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byierficrecs · 1 year

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not sure how it's possible but your work keeps getting prettier and prettier! can i ask what your process/method is for creation?

hello! sorry it's taken me a little to reply :S first of all, thank you!! that's very sweet ^-^ anyway, i'm not sure this will be particularly insightful :( but here goes nothing:

step 1: check the form for new submissions!

and then delete them all >:) ,,,but not without copying the information to a variety of spreadsheets. behold the madness:

in this one i copy the information that was submitted as it is.

these are where i rearrange the information so a) my brain can understand it and b) so that i can copy/paste stuff while making graphics and at the time of posting.

the first one is for the captions i attach to every tumblr post, and the second is the alt text for the images. there's a third one for twitter, but it's the same as the tumblr one.

and this one is where i keep track of all the steps i follow!

spreadsheet: copying the information from the forms

proofread: open the ao3 work to quickly check that someone didn't sneak explicit stuff or something like that

read and graphic: self-explanatory

captions and alt text: registering the information in the tables i showed before

twitter and tumblr: scheduling the posts to go up

(3 and 4 are inverted, but i'm too lazy to change it now x.x also, notice how they are (mostly) arranged in groups of three; before i even proofread things, i roughly decide the general aesthetic of the graphic: dark, pastel or colourful)

i do this almost every night. since people usually submit stuff in bulk, i often spend one or two hours simply sorting through the forms.

step 2: read the stories!

i usually read a story, then make the graphic immediately after. this is so i don't mix things up and the story is fresh in my very-forgetful mind~ while i read, i try to imagine things as they happen and pick at least one element i want to include in the graphic.

for instance, for this one (post), i wanted a duck somewhere. evidently, it ended up being a very minor detail but there they are! ducklings! :]

step 3: try to imagine the graphic

this is admittedly the hardest part tbh. i stick to my statement: i am not an artist. give me a minute and i will come up with a decently fleshed-out story idea. art or visual aspects are a different tale x.x some days my creativity leaves me altogether and i just stare into space for hours with absolutely no clue of how to make a graphic for one story.

hence why i rely so much on inspiration. some days i ravage my bookshelf, some days i google "spider book cover", some days i browse spotify and look at the album art and many days i end up scrolling through the canva templates section for hours until i see something that sparks an idea.

this one (post) is random. i was stumped on what to do and then i glanced at the video i had on the background and that was that.

i look at anything and everything for inspiration,,, again, i have no idea how artists do this x.x not to imply that they don't struggle (i'm sure they do), but i'm genuinely bad at this,,, especially since i try to make all the graphics as unique as possible; i like flowers, they are pretty and go well with most stories, but i think it'd be quite boring if everything i made had flowers :S

step 4: make the graphic

anyway, when i (finally) have an idea, i go on canva and get down the first element i had in mind, or the colour i want to use, or the general composition,,, anything. sometimes the only thing i've thought about is the text.

and then i just go from there, often with no plan or ending idea in mind :S

some graphics are simple and i can get them done in two hours, some are complex and i get them done in ten hours. perfectionism is how my brain is wired and i always feel like i need to bring things to perfection, so i tweak everything a lot even if i know i could get away with leaving some stuff as it is.

alas, i try to have fun during the process and sometimes i surprise myself with making something i am super proud of!

like this one! (post). as you can see, there are a bunch of layers and details. i went in with literally no plan but i kept adding stuff until it felt good :]

it's not as simple as just sticking some of canva's assets together, though. i often have to do a lot of editing. everything in that tunnel, for instance, was just lineart (?) with no option to give it a background colour, so i had to go in with my limited artsy knowledge and paint things until they looked the way i wanted.

these are all the different canva assets i used in that one + a finn silhouette. i'm trying not to use too many silhouettes because, like flowers, it's easy and i often gravitate to that but no >:( i shan't fall prey to the impulses.

speaking of silhouettes,,, there must be an easier way to do it, but the software i use (gimp; it's free x.x) is a little confusing to me so i just end up "tracing" over the outline of photos i like.

in the process, i tend to go all,,, frankenstein.

i chopped off finn's arm in the first one :( but then i gave him a jacket for the second one because his silhouette looked cold ^-^ (also gave noah will-hair). third one i just,,, mirrored the other arm x.x 1st story || 2nd story || 3rd story

other minor changes i often have to do is recolouring stuff and the like

again, these are edited with gimp and i'm sure there are weird errors, but i felt the story needed something softer (post).

some elements i actually find from other free source (?) websites, but it's rare.

last, but not least, sometimes i do try my hand at art x.x i'm not sure i'm good in the slightest, but it's been somewhat fun to try. i tend to look at artists i like, mainly for colour palettes because i never struggle with the graphics but i get stuck when trying to draw :S

for instance, the colours in this one (post) are all inspired by the second artwork in the tweet.

step 5: double check before posting

confession: yesterday i forgot to add the author's name to a graphic. there are at least three graphics in this account that are missing the "ratings" altogether. sometimes, there are minuscule mistakes that could've been easily spotted and fixed and i just,,, didn't see them.

i often catch a million things like that while making the graphics, but things do slip at times and i end up thinking about them for weeks x.x so i double and triple check everything and i never catch everything, but i try :S

i try to get my brother to help me a little, but the dingus always says everything is okei and goes back to his shenanigans >:( he is an actual artist so it's all the more frustrating but alas, there's nothing i can do about it x.x

step 6: schedule things for posting

uh,, not much to say about this. i just add the graphics, copy the information from the spreadsheets i showed you, then add all the links and tags and leave things be :]

except,,, i don't. i move on to something else and then i go back to check for mistakes and i keep looking for errors and i sometimes change things last minute x.x

the little detail in the corner where mike is screaming? that was added a minute the thing went up,,, (post)

it's uh,, overwhelming. i know i overthink way too much (about my writing, too), but it's been ten years of getting anxious about these things so i'm not sure it'll stop anytime soon :(

the little comments you guys leave really help though! so thank you for that :]

step 7: post the thing and "rest"

again, i continue to search for errors after i post, but unless it's a big thing (like the aforementioned "i forgot to add the author's name" moment from yesterday) i force myself to leave the post as it is. my brain hates me for it, but it's the one thing i manage to do to ease my anxiety x.x

so, with the post up and big errors mended, i get to rest! for a bit! and then i have to do it all over again!

this entire process (step 1 excluded) takes around 4-6 hours (or more) so by the time i post something, i'm already late at making the next graphic :S hence why i usually take a couple free days every few graphics.

i've also been really sick lately (covid + randomly passing out because of overarching health issues) so things take a bit longer :(

it's fun though! i'd never tried my hand at any visual stuff and some graphics are admittedly lackluster, but sometimes i surprise myself with some very pretty things i make :]

in addition to the ones i've already shared, i'm quite proud of these graphics~ 1st story || 2nd story || 3rd story || 4th story || 5th story || 6th story

plus, i get to talk to a lot of nice people, read/share wonderful stories, and more importantly, do something nice for authors! so it's all worth it, i think :]

random, but i'm not sure i'll ever get to use this little guy so i want to share him :D

anyway, i could continue to procrastinate for quite a while but i have to (gues what!) go make today's graphics x.x shoutout to all the authors whose stories i randomly featured here; please check all their stories as they are all amazing.

@itsromeowrites, @ghoulsanderson, @wiseatom, @eggo-owl, @smoosnoom, @byeler, @bookinit02, @lilacline001, @astrobei, @voulezvulcan, @sevensided

i'm going to take a nap now. apologies if, after all this, i didn't even answer your question.

personal blog || support me on ko-fi x.x

#💌

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kukuandkookie · 1 month

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Might copy and paste the text here later from my Twitter thread where I expressed why I enjoyed it, but I recently read My Little Poplar and ended up liking Bai Xinyu and Yu Fengcheng quite a bit!

Yu Fengcheng’s eventual regret was honestly written really well, and the relationship between the two leads has good chemistry. 👌

Even better is that it features Jian Suiying, who I also have gotten weirdly attached to???

Like objectively the book Jian Suiying comes from, In Love With an Idiot, has its flaws. Or rather, it employs tropes that really aren’t for everyone, which includes the main couple fighting constantly (so it’s basically fighting and then fucking and then fighting and then fucking and you get the idea), and it gets kind of overdramatic at times, as some very angsty-type stories can be—whether they’re from China (known as “dog blood” stories) or not.

I even found it a little silly that so many were so obsessed with Jian Suiying, and yet…

Here I am now, sliiiightly obsessed with him. 🤡😂

It’s just that! As I mentioned on my Twitter, he’s so unique for a shou/bottom/uke character!! Before he met Li Yu, he was always the top, and he’s sexually confident and pretty intelligent and ruthless and…well, temperamental. He does admittedly have a charm to him that works and I find it pretty amazing the author managed to predict that, since so many characters in her novels adore him BDMGIHSKD.

Even his red flags give him charm, because while he is problematic, the red flags make him an intriguing character. The author does a pretty good job at balancing the different aspects of him that make him technically infuriating and yet also compelling.

