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blueskittlesart · 1 month

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Question abt drawing: been trying to attempt learning how to draw forever but I always have trouble getting over the obstacle of having to learn/study things like anatomy and shading, which then causes me to stop drawing and have a harder time picking it back up. I know it's important for improving your art and yourself as an artist but I can't help but see it as tedious and overwhelming, especially the anatomy since it's more on the science side of things and science is not my thing lol. Do you have any advice on how to get over it or work thru it?

i think there's a couple facets to this question. firstly i'd recommend you consider what exactly your end goal is in learning how to draw: do you specifically want to be able to produce anatomically accurate figures and true-to-life shading, or do you just want to be able to make something for fun that looks good to you? one of the most helpful things I ever learned at art school was that accuracy doesn't matter if it looks good. 99% of my art isn't strictly anatomically accurate, and part of that is stylization, but even when i'm doing realistic figure drawings i like to lengthen limbs and exaggerate curves in order to make my drawings look better. So if your only real goal with art is to make something that looks good and enjoy the process, my first piece of advice would be to stop worrying so much about stuff like perfect accuracy! if you use references and keep pushing yourself, the skill and understanding you're looking for will come naturally with time. before I was ever classically trained, I got pretty far just by drawing my favorite characters in different poses and situations over and over again, and that experience laid the groundwork for when classical training did become available to me. Just because you're not necessarily doing serious figure studies doesn't mean you're not getting valuable practice--what it means is that you're having FUN while you're practicing, and having fun with your art is the most important thing!!!

Secondly, you mentioned anatomy being on the science side of things, which suggests to me that you may be looking in the wrong places when trying to do more serious anatomical study. if you look up 'anatomy' or anything similar on a web search engine, you're likely going to get a lot of very complex scientific illustrations. and while those aren't necessarily devoid of artistic value (I took a class all about scientific anatomy for artists last semester and it was GREAT) for a beginner who's just trying to learn how to make a body look like a body, they're not what you're looking for. what is going to be much more helpful for you are sites like line of action or quickposes. these sites are basically repositories of figure drawing images, and you can set them to automatically switch to a new image after a certain interval of time. if you really, desperately want to improve your anatomy specifically, what I recommend is going to one of these sites, setting it to the shortest interval possible, and trying to copy the pose as closely as you can before time is up. this might sound crazy, since the shortest interval is usually somewhere between 30-60 seconds, which obviously isn't enough to get much down. but what this will do is force you to look at how these models' bodies are constructed and translate it onto the page quickly and without overthinking it. be warned, your first maybe hundred of these are going to look like shit. but if you do this enough, you're eventually going to gain an intrinsic sense for 1. how a body works and 2. the easiest way for you personally to construct a body when drawing it. even without knowing the scientific names and anatomical rules, you're going to get a FEEL for how things work, which is much more important and useful to you as a character artist.

Finally, i think the most important thing to remember is that no art is bad art, even if you're not satisfied with the end product. when you're first starting out as an artist, you're going to make things that don't look right and you're going to be frustrated with yourself because of it. i vividly remember crying over a sketchbook at maybe age 11 or 12 because I was so upset i couldn't put exactly what was in my head on the page. Skill comes with time and practice and that is a frustrating fact of life, but no time spent doing something you enjoy and are passionate about is wasted. It might look bad now but you are laying the groundwork for your future success, and someday you're probably going to look back on your past work and say "I can't believe I thought this looked bad back then. for my age and my skill level i was doing AMAZING." And as previously mentioned, it's a lot less discouraging when something looks bad if you had fun making it, so try to have FUN with your art. draw things you enjoy and are passionate about and don't worry if it looks bad. focus on the experience, the skill will come in time. you've got this!!

#i've had this account since i was 15 years old. you can literally go back and see my ass did NOT know what i was doing #but i was having fun and the weird stuff that i was trying that maybe didn't always look right was what laid the groundwork #for my current skills!#i know this advice is basically just 'practice' which is what everyone says but it's important to me that you know #that practice should be FUN too. practice isn't drawing boring shit over and over again before you get to draw the fun stuff #practice is drawing the fun stuff that is maybe a little out of your comfort zone and maybe it looks a little wonky but you did it #and you had fun doing it! and now you'll be a little more prepared to do it again in the future!#asks

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multidimensionalguidance · 2 months

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SR Chart in-depth Analysis Part 2 🔒

Here’s the continuation and final part of my SR chart analysis and predictions, which has been very fun because its the few moments where I can see myself from a different perspective, and just focus on the information I can decode without any room for judgment.

Taurus 8th house: my sense of security will depend a lot on how much I can rely on indulging in delicacies within my own hidden safe space. Finances are merged or shared within close relationships. Partners resources become my own. Inflexible or hard-headed when it comes to the type of comfort or luxury I expect to enjoy. A big focus in other people’s resources becoming my own somehow. The ruler of this house sits in the 12H, which means that the money I receive or try to keep hidden will be used towards spirituality, foreign settlement, expenditure, bed pleasures, self care, health, work clothes, skincare, and extravagant procedures to enhance my natural beauty, which could be to an almost detrimental or excessive level since Venus is debilitated.

Gemini 9th house: communications in general will be towards philosophy, higher knowledge, luck, feeling blessed, traveling, foreigners, teachers, spiritual guides, etc. It is also likely I will be speaking a foreign language quite often. Lots of short distance traveling to foreigners places. These conversations and type of mindset will influence my finances, bet it due to new perspectives or simply luck allowing me monetize those newly acquired learnings and skills. That would particularly be due to 9H ruler sitting in the 2nd house. I’ve read before that Mercury in the 2nd denotes above average intelligence, so perhaps that will also influence on how I’ll be able to increase my resources.

Cancer 10th house: this year people will perceive me as very nurturing, mother-like, soft, intuitive, and like wife material (particularly bc that asteroid Bried is conj the MC). It is likely that I will be receiving lots of attention because that’s what luminaries do, they put a spotlight, which is career/public image for me. My work environment could be spent in a space that IS or feels like home. There could be discomfort from having matters that are private exposed to the public, so I might have to deal with some of that as well. The ruler of this house sits in the 5H, so I might be doing creative work online, related to children, with romantic partner, in a fun way.

Leo 11th house: my social circle will be full of creatives (artists, leaders, performers, teachers, government workers etc), royal-like people or individuals with a certain amount of influence. My goals, social media image, and gains/income will be focused towards notoriety, fame, child-like joy, romance, appearance, etc. On top of that, the ruler of the house sits in the 2H, so those gains/goals/social media image will also influenced my resources and finances.

Virgo 12th house: with Venus sitting there and it being the debilitation, I’m led to thinking that the possible negative significations of this placement will be experienced in isolation, during my daily night routine or in foreign places. The difficulty with Venus in Virgo is how overly critical and judgy it is towards itself and others. There is a difficulty with fully enjoying the experience of love and beauty because you’re too busy thinking of how things can be better or improved. Now, on the other hand, no one does acts of service and has a deeper awareness of health and beauty than this sign. They give and give happily to those they commit to or love in general. I will probably be enjoying a bit of those sides during this year.

Thank you for reading this far! I’m excited to check this during December and doing a sort of checklist of what I predicted accurately + everything else that will definitely happen without my awareness.

#astrology #astro observations #astro community #astro notes #astrology lessons #astro placements #astrology facts #astrology for beginners #astrology observations #astroblr #solar return chart #solar return #sidereal astrology #astrologer #astrology blog #astrology predictions

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evelmiina · 10 months

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Hi Eva,

I have a fee questions regarding your wonderful work. I'm currently working on my visdev portfolio, but going a bit insane thinking about keeping my artstyle consistent if i'd ever be hired. I just looked through your background paintings and wondered how you keep your backgrounds in a consistent style. I love your nature studies too, and they look so different from your work pieces... More free and explorational. Is it difficult to keep up the habit of learning new techniques and exploring styles once you're on a job? I'm so full of ideas and feel like sometimes the idea would require a certain style/technique to be pulled off in the best way. Do you feel that too sometimes and is it restricting in a way to then keep the style of the paintings the same.

Would love to hear your thoughts on that!! :)

Hi Eekonis!

First off: don't worry! I don't think consistency is an issue... I feel like any artist no matter the level, feels like their work is all over the place. I think of consistency more like per project, rather than overall my work.

