#<- for the comparison pic at the end :]

[abisalli]

I was wondering, because I see your art, it's amazing and you're clearly well taught (either self or by an institution) on digital arts, so I'm curious, what led you to them? how the fuck do you do the thing?

I do traditional only, would say I'm chill since in secondary school I chose visual arts modality, but I can't or don't know how to digitalize my shit, so I'm curious about how you got here

Thanks! I'm self-taught and have learned everything via books and the help of the internet :) I don't remember what specifically led me to digital art. I just always liked how clean it could look and how there's so many different tools you can use within a program!

As for how I got here: my first tablet was a simple wacom tablet (I think it was an intuos one for like 50 bucks). Then I downloaded Paint Tool Sai and watched some YouTube tutorials on how to use it... and then just dicked around for a long time (like using different brushes or which canvas size to use so my computer won't crash, etc.) Basically a lot of trial and error.. A few years ago I switched to an iPad and Procreate and haven't looked back since <3 Digital art is just like traditional art in the sense that you first have to familiarize yourself with the tools and try out a lot of different techniques until you find what works best for you!

also just for fun, here's a comparison of a drawing I did in 2016 (when I first got into digital art) and one from 2024 :)

[happytobeherekinda]

nexus if he slayed

[silksinging]

Do you like G1 monster high??

I like both G1 and G3 :>

They have different vibes but both are really fun! I kinda see them as aus of each other. Different formulas getting at the same heart: funky characters playing off each other, with a spooky twist. I can’t get enough of it!

But from G1 I especially appreciate the fashions, the way they’re so specific both to the characters and to the era in which they were created. I also think g1 is a liiiiittle more in-touch with its “source material”, aka early horror movie monsters. That historical connection, as flimsy as it is at times, is what originally drew me in. You can see it in the early g1 materials, they were willing to take risks and that potential remains exciting! Even though they kinda kept it safe the further it went on. Either way, g1 movies quickly became comfort watches for me, and I love the web series’s off-the-wall sense of humour (especially season 2! I think that’s when they peaked.) I’m really excited to see how the upcoming comics are going to expand on the g1 world! They seem to be going a bit deeper in their stories than the og movies or series ever did, and I’m sooooooo here for it. Yessss dive into the psychology of these ghouls give them complicated feelings and inner turmoil YESSSSSSS

G2… tried some things and most of it didn’t land imo widhsnejsnak

[animalsoutloud]

"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world." - Paul Farmer

[agoraphobic-artist]

Ordered a second notebook for more rabbits and, umm...

[ranticore]

placeholder eohric in various states of obscenity and shininess

first pic, he's dressed to play a tag game, specifically on the orange team. his game vest is a fox pelt i drew with my eyes shut. while the game is a bit like tag rugby, with members of the opposing team trying to take the white flags off the game vest, there is an additional element where for every time you get tagged, you have to add a ribbon in the opposing team's colours (swapping out your own team colours). eventually you may be forced to change sides. this often leaves a tag game with very unbalanced teams of one or two skilled players against an army of less skilled, which is very fun. tag games can last several days and only end when one team has been depleted entirely. games can have more than two teams on the field at once, for extra chaos

middle pic i wanted to get a handle on his height - he's actually very short, i've been thinking of his pony half as perhaps 11hh, and in form similar to an A-division welsh pony. during his first excursion to ironwall, as a member of a bachelor band, he was almost immediately stopped by the military recruiters who had been dispatched specifically to sweep up young men and press them into service. this recruiter very sternly tells him that he must cover up when he is in Ironwall. he joined the army and didn't like it but he did get to be one of the drummers when they all went to war. i drew a human guy for the sake of the height comparison but in reality the people who would enforce dress codes & manage the young conscripts would be older centaurs.

last pic i remembered i had my marker brushes remember those. feels like it's been years. here he wears nothing and his tail is not yet back-combed into a fun little pom pom shape.

[vinceaddams]

Any tips on learning to make buttonholes? I've been putting it off for.... *checks notes* like three years.... but better late than never and all that. I don't have any fancy machines so I gotta do it by hand but that seems right up your alley.

Thanks!

It IS up my alley, yes, I do most of my buttonholes by hand!

I'm actually part way through filming an 18th century buttonhole tutorial, but I expect it'll be a few more weeks before I finish that and put it on the youtubes, so in the meantime here's the very very short version. (The long version is looking like it'll probably be about 40 minutes maybe, judging by how much script I've written compared to my last video?)

Mark your line, a bit longer than your button is wide. I usually use a graphite mechanical pencil on light fabrics, and a light coloured pencil crayon on dark ones. (I have fabric pencils too, but they're much softer and leave a thicker line.) You may want to baste the layers together around all the marked buttonholes if you're working on something big and the layers are shifty and slippery. I'm not basting here because this is just a pants placket.

Do a little running stitch (or perhaps a running backstitch) in fine thread around the line at the width you want the finished buttonhole to be. This holds the layers of fabric together and acts as a nice little guide for when you do the buttonhole stitches.

