#i KNOW how to double space a fucking document and it would change my font and the size and just alkfjsadlkfjadslkfjasdl

[neonganymede]

I handle change so well.

[outropeace]

elotito tagged me on this so i’m gonna do it for her <33333

1. describe how you first started writing and when you first posted

i began to write in general since i was around 14 like any other emo kid kdjdjsks and o began to write fics when a friend asked me for one as a birthday present. it was written in a hurry and it’s not my favorite but i really enjoyed doing it. i posted that exact same fic on their birthday

2. which of your characters do you typically resonate most closely with? do you base any characters off of yourself?

it depends the fic i guess. and not really, i think the closest i’ve been to do that is in the rockstar au (coming to the @bottomlouisficfest very soon), i put one or two of my old insecurities in h so he could connect better and wouldn’t be persieved as just an asshole-y dude cause i don’t like that and louis don’t deserve that uwu🌸

3. where do you often find inspiration?

music, movies, tiktoks (DONT JUDGE KDKDKS)

4. has quarantine helped or hindered your writing process?

before the quarantine i had around 3 wips, now i have 8

5. do you listen to music/noise while you write or do you prefer silence?

i listen lofi youtube playlists shjdkld

6. what is your biggest writing pet peeve in your writing or in general?

me repeating “Oh...” over and over again through tall my fics, it shouldn’t be legal

7. describe your ideal writing setup

rainy day, good coffee, comfy sweater, my cat besides me, arely sending texts about teeth/imessage games, snacks

8. favorite time of day to write?

nights (it’s usually when i have time)

9. favorite genre to write + one you’d like to try writing in the future?

i’d LOVE to write a thriller

10. do you struggle with writer’s block? how do you typically overcome it?

i just leave the fic for a bit, i don’t really like to push myself about this cause i’m just doing it for fun

11. what is the easiest part of your writing process and the most difficult?

the easiest is the dialogues, i could write pages and pages of just dialogues in hours and the hardest is the smut dhjdd

12. how do you come up with original characters? (if applicable)

it depends, is the antagonist? i ask myself how’d i feel if i were them, like a third party just trying (and usually failing) to get in between

13. what is your favorite and least favorite word?

i like “wet” i just... yeah.... and least favorite i don’t really know tbh

14. what is one thing about your writing that you’re really proud of and one thing you hope to continue working at?

i like that people conect with the characters because i always put a lot of effort in making them realistic (as much as i can), i make them flawled and sometimes even messy but with good hearts and intentions, all of them are (even the antagonists). and my grammar OH MY GOD MY GRAMMAR

15. what work of yours has your favorite ‘verse/world building? how did you come up with it?

hands down the ice prince fic. and funny thing is, i already had my prompt for the fic fest but i just couldn’t stop thinking about one particular prompt about a bratty prince and an alpha who hated omegas and the amount of POSSIBILITIES that had. two days later or so, the mods of the fest gave us the opportunity to pick another prompt if we wanted and the rest is HISTORY

16. what font and size do you write in? single spaced or double?

11 and single

17. what is a typo(s) you find yourself making consistently?

baby do we have TIME FOR THIS ONE?

18. (if applicable) do you separate fic writing from fandom?

yes, always 100000000%

19. what emotion is your favorite to write? which is the most difficult?

angst, sadness, anguish, sorrow, jealousy, i love to hurt hearts. and it’s not an emotion but after they get together it’s really difficult to me to actually keep going (oh god dkdkdkkdd)

20. what is one thing you hope readers always take away from your works?

that that’s okay to fuck up, that no matter the circumstances you have to respect your partner and TALK WITH THEM and that a person can be successful, independent and a badass while being soft and a c*mslut

21. what is the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?

i think “write whatever you like, you’re not being paid for it anyways” is the best and only advise i’ve actually listened to

22. which one of your works would you most want to see turned into a film/television show?

it’s complicated cause my two favorites are abos and idk how that would work dkskkss but the ice prince and the alpha/alpha fic

23. do you write scenes chronologically or out of order?

chronologically but i have a document apart where i write everything that comes to my mind at the moment, that one is A MESS

24. how do you handle criticism?

i think good, if it’s respectful

25. what is the advice you would give to someone who is looking to start writing?

trust yourself, have fun

26. what kind of feedback on your work always makes your day?

ANY type of positive feedback makes my day tbh

27. which fic ‘verse of your own would you most like to exist in? which fic’s characters would you most like to befriend?

none tbh dkdkks and louis, obviously

28. what do you always enjoy getting asks about/wish people would ask about more?

about my stories, i love when people just come to rant to me about certain things the characters did and ask me why they did it

29. what has writing added to your life? how has it changed you?

it relaxes me a lot. i just can write for hours and hours and it just feels nice and in some way exciting

30. why do you write?

refer to question 29 kdkdkxk

boost yourself + tags!

1a. share the last sentence you wrote

from the exes to lovers au:

The second hiccup of the night came in the form of his ex smiling to a boy sitting next to him on a couch. The boy had gorgeous, dark and wild hair, clear hazel eyes and a pretty pouty mouth. Their body language screamed attraction and that they both were ready to devour each other. Louis was familiar to the smile Harry was giving to him, bright and seductive, ready to give anything you asked for.

2a. describe the wip you’re most excited about

right now i’m very excited for the happiest season au, my “cliche story” au and for my exes to lovers au dksks i’m excited about a lot of my wips i’m so sorryjdjd

3a. share the piece of dialogue from one of your works you’re most proud of

from the alpha/alpha au:

“I’m not giving up on love,” He softly touched the hand that was still grabbing his thigh. “To me, love is like flowers. Each one needs a special treatment, if you give an orchid the same treatment you give to an iris, the orchid will die. Same thing with love. I’m not giving up on love, I’m just changing the treatment. We might not be an orchid, but we could make such a pretty iris.”

