#type: ask

step two: i take the b/w version of the above gif & i slap a photo filter over top and ramp up the vibrancy exponentially (depending on what colour i'm aiming for). i use a colour balance adjustment over top to enhance whatever i'm trying to do (truly depends on the colour, like always, but i will almost assuredly use colour balance in everything with colour).

this is the same gif above, but with a photo filter adjustment ("deep red") and then a vibrancy adjustment (upped to 100% with both sliders).

that same gif, but now with the colour balance applied (using only the red sliders in each section and (green?) in the 'hightlights' section of colour balance):

now turn that also into a smart object (use the duplicated b/w smart object for this and save the original b/w smart object for final use).

step three: shift the colour version of your gif down exactly 1 pixel & to the right one pixel & set the filter setting for the layer to "Pin Light" and you will get what you are looking for (as seen below) (also this gif is without lowering the opacity etc on the colour version of the gif once using Pin Light, it's just dependent on the vibrancy and what you're going for when you do the shift, cause some things look better for a lowered opacity etc).

that's all. it's truly up to you how you wanna apply the colour vibrancy and all that and how you firmly apply it. i'll typically use a layer mask once i'm done to do some clean-up (showing what i mean by this below this - a very lazy version of what i mean >.> but still lol).

if you have any other questions, you can let me know (so long as it's not about colouring omg lmao). and thank you for the lovely words & inquiry <3 if you have any questions also about anything mentioned above, please let me know, i don't mind answering (...........as long as it's not about colouring).

Obviously, I can answer most questions about the first Our Life, but that's situational since that requires being sent asks. I feel like I've dug into a lot of the bigger things people care about with the code as well, such as the mechanics behind Cove changing, so anything further would have to be something wild like "here is literally every single variation/possibility in [insert moment here]."

I have my MC, but probably 0% of my audience actually followed me to hear about Cho (/not derogatory, just an observation), and I'm entirely neutral on whether I make stuff about her privately or publicly. I just like to post content that makes people happy, so it's dependent on that~ c:

Then last but not least is obviously my personal modifications extending beyond my patched version; not quality of life stuff, not fixes, just actual additions to the game that I've either always wanted or thought made sense. Definitely if I were to drop anything first, it'd probably be Shopping since I more than doubled the length of that script and think it'd be a hypothetically "worthy" choice. I'm still a little shy at the idea, but I get closer to wanting to release my stuff the more I hear people wanting it.

Anyway, since you mentioned other characters, here are screenshots from my version of Shopping!

Finn didn’t know that he would ever get tired of looking at Evie.  She was beautiful, he’d always considered her the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.  

Maybe if he’d told her that more, they wouldn’t be here.

In the fucking Ostroff Centre, Nolan and Theo next door with Eric, and Evie asleep in a small, uncomfortable hospital bed, not able to stay awake for more than a few minutes.  God, she looked so small in that bed.  She always looked small, she was small, five foot nothing and barely seventy pounds next to Finn’s six foot frame.  But she was smaller, like this.  Part of it was the severe weight loss, he knew that, but not all of it.  With her blond hair and light pink pyjamas, her sickly pallor and hollow cheeks, the starch white bedding and the disgustingly white room washed her out.  

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.  They were supposed to be having the best possible summer with Tinsley and Theo before starting high school, visiting Tinsley’s family hotels all over the country, going to Europe where he would roll his eyes at Evie’s sightseeing but still go wherever she wanted.  They were supposed to be taking beach photos that Tinsley would carefully curate for each of them to post, bribing poolside bars into ignoring their age, ending every night squished into one bed because none of them wanted to stop talking until they couldn’t stay awake any longer.

He wasn’t supposed to answer the phone, expecting Evie to be asking to meet up, only to hear her choked sobs as soon as he accepted the call.  He wasn’t supposed to ever know what it sounded like to listen to his best friend dying, begging him to pass along her final words.  Between he and Nolan, they’d been able to get her help in time, but he wasn’t supposed to come that close to losing her.

Fuck, this room was making him morbid.  If it was this depressing for him, only fifteen minutes into his visit, he couldn’t imagine how it felt for Evie after a month.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a small noise, watching as Evie startled awake.  Her blue eyes were impossibly wide, panicked, pushing herself upright as she tried desperately to catch her breath.

He moved fast, sitting at the top of the bed.  He helped her upright, guiding her to lean on her chest.

