#just found out that if you take the time to actually read tutorials

[bisexualfbiagents]

Well, he goes on to tell a pretty convincing narrative and to give a rather detailed description of the old man. What was he wearing, a long black robe and carrying a scythe?

THE X FILES | Synchrony (4.19)

#dana scully #fox mulder #the x files #txf #txfedit #xfiles #xfilesnet #4x19 #synchrony #i'm learning #let me COOK #just found out that if you take the time to actually read tutorials #and try new things #your photoshop knowledge will improve??? #crazy #mine

[witchyafterdark]

— Sebastian Sallow Headcanons; pt. 1

[None of the images belong to me! All credits to the owners and editors of these images!]

During 6th year, he tried his best to do good throughout the school year, and distract himself from the remnants of the Dark Arts' hold on him. Instead of giving into the temptation of the call to research more about the forbidden spells, he instead busied himself helping people with their academics.

He helps MC most of all, scheduling a constant time and day for tutorials about all the lessons they might have missed out on, in spite of their Field Guide. (And yes, he also gifted Ominis with Braille-engraved ingredient bottles for Potions class).

He extends this help towards underclass students, mostly Slytherin ones... cause you know, he still has that House Cup competitive streak in him.

Bonus: When he's in the library to study and tutor others, he usually leaves his blazer and robes back at the dorms to be more comfortable and laidback. He also started to wear reading glasses more frequently than before, and uses it to push back his messy waves when he doesn't need it. That's when he started to wonder why there seems to be more students, mostly girls, asking for his tutorial and academic assistance all the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

⭆⭆⭆

In the midst of Victorian standards of propriety and social decorum between men and women, Sebastian is actually quite well-versed in taking care of women in his life. When it was socially acceptable for men to opt out of "womanly discussions," Sebastian knows more than the average man, thanks to having been attuned to his twin all his life.

He was literally there when Anne was hunched over her food, in pain, at the Great Hall during their 2nd year. After almost carrying her all the way to the Hospital Wing, he demanded to know what was going on with her... until Nurse Blainey told him she started to have her monthly bleeding.

Instead of shying away from the topic, he took it upon himself to research in the library all there is about women's health and anatomy. When he didn't find what he was looking for, that's when he started to sneak into the restricted section for more information than what was available!

Best believe he was by Anne's side the next morning with a handful of chocolates, sweets, and a pair of enchanted warm, fuzzy socks to ease her period pains. This boy is not afraid of hush-hush women problems. He might even go down to the kitchens to make Anne her favorite soup to keep her warm, full, and cozy for bed.

(Will be the best girl dad)

⭆⭆⭆

I firmly believe that Sebastian would eventually stumble upon the cure for Anne as an adult.

Right after graduating from Hogwarts, he would most likely become a curse breaker; not only because it suits him, but he has a restless and tumultuous relationship with himself. Being buried in work while being in foreign lands serve as a good distraction for him. Sitting too long by himself doing nothing can make him ruminate about his past, and that's no good.

If Anne is still alive by the time he finds her cure, he would most certainly try his best to rekindle a connection with her, finding wherever she currently resides. He might even beg Ominis to tell him where she is, promising that his findings are backed up by other curse breakers or whatnot (even if that may not exactly be true), just so he'd be told of Anne's whereabouts.

Understandably, Anne would be extremely wary of all of this. But Sebastian can be extremely persuasive, and would have to be completely transparent with her about all of the information he found. He will get his sister back, and that was a promise he made to himself all those years ago. He never abandoned that promise.

But if Anne had already passed away, stumbling upon the cure during his work travels would make Sebastian spiral out of control. He will most likely disappear from the face of the earth, and not even Ominis' underground connections will be able to trace him.

Dark wizard and poacher camps can be reported to have been decimated to the ground overnight over a span of months, seamingly by the work of a vigilante. But in reality, Sebastian has been unleashing his rage and anger on those people who were like the wizard who cursed his sister. No one can stop him from this moment of grieving. He needs some sort of justice for what happened to Anne, and this is the only way he can think of in the midst of his grief.

Simultaneously, though, he has been collecting illicit and illegal information about all the curses, hexes, rituals, and dark magic he can get his hands on. He needs to know about all of them to be prepared for the worst in the future, however his future might be. This mission of his makes him compile and bind some sort of a tome of all the cures and solutions to the Dark Arts.

This kind of pattern continues of over the course of a couple of years, writing a letter to Ominis and MC every now and then to let them know he's still alive. Once he is quite satisfied and have come to terms with his grief, only then would he reemerge into society.

⭆⭆⭆

On a more lighthearted note, being a curse breaker is something he doesn't actually see himself doing for the rest of his life as he grows older. During his youth, he reveled in his findings and discoveries, taking pride in his abilities to be quick on his feet in perilous situations. Like most young men, he will maximize the years of his prime, traveling to distant lands and seeking opportunities elsewhere.

But as he falls into a groove, he might also feel the effects of the job on himself. Places and faces can get old to him once he realizes that he's no longer the young man he used to be. Weariness slowly seep into his bones, and he would love nothing more at this point than to be embraced into a warm home, and taking life slowly.

He realizes that time waits for no man, and perhaps this all stemmed from seeing Ominis recently. His old friend looking more at peace with himself, calm and contented with his own found family.

This could be the final push for Sebastian to finally hang the coat, and quietly retire from being a curse breaker. And this is where Professor Sallow comes into the picture.

Going back to Hogwarts, now as a teacher, gives him the sense of relief and comfort he didn't know he was yearning for. It's as if he has been holding his breath for so long, and now, he can breathe easy again. He feels safe now, with a renewed sense of purpose.

All of his learnings and discoveries during his prime will most definitely take their place in the familiar shelves of the Hogwarts library. He might even feel nostalgic over the fact the he now has actual unlimited access to the Restricted Section, with some of his books sitting right next to the ones he used to get into trouble for.

#hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow #ominis gaunt #sebastian sallow headcanon #sebastian sallow headcanons #hogwarts legacy headcanon #hogwarts legacy headcanons #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x reader

[moodcrab]

Fixing Delphine

This bitch.

I actually like that they made a character that is on your side but is somewhat unlikable, Delphine is Team Dragonborn, but she's not really one of the good guys. And that's cool, conflict means drama. So what's the problem? Well unfortunately, this drama is surface level and isn't used to drive the story, so It's kind of just annoying.

People oversimplify their hatred of Delphine into "She wants you to kill Paarthurnax," because unlike Delphine, people actually like Paarthurnax. Understandable, but barely scratches the surface. We'll get to The Paarthurnax Dilemma in time, but that quest is a symptom, not the illness itself.

If I could sum up Delphine in a word it would be "inconsistent." For example, she's a fugitive waging a one woman war on the Thalmor from the shadows, who's only survived this long from sheer paranoia - but she also uses her real name and leaves a note in Ustengrav for whoever happens to pick it up with directions and a pass word to her secret hide out.

She needs to go through her super secret contact Farengar to use the Jarl's resources to go into Bleak Falls Barrow, a tutorial level dungeon she can see from her house, and she's impressed that you did it - but she also goes personally to the other side of the country to delve alone into the massive Ustengrav to steal the Horn of Jurgan Windcaller, no issues, just a quick in and out twenty minute adventure.

She takes the fact that you found her Ustengrav note as proof you're the Greybeard's new guy and not some Thalmor plant even though she herself, a non Dragonborn, had also completed Ustengrav and taken the horn proving it's totally possible. She even points this out in her own dialogue then demands we prove who we are, even though that was the whole point of the Ustengrav note. It's also a pretty big assumption that just because I'm the guy the Greybeards call Dragonborn that I can't ALSO be with the Thalmor.

We are left with this awkward sense that the writers are flailing to make us think this woman is competent and objective, without actually having her do anything that clever. Just act like the dumb thing was smart and have her act like a cocky brat if questioned about it.

Inconsistency. It's her thing. Does she hate the Thalmor? That would make sense given what we know about her. But that gets dropped half way through the main story and suddenly she hates The Greybeards, for absolutely no reason at all. She gives a reason, but it's bullshit.

In her own words, "If the greybeards had their way, the dragonborn would sit on a mountain talking to the sky." But that's not true is it. We know The Greybeards, they encouraged us to fulfill our destiny. Even if you say you want to follow their Way of the Voice, they'll be glad to hear it but warn you not to let it get in the way of what needs to be done. Delphine even uses Tiber Septim as an example, which is even stupider because The Greybeards actively encouraged Tiber to conquer Tamriel. Have I read more in game books than the dialogue writers??

But that's not the end of it, when it becomes convenient for the plot this hatred is flipped once again from The Greybeards onto dragons. Not Alduin. All dragons. Despite the fact that, as a Blade, she should know about Nafaalilargus, a dragon ally of the Empire and the Blades for thousands of years, and the Blades don't just indiscriminately kill all dragons no matter the circumstances, and that Tiber Septim himself almost certainly met Paarthurnax at some point, she suddenly seems to be acting like she has a personal grudge against dragons. Which brings us to the Paarthurnax Dilemma...

See here's the thing, you could easily write off the frustration everyone feels towards this quest as Bethesda's crappy design, where there is no conclusion other than to kill Paarthurnax, or else leave an unfinished quest languishing in the menu. Bethesda apparently didn't consider the idea that anybody would actually prefer to turn on the Blades, even though the Blades have become a bit of a running joke among the fans, or that anyone would take umbrage with Delphine giving out orders and ultimatums.

But no, it's so much worse than that. Delphine being a surly unlikable c u n t from the day we met her is one thing, but the fact that she has been wrong about almost everything she's ever said in game, and still having the AUDACITY to treat us like her work bitch and us never, not once, getting the opportunity to put her in her place... That's not poor quest design, that's the game gaslighting us.

Let's do a quick list of every one of Delphine's theories, and how many were actually correct shall we:

You are not the Dragonborn ❌

The Greybeards shouldn't be trusted to identify a Dragonborn ❌

The dragons aren't just coming back, they're coming back to life ✅

The Thalmor have something to do with the dragons returning ❌

Esbern is dead ❌

The Greybeards just want the Dragonborn to sit on a mountain and meditate ❌

The Greybeards wanted Tiber Septim to just sit on a mountain and meditate ❌

Paarthurnax, having lived in exile for thousands of years, deserves corporal punishment ❌

As ACTING Grand Master of the Blades, she gets to boss around the Dragonborn ❌

She deserves a seat at the peace negotiations ❌

And these are just the things that are factually wrong, leaving aside opinions on her morality and shitty attitude. This is the woman the game presents to us as a shrewd strategist.

BUT I CAN FIX HER!

Like I said I like the idea of a character who is on your side but is somewhat unlikable. It actually won't take much to make Delphine endearing to the fans. We have to do a Boromir on her. A Lot of people dislike Boromir throughout the Fellowship of the Ring but weep at his death. We have to tweak three things to have the same thing happen to Delphine:

1. Make her actually competent and useful so that while we don't agree with her we can see why she does the things she does, and desire to keep her around.

2. Have her mistakes called out and have consequences.

3. Have her redeem her mistakes with a badass honourable death.

#skyrim #elder scrolls #delphine skyrim #skyrim ulfric #tes 5 skyrim #elder scrolls memes #skyrim memes #elder scrolls morrowind #truestl #elder scrolls oc #oblivion #tes6 #morrowind #the elder scrolls 6 #the elder scolls online #the blades #the elder scrolls #tes #tes 5 #tes lore

[icallhimjoey]

Are you still taking requests?

If yes, I’d love to read about pure domestic bliss. Peak Soft!Joey! Things he does for us that make us go all speechless and love him even more. Little things like running us a bath when he senses we had a shit day, takes care of us when we’re home with a cold…things LIKE THAT!

I could really use that rn. <3

um, so, hyper independent reader not used to someone wanting to take care of us in the smallest of ways???? goooooooot it got it got it Wordcount: 3.3K

---

For You

You rarely asked for help.

Didn't need any.

Joe thought hard, but couldn't remember you ever asking him for anything. Or anyone else for that matter. You didn't ask for help in big ways, but also didn't ask for help in any of the small, little ways.

You did things yourself. Didn't bother people and, even though things took time and effort, and were sometimes a real bitch to figure out by yourself, you always did. Eventually.

Sorted through whatever on your own, because that's how you'd always done it. How your childhood had shaped you. What you'd gotten used to. Who you'd become as a person.

You took care of, well, everything. Were organised in ways Joe couldn't even really phantom a person being organised.

"What do you mean you just fixed my washing machine yourself?"

"Was just the little motor inside, I opened it up and it needed a little part replaced."

"What the..."

"Was easy. I watched some tutorial on how to–" you stopped, had to laugh at the face of shocked disbelief and somehow sheer annoyance he made and finished, "There's tutorials for fucking everything online, it really wasn't that hard."

Yea, Joe wasn't so sure.

"All right then, I guess I'll go and cancel the order I placed for a new one."

Because he would have never even thought of opening whatever panel on the back of whatever machine to have a look inside. To look up what he'd be looking at, and to get a screwdriver out to fiddle around inside.

It was out with the old in the the new far to easily with Joe.

Didn't go like that with you.

You took care of shit yourself. Were the person that people would come to for help. Because that's what you did. Took care of your own shit and helped others with theirs.

It took some actual getting used to for Joe.

Girls had never been like that before with him.

They'd ask for shit, would whine at him in a soft baby voice until he'd do whatever they'd asked. Sometimes it'd be cute, but it could be annoying as fuck too. He'd always cave, however, and it would somehow genuinely increase his well-being. To make someone else happy by doing a small task they asked of him. Fed his ego a bit. Upped the self-esteem a little.

And it wasn't that you didn't accept help when it was offered to you.

Not at all.

You just never asked.

It took weeks for Joe to learn that he'd have to figure out for himself what he could do to help. To take care of you sometimes.

It was why sometimes, when you'd be sat doing whatever paperwork needed doing, or answering whatever e-mails needed answering, Joe would silently wander around your flat.

Looking for things maybe he could do.

Things that maybe you'd left for a bit.

Joe wasn't big on cleaning.