4a. share the best first and last lines from your work(s)

favorite first line from the sugar baby au:

Powerful people only end up with powerful people. The rest are just playthings in their lives. Louis Tomlinson was many things, but he wasn’t anybody’s plaything.

favorite last line from the ice prince fic:

“Who would have guessed…” Harry whispered after a while, smiling against Louis’ lips. “the dragon finally got to keep the princess.”

5a. link the last fic you read

HAYLEY’S MASTERPIECE

6a. link the last work you published

that’d be the ice prince fic

7a. link to your ao3 (if applicable)

hereee

8a. someone that inspires you

louis teheeee

9a. a comfort fic/work that you’ve been grateful for this year

god, again, there’s so so many of them, like the amount of authors i’m so grateful for, the list is infinite but these are a few that comes to my mind

all elote’s (@defencelesst) fics makes me really really happy and never fails to give me a cozy/wintery feeling, her louis IS THE MOST PRECIOUS THING ON EARTH AND HER HARRY IS JUST PERFECTION, i’m in love with her descriptions and how she just takes you THERE. hanis @loulicate-recs always makes me smile so fucking hard. ris @falsegoodnight fics NOW.... well.... ris fics they make me smile but also make me want to throw my phone to the other side of the room BEST OF BOTH WORLD IG. MAR’S FICS (loubellies on twitter, idk their @ here i’m sORRY) ARE LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS AT THE MOMENT, such a pretty louis IM SO IN LOVE WITH MAR’S LOUIS ITS UNFAIR

10a. other writers that you’d like to tag!

omg i’m probably so late to this and idk how many of you have actually done this so here goes nothing @allwaswell16, @runaway-train-works, @greenfeelings, @kingsofeverything, @thepolourryexpress, @larents

[ifishouldvanish]

Editing tips, I guess?

Hey uhhhhh, so I've gotten lots of new followers over the past few weeks and wanted to do some kind of thank you?? Also, I have seen a fair share of "omg HOW" in the tags on my edits (which??? always make my day?? my week??? my life????)

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my ~techniques with y'all? So here goes:

(lmao this got really fuckin long so cuuuuuut)

1. Make EVERYTHING a Smart Object

Okay, maybe not EVERYTHING, but seriously. Do it. It will save ur editing life. You ever shrink something down and then an hour later change your mind and decide you want it bigger? If you're not using a smart object, it’ll get blurry when you scale it back up and you’ll be fuCKED!

To make a layer/group a smart object, just right click on it in the layers panel and select "convert to smart object". This makes Photoshop store the layer's original data in a separate space for safe keeping (an embedded .psb file, to be exact) -- so you can shrink it and enlarge it as many times as you want without any lossiness.

As soon as I paste/place a screencap, texture, or whatever into my document, the first thing I always, ALWAYS do is convert it to a smart object!!

Why, you might ask?? Continue to item No.2 :)))

2. Harness the POWER of Smart Objects!!

The reason I am obsessed with Smart Objects is because I am obsessed with making any edits as non-destructive as possible. If you use “Image > Adjustments > Levels/Selective Color/etc” on a regular layer, that’s a destructive edit. Same goes for any Filters (such as blur/sharpen) and transforms (Warp, distort, perspective). You lose the original data that was there and the only way it can be undone is with ctrl+z. Might not seem like a huge deal at first, but if you keep chugging along for an hour and decide, “hmm, maybe i went too hard on that levels adjustment after all...” your only options are deleting the layer and starting over, or uh... hoping it’s still in your history panel.

However, it's really easy to avoid destructive edits when you use smart objects!! Because all those adjustments, filters, and transforms become “Smart Filters”. Smart Filters have all the non-destructive advantages of performing these adjustments via adjustment layers, but have the added bonus of ONLY effecting the layer they’ve been applied to, instead of cascading down and effecting all the layers beneath. (Which can be a good thing sometimes, but that’s a whole other topic)

Smart filters are attached to their ‘parent layers’, and can be hidden, deleted, or modified (by double-clicking their names) at any time:

Can I hear a wahoo???

Other cool things about Smart Objects:

You can copy a Smart Filter with all its settings to another layer by alt+click+dragging it over

You can change the order in which Smart Filters are applied by clicking and dragging them around

You can edit a smart object independently/in a sort of 'isolated' mode by double-clicking on its thumbnail!! I like to use this for edits that are specific to a given screencap-- like cutting out the background and any initial adjustments, like levels and selective coloring. Once you’re done editing the contents of the smart object, hit ctrl+s and it will automatically update in the main document!

But really, the biggest thing for me here is psychological. I know I’m much more willing to try things and experiment when I know that I can easily go back and tweaks things at any time. Otherwise, I’d stick with adjustments I don’t really like all that much simply because it would take too much time/effort to redo them.

3. Don't even THINK ABOUT using the eraser tool or I will STOMP YOU to death with my hooves!!

Use a layer mask instead. Please I am begging you. It all comes back to making your edits as non-destructive as possible. If you erase something, it's gone forever. When you mask something, you can make changes to which parts are visible/not visible as often as you want.

For the newbies or the otherwise unacquainted, a mask is a greyscale ‘map’ attached to a layer (or layer group) that controls its opacity. Black areas give the layer 0% opacity, white areas will give it 100% opacity, and you can use shades of grey to achieve partial transparency. You ‘draw’ on these layers with the your trusty brush and paint bucket tools.

You can create a mask by selecting a layer and then clicking the little mask icon at the bottom of the layers panel (it’s the one with the little circle inside the box). Draw black on the parts you want to hide, and if you erase too much on accident? Just paint back over it with white!

I love masks, and sometimes i will throw an already masked layer inside a layer group and apply a second mask to said group. This way I have two masks that can be edited independently from each other. Like layer mask-ception.

So anyway, yes. Eraser tool? Don’t know her.

