#i swear its like they think knowing how to draw magically gives u the ability to run a business without any advice setting it up

[confused-alpaca]

the worst part about people i talk to irl telling me i should monetize my art is they always say it in the same way someone would if they were telling me to read. this sucks bc when someone tells you to read you can say stuff like "ok what are u suggesting i read" or "where can i find that book" and they will have a conversation with u about it but if someone tells you to sell art and you say something like "what are you suggesting i sell" or "where should i sell it" they will just. repeat that you should monetize your art and give you A Look

[nostalgic-pancakes]

Watching the starlings as autumn draws in

Summary: Tommy and his friends try on some skirts, and he reflects a bit on how they all got here. (It's a happy story) Title from September by Sparky Deathcap

Pairings: None! Platonic everyone (esp in irl fics_)

Read on AO3 (preferred place to read)

Word count: 2570

Warnings: None, except for surface-level references to the exile/prison arcs, but not much.

Other notes: I wrote this in a fit of madness last night in like three hours at 2 am, so i’ll probably edit it honestly but for now, enjoy! (If the CC’s ever display discomfort with this type of fic I will take it down)

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"WELCOME BACK TO THE STREAM, BOYS!" Tommy exclaims, rubbing his hands together as he starts rapid-fire answering questions about the stream, and the stream title from chat. It's funny, how over time, Tommy's come to see Chat as this one entity- an old friend. The nervousness of answering questions as a fifteen year old with nothing but a big personality, a twitch account and a copy of Minecraft is all but gone now, nineteen years old and happier than he's ever been.

Dreadfulzombie19: what are u doin this stream

"THANK YOU FOR ASKING, Dreadfulzombie19, today is gonna be a bit different, innit Tubbo?" Tommy raises his voice a bit at the end of his sentence, just loud enough for one of his flatmates to hear him. When Tubbo yells back an affirmative, Tommy turns back to his setup. Chat's gone a bit wild again, even though he, Tubbo and Ranboo have been living together for over a year now.

"Okay, okay, calm down chat- so recently I was at university, as usual right? And I had an eight AM class again, and… yeah I can see you all can relate."

"BUT! BUT! On my way back to the flat, I saw something really cool." Tommy hesitates in his speech to take a sip of coke again- his blood pressure's been acting up lately and watches Chat to wild again, asking him what he saw.

"Okay, so there was a shop- new place, which doesn't happen often this is fucking Brighton- and they sold skirts and dresses and stuff with adjustments for AMAB sizes!" Chat goes a bit bonkers, but Tommy's mod team- a little smaller than it used to be, now that he isn't the centre of YouTube or Twitch attention anymore, none of them are- are handling it, and pretty well.

"So I had to go, right? As many of you probably know, last year, I made the astounding discovery that gender-based stereotypes and expectations are, in fact, fake and I should not give a SHIT. And so I go in and look through the stuff- it's a really poggers shop by the way, and I find the perfect thing- it was the most poggers skirts and shit, okay? So, today's stream is going to have me wearing this pogchamp shit and wearing it right, with the help of…" Tommy ends his monologue by picking up the joke shaker-things that Phil had gotten him as a housewarming gift last year and indicates for his first two helpers to enter the office.

In walks his mother, face obscured from view as always, waving to the camera, and Wilbur, also wearing one of his only skirts for this occasion. Eret had taught him, on a phonecall in the skirt shop that week about the different types of skirts with a handy diagram. Wilbur's was a pleated circle skirt, brown to offset the bright yellow of his sweater and beanie, the same colour as his hair. It's very swoosh-y, so he's wearing black leggings with his regular shoes too. Motherinnit's also wearing her favourite skirt, a baby blue prairie skirt, Tommy thinks, and it's one he's seen fairly often.

Wilbur ducks down in order to show his face to Chat, and ruffles Tommy's hair while he's at it. Tommy's taller, but not by much, so Wilbur still fucking makes short jokes, That fucker.