Or organising.

But he could pick up clothes that were left discarded on the bedroom floor. And he could shove whatever products were left out in the bathroom into a drawer. Could open the dishwasher, dishes still dirty, but stacked all wrong, not leaving enough room for the rest that were left on the counter still. He could sort that out for you, no problem.

You always thanked him with a squeeze in his side, or soft kisses to smiley cheeks. Made Joe blush a little, knowing he'd found a thing he could do to help, to ease your load and make you happy.

Until one sort of weird Friday afternoon. It had just gone noon, and Joe received a weird text.

"quick q, did you say you had work today?"

Just things he had to read.

"they wont let me leave on my own"

What the fuck?

"Hey, what's going on? What do you mean they won't let you leave on your own?" Joe decided he needed immediate answers, and called in response to your texts.

"I'm fine," was the first thing out of your mouth, quickly followed by, "Don't worry. If you don't have the time, I can see if–"

"Answer my question, please." Joe cut you off.

"I... I don't know, I keep feeling– I'm dizzy. I lost my balance and fell when my foot got stuck on a threshold– I'm not hurt," you were quick to assure, not wanting to worry Joe.

"Did you faint?" Joe was already on his way out the door.

"No, I'm not lightheaded or anything. Just feel like I'm gonna be sick, and like, my eyes won't stay still. It's more annoying than anything else. Mary says I probably haven't slept enough, or something."

You sounded like it too. All annoyed. Frustrated by the way your body was letting you down in the middle of a work day and now had to ask someone to do something for you.

Had to ask your boyfriend to come pick you up.

Like that was the end of the world, somehow.

"All right, I'm out the door." Joe said, coat billowing behind him as his legs rushed him down the street. "Do one thing for me, yea? Don't fucking move."

Not like you could. Moving your head made you want to throw up. Maybe you just hadn't had enough water and were a bit dehydrated. Or a lot hydrated. You didn't know, but thought having water would be a good idea anyway.

You had little sips in the reception area of the office until Joe arrived.

"Hey," 

"You all right?" Joe crouched down in front of you, one hand on your shoulder, then on your cheek. He ducked his head to look you in the eye.

“Yea fine. Just dizzy when I stand. Or move. That’s all.” 

“She hurt her wrist,” Mary said loudly as she walked over.

You did a quick Joe, Mary - Mary, Joe, introducing them to each other. Joe stood up straight and they shook hands, exchanged polite smiles, and then turned their worried gazes back onto you.

“It’s fine, nothing serious,” you gave your hand a twist and turn to showcase how fine you were. When you’d suddenly lost balance, you’d braced yourself with your one free hand. It would maybe take a day or two for it to feel normal again, it had just taken a blow. 

"It'll sort itself out."

"Are you accompanying her the whole way home?"

"Yea, took the tube here, but," Joe looked at you whilst he fished his phone from his pocket. Unlocked it with his face and swiped to find the Uber app.

"We're getting an Uber back." 

Good. Yes.

You were glad.

You would probably feel just as sick in a car, but the hassle of escalators, tunnels, stairs, more tunnels, more stairs, the hot air but the cold winds, and just, other people... even just thinking of the whole process, of public transport, made black and white spots creep up behind your eyes.

Mary seemed glad too, told you to get some actual rest, to take it easy and to feel better soon as Joe helped you onto your feet and guided you out of the building.

You had to lean into him heavily, nausea gripping you by the throat as you walked down to where Joe said you'd be picked up in a minute.

Focussing strongly on putting one foot in front of the other and not moving your head around too much, your mind echoed left, right, left, right, left, right. You felt Joe's grip strengthen around your waist as the world kept pulling you to the side.

"Jesus, do we need to go to A&E?"

This wasn't the time for jokes. You were busy trying to generally survive. The lack of balance, the world spinning and tilting, was disorienting and didn't leave room for humour.

"Have someone look you over?"

Joe wasn't joking, though.

"No," you swallowed. A mistake. "I just need to lie down and be still."

Joe helped you slide into the car, then used his fingers on your jaw to tip your head back against the headrest. Held a palm over your forehead a second, making sure it stayed in place before he carefully got you into your seatbelt and shut the door as softly as he could.

Sitting still like this, it was okay. Head back, sat up right, no weird smells.

This was fine.

You told the driver not to worry. Lied and promised him you didn't feel sick, just dizzy, and prayed you wouldn't actually throw up.

Joe rounded to the other side and slid down the seat to be right beside you. Sat in the middle seat, and after doing up his own seatbelt, attention was back with you.

An arm pushed through behind your neck, curled around your shoulder as you got pulled in.

Resting your head on Joe's shoulder wasn't any better than having it upright and tipped back, but Joe used a large palm that covered most of your scalp and then softly scratched fingers into your hair.

That was better.

You closed your eyes when the car pulled onto the road.

Having the actual world move fucked you up way more than you thought it might do.

The light that moved as you drove still filtered through enough, so you turned your head and hid your face against Joe's arm. Found darkness and peace there, and took measured breaths. Tried to ignore how your brain felt like a carousel. Could still taste the coffee you had about an hour earlier.

"Just crossed the river," Joe softly spoke near your ear.

He was taking you home.

"Five more minutes."

When you arrived, Joe wouldn't let you get out of the car by yourself. Said, "Hang on, wait here," and rushed out to jog around where he opened your door. Then he turned, and crouched down. Got down on one knee, and held out his arms behind him to guide.

"Joe, I can walk,"

You'd never ask to be carried.

"This feels safer. Come on."

But Joe insisted, and so you slid from the backseat right onto Joe's back. Slung arms around his neck and rested your head on his shoulder. Closed your eyes again, which didn't really help the nausea, but it felt nice to pretend you weren't really there.

Joe walked with bent legs, never fully straightening his knees, and you got the smoothest piggyback ride you'd ever had, right into your flat.

Right into your bedroom, where...

"Oh, fuck,"

You looked up, peeked over Joe's shoulder and, you remembered as you saw it.

You'd stripped your bed that morning, threw all sheets and covers into the wash and had planned to make the bed later, when you'd get back after work. Would use the other set that you didn't like the feel of as much, but which looked nicer.

"Okay, sofa." Joe turned on his heel, spun too quick, and made you groan with discomfort.

"Sorry, sorry," Joe stilled completely. Waited a couple seconds. Said sorry again and then walked you over into your living room where he carefully lowered himself and let you slide onto your sofa.

"How are we doing?" Joe checked in, went to close the curtains to get the place as dark as it possibly could in the middle of the day.

"Just need to sleep it off, I think," you said, trying to control your breathing as you bent over slowly to take off your shoes.

Your hands got moved aside by Joe, who moved to sit down in front of you on his knees.

"Sit back,"

And so you did. Inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. Accepted that the room was just going to be spinning for a while, nothing you could do to make it stop.

Joe took off your shoes and gave both socked feet a rub before coaxing you to lay back.

Throw pillows got moved into place, a blanket got draped over you, and Joe felt something pang inside of his chest at the sight of you laying flat on your back like this.

You were a side sleeper.

Would always curl up into a ball, would pull your knees up all high that would get Joe in the back some nights. Most nights. Joe always had to turn around and move one of your legs to hook over his hip to omit the uncomfortable press of boney knees into his spine.

Joe had never seen you try to fall asleep on your back before.

"Need anything else?" Joe whispered, still hovering over you, now toeing off his own shoes.

Not like you were going to ask, were you?

If Joe wanted to take care, he'd have to ask you for what you needed.

You hummed, said, "Nothing," slung an arm over your eyes and then followed up with, "Quiet.".

All right.

Joe could be quiet.

It didn't take you long to fall asleep at all, thank fuck.

For a second, Joe thought of going back home. Leaving you to get some rest, ensure your place would actually be quiet. But then he thought of your bed, and decided, might as well make it.

Joe found a set of sheets, but knew it was the one you found a little scratchy. Then he found your washing, transferred it all into the dryer as silently as he could and then thought, yea might as well, when he saw you'd left the bathroom messy.

Joe tidied up.

Decided halfway through he could also cook later. Take on dinner.

What else would he appreciate someone doing if he couldn't move without holding onto a wall?

Lots of things.

He was going to do them all.

Joe moved around with intention, shuffled on his socks, did everything as quietly as he could. Still closed cupboards too loudly, and made himself wince several times. He would freeze and would listen if he could hear you stir, if he'd disturbed you.

Not a peep from you. Not once.

Good.

Joe found the fridge empty, then grabbed your reusable shopping bag and your keys. Would only be a minute.

Downstairs, he checked your mail, opened your little metal post box and found a slip for a delivery that you'd missed, for a parcel that needed picking up. Decided to do that too, because, why not.

When Joe got back and carefully went to check if you were asleep still, he saw that you'd curled up with both your knees pressed into the back of the sofa. Couldn't help but smile to himself.

Nearly three hours later, you jolted awake. Took a look around the room, frowning, squinty eyes, and tried to figure out what woke you up. Why you were on the sofa again. What day it was.

You could hear the oven close in the kitchen, and let your head drop back down onto the soft pillows from the sofa.

You remembered.

And you felt... better. Sort of... just fine. You noticed gravity was pulling at you just right again. Huge difference compared to before, when it got you from all different sorts of angles.

Shaking your head side to side, everything felt solid. Steady. And you were really fucking hungry.

"Joe?" you called, and had to cough right after.

"You're up!" Joe stepped into view, drying his hands on a tea towel and he... Joe looked windswept. Untamed. Disheveled and tousled, face all flushed. All smiley and excited looking.

"How are you feeling?"

The opposite of how Joe looked, but, fine none the less.

"Better," you smiled through squinty eyes.

"Yea? No longer dizzy?"

"I don't think so," you shook your head once more, to check. Felt fine.

"Feel sick?"

"No... I'm hungry."

"Yea?"

"Yea." you looked around, still a little dazed and, what was that smell?

"Good, dinner's in the oven." Joe made his way over, and took a moment to grin at you. Leant down and just grinned at you. You didn't know what was so funny, but Joe made you laugh anyway.

You still felt a little shaky when Joe kissed you. Small pecks. Then a long one. Another grin, followed by a suspicious frown from you, and then, more kisses.

"What?" you asked when Joe wouldn't stop smiling.

"Nothing. Just glad that you're okay. How's your wrist?"

You rotated it. Gave it a little shake.

"Bit sore, but not bad, thanks. And thank you for coming to get me from work, I really couldn't have– I don't know what happened, do people get their balance affected from lack of sleep, do you know?"

"Yea, I googled, and apparently, you can. So that could be it, but it also could be a million other things." Joe shrugged.

Hmm. All right. Well, at least you felt better now. Nausea gone. Vision no longer swimming.

"Want to take a bath?" Joe suggested, and you groaned at the suggestion.

"Yes,"

"Okay, be careful, the water was practically boiling when I filled it fifteen minutes ago,"

You gasped softly, immediately pouted.

"You... you already filled the tub?"

Joe's eyes twinkled.

"Babe, I did so much," he exclaimed all proud, and started going down the list.

Joe had done a massive food shop, picked up a parcel from the post office, cleared out the dishwasher, tidied the bathroom, folded the laundry and put it all of it away, made dinner, made the bed–

Joe had to stop when he saw your eyes blinking rapidly, eyelashes wet. You seemed overwhelmed, a bit.

"Are you..."

A sob wrecked from your throat and you immediately laughed, because you were well aware you were being silly.

"You're crying?" Joe asked, smiling, already pulling you in so you could hide your face into his chest.

"You didn't have to–"

"Stop, I know I don't have to. I wanted to. Believe it or not, sometimes people enjoy doing things for you."

People usually loved it when you did things for them, but, you loved doing things for other people, so you understood.

"You made the bed?"

You knew Joe fucking hated making the bed.

"Yea, used the nice sheets,"

"I put the others in the wash this morning–"

"No," Joe corrected. "I put those in the dryer and used those," Joe pulled back, tilted his head down enough to catch your expression. "The other ones are– they don't feel great, right?"

Joe saw your face scrunch up again and quickly tucked you back under his chin.

"Maybe just get rid of those all together,"

"They were an expensive–"

"I'll get rid of them." Joe said, knowing you probably never would yourself.

Unbelievable.

You didn't deserve Joe.

Joe would disagree and fight you on that, so you didn't say that shit out loud.

Joe held you for a bit longer, his affection pouring over you until it was dripping down the sofa and leaving puddles on the floor.

"Bath's getting cold," Joe eventually murmured into your hair.

"Thank you," you managed to croak out as you accepted the kisses Joe pressed to your forehead before he helped you up from the sofa.

He held wary arms out, ready to catch you if it turned out that standing up was still a task too tricky, but you seemed steady enough. Could walk towards the door without going sideways.

"You know what?" he said, hand on the small of your back, guiding you across the room.

"Get in the bath, I'll join you in a sec,"

You caught his little smirk as he looked at you over his shoulder, stepping closer towards the kitchen.

"With dinner." Joe finished, and, fuck off. That sounded like the best fucking idea you'd ever heard.

"Hey," you said, making Joe stop, and for some reason, you caught a flicker of worry in his eyes before they softened as you smiled.

"Thank you," you said again, this time more earnest than you'd done before.

Joe needed to know you were grateful.

"Anything," Joe started, squeezed his eyes shut tightly to bring his point across properly.

"Anything for you."

the end

---

The Taglisted

@adoreyouusugar, @alana4610, @ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @barfightzanddiscolightz, @bettyfrommars, @cancankiki, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson, @choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @dylanmunson, @eddies-puppet, @electricmunson, @emma77645, @emmamooney, @everythinghasafacee, @figmentofquinn, @frootvelvet, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @harringtonfan4, @haylaansmi, @jasminearondottir, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @kellyxo1, @kennedy-brooke, @lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @miserybeans, @nadixq, @notverywise, @paola-carter, @pepperstories, @phyllosilicate-s, @roosterisdaddy36, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @thebellenouvelle, @thewondernanazombie, @tlclick73, @werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

#Joe Quinn #Joseph Quinn #Joe Quinn x You #Joseph Quinn x You #Joe Quinn x Reader #Joseph Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn Fanfic #Joe Quinn fanfiction #Joseph Quinn Fanfic #Joseph Quinn Fanfiction #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x y/n #icallhimjoey #for you

[spocks-kaathyra]

how did you make those holy shit!!!

jfjskdk okay I'll take any excuse I get to talk abt this more

How I made my Cardassian prosthetics

Disclaimer: I'm no expert, it's my first time doing this!! All the resources I used can be found online. In fact, here's a playlist of all the youtube videos I followed, in case you don't want to read the whole post. You can pretty much make any facial prosthetics following these steps, not just Cardassian ones.