His charm is further boosted by the fact there’s actually a clip of one of his VAs just trying to cheer you up if you’re sad?? Like hello??? 🥺

It is no longer a surprise to me that Li Yu ended up so obsessed with Jian Suiying. 😆

Also I’ll note now the last image is actually by the My Little Poplar manhua artist while the others are from the manhua adaptation of Jian Suiying’s own novel! I like how the manhua artist draws him quite a bit since it feels so him. I’ve seen fan art and they sometimes feature him smaller and thus not domineering enough, even though they usually show him with the same hairstyle—which makes for a fun tangent on its own since danmei designs can be a bit “basic,” so when one specific design becomes a recognizable look for a character, I find it pretty cool.

In fact, one of my favourite details in My Little Poplar was watching Yu Fengcheng be very frustrated with how much Bai Xinyu looked up to Jian Suiying. 🤭

Also just seeing him show up always made me go “yay!” because it’s so fun getting to see him again, especially as part of his story aligns with My Little Poplar (as in the plots of both novels happen somewhat concurrently).

Similarly, the manhua adaptation, My Beloved Fool, has a really nice art style and I really like that the artist always lets Jian Suiying shine by really dressing him up. He and Shi Qi from Trap a Vicious Dog (another series I want to ramble about on why I’m enjoying it so far) are two manhua protagonists I know of who are like…confident smart corporate bosses that get stylish fits almost every manhua chapter, which is a nice detail ahaha.

My Beloved Fool has recently hit the heavy angst section of the novel so it’ll be depressing to follow for a while since you’ll just watch Li Yu fall apart as Jian Suiying suffers absolute hell. 😔

youtube

Someone even uploaded the first season of the vomic version of the manhua on YouTube. 👀

Similarly, I’m really excited for the My Little Poplar manhua to get to all the good bits of the story there, since Bai Xinyu develops a lot as a character and I find Yu Fengcheng’s regret especially well done. But evidently it’ll take quite some time to get there; first we have to get past the military bullying alfndkfjjss.

Anyway the actual reason I started typing this out before I spiralled into another huge ramble asjakfl is that I found In Love With an Idiot and My Little Poplar audio dramas on YouTube!!

I’d heard some In Love With an Idiot audio clips from something that some fans had shared to YouTube before, but it sounds like those clips were from a completely different audio drama than the one I landed on. I’m especially excited about the My Little Poplar one. Even if it’s not extremely high quality (I think Bing Xing Xia Deng aka Inferior by Nature aka The Selfish Gene has admittedly spoiled me because it was so high quality 😆), it’s still fun hearing these characters come to life aurally.

Even more so since iirc I saw a Twitter post saying the My Little Poplar and In Love With an Idiot got taken down officially, so they may only be accessible via online reuploads right now. I can’t find the post to confirm, but if true, I’m glad someone preserved them. 🙏

Update: I did find the other version’s VAs of the In Love With an Idiot audio drama! Except it’s maybe a…sequel? Where a Li Yu of the past transmigrates 5 years into the future when Li Yu and Jian Suiying are a couple?? It’s on MaoEr FM…and it’s for free. 👁️

In fact, I could totally ramble about the Bing Xing Xia Deng audio drama—which I already have for a friend, so I can just copy and paste that long-ass (slightly more incoherent because it’s a lot of fangirling) wall of text here haha. I am currently very obsessed with that series too because it really is high quality and I like how it evolved the novel it’s adapting, but my friend is the expert on it so I feel a bit more shy about sharing my thoughts sometimes.

Welp that went on quite a number of tangents but yeah. I’ve enjoyed these novels and I’m very happy they got audio dramas and that they are still out there to be enjoyed after everything. 🥺💕

OH and final note but…the fun fact about the 188男团 aka 188 Group, which is the overall series Jian Suiying and Bai Xinyu belong to (so-called because it’s 10 novels that share a universe and all feature (scum) gongs of 188 cm) got sort of made into an “actual” 男团, aka a boy band/group! I found the couple (?) songs they released and some fan songs and it’s nice seeing them all “singing” together alfjskfjs.

youtube

An English translation can be found here!

youtube

An English translation can be found here!

youtube

Me when I spy Jian Suiying, Li Yu, Yu Fengcheng, and Bai Xinyu especially in the MVs: 🥺

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canvaswolfdoll · 3 months

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i miss the days when webcomics weren't even indie, they were isolated.

graffiti on the digital walls, created and shared with no motive aside from a deep yearning to create and share.

an art limited only by your ability to produce a digital image and build a website (which, admittedly in the real old internet days was a high bar, but one thing at a time)

people made gag strips about video games and other hobbies

journal comics about the artist's day

sprite comics because it's easier to copy paste vintage art assets in ms paint than it was to learn to draw and figure out a scanner and for-profit image program

people created and shared and, yes, a lucky few could make a profit off ads and merch, but that's money that went to the creators pocket.

nowadays, webcomics either are sequestered to various social medias (reddit, instagram, twitter, the contemptable webtoon) where they fall under the curse of being content(tm) to mostly line the pockets of various corporate masters who smile and assure artists that they, too, can be influencers.

or, if the comic exists on the creators' own website, it exists primarily as a themed portfolio and, if it's successful, gets the artist a job and ends the webcomic because either the artist is busy as a story board artist or they no longer own the rights to the story.

now i'm trapped hoping for a deranged balancing act where a webcomic is popular enough to keep it going, but not so popular as to become ip.

it's a weird conveyor belt. when webcomic arose, print comics no longer felt like a place you could find the next bone or maus, but maybe such works might appear online.

now webcomics have also reached that point of market force, but i see no new source for hobbyist comics, sort of accosting youths on the street and mugging them of their sketchbooks to see their raw, unique artistic vision.

#webcomic #webcomics #comic #internet culture #i miss lackadaisy #it was a good comic #i also miss 8bit theater #and today nothing happened #and all the small delights that came and went #i think only girl genius #and el goonish shive #still carry the early 2000s webcomic flame #but there should be more

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janujaja · 1 year

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As today is the last MSP frigay, I just wanted to write a wee lwittle post about the people I am very glad I could connect with due to our love for this series [bordering on obsessive tendencies but that's okay this is tumblr]. Even more than the series, I looked forward to talking to these mooties of mine with their theories, fanfictions and just plain screaming at times.

@ashedddaisy Angel, thankyou for being my first friend in here. I will never regret the day I decided to come and ask you about some vague ass theory I had about tinngun in your DMs. You introduced me to the world of SOUNDWIN and picture perfect analogies and I hope you continue to do this for many more series to come. Hopefully, our angst and delusion brain proportion stays the same as we really need to strike a balance at the end of the day 😭.

@gaylittlepieceofsh1t Nannu, you are the second friend I got from this fandom, and it was all thanks to your tinngun au on ao3. I loved that fic and I am glad we started talking BECAUSE of it cuz now I have a friend who will torture me by sending insta tinn edits cuz I was a dumb fool to blurt out my obsession with him at one point in time. I love sending you edits too and I hope neither of us stop that anytime soon even tho we are busy busy people.

@lost-my-sanity1 Trisha, you little baby. One of these days I need to very strictly scold you for using your [admittedly smooth] pick up lines on this old grandma. You are the youngest in my friend list but you are also so so mature in so many of your thoughts and theories that I do get a bit wonderstruck sometimes, I am sorry. I love how we share a lot of similarities and keep guessing what the future eps are going to be like, and I always, always enjoyed your reactions to every theory I copied from Twitter. Also I love telling you to go study, it's one of my fav past times.

To conclude, I am very very very happy that I met all of you and I hope we continue screaming on each other's faces about new well developed and well acted series.

[All of this coming from someone who has yet to watch EP 11 of MSP]

#MSP is ending and I am emotional #i am also grateful to all these people and even the ones I had brief moments with on the comment sections of posts #i love how a piece of media can result in such nice side effects :)#well put janu 😒#my school president #tinngun #soundwin

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mdhwrites · 7 months

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Considering how little we know of the calamity powers, what's your interpretation on Wit, Heart and Strength not giving the trio different types of powers? Anne, for example, despite being assigned Heart, seems to have both super strength and agility. Wouldn't those attributes be more fitting to Sasha, at least the strength one?

I've considered that the gems don't give different powers, but that they were given their names because they pick people according to those specific attributes.

So there's one claim you could make that since Marcy and Sasha only get their powers at the end, it was just easier to make them copies of Anne's. There wasn't really time to have them be different and making Anne's power up be a general super form worked with how, to the show, how the powers work is less important than why she uses the power.

BUT that's a bit of a cop out and there is also a thematic purpose to it to me. See, in Amphibia, the greatest sin anyone makes is making themselves an island. To believe that they are the center of all. It's Sasha's greatest crime as she believed her way was the only way things could be. It's the Core's, and to some extent Andrias', main crime by defying fate so as to have the power they want. Even when Anne becomes more powerful than any being in Amphibia, the cost is her life. It fits with the positive themes of community with Amphibia.

As such, A: you're right that the stones don't give different powers, they do just choose their bearers based on one of the traits but B: they were NEVER designed to be used alone. They all give the same powers because they all actually create a loop with one another when bestowing that energy. What Anne is given is still from all three stones, just focused through the Heart stone.

