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musings-of-a-rose · 8 months

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Pairing: Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia x f!reader

Word Count: 1500+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.

Notes: Look, I know this would never happen and the logistics are a nightmare. But this is fic and I do what I want. Thanks to @mermaidxatxheart for reading this over! And thanks to @wyn-n-tonic for the equipment line. Pure genius, as usual!

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia Masterlist

"Are you sure we're allowed to be here?" I whisper, looking back over my shoulder like I expected someone to be there, following us.

Mickey shrugs. "Captain Mitchell brings his girlfriend all the time."

"Yeah, but he's Maverick. He can do whatever he wants."

My boyfriend, who thinks he's so funny, chuckles, his fingers laced between my own as he pulls my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of it. "You've been asking me for damn near a year to see the planes I fly. You really gonna back out now?"

"I don't want to be arrested."

Mickey laughs. "You won't be. Kicked off base, maybe."

"Ok, maybe we should go back to the bar, Mick."

He spins me around, pushing my back against the hanger wall, the metal cool on my back as he presses his body to mine, his fingers gently tipping my chin up to face him. His lips are soft on mine, a slight neediness behind them before he pulls back. "Do you trust me?"

I sigh, my fingers trying to grasp the tight fabric of his uniform as I pull him back down towards me. "With my life."

He kisses me softly again before pushing away from the wall, offering me his arm. I take it, my cheeks warming under his smile as he guides me out of the building and onto the tarmac.

I gasp, fighter jets all in a neat line glisten in the setting sun, each of them just as powerful as the next. They make me feel small but not in a bad way. More like, I'm in awe of their presence and the skill it takes to master one.

"Which one is yours?"

"It's not really mine. They belong to the Navy."

I punch his arm lightly. "You know what I mean."

He leads me over to a jet a few down from the front and tells me all about it. What all of the markings mean, what it's made of, how fast it can go. His eyes light up, a proud smile always tugging at the corners of his lips as he continues talking.

"Hey baby?" I ask.

"Yeah?"

"Can I see you in it?"

"You wanna see me in the jet?"

"Very much so."

"Alright. Wait here." Mick reaches up and pulls a ladder out from the side of the jet. He gives me a quick kiss and a wink before he ascends the stairs, opening the cockpit and lowering himself inside. He waves a hand to me, beckoning me to him.

"Come on up!"

I take a breath and ascend the narrow stairs, my hands slightly sweaty against the metal handrails. But then I'm at the top, looking down into Mick's upturned face, those espresso eyes waiting expectantly.

"There's a lot of buttons."

He laughs, shoulders shaking with it as his smile makes me warm. "Yeah there are."

"Do you know what they all do?"

"Of course." He starts pointing and explaining each of the buttons, his face lighting up with each explanation. I watch him, the small movements he makes to point to another one of the thousand buttons on the console, a smile stretched across his face as he keeps glancing at me to make sure I'm paying attention.

As if I could look anywhere else.

"You look hot as fuck, Mick."

He stops mid sentence, the tips of his ears heating up. "What?"

"You're so fucking hot." I glance around and see no one. We're completely alone on the strip. "Sit back."

He does as I ask, his eyebrows raised in silent question. But as I lower myself carefully down onto his lap, his eyes darken, hands settling on my hips.

"What are you doing, babe?" He asks, his eyes darting down to my lips.

I scratch my nails lightly at the back of his head, loving the feel of his shaved cut under them. I kiss him, slowly moving down his neck, my hips moving of their own accord.

"I need you, Mick."

He pants in my ear before pushing me a little to get me to sit up, making sure I'm looking at him. "This is a serious piece of equipment, babe."

"You're a serious piece of equipment."

His eyes glance down at my lips and for a moment we don't move, me waiting for him to accept or say no.

"Fuck it." He grips the back of my head, pulling me to him, the hand that had been on my hip now sliding up my bare thigh. I moan into his mouth when his fingers brush against my wet cunt.

"Fuck, babe you're so wet."

"Watching my extremely hot boyfriend sit in his fighter jet while he Ted Talks me about it with giddy excitement really turns me on."

"You're such a slut." He kisses me, sliding his fingers under my panties and I gasp at his touch.

"Only for you."

He inserts a finger and then another, guiding my hips down on them as I moan. But it's not what I want. I grip his wrist and pull him from me, feeling my wetness on his fingers as they brush past my inner thigh. Sliding my hands down his chest, I kiss him again, my fingers fumbling with his belt, moving his zipper down and cupping him. He gasps into my mouth, hardening even more the longer I hold him.

I push down the top of his boxers, gently pulling him out as he slaps against me. Our breaths are steaming up the windows, his soft whimpers filling the silence as I push my panties aside and line him up, sinking down onto him, my mouth hanging open as I stretch around him. We waste no time, my hips moving over him as he thrusts up into me, pulling his favorite sounds from me. He wraps his arms around my back, holding onto my shoulders as he thrusts faster, harder, and it's all I can do to hold on, one hand gripping his arm and the other splayed across the window.

"Oh fuck, Mick! I'm gonna…" my orgasm comes on quick, my body tensing as I chant his name over and over, my hips rocking against his to get as much pleasure as I can. I see he's close, so I look down at him, meeting his dark gaze.

"Come inside me, Lieutenant Garcia."

"Fuck!" Mick groans, whimpering as he spills inside of me, hips thrusting a few more erratic times, his breaths panting out across my face. Mick looks up at his girl, the last of the days sunlight on her face, sweaty and fucked out and he thinks he's never seen anyone so beautiful before.

"You ok, Mick?"

"I love you."

"Of course you do. I just fucked you in your jet."

"No. I mean it. You're the most beautiful person I've ever met and you love me for me. I love you."

His eyes are bright and wide as he looks at me and it's then I realize that I love him too. I lean down to him, pressing my lips to his before cupping his cheek, pulling back just enough for him to see me.

"I love you too, Mickey."

—----

An hour later, we walk into the bar, Mick's arm around my shoulder, pressing a kiss to my temple as we walk up to his group of friends. They all greet us, shaking hands and cracking jokes. Only Bob seems to notice my slight limp, looking from me to Mick, the way he holds me close, his fingers playing with mine. When I look at Bob he winks, giving me a small smirk before taking a drink. When we pass by him later, Bob grabs Mick's wrist and pulls him closer.

"I hope you cleaned up the jet when you were done. I don't want to fail inspection."

My cheeks heat up, but then Mick is speaking quieter. "At least I made sure not to leave her panties behind, Bob."

My mouth falls open as I look at Bob, whose cheeks are warming, his ears turning pink. He just smirks and nods, lifting his glass to us. "Touché."

-------

General Taglist:

@frankie-catfish-morales @chaoticgeminate @janebby @astoryisaloveaffair @balekanemohafe @greeneyedblondie44 @hoeforthefictional @marvelousmermaid @hauntedmama @giuliarogers-blog @icanbeyourjedi @wretchedmo @sunnshineeexoxo @livingmydreams13 @adventures-of-a-noodle @sara-alonso @theewokingdead @punkerthanpascal @giggly-otter @f0rever15elf @phandoz @dirtytissuebox @gallowsjoker @lovesbiggerthanpride @sarahmilesbendrix @booksarekindaneat @mrsudontknowme @swol-bear @charlispersonallyhell @xoxabs88xox @amneris21 @gooddaykate @alindeluce @avengers-fixation @paintballkid711 @harriedandharassed @ladykatakuri @marrianena @practicalghost @withakindheartx @batdarkladyvampir @justanotherkpopstanlol @mermaidxatxheart @alexxavicry @ichigodjarin @justreblogginfics @sullyosully @kmc1989

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the-little-moment · 4 months

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Nice to meet you! 😊

Hi there! You can call me Lil. I'm in my early 30s and my pronouns are she/her. This blog is dedicated to Star Wars content, mostly Clone Wars/The Bad Batch.

About Me

I majored in traditional art in college and have recently started learning digital art as well.

I love anything to do with flowers, plants, and gardening.

I enjoy reading and writing poetry. A lot of the inspo for my art and writing comes from poetry.

I'm a painful perfectionist when it comes to my pet projects.

I'm married to a huge Star Wars fan whose knowledge, esp. for EU/Legends stuff, far exceeds my own. He's the one who got me to watch The Clone Wars years ago when I said the animation was too ugly. 😅 (It still is in those early seasons; I'm sorry.)

I'd love to make friends on Tumblr, so always feel free to leave asks, comments, or message me.

Masterlist

My art is all tagged as "#the little moment art".

The tag I use for my writing, which is also being added periodically to My Ao3, is "#the little moment writes".

I'm currently working on two main fics:

"Not Just the Carcass, But the Spark", which is an Echo fic,

Part One - Home

Part Two - Regrets

Part Three - Consequence

Part Four - Lost

Part Five - Dreams

Part Six - Heat

Part Seven - Free

Part Eight - Fragile

Here's art for "Carcass" too: There's Never Been a Time

And

"Only What Burns You Back", which is an AU of "Carcass" that focuses on Crosshair.

Part One - Out From Under Our Feet

Part Two - Loss

Part Three - Changed

Part Four - Only Smoke

Part Five - The Sniper and the Surgeon

Part Six - Memories

Part Seven - Through the Heart

Part Eight - Choices

Part Nine - Hope is the Hardest Love

Both fics feature my OC, Senna, who is my profile pic. You can click "#dr divehdi" below to see everything related to her, including art.

Febuwhump 2024

Day 6: Broken Promises

Day 8: Love Sees Not with the Eyes

Other Works

Lunch with Clone Command (Senna meets with some of her friends from the first clone command class. It doesn't take long for things to turn ugly.)

The Quiet Part (An injury brings Crosshair back to Kamino, where he says more than he means to.)

A Small Visit (Four years after she was first hired as part of the Republic's secret cloning project on Kamino, Dr. Senna Divehdi is surprised by a late night visit from one of her favorite cadets.)

A Tender Memorial (Dr. Senna Divehdi, Chief Medical Officer of the GAR, reflects on her time with the clone soldiers of the Republic.)

In Another Life (Crosshair can't face his family after all they've been through, especially what happened to Tech on Eriadu. Even though his brother is now recovered from his injuries and living happily with his fiancée on Pabu, Crosshair's guilt forces him away from the others. In an attempt to maintain their life-long connection, Senna moves away from the rest of their family, knowing it's the only way she can still see Crosshair. This fic is an AU of "Carcass".)

The Dress (Echo has never had an opinion on flowers, never even really noticed them, until now.)

Braided Together (A collection of hair stories featuring OC Senna and the Bad Batch.)

The Embers at the End (Eleven years after the end of the Clone Wars, Sergeant Char, one of the last remaining Imperial clone troopers, is forced to trust a traitor when he and his brother have nowhere else to turn. This fic takes place in a possible future of "Not Just the Carcass, but the Spark".)

#intro post!#about me #the little moment writes #the little moment art #dr divehdi

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jame7t · 1 year

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Can I ask if you use OBS for streaming? And also any tips for an aspiring streamy girl? *looks at you with the wettest eyes*

I do use OBS ! If youre not really familiar with it, its totally worth looking up some simple tutorials for. Once you can get a grasp on the program in general, its super modular and fun to mess around with. I think my biggest pieces of advice for streaming are like. 1: IGNORE those numbers queen. It can be super easy to see streamers with anywhere from 29-100 viewers and feel sucks about an average of like. 1-4. but literally anyone who uses twitch- or any platform- has to start there unless you're already situated on a different platform!

These are my average viewers from 2020- its taken me a long time to do anything on twitch, but its been a hell of a lot of fun, and its let me meet some of my best friends in the world because of it! Streaming is a great way to meet people, which brings me to point 2: Absolutely be careful who you meet! I've met a lot of really great people on the site- but as much as small streamers gotta stick together, there's some real stinkers out there who only want to 'network' with you. I won't pretend im BFFs with everyone I interact with on the platform- we're like neighbors <3- but I can confidently say I've never spoken to someone with intentions of clout chasing. The internet's the internet- stay safe out there lmao Ironically this becomes less of a problem the more you stream, you kinda learn to spot it, but back when I was at around 300 followers I absolutely had some incidents where people were playing some real booboo games to try get closer to me. Lots of streamers have promo channels in their respective discords- places you can link your stream when you're going live- just make sure you're an active-ish member of the community if you plan on doing that! Chatters are way more likely to stop by if they recognize you- and its pretty rude to be completely silent in 45 discords unless you're going live- 3: have fun!! Twitch is still just a hobby for me- its admittedly helped me out of a few rougher financial months at random points in the last few years- but im still very far away from making it my full time job in any capacity. Pace yourself- play games with your friends- and have fun! Worrying about growth and money is a pointless endeavor- because twitch will not help you grow! 4: Use Other Platforms: (as well, i mean) There's a lot of youtube videos and tutorials debating the best streaming site- "ahh heres why i left twitch forever vs aahhh heres why im leaving youtube forever" but it boils down to Sites Is Sucks ALWAYS. Forever. If you want to grow on twitch- or any site- make sure you're posting about your streams elsewhere too! Not JUST stream promo posts, but highlights and clips as well! If you can get some sort of editing software, subtitling them expands their reach a TON across the board, though it does take more time to subtitle them. People wont know what youre doing unless you tell them! Now, this does mean you might have to download the dreaded tiktok- I can't speak for the quality of that site in terms of getting people to watch streams; but twitch itself has sent me emails in the past recommending I post clips to tiktok. Plenty of streamers do it- use your best judgement, and what sites you think you can adapt to! Tiktok honestly might be better for getting your clips out there without a preexisting audience- when I first started streaming, I had 6000 followers on tumblr and my promo posts regularly got 1-4 notes- Nothing against those 6000; a promo post is tragically similar to an ad! Of course they wouldnt click it. They dont know how sweet and awesome and silly i am and how my friends mash me with hammers. Theyd want to see that. [The Promo Posts Were Also MID] Some of these things might sound weirdly specific or erratic but its 1 AM and im just recounting some random knowledge ive gained- none of this is a science of course, people might swear the opposite for some of these things. But! Have Fun

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saelestia · 3 months

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i am receiving lots of questions as to why i am not in contact with abbie / @mirinae, and heres what i have to say about the matter --

DISCOURSE mentions of pedophiles, comments towards minors, so on..

1) me and abbie’s friendship had taken a rocky start, where the first time she had interacted with anything of mine, was her replying under a post where i thanked my followers for reaching 2k, in which she had said something along the lines of; "woah 2k you have nearly 4x my following" which, could be brushed off as admiration/support. i found it flat-out weird since i think comparing yourself and someone else is completely weird in itself especially being a first impression – and it only gets weirder with time. while abbie’s and my friendship progresses. abbie had took it upon herself to post about creating a collab with me, without my prior knowledge to the fact we were to maybe do a collab together. After that, friend x, comes into the story and he invites me and abbie to join a server (the people in said server are lovely, and have no relevance, and dont play any part in any malicious things mentioned to be done by abbie, and generally aren’t involved in the situation, outside of the second paragraph).

2) Once we joined the server, abbie had been nice, and sweet in general to all members of the server, which i had no issues, or no comments about. However, something peaked my attention, when writers in said server began to exchange tumblr users with abbie, she had immediately acted as if she had known/read the work from those writers, despite saying “she only writes jjk for the notes” while those said writers were predominately jjk writers. Now the real issue applies when abbie begins to bring up follower counts, as she had previously done with me, mentioned above. I was viewing, but wasn’t fairly active in the chat, i had seen my url come up alongside one other writers, being mentioned by abbie. Someone had brought up the fact that said writer was famous, to which abbie responded, agreeing and calling them famous alongside the other people. Someone had told abbie “you’re famous too abbie” in which they had a playful back and forth about their followers. i hadn’t been involved, let alone hadn’t been adding to the conversation, aside from me encouraging and supporting those who had mentioned their follower count. Abbie had begun bringing me into the thing they had going on, saying “SAELESTIA AND @(URL) ARE FAMOUS” “RAIN IS MORE FAMOUS THAN ME” etcetc.

Side note ; abbie had come to me while on the discussion of a previous situation happening on tumblr, about how, “if it were to happen to her, she would change her name to ares” which caught me off guard, as a long term online friend of mine’s name is ares, and had a few days prior, sent an ask to my inbox, addressing himself for the first time on this blog.

(Click to Read Full. )

3) I hadn’t brought the topic up to anyone, aside from friend x, i had told friend x that “if i texted abbie about important things, she wouldn’t care unless it is something to do with my followers” as i had begun growing more suspicious as to why she had been doing the things she was/acting the way she is. Friend x had suggested i a.) drop abbie, or b.) sort out miscommunications, as after i did end up following through with asking/telling abbie about stuff i had found important, such as ; a friends art, my puppies opening their eyes, me getting an 100 on an exam, me having an upcoming exam, etc. to which she had simply responded with “oh?” until i had mentioned that i had reached 3k. She had immediately begun typing in caps, calling me famous and so on.

4) After i had sent that message, i had sent the screenshots to friend x, who had begun to see the way that abbie was acting had affected me. Friend x had advised me to drop abbie, but i had wanted another opinion incase i was looking too deep into the matter. I had begun to talk to friend y. Friend y had immediately understood and agreed with my concerns about abbie, and was being very respectful and helpful with the matter. I had question abbie as to why she only excitedly responded to my message when it was about my followers, to which she’d respond how she didn’t see anything else as worth caring about. ( in the screenshots above and below)

5) Abbie had then reached out to friend x, asking them for advice on how to pursue the situation with me, which i found odd, considering:

1. Abbie has used the fact she has communication issues to avoid conflict, while also stating she likes and enjoys drama.

2. Abbie hadn’t brought these issues to me.

after a discussion with abbie, friend x, had given abbie a little bit of advice, and what he thought was input on how i felt, to which, abbie had come out with excuses for herself as to why she had been acting the way she was. Saying how she couldn’t tell when i was “joking or being serious.” but any person who could pick up on social cues could realize/pick up on a joke based on the joking tone. From then, abbie had apologized, one sentence, and without any accountability being held. In response, i said “k” and hadn’t texted her all day, my final text being one of me dropping her. In response to me blocking + dropping her, she went to the server that was mentioned earlier, and ranted in the vent channel that her life sucks because i dropped her, while also providing little to no context as for why.

6) After being informed that i was still in the groupchat, she had went out of her way to dm friend z about her side of the situation, still leaving out key details. Friends x and y had felt bad for the stuff abbie was saying, and had both reached out to friend z to let her know the truth about the situation, after which abbie would continue to talk about me, resulting in me sending out a second message, and eventually needing a third. After the final message, abbie had blocked me, changed her discord url, and her display name to mirinae, and jinko. recently, a new account has surfaced on tumblr, and has been shared to me by others. the url belonging to abbie, who has begun acting like a friend of herself. after i left the collab, she was persistant on regrouping friend z into her collab, in attempt to save her collab, rather than hosting on her own.

7) Now you might be thinking, how does this situation become more serious? In between the story, abbie has done other things to further cause distaste, and discomfort between her, x, y, z and myself. General Summarized List

Being upset when me and x jokingly flirt in front of her

Calling friend z (who’s a minor) “bae”

Sympathizing for a ped0phille

Supporting a racist artist

Victimizing herself

Manipulating and guilt-tripping people into joining her collab after i had left

Misgendering someone

Misgenering X countless of times (despite them going by the same pronouns the entire time we’ve known him.)

She then blocked me, changed her discord url to Jinko, and mirinae. Her new account is @mirinae, her old blog was haithamvoid and that is all i have to say as of now.

#tw. discourse #discourse #ugh #ok thats all gbye

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cryptid-artha · 2 months

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This needs to be said

Cancel culture is wrong. End of.

