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intergalacticfop · 7 months

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Minoan Heanos

The distinctive open-front dresses worn by Minoan women are probably even more iconic than the multi-layered kilts. Over time, there's dispute whether the garment is one piece or a separate bodice and skirt, but currently the one-piece theory is in ascendance.

The word heanos is derived from the Linear B logogram *146, wehanos. The wes- prefix, which is the squiggle in the middle, indicates a garment. Bernice Jones believes that this logogram represents the garment worn by Minoan men and women.

Marie-Louise B. Nosch, The Textile Logograms in the Linear B Tablets, pp 133-138

More research and construction below the cut:

The theory that the garment is a full-length tunic is further supported from imagery from the time, like these figures from the c. 1400 BCE Hagia Triada Sarcophagus. This detail from the sarcophagus shows three figures in some kind of procession, 2 women and 1 man. The woman at left wears a tunic with some kind of pelt as a skirt, and the other 2 figures wear tunics without anything over them, showing that they are one continuous, ankle-length garment.

Some of the most important resources for interpreting how the heanos was constructed comes from the two women depicted in the House of the Ladies in Akrotiri, wherein the side seams of the tunic are clearly visible running along the side of the body and under the arm.

details of figures from the House of the Ladies, Akrotiri, via Wikimedia Commons

advadbsvasb

Diagrams from Bernice Jones' book Ariadne's Threads, p. 82, via Gorgeous Tangents

The heanos itself is made of 3 pieces of fabric: 1 back and 2 fronts. These diagrams show a concave hem like on the labrys-shaped kilt but I went with a straight hem, which is an equally valid option. The end of the sleeves are level with the edge of the hem at the widest point. This would probably be the width selvage-to-selvage on the fabric, being narrower than fabric widths commonly are today. There are 4 seams: the shoulder seam, the two side seams, and a front seam (optional, but recommended if you would prefer not being arrested.) It may be tempting to fold the fabric across the shoulder, so the only sewing is side seams and a neck hole, but this makes a weaker garment overall. I used this as a shortcut in my fitting muslin and it caused tears and weak points at the three points of the front opening.

my fabric was a lightweight, moderately loose-woven cotton with a supplementary weave pattern in squares and diamonds. Linen or wool would have been more accurate but also? much harder to find from online quilting stores selling fabric for affordable prices. The main fabric is dark orange and the pattern is made out of pink/lilac threads. This weaving technique resulted in a LOT of long floats (unsecured expenses of thread) on the back--you can see how the wrong side of the fabric is much pinker than the right side. These floats could snag easily if I wasn't careful, so while it made a very effective visual for this tunic, I do not think that this fabric type would be viable for everyday wear. I'll leave it to people who actually know about weaving to ponder what more accurate weaving techniques would be.

Construction

The overall pattern is basically a T-shaped tunic, and the most important measurements are shoulder circumference, shoulder width, bust circumference, and the shoulder-waist length. In addition, you need measurements for the bicep, waist, shoulder-navel length, and hip circumference. After working out the fit with a muslin, I ended up with this pattern, 1 of 4 identical quarters.

Your first impulse may be to make the tunic very close-fitting, since the depictions in frescoes are skin-tight, but since the pattern has no added gusset this is a recipe for Cannot Move Arm. So I gave a very generous curve under the arm, which also made the dress look better when my arms were down, avoiding armpit wrinkles. I continued that ease into about an extra 2 inches added on to my waist measurement and plenty of extra space around my hips so that I could do exciting things like Sit Down.

I sewed the shoulder and side seams using the machine, and felled the raw edges on each side of the seam by hand with a whipstitch. I foided back the front edges of the v-neck instead of cutting them, which was a tip I got from the Gorgeous Tangents blog. This strengthens the neckline and keeps it from stretching, and also means that everything can be readjusted if you have size fluctuations or just want to modify the tunic into something more or less modest.

I whipstitched the front edges together by hand--the contrasting selvage didn't matter because it would be covered up by trim. I ended up cutting the tunic a liiiittle shorter than I wanted, so I finished it with some leftover bias binding instead of hemming it to conserve as much length as possible.

Trim

I custom-ordered the woven tape trim from Long Creek Mercantile. Both are made of wool--the "header band" and the hem trim are 1 1/4" wide and the center-front and cuff trim are 3/8" wide. I observed that most images of the Minoan heanos show trim with two colors at most, in a simple geometric or linear pattern, so I consciously restrained myself from ordering anything more elaborate. The clothing on Minoan frescoes is characterized by strongly contrasting colors, so blue trim was the most obvious, and best-looking option. Orange tunics with blue trim appear multiple time in art like the "Dancing Lady" fresco from Knossos:

Dr. Jones suggests that the band across the shoulder would historically have been a header band--a band of threads woven at the beginning of a project in order to properly space the warp bands (see her diagram at the beginning). That may be a reason why the shoulder trim often depicted under the front or sleeve trim, as shown above. Regardless, the trim almost always coordinates.

I sewed on the shoulder trim by hand, the sleeve and hem trim by machine, and the center-front trim with a combination of both.

Tassels

Many frescoes from Akrotiri and Hagia Triada show the ends of the supposed header band turned into tassels. This embellishment is not universal among heanoi, as you can see from the "Dancing Lady" above, but it does add a fun little something!

(yes, my Lounging Pants are very fashionable)

I turned the excess ends of the shoulder "header band" trim into fringes, knotting the yellow ones into a lattice and turning the blue yarns into tassels. The lattice-tassel appears on a fresco from Hagia Triada:

Reproduction of fragmentary fresco from Room 14 at Hagia Triada, Crete

The saffron gatherers from Akrotiri shown below have clearly displayed fringes at the ends of their sleeves. The one on the left has red fringes that appear knotted or ravelled/unravelled in an undulating pattern, and the one on the right has fringes that may be either beaded with papyrus-shaped leaves or cut into short tassels.

Another option is leaving the fringes loose, as seen in the Akrotiri frescoes from Xeste, room 3:

The final garment was super comfy, actually! It's much simpler to create than I thought it would be based on the frescoes, which made it all feel pretty magical when everything came together. I did think it was a little unusual how tailored this garment is, and the potential waste of fabric that comes from a shaped garment, especially compared to how later ancient greek clothing was mainly rectangles. I don't know enough about bronze-age and earlier clothing to have any idea how typical this was, since I'm extremely Not an expert on this subject, but am always open to learning more!

#historical costuming #minoan #minoan crete #reference #clothing reconstruction #bronze age #resources

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olomaya · 9 months

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Smoking+ (Mild Teenage Delinquency)

*cue the Spongebob 2 Years Later meme*

28-Sept Update: Added Brazilian Portuguese translations (thank you @cs2te!). Fixed an issue where there was no exit to the Sell Fake ID interaction. For those that have the Religion mod, you don't need a separate RM specific version, just download/redownload the main Overhaul package.

3-Sep Update: Thanks to ProtectusCZ over at MTS who let me know about a string issue with the vape flavors. That's been fixed so the flavors should not show up as blank when you are filling/refilling the cartridge. Also the smoking durations should now be tunable so you can adjust them in Retuner.

