#blob opera humanized

[trashartgalleries]

Redraw (that'll be finished later) since this post got a few likes recently

[psychicvoidtale]

Bancy human (no Canon ⚠️⚠️)

Karen:

[teatime-tangents-and-toys]

Interesting Monster High design things that are never explicitly stated:

* Unlicensed vampires are all some type of pink-skinned for some reason, including related species like the manananggal

* Clawdeen, and by extension, other werewolves, never wear silver metals, because that weakens them. The Wolfs only wear gold jewelry and accents.

* Lagoona's sporty theme aligns with the use of mesh fabrics to make a pun about fishnets

* Wydowna Spider's hairline is a widow's peak and one of her hands is in Spider-Man's web-slinging shape

* Twyla's eyes glow in the dark on most editions--common knowledge, but Mattel has never told buyers about it on her boxes!

* Twyla is a boogeyman and her costume designs all feature antique architectural details and imagery of things that might be in a scary bedroom at night, like wallpaper patterns, doorknobs, bugs, and beds, while her outfits often resemble pajamas

* The two G1 pop star characters are a witch and a black cat, and a witch and cat were also a Create-A-Monster duo

* The Grant sisters' monster twist on genies is to make them plated like desert scorpions

* Elissabat's face is deliberately highly similar to Draculaura's, but their sculpts have been determined to be different--this when MH has used shared sculpts for more distant-looking and disparate pairs of characters!

* The Blob and Ice Girls are a Create-A-Monster duo because freezing was the one weakness of the Blob monster

* Deuce and Cleo as a couple invoke the synergy of snakes and Egyptian culture, the famous Cleopatra being Greek, and Cleopatra being stated in legend to have died by snakebite--similar reasons a mummy and Gorgon were paired in the Create-A-Monster sets

* Operetta is from New Orleans because it's a uniquely French area of the USA, tying her into the original setting of the Phantom of the Opera

* The manufacturing code on the back of Skelita Calaveras' original head mold is a custom sequence made to depict the name "KATRINA".

This refers to the tradition of carving a name of honor into a Dia de Muertos sugar skull, and may also reflect La Catrina, the iconic Mexican skeleton woman in the wide hat often seen in the holiday's imagery. Other dolls have these stamps on the backs of their heads with meaningless sequences of letters and numbers which are never meant to be seen, but Skelita's stamp was used for a purpose. I've checked her dolls after G1 (starting with her first collector doll in 2016), and they have a generic code stamped in and have lost this detail.

* Viperine Gorgon has distinct visual hallmarks of both human and serpent albinism, and her use of sunglasses could correspond with sensitive eyes from the condition, though she's never stated to have the condition in any material.

* Great Scarrier Reef's transformations: Electric-powered Frankie became an electric eel, Draculaura became a vampire squid, and tigerlike Toralei became a lionfish. I've heard Clawdeen was based on a wolffish, but can't be sure that was actually clear. Gil turning into a ray may be a pun with manta and manster? No idea if Lagoona was based on a specific fish or not. Nor why she even had to transform in her native territory for any reason beyond making a new doll.

* Bonita Femur's color palette is based on the rosy maple moth, which is as implausibly candy-colored as Bonita. Luna Mothews is absolutely not actually a luna moth, but could be loosely based on the cecropia moth, the largest in North America and found in regions that could include New Jersey where she's from (or West Virginia, where the Mothman is from). Her yellow exoskeleton also loosely resembles the hornet moth, but may not intentionally be based on it.

* Mouscedes King, Luna Mothews, and Elle Eedee are a primary yellow/red/blue trio but also a past/present/future trio based on an old fairy tale, a current cryptid legend, and a speculative idea of future tech

* Headmistress Bloodgood's first name was eventually revealed to be Nora, an iconically Irish name that may have been chosen to liken Bloodgood to the Irish folklore of the dullahan, another "headless rider" monster.

* River Styxx is a young-adolescent Grim Reaper ghost who is partially translucent, revealing bones in her limbs and having a more opaque face that looks like thin skin over a bony structure. This creates a fun possible worldbuilding idea that reapers start as ghosts with skin and it fades as they develop, becoming full skeletons in classic Death style when mature.

* Peri and Pearl are conjoined Hydra sisters, obviously reflecting a rare human scenario of conjoined twins through the Hydra monster concept, but also possibly being influenced by the animal phenomenon of snakes being born with two heads in an even Y-shaped structure.

* Elle has a separate sculpted panel on her hip where her factory stamp is placed, canonizing the real-world manufacturing artifact as a real/literal/diegetic feature on the manufactured robot character.

* Corazón Marikit's red fringe blends the two halves of her outfit, but also stands in for the gorier imagery of dangling intestines and entrails when the manananggal monster's body splits at the waist. She does have a spine coming out of her upper torso as the peg that clicks her pieces together, but the dolls aren't brutally gory, so her costume alludes to the folklore's more extreme imagery in a graceful way.

* Scary Sweet Birthday Cupid is the only doll in the SSB collection whose cage element is under her skirt rather than on top of it.

This placement and its rectangular silhouette make the cage functional rather than decorative, replicating an old-fashioned crinoline frame used to internally shape big skirts, and its wide boxy shape matches some rococo skirt silhouettes, suiting the other elements Cupid has drawn from the rococo aesthetic, even before G3. Victorian-steampunk Robecca Steam has also worn cage elements that invoke a crinoline without a skirt to be shaped by it.

[nullarysources]

An American composer's biological matter creates new music from beyond the grave

Chloe Veltman for NPR:

The American composer Alvin Lucier was known for experimental works that explored the physical properties of sound. In Music for Solo Performer from 1965, he strapped sensors to his forehead to transform his own brainwaves into a piece for percussion instruments. His 1997 work Opera with Objects mined the resonance of everyday objects like pencils.

Lucier died in 2021 at the age of 90. But the composer — or rather, a surrogate created out of biological matter taken from his body with his permission before he died — is now putting out new music.

…

This "brain on a dish" takes the form of two small, white blobs on a pedestal at the gallery. The blobs are a cluster of neurons that mimic in a very basic way the structure and development of a human brain. Thompson said it was grown out of stem cells created from blood samples the composer agreed to donate to the project the year before he died. "He was aware of possibilities that the work would perform for him even after his death," Thompson said.

In order to produce new music, the blobs — Alvin Lucier's surrogate self — are connected to 20 handcrafted brass plates attached to the gallery walls, like paintings. The plates, which contain hidden transducers and mallets, respond to neural signals the biological matter gives out in real time, creating an ethereal soundscape.

This honestly sounds about the same sophistication and intentionality through which I write music, maybe I was just two blobs in a dish the whole time

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

If You Gaze Into The Abyss It Will Flirt Back

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/bduV1Az by raven_of_hydecastle Bruce feels pretty good about his life; he has a face, a job, and a kid. What more could an eldritch personification of vengeance want? Lots, according to Dick, starting with a girlfriend. Words: 5203, Chapters: 1/2, Language: English Series: Part 2 of Oh! The Humanity! Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M, Gen Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul, Barbara Gordon Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Cryptid Batfamily (DCU), Eldritch Horror Batman, Eldritch Horror Alfred, Bruce Wayne Is Trying His Best, Shapeshifting, Inhuman characters, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bat Blob, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Family Feels, Found Family, Bruce Wayne-centric, Dick Grayson is a Ray of Sunshine, Dick Grayson is a Menace, Bruce Wayne is Brucie Wayne, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Relationships, Bruce Wayne is a Disaster, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Selina Kyle Has Issues, Drama & Romance, Human/Monster Romance, Talia is down bad for this disaster shadow blob, something about that pathetic wet cat rizz calls to her soul, Exes, Dating fails, Attempted Kidnapping, Crushes, Manipulation, Secrets, Protective Dick Grayson, He'll defend his father's honor to the death, but not his death, Overprotective Dick Grayson, I kid you not this kid is feral, The Incident, Dick Grayson loves soap operas, No beta we die like mne, Complicated Relationships read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/bduV1Az

[nostalgic-muffins]

your ocs question mark

YAYAYAYYAAY THAKN YOU SO MUC BOOKIE JUMPS UP AND DOWNNN YAYAYAYAY

uhmmmm i have a lot so ill js break them down into groups amd not all of them individually im skibidi like thay

genhouse - random ass high schoolers who live together so basically its like the hype house but if they werent tiktokers (star, noa, oliver, cassidy, max, tommy, light, and nina ^^) (nina does not live with them but shes like. their frient.)

melodists online - pjsk unit 😈 one day akari (leader) puts them in a group chat for funsies and they become besties. after that they make their songs using what i can best describe as like. fuckinf blob opera and begin performing street shows of their sogs!!! they also post them online naotos kinda like their pr manager (akari momoi, megumi yamada, kenji shimoda, naoto tero)

genspy - spy agency who kill billionaires and take down evil villians for the greater good!!! also some in-agency betrayal and perchance lost siblings and undercover spies (miki, rin 1, sam, lana, charlie, connie, fritz, and like a lot more like a lot lot more)

freaky obey me part 1 - basically all my obey me mcs and also the demon rad students i made up in my head (minus serun and diaval theyre already canon i just assigned them sins but i also gave them designs and personslity so theyrebasically my ocs) and good lird i have a lot prepare urself (chia, zephyr, ren, mika, ale, rin, elise, saku, jun, yuki, asami, jade, skylar, kye, abbadon, rex, serun, mckenzie, gabi, diaval, and paimon)

freaky obey me part 2 - basically the offspring of the last mfs theyre still not very fleshed out tho whoopsie poopsie (hannah, rori, serena, frankie, ally, and aster)

genvamp - a resistance of 7 vampires joining together and struggling to survive the vampire genocide of humans !! (badicalllu humans are EVIL!!!! (theyre not EVIL evil but like they js got the wrong idea of vampires in their head) (also this is inspired by thirsty vampire on roblox bc i KEEP GETTING KILLED BY HUMANS FOR NO REASON LEAVE ME ALONE DAWG I DIDNT DO ANYTHING) (augustine, lucien, lucky, haruki, kit kat, grace, and winona)

and thays basically it yippeee !!!!!!!!

[immortalnetizen]

Horror movie picks by the decade (USA) The Essentials in Horror History

Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Lon Chaney's most iconic performance, based on the French novella, a suspenseful silent thriller and romance with a spectacular color sequence.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - Classic Universal sequel inspired by the Mary Shelly novel, with a touch of the macabre, drama and comedic relief, it showcases the James Wales' directorial mastery and set in motion the Universal monster horror machine.

Cat People (1942) - Val Lewton's horror debut, delivering horror and suspense through minimalism and suggestion, pioneering horror storytelling techniques for decades to come.

The Blob (1958) - charming 50's popcorn monster fest for the teenage audience; with a young Steve McQueen in the lead and the right blend of thrills and camp, it is more than enough to keep one entertained.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - George Romero's independent masterpiece that broke new grounds and raised the flesh-eating dead into the mainstream media zingiest.

Halloween (1978) - John Carpenter's low-budget thriller that made Jamie Lee Curtis into the next scream-queen and popularized the slasher genre for the next generation of horror films.

Poltergeist (1982) - From producer Steven Spielberg, a quintessential 80's spectacle, balancing charm and unsettling horror in this awe-inspiring ghost tale for the ages. *Strobe Warning*

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - An unnerving crime thriller that delves into the psychological impetus of human killers and brought horror to the academy awards.

[hamofjustice]

i think jynx, as carelessly obviously racist as it was/is, could've been salvaged as something fun if they leaned into whatever the stadium animations were trying to do, where the eyes/lips sometimes fly off its face, and there isn't a mouth between its lips, and some of its animations end instantly with no transition, and it blips out into just a wig when it faints, and it has no legs under its skirt (only the illusion of it in how it sways), and it just shoots a detached foot to do kick attacks, and-

smoochum then being introduced as its pre-evolution and more or less just being a regular chubby baby girl that likes kissing things to learn about the world to try and salvage jynx's design as something innocent kinda ended the potentially cool idea of jynx as this alien shadow blob or golden tentacle thing, disguised poorly as a human. instead they kinda just doubled down on "what if a dark skinned fat lady wanted to kiss you haha i'd pass out too" being the theme by downplaying the alien weirdness of it, the heartless/nobody-ishness of it, and acting like it was just poorly animated the whole time and not like that on purpose

i'd love to see jynx's prevo being an undisguised larval form of whatever it actually is and its evo being the disguise coming apart as the face starts slipping off and the hair grows too long and acts like tentacles like a horror monster reveal, but a pokemon with jynx's design and reputation really can't rebrand as "what if a fake woman forced her kisses on you" without inviting more problems huh

jynx's evolution just being brunnhilde the fat opera lady or froslass 2 isn't really all that interesting to me compared to this idea but i don't blame them for just kinda giving up on it entirely

at least there's wobbuffet if you like the idea of a mysterious shadow creature battling with its fake body/face, that one doesn't look extremely offensive. or mawile, kinda

[fumingdragon278]

Warning: Menstsion of Cristianity, God, gods, angels, otherwroldly beings.

---

Title: The Lamassu Who Forgot to Hide (Part 10)

Subtitle: “Paperwork, Pens, and the Past”

---

The angels were now awkwardly seated in Ninsidra’s oversized living room—specifically designed for lounging in either her true form or as a human. One angel, the tallest and most serious-looking, still had a bit of green fur stuck in his halo. The youngest one was clutching a mug of “Choco-latte” with reverent awe.

The third was inspecting her animation setup with professional curiosity, gently tapping her drawing tablet.

Ninsidra was curled up like a giant, half-cat beanbag in the center of the room, watching them with mild amusement.

“So,” she yawned, “is this, like, an official visit, or just a ‘make-sure-the-cat-god-doesn’t-break-the-world-again’ thing?”

The serious one cleared his throat and held out a glowing scroll.

“Technically speaking, it’s a formal observation and record update. We’re to assess your current activities and confirm your… alignment.”

“Alignment?” she echoed, eyes narrowing. “What am I, a D&D character sheet now?”

“…In fairness,” the youngest angel mumbled, sipping his cocoa, “we’ve used worse methods before.”

Ninsidra snorted.

The middle angel, still poking her tablet, accidentally dragged her raccoon opera project into the animation timeline and gasped as the characters sprang to life.

“It… moves when I touch it.”

“Yeah,” she said smugly, tail twitching. “That’s a vector brush. Wanna try drawing something?”

Ten minutes later, that angel was sitting crisscrossed on the floor, tongue out in concentration, deeply focused on animating a happy blob with wings. Ninsidra nodded approvingly.

“Hooked,” she said.

Then the serious one brought it up.

“We do have one… delicate matter to address.”

She rolled her eyes. “Always a catch.”

“The extinction.”

Silence.

He clarified, gently:

“Of the Lamassu. You are… presumed the last. The records show none responded during the Great Rebellion. We believed all were either destroyed… or scattered beyond reach.”

The room got a little heavier.

Even the youngest angel lowered his mug.

But Ninsidra didn’t flinch.

She just blinked… slowly.

And said:

“Oh, that?”

She licked her paw, nonchalant.

“Yeah. I figured. Honestly, I haven’t seen another of us since Babylon fell. It’s been what—two, three thousand years? Longer?”

She shrugged, stretching like a cat in the sun.

“We were never meant to stick together. We’re territorial. Dreamy. Mysterious. If any of them are alive, they’re probably snoozing on top of some forgotten moon crater or hiding as someone’s giant pet ferret in another dimension.”

The serious angel frowned.

“You don’t… mourn them?”

“No.”

She met his gaze, firm and warm.

“I remember them. But I don’t mourn what’s not confirmed. And I don’t chase what doesn’t want to be found.”

Then she looked out the window, watching the city skyline.

“And anyway… if I really am the last, then so be it. I’ll be the best one there ever was. Big, spotted, loud, and huggable.”

She turned back to them, smiling gently.

“You know what I am now? I’m a Guardian. Of art. Of naps. Of weird kids and lost teens who don’t believe in gods, but still feel like someone’s watching over them when they cry at 3 a.m.”

The youngest angel blinked rapidly.

“…You’re still one of us.”

Ninsidra tilted her head.

“I never stopped being.”

And then she winked.

“I just got fluffier.”

---

To be continued…Part 10 ended part 11 comming

[trashartgalleries]

I colored da redraw! :D

Maybe I should add a second layer of color I the clothes 🤔

I'll reblog it if I do

Here's a bigger version of the old one:

[xatsperesso]

Hey uhh how did sullivan not get concerned over, ya know, iruma-whos very much 100% a human- going into a wicked phase? Multiple times even?

Like all we saw was sullivan getting sad that his cute lil grandson isnt so cute anymore but like, is that it? No more concern over how a human can enter a wicked phase? No concern over what may have caused this? No sitting down to seriously talk with iruma like "Iruma, you've gone into two wicked phases since the start of the year. Tell me, my dearest grandson, what’s stressing you out?"

Did he see iruma like that and think 'ah, yes. My very-human-not-single-demon-blood-could-be-found-in-him-granson has gone into a wicked phase, something that's very normal for humans to go through and should be expected, but goddamn he's such a meanie like this.

You know what, i think he knows about ali-san. Like i dont think he- or opera - just passes by iruma's room and hear him talking to someone, and hear someone respond, and go like 'aww iruma's talking to an imaginary friend!'

Also who's to say that the weird-screaming blob of energy that's coming out of the ring can't suddenly talk? Like at least listen to your grandson before telling him that's impossible. Sounds too much like he's dismissing this thought for a reason.

Does the old man know about the ring? Does he actively avoid meeting ali-san for his possible relation to delkira?

[broodpeas]

A short post on Champion.

Random Thought Before I Begin:

I'm currently watching a judiciary audience of a Very Bad Man. You don't need to know his name, unless you're from Colombia, and if you are, well then you know whom I'm referring to.

I haven't watched this audiences in a very long time. I used to, when it was my job, when I knew knowing this was necessary and I endure it. When it wasn't, I realized I felt too much and I just couldn't anymore. Maybe because I took so much distance (and dissasociation) that I can now watch this audience, and I actually told my sister I thought this man, who had done so much harm and pain, knowingly so, seems...very nice. It's kinda like what Hannah Arendt wrote about the Eichmann trial many years ago- she felt sorry for him because he was just a sad, little, scared man standing trial. This man however doesn't look sad or scared, he just looks like someone who's doing something bureacratic. But what he's saying is not bureacratic, it's relevant to hundreds of people who know this man is a monster- my sister said "above all, he's human", and I want to point out here how dissonant it is when we acknowledge the humanity of someone who took it away from so many people. Whose legacy is cruelty, violence, pain, evil.

Something to think about.

On "Champion. An opera in jazz". Champion is an opera by terence blanchard and michael griffith. It is the second balck opera ever presented in the MET history and blanchard's second work with the Met. I saw it a few weeks after its premiere in NYC, because one big movie company in Colombia has this streaming rights for the entire Met opera season and I finally have the money to afford to go to almost all the season. I didn't know this opera would happen because I'm not an expert in Opera, I just go because this is the best way to learn about classical music and performers and so on. This is why I was so blown away when I went to the first operas of the season and I saw a latina woman performing a leading role, with 30% of the cast that was black and asian. Black and asian people! On a stage! Performing the whitest of the arts! And like I have pointed out many times, I am almost always the only POC person in the audience, and even though I know I'm not the only one who understands the importance of seeing POC performing opera, it will never get old to sit down and see a damn opera where POC are actually performing.

And Champion is actually more than just a representation checklist opera. It's not just that the cast is 99% black, with drag queens and gay issues as part of the plot; or that the conductor is a queer person who not only loves classical music, but has fun and makes fun of it. It's also that behind the scenes POC had active roles and that the day of the premiere and the shows after this, POC have shown up, again and again, to support this opera, not because it's a black opera, but because it's really damn good.

I went that saturday knowing that the movie theater was going to be a bit empty, and it was. I had the entire row for me. I was the only brown person in that room- something that, I think, it doesn't mean much, unless something happens that reminds me that I am a brown person who has the means to afford tickets to opera and no one in that movie room questions why I'm there because they know I have the means to be there. It is not mind boggling. It's the reality of the privilege of being brown in this country and not fitting the racist notions people have about brown and black people in Colombia.

And so I sat, alone in a row, and the opera started and from scene 1 my heart did jumps and hoops and I thought well this was to be expected because I'm a sensible blob and I always feel everything too much. But when the final scene came, and the entire black cast came out, and the clapping began and everyone was kinda leaving the room, I just sat there and sobbed. Because in all my years watching opera, and going to white spaces knowing I wasn't white, I had never experience why representation matters, not at this level anyway. And even if this representation may fall short or be perceived as performative, to me it isn't. Champion made me cry because when I was growing up, in the 90's, I didn't had this. My dad used to play classical music where all composers and performers where white and european, and he only listened to this when he needed to focus or wanted to work. I never knew black and brown people could make, play and/or perform classical music. My only reference that wasn't white was....Bugs Bunny. So seeing this opera meant so much to me. And I left that theater crying my heart out because I am also wrapping up the document where I write about black representation in colombian art, knowing that this is jus the beginning for I am going to do in terms of not bringing a seat at the table, but to flip the table and see what happens.

black people really are stars.

[bodyhorrorbeatdown]

movies i have so far, organized by release date oldest to newest

i need about 20 or so more submissions!

The Exorcist

Eraserhead

Suspiria

Alien

Altered States

An American Werewolf in London

The Thing

Videodrome

The Stuff

The Fly

From Beyond

Hellraiser

Street Trash

Brain Damage

The Blob

Tetsuo the Iron Man

Mermaid in a Manhole

Akira

Frankenhooker

Bride of Re-Animator

Society

Braindead/Dead Alive

Ginger Snaps

Silent Hill

Bad Biology

Martyrs

Splinter

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Coraline

Jennifer's Body

Human Centipede

Evil Dead

Tusk

Stung

Spring

The Void

Raw

Annihilation

Possessor

Gwledd

Old

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Fresh

Mad God

Crimes of the Future

[ren-therose]

It Was Always You

Dr. John Watson X F!Reader (3.9k words)

Summary: You walk into 221B, knowing full well that Sherlock, a colleague of yours, isn’t there; however, his flatmate John is. In his own jealousy and anger at Sherlock, a misunderstanding occurs, and you attempt to resolve it. 

Warnings: angst, fluff, jealousy, smut 18+, thigh riding, oral (m receiving), unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), this mans sexy hands ( dont @ me)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Hudson was kind enough to let me into 221 Baker Street, knowing that no one else would ever answer the door except her. When she opened it, she was taken aback to see me standing there, still in my work clothes with an envelope in hand. 

“Oh hello dear! I thought you were Sherlock. That man always seems to lose the keys to the flat. I have had to make so many copies for him. Just the other day, I caught him trying to slip his hand through the mail slot and, oh! Anyway, that’s probably not why you are here- you must be here to see Sherlock! If you’re looking for him, he isn’t here love, but you might be able to find him-”

I cut her off, grabbing her hands and pulling her in to give her a tight hug, landing a peck on her cheek as I pulled away. I loved the boys landlady, but Mrs. Hudson had a way of going on incredibly long and irrelevant tangents. She made the best biscuits in all of London though. 

“No Mrs. Hudson, I’m not here to see Sherlock....I...I-I’m actually here to see John,” I said sheepishly, looking down at the envelope in my hands. I shook my head, trying not to get caught up in my own stress, and stretched the envelope out to her. “Mrs. Hudson, before I go up, I have a present for you. Two tickets to the opera, and a handsome man waiting for you there. I know he is the one that has been bringing you those gorgeous roses,” I said, looking behind her to see the vase on the entry table. Her eyes widened as she shifts slightly, stealing a glance at the flowers, as if she was checking to see if they were still there. She turned, taking the envelope and pulled out the tickets to the Royal Opera House, only to immediately shove them back in. She tried to push the envelope into my hands again, but I declined, making a surrendering gesture and backing away. We quarreled for a few moments, pivoting around the tiny entry until I finally made it up a few of the steps, asserting my dominance to show the unwillingness I held. 

“Ms. Y/N, you are quite the meddler,” she said with a shake of her head, opening the envelope once more. “...what time does the show start....my goodness! I have to change now!” Mrs. Hudson exclaims. Lucky for her, my plan was already in motion.

“You have 15 minutes until the private car will come to pick you up, ma’am, but you always look lovely,” I reply with a wink. 

“Wear red!” I call back to her, as I climb the stairs to the second floor, hearing her coo as she made her way back into her flat. 

The door of 221B was unlatched, and I didn’t think John would mind the intrusion. He too would probably just assume it was Sherlock waltzing in. I opened the door to see the doctor, sitting in his usual spot, typing away on a new blog post. He had today's morning paper next to him, as though he needed to cite another source about his own adventure with the famous Mr. Holmes. He didn’t look up, but instead called out, “I thought you weren’t coming back tonight. Something to do with some new case? Or was it perhaps Mycroft? I can’t keep track of you anymore, though I’m sure you care little for my location and/or well-being if it doesn’t affect a case”. He was clearly in a mood, but it was my fault Sherlock was out. He may be a genius, but he didn’t seem to realize that Molly and I had played him. He would be busy playing with cadavers all evening. 

I took off my coat and hung it on the rack by the door, as well as my scarf. My work clothes were not usually something I would wear around their flat, but I had come straight from the university where I teach and research human behavior, attitude and persuasion. The button up blouse and navy blue skirt were a staple to my wardrobe of simplistic outfits. The only bits character I would add to my looks were my shoes. Today, I had settled on well-loved, leather loafers with a good sized heel that matched my tweed coat. I kicked off the shoes and walked behind him into the kitchen, looking for something to defrost the chill I had caught from walking across town. Or maybe it was the nerves. 

“You better not be placing any more human remains in our fridge Sherlock. I’m tired of the disembodied heads, an-and, and, singular eyeballs! It’s like they are staring into my soul...” his words trailed off. “Y/N?” he asked with a hint of fear, as well as amusement. He knew it was me, but it was hard to tell from the outfit and position I was in. I could very well be a murderer, client, or complete stranger, rummaging through his fridge. But it was me. I was bent over in the fridge, looking for cream, and I hadn’t noticed him stand and turn back towards the kitchen. As my arse stuck out from the behind the door of the fridge, I called back to him. “Do you want a drink? I feel like a tea,” I exclaimed, standing up right to look at him with bottle of creamer in hand. I could see him relax as he looked me over, checking to make sure I wasn’t in any distress. My hair was in a French-twist of sorts, but by this time of day, it usually fell around my face and would lose its form, becoming a messy blob. I brushed the hair out of my face, giving him a smile as I set the creamer down on the meth-lab of a kitchen island. I often acted manic around them, trying to control my own obsessions and addictions, but they both looked out for me. John enjoyed caring for people, especially Sherlock and I. 

He shook his head, complete with his mental examination of me. “I didn’t know you were coming over. You know that Sherlock isn’t-”

I pounded my fist on the counter, not hard enough to be angry, but enough to show my irritation. “Why does everyone think I have come to see Sherlock? Even Mrs. Hudson had assumed!” I exclaimed, walking across the kitchen. Huffily, I grabbed the kettle and began to fill it with tap water, leaning over the sink as I lifted my heels, back and forth, shifting my weight. 

“Well,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, looking off to the side. “The two of you work closely together, I just assumed that you would want to pick his brain about some new theory you’re trying to publish,” he murmured.

“Jesus John, you make it sound so salacious,” I laugh, reaching up to get the mugs. “What do you think we are doing at my office, or when we are gone?”  I had to go on my tip toes, especially since I had taken off my heels. As I reached, I didn’t notice that John had been looking over my stocking covered legs, taking in the tone of my calves as I struggled to grasp a mug. 

“Here, let me help you Y/N,” John said, rushing over to help grab the cups. I had already grabbed them, but his hands wrapped around mine, supporting the mugs and me. He was so close, my chest mere inches from his, the drinkware between us. He looked down between us, then back at me, a look in his eyes that gave my stomach butterflies. 

Before I could get ahead of myself, I stepped back to put the mugs on the island next to us. “John, Sherlock is merely a colleague with an annoyingly witty brain that can help me with my publication. I can’t stand the bastard most of the time,” I say, pouring an ungodly amount of sugar into my cup. 

“Well, that makes two of us. I just thought you fancied him, especially since you come over and help take care of the place quite a bit.”

It was true. Anytime I came over to ask them about the latest case and the actions of the killer, I found myself tidying up, doing dishes, and even making meals. But it wasn’t for Sherlock. 

“No John, that’s not why I help out,” I say tentatively. My body was facing the many bottles and beakers on the counter in the center of the kitchen, while he stood next to me, leaning his side against the counter, still looking down at me. Taking a deep breath, I turn to face him. “John, it’s because I-”

Before I could finish, we hear the familiar owl-like call from Mrs. Hudson to vocalize her entrance. “Hoo Hoo! Y/N, thank you again for these tickets. However will I repay you?” the woman asks as she wraps her arms around me for a hug. 

“Oh Mrs. Hudson, consider it an early gift!” I say, squeezing her back.

“There is no holiday coming up,” John says inquisitively.

“Sometimes, there isn’t a reason, John,” I say with a little edge to my voice. “Give my best to your handsome admirer!”

“I will love, I will. See you later tonight!” she chirped as she walked out. 

“Or not,” I mumble with a small snicker. 

“Heard that!” She calls out behind her. For an older woman, her hearing can be remarkable. I laugh, and John emits a slight chuckle as well. We look to each other once more, smiling with content, though I can see John’s brain trying to solve the question of why I gave her the tickets. But before he could interrogate me, the kettle begins to whistle. 

“Tea’s ready. Earl Grey or Black Tea?” I ask, quickly moving past him to the tin. 

“I know you know what I like,” he says, arms crossed as he watches me pick out the bags. 

“I just thought I’d give you an option,” I say, bringing the bags back and dropping them in the mugs. “But I know not to ask about the sugar,” I say with a wink, a sense of my more relaxed self peeking through. I turn to grab the kettle, but John has already done so. I am standing in front of the mugs, when he comes up behind me, pouring the water from around. He is close to me, but not touching. His other hand is just barely ghosting over mine, hanging by my side. 

“I’m so sorry, I could move,” I manage to say, stepping off to the side. 

“No, no, you’re no bother,” he softly says. I can smell the aftershave on his skin, a smell I had often found so comforting. This new proximity, however, allowed me to better isolate the smell of pine, a hint of mint, and a spice I couldn’t name. 

I stirred our drinks, pulling the teabags out now that they had steeped. Adding a dash of cream to mine, I hold it the cup up, signaling a toast. 

“To knowing one another.”

“To knowing one another,” he responds. 

We clink our cups, taking a sip, not breaking eye contact. I lower my mug, breaking the stare, as I look down at the light brown color of the tea. John clears his throat, moving slightly closer as he looks down at the contents of his own drink.

“Umm..should we, maybe, er, sit?” I say, sounding as though I hadn’t just barged in there several minutes before like I owned the place.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” he replies. 

I was the first to move, coming around to his chair and sitting in the warm seat. 

“Yeah, no, get up that’s my spot,” he says, shaking his head as he comes to stand in front of me. 

“Sherlock isn’t here, why can’t you sit in his seat?” I ask, pulling my legs up into the cushion, tucking them under my bum. 

“I can, but I was in the middle of writing something,” he says, hesitantly sitting down in his friends leather chair. 

“I’ll proof it before you continue,” I say, picking up his laptop to put in my lap. He sighs across from me, clearly annoyed. I toss the paper at him. “Here, do the word puzzle or something. Sherlock can’t bother us “ordinary” people about it if we solve it without him around,” I say, scrolling to the beginning of his post. 