What you'll need:

Plaster bandages, plaster of Paris (a lot more than is pictured here), modeling clay, and liquid latex. You'll also need some things you probably already have around the house, like vaseline (or cooking oil), plastic wrap, wood glue, rubbing alcohol, q-tips, cotton balls, and setting powder (or baby powder).

Step 1: Face cast

The goal here is to make a plaster copy of your face that you can sculpt your prosthetics on, by covering your face with plaster bandages and then casting that in plaster of Paris. This is the video tutorial I followed for this step. There are many methods, and you'll find tutorials for all of them on youtube, but this is the easiest way if you're doing it by yourself, and it results in a perfectly useable face cast for our purposes. And, if you're cosplaying Garak like me, it's a great way to get into character by experiencing claustrophobia for the first time in your life!! (Jk it's not actually that bad. I lived.)

The video explains the process better than I could, but here's some tips I learned from doing it! Wear a shirt that you don't mind ruining. Go a bit closer to your eyes than I did here. When you're propping up your mask in a bowl, make sure you're not squishing any parts of it or tilting it! I ended up with a dent in the chin of my face cast because I accidentally dented the mask while I was casting it. And make sure you have enough plaster of Paris! I probably used 2-3 pounds for this part. Here's what I ended up with, before sanding or sealing it with wood glue:

Step 2: Sculpting

This is pretty self explanatory, but also probably the hardest part. Just use lots and lots of reference photos. I've got a pretty good stash for Garak, if anyone's interested hdjkfhk. I found that gifs made better references than still photos, since they give you a better sense of the 3D shape. You want to make sure you're using modeling clay that doesn't dry. You don't need any fancy sculpting tools! I used my trusty palette knife to get the small details, but you could probably accomplish the same thing with, like, a spoon and a toothpick. It depends on what kind of clay you're using, but you can dip your finger in a solvent to smooth out the surface of the clay and blend the edges into the face cast. I used rubbing alcohol, but I also heard people recommend acetone. Once you're happy with your sculpt, you can move onto the next step!

Step 3: Casting negatives

This step is technically optional. The video I followed also outlines an easier way that skips this step, by simply building your prosthetics directly on the sculpt. But casting negatives allows you to get a lot more fine detail, and a smoother finish on the final prosthetics, so that's what I chose to do. Basically, you pour plaster of Paris over your sculpt, and it hardens into a mold you can use to build your prosthetics on.

Again, the video explains it better, but some tips! If it's possible with your sculpt, do it in small pieces instead of the whole face at once. I did the chin, nose, and forehead separately. If you try to do the whole face, there's a greater chance of it getting stuck or breaking. Of course, if you were doing, say, Odo, then it might not be possible to do it in multiple pieces. Another thing to watch out for:

If your underlying face cast has any "undercuts," or places where it's, like, concave, then if plaster gets into those areas and hardens, your face cast and your negatives will lock together, and you won't be able to use either of them. For me I was worried about the sides of my nose and under my bottom lip. As long as those parts are filled in with clay, then you should be fine. It's okay if your clay sculpt has undercuts! You can see in the (shamelessly stolen) diagram that their sculpt has a lot of undercuts, but that's okay because the clay is soft and won't lock with the plaster, it'll just come off. The video I got the diagram from was also pretty helpful, even if it's meant for casting with different materials than I used. Here are the completed negatives:

Step 4: Making the prosthetics!

Now you have negatives! Your sculpt may or may not be intact, but if your negatives turned out okay then that's fine. This step is also covered in the video for step 3. Using a stippling sponge, foam brush, or q-tip, stipple thin layers of liquid latex onto your negatives. I found that a q-tip worked best, even if it took longer to cover larger areas. Make sure the edges are very thin, so you can blend them into your skin when you apply the prosthetics. Wait for a layer to dry before adding more latex on top of it, or you'll end up with fucked up results like I had:

(Left: first draft, where I didn't let it dry enough before layering more. Right: second draft. Much better!)

Build up bulky areas with pieces of cotton balls, then cover the cotton with a thin layer of latex. Emphasis on thin! It'll take forever to dry if you saturate your cotton with too much latex. This step mostly involves a LOT of waiting. When the latex is fully dry, brush everything with a liberal amount of setting powder or baby powder to prevent the latex from sticking to itself as you peel it out of the mold.

And now you have your prosthetics! You can tear away some of the excess latex at the edges to make it fit your face better. I ended up tearing away almost all of the edges around the eye ridges, so it would blend better and I wouldn't have to get adhesive so close to my eyes. Tear, don't cut! It'll result in a more natural edge that's easier to blend. This video shows how to apply prosthetics. Use whatever prosthetic adhesive you want! I used spirit gum because it's what I had on hand.

Now you can go forth and live out your lizard alien dreams!!

#IDs in alt text #garak prosthetics tutorial is finally here :)) #u guys better not let this flop. this is more effort than I put into my entire high school career (which is a low bar tbh) #sorry to my friend I cropped out of the first pic 😭😭 I rly didn't get any good solo shots jdlkjhf #narcissus's echoes #narcissus plays dress up #ds9 #elim garak #star trek #garashir #andy robinson #cardassians #star trek ds9 #star trek cosplay #deep space nine #star trek deep space 9 #garak cosplay

[w1ldthoughts]

Big Man

Series Masterlist

Synopsis: Jack wants to celebrate every milestone, including a one month anniversary.

Warning: smut…yeah.

Approximately six years had passed since the last time he was someone’s boyfriend. Life was completely different now. He could actually pay for things and plan dates. But everything still had to be private. Only Urban, DK and Mani were aware of this turn of events and the new couple intended to keep it that way. The less people know about your business, the less they could comment on it. And the odds were already staked against them, there was no way they were ready to hear about how hard making the relationship work was going to be.

They agreed to see each other two weekends a month, once in Louisville and once in Miami if their schedules allowed it. Or they would be meeting each other wherever was needed. Jack had spent the last month proving to his girlfriend that he was taking this relationship seriously. Once a week she’d get a bouquet of peonies delivered to her door and in her office. He’d order her favorite food if she mentioned she didn’t have time to grab lunch that day. When he came to visit last, he stocked the pantry with her favorite snacks and even got a bunch of treats and toys for Harper.

Now that she was back in Louisville, she wanted to return the favor. To her surprise he was nowhere to be found when she got to his house. Zoey had checked pretty much every square inch of the place and was kind of pissed at the thought of him still being in the studio. She pulled out her phone to give him a call.

“Jack, where are you? I’ve been running around your house like a headless chicken looking for you.” She huffed out.

The laugh on the other end of the line made her blood boil even more. “Relax, I’m in the backyard. You should come out here, the weather is perfect.”

She rolled her eyes, feeling her anger quickly melt away at the thought of being in his arms again. The sight in the backyard took her breath away.

“What’s all this?” She asks him when he comes into view. He jogged over to her and lifted her off her feet, holding on for dear life.

“I missed you.” He whispered as he put her down, kissing the palm of her right hand with a smile.

That damn smile was going to be the death of her. “I missed you too. You didn’t tell me you were doing all of this. What’s it all for?”

“Celebrating the best month of my life. We’ve got a little picnic here and then I thought we could paint for a little bit. Then I’ll let you take mine home and I’ll keep yours here so we can have a little piece of each other to look at before the next time we’re physically together.”

Jack looks down at her to read her expression. “You think it’s corny, don’t you?”

“No! Not at all.” She exclaims. “I think it’s adorable. And I’m really excited for you look at a piece of artwork and think of me. Every. Single. Day.”

He stared at her lips as she spoke, going in slowly after she finished her sentence. She used the strings of his white hoodie to pull him in even closer, as his hand came up to stroke her cheek. Kissing her made him feel like he was floating, suspended in endless realm of tranquility. Like everything in the world just made perfect sense.

They spent the next few hours feeding each other and carefully watched YouTube tutorials with headphones on as they worked on their respective paintings.

“We should head inside and let these dry before we do our big reveal.” Jack voices, standing up from his spot across from her. He walks over to give Zoey a hand, which she happily takes as they walk into the house together to wash their hands.

“I’m so happy you’re here.” He whispers into her hair, having cuddled into Zoey on the couch as she browsed the Hulu catalog.

She turned around slightly to give him a quick peck. “Me too. Been waiting for this for a while, since the moment you left Miami.”

“You’re cute,” he chuckles. “And you smell so good.” Zoey feels a chill throughout her body as he nuzzles his face into her neck. He begins tracing long lines along her outer thigh. She responds by straddling him and placing soft kisses along his jaw.

Jack was sure he needed a better expression than cloud nine as he pulled her chin up using his index finger and gave her a lengthy, lingering kiss. He’d respected her wishes not to do anything beyond that because of his decisions throughout their break but god did he think about it a lot. The kiss grew hungrier as he snuck a hand in her shirt and began fondling her breast just enough for her to moan into his mouth. He was already half hard, his dick beginning to stand at attention.

“We should head upstairs.” Zoey expressed, her soft but subtly seductive gaze hinting at more than just another round of steamy kisses.

He catches his breath, a smile growing on his face and without another word, they headed up to his room and he locked the door behind them.

Before he could even process it, she was on top of him. “I think you’ve had enough time to get that sex binging out of your system, don’t you agree?”

Instead of responding, he stole another kiss. Zoey loved that he had a tendency to just simply worship every inch of her body, eating her out like it was the last thing he’d ever do. The tip of his tongue gliding effortlessly against her clit, using one of his hands to enhance the stimulation until she fell apart at the seams. He carefully sucked on the sensitive area until she climaxed and he gave her a minute to come down, wiping at the pre-cum that had appeared while getting her prepped.

She was a little tighter than Jack remembered, but it had also been three months since he’d been inside her so he entered her slowly, holding his breath a bit at the restraint. He heard a soft groan underneath him and his hips stilled.

“You alright, baby?”

“I’m good—great actually. Keep going.”

Jack placed gentle hands on both of her hips, relaxing into it a little more with a few short thrusts and eventually sliding all the way in.

“Oh my god…” Zoey whines in ecstasy, her breaths becoming more erratic. Every movement had him closer and closer to the edge, his grunts of pleasure increasing in volume. Usually a bit sloppier, Jack wanted to take his time and savor the moment, until he felt hands on his ass, urging him to go harder. He splayed kisses along her collarbone and he could practically feel Zoey’s stomach clenching when he picks up the pace.

Her toes began to curl while he steadily thrust in and out of her, going so deep that it felt like he was actually going to hit her cervix. They both began to lose themselves further, her eyes falling shut while he whispered sweet nothings in her ear, fucking through her orgasm. His dick twitched when he pulled out, a short whine escaping his lips as he filled the condom with his load.

After they took a short nap and had dinner, they headed back outside to present their masterpieces.

“I painted this because in a galaxy that is so massive and relatively unknown, you’re my favorite thing in the universe.” Jack beams.

“Oh my god,” she coos. “That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Now I feel bad.”

Jack furrows his eyebrows, “why? I’m sure whatever you painted will be perfect.”

“Okay, hear me out. I only painted it because I love Scream and thought it would be funny. But also falling in love is scary, so there’s a little bit of a double meaning there.”

“Are you falling in love with me Zozo?” He teased, slowly moving towards to grab her hand, their fingers woven together seamlessly. She simply nods, bringing his hand to her lips. “Good. Because I’m so far gone for you, it’s not even funny.”

Zoey had a man, a big, 6’3, powerful man that she absolutely already knew she loved. But he was going to have to say it first.

Taglist

@killatravtramp

@jackharloww

@harlowcomehome

@itsyagirljaz

#jack harlow #jack harlow x oc #jack harlow imagine #jackman thomas harlow #jack x zoey #jack harlow smut

[petrolstationflowers]

Update 13 Dec 2023: Updated 13 Dec 2023 with a Portuguese translation by David Manaia as well as correcting the Level 10 metrics!

A mortician career for your sims! This was requested by Catrillion and was super interesting to research! Your sim can join it via the Hospital rabbithole and is available from Young Adult through to Elder.

If anyone would like to translate this, please feel free! The English strings are included in the download file, just drop me a message here or on MTS!

I used @missy-hissy's career tutorial to make this and a huge thanks to @zoeoe-sims for helping me with some infuriating bugs we finally got sorted out!

Details under the cut!

This career has ten levels and requires you to level Science and the hidden skill Styling, which can be improved by using the Styling Station to do makeovers at the salon. The skill won't show up in the skills panel, but the metric should change and you can track its level through MasterController.

Since there wasn't a strict progression for this job IRL, I've varied it a little bit to encompass all skills a fully qualified mortician and embalmer would need. There's long hours and extra studies included -- it's not an easy job!

There's no opportunities or books to read, but there are uniforms from the Medical career included, which should show up from Level 2. Carpool only shows up at Level 2 onwards, so don't panic if you need to manually send your sim to work.

Please note if you want to use this, you must have Nraas Careers installed for it to show up!

