#render dashed line shapes

[livefastwritetrash]

I see a lot of speculation that the “Infamous Puppy Debacle of ‘94” was a matter of Edwin getting jealous over Charles’s attention.

Consider instead.

Edwin follows that line up with “the living are MESSY.” So I put it to you.

An alternate perspective on the Infamous Puppy Debacle of ‘94:

-

Be Charles Rowland, circa 1994. It’s been 5 years since you’ve had to think about eating or drinking or sleeping or using the restroom or any sort of bodily function really. Your latest client moved on but he left his sweet little golden retriever behind with no one to care for her.

You could care for her.

You always wanted a dog. Dad never had to say no because you had never asked. You never wanted to bring one around knowing they might get hurt. There’s no one to hurt them now.

She comes back to the office. You drag an old sofa in there to give her a bed fit for a queen. You gather up any ball-shaped objects around you aren’t particularly attached to. She’s partial to the tiny black and white football that’s enchanted to always roll back to you. A proper Manchester United fan.

Edwin isn’t happy of course. But then again he rarely is. The dog will be as good for him as she is for you, surely. He could do with someone to care for him with even half of the kindness he shows others. Even if it’s usually through that layer of ice you’ve slowly been chipping away at for want of the friend inside.

Edwin’s budged up nice and cozy with the dog on the couch by that very evening, and you’re feeling quite proud of yourself for your excellent judgement.

An urgent case arises before the sun is up, bothering no one because it’s not like either of you were asleep. If anything it saved you from another devastating loss at the hands of Colonel Mustard in the study with the lead pipe. You tell your new football fan to be a good girl while you’re gone and dip out through the mirror.

It takes longer than expected. Evening is falling again when you and Edwin finally catch your breath in a local park, safe for the moment and free to return to home base. In the whirlwind of the day, you can’t help but feel you've forgotten something…

A jogger runs by with a dog on a leash. Oh.

Another person with a dog pulls up short. They produce a plastic baggy and stoop to collect their pet's leavings. Oh no.

On a bench across the way, a dog owner consoles their bullpup that dinner will be forthcoming as soon as they get home. The stout little monster ignores them, intent on rendering the log in its mouth into a million strips of fiber.

You share a look with Edwin and book it to the nearest mirror.

Being a ghost has its perks. For one, you’ve never been happier to be free of any olfactory senses as you enter the office. There are puddles and plops and any number of messes you try not to look too close at. Edwin’s meticulous case files are in shreds, boxes toppled, tops riddled with tooth marks and slobber.

Your modest but valuable collection of artifacts and other magical ephemera has become a jumbled mass of chew toys on every surface in the room, some being very nearly ingested before rejected.

Perhaps the only edible item in there had been a bag of magic jelly babies, and there were a few piles looking suspiciously sparkly and wet that spoke to where that ended up.

And then there’s your girl, actively tearing into a couch cushion in search of more food as you take in the carnage. She raises her head to greet you, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and she makes an excited dash across the room. Straight for Edwin.

Before you can so much as reach for him, he’s on his back with a wet squelch. She’s ruining his perfect hair and perfect clothes and perfect face with clumsy paws and a drooling a tongue, until he finally remembers he doesn’t have to endure this. He sinks into the floor and out of sight, catching your eye as he does so in a look that could freeze a lesser man’s heart but mostly just makes you feel a little guilty.

In the minutes that follow, you calm her down and dig out a magic can of steak and kidney pudding that had always refilled itself since the days of the Blitz. Not that food was much use to ghosts, but Edwin had been in the midst of a world war fixation ever since he learned there was a second one.

The dog looks so happy as you pour it out on the floor, and you fluff her ears hoping to make her as cute as possible as Edwin’s footsteps echo in the hall.

He enters through the front door this time, still dripping in drool with a rip in the shoulder of his fine jacket and one knee sock scrunched low on his ankle with a few deep runs in the yarn. You think the tousled hair suits him at least, though he doesn’t look in the mood to receive a compliment, so you wisely refrain from making that particular quip.

Instead you kneel down and turn on the charm, tugging those puppy jowls up in a grin to match your own, going for the sympathy plea. But it seems 50-year-old magical steak and kidney pudding didn’t exactly sit well, and she immediately makes the most horrid wrenching noises you’ve ever heard before spewing all over the hardwood. She takes a couple interested sniffs and then goes in for seconds, and honestly yeah, maybe you were a little hasty in thinking you could be a dog guy.

It doesn’t take long to find the client’s adult daughter and anonymously drop off the dog she’s been seeking since it disappeared from her father’s flat overnight. Maybe you’d got a bit ahead of yourself on that count too.

It takes ages to get the office back in shape, and Edwin makes you do most of the scrubbing because it’s “good practice” for interacting with physical objects, but mostly it just makes your hands itch. The case files get severely simplified and moved to a vertical filing system, and you feel a bit bad for it but at least that’s less paperwork for you.

Overall you don’t regret your brief foray into pet ownership, but it’s a relief to know there’s no one relying on you for their every need at all hours of the day. Edwin is attempting to retrieve something from under the couch and holds out a hand, so you cross the room to move a billiards stick about a foot nearer to his reach.

He scoops up whatever it is before you can see, but that probably means it’s none of your business anyway. If he seems a little colder in the days following the dog debacle, you assume it’s lingering annoyance for all the trouble she caused. Fortunately an interesting case sweeps through soon enough, and all is forgiven in the wake of a good mystery.

Edwin has always been the observant one. So it’s no surprise it takes you a few weeks to notice that a new object has taken up a place of honor on his desk. How about that. You look over to where he’s resting on the couch, nose in a book, cushion tucked to his chest with several prominent stitches marring the upholstery. He resolutely does not look back.

You smile to yourself and turn back to the new desk ornament, a familiar articulated wooden hand collected from one case or another awhile back. Only now it’s holding a tiny checkered football marred with punctures by canine teeth.

Huh. Five years in, and you think you know a chap. Maybe that layer of ice didn’t have far to go after all.

—

And THAT was the infamous puppy debacle of ‘94.

🐾

[snapdragonling]

spring into summer

ozy/kallux, 1.3k, 6 years post-campaign for the prompt 'milestone kiss' + ozykallux for @tiefling-lesbian

They’d been fighting intermittently since dawn.

First the dryads, then the wyverns, then the unnamed horror that had crawled out of the swamp, forcing them off the path they’d been charting towards the forest’s heart, where Abraham and his companions had apparently found something “interesting”.

Ozy hoped it was interesting enough to warrant all the effort they’d spent getting this far — although knowing Abe (and knowing Selto) interesting was likely an understatement.

Ozy hoped, too, that they lived to see the damn thing.

“There’s more coming,” Kallux shouts, pointing further down the riverbank. Ozy follows the line of his hand; spots the sleek silhouettes of three more creatures headed their way, drawn by the clamour or the smell of fresh blood. The setting sun glints off their oily fur and casts a sheen over their compound eyes.

Ozy puts his sword neatly through the heart of the monster in front of him. It drops into the shallows with an unceremonious splash, and he steps over it with about as much grace, almost losing his footing on the uneven riverbed. He’d burned through all his magic reserves quickly, and then just about burned through everything again. They’d never be able to win a war against this particular wilderness.

“We have to run for it,” he rasps, already heading for the treeline. “We can’t be out here after dark.”

Kallux is at his side in a moment. He was still drenched from one of the creature’s valiant attempts to drown him, river water mingling with blood and black ichor to trickle in muddy rivulets down his face. “Running from overgrown weasels, not our finest moment.”

Something lunges at them from the side, one of the sinewy monsters that had circled around to flank them. Kallux hamstrings it. Ozy lops its head off.

“What would be our finest moment, by your estimate?” he asks, as they charge into the undergrowth.

Kallux barks a breathless laugh. “Ask me again when I have a second to think.”

It’s a mad dash through the forest, headed in the vague direction Abe had communicated to Kallux via Sending. The woods grow dimmer and dimmer around them, the last vestiges of sunlight sinking beneath a distant horizon, rendering everything suddenly strange and shadowed. More than once their progress is halted by the appearance of some beast or another. They leave a trail of bodies and bloodied grass in their wake.

The forest delivers them a brief reprieve in a large clearing, hemmed in on all sides by enormous, misshapen oaks. “We need a better vantage point,” Kallux pants, bent over with his hands on his knees. “Abe said there’d be a ruined bridge.”

Ozy struggles to free his sword from the tough hide of a six-legged alligator that had followed them into the glade, stumbling backwards when it finally slides loose. Kallux steadies him with a hand on his arm; snorts softly when Ozy turns into the contact, briefly dropping his head onto Kallux’s shoulder, catching his breath for half a heartbeat.

“Would it be foolish to suggest we climb a tree?” he murmurs into Kallux’s collar, wishing for nothing so much as a horizontal surface to lie down on. He hoped Abe and the others had a decent camp set up. (His hopes were piling up precariously at this point.)

Kallux rests one bloody hand on the back of his neck, pressing an idle kiss to his temple. “Honestly I was gonna say the same thing,” he says. And then: “You wanna go somewhere nice if we survive this?”

It startles a muffled laugh from Ozy. “You have interesting timing,” he says, winding his arms around Kallux’s waist, mindful of his bruised ribs. A horizontal surface to lie down on together would be preferable. “I’d like that very much. Somewhere new, maybe?”

A deafening howl splits the insect-buzz and leaf-rustle stillness before Kallux can reply. They both jolt upright. Stalking out from the treeline was the colossal shape of a corrupted centaur, hefting a double-bitted axe in both hands.

“A tree,” says Kallux.

Ozy sighs. “Right, yes, a tree. You go, I’ll keep it occupied.”

“Because you’re terrible at climbing trees.”

“Because I’m terrible at climbing trees,” Ozy concedes.

Kallux grins at him, placing one hand in the centre of his chest. The cool blue glow of his magic ripples across Ozy’s armour, sinking through the metal and into his skin. He feels the jolt of a Haste spell seize his limbs like liquid fire. The very last of Kallux’s magic.

“Yell if you’re in danger of dying,” Kallux tells him, gripping his chin to make sure he heard.

Ozy blinks down at him. Ears roaring with sudden magical adrenaline, fatigue suffocated beneath a heady surge of strength, he feels nonetheless pinned by the burning hand against his skin. He’s distantly aware of the centaur growling. For a moment, it doesn’t seem to matter. In the hazy penumbra of almost-darkness Kallux’s face is limned in silver. He looks exhausted. He looks beautiful. Ozy wants to keep looking at him for the rest of his life.

“I love you,” he blurts out.

Kallux’s expression dissolves into shock. Ozy clears his throat ruefully.

The centaur charges.

—

Afterwards, when they’ve stumbled their way to the ruined bridge and found the small camp behind an illusory boulder— after they’ve heard what Abraham and Kale and Lyn had found at the heart of the forest, and planned what to do about it in the morning— after they’ve eaten magical rations and laid their bedrolls down in an unoccupied corner of the cave (an impressive feat when the space was occupied by five full grown adventurers and all their gear)— Kallux turns to Ozy.

“Did you get hit in the head?” he asks.

“No,” Ozy tells the ceiling, fingers laced atop his freshly bandaged stomach. “Well. No more than usual.”

Silence for a long moment. He glances sideways.

Kallux’s expression was difficult to read in the dimness, though there was hardly any space between their bedrolls. Darkness or not, Ozy can see the tiny crease between his brows; feels worried, suddenly, that reaching out to smooth it away, as he’s done a hundred times in the last few years, would shatter something tentative and new.

“You have interesting timing,” Kallux echoes at last.

