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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #396

“every time i leave, you say you won’t be there, & you’re always there”

So, is it gif with a hard G or soft G? I used to say "jif," but now I pronounce it as "gif." If you use libraries, what is the largest overdue fine you’ve ever had? *shrug* Do you ever borrow things other than books from the library? I remember back in the day, they used to offer educational computer games, and I bought a dinosaur one as a kid that I was madly obsessed with. Are there still any movie rental places left where you live? Just Redbox things outside of some stores. Do you ever buy secondhand books (or DVDs, video games, CDs)? Yeah; Ebay is my friend. Or do you prefer them to be brand new? I mean yeah, but it's not a massive deal to me so long the thing is operational or not falling apart. Do you ever write fanfic? Of what? Nah. Do you ever READ fanfic? Of what? Also nah. Do you have a favorite classical composer? No. Have you ever had multicolored/rainbow hair? No, but I would LOVE to. What kind of hats, if any, do you like to wear? I don't wear hats. What is your #1 deal-breaker with friendships? If you're manipulative, byyyyyeeeee~ Who is your favorite character on Bob’s Burgers and why? (If you watch it) I've seen some episodes, but I don't actually watch it. Have you ever had a retro celebrity crush? Like a crush on an “old” celebrity who was most famous a long time ago or is long dead? Audrey Hepburn, for one, is drop-dead GORGEOUS. When you buy/receive new clothes, do you instantly wear them or wash first? It depends on what I bought and where it's from. What’s the weirdest item you’ve seen for sale on Ebay? Idk. Are parents to blame for what their kids do on the Internet? No; kids make their own choices. I do, however, believe the parents should monitor what they do until they reach a certain degree of maturity, as well as the child's history with what they've done on the Internet. Do you use acronyms to remember things? Sometimes. Do you take pills like Tylenol for the littlest aches and pains? No. Only if I'm really in pain will I take Ibuprofen/Advil. Don’t you think Crocs are ugly? Big time. I don't know why they're in vogue now when they used to be so widely hated. When was the last time you went roller skating? Oh, it's been years. Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle? I was never into the franchise. Horror flicks make you: laugh, scream, or squirm? I prefer the ones that make you uneasy. I'm not a big fan of the nasty ones, and I want to feel on edge when I'm watching a horror film, but it's EXTREMELY rare I become legitimately scared. If you could become a doctor, what would you specialize in? Uhhhh. Maybe genetic disorders. What’s the cutest thing a little kid has ever said to/in front of you? I'm sure it was something my niece or nephew said, but I'm unsure of what. They've said many adorable things. Did any characters from TV shows scare you as a kid? Which one(s)? FUCKING KING RAMSES FROM COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG. FUCK he gave me nightmares. What’s the saddest thing you’ve heard on the news recently? I was very saddened to hear about the giraffe that died giving birth. Do you believe that acupuncture works? I'm not educated enough on this subject. Have you ever been hypnotized? No, and I don't believe it's possible to be. What’s the first food you can smell when you enter the mall? The soft pretzels, omg. That little stand is my favorite part of our local mall. They make DELICIOUS pretzels. What is the worst hurt you’ve ever experienced? Jason leaving. Are huge muscles gross or sexy? Like serious body builders, it's gross to me. I prefer a natural musculature. Have you ever fished and caught something weird? I know I have, but what isn't coming to mind. Do you use an umbrella when it rains? Unless it is absolutely pouring, no. Do you like getting caught in the rain? No. What is the hardest part of cleaning for you? It requires physical exertion and I am INCREDIBLY weak with non-existent stamina. Do you have any fake flowers in your room? No. Do you own any succulents? No. What is your favorite thing about spring? The only thing I like about spring are all the flowers. What is something you find hard to draw? HANDS. UGH. Was it sunny for your senior prom pictures? Sigh. It was a beautiful sunset. I REALLY wish I didn't delete all those pictures from existence. Have you ever seen a double rainbow? I've seen like, a triple rainbow. What’s one thing you want to learn how to make? Your ordinary meals. I really want to be able to cook my own food from scratch. Do you have stomach issues? Maybe TMI, but it's been questioned but not fully examined that I may have IBS. My stomach is very sensitive. When was the last time you apologized and didn’t mean it? I'm not sure. Do you prefer to be the “talker” or the “listener” in a conversation? The listener. What’s a movie that you think everyone should see? Johnny Got His Gun. If you could have any hair color, what color would you want? Either pastel pink or light creamsicle orange. When was the last time you saw your “first love”? February of 2017. Who’s the smartest person you know personally? My best guy friend Girt. What makes them so smart? He's just very intelligent. Book-smart. Are there any bands/artists that get you all emotional? Ozzy. He and his music are so important to me. What’s your favourite aunt or uncle’s first name? Robert. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. What time do you generally wake up in the morning? It varies from like, 6:00-8:30ish. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Definitely shapeshifting. I'd love to be a druid, man. Do you ever make surveys? If so, are they long or short? No, but I combine them because I don't like surveys that are too short by my standards. When is the next time you’ll change your hairstyle? Will you color it? Honestly, probably never. I love my current hairstyle, but I most certainly plan on dyeing it maaaany more times. As a child, what was your favorite game to play? I was hooked on the first three Spyro games. I would play 'em over and over. Do any of your siblings have significant others? Do you like them? My older sister is married, and I am NOT a fan of her husband. He's WAY too conservative and bigoted and racist and misogynistic, etc. etc. He's wonderful as a dad, like holy shit he loves his kids, but his beliefs are abhorrent. Dad's daughter is also married, and her husband is awesome. Mom's eldest daughter is also married, and her husband seems cool. My brother has a fiancee that I've never met. Do you believe in the concept of global warming? No fucking shit I do. It's impossible to logically deny, especially as the years go on. When was the last time you took a picture of something? Was it yourself? I took some pictures of this beautiful hydrangea bush outside the TMS office a few days ago. When drinking soda, do you prefer bottles or cans or poured in a glass? Cans, because it stays colder. Do you wear deodorant? Um, yes? If you had a pet pig, what would you name it? Probably something very unoriginal, like Wilbur. Do you like Led Zeppelin? I LOVE "Kashmir." "Stairway to Heaven" was madly important to me, but yeah... I can't listen to it anymore. Like seriously, I haven't in years. Do you like hugs? I do. Have you read the Constitution of the United States of America? Only the Bill of Rights for school. Do you have your own computer or use a family one? I have my own laptop. Do you take out the trash? Sometimes. Is there a calendar in the room you’re in? Outdated meerkat ones. What is your best friend’s name? Sara Jane. :') Have you ever seen a real-life cop chase? Maybe? What is your favorite shape? Circles. Are pigs adorable or dirty? They're precious! And pigs are actually a lot cleaner than people think, if they're not muddy. Anything moldy in your house? Not to my knowledge. Our old house had a serious mold problem, though, which is the primary reason we had to move. Especially with Mom having cancer at the time, she needed to be in the most sterile environment possible. Have you ever been in an earthquake? No. Do you enjoy history? No. Are you watching TV right now? No, but rather GameGrumps on YT. Could you ever be a mortician? True shit, it actually doesn't seem THAT bad. Can you solve a Rubik’s cube? Never seriously tried. How many pets do you have? Just two right now. Are you more close with your mom or dad? My mom. Who is the person that has impacted your life the most? Jason. Or Mom. Have you ever had a pet fish? Yeah. Poor things, they had terrible husbandry. I've learned a hell of a lot from a YouTuber/streamer that is like obsessed with fish about just how misinformed people are on how to take care of various fish. Your goldfish in that little bowl died for a reason, you know. Do you believe in ghosts? Yes. Do you prefer tea or coffee? Both suck. Have you ever vaped? No. How did your parents meet? They were co-workers. What was your first word? "Dada." Have you ever had a kinky dream about a celebrity? ... I mighta lmao. When was the last time you had Nutella? A long time ago. It reeeeaaaally needs to stay out of my house, because I will eat it straight out of the jar. Name someone with a sexy sounding voice. So I don't know where this was, but Mark was once credited in something as "if chocolate had a voice" and I was like YOU FUCKIN BET YOUR SWEET ASS.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''jet city woman'' by queensryche

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imagine-loki · 6 years

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Our Little Secrets - Chapter 2

TITLE: Our Little Secrets CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 2 AUTHOR: a7xing-forever ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine having a close enough friendship with Loki that you can share literally any secret without fear of judgement or of trust being broken.