There's two custom tones:

Study Anatomy (increases Science) Practise Styling (increases Styling)

I've put the levels, hours, and pay under here if you'd like to take a look: Level 1 - At the Crossroads - 10:00 until 16:00, M-F, 10 simoleans p/h

Description: "You’ve always been fascinated by death, sneaking into the movie theatre to watch the horror flicks much too young and reading books your mother would have definitely taken away from you. You have a knack for biology and have followed Olive Specter’s SimTube channel since she first started uploading in the middle of the night. With the job market uncertain right now, why not look into becoming a mortician? It can’t be any worse than EverFresh Supermarket…"

Level 2 - Apprentice - 09:00 until 15:00, M-F, 30 simoleans p/h

Description: "After many days of scrolling through job listings and qualifications in the hospital cafe, you’ve finally found the guts to apply for an apprenticeship. It’s not the best paid and you’re still stuck in the classroom, but at least the coursework is interesting. Now just to pass the exams…"

Level 3 - Mortuary Admin Specialist - 09:00 until 17:00, M-F, 40 simoleans p/h

Description: "You’ve passed your course, got that diploma, and swaggered out of that classroom with a spring in your step… only for your first gig to be doing the admin work at the local mortuary. At the moment you’re spending your time booking appointments and sending emails with the occasional aside of cleaning the equipment, but show enough enthusiasm and you’ll soon be moving on up."

Level 4 - Mortuary Technician - 09:00 until 18:00, Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun, 60 simoleans p/h

Description: "Your first actual job is dressing and caring for the deceased, making sure they’re laid to rest in the coffin of their choosing and that their funeral is exactly what they and their family wanted. It’s delicate, gentle work, making sure death has dignity. Sometimes it’s the living that need you more; you’ll need a calm voice and be a shoulder to cry on for families who have to say goodbye."

Level 5 - Mortuary Technician Team Leader - 09:00 until 18:00, Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun, 75 simoleans p/h

Description: "You’ve proved to have a light touch with the makeup brush and know the right words to comfort the bereaved, so a promotion is in order and that means working with the parts that make up a human body. Your duties will include weighing organs, taking tissue samples, and reconstructing bodies so they’re ready to be buried. Make sure you study up on identifying diseases in organs if you want that promotion!"

Level 6 - Senior Mortuary Manager - 09:00 until 18:00, Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun, 105 simoleans p/h

Description: "Finally, proper pay! Unfortunately, it more means managing your coworkers than the corpses. You’re allowed to sign off on the higher level decisions and have more responsibility, but you didn’t get into this role to do people management. Maybe there’s another path you can take…"

Level 7 - Trainee Embalmer - 12:00 until 21:00, M-F, 50 simoleans p/h

Description: "Back to the classroom you go! Sort of. You’ve put in an application to train as an embalmer, and are splitting your time between shadowing one of your senior coworkers and attending night school. It’s long and tiring, with late study hours for not much money, but it’ll pay off in the long run (you hope)."

Level 8 - Qualified Embalmer - 09:00 until 16:00, M-F, 200 simoleans p/h

Description: "The graft has paid off, and you’ve got another diploma under your belt (as well as a bit more cash, thank the Watcher). You’ve transferred back to the hospital mortuary but this time to work as an embalmer, washing and taking care of bodies and taking all the steps to make sure they’re preserved with the right chemicals. It’ll require careful technique with not only the embalming fluid and syringes, but also your empathy; you’ll need to make sure the family, as well as their loved one, are well cared for."

Level 9 - Mobile Embalmer - 18:00 until 03:00, Mon/Tue/Fri/Sat/Sun, 220 simoleans p/h

Description: "For some reason, embalming isn’t a sought after job – which means good news for you! Work is dispatching you all across SimNation to provide your services, from vampire attacks in Bridgeport to meteor strikes in Lunar Lakes. You’re spending more time in hotels than at home, and while you’re raking in the money, maybe it’s time you struck out on your own."

Level 10 - Locum Mortuary Technician - 11:00 until 15:00, Mon/Sat/Sun, 500 simoleans p/h

Description: "You’ve had enough of the corpo grind and chucked it in; you’re freelance, baby! As a fully qualified mortuary technician and embalmer, you pick up agency shifts and choose when and where you want to work, on whatever catches your eye. If someone wants to pay you good money to preserve the corpse of Bigfoot for their collection, now you don’t have to turn them down for something more sensible. After all, if you love your job, you don’t work a day in your life!"

#sims 3 #ts3 #the sims 3 #the sims 3 cc #ts3 cc #ts3 custom content #the sims 3 custom content #ts3 custom jobs #ts3 custom careers #the sims 3 custom careers #the sims 3 custom jobs #mortician

[larkingame]

the absolute beginners guide to twine part i

I've posted this in the tutorial channel in our decoding twine server, but I figured it might be helpful to keep on here. As someone who found learning twine incredibly daunting especially with so many things to read, often using coding language I was expected to already understand, I want make coding in twine alot simpler for beginners.

So, with this, I'm unleashing the absolute, absolute, begginers guide/series of sorts for people looking to pick up twine, but might be intimidated. Here I'm talking about the 'stuff you should already know' 🙄 you see when going into tutorials. I really hope some of this helps, and I'll be happy to answer any questions I can in the future, or at least, send you to someone else who can too.

so, with that being said, here's the absolute beginners guide to twine, part i

So, this is the most basic basic basic stuff you're going to use within sugarcube twine, that I thought would be helpful for those of us who are just learning, there are plenty of more in depth guides out there, but I wanted to keep this as simplistic as possible in a sort of explain-to-me-like-i'm-five style.

Once you've gotten twine installed and switched your format over to sugarcube -> (This is done by opening up a new project, clicking in the bottom left of your screen with your game's title, and clicking on the 'Change Story Format' Option and switching over to the latest version of Sugarcube (sugarcube2.36.1))

PASSAGES These are what hold the content of your story! They hold your main body of text and LINKS which what connect passages in your story. Think of passages as pages in your choose your own adventure novel, and links are the choices that tell you (or the program) which page to flip to. Passages have TITLES and BODIES Your Title, is you guessed it, what your passage is called. This will not show up in game, but I'd recommend naming your passages something bland incase code-divers hop in and look at your code lest they find something embarrassing in your titles. Your body, is what is in the actual passage itself, this is what shows up in game and contains links.

LINKS links are what tie ALL of twine together across the formats, and in sugarcube you can style them a series of ways, connecting one passage to the next. The easiest way to include a link looks like this: [[LINK]] This is a link that will appear as the word 'link' in-game, and will take you to the next passage entitled LINK. For this route, it's necessary to wrap your link in two sets of brackets OR [[]] These, which will actually make it function as a link. [[NEXT | LINK]] This is another approach you could take, where players will click on a link that says "NEXT" in game, but will take the player to a passage called LINK. For beginners think, left is what will appear to the player and right is the title of the passage just for you the developer.

USING VARIABLES - variables are an incredibly useful tool that can be used to keep track of things throughout your game, whether that be your character's name, whether or not the player's visited a passage, the response to a question or numerical stats.

For our purposes there are three types of variables, Boolean (true/false), Numerical, and String Variables.

The two macros that will be useful in reference to variables are: <<set>> and <<if>>

First things first, when you have your list of variables ready, you're going to want to define them first in the StoryInit Passage. This is the first passage that will run in your game, you won't see it when the game is played BUT it does get run in the background behind everything else. By setting your variables ahead of time and modifying them later it allows for a smoother run through of the game that eliminates problems further down the line. You can of course, define your variables as your game progresses in individual passages BUT you might run into trouble later down the line.

So, let's set up your variables in a mock StoryInit Passage here: :: StoryInit <<set $characterfriendship to 0>> <<set $yesornoanswer to false>> <<set $eyecolor to "null">>

SO, what this does is it sets a variable called $characterfriendship to 0 using the <<set>> macro. What this does is set my friendship points with said character to ) that can progressively grow throughout the game.

VARIABLES whatever you call them ALWAYS have to be proceeded by a dollar sign ($) for them to function in game, and you can format the <<set>> macro a number of ways. For example: <<set $characterfriendship to 0>> <<set $characterfriendship = 0>>

Both will function the same and make it so that variable will equal 0.

Now moving on, if we want to alter those numerical values further down the line in a passage we can do so in a number of ways, whether that be adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying. For example if I want to ADD 1 point to my friendship my code would look like this. <<set $characterfriendship += 1>> OR IF WE'RE JUST ADDING ONE you could simply do this: <<set $characterfriendship ++>>

To subtract you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship -= 1>> To multiply you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship *= 1> To divide you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship /= 1> This of course can be altered to any number, just by changing that 1 to the number you'd like.

BOOLEAN VARIABLES are useful when an option has two outcomes, helpful for things like yes or no questions or passage visits. Setting those variables looks something like this:

<<set $yesornoanswer to false>> <<set $yesornoanswer to true>>

when setting the variable it is NOT necessary to add quotations around the words true or false, this will mess up your work down the line if you don't continuously use those quotes again.

STRING VARIABLES These are helpful for options with more complex outcomes, things like multiple options, names, or character customization.

<<set $eyecolor to "null">>

So far in StoryInit I've only set it to null because I haven't set it yet in-game, and by setting it to "null" it just gives me an option that isn't really an option.

SETTING VARIABLES WITH LINKS SO, moving forward, no that I have defined my variables in StoryInit, I want to change them when I'm in game.

You could do this of course, by setting them at the top of your passage in game. So looking something like this:

::passagethree <<set $eyecolor to "brown">> Her eyes were brown. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

But another sometimes more effective way to set them with actual links! You can go about that a couple of ways.

One is with the brackets method and it'll look something like this.

[[BLUE | LINK][$eyecolor to "blue"]]

Using this method, it's important NOT to include the word set, simply skipping ahead to your variable the to and what you're defining it as.

The other method is through the <> method. This is simply another way to style your links. I like the brackets method, but it's all up to you.

<<link 'blue' 'passage-four'>><<set $eyecolor to "blue">><</link>>

The first quotation (blue) is what the player will see as the link in the passage, and the second quotation (passage-four) is what the associated passage is called. You can set the $variable within those <<link>>

#interactive fiction #twine #sugarcube twine #if #coding #tutorial

[lil-tachyon]

Got any good resources for clothing drawing tips?

Okay so quick little introduction before I try to answer this question. First of all, sorry for letting this languish in the inbox for so long. I have a lot I want to say about this and I'd really like to make a proper "tutorial" but this week took a lot out of me so what you're going to get are some visual notes on graph paper and some rambling thoughts. Maybe down the line I'll try to flesh this out more into a proper guide, but for now it is what it is.

Second- for many different art concepts I can give you some really great recommended reading for self-teaching. There's a whole section of my website with links to things that helped me learn. Clothing is one of those things where I never found a book or tutorial that really "clicked" with me. It's one of the few areas of art where I feel like it's fair to say I'm genuinely self-taught. So what you're going to get here is very much my opinion, not undisputed common wisdom or whatever. Take it with a grain of salt. This is how I draw, not the "right way" to draw.

Third- drawing clothes is not something fundamental like perspective or rendering where there are actual hard-and-fast "rules" you can learn to guide you. It's not even like anatomy where there are approaches that have been worked out and passed down by artists over generations. I think about drawing clothing as a synthesis of several different skills- a little bit of anatomy, a little bit of perspective, a little bit of rendering. Honestly a smidge of graphic design. You're employing a "cloud" of your artistic skills towards a specific end. What this means is that the TLDR of this post is going to be "do what you would normally do to improve at drawing but apply it to clothing." So don't expect something life-changing, instead just open your mind to maybe trying some new things you hadn't thought of before. Also this is going to be more about drawing than painting, that is more about "lines" than "shapes" but the two skills overlap and the same concepts should be broadly applicable. But my examples are going to be drawings.

Okay intro out of the way. Clothes are mostly just tubes of fabric, fabric wants to fall down. The human body and sometimes wind and water and other fluids will stop this fabric from falling down all at once and instead give it a shape. Keep this in mind. It's helpful to know how clothes are actually constructed if you want to know how they will deform when falling across the figure. Where a garment is simply a length of fabric, it's very flexible. It can bunch together or be stretched taught. This is most noticeable at the parts of the body that open and shut like hinges- knees, elbows, and armpits. The behavior of garments at these areas of the body is highly dynamic.

At seams where different sections of fabric are stitched together, movement can be come more limited. Seams are usually imperfect- pieces of fabric of slightly different lengths might be stitched together or fabric may shrink over time around a thread causing it to pucker and wrinkle. For these reasons, seams often act as the originating areas for folds and wrinkles, even when a garment is not in a particularly flexed/active state.

In a two-dimensional image, it can be helpful to describe a garment in terms of silhouette and wrinkles/folds. The silhouette is the actual boundary of the garment, where the fabric comes to an end. The wrinkles/folds are where different parts of the garment pass in front of each other or where the fabric becomes bunched up to the point that light can't reach inside and occlusion shadows form. You should always keep the overall silhouette of the garment in mind to inform the bigger shapes you draw, but you will use wrinkles and folds to demonstrate how the garment twists and deforms. These are the basic tools in your arsenal. Keep it simple.

There are lots of different ways to approach wrinkles. My advice and my personal preference is to draw wrinkles as shapes and not just lines. Specifically, tapered shapes (like triangles) and be really good both for implying motion and the varying depth of a fold/wrinkle. Experiment with different shapes of varying angularity, fill texture, etc. Your hands and eyes will guide you towards what looks and feels good. There's no right way but I would advise you to exaggerate! Ask yourself- what's the biggest shape I can draw here? How can I twist it to make it bigger, crazier but still describe the form in a way that makes sense? It can be exhausting to just try to perfectly copy a reference and also using your imagination like this when doing studies will help build up your visual library for when you're drawing/designing clothing from imagination. In general I would advise you to focus more on drawing something that looks good (ie is composed of shapes that you find aesthetically pleasant) than is "correct."

Quick recap: Garments fall down, you can simplify an article of clothing into a silhouette described by folds and wrinkles. What next? Observe! Take notes! It is worth your time to think about how common articles of clothing are constructed. Jeans, t-shirts, dresses, etc. I used to do some hobbyist sewing and clothing alteration and I think that hands-on work with clothes has really affected the way I think about drawing them. You don't have to go that far but like- look at the world around you. Stuck on the bus, in school, in a meeting, etc? Even if you can't draw, look at how your pants bunch up around your legs, look at the sleeves of someone sitting next to you. I mean, don't be weird about it, but these are valuable observations. Think about how you would draw those things! Really getting good at drawing clothes involves studying them in the wild, understanding how they work, building up your visual library. Look at a faded denim jacket- at the puckered places where the indigo has rubbed away or the permanent creases that hardly see the light of day and remain a deeper blue. Look at petrochemical techwear outfits that break into jagged, high-sheen triangular wrinkles. Soak it all in!

