#I will though because I'm good at sewing and it's an easy project but that's for me to do another day

[monbons]

WIP Wednesday

Posting actual WIPS on a Wednesday? Imagine that.

As long as we are all baring our hearts on tumblr, I have to admit that I have been struggling to write anything since I wrapped up Eternal Life (back in the first week of April). At first I figured I was simply burnt out since I wrote all 42k words of that fic in just about a month, but given that I've started three separate WIPS since then and made zero progress on any of them, I'm wondering if I am just out of stories. I hate all my words--even though I really love some of these concepts. So, as you may have noticed, I've been distracting myself with sewing projects because good progress is so clearly visible there...

Anywho, to motivate myself, I decided to post a snip of each today and hope that having bits out in the world will motivate me to finish at least ONE of them! All untitled. Set up and snips below the cut.

Very creatively titled "Party Robot," this WIP is a silly/fluffy one-shot inspired by an article I read a while ago about a growing trend in American weddings. This one is the furthest along and will likely see the light of day eventually...

A nervous bounce.  From a robot. I recognize that bounce. “I thought you said Shepard was working tonight.” My voice is tight. “He is.” Bunce replies, similarly strained. “What did you say he does again?” Panic rises in my chest.  “He’s in entertain–”  Whether Bunce trails off or I simply don’t hear the rest is irrelevant because the music has changed from easy dinner instrumentals to much-too-loud techno and the show is clearly starting. As the synths build, driving towards a crescendo, my brain reels with the growing realisation that Simon would never just abandon me at the last minute, would never send me anywhere alone, certainly not my cousin’s gay wedding, which is every kind of milestone given his Old Families lineage and Pitch blood specifically and– “PARTY PEOPLE!” The DJ booms into the mic. “Have the grooms got a treat for you!”

A multi-chapter AU I have lovingly nicknamed "Baz in a Bubble." It is sad and angsty and is proving significantly more difficult to execute (despite having a complete outline) than I once thought it would be. Who could have guessed having one home-bound character would make me too sad to write? Thanks to @thewholelemon and @hushed-chorus who've listened to more than their fair share of my griping about this one. Anyway, here's the first bit of BAZ POV:

There are exactly 297 stars in the sky above me. I count them while lying in my bed every night. They do not twinkle or flicker hello like real stars. Instead, they glow a constant yellowish-green that reminds me of the colour artists always make toxic sludge in the cartoons I grew up watching. It's the colour of superhuman villains and their evil plots. Of poison. Of danger. It's the colour of the plastic star stickers Fiona put up on my ceiling when I was 10 and spent the whole year crying and begging her to go outside. Just once. Just for a minute. Because I was starting to forget what fresh air smelled like or how it felt to have grass prickle against your bare feet or how the stars lit up the night sky in Hampshire. There are no stars in the middle of London. Not outside my window. Not in this room.

And then the WIP I have the least progress on (literally almost nothing) but I so desperately want to write and could really use a thought partner to help me brainstorm/plot/figure out what the hell I'm doing--- a canon divergence where Simon successfully exposes Baz as a vamp and Malcolm steps the fuck up as a father. Here's a bit of Simon POV:

It didn't matter anyway. Pitch Manor was empty. While [the Mage] ranted and raved, I wandered into Baz’s living room. The TV was still on. Peppa the Pig was playing. A half-dressed Barbie was splayed on the couch next to a small bowl of grapes, all cut in half. I picked up the doll and brushed her tangled hair out of her face.  Why didn’t I know Baz had a sister? A family that ate snacks together in front of the TV? Parents who loved him so dearly they fled their whole lives under cover of night? In the days that followed, I sat in meeting after meeting with the Coven, listening to The Mage. He demanded the casting of tracking spells, pushed through more dark creature reforms, and rambled about the miscarriage of justice and the dangers of harbouring monsters.  But Baz wasn’t a monster.  He was just a boy.  A scared boy.  A boy who ran because he wanted to live. 

Anyway...here's to accountability via tumblr. Maybe once I've slept for several weeks and feel more refreshed I won't be so frustrated by every word I know, or more precisely, all the beautiful ones I can’t seem to find…

Thanks for the tag @bookish-bogwitch. Cannot wait to devour the new chapter of BPD!

Hellos and high-fives to all. May your words (and art) be faring better than mine: @raenestee, @cutestkilla, @roomwithanopenfire, @facewithoutheart

@emeryhall, @artsyunderstudy, @aristocratic-otter, @larkral, @rimeswithpurple

@drowninginships, @valeffelees, @shrekgogurt, @blackberrysummerblog, @iamamythologicalcreature

@run-for-chamo-miles, @thehoneyedhufflepuff, @arthurkko, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @youarenevertooold

@beastmonstertitan, @supercutedinosaurs, @rbkzz, @fiend-for-culture, @theearlgreymage

@brilla-brilla-estrellita, @skeedelvee, @ic3-que3n, @talentpiper11, @ivelovedhimthroughworse

#words words words and not a fic to show for it #if eternal life is my last fic at least it is a damn good one to go out on #if you would like to suggest a sewing project for me to procrastinate with i am open for business #gonna go crawl back into bed in the meantime #wip wednesday

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I finally got a kimono (long story) and tried it on for the first time just a bit ago and I'm like "Ah. Hmm. I think this should be my entire wardrobe now actually."

#i talk #it's frickin COMFY #I just need a bunch of kimonos to wear around the house I wouldn't wear them outside #I didn't even tie the obi well and this thing doesn't even FIT me (too long) but frick dude. I was made to wear this #bro how the frick did I grow up with Japanese students #studied Japanese for 7 + years #WENT to Japan #and taught Japanese students #and am only NOW wearing a kimono for the first time???? #bruh #anyways the TLDR of it: it's an antique I got for super cheap because I'm an Ebay champion #I need to repair one sleeve a bit but it's such a minor repair it doesn't even matter if I didn't repair it #I will though because I'm good at sewing and it's an easy project but that's for me to do another day #I am EXHAUSTED

[spockandawe]

Here we go! I have some smaller books to share as well, but I've been absolutely VIBRATING with excitement to share a BIG one, and I'm going to indulge myself and post that today, then figure out words for the rest. Because I bound a new cnovel. Check it out, guys, I bound jwqs/clear and muddy loss of love :D

Let me indulge myself and backtrack a little! First, these are quarto books, so they're short. But I think these average a little under 500 pages each, and jwqs is a LONG book (my beloved), and this adds up to a total eleven inches of lesbians. More like twelve once they're in their cases. It's over a million characters in Chinese and I think the English translation comes in somewhere around 890k, it's HUGE

Making these books was SO FUN, I hadn't read jwqs and still haven't, and will probably read on my phone when I do. I don't have any exciting photos of the typesetting, but I knew this was an imperial succession story, and that made me nervous, those stories don't always click for me. Well, the process of typesetting and adding footnotes for this beast definitely confirmed that I'm going to have a good time with this thing when I have the time to read it, but there was also so much going on that only the vaguest of spoilers sank in. I went into an absolute FRENZY of typesetting, and after I printed, cut and folded it, well. That was one afternoon of sewing. You're looking at the reason I'm scrambling to make up a few hours of missed work, hahaha

After that, I needed cases. At the very beginning of march, I received a shipment of some FASCINATING bookcloth. It's called Duo, and it's made by layering a thin gauzy fabric of one color over paper of a different color. Depending on the combos, you get a really cool range of color-shifting effects. And they've gone out of production! But I was part of a group order to get some of the goods, and hadn't yet finished a new project. Reader, I went for it.

That purple and green is bananas!!!! It's so hard to photograph, this midnight picture of a few cases is one of my most successful attempts to capture the full range up close. Originally I'd been thinking of trying to evoke imperial gold, but I figured this was still the kind of drama and luxury suited the book, and also something something the hidden colors suited Qi Yan's character. I tied it back a little to the imperial gold with the endpapers, then titled them in silver foil, since the endpapers had silver in them.

But once the books were made, I felt like it wanted something... more. Something like a BOX!

And me, I chase novelty. A set this large would be tricky for anything clamshell, but a slipcase for all seven would leave books tipping all over if it was wide open, but putting walls between slots would be demanding in terms of precision and would risk similarly-sized books getting stuck in the wrong slots. Then I remembered learning about slipcases where you could put in a little insert to support the weight of the text block, and the concept SNAPPED into place.

Colors aren't going to photograph well at midnight, but I made the supports using the scraps and off-cuts from my endpapers, to tie it back into the bindings. The back of the case is lined in more of the duo, and the walls are lined with a faux leather bookcloth I like a lot, it feels buttery smooth and seemed like a good neutral material to tie the papers and bookcloth together. I listened to some of the DEEPEST layers from the nine-hour conspiracy theory iceberg video while I was working on this, haha, it was a TRIP.

And in the end, each of the supports is sized to comfortably sit in the smallest of the volumes, and evenly spaced, so I believe it will take the books in any order with no problems. It's easy to grab the books without having to cut notches into the walls to grab them from. And even though weight is less of an issue for quarto sizing, the books in here have their weight supported no matter what angle the box is at! I'm so, so pleased with how this concept worked out and definitely plan to do more with it in the future.

So there we are! Jing Wei Qing Shang! I had such a fabulous time with this project, and I'm so excited to get to share it with all of you. The story was fun to work with, the bindings and box were fun to make, and everything here came together just as well as I could possibly have hoped. I'm so proud of this, and incredibly, incredibly excited to show it to you!

#crafts #bookbinding #box making #oh boy what is this story tagged #jwqs #jing wei qing shang #clear and muddy loss of love #I'll pick one to stick with later 😂 #long post/ #so proud of this one!

[balkanradfem]

Mending a bag with a broken zipper

So if you've never replaced a broken zipper, it might seem like a daunting task, but it's actually very easy. I've only done it once, on a jacket, with no tutorial, and it worked perfectly, and looked awesome. So I am very confident I can do it right.

The scariest part is just removing the old zipper. It feels wrong to rip your garment or bag apart, especially if you don't feel like you're capable of putting it back together, but one needs to keep in mind that the garment can't be used unless you do it, and this is for the best.

(My gardening bag, made out of canvas, has 7 pockets, but the main zipper stopped working.)

First thing to do is to see if you have a good zipper to use as a replacement. Zippers are actually expensive to buy, but you can easily accumulate tons of them by simply removing the zippers from old pieces of clothing you no longer want. I also get clothing from other people who don't want it, and if it's completely ungiftable and useless, I will cut out all of the zippers, elastics, buttons and any decorative stuff that could potentially be used elsewhere. That's why I have a good collection of free zippers! Here's what I found I could use:

I've decided on the lowest, black zipper, just because it was the smallest and I wouldn't have to cut much off, I can use the bigger zippers for bigger projects. I don't care what color it is, as long as it works. I was also contemplating using a fun green color for the project, to highlight that it was a mend and to make the bag more colorful, but the brown thread was so perfectly suited for the bag, I ended up going with the more boring option.