This explains why their final forms are more powerful and elaborate. Yes, you could claim Valeria helping is why but I like to believe it's because all three stones are now working in tandem. The small community of the bearers feeding into each other making them inherently stronger. Does this mean I'd have liked it if Sasha and Marcy didn't run out of energy because they should be tied together? Yeah, absolutely but it also works fine with how the exhaustion has always been working. The fact that they last as long as they do could be due to the fact that this is a more pure form of the powers after all.

It's a form with enough questions and thematic potential as to allow different interpretations, possibilities, ideas, etc. for people to play with even after the show was done and without quite enough weird issues to them to cause you to find the questions annoying more than inspiring. Perfect? Not really admittedly but that kind of has to do with the fact that super forms and magical mcguffins are really complicated and a lot harder to make perfect sense with than a writer probably expects.

They obviously did try to make this work though and I think it works well enough.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#Amphibia #amphibia critical

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carbonatedjem · 1 year

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Fairy Tail Re-Read - Volume 1

Alright so I originally typed this on twitter but from here on out I’ll probably write it here first, or somethin’ like that. Sorry for my poor grammar I’m better at drawin funny pictures than I am at typing. “Officially started my third reread of Fairy Tail yesterday and finished volume 1 just a minute ago. Still feels so exciting reading this series, will never get tired of Chapter 2 and being introduced to the actual Fairy Tail Guild. Makarov's little speech in that chapter always feels magical (pun half-intended) to read, it's a really inspiring way of describing Magic in general. The Macao Chapter still gets me a little emotional, really wish we got to see more of him after this but it at least leaves a strong impression.”

“I also really like seeing Mashima's early art, I love his art in general but whenever I look back on early FT art and the entirety of Rave Master I just find myself super motivated to capture that feeling of raw passion dripping off of it. The Volume 1 cover is also just pleasant to look at. I'm excited to go into the Duke Everlue arc even if it is admittedly a pretty slow section of the story to get through when knowing everything that follows. I might do like, a continuous thread through the rest of my reading of the series. There probably won't be any images as not to clog up my media tab but this might be fun. We'll see though, no garauntees lol.” Okay so this part was from twitter but I also wanted to talk about the After Word Segment at the very end of the volume, it’s always interesting to hear about early versions of a series, and knowing that originally Fairy Tail was just gonna be about what is essentially a delivery company with a weird lil demon-horned version of Natsu as our protagonist is crazy. Like I can’t even imagine what that would have been like. Also still a fan of how despite Natsu being the more primary protagonist of the series we start with Lucy and have Natsu sorta just run into the plot by chance. I’m not personally a NaLu Shipper (nothing against the ship, I totally get why it’s a thing and have no problem with it being featured in the series as much as it is. Just isn’t my thing really) but these two interacting is always a treat, Natsu literally grabbing Lucy to run from the cops while taking to her to the Guild is still such a great moment of the series. So for future notice I have a feeling that if I do these FT Re-Read Posts, they’re gonna be here more often, and since it’s on Tumblr I’m less worried about posting images. So i’ll just make note of this now, I own the entirety of Fairy Tail physically, it was a really fun project/goal I had during the pandemic, and those volumes are what i’m using for my reread. That said I will be using images from unofficial manga reading sites in order to show them off properly for examples, mainly because I don’t know where to view it officially online, and even if I did those sites don’t really let me copy paste the images. Just want to be transparent about this, cause my brain told me too.

#Fairy Tail #Fairy Tail Re-Read #I'm gonna have fun rambling about this series for the rest of the year #if I do this #It's like my third time reading it in the span of three years #so i might as well spice it up by doing this right?#If this interests you tell me and i'll do what I can

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bythepen98 · 6 months

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Had a random thought. More or less copy pasted this from my twitter.

Ngl if I was a mangaka and my readers en masse suddenly started shipping a non canon couple, particularly my mc (who I already had plans for regarding love interests) with someone else, I'd probably protest at first. Quite heavily even bc at that point, I've already made thousands of scenarios of my canon couple in my head for years and am quite protective over it.

But then I'll realize, as someone who literally doesn't limit myself to canon ships either from other shows and am a fan of the crackiest pairings, I'll start seeing the light too and play into it a bit. Admittedly, it would take awhile because I'm loyal to my oc pairings but different possibilities are always interesting to read.

Whether or not I'll like it becoming popular, I'll still understand the readers' mindset and wouldn't mind feeding them with content here and there. Audience probably has better writing/Art skills than me and I want them to go ham with it for their ship.

It's like how I'll still end up liking fanart of my Notp if it's THAT good. Good art is good art. Plus I can heavily relate to liking a ship that's so impossible in canon but a godlike author somewhere made them ✨️work✨️.

Giving fanservice by drawing those two characters together in official merch and labeling them as bffs/rivals/enemies depending on their dynamic in the story but it's actually and lowkey ship art for my audience. At the same time, I'd be honoring my fav oc couple by making them canon and draw official art for them but with a more obvious romantic air. Something like that. Win-win(?).

Although....I say this with the idea that I somehow became a shonen/action mangaka and while there is a love interest planned out, romance isn't the main focus. If I made a romance manga but the popular ship ISNT my main canon couple? When the focus is on them?? I'd probably cry. Might be a testament to how bad my writing is if I can't even show and justify how they're totally meant to be together.

#rambles #this is actually based on a tweet i saw about horikoshi and bkdk #except that i love bkdk even tho theyre not really a canon romantic ship #?#but horikoshi delivers with the content anyway #and the fandom goes wild with it #love it #just wanted to give my perspective if i ever became a mangaka artist #a shonen one i mean #bc lowkey it feels free-er to multi ship there than actual romance stories #thats my opinion anyway #since in actual romances stories #i hyperfixate on the main couple and no one else #it feels sacrilegious shipping the mc with someone who's not their main love interest in romance heavy stories #since the whole story is focused on the development between mc and said love interest #unless ofc if the writing is just bad and the characters are unlikable #but you get my point #now im just rambling in the tags #anyways #dont think ill ever have the storytelling chops to make a manga/webtoon #but it's still fun to speculate about it

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qdebode · 1 year

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5 Must Have Chrome Extensions for 2023

Look, we all have cool and impressive Chrome extensions. But from time to time, you come accross hidden gems that will leave you thinking “where have you been all my life?!”. I had the pleasure to discover those by reading about them, so now it’s only fair to return the favor and share five extensions that I absolutely adore.

Momentum

Momentum makes your ‘New Tab’ page look calm and pretty. A new beautiful nature picture every day, it greets you personally (or shares some wisdom), tells the time, a small daily mantra and… That’s it. No noise, no links, nothing but calm.

There are more options to add, such as taking notes, include weather updates, a search function, bookmarks, to do lists and more. I prefer to keep it clean and simple. It’s a more enjoyable experience than the standard ‘New Tab’ page from Chrome and something I have been using for years and years now.

Find it here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca

Wikiwand

Could be just me but the old design of Wikipedia is disaster. Yes, it’s about the information and not how pretty that information is being delivered, yet a bit of freshing up would be welcome. Introducing: Wikiwand.

The extension basically brings Wikipedia into the modern era of webdesign. It doesn’t do much more than that, but this simple idea is brilliant. A sidebar to easily navigate between the chapters, a cleaner design, modern day fonts and no information gets lost. A must have for anyone who is tired of the old looking Wikipedia and needs a refreshing look for the site.

Find it here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikiwand-wikipedia-modern/emffkefkbkpkgpdeeooapgaicgmcbolj

Simplify Twitter Web UI

I personally used to love Twitter. However, today it’s an absolute mess. I’m not going to go into that side of the topic but will instead give you a way to make it more fun and less exhausting.

See, I find that the trending topics are mostly at the source of my Twitter misery. Solution: A Chrome extension that removes the trending topics list from your feed page. No longer will you see triggering topics that will make you click to see the dumbest takes on certain topics, no. It’s just a feed of the people you follow, nothing more. Simple, but effective!

Find it here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-twitter-web-ui/pobjlebhmdjbgfjhfdhblilmpjkegbfd

Return YouTube Dislike

YouTube dislikes have been removed over a year ago. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of that decision. Admittedly, there were issues with the dislike button being used in online harassment, but it also had the potential to be something useful.

With a quick glance at the like-dislike ratio, you could see if a video had actual content or if it’s a clickbait situation. (Loads of dislikes compared to likes? Don’t waste your time, move on.) So, a Chrome extension that brings that back? Sign me up!

Find it here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dislike/gebbhagfogifgggkldgodflihgfeippi

Colorzilla

Ever saw an image and you were like “that’s a wonderful color, I wish I knew the colorcode of it” — Look no further than Colorzilla. It’s basically the Eye Dropper tool from Photoshop, but then in Chrome!

Simply open the tool, click on the color with your Eye Dropper tool and it shows you the colorcode for that color. It’s also immediately copied, so you can easily copy and paste it somewhere. Bonus: there’s a log of all the colors you’ve selected, so you never lose any pretty colors you’ve selected over the years.

Find it here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/colorzilla/bhlhnicpbhignbdhedgjhgdocnmhomnp

Your turn!

Got a great Chrome Extension to share? Drop them in the comments!

