#no idea what the correct file size is

[les-miscellaneous]

happy valentine’s day! i wrote this poem almost exactly a year ago, my very first poem after realizing my crush on my now boyfriend. just re-edited it & wanted to share <3

[Image ID: de-crystallizing.

I want to write a poem that makes your hands stick together turns your tea from white to yellow erodes your molars like a worm snuggles earth

I want to swarm into your mind as easily as you breezed into mine.

come move me soothe me lick me from your fingers

I want to write a poem that oozes with honey for you. /.End ID]

[golden-ebony]

Man Eater (3) 𓆩♡𓆪

♡ series masterlist ♡ previous part ♡

♡ Pairing: Logan Howlett/Fem!Vigilante!Reader

♡ Word Count: 3.0k

♡ Rating: Mature (but any additional parts may be explicit)

♡ Warning/Tags: fighting but by no means violent

♡ Summary: Leaving your past behind is never easy; teasing Logan makes it tolerable

♡ Note: i FINALLY have a proper vision for the series and i'm so so so excited!

It didn’t take you long to move into the X-mansion. You typically kept most of your things in storage, preferring to live out of a suitcase as you traveled from place to place. It always made it easier to leave on short notice if needed.

But you promised yourself you’d try to make it work at the school, hence moving all your belongings in. Leaving in the cover of night would be significantly harder now—unless you were willing to part with more than a few possessions.

In just a month, you’d settled into a permanent room and reacquainted yourself with your newfound teammates. Like Charles, they treated you with kindness and respect whenever your paths crossed. Occasionally, you even assisted them if it aligned with your own self-interest.

You had more interactions with Logan than anyone else. Despite knowing him for only a few weeks, you two were definitely getting closer. Friends? Maybe. True friendships were rare for you. Most of your relationships were transactional, impersonal. But with Logan, words weren’t always necessary to convey what the other was thinking or feeling. There was a mutual understanding between you.

Still, he loved finding new ways to get under your skin. And you were more than happy to return the favor. It was a brazen, tenacious dance that raised the tension in any room you were in, even when others were around.

Bantering with him was the only exciting part of your days. You itched to do something—anything besides train. The thrill of a mission was what you craved. Waiting for that “something good” Charles and Logan had mentioned felt like torture.

You saw the others come and go on missions a few times over the month. They’d be gone for only a few hours or a day, but that was exactly what you wanted. Your requests, however, were falling on deaf ears.

“I think I’m ready,” you reaffirmed to Storm as you finished a set in the gym. “I did great in the Danger Room, I train on my own, I’ve read some rather boring files. I’m ready!”

“You survived the Danger Room,” Storm corrected. “You’d do better if you actually worked with us instead of next to us.”

You huffed, hands on your hips. “I’m trying, alright? And I have been doing better!”

“You have,” Storm nodded. She glanced over, noticing Logan entering the gym with a group of students, and a sly smile crossed her face. “If bickering and flirting with Logan were a measure of improvement, I’d say you’re more than ready for a mission.”

Looking over your shoulder, you saw Logan talking with some students. You’d bet his training shirt was a size too small, hugging every ridge of his toned physique. You quickly turned away, not wanting to give him any ammunition for later teasing.

You shook your head, a smile creeping onto your lips. “Well, he’s annoying, and it’s something to do until I can actually go on a mission.”

Storm noticed Logan catching sight of the two of you and saw the tension between you thicken. Around the students, you both were more restrained, but that didn’t stop Logan from eyeing you across the room.

“Patience is a virtue,” Storm remarked as she passed you, knowing it was best to leave you and Logan to your own devices.

Turning, you watched as Storm said something to Logan before leaving the gym. An idea sparked in your mind as Logan’s gaze settled on you. You gave him a nod toward the wall, signaling for him to follow. He obliged, moving out of the students’ earshot.

Noticing the sweat-soaked collar of your shirt, Logan couldn’t help himself. “Already hot and bothered just by me being here, sweetheart?”

Your face remained serious, ignoring his comment. “Can you do me a favor?” You crossed your arms, your tone sincere.

Logan huffed, realizing he wasn’t going to get a rise out of you. He nodded, mirroring your stance. “Yeah, what’s up?”

You felt silly about your request. “Can you talk to Charles for me? I want to start going on missions, but no one thinks I’m ready.”

Logan shook his head, surprised. “Probably because you’re not ready.” You’d heard it from Charles, Scott, and Storm, but hearing it from Logan felt like a betrayal, even personal.

“You know better than anyone I can handle myself!” Your voice was louder than intended. “I’ve been doing this longer than any of you—well, except you.”

Logan raised a hand, signaling you to ease up. “Easy, sweetheart, you’ve only been here a month.”

“And it’s agonizing!” you snapped. “I know I’m still learning this whole team thing, but you said I could do something good here.”

“Then do something!” Logan shot back, as if it was obvious. Before you could retort, he continued, “Look, Charles has me teaching self-defense to these boys without their abilities. Offer to do the same for the girls.”

For the first time, Logan had managed to shut you up. You looked over his shoulder, watching the boys practice without his supervision.

“Yeah, we have missions, but this is a school. Helping these kids—that’s the original mission.”

You glanced back at him, huffing. “You sound like Charles.”

“Because he has to remind me of that sometimes.” He placed a hand on your shoulder. “And now I get to remind you.”

His firm grasp was oddly calming. Weeks ago, you would’ve swatted his hand away with a scold, but now his touch felt sincere.

You nodded. “Alright, I’ll talk to Charles about training some students. But will you talk to him for me?”

Logan playfully hummed as if he was weighing his options, “I’ll vouch for you when the time comes,” Logan decided, shooting you a smile. He turned back to the boys, seeing them get a bit more rowdy under no current supervision. “I’d invite you to watch, but I think you’d distract the boys” he teased as he squeezed your shoulder. The look in his eyes was more mischievous than anything.

You picked his arm off your shoulder, sensing the bait, “Distract them or distract you?”

Logan eyed your leggings and cropped shirt. Your partially exposed abdomen and arms were dried with sweat, but Logan couldn’t get your smell out of his head. It was almost dizzying. It had been getting worse over the last few weeks. Your smell was all over the mansion on every goddamn surface in every goddamn room. He only found refuge in his own room. However, Logan was nothing but honest.

“Mainly the boys, but…” Logan stepped a little closer, taking a proper deep breath to inhale your scent, “I ain’t above your charms either.”

You deeply inhaled, your exhale resulting in a chuckle, “For a man that’s seen my case files, you have to know where that charm can lead you.”

Logan shrugged at your point, “For a woman who claimed she couldn’t possibly be a part of a team, you’re sure itchin’ to go on a mission.”

“So?”

He shrugged again, taking a few steps back with a playful gleam in his eyes. “First impressions aren’t everything.”

You watched as Logan went back to the students, immediately getting their attention when he spoke up. As you walked past the group to leave the gym, you noticed how attentive the male students were actually being, focusing on every word Logan was saying. And whether Logan wanted to say Charles made him do this or not, you could tell that he enjoyed it. If he said no, it wasn’t sincere. You knew a liar when you saw one.

After your conversation with Logan, you spoke with Charles. He was excited to see you take initiative in assisting the children. You didn’t have the heart to tell him it was Logan’s idea, but if Charles really wanted to know, he had his ways of figuring that out. You didn’t push the idea of going on missions to him again. That was your idea.

It only took Charles a day to find groupings of female students that were interested in your lessons. At this point, you didn’t interact with the students much. You were more of a lingering figure in the hallways. This was the students’ opportunity to size you up as well.

As you stood there in the gym with 12 girls staring at you with their judgemental eyes, you felt a bit exposed, a little vulnerable. You had grabbed their attention, and now you were slightly regretting it.

“Uhm, so, self-defense is important…your abilities won’t always save you. It may not be safe to use your abilities.” You nodded as if you were convincing yourself. Some of the girls nodded as well, giving you some semblance of confidence. 

“I’m not…” a curly haired girl began as she looked at you. Her brown eyes were wide with hesitation, “I’m not a fighter.” A few of the other girls muttered in agreement. 

“And you don’t have to be.” You tried to reassure them with a soft smile. “I’m not asking you guys to pick fights or…even like to fight. It’s just important to the Professor…important to me that you guys know how to protect yourselves. No matter where you go in life.”

Pride was a feeling you were familiar with. Usually that pride stemmed from your own work. And these girls were right; they definitely weren’t fighters. However, watching these girls take your advice, follow your movements, even laugh when they made a mistake, you felt pride outside of yourself. Even over the course of an hour, you saw the improvement. Their movements were more fluid as they learned to strike and block.

You could see that the hour was winding down. It flew by as you watched the paired up teens practice these simple moves on each other. Your mind was already racing with ideas on what to teach next. Sighing with contentment, you clapped to grab their attention.

“Alright, that’s gonna be all for today!” you told them, only holding some of the girls’ attention. The others were still playfully fighting at this point. “Same time next week? Yeah?”

A number of the girls nodded as they began to grab their things. When your eyes turned toward the door, you spotted Logan leaned against the doorframe with his large forearms crossed. You looked smitten with himself as he watched you interact with the students. You playfully narrowed your eyes with a soft smile.

You turned your attention back to the girls who were grabbing their bags, “And if you don’t remember anything from today, just remember to never pull your punches. What you lack in experience, you can make up for in ferocity, alright?”

