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#what i am is trying a new coloring method
thatdogmagic · 1 year
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...that your audience won't hate.
This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.
I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.
I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.
Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.
Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.
Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:
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All selected?
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Good.
Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.
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You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.
Either way, let's add some color to the text.
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Once that's finished,
You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect
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You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.
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Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.
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This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.
Hooray, you've finished your watermark!
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Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.
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You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.
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From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.
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If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.
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And for lots of black, you have Linear Light
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Either way, you're in business!
EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:
An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).
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I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.
There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!
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teacupcollector · 1 year
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Perennial Lovers (Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader) (Tattoo Artist AU)
Modern Warfare II Masterlist
A/N: This is my longest fic 4.4k words... A/N: This is a birthday present for my mutual @sant-riley please check them out!
A/N: MDNI Summary: Getting a tattoo was something you have always wanted to do. So when you saw that 'The 141 Cowboys Tattoo Shop' was open to walk in you immediately made your way there. You meet a tattoo artist who picks up on your nervousness and his relaxation methods are interesting, but you like them all the same.
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Never have you been so nervous. Not only were you getting your first tattoo, it is also a very big piece. You saved about two-thousand dollars just in case. Now as for finding tattoo parlors, that was a different story. You don't mean to be a snob, but it is going on your body so you have a right to be picky. When you went searching online for any websites the only one that stood out to you was linked to a Facebook.
It only had eight reviews, but all were five stars. Some reviews went into detail work, cleanliness, as well as customer service. It was called 'The 141 Cowboys Tattoo Shop' when you scrolled through their albums you liked a particular artists style. He was proficient in black and gray realism work, but as you looked through it he did add splashes of color where it was needed. You decided to give them a call to set up an appointment. Fortunately they were doing walk-ins this weekend and told you to come on down.
So here you are standing in front a little hole in the wall trying and willing yourself to go in. You step in and there is a little jingle at the door.
"Be there in a minute!" You hear a deep Scottish accent reverberate from behind a wall.
You stand by the door for a moment before you hear a jogging of footsteps come around the corner.
"Hello Lass what can I do for you?" A man with a Mohawk, tight blue jeans and an Army green shirt that is a bit tight on the chest asks.
"I-I am here for a tattoo? Uh... I called on the phone..."  His face lights up in recognition.
"Ah yeah! Rudy mentioned you would be coming. Come over here and we can start a consultation." He says with a smile as he guides you to a small seating area.
It has a book case with different books. Such as religious symbols and what they mean, a couple comic books, a few books on the history of tattoos and where the different art styles come from, etc. There is a big flat screen TV on an entertainment center with an assortment of movies underneath for you to watch. The seats in question was a long leather couch that looked slightly worn, but in a good away, and in front of it was a small coffee table that was made out of red wood, and when you get closer to it you can actually see there is a bullet lodged inside. You sit down and he rushes to the book case to grab so binders off of the bookcase and set it down in front of you, before sitting next you on the couch.
"So whatcha lookin' ta get? I'm Soap by the way." He says as he holds out his hand.
You shake it with a smile. "I uh... I am wanting a black and gray tattoo? Kind of realistic? Oh! Here I'll pull up what I want."
Soap get's a strained look on his face, but it relaxes once he sees what you pull up. "I'd kind of like a rendition of 'The Hasanlu Lovers?' I am willing to work with you on it. It doesn't have to be exact..." You say as your voice slowly dwindles.
"Sorry Lass, but I am more of a new school artist. I can get someone who could do this justice." He says as he stands up.
"I'll be right back." He walks around the table and into the studio area.
You hear some murmuring before you hear two sets of foot steps come your away. When you look up you see a big hunk of a man. He is tall with broad shoulders. Wearing a black t-shirt that are a bit tight on the arms and chest 'What is it with these men and not wearing the right size shirt?' He was wearing black jeans as well. His arms were veiny his left one has a partial sleeve on his forearm. The most noticeable feature was the mask he was wearing.
"Shit is there a mask mandate? I can go ge-" "No No! It's fine. He wears it just because." Soap says and he gets a scoff from the man beside him.
"This is Ghost he does Black and Gray as well as realism. I think he will be a better fit for you." Soap says before handing you the binder that says "Ghost."
You flip through really quick before smiling. "Yeah I saw these on Facebook! I really like your work!" You say with a smile.
There is a grunt in response as he sits down next to you, but a little farther then you deem necessary. because you want him on top of you You hand over your phone so he can look.
"Anythin' you want to add to it?" He asks you and you draw a blank all you could think of was his eyes. He looked at you like he wanted to eat you alive, but you couldn't tell if that intimidated you, or turned you on... Or both.
"I uh... I'm not really sure..." You mumble shyly.
"I'll draw somethin' up real quick and see what you like." He says and you smile and nod.
He stands up and goes into the studio portion and grabs a tablet, before coming back and sitting down. "Might take me a bit... You're my first customer of the day.... So you might want to go grab something to eat." He says not looking up from  his work.
"Go sign a paper at the front and we'll call you." He says as he gestures to the desk near the entrance of the shop.
You nod before walking up to the desk. Soap happened to be working back there and his face brightens when he notices you.
"Hello! Did you change your mind?" He jokes and you shake your head.
"No Ghost said he will be a bit so he told me to come to the front and sign a paper with my phone number on it!" You say excited.
Soap smiles back at you before pulling out a clip board. "He normally doesn't take clients that fast. He is very picky on who he tattoos."
You looked at him confused before beginning to sign the sheet. There were three sections. one for your name, two for your phone number, and three for the artist you want. You quickly fill out the sheet before setting it on the counter. Soap gives you a nod before going back and filling the snacks that were underneath the counter. You walk out and decide to get something to eat as well as bring back some food for Ghost. You hope he likes what you chose.
It's been about an hour when you get a call.
"Hello?" You answer.
"Hey, just want to say I am finished with the concept art, I forgot to talk to you about where you want to put it." Who you now know as Ghost responds.
"Oh Yeah I'll head right down!" You say.
You hear a grunt in response before the line goes dead. You quickly get the rest of your food as well as his and get it 'to go' then you make your way to the tattoo parlor. As you walk in you notice that there is more people in the shop. Customers getting consultations, Someone working behind the counter, people watching the TV, and finally people getting to work on Tattoos.
You notice Ghost standing in the threshold of the sitting area and the studio. He motions for you to come over.
"Alright I have three sketches." He says as he opens his tablet.
"One is just normal, because you said you weren't sure if you wanted anything. The second is of them in a coffin, and the third is what I assume to me the masculine skeleton putting a rose in the female skeletons "hair" I will add a pop of color in the flower if you don't want a full black and gray piece. I didn't know if you wanted to go morbid with this or not."
You stare at it for a moment and hum to yourself. "They all look so good... I am torn between these two." You say pointing back and forth between the flower and the coffin one.
"I... I don't mean to be pushy or anything, but could I suggest something?" You ask.
"'s your body. You choose what goes on it." He says.
"I was wondering if we could maybe mix these two together? Maybe instead of an actual coffin it could be a uh... A picture frame in the shape of a coffin?" Ghost is silent for a moment.
"Where would you wan' it?" He asks.
"I was going to say my hip, but now I am thinking on the front of my thigh." You say.
"It's a pretty big piece... This your first tattoo?" He asks and you nod your head.
"Pretty bold you are." His voice has a more gravelly undertone as his Manchester accent comes out.
"Well. I will put us in a room instead of the studio... You wore a skirt. Don't need you flashin' all the customers." He says as he leads you to a small room.
It has a tattoo chair, a TV, some speakers and a computer, for what you assume would be for music and finally a printer.
"I'm gonna get drawn' you can stay in here. Need let the boys know that I'm using this room." He says as he walks out.
You hear more murmuring before he enters again. this time with some equipment like inks, a bag with what you can assume is his tattoo gun, and some needles. He sits down at the desk and begins drawing.
"Turn on the TV or browse your phone if ya wan'..." He says.
"Thank you..." You say as you begin to browse on your phone.
About thirty minutes later he gestures for you to come look. "This look good?" He asks.
As you look at it you see a coffin shaped picture frame that was all black. It had a dark gray border on the inside of it. Then there is another cut out where the lovers are laying. There is a mixture of black and many shades of grey all mixed through out this piece. You noticed that there are tears falling down their cheeks as well. Finally the flower which was a beautiful light blue.
"I didn't want a cliche red rose so I went with a Perennial Blue Flax flower. An' don't take my word for it, but I think it would go with the theme because Perennial flowers last longer and come back even after they die... Thought it could go with the "Love lasts beyond death." Which I assume is what you wanted..." He says.
You are in absolute awe. "This... This is absolutely beautiful! This is exactly what I want!" You say and you couldn't tell but his left eye crinkled slightly so you can assume that he was giving a half smile under his mask.
"Alright then. Lets get started." He says as he gestures to the chair. "Stand there so I can put the stencil on you okay?
You nod and walk over to the chair. He begins to wrap the handle of his tattoo gun while the stencil begins to print. He then looks at you.
"I need you to lift your skirt for me." He rasps and you immediately turn red.
You move your skirt up the leg you want to tattoo. He takes the stencil out of the printer and moves next to you. He sits down on a rolley chair and he looks at your thigh. He then takes out a shaving razor.
"Shit sorry! I should have shaved be-" "Doesn't bother me, don't worry 'bout it..." He says before taking a wipe and wiping away any of the loose hairs. He takes care in wiping your thigh a little longer then appropriate, but then again it wasn't like you were enjoying it.
He places the stencil on your thigh before motioning to a mirror. "That look right to you?" He asks and you smile and nod.
"Then lay down for me?" He says his tone seeming more rough then before.
You lay down and lift your  skirt again and make sure to try your best in covering your other leg to at least have some form of protection.
"You ready?" He asks. "I am gonna be putting my hands on you, if you get uncomfortable at any time let me know. It is important that you stay relaxed and not move. You got that?"
You nod with an audible "yes" before he turns on the tattoo gun and gets to work.
You would think you would notice the pain of the needle penetrating your skin first, but in reality you notice the vibration. At least where the vibration was place.
"Gonna start with your inner thigh okay? Have a couple of stretch marks that I want to be gentle with." He says as he rotates your leg to have your knee facing outward.
His arm and hand are placed in between your legs and you feel the vibration of his hand against your mound. You let out a short gasp which causes him to look up but then he continues his work. Luckily he starts working his way down your thigh so you get a moment to compose yourself.  It is about fifteen minutes before he is back at your inner thigh.
"Gotta do some shading now." He says as he ads water to some of the inks to get a variety of gray coloring.
He dips the needles in before he begins to move his hand back and forth. It goes from his knuckles to the handle that is protruding from his grip that rub against your core. You try your best not to jerk but the pain of the needle with his movements are so addicting you can't help but squirm around. The hand that was placed on your outer thigh begins to caress the skin underneath it.
"Gotta stay still for me okay?" He grunts as he continues.
You nod, but bite your lip. Each stroke of the needle causes his hand to move against you in just the right way. You are hoping your underwear aren't soaked through, because you were sure he would be able to feel your wetness if it was. On occasion you would catch him glimpsing at the crease where your leg meets your body. You were hoping he wasn't uncomfortable. You were especially worried about the puddle that will be left after you get up from this chair.
He begins to move his hand up your thigh and to the crease of your leg. He then slides his middle and ring finger underneath the band of your underwear.
"Need to move this a bit 'cause it is in the way." He says.
His pointer finger and thumb begin to slowly massage the crease of your leg which makes you sigh with delight.
"Actually gorgeous I think it might be best if you remove your panties all together." He says, his voice dropping impossibly lower as he removes the tattoo gun from your leg and turning around. "If your comfortable..."
"No it's okay don't worry about it!" You say as you shimmy your underwear down. You his in pain when you accidentally rub the cloth against your raw leg.
You flip your skirt down half way and use your hand to cup your core over your skirt so you wouldn't accidentally flash him after putting your underwear behind your back since your purse is on the other side of the room. "You can turn around now." You says. You are trying your best to sound confident in yourself.
He turns back around and rolls back over to where he was previously. He places his left hand on your outer thigh and begins to work again. The vibrations seem to be more intense now that your hand is there. You bite your lip in an attempt to quiet you whimpers of pleasure.
"Come on love... You need to relax..." He says as he begins to massage your thigh in an effort to relax you. But unfortunately that does the complete opposite.
"Need ya to spread your legs for me..." He says.
You can't tell if you were imagining it or if he said it in a suggestive way, but his left had creeps down your thigh and to the crease of your knee.
"What can I do to relax you? You were being such a good girl before you started squirming around..." He says.
The look in his eyes were lustful. Like he was taking you apart and putting you back together in his mind.
"You can't help..." You mumble.
"Is it something to do with the mess you made on my chair?" He asks with what you assume to be a smirk.
You cover your face which makes him chuckle. You hear the machine turn off and the sound of him setting the gun down on the table before his left hand returns to the inside of your knee.
"C'mon baby... Spread 'em for me." He says as he guides your legs open.
Now that your hand isn't on your skirt to hold it down your cunt was on full display. You shiver at the cool air hitting it. He uses his right hand to flip the skirt all the way up.
"She's just drippin' isn't she?" He asks and you squeak in embarrassment.
"Gotta be quiet gorgeous, that's how relaxing works. Bein' nice and quiet..." He says as he scoots forward in his chair, propping your leg against his shoulder.
He moves your hands from your face only to put them over your eyes.
"Keep 'em closed..." He says as he slides his face mask down and kisses the inside of your knee.
"You don't need to see to relax..." He murmurs against your skin.
"Tell me what to you like more?" He grunts as he kisses up your thigh.