Czech version now available thanks to ProtectusCZ

2-Sep Update: If you have my religion mod installed, please download this version HERE (alt: here) to replace the main mod file. If you don't and don't want it, carry on.

This is the updated version of my overhaul of Cmomoney's Smoking mod which you can find here (original here). This update adds new features like vaping as well as more delinquency options for your teens by way of fake IDs.

Please read the full instructions after the cut before downloading.

Credits: Fake ID from @aroundthesims. And of course the OG smoking mod from Cmomoney on MTS.

I think that's it. Enjoy ruining your Sims' health and well-being. If you run into any issues, please let me know.

What does it do:

Everything my previous mod did

Sims can now sit and chat with others while smoking

I updated the way addiction works in the game. Previously it was just based on a random number of times smoked but now it's more nuanced and based on how often you smoke and certain trait and lifestyle factors (for example, if you have other smokers in your household, you're more likely to get a smoking habit)

Cigarettes and smoking items can now ONLY be purchased in a special section at the grocery store by YAs and above. You will see a new interaction in the store RH called "Shop for Cigarettes". Teens can get around this by using a fake ID.

Fake IDs

Teens can purchase fake IDs from:

Any common criminal (Sim in the criminal career Level 4 or below)

Any teen that has a fake ID

You can offer a price and based on your offer, the dealer will either accept or reject.

Rebellious, Computer Whiz or teens with high Rebel Influence Skill can also buy fake IDs online. The underground online market for IDs moves very quickly so prices change every time you check but will never go higher than §500 or lower than §50. Once you purchase, the ID will be mailed to your home the next day.

HOWEVER, you need to make sure you get to the package first. If your parent gets the package and opens it, then all teens in the house will get in trouble. The one who ordered the fake will get a special moodlet that will allow them 24 hours to confess to doing it. If they confess to their sibling(s), the sibling will either forgive and agree to keep quiet or they will get mad and have the opportunity to snitch to a parent. If the wrongdoer confesses to a parent, it will exonerate the other teens but also potentially get them into bigger trouble with both their parents and their siblings.

Fake IDs aren’t foolproof. If you use it in the store, there’s a chance you will get busted and your fake ID will be confiscated. The chance is based on how young your teen is and the quality of the fake ID. Fake ID quality is determined when you purchase, based on the price you paid so you may want to think twice before jumping on that §60 fake.

Vaping

Sims can now vape, vaping pens can be found where you buy cigarettes.

Vaping pens cost §300 with a cartridge that needs to be filled before you can use and then after every 10 uses. You can buy a regular cartridge or a flavored one and the costs are varied but are all between §200-§300. (I know, it's an expensive habit.)

Vaping is not as unhealthy as smoking regular cigarettes, is less addictive and doesn't leave your Sim with a smoke smell.

For teens, vaping will still get them in trouble if they are caught by a parent doing it.

Known Issues:

There are no IK targets on the sitting animations (they kept floating above the chairs when I added them) so teens will sink a little into the chair because they're smaller than adults.

Download here | SFS alternative

#s3cc #s3cc download #download #sims 3 cc #smokingmod

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crushedsweets · 11 days

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I'm the sweetest girl in town; so why are you so mean? Nina 'the Killer' Hopkins in Creeped PT 3: NEW MESSAGE

PT. 1: K-12 — PT. 2: PURPOSE — PT. 4: MISSED CALL (TO BE UPLOADED)

General disclaimer: This AU is an amalgamation of headcanons, fanon, canon, and the occasional rewrite. There is an overarching story that HEAVILY strays from their canon stories. TW for toxic relationships, murder, and violence. Please take care of yourself and only engage in content you can handle.

NEW MESSAGE

❥Nina’s nails anxiously tapped against the front desk of a shoddy motel. It was one of the first she stayed at when she moved to Tuscaloosa, so when ‘Mark’ asked to meet her somewhere discreet, she immediately thought back to her miserable nights here.

❥She paid for the night and awkwardly made her way to the room, long acrylics fidgeting with the key. She felt eyes burning into her. The receptionist glaring at her down the hall, the truckers peering through the blinds, roomkeepers casting judgmental glances. She kept texting Mark, asking when he’d show up.

❥By time Nina entered the room, he stopped replying entirely. She deadbolted the door and sat on the dusty mattress, quietly running her hands along her thighs to self-soothe. She kicked off her baggy sweatpants, revealing a mini skirt and torn tights. Nina just wanted Mark to reply. She didn’t want to get stood up. She wanted to see him so badly. She dressed up for him in uncomfortable clothes, did her makeup especially pretty, washed her hair and shaved her legs.

❥An hour went by with nothing. She would pace around the room and send him a text every few minutes. Peek through the blinds, scanning over the dark parking lot. Rain poured hard onto the asphalt and the street lamps flickered. A few busted up cars were littered about the lot. She’d text him a photo of it, making a comment about how pretty it looked. Then, Nina would return to the bathroom. Reapply her lipstick, fix her mascara, re-do her ponytail. Then text him again. Then flip through channels. Then text him again. She eventually laid down on the bed, staring blankly at their messages. Her hopes were dissipating, until-

❥New Message! ❥”im outside, open the door. its cold”

❥Nina was quick. She shot right up out of bed, her head snapping towards the door and its peeling paint. She smoothed her hair back down, fixed her skirt, cleared her voice, and stood at the peephole. Standing on her toes, she could see a man through it. Maybe 5’6, in a white, rain-soaked hoodie. He had shaggy black hair and a black face mask. His eyes were piercing.

❥”Mark?” Nina’s voice cracked through the door, more high-pitched than she intended. ❥”Open the door, Nina.” He rasped. Nina’s heart skipped out of her chest. She fumbled with the deadbolt, earning a sigh from the other side of the door. Finally, she cracked it open. He simply pushed it, nudging her to the side and slamming it behind them. Nina’s pulse shot through the roof, eyes darting over his entire figure.

❥But he just let out a groan, pulling his hood down and walking to a chair. He plopped down, getting comfortable and leaning into it. His head tilted back against the chair, visibly exhausted. She watched his Adam's apple bob for a moment. Everything was silent. Just his slow breaths and her tapping against her phone.

❥He sliced through the tension with ease. “How long did I have you waiting?”

❥Nina laughed first, waving her hands and settling back onto the bed. She insisted it wasn’t long, she was just so excited. He nodded, finally craning his head back to look her in the eye. She couldn’t really handle it. He asked her a few more questions, mostly about the motel. How much it cost, how often she came here. He seemed to be accusing her of frequenting motels to meet guys online.

❥It proved too much for Nina. She began to stand, anxiously dismissing herself to the bathroom. She thought she was going to throw up. His head rolled to the side as she hurried to the bathroom, watching her curiously.

❥She stood at the sink for a moment, chest heaving. She wiped at her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. Why was she so nervous? She was so comfortable with him online. She told him so much, and she thought he listened intently. Maybe it was the face mask? Could she ask him to take it off? Maybe he had a cold. Would that be rude? He could just be awkward. Not everyone is the exact same over text and in person. Or she caught him on a bad day. It was late and he seemed like he walked in the rain. She needs to calm down, give him a chance. He wasn't doing anything wrong. This was Mark, her friend.