If you're interested in vis dev, a good way to showcase your work in a portfolio and not feel overwhelmed and all over the place, is to create just one project. I saw in your portfolio the bat story exploration, that's great! Just pick one of the ideas you have. Truth is we never feel ready to do something and we postpone and ruminate, but you have to start somewhere. My friend always says, "vain tee se" (just do it) and that's really all there is. Imagine your story as a film/TV (or game, or comic, but you have to choose one), and make designs and paintings of how you imagine it. You can try searching for visual development portfolios and see what other professional artists have included in theirs, there's so many ways to go about it. From the top of my head I'm thinking Aurelien Predal, Marie Thorhauge, Scott Watanabe, Kevin Roualland, Sylvain Marc. Also art books of movies or shows you like are really useful. There's a lot of art of movies and artists, tutorials etc collected in character design references website, from all around the world.

If your own idea feels too vague or the story is not set and you get stuck on it, you could also choose an existing story like a fairytale or a novel. Try to be intentional with your pictures - you want to be clear and tell a story after all, you want people to feel like they get to know the characters and the world from just one picture, and they really want to know the full story. In your portfolio, I like your bat story explorations and it seems cool, but it's currently missing some characterization and story. It would be a good idea to illustrate story moments or character design that really shows the personality, gesture, acting. And when you create environments, make them feel lived and inhabited, give them just as strong mood and character as you would to characters.

Consistency within a project is just about setting rules and limitations, some of them come from the ability and skill. Others are more like, what brushes to use, what are the visual goals, influences and references. You can go pretty far in breaking down how pictures are made and what makes a style. For example, why do Ghibli movies look like Ghibli? What kind of color palettes, compositions, camera angles, tools were used? How realistic/cartoony is it? There’s internal logic to everything designed, and with practise it becomes more visible.

I don't know if I intentionally try to learn new styles all the time. I'm generally just motivated by doing what I think is fun or what I want some piece to say about story, character or my own feelings and trying to do it best I can. It sounds simple but... if the goal is to do something really well, then I just do my best to learn it. There are some styles that I really love and think are amazing, but would probably take decades to pull off and I just accept that I don't really want to go that way, and I focus on things that I really want to keep at. It's always possible to switch directions, but to get good at something you have to commit to one thing at a time.

So yes, I face my limitations all the time. I'm very familiar with feeling like, so and so would do better job, someone is always better than me for sure. Sometimes it is painful to not be able to draw or paint in a way I want. I think this probably never changes, it's just human nature. But I dunno, some people get satisfaction from making AI do their project in the style they want, but if I was able to do something in a snap of fingers, like just get the perfect style for my project, it wouldn't feel good to me. I guess I want the full experience of suffering and joy of figuring things out myself. Sometimes it will suck and hurt, but you learn more about yourself and it'll get easier to recognize what you really want to make. Then, you can always do a little bit better next time.

#evelmiinas askbox

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titanrpg · 1 year

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how i learned ttrpg design, part 3

you can check out part 1 here and part 2 here

as always, this is about my personal experience learning ttrpg design, and i claim no particular expertise or authority on what constitutes "good" game design

so far, i've discussed the games i drew on for the start of my ttrpg education. now let's talk about how to improve (when you need to/if you want to). now, i'll say i don't think "improving" is a great way to think about it. i prefer to think about it as "how to be aware of the tools you need to accomplish your design goals"

for some people, the three games i've discussed are plenty for them to get started. these people tend to like experimenting for themselves and then doing more research when they need help. (i fall in this category.) other people may want to read more before starting in earnest. this is also a smart way to go. (obviously you can go overboard with researching so much that you never actually start, but we are far from that place here.) either way, at some point you'll need more information than you currently have.

how do you find the wisdom you seek? the best answer is simply asking for help from people you look up to/trust. but i've never been good at asking for help, so uhhh this post exists

quick story time. i recently visited maryland to go to my partner's sibling's wedding. in a local comic shop's manga section, i saw this book. i was like, oh fun, it's a manga about kids playing a goblin slayer ttrpg.

but then, when i opened the book...

mechanics!!

it's a TTRPG!! i don't know anything about goblin slayer, but now i'm combing through this book for cool tech. of note so far: at the end of every round of combat, each player has to make an attrition check. fail that, and your fatigue score goes up. at 4 fatigue, you fall unconscious. at 5, you die. punishes long fights and incentivizes players to find alternate solutions. it uses only d6s. and there are sections of fiction illustrated with beautiful manga art. these choices feel old school to me, but it came out in 2019. now i'm really excited. i'll get to see what japanese osr is like!

to me, this pursuit of ttrpg tech feels like discovering an ancient library and searching through old tomes for the power i seek. and there's an online version of this that anyone can dig through for ttrpg tech: osr blogs

old school renaissance/revival, or "osr," as far as i understand it, is a ttrpg genre/design paradigm, typically along the lines of old school d&d. i'm not the best person to explain this, but the way i think about this school of design is it tends to prioritize player skill over character skill. it's the difference between solving a puzzle and rolling to solve a puzzle. because of this, they often make really cool mechanics for challenging players that don't just amount to "roll a 20, do the thing." they also tend to share their thoughts on traditional blogs.

here's an amazing, meticulously catalogued library of keystone OSR posts

by marcia b., @/traversefantasy on twitter, who has an OSR blog of her own using marxist and freudian frameworks for analysis

rise up comus

by josh mcCroo, who's working on a game called his majesty the worm. pretty sure i don't have to say anything else

permanent cranial damage

by ava islam, whose assertion that "Armour Class and Hit Points are the same thing" blew my mind when i was starting out

goblin's henchman

which is where I found the hex flower tech that i adapted for HEXFALL's main mechanic

and one non-OSR blog, that of jay dragon

yes i am a possum creek fangirl. this blog is bananas good. if you haven't read up on playground theory, oh boy you're in for a treat

final takeaway: you never know where you'll find new tools and ideas!

obviously credit people and don't use what's not yours. but have fun and share cool tech with others when you find it!

hope this was helpful <3

p.s. another place that apparently used to have a ton of ttrpg activity was google+. every so often i hear whispers of digital libraries filled with all sorts of salvaged g+ ttrpg treasures. never seen an invite link with my own eyes though. if you hear anything, let me know, will ya?

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #how i learned ttrpg design

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evening-queen · 5 months

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I have good new and bad news. I've been making my simon doll clothes. It is coming along. I have basic sewing skills and it is a fun learning experience.

This is the goal.

So far, so good.

The scarf is done, yay!

Yet the coat was too short, so I added more fabric.

Ok good.

OH! ..........I'm sorry, simon.........there is no turning back now. We come so far.

I would like to welcome our Simon Marie Antoinette Petrikov the First

#fionna and cake #adventure time #simon petrikov #simon doll #Angelina Lily #Angelina Lily made this doll #im just make the clothes #Simon Marie Antoinette Petrikov

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sin-cognito · 2 months

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Rarepair New Year 2024 ch9: Nightmare/Blue, Foreign language

SFW

Wordcount: 2623

Blue arrives early at the café.

READ ON AO3

Blue arrives early at the café.

He's still got a good two hours before his new teacher arrives, so he gets himself a cup of tea, pulls out his headphones and his books and starts to study. No sense in wasting any precious time when he's got an important test in two months.

Blue is a smart and studious monster, the best in his class. His grades are through the roof, and his aim is to get into the advanced class by the end of the year, so that leaves him a little under four months to achieve his goal. It's especially impressive since he could barely introduce himself and count to ten not even a year ago, when he first moved to Applemoon.

He's always been fascinated by Applemoonish culture, it's so different from his own country, Underswap, so when he got the opportunity to come here to study the language, he didn't even think and signed up right away. He told himself he has two years to learn to speak Applemoonish fluently and so far he's on the right track.

Recently however, he's felt like his oral skills are not up to par with his writing, leaving him frustrated everytime he tries to go out and have fun. Granted he doesn't do much of that since he's so busy with school and (self-imposed) homework, but it'd still be nice if he could have more confidence in speaking up during the rare times he does go out and tries to make new Applemoonish friends.

It leaves him puzzled as well: how can he get full marks on all his tests but then struggle so hard just asking the lady at the grocery store if they have soy milk? He sighs at his lacking skills.

Which is the reason why he's spending the rest of his afternoon here in this café. He'd usually just go straight home after class, but today he's going to meet a private teacher that should help him improve his conversation skills. Or so it said on the site where Blue found the other's profile.

Nightmare, skeleton monster, 27, half-Underswapian, half-Applemoonish, with experience in teaching both languages. He sounds perfect for Blue. Not to mention that he doesn't charge too much for each lesson.

So Blue messaged him and they've agreed to meet in this café for a trial lesson. It's half the price of a regular one, so if Blue isn't satisfied with Nightmare's way of teaching conversation (however one does that), he knows he can just find another teacher and he won't have lost too much money. It's a good deal.

"Blue?" A deep voice calls out his name, drawing him back to reality.