"The pain..." He says as he grips the outside of your thigh just bellow the tattoo. He uses his hand to stretch the skin slightly to put the emphases of what he means by pain. "Or the vibrations against your pussy?" He asks as he is about midway up your thigh.
You try your best to keep your eyes shut, but you refuse to open your mouth in fear that you wouldn't have control of what comes out. You feel his teeth sink into your inner thigh and you yelp.
"Gonna need you to answer me gorgeous..." He whispers and you whine.
"Both... I like both!" "Gotta be quieter then that... Don't need anybody else to hear." He says as he continues to kiss up your thigh.
You want to look down and see his face, but you were worried that if you did he would stop. He finally get the the crease of your leg next to your mound, but instead of going to where you need him most he moves up your V-line and bites down there. You let out a soft moan.
"So if I were to turn my machine back on... And press the handle of my tattoo gun against your pretty cunt... 'nd maybe nibble on you a bit... You'd like that?" He asks as his mouth travels back down to the crease of your leg.
You nod your head with a small "Mhm!"
He leans over and kisses your clit. "Now that wouldn't be sanitary... So you are going to have to deal with my fingers..." He says and before giving your clit an open mouth kiss.
It is as if the moment he tasted you he wanted more, because he immediately stood up from his chair and buried his face in your pussy. You muffled your moan by biting down on your palm as he put your leg over his shoulder. He pulls back for a moment and begins to nibble on your outer labia. No man has ever done that before, but now you are pretty sure you have a biting kink. He nibbles downwards before nestling himself in your cunt. His tongue probes your slit as he moves his head back and forth. The feeling of his nose against your clit makes you jump.
"Taste so good..." He murmurs into you before he massages his tongue into your slit. You feel your walls clamp down on his tongue.
He continues to shake his head back and forth slowly, his nose brushing your clit almost perfectly.
"Faster... P-Please!" You try your best to keep your voice down by putting pauses in between words.
He seems to follow your instructions as his head moves faster. The sounds that he was making into your pussy was almost enough to make you cum on the spot.
You remove one of your hands and lace it into his hair. It was soft and short, almost perfect grabbing length. "Keep your eyes closed." You hear him say.
You follow his order and begin to arch your hips up and grind against his face. You groan in frustration when he uses his right arm to pin your hips to the now very wet chair. So you take to clamping your thighs around his head instead. You hear him hum in delight.
He takes his left hand and pries your leg from his head and moves his hand in between your legs. He pulls away from your core. A small pop coming from your slit as he removes his tongue. He inhales quickly before latching his mouth onto your clit.
"Oh god!" You say as you feel the small gentle flicks of his tongue against your nub.
You feel him slip a finger into you only to add another a second later. He starts off by spreading his fingers in a scissoring motion before actually moving them. He times the flicks of his tongue with the thrusts of his fingers. You hear your pants getting louder and louder, Your eyes hurt from how hard your are closing them, and you are so close to your release.
"Please, please, please, please! Ghost please!" You cry before smacking a hand over your mouth.
Your chest is heaving and your shirt that you were today is clinging against your body due to sweat. The room smells of sex. All you want to do is look down and see what he looks like between your legs, but again you know he will stop if you do. As this is going through your head he curls his fingers upwards and your yelp again.
"There it is..." He grunts before clamping down on your clit again.
He thrusts his fingers One. Two. Three times before you come apart. Your core tightens around his fingers ad your entire body tenses up. The curling of your toes are painful. You taste blood in your mouth from biting your lip so hard. You hear him release your clit with a pop.
"That's a good girl... Come on... Let it all out." He says as he helps you through your release.
You let out a small sob as your body begins to relax. You hear the sound of a water bottle opening and the sound of a paper towel being torn before you feel a cold rag against your cunt You shiver and try to keep your eyes closed to the best of your ability. You hear silence for a few more minutes before he speaks.
"You can open your eyes now." You open your eyes to see a now disheveled haired and masked Ghost.
"Can you stand up for me pretty girl?" He asks and you nod slowly.
He helps you stand up before he kneels on the ground and wipes your tattooed thigh. "I'm gonna need you to come in for a second session... You alright with that?" He asks softly.
Now that you think of it you look down to see only the shading of the coffin is done and inside the line work of the skeletons are empty.
"Y-Yeah that's good... Uh what do I owe you for this session?" You ask out of breath.
He wraps your leg and stands up. "$400." He says as moved to the other side of the chair and begins wiping it down.
"Only $400? T-This is a 1.5K tattoo at least!" You exclaim, but it only comes out as a small wheeze.
"Deal with it. The total for this session is $400... The next might be worth more due to the small details." He grunts.
He walks over to some cabinet and gets out some disinfectant before spraying and wiping it down a second time. You stand there for a moment dumbfounded.
"Come on..." He says as he tosses the used paper towels away and opens the door to the room.
When you walk out you can hear the sound of loud bagpipes echoing across the studio. Ghost leads you to the counter where he puts in the total of $400 into the register. You pull out that and an extra $50 but he immediately pushes that back toward you.
"No tip..." He says before glancing down to your skirt and back up again.
You feel your face flush. He reaches over the counter to a card holder and he grabs a card that has a skull and his name plastered in graffiti letters.
"My number's on here. Call me when your free." He grunts.
"For the tattoo?" You ask as you take the card.
"Or somethin' else if you're interested." He says before shutting the register and reaching under the counter and grabbing you a water bottle.
"Drive safe Gorgeous." he says as he walks away and back into the room.
You quickly take your card and your water bottle and thankfully you grabbed your purse and dash out of the shop. You get your keys out and get in your car before taking off down the road. You then realize once you are halfway home that you left your underwear at the shop...
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mashiraostail · 3 months
Note
Found you through your BG3 stuff and it’s so good I’m foaming at the mouth
Could I request soft dom Karlach with a fem reader, maybe with a bit of praise thrown in if that’s alright?
Thank you I owe u my life
omg ask and u shall receive and it wont be self serving to me at all even a little!
I love Karlach and I love women this was sooo epic
NSFW under the cut :3
"Oh stop it-" Karlach is cringing as Shadowheart quite literally wrings blood from her hair, "you'll make me sick!'
"I can hardly help it, I'm always in the splash zone when I go into a fight with you." Shadowheart doesn't look happy about the situation either, but what must be done must be done.
"You certainly wouldn't hear me complaining, though I do like a more...direct method of delivery." Astarion some how came out the other side fairly clean.
"Oh come on, enough with the blood and guts stuff." Karlach groans, "so gross."
"What, are you trying to save your appetite?" Shadowheart laughs and flicks her hair over her shoulder, sending a small splatter of blood onto Astarion's arm. The two of them made a terribly snarky, gossipy duo. Karlach was just glad they had made friends.
"So what if I am?" Karlach crosses her arms, "I've already been denied ten years why should I be any longer? Especially at the expense of your grimy hair."
Astarion laughs at that, "no, you're right. All the power to you my friend." He looks around a moment, "say where is your favorite midnight snack?"
Karlach whirls around too, "oh shit, have we lost her?"
"She is a slippery one." Shadowheart nods.
"Kalrach would know." Astarion agrees. Karlach guffaws, shoves him. There were plenty of good things about getting her tune up, the kissing, the sex, the cuddling, and the knocking the wind out of Astarion every time he said something gross, odd, or rude.
"Cut it out." She tries to wipe the warmth off her face, being on fire was hot enough, why be embarrassed too.
"Hey! You left without me?!" You're appearing over a small hill, a new, heavy looking bag on your shoulder, "did I take that long?"
"We thought you ran away." Astarion shakes his head, "you took forever."
"Gale asked me to pick up some things." You hike the bag up your shoulder, "camp isn't far though, I guess we picked a good spot with this little market so close and all. What'd you all get into?" You stop once you've joined the group, "oh Shadowheart you smell awful-"
"Imps. Imps and goblins." Shadowheart mutters, "it's always imps and goblins."
"Together?"
"No."
"Sorry I missed it then." You laugh a little. Karlach takes the bag off your shoulder. "Oh you've probably been fighting all afternoon I can-"
"Don't worry about it, make up for leaving you behind. I always carry the stuff."
"I told you to go on without me, I guess I didn't think you actually would though." You laugh a bit.
"Well in your absence Karlach has told us all about how, when she does get you to herself you always-"
"Stop!" She shoves Astarion hard enough to make him stumble, "oh I should light you up." Shadowheart is just snickering to herself.
"I didn't-" She addresses your horrified look, "I didn't tell them anything I swear." She holds her hands up, "and even if I had, which I didn't! It's nothing to be embarrassed about, you're killer in bed. Probably just make them jealous, that's why I don't say anything."
You will the color out of your face at her comment and make the short walk back to camp with silly but comfortable conversation flowing between your little group. The sun's set in the sky by now so you're glad to be so close to camp, otherwise it may have been difficult to find your way back.
When you do make it back Gale looks excited to see you all, "did they have everything?"
"Uh...dunno, I'm just the mule." Karlach shrugs, and holds the bag out, "you'll wanna talk to the manager." She jabs a thumb to you, his gaze follows.
"They did I just- Karlach!" You brush the bag over the Gale and hold her wrist, "look! You're all cut up!"
"Oh am I?" She looks down at her arm, sure enough there were a myriad of claw marks on her forearm, "aw shit, look at that. Didn't even notice, little buggers. Enjoy your stuff Gale I've gotta patch up." You follow her away without finishing your afterthought for Gale.
"Halsin's left for the day, he said he had some friends in the area who may have information for us." You frown, "how's Shadowheart?"
"She needs to rest up before she can use anymore healing magic." Karlach shakes her head, "they're barely some scrapes, I'll be fine for now, I'll go clean up, then well...I dunno I'm yours."
"Let me help, it will be easier with two." You look hopefully up at her, "there's a river close by, we can clean you off and patch you up." She's grinning.
"Come on, you're not worried about a few little scrapes are you? Do you know who I am?" She looks delighted despite her words.
"I'm very familiar, that's why I want to help."
"You're worried? About little old me?" She's squeezing your shoulders as you walk together, "or do you just want to play nurse?"
"Maybe both." You glance up at her, she's practically buzzing.
"Don't tease me." She warns, "you'll ruin my night."
Of course you'd never do a thing like that. Though cleaning her up does take precedent, despite her groaning and whining.
"We need to make sure it's clean, then we can wrap it up." You hand her a shirt to tear up into some makeshift bandages. She uses her free hand and her teeth to do so, she certainly notices you shift and avert your gaze.
"What are you all shy about?" She laughs at the color on your face.
"You know." You tut and frown at her, though it's not very believable.
"What? Is it me?" She watches you use one piece of the shirt to wipe the blood, "Am I making you act all shy?"
"You're always so mean to me-"
"Its me isn't it? You like me, don't you?"
"Oh stop." You press a damp hand to you cheek, trying to cool off.
"What? Tell me all about it! Do you fantasize about me? Have dreams about me?" She's leaning towards you, her voice teasing. You use another piece of cloth the wipe her arm off with some water.
You scoff and look away from her, it just makes her laugh.
"Your silence speaks volumes! Tell me!"
"No!" You use three strips of thicker fabric to wrap her arm up, "I won't!"
"So you don't deny it!" She catches you by your waist, "tell me, or you are not getting a single thing from me tonight-"
"You're evil! You should know how it feels to be denied! Have a heart!"
"Oh I've got one, wanna see?" She's laughing, nosing at your jaw, of course you tilt your head for her, you could never deny her, despite yourself. "Come on, just give me a little taste."
"I don't have anything to tell you!" The crimson engulfing your face said otherwise.
"Uh-huh." Karlach wraps her arms around your back, "can I have a kiss?"
You indulge her without saying anything else about the subject, she seems contended with it for now. You have a feeling you aren't quite out of the woods though.
"You look so pretty when you're embarrassed." She holds you by your chin, "I can't help myself." Her hands are tugging at your shirt, you help her slide it off. She takes in the sight of you with as much enthusiasm as always you can practically hear her brain knocking around in her skull, every thud screaming with excitement, 'TITS!!!!'
"I'm so fucking lucky-" She's giddy with it, kissing down your neck and shoulders, probably planning her attack on your chest. "You're such a sweet thing, gods, I don't know how I have it in me to behave all day knowing this is the sight hiding under all that armor you wear."
You gladly clamber into her lap, she's ducking down into your chest, her hands exploring the newly exposed flesh unabashedly. "You're really very pretty, you know?" She says it into your sternum, you're trying desperately to undress her, eventually she takes pity on you and helps it along. When she stands to shake the last of her clothes off all you can do is drop to your knees, she laughs.
"Well I wasn't gonna boss you around or anything." She's grinning at you and gods you love her, it's all you can think about, you're kissing at her stomach rubbing your face into her warm skin, she just laughs some more.
"Aw look't you, so sweet. What is it? You wanna take care of me?" You make a choked off noise at that, nodding and pulling her closer, it's a frantic nod though, rushed and almost desperate.
"Alright, alright, don't start crying now." She pulls you away to look at you for a moment, "you aren't off the hook, but I'll take a detour." She slings a leg over your shoulder and her hand tangled in your hair on impulse and you close your eyes, if only to hide how far back your eyes roll into your skull. Occasionally you feel her nails scrape the nape of your neck. You were pressing your lips to her, running long strokes over her with your tongue and thumbing at the the wetness whenever you needed to catch your breath. Karlach hadn't taken her eyes off you, she was practically singing you praises and it made your stomach knot up desperately.
She uses her grip on your hair to guide you along but she doesn't need to do much, you already know what to do. She pays extra care to pull all your hair off your face to get the best look at you she can.
"Gods, look't you, pretty girl, just like that, 's perfect." Even her moans are perfect, it's obscene. If anyone asked you she should be locked up, wearing a big flashing warning sign. All you can do is moan, hold onto her thighs, beg to be impossibly closer.