The giddy girls all were quick to say their thank yous and goodbyes as they passed you. Some said bye to Logan, too, as he moved out of their way. 

With hands shoved in his jean pockets, he approached, “They don’t look half-bad,” he remarked, referring to the students. “And you look pleased with yourself, sweetheart.”

You bit your lip to hold back a smile, knowing Logan was going to use this as ammunition on why he’s always right. But a part of you didn’t care. “You were right; these are good kids. And I may have had fun,” you admitted as you grabbed the spray bottle and pushed the mop to clean down the mats. Logan walked beside you with raised brows as you began to clean up.

“Oh, I was right? That sounds good coming off your lips,” Logan teased, lightly shoving your shoulder.

“Don’t get used to it, Wolvie.” You eyed him as you turned around with the mop around to toward the other end. Noticing his sweats and t-shirt–that damn tight t-shirt again–you motioned to the equipment toward the end of the gym. “Are you here to work out or bother me? Because the weights are down there, brute.”

Logan's mouth quirked into a wry smile at your question. Walking next to you, he could smell your scent, a mix of sweat and your own natural scent. It made him feel oddly relaxed yet infuriated. He let his eyes drift down to your body as you pushed the mop.

 “I was, but,” His eyes lingered on your form before taking the mop from you, tossing it against the wall, “now I wanna see if what you’re teaching these girls are any good.”

Logan backed up, giving ample space between the two of you. You cocked your head, interested in the dare but still hesitant. The tension was already stiff in the gym with anticipation at the mere mention of a fight.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” you shot back, already beginning to stretch your arms, “but if you wanted a personal lesson, all you had to do was ask, Wolvie.” Your tone teased him, bringing a gleam of challenge in his features.

In the empty gym, you both took your stances across from each other, sizing the other up. The thrill of anticipation and adrenaline began to flood your bloodstream as you mentally refamiliarized with how Logan fought during the Danger Room. Brutish is how you’d described it.

“You gonna keep your claws to yourself?”

“Gonna keep your knives to yourself?”

You dramatically rolled your eyes. You unsheathed your knives, darting them to a nearby board in a show of faith.

Logan cracked his knuckles, a smirk playing on his lips. “You sure you want to do this? I wouldn’t want to hurt you, princess.”

You rolled your eyes, shifting into a defensive stance. “The only thing delicate around here is your ego.”

With a sudden burst, Logan lunged forward, aiming for your midsection. You ducked, the rush of air from his punch sending a thrill down your spine. You pivoted swiftly, landing a sharp kick to his side. Logan staggered but quickly regained his stance, admiration creeping on his lips.

“Not bad,” he admitted, his tone teasing, “but you’ll need to do better than that to impress me.”

You couldn’t help but grin, “I already know I impress you.”

You darted in again, your movements a blur. A quick jab here, a feint there—Logan parried some strikes but let one slip through, catching him right on the cheek. The surprise on his face was priceless, and you took a moment to bask in it. If Logan could bruise, he was sure he would have.

You winced, a playful lilt in your voice, “I don’t pull my punches, Wolvie.”

Logan dryly chuckled, rubbing his cheek, “Alright, sweetheart.”

With a mock glare, he lunged again, relying on his size and strength. You ducked low, narrowly avoiding his grasp, and then executed a spinning kick that nearly knocked him off balance. He stumbled, caught between frustration and admiration. 

“Gotta say, I like the way you move for me,” he remarked, genuine awe shining through.

“You wanted an up close show,” you shot back, grinning as you moved in again, launching a series of rapid jabs. Logan blocked a few but let one slip, landing solidly on his jaw again. He staggered, a laugh escaping his lips. “And I aim to please.”

As they exchanged blows, the gym echoed with their banter and laughter. You weren’t even exclusively on the mats anymore. You were moving around the equipment, against the wall. Logan tried to pin you against the wall, but you slipped out of his grasp, executing a swift spin that brought you behind him once more.

With a burst of speed, you locked him in a tight hold, your bodies inches apart. Logan struggled, muscles flexing beneath their grip, but you had the upper hand. “You’re not getting away that easily,” you teased, leaning closer, their breath brushing against his ear. You felt Logan ease up.

“Don’t know if I want to,” Logan shot back, breathless yet exhilarated. 

Feeling your cheeks reddened, you pushed Logan down, pinning him to the padded floor in a swift maneuver with knee and forearm. You positioned yourself over him, yours faces inches apart. Logan didn’t appear defeated; he looked pleased with himself despite the pressure on his abdomen and chest.

You were pleased with yourself, too…for more reasons than one.

“I won,” you breathlessly stated, a small smile on your lips.

Logan’s eyes darted between your eyes and your lips. He unconsciously licked his lips before another smile grew on his face, “Then why do I feel so damn lucky?”

You would’ve expected your heart to slow at this point, yet it stayed elevated as you looked down at Logan. His hazel eyes were now a dark green. It was over. You could release him, but you didn’t. Against your better judgment, you nuzzled yourself close to his ear, hearing his breath hitch.

“Because most men barely make it out with their lives when I get ‘em like this.”

It took everything in Logan not to groan as lips grazed against his ear. Yet, he couldn’t help the hand that partially gripped your waist, feeling the warmth radiating from your body.

“Not the worst view to take in before the slaughter.”

Your mind was fuzzy being this close to Logan. It only worsened when Logan gripped you. Your entire body was buzzing, screaming to pull away. Still, you stayed, only slightly shifting your weight off his chest. The competitive gleam in Logan’s eyes was replaced with something softer, sensual even. Your breathing slowed, but your heart was racing a mile a minute. 

Even Logan couldn’t seem to piece together another quip, a retort. All his thoughts had been stripped away, replaced with only you. You were consuming every ounce of his senses except the very one he craved the most. As close as you were, it wouldn’t be difficult to obtain. Yet, Logan was reluctant because even in the tenderness of your eyes, he saw a flash of something–he almost missed it—that he hadn’t seen in you before.

Fear.

“I gotta talk to Charles,” you quickly stammered as you lifted yourself off of Logan, not even thinking about facing him again. As quick as you said it, you were heading for the door. Logan could only muster the faint call of your name from the floor. He wasn’t surprised when it didn’t stop you.

After slowly standing, Logan noticed your knives still jammed into the wall. Your favorites, no less. Pulling them from the wall, Logan took the knives with him. 

You’d be looking for them eventually.

He couldn’t wait until you did.

note: love hearing y'all's thoughts or if you wanna be tagged ♡

🏷️ list: @absxntmxnded @sarcazzzum @cashmerephalaenopsis @m1cky-y-y @wowitsafemale @kneelforloki @hello-lemons @devoetee @montyrokz @qxuanii @steviebbboi @mooneyloveydovey @yourworstgf @needz1nk @ayamenimthiriel @lulawantmula

[hexcoreviktor]

you people think you are so great just cause you put together some gifs

dude what 🤡

ah yes, look at me, everyone! over here on my tumblr blog always acting like some big shot! look at how revered us gif makers are, with an abysmal like/reblog ratio and folks constantly stealing our stuff without credit :')

you people are part of the reason that more and more gif makers just don't even bother anymore; you have no idea how much work it actually is, you've probably never even opened photoshop once in your life, but you think you get to decide 'it's not that hard.' do it yourself then. pay for photoshop or try to find a free version that actually works, learn how to use it, pay for a vpn so you can safely download files, buy external hard drives cause man, you're gonna need so much space for all those GBs you're downloading since you need high quality files, get a player to screencap, cross your fingers photoshop (or your entire computer) doesn't crash when you load the screencaps, crop and resize your gif, make sure your sharpening settings look right for the file quality you're using, TRY TO MAKE UGLY FUCKING SCENES LOOK NICE SOMEHOW with 20 different layers, change said layers a bunch of times to get rid of grain, add subtitles (and don't you dare get anything wrong or have a typo), save your gif...but beware! it might just take ages and then it turns out it's over tumblr's size limit, so you go back and delete frames until it's finally right, and finally make sure your gif is running at the correct speed. go and do all of that for 2-10 gifs that look kinda decent, and then tell me again it's not that hard.

anyway. i don't even know what you think i did to warrant this message, i post my gifs and that's it. none of us think we're saving the fucking world lol, but at least stop talking down to us, and don't act like you'd have a whole lot to look at on here without people making gifs for you. have a nice day.

[avatar-anna]

Margaritaville

based on this tiktok that i saw today!

Young Dad! Harry x Young Mom! Reader Universe

"Why the hell is my daughter dressed as a margarita?"

Y/n stared down at the group of boys sitting on the floor of her hotel room, watching with glee as Simone teetered around as a tiny cocktail.

All five boys looked up at her, a mix of emotions on their faces ranging from deer in headlights to the picture of innocence. Harry stood up from the floor and walked over to Y/n, his lips immediately finding her cheek for a quick kiss. He could tell she was mostly surprised, not really mad—at least he hoped. Dressing Simone up like a margarita didn't seem like a terrible idea when Louis approached him with the idea. It seemed harmless. Now he wasn't so sure.

"Just a bit of fun," Harry promised. "And look she loves it."

"She loves the attention," Y/n corrected. "She's two! She can't—Is that salt on the rim?"