4. Try using channels to create masks!

This is a technique that works REALLY well for cutting out complex shapes, such as wispy hair (or feathers!) -- provided there's strong contrast between the subject and the background, and the background isn't too busy.

This is also a fantastic method for capturing alpha transparency. For example: If you have a neato paint stroke/splatter/watercolor texture you want to use as a mask, but has a solid background that’s getting in the way of things. This method will capture all the semi-opaque areas flawlessly!!

While editing your image (which you had better have made into a Smart Object!!!) do the following:

Switch from the "layers" panel to the "Channels" panel.

Toggle through the R, G, and B channels, and decide which one has the most contrast for the areas you are trying to mask.

Ctrl+Click that channel's thumbnail. This will create a selection marquee.

Switch back to the layers panel

Click on the target layer/group (the one you are trying to mask)

Click the mask icon at the bottom of the panel (the one with the circle inside a box)

Release the selection and invert the mask if necessary

If you're using this method to cut out a subject from its background, you probably won't want alpha transparency. In this case, select the mask thumbnail and use a levels adjustment on the mask itself to bump the contrast until you have more of a cutout effect!

It sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s really simple! So I made this handy GIF: (click to view from beginning)

Sometimes you won’t want to use this method for the entire image, but just a specific part. For example, if you’ve cut out a character with some other method (magic wand, manual brushwork), but are having a hard time with their hair in particular. Use this method to create the selection, but instead of converting the whole selection into a mask, use the brush tool to apply the mask only where you need it! You can invert the selection itself with shift+ctrl+i.

5. Outlining text

The font I used here is Salomé, which is actually a solid typeface with no outlined version. But you can make virtually any font into an outlined version if you so desire!

There's two possible methods here, actually:

The Easy Way:

Add a stroke layer effect to the text layer (by selecting the layer, clicking the little “fx” button at the bottom of the layers panel, and choosing “Stroke...”)

As far as settings go, aligning the stroke to the inside usually yields the best result/maintains the integrity of the letterforms.

Make the color of the text itself match the background.

If necessary, use the lighten/darken blend modes to create the illusion of transparency.

If you need true transparency (which I didn't until I decided I wanted to apply a gradient over the text), you'll have to try something else-- The Also Easy But Less Than Ideal Way:

Right click the text layer in the layers panel and select "convert to shape".

Now you can edit the fill/stroke the same way you would any other vector shape.

Again, you’ll want to set the stroke alignment to ‘inside’. For vector shapes, those settings are a little hidden. You’ll wanna open up that little dropdown in the toolbar with the line in it, and click “More Options”.

This is semi-destructive, so if you're working with a lot of text you might have to edit later, consider duplicating and hiding those text layers first so you'll have a 'backup' of it.

And while I’m on the topic of text...

6. Try breaking up your text layers!

I know a lot of people like to draw a neat little text box to put their text in, and then they center it all nice and neat and probably use a small font size to make it subtle and stuff... and that’s cool. Everyone’s got their different styles and things they like to emphasize in their edits and there’s absolutely merit to that sort of thing (case and point: the bulk of my dear @herzdieb’s work), but. Listen.

I love typography. I love a good typeface. The stroke widths, the letterforms, the ligatures, the serifs... I get like, horny on main for a good typeface. I like to make the text on my edits BIG, so that those details can shine. I also like doing interesting things with the text. Jumbling words/letters around, distorting them, deconstructing them and just...  letting the text really ~interact with the rest of the composition instead of just kinda politely floating on top of it.

I’m not saying you have to do that kinda stuff. Or that I think neat little floaty text boxes are boring, or lazy, or whatever. It’s just... personally, I get really inspired by type. Fun type treatments are one of those things I LIVE FOR, something of a ~signature of mine, and I encourage everyone to just... try it? To use text as more of an integral Design Element and less of a... idk. A caption?

So if you have a quote, or even just a word... put each word (or letter) on its own text layer. And then: make ‘em different sizes. Make the words so big they don’t fit on the canvas. Rotate each one at a fun angle. Scatter them around. Go nuts. Use masks to chop parts of the letterforms off. Make ‘em overlap. Just have at it. Or, as the kids these days are saying: go absolutely fuckin feral.

If that really just isn’t your style, or doesn’t work/make sense for the edit you’re doing, fine. Delete all the layers and just do a text box or whatever. But. I’m tellin u.

Give it a try.

At least once.

Just... a lil taste.

7. Understand the difference between lighten/darken vs screen/multiply

For a while in my photoshoppin' youth, my understanding of these blend modes basically amounted to "darken makes things darker, and multiply makes things really darker", and vice versa for lighten/screen. But there's an important difference between how these blend modes work, and if you understand them, you can use them more... strategically? I guess?

Darken and Lighten are kinda misnomers tbh, because they technically don't really darken or lighten anything. What they actually do is make it so that only the areas of the layer that are darker or lighter than the content of the layers beneath them are visible. This produces some pretty nifty layering effects that you can't achieve with screen and multiply.

Here’s an example: (if you’re reading this on a phone with the brightness dimmed down you probably won’t be able to see the differences)

Without any the texture applied, you can really see the noise/graininess of Crowley’s jacket in the screencap. You can also see the ‘seam’ where Crowley fades into the background-- the jacket is a green-ish black, while the background it’s fading into is more of a purple-black.

With the texture set to ‘Screen’, the whole image becomes lighter across the board. Crowley’s jacket gets lighter, and so does Aziraphale’s jacket and the pink cloud thing. This does little to nothing to obscure the poor image quality and disguise that ‘seam’.

But with the ‘Lighten’ blend mode, ONLY the dark parts of the image appear lightened, and not only do they appear lightened, but they get kinda equalized. Notice how the patchy jpeg artifacts on Crowley’s jacket disappear, how that color seam smooths out, and how the brightness of Aziraphale’s jacket and the pink cloud doesn’t change at all.