Cut along the marked line using a buttonhole cutter, or a woodworking chisel. Glossy magazines are the best surface to put underneath your work as you push down, and you can give it a little tap with a rubber mallet if it's not going through all the way.

I'm aware that there are some people who cut their buttonholes open using seam rippers, and if any of them are reading this please know that that is abhorrent behaviour and I need you to stop it immediately. Stop it.

Go get a buttonhole cutter for 10 bucks and your life will be better for it. Or go to the nearest hardware store and get a little woodworking chisel. This includes machine buttonholes, use the buttonhole cutter on them too. If you continue to cut open buttonholes with a seam ripper after reading this you are personally responsible for at least 3 of the grey hairs on my head.

Do a whipstitch around the cut edges, to help prevent fraying while you work and to keep all those threads out of the way. (For my everyday shirts I usually do a machine buttonhole instead of this step, and then just hand stitch over it, because it's a bit faster and a lot sturdier on the thin fabrics.)

I like to mark out my button locations at this point, because I can mark them through the holes without the buttonhole stitches getting in the way.

For the actual buttonhole stitches it's really nice if you have silk buttonhole twist, but I usually use those little balls of DMC cotton pearl/perle because it's cheap and a good weight. NOT stranded embroidery floss, no separate strands! It's got to be one smooth twisted thing!

Here's a comparison pic between silk buttonhole twist (left) and cotton pearl (right). Both can make nice looking buttonholes, but the silk is a bit nicer to work with and the knots line up more smoothly.

I've actually only used the silk for one garment ever, but am going to try to do it more often on my nicer things. I find the cotton holds up well enough to daily wear though, despite being not ideal. The buttonholes are never the first part of my garments to wear out.

I cut a piece of about one arm's length more or less, depending on the size of buttonhole. For any hole longer than about 4cm I use 2 threads, one to do each side, because the end gets very frayed and scruffy by the time you've put it through the fabric that many times.

I wax about 2cm of the tip (Not the entire thread. I wax the outlining/overcasting thread but not the buttonhole thread itself.) to make it stick in the fabric better when I start off the thread. I don't tend to tie it, I just do a couple of stabstitches or backstitches and it holds well. (I'm generally very thorough with tying off my threads when it comes to hand sewing, but a buttonhole is basically a long row of knots, so it's pretty sturdy.)

Put the needle through underneath, with the tip coming up right along that little outline you sewed earlier. And I personally like to take the ends that are already in my hand and wrap them around the tip of the needle like so, but a lot of people loop the other end up around the other way, so here's a link to a buttonhole video with that method. Try both and see which one you prefer, the resulting knot is the same either way.

Sometimes I can pull the thread from the end near the needle and have the stitch look nice, but often I grab it closer to the base and give it a little wiggle to nestle it into place. This is more necessary with the cotton than it is with the silk.

The knot should be on top of the cut edge of the fabric, not in front of it.

You can put your stitches further apart than I do if you want, they'll still work if they've got little gaps in between them.

Keep going up that edge and when you get to the end you can either flip immediately to the other side and start back down again, or you can do a bar tack. (You can also fan out the stitches around the end if you want, but I don't like to anymore because I think the rectangular ends look nicer.)

Here's a bar tack vs. no bar tack sample. They just make it look more sharp, and they reinforce the ends.

For a bar tack do a few long stitches across the entire end.

And then do buttonhole stitches on top of those long stitches. I also like to snag a tiny bit of the fabric underneath.

Then stick the needle down into the fabric right where you ended that last stitch on the corner of the bar tack, so you don't pull that corner out of shape, and then just go back to making buttonhole stitches down the other side.

Then do the second bar tack once you get back to the end.

To finish off my thread I make it sticky with a bit more beeswax, waxing it as close to the fabric as I can get, and then bring it through to the back and pull it underneath the stitches down one side and trim it off.

In my experience it stays put perfectly well this way without tying it off.

Voila! An beautiful buttonholes!

If you want keyhole ones you can clip or punch a little rounded bit at one end of the cut and fan your stitches out around that and only do the bar tack at one end, like I did on my 1830's dressing gown.

(I won't do that style in my video though, because they're not 18th century.)

Do samples before doing them on a garment! Do as many practice ones as you need to, it takes a while for them to get good! Mine did not look this nice 10 years ago.

Your first one will probably look pretty bad, but your hundredth will be much better!

Edit: Video finished!

And here's the blog post, which is mostly a slightly longer version of this post.

[hyomaslut]

──★ ˙🍆 ̟ !! casual conversation between friends. 18+!