Picking out reasons to hate a person and put them down, is wrong. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Tearing someone down over you not liking something, no matter how justified you think you are, is absolutely and completely wrong.

"But this person did this problematic thing therefore they are a bad person!" Yes, they did. They did something you deem problematic. But they are a human being. There is nuance. There are ALWAYS more sides to a story. There are always nuances, and reasons. And cancelling that person is not going to make anything better. This world is not black and white. There are numerous lies that go around online. People love to focus on the negative, and the news, articles, and others will home in on the negative. They will even lie to get those precious views, clicks, and money. Even major news outlets, so you can’t even trust the news! And, in all reality, you can’t even trust a lot of people because when you decide something is bad and start picking it apart, other people are going to be influenced to see this as worse than it is. And before you know it, somebody who made a mistake is being ripped apart by a dreadful mob mentality tearing apart all the improvement they have done.

I saw it happen, years ago, here on Tumblr. There was somebody who used to be an abusive person. They were manipulative, attention seeking, and generally treated people like shit. They wanted what they wanted, and guilt tripped and the whole nine yards. They realized what they were doing wrong, so they took a hiatus off the internet, worked with therapy, and went through some massive self improvement, and then they came back. They were doing well! They made friends! Their mental health was better.

But then, somebody brought up their past. And they got harassed so badly that… rumor has it? They committed suicide. Now, I don’t know if they actually did, but I do remember they were contemplating and feeling like they shouldn’t even be alive and these hateful people were actively encouraging them to do it and telling them they were a worthless abuser and would always be a worthless abuser. Making it worse and bringing up every bad thing they ever did. And yeah! They dropped off the face of the internet. And I have never, ever seen them again. Now, I am not saying that you shouldn't warn people if somebody is actually unsafe. Like if they are a known abuser, or a pedophile, or there's something else they have done that risks harming real people in the present.

This needs to be handled with care. You absolutely can warn folks about their actions, to keep people safe, without adding in extra stuff just to get people as angry with them as humanly possible. Warn other folks about the harm they have done and could do, but do NOT turn around and pick every single thing about them apart.

Don't go digging into their past and bringing up stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with what you are warning folks about. This should be done with great care, only taking the most recent proof of actual, real harm.

It is tempting to let emotion take hold. It is tempting to try to make everybody else think you are so good and virtuous for taking that villain down like some comic book super hero, a mighty warrior behind a screen, tapping away at a keyboard.

But, really, is tearing down another human being really something to be proud of? What if what you are accusing them of isn’t true? What if the sources are wrong? What if you are getting the wrong person? What if they’ve learned and grown and become a better person? What if you are only seeing part of the story? Try to think of how you would feel if you fucked up in the past. Say, for example, you were an abuser. You manipulated people, hurt people. Maybe you were a bully. But, over life, you have learned that those actions are wrong. You apologized, did what you could to make it right, then removed yourself from the people you hurt. You grew and learned, you became a better person. You found new friends, using what you learned from your mistakes to keep them and be kind to them this time. You still struggle with shame over what you did, but you are proud of the progress. You are proud of the growth you have gone through, and you are doing your best to continue to learn and grow. Now. Imagine it is years later. You've healed and become healthy and happy, treating people the way they should be treated. Maybe sometimes those old habits come up, but you always push them back down. You apologize when you mess up, and make an effort to learn from your mistakes. It’s slow going, but you’ve come to learn that growth is a slow process. A seed does not become a mighty oak tree overnight.

... And somebody digs up your past because of something or other you did that they deemed problematic. Maybe it was something you did wrong. Maybe you messed up. It wasn't intentional, but what’s done is done, and all you can do is try to avoid that mistake again. Maybe you didn't realize what you did until it was pointed out. Old habits die hard, after all. And no matter how hard you try, sometimes you will slip back. Healing and learning and growing is a slow process. People make mistakes, humans are humans! We are complicated creatures, after all.

But none of that matters. More and more of your past, every little mistake, every little thing folks deem "Questionable" is dragged out and paraded in front of others. All of the past you have worked so hard to grow and learn from is shoved back in your face, a dark shadow you can never escape. The shame, the pain, all of that effort feels like it was for nothing. You become nothing more than the mistakes you made in the past. Maybe those shitty things you did in the past were part of a cycle. Maybe it was learned behavior. Maybe you didn't know it was wrong at the time. That doesn’t change what happened, it doesn’t unhurt the people who were hurt, but you can learn from it and become a better person.

Or, maybe, you didn’t even do anything that bad, or didn't do the thing you are being accused of at all, or it was blown out of proportion with more lies than truth through the grapevine. Or really important details were cut out that make the story sound so much worse than it really is.

Nobody cares about the real story. Nobody cares about your side. Nobody cares about everything you’ve done to move past it, how hard you’ve tried, how much you’ve grown. All they care about is every single bad thing you have ever done in your life, and any other reason they can find to hate you.

It sure does hurt, doesn’t it? Yeah, there are people who are legitimately bad people. People who really have done bad things, or are still doing bad things. People who hurt others. People who don’t care, don’t learn, don’t grow.

But that does not give you the right to tear them down. Because when you tear them down, they don’t even get the chance to actually pick up, learn, and better themselves.

What it all boils down to is that we are all human. We are all confused and confusing furless apes living in an indifferent world making mistakes and screwing up and learning and just trying to make it in life.

Tearing other human beings down does not make you a hero. It does not make you virtuous. It does not make you rise above anybody else. It is cruel, needless, and actively makes things worse.

By all means, make sure folks are informed if somebody is dangerous, but otherwise? Just let it be. Let them live. Let them learn. Avoid them yourself, maybe warn friends about them if you see friends potentially being harmed, but that’s it. Just block and move on.

DON’T attack their livelihood. Don’t attack their friends and family. Don’t attack them. Let them be. Even if that means letting them be somewhere other than near you.

Every single human being alive on this planet has fucked up. Often times, they have fucked up MAJORLY. Sometimes they have done things that hurt other people. Sometimes they have made a string of terrible decisions that ended up leading to a tragic end. But… they’re still human.

What this all boils down to, is this simple thing.

We are not our mistakes. Who we are as a person is not defined by what we do. When you fuck up, you want the chance to improve yourself, right? The chance to make it right. Do you want to be defined by that series of bad decisions you made for the rest of your life? Do you want that to be brought up time and time and time again, and used to drag you down repeatedly?

I didn’t think so.

#Cancel Culture #It's wrong guys #Don't do it #It's not ok #Don't go tear people down #Don't be an asshole #Don't become the very monster you claim you are trying to fight

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hazelcallahan · 1 year

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hi dani, hope you're having a good one. your gifs are so vibrant and hq! if you don't mind sharing, what's your process?

i appreciate the compliment! i first started making gifs back during my glee fandom days in 2011 so i have been doing this for a while lmao, but here's my general process (under a cut because it got long as hell):

i'm gonna assume you know the general giffing process for this - if you need me to help you out with screencaps, lmk! just make sure whatever you use is 1080p. i torrent to get the best possible quality, which is its own tutorial, but there's plenty of those out there.

open up whatever you use to make gifs - i use adobe photoshop cc that i definitely legally got - and go into file -> scripts -> load files into stack and select all the pictures.

once you've done that, go to the window tab and check "timeline" to add the timeline window to your workspace and click "create video timeline, then click the three small boxes in the bottom left to convert it to a frame animation. then go to the hamburger menu in the top right and click "make frames from layers". this will actually put the frames in reverse, so go to the same menu and click "reverse frames". from here i go the same menu AGAIN, click "select all frames", then change the frame delay to 0.05.

now it's time to crop! for the best quality, make sure your image size matches that of tumblr's. tumblr's image width is 540px, if you're doing two images side by side it's 268px, and i do not recommend doing three side by side because things get weird. the height can be whatever you want.

sharpening is another aspect of getting those gifs as crisp as possible. there are many ways to get a good sharpen, but the way i do it, you have to convert your timeline back to video timeline, so click the little icon in the bottom left:

then select all your layers, right click, and select "convert to smart object". then, with that layer selected, go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen, then use these settings:

duplicate that sharpened layer, then go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur, with these settings:

then take the layer that has both the sharpen and the blur, and set the opacity to 50%.

now it's time to colour! i have the same general process to colour all my gifs, sometimes with an added selective colour layer if i really want to amp up or turn down a certain colour. but all of them can be found under layer -> new adjustment layer. first is a curves layer to brighten up the whole thing

then another, different curves layer to add some contrast:

then a vibrance layer set to pretty high, around 80-100% but i play it by ear because the next layer is actually a gradient map set to soft light with 50% opacity to add some more contrast and tone down the vibrancy a bit

now, in order, i mess around with a selective colour layer (generally i only touch the red, yellow, white, black, and neutral colours, unless there's something i really wanna specifically bring out like the cyans/blues/greens in a lot of the arcane gifs) and for this there's no real system. you just gotta play it by ear depending on the scene. next, do the same with a colour balance layer. i usually top it off with a levels layer to add just a tiny bit more contrast, but that isn't entirely necessary as you can do the same by amping up the blacks in the selective colour layer.

once you're done colouring, go to file -> save for web. make sure to set the looping to "forever", and keep an eye out for the file size. luckily for newer gifmakers, the size limit is a whole 10MB now (though sometimes it'll cap out at something like 9.8 so stay on the safe side). it used to be a LOT smaller, iirc it was 500KB when i first started. if your gif is over size, you're gonna have to just cut out some frames by playing with the edges on the timeline window, since cutting down the colours will affect quality.

you're actually not quite done here - after you've saved it, close your file and then open the gif you just made. it'll default open in frame animation, and you'll see that the delay on the frames is actually 0.07 now. it's something that happens during the conversion to video timeline. select all frames and change that delay back to 0.05 since 0.07 is actually a noticeably slower and less smooth gif. save that the same way you did before, and NOW you're done! thanks for sticking around! happy giffing!

#tutorial #gonna make that a tag so i can find it in the future

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halogalopaghost · 3 years

Text

Tumblr I hate these ads for roofing and soap please tell me more about putting vinegar on bread

#and soap under my mattress #please #tumblr I will start clicking on those ads if you bring them back I will risk viruses for Bad Ad Revenue #the ghost speaks

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dingyuxi · 3 years

Text

COMPREHENSIVE GIFFING TUTORIAL (vapoursynth + ps cc 2018) + some tips and tricks on color correction, blending and subtitles

You guys asked for it, so here we are! This is by no means the gold standard to giffing. Rather, this is simply my process and my own preferences. Take it as you will. Additionally since I use a mac some of my controls/panels may look different than what you would see for windows users.

DOWNLOADING YOUR SOURCE

This step is extremely important to the quality of your gifset. If you want high-quality gifs I would recommend giffing sources in 1080p whenever possible (especially if you’re going for larger dimensions). You may get away with 720p for smaller gifs. For kdramas, your go-to source would be dr*maday or torrents. (you can search my faq tag if you’d like to know specifics on finding and downloading torrents).

IMPORTING + PROCESSING YOUR FILES WITH VAPOURSYNTH (VS)

Please note that this tutorial does not cover basic installation and set-up of vs. If you would like to know how to download and set-up vapoursynth (it works for both mac and pc) along with some of it’s basics you can find more information at: https://hackmd.io/@nibreon/vapoursynth-book/%2F%40nibreon%2Fvapoursynth-book

Once you’ve identified what portion of your video you’d like to gif, simply drag your video file into VS. Specify the start time and duration of the clip you’d like to import. Typically you’ll be aiming for ~3-8 second clip depending on how big your gifs will be. I am very lazy when it comes to importing. The less of it I have to do, the better. Therefore, I often import clips that are 10-15 seconds long, sometimes even up to 20 seconds. I wouldn’t recommend going over 15 seconds most of the time though, because this will usually bring you over the 500 frames photoshop allows you to import at once. (when I do go over, I will sometimes import the processed VS file into PS in segments). You can also choose to import the VS output as segments if you want all your gifs on separate canvases. (I'll go into more detail on this later)

Once you’ve imported the clip into VS your screen should roughly look like this once the resizer pops up:

In the top left is where you will be applying your cropping, sharpening and denoising filters. Cropping: Keep in mind the Tumblr dimensions: 540px for full-width gifs and 268px for half size gifs, 177/178/177px for 3 gifs across. The height is completely up to your own preference. Usually I work in 540x300px. Once you edit those parameters you can drag/resize your video file to fit your new canvas. Sharpening + Denoising: You can choose to skip this if you would rather sharpen in ps. I personally do all my cropping, denoising and sharpening in vs. I use finesharp and KNML for sharpening and denoising respectively. Once you select those two filters from their drop down menus, be sure the select the checkbox as well. You should now notice 2 additional lines of code in the top right box. The line that reads: video = core.knlm.KNLMeansCL(video, 0, 6, 4, 1.2, channels="YUV") is where you will adjust your denoising parameters. You will only be adjusting those 4 numbers. I usually use: 0, 1, 0, 1.2. Now find the line that reads: video = hnw.FineSharp(video, sstr=0.22). These are your sharpening parameters. once again we’re only adjusting the number at the end. I typically use somewhere between 0.33-0.55. Depending on the quality of your source and preferences these parameters may change.

Here is a breakdown of the KNML parameters (source: @/nibreon HackMD):

Once you have finalized your parameters, copy all the code in that top right box and paste it into your vapoursynth editor. Note: you can ‘inactivate’ certain lines of code by adding the # symbol at the start the line. That line of code will then be greyed-out. This is what your code should now look like (the highlighted section is the part I just copy and pasted):

If you would like to preview your filters and see if you need to make any adjustments, simply navigate to the top bar and select script > preview. If you like what you see, great! If not, you can adjust the parameters directly in the editor until you see a result you’re happy with. Once you’re happy you can move onto the final step in vs: processing.

Processing: Once again, navigate to the top bar and select script > encode video. Another window should pop up. Make sure you set ‘header’ to ‘Y4M’ then click ‘start’. Patiently wait for that to finish processing. The longer your clip is and the more filters you add, the longer it will take.

IMPORTING YOUR CLIP INTO PHOTOSHOP (PS)

Now you’re done with the vapoursynth section! Not too hard, right? I use the timeline method when I gif. To import your video file into ps navigate to file > import > video frames to layers. Here you can use the sliders to further specify what range you would like to import. Make sure the ‘make frame animation’ box is checked. To optimize smoothness of your gif, avoid checking the ‘limit to every _ frames’ box. Hit ‘OK’ and wait for the frames to import. Depending on the size of your clip, ps may notify you that you are importing a large file and it may take a long time to process, simply say ‘ok’ to this. UNLESS you get a message saying it will limit to 500 frames. This means your clips contained more than 500 frames and you should select a smaller section to avoid cutting out any critical parts. (Note: you can always go back and repeat this process to select a smaller range of frames from the same video clip until you’ve imported all the frames you need).

Timing: You can adjust the timing of your gifs before converting to timeline. Select all the frames (Navigate to the icon with the 4 bars at the bottom right of you screen. Select “select all frames”). Click the drop down next to the timing of any of the frames. Select ‘other’ and input a your preferred timing. I personally use ‘0.04′ but I've seen people use anywhere from 0.4-0.8ms. Also as a note: when you convert your gif to timeline it has a tendency to mess up your timing so even if you input 0.04 or 0.05 it won’t actually be that timing later. If you want the true frame rate you can set your timing right before saving. You can also adjust timing at the end. (see export/saving gif section for more info)

Now the next part can be tedious and for that reason I’ve created numerous actions to speed up this process. But for the sake of this tutorial I will walk you through the steps. At the bottom of your screen is your timeline. As you can see, it defaults to frames, but we want to convert this into a smart object so that all your coloring/edits are made to all of the layers. To do this: 1) Navigate to the icon with the 4 bars at the bottom right of you screen. Select “select all frames” 2) Now select all your layers in your layer panel. On mac you can use cmd + option + A as a shortcut. 3) Back to the icon with the 4 bars, select “convert to video timeline” 4) Right click on all layers (which should still all be selected) and find “convert to smart object”

(Aside: Actions) actions are SUPER helpful to streamlining your giffing process. you can find actions people have made available on resource blogs like itsphotoshop OR you can choose to make your own custom actions. To do this, all you need to do is locate your action panel. Then from the controls at the bottom of the panel select the one that looks like a sheet of paper to “create a new action” Once you’ve named it and hit ‘ok’ the record icon should now be red. PS will now basically ‘record’ whatever you do. To stop recording hit the square icon. Now whenever you want ps to execute the same set of steps you just did, you can locate the action you just made and ‘play’ it by selecting the triangle icon. I highly recommend making an action for the steps I just outlined above to convert your gif into a smart object timeline. It will make your process much faster and more painless.

COLORING

Now the fun part! I focus on emphasizing the colors already present in the video source or getting rid of some less-than desirable overtones when I color. It gives the gif a natural look, but makes everything pop a little more. We will be working with selective color, curves, levels, and brightness/contrast mostly. This is the original gif I will be using to demonstrate coloring:

Curves: I always start with curves. The first curve layer I use to set a desirable black point. To do this, locate the top dropper icon from the curves panel and select the darkest point of your image. This will set that section to “true black” Feel free to play around with this until you find a desirable outcome. Now add another curves layer. This one we will be using to adjust the brightness/contrast. First, I always start off with ‘auto’ and see where that takes me. If you like the outcome, great! If you don’t play around with the different curve points until you get an outcome you like.

Selective Color: This adjustment layer will be your best friend. For me, I will typically work with reds, yellows, and black. If the source has a lot of blue/cyan I will use those too. Basically look at your source and determine which base colors you’d like to emphasize/alter. For blacks I usually up the black by +1-5 depending on the source. For reds, it also depends on the source. But I will typically either decrease cyan (to make red stand out more) or increase cyan (to make the red not look so overexposed). You want to be careful here. Overexposing the red can make your skin tones look like red tomatoes! And for my content base, where most of the actors are of asian descent, we should be emphasizing the yellows and NOT the reds (see aside on color correction + skin tones for more info). After altering the reds to my liking, I do the same process for the yellows. To bring back natural skin tones and color, you will likely want to darken the yellows, expose them a bit more and maybe even up the yellow slider. A common rule of thumb: if you want to make any of the colors less exposed, increase the cyan. If you want to increase exposure on any of the colors, decrease the cyan. If you want a color to appear more strongly or prominently, increase the black. The magentas and yellows I use more to adjust hues. You can add multiple selective color layers to further emphasize your changes.

Levels: Now we will work on the lighting some more. This creates more contrast and depth to your gif, often making them look ‘crisper’ To emphasize the bright parts, move the right-hand slider to the left. The emphasize the dark parts, move the left-hand slider to the right. You may also choose to move the middle slider to adjust more neutral lighting. Do so until you find a setting to your liking.

Miscellaneous: Depending on your gif you may need to play with other adjustment layers. Some other ones I often use are the brightness/contrast and exposure to adjust lighting and add more dimension to the gif. For additional color correction I use color balance and to a lesser extent hue/saturation and vibrance.

(Aside: Color correction + skin tones): We are anti-whitewashing and anti-redwashing when it comes to asian media. Like I mentioned earlier, natural asian skin tones have yellow undertones, not red/pink. Therefore when you’re bringing in color you should be mindful of this delicate balance. Adding more red does NOT equal un-whiteashing. Be VERY careful how you balance the yellows with selective color/hues/color balance.

^^ Here is an example of what I mean by overexposing the reds. Poor seungho is looking as sunburnt as a cherry tomato. Note: if your original source is already overexposed with red, fix it! You can do this by applying the same basic principles I explained earlier. Try upping the cyan on the reds in selective color, or shifting the color balance to favor cyan over red with the color balance adjustment layer. You may also choose to favor the yellow over blue.