Imagine Loki replacing all the coffee in Stark Tower with decaf. (This scenario is set in the Avengers Compound instead) RATING: T+ (Mild Language) NOTES/WARNINGS: No warnings for this chapter.

I’m so sorry for not updating this sooner. I was stuck for the longest time, not knowing what to do with this story, but I think I got it. I’ve linked the first chapter below if you would like to re-read and refresh your memory or if you’re a first time reader and this fic has piqued your interest. Enjoy!

Read it on AO3 here | Chapter 1

A week had passed since your little encounter with the trickster.

You sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal while mindlessly browsing through your various social media apps on your phone until Tony came in. He was dressed in his usual workshop outfit: A white tank top that had slightly greyed from years of use with patches of oil stains here and there along with a pair of denim jeans that were faded and torn from numerous workshop accidents. While grumbling and vigorously rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers, he strode over to the coffee machine and pressed the espresso button with enough force to break it.

“You seem stressed.” You stated calmly while turning in your seat to watch him continue to assault the machine.

“Don’t even.” He responded curtly, shooting you an irritated look.

“Not countering a sarcastic comment with one of your own? Are you dying?” You said in a half-assed attempt to sound alarmed.

“And leave pretty boy macho man in charge of this place? I don’t think so.” He replied, his underlying envy towards Steve making a brief appearance. “I’ve just got a headache from hell and no matter how much coffee and aspirin I down, I can’t get it to fuck off.”

It didn’t take long for you to realise that Loki had gone through with your idea of switching out the coffee with decaf. Feeling a smile starting creep up onto your face, you turned back to your bowl to avoid giving yourself and the mischievous god away.

While Tony was waiting for his coffee to brew, Rhodey entered dressed in casual attire instead of his usual uniform.

“Damn it. Hurry up, man, I really need a kick up the ass or I’m gonna fall asleep.” He said sounding rather irritated

“Uh, who do you think paid for this machine and everything else on this property? Besides, I was here first so I’m gonna take as long as I damn well please.” Tony replied imprudently. Realising an argument was brewing along with the decaffeinated drink, you decided to turn and watch the current situation continue to unfold.

“Fine. I’ll use the one in the conference room.” Rhodey responded curtly and turned to exit before Tony rushed forward and kicked Rhodey’s rear as if it were the scoring kick on a soccer ball. Rhodey yelped out in pain and turned back to face Tony. It took every fiber of your being to suppress the laugh that threatened to escape your lips.

“There. Now you don’t need to.” Tony said, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Why don’t we suit up so you can try that again.” Rhodey said, now sounding serious.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why? You scared you’re gonna get your ass kicked?”

“Well to be fair, I did just kick yours so…” Tony trailed off, not having to finish the sentence to get his point across. Rhodey gave him an angry glare before deciding to let it go instead of pursuing an argument that would end up breaking something again, so he left for the conference room. Tony just brushed it off, turned his attention back to the machine and began to become noticeably angry. He started to shake it slightly as if it would speed up the process.

“Maybe you should consider actually sleeping instead of relying on caffeine highs all the time.” You said.

“Yeah well maybe you should…shut up.” Tony replied, slightly hesitating as if struggling to come up with a creative retort. You just giggled in response and took your now empty bowl to the dishwasher.

“Seriously though. You should try to sleep it off.” You said, starting to sound concerned.

“Nah, I’ve survived worse on less sleep. Besides, it seems to have died down now. Maybe kicking Rhodey square in the ass was the cure all along.” He replied with a smirk.

Suddenly Steve came sprinting in, clearly in distress.

“Tony, we got a situation.” He said between heavy breaths, urgency audible in his tone.

“Oh, never mind, it’s back.” Tony stated out loud to make sure Steve heard. Steve just slightly rolled his eyes knowing that a joke was made at his expense.

“This is serious. Banner hulked out in the science labs leaving them in shambles.”

“What th- How the hell did this happen? What did you do??” Tony exclaimed.

“I didn’t! Barton started fighting with him over the pronunciation of ‘gif’ after-”

“Woah woah woah, wait.” Tony said quickly, interrupting Steve. “What did you just say?”

“I said they’re arguing over how you say 'gif’.” Steve stated pronouncing 'gif’ with a hard 'g’. You could see that he was starting to get antsy knowing that Bruce was somewhere on the property destroying everything in sight. Tony just pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh in response to this preposterous predicament.

“Okay, lemme grab the Hulk Buster. (Y/N), stay on this part of the property while we get this under control.” Tony said calmly while looking at you.

“Ah shit, and here I was hoping for a front row seat.” You said jokingly. Tony just shot you a knowing glance in response to your sarcasm and turned back to Steve.

“And for the record, it’s pronounced 'jif’.” Tony said to the Captain before breaking into a sprint out of the kitchen.

“What?” Steve remarked before following and leaving you laughing at the interaction along with Tony’s incompetence to treat an emergency situation seriously, but you were quickly distracted by the view outside of the kitchen window.

It had started to snow, and the light dusting already beginning to coat the lawn indicated that it had started at some point during all the kitchen drama. You walked up to the large window to fully take in the sight.

“What’s with all the commotion?” Loki inquired as he strolled into the room. This time he was wearing a black top with cropped sleeves and denim jeans that were skinny but not constricting (unlike Tony’s jean collection).

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you wearing such casual clothing.” You commented, taking in his appearance. Loki simply chuckled in response.

“Well this realm is my home now. Might as well adopt the style.” He said while looking down at his outfit.

“That’s true I suppose. Anyway, to answer your question, the Hulk decided to show up. Nothing that those guys haven’t dealt with before.” You explained nonchalantly and looked up at Loki to find that his eyes had widened slightly.

“Um, so, uh, shouldn’t we be taking shelter?” He said, tripping over his words slightly, all the while trying to stay composed.

“Calm down, darling. This property is huge and the Hulk is on the other side of it right now with Tony who is no doubt distracting him with the Hulk Buster and the Iron Legion. A lot of time and money went into designing and building this place, there’s no way Tony would let anyone let alone the Hulk destroy it.” You said while looking at the God who seemed to relax from your words of assurance.

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, my dear.” He said with a small smirk returning to his lips.

You turned your attention from him back to what was becoming a winter wonderland outside with Loki’s attention following suit.

“Ah, snowfall. one of nature’s greatest wonders. Beautiful isn’t it?” He said, looking back to you. You averted your gaze from the window to face him.

“To many people, it’s quite the opposite. An inconvenience even. It prevents people from being productive. They can’t get to work, drop their kids off at school or even just go out in general 'cause it makes everything so icy and dangerous. Sometimes it’s even enough to cancel international flights."

"But what do you think, my dear?” Loki asked, more interested in your own thoughts rather than ones of others.

“Honestly? It’s angelic. Angels are religious symbols in this realm. God’s perfect creation that reside in heaven amongst the clouds. They’re viewed by us as being pure, beautiful and elegant.” You looked out out the window again towards the snow still floating from the sky. “To me, snow is just the same.”

“It’s quite poetic, isn’t it?” Loki stated more than asked and copied your action of looking back outside. “That something so graceful and beautiful that descends from the heavens can cause so much destruction.”

“I guess so, I mean, the same can be said about you, right?” You said with a smirk. Having gotten closer with the Trickster recently, flirtatious banter was something you had begun to shamelessly indulge in. Loki didn’t seem to mind as he chuckled in response.

“Yes, but from what I’ve gathered from your description, I can assure you, I’m no angel, my love.” Loki replied.

“No one is, though,” you said, looking him in the eye. “And if you and your brother are any indiction, Gods aren’t exactly exempt from that statement either."

You both fell into the familiar comfort of silence just standing an arms width apart watching the snow continue to fall.

"I have an idea.” Loki said, suddenly breaking the silence.

“If it’s something to do with you little plan to get multiple people to hand Tony things at once, I want no part of it.” You said sternly, earning a chuckle from the grinning god.

“No, but you have to admit, it’s a devilish plan.” He retorted proudly.

“I’m willing to give credit where it’s due. So, what’s this idea?” You asked, starting to grow curious.

“Come with me.” He replied and took your hand in his as he lead you out of the kitchen and through the halls of the compound, each inquiry from you being met with a “Be patient, pet. You’ll see.” But it didn’t take much longer to figure out where he was taking you.

As you both approached the doors to the liquor room, Loki stopped you just outside.

“What are we doing back here?” You asked, now extremely curious as to what this was all about.

