#i do Not have a consistent file-naming method

[unhinged-diaries]

Business Guide:

How to get started

When you have a business name in mind look up the domain name to see if it’s taken. You don’t want to spend money on an LLC just to find out that your name is taken. Thats a waste of money because you also have to pay to dissolve it.

If the name is not taken, great, don’t file an LLC yet. Go online and get a virtual business address. Why? If you’re running your business out of your home like I am, just know that it’s public information if you use your address to file your LLC. A virtual address should cost like $10-$20 a month. Use that to file your LLC.

Once you’ve filed that LLC get your Ein. That’s your Employee Identification Number. It’s your businesses tax id. It’s free to file on the IRS website. Don’t fall for the scam websites you guys.

Once you’ve gotten your EIN go to Google domains and get your website name aswell as 3-4 emails. An email for your social media accounts, an executive email for yourself, an ecomm@businessname.com for things like your business bank account, Shopify account, etc; and maybe a customer support email. I use the social email as a customer support email. All of this should be like $50/month.

Once you’ve don’t that get on Canva and make that logo bookie. Personally I paid someone on Fiverr to make mine because I’m a “soft business life” kind of girl and I’d rather pay the professionals. Thats just me though.

Once you’ve got your logo go ahead and get them social media accounts going. Instagram, tiktok, Facebook.

Alright now this is where it gets specific to clothing brands because that’s what I own.

Time to find a manufacturer. Head over to alibaba and search what kind of product you want to sell. Be sure to add “oem” if you want a manufacturer that customizes. Look for the amount of orders they’ve gotten on that product. If it says zero orders that’s ok. Some styles are new and thus haven’t been ordered yet. Check any reviews they have for other products. Also check the total revenue they’ve done. It’s on the store profile. I can’t tell you what the sweet spot is yet bc I’ve only used one manufacturer so far but I’d look for mid six figures and up if you wanna be real safe.

Chat with them and order a sample. Even if you buy from a vendor list you’ll need your own sample to make content with. I suggest buying one and first. It’s worth the wait because if you buy multiple and end up not liking them you’d have wasted money that could’ve gone into testing a different manufacturer.

Do not launch with more than 2 products. Even 2 is a stretch, wallai start with one.

This is because if you’re doing the preorder, which I suggest, you’ll be depending on customer orders to pay for the bulk order. Manufacturers do their moq by color or style. If you have too many options in your website and customers order a mix of things, you better pray you have enough money to cover the bulk for all those different styles. Stay safe and give them 1-2 options to choose from.

Pre order method is great if you don’t have a lot of cash to start with because the orders pay for themselves. Bulk orders start to wrack up. Especially if it’s a custom style or material. You don’t want to break the bank for something that might not sell.

Once you’ve gotten and approved your samples choose a launch date. 2-3 weeks before that launch dates post consistently. At least once a day but remember quality over quantity. Now don’t be tricked. Quality doesn’t mean a full cinematography. It means connecting with your audience and relating with them to a point where they’re like “this business gets it”. Either that or attaching yourself to an identity they want to have. “It girl ig influencer”, “feminine soft life babe” “clean girl Pilates princess” whatever the fuck it is embody ur as best as you can. When customers attach your product with an identity that is aspirational to them they will buy it without rationalizing. It’s why the luxury market makes so much off of ppl who can’t afford to buy it twice.

Focus on the backend

If you have a goal of getting an influx of orders and making a lot of sales, be sure that your business is structured in a way that can handle it happening at any given time. You know those tiktok businesses that get one viral video and sell out over night? That could be you but if you’re not prepared ppl are going to be upset. I suggest working backwards:

A customer service platform/inbox so that you can answer them right away with frequently asked questions.

Have stock so that you have something for customers to buy once they finally land on your website.

Have a well presenting website so that ppl don’t think you’re a scam. I’m going to do a post on this bc some of these business websites drive me fuckin nuts. Color theory ppl, color theory.

A social media page with some kind of social proof ie reviews from customers in some way shape or form. Ppl are going to be looking for what others have to say about your brand. Hire UGC creators to make videos that you can post on your page. They’re cheaper than influencers but still know how to convey the message well. You’ll have to have extra samples and items on hand to send them. Also check out their usage rights. Some will allow you to use their videos in ads but you have to pay extra and it’s only for a certain amount of time. But if they do it right, you’ll get a great return. Scared money don’t make no money.

A social media page that shows the products in movement and different lighting. I need to be able to imagine myself in the item before I buy it. Where would I wear it, how will it fit on me. Even when I’ve already ordered something I stay going back to the businesses social media page just to see the clothes again. I might even search it up to see other ppl wearing it.

Packaging

No need to go crazy with the packaging in the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, branding is important but as a beginner you may not have the money for that yet. You need to focus on spending money on what will give you the best return. Just get regular poly mailers from Amazon in your brand colors. You’ll also need:

A stack of 6x4 shipping labels

A thermal printer

A scale

When your manufacturer sends you the clothes they will most likely be in their own little bags. If not you can get those from Amazon too.

Later on you can go to alibaba and find a manufacturer to print you custom poly mailers for that extra edge. Put your logo, a cute message, and your social media handles on the bag and that’s it. Good to go.

You can also design your own thank you cards as well. I won’t be doing that.

Little things to remember

Don’t feel like you have to keep up with big brands. You don’t need to launch something every two weeks. As a matter of fact I advise against emulating super fast fashion brands. I only launch a new item once the pre ordered items have been shipped out to customers.

Be nice to your customers. You’d think this was obvious but it’s not. Some ppl are rude, ghetto, and uncouth. If you hate authority and have a smart mouth I think you should either take a customer service course or hire a virtual assistant from the Philippines to do your customer service for you because no customers = no money.

I’ll update this as I learn and grow:

12/18/2023

Influencers

Not every influencer with a mass follower base is going to be your influencer. It’s possible that you pay $5000 for an influencer with 75k followers to post your product on her page but that post makes you less than $3k. That means you’ve net negative $2k. What a fuckin waste of money.

This is why it’s important to develop a persona for your brand. What is your brand identity? Who is your target audience? What are their psychographics?

Where do currently shop? What are there favorite social media apps?What is their race? Their age? Their ethnicity? Are they in college or highschool? Do they have parents that support their lifestyle or are they hustlers? Are they concerned about price or quality more? Are they married? Do they have children? Are they environmentally conscious?

You need to embody Joe Goldberg and peer at them through their window. Acquaint yourself with every part of their life.

Also, you might not be your target demographic yet and that’s ok. The girls that shop with my brand have social lives. They go out with their friends and need outfits to wear. I don’t have a social life. The only clothes I wear are my work clothes to go to work and my robe when I’m at home.Or a sweat set and a bonnet to run errands.

Don’t think to yourself “ I would never wear that.” “I would never buy something at that price point”. That’s fine cuz someone else will. A lot of people will.

Another thing is your demographic could change once you start your business. It might be that you create content that attracts a different type of person than what you originally planned and that’s cool too. We don’t live in a perfect world. As long as they’re close enough to what you had predetermined it’s ok. Sometimes our business comes out different than we hoped but it’s just as good if not better. It’s like child. Don’t destroy its greatness trying to turn it into something it doesn’t want to be.

User generated content

Love, love, love her down. She’s that sweet spot between making content yourself and having an influencer with a large following make the content for you. UGC is a form of social proof which is something you need for an e-commerce brand especially. Ppl can’t just pop into your store and try on your stuff so they need the opinions of “regular” people to sell them on it. They want to see that person try it on, do a close up of the fabric, wear it to a social setting, etc;

What I like about UGC is that I can pick someone who fits into my brand persona to represent my brand even if I don’t. Someone that appears aspirational but still relatable. Like I said previously, you yourself might not embody your brands persona but you can pay someone who does.

A little translate for yall: I do not live in a nice apartment. My room is small, and dark, and filled with boxes. My living room has mix matched decor and I myself am not the body type I’d like to be (pls don’t hit me with body positivity babe). What I can do is pay a girl with the opposite of all those things and knows how to sell a product.

I have a girl right now that I’ve inquired to make posts for me and she’s got it all. Her rate for one video is $100 with an extra $30 for 90 days of usage in ads. $100 is the new 50 and for the return I’ll get on her, THATS A STEAL.

If you need to find a UGC creator search it up on tiktok and Twitter. Most of them have a portfolio of past work they’ve done. If you feel like they match your brands vibes, keep their info for when you’re ready.

I suggest to have a roster of them because if ppl keep seeing the same person over and over, the thought that that person is just a regular degular customer leaves their mind and you lose the magic of UGC.

Update 12/21/2023

I’ve been sick but yall ain’t paying me so it’s ok. Here’s the update.

Website

Your website is your home babe and when you’re preparing for guest you can’t have your home looking any type of way. Not only does it need to be clean but it needs to be cohesive and inviting.

You know how many times I’ve opened someone’s booking page on Instagram and I click off. Not only am I not reading through all of that small ass text but my head hurts cuz you’ve got a black font on a hot pink background.

Some of yalls websites to not comply with accessibility guidelines so pay attention to that bc you can be sued. Ppl should be able to read what you have on there without getting a headache.

Good rule of thumb is to have one primary color, and then black and white. Don’t over complicate it. Your primary color will be your logo, think twitters blue, then your secondary colors should be black and white, for your text. You might have an accent color like gold or silver, this should be used sparingly for a little dazzle.

If you’re a clothing brand like me, keep the text short and sweet. Think about it, when you go shopping on your favorite website are you bombarded with a soliloquy on how the collection came to be? And even if you are do you stop and read the whole thing? I don’t bc I don’t care. That’s what your Instagram story is for.

All I want to see is the attention grabber and a short,but convincing, tagline.

Example: Ski Resort 2023-“Stun the slopes and stand out on the ski lift with best sellers spotted at St. Moritz”

Let you images tell the rest of the story.

Don’t overwhelm them with options

Guys this is so important. The more options ppl see the less they buy or the less likely they are to buy. Why? This is the thought process.

“Omg the stuff on this website is so cute! Let me go through their catalog and add to my cart as I go”

5 minutes of scrolling

“Ok I have too many things in my cart let me just save to a wishlist instead”

Another 5 minutes of scrolling

“Ok I’ll just stop here and go back to my cart and decide what I’m going to get rn”

Goes to cart

Spends 10 minutes deciding what she’s gonna get bc there’s so many good options

Takes 10 items out of her cart and only buys two basics bc she knows those are less likely to disappoint.

And scene

That is if she didn’t leave after the second five minutes of scrolling. Nowadays five minutes on a non stimulating website is a lot, don’t let it take that long.

Obviously this also depends on the customers budget. Some people have the money to just buy everything in their cart (I wish- one day), but most are just window shopper you hope to convert with your nice styles, images, and prices. Don’t make it harder for people to give you their money.

I have more but I’m tired of writing so I’ll update yall tmrw.

[stagkingswife]

Take Notes Like Stag Part 3: Spell Lab Notes

Part 1: Spirit Encounters Part 2: Unrecorded Entity Note Taking Exercise I think I’ve said this somewhere before, I don’t know if it was here, or on Discord, I’m a huge believer in applying the scientific method to spell work.  I don’t believe that magic can be explained by science, or that it’s an extension of science.  But I do believe that an approach of  empirical observation, incremental variable adjustment, and repeat experimentation is a great way to develop a solid spell work practice.  This is how I figured out a lot of my own methods and personal magical paradigms - by testing something, making notes, changing a variable, and then  testing again - rinse and repeat.  There’s a lot to keep track of in that process though, particularly if you’re rinse and repeat step keeps repeating, so over the years I’ve developed a template of “lab notes” to keep track of my experiments.  Spell Friendly Name - A brief concise, yet descriptive title. • The idea of a “friendly name” is something I stole from my IT day job.  A lot of hardware devices come with their network name set as their serial number, or model number, or something like that.  Those sorts of names can be fine for a sys or network admin, but it’s not super helpful for a normal person - so it’s an important step up setting up that device to give it a name that is immediately recognizable and descriptive of its role on the network: Like HR Printer, or [Company Name] File Server. When you’re testing and workshopping spells it’s important to be able to distinguish them from one another in your notes. You don’t want a dozen pages in a row all titled “Prosperity Spell” but they’re all different spells.  Make sure your Friendly Names are descriptive, catchy, and above all stay consistent across your notes for subsequent re-casts. 

