#tape stripping method

[dermatology-cro]

[yourfavoritewerewolf]

cut out the mockup and have it pinned and everything :3 going to sew it up tomorrow after work to check the fit

[princesslottacake]

Go Back to the Basics — The Void State Isn't Complicated

This needs to be heard. Like really heard—especially if you've been getting lost in all the steps, techniques, and overthinking.

So many people (including me at one point) have spent hours reading posts, watching videos, scripting, looping, method-hopping…

But the truth? The void is simple. It always was.

---

🛌 The Moment Everything Changed for Me:

I stopped trying. I stopped chasing.

I literally said:

“What if I just go back to the basics?”

Not a new technique. Not a new method.

Just… being still, feeling woozy, letting myself melt into the knowing that it’s already mine.

That’s when I felt it. The shift. The hum. The stillness that says,

“You're right there.”

---

🌌 It's Called the Law of Assumption for a Reason

Read that again!!!!

It's not the law of effort. Not the law of desperate clinging.

It’s the law of assumption.

If you assume the void is hard to enter, your reality agrees.

If you assume you’re not “ready yet,” it’ll wait.

But if you casually, effortlessly, naturally assume:

“The void is easy for me."

"I always enter the void."

"I just… end up there."

Then guess what? It becomes easy. You start ending up there.

It aligns because you do.

---

💭 Stop Overthinking. Start Assuming.

Behind every method—sats, affirmations, tapes, counting, etc.—is the same engine:

Your belief. Your assumption.

So if you’ve felt stuck, ask yourself:

Am I doing this because I think I have to?

Or do I already know the void is mine?

Strip it back. Go quiet. No pressure. Just you + your truth.

---

💡 You are the reason you enter the void.

Not your technique.

Not the phase of the moon.

Not how many hours you meditated.

Just you.

So go back to the basics.

Lay down. Breathe. Assume.

Let it be simple again.

And let the void meet you there. 🖤🌑✨

[libraford]

Multi-paper junk mini journal tutorial (low spoons version)

Last night, I mentioned that I like my blank books to have a combination of different papers: colored paper for sketching, blank paper for writing, dotted paper for lists, graph paper for schematics and maps, but there arent many manufacturers that make this. So I just make them myself.

And yall wanna know how to do that.

GREAT!

Here's the easy version. This is for:

-I want this for me, NOW, and I don't care what it looks like because I'm gonna cover it in stickers, and it's only going to be a few pages long. If it lasts a week, I'm happy.

You will need:

- desired papers, 8.5x11 inch regular ass sizes

- a piece of card stock or a thicker paper.

- stapler

- washi tape (optional)

- probably scissors

STEP 1

Take a piece of paper. Fold it in half. Tear or cut the paper along the fold line so you have two half sheets of paper.

If you want a larger book, you can just fold it in half and the book will be 8.5×5 instead of 5x3.25.

STEP 2

Fold the half sheets in half and crease them. Repeat this for every sheet you intend on using for the inside of your journal.* Try not to do more than 8 papers because it'll put stress on the stapler. The papers should now fit inside of each other.

*you could, if pressed, fold them all together in one big group. This is faster, however- if you've ever had a handmade zine that doesn't close cleanly it's likely that they stapled it together without creasing. To each their own. I don't run your life.

If there is excess on the ends that makes the book uneven, feel free to chop it off at this point.

STEP 3

Repeat step 2, but with the thicker paper, which is now your book cover.

STEP 4

Find the centerfold- which is the middle piece of paper. Lay it flat and make sure all the papers and the cover line up.

TIME TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH STAPLER!

Ah, yes- the zine-stitch. Three staples to hold it all together, one in the center and 2 an inch from the top and bottom. If you are doing a larger size, you may need more staples.

You can staple from the inside or you can flip it over and staple it from the spine. Stapling from the spine will make it smoother on the outside so if you're carrying it in your pocket it won't catch threads.

But sometimes stapling from the inside is the only method that works. I've got a fix for you at the end.

Stapling is easy because it's a fast fix, but you may find yourself wasting staples because they don't go all the way through. This can be that the paper is too thick or that there's too many papers. I have a more complicated version of this that's suited to this situation, which I'll write later.

Other, more obvious solution: better staples, better stapler. But I don't have that.

You can call yourself done now, or...

OPTIONAL STEP 5

If you stapled from the centerfold or if you plain don't like the way your spine looks, we're gonna use some washi tape.**

Gently find an unstapled flap in the cover and separate it so you can get some washing tape to adhere to the inside.

Run it along the spine with the book flattened.

Adhere it to the inside of the cover at the bottom and then fold.

**an advanced technique for this when you don't have washi tape: cut a strip of contrasting paper at least 1 inch thick and 2 inches longer than the spine (so in this case it would be 1 inch by 7 inches.) Coat the back of this paper with glue and then use in the same way the washi is shown. This will require extra curing time and you will want to put something heavy on top as it dries. Washi is just easier.

Now slap a sticker on it.

Nice!

And now you've got a little journal. Does it look great? Who cares? You don't have to look all over for a piece of graph paper when you wanna draw a map of something while you're out doing stuff.

It took me longer to write the tutorial than it did to make the thing. The hardest part was getting the staples to behave.

I have a higher spoons version that I will write up later, but this is the punkass way of doing something for yourself.

UPDATE: The tutorial for the nicer version is available here!

[onlyangel4]

kayfabe. cm punk. part nine.

dark!cm punk x superstar!reader

synopsis: you and punk are placed into a long-term onscreen pairing. a storyline romance meant to boost ratings. the chemistry is undeniable, but offscreen, punk is distant. until he’s not. he begins texting late at night. watching. testing boundaries. you realise he’s not method acting. the possessiveness, the tension, the jealousy, it’s all real. and if the storyline ends, he won’t take it well.

part one // part two // part three // part four // part five // part six // part seven // part eight // part nine // part ten

you could feel it before you saw him.

the low, vibrating tension that seemed to follow him now, thick, invisible, pressing against your skin like humidity. you sat on the bench in the shared locker room, already half in gear, trying to lace your boots with fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking.

he was behind you.

"you’re late", you said softly, not looking up.

"i'm not,” punk replied. not sharp. not cruel. just flat, like the words were going through a filter that stripped them of emotion. you didn’t know which was worse: when he was angry or when he sounded like nothing at all.

you heard the soft snap of tape unravelling. he was already at his bench, wrapping his wrists in slow, neat rotations. focused. methodical. like he was getting ready for a fight instead of a match.

"do you wanna talk about what happened last week?" you asked, watching him in the mirror above the bench.

he didn’t look up. "no."

silence.

you shifted in your seat. "you scared people."

"good", he said. "they should be scared."

that landed between you with a weight that made it hard to breathe.

you turned toward him slowly. "that’s not what this is supposed to be."

he finally met your gaze.

"what is this supposed to be?" he asked, quiet and venom-soft. "you keep changing the rules."

your mouth opened. closed again.

punk stood, finishing the wrap on his left hand with a firm tug. He stepped toward you and crouched low, level with your eyes. close enough that the heat of him crept along your jaw.

"i’m out there to protect you", he said. "and i will. from bron. from becky. from whoever steps too close."

You swallowed. "it’s a match."

"it’s a war. you just don’t want to admit it yet."

his fingers grazed your ankle brace, a light, deliberate touch. not concerned. claiming.

you didn’t pull away. and that scared you more than anything.

∘•···············•∘ʚ ♡ ɞ∘•················•∘

the lights hit your face like a second skin, blinding, burning, familiar. you walked ahead of him through the curtain, feeling the weight of his presence at your back like a storm you couldn’t outrun.

the crowd roared. half for you. half against him.

but punk didn’t care about their noise.

his hand found your lower back again. always there. always steering.

you looked across the ring. bron and becky stood shoulder to shoulder, calm and focused. you caught bron’s eyes, and he gave you a nod, subtle, reassuring.

punk saw it.

you felt him stiffen beside you.