This isn’t to say that lighten/darken are better and that you shouldn’t use screen/multiply. They each have their uses. But most often, I find myself using lighten/darken because the way they work is honestly really helpful? And just cool af?

8. Masking individual frames on gifs

If you ever feel like torturing yourself by making a gif that has frame-by-frame masking, my advice is don't try to mask each frame from scratch. You'll get patchy/wobbly results from the masks being slightly different on each frame.

Instead, mask the first frame, then alt+click and drag that mask onto the next frame. Make any minor adjustments to the new mask as needed, and repeat for each frame. This saves time and more importantly, keeps the masking consistent on areas with little to no movement, which makes a HUGE difference in how smooth the final product will be.

If you look at the edges of the animation, they’re nice and steady and consistent. It’s only the parts that have a lot of movement (like the back of his neck) where you can see any ‘ghosting’/wobbly-ness happening.

Sometimes the mask will move when I copy it to the next frame. Like, for the whole document. It gets nudged 20 pixels down or to the left or s/t every time. I have yet to figure out why, but I’m betting it has something to do with shooting myself in the foot with the frame 1 propagation settings at some point during editing?? ANYWAY, when this happens, just unlock the mask from its layer (click the little chain icon between their thumbnails) and move it back into place.

In these cases, I also like to pick a spot with a hard edge (such as the shoulder in the above gif) as a reference point of where it needs to be moved to. It kinda sucks having to do this for every frame, but you already signed up for some suckage when u decided to mask every frame of a gif, so I mean... 👀

9. Don't be afraid/too intimidated to do manips as needed!

Manips can be tricky if you're really striving for realism. There's light sources and color grading and perspectives to reconcile!! But when you're doing an artsy Edit with a capital E, odds are those kinds of discrepancies will be thoroughly camouflaged by all the levels, black and white, etc adjustments you're doing!

Something I run into often is, "I like this screencap, but the top of their head/hair is chopped off :(" But if I go back through all the screencaps from the scene, there's usually another frame where the camera is planned/zoomed out enough that I can steal the rest of their head/limb from it! And since it's from the same scene/shot, the lighting and color grading should already be a perfect match!

A super simple example:

So I wanted to use this picture of David and Michael for this edit, but 1) They’re standing on the wrong sides for their characters, and 2) part of David’s arm is covered up by Michael’s.

Of course, the easiest course of action would be to just mirror the photo so they’re on the correct sides, but 1) mirroring faces tends to yield wonky results, and 2) that still wouldn’t give me a perfect, free-standing cutout of Crowley to place wherever I want in my composition (as opposed to being forced to awkwardly position him off the edge of the canvas to hide the fact that the other arm is missing)

Fortunately, it only took all of like, two (2) minutes to draw a crude selection around his good arm, copy and paste it into a new layer, flip it around, and add any necessary masking to get the shape right.

My point here isn’t to teach y’all how to do manips, or to pass this off as an impressive example of one. Because it’s really, REALLY not. My point here is to demonstrate that even something as tiny and simple as this can really open up your options for what you can actually do with an edit/composition.

So next time you’re feeling limited/inconvenienced by the crop of a screencap, just... you know. Consider whether or not it’s worth attempting a quick and dirty manip to fix it.

Another Example:

Sometimes you’re torn between two screencaps. You like one element from Screencap A but also want some other element from Screencap B. What to do? Just frankenstein ‘em together. Layer one on top of the other, get them lined up, and mask out the necessary parts.

It’s easy to get hung up on stuff like “Uh... should Crowley’s shoulder be doing that?” but let me assure you that like... the people looking at the final product are none the wiser to your butcherwork and will not notice. Especially if you’re going to add a bunch of contrast and color adjustments later on. (in fact, sometimes I’ll apply those adjustments first so I’m not distracted by any discrepancies that are going to come out in the wash anyway)

“I dunno... 🤔🤔 doesn’t seem anatomically correct... 🤔🤔🤔🤔” thought no one.

Point is... point is... dolphins you can get away with a LOT more than you think you can. Don’t let the desire to make these kinds of manips perfect get in the way of just... making them good enough. The bar isn’t that high, I promise.

10. Know what inspires you

What types of edits get you EXCITED? What kind of work do you see on your dash and go, "oh, I'm reblobbin' THAT!!1!"

I know for herzdieb, she's all about emotional pieces. She likes matching words/lyrics/poetry to on-screen moments and punching you in the feels with both. She hears a song, or reads a poem, and the lightbulbs go off for her, and she does her thing.

As for myself, I just live for the aesthetics of an edit. The colors, the fonts, the composition. I almost never know what text/screencaps I'm going to use when I start an edit. I just see a font I like, or a color palette, or a texture, and think, "I wanna use that!"

And once you know what inspires you, collect that inspo! I hoard textures and fonts. I have them organized into neat lil folders. When I wanna make an edit, that’s where I start. I just browse through them all until one or two start calling my name. Herzdieb collects songs and quotes and poems. Maybe your thing is color palettes, or aesthetic-y photos. Or whatever.

The point here is make the kinda stuff you like/want to see. Not the kinda stuff everyone else is making or the kinda stuff you notice gets the most notes.

11. Be able to let go of things that aren't working

I often begin an edit with a rough idea of the style, colors, or layout I'm going for. And I almost always end up doing... something totally different.

So don't get too fixated on what your initial ideas are. Be open to experimenting and just let the edit be what it wants to be. If something looks nice, do it. If it doesn't, don't try to force it just because, "well, I was inspired by this piece that did xyz and I wanna try it too".

When you see a certain effect that inspires you, just keep it in mind as a possible solution for the next time you make something-- don't make it into a benchmark, or some imaginary 'goal' you have to meet for This Edit You Are Working On Right This Moment. In fact, sometimes the elements I end up ditching are the very ones I started with, that initially sparked my inspiration. And that's okay. Inspiration can be a moving target, and if your vision for something changes, let it.