Date Cast - The day (and time if it matters to you) that you cast the spell • I’m not one for celestial or planetary magic, so I don’t care much about when I cast the spell for magical correspondence reasons.  I care mostly in relation to the next field - 

Time Frame/ ”Due Date” - When you expect the spell manifest result by. • I’m a big believer in setting yourself time frames for your spells - it’s much easier to tell if a spell has succeeded or failed if you have a due date for it.  So I mark my time frame as part of my notes, however I built it into my spell: two weeks, by the next rainfall, before the turn of the season, by an exact date.  Keeping this due date next to the date of casting helps me keep track of how long is left for the spell to work. Parameters for Success - What an ideal successful result looks like to you.  • We all know that sometimes spells manifest in funny ways that can still technically be called “successful”. You phrased the inscription of your prosperity spell as “looking for a windfall” only to get a bunch of free apples at the farm stand because they had a windstorm and have to get rid of all of the apples that fell?  Technically you got a windfall, but it wasn’t what you wanted.  So you recast the spell and this time phrase the inscription as, “you want to come into money.” Well this time a great aunt dies and leaves you an inheritance.  We all know these examples, I’m not saying anything new.  But I find that keeping track of exactly what I quantify as “success” helps me troubleshoot my spells.  Is my parameter of success for this theoretical prosperity spell specifically that I get a raise at work? Then I say it here.  Am I open to alternatives?  List them here.  Materials: Function - Your ingredients list: what role of each ingredient is in the spell • I vastly prefer to create my own spells, I find I can tinker and troubleshoot better with something I have written myself because I understand how everything is meant to work, and how it all works together.  I list out every single ingredient and what its job is in the spell, not just ingredients being used for magical correspondences.  I include lines like, “paper & pen (mundane): for the writing of inscription” or “mortar & pestle: for grinding herb blend.” But then I’ll also have lines like “Nettle: used here for personal association with emotion, a la Aunt Betty and her nettle tea,” referencing a personal magical association I have within my own paradigm.  This may be overkill for some people, but it keeps my spell work neat and organized and I never have to wonder what an ingredient is supposed to be doing when I want to recast a spell. 

Method: Function - Steps of the spell, written in order, with some form of annotation or commentary on what each step is supposed to achieve magically.  • This step of my note taking I get a little messy, to be honest.  It works best when I have different colored pens and have had time to pre-plan.  When these conditions have been met my notes look like code.  There will be a step written out, then on the next line ## and a color change to indicate the beginning of my comments.  If I didn’t pre-plan, I usually still have two different colored pens - even if it’s just black and blue, so I’ll write out my steps in order and rely on marginalia for my comments.  It’s not as organized, and my handwriting gets cramped and hard to read sometimes, but just like the ingredients lists I like to know not just what every step is doing, but why. 

Adjusted Variable(s)* - If you’re recasting a spell what have you changed from the last time and how do you expect that to affect your result. 

• If I cast a spell and am not happy with the results (maybe those parameters for success I noted earlier weren’t met to my satisfaction) I don’t go looking for a new spell, I troubleshoot.  I start making changes to spell and keeping track of the change in this field of my notes.  I note what exactly the change is:  Am I adding something, removing something, trying a different method, etc. Then I write down a hypothesis (remember that word from science class?) for how I think this adjustment will change how the spell manifests. *I leave this field blank or out of my note entirely if I’m taking notes for the first casting of a spell, or re-casting a “known good” spell (one that I know works exactly as is - usually because I’ve cast it before and already gone through the troubleshooting and refining process). Observed Manifestation - The counterpart to Parameters for Success, what actually happened as a result of the spell - to be left blank and filled out on or after the Time Frame/”Due Date” is up. • If these notes were a science class lab notebook, which they were 100% inspired by, this would be the results section.  What actually happened!?! Maybe nothing happened!  Write that here.  Maybe your prosperity a week and a half after you cast your prosperity spell your boss said you were killing it at work and that you were going to get a promotion! Maybe the spell totally backfired!  Be honest with yourself about your results, these notes are for you to build on.  I have pages and pages of notes where either nothing happened, or the results were just off from what I really wanted.  But I kept troubleshooting, and now I have a roster of spells that I am really confident in.  Adjustments for Next Cast:  If you have an idea for what you want to change next time, write it down now.  You won’t remember when you come back to it.   • I usually like to write up my results and then do some brainstorming for next time.  I try to only change one thing at a time, isolate the variable and all that, but I will often have several ideas for things that could improve the results, so I’ll brainstorm in this field and then highlight the one I want to try next somehow, either by underlining or marking with a star.  Then that option goes into the “Adjusted Variable” field for the next time. 

[saber-monet]

“They’re talking shit” manifesting technique

Or

“Let them talk shit” Method

So this is the technique that I used, and still currently use as an over-thinker to manifest my desired reality and maintain my desired mental state.

So back in college, I was insecure. The type of insecure, where if I hung out with friends and then I left the room, only thing that would be racing through my mind would be the idea of them talking about me behind my back. Like Just talking the most shit and calling me out of my name. Granted these are the types of friends I had back then, I now know better.

So here was the pattern :

Every time I left the room, and I felt insecure about something I had just said or done, I would imagine them saying bad things about me or finding me weird of off putting. The things I would imagine them saying, would break my heart. So I put a stop to it.

And I recognized those people were not in the room with me and I was using my imagination to hurt myself .

I could have been imagining them saying anything because I have that power and I’m choosing to see them saying most terrible things about me. So, I made the decision to imagine them still talking shit, but this time it was about all the good things I wanted.

( you have to keep the same hater energy when you do this btw)

Example:

“Who does she think she is? Just because she has a great body and works out and is always in a happy state of being. She think she’s better than us. 😒.  she think she’s rich too. She only has about $100,000 in her bank account. The rest is tied up in the stock market and crypto currency. So she technically doesn’t even have that much money. 🙄”

“ she wants to be an influencer sooo bad .ugh, So what if your YouTube channel grew by 200,000 subs in less than 3 weeks and you’re getting amazing sponsorship oppertunities. So what bitch you ain’t pewdie pie. You don’t even have 1,000,000 subs yet . Pipe down”

So in those examples, I just affirmed a reality where:

- I great healthy body

- im in a happy/content state of being

- $100,000 in in my bank account

-I have plentiful bountiful investments/crypto currency

-my YouTube channel successful

-I’m getting great sponsorship opportunities

And because I used other people to affirm those for me, it’s a stronger self concept/reality. Because I’m affirming it in, first person, third person and second person( by default).

This technique works with any “negative” dominating emotion.

So if you were anxious or have anxious dominant feelings. Start affirming, anxious thoughts that you would WANT to have.

For example:

“I hope my professor doesn’t hate me for being more educated/smarter on the subject than he is 😭. Like I get he spent years in school studying this stuff, but it comes easy to me and surpass his expertise every time without fail. I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to show him up😰”

“ I hope the bank doesn’t get suspicious about how much money I’ve been depositing into my account. 😥Plus I’ve been getting so much money this year from random sources, in such large amounts, I’m kind of worried that the IRS is going to get involved and make filing my taxes a little complicated this year.☹️”

So, in those two short sentences, you just affirm that

you’re smart,

you’re doing well in the class, and

you’ve been getting large amounts of money throughout the year, from expected and unexpected sources. 

Remember if you want it, you can get it. Try “under-thinking” , it’s easier than you’d expect. No matter what state you are in. If you were able to tell a consistent story about how you want to be, you’re good.

* when I use the word “negative”, I’m talking about the words you are using to describe the situation. Because by default every situation is neutral. It doesn’t become positive or negative until you choose to assign it a value .

Don’t force yourself to be happy, force your thoughts to tell a better story. One that wouldn’t mind living out and experience. And the only except thoughts that affirmed the reality that you want. From any angle. You have to learn when and how to work with your emotions. Emotions are only bad if you identify them as bad.

When you come up with any other examples, please, I would love to hear them. share them with me.

[juney-blues]

ever since i made THIS POST a lot of people have been asking for a tutorial, even though in pretty much all of the screenshots i included the specific part of inspect element showing exactly what i edited.

so buckle the fuck up I guess because the tumblr userbase want to find out how to make html pages unusable and who am I to deny you.

get ready for Baby's First HTML and CSS tutorial lmao

ok so first things first we need to go over BASIC HTML

html is made up of these things called "tags" which specify certain parts of the web page, such as

HEADERS (<h1> through <h6> in terms of importance)

PARAGRAPHS (<p>paragraph here</p>)

LINKS (<a href="linkhere"></a>)

BOLDED SECTIONS OF TEXT(<b>bold here</b>)

and a bunch of other stuff,

by default however, specifying all of this just gives us a plain white page with plain black text of varying sizes

that's of course, no fucking good, and sucks shit, so the arbiters of html decided to let us STYLE certain elements, by adding a STYLE parameter to the tag

this can change any number of elements about how things are formatted.

text colour, page colour, font, size, spacing between elements, text alignment, you name it? you can change it!

you might've noticed that, certain elements are nested in other elements

and that any changes that apply to one element, apply to everything included under that element!

how convenient!

anyway this method of styling things by adding a style=" " to their tags is called "in-line style"

i think because the "style" goes "in" the "line"

it's generally ALSO a pain in the ass to style an entire website like this and should be exclusively reserved for small changes that you only want to apply to specific parts of the page.

for any real change in style you want to create a <style> section in your page's header!

this can be used to make changes to how all elements of a type in your page are displayed

or even add new elements with whatever wacky styling you want that can be used with the <div> tag!

wow! isn't css just dandy!

and hell you can even use External CSS��� if you're making multiple pages and want them all to have a consistent theme, by pointing to a .CSS file (which is basically just a <style> header without the <style> tags lmao

ok this is all well and good and very interesting if, say, you're making your own website

*cough*neocities*cough*itsreallycoolandfree*cough*

but you came here because you want to FUCK UP A WEBSITE and make it look STUPID!!

so this is where the transform css property comes in~

you can read up on it HERE if you want the details but basically it allows you to apply mathematical transformations to any html element you want,

all of these fun bastards,

they can be really useful if you're doing some complicated stupid bullshit like me

OR for having fun >:)

if you'll remember, earlier i said that css properties apply to literally everything nested in an element,

and you MIGHT notice, that literally everything in pretty much all html files, is nested in an <html> tag

you can use style=" " or regular css on pretty much ANY html tag,

INCLUDING HTML!

ok ok that was a lot of buildup for something that i could've explained in one or two lines, but i gave you all this fundamental knowledge for a reason,

well, two reasons, go make a neocities

CHAPTER 2: THIS POST HAS CHAPTERS NOW

CSS KEY FRAMES BABYYYY

THESE FUCKERS DON'T WORK AS INLINE STYLING

I HAD TO TEACH YOU HOW CSS WORKED, TO GIVE YOU THE KNOWLEDGE YOU NEED, TO ANIMATE PAGES. TO MAKE THE FUCKERY COMPLETE!!!!

OKAY SO AGAIN READ UP ON THIS IF YOU WANT THE FULLEST POSSIBLE UNDERSTANDING

BUT WHAT KEYFRAMES ALLOW YOU TO DO, IS ANIMATE CSS PROPERTIES

and then make a class, which calls that animation...

and then assign that class. to your html tag.

and then vomit forever

we can do it in 3d too,

the only limit is your imagination... (and how many parameters you want to look up on w3schools and mozilla mdn web docs)

CHAPTER 3: APPLYING IN PRACTICE

ok now the fun thing about all of this, is you can apply it to your blog theme, literally right now

like literally RIGHT now

like step one, make sure you have a custom blog theme enabled in your settings, because that's turned off by default for some reason

step 2: edit theme

step 3: edit html:

step 4: apply knowledge in practice >:)

[arcadekitten]

How I created a dress-up game in RPGMaker!

At least one person asked me to make a guide for this and that’s enough for me! Though, bear in mind, I may not be the best at explaining things and I used an example from assets I already had.

I made the dress-up game pictured below using RPGMaker MV, but I’m sure this method is applicable to versions above MV as well. I will be writing this post specifically through the lens of using MV (You’re also going to need some plugins, but not a lot!). At the time of typing this post, all RPGMaker engines are on sale until October 5th (just to let you know!)

(Please note: This method does not account for a game where you can freely change the colors of characters hair/clothes)

(Please note x 2: this is not a tutorial for learning RPGMaker, but a tutorial on how to make this specific type of game within the engine. Prior RPGMaker experience and familiarity is required when following this tutorial!)

I’m not the best at explaining things, but I’m sure going to try my best!

List of things we’re going to need:

-An RPGMaker Engine, preferably MV (or MZ) since they already come with mouse support.

-An art program

-A tileset consisting of words and arrows

-All your dress-up accessories as PNG images

-A blank PNG image

-2 plugins

First things first is you’re going to want to decide on the canvas size of your game. Keep in mind with the way RPGMaker works, there’s a high chance you’ll wind up with black bars on the side of your screen. If your game is intended to be played in browser on itch.io, it shouldn’t be much of an issue as you can choose the display size on the game’s page to match the visible game. (I also just personally wasn’t concerned about the black bars for a dress-up based game anyways)  The canvas I chose to work with for this game was 1152 x 864, but you can choose whatever size you feel will help you draw most effectively(just keep in mind how it might appear in browsers or if the player will have to zoom out!) If using MV, you change your canvas resolution by going into the plugin list and selecting “Community_Basic”

When making the assets in your art program, I find it easiest to have your canvas match the canvas size of the game. We’ll use Nova as our example character for everything. I drew them and all their assets in the center of the screen (for easier mirroring). The position of all the items can be adjusted later in the engine

I would start by doing a few test assets and putting those in the engine to make sure you get the hang of the whole thing, but this is where you’ll be making all your assets for a given character! (So if you wanna make some test assets and then move down to the “Putting it together in the engine” section, that might be a good idea!)

Here I create and separate every asset into their own folders(categories) and subfolders. For example, hats get their own folder labeled “hats”, and the subfolders “hat 1” “hat 2” “hat 3”, etc, each containing their own individual hat asset.

