#and the alternative is putting out ads on like INSTAGRAM and i don't want to do that. idk!

[mildmayfoxe]

they accepted my blaze but put a community label on it :/

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/01/2024 Daily Recap

TLDR; Thank you for the help!; HoistTheAdsReceipts; HoistThePetitionCampaign; UK News; Basingstroke Comic Con; Cast & Crew Sightings; Samba's birthday; Watch Partys; In Person Meetups; Articles; #OhBloysHeMad; Videos; Misc; Love Notes; DailyDarby/Tonight's Taika

Hey everyone! Thank you for all the kind folks that gave me feedback on the Renewal Repo! I'm still getting stuff back filled but please feel free to check it out now, it's got the current events I'm aware of and I'm keeping it up to date with everything daily that comes across my feeds. There's also a contact form for anything I'm missing or you'd like to add!

OFMD Renewal Repository

== Hoist The Ads Receipts ==

So technically this was yesterday, sorry I put it in my todo folder and then completely forgot to add it! So for those of you asking about receipts for the Hoist the Ads Charity donations. There are more images on those links but I'm running out of image allotment for this post so please visit the tumblr or other socials to read the rest. Instagram Link / Tumblr / Twitter

==Hoist The Petition Campaign!==

The @SaveOFMDCrew is hosting a #HoistThePetition campaign to try and boost Signatures on the Petition. You have a chance to win some OFMD stickers. If you don't have twitter you are welcome to message me and I'll message LC on your behalf or find alternative contacts for you! For those with twitter: LCWebsXOXO

== UK News ==

As always, thanks @lamentus1 for all the information on the UK front! Basingstroke Comic Con is happening on May 10-12 2024 at the Hampshire Court Hotel in Basingstoke, UK

BasingStrokeComic Con Facebook Ticket Links Some cool news on the twitter front, @lamentus1 tweeted the SunTV Magazine editor Steven Corbett and he responded!

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

It's Samba's birthday!!!! He sent us a lovely photo on IG

Looks like he's feeling the love! He's trending! (and so are oranges haha- thank you @lucyrosebutler for catching the trends!) He's been out here liking everyone's comments so he's definitely seeing everyone's well wishes! Thanks for making him feel loved everyone!

Kristian Nairn gave some more updates! Looks like they're sorted for Wee John Monday! More info tomorrow!

==Reminders for Upcoming Events==

=#OurFlagMeansDeadloch=

Last day of #OurFlagMeansDeadloch tomorrow!

Watch Party Hashtags:

#OurFlagMeansDeadloch

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

=#StewAsACrew=

February 4th is National Soup Day! Share soup pics, jokes, recipes, etc while rewatching Season 1 of OFMD! 

Watch Party Hashtags:

#StewAsACrew

#AdoptOurCrew

#SaveOFMD

== In Person Meet-Ups!==

Are you near Burbank, CA? Tues, Feb 13 there will be a walking processional to celebrate #OFMD! Thank you @aimeekitty for sharing this!

== Articles ==

The big article that's got everyone's attention today was this pile of nonsense from the Vulture about "The Truth Behind Max's Cancellation Spree". If you don't want to give them the satisfaction of having clicks, you can go under the cut on this post to see screenshots of the article.

The Truth Behind Max's Cancellation Spree

This has once again triggered our fun and exciting hashtag: #OhBloysHeMad and a new one #Don'tStreamOnMax.

There are some tips from the #SaveOFMD Crew though about Hashtags and cross-posting

Also something to note....

==Videos==

New episode of Movies with Marty! Our Flag Means Death (2023) S2 Eps 3 & 4 Reaction | FIRST TIME WATCHING

==Ad Campaigns Up and Running!==

Our Street Level Ads are live in New York!

== Love Notes ==

I am very tired tonight lovelies. I had a lot to say but it's been a very long day, so I'm going to call it quits a bit earlier tonight. I think this picture sums up my feelings pretty well. <3 you all, see you tomorrow.

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Tonight's Darby picture is courtesy of @jacemerlyn on twitter. Thank you for this gem! Taika's picture courtesy of his instagram.

[hillbillyoracle]

Quick wins if you don't like your relationship with screens:

Get rid of recommendations and feeds - there's lots of extensions to block Facebook and Twitter feeds, as well as YouTube recommendations. Purge your YouTube Subscriptions and only select videos from your subscriptions or what you seek out in your search bar. Don't use these on mobile where taking the feed out is not natively available.

Adopt alternative messengers - Look for messengers that don't use your data to show you ads. Skip Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok messages. Signal is the classic but if that's not your style there are many others. Want a letter writing like experience without the postage? Try SLOWLY.

Create a social email account or organize your current email to show you more social emails - social emails are emails that were personally written to you specifically from people you know. I get it, you don't want to give your phone number out to people and if you quit social media what would you give them? Your email. Depending on what email you're using there's lots of tutorials on how to get social emails in their own box or tab so you can find them easily. Declutter your email (newsletters especially) so you can more easily use it as a tool.

Consider leaving or putting strict limits on apps with no user controls over your feeds - I'm talking TikTok and Instagram here. Don't want to leave, that's fine. But take a break. See how you feel. Still not wanting to leave. That's cool. Consider setting an app timer and giving someone else the password. Given that there's no way to build in a stopping point in these apps and they're primarily mobile which make user modification dicey - you need a hard limit some how. But seriously consider passing on it.

Consider a custom phone UI (Android Phones) - there a many apps out there that let you alter your phone to be visually less distracting. I use minimalist phone but there are others. Some cost up front but the customization is simple and effective.

None of this will ultimately fix the issue. To be clear. That's not the goal. The goal is to give you enough of a break that you start to see social media for what it is a little more, make it less appealing. So this is not one of those "just turn off notifications and turn your phone to greyscale" posts. It's more of a life raft to help you keep your head above water.

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 7: Orphrey 🪡

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Orphrey (n.)

elaborate embroidery or a piece of such

an ornamental border or band, especially on church robes

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1. Yay, we survived the 1st full week of October/Inktober 🎉

2. I continue to astound myself with dumb posting mistakes 🤦‍♀️

3. At least the art came out nice—Might be my new favorite! 😇

Click the "Keep Reading" and I'll explain more about those dumb mistakes...and of course my thoughts/process, too ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

----------

Once again: Hey, congrats everyone—We've survived 1 full week of Inktober/October/etc! 🎉

And with that: Lucky Obscutober Number 7 comes first with an apology and second with a correction: I, in my infinite wisdom, misspelled "Orphrey" as "Orphey" on the original and Lite prompt lists. 🤦‍♀️ 🙄

I've since fixed it in the places I'm able to (so if you go looking and can't find the mistake, that's why!) and added a comment correction to the ones that I can't...And also made the discovery that I previously somehow accidentally deleted the Instagram post of the prompt lists?? 😦 So that's been restored now too.

I think I'm more bothered by the fact that it took me over a week to notice than I am that the mistake was made, but oh well. [Although—Maybe I did almost catch it and that's what happened to the Instagram post?? I don't know. I just know I thought I was losing my mind when I couldn't find it and I'm so glad Instagram has a "trash"/recently deleted place it went to so I could just restore the post as it was.]

My absent-minded posting mishaps aside, I got a later start on this one than I really wanted to, but this time it's purely my own fault for losing track of time while I was working on something else [the fruits of which will hopefully be revealed closer to November] so I can't say I'm all that upset about it.

I'd be more upset if I'd had more trouble pulling the mandala together, but this one came surprisingly easy. To be fair, I did look up a few references of embroidery and actually "orphrey" pictures before I went to bed last night, so my subconscious got some more time to chew on it. Another big help is that a lot of the orphrey pictures I saw reminded me a lot of mandalas and motifs I've already been using or thinking about.

Believe it or not, that was purely coincidental. I actually didn't look up pictures for any of the words while I was assembling the prompt list. If it didn't happen to come up while I was verifying different sources of the definitions—so usually, a small reference photo on Wikipedia, if that—I haven't seen it, so in that way I'm still often diving into these things about as blind as people who didn't put the list together. 😆 It wasn't a "rule" or anything that I set for myself, I just genuinely didn't think to look up any images at the time.

I noticed while looking at the images that it seems common to do a motif that alternates a more circular emblem and a square one like this example, so I made sure the get that in there. If I'd had more space, I would've filled my circles and squares a little more elaborately both per the definition and the reference photos, but I wanted to leave some room for other things and not spend too long on super-tiny details that would be difficult to see.

Besides, I think the way I did it, while maybe less elaborate overall than is really ideal, does a fairly good job of echoing the more simple stitching we (or at least I ) often think of when I think of more informal, artistic hand-embroidery.

And that simple embroidery stitching is more of what I focused on for the middle round of the mandala, in case it wasn't obvious. I looked up some embroidery stitch references and tried to replicate some I thought would be a little more recognizable as different from my "normal" mandala lines and dots. I kinda wanted to get some more variety in there, but I had enough trouble as it was trying to think of some simple motifs that would show off the "stitches" without feeling "inappropriate" for "church robes," so I just stuck with what I was more confident in.

Oh, also, I probably should've mentioned this sooner: A small disclosure that most official definitions for "orphrey" don't say "church robes," they say "ecclesiastical vestment." To which, upon first reading, I thought: "Thank you, that is no help at all."

There's definitely a hefty dose of irony in an already obscure word using two more arguably even more obscure words in its definition, but there is also a limit to exactly how far this "obscure word" rabbit hole needs to go. So I looked up that 2-word phrase and both of those words separately and determined that "church robes" is a reasonable substitute that most people will actually understand when you say it.

Anyway. When I think of both church-related and embroidered garments, my first thoughts are dark, heavy fabrics with gold or silver thread, which pretty succinctly explains all of the color choices here. The white mandala lines kind of stand in for silver, then spot color with the gold which also works the idea of heavy gold trim on some fabrics like that. And a bonus I didn't even think of until I was done: Since the gold borders are circular, they really echo halos, which is very nicely church-adjacent imagery. 😇

And then I mixed black, burgundy, and a bit of navy together for the rest of the background since those were the robe colors that came to mind the quickest.

I think the background colors are doing more heavy lifting here than I can fully appreciate; Typing it out and knowing how I put the lines together, the final product more feels complex to me than I think it should. That's certainly not a bad thing, though!

If the rest of the Obscutober pieces could come together this smoothly and I be this pleased with them, that would be amazing, but I know better than to expect that. 😅 But a girl can hope, right? At least it was a nice way to polish off the first week!

Now to hope I can get this thing cross-posted decently quickly without any more ridiculous incidents like the spelling mistake that making it technically started with... 🥴

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[duckprintspress]

February 2024 Created Works Round-Up!

Duck Prints Press’s monthly “created works round-ups” are our opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing work that people working with us have done that ISN’T linked to their work with Duck Prints Press. We include fanworks, outside publications, and anything else that creators feel like sharing with y’all. Inclusion is voluntary and includes anything that they decided “hey, I want to put this on the created work’s round-up!”

Check out what they’ve shared with us this month…

-

Eliot Rocks the Memory Palace, Chapter Four: Art by EliotQueliot / @eliotqueliot

art || the magicians (tv) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || teen & up || creator choses not to use warnings || complete

summary: After dinner, Monster!Eliot takes Quentin sightseeing in New York City by moonlight.

There's a lovely view from the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building.

And the Monster set a nice cheery fire blazing in the bay.

Heights are fun.

other tags: falling, heights, possession

TUMBLR - AO3 - INSTAGRAM

​

All We Need Is One Good Day (Any Day That You're Alive), Chapter 1 by EliotQueliot / @eliotqueliot

fiction || the magicians (tv) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || mature || creator choses not to use warnings || 2,097 || work in progress

summary: A fluffy fic mixing the books by Lev Grossman with the show from SyFy, in which Quentin and Eliot do get to spend that summer together, but build on their immediate friendship to get together from day one of Q's classes.

AO3

​

Mosaic Haiku, Chapter 10 by EliotQueliot / @eliotqueliot

fiction || the magicians (tv) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || general audiences || creator choses not to use warnings || 124 || ongoing series

summary: I'm writing a series of haiku about Eliot and Quentin's lives together at the Mosaic (the timeloop lifetime in which they loved each other for 50 years). Just like the patterns they build there, I'll forever be adding new haiku, but yet the story is also always complete. My hope is to reflect the beauty of all life, just like they did.

AO3

​

Sailing to Blackspire, Chapter 5 by EliotQueliot / @eliotqueliot

fiction || the magicians (tv) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 11,539 || work in progress

summary: Quentin says he's staying with a Monster for all Eternity.

Eliot says, "Hell, no. Not without me."

In which Eliot and Quentin use their time aboard the Muntjac on the way to Castle Blackspire more wisely.

In this chapter, the friends continue to do their best to find alternate ways to turn magic back on, without Quentin and Eliot getting stuck in Castle Blackspire.

other tags: Canon-typical danger. Also, regarding the fic as a whole, please heed the rating. This is AU, but jumps off from canon at a specific point within 3x13. The characters don't know what I'm trying to fix because for them it hasn't happened (and in this fic, it never will). But Eliot (his POV) clearly knows that Quentin's life is ultimately in danger.

AO3

​

never a god by ilgaksu / @ilgaksu

fiction || mysterious lotus casebook || m/m, poly (one gender: male) || li lianhua/fang duobing/di feisheng, di feisheng/fang duobing || teen & up || creator choses not to use warnings || 1,077 || ongoing series

summary: The evening shift at the House of Scarlet Delights starts out just like any other.

other tags: Post Canon, Sex Work, Genderfluid Li Lianhua

AO3

​

bringing a gun to chekhov's house by ilgaksu / @ilgaksu

fiction || dune (2021), dune - frank herbert || f/m || paul atreides/chani kynes || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 1,895 || work in progress

summary: Chani sees him first in lectures. This is because he can’t stop staring at her. It’s unsubtle. It’s derivative. It’s the start of every novel written by a white man drowning in his own midlife crisis. Chani is wise to it; to him.

After a while, she realises she’s still looking right back.

other tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Academia, Postcolonialism, Breakup

AO3

​

On Writing Combat and Sex Scenes by Tris Lawrence / @tryslora

writing craft blog post || original work || no ships || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 1,523 || complete

summary: This post talks about writing sex and combat (and no, I do not mean combative sex). It is primarily SFW.

TUMBLR - PILLOWFORT

​

[bluepoodle7]

#Househuntedgame #WhoEditedTheseImages#HouseDatingSimWhen #WeirdArtAndImagesIFound #MyThoughts

Hear me out.

I mean if you feed him evil people he is both a house husband and real estate.

These are my favorite Maison Talo Meme images.

I wonder who made these edits?

I know the woman talking about the inside of the house is from a junji ito story.

The image I saw on Discord made by the same person who made the Maison Talo Squatter Otter sketch.