❥There was a firm knock at the door.

❥”Why’re you hiding in there, Nina?” She didn’t even know how to respond. She didn’t lock the door, which they both noticed at the same time. He pushed it open, and Nina simply stepped back. She wasn’t thinking, just letting him put her where he wanted.

❥He wasn’t wearing the mask anymore. He was pretty pale, skin resembling an old classmate she knew with vitiligo. He had a few piercings, including eyebrows, a triple bridge, and snake bites. But these details were miniscule in comparison to the torn flesh of his cheeks. Violent, jagged scars from the corner of his lips to his ears. Mark really was a Jeff fanboy, huh?

❥Nina choked on a gasp at first, but the gasp turned to a cry when he violently shoved her back, forcing her into the tub and climbing in after her. His knee pressed into her gut and his forearm pinned her wrists above her head, uncomfortably grinding her bones into the tile walls. She was about to scream, but his palm fit harshly against her mouth. Nina’s legs were hooked over the edge of the tub, due to him shoving her in the short way.

❥He began whispering to her. It started with mindless rambles that were difficult to comprehend. Nina began to cry, muffled against his calloused hand. He leaned down, licking her tears and spitting to the left, now grumbling about her makeup. He kept it up for a bit, until he made a remark about her appearance. Something about a pretty girl like her liking a guy like him, how odd that was. Her struggling weakened by this point, eyes going wide as his head tilted into her shoulder.

❥He kept going on and on. Bringing up how much Nina liked him, how obsessed she was. Bringing up posts she made in the past or mentioning his favorite photos of her. How he killed people just like she described. He'd ask her for ideas, and he'd share them all with her. It wasn't hypothetical, it wasn't a fantasy, it wasn't a story.

❥It was funny, actually. Despite her fixation, Nina didn’t even realize who he was. She thought this was Mark, a random Jeff fanboy ready to make Nina his first copycat victim. But the more he spoke and the more she frantically studied his face, everything set in.

❥This was her idol.

❥Seated on top of her, touching her, speaking to her, going on and on about how pretty she is. He stalked her page for hours on end, too, reciting all the posts that she’d made on him. To anyone else, they’d have understood it was from his own ego. To Nina, it was for her. Just like she dedicated the last three years to Jeff, he had dedicated one to her. He had been texting her. He asks her for photos. He tells her how creative and beautiful she is. He sends her images of Jeff’s crime scenes before she could even find them online. His crime scenes.

❥He didn’t make sense half the time. He’d bring in random names and information totally irrelevant to her, or so she thought. He kept talking about a girl named ‘Clocky’ and how annoyed he was that ‘Clocky’ was hiding Nina from him. Something about her being a shitty wingman.

❥He eventually relaxed on top of her, removing the forearm that pinned her wrists to the bathtub wall. Instead of his knee pressed into her stomach, he placed them on each side of her. Her legs remained hooked over the tub, but she had long stopped kicking. She was sniffling a little, letting her sore arms drop to her sides. He made her agree not to scream if he let go of her face. She nodded desperately.

❥He removed his hand carefully, eyes scanning over her expression, watching her throat to see if she’s about to scream.

❥”I love you,” was an insane thing to say. He stared at her for a moment, before throwing his head back and barking out laughter. His rough hands grabbed at her face, nodding along as he confirmed that he was well aware. Just like he spent the last few minutes going on his mindless rambles, she did the same. Whispering about what he meant to her, how strong he was, how much she wanted to be like him. How she’d do anything to fuck that bitch Claudia up the way he mutilated Randy. She shared what she did that one day, but began crying when he laughed. He joked about how weak she was, but she agreed with him.

❥She clung to his hoodie. They sat like that for a while, having an uncomfortable, bizarre conversation in the bathtub. It largely centered Nina’s webpages, blogs, and forums. How it fed his ego. He kept making backhanded comments about her, but she warped them all into compliments. Eventually, he stood, yanking her out and making her wash her face. He liked her, unfortunately.

PUPPY LOVE

❥Nina was truly living out a long-time fantasy. Her and Jeff began to frequently see each other. Much to Natalie’s horror, Nina pulled her aside at work one day and shared this news. Brought up the ‘Clocky’ comments, and Natalie dragged Nina outside by the dumpsters and quietly scolded her. She tried to warn Nina, saying that regardless of her own friendship with Jeff, Nina was making a stupid choice. And it scared Natalie, too. Nina didn’t seem too stable. What if she started to run her mouth? Get Jeff in trouble, dragging cops along to her farmhouse?

❥Well, Clocky got an apartment that year. She kept in touch with everyone all the same, but she switched into a new career and housing situation. Leaving Jeff and Nina alone.

❥It started with Jeff tugging Nina along, bringing her to the forest and laying her down on his dirty mattress. They’d fool around, talk, he’d go through her blog right in front of her and laugh at her. Even if it made her nervous, she did a good job at convincing herself they were laughing together. They were bonding.

❥Eventually, he began tagging along to her apartment. It was a cute, comfortable little place. It had heating and cooling, a stocked fridge, washer and dryer, a fucking kitchen for once. A TV, too. He began staying night after night. Nina always made him dinner, always washed his clothes, always let him relax. He’d bring her to lay down with him and she’d melt into his touch.

❥It seemed soft, at first. Jeff began introducing her to the messier parts of his life. She met BEN, she met Toby, she met Jack. They all scared her a little, but when Jeff threw his arm around Nina and made a comment about ‘his girl,’ she was over the moon. The group liked her a decent bit, and she clicked quite well with Toby. It helped that Toby was close friends with Natalie, a beautiful coincidence that made the three a solid trio.

❥Nina wanted to integrate fully into Jeff’s life. She kept up her obsessive research on his friends, or whatever she could find. Apparently, BEN did a great job at wiping information online, which explained why Nina had such a hard time finding information on such an infamous killer. However, BEN didn’t wipe anything with Liu. Liu wasn’t an ally or friend to any of them. But he was Jeff’s brother, and Nina learned some fantastic news about him. He had moved to Alabama recently. Nina wanted to grow close with him, too.

LAKE WATER

❥Outside of Nina’s blossoming friendships with Jeff’s crowd, the two began to get into some trouble together. Jeff would have Nina help steal alcohol, as they were only 19 and 20. He’d send her to talk to plugs for him, saying that Nina gets weed cheaper on account of her pretty face.

❥One day, they were doing exactly that. They were hanging around a relatively empty parking lot in a dead shopping center, waiting for some guy to show up and sell Nina some weed. Jeff was in the distance, observing as the man pulled up to Nina leaning against one of the lot’s lamps. The guy parked, got out of the car, and chatted Nina up for a while. Jeff watched as the man pushed Nina’s hair back, leaning too close and saying God knows what.

