#wrote this really fast in my tutorial

[hildifons-hairyfoot]

Dracula, the accused, has drained Lucy's blood and left her on the brink of death. Dracula is likely to be charged with wounding. The elements of wounding (Criminal Code (WA) s 301(1)) are

(a) wounding has been done; (b) wounding was caused by the accused; and (c) wounding was caused unlawfully.

To drain Lucy's blood, Dracula broke both layers of skin (Devine v R (1983) 8 A Crim R 45) and drew blood (Jervis (1991) 56 A Crim R 372). Additionally, Dracula caused Lucy's injury. But for Dracula preying on Lucy, Lucy would not have been injured (Campbell v R [1981] WAR 286). Because Dracula attacked Lucy, he was the operating and substantial cause of the injury (Royall v R (1991) 172 CLR 387). It is highly unlikely that Dracula had a legal authority to injure Lucy. Thus, the elements of wounding (Criminal Code (WA) s 301(1)) are likely to be established.

Furthermore, Dracula is likely to be charged with Grievous Bodily Harm ('GBH') (Criminal Code (WA) s 297). The elements of GBH are

(a) GBH has been done; (b) the accused caused the GBH; and (c) GBH was inflicted unlawfully.

GBH is defined as 'any bodily injury of such a nature as to endanger, or be likely to endanger life, or to cause, or be likely to cause, personal injury to health' (Criminal Code (WA) s 1). The injury is determined as if untreated by the court (Lewis v Western Australia [2008] WASCA 94). Lucy's injury caused her to look 'ghastly', become 'chalkily pale', and impair her breathing. Lucy needed to undergo an operation to save her life. When transfusing blood, Lucy required a large quantity of blood that took a heavy toll on her blood donor. Had Lucy not undergone treatment, it is likely that her life would have been in danger, likely fulfilling the requirement in s 1.

It has been established that Dracula was the cause of the injury. Applying the eggshell skull rule (Criminal Code (WA) s 23(b)), any previous injury Lucy may have had that exacerbated the effects of the injury are not relevant.

To prove that Dracula's actions were unlawful, the prosecution must prove the act or omission causing the injury was 'prohibited by law' or 'not excused' (Houghton v The Queen (2004) 144 A Crim R 343). Dracula was not authorised to take Lucy's blood under any relevant laws (duh). Therefore, the prosecution will likely establish GBH against Dracula.

[eaudera]

eaudera's detailed tutorial for skin rendering

okay loves i've put together a tutorial in text form detailing my step by step process of shading darker skin + the brushes and techniques I use and why I use them. you will be following along as we shade a piece together, you can find the lineart to the piece here. *turn off your true tone and night shift displays for the most objective viewing.

i wrote a lot on the preview pictures, if you find spelling errors (which you def will) or are unable to read my handwriting, you'll find the typed out version of the writing in the alt text feature.

disclaimer: i'm not an art professor nor am i academically/classically trained in art. a lot of the verbiage and techniques i'm using to teach you all here are from my current self taught and observed understanding of art, light, and anatomy

support me: kofi / ig / twt / commissions

firstly, here are my two staple brushes. you can find the second brush here, i modified it by making it larger.

the lineart brush is very good for easy sketching and simultaneously cleaning up that sketch to produce the final lineart you'll be using in your piece. the diffusion from the erased parts/the diffusion created by lowering the pressure of your pen creates a light graphite effect which i enjoy! give it a shot.

you'll notice quickly that there are lighter strokes throughout this lineart, these are simply acting as rendering guides for me in order to remember certain placements. i erase/draw over these lines a lot.

i initially learned to shade skin on a completely grey background with very slight orange undertones, and for a while this was very helpful in providing the most objective view of the base colors you're using (objective as in free of being effected by colors of different values). as you might know, using a white background for dark skin will seemingly darken the value and dim the vibrancy of your base colors, and using a black background will do the opposite. if you're using a darker skin tone, you want your canvas shade to be of a value that is proportional to your skin tone to avoid the same problems created by colors with too light or dark of a value. now if you're using a screened device to draw, you have the extra burden of screen reflections/wavering color output on different screens, so you're never really sure if the exact color you're using will be consistent across the board. priming your canvas with neutral colors will help with that. whereas priming with more vibrant colors will slightly change the undertone of your skintone (especially if you're using a low opacity brush), but it makes for a funner canvas and more creativity with your color palette imo. if you're a beginner i recommend you stay below the wavy line to avoid too light of a canvas shade.

for these same reasons i avoid keeping my lineart jet black. when you lay down the base colors under a black lineart it can look very unfavorable.

here are some skin tone variants that i tend to use the most, peep how i never wander off too far to the left of the spectrum where the reds are. i definitely favor red-oranges as compared to green-oranges for my skin tones, however, because i stay primarily on the left side of the color spectrum for my rendering, red can quickly become too much too fast. so i make sure to use a skin tone that can work very well with green-orange shadows. for this specific piece i will use the third shade (#2d1606).

heres where the gouache brush comes in handy. i use it very loosely to "prime" the canvas almost. if you've ever done oil painting you'll realize very few artists draw directly onto a completely white canvas, though i've already primed my canvas essentially by changing the background color, i loosely shade over it with the skin tone color using the gouache brush. i find this gives me a better grasp on the composition of the piece due to increased harmony between the canvas and the skin color. it also looks really cool to me and resembles a real canvas almost.

as stated before, priming your canvas with neutral colors (grey) can help give you a more consistent view of your base colors, when you get the hang of understanding the colors you most often use (i.e, how they interact with other colors), you can start using more vibrant and fun colors to color your canvas with! the gouache brush changes opacity depending on the pressure exerted by the pen, if you zoom in you'll notice patchy areas where the canvas color bleeds through the layer more prominently than it does in other areas. for some people this might throw off the consistency of the shadows, but you should be fine as long as you're using a consistently opaque brush (which we will be doing)

i know i recommended beginners use a grey canvas like i did, but since this tutorial is using my techniques i figured i'd also teach you guys how to use variantly opaque brushes to your advantage. we will be drawing on the pink canvas from here on out.

a reference is so helpful, i still rely on references to guide my shadows/lights. i'm past the point of relying on references for exact coordinates for rendering or lineart, but they are still incredibly helpful. in most references of darker skintones you come across, color dropping directly from the picture will give you very grey colors! we want to prioritize vibrancy in this case, so attempt to formulate your own colors or colordrop and increase the vibrancy :)! keep in mind i'm now using the lineart brush to shade. the diffuse/soft corners of this brush allows fewer pixels to be scattered wherever you lessen the pressure, this is perfect for color dropping medium colors to blend two colors together. you'll see how i blend colors later on.

as mentioned previously, red can become too much too fast- so i avoid monochrome rendering as much as possible by using shadows of different undertones. my most frequent combination is using a red-orange skin tone and then using a green-orange shadow.

the value spectrum will be your best friend in mixing values and undertones, i use it all the time to formulate the best less saturated darker shadow that is proportional (not too dark, not too grey) to my skintone value. if the shadow is too green simply increase the magenta, if you're looking for a "reflective" shadow, increase the blue.

when i begin shading, i always slide the curser to a truer orange color on the spectrum and increase the saturation (slide towards the right) while i decrease the brightness (slide down). heres how it looks when i'm jumping between shadows and highlights while trying to keep my colors proportional (but not identical) to whats happening in the reference ^. i most often times will rely on the value tool, however.

you will notice that a lot of darker skin tones have patches of orange vibrancy, these areas are most common on the nose and cheeks. this is only a detail to pay attention to if you're going for more of a realism rendering style :)

now onto how i prefer to bridge/blend colors together by utilizing the blend tool.

i do not like simply blurring colors in order to blend colors together, it can lead to overblending which can make your portrait look heavily gaussian blurred (think 2010 deviantart art... yea that). the brilliant thing about procreate is you can utilize brushes really efficiently, which include changing the brushes you use for blending. so in reality, artists who use the blending tool on its own can still have portraits that don't look it! there also exists plenty of brushes that have properties allowing it to blend into its surrounding colors are you draw. but in my case, the above photo is 99% of the times how i will bridge two colors together. doing this allows me to keep pretty consistent brushstrokes across the whole portrait, which i enjoy. it also gives me better control of the shapes i use in my rendering, an aspect that is pretty easy to lose when you're using the blending tool directly and solely.