0 notes

musiconanironingboard · 2 years

Text

24 May 2022: Selfie Cam (3-disc standard edition), Babybird. (self-released, 2022)

Stephen Jones was one of my favorite discoveries of the ’90s. I don’t remember if I’d read about it in the British first, or if I stumbled upon the copy of it upstairs at Record Swap in Champaign, Illinois, first, but finding a used UK import of the self-released Fatherhood, credited to Baby Bird, was arguably as big a deal for me as discovering Bee Thousand by Guided by Voices around the same time, an extreme flourishing of musical excitement that led me on a mad search for more and more by the artist. I remember seeing Fatherhood in that used bin for the first time; it was either $12.99 or $14.99, a fortune for a used CD in 1995, and it took me a couple of visits before I decided to splurge on it. What I eventually found out was that Fatherhood was just one of five lo-fi bedsit albums made by the mysterious Stephen Jones. I eventually amassed them all. In 1996 Jones was given a major-label deal and the one-man Baby Bird project became a full band renamed Babybird. Their debut, Ugly Beautiful, featured re-recordings of numerous lo-fi songs, but also “You’re Gorgeous,” a song unbeknownst to his lo-fi fans that would become a freak hit. Jones’s time in the hit-parade spotlight was relatively short, but he would do five more albums with relatively expansive distribution, the last coming in 2011.

For a few years, I thought we had heard the last of Jones; I saw him on Twitter occasionally, where he was wildly prolific with commentary and anecdotes about his day, but I couldn’t keep up with it. Eventually I discovered that he had re-emerged musically on the Bandcamp platform. To say that he is prolific on Bandcamp is an understatement. It is easy to see a person’s accumulated works on that platform and start trying to equate them to regular albums; if you do so in Jones’s case, in the past seven years he has released several dozen albums. Once you start examining what they really include—among the admittedly extensive collection of new music, there are scads of self-compiled anthologies, live albums, and other such things—it gets harder to quantify. In short, Jones is an relentlessly creative man and he does not stop creating. Many of his Bandcamp works are digital only, but increasingly in recent years he has manufactured physical product. These are made in short runs and sell out quickly; for his most recently announced album I Don’t Want to Be in Love but I Am, he announced he would be deleting it at a certain hour and the title would be limited to those pre-orders that came between its original announcement and his self-deletion. For several of the most recent “new studio album” releases, he has offered tiers: you can buy either the album, which is a single CD; a double-album version, with a second disc of new recordings; or a three-disc set with yet more new music. Hearing the three-disc version of his December 2021 album Kids Gun, it is hard for me to discern which of the three discs represents the actual Kids Gun—I’d guess disc one is the proper album though I think I like disc two more, but when an artist operates like this does it even matter? Aside from an endless stream of Babybird material, Jones releases music under other monikers, most recently Death of the Neighbourhood (a soubriquet that he first used in 2008) and Apeshit. There are half a dozen others. These identities blur. I think only Jones really could discern between them.

I am on a streak of acquiring almost every physical release that Jones issues. It is very easy to miss one here and there, and most recently I have missed buying one called My Favourite Songs (”A limited edition of my own absolute favourite tracks coupled with other people's songs I love. Plus a couple of new tracks”) and another called Portrait Original Soundtrack, which you could purchase, before all versions sold out, with or without a small self-portrait oil painting. In the past year and a half, though, and most while this blog was on hiatus, I have obtained the following new releases (all credited to Babybird unless noted):

Covers (with bonus Remixes disc)

Music for Pipe Smokers, Apeshit

I Was Born a Baby (this is the first in a planned revival of his first five lo-fi albums from the ’90s, with heretofore unheard/unreleased music, some being outtakes from the original ’90s run)

Kids Gun (triple-disc edition)

Death of the Neighbourhood 3 (double disc), Death of the Neighbourhood

Selfie Cam (triple-disc standard edition; this also came in a deluxe edition with “a fully painted self portrait [not to be confused with the other self portrait I discuss above] on a decorated wood box with ten sets of handwritten lyrics”)

I Don’t Want to Be in Love but I Am (triple-disc edition; not yet released)

That’s 15 discs of Stephen Jones material. I know before 2022 is out there will be another half-dozen or more announced. How long can I go on? Surely this will have to end. In the meantime, though, I still have eight discs of Jones music released this year alone that I’ve not yet heard.

When you buy upper-level editions of these multi-tier offerings, they start getting fancier and more complex. He’ll autograph the sleeve, he’ll do a drawing, he’ll make all sorts of little customized embellishments for you. My triple-disc Kids Gun came in a heavy-duty Ziploc envelope with a card showing a clown drawing that had my name on it, and three full-color slipcards for the discs, one of which was autographed and numbered, a popsicle stick with my name on it, and a fabric autumn leaf with a second autograph. My copy was numbered 100 “out of 139″; I don’t know if this means there were 139 triple-disc sets, or 139 total copies of Kids Gun regardless of tier. This may seem like a very low number but consider that you are paying for bespoke treatment (these sets are not cheap) and they all sell out, and even at 139 copies Jones has a nice little career that allows him to do what he loves.

Selfie Cam, in its triple-disc standard edition (i.e. not in the painted wood box as described above), looks a little less fancy than Kids Gun did. Part of this is because it comes in a less substantial baggie that looks like it’s for sandwiches, but part of it is a design choice; the artwork is stark, minimal, and clean, with no words (other than Jones writing my name on part of it), but with symbols only, much like on a phone app (think of the album title) or non-verbal signage.

Above we see the front of the complete package; then there is the back, in which you see a small black envelope he’s written my name on, alongside a decal with the numeral 5 (I am guessing that means this is copy #5); then, a shot of the bag with the contents removed. The “baby/bird” logo is on a sticker affixed to the bag.

Next we have the cleverly designed sleeves holding the three CDs, both front and back, and then the three discs themselves.

In the black envelope there are three cards revealing the track list of each disc.

Last, here is a little cartoon Jones drew, also contained in the black envelope.

Acquiring over a dozen discs of new material of this type in a year’s time feels like a bit much, but at the same time I’ve found it hard to pull myself away. I had barely finished processing multiple listens to Kids Gun, a lot to reckon with at over three hours’ running time, when the next triple was announced. I thought I might bow out for a while, but truth be told, and even though I don’t imagine the music will be all that different on Selfie Cam (which I won’t hear until August) or its follow-up (which I won’t hear until October, assuming it arrives by then), I enjoyed Kids Gun enough that I decided to continue to play along. Jones has been a huge favorite of mine over the years, and it’s been fun to ride along with his unstoppable imagination.

0 notes

erodasfishtacos · 3 years

Note

could u please do like a harry x youtuber/influencer!reader and like lots of fluff🥺

Hi bubbie! Here you go :)))

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Language

Harry was panicking. His mum and sister were going to be here in less than two hours and he’s burnt the eggplant parmigiana he had worked tediously on.

He grabbed what he had left in his fridge - ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and a little bit of bacon.

It was the type of foods he usually strayed away from so sometimes when his shopper would bring this stuff home - he’d avoid it and admittedly sometimes it would go bad sitting in the fridge.

The singer pulls up YouTube onto his phone - hoping something would come up when he typed in the ingredients on the search bar.

He clicks on the first video by cookingwithnofucks. A chuckle at the name as an advertisement plays.

A cute, bubbly girl appears on screen in a beautiful modern kitchen. She has a shirt on that says ‘fuck the patriarchy and eat pizza’. A high ponytail and minimal makeup.

“Okay - today we’re making a cheeseburger casserole,” the girl chirps, “It’s a heart attack in a dish but it’s so fucking good.”

Harry finds himself smiling as he crinkles his nose - it sounds absolutely disgusting but he’s intrigued more by the girl on the screen.

“Shit, I forgot to introduce myself. Hiii, if you’re new - I’m Y/N and I do cooking shit. Subscribe to my channel and all that jazz,” she titters while cutting open her beef package.

Harry follows along step-by-step, shaking his head as she doesn’t describe the instructions nearly well enough and is generally all over the place.

It’s a fucking cooking channel and at one point the meat starts burning. She just laughs and says, “s’just a little crispy!”

The casserole turns out looking even better than Y/N’s to be honest. It’s done in just the right amount of time for him to shower before his family arrives.

He makes sure to subscribe to her channel - eyebrows raising when he sees that she has 16 million subscribers.

Harry wanted to spend longer, looking at her social media but there was a fixed time so he locked his phone and went to get ready.

Anne - always the sweetheart just tells Harry that the casserole is delicious even as a bit of grease runs down her fork from the fatty meats.

Gemma wasn’t as kind, grimacing at the casserole and remarking, “You truly are turning into an American, huh?”

Laying in bed that night, Harry swipes back onto YouTube. Going back to the page he just subscribed to - under a pseudonym. He clicks on another video.

“Uh, okay. So I’m cooking...fuck, it’s called unicorn bark. It looks like a magical animal puke but it looks delicious so we’re going to try it.”

Harry realizes he’s been watching this girl cook for nearly an hour. Different videos from desserts to dinners.

She curses like a sailor, fucks up almost every recipe, and makes a mess everywhere. But she’s smiling and talkative which makes him quite memorized by her.