He was too focused on his books and didn't see the time, momentarily forgetting where he even is, so when Blue hears his name and looks up, it takes him a couple seconds to realize who the stunning skeleton standing in front of his table is.

He looks dumbly at the other for a moment before he feels his cheeks go hot. Hold on, wait, -this- skeleton is his teacher? This absolute stud of a Greek god? Really? There was no profile picture on the website, this isn't a dating app after all, but holy stars, there should be. Nightmare would have so much success with his sacramento green bones and broad chest, not to mention the vivid mint eyelight shining in his left eyesocket. Blue swallows hard.

"Sorry, I must have the wrong person," the dark-boned skeleton says when he can see no reaction from Blue.

It gets the little student into motion again, and Blue quickly stands up and gestures at the empty chair in front of him.

"NO, YES, I MEAN, YES IT'S ME, I'M BLUE!" He wants to smack himself for the worst ever delivery of a self-introduction.

"Oh, alright," Nightmare lifts a brow but doesn't comment further on Blue's awkwarness. "Nice to meet you."

"NICE TO MEE YOU AS WELL, MR. NIGHTMARE," Blue happily says as they shake hands.

"Eh, drop the mister. Nightmare's fine."

Blue feels his SOUL skip a beat, what is wrong with him! He needs to calm down.

Nightmare orders himself a coffee and then the trial lesson begins. Nightmare asks Blue what his objectives are and why he had to hire a private teacher when he's already enrolled in a school that has a great reputation. Blue explains his dissatisfaction with the way the school teaches oral conversations, or rather the lack of teaching in that department, really, and Nightmare nods.

"Yeah, it's not that unusual that language schools like the one you're in focus more on getting their students to pass written tests than obtaining the actual skills to live in the country itself. That's why I don't really like them, but I can't complain because that means I can get a job quite easily," Nightmare comments as Blue nods. "Alright, enough about your backstory, let's hear you talk Applemoonish. How about you introduce yourself again?"

Blue makes a face but does as he's told so. He struggles with getting the right words to come out of his mouth smoothly, his timing and intonations are all wrong, and his pronounciation is way off. He can be an absolute chatter box in his native language, but right now he can't help but keep his introduction as short as can be.

Nightmare hums. "Well, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I think all you need is to just practice talking about random stuff, and it'll all come naturally."

Blue blinks in surprise.

"REALLY? I THOUGHT IT WAS TERRIBLE!"

Nightmare chuckles and something stirs in Blue's magic.

"Not at all. Sure, maybe some of what you said sounded a little weird, but I understood what you meant to tell me, and that's what important with oral skills. It's not as much saying the correct words as it is getting your point across," he explains.

Blue lets out an impressed hum and decides that yes, Nightmare is the perfect teacher for him.

(Nightmare being a solid piece of eye-candy has nothing to do with Blue's decision.)

They start planning Blue's lessons twice a week at first and everything goes well. Nightmare usually shows up with a couple conversation ideas before asking Blue to come up with some themes himself. Over the next month or so however, preparing anything for these private lessons feels more and more useless as conversation flows so naturally between the two that it's not unusual for them to keep talking well past the hour Blue is paying Nightmare for. Blue insisted at first that Nightmare accepts his money, but the handsome skeleton proved himself to be rather stubborn, saying that it was his decision to keep hanging out with Blue outside of his 'work hours'.

Blue feels more than pleased with his progress already. It's barely been a month and he feels himself getting more and more confident, and he doesn't dread having to ask something in Applemoonish anymore. He doesn't even use Underswapian with Nightmare anymore, not even for corrections or when he doesn't know a specific word. He just does his best to explain what he means in another way and waits for Nightmare to provide with the actual term.

One month and a half marks the start of Nightmare offering Blue to go to the movies with him. Watching a movie in another language without any subtitles is daunting at first, and Blue admittedly doesn't do very well on his first time. The actors are talking too fast and sometimes mumble their lines, and without the visual aid subtitles provide, Blue is lost. They debrief the movie later with Nightmare, and Blue asks if they can go watch it again.

It doesn't change much however, as Blue is way too distracted by Nightmare casually wrapping an arm around Blue's shoulder to really pay any attention to the movie.

They hang out more and more often after that, spending almost every afternoon together. When they can't because one is too busy, they usually text each other well into the evening.

At this point, Nightmare is more than just a teacher for Blue. He's a real -crush- friend. Maybe even his best friend.

They celebrate the end of Blue's big test at Nightmare's place, where Blue gets to meet his teacher's twin, the lovely Dream. The two immediately get on well, which ends up with Blue spending all his time with one or the other twin, though he won't lie, his preference clearly goes to Nightmare.

Blue cannot deny it anymore, he's crushing hard on his private teacher. He does consider the idea of asking Nightmare out, but he's not sure how to go about it. He makes the mistake of confiding in Dream about his feelings, who lets out a squeak so high that Blue finds himself temporarily deaf. At least having Nightmare's twin on Blue's side is reassuring, as Dream assures Blue that Nightmare is very single and doesn't have any crush at the moment. The news is as much a relief as it is disappointing, as Blue realizes his teacher doesn't seem to have any interest in Blue as a potential romantic partner.

Well that's what Dream's here to help Blue with, and the ever-smiling twin spends the next few weeks feeding as much personal info about his brother as he can to Blue, who soaks everything up like a sponge. Blue's never been more grateful for his quick learning dispositions. He learns Nightmare's favorite desert, and invites him to taste a homemade apple pie and asks him about how authentic the taste is. Blue hears that Nightmare likes playing chess, and so he downloads an app and asks Nightmare if he knows how to play and can he teach Blue. Dream spills the beans about his brother's very secret passion for singing, and Blue casually mentions he's never been to karaoke and is too shy to go by himself and oh how wonderful it would be to have someone go with him…

Blue knows he's a bit too obvious here and there, but he doesn't mind as either Nightmare doesn't notice or he doesn't mind Blue's company.

Meanwhile they continue their weekly lessons, and Blue's hard work pays off when he's told that his test results are good enough to let him go up to the advanced class. Blue's first reaction upon hearing the news isn't even to tell his family back in Underswap, all he wants to do is run to Nightmare's place to announce the good news.

"I'm really proud of you," Nightmare congratulates Blue over the phone. "How about we celebrate this tonight around a drink? There's this new bar that I wanted to bring you to, I'm sure you're going to love it."

Blue beams at the other and excitedly runs home to get ready. He calls Dream to the rescue, to help him pick his outfit for tonight.

Blue has decided he's going to confess his feelings.

He wants to do it right. It might sound cheesy, but according to Dream, Nightmare can be a little traditional when it comes to relationships, and apparently he likes when things are laid out flat rather than making a bunch of innuendos. It's a little nerve-wracking for Blue, who so far doesn't have much experience asking someone else out as he's more of a 'actions over words' kinda guy if you catch his drift. But he's serious about Nightmare and wants to make sure he's not going to fuck it up for a stupid reason.

He puts on a deep blue sequin top with a high-waisted pair of jeans. He's got white platform shoes on and a dark gray leather jacket on. He asks Dream a billion times whether the look is over the top or underdressed, and each time the twin assures Blue he's exactly to the tastes of Nightmare.

Blue's efforts are rewarded with a soft blush on Nightmare's cheeks when Blue arrives at the bar. Nightmare isn't the most expressive monster out there, so Blue is confident that his looks helped him get a few good points if Nightmare can't even keep his magic in check.

They go seat at the counter and Nightmare orders cocktails for them both.

"As a treat, since you did so well with your test," he explains as he clinks his glass to Blue's.

"I CAN'T WAIT TO BE IN THE ADVANCED CLASS," Blue happily sips away his cocktail, munching on the popato chisps they've orders to go with their drinks. "APPARENTLY THE ADVANCED LEVEL TEACHERS ARE REALLY GOOD, SO I'M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO ATTENDING THEIR CLASSES."

Nightmare puts his skull in the palm of his hand as he grins at Blue.

"Maybe I should apply to work at your school. It would be fun to teach a whole class, and who knows, maybe you'd be my student."

Blue chuckles awkwardly as he hesitates whether he should say his next words.

"YES BUT PLEASE DON'T. WE'D HAVE WAY LESS TIME TO HANG OUT TOGETHER IF YOU WORKED AT MY SCHOOL," he finally blurts out, avoiding Nightmare's gaze. If the teacher comment on Blue's blush, he can always say it's because of the cocktail.

Nightmare hums. "Yeah, maybe you're right. I don't really want another student anyway, I'm good with just you."

Blue is about to faint, his magic beating wildly in his chest. That was a direct hit, and quite honestly very unfair of Nightmare to be so charming when Blue is the one supposed to flirt with him, not the other way around.