"focus on me", he muttered, low enough that the camera wouldn’t catch it.

you nodded, not because you agreed, but because you wanted this to go smoothly. wanted something to feel normal again.

the bell rang.

becky started. you stepped in to meet her. the rhythm was clean. fast-paced, sharp, exactly how it was supposed to be. no drama. no emotion. just wrestling.

but punk paced like a caged animal on the apron.

every time becky touched you, you felt his eyes burn hotter.

every time bron called for a tag, you saw the storm build behind his expression.

when you hit a clean dropkick and rolled to the corner, you reached up. punk slapped your hand with too much force, and stormed the ropes.

bron stepped in with a smile, the kind you’d seen a hundred times backstage. confident. friendly. a little cocky.

and punk exploded.

he didn’t wrestle. he attacked.

every strike had weight behind it. every move landed like a statement. his elbow caught bron too stiffly in the jaw, you saw bron’s smile vanish, replaced with real frustration.

the ref warned him. twice.

you shouted from the apron. "pull it back!"

he didn’t even look at you.

bron fought back, but it was clear: punk wasn’t there to work. he was there to dominate.

the tag never came. even when you reached your hand out again. desperate now, pleading, punk ignored it. he whipped bron into the turnbuckle, charging shoulder-first. bron dodged just in time.

that was when becky yelled for the tag.

you saw bron turn toward his corner and you saw it happen.

in the rush, the movement, the chaos, bron’s shoulder clipped your knee on the apron. just a brush. nothing intentional. just enough to jar it.

pain flashed hot. you dropped to one hand with a wince.

it wasn’t serious. you knew that.

but punk had seen.

and that was enough.

the ref didn’t even get the words out before punk was back in the ring.

bron had just turned after tagging becky, moving to the apron. he didn’t see it coming.

punk lunged like something feral, not a wrestler, not a performer. just fury wrapped in skin.

he tackled bron to the mat, fists hammering down without rhythm or restraint. closed fists. violent. you heard the smack of knuckles on cheek, on jaw, on bone.

the crowd turned on a dime, gasps morphing into horrified boos. not just heat. real discomfort.

commentary stopped talking.

becky ducked into the ring, trying to yank punk off. he shoved her hard enough to send her stumbling into the ropes.

security moved fast, two, then four officials storming the ring. the ref called for the bell, disqualification.

it didn’t matter.

punk wouldn’t let go until bron stopped moving.

you were screaming his name before you even knew it. your hands were still gripping the ropes, your knee throbbing faintly, but none of it mattered.

"punk! that’s enough!"

he didn’t hear you.

or maybe he didn’t care.

seth was the one who pulled him off. no music. no ceremony. just chaos and disgust. the second bron was free, becky dropped to her knees beside him, checking for blood.

punk tried to charge again.

seth slammed a forearm across his chest. "control yourself, asshole!”

punk’s lip was bleeding. his eyes were wild. not focused on bron. not on seth. just on you.

you were still at the ropes, still wide-eyed.

still staring.

when he saw that, he stopped struggling.

the switch flipped. all his rage dissolved into something else entirely. something quieter, darker, possessive in a way that made your lungs lock up.

he stepped toward you slowly, ignoring everyone else.

you backed up and walked backstage

he followed.

∘•···············•∘ʚ ♡ ɞ∘•················•∘

the second you got backstage, you pulled your arm from his grip.

"don’t," you said.

punk turned, breathing hard, eyes still glassy with adrenaline. "he hurt you."

"it was an accident.", you snapped the words. sharp. louder than you meant to be. "bron would never hurt me."

he stared at you like he didn’t understand the sentence.

"he clipped you", he said flatly. "he wasn’t looking"

"because it was a match. a normal match. until you lost your goddamn mind in front of everyone!"

his jaw locked.

you’d never seen him look so cornered.

the hallway was full of people now, medical staff, production crew, a few other talent lingering from earlier segments. seth was standing with becky, both of them watching.

bron was still getting checked out down the hall, blood on the collar of his shirt.

you turned on punk fully.

"i care about him", you said, voice shaking. "not like i care about you. but he’s my best friend. and you just assaulted him in the middle of the ring."

punk’s nostrils flared. "because he’s in your head. he’s always there."

"no,", you said. "he’s in my life. and if you can’t handle that, you don’t deserve to be in it."

he stepped forward. "you’re mine."

you stepped back. just one pace.

"i’m still me."

silence fell over the hallway.

the whole locker room had seen it now, your line in the sand. the part of you they’d worried was gone was still there. loud and stubborn and unafraid.

you looked around.

seth didn’t smirk for once. he just gave you a single, solemn nod.

becky exhaled.

bron, bandaged and bruised, met your eyes from across the hallway.

he gave you the softest smile.

and for the first time in weeks, you smiled back.

punk saw it.

and that was when something inside him shifted.

not broken. just hidden. waiting.

he turned without a word and walked down the hall.

but even as he left, you knew.

he wasn't finished.

not even close.

[fear-is-truth]

what r some of ur wnttak takes 🧏‍♀️

warnings : spoilers + mention of mass murder. most of these are translated from my book report

note : i remember writing this as a book report in high school and the teacher instantly remembered me for the rest of the school year. regardless, this is my favourite book and the movie is a banger too.

for starters, eva never wanted children, but she loved her husband. she wanted to give him what he wanted, and in a way, having a child serves as an extension of franklin, a “backup drive” (i vaguely recall that was her exact wording.) in case something ever happened to him. motherhood, to her initially, was like travelling to a foreign country. but the reality quickly bored her. she had no deep maternal longing, and her main concerns during the pregnancy were mostly about how motherhood would strip her of her freedom, career and physical attractiveness (and the fear that her child has a risk of having a mental / physical disability). and that resentment didn’t disappear once kevin was born. from infancy (according to eva), kevin rejected her as much as she rejected him, he refused to nurse, shunned her touch, screamed himself to exhaustion when she held him. and that mutual contempt shaped their relationship.

what makes kevin such a disturbing child is how methodical he was in his misbehaving. in front of his father, he played the role of the all-american boy who played baseball in the yard, went to museum trips and showed fascination in his father’s career in photography. generally well-behaved, and just troubled enough that franklin could explain away any warning signs (“every boy pulls a few pigtails, eva.”) eva saw through the flimsy facade, but that only isolated her from her husband. when she expressed her concerns, she’s dismissed as paranoid and cold—a bad mother (even though, ironically, she literally did everything a mother is expected to do for her child). kevin knows exactly how to manipulate this dynamic, keeping franklin on his side while making sure eva was completely alone in her fear.

and then there’s celia. the daughter eva actually wanted, loved without obligation or condition. the child represented the hope and joy she had been unable to muster for her firstborn during conception / pregnancy. when eva told kevin that he should get used to the idea of having a little brother or sister, he simply responded: “just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean you’ll like it. you’re used to me.” that line fucked me up because he understood—at seven years old—that his mother had never really liked him, and he threw it right back in her face with all the bitterness of an adult. so, of course, when celia was born, kevin did everything in his power to indirectly hurt his mother by harming his sister. the accident with the drain cleaner that maimed the little girl, taking away a piece of her just as she had taken away a piece of his mother’s already limited affection. strategic in his cruelty, he targeted the two people eva loved most—his father and his sister—before finally executing his masterpiece. the shooting itself wasn’t a desperate outcry or a “statement”. it was methodical in its planning yes, designed for maximum impact, but completely devoid of a clear agenda: no tragic familial discord, no mistreatment by his peers, no romantic rejection. nothing that would fit into the typical narratives. i don’t think kevin was truly focused in taking lives (bullets are way more efficient than arrows)—he was more interested in making sure there was no satisfying explanation for why he did it.

he chose a crossbow instead of a gun, removing himself from the role of being a poster child for gun violence. left no diary full of grievances, no edgy basement tapes or laughable manifesto. he wanted it to appear senseless because that’s exactly what made it personal. the real (and only) target was eva. her husband and daughter—two people she had genuine, uncomplicated love for—were taken from her, while she was forced to live as punishment. kevin understood her better than anyone else ever could, and her suffering would be far more satisfying than her death. he wanted her to sit alone in an empty duplex with a bottle of half-empty wine and the knowledge that she had nothing left but her son.

when eva saw kevin on tv in a prison interview, she noticed a photograph of her younger, carefree self taped to his cell wall. a photo that had gone missing a decade ago—one she assumed he had destroyed. but he hadn’t. he had kept it. even in prison, she occupied his mind (and vice-versa). proof that eva had always been his primary fixation. i think kevin craved his mother’s attention like any other child, but he went about getting it in the most destructive & spiteful way possible. despite everything, he still wanted a connection with her. and in a fucked-up way, he had it.

something important to note is that eva’s perspective is unreliable. the book is told through her letters, and we can’t ever be sure if kevin was truly born that way or if he became what he became because of her own inability to love him. there’s no clear answer. was kevin always destined to be a murderer, or was he just mirroring the coldness he felt from his mother? did he orchestrate his cruelty as a calculated revenge against her, or was he simply a product of an environment where he was never truly wanted? there’s no sure answer, but i really appreciate the ambiguity. the idea that a child can perceive emotional undercurrents long before they have the ability to articulate them. a mother’s emotions can shape a child just as much as her actions. kevin, from the womb, could have sensed that he was an obligation rather than a joy. and if that’s what he absorbed from the very beginning.

