#I opened sewing tutorials about three times over the course of working this out and closed them every time

[arc852]

A Sewn Surprise

Summary: Grian and Joel try to teach themselves how to sew, in order to surprise Jimmy with some new clothes. But it isn't going well.

Word Count: 1716

AO3 Link

Yay! A new fic! I'm sorry it's been a couple of weeks but I'm finally writing again, so hopefully there will be more fics posted soon. Oh, and this is my first time writing Cleo, so hopefully she is in character!

I hope you guys enjoy!

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 “Ow!”

 Grian looked over just in time to see Joel stick his finger in his mouth, a frustrated look on his face. “You okay?” Grian asked, though he was only half asking about the prick Joel got.

 “No, I’m not okay. This is stupid! What were we even thinking?” Joel put his head in his hands and let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

 “We were thinking it would be nice to make Jimmy some new clothes.” Grian said and then let out his own sigh, more defeated than frustrated. “But you’re right, this is going nowhere.”

 They had been at it for three days now, trying to learn and sew Jimmy some new clothes. Ever since he had moved in fully, it was easier to notice the fact that Jimmy only had two outfits. One regular and one specifically made for borrowing, apparently. Though, since Jimmy didn’t borrow anymore, he wore the other pair of clothes more often.

 Still though, only having two pairs of clothes was…kind of sad. It was impressive, for sure, that Jimmy had made the clothes himself but when they had asked him why he hadn’t made more, Jimmy had said he hadn’t had enough supplies. But then continued and reassured them he didn’t need much more than that anyway.

 Grian and Joel, however, begged to differ. So outside of their dorm, where Jimmy couldn’t overhear them, they talked about looking into getting Jimmy some new clothes. Of course, they knew they couldn’t just buy them, doll clothing was stiff and way bigger than Jimmy anyway. But maybe, they could make him some themselves.

 And that’s what led them here, in the sewing club's room. They had graciously allowed them to work on their little project and even use their supplies. But sitting down with a laptop open to a tutorial and trying to figure it all out was not working out for them.

 It had been three days, and they were nowhere close to even a single item of clothing.

 “It’s been days. Sooner or later, Jimmy is gonna get suspicious.” Joel said, lifting his head away from his hands. He stared at the mess of fabrics, needles, and threads and glared at them.

 “We might have to ditch the surprise part of all of this.” Grian suggested as he put his own needle and thread down. It was just so hard to make stitches that small, and that was with previous experience with sewing. For Grian and Joel, who had absolutely no experience, it was next to impossible.

 As they were stewing in their own defeat, someone walked into the room. Grian and Joel barely paid attention, people were walking in and out of here all the time after all. What did catch their attention though, was a sudden familiar voice. “What are you two doing here?”

 Grian and Joel looked up to be met with Cleo, a good friend of theirs. She was looking at them with a surprised look, which was fair. Neither of them had ever brought up wanting to sew before. This was also bad though because, well, what were they supposed to say? They were trying to make tiny clothes for their borrower friend Jimmy? Yeah, no, that would be bad.

 “We’re uh…trying to learn how to sew?” Grian said though it came off more as a question. Which only deepened Cleo’s confusion. 

 “Sew…what, exactly?” Cleo asked, looking over them and at the table to see the mess of tiny fabrics and even tinier stitches. Grian and Joel looked at each other, slightly panicking.

 “Uh, doll clothes!” Joel suddenly exclaimed, laughing nervously. “For Grian’s cousin!”

 Cleo blinked and looked between the two of them. She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. “You two are making doll clothes for Grian’s cousin? Why not just buy them some?”

 “My cousin is…very particular about it?” Grian chimed in, going along with what Joel had said. Though, once again, his sentence came out more as a question.

 Cleo continued to look at the two of them, not seemingly convinced. Thankfully though, she changed the subject, walking along the table to its side and picking up one of the fabric pieces. “Well, this is definitely not where you should be starting if you’re just now trying to learn how to sew.”

 Joel sighed, once again putting his head in his hands. “Yeah, we’ve kind of figured that out already.”

 Cleo hummed, brushing her thumb against the fabric. “Do the two of you care if you're actually the ones to make them or were you just trying to do it yourselves because of your cousin’s ‘particular’ taste?” Cleo asked.

 Grian blinked, a bit surprised by the question. “Uh, well, I guess the second? We would have bought them if anyone made them.”

 Cleo nodded and put the piece of fabric down, moving her hands to rest on her hips. “Well, then the two of you are in luck. I happen to have an opening and I’m sure I can squeeze in making a few clothes for your cousin’s dolls.”

 Grian and Joel’s eyes widened and they both stood up in surprise. “Wait, seriously?” Grian asked.

 “Of course.” Cleo said with a smile. “Just leave it to me.”

  ***

   It was only a day later that Grian and Joel heard a knock at their door. Jimmy ducked behind the lamp on Joel’s nightstand as Grian stood up to answer the door. When he saw that it was Cleo, Joel joined him and they stepped outside for a moment. Cleo gave them a slightly confused look at not being invited in but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, presenting them with a neat handful of folded up outfits.

 “It was a bit tricky but I managed.” Cleo said as Grian took the clothes from her hands. There were three in total. Grian’s thumb brushed over the tiny jeans, in awe at how real they felt. Joel leaned in to try and get a good look himself.

 “Cleo, these are amazing.” Joel said, grabbing one of the shirts and studying it more closely. “It’s like you took regular clothes and shrunk them down.”

 Cleo chuckled. “Well, that is basically what you asked for.”

 Grian looked up and away from the tiny outfits in order to look at Cleo. “How much do we owe you?”

 “Aww, you two don’t owe me anything. Consider it a friend discount.” Cleo said. As Grian and Joel started to argue against not paying her, she held her hands up, stopping them. “I’m the one who offered, so I don’t want to be paid. This time. Now in the future if you happen to need any more outfits, then we’ll talk.” She said with a chuckle.

 Grian nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll definitely be coming back to you for some more.”

 Joel grinned. “Yeah, Jimmy is going to love these.”

 Cleo tilted her head, a smile still present. “Jimmy?”

 Both Grian and Joel froze and looked at each other. Joel looked a lot more panicked though and so Grian was the one who spoke. “My cousin! Jimmy, he’s my cousin.”

 “Hmm, right.” Cleo said, arms crossed with her smile never leaving. For some reason, she still didn’t seem fully convinced. But she moved along, which Grian and Joel sighed in relief at. “Well, I really do hope he likes them. Feel free to come to me if I need to make any adjustments.”

 “Thank you Cleo, really. You’re amazing.” Joel said, after having calmed down from his slip-up.

 “I know.” Cleo said and then turned and left, waving goodbye as she did so. Grian and Joel nodded at each other, grinning.

 “Ready to show Jimmy?” Grian asked.

 “Let’s do it.” Joel said as he handed the shirt he had picked up back to Grian. Grian put his hands together, covering the small outfits as they headed back inside.

 As they closed the door behind them, Jimmy popped his head around the lamp, only fully coming out once he realized it was just Grian and Joel coming back into the room. “Who was that?” Jimmy asked, looking behind them at the door.

 “Just our friend Cleo.” Grian answered. “She stopped by to drop something off.”

 Jimmy blinked in confusion, only because it didn’t appear as though either of them were holding anything. “What did she drop off?”

 Grian and Joel glanced at each other with a grin before Grian knelt down and moved his cupped hands in front of Jimmy. “We’ve got a surprise for you.” And that was all the warning Jimmy got before Grian opened his hand.

 Jimmy came closer and looked to see what Grian was holding, only for his eyes to widen in shock. Jimmy could barely believe it. He slowly reached down and grabbed a shirt, looking and rubbing at the texture. If possible, his eyes widened even more, realizing that not only were these tiny clothes the perfect size for him but they felt exactly like Grian and Joel’s clothes. Soft and comfortable and warm.

 “We tried making them ourselves at first.” Joel’s voice cut through and Jimmy looked up. “But learning to sew is harder than it looks. So then Cleo offered to make them.”

 “But don’t worry.” Grian chimed in before Jimmy could overthink anything. “She just thinks she was making custom doll clothes for my cousin.”

 Jimmy laughed at the same time he could feel some tears start to gather in his eyes. “Do you even have a cousin?” He asked as he wiped away the tears.

 Grian smiled softly. “No, but Cleo doesn’t know that.”

 Jimmy held the shirt close to him. This was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for him. “Thank you. This is…this is amazing.”

 Joel’s smile was also soft as he reached down and gently brushed his fingertips over Jimmy’s back, cupping his hand around him but not grabbing him. Just offering comfort. “Of course. We wanted to do this for you. You deserve to have more than two pairs of clothes.”

 “Yeah. And we’re glad you like them.” Grian said.

 “I love them.” Jimmy corrected and then started looking at the other articles of clothing, feeling them and holding them up to himself. Grian and Joel just watched, happy their surprise had been a big hit.

[buckynats]

Absolutely making shit up as I go. Still finishing the other one and then I have to figure out how to attach them without ruining it all. I actually made my own pattern and cut fabric out to it without crying or panicking this time. So that's progress.

(Ignore how uneven those look, that's my abysmal posture at work. They do actually match in length when I'm standing still. And despite the lighting weirdness, it all matches.)

[five-rivers]

Hobbies

Phic phight! @idiot-cheesehead-archenemy

A series of vignettes about Danny having various hobbies.

(Master the Orb)

Danny exhaled slowly as the ice built up between his hands.  Each new layer glittered in the ghostlight cast by the overhead ambient ectoplasm, embedding complex patterns in the overall piece as new layers built up over it.

“Very good, Great One,” rumbled Frostbite behind his shoulder.  “Your control has improved immensely.”

Danny inhaled equally slowly, examining his work so far but not adding to it quite yet.  “I don’t know.  It looks a little lopsided.”

“Mmm, it looks fine to me.  Especially for such an early attempt.”

Danny sighed, exhaling the ice he had built up with his breath.  “So, it is lopsided.”

“Consider it practice,” said Frostbite, encouragingly. “It takes time to master art of any kind.”

“Humans do ice sculpture, too,” mumbled Danny. “They get really good, too.  I’ve seen pictures.  And videos.  They don’t even have ice powers.”  He rubbed his thumb over the surface, smoothing over a slightly rougher patch.

“That may be true,” said Frostbite, “but, again, you just started, Great One.  You have only had your powers for a little while.  Give yourself some support.”

Danny shrugged.  “I guess it isn’t something my life depends on, so I can relax about it.” He built up another layer of ice. “This is oddly therapeutic, and I don’t say therapeutic lightly.  You know Jazz.”

“I do indeed,” said Frostbite, somewhat ruefully, head half-bowed.  

Jazz could be a force of nature, even more so than ice powers.

He held the ice orb up to the light.  It caught on the patterns he had placed there. Fractals were the easiest.  He was hoping that if he got better, he’d be able to make real sculptures with patterns in them, instead of just orbs.  

But, first, he had to master the orb.  Just like how when drawing you had to do circles first.  Circle. Orb.

Ooorb.  Yep.  

The controlled application of ice.  The evenness of the internal patterns.  The solidity, density, and durability.  

His orb was… not very orblike, despite what Frostbite said.  Frostbite probably thought he was making so flat on purpose.  

Yeah.  He was terrible at this.  

He was having fun, though.  

.

.

 (Furnace)

“You’re taking up glass blowing?” asked Tucker, surprised.

“Yeah?  Is there a problem?” asked Danny, reaching over to stop his friend from accidentally drawing a line of orange sharpie across his poster on the themes in Macbeth.

“No!” said Tucker, quickly.  “But, like, why?  It just seems… unlike you.”

“Exactly,” said Danny, nodding sharply.  “It has absolutely nothing to do with my powers and nothing to do with my family.  Plus, I had a coupon.”

“For glass blowing?”

“It was a groupon,” said Danny.  “For making Christmas tree ornaments.  I’m going to do it with Jazz.”

“But, Danny,” said Sam, looking over from where she was working on her own poster about Twelfth Night, “glass blowing, uh, involves a lot of heat.”

“Sure?”

“Danny, you have an ice core.”

“Ah,” said Danny.  “Well.   I’ve got to use that groupon.  If it doesn’t work out, it’s only the once, right?”

.

“Oh my gosh,” said Danny, wringing sweat out of his t-shirt.  “That was awesome!”  He giggled to himself and peaked into the annealer again.  “So awesome!”

“Uh huh,” said Jazz.  Her attempts had been… rather less successful than Danny’s, partially because she was trying so hard to make them perfect.  But she had managed a few little baubles, nonetheless.  “I think these’ll all be good for the tree. Assuming we get one.”

“And it isn’t set on fire.”

“Oh, yeah, that was a bad year.”

He squeaked open the annealer again, only closing it when the instructor lightly scolded him.  “They’re so terrible and lopsided,” said Danny.  

“Hey,” said Jazz.  “Mine are fine.”

“I know!  I was talking about mine.”

“Ah, okay then.  I agree.”

“You aren’t supposed to agree.”

“What, you want me to lie?  And after you said it first?”

“No,” said Danny.  “But you could be nicer about it.”

“I’m your sister, what do you expect?”

.

.

 (Lung Capacity)

Danny let the last note trail off to complete silence. He stared apprehensively at the assembled student body.  Curse Mr. Lancer’s extra credit talent show assignment.  Any minute now, they’d start laughing at him.  

What was he thinking?  He’d just watched a few YouTube tutorials on breath control, and he thought he could come up here and sing in front of people?  He was a moron, and—

Sam and Tucker started cheering wildly, followed rapidly by everyone else in the gym.  

Okay.  What?

Sam and Tucker, following impulses known only to overexcited teenagers, swarmed up the stage and attacking Danny.  

“Why didn’t you tell us you could sing like that?” demanded Sam.  

“When did you learn?” asked Tucker, doing his level best to noogie Danny.  “Why did you learn?”

“I wanted to improve my, you know, wail,” muttered Danny, “and all the breath control YouTube videos either had to do with diving or singing, so…”  He did a little head wiggle to illustrate his point and also dislodge Tucker.  

“I just can’t believe you kept this a secret from us,” said Sam.  

Danny snorted and took a sort of half bow before attempting to leave the stage.  “My dudes, I am basically made of secrets.”

“Encore!” screamed someone who clearly hated him.  

“Oh, no,” said Danny, bracing himself against Sam and Tucker who were pushing him back into the middle of the stage.  “No encore.  I don’t do encores.”

But now people were chanting.  Chanting.  

“Come on, Danny,” said Tucker.  “Just once!”

“Yeah, these are your fifteen minutes of fame!”

“I had those already!  Multiple times!”

“That was Poindexter.”

“And now it can be you.”

Danny reluctantly took the microphone back off the stand.

.

.

 (Letterhead)

The ink was thick, almost creamy, and paint-like. It was the ectoplasm mix, which also gave it a rich, rosy glow.  

Danny was practicing ghost calligraphy.  Well, one particular subset of ghost calligraphy, one which put special emphasis on the color of the letters as well as how they fit together.  

It was a totally useless hobby.  But it was… not exactly calming.  No.  He’d gotten way too angry about poorly formed arcs and crooked lines a couple of times.  So. Yeah.  Not calming.  But… meditative.  Meditative. And there was something satisfying about seeing the finished product.  

Plus, if he framed his better finished work, they made for good presents for weirdo ghosts.

“You misspelled this,” drawled Ghost Writer.  

“No, I didn’t.”

“Keuwii only has one kei.”

“This is only one kei.”

“What’s this, then?”

“It’s a flourish.”

“A flourish.”

Danny rolled his eyes.  “Everyone’s a critic.  If you don’t want it—”

“I didn’t say that.”

Danny raised an eyebrow.  

Ghost Writer made a show of rolling his eyes. “Very well.  Do you have one for my half-brother Randy.  Perhaps one that says something along the lines of ‘idiot?’”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

.

.

 (Babies on Fire)

“Danny,” said Jazz.  “What are you doing up at three in the morning with a lighter? And… yarn?  Is that yarn?”

“Dad wanted me to learn how to sew,” said Danny, “but I don’t like needles, not the sharp ones, anyway.”

“You get stitches every other week,” pointed out Jazz.

“Exactly,” said Danny, gesturing with the lighter.  “So, I decided to look into, you know, knitting. And I was on knitting websites, and having, you know, a pretty good time with that, but then I found out about the babies.”

“The babies.”

“The babies,” said Danny, seriously.  “And the blankets that are on fire.  It depends on the yarn, you see.  If the yarn is the wrong kind of yarn, if it catches on fire, the blanket can melt onto the baby.  It’s terrible.  Just terrible.”

“I kind of think that if the blanket is on fire you have bigger problems,” said Jazz.  She took a step closer to her obviously insane younger brother.  “Are you… testing the yarn?”

“I have to, Jazz.  It’s for the babies.”

“Alright,” said Jazz.  “You are going to limit it to just the yarn in our house, right?”

“But we don’t have any babies.”

“Okay, that didn’t answer my question, but, like…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Since we don’t have any babies here, why are you testing the yarn?”

“Because we might have babies here in the future,” said Danny.  “Or I might knit something and give it to someone as a gift and then they give it to their baby.  Oh my gosh, I’d feel so guilty.”

“I’d be more worried about the toxic waste in our basement,” said Jazz, which was exactly the wrong thing to say to a sleep-deprived half-ghost on the edge of an Obsession-fueled breakdown.  Danny vanished in a blur, trailing yarn behind him. Jazz, who had only gotten up for a glass of water, cursed under her breath.

.

.

 (Before the Ball)

“I’m so, so sorry, Dora,” said Danny, holding back something adjacent to laughter.  

Dora laughed, more openly.  “It is fine, Sir Phantom.  Even now, you are better than my brother.”

“Am I really?  Your brother?  Who was raised to do this?”

“Well,” said Dora, letting go and stepping back out of the range of Danny’s feet.  Which were, evidently, both left feet.  “No, I’m afraid, but it is amusing to say, isn’t it?”  She pressed her fingers to her lips, suppressing more laughter.  

“Yeah, it is,” admitted Danny.  

“In any case, you are far more graceful concerning your mistakes than he ever was.  More gallant. A better representative of chivalry altogether.”  She patted the shoulders of his shirt.  

“Thanks,” said Danny.  “Do you think that I’ll be, uh, ready in time for the party?”

“It’s more than a party,” said Dora.  “You’re being officially knighted.  You’ll be a peer of the realm.”

“Aha,” said Danny.  “Yeah.  I don’t… what?  Really? That’s a thing?”

“You thought I was joking?”

“No,” said Danny, drawing out the word.  He had, in fact, thought she was joking and only accepted her offer to teach him how to dance because he thought it sounded like fun and like it might take his mind off his problems.  “Of course not.  So. Dancing.  Important.  For first impressions?”

“Everyone already knows you, Phantom,” said the knight assigned as Dora’s bodyguard.  “But dancing is surprisingly useful for swordplay.  Which you need all the help you can get at.”

“You said I was getting better.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re good.”

“Ouch.”