in case the blending process is a bit hard too see, heres that same process recreated with different more visible colors:

now once you've placed your shadows where they generally tend to be (according to the reference photo), let's make those shapes a bit more specific and pick up on smaller details to make your rendering look more complete.

your base colors will never be as dark or as light as you need them to be when you begin rendering, making sure you have a decent contrast between your lightsource highlights and the shadows is key to capturing the essence of a light being cast on your character. it's much easier to keep building upon your shadows before rendering the highlights, i laid down the highlights only to create a guide/help me map my shadows better. do not darken the entirety of the areas affected by shadow, you'll find that shadows are rarely ever the same value, it's a gradual process affected by things like position, height, etc. so make sure the darkest of your shadow colors are preserved only in areas where the shadows are the or should be the darkest.

you'll notice i labeled some areas as "detail", adding very specific shadow placements is a detail. in the reference, the model has a pretty prominent brow bone, creating a shadow over where his eyelid creases just above his lash line, paying attention to feature details like this help enhance the rendering and its realism.

now that i've mapped my shadows i'm going to move onto to rendering my highlights and the region of the face where the lightsource is most prominent.

i described shadows as a gradual process earlier, this is because of the lightsource. light tends to spread when its further from the affected surface, creating a larger area affected by the light. of course, this varies depending on how intense and how close/far the light source is. in this case, the light is being casted above him further to the other side of his face, but again, remember that the face is not 2d and more prominent areas are affected more by light. it's due to this that there still exists a, albeit very minimal, shadow beneath his cheekbone. i exaggerate the shadow here for stylistic purposes, but it also helps in keeping me uphold that contrast between the highlight and shadow once again. so i refrain from blending the light into this area like i did in other areas.

midtones are the areas most unaffected by the light source, they're neither shadows nor highlights. and because light spreads, it is brighter in certain areas and darker in others. it is most easiest to blend the darker ends of the highights into the midtones of your portrait. you can emulate this by once again using your blend tool. blend the outer areas of the light and colordrop this color and use it as the darker light more proportional to the midtones. note that before i add even lighter shades to the areas where light is most concentrated, i blend what highlight placements i currently have there.

we're going to switch gears now and focus on the reflective shadow occurring on the darker half of his face.

this shadow is a reflection from the lighter background the model is up against, the light being casted above him is allowing for some bounce back from his surroundings, leading to very faint light visible in areas primarily affected by shadows. hence why i'm referring to these colors as "reflective shadows".

in this case, the reflective shadows are blue, or appear to our eyes as blue. on darker skin, "true" blues (blue-purple) are not often times present. what is present rather, is a very grey tone with cool undertones/a grey tone on the blue side of the spectrum, which creates a blue that is much more proportional to the value of the skintone than a true blue. in this case i used a deeper grey on the pink color spectrum, which is more purple. this was intentional, and was done in order to create some sort of color harmony between the contrasted deep oranges im using for the bordering shadows and the blue-grey i'm attempting to emulate.

while i utilize this blue-grey, out've a purely stylistic choice, i still introduce true blues to my rendering. in fact i love using blue/purple reflective shadows in my art, it creates a stunning and colorful render. in this case, i used the blue-grey as a stepping stool to introduce that trueer blue more naturally. you'll see this happening in the second picture above, where i used a slightly more vibrant and slightly more brighter blue, and used it on areas where this reflection was more prominent (and therefore brighter).

you'll notice how the shadows that border on these reflective colors are less saturated and darker than the shadows on his chin. introduce a darker and less saturated (more green) shadow to that area on his cheek and the darkest shadow of this photo, the sunken area near his nose bridge and inner eye corner. i emphasize this line in the lineart so you can follow this shadow more accurately:

this is also a detail in my opinion and can make your portrait more realistic if you include.

we're going to pivot to his neck area before continuing. you'll find the area of his neck with the most light is also the least vibrant, i laid down a grey base color to emphasize this detail in the portrait. afterwards i added key details. i wanted to stay at least somewhat true to the color dynamics occurring in the reference hence why i used the grey, but i'm not a very big fan of using blatant grey directly on the skin, so i made it more blue.

moving forward, the outer eye and the nose can be some of the most "detail focused" areas of the face when it comes to rendering. due to their more "bulbous" anatomy, light tends to curve around them in more complex ways than the flatter parameters of the face.

when it comes to the many creases that surround the eye, the skin folding over itself creates a very thin shadow from between the folds. the key to rendering this crease is to concentrate the blending to a very small scale, do not overblend the area because the hill created by the crease very easily captures light, creating an area where the shadow and highlight meet in very close proximity. slight blending is needed for this area, you can deepen the shadows in both horizontal corners of the eye for more accuracy. the midsection of the total eye area (eyeball and socket) tends to capture the most light, remember this is due to how bulbous rounder shapes tend to capture light from whichever direction its coming from.

this is of course the case for the nose as well. highlights are typically placed as a dot on the outermost part of the nose by artists, but highlights also spread on either side of the tip of the nose. the nose tends to collect a lot of oil, creating a sort of sheen on the upper parts of the nostril. when rendering a portrait where the position of the head is more cast to the side, the highlight of the nose changes from the bulb of the nose, to the upper nostril. in this case, the highlight spreads, causing a "half tone", or the remnants of the light on the bulb of the nose. this is the easiest place to blend highlights and shadows together. now for the shadow detailing on the nose, i'm actually drawing on top of the lineart on a separate layer. which i'll go into detail about in the next part. you want to focus the shadow on where your lineart is, the outermost part of the nose.

now were going to really detail your portrait by introducing a new layer, the detail layer! this isn't technically apart of the skin rendering, so i'm gonna keep it very brief. this is the layer you're going to render the lips, eyeballs, and eyebrows. more specifically, the purpose of this layer is to reduce the reliance on lineart. in terms of order, it goes above the lineart layer. we're going to soften and even erase the lineart in certain aspects. i use bolder/thicker lines when creating my lineart, but this can become a nuisance/hinderance when rendering.

starting out with the lips:

people w brown skin tend to have two toned lips, with the top lip resembling the same skin tone as the face and the bottom lip being redder/pinker and lighter than the upper lip. in my case, i prefer a more vibrant red for the bottom lip. once i lay down these base colors, i begin shading on the second layer.

i personally enjoy the look of a poutier lip shape, this includes emphasizing the middles of the lips as opposed to the ends. i've highlighted the shapes that this lip shape often entails. the small circles on the corner of the lip line are just pockets that occur when the mouth is closed and become emphasized by the fat around the mouth. the parameters of the lip lines do not often meet these round corners, theres often times a "double lip line", that exists around these areas. i love including that in the art, its very easy to emphasize by simply drawing a highlight from the corner of the lips along the curvature of the bottom lip towards the middle.

shadow mapping on the lips tend to go: highlight, shadow, highlight, shadow. the top lip going inward creates a highlight on the most outward part: the top of the lip. and the bottom lip curving outward thus creates a shadow on the bottom of the lip.

when it comes to the eyeball, i don't draw the white parts as solid white, nor do i make them too bright most of the time. they're most often times an orange grey, i also dont spread this color out if you can notice the uncolored white part of the eye. i do this intentionally to keep some of the shadows that are naturally present on the eye. very specifically right where the upper eyelid sits on the eyeball, it tends to create a small shadow that follows the curvature of the eye. this shadow is crucial, if you can see the first and second picture do not have this shadow, making the iris look more exposed and the eye appears to be held wider.

when it comes to the iris, i do very little. if i'm drawing a dark colored eye i will cover the entire iris brown, before darkening it with an almost black color. i leave the brown sides of the iris exposed to aid in bridging the values between the whiter parts of the eye and the very dark iris. this blended ring also appears on all eyes in real life. lastly, dark eyes tend to show light reflections much easier than lighter eyes. these reflections can be any color in art, in this case i kept it blue-green. i bend these reflections around where the pupil would most likely be depending on the drawing.

next, the eyebrow. i find it tedious to draw individual eyebrow strands when it comes to rendering, i actually prefer to blend the parameters of the eyebrows to create cohesiveness. sparse and fine eyebrow hairs are penetrated by light and shadows more than what you'd find on the scalp. it's harder to see light on someones scalp due to the bulk of hair crowding the scalp, whereas as its easier to see such light on the eyebrow. to introduce this concept to my art, i will initially draw the entire shape of the brow. then when rendering, i erase the parameters, leaving the darkest part of the brow. then i blend. the lower brow bone will be blended the least, whereas the area of the eyebrow connected to the T zone will be the most blended thanks to the shadow following the nose bridge. the far end of the brow by the hairline tends to be the lightest given the light source.

and lastly, i loosely draw a white border around the portrait for stylistic purposes. then i combine the layers (group together your layers, then duplicate and compress the duplicate group so that you still retain your individual layers) to edit. i typically add noise and play with the curve setting. and heres the finished image:

i hope you enjoyed!!