Now how to get the zipper off? I turned the bag inside out to see better how it's connected. I needed to find the thread that connects it to the outside of the bag, and you see that light thread at the edge between the bag and the zipper?

That's whats holding it together. So I cut that thread and started picking it off, and once you manage to rip a few seams, the zipper starts to separate and come off. Sometimes violence can work in this situation, if you have a very sturdy fabric, you can just pull them apart. But in my case, the inner lining is pretty fragile and was starting to tear when I pulled hard, so I just patiently cut it off little by little. Seam ripper would work great in this situation, but I don't have one so I just made it work with scissors.

And the zipper came out! Here's a comparison from old zipper to new, new is slightly bigger but it won't be a problem, bigger zippers can always be trimmed. You can also see how the zipper was connected to the canvas fabric on the outer side, and there's also lining fabric on the inside that's now loose. So far so good!

Now is the part where potential mistakes are possible; I need to remember that the bag is inside out, so the opening part of the zipper needs to be facing inwards, and it also needs to go the direction all other zippers on the bag are going (I later realized I messed this up, oops.)

I'm now lining it up with the bag, and even though usually I'm too impatient to pin stuff, I yield and acknowledge that in this situation, the zipper needs pins in order to be sewn on evenly. This is actually the part where some choices can be made; you can decide how much of the zipper will be shown outside! You can sew it on so that only the zipping part is visible from the outside, or give it a wider margin so you can see the zipper fabric too. If you're sewing with a flimsy fabric, it's best to give it a wide margin, because soft and flimsy fabrics can often get stuck in a zipper if they're sewn on too close. My canvas fabric cannot get stuck, so I'm pinning it pretty close, but later in the process I did give it a bit more of a margin, because it 'felt right'.

I've started sewing it on!

So about the edges, if your zipper doesn't have a stopper there, or if it's too long and you've cut the edge off, you need to sew the both sides together, so that the zip cannot zoom over the edge and fall out. This is something I've done on both sides, to make sure it's secure, and it doesn't need to be tidy, only very firm and impossible to break apart. I'm hand-sewing it with a continuous stitch, which is very easy and it looks nice enough. At this point I completely neglected the lining and I'm just sewing it onto the outer fabric, but this is okay, I decided it was easier to ignore the lining for now, and just focus on making sure it looks nice from the outside.

Here you can see me stitching all the way to the other side, and again firmly stitching the both sides of the zipper together, so they can't break apart. Then I turned the bag back from inside out, to see how it looked on the outer side, and it looks good, this isn't professionally made, but it looks well done! I decided to then pin and stitch the other part while having the bag turned correctly, so I could see exactly what I was doing from the outside, while again, ignoring the lining.

And now the outside part is completely done! It looks so good, partly because the bag is a little faded, but the zipper looks new and well preserved, so this is like an upgrade for her. Here I'm now turning it again inside out, to fix what I've ignored before; the length of the zipper, and the inner lining.

I finally cut off the extra length, it's already sewn up and I'm happy with it, so I'm sure I can safely cut off the extra. On the second to last picture you can see the lining is all over the place and not even reaching the zipper, that's completely fine because I can easily stitch it to the zipper in about 3 minutes. It would have been a nightmare trying to stitch it all in one go and constantly worrying if both the lining and the outer canvas are in the correct position, this way I had an easy time stitching it to the canvas, and only a few minutes of easy extra stitching to make sure lining is all connected. I only pierced the zipper with this stitch, not all the way to the canvas, so this little fix is completely invisible and it doesn't matter if it's not the neatest.

And here we go! The bag is fully functional, completely ready to be used and enjoyed again, with her new flawless zipper, and I think this was a great way to spend an hour of my time.

#mending #sewing #diy #fixing a bag #zipper sewing #zipper #visible mending #canvas bag

[snek-panini]

I'm trying to get the last of my Binderary projects posted, so today we have books #8 and 9, Fault Lines by Marabelle123. This is a long canon compliant Good Omens fic (pre-second season) that I've had on my to-bind list since I started making books three years ago. It's unfinished and had its most recent update in early 2020, but based on how the existing story feels I'm fairly sure it was close to the end and feels complete enough to be satisfying. It's very in character and captures a lot of the specific feeling from the pre-miniseries fandom, that the relationship between the leads defies all definition. They're as close as it's possible to be and their relationship has teeth sometimes but their bond is as undefinable as it is unbreakable. Give it a read if that sounds like your thing; it's excellent.

The cover for this one is made of two colors of faux leather, cut at a diagonal with no overlap, with the title in silver foil htv. I've never done a cover like this before but I'm in love with the result. It feels very sleek and sexy and modern compared to the more vintage elements I usually favor. And I didn't have enough of either leather to do two full books, but I still wanted to use them and have the volumes match. I think it was an elegant solution.

More pics under the cut! I tried some new stuff with this one.

You may have noticed above that this is a Coptic bind, my favorite for unfinished fics because of the "out" option it leaves. If the author ever returns to it and posts more chapters it would be fairly easy to take out the stitching and add more signatures. I still stand by this motivation, but after a silence of four years and no response from the author when I reached out for permission to bind it I'm reasonably sure this is it for the story. That let me try out some stuff I'd be reluctant to do if I was planning to add pages. Have a look at the spines:

Sadly I couldn't make the page count work with a single volume, since you can't do much to mitigate spine swell in a Coptic bind, but the volume split let me do some long stitches in the center that look like wings. There are plot-relevant feathers in the fic, so it's fitting. I thought of sewing one of them in white for that sweet Good Omens balance feeling, but I didn't think it would pop against the white paper and would leave the set looking unbalanced so I stuck with black on both. To get the pattern right I cut out a wing shape the same width as the spine and traced it and poked holes for the outline, then flipped it for the second volume so they'd be mirrored. You can also see that I did something different at the head and tail, more visible here:

This is a Coptic endband. I found out these existed a couple of months ago and absolutely had to try them. They're woven into the signatures and cover with a separate thread, after the rest of the stitching is done, and they're supposed to add some stability to the wiggly spine that you always get with these books. Unlike other types of endband, they don't have a core. I had a lot of trouble with them and had to pull out the first one and redo it with a different thread (embroidery floss is better than crochet thread for this) but I have no regrets about the finished product. They do stabilize the spine some, though not as much as I'd have liked. I really like how they (and the longstitch section) dress up a Coptic spine. I've always thought the plain ones were a little lackluster for how much work they are, but I love all the texture and interest this one has. Would absolutely not do black on black again though. Very hard to keep track of which thread I was supposed to sew under against a black background. I'll be using a contrasting color next time.

Interior photos. The doublure on the inside of the cover is a striped lokta (I think; it's been a while since I bought it). The title page image is a free-to-use image that I found on I think Vecteezy. Unsurprisingly, given its title, a big theme in this one is underlying cracks and misalignments that the characters don't realize are there until there's a massive disturbance, and that's why I had the text on both the title page and the cover not line up. Things are slipping, things are cracking, and there's extra work to be done on both sides if you're going to stabilize or rebuild. Comparatively, the typeset is quite plain and simple, with only two fonts, no chapter header image, and no section break images unless the break falls on the last line of a page, in which case there's one gray line. I think it's well-suited to the story; there is a bit with an illuminated manuscript, but mostly the characters are busy introspecting in between managing crises. They don't have the time or the energy to dress things up prettily.

And that's it on Fault Lines! As I mentioned earlier, I reached out to the author on Ao3 for permission to bind but never received a response, so I really hope they don't mind that I made these. I love their fic, and I love the bind I made.

#bookbinding #fanbinding #snek makes books #good omens #fic rec #there were a lot of new things and a lot of challenges with this set #it was so worth the frustration though #one more binderary post after this #and then i can finally start my new projects #i'm so ready to make more books

[sergeantsporks]

Hi sporks! This is kiiinda a weird ask but do you have any ideas/resources for beginners learning to sew?

I know you've been at it for awhile, and idk where else to look lol

Oooo, okay, so I have Resources for Free Patterns

CholyKnight has a bunch of free patterns, and they're also rated by difficulty, so you can find ones that work for your skill level. There's also some explanations of how to do sewing stuff like darts and whatnot. Definitely great for beginners.

Mood Sewcity, more free patterns

Free Sewing, Patterns, these you can adjust with your measurements

Fleece Fun, these are relatively simple. It's where I got my cloak pattern. You do have to sign up for emails, but lots of patterns for free, and fleece is relatively inexpensive. Fleece is pretty good for starters, too, because it's a relatively strong fabric that doesn't fray but isn't too thick to sew through

As far as actual resources for learning, I don't really have much because I was taught to sew by my older sister and my mom, and I figured most other stuff out on my own. So I made some short things of basic stitching stuff

This one is called a running stitch. It's the first one I learned, and is really easy. Just back and forth through the fabric. I made the stitches pretty big here and in opposite colors from the cloth for visual reasons, but you want to pick thread closer to your cloth color, and the smaller your stitches are, the stronger they'll be. There is an exception to this, it's called "basting" and it's basically doing the running stitch but really big and loose. It's supposed to be temporary and just holds pieces in place until you do something else

This is just a way to anchor your running stitch with a knot. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do this, but I'm paranoid about my stitches coming out, and when you're doing it by hand as a beginner, they probably WILL come out, so. Yeah.

This one's called a "whip stitch" (I learned recently. I've been doing it for ages, didn't know the name). You're basically popping the edges together and sewing in little circles around them.

This one is a ladder stitch/slip stitch/invisible stitch, and I'm doing it kind of messily here, but the objective is to make your stitch invisible when you pull it tight. You're sort of sewing on the "inside" of the fabric, folding it over and making the thread go behind the fold so it's hidden, then pulling it over to the other side. I use this one to close up my plushies mostly.

Other Random Tips and Stuff:

A "seam allowance" is how much extra cloth you can put on the other side of the seam

You don't need a special cutting board/table for your fabric, I literally just use the floor or the kitchen table

Tacky glue is great for tiny pieces you don't want to sew, like eye shines. It does take some time to dry, though. I put books on top of the fabric to press it together. It will wash out, though, so don't use it on things you intend to throw in the wash

Get pretty good at hand sewing before you try messing with a sewing machine

Fabric scissors really do make a difference in cutting from regular scissors

If you look up "free fabric samples" a lot of cloth places will send you a few little squares of fabric. These are great for practicing and also figuring out different materials, and you don't have to pay for them

Felt is also pretty inexpensive and you can get it at most craft stores, even if they don't sell fabric by the yard. It's also good for details on plushies, like eyes. It is scratchy, though.