Save pictures of and take notes on outfits you like, designers you like, garments you like. Keep track of these things. Come back and study them over time. Have fun with it! I have folders and folders and folders of images of clothes that I come back to constantly. Over time and with lots of study you'll learn what you want to draw when you draw clothes and that's half the battle. You'll have images of buttons, pockets, belts, laces, fabrics, seams, dancing around in your head that you can deploy at will. It's delightful.

Hope this helps! If anyone has more advice to add, please do! If this tutorial helped anyone, please show me your drawings! If you'd like more stuff like this from me, just send me an ask or an email and I'll answer it when I can.

Peace,

Logan

#illustration #art tutorial #art thoughts #clothing design #drawing tutorial

[zorlok-if]

Hi everybody,

It's been a while. Sorry that I've been gone so long without explanation or communication, I've been in a bad place. For more info check under the cut. Otherwise, hello! I'm alive and so is this project. Progress has been stalled and will continue to be stalled because this is a hobby and I have to focus on priorities. That doesn't mean that it's dead. I still intend to release everything when I can. I appreciate your support and interest.

Hope you're all well! 😊

Albie

(cw: discussion of bad mental health, anxiety, and depression; school shooting mention)

Okay, hello! Welcome to the rest of this post.

Basically, I've been in a bad mental place for a long time and have a lot of issues that I've left unaddressed or festering—most of which tie back to depression, anxiety, fear, and self-loathing.

To start, I wasn't able to graduate this past winter because I fell one class short of my requirements. That really sent me into a spiral and put a strain on my interpersonal relationships.

Then I tried to take that last class this spring but fear related to recent school shootings exacerbated and activated some bad ND habits and I won't be able to complete this course. That means I still won't be able to graduate until I find some online equivalent or professor who will allow me to remain fully remote.

Around the time I found out I wouldn't be graduating, I also got some really cruel anon hate which added onto how I was already feeling and made me hesitant to put anything else out online.

Other things have happened: family stuff, work stuff, health stuff, sociopolitical stuff, etc. (I don't want to go into details with some and won't burden you with the rest). But, essentially, I found myself at a darker place than normal. I withdrew into myself and have been stewing in crippling self-loathing while wearing a convincing smile in my everyday life. (being really honest with this stuff so that if anyone else is going through/experienced something like this they can know they're not alone)

Fortunately, I was able to get away for a bit and spent some time with loved ones I rarely get to see. I've also made a few irl friends recently and feel like I'm coming back out of my shell and starting to heal after traumatic events and relationships. For the first time in a long time, I feel invigorated. I mean, I still feel like stinking trash, but garbage with a will to live and better itself.

As of right now, I'm moving out and finding more work so I can better support myself financially.

If you've read all this going, where's the Zorlok/(other game) update? Here you go: I've been working on Zorlok somewhat, but in the situation/place where I was at, found myself unable to justify dedicating a lot of time to writing and struggling to feel confident about what I was creating when I actually did sit down to do so. This project is in no way dead and I want to work on it and release games more than anything, but I owe it to myself and other people in my life to keep my priorities in check.

This is a hobby and in the past I dedicated time to it when I should've been doing other things. As long as this is a hobby, I can no longer take time away from my priorities to do something I just want to do (no matter how badly I want to do it). So, that's where we're at. I'm continuing to focus on critical things and stop feeling like a jerk for doing that. I know that this might disappoint some people, but that's how things are right now.

If you want to know more about where things are literally at: I'm close to finishing a heavily updated and expanded prologue but episode one has been undergoing changes. I feel pretty shit about myself and that's seeped into my view on what I create which is in turn stalling my ability to make meaningful progress that I don't immediately want to destroy. I've worked on potential Patreon content (including an exclusive game and a Creating Goncharov director's cut), made a Twine template and tutorial, and made progress on updates for Mousetrap and System Processing. I've avoided making changes to the Zorlok page (and my other itch.io pages) these past few months since I don't want people getting their hopes up seeing some sort of "update" from itch.io—only for that update to be "there's no game update yet." That's why those are still out of date, but I'll be fixing them as soon as I can.

So, that's where we are. I wish that I had way more to talk about and release, but that's not been a possibility and I'm just going to be upfront and honest—even if I am disappointed and somewhat afraid and ashamed to admit it. (that's it for the game updates, the rest just gets back to personal)

In general, I've always struggled with shame and fear and those are the main culprits for why I've been radio silent until now. I couldn't find a way to address these topics or talk about them without my odious inner critic getting triggered and shutting me down. However, I'm trying my best to not listen to that asshole because this (*gestures at everything*) must stop.

To be honest, I'm not content with prolonged existence anymore. I want to live—and that's more than I've been able to say for a long time. To be perfectly honest, for the past decade or so I've lived simply because others wanted me around, not because I wanted to be here. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of indifference being my best hope for how I feel about myself. I'm tired of forcing an apathetic soul to drag my flesh through the muck of living. I don't expect what I experience to improve, in fact things will definitely be getting tougher, but I want to change how I experience it. I want to actively live rather than passively slip by. I want to answer questions like "what do you want to do with your life?" and "what are your plans?" with more than vague shrugs and dead-hearted replies meant to brush people off the topic of the future. I want to stop passing through life as a ghost.

I'm still trying to find the motivation, purpose, or courage to genuinely live for myself instead of existing for other people. I still haven't found my "spark"—that properly and blissfully selfish reason to live—but I think wanting to search is a good start.

Anyways, I'll be around more and I'll be more honest with where I am and what's going on. It's my personal mission to deny fear's control over my life and actions. Part of that means allowing myself to be more open with people even if I'm afraid of judgment or negativity.

Excluding a few outliers, you've all been exceptionally kind and encouraging. I'm always overwhelmed and astonished with the support that's been shown to me and my creative projects and I appreciate you all. Thank you so much. Thank you for reading through this. Thank you for caring. You're part of why I'm around.

I hope that you're having a lovely day/night/et cetera and if you aren't, you're not alone ❤️.

I'll see you around. 😊 Thanks again,

Albie

#hi #albie's corner #update #but not a game update #sorry #just a general update #personal

[honeybeesadvice]

self care kit for regressors

be gentle with yourself little ones

hi! i'm in college and i'm researching things to put in a self care box for midterms and finals next semester because my first semester as a college freshman was not it

here's what i found for all my friends <3

this is a long post, get comfy friends

this post does contain links to amazon for reference/recommendations and you do not have to buy anything from there if you can't/don't want to

i found this gift box that's super cute, reusable, and you can choose any color you want. why a gift box? because self care is a gift to yourself

of course, you don't have to spend money on a gift box either! there's many tutorials on making shoe boxes, amazon boxes, and any other type of box i can't think of, to look cute and just your style.

you can also buy cheap gift boxes at walmart or target or any store you like to go to

enough of my waffling about boxes, here's the fun stuff:

emotional self-care

journal for writing down emotions and stuff. i'd recommend making a little agere journal for yourself since it's a lot of fun <;3 i use these pompts when i can't think of things

coloring books are my personal favorite, you can get nice ones for $20-$30 or a kids one of your favorite show!! here's a pack of 16 on amazon if you go through coloring books too another bulk pack(disney and other kids shows) pokemon and sanrio

colored pencils! if you don't already have some i would recommend crayola. this is what i have

cute pencil pouches!! for the colored pencils of course and they can be your favorite color or pattern <;3 this is one i've had my eye on bc it can hold 100 of those colored pencils(floral)

tissues for if you need a good cry. crying is actually super healthy and i wouldn't hold it in

optional: a paci <3 i can't use amazon and get an adult pacifier so i def recommend going to the store(on your own if you can) and get an 18m+ paci, the best for adults are 2-4 years if they sell them

physical

bath time!!:

get some yummy smelling body wash, it's nice

i have little fizzy tabs from mr. bubble and one of those is ~$5

bubbles!!

some little toys like bath crayons and rubber duckies are always fun <3

i would also invest in hair-care and skin-care if you don't already. it always makes me feels better

you can also get your favorite candy and your favorite snack for your box <3 a nice little treat for you

also, warm drinks are always fun! my favorites are angel milk(12oz milk, 1-2 tbsp sugar, a little bit of vanilla extract) and hot chocolate

and get some strong, but really good, scent. candles, scensy melts, and essential oils are perfect <3

mental

books! or if you don't like to read physical books, audiobooks. audible and libby by overdrive are good and you can color while you listen!!!

little puzzles or fidgets are also nice. my favrite at the moment are the little clicker toys(i like the noise) and pop-its

allow yourself to relax a bit with your favorite show!! write down a list of your favorites and put it in the self-care box, then you won't have too much trouble picking what to watch

these are all things that sound appealing to me so definitely look out for yourself and what you like. these are just suggestions that i wanted to share with you guys!!

be safe and take care of yourselves

#🦄💎🔮 thena gives advice 🔮💎🦄 #✨🪞 self-care tips 🪞✨ #💫 helpful tips 💫 #agere comfort #age dreaming #age regression blog #age regression community #age regressor #agere #agere community #agere lifestyle #agere little #agere positivity #sfw age dreamer #sfw agere #sfw agere blog #sfw little #sfw little things #please be kind

[strawberryrosess]

Betrayal with a glimmer of light

Felix Catton x Oliver Quick

18+

Warnings: brief mention of smut, drinking, drugs, swearing, homophobic thoughts, toxic relationship

Summary: A take on what could have happened that night in the maze.

A/N You can also read this fic on A03! I hope you guys enjoy! :) 🍓🌹

Felix felt captivated the moment he caught Oliver gazing at him through his dorm window. Felix caught his eye by accident across the courtyard and the moment he saw those big blue eyes, Felix knew he needed to know the owner. But he didn’t approach Oliver right away, no, he studied the other boy. He would sit with Farleigh in the library and watch Oliver out of the corner of his eye, Felix would sometimes catch Oliver gazing at him. Of course the younger one would always look away the moment their eyes met, embarrassed about being caught staring. And then Felix’s chance to finally make his move came. By whatever grace of god, Felix’s bike had a flat tire and Oliver happened to be riding past him and saw his distress. Honestly Felix could have cared less about missing his tutorial, but the moment Oliver offered for Felix to take his bike he knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Most people wouldn’t have shown Felix that level of kindness, they mostly just wanted to get close for his title or his money. But Oliver was in it for actual friendship, and nothing more. No strings attached. He finally got to know the owner of those gorgeous blue eyes. From then on, Felix invited Oliver to hang out with him and his friends whenever they went to the pub or the dance club. Farleigh of course thought Felix had other motives, and Oliver was just the newest toy in a long line of forgotten ones. Felix hated that Farleigh couldn’t see that this one was different, Felix actually liked Oliver and he liked hanging out with him. Felix was obsessed with Oliver, he would do his best to spend every waking moment with the boy. Oliver didn't seem to mind, he seemed happy to just have someone to spend time with. That day when Oliver showed up crying at Felix’s dorm room, was the first time that Felix started to feel something that wasn’t friendship, but more.

Felix invited Oliver to Saltburn for the summer in hopes of turning their friendship into something more. He also genuinely felt bad for the younger boy, after hearing about his parents and how his father had passed. Felix was excited to spend the summer with his friend, but of course Venetia had to get in the way. However, Oliver surprisingly shut that down fast and Felix was delighted to have his favorite friend back beside him.

That summer was Felix’s favorite summer in a long time, he actually enjoyed being back at his family home. Felix’s feelings for Oliver grew stronger every day, and it didn’t help that the blue eyed boy was so damn nice and kind. That just made Felix fall harder, seeing how kind Oliver was to all the staff at Saltburn. They would sit by the pond and read together, or swim, just mundane normal things but they meant the world to Felix. He admired everything about Oliver. Felix also knew that Oliver was watching him that night in the bathtub, if only Oliver knew that it was him Felix was thinking about. Felix wanted nothing more than to confess his feelings and kiss Oliver passionately, and though he was completely obsessed with the blue eyed boy, Felix didn’t want to ruin what they had. Their friendship meant something to Felix and he held that close to him.

Unfortunately Felix saw something he shouldn’t have and slowly things started to unravel.

It was nearing Oliver's birthday and Felix was just mindlessly wandering around the large house when he came across Oliver's phone in the dining room. Coincidentally it was ringing when Felix found it, and he was a little too curious for his own good so he answered it. It was Oliver’s mother, sounding very concerned on the phone, wondering where her son had been all summer. Felix was confused by some of what she had to say, but he reassured her that Oliver was fine. That was when Felix decided to devise a plan to go and visit Oliver's mum for his birthday, since it seemed very important to her. The morning of his favorite friend's birthday, Felix told him to dress nice, as he was going to surprise him. Oliver kept demanding to know where they were going, but Felix refused to give in. It wasn’t until Oliver saw the “Prescott” sign and the completely panicked look that followed, that Felix started to grow a little suspicious.

In the span of 30 seconds, everything about their friendship fell apart. Oliver’s parents weren’t raging drug addicts living in squalor, they were normal people living in a nice suburban neighborhood. And Oliver’s father was most definitely alive, since Felix spent most of the afternoon talking to him. Felix kept glancing over at Oliver, and he looked as if he was waiting for the floor to swallow him. The drive home was the worst part, Oliver tried pleading with Felix, but he just ignored Oliver. He stared straight ahead at the road with a death grip on the steering wheel. Felix had no idea how to feel about anything, Oliver had lied about everything and Felix wondered if any of their friendship was actually true. He started to question everything that had happened over the summer, and he started to feel guilty and embarrassed for becoming so obsessed with Oliver, only to find out it was all fake.