“Yes,” says Ozy. “Sorry.” He fidgets idly with the frayed edge of a bandage, gaze returning to the safety of the cave ceiling again. “I’ll choose a better moment next time.”

He’s still staring stoically at the uneven rockface when he hears the shift of leather beside him, and then Kallux is suddenly half on top of him, having rolled over in such a way as to be visually unavoidable no matter where Ozy is looking.

“Oh yeah?” he says, brows raised — and he’s half-smiling now, lips pulled up at the corner in that way Ozy loves (loves), that makes him want to map the crooked edges of it with his own mouth, or watch from the sidelines like something basking in the sun. “Well, can’t wait to see your interpretation of a better moment.”

Ozy adores him, truly. Saying it out loud shattered neither the world nor his heart.

He reaches for Kallux’s hand; brings it to his lips, kissing the backs of his scarred fingers, the inside of his wrist. “I don’t think you’ll have to wait long,” he murmurs, words pressed against the hot skin there.

The flash of answering heat in Kallux’s eyes is well worth the leap.

On the other side of the cave, Lyn clears her throat. “Who wants second watch?”

“Me,” says Kale, and gets abruptly to his feet.

[corgate-epistolary]

May 12th, 624

(Transcript under the cut) (Read on Ao3 HERE)

[Delivered to Corgate May 14th, 624 – Received by Elowen Vance on May 14th, 624)

[Front of Envelope: Letter was mailed in a brown craft paper envelope tied with natural twine, addressed to:

Elowen Vance Corgate Post Office May 12th, 624

With the return address of:

Eris Mirrows 87 Lancedragon Strt. Avalon

In the top right, there is a sticker depicting a black engraving-style steaming cup on a white background, below which is the word “BONJOUR”.

Back of Envelope: The letter was sealed in mottled grey-pink & green sealing wax, with a wax seal depicting a crescent moon surrounded by orbital shapes & stars.  Letter was tied with craft twine, with a small treble clef & key tied to the cord.

Interior pages: Written on light brown paper.  It is lightly, almost invisibly, lined with slightly darker brown lines.  The writing is tidy, slightly rounded print in black ink.]

May 12th

Dear Miss Vance,

I trust this letter finds you in good health and spirits.  Once again, I find myself most agreeably surprised to receive your correspondence so promptly.  I assume your next letters will be farther apart but know that I am delighted that you are enjoying the countryside and the ruins.  Your descriptions render it all rather enchanting.

I have no doubt Khali would have loved to accompany you and run around the forest and shores.  It seems he is missing you dearly, as he stares and whines at the door everyday around the hour you would come get me for lunch.  I cannot help but wonder if it truly is you he longs for more, or the delightful bits of your meals you so discreetly offered him from the table.  It may delight you to know that I finally had him groomed and he now cuts a most dashing figure - all gleaming with a newfound elegance.

The groomer’s attendant, a rather chatty individual, took [scratch out - him] it upon himself to analyze my character based on my familiar, going on and on about supposed traits I must share with his idea of a scary canine. Do I strike you as fierce 

[end of page 1]

May 12th

and protective, dear Elowen? Because certainly I must be, according to him. To a rational mind, these words are no more than quaint superstitions akin to the tales of women branded as witches for keeping a crow as their familiar; or the ill fortune said to befall those bonded to a black cat. How do you think he would’ve read me if I had presented him with Astrea, or better yet with Malice?

Though I would not want to bore you with the tales of my many companions, know that they most dearly miss your presence in their lives. I can feel their discontent at your displacement quite vividly. I have brought Astrea to your apartment in my assiduity to take care of your home garden and she even spared your lowest-hanging plants. That is to say how tragically sad this whole ordeal makes her. She and Cephei do share a penchant for dramatics.

As per your express request, I ventured to the university library to delve deeper into the lore of the region you are assigned to and to uncover what is currently known about long-lasting magic. For the latter, I had to enlist the assistance of Mg. Equlee, as most of these documents are beyond my clearance as an agent. 

[end of page 2]

It seems you are venturing into rather perilous waters if the necessary documents require such attunement to the Weave. Fortunately, Mg. Equlee, always eager to assist, drafted a summary of the knowledge contained within those parchments for me to peruse safely. He also expressed, at length, his displeasure at how such works remain inaccessible to those outside the field of magical studies. I fear he may one day wage war against the Council in pursuit of a more egalitarian field… Luckily, I managed to divert his attention with your tales and by reading your letter, prompting him to return to his own projects.

I hope this has not raised your hopes too high, but alas, Mg. Equlee’s extensive summaries have not revealed anything that would be of use to you. Numerous experiments have been conducted in recent decades to create a type of magic that would outlast its caster; however, none have succeeded, no matter how gruesome the process. The most that has ever been achieved was to channel a spell through the caster’s own blood, with the effects lasting mere minutes beyond the caster’s death—until their blood had dried. You would be

[end of page 3]

May 12th

correct in assuming this experiment was conducted well before the establishment of the Ethics Committee. Since then, no further breakthroughs have been made.

Regarding the folklore of Corgate village and its surroundings, I have come across a few tales that seem pertinent to your case study. I will draft a summary of my findings and have it sent to you at the earliest opportunity. With any luck, it will reach the post office before your return to Corgate, and you will have the pleasure of discovering everything simultaneously.

Before I leave you to immerse myself in these documents, I would like to inquire about your thoughts on training Valberry to make the journey to the ruins. The postal system, while convenient, often results in delays between our letters, and I fear that an urgent matter might go unaddressed for too long. I would feel much more at ease if one of my own were by your side, ready to fly to Avalon should you find yourself in need. It would take a few weeks to train him properly, and I would require your assistance—mostly in providing him with treats when he arrives—but it could prove invaluable in the future.

Let me know your thoughts.

Awaiting your reply,

Eris Mirrows

[goonersaurus]

how long does it take you to create a piece, start to finish? you are an artistic inspiration of mine and i am curious :)

I find myself struggling with drawing footballers in a stylized way instead of using a direct reference… it took me maybe 3-4 hours to do a semi-realistic piece vs 8 hours until i am satisfied with a art piece without direct reference (procreate). part of it perfectionism… i know it’s not a skill i’ll develop overnight but i want to create more freely if you have any tips.

i love your art dearly and i’m always happy to see it on my dash! especially the animated post of rice’s goals vs. real madrid, the color choice is so so cool. 🫶 have a good day

the last drawing of dec took, according to the procreate file, almost 8 hrs. here is my usual process + rough times for a drawing of that size:

1hr: look up the references (for football usually on getty images), draw the thumbnail sketch, choose colours and figure out composition 

1-2 hrs: do a secondary sketch, work out anatomical proportions

1hr: lines. trying to be precise while also dynamic. i think seeing this sketch with the colour sketch, to get a rough look at what the finished piece would look like, is very motivating. (very important as its easy for me to drop a work if im not motivated enough lol)

1-2hrs: colouring (least favourite part)

1-2hrs: details such as the kit designs, the ball, words, the little ornaments (i like this part even less)

then by this point, maybe about 30-60 more minutes would be spent with more tweaks, corrections, staring at the finished product lol

but this time i think i might’ve spent at least 2 hrs doing the animations despite it only being 6 frames in the end. i’m not used to animations but hopefully the more i do in the future the less time it’ll take me. 

also, i tend to waste a lot of time experimenting on the canvas or moving stuff around. i’m also held back by perfectionism, while it is great to hold yourself to high standards, getting bogged down in details seems to be a curse of many artists, so the common advice tends to be to let go of perfectionist proclivities, and trying to do so personally has helped me the past few years with getting progress on a piece. c:

i spend maybe from 0.5-3 hrs each day working on a piece, a lot of procrastination/pep-talking myself on the parts of the process i don’t like. 

these times vary depending on how many characters i’m drawing and the complexity of the composition. in contrast, this drawing of Miles Lewis Skelly took me 1.5 hrs. 

with footy art i also i use references a lot for faces and hair even though i suppose my drawings are very stylized, just to make sure they all look distinct. here are my recommendations for practicing the skill of reducing time on stylized art: 1. experiment with stylizing different facial features and body parts. 2. anchor it with practicing fundamentals such as anatomy proportions, skull construction, rendering 3d shapes, that kinda stuff. 3. exercises and tips on doing the above can be found on youtube. and take continuous inspiration from your favourite artists as well as master illustrators, animators, cartoonists, painters, sculptors, etc. character design references is an example of a solid, organized resource for this. 

thank you for the enormously lovely ask. there are times where i take about the same amount of time on a drawing as you do and i still have so much to learn about drawing >_<not sure of your skill level but i hope some of these tips can be of use to you. the world always needs more footy art so best of luck with drawing those footballers, i really look forward to seeing your drawings if you post them!

[patsketch]

Design Patent Drawings: Capturing Style, Shape, and Aesthetic Value

When it comes to protecting a product’s visual appearance, design patents are a powerful tool. Unlike utility patents that focus on how an invention works, design patents safeguard how it looks—its shape, configuration, surface ornamentation, or combination thereof. And at the core of every successful design patent application are design patent drawings.

These drawings don’t just illustrate the product—they define the scope of legal protection. If something is not shown clearly and accurately in the drawing, it won’t be protected by the patent. That’s why capturing style, shape, and aesthetic value in design patent drawings is critical.

In this article, we’ll explore what design patent drawings are, why they’re important, the legal and technical standards they must meet, and how to ensure your product’s unique visual identity is effectively protected.

What Is a Design Patent?

A design patent safeguards the ornamental appearance of a product rather than its functional aspects. It grants the patent holder exclusive rights to prevent others from making, using, or selling products that feature a substantially similar visual design.

Products commonly protected by design patents include smartphone bodies, furniture, jewelry, footwear, product packaging, and user interface icons.

In most jurisdictions, including the USPTO in the U.S., the drawings themselves serve as the claim. This makes the precision and quality of the visual representation absolutely crucial to securing and enforcing your design patent.

The Role of Drawings in Design Patent Applications

Design patent applications usually include seven views of the product: front view, back view, top view, bottom view, left side view, right side view, and a perspective view (optional but highly recommended).

These drawings are not mere illustrations—they constitute the legal definition of the design. Typically, the patent claim reads: “What is claimed is the ornamental design for [product], as shown and described.”

This means that anything not shown in the drawings is not covered by the patent claim.

Why Capturing Style and Aesthetic Matters

Design patents protect the unique visual appearance of a product, so the drawings must accurately represent its distinctive features, including:

Contours

Curves

Symmetry or asymmetry

Surface textures and details

Ornamentation

Overall visual impression

Failing to clearly depict these elements can:

Lead to rejection by the patent office

Weaken protection, allowing competitors to design around your patent

Limit enforceability if copied designs fall outside the claimed visuals

Accurate and detailed drawings are essential to secure strong and enforceable design patent rights.

Legal Requirements for Design Patent Drawings

Different jurisdictions may have varying requirements, but here are common standards set by the USPTO and adopted by many global offices:

1. Line Drawings Preferred

Most design patent offices prefer black-and-white line drawings. These are:

Easier to reproduce

Legally precise

Consistently interpreted

Photographs or 3D renderings are permitted only in certain circumstances and often require a special petition.

2. Complete Set of Views

Applicants must provide a full set of views that collectively show the complete design. Each view must be:

Properly aligned and consistent

Free of distortion

Without missing elements (e.g., a detail in the front view must match the same detail in the side view)

3. Consistent Shading and Surface Treatment

Shading is used to show contour, texture, and surface transitions. It must be:

Uniform across all views

Not too dark or light

Consistent in scale

Improper or inconsistent shading may lead to confusion or rejection.

