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2nd verse, same as the first. This makes the second night in a row that the fire alarm went off after 11 pm and forced us all to evacuate. I have had maybe 5 collective hours of sleep in the last 3 days, and I am on the verge of tears.

Thats not even half of it either. The fire alarms mark the 4th time I was interrupted while trying to record videos for assignments due in the morning. I also found out our toilet us leaking water, so we had to be given a key to an empty dorm to use that bathroom instead. Today has been pretty stress inducing to put it lightly. Help.

Fanart for Doves and Arrows

So there’s this amazing Tf2 Bushmedicine fic called Doves and Arrows, by @anonymous-astronaut, and I decided to make a thing for it. Astro at one point put the title of his fic into an ai generator, which produced this image:

I got permission to turn it into a wall hanging, and have finished this after almost 3 weeks of work (front and back):

If anyone wants to see my explanation for choices I made or in progress photos I took, I’ll put them under the cut since I tend to ramble. Please go read Doves and arrows, it is fantastic.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886154/chapters/57423127

So, I started out by trying to make sense of the original ai image. I threw it into an art program and made 2 copies of it. One sticking closely to the original image, just cleaned up. The other changing some of the weirder shapes into something recognizable. I especially focused on including actual arrows into the second image.

I decided to use the second image, and put it into a site called Bracelet Book, in order to get a pattern to use. I did my best to make the pattern as symmetrical as I could on the first pass, but the dove was very difficult to work with. 

People looking closely may see that the final project looks a little different from the pattern. Especially the dove’s eyes and the fletching on the arrows. That’s because I would sometimes make on the fly decisions to alter parts of the pattern, since it’s pretty flexible like that. Most edits were done to make parts look more even or less cluttered (except for 2 specific changes). Here is the edited pattern I had by the end of all this. The edits are a little messy since most were drawn using my phone. :P

Once I had a pattern, I started working on making it. The kind of method I used is used for what’s called Alpha bracelet patterns. If anyone wants to know more, I recommend looking up tutorials by the youtuber Masha Knots, as she was the one I learned from. Here’s some progress photos, as you can see it’s a pretty messy looking process.

I changed the eyes and and arrow fletching colors for a specific reason actually. I wanted the eyes to be blue since the dove represents the BLU Medic, Josef. The arrows fletching then became red for the RED Sniper, Mick. I just felt like the plainer pattern wasn’t as clearly a Tf2 thing.

Once I finished off the pattern, I tied the strings I had been tying my knots on into little tassels. I sewed a black outline around the beak, since it didn’t stand out against the body as well as I hoped. I also decided to make a cover for the back. This is because, for anyone who doesn’t know, the back of an alpha pattern pretty much always looks like a disaster. It takes a lot of work to hide the mess, so I like to make fabric covers for it. I did neaten up the mess where I could before sewing on the cover though.

When I made the fabric backing, I originally just planned something simple and plain, but the only fabric I had was blue, which didn’t match the look of the piece. So I got the idea to paint it to lean into the red and blue theme, complete with the characters class symbols. I cut out the fabric, hand hemmed it as best I could, and painted it with some acrylic paints I had.

Then it was just a matter of sewing it on and adding a string for the wall hanging to hang from! This is the biggest project of this sort I have ever made, nearly twice the size of the second largest wall hanging I’ve done. It’s about 5 1/2 inches tall (not counting tassels), and 5 1/4 inches wide. If anyone is interested in making anything like this, I have some advice. One, always get way more string than you think you need. I got two bundles of each kind of thread I purchased, since I got some specifically to color match as best I could. By the end I had to make another run to Michaels for more green since what I had wasn’t enough. Also, try to keep your knots neat and evenly sized. Some parts of the pattern aren’t clear on the final project because the knots are hard to see.

If you actually read through this whole thing, I hope you have a good day!

lord almighty i need positivity on the dash please tell the person you reblog this from something kind

Reblog and put in the tags your favourite himbo

x

OoF crack au idea

Ok, so for people in the undertale fandom, fanfiction is typically really focused on the skeletons (+ gaster sometimes). I mean, I think the fact that we made so many fandom-wide aus is incredible, but it can feel a bit one note on occasion. 

That’s why I highly recommend “Ocean on Fire”, by @theninjamouse on AO3. This fic is an amazing Grillby x reader. The reader is named, technically, but it’s just that she is going by her last name “Shore”. This earned the ship the name Shorby. Without getting into spoilers, the fic is incredibly good, and I’ve enjoyed it since the first chapter.

Now, since I don’t know how much of this may count as spoilers, and because I ramble, I’ll put the rest under a read-more.