[creepinonmen]

Jake stepped out of the bustling Pennsylvania Farm Show, the echoes of livestock calls and vendor chatter still ringing in his ears. The crisp February air of 2025 hit him as he adjusted his cap, the logo of a local ranch catching the faint streetlight. His denim jacket, jeans, and boots felt comfortably familiar after a long day of wandering the expo halls, chatting with farmers, and sampling artisanal cheeses. The weight of his belt buckle—a shiny emblem of his pride in rural life—clinked softly as he walked toward his hotel, just a few blocks away.

The hotel lobby was quiet, the fluorescent lights casting a sterile glow over the checkered floor. Jake nodded to the clerk, who barely looked up from a crossword puzzle, and made his way to the elevator. Room 312 felt like a sanctuary after the sensory overload of the day. He fumbled with his key card, the exhaustion of the fair settling into his bones. As the door clicked open, he stepped inside, the dim light from the hallway casting long shadows across the carpet.

Before he could flip on the light switch, a sudden, forceful shove sent him sprawling onto the bed. The door slammed shut behind him, and a heavy presence loomed over him. Panic surged through Jake’s veins as a gloved hand clamped over his mouth. He struggled, but the assailant was strong, pinning him down with ease. Duct tape ripped loudly in the quiet room, and within moments, Jake’s wrists were bound behind his back with coarse adhesive that bit into his skin, his mouth sealed shut with the sticky strip that muffled his panicked breaths into desperate, muted whimpers.

His heart raced as the unknown figure, shrouded in a dark hood, leaned closer, their face obscured. The assailant’s gloved hands moved with a deliberate, almost methodical slowness, starting at Jake’s lower back. Fingers brushed against the worn denim of his jeans, tracing the curve of his hips with a sickening intimacy. The touch lingered, pressing harder as they explored the contours of his backside, kneading and groping through the fabric with a grotesque curiosity. Jake’s muscles tensed, his body rigid with revulsion and fear, but the bindings held him fast, rendering him helpless.

The gloved hands slid downward, following the seam of his jeans with a slow, deliberate pressure. The leather of the gloves whispered against the denim, creating a chilling contrast to the warmth of Jake’s skin beneath. The assailant’s fingers paused at the juncture of his legs, pressing firmly against the denim to feel the shape of his body, lingering on the outline of his anatomy with horrifying familiarity. They squeezed and probed, their touch invasive and methodical, as if cataloging every detail, leaving Jake trembling with a mix of terror and shame. His muffled protests grew more frantic, his body twisting in a futile attempt to escape, but the tape held tight, and the assailant’s grip was unyielding.

With a sharp tug, the attacker unbuckled Jake’s belt, the metallic clink of the ornate buckle echoing in the room. The belt slid free, pooling on the bed, and the assailant yanked Jake’s jeans down to mid-thigh, the denim catching briefly on his boots before settling around his legs, exposing his vulnerability. The cool air of the room hit his skin, heightening his sense of exposure as the assailant’s hands returned, now skin-on-skin, groping with a brutal intimacy. They squeezed and probed, their touch leaving red marks where the gloves pressed hard, the assailant’s breathing growing heavier, a low, unsettling sound that mingled with Jake’s muffled sobs, amplifying the horror of the moment.

With a violent motion, the attacker forced Jake’s legs apart, the denim around his thighs restricting his movement further. Jake’s body tensed, his muscles straining against the bindings as he felt the assailant’s weight shift, positioning themselves behind him. There was no preparation, no mercy—just a searing, brutal penetration that tore through Jake’s resistance, sending a shockwave of pain radiating through his body. The assailant thrust deeply, their movements harsh and relentless, each motion accompanied by a guttural grunt that echoed in the quiet room. Jake’s muffled sobs grew more desperate, his body jerking involuntarily against the bed, but the duct tape held firm, rendering him powerless to fight back.

The assault was raw and unforgiving, the friction and force causing Jake’s skin to burn and bruise, his thighs trembling under the strain. The assailant’s hands dug into his hips, leaving red marks where the gloves pressed hard against his flesh, pulling him back with each thrust to deepen the violation. Blood mixed with sweat, slicking the space between them, as the pain became a relentless, all-consuming agony. Jake’s vision blurred with tears, his breaths shallow and ragged through the gag, his mind reeling from the horror as the attack continued, each moment stretching into eternity. The assailant’s breathing grew heavier, more erratic, their grip tightening until Jake’s body was a mere object under their control, shattered and broken by the brutality.

Jake’s body lay broken and trembling on the hotel bed, his wrists still bound tightly behind him with duct tape that dug painfully into his skin, his mouth sealed shut with the adhesive gag that stifled his ragged, shallow breaths. The dim light from the curtains cast flickering shadows across the room, the only sound his muted whimpers and the assailant’s heavy, uneven breathing. His jeans, bunched around his mid-thighs, left him exposed and vulnerable, his body bruised and blood-streaked from the brutal assault. The assailant, still cloaked in a dark hood, loomed over him, their gloved hands reaching for a crinkling plastic bag on the nightstand—a clear, thin grocery bag that gleamed faintly in the low light.

With a cold, deliberate motion, the attacker snatched the bag, the plastic rustling ominously as they stretched it open. Jake’s tear-blurred eyes widened in terror, his body instinctively tensing as he sensed what was coming. Before he could muster any resistance, the bag was yanked over his head, the edges snapping tight around his neck. The assailant’s gloved fingers gripped the plastic, twisting and pulling it taut against his skin, creating an airtight seal that cut off his air supply instantly. The plastic clung to his face, molding to the contours of his nose and mouth, fogging with each desperate, futile breath he tried to draw.

Jake thrashed wildly, his bound hands useless behind him, his legs kicking against the mattress as the denim around his thighs restricted his movement. The plastic crinkled loudly with every jerk of his head, the sound sharp and grating in the otherwise silent room. His chest heaved, each attempt to inhale drawing the bag tighter against his face, sucking it into his nostrils and mouth, blocking any chance of oxygen. His muffled gasps turned into panicked, gurgling noises, the gag muffling his cries as his lungs burned, starved for air. The plastic stretched and strained under the pressure of his struggles, tiny beads of condensation forming where his breath tried to escape, only to be trapped against the suffocating barrier.

His vision darkened at the edges, stars bursting behind his eyes as oxygen deprivation set in. The assailant held the bag firm, their grip unrelenting, the gloves creaking slightly as they maintained the deadly pressure. Jake’s body convulsed, his muscles spasming as his strength waned, each twitch weaker than the last. The plastic grew slick with sweat and tears, clinging tightly to his skin, the faint outline of his features visible through the translucent material as his face contorted in agony. His movements slowed, his legs twitching feebly against the bed, the denim rustling faintly, until finally, his body went limp, the bag still sealed around his head, now eerily still and silent. The last remnants of his life slipped away in the suffocating darkness, leaving only the crinkled plastic and the quiet of the room as evidence of his final struggle.

[cecilioque]

Other Important Notes about the Hats

These are industry standard uniform hats. They have a thick PU leather sweat band to prevent sweat stains and so it can slide on with more ease. This is especially important for the white hats. As nice as a fabric sweat band might seem, there is no way to clean that and will inevitably stain over time and use. That is why we opted for PU leather that can be wiped off.

You might notice the slight "wavy" look of the sweat band (not all have this). This is because it is a circular shape and has not been worn yet. It also spent a long time on a boat getting here. This should go away with use as the hat forms to your head. The ends of the sweat band are also not stitched together, but the band is attached to the hat with a back stitch to secure it. The slit is a limitation of the material as well as makes it easier to put on or take off the hat without putting stress on the material. Is this a problem? NO. Like a shoe, you have to break in this hat in by wearing it. In short they fit better the more you wear it.