He picks up the pencil next to the chair, searching the pages for the crossword. As I begin reading, I can’t help but look up to steal glances at the doctor across from me, a man who is constantly overshadowed by the genius he solves crimes with. Sherlock had once told me that while he solves crimes, Watson saves lives. I wonder if he will need to save that for a speech one day, but for now, it reminds me of what an incredible man John is. He has saved my life on many occasions, probably not even knowing, though if he did, probably never taking the credit. 

“John, this might be your best entry yet,” I exclaim. Though I felt he was too humble in his writing, he did a wonderful job of painting a picture for the reader and giving us a map inside the detectives thought process. 

“No no, it was all Sherlock. He is always the one who solves it,” he says without looking up. 

I set the laptop down beside me, pulling my legs down to be crossed over one another at the ankles.

“John, you don’t think very highly of yourself and...well.... it breaks my heart. Truly. Sherlock can’t do these things without you,” I say, looking at the newspaper that hides his face. 

“Well, it isn’t without your help around here that I don’t kill him. You’re my saving grace, Y/N,” he says softly. My breathing hitches in my throat. Now was as good a time as any. He still hasn’t moved the paper, as if afraid to see me reaction. Quietly, I slip from the chair to my knees. I move towards him and my place a hand on the top of his leg. He lowers the paper, looking into my bright eyes. As he sets the paper down beside him, John sits up a bit more, leaning in to me. I straighten up, bringing my face closer to his. My hand goes to his cheek, rubbing it softly with my thumb. 

“John, it’s always been you,” I whisper. 

I slide my hand to the nape of his neck, drawing him. He leans down with parted lips, grabbing my face with both of his hands and kisses me. 

Years of knowing the two men, and all I could think of was this moment, the one I never knew if I could have. Our lips fit like puzzle pieces, one on top of the other, allowing for us to feel the buzz of our connection as it lingered on. My other hand had gone to his sweater and was now gripping it, the only thing left grounding me to the earth. As we pulled away, our eyes met, as they had so many times, and the look that we saw finally had a name: desire. 

I pulled him back in again, this time with more passion and the need to truly feel that he was mine. His hands had moved from my face down to my waist, and pulled me up onto his lap. My skirt rode up so that I could straddle him, and I prayed it wouldn’t rip (but if it did, i wouldn’t feel too bad).The feeling of his grip around my torso brought back the butterflies, as we gave sharp, open mouthed kisses, our bodies closer than they had ever been. His mouth started to trail from my mine, down to my jaw, under to my neck, causes little hiccup-like gasps to escape me. My hands were on his neck and in his hair, scratching softly to encourage this. As he came down to my collarbone, he stopped abruptly and pulled back to look at me. 

“Is something wrong?” I asked, worry clouding my face. I start to get off of him when his arms pull me back, holding me in his lap. 

“No no, it’s just...we are in Sherlock's chair,” he says awkwardly. 

“Do you think I care whose chair it is John? Besides it’s a bit better for sitting on you and I don’t think I want to get off you anytime soon,” I say smuggly, dragging my hands down to his chest. 

“Oh you like sitting in my lap,” he responds, looking quite proud of himself. In response, I rolled my hips against him, feeling him grow underneath me. I bite my lip as I lean to whisper “feels like you do too”. I lick the shell of his ear, exhaling softly. 

A low groan comes from his throat and he places his hands on my waist, giving them a pull that causes my body to roll against him once more. I shiver, dropping my head back as I do so. I don’t think either of us have done something like this since we were quite young, but the friction of it, matched with our tension we had stored for years felt so good. 

As he continued to roll my hips against his, I leaned back down to kiss him, this time, allowing for him to search my mouth. My hands went to his sweater as I peeled it off of him. I then started unbuttoning his shirt, dragging my nails as I did so. This caused him to buck up into me and I let out a yelp, grinding down against him. 

“Here,” he said, lifting me from his lap to his knee. “I want you to ride it for me, could you love?”

How could I say no? Immediately, I rocked against him, feeling myself grow wetter. My skirt was still up around my waist, but as he undid my blouse, He could see that I had a matching set of lingerie underneath. He smirked with a low growl, wrapping his arm around me again, letting my blouse hang freely as he pulled my chest to his mouth. He left love bites on the tops of my chest, suckling and licking as he pulled my bra away from my nipples. They were already perked up from the way I was still grinding onto his knee, but the moment his mouth latched onto my right nipple, I couldn’t help but pull at his hair. He moaned against my breast, causing a vibration that ripped through my body. 

“John, I’m so close, please help me,” I gasp, rocking myself in a rhythm I could barely keep. He removes his mouth from my chest, and I drop my forehead to his, as he moves his hands to take control of my waist once more. He tenses his thigh underneath me, creating a new pressure against my clit. I cry out, wrapping my arms tighter around his neck. 

“Right there John, please don’t stop,” I choke, trying to breathe a little deeper for fear I might hyperventilate. 

He plants a kiss on my lips, pulling my lip away from between his teeth. My legs begin to shake as my orgasm takes my body, releasing my fluids onto his thigh as he continues to roll my hips through it. I can barely sit up, as he lays me down to rest against his chest, drawing on my back with his finger. 

“That was so good, Y/N, you did so good for me,” he whispers. I smile, kissing his neck. His eyes flutter closed as I continue to kiss and suck at his neck. As I swing my leg off of him so that I am once again between his legs, I slowly start kissing down to his chest, licking up, and then continuing to kiss back down. 

“Jesus, love, you’re gonna be the death of me he says, a hand on his forehead as he looks down to see me biting at his pelvic bone, while my hands creep up his thighs to his belt. I can feel his hard on against my boner, and I feel bad for neglecting it during my ride, but I know how to make it up to him. Once I undid his pants, I started shimming them down him. Pulling his swollen cock out from his trousers, I can already see the beads of precum seeping from his slit. I involuntarily lick my lips, before I give his cock a slow stroke. 

John groans above me, his head rolled back and to the side, looking at me with a smile. I smile back, maintaining eye contact as I lean down to plant a kiss on the tip of his dick. His mouth parts lightly as his breathing becomes more shallow, waiting to see what I will do next. I kiss my way down his shaft, all the way to his balls, holding them in one hand while I continued to slowly pump his member in my other. I sucked at them for a moment, releasing them with a pop, causing him to buck up into my hand. I open my mouth and let my tongue drag all the way up the underside of his cock, until I reach the top. I wrap my lips around him, slowly pushing my head down as far as I could take him. His hand goes for my hair, which at this point had fallen out of my usual work-do, so that he could see my face. 