Pins are very helpful, but watch out because they will stab you

Little details and things are usually easier to sew by hand rather than machine, especially if there's curves on it. It's just not worth the hassle.

If you're making a plushie, pull the stuffing apart before you stuff it, or the stuffing isn't as soft/it clumps up.

Don't start with a huge major sewing clothes project. My first sewing stuff was making dresses for my barbies when I was 10 and they were literally just tubes with straps on them. I was pleased with this. Trying a big project first will probably just be frustrating, so get used to basic sewing stuff first.

Yeah, I think that's most of it! Let me know if you have any other questions or let me know what you end up making! Other sewing people feel free to add on

#sorry that the ladder stitch one is so fast. it wouldn't let me save as a gif unless it was short. #asks #sewing

[callmejudgement]

UA University Script

About Me

Name: Mako 魔子

Trickmaster hero – Miss.Magician

Age: 18

Birthday: ??? Letting fate decide fr.

Height: 5ft 7in

Quirk: Magician - which provides me with 8 tricks to fool reality. Flame jumping,illusions, historical projections, damage transfer, steel card, air bullets, paper figurine substitutes, underwater breathing trick (more on my quirk here)

Physical abilities: incredible balance, coordination, flexibility and agility. Danger intuition.

Backstory: I literally just grew up in a happy family. Living rich and lavish. My dad is a retired top pro hero and my mom is an underground hero that works for the government. I have an older sister following in my mom’s footsteps and older brother whom is a researcher. My family often trains together and we do a lot of family activities together. I’ve been friends with Shinso since middle school and I was close with Shotō for like a year in elementary school. We’re literally twins with our heterophobia and dual color hair 👁️👅👁️.

My goal in this reality it literally to be my silliest, most autistic self. Literally me if I never started masking so people wouldn’t call me weird.

Plot (or the lack there of)

The war arc doesn’t happen. I’m not dealing with allat.

Bakugou doesn’t get kidnapped and faces appropriate consequences for his actions and behavior (I’m talking about him being a bully).

The other students quirks are stronger (I hate that Bakugou had it easy. I’m a purebred hater).

Momo was trained and is more skilled at using her quirk (she’s rich why didn’t her parents hire a trainer for her canonically?)

Tenko’s mom leaves with the grandparents and his sister before he loses control. He now attends UA.

OFA is still out there plotting I guess.

Fusions (borrowed idea from priicklleshifts on tiktok).

Overhaul is good and works at UA in support heroes/medical.

Eri is not abused and has a decent relationship with Chisaki even though he is an overworking germaphobe.

Events like the sports festival only starts to happen at the second trimester (bc why tf did it happen on like the 2nd week of school?)

Japan

Due to its high safety and previously low birth rate, Japan now has many immigrants from all over

Super high tech I’m talking holographic screens, robots in the streets, virtual reality, etc

There’s a National and international tournament where schools compete to see who has the best upcoming heroes.

UA

UA is a university because why are them kids fighting?

Amenities

Along with what appears in the anime there is:

A spa on campus that is free for hero course students. They offer normal and medical massages, mud baths, meditation, sauna, steam room, lounge, ice fountain, treatment rooms and other beauty and wellness services (yes, I'm going to abuse this).

There is practically an extra little town on the mountain with the school due to all the school amenities and staff.

Massive library with study rooms n stuff.

Lots of school festivals, dances and other events.

Classes

UA Departments: Hero, Support (fashion, tech, etc), Business, Gen Ed.

There’s home room which is where you spend most of your time. We do gen Ed and hero law stuff with our home room.

Students can take any electives ranging from costume design to home ec, Solo training to costume engineering.

Students are encouraged to try out things through electives and clubs.

There are free lifestyle classes on weekends so you can take a quick class on cooking, sewing, gardening, first aid without the commitment or worry of grades.

Everyone gets a free holographic tablet thing for the schedule, note taking and to access the school app thing.

The app lets us access the dorms if we don’t have a physical I’d on us, order at the school restaurants with free delivery from the campus delivery bots. It’s just has a bunch of handy features.

Class 1A

Shinso replaces mineta.

There are also 5 exchange/international students in our class.

We go on a few international field trips throughout the year.

There’s a pool table and conversation pit in the dorm.

Mina is blasian, Midoriya is half Yemeni and Sero is Latino because I said so.

Merch

School spirit became a big thing with the influence of American immigrants and exchange students (America ya! :D).

UA has school jackets, shirts, jerseys, etc.

The gym uniforms come in different styles and lengths to suit the wearer.

Food

Instead of one lunchroom there are many dining halls around campus. If you’re a boarding student then food is free.

The restaurants have a certain numbers of items you can pick from to create a reasonable meal. Anything extra you have to pay for.

Some of the halls have larger portions or all-you-can-eat to accommodate for stunner quirks and different bodies.

Diverse food culture. (Indian, American, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and other style foods)

There are mini break rooms around campus for students to relax,study or mingle between classes. They have free snacks (onigiri, chips, fruit, juice,etc).

There are self driving busses that drive students to the area in 10min max.

There’s also food trucks on campus (I am not being greedy. This is 100% necessary).

#mha shifting #shiftblr #shifting community #reality shifting

[thousand-winters]

I think dadrius fans are sleeping on the comedic potential of post-canon Hunter getting jealous over Darius giving nicknames to other kids.

Not Hunter's close friends of course, he would think that's funny and cool, but for example someone like Jerbo. Hunter gets back from a school break vacation in the Human Realm, and Jerbo had started helping with the sigil removal project and already got a nickname. And Hunter is super mad because Jerbo has anti-authoritarian tendencies + knows abomination magic = is Hunter being replaced by a better white boy? (that happens at the point post canon where Hunter wouldn't actually for real believe it, but he is still very much a passive-agressive teenager about it)

I think we're sleeping on the comedic potential because we're all too used to thinking about angst when it comes to literally any scenario lmao 😭 I'm blaming Hunter for this one, he just makes it too easy.

Honestly it's so funny because the way I picture Darius and Hunter's relationship post-canon is that Darius is such a whipped dad that while there's definitely a lot of teasing, as evidenced by that intense hair ruffle in the epilogue, and playfully snarky comments, he probably is far softer on Hunter than he is with literally anybody else, Eberwolf very much included because Darius is very much like Eda when it comes to expressing his affection. Raine can attest to that.

So he probably was like that during their sewing lessons at the castle as well, it's only once the adoption becomes official that he starts being more openly soft because he can afford to without blowing his rebel cover like before, and he has a very traumatized teenage boy in his hands who certainly could use the sincerity when it comes to him expressing his mushy parental feelings.

That's all well and good. Hunter loves being the exception to Darius' rule about how to show he cares. Being Darius' little prince who's absolutely getting a big, obnoxious cheek kiss with a loud "mwah" at least once a week because Darius likes teasing him in the corniest of ways but also does mean the affection.

It's good. It really is.

But then people like Jerbo come along and Hunter sees Darius teasing him with that playful snark that was so characteristic of him at the beginning of their bond and he's immediately grumpy and suspicious about it.

It's not like he has lost that, it's just that Darius is softer with him and it was never a problem until it is.

"Wow, Darius, how come you don't call me a little shit while smiling at me and payfully patting my back before we go our separate ways? Isn't it so interesting how that happens? 🙃". He's raging, he's seething, he's glaring at Jerbo whenever he sees him over Darius' shoulder because he's being hugged at this exact moment and poor Jerbo doesn't understand if Hunter thinks he did something to Darius or what's wrong with him. It's always problems with the Emerald Entrails, who's next? Gus???

Darius ends up finding out about it, of course, because Hunter is tragically bad at hiding his emotions, especially now that he doesn't have to keep up an act and it's been a while since he has to, and he finds it terribly amusing but of course he has to clarify that he doesn't plan on replacing Hunter. He's not too sure about calling Hunter a little shit though, but increasing the amount of playful teasing is something that can be arranged.

Hunter is probably a little ridiculous about it, he still wants to cuddle with Darius on the couch while shooting snippy remarks back and forth and that's a very valuable form of bonding to him. Darius is equally as ridiculous so it works out fine.

#hunter deamonne #darius deamonne #dadrius #the owl house #toh #sorry jerbo you're the collateral damage here

[shannyh25]

When Matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman was required to cope with the situation. Marilla was out of the question. Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once. Remained only Mrs. Lynde; for of no other woman in Avonlea would Matthew have dared to ask advice. To Mrs. Lynde he went accordingly, and that good lady promptly took the matter out of the harassed man's hands.

Pick out a dress for you to give Anne? To be sure I will. I'm going to Carmody to-morrow and I'll attend to it. Have you something particular in mind? No? Well, I'll just go by my own judgment then. I believe a nice rich brown would just suit Anne, and William Blair has some new gloria in that's real pretty. Perhaps you'd like me to make it up for her, too, seeing that if Marilla was to make it Anne would probably get wind of it before the time and spoil the surprise? Well, I'll do it. No, it isn't a mite of trouble. I like sewing. I'll make it to fit my niece, Jenny Gillis, for she and Anne are as like as two peas as far as figure goes."

"Well now, I'm much obliged," said Matthew, "and — and — I dunno — but I'd like — I think they make the sleeves different nowadays to what they used to be. If it wouldn't be asking too much I — I'd like them made in the new way."

"Puffs? Of course. You needn't worry a speck more about it, Matthew. I'll make it up in the very latest fashion," said Mrs. Lynde. To herself she added when Matthew had gone:

"It'll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing something decent for once. The way Marilla dresses her is positively ridiculous, that's what, and I've ached to tell her so plainly a dozen times. I've held my tongue though, for I can see Marilla doesn't want advice and she thinks she knows more about bringing children up than I do for all she's an old maid. But that's always the way. Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three — just set your three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct. But flesh and blood don't come under the head of arithmetic and that's where Marilla Cuthbert makes her mistake. I suppose she's trying to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by dressing her as she does; but it's more likely to cultivate envy and discontent. I'm sure the child must feel the difference between her clothes and the other girls'. But to think of Matthew taking notice of it! That man is waking up after being asleep for over sixty years."

Marilla knew all the following fortnight that Matthew had something on his mind, but what it was she could not guess, until Christmas Eve, when Mrs. Lynde brought up the new dress. Marilla behaved pretty well on the whole, although it is very likely she distrusted Mrs. Lynde's diplomatic explanation that she had made the dress because Matthew was afraid Anne would find out about it too soon if Marilla made it.

"So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and grinning about to himself for two weeks, is it?" she said a little stiffly but tolerantly. "I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I must say I don't think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three good, warm, serviceable ones this fall, and anything more is sheer extravagance. There's enough material in those sleeves alone to make a waist, I declare there is. You'll just pamper Anne's vanity, Matthew, and she's as vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she'll be satisfied at last, for I know she's been hankering after those silly sleeves ever since they came in, although she never said a word after the first. The puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they're as big as balloons now. Next year anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways." Lucy Maud Montgomery quotes- Anne Of Green Gables.