☆⌒(ゝ。∂).ᐟ ᴀsᴋɪɴɢ ʙʟʟᴋ ʙᴏʏs ғᴏʀ ɴᴜᴅᴇs ᴘᴛ. 𝟷

✿ ─ characters: isagi yoichi, itoshi rin, chigiri hyoma, reo mikage ✿ ─ cw: smau!, extremely suggestive/borderline smut, aged-up!characters, college!AU, gn!reader, no pronouns, unestablished relationships/mutual pining, use of foul language, descriptions of genitalia, suggestive themes, you and chigiri are talking about npc college drama, proofread??? ✿ ─ notes: honestly the smau aspect was so hard cuz im a perfectionist and wanted read reciets and everything. all the apps for them suck. i managed :))) and i rlly hope you guys like it :)) feedback appreciated. i put chigiri's at the end cuz its so long. part 2 is here!!!!

ISAGI YOICHI...

your fingers fly across the keyboard to tell him that yes, you were very serious. isagi literally jumps out of bed to go shower and everything. he has been crushing on you since forever and god knows he’s not blowing this chance you’ve given him by sending a shitty picture. you get an image attachment 20 minutes later, yoichi standing in front of his foggy bathroom mirror, the phone in his hand covering half of his face. he’s barely out of the shower, hair dripping wet and towel hanging extremely loose around his hips. his other hand sits at the base of his dick, acting as both a size comparison and a way to draw your attention to it. it’s obviously of decent length as far as you could tell, but the girth. you cant even pretend your mouth doesn’t start watering at the sight.

ITOSHI RIN...

you don’t have time to feel all that bummed about it though, because within a few minutes you’re shocked to get a picture from rin, the camera facing downwards towards his legs. nothing would be all that out of the ordinary if it weren’t the obvious tent in his shorts. the fabric around his crotch looks stretched by his hard dick fighting against the confines of his soccer uniform. it’s not exactly what you asked for, but you can’t find it in you to complain, because it’s way more than you actually expected to get. your mind starts racing. he’s hard from just a few suggestive texts? that means one of two things. either he really is a virgin like you thought he’d be, and the littlest of acts gets him riled up. or he’s just that into you. both of those possibilities sounded like fun. and the idea of those possibilities made you greedy. enough to push your luck.

MIKAGE REO...

two pictures come in quickly and you laugh at the idea of him rushing to take these for you. he sends the first one, taken standing in front of the full length mirror in his boxers, dragging down the waist band of them so you can see the first few inches of his shaft, phone in front of his face. he’s perfectly clean shaven, zooming in closer, maybe he waxes it? you can’t help but be impressed by his attention to detail. it’s so reo that it makes you smile. second one is sitting down in some fancy looking suede armchair, underwear gone, cock in one hand while the other splays over the bottom half of his face, poorly covering the wide self-satisfied smirk. you assumed he set up his phone with a timer considering he wasn’t holding it. as you stare at it, the initial evaluating that everyone does when they receive a dick pic fades away, and you feel heat creep up your face. reo was really hot, and just this once you figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell him you thought so.

CHIGIRI HYOMA...

you get through the stressful minutes waiting for his response by chewing on your nails. maybe you really just fucked it all up. but then, to your surprise, a photo loads in. its hyoma sitting on his bed in front of his mirror, his fingers buried in his hair to push it out of his face in possibly the sexiest way you’ve ever seen. his other hand holds his phone, his pretty face in full view with his gaze locked on the screen. your eyes can’t help but travel down to the only part of your crush you haven’t seen. and boy was it worth the wait. his dick curves up towards his abs and its a lot bigger than you expected. long and a perfectly pink tip. you bite your lip at the thought of it stretching you out, and then feel slightly guilty for thinking of him that way, as if you haven’t done it plenty of times during your so-called dry spell. if the whole soccer thing doesn’t work out, you’re sure he could be a pin up model. or maybe a greek god.

hyoma's got long again ;-; mb,,, but can you blame me??? i want to do a part two with at least nagi and bachira, but idk who else i want to include. open to suggestions ♡

© 2023 hyomaslut. please do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content onto any other sites.

[natamouche-art]

if you clocked Yaz's profile pic for sammy at the beginning of episode 6, then you saw the beautiful render of the art I designed for that asset! I had a lot of dark scenes this episode (the beginning and the end bits) so getting to stretch my brain around something so sweet and lovely was super fun!

Top image is the one I settled on, middle two show side by side comparison of my boards and final look, bottom two depict various other icons I explored as alternate options.

[uhitsum]

decided to try on one of my shirts from 2 years ago as a special treat 🤭 i don't have many comparison pics, but DAMN, did this put it into perspective 🥵 90 pounds in 21 months, i'm nearly double my starting weight of 120, and it's got me feeling hot as fuck xD

currently stuffed and digesting a donated meal from a generous sponsor, who just loves watching my belly creep forward. he's already got a few pounds on me, i wonder what his end goal is 😳

[heck-theo]

TMayNT Day 31: Redraw of day one. (Original prompt was: the turtles in you favourite style.)

Ok there are so many ways my brain is trying to be critical BUT I am proud of myself for finishing one of these challenges, no matter what. I've tried and failed to commit to so many projects.

Just to clarify: my own style is NOT my favourite style. I am far too self critical for that. I just entirely ignored the prompt ^^

vvvv Comparison pic and comments on day 1 v day 31 below. vvvv

So for one thing I did want to de-centre Leo a bit, cause the original day 1 prompt was favourite turtle and I DO love them all, Leo just has a special place to me. I also wanted them to not be floating.