"What're you moaning at?" She's grinning devilishly, "you just like the sound of my voice don't you?"
"Yes, yes I do-" The way she tugs on your hair pulls a perfectly lovely moan out of you, and it makes her laugh in a warm, fond sort of way that makes you want to lay down and spread your legs open for her.
"Alright then, lucky for you I love talking to pretty girls." By the grace of some god you find it in you to play a bit coy with her.
"You think I'm pretty?" You're looking up at her with perfect blown out pupils, and swollen red lips wearing her cum like lipgloss, matter of fact it's spread out pretty evenly over your cheeks and chin too.
"Oh fuck-" She drops her head against the tree she's been leaning on, "I'll blow my fucking lid, cut that out. You wouldn't be able to survive the things you're making me want to do to you."
"I'd try, for you." If she had something to say to that you don't let her get it out. You realized your mouth had been too far away for far too long. You missed the feeling of her tugging at your hair, pushing and pulling you to her own accord.
"Oh gods- dammnit-" She's bucking her hips into your face, her hold on your head especially tight, she groans, it's from her chest, low and thankful. You feel her stutter with the orgasm rolling over her and she pushes you away. Her chest heaving.
"You're a dream, you know?" She's pulling you to your feet, she laughs when she has to steady you a bit, then she kisses you. "Taking such good care of me all night. Looking so pretty while you do."
You feel her hands on between your shoulder blades, she's kissing down your jaw and neck, you're putty in her hands, waiting to be put where she wanted you.
"Come on," She's picking you up, wrapping your legs around her middle, "tell me, before I could touch you like this, and you had to take care of yourself. Tell me what you thought of. I'll tell you mine."
"It's so embarrassing-" You honest to god whine at her, if she were a stronger woman she'd be able to suppress the shudder it sent up her spine.
"Tell me, I'll give you whatever you want, all night if you do."
"It was just you-" You groan as she sets you down on your back and crawls on top of you, "your voice, I could hear it in my head so clearly." She's grinning from ear to ear, impish and coy.
"What was I saying? Was I bossing you around?" She laughed a little because gods you were an idiot, all she had to do was lay you down and you were spreading your legs for her.
"Sometimes-" Your chest was stuttering.
"Oh?" She pushes the syllable through pursed, curious lips, "what about the other times?"
"You're moaning," you're bucking your hips, searching for pay off, something anything the heat was unbearable. "Saying I'm good, calling me pretty-" You couldn't help the hand you brought down to rub over yourself, it was just something else for Karlach to look at.
"You like when I call you pretty?" She's attacking your chest with kisses that leave a burning trail in their wake, "you touch yourself and imagine me watching, calling you pretty?" She laughs that laugh again, the one that makes you wanna lay face down for her. "Maybe you're just as far gone as I am."
"I definitely am." You're practically begging her to touch, after 10 years of holding back she finds it almost impossible to deny you.
"Wanna see if it's as good as when you dreamed about it?" She's pulling you up, turning you over, you go because you're so stupid for her when you get like this, she could walk you off a cliff if she wanted.
" Are you gonna make yourself cum for me?"
This was overwhelming, you felt drunk, your emotions were running so high, you were so horny you could sob, "I'd do whatever you want-" She  was kissing at the backs of your thighs, you could feel her breath on your desperate fingers.
"Oh, careful pretty girl you're giving me too much power." She's laughing, her voice was low against your skin and it made you shudder. "I might not be so nice next time."
"No, no, you can do whatever you want to me Karlach- fuck-" You gasp, feeling her thumb brush against you.
"Whatever I want?" You can hear the grin in her voice, impishly charming.
"Yeah, anything-"
"I could tie you up?" She nipped at your skin and that paired with the thought of it alone could get you to cum, "yes please-" Your eyes were glossed over, you were pushing your hips back into her, begging for a firmer touch.
"Oh gods, you've gotten yourself into trouble now. And here I thought you were a nice girl." One of her hands pulls your upper thigh, right were it meets your ass, to get a better look at you.
"You know," Her other hand joins, taking the other thigh, you can feel her nails pressing your skin, "really I can't think of anything else to say but pretty. You are so pretty for me. I can't blame myself for thinking you were a good girl, how could anyone so pretty be bad?"
All you can do is moan, practically cry at it.
"You know it's everything too, not just this." Her thumb brushes you again and you actually think you feel your soul leave your body. "The noises you make, and that pretty red blush you get every time you look up at me. Like I'm deflowering you every time I touch you. Ravishing you, scandalizing you."
"Karlach, please-" She hadn't asked you to beg, that was all on your own accord.
She makes a pouting noise, faux sympathy, "alright, I'll give in. Tell me where you want me, pretty girl. I can't say no to face like your's."
You don't know where to start, you want it all honestly. Lucky for you she's started, replacing your hand with her own then slipping her fingers into you. You were melting into the ground below letting out a desperate warbling moan mixed with a handful of profanities.
"Good or bad-" She cautions and you shake your head, the momentary loss of friction makes your eyes water desperately.
"Good! Good, Karlach, please, fuck-"
You were whining and moaning into your arm, which had been previously holding your chest off the ground. Your eyebrows turn up at it, "oh fuck-"
You were acutely aware of how well she knew your body at this point. Every stroke into you had you moaning, rumbling from your chest, the momentum she'd picked up carrying with a bounce in your cries.
For a split second she was gone, stopping to wrap her arm around your front, as quickly as the touch was gone it was back. Then her free hand was in your hair dragging you up to press your back against her chest and fuck it hurt a little but in a way that made your spine tingle and ripped the most beautiful fucking moan Karlach had ever heard out of you.
"Oh sweetheart-" She moans it into your neck, "you'll kill me at this rate." Her arm wraps around your middle and you grip her forearm with your hand, the other coming around your back to hold onto her there.
She picked back up to pace quickly with you against her chest, bounding forward with unrelenting force that hit you so hard she could hear it in your voice.
"That's it, you pretty thing, just like that, huh? That's perfect." She's cooing into the crook of your neck, "good, good job."
"Fuck-" Your nails dig into her arm, "fuck me, Karlach-"
"The mouth on you lovely girl," She groans into your neck, pulling you into a sloppy but stupidly hot kiss.
"When it was me, waiting to finally touch you, this is what I thought about." You can feel her breath behind your ear when she speaks, "all the different ways I could completely undo you, how good you'd be for me while I did, how you would beg for me to do it. I'd never make you worry about anything, no." She tsks, "I thought about how much fun it would be, taking care of you. I got off thinking about your pretty, empty head, getting railed by me. How'd I do?"
"I'm gonna cum-" You somehow manage to choke it out, "'m gonna- fuck!" Your eyebrows knit together and of course she grins.
"Go 'head, I wanna see it." She was kissing your shoulders a hand coming down to thumb at your clit, you keen loud and still bouncing, "wanna hear it-" She murmured into your skin, "I definitely wanna feel it too."
"Oh fuck-" You gasp, your eyes roll back from the shock of it. Thank god she can't see your face because you must have been drooling. The jerking tenseness of your hips and the way you called out her name like she was an angel would drive her insane for months to come all she can do is sink her teeth into your shoulder.
If it wasn't for her arm around you you'd have slumped to the ground.
"That good?" She laughs and you nod.
"Come on, let's clean you up." She lays you down and takes the extra pieces of cloth you had on hand to wipe you clean, "are you alright?" You only nod again and she chuckles,
"and she was too stunned to speak. Another knock out performance by Karlach."
That gets a snort out of you and you shove her arm, "come off it, K."
"Uh oh, someone sounds tired." Her hand rubs your stomach, you're purring like a cat.
"No I'm not." You drag your hand down her stomach, obviously downwards and she laughs.
"Easy there solider, I think the others are expecting to do a least a little adventuring tomorrow. You look ready to pass out anyway." She gathers your clothes up, then you where you'd crumpled into the floor.
"Come on solider." She hoists you over her shoulder, "let's go to bed, I'll get you all tucked in nice and warm in my tent."
"Yeah, okay....good idea K." You were content to dangle over her shoulder, "K, I love you."
"OH I know you do, pretty." She pats your backside, "but I love you more."
You gasp as she drops you onto her bedroll, "no way!"
"Yes way." She's kissing and nuzzling your neck while you laugh, "admit it before I have to ravish you right here in this tent to prove it!"
For as delightful as your touch was your laugh was just as intoxicating, you nodded desperately trying to squirm away from the ticklish kisses and bites.
"Lay down." Karlach pulls away, smiling, "I don't think there's anyone on the planet who's ever loved anyone as much as I love you." She thumbs at your bottom lip, "and I don't think there's anyone in the world half as a pretty as you are. Sleep tight knowing that." You preen at her words as she settles down into bed with you.
"Let's go to sleep, we haven't go much nighttime left, no thanks to you."
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housewifebuck · 7 months
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hi everyone! I've gotten several requests to make a tutorial on how to make gifs for someone just starting out and I finally got around to slapping a tutorial together.
This tutorial will cover:
software recommendations
choosing what to gif
creating a gif step by step with probably a lot of unnecessary detail
some tips and tricks:)
(This particular tutorial will not cover how to find tv and movies to download and gif, or any specific instructions on coloring. only the basic gif making process.)
so for the purposes of this tutorial, we will be using Adobe Photoshop, which is the most common program for making gifs, and the one I recommend. the version you have doesn't make a major difference in terms of capabilities but the interface may be slightly different looking if you have an older version or a different type of device. you cannot make or edit gifs in any mobile version of the photoshop application. Optionally, we will also be using Adobe Premiere Rush/Pro or another video editing software of your choice. wherever you are downloading Photoshop, whether from Adobe or a third party, you should easily be able to acquire Premiere as well. I am aiming to be as detailed as possible in this tutorial, so it may sound more time consuming than it really is. once you get the hang of things, it goes fast. the most time consuming part by far is the editing and coloring. in my opinion, one thing that majorly saves time while giffing is knowing your keyboard shortcuts and using your mouse/trackpad as little as possible. I will be going over these in this tutorial as well.
before we begin, some general tips:
gifs of single shots that do not cut between angles or subjects generally will look the best, barring exceptions
for a single gif set, choosing scenes and shots with similar lighting will be easiest to get to look uniform when compiled together, since editing wildly different looking scenes to have similar coloring and lighting is hard and takes some practice!
avoid shots that will require you to majorly crop or zoom to properly frame the subject, as this will greatly diminish quality
speaking of quality, gifs will look best using 1080p video, but you can get away with 720p as well. I would not recommend giffing with anything lower resolution than that
Tumblr's upload capacity for image and gif files is 10mb. be sure when exporting your finished gif that it is under that size. if it is a bit over, you can try trimming a few frames off your gif in the video timeline.
if you get frustrated, don't give up! giffing is hard and complicated especially if you are new to photoshop. I tried to make this tutorial as detailed as possible so it's easy to understand (although im sure I still forgot some stuff)
ok onto the tutorial!!!
STEP ONE: choose what range of frames you want to gif, and how.
once you have decided what you want to gif, there are two main way to convert your episode into a range of frames to make into a gif. the first is by screencapping. this involves downloading a program like mplayer or vlc which can be used to convert video files into "stacks" of screencaps, which can then be separated into whatever range of frames you want and imported into photoshop. this is seemingly by far the most common method I have seen amongst gifmakers*, but personally I don't care for it and I think it's more confusing and time consuming overall, so I will be explaining the second method: importing video frames to layers.
now, normally what this would mean is opening the full episode in photoshop and using the pathetic little playheads on either end of the scrub bar to trim the file into a clip. this is where your video editing software comes into play.
open whatever episode or movie you want to gif in your program. if it is a large file like a long movie in 1080p, this may take a few seconds. like I said, I am using Premiere Rush. I will be using a random episode of 9-1-1 for my example gif.
in your media browser, hover over whichever episode you want (you can also just add the whole episode to your project and scrub through, but that can take longer unless you know what time stamp you're after). click the fullscreen button by the bottom righthand corner.
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now you can scrub through and trim the episode before you even import it to premiere. this makes trimming your clip even easier.
use the trim bar (yellow outlines) to trim as close as you can around the scene you want to gif.
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then click this plus, and then "add" below. this will add the clip to your project.
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now, move the blue playhead up to the frame you want your gif to start on. then, use the scissors button off to the left to slice the clip. select the portion before the playhead, and delete it.
now move the playhead to where you want the gif to stop. a good length for most gifs is around 1.5-2 seconds in my opinion. some may be shorter depending on how long the shot is, or longer if you plan on making them smaller (remember, the uploading capacity on Tumblr is 10mb per file.) trim again, now delete the portion after the playhead. you can also use the left and right arrows beside the play button to move frame by frame, and you can adjust the side of the horizontal scroll bar below your clip to “zoom” in on it and make scrubbing easier.
once you have your clip, go up to where it says "share". your clip will be rendered, and then you can click export to save it.
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repeat step one as many times as you want for each gif. I know this may sound complicated, but like I said above once you get in the rhythm this step takes only a few seconds.
STEP TWO: create your gif!
close premiere. open photoshop. head to the control bar at the top. select file > import > import video frames to layers.
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navigate to whatever folder you exported your clip to. select it, and hit enter. a second popup will appear asking you to select your range of frames. since you have already trimmed your clip to your liking, simply hit enter a second time.
now your screen looks like this, and we are going to crop and resize our gif! (troubleshooting: if you do not see the timeline bar at the bottom, select window from the control bar, scroll down, and make sure timeline is selected as part of your workspace. Adjustments and layers should be there automatically but if not add them too).