Like all articles of clothing please refrain from pulling off pieces by force, crushing it out of shape, picking at the seams and threads, or exposing to large amounts of water. If you need to treat it for stains, use methods used for polyester materials. This means you cannot use high heat on them. With care these hats should last a long time with occasional cleaning as all cosplay does.

The metal badge was upgraded to a thicker hard enamel badge with a smooth flat finish and black nickel plating. This is fastened/bolted to the hat with a screw that is hidden and cushioned behind interior lining. If you play with the badge and spin it, the badge might become loose. Since the interior is lined to cover the hardware, if you unscrew the badge it will be hard to tighten up again. Minimal adjustments will not affect the badge.

The hats are packaged with all recyclable materials. Instead of using clear plastic tape, we decided to get water activated tape that is more sturdy and can be recycled. Domestic orders will be taped up with this. International orders will have plain water based tape with a strip of the custom tape inside. Why not decorate the international boxes exterior? Since they have to travel much farther, using plain tape brings less attention and makes the packages less of a target of theft. On top of that, not all countries support custom packaging.

If you have any further questions feel free to contact me via asks or emails.

[boykingscourt]

if u could make ur own sam snuff film. what would it be like? location, era, outfit, starring who else and who gets to see it. torture type or cause of death, with supernatural aspects or just humans.... etc!☺️

*** warning for torture, rape ***

now some might consider it too obvious but I truly like stanford sam the most for this situation. for a few reasons:

sam no longer hunting was supposed to give him a "safe" life and then this happens, which is also why I prefer just humans

sam needing money for college expenses makes him go against his better judgment in shady situations... like being lured into some dude's shady basement (yes I like some dude's shady basement with a concrete floor and tiny window letting in a strip of light. tried and true. but it's off the grid. cabin or old farm or something. maybe sam was first lured into a shady van)

the guilt john and dean would feel for letting this happen to sam/not getting to him fast enough, especially when sam is calling out for each of them towards the end

outfit is not particularly important to me because the first thing that's going to happen to sam in front of the camera is getting his clothes torn off. four or five masked men are going to take turns with him, also kicking him in the face, stomach, and back. sam is a lot tougher than he looks and they don't expect him to fight back so hard, so his struggle and eventual defeat will look great on film

when that's over, I want sam handcuffed to a metal post supporting the basement ceiling. I want him pulling so hard that his wrists are bleeding and he's crying from frustration, desperation, and fear. the camera is on but no one is in the room during this part

the next time someone comes in, it's to shock sam with a cattle prod while he can do nothing but lie on his back on the cold concrete floor and sob, shocks on his neck, his nipples, his ribs, the inside of his thighs, his ass (when he tries to scooch away and gives his attacker an opening), and of course his cock and balls

the gang rape, being chained up, isolation, and cattle prod shocks will be repeated for a few days because sam is just so much fun and looks so good naked, bloody, bruised, dirty, and crying. oh they should piss on him too. method of death should be a deep slow throat cut

aside from pervert corners of the internet and a few lucky ducks who got a vhs tape of it, I definitely want john, dean, and jessica seeing this, but they all come and go out of the room at the police station depending on what/how long they can bear to watch

the cops can't find sam's body or the people responsible, but maybe john and dean can get the location of his shallow grave after identifying some of the men in the film and torturing it out of them

hope you enjoyed

[slasherholic]

synopsis: you are a criminology student tasked with interviewing Asa Emory in prison to write an essay about him—along the way you find yourself developing feelings for the man notoriously known as The Collector, and things take an interesting turn.

alternatively: you are a criminology student being tasked to interview Asa and write an essay on him, only for you to fall for him despite knowing of his gnarly crimes, and for him to eventually escape prison, kidnap you and have you be his very first victim since being imprisoned. You having to come to terms with the fact that you weren’t as special as you thought you were to him—whilst actively fighting for you life, and your feelings for the man known as The Collector.

over-all plot contains: slow burn, body horror, dub-con, non-con, psychological torture, physical torture, sexual torture

this chapter contains: reader being an anxious wreck. this is some of the most tame shit I’ve written yet but should do for an opening :v don’t worry it’ll pick up

ao3 link

Asa Emory/The Collector x Criminologist!Reader | To Love a Monster | Chapter One

You didn’t want to look at him, not at first. Not when you entered the visitation room, fluorescent-lit and sterile, the ceiling buzzing faintly like a dying insect, and certainly not when the guard closed the door behind you with the cold finality of something sealed. You kept your eyes down, fixed on the dull sheen of the table, fingers twitching against the plastic ID badge clipped to your cardigan. A film of sweat was already gathering along your hairline. You hadn’t expected it to be this warm.

His silence filled the room before his presence did.

Asa Emory sat with his hands folded neatly on the table. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. He simply watched you. The kind of watchfulness that stripped pretense, slowly, like peeling something soft from the bone.

“You have thirty minutes,” the guard had said. Your professor had reminded them, too: be professional, be brief, and above all, be careful.

You had rehearsed your questions. Bullet points scrawled in a slim notebook, tucked now into the crook of your elbow, forgotten. Your breath came too shallow. A touch of nausea clawed at your throat, not sickness exactly, more a kind of nervous hunger.

You sat down.

He smelled faintly of antiseptic and something darker beneath, like aged leather, or the corner of a museum no one visited anymore. His jumpsuit was clean pressed. Not orange—a muted brown, darker than you expected. His beard was clipped short. You imagined it coarser than it looked.

“Miss...”

He let the syllable hang.

You gave him your name. Too quickly. It sounded foreign in your mouth, inadequate.

His lips tilted slightly, not quite a smile.

“Well then.”

No warmth. No threat either. Just a quiet, simmering control. You tried to meet his gaze then and failed. His eyes were darker than you remembered from the few grainy courtroom photos that had made the rounds years ago. You had seen them once on a television in your mother’s living room, the news anchor speaking over charred remnants and caution tape. You had leaned forward, transfixed.

“You’re the first,” he said.

Your brows furrowed.

“To interview you?” you asked.

“Student.” A pause. “What made you pick me?”

You swallowed. Your throat clicked. The notebook was closed on the table, spine bent, the pages damp with nervous thumbprints.

“It was random.”

He leaned back slightly in his chair, just enough to let the silence stretch. One of his fingers tapped against his other hand, slow, methodical.

“That so?”

You let the words crawl inside you. A mild sense of panic threatened to unseat your composure, but you fought it down with a swallow. He was testing you. Of course he was.

Focus, you told yourself.

“What...” You forced yourself to begin, voice tremulous. “What were your early academic influences? Entomology, specifically.”

A faint amusement flickered at the edge of his expression. As if your question were quaint. Harmless.

“My father collected beetles,” he said. “Among other things. But mostly beetles.”

You nodded. Scribbled something illegible. It felt like pretending.

His voice was low, deliberate. “He had a way of arranging them. Shadowboxes. Taxonomies.” He paused. “People aren’t so different, if you know what to look for.”

You flinched inwardly.

He watched you for a long moment.

“How much have you read about me?”

Your pen stopped.

You blinked. “Only what’s been made public.”

“Of course.”

He tilted his head slightly, like something studying you. A spider in no hurry.

“Am I what you imagined me to be?”

You looked up at that. Met his eyes for the first time. It was a mistake.

His gaze pinned you.

You couldn’t breathe.

You told yourself it was the heat.

“I—” you started, but it didn’t matter. The rhythm had shifted. He had pulled the thread taut. And he would wait. He could always wait.

When the silence returned, it had changed. It wasn’t empty now. It held something. A shape.

You thought of that news clip again. His name, “The Collector,” spoken in hushed tones over ash and blood. You had been seventeen. Your mother told you to change the channel.

But you hadn’t.

And something inside you had shifted.

He leaned forward, just slightly, and your body betrayed you, leaned back in tandem.

“You study criminology,” he said. “Why?”

You didn’t want to answer. But you did.

Because of you.

Not aloud.

“Because I wanted to understand people.”

He smiled, barely. “That sounds like a lie.”

You didn’t respond. Your hands twisted in your lap. You hated yourself for sweating. For shaking.

His voice dropped lower, almost tender. “People don’t study monsters unless they want to find the monster in themselves.”

You didn’t argue.