❥Jeff stalked up to the situation, pretending he was on his way to a nearby car. The guy didn’t even look his way, not until Jeff suddenly slipped into the picture. It was sudden and sloppy, but Jeff never needed to practice his violence. He pushed Nina out of the way and began to crash the guys’ head into the metal pole, repeating it until Nina was frantically crying and begging him to stop. The guy crumpled to the floor afterwards, blood pooling beneath him. The sight was too familiar for Nina. Images of 16 year old Claudia beneath her flashed before her eyes.

❥Suddenly, Jeff started rummaging through the man’s pockets. Yanking out his wallet, phone, some weed, a lighter, and his keys. He told Nina to get in the car.

❥Nina protested, but Jeff shouted it this time. So like the sweet girl Nina is, she listened. Jeff dragged the man into the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat.

❥Jeff was reckless in every way. He was impulsive, brash, and unpredictable. In this random dude’s car, he began barrelling down the streets. It was night time in their fairly small town, leaving the roads quite empty. He had all the windows rolled down, laughing as their hair whipped around them. Jeff’s adrenaline was pumping violently, while Nina was crying and begging him to slow down. He was going 110mph down a random highway, doubling the speed limit.

❥Nothing Nina said could stop him. He was at an all time high once again, a victim in the trunk of a stolen car and pretty Nina beside him, wailing and afraid.

❥Nina didn’t know what to think when she saw him driving towards the biggest lake in the county. There was a poorly made pier leading far into the lake, but Nina swore Jeff was going to slow down. Please slow down. She panicked more when he reached over with one hand, unbuckling her seatbelt. What the fuck was he doing?

❥It surprised them both when the car actually flew into the water. Nina’s screams were cut off as she inhaled that dirty lake. Water immediately flooded the vehicle and moonlight reflected through the murky water. She desperately fought her way through the open window, swimming to the surface. She choked up the water and sucked in as much air as her lungs would allow. Fuck, she was so scared. She sobbed, trying to regain enough composure to keep her afloat, weak kicking and splashing. She barely made out the shoreline, desperately swimming her way there with chunky platforms and soaked clothes. Jeff got to the shore first, but returned to the water to help drag Nina out of it.

❥Before she could cry at how cruel that was, he lifted her up and crashed his lips into hers. His arms moved tightly around her waist, lifting her feet above water and laughing loudly as he spun her around. The muddy water splashed all over as he cackled, still pulling her further away from the lake in his arms.

❥”I fuckin’ love you, Nina!” He barked, still on a high as he dropped them both to the ground, smothering her in his excitement. That was the first time he said that to her.

PT. 4: MISSED CALL (TO BE UPLOADED)

#creeped #sweetart #nina the killer #jeff the killer #nina hopkins #creepypasta #creepypasta au #crp au #crp fandom #creepypasta fandom

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cheynovak · 5 months

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Light in the darkness part 1

Reader x Billy Butcher

Warnings: Age difference (not explicit told), cursing, abuse, smut, 16+, ... It's Billy Butcher what not to warn about..

Side note: English isn’t my first language.

Words: 3894

Part 2 now online

Y/N is the owner of a blues bar in New York, she is used to all kinds of customers even the ones with a secret you don’t want to know. One day the boys and Billy Butcher walk in. The connection between Billy and Y/N is undeniable, but the recent divorce from her aggressive and dominant husband for Y/N and Becca’s dead still lingering in Billy’s mind makes it hard for them to admit their feelings.

Cursives are from Buchter’s point of view.

-----------------------

It was a quiet night at the bar, Y/N was thinking of closing for the night when 4 men walked in looking in a rough shape. The tall one looked around before noticing you leaning on the bar “Gentlemen, why don’t you try and find yourself a table.” You joked welcoming them.

The 4 fellas took the table behind the counter, close for you but out of side for anyone who might walk in.

“What can I get you?” Y/N asked while looking at them one by one. They stayed quiet for a second. She looked at the tall skinny guy, who looked just old enough to be in her bar, considering to ask his ID, she noticed his lip was busted. While the other man who had dark hair and a beard looked Y/N up and down. “Scotch.” He said raising his bleeding eyebrow. “All four?” They nodded. When Y/N came back she brought the drinks and an extra glass with ice and tissues. “It looks like you all could use it.” She said looking at the one who seemed to do all the talking. “Thanks darlin” he answered with a thick accent, looking in your eyes. Y/N quickly looked him up and down before meeting his eyes again, ‘If there is anything else I can get you, give me a sign.” When he kept staring at her, the corner of her lip curled into a soft smile before she turned around.

The boys decided to go for a victory drink at pub they saw passing on their way home. When Billy walked in, he noticed the place was empty part from the young woman who was leaning over the bar looking at her phone, she welcomed them. Before she walked over to their table, she turned down the music slightly. Billy couldn’t help but staring at the bartender, the softness of her eyes told him she was young, innocent, but something made him see the pain and struggle she had been through. He looked her up and down, she was just wearing a black jeans and a low V cut band t-shirt tugged in her pants, he liked that it was showing of her curves. Before she walked back at her bar she smiled slightly, giving him a warm feeling.

Y/N could hear the men talking but didn’t listen to a word they were saying, that was one thing she learned as a bar owner, unless they talk to you, none of their conversations are your business. Specially not in a rougher neighbourhood here in New York. But of course, every now and then you pick up some details of a story, as long as they paid the bill, you smiled and pretend not to know a thing.

You hear the door opening, Steve your ex-husband walked in, seemingly drunk. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t answer you but took a seat at the bar. You could see his bloodshot eyes looking at you, roaming his eyes over your cleavage. “Showing them off now, are we?”. Y/N tried to stay calm but feeling the goosebumps on her back, “Steve, what are you doing here?” - “What, I can’t pick up my wife from work?” “I’m not your wife anymore.” Y/N said looking over at the table, the 4 men were looking now at the two of you. “If you had shown up at court today you would have known that.” Y/N said still peacefully while moving on with drying a glass.

Steve got up ripped the glass from your hands and threw it behind you at the wall. Y/N froze not knowing how to react to this even though she was used to his aggression by now. “Oi, is there a problem here?” The guy said walking slowly to Steve. “Mind your own business.” Steve said. “It is my business isn’t it, me and my lads are trying to enjoy a nice evening and you, cunt, are ruining it. I suggest you get your shit together leave this lady alone, now get the fuck out here before I bust ya teeth ey.” Steve looked at the man and looked at the guys behind him who now all stood up from their chairs. He nodded slightly, looked one more time at Y/N “We’re not done yet.” He said pointing a finger at her before leaving through the door.

Billy noticed the girl was still clenched up when the man left. “You ok luv?” He asked while she moved her hand over her face. “Yeah, yes thank you. But I would like to close up for tonight, if you guys don’t mind?” He saw her eyes tear up, trying to fight it. “How much do I own you?” He asked grabbing for his wallet. “Nothing” Bily looked at her. “It’s on the house, for helping me.” she clarified. “Do you live close?” The youngest guy asked nervous. “I mean, I don’t like for you to walk around alone. You never know... You know.” - “My car is parked a few blocks away.”