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Tumblr posts are 540px wide, so in order to make my gifs as small as possible while maintaining quality, I typically crop my gifs to be around 550-600px wide, with varying heights depending on what shape I want the gif to be. experiment with this a little and decide what works for you. just don't make the width lower than 540px. once you have the portion of the frame you want inside the cropping grid, hit enter again. sometimes you have to hit it twice.
here are the measurements I am using for this gif
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now in your timeline, select frame 1. hold down the shift key and scroll to the end to select the very last frame, thereby highlighting them all. from here we will edit our frame delay rate. photoshop will automatically set it to .03s, which will make your finished gif awkwardly fast. I typically use .05s, or .06s if I want a gif to be subtly slower (this comes in handy if the shot you are trying to gif is very short). anything longer than .06s will look weird though. choose "other" from this menu and type in your delay rate. make sure not to miss the zero after the decimal.
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once you've set your frame rate, go to the other end of your timeline and click here to convert your frames into a video timeline.
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then press option + command + A (on Mac) or windows + alt + A (on PC) to select all layers. then right click (control + click with a trackpad) on any one of the highlighted layers in your layers tab off to the right. scroll down in the popup menu and select Convert to Smart Object.
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THAT'S IT!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! WE HAVE GIF!!!
from here comes the fun part!! you will begin adding action filters like sharpening as well as adjustment layers to color and edit your gif. experiment with different adjustments and styles until you find something you like. too many adjustment layers will up the size of the finished gif though, so I tend to keep mine to 3-4 layers max unless its a really hard to color scene. if anyone is interested in a separate coloring tutorial, please let me know!
once you are finished editing your gif, click file > export > save for web (legacy) OR hit shift + option + command + S. play your gif in the export window to make sure it looks okay, and then hit save!
I hope you guys find this helpful and informative! please hit up my in box if you have any questions or if anything doesn't make sense. happy giffing!!!
*one reason people seem to prefer screencapping to this method, is saving all the individual clips as video files does take up a lot of space on your scratch drive, which in turn can cause your computer to work slowly or crash programs. this can be rectified by making sure to delete the clips from your computer once you are done making the gifs. another space hoarder to look out for is the proxy files of your episodes that will be automatically saved to your hard drive whenever you add an episode to your project in Premiere. Periodically, go through your storage and delete all the .proxy video files. this will not delete the original episode files, only the proxy files created by Premiere.
tagging some mutuals to sb hehe: @shitouttabuck @lover-of-mine @honestlydarkprincess @eddiediaaz @compactdiscmp3 @eddiebabygirldiaz @bigfootsmom @callaplums @athenagranted @firemedicdiaz @sibylsleaves @loserdiaz @buck2eddie @diazass @eddiediaztho @giddyupbuck @monsterrae1 @icecreampotluck @sunflowerdiaiz @swiftfootedachilles @singlethread @aziraaphales @911onabc
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penig · 6 months
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Behold the dress that kicked my ass.
After finally perfecting the empire waist dress I was of course sick of sewing it, so I went through the patterns inherited from a friend's mother (friend doesn't sew, mother was about my size and had a significant stash of projects she never got to start) and found a cute one that would do for my purposes. I should have dug out my muslin (I found muslin for $0.99/yard once 20 years or so ago and have been lauding my own wisdom in buying the bolt ever since) but instead I thoughtlessly pulled one of the fabrics from the inherited stash. Because I am smart enough to use stuff I have paid little to nothing for the first time I make a pattern.
I have never altered a dress with princess seams before.
There was absolutely no leftover fabric of that black; there wasn't even enough for the sleeves. Fortunately, I also overbuy solid colors in plain fabrics on sale and had quite a lot of a green that coincidentally match the palm trees. That button plaquet was not supposed to be a button plaquet, it was supposed to be facing, which I turned into a button plaquet when the front panels wouldn't meet across the portion of my anatomy that shakes when I laugh like a bowlful of jelly. I misjudged where and how much the flare needed to be changed to accommodate that and I couldn't think of a good way to make the scraps into a gusset to fix the problem. The button plaquet mostly solves that; but I didn't consider how much it would widen the neckline, and when my first try-on came I found myself with an off-the-shoulder dress and a really deep decolletage.
And that was when I entered one of my "what are shapes?" phases. I'm not good at rotating shapes in my head at the best of times; sometimes, I cease to be able to parse them at all. They become like numbers and make no sense. There's nothing I can do but tuck the problem into my backbrain and give it time. As usual, this method didn't fail me, and when I finally saw the leading edge of how to deal with the problem I started picking away at it one small task at a time.
This is still a shade too wide at the neckline (my hair's over my shoulders so the bra straps don't show) and there are seams that any seamstress as good as people think you need to be to make your own clothes would not tolerate for a second - but I happen to be a crappy seamstress who makes her own clothes anyway, and today I reached the point at which I could say: "That'll have to do; hem the thing."
I can't be said to have learned the pattern, either, due to the jiggerpokery with the facing/plaquet. Next time (which will not be tomorrow! Or even next month.) I will definitely call on my faithful cheap muslin. But it actually is kind of cute, and if I can learn to alter princess seams to my shape properly - well, that's a whole new world, isn't it?
Anyway, consider this encouragement to do any project you think you're not good enough to do, and to see it through. Whatever it is. If I can do it, you certainly can.
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fibula-rasa · 4 months
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How’d They Do That?
Special Effects & Stunts of Silent Cinema - Part 1
This is the first installment of an open-ended series where I try to highlight and illustrate the work of special effects and stunt artists of silent filmdom. Using articles from contemporary fan and trade magazines, I’ll make gifs or dig up images and/or video clips to accompany the descriptions of how the sequences were executed.
My notations will be bracketed and highlighted in a different color. Hope you all enjoy! Fair warning: this is a long read.
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How They Do It! 
[from Photoplay, April 1926]
by Cal York
Millions are asking how the motion pictures are accomplishing the marvelous new effects which have been developed in the past few years. It took months of investigation to give you the answer
DO you remember how you thrilled when the Red Sea parted to let Moses and the children of Israel pass through, only to close again and swallow up Pharaoh and his pursuing warriors in C.B. De Mille's stupendous "Ten Commandments" ?
How you gasped as T. Roy Barnes fled from the burning tenement with Claire Windsor in his arms as flames and smoke spurted about them and debris crashed on all sides in "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model"?
The destruction of Pontius Pilate's palace with the crushing of hundreds underneath the ruins in "Ben Hur"? 
The rescue of Doris Kenyon by Ronald Colman in Fitzmaurice's great picture, "A Thief in Paradise," as Miss Kenyon's runaway horse reared and stood poised on his hind legs on the very brink of a precipice? 
Conway Tearle's hair-breadth escape from the mountain of rushing water in "The Great Divide"? 
The stirring battle scenes in "The Big Parade" in which giant shells burst all around, tearing huge craters and spreading death as our boys marched on and on and on through No Man's Land. 
How Blanche Sweet carried Ronald Colman to safety as the blazing roof fell and seemed certain to bury them. This in "His Supreme Moment." 
I could go on and remind you of train wrecks which have brought you from your seats, of battles against storm and shipwrecks at sea—of thrills and hairbreadth escapes and terrific disasters.
How many times have you gone home from your motion picture theater and wondered how these things were accomplished, discussed with your family and friends what possible method could have been used to achieve the seemingly impossible?
AFTER months of investigation, I am able to give you an explanation of the thrills in the pictures I have mentioned and to explain to you the general method used in most other similar scenes. 
First, I will tell you how they parted the Red Sea. This was done by a process of double printing, worked out by Roy Pomeroy, technical director at Lasky's. But that, marvelous as it seemed, was but a simple thing compared with the miracles now being wrought on celluloid by Frank Williams, the wizard of Hollywood, who has dreamed out and perfected the moving or traveling mat process of printing, which has made possible most of the recent marvels of the screen.
[Roy Pomeroy was head technical wizard for Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount (that is to say, he was their head special-effects engineer). We only know for certain about a handful of films that Pomeroy made specific contributions to, like The Ten Commandments (1923) and Wings (1927). As with many journeymen of the silent/studio era of Hollywood, the amount of films Pomeroy worked on was likely substantial, but many technical roles went uncredited at the time.]
To part the Red Sea, Pomeroy first built, on the Lasky lot, two wooden walls about the height of the ordinary room and backed them at one end with a scenic drop to represent the Red Sea country. These walls he covered with a jelly-like substance made from silicate of soda and sulphuric acid, which shimmered and shook and photographed like water. The floor space between these two walls was made to look like sand. He then photographed this set. 
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Then, with two cameras set up at the open end, he emptied thousands of gallons of water between the walls from huge water tanks behind them. One of the cameras was cranked backwards, and this showed the parting of the Red Sea. The other camera was cranked forward, and showed the waters joining together. Both were done in slow motion, which will be explained later.
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The next step was taken out on the desert. 
Wire fences were built a few inches further apart than were the jelly walls built on the stage. First Moses and his followers, with their live stock, were marched between these wire fences, which were just outside the camera lines, and therefore did not show in the picture. What the fences did do, however, was to keep the goats and donkeys from poking their noses outside the camera lines, which would never have done for in the double printing process the camera lines would become the walls of water. And it would never do for a donkey to shove his head through the Red Sea. 
After Moses and his Children of Israel had passed through satisfactorily, under the grinding camera, they then photographed Pharaoh and his Egyptians madly pursuing in their chariots through the same fenced lane. And if the horses and chariots smashed out through the light wire fence, it was fine. for you will remember they were seen madly milling about before the walls of water finally obliterated them. 
THEN when they put all together, by double printing, here is what they got: 
First, a wall of water parted and left a lane of dry land in the Red Sea. (You remember the camera cranking backwards gave them the negative for this.) 
Then Moses and his band were printed in passing along the space between the walls of water. After them, came Pharaoh and his warriors in full pursuit. 
Right over these they printed the original negative of the waters rushing together, and this completely engulfed The Egyptians.
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The only person to get wet in the closing of the Red Sea was Charles de Roche, who played Pharaoh. The blotting out of the King and his war chariot was not done by double printing but by trick photography, as it seemed necessary to the story of give this incident more personal drama.
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The method used was this: DeRoche and his horses and chariot were placed on a treadmill. The camera was on a platform facing them. Over DeRoche's head and out of sight of the camera was a huge water tank, with a water chute projecting from it. This chute gave into a tank between DeRoche and the camera, but below the level of the camera line. While DeRoche whipped his horses like a madman on the treadmill and did all the acting necessary to being engulfed by water, the water in the tank was released and poured down in a torrent between him and the grinding camera, giving a perfect illusion. The only reason DeRoche got wet was because the water chute running above his head leaked badly. 
Does this seem wonderful to you? It should. It is. And yet I tell you that it is simplicity itself compared with the moving mat. 
Remember that in the "Ten Commandments" the double printing put the moving people into a vacancy on the film—the blank space left in the miniature between the walls of water. Also, that the double printing of the moving water over the Egyptians simply obliterated them.
READ ON BELOW the JUMP!
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Photo caption: This great outdoor scene is made up of three parts and was made right in the studios of the Paramount Company at Astoria, L.I. It is composed of three parts: a miniature four feet high, six feet in front of the camera; the top part of the cliff, fifteen feet high, eighty feet in front of the camera; and a painted back drop, a few feet further away. In the long shots, or distant views, you see the whole in convincing reality. The close-up shots are shown in the white frame, the bottom of which indicates where the miniature ends and the larger set begins. This scene is from Gloria Swanson's new picture, "The Untamed Lady" 
[The Untamed Lady (1926) is presumed lost, but luckily, a few images of this cliff-top sequence have survived.
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from Exhibitors Herald, 20 March 1926]
An amazing revelation of the latest discoveries of pictures which produce miracles before your eyes
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But Frank Williams can put moving actors photographed in Hollywood into a moving background photographed anywhere in the world—put actual life and dramatic action into miniatures, which, during the previous years when they had worked with miniatures, seemed absolutely impossible. 
[As you can gather from this article Frank Williams was a pioneer cinematographer and special effects artist. Williams was able to patent his moving matte process (and named it the Williams process) and it was an important effects technique used in film as as varied as Ben-Hur (1925), Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1926), The Lost World (1925), and The Invisible Man (1933). All of which are extant and easily accessible! 
While it wasn’t in regular use for very long, the process was the basis for significant later developments in special effects photography, like green screening!]
Williams has made possible scenes that could never otherwise have been shot in motion pictures. It is not only that he has reduced the cost so that often he can give the producer scenes that would otherwise have been prohibitive because of building sets, etc. But he can give them scenes that couldn't be physically shot in any other way—such as a huge building crumbling and toppling in an earthquake and actually burying hundreds of people. It isn't only that he can make hairbreadth escapes without endangering the lives of actors and animals, as was sometimes done to get effects in the old days. He can make thrills that only the actual killing of animals and men would render possible—and this without the actor or animal being anywhere near the scene. 
He can build a miniature town, put real, living people into it, and have them go through any necessary dramatic action, and then he can make a miniature torrent somewhere else altogether and have it sweep away the town with its laughing, singing, dancing population and make you believe when you see it on the screen that it actually happened. 
THESE things he does by the patented process of the moving or traveling mat. It is a matter of printing, remember, more than of photography. Williams himself photographs nothing. The negatives from which he works are all shot for him, under his direction, and the miracles are performed in his laboratory. 
It hasn't been easy for Williams to attain his title of the miracle man of films. He has given to the motion picture art one of its greatest discoveries. Like all great inventors, he has been scorned, laughed at, at times almost starved, forced to work under unspeakably difficult circumstances. But, none of these things moved him. 
A big, quiet, simple fellow, only thirty-two years old. Shy, rather diffident of speech, he makes everything he does look easy. When he comes on a set, his quiet presence is scarcely noticed, and cameramen and technical experts go on spluttering and arguing, and when he is finally appealed to, he settles the problem so simply that everyone wonders why he didn't think of it himself.