Follow me for more inspiration! 💜💕

#anne of green gables #anne shirley cuthbert #matthew cuthbert #follow for updates #follow for follow

[hms-tardimpala]

Years ago, I went to an elementary school that was legit run by a museum. Like, they would display collections at our school when it wasn't on display at the museum and we learned a lot of weird and random things through hands-on projects. The one that always gets a big reaction is our 1st grade science project had us mummify a duck.

Anyway, one of the things we learned to do was very basic bookbinding, but it was taught to us sort of as a historical, people don't bind books like this anymore, type of thing. I stumbled upon some dead blogs last year showing finished, bound fics and I was so excited to learn that, no, this is still A Thing That People Do

Now, I've been pointed to you as someone active in the craft and your work is lovely. I particularly loved your binding of A Complete Kingdom by absolute legend Komodobits. It was so clean and the colors were lovely and your lighthouse motif was spot-on.

I want to learn bookbinding, too, but I'm not sure where to start. Any advice? How did you get started? What tools or materials do you wish you'd invested more in sooner? What did you wish you'd known before you got started? I would appreciate your insight and perspective.

First of all, thank you so much for reaching out. I apologize for the time it took me to answer you: I was overwhelmed. I didn't know I'd really been noticed. Thank you for your lovely compliments, they filled me with joy <3

I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability, even though I still see myself as a beginner (I started in july 2022).

I started by stumbling upon this video. It served as an introduction to some basic bookbinding steps and gestures, and the stitch shown here to sew the spine is still the one I use to this day. It will only show you how to repurpose an existing cover to bind a fic in, however.

Wanting to make the whole book myself, I looked for another way to learn and found this book. And it's so good that I haven't needed to find another source of information since then. At the time I bought it, it was easy to find and not to expensive in my country, but I don't know what its situation is today where you are.

I know others learned through youtube tutorials like Sea Lemon's or DAS bookbinding's, but I didn't go that way, so I don't have recommendations.

What I can recommend is checking out ArmoredSuperHeavy's blog (their pinned post contains a link to the free bookbinding manual they made, which seems to contain the same things I learned from my book). They created the Renegade Bindery discord server. It's a wealth of knowledge and a very welcoming place (I tried it but left because I'm not good at navigating big servers, but that's just me). That's the beating heart of the bookbinding community, in my opinion.

You can get started with very rough tools, if you're not sure you want to invest right away. There are perfectly decent bookbinding kits online that will generally contain a plastic bone folder, an awl, needles and thread, and that's enough to get started. A simple cotton or linen thread waxed by pulling across a candle works great. I bought pieces of pleather made for home decor to start with, and I'm glad I did because you're always gonna make mistakes when you start, and ruining good fabric feels terrible. But now fabric is the thing I invest in the most. I buy my bookbinding cloth from Schmedt (warning: it's expensive, and may not be the most practical for you depending on where you are in the world) and I'm slowly gathering a collection of varied colors.

If you buy good tools and good fabric from the start, don't be disappointed when your first creations don't look as good as the ones you see on tumblr. You'll have to learn and get good in order to use your tools and materials to their full potential.

The great thing about bookbinding is that you learn at least one new thing every book.

I'm thinking about your questions. There's not really something I wish I'd known before I started, I think I elvolved in the most organic way as a bookbinder. As dumb as it sounds, my best advice is: try stuff, and make plenty of mistakes. Mistakes are the most efficient and fastest teachers.

Don't waste money on a small shitty guillotine if you think you're gonna buy a real one in the future (my ream cutter cost 100€, it's very good, I needn't have bothered with a 50€ one before), you're under no obligation to trim your books.

You're under no obligation to buy a Cricut to make your books look like those you see on tumblr, with vinyll titles.

WATCH OUT! SCALPELS AND BOX CUTTERS ARE HUNGRY FOR YOUR FINGERTIPS AND THEY'LL FOOL YOU INTO THINKING YOU'VE DOMESTICATED THEM. NEVER EVER TRUST A BLADE.

I don't quite know what to add. I hope this was at least a little helpful, and not just useless rambling. Thank you againg for your lovely message, and I hope you have lots of fun <3

#ask #my bookbinding #good luck comrade!

[negative-ease]

cast off!!!! cast! off!!!

greetings from hell. Let's call it Finishing School. I have been working hard to finish old projects so I can start something new. (And also... and mainly... just... for the sake of it.) Both pictured are from 2019.

Finishing School reminds me why I started gravitating only to projects in the round. This sucks. I hate it! Sewing knitwear sucks, I never remember to do selvedge, I joined this whole twist crop front thing with a crochet slip stitch because, I don't know, it just seemed more doable (emotionally) even though it doesn't look greeeeat.

About the first pic: I got too ambitious with blocking yesterday and ran out of t-pins and almost ran out of straight pins! Having the dehumidifier going downstairs (we're in a split-level) is great because things dry very fast. The baby sweater should be totally dry tomorrow and then the armpits will be kitchenered together (good, easy, looks tidy) and then it's just button bands which, whatever, seems fine.

Anyway, this varigated thing -- when we lived in LA we used to do Thanksgiving in Big Bear, where my sister's in-laws lived. It was always a really nice time. My sister's mother-in-law and I bonded over knitting and one year went to a great local yarn store up there, where I picked up this project for something to do.

Mostly I remember working on it in bed while chatting with my parents for hours at a time when COVID hit and we were all isolating. The yarn (Queensland Sunshine Coast) is a really pleasing bamboo/merino blend that feels surprisingly plush in this Irish moss stitch. It's single-ply and so the weight varied WILDLY but the pattern - which came from one of those brand print outs you get for free when you buy the yarn - is pretty loosey-goosey so that was ok.

After joining everything up I have two problems. One, I don't like the "sleeves", which seem incredibly unnecessary to begin with. So I can either take them out and re-sew them NOT using slip stitch, or take them out and instead do a separate edge and keep it sleeveless. Or just live with it, which is of course what I will do to begin with because path of least resistance.

The other issue is it's just... it's way too big. Way too much positive ease (a first for me so I am mostly amused?). This is as a result of blocking. The pattern says "block". It provides ZERO measurements. Could I have deduced the measurements? Probably! Did I? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I ended up overstretching the back (the front, which twists, did not get blocked) and the shoulders didn't quite line up and... it's weird.

What I'm going to do is add buttons to the sides so I can sort of cinch the bottom at my waist and according to my mirror that will look good. I will enlist my mom to help with this. That's the plan. It's meant to go over a black long-sleeved shirt. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be better than it currently is.

As far as the baby sweater goes, that's a story for another day (it isn't finished yet!!!!) or never. I'm hard pressed to think of another object that has brought as much shame or clarity to my life. But soon I shall be rid of it. And in the meantime it is so frikkin cute :')

#cast off #finishing school #knitting #hand crafted

[astercontrol]

SOOOOO I was not expecting to end up having a Tron-sona but here we are

I have chosen my program name:

Aster.

It came to me in the same... overcomplex, interconnected sort of way that ideas usually come to me.

(buckle up for a wild ride into how my brain works!)

There are many different aspects to why it fits. Here are some, in no particular order:

Means "star." Of course I've always felt a connection to stars and outer space. My first love was Star Trek and it's still right up there.

Aster is also where the word "asterisk" comes from. An asterisk is a cool design that would be easy for me to work into circuit-patterns on a suit--- I'm already designing it in my head!

The appearance of an asterisk is also meaningful for me, because it looks like several lines connecting at one point... and you KNOW how my brain loves to connect things (case in point, this whole post)

An asterisk is used in writing to indicate a footnote-- again, just like my brain going off on a tangent!

What the asterisk means in programming (wildcard, stand-in for "anything") is one of the few programming things I have actual experience with beyond HTML, because it's used in GREP commands, which I use for mass-editing a whole lot of HTML pages at once.

In ASCII, the asterisk is represented by 42, which is my age at this pivotal moment in my life.

There was a whole fan theory that this was Douglas Adams' reasoning behind 42 being the meaning of life... if the answer to the Great Question is an asterisk, then that means "whatever you want it to be." (Douglas Adams denied this, and insisted that the number was chosen at random. Which means that connection happened just BY COINCIDENCE, which I like even better!)

And that meaning fits me too, because I AM a wildcard who can do a WHOLE lot of different things.

(One of which is sewing... the pun "Poly-Aster" is relevant to my fabric crafts, and to the fact that I can ALSO do a whole lot of different partners, lol)

Aster rhymes with Castor who may be my favorite character in Legacy.

Also starts with the sound of "ass" and y'know how I love sexy butts.

(an asterisk also kinda looks like a butthole, though that's really not so relevant to my appreciation of Tron-style program butts)

...Of course, there are programmers all over the real world, and they've got more projects going than there are words in any language...

...so GOOD LUCK finding a name that isn't already taken by some boring RL program...

BUT, the RL program called ASTER is also pleasingly relevant.

It is something called "multiseat software," which isn't anywhere near my own meager programming experience... HOWEVER:

- "multiseat" sounds like it could mean "lots of butts" and that's very cool with me

- what it actually does is allow multiple people to connect to one computer at once... which SORTA resonates with what this identity of mine is for... (interfacing with my peeps online)

Still need to figure out just what sorta job my program-self would have in the Encom system. But needless to say it would be something very versatile, involving connections.

#tron oc #tron 1982 #long rambling #tronblr #tron

[cosy-crafty-corner]

Tutorial: Hanging Wire Necklace

In this post, I'm going to explain how to make a hanging wire necklace. I don't know if there's an actual term for this style of necklace, but the idea is that you have beads on wires that can hang freely from the necklace. Very good for fidgeting with.

This is a really simple project that can look extremely effective.

What you need:

Headpins jewellery findings. Ball head or flat head are both fine. These are essentially straight lengths of wire with something wide at one end, which is what will hold your beads in place. They don't end in a point the way that, say, sewing pins would. You can usually buy them in packs of several hundred - and inevitably find that a large number of them are bent from rattling around in the packaging when it comes time to use them.

Decorative beads of your choice. I'm using rainbow acrylic beads, but really your only requirement is that the hole is big enough to go over the pin, but not so big that the bead can pass over the head.

Spacer beads. These ideally should be unobtrusive, and close in size to your decorative beads. You can get away with them being slightly smaller, but you want them wide enough that the hanging wires lie next to each other instead of over the top of each other. In this case, I'm going with clear, glass beads, which will face into the background against the neck when the necklace is worn, but another good choice is to use metal beads that match the pins.

A fastening mechanism of your choice. Personally, I really like toggle fasteners. I find them much easier to take on and off than other fastening mechanisms so it tends to by my default, but you use whatever works for you.