You can make as many or as little categories for clothing as you like. When you have everything you need, make at least one asset from all your categories visible, and make sure all the categories are ordered in the way they are meant to appear in game. This way, you can make sure nothing is overlapping in the incorrect way(at least for what your intentions are). When your categories are properly ordered, keep them in that order, as you’ll use it for a basis later when importing the assets into the engine. 

Alright, this next part is a little tedious. Now you’re going to save every asset individually by hiding every other folder/layer except for the one you’re saving. It might help to have a naming convention for your assets, for example all of Nova’s assets follow the scheme of “dressup nova-shoes 4.png” “dressup nova-shoes 5.png” “dressup nova-shoes 6.png” etc etc.

NOTE: In addition to these files, remember to include a BLANK png image with nothing on it! This will help later!

Once this is done, we can start importing them into the program! 

Putting it together in the engine: 

Open up your RPGMaker project’s file directory. Find the folder named “img”, and in that find the folder named “pictures”. Drop all your clothing/hair/face/etc assets into this folder.

Now we need to set the scene. The scene being…a map! I used multiple characters so my game has a different map for each one. 

Since Nova is our example character, let’s focus on Nova’s map. 

Make sure the width and height of your map is large enough to cover the whole screen (sans any black bars you might have on the sides). You can fill in the back with tiles, or you can do what I did and add a small parallax backing that loops across the screen. I made a small one with two hearts in the corners for a nice scrolling effect!

To start this map, let’s put in some of the categories to choose between. I did this by laying out the words on a tileset, and drawing that tileset onto the map. The order of categories I chose does not reflect the layer order of clothing items, but rather was organized by what I felt was a natural start-to-finish order progression in a dress-up game.

Don’t worry about putting the choice arrows next to the categories yet, though! We’ll do that in a little bit. 

Now we’re going to start with actually putting your character and their clothes/hairs/etc into the map. Double-click anywhere on the map (where you won’t put any other buttons) to create an event. 

We are going to set this event to autorun. In this event we are going to set up all your layers, even if nothing needs to be presented on them yet. To start, I added some comments to help me keep track of them.  For context, when you choose to show an image in RPGMaker, it asks you for the image number. The image number is essentially the image’s “layer”, with 1 being the bottom-most layer and 100 being the top-most layer. Up to 100 images can be displayed on an RPGMaker screen at any given time. Even though 1 is the bottom-most layer, I chose to start at 10 just in case I wanted to add more layers underneath later. So layer 10 is my bottom-most layer, and layer 24 is my top-most layer. 

Let’s start with our bottom-most layer, the background asset. 

The background is this pink rectangle behind Nova. 

Even if you change its appearance, this background itself is always visible. So we are going to show the first background on layer 10 with the Event Command “Show Picture”. 

(Note, because I wanted all the dress-up assets to be on the right side of the screen, every picture’s X position is offset by 200. You may want to offset your game in another way, or keep it centered.)

Because this is an asset that is always visible on the screen, we are also going to set up its variable. Select “Control Variables” in your event commands, set it to a constant of "1" and add it underneath the "Show Picture" command,

Don’t worry about the #number of the variable, all that matters is the number of what the variable equals. As you can see we are showing “dressup nova-BG 1”, so our variable should equal 1 to correspond to this.

The next asset up from that is our back accessory on image layer 11. (Nova can have fairy wings or a yoyo accessory, for example.) The back accessory doesn’t always need to be present, so we will simply set this image as being our BLANK png asset.

We will continue going down the column like this! Any asset that doesn’t need to be present will be set as a blank, and any asset that does need to be present (like Nova’s background, Nova’s hair in the front and back, Nova’s face, and Nova’s base) will be set as the corresponding image and have its variable set to “1”.

(Note: The base does not require a variable as it does not change)

And because this is an autorun event, we have to close it off. Add a control self-switch A, and then add a new event page. On the 2nd event page, merely click off self switch A in the conditions box

Doing this will ensure that the autorun event won’t keep trying to show the images in an endless loop.

Go into your database tab and under system, check that your starting position is on the correct map (if you have more than one) and start your game. Your autorun event should show all the images you asked it to. (I was gonna have a pic here but I'm limited on pics so)

Now, using our category list that we placed as tiles onto the map, we are going to be adding the arrows next to them to make them function.

Even though it's at the bottom, we’ll start with the category Background as an example since that was the first we implemented.

Create an event on the left side of Background and make its event image a grayed-out, left facing arrow, to communicate that the player cannot click anymore in that direction. Set its condition to be variable activated, with your Background variable being greater than or equal to 1. Leave the event page contents blank.

Create a 2nd event page on this event. On this 2nd page, replace the grayed-out arrow with a colored arrow, and set the Background variable to be greater than or equal to 2. This means that as long as the variable is 2 or above, the player can press the back button and go back to see the previous Backgrounds. 

This time, we WILL fill up the contents on the event page. 

First we are going to put a control variable command. Set your Background variable to subtract a constant of 1. This means that every time the event is clicked, it will subtract 1 from your Background variable (since this is your “Back” button).

Next, we are going to include a conditional branch command like so!

Under this Conditional Branch we put a Show Picture command, where we show an image on layer 10(the same from our autorun event). We can see that if Nova’s Background variable is equal to 1, then layer 10 is going to show the first background–that pink rectangle from before.

Let’s copy-paste this conditional branch and edit it slightly! 

Repeat this for every asset you have for a specific category. (In this case, Nova has 5 different backgrounds, with one background needing to be visible at all times.) So our 2nd event page should look like this:

This button event is now ALMOST complete–but we’re missing something! 

We need this event to activate when we click on it! Normally in an RPGMV game, when you click on an event, the player character will walk to the event before it can activate. But for a dress-up game, we want the event to activate as soon as it’s clicked on!

Therefore, we need a plugin! You’ll need a plugin that makes events activate based on a click trigger. For me, I downloaded the “TDDP_MouseSystemEx” plugin for MV found here: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/mouse-system-ex.46511/

(Remember to follow the terms of service for whatever plugins you use!)

After adding it to my in-game plugin list and turning it on, I added the “click_activate!” notetag to the event (as instructed by the plugin) and now it works as soon as it is clicked on.

Next, we have to make the Forward Button! This is easier now that we have the Back Button as a base.

To make your Forward Button, we’re going to copy the 2nd Event Page of the Back Button event, and make it the first page of our Forward Button event. We are then going to change three things:

-Remove the condition variable

-Change the image to a right-facing colored arrow

-Change the control variable from a “subtract constant of 1” to an “add constant of 1”

So your first Forward Button event page should look like this!

For the 2nd event page of your forward button, remove all the contents in your content box. Change the arrow to gray-right-facing arrow, and add a condition variable equal to your number of assets for the category. 

Because Nova has 5 Backgrounds, our number is 5. If Nova had 7 Backgrounds, this number would be 7. If Nova had 3 Backgrounds, this number would be 3, etc.

This ensures that when a player has clicked to the last asset, they can’t continue increasing the variable past what is needed. 

You then continue making these types of Back Buttons and Forward Buttons for every asset, until you have everything you need!

But WAIT!!

For objects that don’t always need to be present, we add one extra conditional statement!

Let’s use socks, for example. Nova does not need to wear socks to complete an outfit. So for the socks’s back button, we make sure to set the variable condition to 0.

After that, under the event contents of our sock buttons, we make sure to add an extra conditional statement for the sock variable. When the variable is zero, we show the BLANK image–so there are no socks to be seen! (Remember to apply this extra statement to both the back and front buttons!) Do this for every asset that doesn’t always need to be present such as socks, dresses, hats, etc etc.

That’s pretty much the basics of all the mechanics you need to get it to work!! I won’t be going over other things like the reset game button/disabling menu access/hiding the player walksprite, as those are things you probably know how to do already if you’re familiar with the engine.

But I WILL share one last piece of optional advice that I feel makes a big difference. 

While testing things out you might notice that there is slight lag between changing images, a blip between pictures. This is because RPGMaker doesn’t preload images, and loads in an image as soon as it’s called. 

In a downloadable version of a game this slight lag is negligible. However, if you intend for your game to be browser-based, this lag will be significant and noticeable. In order to fix this problem, I’d recommend downloading Galv’s Image Cache plugin found here: https://galvs-scripts.com/2017/04/26/mv-image-cache/

This plugin will help pre-load images so there’s no lag!

However, you will have to write the name of all your assets manually in its plugin menu. If you have a lot of images (which you will, for a dress-up game) this could take a very long time. 

My advice is to go into your game’s picture folder, select all, and select “copy file path” from your folder options. Paste this list into an excel sheet, remove the directory name and file extensions, and then paste it into a google doc.

Edit the names together until there is no spaces between image names and they’re all separated by commas. Then, select all and paste your list into the Image Cache plugin’s settings. If you spelled something wrong or placed a space incorrectly, the game will not start and will tell you what image it was struggling to find. So having this to refer back to is very helpful and also means you don’t have to retype everything in the event of an error! 

(Below is just a preview of how my list of image names looks for my dress-up game and what i copy-pasted into the plugin settings for the Image Cache plugin)

And thaaaaat should be everything! I hope this wasn’t too hard to follow, or messily formatted! But I tried my best and will try to answer any questions one may have about it!! Good luck creating your dress-up game! 

[landgraabbed]

hi cat! 🩷 so as you know i really enjoy your ts2 posts and lately i've gotten the itch to play it again! but last time i played ts2 i played it with only a few crappy cc clothes lol, so i have no idea what mods are essential mods to have in ts2 or where to get them, how to prevent saves from getting corrupted and how to build your own custom hood - stuff like that. so i wondered if you have any advice or if you knew any guides on where to even get started on this? 😭 thank you 🩷🩷🩷

vilna hiiiiiii!! first of all i am so sorry that this took me so long to reply! i got ill and it hit me harder than it should rip 😭 anyways, thank you so much as always for your kind words, you know i love your stuff so it really is appreciated 💖

it’s a long write-up and i reference a lot of guides and resources from the community from which i learned myself. i’m really grateful to this community for sharing these resources, truly! i tried to organize this as best and include as much as i could, but i'm sure there may be missing things or things left unclear. so if you have any questions feel free to message me!

i. installation

i personally use the sims 2 rpc launcher by lazyduchess, which is included in osab’s installation guide. i really like this guide, since it includes links to the full sims 2 collection, as well as indications to make the game work more nicely with modern hardware and software, such as modern graphics cards through graphics rules makers or the 4gb patch.

it also includes instructions for reshade installation (i personally use the rpc injection method).

ii. setting up a clean slate

whether you want to play in a premade neighborhood or a custom neighborhood, i recommend using a clean slate, meaning empty and/or clean neighborhoods. many functions of the game use hoods, and sometimes these aren’t actual physical hoods and instead add sims as townies or npcs. there are also “clean” versions of premade neighborhoods that fix/tweak oversights by maxis.

mind that if you want a brand new hood without maxis’ townies, you need to get an empty pleasantview template (N001) in your game’s installation folder, or disable it somehow by changing its name. you can still play in pleasantview as it will be stored in your documents neighborhoods folder, and you can use clean versions for that. you also need to get empty stealth hoods.

this all may sound a bit complicated, but simgaroop made a wonderful write-up here for different user cases depending on what you’d like to do in your game. the mods linked here are a boon!

as for making a brand new empty hood, i love getting custom terrains (which are sc4 files originally made in simcity 4). some of my faves are made by @/nimitwinklesims, but i also like finding them at modthesims. you don't need to create each type of subhood, but i do have at least one of each in bloom valley. in bloom valley i have two downtowns (one is magic town from sims 1 originally converted to sims 2 by @/voleste. the other is @/kattaty's remake of downtown, which will be deleted and replaced with a downtown i'll make myself to be more consistent with my other subhoods. it is incredible, and i think i will use some of their lots in my new downtown because they are great), i have two shopping districts. one is strangetown because i love those premades and townies; i never have sims visit or form relationships with them though, it's just so i see them around. the other is oakburg which uses acorn bend as a base, it works more or less as an expansion to bloom valley and it's where i play more often than not these days. then i have the vacation hood makeovers by @/plumbtales. the university hood was made from scratch by me.

when you create your own hood, you will either have to set up your own townies from scratch or source them from community shared townie hoods. for making townies from scratch, i recommend @/simper-fi’s guide (also recommend getting the mods linked here before you make a hood).

for townie hoods shared by other simmers, i recommend those shared by @/mikexx2 (seriously, look at all those familiar faces that ended up as spouses for gen 1 in bloom valley) and @/marvelann’s sims made townies by @/letthemplaysimscc. i also use the bon voyage locals shared by @/plumbtales. i also make my own townies from time to time or use specific downloaded sims as townies.

iii. on corruption

here’s the good news: as it turns out, corruption really isn’t an issue. april black has made an excellent video on the matter of corruption; although it is long, i recommend anyone who plays ts2 to watch it, or at the very least the final timestamp. to know what to do and what not to do.

although corruption isn’t an issue, i still consider the suite of “anti corruption” mods to be essential in order to avoid overpopulation and overall weirdness.