^^ Now this is straight-up whitewashing. This is what happens when you are not careful with your correction of yellow. I’m not saying you can’t touch the yellow slider or get rid of some yellow form the overall image (because sometimes it is very much needed), but you should be very mindful how your corrections can affect skin tones. If you decide to decrease saturation of yellows, or decrease yellow in the selective color section of the reds, do so with caution. If your reds are looking too pink, add some yellow in the red selective color, up the yellow and black of the yellow selective color.

^^ If you hit that happy medium, you can emphasize the natural skin tones without overexposure. Here the underlying tones are very much still in the yellow range.

(Aside: Blending): I will very briefly talk about how to blend two gifs together. First make sure you’ve imported both your gifs into ps and converted them into the timeline format. On one of the gifs, right click the gif layer in the layer panel > duplicate layer > select the canvas of the gif you’d like to blend the gif with. On the canvas you just copied your second gif to, you can now drag the two layers around the on the canvas to get your desired positioning. On the top gif apply a layer mask. This can be found in your layers panel at the bottom, and is indicated by the white rectangle with the circle. Next, make sure you select the mask in the layer panel (it will show up as a white rectangle on the layer you applied the mask). Grab your paintbrush tool and make sure your color is set to black. Now you can effectively ‘erase’ the part of the top gif you don’t want to show anymore. I recommend setting your brush hardness to 0% to get a smoother transition. You can also play with the opacity settings. If you want to add back in a part you erased, just switch to a white paintbrush and you will be able to undo what you had just ‘erased’ with the black. When you merge the gifs, they will play the same number of frames. This means your blended gif length is limited by the gif with the fewer number of frames. You can move around your timeline layer and shorten the included portion by dragging either end of the timeline layer in until you get both gifs to play the parts you want.

CAPTIONS/SUBTITLES

I often get asked about my subtitle font/styling settings. Personally I find the best fonts for subtitles are calibri and arial. I use calibri with the following settings: 12-14px, bold italic plus faux bold, 1px black stroke (optional: drop shadow set to ‘multiply’ at around 85% opacity), and tracking (VA) set to 75. If you would like your subtitles to fade-in or fade-out you can apply the ‘fade effect’. Locate the b/w square icon in your timeline panel. Select fade and drag it onto your text layer in your timeline. You can then right click on the wedge shape to adjust your fade duration. I usually use 0.35s. If you drag and drop the effect towards the beginning of your text you can get the fade-in effect. To get the fade-out, simply drag and drop your fade towards the end of your text layer.

SAVING/EXPORTING YOUR GIF

We’ve reached the final stretch! If you need to adjust your frame rate timing: you will need to revert your timeline to frames. To do this: 1) Navigate to the icon of 4 bars at the right of your timeline panel. Select convert frames > flatten frames into clips. 2) Navigate to the icon of 4 bars at the right of your timeline panel. Select convert frames > convert to frame animation > when promoted hit ’ok’. If at this point you see more than one frame in your timeline panel, delete the frames until only one is left. In the example below I would delete the first frame by hitting the trash icon from the timeline panel.

If there is only one frame, leave it as is. 3) Navigate to the icon of 4 bars at the right of your timeline panel. Select ‘make frames from layers’ You will most likely need to delete the first frame in your timeline panel (it won’t have your coloring). Sometimes ps adds in some ‘blank’ frames as well, delete those too. Now you can adjust your timing.

Once your timing is set: When you’re saving your gif, just keep in mind it must be under 10mb. Navigate to file > export > save for web. When it comes to your save settings I typically use either selective diffusion or adaptive diffusion. I also also occasionally use adaptive pattern (I find this is best for dark scenes without a lot of contrast). Set colors to 256, quality to bicubic and looping options to forever. If you want to preview your gif, hit the preview button in the bottom left. Otherwise, go ahead a hit ‘save’ and you’re DONE!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Feel free to check out my ‘ps things’ tag for more photoshop stuff/mini tutorials. Additionally @/nibreon and the hackmd site I linked previously are your best resources for vs questions. If you would like to see my giffing process in motion feel free to check out this video. It’s sped up but you can slow down the playback. Additionally be sure to check out resource blogs like itsphotoshop for more helpful tutorials and resources.

If you reached the end of this beast, kudos to you! I hope this helps and never be afraid to reach out with any questions.

#gif tutorial #itsphotoshop #resources #kdramaedit #ps things #m:tut

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gr-ogu · 3 years

Photo

Hello! As requested, here is a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I would like to preface this by saying there are many ways to make gifs, and there’s no right or wrong answer imo. This is just how I personally go about doing so!

I will be using PS CC 2017, but as long as you have the video timeline option, it shouldn’t matter too much; on any version of PS, you should be able to adapt anything I mention here! You will also need some kind of screen recording software. I’ll talk a little more about that under the cut.

To start, you need the source material you will be making the gifs from! I get mine from snahp(.)it (avoiding links so tumblr hopefully doesn’t banish this from the tags lmao) and I always opt for either 1080p or 2160p. Not all laptops will support 2160p as it’s 4K, but either works great! You just want your gifs to be the best quality possible.

Next is where the screen recording comes in. I don’t use the screencapping method to make my gifs (where you use a program to cap a clip and then load those caps into a stack in PS). This isn’t for any particular reason… it’s just how my friends, (who very kindly taught me to gif), had always done it, so it’s now how I do it too. Personally, I find the quality to be just as good as the screencapping method, and have never noticed a difference between the two.

As I have a PC, I use the software built into it for screen-recording. If you go here: theverge(.)com/2020/4/21/21222533/record-screen-pc-windows-laptop-xbox-game-bar-how-to – you can see how to use the XBOX screenrecorder to record from files you have d*wnloaded. This also works on some streaming sites, but I think it depends on what browser you use. Personally, I recommend Firefox, as that seems to bypass a lot of the blocking and ads that occur when trying to do this sort of thing.

For MAC users, I have been told handbrake works well, as it converts MKV files to MP4, which can then be used to make gifs. You only need to convert part of the file to MP4 depending on how much you want to gif, and this also bypasses the screenrecording stage, as you can edit MP4 clips on Quicktime. I am told you can split them into smaller clips by going to edit > trim and it saves the new clip!

I have also used anyvideoconverter for small clips, but I can’t say what it does to the quality of your video, or how big of a file it lets you put in! With the XBOX screenrecorder, it doesn’t matter what type of video files you get, as the recording will save to MP4 anyway.

LOADING YOUR FRAMES

Now, go ahead and record whatever clips you want to gif. Make sure you have the video timeline open, by going to window > timeline. Then, go to file > import > video frames to layers.

Next, select and open your clip from where it has saved (with the XBOX recorder, it saves in video > captures). You should see a little window pop up, where you can move the sliders back and forth to clip your recording to whichever part(s) you specifically want to gif. I recommend trying not to load a lot of frames into photoshop at once, but I would be a hypocrite to say that, since I do it a lot lmao. Just be patient if you do!

Once you have chosen the length, click okay. Never, EVER, I repeat NEVER click the button that says “limit to every __ frames”. This really ruins the flow and quality of your gif—it’s better to have shorter, but smoother gifs, I promise. And with tumblr’s new 10 MB limit, it shouldn’t be a problem anyway!

Then, your frames should open up. What we want to do is make them into a smart object, so we can edit all the layers at the same time. To do this, click the small button in the left-hand corner. ALWAYS click this first. If you don’t, it will only convert the first frame to a smart object and the gif won’t work.

Give it a second to sort itself out, then, on the right-hand side, select all your frames at once using the shift key.

Then, go to filter > convert for smart filters. This might take a minute. Don’t click anything else in case PS gets angry lmao, just leave it for a second and it’ll do its thing. The more frames you have, the longer it takes! Now we have our gif, but it needs to be cropped, sharpened and coloured!

CROPPING

You want to start by selecting the rectangular marquee tool on the left-hand side, then drag it across by clicking and highlighting the area you would like to crop your gif to, like so:

What I tend to do is select everything inside the black lines you sometimes get around your gif (this depends on what file you d*wnload), and also the tiniest bit inside the sides. This is because I’ve found if you crop it right up to the edge, you get a tiny bit of transparency on the sides of your gifs, which I’d rather avoid.

Once you have your desired selection, go to image > crop. Now, the dimensions for tumblr are 540px width, so all your gifs have to be that width. However, the length is up to you. I really like big gifs, so sometimes I even make a full square, or even longer. It’s entirely up to you, and what kind of set you want to make.

For the purposes of this gif, I will stick to what I usually go for, 540px by 350 px. This will mean you’ll have to crop some width off, but that’s okay, since Marisa isn’t central anyway. The cropping is always trial and error for me, as sometimes people move out of the frame within in the gif. The best thing to do is just try it, and then move the slider in the timeline window at the bottom to see if the person stays inside the gif, and if not, adjust accordingly.

Next, go to image > image size:

In this box, if I put the width as 540, the gif is a smaller height than I want, as it keeps to the dimensions of the gif when you load it into PS. That’s okay, just put the height you want instead, and we’ll crop off the excess.

Then click OK. Using the rectangular marquee tool again, we need to remove the excess width. Part of the reason I like this version of PS is that it tells you the width of your selection as you do it, but you can always use the ruler as a guide, and check the size of your image by going to image > image size again.

Again, use image > crop, and your gif should now be the correct size!

You can also use the crop tool in the timeline window to crop the length of your gif:

However, I tend to wait until later on to do this (which will be explained further down!)

SHARPENING

Next you want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen.

These are my settings. However, 0.4px is very sharp, too much so, but that’s easily fixed.

Go to filter > blur > Gaussian blur and then set it to 1.0.

Now on the right-hand side, we need to reduce the blur, so double click the little adjustment button, and change the opacity of the blur. I usually go for 20-30%!

Then click OK, and that’s your sharpening done!

COLOURING

I picked this scene on purpose as it’s dark, so good for showing how to colour a gif. I have a base psd which consists of some very basic adjustments, but it mostly exists so I don’t forget what adjustment layers I like to use. I adjust them every time I make a gif, essentially colouring each gif from scratch.

In this case, the psd actually makes it darker. So, what I will do is turn each layer off, and adjust as I go. A lot of people say using lots of adjustment layers ruins the quality of your gif… I have never found this to be true, as long as you are gentle with them. If you whack the brightness right up to the top, it’s going to ruin your gif no matter if you use 1 adjustment layer or 100. I would just say use your common sense, and adjust a little at a time!

I start with a simple black to white gradient map set to soft light, because I think it helps you see depth once you add some brightness to it. I usually do this on about 10%, or more if needed. It’s probably unnecessary, I just like how it looks!

Then, I move onto using curves and levels. This is where things can diverge depending on who you’re colouring. If this person is white, it doesn’t matter too much. If they’re not white, you don’t want to white wash them. My best advice is to play around with it. By adding vibrance and other (usually the red) selective colour settings later, you can ensure you don’t change the person’s skin tone from what it originally was. You can also use layer masks at varying opacities (various shades of grey), on your curves and levels, to remove some brightening so that you’re not changing anyone’s skin colour. Just brighten slowly and check in with yourself honestly about how your gif looks.

Some people don’t like using levels, or curves. It’s completely up to you. I tend to use both because levels are good for bringing depth, even if not brightening (though I like to use them for that as well).

One thing you can do is use the white point of the gif to make PS adjust the curves itself, however I like to drag the sliders myself and see what it looks like. Just make sure it’s not too bright, as we will be using further layers to brighten more, after.

Next is levels. The slider on the left controls the black point, the one in the middle controls the midtones, and the one on the right controls the white points. The black brings depth, the midtones adjust the overall brightness, and the white points produce stronger highlights. Again, you’ll get a feel for how this works as you practice. Just don’t use the white point excessively, especially if your characters are not white.

Then I add vibrance (+20!), because we’ve removed a lot of it when lightening the gif. Next is exposure, which I find brings out the highlight and shadow areas more effectively:

Then colour balance! This helps with scenes that might be a certain colour, i.e. too blue, too green, too red, etc. Moving the sliders in the opposite direction of the colour your gif is will counteract it. The best thing to do when accounting for different colours, is to make a new layer every time you change colour, so that you don’t get confused. I always add a new layer for colour balance and selective colour if I want to change more than one thing. So one for red, one for yellow, one for pink, etc.

A layer of brightness just to make the gif pop, and because the scene is extra dark, I added a very gentle extra curves layer:

SAVING YOUR GIF

Time to save the gif. You can go ahead and file > export > save for web (legacy) now, but then you’ll have to reopen the gif to reset the frame rate from 0.07, to 0.05. Instead of doing that, I use a modified action. The original was made by the very talented @elenafisher! So I do not take credit for that at all. You can find the original here: elenafisher(.)tumblr(.)com/post/190817437374/gif-sharpening-action-2-preview-download and in my resources tag. Please reblog it if you’re going to use this!

To use an action, first make sure you have actions turned on in window > actions. To load in your action, go to the little lines circled, and then load the action from your downloads:

Obviously if you don’t want to sharpen your gifs yourself, you can use the action as it is, and it will give you a beautiful glowing effect. If you’d just like to use it to flatten your gif into frames like I do, make sure to take out all the items I have highlighted:

Until it looks like this!

Make sure you have the layer under the file name highlighted, and then click the play button at the bottom! (If you get a screen saying select all frames cannot be found, don’t worry, just click continue!) You can delete the layer that does that if you want, I just keep it in case I realise I’ve forgotten to do something, because you can click cancel and edit your gif before you flatten it. Of course you can undo the steps to get back to the smart object version of your gif, it just takes longer!

And now your gif is in frames and set to 0.05 already, so you don’t have to change the speed! All you need to do now before saving is change the gif cycle to “forever” in the bottom left-hand corner:

Then to save the gif go to file > export > save for web (legacy). Sometimes, the gif is bigger than the tumblr 10MB limit. You’ll be able to see this in the bottom left-hand corner of the gif save settings. If this is the case, I like to preview the gif, to see whether it would be best to cut frames off of the beginning or the end, or both. When you’ve decided, you can select the frames at the bottom, and in the right-hand side panel, and delete them both using the little bins/trash icons.

I keep checking and deleting frames until I get the gif under 10 MB! Just don’t delete frames from the middle, as then you’ll have the same issue as if you selected “every other frame” when making the gif: it won’t flow!

Lastly, these are my save settings:

So that’s it! That’s how I make all my gifs. Blending I do when the gifs are in the grouped, smart filter stage, whereas text I add on during the framing section above! Really hope this is helpful, please feel free to ask any questions you may have! 💖

#gif tutorial #tutorial*#completeresources #yeahps #chaoticresources #allresources #mikesmom #usergeo #userava #usertix #usersmile #usertom #if you'd like me to cover anything more advanced just shout #i wanted to show how i add text too but tumblr wouldn't let me add any more pics #but people can let me know if that's something you'd want!

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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Know No Better

Streamer Gang & Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Platonic Fluff, HUMOR, Crack, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: A game of Among Us with this gang can never go without a halt for some spit-fire accusations and bickering, but throw their mutual friend Y/N in the mix and the chaos flares up twice as intensely.

Requested by my dear friend @thelittleplantlover Hi darling! Thank you so much for being such a loyal reader and never shying away from giving me your full honest feedback. You are an amazing person, a lovely friend and a mutual I’m glad I gained on my Tumblr journey. Love you with all my heart, Vy 💕

“Yo, sorry I’m....late“ Charlie’s eyebrow raises as soon as he enters the Discord call, almost half an hour after the scheduled time due to difficulties with his wi-fi connection. However, neither his presence nor his apology are acknowledged, seeing as how he wasn’t even heard over all the shouting going on in the call. “Um, what’s going on here?“ He asks no one in particular, aware that he probably won’t get an answer.

Surprisingly, though, someone does answer him - Sykkuno. “Hey Charlie, welcome. You missed a whole round and a whole debacle between...” The yelling voices give a clear idea of who this debacle is happening between: Rae, Corpse and Y/N. “Yeah, you can probably tell between who.”

“Yo, is that Y/N? Dude, I haven’t heard from you in so long where’ve you been?“ Charlie exclaims, eyebrows raising in delighted surprise, “What are you arguing about? Imma argue with you.“

“You don’t even know what we’re arguing about!“ Rae snaps, scaring the ever-loving daylight out of the newcomer that all but shrinks a bit in his seat, “These are matters the three of us have to deal with!“

You see, Charlie’s not one to press his luck - definitely not when the sweetheart Rae lashes out like that, reminding him that the impossible can be possible if you’re a strong enough believer - but right now, seeing as how he isn’t playing yet, he’s thirsty for some amusement even if it comes with the price of being verbally beat and battered by the currently bickering trio.

“God bless the day you three actually manage to deal with something by yourselves.“ He snickers, half-hoping Rae wouldn’t hear him. Actually, it’s more one third hoping she wouldn’t the other two suggesting otherwise. Adding gasoline to the fire - it’s basically in his resume at this point.

The reply he receives is not even oriented around his statement and it doesn’t come from Rae - whether that be a blessing or a curse - but rather from Y/N. “Charlie, help! Corpse and I are being wrongfully accused over here!“

“There’s nothing wrong about my accusations! I heard you bribing Corpse into vouching for you, you impostor!“ Rae spits out the word as though this argument is a real deal and not just them throwing a collective tantrum as they usually tend to do.

“He asked me for immunity in exchange for keeping his mouth shut! I never offered it to him!“ Y/N argues back, “Not my fault he’s a corrupt crewmate!“

“You were about to accept the offer though! Who does that?!“ Rae’s not giving up her ground either.

“Anyone! All of you know you would’ve accepted the offer had you been the one to be proposed it!“ Y/N whines, reminding themself and everyone else that they are not a very argumentative or confrontational. The only time they can be caught butting heads with people is as a joke, among this very group of people and over something as small as a bribery in Among Us. “And why is no one going off at Corpse for this? Why am I the villain here? Um, hello?! I’m an impostor, I’m supposed to be evil. One of your own betrayed you, and I’M your biggest problem?!”

“I’d like it if you didn’t get me involved...“ Corpse inquires shyly, as though fearing he too is in for an outburst from Rae if he dares oppose hers and Y/N’s statements.

Unfortunately for him, he’s attacked by their joined forces with a: “YOU STARTED THIS!” Shouted at him in unison. Just like Charlie, he too shrinks in his seat.

“Hey Toast.“ Charlie nudges one of his friends, one he hasn’t heard from for the entirety of his short time in the Discord call, “You there?“

“Sup man?“ Toast answers, unmuting his mic for the first time after approximately ten minutes of silence on his end due to this heated debate going on.

“Ten bucks says this goes on for another ten minutes.“ Charlie says nonchalantly, already planning the cheap dinner he’s gonna order with those ten bucks.

“Nah man, fifteen for fifteen minutes. These two have no chill.“ Toast says, taking a sip of his soda.

“You’re both wrong.“ Sykkuno interferes, “I’m putting in twenty for twenty and I’m starting a timer.“

“WHAT?!“

The three men sit there paralyzed now that the two sides of the battlefield have temporarily united once again to end them. Lord knows when Y/N and Rae unite, nothing good is in store for those who they’re up against.

“N-nothing...I was just announcing that...“ Charlie starts off, strategically reaching for the plug for his router, “...my wi-fi’s gonna disconnect in three, two...“

“DON’T YOU DARE!“

And WHOOP he’s gone. And so are Toast, Sykkuno and Corpse.