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WILLIAMS started as a cameraman at the old Essanay lot the year he was out of high school. He was fifteen years old and knew just enough about a camera to turn a crank. He has spent seventeen years at his work, and it was as far back as 1912 that he started work on the moving mat process.
He had no money and few would listen. He was laughed at—Ford, Edison, Marconi, Fulton, all went through the same experiences.
At one time, not so many years ago, John Considine, who is Joe Schenck's chief lieutenant, could have bought a half interest in Williams' big idea for a couple of thousand dollars. Today it is rumored in Hollywood that Williams has refused a cool half million for the same half interest. 
THE way he finally made it was this—he'd work a while as a cameraman and save a few hundred dollars, and then go back to work in his laboratory—usually the bathroom in the place he was living—until his savings were exhausted. Then back to the camera for another stake, and so on.
In 1912 he was cameraman for Mack Sennett when they had the back end of a little grocery store for a studio. During this time Williams made his first attempt to use the moving mat process. It failed, however, due to the inaccuracies of the cameras and printing machines of the time and the crude film in use.
But Williams wouldn’t let go of the idea. He kept right at it, and finally, in 1917, he again tried to perfect his process. working in a laboratory furnished by Adolph Zukor, of Paramount. But again he faced defeat, and for the same reasons—mechanical inaccuracies and improper film.
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Photo caption: A rolling stage at studios of the Education Film Co. in Hollywood. Upside-down scenes and rolling ship scenes are easy with its use. It is possible to show ship interiors on the stage inside the cylinder which duplicates exactly the movement of a ship in a storm
[The rolling stage was used for lots of imaginative and comedic sequences in shorts and features. In the Lupino Lane short Movieland (1926), there’s a bit that shows the stage in action. Here’s a link to that specific scene, but the whole short is a lot of wacky fun and I recommend watching the full film!
Another illustration of how the rolling stage can be put to use is in When the Clouds Roll By (1919):
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FINALLY, six years ago, his efforts were crowned with success. The Williams moving mat process was used in a Universal picture, "Wild Honey," and acknowledged commercially. Williams received a great deal of help and gives much credit for this to Elmer Sheeley, then a Universal art director, especially in the building of the miniatures. 
Through the better grade of film, a motor-cranked camera set on a solid tripod, and through his own printing machine, built according to Williams' own drawings at a cost of $18,000, one whose accuracy is to within one ten-thousandth of an inch, all the obstacles which had frustrated him so long were overcome and Williams' moving mat process came to life, as perhaps the greatest single invention in motion pictures since that of the camera itself. 
Once having demonstrated what he could do in "Wild Honey," in which he made a miniature stream appear a rushing torrent over a hundred feet high which pursued Priscilla Dean down a dry stream bed and finally engulfed her, Williams did not have much trouble getting producers to listen. This "Wild Honey" thrill was the forerunner of all big water spectacles, and when shown to C.B. DeMille gave him the idea for the parting of the Red Sea. DeMille admitted that this flood was the greatest spectacle he had ever seen up to that time.
[Unfortunately, Wild Honey (1922) is currently presumed lost and I was unable to find any depiction of Priscilla Dean fleeing from a torrent of water. As noted above however, there are quite a few extant films that also used Williams’ moving matte process.
In case you were wondering, I put $18,000 through an inflation calculator and it is equivalent to more than $315,000 in 2023 money!]
In trick photography miniatures have always been a very important part. It would hardly do to burn a huge building to have a woman carried from the blazing structure, and this the Williams process makes unnecessary. 
TAKE the thrilling rescue front the burning tenement in "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model." A replica of a New York tenement was built in miniature at the studio where the picture was made. We will say for illustration that the scale used in erecting the miniature was one and one-half inches to a foot, or one-ninth the actual size. 
In working with miniatures there are two very important things to be considered, and these must be worked out with mathematical precision, if Williams is to be given a perfect negative on which to transpose living actors through his traveling mat. One is to make the miniature look the proper height. This is done by placing the camera the proper distance from the miniature (of course much closer than if it were a real building), and shooting from a lower level. The other is called timing. For example, if a miniature tree is to fall and the camera set-up is close enough and low enough to give the miniature the proper height when it is seen on the screen, then you must be careful of the speed with which it falls.
A little tree falls rapidly—a big tree slowly. And here is where the timing enters. Ultra speed cameras are used. The faster you crank the more pictures you get per second, and the slower the thing seems to move when you see it on the screen. You have all seen slow-motion pictures. These were made with slow-motion cameras, or what are more commonly termed ultra-speed cameras. And it is through this slow motion photography that the little tree is made to fall at the proper speed to be the big tree it represents, or the miniature stream is made to run at the proper speed for a giant river. 
And so to get back to the fire which is still threatening "Our Nell." A torch is applied to the miniature tenement. At the proper count little invisible wires tied to window sashes are pulled and burning brands crash to the street below. And all the time the cameras, driven by motors at the proper speed, placed at the right distance from the conflagration and almost flat on the floor, are grinding away and recording this great fire.
[Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model (1924) is extant, with a print located at Gosfilmofond, but the film is not readily accessible. However, a depiction of the burning building sequence appears on an advertisement for the film:
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from Film Daily, 28 February 1924]
OVER on some other part of the lot, and at any time which suits the director's convenience, T. Roy Barnes, with Miss Windsor in his arms, dashes through a black velvet door and down a street backed with more black velvet. 
Two things must be remembered, however. The actors must come out of the velvet door at the right spot and at the right time or "count." This is necessary so that Williams can match up the fire negative, which is the background with action in it, with the negative of Miss Windsor and Barnes, which becomes the moving mat. 
The remainder is simple, and is done by Williams and his printing process over at his laboratory. 
On the screen you see Barnes dashing from a burning tenement with Miss Windsor in his arms while, in reality, neither of the actors has been close enough to a fire to singe a single eyelash. 
Blanche Sweet's rescue of Colman in "The Supreme Moment" was worked out in the same manner as this, as have been most other burning building thrills in pictures made in the last few years.
[His Supreme Moment (1925) is presumed lost and unfortunately I was unable to locate a depiction of the burning building rescue mentioned here.]
Now for the destruction of Pontius Pilate's palace with the struggling mass crushed beneath, in "Ben Hur." Of course the palace was done in miniature, while the people did their acting out on the lot, where the street was built with a dead white backing. Again the timing had to correspond with that in the falling of the palace. 
The throng of people was lined up and rehearsed. Two lines were drawn in the street a fixed distance apart—which represented the space where the ruins of the palace would fall, and the throng was sent dashing wildly down the street. At a fixed signal, all caught between the two marks fell flat on the ground. Those who had not reached the first line halted and registered terror. Those who had passed the second mark fled on, looking back and also registering terror. You see, those caught between the two marks were the people buried under the debris of Pilate's palace—those on either side had escaped.
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Then came the trick printing with the two negatives, with considerable painting out of those who had fallen flat between the two lines, and you have the palace falling on the panic-stricken throng in the street. The accompanying drawings will help you to visualize this. 
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Never Before Told 
This set of illustrations graphically explains for the first time the marvelous traveling mat process invented by Mr. Williams, which makes it possible for one cameraman to take a background in Europe, another to take the action of moving persons in Hollywood, and to combine them in one motion picture so that when it appears on the screen the action seems to take place against the background so perfectly that it cannot be detected by the human eye. 
Follow this explanation carefully, and the method will be clearly demonstrated to you. 
No. 1. This is the negative of the moving figure taken in front of a white background. In the negative, white appears black and black appears white. It is from this negative that the Williams traveling mat, which has revolutionized motion pictures, is made. 
No. 2. This is a print made from the No. 1 negative and is printed on film of extreme contrast. In this the white and black values are given their true tones. 
No. 3. This is the No. 2 film intensified in a silver nitrate solution so that it becomes a dead black silhouette, while the rest of the film is transparent. 
No. 4. This is the background negative which can be taken any place in the world or made from still photographs or from miniatures. This background negative can have put in it any motion required. 
No. 5. This shows the most important step in the Williams' moving mat process. In front you see the moving mat or drawing No. 3. In the middle is the background negative, drawing No. 4, and at the back is the unexposed film on which they are to be printed concurrently. By this double printing, you get a print of the background negative, which leaves an unexposed portion in each frame, corresponding exactly to the figure you see in drawing No. 1. 
No. 6. The result of the double printing being made in No. 5, which leaves a silhouette blank space of the moving figure, is again double printed and into the blank space is printed the real photographic action taken in the original negative. 
Thus you see that one double printing has left a blank silhouette space into which the real action is double printed in every detail.
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The rescue of Doris Kenyon, which is also illustrated by the artist, was accomplished in this manner. One negative was shot of a very real and very steep precipice, the cameramen suspended on a platform far out over the edge to get the proper angle. Another negative was shot of Miss Kenyon's horse racing madly along what looked like a fence—but what was the inevitable white drop. Doris and the horse had to reach a certain mark at a certain count—for over at the precipice there had been rocks and dirt released at a certain count—the horse bad to rear, and Colman had to reach the frenzied beast, starting from outside the camera line, and he, too, must arrive on the right count. There could be no waiting for man or horse. They took it perhaps forty times before everything was exactly right, and then the two negatives (the precipice background and the moving mat) were ready for the printing wizard, and audiences got a great thrill.
[A Thief in Paradise (1925) is almost entirely lost. I profiled the film in my series Lost, but Not Forgotten in 2023.]
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Photo caption: These two drawings explain how the runaway horse thrill in George Fitzmaurice's "A Thief in Paradise" was made. The upper drawing shows the cameraman getting his shots of a very steep and very real precipice. It also has the horse with its rider and the rescuer sketched in on the edge of the precipice where it actually appears in the picture. 
The lower drawing shows the run that was made before the dead white background, with the horse rearing and Ronald Colman coming to Doris Kenyon's rescue. 
The upper drawing was the background negative and the lower drawing the moving mat negative, and by the Williams' process the rearing horse, rider and Colman seemed to be actually placed on the brink of the precipice
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You remember the mountain of water pursuing Conway Tearle in "The Great Divide." Of course they shot the torrent in miniature. Conway and his horse made their hairbreadth dash on a dark night and in an artificial rainstorm with nothing but a director threatening —then, although they did have quite a time making the steed climb a slippery and sloping wooden bridge, which was out on the back lot. Then up in Mr. Williams' laboratory, they finished one of the greatest thrills ever witnessed. 
[While The Great Divide (1925) is thankfully extant at Cinemateket-Svenska Filminstitutet, it’s not easily accessible and I was unable to find a depiction of the effect.]
And the marvelous battle scenes in "The Big Parade." There were the big guns tearing huge craters in No Man's Land made on one negative, and the boys marched on and on and on in the other negative, and Mr. Williams brought them together in his printing laboratory. However, it was by no means as easy as it sounds, for this was one of the hardest pieces of moving mat printing ever accomplished.
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SO critical is the public that the building, photographing and printing of these miniatures must be of the very highest type of workmanship obtainable. It might be interesting to know that this work in "The Big Parade" alone cost approximately $70,000 for the background negative and the moving mat negative. The miniature battlefield was about one hundred thirty-five feet long and more than seven thousand miniature shells were fired in a period of forty seconds.
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On another picture—"The Barrier"—which shows a fierce storm at sea, icebergs, and a ship caught and crushed in an ice floe, more than $85,000 have been spent to create these illusions. 
[The Barrier (1926) is unfortunately presumed lost and I wasn’t able to find a depiction of this effect.]
Mr. Waller, technical camera expert of the Famous Players Long Island Studio, had never seen a cyclone; yet he was instructed to produce one for D. W. Griffith's picture, "That Royle Girl." Mr. Waller did extensive research work on the subject, and then made one to experiment with. A scientific knowledge of the working of the law of gravity, by the way, is necessary to create this phenomenon of nature. 
[That Royle Girl (1925) is also presumed lost, and without film footage of this sequence there’s not really a way to know how the cyclone looked in the film. However, I do think the image highlighted in the advertisement below is likely from the cyclone sequence.
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from Motion Picture News, 21 November 1925]
In the basement of the studio Mr. Waller connected up three vacuum cleaners. With three suctions of air and some dust, he made a tiny cyclone. This was photographed in slow motion so that the camera and technical crew might study the formation and activity of the cone. 
From his observations of the film, Mr. Waller was able to prepare the series of wash drawings which, photographed in animated cartoon fashion, represented the action of the cyclone's cone in this sequence of the picture. 
Several hundred drawings had to be made, each one depicting gradually the advance of the cone toward the Inn, which it finally demolishes. These were photographed in rotation on motion picture negative, and this negative double exposed on the 180-foot miniature scene containing the houses and trees. Thus we got a very good illusion of the cone of a cyclone advancing over a village and sweeping houses and trees out of its path. 
[I wonder if/hope that some of these drawings have survived!]
The animated cartoon idea was also used in "A Kiss for Cinderella," when the pumpkin and mice change into the coach and four. The first few feet of the sequence showed real mice and pumpkin; from then on 256 wash drawings of the gradual transformation were photographed in rotation and gave the impression of being animated.
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Double exposures of one actor playing two parts is the oldest and most familiar camera trick to the fans. 
Just recently, however, has it been perfected to the point where the actor's two screen shadows can light each other's cigarettes and shake hands. 
Tom Meighan, you recall, did this in Irish Luck." 
AN invisible line from top to bottom divides each frame of the negative in half. One half at a time is exposed, photographing one half of the set. 
Tom appears as Lord Fitzhugh on the left half, and as Tom Donohue on the right half. If you remember. Tom's two shadows are sitting side by side on a divan in the instance of the cigarette lighting. Fitzhugh leans over and gets a light from Donahue's cigarette. The illusion is perfect. But the cigarette from which his lordship really got the light was tacked onto a chair just outside the line, on the half of the set not being photographed at that moment. Only the lighted end of the cigarette projects into Fitzhugh's half of the picture.