Now I do prefer some parts of the original, mainly the simplicity. I do want to try and aim for a more simplified style in the future (if I can stop defaulting to the style I have atm). I might have gone a little overboard with the lighting on the more recent one. STFU up brain, I did not get worse. But it was fun. I think it's good to explore and practice parts of the art process even if it isn't something you want to stick to. I do think I learnt a lot of stuff and made some improvements over the month.

also bonus cute Raph face that I liked from one of the first attempts but I ended up restarting

[loomsims]

Introducing...✧Starlit Glow!✧

I have reached yet ANOTHER milestone on this blog and I am so gagged rn you really don't get it 😅🫶🏽 Thank you guyths so much! 🥰 Here's a reshade preset for taking some pretty screenshots in TS3! I've downloaded so many different presets over the years, but I've always ended up editing them to the point of being unrecognizable, so I just decided to make my own. My goal was to make my shots bright and glowy with a soft and dreamy sort of feeling! :) This is my newest, and probably my favorite rendition of my preset! Comparison shots and details below!

: ̗̀➛ Details! ⋆·˚ ༘ *

This preset was created using Reshade 5.2.2!

This preset is NOT gameplay friendly and I made it purely for taking pretty screenshots.

I'm using the chaitones.fx from this collection of multi_luts created by the talented @erasabledinosaur! you need this for the preset to look right. I will include instructions on how to put it your game in the zip file! :)

I've made some effects toggable as they can get a bit overwhelming in certain lighting!

Ambient Light- shift+A

Hex Lens Flare- shift+M

Tonemap- shift+T

Cinematic DOF- shift+D

ts3 in fullscreen mode has a screen brightening effect which changes the way your screenshots may look, so your game must be in windowed mode for your pics to look like they do in this post!

Here's some more comparison screenies!

That's basically it! All I ask is that you don't claim this to be yours and don't try to modify it and re-upload it in anyway without my permission! If you use this in your game PLEASE tag me @loomsims I would love to see :-D Also if you run into any issues let me know as this is another first time for me!

➤ DOWNLOAD HERE 🤍

[piggyinthemiddle]

As I will probably not post another picture before NYE: Happy New Year from this big pile of lard. 🐷♥️

(Loved the new pic so much that I just HAD TO use it for another comparison, I'm sure you'll forgive me.)

I've been a little quiet, I know! But: Still working on that blob-status..

Below is my usual rambling / gaining experience, of course.

In 2024, my weight kept going back and forth around the 180kg mark, I lost and gained and lost and gained the pounds throughout the last few months and it bothered me alot. But in the end, after Christmas, I'm sitting at a very bloated, wobbly 192kg (423lbs).

So although I did not reach my yearly weight goal (200kg/440lbs) by the end of December due to unfortunate circumstances, 2024 was still my most fattening year yet.

The looks at Christmastime were golden. I'm really kind of struggling with chairs and normal-sized spaces now, and while I still am mobile and can do what I need to do, things have become a lot harder and I need lots of breaks in-between. I have ballooned a lot over the past months regardless of the struggles, the weight and size of my bellyhang makes simple tasks feel impossible tbh.

I bought new clothes as recent as late October but now, most of the shirts don't cover my underbelly, none of my jeans button anymore so I have resorted to stretchy sweat pants.

I'm totally addicted to packing all of my new space with fatty foods, the tightness all across my upper belly after a huge stuffing feels like a reward. Ain't no escaping the road to immobility for this porker.

I could go on forever but I plan on doing some more writing in 2025 so lemme save my words and eat another pizza instead lmao, okay have a good one and enjoy your NYE!!

And I'm totally not complaining if a few asks, some teasing or similar make their way into my inbox THANK YOU BYE 🐷♥️

[starmocha]

So the preview of the new theme song uses imagery of the guys' myths, including Sylus'. Rafayel, Xavier, and Zayne, I think we are all fairly familiar with, but since Sylus is not released yet, there are a lot of speculations about what kind of tragic past he and MC shared. Let's try to break it down. Or make it more confusing. 🫠

Interestingly, before the "tragedy" we see their wrists are bounded together by a red thread.....perhaps....the Red Thread of Fate? As the saying goes, rough paraphrasing on my part: Two lovers, regardless of time, place, and circumstances, are destined to be together, connected by a single red thread. The red thread may twist and tangle, but it may never break.

However, as we can see in the video, Sylus and MC's thread does break, and unlike in the traditional belief, their thread is wrapped around their wrists and not fingers. As the thread breaks, we also see Sylus behind bars. Imprisonment? A crime?

Speaking of wrists, another thing I've noticed with Sylus' trailers is that it involves handcuffs a lot, which seems more significant now in light of this preview.

Especially since we see him also breaking them so easily.

I kind of made a passing joke in the tags of a previous post that Sylus' upcoming chapters carry shades of the Greek myth with Hades and Persephone, but perhaps I may not be too far off?