Once they had returned to Saltburn, Oliver once again tried pleading with Felix. Trying to salvage what was left in the wreckage of their friendship. Felix just pushed him away and hid in his room before the party. He felt stupid for crying over Oliver, and he felt stupid for crying over his romantic feelings for Oliver. Felix felt stupid for becoming so obsessed with Oliver. Despite what had happened, Felix wanted nothing more than to forgive Oliver, and go on as if nothing had ever happened. But he knew he couldn’t do that, he had to at least try and get over Oliver, hopefully before the new school year. However that was going to be extremely hard at the moment with Oliver living at Saltburn. Felix spent most of the party hiding in one of the large bathrooms in the house, talking, drinking and doing a line or two with his friends. Oliver did try to approach him, but Felix quickly shooed him away. He wasn’t about to potentially spill his and Oliver’s guts in front of his posh friends. They didn’t even know Felix secretly liked guys more than women.

Felix always knew he was different from other guys. He would catch himself staring at other guys' asses for a little longer than he should have. He also couldn’t relate to his guy friend's sexual conquest because Felix didn’t feel the same sexual drive for women as they did. Sure he had been with plenty of women and knew how to pleasure them, but he mostly did it to blend in and hide the fact that he liked guys. Felix worried what his family might think if they ever found out, he knew Venetia and his mother probably wouldn’t have an issue with it but he couldn’t say the same about his father.

And that’s how he found himself here, in the center of the hedge maze with his dick in a girl he barely knew, but alcohol made him do stupid things. Not that the girl was stupid, but him fucking her in the middle of a hedge maze was stupid. part of him wished it was a certain blue eyed man instead of the girl, but Felix knew that was unreasonable, right?

Felix was so mad at Oliver for lying about his life, but he was also mad at himself for becoming so attached and so obsessed. Usually Felix would be cautious with his friends, especially newer friends because sometimes people just wanted to use him. But Felix could tell that Oliver wasn't a threat and just a nice guy and it was really easy for Felix to become completely and utterly obsessed with the boy. Felix liked the idea of someone relying on him for everything. He specifically requested their rooms be just a bathroom apart so he could stay close to Oliver. There was something so fascinating to Felix about Oliver. He was so knowledgeable about the most random things and found any book interesting. Felix could listen to Oliver talk forever about anything. Which is why it hurt so much to find out that Oliver lied about everything, because Felix realized he was just like the rest. One thing Felix didn't know was why, why did Oliver lie about everything?

Felix heard Oliver's harsh irish accent behind him and he let go of the girl.

"Fuckin' hell, Ollie." Felix grumbled, turning around to face the shorter man. The nickname slipped out habitually, only this time it felt foreign on Felix's tongue. The girl mumbled some mean words under her breath before finding her way out of the maze. Felix took a deep breath and held the air in his lungs for a moment before letting it go. The cold night air felt nice against his warm skin, the alcohol making his body temperature slightly higher. Oliver stumbled towards Felix, stopping right in front of him. Felix gazed into those big blue eyes and his heart tightened and he felt butterflies in his stomach. He could smell the alcohol on the younger man's breath, both of them slightly inebriated.

"Why? Why did you lie, Oliver?" Felix asked, leaning back against the concrete pillar behind him. Oliver opened his mouth a few times to say something, but the words never came. Felix scoffed and rolled his eyes, he decided to keep talking.

"I trusted you Ollie! I told you private personal things, and I invited you into my home. I even felt bad for you when you told me about your father, only to find out it was all a lie." Felix exclaimed, avoiding the piercing blue gaze below him. Felix wanted to cry and scream at Oliver, but he also wanted to fuck the shit out of him right here.

"I just wanted to be your friend." Oliver mumbled quietly. Felix felt like the air around him stopped coming, and his breath got caught in his lungs. He honestly wasn't sure what to think of Oliver's words. A lot of people wanted to be friends with Felix, it was a byproduct of coming from a filthy rich family, and most of them wanted to be friends with him for his money or title. But Oliver's motives shook Felix, almost no one wanted to become friends with Felix just to be friends. It made Felix want to forgive Oliver for lying about his life, but Felix knew he couldn’t just ignore it. He finally looked into those stunning blue eyes to find them looking back at him, desperately trying to read Felix’s expression. Oliver seemed impossibly close to Felix, he could feel his body heat and smell the alcohol on Oliver's breath.

“Screw it” Felix thought and grabbed Oliver face, pulling him up a little bit and pressed his lips to Olivers. Oliver was tense at first, but he quickly relaxed into the kiss. Felix ran his tongue over Oliver's bottom lip and bit it softly before pulling away. They gazed into each other's eyes, speechless for the moment.

“Does this mean you forgive me?” Oliver asked, breaking the thick silence that had fallen over the maze.

“Not quite.” Felix said with a slight smirk, and Oliver felt butterflies in his stomach at the lust in Felix’ eyes.

Felix knew their relationship was toxic and part of him was still skeptical of Oliver but at that moment he didn’t care. His obsession with the younger man was too deep for him to just leave it alone, and he had finally gotten what he had waited all school year and all summer for, a kiss from the man he was completely and utterly obsessed and in love with.

#saltburn #felix catton #oliver quick #felix x oliver #cattonquick

[oldstateofmind]

➜ pairing: doctor strange x fem!reader / sinister!doctor strange x fem!reader ➜ warnings: spoilers from mom, one-sided feelings, angst ➜ words: 4k ➜ [chapter ll] ➜ a/n: i’m obsessed with doctor strange all over again, so i need to get this story out of my system or i won't be able to rest. it’s going to be a multi-chapter fic, so buckle up and have fun! (also, english is not my first language so please excuse my grammar mistakes)

chapter l. a bit of this sweet melancholy

summary: At some point during the exchange of vows, you take a quick glance at Strange, regretting it right after. A semblance of sadness and melancholy filled every inch of his face, and although there was a smile trembling on his lips, his jaw was locked in place. If it was out of anger or grief, you could not tell. But at that moment, Strange looked like a man stuck in the past, reliving memories from years ago that no longer held any meaning.

Read on Ao3

The tiny perfume particles still lingered in the air as you finished applying lipstick. A dark, reddish color that went well with your skin tone. You smiled at yourself in the mirror, taking a good look at the final result after quite a few hours of watching tutorials on youtube. And even though the only person that would actually know how much effort you had put into it would be you, there was still a sense of pride filling your chest when the light gleamed in the spot you had applied highlighter. 

As to why you spent most of your morning getting ready for a wedding that wasn't even yours, there was no answer — not an honest one, at least. You could say the reason was that it wasn't every day an opportunity like that appeared; to dress up and wear something different than the worn-out uniform from the Sanctum. 

However, as you glanced at your reflection in the mirror — smoothing the dress for the thousandth time — that little voice in your head started to ask if it was worth putting in so much effort. It would go unnoticed yet again, just like all the other times. It doesn't matter, you whisper to yourself. And even though your reflection smiled, there was no indication of genuineness in the motion. Maybe one day, those words would come true.

The invitation came as a surprise, but Christine’s handwriting was unmistakable even from Strange’s shaking hands. No words were uttered as the man handed the beautiful envelope to you, shaking his head as he turned away. There was something so heartbreaking about the man never speaking of the pain that was visible even behind guarded doors. How he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders as if it was nothing, but the ache of a broken heart always seemed to change his demeanor. 

Your fingers ran through the expensive gold ink, the lettering was elegant like Christine's whole being. And you couldn't blame her for moving on, for giving happiness a chance. If Strange was still paralyzed on the spot Christine had left him, it was his choice to stand in the rain when she left looking for shelter. And the invitation on your hands celebrated that; the support she always longed for, found after years spent between storms.

A tiny gasp escapes your lips as you reach the bottom of the paper, reading over and over again to make sense of what was written right next to Strange’s name.

Your name in a beautiful calligraphy and gold ink.

As to why Christine decided to invite you, it was up for debate. It wasn't as if you two were strangers, but you didn’t consider her a friend. God, you couldn't even remember the last time you had seen her. Between the snap and the mess that followed after so many people came back all at once, there was no time for catching up with those that stayed. And maybe Strange felt that same way until finding out the person he loved the most, was now engaged to another through a piece of paper. 

Time was a curious thing, and even though Strange had been the master of it for quite some years, its punch still did the same damage to his heart. The thought irked you in a way that your hands almost tore the delicate material. And you had to remind yourself again that Christine was not the one to blame for the hurt blooming in your chest. 

The sound of your heels against the wooden floor echoed through the empty Sanctum while you made your way to Strange’s bedroom. He must've stayed awake until late in the night since there was no sight of the man walking around the halls just yet. Although you took your sweet time to get ready, you knew that the wizard was just as vain. And given the circumstances, Strange must want to look his best — not that he needed to put any kind of effort, he was handsome by nature.

Stopping in front of his bedroom door, you tap your knuckles against the wooden surface. it doesn’t take long for it to open, and slowly, you step inside. It wasn’t often that you had the guts to enter Strange’s bedroom. It smelled just like him; in every single corner you glanced at, there was a bit of his personality as well. It physically hurt to be in a place that reminded you of what you couldn't have — so close, yet so very far.

As you turn the corner, ignoring the way your stomach turns at the sight of his bed still messed up from his wake, you find the man standing in front of a large mirror. The words are caught up in your throat for a moment, eyes lingering at his beautiful reflection. His well-trimmed beard was sharp and elegant just like his hair, but it was the suit that fitted him so perfectly that managed to take your breath away. 

Not that you would ever tell him that.

“I thought it was the bride who was supposed to come in late,” You say, trying to sound as unaffected as you could. That smirk at the corner of his lips would be the death of you one day. 

“If that’s your way of saying that I look handsome, I’ll take it,” Strange answers, still focusing his attention on the tie that lay undone on his chest. He goes for it again, but it’s a useless battle when his hands shake with the movement that was required to pass it through the loop. Strange drops the fabric, rubbing his forehead in distress. 

“Here, let me,” You offer without thinking, stepping closer to the wizard. 

Strange turns around, wearing an apologetic smile that you brush off. You could imagine how frustrating it must be; to be able to save the world with the same hands that would draw a line when it comes to tying a tie. Your fingers linger above his chest for just a second, feeling the heat of his body even in the cold morning.  

“You look nice,” Strange whispers, looking at you behind black eyelashes. 

On an ordinary day, a snarky remark would be on the tip of your tongue, ready to shoot. However, standing so close to him that you could feel his breath slightly caressing your skin, it was nearly impossible to think of something else than the smell of his cologne. It takes more than it should to suppress a shiver from running down your spine.

“Thanks.”

It doesn't matter.

“I’m glad you’re coming with me, to be honest,” Strange confesses, tapping his fingers against his thigh, “I don't know if I would be able to face it alone.”

You laugh in disbelief, cocking your head to the side, “Do you expect me to believe in that?”

His eyebrows lift in defiance, but you roll your eyes at him. “You don’t need to butter me up, Strange. Despite what you might think, I actually like parties.”

“Butter you up? I would never think about doing that, It would only add to your ego.”

“Oh, no. We are not talking about ego,” You snort, passing the tie through the loop, “You would win by a landslide, anyway.”

Strange chuckles as you tighten the knot, adjusting it around his throat. His eyes are focused on your face, but you can't bring yourself to retribute the gaze; it’s maddening enough to have him so close. However, as rare as these moments were, it was addictive to have his attention all to yourself. 

You run a hand through the fabric before stepping back, “Done.”

“Looks decent,” Strange turns to the mirror, adjusting the knot one last time, “But I could’ve used magic.”

“Hmm, but what’s the fun in that?” You chip in, following him out of the bedroom, “Besides, couldn't pass the opportunity of fantasizing about choking you.”

As soon as those words leave your mouth, a sudden rush of warmth spreads through your face and neck. God, why do you say things without thinking of the implications first? Strange stops in his tracks, his cape comes flying in his direction but he doesn't pay attention, staring at you as if you had grown another head. 

“To death,” You explain, mortified. “Choking you to death.”

“Charming,” Strange snorts, finally grabbing his cape and putting it in the pocket of his suit.

There was nothing more you wanted to do than to dig a hole and bury yourself 6 feet under. But instead, you swallowed down the embarrassment and followed him towards the door. He opens it and playfully bows, motioning for you to go first.

The sun was up in the sky when you left the Sanctum; the feeling of its warmth was welcomed — even if the burning of embarrassment was still fresh on your skin. Since the church was close, Strange suggested that you both could do some walking instead of asking for a cab. You nodded in agreement, happy to spend some more time in his company.

Walking alongside him, the silence prevailed even though the streets were busy. But there was no need to fill in the gap, and that was something you were grateful for — it showed how comfortable Strange was in your presence. Sharing such mundane moments, from eating together at the nearby coffee to studying together on rainy days. Sometimes it was almost enough, to believe that at least, you were part of his life. 

It doesn't take long to get to the church where the wedding was taking place. A beautiful flower arrangement adorned the entry, and the decoration inside mirrored the invitation quite well; clean and classic. You could see that there was going to be a big wedding by the number of people already inside. 

“Well, here we are,” You say, turning to face Strange. The man had slowed his steps until coming to a halt. His eyes seemed unfocused, lost in thought as a cloud hid the sun, covering his face from the light. And that ache in your heart bloomed like a flower in the spring.

Strange looked so sad.

It was in moments like this that you remembered where you stood regarding his affections; so very far from the center. It made you feel selfish, wanting more than he could ever give. It was clear that Christine was still his one and only, nothing else could compare. A sort of sadness washes over you; a longing for something that never happened. 

“You know,” You playfully poke him with your elbow, trying to bring him back to the present, “We can always say that you were fighting a magical creature, and after killing it from the inside, the smell of it still lingered no matter how many spells Wong and I tried.”

Strange shakes his head slightly, whatever was on his mind is put on hold. The smirk at the corner of his lips comes back; fragile, but still there. “You are not living that down, are you?”

“I mean, the smell is still craved in my mind,” You hook your arm through his, pulling him towards the entrance, “How do you wash your brain, anyway? Is there even a spell for that?”

“Aren't you supposed to help me here?” Strange scoffs but lets himself be dragged inside the church.