"Mommy look!"

Y/n's attention swiveled to the toddler in like green. Simone's hair was pulled back into two tiny buns on the top of her head, each one adorned with a little green bow. She was sporting a huge smile, clearly happy to have her father and all her uncles fawn over her. Because of their busy schedules, she didn't get to spend much time with the members of One Direction, but when she did, the boys treated her like a little queen.

"Wow, melon!" Y/n cooed, not wanting to spoil her daughter's fun.

"I'm a marita!" Simone said, not quite getting the name right.

Y/n's grin was wide, but Harry could see right through it. He knew he was in for it later. For now he was safe, but when he was alone with Y/n? Perhaps a Simone-sized buffer was necessary the rest of the night. He was not above using his daughter's cuteness to get out of a lecture.

"Who made you this awesome costume?" Y/n asked, her voice light.

"Uncle Louis!"

"It was more of a joint effort, really," Louis said from his spot on the floor. When Y/n shot him a look, he was quick to go back to studying the pattern in the carpet.

"You look amazing, my love, but maybe we should change into your other costume for trick-or-treating?"

"I like this one!" Simone declared.

Y/n fought the urge to sigh deeply through her nose. She could only imagine the stares she was going to get walking around with a tequila toddler. But if her daughter was happy, she saw no reason to spoil the fun. The last thing she needed was a tantrum over a wardrobe change.

"Okay, Simone. Margarita it is," Y/n said. Then she turned to Harry's bandmates. "Isn't there a party you should be getting ready for?"

The boys were quick to scramble to their feet. Each of them said their goodbyes to Simone, kissing her cheeks and the top of her head. They said goodbye to Y/n too, murmuring their apologies as they filed out of her small hotel room. Y/n tried to suppress her grin, but it was difficult. She kind of liked that the boys were slightly afraid of her.

"I'm sorry about this, really. The boys got excited and she wanted to wear it and—"

"It's fine, H, promise," Y/n said sincerely. She knew the boys meant well. "It's just...I already get the stares, you know?"

"I'll get her to change," Harry insisted.

"Don't," Y/n said, shaking off her negative thoughts. She sometimes got caught up in what people thought when she and Simone were out together. Maybe walking around with her toddler dressed as a margarita would cause more stares, but her daughter was happy, and it wasn't like she even knew what it was anyway. It would be a funny story to tell in the future. To Harry, she said, "Let them stare. If she's happy, I'm happy."

Y/n grinned, the initial surprise and annoyance at the margarita costume wearing off. It was rather cute. And, "It's really well constructed."

"Louis was planning this for a while, I think," Harry said while both of them admired the craftsmanship of Simone's costume.

"You have a costume for tonight?" Harry asked when they were mostly alone. Simone began playing with her costume, running her hands over the bowl that surrounded her with great interest.

Y/n shrugged. "Not really. I bought cat ears and was just going to call it a day. As for you..."

Walking over to the unused bed in her hotel room, she pulled back the comforter and worked the loose sheet off. Harry gave her a knowing look before she tossed the sheet unceremoniously over his head. The sheet stopped at his shins, revealing dark jeans and a pair of scuffed boots, though the shifting beneath told Y/n he'd probably crossed his arms.

"Now no one will know it's you under there."

"I can't see."

"We'll cut holes before we go," Y/n said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Watch her while I draw on some whiskers, will you?"

Beneath the sheet, Harry rolled his eyes. He pulled it off and sat back down, whipping his phone out to take as many pictures as Simone would let him. She smiled and posed for some, but her attention didn't last long. Harry and Y/n both loved to take pictures of their daughter, but she was usually an unwilling participant.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, love bug?"

"Why did Uncle Louis say maritas will give me a baby sister?"

Harry's head bent as he tried to hide his laughter as Y/n shouted from the bathroom, "I'm gonna kill him!"

[spacechild-glitchypix]

How to position facial features for the Our Life sprites

Idk how many people need this tutorial (especially since I kinda sat on it for like a month...whoops) but I noticed people were starting to make more sprite edits and videos using the in-game sprites and I thought having this tutorial might help for those of you who don't know exactly how to place the expression layers for the sprite.

Part 1: What am I talking about?

Ok so some of you may be reading the post title and thinking "what the hell does that mean?". For those who are unaware, if you decompile OL1 and OL2, you can find the sprites used for the characters in the game. These files are generally in character folders that contain all the bits for each sprite as well as several versions of the sprite itself in different outfits. All these base sprites files look a little like this

You may have noticed the glaringly obvious detail that Qiu here is missing most of their face. That's because there are several seperate images used for their eyebrows, eyes and mouth. The reason they're all seperated like this is to give more creative freedom over expressions than what would be allowed if there were just already a set number of sprites with set expressions

However, if you want to make a spite edit video, that means you have to piece all the expression layers over the sprite and, since the expression layers don't have the same canvas size as the sprite, you have to actually place them on the face yourself. This can lead to stuff like this.

If you're looking at this and thinking it doesn't look quite right, you're correct. This is the issue you're noticing

This is generally what happens when you try placing expression layers by eye, you end up sort of assuming you've got the right spot when you're actually slightly wrong. And this is gif just shows the facial features in the wrong spot vertically

So, I've explained the problem, now how do you fix it? It's simple actually.

Part 2: The actual tutorial part

What you'll need:

The sprites and expression layers you need (this tutorial assumes you already have the game decompiled. If you don't and have no idea how to do so, here's a tutorial for just that)

An editing software that has a tranform tool such as Photopea, Photoshop, GIMP, etc.

Step 1: Open up the sprite you want to use in your image editing software of choice and import in all the expression layers you want to use

Step 2: Open up the transform tool on your editing software. Where this is may vary, on Photopea and Photoshop you can open up either through the shortcut alt+control+t or clicking on edit in the top bar and selecting Free Transform from the menu. If you don't know where the transform tool is in your software, I'd suggest looking it up

(A showcase of where the tranform tool is in Photopea and Photoshop)

(What the transform box should look like

Step 2.5 (This might be photopea specific, idk if other software does this): If your transformation tool box looks like this, cancel out of the tool (using the little x button on the top bar) and then open the transformation tool back up again. Make sure you're not selecting multiple layers and also make sure you didn't open the tool with the transformation controls tick box from the top bar. If none of that works, just delete the layer and grab it from your folder again and try again

Step 3: With the transform tool still open on your desired layer, move the layer so that it snaps against the corner of your canvas. Your image editing software should automatically have layer snapping enabled but, if not, I suggest looking up how to turn it on. If it doesn't have this, the best suggestion I have would just be to make sure the corner of the transform tool's box and the corner of the canvas allign. Zoom in if need be. You then repeat this process for the other expression layers (and any other layers that aren't automatically allighned like the blush layers or the tear layers)

(Notice the red lines that show up when it snaps against the corner)

Step 4: Export your sprite file because that's it, you did it! Now you have a sprite with the layers placed in the right spots! Isn't that great!

...(maybe I should've chosed a happier expression for this...)

Anyways, I hope this helps!

[thehereticdiaries]

I Make You (You Make Me): Chapter Two

Chapter Summary: You spend time with the Enhypen boys to strengthen the new bond. An eerie phone call sets everyone on edge.

Warnings: Ni-ki is almost hurt (don't worry he's okay), Heeseung is lowkey pervy for a sec, creep phone call, slut-shaming?, google translate

Series Masterlist

You walked through the HYBE building flanked by Ni-ki and Jay, the rest of the boys following close behind. 

“So since your soulmark was physical, how did you find out we’re your soulmates?” Jay asked as half of you stepped into the elevator. The other half of the group waited for the next one.

“At the end of my audition, I went up to shake everyone’s hands. When I touched Ni-ki’s –”

“Riki.” You raised an eyebrow at the maknae. “Ni-ki is my stage name. You’re my soulmate, you get to call me Riki.”

“When I touched Riki’s hand,” you grinned and over exaggerated your correction. “The band on my left pinky started burning, then changed to purple. And I gave Riki colors.” Jay hummed and nodded in understanding. The elevator opened and you filed out to wait in the lobby for everyone else. Once the group was all together, you left the air conditioned building for the warm, sunny sidewalk.

“Should I call a car or do we want to walk?” Jungwon asked as he and the other idols put on face masks. 

“It’s really nice today, plus it’s only, like, fifteen minutes. Let’s walk,” Jake decided. There were no arguments so you trailed behind Riki with Heeseung and Sunghoon talking adamantly to your right. You really only half-listened to their lighthearted debate. You tilted your head as you watched Riki take in all of the new colors the city had to offer. 

You had a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.

You inched closer to Riki as the group approached a crosswalk. The pedestrian signal changed to ‘stop’ but Riki continued walking, distracted by a woman in a highlighter green t-shirt. You lunged forward and harshly tugged Riki back seconds before a driver sped by, looking at his phone instead of the road. The two of you stumbled back, nearly losing your balance before Jay caught you. 

“Oh my god, Riki.” You kept your arms wrapped firmly around his middle. He gaped at the fading tail lights of the car, dropping a hand to rest on your forearm.

“Okay, you walk in the middle of us until you get used to seeing color,” Jungwon ordered after you reluctantly pulled away from your youngest soulmate. 