Chat is now going so fast that he simply cannot read anything but some of the all caps messages and can barely make out some of the emotes.

"Okay, OKAY, CALM DOWN CHAT! WE HAVE TO GET TO FUCKING BUSINESS!" Tommy yells into the mix, like he did when he was sixteen and used the 'many people find me annoying at first' intro. Nowadays he just lets the content speak for itself. Anyone who wants to be here already is, by now.

Wilbur laughs a bit, and that hasn't changed at all. "Tommy, how is chat supposed to calm down if you're not calm?"

"I am their god!! They will obey via sheer digital willpower!" Tommy replies back, pretty zealously (What? An English Literature class is mandatory for his film degree, and The Great Gatsby by Zelda Fitzgerald is a good book, as are most of the other assigned ones. He's had entire conversations with Techno with just lit quotes and it drives everyone insane. Tommy loves it.) Chat seemingly has listened to his godlike abilities, with a few OG's spotting his half-quotation of one of Dream's last lines in the Dream SMP. The rest are spamming 'MOTHERINNIT'.

"If having a shitty magic trick book from a washed-up politician makes you a god, then what does that make me?" Wilbur replies, with one of Foolish's lines and swatting his hand at Tommy. Tommy swats back.

"Bitch" "Arsehole" "Shithead" "Fuckface" Wilbur finishes cheerily, as if this happens all the time. It does. Chat's used their antics now, four years of consistently making content together will do that for you.

Eventually Motherinnit reminds them both to get back on Topic, and Tommy goes back to facing the camera, addressing Chat directly.

"Today, my beloved mother, and my idiot brother-" "hey!" "And maybe my flatmates will be joining me to show off some cool as SHIT skirts! And a dress or two. We all have our selections, right?" Everyone nods in affirmative, even Tubbo and Ranboo. Though the camera can't see them. Ranboo's just come home from his final class, then. He should probably take the first hour back off, and judging by how Tubbo is forcefully judging Ranboo to the shower, he probably gets it. Tommy signs an affirmative to both of them, and gets back to the camera, where Wilbur's showing off all of his (very poggers) very stupid brown or yellow skirts. Tommy's are in cool colours, for fuck's sake.

"Oh yeah, Puffy just confirmed she'll be on stream! She'll be here in about twenty minutes, accounting for fucking traffic, and Niki' going to get onto VC after her own stream, what game is it this time?"

"GRIS." Wilbur answers.

"Poggers- she is the SHIT and will join us soon! So expect some QUALITY QUALITY content this stream!! Remember to not spam her chat to finish faster." Exclaims Tommy, even if it ends up as a light warning, as he picks up his own very poggers skirts from the extra armchair in his office to show the camera.

One is the classic red and white, mostly white but with bright red on the waist (elastic) and the bottom, and it reached to about Tommy's knee, if worn at the hip. It had no pleats, but the red bits were a very nice velvet texture, and while the skirt was heavy, it still had very much swoosh value, and pockets!! Big ones!! He slips the skirt on top of his jeans before entering camera view, the skirt visible in all its classic Tommyinnit glory, as he takes his place right next to Wilbur, who just took. a quick spin at the behest of several dono's., Skirt spying out from his lower shins all the way to his knee, making visible one of his (many) petticoats. ("What? It's cold all the fucking time here, Toms.") Tommy also makes a quick little spin, skirt flying outward, not upward, so it looks like he's hula hooping for a moment there. Lastly, Motherinnit spins around too, and while her skirts do not swoosh, she looks opulent, like she was about to go to waltz with the enemy, for whom she has a dagger in the back of her dress for. (He finished Anna Karenina and the Six of Crows duology within the same week and has not yet recovered. Jack Edwards is laughing at him as he thinks in his English Lit Graduate glory.)

