hi! this is a resource blog that is run by the writer known as #kyrie. i have free, pay what you want, and paid resources! please, do not steal, copy, redistribute, or claim my content as your own; make sure to credit me whenever you use my creations. this is a spam friendly blog. i am available through asks or instant messages. i am tracking #userkyrie. you can find important tags in the featured tags section, please do not message me about drama, i reserve the right to soft block or hard block, minors may not follow this blog.
what i do: graphics, psd colorings, templates, manips, png's, headers, layouts, icons, dividers, polarr filters, navigation, psd suggestions, textures, carrds, doodles, rp memes and rp starters, brushes for procreate and ibis and clip studio, aesthetics and moodboards.
what i do not currently do: gif packs, roleplay icons, screencap packs, google docs, themes.
i. resources. ii. ko-fi iii. twitter. iv. instagram. v. multimuse.
freedom to palestine, freedom to sudan, freedom to congo, freedom to turtle island; freedom to all oppressed peoples, land back, black lives matter, and all cops are bastards. please check out the fundraisers here and consider donating. if you cannot decide on a fundraiser, here is a website that will randomly generate one for you!
about me: twenty-nine year old writer, artist, and roleplayer. he/him, indigenous lumbee and tsalagi, disabled, twospirit, and self-taught freelancer planning on returning to college soon for graphic design. i've been editing and designing for the better part of twelve years and i'm always honing my craft or improving my skills. please consider commissioning me, as i do this for more than passive income! i am also currently working on my first book, which will provide writer insight and be interactive to help writers along their writing journey.
* i will answer questions related to indigenous topics, but please know that it is not an invitation for debate unless you are also indigenous.
other indigenous creators you can support: @auntiems.
love of my life can be found on: @racointeur.
someone asked for a coloring tutorial and my sharpening settings, so here it is! there are also a few tips to achieve more HQ gifs. :)
tutorial under the cut!
FOR HIGH-QUALITY GIFS
FILE SIZES
it doesn’t matter what your sharpening settings are if the file you’re using to gif is too low quality, so i tend to look for the best that i can get when downloading stuff.
usually, movies (+2h) look better if they’re 5GB or more, while an episode (40 min/1h) can look good with even 1GB. the minimum definition i try to find is 1080p, but i gif with 2160p (4k) when available. unfortunately, not every computer can handle 4k, but don’t worry, you can gif with 1080p files just fine if they are big enough. contrary to popular belief, size does matter! which means sometimes a bigger 1080p file is better than a smaller 2160p one, for example.
SCREENCAPPING METHOD
this can too influence the quality of your gifs. as a gifmaker, i’ve tried it all: video frames to layers, directly opening video clips, loading files into stack, and i’ve finally settled down with opening screencaps as an image sequence. with bigger files, it doesn’t matter much what technique you use, but i’ve noticed with smaller files you can do wonders if you screencap (either by loading files into stack or opening as an image sequence) instead of using video clips. for example, this gif’s original video file was only 4GB (so smaller than i’ve usually go for), if you can believe it!
here’s a tutorial for setting up and screencapping with MPV, the media player i use to screencap. again, you can keep using video clips for bigger files, but you’ll find this useful when dealing with dire causes. i don't file loads into stack, though, like the video does. i open as an image sequence (open > screencap folder > select any image > click the image sequence button). just select OK for the speed. this will open your screencaps as a video clip (blue bar) in timeline mode (i'm a timeline gifmaker, i don't know about you). you will need this action pack to convert the clip into frames if you're a frames gifmaker. i suggest you convert them into frames even if you're a timeline gifmaker, just convert them into a timeline again at the end. that way you can delete the screencaps right away, otherwise you will delete the screencaps and get a static image as a "gif".