4. Use of Broken Lines

Broken (dashed) lines indicate unclaimed portions of the design or the environment in which the design is used. For example:

Claiming only the handle of a cup, while the rest is shown in dashed lines

Showing a smartphone UI icon on a generic phone screen

This technique helps focus protection on the essential elements.

5. No Unnecessary Text

Other than view labels (e.g., “FIG. 1”), design patent drawings must not include:

Explanatory notes

Brand names

Descriptive text

The drawing must speak for itself.

Technical Challenges in Design Patent Drawings

Creating legally sound design patent drawings involves more than just artistic skill. Here are some common challenges and how professionals handle them:

a) Perspective Accuracy

Perspective views (typically in 3D) are used to provide a realistic image. If not done precisely, they can distort the appearance and create inconsistencies between views, leading to rejections.

b) Symmetry Alignment

Products with symmetrical features (e.g., shoes, bottles) must maintain perfect alignment between corresponding sides. Inconsistent lines, shading, or proportions can cause confusion about the design scope.

c) Reflective or Transparent Surfaces

Items like glass or shiny metals require special shading techniques to depict reflectivity or transparency without violating black-and-white drawing rules.

d) Minimalism vs. Detail

Too much detail can obscure the design; too little can make it look generic. A professional must find the balance to accurately portray what makes the design unique.

Why Work with a Professional Patent Drawing Service?

Given the legal sensitivity of design drawings, it’s wise to hire a professional illustrator or patent drawing service that:

Understands USPTO and international standards

Has experience translating product photos, sketches, or CAD files into compliant drawings

Uses professional tools to ensure scale, alignment, and consistency

Collaborates with patent attorneys to align drawings with claims

A single poorly rendered detail can compromise your entire design patent. Investing in expertise at the drawing stage can save time, money, and legal trouble later on.

Design Patent Drawing Example Use Case

Let’s say you’ve developed a uniquely curved water bottle with a textured grip area and a custom-designed cap. Here's how you’d capture that in your design patent drawings:

Front and back views to show the overall curvature and symmetry

Side views to highlight the depth and grip texture

Top and bottom views for the cap design and base contours

Perspective view to show how the shape flows in 3D

Broken lines to indicate generic internal components (like a lid insert) not part of the design claim

This combination would offer strong, enforceable protection over the look and feel of the product.

Summation

Design patent drawings are not merely technical illustrations—they are legal documents that define the boundaries of your intellectual property. Accurately capturing the style, shape, and aesthetic appeal of a product demands precision, strict adherence to formal standards, and a sharp eye for detail.

Whether you're seeking protection for a product’s physical form, ornamental surface features, or user interface layout, professionally prepared drawings play a critical role. They strengthen your application, reduce the likelihood of office actions, enhance enforceability, and help unlock the full commercial value of your design.

In a market where design is often a key differentiator, leaving your drawings to chance can compromise your rights. Collaborate with experienced professionals, follow official guidelines meticulously, and ensure your invention is as compelling on paper as it is in reality—fully protected by law.

[jcmarchi]

MELON: Reconstructing 3D objects from images with unknown poses

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/melon-reconstructing-3d-objects-from-images-with-unknown-poses/

MELON: Reconstructing 3D objects from images with unknown poses

Posted by Mark Matthews, Senior Software Engineer, and Dmitry Lagun, Research Scientist, Google Research

A person’s prior experience and understanding of the world generally enables them to easily infer what an object looks like in whole, even if only looking at a few 2D pictures of it. Yet the capacity for a computer to reconstruct the shape of an object in 3D given only a few images has remained a difficult algorithmic problem for years. This fundamental computer vision task has applications ranging from the creation of e-commerce 3D models to autonomous vehicle navigation.

A key part of the problem is how to determine the exact positions from which images were taken, known as pose inference. If camera poses are known, a range of successful techniques — such as neural radiance fields (NeRF) or 3D Gaussian Splatting — can reconstruct an object in 3D. But if these poses are not available, then we face a difficult “chicken and egg” problem where we could determine the poses if we knew the 3D object, but we can’t reconstruct the 3D object until we know the camera poses. The problem is made harder by pseudo-symmetries — i.e., many objects look similar when viewed from different angles. For example, square objects like a chair tend to look similar every 90° rotation. Pseudo-symmetries of an object can be revealed by rendering it on a turntable from various angles and plotting its photometric self-similarity map.

Self-Similarity map of a toy truck model. Left: The model is rendered on a turntable from various azimuthal angles, θ. Right: The average L2 RGB similarity of a rendering from θ with that of θ*. The pseudo-similarities are indicated by the dashed red lines.

The diagram above only visualizes one dimension of rotation. It becomes even more complex (and difficult to visualize) when introducing more degrees of freedom. Pseudo-symmetries make the problem ill-posed, with naïve approaches often converging to local minima. In practice, such an approach might mistake the back view as the front view of an object, because they share a similar silhouette. Previous techniques (such as BARF or SAMURAI) side-step this problem by relying on an initial pose estimate that starts close to the global minima. But how can we approach this if those aren’t available?

Methods, such as GNeRF and VMRF leverage generative adversarial networks (GANs) to overcome the problem. These techniques have the ability to artificially “amplify” a limited number of training views, aiding reconstruction. GAN techniques, however, often have complex, sometimes unstable, training processes, making robust and reliable convergence difficult to achieve in practice. A range of other successful methods, such as SparsePose or RUST, can infer poses from a limited number views, but require pre-training on a large dataset of posed images, which aren’t always available, and can suffer from “domain-gap” issues when inferring poses for different types of images.

In “MELON: NeRF with Unposed Images in SO(3)”, spotlighted at 3DV 2024, we present a technique that can determine object-centric camera poses entirely from scratch while reconstructing the object in 3D. MELON (Modulo Equivalent Latent Optimization of NeRF) is one of the first techniques that can do this without initial pose camera estimates, complex training schemes or pre-training on labeled data. MELON is a relatively simple technique that can easily be integrated into existing NeRF methods. We demonstrate that MELON can reconstruct a NeRF from unposed images with state-of-the-art accuracy while requiring as few as 4–6 images of an object.

MELON

We leverage two key techniques to aid convergence of this ill-posed problem. The first is a very lightweight, dynamically trained convolutional neural network (CNN) encoder that regresses camera poses from training images. We pass a downscaled training image to a four layer CNN that infers the camera pose. This CNN is initialized from noise and requires no pre-training. Its capacity is so small that it forces similar looking images to similar poses, providing an implicit regularization greatly aiding convergence.

The second technique is a modulo loss that simultaneously considers pseudo symmetries of an object. We render the object from a fixed set of viewpoints for each training image, backpropagating the loss only through the view that best fits the training image. This effectively considers the plausibility of multiple views for each image. In practice, we find N=2 views (viewing an object from the other side) is all that’s required in most cases, but sometimes get better results with N=4 for square objects.

These two techniques are integrated into standard NeRF training, except that instead of fixed camera poses, poses are inferred by the CNN and duplicated by the modulo loss. Photometric gradients back-propagate through the best-fitting cameras into the CNN. We observe that cameras generally converge quickly to globally optimal poses (see animation below). After training of the neural field, MELON can synthesize novel views using standard NeRF rendering methods.

We simplify the problem by using the NeRF-Synthetic dataset, a popular benchmark for NeRF research and common in the pose-inference literature. This synthetic dataset has cameras at precisely fixed distances and a consistent “up” orientation, requiring us to infer only the polar coordinates of the camera. This is the same as an object at the center of a globe with a camera always pointing at it, moving along the surface. We then only need the latitude and longitude (2 degrees of freedom) to specify the camera pose.

MELON uses a dynamically trained lightweight CNN encoder that predicts a pose for each image. Predicted poses are replicated by the modulo loss, which only penalizes the smallest L2 distance from the ground truth color. At evaluation time, the neural field can be used to generate novel views.

Results

We compute two key metrics to evaluate MELON’s performance on the NeRF Synthetic dataset. The error in orientation between the ground truth and inferred poses can be quantified as a single angular error that we average across all training images, the pose error. We then test the accuracy of MELON’s rendered objects from novel views by measuring the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) against held out test views. We see that MELON quickly converges to the approximate poses of most cameras within the first 1,000 steps of training, and achieves a competitive PSNR of 27.5 dB after 50k steps.

Convergence of MELON on a toy truck model during optimization. Left: Rendering of the NeRF. Right: Polar plot of predicted (blue x), and ground truth (red dot) cameras.

MELON achieves similar results for other scenes in the NeRF Synthetic dataset.

Reconstruction quality comparison between ground-truth (GT) and MELON on NeRF-Synthetic scenes after 100k training steps.

Noisy images

MELON also works well when performing novel view synthesis from extremely noisy, unposed images. We add varying amounts, σ, of white Gaussian noise to the training images. For example, the object in σ=1.0 below is impossible to make out, yet MELON can determine the pose and generate novel views of the object.

Novel view synthesis from noisy unposed 128×128 images. Top: Example of noise level present in training views. Bottom: Reconstructed model from noisy training views and mean angular pose error.

This perhaps shouldn’t be too surprising, given that techniques like RawNeRF have demonstrated NeRF’s excellent de-noising capabilities with known camera poses. The fact that MELON works for noisy images of unknown camera poses so robustly was unexpected.

Conclusion

We present MELON, a technique that can determine object-centric camera poses to reconstruct objects in 3D without the need for approximate pose initializations, complex GAN training schemes or pre-training on labeled data. MELON is a relatively simple technique that can easily be integrated into existing NeRF methods. Though we only demonstrated MELON on synthetic images we are adapting our technique to work in real world conditions. See the paper and MELON site to learn more.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our paper co-authors Axel Levy, Matan Sela, and Gordon Wetzstein, as well as Florian Schroff and Hartwig Adam for continuous help in building this technology. We also thank Matthew Brown, Ricardo Martin-Brualla and Frederic Poitevin for their helpful feedback on the paper draft. We also acknowledge the use of the computational resources at the SLAC Shared Scientific Data Facility (SDF).

[latestindianfashiontrends]

Reinvent Traditional With Trendy Art Silk Kurti Styles!

Indian fashion has always been a mesmerizing blend of tradition and innovation. The richness of our cultural tapestry shines brightly in the myriad clothing choices available to the modern Indian woman. At the forefront of this evolution is the kurti – a versatile garment that has seamlessly woven its way into the hearts and wardrobes of women across the subcontinent. And, leading the charge in the contemporary kurti scene is the alluring 'art silk kurti'. Let's embark on a sartorial journey to discover how you can reinvent traditional charm with these trendy styles.

Before diving into the world of art silk kurtis, it's essential to understand what art silk is. A synthetic fabric resembling silk, art silk, also known as artificial silk, offers a similar sheen and softness to natural silk but at a fraction of the cost. Its affordability, combined with its adaptability to dyes and prints, makes it an ideal choice for fashion-forward kurtis.

The Timeless Appeal of the Kurti

A kurti's charm lies in its universality. Be it a college student, a working professional, or a homemaker – there's a kurti style for everyone. Its transition from being a traditional outfit to a modern must-have has been remarkable. With art silk entering the fray, the kurti gets a refreshing touch of luxury, further enhancing its appeal.

1. A-Line Art Silk Kurtis: Graceful and Elegant

One of the most popular styles, the A-line art silk kurti, flares gently from the waist to form an 'A' shape. Perfect for casual as well as festive occasions, this style suits women of all body types. Pair it with contrasting palazzos or leggings and add some statement jewelry for a refined look.

2. High-Low Art Silk Kurti: A Contemporary Twist

The high-low kurti, with its asymmetrical hemline, is a modern twist on the classic silhouette. It’s edgier, playful, and when rendered in art silk, it gets an added touch of class. Team it with skinny jeans or jeggings and heels to achieve a chic urban look.