So, not too long ago I sent Mouse an ask basically talking about how I was looking at papercraft models for Pokemon and decided Flareon and Vaporeon reminded me too much of Shorby. Aside from the obvious thing of fire elemental and fire pokemon, Shore also has huge water connections. First, she surfs, even working at the surf shop and giving some of the Undertale crew lessons. Also, (spoilers) she is a mage who can manipulate water, likely due to distant aquatic monster heritage. So between the water links, and the fact that the Vaporeon papercraft came with a surfboard, I really like the connection, and began thinking of au possibilities. NinjaMouse approved of a Pokemon au, so I’m here to tell my thoughts.

To start with, the au would probably be Shoregrillster, a.k.a. a ship between Shore, Grillby, and Gaster. (For context, in the fic Grillby and Gaster were together before Gaster disappeared.) I was thinking this because a) I like the dynamic between the three, and b) I needed a reason for Pokemon and OoF to intersect. If anyone could make that happen, it would be the mad scientist. If people think Sans could grab au versions of himself, Gaster could do something similar here.

So, I have a handful of Ideas for how this could go down, split into two categories. Option 1: Shore and/or Grillby temporarily become their respective pokemon. Option 2: Gaster somehow makes/ summons pokemon into our world. Both options have potential for hijinks.

In Option 1: It would probably go down similarly to the side fic “A Scientist, a Bartender, and a Fool”, where Gaster turned Shore into an otter. In the fic, the set up was that Gaster tried to make Shores magic stronger, and accidentally pushed her monster heritage to the surface, making her into a form better suited to that. So in this au, it would likely be something similar. My thought is that Gaster would see something kinda like the Pokemon franchise and try to see if anything from there is recreatable. (Maybe start with some of the moves pokemon could do before trying to apply science to the actual pokemon?) Either way, he ends up turning his partners into eeveelutions, probably because when his machine tried to find magic to use for pokemon recreation, It latched onto the two closest matches to pokemon types. 

Of course, the plot for this one would probably go similarly to the side fic, just with the added bonus of Grillby being changed too. Also, some extra fun from Grillby and Shore having new biology. For example, Grillby would now have completely internal flames, so theoretically he could go into water. Shore would just get to enjoy basically being an otter, but bigger and with fins and gills. Also, some fun from trio trying to keep people from finding out why Shore and Grillby aren’t at work.

Now, Option 2: This one has all sorts of fun possibility! This one would probably be the result of Gaster getting interested in either artificially making monsters or meeting alternate universes. Maybe while talking with Sans or Alphys, one of them made a comment that set him off on a tangent. Either way, Gaster probably wasn’t specifically aiming for pokemon, he just miscalculated and accidentally made/ summoned pokemon. 

This is where the fun comes in, as the three of them need to work out how to care for these weird little “monsters” without people learning how they got there. It helps that most of the world wouldn’t know that the pokemon aren’t monsters unless they got into an encounter or someone kept records of all monsters. 

I really like this idea because it opens the door for Gaster to also get his own pokemon. In option 1, he still needed to be able to reverse the change. But in this one, he can also get his own thematically appropriate pocket monster. 

I don’t have any big plot ideas, but I have been thinking of various disconnected scenes that would be fun.

- Shore and Grillby in the kitchen, panicking over how to feed their new pets

- (suggested by Mouse) Vaporeon and Shore surfing together, because yes

- Grillby working at the bar, then realizing Flareon followed him and having to keep his large fire dog out of sight of patrons, with ensuing hijinks

- Gaster getting worn out trying to fix his mistake, with the other two caring for their disaster scientist.

- Having to explain what happened to maybe 2 or 3 other people, either because they need help, or because someone found out on accident.

I did some thinking on what pokemon would best fit Gaster, and I had several ideas that would all be pretty fun. I’m honestly not sure which one I like best.

The simplest idea would be to give Gaster his own eeveelution. I would personally pick Espeon. Mainly because Psychic type seems like a good fit, and Umbreon’s associations with poison and the moon didn’t seem quite right to me. On the other hand, Espeon is considered incredibly loyal, which I liked.

My other ideas each lean more into the whole mysterious and voidy vibe.

Missingno. feels like a stretch, but I like the idea of him getting a pokemon that shouldn’t exist and feels like it would come from the void around the pokemon universe.

Another one is Giratina. I like this because Giratina’s story parallels Gasters most common fanon backstory quite well. Although, between its size and personality, it probably wouldn’t be great for story telling. The pokedex entries mention it being violent a lot.

Finally, an Unown or two would be cool. They remind me of wingdings, and are associated with language (kinda reminded me of fonts). They are weird and cryptic, and it would be funny seeing someone get jumpscared by the large floating letter with an eye. XD

In any case, this post is way too long, so I will continue with any new ideas, art, pictures, or writing in another post before my computer overheats.

Every midwit literary fiction novel from the past 5 years has been called something like The Little Things We Do To Ourselves or Back Then I Didn’t Think So Clearly or I Have Been Trying To Venmo You.

reblog and put in the tags what was the first movie/tv show that traumatized you?