It's like a weird alternate reality where Maison Talo was a thicc pollinator house and Heim Balie as a lanky skinny seed barer house.

I randomly found this randomly on Discord by rat666.

I wish we got a ENA and John Doe crossover image.

I remember seeing a art work with both character interacting but the artist deleted it here but on pinterest it is on there but it is hard to find.

I didn't know Maison Talo sprouted with a finished room over garage.

Image not mine but I know who made it.

A blog about obscurity stuff, plushies and food. on Tumblr - #We Baby Bears Squatter Otter

Images not mine but links are there.

SYNANON/ÉLAN SYSTEM on X: "No, he doesn’t want your order. He wants YOU. #Househuntedgame #househunted https://t.co/Zrh70GRXK3" / X (twitter.com)

🔞Karnessa and a 1000 worms on X: "me and Maison Talo #househuntedgame https://t.co/mGsCMYeNej" / X (twitter.com)

憨格子🔞 on X: "@Junjomonstah 😍😍😍wow！That's cool！ https://t.co/Db6eSR3QLL" / X (twitter.com)

Vermillic Sauce (100% Pure Paracetamol)🍉 on X: "I might draw Maison and Katherine having a beef to each other but I'm inside the house and I can't go out because there may be intruders nearby (ignore the image) #househuntedgame #somethingmaliciousisbrewing https://t.co/auFlacPg0C" / X (twitter.com)

Verona🍉🪱 on X: "crazy?I was crazy once,he locked me in a room,a storage room,a storage room made of meat,and it made me crazy.crazy?I was crazy once,he locked me in a room,a storage room,a storage room made of meat,and it made me crazy crazy?I was crazy once- https://t.co/e93f8xWfZc" / X (twitter.com)

A Different Reality in Uncanny Valley (Mostly Maison Talo) - ?R@di0 K!ll3d the V!d30 St@r? - Wattpad

Eddie/Roach on X: "Saw this ad on Instagram and all I could think about was maison from #Househuntedgame by @mortisfox https://t.co/e2EYs8TVvB" / X

real nutty🏴‍☠️🏳️‍⚧️ on X: "would you? i would original art is from MortisFox #Househuntedgame #maisontalo https://t.co/XwTbT0tyT4" / X

🔞juegos de locos🔞❤️‍🔥memes❤️‍🔥( crazy game's ) on X: "One dies, but dies happy hahahahaha #HouseHuntedGame #HouseHuntedMaison #HouseHuntedGameMaison https://t.co/tsj268oFkG" / X

Ai Text Generated Stories (John Doe and Maison Talo yay-) - MaSoN TrAlO x John Doe (real) - Wattpad

Eli 🔞 on X: "Saw this and thought of Maison #Househuntedgame #maisontalo #johndoegame #JohnDoe https://t.co/5ob9DuOTiC" / X

Glam_Rock_Chica on X: "I got bored and started putting filters from Snapchat on them lol 😂😂#househunted #househunted2 #heimbalie #masiontalo https://t.co/w0d57cDFhE" / X

I still think about this silly warehouse joke like someone's werewolf oc bit a REALTOR.

🔞 🌼Valerie on X: "https://t.co/pq4t0mcNiy" / X

Forgot how tall Maison Talo is since in game we don't see all of him.

Maison talo png (pinterest.com)

Hello Kitty John Doe and I wonder who the artist is?

Hello kitty Doe<333 (pinterest.com)

I'm trying to find this artist.

Image not mine but link is there.

images (225×225) (gstatic.com)

This Maison Talo edit gives me the Matrix vibes.

Like this Maison Talo holds out both of his hands holding two different colored business cards that are blue and red like the movie.

Мейсон тало (pinterest.com)

This Maison Talo artwork gives me encountering a enemy in Illbleed vibes.

он НИКОГДА не обует вас на квартиру (pinterest.com)

Randomly found this Maison Talo car fire meme.

Мейсон в Очках на фоне машины (pinterest.com)

Gives me Rick and Morty vibes like the multiple ricks but with these Maison Talo edit memes I randomly find.

Like each have their own personalities.

ShadowyOne on X: "What do you mean it didn't happen like this? #digitalart #Maison #maisontalo #househunted #johndoegame #mortisfox #meme https://t.co/I7ZDjYuNxS" / X

Olezhura on X: "Will the author of John Doe forgive me x) It was supposed to happen, and you got it, lol #JohnDoe #johndoegame #JohnDoememe #GenshinImapct #GenshinImpactItto #GenshinImpactmeme https://t.co/qfRN1c98uO" / X

Randomly found this Maison Talo my beloved heart gif.

Maison Talo Maison GIF - Maison Talo Maison - Discover & Share GIFs (tenor.com)

[kobblefort]

Rushsly: The Early Days 4

Welcome to the last pre-caverns episode, sorry I've been dragging my ass on that!!! Sorry about the slow update in general, I was busy all day. It will either disappoint or relieve you to know that I didn't think about kobbles at all until after I got home and took a nap.

I could kill them. You definitely shouldn't think things like that. But I could pull the lever and just crunch them up. The wagon, the guards, the buffalo, just take it all to fucking crunch city. Shut Toastsdrip and Rarsa Tightnesstrusses would be smashed in an instant ok nah because I am not physically capable of doing violence to a guy named "Shut Toastsdrip" that just ain't in me!!!! That's one guy I don't want to even entertain the thought of killing!! But I still do. But I won't do it if you were wondering. I have all sorts of intrusive thoughts because of severe OCD that I have never actually acted on, besides maybe within the safe confines of a virtual space like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive where I can throw a flashbang right at my team's spawn at the start of the round or ping my squadmate in the head just as he settles in to the perfect camping position, get kicked from the server, and go on about my day. I've been getting Instagram ads telling me that people would like to pay me to do some experimental medicinal treatment that's supposed to make the intrusive thoughts go away, but despite the fact that I spent my 20s taking any drug I was ever offered with wild abandon and that includes freebasing bath salts I have grown into the kind of guy who is not actually enthusiastic about the prospect of testing weird new drugs. But this series isn't about me it's about Dwarf Fortress the greatest simulation game of all time.

Oh shit I didn't know Ace Steel was in my fort. Actually I'm literally going to rename this guy "Ace Steel" because that's funny to me.

This is going to confuse the fuck out of me in 4 hours when I've completely forgot about it and just see his job title pop up somewhere. Well anyway let's talk about traps shall we? Not the music genre unfortunately (though if you have a girlfriend I highly recommend putting on this classic of the prototypical genre or maybe this one to frighten her) I mean the serrated iron disc kind.

Across 5 Z-levels, this is the general layout of traps. Let's start from the bottom because that's where invaders will hopefully think it is a good idea to enter the fortress from, via an unassuming little ramp down into the ground while thinking "those idiots really left their back door open!" So just to start things off we have the old faithful, cage traps - they don't always work, but when they do work, they always work. It alternates in rows with sets of sawblade traps, which I've never actually used in a fortress before, and the first two levels are just that. The third level is where things get interesting - stonefall traps are, for the most part, completely fucking useless unless you use them in tandem with environmental hazards. For some reason they are incredibly easy to dodge, but the successful dodging of our literal rat-bastard invaders is exactly what is being banked on, in order to plunge them into deep, deadly little puddles of water. You can kill real rats kind of like that using a bucket that they fall into to drown them, but you shouldn't. If you're going to kill any kind of creature drowning is obscene and cruel. And also remember that when you die and go to purgatory you will be killed just the same way as everything you have killed, down to the last little bug, so if you ever must kill anything be absolutely sure to make it quick, merciful, and painless. The rats in Dwarf Fortress aren't real though and they also like to kill my cute innocent little kobbles so I feel fine about finding the humor in them barely staggering through four rows of sawblade traps just to fall off a tiny precipice and drown. Anyway after that there's a little "reprieve room" for the bastards who survived to regroup - I might add more traps later, but everyone having to haul around the big iron mechanisms and boulders was really cutting into productivity, so we'll see about that. Finally there's the piece de resistance - still being constructed because the coal is very far away and heavy, but either way it is exactly what I said it was, a paved road made out of bituminous coal that will (hopefully!) be ignited by pockets of magma when the floodgates are opened by an unassuming little lever posted over by the tavern. At the end are doors which will bait the invaders as long as they remain unsealed, which works for now, though ideally something more reliable like a retractable bridge over a big-ass hole would make a far better final bulwark than just some literally glass doors. But I'm choosing to believe this stuff is all glass in the "Morrowind glass armor" sense not the "Headshop guy dropping a perfectly good bong on the tile floor to try and prove a vaguely Sinophobic point" sense. But why go through all this trouble anyway? Let's answer this by digging into the minds of some more kobbles, we haven't done that for a while - I think we'd do well to start with our glorious leader Acl Controlledown.

We see him working on the same drudgery as any given peasant must, intricately engraving every single tile of the three-space apartments.

He draws monkeys (I highly approve) trees and plants all over the bedroom of a random archer as selflessly as any kobble with 1/10th of his stature. He performs religious rites and makes friends and gets scared thinking about dead bodies. Anyone should be proud to toil under such leadership as would literally carve a drawing of a monkey into their bedroom wall just to make them a bit happier! When's the last time you saw a politician in the real world do any actual work? They hardly even make phone calls for themselves. They don't even drive their own cars! And whose bedroom does he do this for?

A mother who left both her lovers and her child behind to strike the earth here, who likes poetry and music and pangolins and turkeys for their snood!!!!! and will gladly fight for peace, will gladly kill for Rushsly, has already killed for Rushsly, might one day die for Rushsly.

A few stories up Kody Inkblighted comes under a fey mood, and begins weaving away an artifact of sheep wool, bristle cloth, and... jet blocks?

Its artifact is completed just as the fire-road is, just as the winter ends, just as a brand new year begins. The year 253, our fourth year in the fortress - a good enough fortress to be certain, not a great or terrible fortress - but good enough is never really enough. As anyone who's spent a little too long with an opiate habit can tell you the only such thing as "enough" is too much. And so with above-ground defenses mostly taken care of (though we could admittedly use some more bird towers) it's time to break into the cavern layers.

The plan for now is to just keep digging down the main 3x3 stairway, starting at -10 and cutting out "vents" every 5 floors. I'd very much like to not accidentally dig out onto the ground level, since that way we should be more-or-less protected from any forgotten beast that can't fly, but in Dwarf Fortress you don't really choose what happens. The simulation ultimately doesn't care about you or what you want and in a world of overwrought games where characters yell out the solution to puzzles before you're even finished looking them over that kind of agnosticism is refreshing. Even RimWorld, a very similar game to DF (and quite a good one, greetz fly out to all the RimWorld fans 🤝) there is an AI narrator system in place that tries to algorithmically tool the experience to a satisfying, demanding but fair level of challenge. Dwarf Fortress has no such pretense, things just happen and YOU have to be the one that adapts. But it's historically been quite easy for me to play this game by just ignoring my kobbles entirely, barely spending a second on the Personality tabs and just treating the game as a purely mechanical exercise. I guess that's the point of this whole blog, to rediscover the fun over 250 hours into the Steam release by letting the game and I write a story together instead of just being just a game. I also like to dot this story with absurd and far-too-long asides and anecdotes because I am an insane person, and there is a certain kind of catharsis in randomly telling strangers on the internet stuff like "I was haunted by a vision of straight-up biting a guy on the bus for sitting in this weird sideways manner right in front of me that made me have to keep making awkward glancing eye contact with him" though I do apologize if you were just here looking for normal Dwarf Fortress content. I am not a normal person and have no interest in making normal things. I would recommend "Kruggsmash" and "hoodie hair" on YouTube if that's what you were looking for because I find their videos to be particularly high quality, though I can't imagine anyone who wants to get off this fucked-up ride is actually still here, especially not at the end of this fucking barely-relevant run-on nightmare of a paragraph.

Well that was fucking easy, didn't even have to deviate from the staircase at all. However, we can barely actually fucking see any of it - the height of this cavern layer is -15 but the little bit of floor we can see is at -71. Jeez

We're going to carefully dig down to -60 without exposing ourselves, then punch out just a small hole to get a better look.

Zhag Gillpoker forges fearlessly ahead into the great unknown - not just fearlessly but all-around emotionlessly, actually. Provided nothing fucked up happens to him in the immediate future he's definitely getting transfered over to the military - breaching the caverns should get at least some kind of reaction, even from an admittedly "cheerless" kobble. Oh well, down we go!

Up on the surface, bunys arrive with a wagon, and I think about how I really need to move the trade depot a couple tiles over so that I'll stop being so tempted to smush whoever's sitting on it, or more likely, won't accidentally smush whoever's inevitably on it when the next invasion occurs.

The metal/glass production floor got all cleaned up just in time for the mold to start showing up :\

Kobbles have started doing my least favorite thing, leaving piles of meat/meals on the floor even though there's tons of empty barrels. I think they'll stop if I dig out more space and make the stockpile bigger, and I had the good sense after like 10 forts whose denizens inevitably started doing this to start making sure my kitchen/butcher/raw food stockpiles are walled off, but it never gets any less annoying. I mean look at the empty pots and barrels right fucking there, mere steps away! Do not come crying to me when it starts giving off miasma, this is your own fault!! I think I get so instinctively mad at this because it reminds me of roommates leaving dishes in the sink so long they got moldy or started to stink, then acting like I was somehow contributing to the problem when I literally only owned one pan, one pot, one bowl, one plate, one fork, one spoon, one butter knife and one chef's knife and washed them every single time I used them and also had to hide them in my room because I didn't want them being used and left in the fucking sink with the expectation that I would clean up after their lazy bum bachelor asses like I was their mom!!!!

The problem is mitigated, at least in part, by gifting a frankly astoundingly valuable pile of prepared food to the bunys, because they are cute and I like them so I want them to have a nice little lunch on their way home. We relieve them of all their cheese, all their leather, and most of their cloth. A couple lucky kobbles will also be receiving new socks and shoes.

A diplomat meets with Acl to tell us all about the latest developments in buny civilization and I'm so smitten with how adorable these guards are. Look at those cute little wooden spears!!!

The diplomat, amusingly known as Minefield, checks out our temples approvingly, particularly enjoying the doors, before heading off on his way. I love these guys. I want all bunnies to be happy.

Making more room for the stockpile only made things worse. If those meals in the tavern start rotting I'm about to flip the fuck out

Way down below, we've finally got a good view into the cavern, and have found... absolutely no beasties at all, to our pleasant surprise.