“I really can’t believe them sometimes.“ Rae grumbles under her breath finding the miserable number of remaining players once again gathered in the cafeteria after no one got voted out despite everyone knowing it’s Y/N.

“And here I thought Charlie would back me up.“ Y/N sighs disappointedly, shooting a brief look at their chat, “Hell if I ever trust him again.“

“Look at the bright side though!“ their friend, moments ago opponent, hurries to comfort them as though their argument never happened. Technically, it really didn’t. “He’s at least not gonna get those ten bucks he sounded so confident in getting.“

Knowing Charlie, losing a bet will most likely leave him feeling torn, but hey, much to his comfort, he was the closest in guessing the duration of the arguing. You win some and you lose some, this time he’s done neither. But he will get an earful from Y/N at the first given chance they get, which he’s grown used to over the years, being the one knowing them the longest. What he’s still trying to get used to is how much they’ve clicked with his friend group. Never did he imagine his socially awkward and shy friend would steal all his friends and literally wrap them around their little finger. Truth be told, amazement aside, he’s quite proud of them for it.

Yes, of course he’s gonna try bringing this up when they open fire on him as an attempt to calm them down. Yes, he knows it probably won’t work. But also: yes, he knows what will. Cause that’s what best friends do - they know. However, they should also know better than to bet on their friends.

But come on, it’s Charlie and Y/N we’re talking about over here - neither of them know any better. Hell, no one in this gang knows better. That’s what makes them so uniquely and wonderfully chaotic.

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 3 years

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How to customise iPhone icons

Since @sexysirius has asked me to explain how to customise the icons of the applications on iPhone, I decided to make a post about it since it's a bit lengthy. I have also added some important info at the end of the post, so you might want to start with that, because certain aspects of this set up might be bothersome for a couple of people.

Results!

Step 1) Download icons from the web. As you can see mine all look similar. It's because you can search for icons on google but you can also download applications such as "Aesthetic" or "Icon Changer" where you can search for icons and download them. Some of them you have to pay for, some of them you can download for free. Please make sure you check if the one you like is free unless you don't mind spending.

I used my icons from "Pink themes" and the first one in the row, but there are many other icons so I attached a couple for you to see;

Once you chose which one you like, you just select the icons you want and download it to your photos. However, there are limited options. The icons for Tumblr and KakaoTalk are from google search for me because only the most popular apps have pre-prepared icons.

Step 2) Shortcuts! Shortcuts is a default application on iPhone with any software-update above iOS 14.3 if I recall correctly. I have iOS 14.7.1 so yours might be different from mine look-wise, but the basis of the application is the same

Step 3) Open the "Shortcuts" app. It will bring you to the home page called "All Shortcuts". Click on the "+" sign at the right upper corner. This will open a menu called "New Shortcut" where you have to click on "Add action". Once you clicked on "Add action" it should bring up the search bar, where you have to type "Open app". Now it will give you all sorts of apps, but just ignore those and click on the "Open app" under "Actions" as it's shown below on the photo attached.

Once you have clicked on "Open app", it will transfer you back to "New Shortcut" as shown in the image below. You have to click on the "Choose" option to select the app you'd like to edit. It will bring up the search bar where you can choose from all your apps. I used facebook as an example. Once you chose the app, click on it and it will bring you back to "New Shortcut" again, this time with the name of your chosen app displayed.

Step 4) Customise. To customise the app you have chosen, click on three dots "..." in the upper right corner as shown on the last photo above. This will open up the "Details" menu as per the photo below. Type whatever you want your app to be called, I went with the app's own name because I'm just basic.

Once you have named the app, click on "Add to Home Screen", and that will open up a menu to customise your icon. As per the image below, once again you have to type the name you have used, this will be the one that appears on your home page.

When you finished typing the name, you can start editing by clicking on the icon with the blue frame around it. If you have saved your icon template as per "Stage 1)" then click on "Choose Photo" and it will bring you to your "Photos app" where you have to select the image you'd like to use as an icon. As you can see on the photo below, I already had my icon ready.

The app also gives you the option to zoom in and out of a selected image, it's up to you what you do with that. When you are done selecting and resizing your photo , just click on "Choose" and you can see how it will look like once it's saved.

If you are satisfied with the name and icon, click on "Add" in the right upper corner which will bring you back to the "Details" menu. Click on "Done" to save your edits. This will bring you back to your shortcut's menu, so click on "Done" again.

And you are all set!

Important!

It's important to mention that Shortcuts are not the actual apps. They are bookmarks, therefore the original apps will be still on your homepage. I personally placed them on the third page, hiding them from my sight. If you can't see it, it's not there :D

Whenever you open an app by clicking on these shortcuts, it will always bring up a little message on top of the screen, but then again, I personally don't find it annoying, so it depends on how you feel about it.

And last but not least, if you get bored of it, you can just delete the app from your home page the same way you delete a normal app, except in this case, you simply delete a bookmark. Then open the "Shortcuts" app and select the app you'd like to remove. Same way like you'd delete a photo in your "Photos" app. It's that easy.

If you have any questions or I didn't explain something clearly, please feel free to drop me a message :)

#heloise rambles #iphone #aesthetic #apple icons #apple #themes

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anxiousgaypanicking · 3 years

Text

What You Need (Intrulogical)

Two days without eating and three without sleeping sounded like the normal schedule for college student Logan Berry. He's in class all day and works all night just to barely pay off his rent every month. Constant bills leave little room for bare necessities, and it's clear that his current lifestyle is very damaging. While looking for solutions, he comes across one that seems... mediocre at best, but he's desperate. What is this solution? A sugar daddy.

this is a sugar daddy story. that means there will be sex. kinky sex, especially further on. im not going to put a warning at the beginning of each chapter so heres your warning for the entire book. each new chapter will most likely have a different smut scene, so read with caution

Also! This is a copy of my story from wattpad that im posting here because i want to get into using tumblr :DD so... pog!

Part 1

"You look like shit," Janus comments, taking a seat next to Logan in their lecture hall. Logan can hardly muster a groan in response, leaning uncomfortably over his notebook in order to review the notes he had taken the day before.

He looks up at Janus, giving Janus a good look at the bags under Logan's eyes, no doubt from him being forced to stay up all night working.

"Another night shift?" Janus questions, and Logan nods.

It's all he could take, due to the fact he had school in the mornings and studied for a bit after school. But, he had to make money somehow, seeing as getting evicted and/or starving was out of the question.

Janus sighs, kicking his feet up onto the table in front of them, earning a glare from Logan.

"That's not proper classroom etiquette, you know," he grumbles, which earns a grin from Janus.

"And? What are you gonna do about it?" Janus asks, sass clear in his voice. When Logan rolls his eyes and sets his head down on the desk, Janus laughs. "That's what I thought. Absolutely nothing."

"Why do I put up with you again?"

"Even I don't know the answer to that question." Janus snickers, as the room slowly fills up. There's not many kids, so they're all spread out in the hall. Most people sit apart; hardly any of them even have the energy to become acquainted with each other.

The professor walks in minutes later, announcing his presence with an over-exaggerated "good morning class" that makes both Logan and Janus groan.

Logan picks his head up off his desk, rubbing away the drool that had pooled on the front of his notebook, before he opened it up.

The professor spoke way too fast, and Janus didn't even try to listen, while Logan's tired brain tried to keep up with everything that was being said. Janus went back and forth between zoning out and musing at Logan's determined attitude.

Despite the fact it was early, and Logan was clearly tired, he still valued his education and everything the professor said.

After this class, they had another one. In fact, their entire day was filled with classes, as that was the way school worked.

What a shame.

Janus and Logan had very different classes, with their morning lesson being the only one they shared, but that tiny bit of social interaction was enough to keep them from living their college life in complete solitude, so it was enough.

Logan went through today like he went through every day; a groggy mindset and the school's free, cheap coffee being both his source of hydration and the thing keeping him awake.

He participated when he could, but that wasn't often. More often than not he had his face buried in his notebook, frantically scribbling down notes in an attempt to keep up with his professors, and jot down his own thoughts.

Normally, he could work fast, but it's hard to focus on so little sleep and sustenance.

After school, Logan sluggishly walked home, as per usual. He'd have a couple hours to study (or sleep) before he had to head to work.

And normally, he would do either of those things, but upon walking into his dinky apartment, grabbing a cup (which was one of the two he owned - flatware is expensive), and filling it with some questionable tap water, he decided he really had to look into more ways to make money.

With a sigh, he set his cup down, moving to his tiny couch instead. It was uncomfortable to sit on; stiff to the touch. He pulls his computer out of his backpack; it was one of the nicer things he owned, and his parents helped him buy it seeing as he needed one for school.

It was old, and very outdated, but it worked, and that was enough.

He patiently waits for the search engine to load up (understanding that his apartment's cheap wi-fi ran slowly, but he didn't have the money for his own router so this would have to do) before typing in "what are quick ways to make money?"

He was provided with a bunch of job options that he didn't even bother looking at.

He already had a job; he definitely didn't have time for a second one. Not with his already full schedule.

So why was he even looking? Did he want to gamble? Or join some sort of pyramid scheme? Maybe he was just looking to make sure there was nothing better out there.

And that's almost the conclusion he came to, until he came across a site that had "sugar daddy" in the URL. A sugar daddy...? Logan, surprisingly, didn't know what that was.

He clicks the link, opening a new tab as well to look up what a sugar daddy was while the link loaded.

He scans over the definition.

"A rich, older man who lavishes gifts on young people in return for their company or, more typically, sexual favors."

His face scrunches up. Money in return for sex? Isn't that... isn't that prostitution? Isn't that illegal?

Surprisingly, no. It's one of the few exceptions to that law. And Logan stares at that link for a few seconds, considering it.

Well...

He sighs, closing his computer, as he sinks deeper into the uncomfortable couch. He lets his eyes rest for a second, momentarily soothing the burning that's always there nowadays.

He can't let himself fall asleep, though, as he knows there's always the possibility he'll sleep through his alarm, and he can't even risk getting fired from his job. That was currently his only source of income, which helped him pay bills and get some food every once in a while.

With a sigh, he reopened his eyes, and his computer, bringing him to a sign in page on the sugar daddy website.

Was he actually considering this?

...yes.

He quickly types in his name and age, as well as inputting his gender, and inserting a profile picture (albeit a very awkward one), before typing up a short bio.

"I just don't want to starve."

Yeah, mood.

Afterwards, he's brought to a Tinder-esque screen, showing other profiles with a red thumbs down and a green thumbs up on the bottom of the screen. When Logan hovered his mouse over them, they lit up, showing they were buttons.

"Hmm," he hummed, pushing his glasses up as he scans over the first profile, already cringing at the age. "67." Yikes.

Well, he'll do what he has to, but maybe with someone a little bit younger... if there even were any younger people on here. Logan honestly was hoping for a miracle, unrealistically so.

But, he pressed the thumbs-down button nonetheless, deciding he'd at least try.

"58." Eh.

"49." Getting better...

"23."

Woah. Twenty-three? This fucker was only a couple years older than Logan was.

Logan quickly skimmed over their profile. The profile picture was blurry, and normally Logan would take that as a bad sign, but he was desperate.

"Remus Prince, 23

here for a fun and sexy time ;))) will treat my sweet lil baby right ;000"

Well, it was childish, and Logan found himself slightly annoyed with the usage of emoticons and the improper capitalization, but, he really would rather sleep with a younger man.

With one final re-evaluation of this decision, he clicks the thumbs-up button, taking him to a chat feature. Oh, interesting.

Logan, who was pretty socially stunted, hummed, as he tried to figure out an appropriate way to start this conversation.

'Hey.'

Well, that was a good start. He set his computer to the side, standing up to grab his cup of water and carry it back to the couch. When he sat down, he saw he already had a reply. Damn, did people just have constant free time?

'hey there cutie ;))'

'i take it ur lookin for a daddy <33??'

No, Logan was just on this website for fun. He rolled his eyes, and then cringed at the idea of referring to this man as his 'daddy.' Ew. He'd stick to Remus for now.

'In a sense, yes, assuming your referring to the 'title.''

He had to be sure.

'pfft- nerd'

';) just joking'

'and yes, that is what i meant smh. so when do you wanna meet, baby?'

Logan frowned slightly at being called 'baby,' not being able to properly identify how it made him feel. Weird, definitely. Ugh, this was all confusing and, God, he couldn't believe he was actually doing this.

'Tomorrow,' Logan answers. before providing the time after he'd be out of school. They could talk in the few hours Logan had before work, and perhaps he could get a better sense on what being a sugar baby was going to be like.

Remus accepts (adding many unnecessary emojis and emoticons along with a simple "that works"), and Logan sighs as he shut his computer yet again.

He discards it in favor of pulling out his notebook and reviewing the notes he had taken today.

School took his priority until his job started, and provided a good distraction from the now looming concept of meeting his future sugar daddy.

Wow, he still couldn't believe he actually resorted to a solution like that. This option is.... mediocre at best.

It was so unlike him, but desperate times called for desperate measures, he supposes.

In order to distract himself, and also kill some time before he has to head into work, he studies the notes he had made, repeating and re-writing in an effort to burn them into his memory. He does this for a couple hours, up until his phone rings. It's an alarm, labelled "get ready for work."

He ends up doing just that, combing through his hair and quickly scrubbing his face in order to look more presentable. He then fixes his clothes, smoothing out the wrinkles and trading out his tie for his work apron. He didn't put it on right away, as he still had to walk to work, but he did fold it neatly over his arm.

He speed-walks to his job, and works throughout the night.

Of course, he was aware of the recommended eight-to-ten hours of sleep people were supposed to get in order to be healthy, but Logan had been functioning just fine on the three hours of sleep he got daily (if even that).

Logically, three hours was a complete sleep cycle. It's just recommended by doctors that people get three cycles.

But Logan didn't have the time to sleep for nine hours a night. Not unless he wanted to drop out of college and move back in with parents (both of which he definitely did not want to do).

He completes the tedious tasks his work gives him, hardly socializing with any of his co-workers, all of which looked equally as tired as he did, before heading home. Perhaps one would be more afraid of walking home alone in the middle of the damn night, but Logan knew the sun would rise in half an hour or so. That, and at least kidnappers would give him a temporary relief from work and school.

And murder would permanently relieve him from both! There was no downside.

When he gets back to his apartment, he folds up his apron and puts it away, before packing all his notes and supplies back into his bag. He checks himself in the bathroom as he slings his bag over his shoulder.

The purple bags on his eyes were growing increasingly prominent. That wasn't great.

He checks his phone after a moment, before humming as he trudged back into the living room and slipped on his shoes, deciding that he'd try and sleep after school today-

Nope! He groaned, as he remembered his meeting with that sugar daddy. What was his name again? Logan tried to think back to it, before his phone rang, the alarm for school going off, distracting him. He dismisses it, adjusting his bag, before heading out the door. Curse morning classes.

He ends up in the lecture hall earlier than most everyone else, as per usual, although Janus is already at his seat. Legs kicked up on the table. As per usual.

"Good morning," Logan greets him, setting his bag down and pulling out his notes.

Janus hums in response, scrolling through his phone. His phone that Logan had never seen before.

"Is that a new phone?" Logan questions, raising an eyebrow. He knew Janus had more access to money than he did (as he often came to school with new rings or fancy tailored clothes) but there was nothing wrong with his old one.

Janus looks at Logan, momentarily confused, before he blinks in realization of the question. "Oh, yeah. It looked cool, and my old one was a bit slow."

"Ah."

Logan couldn't even imagine just spending money carelessly on himself. His phone, while outdated and cracked, could still call, text, and set alarms. If it wasn't broken, why would he need a new one?

With that short exchange, both of them went back to their own devices (literally, in Janus's case) as they wait for class to start.

However, Logan finds that he can't focus, instead thinking about what this afternoon's meeting would have in store for him. The sugar daddy - who Logan had remembered was named Remus - seemed flirtatious over text (although Logan was bad at identifying romantic social cues due to lack of exposure, so he could have just been really friendly), but Logan couldn't picture meeting him.

The unpredictability of the event annoyed him, and what annoyed him even more was that he didn't even know what Remus looked like! His profile picture was blurry and extremely hard to make out.

Guess he'd discover what he looked like upon meeting him, as that wasn't dangerous.

He tries to focus throughout class, once again leaning over his work and scribbling rapid notes, but his mind can only listen to the teacher for so long before he's thinking about the meeting again.

Ugh, if he knew he was going to be this distracted by an interaction that hasn't even happened yet, he would just not have scheduled the meeting at all.

Janus seemed to notice that Logan wasn't focusing solely on the class as he usually would, but didn't ask about it. He didn't want to intrude, and he knew Logan would probably give a vaguely concerning answer anyway.

So, instead, Janus left Logan to sort through his own problems alone, like any half-decent friend probably would.

Logan ends up being distracted throughout the rest of the day. Funny how one instance can absorb all of one's mental energy. He still paid attention as well as he could (as he would have otherwise been upset with himself), but near the end of the school day, he finds himself rather antsy. He's not nervous, despite the fact he has fair reason to be. No, he's overly curious, and eager to live through a new experience.

Even if he was unhappy about how his life had managed to come to this. Not that there was really anything he could do about it, without throwing his life out of order.

At the end of the day, he walked home as quickly as he could. He needed time to himself to prepare for Remus's arrival. Not physically, as he looked presentable enough in that regard, but mentally.

When he gets back to his apartment, he checks his phone for the time, before tossing his bag near the couch. There's still about ten minutes until the time Logan requested meeting Remus at, but he's anxiously awaiting his arrival nonetheless.

Those ten minutes pass, and Logan has pulled out his schoolbook, reviewing equations for the upcoming exam in his science class. Another ten minutes go by as Logan gets immersed in the material, before there's a knock on the door.

Logan blinks, drawn out of his finally focused state, before he checks the time. Ten minutes past when he and Remus had scheduled.

Was he late? If he was, that wouldn't be the best start to a first impression.

Logan got up and opened his door, revealing a tall, thin man with pale skin and messy brown hair. He was wearing a pale green tank top and cargo shorts, and had brown eyes that seemed almost red when the light hit them right.

He also had a thin mustache gracing the space above his top lip.

The man grinned and leaned against Logan's door frame.

"Heya there, babes," he greets, before just walking inside. Logan's too stunned to really say anything, so all he can do is shut the door behind him. "You're Logan Berry, yeah?"

It takes Logan a moment to find his voice, so jarred by the young man in front of him. He looked younger than Logan. And not as rich or as fancy as Logan had pictured him. He honestly expected a well-groomed man in a regal suit to show up to his door.

Yet, he was greeted with... this.

"Yeah," Logan answers, after a moment. "I take it you're... Remus."

"Bingo, baby!" Remus says, with a grin, as his hands find Logan's waist. That, mixed with the nickname, made Logan feel weird.

An unidentifiable way, but mostly just hot.

Remus snickers. "Man, you're cute. I really lucked out, huh?"

"Uh, I guess," Logan responds, standing stiff in Remus's hold. "You look younger than I expected."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Logan averts his gaze and shrugs, feeling awkward and inexperienced in this situation. And everything was moving very fast; Logan had no time to process and retain a lot of the information being thrown his way.

"Yeah, that's fair. I just know some people have a kink for age differences. Although, you're the same age I am, so I guess that wouldn't make much sense."

Logan listened to him talk, eyebrow raising slightly at the age kink comment.

He knew what the definition of a kink was, but an age kink...?

"Ah," Logan says, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. There's silence for a moment, before Remus snickers again.

"Wow, you're really awkward."

"And you're really blunt," Logan counters, knowing that Remus is right. He doesn't know what to do here; he's never been in this situation before.