You wanna know what inspo reference I was looking at when I started that “Temptation Accomplished” edit?

Fucking this: https://search.muz.li/YTdiNjkwN2Rh

You might be thinking, “how the fUCK was that the inspiration??!! Your edit looks nothing like that at all!” ...and you would be 100% correct, and that is 100% my point. I spent a good hour or two trying to incorporate that cutout text layering effect before finally accepting the fact that it just wasn’t working for the edit I was making. And it wasn’t until then that it actually started to come together.

12. Be patient, and take the time to explore all your options!

I’m not gonna lie, y’all. I spend hours on my edits. I usually complete them over the course of 2-3 days/sittings. I rarely have a plan. 99% of the time I'm just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. When I get stuck (when, not if), it helps to step away from it and come back later with a fresh perspective/set of eyes.

Every single edit I've posted, I have at some point felt like giving up on because I thought it looked like garbage (and not just because I was being self-deprecating/doubting myself, but because at those points, they simply weren't finished/something about the composition just wasn't working for me)

Work through those moments, and if necessary, take a break/sleep on it. It's always after I've exhausted my early ideas that the really good ones start to come to mind!

Here’s how the character poster edits I did progressed:

In Classic Me™ Fashion, I literally started off with just... textures I liked, and a font that I liked. Now, there were obviously a lot more ‘steps’ involved in both designs, but hopefully at the very least this gives a sense of how things get from point A to point B.

So uh... thanks 4 comin 2 my TED talk. I hope u learned at least one (1) cool new thing or maybe just feel vaguely inspired by this rambling mess?

[sceawere]

another time pt. 2

@girllostinthewoods [part one here]

yeah, alfie’s still not in this one but the time travel is!

You walked into the club, struck by the atmosphere the second the door swung shut behind you.

It was bright, and loud, and warm, and close, and…incredible.

Everything was flush and plush and glittering, people in beaded dresses and suits swinging around. There was a real band, dolled up, playing 20’s versions of modern songs and you laughed to yourself, hovering in the archway that led from the entry to the club proper. People were scattered about the tables that encircled the dancefloor, milling about with fancy drinks in hand. It was incredible. Like nothing you’d ever seen, except for on a screen or a museum.

A few differences you did note, as ‘authentic’ as they had tried to make the experience. No smoking signs, though printed in vintage font, were giant as you entered in the way. They may want people to immerse themselves but they needed to keep their license. A guy walking past you with a cartoon tattoo peaking from his rolled up sleeve wasn’t exactly realistic for the time period. Neither were the people snapping away the night on their phones. Still, exciting.

“Want me to take that?”

You swung your head around to the voice. A woman stood in a culvert. She was pointing to your coat.

“Oh, uh, yes please”

You slid it fully off from where it was resting, half off, on your elbows. You were balancing your beaded bag between your teeth while you handed it to her.

“Thanks”

“You’re welcome. Alone?”

“Uhh…yeah”

“Hmm. Don’t worry. Plenty out there”

You laughed, turning your head to the scene and back.

“Here on business, technically, not pleasure”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m writing a book about the history of the city and…the original club that was here? Part of the story”

“Oh, wow. Well…I know Jimmy has a room upstairs – kind of a mini museum, you know? Stuff they tracked down, stuff they found in the refurb. There was stuff under the floorboards and in the walls can you believe?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Weird stuff”

She laughed, throwing off the comment, and turning back to the room.

“Oh, uh-“she turned back to you as you stepped closer “stuff like what?”

She tipped her head back a little, probably surprised at your interest.

“Old newspapers, coins, normal stuff you find in old places. People have always like time capsules, I guess”

“You said ‘weird’ stuff though?”

She leaned against the wall and rolled her eyes back and forth across the carpet.

“Some woman’s stuff. I think she was with the guy who owned the place”

“A woman?”

“Yeah, I…don’t remember her name”

You gave her yours and she looked up.

“Sounds about right. Yeah, I remember because Jimmy had me look her up, he was curious. We didn’t find much. She just…came into existence here and then disappeared again”

You put your weight back on your heels, your mind spinning as the band changed songs.

“Sounds about right”

“You know about this? Is this the part you’re writing about?”

“I think so” you reached down into your bag and pulled out your recorder, setting it going “would you mind repeating what we just talked about – just, hit the highlights for me”

She brightened a moment, looking at the recorder.

“Am I going to be in a book?”

You laughed, nodding.

“I’ll put you in the acknowledgements, you’ll have to write your info down. But first-“you motioned to the recorder.

“Oh, yeah” she leaned towards the recorder a little and repeated most of what she knew.

“Can you elaborate on the items that were found related to this woman specifically?”

“Oh” she looked up and away, calling back an image you didn’t have access to “there was…a necklace, like a locket. A newspaper from the date the club first opened and then I think the first year anniversary or something like that – it was front page I think. Some gangster guy owned the place and there was a big” she motioned with her hands “splash about it”

You nodded her to continue.

“Some documents…they were fake. We checked the info”

“Documents?”

“Birth certificate, her national reg card. Stuff like that, documents” she tilted her head and gave you a double look “actually, you might look like her a little. In the right light”

You bristled, swallowing, and shifting your weight.

“Oh but one of them was real! I remember now, a marriage license”

“A marriage license?”

“Yes. Her and the gangster guy. I think maybe there was something dodgy going on there because like I said, none of her info was real. Not her name, her birth, nothing. Maybe she was trying to make a new life? Oh…how romantic. You should write about that instead!”

You blew air from your nose, eyes fixed to the wall behind her as your mind turned over. Suddenly you felt sick. You faltered for a moment, hand stuttering in the air before you finally clicked stop.

“Can I see these things? Is the room available to the public?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. That’s the point. Get people interested. Jimmy’s all about that kind of thing. I can’t take you up – I have to stay here but, uh…hang on”

She shuffled past you into the entry way and waved at someone stood behind the bar. They held up a finger to gesture a minute and she turned back.