Up on the surface we've QUADRUPLED our peacock numbers!!! You can't see because the screenshot isn't animated but a couple of those tiles hold TWO lil homies. In addition to that we also bought a live goose off the bunys, so we are in absolute bird business. Just as an extra bulwark we're also going to put up some random statues as a secondary alarm system. If you're not in the know, you get a notification when a building is toppled, and rampaging bastards like were-beasts and raiders love to destroy statues. This means that you can get a general "radar"-like sense of where enemies that haven't been revealed yet are, because the game will show you where a statue was felled, even if it's not allowed to show you who felled it yet. Since green glass is basically just free to us at this point we may as well dot the entire edge of the map with statues. This is kind of a lot of work just to weasel out of having a squad patrol outside but I just don't want to take that risk!!

A single migrant arrives, and with him, the realization that we have no siege weaponry. He should make a good fit for the military at least, though I fear I have already begun thinking about ballistae and catapults and the kinds of fun that can be had with them...

But I'll have to figure that out tomorrow because it's 4 in the morning and my computer has been on too long so it's starting to lag. I'm considering this "the end of the first arc" even though it doesn't seem like things will be all that different from this point on. Forgotten beasts can show up from the caverns now but they could always show up on the surface too, I think this world might just generally be chiller than what I'm used to. Hey wow this might be the first entire update I went without almost talking about David Cage

[katherinejblackwell]

Yours, Katherine #8.5 - Room Progress & Current Reads

Also read on my website! | Other Socials

Photo by Daniela Constantini

Dear Readers,

Well, for one, let's address the decimal-ephant in the room. 

Starting this month, I'm testing out a new posting schedule for the blog and YouTube. I've felt like both of the hobbies have been slipping lately, so I decided to try alternating every month if I focus on writing a blog post or making a video. That way, I'm giving attention to both and I have a small, achievable creative goal each month. But I also didn't really want the blog to stop being monthly, and I liked last month's format where I tried writing it more like a letter to fit the blog's theme. So, the blog will keep coming out monthly, but I'll have two different post styles. The months where the blog is the focus, I'll have a more formatted post that focuses on a specific topic and the number in the header will be a whole number. The months where the channel is the focus, I'll write a post that's more ramble-y and letter-like and the number will have a .5 after it to show that we're kind of in-between the "real" posts. Hope that makes sense! This might change again in the future as I get a feel for what works for me, but we'll stick with this for now.Now, an announcement, which I'm retroactively putting at the beginning of the letter because, in writing my first draft, I somehow managed to completely forget to bring it up.

I made a Discord server!Sort of.I did, in fact, make a server, but there are no public channels open for chatting. That might seem counterintuitive, but here's my train of thought. Even though I don't think anyone would be using them much any time soon, I believe moderating public chatrooms like that carries a big responsibility to do things correctly and fairly, and that's something a little more delicate than I'm willing to undertake at the moment. Also, the main motivation behind making the server anyway was that I wanted there to be one hub to get notifications and stay up to date about everything that I post. I do post on Tumblr and Instagram when I upload something new, but it's really easy for that to get lost in the feed. I thought a server would work well because if the notifications are contained to one specific channel, there's no feed of other posts to get lost in and it's really easy to scroll up a bit and see what you missed. I also like Discord as an option because, with a server, I can always add extra stuff for fun as I think of it, and I've already added a few extra channels. There's one where I'll post a song I like every week on Sunday, one where I'll post pictures of purple things that I find out and about, and one called #free-stuff where a Discord bot will share when it finds free games that are normally paid, and where I'll post when I find cool stuff that's free/discounted for a while. The invite link has been added to my 

social media tab, and after this post goes out I'll be adding the link to all my accounts!If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram, or 

poke your head into the server to check it out yourself. 

​ Now, to actually get into it, not much has happened since my last letter. Or, at least it oddly doesn't 

feel like much has happened. A lot has happened, or at least one event that feels like a lot, though it's not something I can really share here. So, either way, as far as things you're allowed to know about go, not a lot has happened. I feel like I don't have much to update you on (the yapper will persevere, however). I haven't made good on my "surprise" that my room would be completely cleaned the next time I wrote. I didn't really think I would, honestly, but I did have a little bit of hope. That being said, I haven't made 

no progress. I get little bits done week by week. Last night, my project was going through my pen stash and picking just a handful to keep. The rest I'll be spending the next few days trying to find good homes for. My next goal is to sort through all of the paper clutter I have in my room. Mostly, it's old class materials from high school that I saved in case either I needed to look back at it or my younger friends needed help with a class I'd taken before, but it's been long enough that I'm past any of it being useful anymore. I also have an 

obscene amount of sheet music from doing band throughout high school and middle school. So, after I order 

these boxes I've been eyeballing, I'm gonna go through absolutely all of the old papers/notebooks I have in my room and by my desk downstairs and clear out as much as possible. The hope, at least for the school stuff, is to have only one box each for elementary, middle, and high school, which means a 

lot would have to get pitched. Fear not, though, I fully intend on recycling everything I don't keep. And, conveniently, I wanted to try making my own paper again soon, so I'll be setting aside plenty to get blended into pulp too.Very off topic, but I was thinking about Christmas last night. Being the kind of person who makes a lot of my Christmas gifts, it's way past when I should've started making things, so I was spending some time brainstorming ideas. I'm both excited for Christmas and not. I love making and wrapping presents. I get so much joy out of spending hours at my desk making art and customizing the wrapping - adding stamps and thrifted ribbons and tying little charms onto the bow. The lights are beautiful, I get to bury myself under a pile of blankets while I read, peppermint hot chocolate is in season, and I get a well-earned break from work and school. I'm looking forward to all of it. And yet, there's all this . . . 

Stuff I'm dealing with that does, in a roundabout way, relate to the holiday season. As much as I'm looking forward to it, I know there's also going to be a slight cloud hanging over my heart all the while. I don't mean to keep bringing up something I can't tell you about, it's just what's been on my mind recently, and I think it's kind of interesting how something that's meant to be wholly joyful can be a complex time of year for a lot of people, for plenty of different reasons. I did a found poem during my creative writing class last Winter about that, I'll add it to the letter so you can read it.

I didn't even really mean to be writing about it when I started the poem. Though, I'm not sure how easy it is to intend to write about something when you're making a found poem. You're kinda just stringing together the words you have available in a way that you hope sounds nice. You can do your best to look for words that follow a certain theme, but really, you're at the mercy of the materials you have. Which, feasibly, you could grab a few dictionaries and thesauruses and comb through them for all of the exact words that you want in your poem, but that kind of goes against the point, doesn't it? That's not a found poem anymore. You're not arranging a limited pool of words to make something new, you're just writing a poem like n0rmal and choosing to transport it from your brain to the physical world in an interesting way.

I wonder if anyone's ever completely rewritten a book using just the words contained in the original book. I wonder how you would even go about that. Lots of spreadsheets, I imagine. The closest thing I can think of is Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti (which I heard about through this amazing podcast). In it, the author took roughly 500,000 words from journals she'd kept over the years and organized the sentences alphabetically in a spreadsheet, then trimmed it down from there. Kind of a marble sculpture technique to writing. I haven't read it yet, but I'd really like to at some point just to see what comes out of a writing process like that. A Humument is also kind of similar (shoutout 2022 SAT), but that's still not quite what I mean. I mean taking literally every word from a book and rearranging them however you want (probably with some leftovers), and A Humument is a collection of found poetry created page by page. (Still can't wait to finally get my hands on a copy of the final edition though.)

Something else I've been doing that's vaguely in the spirit of getting my room under control: reading a lot more. The shelf I use for my current reads/library materials and my tbr shelf have been really out of control lately. The first shelf is mostly the fault of my recent cross stitch obsession; I have a ton of pattern books out. Right now, I'm on and off working on taking pictures of my favorite pages in books I know I won't get around to for a while and saving them to labelled folders in a Google Drive. That way, I can get the physical books off my shelf until I need them and still have my favorite patterns saved to look through when I'm ready for a new project. I've only gotten through three of them so far, but even that has helped a lot, those books are massive. I've also been trying to pick books from my tbr shelf to read when I can because, once I read them, I can get them on the big bookcase where they belong and hopefully clear out some of the overflow. I have a few books going right now: an audiobook I just started, a library book, and a novel from my tbr. 

The audiobook is Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar. I just earlier today finished listening to In the Form of a Question by Amy Schneider (which I gave four stars) and I was looking for something that had a slightly similar vibe. I thought Counting the Cost would work because there are, of course, religious themes in Duggar's book and that's something Schneider talks about a little here and there in hers. I'm not even a full chapter in yet, so I can't say much about how it is yet, but I'm at least interested.

The nonfic from the library is Make a Zine by Joe Biel and, even though it's short, I'm not confident yet that I'll actually finish it. I think the subject is interesting, but I'm finding more and more that audiobooks are a way better method of absorbing nonfiction books for me. I originally wanted this to be my next audiobook after getting stuck on the physical copy, but on Spotify it's not included in premium and my library doesn't have an audio copy on CD or through either of our apps, so I'm kind of out of luck. I might take another crack at it because I would really like to learn more about the history of zines, I'm just not 100% sure I feel like finishing it right now. If I don't finish it by the end of October, I think I'll dnf it for now and then come back to it later.

And, lastly, the novel is Deadfall Hotel by Steve Rasnic Tem. I was really, really skeptical starting this book because it's marketed as this chilling horror and I'm really so super bad with horror media, but so far (granted, only ~6o pages in), it's really not bad. It's a little creepy, but in the same way Welcome to Night Vale or The Magnus Archives are creepy. Like, don't get me wrong, TMA is bad enough to make me nauseous at times, but if the book doesn't get worse than that, I think I'll be able to handle it. The only reason I felt okay about trying to read it and not immediately donating it when I was going through my book collection was the fact that there were a lot of tepid reviews on Goodreads saying it really wasn't all that scary, so my hope is that it'll just fall into that kind of quirky/spooky spot somewhere between WTNV and TMA levels of horror and that I'll end up keeping it.

Probably my last point before I send you off to go back about your lovely October: organizing my Goodreads. I haven't worked on it in a while (maybe I should sit down and get another chunk out of the way after this?), but for a few nights in a row last week I was going through about 100 books on my Goodreads every night and organizing them into different shelves based on genre. I thought this would be really helpful because, when I make my seasonal tbr lists, I like to pick a genre or two to focus on that fit the vibe of the season to me. Before, my only shelves on GR were the default want to read, read, and currently reading shelves, plus a couple others for like favorites and dnfs. I've been tagging every book as either fic or nonfic, then adding more specific genre tags after that. So far, aside from the general fic and nonfic tags, the biggest category is romance, surprising absolutely no one. I'm pretty sure most of it is YA fantasy romances. (I have a type, what can I say?) It's really, really tedious to work on and I get antsy after a little while, but I know it'll be worth it in the end. It's going to make everything so much easier to find. I also feel like having easier access to every fantasy or every mystery or et cetera when I'm making my reading lists is going to be really conducive to reading things I haven't before instead of clinging to the same books I normally reread every season. I think I'd like one of my reading goals next year to be specifically trying to pick books to read that I've never read before so I can broaden my horizons and find new favorites. ​ Well, I have officially talked your ear off (or . . . written your . . . eyes out?) for long enough. Is it cold where you are? It's finally getting cold here. Which, like most things in my life at the moment, has brought mixed feelings. I am glad I get to start wearing my favorite clothes without being at risk of heatstroke soon, though. I hope you're all staying warm. Make sure to take extra good care of yourself as Winter gets closer. I'll write to you again soon. Much love.

Yours, ​Katherine

[cellgatinbo]

(ayo me mention 🫵)

seconding this, everything here 100% 👍👍👍 i'd also like to live up to my maniac clipper title and add some alternatives, tips on how to clip from mobile, and some totally unnecessary tools that i severely doubt anyone else but me would ever care to use :D

i haven't used clipr so i don't know how it compares, but for downloading clips i usually rely on save.tube! just looking at the sites i think they work pretty much the same way, i just use this one bc it's what i'm used to and it has easy access to a bunch of other video downloaders from different websites, like youtube, twitter, instagram, etc.

(i only tend to use it on twitch clips nowadays, but its youtube video cutter is also really useful for getting stuff off there. just put in the video link and start/end timestamp of the moment you want and 👌)

for saving clips on mobile, i mean you can't get much easier than just screen recording the stream/vod as you watch. it's super simple, just like 2-3 taps to start recording, and doesn't have the 1 minute time limit saving clips on twitch does. there are a couple things to look out for, like having a chat overlay on screen or volume sliders or notification bars popping up. but if you have no friends (like me :'D) and aren't touching the volume buttons then it's easy peasy 👍

those are the basic things for saving clips, but if you wanna be a maniac like me then here's some bonus stuff i use:

on mobile if you want to edit and add stuff to videos/clips or compile multiple together (like one of these), i use the app InShot. real simple, got a good amount of options and tools, and it's free 🙏 (some features like auto captions are locked behind quick ads but still fully accessible without paying for any premium)

there's a real handy page on twitch that i myself only found semi-recently where all the clips you create are saved. i used to think once you closed the clip tab it was just gone forever if you didn't copy the link, but i've still got all mine from like 5 years ago. you can find it at https://dashboard.twitch.tv/u/[YOUR USERNAME]/content/clips/created, or just look for it in your dashboard

sometimes i'm watching a stream and there's a funny moment between multiple people, but i feel like another person might've got a better POV of it that i'd rather save/post, but don't want to scrub through their whole vod to pick it out. for that very random and specific situation Twitch Multi Vod is really helpful, syncing up timestamps between as many vods as you want to put in (or that your computer can handle)

(though the vods have to be available on twitch, so finding a moment from an unarchived/not on twitch vod wouldn't really work)

(but if you still want to look for it manually the VOD spreadsheet really is a lifesaver, it's saved my ass hours of searching for what streams happened which days, who was at what events, etc etc.)

how to clip (redneck ash atthebell edition aka not the most efficient necessarily)

my best methods for clipping & posting to tumblr

tl;dr use clipr for downloading clips from twitch, other methods vary by mileage

Clip on Twitch & Download using Clipr

IMO, this is the best method for posting clips. Twitch clips don't always display properly on Firefox, and it also means that if the clip ceases to exist on Twitch for whatever reason, it's still uploaded to Tumblr. You can also guarantee the quality you're downloading in, which is usually 1080p unless the streamer has for some reason lowered their stream quality (happens by accident sometimes).

Downsides: 1) You have to be able to download the clip to your computer, and doesn't work on mobile. Well, it could, but it would be way more difficult and I don't know why you would do that to yourself. 2) If the moment you want to clip is longer than 60 seconds, you have to use another method. Twitch only lets you clip something that long. I bemoan this fact every day.

Screen capture on your computer

The pros of this method are that you aren't limited to 60 seconds, and if you're trying to clip something from a YouTube video, it's easier than trying to download a YouTube clip (have never been able to successfully do this myself) or downloading the entire video and then editing it down to the moment you want to clip.