Remus laughs at Logan's words though, pulling him closer, which causes Logan to flush at the contact. He... he had never been this physically close to anyone before.

"Are you blushing?" comes Remus's voice, and Logan just sighs.

"Clearly."

Remus backs up a bit, his hands moving from Logan's waist to his face, cupping it, before tilting it this way and that way. Logan looks confused, and still unsure of what to do with his own hands.

Remus's peppy face falls for a moment, looking like he was studying Logan, before he clears his throat.

"Have you ever had a sugar daddy before?" he asks, and Logan wonders if it's really that obvious. He would have brought it up at some point anyway, because he's confused as hell, but this works.

"No."

Remus hums. "Have you ever had sex before?"

"No."

"Have you ever been in a relationship before?"

Yes, platonically, but Logan could tell that he meant romantically, which prompted Logan to answer "no."

Remus laughed, his face lighting back up. "Damn, you're new to all of this then! This'll be fun."

Fun? What did that have to do with Logan being new to this whole ordeal?

"So, you do at least know what having a sugar daddy means, right?" Remus asks, as he pulls Logan to the couch via an arm around his waist.

He expects to sit down next to him, but he ends up getting pulled into Remus's lap before he can even process what's happening.

However, Remus does finally take the time to ask "you're comfortable with this, right?"

"Having a sugar daddy?"

Remus snorts, his hands rubbing Logan's thighs. "Well, partially. I was more so referring to me being all touchy. It's technically part of the job, ya know, sex for money and all that, but since you're new to this, it's worth making sure."

Logan has to think about that for a genuine minute, because he is indeed new to this, and it's making him feel weird, but he decides it's a good kind of weird.

So he nods. "Yeah. I suppose I'm comfortable with this. It's just new to me."

Remus grins, his hands sliding back up to Logan's waist and pulling him closer. "Are you comfortable with kissing, too?"

Logan's face flushes involuntarily at the question, and at the sight of Remus smirking at him with hungry eyes.

"I- well- I've never kissed anyone before."

"Virgin in all regards, huh? Don't worry, I'll teach you all there is to know. Perks of the job." Remus cups his face, his voice lowered. "Provided I have your consent, of course."

Logan gulps, his face hot, as he nods.

"Verbal consent, Lo."

"Yeah- yeah you have my consent."

Remus smiles, before leaning it fully, pressing his lips against Logan's. Logan still feels awkward, and unsure of what to do, but he guessed the best way to learn would be to just do what he thought he should.

So, he moves his own hands, which were previously laying lax in his lap, onto Remus's shoulders, and Remus grins into the kiss, before tilting his head and deepening it. His tongue slips past Logan's lips, before Logan suddenly pulls away.

"What was that?" Logan asks, before Remus has the chance to ask if he's okay.

Remus looks puzzled for a moment, before he grins. "That was french kissing, silly. Man, despite looking like a nerd, you're really clueless."

Logan frowns, which prompts Remus to kiss him yet again.

"I just don't understand this. I need to do more research on it, it seems," Logan says, mostly muttering to himself. Perhaps it would have been better if he researched kissing and sexual techniques. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so inexperienced in this situation.

However, Remus seems to disagree. "What you need," he begins, his hands on Logan's waist suddenly tightening. "Is for me to take care of you." He suddenly changes their position, pinning Logan to the couch, while Remus smirks over top of him. "Lucky for you, I'm surprisingly good at that."

Logan's face is dark red, and he's speechless yet again. But he doesn't need to talk, as Remus's lips reconnect with his, and Logan closes his eyes and lets himself relax into it. His normally stiff shoulders ease, and his arms slide back around Remus's shoulders, subconsciously pulling him closer.

Once again, Remus deepens the kiss, but this time Logan was at least expecting it. What he wasn't expecting were Remus's hands untucking his shirt and sliding up it. He shivers at Remus's hands running up his chest, before moaning when they reach his nipples.

Remus snickers, as he breaks the kiss. "Damn, you're really cute, Logan."

"Uh-huh," Logan responds, arching his chest into Remus's touch, as they pinch and twist at his nipples. "You've said that already."

"I'm gonna keep reinforcing the idea," Remus says, sticking out his tongue. Then he helps Logan take his shirt off all the way, fully exposing Logan's chest.

"Wow, you're very thin," Remus comments, hands lightly running over Logan's ribs, which were way more prominent than is healthy. "How often do you eat?"

"I'm not the best at reading social cues, but are you sure this is the best time to ask that question?"

Remus stares at him for a moment, before shrugging. "Not necessarily, but after this I'm buying us dinner."

"What?" Logan says, as he sits up slightly. "Why?"

Remus looks at him if he's stupid, before remembering that Logan is new to this. "Okay, so, this is probably not the best time to give a lesson, but sugar daddies pay their sugar babies for sex. I thought you'd at least know that."

"I did. I thought that was money."

"Well, it can just be money, but they also get paid in other things. Like jewelry and clothes, or food. Necessities and gifts."

"Oh," Logan says, as he pushes up his glasses. "I suppose that makes sense. You don't have to though."

"Don't have to do what?"

"Buy dinner."

And once again, Remus looks at him as if he's stupid. "Logan, we're literally about to have sex. This agreement - the one between daddies and babies - is we have sex and then I pay you. Me not paying you would sort of defeat the whole purpose."

Logan blinks, before just nodding. Yeah, that seems fair.

Remus seems happy the conversation is over, as his attention turns back to Logan's chest. He leans down and licks a stripe up it, an action that Logan would cringe at if he didn't find it weirdly hot.

Remus's mouth then latches onto one of his nipples, tongue messing with it, before he sucks lightly around it. Logan's hands gripped tighter at Remus's shoulders, his nails accidentally digging into his back, and he lets out a moan that makes him slap a hand over his mouth afterwards, his face dark red.

It's not his fault his body was so sensitive. Remus's touches just felt so good. And the way he was eyeing up at Logan made him flush darker.

Logan had to look away, tucking his face into the crook of his elbow as Remus moved away from his nipple and turned his attention to Logan's pants instead. He quickly makes work of unbuttoning his cheap jeans before tugging them down and tossing them to the side, hardly hesitating before pulling Logan's boxers down as well, his embarrassingly hard cock springing up at the action.

He feels strangely vulnerable under Remus, as he's now naked and on display while Remus is still fully clothed.

And Remus is eyeing up and down, licking his lips, as if Logan's his next meal.

"You sure you're okay with this?" Remus asks, and Logan gulps and nods.

"Yes, I'm sure," he says. It's for the money; that's why he took the offer in the first place, but now he found himself extremely curious about the situation he had gotten himself into.

Remus nods at his answer, reaching into the pocket of his shorts, before pulling out a small bottle and a small, square package. Noticing the curious look Logan gave the bottle, he hands it to him, before working to pull off his own clothes.

"Lube," Logan states, while reading the bottle. Unsurprisingly, he didn't learn about safe gay sex in school, because all they teach, if they teach sex at all, is straight sex.

Which is stupid, considering not everyone is straight, but whatever.

"You need it," Remus explains, pulling his shirt off. "It's to make sure you don't feel pain while I fuck you. Also to keep your asshole from tearing. It's a necessity for anal sex."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Remus hums, working to unbutton his pants. "I always carry a bottle considering some people just don't have it lying around, and nothing else should be used as a substitute."

He snickers as Logan reads over the small print over the bottle.

"Like you, for example. You look like you've never seen lube in your life."

"I haven't."

"Yeah, makes sense."

Logan hands the bottle back when Remus reaches for it, only then fully realizing that Remus was just as nude as he was.

He takes a moment to scan over Remus's body. He's thin, as Logan could tell when he first arrived, but he's also paler underneath his clothes. He has a few scars littering his chest, arms, and legs.

Logan would ask what they were from if Remus didn't immediately snicker.

"See something you like?" he asks, playfully, earning an eye-roll from Logan.

"Not necessarily."

"Ouch, you wound me, Logan."

Logan rolls his eyes again, before going back to evaluating Remus's body. Mainly, just trying to study it enough to commit it to memory, while Remus works on squirting some lube onto his fingers.

Logan's eyes shamelessly look towards Remus's cock, eyes widening slightly at the sight of it.

His own cock was a little above average, but Remus's was definitely bigger than his. That thing was going to go inside him?

The thought made Logan shiver and blush involuntarily, but Remus didn't seem to notice, instead grabbing Logan's thigh with his clean hand and lifting it up slightly.

"What are you doing?" Logan asks, still propped up on his elbows, as Remus grazes his teeth over Logan's thigh.

"I'm going to stretch you," Remus says with a hum. "Since you're new to this, and specifically a virgin, it's important to prep you before you take my big cock." It's said semi-seriously and semi-flirty, but Remus's tone is enough to make Logan go red in the face.

He himself couldn't believe he was blushing at some flirty words and a few sensual touches, but alas, he was.

"Okay?" Remus asks, drawing Logan out of his thoughts. Logan nods, before responding with "yeah, okay."

Remus smiles, before slowly easing one finger into Logan. Logan gasps at the feeling, hands grasping the stiff cushion beneath him.

It felt... weird. Not bad, but definitely strange.

Remus slowly pushes the finger in and out of him, before sliding another finger in him, scissoring him open. Remus seems pretty focused on making sure Logan's properly stretched, but he also takes the time to nip at Logan's thighs, earning a few gasps and grunts from Logan.

He'd leave a few hickeys over his body, but he wanted to make sure Logan was comfortable with sex before he did anything a bit more extreme. He'd have to ask Logan about some of his kinks and boundaries when they weren't literally about to fuck so he could plan ahead.

Remus ends up pushing a third finger in, steadily pumping them in and out of Logan, before Logan tries to roll his hips down involuntarily, feeling the urge to get more pleasure.

Remus grins at this, before pulling his fingers out, earning a whine from Logan.

Remus shushes him with a quick kiss, wiping his fingers against Logan's couch (not like Logan noticed anyway) as he quickly tears open the condom package. He doesn't break the kiss as he spreads Logan's thighs apart, one of them being smashed against the vertical cushions, and the other was practically dangling off the couch.

"You gotta relax for me, okay baby?" Remus says, voice smooth, as Remus quickly works to lube the condom up as an extra precaution, before he lines his cock up with Logan's entrance. Logan nods, not sure what he's about to feel (assuming it'll feel at least similar to Remus's fingers) so he's partially unsure of how to brace himself.

He's surprised, however, as Remus's cock slowly slides into him, and he tenses as his hands tightly grip the couch.

"You okay?" Remus asks, hands slowly massaging Logan's thighs. "You're not in any pain, right?" He sounds slightly concerned, although he really still just seems casual.

"No- no pain," Logan breathes out, biting his lip. "It's just... weird. I'm not used to it."

"You'll get used to it eventually," Remus responds, with a grin. "Provided you wanna stick with me."

Logan rolls his eyes, as this was definitely not the right time to even mention that, considering Remus's cock was halfway inside of him at this moment

Remus is still for a moment though, giving Logan a moment to adjust and to completely process what was happening.

After a minute or so, Logan finally nods his head, his body relaxing completely.

"Good?" Remus asks, his hands sliding until they reach Logan's hips. His hands grip there a bit firmer, and Logan shifts slightly, before answering "good."

Remus's hands hold tight to Logan's waist, as he manages to slide his cock in fully.

Logan lets out a whine as it's fully inside of him, his hands moving to tightly grip Remus's shoulders. Remus rubs his hips, before leaning down to kiss over Logan's collarbone.

He still wants to bite down, and he doesn't hesitate to drag his teeth over the unhealthily prominent bone, but he resists biting. For now, at least.

When Logan starts shifting a bit to get more friction, Remus smirks, and he slides his cock halfway out, before thrusting harshly back in, causing Logan to let out a high moan.

Remus's smirk grows, as Logan bites his lip, his nails digging into Remus's shoulders.

"Remus," he breathes out, head laid back against the cushions, silently begging him to do that again. He'd verbally ask himself if not for the weird feeling inside of him that sent blood rushing to his face, which provided a pretty sight for Remus.

Remus obviously understood (he'd had enough sex to understand cues), as he pulls out again, almost fully this time, before slamming back into him, causing Logan's back to arch, as he cries out Remus's name, his legs closing instinctively around Remus's waist, effectively pulling him closer.

Although, Remus didn't seem to mind that much, as he connects their lips for a messier than usual kiss, as Remus had begun thrusting into Logan at a steady, albeit slow, pace. And while it wasn't as extreme Remus could go, or wanted to go, it was a lot for Logan, especially all at once and so suddenly in his life.

But, it's not like he could exactly complain in between all the pathetic noise involuntarily spilling from his mouth. Babbles of nonsense, as his body is introduced to more and more exciting stimulation.

Then, Remus suddenly hits something inside of him that shoots pleasure up his spine, his eyes rolling back into his head as his toes curl, as he whines out Remus's name.

"That spot feel good, baby?" Remus asks him, and Logan can only nod in response, his eyes now screwed shut in pleasure as Remus continues to thrust into that spot, earning loud moans and pitiful begs from Logan.

"Fuck..." Remus mutters, his nails digging into Logan's hips, puncturing the skin slightly. Logan would complain about how the germs from Remus's hands could potentially cause the very small wounds to become infected, if he wasn't too busy drooling and moaning.

"You close, Lo?" Remus grunts out, earning a gasped out "yes!"

Remus chuckles lowly, as one of his hands releases Logan's hip and instead grabs hold of his red cock, stroking it fast and irregularly compared to his thrusts. The action had Logan moaning, before he comes across his chest with a whine of Remus's name.

Remus, however, doesn't stop the assault on his cock, continuing to stroke it and thrust into Logan mercilessly. Logan whines at the overstimulation, laying lax against the couch as he continues to let Remus please himself, before Remus's nails dig hard into him and he groans, coming into the condom.

He stays inside of Logan for a moment, both of them catching their breaths, before he pulls out, sliding the condom off and tying it shut, before he gets up to go find a trashcan to toss it in.

When he comes back to the couch, Logan's eyes are shut, glasses askew on his face.

"Logan," he says, as he grabs his clothes and starts sliding them back on, ignoring the fact he was covered in sweat and had just gotten done having sex.

He receives no answer, so he gently pokes Logan's cheek after gathering all his stuff. "Logan?"

Still nothing. He hums, before shrugging. If he was tired enough to sleep, might as well let him sleep. He did end up stalking around his small, and rather poor looking apartment though, in search of a blanket. He finds one, neatly folded on the edge of Logan's bed, and he smiles as he brings it back into the living room. He pays no mind to the fact Logan's covered in come as he drapes the blanket over him.

Then, he pulls out his wallet, and sets multiple bills on the table, placing a half-full cup of water that was sitting on the table already on top of it, to keep it in place.

Then, whistling a strangely eerie tune, he walked off, making sure to lock Logan's apartment door behind him, for Logan's sake.

And, damn, this would be one hell of a thing to wake up and remember.

Part 2

#intrulogical #sanderssides #sanders sides #thomas sanders #thomassanders #logansanders #logan sanders #logic sanders #remus sanders #remussanders #loganxremus #logan x remus #sanders sides fic #sanders sides smut #agp fic #intrulogical sugar daddy au

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all-things-fic · 4 years

Text

Country Lane | Divorce Harry III

Thank you all for waiting for this one. Massive middle finger to tumblr for screwing the post up! Divorce Harry III is finally here!

Shoutout to my lovely ladies who taking time to read this for me @harrytheehottie, @harryfeatgaga, @haute-romance-quotidienne and of course @waitingfortwilight. Also, thank you to all my lovely anons and those of you who come off anon to talk about this, I’ve really loved the general chit chat about the series <3

Without further ado, enjoy! Lots of love and happy Saturday! x

*~*

You had no idea where you were.

Surrounded by nothing but overgrown grass and the odd wooden fence. If you listened carefully in the distance you could hear the traffic of what you thought could be the A34 road and you were pretty sure that the last sign you had seen before your car cut out had been for Congleton.

Rubbing your hands down your fresh face, your spa retreat to Mottram Hall for the hen-do of one of the school Mum’s entering her second marriage, was nothing more than a distant memory. As you sat freezing, in your car, looking out onto the harsh autumn weather of October, you were far from relaxed and rejuvenated.

Worrying your bottom lip with your top teeth, you juggled your phone from palm to palm. You knew you had to call him, you effectively didn’t have any choice. Especially after you’d pulled your way through your glove compartment and you hadn’t come up trumps with your breakdown cover documentation.

Part of you was cursing in that moment at how you’d handed the piece of paper which held all telephone numbers and car insurance policy account numbers over to your son to scribble upon during one particularly long car session, just to keep him quiet. You were actually sure it was now stuck on your fridge with a lovely drawing of what you presumed to be Marvel characters all over it.

The worst of it all was that you knew whatever had happened to your car was bad. You knew simply from the way the car had spluttered and started to grind before almost seizing up and stalling to a halt.

Unlocking your phone, you scrolled through your contacts and landed on his contact card. Clicking on it you saw when the last time you had called him was and recalled the soft FaceTime he’d had with your eldest son, who wanted to tell his Daddy about how he’d been picked for the schools first rugby team, taking him out of reserves and off the bench.

Breathing deeply, you ignored the ache the fond memory began to cause and tapped Harry’s name. The dialling tone that greeted you filled the pit of your stomach with knots as you tried to relax in the leather seat of your Range Rover.

Again, you started to worry your lips at the fifth ring, before the line clicked and you heard his warm voice. You froze at how friendly he sounded, his voice held an edge of laughter to it and you heard shuffling faintly in the background, followed by chatter, before it was shut out.

On the other end of the line, Harry had found himself dodging his way around people in his Mother’s kitchen in Cheshire, before leaving the room and catching your call before it cut off.

“Sorry ‘bout tha’,” he spoke an unnecessary apology, probably because of how long it had taken him to answer, as you remained quiet on the other line.

You blinked harshly at the sound of your name being spoken. “Are you still there?” Harry asked, pulling the phone away from his ear to see that the call was indeed still running.

“Ye- yeah,” you stuttered, partly due to a soft tremble to your lips from being cold.

“Everythin’ alrigh’?” He asked, a concerned edge to his question, as you dropped deeper into your car seat.

Another small amount of silence.

“Not really,” you responded, honestly. “Where are you?”

With a small frown, he answered, “‘M at Mums. ‘S her birthday this weekend, remember?”

Shit. You’d forgotten.

Heavily breathing in response, you said, “It slipped my mind. Sorry.”

There was a chuckle at the end of the line.

“Not like you tha’,” he playfully jostled, causing the pit of your stomach to fall through again. You hated how he always managed to make any conversation between the two of you not seem as if you were in the middle of a prolonged divorce. “Usually got everything colour coordinated on our kitchen calendar.”

And he still did that so smoothly too, spoke about things as if you still did them together. The use of ‘our’ and ‘we’ was second nature and so naturally fell off his tongue in a velvety way that was soothing but left you shivering if caught by your touch in a different way.

As if he could read your mind, before you’d thought it, he said, “Don’t worry. I added everyone’s names to the presents so she thinks they’re from all o’ us.”

“I shouldn’t have called, you’re busy,” you responded without feeling, starting to pull the phone away from your ear and back to thinking about how you could get in touch with your breakdown cover. There had to be a way, surely.

“Hey, no,” he was urgent. “Don’t hang up, ‘s fine. I’ve pulled myself away. ‘S okay- please. Don’t hang up on me, something’s not right ‘ere. ‘S okay to still need me sometimes, y’ know?”