ATTENTION if you’re a Mac Sonoma user, MPV won’t be an option for you unless you downgrade your system. that is, if you have an Intel chip. if you have M1 Max chip (or even a better one), here’s a fix for MPV you can try while keeping that MacOS, because nowadays MPV is skipping frames in its latest build. or you can use MPlayer instead for less hassle. here are two tutorials for setting and using MPlayer. Windows users are fine, you can use MPV without trouble.
FOR EVEN MORE QUALITY
ADD NOISE
here’s a tutorial for adding noise as a way to achieve more HQ gifs if your original material is too low quality.
REDUCE NOISE WITH CAMERA RAW
instead of adding noise, you can reduce it, especially if your gif is very noisy as it is.
the path is filter > camera raw > detail > nose reduction. i do this before sharpening, but only my video file isn't great to begin with. because it’s a smart filter, you can reduce or increase its opacity by clicking the bars next to its name in the layers panel.
TOPAZ AI
i use Topaz Photo AI to increase the quality of my screencaps when i need to. it’s paid software, but there are… ways to find it for free, usually on t0rrent websites. if someone’s interested, i can make a tutorial solely about it in the future.
SHARPENING SETTINGS
here are my sharpening settings (filter > sharpen > smart sharpen). i sharpen things twice: 500% 0.4px + 10% 10px. here's an action for it, for more convenience. here's a tutorial on how to use Photoshop actions. for animated stuff, i use this action pack.
COLORING
here’s the gif i'm gonna use as a base. it’s already sharpened like the way i always do it.
LIGHTNING THE SHOTS
half of the secret of a good coloring is good lightning. i always useCurves (layers > new adjustment layer > curves) and Brightness & Contrast (layers > new adjustment layer > brightness & contrast). the settings depend on the scene you’re giffing, but i always try make my gifs bright and with high contrast to make the colors pop.
CURVES
besides lighting your scene, the Curves adjustment layer has four automatic options that will color-correct it for you. it’s not always perfect and it doesn’t mean you won’t need to do further coloring, but it’s a great start. it’s a lifesaver for most ridiculously yellow scenes. look at the difference! this gif uses the 3rd automatic option (the screenshot below isn't mine btw so that's why the fourth option is the chosen one), from top to bottom. what automatic option you need to choose depends on the gif.
sometimes i like to tweak my Curves layer. not everybody does that, it’s not that necessary and if you’re not careful, it can screw your gif up. to modify your layer by hand, you will need to click and drag points of that straight line in the position you desire. this is the concept behind it:
basically, the lower part of the line handles the shadows, while the upper part handles the highlights of the image. if you pull a highlight point up, the image’s highlights will be brighter. if you pull it down, it will make them darker. same thing for the shadow points. you should play with it to get a grasp of it, that’s what i did when i first started giffing.
BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST
then i added a bit of brightness and contrast.
CHANNEL MIXER
the scene looked a bit too yellow, so i used the Channel Mixer (layer > new adjustment layer > channel mixer) adjustment layer. here’s a tutorial of how it works. not every scene needs the Channel Mixer layer though, i mostly use it to remove heavy overall tints. in this particular case, the Curves layer got rid of most of the yellow, but i wanted the gif to be just a bit more blue so the Channel Mixer tweaks are very minimal.
SELECTIVE COLOR
now, this adjustment layer i always use: Selective Color (layer > new adjustment layer > selective color). this is THE adjustment layer to me, alongside the Curves one. this is how it works:
ie, you can separately edit a color this way, giving it tints. for this gif, i wanted to make the colors more vibrant. to achieve that, i edited the selected colors this way:
for the reds, i added even more red in them by moving the first slider to the right, making the color more vibrant. for his hat to have a more warm tint, i added yellow to the reds (third slider, moving it to the right). finally, to make the reds stronger, i moved the last slider to the right (more black).
for the yellows, i made them brighter by adding white to them, thus making the tile wall and Paddington more bright as well.
for the cyans and the blues, i just added the maximum (+100) of black that i could.
i wanted for Paddington's nose to be brighter, so i added more white to the whites.
lastly, i added depth to the blacks by increasing their own blackness.
you should always play with the Selective Colors sliders for a bit, before deciding what you want or need. with time, you will automatically know what to change to correct the color grading. it all takes practice!