I’m trying, is what you want to say, That’s the only reason why I’m here at this stupid wedding. But the words are replaced by a weak smile and a pat on his arm. The man needed your support more than ever, there was no time to argue over something foolish. 

Even if those foolish things were your feelings.

“Come, let’s find a seat.”

***

When the first notes of the song started to play, you mentally buckled up to what was about to happen. It would be one of those moments where no matter the number of times you prepared yourself, nothing would compare to the real thing. The tension on your shoulders grows as you watch the groom walking down the aisle, followed by the maids of honor.

When the doors opened, revealing a beautiful Christine dressed all in white, you held your breath, but Strange did nothing but stare at her just like everyone else. However, you knew him enough, and the slightly hunched shoulders gave away his true feelings. 

She walks with a huge smile gracing her lips, focusing her eyes on the groom waiting for her at the altar. For a moment you wonder if Strange was imagining himself in his place, a fantasy relived again and again in his mind. A wave of anger hits you by surprise, making you unclench your fists just as quickly as they had closed. 

Don’t think about it.

At some point during the exchange of vows, you take a quick glance at Strange, regretting it right after. A semblance of sadness and melancholy filled every inch of his face, and although there was a smile trembling on his lips, his jaw was locked in place. If it was out of anger or grief, you could not tell, but at that moment, Strange looked like a man stuck in the past, reliving memories from years ago that no longer held any meaning.

It eats you from the inside, but there is nothing you can do. Strange was a man of conviction, and if his love was anything like his personality, then it would stubbornly die with him. And even if the bite you left on the inside of your cheek stings, the truth is much more painful to deal with.

As soon as the newly wedded couple leaves the church, all the guests follow right after. The reception was going to be at a fancy restaurant in a high-rise building nearby. But instead of rushing to the place, you stay still at the spot next to Strange, waiting for whatever battle he was facing to come to an end. The urge to comfort him almost takes over, but you decide to give him space and time to deal with the end of this part of his life. 

It was time for him to move on as well.

“I’m content for her,” Strange finally says, voice echoing through the empty church as haunting words from a ghost, “After everything we went through, Christine deserves to be happy.” 

Even if it's not with me, it goes unsaid, but you pick between the lines.

This time you don't resist the impulse to reach for him, placing your hand over his. It’s a small gesture but you hope it’s enough to soothe his mind for just a little. 

“Well, sometimes we stray from the path we deemed right for ourselves, but it doesn't mean it won't lead us to great things,” You squeeze his hand, offering him a genuine smile, “Maybe even greater.”

“Thank you, Y/N.” Strange returns the gesture, patting your hand gently, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes.

***

Staying close to the balcony was a good choice. Like this, you could see the city from up above, the high-rise buildings covering the horizon like a sea of concrete. It was also a place where people lingered only if they needed to catch some air or to smoke, the noises from the streets almost drowning out the ones from the party. 

You were by the bar, looking over the window as you waited for Strange to come back from the bathroom. He had been strangely quiet since you both left the church; it wasn't uncommon to have him absorbed in thoughts, but when it happened, it tended to leave you feeling fidgety.

“Y/N,” A voice calls you from behind, and you don't need to think who it belongs to before turning around, replacing the frown with a smile right away.

“Christine,” You wince with the way your voice sounds off, but having to deal with not only your broken heart but also Strange’s was a very draining effort, to say the least. You hug her for a brief moment, “Congratulations on the wedding. It’s a beautiful party, and you look amazing!”

Christine's smile is sweet as she puts a strand of hair behind her ear, “Thank you.”

“I hope everything is just as you dreamed of,” You find yourself sincerely speaking.

Because when putting all of your feelings aside, you could see that the woman was content, there was a constant smile adorning her features from the moment she stepped into the church. And even though it pained you to see Strange still mourning their past relationship, Christine was a good person who deserved a happy ending.

“It’s definitely more than I pictured, but my husband wanted something special. And who am I to say no, right?” She laughs, waving at the bartender.

When her drink arrives, you decide to have one as well, needing some alcohol in your veins to get through the rest of the party. You knew that the moment you arrived home, not a single muscle would be safe from aching because of the growing tension on your shoulders. Who would've thought that tending Strange's broken heart could be so exhausting?

You go down on the drink in a blink of an eye. The liquor slides down your throat, a delicious burn that you welcome with open arms. The bartender doesn't even have time to turn around when you ask for another shot. It’s only on the third that you decide to enjoy the taste of it instead of just swallowing it down. 

Christine doesn't say anything, only chuckles at your mannerism. She sways the drink in her hand, seeming to ponder over something you could not begin to guess what it was. And due to not having eaten anything before the wedding, the booze kicks in faster than you'd expect.

“So…” You clean your throat before continuing, “Even though I’m flattered that my name made it into your list… I could not stop wondering why.”

It was a question you didn't know the answer to; you never discussed it with Strange about it either. Actually, the only time you two talked about the event was when he decided to attend it, requesting you to come along. It was rare for Strange to ask for help, even if at first glance it looked like he was annoyed, but deep down you knew he was grateful — that little moment in his bedroom only confirmed that.

She takes a sip from her cocktail, eyes wandering around until they land on someone. You follow her gaze and spot Strange on the other side of the room. He’s crouched in front of a child, showing a magic trick that has the girl's eyes sparkling with glee. A smile spreads on your lips almost immediately. 

“I’ve noticed the way you look at him,” Christine answers, observing them with fondness, “It’s the same way I once did.”

The burning of the alcohol turns into a displeasing ache in the back of your throat, its taste souring as you look down at the glass in your hand. You bite the inside of your cheek again, the familiar pain grounds you at the moment, not letting your thoughts wander further than they should.

However, it’s impossible to hold back the memories that flood your brain. Having feelings for someone was already something bothersome, but for Strange of all people? It was a battle you just could not win. It didn't matter how many times you told yourself; those incessant feelings were embedded in your heart, branding it as his — even when Strange would never claim the prize.

“I just admire him,” It’s hard to swallow after the words come out, voice trembling slightly.

Christine smiles as if she knows something you don't, and it’s frustrating how easily she can read your emotions. Wearing them on your sleeve would only cause you harm, that’s why you hid behind indifference and snarky comments; it was easier to pretend that nothing mattered than to acknowledge how deep you were into this. 

“There’s a fine line between admiration and love,” Christine takes another sip, then adds softly, “And I’m certain that you know the difference.”

The bitter taste of her words stings, and you find yourself just an inch before completely drowning. “Even if that’s true, it doesn't matter.”

It had become a sort of a mantra by now; a sign of defeat you willingly accepted since the first time you met Strange. Even after years by his side, the wizard still only had eyes for Christiane, so how could she be so cruel to suggest that your feelings were enough to change that? 

Before she can answer, the man quickly makes his way toward both of you, a smile so charming on his face that makes you forget the conversation for a moment. 

“What are the two of you gossiping about?” He takes the drink from your hand without asking for permission, downing it in a long sip.

You fondly roll your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest. And it’s impossible to hold your tongue when he looks smug like that, “I was going to tell Christine about that creature we—”

“Okay, give us a moment,” You can’t help but snort as Strange quickly steps in between you and Christine, pushing you backward until her face is completely covered by his body. You raise an eyebrow in amusement at his silent scolding.

“It just happens that they are serving strawberry cake right at the other side of the restaurant,” Strange points out at the table next to the door, where the waiter is handing out dishes with the dessert, “And I know how much you love them. You wouldn't miss the opportunity, would you?”

You bite your bottom lip as the words start to tumble on your tongue, begging to be set free. But before you can feel the irritation claiming your veins, Strange mouths a small ‘please’, and you know he won the fight without even trying. You sigh in defeat, running a hand through your hair.

“Fine…I’ll leave,” You poke his chest, annoyed with the fact that he wanted to get rid of you, “But only because I love strawberry cake, nothing else.”

“Get a slice for me, won't you?” Strange winks at you before sending you off. 

There’s an urge to roll your eyes and flip him off, but there were too many guests around and you didn't want to make a fool of yourself more than you already felt like one. You don't even look back, finding it hard to picture Strange and Christine together even though the woman was now married. 

Unfortunately, you could understand the need to be close to the person you loved; impossible to be away even when it hurt like a punch to the stomach. Maybe in the end it was a little hypocrisy, wanting Strange to forget Christine when you held onto your feelings for him — in the same painful way. 

Just as you were about to eat the first slice of the beautiful cake the waiter gave to you, a loud crash resonates from the street. Quickly you put the plate down and walk towards the balcony. There's quite a commotion forming, curious guests wanting to see what was happening. 

But before you could reach the open view, you find Strange already in motion. He takes the cape out of his pocket graciously, jumping from the balcony as if it was the most normal thing to do. 

“Show off,” You murmur to no one in specific.

It was a good thing you decided to bring your ring. At this point, it was impossible not to have the item with you because apparently, Strange had the special ability to always attract problems. Taking a few steps back, you gesture for a portal to open; ready to follow Strange without even thinking about what lies ahead.

#doctor strange #doctor strange x reader #stephen strange #stephen strange x reader #multiverse of madness #sometimes I write #fanfic

[supersoakerfullofblood]

hi!!! hopefully you are having a good day!!! but a quick question-

how can i give insight to a character's backstory without it look liking a word-dump?? especially if the whole story have a diary entry format.

Very good question that honestly really depends on your personal style, but here's what's worked for me.

The best advice I can give is to stop thinking of your character's history as "backstory." That's one of the words that's become so loaded in popular writing discourse as to not mean anything solid anymore, like "worldbuilding," "theme," "protagonist," etc. Words like that are helpful once you've made your own definition for them, but with so many voices in Youtube tutorials and social media posts all saying similar but different things for what these mean, it's best to find a word that better suits how you view the concept. For me, that word is "history," because like how the present is founded on actual history, our characters are only the product of their history. Characters, like people, rarely if ever operate in the present tense.

So--revealing history without the dreaded expository dump. To answer this, we first have to look at why expository dumps are so uninviting. Here's an example of it done poorly (I'm writing this as an example, not taking someone's writing to like, diss on them hah):

Cheryl took the elevator up all five floors of the haunted house, which groaned as she went, the elevator left untouched since the house's last occupants moved out. When they arrived at the penthouse suite, Doctor Gastor explained that the last residents here thought they were wizards and practiced daily at arcana. Their names were Abigail and Horace--he had renamed himself after a demon had told him his true name, so he claimed--and they wintered in this remote, northern sphere to avoid Italian summers. Horace was wealthy, Abigail poor, but he had found her in poverty and saw something of the occult in her movements, so he stole her away one summer, and the two found more in common than they would've thought, for they married the next year. Cheryl paced the floor, picked up and dusted off a book titled in runic chicken scratch, and opened the cover."

This isn't the worst example I could think of, but it has the hallmarks I'm looking for. The first issue with this expository dump ("Doctor Gaston explained... next year") is that it shatters the flow of the passage. As a writer of narrative fiction, the goal of every sentence is to lead smoothly to the next sentence. To do this, we always have to be thinking of what the reader wants to read after a given sentence. If one sentence is about an elevator groaning in a haunted house, the reader probably wants to know how Cheryl reacts to it! Is she scared of ghosts? Does she believe in ghosts? Is she scared of elevators? If so, what does she do? Move to hit a button on the elevator to stop it? If scared of ghosts, how does she internalize this? If not scared, how does she internalize perhaps how Doctor Gaston is shivering? (Is he shivering?) These are all places the reader's mind wants to go to after that sentence. Instead, we get this history about some old wizards (if I had the patience, I would've made it longer to really make it intrude on the narrative, but I don't have the patience). If this is the first time the reader's hearing about the wizards, they probably won't care about them. This synopsis of their story interrupts what the reader actually cares about, which is whatever Cheryl cares about in the moment. To fix this interruption, Cheryl could find the book of runes maybe in the chapter before this, because that gets the reader invested. The reader, just like Cheryl, wants to know why there's a book of runes in the haunted house. So Cheryl asks Doctor Gaston about it, which legitimizes this exposition, because it's also what the reader wants to know.

Another major fault of info dumps is when they don't relate to the character at all. Cheryl's history (let's say she's a girl from the country who wandered into the house on accident) has nothing to do with wizards. Maybe in the narrative, she learns to cast some spells, which makes her care about wizards, but at this point, she doesn't. If Cheryl has nothing to do with wizards, or little to do with them, then why should the audience care? When writing a character's history, you should only include the parts that matter to the character. And this written history should never be too long, because you never want to stunt the flow of the piece (what "too long" means is up to debate and your discretion and style).

Also, exposition only works when it feels genuinely embodied by the character speaking. Is Doctor Gastor explaining the wizard history, or is that the author talking? Some of it sounds like Gastor (the bit between the em dashes sounds like what he would say), but the rest sounds like Gastor is only a mouthpiece for the information I want to put out.

So, solving it. One trick I like to do when giving exposition is to make the exposition into its own mini-scene. You don't want to write, "Carmen was friends with Piper, and they went to the dance once as friends." Instead, give it some space on the page:

She and Piper were the only girls in their group who had gone quiet at curfew. Beatrice’s only crime was in whispering comments in the early hours, short things to guide the group’s banter, never loud enough to warrant arrest. “Not really, no.” “That’s nice.” Carmen nodded and drew his eyes across the crowd. “Did she sleep well?” “Beatrice?” “Yeah.” “I guess.” The path turned up the steep hill on which the dining hall was built. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really slept well.” “Oh.” “It’s just uncomfortable, you know?” “The girls?” She raised an eyebrow. “And the boys aren’t?” “No, they are.” He laughed, and Piper was dragged to the same laugh at Homecoming three months ago. She had requested for the Melpomene band’s recent concert recording to be played after the next pop song, and surprisingly, her request was approved. Carmen laughed as their poor performance boomed from the speakers, laughed at the disruption of a dance, and Piper laughed too. But within the minute, the concert’s strident ballad was supplanted by another chart-topping pop song. But for those forty seconds, music was displaced, and the dancers stopped; city walls fell; Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds. She said now, “It’s just weird, being here. It’s all too happy. Too clean.”