“See for yourself.” Loki replied and pushed open one of the doors to reveal the room within.

~ ~ ~

A/N: At this point, The Avengers sounds more like a TV drama than the world’s mightiest heroes, especially with Loki and Tony being the biggest drama queens ever. I like to think they’d make the top two in RuPaul’s Drag Race.

I got inspired and finally decided where I want this series to go…kinda…ok I’m winging it, but I’m really proud of this chapter and I hope you all liked it too. Stay tuned, I’ll have the next chapter up next week for you lovelies. Let me know if you would like to be tagged as soon as the next chapter is posted on this blog <3

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unsaintlike · 6 years

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witnessreigns replied to your photo:

Heh! This had me chuckling for a few minutes, but I’ve gotta ask: which side do you see me sending? The gray side or the blue? ‘Cause I’ve got some questions. Apparently, the “g” in “gif” is a soft “g” sound, like a “j”. Like, I hear people pronouncing the word in that manner, but Jif is sold on the selves and that begins with the “j”, you know what I’m saying? Geez! Wait. Jeez.

Thought you would’ve been the gray side, if only ‘cause pesterin’ you at odd hours seems to be more my deal than yours. Could probably go either way, though. Do know that there’s quite an argument surroundin’ the pronunciation of ‘gif,’ and maybe I’m wrong but I just can’t get behind it soundin’ like that brand of peanut butter. Mainly ‘cause the ‘g’ in ‘gif’ stands for ‘graphics,’ and that ain’t pronounced like jraphics.

#witnessreigns

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auideas · 7 years

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Ask the Admins 10.0

@genosha-meiuqer: This is to Admin M -- Out of curiosity, do you drive anything like a War Boy?

M: Yes. That is actually a problem I have irl. I drive far too fast. Haven’t gotten pulled over yet though! (knock on wood)

Anon asked: Describe yourself in one adjective.

Chamomile: Talkative

M: Witty

Syren: Enthusiastic

Jynn: Resilient

Vox: Amiable

Anon asked: Do you have other sister blogs or affiliate blogs about writing? Or maybe you can rec us other writing blogs? Not that auideas is not awesome, loving this blog! Just, you know, want to follow other blog. Thanks! Loving your aus btw!

Chamomile: We have @nsfw-auideas, which has been inactive for a while since I became uncomfortable running it and the other admins sort of dropped of….but for blogs that inspire me, I always love @writing-prompt-s because they give me ideas for prompts with their prompts (if that makes sense, lmao) and also from fanfiction/fanart. I get //so// much inspiration from fanfiction/fanart.

M: Yeah we have our NSFW blog, but that’s pretty much it, and I don’t really have a lot of time at the moment to look at other blogs, so this is definitely one for the other admins to answer.

Syren: I second what Chamomile mentioned, and I also get a lot of inspiration from @inell who is a writing machine in the Sterek fandom. It's insane how many stories she churns out, and they often help me mindlessly brainstorm, if that makes any sense??

Jynn: I get a lot of inspiration from @otpprompts!

Vox: @otpprompts and @writing-prompt-s are two other really great prompt blogs! ( ≧▽≦)

Anon asked: curious about the new assistant admins. mind doing information pages for them like you did for the admins?

Chamomile: Here’s all of our pages: Chamomile // M // Syren // Jynn // Vox

Anon asked: When I'm grown, a martyr I will never be. I won't cry for you. I won't suffer for the things you do. I won't cry for you, see. Even though I understand you, Kankri.

Chamomile: this is a sin

M: get outta here

Syren: *Castiel voice* I don't understand that reference.

Jynn: I had to actually go back and find this song again for Chamomile so I just have to say how dare you make me relive that.

Vox: This ask has 6een marked as triggera6le and will 6e taken d9wn by Kankri Vantas. (ง •̀_•́)ง

Anon asked: So I know that this blog is SFW, but do you mind if I use your prompts in a NSFW story?

Chamomile: That’s totally fine! Whatever you do with our prompts is totally up to you.

M: ^^^^^

Anon asked: Have you decided what theme you'll be using? I remember a while back one of the admins asked what the followers think about the current theme.

Chamomile: Oh yeah, we got this solved a long while back. If anybody has a theme that they think is really nice and that we should try out, then send it to us!

Anon asked: What is your opinion on "Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life"?

Chamomile: get out

M: leeeeeeeave

Syren: I am daily surrounded by meme trash and could probably recite it perfectly if I tried. I am only slightly ashamed.

Jynn: I'll never forget it. That being said, I never want it in my presence ever again.

Vox: You scream, I scream, we all scream for Dank Memes™

Anon asked: I finally talked to my future college roommate. Accidentally ignore her email for a week tho... Not really off to a great start?

Chamomile: I can’t tell if this is a prompt or you telling us about your day but my advice would be to get her a card that’s like “I’m sorry I ignored your email for a week” and then some candy or whatever else she likes.

M: Lol man that did not happen with my current roommate - we actually sent each other our first introductory emails at the exact same moment even though I was across the country. Thankfully, we’ve clicked very well, but I would recommend not getting on their bad side right away, or that’ll make your year not so much fun.

Syren: Dude, I am the worst person at communicating possibly ever. I have lost friends because I forget to reply to them for months, no joke. I've found the best way to make it up is to be as sincere with your apology as possible. I've learned not to make excuses. Don't sweat it!

Jynn: I'm glad you reached out to your roommate, good job! I'd go with Chamomiles card and candy idea.

Vox: -looks at the messages I have in Line that are months old- -l a u g h s- Oh honey.

Anon asked: Do you (admins and assistants) know how to make gifs? Also, how do you pronounce "gifs"? "Jifs" or "gifs".

Chamomile: I have no clue on how to make a gif, and I pronounce it like “gift” without a “t”.

M: Gifs. Hard G. I will fight you on this.

Syren: I have no clue how to make a gif, though I've been thinking about learning (barely any gifs out there for When We Rise). Hard g.

Jynn: There are tons of gif makers online, I also have an app for that. I pronounce it “Gif” with a hard G

Vox: I LOVE making gifs!! They’re super fun. Also I use both alternatively.

Anon asked: how do the admins like the new assistants? And how do the assistants like the admins?

Chamomile: I think they’re pretty great! Everybody has been really good with getting their prompts in the drafts so admin m and I can approve them. No real problems.

M: Two thumbs up from me! I can now feel more stress about my school and social life than about this darn blog...

Syren: They're all generally fabulous people and make me feel welcomed. I'm the youngest of the bunch, but that doesn't change anything. Also, I have a habit for apologizing for everything, and they always assure me that it's all good and that they've all been there.

Jynn: Chamomile, Em, and I have actually all been friends for upwards of a couple years now, and I've contributed to the blog here and there before so it hasn't been super different for me tbh.

Vox: If I could put emojis into replies, this right here would just be a string of sparkles and hearts. Everyone’s been really nice!!

Anon asked: I haven't been on this site since forever and I just got back. Nice to see more prompts that I can add to my growing list of things I want to try writing :) (Also, "Runaway" and "So Sad, So Sad" are some of my favorite songs! :D )

Chamomile: Eeeeee! Thanks for loving the blog! Also I know right, I have some pretty good music taste if I do say so myself ;)

Anon asked: Knowing that someone else uses Japanese emoticons makes me really happy. ＼＼\ (۶ÒワÒ)۶//／／ Where do you get yours from, Vox? An app, website, or other?

Vox: Yaaaaa, kaomoji are super funnnnn!! ☆⌒(*＾-°)v I have a Japanese keyboard on my phone so I automatically have a bunch of them readily available.

Anon asked: Choose five of the blog's followers that you've talked to a fair amount and say what story genre you think they would be a character in, and if they would be a protag or antag.

Chamomile: Instead of choosing just five, I went with all of them. Here’s the link

M: I willllllll do this over break - expect a post on my admin blog!

Anon asked: If life was a standardized test, you would be "Answer B" because I always turn to you when I don't know what to do.

Chamomile:....that’s actually really sweet?

M: Omfg.

Syren: This would be really cute if the thought of standardized tests didn't throw me into a panic over upcoming midterms, SATs, and ACTs

Jynn: Awwwwww!

Vox: I’m in various stages of oh god and that’s so sweet and lol my name is actually Bee so this is kind of great, are you flirting with me anon, winkwink. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Anon asked: What do you call a flirty Greek? A Socratease

Chamomile: The King of flirty Greeks is Mithridatetease (Mithridates)

M: Get out.