—--

The car ride home was long and colorless. The road flattened under your tires like a ribbon unspooling into dusk, headlights from the opposite lane blinking past like old ghosts. Your body moved on instinct, shifting gears, taking exits. You watched yourself from somewhere high and outside. Detached.

A presence lingered in the back of your throat. Not a memory, but an impression. The room. The silence. The way he had looked at you like he was cataloging something. And the worst part was—you wanted to be cataloged. Named. Noted. Filed away in some dark drawer of his mind.

You hated that thought.

You didn’t stop it from returning.

—--

Your dorm room smelled faintly of coffee and fabric softener. You peeled off your cardigan, tossed it onto the chair, then crawled beneath the thin blanket of your bed, fully clothed. Your fingers twitched. Your legs felt restless. Your mind refused to still.

When you had closed your eyes, you saw his.

Not the color, not the specific shape, but the feeling of them. The heaviness of being seen. You tried to reframe the meeting clinically, professionally. Tried to pull it apart like a dissection.

But your thoughts betrayed you.

You remembered the way he said your name. The silence between sentences. The curve of his fingers where they folded against one another. The tension beneath the surface, like something leashed.

You shifted beneath the covers.

It wasn’t arousal. Not yet. But it was close. The beginning of something you didn’t want to name.

You pressed the pillow to your chest and held it there, tight.

There were two weeks left. Two more visits.

Thirty minutes each.

That was all.

[dermatology-cro]

[trashpandacraft]

I found fibrecraft tumblr after searching drop spindles because my dad *didn’t even know what that was.* And despite having been firmly of the opinion that I didn’t intend to learn it, y’all have me getting ever closer to giving in. However, I’m also growing ever more enamored with the idea of weaving - and despite recently deciding to give knitting and crochet another go - I think it looks the most fun of the fiber crafts. My issue is that I have absolutely no space.

But I’m beginning to realize there’s a lot of different looms and types of weaving. So I was wondering if you have any resources or tips for small space methods and storage?

welcome to fibrecraft tumblr! it's fun here, we have enablers.

i will admit that while i love knitting, weaving is amazing, and is much better with regards to instant gratification—weaving for an hour gets you a lot more fabric than knitting for an hour.

so let's talk about weaving, because i have great news for you: you can 100% totally weave in a small space if you want to, and you even have options for how you do it. i'm going to go through basically all the small space weaving options that i'm aware of in roughly size order, and if you make it to the bottom of this you'll have a pretty good overview of space-saving weaving methods.

the first question to ask yourself is what you want to weave. maybe you're not sure yet, which is totally fine. if you don't immediately have strong feelings about it, though, maybe consider if band weaving strikes your fancy. this is pretty limited in size, but lets you weave belts, straps (like camera or bag straps), lanyards, etc.

if you think that sounds neat, it's worth looking into tablet weaving, an inkle loom, or a band/tape loom. tablet weaving takes up no space at all—if you can fit a stack of index cards into your life, you can fit tablet weaving. the tablets are small square cards, often made out of heavy cardstock, and even with a project on them, you can probably fit them into an index card holder.

inkle looms are larger, and to be honest i've never used one and don't know a ton about them, but they're also used for making woven bands. the looms can also be very aesthetically pleasing, if that's something you're into. they can be very big, but the ashford inklette, for example, is only 36 cm long and maybe 12 cm wide.

tape looms are—in my experience, anyhow—larger than tablet weaving but smaller than inkle looms, and even the larger ones are only about shoebox size. they vary widely, from gorgeous, complicated little looms to a handheld paddle that you use to create a shed, which is what you put your yarn through when you're weaving.

if that doesn't sound like good times, consider a frame loom. these are pretty simple—if you ever wove potholders out of stretchy cloth strips as a kid, you probably used a frame loom to do it on. frame looms are generally inexpensive and readily available, and can be used for small woven objects like potholders, coasters, placemats, etc. they can also be used to make some truly stunning tapestries. while you can buy a huge frame loom, you're still only talking about huge in two directions—it might be as wide as your armspan, but it's still only a couple inches thick.

another option is a pin loom. these don't get mentioned a lot, and i'm not totally sure why. pin looms are shapes with a bunch of pins (metal points, usually) coming out of them. on one hand, you're limited to making things that are the shape of the loom, but on the other hand, if you've been hanging around fibrecraft tumblr, you've seen all the things crocheters get up to with granny squares, right? there's no reason in the world that you can't do all those things with the squares made on a pin loom. or the hexagons! or the triangles! i've been kinda thinking about getting a little hexagon or triangle pin loom and using it to sample my handspun, then turning the shapes into a blanket.

if you hate all of that, that's ok! we have more options.

you could consider a backstrap loom, which is an ancient way of weaving that's still practiced today in many places. backstrap looms are cool because you can weave probably 24 inches wide on them, but even with a project on it, they take almost no room at all. backstrap looms are fairly easy to diy, because they're basically a bunch of dowels, so they can be a good low-cost way to try out weaving. backstrap looms will let you make longer, wider fabric than anything else we've mentioned so far!

another option—stay with me—is a toy loom. there are a number of cheap looms for sale on amazon/ali express/some local places that are actually fully functional looms. recently i've seen a number of people (like sally pointer, though i'm sure i've seen someone using one of the brightly coloured harness looms, as well) who've used them and report that they're functional, if basic, looms. you're fairly constrained in terms of project size, since there's not a lot of space for the finished fabric to wind on, and there's a very limited width, but the looms are quite small and tuck away easily.

ok, but so what if you hate all of those options? don't worry—there are more options! this is the part where things get expensive, though.

as looms go, rigid heddle looms are actually quite reasonably sized. i think the smallest one i've seen is a 40cm (~16") weaving width, which is about 50x60 (20x24") in length/width, and 13cm (5") high. so that's more space than anything else we've talked about, but it's still not a ton of space, you know? a 40cm rigid heddle will let you weave lovely scarves and things of that nature—table runners, placemats, strips of woven fabric to whipstitch together into a blanket, etc.

but maybe that's enough. so let's talk about table looms. some of them are quite large—mine, for example, is about a metre square and sits on a frame that it came with. it is not what you would call space efficient. but many of them, especially modern ones, are very compact, and can even be folded up into something more or less briefcase sized. (weird way to consider it, since the last time i saw a briefcase was probably the 80s, but you know what i mean, i bet.) the cool part here is that you can weave damn near anything you want on a table loom. the less cool part is that for the compact ones that fold up, you're looking at hundreds if not thousands of dollars. the smallest one i'm aware of is the louët erica, which folds down to 42x62x42cm (16.5x24.5x16.5") and gives you 40cm (16") of weaving width. i feel like that's impressively small. you'd have to decide for yourself if that's enough to justify the $500 usd/$800 aud price tag, though.

finally, we've come to folding floor looms. i don't think someone who's never woven before should run out and buy one of these unless money is just literally not at all a concern for you, but they are basically the dream for those of us trapped in crappy rentals, and it seemed weird to leave them out when i'd come this far.

some floor looms are various levels of collapsible. to be clear, this does you absolutely no good at all when you're actively weaving, because you have to unfold them to weave, but it does you a lot of good if you'd like to have a floor loom and still have the ability to, say, walk through the living room when you're not actively using the loom.

most relevant to our discussion about small weaving footprints, some looms fold up entirely. they are incredibly fucking expensive and incredibly fucking cool. the two that i'm most aware of are the leclerc compact and the schacht wolf line, both of which fold up to about half of their unfolded depth. they're still not small—i think that they're both the better part of 75cm (30") wide and tall, so even if they fold down to 40cm (16") deep, they're still 75cm wide and tall. which is Fairly Large, though much better than having something 80cm deep sitting in the middle of the floor.

this was a very, very long post, but hopefully makes it clear that there's a surprisingly wide range of options, and they all have advantages and trade offs. if you're asking my opinion, my suggestion would be to try something—anything—with a backstrap setup and see how you feel about it. maybe you love it and keep at it forever, in which case you're in good company: there are entire cultures that weave exclusively on backstrap looms.

if you like producing cloth but don't love the backstrap setup, or don't like using your body to tension the warp, you have a lot of other options, and you're out maybe ten dollars of dowels.

personally, my next loom is probably going to be a pin loom. unless i win lotto, in which case it's going to be a house that has a weaving studio and like four floor looms in it. but probably a pin loom.