[comment-day]

Some Resources To Help With Commenting

If you have ever gotten a comment full of pull-quotes, you know it is a joy to get as an author. You get to know exactly which parts of a fic stood out to someone! Which lines made them keysmash or delve into character or made it all click! Amazing!

If you've ever tried to write one yourself, you know that scrolling to the bottom of the screen to get to the comment box again and again is an exercise in frustration only matched by repeatedly closing your hand in a door while the fire alarm goes off. So. Here are some resources to help with that!

(Note: The high-tech versions below are for Ao3, but they replicate functionality Wattpad already has built in— you can comment line by line on that site! The low-tech resource linked below should work for any site that allows you to leave comments.)

The High Tech:

There is an amazing use script written by @ravenel which gives you a comment box that floats on your screen, which is detailed below.

It can be intimidating to install a use script, so @bourbon-ontherocks wrote a tutorial about it here:

For people who use Ao3 site skins, here's the code to make an Ao3 site skin and add a bookmarklet that turns having your comment box at the bottom of the screen on and off. Bonus: this will also work on mobile!

Here is an alternate Ao3 comment box that lets you open a box, type your commentary in the moment, and then send it down to the comment box at the bottom of the page, and then close it again! Includes an update by @aidaronan which was designed to work on mac and firefox!

The Low Tech:

Honestly I have been meaning to install one of these cool scripts, but I keep putting off installing them, so I just use my notes app. I open up a new note, and on my computer I put it behind my browser window so I can click to it, and on my phone I just keep it so that I can swipe across apps. So Then I copy-paste the quotes I want, dump them in the notes app, and put my commentary below! Simple, fast, and fantastic for when you are stuck on the bus for an hour.

So what do you comment?

What kind of commentary, you ask? I will be honest, a lot of the time the commentary is me going OH NO or keysmashing after lines. And that's also okay! I have been told so by authors before!

I know I have personally gotten comments where commenters did delicate character analysis after lines and those comments are in my treasured forever box, and I also have comments where someone went OH NO OH NO AOHNFDIOFNDISJFODISJIDJSIOFD YOU DIDN"T AUTHOR NO and I also hold them dear to my heart all the same. The author gets to know the reaction a work got from their reader! And that's fantastic!

The point of the pull quotes comment is showing the impact a work is having on you as you go through the work, section by section, and sometimes that's a digression about how this line made you think about the characters relationship and how he DESERVES THIS HAPPINESS, and sometimes it's responding to a heartbreaking line with twenty weeping emoji. The impact of opening up a comment email and seeing 10 lines of quotes of your own work will hit whether you have thoughtful commentary or you are rolling yourself into a little ball like an octopus and tumbling across the screen (ordinary standard unhinged comment I have left on the works of writers who make me feel Like That).

Go forth! Comment in detail! Let the authors know which lines made you go "oh no" out line in the kitchen as you made soup! Let them know about callbacks that you just realized and now you figured out the whole mystery! Let them know about how this one bit was so cute you had to step away from the computer for a sec! Let them know what you thought!

[dioslesbianwife]

I really love all of the fics you wrote! Can you do Bucciarati gang with reader who’s great at rhythm games? Games like Osu or DDR.

<33 thank you!! lol words cannot describe how bad i suck at rhythm games haha- anyways sure, ty for requesting and i hope you enjoy!

Bucciarati

He’s supportive from the start, even if he doesn’t totally understand how the games work.

Watches you play Osu with a respectful, hands-behind-his-back expression like you’re performing surgery.

When he sees you play DDR for the first time, he smiles proudly like a soccer mom.

“That was… incredible. I didn’t know a human body could move that quickly without a Stand.”

Offers you towels and water between sessions like a coach.

Once tried to play with you and had the stiffest, most awkward footwork you’ve ever seen- but he was so serious about it you didn’t laugh.

“Perhaps I should leave it to the professionals, eh?”

Always claps when you get a full combo.

Giorno

He’s fascinated. He watches every detail and picks up the mechanics unnaturally fast.

Secretly tries to practice when you’re not around. One day he nearly matches your high score and you're like “??? Have you been TRAINING?!”

“I merely observed your form and committed it to memory.”

No Giorno. You grinded on Extreme Mode every night.

If you do a VR rhythm game like Beat Saber, he’s entranced by the flow of movement and asks philosophical questions.

“It’s like a dance of light. Is this what digital harmony looks like?”

You, sweaty and screaming: “I JUST FULL COMBO’D MELTDOWN ON EXTREME!!!”

Abbacchio

“Hmph. Pointless games.”

That’s what he says. But he peeks over your shoulder constantly and flinches every time you miss a note.

Accidentally gets invested and blurts, “Come on, hit the red!”

Then pretends he didn’t say it.

If you invite him to play, he rolls his eyes and acts like it’s a waste of time.

Proceeds to rage when he fails the tutorial.

“This game is broken. These arrows are bullshit.”

Eventually gets weirdly competitive and spends a week trying to beat you. He never does.

Mista

His mind is blown.

You’re jumping around on a DDR pad like a beast and he’s like “HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT??”

Tries to join you. Trips. Gets boo’d off the pad by the Pistols.

You try to teach him and he just flails like a confused duck.

“Wait wait wait- red arrow means what??”

Treats you like a gaming god. “I will give you my entire paycheck if you beat this song again.”

He talks a lot while you’re playing: “You’re like a ninja! You’re a note ninja!!”

Sometimes makes a little cheering section with the Sex Pistols: “Go Y/N go Y/N!!”

Fugo

Secretly thinks it’s one of the most impressive things he’s ever seen.

You show him your full combo on a 10-star Osu map and he pauses like, “That’s… actually really difficult. You have incredible cognitive processing speed.”

Starts breaking down the math of timing windows and BPM like a nerd.

“Did you memorize the whole chart? Or are you processing it live?”

You: “Uh. I just… vibe.”

He’s the only one who could keep up with you if he practiced, but he gets so mad when he misses one note that it’s not worth it.

Once rage quit and screamed “WHY IS MIKU LAUGHING AT ME?!”

Trish

Pretends not to be impressed, but she is SO impressed.

“It’s just pressing buttons in time, right?” she says, but her jaw is tight.

She tries it one time and dies instantly, then looks at you like you’re some mythical beast.

“Okay… how do your fingers move like that? Are you using a Stand? Be honest.”

Lowkey films you and posts clips online. “My friend/partner is literally insane at rhythm games.”

Starts requesting songs like a DJ. “Do the Pretty Cure one. You’re cute when you’re focused.”

Buys you pink fingerless gloves to wear while gaming. “So your hands don’t get sore. Also because it’s fashionable.”

Narancia

YOUR #1 FAN.

You are like a deity to him. He thinks you’re the coolest human being on Earth.

“BRO!! You just did a double spin kick!! YOU’RE NOT EVEN HUMAN!!”

Bounces up and down during your songs like a kid on sugar.

He’s awful at the games but so enthusiastic that it’s hilarious.

“WHY DO I KEEP FAILING ‘BUTTERFLY’?? THAT SONG’S FOR BABIES!!!”

You: “It’s okay. You’re still doing good.”

Narancia: 🥹💥💘💘

He tries to create a song just for you on StepMania. It’s mostly “BAKA MITAI” but with gun sound effects.

[i-amclandestine86]

Pink

Han Jisung × Reader Phone Swap AU

Word count: 1,332

I was running as fast as I could – I was late for my class and I didn't want to be any later. I woke up late, took too long getting ready and traffic was terrible on top of it all. All this mixed with five shots of espresso wasn't doing my body much good.