“Right, MM you bring the boys home.” Y/N hears him saying while he tossed his keys to the quiet man. “I’ll walk you to your car.” He looked at you. Y/N knew this was probably as dangerous as walking alone but somehow, she felt save around him. So, Y/N nodded. “I still need to close up, I’ll be ready in 5.” He grabbed his coat “I’ll wait outside.”

Y/N turned off the music and lights, took a deep breath before walking through the door. The man did indeed wait for you, leaning against the wall.

The yellow light from the lamppost gave an extra touch to his rough shape, she had no idea if it was the adrenaline from earlier or his intriguing eyes that kept staring in hers that made her gasp for air, but somehow, he took her breath away. “Before we go.” She took a step close. “What is your name?”

“Billy, Billy Butcher.” “Nice to meet you, Billy.” She shakes his hand like nothing happened earlier. “Y/N, Y/L/N. At least now I won’t walk around with a complete stranger.” She joked. He let out a chuckle. They walked a few minutes in silence. “Do I look that scary to you luv?” He asked without looking at her. “I’m still trying to figure out if you are a serial killer or a 90s porn star.” He stopped walking, turning to her, for a second Y/N regretted the choice of words. “Well, you’re bloody honest aren’t you.” He burst into laughter. “What makes you think I'm a killer?” Y/N answered by pointing at his wounds. “Ok, I get that, porn star?” She chuckled before answering. “The shirt.” Few words had been said, but the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“Well, this is my car.” She said leaning against the driver's door. “Great, well, Y/N have a great night.” - “You need a ride home?” Y/N asked when he turned his back to walk away. “Won’t say no to that.” He smirked. Part from billy’s directions to his apartment they didn’t say much. She parked in front of it but before he jumped out the car, he looked once more at her giving her a half smile as token of gratitude. “Hey Billy?” She looked at him through the window as he leans into it. “Thanks again, for Steve and... You know not killing me.” “You’re welcome sweetheart. I hope to see you around sometime ey.” “You know where to find me.”

Y/N dropped her purse on the kitchen table, she walked lifeless to her bathroom, while she removed her pants and bra, removed her make up, ready to go to bed. She was tired but couldn’t stop thinking about tonight. Even though her world had been upside down for the last couple of months with the divorce she felt a strange but nice feeling with Billy. There was this constant feeling of wanting to be close to him, she liked that he checked her out without shame, looking at every curve, every inch. A lot of customers did, but with him she felt safe. Probably just the fact that he stood up for her right? She felt threatened and he helped, that would be the reason. She tried to convince herself.

A few days gone by Y/N hasn’t seen Steve in a while, but Billy dropped by almost every night. Sitting at her bar, talking about Steve and his wife. He didn’t say much but she could see the hurt in his eyes, that he really loved her and that he became a totally different man after her death.

But tonight, when she wanted to open her bar someone had broken in and smashed the entire place to pieces.

By the time Y/N wanted to let the police out the door Billy walked in. “What happened here?” He asked her while looking at the cops. “Steve trashed the place.” Y/N answered. “Well, we don’t know who did it yet.” The police reacted to her allegations. “Who else would have done this!?” She yelled “That Steve is an asshole, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. He smashed a few glasses when drunk, a few days back. Threatened her.” Butcher tried to defend Y/N’s reaction, but the cops walked out without much to go on by. Butcher looked around, the entire bar was broken down, furniture burned, glass mashed, even graffiti on the walls.

“Are you ok luv?” He asked her, holding his hand on her upper back, between her shoulders, without hesitation she let her head fall on his shoulder holding on to his jacket, crying. “I can’t believe this, every last penny I put into this place.” She said softly, her voice sounded muffed in his clothing.

Billy felt her head fall on to his shoulder, his immediate reaction was to hold her closer, caressing her back. He felt like kissing her head but managed to hold back just in time. “It’s ok, we will figure something out.” He said instead. That seemed to shock Y/N out of her bubble. “Oh god, I’m so sorry Billy.” She took a few steps back, drying her tears. “I didn’t mean to... You don’t have to help me. You already did so much.” The second she moved her head away he could feel the warmth of her body against his leave. “I’m not gonna leave you hanging.” He answered walking over to her pulling her back in his arms for a hug.

Over the course of the last few days Billy spend time with Y/N trying to help her with the new interieur choices, he absolute hated it, interieur was always Becca’s thing, but he would do anything to be close to Y/N. He felt like a completely different man around her, more at peace. He forgot about supes, he drank less, he even smiled at her silly jokes. Her optimism was like a light in his darkness.

Billy agreed to go shopping together trying to find new furniture and paint. Y/N was surprised he agreed to it, he didn’t seem like the shopping type. But being around him made her feel good. He wasn’t the chattiest, happy, open person, but he was honest, or at least that was the vibe she got from him. Billy offered to take the shopping cart while Y/N picket out a few decorations before walking over to the paint aisle. "What do you think?” Y/N asked as she was holding two different lights up. “Left one” he said noticing an older couple smiling and looking over.

Y/N placed the right on in de cart. Butcher gave Y/N a grumpy look. “I thought you wanted my opinion.” - “Yeah, I do, because I know that your choices aren’t always the most... fashionable.” She said standing next to him, pulling slightly at the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt while she smiled her well practised cute smile, standing very close to him, she could see the amusement in his eyes. Before walking on to the next aisle.

“Get used to it, women, they do that to us.” The old man said to Billy. “I’m sorry?” he responded. “We’ve been married 35 years, I never got to pick any furniture. She made the decision for me... But she made that house, our home. I’m sure your girl will do the same.” He laughs, his old lady picked up on the conversation. “You two seem like a cute couple, I can see you have at least good taste in women.” She smiles. Billy wanted to correct them saying they were just friends. But something kept him. He smiled and walked his was towards Y/N. “Where were you?” She asked happy. “Well, I think I have everything I need.” - “Great, about fucking time.” She smacked his arm. “You loved it.”

“You need a hand with painting?” Billy asked when he dropped everything off at the bar, helping her spreading out the plastic on the floor and over the remains of the furniture. “Well, I wanted to start now, but I don’t want to waste anymore of your time.” - “Bullshit.” He dropped his jacket behind the bar, pouring himself a drink. “It will be an all nighter then?” he grinned lifting his brows. Y/N walked towards to bar taking his glass. “Well, I can think of worse ways to spend the night with way worse company.” She winked taking a sip walking around the bar.

Billy felt his face getting hot after that comment. But when she walked over to him behind the bar his heart started to beat so fast, he was scared she would be able to hear it. He stood still afraid his actions would show his emotions. Billy felt Y/N’s hand on his shoulder, he looked over to see her walk passed him towards the stereo. “I’m glad this old piece of junk still works.” She said with her back towards Billy, swaying a little at the song.

He couldn’t help himself, he placed his hands on her shoulders turning her around to face him, his eyes roaming her face. He closed his eyes, moving closer to her, but right before he wanted to kiss her, he couldn’t help but think of Becca. So, he stopped himself, touching her forehead with his and whispered, “Maybe we need to get started.”

Y/N felt his strong hands leave her skin, she almost wanted to whimper when he took a step back.

She could have sworn he wanted this as much as she did, she saw it in his eyes. He looked like a man possessed with her, the hunger in his eyes the way he licked his lips. All of that changed within a second, his eyes turned cold and so did his posture.