3. Slit Art Silk Kurtis: Daring and Dashing

Slit kurtis, especially those with a center or side slits, are all the rage. They allow for a show of your fashionable bottoms, be it skirts, palazzos, or even dhoti pants. Art silk adds an air of sophistication, ensuring you make a memorable impression.

4. Anarkali Art Silk Kurtis: Mughal-Inspired Magnificence

Drawing inspiration from the Mughal era, the Anarkali kurti is voluminous and regal. In art silk, it feels like a royal robe. Perfect for festive events and weddings, an Anarkali kurti in vibrant hues and intricate patterns can be a showstopper.

5. Tail Cut Art Silk Kurti: Subtle Sophistication

Tail cut kurtis have a shorter front and a longer back, giving them a tail-like appearance. These are ideal for parties or semi-formal events. When crafted in art silk, their luxurious sheen sets them apart, offering a unique blend of modernity and tradition.

Accessorizing Your Art Silk Kurti

While art silk kurtis are a statement in themselves, accessorizing them right can elevate your entire look. Opt for traditional jhumkas, statement necklaces, or even tribal jewelry pieces for a fusion look. Footwear like kolhapuris, juttis, or stilettos can complement your outfit based on the occasion.

Caring for Your Art Silk Kurti

To keep the sheen of your art silk kurti intact, it's essential to care for it correctly. Always opt for dry cleaning or gentle hand washing.

Conclusion

The art silk kurti is more than just a garment; it's an expression of identity, a blend of the past and the present. By choosing to wear this fabric and style, you're not just making a fashion statement but also embracing a piece of our rich Indian heritage. So, the next time you're looking to make an impression, remember – nothing marries tradition and trend quite like an art silk kurti.

[saradiation]

hi!!!!!! i love your art its super super incredibly pretty :') I wanted to ask if you had any tutorials on how you draw hair? especially for someone like dave's. I would love to see your step by step process!! thanks for sharing your pretty art, it's always a joy to see your posts on my dash ♥

Aww this made me smile so much😊

 thank you! ❤️

I spend a lot of time on pinterest looking at pictures of various hairstyles from different angles to get an idea of how hair works as well as study shapes and hair flow.  I like pictures of real people so I can keep things looking natural, but I like to slightly exaggerate volumes and shapes to make it more balanced and interesting. I still get frustrated a lot though (especially with longer hairstyles), but since I've been drawing Dave so much I'm a little bit more confident with his hair so sure! I'd be glad to share my process if it helps! :)

(Long post ahead!)

COOL KID HAIRSTYLE STEP BY STEP 😎  

1. First I decide where to draw the hairline. I usually start with bangs and draw an overall idea of how the hair will shape around the face. 

2. For Dave I like to separate his hair in three parts, adding more volume on one side (part1+2) and keeping the other (part 3) more flat. The hair flow from parts 1, 2 and 3 go in different directions. It helps to think in 3D here especially with the bangs part. 

I give more volume to the bangs by adding a little gap from the hairline to the top of the bangs where the hair bends on itself.

Also I keep the hair shorter on the flat part (part 3)  and I like his hair to be a bit wavy so I avoid sharp edges and use curved lines.

3. I then lower the current layer opacity to be able to draw over it and see more clearly. 

4.Then I add more details on a new layer. Since I prefer the roots and the hair closer to the face to be darker I add more pressure to my lines there. I like to add some loose strands sticking out but you can totally skip that if you like a cleaner look. (I like messy hair ;p)

5. If I find that it still looks a bit flat or unbalanced I use the select tool while pushing the ctrl key and dragging the selection in the direction I want the hair to move to. 

(I'm using Paint Tool Sai here but other drawing programs also have some kind of select tool) Et Voilà!! :)

**coloring**

for rendering I first change the sketch lines to a color closer to the hair. I set the sketch/lineart layer on ''multiply'' and create a second layer below for colors.  I then add the base color, put the bigger shadows (if you're using a reference it's easier to see where shadows should be) and then draw some individual strands with a darker shade. I also add a darker shades to the hair around the face and roots. 

aaaand we're done!

btw the results change depending on the brush I'm using. I went for a rougher look here but sometimes I use smooth brushes to make it look softer.

This is actually my first tutorial ever but hopefully it was clear enough? Let me know if you'd like more explanations on something and congrats if you made it this far ;)

[atelier-maroron]

Shakespeare × F!Reader William Shakespapa: Family Man — Part 1 —

rating: G word count: 919 tags: family, wholesome, light crack notes: written for my lovely friend @ikesimp100 as part of @ikemenlibrary's Ikevamp Gift Exchange | I've only managed to complete part 1 of this story before the deadline but I'll try to get the continuation out soon :)

A lavish chateau on the outskirts of late-19th-century Paris.

The players, a family of three: a beautiful woman of luminous smile and artful wit, a gorgeous but eccentric man with mismatched eyes, and their adorable four-year-old daughter—a shy red-haired child who on this sparkling morning is preparing for her very first day of school.

But the gentleness of this tale cannot be evoked without its opposite. Indeed, this tale begins with a dash of chaos and a sprinkle of frenzy.

"Mushrooms...check." You toss six vibrant caps onto your cutting board. A pivot of the heels and you're off to the pantry with a swish of your skirts.

"Cheese... cheese...," you mutter, juggling a whole list of chores in your head. None of which you are looking forward to as you'd much rather be the one accompanying your daughter to school today. You maneuver the pantry door open with one shoulder and a shock of cool air greets you. But your thoughts coalesce upon the incredible collection of cheeses that your versed husband has accumulated over the past season. A cheese for every manner of guest and occasion.

Fortunately the block in question is just one angled tilt of your cutting board away. With the block secured you peer deeper into the pantry. "Butter... butter... butter..." You freeze in your tracks, a family of lines settling on your brow. "Butter? Will, where's the...Oh!"

You throw a glance over your shoulder but you are surprised when Will manifests from the opposite direction. A light kiss brushes your cheek and your cutting board grows heavier with new weight. Will spins out past you and exits the pantry.

Your youngest perches comfortably on his shoulders, commandeering him toward the bread box. She teeters a bit and you gasp, reaching for your husband. "Will, she's going to—"

"I've got her, my Juliette," Will assures you with his roguish arc of his shapely lips. He swings back by with bread in-hand, but this time he gives the small of your back a playful tickle with his elbow. You squeal but refrain from swatting him back lest you instigate a mishap yourself.

Your dear Serenity laughs at her papa's antics. "Don't worry, Mama, I'll get him back for you." The nervousness from this morning seems to be all but gone from her expression, replaced with a conspiratorial glow that she could have only inherited from William Shakespeare.

— 1 Year Ago —

"Truly, truly remarkable. We've no shortage of prodigies among the residents, but Serenity is something else entirely." Comte sits legs-crossed in the chateau's sunlit salon. He looks the same as ever, not a year to his eternally youthful face. Soft waves of smoke rise from his tea-cup, rendering him strangely ethereal, but it is a sight that you've long-since become accustomed to.

"To have such aptitude for reading and writing at the mere age of three. Astounding. Ah, but regarding maths, I think we can rely on Isaac or Leo to tutor her, but the point stands." He shifts in his seat, excitement tinging every word. "I think you've been gifted more of a miracle than you bargained for, Will. You must be bursting with pride."

"Bursting is an understatement," you answer, stealing one of the gourmet biscuits from Comte's plate. You give it to Serenity who sits on the opposite sofa beside her papa. She doesn't look up, idly accepting the biscuit into her mouth as she scribbles away in her tiny folio. She has been working on her comedy of errors all month.

"Serenity, say thank you to Mama," Will chides her gently.

Serenity pauses. "Mama said she doesn't need thank-yous, she needs help with chores."

"You help her plenty, my starlight," Will replies.

"I wasn't talking about me."

Comte breaks out in laughter. "Sorry, I apologize. I can't tell which parent she's inherited such sass from."

"Definitely me," you say without missing a beat. You stick your tongue out playfully at Will.

Will sighs but his smile is nothing short of doting. "Serenity is exceptional in more ways than I can count. I fear for those who will share her company in years to come."

Comte sets his teacup down as his laughter finally subsides. "I sense some genuine fear in that sentiment."

Will's smile falls away for a moment. You wonder if Will is going to be forthcoming. He doesn't look to you first as he proceeds to answer, and you aren't sure how to take that.

"Her wit will serve her well, but as her father, I still worry. Entering a prestigious academy like the one you are suggesting is no small ordeal for a child of her age. The rigorous curriculum, the pressure..." Will trails off as his hands clench into fists, his eyes darkening. "I don't wish for her to ever think that she is below arbitrary standards. Nor to be consumed in pursuit of..."

"Will." You're about to get up from the sofa you're sharing with Comte when your husband looks up with a wistful smile.

"I know, my Juliette," he continues. "We can't know of what future challenges our child might face, but," he redirects his attention to Comte, "I am told Dazai's son and Isaac's twins both attend this same academy. So she won't be alone at the very least...?"

Comte nods and gives Will the smile reserved for his sons. "Our Serenity never has and never will know loneliness. As my dear friend would say, she is surrounded by far too many wonderful flowers."

— to be continued —

[werewolvesversus]

Werewolves of Valleyview

From David McCoy's story from WEREWOLVES VERSUS: THE CIRCUS: Johnny works up the courage to share something personal with his boyfriend while on a date at the fair, but a mysterious prize booth might complicate things...

Cass found the prize-booth nestled in a far corner. The stall’s sign read “Silver Bullet,” rendered with a grim font in metallic grey despite the surrounding plush toys. It was a simple shooting gallery with elevating rows and suburban homes on each end. There were no other customers lining up to brandish a plastic light gun.

The slim man behind the counter caught Cass's gaze. Rather than barking out some corny advertising, the man just nodded. A silent invitation to pull the trigger.

“They made a game off that movie?” Johnny remarked.

“What movie?”

“The Stephen King one.” Cass couldn’t tell if his look of surprise was fake or not. “It's real goofy. We'll watch it tonight.”

“Not sure if more movies is a good idea.”

“Hey, you two!” The booth attendant called. “If y'all want a good idea, might I suggest...” he waved his arms, showing off the game. Then he held out his hand. “Five bucks for a round.”

Affordable, but Cass spied his boyfriend's skeptical reaction. Before Johnny could object, Cass took out his wallet.

“I don't need to explain a shooting range, right?” the attendant continued as he took the money. “Fifteen points for the top shelf prizes, ten for the middle, etcetera.” He turned a key below the counter. “Shoot the moon to start.”

Cass aimed at the moon beside the score display and pulled the trigger. A small laser dot blipped on its surface then a poorly recorded howl played. Quickly, cutouts of a kid in a wheelchair, a little girl, and a man with a bottle popped up. Between them, werewolves dashed from houses on each row. For five bucks it was over just as it began, and Cass's score of four sat under the threshold for the lowest-tiered prize.

“Woof. Didn't say it was easy, bud,” the attendant shrugged. “Five to try again.”

Johnny side-hugged Cass. “There's other games, babe.”

“Hang on!” The man behind the booth lit up. “You guys’re really a couple?”

Cass and Johnny exchanged a look. Johnny was right. Cass set the gun back and would've checked out the other stalls for a present, but the attendant pulled a small box onto the counter.

“Wait, no, that's perfect, ya see. Listen,” he quickly said, “I have a, uh, couple's special! Worth more than any of this stuffed trash.”

Cass looked back at this offer. The attendant held a necklace by the string, weighed down by an iridescent, thumbnail-sized jewel set into a shining grey pendant. It was beautiful enough to reel Cass back in.