.

.

 (Time)

“I don’t have time for a hobby,” complained Danny through the Fenton Phones.  “Maybe if the ghosts let up a bit—” He zapped one of said ghosts.  

“Danny, are you fighting ghosts right now?”

“Yeah.  That’s my point.”

“Oh my god, get off the phone.”

“No way!  This is the only time I can call you, what with all of your classes.”

“Danny…” said Jazz, clearly exasperated.  He took advantage of the lull in the conversation to blast a few more ghosts.  

“I’m fine Jazz.”

“You are not fine.  You are, like, ten thousand miles away from fine.  When was the last time you even slept through the night?”

“Eh,” said Danny.  “Recently?”

“You need to take more time for yourself.”

Danny sighed and captured the last ghost.  “Maybe catching ghosts is my hobby.”

“Catching ghosts is your self-imposed penance for doing something that isn’t even your fault.  Not a hobby.”

“Okay, okay.  I’ll talk to you on Wednesday, same time.”

“Danny, don’t—”

He hung up.  

“Ugh,” said Danny.  “I guess I need to find a hobby.  Have to find time to find a hobby.”

“Perhaps I could be of help.”

“Ah!”  Danny jolted forward, dropping his phone.  

Clockwork gestured with one hand, and the phone dropped back into Danny’s hands from above.  

“Ohhh my ghost, why are you here?”

“You were just talking about finding time.  And now I’m here.”

“Good timing, I guess?”

“Only the best,” said Clockwork, evenly.  “But we were speaking of hobbies.  Might I suggest ice sculpture?  Your friends in the Far Frozen would be more than happy to teach you...”

[hualianff]

ASMR/Streamer AU

Thinking about an AU with video-game streamer HC and ASMRist XL. Both have huge followings on Youtube and other social media; both never show their faces.

On his channel, MantouASMR, XL uses audio from everyday things like cutting fruit or typing at his computer. Other times, he plans out a general script to help his viewers sleep or motivate them for the day. XL writes and reads his own poetry, as well as sings on his channel too.

XL strives to be the most attentive and considerate content creator. He is constantly reading his viewers’ comments and taking up their suggestions for future videos. Anything to help his viewers get through their day or lift their mood.

(One time, XL read a comment from the parent of a child who was MantouASMR’s superfan. XL’s voice apparently helped their son sleep when he’s scared of the monster under his bed. In his next “Time to Sleep” video, XL iterated a short thank you message for the son and his parent for listening and watching his videos, and he hoped he could continue helping in the future.)

(Another time, XL read a comment from a student who said his voice helped her concentrate on her maths homework—though she mentioned she still doesn’t understand integrals and derivatives. The following day, XL uploaded an ASMR math lesson.)

XL’s voice is known to be very soothing, his whispers as airy and delicate as a spring breeze. His lower register is smooth like honey, and anyone who happens to hear his melodious laughs on a live stream instantly falls in love with his character.

On the other hand, HC’s voice is enticingly deep but has a deadly edge to it. He has no shortage of vulgar language, especially when it comes to playing with other streamers. When HC posts an occasional video that’s not video-game-related such as a rare Q&A, he’s somewhat more pleasant.

Of course, HC is incredibly grateful for his followers’ support. He just finds himself involved in too much internet bullshit even when he respectfully minds his own business. HC supposes that it comes with being China’s number one video game streamer—Crimson Rain Ghost King—watched by millions all around the globe. However, this doesn’t stop HC from being vocal about his opinions and expressing himself without giving a fuck what others thought.

Naturally, HC and XL are in completely separate circles on the Youtube platform. As far as their fans are concerned, a mellow ASMRist and a brash gamer don’t interact with each other...

Here’s the catch: Hualian are secretly married.

XL and HC have been together for over ten years now—married for just under three years. They felt no need to disclose their full relationship when HC began gaining popularity as a streamer, nor when XL’s channel tripled in size a few years later.

In his lives, XL often mentions his mysterious husband a lot. For the third anniversary of his channel, XL retells his wedding day. The picture for the video is of HC’s and his intertwined hands with a red string attaching their middle fingers.

HC was the first one to subscribe to XL’s channel (from a side account). He never fails to remind XL that “Gege has many gifts to share with the world.”

Out of nowhere, a trashy review journal bashes XL’s videos, calling them unoriginal and lowkey creepy because XL is “...a full-grown man whispering random shit that people love for some reason.” HC tries to keep XL from reading the article, but he’s too late. What’s worse is that other media sites speculate XL’s identity after, trying to expose him.

XL has experienced media backlash in the past. This event has him revisiting trauma where he nearly lost everyone in his life. He also went through severe depression and has developed major anxiety since then. One of the main reasons XL started his Youtube channel was because he wanted to be the person of comfort he wished he had had during those dark times.

Witnessing how affected XL is by the article and online hate, HC’s already-thin patience is close to snapping. That specific journal does nothing but writes drama-seeking shit about creators with a notable platform–HC included. Not that he gives a fuck about it.

Except they made XL their next target, and that is unacceptable. HC promptly makes a video grilling the hell out of the journal and the writer who published the article, making it very clear that, “Whoever reads and supports this bullshit are the scum of the Earth.”

HC uploads the video, then proceeds to make a XL-care-burrito. He feeds his husband, keeps him warm, and cuddles him all day. After dinner, XL feels renewed with energy, thoroughly enjoying his Saturday with his biggest, most devoted fan. XL decisively unwraps himself from the burrito and goes to make that sewing tutorial ASMR video he planned for the weekend.

HC’s viewers are once again curious as to if he has connections to XL. They begin digging up evidence but after the short investigation, it seems not to be the case.

Of the two instances XL couldn’t edit out him saying his husband’s name on live, no one seemed to agree on what the two muffled syllables were. XL never shows above his chest (he wears a facemask in case of a slip-up) or goes into too much detail with his stories. Both XL and HC’s other social media accounts are squeaky clean. Plus, you can count on one hand how many times HC has mentioned anything about his personal life.

Their fans stop their analysis, for the most part; XL’s viewers adamant about protecting his privacy and HC’s viewers not wanting to piss their idol off.

With Youtube being an important and time-consuming side of their life, XL and HC make sure to balance their personal, professional, and romantic lives as best as they can, or re-evaluate priorities when things begin to go downhill.

In addition to streaming, HC works as an animator for a respectable company. He has flexible work conditions and schedules.

HC during his stream debuting a new popular game: “I helped make this game, of course I know what I’m doing.” XL watches from the side wearing an adoring and proud smile.

XL is an open and free-spirited soul, so he switches side jobs often such as a barista, salesman, model, etc.

HC’s other hobbies include photography, music, traditional art, and bowling. (He has impeccable aim for obvious reasons.) XL enjoys seeing his friends (SQX, MUA; MQ, lawyer; FX, lawyer), cooking, reading, and skateboarding.

Extras:

-HC often streams with XL in his lap.

-Hualian create NSFW ASMR for themselves.

-(HC in their bed, listening to one of XL’s ASMR videos...

XL, smiling like a minx and slipping into bed shirtless: “Why watch my video when you have the real thing right here?”)

-Someone edits a comedic video with XL and HC’s voices, comparing their styles and approaches to speech. It garners lots of attention for their respective channels, the hashtag #mantouxcrimson ??? trending for a few days.

Video title: You’re friends with both Mantou Gege and Crimson Rain

(In the video)

Situation 1: You haven’t started your homework and it’s already midnight.

XL’s voice: “Whatever you do, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You can’t do things well if your mind is unwell. Try to finish the things that need to be done, but be kind to yourself~~”

HC’s voice: “You little fucker, what have you been doing this whole time!? If you don’t do your job in the next five seconds, I’ll make sure to bury your worthless dead body where no one can find you-“

(Brainchild with @no-one-says-hi)

[noona-clock]

What’s Your Sign?: Sagittarius

Genre: Celebrity!AU

Pairing: Choi Minho x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Words: 5,534

Author’s Note: Since I’m so fascinated by astrology, I decided to do a Zodiac series! I will be writing a one-shot fic for each sign featuring different members from different groups (and even an actor!). Each story will be posted on the 5th of the month during that sign’s season. Please reblog, comment, or send in an ask with your feedback! Thank you for your support 💜

Ever since you’d seen him in his first ever role on a television series about five years ago, you’d fallen in love with Minho.

Choi Minho, probably the most attractive man you’d ever seen. Through a screen, at least. You hadn’t yet been lucky enough to see him in person.

And since you’d fallen in love with him after watching his very first episode of that television series, you’d done nothing but support him for the last several years.

You saw every one of his movies the day it released in theatres. You watched every single episode of every single television show he appeared in -- even if he was just a guest star.

His popularity from his first role had soared pretty quickly, which was really a win/win scenario. Minho, who presumably had been a struggling actor previously, was now flush with offers from directors. And you, an immediate superfan, got to spend a lot of virtual time with your new favorite actor -- because, not only did he act in a very large handful of projects every year, he was also interviewed on talk shows, featured in magazines, walking the red carpet of premieres and award shows. He didn’t have a social media presence for some extremely odd reason, but you still felt like you knew him.

From everything you’d seen and read about him, Minho was outgoing, friendly, and charismatic. He was confident, straight-forward, and optimistic. He basically always had some version of a smile on his lips, and based on many posts in the Choi Minho subreddit, he never turned down an opportunity to meet a fan out in public.

He... was basically perfect.

And you couldn’t stop yourself from daydreaming about one day meeting him, falling in love, getting married, and having about ten children together in the most beautiful house in the universe.

But, to be fair, your daydream wasn’t entirely impossible!

You were a bit of a celebrity, yourself!

Kind of.

On the Internet.

You had started a YouTube Channel six years ago, and at first, you hadn’t really had a clear vision for your videos. An absolutely rookie mistake, of course, but there’s nothing you could do about it now.

You’d started off with makeup tutorials because that had been the hottest YouTube trend at the time. But... you quickly discovered you weren’t as good at makeup as one should be to post a tutorial online in good conscience. You also weren’t quite good enough at doing your nails, cooking, or sewing to do videos about those.

For at least a few months, you’d been stumped. You knew you wanted your own YouTube channel -- you had a pretty fitting personality for it -- you just didn’t have any one marketable skill.

Until, one day, you stumbled upon a video of a guy watching a K-Pop music video for the first time and reacting to it. That was literally it. The whole video had been just him watching and talking about it.

And you were very good at that. You loved watching things on a screen -- YouTube videos, television shows, movies, you name it! And you always had thoughts running through your head while you watched something. In fact, you frequently wished one of your friends had exactly the same taste in music, shows, and movies as you so you could voice those thoughts aloud to someone who actually wanted to listen.

So, how had you never thought of doing that on your YouTube channel?! There was obviously a market for it -- the guy you’d watched had a few hundred thousand subscribers, and since it was something you genuinely enjoyed doing, you weren’t afraid of running out of content inspiration or motivation any time soon.

It was literally the perfect idea.

The next day, you had set up your camera, pulled up the first episode of your favorite television show of all time, and got to work. When you posted the video a few hours later (Re-watching my FAVORITE show of all time), something about it just felt right. Like the stars had aligned. No matter if you got five views or five thousand, you knew you were on the right path -- when it came to YouTube, at least.

Every day after that, you chose something else to watch -- a nostalgic movie, a viral YouTube video, the really cheesy musical episode of a television show. You tried to pick things from all along the spectrum, and you also tried to wait a few days in-between continuing on with your re-watch of your favorite show, simply for variety’s sake.

Little by little, your channel began to grow. After work, you would film, edit, and post -- every single day. On the weekends, you would film two different videos in case you ever needed to take a day off. Or in case you just felt like posting two videos!

Your first sponsorship offer email had come about six months after you’d posted your first video, and your eyes had nearly fell out of your head when you’d seen how much they’d offered you. (Looking back, your first paying YouTube gig really hadn’t been that much money -- compared to what you could make now, at least -- but it had still been incredibly thrilling.) And, really, that had been the catalyst of your YouTube career and popularity. It seemed just the one sponsorship had been all you’d needed to catch the attention of other brands who wanted to work with you, and when you got to the point where you could actually afford to quit your job and turn down sponsorship offers you weren’t wild about? That’s when you knew you’d made it.

Okay, but really, you knew you’d made it when one of your videos hit one million views for the first time (a video of you watching a particularly cringe-worthy teen movie from about ten years ago).

And now, six years later, you had almost four million subscribers, and your most viewed video had almost twenty million views. Sometimes, you still couldn’t believe it!

The highlight of your time on YouTube so far -- at least, in your eyes -- had been when you’d seen Choi Minho for the first time about a year after starting your channel. You’d still had less then one-hundred thousand subscribers back then, so if anyone ever left on a comment on a video mentioning how long you’d been a Minho fangirl or remembering when you first discovered him, you knew they were an OG subscriber. But ever since that video, you did absolutely nothing to hide your affinity for him, both as an actor and as a person. You watched and reacted to every single one of his movies and every single television show episode -- you even sometimes reacted to interviews or videos other fans had made about him.

Even when your channel hit some pretty big milestones -- five-hundred thousand subscribers, one million, two million, three million subscribers -- you never played it cool when it came to Choi Minho. You switched up your content and your editing style here and there, but one constant on your YouTube channel was the fact you let your inner fangirl shine for all the world to see.

In fact, just last month, the trailer for his new movie dropped, and you were able to upload your reaction to it within two hours. Since then, you’d read and watched every interview you could find, favorited every tweet about the upcoming film, and liked every post on the #ChoiMinho hashtag on Instagram. Since he had no social media, you had to be satisfied with other people’s content rather than his own.

You were scrolling through his hashtag on Instagram right now, actually, as you procrastinated getting out of bed to go set up for another day of filming.

Now that you had almost four million subscribers and were approached by more than several companies for sponsorships every single day, you were able to focus on your channel full-time. You definitely got cabin fever from time to time, but it was worlds better than filming after work and on weekends. Now, you could actually take a day off whenever you wanted! It was glorious!

But you still procrastinated working. You were still human, after all.

After you caught up on his hashtag and liked just about every picture you could, you navigated to your inbox to look through your DMs. Over the years, it had gotten pretty easy to skip past the spam and sugar daddy requests (which were plentiful, unfortunately), so you no longer dreaded checking the unread messages. You could usually tell which ones to delete straight away from the profile picture and first few words alone.

To be quite honest, you really only opened ones where you either could tell someone was genuinely reaching out to say hi or thank you for posting your videos or... messages with Minho’s name visible in the preview. Shameless, but oh well!

After deleting a few messages at the top which were clearly spam, the next one you came to was actually one of those messages -- you saw ‘Minho’ in the preview. It was the very first word, even! And in all caps.

You pressed on it as quickly as you could.

And when your eyes took in the rest of the message... your heart stopped.

MINHO WATCHED ONE OF YOUR VIDEOS!

...This had to be a prank, right?

But right after the message in all capital letters was a link to a YouTube video, and the preview for the video was right below the message.

It was one of those videos put out by a big fashion magazine where celebrities watch videos about them and react to it. Usually, musicians and singers would react to covers of their songs by fans, but every once in a while, actors would read tweets or watch fanmade videos about them.

And when you clicked on the link this person had sent, the video opened in your YouTube app to show the title “Choi Minho Watches Fan Videos on YouTube,” and your eyes widened.

If what the Instagram message said was true... Minho had watched not only a fan video... but your fan video. And since his movie was premiering in just a couple of days, he had most likely watched your reaction to the trailer.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Since the video had started automatically after clicking the link, you took a deep breath and concentrated all of your focus on your phone screen. You were not going to miss the part where he watched your video.

But, of course, after not even thirty seconds, you found you had already gotten distracted by how handsome he looked.

You quickly shook your head a bit, widening your eyes briefly before narrowing them to focus on your screen again. “Come on, Y/N,” you muttered to yourself. “You can watch it again right after this to admire him.”

It was only a fifteen-minute video, so it’s not like you had to wait forever to get to the part where he watched you!

Still, though, as the minutes ticked by, you felt your heart begin to race in anticipation.

What would he say about you? Would he find your obsession with him creepy? I mean, it had to be a little creepy watching someone squeal and profess their love for you -- someone you’d never met!

But, then... when you got really mushy comments... most of the time, it didn’t feel creepy. It just felt sweet, and you were incredibly grateful that a lot of your subscribers and viewers were so supportive.

Ugh! You were getting off track again!

You shook your head once more and set your gaze back onto your phone screen.

Finally, when the clip of Minho watching a fanmade music video transitioned into the clip of him watching your video, your breath caught in your throat.

Were you going to survive this?

Outcome is unclear.

“Oh, yeah, I know her,” Minho said as your trailer reaction video began to play in the corner. “She’s the reaction girl, right?”

Your jaw dropped.

................Excuse me?!

Minho knew you?!

As you watched Minho watching you with the most adorable soft grin on his lips, your hand slowly crept up to cover your mouth in shock.

And, then, when you in the video paused the trailer to bring up another one of his movies that this trailer had reminded you of, his grin widened and he looked very pleased. “She knows her stuff, huh?”

You heard someone behind the camera murmuring something, and subtitles appeared on the screen. “She’s a known superfan, actually.”

Minho’s brow furrowed and he leaned toward the camera. “She’s what?”

“A superfan,” the person repeated, a little bit louder. “She’s known to her viewers for watching all of your movies and shows. There are always comments about you on all of her videos.”

Minho’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Really? All of them? Comments about me?” He leaned back and nodded slowly after, apparently, receiving a positive answer. “I had no idea. I’ve just seen her videos about, like, the cheesy teen movies we watched as kids.”

You truly almost dropped your phone.

So... he knew who you were, but he hadn’t known that you fangirled over him on a regular basis?

First of all, how was that possible?

Second of all, did it really matter?! He knew who you were!

He knew who you were!

You didn’t expect that he regularly watched your videos, but still.

HE KNEW WHO YOU WERE!

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you watched him finish up watching your reaction video. The look on his face was one of delight, and even though you knew he was a good actor, it sure didn’t seem like he was simply pretending not to be creeped out.

“She’s so fun,” he smiled as your video ended, his gaze shifting back to the person he had spoken with earlier. “She has more? Like, for my movies?”

The person mumbled something back, and this time, there were no subtitles on the bottom of the video. But Minho’s eyebrows shot up immediately.

“All of my movies?” he asked. And then he let out a joyous chuckle and added, “No way.”

He quickly turned to the computer and clicked on your channel name.

But the video transitioned into another clip of someone else’s video, so you didn’t get to see if he actually watched any other ones.

Even if he hadn’t, you were still overjoyed -- to say the least -- that he had watched just one!

He knew who you were! He had actually known who you were before this which was probably the most surprising thing you’d ever heard in your entire life. (Besides the fact that Minho was currently single. That was definitely more surprising than anything.)

After sitting in your bed for a few minutes, staring blankly at your screen as the video finished up, your gaze unfocused and blurry, you finally came to when you realized the video had ended.

And then you proceeded to freak out.