Syren: As long as they don't have an Oedipus complex, they can tease all they want

Jynn: More like MithriDATEs

Vox: Has war flashbacks to Greek myth lectures. Sweats nervously.

@all-made-of-stardust asked: So I love your blog, and I especially love all your Never Book quotes. I was wondering - what's your policy on using those quotes? Can I directly use the whole quote? Should I change it a bit? Should I not use it at all? There's several quotes I have been thinking about using, and I just wanted to make sure I was doing it right.

Chamomile: hey there! This is a pretty popular question, but our policy is that you can change it however you want (adding in words, changing pronouns, etc.) but don’t repost it anywhere without crediting us. Cutting our parts is also totally fine. If you write something inspired by TNB, or has a TNB quote in it, make sure to shoot us a message and we’ll make sure to add it to the follower’s works page!

@ihaveatheoryabouttimetravel asked: What exactly is the never book?

Chamomile: Hey! I’m the creator of The Never Book (TNB) and here’s the long version of how/why I created it (link), but the short version is that TNB is supposed to be a collection of writing prompts to help inspire you to write. Some of them are very dramatic, while other ones are humorous, and other ones are meant to be cliffhangers that make you want to write what happens next. The name “The Never Book” is supposed to imply that all of these quotes come from a story that has never been written, meaning that they’re free game for prompts as well as to make stories out of.

Note: I’ve entertained the idea of trying to write a piece of fiction with a ton of TNB quotes crammed into it. Might try to get around to that if anybody is interested.

Anon asked: Is it okay to Writer's Block shame a friend who has an almost complete first chapter for 57 different fanfiction pieces???

Chamomile: #me

M: Shame us all

Syren: I'm too fragile to be bombarded like this

Jynn: I'm being called out.

Vox: First of all how dare, it’s only 56. (ง •̀_•́)ง

anon asked: tbh between chamomile and m i really thought that chamomile was younger. i have been surprised but not unpleasantly so

Chamomile: I’m definitely shorter and rounder than admin m, but I’m older by like, a year and a half? Something like that?

M: I am the alpha.

anon asked: assistant admins, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Syren: Blue Moon (it's an upper Midwest thing I guess)

Jynn: Chocolate

Vox: Mint chocolate chip

#admin m #admin chamomile #admin syren #admin jynn #admin vox #ask the admins #ata #faq #this has been a public broadcast #long post

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chinchilla-ocs · 7 years

Text

Jess & Antonio

Jess is a 15 year old kid who is tall as heck and adorable and wears skirts and hoodies and flower crowns and knows magic and can be sarcastic sometimes, but mostly he’s really nice and awkward. They have long curly blonde hair, that they sometimes dye blue, and dark blue eyes. He has really faint freckles that become more obvious during summer. They’re non-binary and use he/him/they/them pronouns. Their father kicked him out when they were little, and he was adopted by someone else who raised him and taught him magic. He likes musicals, fashion, reading, and playing video games. He has an adopted sister named Ryana. His biological sister Jane still lives with their father and eventually gets adopted by Jess’s adopted dad later on.

Antonio is a 16 year old guy who’s a junior in high school. He has white hair (dyed) and brown eyes. He’s involved with a lot of sports (Soccer, track, wrestling and swimming) and does well in school. His favorite classes are history and English and will go on forever about whatever thing he was learning about in class that day if it interested him. He can’t use magic, but his cousin Ophelia is very skilled at it. He has no siblings. He likes reading, motorcycles, classical music and video games. He has anxiety, although he often tries to hide his symptoms from people he’s not comfortable with.

- Jess steals Antonio’s sports jackets and they fit him, although the sleeves are a bit short.

- When Antonio gets a new interest Jess listens to him talk about it even if they would have no interest otherwise (Jess knows an awful lot about random topics that otherwise he would never have known)

- when jess wanted to dye their hair blue the first time, they made a huge mess and Antonio ended up having to help them (“Babe you look like you just killed a smurf or something” “I know I messed up, just help me”)

- Jess shows up to Antonio’s games and practices even though they dont understand some of it ((They still enjoy it a lot) “touchdown!” “Wrong sport” “oh”)

- Antonio listens to musicals with Jess and watches the bootlegs and listens to Jess ramble

- Antonio can pick up Jess easily, Jess is lowkey terrified but also lowkey is like: omg my bf is so strong

- Antonio once tried to figure out how to make flower crowns without Jess to surprise them and ended up with a ton of failed flower crowns and a surprising amount of frustration (“FLOWER CROWNS SHOULDN’T BE THIS DIFFICULT TO HANDLE”) Ophelia was there, although she didn’t help, instead sometimes making sarcastic comments.

- Antonio can’t figure out math to save his life, Jess tries to help him but they don’t use the same methods as the school does and they both end up frustrated

- Antonio gets Jess a Tumblr

- Jess’s Tumblr is Gay, aesthetic, and social justice stuff and some memes. He also has a boyfriend tag where he posts pictures of Antonio (with his permission) and tags stuff Antonio would like. He tags everything and is organized

- Antonio’s tumblr is several years old and a giant mess of gay stuff, sports, and memes. Once he started dating Jess, he made a boyfriend tag as well. He also writes like love letters to jess in the tags of his posts like every night and Jess gets embarrassed but he loves it

- Jess mumbles in his sleep, Antonio likes to tease him about it (“awwwww you were talking about me” “probably cuz you keep hoarding the blankets” “rude”)

- Jess likes hugs and holding hands and cuddling, Antonio doesn’t complain (he won’t admit it but he likes it too)

- they made a playlist and it’s like. 2000’s music from their childhood, classical music, and musicals, and any other random songs they like.

- Antonio also tried learning how to braid hair and stuff, and is slowly getting better at it

- At Halloween Jess gets really into the costumes and they dress up as a couple together

- Both of them have no chill and talk about the other a lot to their friends (Antonio: “I love-”) (Everyone: “you love jess, they’re amazing and adorable, we know.”)

- Antonio gets really freaked out by thunder storms and bugs. Jess and Antonio have a lot of sleep overs, Jess calms Antonio down, if they’re not together he and Antonio text or are on call. Jess usually gets the bugs and takes them outside, he teases Antonio a little about it (“my big tough boyfriend is scared of a little cricket” “IT JUMPS AND ITS CREEPY JESS”)

- Jess likes anime and Antonio watches it with him

- Jess watches sports with Antonio

- Jess pronounces gif like Jif, Antonio pronounces it like gif. They get into arguments about it (not too serious though)

- Antonio sometimes has trouble sleeping, but not when he’s with jess

- Jess convinced Antonio to let them do his makeup (“what’s that pencil” “eye liner” “why is it a pencil” “I don’t know, I didn’t make the makeup, now sit still”)

- Antonio decides the makeup isn’t for him, but he does start painting his nails

- Jess has a love/hate relationship with horror/creepy stuff. (“I can’t sleep” “Maybe don’t watch horror videos before bed?” “….. babe”)

- Antonio loves the ocean, Jess can’t stand it, but he likes looking for shells. (Antonio got them to go in by carrying them and not letting go. Jess would only go in knee deep. Although that is deeper for Antonio than Jess)

- Antonio is 5'4 (“AND 3/4S!!”) and Jess is 5'10"

- Antonio’s birthday is in the summer, Jess’s is in late December

- Antonio loves summer and Jess can’t stand it (“It’s too hot” “it’s only like 70 degrees” “I’m literally melting” “okay”)

- Antonio hates cold, Jess loves it (“babe you’re wearing a t-shirt In below freezing weather you need to put on a jacket” “oh come on, it’s not that cold”)

- Jess puts his hair up a lot (Antonio starts to carry around hair ties for Jess)

- Jess makes 1 inappropriate joke or swears once and Antonio is shocked for like a full 24 hours afterwards

- Jess’s dad refers to Antonio as “Ant farm” especially ironic considering his fear of any and all bugs

- jess can sing, and Antonio can too although he’s not as good at it (Antonio quit chorus in freshman year) Jess makes him sing duets from musicals sometimes

- Antonio’s team mates are super supportive of them

- Jess works in his dad’s shop, and Antonio visits a lot

- “Babe that’s gay” “we’ve been dating for months” “I know!!! It’s great”

- “What’s that musical, the one with the death?” “Be more specific” “the high school one!” “… be more specific”

- Why were you up at 3 AM" “excuse you. It was 2:53 when I messaged you, Not 3 AM”

- Antonio really loves Hamilton because history!!!