“I hate editing,” Y/N groans, letting her head fall dramatically against the desktop. Her best friend and dog looked at her oddly.

“I keep saying you need to hire someone, you stubborn bitch,” Laney retorts, clicking through her Instagram feed.

“Fuck off,” she tells her friend with no real heat. The video was almost fully edited - how to make spicy as fuck jalapeño poppers.

There is a calm silence for a while until Laney gasps, “Holy shit.”

“What is it?” Y/N asks, not really caring as she clicks her mouse to trim a segment.

“Harry fucking Styles just followed you on Instagram and Twitter!” Laney shouts, her dog - Rufus popping his head up in confusion.

Y/N looks at her friend to see if she’s really serious and sees no signs of deception. “Oh my god,” Y/N replies. She loved Harry Styles in One Direction and as a solo artist - a fangirl if you will.

Y/N was a well-known influencer and has run in the circles of many celebrities. She’s even met Liam Payne but she’s never been able to bump into Harry.

Her alerts tell her it to be true, she swallows as she looks back up at Laney, “He dm’ed me.”

“Open it! What did he say?” She squeals, squeezing herself on the chair next to her, peering over her shoulder at the phone.

Y/N is a bit nervous, trying not to have a mini aneurysm as she opens the message thread.

HarryStyles: Hello. Just wanted to let you know that your cheeseburger casserole recipe saved my ass last night. Cheers x

“He’s totally coming onto you,” Her friend states instantly, bouncing excitedly - she also had a bit of a crush on the singer.

It takes the two of them a minute to cool their shit before Y/N manages a reply.

Y/N/LN: Well I guess it’s only fair. Your songs have made a few of my nights much better. I’m a bit of a slut for Fine Line.

Harry laughs behind his screen at the cheeky reply he gets back. He’s usually never this forward - especially on social media where he likes to fly under the radar.

HarryStyles: Well if you fancy my music that much, I totally love for you to come to a show. I’m performing in New York City in two weeks.

“This has to be a joke, right?” Y/N sputters to her friend, eyes wide at the invite to a concert she already had tickets to.

Y/N/LN: I’m not going to lie, I already have tickets to the show. However, I don’t have any backstage passes to meet the man of the hour. Do you know someone who can hook me up?

It does wonders for Harry’s narcissism to know that she already had tickets for his concert. Was he really going to do this? He hasn’t met up with some like this since his One Direction days.

He had to remind himself - she may just be friendly and take this as a totally casual interaction. Which would be normal, Harry really shouldn’t be so infatuated with someone he’s watched cook on social media.

HarryStyles: I think I can arrange that. Shoot me your number? I’ll have them sent digitally to you with instructions on how to get backstage.

Y/N is a bit dumbfounded at how fast they agreed to meet up. A harmless backstage tour - he could just be a fan of hers and totally not interested, right?

Over the next few weeks, they never really stop texting. Harry sends her pictures of the recipes he copies off her channel - that usually always look better than the original. He sends her clips of him goofing around during tour rehearsal. FaceTimes her when he’s finally home for the night.

She sends him videos of her watching Harry Styles Best Moment Part Five. A few photos she snaps throughout the city of him on billboards and buildings, in Times Square. YN facetimes him when she’s frustrated with filming or watched a sad movie.

It didn’t make sense to either of them how seamlessly they’d clicked - especially without meeting. They were a perfect balance for each other. Harry - laidback, organized, level-headed. Y/N - eccentric, all over the place, adventurous.

Jeff had told him that he’s been gaining media attention from his social media interactions with Y/N. They like each other’s photos, begin following each other’s friends, and comment goofy things on their posts.

“Listen, I have a great idea,” Y/N begins - which Harry learned is never good. “You should film a video with me sometime.”

Y/N knew she was going out on a limb and instantly regretted the questions she’d been building the courage to ask for days when it’s quiet on his end. There’s static for a moment and Y/N needs to fill the silence.

“It was - I was just, uh, I know you’re probably too busy. I was -“ She stutters, embarrassment flooding her.

Harry cuts her off, “I’d love to.”

“Yo-you would?” She asks timidly. Was she really going to have Harry Styles in her apartment? If so, should she take down her poster?

He laughs sweetly, “Why do you sound so surprised? I can’t wait to come to New York, love.”

Y/N giggles, “Not the fact that you’re performing in front of a sold out crowd at MSG? I don’t think seeing me will top that.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meetin’ you in person since I came across your channel. You so lovely,” Harry replies, his voice a little softer but more serious.

“I’m nervous,” Y/N admits, picking at a thread in her jeans.

“Me too,” Harry murmurs, despite not wanting to admit it - he wanted her to know this was new territory for both of them. He didn’t want her to think that this was something that he did often. But a little too prideful to admit it’s the first time he’s ever done something quite like this.

“What if you don’t like me?” Y/N whispers, she...well she didn’t compare to the models he’s been seen with before. She’s regretfully fell into the rabbit hole of looking up his past flings and relationships.

Harry barks out a disbelieving laugh, “You can’t be serious, darling. I’ve been gone for you since I saw you burn that ground beef.”

Harry was having a bad day - scratch that. An awful one. He tried to go get coffee at eight in the morning and got bombarded by fans, he left the shop without even ordering. They followed him back to his car and it took him fifteen minutes to pull out.

His favorite Mickey Mouse Gucci suitcase he was bringing along on tour had busted. The zipper unraveling and the trim falling off as a result. It was a one-of-a-kind.

Then he’d been stuck on a Skype meeting about tour merchandise with a group of business partners for the last three hours - all he wanted was a fucking nap.

When Y/N’s contact vibrated across his screen, he’s itching to answer but declines as he needs to give these people his attention.

When she calls again, Harry feels a prickle of annoyance. It’s not even at her - to be quite honest. It’s just the shitty day and everything’s piling up.

He always got like this before he kicked off a tour - stress level maxed out and his ability to handle minor incidents nearly shot.

I’m busy

Okay! Sorry, just have a super exciting surprise for you, bub!

I really do not feeling like talking. I’d rather be left alone.

Oh, alright. Hope everything’s okay! Do you still want to facetime later?

Harry leaves her on read because he doesn’t want to slip up and take out his frustration on her. He’d been known to do that and he didn’t want her to think he was anything but besotted with her.

Y/N feels a little hesitant as she begins the uploading process to her channel. The red loading bar told her it’d be twenty-minutes before it’s going to be posted to her 16 million subscribers - one of them being Harry himself.

Twenty-minutes for her to back out and cancel the upload. She starts having doubts about it when Harry never replies to her text which is unlike him.

She takes Rufus out to avoid staring at the loading screen with unnecessary anxiety and uneasiness.

Harry is just getting home from a business dinner with the touring company’s management team. The tension and anxiety from today piling up on his shoulders and he just wants to call Y/N and crash in bed.

He tosses his keys in the little bowl in the entry and kicks off his dingy white vans to the side. His phone dings with an alert from Gemma.

You two are the literal cutest ever. It’s quite gross.

Harry slides onto a stool in his kitchen, confused by the text message before she’s sending the link to him.

Fine Line Inspired Cupcakes!

Harry isn’t quite sure why his heart starts pounding furiously in his chest. A sinking feeling in his stomach when he realizes that this was probably the surprise she was excited about.

He clicks on the thumbnail.

“Hiiii, it’s Y/N. Okay, well today we are going to bake some Fine Line inspired cupcakes. And if you haven’t listened to the album - get your ass out from rock you’re living under and stream it on Spotify!”

She has her hair down in long, waves and a loose cropped shirt that says TPWK in rainbow embroidery.

Harrys mouth is dry and he can’t take his fucking eyes away from the screen.

“Soo, I was thinking the first batch would be cherry flavored? ‘Cause he has a song titled ‘Cherry’. Let’s start there. First - I need to find my measuring cups.”

In true Y/N fashion, she scours her kitchen - cussing and yanking stuff out of her neatly organized cabinets before huffing and storming off to the side.

She comes back into view, a little frazzled but smiling when she holds up the ring of plastic measuring spoons, visible bite marks notched into the material.

“My asshole of a dog had a little snack,” Y/N shows the camera before shrugging, “Let’s get this shit started. Okay, you’re going to need one cup of sugar - no wait, two? I can’t read my fucking handwriting.”

Harry’s absolutely enamored by this scatter-brained, giggly girl who manages to produce cute blue and pink cupcakes that very vaguely resembled his album cover. His heart felt a million times too big for his chest.

He was enraptured for the entirety of the thirty minute video without taking his eyes away once.

To be honest, he hadn’t felt this way since his last relationship which was over a year ago at this point.

It’s not even a thought as he’s requesting a FaceTime with Y/N.

She answers after a few rings. She has a green face mask painted on her nose, chin, and forehead with gold eye masks under each eye. She is so fucking ridiculous it’s not even funny.

What is even more ridiculous is how gone Harry is realizing he is for her. She was quirky, unfiltered, carefree. If he was honest - he hadn’t met a girl like that in a very long time - especially a well-known influencer.

“Hi! How was your day, grumpy?” Y/N asks brightly, making a goofy face as the mask begins to tighten and crack on her skin. Not holding the earlier conversation against him and deciding to just move forward. She understood how stressful it can be.