Each of them started to paint on another corner of the room. Y/N could feel the awkwardness throughout the room. She kept looking over at Billy, but he kept his eyes on the wall, his expression looking like a teenager who was punished.

“Billy, you don’t have to do this, if you... I don’t know, want to go home you can leave.” She said turning towards him, throwing her brush in the bucked. “You want me to leave?” He said not looking at her. “That’s not what I said, I ...” She sights “I just don’t what it to be awkward between us.” He stopped painting but still wasn’t looking at her, so she continued. “Listen, I like you being here, I know we only met a few weeks ago but... I’ve had a rough couple of months and being with you, even when things are shitty, being with you makes me happy.”

She took a few steps towards him. “And I know that you at least feel... something when you are with me.”

Her words made him look up at her. She was right, he liked being with her, she was the opposite of his live, the peace he needs, the light he missed in the dark.

“I can’t drag you into my mess.” He said laying down the brush.

“You won’t.” She answered.

“My job, my life it’s, so fucked up.”

“So, is mine.” she said soft.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.” he walked over to her, slowly.

“That won’t happen.”

“I’m horrible at sharing my feelings. I have secrets I can never tell you and I have trust issues.” he said standing in front of her, holding one hand on her neck.

“I don’t care.”

He thought for a second. “I can’t cook.”

She laughs soft laying he head in his hand. “Oh no, so horrible.”

He felt her hands on his chest, he looked at them before he looked back at her lips. Closing the space between them. Kissing her soft lips, tasting her was better than he had imagined.

His large hands cupped her neck and cheek while he lowered his lips. Y/N felt his lips touch hers, she would have thought he felt rougher, but they were surprisingly soft. She felt a spark starting at their joined lips traveling all over her body, her hands moved up to his shoulders, pulling him closer. Billy’s tongue touched her bottom lip, asking for permission which she gladly granted him. The kiss quickly heated, both of them starting to breath heavier, moving their hands over each other's body.

Billy walked Y/N backwards, but she tripped over the carpet that was covered in plastic and fell on to the floor, Billy couldn’t hold her in time and fell beside her on his knees with one hand beside Y/N’s head. “Oh my god... how romantic.” She couldn’t contain her laugh saying that.

Billy was still focussed on her. He moved a small piece of hair out of her face and kissed her again, hovering over her. She felt his hand moving lower over her side holding her, pulling himself closer. He quickly made sure their breaths were deep and full of lust again. She could feel the weight of his body on top of her. And when his lips moved to her neck, she couldn’t hold back the soft moan.

His hand moved under her shirt feeling his callused fingers over her stomach, between her breasts back to her neck, before she could lift herself so that he could take them off. That same hand moved to one of her breasts, holding it over her bra. While his mouth was kissing and licking her neck. She could feel his breathing in her ear. “I want you.” he whispered so soft Y/N feared she misunderstood him. “Say that again.” she asked while her nails found their way to his back.

Billy lifted himself enough to look in her eyes. “I want you.” He repeated. Y/N pulled him in for a kiss. “Then take me.... I want you too.” she said between kisses.

Those words seemed to be the only thing that held you two back, Y/N helped Billy out of his shirt and opened his belt, as he took the rest off of his body, he then ripped your pants and panties down your legs while you unbuckled your bra. Billy Hovering back over you, almost covering your naked body, you could feel his hands move in between your thighs to where you wanted to feel him the most. Y/n’s back arched when his fingers found her wet folds, spreading them, while moving his finger up and down to her clit. “Fuck sweetheart, so wet already ey.” he hummed in her ear. Y/N wanted to answer but his finger entering her made her gasp for breath clinging to his shoulders.

Y/N felt his beard scratching her softly while he moved his lips towards her breast, licking her hardened nipple. Her hand flew to the back of his head, moaning his name. “Tell me luv, how long has it been?”... “How long ago when someone made you feel good, worshipped that wet cunt of yours?” He added a second finger curling into that spot rubbing his palm against her clit. By the way his hand and lips moved she knew Billy wouldn’t want to make love to her, he wanted to fuck her. She felt that the lust he was building drove him wild and so did she. She could feel the fire in her stomach building. “Billy... don’t stop... Please.” She begged him. She could see the satisfaction in his smirk. “Do it, I want to feel you come on my finger before I fuck you so hard you won’t be able stand.” That was all she needed to hear.

Billy pushed her over the edge, but before she could take a breath, he already thrusted his cock in her without a warning. He felt her clench around him, he kissed her soft. “Relax luv.” He said looking at her face. “Just wait sec, ok? I’m not used to... your size.” She said out of breath, kissing him back. Those words made him twitch inside her. He pulled back slightly before thrusting in her. He heard her hiss soft. “I’ll go slow.” he said looking at her. She smiled “No you won’t.” biting his collar bone softly.

She heard Billy grown, holding her shoulders, his thrusts became rougher every time he pulled back and slammed back in until he found a rough and steady pace. Y/N’s moans turned into prayers singing his name, she noticed how he loved her nails scratching his back, pulling his hair while her teeth bit his neck and shoulder. The noises he made, made her even wetter. She wrapped her knees around his hips. “Oh Billy... harder. Don’t... hold back.” - “Say that again.” - “Harder... Fuck me harder.” Y/N could feel her second orgasm building. Her nails dug deep into his skin when the rush of her orgasm moved over her body. Billy pulled out short after, holding his cock while his head fell on her breast breathing hard. She could feel his warm seed dripping on her thigh and abdomen.

“Sorry for the mess.” He said kissing her shoulder before getting up to find a towel. “I just didn’t know if you wanted me to...” - “Oh no, good thinking.” she said.

They both got dressed. “So, what now?” she asked him while watching him closing the buttons of his shirt. “Here let me.” He looked at her, cupping her face again kissing her passionately. “All I know is that I want more of this, more of you. And I don’t mean just sex.”

“Take it slow?” she said laughing slightly.

“You know we won’t.” he grinned.

-------------

If you liked this, please check out my masterlist for other stories

#fanfic #smut #the boys #the boys amazon #the boys hughie #billy butcher #butcher x reader #billy butcher x reader #y/n #x y/n #x y/n smut #the boys smut #16+

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hiddenwritingsintheworld · 2 months

Text

Cruel Summer Ch. 5

Donations | Thoughts & Feelings | Cruel Summer Series | Chapter 4

(Thank you all so much for being patient as I worked through personal issues!! I'm trying to write and get new chapters out for you guys. I'm still dealing with personal issues but for now, I'll push through, thank you all so much for always sending kind supportive messages. Love you guys! Enjoy!

P.S. you can find clues about future chapters if you read through the tags ;) )

-Chapter 5-

You stared at him before giggling, “Funny Chris, you know….. about us…now that we’re…ya know…gonna be public and all that.” you smiled as he chuckled. “Baby…you know we could never be public…I can't ditch the perfect, good girl next door, to go out with an old co star…besides, we’d never work out publicly, we're better this way. Private, just you and me, locked away in a bedroom somewhere.” he leaned in to kiss you again, but you pulled back feeling bile rise in your throat. “You never planned on leaving her for me…did you?” you asked, staring at the bed. “Babygirl,” he walked around the bed to sit by you on your side of the bed.