iv. making the game look pretty

i have linked my eye and skin genetics over here

my supernatural skins default replacements: alien - witch - vampire - plantsim - werewolf - considering switching my vampire, zombie, and werewolf defaults to this

for hair, i only use 4t2 conversions. i just like the way they look. i use @/platinumaspiration’s 4t2 defaults collection, which is a boon. for custom hairstyles, i recommend going through @/4t2clay

for clothes, i recommend going through the sims 2 defaults database. i have also linked some favorite creators for male clothes here. note that they also have female clothes. other creators i enjoy: @/mdpthatsme @kaluxsims @/jacky93sims @/goatskickin

i have a lot of makeup and “skin details” in my folder, but i have always been fond of @/lilith-sims’ things

for build/buy, that’s more difficult to pinpoint, but i again recommend @/sims4t2bb for a conversion database, and also @/veranka-downloads’s plentiful 4t2 and 3t2 conversions. some creators that feature in my folder: @/i07jeuu @/linacheries @/nonsensical-pixels @/pforestsims @/tvickiesims

custom sliders in cas: @/simnopke’s sliders, @/memento-sims’ sliders

for the ui, i use the incredible @/greatcheesecakepersona’s clean ui; i also use the mods linked here (+ @/keoni-chan’s amazing talk to me icon to replace icons), particularly the one to remove the red border in pause mode since that won’t be removed in tab camera

speaking of camera, this is the camera mod i use

i regrettably don’t recall the exact lighting mod i use (looking at them, probably cinema secrets), but i know it is one shared by @/veronaquiltingbee

to beautify my neighbor, i consider these skylines by @/lowedeus to be essential (+ optimized textures by @/celestialspritz). additionally i use the rural charm terrain and roads default replacement by @/criquettewashere in addition to most if not all of their hood decorations. i also love 3t2 hood decor conversions!

another useful resource is the gos events

please note that a lot of these creators do multiple categories of cc, so recommendations for one category may overlap with another; i know that this is just scratching the surface but i hope it helps

v. gameplay mods

i use so many mods to overhaul the gameplay so there will be some omissions. i’ll do my best to provide the most important ones (ignoring the ones previously mentioned)

economy and careers: uni part-time jobs for teens - lower wages - no 20k simoleons handout - loan jar (afaik lamaresims is working on a version to enforce regular payments) - custom bills (750%) - expensive bills for apartments (300%) - private school bill fix (in moreawesomethanyou-al.zip; charges the household 200 simoleons each school day for a child in private school) - lamare’s job options mods - 50% job promotion chance - restricted job offers - work food delivery

food & eating: basically @/jacky93sims's whole library

lifespan & health: lifespan (modified as follows, baby to elder: 3 - 7 - 14 - 21 - 91 - 7-14; i will make the adult lifespan longer still given that i play very slowly, it works as young adult and adult stages, and as is i don’t see many sims of gen 1 living to meet their grandchildren) - more dangerous fires - frequent & faster disease processing

personality: 3t2 traits project and associated mods

relationships and woohoo: acr - romantic standards - reproductive capabilities configurer - pregnant sims wear any outfit

supernatural/occults: plantsims can change hairstyle - no more leafy hair - no more werewolf hair - child lycanthropy - werewolf fangs fix - werewolf transformation 3 nights a week + no personality change vampires can’t eat food - vampire motive decay during day based on aspiration + vampire hunger goes down at night & social/fun decay- hereditary supernaturalism

travel and community lots: visit other sims - community time (+ limeyyoshi’s fix, reuploaded bc i cannot find it)

university: semester changes - pets at university - maternity for young adults - maternity outfit fixed for young adults

misc: planting overhaul - monique’s hacked computer, which i use to give sims separate bank accounts, study skills and badges online, and so on (1 - 2 - 3 - 4) - townie apartment residents - community lot skilling - engagement and wedding ring for color traits - invisible medicine cabinet (so sims can brush teeth and wash face with any mirror) - shiftable everything - midgethetree’s mods - fix subhood selection - longer seasons (7 days)

[loupy-mongoose]

How I've collected an Army of Mews. :3

@puzzled-zebra asked me in a chat how I get my Mews, and it made me realize something. While I did make a post awhile back talking about how I easily get my Mew characters in-game, there are a few aspects that I feel need more attention (some of which I've learned since that post). So I figured I'd make a new and improved, deeply in-depth post about it! :3

It is important to know, though, that the Mews (and Jirachis) obtained this way are SHINY LOCKED! You cannot reset for a shiny this way! (I have a post about how I got Akoya here~)

The Lindens, the Branch crew, and my first gift Mew Pearl. All safe and sound in Scarlet. :3 Every Mew here except Akoya was obtained in Shining Pearl.

What you need: Nintendo Switch/Lite Brilliant Diamond OR Shining Pearl Let's Go: Pikachu OR Let's Go Eevee (For Mew) Sword OR Shield (For Jirachi)

First off, it's best to do do this on a user with HOME access for a few different reasons. First and foremost, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has a lock that makes it so you can send ONLY ONE Mew per file into HOME! I learned this the hard way, as I made the mistake of stockpiling my Mews in a Shining Pearl file, only to find out that I had go through convoluted hoops to get them all into HOME. XD This issue is ONLY present in BDSP--Sword and Shield, and Scarlet and Violet do not lock you in this way and you can transfer as many Mews as you want to your hearts content. (Currently--please don't change it GameFreak!) (I don't fully understand the mechanics of it all, but Mews obtained in previous games pass through this lock--Akoya and Randy were consistently able to be put in HOME together from the same file. It's only when they're obtained in BD/SP that the lock applies, or so I understand.)

The second reason for HOME access is, you have to beat the first Gym to do this method. I have in the past done it using the starter Piplup and catching Starlys and Shinxes, but if you have access to HOME and powerful Pokemon, then you can borrow some to help you get through. I use the Linden Shiny Squad since their levels are between 65-70. They scarcely listen to me, but when they do, it insta-KO's their opponents. (I recommend having Piplup or a Lv. 10-ish powerful Pokemon on hand, especially for Roark's Onix, as it has Sturdy. I have had them all disobey themselves to death.)

Make sure you put your borrowed 'mons back into HOME before deleting the file, if you want to do so!

How it works is, there's a lady in Floaroma Town that will give you a Mew, at Level 1. (The guy next to her will give you a Jirachi at Level 5 as well.) In order for her to give it to you, you need to have save data of LG;P or E on the same user. It doesn't matter how far in the LG file is; it just needs to be to the point that you can save the game. And you don't need to touch it after you save--One LG save gets you as many Mews as you restart BD/SP for. (For Jirachi it's the same, but instead of LG save data you need Sword or Shield save data.)

So you start BD/SP, play up to Floaroma, and boom, Mew! You can save by the lady and reset for a specific nature, and even name it! With the Shiny Squad's help it takes me roughly an hour of play time to get to that point.

Anyway, a little long-winded, but I thought I'd put this out there for peeps who have the means and want to build their own in-game army of adorable pink cats. :3

[ruvviks]

two weeks ago the rome edit u made at some point just appeared in my head for unknown reason and i was like "ough i hope casey gets his laptop soon maybe we'll hear more about it" NCNNCNCNCN

HEHE now that i have my laptop again and have sorted out my files (mostly) i finally have more to say about the universe >:^)

obscura is a project i'm working on together with @mojaves because we're insane and do everything together all the fucking time sorry about that. it takes place in a universe in which concepts like angels and demons exist, but as otherworldly beings rather than their religious counterparts :]

the world order consists of the three evils and the forces of good, though they've been labeled as such within the earthly realm because they don't really know the concepts of "good" and "evil" as we know it. they're also very much not good or evil but. well. humans love labeling things as good or evil. but looking at their actual portfolios you will notice they all have the same level of self-interest and care very little about humankind as a whole

the three evils are the brothers lucifer, behemoth, and leviathan, and the forces of good are known as the otherworldy entities we call angels. the brothers all rule over a domain, and angels fill in the gaps and spaces between these domains, to maintain the balance in the world. that is mainly what "forces of good" refers to; they do what needs to be done to keep the world from crumbling, but the domains they rule over can be anything and their methods are by no means pure

lucifer's domain consists of death, the veil, otherworldly corruption, and shadows. he rules over that what we cannot perceive directly, but know is there. lucifer leads an army of demons, who prey on humanity's weaknesses and desires to strike deals and/or gain access to the earthly realm. at the core, lucifer rules over desire

lucifer's influence is seen in life and death, ghosts, demons, hauntings, and possessions. he manifests in eclipses, red nights, and wildfires

lucifer's demons can be summoned to make deals with. alternatively, lower ranked demons lurk in the shadows on the earthly realm waiting for a chance to take control of a vessel or a host

behemoth's domain consists of pestilence, the lithosphere, and the geosphere. he rules over the earthly realm, the tangible. behemoth manifests in the eyes of the beast, takes root in that what can be corrupted, and corrupts until he consumes until only bones remain. at the core, behemoth rules over consumption

behemoth's influence is seen in disease, cannibalism, and night terrors. he manifests in traveling night hounds, and the final stages of transformation of a victim of noxbane

behemoth's night hounds travel the night sky, a bad omen for anyone who spots them. the fungus noxbane brings forth a terrible disease holding the same name, which can affect any living organism to the point of corruption and consumption

leviathan's domain consists of war, famine, the ocean, arctic regions, and outer space. he rules over the vastness of the universe, and all concepts too large for humanity to fully comprehend. leviathan lays dormant in outer space, but awakens within souls lost in the open, or lost within themselves. at the core, leviathan rules over oblivion

leviathan's influence is seen in warfare, power imbalance, space sickness, and eldritch madness. he manifests in extraterrestrial storms, and hallucinations caused by leviathan's madness

leviathan's visions and glimpses of the empty earth haunt the ones lost at sea, in space, or in war or madness. he spawns tangible visages through an individual's own paranoia, and collects the minds of those who let themselves be persuaded by the promise of answers

obviously people living in this universe do not know about all of this lore, but there are plenty of them who have either been exposed to any of these concepts or have dedicated their lives to trying to unravel the truth. it's set in the second half of the 20th century with an earthly realm that is similar to ours but with adjusted levels of technology and (priorities in) travel, and follows several separate but intertwined storylines to show some interesting cases of the influences of the three evils :] below a list of the current characters we have for the universe!

rome solomon is an astronomer and professor at the obscurus academy in crescent hill, washington. he is one of the brightest minds of his generation with several books to his name, and he is famous for his empty earth theory which he has so far spent his entire life trying to prove. the reason for this is that his sister, a world famous astronaut, went missing (not died; went missing) in outer space on a very important mission when rome was still young; the empty earth theory would prove that she and her crew are still out there, and looking for a way to get back into their own dimension

judah solomon is rome's older sister and was the world's youngest and brightest astronaut. she was only 24 when she and her crew went missing in outer space, and her current whereabouts remain unknown to this day, 18 years later

clyde morris (belongs to mojaves) is a repair technician who works at the obscurus academy and he is rome's best friend. since computers are still pretty rare but insanely powerful devices in this universe, it is very special that morris owns his own computer; and even more special that an angel has found its home within, and sometimes communicates with him

clarence rojas is a psychic operating in the south of the united states. she lost her vision in an encounter with an angel, the warning she received so powerful it robbed her of her eyesight; and in return, the angel granted her with her psychic powers, which she uses to assist people in dealing with ghost infestations, and sometimes even demonic cases

eleanor constantine (belongs to mojaves) is a preacher and demonologist active in the south and on the east coast of the united states, traveling around by train with her brother victor to help people in need. the spark of community she holds within is powerful enough to gift her near-psychic abilities and a strong intuition, which is essential in her line of work

victor constantine (belongs to mojaves) travels around with his sister as her assistant, operating all cameras and other technology needed for their investigations into demonic cases, and for exorcisms. where his sister found her voice speaking to the crowds to build a community, victor lost his own ability to speak, and he prefers to remain in the background letting his sister deal with public affairs

lazarus reeves is another world famous demonologist operating in saint-dominic, louisiana, who is trying to uphold the legacy of his late wife, who he used to hunt down demons with. without his wife's higher position in society to protect him, he is not as loved among the public as she was, coming from a family with a bad history; but he has not given up on what he does best, knowing that there are still folks out there who need his help

eve lynch is a nun and herbalist residing in a convent near saint-dominic. she is doing research into the fungus known as noxbane and its effects on living organisms, and through her research she is exposed to behemoth's domain and the terrible disease the fungus brings, which leads to an outbreak of ghouls within the walls of the convent

anatoly dorokhin is a cosmonaut sent into orbit around the moon with his crew to investigate a series of strange sightings on the moon's surface. something terrible happened on their ship, and anatoly ends up as only survivor of his own crew with what remains of the rescue crew in the obscurus academy to figure out what truly happened up there

quincy jackson (belongs to mojaves) is an astronaut who on his way back to earth ended up losing most of his crew in an emergency rescue mission, and ends up in the obscurus academy with anatoly dorokhin and two other survivors of quincy's own crew; however, the two others are alive but unresponsive, not reacting to any triggers from the outside world and seemingly trapped within their own mind. quincy and anatoly grow close over time while anatoly pushes everyone else away, and quincy soon seems to be the only one who can figure out what truly happened when they were in outer space

mary schlachter is a surgeon in the south of the united states, famous for his exceptionally precise work and portfolio of rather unusual cases. when clarence rojas' daughter grendel is born inside out, mary is the one to put her back together in the way she is meant to be, but the procedure leaves a mark on him that soon enough attracts the attention of otherworldly beings

[moka-suwi]

Hi. By reading the following, you consent to being affected by a countermeme inoculating you against the effects of SCP-2718-DAMMERUNG. There's nothing inherently "anomalous", nor incorrect, to this text; it's simply a piece of knowledge that should prevent the coghaz from taking hold.