Blue gulps the rest of his cocktail in one go and decides to just go for it.

"NIGHTMARE, I NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING!" He starts, but loses his confidence as he scrambles to find a way to word his thoughts. "I, UHH… SO I HAVE SOMEONE I LIKE AND I WANT TO CONFESS."

He glances at Nightmare to check if the other knows this is about him, but Nightmare just looks intrigued. He waits for Blue to continue.

"YES, SO, WELL. I WANT TO KNOW… ERM… HOW- HOW DO YOU ASK SOMEONE OUT IN APPLEMOONISH?" Blue blurts out and immediately has to stop himself from smacking his own dumb face.

"You say will you be my boyfriend?" Nightmare replies without missing a beat.

Blue's SOUL is about to explode or implode, he isn't sure, but it's going to stop working that's for sure.

With a burning face and shaky voice, Blue repeats the sentence.

"WILL YOU BE MY BOYFRIEND?"

"Yeah."

Blue blinks. Oh no, Nightmare thought he just repeated the phrase to get the pronounciation right, something they've done a billion times before during their lessons.

Blue's plans crumble like a card tower and he starts feeling dizzy. His palms are sweaty and his magic is throbbing in his skull.

He decides to go for broke.

"I'M NOT JUST REPEATING THE SENTENCE. I'M ACTUALLY ASKING YOU TO BE MY BOYFRIEND."

There he said it.

"I know," Nightmare replies just as casually as before. "And I'm telling you yes."

"YES?"

"Yeah. I like you too, Blue, so yeah, I want to be your boyfriend."

Blue feels like he's melting, turning into a puddle of goo on the floor, or he would be if it wasn't for the arm Nightmare wraps around his waist. Nightmare tilts Blue's skull and leans down for a kiss and this time, yeah, Blue does melt. Nightmare's tongue is warm and strong and so so good. It leaves Blue breathless but more importantly, eager for more. More kisses, more Nightmare, more… more.

Maybe they can go to Nightmare's place and have a different kind of private lesson.

#Cognito fic #Rarepair New Year 2024 #Nightmare/Blue #Nightmare!Sans #US!Sans #Nightmare #Blue #SFW

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shedidntevenswear · 1 year

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It’s my 30th birthday!

which means i’ve had this exact tumblr account for literally half of my life lol embarrassing

Because I am my mother(Taylor Swift)’s daughter, I decided to take a page from her book and share 30 things I’ve learned in my 30 years of life so far:

It’s the people, it’s the people, IT’S THE PEOPLE. In anything you do, any space you inhabit, the people around you are what actually matters, not the dogma or the process or whatever. Act accordingly.

Some things can go to the group chat instead of out on the internet.

Listening without trying to fix things is an important skill, especially when talking to yourself.

Therapy is worth the money.

Not everything that is great or meant for you is meant to last forever. Embrace ephemera.

You really can find everything you need on NOT Amazon, it just takes a little more work. Generally the work is worth it.

Different things work for different people, you don’t need to apply whats best for someone else to yourself and you definitely don’t get to decide that what’s right for you is how everyone should be living.

I read so much more after embracing audiobooks and 2x speed.

Liking things is so much cooler and more fun than hating things.

WEAR SUNSCREEN EVEN WHEN YOU DONT THINK YOU NEED IT.

The best way to live in community is with a soft front and a strong back.

Getting outside and moving my body actually does make me feel better, damn it.

Take the Uber sometimes. Don’t be a hero.

You can’t always believe everything you read on the internet.

Relatedly, you don’t always have to believe the opinions of people on the internet about you or the things you care about. You don’t always have to give the same weight to the things internet people say as you would to people who know you.

Feelings need to be felt.

Things you enjoy doing are worth doing even if you aren’t “good” at them.

I’ve learned how to be alone with myself without descending into crippling loneliness immediately #justextrovertthings

Check the weather before you leave the house.

Certainty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The vulnerability that comes from uncertainty is where connection happens.

It’s actually totally fine to eat the same thing every day if you are getting the fuel you need and you like how it tastes. Not everyone has to be a chef.

Opinions are not facts.

You’ll enjoy life so much more if you just let yourself have a little treat every day.

You can have fantastic, budget-friendly European vacations if you simply don’t care about the quality of where you sleep. (aka I’ve slept on a lot of overnight buses and in the most basic BnBs)

Nine times out of ten, it’s not personal. People are thinking more about themselves than they are ever thinking about you when making the decision to do or say something.

There are so many things out of my control. Wisdom is realizing what I can control, and satisfaction comes from concentrating my effort there and letting go of the rest.

There *are* good men out there, they are just exceptionally hard to find. Very few of them are single though.

The goal of life is not to be a “good” person, it’s to be a person who does good and acknowledges and apologizes and improves when they’ve done something bad.

Nobody notices or cares if you wear the same shirt two or three days in a row when you work over Zoom. Save those laundry coins.

It’s never too late to start something new. Discovery and learning new skills and trying new things has no age limit.

#amanda please #my birthday #30 things

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maddymoreau · 4 months

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Fallout New Vegas Live-Blog Part 3

I went to REPCOON Headquarters and got to meet a bunch of ADORABLE robots!! One even gave me a tour of their museum! However when I reached the third floor there was a problem . . .

My Luck Stat wasn't high enough to pass. After looking online I found a solution! First I got an implant from Dr. Usanagi at the New Vegas Medical Clinic (and many more afterwards).

However I was still one Luck Stat short. The only way to increase it was by wearing sexy lingerie 💀 with that I could guess the password which was Ice Cream.

This game is so ridiculous I love it.

I finally downloaded the all of the DLCS! They came with a lot of cool outfits! One of them being an Armored Vault 13 Jumpsuit which I'm very 👀 curious to learn more about.

From there I met Cannibal Johnson (who has only eaten one fiend's heart). He discussed his past and when he mentioned the name Sergeant Dornan I REMEMBERED SOMETHING I HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN!!!!!

YYYEEEAAAARRRRSSSS ago I watched someone play the first Fallout game. During that time ABDKL;GFKLANF;DSN I GOT OBSESSED WITH SERGEANT DORNAN AND EVEN SELFSHIPPED WITH HIM!!!

(〃^_^)ゞ Back then I used to make charts to help me keep track of my goals and I made custom ones featuring Sergeant Dornan!! I tried to make it match the game and even rewrote his iconic dialogue to fit goal.

When I remembered this I IMMEDIATELY PAUSED MY GAME, DUG THROUGH MY CLOSET AND FOUND THEM!!!!

There's WAY more but yeah (⸝⸝⸝⚆_⚆⸝⸝⸝)♡ would 100% still smooch him. He's my favorite first Fallout character.

I discovered Vault 19 with the Ex Powder Ganger members inside. I'm going to kill them and the rest of the Powder Gangers later. I wanted to do the Why Can't We Be Friends? Quest but unfortunately I don't think my Explosion Skill will ever be high enough.

At Mojave Outpost I helped NCR member Ranger Ghost with the Quest Keep Your Eyes on the Prize and along with Ranger Jackson with the Quest Can You Find it in Your Heart?

I'm trying to do the basic NCR Quests before becoming their enemy.

I went to Nellis Air Force Base and THE EXPLOSIONS ON THE WAY WERE TERRIFYING!!!! No way I would've been able to get there without a tutorial.

I like to imagine that on the way Nellis Air Force Base the loud explosions scared Lily but once inside she'd have SO MUCH fun getting to spend time with children her grandkid's ages!!

I did a bunch of side Quests for the Boomers inside like finding a missing Teddy bear named Mr. Cuddles. Along with helping Jack and Janet get together. Currently the Boomers Idolize me and once my Repair Skill is high enough I'm going to fix their solar array.

I handed over some snow globes to Jane (Mr. House's robot lover). It's weird she doesn't say goodbye and is just silent.

I saw these interesting corpses.

٩( ᐛ )و Turns out they're made by the Khans!

Also I met Papa Khans and got him to help against Ceaser!!!

It was really easy since I've never attacked any of the Fiends. I've been waiting until I have no choice.

ALSO I'M SO GLAD I SAVED A BUNCH OF STEALTH BOYS!!! Without them there's NO WAY I could've reached Melissa. The Death Claws are TERRIFYING and always one shot me (X _ X).

Yes Man's reaction was SO FUNNY!!!!

Not gonna lie . . . I might go back and kill them all to make Yes Man happy. akdjf;lakvd;nl.

HE SAYS YAY WHEN YOU DO IT!!!!

It would also make sense for her to second guess her decision after speaking with Yes Man. Especially after seeing how the drugs the Khans produce affect the people when fighting the Fiends.