The cons are that you have to make sure you're not screen capturing sensitive shit from your own computer, and you have to turn off all other audio and make sure your volume levels & video quality are at appropriate levels (aka don't have your volume super low, don't have the video on 480p if possible). If you're clipping off YouTube, you have to deal with having the channel's watermark in the corner, but otherwise it's great for when you want to just clip something from Twitch but it's longer than 60 seconds.

How to do this (on Windows):

Remember to put your computer on DND (Discord as well) and put the video on highest quality and decent volume levels. Press Windows key + G (if that's your configuration) and select "Start Recording" on the capture window. Remember to give time for the scrub bar and shit from YouTube or Twitch (or whatever) to go away, so go back a little bit before where you want the clip to start. Record until you've got what you want, then open it in whatever video editing software pleases you. You can find the recording in Captures on your computer (usually in some folder chain in Users) or by just pressing Windows key + G again, it'll let you open the recording in file location. I use Microsoft Clipchamp to edit because Windows Media Player crashes my computer and I'm not going to pay for nice editing software rn. Anyway, edit out the bits with you moving your mouse around and the video player UI and get it to whatever length you like. Save or redownload to your computer, upload to Tumblr.

Downloading off Twitter

Use twittervideodownloader or twdown. Copy the video address from the video and paste it, then download in whatever quality you'd like. Please attribute said clips, particularly if they went through the trouble of adding subtitles or you're using their translation (or just to let people know where they came from-- i.e. is this from a cc's own IG story, or is it a random fan recording them; the latter means you maybe shouldn't be reposting this video). Translation itself is often a thankless project so it's very appreciated to acknowledge translators. Also if someone else went through the trouble of clipping something, it's just nice to acknowledge them for it. Preferably include a link to the original tweet. This method is best for just needing stuff off Twitter, for IG stories that someone else already screen captured, or if the only clip you can find is on Twitter and the original vod/video is gone for whatever reason.

Extra fun tips:

If you are a frequent clipper, get in the habit of naming your files! If you're keeping them all on your computer, for organization's sake, it will save you SO much time and energy if you just have names on your files. It doesn't have to be anything crazy formal; for example, my format is just "oct 12 cellbit scared by sign tts;" date followed by a very short description.

Similar to the above, it also helps to include some amount of context to clips when you're posting them, particularly if you're not liveblogging. Sometimes people rb clips onto my dash and start freaking out about some kind of lore going on and it's like dude this clip is from two months ago, calm down. Please turn on timestamps also for the love of fuck.

You can download videos straight off Tumblr! If someone else already posted a clip you like and want to have on your computer, you can download it off the dash or off their blog and just have it, no extension or screen capture or website needed. One of the very cool things about this website!

Related, if you really want to find a clip that you know was already posted to Tumblr by someone else, use people's archives. They're also one of the actually functional parts of this website. You can filter by post type, month, and tags, which can usually get you closer to finding what you're looking for than searching will.

RoyalArchivist tends to post and reblog a lot of clips, so they're a good resource alongside myself, pix pixiecaps, and jay cellgatinbo, all of whom clip like maniacs. I also just reblog a lot of things and have a pretty extensive tagging system. RA also has a timestamp archive for QSMP with notes about lore and things-- please check that out if you're interested in helping document events or looking to find a certain moment.

MCYT Archive Project has public vods spreadsheets for QSMP as well as other MCYT projects that are incredibly extensive, so if you're looking for a moment and you remember the date, you should be able to find the vod on the sheet. You can also use the vod archives in junction with wiki articles to figure out exactly or approximately when something happened (the QSMP Miraheze wiki includes citations in their articles, which is a massive help for this kind of thing).

Finally, I am a lunatic who figured this all out through trial and error. There are probably other, somewhat more efficient methods, like I said at the start. If you know of any, please (politely) add onto the post.

[thecrownrp]

hi when you guys added that social media posts must be a graphic, what did you mean? can you provide resources for typists who don't know/have ps so they could at least collect the points?

hi there!

thank you so much for reaching out about this! i will actually be placing this under a cut since it did get a little lengthy!

in regards to what we mean by graphics, we're referring to premade templates that you can usually find online for social media such as instagram, twitter, snapchat, etc. most of these resources are FREE online with the exception of some templates that individual artists may personally choose to put a price on! of course, we don't expect any of our members to spend money on photo editing apps or templates to take part in something small as this since it is just for fun in rp!

with that, we definitely have resources for all of our members who don't have photoshop available! one free online source that both admin heart and i have used before is called PHOTOPEA. it's essentially the same thing as photoshop, serves the same purpose and has the same features except that it's online and free!

as for templates, you can find a lot of different free designs off of DEVIANTART specifically under a search for "social media templates" (sm templates, instagram templates, etc). as an example, please check out this link for instagram templates! another way you can find free templates is searching off google or tumblr. you'll be able to find more free templates though those searches if nothing catches your eye off of deviantart.

social media posts are just meant to be a quick fun thing! we don't expect members to go over-the-top (although more than welcome if you want!) for these activities! if you're looking for something simple and easy to use, i'll also link a few templates below this!

instagram template 1

instagram template 2

instagram template 3

we're sorry if this made things difficult for you in wanting to participate in the social media portion since you are right!! not everyone has access to editing apps like photoshop so we apologize that we hadn't added an alternative to the events post at the beginning. i am currently discussing an alternative with admin heart on creating graphics themselves for our members who might have trouble creating one. once we've figured out an alternative we will either update that here or make a small notice post about it from main!

if you have any other questions or need help in the process please let us know! if our current members have any other resources, tips or advice they'd like to share as well please feel free to reply on this post!

- admin diamond

[shinahbee]

February Favs 2021

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GREETINGS

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March 6. 2021

Hello!

Another month has passed by really quickly, maybe because February had only 28 days.

This month also was lunar new years or Chinese New Year, so happy new year to all of you who celebrate it! Our household celebrated safely with just my family, in previous years we would celebrate with extended families, but of course every one’s safety is important.

There was also Valentine’s Day, which I helped my sister make some cheese tarts for her boyfriend as a gift. I’ve been working on a few things, including art for more of my manhwa recommendations, but I’ll put that on hold for now and work on a few for some recent anime that I have been watching. I feel like I’m winding down when it comes to filtering the shounen ai manhwa, there really isn’t much that I have read currently that I want to really want to share.

There are some of the ones that are popular that I dropped, I named two of them in my last favorites, but there have been a lot more since then, if you’d like I could add another segment under the hell segment that talk about the ones I dropped and why I dropped them, I feel like if someone had similar thoughts to a certain manhwa and why they dislike the content , It would honestly help me filter out a lot of the ones I never really should have read, if that makes any sense.

Not instagram though...it keeps showing me the pictures of manhwa that I dropped ...I’m like omg instagram your algorithm is screwed...I don’t even like these.lol. Thus this is how it thought of the new segment idea. I feel like I’m adding a lot to this segment alone.lol.

So how is everything going for all of you? Anything exciting happening? I’ll keep you guys updated when something good happens, but there is nothing currently. Thank you for taking the time to read my nonsense blabbering.

Enjoy reading!

Sheena

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DRAMAS:

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No dramas this month to talk about.lol.

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MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS:

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Recap:

1) Whose baby is it? (ongoing)

2) Social temperature (ongoing)

3) Salad days (ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (ongoing)

5) Path to you (Completed)

6) Here u are (Completed)

7) BJ Alex (Completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (ongoing)

9) Unintentional love story (ongoing)

10) Karasugoka don’t be shy! (Completed)

11) Semantic Error (ongoing)

12) Tied up in Twins (Completed)

13) My Suha (ongoing)

14) Crash into me (Completed)

15) Dine with a vampire (ongoing)

16) Inner beauty (Completed)

17) False memories (Completed)

18) Hand in Hand (Completed)

19) Stanning 101 (ongoing)

20) Private lessons (Completed)

21) Behind the scenes (Completed)

22) Turn off the camera (Ongoing)

Updates on ongoing titles:

So I thought I would start off with some updates on some of the titles in the recap section since it has been a while since I last talked about them.

No way vampires don’t exist:

This is almost done soon so I’m glad that the manhwa updates are consistent, what I didn’t know is that there were extra chapters of side stories for this manhwa, and I discovered them through a Chinese manga site, I really hope the licensed site will be able to translate these as well cause it goes into the later lives of all the housemates and of course an in depth development of juwon and dongha’s relationship which I am living for since they are so cute. Lol.

I really hope these get translated since my Chinese is lacking, I’ve just seen the raws and thought I may be able to read them but of course my 8 years of Chinese school has failed me once again.

Dine with a vampire:

This manhwa is giving me so much gripe when discussing the story so far, the recent update of course was a little better in showing the relationship between chi hwan and sooin, so i’m happy they got their feelings across to each other and sooin was able to really begin to trust people again. BUT....I was spoiled by the raws for this week’s update, and let me give a big F*CK you to that harry potter asshole...I still don’t know his name, i think my memory did me a favor and selectively removed it for my mind. I obviously can’t spoil all of  it for you but stuff happens and harry potter has found his way to sooin and basically kidnapped him while he was vulnerable and he’s trying to make him his partner...I’m like...great...In all honesty let’s look at this situation in modern society, think about a person who had made your life living hell, who then dies and you think that’s the end of it , but this asshole still haunts you even after death and still tormenting you...i’m not going to lie, I honestly think I would just kill myself at this point.

I feel like when I first read this manhwa , I thought it was disgusting but I still read it thinking that it will be better, it’s like watching season one of a show and being annoyed hoping that it will get better later and then finding out in season two is just...I need anger management.

I really hope what I think might happen will not but the author seems to be a sadist, so it might end up that way. Props to the creator for making one of the most detestable characters i’ve seen so far. I will watch out for people like this in my actual life.

Semantic Error:

This is updating a little slow and again I tried reading the raws, but of course that didn’t go too well, from what i’ve seen there is a bit of character development between the two main leads so far. Also I’ve seen on twitter that semantic error is going to get a mini anime adaptation, in Korean of course but that is so awesome either way! This is one of the manhwa’s I would like to see an anime of because it’s really good.

In terms of Japanese anime seiyuu who would play these roles I wonder? Sungwoo I feel like anyone can since he’s very ambiguous, but for jaeyoung, I think I’d like to hear sakurai takahiro ( cloud from ff7, miyuki kazuya from daiya no ace) play him, in all honesty it’s because of his role as miyuki in daiya no ace, jaeyoung is basically the same character but more intense.lol.

Turn off the Camera:

Oh this piece of work, i’m glad this is completely satire because if I were to take this story seriously I would have an aneurysm thinking about all the bad choices these people have been making. So recently, our boy jihoon who wanted to protect his virginity from the two co-stars has finally lost it to yoojin, one of the co-stars. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t know about him because his intentions are still very unknown, and I agree that I don’t know what his intentions are but from what I've seen, it’s not like he treats jihoon badly, he won’t do anything that jihoon would not like so i’m not opposed to it, but I really would like to see romantic development between jihoon and yohan because of how straight forward yohan is, he isn’t hiding his intentions and says whatever is on his mind, it’s reassuring knowing that there’s nothing he would hide.

Jihoon doesn’t really seem interested but it’s more like that push and pull relationship, where despite him not seeming interested he still had a wet dream about having sex with him...lol. Where as with yoojin, Jihoon does not oppose to having intimacy with him. So we’ll see how this dumpster fire plays out as it continues. I absolutely HATE love triangles cause this whole concept alone is so unrealistic, it’s hard enough to get ONE person interested in me, this dude has like 2 without really doing anything. Also it’s just really messy and annoying to read and I always want to route for the guy who never wins.lol.

This is merely a suggestion, but I feel like authors should make alternative endings with different characters, if you think about this in a realistic perspective, you can end up with different people depending on the decisions you make, which is why harems exist in this genre, because there is not just one person you can love, and how alternative timelines can exist. So if the author would consider this idea and make alternative endings for the main character, then I would feel more satisfied with the story overall, because i’m always wondering what if...he ends up with this person ? What would that be like? This only applies to love triangles where abuse doesn’t happen, because there’s no way I would be happy with an abuse victim ending up with their abuser...

Anyways, that is all the updates that I have for you, in this heaven segment I’m going to talk about some titles that I don’t really think is that popular but I decided to read them after reading the summary and they turned out better than I thought.

In the hell segment, I’m going to be discussing some manhwa titles that are a bit “ quirky” you know in my hero academia where these kids were each born with a super power, seem like some of these manhwa characters also have unique abilities, which I will refer to as “ quirks” in this segment. Let me tell you...there are some interesting ones out there.

So let’s begin.

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Welcome to heaven

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Murderous Lewellyn Candelit Dinner:

“Shevon is a writer who lives in a run-down apartment in the streets of the slums. One day, strange memos start showing up at his front door. Before he can uncover the mystery behind them, he encounters a beautiful young man that keeps peeling onions on the staircase next to his unit. After accepting a dinner invitation from the young man, Shevon discovers a dead body in his host’s bedroom...”

Okay so starting off with this one, it’s very different than the usual types that I would read. This story is more of a mystery drama with implied romance, but I have yet to see that happening in the story so far. It is fairly new so I suppose it will be a slow development. Like the summary for the manhwa says, it is a about a guy named Shevon, who I believe is a writer that is trying to get a job at a writing firm, but he ended up free lancing for a while with no luck of getting a paid job. He was being harassed by an ex boyfriend when he encounters his neighbor that is sitting on the stairs peeling onions. Since that day, Shevon would always run into his neighbor peeling onions while exchanging small talk with him, which makes him curious about why he does this at the same time each day, one day his neighbor wanted to invite him over for dinner and Shevon obliged due to being curious and other advances the neighbor has made to get his attention. As he went up to his neighbor's apartment he noticed that he had a bunch of candles lining every inch of his apartment and there was a very strong smell coming from here. Lewellyn (neighbor) just says that it was the onions that he had been peeling, he wanted to use them for tonight's dinner. Shevon didn’t want to just eat onions...I mean who does. So he told him that he will make him a proper meal instead. So he was in the kitchen making food when the door bell rang and Lewellyn went to check who it was. Shevon didn’t see him for a while and decided to just head back to the dining area, but before he could head there the smell from earlier was getting stronger and he noticed it coming from a certain room, he opened it and there lays a dead corpse surrounded by candles covered in blood. Being shocked accidentally took the candle he used to light up the room and left the room; just as Lewellyn entered he said he had to leave for the day.

After that incident there were suspicious activities involving Shevon’s apartment, such as the name plate on his door being moved, the feeling of being watched when he was alone in the room, and some creepy mail he had been receiving, which all points to the fact that he had a stalker.

Shevon starts to suspect Lewellyn as a murderer because of the obvious corpse found in his apartment, but there was no evidence he could find to report him, meanwhile the stalking had been getting worse he found himself getting more entangled with Lewellyn than he’d like to be.