Just take a look at this wide view of the scene of Sylus and MC separated:

The N109 Zone is shown during the night with a bright red moon, giving a feeling reminiscent of the Underworld ruled by Hades. Note how it looks like Sylus is behind bars, a prison, if you will. In Greek mythology, Hades was tasked with ruling the Underworld, not by his choice, but the wills of others (so in a sense: trapped). Could this mean that perhaps Sylus has no desire to be the leader of Onychinus? Could he be bounded there against his will?

Meanwhile, MC is shown on the side of light. If we compare her to Persephone, she is on the surface world with other people. But from the preview, it looks like she is abducted and taken to the N109 Zone, much like Persephone was abducted and taken to the Underworld to be Hades' bride.

(Brief unserious interlude, because I want to spread my Hades/Persephone agenda:

Sylus is the Hades to MC's Persephone

The dark to her light

He is feared by everyone except her.

He'll let her get away with everything (covering him in silly band-aids, poking him in the side) because he adores her.

If anything happens to her, the world will feel his wrath.

He embodies the feeling of "if anything happens to her, I will kill everyone in this room and then myself."

In short, scary leader is big softie for his wifey and I am willing to die on this hill

OK. End interlude.)

Also, um... 😭

Bringing up the theory that Sylus is trapped? The Beast is trapped in the castle because of the curse by an enchantress. I seriously couldn't get this comparison out of my mind when I saw the dancing scene in the trailer, so it feels appropriate to bring it up here.

Perhaps like the Beast initially, Sylus does display a very dominating and aggressive temperament, but then in his 5* memory, Captivating Flavor, he seems more approachable, so perhaps we will soften him over time?

Now...since Infold had the audacity to drop that trailer while I was writing this, here is another example of them going with the trapped/caged/bounded theory (there is also an image of a bear trap earlier, but I'm at my 10-pic limit, so the cage seems more obvious (and aesthetically pleasing lol)

So could Sylus be trapped in the same way as the Foreseer is trapped within the Tower? But unlike the Foreseer, Sylus is always trying to break free from his chains. Circling back to his myth, could it be that his tie with MC was broken...by him? Perhaps out of a sense of protection? For her sake?

In Beauty and the Beast, the Beast was willing to let Belle go, to be killed by Gaston, to succumb to the curse, all for the sake of Belle's happiness and freedom.

In the myth of Hades and Persephone, Persephone was allowed to leave the Underworld to return to her mother for half a year, but since she ate a few pomegranate seeds, food from the Underworld, she was also bounded to return to the Underworld for the other half to be with her husband. Each year, the cycle returns. Come spring, Hades must let his beloved wife leave him for half a year, and there's nothing he can do to change it.

Bonus Greek myth tidbit: the crow plays a significant part in a myth involving the sun god Apollo, where it acts as a messenger for him. The crow, once white, was burned and turned black, as retribution for telling the truth (revealing an affair) that led to Apollo killing his lover.

So, let's recap real quick the symbolism we have seen. 🤔

Handcuffs: bounded

Bars: imprisonment

Bear trap (couldn't include the pic, but it's there, trust me): caught, trapped

Birdcage: trapped, caged

The crow: a messenger; punished for revealing the truth (so, punishment)

So, gathering my random little thoughts...

Theory 1: Sylus and MC must have been destined lovers in a past life, but due to whatever conflict, Sylus decided to break his bond with her for her protection and accept any punishment that comes with it, which could mean to be ruler of a place he has no desire for, an imprisonment of sort.

Theory 2: Destined lovers, but perhaps a third party interfered out of jealousy or spite. Could Sylus have been caught and framed of a crime and been literally imprisoned, thus forcing him and MC to separate?

Something to this effect, I think, from working with the crumbs I've gathered. It's also almost midnight as of the time of writing this, so my brain is feeling loopy now (also no thanks to that Sylus trailer that popped up while I was writing this 💀)

Anyhoo, make of all of this as you will. My Hades/Persephone agenda will persist.

[fernandopiastri28]

tags: f2 alpine oscar x mark webber's daughter, all pics from pinterest

warnings: daddy issues, poor father-daughter relationship

Anyone but webber - Oscar Piastri

Rule 7: If your biggest worry is who's going to win a petty card game-you're doing something right

They spend the following hours alternating between catching up on missed time through talking and cuddling, and then making out. They attempt a game of uno, which is cut short when Oscar tugs her into his lap and all of their cards go flying to the floor. She tries to pick the cards up so they can restart their game, but it’s made difficult due to Oscar clinging to her like a koala. He denies the comparison over and over, but it’s difficult to dodge the allegation when he has his arms wrapped around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder. 

She can’t help but laugh to herself, thinking that this is her father’s perfect fantasy in some twisted way–being Oscar’s favourite, being so physically close to him and so very important, but then the thought curdles, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She hates how her mind goes to places like that, ruining what should be a sweet moment between her and her boyfriend with the unwanted presence of her dad. 