[Irish Luck (1925) is extant at Eastman House, but it’s not currently easily accessible. I wasn’t able to find a depiction of this split-screen effect.]
Then when Donahue's half of the scene was being filmed, Tom leans forward and holds his cigarette in exactly the spot where the chair had been, the lighted end being outside his half of the picture. Think of the perfect matching this requires! 
It is done this way. As Lord Fitzhugh performs on one side of the set, the director times his actions, counting the seconds out loud. He knows just where his lordship's right arm is, for instance, at the sixteenth second. When Donahue begins to perform on the other side of the set, his arm must be in a corresponding position at the sixteenth second. Tricky. 
A thrilling moment in "Aloma of the South Seas," Gilda Grey's new picture, occurs when a shark eats a sailor. If you want this thrill, you naturally have to take it synthetic. 
The shark cost $3,000. It was made of flexible rubber, and its insides consisted of a maze of electric wiring. Outside the body were several buttons which the actor could operate in his fight with the shark. It swims, wiggles its tail and bites electrically.
[Aloma of the South Seas (1926) is presumed lost and I wasn’t able to find images of the shark described here. However, as consolation, here is a photo from American Cinematographer of the film’s cinematographer Harry Fishbeck shooting on location in Puerto Rico:
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from American Cinematographer, February 1926]
I guess most of the suffering for art is done by the actors who tie themselves into knots to create the illusion of paralysis, amputated legs and so on. John Gilbert is shown in the last reels of "The Big Parade" with an amputated leg. Jack Barrymore in "The Sea Beast," also does it. It is merely a painful process of strapping the foreleg back. In "The Street of Forgotten Men," with Percy Marmont, a very lucid expose of cripple fakes is shown. Marmont had his arm strapped to his back for hours at a stretch during the filming of this picture. It hurts the first fifteen minutes, Percy said. After that the arm becomes numb. 
A vigorous massage is necessary to bring it back to life, but it doesn't feel normal for weeks, Percy says. 
Lon Chaney has his tricks of deformity down so pat that they are almost painless to him now.
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hunieday · 6 months
Text
Momo Rabbitube Mini - Rabbit Chat
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Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!
Kujo Tenn: Momo-san, Izumi Iori, good morning.
Kujo Tenn: Regarding tomorrow’s get-together, I will be at Momo-san’s house at around 4 PM as planned. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule.
Izumi Iori: Good morning, Kujo-san, Momo-san. I’ll also be there as planned. 
Izumi Iori: I’m looking forward to the takoyaki party.
Momo: Good morning. Thank you very much for your generous invitation.
Momo: I found a takoyaki plate at my house, I think it would be great to use for our gathering. Please feel free to come.
Momo: ……….
Momo: i'm wonewy (1) …😭‼️‼️‼️ ️Can I use emojis now ?! well I already used these tho 😭‼️
Izumi Iori: Why won’t you use them? What’s the matter?
Kujo Tenn: I apologize. Did I seem too distant?
Momo: No! I think it’s polite, just like you two! I tried to match you but my speech bubble looked very simple and lonely lololol
Momo: why don’t you try to be casual and use emojis too?!
Kujo Tenn: I want to eat takoyaki 😋🎶
Momo: Cuuuuuute~!!! 😍😲😆
Izumi Iori: As expected of kujo-san, a quick response…
Kujo Tenn: Thank you. I appreciate it 🐱
Momo: Alright, now it’s time for Iori’s cute little rabbit chat!!
Momo: 3! (*°▽°*)
Izumi Iori: Huh?
Momo: 2! ((*°▽°*))
Izumi Iori: Um…
Izumi Iori: What even is a cute rabbit chat?!
Kujo Tenn: you’re running out of time.
Izumi Iori: Ahhhh no!
Momo: 1! (((o(*°▽°*)o)))
Izumi Iori: 
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Momo: Awesome!!!!! It’s a Mitsuki stamp 😆🫶🧡
Kujo Tenn: You’ve escaped, Izumi Iori.
Izumi Iori: Escaped? What do you mean? Nii-san’s stamp is very cute.
Momo: Yes, yes! It’s perfect, Iori! 🫶✨ 
Izumi Iori: Indeed. I agree.
Momo: Thank you 2 for going along with Momo-chan’s whims 🥺
Momo: I’ll do my best to clean up for tomorrow’s gathering, it’ll be squeaky clean ⚔ 🔫 💥 
Izumi Iori: you’re saying squeaky clean but the emojis are a bit ominous…
Kujo Tenn: It sounds like a different kind of cleaning…
Momo: My bad, sorry! Cleaning my place is a bit of an event! I just throw everything I see into the closet!
Kujo Tenn: I’m starting to feel very concerned…
Izumi Iori: Momo-san, what about the fridge?
Momo: You can’t see inside the fridge without opening so it’s exactly like the closet
Izumi Iori: they’re not the same thing in the slightest!
Kujo Tenn: Izumi Iori, do you know something?
Izumi Iori: Yes. When I visited Momo-san’s house with nii-san before, he froze one year old meat and fish.
Momo: If you freeze them, they stay as fresh as they were when I got them, right?!
Izumi Iori: No they do not.
Kujo Tenn: A year old… Momo-san, be careful not to upset your stomach.
Momo: Tenn-chan is so kind 😭 The frozen ones were fine! Three months old at the longest!
Momo: But the lettuce I harvested with Yuki on location wilted a bit 🥺 even though it’s lettuce full of memories with Yuki 🥺
Kujo Tenn: if it’s only wilted and hasn’t changed color, there’s a method to revive it instantly.
Momo: Huh?! This lettuce has health insurance?! 😳😳
Kujo Tenn: If you dip it in hot water then ice cold water, the crispiness will return as if it were new and freshly picked. Try it. 
Izumi Iori: Also, if you stick several toothpicks into its core beforehand, it will last longer.
Momo: Really?!!! I’ll give it a try!! Thanks to the Idols of the Day for the advice~~ 😄🙏
Kujo Tenn: I learnt it from Ryuu’s grandmother. Gaku might know a thing or two as well, and if I find another good tip I'll tell you.
Izumi Iori: I’m looking forward to seeing the lettuce come back to life.
Momo: 
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Momo: Everything is tidied up, and I checked everything in my fridge! Now all I have to do is the laundry, Iori-sensei, Tenn-sensei! 😤🙌
Izumi Iori: Before I knew it I’ve become a teacher
Kujo Tenn: Iori-sensei seems very strict. If you forget your textbooks, you might have to write a reflection letter or something like that.
Izumi Iori: Look who’s talking? I’m sure you’d reprimand someone because of a slightly crumpled handout, Tenn-sensei.
Momo: lololololol you 2 are still teenagers so your vision of a teacher is still very mighty!!! 🫠
Kujo Tenn: Wouldn’t you like to see Momo-san as a teacher though?
Izumi Iori: I do. I can already imagine students calling him “Momochan-sensei”.
Momo: You two get along super well?! 😳 lolol
Kujo Tenn:
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Kujo Tenn: Even during the rabbitube mini shoot, you sang “SILVER SKY” in a robotic voice and made the staff smile, livening up the place.
Kujo Tenn: I think Momo-san would be a fantastic teacher precisely because you excel at analyzing and observing your surroundings.
Izumi Iori: You also were very good at singing while doing the robot dance.
Izumi Iori: You’ve played the role of a student in some dramas but never a teacher, right?
Momo: Well, Momo-chan has a pretty face, so I’m often given a role that’s supposed to be younger than my age 😋💫 though it feels a bit awkward to say that about myself 😋 lololol
Momo: And when I was singing, I felt like you two didn't respond well~~ I was reflecting on it 🤣 lololol.
Kujo Tenn: I'm sorry. Momo-san, your robot voice singing was so good that I was invested in listening.
Izumi Iori: I also thought, "I want to learn how to robot dance like that."
Momo: Oh, I see 🤣 lolol. I'm glad it wasn't that it didn't go through well!!!
Momo: But while being a teacher is great, don't you want a robot? A robot that can do household chores for you and stuff! 🤖 
Kujo Tenn: Rather than a robot, I wish there was a machine that could do everything at once: shower ⇒ hairdryer ⇒ hair care ⇒ skincare.
Momo: aaaaaaaa I get you too well. It's really tough when you're tired
Izumi Iori: Everyone thinks about it at least once. I’m still able to manage somehow since I get home earlier than you two…
Kujo Tenn: What about Riku? Is his schedule manageable?
Izumi Iori: Yes. Both Manager and I are taking proper care of it, so no need to worry.
Kujo Tenn: I see. I trust you in that regard.
Momo: As expected you two are getting along well!? 🤣
Kujo Tenn: did it seem like we didn't get along during the shoot?
Momo: No!!! I sometimes thought, “did I see sparks just neow (2)?” 🤩⚡I was stimulated a bit too!
Momo: If we stimulate each other positively in this industry, everyone will be happy!
Izumi Iori: Momo-sensei.
Kujo Tenn: Momo-sensei, huh?
Momo:Huh!? You 2 are great at making your senpai feel accomplished 😆.
Momo: 
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Momo: But seriously. When you take the idol industry into consideration, I think it’s great to have a relationship where people can come to my house without hesitating.
Izumi Iori: It's because you’re Re:vale, right?
Kujo Tenn: That's right. Because it's Momo-san and Yuki-san. Thank you for always looking out for us.
Momo: 
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Momo: I'll take a screenshot and check it again later with Yuki and cry 😭
Kujo Tenn: Hey, Izumi Iori, since Re:vale are always hospitable to us, how about we do something for them tomorrow?
Izumi Iori: That sounds good. I'll think about something suitable before tomorrow.
Momo: Kyaa~~!! Momo-chan is super excited for the surprise two cuties like you are preparing 😆🩷💚
Izumi Iori: I'll try to come up with something other than the knowledge I gained from the "Anyone Can Do It! Magic Show." book Nanase-san left in his room.
Kujo Tenn: Riku wants to do magic apparently. Cute.
Momo: Momo-chan will prepare lots of essential ingredients for the takoyaki party 😘
Izumi Iori: By the way, what kind of ingredients?
Momo: Dried plums, grapes, marshmallows, etc…? They're round, so they should be easy to put in! 😋👌
Kujo Tenn: Izumi Iori, I’ll rabbitchat with you later.
Izumi Iori: Okay. Let's select the ingredients carefully. I'll contact you again, Momo-san.
Momo: lololololol thanks, I'll be waiting 🥺
Momo slurs his speech in the og text, saying “ざみじい (zamijii)” instead of “さみしい (samishii)” the best way i could convey that in english is by uwu-fying him. I'm so sorry.
Yes, momo says あったか”にゃ”(nya) instead of あったか”な”(na) in this sentence so the best way translate that was to make him say neow. Again i am sorry
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eddiediaaz · 1 year
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hello. it’s me again who asked for the ripped paper tutorial. i can’t wait to try it out later!! are you able to make a tutorial on how you put the text on the ripped paper? thank you so much ☺️
hello! sure! i'll explain how i made the ripped paper effect from this gifset in more details under the cut 😊 (it’s a different method than what i did on my previous tutorial here)
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i apologize in advance for my lack of coherence, i’m not always the best at explaining stuff, especially not in english haha
first things first: make your gif, color it, sharpen it etc etc, and put all of it's layers in a group. i called mine “blended gifs”. oh and make sure you are in timeline mode, not frame animation!
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then you want to import the ripped paper texture(s) you want to use onto your canvas and position them the way you want them to be on top of your gif, like this:
(i am using these textures for most of this gifset)
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what you want to do next is create a mask of this torn up area so the gif layers only show up around the "hole". to do that, select the texture layer and press "ctrl" while clicking on the texture's thumbnail. this will create a selection of your ripped paper texture (you'll see a flashing dotted line showing your selection).
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btw: the ctrl + click method works only if the image/texture has transparency like this texture does.
[if you want yo create your own torn/ripped shape with 2 or more textures, you can place them on top of each other and create a mask by doing ctrl + selecting the thumbnail of the first one, then while still holding ctrl, also hold the shift key and click on the second texture’s thumbnail (and the third, fourth, etc). this will add the shapes to the same selection and then you can create one layer mask with all of the shapes selected together.]
with that selection still active, you want to select your gif's folder you created earlier and click on the add layer mask button.
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this will create a mask for the ripped paper edges on your gif, the group layer should look like this:
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now disable the torn paper texture (by clicking on the eye next to it, you won’t need that torn paper texture layer again), and your gif should look like this so far:
as you can see, there's a transparency issue, and we're losing the top part of the gif. to fix that, you need to brush some white color onto the mask.
to do that, hit ctrl and select the group's mask thumbnail again, you will see the same selection as earlier show up. with the selection ready, select the brush tool in the color white (and 100% opacity), and go brush/paint some white over the whole layer mask. this should fix the transparency issue and the gif should look like this:
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once you're done, hit ctrl + D to make the selection disappear, and still with the layer mask selected on the gif's group, with the brush tool paint some white at the top so we get the top of the image back. it should look like this:
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(you can also brush more white or black to add/remove parts to this layer mask if you want to, it’s what i did for the original gif, actually.)
now you should be ready to put whatever you want in that ripped edges “hole” you’ve created.
what i did for this gifset is i found a random paper texture on google and used it as a background for my text. make sure you put this background texture under the gif folder, so it will only show up in the “hole”. (i put my texture in a group i renamed “text” because i love my psd compositions to be tidy lol)
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then i just typed the text i wanted and positioned it the way i wanted it to look. the text layer should be over the paper texture but still under the gif folder:
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to finalize the look I color corrected the paper to be a bit more bright and added some highlight on the text, here you can do whatever you want to make the text look the way you want it to look.