“M’sorry. I was a bit grumpy,” He admits, “I loved your new video, darling. Did you make those just f’me?”

He can tell she’d be blushing if her face wasn’t covered, a bit bashful as she mutters, “You already know I did it for you.”

“You’re too sweet to me, only six days until we meet,” Harry replies, voice taking on a slow, lazy drawl.

“Six days,” Y/N repeats, eyes crinkling as she smiles with excitement.

“Is this outfit too much?” Y/N panics. Even though there’s literally nothing she can do about it - they’re already walking towards the backstage entrance of the massive arena. It’s still about two hours until the show starts but Harry requested her to come earlier.

Laney sighs, “For the millionth time, you look fucking sexy and Harry’s going to want to rail you right when he sees you.”

Y/N shoves her lightly with a faux annoyance as they meet up with a burly man who’s blocking the entrance to the backstage hallway and rooms.

She gives him their names and pulls up the passes on her phone before he’s nodding with any expression and letting them pass.

They’re not quite sure where to go from here so they begin to wander down the long hallway toward what looks to be the main area that people are milling about.

Y/N is nearly on the ground when someone rounds the corner without looking and walks right into her. Both of them let out huffs of air as they collide and attempt to stabilize themselves.

But there are large hands grasping her arms and holding her steady. In typical Y/N fashion she’s already cursing, “fuckin like a brick wall, look out next time.”

Then she’s looking up to Harry staring back down at her with an amused expression. He doesn’t let go of her and instead tugs her against his bare chest. He’s warm and a bit sweaty - like he’d just worked out. He was only in a pair of thin, running shorts, nike tennis shoes, and a little clip holding his hair off of his face.

Y/N can’t help but wrap her arms around his waist, returning the embrace and amazed by how right it feels to be in his arms. Her face tucks right against his collarbone and it’s like they’d known each other for years.

Pictures and videos don’t do this man justice. He’s gorgeous - sharp edges and dark inked skin. Tall and muscular but dimples that are carved in his cheeks.

“Nice to meet you, m’Harry,” Harry rumbles, removing one hand from Y/N’s shoulder to reach out his hand to her friend.

Laney shakes his hand before asking, “Laney. I’ll leave you two lovebirds be. Where’s the food?”

Harry chuckles against Y/N’s wavy hair, “Down the hall to the left.”

Laney’s trailing off without another glance, she was very food motivated despite her skinny frame. Also not wanting to intrude of the very personal first moments of their meeting.

The popstar pulls back to look down at the girl he’s fallen for in mere weeks. She’s as beautiful as he thought she'd be - if not more. He can’t help himself, “Would it be too forward to kiss you?”

Y/N smiles widely, running a hand along his jawline, “I’ve wanted you to kiss me since you stayed up on FaceTime with me until two in the morning as I cried after watching The Notebook - despite me seeing it a million times.”

Harry ducks forward to press his lips softly to her, large hands come to cup the side of her face as they connect. He’s so gentle as he moves his mouth against hers. In true Y/N fashion, she’s bold and has no hesitation slipping her tongue into his mouth.

He’s so fucking in love with her. It doesn’t make much sense - it’s definitely not logical but he’s realizing that’s okay.

“Oii, get a room!” Someone shouts from down the hallway teasingly.

Harry flips them the middle finger and pulls back, pink lips swollen and puffy, dimples on full display, “Let me take you out to dinner after the show, darling.”

“You going to wine and dine me, Styles?” Y/N giggles, unable to contain the pleasant warmness he’s spreading through her body.

“Mmm, have t’make sure you’ll want to keep me,” Harry murmurs happily against her lips once again, pressing kiss after kiss to her to make sure she’s real, “Definitely want to keep you.”

Y/N bites teasingly at his bottom lip, hand planted on the soft but firm skin of his stomach, “You’re never getting rid of me, hope you know that.”

“Was hoping you’d say that, now let me introduce you to my band.”

-- ---- ---- -- 1 year later - -- --- --- --

“Hi bitches! Today is a super special day. We have the one, the only Harry Styles filming with us. I know that’s not really that special since he’s on here all the time with me. But we’re celebrating our one year anniversary!” Y/N smiles, bumping hips with Harry who stands dutifully next to her.

Anyone viewing can see the absolute heart-eyes and adoration he has for the girl standing next to him. He’s still as lovestruck and gone for her as he was the first time they met. Harry’s fans were thrilled - for the first time in years, he’d opened up again.

They weren’t very public on social media beside’s tagging each other in memes and posting the occasional picture. Y/N was constantly uploading cooking videos from wherever in the world she was with Harry on his tour, she’d also begin making vlogs about different foods she’s been experiencing.

---

“Okay, so here in Peru - they’re known to have this really fucking spicy beef with noddles. So obviously, I’m going to make Harry try it first,” Y/N laughs as she props the camera up on the side of the table on a napkin holder.

Harry - who has a concert in a few hours - frowns at the steaming dish in front of him, “Darling, I don’t want to try it first. It’s going to burn my mouth. Not gonna be able to sing.”

“You’re sucha baby sometimes,” Y/N rolls her eyes, slurping up the noodles with her fork while making a silly face at her boyfriend. She pulls back, straight-faced, “It’s not hot at all. Tastes amazing, though.”

Harry takes that as an initiative to shovel a spoonful into his mouth. It only takes half a moment until his taste buds erupt in fiery flames from the spices, “You bloody little brat, y’tricked me! It’s so fuckin’ hot!”

Y/N smiles widely, laughing much too loudly in the restaurant when Harry chugs the glass of water next to the plate while glaring at his love. “I’m sorry, s’just to easy with you, lovie,” She replies, leaning over the table to press a kiss to his lips.

He’s a sucker for her and kisses her right back despite his mouth being an inferno. His heart was on fire for her and that burned much more intensely.

---

“No, love. The instructions say baking soda, not baking powder. They’re not the same thing,” Harry sighs, attempting to read her scribbled, sloppy handwriting. She’d already spilled milk on half of the paper.

“S’interchangeable, right?” Y/N hums, cracking an egg into the bowl and Harry automatically knows to look to fish out the eggshells that’d she’d let slip in because she sucks at cracking eggs but always wants to do it.

Harry reaches over her, grabbing the vanilla extract and a teaspoon, “It’s not, baby. Lemme do this real quick.”

“Will you make me a grilled cheese after this?” She asks, nuzzling into his side and wrapping her arms around his waist as he finishes adding the wet ingredients to their bowl. Harry stopped questioning her thought process a long time ago.

Harry swipes his finger into the mixture of icing off to the side and rubs it right onto her nose, cackling at her pout and squeaking when she pinches at the fleshy skin of his hips. She in turn dips her finger into the sugary cream and pops it right into her mouth.

Harry eyes darken, watching her lips purse as she sucks off the icing. It was a dirty move on Y/N’s part and she knows it. It has her boyfriend dragging an icing-covered thumb along her collarbone before leaning down to slowly lick up the sugary trail with his tongue.

When Y/N slides her fingers into his hair and lets out a pretty moan, Harry’s standing back up, trailing over to the tripod and saying into the camera, “We’ll be back after a little commercial break,” and is then turning off the record button.

It takes little to no time for Harry to have Y/N’s bum on the countertop, mouth on her neck, and hand in-between her thighs.

And when they finally posted a very edited final cut of the video - well there may be a couple of fans who notice the how flushed Y/N is halfway through and a lovely purple mark on Harry’s neck that wasn’t there in the beginning of the video.

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing request #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fic rec #harry styles prompt #harry styles x influencer y/n #harry styles smut #harry styles drabble

2K notes · View notes

iraprince · 3 years

Note

hello! do you have any advice for switching from traditional art to digital? (i recently ran out of supplies so im relegated to my computer lol) i hope youre having a good day!

i sure do!

first off i really recommend clip studio paint, but i also recommend u wait for it to go on sale. it goes 50% off a few times a year, so imo it’s worth waiting, but it also is usually on sale for only a few days so u have to stay on top of it. they usually announce on twitter etc. the tools don’t make the artist and obviously it doesn’t Really matter what program u end up settling on, i’ve just been really pleased with CSP and i wanted to recommend it

second: nothing that u can do with digital art programs/tools is cheating and it took me way too long to really internalize + understand that. copy-pasting stuff instead of redrawing it, using symmetry rulers, using transform/ctrl+T to stretch or squash slightly off anatomy instead of starting over -- when i was first getting into digital i A. didn’t know u could do this stuff and B. felt weirdly guilty doing it once i figured it out, as if i was a worse artist for using the tools that are literally built into the software or that it was lazy or dishonest to do so. that, it turns out, is bullshit. any drawing is just a constant series of decision-making and a lot of digital tools just help u make or retract or edit those decisions faster than traditional does. it’s not better or worse, it’s just different, and it’s worth ur time to figure out which of those differences are the most convenient and useful. this stuff exists for a reason! use it! save ur wrists and ur patience and ur time!