“It's a genuine moonstone, and real silver.” The attendant let the couple get a better look. The stone became the eye for the silver wolf-shape. Its opulent quality enthralled Cass. It was infinitely superior to the toys hanging on the booth. Even the string had a reddish-brown hue, like a strip of faux leather rather than a cheap thread. Hanging from Johnny's neck it'd be perfect. “Or so some lady told me,“ the man continued. “Her family apparently makes them and when she took a loss here, too, she insisted I take it. But I’m not into stuff like this, and maybe y’all are, if ya wanna try for it!”

Read the rest in WEREWOLVES VERSUS: THE CIRCUS, available for $1 or more at Itch.io! Your purchase will benefit all of the contributors to this issue.

You can find David on Twitter, and more of his work here.

[lizbethborden]

I’ve been for bringing back the term “male-identified” for a long time and seeing Radicalesbians on my dash has only intensified that feeling so now I will be using that term and nobody can stop me. Some relevant lines with emphasis added:

“While all women are dehumanized as sex objects, as the objects of men they are given certain compensations: identification with his power, his ego, his status, his protection (from other males), feeling like a ‘real woman’, finding social acceptance by adhering to her role, etc. Should a woman confront herself by confronting another woman, there are fewer rationalizations, fewer buffers by which to avoid the stark horror of her dehumanized condition.

[...]

On one level, which is both personal and political, women may withdraw emotional and sexual energies from men, and work out various alternatives for those energies in their own lives. On a different political/psychological level, it must be understood that what is crucial is that women begin disengaging from male-defined response patterns. In the privacy of our own psyches, we must cut those cords to the core. For irrespective of where our love and sexual energies flow, if we are male-identified in our heads, we cannot realize our autonomy as human beings.

But why is it that women have related to and through men? By virtue of having been brought up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture’s definition of ourselves. That definition consigns us to sexual and family functions, and excludes us from defining and shaping the terms of our lives.

[...]

The consequence of internalizing this role is an enormous reservoir of self-hate. This is not to say the self-hate is recognized or accepted as such; indeed most women would deny it. It may be experienced as discomfort with her role, as feeling empty, as numbness, as restlessness, as a paralyzing anxiety at the center. Alternatively it may be expressed in shrill defensiveness of the glory and destiny of her role. But it does exist, often beneath the edge of her consciousness, poisoning her existence, keeping her alienated from herself, her own needs, and rendering her a stranger to other women. They try to escape by identifying with the oppressor, living through him, gaining status and identity from his ego, his power, his accomplishments. And by not identifying with other ‘empty vessels’ like themselves. Women resist relating on all levels to other women who will reflect their own oppression, their own secondary status, their own self-hate. For to confront another woman is finally to confront one’s self--the self we have gone to such lengths to avoid. And in that mirror we know we cannot really respect and love that which we have been made to be.”

[magnetictapedatastorage]

if you don't mnind me asking, how the hell do you make shape art in word 97

with the shapes menu 😀! autoshapes has a HUGE variety of shapes, especially once you start getting creative with the flowchart, arrow, and banner tools.

click the paint bucket to see "more fill effects" like gradients and patterns.

the last two buttons, shadows and 3D perspective, are surprisingly powerful, and expand out to include all of these:

that's right, microsoft word 1997 has a 3D rendering engine that lets you rotate, light, reflect, and more!

of course this will always come out very janky... but that's the POINT 😀😀😀

oh, and ROTATE is your best friend

and thick dashed lines can be used for a psudo random bs like so:

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

It's Disability Pride Month and I keep seeing stuff about Pride Flags on my dash, mainly people being surprised that we have them, which I didn't know myself until a couple of days ago.

So far, we seem to have two. The gold, silver and bronze one inspired by the Paralympics, created by Eros Recio in 2017, and the rainbow lightning one (a black background with five zigzagging diagonal lines, in the colours light blue, yellow, white, red and green) created by Anne Magill in 2016.

(Trigger warning: the latter has apparently been known to trigger some people’s seizures/migraines. There has been some discussion on how to redesign it to avoid this.) You can see both of them here.

So, since I have my issues with both these designs, I decided to create a potential third candidate:

[Image description: A lilac background with a purple, upwards-pointing equilateral triangle in the centre. The triangle is surrounded by three purple circles. Each circle has a line connecting it to the next one— a black line on the left, a grey line on the right, and a yellowish-gold line on the bottom.]

A few notes on the design:

The flag is in shades of purple because purple is the Disability Pride colour here in the UK. This is partly due to its historical association with power (since it was often worn by royalty) and also it's use by early disability rights bloggers.

I avoided horizontal stripes so that it wouldn't get confused with LGBT+ pride flags. This also makes it less likely that somebody could unknowingly create a LGBT+ flag of the same pattern and (almost certainly, since LGBT+ activism gets more attention than disability activism) have it get more popular.

The design reflects the idea of the disabled community as being made up of lots of smaller, separate communities, all centred around one main concept— disability.

I copied the idea of splitting the community into three categories— disabilities that affect the mind, disabilities that affect the senses and disabilities that affect the physical body— from the Paralympic-inspired flag. (These should not be considered to be in any particular order, btw.)

The lines represent the links between the communities.

The black line is for people who have died (or fear dying) as a result of their disability, either for medical or social reasons.

The gold line is for the inherent worth that we have in society.

The grey line represents the diversity within the community. This is probably the least obvious symbolically (and therefore the one I'd be most open to changing) but essentially it's supposed to represent the idea that disabilities affect everyone differently— and a lot of people have other marginalised identities on top of their disabilities— and that therefore stuff to do with the community as a whole is rarely black and white.

I'm hoping that the geometric shapes and lines should make it easier to draw— a problem I personally had with the rainbow lightning one— say if somebody wanted to colour it on a picket sign or something.

The triangle in the centre also provides a blank space for people to draw in the symbols of other communities within the disabled community (eg. the autistic infinity symbol, or the black power fist) so that it can be personalised for specific movements.

The distinct shape of the triangle and joined dots should also make it easily recognisable, even if rendered in greyscale or seen from a distance.

[dwellordream]

“Besides Thracians, Greeks encountered many other tattooed people among their neighbors around the Black Sea and in Pontus, major Amazon strongholds. Numerous authors reported tattooing among Scythians. Hippocrates, for example, remarked that the Scythian nomads “branded” figures on their shoulders, arms, chests, and thighs to “instill strength and courage,” suggesting a magical function of tattoos. Herodotus wrote that the Thracians thought plain skin signaled a lack of identity. Elaborate tattoos were considered beauty marks of nobility for both men and women in Thrace; even ordinary folk had a few small tattoos. 

Some four hundred years after Herodotus, the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom remarked that the women of Thrace were still covering themselves with tattoos as marks of high social standing. Herodotus also described the tattoos of the Iranian-speaking Scythian-Thracian people called the Agathyrsi. According to a story he heard in Pontus, the Agathyrsi claimed descent from a Scythian woman and Heracles. The Agathyrsi were one of the tribes that had repelled Darius I of Persia (sixth century BC). Later (fourth century BC) they would migrate north to the Sarmatian steppes. Agathyrsi women especially favored tattoos, noted Herodotus. The higher their status, the larger, more richly detailed and colorful were their skin designs. 

Ammianus Marcellinus (fourth century AD) reported that Agathyrsi tattoos were checkered designs in blue-black ink. When the Greek general and historian Xenophon led his army across Pontus (ca. 400 BC), the land of the Amazons, he observed that the skin of the men and women and children of the Mossynoeci tribe was covered with colorful tattoos of flowers. Pomponius Mela also reported that these people completely marked their entire bodies with tattoos. The Sarmatians, strongly associated with Amazons, received their first tattoos as children, according to Sextus Empiricus and Pliny; Pliny also reported that among Sarmatians, Dacians, and Britons, the women “wrote on their own bodies.”

Clearchus of Soli explicitly stated that Scythian women—the historical counterparts of Amazons—taught the art of tattooing to Thracian women who lived on the northwestern frontiers of Scythia. A Greek philosopher who traveled widely and wrote extensively about Thrace, Clearchus reported that Scythian women “used to decorate the Thracian women all over their bodies, using the tongues of their belt buckles (or pins of brooches) as needles.” After several generations, Thracian women began to add their own embellishments and other designs to the Scythian motifs. 

Ancient accounts of tattooing by the Thracians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Agathyrsi, Mossynoecians of Pontus, Illyrians, Dacians, Geloni, and Iaopodes are compelling evidence that many of the women known as Amazons also practiced tattooing. Because the Greeks thought of tattoos as marks of degradation instead of signs of nobility, courage, and beauty, they sought to explain why women would choose to endure pain to decorate their bodies with indelible designs. Clearchus implied that tattoos were initially inflicted violently by Scythian women and then later embraced by Thracian women, who cleverly transformed “shameful” tattoos into lovely body ornaments. 

Scythians did invade parts of Thrace, intermarried with Thracians, and influenced Thracian culture. Forcible tattooing of captives is certainly attested in ancient and modern times. But sharing tattoo motifs and techniques among cultures is also well known. What was the historical context of Clearchus’s report? Did some Scythian women once tattoo captive Thracian women? Or did they simply teach their Thracian neighbors how to tattoo? Other literary evidence for tattooing customs among steppe cultures comes from sources far removed from Greece. 

…Tattooing is often associated with women in many of the ancient and modern examples. Tattooed Thracian men are not represented in Greek art, although Herodotus, Xenophon, Cicero, and others included men in their descriptions of tattooing. Archaeological evidence hints that female tattooing may have an extremely ancient history across Thrace and western Scythia. Neolithic sites of Cucuteni culture (4800–3000 BC) in the forest steppes of Romania and southwestern Ukraine have yielded hundreds of clay female figurines inscribed with lines and spirals; some scholars believe they represent tattoos. Along with the clay figurines, archaeologists also unearth caches of inscribed horse phalanges (toe bones). 

The bones’ natural shape suggests a nude female torso; the distal condyles resemble breasts or shoulders. The four-inch-long bones were smoothed and polished and then incised with geometric designs (sometimes nipples were indicated). One obvious interpretation of the decorations is that they signified tattoos. Similar incised figurines have been discovered at sites of the same date near Lykastia, Pontus (a region known for women warriors, according to Apollonius of Rhodes; chapter 10). Painted spiral patterns also decorate similar figures of the same time frame in Turkmenistan. Yet another region long associated with Amazons, Gobustan in Azerbaijan, has about seven thousand ancient petroglyphs (Neolithic-Bronze Age) depicting symbols, animals, and people armed with bows, axes, and spears, some riding horses. 

One composition shows eight females (carrying bows?) whose body markings could indicate tattoos. The curious practice of creating decorated female torsos from horse bones was very widespread, from Romania and Pontus to Kazakhstan, the heart of ancient Scythia. Troves of these incised female forms, along with vast collections of horse remains, were recently excavated from sites of the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan (ca. 3700–3100 BC). These seminomadic people were among the first to domesticate horses. The archaeological evidence shows that they also made human skulls into bowls, drank fermented mare’s milk (koumiss; chapter 9), and apparently enjoyed a high level of gender equality, prominent features of Scythian-Amazon life reported by Herodotus and others.

The archaeologists interpret the geometric markings on the Botai horse-bone figures as some of the earliest representations of ancient clothing construction. Based on their assumption that the marks on the Neolithic female forms, incised with tattoo-like designs, indicate stitching, belts, and necklines of clothing, the archaeologists suggest that Botai horsewomen wore stiff, loose-fitting, ankle length dresses of homespun hemp. If the incisions on the torsos do represent clothing, a close-fitting tunic might be indicated, since nothing below the hips is shown. (Wide skirts could be modified into trouser-like garments for riding; see below and chapter 12). 