I turned the corner and – oh god… I hit something. That's it, I'm gonna fail. There goes my phone, the screen is probably cracked, that's gonna cost a lot.

"Are you okay?" The wall that I ran into started talking to me, I'm going insane. He was quick to grab his phone off the ground, I suppose he dropped his too.

"I'm.. I'm fine." I mumbled as I reached down to pick up my phone. There was a little scratch on the screen that I noticed immediately.

I went to classes, I went to get coffee and to get dinner. I had gone the whole day without bothering to check my phone but when I did –  it wasn't mine. That was definitely not mine, who's even is it? 

His, it was his.

Who would ever have themselves on their lockscreen? Him, this random guy I accidentally swapped phones with. This random guy – who I now realize, as I go through his gallery, is undeniably attractive and I have his cell phone.

I felt guilty scrolling through picture after picture of him and his friends as if it wasn't his fault that the phones got mixed up in the first place. I saw selfies and portraits, thousands of screenshots he was ever so reluctant to delete, music sheets and silly photos from the grocery store. I could see into the kind of person he was.

Why had he not tried to contact me through this phone? He could easily input his number and call me, it wasn't hard. He couldn't have possibly gone that long without checking his phone at least once, well with the amount of friends he has. I might as well do that, I don't want to infringe on his privacy more than I already have.

He picked up the phone immediately.

"This isn't my phone," He spoke over the telephone lines.

"Well no kidding, Sherlock," I laughed.

He made an annoyed grumble, "Well do you want your phone back or not? Cause it seems like you really don't,"

"Only if I get to at least keep your number," 

"Alright, alright, you can keep it," I could hear his smile over the line. I wrote down the number on a small sticky note.

"We can make the exchange tomorrow, 9:00 at the coffee shop next to the school?" I suggested.

"Alright," He confirmed, "So I'll see you tomorrow," He quickly hung up.

There was a sort of anxiety to the situation. What if someone important tried to text or call me? What if he steals my phone? What if he starts sending crazy text messages? I could see that he wasn't that type of guy but questions like that don't just disappear.

I spent most the night looking at his phone and scrolling through his tiktok, his for you page was full of influencers and kpop stuff and of course the occasional vine or two. He didn't post but he had stuff saved, dances and make-up tutorials. I sort of began to wonder if he didn't have a girlfriend for a specific reason.

Just as we planned we met up at the coffee shop. When I walked through the door I spotted him immediately. He was in a black hoodie and black ripped jeans with some absolutely gigantic shoes – which I don’t blame him for wearing shoes like that, he’s not that tall.

“You have the goods?” He asked as I sat next to him at the coffee shop table. He flipped the hood of his hoodie over his head and pulled my phone out of his pocket, “I have yours if you have mine,”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I asked with a smirk, taking my phone back and giving him his.

“Done what? Talk to a pretty girl or make a suspicious deal?” He smiles, powering on his phone, probably to make sure that I didn’t do anything odd to his phone. I didn’t do anything odd but he might notice that I saved a few tiktoks and edited a couple pictures in his gallery. He went right to his contacts and smiled big when he noticed my number, and name, already there.

I powered on my phone and everything was intact just as it was when I left it and his name and number were in my contacts. His name was surrounded by soft blue hearts and he had it in a pretty font.

💙𝐻𝒶𝓃 𝒥𝒾𝓈𝓊𝓃𝑔💙

Han Jisung – the man who accidentally stole my phone, and heart, was named Han Jisung. And of course, he had to put my name in his phone in the most extra way possible.

“Promise I didn't do anything weird – unless you consider taking pictures of my dog weird… Actually, can you send those to me?” He assured.

I scoffed lightly, digging through my gallery to find the photos he wanted. There were like ten just of his dog and a couple of him, he couldn't go one night without a selfie? I sent them all to him and then asked if he could send me the ones that I edited of him.

He erupted with laughter like some sort of giggle volcano as he went through his gallery. I had drawn mustaches and glasses on him and left significant text commentary on his photos.

“Minho is not my boyfriend,” He laughed, looking over my commentary and editing, “And Bbama looks amazing with a mustache,”

“You look good with one too – I think I put one on your boyfriend as well,” I chuckled, looking over as he went through the photos.

The best one that I edited was probably the one of him shirtless. I had taken it upon myself to draw a shirt for him since he hadn't even bothered to put one on for the picture. He got a good laugh out of that one, saying something about how it was such a tragedy to cover such nice muscles (I didn't agree.)

We quickly became good friends and we both opted to learn more about each other before pursuing something more than a friendship.

Until, well, tonight.

I opened my door for him as usual, leading him into my home and onto my couch. He let out a little huff as he sat down, sitting in the exact same way he always does and hogging half the couch.He grabbed the TV remote and started playing something, I wasn't sure what, I think he changed it every minute or two.

I was in the kitchen, preparing something for dinner. I set the table, grabbed us plates and called him into the dining room to eat. As as He entered the dining room he looked over at me and there was a certain sparkle in his eyes that I couldn't miss.

“Hey,” He spoke, “I love you,” It caught me off guard that he uses such strong words so quickly but I couldn’t deny that I felt the same.

“I love you too,” I muttered back quietly. He had a smile, ear to ear, that was absolutely smug and goofy – things like this is what made him so attractive. His eyes lit up and he looked so happy.

“So what does this make us?” He asks.

“More than friends, finally,” He let out a soft chuckle and walked up to the table.

“Finally,”

[prince-liest]

I am SO In love with the scene you wrote of Alastor and Vox dancing, it was written so vividly, and incredibly well coordinated. It was easy and coherent to follow, and still fast paced and all over the place, 1000/10

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU4RBNfI_0k

This is one of the songs I was imagining them dancing to after Vox changed the station, I feel like the name is fitting LOL

-🪶

Oh I also have to ask, just because I'm a sucker small details, what kind of swing dancing were you thinking of when you wrote Vox and Alastor dancing together?

Started out with aimless figuring-out-the-vibe and basic partner moves that show up on tutorial videos named things like "swing dancing: dips" when Vox was leading, eventually transitioning to Lindy Hop when Alastor took over!

And, ahh, thank you SO much! I don't have any more detail than that because I'm very much not a dancer, which is also why I have been so pleasantly overwhelmed by how much people enjoyed the dancing sequence! It was just the cutest fucking image in my head of Alastor genuinely enjoying himself and both of them breaking a sweat, and I really wanted to convey it properly without getting overly technical (makes things hard to imagine since they don't flow) while still getting specific enough that people could visualize some of the ways Alastor was showing off, hahaha. I basically ended up writing it in a very similar way to how I'd do a fight scene!

Also, omg, that song is PERFECT. I feel like I gotta add it to my Spotify now, ehehe. The lyrics are so suited to the Hazbin Hotel vibe, and it shows in the YouTube comments.🤭

[thebestofoneshots]

have you always written for the marauders or did you stumble into it or got inspired or ??? i’m just so curious ☺️

story time with Lils.

I could give a simple answer to this, very short, and all, but I feel like telling the story of how I got into fanfiction so you’ll get a whole textbook instead.

It must have been like 2009 (catch me speaking like an old person), when I was laying in my grandma’s bed, fantasizing about a self insert into Harry Potter (actual Harry Potter mind you I didn’t know the Marauders, nor was my 9 year old self in love with a Sirius yet) and thinking “Gosh wish I could write that… but I can’t because copyright and it’s illegal.”

Fast forward do 2011-2012, THE FACEBOOK ERA, and your girl stumbles into a fanpage that *literally* was all about reader inserts with certain YouTubers I had an unhealthy obsession with at the time. It was then that Lilly discovered ✨the fantastic world of fanfiction✨. And it didn’t stop.

I love reading, but I had always been one to write stories, poems, songs, you name it, I probably wrote it. And so I started writing fanfics as well. First I think it must have been the YouTubers. I also remember reading a Percy Jackson fanfic once, and omg it’s been so long, I don’t even remember the webpage I read it at, but it was like it’s own little blog with its own little colors and stuff, cool shit tbh.

Must have been around 2012 that I started a fanfic of Jack Frost. Yes ladies and gentleman, Jack Frost, he was too cute for 12 y/o Lilly. That one, is absolute cringe if I go back and read it now, but also kinda funny? The reverse harem was so heavy in that one I swear I didn’t even know that was a thing but EVERYONE was inlove with the MC.