“Can we please get home without walking into oncoming traffic,” Sunghoon sighed and took Riki’s place at the front. The pedestrian signal changed again, and you set off toward the dorms, unaware of the camera pointed at you from across the street.

The rest of the walk was, thankfully, uneventful. You arrived at the same time as the delivery man carrying several bags of take out. Everyone filed into the living room of the dorm. Sunghoon set the food on the coffee table while Jake went to grab plates. You sat in the middle of the couch, the spots next to you quickly snatched by Jake and Heeseung. Everyone else fanned out across the room, sitting in a haphazard circle. 

“Okay, how do we do this?” You asked once you all dug into your lunch. 

“We could play 20 questions,” Jake suggested. You shrugged, not having any better ideas. It wasn’t exactly 20 questions. The boys went around the circle asking you questions that everyone had to answer. They started out as the typical small talk topics: favorite foods, what you went to school for, favorite color, where were you born, do you have siblings, and so on. After almost thirty minutes, the boys got bored of those questions.

“If you had to choose one song to play every time you entered a room, what would it be?” Jake started down the rabbit hole of increasingly strange scenarios. 

“Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 50 duck-sized horses?” Everyone agreed on 50 duck-sized horses (“just kick them!” was the hypothetical plan of attack).

“Were you one of those kids that ate paper or grass?” Yes, obviously. Every kid does that at least once. 

“What do you call a question with no answer?” You had to spend the next ten minutes explaining what a paradigm was to a group of idols.

“Which one would you prefer: have no nose but have really good smelling fingers or be blind but have a really nice smile?” What the fuck are you talking about???

“Are you a virgi–” several pillows smacked Heeseung in the face before he could finish that one. “OW what the hell?!”

“Dude, we just met her like an hour ago! Don’t ask pervy questions,” Jay scolded, prompting the older boy to roll his eyes. “You’re going to make her uncomfortable.”

“I am a virgin,” you answered after considering it for a moment. They were going to find out at some point, might as well have that be now. Seven pairs of eyes snapped over to you. 

“HA!” Heeseung pointed at Jay then slung his arm around your shoulders. “See, she’s fine with it! Now, who–” 

“Nope, you get one,” you interrupted him before he could ask any other embarrassing questions. 

“Anyway,” Jungwon shot Heeseung a pointed look. “How long have you lived in Korea?”

“Almost eight years,” you replied, relieved at the change in topic. 

“Do you know any languages besides English and Korean?” Sunghoon asked, now going out of order from the circle.

“Polish!”

“What? Why Polish?” Jay scrunched his nose at you.

“My dad is Polish. He met my mom when they were on a business trip. She left Korea to live in the US with dad. But when I was 15, they got divorced. Mom and I moved back to Korea to be closer to her family, and dad’s side cut me out, so I don’t get to speak Polish much anymore,” you summed up with a one-shoulder shrug.

“Can you say something in Polish?” Jake requested.

“Cześć, jestem Y/N. Rozmawiam z Enhypenem po polsku. Nie mają pojęcia, co teraz mówię*.” A chorus of impressed “oooo”s bounced around the room. From there, the conversation flowed easily for the rest of the night.

Over the next couple days you were practically inseparable from the boys. In fact, the only time you left their side was to go to your apartment and pack a duffel bag. You went with them to every dance rehearsal and recording session. The HYBE building was much less scary now. The clinginess was, according to Google, very normal for newly bonded soulmates. But today they had a shoot that you were absolutely not allowed to attend, despite protests from the idol group. 

So you sat in their living room, alone, for the first time since your audition. After doomscrolling on TikTok for the majority of the morning, you decided to be at least somewhat productive. You pulled out your laptop and continued your job hunt, just in case you weren’t allowed to work with your soulmates. You've lost count of how many applications you’ve submitted at this point. While in the middle of entering the same information that was in your uploaded resume, your phone buzzed with an unknown number. 

“Hello?” You’ve been picking up every call lately since they could be a potential employer. All you heard on the other side of the call was soft static and breathing. You pulled your phone back to make sure the call was actually connected. After giving the other person a few more seconds to speak up, you moved to end the call.

“Hi, Y/N,” a smooth feminine voice stopped you right as your thumb hovered over the ‘end’ button. “You’re such a pretty young woman, Enhypen are a very lucky group of boys.”

“Who is this?” Your voice was steady despite the growing pool of anxiety twisting in your stomach.

“I wonder if you plan to whore yourself out to Enhypen, just like the other girls bonded to an idol group. TXT... Xikers... P1Harmony... and now Enhypen. What will Engene think of you?” Your blood ran cold.

“Who the hell are you?!” There was a sinister chuckle, then the call cut off. Your heart beat loudly in your ears. Your fingers shook as you moved through your contacts, looking for Minjun. The group wouldn’t have their phones on them so they could focus, but you needed to tell someone. As if he read your mind, a call from Minjun interrupted your frantic searching.

“Y/N, what happened?” Jungwon must have taken the manager’s phone. “Why are you so scared right now?”

“Jungwon, I need to talk to Minjun,” you urged the leader. Turns out Minjun was not a mind-reader, but Jungwon feeling your emotions was a close second.

“But–”

“Please, Jungwon, I’ll fill you in later. I need Minjun first.” You fought to keep your voice steady. You heard him sigh, then some shuffling.

“Miss L/N?” Minjun’s permanently serious tone eased your nerves slightly. 

“Minjun, something weird just happened.” You quickly recounted the call from the strange woman. “What if she’s watching me right now?”

“The dorms are the best place for you right now. Security officers take the safety of their occupants very seriously. However, it is extremely concerning that this woman knows of you as well as TXT and Xikers’ soulmates. I’ll be notifying their managers immediately, and we will coordinate a police report.” You slumped into the back of the couch, reassured by just how efficient Minjun was. You heard a muffled conversation.

“Can you tell me what’s going on now?” Jungwon was back on the line. You sighed heavily.

“I’ll go into more detail once you’re all back, but it looks like someone wants to expose the soulmates of idol groups.” You really didn’t want to explain the whole phone call two more times. 

“Alright,” Jungwon reluctantly agreed. He was pulled away from the call when several people shouted for him. You locked your phone and shut your laptop, deciding it was time for a nap.

*Hi, I'm Y/N. I'm talking to Enhypen in Polish. They have no idea what I'm saying right now.

This is according to google translate pls dont come at me

Btw, this chapter kicked my ASS. I'm kinda struggling to write this one, lads.

Permanent Taglist: @furfoxsake22 @babygirlskz98 @miniverse-zen @holly-here @corgilover20

Series Taglist: @wildtigerlili @jiyeons-closet @laylasbunbunny

[lupinus-sanguis]

I had a chelldos comic idea in my drafts actually, I'll type it up here for u guys and u can tell me what u think. It's nothing explicit I'm just putting it under a read more cuz lol

Chell lowers her book.

Glados, swinging idly in her chassis, maybe humming quietly. Chell sits a short distance away, reading something (mesothelioma for dummies? How to tell if you're allergic to moon dust? Chicken soup for the robot soul? Doesn't matter.) glados interrupts and inclines her massive head to regard Chell in the closest approximation to "thoughtfully" as she can muster: "I've been thinking."

"since you murdered me and let the life functions of all the rest of the test subjects fail, dooming them to a premature and unscientific grave, my sample size of testing data has shrunken significantly."

Chell flips her off.

"do you know what it's called when you extrapolate on data from extremely small sample sizes? (Closeup on glados' faceplate here) It's called bad science."

Chell pointedly returns to her book.

"I'm serious, little one. You've made a bad scientist out of me."

Chell tries to hide how pleased she is.

Glados turns and mutters to herself. "that being said, maybe theres a simple solution. The easiest solutions are usually the correct ones." A big monitor extends from somewhere in the ceiling panels. It's partially obscured by glados' massive frame, but she's not hiding it from Chell by any means. The text on the screen scrolls too rapidly to read, but a data file opens on the right side of the screen labelled "test_subjects". Past her chassis, Chell can make out that glados has changed it so it now reads, "lunatic<3". An ASCII drawing of a happy face scrolls by on the left side of the monitor.

[sing-it-togetherzine]

F.A.Q*

I never participated in a zine before, what exactly are you expecting a “finished piece” to look like?

For artists, it depends on the artist and their style. For some it may mean fully rendered figures and backgrounds. For others it may mean a simpler background and colors. Everyone is going to have a different definition of “finished”. You want it to be presentable and nice to look at, not something you threw together without much thought. Try to think of what movie posters might look like, or phone/desktop wallpapers.

For authors, your story should have been edited at least once for spelling and grammar errors. Your story should be self-contained, a.k.a. a one-shot, with a beginning, middle, and resolution. There will be beta-readers available in a specific channel on discord, so if you need help and don’t want to ask anyone directly, you could always shoot a message there and someone will know to help.

Overall, it doesn’t hurt to apply! If you’re not sure what your “best example” work is, you can include a link to your blog/online portfolio (wherever you post art) and we’ll take a look.

Relationships aren’t always happy, can my piece be something besides fluff?

Within the limits of the PG rating, your piece can be happy/fluff, hurt-comfort, or angsty. Things that are generally not allowed for PG ratings include heavy violence/gore, heavy adult language, and explicit bedroom themes. Do you want to make us cry for Grandma Rosiepuff all over again? Bring it on.

What if I want to change my idea partway through the creation period?