[alwaysaglader]

A HEART WIRED FOR WAR (Ch. 2)

(BUCKY BARNES X READER + OTHER AVENGERS)

Chapter 2 - My Mind & Me

(Gentle Note: This chapter contains sensitive themes of trauma, conditioning, and emotional recovery)

At first, it was silence.

After Hydra fell, Y/N was pulled from the ruins of an underground lab — restrained, barely conscious, half-feral, her vitals fluctuating between superhuman and dangerously unstable. Even sedated, her body didn’t know whether to shut down or fight. 

She was brought to the Avengers Compound under heavy medical supervision. 

She was unconscious for the first two weeks.

When she finally woke, it was slow. Disoriented. Quiet.

Steve was the one who explained what had happened—gently, patiently—filling in the timeline she didn’t remember. He told her where she was, that Hydra had fallen, that she was safe now.

She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t speak. Didn’t resist when they moved her, but she flinched at certain sounds—boots on hard floors, the buzz of overhead lights, the mechanical hiss of an automatic door. Her eyes tracked movement, always alert, but never met anyone’s directly. 

But she was watching.

Even sedated, even weak, her mind was working. Calculating. Scanning. She noticed the rhythms of conversation, the patterns of their behaviour. She was cataloguing it all.

Because Hydra had trained her to recognise patterns—and she was using that training to get herself out.

AWARENESS

It started with body sensations.

The tremors before someone entered the room. Cold sweats when a certain tone played over the intercom. The instinct to dissociate when a male voice barked a command—even if it was just someone saying her name too loud.

Y/N noticed all of it.

She’d been trained in trauma before Hydra ever got their hands on her. As a psychiatrist, she knew how the brain protected itself. She knew how trauma loops worked. She knew what conditioning looked like. She had helped others through it.

Now, she was applying that knowledge to herself.

She wrote it all down. Simple phrases, repeated over and over:

“My name is Y/N”

“I am safe now.”

“The pain is a memory, not a command.”

She scribbled them on the backs of med charts, napkins, the margins of old files. Anything she could get her hands on. She hid them in drawers, taped them under her bed, stuffed them into her shoes.

So that when the dissociation crept in, she had something to find.

Something that told her: You’re not there anymore".

It didn’t stop the fear—but it gave her a thread to follow back to herself.

She began to recognise the physical cues—how her hands trembled at certain tones, how her pulse spiked at particular syllables. Hydra had wired her body to react before her brain even caught up. To freeze. To submit without choice.  

But she had studied this. She had trained for this. In another life, she had helped soldiers unlearn violence. Now she would help herself unlearn obedience.

REVERSAL 

She began to disarm the triggers.

Hydra had used repetition, sounds, scents, and scripts to break her down. And pain. Physical torture, layered into routine until her body learned to flinch before her mind even caught up.

But the hardest part was the words.

Trigger phrases, spoken in cold monotone, had been woven into her conditioning. They weren’t used to make her attack—but to make her obey. To still her voice. To freeze her body. To strip away her will without leaving a mark. Obedience on command.

She knew the method. Now she was flipping it.

Every night, she exposed herself to one of the cues that used to activate her—on her terms. She played tones similar to the ones Hydra used. Read fragments of the old command scripts —edited and controlled — just enough to face them without unraveling. Then stared at her reflection in the mirror, repeating aloud:"That was then. This is now. I am the one in control".

Some nights it worked. Some nights she collapsed into panic, shaking on the floor until her body came back to her. But every time she got back up, she reprogrammed her nervous system.

She didn’t avoid the physical triggers either.

The restraint pressure. The muscle memory. The phantom aches from old injuries. She recreated them, safely and in small increments—tight wraps around her wrists to mimic the cuffs, brief cold exposure, body-weight holds that once sent her spiralling. Then she grounded herself through it. Breathed through it. Interrupted the fear before it could loop.

And eventually, she recorded the trigger phrases.

Not the original voice. Not the same tone. She read them herself, clinically, like a case study. She listened in short bursts while tracking her breath, saying her name, keeping her hands still. Over and over. 

If repetition had been used to condition her, she would use it to reclaim herself.

She used her knowledge as a psychiatrist to reverse the damage: retraining the mind, memory integration, exposure therapy. If Hydra was a virus, she was the cure.

She started designing her own counter-conditioning.

The quiet weight of the warm mug in her hands—heat without threat, comfort without condition. The soft scent of jasmine from the sachet tucked in her pocket, chosen for calm, not control. And the gentle pull of the lanyard around her neck—her new ID badge, given to her the day she remembered her name. It wasn't for access. It was a reminder of who she used to be, back when she worked with trauma patients instead of being one.

She created a routine.

Wake up. Read the notes. Say her name out loud. Inhale the scent of jasmine. Feel the warmth of the mug in her hands. Acknowledge the weight of the badge. 

If her body learned fear through repetition, it could learn safety the same way.

OWNERSHIP

Eventually, she requested to be alone in a soundproof room. Bruce was hesitant, but she was clear: “I need to hear it and not break.” He agreed to trust her instincts. 

In the quiet, she played back old Hydra audio logs that had been recovered. She made herself listen. The original voice. The original tone. 

And when the trigger words came - those same syllables that had once activated her instantly — she didn’t move.

Her pulse jumped. Her hands shook. For a second, the world tilted.

But she grounded herself. Said her name out loud. Read from one of the notes she’d brought with her.

“This is a memory. Not a command.”

No blackout. No dissociation. No loss of time.

Just her. Awake. Aware.

That was the moment. The pivot point. She had broken the loop. The conditioning was a machine—and she had shut it down from the inside.

INTEGRATION 

The flashbacks didn’t stop. The nightmares didn’t magically go away.

Sleep wasn’t safe. Not for a long time. 

She’d wake up gasping, heart racing, fists clenched around sheets like restraints. Sometimes she couldn’t remember the dream—just the cold sweat and the instinct to fight. Other times, the scenes played out in vivid, unbearable detail.

There was no peace, even when her eyes were closed.

But she stopped running from it.

She began treating sleep like exposure—preparing for it like she did everything else. When the nightmares came, she started talking back to them. Repeating her grounding phrases even half-asleep, clinging to her name like a lifeline.

Some nights, she still woke up trembling.

But she didn’t avoid it. Didn’t push it away.

She talked to herself out loud when it got bad. Sat through the worst ones instead of shutting them down. Named what she was feeling. Brought it into language.

"This is fear. Not control." "This is memory. Not command."

One night, staring at her reflection, she said, “I remember the cold. I remember what they were turning me into. But I also remember who I was before.”

She wasn’t trying to forget anymore.

She was trying to include it. Make it part of her story, instead of the whole thing.

THEY WITNESSED IT. SHE DID IT. 

At first, they were cautious—unsure of how much she remembered, or what Hydra had buried in her. But they never looked at her like a threat. 

They gave her space but stayed close. 

From the moment she arrived—unconscious and barely stable—and in every day that followed, they treated her with quiet patience and steady respect. Like someone who hadn’t been written off.

Bruce took the lead—not just as a doctor, but as someone who knew what it meant to carry too much in your head. He checked her vitals like clockwork, monitored her progress, and always knocked before entering. He never hovered, but his quiet presence became something constant.

Whenever she asked to review her own brain scans, he handed them over without question. No lectures. No sugarcoating. Just data and trust—grounding her, not with sedation, but with science and calm.

He never treated her like a subject.

It was the first time she’d been in the hands of a scientist who didn’t hurt her, rush her, or tear her apart to understand her.

He offered the stillness she needed to untangle what Hydra tried to bury.

Natasha never pried, but she was always nearby. She showed up with sandwiches, and left quiet encouragement in unexpected places - a new notebook when the old one started filling up, noise-canceling headphones, a post-it on the mirror: “You’re doing better than you think.” 

As Y/N slowly settled into letting people close, Natasha got into the habit of braiding her hair - quick, practised fingers moving without fuss while talking about anything but the past.  It wasn't loud or emotional. It was steady. Protective. 

Sam didn’t push. He sat with her when it looked like she needed company - steady, present, never asking more than she was ready to give. He talked about flying, music, Steve’s terrible cooking—and eventually, about the soldiers he used to work with and the shared understanding of what people carried after combat. 

Bit by bit, Sam started catching her up on the world—new music, movies, weird internet trends, and the everyday chaos of a world that never slowed down.  No pressure. Just a steady, gentle stream of life, filtered through someone who made it feel safe to rejoin.