Beading wire. I like Beadalon 7 strand because it's quite forgiving. It doesn't get bent out of shape too easily. They also have a few different colours. Any wire will work though.

Half open crimps, sometimes called crimp covers. You want a couple of these to attach the fastening mechanism, and then a couple spare because they're really easy to drop.

Wire cutter and pliers. You want pliers with a fine, round end for this project. I prefer ones with a flat end for doing the crimps, so if you have both styles, that's a bonus, but you can get away with just the round ended ones if that's all you have.

Step 1:

Put a bead on a pin. It's as easy as that.

Step 2: 

Grip the very end of the pin with the point of the pliers and twist so that you create a small loop of wire around the end of one half of the pliers. You want a tight loop, with no gap, otherwise you run the risk of the pin falling off the necklace wire later. If on the first attempt, there's a little bit of a gap, you can put the end of the pliers back in and hold that still, then use your other hand to press the pin against the pliers to close the gap.

Step 3:

Repeat step 2 for your other beads and pins.

Step 4:

Cut your beading wire to the length you want for your necklace, plus an inch or two for attaching the fasteners. If in doubt, cut a little bit longer than you think you need - you can always trim it later.

Step 5:

Feed the first pin onto the necklace wire.

Step 6:

Feed the first spacer bead onto the necklace wire.

Repeat steps 5 & 6. You want the pins to be the same way round. I think it looks better if the pin comes up over the wire in the front, and then loops back behind the wire, but what really matters is that they're all the same.

Step 7:

Now it's time to attach the fasteners. First you need to work out the length you want. Find a mirror and hold the necklace around your neck to find the length that looks right to you. If you hold an end of the wire in each hand and hold them behind your neck, you can find the right point for you. Once you done this, bend the necklace wire at the point where you want to attach the fasteners.

Step 8:

This is the fiddly bit. Put one side of the fastener onto the end of the wire, where you've put the bend in it. You then need to fold the end of the wire over and position one of the half open crimps over both sides of the fold.

Step 9:

Use the (flat-ended if you have them) pliers to squeeze the crimp tightly over the wire to hold the fold in place with the end of the fastening mechanism in place.

Step 10:

Repeat steps 8 & 9 with the other half of your fastening mechanism and the other end of the wire.

Congratulations, your necklace is now complete.

If you want to experiment, you can try this out with different lengths of pins (you can trim them with wire cutters) or with more than one bead on each pin.

#jewellery making tutorial #beading tutorial #necklace #hanging wire necklace #jewellery making #tutorial

[n7punk]

Selling a Dream Fic Notes

Selling a Dream (SaD) is done! This one took me way longer (and was way bigger) than I expected, but it was lots of fun. I'm gonna miss these girls, I already do, but BOY is the fic long enough 😂

Epilogue Life:

Adora continues focusing on cosplay and traditional photoshoots for her career, taking on commissions as well sometimes (more on that later). With the reboot now on, and thus the studio focusing on their new iteration of the characters, Adora doesn't do any more official work with the studio (at least as a host), though she is invited to a few events as an influencer. Adora continues to use the original She-ra as her signature cosplay, though she does recreate the new She-ra outfit too and wears it occasionally, but the other one is beloved (by her and older fans), it's what she's known for, it's more revealing (read: gets better traction on Instagram), and also, you know, Adora looks like the original She-ra so she's a good match for the cosplay whereas another amazing cosplayer would be a better fit for reboot She-ra/Mara.

Adora has warmed up to professional modeling now it's something she chooses and sometimes she has a lot of fun doing it, but it can be a little hard on her self esteem depending on the director/requirements, so the part of her "job" (confluence of jobs, more like) that really makes her happy is being influencer/cosplayer - especially the cosplay part, and especially doing "casual" photoshoots with her friends/for Instagram where she doesn't have to be perfect or fit the vision of a stranger. Her commissions let her dip her toe into the prop business sometimes (if they involve props, anyway), though she has no desire to return to it full time.

When she and Catra move in together almost a year into their relationship, Adora officially joins Wildcat Workshop and starts coordinating her commissions through there. She works partially at home (mostly for sewing/basic cosplays), partially at the BFS workshop (also cosplay, especially with more advanced elements, and light propwork), and partially at the workshop. She still goes over to the BFS house (now just Glimmer and Bow's house technically, but they all decided before she even moved out that it would always be the BFS house, especially with Catra now included in the squad) to spend time together/work together (and use the laser cutter). She has also built up a good friendship with Scorpia, plus a closer one with Entrapta, so she has a really great place to work no matter where she goes or what she needs.

Sometimes Adora helps on projects (that aren't hers) at Wildcat Workshop, but an average day might see her and Catra waking up together, going into the shop for a bit, and then Adora heading over to BFS to work on cosplay with Glimmer and Bow while Catra continues her work. Or that order might be reversed, depending when Glimmer/Bow are going to be home. Come evening, Adora and Catra will head home together or go hang out with one of their friends.

Catra's career is only just beginning. Once she has worked on one show(/for one propmaster) it's a lot easier to get work on others and she ends up making a steady business between commissions and propwork. When season two of the reboot rolls around, they hire her again for a few more key pieces, and Adora has a greater hand in helping with the builds this time around now she is an official employee.

Catra ends up admitting she loves Melog after he stops eating one day and they find out he has an intestinal blockage when they take him to the vet. It turns out fine and they're able to clear it without surgery, but she decides he should live with her and Adora after that because they can monitor what he eats better there. He sometimes goes with Adora when she goes to the BFS workshop because he's easily bored, but he's also very willing to let somebody lead him around and thus is pretty easy to take places.

At Catra and Adora's place, they end up with an entire closet dedicated to costumes. Catra cosplays with Adora (and Entrapta) a bit more here and there, though she does it the same way she did it with Entrapta before now and doesn't do any in-character events or anything (even if she kind of plays along with Adora when she is acting in character herself).

As implied in the fic, Scorpia and Perfuma start flirting via text and very quickly fall into a relationship, which makes it a bit easier for her to warm up to Adora as she becomes a frequent face at the workshop. Entrapta, despite doing her damnedest otherwise, doesn't build or hack anything that gets her prison time. She is definitely on a list, though. Overall, Wildcat Workshop is successful and they're all able to find work that let's them stay and build together. At one point they discuss moving to a bigger space, but, well, this one is important, not just to them but to Entrapta long before they showed up, so they always just end up cleaning, rearranging things, and maybe downsizing or relocating unnecessary materials/equipment. All of them end up with extra materials stowed in their garages for when needed, though.

Playlist:

This fic didn't have a playlist, though I was listening to Fletcher's "Girl of my Dreams" album a lot for the first half of it. For the second half, it was a few songs on loop: "Uh Oh" by Tate McRae (CH6, 7), "Nonsense" by Sabrina Carpenter (CH8), and "Dressed To Kill" by the Wombats (CH8, 9).

Chapter 1:

I did not think the premise of this AU was specific/unusual until readers told me so, but in hindsight "Cosplay AU" isn't even a tag, so maybe I should have known that. I genuinely thought the cosplay creation process was common knowledge within fandom as a whole and not just cosplayers themselves. I knew some of the machine talk was specific, but I definitely underestimated things.

Adora's social media presence is split three ways, technically. Instagram (feed/posts): Photo shoots/photos of herself, both in cosplay and out of it (typical hot influencer shit), along with some workout posts and the occasional build video (she uses reels for those). She also does announcement posts (a con she is going to be at, an event she is going to be hosting, new prints dropping, etc) on there and her stories, but once they "aren't relevant" (like when a con has passed) she deletes them to keep it clean. She does a lot of thirst trap posting because she likes the validation, but it's also great for engagement. Instagram (stories): cosplay/sewing/builds and con "liveblogs". She saves all her costumes and con stories into playlists or whatever they're called so people can go back and look at the making process for one character or a particular con. Her main focus for her "career" is on her Instagram. It's the only place she has really monetized, with like sponsored posts on occasion and stuff (she also sells prints and posts when they're going up). Her Twitter is more "personal" where she just tweets about whatever, interacts with her friends more (at least publically, she's in her friends DMs and stuff on Insta), and generally feels less "pressure" even though she still has a lot of followers. She'll also livetweet cons on her twitter sometimes, and she has more nerd shit on there than on her insta.

Catra mostly posts photos and videos from around the shop (now that she has left the Horde, that mostly didn't fly when she was there) and of commissions/builds/personal projects. It's basically a portfolio page for the shop. She does some videos of builds, mostly timelaspes or focusing on one small part of the build because she can't give away all her secrets. Her stories lean more towards shop shenanigans, and she also shares her friend's posts there. If she does a cosplay shoot, it will end up there unless she really wants to show off the prop, and then it will make it to her main page. Her Twitter is a mix of more casual posts and photos of builds, but she wouldn't treat it as casually as Adora does hers just because it is still her business social media and she needs to seem put together, if not professional. Adora's business is being hot LOL.

I find it really disruptive to my immersion when another property is brought up in a fanfic. This includes mentioning it as a fictional thing, or "cameos" from other characters. I don't know why, but it really throws me off and that made using real characters for their cosplays an instant no. It's usually weird to me to have something else IRL be fictional within an already fictional universe, hence the main property for this fic... basically being the original property of the show.

Catra only got one of Adora's presents, but because Adora messaged her every birthday she knew she sent two. The first one she sent to their old apartment, where Catra was no longer living. Later that week, Catra posted a photo of her hanging out on the balcony of her new place with a caption about how much she liked having a balcony now, basically signalling to Adora that she had moved. Adora considered resending the present, but she didn't know if that would be creepy and tenacious, so she waited for the next year, this time sending it to the Horde workshop with Catra's name on it. Catra got that one.

Adora was a litol buzzed when she sent the New Years message, hence the spelling. Catra was too, and she almost replied to it.

They both changed their numbers after leaving the Horde; Catra immediately, and Adora like a month later after she got a flaming voicemail from her ex-boss upon him seeing she had secured a job that, a month ago, would have been the Horde's.

Like 50% of my knowledge for this fic was from Simone Gertz/Laura Kampf/Evan & Katelyn videos (all maker Youtubers), like 40% from the cosplayers and sewists I've followed over the years, and then like 10% Mythbusters.

Melog was a "new arrival", hence why Catra was reluctant to claim him yet. He was actually born in the shop shortly before they cleaned it up, and had slipped in and out of the area, but he was Extremely Cautious of them, so it took a few weeks for them to even notice A Cat in the area, and a few more for them to suspect it was the same cat living nearby, and then they slowly realized he wasn't just mousing in and around the shop when the garage was open, but that he was actually living there. And then there was the slow process of charming him, which was made easier by how long he had been hanging around. He was already accustomed to them, and fairly young/tameable, but he had only just been "tamed" when the fic started (Catra had been in her shop for six months total).