HUE/SATURATION
i don’t know if you noticed, but there are some green spots on the blue wall behind Paddington. to correct that, i added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > hue/saturation) and made the saturation of the greens 0%, making that unwanted green disappear from the background.
while the green spots on the wall are specific for this gif, i use hue/saturation a lot to tweak, well, hue and saturation. sometimes someone’s skin is too yellow, i made it redder by tweaking the reds and the yellows, or vice-versa. the hue bar follows the rainbow bar, so the maximum settings (+100 and -100) give the selected color to change its hue to something more red or pink (the rainbow extremities). changing hue can give pretty whacky results, like turning someone’s skin tone to green, so you will need to play with it to get the hang of it. you can also tweak the opacity of your hue/saturation layer to further improve your gif’s coloring. i didn’t do it in this case, the opacity is still 100%. the reds and the blues had their saturation increased to make them pop just a bit more, without affecting the other colors.
COLOR BALANCE
the highlights of the gif still had a green tint to it due to the automatic correction of the Curves layer, so i used Color Balance. this is how it works: instead of giving specific colors some tints, you can give them to the shadows, highlights, and mid-tones. if your shadows are too blue, you counterbalance them with the opposite color, yellow. same thing with the cyan-red and magenta-green pairings. in my case, i added a bit of magenta.
B&W GRADIENT MAP
now, if this gif was a dish, it’s time for the salt and pepper. i always add a Gradient Map (layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map) (black to white gradient) with the Soft Light blending mode, thus giving my shadows more depth without messing with the mid-tones and highlights. it also doesn’t “deep fry” (you know those memes?) the gif too much by adding even more contrast. usually, the opacity of the layer is between 30% to 70%, it all depends on the gif. it always does wonders, though!
COLOR FILTER
finally, i like to add Color Filters (layer > new adjustment layer > color filter) to my gifs. it’s very handy when giving different scenes for the same minimalistic set because it makes them kind of match despite having completely different colors. in this gif’s case, i added a “deep blue” filter, opacity 50% density 25. you can change the density and the opacity of the layer for further editing, again, it all depends on the gif.
VIBRANCE
if i feel like it, i add a vibrance layer (layer > new adjustment layer > vibrance) to make the colors pop. this can ruin your coloring sometimes, especially when regarding skin color, so be careful. i didn't do it in this gif because i felt i didn't need it.
TA-DA! 🥳
AN OTHER EXAMPLE
the color grading of the original scene it’s pretty good as it is, to be honest. let’s see a worse scenario, a VERY yellow one:
no channel mixer this time because the automatic curves option dealt with the yellowness, but you can see it made the gif too green. i needed to correct that with the following adjustment layers:
i added a hue/saturation layer to remove the blues & greens before my selective color layer because i thought that was more urgent than tweaking the tint of all colors. color balance (gif 4) was the real hero here, though, by removing the green tint. the selective color layer was meant to make the red pop more than anything else, because the rest looked pretty good, especially her skin tone (despite the green tint). you can notice that tweaking the curves layer (small gif 3) also helped A LOT with the green problem.
tl;dr 😵💫😵💫😵💫
here's a list of my go-to's while coloring and lightning gifs. it's not a rule, just a guide. there are gifs in which i don't use all these adjustment layers, or use them in a different order. it all depends!
1. curves (automatic option + tweaks)
2. brightness & contrast
3. channel mixer
4. selective color
5. hue/saturation
6. color balance
7. b&w gradient map
8. color filter
9. vibrance
i'll suggest that you study each adjustment layer listed for more info, either with other Tumblr tutorials or YouTube ones. the YouTube ones focus on images, but you can translate what they teach to gif making very easily. you can ask me to further explain any adjustment layer, too! i was brief to keep this short (which i kinda failed lol).
feel free to ask me for clarification or something else about gifmaking wise, i always like to help. ❤️
collection of fonts i like / use a lot! all of these are free to download on the given site underneath. feel free to like & rb if this collection is useful.
character skills that don’t actually matter, but give your character depth & facilitate interesting open or closed starters.
accents. they can literally mimic any accent they’ve ever heard, and it’s a little terrifying to be honest. where are they even from, anyway?
green thumb. they live in a high-rise with two tiny ass windows, but somehow manage to keep their indoor garden alive and thriving.
hearing. don’t bother whispering around them. or anywhere near them, for that matter. they can hear through walls, basically.
measurement. they know how far 6 feet is just by looking, and never bother with measuring cups or scales.
organization. nothing in their house, office or car is ever, ever out of place. even their junk drawer is arranged by color.
mental calculation. it’s not just adding and subtracting — they can tell you what 20% off $24.99 is in eight seconds flat.
the perfect cup of coffee. it’s the reason most people stay the night at their place. word gets around, y’know?
perfect pitch. not a professional singer by any means, and they don’t wanna be — singing is just a joy, and damn are they good.
predicting the ending. yeah, they’re that person. they know exactly how the movie is going to end, five minutes into it.
quick reflexes. something’s falling off the counter? no problem. they won’t let it hit the ground. and they sure as hell have never spilled their truly in the pool.
sense of direction. they’re never lost. literally ever. also your personal gps.
storytelling. they’re always telling you about something that happened on the train that morning or making up something for bedtime, they just make it look so easy.
thrift shopping. they literally walk into any thrift store and find the nicest fucking stuff. it’s insane. but they also give the best birthday presents, so it’s fine.
throwing accuracy. they can throw a crumpled peach & pear la croix can across the room and right into the garbage can, every time.
touch-typing. they’ve consistently hit 95+ wpm since they were 10. it’s on their resume, but employers always think they’re exaggerating. nope.
Heyy, one of my oc's blind, and he has a wife that isn't visually impared. I've read a post a while ago, (I don't remember if you wrote it or not) that talked about "how blind people love" so to say, where it mentions that it is different in many ways to how not visually impared people think it might be, so I'd want to know if you had some fluffy prompts for me. Thank you <3
Blind Characters Falling in Love + Prompts
The post you are referring to is actually by @mimzy-writing-online and you can find it here.
A few prompt ideas I have include:
-consider the trust and automatic habits that might build up between the blind character and the wife. For example, describing things the blind person would be interested in without always needing to be asked, automatically offering to guide, automatically orienting the character to their environment, and knowing when to offer help. These are things that build up over time and with trust.
-Also, consider how wonderful a consistent lack of discomfort with blindness would be. In the beginning of a relationship, the person who isn’t blind may feel uncertain or unsure how to fit into their partner’s life when it comes to their blindness. An example of this would be questioning whether or not a description of a bench to their left would be welcome. A wife who has been with her husband for years may simply verbalize where the bench is, being familiar with the husband’s habit of stopping to enjoy the sounds of birds.
-Specific situational prompts ideas include: the wife describing TV shows that don’t come with audio descriptions as they watch them, the couple learning Braille together and leaving Braille notes for each other, the couple cooking together and using accessible tools, the wife placing markers on the shampoo and conditioner, the couple knowing not to move each other’s items, inside blind jokes, and knowing how best to give directions in reference to that restaurant they like or using left and right because the blind character never understood cardinal directions.
-Alerting the blind character to steps or curbs or changes in environment.
-A big one is an accessible house. If the couple got a home together, they would consider accessibility. This might include high contrast, extra lighting, textures, and no touch screen appliances as these can be harder for blind people to use. There is a comfort in having someone else consider your accessibility needs.
-Other ideas include accessible and comfortable dates. While this might depend on the specific person and where they live, a few ideas include:
-getting audio descriptions at cinemas or even for plays if offered
-reading the menu out to him and knowing what foods to mention or skip over because she knows his taste
-getting Braille menus
-making tactile art together using dot paint or puffy paint
-depending on vision and comfort level, they might avoid dimly lit or overly loud areas, but not all blind people will do this. Conversely, he might also only be comfortable going to such places with her.
-playing accessible games together
These are some ideas I had. You can also follow blind folks on YouTube or Tiktok, such as blindtobes, to see how they talk about blindness and dating.
by clicking on the source link you will find a page with 554 gifs, all made from scratch by myself, of bella dayne in episodes one to four of troy: the fall of a city. bella is white and is currently 37 years old, though she was 29 during filming. i don’t care what you do with these, just don’t be gross and don’t claim them as your own. if using these, give this post a reblog. thank you !
Police Procedural - a subgenre of detective fiction that focuses on police work and investigations.
This form of crime fiction is popular across a variety of mediums, including mystery novels, TV series, and films.
In police procedurals, the lead characters seek to solve a crime—most commonly a murder mystery.
Stories in this subgenre typically follow law enforcement officers or private investigators as they track down criminal suspects.
Depending on the detective story, the plot may revolve around crimes of passion or serial killers.
How to Write a Police Procedural
Research police protocols. To learn about proper police procedures, interview police officers and, if possible, go on a ride-along with your local police department. To avoid becoming overwhelmed with research, define the length of time you want to devote to this phase. Setting a timeline of a few weeks or months can help relieve the pressure of needing to know everything before you start writing.
Develop your main character. Determine whether your protagonist is a seasoned homicide detective or an amateur detective. Depending on the scope of your story, your main character may work with a local police force or a government agency like the FBI. Establishing a backstory will also help you determine their worldview and how they approach their work.
Choose a familiar setting. Police procedurals are deeply influenced by their specific settings. Choose a setting that you’re familiar with—whether rural, urban, or suburban—and use your knowledge of this place to infuse the world of your story with authenticity.
Outline a crime plot. Police procedurals are often plot-driven. Devise a complex and surprising crime to center your story around.
Define the tone. Although many police procedurals take a realistic and gritty approach with their tone, you can decide for yourself whether your story is best suited for comedic elements, dramatic elements, or a combination of both.
Write your first draft. Once you’ve laid out a plan for your police procedural, dive into your first draft. Avoid putting pressure on yourself to make it perfect and instead focus on simply finishing a rough draft.
Step away from your first draft. Once you’ve completed your first draft, take some time away from the work—ideally a few weeks—so you can return to it with fresh eyes.
Revise your draft. Try different approaches to self-editing to find one that works for you. For example, try printing out your script or novel or reading the work aloud. Once you have a shareable draft, consider sending it to a reader with knowledge of police procedures for feedback.
Examples of Police Procedurals
To learn more about police procedurals, explore some of these examples in TV and fiction.
Dublin Murder Squad (2007–2020) by Tana French: This book series follows various Irish detectives as they investigate harrowing murders.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015): Over the course of 15 seasons, this iconic TV show followed a task force in Las Vegas dedicated to solving a wide variety of crimes. The series was so popular it prompted several spinoff shows including CSI: Miami and CSI: NY.
87th Precinct (1956–2005) by Evan Hunter: Influenced by the classic TV show Dragnet, Evan Hunter (who often wrote under the pen name Ed McBain) published this long-running book series that followed a group of detectives in New York City. The books were later adapted into a TV series.
Law & Order (1990–2010): Inspired by real-life crimes, each episode in this police procedural TV series follows both the police investigation and legal trial of a different case.
Bosch (2014–2021): Based on Michael Connelly’s bestsellers, this cop show follows a detective who works for the Hollywood Division of the LAPD.
by clicking in the source link ( deviantart ) you’ll find 02 psd template made by me from scratch. credit is not needed , but do not claim as your own ! if you enjoy this or you use it, please reblog or like this post . thank you !
Castles, fortresses, and fortified mansions can be military and administrative headquarters for medieval feudal overlords, romantic ruins in a nineteenth century Count's estate, or haunts for ghosts… They hold our imagination, they show up in historical fiction and fantasy alike.
Types of Castles by Location
City castle. Found in the historical centre of a medieval city, and often as the core part of a larger fortification called a citadel, the urban castle houses the ruler of said city, city-state or realm of which this city is a capital.
Rural castle. Built as a standalone structure, this type of castle was more widespread than the urban castle in Western Europe. Often castles planned as standalone structures attracted folks from nearby villages and grew towns around them, eventually becoming city castles and citadels.
Types of Castles by Construction
Motte and bailey. The most primitive kind of castle, the motte and bailey is barely above a pre-medieval hill fort. It is usually just a tower or a fortified manor standing on a hill, which may be a natural hill dug over with artificial trenches and berms or a wholly manmade mound (the motte). The motte was also outfitted with extra defences such as a wooden stockade (the bailey). Often the bailey was located sideways of the motte and did not encapsulate it; the steep slopes of the motte made walls unnecessary. Note that not all castles built on mottes are motte and bailey castles: the central section of the famous Windsor Castle, which is far from being "just a tower", has a large motte under it.
Keep and curtain wall. To improve the ability of a motte and bailey castle to withstand sieges, medieval engineers went for the most obvious decision: build a solid wall instead of a wooden stockade around the motte. They built massive walls, high enough to be unscalable without proper siege ladders, and later augmented those walls with towers. The towers provided defenders a vantage point for raining arrows onto the attackers. The tower also became more fortified and turned into a keep, or donjon - the main tower or fort of the castle, a smaller fortress inside it. Even when enemies breached or otherwise surmounted the curtain wall of the castle, the keep was able to fend them off for a while, hopefully until the relief or backup forces arrives.
Moat. To add another layer of impenetrability to the curtain wall, medieval engineers augmented it with a deep ditch, or moat, around it. The purpose of the moat was to stop the attackers from breaking castle walls with battering rams and make it harder to use siege ladders. The moat was also often filled with water to stop undermining (digging under walls to make them collapse). A drawbridge or a permanent bridge could be used to cross the moat and reach the gate.
Gatehouse. Because of the moat, the castle gate became the prime target for attempts to breach the walls and break in. So the gate naturally became more fortified, built into a large, wide tower: the gatehouse. A typical gatehouse contained a lot of security measures to make battering the gate harder: corridors, portcullises, arrow slits overlooking the bridge.
Barbican. A barbican is another fortification built to protect the gate: a second, smaller gatehouse in front of it, connected to the main one with a pair of walls.
Enceinte. An enceinte is the motte, Mk.II, now made of stone! It's an inner solid stone wall surrounding the keep, making it a castle within a castle.
Concentric castle. Combining all of the above defensive measures resulted in a complex, many-layered castle with two or more sets of curtain walls and a keep surrounded with an enceinte. Such castles were built during the Late Middle Ages.
Quadrangular castle. A late development in castle building, this style does away with the keep and turns the curtain wall into a large rectangular building with a courtyard. In essence, the curtain wall is used as the outer wall of the building.
After gunpowder artillery became the main weapon of sieges, castle architecture entered into decline.
Low-profile and complex structures with thick earth walls were needed to resist artillery bombardments, and castles made way for bastions, star forts and similar fortified structures.
However, during the period of Romanticism and Gothic literature in the XIX century, interest in castles renewed.
These "revival castles" served no defensive function and were just stylized stately homes for Blue Blood elites; the most famous example of such a castle is Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Germany.
In the 19th and 20th century, the romantic allure of castles even inspired some non-royals with deep pockets to build them as fantasy getaways.
Source ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ Parts & Types of Castles ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