Also I helped Jerry the Punk leave the Khans to join the Followers of the Apocalypse. Speaking of them a member named Emily Ortal asked me to help figure out how Mr. House's has lived so long.

Not sure if I want to do that though.

Finished taking ALL the pictures for Michael Angelo. During that time I explored the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters. Met a robot named Fetus. So far I only have 17 of the Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars.

Since my LockPick Skill was finally high enough I went to explore The Hidden Valley Bunker ONLY TO DISCOVERED THE BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL?!?!!

The fucking Brotherhood of Steel stripped me naked and put a dog collar on me I’m killing them all.

(|||ᇂ_ᇂ) I'm not prepared to deal with them yet so I save scummed. I returned to an older file and continued leveling up/exploring.

During that I was at Mojave Drive-in when I noticed a crashed satellite projecting onto the theater's screen AND WHAT IS HAPPENING??!!?!

I GOT EXPERIMENTED ON??!?!!! THEY TOOK MY BRAIN?!?!?!?! THEY TOOK MY SPINE?!?!?!?! THEY TOOK MY FUCKING HEART?!!?!?!!??!?!

THEY DID SOMETHING TO ME TO THE POINT I CAN’T EVEN GET ANGRY?!?!?!! Some fellow named Mobius has my brain!?!?!? GIVE IT BACK?!?!!?!?

DR. DALA KEEPS CALLING ME HER TEDDY BEAR!!??

Part 1 and 2 Below:

Part One:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/738944610851864576/i-spent-a-majority-of-my-time-exploring-the-top?source=share

Part Two: https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/739188768511229952/finally-leaving-the-strip-i-worked-on-a-quest?

#A lot of this was actually done out of order from how I wrote it.#Since I had to do multiple Quests at once or go Grind since certain Skills weren't high enough to progress.#So going back to an older save file and killing the Khans before reporting to Yes Man would be extremely easy.#So I'm probably going to go kill the Khans and then go deal with whatever is happening at the drive in.#Laying it out like this made it easier for me to keep track of everything LOL.#Fallout New Vegas Spoiler #MadisonPlaysFalloutNewVegas #Long Text #Long Post

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shitposting4squares · 1 year

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half life theory

So I saw this conversation between two people on discord, “You know, I realised something In Half Life 1, Gordon, a physicist, is the most dangerous thing for the army that came to kill the scientists (edited) Not the aliens, not the tentacles coming out of the ground that gibs everything No Gordon fucking Freeman is the biggest threat there” “i mean only because hes supposed to approach combat in a methodical/scientific way, as apposed to the monsters and military, the whole tagline for the first game was "run think shoot live", the combat and environments are presented like a puzzle so in that way of course a scientist is goin to dominate” And it got me thinking, you know what actually makes Gordon so unstoppable? Cus i dont think it’s the whole being a scientist thing. For one, he's outfitted with super science gear like the hev suit and experimental weapons. But more importantly, he’s got a massive supply of miracle cures from another dimension. Gordon wouldn't matter for jack shit if black mesa hadn't set up medical centers full of xen healing goop every 20 feet that let him learn from his mistakes in ways no other human soldier had the opportunity to do up until that point. I mean in the regular military, you generally don't get the chance to learn from the mistake of being shot. You just get shot once or twice and you're done for. And as for the theory I developed from this... This healing goo situation could actually be a great reason why g-man would have had to wait a few years to release Gordon again. He'd have to wait until the ant lion healing goop became ubiquitous across locations Gordon would have to travel through, so Gordon could effectively use his skills to speedily rip through locations like a human bullet. Maybe even poke at the threads of fate to ensure Gordon would have recovery tools when needed. Essentially gman and his associates being a level design game developer making sure Gordon has suit chargers and healing goop whenever things get hairy. And with him encouraging the development of the black mesa action protagonist format that was potentially refined not just through Gordon, but with Adrian Shepard, Colette Green, Gina Cross, and Barney Calhoun as well.

Like Black Mesa coulda been an outstanding experiment and proof of concept for a somewhat omnipotent being of how to create human torpedoes if ya really think about it. Learning what sort of conditions lead to humans becoming absurdly lethal super soldiers within the span of just a few days, and how to optimize this process. Not just in the sense of the real life developers of half life learning and growing from the franchise. But g-man and his mysterious benefactors, canonically, in universe, using the events at black mesa and all it’s expansions and spin offs, as practice for the events of half life 2, alyx, and eventually someday half life 3. Just the typical videogame format of having a power and skill progression could take on a new meaning if ya look at it from an in universe context rather than just a pretext for fun gameplay. Instead consider it as a semi-omnipotent being, learning that if you put a human far enough from something you want destroyed, manage their increase of skill and power by putting them through progressively more difficult situations one after the other, with liberal access to resources and fast recovery tools. Then within 2-4 days you’ll be able to hit your enemy with a powerhouse super soldier that seemed to come out of nowhere and they had little opportunity to prepare against because of just how quickly these humans are able to go from zero to hero in optimal conditions. And even though not all of the black mesa event protagonists have been guaranteed to have have survived, so long as they're able to achieve a otherwise impossible goal before their death, they would still count as data towards refining the black mesa action hero method and being able to replicate it to use against the combine. Like if you think about it, each of the half life 1 protagonists could fit in nicely as tests/proof of concepts for different tasks, and different kinds of optimizations for these so called hero types. Like Gordon is solo act/jack of all trades, Collett and Gina are a co-op duo (potentially helpful data for when gordon and alyx would have to work together in the future), Barney is specialized for escort quests of non-combatants, Adrian is a squad leader of more combat focused types, and Alyx is a backup jack of all trades and test to make sure that the system of having a human run a gauntlet of challenges optimized for their growth still works effectively in a post combine world. Could probably even measure when these environmental conditions of having frequent healing and the opportunity for rapid skill progression that comes along with it really came together in the post combine earth, by how and when Alyx was able to become a near unstoppable human badass in her own spin off game.

#half life #gman #Gordon Freeman #Alyx vance #adrian shephard #barney calhoun #theory

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garoumylove · 1 year

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New Year New Smutty Garou Fic ^.^

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s a very smutty and romantic Garou fanfic I just wrote called ‘Hurt So Good’ :) I’ll leave the intro here and you can read the whole thing HERE since its a bit too long for Tumblr!

~*~

He holds his bandaged hand in front of his face in the dim heat of early autumn. The shack has no windows and no particular light to offer but his eyes always adjust quickly. The sun is setting- No, just set. Just gone down for the night but Garou lies wide awake. He’d just made it back after a sleepless twenty four hours. There’s a dull ache in his calf where Golden Ball’s little missile got him and this. He clenches and unclenches the bandaged hand lightly. Bandaged is a generous word. It is not a bandage. A rag he found, really. He’ll bandage it up properly soon now that he’s back at his own little headquarters but for now he just wants to lie back for a moment. A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. His headquarters. He likes that. The fucking heroes have their Hero Association HQ and the monsters have their own somewhere, he is sure of it, and here he is, in his own headquarters. King of his own castle. CEO of his one-man organisation. He thinks he might even give himself a promotion, employee of the month even. A fun, savage laugh rings out in the stillness. How about that? Employee of the month. So he did amount to something in the end. Heh.

The hand. An annoying injury. An unexpected one. Compliments of Spring Mustachio. But at least he’d gained some experience against blades and that’s always useful. The wound has begun to close up, he can feel the flesh starting to pull together, faster than any human he knows but still far too slow for him. At least it was a clean wound. One quarter of a stigmata. No, they’d never be able to crucify him now. Not even if they tried. There is no one on his side. He has nobody. The situation hasn’t changed. There is no one on his side except his own body, and it’s been cooperating much more than usual lately, stepping up to the challenge. This quick healing a welcome surprise. All his billions of cells in on the plan, cheering him on, working hard to make sure he reaches his monstrous goal. This pain? He looks over his hand again, turning it in the dusk. This pain is nothing. It hurt like a mother fucker, stung like hell as it happened, as he felt the blade pierce the skin, slide against muscle but he was too high on adrenaline to notice much. A half hour later though, it wasn’t so fun anymore. But now it was just an inconvenient ache and tomorrow, he’ll be able to deliver a punch like nothing had ever happened. He is sure of it. This pain, it’s almost gone. But did the bastard really have to slice up his shirt? He’d left the dojo with nothing but the clothes on his back, not intending this phase of his plan to drag out for too long and that was just fucking rude.