Clint taught her how to aim again - this time with intention, not instinct. He took her to the range late at night when the compound was quiet, when it felt less like a test and more like a reset.  

He walked her through it patiently, adjusting her stance, handing her different grips, letting her ask questions without judgment. “It’s not about hitting the target,” he told her. “It’s about proving you’re the one pulling the trigger now.”

He didn’t say much beyond that—but he kept showing up, always with a second set of earplugs and a quiet kind of watchfulness that made her feel like someone had her six.

Tony, in his own way, gave her access to control. He didn’t offer pep talks or check in the way the others did—he offered tech. “You don’t need permission to feel safe,” he told her. “You just need the right tools”.

He never asked what Hydra did to her. Never treated her like a problem to be solved. He just started fixing what he could reach. Every now and then, a random piece of tech would show up in her room: a portable white noise device, a motion-triggered nightlight labeled “Stark-grade” or she’d find a coded reminder on her screen added overnight that read: “You’re not a system. You’re a person”.

She never brought it up. He never admitted it. But for someone who acted like feelings were an inconvenience, Tony made sure she never had to fight for autonomy again.

Thor wasn’t around as often, but when he was, he made his presence known—in the gentlest way possible. He didn’t pretend to understand everything she’d been through, but he didn’t treat her like she was fragile either. “You are still here,” he said once, simply. “That means they did not win.”

He brought her Asgardian tea that tasted like starlight and citrus, told her wild stories of realms she couldn’t could picture. He didn’t ask questions, but he offered strength—sometimes through a ridiculous tale, sometimes through quiet, steady company.

One day, he handed her a small, rune-etched coin. “From my mother’s shrine,” he said. “She told me to carry it when I forgot who I was. Perhaps it will remind you—you are not lost. Only on your way back.”

He said it like it was obvious. Like healing was a journey he believed she would finish, without question.

And then there was Steve.

Steve never missed a day.

He showed up before every sunrise, with a hot cocoa in hand, knowing she found comfort in the warmth to start the day. She never told him that, but he noticed. He was observant like that.

The first time he handed it to her, he said, “Figured you’re more cocoa than caffeine,” then shrugged like it wasn’t the most thoughtful thing anyone had done for her in years.

He was the first one she let sit beside her without flinching.

It wasn’t a conscious choice, not at first. He just knew how to be still—how to sit in silence without making it feel heavy or expectant.

He never asked, “How are you feeling?”. Never made her explain herself. He just sat across from her while she scribbled grounding phrases into her notebook, ran breathing drills, or traced over the scars on her hands like she was mapping herself back together.

Sometimes they trained. Sometimes they walked laps around the compound, trading a few words. Sometimes they didn’t say anything at all. In the early days, she didn’t speak much. Just listened, nodded, kept pace. Steve never filled the silence unless she wanted him to—but he never left either. He showed up anyway. 

And when the words started coming—slowly, carefully—he never looked surprised. Just listened like he’d been waiting the whole time.

Every day she unlearned something. Every day she rewired another piece. Steve knew what that took. He knew it better than anyone.

They were both soldiers, just from different wars. But they understood the aftermath. The rewiring. The slow process of turning survival into living.

One early morning, they sat on the balcony watching the sun rise over the trees. She was quiet for a long time before saying, “I think the worst part wasn’t what they did. It was that they made me forget I used to help people.”

Steve didn’t hesitate. “You’re still helping. You just started with yourself this time.”

Y/N didn’t respond. Just sipped her cocoa and let the words settle. 

He looked at her—not like a mission, not like someone broken, but like he always did: like a soldier finding her footing again. Like someone who’d been through the fire and chose to walk out anyway.

The silence lingered, warm and quiet.

Then Steve let out a low breath, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know… for what it’s worth, the version of you sitting here drinks cocoa, kicked my ass in training, disarmed me in under a minute, and walked off with my shield like she owned it”.

Y/N raised an eyebrow over her mug. “You left yourself open.”

Steve shrugged, grinning. “Sure. That’s what we’re going with.”

She didn’t smile, exactly—but the corners of her mouth lifted just enough to count.

And the shield? She hadn’t given it back right away. Just stood there, holding it for a few extra seconds like it belonged in her hands. Neither of them said anything about it then.

They didn’t need to.

They were both soldiers, in different ways. That was enough.

THE TEST

An agent said one of her trigger phrases by accident.

They were reading from an old Hydra file—flat, procedural, unaware of what the words could still do.

It caught her off guard.

She heard it.

Her body froze—just for half a second. Muscles locked. Pulse jumped.

There was a flicker of static behind her eyes, like a memory trying to take control.

But then… nothing.

No blackout. No pull to obey. No override pressing down on her system.

She didn’t reach for the badge. Didn’t focus on jasmine or search for a grounding phrase.

She didn’t need to.

She just breathed.

And for the first time, she realised—she was the anchor now.

Then, steady as ever, she said the words:

“That doesn’t work on me anymore.”

She didn’t know it yet, but soon she’d be standing across from someone else Hydra had broken—and she’d be the one to help him say those same words.

--

Chapter 3 coming soon 

[petermorwood]

Hi, Peter! I am tossing this question at you, but I hope Diane and some other writers will toss it around, too. Do you still draft your work in longhand? What is it like? I'm asking this as someone who has written by keyboard only for almost 20 years, but started keeping a longhand journal again about four years ago. I'm feeling so blocked that I wonder if I could take up longhand creative writing again.

This got well buried, but better late than never!

I certainly do, much more than @dduane. (She makes a lot of notes in LH, but not much in the way of drafts.)

I've heard / read complaints about longhand (and typewriter) drafting that "you can't correct mistakes". Usually what this means is "you can't delete and over-write".

You can. Use one of these.

The first lays white masking fluid over the error, the other two do it with a strip of white tape, and after a few seconds to let the fluid dry, or immediately with the tape, you can re-write over the top.

I'm sure some people also remember the Tipp-Ex / Liquid Paper paint-pots with brushes, and the little sheets of white-backed correction paper used with typewriters. (Some, like my cartridge-ribbon Smith-Corona, even had a correction cartridge.)

*****

A more usual method with pen or typewriter drafting is strikethrough.

The mistake is still there, of course, and IMO that's not a bug, it's a feature and - so I've found, anyway - makes me think a bit more about what I'm going to write down before pen to paper or finger to key.

Besides, the "wrong" (often first) choice of word may well turn out to be the "right" choice of word after all, once the rest of the paragraph has developed. YMMV, but it happens often enough.

It's also why proper MS format is double-spaced.

In working drafts, this leaves room to add a correction, often using different colours of ink, which can even be done with a typewriter if it has a black-red ribbon.

In a final draft, double-space (and a clear, non-fussy font like Courier or Times Roman) is easier on an editor or test-reader's eyes.

All the business of fancy fonts, typesetting, end of chapter and between-paragraph glyphs * etc. happens afterwards.

*****

* The section-break symbol or "dinkus", can be as simple as one or several asterisks, but may be a fancy little curlicue called a "fleuron" or - if a book has a high enough profile - a appropriate custom design.

[impossiblefangirl0632]

Adventures in Accordion Repair

In March we found an accordion at a thrift store for insanely cheap. After some inspection we determined that it was in good enough condition that we could fix it and have it be playable. From that first inspection we knew that the bellows needed to be re-taped on 2 sides, one of the metal corners was missing and there was a chipped corner in the bottom plate of the casing.

Well we looked into getting it fixed and the shop wanted minimum $80 just to look at it (which is totally within their right, we just don't really have the funds to pay the likely $200+ to fix everything and I have an incurable I-can-fix-that-myself attitude) so we started researching how to repair accordion bellows.

The answer, it turns out, is that accordion bellows are constructed remarkably similar to books. And what do you know, I learned bookbinding last year. So thus our quest began.

We bought the accordion and took it apart and discovered that all the mechanisms were good (which is good because there is no way I could have fixed those) but four of the reeds had fallen out so we added that to the list of things to research and repair.