Either way, writing longer stories really wasn’t for me back then, so I started writing oneshots. And boy-oh-boy did I love them. I must say “Thank you Bucky Barnes for existing and having me obsess over you.” I must have over 30 one shots written for him. Or more, I have never counted. Some still sitting on my drafts lol.

Then I started writing for Loki and made a small follow along fic of the series, called Time Variant 30578, and I was so proud I finished it (-ish, season 2 just came up and I still have to write for that).

Not that it’s the only thing I’ve finished, I actually wrote a book, it’s a book about a serial-kiIIer, but even if we see his life, the actual unaliving parts are told from the perspective of the victims. Pretty gory, certainly something. But I liked it. That one’s done and sitting in my computer. I still want to find time to edit it and maybe publish it one day, but who knows? Off topic.

Anyway I rewatched SPN and wrote a few shots for one of the loves of my life Dean Winchester. And I have pondered on writing a series for a gender-bend spell type of thing. A short one (but actually short this time, not like GC).

And then, somewhere in between me starting a small business of HP stuff and watching Tick…Tick…Boom! (Which had me obsess over Andrew), and the already smoldering obsession with Ben, I started reading Marauders fics. Discovering the magical world of ✨Poly!Marauders✨

And then I wrote the first part of Gilded Constellations (march this year, probably) and then the second and then the first 12 parts and then I decided to post it and then people showed actual interest?!?! And I kept writing and writing and then I wanted GC to have smut. But I was shit at smut and wanted to practice so The Five Senses was born. After a LOT of research, I kid you not, so much reading fics and even YouTube tutorials lol (on writing guys, that kind of content is NOT allowed on YouTube!). Anyway, writing just solidified my obsession with my boys. And then there was Maraudween, more smut practice but also, I kind of like writing smut at this point? And scary action filled stories??? Right up my ally.

So yeah, in short; I’ve always been a writer, I have always liked Harry Potter and I have been writing fanfics for a while and just recently started writing for the Marauders, but you’re not gonna stop me any time soon.

I like living in my own head, and I love writing stories, and I adore our boys so, you’ll be seeing so much of me you’ll get sick of it lol

Did that answer your question? I feel like one of this teachers that students ask a question to and then tell the entire story of their life. But I feel like I did answer the question.

[studentbyday]

me @the stuff i have to do this week

day 50-56 // 100dop && day 29-35 // 100doc

saturday/sunday: finished lab report and data structures lab, spent what felt like a really long time trying to understand the instructions and distro code for speller.c and wrote lots of notes and some pseudocode for the load function.

monday: finished 2 and a little bit of a 3rd section of chem chapter. wrote drafts for the load, check, and unload functions in speller.c but it's returning the opposite of what i should be getting. ☹️🧐

tuesday: it seems i have to accept that as the semester wears on, my study space will inevitably become very very messy with scrap paper (note to self to sift through them tmr and keep only what i need rn)... finished 2.5 sections of chem chapter but didn't take notes on everything yet (halfway through the chapter whooo 🙌). answered tutorial worksheet. also, for some reason i didn't have to change anything except for some minor things in unload and load and check50 works for everything now???? now all that's left to do is figure out why my size function is not returning the same number as the staff's solution and improve on that dreaded hash function...everything i've tried so far takes longer than the one already in there... 🤔 in my impatience to move on, i started the python lecture (YAY PYTHON 😁💗 i'm so ready to be done with C for now)

wednesday: OMG i wasn't expecting to be able to finish speller today but i DID!!!! i thought it would take me much longer to figure out that hash function - i owe it all to cs50's reddit (and stepping away from it and doing smth else when stuck) 💗💗💗 now i can REALLY enjoy myself w python (my beloved XP) and not have that unfinished problem hanging over my head ☺️ also almost done making notes for the sections covered yesterday and finished 3/4 practice assignments.

thursday: i woke up at 12pm 😑☹️ finished all except 1 section of the assignment bc i haven't covered all of the chapter yet. i haven't even finished taking notes on...several things, it's kind of all over the place and i'm just trying to learn enough to do the assignment and then go back in more detail once i'm done bc that's how bored and overwhelmed i feel rn (did not know it was possible to feel both at the same time until uni XD) 😅 watched a little more of the python lecture even tho i should be prioritizing chem rn... still got the lab report to write and a quiz to do after the assignment 😵‍💫😑 (it'll be fine, ik, but if i'm being completely honest, it would be soooooo nice if those things could just do themselves and i could download all the info i need into my brain and instantly understand it and be calculator-fast at the math and not make any mistakes 😤)

friday: finished practice assignment, actual assignment, writing all of the lab report except the intro and references, and the python lecture. got through the remainder of the chem chapter but still gotta write notes on it... it was late at night when i got to the python problems and gaaahhhh coding is sm harder on a sleepy brain, i only finished hello.py XD also dunno how much time i'll have to spend on 100doc this weekend but at least i was able to keep up the streak through the weekdays this time!!

saturday/sunday: finished lab report, notes on chem chapter, quiz, and mario.py. am now working on credit.py and uuuggghhh i did not read the instructions carefully for the checksum!!! 😡 i just followed their example but not all credit card numbers are like the one in the example, so...i have to redo and rethink what seems like a lot of stuff so i basically just wasted all of that time getting confused as to why it wasn't working XD aaaannnddd idk if i should be doing this but i keep converting strings to ints back to strings and then back to ints as needed cuz i lovelovelove iterating through strings but also it seems kinda messy? it also feels super weird writing in python after writing in C for a while...

[xxmashaalibekxx]

Personal vent about myself

I wrote a personal vent about the future about my art + buying commissions, the state of my life, and what’s going on behind my social media accounts. I love you all. Please give it a read if you care about what I do, this is important for me and for you.

Pic for the algorithm cause I know it doesn’t care about my words.

I don’t know how to say this, but I can’t find the time or energy to make art and/or buy commissions. My government is actively trying to kill me, my mental health is taking all my time and motivations. My effort is towards changing my behavior and behaving right, not pretending to be happy as I wanted to be.

I have not felt inspired or even desired to buy commissions. I have no new ideas, poses for art, songs for animation memes. I kept waiting for inspiration to hit again but it didn’t. I don’t even know if I’m going to be alive next year, how could you expect me to plan and buy a commission that may or may not be expensive?

It scares me. I deeply miss buying commissions but I feel like it’s rapidly losing me. I’m not as good as I used to be and I don’t understand how I made what I did. Deep depression and anxiety has made it impossible for me to do this, and I’ve lost crucial money for that. I’m scared.

I have to help my family out in order to prevent my house from being sold, only one of which I’m able to pay for. I can’t afford to go to my psychotherapy checkups. I barely have money to get stuff, yet I somehow have to save up money so I can escape Virginia next year. If Virginia doesn’t kill me first, of course.

I genuinely, through all of this, can’t keep going the way I always have. What little energy and passion I have left is helping my family out as fast as I possibly can. I wish I could be Shizuka the Scene Fox for you again. Someday. But I’m not safe, and I need to fight against that.

Imagined harassments and being blocked by people on social media cripple me. I feel like I’m disappointing everyone. I see my inspirations improving and shining. I don’t understand. I’m happy for them. With this world around you? How do you do it? I don’t know.

I’ve found happiness and stability through watching art tutorials on YouTube. I want to go to an art school someday. And though my dream of touring and supporting myself through art always remains, is it really realistic? Where have I gone, who knows me? I can’t move out of Virginia from my beloved home sweet home.

That’s what’s been overwhelmingly on my mind lately, I guess. I know it’s venting and it might not make any sense and I’m sorry for that. I just can’t keep this to myself anymore. All I ask of you in the future is please, please be patient and loving with me. Please. I’m trying.