If you get partway through your piece and decide on changing it to something totally new, please notify the mods first. Given that there are 3 months to work on your piece this will likely be allowed but you will have less time to finish it. To avoid this, we recommend really thinking over your idea early on, and if problems do arise you can use the #wip-feedback channel to get help.

Can I change from writing to art or art to writing after the creation period started?

Unfortunately, once you are accepted as either an author or artist, you are locked into that position. If you are someone who likes to make both art and fanfic, please take your time in deciding what you would like to focus on for the zine and apply at a later date. Applications are open until August 31st.

When I submit my art piece, how can I make sure quality stays the same?

To start, it helps to format your canvas to 2400px by 2400px or 8in by 8in and 300dpi. This will be the final size and resolution of each page of the zine. If you start with a smaller canvas and lower resolution the image will be blown up/stretched to the correct size and will likely loose clarity. When finished and ready to submit final files, you can simply save to Google Drive and share the link with the appropriate mod.

Can I sign/watermark my art before I submit?

Yes, you are welcome to sign your artwork anyway you normally do (if you do). However all creators will be listed on a credits page with their name and page(s) of their work, so you don’t have to worry about unsigned artwork not being credited. If you do decide to sign your artwork, we simply ask that you do so in a way that doesn’t interfere with the overall presentation. For example, a signature that is too big, a signature that blocks an excessive amount of details, or a watermark pattern that makes the image difficult to understand.

Do I have to use my real name for the credits page? What if I just want to use my online handle?

We will never ask for sensitive information, and that may mean the real or full name for some people. All we ask is some way to credit you. This can be your first name only, a nickname, or an online handle from any of your accounts (i.e. Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter/X, etc.). We will also include the primary account name/address for any creator who wishes to include one. For example, a piece could be credited like: Jane Doe, Jane, JD, Jbug, jbug @ tumblr, or any other combination. This goes the same for fanfic authors, although you will also be credited under the title of your fic.

Are alternate universe settings (AUs) allowed?

Alternate universes are absolutely allowed! However we do ask our creators to be mindful of how much the average viewer may know about them and work accordingly. For example, an au that needs a lot of explanation and previous knowledge may be a bit confusing, but more simple or self-explanatory aus (like human-aus or role-swap aus) should be fine.

Are original characters (OCs) allowed?

We ask that creators focus on canon characters in their piece, but ocs are allowed to be included. OCs are welcome as side characters, as in a fanfic, or in backgrounds of artworks for example. This is to avoid confusion for anyone who may view the zine but isn’t familiar with the multitude of fan-created characters.

*This list will be updated as necessary

[danielsarmand]

Heyy, do you have a tutorial on how you make your gifs? They’re so crisp and beautiful, I wanna start making gifs but idk where to begin

hello!! first of all, thank you kindly!!!! i'm always stunned when someone genuinely appreciates my gifs 😭

second of all, please do!! gifmaking is such a fun hobby, i wish it were a tad more rewarding but truly it's a great creative outlet for hyperfixations.

now, i personally don't have a tutorial but that's only because i myself have learned from a bunch of other ones during my years of trial and error and my technique has nothing that's original to it. i can, however, tell you which tutorials i turn to whenever i need a refresh + some tips i have started implementing on my own!!! i'll put everything below the cut.

the tutorials are this one and this one; the first one is a more general step-by-step one and the second one is for adding noise to gifs when they don't have it naturally, which imo greatly helps with making gifs look more hd.

as for the tips:

whenever possible, and if your pc can handle processing them, try and find files that are at least 1080p. 2160p isn't really necessary unless you're making close-up gifs (though i almost always use it if i can find it), but a 1080p file is only legitimate if the size of it is 1.5gb+. anything below that is not actually hd, no matter the claims.

with videogame footage, i generally record my own gameplay and take screencaps from there. when i want to gif youtube videos or anything i can't download by my usual means, i use 4k video downloader.

i used to take my screencaps with kmplayer, but i've been using mpv over the past few months and i find it works more smoothly. kmplayer did serve me well for years though, and the installation isn't as gimmicky, so go with that if you find it easier!

when it comes to resizing the gif (image > image size), i always leave the mode on bicubic automatic; for a time i used to pick bilinear, but i later learned it was the reason why my gifs didn't look how i wanted them to look.

i generally sharpen my gifs with the same action pack mentioned in the first tutorial i linked, but i do also add an unsharp mask layer to make it extra crisp and detailed. these are my settings for it:

whenever i'm giffing something that is not available in Real HD (like youtube videos), i add a step to my usual sharpening by using a set of plugins from topaz labs; now, i have absolutely no idea how i installed them when i did years ago, and i have no clue how to find them anymore, but i'm sure tumblr has answers somewhere. specifically i use topaz clean. i'm pretty sure you could achieve a similar enough result by adding a gaussian blur level to the sharpening, though; either way, my settings for topaz clean are:

when it comes to coloring, i never use .psds, i make the coloring from scratch for each scene, and most times i use multiple colorings per scene. it will take a little while to find your footing with color correction perhaps, but then again, each gifmaker has their own style and that's what's fun!!! one thing i've taken to doing most times, however, is adding an exposure layer towards the end of my coloring layers and upping both exposure and gamma correction based on how much or how little the gif can tolerate; i find it helps a ton with making gifs look hd on mobile, which is notoriously hard to achieve because mobile hates gifs. also, i have a pretty heavy hand when it comes to contrast and to darkening blacks, because in my experience that also helps with resolution.

when i go to save for web once i've finished making my gif, i tend to pick the combo adaptive+diffusion. very rarely i switch from adaptive to selective, but only if adaptive makes the gif look weird, which is usually not the case.

this should be all, i really always follow the same process and it's pretty automatic by now lmao. forgive me for yapping at length, but i hope this can be helpful to you or anyone who might want to try their hand at gifmaking! i'll update the post with my settings asap. thanks again for the love 💕

[starqueensthings]

Hi pals!

I’ll still be travelling when you’re seeing this and haven’t watched the finale, so I don’t have any new content to share, but last week (maybe longer? I don’t know— rainforest brain lol) I posted a poll asking if anyone was interested in seeing a snippet of my editing process, so here it is feat. possibly one of my favourite Wrecker moments.

I use a myriad of different software depending on: my mood, what computer/tablet I’m using, what the image looks like, and how much energy I’m willing to put into it lol In this video, I’m using Lightroom on my iPad.

The three main factors I look mostly closely at when I’m editing shots are 1. lighting, 2. noise, and 3. resolution (read: clarity).

This image required pretty minimal work so it’s probably not the best example, but ah well. The process in the above video is as follows, and please note the video had been sped up to 2x for file size reasons lol

The first thing I’ll do is see what the auto edit function defaults to. Often times it overexposes the image, resulting in significant colour noise, but it gives me a decent idea of what I should expect in terms of colour corrections and exposure mapping. The auto edit function wasn’t terrible in this case, but did produce some colour noise, mainly on Wrecker’s chest plate, his sleeves, and the officers hat. Once I’m done the initial scope out, I’ll exposure the image as high as possible to crop it— usually with the subject being as centered as possible.

This software lets the user tweak the bones of the image individually in three ways, all of them very quickly demonstrated here. The first is the curve method which I despise and NEVER use— because it alters multiple aspects at once, I don’t feel like I have the same degree of control as the other methods. Next is HDR setting (the default upon import) using the sliders on the right. This is effective for images that are already pretty well lit, and does give me a little more control, but most of the time because the screenshots are so dark, I’m editing in SDR mode.

Once I’m satisfied with the exposure/lighting, I’ll move on to correcting colour distortion and saturating the image. This software also provides three methods for colour alternation and I’ll typically use all three in conjunction with each other. Colour mixing is extremely crucial when it comes to reducing odour noise and distortion. Because this software lets me isolate certain colours to adjust their hue, saturation, and luminance, I can typically reduce most of or all of the colour noise. However, it does have its limitations. In this particular post, desaturating the colour noise in Crosshair’s rifle coincided with blanching his skin tone, because this software does not let me isolate certain areas of an image. It was also important to me to emphasize the warm tones from the sunset in the background for the overall mood of the shot, so I opted to remove what colour noise I could and leave the rest. (You can’t win em all… especially when the starting image is near-black lol)

Correcting the colour distortion in this image was not particularly difficult, desaturating all purple tones removed the noise from his chest plate, and shifting green tones to something near a yellow instead removed the noise from his sleeve. I didn’t notice the colour noise on the officers hat until a little later, but that was pretty easily corrected too.

Once I’ve fixed the colour noise, I’ll shift to toning the overall image. Wrecker particularly looks good in cool tones, but It’s nice to contrast a cool tone background with the warmth of his skin.

Once the toning is done, I’ll move on the image clarity. I don’t have the means to alter the actual resolution of the image, but I’m particularly picky with balancing texture and clarity. Wrecker always looks the best with texture and clarity increased, because it brings out the scarring on his face and further humanizes him, but overdoing the texture can also emphasize pixelation. Once that’s done, I’ll reduce the overall noise only slightly (doing too much makes them look airbrushed and unnatural), and whatever is left of the colour noise (too much of this setting makes them look like ghouls LOL)

This software also offers a series of preset alterations/filters briefly shown in this video… but I’m not the biggest fan of any of them. I’m a bit of a control freak and would rather tweak each aspect individually to the degree that I like, instead blanketing the image with present modifications and then undoing certain aspects.