He wished Theo or Tinsley were there, they had always been better than him at knowing what to say, how to comfort her.  But he remembered what Nolan had showed him, exaggerating his breathing and rubbing her back until her sobs turned into hiccups, her breaths unsteady but matching his rhythm.

“Hello, sleeping beauty,” he drawled, “you fell asleep on me there.”

Evie blinked at him.

“Finn?  You’re… you’re still here?”

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for the padded cell decor.”

Evie laughed dryly, a perfect replica of her mother’s most judgemental glare as she looked around the room.

“Apparently Eric has a real room,” she said. “A real bed, blue walls, curtains… he gets to have real clothes.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what makes you so special?”

“I stole my mom’s pills, I guess.  I mean fuck, we both tried to kill ourselves but I don’t eat and wasted Lily fucking van der Woodsen’s overpriced drugs and liquor so Eric gets a hotel room and I get an asylum.”

Finn pulled her in closer at the reminder of what had become, by far, the worst day of his life.

“About that… what happened?”

“I think you know what happened.  You were there, remember?”

“Not going to forget that anytime soon.  Also not letting you avoid the question, you know what I meant.  We spent the entire day together.  Did all the tourist things you usually never ask for, you ate more than half of your dinner, we saw Legally Blonde.  It was the happiest I’d seen you in so long, Eves.  Less than twelve hours later, you’re calling me, dying on your bathroom floor.”

“Oh.  Do we need to do this?”

“Yeah, Evie, we really do.  You know how much I hate serious, emotional shit; I wouldn’t be bringing it up if we didn’t need to.”

Evie sighed, twisting until she was properly curled up in his lap, leaning her head against his chest.

“Things… haven’t been good in a while.  I don’t know…”

“Try.  I know you don’t eat, I assume most of that can be blamed on your mom and Eleanor Waldorf, we don’t need to talk about that right now.  But not eating doesn’t suddenly turn into overdosing in a hotel bathroom. Is it–" exhale. "Is it because of the appointment?”

The Appointment. Two months ago, when Evie had texted him an address and asked him to meet her there, he'd been expecting a cute brunch spot. He hadn't been expecting Planned Parenthood, one of the worst conversations of his life, or a hysterical Evie asking to hold his hand "until it's over." She had stayed with him after that, her not wanting to be alone and him not trusting Lily to actually take care of her. She'd stayed curled up in his bed for a week – thank god his father had been travelling and there'd been no questions to answer – but by the time she'd left, she seemed mostly back to her usual self. Apparently not.

“I just lost control, Finn!  It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal, and you don’t lose control.  Try again.”

“Mom was out on a date when you got dropped me off.  When I woke up, she was just coming back, said she was going out for brunch but wanted to change her clothes first, and that her date was just going to wait in the living room.”

“And then?”

“Geoffrey walked in.”

He didn’t know when Evie had started crying, but he could feel her tears seeping through his shirt.  Understandably, really.  If just hearing Geoffrey’s name sent a chill down his spine, he couldn’t imagine how it had felt for Evie to actually see the man.

“He didn’t–“

“He didn’t try anything,” Evie told him, and Finn let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  “I hid in Nolan’s room until they left.  Then he and Eric left too and… I don’t know.  I haven’t been okay in a long time and I panicked, I guess?  It wasn’t, like, a plan.  If it was a plan, I would have written a note instead of calling you.  I don’t really remember it, but then I was in my bathroom with about a dozen pill bottles and a few bottles of alcohol.  I wasn’t scared to die, but then I started thinking about the day before and how perfect it was and I didn’t want you to think anything was your fault or that you did something wrong or… I don’t know, I just needed to call you and tell you that.  You know the rest.”

He did.  In excruciating detail.

“And now, here I am.  For… I don’t know, they haven’t actually said how long but I listened to them talk to mom and they said probably a year.”

“A year?  The fuck do you mean you’re going to be here for a year?”

Evie opened her mouth, but Finn cut her off.

“Don’t tell me you’re not sure, Eves.  I know you want to act like nothing happened, but they don’t keep you here for a year for nothing.”

“I’ve been here for a month and I’m still losing weight.  I’m not trying to, they monitor everything I eat, I’m not allowed to work out, I can’t even go to a bathroom alone, but I’m still losing weight.  I don’t – I really don’t know, Finn, no one tells me anything and I only hear bits and pieces – but… I heard that, and then the next day I heard them saying I might not be able to leave.  At least a year, they said, maybe longer.”