So yeah, it was really creepy when you read those letters, so far we knew Lewellyn is involved in some sort of murder and although he has been helping Shevon find the suspect he himself is also one as well. It’s still too early to make judgments as to what actually is going on, there’s a lot of mystery behind Lewellyn that isn’t explained yet.

So if you like murder mysteries you might like this manhwa, I don’t see any romance involving them yet, but maybe curiosity will lead to something eventually.

Unripened Expression:

“Jaewon has known that he likes males since he confessed his feelings to a boy named Yoonsung in elementary school, but when Yoonsung tells him that liking other boys is weird, Jaewon tries to hide his "weird" feelings and push them away. Now in high school, he's developed a strong crush on his kind, handsome classmate Karam, and Jaewon decides it's time to finally confront the reality that he might be gay. He asks for advice over the internet and befriends another gay student named Junseo, who becomes Jaewon's emotional support in his quest to win Karam's heart.”

So for this one it was not listed as a harem but it actually is, all the guys you see on the cover is related to the main character so how. I usually don’t like harems in any genre, but this one wasn’t as bad as I thought. Actually every guy in here was a good contender and I was not upset with who he chose in the end even though it would be obvious in the first chapter who he would end up with...lol. and you know me, always picking the “ other guy” in these situations, I really do have bad second lead syndrome.

They guy I wanted him the end up with is named “ junseo ” he’s the gay friend that jaewon the main character met on an online forum while asking questions about his sexuality, they felt comfortable enough to exchange numbers but not give their identity away to each other. Jaewon realizes that from talking to Junseo that he went to the same school he did, coincidently, and found out his identity through his friend. Junseo didn’t want to associate with jaewon but he was really persistent. Junseo then gave up and decided to listen to jaewon whenever he wanted to talk.

Junseo had some trauma in the past involving a ex boyfriend and getting bullied at school when someone found him kissing his boyfriend in a room and started spreading rumors of them together, but instead of just denying it, his ex boyfriend accused junseo of leading him on and that’s why junseo ended up being bullied and shut himself off from people, even though he forced to leave school cause of all the bullying he endured he still understood why his ex boyfriend did that, everyone had to protect themselves first after all.

After opening up to jaewon and telling him his story, jaewon cried because he was sorry he had to go through that. Junseo was happy that someone would cry for him, who had just accepted everything until now. Their time together lead to some feelings developing between jaewon and him but although jaewon is aware he has feelings for junseo, it doesn’t compare to the feelings he had for karam..Which is the guy he ended up with.

Okay. Compared to karam who didn’t have much development, junseo had a much better chance to be perfectly honest. It’s not that I don’t like karam, he just didn’t have much back up story to convince me that his feelings for jaewon is real. Lol

But I guess that’s the trope in these types of manhwa right? The Main character always ends up with the guy that he meets first...OMG. Come on authors ...work with me here and try something different for once. Anyways, it’s all good it’s not like any of them were sexually harassing and/or abusing jaewon so I’m happy with whoever he chose.

If you are into harems with good characters, you might like this one.

Oh! My Assistant: (18 +)

“Naive comic artist Seonho, who draws R-19 series, hires beauty(?)-and-brains Muyoung with outstanding skills to be his assistant. However, working with Muyoung who is too task-oriented and has a prickly temperament, turns out to be a little difficult. Seonho asks Muyoung to pose for him one day to help with a sexy scene, but when he sees how erotic Muyoung's pose is, Seonho's "junior"... that hasn't stood in 2 years, got up. It's hard! It got hard! It finally got hard! This is an unpredictable, comical and chest-tickling BL story brought to you by Milla and Yalgae!”

The first thing that came to my mind was Oh! My goddess... LOL let me know if you guys have ever watched that anime, i’m really showing my age with that comment.

Anyways, so this is about an adult mahwa artist named Seonho and he was getting really popular and needed an assistant to help with his busy scheduled serialization. He held an interview with a couple of selected candidates after viewing their portfolio, and of course muyoung was chosen out of all for his pristine work. Of course there was several conditions that muyoung had listed in exchange to work here, most of which applies to a 9 to 5 job, but of course artists out there know that we make our own time...we don’t have a scheduled work hours, but of course seonho needed a person soon and he liked muyoung’s work so he hired him under those conditions.

Muyoung was actually the heir to a prosperous kimchi making firm and did not need money because he was already wealthy, but his grandmother wanted him to have some independence and so muyoung wanted to look for a normal job to get his grandma off his back. He quickly learns that not everything that you ask for will be complied there are times where you will need to work late for a dead line and such.

This made muyoung wonder if he should just quit, the only reason he doesn’t is because he liked seonho. He liked seonho since he first laid eyes on him as he is exactly his type.

Without realizing it seonho also thought muyoung is attractive and ended up in situations with him that are presumed romantic. In the end, the two of them ended up together, but of course there’s always an inconvenience that disrupts this romantic development, and this came in the form of his best friend, who is by the way married to a woman, but as you know in BL...that doesn’t matter...

His best friend was actually in love with him for a very long time and the marriage was just a family arrangement that he had no say in. He tried to separate muyoung and his seonho by trying to convince muyoung to quit several times and even got into an accident and used this as an opportunity to guilt trip muyoung to stay by his side.

He basically just said that he would die if muyoung left him alone...now, here is some advice from me, if anyone says that to you don’t believe them, you have no control over what a person does and you are not responsible for any of their actions, so call their bluff on it.

This incident caused some strife between muyoung and seonho’s relationship to the point where it was getting pointless for seonho to keep up something that not working, he wanted to break up with muyoung but after talking to muyoung’s grandmother he decided not to since what muyoung needs is his support at this moment. So they overcame it and muyoung made it clear to his best friend that he had no feelings towards him and that he only loves seonho, which made the friend only, had to accept it. So in the end muyoung and seonho moved in together and continued working as a mahwa company, and even hired a new assistant who strikingly had the same conditions as muyoung when he was first hired.

Lol. In the end this story worked out great, and it was really good read, the drama was minimal though that friend of his was an inconvenience. It was an overall a good story and the relationship development was really cute since muyoung was in love with seonho first, I’ve never seen that happened before actually, so if you like all of my recommendations so far you will like this one as well.

The Good Teacher: (18 +)

“Hojun’s recent breakup was pretty rough. His partner told him it wasn’t him, per say… Hojun just wasn’t good in bed. But it turns out Drunk Hojun is surprisingly resourceful; singlehandedly managing to find and set himself up with a sex tutor by the name of Mr. Ahn. Ahn Seunghyun was only half serious when he posted the sex tutor ad, but he quickly finds himself in too deep to call the lessons off. And the more he sees Hojun, the more he can’t help but notice how much attractive he is. Seunghyun is making it up as he goes along, so what will the final exam look like?”

This is basically “Sex for dummies” .LOL. I don’t know how your sex education went in school, but for me all I remember is that the teachers would leave he girls in classroom where they took the guys out and talked to them about masturbation. So needless to say I didn’t have much of a sex education until later in life. Or you can read this manhwa which basically taught me more that my sex ed teacher ever did.lol.

So basically Ahn seunghyun ( Mr. Ahn) was drinking with his friends and thought that they would pull a prank by posting an ad for a sex tutor, not thinking that anyone would fall for it. But Hojun found the ad and took his chances to reach out to seunghyun, so he decided to play along for the first meeting to see who he was dealing with, he made fake lesson plans and prepare a lot in order to make him sound convincing as a teacher. What started off as a joke became very educational for hojun whom had very little sexual experience and how his previous partners would claim him being very bad in bed. Seunghyun had a lot of patience and taught him from the ground up. I’m not going to lie, this was pretty educational and I think Mr. Ahn looking really fine does not help either.

So as the lessons progress they began to have feelings for each other, one thing that doesn’t add up is the fact the seunghyun is not a n actual teacher to begin with, although he did his research before every lesson he was not a an educator in trade, so he didn’t tell hojun the truth until the end and they had a fight, but made up quickly right after when they both realized their feelings for each other.

Now you’re probably wondering if there is a third wheel in this relationship, well there is a guy who is seunghyun’s ex boyfriend, he was a little bit of an inconvenience but not really causing too much trouble, just enough to make hojun a little jealous, the only thing he was out of line for saying was that three of them should have a threesome...LMAO not with you f*cker you look like Tarzan...lol. Hell no!

I say that but there is a special chapter at the end where hojun was having a nightmare where the three of them did have a three some and it was gross...i’m like wtf he’s so ugly...I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is hot.

Yeah take this as you will, if you lack sexual education I recommend this mahwa to educate yourself cause lord knows when that will be when you get proper education for that. If you liked reading BJ Alex, you may like this one because of the similar art style, if not then just read it for Mr. Ahn..cause he is so fine...lol.

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Welcome to hell

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*Warning *

These titles are suitable for 18+ audiences, because of the mature content in discussion, you have been warned.

So finally onto the hell segment for this month! This month we will be discussing some of the quirky titles, people born with unusual abilities, I have come across a few of them and from that I chose these three to talk about since their stories alone are interesting in many ways.

Whether these stories are satiric or serious, I enjoyed finding out by reading these more hellish stories. So here we go...starting off with...

My purrfect boss:

“Sunwoo is thrilled to be starting his new job! Full of energy and enthusiasm, he’s eager to please Manager Kang. The problem is, he keeps making dumb mistakes and getting in trouble. Things come to a head one night after work when he pours soju all over his boss. Typical! But hang on… Why is Manager Kang blushing like that? And what are those cat ears sprouting from his head?! After discovering his boss’ secret, it isn’t long before Sunwoo has him purring with pleasure.”

Let me start by saying that the funniest thing in this manhwa is that Mr. kang has both cat ears and human ears...lol. How is that possible?

So basically in this story manager kang is an anthromorph, which are humans with animal characteristics, they only make up of the minority of the population. He is basically a human with cat characteristics and has hidden his identity until sunwoo spooked him and his ears popped up from being surprised. This seems to be his “quirk” and of sunwoo being really innocent only wanted to find out what he was, then was caught by Mr. Kang having his heat cycle and sunwoo was dragged into the meeting room where he and the manager had jerked each other off.

Mr kang needs the cone of shame after the next day realizing what he and sunwoo had done. He started to avoid him until they were set up on a business trip together, in which they had to spend the night in the same hotel room. Manager kang looked apologetic for having sex with him just cause he was in heat but sunwoo said that he wasn’t repulsed by it and actually enjoyed it, therefore manager kang proposed they do it again...and so they did...lol. Many times after that too.

And sunwoo became a furry. The end. lol. I’m kidding, but sunwoo really liked manager kang and decided to make it official with him, they decided to see each other but not make it public since he was scared. Later there was another manager from another department who participated in a joint project and that other manager is also an anthromorph and knows manager kang as well. This manager cha was like an ex boyfriend but he calls himself his “owner”. He tried to force manager kang into this abusive play and now he’s scared of him. But even knowing that sunwoo didn’t really give up on manager kang but instead gave him courage to confront his fears and stand up for himself, and if anything it made him love him even more. Even if sunwoo didn’t know much about manager kang the way the other manager did, manager kang listed out all of his favorite things to him so that he does know now.

I really like this part of the story, just because a person’s past partners know more about the person you are dating doesn’t mean they know everything, people’s preferences can change over time and all you have to do is ask. So i’m glad they communicated with each other.

So in the end, sunwoo and manager kang was able to be together and he was thankful for having sunwoo in his life. There’s a lot that happens in between but you’ll have to figure that out on your own by reading it.lol. Can’t say that this story is relatable since I don’t have feline features but it was an interesting read in the end.

The Sales Departments Cupid:

“'Taejun', who has the ability to see auras from people who have been in contact with him since childhood, connects with people with similar auras, and at his company he is known as 'the Cupid of the Sales Department'. Then, Hongyeon, a new employee with a rainbow-colored aura, approaches Taejun...”

In this manhwa, Taejun’s quirk is that he has the ability to see people's auras in the form of colours and that way he matches people by the compatibility from complimentary colours between two people’s auras. This is why he is the match maker of the sales department, because anyone who he consults ends up married happily with their partner. The only thing taejun can’t see is his own aura which made him feel like he will be forever alone, Until the new employee Hongyeon showed up and started a conversation with taejun at a drinking party. There was a slight issue though...taejun also has this uncanny ability to kiss anyone who is in close proximity to him when he drinks, and hongyeon was told to sit next to him by his supervisor, basically they wanted to sacrifice him.lol.

But this development made hongyeon very happy and they kissed and did other things after wards. Taejun didn’t really notice it when he was drunk but took notice that hongyeon had a rainbow like aura emitting from him. Which he had never seen before.

I find it really cute to see people’s auras but not your own, which means nothing can be predicted in terms of who you end up with, but why was he able to see hongyeon with a rainbow aura?

Makes me think that is an indication that he is the “one” for him. This concept is really cute and the relationship between hongyeon and taejun started off really romantic for just having a first encounter, after things progressed they started to catch feelings for each other.

This manhwa is still ongoing so I’m not sure how and when it will end, but really liking it so far, even with the crazy amount of sex scenes, I can still feel the intimacy between to two characters and it’s not just showing sex for the sake of it. This is a really cute story so please read it if you are curious!

Pearl Boy:

“ Do shik is a host who ran away with a large sum of money and has a bunch of people chasing him down, he fled to the country side to lay low for a while and noticed that he was essentially running out of funds to survive. He tried to pick up a few men in hopes of getting some money for his services, but none have been taking the bait. He noticed a clam grilling restaurant and thought he would try his luck in getting a free meal, the boss of the restaurant over heard doshik’s plans and told his worker to pay attention to him in case he runs away. the restaurant’s worker jin juha was aware of his schemes and stopped him from eating and running at the very last minute, saying that he should make it up by paying with his “ body” doshik thought that meant sexual favors and began to touch juha inappropriately. Before juha says that wasn’t what he meant, there was a bunch of men coming towards the restaurant, which made juha panic and forced doshik to leave and forget about paying. After doshik left he was loitering around the restaurant and noticed the back alley had an entry way to the back of the restaurant, there he saw something that he should not have seen.....”

Shameless plug before we begin here, I did draw a fanart of juha from pearl boy if you would like to see it please do so, I explained in the summary that I would write my own synopsis since the one i found was really bad.lol.