“I’ll ask Scott to show you up”

-

Scott showed you into the room, a big gold door up on the balcony.

“Thanks”

“Welcome. Do me a favour – check with me on the way out? Jimmy likes to keep an eye on this stuff. Not that we don’t trust you or anything-“

“I understand”

He nodded and stepped back out into the furore of the main room, the noise not at all muffled up here. You stepped back out, a short pace to the edge. You looked down into the main room, the crowd still animated. Even more as the bar filled up again. You trailed an eye over the crowd and stepped back into the room, pulling the door shut behind you.

It was like a plug, pressing stop on the recorder. Like you’d entered another world. The barest muffle made its way through the ornate woodwork and as you stepped in further, the noise trailed away to almost nothing but the bass you could feel under your strappy heels. Your dress swayed around you, the beads scratching lightly at your legs.

It had jumped out at you in the shop, an old vintage place tucked into the back corner of a converted warehouse. You’d jogged up to the top floor and through the partitions of disparate shops that were smushed together in the old bare-brick walls. A piercing place, a tiny coffee shop with cute leather booths, a costume place, some crystally type stuff, and a vintage shop all in one space.

You’d trailed through the racks, looking for something era-appropriate. It was surprisingly saturated with tea dresses and the like, nothing that screamed Golden Age to you. But then you’d turned to make your way back out and seen the dress hanging in a stockroom tucked behind the counter.

“Scuse me - that dress?”

“Oh yeah, we’ve just finished that one. Beautiful isn’t it?”

“Gorgeous. Finished it?”

“Beading was shot. Hand stitched the lot”

“You’re kidding”

“Nope. You want to see?”

“Yes, yes I do, please”

The stockroom turned out to also be the changing room, given the limited space, and you’d tried to get it on as gracefully as possibly without knocking over a shelf of other works-in-progress. It was perfect. Wearing it here, in the right atmosphere, it felt even better. It felt…right.

You bent over the cases and studied the objects under them. Little place-cards were there too, explaining where in the building they’d been found, little snippets of information.

Your brow furrowed as your eye scrolled over them. Edwardian coins and the like, too early for anything relevant to you. You trailed your hand over the case as you stepped your way around, the sight of a certain piece jolting to you to stillness.

“Holy fuck”

You bent fully over the case, hands splayed, nose nearly pressed like a child at a zoo.

“Oh my…!”

It was you. You were sure. You knew. A picture of you stood in front of the club. Wearing the dress you were wearing now. It was you. The front of the club looked a little different – the signage font was slightly off, the peril of trying to re-create from limited sources. But it was this club. And it was you. For sure. Stood with a guy in a suit, out front.

You hurried across the other objects, a locket, some papers, as she’d said. The name on them was yours. In your writing. You flung your head back around to the doorway, panting. Were you really going to do this?

“Oh, fuck it. I’m already halfway off the deep end anyway”

The cases weren’t museum grade by any means, just glass show cases. You ran your eyes over the edges, looking for sensors or anything there. There was nothing visible. You ran over it in your head – he’d probably asked you to check on the way out because they had no other way of knowing. Who would want to steal any of this stuff anyway? Other than the locket, it had no modern value.

You took a deep breath, flicking the latch at the back of the case cover and pulling it towards you. You rifled through your bag for a clean tissue you’d stuffed into a pocket there and pinched it between your fingers as a barrier to protect both the paper and yourself. Just in case, no fingerprints lying around. You reached in carefully, lifting the documents for closer inspection. When you started feeling dizzy from holding your breath you placed them back down and moved along, reaching for the locket.

You scanned your eyes over to the side, over the marriage license. A bolt of energy ran through you at the thought of the picture came back to you. How the fuck did this woman have your face and your name, appear out of nowhere, and end up with a gangster? You thought back to the historian who’d pointed you in this direction. They had to have known. Was this some sick joke? Some creepy prank? You snapped back into reality at the pain in your fingertips and you turned to see that you’d wound the chain around your finger subconsciously, pulled so tight your skin was turning white. You scowled and pulled to move it free when the catch gave way and it snapped open, scratching at your palm. You dropped it to the ground in shock, a drop of blood chasing after it.

“Oh, shit”

You threw yourself down with the tissue, wiping everything clean and cursing under your breath. You jumped back up, going to lay the locket back as you’d found it in the case when you realised it wasn’t there anymore. You staggered back a few paces, eyes darting around the room in panic. The display cases were gone and in their place was a cabinet with decanters and bottles and the like place on a shining tray. You spun, taking in every detail. Behind you were leather chairs, paintings on the wall that weren’t there before. Your chest jolted and you started breathing deeper to try to calm yourself. The locket was still tight in your palm and you made your way across the room, reaching for the door handle and throwing yourself out onto the balcony. You let the locket drop to dangle as your palms gripped onto the bannister.

Holy fuck. Someone must have slipped you something. You knew you hadn’t drank anything but…in the air or something. They must have. You were tripping. Or dying. Or something.

The room below was mainly as it was but everything was slightly off. The colour of the walls was shaded just a little brighter, the tables had shifted position, and the dresses were all a little more something. The band was different, the song had shifted when you weren’t paying attention. There was smoke trailing up in plumes from throughout the room. It smelt different. It was different.

“Holy…fuck”

“You alright, miss?”

You swung around, the locket swinging after you and slamming against your thigh. You looked down and opened your palm, the chain looped securely around it but the cut was gone. There was no blood. You scowled again, looking back up to the man stood in the sharp cut suit.

“I-oh, fuck”

He looked you over, stepping forward slightly.

“Who brought you up here?”

“Umm…”you ran a hand up and braced it against you forehead “Scott? Scott, I think his name was?”

He lifted his head a little, his tongue braced against the inside of his top teeth.