The last traces of sun are gone and the cracks in the roof shine a saturated violet. He can hear the last of the crickets outside. Soon they will fall silent. It will be far too cold for them. But for now, tonight especially, it is more than warm enough. Reminiscent of summer. Of broken wood and broken bones, a trail of now defunct dojos across the country. All his own handiwork. These skilled hands. He had never particularly really excelled at this or that before. But he’d poured all his blood, sweat and tears into learning, into training, quickly found he had a knack for it and exploited it to its fullest potential under that old man’s guidance. The geezer seemed delighted. He was so fucking full of himself, Garou’s smile dissipates into a scowl. He felt he was just a trophy, a vessel, a superior demonstration for the old fool’s martial arts. If he’d never shown any particular promise, would the old bastard have shown him as much attention? It was all performative, all conditional, in the end, wasn’t it? What if he’d just ended up as another Charanko (shudder the thought)? Bang wouldn’t have given two shits about him, would he? The scowl tenses. Now look. He’s gone and done it again. Wisps of a blackening, indecipherable turmoil rising, waking deep inside. Feelings he cannot name and doesn’t care to. This hand. This pain. The edges of injured skin and bone and sinew. This pain. This pain is concrete and visceral and real. It has a location, a pinpoint. It’s definable. He can point to it and say ‘Fuck this shit right here’, grip it with his hand when it gets too bad, when it has gotten too bad, grit his teeth and shift his attention somewhere else. An eight. Now a six. It’s gone down to a three. A meager one.

He likes that. That’s what they do, the doctors and the like, isn’t it? Ask you to number it out of ten. It’s still subjective, of course. The ten that he can withstand is magnitudes higher than any normal human, but it’s still a nicely divided scale. Pieces of pain on a line. A graph. He’d always liked graphs. Diagrams. Everything clearly labeled, guiding you through whatever it was it wanted you to know. He remembers himself age eight, flipping through the insect encyclopedia over and over, staring at those beautifully drawn diagrams for hours. The clear labels: Head. Thorax. Abdomen. And then the magnifications. Antenna. Compound eye. Wing. Femur. Posterior spiracle. The Latin names of those insects, like unpronounceable magical incantations. Allomyrina dichotoma. Japanese rhinoceros beetle. If monsters were species and had names, what would his be? What is Latin for ‘monster’? He knows rex is king. He’d learned that as a kid looking through the dinosaur books in elementary school during the lonely recess. Rex, he’d whispered the enchanting foreign word under his breath. Rex. King. What does he hope his species name would be now? Something rex. It must end in rex. Or god? Should it be god? What is god in Latin? And what’s monster? Ah, who cares.

The thought of elementary school stokes the fire that he’d just managed to extinguish inside. He looks down his body, laying on the frayed couch. His chest, with the goddamn torn shirt, rises and falls with each breath. Unlike his martyred hand, there is nothing to direct his attention to when this bullshit starts, this storm inside. It’s all inside. Something unstoppable, uncomfortable, uncontrollable. He pushes the fist of his good hand against the hard muscle of his chest. Right there. The scowl grows brutal. If he could only reach in there, even punch through his ribs, pull it out like some sort of unwelcome intruder, crush it in his fingers and feel its blood drain so it could never bother him again. His knuckles press into his skin, sharp and unforgiving. He does not have the words for it. There is no number he can assign. Whatever is happening inside him, that seems to happen every so often, especially when memories come up, whatever this is, it escapes definition and yet never, ever fails to torture him.

He is not stupid. He is not so illiterate that he can’t say ‘This is anger’, or ‘This is resentment’. He knows this. He has been angry for almost as long as he can remember, not quite all his life, but ever since that little shit Tacchan decided to make it his mission in life to torment him on the school playground with its peeling paint and holey fence. This writhing anger. He knows there is anger in there. Rage. Pure unadulterated fury, simmering and smouldering from so long ago. He is not so stupid. But the merits of language only go so far. And while, on the surface, he can point and say ‘This is anger’ or ‘This is frustration’, the reality is that under that same simplified surface is such a seething mass of tangled darkness he cannot even begin to think of where to start unraveling it. He remembers in middle school, one of their more progressive teachers, projected an abstract painting onto the white board, for what purpose Garou does not remember. But he remembers staring at the furious maze of black and white lines and shapes that resembled nothing he could name. It frustrated and fascinated him, this abstract art or whatever the fuck it was called. It was just like what he felt, stil feels, inside. Nothing he can name, or grasp, but so much of it. So hot and burning from the inside. Not just burning but suffocating, clawing its way as if through his ribs and up his throat. Like it wants something and will not rest.

At first he’d tried to push it down. Suppress it. Fight back. It was too dangerous, unwieldy and uncontrollable. But as he harnessed his physical prowess at the dojo, day after day, staying later than anyone else, repeating drills until his muscles ached, until he could barely move, until Bang scolded him that that was enough, as he harnessed his physical power, honed it, he learned to use his inner demons as fuel for the fire. He directed it into every hit, every bone-crunching punch. Maybe he couldn’t understand, might never understand it, but he could use it. He’d imagine this dark, hot liquid rage sitting in his chest, his mind, direct its course into his arm, into his fist, let it explode. The satisfaction of it like nothing else. Nothing else. Well, almost nothing. A corner of a thought flickers somewhere in his mind, like a bright spark in a chaotic night. It appears and extinguishes itself almost as quickly as it came. Interesting as always. But this mess inside him, this absolute bedlam, it ain’t so bad. Like a contract with the devil. Except when he loses grip and he is no longer using it, but is being used by it. When he finds himself in the palm of its hand. This howling pain that has no words and all he can do is pace, wrestle with it (it always wins), appease it by bringing a sacrifice. Some unsuspecting poor bastard in a hero costume sometimes does the trick. But not always. When it overtakes him, forces him down memory lane and he has no choice but to watch, to relive those things. When he’s forced to confront everything that’s under the brutal anger. The emotions he cannot name, white hot and desperate. Memories of classmates, and teachers, and parents and…

And then it gets harder to breathe. Ragged, jaw clenched.

How would you rate your pain out of ten? And all he can do is gasp. Numbers become inconsequential, lose all meaning. It’s not anger anymore, it’s… It’s… What the fuck is it? What is it that lives and breathes inside him and gives him no peace? Memories of people’s faces. People he had loved, had tried his best for. People who never smiled. People who made him feel… What? What is this terrifying feeling? It’s not even one. Not one feeling. An amalgamation of many. A stitched together nightmare. What is it? Why these memories? And he doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t want to. Clawing his way back to control. Always in control. Always.

Always? The spark again. A moment. Slightly longer. And gone.

The night grows more sultry and all this thinking is getting frustrating. He sits up, pulls off his black shirt. Looks down, inspects his chest. A bruise here, and one there, barely visible, camouflaging in the dusty darkness of this cabin. He rubs his hand against one, then the other. It feels like nothing. No pain. Not here. His body doing its best to not let him down. His body, a perfectly honed killing machine. Each vein, each fibre of muscle… Anyone who saw him would say he’s at his peak, but he knows this is not yet true. There is still room for improvement. He can still get stronger. There are still so many fucking assholes to crush, so much justice to mete out. He has this sudden realisation, an epiphany, that for him happiness is a zero sum game. He finds he is most happy when his enemies are not. If others are happy he cannot be. His happiness depends on their fear, their misery. He lies back down, only slightly cooler half-undressed. He stares up at the punctured ceiling, one arm behind his head. A zero sum game. He won’t be happy unless they’re terrified. He cannot be happy unless they’re… His thoughts trail off. His mind slowly shifts as his chest continues to rise and fall slowly in the dark, the air pressed so close against his bare skin, against the sculpted muscles of his torso, following the glistening little trail of sweat down his left pectoral. His hand reaches out in front of him briefly, as if reaching for something, someone on top of him. No, not everyone. There was an exception.

An unexpected exception. ~ A few months prior. Start of June. Well, that’s when the exception happened. The real start was before that. The year before. When he’d still been going to school more or less regularly. She had been new last year. This in itself was not anything to write home about. In their school, their neighbourhood, kids came and went all the time. The thing to write home about was that she was somewhat foreign. He says somewhat because he had always been too polite to ask. What was the fraction of Japanese? A half? A quarter? An eighth? A numerator of one over the denominator of what? It didn’t really matter in the end. She was a new species. She kept to herself mostly and would answer in polite and formal Japanese with a sweet, accented inflection when anyone cared to talk to her. He couldn’t figure out if it was just the rookie mistake of any language learner, always being taught the most polite forms just in case, or whether this was a brilliant trick to keep people at arm’s length. He had never caught on. But the idea of a language barrier appealed to him. It was a perfectly valid excuse to have people not bother you, one that he couldn’t feign. But it didn’t matter. By that time he’d already carefully constructed a reputation for himself stronger than any language barrier and it was rare for anyone to approach him for anything really. The only one being his homeroom teacher who had been on his fucking case non-stop for this or that or some other shit. The girl was there. And from the back of the class where he sat, interesting to look at. Always wearing a polite smile and glasses. She didn’t seem to have integrated herself into the social life of the class but neither did she seem too bothered by it. She participated in everything and answered all questions, always in that formal and ultra polite Japanese. And no one could say a bad word about her but she never seemed to fully fit in. A foreign import into their indigenous class ecosystem. And interesting to look at.