Before exporting the image I’ll do another once over and make sure I’m happy! In this case, I opted to go back in and add some darker tones back into the image. I don’t do this often, particularly when they start so damn dark, but I wanted to keep the focus centrally on Wrecker’s radiance lol

That’s about it. If I’m working on multiple edits in a set, this software lets me just copy and paste the settings, so the following images only require extremely light tweaks and take almost no time. And that, I’ll export, autograph, and upload!

Thank you for attending this unprofessional Ted Talk.

[lastchristmas]

Graphics tutorial requested by anonymous

All made with adobe photoshop 2023 (you can find free downloads of cracked versions on here occasionally, photopea.com is also good I've heard) I'm assuming basic knowledge of photoshop/similar editing platforms and their tools, but you can always message me or comment if you are confused about anything!

Also, I used keyboard shortcuts sometimes to change the size of a brush or toggle the brush options, I'm not going to annotate this because it's a lot but here is a resource for basic photoshop keyboard shortcuts

Firstly, the sizing of your edit matters! Max sizing for best quality on Tumblr is 1280 x 1920. If you want to put to put two images next to each other sizing should be 640 x 960.

Next, always try to find the highest quality picture of whatever you're using. Good resources include taylorpictures.net, 4k Taylor Swift, and if I can't find them here I do a google image search of my photo to see if any other websites have a bigger/hq file.

This video is a couple clips I screen recorded for you to see my process and demonstrate a few different tools I use regularly. I added timestamps for you to follow along as you read the rest of this.

Here's a photo of my workspace I am working with and what I will do first is cut out Taylor from this photo and move her to my correctly sized canvas. There are multiple ways to cut out an image in photoshop, the easiest I've found is the select subject function and using the quick selection tool (see toolbar beneath the photo). Other tools include the magic wand tool, lasso tool, and quick selection tool which I will show later.

Now you will see that my selection isn't perfect, so I will use the quick selection tool to fix a few areas that I'd like to manually select/correct. This isn't totally necessary at this stage as you can always perfect your cutout in the next few steps, but it does help save some time.

This is where I'll use the quick selection tool to either subtract or add to my selection. There are keyboard shortcuts to toggle between + and - to make this quicker.

See my screen recording of the process from 0:00-1:07

Now that we have our image selected and cut out, I copy and paste it to my canvas I want to work with (size 1280 x 1920) and this is what I've got:

As you can see there's a few spots that need cleaning up in order to make our cutout perfect. You can do this with the eraser tool, magic wand, quick selection, or lasso tool.

See my screen recording of the process from: 1:08-3:50

Now that we're happy with our cutout, we can play around with it in any ways we want! Typically you're gonna do things like change the background color/texture, add elements with the square/circle tool to create what you're looking for, overlay elements and/or textures, and finally recolor it to your preferences.

This part is where you can try new techniques and play around to find what you like. I recorded some of my process of playing with different ideas and elements until I got to something I was happy with! The video explains the tools I was using as well

See my screen recording of the process from: 3:51 - the end

I hope this helps you with creating graphics in the future! The fun thing about photoshop is there are multiple ways to get what you want done. I showed you my way but there's plenty of other techniques and methods out there to try if you're unable to achieve what you want!

Best of luck and feel free to reach out to me if you are struggling/have questions! <3

[numinousmysteries]

Dancing the Tandava (3/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Washington, D.C. 1993

It’s only a few months into her assignment on the X-Files and Scully has made it a point to arrive at the office on time. Still, her perplexing partner always manages to get there first. It’s as if he sleeps in this underground lair or he’s afraid to leave her alone in his sacred space. Neither would shock her.

She doesn’t have a handle on Mulder quite yet. His intelligence fascinates and intimidates her. Trying to keep up with his mental leaps leaves her breathless. His ideas are out there, but his hunches are correct an eerie amount of the time. The unexplainable phenomena she’s seen piques her innate curiosity even though none of it fits into her framework of the coherent, reassuringly knowable universe.

He has every right to treat her with disdain. He had her number as a spy (albeit an unwilling and increasingly disobedient one) from their first meeting, and her doubting nature and innate need to play by the book only slows him down. But he seems truly interested in her thoughts and ideas even if they don’t align with his own. She was mortified when she nearly stripped in front of him on their first case to show him the marks on her back, but he never made her feel embarrassed.

Her job is to keep tabs on him but the more cases they investigate together, the more inclined she feels to protect him and his work. Her loyalty is slowly shifting from the establishments she’s long unquestionably trusted to Mulder and his singular quest.

When she shows up this crisp November morning, he’s already at his desk thumbing through a file. He’s wearing thin, wire-framed glasses and a tie with a dizzying, Escher-esque maroon and olive pattern. She thinks he’s handsome, then pushes the thought away. Getting involved with superiors and co-workers is a habit she’s actively trying to break.

“Morning, Scully,” he says, without looking up.

“Morning,” she replies, coming to sit across from him. “Anything interesting?” She gestures to the file on the desk.

“That depends,” he says, taking off his reading glasses and making eye contact with her. This boyish smile and the gleam behind his eyes are already familiar to her. They’re signs he’s found a case that’ll likely lead them into trouble. It both scares and excites her. “How interested are you in the Fouke monster, a.k.a. the Southern Sasquatch, a.k.a. the Swamp Stalker?”

“I have to admit it’s never crossed my mind,” she says.

“Oh, Scully.” His smile widens. “You’re in for a treat.” He turns the file around so she can read it. The first thing she notices is an amateur sketch of a Bigfoot-like creature with red eyes.

“A giant, hairy creature first spotted in Fouke, Arkansas, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Fouke monster has been described as being over 10-feet tall with glowing blood-red eyes. In 1971, Bobby and Elizabeth Ford of Fouke reported that the creature had broken into their home. A neighbor actually shot at it, and supposedly made contact, but it wandered off into the night. That was the last sighting, until a week ago when a group of teenagers camping out at nearby Boggy Creek say he got into their tent and stole all of their rations, including two family-size bags of Doritos.”

“Is Doritos theft a federal crime?” she asks him with a raised eyebrow. He better have more evidence than the shaky testimony of some teenagers to go off. “Or do you just want to go Sasquatch hunting?”

“By the tone of your voice I can tell you’ve never had the pleasure of goin’ squatchin,’' he says, his hazel eyes lighting up as they meet hers. It’s almost enough to make her blush.

The shrill ringing of the phone on his desk interrupts them before she can respond.

“Mulder,” he answers. She can hear the garbled sound of a male voice on the other end of the line.

“My what?” Mulder shouts into the phone, startling her. “Who is he?...Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

He hangs up the phone and turns his attention back to her. “Change of plans,” he says. “The Fouke monster will have to wait. We’re headed to Montauk. East End of Long Island.”

While she’s partly relieved she won’t have to interview a bunch of stoned teenagers about their alleged monster sighting, the rapid shift in Mulder’s attention gives her whiplash.

“What’s in Montauk?” she asks.

“A historic lighthouse, the shark hunter who inspired Jaws, and actually decent surfing for the East Coast,” he says, grinning at her.

“And yet why do I suspect you aren’t going to ask me to pack a wetsuit?” she asks.

He gives her a shoulder shrug and a pouty lower lip. “I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Seriously, Mulder,” she says, starting to lose her patience. “Why are we going to Montauk?”

“A disoriented young man has appeared at a decommissioned army base and specifically asked to speak with us.” He’s already up out of his chair digging through a filing cabinet.

“Did he mention what he’s so desperate to talk to us about?” she asks, trying to see what files he’s gathering.

“He says he’s from the future. The year 2023 to be exact.”

Scully laughs. “Mulder, that’s ridiculous. He’s probably some UFO fanatic who wants to meet you.”

Mulder shakes his head. He’s taking this seriously. “I think you overestimate my popularity,” he says.

“What about Max Fenig? He said he’d been following your work for years and that he’s not the only one.”

“Well, no one else has ever claimed to be my son before,” Mulder says. “Or that you’re his mother.”

She’s immediately taken back. Mulder has proposed a lot of improbable theories and ideas during their partnership, but this one might be the most ludicrous. He’s already grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair but Scully raises her hand to stop him.

“Mulder, wait,” she insists. “I don’t have to tell you how ridiculous that is. While I can’t speak for you, I know I don’t have a child, and I can say with total certainty that we’ve never had one together. Besides, you said ‘young man.’ How old is he?”

“I don’t know,” Mulder responds. “The officer said early 20s. He didn’t have any identification with him.”

“We were children ourselves 20 years ago,” she says, barely resisting an eye roll. “I can all but guarantee you this is someone pulling a prank.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Mulder says. “But I have a feeling we should check this out. It’s not just what he said, it’s where he turned up.”

“Montauk?” she asks, confused.

“Not just anywhere in Montauk. At Camp Hero.”

“Yes, a decommissioned army base as you said,” she repeats.

“A supposedly decommissioned army base,” he grins. “CIA operatives at Camp Hero have reportedly been using extraterrestrial technology for experiments on everything from mind control and weather manipulation to the creation of wormholes for time travel. The project allegedly shut down in the 1980s when the base closed, but I’ve heard rumors that the work never stopped.”