“Evie, I–“

“I’m scared, Finn.  I hate it here.  This place makes me want to die, even more than seeing Geoffrey did.  I can’t get better here, but if I don’t get better, they won’t let me leave.”

Her tears had turned to sobs, gasping breaths, shaking in his arms.  He still didn’t know what to do, and tears still scared the shit out of him, but this was Evie.  He had to try.  He was rocking slightly, the way he’d seen Nolan do a hundred times over.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.  It’s going to be okay.”

He kissed her forehead, repeating the mantra for his sake as much as hers.

“How?”

“We’re going to get you better, together.”

“Finn.  Be serious.”

“I am serious.  We’re going to make a plan, right now, and we’re going to get you out of here.  Soon, you’re not spending a year in this hellhole.”

“Right.  You can figure out something that none of these doctors can?”

“These doctors care more about hiding your problems than actually taking care of you.  How’s the food here?”

“Disgusting.  Bland, always tastes kind of fishy even if it isn’t fish, makes Ruby Tuesday seem like the Capital Grille.”

“Which explains a lot.  You deserve better, and your body knows it.  Princesses don’t eat hospital food.”

“Wonderful speech, is there a point?”

“You’re so mean to me,” he teased, and Evie giggled.  “My point is that these so-called doctors don’t know how to feed you.  Now that you’re finally allowed visitors, I’m going to be here every day, and I’m bringing you food.  I’ll see if Nolan can do the same in the mornings, Theo will help, and you know that Tinsley will too once she’s back.”

“Finn, I don’t want to be fat.  Your idea is sweet but…”

“You could gain fifty pounds and still not be fat.  Besides, isn’t gaining a bit of weight still better than being stuck here until you turn eighteen?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

Fuck.  Look, he’d known that Evie wasn’t doing well, okay?  But maybe he hadn’t realized that it was quite this bad.

“Then I’ll make you a deal.  How much weight do you need to gain before they let you leave?”

“Fifteen pounds.” She looked nauseous at the thought.  “Minimum, and the number could go up if I keep losing weight.”

“So you don’t lose anymore weight.”

“You say that like it’s easy.  What’s your deal?”

“I’ll come here every day.  Nolan can bring you those smoothies you like for breakfast, I’ll bring you something healthy for dinner and a treat for after, and I will sit here on this disgustingly lumpy bed with you while you eat, and keep you distracted until your purging window passes.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know how you plan to take over your father’s company if you think that qualifies as a deal.”

He smirked, she was starting to sound like his Evie again.

“You’re such a brat, Evelyn van der Woodsen.  That wasn’t the deal, that’s happening either way.  The deal is that if you put on enough wait to be out of here before the masquerade ball, I’ll take you to Disney World for spring break.”

“What?  You hate Disney!  You once said that it was a gauche money trap for middle class failures to feel like they’d accomplished something with their lives and that if anyone ever saw you there, you would have to leave civilization forever.”

“I did say that.  But you love Disney movies, and you’ve wanted to go there since you were five.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ll be doing it my way, but that’s my first deal.”

“First?”

“Here’s the second: if you keep that fifteen pounds on for the entire school year, you get to plan our entire Europe trip next summer.  Where we go, what we do, what order we do it in.  I’ll go to whatever tourist traps you want, and I won’t complain when you would rather go read every single label in a museum instead of drinking on a beach.  And I’ll carry all of your shopping bags, for the entire trip.”

“Tinsley’s too.”

He should have seen that coming.

“Fine, Tinsley’s too.”

Evie beamed.  “Deal.” Then, softer, “I’ll try, at least.  And Finn?”

He tilted his head, nodding for her to continue.

“Thank you for caring.  I love you.”

Every instinct screamed for him to brush it off.  He had far surpassed his emotional quota for the day, it would have been easy to dismiss her sincerity with a cocky “I know” or “Who doesn’t?”, but he couldn’t.

That was the deal he’d made in the hospital.  When it was just he and Nolan and Eric, waiting desperately for any update.  He’d skipped past denial and anger entirely, latching onto bargaining with the faith of a man far more religious than he’d ever been.  Offering his deal to any deity, any force in the universe that could bring Evie back to him.  If she wakes up, I’ll tell her I love her every day.  I’ll make sure she never doubts how important she is to me, how much I care about her.

And, well, she had woken up.