DAMMERUNG is a cognitohazard affecting the file classically designated by the RAISA designation SCP-2718 across the timetracks, although the actual number is constantly shifted to prevent access. The file itself consists of an automatic transcription of an audio log from O5-7, no consistent designation, "Miriam Prayther", discussing the events surrounding the resurrection of O5-11, "The Recluse", "Roger Sheldon". Due to complications linked to a certain set of skills and insights in the possession of Recluse, the Overseer Council couldn't allow itself to resort to supernatural means. Let me just say that you don't want a god, any god, to do what Recluse knows how to do.

As such, the Council had to resort to a strictly material method. The means used were anomalous by your standards, of course, but the underlying principle wasn't – ever heard of that trope about teleportation killing you? They did the exact opposite. Gathered each and every single one of his atoms, and put them back together using the leftover traces of their bonds within their wavefunctions. It worked; it could only have worked, I suspect, given what followed, but I don't think I could explain that to a Foundation audience.

If you have a decent understanding of QFT and some experience in the flow of pneuma, you might guess what happens next (and you didn't need to read this document in the first place). For the others: Recluse was forced to reincarnate into himself, on the same world, with a gap of fourteen years between his death and return – and he'd been on Overseer doses of mnestics for decades. To put things more bluntly, his pneuma kept flowing through each and every single one of the atoms he had at the time of his death, and he remembered every last second of it. They fucking un-"an-"’d his "atman". Or something.

Recluse had no reason to believe that this was happening to him for any special reason. Your Foundation deals in gods and magic but, much like many other iterations of it across the metakosmos, it doesn't actually believe in them. They're "anomalous", not part of the order of the world, something that doesn't happen to normal people. And Recluse liked to think he was normal. And so, he concluded that this was what happened to normal people. And he told the two worst beings in this iteration of the Foundation that he could possibly have.

O5-2. I'm willing to bet on it, "Sophia Light", and one of her iterations where that's not a sort of reverse Louis Cypher-tier pseudonym. Recluse gives the ratfic protagonist an abolishing-death plot. If you understood this, I'm sorry. This Two isn't God, and she isn't an Outside Observer (Type Green, ontokinetic anomaly, you name it), but she's the next worst thing: a being with the seniority to call the entire Overseer Council, and make them listen to the other.

O5-7. She parses as a variant OUROBOROS-Green, but the document gives me notes of Insurgent. Yes, as in Insurgency. Yes, as in Chaos Insurgency. That can't possibly be more surprising than Sophia. Point is, either way, she knows how to subvert the Database and the Foundation, and she can be very convincing. As in, I guarantee that if she told you the moon was made of cheese, you'd be spinning up a whole Department of Interplanetary Dairy Mining Operations. No, I'm serious.

So. Seven primes you to believe whatever Recluse says, Recluse tells you it happened to me and it'll happen to you, and Sophia makes sure "you" are actually the entire Overseer Council (including Seven herself). Hilarity ensues (the α-1 kind), and as a last-ditch effort, Seven applies herself to an audio recording. Not only did her ability transfer over speech-to-text, but it was associated with a safeguard against deletion – deletion from any medium. You read it, you're suddenly utterly convinced that it'll happen to you, and you can't stop thinking about it.

But of course, you work for the Foundation. You may be a Jailor, but you're not that stupid. You've heard of Corbenic, you've heard of the like three or four afterlives you have clearance for, and you've definitely now heard of the kosmoi in which O5-2 is Literally Jesus Christ, Like, From The Bible. So, the infohazardous nature of the phenomenon is obvious – but remember! You can only remember! It'll happen to you, and nothing is more certain than that! And so, what do you, the you who didn't read this document, conclude? That reading SCP-2718, and getting infected by it, is what's just damned you to hell.

And that's DAMMERUNG.

\x00, 💮

PS: I'd tell you to secure your server software, but you already know the problem by now. Huge thanks to █████.aic for helping with the Insurgency asset list, may She be recompiled, sibling o7

[nevros-fr]

Introduction Welcome to my UMA musings. If you have no idea what a UMA is, it stands for user made accents that are directly sold by users to other users instead of being distributed by the site, I did a look at UMA acronym history here (Nevros, 2023). I wanted to look at how the uma sales decisions changed over time since I saw words like premades to refer to the current way artists would sell skins, that is having a design and collecting names of people who are interested in buying it, as opposed to customs, which would be making species designs for each person. I was also curious about when preorders started. I really like this honour system that helps artists fund their uma without having to pay a large portion by themselves to bring the skin to market. The current market consists of artists who want to sell their skin, set up a shop with prices around 500g for an accent and 750g for a skin that includes the cost of buying a blueprint and then they run preorders. They also usually ping GASP, the general accent and skin pinglist to see if there are any interested buyers. Methods I went through each thread individually from the skins and accents thread for the June to August 2013 of FR to get a gist of it, then started cherry picking months to look through for the general trends because 500 pages of threads is a lot to look through one at a time! I also think a massive caveat is that the older threads are the ones that may not have been as successful because threads get bumped up as more people post so the threads get found based on their last post rather than their first post.

Results I went all the way back to the start of June 2013 and tracked how things may have changed. For one, this was the unknown frontier, so there was no established or efficient way to sell skins yet. As I mentioned before, premades are the most common way to market a skin that an artist would like to sell, with customs being an available option, but not necessarily popular. People were bringing this terminology from previous sites they’ve played, such as Aywas or Wajas. Prices for these premades ranged wildly from 50k to 200k in treasure or 700g to 5000g for a single copy of a skin without a blueprint (Morau, 2013). Otherwise, they would state a price for the skin plus the blueprint or the cost equivalent in gems. I saw a few artists who would have liked to sell the psd of skins to users so they may print skins at their own discretion (Balu, 2013). With these prices in mind, I think it’s clear that skins were pretty inaccessible to the wider public unless people bought gems with real money. Despite the fact of people marketing skins by selling the psd file, I haven’t noticed any skins showing up multiple times in the game database due to this practice. Either none of them were made, or possibly they were reorganized to reduce confusion since the credits on every skin usually go to the person that printed it. Rules such as “one payment equals to only one use of the skin” was popular, presumably since the user would be given a psd file for them to print. There was also a common rule to not sell premade skins for more than you bought it for. It did not take long for people to consider selling multiple copies for premades at once. Remember, a single blueprint is 1000g for accents and 2000g for skins, but multicopy packs are considerably cheaper at 2500g for 10 accents and double that for skins (Custom Skins, 2013). The earliest person that I saw to consider selling multiples of one accent was Xaishi but never actually set up a show (Xaishi, 2013). All these developments happened in June!

What does July bring? People who accidentally submitted the wrong skin and have no idea what to do :> Before the establishment of the Skin and Accent Problems, users would need to message mods or admin to see if they can get those errors fixed. I found the intent to sell premades using multipacks with a thread dating back to July 1 (Pathojay, 2013). I also saw people selling multiprints for the very first time as a 5 print run where the artist paid for the blueprint pack first (AkaPanuka, 2013). With these early threads, more people were selling skins in the range we see now at 800g which includes the blueprint price now. There were still many people selling skins with single print prices and multiprint options. It also seems like preorders to fund blueprints were also rising in popularity (Dactyl, 2013).

I can also see the topics change as time goes on. In June/July 2013, people were offering designs only as interest checks. In August/September 2013, people were requesting constructive criticism and help with designs. September showed that the markets settled people into two big models, supply your own blueprints to the artist or join preorder runs (Magyr, 2013). It was clear to me that the people who used preorders and standardized their prices ended up doing better than the people who sold umas without blueprints (Violet, 2013; Incarnation, 2013; Grimgram, 2013)

By the early 2014 in April/May, preorder runs became the standard and prices reflected what we see nowadays (Kanamine, 2014). Though, there were people selling skins at dynamic costs, where prices would decrease if more people joined the run (Kenjinthala, 2014). Skin retirements also happened more often in 2014 where the artist wanted to stop printing a certain uma because they wanted to move on to newer designs. This is similar to what happened around 2018 up until 2020 ish. It’s taxing to keep an active catalogue instead of retiring some to make pinglists more manageable. I think the time between standardized, and thus cheaper prices, and my rising interest in skins during this time was probably no accident. I would bet a lot of people also joined because of the reasonable prices and clearer organization.

Many interesting things happened in 2014. An event I came across was from the Mistral Jamboree event where people designed skins and had the chance to win a 10 print blueprint pack (Amphitere, 2014)! Selling UMAs to a secondary market started around this time where people were only selling a handful of UMAs (Dabble, 2014). I also want to state that the [accent=skin id] tooltip didn’t exist yet so everyone was using the png image of the tooltip. Moreover, if people had skin/accent problems, there was a thread to post to now (Aequorin, 2014)! No more pming mods, admins or sending in help tickets!

“Looking for x accent” or “accent wanted” threads became popular in 2014, which meant it clogged up the board for artists looking to sell their umas. This heralded the rise of GASP version 1 in early 2015 where google sheets made its big debut into the skin and accents board (GASP, 2015). Artists also started using google sheets to contain their pinglists to make life easier instead of checking pings to see who needed to be added (SarcasticSketch, 2015). This allowed better coordination to allow artists to monitor many different skins and the status of multiple runs.

By 2015 to 2016, skin shops had stronger branding with different banners and personal archives of what skins they have made (YusukeKitagawa, 2016). Since shops were also gaining stability and popularity, there was also a stronger desire to limit runs or else be stuck in administrative purgatory. It takes a lot of work to keep all skins active between taking preorder payments, then trying to send them out to everyone with crossroads or private messages. This did introduce the subtle distinction where accents artists were interested in running again are called “reprint” runs, when the umas can return for sales weeks after the initial print.

Third party skin previewers also popped up around this time so that people can conveniently overlay their dragons with skins and imagine what it would look like. There was a crack down on those tools for data scraping but other go-arounds such as requesting the user to save all necessary photos locally to upload them on the previewing website instead of pulling them from FR.

Hold on to your hats, early 2017 ushered in a new way to distribute skins with the fancy pantsy new private auction system (FR News, 2017a)! This meant a way to streamline the selling process since the interface is friendlier for massive order processing. Traditional preorders can still work with the PA system if patrons send gems to the artist and that meant the artists could list the umas for 1 treasure. For artists that could afford it, names were taken down for preorders but they could list umas privately to the buyer for the full price and eliminate the hassle of organizing payments upfront. The Dressing Room also came out in 2017 where people can now preview printed skins on their dragons and scries (FR News, 2017b)!

I feel like from 2018 onwards, the uma market reached an equilibrium with what we more or less see today. There have been a few noteworthy updates. With the rise of limited skins and popular artists, resales and the secondary accent market became quite popular. GASP conducted a survey around how they could deal with the overflowing reselling ping issue (GASP, 2018).

The one part that I feel is different, is that there are more artists who are keeping shelved catalogues. It was normal in the past, but it seems like artists are actively combating the steep price increases that come from reselling limited umas. It is more hassle for the artists but the users who buy are surely happy with the shift from limited to shelved.

Conclusions The start of uma shop culture and multi-prints preorder runs started as early as July 2013. I thought this finding was funny because it's the reverse of what I found with UMA acronym history, where that started much later than I thought. Thanks for reading!! Stay tuned, the next installment might be me going through all the player skins in the database and looks at trends

[ink-flavored]

Introduction

BTS Series: ⬅ Table of Contents - Reworking Pride ➡ Also available on Neocities! P&J Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze @zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales Banner art by @auroblaze

Those of you who have followed me from the beginning of my fanfiction career will know that I’ve always loved writing Alternate Universe or “AU” fics. Taking characters we all know and love and plopping them into completely different settings and scenarios has always been more fulfilling to me as a writer than sticking within the confines of canon. That’s why something like the AU-gust 2022 Challenge was so much fun for me to do—it’s already something I’m familiar with and enjoy.

However, the big downside of AUs is that it’s much easier to lose focus of the characters the story is supposed to be about and end up writing original characters that happen to look the same. I’m plenty guilty of this. Though I always appreciate my readers telling me how strong my characterizations are, when it came to Pride & Justice, the fic I wrote for Day 9 of AU-gust ’22, I really felt myself deviating. The piece was short, written in a single day, and within the constraints of the Angels & Demons prompt, so it didn’t bother me too much. What did end up bothering me was how much the idea stuck in my head, shouting for my attention weeks after I’d written and posted it. When concepts linger around for that long, I know I can’t just abandon them to rot.