He flips a file open on the desk facing her. Inside is a black and white photo of a giant radar tower and a hand-drawn blueprint of a building with rooms labeled “hypnosis lab” and “carrier oscillator.”

She tilts her head at him and squints. This is a lot, even for Mulder.

“So your theory is that you and I have a son who’s traveled back in time to—what? Come say hi?” she asks.

Mulder shrugs. “You said it yourself in your thesis: ‘Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not.’”

If she did believe in time travel, this would be the perfect moment to return to her undergraduate days and choose a new thesis topic for her future partner to one day quote back to her.

“I know what I wrote, Mulder,” she says. “But that was a theoretical argument not a practical one. I was discussing the possibility of time dilation, an expanding or contracting of relative time as it’s experienced. There’s no science or technology that would actually allow someone to move forward or backward in time.”

“No science or technology that we know of yet,” he counters. “Let’s see what our boy cooked up in 2023.”

There is always the option not to leave with him—to stay in the office and write up a report while he goes chasing what is almost certainly a dead end—but she knows she’ll never choose that door. Instead, she retrieves her coat from the hook on the back of the office door and follows her frustrating, beguiling partner.

[jarebear20]

What people need to understand about nexus mods when others report mods

I'm getting tired of people on other sites not really understanding the big deal when there are people calling for mass reporting of a certain mod.

This came to mind when I saw a few posts (both here and on reddit) of a mod whitewashing Wyll, a character from Baldur's Gate 3. While people here were more than happy to report the mod for its anti-blackness, some on Reddit were confused at what the big deal was.

Before you immediately dismiss those people as racists, let me explain what I see as their pov. There are plenty of mods hosted on Nexus that are outlandish. Its not uncommon to see a mod in any game that makes a character have more boob than body. Hell, there are mods for BG3 to give variation on dick size.

If these sorts of mods aren't your thing, the general consensus is...just don't download it. It's an idea I can easily get behind.

This is not the case with the whitewashing mods.

What people fail to realize about those mods is this:

THEY VIOLATE THE NEXUS TERMS OF SERVICE

yes, I know its easy to joke about no one reading the TOS anywhere, but in this case, it's kinda important.

if you look under their file submission guidelines [link], specifically under 'Inappropriate Content'

Changing an NPC's ethnicity (including features tied to that ethnicity) are not acceptable. It doesn't matter that you were just 'playing around with modding stuff' and chose to upload the mod to the site.

IT IS VIOLATING NEXUS TOS. full stop.

Nexus isn't trying to be 'woke' or 'politically correct' by looking into these mods after they've been reported. The user, by making an account, agreed to follow their rules and then violated them.

Nexus, by removing these mods, aren't saying that they shouldn't exist. They're just telling the people that make them that they won't host them.

Got a problem with that? Then make your own modding site.

[ranahan]

Amatakka phonology drafts

So I had a fun a conversation about Amatakka phonology with @adragonsfriend and I ended up throwing together a few quick and dirty tables to keep track of whether what I was saying even made any sense. And I thought why not throw them out here in case anyone else finds them interesting.

Before we get any further though, here’s @adragonsfriend’s document which has 100 times more thought put into it.

And for a fun comparison, here are some ideas of how I might approach putting together a phonology & IPA representation for Amatakka. Maybe some of you conlang enthusiasts will enjoy looking at how different end results two people can get from the same source material! As you can see, there are no correct answers in language construction—it’s as much an art as it’s a science.

Look at the Phonology-tab. And please ignore my notes elsewhere, they’re by no means an analysis of anything, just my attempts to figure out how the language is put together.

The big caveat emptor here is that I haven’t made any kind of a systematic study of Amatakka (an original language constructed by @fialleril—not me!). So what I have here are half a dozen different possible consonant and vowel inventories that I threw together based on some hypotheses I made from looking through the dictionary file put together by @booklindworm. The next step would be to make a systematic analysis and try out these different options, see which ones work the best, where they run into problems, and make adjustments or new hypotheses as needed. I make no guarantee of any “rules” here actually being true—they’re hypotheses about what the rules might be.

All of the consonant inventories happen to be very heavy on fricatives. I actually like that a lot, because it calls to mind the secrecy of the language, whispering, and the low-grade susurration of slaves talking with each other where the depur doesn’t hear them.

I made vowel inventories of different sizes to figure out how having more or less than the Roman alphabet’s 5 vowel sounds would work.

Some goals I had in mind when putting this together (which I’d attempt to achieve were I to develop this further):

Naturalistic phonology (i.e. make it make sense from a linguistic perspective)

Preserve the original characteristics and aesthetics of the language

And because most of the people who would likely continue working on it are not dedicated conlangers or linguists, the system should also:

Have as few rules as possible

Have as few irregularities and exceptions as possible

Have as intuitive spellings as possible (no unusual digraphs)

Any respellings should be intuitive alternatives to the spellings that have been published before (e.g. leia > leya or leyya) and shouldn’t be too numerous

Based on @adragonsfriend‘s comments, I started from the assumption that Amatakka is mainly a spoken language and that the spellings (especially of personal names) might be “Basic-ized”. So I did consider it acceptable to respell some words (e.g. Camie > Kami, Rasca > Raska) and insert some strategic vowels in a few words to simplify the phonotactics (in order to achieve both “preserve the original character” and “have as simple rules as possible”).

Edited to add: Forgot to add explicit permission, but if anyone finds anything useful here, feel free to grab it and make it your own.

[arctrooperechy]

The First Echo

A/N: This idea popped into my head while watching the season premiere of TBB. We know how Omega learned of the original four members of Clone Force 99: she watched them grow up. But how did she learn about their newest recruit, a trooper named Echo?

*****

Omega, frantic and focused, cursed her tiny body as she padded through Tipoca City. 

Faster. She needed to move faster.

Clones of all sizes crowded the hallways, the ones she pushed past indignant at her lack of respect…before noticing she was a small girl.

She didn’t notice. And she didn’t care.

The only thing that mattered to her right now was reaching her destination before she was found out. Outside into the dreary mist and across the platform she ran, faster than she ever had. Running and running until, finally, she reached the entrance to the city’s hidden tube system.

She knew how to operate the tubes on her own at this point; whether Nala Se knew that she was always memorizing and not just “observing,” Omega really never knew. She looked around to be sure no one was watching before ducking into one of the structures, activating the tube network hurriedly.

Below the surface and into the depths of the Kaminoan ocean, she had a moment to catch her breath as the pod flew on its own accord. She was trying to calm down—really, she was—but the conversation she’d just overheard rang through her ears. 

Throughout her life, the Kaminoans—with the exception of Nala Se—had neither treasured her nor despised her. Omega was just kind of…there. But she didn’t mind, especially on days like today. Days when she was able to discreetly eavesdrop and vanish.

The pod stopped smoothly, its doors opening just as the girl barreled through towards the entrance to Nala Se’s private lab. The Kaminoan was nowhere to be found—Omega was relieved. This would buy her a few minutes at the very least. 

She jogged to Nala Se’s desk, the scientist’s personal data pad sitting atop it as always. Omega snagged the pad and walked towards the growth chambers, wedging herself between two closest to the wall. With one last look at the lab’s entryway, she powered on the data pad and got to work. Nala Se had only two security mechanisms employed on her pad, thank the Maker. The first, a combination of numbers and the second, a pattern to trace. Both were simple: Omega watched the scientist log on multiple times a day.

As she navigated through the pad and searched for the feature she needed, the conversation she’d overheard earlier played through her head again.

“Clone Force 99 filed a report regarding their latest mission,” Taun We had said airily.

Omega’s ears perked up—it was them. She quelled her excitement; the Kaminoans rarely brought up Clone Force 99 in front of her. And she’d learned a long while back that she wasn’t supposed to ask about them.

Nala Se looked a bit surprised…Clone Force 99 never filed reports. Omega had checked.

“But CT-9901 failed to follow protocol in requesting a transfer.”

“Transfer?” Nala Se questioned carefully.

“Yes,” Taun We continued scrolling through the report before handing her datapad to the Kaminoan scientist.

“CT-1409 of the 501st Legion. How curious,” she said as she skimmed. “Clone Force 99 does not typically take to other clones.”

“Lama Su will want the correct protocol followed. The clones cannot be permitted to make such decisions without prior approval.”

Nala Se just nodded, handing back the datapad and promising she would take care of it.

Finally, Omega found what she was searching for: the master cloning databank. In truth, this wasn’t her first time using it. Nala Se had reprimanded her twice for checking in on Clone Force 99. Omega had solemnly agreed to never use the pad again. 

What she’d really meant was that she’d never use the pad to Nala Se’s knowledge again.

She clicked the tab indicating “currently deployed.” A seemingly endless supply of battalions and squads appeared; she scrolled to the bottom of the list, clicking “Clone Force 99” once she reached the end.

The squad’s CT numbers showed up one at a time. Omega said what she knew their names to be to herself: Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, Crosshair. And then, right below the youngest brother’s name, a new number appeared. 

CT-1409.

After what felt like hours of waiting, the clone’s file finally pulled up. He looked no different than the other clones on Kamino. But below his number was the designation Advanced Recon Commando, along with a placement in the 501st Legion.

An ARC trooper? Omega was mesmerized. How had he worked his way into joining Clone Force 99?