“Well Scott” he emphasised the word “doesn’t work here so…I’m going to have to ask you to go back downstairs. This is for the boss and employees only, you understand”

“Oh, sorry…sorry. He said – he said I could – is Jimmy…? I’m…confused sorry. Is Jimmy here?”

“Jimmy?”

“The woman in the coat room said Jimmy was the boss, I’d like to speak to him about something”

He snickered to himself, looking down and wiping his nose, before looking up with brows lifted in humour.

“Jimmy isn’t the boss here. So, I don’t know who told you that, but-“he reached out for you and you stepped back against the column.

“Let me see you downstairs, get you a drink. You look like you’ve had a fright”

“No, it’s ok. I’m just going to get my bag and I can see myself out”

“It’s no problem. It’s my job to see beautiful women have a good time while they’re here, you see. We want the pretty ones to come back. Can’t have you telling your friends I was inhospitable”

Your stomach was turning over itself and you kept your eyes trained on his as you side stepped towards the room.

“I dropped it in here, I’ll just be a second”

You sped up once you were in the room, looking around again, hoping something would click. Maybe you’d passed out and this was all a weird dream. Maybe this entire thing was a dream. Maybe you were still at home and you’d wake up at any moment and-

“Take your time”

You turned back to the guy stood in the doorway and you reached down for your bag, gripping it tightly between your fingers. You stood a little too quickly and your vision blurred for just a second. He stepped towards you as you swayed, lifting a hand to your face.

“You alright?”

His cheeky tone was gone, in place of genuine concern.

“I’m…I don’t understand. Oh God, I don’t feel-”

You could hear your voice was almost slurring. Shit. I’m going to pass out again. For real.

“Woah, okay. This Scott you came up with – he do something to you? Hey, oh, sweetheart, hey” he slapped at your cheeks lightly, drawing your chin up to him. He looked over your face for a moment, before shouting to the doorway. Another guy came through, looking like a twin of the first.

“Aaron, come look at her, she don’t look right”

You felt like you were stood two foot behind yourself, you wanted to protest to the two of them but you couldn’t speak, you could barely breathe.

“She said some guy brought her up here but she was alone - freaking out when I came up. You think-?”

The second guy took another look at you before nudging what you assumed was his brother.

“Go get the boss. And tell ‘em to shut the doors! No-one in or out!”

He turned back to you, moving you back to lower against the chair.

“Hey, you with me?”

“I-I don’t-“

You were gasping and he shushed you, bringing you to lay against the rolling armrest. The cold leather pressed against your face and your eyes rolled.

“Hey, it’s alright. We’ll get him, yeah? Tell me what he looks like…hey! Come on. Boss’ll go mad we let a prick like that wander round his place. Messing with women, it ain’t on”

You shook your head, they thought you’d been spiked as well. This wasn’t right, none of this was right. A stupid thought jumped to the front of your fuzzy mind and you struggled to stutter it out.

“When-what date is it?”

He frowned at you for a moment before telling you the date.

“What year?”

“Sweetheart-“

“What fucking year Aaron?”

He smiled wide at your sudden outburst, his hands still clamped on either cheek. He gave a little chuckle before speaking.

“1925, sweet. You want a drink for that mouth?”

Shit.

-

[rueur]

Morning Pages (05.01.2017)

Thursday 5th Jan - 7:37 a.m.

I’m already feeling skeptical about this whole morning pages idea. I feel really groggy, and my teeth hurt and my eyes hurt. I need to fart, and my fingers feel really weird typing right now. I don’t think I had a rough night though. I woke up at 3 a.m., maybe halfway through 3 a.m., with my right ear turning all liquidy so I had to wash my fingers, naturally. I flicked on the lamp, checked to see that Fish was still alive (because he swallowed this piece of grass whole yesterday, like it ran the length of his body and I thought he would choke on it and die), and then washed my hands in the dim bathroom. I then climbed back in bed and tried to fall back asleep but it took a while, honestly. I was conscious of how dark it was when I got back in bed and then felt like something was touching my legs again, my feet I mean. And then I thought I’d have to sleep on my other side because of my ear, but I couldn’t do that because I was paranoid that there was something in the room with me. I’ve paused now. I’m not writing. I feel like it’s hard for me to write about this fear of mine. I only get it when I sleep alone. I feel like it’s a defense mechanism to loneliness: fear of being in the presence of spirits. Because really, being here alone was my choice. Being alone at home, sleeping alone at home, is technically not really my choice but I made peace with it. Kind of. Before I came here, it was hard for me to fall asleep in the dark. I think that when I go back home, it’ll still be hard for me to fall asleep in the dark, because I know that my grandma is at home. Or Bugger. I don’t mind if Bugger is still keeping me company, because I love him. I really do. But I also want him to move on. His life as a dog was so tragic, he deserves something better. I don’t want him to be stuck as a tragic ghost dog. Like when Jasper dies, I think I’ll want him to move on immediately. Hopefully Jasper will live a long cat life though.

I felt like putting a paragraph here to not make this seem as rambly as it’s naturally going to be. This is stream-of-consciousness anyway. I’m also constantly worrying about how I’m going to store this stuff. I was thinking of putting it all on a blog? Like every morning I’d add a 3-page entry (or thereabouts) of my stream-of-consciousness morning page of the day. I don’t think I have enough space on Google Drive, so I think I’ll need to put it somewhere else. And my laptop doesn’t have enough space either. I need to get that fixed.