An alternative possibility, not mentioned by the archaeologists, is that the lines on some of the female torso shapes represent tattoos. As we have seen, it can be difficult to distinguish tattoos or body paintings from garments in ancient artifacts. The Botai patterns that the archaeologists interpret as stitched seams call to mind the ladder/fence tattoo designs that mimic the seams of sleeves along the edges of the bare arms of Thracian women on Greek vases. Similar stitching/seam patterns appear on nude female clay figures from Turkmenistan (2600– 2100 BC); they also appear on Bosnian and Kurdish women’s arm tattoos.

The deliberately smoothed surface of the horse bone to make it look more like a shapely female torso—sometimes with dots around the pubic region or nipples—conveys an impression of nudity. If these objects had some ritual purpose, as argued by the archaeologists, a naked female form seems more appropriate and powerful than a clothed one. It is interesting that the dashes, zigzags, cross-hatchings, ladders, triangles, and chevrons prefigure some of the patterns on both the exotic attire of Amazons and Thracian tattoos in vase paintings. At any rate, the mysterious female forms created from horse bones point to a strong, very ancient relationship between horses and women in Thracian-Scythian lands. 

Tattooing traditions among women persist in many locales associated with ancient Amazons, both mythic and historical. As in the Balkans, in Dagestan between the Caucasus and Caspian Sea (where the Amazon queen Marpesia was active) women still tattoo their arms with geometric symbols. Their traditional marks include dots (coded love messages), moons (for happiness and luck), and bird-tracks (thought to make a girl a fast runner). Ornamental tattooing is also practiced by Aghach Eris women, Turki-Persian-speaking nomads of Iran, and by Turkmen people. Kurdish women of northern Iraq and the southern Caucasus, thought to be descendants of Bronze Age Hurrians who spoke a Caucasian language, still tattoo themselves with rayed circles and half-circles, dots, chevrons, and stitch, fence, and comb shapes. 

On his journey across Central Asia in the thirteenth century Marco Polo described how women and men used needles and ink to engrave the “strange likenesses” of raptors, lions, and dragons on their bodies. In many cultures, tattoo designs are repeated in clothing, textiles, and other objects, which helps explain the similarity of motifs on barbarian clothing and the skin of Thracians, Scythians, and Amazons in ancient Greek art. Some modern scholars argue that Athenian vase painters drew tattoos on Thracian women to brand them as savage “barbarians” who failed to conform to the classical Greek feminine ideal. 

Likewise, the exuberantly patterned clothing worn by Amazons and Scythians in Greek art is thought to be an artistic convention for signaling “Otherness.” But the artfully rendered tattoos of the Thracian women on Greek vases were grounded in fact: such tattoos were a daily sight in Athens. The specific forms of the Thracian tattoos—repeated in the patterns worn by Amazons—were not simply invented by Greek artists in pottery workshops. The same abstract and animal designs appear on leather, wood, and golden objects and textiles excavated from tombs of Thrace and Scythia, and they also match traditional tattoo motifs on once-living inhabitants of ancient Amazonian territories.

Tattooing methods, like tattoo motifs, are extraordinarily conservative, unchanged over millennia (needles, pigments, and stencils have been recovered from Scythian graves). First the design was drawn or traced on the skin. A bundle of three to seven needles punctured the design into the skin and then pigment was rubbed in (carbon paste from charcoal ash). The paste was variously mixed with other substances, such as tallow, honey, wild berry juice or indigo (for blue pigment), sap, ox bile (to set the dye), saliva, or the breast milk of a woman nursing an infant girl or, in the Balkans, a son. The colorful flower tattoos of the Mossynoeci of Pontus suggest that colored pigments were known in antiquity. Tattooing equipment was recently excavated in 2013, next to a skeleton dressed in a richly decorated tunic and trousers, buried with lavish grave goods in a Sarmatian-Scythian kurgan on the steppes between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea. 

The tattoo kit consisted of pigments and spoons for mixing them on two stone palettes, gilded iron needles, and other tools. Many Scythian burials contain similar items, which had been mistaken for women’s cosmetics by earlier archaeologists. Plentiful evidence makes it safe to assume that Greeks were familiar with tattooing practices of Scythian and related Eurasian tribes, and that they would expect the women they called Amazons to wear inked designs. The most powerful proof is frozen in time—inscribed on the skin of mummified bodies recovered from icy graves in the Altai. Thanks to some extraordinary recent discoveries, we now know precisely what sort of tattoos were worn by real horsewomen of the steppes.”

- Adrienne Mayor, “Tattooed Amazons.” in The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

[zillennial97]

Friends to Lovers | Larry Fanfic Recs

Hiding Place by alivingfire | 365k | Explicit

Louis never wanted a soulmate, didn’t really care for the whole Bonding thing at all, really. Enter Harry Styles, who’s wanted to be Bonded for as long as he could remember. With one fateful meeting in an X Factor bathroom, Louis gets a dagger on his arm and the realization that just because Harry is his soulmate doesn’t mean it’s mutual.

From the X Factor house to Madison Square Garden, from the Fountain Studios stage to stadiums across the world, Louis has to learn to love without losing himself completely, because someday his best friend will Bond to someone and replace Louis as the center of his universe. Meanwhile, Harry begins to think that maybe fate doesn’t actually know what it’s doing after all, because his other half has clearly been right in front of him the whole time. All he has to do now is convince Louis to give them a chance.

Or, the canon compliant Harry and Louis love story from the very beginning, where the only difference is that the love between them is literally written on their skin, and there’s only so much they can hide.

And Then a Bit by infinitelymint | 158k | Explicit

“We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”

Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts.

(aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

Wild Love by purpledaisy | 130k | Explicit

“Good,” Julia says, clearly pleased to have them both uncomfortable and unable to look at each other. “Now, I only have one more question before you can go. What are you planning to do when this experiment ruins your friendship?”

“We said we’d stay friends no matter what,” Harry says smoothly, his chin lifting in defense.

“That was our one thing going into it,” Louis agrees. “Stay friends no matter what.”

Julia raises a perfectly manicured brow, “That’s all fine and good. But I hope you realize your emotions aren’t going to realize this is an experiment in the end. If one of you falls for the other and finds out those feelings are not reciprocated, you’re not going to be able to laugh it off as a social experiment. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this, I’m just hoping you’ve considered all of the possible outcomes.”

- AU: Two best friends try to date each other for forty days. It's supposed to be fun until emotions make it complicated.

California Sold by isthatyoularry | 123k | Mature

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

Tired Tired Sea by MediaWhore | 113k | Mature

As a B&B owner on the most remote of all the British Isles, Louis Tomlinson is used to spending the coldest half of the year in complete isolation, with his dog and the sea as sole companions. Until, one day, a mysterious stranger on a quest to rebuild himself rents a room for the winter.

Like a Bullet in the Dark by Vurdoc | 99k | Explicit

Prince Harold Edward Styles Lancaster is second in line to the throne of Great Britain. He is also your average Uni student- or he tries to be, anyway.

With a promise from the press (and his father) that they'll leave him alone for four years, he sets out to be a student at Cambridge, when he meets his very normal, very working class, very handsome suite-mate, Louis Tomlinson.

Louis makes Harry feel more like a person than he ever has before, which might cause some issues later on- 'cause Harry has a secret that he's only told his sister Gemma about.

Little does he know though, that Louis has some secrets of his own.

A Will & Kate Au- with a twist.

Christmas-ing With You by dolce_piccante | 65k | Mature

Two writers from Loving Heart Television, the premiere network for holiday romance films, find that, sometimes, love is not only in their works of fiction.

Faking It by TheCellarDoor | 46k | Mature

A uni AU in which Louis has been Harry’s best friend since he offered him cubed fruit on the playground, and they spend more time cuddling in their dorm beds than they do apart, but it’s not like that. Or is it?

Aka Harry pretends to date his best friend to escape unwanted attention from a too insistent classmate and hopes it won’t blow up in his face. Featuring embarrassing dildo accidents, awkward boners, longing, first times, late night conversations, emotional discoveries and Niall as the exasperated friend with bad advice.

if the sun don't shine by falsegoodnight | 36k | Explicit

Louis finds himself struck frozen, fingers stuck in place where he’s flattened them against the cold railing. It takes every bit of his remaining strength to pull them away, sliding them under his shirt and pressing them to his stomach to leech some of the warmth. He hardly pays attention to the bite of the wind and air on his shivering body. He can only pay attention to the music.

The music that is undoubtedly new to Louis’ ears, yet listening to it is the most familiar thing Louis has ever experienced. An inexplicable rush of emotions flood his mind and body, rendering him speechless and hollow. It’s a call of loneliness. It rings of everything Louis’ been feeling.

And the pure yearning - the intense longing for something and someone - tears through straight to Louis’ heart. The desperation feels all too intimate, all too real. It makes Louis think of what he yearns for more than anything. It makes him think of his soulmate.

-

In a world where you meet your soulmates in dreams, Louis has spent the last three years going to bed hoping to finally meet his, only to end up disappointed time and time again. It all changes with a violin.

From the Start by allwaswell16 | 32k | Explicit

Louis has no idea that one act of kindness will cause his life to spiral out of control. But that's what happens when his new friend fake proposes to him and a video of it goes viral.

Barefoot in Blue Jeans by indiaalphawhiskey | 24k | Explicit

AU. Louis Tomlinson is trying desperately hard not to fall for his son’s au pair, but he can’t, for the life of him, remember why.

475. The hope that this fear is unfounded.

In Dreams by dolce_piccante | 23k | Mature

AU. When Harry moves to a new city, his new flat come with a number of sweet, anonymous gifts and surprises that brighten his days. Could it be a friendly ghost? Another friendly presence in his new building is his tattooed neighbor, Louis, who seems determined to put a smile back on his face.

You're Writing Verses About Me by Rearviewdreamer | 23k | Teen And Up Audiences

Everybody knows that Louis has never been one for serious boyfriends. His reputation around campus precedes him, which is why he doesn't think twice before proudly telling his mother about his new and completely fabricated relationship with his oddly quiet and completely

And I Will Hold On To You by darkmarkburning, staybeautiful | 23k | Mature

“I can’t believe my best friend is about to be Prime Minister of Canada,” Harry whispered in his ear, his arms tight around Louis’ shoulders. “Who decided it was a good idea to let some brash kid from Doncaster run a country?”

“I don’t know,” Louis laughed into his shoulder, “but if you promise not to tell them they’ve made a mistake I’ll give you a posh office.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Tomlinson.” Harry pulled away and smacked a kiss onto Louis’ cheek. “I’m proud of you, Lou, I can’t fucking believe it, but I’m proud of you.”

or Louis has just been elected Prime Minister of Canada and Harry is his best friend since childhood.

the way the storms blow by rbbsbb | 21k | Explicit

Louis doesn’t have a habit of thinking about Harry’s dick.

That would be weird, seeing as they’re best mates, and they share a flat, and they’ve spent holidays at each other’s family homes. Their friendship hasn’t ever risen to a point where Louis should want to see his mate’s dick, and he’s happy to keep it that way.

Except, all that Louis can think about is exactly that. The size of it. The shape. The amount of people it’s been in.

Maybe it’s the tequila talking, or the fact that Louis’ just recently walked in to an eyeful of Harry taking turns on some slags that he’s never seen before, but. Louis’ mind can’t stop obsessing over the idea.

Autumn At My Window by TheCellarDoor | 20k | Mature

A canon-compliant AU, in which Harry and Louis are both in the band and have been sharing flats and hotel rooms for nearly five years, but never made the leap past 'friends who are too close for comfort'.