But then, she noticed just below that: Terminated.

That couldn’t be right. How could a dead clone join another squad? Surely it was a system error. She scrolled through the profile, noting his numerous awards given in battles even she had heard of. The Battle of Rishi Moon…the Battle of Kamino. It appeared that was when CT-1409 was promoted. She recoiled at knowing him only by his number; did he have a name?

His file closed with a mission codenamed “Citadel.”

And then it opened again, much later, with “Skako Minor.”

The Citadel mission housed a small file. Omega’s curiosity got the best of her, as always.

Click.

A holo of a clone with a full goatee and a tattoo on his temple appeared. His eyes were kind even as he stared into holocam strangely. He looked exhausted.

“Is it working?” the clone asked an invisible source, likely the entity who filed this report for him. Upon confirmation, he stepped back revealing decorated armor and a kama.

“Alright. I’m Fives…what? Oh. Right. CT-5555, Advanced Recon Commando of the 501st Legion. Mission report: the Citadel.” The clone swallowed hard, steadying himself. 

Omega felt her chest tighten—this clone was devastated.

The clone, Fives, listed off some minute details, the size of the team and the Jedi leading the mission. It was a search and rescue: a Jedi master with top-secret information had been captured by Separatist forces. 

“Echo and I…now what? Fine. CT-1409. Happy now?” Fives rolled his eyes in irritation. “I can take it from here, B4. Go help the Captain with his report.” 

A shuffle offscreen indicated the droid had left the room. Alone, Fives took a deep breath as he looked down towards his boots and shut his eyes.

“I’ve never really done this before,” he said softly. “Usually, a general or commander takes care of this part. If they even do. Or have time to. I guess we lose a lot of men every day.”

The young girl could feel the clone’s sadness even through the holovid.

“I don’t know who views these things…if anyone even does. But I still need to do it. And I want to do it right for Echo.”

Echo, Omega noted.

“Echo was my batchmate. ‘Twins,’ we’d call ourselves. But tell you the truth, he could annoy the hell out of me and the boys. Our squad…Domino Squad. It was me, Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy…and Echo.

“We started calling him Echo fairly soon into our training. Everyone seems to think we clones are the same. And maybe they’re right, in some ways. But personality? Not a chance.”

Omega smiled to herself. She liked Fives already.

“And that’s where our irritation came from with Echo. He was the smartest out of all of us—no denying it. And he insisted on doing everything perfect; so much so that he’d repeat our orders over and over again even after we’d all heard them.

“That’s why we called him Echo. He hated it at first…but he never answered to anything else. I think he grew to love it.

“Our squad wasn’t the cream of the crop by any means. In fact, they almost disbanded us to send us to maintenance. I overheard one of the trainers call us a bad batch once,” he chuckled.

Omega’s eyes widened so much she wondered if they might just fall out of her head. Clone Force 99 called themselves the Bad Batch.

“But we proved ‘em all wrong. Echo and I were determined to be ARCs eventually. Passed our test and were promoted to troopers just like everyone else. We were all deployed to Rishi Outpost as our first assignment. And damn, we never saw any action. But tell you the truth, Echo and I enjoyed it sometimes. We messed around constantly,” he smiled again.

“That was all before the invasion. When the clankers showed up, we lost the rest of our squad one by one. Until all that was left was me and Echo. ‘The twins.’

“We joined the 501st after that. And it didn’t take long for them to feel like brothers. Funny guys,” he laughed. “Echo and I were made ARC troopers eventually, after the Battle of Kamino. That one was rough,” he sighed as he ran a hand over his face in exhaustion.

“We got through it though. Even had some fun along the way. And then, we were selected for this Citadel extraction. We were both so honored to be with the best of the best. It meant…it meant we were the best, too,” Fives took a long pause then. Omega wondered if that was the end of the recording.

Fives took a deep breath before continuing. “And Echo proved that, of course. The group needed to escape, but we were pinned down in the hangar. And then…and then Echo went all-out and ran for the ship, putting everyone else’s lives above his own. And all of a sudden he was just…gone. All that time together, and it was…it was just over. I would give anything to go back and redo it; to go back and keep him right by my side until the end.

“I saw that Jedi general who was killed on the mission cremated while we were still in the Citadel. Kind of funny how we had time to honor him and no time to honor the multiple clones who perished along the way, too,” Fives’s eyes changed then; he was angry.

“Anyway. I don’t want to take too long; that blasted droid will be back soon. Point is, the Jedi do that for all of their own. Made me realize that us clones don’t really have anything like that. We just…say goodbye. And sometimes we don’t even know when we’re supposed to.”

Omega could almost feel her heart breaking for this clone. He’d lost so much.

“So this is my goodbye. I know these next few days and missions are going to hurt like hell—I’ve never been without Echo. Feels like a piece of me is gone,” he sighed. “But I’ll keep going. For Droidbait and Cutup and Hevy. And now, for Echo. Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.”

The man stopped as though that were the end. But after a pause, he walked over to whatever device was recording him; if he’d been any quieter, Omega probably wouldn’t have been able to hear him as he said, “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.”

And then he disappeared.

Omega wiped the bunch of tears that had begun falling down her face during the story. She had so many questions. What did that different language mean? Where did Fives go next? But it was then that she heard the tube system come to life again—Nala Se was coming. She was out of time.

The girl shut down the datapad and placed it exactly where she’d found it, completely lost in thought. She still didn’t know how Echo had met Clone Force 99. Or how he’d somehow returned from the dead. She wondered if Fives knew that Echo was alive.. All topics to research another day—Kamino got pretty boring, so it was nice to have something to look forward to.

Echo’s file had spoken for itself—he was an extremely talented and dedicated trooper. To her, he sounded like a war hero. But even more than that, he was a good friend and brother who cared about the people around him. Especially for his brother, Fives. And that was why she decided he would be a good fit for Clone Force 99. They were a tight bunch—as Nala Se had said earlier, it was rare for them to take to anyone outside of their squad. But Echo had been an exception. It made Omega’s heart soar.

She couldn’t wait until the day she got to meet them all. Well…meet some of them again, she supposed.

As she made her way to the tube system keypad again, she smiled to herself; her brothers’ names ran through her mind the whole way back to Tipoca City.

Hunter. Tech. Wrecker. Crosshair. Echo.

*****

Thank you so much for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts. And yes I am depressed now :)

Mando'a Translation

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum : I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

[a-new-nobody]

[Diamond had a lot of ideas about how Christmas day would go. Sneeg, or maybe someone else, would come into their room with a gift. Or they'd get a message asking for them to come over to their room. Maybe no one would come over or want to see them. And maybe just maybe Mario would say hi.]

[What they didn't expect was to see their parents walking into their room. The said nothing, at least not to Diamond, they were talking with one of their nurses.]

Took you fucking long enough to show up. I've been in this hospital four fucking months. And I know you know because grandpa and grandma where here at the start. What? Did they finally guilt you into pretending to be parents for a day, or did the phone calls from the hospital get so annoying and you thought showing up for a day would make it stop.

"That's no way to talk to family on Christmas day."

Oh! You want to be fucking family now! Is that because there's a stranger in the room, or has your heart suddenly grown three sizes? Because family wouldn't have fucking turned me away from their door when I hitch-hiked my way from fucking Florida and told me to go back. Family would have made sure I was fucking safe over the past year and a half. Family would have made me feel loved so I wouldn't have been calling a COO that might have ab-

[Diamond stopped themself taking a breath.]

You might be my parents, but you aren't and never will be my family. I don't know what you expected would happen here, if you were wanting to feel like the heros, or create some feel good family story, but I refuse to be a part of it.

"Cole-"

[Their mother started, Diamond bit back the correction. They didn't deserve to know their real name.]

"-There's no reason to get so riled up. We figured we should offer you a little grace this season and offer you a place back at home."

So guilt. Guilt is what brought you here. Well, now you can go to bed at night knowing you tried to get you're little Cole back home, and you were so kind to offer your own. fucking. son. a place to live, but that he curiously refused and decided to stay in the hospital. Why? You'll never know, but you at least tried so that makes you the good guys at least. Are we done now?

[The parents were stunned for a moment, right as their father looked ready to speak again Diamond continued.]

Yeah, grandpa and grandma didn't straighten me out one fucking bit. In fact, I'm probably worse now! Do you still want to give me that second chance? Or if you're on some healing path and you genuinely think you'll actually be better fucking parents this time I don't give a shit. I don't want to be there. No matter how much better you get never fucking talk to me again. Same thing goes for grandpa and grandma, kay? If you do try to speak to me again I have a friend who's a lawyer will get me a restraining order against you all.

[Well, friend's dad is a lawyer, and Diamond wasn't certain if he practiced the type of law that would let him file a restraining order. But none of that was relevant.]

"You're being a bit dramatic, don't you think? I mean, a restraining order, really Cole?"

No, I'm put up with too much shit in my life and I'm done. And a restraining order will only be necessary if you can't fucking listen one thing I ask of you.

[Oh, so that's where they get that from. At least Diamond isn't the only one in their family that can't listen to orders.]

"We can tell them we tried."

[Their mother whispered, to which their father nodded, and the two left. Diamond let out a relieved breath.]

[They felt better. That felt cathartic. Maybe this could still be a good Christmas.]