I wrote a little summary of the plot up till now below:

so it goes Boss  sexual abuse juha by making him work as a sex toy for old ugly bastards -> juha has ability to produce pearls from cuming after sex lol. i’m sorry this seems so absurd, but it is how the story goes, which the boss monopolizes him -> juha can’t run away because he is scared and owes boss money  juha was about to be assaulted by the ugly bastards-> doshik shows up and saves him a couple times and ends up working at the shop as a co worker-> juha and doshik get to know each other after doshik saves him a couple times juha asks doshik to have sex with him ( in order to produce pearls for debt payment) -> doshik discovers juha’s ability but thought it was beads coming out of his body...LOL. he actually thought he had kidney stones and was genuinely concerned ->  doshik had a pearl that he found at the beach earlier on and used it to compare to the bead that came out of juha and found out it as an actual pearl after getting it appraised by the bank person ->juha met up with doshik and wanted to tell him he wanted him to come over again cause he liked doing it with him -> juha and boss confront each other and boss is angry he didn't show up meet his business partners that night that juha and doshik were together -> juha says that he’s only going to pay it off by himself with his one partner, he didn't tell boss it was doshik, but i think he found out later -> juha and doshik became roommates ->Boss goes to doshik’s old work place to find out more about him

And that is the summary until the official licensed chapters, so I have a lot to say about this manhwa, since this one has been on my mind for a while, but juha’s “quirk” is to make pearls by cuming after sex.lol. Firstly that must hurt, it really would feel like having kidney stones wouldn’t it? It sounds so absurd to say “my ability is to cum pearls” although it’s quite unique, not really sure if you’d save any one with that power.

So the reason why I couldn’t tell if this manhwa is satirical or serious because the whole plot started off with juha being used as a sex toy for crusty old men, these people were getting paid by the boss to basically have sex with juha in order for him to produce pearls, it’s sounds so far-fetched when you explain this to someone, it sounds like some hentai plot line with ugly ass b*stards...but it’s not just one, it’s like 10 of them...so imagine the ugliest being you’ve ever seen in anime/manga but x10...

That freaken boss, I get that some of you would see him and simp over him cause he looks hot but he’s a terrible person, looks can’t begin to compromise for his actions, he’s involved with sex trafficking and sexual abuse, that alone is enough for me to hate this person. So just keep that in mind if you decided to read this.

That aside, he complains and hurts juha because he does not produce quality pearls after having sex with all those men...and i’m like can you blame him? Satirical point of view speaking, you only gave him crusty old ugly ass men to work with, i’m surprised he produced any at all, if you want quality then get better looking men, look at how much he made with doshik...doesn’t that tell you anything?...ugh. the idiocy...

Speaking of doshik, I really like his ballsy character, when one of the crusty ass men was assaulting juha he literally grabbed the ugly ass’s balls and says he will take care of it for him, since he’s good at this stuff. Lol. He is an awesome character and he cares so much for juha, even in the beginning when they were not close and always ended up arguing, he would be genuinely worried for him. Fast forward when juha and doshik were getting close and juha wanted to have sex with doshik instead of the dudes he was supposed to meet that night, doshik really showed how much he liked him and handled him gently and sweetly, I honestly blush every time they have any sort of intimacy, I could feel their affection projecting off of my screen, it’s really sweet. If you can’t tell I simp so hard for this couple and will probably continue to do so. You’ll need to read the manhwa to know what I’m saying but their love scenes are really passionate and affectionate. This of course makes me believe that juha was a person who only knew what pain and suffering was due to his situation and that led to his cold and indifferent expressions early in the manhwa, but after meeting doshik his expressions begin to soften and you can tell as a reader that he starting to develop feelings for doshik. The author actually drew an illustration on her twitter that was quite symbolic to the recent chapters and where the story was going, and I decided to write an entire tumblr post, breaking down the symbolism and foreshadowing in her art. If you’d like to read that post I’ll link it down below.

This manhwa is fairly new and currently is still ongoing so there is very much a lot of stuff to unravel as it continues down the line. Please read this if you have not you won’t be disappointed, I thought this was going to be some satire bull shit and I was proven so wrong... lol.

Alright, that is it for the manga and webtoons section this week, we ended off with the theme of “quirks” in time for spring when My hero academia season 5 will be starting again in the spring.

I hope you all are enjoying reading this since I don’t have any feed back after doing this every month. I do enjoy sharing these since not many people talk about manga/webtoons and I feel like this topic should be more popular. Like I said in the beginning please let me know if you’d like to see the titles of manhwa that I dropped and why I dropped it, in case there are some you are not sure whether or not to read it and would like some feedback, I don’t beat around the bush when I don’t like something so you can be sure that my opinions are 100% genuine.

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ANIME

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Kemono Jihen:

“When a series of animal bodies that rot away after a single night begin appearing in a remote mountain village, Inugami, a detective from Tokyo who specializes in the occult, is called to investigate.

While working the case, he befriends a strange boy who works in the field every day instead of going to school. Shunned by his peers and nicknamed "Dorota-bou" after a yokai that lives in the mud, he helps Inugami uncover the truth behind the killings but supernatural forces are at work, and while Dorota-bou is just a nickname, it might not be the only thing about the boy that isn't human.”

- Summary from my anime list

I started watching this because it reminded me of old series like inuyasha, and I thought I would try it out. I think it’s interesting so far, half demons living among-st the humans and a group of them are solving cases together, this is only my understanding so far. I think that main character is in need of some development because I can’t really read his expressions very well so he doesn’t have much of a personality. I’m not really getting the whole plot as of yet, but maybe when this show is over I’ll have a better understanding.

I’m not going to lie, there is nothing that is intriguing me in terms of new anime series, I have watched the same ones I talked about last month, plus this one. I am waiting for attack on titan to finish before watching it all at once. I don’t think waiting every week for a new episode is something I can do for this series.

I am also waiting for shaman king to show in the spring, I loved shaman king when I was younger and I really want to revisit this series since it was one of my favorites. Also my hero academia season 5 is in the spring as well, so looking forward to seeing that.

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MUSIC/PODCASTS:

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Music for this month is mainly a playlist called dandelions playlist, this YouTube channel has a plethora of indie k-pop music and I love listening to this while painting and drawing, it really relaxes the mind.

I did say in the last months’ favorites that would maybe include some podcasts that I have been listening to and it’s also on YouTube as well

This one is not a podcast, but she may as well have one since she has really interesting takes on bad movies, her channel name is KennieJD, and she talks about bad movies in her series called “bad movies in a beat” I watched a lot of them and I really like the one she did on the “death note” live action movie, this is why I avoided watching that movie, being a huge fan of death note back in the day. All the things she said in her video are valid and I whole heartedly agree with all of it.

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So you have reached the end! Congrats!

I hope everything was informative and if you decided to read/watch any of the things mentioned in my favorites for this month, please let me know down below what you thought about it,

I also am doing a draw 6 characters challenge so if you’d like to participate please see that post on my tumblr page for details!

With that being said, please take care of your selves, we are still in the mist of this pandemic and I hope you are all well and taking care of your selves and your loved ones.

I’ll see you in the next monthly favorites.Thank you for reading,

Sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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Instagram: shinb_art

Tumblr: shinahbee

Deviantart: she-be.deviantart.com

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[onf-headcanons]

ONF in Cafe AU

(Establishment)

A/N : 200 followers special!! This different universe from Baker Yuto

Settings : A total brand new universe where they just gather by pure coincidence. Or an alternate universe where ONF later when their contract ended, they gathered to open a cafe once Yuto return to Korea from graduating his bakery course back in Japan. Hyojin, Seungjun and Jaeyoung helped by researching how to register+open business in Korea.

Roles

Yuto : The bread maker

Seungjun : Barista

Hyojin & Jaeyoung : Chief waiter and in charge of cashier

Minkyun : Assisting waiter and more of a helper in the kitchen preparing ingredients

Changyoon : In charge of other menus such as sandwiches/bagel sandwich and dessert

Reader : could be part timer or the regular guest (bonus a fan of ONF as well)

Bonus : Minseok might occasionally drop by to visit or Minseok as another member in the kitchen (i mean have you seen his IG???!!!!!)

Headcanons

As Yuto is more of a bread lover, the cafe would be a bakery+cafe style eatery.

The menu is made and proposed by all 6 of them. Also before they start running business, the kitchen gang has already tried making food to do taste test. (Including WM family)

The menu is written in Korean, English and Japanese.

Yuto would keep trying on making the best bread so he would experiment with different options such as more milk or less flour

Hyojin would always give ideas to improvise. And members trust Hyojin's thoughts because he is such a foodie XD

Seungjun would research and practice on his barista skills.

Changyoon would do graphic design of the menu

Minkyun and Jaeyoung would go out to find spot to rent and open cafe

Once the cafe is opened, this is how they run it.

Because of ONF's nature, I personally think they will test the timing of business by doing a few around of simulations.

This would be suggested by Changyoon and agreed by the leaders

So before they opened, they really tried it out at the empty cafe and simulated with full house for 3~5 days straight. Then they are content with the current timing as below.

I also think Seungjun Jaeyoung and Yuto would keep suggesting adjustments on the timing.

Especially Seungjun and Yuto. Seungjun in the bystander view because he is the barista and Yuto sharing the perspective on what timing those outside kitchen should alert those in the kitchen. They would run timer using their phone.

Bakery closes on 6pm, tidying done by 7:15pm, head out for dinner or simple dinner by whipping up some left over ingredients.

Grocery shopping on 8:45pm or 9pm, headback for cafe for preparations if necessary

Next day 6am at cafe to do early preparations, bakery side and morning take away opens on 7:30am,

10:00am opens for eat in + buffet, they do not do dinner so closes at 6pm and repeat for every day.

They closes on big event public holidays, end of the year+new year.

(They will get quick lunch by ingredients whipped up from the kitchen. Hyojin will switch with Jaeyoung, Seungjun will switch with the part timer, Yuto will get quick bites while waiting for dough to rise, Changyoon and Minkyun will switch)

(BTW this is just reference from my weak experience working on restaurant)

There are 5 walkie talkies. Hyojin, Seungjun and Jaeyoung have 1 each, 1 at the cashier and another is at the kitchen with speakers. This is for them to communicate and alert each other about the crowd and also any food items that are running out.

BTW should we are using the Minseok as one of the member in kitchen, he did not join immediately. But he do drop by to support his hyungs and being the 2nd food taster.

His hyungs and Yuto are a bit reluctant to recruit him but, to their surprise, Minsk volunteered himself.

And oh boy his hyungs all in awe at how good this baby boy's cooking is!!!

Funny moment when Seungjun caught Hyojin eyes are gleaming with bliss after Hyojin tasted Minseok's food. And then only the other hyungs swarming over wanting to taste Minseok's cooking lol

(Hyojin already numb due to so many times food tasting lol but cos he loves to eat he still finishes all the samples. But Minseok's cooking was a breather for him at that exact moment)

Also Changyoon has an idea that putting surveys on each table and let guests to fill in. When they submit to cashier, they might get coupons (?) or maybe discounts about 83%

Or maybe some collectibles and when they got all six stickers, they get 83% discount? (its flexible)

The cafe gains popularity because of the quality and due to good looks of chief waiters and barista.

Also, I think in their menu, (should this is the contract ended ONF universe), they might integrate the member recommendations, it is flexible either food or drink. Or maybe both

Hyojin definitely going to recommend 2 smoothies.

Changyoon would recommend pasta and dessert

Minkyun will go for a sandwich

Jaeyoung might recommend Yuto's sourdough bruschetta

Seungjun will recommend one type of latte

And Yuto will recommend 1 or 2 breads found at bakery/buffet corner. But for menu he would give out tips like which bread type goes better with which cheese or jam

（BTW I think its cute should they use their mascot deer, shark, maltese, gorilla, cat and bread as avatar/icon that appear at recommendations!）

And on their birthday, (this could be Seungjun's idea) there will be a 83% discount sticker placed on the recommended food/drink by the member.

And since we talked about menu...

Again its a bread themed cafe, so the main would be bread, brunch and all day breakfast.

Bread type (buffet) : mini croissants, mini buns, scones, baguette, bagel, white loaf, sourdough

Bread type (bakery) : croissant, buns, garlic bread, scones, baguette, bagel, red bean bun, packed bread loafs

Let me explain about buffet first.

Buffet is for brunch+lunch, which starts on 10:30am to 2pm. Its a 90 minutes course. In that course you can pick 1 of each option of bread, salad, toppings, sides (sausages, hams, cheese and baked beans) and also random desserts.

They offer butter (salted and unsalted), 3 to 4 types of jams (strawberry, mixed fruit and marmalade), variety of paste to go with bread (mashed avocado and Parmesan garlic pesto). also Nutella

For buffet, beverage there already stocked variety of juices, warm coffee and tea (that are already prepared earlier) and fresh water

Cheese they will go for cheddar, Havarti, Feta, Mozarella and brown cheese.

Should you don't go for buffet, they have eat in cafe menu. Which are separately made set meals that comes with beverage. Like sandwiches, bagel sandwiches, spaghetti/pastas, or bruschetta with topping of your choice (6 the most)

Seungjun would prepare freshly brewed coffee, latte, tea, frappe and even smoothie.

Desserts are all simple desserts, like mini tarts and mini cupcake. For specially ordered ones would non baked stuffs that Changyoon and Minkyun made early in the morning and stored in fridge (because dont wanna clash with Yuto baking should any bread nearly sold out. Also can have more flexible timing should Yuto need help they can back up)

Initially, Changyoon will always make extra desserts by x2.5 amount, especially mini tarts or mini cupcakes at the buffet area. He is a worry wart.

BTW the bell Changyoon presented Yuto during OnDaeJeon? Its later used at the cafe lol. As the alert tool for waiters that food is done come and take it

I think on early years, at most 2 years, they are not going to do delivery or food app order service just yet.

But they will run an Instagram or twitter account for the cafe and using it just like how they are doing with they current twitter account. Promoting food and giving out random recommendations also a glimpse of their daily lifes running the cafe and bakery

I think Changyoon would upload a pic of seasonal fruit and a teaser for new seasonal dessert? And then lol it will sometimes plot twist ends up being seasonal beverage that made by Seungjun lol

Should Minseok is not a member running the cafe, the boys consult with him occasionally about adding new seasonal,time limited items.

Also Hyojin and Yuto being the photographer taking picture of the food. Oops I forgot, the pictures of food items in menu are both taken by them too!

Minkyun will bring along one of his fave part timer to do emergency grocery shopping should he needed a hand.

Hyojin and Jaeyoung will try to help customer to decide by suggesting recommendation

Also Hyojin, who would sometimes keep an eye on how customer do combination on their food and get inspiration from it then later try to propose to the team.

As chief waiters, both Hyojin and Jaeyoung would always during at the cashier, asking customers should they have any suggestions or proposal (even if they submitted the survey). Values communications and feedback between staff and customers.

Also Seungjun will help out keeping an eye in case they miss out someone trying to call a waiter. Later after a year of profits, they upgraded to bell calling service type, press a button and they come serve you in a minute.

Initially, Hyojin and Jaeyoung would make use of walkie talkie to recite orders that they get so that Seungjun, Yuto, Changyoon and Minkyun can get them

After maybe a couple months of profit, they upgraded it to tablets. while the walkie talkie is used as mentioned above, to alert regarding to run out/sold out food items.