I want to end this with something positive. I’ve found massive comfort and peace amidst such awful stress through Learke lately. It’s genuinely helped me stay positive. I think when I get back, when I’m ready, I want to commission an animation meme that sounds like this.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Ok after starting to read hummingbird I see what you mean LOL hmmm if you wrote it for bllk would you be changing it into bllk/modern au? My first thought was also maybe Barou but actually thinking a little more I feel like if you stretched chigiri maybe…? Assuming there’s no actual killing I feel like in his most intense moments maybe….as we’ve seen him teasing Barou too he’s not AS serious as some others but yeah idrk LOL maybe that would work better on something more along the lines of rivals/lovers instead of enemies but hmmm OR alternative you could keep it in a similar au to jjk and warp a new universe out of it sorta like how you made hollyhock? I’m also kinda stumped tbh LOL

Your speed is unparalleled LMAO I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone update that fast honestly

Bro the child neglect running rampant apparently??? To me it’s also even weirder like you had one child and knew you were gonna kinda neglect it and then had another??? Like oh yeah let’s give you a trauma buddy! What’s kinda interesting is how their mom at some point is worrying like “what should I do as a mother…” and the dad just goes “he’ll grow out of it” bro did not outgrow the freak stage

Also so true…I mean I’ve heard that Japan has a relatively good like…job security rate or wtv? Which is why a bunch of people also don’t care too much about grades because they can always manage to find some company to live out the salaryman life or something but yeah that’s still wild to me like say you dgaf about your kids without saying you dgaf?? Also unrelated but I wanna see yukis dad LOL we see a glimpse of his mom from one of the LN visuals but his dad is nowhere to be seen

LMAO the soccer infection from bllk is actually so funny!! I think the most I’ve gotten is like people making TikToks of like tutorials on how to do a certain move from bllk but that’s about it LOL

I’m about to go back to the manga and try and see who has offers from where LOL although iirc they’re mostly all from the same country as the current stratum they’re in but

-Karasu anon

HAHA it’s def a very unique story that’s for sure!! i would def have it in more of an au (kind of like how hollyhock is) to keep with the themes of the story…LMAO it’s a stumper for sure i will think on it more once i’m finished with bfb!! i keep falling asleep when i’m meant to be writing so the progress there has been a bit slow unfortunately 😩 worst comes to worst there is a 7-8 hour plane ride in my very near future so i will DEFINITELY finish it then

FR when i’m in the zone and not too busy (which unfortunately i have been a bit busy as of late) i write super quickly so i usually don’t feel too bad abt not updating super quickly when i don’t have the time 😭

i feel like the itoshi parents weren’t horrible (they seem pretty chill according to sae’s egoist bible once he’s in spain) it just feel to me like they don’t really know what to do w their kids who are so into soccer ykwim…like they were given two relatively abnormal children and maybe w sae it was manageable as he seems to be pretty mature but with rin they just had 0 idea what to do and let sae handle it because it seemed like he could…and yeah i feel like most kids are lowkey freaks when they’re younger so itoshi dad wasn’t entirely wrong they just didn’t handle it well + rin is a special case because he never stopped being crazy 😭

LMAO maybe they just realized early on that sae is not a thinker 😰 whenever people think he’s smart i’m just like…canonically he is the OPPOSITE and same with rin 😭 omg i bet yuki’s dad would be a dilf maybe that’s why we didn’t get to see him 😓 they are GATEKEEPING!!

i can’t escape soccer now 😩 and yeah i agree i think for the most part it’s pretty much just offers from their NEL teams except for kaiser who got an offer from re al!! i hope if they go the club route then they at least go between clubs or smth so we can expand on characters that haven’t had much time to shine lately

[jelliestar]

SSP1.... sorry.

SEE I TOLD YOU ID BE BACK W THIS..... IM SO SORRY....

ok well it turns out I forget stuff way too easily um. so I actually made a mind map of stuff to work on from the last game from project 04 in ESP and yeah. no wonder i got the research done so fast it was so detailed asw and I FORGOT ABOUT ITTTT ok here it is fgjdhkd

mind map. literal lifesaver. that i FORGOT ABOUT.

ok anwyay so I honestly had soooo much stuff to work on, like firstly I had to figure out if I even wanted to do a game now because of how insanely painful it was last time.... but ofc as you can so clearly tell, I LOVE to torture myself. so. yknow. that didn't last long, though I did do some really stupid sketches of comics (I will post these later I very stupidly forgot my sketchbook at home. erm. yeah. anyway.

the next thing I kinda looked into was the story. "kinda" I wrote up 4 different storylines. actually those will get a post of their own each bevause I consider myself a genius lowkey for the things I do with evil/toxic/tragic lesbians in my brain (God I love my OCs)

then I went on to actually look into the technical aspects of how I was going to make the game now. Honestly, I'd basically given up all hope on ren'py, so I actually decided I wanted to use unity and make my own setup for the vn on there. I found a really good set of tutorials on youtube, I'll make a playlist of those and link them in a seperate post too!

Along with this, I began to look into how I would elevate the artwork of my game- at this point I was still in the old style, using the old sprites and visuals, so I wanted to see if I could perhaps rig the character models on live2d! I actually spent quite a while learning how to rig 2d images on there, but then opted not to go down that path because I genuinely just wouldn't have time for that. That being said, it did help me a lot when I did end up changing the artstyle of the game to simplify my character designs, as that was something I had to get used to when drawing to rig.

This was hoenstly such a great starting point for me because I ended up doing SO much research and it rly helped my game blossom!!!

[sirfrogsworth]

@radioradio I don't know if you saw the post I wrote a few weeks ago. But I wrote up a flash experiment for you to try. I highly suggest you give it a shot because it will help you understand what is going on with your test above. You can even use your exact setup from above if you'd like. But if you have an overhead light maybe turn that on so you have more ambient light to see the difference.

Flash is very powerful. It is orders of magnitude more powerful than just about every kind of light aside from the sun. A speedlight's power settings go from 1/128 to 1/64 to 1/32 to 1/16 to 1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 to 1/1. Every one of those jumps is a doubling of light and even 1/128 power is brighter than a home light bulb.

A fairly bright light bulb is around a thousand lumens and flashes can output hundreds of thousands of lumens.

This means you cannot really use flash with large apertures (f/4 or bigger) unless you are doing fill flash where you want to light up everything in the entire room.

So why is every photo the same?

Basically what is happening is the flash is bouncing off of every surface in the room and each bounce is contributing to the exposure of your image. And that is why it doesn't matter what direction you point it. It's going off the wall and off the ceiling and off the background and then off the ceiling again.

At f/2.8 light is basically like that infinite bouncy ball in Men in Black.

Because you are allowing so much light into the lens, every bounce is hitting the sensor and adding to the exposure.

However, if you set the camera to f/8 or f/16, ISO 100, and the shutter speed to 1/200 I think you will see a much different result.

That eliminates all of the bouncing.

All of the light that is bouncing around the room will be too dim to affect the image. So only the direct flash or the first reflection will light up your subject. And if you bounce it off the ceiling, only the light that comes straight back down will light up the figure.

Aside from fill flash, the only way to get flash to work properly with large apertures (in this type of scenario) would be to use an ND filter. But then your ambient light will probably disappear in the photo without a really long exposure.

(There is also high speed sync (HSS) in sunlight, but that is more advanced than I am comfortable explaining right now.)

The key to understanding flash is learning its relationship with ambient light. I promise if you do that experiment it will start to make more sense.

Try to separate them in your mind.

"This is my ambient exposure."

"This is my flash exposure."

So if I were taking a photo of the figure in the setup above I would...

Turn off the flash. Set the camera to manual. Set the aperture to f/8. Set the ISO to 100. Experiment with shutter speed and take test photos until satisfied with how the ambient light looks on the figure. (You will probably need a long exposure.) Turn the flash on. Take photos at different angles and do your experiment again.

For now, when using flash, I recommend keeping the aperture at f/5.6 or smaller and lock the ISO to 100. At least until you get the hang of things.

I know when you are just starting the temptation to shoot everything wide open is encouraged by every tutorial. They never stop talking about shallow depth of field and how it gives you background separation and every lens review brags about f/1.2 lenses and bokeh.

But I actually shoot a lot of my stuff at f/5.6 or smaller. You don't have to worry as much about nailing focus, your lens is sharper, and it challenges you to create background separation in other ways. Backlighting, edge lighting, bright colors, dark colors, or using flash to properly expose your subject while making the ambient light on everything behind them dark.

Look at how dark the yard looks compared to him. I used a small aperture and fast shutter speed to dim the ambient light in the background and then used my flash to properly expose my Uncle Jeff.

Background separation *without* shallow depth of field.