figure out file organization early, because it’s something u don’t have to deal with irt traditional art and so it probably won’t come naturally, but it also makes ur life harder to have a desktop swarming with wip files that are all titled “kjsrhrfgdhgj.psd” or whatever. some ppl sort into folders by date; for me it works better to sort by content (i.e. i have folders for tvrn stuff, patreon stuff, different fandoms, dnd/ttrpg stuff, “misc ocs” for characters i don’t draw much and “misc fandoms” for one-off fanart that doesn’t merit its own folder, etc etc; this is what makes it easiest for me to find stuff, but ur system might end up different.) i admittedly still name my files keysmashes if it’s personal stuff rather than work/commissions, but at least it’s all sorted into a category where i can quickly find it again anyway

also, u can hybridize traditional and digital! i frequently like my traditional pencil lines better than what i can do digitally, so i often scan them in, turn them into lineart, and color digitally (here’s a tutorial on how i prep that). but even if u don’t have a scanner, a carefully taken phone photo with high contrast can still be used the same way. i tend to lay my sketchbook flat on the floor in front of a window, squat down and hold my phone as level as i can while i’m taking the pic, and then i blast it in my phone’s built in gallery editor (highlights/shadows and contrast) before sending it to myself and doing the same thing w tone curve/levels in csp. it’s not perfect, but it’s presentable, and it can be a good way to ease urself in if ur feeling frustrated w the learning curve on digital draftsmanship.

oh, and this tip is really small but it’s ended up being rly helpful for me: resist the urge to zoom in way past 100% scale view just bc u can. if there are times where u absolutely need to, sure, whatever, but there’s no point in regularly tweaking tiny things pixel by pixel at 250% zoom bc nobody who looks at ur art is gonna see that and ur just bloating ur own time spent on things and creating unnecessary stress for urself!! if 100% zoom doesn’t give u the control u want, that may just mean u need to work larger to begin with.

set up a comfortable workspace with a Good chair. look up proper posture and try to stick to it. i know we’re all gay and it sucks to sit in a chair properly but otherwise ur gonna hurt urself. take even more frequent breaks than u do when drawing traditionally! screen bad!

also, if ur tablet has a way to calibrate pressure, try that out. a lot of them are set in a way where you have to press really hard to get full line width and over time it can really seriously strain ur wrist; u can’t manually set pressure in traditional tools (besides like. using softer lead i guess lmfao) but u can with tablet pens and u should try it, bc if u can use a lighter touch overall it really goes a long way towards preventing injury in the long term.

this is all the stuff that came to mind immediately; i’m sure there are tons of basics i haven’t covered, depending on how much of a transition this is for u, but there are a lot of tutorials out there written by ppl more patient and more educationally-oriented than myself so you’d be doing a better service to urself seeking those out than if i were to try to clumsily emulate them lol. good luck + have fun!

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insert-cleverurl · 3 years

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solaine copies her dsmp meta twitter part one

preface: i wrote this on february 13th and am now archiving it over here on tumblr before i get around posting it to the actual archive (of our own). i'd like to clean it up before i go there, becuase i wrote this at like one am lying in bed and typing on my laptop that was sitting on my stomach. it's a lot of rambling. i go on a lot of tangents. it is not the cleanest nor likely most accurate meta you will ever read.

how characters (children) on the smp learn from history rather than repeat it: a thread

aka: stop liking the other one you fucks i opened the wikia so i actually know what happened now /lh

context here is that i had earlier made a much less coherent thread (not that this one is very coherent) with the caveat that i was going entirely off memory

this thread is mainly going over how tommy + tubbo both emulate and turned away from wilbur + schlatt respectively, and how i think that's going to reflect in ranboo's arc

"as long as i can't be the next jschlatt, you can't be the next wilbur." okay we all know this. it's obvious from this point on that both tubbo and tommy saw or had fears of how they were each developing into scarily familiar people - schlatt, a dictator, and wilbur, a madman.

starting with tommy, the parallels between his exile arc and wilbur's pogtopia arc are immediately, and glaringly, obvious. paranoia, trust issues, "maybe i'm actually the bad guy here", and most notably, intense loneliness. wilbur made it obvious he believed pogtopis's allies would all abandon them in the end (them being he and tommy, though how much he trusted tommy by the end is also up in the air), and he was completely prepared to kill anyone he had to in order to secure pogtopia's victory, despite also preparing himself to be the one to end it. wilbur gave up on l'manberg, at the very end. he believed tyranny was all that would ever reign, so he blew it up.

tommy, in his exile arc, was also despairingly lonely. he hallucinated tubbo, grew attached to dream, etc etc. tommy was very very close to "becoming" wilbur here (god i'm sorry this is so long already and just me summing things up we already know it's to keep my thoughts in order + satisfy my inability to shut up and use too many words)

where wilbur and tommy go their separate ways is when they were given an out. dream gave wilbur tnt + for tommy, he was. you know. gestures vaguely at logstedshire. wilbur took the out - he gave up. he gave in. we know he had moments of clarity (when niki was in danger) and Maybe this was one he could've had too, but he didn't. he took the tnt.

tommy decided enough was enough. so at a crucial moment in time, tommy turned away from being wilbur. he did not repeat history.

onto tubbo; admittedly i know much less about his arc as president so this will be less outlined. tubbo,,,, acted very similarly to schlatt. probably moreso than tommy and wilbur! strange new laws, ignoring his cabinet, execution, generally appearing to lose his care for the world and the opinions of others. i'd argue the thing that separates him from schlatt is the most important part of this thread, because it proves my point: he remembered.

i just want to clarify here: by "proves my point" i mean this is the clsoest we get to an agreement of the ideas i'm putting out here in canon?? ig?? as in like. this is the most on the nose way to say it. similarly in recent days to quackity consistently referring to his treatment of dream as torture, which seems to be a very "I Am Not In Character" move but is definitely meant for us, the viewers, rather than character dream or character quackity themselves. tubbo's is a little less like that but still it's kind of like pointing at the X on a map for us the viewers. ok tangent over

tubbo lived under schlatt's rule as one of those people he treated extremely shittily. he lived under schlatt's rule as that person he executed. and tubbo remembers all that! tubbo remembers how schlatt's rule played out, and he looks at his own uh, less than stellar time in office, and he admits this out loud (to ranboo, according to the wikia. i am getting all of this off the wikia. i did not watch any streams during this arc.) that he can See himself becoming schlatt.

and when quackity tries to execute ranboo for being a traitor, tubbo stops him.

onto dream and ranboo! dream is a special case in that we never get to see his perspective of things and are rather left to play fill in the blank, and this whole arc is special (in terms of this thread) in that it isn't over. so i will be doing a lot of extrapolating here.

dream starts out as a generally ambivalent character who has very few rules that he pretty much never bothers to enforce anyways (i think? i don't remember).

by this i mean, this is all stuff i heard secondhand in recent months and can no longer remember what it actually was because i never went back to check. i'm pretty sure, but just a disclaimer. i don't wanna get hit with an "um, actually

his villain arc starts very very early - two whole seasons before he really became one. in the war, he is the antagonist and he plays up to it! most of the war is from l'manberg's pov (or that's how we look at it now, at least) so obviously he is the Bad Guy here.

ranboo griefed a house like two days into the server. 'nuff said /lh

ranboo + dream are both heavily vilified characters from the get-go - dream's part should be fairly obvious (uh, the everything leading up the exile arc where he actually did villainous things), whereas ranboo's is most notably during the second festival's aftermath. taking the blame for blowing up the community house, wanting to "pick people not sides" (he wants all his friends to be happy - sounds familiar, right?), etc etc, and now he's with techno and phil, the former of which is Definitely considered a villain for working with dream

now many many parallels are being drawn between he and dream, especially with the whole enderwalking thing. in the aftermath of everything happening, he chooses to stay out of all conflict, until Something Happens and forces his hand. (the egg!) he wants peace for everyone, which again, sounds very familiar, right?

(slight tangent: yes, the griefing was forcing dream's hand. it's nigh impossible to construe it as anything other than a political attack - the vice president of l'manberg griefing the home of the greater dream smp's king? dream looks weak + open to attack if he lets it slide)

this was a bad way to put it but the spirit of it gets across i think. fuck character limit on twitter

that catches us up on all current lore. where do i think dream and ranboo are going to split? dream has been alone in his decision-making basically since the very first war. not once has he (successfully, we don't know if he tried) gone to fall back on his friends' support and ask for their help in making these hard decisions (of which there are many). he severs his final connections ("i don't care about anything on this server") and cements his place in history as a monster.

i think it is very likely that we are getting a ranboo "friendship and relying on other people" arc here. there are other ways they could go with it, obviously, but given his current arctic anarchist ties and what appears to be other friendships developing. hmm! i'm interested. this part is entirely speculation/extrapolation. point being. the kids on the smp do, in fact, learn from history. they still make mistakes sometimes, but past a certain point, they're always different mistakes. they learn, and they almost always get happier endings for it

i don't know if it's a coincidence that it's the three lore-relevant kids who are the ones doing this. i don't think it is, because this is a very well-written and clever story. the younger generation is the one learning and fixing past mistakes and leaving the world better off for it. that's very neat! i like it a lot. also now that purpled's becoming lore-relevant, goddamnit if i don't want to see next season being his "learning from history" arc. punz vs purpled, maybe? that'd be neat. who knows. ok i think im finally done lol ty for reading :)

caveat I forgot to add last night: obviously ranboo and dream start out in very different positions, moreso than both tommy and tubbo. but at the end of the day, all three of them are their own people who just happen to take after other people in some ways :)

again, ty for reading! here's the original thread. i'd like to add that this is probably out of date and i may come back to it some day but who knows. maybe this will just be a relic of before Now (may 25)

#solaine's dsmp meta #dsmp #dsmp meta #c!tommy #c!ranboo #c!tubbo #tommyinnit #ranboo #tubbo #schlatt #c!schlatt #c!dream #dream #c!wilbur #wilbur

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medusamachina · 2 years

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The coming Web3 questions

I was recently asked for a quote on Web3 from a sex worker’s perspective. I am admittedly NOT the Web3 expert, but I must make the assumption that these questions are going to keep coming so let’s start writing about it here, why don’t we?