It's fun, trying on different skirts- he and Wilbur accidentally bought the same dress at one point, which they paired up to wear, darting off into their respective changing rooms while giggling like idiots with their checkered blouses and the grindl skirts that Niki had sent over when she heard of this stream idea, laughing the whole time. Tubbo enters as dramatically as possible with Puffy, and while Tubbo looks really fucking good in his handkerchief skirt with embroidered bees and plain white shirt, it's Puffy who steals the show with an exact, real life version of her red banquet dress.

Fans from way back in the SMP, before Tommy had started branching out start going insane and are bringing back emotes Tommy wasn't sure were still available, but she is fucking stunning- deep shades of red and crimson, with slits on either side of her waist and all the detailing. She'd gotten the contact for her dressmaker through Bernadette Banner, Tommy recalls- she was so fucking cool when she streamed with him once, and gotten him to swear less and supplant those world's with bigger ones to intimidate instead. While he still curses like a sailor as part of his persona, it's less so and he does way less in real life these days, unless the situation calls for it. It's also just rude, especially in uni libraries, where he spends too much time these days wondering why he didn't read more as a kid.

Puffy's stolen his audience for a WHILE, and Niki coming on hasn't helped any, so Tommy exits camera view for a while to hug Ranboo really quickly- he's had midterms and has basically been dying all month.

Everyone on this stream- Tommy, Wilbur, Motherinnit, Tubbo, Puffy, Niki and Ranboo enter the camera frame after entering their dressing rooms for the last time on this particular stream, Puffy with full in-character wigs and makeup, Tommy in an Edwardian-Gothic reminiscent black and red dress, Ranboo in something he bought when he gap-yeared in Japan, punk lolita or something, Niki flaunting her pink in a Marie Antoinette style show of finery, Tubbo dressing in all green this time, something like a very deranged biology teacher who hasn't slept in days (Tubbo hasn't-Tommy has to get into that), Wilbur like a forest-nymph, all earthy tones and swishy fabrics and nature highlights, and finally Motherinnit, who hasn't changed but is here to take pictures as they all lean in together to fit into frame, as drastic as their height difference is. Niki is going to be edited in later, and everyone on the 'Dream SMP but nobody does Dream SMP and we're all fucking nerds' discord server is going to get a copy.

The stream wraps up there, after about two hours, and it's only about six in the evening- a far cry from the late nights and long hours from the beginning of Tommy's career, so everyone runs to their changing areas for the last time, into pajamas now, and packs away all of the clothes they wore, properly, as to not incense Karolina Zebrowska, and Jemma, Dan's wife, who would look at them disappointedly and nobody wants a sad Jemma because that means no cooing at their son. Also it just feels shitty.

Everyone huddles in Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo's living room, and they out on UP for like, the millionth fucking time (they still cry when Ellie dies), and Tommy is leaning into Wilbur's side and feeling his mum play with the hair in his very small, stubby ponytail he's developed by being in Uni as he and Tubbo intertwine their legs together and Ranboo rests his head in the tangle of limbs, playing with his fidget cube. Puffy stays on Wilbur's side, intently texting someone and smiling the whole while, and Tommy takes a moment to reflect (something he's been getting better at doing) on how the actual hell they all got here.

The Dream SMP was always going to end- everyone knew it, if course, they were the fucking writers. But by the time they did, not only were their respective brands too closely intertwined to just… sever that quickly, but they'd become too close to even want to. So the SMP discord never shut, even though Dream and George had planned it months ago, and they continued supporting each other with their interests. Wilbur made a lot more music solo, with his band and even just random ass streams where he practiced guitar for an hour. He kept playing Minecraft, but it wasn't his main focus. A bunch of people left. More stayed. YouTube left him alone.