Also, if you like shooting small figures like that, you might consider getting one of these little softboxes for flashes. They aren't really great for shooting human sized things because they are too small (unless you bounce it off a wall/ceiling). But they are relatively giant light sources for action figure-sized things.

And large light sources are soft light sources.

They can also help you direct the light only at your subject and keep it from going all over the place.

Hopefully some of that made sense. If you have any questions feel free to tag me again and I'll clarify as best I can.

Some more flash practice tonight

Now that my new-to-me Manfrotto 055 tripod has arrived, I have a solid base to paly around with anime figure photography. Just a very basic setup on the desk here...

Nikon D600, 105mm f/2.8 macro lens, and an SB-900 in remote mode triggered by the popup flash. f/3.3 (a quirk of the lens. You can't always get a full f/2.8 when in close) and 1/125 sec.

I used the flash bare. No bounce card or diffuser. I tried 45 degrees either side of the model, the same but with the flash head at a 45 degree up angle, straight into the background either side of the model, directly overhead, and straight on from underneath the lens.

I go offload to Lightroom, and what do I find? Every single shot looked virtually identical to the last. Even the shadows.

Just posting the one sample with the remote flash to the left of the camera, pointed straight on, and at a 45 degree angle to the model. The others are all the same.

Tagging @thefrogman so they can see what I'm doing.

[20dollarlolita]

Did you know that sometimes, you do something totally normal in the tumblr editor, something that you could accidentally do very easily, and it decides to eat your entire post? It just deleted over an hour of work? Did you know that it does that?

Isn't that swell?

THE RANDOM LOLITA 30 DAY CHALLENGE, DAY 10: 10 THINGS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IN LOLITA.

We're doing a challenge from 2011 and we're doing it very slowly. We're actually doing it even slower, because we wrote half of this post, hit ctrl+z, and tumblr just fucking deleted it with no way to get it back. Glorious. 10/10, fucking hate it.

This challenge number was a little weird for me. I've been doing lolita since 2011, and the answers that I would have given in 2011 are probably very different than the ones I'm giving in 2023. Having that framing makes me feel very nostalgic.

Let's get into it. If tumblr eats this again, I will be throwing the entire website out the door.

Number 1) A comfortable petticoat that stays the right shape, and that I don't have to worry about crushing.

Back in my early days, one of the first things that I bought for lolita fashion was a real petticoat. One of the most critical elements of a lolita fashion look is the shape, and having a foundation that gave me the right shape helped things that I was making look a lot more like real lolita.

(Early 2012)

My first ever petticoat, which is under the red dress, was made out of muslin and some walmart tulle. I believe it used this tutorial. While that dress wasn't ever going to look really lolita super well, the petticoat issue sure isn't helping.

These days I have a Wunderwelt petticoat that I got in 2016, and it's so very enjoyable to have a petticoat where the only concern is that it might be too big for a dress. I love how little work it takes to add the proper shape to a coord.

Number 2) Definitely lolita shoes.

When I wear lolita out and about, I've noticed that one of the things that changes stranger's reactions is the shoes. If I've got some distinctly lolita shoes, like RHS, people tend to ask if it's a fashion. If I'm wearing lolitable shoes that could also work in a non-lolita outfit, I get asked what costume I'm wearing.

(Late 2013)

Baby lolita me had a pair of black Mary Jane pumps from Target, and those were my lolita shoes for several months. In my first ever Bodyline order, I got some brown tea parties, and about a year later I bought these pink RHS and white flats.

And that was it. That was what I owned for lolita shoes from 2013 to 2016. Coords were black, brown, pink, white, or else I wore shoes that didn't match. Occasionally I'd go crazy and get some short boots into the mix, but this was my lolita shoe collection.

I have at least four tutorials in this blog about how to fix shoes, because I don't let my shoes die until they're absolutely dead and gone. Those brown tea parties are now painted gold and have been turned into very dangerous roller skates. I had to take a five-ish mile offroad hike in the white ones, which destroyed the bottoms as well as permanently staining the ribbon frill brown. These are, to this day, the only lolita shoes that I've ever thrown away. The other two pairs of shoes I still have.

My closet doesn't look like a BTSSB show room because I have to keep the rubbermaid tub of skulls somewhere, and the closet seems the best place.

In the seven years since I started buying lolita shoes again, I've collected several pairs. A lot of these pairs were in the $5-$30 price range, and none of them have been disposed of. This is just seven years of collecting shoes.

Number 3) Little details that are fast to add to a coord.

So, TJ Maxx sells these little clip on ribbon bows in their baby department, and they're my new favorite fast and easy accessory. They can go in your hair. They can go on your dress. They can go on your shoes. It's wonderful.

I've said a whole lot that making a lolita coord is about adding all the details that you think you should add, and then adding 3-5 more details. It's very easy to underestimate how detailed a handmade lolita piece should be.

Something that I didn't fully appreciate until recently, at least not to the extent that I currently appreciate it, is how much your overall coordinate can benefit from the same thing. If you CAN throw on some little extra bows and bracelets, it generally looks better if you do that.

I have very small wrists (both wrists together cannot hold a 4-week old kitten) and jingling loose bracelets often drive me nuts. I finally found out that stretch bracelets meant for kids will fit on my wrists, won't jinglejangle, and also won't pinch. As a bonus, they're like $1 for a 2-pack, so I went a little bit nuts stocking up on them.

I've got a couple of tutorials on making your own cheap, small details that you can just plop onto as many coords as you'd like.

Number 4) Sewing machine.

(Feb 2011)

My first lolita dress was handmade. Making my own garments and accessories has always been an important part of this fashion for me. I don't have as much to say about this, because it's just so constantly present in everything that I do.

I've learned about lolita fashion by sewing it, and I've learned about sewing by sewing lolita fashion.

(October 2010)

I made my first lolita dress on a pretty basic sewing machine (the precursor to the Janome 3160QDC). I've since sideways-graded to a really basic 80's Singer. Despite having a very fancy embroidery machine, I don't sew on it. My last service said I've done 5 hours of sewing and 170 hours of embroidery on that machine. I know what I need, and I have what I need.

Number 5) Five Below's $5 bike shorts

They're $5. They come in every color.

Your tights falling down? Bike shorts. Your bloomers pretty annoying to wash and so you want to keep them off your skin to avoid having to wash our sweat stains? Your car a little bit funky and you might need to lie down on the ground to change your tire? Bike shorts. Little old lady in a wheelchair might pick up your skirt to see if you're wearing pantaloons? and you're not wearing pantaloons? You're never going to be more glad that you have bike shorts.

When I was new to lolita and like 12 years stupider than I now am, I had smaller petticoats, and always figured that high-coverage tights and standard underoos were modesty enough, with bloomers being necessary for coords with socks. Get a fuller petticoat, and you stop feeling like that. Bike shorts at Target were like $15 a pair, because they're designed to be comfortable to wear when you're riding a bike. I'm not riding a bike. I'm walking through walmart to buy some milk. I'm not going fast because I have 5" of fake wood glued to the bottom of my foot. I don't need your comfort features. I need $5 bike shorts.

These have pockets in them so that you can stash emergency money or a fortune you got from Panda Express in 2020 that says, "Be ready to take an important journey soon," on it.

Yes, the pantaloons thing happened to me, and I actually was wearing bloomers. Yes, the woman pushing the tiny old lady in the wheelchair clearly had never been more embarrassed in her life.

Number 6) Men's undershirts.

Call it a singlet, call it an a-shirt, please don't call it a wifebeater. These things are made of a ribbed knit that stretches to accommodate boobs and curves very well. They're meant to be washed the heck out of. I can't throw my dresses into the washing machine on the crazy hard cycle and throw them in a hot dryer and figure whatever happens happens, but these things are THREE. DOLLARS. EACH. A whole lot of not perfect things can be forgiven when the under shirt is $3.

The neck doesn't work on OPs or some blouses, but they're also three dollars each, so I wear them any time I can. Women's undershirts are $12-18 EACH so I can't just buy 30 of them. If you want some bonus armpit protections, men's t-shirt undershirts are only like $5 each.

Number 7) Oxiclean.

A lot of lolita fashion is about our super fancy, super detailed prints. These are prints that look lovely when you're up close to them, so it's important to not have dingy and dirty and faded prints, especially when you paid good money for that printing. All hail Oxiclean.