Featuring a lot of pining, Louis' addiction to Harry's scent, and a whole lot of sexual tension that might just snap loose when they decide to spend some time together all on their own.

The Sex Methods by Alice_Novelland | 19k | Explicit

Harry and Louis explore alternative methods aka sex methods to help each other out.

once bitten and twice shy by pinkcords | 19k | Mature

This time as his stomach rolls, there’s no doubt about it. He’s going to vomit. And if he does, it’ll be on Louis’ shoes, a nice little parting gift to go with the embarrassment he’s caused the both of them. “I’m gonna throw up,” he says just as Louis turns to look at him, blue eyes swimming with shock and confusion, and asks, “Is that true?”

Or, in a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. He plans to work his way through the trip, eat his mom's cooking, and avoid everyone from his past for as long as possible. The only problem is best laid plans hardly ever go as intended.

Oblivious by Speechless | 19k | Explicit

"You say it's nothing serious after you've been obsessing over it for months," Liam observes, pausing their videogame. "But now you barely talk about it-" "You guys fucking ignore me whenever I try!" Louis shouts, bumping his shoulder against Liam's and hurting himself in the process. "You're postponing sex, when it's obvious that Luke's up for it at this point." Liam ignores him. "For some reason you've left Harry in the dark about it-" "What?!" Louis snaps, banging his controller against the coffee table. "I have not!" "And no matter how blatant it is, no matter how fucking ridiculous you both get when it comes to it-" "Shut your hole." Louis urges, pinching his thigh, as soon as Harry enters the room. "Shush."

* Where Louis gets a little crush on Luke and for some reason Harry starts acting weird *

searching for a sweet surrender (but this is not the end) by feelslikehxme | 18k | Teen And Up Audiences

Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, the two most loved coaches on The Voice UK known for their banter on the show and best friendship off. Louis’s determined to win and finally end Harry’s winning streak with Zayn Malik on his team, but Harry’s flirting and Liam Payne have different plans.

— Or an AU based off the Voice where Louis’s Adam, Harry’s Blake, Niall’s Shakira, Zayn and Liam have a cliche Romeo/Juliet love story and Louis’s too old for pathetic pining.

Can I bother you for a sex? by perfectdagger (sincerelyste) | 16k | Explicit

Reason #40 – Called/texted the wrong person, but he was into it anyway

“So, this isn’t really an invite for a sex, I see,” Louis spoke, not missing the chance. There was a teasing smile on his lips as he turned around to face Harry again after he had just closed the door.

Harry let out a laugh as he closed his eyes and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh for fuck's sake, Louis,” he looked back at Louis, “this will haunt me forever now, won’t it?”

Louis shrugged. “Not my fault some people manage to mistext and sext others at the same time.”

When Harry mistexts Louis, Louis realises that he wouldn't mind Harry bothering him with anything, especially not with sex.

You'll Be Home For Christmas by 2tiedships2 | 15k | Not Rated

“Honesty, Lou, just ask Harry for help.”

Louis remained silent as he continued to scowl at the Christmas calendar Niall had hung on their refrigerator.

“And be nice to my calendar filled with holiday cheer,” Niall instructed. “You’re going to burn a fucking hole in it from the way you’re glaring at the innocent thing. It’s not the calendar’s fault that your heat is starting so close to Christmas.”

You're The One That I Want by spacecakesandmilkshakes | 15k | Explicit

Harry had always been Louis' best friend and...well...his baby, until one day he realized that his baby was all grown up.

show you the stars in the daylight by bruisedhoney | 13k | Explicit

Louis laughed, the sound loud and borderline obnoxious. Harry winced. “Are you kidding, Haz? I wouldn’t even look twice at someone that couldn’t pick me up.”

And, well. That was new information to Harry. It’s not like Louis had ever mentioned to him that he was his type in any way, shape, or form. Harry shifted closer into the space between Louis’s legs, even more intrigued than before. “Why not?” he asked curiously, all pink lips and big curls. Louis smiled.

“Tiny, innocent, little Harold. Need someone that can pick me up, don’t I? I like being tossed around a little. You know, pinned down and made to take it. Lifted up like I’m nothing,” Louis said it all with a confident smile, his sharp little teeth tugging at his bottom lip as he locked eyes with the jock across the kitchen. “Think he might come over here. Move over. I don’t want him to think we’re together.”

Or, the one where Louis has a type and at sixteen and scrawy, it's definitely not his best friend's little brother Harry...ten years later, he changes his mind.

when everybody wants you by nightwideopen | 11k | Mature

Harry nearly faints on the spot. He got the job. He’s going to be on Saturday Night Live.

Three of Harry's dreams come true, then one of them falls apart.

or

the SNL au that no one asked for

Shape of You by Only_angel_28 | 11k | Explicit

“Seriously?” Surely, Harry must be joking. Louis arches a skeptical brow and snaps the waistband of Harry’s joggers playfully. “What exactly do you have down there, Styles? I know you’ve got four nipples, d’ya have a couple extra bollocks as well or summat?”

“No!” Harry shrieks, his voice bordering on shrill. “No,” He repeats a little quieter, calmer, “I just—I’m, er, kinda…big, I guess.”

Louis rolls his eyes in fond exasperation. “That’s hardly a problem, curly.”

*Or Harry is insecure about a certain rather large part of his anatomy that is apparently intimidating to the point where it has actually scared off potential shags. When he ends up confessing this to his best friend and roommate, Louis takes it upon himself to prove that Harry’s size doesn't have to be a curse, and decides to help show him just how perfect he is.

Waiting by allwaswell16 for LadyLondonderry | 10k | Explicit

Louis Tomlinson was Harry’s omega, of this Harry had always been sure. Unfortunately for Harry, Louis seemed to think they were just best friends. The six weeks that Harry has to live with Louis were going to be rough.

You Give Me Fever (What A Lovely Way To Burn) by my_fandom_OTPs | 10k | Explicit

Louis walks in on Harry jerking off in the shower. What happens after is just… Impulsive and spontaneous.

the value of this moment lives in metaphor by clicheanna for hattalove | 10k | Teen And Up Audiences

Louis and Harry are best friends and absolutely nothing more. It’s a bit strange that, suddenly, everyone thinks they’re dating.

Or the one where they’re all teachers at a high school and students are more invested in their lives than normally expected.

trusting things beyond mistake by sarcasticfluentry | 9k | Explicit

"Is that even possible?" asks Harry.

All of them stare at him for several seconds, and then Louis says, "What, coming untouched?"

"Christ," Zayn mutters, throwing his hands up. “This fucking band, I swear.”

...or, Harry wants to see if he can come without touching his cock and ends up getting more than he bargained for.

And I Will Steady Your Hand by kiwikero | 9k | Explicit

All first year university students who had not yet presented were strongly advised to join the Fire Away meetings, a support group for so-called 'late bloomers.'

They were not, however, advised to fall in love with someone else at the meetings without knowing what they might eventually present as.

A Christmas Wish by Snowy38 | 8k | Mature

"So when are you going to tell him?"

Louis pursed his lips at his sister, his Skype video call relaying his thoughts on that subject perfectly.

"Next question," he mused.

Lottie rolled her eyes.

"It's your birthday in four days, Louis."

"What difference does that make?" He scoffed.

She shrugged.

"You can get drunk and confess how you feel and take it back afterwards if he doesn't feel the same."

That might work if Louis wasn't in love with Harry. But Lottie didn't know that and she didn't need to find out.

"Thanks Lots," he said anyway.

"Seriously Lou what's stopping you?"

Louis sighed.

"Fear mostly."

Under that Damn Mistletoe by hickeystyles | 7k | Mature

Louis' heart froze when he looked over and saw Liam whispering in Harry’s ear and nodding towards the mistletoe. Louis’ eyes widened comically before he dove out of sight so Harry couldn’t see him standing under the mistletoe like an idiot, or worse, like he was part of Liam’s plan to have Harry kiss him.

Or a Christmas Party AU where Louis is in love with his best friend Harry and everyone else is trying to force the two of them under the mistletoe together

We Could Be A Dream by Bearandleonardwrite | 7k | Explicit

“So, I’ve never seen you at one of these parties before,” Harry says as he hands Louis his drink. “Who’re you here for?”

Well, shit. Louis was definitely not expecting that. He sips on his drink to give him a few moments to think of an answer and then, “Oh, y’know. I’m dating the host’s brother. What about you?” He’s quite pleased with himself. Great answer. He takes another drink as a reward.

Harry grins at him, eyes bright, and shrugs. “Gemma’s my sister.” Louis hums around the rim of his cup waiting for him to elaborate. “She’s the host,” he tacks on, smug smile on his face. Louis chokes on his drink and tries his best to glare at Harry while he coughs. Harry rubs at his back until he can breathe properly again, which is actually really not that helpful. “Didn’t realize we were dating, Lou. I’m flattered.”

(Basically; Louis meets Harry at a party that he wasn't invited to. He ends up asking Harry to tutor him so he can keep seeing him. Featuring a bit of pining and a tea party.)

Mission Fucking Impossible by orphan_account | 7k | Mature

“Are you and Louis fucking?”

Harry nearly spits out his drink as he tries to communicate a "what the ever living fuck" to Niall with his eyes.

Niall takes another casual sip of his beer “Not like I’m the only one thinking it mate, I’m just the only one saying it out loud.”

- Harry is in love with Louis, and he is almost positive Louis is in love with him too. Naturally, Harry deals with this by trying to get Louis horny and hope for the best.

Things don't exactly work out how he plans.

One day to believe in you by mediaville | 7k | Explicit

A mysterious force compels Louis to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Even when it's really inconvenient.

Harry blinks and has the nerve to look surprised. "You think about me when you get off?"

"Yes," Louis says. He wonders how hard he'd need to punch himself in the face to knock himself out.

"Often?"

"Yes, Christ, Harry," Louis groans. "Probably eight times a week for going on six years now. On average, you know. More when we were touring, less when I've been visiting family. Anything else you'd like to know?"

Fake It Till We Make It by whileatwiltshire | 7k | General Audiences

#33- Keeping up with the Neighbors

“We can fake it.”

What?

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“No I did not. Say it again.”

“I said” Harry started slowly, “We can fake having sex to teach them a lesson.”

It was clear to say that Louis's mouth went a little dry at the suggestion.

Or ,

Their neighbours were a bit too loud during their bedroom activities and Harry comes up with the worst plan to shut them up. Louis agrees anyways.

Web Me Harder by iwillpaintasongforlou | 6k | Explicit

Louis Tomlinson, otherwise known as London's masked hero Spiderman, finds himself crashing through the window of Harry Styles one night after a particularly nasty fight with a villain. Luckily Harry is a nursing student with a soft spot for caped crusaders who's more than happy to tend to all of Louis' wounds, no matter how many times he swings by.

candy in your mouth (i know you love me) by embodied | 6k | Explicit

“You’re wrong,” Harry says, jaw clenched tight. “Because if all I wanted was a fuck, I’ve got at least three willing parties a phone call and a five minute drive away. What I want is you. I want us, I want it to be normal again -”

“What the fuck is normal?” Louis yells, much too loudly, and has to pause to consciously lower his voice before he speaks again. “Because a year ago, normal was eating too much takeaway and watching B-movies on Netflix in your room, and then normal was me choking on your cock at half past two in the morning, and I don’t know about you, but as of the past few weeks, normal is not seeing or talking to you at all, because I’ve all but admitted that I’m fucking crazy for you and you don’t know what to say to that.” Louis’ chest heaves, his breath coming out short. He hears his own throat stick when he swallows, and his voice is decidedly weaker when he asks, “So which one is it, Harry?”

AU. Things have shifted since last Christmas.