...the rest can be read here! xoxo

#smuttiest garou smut #GAROU SMUT #garou fanfiction #garou fanfic #opm fanfiction #one punch man fanfiction #garou #garou one punch man #fanfiction #anime fanfiction #anime smut #garou x reader #garouxreader #xreader

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punkitt-is-here · 1 year

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Could I ask about dealing with anxiety when starting to make games? Also I hope your day is going well when you get this

Sure!

I think the most important thing to learn about, as with any new skill or tool or what have you, is that you have to get cool with sucking. I didn't get this far in being a fun gamedev internet person by caring immensely about the perfect quality of what i put out; i was just proud to do it! If I cared about getting everything right the first go around i'd never get ANYTHING done. Underneath all the neat stuff I show online is actually a mountain of things that I would call subpar or even failures, but I don't mind having those at all; they're important steps in the creative process! And I think being bad at something is better than not doing something at all. And I'll say this much: in gamedev, even the tiniest, most insignificant victories feel like GIGANTIC wins when you're dealing with something as fickle and intimidating as gamedev, and those victories are what motivate me. The second you get far enough to have your own lil guy walking around in your own little world is the moment when everything starts to click for me and i go "boy i fucking love gamedev so much". it's tough, but i think when you hold out long enough to start seeing even the tiniest little fruits of your labor you'll see why it's such a rewarding experience.

Secondly, recognize that you're doing this for fun!! If you're going into ANY medium with the goal just to earn money or make the next big hit, I think you're gonna hit a roadblock pretty quickly. Make things because YOU wanna make them, and you'll find the anxiety washes away pretty quickly. Don't make things because it's hot right now to make uhhhh i dunno Among Us Roguelikes with FPS elements or something, do it because you have an idea that sounds fuckin sick and you wanna make it real. It's 100% why i make ANYTHING i make at all.

Additionally, cheat!! Use shortcuts!!! All the gamedev stuff I've shown is actually made off of engines that require little-to-no programming experience (SMBX2 and RPGMaker 2003) and while I eventually want to move on to stuff like Godot, I think it's INCREDIBLY fun and rewarding to work with engines that do a lot of the initial ground work for you. I don't think there's anything wrong with using engines that'll get you quicker to where you wanna be as long as its something you feel like you can get behind. So have fun with it, be ready to be bad (and that's okay!) and take it easy on yourself.

Hope you have a wonderful day! I am :>

#my posts #asks #gamedev #blender-chan

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writingquestionsanswered · 1 year

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Hello! Thank you so much for your advice on this blog, I learned so much reading your posts!

I also have a question that I'm somewhat stuck on. How do you construct a plot that has twists and a lot of intricacies? I don't know if I'm explaining properly, but so far, all of my plots have been somewhat,,,basic? I've tried following the advice on all the posts about constructing a plot, but while i have the skeleton of a basic plot, I can't expand it into those intricate and complex storylines that make a story exciting and full of new things and twists to discover.

I really want to make a story that has a sprawling storyline with twists and reveals and mystery and dicoveries, but I can't come up with it, as silly as it sounds. I don't know if it's because my creative skills are lacking, but I'm wondering if there is a way to improve my ability to craft such plots. As I am a beginner, I understand that it'll take a lot of work until I reach a level where my writing skills are really good, but this roadblock has been pulling the fun out of writing a bit.

I hope my message is understandable, and I'm sorry if something is confusing, english is my third language! Thank you again so much for all your help

Crafting an Intricate Plot with Twists and Surprises

The thing about all those twists, discoveries, mysteries, and reveals in a sprawling story is that they're all related to the story's conflict. So, before you can come up with all of those little intricacies, you have to understand plot and conflict. Read through the following posts for help with understanding plot and conflict:

Basic Story Structure Beginning a New Story How to Move a Story Forward Plot Driven vs Character Driven Stories Understanding Goals and Conflict

Once you have a conflict, it will be easier to come up with all the mysteries and surprises that make stories unique. You can also read through my post Guide: Filling Your Creative Well for ideas on how you can expand your imagination for these things.

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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enterpris · 4 months

Text

An Education in Attraction, Chapter 7

Pairing: Reader x Gojo

Summary: It's spring when you start your Master's degree. As the flowers and leaves unfold, so too do your feeling for Gojo

Warnings: Mild swearing

Previous Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Ao3: PlaidSparrow

"Teacher! What are we doing in class today? Can we skip the lesson and just have conversation time?" Kaba Ryo is one of your more enthusiastic students.

You wave the stack of assignments in front of you. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we've got some worksheets today. There will be plenty of time to talk after, though."

He sighs and walks to the front of the classroom. You hand the sheets to Ryo, who lays them out on each desk as the rest of your students trickle in.

Many of the students greet you as they enter, and your heart swells. Teaching while completing your graduate program is taxing, but there’s nowhere else you feel the same joy as when you’re leading the classroom. In the couple months you’ve been working with this group, the students have really warmed up to you. Not only are they more eager to participate in conversations with each other, they have plenty of questions about your life before coming to Japan and outside of the Eikaiwa school too.

Today they’re flooding you with questions about how hard the classes in your Graduate program are.

"Not as hard as learning a new language," you assure them. "What you're doing now will prepare you well for university."

You’ve settled into a rhythm of letting the students ask some questions at the beginning of class, it’s a good opportunity for them to practice new words and speaking. You answer since it’s a good application of listening skills too. Then you have them complete the worksheets. The sheets will introduce the new vocab in the next unit you planned. Since you're thinking so much about your future, you want to incorporate future tense and more professional words into your lessons.

The second half of your sessions is where you have the most fun. Language learning is best done through practice, and giving the students some freedom to converse or preparing a game for them to apply grammar concepts is probably more fun than doing worksheets too. Today you’ll have them talk about their future dreams- jobs, goals, whatever the students hope for really.

Most of these students have been enrolled in Eikaiwa schools since lower Middle School, and came into your class with high levels of proficiency. You just want to nurture their natural curiosity and talents.

But you’re also determined to make sure your pupils are challenged. You want your students to pick up new phrases and ask questions about why English is the way that it is. Being able to communicate in English is a valuable skill in the current world, even though you have mixed feelings about your native tongue being a Lingua Franca.

“Future tense in English is super easy, I bet you all can master it by the time you leave class today.” You explain the basics of using ‘will’ or ‘going to’ as auxiliary verbs. Then you turn the class loose to get some hands-on experience with the new structures.

You walk around the circle of desks and listen to the overlap of your students’ conversations. You smile to yourself. The high schoolers are immediately integrating the vocabulary from the practice sheet, and they’re successfully beginning to use present tense too. You only have to make corrections to two conversation groups before the class is over.

It’s incredible to think about just how far these students have come so far. The first couple of classes were so reserved and quiet, you’ve had to really work on encouraging the students to speak up. But that’s the exciting part of teaching- engaging each pupil and finding what they’re passionate about and how they learn. When it’s time to end the class, your students are still chatting amongst each other, switching between Japanese and English.

“Thank you!”

“See you next week!”

The chorus of support from your students is more intense than usual as they head out. You think it’s probably because you assign less homework than some of their previous teachers, but nonetheless, you can’t shake the satisfaction of a fruitful class as you pack up your bag and hop on the metro home.

Browsing on your phone as you wait for your stop, you see that Gojo texted you again- it must have come through just as you were starting class. He had reached out asking if you were available to work on things today.

That’s…interesting. After the relative success of your last meeting, perhaps he’s gotten over the awkwardness from the beginning of the term. One civil meeting hasn’t mended the insult of his brash outburst though, and even though he’s reaching out of his own volition, you’re hesitant to meet again.

You debate your response for a moment and then send a quick apology, explaining that you work part time teaching and you hadn’t seen his message earlier. Since it’s already approaching evening, and it’s unlikely he wants to spend his Saturday night writing an academic paper with you, you don't offer to meet him now.

You’ve fallen into the habit of spending your Sundays at the cafe just off campus though. The beige interior and quiet morning crowd are quite conducive to more lengthy reading, and you’ve got plans to catch up on the next chapters. You don’t want to completely brush off your partner, so on a whim you invite Gojo to join you tomorrow, it’s likely he’ll be too busy anyway.