“Oh...you know what you’re doing. Keep going love,” he groans out, desperate for more. 

I begin to bob my head up and down, taking the rest of shaft in my hand. I use my tongue as well to swipe of his dick as I messily blow the doctor above me. It was no surprise to learn that he had jerked off to this very thought many times, but to actually have it happen was a dream come true for him. As I continue to work his cock, the wetness of my vagina continues to throb at the thought that he could be inside me. I can feel him getting closer as his moans become more strained and grip on my hair tightens. 

“Oh, oh, Y/N, you’re gonna have to stop love, I wanna be inside you when I finish,” he says, looking down on me, signaling our next move. I look up at him as I go down as far as I can, gagging on his dick while little tears prick at the corner of my eyes. He pulls me off of him by my hair, leaning down to kiss me sloppily. I had never seen the army doctor so disheveled before, but I loved this different side of him. I stood up to straddle him once more, and as I sat, he took his fingers and ran them through my slit. I hissed at the action, not wanting his fingers when I was ready for his cock. But he took the cum and slickness from my first orgasm and rubbed it onto his cock, preparing me for it. As I sat up, he held his tip to my entrance, looking into my eyes for the green light. I slid down onto him, my mouth gaping open with a sharp inhale as he filled me. 

“Jesus Christ...” was all he could say, as I sat with him inside me, both of us half dressed in his living room. 

I rolled my hips as I had when I first sat on him, shivering at the girth of his member. I found a rhythm to pace myself with, causing us to pant and groan in unison. As I bounced on him, he brushed my hair behind my ears, cupping my face while I braced myself with my hands on his chest. 

He slid down a little shifting the angle of him inside me, causing him to hit my g-spot. 

“Jesus, John, that’s it, right there,” I cry, rolling my hips against him. His hands move to wrap around my waist once more, as he takes control, pounding up into me. I shouted, leaning forward with one hand on the back of the chair, the other supporting his neck. Although my mouth was on his, all I could do was moan into him as he relentless hit spot that needed him most. 

“Touch yourself,” he demanded. It was a voice he used when he needed to be taken seriously and I wasn’t about to go against him. I snaked my hand between us and made tight circles are my clit, rolling against him and my hand.

“John, please, I can’t, I’m gonna cu-”

He cut me off by sitting up a bit more and replacing my hand with his. I shouted as I gripped his shoulders, riding his cock as the tension broke. I began to pulse around him as I cried out his name over and over. My orgasm ripped through me, and before I could stop myself, I was squirting on top of Dr. John Watson. 

He groaned out, “Y/n, Y/n, oh my god, good girl,” as he bucked up into me, coating my walls with his cum. 

We rode out our high, forehead to forehead, trying to catch our breaths as our eyes remained close. After a few moments passed, we opened our eyes, looking to see if what we had done was a mistake. But there was no trace of regret in either of our faces. 

“I’m yours, Dr. Watson,” I say, taking his face in my hand. He leans into me, then turning to kiss the inside of my hand. “I was always yours”. 

Still inside me, we look around. Nothing had changed, except for maybe our relationship status. 

“Do you think he will know?” I ask. 

“There is not a doubt in my mind,” John replies. 

“But do you think he will know we did it in his chair?” I laugh. 

“Not if we clean it well enough,” he says, leaning in to rub his nose against mine. 

We get up and begin cleaning, though it was hard to bend over, as my knees buckled nearly every time. By the time we had cleaned the room and ourselves up, it was nearly one in the morning. I moved my clothes into Johns room so that Sherlock wouldn’t notice if I slipped out the next morning. All the dishes had been dried and put away so that there was no trace of a guest. 

As John and I lay in bed together, waiting for Sherlock to come home, John leans over and asks cautiously, “is this why you gave Mrs. Hudson those opera tickets?”

I freeze for a moment, knowing that I had been caught. 

“I just needed her to not interrupt when I told you how I felt. I didn’t know it would lead to...well, this,” I giggle. 

He laughs, pulling me towards him to kiss my forehead. “God, I love you.”

He freezes against my forehead, realizing it was the first time we had ever even said the word love to one another, even as friends. 

I pull him down by the chin, to kiss him softly on the lips. “I love you too”.

---

A few hours after we had fallen asleep, we were awoken to the bedroom door being swung open and slammed against the wall. 

“On my chair, John?!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

If you can’t tell, Martin Freeman rules my life and I have a deep and passionate love for him. I hope you enjoyed and look out for more of this because I am on a ROLL! xoxo

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

[Podfic] If You Gaze Into The Abyss It Will Flirt Back

by mistbornhero Bruce feels pretty good about his life; he has a face, a job, and a kid. What more could an eldritch personification of vengeance want? Lots, according to Dick, starting with a girlfriend. Podfic of If You Gaze Into The Abyss, It Will Flirt Back by raven_of_hydecastle. Words: 40, Chapters: 1/2, Language: English Series: Part 2 of [Podfic] Oh! The Humanity! Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M, Gen Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul, Barbara Gordon Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Cryptid Batfamily (DCU), Eldritch Horror Batman, Eldritch Horror Alfred, Bruce Wayne Is Trying His Best, Shapeshifting, Inhuman characters, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bat Blob, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Family Feels, Found Family, Bruce Wayne-centric, Dick Grayson is a Ray of Sunshine, Dick Grayson is a Menace, Bruce Wayne is Brucie Wayne, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Relationships, Bruce Wayne is a Disaster, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Selina Kyle Has Issues, Drama & Romance, Human/Monster Romance, Talia is down bad for this disaster shadow blob, something about that pathetic wet cat rizz calls to her soul, Exes, Dating fails, Attempted Kidnapping, Crushes, Manipulation, Secrets, Protective Dick Grayson, He'll defend his father's honor to the death, but not his death, Overprotective Dick Grayson, The Incident, Dick Grayson loves soap operas, No beta we die like mne, Complicated Relationships, Podfic, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: Download via https://ift.tt/cJ1FYkf

[ineffablefool]

How to center and nice-size an image in an AO3 fic using a work skin

Maybe someone can use this?  In my fic for the DIWS Good Omens Mini Bang, I embedded some images from my wonderful illustrator.  The centered images will never be wider than the text, no matter the screen size, but they also are never stretched larger than their native size (I resized ‘em to 800px wide in my trusty paint program for faster downloading). Here’s how one looks on my giant monitor and on my phone screen:

If you have never done AO3 skins before then I promise they are not actually scary!  You have the option of doing relatively complicated things with them, but this thing is simple.