Adora's whole deal in this AU is based off a professional cosplayer I met when I was like, 12 at a con who I have NEVER been able to remember the name of, just that I think it started with a J.

Adora's username is a reference to an (I think) well known Adora cosplayer, whose feed partially served as inspiration/reference for this AU. I gave some of the characters more "generic"/professional handles since social media is important to their jobs, but it also just made coming up with usernames easier. I hate coming up with usernames even for myself.

Catra hung up so fast after Adora said she tries to show she respects her now because she realized she was right and she wasn't ready to deal with that.

I had a lot of fun thinking of what personal touches Catra's workspace would have, because every workshop I know of has some kooky shit from a goofy build, or a prototype that didn't work out or that they just don't want to throw away.

Chapter 2:

Between rereading an old fic and writing summaries for SW&D to match TOHT, I was kind of feeling writing chapter summaries again even though I know I used to hate writing them (and wow, it's still hard). Anyway, I decided to throw in some odd ones from the "perspective" of the cosplay for this fic to match the chapter titles.

I use the pleading emoji a lot, and I see it a lot, but like 1 out of 20 times I see it I want to pick it up in my hands and squeeze it until it pops so it stops looking at me like that. I can't explain it, but it feels like a very Catra instinct to me so I included it.

"If Catra was any of her other friends, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell her how hot she would look as Skeletor, but it’s Catra, so Adora can’t just say things like that no matter how badly she wants to." Mayhaps that is why Catra doesn't think you love her. You fucking idiot.

BannetCon was named after a guy named Bannet. He did some important things in the video game industry and then founded one of the first video game conventions on the West coast accidentally. It's been around for a long time.

The jacket I described for Catra is based on a real one (but like, taken up to 12, and that jacket already started at 11), but it was a one-of-a-kind piece that sold on Etsy so the best record of it now is random Pinterest posts.

"I'm not She-ra without [the lights]" Yeah it's Adora so she's still insecure XD She-ra/cosplay in general has been a big crutch for her interactions with the public (as is discussed in the next scene) and she was on the verge of a panic attack at the thought of having a dead or a damaged prop for the panel where she would be talking about cosplay in front of everyone. She did end up talking about the battery dying and other mishaps that happen at the panel and how you have to adapt on the fly with stuff like that and how a simple "casualwear" cosplay is always good to pack, but with the danger passed and the prop working, it was easy for her to talk about - because she had her crutch.

The panel Adora was on was called "Cosplay & Community".

While writing this chapter I had to shove Marlena's body back in the closet. It just flopped out I don't know what happened. In the process I made Adora autistic on accident.

Chapter 3:

Glimmer's paint job on the mannequin head looks like a bad knockoff of a Monster High doll. My dress form doesn't even have a head and I still throw a cloth over it to make it less creepy. The arms are detachable and one time my mom *screamed* when she was helping me move stuff and saw the hand hanging off the top shelf of a closet.

Adora's VHS set up doesn't actually take up a lot of room because she has a pretty small CRT TV and the player is right on top of it, with the boxset displayed there. She likes having it because if she is in A Mental Place™️ where she wants/needs to be watching She-ra, then she likes being able to just ball up in her room and not venture out to do it - both because it's more comfortable (physically and emotionally) and because she doesn't have to enter the living room and alert her housemates to her mood. Then they'd try to help.

I don't miss VHS because it was a pain, but also, I do have some Nostalgia I was working out.

Adora was 100% lying and scrambling when she said she wanted to send the thirst trap to Bow for Totally Normal Shoot Equipment Reasons.

Starla and Adora (like 95% of the viewers) both shipped She-ra and Teela so it made sense to go all in on a ship photoshoot, but also lowkey Starla was just like 👀 yeah I'll climb that. Her brother knows this, and loves her, so he put up with it.

Adora did pay for the sword, even though it didn't end up being ridiculously more than Clawdeen's material/time costs, partially because she believes in compensation, partially because she doesn't want to strain their friendship, and partially because Catra didn't exactly want a Clawdeen costume from her, especially not the way Adora wanted the sword. Catra didn't charge her full price, though, just something close to the difference between the costume and the sword's costs.

Some stuff about the She-ra show: I've only watched like, two episodes of Xena, so mostly I only have cultural knowledge about it and used it as a touch-point for the live-action take on a warrior princess. The She-ra show in-fic had some plot similarities with the original She-ra/He-man shows, kind of a fusion of the two shows with He-man elements in general (partially because this just made sense when half the She-ra characters were already in the fic as "real people" and partially because I wanted to play with them).

The overall villain was just "Prime", but certain seasons/arcs were focused on other villains. Skeletor was a servant of Prime that had shown up in earlier seasons and was then the big bad of season three and made minor comebacks here and there until season six when he had a prominent role alongside Prime again.

Season three was set in an entirely new location, the Crimson Waste, which had been referenced a number of times but never seen. It was also shot at a new location to give the appearance of a desert, the plot roughly being that Skeletor managed to kidnap Teela "between seasons" and brought her into the heart of the cursed desert where he thought She-ra could never survive as a being of light and love. She faced opposition from both Prime's minions, the harsh landscape filled with mutated creatures, and the criminals who had been banished there and survived, forming an outlaw society that Clawdeen was the self-declared queen of. She was an anti-hero figure for the season, but She-ra would not have been able to rescue Teela without her help in the end. She was a Huntara-like figure in the desert.

Season 3 was shorter by a few episodes than the other seasons, due to the whole "written around a pregnancy" thing. The show ran for 6 seasons with just over a 100 regular episodes, 2 special episodes (Christmas episode and a drug PSA episode because it was That Era) and two TV movies.

The second TV movie came two years after the show ended and introduced She-ra's long-lost brother He-man. It was wildly hated for fucking with (or outright contradicting) the lore so much and is generally regarded as a cashgrab for more toys. Teela had to be written out of it because her actress didn't even return for it, officially because she was focused on her family, but pretty much everyone knows she was very attached to the franchise and would have only wanted to be part of a good movie. She-ra's actress did return (there wouldn't have been a movie without her), but she was unfortunately closely associated with She-ra and having trouble finding any prominent roles because people just looked at her and saw She-ra (similar to what happened with George Reeves and Superman) so she kind of felt like she had to. Her worry turned out to be somewhat misplaced and she managed a fine acting career in supporting roles after that, but she was never a headliner again.

Most people consider the movie non-canon, Adora included. After all, it establishes that at some undisclosed point after the series ended, She-ra and Teela parted ways because She-ra went out seeking information about a family she knew to be dead and for some reason Teela just... stayed behind?? With the implication at the end of the movie being She-ra then goes on to have adventures with her brother now instead of the woman she loved for years? Yeah it was a set-up for a sequel show that never happened and it was unacceptable. Adora has never run into a He-man cosplayer at a con and she would probably break character around them because it would be awkward, though she would take a photo with them if they asked, she just wouldn't do a photoshoot. People would probably call her a fake fan LOL.

Chapter 4:

This chapter was supposed to cover weeks/months. Instead it covers *checks watch* a day. I intended to get all the way to the con, to the first day with them going to sleep and the next chapter focusing on it through to the entire end of the con. Yeah. Uh. Oops. I didn't account for how fucking horny they would be.

Adora's sword had a lowkey "preview" in the stories from the set, but they were from so far away it didn't even come across as a different sword, although in retrospect the proportions were off and the lights were definitely different. Still, the majesty of the reveal was kept intact.

Scorpia didn't message Catra until they were already all but making out, and Catra didn't even have her phone on her, so she didn't see it until she got in the car after they were all done.

The Larry the Lobster joke was from a whole exchange with Meta, that would later play out in Chapter 6, but was set up here in chapter 4. Also I'm like 90% sure Larry the Lobster is from Spongebob but I don't even know for sure tbh because I didn't watch it. I just vaguely get the joke and think it's funny.

They were on the roadside for about an hour, but that includes solo shots, their pair shots, setting up and planning out shots, and then packing everything away and saying goodbye afterwards.

Glimmer sat in the backseat hoping Adora would join her there and they could have their "confrontation" there, but Adora saw a free passenger seat and went "sweet". Glimmer couldn't tell her to sit in the back without tipping her off.

Catra is a flirt, but not nearly as much of one as Adora thinks she is, because Adora's sample is so skewed. Catra flirts with her so much, and she does see Catra flirt with others sometimes, so she assumes Catra is always pretty flirty, which just isn't true. Catra also doesn't have the same intent with others that she has with Adora, which Adora is totally blind to.

Chapter 5:

I hate coming up with handles, as stated earlier, so I just kind of muddled around and gave Perfuma "ivyscousin" as in "Poison Ivy's cousin". Not directly stated, so it doesn't break my immersion too much.

When Adora asked if Scorpia knew who Perfuma is she was mostly asking because Perfuma has a Very Strong Brand as an advocate for trans and women's rights, especially in the fandom/entertainment/cosplay space ie stuff like "Cosplay is not consent" and respecting a cosplayer's personal gender identity no matter what gender(s) they choose to cosplay. She's known for hosting similarly to Adora, but her focus is on queerness, whereas Adora is known more in her fandom circles and for being a maker, and thus hosts fandom-related events and cosplay workshops. Adora was also lowkey asking if Scorpia knew she was trans (something Perfuma is also vocal about). She wasn't sure if Scorpia was or not at that point, but she did suspect given things like her display name and Vibes she got.

Adora's difficulties communicating here are partially related to her autism. She says something factual or literal and neurotypical people draw a different conclusion/correlation based on it, leading to her followers thinking she's dating or her booking a single room on accident.

It's also part of why they can get so close to crossing the gap and then either Adora pulls up short, doubting her read on the situation, or she does something that makes Catra pull up short because it seems like Adora wants her too. That's also just because they're best friends in Lesbians tho.

Catra sleeps naked to minimize fur-pinching potential now she has her own bedroom, so when she knew she would be sharing a room with Adora, she pulled out the matching pajama set as quite literally the only pajamas she owned.

When I was planning this AU I was like "how funny would a hotel mix-up be" and joked to my friends about sprinkling in All The Tropes for this one. I absolutely could have written the same thing with them having two beds - they would still share during the day to watch the TV since it was at the foot of only one of them, etc - but... it was more fun to write there was only one bed.

Chapter 6

Catra smiles when Adora mentions the chisels because she's remembering how much she likes them and how many times she has used them.

When Adora goes to a con, she usually tries to wear Just The Character's Costume and hold Just their props. It's easier when she's at a con with someone who doesn't mind carrying a bag (or when the character has pockets, which isn't that common for her), but that's her general goal. If she wants to buy stuff, unless she's worried about it selling out immediately, she usually waits until she's about to leave the con anyway (to go to lunch or something) and then gets a bag (sometimes buying one, sometimes bringing a drawstring bag or something, whatever works) and does a sweep through the hall picking up everything she's scouted throughout the day. Then she'll go to lunch, dropping the stuff off at her hotel room if it's close or keeping it in the car until she leaves for the night otherwise. They were doing their vendor sweep before going to lunch on Saturday in this case.