By the time the metro stops and you walk back to your dorm, he hasn’t responded.

The next morning, sun leaks through your window and paints your room with warmth. You’ve barely blinked but the mild sunshine of May is quickly melting into the sweltering summer of June, bringing later evenings and beautiful early mornings.

As you dress for the day you check your phone and see that Gojo had sent you an affirmative message in the early hours of the morning. You hesitate, it had been an impulsive invite and you hadn’t thought he’d actually take you up on your offer.

Apparently he is serious about working on things, though.

You pack up your bag and head to the cafeteria to grab breakfast, sending Gojo a quick message that he can expect you at the cafe in around an hour. A very normal breakfast should settle your nerves and set you up to be your cleverest when working on the project.

After a quick stop for breakfast, you’re surprised to see Gojo’s beat you to the cafe. He’s already lounging in the small chair and sipping something. The table he’s chosen is tucked in the back, close to where you had sat the second time you’d met. You might have missed him if not for his very distinctive hair.

When you sit down, Gojo offers you a smile. There’s no notes or drinks waiting this time, but he seems to be in good spirits.

“Hey,” he greets.

You respond in kind and start to set up. It feels strange to not engage in some kind of small talk, but you haven’t forgotten how unresponsive he originally was when you tried to ask about his weekend. Perhaps this new sunnier mood will make him more chatty too. Before you can break the silence, Gojo interrupts your thoughts.

“So this is where you were working on your example problems alone?”

You blanch. Maybe Gojo hasn’t forgiven you for working alone just yet.

The shock must be evident on your face because he laughs and leans farther back in his chair. It’s warm and deep- a genuine laugh.

“Damn, you thought I was mad still, huh?”

Now this is a side of Gojo you haven’t seen before. He’s been quiet and standoffish and rude, but never- teasing?

You’re feeling unmoored and strange. You shake off the similarities and answer.

“Uh, yeah. But this is where I do a lot of my work, it’s usually pretty slow here on Sundays.”

“I looked over them by the way. Not bad. Have you started on the actual curriculum?”

“I’ve just got some initial notes. Have you begun yours?”

Gojo nods and pulls a notebook out of his bag. There are pages and notes sticking out the sides, densely packed with his messy handwriting and drawings. He carelessly flips it open and flicks quickly through the pages before turning it towards you.

“There’s some patches I haven’t fully detailed yet, still thinking about what depth to go into.”

You scan the page quickly and see that he’s seemingly outlined different streams of depth for physics- he’s listed particular concepts and already linked some with experiment setups.

“Which principle is driving your decisions so far? We’ll have to explain each of the objectives and why we’ve chosen the material for the curricula.”

Gojo explains his outline and points out the most critical pieces he wanted included. You listen, intrigued. Although your outline for this project isn’t as developed as Gojo’s yet, your years at the Eikaiwa school have given you experience, including mistakes trying to move too fast or pack too much into your lesson plans. You’ve found it’s best to be somewhat agile and allow for more or less time depending on the particular needs of the class you’re working with.

Your computer sits forgotten as the two of you converse about best pacing and how to choose the key objectives, and you leave the cafe in the afternoon ready to continue building your own curricula.

The rest of the week goes smoothly: class and reviewing with Saito and Kuzume, another lesson at the Eikaiwa school, until you find yourself settling down at the cafe on Sunday once more.

When Gojo doesn’t reach out first, it’s nearly impossible to schedule time to work together. You’re never more thankful for your iron timetable than when you have to plan another working session. Trying to find free time in his schedule is like clinging onto a mechanical bull- it seems every other week he’s out of town busy. You wonder if he is speaking at a conference or presenting work that he’s done in the past like Saito and Kuzume had suggested.

The chapter you’re reading is lengthy and technical. Your brows scrunch and you try to decipher exactly what the author is trying to say about teaching philosophy. This particular text is a bit flowery for your tastes, but you suppose it’s good to absorb an array of perspectives while you’re trying to figure out exactly how you’re going to run your classroom.

You’re re-reading the previous sentence when your phone buzzes aggressively from the table. It goes off again. You have an idea of who might be texting before you even look at the messages. Gojo is available to work on the project today, and he'll head to the cafe shortly.

It’s a pleasant surprise. You shut the curriculum textbook and open the document the two of you have slowly built. Even though Gojo prefers pen and paper over typing, he’s dutifully added his examples and the curricula he’d shown you last time. The rough draft has really grown too, the example problems are artfully woven together between the subjects and you’re feeling optimistic about adding your curricula .

Gojo blows through the doors of the cafe nearly 20 minutes later, giving you a quick wave and heading straight for the register. You nod back to him and return your focus to the computer.

He swoops into the chair across from you and throws his bag down. The last few times you’ve met his mood seems to be impenetrably sunny, and his appearance is nearly as consistent. You’ve never seen him without dark sunglasses, and his clothes are always flattering and tailored. It seems he may be thawing with the warm weather though- he’s in a crisp blue button down instead of his normal shadowy color palette.

“How’re things going?”

“Going well so far, I’ve just been going over what we’ve written so far.” You pause for a moment. “I honestly wasn’t expecting you’d be able to work today.”

Two meetings in as many weeks without prior planning seems incredibly lucky. Or Gojo’s finally warmed up to you and isn’t trying to avoid meeting with excuses.

He shrugs. “No other plans. And I do want to get this done.”

“I wanted to talk more about the curricula. I finished my objectives and thought we could compare pacing.” You say.

“Sure.”

“I’ve taught in Eikaiwa schools for years now and classes usually go the same speed, but sometimes certain units take longer. Or we focus more on what the students want to learn. I wish there was more flexibility.”

“I agree. Honestly it should depend more on how the class is doing. You can’t teach every student the same.”

This is the first time Gojo’s outright agreed with something you’ve said. While you’ve seen some parallels in the way you both want to teach, there are usually more differences than similarities.

The pieces come together in your brain. The simple example problems he’d provided. Saying that community makes the classroom. It’s not the material that he cares so much for, it’s the people that he’s teaching. It’s about the students.

You look up at Gojo in realization. He’s taken out his stack of notes and is absorbed in looking through the sheets. You take him in and re-evaluate. He runs a hand through his hair again then taps the end of the pen on the table. The sun catches in his silver hair and plays off the sunglasses he’s wearing again.

It feels oddly intimate to realize.

His apparent teaching philosophy also seems directly opposed to the way he acts in class. If he's passionate about building an educational community, why doesn't he bother talking to any of your peers? Or participating in classroom discussions?

"Yeah," you say slowly. "I think approaching each learning style is the most valuable."

You don’t want to disturb the working relationship the two of you are just building, and you’re hesitant to voice your realization since he’s been cagey about his personal life. You could either drop the subject or push a little harder and see if he’ll be more open this time.

“You seem very passionate about the students’ experience,” you say neutrally.

Gojo’s attention snaps from his notes onto you. You were right.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Once again, you’re left wondering what’s going on inside his head. Aside from the speed he looked at you, there’s no hint on his face. His jaw is soft and relaxed, and you can’t see his eyes.

“I think we need to start working on bringing our curricula together. It’s a big part of the project.” Gojo leans forward and looks at your screen and completely bypasses your observation.

When you’re both looking at the content, the two of you do work well together. You fall into a rhythm analyzing the content of the paper, deciding how to really organize the sections you’ve written so far. Gojo is inquisitive and always has you justify your decisions, but you push back on some of his assertions on how to meld the subjects together.

Soon you and Gojo are trading questions, hardly answering each other as you both edit the document.

“What’s the purpose of this example?”

“I see why you put this objective here, but I think it would fit better in the next section.”

“Do you remember if this study was subject specific? Or were the data points generalized?”

“This objective doesn’t fit with your others. How can you adjust it to work better with the full curriculum?”

“What was your thought process for this problem?”

The paper looks ten times more organized, and you’re much happier with the flow of information by the time you’re finished. You lean back in your chair, rub the cramps from your fingers, and smile at Gojo.

By the time you leave the cafe, it’s late afternoon and it feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. The rainy season has only brought light showers, and today the sun is bright on your face as you walk back to your dorm. In fact, it seems a shame to waste the lovely weather of the day.

As a treat to yourself, you detour through the botanic gardens on your way home. The gardens are lush and heavy with growth at this time of year. Light twinkles on the surface of the central lake and the hydrangeas and orchids have come into full bloom- their light scent floats above the grounds and adds another layer of richness to the experience. By the time you make it back to your room and think about dinner, you’re practically glowing with happiness.

#gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #light academia #reader insert #loooooots of interaction + character development :)#also this will be the last chapter posted before year end! Then once weekly posting again #EiA

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