Leaning her upper body closer to the ground, her fingers brush against the final card she can see on the ground, who knows how many more are sprawled across the ground just out of sight. Oscar holds her hips still on his lap, fingers tight and steady, making sure she doesn’t faceplant into the marble floor from leaning forward too far. She takes a quick look at the card–Pick up 4–her personal favourite card to play. 

Lucky for her and unlucky for Oscar, she knows how to rig the shuffling cards to make sure she gets that card, so she adds it to the not yet randomised stack. She splits the stack in half, folding them back so each card fans out individually, letting the two separate stacks slot in together, card by card. 

Oscar watches as she shuffles the cards, his lips resting against her bare skin with his nose nudging against her shoulder. Her face twists up in concentration, taking her time tediously sorting the pack. His eyes flickering to stare at the side of her face, one of his eyebrows jumping slightly in concern. “You okay?” He hums, the noise vibrating against her skin. 

She’s still dwelling on the her-dad-thing. She nods, brushing the thought away. It isn’t ther time right now to allow her dad intrude on her happiness–it never really is in all fairness. Right now, she has Oscar right with her, holding her close like he's never going to let go. She shouldn’t think of anything besides that, she should allow her mind to switch off for once.

The art of dealing cards is one she mastered many years ago. It was Jenson Button, actually, who taught her everything she knows about card tricks. It happened near the end of a night of a dinner party hosted at The Rosberg Residence. Her dad was busy talking to Fernando and some other slightly balding man who she couldn’t name for a million dollars, so she was left sitting at the long abandoned dining table, fiddling with a pack of disney princess designed playing cards Mark had tossed into their shopping basket a week back during their weekly grocery shop, telling her she’d need to bring a toy to keep herself entertained when ‘the adults were talking’.

The cards had been a dumb choice, in hindsight, because she didn’t know a single game besides go fish at the time, which gets boring pretty quick when you’re playing it on your own. Instead of that, she would repetitively spread out all the cards across the table, then pushed them back into a messy pile, crushing them in her hands, trying to force them into a neat stack–all sticking up straight and uniform. 

She’d lost counts of how many times she’d repeated the action when all of a sudden, her dad’s friend, ‘Uncle Jenson’ had appeared by her side. He was like a birthday party magician, offering to teach her some card tricks. He shuffled the cards so effortlessly, his hands moving with practiced ease, showing her how to make the deck perfectly straight, how to deal them with a clean flick of the wrist. She’d been mesmerized, hanging on to his every word, every movement, her mouth dangling open in pure amazement.

He’d even played a game of go fish with her–her dad never did that. It became their thing, she’d show him all the new tricks she’d learnt thanks to youtube and kids at school whenever Jenson came over, even when she got older and begun to understand that he wasn’t here for the reason of watching her play with cards.

That hardly mattered though, because he made sure she felt like he was interested, and maybe he was.

“I take my card shuffling very seriously,” She looks down at where Oscar’s face rested on her shoulder, his eyes are half-closed and hazy, a soft and content smile tweaking up the corners of his lips. “So, please shut your eyes while I deal because it’s hardly fair for you to be able to see my cards if I can’t see yours,”

Oscar scrunches his nose up, “A bit dramatic,” He grumbles, but he still obediently, slightly begrudgingly, shuts his eyes, raising a hand to cover them for good measure. She smiles triumphantly, wriggling around slightly in his lap as she gathers the cards that had scattered around them. “Stop.” His voice is halfway between a groan and a laugh as his free hand grips her hip harder, trying to make her sit still. 

She likes that she has that affect on him, it’s fun. "Are you peeking?" She waves her fingers infront of his face, testing if he has any reaction. She goes for the faux-punch next, her fist stopping mere inches from where his hand spans out over his eyes. He doesn’t flinch, once again, so she reckons she’s in the clear.

Oscar grins behind his hand. "I would never." His voice is thick with amusement, his eyebrows wriggling just above where his hand covers himself. “I’m offended you even asked.”

With the cards finally sorted, she taps Oscar lightly on the hand. "Alright, you can look now. But no cheating."

Oscar pulls a face, his lips pulled wide into a thin closed mouth smile. He looks like a frog, he always does when he pulls that face. “Got it, chief.” She pulls herself off his lap, going tumbling onto the couch right next to his seat, settling in with her knees tucked up next to her. Oscar places down the first card, a yellow 2. 

They make it a significant way through the game when she decides to place down her draw four card. Oscar looks up at her with wide eyes, seemingly offended, when he places his own card down onto the stack–his own draw four. “Uno.” He looks pretty content with himself, assured that he’s got this win in the bag.

She pulls her lips tight, trying not to grin too wide. She flicks through her cards, extracting the other draw four she’d been storing and placing it down.

Check mate, Oscar.

He grimaces, his nose slightly scrunched. “Damn,” He huffs, leaning forward, his hand reaching for the card stack to collect his 12 new cards, when he suddenly pauses, and instead places down his final card. 