“It’s okay, I can sort it myself-“ you flung your car door open. “Can you just tell me know how to pop the bonnet up on this car, cause it’s been so bloody long since I last had to do it-“

“Pop the bonnet? Why’d you need to do that? Have you broken down somewhere?” His questions were clipped as he asked.

“Don’t get arsey with me-“

“‘M not,” he replied, quickly cutting. He really was. “Are the kids wi’you?”

“‘S alright for me be stranded on the side of the road on my own when it’s about to get dark-“

“Did I say that?” Again, he words were clipped. “Are you trying to wind me up?”

“Why have you not told me how to raise the bonnet?”

He sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose before walking the short distance in his Mother's hallway to lower himself, slowly, down to sit on the stairs.

“Underneath the passenger side there’s a lever,” he paused his softer tone, giving you time to find it. As he spoke you trampled against the grass closest to the passenger side and opened the door. Looking down at a red lever, which had clearly made itself known to you now that it had been brought to your attention.

“Found it?” he asked, hearing you hum.

You shut the passenger door of your car and stared at the slightly popped up bonnet, Harry’s voice filling your ears again. “If you feel underneath the bonnet, between the E and the R there is another little lever. Squeeze that and it’ll release the bonnet-“

“Where’s the little thing to keep it up?”

He breathily chuckled, “‘s on hydraulics so keeps itself up.”

Again, you didn’t respond and he was met with silence. Harry rested his chin against his palm waiting for you to speak, eyes looking towards the dimming light as night began to approach.

“Wha’ can you see?”

“Not a whole lot, it looks fine to me.“

“Darling, just let me come to you.”

“But this is why I pay for breakdown cover,” you snapped.

“Where are you?” He asked, voice deep and to your annoyance laced with concern that he should no longer hold.

You stammered trying to figure out some sort of excuse to bullshit him with, eyes taking in the country lane and the vast greeness around you.

“Last time ‘m askin’,” he harshly cut in. “‘S gonna get dark soon, so jus’ tell me where y’are.”

“Somewhere near Congleton.”

“And wha’s the matter wi’the car?”

You noted his voice on his last question was a bit pinched, probably from focusing on another task like pulling on a pair of trainers to bring him to you. He clearly wasn’t playing along anymore.

“Well, I think I’ve had an oil leak but none of the lights have come on to officially let me know whether I have or haven’t. The only thing is the nasty black marks that are on the driveway at home, but ‘s nothing that couldn't probably be jet washed off-“

As you rambled about cleaning the oil from the drive of the Hampstead home, Harry zoned out beginning to list the things he would probably require to bring with him. He was sure some of it could be found in Robin’s old garage, knowing that boxes of tools were still piled in the far corner.

“Send me your exact location via text.”

“Harry-“ you sighed.

“‘M not askin’, ‘m telling,” he abruptly responded.

***

People say that Googling symptoms is never a good thing, you suppose the same could be said for a car.

Were they symptoms though? You couldn’t quite coherently think of another descriptor for them as they brought up search after search at how you quite possibly could have ruined your car.

You tried not to dwell as the sky around you began to get darker while you sat in the safe passing place on the country lane. It wasn’t like you had much choice but to stick around.

Cold, and dithering slightly, you had taken to throwing your coat over your body like a blanket as simply wearing it wasn’t keeping your entire body warm enough.

Car doors locked and eyes closed, you tried to find some solace in your waiting. You didn’t have much avail, as you were interrupted by the harsh white lighting of LED headlights breaking through the dimming dusk sky.

You frowned, eyes squinting as the light got closer and pulled in behind you. A sense of uncertainty filled your body at the new arrival, along the otherwise desolate road.

A figure of a male jumped out of the car behind you, causing you to still all of your movement in your car seat as you tried to make out any features to you that would make you comfortable in knowing it was Harry.

The blinding lights made it far too difficult to see anything and you were beginning to think that the person behind you had left them on, on purpose. Unless they were those annoying ones that slowly turned themselves off.

Staring out you vaguely were able to make out the figure approaching you and as he got halfway you relaxed.

It was Harry.

He rapped his knuckles gently at your driver's side window and then smiled to himself as he realised how you wouldn’t be able to open it due to your inactive engine.

“Open the door for me,” he spoke, his voice slightly muffled as it came through your car window. He watched as you reached for the door handle inside and pushed the door ajar ever so slightly. “Could you have picked anywhere more hidden away?”

You didn’t respond straight-away, deciding instead to take him in as he stood with his left arm leaning up against the doorframe of your car. His right arm taut as he held the car door open and away from you both, not wanting it to cause any obstruction.

Underneath his khaki parka you could faintly make out a worn Versace tee as it hung open, unzipped. You internally rolled your eyes. What kind of person wore Versace to fix a car and possibly get covered in oil in the process?

As you rested your head back against the seat behind you, you silently enjoyed the way he looked down at you. It was always quite frustrating, even more so now you weren’t together, how magnetising he was.

“Do me a favour?” He broke the silent stare, “Lean over and pull the lever for me? Don’t quite fancy walking around the car and possibly going down a ditch.”

“My parking isn’t that bad!” You chastised, watching the way his lips twitched. “I’m being courteous of other cars on this tiny lane, given them extra room near the passing place-“

“You got miles of space this side of the dotted line,” he spoke cutting in, eyes wide and filled with humour. “Surprised you didn’t drive down the hill bank the other side to be extra courteous.”

“Can pull the lever yourself now, hope you break your ankle-“

“No you don’t-“

“I’d just leave you here, you know? Take the keys out of your pocket and go.“

“Don’t need to resort to petty crime,” his voice was a bit weaker now but still just as cheeky. “Could’ve just asked for ‘em.”

Your eyes moved towards the glinting keys that he held loosely by the key ring after quickly retrieving them from his pocket. Tauntingly wanting you to reach out from them.

“You’re just going to pull them away, if I grab for ‘em.”

“‘M not,” he stressed with a slight laughter. “You’re always so cynical and defensive. Not even thanked me for driving out to come and get you.”

You didn’t respond, instead you gently reached for the keys, feeling him slightly shift them from your grip as he enjoyed the determination on your face.

Fingers filled with want, you still grabbed for them, successfully but having to be halfway out of the seat and door of your car in order to fulfill your achievement.

When your feet met the ground beneath you, you quickly shifted around to pull your coat on properly. As you moved from the doorway, you watched as Harry dropped his chest onto the driver's seat and reached across the width of the car to pull the lever without needing to walk around the car to do so.

Putting a bit of distance between you, so you didn’t fall foul of staring too long at his bum in his blue jeans, you stalled yourself as he pushed his body up to standing and flipped through a book in his hands.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?” He said, flicking through what you now knew to be the car’s manual that he must’ve also grabbed from the glove box while inside the car. When you didn’t reply he tore his eyes away from the pages and over to you.

“You’re a good man.”

The honesty in your voice, knocked him. “‘M not, but ‘m trying t’be.”

The two of you stared at each other in the dimming darkness and you knew your gaze matched his sad one.

Clearing his throat, he threw the manual against the driver’s seat. “Anyway out m’ sight, leave the men to the work an’ all tha’. ‘S got heated seats an’ all, if you’re into tha’ sorta thing.”

***

You felt bad watching him out in the cold and dark, a light hanging from the bonnet the only source around him that you imagined was keeping him going.

Sitting in the passenger seat, you let your eyes roam around the black interior of his car that was incredibly spacious and so suitable for your barrage of children.

Your attention turned to outside again as you saw Harry move around from your car and walk up towards his own. His forearm came up to wipe across his mouth, bringing your attention to his facial hair that seemed to be getting thicker and thicker.

Without needing to be prompted, you pressed the button to lower the driver's side window and watched as he pressed his forearms into the resting place you had created for him now there was no window blocking his way.

“Can you get me one of them shammy cloths from out o’the boot please? Jus’ need to double check the dipstick.”

You nodded as he continued, “Would do it m’self but-“ he paused, opening out his hands and showing how dirty his fingers were to you.

“It’s fine,” you said, leaving the car and joining him. “I feel a bit useless anyway,” you admitted.

Both of you remained silent when he joined you at the back of his car, two sets of eyes easily spotting what you were looking for. You opened the packet of two cloths, a horrible peach colour, and passed him one before swapping places with him.

You moved to stand at the side of the car, watching him drop his head inside the boot to see if there was anything else he needed while he was at the other car.

“Since when did you become one of them?”

“One of who?” He asked, his head popping around the side of his car and out of the boot to look at you.

“Your lights on this car are far too bright.”

He rolled his eyes, remaining quiet as he turned back to the contents of his boot. He wasn’t going to respond to your unnecessary nitpicking.

“It’s really nice inside though. Single about me did well then,” you found yourself saying the comment in a biting fashion, unable to hold your tongue.

“Which one?” He bit right back, a clanging heard from the boot, “I asked you if you wanted a credit, you said no.”

You clammed up. He hadn’t taken what you said as a joke. A bit of light humour, you thought, for the road. It was your own fault. You’d become that sort of annoying person you often could get when you found yourself awkwardly doing nothing with yourself. Your delivery of your joke didn’t help either.

“Think I preferred you when you stayed sat, quiet, in the car,” Harry said, head moving out from the boot again so you could read his expressions. Raised eyebrows and twitching lips.

“Piss off,” you glared at him, slowly turning to walk away.

Now it was Harry’s turn to think you were joking, as he shouted after you. “Really gonna be like that after I turned up to save you. That’s twice now I’ve had t’remind yer.”

“You insisted-“

“I know I did,” he spoke around a chuckle. “Now where’re you off to?”

“‘M walking home-“

“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous,” he shouted after you, a frown jarring through his light features when he moved from the open boot to walk closer to you as you turned back around to face him.

***

He managed to coax you to sit back in the car not much longer after you’d stormed off in a huff. Not without a fight, but this was one he was willing to back down on just to get you to stop storming off.

Looking back on it now, the scene was probably quite funny to some passerby or outsider, or it would’ve been if you weren’t so secluded. A female dressed in the most fetching of clothes - sarcasm noted - arguing in the middle of a street. Like some five year old in need of a nap.

Speaking of naps, your eyes shot open wide at the loud bang of your car bonnet being shut. You hadn’t realised that you’d begun to doze until you were abruptly woken.

Bleary vision was quickly erased with a rub of your eyes, as you moved to face the front and pushed your hair from your face.

You were met with Harry busy fiddling with the wires of his lamp. His face dropped down and hair falling so easily into his eyes. He kept walking rather than look into the car to see if you were still with him. Instead, he dropped everything that was in his hands into the boot and proceeded to annoyingly continue to subconsciously show off by pressing a button to close his boot automatically.

Staying wrapped up in one of your kids car blankets, you curled your legs underneath your body and rested your right cheek against the headrest. You continued to be silent as you started to wake up, eyes blinking slowly as you watched Harry in the dark pull open his car door.

He swung his body into the car with an almighty groan, one that caused you in your sleepy haze to softly smile. He looked shattered as he relaxed in his seat and rested his head backwards.

With eyes closed he sighed heavily, letting you take him in without a care. You’d noticed that at some point since your nap he’d removed his coat and now he sat in just his t-shirt and jeans. Both, of which, now looked like they had seen better days.

His brow had begun to perspire as he entered the warmth of his car, the quick switch from the Baltic (slight over exaggeration) temperatures outside to those more welcoming inside the G-Wagon could do that to you.

“Don’t think it’s fucked completely,” he said to break the silence, wiping his face and sweat with the back of his hand and wrist, to try and ensure his oil covered fingers didn’t leave any other stains on his skin.

You enjoyed the way he used the back of his hand, wrist and forearm to wipe at his now slightly clammy skin. Stupidly it emphasised how defined his upper body had become. “Dipstick wasn’t as dry as I was expecting,” he continued, “Just topped her up and ��m ‘oping she turns over and sounds as good as new.”

Again, silence. His eyes staring straight ahead of him, yours enjoying his profile. God, he had a fantastic nose. It was definitely something that your daughter had inherited and you wondered if it would be a feature that a loved one in her life would sometimes admire in the next generation.

“Got any baby wipes wi’ you?” He cut his eyes to yours from the corner of his vision, taking in the way you were curled up in the passenger seat wearing the car blanket of your eldest son.

His eyes lingered on your shape for a while, dropping down and enjoying the way you had curled yourself up and presented to him in such a cosy vision. It meant you felt relaxed around him and that was all he ever wanted.

It was a nice contrast to the emotive happenings between the two of you that had almost become commonplace of late. A foreign feeling that was so simple, but so exciting.

Without verbal response you reached from your handbag that was in the footwell to have a look inside at the contents.

“Don’t wanna leave this car, been a bit spoiled over the last hour or so. Could do with an upgrade myself as they’re all getting older and need a bit more room,” you spoke as you rummaged around, movements still slightly sluggish.

You were successful in finding what you needed, the rustling of the plastic packaging jarring to your ears. Quickly pulling at the cover overlay, you swiftly pulled out a couple of wipes with such a mom-like finesse that had you balancing them on top of the now closed packet as you turned to face Harry.

“Don’t even think about making it a clause in the divorce,” he joked, eyes looking up at you from underneath his brow. His eyebrows snapped up in shock as you snatched at his hand and abruptly pulled at the baby wipes you’d retrieved from inside your handbag.

The two of you fell silent as you wiped at his left hand first, watching the black of the oil slowly leave his fingers. Breathing was heavy in the empty space as you didn’t dare raise your gaze higher to look into his eyes, that you knew were watching you.

“It’s so attractive, how much of a Mum you are,” he dared to say what he really thought as his humoured expression fell away. “Cleaning my hands up nicely, like ‘m your child that’s made a mess of m’dinner.”

“Harry,” you sighed his name, fidgeting softly in your seat. He chuckled in such a husky way that you found yourself softening regardless of the way it riled you.

Releasing his left hand, you reached straight for his right. Seeing the way he caught himself and stopped it before it fell against his lap. He smoothly reached for you, brushing your hair behind your shoulders as it began to curtain across the right side of your face.

“Last time m’hands were this dirty, you were licking and sucking ‘em clean.”

You felt your face begin to heat up from his brazenness.

“Are you blushing for me?” He whispered, his left hand moving along your jaw, to tilt your head upwards. He had a hold of your jaw, slightly rougher than before and while your face played ball, your eyes did not. “‘S been ages since you blushed fo’me.”

Again the sound of breathing filled the car, Harry’s gaze all over your features before his other words punctuated the air, “Look a’me.”

As your eyes moved sharply to the right, you looked at the way he’d lolled his head back. His thumb slowly pulled at your bottom lip, watching the way it softly bounced from his touch, before he lifted it to trace faintly over your Cupid’s bow.

“Missed your lips,” he admitted, enjoying the light puffs of breath that bounced against the pad of his thumb. Before you could think, you’d taken his thumb inside your mouth, an appreciative groan leaving his lips.

You felt the way his fingers cupped under your chin, gently stroking at your skin, silently caressing. Teeth nipping playfully against the skin of his thumb as you pulled away.

“How much?” You asked, lips turning to ghost against the inside of his hand.

His eyes lingered as you watched him nudge his chin up slightly, silently asking for you to come to him.

You sucked in a heavy breath as you leaned into him, the dimming ceiling light of the car slowly allowing darkness to swallow you both. A faint smile nudged your lips as your nose fell against his top lip.

He scooped you under his arm - lining you up better - hands trying to hold you as near to him as he could as you leaned over the centre console of the car to be closer to him.

“Enough,” he husked, before adding, “Your nose is cold,” in a passing tone, lips against your temple now. Breathing deeply through your nose you let him pull you even closer, unable to believe that you weren’t close enough. Muffled apologies left your lips, about how your nose was cold.

The soft drag of his lips to yours pulled you under a haze that swept away your apologies and into a tender reacquaintance. His lips were slightly shaking against yours and you weren’t sure if it was to do with the cold that he had found himself in or if it were due to his nervousness.

Regardless he was steady. Knew exactly what he was doing and what he wanted. Pulling kiss after kiss from you in the slowest fashion that you felt yourself beginning to warm up.

“‘S nice to have a little kiss,” he gently spoke against the corner of your mouth. “Missed you treating me to ‘em.”

“I think you just know exactly what to say,” you murmured as you allowed him to continue ghosting his lips over yours. “Know exactly what you're doing.”

“‘F you’re suggesting that I’m trying it on,” he murmured against your lips, “I absolutely fucking am.”

“Would never have guessed,” you looked at him with heavy eyelids, head now nudged back slightly to enable you to see his entire face. He smirked at you, eyes blinking slowly as he willed you to him once more.

His hand was secure around the back of your neck, fingers messily woven through your hair. His other hand gently massaged at the top of your back, over your fetching loungewear that you had chosen to drive home in.

“‘S it working?”

“What do you think?”

Harry’s eyes dropped in a slow blink as he felt the way your hand lowered down his chest and abdomen, which was wavering slightly from his nervous anticipation.

Dropping your head down to his chest, you left a kiss to his pec as you mumbled and felt the button of his jeans giveway to your fingers and thumb. “I am grateful, you know?”

“Yeah?”

The ruffle of your hair against the cotton of his tee filled the car, him recognising it as you nodding.

“Me too,” he assured.

And he was. Grateful.

For the life he’d had with you up until this point.

The family the two of you had created. The one you were so fiercely fighting for. Messily and viciously, all from a good place. The best place.

He licked at his dry lips, leaving his mouth to hang open slightly as he watched you descend down to his semi that was hidden in the confines of his jeans.

“Both of us need warming up,” he mused, his hands sliding from your hair and down your back, slowly and gently to your slightly raised bum from how you had placed yourself over the center console. “In’t that right?”

A dull slap of his hand against your leggings-clad bum had you rocking back as you felt his hands slide under the waistband to massage at your cheek.

Swallowing heavy, Harry tilted back his head and even through his hooded eyes he caught his blissed expression in the rear view mirror, as he felt you take his balls into your mouth and gently suckle.

He rasped your name as he basked in the dirty licks, heavily laden with saliva from your watering mouth before you took him into your throat. Obscene sounds from your actions wove between his heavy breathing and quick pants.

“Fuck me, darling.”

With his hand that was still against your bum, he pulled you closer. Hands desperate to have purchase of something as you gently but messily sucked and licked, desperate to feel the tickle of his pubic hair against the tip of your nose to know you’d successfully taken him all the way down.

His breathing was shaky, a quick hiss leaving his lips as he felt the way your nails dug into his denim clad thighs from his previous movements to try and hold steady. The position wasn’t ideal, but the feeling of your shaking breath against his wet cock as you nosed against his jeans had him smiling.

As you turned your head slightly to look at him from the corner of your vision, you noticed the way he was looking down at you. How powerful he seemed in that moment as you were slightly beneath him.

The thought changed though with the way his hand came up to your face, his thumb against your wet lips for the shortest time before he cradled the back of your head to help pull you back up and avoid any mishaps.

He tugged you forward to crush his mouth to yours with pleased hums as he tasted himself on you. Lips smacking as he pulled kiss after kiss from your mouth, smiling at the eagerness of you both.

His hands joined yours as they pulled at his jeans, his hips lifting in the seat and his arms strong as he pushed the denim and underwear down to sit closer to his knees.

“Mm,” he hummed, as his bare bum cheeks met the heated seat beneath them. “Put the seats on fo’me.”

“Don’t say I don’t ever treat you nicely.”

He huskily chuckled as he brought your lips back to him again. “Nice an’ warm,” he lazily spoke, acknowledging the heated seats. “Jus’ for me.”

And he knew every bit of his words meant the double entendre that you had caught,looking on as you pulled away to sink back into your own seat

Looking over at him, you noticed the lust behind his eyes as he slowly pumped his hand up and down his wet and aching cock when you sunk back into your own seat and watched his head loll against the headrest once more. His nostrils flared as he bit down on his bottom lip and nudged his chin up, getting you silently to come to him once more when he’d seen your movements in removing your own bottoms had ended.