Entrapta actually hates having crumbs in her bed and Catra has watched her get out of bed after going to sleep and strip it to remake it more than once at midnight, but there's a disconnect there between "don't want crumbs" and "don't do the things that make them (eating in bed)".

PGS is Pacific Geek Show, a con Adora and Spinnetossa both went to but never found time to meet up.

Adora's "mindless glower" is her autism stare, where she's trying to figure out the thing she's supposed to do/say to come across as a socially attuned human. She just thinks she's socially awkward and a bit worse at interacting with strangers in general.

The line about the reboot tarnishing memories of something she loves is just a factual concern, but it's there because that was the exact reason I didn't watch the new She-ra show at first.

The reboot itself, however, was not at all meant to be a meta reference and was entirely there to set up Catra getting the prop job. Adora meeting Mara on set was one of The Scenes for this fic, the last one both chronologically in fic and to occur to me.

I went to Clare to ask about what exactly Masters of the Universe meant because I didn't want to "misuse" it here even if She-ra in the fic universe is pretty different from how it is IRL.

The fic summary mentioned consequences and now, in chapter 6, we finally get to them.

I have weirdly specific headcannons about porn for them. Adora does watch it, sometimes, mostly to figure herself out/what her kinks are, but because sex is focused on her partner for her, it doesn't do a lot for her aside from introduce her to stuff. Catra doesn't like watching it, it makes her kind of uncomfortable, but she does enjoy nudes/lewds that people post and might look at them while getting off.

When Adora did watch porn, trying to figure out her kinks or prepare herself for theoretical future sex, she definitely found herself gravitating towards stuff featuring magicats if it was an option and she couldn't decide if it was worse to be projecting her friend onto it/thinking of her while watching or to just have a thing for magicats, because then she was like oh no what if I'm fetishizing them and had a small spiral (the answer is she has a Type that she might have even if she hadn't grown up with Catra, but she was also definitely Projecting).

She saw the tail thing years after she first pulled Catra's tail, and she knew tail-pulling could be a bullying thing, not to mention seeing it on TV portrayed just as a rude - or sometimes straight up disrespectful - annoyance, so she knew it wasn't universal even before porn prompted her to look it up and found it was pretty common but not universal. She just immediately wrote it off as something Catra didn't have.

I talked about this in the author's notes, but chapter 5 was supposed to run all the way until they woke up together on the second day of the convention, chapter 6 was supposed to be that entire second day, with them in the hall, the tail pulling, and both of them getting off and cuddling together that night, talking about emotions, falling asleep together, etc, and then ideally also include the panel with Perfuma as a final "comedic button" on the two convention chapters. I did not think that was such an unrealistic expection, and yet.

The tail-pulling leading to a makeout against the wall and them rushing up to their hotel room was The Scene for this fic and the entire reason it exists, though when I was writing it I became extremely partial to the photoshoot chapter as well.

Chapter 7:

This smut is 0% what I planned, but tbh I didn't have much of a plan except Catra curling around Adora and getting her off, and then Adora got all giggly. Even after two years, these two find new ways to surprise me/have sex that I wasn't anticipating.

Catra: "Adora's going to make us move for dinner." Adora literally the next scene: "We can stay here until it's time to eat." Catra had her number lol

In my earlier fics I kind of had a running thing about Catra not wearing underwear, but I stopped it because I felt like I had to repeatedly bring it up every time there was smut or it would seem like I "forgot" to remove Catra's underwear as part of it. For this fic I kind of returned to it, but with a twist by having it be that thongs are the only thing comfortable for her (which is absolutely a thing). Adora's just a bikini briefs girl, but she does wear thongs or no show underwear (or very rarely, go without) if a costume or photoshoot requires it.

I find Perfuma really interesting because she's positive but she works so hard for it, to the point where at times it seems (to Catra) to be a little disingenuous, when really it just means that she's trying hard to be "good," and that taking work doesn't make it any less genuine, it just comes across as more suspicious to Catra.

Catra gets to be a little protective of her friends. As a treat.

Perfuma is not too classy to say fuck, she just only uses it in certain contexts.

I had to retype like two chapters worth of notes here because my computer restarted and I hadn't saved.

Chapter 8:

I got kind of "stuck" on chapter 8, not because of anything to do with it, but because I fell down a Mass Effect hole and did a replay through the entire trilogy while writing it, so progress was slow. Once I finished, I wrote in 2 days more than I'd written in the last 2 weeks. Then of course I had to get sick/have health issues for another two weeks, slowing me down again.

Catra's in a small bedroom next to Entrapta's master because it's actually supposed to be the office, but she was the last to move in, so it's what's left. It used to be Entrapta's secondary work/storage space, until they got the shop all cleared out and organized and there was actually room for stuff there.

Side note: Entrapta loves sharing space with people who - on some level, at least - understand her. She's had room/workmates in the past who just couldn't handle her and those small incidents added up to her working alone in a steadily-deteriorating workshop because nothing else had worked out. Like, she had friends of course, but she usually only saw them IRL a few times a year. Living or working together every day had not been a success.

Adora taking the pencil out of Catra's hand again isn't so much a callback as maintaining continuity, but it's there to show how far they've come since the first chapter. Catra doesn't even really notice it.

Mara's wife is of course Light Hope, and she is looking into the camera with a dead stare to show what she thinks of this, but at the same time she has agreed to it because she loves her wife's enthusiasm, no matter how shitty and plastic the costume is. Teela's outfit is, as typical for the series, missing pants (the lack of pants in the original She-ra/He-man is fucking ridiculous y'all) and also strapless and thus lowcut, so it wasn't something Light Hope was going to just wear, hence her donning it over her clothes, which kind of completed the joke of being "forced" into this despite everyone (who knows them, at least) knowing she agreed to it.

She-ra's original actress was, at the time of the series filming and airing, officially an "ally". There were implications and rumors of course, but she didn't come out until over a decade later. It was pretty much one of those open air secrets, but she was already under national scrutiny portraying something very queer on TV and didn't want to deal with more.

"Leatherman" is a brand of knife multi-tools of some repute.

Catra proposing to bring Adora in was basically "Look, I'd be an absolutely terrible partner if I didn't do my best to bring her in on this. Besides, she's great at finishing so I might have her weather some of the props." She had to kind of trickle the requests out so she didn't seem like a crazy fan or something, but the fact that Adora was already known to the brand - as both a superfan and an occasionally host/brand rep for them - helped a lot with getting the screen test delivery set up. Anything they approved with Adora could eventually be promo, at least once it wasn't secret anymore.

Chapter 9:

I heavily considered including chapter nine just in the ending of chapter 8 since it was short anyway, but the time skip made it feel better to do as something separate. Also I would have had to pad out two Adora POVs in a row, which is easy enough with social media posts or some texts, but I wanted the "cliffhanger" moment so it would sink in for the reader similar to how it did for Adora.

There's a few weeks gap between the end of Chapter 8 and when all the props were done and ready for shoot.

I decided to capitalize "she's going to host multiple Lives" about this to make it a little clearer I'm talking about Instagram Lives, even though no one capitalizes it in casual conversation. They also don't add "Instagram" to the front of it, making that feel more awkward, so I went with the capitalization to make things clearer. I might change this later tbh (like on a subsequent read).

Adora did get a bit of a headstart thinking about how she would make the new She-ra costume, which let her draft some ideas, but she didn't actually start making anything until the first official photos/trailer dropped, both for NDA reasons and because having photos to reference is really important if you have her level of dedication to making something look right. Memory is inherently faulty, and it would be easy to remember two strips of armoring instead of three. She had materials lined up and ready to go once it was time.

I was going to make the director "he" (a vague ND insert, since that's what he's favoring these days), but then I worried people might picture a, like, old hollywood dude ordering the lesbians around for the remake of this very queer show, so I just had them be nonbinary. Their name is Diana because of Diana Huh from crewra and because it is ND's middle name (the D part).

Catra is allowed to say the studio she's working for, though she really isn't supposed to, and she had no intention of doing so until much later. Once the show's embargo (for reviews and the like) was up shortly before premier, she was allowed to actually talk more about what she worked on, and after the first episode airs she posts some photos of the sword cosplayers love her for (other than Adora, who already has everything she needs - and already loves her). Adora, for her part, gushed about the show and getting to visit set like crazy on her Instagram stories once the show was airing.

In the extended show credits, Wildcat Workshop is listed under props (along with everyone else who was part of that production team), and under Wildcat Workshop it lists the names of everyone there, plus Adora, as she was technically a consultant on the sword project. Not with a paid contract or anything, but she was signed onto the NDA and helped Catra spitball some ideas, as well as offer input whenever a design tweak was needed. Basically, Catra worked with the studio, but Adora also worked with Catra.

Mara isn't really "in the show's fandom", especially not online, but she does have a boxset and enjoys it in her personal life. However, she heard about Adora when they were in pre-production because the director was talking about the sword some cosplayer made that proved practical effects could photograph/film well and make the show a little more timeless than the original (the magic effects are really dated), and when they pulled it up to show Mara, they realized the sword was actually made by a propmaker (thanks to clicking through Adora's tag, which they hadn't done before, just assuming it was another cosplayer since she was also credited as Clawdeen). That's the inciting conversation that eventually led to Catra being hired, mostly because when Diana went to the propmaster asking about it he was just like okay why don't we just hire that person to do it then? (Propmasters don't necessarily make the props for a production, often commissioning, buying, or renting them, and this way no one else had to figure out how to reproduce a similar effect, even if they ended up needing to make some changes for it to hold up to the stress of production). Mara has had a scroll through Adora's Instagram following that conversation, as well as later seeing a video of her hosting that fan night from when the production team were later discussing letting her onto set per Catra's request because it was mentioned she had done work for them in the past and been reliable.

The show does end up being good. Different from the original, but with the same heart behind it, just a little more "serious" and modern. Adora loved waiting week-to-week for each new episode - something she never got with the original - and she really likes the new version, but the original will always be more special to her for many reasons. Mara is an amazing She-ra, obviously.

I considered ending the chapter with a final social media post or two from when the review embargo was up, but that was a big timeskip and I thought might be confusing and make it seem like Adora didn't keep her word/respect the NDA. The gist was that Catra posts a photo or two from the build of the sword, like a glamor shot and one progress shot, with a caption talking about how fun it was to work on the project and what an honor it was. Adora then shares that post to her story and the fans who only follow her just lose their minds over her dating the person who made the new sword. Adora also posts about visiting set and gushes about meeting Mara on her story, but she tries to be normal and professional about it while she does so, even though it's very obvious how excited she is.