The fourth and final draw 4 in the pack. 

“Boom.” He makes an explosion gesture with his hands, “I win, and rightfully so.” He grins, watching her jaw drop in shock. He pauses, studying her features. “Oh god, you really do take uno seriously, don’t you?”

She looks at him, her features twisted in anger, “All card games, actually.” She’s so obviously joking, but Oscar still holds up his hands defensively. Despite that, he’s grinning like he’s just stolen the world’s greatest victory. She reckons he won’t even smile this hard if he wins the F2 championship.

Scratch then, when he wins it. “Well, now I’m scared,” he teases, getting up from his chair and joining her on the couch, scowling jokingly when she leans away, maintaining a good amount of space. “Aw, are you gonna hold a grudge over this?”

She narrows her eyes, doing her best to maintain her "serious" face, but the corners of her mouth betray her, twitching upward. “Oh, absolutely. You’ll pay for this later.” She slumps against the couch, shrinking down next to him with her knees to her chest and back curled. 

In a quick flash, Oscar cups her face in his almost too big hands, stealing a kiss. It’s only quick, their lips barely brushing together for more tan a millisecond, but it’s enough to pull her out of her fake anger. She lets out a small sigh, his thumb still vacantly drifting over her cheek. She leans her head back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling, pretending to be deep in thought. “You’re really impossible, you know that?”

Oscar chuckles, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side. “So I’ve been told,” She tucks herself into his side, her head resting on her chest. Oscar feels so warm, he’s like a heated teddy, the ones that have beans built into their stomachs to be put in the microwave so they can be used for cramps. He alleviates any pain in her, so he’s actually very similar to one of those bears. 

She settles into the warmth of him, her head resting on his chest now, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. His hand moves from her cheek to her arm, drawing lazy circles over the exposed skin arm. He has a special talent when it comes to cracking her cold exterio–he’s like a fire, melting away the frosty front she puts up, able to get to her soft warmth. He provides her with a sense of shelter and escape, allowing herself to defrost.

“I’m not mad,” she murmurs after a few moments once they’ve gone completely quiet, because she doesn’t want Oscar to think that she really took a card game that deeply. He means more than winning a stupid game of uno–but ideally, she’d have both. “But you’re definitely not getting a rematch.”

“Anytime,” He tucks her hair back behind her ears, which she quickly undoes, insisting she looks like a kid with her hair like that. He looks out the window, his eyes gazing out just above her head. “It’s late.” He murmurs, meeting her eyes again. “I should head home, yeah?”

She turns her body around to look out the window, noticing that the sky is a muted grey, heavy rain clouds thick above them. The hours seem to have flown away, wasting away their day with childish board games, fighting over what toppings to get on their take-away pizza, crafting up the perfect post lunch sundaes, and cuddling in silence–content to just be in each other’s arms.

“Yeah,” She swallows her words down, wanting to ask him to stay a little longer. She shouldn’t though, and she won’t. She knows better to become too attached to Oscar so early on. Asking him to stay over just once will probably lead into her needing him in the bed next to her every night to be able to sleep.

That’s too much to ask or expect of a F2 driver who travels the world nearly constantly. It’ll be worse when he gets into F1–she knows he will, not if. It’s a matter of when at this point. She needs to savour his days being in a junior championship, having more freedom and less invasive eyes watching their every move. 

But despite him broaching the concept relatively early on, Oscar only end up actually heading back to his own place about an hour later, but not without many quick pecks and ‘i’ll see you tomorrow’s, only for his hands to stay lingering on her waist and his feet firmly planted on the ground. She doesn’t want him to go home yet, he doesn’t want to leave, but it’s far too early in their relationship for him to start staying the night. 

She also wants to actually go out as a couple before they start sharing a bed–she has certain standards. 

As Oscar finally pulls away, giving her one last lingering kiss, she grins, standing in the doorway, watching him walk down the steps leading up to their front door, slightly struggling to carry his bags. She leans into the doorframe, smiling all giddy and jittery. She’s a bit breathless, her skin still tingling where his hands had been, which was close to every inch of her body. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” He grins back up at her when he reaches the final step, his body hunched over slightly under his bags. “Today was really nice, girlfriend,” He even cheeses at that, turning just as red as her. 

“See you, Pastry.” She waves him goodbye, blowing a kiss. “Don’t be late tomorrow, or I’ll have words with Mark.”

Oscar rolls his eyes, loading his bags up into the boot of the taxi. “I plan to be on time, spider. Wanna have as much time with you as possible.” He also blows her a kiss in exchange just before he gets into the backseat of his taxi.

Closing the door, she leans her back against it, a smile permanently etched on her face. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

y/n.priv (private account)

liked by l.sarge, f/n.privy, and 2 others

y/n.priv manifesting my dream hand of cards, so fuck you oscar for taking two of the +4s

osc.priv hey much love and everything but was my selfie really necessary at the end?