Dream, George and Sapnap are still Minecraft streamers, but their YouTube channels are mostly blogs of them being poor excuses of adults with other former SMP members joining in sometimes. Tommy and the Dream Team were closer than ever, even though the seeds of their friendship had been sowed when they used to linger after heavy streams together, reassuring each other that none of that was true and that nothing like… that would happen in real life, because Dream had used real abuse tactics, and those still hurt unless immediately taken care of. So they were. It was a running joke that Dream was stuck at 99 million subscribers since nobody really wanted the face reveal anymore. The other Dream team members were doing peachy.

Phil and Techno were also still primarily Minecraft streamers, but they also released things like advice videos and mental health stuff, especially for relationships. They had a new scripted series where Tommy was a minor character. The dadza jokes were still as real, and yes, outside of streaming, both of them were lovely people and responsible adults (mostly). They collaborated with DanTDM and co a lot more now.

Puffy and Niki kept doing games, but did lots of different ones, testing point and clickers to triple A titles, and making it all fucking hilarious while they were at it.

So where had that left Tommy?

After the Dream SMP, he'd kind of had no idea what to do, and he was going to University for the first time, so he just… did whatever he thought would be fun. He learned about vintage fashion from the queens themselves- Mina Le, Bernadette Banner and Karolina Zebrowska and had fun learning how to sew for the first time, fixing and making his own clothes for the first time, clunky as they were, Wilbur had cried, genuinely, when he saw the Lovejoy shirts that Tommy had made for the band. He'd found a genuine love for literature in university, so Tommy started talking to booktubers and studytubers like Jack Edwards and Noelle Stevenson. Tubbo and Ranboo had joined him, fucking around in any YouTube niche they found even remotely interesting. Eventually, they all found a happy medium- a bit of everything.

Some people obviously weren't happy with that but Tommy was happy as he was, making what he liked with his best friend's, living together close enough to most of their friends (family) to have fun and drop in on one another at ass-o-clock in the morning to comfort, to laugh. His sub count hasn't gone up in a while- most of his audience is static, with about 80-90k online on a stream at any time.p

It was a nice feeling, to have carved out a space for himself and the people he loves, and be is so, so glad that he got this chance.

Looking at his mostly asleep family, Tommy thinks 'yeah. Life is good.' as the last thought before he sleeps.

[hermannsthumb]

Hiiii Maria! Seasonal Newmann u say? How about uhhhhh wine tasting + corn maze for them guys

HAPPY OCTOBER 1STTTTTTTT

Anonymous said: For the prompt meme,,, corn maze pls

from autumn fic meme here: 18. wine tasting + 27. (x2) corn maze

———————————-

It was a bad idea from the start and destined to fail, Newt will admit that. At the time, though (after a long day of ingesting as much sugar as possible at the fall fest, rounded out with a genuine wine-tasting in a big spookily-lit tent) it sounded great. And Hermann agreed it sounded great. They’re scientists, Newt said. They’re some of the greatest ones of the century, probably. How many scientists have hooked their brains up to an alien hivemind and lived to talk about it? Exactly two–and it’s them. He’s pretty sure they can solve a stupid corn maze. Even tipsy. Shit, they could probably finish it in five minutes.

Twenty minutes in, the wine has worn off, the temperature is dropping with the sun, and it’s becoming very clear Newt overestimated their abilities.

Hermann is not amused. “We’ve passed that scarecrow already,” he says. “I’m certain. We’re walking in circles.”

Newt gazes up at the one Hermann’s pointing to. It’s hokey and cliche, just like the rest of the maze (with its jack-o-lanterns and fake cobwebs everywhere): creepy sack head, plaid shirt, pitchfork strapped to a hand that sways in the wind. If they were in a horror movie, it’d probably come to life and chase them. It doesn’t. Newt can’t tell if he’s disappointed or not. “I think they just all look the same, dude,” Newt says. “Look–” he points to a corner. “That pumpkin looks new.”

“It looks like every other pumpkin we’ve seen today,” Hermann says, scowling at its jagged, flickering smile, “because it’s the same one.” To really hammer in his point, he repeats “We’re walking in circles.”