Also, once reached closing hours, I think they will also have a brief meeting. Especially for waiters team. I think Hyojin would guide and critique on performance.

In overall it is very warm to work with ONF but you have to keep up because they are also strict.

I can see should they know part timers birthday, they would wish them. Maybe Changyoon/Minseok will shove special dessert or pasta for them.

It will be funny that some fans went there hoping to see Yuto, Changyoon and Minkyun but they are busy, do not want to disappoint, Hyojin and Seungjun might try to call them out using walkie talkie. (only apply to the contract end universe)

Oh I had a thought, maybe not the public knows that Minseok joined? I think maybe its also Minseok's terms and conditions because he does not want the spotlight he just wanna help running the business

Also should WM family drop by to visit, the first word as they enter the door, both sides will go “Aigooooo~~~~!!!” (Refer to RTK where Oh My Girl drops by to check out ONF for TWML practise)

Should that happen, its a big day for the fans

BUT!!! I can think ONF cafe later be the hangout spot for WM family? like member’s birthday? lets go to ONF cafe! Because Yuto baked a cake specially for us!! and off they go~ 

I mean its a great deal, considering Yuto’s love for bread and he did not sell customised cakes. So its personalised stuff he made for those he cared about.

That is why mostly the gathering will happen after 6pm or

Maybe WM managers drop by to pick up the special cake

Also, Yuto let part timers to have leftover breads or desserts at bakery and buffet area for free. His hyungs agreed because you should not waste food. Plus freshly made bread are their selling point so they won't recycle them.

A/N : gonna stop here and should there is more, I might do a part 2~!

[steamingramyun]

perfect ; xmh.

summary ➷

you’re getting ready for a date you don’t really want to go on. luckily, minghao, your college sweetheart, is always there to cheer you on. 

pairing ➷

xu minghao x fem reader feat. jeon wonwoo

genre ➷

oneshot, angst, fluff

just a little.... bit of sadness. 

word count ➷

3696 words

alternative universe ➷

non-idol au, college sweethearts.

warnings ➷

major character death, illusions, and memories due to grief.

author’s note ➷

i read something like this a while ago, about someone holding on to their ex’s memory and i decided to write it for minghao since anon wanted a sad!minghao fic.. this one rly hit me in the feels when i wrote it like i kid u not i was crying in my pants at 3am in the morning. anyway, i hope you enjoy. 

--

[7 november 2019; 1 year after]

“isn’t this like, too much? i don’t know maybe it’s too seductive or something, maybe i look like i’m trying too hard? do i?” you said nervously, turning to your side and pulling the hem of your dress down as you looked in the mirror. the light blue sundress came to just above your knee, exposing your legs. it had been an impulse buy on a shopping trip your friends had dragged you out on to “get some sun”. kind of ironic that you’d ended up with a sundress of all things. you’d paired the sleeveless dress with a pair of white tennis shoes, simple gold studs on your ears to match the gold anklet that curled around your right leg. 

“is it really too showy? it’s the first date anyway, maybe it’s too much right..” you bit your lip, letting out a deep breath and surveying your reflection. you turned towards the boy perched on your bed, who was looking up at you with a smile on your face. “well? is it?”

“you’re going out for lunch, right? you look perfect, baobei, like always,” he replied, almond-shaped eyes studying your outfit. “and you’re wearing the anklet i got you. definitely a winner.”

“i never take it off, hao-ah,” you touch the piece of jewelry gingerly, the charms smooth on your fingers. you stop at the infinity sign charm, sighing with a sad smile. 

[12 december 2017; 11 months before]

“it’s an infinity sign, i put it there because i wanted you to know that i’ll be by your side for an infinite number of days,” minghao said shyly, blushing as you looked at him from across the couch. “wow, is this xu minghao being cheesy? where’s my camera i need to record this,”

it had been a lazy night in for the two of you, but minghao had come home and surprised you with a beautiful gold anklet with all your favourite things on it. you loved it, of course, but your boyfriend really wasn’t one for cheesy gifts or anything cheesy for that matter. if you weren’t lying on the couch with your feet in his lap, you’d have pinched his cheeks for how cute he was being. 

“shut up, y/n,” he pouted, a deep red blush continuing to creep up his cheeks at your comment. you only grinned wider. “oh my gosh hao, you’re blushing, you cheesy hoe,”

instead of a pout this time, though, you got a mischievous grin from your boyfriend as he began tickling your feet. you yelped, giggling uncontrollably and jerking your feet away from him although it proved useless once he’d moved up and begun attacking your side and neck. you’d never laughed more in your life than you had that night. 

“still. you always look perfect,” he said in his usual calm, matter-of-fact tone, leaning back against the pillows, “well i mean unless you’re covered in purple cupcake frosting,”

his too-long bangs fell into his eyes as he burst into a new fit of laughter. you almost instinctively told him to shut up and get his bangs trimmed, but bit back as a smile formed on your face. his bangs were always too long, and you always loved seeing him smile. even if it was about an unfortunate event involving your niece’s school bake sale and the frosting that you’d made for the cupcakes. “we don’t talk about that. it was one time,”

“sure we don’t. but remember our first date? you showed up in a denim jacket even though it was like, boiling outside,” he teased, pushing his bangs out of his face and adjusting the blanket around his legs. “i could tell you were dying, your cheeks were flushed. but it was cute so i didn’t say anything,”

you wrinkled your nose at him, crossing your arms. “i only wanted to impress you! i was going on a date with a dance major, y’all are overly fashionable and put together for no good reason! i was pressured. but then of course you went and showed up in just a plain t-shirt and jeans and ended up looking like a mf GOD.”

you pouted at him through the mirror, watching him shake his head and pat the spot on the bed next to him. you plop down on it readily, letting out a big sigh. “i’m nervous, what if he hates me once we're on the date itself. like he’s cute but it’s kind of weird that we met at grief support group.. plus it's even weirder that we’re going to the theme park after lunch, right?”

for a few moments, minghao didn’t reply. the theme park was somewhere special for the two of you and had been a fortnightly affair back when you were in your second semester of college because of how close it was to your school. you hadn’t been there for nearly a year though since it had been too much of a hassle and too tiring to go for him after he'd gotten sick. “i think you should just go and have fun, babe,”

“but hao - he’s not you-”

“don’t say that,” minghao interrupted, his tone going serious as he looked at you with piercing eyes. minghao always had a sort of finality and sureness about what he said, and you met his gaze nervously before he continued. “you’re beautiful. you were perfect for me and if this guy doesn’t see you the way i did then i think he’s an idiot. so stop second-guessing yourself and just have fun.”

“but-“ you hesitate for a moment, but his eyes don’t leave yours and you end up giving in to him, sighing in defeat. “fine, okay,”

you get off the bed and go into the bathroom, finishing up your makeup and instinctively brushing pale red eyeshadow onto your eyelids, it'd always been minghao's favourite colour on you. 

finishing your hair in a ponytail, you walk out with a wide grin on your face but look down only to see your ex-boyfriend asleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically with each breath. your smile fell a little as you watched him, memories of the past you both had shared still fresh in your head. 

you were still undeniably in love with him, sith the way his slightly-too-long hair fell in his face in the mornings when you both woke up, with the way his eyes crinkled up and disappeared when he smiled too wide, with how he'd always spend too much time choosing an outfit in the mornings for dance practice and asking you if it was dancer-y enough, with his intense passion for everything he did and loved. you loved how the two of you used to go on spontaneous dates, to the beach near your campus at 2 in the morning or to the convenience store when you were craving ramen and ice cream. you loved how easy, how effortless being in love with minghao had been, even when it had gotten tough on the two of you in the last months when his situation had taken a toll on the both of you. all you wanted was him, everything about him, and it was all you'd have ever needed in life. but clearly that wasn't the way the universe willed it to be for you. 

if you were being honest, you didn't even know why you were going on this date. but everyone was forcing it on you, they'd been forcing it on you for over a month. your friends sent you tinder profiles and screenshots of eligible classmates' instagram accounts. they all felt it was time for you to find someone new- it had been almost a year, after all. but you'd been asked out by wonwoo two days ago at the support group, and the two of you had actually been getting along quite well. as an added bonus, he was an economics major at your school so the two of you had been getting quite close over the past few weeks, spending time studying together and eating lunch together in between classes. but somehow.. you still felt hesitant. 

"hao! i'm ready," you call, waking minghao from his short nap. "and i'm twenty minutes early."

he blinked at you tiredly, smiling at how pretty you looked before shooting you a mischievous grin. "you always were too early," 

his light teasing made you want to push him as he mischievously pulled the blankets all the way up until only his eyes and the top of his head were exposed, eyes crinkling at the corners as he giggled once more. you went for it but then hesitated, watching him as he calmed down and pushed the blankets down again.

“hao…” you said softly, looking down at him.

he opened one cat-like eye at you, intrigued and attentive. “yes, baobei?”

“i think- i think i still love you,” you admitted shamefully, tears filling your eyes and trickling down your cheek as you clasped your hands tightly, knuckles turning white from the force, "and i don't know if i'm ready to let go of you just yet."

shaking his head, he sat up before meeting your eyes and smiling sadly at you with an odd sort of familiar fondness. "i love you too, Y/N, i always will. but don’t cry for me anymore, okay? you can move on too, i want you to be happy. don't cry for me anymore.”

you don't know what to say, silently staring into space but eventually turning back into the bathroom to fix your make-up. you finished it, walking back out only to be greeted by minghao's proud smile. "you look beautiful. like always," 

even if you had no make-up on, or were wearing the world's most horrifying pair of patterned pants, minghao always thought you were beautiful. and he always told you so, no matter what.

[20 september 2018; 3 months before.]

you'd been working on your essay for the past hour or so, sitting in the padded chair next to minghao's bed as you waited for him to wake up. you were halfway through your third point when you'd heard the sheets shift next to you. 

"y/n.. you're still here? you have class tomorrow, baobei, go back to your dorm and get some real sleep, please, the visitor's chairs are very uncomfortable," he said tiredly, eyes half open and hand squeezing yours gently. you tried not to show how worried you were about how cold his hand felt in yours. 

"i- it's okay, at least here i can look like a mess without the nurses judging me, right? if i go back to school i'll have to do my makeup to look decent," you said quickly, not wanting to leave his side yet. you did look like a mess, your hair in a bun, still wearing your clothes from the dance practice you'd run from and lipstick cracking because of the dry hospital air. it probably wouldve been a good idea to go home, but you couldnt bring yourself to do it. you watched as he frowned slightly, obviously not wanting you to waste your time or cause you to lose precious sleep and rest by making you stay with him. 

"you still look beautiful, baobei, you'll always look beautiful to me. but you'll be more grateful if you go back and get some real sleep okay? i'm not going anywhere anytime soon," he joked, gesturing to himself and the iv needle poking out from his elbow. "so go back, get some rest, and come here even more beautiful for me,"

and so you'd gone home that day, but returned every day after you classes. minghao'd stopped going to his two months before.

you smiled at him as confidently as you could, tightening your ponytail and grabbing your handbag. "i guess i'm ready, huh?" 

minghao nodded in affirmation at you, pulling back the covers to reveal the black cotton dance pants he always wore to practice but had also taken to wearing to bed because they were so comfortable. he slipped his feet into the slippers you still kept around for him under your bed, standing up and going out of your room and to the downstairs part of your apartment. 

you quickly followed his figure down, butterflies of anxiety filling your stomach and chest. when you got downstairs, minghao was on the couch, bottom half covered with one of your many extra blankets and a book in his hand, reading intently like you'd always see him when you got back from school.

[15 october 2018; 50 days before.]

"good evening, baby," you called to your boyfriend who was in his usual spot on the couch, a cup of tea on the table and a book in his hand. he looked exhausted, skin slightly pale and cold, a stark contrast from the healthy glow you remembered from months ago. "how do you feel?" 

"tired," he said softly, leaning into your neck as you came to sit with him, "and a little sick, but better now that you're back here," 

you felt bad, ever since minghao had started treatments you'd always tried to be back early so you could go with him. but that particular day you had a dance class to teach at night and couldn't make it, so your friend jun had offered to go with minghao instead. you felt guilty because you knew how sick treatments made minghao feel, but you also knew he was far too stubborn to let the bad feelings show if it meant compromising your own routine and activities. that night the two of you had just cuddled on the couch, falling asleep together to harry potter and the goblet of fire playing in the background. 

"babe? i'm still nervous. i can't shake it," you approached, sitting down on the other couch and lacing up your shoes. this time he really didn't reply at all, only shaking his head and looking up at you meaningfully. you know what he would've said, he'd told you everything earlier. 

"i'll come visit you later, okay?" you promised, standing up and slipping your wallet and phone into your handbag. he waved you off, "no need, i'll be fine."

you sighed. he'd always been the one to pay you visits when you needed them the most, though. 

[6 april 2018; 8 months before.]

you ran your hand through your hair again, gently massaging your scalp in attempt to relieve the gnawing headache that had been plaguing you for the past two hours. finals season was absolutely brutal, and you couldn't tell how long you'd been studying but you were far from sanity and could barely digest any more information. 

a knock on your door pulled you from your desk, and you nearly melted with relief when you saw a smiling minghao holding a takeaway tupperware of noodles and a box of fruits for you. "i heard someone was being killed by the exam monster," 

he'd calmed you down that night, making sure you finished all your food and rubbing your shoulders with traditional medicated oils to relieve the tension in your head and neck. the next day, you'd done the exam with a clear head and passed with flying colours. 

you couldn't do the same for minghao now, but the least you could do was pay him a visit like you knew he would have done for you. even if it was after a date. 

putting his book down, he gave you the same stern look as he had earlier. "baobei, you know you can let me go right? you don't have to keep holding on like this. you're strong, i know you can. maybe you'll be happier when you do,"

"no. i don't want to," you retorted quickly, snapping a little. he did nothing but sigh in response. "then i guess you're going to be late for your date,"

you looked over to the clock and nodded, slinging your handbag over your shoulder and looking at him expectantly. "well? you're coming too, right?" 

he sighed again, but rose from the couch anyway and slipped on his pair of dance shoes you kept in the shoe cabinet next to the door. you walked out of your apartment together, taking the elevator down and walking out onto the almost-empty street of your campus- it was the new year season and everyone had gone home to their families, but you were a foreign student and wonwoo lived too far away from campus to go home. 

"i hope wonwoo's nice.. from what interaction we've had he seems pretty chill," you chimed, trying to break the tension that was growing between minghao and you. 

"i think he'll be great," minghao replied quickly, "and i'm sure the two of you will make a great couple, i know he'll make you happy," 

you pulled a smile onto your face, but it was far from genuine. minghao could tell. of course he could tell, he'd been with you for years. but as much as he knew you didn't want to be on this date, he knew it'd be good for you to try some chance at love again. 

the two of you finally arrived in front of the small café you'd agreed to meet wonwoo at, but instead of going in you stopped at the entrance hesitantly. "hao? i can't go, i just can't."

"y/n, this is for the best okay? you like wonwoo, from what you said i know he likes you too," minghao sighed, "this is why i shouldn't have come, how many times do i have to tell you to let go?" 

"i know, but i just-" you say desperately, but you don't know what to say anymore. you know he's right, you know everyone is right by telling you to move on. 

"i can't keep being here for you, baobei,"

"i love you minghao,"

silence. another deep sigh. 

"i know you do," 

a pause. silence. more tension. and then, finally, "y/n, i need to go,"

you panicked immediately, head shooting up in shock as you begged him to stay. "what? no, no no no, minghao you can't go anywhere, you have to stay here with me, you have to stay with me," 

you reached for his wrist but he was too fast for you, pulling away before your fingers could touch his skin.

"minghao you can't leave me, please,"

"i have to go,"

"you can't, i need you!" 

but he didn't reply. there were tears in your eyes, tears that were hot with anger and pain and grief and guilt all at the same time. tears threatening to spill down your cheeks, but he didn't reply even then, only walking further away from you. 

"minghao, please. minghao you cant leave me again!" you said helplessly, your voice raised, drawing attention to yourself. you felt the concerned gazes of passers-by on you as you panickedly looked around for minghao's tall figure, but he was nowhere to be seen. he was gone. 

"hao, i can't do this without you," you whispered helplessly to the air. "i need you to be in my infinity," 

"you can. you can and you will. you're everything anyone could ever want,, y/n you're perfect," you hear minghao's soft voice echo in your head. you freeze, letting a single tear fall and trickle down your cheek. "you're perfect no matter what," 

you shook your head again, denying it. "i can't let you go, i can't,"

but then you could've sworn you felt his hand in yours, warm and full of life again. the same hand you'd held through thick and thin that had grown colder and paler but was now back to the state it had been in when you'd first met. the hand that had kept you strong for years. 

"you can. and you will be happy for years and years to come and then we will meet again. i promise," you rubbed the tear from your cheek, listening to his voice for the last time in your head. you knew he was right, you knew he was right just like all of your friends. you'd spent months avoiding people because you'd thought that you had all you needed at home, that the memory of a love you'd lost was always going to be enough for you. but he was gone, he'd become a star in your night sky and it finally became real to you that he wasn't there anymore, and it was high time that you move forward with your life. 

you could see his smile in your head, the smile you'd woken up to on countless mornings and fallen asleep to on countless nights. you thought you'd be lost without him, to guide you, relying on a memory to get you through the pain. but as you looked through the window of the café and saw wonwoo smiling at you, sitting at a table for two with two cups of iced coffee in front of him, you knew it was okay. 

minghao wasn't here anymore. but it was okay. 

"i'll see you soon, hao-hao," you whispered with finality as you walked into the café and waved at wonwoo. xu minghao had been the best thing that had ever happened to you. and you knew it would take a while, but for him, you had to try to learn to be happy with someone else. 

so you take your seat from across wonwoo, and smile brightly at him. "hey, wonwoo, sorry to keep you waiting so long,"

"no, it's fine, i heard from soonyoung that today's actually a difficult day for you,, not a very first date question but it's your ex-boyfriend's birthday isn't it? the one you come to support group for,"

"it is, but i figured he'd want me to have fun today instead of wasting it alone at home feeling sad," you pause for a second, "he passed away a year ago, actually. he, um, got sick when we were in our junior year of college together," 

wonwoo smiled and nodded at you, listening to what you had to say. "i'm glad you decided to finally take a chance, y/n," 

"yeah," you smiled back, sipping on your coffee with newfound lightness on your shoulders. "yeah, me too, wonwoo,"

[tractim]

i found your blog earlier this week and i love your art! i especially like the way you paint renaissance dress! 💕💕 if it's not rude to ask, where do you find your refs?

Thank you so much, I'm glad you like my art!! 🥺🥺💜

And don't worry, your ask is not rude, on the contrary! I'm more than happy to help - even if I want to specify now that I'm not at all an expert in historical fashion, so please don't believe that the outfits I draw are always 100% historically accurate. Also, almost everything I know concerns Italian Renaissance, so if you need reference for, let's say, German Renaissance I'm afraid I will not be that helpful 😔

Anyway! What I do when I want to draw Renaissance clothes is to look at art history! Luckily the Renaissance is a time where a lot of portrait have been made, and sometimes even religious or pagan artworks can be of help!

For example, for Venice I would search for the portraits by Titian or Giovanni Bellini to start, or also for the paintings by Vittore Carpaccio (the "Storie di Sant'Orsola" cycle is GREAT for outfit references). The same goes for other territories, for example a good start for Florence would be Domenico Ghirlandaio, or for Mantua the "Camera degli Sposi" by Andrea Mantegna and so on for the other cities.

If you don't know that many artist (as is my case when I want to draw someone from a place outside of Italy) you can start researching by finding portraits of the governors of the territory that you want to target! For example, let's say that you want to put a character at the start of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, so you ask yourself (and you ask internet): who was the first Grand Duke? Cosimo I de Medici. Cool, do we have a portrait of him? The first one we find in wikipedia is by Bronzino. Has Bronzino made other portraits? Yes! And you already have some references.

Alternatively, you can look up who were the wife and children of Cosimo, and search for portraits of them.

Some disclaimers about this method are:

Mostly the people who had portraits of them made were noblemen and noblewoman, and they posed wearing their best outfits, so be careful if you want to take them as a reference for common people!

Many times religious or pagan paintings are set in renaissance times in terms of outfits, but they are still stories from another time and age, so I wouldn't be surprised if the artists took a few liberties with the clothes

Then as now, fashion trends changed, so I would keep an eye on the dates in which the paintings were made

Some other references:

I feel some artist do a much better work than mine when researching historical clothes, for example @aph--lietuva draws amazing clothes! If you have instagram, I love the work of toscasam, who always puts a great care in researching the clothes of her characters!

I'll also leave some photos from a book I have at home, but please consider:

These are all references took from paintings, so all the disclaimers I listed above still stand;

I found this book in a vintage shop and it has been printed in 1959, so I’m sure you will find much more nuanced modern publications out there;

The captions are in Italian, but I'll leave them here anyway because the years of the clothes are still understandable

Italian Renaissance:

German:

Spanish:

Also, IF SOMEONE READING THIS POST HAS BETTER REFERENCES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD INFORMATIONS IN THE REBLOGS! The more sources we have, the better!

Lastly, I would like to end this post by saying that despite the researches I'm more than willing to take some liberties when I draw. I'm an artist and not an historian, and whenever I feel like I'm limited by the lack of references I don't dwell too much on it and prioritize the completeness of the drawing by adding things from my mind, so don't rely too much on my art if you are looking for historical accuracy!

And that's all it comes to my mind about the topic. I hope I have been helpful (and clear, I know I still have some problems with the English language 🥲)! Thank you so much for the question and have a lovely day <3

[hauntedexpertcrusade]

How video ads transformed my E-commerce business

Introduction

Dropshipping is a very viable and effective business model these days that is catering to millions of dropshippers and Shopify store owners around the world. What makes it so great is the convenience it has, all you need to do is to gather a suitable amount of investment, a trusted supplier, know how to get your product to the public, and really understand the mechanics of a solid and successful dropshipping store, it really doesn’t matter where you are, you can do e-commerce from anywhere around the world. However, to many people, it seems that just placing products on your store and doing good on-page SEO with a few tweaks is going to land them clients and that’s far from the truth. Even if you’re invested in amazon’s FBA program which is another alternative for dropshipping, you might think that amazon’s vast and large marketplace is going to greatly influence your sales, that is very much possible but taking extra steps to build your brand integrity and reputation as an e-commerce seller will greatly safeguard your future as a brand or business and help you land more clients than none.

Importance of video content on Facebook

Studies have shown that more than 4 billion people watch Facebook videos every day whether that's scrolling past them or actually engaging with them and we all can agree including me that video content consumption on Facebook is unanimous.

As a dropshipper, you and I need to understand how we can harness this facebook power and actually convert it into meaningful engagement that will lead to buyers reaching out to us and eventually buying products off of our Shopify or any e-commerce store.

Understanding the buyer psyche

Let's now focus on why people trust video demonstrations of products more than just an image. The reason for that is it removes any doubts, loopholes, or any false sense of a thought that they might have regarding your business. When you run ads for your Shopify business or any e-commerce store by putting out ads that are video-based which actually show what your product can do is more than helpful for a potential customer to understand the product and what they can expect to get and it immediately registers in their mind.

Let's consider this watch product you see on the diagram as an example. If you were to just post an image as an ad with little information and slapping your branding on it you wouldn’t get a ton of engagement and your CPC(cost per click) would be higher but on the other hand what I noticed was substantial and my cost per click using a video was significantly less compared to that when I used an image. What I noticed was that the CPC was 1.5 with 8000 impressions using an image as my Facebook ad creative but when I placed a video I got almost the same amount of impressions but the CPC was considerably lower at 0.47, so you all can see how effective it really is.

WHY USE SHORT VIDEO ADS FOR YOUR E-COMMERCE OR DROPSHIPPING BUSINESS?

Source branding has this valuable article on why you should use short video ads for your business and you can check it out here. But let me give you my end of the piece, when you say ’’Short” video ads, that means no more than 2 minutes and no less than 1 minute. This gives the end-user the perfect amount of time to spend on your ads because let's face it, people won't spend 10 minutes watching a video of your product, they are in a hurry and they need information fast and accurate. If you are short on skills or resources you need in producing video content, you can always hire someone to create an engaging video ad for you and that's what i did too because I rarely have the time and experts in this field can help you get a professional end product. I highly recommend this service if you want to get your job done in no time and I can speak for myself that it does help significantly and forging extra cash to invest in something that will produce better results for your business is definitely worth it.

Running targeted video ads on Google or Facebook

One of the most effective strategies to boost your online dropshipping store sales is to immediately start putting out quality targeted ads on platforms such as Google, Instagram, or Facebook. The idea here is to cleverly target people with a very similar interest in your product and its useful to take a look at audience insights or demographics inside for e.g in Facebook, by typing the interest that’s very specific to your niche or product, and then you can find pages that you can target and from their keep on adding into the list you want to target and you can pretty much do a similar action when you head inside the campaigns in Facebook and can also cleverly use the suggestion for targeting to send out to that audience. Once you understand how detail targeting works you can add your video ad and expect to see many improvements that will allow traffic to come into your site. If you want to understand more about Facebook ads targeting you should check out a piece by BigCommerce that goes over it in more detail and will help you understand the basics and tricks you can implement in Facebook ads manager.

Advantage of short video ads on smartphones

Another study has clearly shown that more than 60% of users are watching short videos on their smartphones whether that's on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or youtube and that presents a wide opportunity for my fellow dropshippers out there to capitalize upon. People are watching such videos insanely quickly and scrolling past tons of others at a fast pace as well so taking advantage of such a metric is necessary to bring large amounts of traffic to your website so it can translate into sales. Another thing you can do is choose a video ad that's much more engaging and less obvious in terms of looking like an infomercial because people on social sites like Facebook or Instagram are not out there looking to buy your product or even searching for one, so its your job to lure them in through an engaging ad so that they end up hitting the Add to cart button.

Additional Tips and tricks

Make sure your short video ad has subtitles.

Always prefer to include background music.

Make it between 1 and 2 minutes long in duration.

Make the video helpful in understanding how your product can benefit your client.

Conclusion

Lastly, I would conclude by recollecting all of my thoughts and urging all you dropshippers out there to take advantage of video to transform your business because I've seen many a times dropshippers or online marketers neglect and ignore using video to market and advertise their business and they are missing out on a lot here. Statistics don't lie, my experience doesn't lie and i’m hopeful that by implementing the strategies I’ve told you here, you will most certainly see positive results in your dropshipping business.

[trilliath]

Do you happen to have any recommendations for better phones? Your iPhone rant makes me think you might be familiar with alternatives that don't drive you up the wall, and I'm in the market for a new phone :P

I’m mayyyyyyybe not the best choice for an opinion given where I’ve actually been living in the smartphone universe. Also they gave me an iphone 6 for work so it’s already behind the curve and irritating. And I hate apple. Did I mention that? I. Hate. Apple.

I have such massive, fundamental issues with apple’s entire product line and business model. I still don’t trust google much either but at least they’re more or less transparent about their creepery. Sortof.

Here’s the funny thing - I’ve always been a microsoft smartphone user till just this month when my family switched carriers and we had to finally make the switch to android. I mourn the loss of the windows phone. Despite consistently having a better hardware product and OS than similarly-priced competitors, the Microsoft phone is more or less getting phased out. (My last phone was a gorgeous lumia 950. It’s a few years old now but it was fast and high res enough that in comparison new phones don’t even seem like they’ve advanced much in the interim... and it still looks new - tough no case required, you could literally run it over and it would be fine - but companies like apple consider device reliability a bug not a feature because then you don’t have to buy a new one every five seconds) Between apple’s years of aggressive advertising and market segmentation and fashion/status symbol positioning putting the cost of their devices well above their actual value (and google’s less overt but still concerted efforts in a similar fashion) and the cultlike efforts of ABM-brainwashed programmers to deliberately throttle and disable or just flatout refuse to generate apps for MS (which… if you have already built the app in any decent fashion it’s not like that’s hard to do - in many cases because they didn’t want to go through the “hassle” of having basic fucking security in their programming that MS requires - it would amaze me that people still believe apple products are less prone to viruses except the apple psych manipulation game is strong), the microsoft phone is basically dead and I had to move on. So. Woo. I can use snapchat now. Great. (I miss my goddamned livetiles so muchhhhh). Can you tell that I’m bitter? Really? I’m so surprised.

Ok but anyway, I have a Samsung Galaxy S8 now and it’s very nice and shiny, and has all the apps a girl could want.(The downside is that instagram has ads now, which, that’s new and tedious. So many ads everywhere on all the apps. But that’s just because they couldn’t be bothered to program them in to the windows phone versions of the apps lmao.) Also the ability to actually change a lot of settings at nuanced levels (unlike apple which likes to assume you don’t know what you want and they know best).

It took me a little getting used to the UI and there are just a few things I really miss, but so far I think the S8 is really very good. I have no real complaints about it, especially since I’ve got my microsoft launcher going so it integrates with all my files and my one-drive and one-note (where I do all my writing, which makes good integration with microsoft a very key feature of smartphones for me).

So tl;dr - I can’t give you much by way of varied comparisons but the Samsung Galaxy S8 is pretty rad