Anyway this is how I center my images.

Step one: make a skin.

In your AO3 dashboard, click “Skins” in the menu (left or top of page, depending on if you’re on a big or small screen).  This takes you to the Site Skins page, which are for if you want to make all of AO3 look different to just you.  You want a Work Skin, though, which makes your fic look different to everyone, so click My Work Skins.

Click Create Work Skin in the top right and you’ll get an editor that’s similar to when you’re posting a fic!  You only need to set two things.  One, give it a title that makes sense to you (the title won’t be visible to people reading your fic).  Two, paste some stuff into the big “CSS” box.

This is the stuff to paste:

.centered {  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;  text-align: center; }

.centered img {  max-width: 100% !important; }

That was the stuff to paste!  Just toss both of those two blobs in the big editor and click Submit.  Now you have a skin!

Step two: use the skin in your work.

Open up the work you want to do this in.  Find the Select Work Skin box (just under the Choose A Language box) and select the skin you just made.  Yay!  Sorry, the Homestuck and Undertale ones are just there for everyone and that’s how it is.  (Nothing against Homestuck or Undertale.  I just don’t like unneeded entries in lists.)

Step three: center your image.

This is the most complicated bit, only because I can’t give you an exact thing to copy-paste.  But I can give you a basic template!  Don’t try to paste this into Word or a similar word processing program.  The quote marks could get turned into “smart quotes” (like the ones I typed there, just now -- see how the opening and closing quotes are different from each other?).  If you need to save it off for later, Notepad or another very simple plain-text editor will be perfect, because it will keep the quotes as not smart quotes.

Find the spot in your AO3 work where you want the centered image to be.  It would be between two blocks of text which are wrapped with <p> tags, so something like this...

Into that space, you’re gonna hit Enter a couple of times (which I’ve already done in the screenshot) and then paste this block:

<p class="centered">  <img src="BANANA" alt="ORANGE" /> </p>

That was the block to paste.  Before you’re done, you need to change two things!

BANANA goes away.  Inside the quote marks where BANANA used to be, you need to put the URL of your image.  This URL must start with http or https (preferably https), or else it won’t work.  I can’t give specific instructions on how to get this, because it depends on where the image is hosted!  If it’s only on your computer, or attached to an email, it can’t be embedded.  It has to have been put somewhere on the web, like Flickr, Photobucket, or Google Drive.  It will work to embed from Tumblr, but I don’t trust Tumblr not to change everything up and bork all the old image URLs, thus breaking your embedded images on an arbitrary date in the future.  (Any image host could theoretically do this, but -- well.  We’re all familiar with Tumblr, right?)

ORANGE also goes away.  Inside the quote marks where ORANGE used to be, you optionally can (I recommend you do!) put a brief (200 characters or fewer) description of the image.  This is text which is invisible when viewing your fic in a normal browser -- it’s there for screen reader technologies, used by people who are blind or otherwise have trouble seeing a screen.  Their screen reader software will literally read out to them, so that they can hear it with their human ears, the description you put here.  Don’t start it with “image of” or “picture of”, because the screen reader tells the human that it’s an image already.  Here is a pretty user-friendly guide on how to write alt text!  If you’re more technically-inclined, the W3C has more involved docs.  Remember, the screen reader is going to say out loud whatever you put here, so don’t make it super long, or else you’ll force people who are using screen readers to wait through the long description for your story to continue. 

A finished version of the banana/orange block might look like this:

<p class="centered">  <img src="https://www.my-nifty-example-website.com/prettypicture.jpg" alt="Two dogs having a tea party wearing fancy hats" /> </p>

Step four: do it again if needed.

If you have more images to center in the same work, just repeat step 3 for each!  Step 2 has to be done once per work.  Step 1 might be done once ever (and then you just keep pulling that same skin into many works), or you might do it multiple times (if you want other changes in the skin that are special to only this one work).  I do a different skin every time I have a fic that needs a skin, but that’s because I do extra fancy things that are different for each fic.

You never have to do either step 1 or step 2 more than once per work, even if it’s multi-chapter.  In future chapters of the same fic, just do step 3 again.

Step five: preview and/or temporary draft is your friend

I am an IT professional with a (technically expired but work with me here) Microsoft certification in HTML5/CSS and seven years of writing this stuff for pay under my belt.  Even I don’t post without previewing.  Preview and saving as a draft without publishing are both your friends.

Some fun(?) notes

What you are doing here is using cascading style sheets.  The AO3 skin is a very simple stylesheet, which is a series of rules that your readers’ browsers will use to apply to text in your story.  There are standards that all your normal sort of browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge, Opera...) are supposed to follow when they see these rules, so that no matter which browser someone uses, a webpage will look as similar as possible.

A skin created from the above steps defines a class named “centered” and tells the browser how “centered” should look.  Then, in your fic, if you apply the class named “centered” to something in the big editor -- like, say, the <p>aragraph tag that wraps around your image -- then the style from your skin will be applied. 

The magic of cascading style sheets is that you can define your class exactly once and then use it many times.  If you decide you want to change all the places you used it -- maybe you want every centered image in your 87-chapters-long heavily-illustrated fic to have a green border? -- you have to change exactly one place: your skin.  The change will bubble down to every single place you used it.

Skins do not allow all the features of true CSS (no media queries; I am sad), and you can’t put comments in your skin (the editor strips them out).  Browser-specific overrides also do not work (if you don’t know what this means, that’s okay, you have to go to extra work to try to use them in the first place).  But they’re still pretty cool.

A lot of people will just put <center> tags around their thing, and use width=“100%” or some other number, but that is technically not standard HTML, hasn’t been for a very long time, and sooner or later Chrome is going to get clever and stop respecting it.  (Google’s developers like to make Chrome very clever and change how it does things just because they feel like it.  It makes my day job rather more difficult.  Ask me about SameSite cookies!! Actually, don’t.  Never ask me about that thing.)

For portrait-oriented illustrations -- taller than they are wide -- I like to float the image to the right of the text and have it take up no more than 50% of the width of the screen (as seen near the end of this chapter).  But that is a more complicated thing than this one, and I am keeping it simple today.  Maybe I’ll show how to do the nice floaty at some point.

For any-oriented illustrations, you could have a small resized version which links out to a larger version as a click-to-zoom thing.  That is also a little more complicated, so it isn’t in this post.

Questions and clarifications welcome.

That is how to center and nice-size an image in an AO3 fic using a work skin!  I hope you are having a good day.