I went to go take a picture of the jumbo boxes of oxiclean that I buy, but it looks like someone threw the box on the ground and then went to lie in her bed like nothing bad happened. (She wasn't hurt and I cleaned it up so she couldn't get it on her paws and lick it).

Also yes, my cat has her own little personal heater. It turns off if it's tipped over, so she will turn it off whenever she gets too hot.

Number 8) Parasols.

First of all, it turns out that finding offbrand parasols for lolita is a super cool challenge. They're not very common, so when you do find one, it feels like a big accomplishment.

I love parasols for a lot of reasons. I was going to get coffee with a friend, and someone was acting kind of strangely outside the shop. I liked that I had something in my hands to potentially use to keep that person away from me if they decided to approach me way too quickly. My doctor and I thought for a while that I had a condition where if I went in the sun, my skin attacked my internal organs, so I started carrying umbrellas for that. It's very sunny where I live. Before I lived here, I lived where it was very rainy, and having a nice couple of ruffled RainStoppers was good to have on hand.

(May 2011 | Sept 2013) I've actually collected parasols for longer than I've really been into lolita. Pic on the left was pre-lolita times. I absolutely loved that parasol and took it everywhere that I could. Pic on the right is the earliest picture I could find of my white RainStoppers that I got at Target, which I still have somewhere in my car. Mostly that pic is there because of my cats. Also the pictures just felt like a nice weird little bit of symmetry.

Anyway, when someone's taking a pic of you without asking, you can block it with your parasol. My relationship with parasols in lolita is complicated, because I feel like I shouldn't need to have a weapon with me, but here we are.

Number 9) All the info that baby me chronicled. Everything I've learned and everything that I didn't used to know. I have so much fun looking at my old cringe coords and all of the things I did that I know are wrong now. I really miss the way I fearlessly tried things out and the rate at which I churned out new pieces. There's some pieces that I don't have anymore and I miss those things. I used to have some old school AP socks that I have no clue where they are. Seeing the way I used to have my bedroom set up so that I'd still have space to sew. Looking at the dates on pictures and thinking about what I was doing back then. Most of these pictures are from back when cell phone cameras were awful, and I've had to edit all of them to get better exposure before putting them up. There's memories I have of us all carrying around digital cameras to save things, because cell phones just weren't there yet (also some of us didn't have pix messaging plans and had to pay 25 cents per picture to get them to our computers). I looked at the bottom of my pink RHS the other day and the tread's all the way worn off. That's so interesting to me, that I've worn pink-shoe lolita enough that I completely wore the tread off.

Jan 1, 2014 "Sometimes the best thing ever is to walk into Starbucks and watch a five year old’s eyes go as wide as they can, point at you, and say loudly “Mom, is that a real person?” Sometimes the best part is watching the mom go BEET red."

I remember that event so specifically. It was one of the first times I'd actually worn the head-eating bow in public. It took me several years to warm up to the head-eaters. I remember exactly what the mom and the kid looked like, but also until I read this post, I'd completely forgotten about this whole incident.

Number 10)

This blog, and the people who read it, interact with it, comment on it.

I really cannot explain how amazing this community is to me. I think the first time I saw someone link someone else a tutorial I made was just a couple of years ago. It was so exciting. Every time i meet someone who is afraid to get into lolita fashion due to the expense, and I'm able to tell them that there's a whole COMMUNITY of people who want to do lolita for less, it's amazing. I started this blog because I felt like I could make myself some accessories for not a lot of money, and I just needed the motivation to do it. But now it's so much better than that. I'm still making things for me. I make things I want and things that I'll use and things that I can make. But I'm also making them for other people, who also need the same kind of help. I teach myself new things so that I can answer questions I've been asked. Every time I have to research an answer for someone, that person has helped me grow.

It's just amazing. Thank you.

[merakiui]

PLEASE darling and Scara fighting like an old married couple after he got his ass beat by traveler LMAO.

I swear he's such a dweeb sometimes.

Also consider: modernau! Gamer Scara watching you suck at a video game and he makes fun of you for it, before ripping the controller out of your hands saying "I'll do it, watch how the pros do it. >:)" only for him to suck at the video game just as much if not more than reader.

SEEING THE WAY THE ROBOT CROSSES HIS ARMS IN THE BOSS FIGHT IS SO FUNNY TO ME. I swear he watched like some shonen animes before the fight to make sure he looks cool while he crushes the traveler like an ant (but Scara gets ass kicked bc he spent too much time on the anime and not how to fight in the robot fjejkfj)

I love this big hatted dweeb.

-🔑

LOL he’s so adamant that it was the sages’ fault, too. Darling tells him it was a skill issue.

Gamermouche calling himself a gamer and then being completely terrible at video games omg!!! What makes it even funnier is that he’s so very confident. He cracks his knuckles and everything before grabbing the controller and he’s like, “This is nothing for someone of my level.” And then he proceeds to be very bad and darling goes, “Oh, so your level isn’t even beginner.”

I’m not sure if you remember that one meme where a game journalist spent a long amount of time trying to beat the tutorial for Cuphead before writing an article to say that it’s okay to be bad at video games or something along those lines. Please just picture that as Scara. But also I think he’d stay up late playing the game over and over until he’s good enough to impress you the next time the two of you play games together.

HE’S SO SILLY IN HIS ROBOT OMG!!! This line in particular had me smiling and giggling. I like to imagine he studied all the most action-packed light novels just so he could know what are some really good lines to say when he confronts Nahida and the Traveler. He definitely wrote some of them down. Probably wrote reminders like: remember to insult and degrade them at every chance you get (i.e. pest, lowly creature, worm, etc) because it sounds cool and makes you look intimidating.

And then after so many loops Traveler finally beats him in the fight and I go from simping to sobbing very fast. </3 T-T aaaaa my heart has never been so fulfilled and so broken in one swift moment. Even if he wanted to kill us, I wanted to catch him from his fall and tell him to take a restful nap because he’s earned it after all of his hardships. >_<

[lord-squiggletits]

.

[saintomura]

hq boys when you ask them to brush your hair

warning - tooth rotting fluff (what was i thinking when i first wrote this???)

MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY.

note - this is a repost from my archived blog.

so meticulous, not an extra stray hair in sight, done with such care and love, you almost fell asleep in their lap, give the best head scratches in the world, you hair didn't hurt when they combed it for you, your hair care becomes a part of their routine, would take you to salons to let professionals check up on your hair growth and volume

KITA, SAKUSA, SUGAWARA, asahi, DAICHI, OSAMU, hanamaki, TSUKISHIMA, AKAASHI, ushijima, MEIAN, matsukawa (he was nervous the first time around but handled it really well. loves to play with your hair as you fall asleep in his lap dhdhhd cutie #1), ennoshita, oikawa (loves humming when he plays with your hair sometimes as he works them into a braid that you can peacefully sleep with) KUROO (kept asking of he's hurting you every two minutes, bless his heart)

anxious, shaky hands, scared that they'd hurt you but are secretly doing a great job, love to card their fingers through your hair and give you tingles down your spine when they do, love to oil your hair, would probably ask their barbers for good hair products and buy them so you can smell and feel good

yamaguchi, IWAIZUMI, AONE, tendou, SAKUSA (for the hair products, he loves buying you that ;-;), ROMERO, hirugami, KAGEYAMA, takeda, tanaka, KEISHIN, kyotani, yahaba, SUNA, kenma, YAKU (but he loves to pretend that he knows what he's doing; somewhat wings it)

excited golden retrievers, it's a tug of war b/w them and your hair, you have to pull the comb out cuz it got stuck, give you puppy dog eyes cuz they really want to take care of your hair for you, probably stay up late at night and look at youtube tutorials, will recommend you to try extremely over-the-top hairdos they found online

bokuto, ATSUMU, konoha, koganegawa, goshiki, HINATA, NISHINOYA, KUNIMI (he pulls on your hair just to piss you off :/), kindaichi (poor bb tries his best i swear), terushima (but he's a fast learner and loves to help you out with you hair), lev, FUTAKUCHI (mf is a sadist, loves to annoy you a lot), fukunaga (would playfully ruffle and ruin your hair, v v gentle tho)

all works belong to @saintomura. not to be reposted on other sites without permission. this blog is not meant for minors.