He pulled your chin up kissing your lips before you pulled back, he only had a moment to see your eyes before you slapped him as hard as you could. “Get out. Get the fuck out!” you glared at him before you moved quickly off the other side of the bed. “Sweethear-” “FUCK YOU!” you screamed. “GET OUT!!” you grabbed his clothes throwing them at him, he ducked as his shoes flew at his head.

The door busted open, your security guards and Megan stood there. “Oh Y/N…” She said softly as Chris stood up after sliding his jeans on. “Y/N! Baby come on! Knock it off, let's talk about this!” he snapped back at you. You raced off into the bathroom, locking the door as the tears fell. You started the shower, a sob leaving your lips as you slid down to the floor crying.

A few weeks later

“And in other news mega worldwide Popstar Y/N, has deleted all posts from her social media. Sources say, She’s “Blacking out any and all communication on tour, and while she loves sharing her life with her fans, touring has taken a toll on her, she’ll return eventually, but for now. She’s got to focus on herself.” wow, so no more thank you posts to all her concert goers? That’s gonna feel like a slap to the face.” the news reporter stated as her co-star started in on you and your reputation. You sat by the window staring out over the city, thankful that no one could see you all the way up here. “Turn it off.” you grumbled out, “You know it's interesting, one former Avenger star announces his wedding date with pictures of his fiance’ the same time another former Avenger star blacks out her social media? I smell drama!” he chuckled as she gasped.

“I don’t need to hear how Lacey and Simon think I’m some big fuck up for not wanting to be on social media right now.” you said getting up and grabbing your phone. “I’m going down to the gym, maybe running will clear my head.” you said matter of factly before grabbing your headphones. “Maybe you shouldn’t go alone?” Megan asked as she stood up. Your phone had been blowing up from friends and family checking in on you, wondering why you’d gone radio silent.

You felt your phone go off as you exited your room and felt the corners of your mouth turn up for the first time in what felt like forever.

Hemsworthy: ‘This place is super boring without you here.’

Y/N: ‘Tell me about it. I wish you were here. Life fucking sucks right now.’

Hemsworthy: ‘Heard you went black out on socials….you doin okay?

Y/N: ‘Yep…got a lot going on & I don’t want to see anything online…just, want to focus back on friends and myself for a while…’

You sighed as you sent the message, heading into the gym where you began to walk on the treadmill. You thought back over all your time with Chris lately, before he left for South America. The movie nights eating ice cream, playing new songs for him, talking him through his depression when it came to the divorce. You felt tears in your eyes, how could you have been so fucking stupid.

Were you this desperate to fall in love and be with someone? You’d mistook your friendship with Chris, the things that friends did, as romantic interest and felt yourself developing feelings for him. He was just recently divorced…why would he even think about dating anyone; you needed serious help.

Hemsworthy: ‘You know if you keep running on the treadmill, you’re gonna burn holes in those tennis shoes missy. :P’

You glanced at the message before you did a double take; you didn’t remember telling him you were going to work out to clear your head. “If I have to stand back here any longer I’m gonna go insane.” his thick Australian accent startled you, causing you to whip around as you pulled your headphones off. “Oh my god!” you dashed over to him jumping into his arms as he laughed and hugged you tight. “I missed you popstar,” he mumbled in your ear as you buried your face into his hoodie, breathing in his scent. “I missed you too,” you whispered against his shoulder.

You jumped down smiling up at him, “Let’s go order some room service and catch up,” he chuckled and cleared his throat, “Uh…I wanted to see if you wanted to go to dinner tonight, with me?” he smiled softly. “Somewhere nice?” he asked as you grinned and nodded, “yeah! That sounds fun!” you said as you both walked to the Elevators. “I have this super cute outfit I’ve been wanting to wear anyways!” you grinned as he chuckled. “I’m sure you’re going to look as beautiful as you always do,” Chris smiled at you, his eyes twinkled softly as you talked about your upcoming show, which was a couple of nights away and Chris was thrilled he was going to attend it.

When he was touring with you, he would stay back at the hotel, usually cooking a meal for the two of you and picking out a couple of movies for you guys to watch and relax after your shows. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to your shows, it was just easier to avoid the press. After the divorce, anytime they had the opportunity to print something about him or his ex wife, they jumped on it.

Once you guys made it back up to the hotel suite, you got ready for the evening, excited to have a nice dinner with someone who didn’t give a shit how famous you were, or what was happening in your life. You looked in the mirror and smiled at the black sequinned dress, which looked like a night sky, with clouds and a half moon on it. You wore strappy black heels and a fur jacket; and paired it with a silver flashy purse with a diamond studded necklace.

Chris grinned as he saw you come from your bedroom, “Whoa…you look…..incredible,” he held his hand out spinning you around as you giggled softly, “Thank you. My friend Kayleigh had this made for me, and I hadn't found the right occasion to wear it yet, but thought tonight was perfect.” you smiled as he smiled tenderly at you. “Well it’s perfect, come, I’ve made reservations for us.” he chuckled as you giggled excitedly. “Yay! It’s going to be so nice just…going to dinner and relaxing,” you said as you both headed to the car.

Pulling up to your favorite restaurant you sighed softly, the paparazzi were covering the street and you looked at Chris. “I’m sorry…I know you want to avoid them, I can go first…maybe see if they have a back entrance you can come through?” you said as he reached over and grabbed your hand, smiling softly. “I think I can manage a few photos with a beautiful girl before we go to dinner.”

The way he smiled at you, something felt different, you were starting to convince yourself that it was all in your head, but a small part of you wanted him to be into you. You knew you were developing feelings for him. “Y/N! Over here! Over here!” several voices shouted at you as you climbed out of the SUV and made your way around to the sidewalk. You smiled, waved at them, clearly not showing annoyance that you held toward them sometimes and even asked a few of them how they were doing this evening.

You stopped and posed for a couple of photos, when the other door opened and Chris got out smiling and waving at them for a moment before he put his hand on the small of your back as he walked with you to the door. The camera clicks intensified as he placed his hand on your back and you could hear them shouting more questions as you walked in together.