“Even if we are,” Newt says, “which we’re not, at least it’s giving us some quality time together, right?” Hermann turns his scowl on Newt. Newt, unphased, inches over and takes his free hand. “It’s just you, and me.” He strokes his thumb over the back of Hermann’s knuckles, through his stupid-cute red mittens. Hermann’s scowl begins to twitch into a smile. “And that evil scarecrow.”

Hermann snorts, and doesn’t pull his hand away, which Newt counts as a win. “It is unsettling,” he agrees, and makes a face at the scarecrow’s sack head. It flaps sadly back at him. “Come on. I don’t fancy being stuck in here after dark.”

“Wait a sec,” Newt says. He digs around in the deep pocket of his overalls before finally producing a small brown bag of candy corn. At Hermann’s inquisitive stare, he adds, “I know it’s gross, but I’m hungry.” He needs the sugar rush. Get his brain working. The wine made him sleepy.

“You ate four candy apples today,” Hermann says, but takes a handful himself. 

Twenty-five more minutes pass. The sun sets. Newt’s pretty sure at least five bats pass overhead. They finish off the candy corn. They make out against a few hay bales for a bit until Hermann complains that it’s irritating his skin. Eventually, they reach a small fork in the path, which Newt thinks is probably a good sign, because they haven’t seen one of those yet–only four-way splits. “Well, babe,” he says, “left or right?”

“Left,” Hermann says immediately.

“Oh,” Newt says. He scuffs his boot against the dirt ground. “Uh. I was actually kinda feeling right.”

“Hm,” Hermann says. His voice gets the way it always does when he’s preparing to condescend to Newt. He adjusts his glasses. “I see. Only, you know, Newton, we haven’t taken any left turns yet–”

“Haven’t we?” Newt says.

“We haven’t,” Hermann says. “I’ve been keeping track.” (Probably why they got lost in the first place.) “I think we ought to take a left.”

“There’s nothing down that way,” Newt says. “There are more pumpkins down the right way. Look.” A row of more flickering jack-o-lanterns down that path, lining the corn hedge, more cobwebs. The left side is dark.

“Obviously an attempt to fool people like you,” Hermann says, “who take directions from pumpkins.” He gives Newt’s hand a sharp tug. “Left, Newton.”

“No, you dick. I’m not–”

Something moves directly ahead of them in the corn. Newt freezes. 

Hermann does not freeze. “Oh, what is it now?” he sighs. Earlier, when they’d done the walk through of the “Haunted Manor” in the main part of the fair (an old farmhouse decorated with more hokey Halloween stuff, employees dressed as ghosts leaping out from corners, and a foggy backyard full of punny styrofoam gravestones), Newt kept grabbing his shoulder and hissing boo in his ear to make him jump, so Newt has a feeling he’s all spooked-out at this point. And all patienced-out. Unfortunately, it’s not Newt this time.

He shushes Hermann and draws him a little closer. “I think there’s someone over there,” he whispers.

“I’m not falling for that again,” Hermann snaps. “Don’t–” More rustling cornstalks, closer to them, this time. Hermann jumps; he clings to Newt’s arm. “What is it?” he hisses.

Newt’s imagination takes that chance to run wild: one of the scarecrows, magically brought to life with nightfall and stalking after them. A giant monster with a pumpkin head. The ghost of someone who got lost in here years ago (just like them) and starved to death and is going to take its revenge. Aliens. “I don’t know,” Newt hisses back. Heart pounding, and for lack of seeing any better weapon, he snatches a dried and hardened corn husk from the ground and wields it like a sword in front of them. He nudges Hermann behind him protectively. “Stay there.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Hermann says, but Newt does anyway.

“Hey, asshole, what do you want!” he calls at the corn.

The rustling stops. For a second, Newt hopes he’s scared whatever it is off (definitely aliens, they probably recognized Newt and Hermann from how they handled the kaiju and were too afraid to try anything), but then it picks up–faster–coming right towards them–and then something bursts out at them, blinding them with a bright beam of light.