- jess uses too many emojis and !!! And ????

- Antonio thinks it’s adorable

- Antonio: *holding a puppy* it’s so small… I love it Jess: I love you Antonio: what Jess: what

I have no chill or self control

#Jess #Antonio #emma rambles #y'all get to listen to this nonsense #I love them #if I think of more I'm coming back to this

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polikszena · 2 years

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Top Gun: Maverick + I Ain’t Worried music video - Part 1

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aardwolfpack · 7 years

Text

Childhood O.C.s

Some characters I made up before age twelve, in no particular order...

Silverhawk: A Lego Castle minifigure who had many adventures. He inherited half a kingdom and strong-armed his brother into giving him the other half. He conquered other kingdoms and eventually the entire world. His teammates were a mad scientist and an alien, and he later gained a second alien for a bodyguard and a pirate queen for a wife. When I became more concerned with things making sense I decided the Lego Castle and Pirates settings were parts of an expansive technology-free zone in twenty third century Asia. Silverhawk shifted from supervillain to benevolent ruler and his squad became the defenders of the Earth. Later still he was a conventional politician in the United Alliance of Worlds. He always wore the helmet, though.

Old Man Lead: A tough old rascal with lead instead of skin. When he wasn't busy saving the world from mutants or aliens he was telling boring stories about the good old days. His sidekick was a giant talking cat who peed acid.

Dimitri: A rad Dimetrodon with sunglasses. He solved other prehistoric animals' problems.

Silhouette: A failed artist turned superhero. He lived in the world of Marvel Comics. Despite the name, he was not a silhouette. He was host to a symbiont known only as "the Little Guy," who was a humanoid upper torso sticking out of his belly. The Little Guy could attach to other superhero hosts, temporarily granting Silhouette their powers. It sounds like I ripped off that one X-Files episode, but I created this character a year or two before it aired. I actually ripped off Total Recall.

Scum a.k.a. Alien Crusader: A a mass of organs without skin or bones living in an oblong spheroidal tank with robotic arms and legs. Despite the name, he was not an alien. He led a team of hideous mutants who fought crime. The bad guys were also hideous mutants, but they were mask-wearing conformists. Later Scum had a space ship and lived on Mars in a community of mutants who looked like him, and the whole thing shifted to space opera. Later it snapped back to superheroes, and Scum had a cloned Archaeopteryx for a sidekick.

Dr. Headsworth a.k.a. Dr. Conner: An alien who looked like a human head sliding around on a gastropod-style muscular foot. Sometimes his "head" rested on a humanoid robotic body, but usually he could be found at the controls of a giant vehicle. He was the Solar System's most skilled creator of androids, but he could never get the faces quite right. They were, however, convincing enough to impersonate planetary leaders and start the biggest war in the history of the United Alliance of Worlds.

Joanna a.k.a. Mercury: The teenage future daughter of two present-day superheroes. She went back in time to help the team prevent the bad future. You might not know this but only gases and liquids can travel through time. Mercury's superpower was being liquid. She was born normal but liquefied at puberty. In hindsight that's actually really awful. She could mimic people and things and turn her arms into blades (Original idea! Do not steal!). Her standard form was a palette swap of her best friend. That's also creepy in hindsight. Sadly Mercury was my only memorable female O.C. who wasn't a generic stock character or a direct ripoff of a copyrighted character.

Skindroid: A killer android disguised with the skin of a slain human. Only one metal finger gave him away. I made this up before I saw The Terminator (though I'd possibly heard about it).

Rhubarb & Gooseberry: Two aliens who ended up in Mediæval Europe, which ended up being future Asia. Their true names were unpronounceable. Rhubarb was a skittish being who followed Silverhawk around after he saved his life. I feel like there were important things about his character that I forgot. Gooseberry was an ambitious knight who turned out to be a disguised alien from the same planet. After Silverhawk bested him in battle he agreed to be his bodyguard. Much later I decided Rhubarb and Gooseberry belonged to two related races of interstellar warriors. Rhubarb went A.W.O.L. because he hated violence. Gooseberry was a bounty hunter who tracked him down but had a change of heart.

Larry Octopus: A reclusive inventor who lived under the sea. He just wanted to be left alone, but stuff kept happening that prompted him to summon his giant underwater vehicles and robots (which could be easily identified because they were marked "L.O."). Despite the name, he was not an octopus.

Mega 2: In this universe there were three Mega Men (though Mega 3 faded out of the picture). They were transformed from machines into humans, but confusingly still had robotic traits. Dr. Light actually built Mega 2 around a gnat-sized robot he found one day. The Mega Brothers lived in a base at the crossroads of dimensions and also had a mobile fortress (originally a treaded vehicle, but later a mechanical bull). They fought Dr. Wily's robots and other evildoers (some from video games, some we made up). Each time Mega 2 hit his head he shifted to an evil form with knight's armor and ground-shaking fists. He reverted to normal when someone said his name backwards three times. When Mega 1 disappeared Mega 2 got an upgrade. He went mad with power and had to be taken down. The Mega Brothers were later remade, and searched for the answers to their existence. A planned storyline cast the original Mega 2 as the villain.

Dr. Giff Monquake: Pronounced "JIF mon-QUAY-kee." He changed his name to that because he hated his birth name, Christopher Hurlbutz. He was an eccentric scientist with no moral compass. He was equally happy using his inventions for evil as for good. He was only unhappy if they didn't work. For a while Dr. Monquake wore "the Magic Fleece," a powerful alien artifact that looked like a white sheet with two holes cut in it. It disappeared when I couldn't think of anything more to do with it. So did his giant frog friend.

Larry & Grinder: A two-headed dragon. Larry had a crest on his head and was friendly. Grinder had a horn on his head and was ferocious, but he was a nice dragon deep down. This pair had no fixed canon, but showed up in various action figure and Lego games.

Big Metal Ton: A robot henchman who sang while he worked.

#oc #ocs #lego #mega man #childhood #things no one else cares about

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hsews · 6 years

Link

Updated August 10, 2018 11:05:53

In the 1980s, anyone using computers quickly encountered two significant problems with images: interoperability, and size.

Some image file formats were proprietary, and couldn’t be shared or stored across workstations.

The file formats that could needed to be compressed, to account for early modem speeds.

It was into this environment, in 1987, that an engineer by the name of Steve Wilhite created a new type of compression format: the Graphics Interchange Format — or, for short, GIF.

Wilhite could scarcely have known that the format was to experience a memetic resurgence decades later, much less that it would be turned into a verb.

One thing Wilhite was sure of, though, was how GIF was pronounced.

In the technical documentation for the image format, Wilhite unambiguously stated it was “pronounced JIF“.

It was exactly the kind of developer in-joke that led to Apple naming operating systems after Californian geography, or Microsoft hiring Brian Eno to make the Windows 95 startup noise.

Wilhite had pronounced his image file format in part after a US brand of peanut butter. Choosy developers, he said, choose JIF.

But just a few years later, in 1994, the author of an encyclopedia of image formats said “most people” seem to prefer saying a different way: GIF. What was going on?

Why we pronounce it two ways

GIF is far from the only computer term to have variant pronunciations.

This is part and parcel of the trade: many terms used in computing are niche, and predominantly occur in written rather than spoken contexts.

External Link:

A early peanut butter advertisement for Jif

Pronouncing these out loud can naturally lead to arguments. Should the file name extension, .exe, be said as EK-see or as an initialism?

Should WYSIWYG — an abbreviation of What You See Is What You Get used to describe website editors — have a /z/ sound somewhere in it?

Compounding this problem, speakers of English are already likely to pronounce the first letter in GIF two different ways: as the “hard G” of gift, got, and gate, or the “soft G” of gin, gym, or gem.

Acronyms, being short, are less likely to have guide characters that help indicate how other letters should be pronounced — just as the e in guide elongates a preceding vowel, where supper‘s doubled consonant shortens one.

A difficult choice

GIF’s pronunciation offers an interesting case study when it comes to locating correctness.

As you might expect, dictionaries — including the Oxford English Dictionary — tend to list both pronunciation forms, for the not unstupid reason that both forms have been in use as long as the file format itself has.

Photo: This pronunciation debate could get very interesting (Supplied)

Potential prescriptivists face a choice: where does that sit against the file format’s original documentation, which specifies a JIF pronunciation, or Steve Wilhite’s insistence that the OED is wrong?