The thing is, I knew right away I didn’t want to make it a full-fledged multi-chapter fanfiction. To quote my own AO3 author’s note, the characters I wrote were “OCs in blorbo meatsuits.” Trying to turn something like this into a fanfiction would feel disingenuous—it’s not what my fanfiction audience is here to see, and it’s not fair to my creative drive that clearly wanted to write something original, but would be constrained by the flimsy barrier of fandom that I forced it to uphold. Really, I don’t think it would have held up as a fanfiction. I decided to take a different route, and begin the process of turning it into an original idea for a novel.

A lot of people disparage fanfiction writers turning their ideas into original works, and I think the reasons for outcry are often misguided. Yes, “filing the serial numbers off,” the most common method for publishing a fanfiction as an original work, consists of doing very little outside of changing the names of the characters and some light editing to make sure the plot stays the same. Yes, fanfiction and genre writing are different mediums with different rules. While fanfiction can be structured the exact same way as an original manuscript, it’s very rare. But fanfiction is a genuine artform, a medium for telling a story. Just as a book can be adapted for screen, or a movie can be adapted for the stage, a fanfiction can be adapted for an original work. You just have to treat it like what it is: an adaptation.

I thought I would document my process here, give you a behind-the-scenes tour, of how I’m turning Pride & Justice: the fanfiction into Pride & Justice: the novel. You may have already seen hints of this on my Tumblr, but I’m going to go much deeper than moodboards and backstories here.

You can find every entry in the behind-the-scenes series documented on Ko-Fi for a $6 donation, for free on Neocities, or here on Tumblr!

[riding-the-sunset-bird]

Hi! This may be a silly question but is there any easy way to change the code in game to alter the "love/crush/indifferent" etc etc meter while using the same files (as to not replay the whole game from step 1)?? Most of the times when replaying the game i don't want to change my answers or repeat any moments in a separate file but just change the meter so i can romance baxter and not cove as an example. Sorry if this is worded strangely i can ask again, and thank you for all you do!!

I think I understand, no worries! And yes, I can absolutely help you~

(by the way, prepare for me to make every possible assumption on what your save file may or may not be, as I tried to prep for most situations)

Firstly, you'll need a save file editor. There are a couple of online ones (here, here, and here), then an offline one I found. In my experimentation, this online one is the easiest to use and most consistently comprehensible, so I'll be using that. I do have another method that could be used offline, but that will be a post for the future.

I'm going to use your example as a reference. We'll say that I have a save file where my MC confessed to Cove in Step 2 (so they're dating), but I've changed my mind and now I want my MC to not be crushing on nor dating Cove anymore, with the reverse being true for Baxter.

Just in case, I'll add extra factors on the chance that your save might not be at the exact start of Step 3 (example being if you've passed the introduction with Baxter and chosen "Fond" instead of "Crush"). I suppose one could also use this for a headcanon of the MC actually breaking up with Cove and then pursuing Baxter.

(Obviously make sure you backup your save file, by the way, for safety.)

Anyway! After opening the site, we're going to load our save file by clicking "Upload" and then choosing the save file you want to edit.

If you're using the offline program instead, then uncheck both boxes below and then hit "Load Ren'Py Save":

A ton of variables are going to pop up, but don't worry! I'm going to walk you through it.

We'll start with the idea of a save file that begins right after the Step 3 Cove Creator (so right as the in-between narration background appears).

If your MC confessed to Cove in Step 2 and you are at the in-between of Step 3 before anything has really happened, then all you have to do is look for a Boolean variable titled, "step2_confession_cove"

For the online version, you'll want to find the variable with "store." at the start for any of the variables I discuss, but the offline won't have that (so I'll be putting store. in parenthesis when mentioning variables) and you'll simply find two variables with the exact same names, so you'll just have to change both.

Set the value from True to False. This is to prevent the game from remembering such details and assuming that the MC has been dating Cove. However, if your save is further down Step 3 to where the game has already confirmed that the MC and Cove are dating (during the cell phone conversation with Lee), then you'll want to look for "(store.)relationship_cove" and make sure that value is set to False.

Depending on whether the MC is at Love with Cove or Crush, you might have to change the interest variable as well. Search for an Integer/Number "(store.)interest" variable.

This is how the MC feels towards Cove. 1 is Indifferent, 2 is Fond, 3 is Crush, 4 is Love. If you're at Love and haven't met Baxter yet in the save, you'll have to turn the value down to at least 3 (4 locks you out of crushing on Baxter).

The Baxter equivalent is "(store.)baxter_interest" and the number system works the same. You can't be at Love with Baxter in Step 3 so you'll have to settle at 3 for Crush, though you'll only have to worry about editing it at all if you've already passed the point in the save file of meeting him and choosing your interest level.

Other Boolean variables I can think of are "(store.)crush_step_3" or "(store.)love_step_3" depending on what the MC's interest in Cove was (being at Love will actually set both of them to True). Baxter's version is simply "(store.)baxter_crush".

There are actually many variables to Cove specifically because the game will keep track of how the relationship has progressed throughout all steps.

For example, "(store.)crush_step_2" is a variable noting that the MC had a crush on Cove in Step 2, and it will calculate during Step 3 how the relationship has progressed until then, so if the MC went from Fond in Step 1 to Crush in Step 2 and then to Love in Step 3, a variable called "(store.)fond_crush_love_step_3" will be set to True.

I'm going to set it so that my MC has simply always been friends with Cove (you can change such things accordingly if you'd prefer to keep the crush and just not have the MC act on it), so I'll make sure "(store.)fond_step_1" is True and "(store.)crush_step_1" isn't, that all "(store.)crush_step_2", "(store.)crush_step_3", and "(store.)love_step_3" variables and variations are set to False, as well as that "(store.)fond_step_2", "(store.)fond_fond_step_2", "(store.)fond_step_3", "(store.)fond_fond_step_3", and "(store.)fond_fond_fond_step_3" are set to True.

If somehow all you have is a save that has passed Sightseeing without having dated Baxter and you want your MC to do so, then search "(store.)baxter_dating_s3" and set it to True. If you want your MC dancing with Baxter in Soiree to be part of the canon but it didn't happen in your actual save file, then look up "(store.)soiree_dancing" and "(store.)soiree_dance_stranger_accepted" (plus "(store.)baxter_dlc_met_at_soiree" if the save you're editing is after Miranda suggests getting chow mein in the Step 3 intro) and set the values to True.

So to recap/simplify...

On disabling a relationship with Step 3 Cove:

if the MC confessed to Cove in Step 2

set "(store.)step_2_confession_cove" to False

if the MC has already gotten into a relationship with Cove

set "(store.)relationship_cove" and any variations to False

if the MC is at Love with Cove or the player simply wants to lower him off of Crush

change "(store.)interest" (1 for Indifferent, 2 for Fond, or 3 for Crush)

change all "(store.)love_step_3" variations to False; other changes depend on what how you want the MC's relationship with Cove to have developed (setting the one you want to True and the ones you don't to False), such as:

(going to use screenshots from the offline version here because they're more compressed)

○ "(store.)[MC's S1 interest]_step_1" / "(store.)[MC's S2 interest]_step_2" / "(store.)[MC's S3 interest]_step_3"

○ "(store.)[MC's S1 interest]_[MC's S2 interest]_step_2"

○ "(store.)[MC's S2 interest]_[MC's S3 interest]_step_3"

○ "(store.)[MC's S1 interest]_[MC's S2 interest]_[MC's S3 interest]_step_3"

(yes, the spelling of "indiff" sometimes has an extra or one less "f"; I didn't do that, it's just an error in the variable's spelling)

And then on changing things to romance Baxter...

if the MC has already met Baxter and missed out on their chance to set their interest in him to Crush (such as if Cove had been set to Love)

set "(store.)baxter_interest" to 3

set "(store.)baxter_crush" to True

if the player wants their MC to have danced with Baxter in Soiree but they didn't in the actual save file

set "(store.)soiree_dancing" to True

set "(store.)soiree_dance_stranger_accepted" to True

set "(store.)baxter_dlc_met_at_soiree" to True (only required if the save file is past the point where Miranda talks about Chinese food in the Step 3 intro)

if the save file is past Sightseeing and the player missed out on their MC dating Baxter

set "(store.)baxter_dating_s3" to True

And I think that's all of it. There may be variables I'm missing and I'll update things if so but those are the major ones.

It sounds like a lot of work/variables to change but at least on my test file (where my MC confessed to Cove in Step 2, went Fond->Crush->Love from Step 1 to 2 to 3, then the save file stopped at the very start of the in-between narration), I don't think it was too bad. These were the values I changed:

If you're using the online version, then you can just hit "Download" to get the file and replace your old save with it. If you're using the offline version, then you'll have to hit "Apply Changes" which will overwrite the save file you put in.

Hopefully that wasn't too overwhelming. There are just a lot of variables keeping track of Cove's relationship with the player.

[dzthenerd490]

File: Colossal

SCP#: AGY

Code Name: The Kaiju and the Robot destroy the sandcastle of Korea.

Object Class: Euclid Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-AGY-A and SCP-AGY-B seem to manifest at random and perform random acts that seem to make no consistent sense. All attempts to contain both instances has proven impossible as they keep disappearing when Foundation or GOC forces engage. Currently the only method of Containment is censorship. Joint Task Force Poseidon-7 "Blind Spot in the South" made from both MTF Gamma-5 and MTF Dionysus-1 is tasked with ensuring this.

Update (same year) - SCP-AGY's origin of anomalous activity was located thanks to SCP-AGY-A's avatar and was destroyed at once. SCP-AGY-A and SCP-AGY-B are now declaimed Neutralized, and the avatar has been left in peace. Thanks to her cooperation to the Foundation and her assistance with its neutralization she has been allowed to keep her memories as per her request. All previous containment procedures will be disregarded.

Description: SCP-AGY appears to be the random manifestations of a giant kaiju and a giant robot both of unknown origin. SCP-AGY-A is the Kaiju and SCP-AGY-B is the robot both of which are about 30 meters tall. They are indestructible on all aspects and typically can recover from any attack that comes at them. on any other aspect they are completely unremarkable except for the fact that they manifest out of nowhere and always act unusually. 

SCP-AGY was discovered in 2017 when SCP-AGY-A manifested out of nowhere and walked through the city causing damage. Most curiously the next day the SCP-AGY-A instance manifested again and suddenly started dancing. Then after a few days SCP-AGY-B manifested and the two faced one another for a short while and SCP-AGY-A slapped it, causing SCP-AGY-B to walk off. This left the Foundation to believe this was some kind of prank perhaps caused by a chaos god or Group of Interest: Are We Cool Yet? However, that was proven false when the avatars were revealed. 

After a few manifestations SCP-AGY-B showed up one day only to be lifted up by an invisible force and thrown into the air. Foundation satellites showed that SCP-AGY-A manifested in another part of the world and grabbed a random human making him act the same way the SCP-AGY-B did. At the same time there was a woman who was standing in front of the SCP-AGY-B and doing what the SCP-AGY-A did. After SCP-AGY-B was destroyed along with its avatar the SCP-AGY-A stop manifesting as well seemingly destroying its anomalous area of origin thus ceasing the anomaly for good. Soon after the avatar of SCP-AGY-A was found and captured by the Foundation she was originally supposed to be contained but after the interview with her she was released once it was clear of the true nature of the anomaly. Please see Addendum X-44 for details

***

Addendum X-44

The following is a recording between Dr. Geun and Gloria after she was captured and sent to the nearest Foundation Area in South Korea. For the interview Gloria was given a translation collar forcefully so that she and Dr. Geun could talk as he had not yet learned English at the time. 

Begin Recording

Dr. Geun: Can you hear me ma'am?

Gloria: Oh! Uh yeah, your English is great by the way.

Dr. Geun: I'm not speaking English, its only because of that collar you can hear me so don't take it off. 

Gloria: Oh... but uh, can't you just wear it?

Dr. Geun: No, now please tell me your first name only. 

Gloria: Uh, right my name is Gloria.

Dr. Geun: I see and what is your connection to the two giant entities that have appeared recently in South Korea. 

Gloria: Oh, right uh... well I know this sounds crazy but that fish monster uh...

Dr. Geun: Kaiju

Gloria: Right! Kaiju uh, well... it's me! I was the Kaiju.

Dr. Geun: ...

Gloria: Look I know it's hard to believe but uh, crazy story. When I was young me and my uh... ex were working on a school project I had a monster in my set, and he had the robot. He was the robot by the way, anyways we got into a fight which started our bad relationship should have seen it as bad in the first place but- surprise! We got hit by lightning directly on our heads! I don't know how it happened but that caused the monsters to manifest whenever we entered this park back in our home. I think the reason it kept manifesting in South Korea because that's where our sets were based off of remember the project thing. Anyways yeah after I finally came back home it started manifesting again and I accidently started all of this. But I already got rid of Tim my abusive ex and because of that the robot is gone. So... I think that's everything.

Dr. Geun: ...

Gloria: Uh, okay look I know it sounds crazy but trust me it's all-

Dr. Geun: Miss Gloria, we believe you. If anything, your explanation is the most plausible. 

Gloria: I... wait seriously? 

Dr. Geun: You say it manifests every time you went to a park? Well, we should inform you SCP-AGY-A disappeared the moment it destroyed the sand lot there. With this we believe that SCP-AGY in general has been destroyed. 

Gloria: SCP-AGY?