Exposition can work really well in brief flashbacks. And note how the exposition starts: a mirroring of "laugh" because the image is fresh in the reader's mind, so I take them on a sort of dream logic to the past. Note also that this is planting the seeds for some relevant character-building: Piper's growth into an independent woman--"Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds." Here's another example from my current WIP:

He thought of Brynjar the day he had given him the knot. It was the spring of Óskar’s sixth year, and Brynjar had taken him to the docks one morning to watch sailing men fix fresh ropes on their karves and clip pulleys to sails to tie them to the boats’ sides. “Never doubt a weaver woman,” Brynjar said, annunciating each word. “They keep everything afloat.” “‘Floating,” repeated the young Óskar. “If the ropes aren’t strong, a boat’ll flip and spin. Like this!” He lifted Óskar above his head and spun on his heels, and Óskar cackled. The father set the son on his shoulders and smiled. “Yes, we need those ladies.” Óskar felt his father’s shoulders raise, and he knew the man forged something witty in his mind. “It means, Óssie, a man is only as good as his woman. And you can tell your mother I said that.” Eldrid, Óskar’s mother, would leave in her sleep later that year, and the witches would say she was sick, and Brynjar would spend some nights looking through the cracks in his home, remembering the gray wife he woke to that morning. In his memory, Óskar did not know whether this new recollection of his mother’s passing tainted his father’s speech or if he really did turn somber, but all the same, a short silence paused the scene at the dock, and Brynjar coughed to break it. His voice was low now. “Dangerous,” he said, looking with eyes like the beads of a raspberry at the men on the dock, looking through them. His jowls lowered like curtains, forced low with the hill of a frown, and in the memory, his skin blued and bloated. “It’s dangerous out there, Óssie. Be safe.” He sniffed. “Be well.” “Óskar?” Ingrid stole him. He breathed back into the world and saw now that the road had turned down and the rock wall had turned in, and they approached a strip of sea.

In addition to providing a character's history, this also fleshes out the world: the importance of women and boats, the dangers of the sea. Before the flashback, Oskar is thinking about a knot, so he thinks about the day he got the knot, which makes him think about sailing boats. At the end of the flashback, he thinks about the ocean ("looking through [the sailors]," so probably at the ocean), thinks about his father's skin if he drowned, and back in the present-tense, uh oh, Oskar is nearing the ocean. It all flows together; we're guiding our reader.

But these are only small exposition dumps, and sometimes, we need to convey much more information. You can subtly convey much more information than you realize through dialogue and description, because how a character talks and acts is guided by their histories. If a character is short-spoken, they may have had some interpersonal trauma that you can flesh out more when the time is right:

“No,” Sylvia whispered, trapping Chloe again with her stare, desperate. “I can’t sleep over.” “Why not?” Jane asked. “Mom says I have to be home by seven.” She looked down at her empty plate, at the crumbs from one slice of pizza. “But you haven’t asked her,” Jane prodded. She shook her head. “I did before.” Still in disbelief, Jane asked, “What did she say?” “She said I have to be home by seven.” She blushed. “And I can do whatever till then.” “Oh,” Jane said. She slunk back in her chair. Chloe turned back to her parents. “Can you call Jane’s mom?” “Sure thing.” “Thanks!” She swiveled back and, fingering the fruit Phoebe scrambled on her plate, decided to eat it later. She grabbed a second slice from the box. Moments passed as they ate in silence, Sylvia watching her plate, and the muffled television played something in the living room. Mom and dad laughed. “I should go,” Sylvia said. She bumped the table as she stood, reciting, “Thank you for having me.” Jane looked at the clock hovering above the front door. “It’s only six-twenty.” “I need to go home.” “Oh.” Jane stuttered. “I’ll see you next week!” Chloe said the same. “Thank you. See you.” She opened the door and slipped through. It clicked behind her. Chloe and Jane paused their gnawing and looked up at each other, sharing a thought. They hadn’t heard a car grumble on the gravel, didn’t hear anything drive by at all, and neither of them knew how close she lived. They scraped their chairs from the table and crept to the dining room window like characters in a Jones Bones movie, Jane thought. But when they pulled back the curtain, she was gone. No cars drove on the street, and the sidewalk was empty. A golden glare shrouded the street and surrounding houses as the sun lowered behind a roof.

Throughout this book (The Ghosts of Glass Lake, available now ;)), it's implied that Sylvia has a controlling and/or abusive mother. In this scene, Sylvia is curt and direct. You can almost feel the urgency behind her words, how she bumps the table as she stands, and how it almost sounds like she's rehearsed this exit. It's also implied that no one came to pick her up--she walked home, but neither Jane nor Chloe know where she lives, and neither does the reader. Maybe she walked home for miles because her mother didn't pick her up. You can get a lot of meat from implications!

But still, there are times when you just need a lot of dense exposition, usually near the beginning of a book when you need to describe the setting. My best advice, if you ever need to do this, is to keep it as brief as possible, and to pay extra attention to pacing/flow/tempo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it so it doesn't distract, doesn't feel like a chore:

The seventh and eighth graders of Carmen’s church spent one Saturday every winter at Camp Catechism. The campus set its roots in northern Michigan, breathed easterly winds from Lake Huron, and sparked to life as batches of middle schoolers arrived on midnight buses. Cabins formed a bivouac in a birch forest, and one mile to the east lay the lake and the curve of its horizon. It was frozen now, and the limbs of trees wavered slowly under snow, ice eating at chipped, white bark. The chapel the middle schoolers sang in now was a wide A-frame built and reeking of old wood. A low stage headed the room from which stood a pianist, a drummer, and a guitarist, a stage from which Roman Richards would soon discuss Ephesians. The dining hall was a short walk from everywhere and displayed from a wide window the canopy of the burdened forest, ossified waves, and the sun glinting unbearably against it all. Cups of hot chocolate were filled and refilled on a counter at the entrance of the dining hall, and campers drank these violently, abrading their throats as adolescent drunks. Boys and girls separated into two large halls subdivided into tight rooms for each youth group, everything barred entrance from the other sex. As a general rule, phones were banned, as were drugs, candles, and cursing, though the popular boys forged unique methods to circumvent these restrictions, and anyone caught with contraband was witnessed a martyr for a greater sense of vagrancy. Still, most campers lived within their rules, their obligations, just as they always had at church, and any rule breaking (“sin,” as Roman Richards claimed) was relegated quickly to myth, to rumors spread away from pious ears. As such, Carmen and his contemporaries were only loud ostensibly, never committing to a biblical criminal record. This was not to say that anyone at Camp Catechism was reserved—they spilled everything about their lives to their youth group leaders, but no one yet could articulate exactly what they meant, exactly what they felt, and scantily of dreams, ambitions, or desires.

And as all good exposition does, it flows well back into the narrative. The last paragraph above is a bridge between the camp description and a look into Carmen's inner life.

You may also find halfway through your narrative that you need to dump a bunch of character exposition, and you need to do it urgently. My trick for this is to make chapter A flow into the exposition, chapter B be an extended flashback scene, and chapter C to pick up where A left off. For example, if you need to talk about a character's relationship with his father but haven't done that yet in depth, find an easy way to transition into a flashback chapter that does just that. It's an enlarged version of the flashback tool I talked about above!

Now, all of this is what's worked for me, and I write third person distant POV narratives. It sounds like you're writing first person close POV haha. So I don't really have any examples to help with, but the general advice to 1. Keep the pacing/flow/tempo/etc. so exposition doesn't distract, and 2. Write exposition only about what matters to the character, preferably only what matters to the character in that moment, then you should be a-okay. Exposition is only as bad as it distracts, and these are the strategies I've found to distract as little as possible and to use the exposition to meaningfully build my characters as much as possible.

And again, this exposition dump problem doesn't have hard and fast solutions. Every author deals with it in their own way, and I'm sure with practice, you'll find what works best for you and what comes naturally to you, just as I'm always discovering and refining what works for me. The advice in this post is, I think, a solid place to start from :)

#writeblr #writing #writing advice #writing questions #creative writing #fanfic #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writer #writers of tumblr

[pikapeppa]

Hi there. It’s me again. I’m having so many feelings right now. I wanted to thank you AGAIN for your tutorials and your incredible writing inspiration. 

I’ve been a fan of your Horizon fics and your writing style for years. The way you capture voices, the way you write smut, the consistency with which you update and finish your fics… And your writing feels so accessible, which I hope you take as a compliment. It’s easy and enjoyable to read while still capturing such incredible emotion and story beats.

I wanted to tell you that I DID IT. I finished my first longfic! 9 chapters, 90,300 words! (It’s called Secret Fandom: Avatar Legend of Korra)

I wrote a story about two characters in a secret relationship. It’s got romance, smut, humor, and the teensiest bit of angst. I’ve had parts of this fic in my head for literally YEARS but I didn’t know where to start or how to actually follow through with this story! But YOU. Your fics. Your writing tutorials! They gave me the courage to buckle down and write it!

I wanted to capture their voices, I DID. I have received numerous comments complimenting the way I portrayed the characters. One person literally said “I could hear her voice in my head” about one of the characters and I just about passed out.

I wanted to finish this fic, I DID. I followed your guide: I knew how I wanted it to end. I outlined. I wrote the story in order. I held on to some chapters here and there to space it out and build anticipation. (I also found a couple of beta readers who helped me TREMENDOUSLY with the editing process.)

I run a blog for the pairing I wrote, and I actually got people reaching out and asking me when I’d have the next chapter and if they could have previews… Just an incredible reception overall to this fic, given that it’s a smaller fanbase.

I just really need to say thank you for the part you played in this. Your writing really did inspire me, in particular Becoming Whole gave me lots of inspiration for the way I wrote and even some parts of the plot (an experienced character guiding an inexperienced character through his first relationship!) and of course your tutorials really gave me a lot of help and insight on how to accomplish what I wanted!

PIKAPEPPA you are a HERO and an INSPIRATION.

Thank you A MILLION TIMES.

MY FRIEND. BABE. MY BELOVED. OMFG I'M SO SO FUCKING HAPPY FOR YOU AND SO PROUD I JUST 😭❤❤❤ I AM IN A GLASS CAGE OF EMOTION!!!

No but forreal OH MY GOD. This is so incredible and momentous and I'm absolutely thrilled for you!! There is nothing like being told that your readers can hear your characters' voices in your writing and I AM SO SO THRILLED FOR YOU 😭❤❤ Also, can I just say, the fact that I've been able to kind of track the progress of your writing journey through the asks you've sent me, and for this to be the culmination of it? I AM OVER THE MOON FOR YOU OMG SERIOUSLY okay I'm going to stop screaming at you I swear. I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU THOUGH OMG. YOU DID THE THING!!!!!

And also, THANK YOU for saying my writing is accessible, that is absolutely a compliment!! I know that one of the things I look for in a fic is the feeling that you can just breeze through it and enjoy it without getting bogged down trying to decipher complex prose LMAO so I'm thrilled to hear it!!

In conclusion: I am SO FUCKING PROUD OF YOU that you created the story that had been kicking around in your head for years. And I'm thrilled that my tutorials and writing could play a role in that! THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME ALONG WITH YOUR JOURNEY, THIS MEANS SO MUCH TO ME 😭❤❤❤

Everyone, check out SweetVenom's fic Secret here on AO3! It's Mako/Prince Wu (Legend of Korra), ~90k words, rated E! And if anyone wants a peek at my tutorials, you can find a list of them here on Tumblr!

--all the love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

#fanfic writer's life #pikapeppa tutors #no but the way i smiled and laughed in sheer delight when i read this ask YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW 😭❤❤❤

[sarurun42]

hey sarurun

been a fan for a while and i was wondering if you could give advice on your pixel art journey

Hello!

First of all, thank you for following and supporting me! It means a lot!

Advice, hmm, I'm not really a good teacher or anything but I'll try to give you a sense of how I got to where I am now.

I grew up with old SNES-era games; think Yoshi's Island, Link to the Past, etc, and eventually got a DS where I mainly played Pokemon, and developed a fondness for the sprite-art, especially the animated ones featured in the fifth generation.

My first computer wasn't too powerful and I couldn't play too many games, so I settled for a few sprite-based flash games that had small communities online. After a while I saw others editing the sprites to 'customize' their characters further, and I gave a shot at it myself to try to trick my friends into thinking I had cool items that didn't actually exist in the game (it didn't work, but I found myself having fun doing it), but this was probably my first real experience with the medium.

After that I mainly focused on non-pixel art for a while, really trying to get better at anatomy and rendering.

In 2018 I realized I had to get serious with my art. I'm a really scattered person and bouncing between illustration, painting, 3d stuff and other mediums wasn't helping so I decided I have to choose one thing to really go all-in on, for some reason that was pixel art.

Though before then I didn't really look up any tutorials or actually read anything about pixel art, so I was somewhat new to all the concepts and techniques. I started with a free browser editor called Piskel and started to do mainly small avatars and sprites in it. It's a very limited program but was a good starting point to see if I really wanted to commit to it.

At some point I got sick of Piskel always crashing on me, caved and bought Aesprite, at that point there was no turning back and I decided to go a bit further and also buy a book called 'Pixel Logic' (there's a free preview of it here), I read through it and honestly learning about pixel art, and seeing examples of terms and such really helped me understand what makes pixel art... pixel art. (There's a bunch of free tutorials out there if the book isn't for you, and for Youtube tutorials I'd suggest Brandon James Greer and AdamCYounis )

From there it was really a lot of experimentation and trial and error of what worked and what didn't, and believe me there was a lot that didn't. (Pixel Daily prompts really helped me in keeping a somewhat consistent practice going).

If you're just starting out, don't be afraid to make mistakes and don't save cool concepts for 'when you'll get better'. That time will never come as, while you're getting better, you'll always want to get *even better* and the goalposts will just keep moving. Just do what you want now, have fun and experiment with it.

You don't need fancy programs or equipment to make pixel art either, as long as you've got a mouse, a basic image editor, paint, piskel, librepsrite, etc, and the will to go through with it, you can make it happen. It will just take time.

Good luck on your journey!

#tokuanswers #pixelart #ask #answered asks