You squealed and shrieked and kicked your legs and rolled around and scrambled to your feet to jump up and down on your bed with glee.

Was this the best day of your life?

Quite possibly!

Once you’d calmed down just a tad, you plopped back into a sitting position, crossing your legs into a pretzel as you navigated back to Instagram.

You sent a reply to the person who’d sent you the video (”OH MY GOD THANK YOU HE KNOWS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) and then refreshed your inbox.

As expected, a whole new slew of messages came through and literally every single one seemed to be about the video.

Your lips split into a huge grin, and just before you clicked on a random one to read and reply to it... you noticed that one message had a blue check by the sender.

Pausing, you shifted your gaze to that message.

And your heart jumped up into your throat when you recognized the name of the account.

Obviously, it wasn’t Minho himself because he didn’t have one.

But it was the next best thing.

His management company.

You followed them, of course, and liked every single picture about him or with him. Of course!

But you had never gathered up the courage to message them. You’d had no reason to! What would you have said?

And now they were messaging you.

The several days following the video of Minho watching your video had been... a blur. To say the least.

You still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

I mean, you knew you were here because Minho’s management company had direct messaged you on Instagram inviting you to the premiere of his movie and you had accepted without one millisecond of hesitation and then you’d gotten on a plane a couple of days later and then checked into a super nice hotel and had a stylist and makeup artist sent to your room and after many hours you now looked better than you ever had in your entire life.

That’s how you got here.

But you still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

A rather large stroke of luck?

Good karma?

Hard work to grow your YouTube channel into something that would make you more easily recognizable by actual celebrities and their management companies?

Or a combination of the three?

Either way, you were overwhelmed with gratitude, and you knew you would never be able to forget this experience -- even if you, for some odd reason, wanted to.

I mean, you were currently in a really nice car, and the driver (yes, you had a driver!) was taking you to the red carpet.

The red carpet!

An actual movie premiere! With an actual red carpet!

And the movie was Minho’s movie.

You were at the premiere of Minho’s movie.

Oh my god, what if you saw him?!

As the car rolled to a stop in front of a crowded theatre, your heart and stomach dropped down to your very expensive and gorgeous shoes.

You’d gone to somewhat fancy events before -- it came with the job of being a YouTuber -- but never anything like this. Never an actual movie premiere. Never the chance of seeing your favorite actor in the history of time. And, obviously, never walking a red carpet.

Your door magically opened just as the car stopped moving, and a hand popped out of nowhere to assist you in exiting the vehicle. As gracefully as you could, you slipped your fingers into the mysterious palm, allowing it to gently pull you up and out of your seat and onto the sidewalk.

Almost immediately, camera clicks, light bulb flashes, and inquiring voices filled the air.

Cameras and lights in your face, you were used to. It was your everyday life, in fact!

But... all these people? Looking at you? Watching you? Taking pictures of you?

I mean, yeah, a few million people watched your videos. But it was absolutely not the same as a hundred or so reporters and photographers standing right in front of you.

Thankfully, some short but very powerful woman guided you onto the red carpet, muttering to you that all you had to do was stand in front of the backdrop, pose and smile for the cameras, and then move on to the next mark. Some reporters from news and entertainment channels would be waiting along the way to interview you (which didn’t scare you quite so much as you’d been interviewed a few times before), and all in all, it would take about an hour.

But it took you way less than an hour to discover that walking a red carpet is not as glamorous as it looks on television.

Walking like your shoes were covered in almost-frozen molasses so every photo taken was a good one. Switching back and forth between facial expressions so every photo taken wasn’t the same one. And do you know how many good places there are to put your hands when posing for a picture? Exactly two. One was on your hip and the other at your side. That was it. Definitely not clasped in front of or behind you, and definitely not tucking your hair behind your ear.

And just when you were sort of getting used to the constant posing for pictures, another short but powerful woman gently grabbed your arms and led you to a reporter from the most-watched entertainment news channel in the country.

“Hello, hello!” the perky reporter chirped as you approached her. “Come on over here!”

“Hi,” you greeted awkwardly as you made your way to the small mark on the ground next to her, holding up your skirt with one hand so you wouldn’t trip.

“Y/N! Good evening, good evening, how are you doing?” she asked before sticking the microphone in your face.

You had to quickly get over the shock of her knowing your name since you didn’t want to look like a fool on live television, so you forced a grin on your lips and answered, “I’m pretty overwhelmed, actually!” you chuckled.

“Is this your first time at a red carpet?”

“It is, yes,” you confirmed with a slight nod. “And I’m so used to being alone in my house, talking to myself in front of a camera, so this is all new territory for me.”

The reporter laughed with delight before asking which designer you were wearing. You answered her with ease since your stylist had drilled it into your brain before you’d left the hotel.

Then, after she asked you to tell the folks at home what you’re known for, she said, “It’s a pretty fun story of how you got here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is,” you answered, your lips pulling into a shy but excited grin. “I woke up one morning to a message on Instagram, and someone had sent me --”

The reporter interrupted you then, and you noticed her gaze was directed over your shoulder. You turned to look, and --

Well, the next few moments happened so quickly, you really had no idea how you reacted.

“Y/N!” Minho called out, smiling widely and waving before reaching out and sliding his hands over your shoulders. He stood next to you, squeezing you once before letting his arms drop down to his side. “I’m so sorry for interrupting --”

“No, we were just talking about why she’s here at your premiere!”

Minho’s smile brightened even more, and he continued on with the story you’d been telling.

Meanwhile, you were standing there. Mute. Staring at him.

Because oh my god.

How was it actually possible that Minho was more handsome in real life?

But also, how was it actually possible that Minho was standing next to you in real life?

But also also, how was it actually possible that Minho was real?

That’s the real question, isn’t it?

You came to when you heard him say, “Yes, this is our first time meeting,” before turning to you and holding out his hand for a handshake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

You took his hand, shaking it weakly, and said the first thing that came to your mind: “Oh my god, hi.”

The reporter giggled, but Minho, instead of acting embarrassed for you, simply let go of your hand and moved to pull you into a hug.

Holy cannoli, Minho was hugging you.

Choi Minho. Was hugging. You.

Hugging!

You!

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” he repeated with a grin after pulling away, though he was still incredibly close to you and gazing at you with those sparkling, dreamy eyes of his.

“You, too,” you managed to reply shakily.

The reporter then went on to interview Minho, asking him who had designed his suit, what his character in this new movie was like, and if he was working on any new projects.

“I’m in the early stages of something, yes,” he answered. “I don’t think I can say too much more, but in the meantime, I think I’d really like to film some videos with Y/N, branch out onto social media.”

Your heart stopped, and you knew your facial expression was doing nothing to hide your surprise.

Minho then turned to you with an adorably guilty look on his face. “I mean, if it’s alright with you, of course.”

“Yes, absolutely!” you burst out immediately, and the reporter giggled once again.

“Well, there you have it, guys,” she said after turning to face the camera. “You heard it here first -- a brand new collaboration in the works, so keep an eye out.”

She turned to you then and asked you to remind the viewers of the name of your YouTube channel. You leaned into the microphone and silently praised the lord you were able to remember it.

“Thanks so much, you two,” the reporter said with a very peppy grin. “Have a wonderful evening!”

“You, as well,” Minho answered before putting a hand in-between your shoulder blades and guiding you back to the red carpet.

Wait, he was guiding you back to the red carpet? He wasn’t... leaving?

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured in your ear, his breath causing the most delicious tingle down your spine. “I swear I wasn’t trying to be rude, I just wanted to meet you --”

“No,” you shook your head slightly. “It’s -- it’s totally fine. It wasn’t rude at all. I’m -- I just -- I’m a little overwhelmed. In a good way!”

“Totally understand. I remember my first movie premiere like it was yesterday, I know exactly how you’re feeling.”

You simply let out a nervous chuckle, but then Minho did something to make you even more nervous (which you hadn’t even been sure was possible).

He bent his arm and held out the crook of his elbow toward you.

“Shall we?”

Okay, you were now convinced this was a dream. This was all a wonderful, perfect, heavenly dream.

There was just no way that any of this could happen in real life! Being invited to Minho’s movie premiere was one thing, but him interrupting your interview on the red carpet and mentioning he wanted to film a YouTube video with you? Him offering to actually walk the red carpet with you on his arm?!

Nope. Definitely not real.

So, since this was absolutely a dream, you figured you’d just go with it!

“We shall,” you replied as a soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

You slid your hand into the crook of Minho’s elbow, and the two of you slowly made your way down the red carpet. Together.

It didn’t take long for you to be awed by his professionalism. When the cameras began to flash, he posed like a natural. It seemed so easy for him, but you figured it probably was easy after going through this so many times. 

He murmured helpful hints and reassuring words to you as you struggled through, and he even insisted on doing his interviews with you by his side.

(Of course, before the two of you approached each reporter, he asked you quietly if you would rather have the spotlight all to yourself. He didn’t want to usurp your first experience on the red carpet and would gladly step away so you could finish the process on your own. You declined every single time.)

When you finally reached the entrance to the theatre about an hour later, you figured Minho would say it had been nice to meet you and be on his way.

But you should’ve remembered that this was a dream!

“Do you want to come inside? We can sit together during the movie if you want. I mean, you’re pretty much my unofficial date already, but you can absolutely say ‘no’ if you don’t --”

“I would love to,” you interrupted, your voice more sure and firm than it had been all evening.

But hearing your favorite actor and biggest crush of all time declare that you were his date for the night would do that to you. Plus, Minho literally exuded confidence and warmth -- you’d always thought so while watching him on a screen, and it was both relieving and exciting to learn he was exactly the same in real life.

Minho smiled at you and then led you into the theatre, your heart now basically in a constant state of flips and somersaults.

Once the two of you took your seats in front of the screen, Minho turned slightly toward you.

“I have to admit, I’ve been watching your videos a lot since I filmed the reaction for the magazine,” he said with the most attractive half-smile you’d ever seen in your life. “Seriously, thank you so much for being so supportive.”

“Oh my god, no, thank you,” you replied breathlessly. “I can’t believe you watched my videos.”

“They’re kind of addicting,” he chuckled. “I don’t know what it is, but I definitely understand why you have so many subscribers. I actually created my own YouTube account just so I could subscribe to you.”

Your eyes widened, and your heart actually stopped somersaulting because it stopped beating altogether.

“Are you serious?” you asked.

“You’re so entertaining! It feels like watching those movies and shows with a friend. And I like how you’re really honest but still nice about it. You don’t seem to have a cruel bone in your body.”

“Uh, no, I think you’re getting me mixed up with yourself,” you replied with a somewhat awkward laugh.

Minho simply grinned at you, and the somersaults started back up inside your chest.

“I was serious about wanting to film with you, though,” he said, eyebrows raised earnestly. “I would love to collab --”

“Yes, absolutely,” you reassured him as fervently as you could. “Literally whenever. Please. Yes.”

“Okay, good,” Minho chuckled before reaching into his pocket and sliding out his phone. “Here, give me your number so I can let you know when I’m free next.”

You hesitated before accepting his phone because...

What?!

Minho was giving you his phone. His actual phone. So you could put in your number? Your number?

This night just kept getting more and more unbelievable.

But you were never in a million years going to pass up the opportunity to give Choi Minho your phone number, so you took his phone and quickly added yourself as a contact.

“Perfect,” Minho murmured, almost to himself, when you handed his phone back to him. He looked at the screen for a few moments, and you noticed a soft grin pulling at his lips. And then he shifted his gaze over to you and said, “I can’t wait.”

And... as your eyes locked on his...

You had a moment.

A moment.

One of those moments you will never, ever forget as long as you lived.

One of those moments where your future basically flashed before your eyes.

Minho arriving at your house to film a video with you, a friendship forming, late night texts and phone conversations, going out to restaurants whenever he was in town... a more than friendship forming.

And you truly could’ve sworn this was not just your heart wishing, but... you honestly felt like you were going to marry this man.

“I can’t either,” you replied softly just before the lights went down.

The first thing you did when you got home was set up your camera and film a video relaying everything about your experience at Minho’s movie premiere.

Of course, you didn’t mention The Moment -- y’know, the moment you had when you realized you were most probably going to marry him? And you could just feel that it wasn’t wishful thinking? You figured it was probably best to keep that to yourself for now.

But everything else you shared with your subscribers, and you did nothing to hide how wonderful and magical it had all been -- and it had really been Minho which had made it so perfect.

“And you guys, he is truly exactly the same in person as he seems in, like, interviews and stuff. He’s so nice and so friendly and so warm and so gracious and --”

But you were interrupted by a text message.

Most of the time, you left your phone on silent as you filmed, but you’d been too excited to get all of your thoughts out that you’d forgotten to switch the sound off before turning the camera on.

“Whoops,” you murmured as you reached for your phone on your desk in front of you.

Instead of simply turning your phone on silent, though, the actual text message you’d received caught your eye and was too intriguing to ignore.

It was from a number you didn’t have saved, but your instinct to read the first few words of a message from an unknown sender took over... and you were incredibly glad it did.

Because the message was:

Hey, it’s Minho 😁 Are you free next week?

OTHER SIGNS: ARIES, TAURUS, GEMINI, CANCER, LEO, VIRGO, LIBRA, SCORPIO, CAPRICORN, AQUARIUS, PISCES

[allweneedissix]

A Target Run: Six the Musical Fanfiction

The queens needed to go to Target. Usually, just two or three of them would go, but it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and everyone seemed like they needed an outing. At least, that’s what Catherine said.

“Yes! I want Starbucks!” Kat was almost singing.

So Catherine got her list from the kitchen and they all piled into their SUV. As Anna drove, Catherine went over some of the things that they needed to buy.

“And lastly, granola for the yogurt. Does anyone have any particular requests?” 

Anne raised her hand.

“No, Anne, we are not buying any more Five Hour Energy drinks. Last time was a disaster.”

Anne put her hand down, and Anna patted her leg consolingly.

After they got into the building, Catherine immediately got out the list and headed for the grocery section. Kat goes for the Starbucks line and grabbed Cathy’s hand.

“C’mon, Cathy! You look like you need a boost, and I know you haven’t had Starbucks before. You’ll love this coffee!” Kat was insistent.

Cathy shrugged. She didn’t have anything in particular to shop for anyway.

Anne looked at Anna. “Wanna have some fun?”

“Absolutely.” 

They walked off at a pace that made Jane very suspicious. She decided to go after them, but as she turned the corner to follow them, she found that they had disappeared. Well, she had to run into them eventually! She picks a random direction, unintentionally going the direct opposite way from the other girls.

==

“Ok, so the frappuccino is kinda like coffee, but a lot sweeter, and iced and blended. It’s honestly more like ice cream.” Kat giggled. “And we already went over what the refreshers are, even though they aren’t technically coffee. Any questions so far?”

Cathy shook her head. “Really, Kat. Black coffee is fine. Any coffee fine.”  

“But Cathy! Starbucks is too special to just have black coffee. Here, let me tell you what a mocha is, you might like it!”

==

Catherine stood silently, looking at the granola. Should she get the smaller kind? The one with chunks of nuts? No, Kat is allergic to nuts. The one with dried berries? Maybe, but would that work with the yogurt that she was going to buy? What about the nutrition factors!?

“Anne! We need to go try out the switch in the video game department!”

“Yes! I bet you three oatmeal creme pies that I can beat you at super smash bros.”

Anna almost looked offended, but she shook Anne’s hand nevertheless. Behind them, Jane wandered in between the aisle Anne and Anna were in without noticing them.

“Hey Anna, was that Jane?”

“I don’t think so. She usually sticks with Cathy or Kat.”

==

Cathy was getting exasperated. “Kat! For the last time, I appreciate your commentary, and I’m sure whatever a macchiato is, it’s delicious, but can I just get a coffee?”

“Cathy a macchiato is a coffee! Now should I get two or three shots in my iced caramel latte?”

“No-”

==

Jane passed the exercise equipment for the third time. Was this area familiar? She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that she just heard Anna. Oh, well. She was sure that those two were up to something, but she’d just have to keep looking.

“Ok, just because you beat me at Smash this one time doesn’t mean-”

“You’re just bitter, Anne. But I will give you a chance to redeem yourself in with a bomb shopping cart ride.”

“You’re on. Hey,” Anne looked around. “Did you just see Jane?”

“Was she with anyone else?”

“No” 

“Then it probably wasn’t her.” 

Anne shrugged. “Ok.”

==

Kat ordered first, then Cathy. Kat went over to the other end of the counter to wait for her drink. 

“Cathy, what did you end up ordering?” Kat said excitedly.

“A black coffee.” 

“That’s boring!”

“I thought you’d say that. That’s why I got it with cream AND sugar.” 

Kat shook her head. “Whatever floats your boat, I guess.” She grabbed her grande iced caramel latte with two shots and an extra pump of caramel. “I think I’m going to go look for Catherine to help her with the groceries. Do you want to stay here?”

Cathy looked toward the seat by the window and thought of the new book in her purse. “Yeah, if you’re sure that you’ll be alright by yourself.”

“I will!” Kat walked purposefully towards the grocery section.

==

Catherine had narrowed it down to three bags of granola. They were all nutritious and had equal promises of deliciousness, but now it came down to value. She pulled out her pocket calculator.

==

Jane had given up on finding Anne and Anna. They can’t get into that much trouble, can they? She was currently searching for Catherine, or Kat, or anyone, really. But she wasn’t actually nervous, which was surprising, but she would still rather be with someone. Behind her, a cart races by with Anna in the cart, and Anne pushing at top speed. 

“Hey, was that Jane?”

“Nah.”

==

Kat went toward the health section alone (she figured that’s where Catherine would be), having left Cathy at Starbucks seating area with her book. She had assured, Cathy that she’d be fine, but in reality was more than a little anxious, and maybe that double shot in her coffee hadn’t been a great idea after all. She was almost to the cereal section when she thought she saw Jane out of the corner of her eye. She whipped around, knowing how Jane tended to wander. She went down the aisle that she thought Jane had gone down, and barely saw her blonde hair disappear around the corner. “Jane?”

==

“Anne! Slow down!”

“Slowing down is for the weak! I want a rematch at Smash Bros!”

“FINE! Just slow down, because if we crash, I’m the one who will go flying!”

“Well you know what they say, right?” Anne said slyly. 

Anna had a bad feeling about this. “What?”

Anne sped up. “It do be like that sometimes.”

==

Catherine thought she saw a cart speeding by out of the corner of her eye. She shook her head. What idiots would be dumb enough to race around in a cart when there was a large display of tomato soup right down the next aisle? Anyhow, it didn’t matter, because she had finally decided on a bag of granola. She went to set it down it the cart when she saw it: what could very well possibly be a better deal!

==

Cathy actually couldn’t be more content. She had a hot coffee, a good book, some solitude, and a seat by the window. And it had started to rain! Perfect. She sighed and took a sip of her coffee. Her phone dinged, and she saw that it was the group Snapchat that Kat had made them last month. It was a video from Anna. She opened it to see the front of a cart going faster than a cart was ever made to go (was she in the cart?!). The camera flipped around to show that Anna was indeed in the basket of the cart holding up a peace sign and grinning, with Anne, beads of sweat running down her face, sprinting and pushing the cart. And was that Jane in the background?  