And does Wilhite’s position invalidate that of the Obama administration, who inexplicably waded into the debate around the same year? (For the record, they chose GIF with a hard G.)

For those who treat language like maths and demand logic from it, the following “rule” could be derived for English spelling:

G before the letters E, I or Y is realised as /ʤ/, elsewhere it is /g/.

From such a rule, it would be reasonable to demand that the only correct pronunciation of GIF is with the so-called soft G, /ʤ/.

But such a rule isn’t total — it can’t account for anger, or borrowings from the Japanese (geisha) or French (margarine).

And besides — isn’t analogy a good enough formative process for approaching speaker elicitation?

Why should we pronounce GIF any differently to the start of a Germanic word like gift?

Against reductive correctness

The other day, an ABC newsreader asked on social media how the word turmeric should be pronounced. Was it TOOH-muh-rik or CHYOOH-muh-rik?

Unfazed by their inability to consult any kind of dictionary, I offered that both had long been in use in Australian and British English.

To my shock, I was told that this information was no kind of help, that I must “pick a side”.

This fascination with the sole correct pronunciation, especially for common words, astounds me.

In Australia it seems to be a result of a certain type of didactic English instruction, and is mostly done in good humour.

At times, though — as the linguist Nick Enfield has argued elsewhere — its adherents seem not to realise such a mindset privileges certain regional dialects, while arbitrarily invalidating the speech of others.

The GIF debate, while quietened, is not going away any time soon.

According to Google Trends data, searches for “GIF pronunciation” have risen steadily for the past six years.

This implies the kind of speaker uncertainty that may not lend itself to a “bandwagon effect”, where one variant form quickly outpaces another.

Which is fine by me. An object lesson: one of the more popular GIFs of this century is an animated screengrab of an advertisement for Mexican food.

In it, a little girl, resolving a culinary debate with Solomonic wisdom, suggests: porque no los dos?

Indeed, my tiny food advert friend. Why can’t we have both?

Tiger Webb is the ABC’s language researcher.

Topics:

english,

information-and-communication,

internet-culture,

social-media,

australia

First posted August 10, 2018 09:53:46

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The post Is it pronounced GIF or JIF? And why do we care? – RN appeared first on HS NEWS.

#Breaking News

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bizmediaweb · 6 years

Text

How to Make a GIF: The Complete Guide

If you want to take your social media strategy to the next level and really say what you mean online, it’s essential that you know how to make a GIF. You can use GIFs to create eye-catching ads, or to connect with your followers through relatable moments from pop culture.

This article will show you how to make a GIF, and also explore the most effective ways to use them on social media and beyond.

What is a GIF?

How do you pronounce GIF?

How to make a GIF: the basics

How to make a GIF with Photoshop

How to make a GIF without Photoshop

How to make a GIF on mobile

How to create screen-recording GIFs

Tips for using GIFs on social media

Bonus: Download a free cheat sheet to quickly find the best image sizes for every social network and learn how you can use Hootsuite to easily add them to any post.

What is a GIF?

The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, chains together multiple bitmap (BMP) files into a single animated image. Each pixel within a GIF can be one of 256 colors, which is why GIFs generally look low-res compared to other videos we see online. GIF have lower frame rates, too, which works to their advantage. More frames equal bigger files, and GIFs need to stay small and shareable.

You could think of GIFs as the midpoint between images and videos. The main advantage of using GIFs is that you can tell a story quickly, and it doesn’t take much bandwidth to load them—making them perfect for mobile.

If you’ve ever thought GIFs seem a little primitive, well, that’s because they are: the animated GIF has existed in its current state for 30 years, predating the Internet itself!

GIFs have exploded in popularity in recent years. GIPHY, one of the web’s more popular GIF databases, claims to have over 300 million daily active users. Last month, Google acquired Tenor, a keyboard app and GIF archive designed to help iOS, Android and desktop users find the GIFs they want quickly. Tenor processes over 400 million GIF searches per day.

How do you pronounce GIF?

GIF was 2012’s Word of the Year, and even though we engage with GIFs every day, we can’t seem to agree on their pronunciation. Is the G soft (like gin) or hard (like giggle)?

In my humble opinion, it’s “GIF”, not “JIF.” Remember, GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format: that’s graphic, not jraphic.

I’m willing to die on this hill, but you don’t have to agree with me.

Steve Wilhite, grandfather of GIFs, initiated a storm of Internet discussion when he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Webby’s in 2013. His five-word speech expressed solidarity with the soft G camp, proclaiming, “It’s pronounced ‘JIF’ not ‘GIF!”

Cue side-eyes from half of the Internet.

Ultimately, there’s no right way to say GIF. Even the Oxford English Dictionary has remained neutral on the issue. The debate will probably rage on until we invent a new file type to express our feelings online.

Even if you can’t decide how to say it, it’s still fundamental that you learn how to make a GIF. Let’s check out the basic steps, then explore some tools to help you make GIFs in a jiffy.

How to make a GIF: the basics

If you’re looking to make a GIF quickly, the best approach is using a GIF conversion site like GIPHY, Make A Gif, or Gifs.com. These platforms all function slightly differently, but the following steps will give you a rough idea of what to expect when you’re using them to make a GIF for the first time.

1. Choose the video you’d like to make into a GIF

The best GIFs target relatable moments that apply to specific feelings or situations. Pick something that will resonate with your target audience. For example, in my article about YouTube ads, I used a GIF of someone angrily smashing their computer with a hammer. If you’ve ever had your solo kitchen dance party interrupted by an unskippable ad, you can probably relate.

Find a video that captures your moment. You can use one you’ve saved to your computer or mobile device, or search online: YouTube and Vimeo are widely-used resources for clips.

2. Upload the video for conversion

If you’re uploading your own video, select that option within the converter you’ve chosen, and upload the video. If you’re using a video hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, paste the complete URL into the converter’s URL field.

3. Establish the length of your GIF

When you’ve uploaded your video file, isolate the moment you’d like to capture by bookending it with timestamps. GIFs support up to 3 minutes of footage, but two to six seconds is more than ideal.

4. Optional step: add text

GIFs don’t include sound, so you can add text for extra direction or meaning. Subtitles can provide context if you’re GIF-ing a quotable moment. Alternatively, you can use text to highlight a situation or feeling you’re hoping to express with the GIF (e.g., “Social media influencers be like…”).

5. Download your GIF

If you’re on desktop, you’ll notice that if you try to open the newly-downloaded GIF file it won’t be animated, and instead shows a series of frames. Don’t panic! Simply drag the GIF into your web browser and the animation will start looping. On mobile, GIFs play instantly when opened.

These are the basic steps of how to make a GIF, but there are actually several different approaches, especially if you want to use your own source material.

Let’s start with the most complicated option: how to make a GIF using Photoshop.

How to make a GIF with Photoshop

Note: all screenshots used in this article are from Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (19.1.2 release).

In Photoshop, you can string together a collection of images into a GIF. To make the following GIF (which I’m probably a little too proud of…) I saved about 20 screenshots I’d taken in Photo Booth.

You can also use a short video file to make GIFs in Photoshop. The process is almost the same, except for the first step.

If you’re starting with a photo series, begin at step 1A.

If you’re converting a video into a GIF using Photoshop, start at step 1B.

1A. Load your deck of photos into Photoshop

In Photoshop, go to File > Stack > Load Files into Stack. Click Browse, then select the range of photos (“layers”) you’d like to make up your GIF by shift-clicking on the full list.

The “Load Layers” screen should look like this one below. Click OK and head to step 2!

1B. Load your video file into Photoshop

To turn a short video into a GIF using Photoshop, you’ll need to make layers out of the existing video frames. First, click File > Import > Video Frames to Layers…

A new window will pop up asking which portion of the video you’d like to import. It isn’t necessary to import every single frame to make a GIF. In this case, I imported every 3 frames, and only half of my video footage. When you’re satisfied, click OK.

Once you’ve imported your video file into layers, skip to Step 4.

2. Create a Timeline for your GIF

Under the “Window” menu, scroll down and click Timeline.

A small box will appear under the first image in your list: Create Video Timeline. Click this and change it to Create Frame Animation.

3. Convert your photo layers into a set of looping animation frames

In the top right of the “Timeline” panel you’ll see a little hamburger menu (outlined in yellow).

Click on the hamburger menu, scroll down, and click on Make Frames From Layers.