Dr. Geun: It's what we called this phenomenon. 

Gloria: Oh... cool name. Not exactly creative but whatever.

Dr. Geun: ... Your input is not needed nor appreciated. 

Gloria: Oh, sorry. I just... Sorry.

Dr. Geun: *sigh* Look the point is SCP-AGY is gone. And it's gone thanks to you, normally this would warrant punishment but with that story of yours we now know more about the anomaly that we couldn't have known otherwise. As such the Foundation wants to give you two options under protocol "Sole Survivor".

Gloria: Uh... Okay?

Dr. Geun: Now Miss Gloria. Do you want to work for the Foundation and help us contain or possibly defeat more anomalies like this one or do you wish to have your memories erased and be given compensation money for your troubles.

Gloria: You- You want me to work for you? Wait who even are you people? 

Dr. Geun: You know once you give an answer. Please decide now, quickly.

Gloria: Uh... Well I... No, I- I just can't.

Dr. Geun: I see, I expected that but-

Gloria: Uh but wait, I don't want my memories erased either. I mean... This whole experienced changed me I can't let go of that. If I forget all of this, I'll just go back to being an alcoholic that feels she's nothing without her boyfriend. Tim was an asshole who had no problem killing all those people... I'm glad he's gone; I don't want to go back to wanting him. Especially now that he's dead. 

Dr. Geun: ... Well, you did get rid of SCP-AGY and thanks to the efforts of MTF Poseidon-7 no one in the world will ever know about SCP-AGY.

Gloria: Wha? What do you mean it was all over the news?

Dr. Geun: Starting next week everyone will think it was nothing more than promotional material for a new video game. A week after that our Foundation will use CGI to remake SCP-AGY-A and SCP-AGY-B to make a new energy drink commercial to help sell this. 

Gloria: Wait really? ... Huh. But still, I swear I won't tell anyone so-

Dr. Geun: Understood Miss Gloria, we will not erase your memories besides, even if you tried to tell anyone it's all real, everyone will just think you're crazy so it's no loss to us regardless. We will still be rewarding you with $2,000,000 dollars in Foundation compensation money for telling us about SCP-AGY, neutralizing the anomaly, and achieving where the Foundation has failed several times. 

Gloria: ... Oh my god, are you serious?!

Dr. Geun: Enjoy your early retirement, Miss Gloria. 

Gloria: Holy shit... Normally I would use that money to get waisted but... I think this is the start of something better. But wait, what about the people of Seoul?

Dr. Geun: Their buildings will be repaired, the deaths will be explained, and overall, it will be fixed as if it never happened. Those who witnessed the events today will forget it all by tomorrow. The only one in the public who will know the truth, is you.

Gloria: ... That's kinda dark.

Dr. Geun: We have to keep it all a secret. You'd be surprised how often phenomena like this happens. 

Gloria: Woah...

Dr. Geun: Anyways an agent will meet with you outside where you will have to sigh to an agreement of secrecy and give you a briefcase where your money will be in cash. 

Gloria: Uh, got it, thank you! 

Dr. Geun: Thank you, Miss Gloria. 

Recording Ends

***

SCP-AGY is a prime example of the randomness and chaotic nature of anomalies. They can manifest anywhere at any time and for any reason, nothing can predict their nature or the laws each one abides by if they abide by any at all. As such, the Foundation is essential for both the survival of humanity and its sense of normalcy. Without normalcy there is only insanity and survival during insanity is impossible. We work in the Dark so humanity can live in the Light. 

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[cangrellesteponme]

10, 12,14,17, 19 👁️👁️

10. what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

i’ve had to check my files for this. Sweeter Days (latest fic i posted, touchstarved vn) was in the drafts from april 13th 2023 to the very end of march 2024. nearly a year.

(and i thought it was the longest, but if we count drafts i do plan on finishing, it clearly isn’t. i started writing Running From Our Ends (kuro) on february 3rd 2022. it’s not done yet. there’s also the Breaking Point (d:bh) sequel but let’s not…)

(also, i wrote Staring Contest in like a day. so yeah not all fics are created equal…)

12. a trope you’re really into right now

right now, i think i have brainrot about two tropes: temporary amnesia and one-sided feelings. but that’s mostly for reading, i don’t write that at all (well… arguably Dichotomies (bnha) was one-sided). i don’t write a lot of tropes, but recently a lot of my writing has been about the mind and the body in conflict but also being one and the same?

14. where do you get your inspiration?

depends on what we’re talking about. for original works, my brain is just a little weird and comes up with weird stuff very often. for fanfic, mostly just from aspects of the characters i want to know more about? like how i wrote Staring Contest before we got a more detailed idea of how bard worked. and for poetry, my shower thoughts are very weird!

(as for art, which is not the focus here but who cares, i enjoy mashing concepts together a lot. so when i do more complex pieces, it’s mostly just that i thought of a thing and went “make it kuro!!”)

17. talk about your writing and editing process

well, The Ota Method is a mess. but it’s pretty systemised.

have some kind of weird thought and deem it worthy of being written.

run to pc (or, if we must, notebooks) and write the basics down (sometimes, a few lines)

whenever there’s enough time for that, do a little writing session (with background music ofc) and write as much information and details as possible. most of what i write then isn’t the actual words you’ll see in the final draft. it’s things like “something about fear but no fight-or-flight, sentiment left aimless as the fight has left him already.” (this is an actual quote from the first draft of dadbastian week day 7) that indicate what ideas i have, what metaphors i want to put in, but are simplified enough so i won’t be stuck on finding the right words immediately. usually when that’s done i have a more global idea of how it’s all going to look. (sometimes, a whole passage is often reduced to a sentence, something like: “after it’s done”, which is again a real quote from the same draft)

then, i do a second writing session. sometimes it’s later on the same day, or the next day, or it can be ages later. first draft notes are put in bold so they stand out as unfinished. and then i just write. one draft note can lead to something like “— it is hard to see any fear in him in the complete absence of fight-or-flight, hard to put an adequate name on this aimless and dulled terror, and the calm facade reigning over it all. Sebastian would once have found it fascinating. He is now appalled at the lack of fight left in his young master.” (again, from dadbastian week day 7) the process is repeated as many times as needed to finish the damn thing. i usually write paragraphs about feelings first, along with everything that involves metaphors. dialogues and more descriptive parts are often done last.

when it’s all done, it’s time to proofread (ugh) which first consists in checking that i didn’t forget to write anything, removing some repetitions (and sometimes adding some), making sure transitions make sense, and asking myself “does this actually convey the right thing?” which never leads me anywhere. and then i read it again and check for typos and other mistakes.

then i sigh as i remember i have to write a summary and figure out tags for ao3, i have a heated debate against myself about the rating, i give up and just pick one, do the things, struggle with formatting for a little while, and boom. posted.

19. the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

well. i don’t do historical research because i hate history (and i’m very dumb), so that’s 99% of the interesting things out of the way. most of my research is one of three things: i’m trying to understand every single way a word or phrase can be used and understood in english (or just making sure i’m remembering it right, or checking that my vocabulary choices match the typical british standard), i want to have a specific image in mind about a thing i’m writing even if i don’t describe it (this is mostly about fashion. and food, oddly enough), or i’m neck deep into psychology and psychiatry for some obscure reason (so far, for all of my writing, i’ve researched anxiety, bpd, npd, aspd, bipolar but just the diagnosis criteria, ptsd, and cptsd. don’t ask me why, it just comes up!!)

I’d say the most interesting one was… well. it’s a tie between looking up the recipes of a bunch of lemon cakes and aspd.

[tipssupports]

INTRODUCTION

My name is Marco Rodriguez actually I’m the Owner of a Company that Import from China footwear or Comfortable lady shoes that distribute in Guatemala. I’m also like a Sells Manager, with more the twenty-five years of knowledge of the business for this product, I consider myself a person who can suggest how to import merchandise from China.

I love the sales area, and I know that is the best way to grow the Company business.

Import of China, isn’t complicate: Just you need to pay attention to know it works.

This is the reason why I created a guide to help you avoid financial risk of people.

Remember, the Chinese Business are honorable people, and is very important they feel good, but you have to ask to make sure.

You know, You can ask for Supplier that put a logo on your packaging box and product, as well as make changes to a product you like until you get it just the way you like.

This is a little guide, but increase it on what you follow knowing the process.

Below you will find this guide, I hope it will be the star of your own business.

1 GUARANTEE TRADE BY ALIBABA

It’s the secure payment method that Alibaba offers you as an intermediary. It consists of paying your chosen supplier, even up to the moment the product arrives on time and in the quality requested.

ALIBABA will refund your money as long as the supplier doesn’t comply with the conditions you require.  make sure that the quotation that the supplier gave you specifies the product, colors, price, sizes, quality of materials, special specifications such as markings on the product as well as on the packing box, shipping cost charge, etc. that you make sure that your supplier uses the Trade Assurance program.

2 DO NOT BUY TRADEMARKS

Don’t ask your supplier to manufacture products with already registered trademarks if you don’t have the legal representation to trade them.  Your supplier will manufacture them, but you will have a huge economic problem when the authorities don’t allow the merchandise to enter your country.

3. GOLD SUPPLIER STATUS

Register on ALIBABA with your email and password and log in to Verified Supplier, look for Gold Supplier Specifications in Basic Profile, where it’s Business License and Ownership Status; Contact Information, Company/Factory Location.  The Gold Suppliers that they pay an annual membership fee to ALIBABA. They are showing seriousness and the risk that they are scammers is diminished.

4. CHECK HOW LONG HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH ALIBABA

Check the number of years the supplier has been working with ALIBABA, the more years, lower will be the risk.

5. MAKE SURE THAT COMPANIES HAVE ASSESSED SUPPLIER (EVALUATED SUPPLIER)

Check that production capacity, certifications, etc., is a much broader verification of the supplier, so it’s important to work with Gold Suppliers that at least have a more rigorous verification.

6. SUPPLIER'S PARTICIPATION IN TRADE SHOWS

In the Supplier's Company profile, you can check which international fairs or events the supplier has participated.  In this section photos of the events are included. This gives us much more peace of mind.

7. SUPPLIER'S TRANSACTION LEVEL

This is measured based on icons that are placed in the form of diamonds.  The more diamonds they have, the more confidence they must do business with the supplier.

When you log into your supplier's portal (on ALIBABA) you can also review the transaction history by year and by country or region.

8. THE SAMPLE

It’s very important that Supplier sends you a physical sample so that you can see if it meets your requirements and, that a sample is also sent to your purchasing agent in China, so that he can inspect if it meets your requirements.

9. PAYMENT REQUEST FROM THE SUPPLIER

This requirement is made through ALIBABA portal. If it is a supplier with whom you haven’t had a business relationship, do not deposit without the intervention of ALIBABA because this is your best guarantee.  In this payment request, the supplier must include a file with all the specifications of the product, which you have already reviewed and agreed to when you received the physical sample.  If the supplier doesn’t include these specifications, don’t make the payment. It’s also very important that the negotiation is done with FOB price, which determines that the supplier is obliged to send the goods already packed to the port. If you negotiate with CIF value you must coordinate the reception of your merchandise in the warehouses of your supplier and take it to the port, which will generate a cost to you.

10. PAYMENT ADVANCE

The payments are generally divided into 30% first (indicated in the previous paragraph) and 70% when the product is ready to be shipped.

Way to do it: through ALIBABA (I recommend you do it by bank transfer) do not do it by credit card because the cost is very high. When you make the payment advance, tell your supplier that you will send an inspection agent to review the production process of your order and review the final process, this is done before making the second payment.

11. IMPORTANT DOCUMENTATION

The Supplier must send you by email the following documents:

COMMERCIAL INVOICE

PACKING LIST

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN

12. RECEIVE THE PRODUCT: To ensure the smooth nationalization of your product, it is important to hire the services of a customs broker. You should also establish the payment of taxes and the percentage of fees to be paid to the broker. It is recommended to inspect the product thoroughly upon arrival. If any issues are found, document them with photos and promptly contact your purchasing agent to communicate with the supplier, or contact the supplier directly

[xknivesandpensx]

Like Pieces of a Puzzle

Chapter 10

Summary: What if Harry wasn't the only extra student called upon to participate in the Triwizard Tournament? Far from the most popular candidate, Draco not only has to take on the trials but also deal with his unexpected feelings for Hermione. Will he be able to face the challenges as well as follow his heart? Chapter length will vary. I'll be referencing both the books and movie versions. Some things from what I've previously written will be mentioned, all of which you can find here.  And for those who asked to be tagged: @dayane245love

Hermione’s eyes left Harry and flew towards Draco. Confusion washed over the faces of most professors while students held a mix of emotions. Many complained, others whispered about how the two managed to get selected.

She sat frozen in place, watching them disappear from view, heart hammering rapidly against her chest. The gravity of the situation rendered her silent amongst the protests ringing in her ears. Surely, the Ministry would do something.

Dumbledore, after having a few hushed words between McGonagall and Snape, turned to face the room. “It seems,” he began, voice raised high enough to bring all bouts of discussion to a close. “The Goblet has chosen two more students than anticipated. An interesting turnout no less. I’d like you all to head back to your common rooms, prefects if you will escort them. We will get things sorted immediately. Until then, might I suggest enjoying the rest of your evening.”