“Wouldn’t do this for anyone else, y’know that?” You said around your messy kiss as you raised your legs and felt his hands guide you to straddle him. Hands splayed across your lower back and the top half of your bum as he secured you to him.

“Should bloody ‘ope not.”

As you sat above him, you could feel him there. Sprung back and wet. Your mouths rested against each other, heavy and open. Eyes moving to and fro over each other’s.

“Been at this too long to start sharing now.”

Your hips moved forward at his words, with the smallest of motions but it was enough to make his cock glide between your lips. His expression was one of immeasurable pleasure regardless of how little the touch.

Deep down you knew you didn’t have time for this sort of behaviour. The kind where you revelled in the nudge of him against your clit, and the way it caused you to gasp lightly while your brow creased and forehead fell against his.

“Take it,” he encouraged as you rolled your hips on him. “Let me in.”

Heavy breathing and shaking hands, you held Harry’s eyes as you reached behind you to take him in your hand.

Wrapping your fingers around his length, you raised yourself, feeling him shuffle down slightly in his seat to help ensure you didn’t bump your head as you lifted. Fingers gave way when he lined up nicely, slipping only his tip inside of you.

This stretch was one like no other. A burn that you savoured as much as the expression that welcomed you from the desire felt by the only man who had ever made you feel this way. His one hand crawled up your back, to cup around your neck, anchoring you to him.

When you were fully seated shaky exhales bounced against each other’s lips. Every tremble of you above him felt so vividly by Harry. The way your thighs shook from the small confines you found yourself in, to the quiver of your fingers against his neck and jaw.

“You’re so big,” your moan was feeble. Embarrassing in many ways. Especially given the amount of times you’d done this with him.

“Mm,” he agreed. “‘S cause ‘m so hot for you. Got me so hard. Always have.”

“Always will-“

“Always will,” he confirmed.

Your moan was thick as it left your throat, his words enough to get you to roll against him and have you clit drag pleasing against his pelvis.

He groaned, knowing that’s what you were doing too. Having been in this position so many times before. No one had ever had you this way, and you knew no one ever would either. A pleasure this giving was one of familiarity. Aided so deeply by feeling.

When your mouth met his again the only word to describe your kiss was sinful. His tongue waiting to meet yours, flicking so easily and far too filthily for those on the cusp of middle age.

But he still had it.

The gleaming boyish gaze and curling smile. Could charm his way into any heart and into any pair of knickers. But the ones he had chosen time and time again were yours. Regardless of their sexiness at times.

“Yes,” you gasped, pulling away from his mouth and feeling his hands encourage the knocking of your hips against his.

You were close, nowhere to go and not wanting to go anywhere. How you had made it here so quickly, you weren’t sure. Maybe it was the surroundings, how you potentially could get caught. Maybe it was because your partner - husband - just knew you so well.

His eyes didn’t want to leave you as they admired the flushed skin you were beginning to show and the gleaming, plush lips that you were rolling into your mouth to hide your pleasure.

“That’s it, fuck me,” his voice was hushed, quick in its delivery. “‘S wha’ it’s all about,” he hummed, as you rocked your hips over his. Knocking his head back against the headrest once more.

As he looked down his nose at you, he watched as your eyes fell to your navel, taking in each roll of your hips. Your expression dropped with realisation, slightly pained. “What’s wrong?”

Looking up at him, you wish you hadn’t. You wished you’d kept your eyes down to see the ripple of his abdomen each time your body flexed around him. That way it wasn’t doused in emotion, it was just raw pleasure that lived in your mind.

“We shouldn’t be doing this anymore. Needs to be the last time.”

A mix of a breathy laugh and scoff left his lips as he urged you to restart your hips that were starting to stall above him, “Bit late for tha’ now, don’t yer think?”

Falling against him, you hid your face feeling his lips over the shell of your ear and against your hair. His hand gently stroked at your hair, lips moving to your temple and pressing affection kisses that did nothing but make you feel worse.

“Do you want t’stop? Mm?” He asked, feeling your hips so tight against his, but your core so open that he hoped you would say no. Widening his thighs he pressed his feet into the footwell, seeking momentum to meet your hips with his own.

“‘S okay to love me still,” he groused, feeling your chin tremble from his words. “‘S okay to let me love you still. This is okay, us just doing this is okay.”

It wasn’t okay and he knew. He also knew everything he was saying - every single word - was just a way to satiate you.

So, you let them. Swallowed the lump in your throat and inhaled deeply.

His words were cut short as he groaned, “Sit up for me, fuck me properly.”

Sitting yourself up, you felt the way Harry’s hands moved so that the backs of his fingers were smoothing against your lower stomach. Sweaty palm turned, he pressed it gently down your stomach and let his thumb finger your clit.

The softest frown hit your brow, as his thumb slowly rubbed in a downwards motion at your sensitivity. From his actions you felt a warmth pool around both him and you, Harry groaning appreciatively as he felt it too.

“Yeah,” he stressed the word as you gripped at his t-shirt which sat against his stomach. Cotton in handfuls as you scrunched the fabric. “‘S tha’ nice- good?”

You nodded.

“‘S it enough?”

You nodded with more fervour. Eyes holding his as you sucked your bottom lip into your mouth and scratched along his right forearm as he continued to gently swipe at your wet clit.

The abruptness of the rock to your hips showed itself as the warmth within your belly grew. Eyes now hooded, you were unable to stop them from closing as your mouth parted to desperately say, “Don’t stop.”

And you didn’t know who you were talking to; yourself or Harry.

Harry responded with a moan so deep that you clenched down around him, causing his free hand to reach up and squeeze harshly against your hips.

“‘M going to come so hard for you ‘f you keep doing that,” he gritted, breathing shallow as he felt his chest constrict. “Like tha’, just like that.”

His words were low, and like just moments before you weren’t sure if they were for him or you, but they had you moaning his name. Head dropping against his, his hand gripping at the back of your neck.

With one hard roll of your hips, you cried out, forehead against his chin and mouth fallen. His hand squashed between your bodies as you shook and convulsed.

Pliant for him, you were too dazed to move as you felt his arm wrap securely around your back and hold you to him, tight.

A merciless and repeated smack of his hips upwards, which you were sure would have the car rocking, made you aware of him seeking his release. He moaned your name, as he pulled you down to him, his orgasm shooting into you.

His heavy breathing was hot against your sweltering skin when you finally came to, his grunts melding into your neck as your core continued to flutter in the aftermath of your own release.

His hands somewhat selfishly and most definitely greedily moved you against him, both crooning at the sensitive rush that met you before he lifted you to aid himself with slipping out.

Cold air met his sensitivity, as he nuzzled against you. Hand crawling up your back, under your shirt and feeling your damp skin peel away from his own as he moved his hand up and down.

“Want to try out the back wi’me after this,” he hummed, brushing your hair off your face with his other hand. His words were heavy as they pressed into the skin of your cheek while he still tried to catch his breath.

As much as you knew you should, you didn’t even try to stop yourself from nodding.

***

Looking forward to hearing all of your thoughts! x

#Harry Styles #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fan fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles x yn #harry styles x y/n #my writing #divorce!harry

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riathedreamer · 3 years

Text

Zero is Null

A discussion of Zero’s love-hate-relationship with RvB and struggling independence; including a hotdog too big for the bun, tragic backstories, a single bow-chicka-bow-wow, and a cookie at the very end.

Welcome to what will be a lot of text. Basically, it will explore why Zero fails as an RvB (with emphasis on RvB) season. I will not be the first one to bring forth some of the points, and I promise to be fair and civil and fun. This isn’t supposed to be a piece of hate – in fact, I’m writing this because I love Red vs. Blue.

Okay, first of all, to increase your fun – take a guess on just how much of Zero is spent on fight scenes. You see, I’ve calculated the exact amount, and I will reveal it later, but for now, take a guess and remember the number. Maybe you are the winner!

Alright, time to share my thoughts. Wait! Since I suffer from anxiety and have this one annoying voice pretending to be all those critical statements my opinion could be met with, let’s give it an actual voice and address the points throughout this review.

“Why would I care about your opinion, Ria?” – I don’t know, you’re the one who clicked Read More.

“Your opinion doesn’t matter!” – Of course, it doesn’t! Geez. Do you think your opinion matters, though? Listen, we’re on Tumblr, the actual equivalent of screaming into the void. And it’s fun, too!

“If you don’t like it, don’t watch!” - *activates Uno Reverse Card* “You can’t talk about something you haven’t watched!”

“You’re just a Hater” – Actually, this is a point I’ll come back to. Like a cliffhanger. Also, at the end of this, there’ll be a cookie. But this will also include me talking about the stuff I like, because, surprise, Zero is not without talent!

“You just don’t like it because the Reds and Blues aren’t in it!” – Actually, that’s a good point, so instead, this review will start with a sole focus on Zero and discuss the problem that lies within that story. Then we can address why the lack of OG cast is understandable and problematic and weird.

But first! Backstory.

When the first 5 second teaser dropped back in spring (you know, when we were young and innocent and the world didn’t feel like an apocalyptic movie yet), I held onto that one image of what I thought (hoped) to be Grif and Simmons in the sunset, hopefully addressing Grif’s hateglue arc, but boy was I wrong because a) that’s not Simmons, that’s Sarge, and b) the image was from a PSA since the Reds are not in Zero.

Actual face-reveal of me below:

Admittedly, when I heard that the Reds and Blues were not going to be the main characters (or even show up), it felt like a gut punch. However, I actually found myself getting excited due to the creators’ hype. I want to praise them for this. It’s been a while since an RvB season was talked so much ABOUT before its release; it had advertisements, it had creators and voice-actors talking about it. Please. More of that in the future. Their passion rubbed off on me, and that deserves recognition. So it pains me that this was clearly a passion-project, and then when I gave it a try, I didn’t want to touch it again for weeks.

Here’s the thing. I cannot whole-heartedly say that Zero is bad. It’s not gonna melt your eyes. It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good. For me, it’s meh. It’s a Saturday-morning-cartoon aimed for a younger audience with a rushed plot and clichéd characters. The problem is that it calls itself RvB, and with that title comes something to live up to – but more importantly, something to continue.

My main issue is that Zero forces its story into existence by ignoring established content rather than adjusting to it. Let’s call this for the hotdog-too-big-for-the-bun syndrome solely for the sake of the bow-chicka-bow-wow that’s coming now. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Many of the separate issues I will dive into all add to this hotdog-issue, so I will scream “Hotdog!” whenever this is the case so we can all keep track of my argument.

You can continue the story of Red vs. Blue without the Reds and Blues. While that would personally crush my heart, it can be done. There’s a story of Red vs. Blue that can be continued. The world can be expanded, the previous actions of the Reds and Blues can be explored from another angle.

So.

How does Zero do this? It doesn’t.

I just want to make it clear that new elements can definitely be added when it comes to worldbuilding. That’s literally the point of sequels. But Zero’s settings are presented with so little grace and with no connection to previously established worldbuilding. We get Alliance of Defense and GLASS thrown in our face as very big important organizations – yet we’ve never heard of them before. A big central plot point of RvB is the UNSC and Project Freelancers, and those were introduced naturally with the plot. We already have big established intergalactic organizations. What is AOD’s connection with those? We aren’t told. We are just told they exist and expected to accept it, no questions asked. If this was a whole new world and story – fine. But when you need to build on an already established worldbuilding, you need more grace than this. Chorus was a whole new setting, but it was explained, and it was connected to the previous plot. Same with Iris. Same with Desert Gulch. In Zero, it feels lazy. It feels forced. These organizations are just there because the story is built around them (HOTDOG).

This vagueness when it comes to wordbuilding is also reflected in the settings - we have a desert, a training base, a lab, temples, Tucker’s workplace, and we do not know if all those are set place on the same planet. If that is the case, what is this planet’s relationship with Chorus? Is it Earth? And most importantly, what is the deal with the temples? Why are they connected to Tucker’s sword if it isn’t the same planet. Are they made by the same aliens? Are people okay with this? Why haven’t these temples been explored before? Chorus makes sure to establish this, while Zero doesn’t, adding to a growing amount of confusion.

Okay, so no connection with previous worldbuilding. What about characters? I mean, we got Wash and Carolina and Tucker! So we have RvB characters, it gotta be RvB! Technically – yeah. But it feels dirty. These three characters are not here to be characters. They are here to be props to the new cast. They are not given any development. Their presence isn’t even that important, and if this was a whole new show, they could easily have been replaced with an unknown face. Worst of all, they feel miswritten.

Carolina and Wash are working at a new military organization? Leaving the Reds and Blues behind? To help people? First of all, fucking bad idea, Carolina, the last time you left the Reds and Blues alone, they changed the timeline. But most importantly – Carolina and Wash just joined this new super elite military organization? After being mistreated and manipulated by such an organization in the past?

Carolina is there to introduce the characters. That’s it. We are force-fed their personality by having her literally read out loud their personality. There is no gentle introduction to the new cast. We are not allowed to get to know them naturally. Why show when you can tell, huh? That’s Carolina’s role. That’s why she is there. To introduce the cast and explain their story. That’s it. (HOTDOG).

How about Wash? He is there to get beat up and be a damsel in distress so that the new cast has a reason to explore the plot. Oh, and that brain damage that was the consequence of previous seasons – gone now. The guy who literally has trauma from having an AI explode inside his head is fine with having a computer inserted into it instead. Because that’s needed. To explore his brain damage wouldn’t work now when his role is to be a prop to lure the new cast for one episode and then be put onto the bench for the rest of the runtime (HOTDOG).

And Tucker – he is there to die for a second and have his sword taken from him. That’s literally it. And for the few moments he is there, he feels like old super flirty Tucker, which erases the character development he went through in previous seasons. Okay, so Tucker dies, and then not dies, and then he is put on the bench with Wash where they can sit and talk or whatever (‘cause holy shit, the new cast is not allowed to that), because he isn’t important. The sword is. Tucker is just a prop, even more than his sword is (HOTDOG).

Damn. Wash gets beat up. Tucker gets beat up. Dies. Gets his sword taken away. Almost seems like a Red’s wet dream. Sorry not sorry, Blues, you were done dirty.

So there are miswritten old characters. Even worse is the retconning. The plot needs a “normal” Wash, so, bam, magic computer solution. Never mind Wash’s trauma and character traits. Never mind the logic of the new worldbuilding which also includes a character suffering for years to heal an illness. But the brain damage that was such a big consequence that it became the main part of the plot of the last two seasons – gone. I mean, a gunshot to the head can be healed by CPR. That’s canon. But no one gave Wash CPR so it’s a big thing, okay. It was canonically a big thing, and Zero erased that. This is not me saying that a Cerebral Enhancer couldn’t work in the RvB universe. Imagine it being done right. Wash struggling with the choice of getting used to his disability or accepting the possibility of help - at the cost of reliving his trauma. The struggle between what to choose - what should he choose when he wants to help as many as possible, the sacrifices he thinks he has to make, the way it could have been used as a part of his character growth. But in Zero, the enhancer isn’t a part of Wash’s character. It’s there so the story can work without having to deal with the previous plot’s consequence (HOTDOG).

Same with the sword thing. They sorta explain it by having Tucker flatline, but it’s weak. Honestly, I find it sorta offensive. What about Locus’ sword as well? It’s twisting previous lore to make the new plot work (HOTDOG). (Also, are we not gonna talk about the ultimate power being Spencer Porkensenson’s helmet? Have the writers forgotten Spencer Porkensenson? Have we as a community forgotten Spencer Porkensenson?)

If you have Red vs. Blue in your title, you cannot ignore what you inherit from it. You need to respect the worldbuilding, the established characters, and the previous plot. Zero does not do this.

Let’s talk about the Triplets. No, really, let’s do it. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about them before, because season 14 was a mixed bag for me (that I have now learned to appreciate. Thank you, Zero.) because I have heart at the size of the Grinch and can only love a few characters at a time, and that did not include the Triplets. Can’t even remember their names. Well, I can, but I can’t for the love of me remember which state is which, and my tongue is twisted every time I try to say Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho, and I know it’s on purpose. I know it is. And it got me good. That being said, the fandom actually embraced them really, really well! Seriously, I’ve seen more content for the Triplets than for Zero as a whole.

Why talk about the Triplets? (Was Iowa the lesbian? Or was it Ohio? Fuck.) Because like Zero, they introduced new characters with a story of their own. The Reds and Blues didn’t play a role. But here’s what I feel like the Triplets got right. They didn’t change the settings to force their narrative. They used stuff already established (Project Freelancer), added their own story as a continuation of that. They even included old characters in the beginning (Wash and some other Freelancers) but it felt natural and it didn’t feel like it happened at the expense of the old characters. Wash’s writing felt natural, and his presence wasn’t needed to tell these new character’s stories. He wasn’t a prop to them. He was there to establish the setting and to establish the relationship with these new characters, and then he and the other familiar faces (helmets??) left, and we as the viewers were left with these new characters. And the new characters told their own story by themselves. It felt like, hey, here’s something you know – remember Mother of Invention, and remember Wash’ lower rank, but now, try to imagine being even lower rank than him, aren’t you curious about those fates? Now let’s hear their story! It was new, it was something else, but it didn’t wreck what came before it, and it stayed true to the classic vibes of RvB.

As I said before, the hotdog-issue is my biggest problem with Zero. It infuriates me. I will return to this. But there are more issues, even if we try to look past the title-related problems.

If we try to imagine Zero as its own story and universe (as it should be, in my opinion), it still earns the meh review from me.

These isolated issues include awkwardness, the writing, lack of self-awareness, and pacing. First of all, holy shit, this is a tell, don’t show. Nothing is subtle, nothing is allowed to develop. It’s like the show thinks you are six years old with an attention span of a goldfish. You are not just led by the hand – they have literally pulled off your arm by the end of the show. We are force-fed every bit of information, every bit of personality from these new characters.

The voice-acting is a mixed bag for me. Sometimes it’s pretty good, sometimes it’s not. Some of the problems can definitely be blamed on the dialogue that you can only do so much with. It’s not good. I can’t remember any good jokes (the one joke I really appreciate was the cast on armor, and that was freaking visual humor. That was so RvB. Kudos to that. It was fun. More of that, please.), and RvB is known for having memorably good lines. This is a show built on good, clever, funny dialogue. Zero does not deliver. You have to sit through clichéd lines – “You’re not my dad”, “I trusted you”, “Come with me”, “It can’t be!”, “She’s way too powerful”, and “We have to do this together” – performed unironically. I cringed more than I laughed. Worst thing is that Zero could be a good parody. Sometimes, it feels like it is. One-dimensional characters, a villain wanting ‘the ultimate power’, very overpowered characters, bad one-liners, etc. But Zero takes itself seriously, and I was one of the people rooting for Jax to show up at the end and yell “Cut”. That would have been a funny-as-fuck twist. A spin-off parody. If I can’t have “Sarge the Movie”, I would have taken that and loved it. I would have forgiven everything. “We put so much info into finding that power, but we had no idea what it was” is really a line in the finale, and I cannot believe this is real in a show that somehow still tries to present itself as serious. What a plot.

We have to talk about pacing. God, first of all it should be stated that RvB is a mess when it comes to pacing. I honestly get what they were going for. Sometimes, RvB has come across as a bit boring when you get three episodes stretched over three weeks without much going on. I know season 11 did not have the warmest welcome because it was seen as boring until the finale. But when you see season 11 as a whole, as a movie, as a part of a trilogy, it works so well. Zero is more focused on being episodic. They want something to happen all the time so we will stay tuned. The thing that will happen – a fight. Oh god. The fight scenes.