The “Timeline” panel will now show your animation frames in sequence. You can drag these around to reorder them (I named my files in sequence to skip this step).

Press the triangular Play icon (outlined in red below) to get an idea of how your GIF will look. Also, make sure Forever is selected in the drop down menu to the left (outlined in yellow), otherwise your GIF will only loop a set number of times.

4. Export your GIF Click File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)…

You’ll come to this menu below. It looks a little overwhelming, but don’t worry. Under the “Preset” menu, select GIF 128 Dithered.

Next, change your Colors setting to 256 (the max number for a GIF).

Now you’re ready to export your GIF. To see how it turned out, press Preview… in the bottom left corner. It’ll open your default web browser and play a looping preview of your GIF.

Next, click Save… to name your GIF file, and download the GIF to your computer.

And that’s it! Congratulations! You know how to make a GIF in Photoshop.

How to make a GIF without Photoshop,

If you don’t have access to an Adobe Creative Suite subscription, don’t despair: there’s more than one way to GIF a cat.

Make your own GIF from a YouTube video

1. Head to GIPHY.com and click Create

2. Add the URL of the video you’d like to make into a GIF

3. Find the moment you’d like to capture, and establish your GIF’s duration

4. Optional step: decorate your GIF

There are a variety of options in here. You can add text (GIPHY has several different typefaces and colors to choose from), or jazz up the GIF with stickers, filters, or even hand-drawn annotations. I didn’t add anything because I didn’t want to distract from AyaBambi’s sweet dance moves.

5. Optional step: add hashtags to your GIF

Add hashtags if you want people to find your GIF and share it widely. Include your brand name and some common related terms in your list so it’s easily searchable.

6. Upload your GIF to GIPHY

And with that, you’re done! To include the GIF in your social media posts, simply insert the Giphy link or download the Giphy file and attach it (the method required will vary depending on the platform, but more on that below).

PS: You can follow these same steps to upload a GIF you’ve made previously. Just add a link to the GIF URL in place of the YouTube video link at the start.

How to make a GIF on mobile

Mobile apps like GIPHY Cam allow you to make GIFs on your phone. These are extremely easy to use: if you’ve ever used Snapchat, you can handle GIPHY Cam.

1. Launch the app and record your GIF

Tap the photo button to take a short burst of photos, or hold it for a longer GIF.

2. Optional step: choose a filter, or add stickers/text

3. Save your GIF and share it with the world

How to create screen-recording GIFs

Apps like GIPHY Capture, ScreenToGif, LICECap and GifCam allow you to make GIFs of your on-screen activity. This is a great option if you’re writing a short instructional article (like something for an online help center) and want to show steps visually.

1. Launch the screen-recording GIF software

When you launch the software, you’ll see a recording overlay like the red-outlined section in the screenshot below.

2. Pull the mask over the area you want to record

With GIPHY Capture, you can record anything within the recording overlay (again, outlined in red). To enlarge this area, click and drag the bottom-right corner (outlined in yellow).

Bonus: Download a free cheat sheet to quickly find the best image sizes for every social network and learn how you can use Hootsuite to easily add them to any post.

Get the free guide right now!

3. Record your on-screen activity

Press the circular red button in the center to record, then press it again to stop recording. You should see a thumbnail preview of your GIF pop up in the bar below the recording overlay.

4. Customize your GIF settings

Minimize the recording overlay and take a look at the GIF options menu. Here you can customize various aspects of your GIF, including the loop type—normal, reverse, or ping-pong—pixel size, and frame rate. Drag the tabs in from the left or right to trim your GIF. You can also add captions from this menu.

When you’re ready, you can click the blue “Calculate size” text to get an idea of how big your GIF file will be. I reduced the quality of my GIF when I realized it was going to be over 8 MB (under 3 MB is ideal).

5. Save your GIF

You can choose to save your GIF to your computer, or, in the case of GIPHY Capture, upload it straight to GIPHY’s online archive.

Tips for using GIFs on social media

The best social media platforms to use GIFs on are Facebook and Twitter—as of April 2018, Instagram only supports GIFs uploaded as video files.

Sharing a GIF on Facebook

Sharing a GIF on Facebook is easy: simply copy and paste the link to your GIF, wait for the preview to appear, and you’re golden. For best results, Facebook recommends:

High quality animations

Links ending with .gif

GIFs with a file size less than 8 MB

GIFs with less than 20 percent text on the image

Avoiding flashy, excessively grainy GIFs (stay compliant with their advertising rules)

Sharing a GIF on Twitter

Here’s how to share a GIF on Twitter:

1. Type your Tweet into the text field (or a GIF URL), or click the Tweet button. 2. Click the camera icon and upload a GIF from your computer. OR Choose a GIF from Twitter’s built-in GIF search library, and click the GIF icon. (Note: you’re limited to one GIF per Tweet) 3. Once you’ve selected your GIF, you’ll see it attach to your Tweet. 4. Click “Tweet” to post.

Now that you know how to share GIFs on Facebook and Twitter, here’s a few different approaches to incorporating them into your social media strategy.

1. Engage your audience

Remember, social media strategy isn’t all about conversions and sales. A huge part of the fun of social media is finding GIFs and sharing them with friends.

Humor is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience and keep them engaged. Pick GIFs that will resonate with your audience and make them feel personally connected to your brand.

And remember…

You don’t need to smother your GIFs in branding—it’ll just end up alienating your customers. Make sure your cultural references on social media are current, or have a timeless quality. You don’t want to look out of touch.

2. Enhance your how-to guides

GIFs are great for adding a visual dimension to instructions. InStyle’s 18 Ways to Wear a Scarf is an awesome example of the power of instructional GIFs. The GIFs in this article work so well because they show you what to do and what the end result looks like—all in less than five seconds!

The Huffington Post recently published a huge directory of exercise-related GIFs for the gym-shy among us. Each GIF shows a short loop of an exercise technique using the proper form. This saves you the hassle of clicking back and forth through YouTube videos (or dragging yourself to a personal trainer).

3. Promote your products

The shareable nature of GIFs—and their potential to go viral—mean they’re a powerful medium for advertising.

Last year, Converse and ad agency Big Spaceship partnered up for a back-to-school marketing campaign starring Millie Bobby Brown. The “First Day Feels” campaign included 32 reaction GIFs from the Stranger Things actress; they were wildly successful, generating over 276MM views and 11.5k shares between GIPHY and Tenor, and firmly establishing Converse as the back-to-school shoes brand of choice for tweens and teenagers.

4. Strengthen your visual branding

GIFs are definitely more stimulating than a static image, provided they’re used sparingly—it’s easy to go overboard and descend into a 1990s GeoCities nightmare (unless that’s what you’re going for). You can avoid this by choosing GIFs with muted colors and tones that don’t disrupt the browsing experience—like this cool, understated GIF from Nike.

You could also do the opposite and make an eye-catching GIF that’s totally extra.

Blackbox, a shipping company founded by the creators of Cards Against Humanity, recently added this insane GIF by pixel artist Paul Robertson to their website’s front page.

This overstimulating GIF celebrates what Blackbox is all about: shipping products from indie artists around the world, and having fun doing it. Robertson’s GIF was extremely well-received on Twitter, with over 850 retweets and 2,500 likes!

5. Make your data more visual

GIFs are also a good way to add dynamic elements to graphs and flowcharts. This makes them more visually interesting, showcasing the progression and aggregation of data, bringing it to life. I really liked this example from info we trust. that maps out the seasonal growth of 212 flowers in Jefferson’s Monticello garden.

This is a complex example, but there are simpler ways to visualize your data using GIFs. Last year, Google launched Data GIF Maker. All you need to do is plug in your numbers, and Google takes care of the rest!

However you choose to use GIFs in your marketing strategy—social or otherwise—make sure your approach is carefully considered and stays true to your brand values. And don’t forget to have fun with it!

You can add your newly created, hilarious GIFs to social media posts with Hootsuite. Easily manage your social channels and engage followers across networks from a single dashboard. Try it free today.

Get Started

The post How to Make a GIF: The Complete Guide appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

How to Make a GIF: The Complete Guide published first on https://themarketingheaven.tumblr.com/

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makeitwithmike · 7 years

Text

1 Million Views and More on GIPHY!

By Crowdfire

The tale of our glorious rise to 1.5m views in GIF-dom

http://bit.ly/2jSSvxZ

All right, let’s face it, GIFs rule the internet! Just our humble opinion, folks. They’re gratifying, amusing, and if done right, probably a lot more engaging than plain text.