-> y/n.priv awhh i thought you looked cute :(

-> y/n.priv okay why am i being sappy THATS ON YOU FOR TAKING MY PHONE AND TAKING THE DAMN PIC

-> l.sarge lmfaoooo why does oscar look like that dawwggg

bsf/n last photo was a jumpscare ://

-> osc.priv have i done something to you or ????

-> bsf/n errr took my bestfriend (btw slide two?? we will have words)

-> y/n.priv there's enough of me to share around ?? im not property ?? but sorry oscar i will be taking bsf/n :-) (btw thats not even the worst of it :))) hehehe)

-> osc.priv i see how it is. (btw whats going on?)

l.sarge oooh sexy man in slide 2 and 3 pls slide the @

-> osc.priv @.oscarpiastri 🫦🫦🫦🫦 swipe up

-> y/n.priv oh.

osc.priv (private account)

liked by y/n.priv, l.sarge, rbrt.schwrtzmn

osc.priv pretty lady

y/n.priv Osc this is actually really cute omg

-> osc.priv Haha thanks

-> y/n.priv ok wtf why are you talking to me like im robert i am legit your gf

-> rbrt.schwrtzmn ???? what i got to do with this

l.sarge Awwww Oscar is in loveeeee

-> osc.priv helll yeahhh :-3

-> l.sarge fuck you mean ':3' ??? you fully grown TWENTY YEAR OLD

last chapter, next chapter

hehehe, uno heavy chapter with some logan at the end :) date chapter will be next, i promisee

taglist: @prettiest-at-the-party, @forza-charles, @sltwins, @sweetwh0re, @lucktales, @ellen3101, @nxlx96, @notantou, @cloud-55, @wisestarfishbouquet, @zupercoolgirl

[dejabooooo]

Ok I’m doing it. Idk if anyone will read this but here’s a compilation of all the stancest crumbs from bill’s book along with a stancest endgame theory:

I say theory because I can’t think of a better word atm. I know this is obviously not the intention of the text. I am merely taking the information we were given and twisting it to fit my sick agenda. It’s what bill would have wanted (Well maybe not quite like this but lol fuck him anyway).

So! Obviously billford was the star of the show here, but as I learned a little bit more about the codes I didn’t just learn what they say. I learned that all the stancest ship fuel is contained within them, and even tho it’s not much in comparison, what we did get is pretty profound!

There was a brand new code alphabet introduced in this book that we’ve never seen before. This cute little bros code that Stan and Ford invented when they were kids. Besides this image, this code is used only three times in the entire book.

The first (and insanely subtle) instance is on this page where ford concludes that Stan is the only person he can turn to after bill drives him to his breaking point:

It’s very small and hard to make out. On the window amid the equations.

It says: “miss you”

Pertaining the contents of this page, my first thought was that this is probably meant to be interpreted as a message directed at Fiddleford. But that wouldn’t really make sense given how it’s presented. This wasn’t written in after the fact. It couldn’t be directed at Fiddleford, they’re standing together arm in arm. It’s a code only Ford and Stan know, and this pic wasn’t taken long after they separated. This message must be about Stanley.

Ford uses the code on the next page, the last lost journal page where he’s talking about reaching out to Stan. It translates to: “have I been too harsh all along?”

This is so gut wrenching to me because he’s never written in this code literally anywhere else in the entire journal. And he says this vulnerable little line about Stanley in this code he probably hasn’t used in years but still remembers, in this code that only Stan would be able to understand besides himself.

The last usage is by Stan. Because the rest of the family is watching him write this, to the rest of them it just looks like he’s censoring his cussing for the kids’ sakes. But to ford, stan’s slyly writing him a little message that only he can see…

And what does it say?

“Love ya bro”

Ford’s arc in this book is realizing he should put his attention and concern in the ones that love him rather than fueling his obsessive hatred toward the one who hurt him. He comes to understand that he’ll be happier if he’s open about his past and rely on his family whose affection isn’t conditional like bill’s was. He moves past his shame, and comes out of the paranoid isolation that bill had encouraged him into.

And of course he receives this comfort from his whole family. But I think it’s very interesting how bill is framed as this toxic ex, Fiddleford is framed as the one he should have put his trust in during that pivotal time in 80s where ford ultimately blew his chance, and then there’s Stan.

Stan is hardly brought up at all but his presence lingers in more than few of Ford’s vulnerable journal entries. Stan is the one who put Bill in his place. Stan is the one who made Ford realize where his priorities should be. Stan is the one who’s accepted him all along and is the one remaining by his side in the end.

Bill even blames Stan for stealing ford from him like a jealous ex who can’t stand the fact that ford has moved on with someone else. (This is directed at the reader but it mirrors his frustration with the stans when they worked together to defeat him)

In conclusion: incest somehow ended up being the healthiest partnership option all along. Who knew?

BONUS CODE THAT CAN BE MISCONSTRUED IN A MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE WAY:

At the bottom of the first lost journal page where he’s talking about his loneliness and yearning for human connection, he mentions Stan in a code again. After embarrassing himself in front of the waitress he says: “Stanley could have made her laugh” 💔