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i also added a bit of dropped shadow on the edges of the ripped paper. to do that I selected the mask (ctrl + click the smart mask thumbnail), created a new color fill layer (the color is not important). this will create a layer with a layer mask of the selection. i then selected the smart mask thumbnail and hit ctrl + i to invert it, so my mask is not only the inside of the “hole”. then i put this layer on top of everything, and the fill at 0%. finally i added an inner shadow in the layer style options (by double clicking on that color fill layer).
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and that is the final result!
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i hope that wasn’t all too over the place or not too detailed? i wasn’t sure how familiar with photoshop you are 😊
@nightmaarebeforechristmas​ here u go!
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utilitycaster · 6 days
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I love your thoughts on Astrid and I think a lot about whether her initial ambition to become powerful for the sake of power turned into the ambition for power so no one else has power over her. I truly do not think she begrudges Wulf his faith any more than she begrudges Caleb his new life though I would not be surprised if both are sources of some pain for her. (in a way the three of them remind me of trees. Caleb lost a part of himself but that allowed new sprouts to come forth. Wulf found faith that allowed the damage to be lessened by giving support to the damaged part of the tree. And Astrid is the one with neither who grows around the damage in the only direction she ever knew though it costs her much more in the long term than the other solutions)
Hi anon,
So I think I say this whenever I get similar asks - completely valid to have your own headcanons, but (and this is foreshadowing for the rest of this ask) I am not much of a people pleaser and I will openly disagree, as I'm about to, and this might be a conversation better had in DMs or replies or something because doing so via anon gets to be a lot of back and forth.
I really respect people who relate to Astrid as a survivor of abuse who finds some measure of peace and who simply acknowledges she, Eadwulf, and Caleb all found separate ways to move forward. I completely understand that can be very meaningful and would never take that interpretation from them.
With that said, I happen to personally prefer a view of Astrid who is capable of that bitterness. I like the possibility that she is not just ambitious (which, that on its own is often considered sufficient to lambast female characters; see the Suvi Kedberiket discourses surrounding Worlds Beyond Number) but also very angry, and at times bitter, and at times resentful.
I think a lot of fans struggle with the gray area between unambigously heroic women and unambiguously villainous ones, both because in that gray area is a complexity women in fiction are frequently denied, and also because it requires a look at specific emotions women aren't supposed to have. Women can be sad; they can be traumatized; and they've been granted such qualities as "determined" or "can use a sword" or "leaders" but I think people really still struggle with anger, and especially anger that is not specifically directed towards abusers (like Beau or Yasha or Vex) nor righteous (like Keyleth) but petty or even simply irrational.
I like Astrid as a woman who might hold a grudge she knows intellectually is unfair but who feels it anyway. I think about how she wanted to kill Trent in the moment, and that Fjord (someone whose story is very much about both forgiveness and the legitimacy of grudges and a desire for power) validates her for it even though it's true that Caleb's method of exposing Trent's crimes is probably more effective. I like her as someone who is incredibly intelligent and who probably has an idea of what the "good" thing to do is and still feels a lot of ugly feelings and possibly always will, even though she has found a much healthier way forward. I don't know quite how this interrogation will go, but it is interesting that she's in hiding in Zadash and has apparently not openly broken with the Assembly.
It's funny, because this is on some level what many people want for much of Bells Hells - they want them to be angry at the gods for neglecting them. It's just...they also want that anger to be righteous. And sometimes anger isn't. Anger is often petty and detrimental and yet still very real. What appeals to me about Astrid is that she is very much a complicated person who does straddle a line between ally and antagonist and is permitted a depth and messiness and moral ambiguity that many fans deliberately try to excise from women (and, for that matter, characters of color/in-world racialized characters and many queer characters). So I do like an Astrid who clearly cares for Caleb and for Eadwulf and does not treat them poorly, but does perhaps nurse some privately-held grudges.
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lpanne · 5 months
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My Cross Stitch Journey
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I think i've been cross-stitching for over 25 years at this point and i just wanted to chart my journey and make a couple of notes about the latest step i've taken (no longer caring about the back being perfectly neat). I'm not saying everyone's journey needs to be like mine, but i just want to share somethings that i've only discovered in the last year as i'm wondering if i just missed it being commonly available knowledge or if my sharing what i've learned will be helpful to others.
So the rest of this post below the read more will be about ways to make stitches look neater, but will lead to a messier back.
Again i want to preface this with you can have beautiful cross stitch pieces without doing any of the things i'm about to discuss. This is meant more as an explanation of why stitches get wonky sometimes even when you have figured out getting your threads to lay flat and stitching all in the same direction.
First, I learned that once you finish a stitch, the next place you bring your needle up through can have a huge impact on neatness and the ability to stitches to fill in areas next to previously stitched sections.
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So in the above picture i have drawn a completed cross stitch where the top arm started on the upper left and went back down into the cloth on the lower right. So if i'm going to start a new stitch i want to start in one of the green holes or if i had to yellow. Not red. If you bring your needle up through one of the red holes it will make this completed stitch's top arm elongate and lead to messiness. It is especially bad in you go for the bottom far right hole. Also if you are going to stitch around this second with a second color getting your needle through a hole with an elongated arm can sometime be an issue.
Also, i only highlighted the closets holes, but if you are going to start a stitch further away think about what direction you are pulling your thread and will it be passing under the cloth near the red or green holes.
Second, I realized that making sure your top stitch all are stitched in the same way is very important. I don't mean having all your stitches having the top arm being upper left to lower right verse upper right to lower left (that is important too, but i feel like that information was one of the first things i was told). I mean that in a section try to maintain for the top arm upper left to lower right and don't mix in lower right to upper left. This can pull the stitches in a weird way and can make them look messy (if you are looking super closely). See below for an illustration. The numbers are the order of steps the needle took in and out of the cloth.
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In this illustration i only drew one of the arms as it was easier to see, but caring this much is only super important for the top arm. Also to call back to my earlier point in the bottom half going from step 2 to step 3 would be having the needle going into one of the red holes i outlined in the first diagram which again can lead to some elongation of stitches.
Sometimes i don't follow these suggestions but i am more aware of these issues, and i am watching for times when i ignore them and i try to mitigate the issues like the example below.
So what do i do in patterns that have an outer line of stitches like my kyubey pattern? i really like the danish method of stitching (stitching a row of arms in one direction and then going back to the start of the row with the crossing arms); however, this leaves you at the beginning of where you were stitching. So i came up with this method to be able to still kinda danish stitch but end your thread at the other end of the row. (The colored lines are the thread on the back side of the cloth.) This is a very niche solution but it is helpful in some instances like the above example.
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you will see that i'm doing something i said not to do above. I am mitigating the issues though by having the top arm being the one that is following the suggestions i wrote above. Not following the first suggestion on the bottom arm can make stitching around that area a little harder but it won't look as weird as having the top arm being elongated.
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fanged-cotl · 1 year
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Narinder and Lamb have a talk about mourning death
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Note: I am not a writer, so if this is out of character or sounds lame that's why. Also the colored names are just something i'm trying out lol.
Narinder is desensitized to death. in his eyes, it's just moving a person from the living world to his former domain. He thinks he is above the nature of grieving a death.
Shortly after Brenna (the cow spouse) joined Finnegan (the rabbit spouse) in the afterlife, he is insensitive to Lamb's grief.
He tells Lamb how the lives of mortals will come to and end, and there is no point getting attached. It does not matter if their lives are extended or if they're revived. Resurrection is new and imperfect. The aging process will take mortals eventually. Grief is futile for a god.
Lamb turns the situation back at him.
(continuation via dialogue below)
Lamb: "Narinder I'm not stupid, I know you mourn the deaths of your siblings."
Narinder: "I dont-..... I have regrets about the way things turned out, that is all."
Lamb: "Despite my feelings about the bishops... your grief is valid. They were your family. I know you miss Aym and Baal from time to time, don't think I can't notice these things."
Narinder: "Aym and Baal were my students that is all- I do not- I told you to stop reading my mind Lamb." His frustration grows.
Lamb: "Sorry- It's a bad habit. But you shouldn't be so critical of my feelings. I don't appreciate that." Lamb gently grabs Narinder's hand. "It is okay to miss people that you've loved, Nari."
Narinder: "...."
Lamb: "Everyone Greives. Why don't we support each other through these feelings? Like me and Lycan."
Narinder, speaking quieter: "And what would these methods be like...?"
Lamb hugs Narinder. He takes a moment to blink in surprise and then embrace Lamb back.
Lamb: "I'm here for you Narinder, you know that."
Narinder: "........... Lamb... I.... I did not mean to hurt you..."
Lamb sighs. "...its alright..." He will learn not to bottle his feelings eventually, I hope. They think to themselves.
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sgiandubh · 10 months
Note
"These people are not your toys"
you are right, Cait is not a toy, she chose the man (Tony) she loves, and decided to marry, and have a baby
and sam is not a toy, he chose the life of celibacy and engaging in commercial and investment work
They are not a toys, we insist on making our dreams come true during them, ignoring their complete free will.
Dear Free Will Anon,
Since you people keep on coming back over and over again with the same points of talk, when - again - you cannot, by now, reasonably expect a different feedback, especially from that coin flipping, bizarre woman you just love to call a lunatic every single day, I am going to take another angle. We all know how you, people of Mordor, like a good debunking, and this is exactly what I am going to do tonight, with you.
Over time, I have watched this kind of interaction repeating itself ad nauseam, over and over and over again. I have also read a massive amount of comments to this type of antics, and came to the conclusion that most of them thought "Anon is stupid and must go away immediately". A banal, convenient conclusion. Your efforts deserve way better.
Anon, you are anything but stupid, when you behave like this, trolling around like a headless chicken, waiting to ignite something, anything. You also know perfectly well that you are not going to change anybody's mind and can at best count on people cursing you (my two native languages have very colorful idioms for these situations, so you get double trouble) in different time zones.
What you are trying to do, Anon, is use a classical assertive technique, called the broken record method. Since you all think we are professional liars, I will just quote some easy, website material that explains it very clearly (available here: https://www.revolutionlearning.co.uk/article/the-broken-record-technique/):
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What that does tell me about you and your ilk is, however, not very glorious for you:
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It's rich that you try to do that with a diplomat and a former government negotiator, Anon. It's like trying to sell cucumbers to the gardener, to quote a proverb from my country and it is always met with a snort. I use the broken record almost daily - albeit more politely and considerately than you - especially when I reach a stalemate in a difficult point of talk.
Unlike me, you do have an unsavory agenda. While doing some research for a future post, I came across this very interesting article about sealioning, a new form of online harassment : https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/07/sealioning-is-a-common-trolling-tactic-on-social-media-what-is-it/?sh=4df0169f7a41
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This spiel is old and tired by now, Anon. Along with some cleverly planted calumny, it has made a pariah out of the whole shipper community and led to frictions, schisms, conflicts, broken fandom experiences, people leaving in droves, people being doxed, attacked, pressured, strange interviews of the female lead, etc.
You are the last Mordor Anon bringing up McSideburns that is going to get my attention. And it would be wonderful if we'd stop feeding the trolls once and for all and not answer this question anymore, all of us. At least get your act together and diversify, Mordor. You are very good at lying : Stalin would be proud of you, chickies.
And now, to quote Boney M, show me your motion, Anon. Enough is enough: guess what, editorial policy just changed.
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chubsonthemoon · 1 year
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GUESS WHOSE BOOK ARRIVED TODAYYYYYY SO NOW I GET TO POST PICS!!!!
This is To Hell and Back Again, by dear dear @perexcri. Cover design by @byierficrecs (thank you SO much for letting me use your design!). Binding by me!
I'm not in ST fandom, but I had the pleasure of skimming this fic while I was typesetting, and can I just say? I'm rooting for these kids SO hard. I'd go to hell and back again for them--[GUNSHOT]
But in all seriousness, Leah's writing is whip-smart, sincere, and funny as hell. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who is a fan of these crazy kids. Her ao3 is a veritable treasure trove of excellent byler stories, which you should absolutely check out right now go do it!!!
As usual, process chatter and more pics, under the cut! <3
WORD COUNT: 144k
FONTS:
Title: Hellprint
Heading/Chapter Headings/Spine Titling: Norwester
C4 Summary: Roboto Condensed
Main Body Text: Garamond
COVER MATERIAL: Epson Premium Presentation Paper Matte, printed on my Epson Ecotank (more on that later baha)
HEADBANDS: Trebizond silk thread in the colors Garnet and Black
EDGE PAINTING: Acrylic paint in Crimson and Black
TITLING: Red iron-on foil for the text and white HTV for my maker's mark. Cut by Charlotte, my Cricut!
BINDING:
This was my first go at a German Bradel binding! I've seen lots of Renegade folks use this method and am so psyched I got around to trying it myself. I modified DAS's approach a bit and tipped on endpapers instead of sewing them in (there were a lot of new things to learn so I decided to shelve sewn endpapers for the next binding XD). I also only had 2.0 mm bookboard instead of 1.0 mm, so instead of layering two of the same boards like DAS did, I instead used one 2.0 mm board and one very thin piece of cardboard to create the groove for the hinge. The original article that DAS bases his video on actually uses boards of two different sizes too--a "thick" board and a "thin" board--but I still want to experiment with DAS's way of doing it, especially since I think it'll be easier to do cutouts on thinner board.