Newt screams (but only a little). Hermann swears. They stagger backwards, clinging to each other, nearly falling on their asses.

And then the light is lowered. “What are you guys still doing in here?” their assailant says, who looks less like an assailant and more like one of the minimum-wage teenagers in orange vests and flannel who have been working stands at the festival all night. Newt lowers the hardened corn husk and blinks, dazedly, at her. She’s holding a flashlight. “The farm closed thirty minutes ago.”

“Why,” Newt squeaks. He clears his throat. “Why were you sneaking around in the corn? You scared the shit out of us.” (Hermann mumbles something along the lines of speak for yourself, but Newt can feel the bastard’s heart pounding away even through his fifty layers of turtlenecks.)

“Some kid lost a cell phone in here and my boss is making me look for it.” The girl rolls her eyes. “We are closed, though, so–”

“Of course,” Hermann says. He brushes dirt off his sweater and tries to play it cool. “Apologies. We were, ah, having some difficulty figuring a way out of the maze…”

“Oh,” the girl says. She shines the beam of her flashlight to their left. “Go that way, and then take another left, and you’ll be out. Happy Halloween.”

Newt and Hermann return the sentiment, and, both red-faced and more than a little mortified, quickly scurry away. They’re out of the maze in minutes.

“I told you it was left,” Hermann mutters.

Newt elbows him. “Shut up,” he says, fondly.

[hiraeth-wayfarer]

I’m in the middle of creating a dungeons and dragons campaign based in your world (if that’s alright with you of course) for my friends and I and while I was thinking of giving the Hiraeth races stats and abilities for dnd I had a question about hill folk. What does it mean exactly for a hill folk to “cut arcane ties”? Does this mean that in order to learn true healing magic they must swear off all other kinds of magic? Keep up the amazing work!!

Oh my gosh that’s so cool! I find that very humbling honestly. I have some extra info I’m gonna drop about each of the races hopefully soon so I hope that doesn’t mess up what you have going on already, and maybe hopefully will make things a bit clearer and easier to classify. ; u ;

Basically about the magic stuff, celestial magic can only be used if one removes the ability to use other magic from their being, with the exception of the situation of the Hill Folk. All Hill Folk are born with a little bit inherently in their body, but to reach their full potential they have to cut their ties to arcane energy coming from Hiraeth or the Fae Realm. All races can go through this process also, just Hill Folk have the easiest time transitioning since they already have a little bit flowing through them at birth. They’re the only race like this and they can also choose never to go through with the ritual and use other magic if they want.

The ritual requires one to wait for when a constellation is especially bright in the sky and its magic is descending onto Hiraeth. The one who wishes to become attuned to celestial magic has to go out to focus on that constellation and meditate. Once they’ve become enraptured in meditation, they’ll hear an incantation in the form of a song coming from the constellation. They repeat the song back and then the celestial energy will start pouring into them, and pushing out other magics. The process can feel somewhat uneasy or painful to those that aren’t Hill Folk, and one might see visions of other places far out into the celestial sea during the ritual. It’s often advised to bring witnesses who also know celestial arts to mediate with those that wish to undertake the ritual, to strengthen the signal from the constellation and also to aid in case anything happens. 

Celestial arts is the only form of magic that can perform healing spells-- others having to rely on alchemy to make medicines, potions, or incense. Celestial arts still have their own wide range of usage outside of healing, such as drawing from stars for energy to launch as powerful bolts or to strengthen the body, creating warmth during extreme colds, even to call down comets or to commune with beings from other worlds.  

Sorry for the long ramble but that’s basically the breakdown of it and every important thing I could think of to make it clear. Hiraeth is weird and vague so I hope this info sheds some light on how celestial magic differs from other magic.

Also I’d be really interested in hearing how the campaign goes so feel free to write in again if it gets off the ground! C: