying from afar - because that’s most likely what he was doing - your admirer from earlier appears as soon as your friends are out of the door. “Well, well, we meet again.”
Your eyes narrow as you groan out a breath. “Yeah, hi -”
“I can’t believe your friends would leave you alone like that,” he shakes his head.
“Oh, they haven’t, I’m still waiting on -” Your knight in 21st century armour, Ralph, walks over to the pair of you. “Ah, there he is! Are we going home now?”
“Would you like to?” Ralph asks, concern in his eyes, and you nod with fervour. “Then yes!”
The other man pulls a face. “Wait, sorry, you’re going home with - who the fuck is this?!” He gestures at Ralph, a nasty expression on his face.
Thankfully, Ralph’s cavalry come to your defence, led by none other than an incredibly loud, “Oi, dickhead! Who the fuck are you?! Fucking look at my friend like that again, see what happens, yeah?” Despite being perhaps half a foot shorter, Ralph’s most fiery friend easily squares up against him.
You tap her shoulder in thanks, take Ralph’s hand and guide him out of the bar. The cool air outside hits your face, but the alcohol in your system acts as a blanket around the rest of you. “You good?” You ask Ralph, and he nods. “Good. I’ll call for an Uber.”
Ralph frowns, “But aren’t those taxis, parked up over there?”
“Well remembered! Yeah, but a drunk girl once told me that those charge extra for all the time they’ve spent sitting there, and I’ve never felt bougie enough to spend the money to find out if it is true, so I like to play it safe.” You book an Uber that says it’s four minutes away and sit on the edge of the path. Ralph joins you. “Sorry we lost you, earlier, by the way. I did keep trying to look for you.”
“Pah! My own fault, really. I got all frazzled, you know,” Ralph’s eyes widen as he gestures wildly, making you laugh. “I still feel a tad so now!”
“It helps to kind of start resting your head for a bit. Here,” you pat your shoulder and Ralph takes the hint, tucking himself inwards to rest his head on your shoulder. Yours head falls onto his instinctively, and you set your phone to the front camera. You see Ralph’s small, contented smile, quickly plaster one of your own on and snap a photo.
Ralph then frowns, “Oh, no! I wasn’t prepared!”
“Exactly. Look,” you say fondly as you show him the photo. Both of you looking happy and comfortable, despite some bumps in the road. A perfectly normal first night out for Ralph.
“Can you put that one on my phone too, please?” he asks sleepily.
Reluctantly, you push his head away from you. “Yes, but c’mon, sleepyhead. We still have to get home.”
Ralph doesn’t make it the whole journey home, his head once again flopping against yours in the back seat of the taxi as he sleeps. You manage to prod him awake once you’re back outside your block of flats, though, and he trudges along behind you into the lift and along the hallway until you’re back in the safety of the flat again. “Gimme a minute to grab some PJs for the night, yeah?”
“Of course. I think I should use the bathroom properly now,” he nods.
You pull a face, “Yeah, the fact you’ve gone the whole night without it is honestly impressive!” You hear Ralph chuckle under his breath as you go back into your room, blindly head to your pyjama drawer, take out the first top and bottoms that you can feel, regardless of whether or not they match, and head back into the front room, opting to duck beneath the kitchen counter to change.
Ralph re-emerges a few minutes later, his voice drawling wearily as he asks, “Would you like the bed for tonight? I can’t imagine the morning should be pleasant for either of us.”
You walk over to him and put your hand on his shoulder as you chuckle, “It’ll be fine. You probably need it more than I do, that was probably heavier than what you’re used to.”
“I had a shot tonight, you know,” Ralph tells you with intrigue.
Your eyebrows shoot up, “Oh, yeah? And how did that go for you?”
“Absolutely awful,” he replies simply, pulling a face of disgust, and you both laugh.
“Yeah, you’ll definitely need the bed, then,” you nod. “Did you have a good time, though?”
“Oh, most certainly!” he grins. “I’ve made so many new friends! And I really rather think I’ve made a good impression on your friends, as well.”
“You know they’re your friends too, right?” you ask, cocking your head. Ralph tries to wave you off, and you pull a face of disbelief. “Come off it, they love you! I bet you had a great time with them earlier, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely! Um, but… I did… Um… It wasn’t quite the same without your presence there,” he mumbles.
You frown, “Did you say anything about your past?”
“Oh, no, that never came up! Just… Oh, ignore me, I’m dreadfully tired,” Ralph rubs his face wearily.
“Yeah, you’ll be thanking me for the greasy-ass breakfast I’ll be making us in the morning, so get ready for that,” you grin at him before pulling him in for a goodnight hug. He may smell like a fragrance store with all the proximity he’s had to several perfumed people, but there’s still something comforting about being able to bury your face into his shoulder and taking a deep breath in. Ralph’s arms tighten around you as you do so, as he allows himself the luxury of squeezing his eyes shut and just enjoying the moment.
You eventually pull away with a yawn, “Alright, I think we’re both about to fall asleep standing up, so… Night, Ralph.”
“Y-yes. Of course. Goodnight. Pleasant dreams,” Ralph smiles awkwardly at you before walking quickly to the bedroom.
You set yourself up on the sofa and start looking through the day’s photos. Ralph’s little instagram photoshoot doesn’t feel like it was only this morning, and you can’t help but let yourself fall into the trap of looking at the photo of him laughing again. Shaking your head again, as though that’ll do anything at this point, you scroll through to the photo of all six of you in Grace’s house and set it as your lock screen. You keep scrolling through hurriedly to your other favourite photo of the night, and, while it may be a little delusional, you set the photo of the two of you at the end of the night as your home screen. You’re used to being into people who you can’t have, be it from their disinterest or other reasons, so what’s the harm in indulging yourself a little by imagining a world where the two of you could always be like that?
That’s what Ralph tells himself too as he stares at the photo on his own phone screen until the need for sleep finally takes over.
next chapter
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Hi! I've been a follower for awhile of you and Sara as I play TS3!
I started becoming a creator and learning to Convert 4to3 items in my game which has been so fun for me.
I tend to love a certain style that I can't find in most cc creators so I want to make my own eyes, skins, skin details/ tattoos etc. to make my sims.
To keep it short is there any tutorials you learned from on how to make skin and eyes and tattoos? Any tips you could give to help out someone who is trying to learn themselves and start a simblr?
Hello!! That is definitely why Sara and I started making stuff, it makes your sims feel more like your own characters when you can add the personalized touches yourself. Sara and I have been skin blending for a long time (around since 2016 I wanna say) and we're mostly self taught, I don't remember a lot of people wanting to share their skin blending techniques back in the day. The most I can do is to link you to here and browse through their tutorials they have shared. The other basic tips I can share is that Sara and I use the 3D mode in photoshop for all of our skins, you'll need to get .dae files to open in photoshop which you can find here, find a base skin, doesn't have to be terribly detailed just so you know where the eyelids, nose, and mouth should go as well as the ears. Make sure you make a new layer before pasting whatever details you want to add otherwise when you merge it down on the 3D side it'll go onto whichever layer you were on (then you gotta completely redo it and it's a pain in the ass). ALSO! You can use liquify to move stuff around better in the 3d mode, I use multiply when placing stuff first so I can line it up where it needs to go. I've also seen some skins where people haven't matched the scalp correctly or there's a line where the body and the head meet, my trade secret is to use the eyedrop tool and grab the color on the face dds then just paste it completely in the scalp and on the body I use a soft brush and drag it over the very top of the neck on the body dds. As for eyes and tattoos, eyes are definitely like making makeup in the regard that you can make them recolorable and they go in the makeup category so if you have any experience with that it's not too hard, just make sure if they're not recolorable to set the color in TSRW to white so they show up properly in game. Tattoos I always add directly to my sims skins, accessory tattoos look awful in game, they glare under the light and they're blurry, easier to just add them to the skin, for the body you can just paste them on in 2D but for face tats I recommend using the 3D mode instead because of warping, black tattoo with a white background I tend most of the time to set the layer to multiply and it looks fine.
For examples of tattoos warping:
You want the tattoo to be here so if we place it like so in the 2D mode it looks fine right?
Wrong because it is going to look like this in game
So instead paste it in 3D mode like so and then merge it down
It'll look like this in the 2D mode but it's fine! It'll look correct in game!
I was kinda spit balling but I hope this helps even a tiny tiny bit!
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