As far as matching the groove with the hinge, I think I did pretty okay for my first try! One board is definitely better fitting than the other though baha. There's always room for improvement, but hey that's where half the fun is anyway (and also you can't tell after the case-in whew), so I'm not stressed about it :D
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COLOR SCHEME:
Nearly all of my design decisions for the color scheme were based off of @byierficrecs's gorgeous cover design! They were so generous in letting me use their cover and answering my questions about fonts, for which I can't thank them enough. And with so many wonderful elements to work with, it was so much fun to tease out the elements I loved from their work!
I decided to keep with the theme of red/black, which I also thought was fitting for a ST fic set largely in the Upside Down. Thus, black painted edges with red vines, as a kind of inverted, "upside down" continuation of the cover:
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Even the thread I used to sew the signatures is red/black! :3 (please also ignore how the picture of the textblock is not focused on the actual textblock ajsldkfjs it was very late when I took that photo)
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COVER PRINTING:
This was my first time printing a cover on my new printer (!!!), and BOY oh boy was it an adventure. Figuring out the dimensions took a second, but not as long as it took me to figure out what settings produced something I was happy with. Behold, all my test prints:
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Very long story short, let's just say now I understand why being a prepress color specialist is literally a career you can have in publishing LOL.
Also, for some reason I could only sometimes get the bleed to work? Basically what I ended up doing was painting over the parts where the design didn't quite extend over the turn-ins, using with the same black acrylic paint I used for the edges. You can see this more clearly in the photos I took of the groove, and the endpapers covered the messy bits when I cased in:
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THE MAIN INGREDIENT: LOVE
Finally!! The most important part of the process!!! HI LEAH ILY!!!! This fic is special for a lot of personal reasons, but chief among them is LOVE!!!! Your A/N's made me tear up when I first read it, because AH! You read my words of love!!! And went and wrote hundreds of thousands of your own words of love!!! And now I hope I've given that love back once again :3 And on and on we go, ad infinitum, until we are relieved of the curse of literacy and greet whatever comes after all this, thanks be to Todd. But until then, I'm so glad I get to shoot holes out of bagels and scream about radioactive tumblr posts and cry over fake people with you, friend :] Truly, peace and love on FUCKING Planet Earth. We are making it and we will all go together when we--[ANOTHER GUNSHOT]
I'm so excited to see where we're going, and what other stories we have to tell. But for now: EEEEEEEE YOU WROTE A BOOK!!!!!!!
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<33333!!!
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elysiumblue · 9 months
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Pick a card - Good thing that's happening soon 😁
Hi. Here's a general reading providing you message about a good thing that's going to happen soon. I feel that this reading is some sort of news you need to know right now too so maybe it's a mix of two lol.
I did this reading because I felt that my readings here are too intense. However, the messages I got this time is also intense so 💀💀💀 The good news may not sounds that "good" at first, but I'm sure that it's a positive thing that needs to happen to bring positive energy in your life.
Also, it's a general reading, so just take what resonates, and leave the rest behind. Don't force things to fit if it doesn't make any sense for you at all!
👇🏻Pick a color that you felt drawn to👇🏻
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And find the corresponding reading for you below!
Pile 1
Oops... some of you may not like this news now. The good thing that is going to happen to you is... you will get out of draining, toxic, or even abusive relationship really soon. It can be all sorts of connections but I can feel its more towards romantic relationships. Although I can feel that some of you probably don't want this to happen, I can see that you already know that something is really off about your relationship. So, if this is not the case for you, then this pile may not be your pile.
The existing relationship makes you feel really stuck and you have no idea how to get rid of it. Although you are suffering right now, some of you may still want to cling onto this connection because you don't want to think about how to deal with the consequences, or even how to escape from this connection. Some of you also make yourself believe that it's better for you to continue tolerating their nasty behaviours. However, no matter how hard you trying to convince yourself that things are working out really fine, some thing will happen unexpectedly and destroy your connection. But I don't really feel that it's that unexpected, as I can see that the negativity has already built up for a long time to the point that it's impossible to continue building.
By getting out of this connection, you will have a lot of time to be alone. It may sounds scary for now, but the time for solitude will actually be a very empowering experience for you. You will realize that you don't have to work that hard to get emotional support from others, as you are capable of taking care of yourself. It will be a transformative experience for you, and you will learn what is true love, as well as how to love yourself after the time of being alone.
Also, to be honest, the connection probably already met a dead end long time ago. You tried lots of method to make things work, but things never worked. I guess that's why some of you decided to be delusional, thinking that things are perfectly fine, in order to cope with the situation. It's really feel like a fucking maze and you are constantly trying to find the way out, but you can't. The event that will happen soon will lead you out of the maze, like literally send you to the exit. You will gain lots of clarity, and able to come up with new ideas, as well as new perspectives, when you get rid of the situation that drains so much of your energy. And I will be sure that you will understand in the future that things are not fine at all right now.
It may be a scary experience as it can be shocking and unexpected. However, I am very sure that the event that's happening in the future is exactly what you need, and what you low key wishing for. It'll bring so much positivity to your life, which will be 100x more than the nasty feeling of experiencing the sudden event at first.
(Despite the title, I really feel that this song is indicating that you have lost yourself for so long. With the event, you will be able to meet yourself again, and it'll feel so good for you.)
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(And when I was tidying up the cards for your pile, the 7 of swords showed up. I feel that you will seriously question if the future event is good for you in any way. It may even feel so painful for you to experience the event. However, as the imagery of this card suggests, the event is a necessary step of creating the beautiful artwork that the person is drawing. An incomplete drawing always look ugly, but if you endure the "disgust" from the unfinished artwork, and continue working on it, you will receive a beautiful artwork. Everything will worth it when you see how gorgeous the finished work is.)
Pile 2
I can see that you are worrying about something right now. There's something that you really want to do, but you feel that you lack the skills to do it. However, it won't be like this anymore real soon! I can see there will be a person helping you to make things work in the future. They can be a new person or a person you already know. For some of you, the event may come in the form of a random thought, a random inspiration, or even a random dream that you happen to remember.
The event that is going to happen soon is literally a dream come true. It's really like finding THE missing piece of the puzzle, because I can see that you already have everything for the thing to work, except that one spark to start the engine. Yes, you literally have everything you need right now.
Damn, maybe this reading is the one missing thing you need lol. If you are thinking that you lack the skills, I can see that you actually have the skills you think you're lacking. If it's a new concept or knowledge that you think you're lacking, you actually have that in your head right fucking now.
The major problem you're having right now is that you're worrying too much, and also you have like a millions thoughts floating around in your head right now. You really just need that one spark, that one push to make everything into order, and boom, it's done. No additional thing needed except that one hit. Good luck on the thing you're thinking about because you will succeed.
(Yeah. This is the perfect metaphor. You literally have the whole domino sorted out and all you need is that one single push to make a good show. And that one push will happen soon!)
Pile 3
Bruh. The good news for you is you will receive a blessing in disguise of something you absolutely don't want to happen right now. I can see that you are trying to make some innovations, bringing some new ideas, or suggest some changes. You will face a huge obstacle that prevents you from doing the thing you want to do, or a very clear sign showing that you should stop what you're doing right now. It may even be intimidating or infuriating for you at first, but I am sure that you will thank this event for happening in the future.
Judging from the energy of the reading, it seems that you lack the ability to actually do the thing you want to do. You will probably make a mess if you decide to do it. It's a case that you fucked around and unable to find out, or find out something you absolutely don't want to happen. (Yeah, something that's worse than a huge STOP sign telling you to stop what you're doing right now.)
Besides of the fact that you are not capable of pulling the thing off, I can also see that it's unnecessary to go against the flow for now. I am sorry if it's offending you, but I really don't see any positive outcome from carrying out the things you're thinking about. And I am not the type to deter people either, so I am really expressing my honest opinion, with the energy I read from this reading. You will find things to be 10 times better if you make peace with the current situation, instead of going against it.
(Well, I cannot find a song that's directly pointing out the message of this reading so I just share the last song played while I'm typing this. Also, the next song in the queue is about something burning. I take this as a sign that it'll be really dangerous for you if you proceed with what you're wanting to do, ignoring the big STOP sign.)
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pamicakery · 29 days
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₊✩‧₊˚౨ I used to fear myself ৎ˚₊✩‧₊
(a little personal post about how I feel rn)
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It's been 3 dayish that I am having an existencial questioning. It's like I spent more than 8 years trying to find happiness in method like 5x 55, drinking your new reality, inner child healing, karma arranging, scripting, acting in the 3d, dieting etc..
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I listen to those law of attraction gurus, who told me that I must be '' Okay '' with not having my desires, that the universe had better in store, or that I can't chose the appearance of my Sp and such.
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I used to think low of myself, because I never dated a, never worked, never been pretty. And then I listened to '' Detachement '' from Edward art and it clicked
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From memory, he said that to unchained ourselves, we have to detached ourselves from our experiences, past experiences, our past, mistakes, our bad assumptions about tomorrow, our identity, skin color, origins, what people think of us, and we think of ourselves, our states.
I was like
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'' Wait... I am more than this..human experience ''
Without my victim mindset, my past, and my assumptions about Tomorrow what am I? I am pure consciousness, energy, Divine creator. I am.
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We can be beyond and going beyond our senses, beyond our old assumptions. I always thought that I wanted to be a model a, be insanely rich.
Success doesn't depend on material objects, or achievement on a paper. Money is just some numbers and a face on a bills or a digit. Desired face and body are just an arrangement of flesh and bones.
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When I first shared my thought on this, my parents and friends thought I was crazy, '' You can't be god '', '' Who do you think you are? '', '' Why are you not rich rn? ''
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Our journey is full of up and down and it's good because, we become more and more clever about the reality of this world. People who say '' The law isn't real '', '' it's BS '', '' You can't manidest things out of thick air '' Are limited by their own bondage.
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I used to fear myself, because I never trusted myself. '' I can't do this '', '' I'm not good at this '', '' I am not qualified for this ''
But now I am like '' I want to discover all the opportunity I can have in my life ''. For my parents, achievement is being married, having kids, and pay bills and die.
Being different is a good thing. I used to want how to manifest this or that. Now I desire nothing, I don't look at Loa content, nor tumblr content. I don't know what is happening to me. I know I can do anything but I want anything too.
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sansterballpro · 9 months
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COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN FOR CAR REPAIR FINANCES!
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Hello! I hope everyone reading this is doing well and taking care of themselves! c:
As stated above, I’m opening these commissions to try to save for the repairs needed to fix my car! On Monday, my transmission suddenly blew on my way to work and a new one is needed for it to be able to work again.
But with both the costs of a new transmission and the repair labor, I’m in a bit of a tight spot and don’t have the money to pay for said repairs.
My place of work isn’t the closest and I will not be able to borrow my family’s vehicle for very long for they have work as well, so commissions are officially open to try to pay it off quicker! qwq
My commission information & terms of service are below if you’re interested, as well as my kofi, but please don’t feel obligated to do either! I appreciate the support a ton and thank you for reading either way! ;v; Please take care of yourselves and I hope everyone has a wonderful day! <3
link to my Kofi if interested! C: if you mention your favorite character, I’ll doodle you them in response to your donation!
Chibi Style (Examples Below):
> additional characters will be 50% of the original price extra (before added flat colors). I will draw up to three characters!
> basic colors/gradient backgrounds are free, and simple backgrounds (basic clouds and skies, such as the Fresh example) will be a $8 extra!
Sketch:
Full Body - $18
> add flat color for $5 more (per character), gradients are free!
Cleaner Line Art w/ Flat Colors:
Full Body - $30
> added gradients are free!
Fully Colored & Shaded:
Full Body - $40
> click the alt text to see what kind of commission each ex. is!
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Detailed Style (Examples Below):
> additional characters will be 50% of the original price extra (before added flat colors). I will draw up to three characters!
> basic colors/gradient backgrounds are free, and simple backgrounds (basic clouds and skies, such as the Fresh example) will be a $8 extra for half body, and $12 extra for full body!
Sketch:
Half Body - $18
> add flat color for $5 more (per character), gradients are free!
Full Body - $23
> add flat color for $8 more (per character), gradients are free!
Cleaner Line Art w/ Flat Colors:
Half Body - $30
Full Body - $40
> added gradients are free!
Fully Colored & Shaded:
Half Body - $45
Full Body - $60
> click the alt text to see what kind of commission each ex. is!
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Icons & Headers (Examples Below):
> these are all bust drawings (chest and up), but can be placed on different canvas sizes based off what you’re looking for!
> I will only draw one character for an icon since it is placed on a square canvas!
> I will draw up to three characters for a header, with each character being 50% of the original price extra! If you’re specifically looking for four characters (since it’s a wider canvas), I’ll make each added character 40% of the original price extra!
> basic colors/gradient backgrounds are free, but detailed backgrounds (fully colored) for the headers start at $8 and can range up to $25 based off what you’d like done!
ie. a cloud filled sky (seen in examples above, more specifically with Fresh) would be $8, the flowers (seen below) would be $15, while a complex, detailed scenery or cityscape would be $25.
Chibi Style:
Fully Colored & Shaded - $25
Detailed Style:
Fully Colored & Shaded - $35
> click the alt text to see what kind of commission each ex. is!
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Terms of Service:
The best place to contact me about a commission is Tumblr, but if Twitter is your preferred way to contact then I am there as well! Please be sure to reach out to me to confirm your commission before any payment is made.
The only payment method I use is PayPal in USD! Once the commission has been paid for I’ll begin the drawing!
Throughout the drawing process, l’ll send updates and screenshots, to which you can let me know if anything needs to be changed.
I hold the right to respectfully decline a commission that I don’t feel comfortable drawing, so if there’s any questions I’m happy to answer them!
> PLEASE NOTE: Commissions can take up to four weeks! I will continuously keep you updated and please don’t hesitate to ask for progress, but I am not a fast artist and may have other commissions to finish first! If you need something by a specific date, I can make exceptions to that!
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