I have done the math. I have run the numbers. I deserve a freaking cookie for this. Are you ready?

If you put all the episodes together, you have a runtime of 106 minutes. HOWEVER, with the introduction of credits in every episode, you gotta account for this. Removing the credits, this gives us 94 minutes of actual runtime. Out of that, 45 minutes are dedicated to fight scenes. That means 48% of the show is fight scenes.

If I wanted that many fight scenes, I’d watch Death Battle. Except the actual RvB Death Battle episode has a runtime of 20 minutes, and out of that, 5 minutes is dedicated to the actual battle. For the people who hate math – that’s 25% of the actual runtime.

RvB Zero has more fight scenes than a show called Death Battle. Take that in.

The pace suffers from this. Where’s the time to explore the characters? Where’s the time for good dialogue? All I can think of is this:

I get that RvB is a show that’s literally making fun of itself by acknowledging all their characters do is stand around and talk. I get that you want characters to do more than that. But for the love of Church, would it kill the new characters to stand around and talk? For just a minute? Stop fighting, I am begging you, stop fighting! Am I a pacifist now? Am I purple? Have I joined Doc’s team? What has Zero done to me?!

The good thing though is that fight scenes are very good. They’re entertaining. However, they seem to deconstruct themselves when we need to get a fight scene in every episode. Usually, the few fight scenes in an RvB season were in some of the most climatic episodes. In Zero, I can hardly keep up with the pace because they won’t stop moving. Fight scenes aren’t plot. They aren’t character development. You need more than just fight scenes. They entertain, but there’s a limit to that.

Noël Wiggins, the co-writer, stated the inspiration was a Saturday-morning cartoon. They nailed that vibe. If that was their goal, hurray, they have accomplished something! Because of the poor plot and constant fight scenes, it feels like you could just switch on the TV and drop in at any moment and let yourself be entertained by the cool and colorful soldiers punching and kicking each other. I will admit that the fight scenes entertained me. But they don’t make it a good season.

If I were the six-year-old with the attention span of a goldfish that the show believes I am, I honestly would enjoy it. The stiff dialogue and the constant tell-don’t-show makes you feel like an audience that’s not supposed to do anything else but admire the flashy fight scenes. I miss the cleverness of RvB. I miss the characters I get to connect with as I see them grow.

I miss the tone of RvB. Because this isn’t RvB to me.

It’s not that RvB hasn’t changed its tone before. Holy shit, I sorta do want to experience the absolute shock the RvB fandom went through when s6 aired and they were given new characters and serious plot. I would have loved to experience that, but I was too busy being ten years old. The Freelancers seasons also introduced a new tone and more fight scenes with very talented fighters compared to the Blood Gulch gang, but a balance was kept by having half of the season still revolving around the Reds and Blues. But Zero – Zero is so much change. And it’s on purpose. At least this has been made very clear from the beginning.

They constantly seem to appeal to new fans, rather than be directed towards older fans of the show. If you want an entirely new audience with a season with a new cast, new worldbuilding, and new tone, I’m confused as to why they don’t just make a new show. The hotdog-problem begs for this solution. This story and environment and characters feel so out of touch with the original RvB, that with a few rewrites and lack of Halo-armor, it could just be a new show. Problem solved.

If not this, then present it as a spin-off. In all ways, it feels like a spin-off (again, see everything marked HOTDOG). But the creators refuse to do this, and I don’t understand why. I could forgive many of these issues, had they officially separated themselves from canon.

Ah, what’s the idiom? You can’t both swallow and blow? (You can hear the Bow-chicka-bow-wow in the distance). Something about eating cake and having it. Forgive me, English isn’t my native language. POINT IS why are you calling yourself RvB while actively fighting against the core essence of RvB? In my humble opinion, you can’t be both. Marketing it as a spin-off would have granted it some defense when changing, well, literally everything, and I just, would someone please properly describe why it isn’t a spin-off? Isn’t this season marked by its association with the plot of RvB rather than a continuation of it? Zero presenting itself as not a spinoff feels like a toddler clinging to the hem of its mother’s dress while forcefully running away from her, ripping the dress in the process.

When they do connect with the original RvB, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. When they let Carolina, Wash, and Tucker appear for a moment, it feels like luring viewers in with the RvB title. Look at me. Look at me! I’m not saying this is the case. I say that it gives me the annoying vibes of being lured, rather than letting the characters be a part of the show for their own development, rather than having RvB in the title to continue its story. I should not be getting these vibes at all. But I am.

If you want to use RvB in the title, something from the core of RvB needs to be embraced. Things can be changed. They should. Something new should be brought in. But there’s a limit to how much you can change and replace and twist until it would have been better with an original show. As a season of RvB, it should tell the story of Red vs. Blue.

From my perspective, Zero fails to do so.

It pains me that the old cast has been replaced, but as stated earlier, a season could have worked without them. However, I do not like the take that one should be excited about all the new characters. That it isn’t a big thing that the OG cast got replaced. That we should just deal with it. Just, try to imagine another show suddenly replacing the main characters with characters we’ve never met before. Imagine RWBY suddenly only focusing on a new team of huntresses with the previous main characters reduced to an Easter Egg presence, or Camp Camp suddenly being about a new team of campers, no warning given. Can you imagine the outcry? So maybe let’s agree that a replacement of the main cast is a big thing and should be addressed and it’s valid to be upset about this change.

Could Zero have worked? It’s hard to answer this. How can I accept something as RvB if the season actively pushes away the core of RvB aside for an isolated story that could have been told in any other media? As a spinoff, I could have ignored it. To enjoy Zero, I have to fully separate it from RvB in my mind, and then it’s alright. S’not good. But it’s not bad. It’s entertaining enough. I really ended up liking Raymond and Tiny, and there were a few good jokes, and the fight scenes were admirable (but too much) and I love the creators’ passion. But it’s not RvB. I also wish that the new characters had been attached to previous worldbuilding, for example soldiers on Chorus or agents from Project Freelancer. That way we could build on familiar lore which would have decreased the confusion and added a much needed connection with the previous seasons of RvB.

God, the anxious voice is back (by the way, it sounds like Tutter from “Bear in the Blue House”).

“You’re racist” – I hope not. Literally, I do not want to be. Tell me if I’ve ever crossed some lines, because I swear, that is not my intention, I will apologize and most of all, change and do better. I included this because I’ve seen this take thrown around in the big ugly mess that is the fandom clashes regarding Zero. And racism is problem within RT community (this includes AH and RvB, sorry, I just use RT as an umbrella term for the latter), and I’m not saying it hasn’t been a problem with this season. Writers should never be harassed, and never-fucking-ever because of their skin color, and voice actors shouldn’t be treated like they are responsible for the choices of the show. But I was legit nervous to post this review, and I hope it’s been factual without feeling like personal attacks on the creators because that has never been my intention. I was delighted to hear about the diversity behind this project, and Torrian’s passion legit blew me away because it’s been a while since I’ve seen that for an RvB project. I’d hoped for it to be good, and when I feel disappointed, it’s for the reasons stated in this analysis. That said, Zero is made by a diverse cast and it’s made with love, and both of those things are so, so great, but it does not mean that Zero cannot be criticized. It can, and it should. It’s a product, just like all the other seasons, and fans are allowed to discuss it – both what they loved, and both what they found troublesome. And to repeat previous points, and be respectful, always, fuck racists, and never-fucking-ever harass the staff behind a season, what the fuck is wrong with you if you do this.

“Don’t you get it, it’s different because it’s trying something new!” – Hey, remember the philosophical question: if you replace all the parts of a ship one-by-one, is it still the same ship when you’re done? If it doesn’t include the Reds and Blues, if it ignores previous plot, if the old characters feel miswritten, if it values animation over dialogue, if it values fight scenes over comedy, if it wants to be Fast and Furious instead of Red vs. Blue – is it still Red vs. Blue? Because it doesn’t feel like it to me.

“It's been 17 seasons, it’s time to let the Reds and Blues go so someone else can shine!” – I simply do not understand us having been with the Reds and Blues for 17 seasons should be an argument to let them go, rather than be an argument as to why their absence hurt like hell.

“The Reds and Blues ran out of things to do!” – Did- did they, though? I mean, if we were discussing pretty much any other show, I’d probably agree that they were running out of content. But for the Reds and Blues… I think the PSAs nailed it this year! I’m not kidding, I had more fun watching the Reds and Blues discuss how to do laundry than watching Zero. You could literally give me an hour of the Reds and Blues trying to bake a cake or clear a gutter or simply settling down with an ordinary life, and I would trust them to make it worth the watch.

“The flaws were due to the fact it’s only 8 episodes long!” – Look, I can only judge a product the way it’s presented to me. I cannot come up with excuses for it. If they had 8 episodes to work with, they need to come up with a plot that works with this runtime. Seriously, this excuse cannot work when 48% of the season is spent on fight scenes. They could have used more runtime, sure, but the show needs to be able to pace itself and be planned accordingly.

“The OG cast couldn’t be a part of this year, hence Zero!” – That might be true. But. Would one year without RvB kill it? Is Zero necessary? Again, I just can’t judge excuses for the show. But trouble with the cast has been an issue before. Season 15 solves Geoff’s sabbatical by actually making Grif’s absence a part of the plot. Zero’s lack of Reds and Blues just feels like this excuse to tell a story that needn’t be a part of RvB.

Am I a hater? I guess? I greatly dislike Zero for the critique stated above. I do, however, not harass the creators and no one should ever do that. However, I have to admit that I feel there’s been this weird rejection of any critique of Zero where everything’s been brushed off as haters gonna hate, including the critique stated above. And I think that’s a problem because critique, as hard as it can be to hear (and I know this. I’m an author of original works. Weird flex, I know), is valid and necessary and shouldn’t just be shrugged away. As always, both sides of the fandom should always be respectful, but my own opinion is that addressing the flaws of Zero should not be controversial.

Does this super long rant/critique/whatever mean you cannot enjoy Zero? Gods no! I almost envy you if you enjoy this season, but holy shit, feel free to love it and tell the creators that you love it! Me pointing out the issues I have with the season shouldn’t be stopping you. I loved (and still love) s15 when it came out, and it was majorly rejected by the fandom. There were many, many critical posts, people were going on about how RvB should have ended with s13, and it evolved into the writer receiving death threats (me, once again: never ever harass the creators, assholes). But I didn’t tell people to stop being negative. I actually agreed with many of the flaws that were pointed out, and I enjoyed the season despite this, because that is possible. We, as RvB fans, should agree that RvB, is... I mean, it’s not the greatest, most flawless of shows, but we love it nonetheless. So go ahead and love Zero. This is not a stop sign. This is my opinion that you chose to read.

Wait, I promised you a cookie, didn’t I? Well, you’re not getting one. Why? Because I’m a Red and this is my chance to piss off a Blue. As Caboose wisely said: “Well, at least I don't go around... knocking on people's non-doors... and promising them cookies... and then NOT. GIVING. THEM. COOKIES!”

Blue Team sucks.

End speech.

#rvb zero #rvb #rvb zero critical #rvb critical #rvb0 #my rvb stuff #pls dont hate me for this #this is my honest opinion that people apparantly wanted to hear #as a standalone story zero isnt totally bad #as an rvb season it is

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do-a-reference-properly · 5 years

Text

AO3′s users alert! Unauthorised fanworks copying

26/09/2019. Important update on this mess: we found a way to delete fanworks via take down request to the hosting provider. Please check it here https://do-a-reference-properly.tumblr.com/post/187926459079/finally-some-good-news

Dear AO3 users,

We would like to bring your attention to an ugly situation with unauthorized copying of works posted on AO3.

A lot of works from AO3 have been copied to fanfics.me (we’ll call this site FFM for brevity’s sake) and are still being copied right now, either:

— automatically by a code specifically created by FFM’s owner for this purpose, or

— by unaware or unscrupulous FFM’s users via semi-automatic method (by inserting a link to a work from AO3 into a web-worm on FFM).

All works from AO3 — with a few exceptions (I’ll elaborate on this below) — can end up on FFM without authors even noticing. Even fanarts or podfics.

FFM doesn't comply with DMCA which means that such reposts endanger fanworks' creators in case the copyright holder demands to delete the fanwork.

Authors of the copied works do not have any control over them; if the work is edited it won’t be updated on FFM until someone manually updates it.

Additionally FFM’s owner makes money out of reposted free fanworks from numerous Google and Yandex ads on each and every FFM’s page by having people go to this site when searching for fics on Google etc. So we recommend using an Ads Blocker when visiting this site in order to prevent the owner from earning more. Ghostery or Adblock Plus work just fine, but you can use any other Ads Blocker that is convenient to you.

Oftentimes FFM even shows up before the original post with the work on Google search results.

The owner’s e-mail: [email protected].

The owner at AO3.

We are trying to bring AO3’s users attention to this situation and help authors with taking their works down from FFM.

Briefly about the website and its owner

Let me start from the very beginning as it will bring into the light the nature of FFM and give a good example of its owner characteristic behavior.

At first, some person with nickname Refery created FFM as a web archive where authors — mostly from Harry Potter fandom — could publish their fanworks.

Time passed, the site grew and added some features (blogs, pre-moderation and etc.), and all was good and well up till the moment when Refery decided that it would be a great idea to copy to FFM fanworks published on other Russian fanfiction archives — among them from the biggest and most known site ficbook — without asking authors for permission. Even those works that had “Ask me before posting the story somewhere else” mentioned in its text or summary were copied.

For some time nobody noticed, but when finally and inevitably this came out the authors were outraged. It took a lot of time to finally persuade Refery to at least not to copy fanworks bearing a special tag “Уточнять у автора” (Ask the author first).

But after some time Refery — without giving any notice — violated his own promise and resumed copying to FFM fanworks that had the agreed upon tag. The authors complained again, so very reluctantly and after many painful discussions this feature was reinstalled.

So FFM has been notoriously known, mostly amongst Russian fandom, for claims on re-posting fanworks without the consent of the authors.

We're mentioning this situation just to give you a detailed portrait of a person we are dealing with here.

Not only fanworks are copied to this website, but original works, too. Even those which were already published. There were all 7 of Harry Potter novels (both original text and translation), The Hobbit: There and Back Again (translation) and Vorkosigan Saga (translation) available for everybody to read and download. They were taken down only recently due to the attention this whole situation had drawn, but nothing ever goes away once it’s posted online and you can access the proof via Internet Wayback machine. We know for a fact there are other books on FFM and some actions have been taken in this regard, but still it takes time to find published books on this site.

Recently Refery decided that Russian archives are not enough for him and started copying all fanworks into FFM without any permission from the authors from numerous sites, like AO3, fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, fanfiktion.de and likely other web-archives.

Moreover, the authors of these works can not delete their works from FFM and/or manage them. The site is in Russian only and, hence, we strongly believe that non-Russian speaking authors even do not know that their works are reposted somewhere else.

As a Russian fan-community, we have tried to stop such activity of FFM many times; however, we have not been successful in achieving our goal completely. Our most recent achievement is that the FFM’s owner implemented the "Don't copy to another site" tag created specifically for AO3 (here is the link to FFM’s owner post on his personal blog regarding this tag. Please use Ads Blocker!). This tag should be added to each work presented on AO3 in case the author does not want their works to be copied to FFM.

We are of the opinion that no work should be taken without permission in the first place, but this tag is all we’ve got.

Please note that it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

How to prevent copying from AO3

If you check AO3 you may notice that "Don't copy to another site" tag has hugely emerged in the recent weeks, but mostly amongst Russian users and there is a good reason for this: the owner of FFM announced this tag only in Russian and only on his private blog, so naturally there is no way for non-Russian speaking AO3 users to know about this — albeit non-satisfactory — solution.

There are no guaranties that the FFM’s owner won’t change the rules again as has already happened numerous times before (few examples we described above) and that works with this tag won’t be reposted in the future, but for now it’s the only quick and working solution besides making your works visible only to registered users, which is not ideal.

This situation is highly unpleasant, but we ask you not to delete your works from AO3, because if the work is deleted from AO3 it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM: we won't be able to refresh it manually and remove the text.

Please note that adding this tag won’t work for texts that have already been copied. Only users who have accounts at FFM will be able to delete them. Each work needs to be deleted manually.

However, the Russian fandom — except for the owner of FFM — strongly condemns reposts without the consent of the author, so feel free to contact our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing the links to the works stolen from AO3, so we could delete them for you.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover all authors and works manually. So, we contacted AO3’ Technical Team with the aim to bring their attention to this situation and inform about it all AO3 users, and hope that AO3 team will find a general solution to resolve this problem, possibly, in collaboration with the AO3 lawyers.

We are trying to warn as many authors as possible and recently started spreading this information via comments on AO3; but considering the number of works copied to FFM informing all authors will take considerable time, and we can easily miss someone, especially since the copying is still in progress and new works from AO3 are appearing on FFM every day.

Please help us spread the word!

We tried to make a comprehensive FAQ about this. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!

FAQ

Q: Can I check if my work was copied to FFM?

A: Yes, you can.

FFM makes money on Google and Yandex ads, so we recommend turning on the Ads Blocker of your choice before visiting this site.

Please follow this link, insert the title of your work or your AO3/other web-archive nickname into the field containing the words "insert-title-nickname" and hit "Искать" (Search).

For works rated Mature or Explicit you will be able to see only the caption "Текст произведения доступен только зарегистрированным пользователям старше 18 лет" ("The text of the work is available only to registered users over 18 years old"), but FFM users are able to read and download the story.

Q: My work from AO3 was copied. How can I take it down?

A: First of all add the tag "Don't copy to another site" (without “ “) to the stories you want to be taken down.

Actually we would recommend adding this tag to all the works you don't want to be copied.

Contact one of our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing links to your works or send an e-mail with your deletion request directly to the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3.

There is a third option: to register on FFM and delete the work yourself by hitting the refresh button, but considering that the site is in Russian we do not think it will be very convenient to those who do not speak Russian language.

Q: I got the message that my work has been deleted. How can I check if it is true?

A: You can go to FFM, search for you work, click on its title and scroll down.

After the summary there is a field that should look like this for those fics that have been deleted.

Basically it says that the author of this particular work has forbidden its copying and that only the information on its title, author’s nickname, rating, pairings, summary and the link to original post on AO3 are available.

For works that are still available on FFM this field looks like this (if the work is open for non-registered users).

Q: My work copied from AO3 was deleted, but FFM still shows some information on it. Can it be deleted?

A: Even though the text of the fic is not going to be on FFM anymore after it has been deleted, the fic's title, author's name, rating, pairings, summary and link to original post on AO3 will remain there.

The deletion of this leftover information can be done only by the site owner himself.

Some Russian authors tried to make him to delete it, but in most cases the FFM’s owner refused them mentioning that publication of such information is in line with fair use concept and doesn’t violate authors’ rights.

We are yet unsure how to delete this leftover information. In case you need it as well, try contacting the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. Maybe e-mails of a large number of authors will work, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee anything. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Q: My work from fanfiction.net/fictionpress.com/fanfiktion.de/other web-archives was copied to FFM. How can I take it down?

A: Unfortunately, there is no possible way for us to delete from FFM the fanworks that are copied from web-archives other then AO3. Only FFM’s owner can delete these works, please try contacting him at [email protected] or at AO3. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Please do not delete your works from the web-archive it was stolen from, because if the work is deleted it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM.

Also it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

#ao3 #archive of our own #alert #fanfiction #fanworks #fanart #please reblog

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