Running Through a Cloud of Steam by allwaswell16 | 5k | Mature

As Harry’s long anticipated twenty-first birthday approaches, he anxiously awaits the moment when he finally meets his soulmate. He’s not even sure he believes in soulmates, but at the very least, he hopes to prove to his best friend that nothing can come between their friendship--not even a soulmate.

You Can't Blame Me For Tryin' by lululawrence | 5k | Mature

Reason # 38 - Because He Is From One of the Countries You Haven't Had Sex With a Person From Yet.

Louis had been accepted into the study abroad program through his uni back home and therefore got to spend a year in rural Minnesota, of all places, but he wasn’t going to complain. It was still a pretty cool experience, even if it was far different from what he had been expecting. And besides, if he’d been sent to literally any other university, he’d never have met Harry.

If It's Meant To Be (It'll Be, It'll Be) by lululawrence | 4k | Not Rated

“So, anyway. I’m done here and on my way to the airport. I think I’m expected to be there in the morning, around ten. I’ll let you know when I’m getting close.”

“Sounds good.” Harry pulled back from the window and threw himself onto one of the beds. Once he got comfortable, he steeled himself and then went for it. “It’s been too long this time, Lou,” he finally whispered. He watched as Louis bit his lip and nodded slowly.

“I know,” Louis agreed, just as quiet in return. “We have to swear to never go this long without seeing each other again. Two months is just...unacceptable. I’m gonna go now, but I’ll see you soon. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah. See you. Be safe,” Harry said, far too fondly for his best friend. He couldn’t help it though. It was how he always had been and probably always would be.

They hung up and Harry threw his arm over his face.

“I am so in love with him,” he whined to himself. “Fuck.”

Satisfaction by iwillpaintasongforlou | 2k | Teen And Up Audiences

Louis and Harry have known each other since before they could remember and been in love with one another for about as long, even though both steadfastly refuse to admit it. When Louis starts dating other people, it is only to help himself move on and not at all to make Harry jealous. And the sulking sort of anger Harry feels when he watches Louis kiss other people is completely irrelevant anyways.

[shelby-love]

FRED WEASLEY

Battle of Hogwarts

Requested: yes (by anonymous)

Prompts: none (Voldemort’s lines (cursive) are from the movie)

Warning(s): mentions of death, angst

Word count: 1.9K

Author’s note: I’m weak guys I literally cried while writing this. UGH! Movie 8 is so freaking devastating how can it be someone’s favorite?? If it’s your fav than you’re a freaking soldier! Anyhow, enjoy this because we all know Freddie deserves it! God I wish he lived :’( In the movie I mean lmaooo 💀

Link to Voldy’s little whispering announcement is here! Recommend watching it so you get the feels.

The once peaceful night had turned into a rampage in a matter of seconds. Just 16 hours prior to the battle you were sleeping late with Fred at the Burrow, inhaling his familiar scent until it lulled you back to sleep eventually.

Now you stand filthy, with cuts and bruises all over your body, looking around as the school you had attended not too long ago became a battleground for all witches and wizards.

Tears threatened to spill down your cheeks, the sickly smiles the Death Eaters pranced around with suddenly being too scary to look at. The wind was no calmer than yourself - it blew harshly, pushing your hair violently to one side while you turned your head to look the other way. Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts and you were all alone to fight off the first wave.

Jets of green light flew past you in the heat of the moment, missing you by a tiny fraction of an inch. You ducked behind a fallen statue doing your best to ignore the never ending screams of curses. A giant plotted around the debris, walking in a semi-circle while trying to catch a few wizards onto his half-moon shaped weapon of choice.

No one had your back, only the stone statue you trusted enough to lean your back against.

The sight before you was truly terrifying. So many memorable places had turned upside down into something you didn't recognize. Didn't try to recognize. So many memories were squished into anguish. Pain.

Fear for your loved ones.

"Fred!" You screamed out in terror. Your boyfriend was not by your side, having split up from you when he went after his older brother Percy. You didn't see him anywhere since that moment on, but perhaps that was a good thing. Fred wasn't outside to see what the grounds has turned into. He wasn't there to hear the despairing screams that surrounded you. "Fred!"

Another burst of green had escaped from someone's wand, sneaking up to your body with force. The death curse awaited you - no one could deny it.

But something blocked it. A surge of light - pure bright light - blinded you for several seconds before it died down to a spark, leaving you squinting your eyes at the savior in gratitude.

"You really think I'd let my future sister-in-law die like that?" Said George, his voice unmistakably similar to Fred's. It wrapped around you like a cloak of protection, reassuring you that there was still hope.

That you weren't alone.

"You're alive!" Your voice, unlike George's, lost all its light as you staggered to your feet hastily.

"Course I am," said George teasingly though his dashing smile turned into a thin line of worry fairly quickly. He grasped your elbow and dragged straight inside until you met the corridors you roamed around your entire adolescent life. Without a choice but with full trust, you followed after George, watching as the robes on his shoulders held themselves on by mere threads, his whole body blackened by the smoke. Just like yours.

Panic flared within you. You could hear even more screams inside the school - the only place that was free of tall, monstrous giants with voices that shook the ground like bombs.

People, good and bad, screamed out both curses and jinxes while dueling. Your head snapped into different directions every second you were inside, readying your body to defend yourself.

George stopped suddenly, pushing you back behind him and blocking an unavoidable Avada Kedavra before turning back to you. He looked panicked, "Find Fred! He's on the seventh-floor corridor with Perce! Go!"

"I can't leave you, George!" You bellowed in between screaming a jinx at a dark hooded Death Eater.

"I don't think you have much of a choice in this matter, sis!" He said without a backward glance, hurling you into the opposite direction with a mere swipe of his wand. "Go!"

And so you listened, running off to find the man you loved while leaving his brother behind with a heavy heart.

The long-lost piece to your heart, although the piece that belonged to George since birth.

Fred.

You ran forwards through the halls you knew like your own home representing a mad-woman. Every so often, after cursing a different Death Eater through the window you would glance around and choke back a sob.

The halls, per se, weren't as devastating to see; it was the lack of greeting smiling faces that once stood proudly up on the walls that broke your heart. The people from the pictures had disappeared, no longer greeting you in passing like before.

Just then the sound of thunder penetrated through the land, like a storm greeting you on the doorstep. The room began to tremble, your head pulsing to the point you thought it would explode.

And then His voice echoed.

"You have fought valiantly... but in vain. I do not wish this. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste."

You dug your hands into your hair like doing so would push Him out.

It didn't.

Although His whispers remained there, His influence did not.

Only at the sight of Fred backed up against the wall with Augustus Rookwood at his feet did Voldemort's voice drain down your ears into oblivion. He had his wand pointed to Fred whose own wand had been knocked out of his hold, disarming him.

Power surged through your being and without much thinking, a bright light of a jinx blasted out your wand, neatly hitting the Death Eater making him drop his wand and crumble to the ground like a pile of ash.

You drew in a suffocating gasp for air and dropped to your knees, a wave of wet tears threatening to spill over like a river. Augustus blew away with the wind, leaving only the two of you alone.

For now.

Instinctively, you cupped Fred's cheeks with your shaky hands and pressed your forehead against his. The whispering was getting too much. "Shh...you're okay..."

"I therefore command my forces to retreat. In their absence, dispose of your dead with dignity."

"Y/N?"

"N-no, don't speak Freddie," you murmured sadly, shakily brushing a strand of his hair while pinning his eyes into yours to distract him from the whispers. 

He did as you said, locking his eyes with yours and not looking away until it was over. "Fred I love you."

"Harry Potter, I speak now directly to you. On this night you have allowed your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. There is no greater dishonor. Join me in the Forbidden Forest. If you do not do this, I shall kill every last man, woman and child who tries to conceal you from me."

And just like that, the castle became unnervingly quiet. Every blast of light that sparked around was no more than a lingering smell in the air, unharmful to anyone - rendered completely useless. 

You didn't know for how long this eerie bit of peace and quiet would last, but you were going to use it up completely. 

"I-I..." Fred started, although no more words followed after that. He swallowed the rest of the thought heavily, instead letting you silently help him stagger to the Great Hall. 

You tried not to look at the blood, but how could you not? It was everywhere, littering the walls and walkway even though no physical contact had to be made in order to kill someone using magic. It just comes to show just how merciless the dark followers truly are. You bit down on your trembling lip, suppressing the dark thoughts that invaded your mind.

Fred had thought the same apparently as he looked just as broken and tired as you did when you stopped in the doorway of the Hall, not knowing what awaited for you beyond those doors. 

The room that used to be the liveliest place on earth shuddered with silence, only footsteps could be heard. Tears rounding up as a close second. 

People were bawling. Although quietly, as if the fallen were asleep.

The house tables, the tables of pronounced rivalry between the four houses were gone. What crowded the room were the people, their arms around each other's necks. The injured were being treated but the dead lied in the middle of the hall. 

Your friends mourned their loved ones; professors sat quietly by the side, looking grim but with hope still glimmering in their eyes; kids who you had nothing to do with during your schooling suddenly felt like the closest of friends, their closed eyelids will never open again. It tore your heart.

The first of many sobs escaped. You paused ever so slightly, pushing Fred back too without even realizing it. Breathing became harder, your lungs became tighter. Life was too harsh at that moment.

Inhale. Exhale.

"Y/N hey," said Fred softly, cupping your chin with utmost of care. Almost as if he was scared a simple touch could break you. "It's okay. Look at me, love."

You shook your head, unable to do as he said, "Fred? Y/N?"

Both Fred and you glanced at George who was standing amidst the crowd, looking worse than he did before. But at least he had a smile.

"Go." You gave Fred a simple nod, and he didn't even waste a second. Both brothers ran for each other, winding their arms around each other's necks. You could hear their cries of agony and the falling tears, so you turned your head to hide your own set of tears. All you could do was release the emotions, you came to realize.

There was something about the twins, as if they felt what no one in the world could. Perhaps that's what made them so close, a joy to be around really. Like many, they fought, but then they simply synchronized at the right time and all became good again.

There was something about knowing that the love of your life's brother was okay that made the world a bit more bearable. George was a part of Fred no one could replace - you, Molly, Arthur, Ron, ... You didn't want to live to see the day Fred mourns over his brother too soon.

But Fate smiled down on you, reuniting the two soulmates as a gift to the world.

Ginny walked toward you so quietly you almost failed to notice her, but when you did your lips curled sadly; her face was swollen, and she looked to be in a great deal of pain, but she hugged you tightly despite it. Your arms mimicked her own, pulling her close until the comfort balanced out.

Soon, the rest of the Weasleys joined, showing just how grateful they were for each of their kids. Hermione and you closed in on them too, and they immediately pulled you into the group, showering you with love while your parents couldn’t.

Remus and Tonks looked peaceful, looking as if they were resting while laying down next to each other, their hands touching. You didn't have the heart to wake them, you decided. Instead, you kneeled down and thanked them. Promised them that their son would learn and grow up to be just like the two of them.

You yearned not to feel, but that was simply not possible. So, you turned to Fred, tears travelling down your cheeks, every thought fried and cluttered - his eyes dimmed sadly. Fred reached out and pulled you to him, hugging you securely, his strong arms becoming a shield of love no one could break. You felt his tears travel down your neck and that urged more of your own to fall down too.

When you finally parted, you looked deeply into his eyes, letting him wipe your tears away. "Please don't leave again." The words barely managed to break out as the sobs you started to withhold chocked your voice back. Fred's eyes softened, his chin rested on top of your head when he brought you back to him. His arms clenched you tighter this time, like a promise.

"I'll never leave you again. I promise."

MASTERLIST

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