If ever you find yourself scrolling through Crowdfire’s Twitter timeline, you’ll find a bunch of these magical moving images on our conversations. As big fans of this popular visual format, we sometimes don’t even feel the need for words (pfft, words).

It’s not that we’re obsessed with GIFs (okay, maybe we are) but some times, they just say what we want to say in a better way.

*Side note: This is important. We pronounce GIF with a “J”. As in JIF.

Since we just hit 1 million views on our GIPHY channel, we wanted to reflect and share our GIF-journey with all of you.

The Crowdfire GIPHY Journey…

Conception

Around six months ago, one of our Community Champs jumped up from his seat and announced, “PEOPLE. We NEED to have our own GIPHY channel!” Caught up in the flurry of enthusiasm, we all got on board and started making lists, plans, and gathering serious research material. We were always digging around for the perfect GIF, so having a set of our own custom-made ones made a whole lot of sense. We’d no longer have to scour the world wide web for our more visual responses!

Wanting to create a handy collection of reactions and expressions, we were excited about getting our faces and/or limbs on camera. We also wanted to explore the GIPHY space and see if we could create something that others could relate to and extend.

Inspiration

Mailchimp undoubtedly has an amazing GIPHY channel — not only did their work make us giggle uncontrollably, they inspired us to take the first step. We also checked out a LOT of other GIPHY channels and individual GIFs for inspiration. We looked at Joey Graceffa a lot and we also looked through the trending GIFs to come up with a list of ideas we wanted to start with.

However fun it sounds, like any other task, there were a set of challenges that we faced. Though we’re still learning, here’s our first set of challenges and our current approach towards them –

Choice

Challenge – To zero down on what each GIF would be all about was a task in itself. We needed the basic idea, references and a workable approach. We also needed an easy way to define which expressions would be a part of our collection, and which ones wouldn’t make the cut.

Our approach – One thing we were sure about was that ALL our GIFs would radiate good vibes only. We have no room for any negative emotions (the world needs more love ❤). We decided to stick with gratitude, positivity, happiness, surprise, excitement and then some. We looked for different ways to say thank you, different ways to show excitement and decided it best to have some variations of these common expressions so that we don’t end up using the same GIFs repeatedly.

Process

Challenge – GIFs aren’t supposed to be perfect — if you look at a classic ol’ GIF, you’ll notice its raw, grainy quality. But who knew the making of imperfection could be challenging, too! Should we use a phone camera to shoot? Or would a DSLR be more professional? Should there be post-production colour corrections? Which software should we use for this? You get the drift…

Our approach – This involved a whole lot of trial and error and, hand to heart, we’re not GIF royalty. We tried recording the videos on our phone cameras as well as on a DSLR. At this point, we prefer videos taken on our phones

When a video is converted to a GIF the quality is affected and hence a lot of post production processes didn’t make sense. Our process is simple. Shoot a video, trim it, change the speed if required, add our watermark and, voila — upload it to GIPHY!

Casting

Challenge – Sometimes we are clear in our heads about the expressions we want, the end result we’re looking for and the message that we want to convey. However, we also need to capture just the right facial expressions and for that, we needed to get the right people to jump in front of the lens. So what if we couldn’t afford Jimmy Fallon’s buffoonery or Beyonce’s rad dance moves?

Our approach – Go for simpler expressions like smiling, being surprised and doing effortless actions like hi-fives and hugs. Our secret weapon? We’ve got some amazingly talented Firestarters at HQ! They’re sporting enough to mosey in front of the camera and deliver when asked, nicely.

Your burning GIF questions, answered…

So, how long does it take to make a GIF?

Though we haven’t gone all out on our GIFs and tend to make a batch of 3–4 once a week, we can safely say that every GIF has its own set of challenges and the production time varies depending on these.

One of our most famous GIFs took 30 minutes from conception to the final product

http://bit.ly/2xY0L65

While we had another one which took over a day to think up, a couple of hours to shoot and a few more of post production ⬇️

http://bit.ly/2jP34SR

How many people do these GIFs reach?

Here are some fancy numbers from the Crowdfire channel –

1.5M — total views

http://bit.ly/2jRl7Yv

372,527 — views on the most popular GIF — this one right here ⤵️

http://bit.ly/2xY0MHb

1,435 — views on the least popular GIF

http://bit.ly/2xY0NuJ

Where do we use all these GIFs?

We use them extensively on our Twitter timeline in response to our community’s messages.

Apart from Twitter we also use these GIFs in our product emails, on our blog posts and even in some of our support emails

What are you up to this #Friday? http://bit.ly/2jRl92z

— @Crowdfire

All our GIFs are available for you to use, folks Type ‘Crowdfire’ in the GIF search on Twitter and pick your favourite #Tip http://bit.ly/2xY0OyN

— @Crowdfire

It’s time to #GoBig, folks! Share your Prescriptions for the day and keep growing http://bit.ly/2xY0Pml

— @Crowdfire

Do your daily Prescriptions and boost your timeline in a minute! Tap. Tap. BOOM http://bit.ly/2xY0RdX

— @Crowdfire

A BIG thank you to all of you for joining us on #cfchat today! We love you all!❤️ http://bit.ly/2jRl9Q7

— @Crowdfire

How can you make your own? ✨

If you’re a creator, a YouTuber, a small business or just someone looking to have fun creating your own collection of GIFs for the world to use, here’s how to get started –

1.Define why you want to create your own GIFs. Give it some thought. Do you want to customise your existing content or create something truly original?

2. Make a list of expressions you want to cover or messages you want to send. It’s 128740 times easier when you know what you want to do. Here’s a great reference for expressions — http://gph.is/2xY0Kz3.

3. Creating your account is the most important part. All the GIFs uploaded on GIPHY are private till you share them (unless you’re a GIPHY partner or an Artist, more on this in a bit). Anyone can create an account on GIPHY but if you want your work to be Public so others can use your GIFs you need to go a step further.

If you’re a business, you can partner with GIPHY (just like we did). You can go to this link http://gph.is/2xY0S1v and click on “Become a Partner”. You’ll be asked to fill up a form and they’ll get in touch with you about your application.

If you’re an Artist, you can shoot them an email with a link to your blog/portfolio/website over on [email protected] and they’ll take it ahead from there.

4. Start shooting! Once you have everything in place and you know what to shoot, it’s time to start shooting. Though the quality of GIFs isn’t super important, you should focus a little bit on lighting and colour contrasts to make them stand out.

5. Tools? You can use your phone camera or DSLR to shoot and if you need only basic edits, you can use software like iMovies to trim.

6. Make sure the GIF isn’t longer than 15 seconds and the file size doesn’t exceed 100MB

7. To make your GIFs searchable, add relevant keywords when you upload them. We use the keyword “Crowdfire” in all our GIFs so if you’re looking for any Crowdfire GIF all you need to do is search with this keyword on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and Slack! The indexing happens only if you’re a GIPHY partner or an Artist though.

8. If you want your GIF game to be strong there are a lot of other options available to deck them up, shoot ’em faster and edit like a boss.

GIPHY Creation tools on web — http://gph.is/2xY5THg

GIPHY Capture the Mac app — http://gph.is/2jQm7vX

GIPHY Cam app for Android and iOS — http://gph.is/2xY6hWt

These tools will help you add that extra sparkle to give your GIFs a distinct personality.

Lastly, don’t forget to share your masterpiece. The more GIFs you make and share, the more views you’ll get!

How does our GIPHY channel help?

It’s not just been about creating GIFs instead of using one of the millions of others that are on the internet. We want our Community to know the faces behind Crowdfire, and showing them our creative side helps us do that. GIFs help us express ourselves the way we are!

Here are some fun behind the scenes GIFs of our GIF-making

I guess that particular jump overwhelmed the camera man

They were only supposed to point once, really

Hard work can cause neck ache

Over to you…

So, how often do you use GIFs? Got any favourites from the Crowdfire GIPHY channel? We’d love to hear from you in the comments ❤️

And hey, if you liked this post, you know what to do with that cursor

Sam hosts #cfchat on Twitter and is Crowdfire’s resident GIF-maker. She truly got the Friday feelin’ tonight.

http://bit.ly/2fdv8dI

1 Million Views and More on GIPHY! was originally published in Going Big — The Official Crowdfire Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post 1 Million Views and More on GIPHY! appeared first on Make It With Michael.

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