“Oh no.” 

She got up, and started listening for the sounds of absolute chaos.

==

Kat was really starting to get nervous. She kept just losing Jane, and she still hadn’t run into any of the other queens. She gave up on finding Jane by herself and went to look for Catherine to help her. She really didn’t like being by herself.

Catherine dropped the granola into the cart. Confident with her decision, and satisfied her ability to find the best deal. Only twenty-two more items to go! She starts to turn the corner and nearly runs into Kat. The youngest queen looks extremely relieved to see her, and Kat runs over and gives her a tight hug. 

“Kat! Are you alright? What’s wrong? Where’s Cathy and Jane?”

==

Jane was in paradise! Who knew that there was a sewing and craft section in Target? Certainly not her, but she was quickly making up for lost time. Christmas was right around the corner, and Kat had just shown her how to use YouTube for quilting tutorials!

==

The crash that the shopping cart made when it hit the display of soup can was very satisfying. At least it would have been if Anna weren’t also crashing into the display. Fortunately, the rest of the queens (besides Anne) weren’t close enough to hear the crash. Unfortunately, the security guard was.

==

Cathy was lost. Which was actually fairly on-brand for her, not that she would ever admit that to the other queens. She thought she could just walk to the back of the store, put an end to Anne and Anna’s shenanigans, and walk out. Apparently, this was not the case. But it wasn’t like she got lost every time! This was a Super Target, for goodness sakes! She passes a stack of books, and one catches her eye, Birds: Are They Real? Surely she could spare a few minutes.

==

“It’s ok, Kat. Just breathe.” Catherine spoke as soothingly as she could. Kat seemed like she was on the verge of an anxiety attack, and Catherine was really starting to worry. After a few minutes, Kat’s breathing evened out she was able to tell Catherine her predicament. Even though Catherine thought she still looked a little shaky, Kat insisted that she was ready to keep going. 

“So can we please go find Jane?” Kat stands up from where she and Catherine had sat down. “I don’t want her to freak out if she’s lost and I wanted her to try my latte. She’ll probably hate it though.” She gave a small smile. 

Catherine chuckled. “Of course.”

When Kat and Catherine do find Jane (It probably would have gone faster if Kat’s phone wasn’t dead, and if Catherine hadn’t left hers at home) they were pleasantly surprised. Apparently lost didn’t mean helpless, because Jane had not only filled a cart with quilting supplies and patterns, but she had filled another cart full of groceries! 

“Jane!” 

Jane smiled.“Kat, Catherine? I was looking for you guys!” She had barely finished when Kat slammed into her for a hug. 

“I’m so glad we found you! Here, try a sip of my latte.” 

She took a sip. “Thank you! I don’t like it.” 

“I knew you wouldn’t.” Kat grinned. “Now let’s check out and find our other half.”

Catherine, Kat, and Jane didn’t have to look far before found Cathy. They had unintentionally gotten in line behind her, and didn’t notice until she turned around, looking…gleeful?

“Guys, you’ll never guess what I learned!” 

“What?” Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She could have sworn Cathy’s already large grin got even bigger 

“Birds aren’t real!”

==

Anne and Anna had been sitting outside of Target for a good half an hour (thank goodness it had stopped raining) before the rest of the queens came out. 

“Why are you two outside?” Catherine didn’t like the sheepish looks that spread over their faces. 

“Yeah,” Anne started, “We got kicked out.” 

“What-” 

“But it was for a good cause!” Anna finished. 

Kat whispered something into Jane’s ear. “Kat’s right. Catherine, dear, do we really want to know?”  

“Nope!” They answered in unison. 

“Come on everyone, let’s go home.” Kat said. The others muttered their agreement. 

“Besides,” Cathy said eagerly, “When we get in the car, I have the best news to tell you all about birds!”

[gotreactions]

Ateez Reaction: Disney Movie Theme Date (Fluff Series) 2/8

Part Two: Seonghwa

Movie: Beauty & The Beast

A little theatre by your place is playing old disney movies for a cheap price this weekend. Seonghwa already bought your tickets, knowing you would want to go, but he also wants to make the date more interesting and memorable for you.

A couple days before your date, Seonghwa went online & made a list of all the movies that were being played this Saturday (disney edition). He then printed out pictures to represent each of the movies; Lady & the Tramp, Cinderella, Pocahontas, ect. He then took a cork board and sticky taped all the pictures to it in a way where they were all close together, assuring one would get picked. He hung the board chest level, or really eye level for you, on the wall behind your supper table.

Taking the three darts from your dart board, he held them in his pocket as he hid behind the front door and waited for you to get home. He smiled plenty & eagerly awaited your arrival, feeling impatient and as though you were taking longer than usual. He was about to grab his phone, call you, ask where you are, but just as he was about to walk away from his spot, he heard your keys jangle.

Stiffening up behind the door, he bit his lip in anticipation. As the door opened slowly he blocked his face out of reflexes and waited for it to close behind you just so he could jump at you and give you a hug from behind. He leaned down slightly as he wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his chin on your shoulder.

"Welcome home princess."

He kissed your cheek as he slid his hands up your waist, taking them and placing them over your eyes, blacking your vision.

"I have a surprise for you!"

He lead you into your dining room, still covering your eyes as you asked a billion questions and let out that little laugh/giggle that he loves so much!

With you standing at the opposite side of the table away from the 'disney board', Seonghwa finally removed his hands from your eyes and pulled a single dart from his pocket, leaning down and whispering in your ear.

"Whatever movie you hit, with me covering your eyes, is the movie we're going to go see Saturday."

He took your dominate hand and put the dart in it as you scanned the board one last time, locking your eyes on your favorite movie and hoping to hit that one. At last, he covered your eyes with his hands once again as you raised your arm and got ready to throw the dart.

When the dart bounced off the board in failure, Seonghwa laughed a bit before grabbing the second dart and placing it in your hand like before.

"That was good, just maybe try using a bit more force this time."

He reassured you before covering your eyes for the third time and allowing you to do your thing. As your threw the dart, you ended up subconsciously bouncing on your toes and letting out a little grunt, in the cutest way possible. (According to your lover.)

Once again, the dart missed it's mark, hitting the frame of the board instead of one of the pictures. Taking the last dart from his pocket, Seonghwa placed it in your hand between your fingers before he held your hand at the same time.

"Maybe if we work together we'll be able to see a movie this weekend."

He teased you a bit as he swung your hands back and forth in the air gently, preparing to release the dart as he counted to three with you. On three, just before you let the dart go, he cupped your cheek in his free hand and turned it to him all at once, hitting your lips with his making contact just as the dart went flying out of your hands finally hitting a picture.

"Third times a charm..."

You whispered as a slight blush hit your cheeks. Agreeing with you, Seonghwa took your hands and walked you over to the board to see what your weekend plans are.

"Beauty & the Beast!"

You both say in sync. It may not have been your choice (or maybe it was), but at the end of the day, the best part of all this, was getting to spend time with your partner and see him. It's not easy between busy schedules, but he always makes the most of your time when y'all are together!

Thursday came around and Seonghwa wanted to get a few last minute things ready before your date. Late at night after practice, despite being tired, he drove to a boutique, or three, in order to get you guys the perfect outfits. He thought if you guys dressed up as the characters, everything would be more fun! So, he bought you a yellow gown just like Belles with an inclusive rose sewed onto the bust area. He made sure to have it fitted to your size perfectly, and even got 'My beauty. Love, your Beast' sewn onto the tag in memory. Of course, he got himself a formal blue tux matching the Beasts suit from the iconic dancing scene. After paying for everything, he left planning on coming back after practice tomorrow to pick up the outfits and to buy a few accessories.

Saturday morning, 9am, a few hours before the movie, Seonghwa showed up at your front door holding the outfits on their hangers and holding a single red rose. He knocked three times in a row, depsite having his own key, in hopes to surprise you.

When you opened the door with your bed head still a mess, casual clothes thrown on and makeup free, Seoghwas heart melted! You looked stunning, you first thing in the morning before getting ready for the day, was when you looked the best he felt. (Though, you always look perfect, and always will!)

"Good morning madmoiselle."

He bowed a little and pulled the rose out from behind his back, holding it out in front of himself and waiting for you to take it in your hands before he stood back up.

Following you back inside, he let you finish your breakfast as he went to your room/bathroom to set everything up and get it ready for when you were ready to get ready.

He hung the clothes on the towel rack/closet door, pulled up a tutorial on how to do hair and makeup like Belles so he could possibly help you get ready, he placed the jewelry on your table/counter top, ect.

Once you got to the room he waited for you to do whatever prep you need to do; brush your teeth, shower, whatever you do in the morning before getting dressed, as he fixed and styled his own hair and got himself ready for the date.

Once you were done, he sat you down and helped you do your hair while you did your own makeup. Seonghwa did his best to follow along with the tutorial but his confusion was showing on his face as his eyes traveled between the supplies he pulled out and the video. His hands fumbled some as he brushed/pulled your hair up and twisted it around. He got the small bun made, but it was a bit loose. In conclusion, despite him doing his best, your hair just looked a mess & you could barely tell that it was even inspired by Belle.

You felt a little bad for laughing at the mess on top of your head, but Seonghwa was glad you could find at least some ammusment out of his mess up. However, this stubborn man was refusing to give up. So, as you finished your makeup he took down your hair and brushed it out once more/deknotted & unwrapped it all before starting the video over and taking his time with it as you gave extra little tips.

After a few trial and errors, he managed to get youe hair looking right - with your help of course. With your hair and makeup now done, Seonghwa pulled out your dress and took it out of it's protective bag. Your face when you saw it was priceless! It felt like his soul was smiling seeing your face like this.

Soon enough, you were off changing your clothes and getting ready. Clothes, shoes, whatever accessories you decide to wear. Seonghwa waited patiently today, cleaning up the mess that was made as you got ready. He felt content and happy.

When you came back into the bath/room his jaw dropped and quickly turned into a smile. A 'wow'subtly fell from his mouth as you put on a little runway show and did a slow 360 for him. Seonghwa bent down on one knee, bowing like a knight before you.

"I am honored to he able to take you out my fair lady."

He shyly said half playfully before he took your dominate hand in his and gave the back of it a kiss.

At the theatre a short while before the movie, you two were standing in line buying snacks and drinks when people came up complimenting your outfits and how cute you guys are. Seonghwa would be lying if he said he didn't feel shy even in the slightest, but he was glad you got complimented and noticed. He squeezed your hand silently as he smiled and stared at you. The two of you made eye contact for a short minute before the lady behind the counter slid your snacks towards you both. He carried the food and let you take the drink, as he led you to the theatre room, guiding you to your favorite seats.

During the movie, you whispered some of the lines, not really realising you were doing it, but he found it very... You. At the same time, he licked his lips and bit them during all the 'intense' scenes as well as tapped his foot to the beat of the music. He had fun feeding you teasingly, holding your hand, and watching you as you stared at the screen. While the movie is fun to watch, you seemed like the award winning one here.

After the movie, he kissed your temple and helped you stand up as he went over how much fun he had. That's when a little kid came up and asked to take a picture with her 'idol' AKA you! The little girl was also in a Belle costume, her dad and mom behind her with a phone camera trying hard to not loud too loud. Seonghwa picked the little girl up and held her as the three of you pose 'Disney Style' in a cute position with happy faces. After taking a few pictures, the parents offered to take a picture of you two together as well. He let you decide what you wanted to do about that.

Afterwards, Seonghwa walked you out and listened to you as you laughed and talked about your favorite scenes, favorite memories, ect. Seeing you this happy, he didn't want to take you straight home, which is why you guys ended up going out to lunch at your favorite restraunt.

Overall, this date would be one that he remembers for a long time! Or possibly forever. He had fun surprising you and spending the day with you getting ready, taking you out, showing you off. This would be happening again soon for sure!

[cubeswhump]

Defy Fate; Reanimate, part 2: Giver of Life

Directly follows The Pieces of Osiris.

Tagging @brutal-nemesis and @more-miserables

Warnings for gore, death, self-harm (not done from depression or misery), murdur, drugging, creepy whumper, torture, dismemberment, disembowelment, semi-professional surgery, bit of eye (optic nerve) gore, lots of gross stuff.

Lorelai wished Dearil would laugh and tell her to hush up, that her singing is so pitchy. "You sound like a dying cat," she mimicked in a deep voice, but he stayed limp and cold in her arms.

"Mm! Mmmh!" Viktor tried to scream against the tape as Lorelai set Dearil down on the table by the John Doe.

"Alexa, volume up," Lorelai commanded.

She opened up the John Doe and cut out his heart. She had a donor heart in a cooler, so she tossed his in the trashbag - but she needed the four connective arteries. Removal was slow and intricate.

"I don't know what to do without you," she sang. Time to connect the John Doe's arteries to Dearil's husk. She relied a lot on magic for this binding, her nose dripping blood into Dearil's open chest.

She had never heard of attaching entire arteries to a corpse, so she had to rely on her own imagination and magic for that, but surely attaching the heart would be easier.

She hadn't gotten this far in medical school and had to make do with vague medical tutorials. She clamped the open ends of the arteries. She could have cried with relief when the arteries twitched even with no blood supply.

Viktor stared at her with watery eyes. She filled the syringe with clear liquid and injected it into his deltoid.

"You'll need this. Thos is going to hurt." She paused. "I really am sorry, Viktor, but you're dying for a good cause."

Tears slipped down his cheeks. He was in an awkward position tp fond his vein but she managed to get the IV connected to his arm. She got the other end connected to Dearil's remaining arm and sliced her palm open, drawing the rune on his upper arm.

His heart began beating slowly. This time Lorelai did cry with relief.

She cut Viktor's shirt off and sliced into him carelessly, making short incisions over whatever organ she needed while he writhed against the restraints. She didn't want him to bleed too much while he and Dearil shared one circulatory system, so she burned the sides of each incision with the butane torch Dearil used to make crème brûlée. Victor's eyes rolled back and fluttered shut when she started breaking open his ribcage.

He came in and out of consciousness as she went back and forth between him and Dearil, transferring to Dearil a left lung, a stomach, three quarters of a liver. Viktor was a fighter, going in and out of consciousness and giving the occasional struggle.

"Hecate, Thanatos, Hel, Hades, Osiris, Heka, Freyja..." Lorelai whispeted the name of every deity associated with death or magic that she knew of. She hoped one, if any existed, would hear her pleas and give some form of divine assistance. She panted behind her mask and swayed on her feet, every rune on her body bleeding.

When Viktor started convulsing, mouth bleeding as he bit his tongue, Lorelai slapped him hard.

"Don't ruin this for me!" she shouted.

He didn't wake up this time, and she drained what she could of his blood and transferred it to IV bags that were connected to Dearil one after the other.

She cut into his scalp and skull, filling a cup with cerebrospinal fluid and removing his brain (including eyes) before his heart. She got Dearil's brain out of the vat and connected both to Viktor's still-warm heart and a bag of blood pilfered from the hospital.

She ditched the butane torch and sliced him open autopsy-style with a Y-incision. She hastily harvested and transferred his organs to Dearil before decomposition could start: the other lung, his entire urinary system, his gallbladder (he could live without it, of course, but Dearil loved fatty foods and dairy), his pancreas, his thymus (hopefully Dearil's thyroid, which was still in place, would bounce back), and his intestines (sans-appendix).

She left Victor's husk for now to fix up Dearil's ribcage, which was difficult without rods abs screws. She drew runes over the breaks and the way it reformed was brittle and lumpy, but oh well. His body would have to take care of the rest. Next, she sewed up his Y-incision and transfered skin graft's from the John Doe's unmarked stomach to where she had sliced skin off Dearil to fit him in her suitcase. It would scar pretty badly, but Lorelai would love him all the same.

Then she started on Viktor's legs and left arm. He was so white; the limbs would stand out terribly against Dearil's gorgeous brown trunk. The John Doe was closer in color, but he was very tall and thin and the limbs just wouldn't work.

"Alexa, ten hours of Mozart," Lorelai called.

She took off her soiled gloves to look up bone grafting videos on her phone. She didn't have rods or screws, so she had to keep this pretty natural. Er, magical. But a little bit of medican guidance might help, considering she wasn't studying orthopaedics.

Putting together a human body in pieces was too advanced for anyone, and Lorelai was over here doing it. Who cared that she was only in her second year of medical school? If anyone could do this, it was her.

She glanced back and forth between her work and the video as she sliced into what was left of Dearil's thigh, peeling the skin away from the bone. She peeled the skin on Viktor's thigh back next and shaaped both bones as best as she could until they fit almost like puzzle pieces. A bit of blood on the bone. Healing would be slow, she knew, like a regular broken femur.

Her hands shook and she struggled to thread the needle. Dissolving thread for the subcutaneous tissue. She stitched very carefully, but it didn't matter if the sutures were slightly uneven. She had to keep turning Dearil to suture the entire circumference and he was so much heavier now. Dissolving thread for the dermis, non-dissolving for the epidermis. Repeat on right leg. Repeat on left arm.

She cut into his jaw to realign the bone and sewed it up. Missing teeth gaped at her and his tongue, though less bloated, was still an odd purple. She expected it would improve with the increased blood flow now, as she knew the purple color was due to a lack of circulation.

She took a few layers of skin from his buttocks and used the inch-long patch to graft over his shredded left eyebrow, and then she took the nose from the cooler and very carefully stitched it onto his face. The shape was perfect even if the dplor was off, and she'd help him pierce it when he was awake. His ears too. He'd like that.

She couldn't stop smiling. She could feel a pulse when she pinched the wrist of his new arm. Dearil was coming together; he was coming back to her.

But now she was onto the scary part: connecting his mind.

Dearin's brain was faintly pink now and no longer sagging. The wrinkles had deepened. Lorelai drew a rune on the floor, set a bucket on top, and cut into the John doe's head, careful to avoid the skin she needed from the left side. She placed his brain in the bucket, and then his tongue. She sprinkled some herbs and dust on top, dropped in some paper, and threw in a match. The smell was awful, but she couldn't open a window.

Lorelai sat down with Dearil and Viktor's brains... And then she was opening her eyes, lying on the floor, head pounding. She gasped abd scrambled up to the table, but a look at the brains told her she wasn't out for very long; both were still pink and plump.

She turned Dearil onto his stomach and first set to work on the cerviva columns. C3 was nearly severed in the crash and needed an offering. She took one of John Doe's upper vertebrae to throw into the offering fire and sliced into the scabbing-over laceration on her hand. She aligned the two halves of Dearil's C3 with her fingers and dripped some blood directly into the crack. The spell nearly knocked her to the ground, but the crack fused with the ghost of a scar. But nerve damage was the problem and quadriplegia or hemiplegia were big risks, so more blood. A bit more.

Her heart pounded in her ears. Dark spots appeared along her vision. Bit she had to keep going.

She attached the C1 connected to Dearil's beainstem to his C2 and sewed up the back of his neck. Onto more intricate structures now.

She rolled Dearil over once more, onto his back now. His eyelids came off so easily and Lorelai submerged them in a bowl of blood, herbs, and water. Viktor's ears were close enough in color, and she threaded one optic nerve through the eye socket, pinching the end of what remained of Dearil's optic nerve with thumb forceps and pressing the ends together. She wrapped the connection in paper with an inscribed, bloody rune, focusing her energy on this tiny connection.

Her phone started ringing. Was it daytime yet? With all the blinds shut, she couldn't tell.

A sharp pain struck her head. She removed the paper, and shakily exhaled. The nerve was intact. She repeated the process with the other nerve but this one had a bjt of trouble reattaching.

Lorelai's nose gushed blood, soaking into her mask. She tried again, and again. It finst attached, though the nerve was thin at the merge. Oh well.

She carefully sliced pieces from Viktor's brain to fill in the missing and daged parts of Dearil's parietal and frontal lobes. She kept thinking about Dearil's hippocampus. Would he remember her?

"Please, bless Dearil with two fully functional hippocampi," Lorelai murmured, not noticing how her words slurred together. "Let him remember our friendship."

She carefully sewed his eyelids, now looser and less stiff, back on and taped them closed. Then she drizzled the cerebrospinal fluid onto his exposed brain and took the skull fragments she had cut from Viktor, having been sure to leave a bit of an overlap so the bone wouldn't fall into Dearil's head if it was slow to fuse. She left a piece of skull off to allow for swelling, smeared blood along the crease, and carefully put the scalp flap back on.

She was so tired, she couldn't possibly do this many sutures. She used the stapler to attach it and then got to removing skin for a graft from the John Doe. She drew the path of the incision first, much of the left side of his head with his ear included, and worked on attaching it to Dearil with the stapler.

Just a few more needed. Suddenly he gave a moan and she gasped.

"Dearil... Can you hear me?" she asked breathlessly. She looked horrible: covered in blood and sweat, makeuo smeared down her face, hair wild. Would this really be the first thing he saw coming back?

Just a few more staples. A few more. The stapler fell from her hand as the world went black. She slumped onto her friend's bloodied stomach.

***

Lech mich im Arsch g'shwindi, g'shwindi!

Oh God. Lorelai had fallen asleep, and now Mozart was mocking her. The universe was mocking her.

But when she rose, neck stiff after sleeping in that position, she realized she was so, so wrong; the universe was on her side.

Beautiful pink and purple bruising had blossomed across Dearil's body. His chest rose and fell with rattling breaths.

"Oh, Dearil," she murmured. She picked the stapler back up and finished the job. He gave a shuddering breath with each click. She wiped the blood off his skin with a damp cloth and grinned, marveling at her work.

She wheeled over the stretcher and struggled to pull Dearil onto it. He was so heavy now. She took him to the bedroom she used to sleep in when she still went on vacation with her family, pulling back the blue covers before struggling to move Dearil into the bed.

It was time to stop playing necromancer and be his nurse. She got him set up with a bedpan and got a needle in his arm connected to a bag of saline and painkillers. Antibiotics would be administered later tonight.

Covering loosely with the sheet, she pressed a kiss to the unharmed side of his forehead. "I'll be back soon, Dear. I have things to take care of."

He didn't respond.

She took another trashbag to the surgical room and untied Viktor, dragging him and the John Doe onto the floor. The fire had gone out while she slept, and it wouldn't have been big enough anyway. She raised the bone saw above her head.

***

Viktor's clothes, her own clothes, the bedding from Viktor's deathbed, ropes, the remains of the two bodies stashed in a trashbag and both trashbags stored in the attic awaiting disposal. She lacked the strength to deal with the bed right now, just spraying chemicals on the stained mattress, and got to bleaching and mopping the operating room until it's surfaces sparkled.

She had to sit down during her shower. She was so dizzy even now, and her head pounded. The water running off her was stained pink, and she hoped the smell wasn't in her pores.

She was more bandage than woman after she got done wrapping the still-seeping runes, and she pulled a loose-fitting shirt and pajama pants on over them. She grabbed her phone, setting an alarm to go off two hours before her shift, and settled down on the floor by Dearil's bed with a blanket and pillow.

"I love you, Dearil," she murmured, closing her eyes.

[vicisintoomanyfandoms]

Chapter 4 of Another Target

This is the fourth chapter of my fanfic. Hope you enjoy. 

Join the Miraculous Fanworks discord server here

thank you so much Khanofallorcs for beta reading my fic

As she heard the alarm, the ravenette opened her eyes. She got out of bed and looked in the broken mirror. Even if it was shattered, Marinette could still look at her reflection. She had big eyebags and looked like she hadn’t slept all night, which was actually true.   

“Tikki, TIKKI! She called her little kwami.  

  “Marinette, it’s three am”  

  “Yes, and I can’t sleep. You do realize that Cat Noir knows my identity, right?” The girl said with a worried voice.  

  “I do, but we’ll talk about it today with him. Now you really need sleep. You’ve had a rough day and you’ll need to go to school.“   

  “Ok, Tikki, you’re the best.”  

“Tikki, it’s morning and I look terrible. Looks like I’ll have to use makeup.“  

 “Then put it on faster, you’ll be late if you don’t hurry up.”  

 “Wow, Tikki, that was really harsh of you. Usually you’re nicer and calmer. What’s gotten into you?”  

 “Nothing! Just do your things and go to school already.”  

 “Ummmm, ok.”  

 Marinette was really worried about her kwami. That behavior was very unexpected from her.  I just hope she’s ok,  the girl thought as she made her usual routine but instead of wearing her usual clothes, the ravenette took a pink hoodie with crossed fingers that created a heart, a pair of black sweatpants and white shoes. She took her hair from the usual pigtails and put it into a ponytail.  Should I leave it like this, or make it the same how it’s usually? Oh, I have only 20 minutes before school starts so I’ll leave it like this.    

 “Hi mom, I’ll take a snack and I’ll eat at school. Have a nice day. Bye!”  

 “What’s wrong with Marinette, she usually wakes up and gets late and now she has 20 minutes before school starts? That’s a lot of time for our Marinette. I have no idea if I should be proud or worried.”  

 “Honestly, Tom, me neither, she looked really tired and sad today. You know very well how much of a perfectionist she is if she gets sad. If something happens, she’ll just write it in her diary. Also, we both know that she has problems with communication. I just hope she’s ok and that she won’t do anything stupid. “  

 "Yeah, me too.”  

 The man looked down. He was really worried about his daughter who was behaving really weirdly. His biggest fear could become a reality and that was really scary for him.   

  At school :  

 The teenage girl arrived at school with a tired face that her friends would never want to see. So, she faked a smile which immediately disappeared as she saw the love of her life kissing Kagami. It felt like the whole world was crashing over her. It was like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. She was burning inside and couldn’t help it.   

 The ravenette burst into tears. She wanted to get out of the school, but she knew she couldn’t. Marinette thought that if she didn’t get good grades, she was a failure.   

  Flashback:  

 “Marinette likes you. Can you imagine?” A brown-haired boy spoke as he was taking his water bottle from his backpack.  

 “Oh, that little girl that looks like she came from a dirty river?” Another boy said.  

 “Why a dirty river?”  

 “Because she cries so much, I think she created a river and because she’s extremely dirty. She’s so ugly and stupid. Like seriously, on a scale from one to ten, her intelligence equals 0. We all hate her. Nobody will ever catch romantic feelings for a crybaby like her.”   

 Marinette heard these words and she was breaking inside. She couldn't believe that guy was using her so much. She was only 10 years old, so that experience was traumatizing. She felt like they were walking on her and like they were using her as a punch ball, not literally of course or like they were stepping over her. That’s when the ravenette decided to be the best she could ever be.   

 Since then she started working hard on everything she was doing. She got perfect grades, followed drawing and sewing tutorials so she would become one of the best designers in the entire world. She was really into that dream and it was time it became bigger, so she would show that little bastard who she really was.   

 Her future became better and clearer as days went by. Everyone loved her. But something they didn’t know was that the bakers’ daughter had depression so she felt bad every time someone didn’t like her or she did something wrong. But people were jealous of her and nobody could change that.  One of those people was also Chloè Bourgeois, who hated the idea of the girl being better than her. So that’s how she started bullying the ravenette.   

  Flashback ended.  

 It was the time she decided to become even better and a perfectionist. She decided to leave her love for Adrien simply by dating Luka, so she could get over the blonde. It was a perfect plan, even if she realized she’d use the poor blue-eyed boy. She knew how much she hated being used, but she had no other choice. And who knows, maybe she’d eventually fall in love with him even more than she fell for the blonde. All she could see was how to become the perfect version of herself, who was never hurt.   

 The girl clenched her fists and went to class. She listened to every single detail the teacher said in class and didn’t say a  word during the entire day, except during the breaks. For the first time, it felt right to be quiet about everything, except when she needed to speak.   

 After school ended, she took her phone and dialed Luka’s number. He wasn't answering so she started texting him:  

 Hey Luka, I wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday. Don’t worry, I’m not angry.   

From now on, I won’t let anything crush my dreams and my destiny. No matter the obstacles, I’ll overcome them without showing any emotion and without failing. From now on, I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl who never does anything wrong and who always makes the right decisions.  

 And with these thoughts in her head and a grin on her face, she walked out of the school.

[barksbog]

frequently sent anons and stuff

gonna answer some thing people keep asking me or keep getting wrong or i just really feel are important to know

(i have a faq but we all know what tumblr mobile be like)

how did you become a plush making gremlin?

always loved plushies and weird creatures

learned how to make plushies on The Internets

took some commissions for custom ones (did not enjoy that too much)

started to sell my own designs

here we go

^most professional image that exists of my face.

whole lot more under the cut

1. business/onlineshop related 

Do you take commissions? I don´t really open for regular comissions.

i sometimes accept “sponsorships” of stuff that fits with my other work. especially if it´s just a recoloring of an existing pattern (like a different species of slug or toad for example).

will you sell more of this plushie?

if it´s still in the online shop but listed as out of stock the answer is most likely yes. it takes me a while tho because i really do make each one myself. this is a one gremlin operation.

i really wanted to get one of your microraptors, spinosaurs (or any other dinosaur plushie)? will they come back?

sorry they really won´t. neither will i restock any of the dinosaur charms, pins and stickers once they sold out. for a good amount of reasons i have decided to leave paleoart behind. as cool as dinosaurs are. i like my mental health more.

i feel like everyone who witnessed the level of drama coming from certain members of the paleo community understands completely what i mean and while i know you can create paleoart and just reduce interaction to a minimum i like to be active on social media and discord servers relevant to what i do.

do you ship to ...

yes. yes i ship worldwide.

does that plushie really cost 30,000€?

no my likely american friend. it´s 30.00€ we just use commas here and so does my shop when set to €. i can´t set it to $ because i need to pay my. everything. in € and honestly don´t want to constantly gamble on the current exchange course being steady so i actually get my money. paypal will let you pay in your currency tho and just send me €.

i tried to contact you and you didn´t respond?

-if you contacted me like “hey” or “hey i have a question” i´m unlikely to have the energy to respond. please always contact artists with what you want to know

-i have answered that question a lot before or it can easily be answered by looking at my onlineshops faq

-you sent me an anon about a order. i can´t help you there

-if you have order related question it´s best to email me through the contact form of my onlineshop. if you just email my business mail it often ends in spam and i don´t see if for a few weeks.

2. sewing/plush making related

Where do you get that fabric? how does that happen to have toads on it?

i get it custom printed by spoonflower (they have a factory in the US and in Germany). i design it in photoshop and just upload it and they print it for me. they can be a bit slow. or just send you a meter of middle earth for no reason. or print a meter half black for no reason but overall their quality is great and so is their customer support when they do mess up.

a few tips i have are:

- the minky piling runs from the top down.

- you can design meters even when it says and displays yards in the preview, just check if it´s set to meters when in the basket before checkout.

- never set anything to center and order more than one meter, it will be printed once in the middle and leave you with a bunch of white useless minky.

- if you don´t want to wrangle 4 meters of fabric apart just keep adding One meter of the design at the time and you will get precut meters.

where did you learn to sew? how do i learn to sew?

I had a very basic crafts class in school with a shitty teacher that told me that “i´m sloppy and Can Not Sew” but really everything useful i ever learned i learned from The Internets so just go and look for some free patterns and tutorials and you are good to go. after trying a few patterns you will get a feeling for how plushies work and can combine what you learned. it´s really just like when you learn to draw and break things down into shapes.

if you have some questions or things you can´t figure out or just want to talk about crafts i run a really nice server with palaeoplushies

https://discord.gg/Cqwq4r3

what´s it like to run a business with 21?

stressful. i´m not always sure what i´m doing. but i´m doing it. and i believe in you, you can do it too. there is a 10kg bag of stuffing and a 25kg box of beans in my room. i have a whole huge sorting box full of eyes.

you are doing this fulltime? that´s really cool

yes i do this fulltime However. i really wish i could have a sidejob but i can´t because i have a funky brain and migraines so i really can´t find or keept almost any job.

^me doing my job.professionally. my job being. turning the fricking frogs gay.

3. personal.

so you are australian, how are the kangaroos?

No. Stop. I´m austrian. i don´t even know if you are joking or for real. just don´t.

so you are german? you speak german right?

again. i´m austrian. yes we speak german here but a different dialect so i likely don´t sound like the germans you have heard in movies. in fact the majority of germans will not even understand me.

can you stop complaining about the weather?

yes i complain about heat because. i´m heat sensitive. also because i´m actually an Alpine Gremlin and shouldn´t be subjected to temperatures over 30°C. our house doesn´t have AC. i work in here all day at 28°C room temp and with high humidty.

yes i complain about the cold too. because our house is old and badly insulated and i have to carry in firewood in laundrybaskets to feed to an old woodburner and it sucks. our house frequently falls down to 16°C.

so there is a spelling mistake?

yes i make a lot of spelling mistakes. or just switch out whole words. or forget whole words. unless it´s something important like a salespost please just don´t point that out constantly. like mentioned before i have a funky brain and it just be like that. also like mentioned before. i´m austrian. english is actually my second language so. be nice.

way too long list of spire fun facts:

i´m nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. i´m also very gay.

if you see me refer to “my wife” that´s the moon. i´m legally married to her. i really like dramatically standing on my balcony and looking at her.

if you see me yell about “the lesbians” that´s my mourning geckos.

i have 13 furbies. and you have no right to insult them. they are baby.

i also have a lot of skulls and other dead things

I´m autistic and come with some extra dyslexia, depression and anxiety.

i also come with intense migraines that can make me useless for a solid week

i live in a village surounded by woods with less than 200 people

i did spent a lot of time in vienna for 6 years tho and lived there for three of that 6

i actually have a diploma in graphic design. that i don´t really need for anything but winning argument about aesthetic choices or making jokes

yes. i am kinda short. (162cm/5.3ft)

i have two cats. they are littermates tho. so i get some people have a hard time telling it´s not just the same cat. i swear they are two different cats tho and actually really easy for me to tell apart.

milk belongs in tetrapacks. not jugs. fight me

tapirs are nasty creatures

krampus comes on the 5th or 6th of december. stop calling him the christmas devil you fools. my source? growing up with the krampus tradition.

you know what happens on the 24th tho? me. that´s my birthday. and that is in fact austrian christmas day. all christmas happens that day. if you wish me merry christmas before happy birthday i will never forgive you.

i really loved balto as a child. the dingo pictures version tho. i was enraged when i saw the ofiicial balto because i thought they stole it from dingo pictures. i watched a lot of dingo pictures and that´s why i´m Like This

^my lovely wife

if you see me rambling in the tags. generally i´m. okay. you don´t have to worry but if you relate or just feel like talking to me? you can dm me and i have actually made friends like that before so.

if i don´t respond to your dms or asks it´s not because i don´t like you i just have very low social energy most days 

and finally.

if you think me and @palaeoplushies are the same person we have a legal right to your soul and your favorite child for our Collection

we prefer none human children tho

(i´m sorry for tagging you. and making you scroll through like “wtf is spire taggin me in now again” but it would have felt weirder not to let you know about the future souls i´m sending your way)

[inquiringquilter]

Destination Quilt Along - Block 3 Fair

Hi! Welcome to Block 3 of Destination: Quilt Along!

You’ll find the details of the quilt along on the Destination QAL page. Here’s the short version: we’re presenting the blocks for this quilt along in segments. To win a prize, make all the blocks from that segment, then upload a photo of them at the end of that segment.

This is Block 3 in the quilt along and the third block in Segment 1. There will be four blocks in this segment, released every week on Tuesday. To enter for the Segment 1 prize, you must finish all four Segment 1 blocks and post a photo of them at the end of Segment 1. The prize winner for Segment 1 will be announced on August 10th. Click here to view the QAL schedule and to learn more about it.

To enter for the Grand Prize you’ll need to make all 12 blocks in the quilt along. You don’t need to make a quilt using the blocks although we’d love for you to! At the end of the quilt along, we will provide several setting suggestions if you’d like to make a quilt.

Block 3: Fair

This week’s block is a visit to a small fair! What’s the best part of any fair? Why the food of course! The fair is the time to indulge and to try new things, like a new flavor of ice-cream! The designer of Block 3 is Abbie @ Sparkle On! and you can download the pattern there.

I’m here to show you my version of this week’s block and to provide tips for making it.

My Fabric Pull

I’m using Island Batiks for this quilt along because they are so much fun!

For my fabric pull, I started with several photos of vintage ice cream trucks because I love how they look. The photo of a Mr. Softee truck really takes me back.

I pulled my ice cream truck fabrics using these images as my inspiration. I wanted to add a striped awning above and a short ledge below the window so I chose fabrics for them.

For the background, I thought of the small church fairs we have around here and pictured the ice cream truck parked under the festive banners and colorful lights, with the kiddie rides and carnival games in the distance.

I imagined my favorite ice cream perched on top of the truck and selected a soft pink and a dark brown (for peppermint ice cream with chocolate sauce.)

Here’s my fabric pull.

Here are the fabric details of the Island Batiks I used:

Background

#121716860 (Morning Sunshine collection)

Ice Cream Truck

#121809612 (Check it Out collection) Sprinkles (Neutrals collection) Turquoise blue dots #821707310 (Elementz collection) Buttermilk (Neutrals collection) #122005012 Large Wheat Leaves Glaze (Autumn Sunset collection) Carnation (Basics collection) #111923082 Mosaic Lines Coffee (Clockworks) Flower burst green blue purple Pink flowers on purple blue green Blue-green hexies #821707615 (Elementz collection) #121613330 (Sweet Nectar collection) BE38-D1 Small Pointed Flowers (Blenders collection)

My Tips and Tutorials for Making This Block

Here are my tips for making the Camper block.

Make this block yours

My first tip is to make this block yours!

For example, use your favorite fabrics or favorite colors for the ice cream truck or use an ice cream truck from your childhood as your color inspiration

Choose fun colors or prints for the pennants

Have fun with the background as well. Remember that this is a fair, so think of lights, carnival rides, a village green, a church courtyard, or wherever you attend a small local fair.

Cut a Large Background

Because the process of finishing your applique may skew the Background a bit, it’s best to start with a 13” Background square and then trim it to 12-1/2” after you finish the applique edges.

creating the pennant banner - Cutting the pennants

I decided to use more than three colors for my pennants because I love using lots of scraps to create color.

To do that, cut (2) 2” squares for each pennant. Fold one square in half.

Lay the two squares wrong sides together then trim from fold to corner on each side to cut the pennant shape.

Put the two flag shapes wrong sides together as instructed in the pattern, and sew 1/4” along both sides of the pennant. You are not turning the pennants inside out after sewing so remember to place the two wrong sides together.

I made the hanging part for the pennants just as I do my binding. First, fold the strip in half and press then fold in half again and press.

Slip the pennants into the open part of the binding at the measurements given in the pattern, then sew along the edge to close the binding and hold the pennants in place.

After making the two pennant strings, pin them in place on the Background as instructed by the pattern. Abbie gives you measurements for placement that work out great so follow that.

Pin then sew along the bottom edge of each pennant string to hold it in place. You’ll trim the ends of the pennants later after you trim the block to size.

creating a striped Ice Cream Truck

Like last week and inspired by the vintage photos I found, I decided to make my ice cream truck two colors. To do that, I sewed two fabrics together.

The finished strip set needed to be larger than the truck template which is 4” x 7”. So I chose two strip widths that would make the finished strip set 4-1/2” x 7-1/4”.

Like before, I traced the fusible for the ice cream truck and fused it to the back of my strip set.

ADD the Ice Cream Truck APPLIQUE - Trace and fuse shapes

Now it’s time to fuse the camper applique.

To add the truck to the Background, start by printing out the templates on pages 5. Use the 1” square to ensure that the templates are the correct size. Print at 100% and DO NOT scale the pattern to fit.

Trace the templates onto fusible web and cut them out loosely (1/8” outside the outline). For large pieces you can remove the center of the fusible leaving at least 1/4” inside the line. Removing the center of the fusible makes your appliques more supple.

I decided to fuse windows to the truck rather than cut them out. For the windows, I chose a light color to represent the inside of the truck, lit up. My windows are a bit faint thought so if I had to do it over again though I might have chosen a brighter yellow or a darker grey.

To create the chocolate sauce template, I traced the ice cream template and improvised a drippy bottom edge.

To create the awning and shelf templates, I sketched them onto the truck template, then traced them onto fusible.

Fuse the web onto the back of each fabric and cut the shapes out on the line.

ADD the ICE CREAM TRUCK APPLIQUE - Assemble the camper

I like to assemble my applique shapes on a pressing mat then position them on the Background for final fusing.

Note: If you don’t have a pressing mat you can use parchment paper. The idea is to use something non-stick for the applique shapes don’t fuse to it.

I fused the chocolate sauce onto the ice cream then fused the ice cream under the cone.

Next, since I’d decided to fuse the windows rather than cut them out of the truck I fused them next.

If you decide to cut out the windows as instructed in the pattern, trace them onto the truck using a light table or a window, or trace the window shapes onto paper and trace around them onto the truck fabric using a marker and cut out the windows on the line.

I then fused the awning and shelf above and below the main window. This was something I added as well.

Finally I fused the ice cream cone on top of the truck.

Fuse the completed Camper to the Background. Because it’s in one piece, it’s easy to fuse it in place exactly where you want it to be.

ADD the ICE CREAM TRUCK APPLIQUE - Finish the edges

Edge-stitch the applique shapes to finish their edges. I normally use a straight stitch and matching thread although you can use a small zig-zag, blanket stitch, or satin stitch to finish the edges.

I use an open-toe foot so I can see where I’m stitching.

I slow down my machine so I have more control.

For stitching curved shapes like that curvy ice-cream, having a knee-lift that lifts the presser foot without moving your hands really helps you get the job done fast!

If you’ve never machine appliqued before, click here for a step by step photo tutorial.

Trim Your Block

After you finish the applique on your block trim to it’s final size—12-1/2”.

Thanks for the Tips! Where do I get the pattern?

Drop by Abbie’s blog (the Block Designer) to download your free Fair block pattern. Hurry! The pattern is only available for free until the end of the quilt along.

Here are the other quilt along hosts. Drop by their blogs to view their versions of this block and to read their tips for making it.

April @ JANDA Bend Quilts Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter (that’s me!) Karen @ Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats Laura @ Slice of Pi Quilts Sherry @ Powered by Quilting

How Do I Enter the Giveaway?

Our giveaways are open to anyone who is at least 18 years old—US and International citizens. To enter, make all the blocks in a Segment. This is Segment 1. Segment 1 entries open on July 27, 2021 at 8 am EST and close on August 10th, 2021 at 7:59 AM EST. To enter, you’ll need to post a single photo of all the blocks in that Segment. I’ll post full details on July 27th. For now, get stitching!

If you make all the Segment 1 blocks, you might win:

A 6-month subscription to Make Modern e-Magazine!

A PDF pattern of your choice from this Partner in Design:

Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter (that’s me!)

Thanks for stopping by! The next block will be released Tuesday, July 27th. It’s my block this time so be sure to drop by!

you might also like

Tell me…have you ever been to a small fair?

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Jasmine Kennedie

One of the city’s breakthrough drag entertainers of the past year, FIT’s crown-winning queen Jasmine Kennedie is known for igniting venues with her electrifying "shablams” and gorgeously glam looks. She’s now in the cast of the popular revue TURNt at the Ritz, which celebrates its second anniversary this week. Thotyssey learned how Jasmine got here, and where she’s going next!

Thotyssey: Jasmine, hello! So last week you performed at the East Village Standard’s Narcbar for their RuPaul’s Drag Race viewing party hosted by Rify Royalty, Bootsie LeFaris and Lucy Balls. Kim Chi was there too, as a special guest! How did it go?

Jasmine Kennedie: It was an amazing viewing party!  Kim Chi was such a sweetheart, and the audience was amazing. I love Rify, and I’ve worked with Bootsie in the past. Always a fun time. And it was my first time working with Lucy Balls--such a sweetheart, and a really smart entertainer.

That’s a crowded panel of performers! Did you get your chance to slay?

Of course! Or at least I tried. The crowd was amazing, and had amazing energy. And everyone at Narcbar and the Standard were amazing. It’s a great venue, because of the outside and inside space. It gave me room to do the shablams.

You’ve become one of nightlife’s go-to Shablammer over the course of this past year! You bring beauty and showstopping dance to every show that you appear in. How long have you been at this?

I’ve been doing drag for four years now, but the first two years were more “playing in drag.”

Where are you from?

I was born in Binghamton, and lived there and Morgantown, West Virginia for the majority of my life.

What were your early creative interests / pursuits?

I wasn’t into a lot of arts, as a lot of people may think. I was really into sports. I played soccer for eight years, I swam and dove for three. I played lacrosse, did cross country and track as well as cheering--which was my number one passion for three years. But I used to always play in my mom’s makeup and clothes as any drag queen did. And I always use to say when I was a kid, “I’m going to Hollywood, Mom!" So that’s always been in the back of my head since I was a child.

 I’m guessing it was RuPaul who exposed you first to drag?

Yes and no, I like to say. I remember when It was Raja’s season; it was the reunion. I was flipping through the channels, and it was Raja with just a spotlight on her... and I was in such awe at what I thought was a woman. After that, drag left my life until my senior year of high school, where I found videos of pageantry drag like Continental and EOY and Miss Gay USofA, and I fell in love with drag from there. From then on, I started watching Drag Race.

How did you begin experimenting with makeup and looks? 

At first, I had my sister teach me the basics of makeup when I was playing in drag. And than I watched the really old, 45 minute YouTube tutorials where it was all fast forwards, and looked like it was filmed on a laptop. But I found out the basics from there, and than just experimented from there. I feel I paint more on the “old way” of drag: a lot of powder, and seven different colors for contour. Taking off my makeup takes as much effort as getting to the center of a Tootsie Pop!

How did you Drag Name yourself?

So when I first started drag I wanted to be a slutty drag queen, as everyone does when they start. So I was originally Jasmine Rikers, like the jail! But then, when my mom (not drag mom) found out I did drag, she said “if you're going to be a drag queen. you're gonna be a classy one.” ”

Good work, Mom! 

Right! Gotta love Joy. So I got “Jasmine” from Aladdin, and “Kennedy” from JFK. But Instagram already had a user with that name, so I switched the “y” in Kennedy to “ie!

And you're an FIT student now. What are you majoring in?

Right now I’m in advertising and marketing, but in the winter I am switching my major to fashion design. Coming to NYC and seeing how cutthroat NYC drag is, it pushed me to use more of my sewing skills, and it made me realize my true passion. Now I am no expert at making clothes, but I wanna further educate myself so I can make a business out of it--as well as be a drag queen--at the same time.

Sounds like you have it all worked out! Where did you start going out as Jasmine?

I started in upstate NY, and my town only had one gay bar--that was the only bar exposure I had before coming to the city. When I came here, Shequida’s Drag Wars is where I started.

Shequida was probably an important figure in your “dragucation.”

She was a big help when it came to behavior and getting myself out there, and she really gave me the initial push. But my drag mother Mancie Mandell really took me in and helped me shape my character into who Jasmine is. 

As well as Maddelynn Hatter giving me such an amazing opportunity as being part of the the cast at the Ritz. Also, Look Queen! Dusty Ray Bottoms really helped me, and let me perform at her show she used to have at Hardware on Wednesdays, before the Ritz.

All great queens! Mancie is a New Jersey pageant queen, how did you meet up with her?

We actually met at Look Queen. She was there with one of her friends, and we kind of just clicked. And then a month or so went on, and I made a joke saying “you're practically my mom.” The next day she called me and asked if I wanted to be her daughter, and it all started there.

You have a very high-energy, splits-and-flips performing style. We mentioned an athletic background, but where did those particular moves come from? And also, where does that great onstage confidence come from?

My cheer coaches [trained us to be a] very dance-driven team. My head coach, who used to cheer as a Buffalo Jill, really helped me clean up my technique.

I used to wear heels in my living room at my mom’s house, and when I started performing I used to practice routines and all the “shablams” and backflips. I practiced on carpet, and then over time I got more control of my body and more confident in my dancing and performing. 

And my confidence on stage comes from the work I put into drag. Over the last months, I’ve been making all my clothes and doing all my hair. Thinking of new things. And when I can say I made my entire look, I feel ten times better about what I’m giving to the audience, as well as the confidence to not hold back and just be myself.

Congratulations on recently winning FIT's 12th annual drag pageant! What was that whole experience like for you?

It was honestly such an accomplishment for me. Ever since I applied for the school--and I knew about the pageant before applying--I wanted that to be a personal goal I reached. And it was a lot of work! We didn’t know any of the categories, or how the pageant ran, until three weeks before the event. So I had that amount of time to make and conceptualize everything. It was a lot of fun, and I had a blast doing it.

That's incredible! Along with DiDi Disco, Shangela co-hosted that. Were you able to tell her that she was robbed in All-Stars 3?

No, lol! But she was in need of oil sheen, which I did have, and she was an amazing host. Very nice queen. I really like how she treated everyone the same, and was very raw and real with her personality.

You've been a frequent guest performer at TURNt--the high-energy, late night dance party and show at the Ritz on Wednesdays that Maddelynn runs--and you've recently become a regular weekly cast member there. It's an insanely popular night! What's your experience been like thus far, being a part of TURNt?

It’s honestly been amazing. To be so lucky to get to perform with girls like Maddelynn and Sherry Pie--who are so amazing in their craft--and we are all like a lil’ family there. We are really about making the show an epic nightlife party. Even though it is already crazy amazing, we are trying to push it to new limits! And Maddelynn has everyone involved in the show. It’s really a team effort, and it’s my favorite gig to perform at.

Egypt, Black Widow and yourself were all just recently recruited at around the same time.

We all are the “newbies” in that sense! Us three are always just giving each other reads and messing around in the fitting room. They’re really good friends to have.

This week, the show is about to turn 2 years-old, and it looks to be pretty epic. First of all, Jasmine Rice LaBeija is joining the cast! Is there room in the Ritz for two amazing Jasmines?

Haha, of course there is! And that’s the best thing about TURNt: we have such a variety of queens there, and we all get along. We all encourage each other to be ourselves, and we really try to help each other out. And Jasmine is also my drag father Ken Mandell LaBeija’s mom, so I’ve worked with her in the past as well! She’s super funny, and always a blast.

And Aja and Miz Cracker, both former castmembers, are returning as well.

Yes! I love them both. Aja is alway crazy, and I love her--she’s so sweet. And Miz! She was always a blast, and always had a funny thing to add to a convo. And Katelynn her assistant, I love. I would hang out with her a lot when we weren’t performing, and we were in the changing room.

So this anniversary show will basically be Everything.

It is going to be CRAZY! We have really big productions planned, and it’s going to be a show you don’t wanna miss!

What else is coming up for you?

I just shot for a music video, actually! For an artist named John Presnell, which should be coming out in October if I’m correct. And than other than that, I’m just trying to better my drag and getting out there! Always open to new adventures!

Also, I’m at Sinful Saturdays with Bootsie and Merrie Cherry every second Saturday at Pieces, which is always fun! I like that Bootsie and Merrie are both from two different scenes, and they are really great hosts.

Okay, final question: what's the most surprising thing you've learned about drag since you started?

The most surprising this I’ve learned is that if you put in the effort and you really give yourself the time and the tools, you can achieve anything you want with your drag--as long as you’re always open to learn. That’s probably the hardest part of drag: learning about so many different things, and then using what you learned and adapting it to your drag. 

Also, I’ve always tried to be nice to everyone: patrons of the bar, the queens, the bar staff... everyone. Not only to keep a reputation for being nice, but also for myself. I’ll always talk to someone who comes up and has questions. Because at the end of the day, you have to live with yourself. And I want to live with myself being nice to people. Not mean, because you never know what someone else is going through.

Preach! Thanks, Jasmine!

Jasmine Kennedie is part of the cast of TURNt Wednesdays (11pm) at the Ritz. She also performs every second Saturday of the month (11pm) for Sinful Saturdays at Pieces. Check Thotyssey’s calendar for a full list of scheduled appearances, and follow Jasmine on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

On Point Archives

[woohooligancomics]

Free Stuff!

You like free stuff, right? Of course you do, and I'll give you some in a minute after we chat. You like free comic book day and free donuts and coffee while you wait for an oil-change. You like free samples at Costco, or a free ebook full of useful life-hacks like, "wake yourself up in the morning by soaking your contact lenses in coffee." If it's hot enough, the coffee will melt the contacts to your eyes, and that's a lot cheaper than Lasik surgery!

How about a free punch in the face? No? Boxers pay piles of money for that. They buy gloves, gym memberships, trainers, agents, steroids, and towels exclusively for sweat. They've paid a small fortune by the time they get a really good punch from a guy like Mike Tyson or Rocky Balboa. (Additional life hack: save on ear piercings by fighting Mike Tyson.) If they pay so much to get punched, why are you upset when someone punches you for free?

Still no? Because you don't like free stuff; you like certain things, and it's a nice bonus when they're free. Free beer is only nice if you like beer. You might think I need the Large Hadron Collider to split a hair that thin, but your relationship to "free stuff" changes when you start a business. If you want to meet your high-school biology teacher's standard of living (eating and breathing), you need marketing. That includes you, freelance artists, welcome to the glitz and glamour of owning a business and buying your own ramen noodles.

Marketing sucks. I'm just as annoyed as you when "social media marketing experts" follow me on Twitter with their inspirational quotes and their slick YouTube presentations, reminding you to be authentically authentic. "Thanks, I know it takes more muscles to frown than smile, but I'm not a lazy bastard!" Marketing makes me feel like Elizabeth Bathory, bathing in the blood of virgins. I don't want to be associated with creeps like the guy at the used car lot who only has a mustache so he can offer you a ride. "Ladies? Wink, wink!"

Even the jargon of marketing is dehumanizing and gross: target audience, market segment, and the holy grail, double-income no kids (DINK). Key performance indicators (KPI) help you analyze the ratio of Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) and reduce "churn" (customers leaving because they're sick of you talking about them like a fucking toaster).

It's unavoidable though, because you are that sleazy sales guy at the car lot... sort of. I'll assume you've had at least one job in your life. Did you feel dirty after selling yourself in the interview? Sure you embellished, because who doesn't want to hire a certified coffee grader? And how would they know? You can tell the difference between quality coffee and Starbucks. The gourmet coffee is named like a Senate bill, like HR61, not to be confused with the Securing the Assistance of Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) act; fitting in a discussion about coffee. Regardless, you sold yourself and your boss purchased your service. I assume you didn't resort to any awful sales tactics, like telling the interviewer, "and if you hire in the next thirty minutes, I'll throw in a free mustache ride!" Like it or not, sales is a necessity of modern life, like traffic, spam folders, or wondering how your uncle is still so racist in 2017. "No, uncle Steve, Jews did not invent jazz dancing, and stop offering my friends mustache rides."

But marketing isn't sales. Oh, look, the Large Hadron Collider! Bear with me. We don't watch Star Trek because it has robots and lasers. We watch because it tells us a story about who we are and the better selves we aspire to be. But we also wouldn't watch Star Trek if it didn't have any robots or lasers. Now that I'm a glitzy, ramen-eating business owner, sales is like that. I don't make comedy to sell books; I sell books, so I can make you laugh. It's an important distinction because I get caught up in my survival needs and forget they aren't in the driver's seat. You're the boss here, and I'm interviewing with you for the job of comedian. It's fair for you to decide I'm not right for you and I have to look elsewhere. But if we click, I hope you'll consider being my boss and also my friend.

You'll see on my resume that I quit a twenty-year software engineering career in late 2015. Most employers think I'm "overqualified", but I'm hoping you'll look past that. If my goal were to eat or to buy toys like Fitbits and vacuum shoes, then leaving tech was suicide. "Alexa, ruin my career." For me, comedy isn't about the money. I enjoyed software, but that didn't matter once I realized I was just asking my boss, "you want fries with that?" Maybe I was more skilled than the next man-shaped-cog, but when I left nobody stopped selling their cars, high-rise condos, or Bluetooth hairbrushes (fad hair day). The world didn't notice me leave any more than you notice turnover at your local Arby's. I left to make the things that burn in my soul, that keep me up at night, and that wouldn't exist if I didn't make them.

Seth Godin is right that artists need to create a purple cow (something that wouldn't exist without us). You'll never beat the industrial machine at their game. There's always a Mr Burns with a giant, faceless corporation that exploits third-world toddlers because their tiny hands and boundless energy will sew those shirts faster and cheaper (just like Santa's elves). WalMart runs real sweat shops right here in America.

After family and friends, your work should be the most meaningful thing in your life, but meaningful work has to sustain you and the purple cow won't keep you in ramen on its own. You have to market it. I've seen lots of purple cows that languish in obscurity. My friend Chris makes a webcomic called Puck, but he's said on numerous occasions that you can't earn a living with one. I think I can prove him wrong, and I think Brad Guigar, Russell Nohelty, and Tyler James already have. They earn their living making books and comics and helping others do the same (including me). Not to mention the many other creators I see earning decent livings with just the support of patrons.

So to maintain my family's ramen supply, I need to learn marketing, and then shower to get the stink off. Every time I see a blog from someone who's obviously successful, they're using tactics that make my skin crawl! "Here watch my twenty-minute prerecorded marketing tutorial and when it's over buy a subscription to my exclusive marketing club that's ONLY three-hundred dollars! But only for the next TWENTY MINUTES! HURRY! CLOCK'S TICKING, ASSHOLE! GIVE ME YOUR $300! NOW!! NOW!!!! NOW!!!!!! After twenty minutes, it goes back up to $400!" I want you to know before I say this, that I am incredibly grateful for Tyler James, who's given me a ton of great information about reaching my goals FOR FREE. Having said that, Tyler James is a dillhole. I love him and I'm super-grateful for everything that dillhole's done.

== Frustrated Rant Mode Engaged ==

Tyler: I realize somebody ponied up a bazillion dollars for your Harvard Masters, but my wife and I are below poverty (a family of 5 on $24k/yr) for the last two years now while I work this shit out. We literally paid every penny we had in the world to buy our house, and that was less than a quarter of that paper for your wall. It has nothing to do with me not wanting to support you that I can't whip-out $300 in twenty minutes. You've helped me, I think you deserve recognition, respect, gratitude and even testimonials and help from me. But even one-hundred dollars might mean not having power or Internet this month, and it'd be nice if you didn't rub it in my fucking face.

I feel guilty buying a sandwich at Arby's because the money could go toward advertising, despite knowing most of it has to be spent on food (I know Arby's isn't technically food). The silver lining is that we own our house, but after four years and two repair jobs, we still have a small leak in our basement. I personally dug a pit on the side of the house for weeks to save some money on it. (It's a real no-money pit.) And that's not even mentioning walking twenty-miles uphill both ways in the snow. Christmas is in a few days and I anguished this year over buying each of my kids ten dollars worth of used comics at Half Price Books. (They're still my kids at 16 to 22.) At least Tiny Tim hasn't lost his spirit!

So no, twenty minutes for a 25% discount on a $400 membership isn't "a great deal!" It's a slap in the face. And most of us who are trying to earn our living with comics (your "target market") are in my situation, not yours. If you'd offered me a payment plan, like I could layaway it for $50/mo, I likely would have bought it without the high-pressure tactics and told my Patrons I was spending their pledges on that instead of advertising for 6-8 months.

== Frustrated Rant Mode Terminated ==

EDIT: I want everyone to know Tyler James is a super stand-up guy! I had a brief discussion with him recently, he read this blog, and was super-chill about the roast and being called a dillhole for comedic effect. He also informed me of a related note, and I want you to know I had no influence on this, this was his plan before we talked. Tyler said:

"It's funny though... this year I am switching my courses payment structure to a monthly membership model in order to open all of my premium programs up to creators at all income levels. Price should not be a reason not to join."

He also informed me rather matter-of-factly, that I didn't have all the facts regarding his Harvard Degree. He got a special scholarship to attend Harvard in recognition of two years teaching in one of the country's most underfunded school districts. Thanks for filling me in on that, Tyler, I appreciate it!

So if you haven't met Tyler, I definitely recommend you do.

I'll be transparent here and share how my budget works, so you understand why I stay in the sleazy motel room that is marketing, (it smells of smoke and piss and god knows what happened to the toilet, but you're stuck there because of a mustache-riding convention in town). Webcomics used to support themselves with ads like network TV. That ended in 2013 when marketing peeps said "WE WANT MOAR POPUPS!" and the Internet responded with a Grumpy Cat meme in the form of a massive spike in ad-blocking technology. Woohooligan has one ad, which nets me about $1.50 per month, (twelve minutes at minimum wage). I'd earn more in an hour busking in the street like Amanda Palmer, doing stand-up comedy for tips. (See my one man show on the corner of 5th and Main titled, "No Really, I'm a Homeowner!") Most webcomics moved to Patreon for the bulk of their support, which is really online busking. Remember, before this I billed $80/hr, so I'm not doing this for money.

Why busk? Why not sell books? I currently have one print book and three ebooks in the Woohooligan store, and comic ebooks only really sell for a dollar. I love the sixty-five cents I see from that dollar after credit-card fees. You can read every page of my site and see a boat-load of ads, and the ad network (Google, etc.) pays me maybe a penny. So if you pledge just one dollar to my Patreon each month, the $0.65 I see increases your support of my work by more than a hundred-fold what I earn from ads. If we still want ramen, I need about $2,000 each month to replace my current disability income. So with a net $0.65 from each book, I need to sell 3,076 books per month, 103 per day, or one every fifteen minutes. I don't expect that, so those dollar ebooks alone will likely never support us. I've got to find other ways to supplement our income either with patron support, or by selling more expensive items like print books.

Yes, I left $80/hr to have a current monthly take-home (~$65) that's about what I'd earn in a single day at minimum wage. I didn't leave for money. You'd think I could work tech part-time, but no. My disability is thanks to an autism diagnosis in 2007. Because of that, work that I enjoy overtakes me like a Jeckyl and Hyde situation. Doctors call this blurse hyperfocus. I really never stopped working except for meals and sleep. That's not quite true, most days I didn't eat. People standing in the same room often call my name four to six times before rousing me from the fugue state that is me working. I lurch out of it like a trauma victim with a thousand-yard stare, groggy and irritated, unable to answer simple questions like "did you take your insulin?" Go away! Distraction bad! So I can't program part-time to supplement my income. The career I chose has to work, so I have to make marketing part of my comedy... I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I read all the marketing books and blogs I can. Most of the "information" in them is brain-dead stupid, useless to you personally, or both. You search Google and you find "10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website." Great! Just what I need. The article begins, "Step 1: Make good content." Mind = blown! Why? You don't! Before this Einstein, I just had photos of used napkins. Hell, Twitter was nothing but lunch photos the first year. Thirty million tweets so I know you're not racked with guilt like me when you have an Arby's quarter-ton Beefenator. I can't wait to see step 2, "tell people", and step 3, "don't accidentally delete your website."

Getting back to free stuff, it's a truism in modern culture that if you're starting a business, you have to give people something they want for free. Professionals give people free consultations. Facebook and Twitter give us free accounts to share fake news and real cat videos with our friends. PornHub gives us free porn, but did you know they also give us free sex ed and free snow plowing in Boston? (Or they didn't, but it made you laugh, if only because "plow" is a double-entendre.)

I like giving people free things - free comics, free advice, free promotion. I certainly benefit from free things like Tyler James' ComixLaunch podcast or Russell Nohelty's Business of Art and Facebook group. (Russell just launched a new site, The Complete Creative.) They were more helpful than things I paid for. I bought a four-star marketing book on Amazon, it should be good, right? I'll save you twenty bucks; have a mailing list. Nothing else in 288 pages is what experts call "actionable", just shit you can read on any marketing blog like, "don't piss people off because Twitter." What would have been helpful is how to get signups on a mailing list, but that's like Baptist churches who asked PornHub to plow their back lot. The bar for marketing advice is so low, if your grandfather started a marketing blog tomorrow, he'd be Arby's VP of marketing in a week, and his number one tip for online success would be, "get off my lawn!" (There's no wi-fi there.) If you are a creative person and you'd like a book with some useful advice, here's my review of Russell Nohelty's Sell Your Soul.

But all these things we get for free aren't actually free, someone pays for all of them. Facebook and Twitter are funded by advertising. We don't consume their product, we ARE the product (and their execs talk about us like toasters). But that's not the only cost. On broadcast TV, Arby's hoped fans of Mister Ed liked sandwiches. Now that we have Internet, we know about the horse meat, and Arby's knows loads of creepy things about us, like whether we use coupons or carry a balance on our credit cards. Arby's pays more for Beefenator ads on Facebook because we're selling them our privacy. And as Adam Conover points out, you can opt out of Facebook, but good luck avoiding Google.

Shit like this is good reason to hate marketers because it's intrusive, impersonal, and manipulative. It's the reason I personally hate having to learn marketing. It's like an episode of the Twilight Zone where Disney World lets you into the park for free, but requires their guy Steve follow you throughout the park, scribbling notes and recommending giftshop items, Arby's Beefenator, and the Mustache ride. So yay, free Disney! Until you come back from the bathroom and Steve tells your mom the gift-shop has Pepto-Bismol. Thanks, Steve, it's nice to know you've got my back.

Since I don't have a choice but learn this stuff, I try to be decent about it. I choose to think of you as friends instead of a "target audience". I'm a real person on Facebook and Twitter (no bots, autoresponders or apps congratulating people for being my "top engaged followers"). I like chatting with you, without obsessing over your "engagement". (The word engagement should be reserved for situations involving a ring or enemy combatants.) I don't expect you to be in a fugue state waiting for my next tweet; fugue states are my job. I give mailing list subscribers a free copy of my first ebook, (signup below), though I'm not good about telling people that because I'm annoyed by promises of "must have tips for success" only after their mailing list signup. And I treat everyone the same, without stopping to ask, "is this person an influencer?"

I recently started introducing myself to people on social media. When someone sends me a friend request on Facebook or follows me on Twitter, I send them a brief message like this:

Hi Steve!

Thanks for the follow and for recommending the Mustache ride.

Let me know if I can help with any of your projects.

You may enjoy my new comedy manifesto, Laughter Is a Moral Imperative http://woohooligancomics.tumblr.com/manifesto

It's copied and pasted, but it's not an autoresponder. I tell webcomic creators that I also review webcomics. After I published the manifesto last month, I rifled my recent direct messages and shared it with as many people as I could. It's the pushiest thing I've done, but again, that article is totally free, it doesn't even link directly to anything I sell. I just think it can improve people's lives.

I've always enjoyed helping people. A drawing class at summer camp, unpaid articles for software journals, problem solving on mailing lists, being an Adobe Community Expert, sharing resources for managing depression. And I mentioned I also review webcomics, and write other articles to help creators, like Six Tips to Kickstarter Success, Six Ways to Earn More Commissions, and Six Reasons I Didn't Spell These Titles With Numerals. These are all free, just to help you out.

On a more philosophical note, we say the best things in life are free, but we often take the most important for granted, like privacy (see Facebook) and freedom of speech. Critics of the government in China and Russia are often jailed, beaten, or killed. If you're reading this in China or Russia, first let me congratulate you for getting past the censors (they never like my dick jokes). Second I will always fight for freedom of OMG look out behind you!

When I published a Je Suis Charlie cartoon in 2015, I was shocked how many people seemed confused about the importance of freedom of speech, as I mentioned online and in my first book. How often do you hear about the Freedom of Information Act, that helps protect our freedom of speech and uncovers a lot of great stuff like the FBI's hilariously out-of-touch Twitter slang dictionary?

Free hugs are... not always cool now that I think about it. Not from Steve the mustache guy. It reminds me that my dislike of ShamWow commercials can't be compared to old-world gatekeepers like Weinstein that you had to suck-up to because they controlled the purse-strings. Sorry to get serious on you, it's just an important subject that's on my mind, and I'll talk more about it with the next few pages of my Hellbent story. And speaking of freedom, I think the marketplace of ideas and crowdsourcing services like Kickstarter and Patreon are helping create a more open world with fewer of those sleazy gatekeepers, so it's good to see net neutrality is a freedom we rally around.

Finally there's time. There's no such thing as "free time", which implies what? "Lets hang out! Can't, I've got prison nine-to-five." You sholdn't think of your work that way. Self care is important, and the better part of self-care is creating a life you're not desperate to escape from, into a bubble-bath and a bottle of Chardonnay (or in our circles, Netflix, Jack Daniels, and a gallon of Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road). Nobody on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time at the office", but do you think you'll say, "I wish I'd spent more me-time, chugging booze in the tub?"

Losses can be recouped, but there's no getting back the two hours you spent watching the Mario Brothers movie. (A brightly colored, whimsical game as imagined by the creators of Rain Man and the Killing Fields? Was Clive Barker unavailable?!) We have to make the most of our limited time to contribute to the world. I've made comedy for eleven years, but I didn't finally give up tech until I had cancer on my birthday two years ago. That was the second near-death experience on my birthday, following diabetes in 2013. I realized my best self wasn't the man-shaped cog asking people if they wanted fries with their website. Who knows what the next life-threatening birthday illness will inspire. Maybe I'll run for President, I hear the bar is pretty low. :P

I think any creative person will tell you, there are times when you feel frustrated by the cost of striving toward your better self. Times when I remember that none of my work has ever gone viral (not enough salt?) and the thousands of hours of comedy I've made feel unloved. While I know it's not a helpful emotion, I feel a little bitter about the effort it takes to get a handful of people to spend two minutes enjoying a comic strip I spent two days making for them. Because all this free entertainment we enjoy (and I'm not just talking about my work), is paid for with the precious time of the cartoonists and comedians who create it for us, and that's far more important than the money I've spent on advertising. That's why I share other creators' work as often as I can, because I can't afford to buy all their books, but I can tell them I appreciate them, and give them a little signal boost, or a little advice on their Kickstarter.

One day I'm thinking about how I avoid writing clickbait, but that it might get me that viral piece I've never had, if I could just roofie my principles for two damn minutes. And then I'm in a flame war with another artist because I used to post voting incentives on TopWebComics, and he says it's sleazy to put your work behind a pay wall or a voting screen. Well of course! No one pays to see Batman, or the Avengers, or Calvin and Hobbes, right?! It's totally unreasonable to expect two seconds of help from someone who enjoyed sixteen hours of my work for free. And we wonder why people don't value artists when some of us are so eager to devalue ourselves. I know I should have ignored him, but I couldn't let it go.

And then some goat sucker calls my comic work clickbait in the comments on my site while claiming he's trying to help. My first instinct is to release the Kraken, but I remember all the times I've shot myself in the foot that way and I try to calmly diffuse the situation. But he's like the squirrel in Ice Age and WON'T. LET. IT. GO. like it's the a sign of the end times that I don't take advice from an anonymous heckler like he's Spielberg. So I write another piece in frustration that becomes some of my best work and that's frustrating because I don't want an angry-ranter reputation.

When I'm feeling bitter about work and trying to avoid the stink of marketing, I remind myself that as expensive as my work is, it's a bargain compared to my previous career that only paid money. In 2007 I was a man-shaped cog that helped sell x number of cars (with or without fries). It's immeasurably more meaningful to write manifestos and essays like this, knowing that it will make lives better for friends like you. I can only say that because I choose to think of you as friends, not as a "target market" with a "cost to acquire" and a "lifetime value". I remind myself that I have no idea what my best work will be or who it will help. We shouldn't forget the best "free stuff" is ourselves. We're free to choose because we can never know the final destination.

So if you see me hawking books or promoting our Patreon, and you have that "eww, get away from me, pushy salesperson" reaction (like I do), please remember that I'm not out there giving people free comedy every day and helping other creators because I'm trying to sell books or get pledges. I'm trying to get pledges and sell books, so that I can keep laughing it forward, making people's lives better with more "free" comedy. I'm telling people about the free book on our mailing list to get more friends involved in our mission to bring laughter to the world.

I hope you'll consider being my boss and my friend, because there's nothing in the world I'd rather do than work for you. It’s a lot of work. It would be a lot easier for me to just focus on my books. But like I said, selling books chock-full o’ dick jokes is a side-effect.

I work in the service industry.

Now if my free stuff isn't your thing, I hope you do find what you're looking for.

Thank you for sharing yourself with us!

- Sam

P.S. If you believe that laughter is a moral imperative, get my first book for free, and share it with your friends!

Get Woohooligan Vol 1: Into Dorkness, Free!

[greg38mcall]

Our Laundry Room Today

First, I want to thank you for all of the great feedback on the sweet and simple nightstand drawer before | after post. I am excited that those smaller projects are just as fun for you as they are for me! I have a few more small scale organizing projects up my sleeves that I can't wait to tackle and share. Today, I wanted to give you an update on our laundry room!

In my last laundry room update a few years ago, I excitedly shared a peel-and-stick wallpaper that I had just installed. Shortly after that, a funny thing happened. The wallpaper began to give me this strange, unsettling feeling. I was so in love with it when I found it, but then I became stuck. I attempted to source finishing touches for the room and it all seemed to compete with the paper. After awhile I began to resent the busy pattern and colors and the more I thought about it, the more I would get a pit in my stomach. I would try to convince myself that I was being ridiculous because the paper was really beautiful, and it is just a laundry room after all. I know that decor is just decor, but in the same breath, I truly believe that our surroundings impact our emotions. Just because I loved the colors and design of the wallpaper, doesn't mean it was right.

But I waited on it. I lived with it for almost two years and really tried to make it work and be sure I wasn't acting impulsively. I felt that guilt we all do when we invest in something and don't want to be wasteful. I refused to remove the paper until I could find a way to save it to reuse or pass on. Peel-and-stick paper usually comes packaged on a glossy paper backing, and after some digging, I found a wide freezer paper that is plastic coated. Turns out the freezer paper is the perfect way to take down the adhesive paper from the wall, roll it up, and save it to be reused in another way. In fact, our laundry room paper has already been repurposed in my niece's bedroom lining a bookcase and we all couldn't be happier about that. All of that said, I still feel a combination of embarrassment, frustration, and guilt each time I take a design misstep or change something. As the queen of being hard on herself, I have been learning to give myself some slack and simply challenge myself to look at those situations as learning opportunities. Creatives evolve and change stuff all of the time. It is how we grow and stay invigorated! Guilt be gone because this wallpaper swap was a really good change for me. I didn't intend for this post to get too heavy but I also think it is important to share all of this because I know I am not alone. Many of you are like me in that you aren't trained designers, you just enjoy chipping away at making your home a place that reflects your style and makes you feel good. I hope that this can be a fun place where we bond over that together. If you try something and you don't love it, life is too short to live with it. Change is good! So with that, let's look at where our laundry room is today. I am not calling it a "reveal" because it is not done (no room ever is), but I will say I am finally feeling really good about the progress and excited to live with things as they are for a while. It has truly become a room that I look forward to going to and gives me this warm fuzzy content feeling.

Once the floral paper came down, I began to look at a variety of alternative peel-and-stick options to replace it with. Nothing was feeling right, but I was convinced that with my indecisiveness and my history, a temporary paper would be the best and most non-committal option. Then I came across a Farrow and Ball Lotus wallpaper on eBay for a really great price. Two full rolls for $100 less than the typical cost of one single roll. And being that I was only doing one wall, two rolls would be plenty. I pulled the trigger because it just felt so much more in line with my ultimate vision for the room. The last paper was colorful with an extremely busy pattern. I still wanted pattern and color but now knew that a tonal option would probably give me a similar effect without overwhelming me this time. It would still offer visual interest, but wouldn't compete with all of the other elements in the room. Although the new wallpaper is installed with a paste, I reminded myself that anything can be undone. No risk, no reward. We installed the new wallpaper about five months ago now and I still get happy butterflies every time I walk into the room. It feels so much more refined and timeless while still offering something interesting and beautiful. (We followed this wallpaper installation tutorial here.) After that, things very slowly started to fall into place. And although the rest of the changes we made were not big ones, they were still impactful.

For example, I realized that the open glass doors of the paint cabinet were visually competing with the open glass cabinet doors over the sink. Having multiple door styles in the room really created a weird imbalance, especially because the space is small and windowless. I initially tried to add a frosting to the inside of the glass, which helped, but eventually just primed and painted them so that the cabinet could just sort of fade away and hide the clutter behind the doors (I wouldn't normally do something like that on a nice piece of furniture, but this cabinet was DIY'd by us years ago and serves the purpose of storing all of our paint supplies, so it was a nice fast fix in this instance). There is a lot of white in this space which is good being that there are no windows, but I have been keeping my eyes open at thrift stores and on FB Marketplace for an interesting old cabinet to bring in another layer of character. When we first DIY'd our built-in wall, we partnered with Home Depot to come up with some custom storage for our laundry room. We have never stopped loving the storage that the entire wall offers; we use it for cleaning supplies, beach gear, seasonal items, sewing supplies, laundry hanging, and now even for feeding our pups. We modified it a while back to add some decorative shiplap backing and laundry baskets, which gave it a fresher look. Five plus years in it had become clear that we could have initially used a better method for making the cabinet doors. The doors we originally constructed were quite heavy, built from MDF, hung with external hinges, and weren't perfectly square. So this summer we built all new doors!

The new doors are infinitely better. They cleaned up the look of our built-in and the panels are now truly inset (I plan to share how we built them soon). We also installed concealed hinges which makes such a wonderful difference. At that same time, the entire unit received a fresh coat of paint, trim, caulk, a new acrylic hanging rod, and a built-in feeding station. Yes, yes, and yes!

Isn't that hanging rod lovely? I have been so inspired by my friends Grace from A Storied Style and Kristin from The Hunted Interior, and their use of acrylic for hanging rods, handles, window hardware, etc.., that I had to find a place to do the same. I found an inexpensive piece of acrylic on Amazon, as well as the mounting hardware. We added three total brackets to be sure the rod could hold the weight of our clothes, and so far so great!

The counter is a piece of butcher block that is extremely solid and ties to the floating shelf above the washer and dryer.

For the pup feeding area, we researched the best eating height for our dogs and installed a pull-out shelf that we cut to insert their bowl inside (we used a basic white laminate shelf paired with these drawer slides). The bowl is just floating in there so it can easily be removed and washed at the nearby sink after feedings.

Originally I wanted to store their food in the drawer below, but pet food really should be stored in its original packaging or an airtight container that can be easily cleaned. So now the drawer just holds all of their supplies, which also works out really great! Their food is sealed in a rolling bin in the tall cleaning cabinet.

The wire baskets continue to function really well for our family. We use them when the clothes come out of the dryer to bring the folded/hanging clothes back to our rooms to be put away. The larger woven basket is for linens for delicate wash items.

As we continue around the room, I added a pair of really pretty brass hooks to hold towels and beach/summer gear. I use hand towels all over this room for cleaning the feeding area, drying the bowls after washings, wiping down the washer door, and of course for general hand drying. Multiple hooks are a must!

The art above the hooks is a print from Juniper print shop; the colors are so great and it reminds me of many scenic drives that we have taken over the years.

The room is all white so that the wallpaper can be the star. But the back of the door was begging for something, so it received a coat of Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green. It is a stunner of a color and I want to use it again and again. I also added an over-the-door organizer for the iron and ironing board. We still need to change all of the hinges to black throughout the entire lower level.

Our washer and dryer are Maytag and they have been workhorses for us for over ten years now. As a family of five, we do laundry every single day so we couldn't be happier about the amount of use we have gotten out them so far. We lowered our hookups and built them in a few years ago and it was one of the best things we could have done. The folding counter has been such a game-changer to my laundry routine; I absolutely love all of the space there is to spread out and fold piles of towels or to layout my sweaters to air dry. Being that the units are now built-in, I am a little nervous for the day the washer/dryer goes out and we have to upgrade. I will be sure to share what that process looks like should that happen down the road (no jinxing it!).

The counter we selected is holding up great, no bowing or wear and tear from the daily use. Of course, I would have loved to have installed solid surface counters, but these were so much more budget-friendly and serve us perfectly well.

Laundry detergent and whitener are stored in lidded glass canisters...

While the smaller essentials such as dryer balls, delicate wash, stain remover, and a lint brush, are all stored in a handy wire basket.

I continue to be a superfan of the deep stainless sink; it has been used for dish washings, mop bucket fillings, stain soakings, and paint supply cleanings. It cleans up so nicely and is everything I could ask for.

As far as the faucet goes, although there is a pull-down nozzle, there is very little spraying power so that will probably get swapped out at some point. The faucet itself is of high quality and a really beautiful option. Sidenote: Aren't those flowers absolutely beautiful? They are the prettiest colors and I clipped them straight from our yard. #staysummerforever 

I shared the organization of the sink cabinet here, and how we installed a decorative toe kick here. That decorative toe kick still makes my heart race; little details are so important.

The cabinet above the sink holds all of our frequently used home maintenance items; lightbulbs, extra paper products, sewing boxes, puppy linens, stain remover, etc...

Last but not least, how sweet is that little wooden rail of hooks? That is another DIY and I will share that tutorial soon as well. It was incredibly easy and inexpensive and it turned out to be one of my favorite accessories in the entire space.

Bit by bit, one project at a time, our laundry room has evolved and changed so much over the years. This room is used multiple times per day so it is nice to have it fully functioning and feeling more complete. Chores are definitely more enjoyable when you are feeling good in your surroundings!

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Laundry Room Wall/Built-In Color: Benjamin Moore Simply White

Laundry Room Door: Benjamin Moore Newburg Green

from IHeart Organizing http://www.iheartorganizing.com/2019/09/our-laundry-room-today.html

[stitchybutton]

Now that you’ve got a stash of funky printed fabrics (presumably because you so very graciously became a patron of The Stitchy Button), and a few basic pillows, I bet you’re looking for something more advanced to sink your teeth into, huh? Well here’s a good project: a Half Log Cabin quilt square! As always, I’ll try to describe good technique and the logic behind it as I go along.

The first thing you’ll want to do is gather your supplies, which should include:

and a collection of fabrics you think might work together:

I’ve picked out 4 solid and 7 patterned cottons here, which is probably too many, but you gotta start somewhere! I’m a planner, so I like to snap a picture of them all with my phone and play around with the colors in a paint program on my computer before I get going. You can also sketch out the basic pattern on paper and break out the crayons, of course.

There we go, I disinvited all the fabrics that weren’t needed, and made a “cut list”. This pattern can be done with strips of any (and even irregular) width, but for our purposes, we’re focusing on 2″ wide strips. Using a ruler, make yourself paper patterns of a 4″x4″ block, 4″x2″ block, 6″x2″ block, 8″x2″ block, 10″x2″ block, and a 12″x2″ block. 

(If you have a graphing ruler and lots of confidence, you could free hand your rectangles directly onto the fabric- but it’s nice to have the paper pieces for two reasons: if you want to make multiple of the same quilt square it helps to keep you consistent, and you can mark little tallies on the pattern itself to ensure you have cut enough of that shape.)

Here’s my cut list, where I order the pieces. I’ll cross each item off as I go:

Plug in the iron and press all the fabric you’re going to be cutting from. If you have good floor space or a second surface you can iron on besides the table where you’re sewing, go ahead and leave it on while you do this whole project. Pressing your seams open between every step is the key to good sewing.

Keeping your pattern pieces square to the grain of the fabric, trace around your pattern pieces (pinning them in place if need be). The 4″x4″ block is called the “hearth” in a log cabin quilt square, isn’t that cute? :) This traced line is your stitch line. Cut around it, giving yourself about a half inch of seam allowance. When you cut out your 12″ piece, give yourself as much as an inch on your long outer edge- this will come in handy if you’re planning on making a stuffed pillow.

When you have all your pieces cut out it should look something like this. If this is one of your first quilt square experiences, relax. It doesn't look like a proper square right now because you’ve got all that seam allowance in there.

Next, I like to pile up pieces 3 through 9 so that the ones I need first are at the top, in order. Now I’ve got piece 1 and 2 and we’re ready to start pinning.

In the Stitchy Method TM, I pin starting with the corners, perpendicular to the stitch line. For almost all of the pieces in this quilt square there will be no need to use more than three pins. Overzealous pinning is unnecessary, as your fabric should already be pressed flat and well behaved. See? Only three pins. Once you’ve controlled the fabric from the corners, a middle pin ought to be able to skewer both stitch lines when stuck straight through.

Now, I really feel that this is a project for machine sewing, but I can’t stop you from sewing by hand if you insist. Either way, it’s time to get your machine or needle threaded. Pick as close a color as you have to the majority of your fabric, maybe a beige, or a pink if half of your blocks happen to have pink in them! - If you’re on a machine you’ll want to use a straight stitch with a length of 2.5 or 3. Any smaller and you’ll crowd the weft, which makes for sloppy, distended sewing. There’s no need to stitch between every molecule, and you’ll thank yourself if you have to seamrip any mistakes :) - If you’re hand sewing you’ll want what is called a “sharp” needle, and to double thread and knot a length of thread that’s about the span of your armslength to your nose. (Link: Picking a needle) (Link: Threading a needle and tying a knot). Use a small and tidy “running stitch”.

Beginning in the seam allowance, follow the stitch line and then sew past it, to the edge of the fabric. Remember to tie your knots (handsewing) or do a small back stitch- 3 will do (machine sewing) at the beginning and end of your seam.

Tips for machine sewing: Always always always begin with your needle hand-wheeled into the fabric before you press the footpedal. Sweep the tail ends of your thread back and out of the way of your presser foot. It will stabilize your seam as you begin, and prevent you from getting a tangled knotty mess of thread on the underside of your seam. Pull out pins an inch before you get to them, don’t run them over if you can help it.

A lot of sewing machine have a little blade on the side with which to clip your excess thread after you sew a seam. Use it! If you don’t, clip with your shears. I know you have some, because you just cut out all that fabric, so no excuses. Clip your threads after every seam.

Open up the seam and press it flat. This is important to do after each block is attached. It will prevent any one corner from becoming too bulky.

Now grab your third strip, and pin it to your joined first and second block.

Your middle pin should be positioned on the seam allowance of your first and second block. It will function as a minder for the seam allowance, and keep it from getting flopped around while sewing.

Sew your third block to the others. Clip your threads, and press your seam open. From here, it gets repetitive. Position your fourth block, pin it to the others, minding the seam allowance of the other pieces. Clip and press. Fifth piece, and so on.

Good sewing should look just as charming on the bottom as the top.

When you get to the 7th strip, a 10″x2″ block, I give you permission to use 4 pins!! Wow!

Once you’ve attached 7, 8, and 9, give your stripes one last press from the back.....

 and flip!

You’ve done it! If you intend you turning this into a stuffed pillow (Link: Stitchy’s pillow tutorial), be sure to mark your opening, using the breadth of your fingers to judge the needed width.

Other links!

Stitchy’s Patreon, where you can get a monthly kit of fabric, among other goodies. The Stitchy Button etsy shop, where you can contact me with commissions, or if you’ve fallen in love with any of the fabrics you’ve seen in this tutorial.

[qwertyprophecy]

Niffler Crochet Tutorial

Of sorts. Disclaimer: As a newbie crocheter, I hardly know what I’m talking about – most crocheting terms are a mystery to me, and I didn’t count my rows or anything – but if you want a vague step-by-step guide for making this Niffler, keep reading.

BASICS

Yarn: Should be woolly and chunky. I used 6mm “Essentials Alpaca Blend Chunky” by Rico Design (50% acrylic, 30% wool, 20% alpaca - very soft!), black and light brown. They had a nice pinkish one too but I decided to dye the nose instead to get that gradient. (I also used a second black yarn for the fur but more on that later.)

Hook: 4.5mm for the main body, 3.5 for the paws. You might want to go for a smaller hook or thicker yarn to avoid holes, honestly. The 4.5 is a bit too big but it was the only one I used to own.

Whole thing is in single stitch unless otherwise noted.

DIAGRAM

First, to keep track of the sizes of the various parts, I drew side and top views of the Niffler. (Please ignore the weird lines and numbers – just a failed attempt to keep track of rows.)

Then it’s possible to keep crocheting without worrying about stitch count. Just check every now and then that you’re on the right track in terms of width.

You can use my diagram, or improve upon it. For reference, I was mostly looking at this pic since that’s the pose I wanted:

BODY

1. Start at the tip of the tail with a magic loop, as few stitches as possible. Increase on every row according to the diagram.

2. To make the tail curl, keep increasing on the bottom side of the tail, but decrease on the top.

3. Then keep increasing on every row to match your diagram. Mostly evenly, but to create a full tummy, increase more rapidly on the top part. And so on.

NOTE ON STUFFING:

You’ll want to start stuffing your Niffler with filling early on, before the opening gets too small. Of course, the Niffler being black, regular white stuffing will shine through the holes. Use black stuffing, or line the insides with black cloth (ideally something soft like velvet) before adding white stuffing.

4. When you reach this point (red line):

Instead of completing your row, turn around on the second-to-last stitch and crochet backwards. When reaching the last stitch of the old row, turn around again. Keep turning around to fill those missing rows (blue lines on diagram). Once you’ve ran out of stitches, do a row of normal stitches on top of the weird hole-y row you’ve made. (Now, I’m sure there’s a proper name for this technique, I sort of co-opted it from a sock heel tutorial. My crocheting knowledge is a bit rubbish)

Also remember to keep following the curve of the back by decreasing a stitch every now and then.

5. Do another round of that technique to get your rows lined up correctly.

6. Once you get to the top of the head, stuff the rest of the Niffler, decrease rapidly and tie it all off.

FACE

Now, I pretty much winged this part, but the general idea is this:

Take a look at a reference picture and figure out where on the finished body base your Niffler’s face should be. Still using black yarn, crochet an outline of the face. To get a base for some nice puffy cheeks, do couple rounds under the cheeks (black lines on diagram), decreasing appropriately. (I slipknotted under the snout; I suppose you could also cut the yarn.)

Switch to brown yarn and do two flat circles as the areas around the eyes, and an outline for the snout (beige lines on diagram). Put in a bit of stuffing and keep going with the snout.

To help the snout keep its shape, I cut up a small piece of foam and put that inside instead of stuffing.

Once the snout is at correct lenght, you should have maybe 8 stitches remaining. Press them against each other (4 against 4) and tie them off.

Finally, sew on buttons for eyes.

LEGS AND ARMS

Made as separate pieces, stitched into the body afterwards.

1. Start with the sole of the foot. This is how it should look like. Each toe is a 3 stitch long chain tied off at the end.

2. On the side, it looks like this. It’s not very visible, but the brown foot continues underneath the black leg – it’s like a pocket, shut off at the end (where it says “attach”). This is to give the foot some three-dimensionality, when the rows next to the toes are flat.

3. Switch to black yarn and crochet a circle around the ankle of the foot piece.

4. The calf is a simple widening tube – as always, just roughly follow the diagram, increasing appropriately. Keep checking the leg against the body to achieve correct proportions.

5. To turn at the knee, use the technique explained in step 4 of the body.

6. Once you’ve done the wide bit of the thigh, decrease quickly and tie it off. Use the remaining yarn to stitch the leg into the body of your Niffler.

Same thing with the arms, except the hand looks like this:

Instead of the pocket thing, just crochet a whole round, and close the hole by stitching it onto the palm. Then switch to black yarn and make the arm.

POUCH

Make a flat pocket the size of your Niffler’s tummy. Attach to Niffler. Ta-dah.

FUR

Now comes the ridiculously time-consuming part.

1. Cut up a ~5cm piece of yarn.

2. Loop it through a stitch on your Niffler and fasten it off. If you do it from the correct side, the yarn strands should follow the natural direction of the fur.

3. Repeat 1-2 ad nauseam until the Niffler looks ready for a punk concert.

NOTE: I only added fur to the head and tail, as it quickly turned out covering the whole creature would take forever. Those are the important bits though.

NOTE ON YARN: I had another type of yarn I experimented with for the fur. I lost the label but it’s the the kind with stuff sticking from it:

I put about 4 strands of this per stitch, here and there. It had a rather nice fuzzy sheen, and I thought using two types of yarn gives the end result a bit of a scruffy, natural look; but honestly, it’s probably not worth buying a whole new ball of yarn.

4. Take a comb and run it through the mess of yarn so that the individual strands separate. This’ll work best with a loose sort of yarn.

5. Now for the fun part: giving the Niffler a haircut. With small scissors and a reference picture on hand, cut the fur down to appropriate lenght.

NOTE: It might be easier to work on a small bit at a time, instead of adding all the fur at once before cutting it down.

6. Here’s a trick to make the knitted part match together better with the furry part: Take your comb and rub it against the un-furred surfaces. If you’re working with woollen yarn, it should start breaking down, making it slightly fuzzy. This covers up the stitch texture a little so it looks a bit more like fur (at least in my opinion).

DYING THE SNOUT

To give the snout its pinkish hue, I diluted red and magenta watercolours, dabbed it on and let it try. You could probably use proper dye for better permanence, but as long as the Niffler doesn’t go swimming, watercolour’s fine.

---

And there you have it: your very own Niffler. Ready for cuddles, bank heists, and biting Dolores Umbridge on the nose.

IMPROVEMENTS

When I make more Nifflers with this pattern, I’ll definitely change some things. Here’s a couple of suggestions:

1. The tail a bit too big on the original diagram. The whole bit could be moved closer towards the body.

2. The eyes are are a tad too low. Be careful when positioning the face outline.

3. Don’t cut the fur too short. The knot will not hold and then you’ll have Niffler shedding all over your bed.

4. The fingers and toes curl a lot. Looks cute, but only when it’s curling in the right direction. Otherwise there’s this whole Gnarlack vibe going which is... less nice. I’m not really sure how to fix this, but there must be a way.

Happy crocheting!

P.S. If you do make a Niffler, please link me some photos! I want to see an army of nifflers. a world covered in nifflers. that is my dream

Oh yeah and tagging to make sure the people asking for a pattern see this: @shelbylynnmarie @butterfleeee @servicedoodle @lawonsie @secretlyaravenclaw-blog @alycexthraina @bluecat158 @potterwhovian98 @knittingknerdy @beanie117​ @mskastiel