To start I’m going to copy/paste the question and my response below, please tell me where I am wrong/right and where I can learn more ASAP.

Q: what could a better internet look like? How do you think an alternative Web 3.0 might look, feel and interact with our offline behaviours? Instead of looking back with persistent nostalgia for the 00s and Web 1.0, can we start to imagine something genuinely new? And, if not the metaverse, or Elon Musk's Twitter, then what? If we're aware that it is precarious to be on Web 2.0 platforms, what kind of platforms might guarantee more security and collective safety?

A: I've been thinking on this a lot lately... in my conversations with other workers and accomplices in the decrim movement space there is both a cautious optimism and a jaded pessimism about the future that Web 3.0 may hold. Ashley Lake (https://twitter.com/AshleyLatke) aptly noted that "there is no technical solution to a political problem." While I am on the cautiously optimistic side, this observation rings true to me. No matter what new platforms we may be able to build and how they may serve the community, it does not negate the fact that participating in sex work is still criminalized in the "meat space" and you still have to cash in your crypto via global banks or financial tech platforms that can ban you from using their services. What does it mean to use a new currency if you cannot cash it out because you have been disqualified from a financial service for your participation in sex work? How does advertising on a decentralized Web 3.0 platform help sex workers subvert laws that ultimately can put them in jail?

The optimistic side of me however sees a potential "pinching" of the timeline between Web 1.0 and 3.0 by curating values from past collectivities toward future technologies (this is a Queering Futurity [José Muños] perspective, where we look to past definitions of utopia as potential seedlings for future liberation, bypassing the "nowness" of what is politically conceivable). There could be an opportunity to change the culture that seeds paternalistic values that have been embedded into Web 2.0, with potential to break away from the data surveillance deals that Big Tech companies offer in order to appease a governing body that may otherwise regulate them. For instance, we see how Apple is now encoding CSAM (child sexual abuse material) detection software into their iPhones, in response to proposed [U.S.] laws that threaten to take down tech companies that don't adhere to certain parameters that threaten user privacy. This is an extension of the already conflated value of sexual expression as "harmful" content. So I consider how DAOs or other blockchain communities can actually come to consensus through collective voting about definitions of harm when creating a Terms of Service agreement for their product or service. I also anticipate a challenge to the goal of universality, which is a product of a globalisation mindset. Another thought- right now we are in a period of digital colonization, where a handful of platforms created with androcentric American assumptions are being forced on other cultures by centralized walled gardens (Jillian York aptly calls these "Silicon Values"). So we see for instance PayPal discriminating against sex workers in countries where erotic labor is legal, such as the UK and Australia. So Web 3.0 has room for nuance, where a multiplicity of cultural values can thrive in parallel rather than all users needing to adhere to a megalith ideology that must be respected in order to access the internet. Can we bypass the colonial ideology by creating financial networks that adhere to a collective value system designed by its digital citizens? We already know that sex workers have created some of the best "By Us, For Us" models of safety and mutual aid as platformed and connected to through digital technologies, and I do hope to see that transferred and celebrated once again.

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eternityservedcold · 3 years

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ive been posting about my codex!wendy au on twitter for a couple days now but instead of just copy and pasting what i wrote on there ill actually expand upon it a little. also this post is gonna be really long but theres pictures so i hope that helps

if theres any moment where the timeline splits (not including moments before this that may have had a butterfly effect), it would be william carters train crash in 1904, which.... did not happen in this universe. he, with no small amount of shame, moves in with his rich and successful brother.

wendy and abigail grow up having, essentially, an extra parent, which thankfully means abigail didnt die. with their mother long gone, when jack dies in 1919 (not of magic-y reasons, just like... a heart attack or something), william is left to take care of the twins alone. he tries to find jobs so he could work himself to death and at least save his nieces, but due to his general lack of competence, he isnt finding much that can actually sustain them all.

wendy and abigail, who have noticed this despite williams protests that everything is fine, decide to do the smartest thing they can think of: run away from home so william only needs to take care of himself. im sure you can see why this is a bad idea, even in a universe without the codex umbra, but boy does it get significantly worse for them very quickly.

wendy gets hit by a car. abigail runs for help, but by the time she gets back, wendy is fine. and clutching a strange book.

over the course of the next few weeks, wendy and abigail manage to scrounge up a little money, and between this, wendy shows abigail some neat tricks the codex umbra taught her. abigail suggests, a bit jokingly, that maybe they could become magicians. the codex wendy thinks this is a great idea.

[transcription of text: “THE AMAZING MARY, Performing feats to astound and mystify”]

at the codex umbras suggestion, wendy adopts a stage name, “mary,” and the twins perform their first show. it goes very well, and they make a lot of money, so they decide to keep doing this, and hopefully save enough to go back home and take care of their uncle.

mary and abigail perform many magic shows, and end up becoming beloved around the country. admittedly they do get a bit lost in the sauce, but theyre teenagers, wouldnt you? except, mary often times seems to forget they theyre doing this for their uncle at all. in fact, mary seems all-around real different these days.

mary becomes far colder, more secretive, and will lock herself in her study for days at a time. abigail notices her sisters change in personality, and attributes it to the fame going to her head. unlike charlie, abigail never realized quite how deep mary had gotten into the codex.

mary and abigails final act goes very similarly to maxwell and charlies. theyre going through the routine when something goes horribly wrong, and theyre grabbed by the codex and taken to the constant. mary becomes the queen, and abigail the night monster.

mary rules much like her uncle, and brings most of the same people into her world. the differences are as such:

maxwell is still william carter, who replaces wilson as the “all-around” type. if he was in the game, he would only have slightly lower hunger drain, and otherwise be identical to wilson without a beard

charlie has taken the role of wendy, so to speak... winona died in a factory accident (the very same one that would have taken her to the constant in another life), and charlie keeps her soul in a rose

webber becomes the “canonical” protagonist instead of wilson. i would have made it william, but it is ultimately important that the protagonist is someone uninvolved in the carter relationship chart

wilson is actually a half-decent scientist so he replaces winona, i guess

adventure mode is the same but i wrote some quotes for funsies, here we go:

A Cold Reception

Looks like you found my portal.

Haven’t you learned “curiosity kills the cat?”

Let’s see if I can’t up the stakes a bit.

King of Winter

Oh, you survived, that’s fun.

Just remember, you need to be lucky four more times...

But I only need to be lucky once.

The Game is Afoot

Huh? You’re still alive?

That’s... impressive. I’m interested to see how this will go.

Break a leg out there.

Archipelago

How do you do?

This has been fun. You’re a good playmate.

But I think you should know I had a nasty habit of breaking my toys.

Two Worlds

How do you do?

I know you may not want to make another deal with me, but...

I’ll just give you all of this for free.

Food, gold, pigs, anything you want from this world.

All I want in return is for you to stay put, okay?

Darkness

Go ahead.

Keep going.

I think we both know what will happen.

Epilogue

You found me.

Was it what you hoped for?

Forgive me for not giving you a curtsy.

For what it’s worth, you were a fun playmate.

To me, at least. Maybe not to Them.

Maybe They’ll find you more fun when you’re here.

They’ll show you beautiful, terrifying things.

It’d be best if you didn’t fight it.

I’ve worked so hard to make this world.

I’ve made it so pretty for Them.

I thought I was so smart. So needed.

But even Queens are bound to the board.

In the end, I can’t change the game.

I’m not quite sure what They want.

Perhaps we’re just performing for Them.

Though that may be my mind playing tricks on me.

Hm. What year is it? Time is weird here.

Go ahead, stay as long as you like.

It’s not like I can throw you out.

Or you could put the key in and get it over with.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

That’s life, though, isn’t it?

...I think I’m done for now.

i also drew some disconnected cyclum-ish comics:

[transcript of text:

Mary: "After all I've done, you still help me. Why?"

Webber: "We trust you."

Mary: (offscreen) "I don't understand."

Webber: "If you were gonna do something, you already would have."

Mary: "I just don't understand."

Webber: (offscreen) "It's okay, Mary, you don't have to."]

[transcript of text:

William: "I missed you so much! I was worried sick, I can't even be mad at you..." (rambling)

Mary: "I... I'm sorry, do I know you?"]

im very much still developing this au but thats what i have so far.

#cant catch me gay thoughts #dont starve #don't starve #hi dont starve tags hope you have fun with this one <3

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