So how did I actually fix this? With a whole lot of winging it and praying I wouldn't screw it up. (Also it should be noted that my husband did all the research and I did the repair work since my hands are steadier/I have done stuff like this before) Everything below is almost certainly not what you're supposed to do but its the best we could come up with within our budget/ the information we were able to find. (Fun fact, one of the only videos that shows the re-taping process in any detail is in Russian)

Bellows Repair

Accordion bellows are made of accordioned (go figure) cardboard covered in cloth that is very similar to bookcloth with the holes in the corners covered and reinforced with very thin leather. The corners are then covered with a metal corner bracket. The outward facing hinges of the cardboard are then reinforced with a metal faced non sticky tape that also covers about a cm of the metal corner on each side. To attach the tape you need to use some kind of removable glue because the tapes need to be replaced idk every 20 or so years depending on use.

Step 0: Figure out some way to get the bellows to stay open. I ended up cutting little squares of scrap bookboard and using them as wedges. Later I also used rolled up scraps of felt. Was this the most effective method? No. But it worked and it didn't require me to make a whole rig out of wood which is what the repair site we found recommended.

Step 1: Get the disintegrating tape off of one side of the bellows. I have no idea what kind of glue was originally used but it turned out to loosen when moist so after carefully prying off what I could I ran a damp rag over the residue and managed to get most of it off with a bit of help from an exacto knife (A small metal spatula would have been better/less nerve wracking but I don't have one so I just was extremely careful not to poke holes).

Step 2: Let the bellows dry and hope/pray you didn't just ruin it.

Step 2.5: Figure out the glue situation. I knew of wheat paste from bookbinding but had yet to make it/use it for a project yet so I researched how and whipped some up. (It's cook a mixture of flour and water until it gets thick and sticky. Once it dries it's an excellent glue (also one of the oldest glues))

Step 3: Patch the holes in the cloth because whoever made these mellows originally for some reason didn't use one whole piece and now there are 2 hinges that are just the cardboard face. I cut small strips of bookcloth to cover the exposed cardboard and minimally overlap with the existing cloth (you have to be careful not to add extra bulk because the strip that keeps the bellows closed does not have a lot of give to it) and glued that down with the wheat paste which I discovered is very annoying to work with in that you have to hold it forever before it’ll stick enough it won’t immediately come off. And I live in a desert. I don’t want to think about how long it would take somewhere with humidity.

Step 4: Let it dry.

Step 4.5: Patch the interior of the corner with a hole in it with a thin diamond shaped piece of leather. You can use a more permanent glue for this, I used acid free PVA. Cover the exterior of the corner with a new metal bracket and try to crimp it in place as best you can.

Step 5: Cut the tape strips to length and attach with wheat paste, try to line the ends up on top of the brackets so it looks even (this is harder than it sounds).

Step 6: You guessed it, let it dry.

Step 7: Repeat steps 1-6 on the other sides of the bellows as needed. 

Step 8: Compress the bellows using whatever is evenly balanced and weighs about 30 lbs (that was the weight recommended by the repair site) at least overnight. We used old textbooks. (This whole process took 3 days and any time it was dry and I wasn’t working on it it was pressing in an attempt to make sure the bellows didn’t expand too much.)

Reed Reinstallation (AKA The Worst Part™)

This is what the reed block looks like (There were two blocks in ours, I didn’t take photos of ours so here’s one from the internet)

The reeds are the metal bits, the orangish rectangles are strips of leather that move when air is forced through. See that orange stuff surrounding the reeds? That’s accordion wax, which is a mixture of pine resin, bee’s wax and something else I can’t remember. Very conveniently for me, its ideal melting temperature coincided with the lowest setting on my glue pot I use for floral work. Inconveniently for me, my glue pot had glue in it (go figure). To fix that I acquired a silicon mold that will henceforth not be for food, melted the glue and poured it out of the pot then proceeded to spend a lot of time with rubbing alcohol getting the pot completely free of glue residue. (The rubbing alcohol broke down the glue compound)

The reeds are placed over holes in the wooden frame and made airtight by pouring the melted wax around the edges. There’s a special tool for that which I again didn’t have. The first thing I tried was using a tapestry needle to transfer the hot wax from the pot and letting it drip 1 drop at a time where it needed to be. To no one’s surprise that method was glacially slow and incredibly nerve wracking because dripping wax on the leather bits of the reeds or in the other exposed hole of the reeds would have ruined that reed. I did mange to get 2 reeds sealed like that. 

Then came the tiny reeds. The two smallest reeds had fallen out, each about an inch and a quarter tall. The problem was that there was a 5 mm gap between the edges of the reed and the wood block and there was no way the drip method was going to work. 

What I ended up doing, and wished I had thought of in the first place, was making some hot wax puddles about the size of a quarter on a piece of parchment paper. I let those cool enough that they could be pried off the paper in one piece but were still warm enough to be malleable. I rolled them into little tubes and squished them into place between the reed and the wood block then topped them off with a bit more hot wax to really seal them in.    

The Missing Corner

The initial plan was to build up the corner with layers of balsa wood since the missing chip was slanted. So I traced the missing section and scaled it in a CAD program then exported the vector linework so we could use the laser cutter at the library to cut out the pieces we needed. I did all of that and then when I was discussing wood glue vs epoxy with my dad he reminded me that my uncle’s main hobby is building miniature train models and if anyone knows about small scale woodworking it’s him.

Long story short my uncle ended up cutting two pieces of stronger wood (I only used balsa because the library won’t cut any type of plywood (which I have used in a cutter before and still have a lot of so that was a bummer) and epoxy-ing them in. I then filed off the excess (Not that I think anyone is actually following this ‘guide’ but as a note USE A RESPIRATOR when working with epoxy, especially when you’re making epoxy dust), re-drilled the hole because it accidentally got filled with epoxy, coated the patch with white nail polish (this may have been a mistake, we’ll see) and then finally, FINALLY, the accordion was ready to put back together.

And here she is! (We did also replace the straps but this is the picture I have and I’m too lazy to go take a new one.) She still sounds a bit… exciting, but she works and I’ll take that as a win.

[wuornosreincarnate]

With reproductive and marriage rights for both homosexuals and osa women going out the window, we need to take our activitism to the real world, and put if fucking everywhere

We need to go to every onlind study on women, on the all the possible side affects of pregnancy, every piece of feminist literature, and download them and print them and archive them physically because online censorship will become a thing. We need to print and write down every possible methods of at home abortions and save it. We need to print these out and tape them fucking everywhere, slip them into library books and fold them into paper airplanes and slip them into every nook and crany we can. We need to carry sharpies and spray paint and write on every bathroom stall, hotel wall, every bus seat and anywhere else we can and share everything we can. We need to remind women that even if they can't divorce, they can still run and hide from the husbands by seeking out other women who will hide them. We need to by and stockpile plan b and condoms and pregnancy test and any over the counter abortion pills we can and have them ready to share. We need to creat physical emergency cash stashes and not trust banks. We need need to encourage every fucking women to not get married, to no date, and not have any sex that can result in pregnancy. We need every women who can, regardless of their personal feelings on guns, to just get at least one as protection because if we begin to withhold sex, men will begin to try and take it by force. Men will beat and rape us if they know we're rebelling against their control. We need to teach other women how to secretly tract their periods offline and have every pregnancy symptom listed for memorization. We need to go and fucking vandalize and destroy the churches that have been encouraging this fucking bullshit. We need bots to spam any and everywhere with reproductive information, pregnancy and rape and DV statistics, bots that spam advice on how to recognize, avoid, disengage, and escape abusive men. We need to be fucking loud and everywhere, online and in real life. We need to go to every lesbian and gay bar/homosexual spaces in general, collect contact information and network, and start figuring out underground meet ups. We need to start networking with women in general and passing on information. Every private wall should have something written or taped too it that may help even one person. Herbs and anything growable in general that can induce aborts should be stockpiled and grown if possible. Every church, every corporate building, every police station and government building should be spray painted and vandalized to make a fucking point. We didn't get our rights by peacefully protesting, we had to pry them from the hands of men with violence, and now that they are trying to claw them back, we need to be violent once more

We need to remind men that women won't take their oppression quietly, and we need to remind our sisters we don't have to be quite

EVERY WOMAN PLEASE READ THIS‼️

Gilead is becoming a reality.

Im furious, I’m so enraged, I’m fucking heart broken for all the women who woke up to find their rights are being stripped away. I love you all.

We need radical action. We need to be loud. We need to be aggressive. We need to show the world how angry we are. We need to be revolutionary. We need solidarity.

We’re starting a revolution.