The effects for the sword Catra made aren't identical to Adora's version of the prop, but it does have lights even if their placement and trigger mechanism are a bit different, as well as their colors and modes. The show will be using digital special effects as well, but combining that with practical makes it look all the better.

No original outline, this was pretty close to everything I planned initially, it just ended up being a Lot More than it was in my head. The only thing that changed is initially, instead of them cosplaying She-ra and Clawdeen, they were supposed to all be part of a group cosplay involving both their friend groups (which is what roped them into talking and having the conversation where they kind of made up in the first place), and Adora & Catra just happened to get a pair of characters that were dating. That was a vague idea in my head that changed once I started writing.

Next Project: I would love to tease my next AU here because I'm pretty sure of what it's going to be, but I'm going to be real with myself: I'm actually probably going to do some scattered one shots (AU and canon) since I have like a dozen WIPs clinging to my ankles.

#SaD #ficmeta #fic notes #i'll post the share link soon

[astraltrickster]

As both an artist and a Modern Art Enjoyer, I have...painfully mixed feelings on AI art.

On the one hand, a lot of concerns about "it's not REAL art, you're just telling a computer what to do!" are...a complaint as old as time. Every new "easier" medium or tool gets this. Digital painting got it for a long time ("painting isn't supposed to have an undo button! Stabilizers are cheating!"). People STILL claim that sewing machines are cheating and "do all the work for you". Photography was and sometimes still is treated as a "lesser" art form than painting because "you just push a button and the camera just makes the picture for you." Vocaloids/voice banks haven't replaced real human singers despite a lot of fears, because they take a lot of work to tune and are often considered just a nerdy niche thing. I'm sure thousands of years ago there were people bitching that REAL artists collect all their own pigments and MAKE their paints themselves and BUYING paints you can't make locally is cheating. AI art is generated by something as easy as typing a prompt, yes; it enables something visually appealing to be made at the most minimal skill level, but there is skill involved in making something actually MEANINGFUL, that can CONNECT with people. You have to know the limitations of the AI you're working with, you have to know how to phrase your prompt to get a good result, and you have to bring in the human element of discernment - what separates a good painting from a bad one, on many levels? Will a viewer be able to see meaning in your choice? Are you utilizing the unique quirks of the medium, or conversely, are you actively choosing results that look human-made and doing it well because you know enough about what MAKES them look natural?

What I'm saying is that I fundamentally can't take the "this new medium/tool/etc. makes things too easy and that's cheapening REAL art!" genre of complaint seriously.

But what I can take seriously is greed and theft, and how AI art can be abused.

See, in this age of frustratingly opaque algorithms, you have to ask - what data was this AI trained on? What images were used to teach it what a person looks like? What examples did it use to learn what a watercolor painting looks like? How did it learn to replicate a brushstroke?

A lot of the time, this appears to involve web crawlers, which end up grabbing all kinds of things that the AI creator/trainer absolutely does not have the legal or ethical right to reprint. While fair use allows copyrighted material to be used for the sake of education, does training a neural net count as education? Legally, that's a battle we're likely to see play out in court soon. Ethically, that's a huge, complicated mess that depends on many factors, including the reach of the piece and the end usage of the AI.

The biggest problem with AI art is its ability to replicate specific artists' styles. This isn't really a problem with long-dead classical artists - it could be used to troll art historians, but it's not really going to cause many problems if someone decides to generate a collaboration between themself and Da Vinci. The potential problem is the following scenario:

Person: Hey can I commission you for cover art for my new video game?

Artist: Yeah, sure, my rate for commercial cover art is $5,000 per piece

Person: OOF, can't afford that (even though I totally can)

Person: [goes home, tells their $600 one-time-purchased commercial license AI software to generate a cover image based on that artist's style; the artist's work is used to generate it and they never see a cent]

And we've already seen this kind of shit play out. It's a whole new pathway to plagiarism and the culture we're currently living in absolutely rewards that kind of shitty, shitty behavior. We already undervalue artists, and because AI art is capable of making something visually appealing with an absolute minimum skill level, there is absolutely nothing stopping COMMERCIAL projects from using it to replace people who the project heads see as uppity peasants who should be overjoyed to work for pennies an hour and ~exposure~.

It's not as catastrophic as a lot of people claim. It's difficult to use AI to create specific complex compositions, or detail multiple characters. Getting anything that complex done with AI, well, that ends up creating a whole new kind of artist (see: every new medium/tool is touted as the death of Real Art until the new skills involved are showcased). But this doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are more than willing to settle for "visually appealing" when it comes to things like book and video game cover art, and it doesn't change the fact that it's VERY easy to use AI art to rip off the style of another living, breathing human artist with bills to pay if you decide their rates are too high and a simple composition is all you're looking for.

We need more transparency with AI training datasets. We need more control over whose art is allowed to be used for it. We need guidelines for what does and does not constitute fair use in AI training. We need guidelines to prevent AI plagiarism. Until that happens, I feel I have no choice but to resist most uses of AI art even though I genuinely love to see what actual artists - not commercial cheapskates - will do with an emerging medium.

#ai art #modern art #serious tag #ish

[siletreas-workshop]

hello there!

I just saw your CotL cosplay and I absolutely love it! I’m planing of making one of my own and I’m wondering if I can use the pattern you used please? It’s alright if you don’t want to!

I unfortunately have no idea how to share the pattern!

I can tell you how I did it though!

(WARNING! your taking the advice of a autistic nerd who has never sewn clothes before and is terrible at math!)

I took old dot matrix printer paper (I suggest using tissue gift wrap paper instead if you can) and taped them together into a 48 page rectangle paper (8X6) before making a hemisphere approx 5 inches in from the outer pages edge...then it was about 20-21-22 inches (your going to have to play with that number) to space out the points equally so it would be identical on each side while also being evenly spaced! I drew lines back to the center-point for each point of data (the points and the inner points) then for the inner points its exactly 11 inches in from the edge of the hemisphere!

at this point I was exhausted because I'd been crawling on my swept floors for 3-5 hours doing way too much math and measurements... so I suggest grabbing a soda or something and having a good stretch before continuing!

when your sewing it I actually sewed THROUGH the paper (it was a nightmare and I do NOT recommend it even though I got perfectly straight lines) I then dabbed the sewed seams with a few drops of water to get the paper to cleanly pop off the seams!

now I used a polyester twin sized fitted bed sheet (I took the elastic out and ironed it) and so I sewed through both layers and turned it inside out before doing a extremely small stitch alllllll along the outer edge of the cloak avoiding a 8 inch area at the central top area of the coal for a neckline/neck access (stitching from the edge should be slightly thinner then a Apple charging cord for thickness or half a centimeter if that makes sense) and I used small Bulldog clips to secure things in this project as I prefer then and I'm terrible with pushpins!

the next hassle will be the shoulder seams! (this was a massive PITA!) now I don't know about you...but I'm autistic and I don't like feeling seams in my clothes! but initially I put on the cloak and gathered where it was bunching evenly on each side and pinned it using larger bulldog clips to help me shape things out! I also had to make another bunch near the back of the neck on both sides as well so I had 4 seams total for doing the neck and shoulders! my shoulders are pretty broad for a woman so mine went around 5 inches long for the seams! that's both the shoulder ones and the neck ones! (honestly mine was a bit of a mess but it looks like the mod of the blog "Wasteless Crafts" knows what they're talking about so I suggest talking to them or looking at their post here https://wastelesscrafts.tumblr.com/post/669271039396724736 ) so when I was bringing in the seams to fit it I opened up the neck area and inverted the bulldog clipped angles so that I wouldn't have any seams touching my skin! it was a tedious nightmare lining everything up... but it does feel great! make sure after sewing the little triangle shaped seams to help shape the shoulders and neck areas to trim the excess before slipping it back inside the lining of the cloak!

now that you should have the fitted neck area done! (srsly find a tutorial don't trust me for this because mine is a nightmare with a happy ending!) feel free to take another break for a soda and a stretch because that was hard! and your doing great!

now onto the ribbon! my ribbons about a inch wide and I measured it 2 inches from the very outside edge of the cloak to the very bottom edge of the ribbon! bulldogging the top of the ribbon every inch to keep it straight! for the inner corners it was easy as I just tucked the ribbon under at a angle to create a straight line down the center and a point at the top! sew the bottom edge of the ribbon down first! half a centimeter or closer if possible for inner points I used bulldog clips to hold the points as I went along!

now the outer points are a sharper angle! and your going to have to measure the tip of the first ribbon to get your measurement for how far the sharply the ribbon needs to go to into the point... for me it was 2 inches from the edge and 3 and a half inches from the point tips! (I used the measuring tape every inch to ensure I had it working correctly and was centered!) now when your sewing the tip you have to sew the ribbon straight down to EXACTLY where the center of the point is! keep the needle down and put your machines foot up so you can grab that ribbon and pull it to create the sharp angle! make sure you keep everything in the fold under the edge of the ribbon and pin it using the good ol bulldog clips exactly 2 inches from the edge! you'll refine the points to look good while doing the top edge!

once the ribbon is finally attached on one side you can start on the infamous top edge! sew it as close as you did the other one! when you get to a inner point you sew to the very upper tip of the inner point of the ribbon and then run the seam DIRECTLY down the center of the ribbon just barely sewing down the fold-line! as close as humanly possible! if you have to hand-crank the machine then do it! go down and then back-stitch it up before continuing! when getting to a lower point your actually going to have to use tweezers and probably hand-crank the machine as you'll need to gently snip part of the ribbon and use tweezers to fold and hold it in the correct position and you do that same ultra close sewing down the ribbon center and back-stitch up!

now your ribbon should be done after 5 inner points and 4 outer points (end points are just folded over and sewn down around the edge of the cloak to prevent fraying)

srsly take a hydration and stretch break now because you've done a lot!

now comes the final touches! you smooth out the fabric and use your small bulldogs to pin the bias tape to the neck area! sealing up the neck and finishing the cloak! I left a edge of around 1 and a half inches of overlay of bias tape on one side so I could gently sew some velcro in to keep it closed! (my bias tape was a bit thin so I think I may reinforce my velcro with a snap-clip as its a bit weak)

and with all that done you now have a cute lamb cultist fleece!

and incase anyone else is reading this and has no idea what this is all for I will include a link back to my OG Lamb Cloak/Fleece post here!

https://www.tumblr.com/siletreas-workshop/696408803675127808

#cotl #cotl lamb #cotl fanart #cotl fleece #cotl cosplay #cult of the lamb #cult of lamb #cult of the lamb fanart #siletrea #siletreas workshop #Sil says stuff #siletreasworkshop #sewing #polyester #autism #autistic dork #I'm probably the last person who should be giving sewing advice