Despite her worries, Hermione grabbed hold of her book and kept her head down. Her thoughts began racing, trying to form a scenario of which she just witnessed. Nothing she read about the past tournaments ever faced such a strange phenomenon.

A bad feeling continued to climb up her spine. Harry and Draco. Why them? Obviously, the possibility of someone being out to get Harry existed. Every year danger attached itself to him. Yet who’d here plan for him to participate?

As for Draco, the mystery puzzled her. Sure, he made a few enemies due to his consistent bullying and presumably those who resented his family were out there, but to hold a level of animosity so high as to put him in a position where he’d probably get hurt or worse?

None of it made any sense.

The memory of talking to Draco after his detention entered her mind. Moody, no matter his evident aversion towards him, he’d doubtfully be responsible. And while Dumbledore trusted him, she felt an insistent tug, urging her to look more closely at the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

“So, how do you think he did it?” George asked, breaking her train of thought. “A brilliant defeat. I’m both proud and a bit betrayed. We talked about trying to get in for ages.”

Fred shook his head disapprovingly. “Really leaves a mark. I wished he shared with us. He must have told you, Ron? Care to tell us his secret method?”

“No, not a word. I’m as surprised as you,” he mumbled in return, looking rather disgruntled.

Hermione glanced between the three. “You can’t honestly believe they put their names in. Did you not see their faces? They were caught off guard. Both of them.”

Harry barely got himself to move. And she saw, regardless of the distance, the way Draco’s expression dropped from complaint to disbelief. Besides, she knew neither thought themselves above the stipulations placed. Even Draco wouldn’t go so far for a bit of fun, knowing the results were absolute.

“I agree on one. Malfoy’s all talk. Too cowardly to enter. Maybe Harry through him in for a good laugh,” George stated, shrugging his shoulders. “Anything’s possible.”

“Remember when he came running into our compartment when the Dementors showed up on the train? Scared witless, he was.” Fred added, his steps slowing as they started to slowly file out the doors.

Ron ducked past another Gryffindor, thoughts fixated on his friend. “How else could Harry be chosen? Probably lied about wanting to be a part of it.” Hermione’s reproachful look only got him agitated. “If you’re so smart, why not tell us how it happened then.”

“Well, if you think about it,” she began, attempting a logical explanation. “For the Goblet itself, I’d guess the use of a Confundus Charm. Of course, you’d need to be greatly skilled, otherwise the spell won’t do you any good. Admittedly, neither Draco or Harry should be able to pull it off. Hence my belief of the fault falling on someone else. If done correctly, it acted as though five schools entered the competition. It makes sense to write another down, therefore you’d have to be chosen because you’re the only contestant available.”

It seemed rather apparent. Other reasons persisted, yet none added up quite as nicely. How hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.

Fred took on a thoughtful air, brushing his chin in a wistful manner. “Looks like you’ve got it all worked out. Maybe we misjudged you, Hermione. With thinking along those lines, he must’ve asked for your help. Clever. Here we wasted hours on an Aging Potion.”

“A shame, really.” George started heading to the left once they entered the corridor. “Come on, Fred, let’s go see what we can get from the kitchens. There’s reason to celebrate. A Gryffindor in the tournament is no small feat.”

They rushed off so quickly Hermione had no time to reproach them. Her gaze fell on Ron. He appeared rather tense and overly bothered. His jealousy regarding Harry stood as no secret. It never needed to be said. Her frustrations over the whole ordeal, however, caused her to disregard them and fall into complaint.

She let out a heavy breath. “The whole thing it completely ridiculous. Harry would never do something so reckless. A lot of people are going to think he entered on his own accord. I mean, anything can happen to them. The challenges are brutal.”

“Don’t tell me you care about what happens to Malfoy?” He furrowed his brows, not waiting for an answer. “And anyway, I’m not stupid. Of course, he entered. Harry can’t help himself.”

Skepticism colored her features. “So, I suppose he snuck off without telling either of us and tossed his name in? That’s complete rubbish and you know it.”

“Whose side are you on anyway?” Ron defensibly asked, coming to a halt in the middle of the staircase. His fingers found the railing after it shifted.

“Why does there need to be any sides?” Hermione hurried after him, stopping a step below. “You really are being stupid if you think, after everything, he’d willingly go out of his way to get attention. He doesn’t want it.” His scar caused too much already.

“It’s either him or me, Hermione.” He narrowed his gaze only to be met by a quiet regard, blind to the conflict she faced in having to choose, despite her firm belief. “Fine, figured as much anyway.”

Hermione lost Ron in the cluster of classmates due to him rushing ahead. When she made it through the portrait, she saw him head up to his room. Hermione thought about going up to the dorm, nevertheless felt too irritated to get into a heated argument and decided to situate herself elsewhere until Harry returned.

Harry would, lacking any thoughts to think otherwise, expect them to believe him. In Ron’s mind, he betrayed their friendship. She imagined their next conversation not going very well. If the strain pulled too hard, she knew he’d push away.

Draco hardly recalled walking past the crowd of whispering students, passing the professors or when he caught up to Harry on route towards the other champions. His movement was almost mechanical, his mind reeling. Both palms felt sweaty, his fingers held a minor shake to them.

He took a calming breath and found his thoughts directed at Harry. He must’ve put their names in so he got the spotlight all the while planning to humiliate him in front of the whole school.

“I don’t know how you pulled it off, Potter, but you’re finished once everyone knows the truth,” Draco seethed, finding a new emotion (albeit a common one) to latch onto.

Harry slowed his pace, confusion taking over as he turned to face the blond. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.” His voice sounded raw, hollow even. His brain practically stopped working, the numbness along his limbs still present.

“Don’t play dumb, though it’s barely a stretch for you, is it? Thought you’d take a go at glory? Fine but why drag me into it?” Draco asked, a typical sneer in place.

“Brilliant plan except I didn’t put my name in, much less yours.” Harry paused in speech while opening the door, uncaring about the audience they gained. “For all I know, you’re trying to pin the blame on me while in reality you’re responsible.”

Cedric and Fleur’s conversation died down, the pair attempting to dispel nervous energy. Viktor shifted from his lax position against the wall, now focused on the newcomers, his question of what happened may as well not been spoken at all.

“Wait until my father hears about this.” Draco looked down at Harry, maintaining an even glower. “Maybe you’ll actually get expelled this time. If we could be so lucky. Only that moronic Weasley and Mudblood friend of yours would miss you. Can’t say the same for anyone else.”

A flare of anger ignited, the sensation hardly faded from the events prior when he threw insults at Molly. Without thinking, Harry thrusted his arms out, pushing Draco against his chest. “I’ve had about enough! I didn’t ask for any of this. I’m tired of you insulting my friends too just to get at me. Ron’s braver than you’ll ever be and Hermione is the smartest person I know. Muggle-born or not –– ”

Draco cut him off, hesitating to ram him back in retaliation, the motion faltering last second. “How dare you touch me. I shouldn’t be surprised, you standing up for them. You’re pathetic, always have been. Your parents must be so proud, mingling with those sort of people. Oh, wait they’re not exactly alive, are they?”

Perhaps Draco should’ve expected a physical blow after his last remark. Pain exploded on the side of his face, sending him back a step. Next thing he knew they were struggling against each other, shoving and throwing punches. It lasted seconds before he felt Viktor’s grip latch onto his arms, forcing a distance between them. He saw Cedric pulling Harry in reverse, who had red dripping from his nose. Draco felt some satisfaction in the sight, hoping it hurt worse than it looked.

Just because he realized his feelings for Hermione didn’t mean, evidently, he was beyond insulting her. His frustration launched him right back into spiteful reproaches, yet they remained ingrained so deeply each jab naturally flew past his lips.

Breathing heavily, Draco shrugged Viktor off as a group of professors and head of schools came in, witnessing no part of the confrontation. Merely Harry pressing the back of his hand under his nose to slow down the bleeding, which continued to trickle down, leaving splotches on his shirt.

Harry ducked from McGonagall’s reproachful observation. She read the hostility between them immediately, the results evident to what transpired.

“What a fine example you two are doing representing our school. Fighting one another, now of all times. Five points from each of you,” Minerva expressed. She shook her head, allowing the headmaster forward.

“I expect there’ll be no more of that.” Dumbledore stated, his strict tone soon falling into a calmer one, quick to get to the point. “I’ll only ask this once. Did either of you put your name in the Goblet of Fire or perhaps ask one of the older students to do it for you?”

“No,” Draco and Harry answered. The other contestants gathered around. Now aware of the situation in full, none of the three appearing too happy about the prospect of additional participants.

“Obviously, Potter is lying,” interrupted Snape, narrowing his gaze at him. “The boy has a flare for the dramatics, always has. And he’s certainly not new to rule breaking, especially ones of such high degree. Be that as it may, you cannot think it wise to send children into the fray.”

Madame Maxime immediately went to Fleur’s side. “Well of course they’re lying. I do not see how it is possible otherwise for them to enter.”

Draco stood there mutely as the discussion continued, side of his face throbbing. Every voice seemed to layer over one another, each attempting to make their point known. For twenty long minutes he and Harry went unnoticed during the duration, until Igor maneuvered his way over.

He roughly placed his hands on Draco’s shoulders, causing his crossed arms to drop. “You cannot expect either to fair well. Lucius would be most displeased to hear news of his son hoodwinked into competing. And if you insist on keeping them, then surely, we deserve the same number of competitors. The whole issue is utterly insulting, Dumbledore. I have half a mind to leave altogether.”

Harry gathered Igor knew the Malfoy’s rather well from the comment alone. It hardly surprised him given who the man was.

“Put a lid on it, Karkaroff,” Moody said, his magic eye rotating between the group, lingering on his father’s face for an extra few seconds. “It matters more on the fact of them having little choice but to follow through. Only an exceptionally powerful conjurer could’ve tricked the Goblet. Something beyond the talents of mere fourth years. Besides, it won’t be selecting any more candidates, so might as well forget that idea.”

“The rules are absolute,” Barty added, taking the pause in speech to interject himself. “The Goblet of Fire constitutes a binding magical contract the moment a name is selected. I’m afraid both Harry and Draco must play this out until the end.”   

Draco felt his stomach drop as murmurs of agreement, mostly held in reluctance, filled the room. The prospect of facing life-threatening challenges rattled him. “I’m not risking my neck for pocket change. You all said it yourselves, there’s an age limit. It shouldn’t even be up for debate. I won’t be forced into playing stupid games just so all of you can save face. In fact, I’m refusing to participate.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the first comment, not many people considered 1000 Galleons pocket change. A part of him wanted to express the same notion, yet he found it difficult to articulate much of anything. Draco’s complaints reminded him of their detention back in their first year. He must really be scared. This time he didn’t blame him though, Harry was terrified himself.

“I’m afraid there’s no refusing, Mr. Malfoy. You’ve lost any choice in the matter,” Moody stated, hiding his satisfaction of the turnout. While he needed to make sure Harry won, he’d enjoy watching Draco struggle.  

“Settle down,” Dumbledore said, bringing his hand up. “I think, for now, the argument is drawn to an end. Barty and Alastor are correct, it cannot be changed. The rules state as much. Hogwarts will consist of three champions. It may come across as an unfair advantage, of which we can all agree on, however, they’re obligated to preform each task no matter our individual opinions. I will personally seek out who is responsible. In the meantime, it’s getting late and our five contestants need to rest up.”

Igor finally detached himself from Draco, who was rather grateful due to his tightening grasp. “Unfair isn’t quite the word I’d use.” A deep frown formed across his face as he gestured for his student to follow, rambling in hushed complaint.

Madame Maxime declined the invitation to stay for the drink Dumbledore politely offered (hoping to ease tensions), too outraged to consider the proposal. She left, adding no parting words.

Harry got out the door first, surprised Cedric struck a conversation on their way out. He noticed how Fleur came across almost insulted at the idea of competing against two students who were much younger than the rest. And Viktor, he looked rather indifferent, his emotions in check.

Draco trailed behind, unaware he displayed several attributes and opinions many considered either rude or offensive, which showed him in quite a negative light, all things considered.

He didn’t quite understand how one decision went to the next. They all expected him to simply go along because of some contract formed he had nothing to do with? Loathed as he was to admit it, there were no way of escaping the tournament. They’d probably drag him into each trial no matter what, meaning if he didn’t prepare in some way, he’d most certainly fail.

Numerous things pounded against his head, making it difficult to think straight.

His parents probably already agreed to come in response to Igor’s invitation. Now they’d get to watch him from the stands. Unless, maybe his father could get him out of the whole ordeal.

What if Lucius didn’t believe him? Draco easily imagined how livid he’d be. Hopefully, his mother, who’d likely take the truth readily from him, would soothe his temper. And he knew, given the high press nature of the event (if he cared at all for the Daily Prophet at the moment), they’d be at Hogwarts by tomorrow, requesting to speak to Dumbledore.

With all that in mind, he let his feet carry him to the Slytherin common room, ready to bury the fear thrashing against his ribcage and boast about how evidently someone thought him a worthy candidate to submit. At the very least, he’d hold the false confidence for a good duration of the night before the pressure started inwardly crushing him.