I’ve paused again. I tried to read what I’d written, but I know that I can’t. Julia Cameron said not to in ‘The Artist’s Way’. Lord help me, I hope something comes out of this trial. I think that something will have to; everyone else who’s tried this on Goodreads has said that it helped them. Anyway, I think I should keep talking about 3 a.m. last night, to be honest with you. I tried falling back asleep, I tried sleeping on my other side, and could do neither. Then, begrudgingly, I got up, lifted the blind an inch or so, and then went back to sleep. Wait, no, I turned the lamp back on and tried to sleep with the lamp on but I couldn’t do that to Fish. It was too bright and I’m constantly afraid that I might kill Fish. Fish is not my fish, by the way. He is a near-twelve year-old goldfish who got attacked, like mauled, by a cat when he was around five years old. Emily told me this. And when they found him they thought he was dead. But a couple of hours later, he started twitching and trying to breathe, and Emily rushed to get him back into the water and somehow, miraculously, he made a full recovery and is still alive like seven years later! This is an OLD goldfish, who has undeniably lived. And I need to keep him alive? But so far, so good. I started house-sitting on the 17th of December and now it’s the 5th of January, and I will be here until the 23rd of January. Emily is my old drama teacher. She lives in a small one bedroom apartment in Northcote; she posted on Facebook a while ago that she was looking for a house-sitter/pet-sitter for the summer and I volunteered immediately. I would’ve done it for free because I’ve always wanted to live in Northcote. It’s honestly beautiful. But she’s paying me, $100 a week. Which I’m not complaining about, I’ll need money before the semester starts because I know I’ll have nothing left besides my savings at the end of this year, if I don’t get a job. I quit my old job and Thailander, this Thai restaurant. They were paying illegal wages. I was getting $13 an hour, and I was also being pretty overworked. I quit at a time back when a lot of people were quitting, actually. At the time that I was quitting, Bao and Winnie (my old bosses) were losing not just me, but also Waen and Doro. Waen (whose name is actually also Winnie, but because of bosslady Winnie, we had to call her Waen) was a backpacker/student from Thailander who came to Melbourne to work so that she could take holidays from her jobs on her holiday and then go road tripping around Australia. In her year here, I think she saw more of the country than I’ve seen. I’m pretty sure she went to Central Australia, and Western Australia, and I haven’t been there. And Doro is a very philosophical chef, who I still have on Facebook (I have Waen too, she’s very artistic) and whose page is filled every day with the most inspiring, assuring stuff. It’s kind of refreshing. Anyway, those two (aside from L as well), were the people I loved working with the most. L was the head chef at Thailander. He was so good at his job that he was actually paid minimum wage, but damn did he deserve double that at the least.

My shoulders are getting really tired from typing this out. And it is fast approaching 8 a.m. and I’ll need to get up and feed the cats soon. I’m a little anxious about that. Emily has two cats too: Bruno and Romulus (Romy). Bruno is thirteen and has seen more death-defying action in his life than even Fish. Bruno was hit by a car twice, and to make things even worse, he has recently been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, and also his pancreas has trouble functioning. SO, he doesn’t take in nutrients properly, his hips have been displaced permanently and when he walks it’s always with a bit of a limp and also slightly veering to the right. I have to give him two sets of medication two times a day: a capsule mushed in with his wet food, and thyroid cream rubbed into his ears. Romy is the most low maintenance of the bunch, and the fluffiest, and the fattest. He’s seven, and apparently he was a wild cat before Emily adopted him. Emily says that the stray instincts are still with him.

Oh man, I didn’t even finish talking about Thailander. Fish is looking at me like he wants food. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl fish, I’ve just been calling it a male this whole time but I honestly have no idea, nor does Emily. Ugh, this morning pages thing is getting quite old. Right now it just feels like a diary to me. This isn’t even stream-of-consciousness, I’m just writing about my life. Maybe I’m doing it wrong? But Julia Cameron said there’s no wrong way of doing it, as long as you get three pages out. I have to admit that the original settings for this word document were Arial font, at size 11 and I changed it to size 12 so I’d have to write less. But I think size 12 is reasonable.

I just scrolled down to look at how blank the rest of this final page is and it’s stressing me out. I have something pulling at my back. Not a presence, just a tired muscle. Then I shouldn’t say ‘I have something pulling’ should I? I should just say, there’s a muscle in my back that’s causing me grief. I took a second to sit up just then, because I didn’t like lying on my stomach. And as soon as I sat up, I felt all the blood rush to my head. I’ve been lying down for so long. I kept waking up at 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 6:30 a.m., and kept thinking ‘maybe I should do the three pages now, or now...or now!’ and kept making myself fall back asleep. When I saw 7:30 a.m., I just had to get up. I was tempted to write them at 3 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep, because I was wide awake and it was technically morning, and I was also feeling a lot at the time. I was afraid. I opened the blinds a little and then tried sleeping with the lamp off but more natural light coming in from the street, and I thought it would be fine. But then the bottom of the blind started hitting the window frame in the night breeze. I stared at it with frustration for some time, timing how often it happened, and then decided to finally say that I was being ridiculous (fuck it! I didn’t know if I was going to allow myself to swear in these pages, I feel like I swear too much), rolled over onto my other side and fell asleep! Who knew that all you needed to get a job done was an overwhelmingly stubborn desire to just get that job done!

Anyway, back to Thailander. I miss L. I miss Hassan, the cute Pakistani chef I worked with on Sundays (11/12 - 9 p.m.) rolling into work super late and super hungover. I miss that whole work environment, honestly. But my restaurant shut down after Doro, Waen and I left. Two of their restaurants shut down actually, out of their original four. Now it’s just the little place in the QV basement, and their very first store on Collins Street. I also miss working in the city, and working in hospitality in the city. I meet a lot of really interesting people. I met Isaac, and Greg, and Andrew. Isaac is a pianist and a musical director. Very talented, very young, very busy. Greg works in set design. He’s a grizzled dude in singlets and he has a big, greyish beard and he’s gluten free. So is Isaac, actually. And they knew each other but they never came in to eat at the same time. Isaac only came in a handful of times though, and while he never left a tip, he did leave his phone number, which was cute. Okay, I’m out of pages. I’ll tell you about Andrew tomorrow morning then?