Tag List:

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gender-trash · 11 months

Text

like the grand innovation of ros is that actually now 1) you don't have to rewrite your MESSAGING FRAMEWORK from scratch every time and you get a bunch of debug tools for free and 2) theres a bunch of prototype grade components you can probably plug together to get a demo if you know what you're doing

it's great but it's not like. whatever's going on in webservices world. and the webservices people and vcs who are used to it HATE this!!! i interned for a really crappy startup once whose entire concept was "hey, why is robotics not like webservices? clearly we need to reimplement ros but worse and dockerized lol what's hard realtime" and it so clearly had only survived as long as it had because it was The Baby of this VC guy who tried to sell me on javascript like it was an abusive boyfriend i should give ~another chance~, and right after i left they hired a new ceo and pivoted to having an actual product. theres ALLLL these guys coming from webservices land who want to pretend really hard that a malfunctioning robot is exactly as disposable as a malfunctioning docker container, and that gluing together preexisting robotics components (largely research-grade code developed on a completely different robot from whatever your product is) is exactly as easy as gluing together APIs, and it ends so badly for them every time. it's adorable.

relatedly my dad has this theory, which i think has a lot of predictive power, about how a company Makes It Big doing one thing (SAAS, or online ads, or B2B software, or like. making computer chips) and then that product cycle cadence/approach is baked into the company culture so hard that they completely flub it when they try to make something that necessitates a different approach. intel fucking sucks at making software because they inevitably drop support after 18 months because when you make a chip you design it and you send it to the fab and then it's out of your hands and there's no real way to "fix bugs" (you just maintain an errata sheet and add more tests so you can catch the bugs in the next chip you design). webservices companies who do continuous deployment or bust are often really really bad at coping with the sales and maintenance cycles of Big Businesses that a lot of b2b software is for. and software people in full generality have a ridiculously hard time with the concept that you can't exactly continuously deploy improved suspension for your robot chassis, because you have to actually crack the robot open on a workbench and swap it out.

in microservices world one of the baked-in cultural attitudes is "cattle not pets" -- your herd of docker containers is like a herd of cattle; when one of them malfunctions you take it out back and shoot it and spin up a new one, you don't waste energy on failure recovery. when you bring this approach to robotics land it inevitably fails! you have spent 4 or 5 figures minimum on a robot, that thing's a fucking pet! and also, when it malfunctions, it's flailing around potentially doing damage out here in the real world, which is... generally considered to be bad. there have to be layers and layers and layers of safety systems and fallbacks and failure recovery logic and everything needs to be designed to fail into a state that won't maim anyone, or it inevitably will fail, and maim someone. even just "if something goes wrong stop moving immediately" has some complexity to it.

webservices people are also big on "eventual consistency" and almost nothing in robotics is physically safe to do on an eventual consistency basis or else your robot will eventually (but consistently!) destroy itself and/or anything around it. the closer you get to low level control the more important it is to have hard timing guarantees and that's generally sort of antithetical to the philosophy that hardware should be as abstracted away as possible

#vc guy cornered me in an otherwise empty room with no windows for this speech too it was . bad #the trashcan speaks #robotics

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

Text

Porn on Tumblr is a complicated subject

In 2018, Tumblr announced a ban on “adult content.” That call was made by Verizon, Tumblr’s erstwhile owner, and to call the resulting mess “a shitshow” is an insult to good, hardworking shitshows all over the world.

Verizon enforced this policy with an automated filter, which was charged with analyzing images and categorizing them as “sexual” or “nonsexual.” This is risible enough, like asking a computer to sort videos into “virtuous” or “sinful” but that was just for starters.

Verizon’s ban included a ban on “female-presenting nipples” — a canonically hard-to-define category — but included exceptions for non-sexual nipple images. Hard to imagine that any serious, disinterested computer scientist promising that an algorithm could cleave “female-presenting nipples” from “male-presenting” ones, let alone decide which ones were “sexual” or not.

The filters were…not good. Verizon posted a selection of images that were explicitly permitted under its policies. That post was blocked by Tumblr’s filter.

https://gizmodo.com/tumblrs-porn-filter-flags-its-own-examples-of-permitted-1831151178

It wasn’t just that Tumblr’s AI couldn’t turn its unblinking eye upon the nipples casting their shadows upon the wall of Plato’s Cave and divine their true nature. Tumblr’s AI thought everything was a nipple — or some other potentially “adult” body-part.

[Image ID: A series of nested Tumblr posts marveling at the foolishness of Tumblr’s filter.]

I posted an image of a hand producing a fingerprint. Tumblr’s filter blocked it. I posted a followup about Tumblr’s idiotic filter. Tumblr’s filter blocked that. I did it again. The filter did, too.

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/11/recursive-neural-nets.html

Verizon was not good at running Tumblr, which isn’t a surprise, because Verizon’s core competencies are lobbying and union-busting. Eventually the company wrote down its online media assets, taking a $4.6B loss:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-11/verizon-writes-down-4-6-billion-of-value-of-aol-yahoo-business

Tumblrites didn’t know what to make of the writedown. There was a lot of trepedation, sure, because even after years of mismanagement by Yahoo and then Verizon, Tumblr was still a community that mattered to its members.

What’s more, with the writedown, there was the possibility that someone else — someone less Verizony — would buy the company. That happened! Automattic, creators of Wordpress, announced that they would buy Tumblr. Tumblr’s filter blocked the announcement:

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/187053987273/yeah-that-news-is-looking-mighty-adult-there

When Automattic took over Tumblr, there was a lot of hope that the adult content ban would be reversed. Tumblr’s adult communities had been hugely important in creating and promulgating a sex-positive, queer-positive, sex-worker-respecting platform, utterly unlike anything else online.

The impact of contributing to and participating in these adult communities can’t be overstated. In Tumblr Porn, Ana Valens offers a memoir of how profoundly Tumblr’s sex-positive spaces (“vanguard of a user-generated sexual revolution”) affected her life:

https://www.instarbooks.com/books/tumblr-porn.html

Verizon’s sex ban didn’t just shut those communities down — it consigned them to the memory-hole, blocking the archivists who scrambled to preserve them:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3bekm/archivists-say-tumblr-ip-banned-them-for-trying-to-preserve-adult-content

But despite the importance of sex to Tumblr’s success and the manifest idiocy of Verizon’s ban, Automattic did not bring back the adult content, and made it clear they had no immediate plans to change that position.

Now, five years later, Tumblr has made its first tentative moves to open the platform to NSFW materials, with a new dashboard that lets views opt into adult content and a labeling system that lets posters flag their uploads:

https://photomatt.tumblr.com/post/696578252906659840/staff-introducing-community-labels-as-you

This is a far cry from Tumblr’s original full-throated, wide-open NSFW policy, and there’s a reason for that. In a new post, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg describes why Tumblr’s old “go nuts, show nuts” policy can’t work today:

https://photomatt.tumblr.com/post/696629352701493248/why-go-nuts-show-nuts-doesnt-work-in-2022

It all comes down to chokepoints and liability. It’s an open secret that Verizon’s Tumblr porn ban was triggered by Apple’s threat to block the Tumblr app for iOS users, in the name of preserving the App Store’s “child friendly” policy. Remember when Steve Jobs announced that “Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone?”

https://techcrunch.com/2010/04/19/steve-jobs-android-porn/

Google Play — the Android version of the App Store — is only slightly less adamant about blocking adult material. With the mobile duopoly dead set against adult content, an NSFW-friendly Tumblr would have to be web-only. Mullenweg explains why that’s not viable: “40% of our signups and 85% of our page views come from mobile apps.”

Now, it’s true that there are other apps for platforms with a lot of adult content that both app stores welcome (Reddit, Twitter). Mullenweg says “My guess is that Twitter and Reddit are too big for Apple to block so they decided to make an example out of Tumblr, which has ‘only’ 102 million monthly visitors.”

Though, he adds, “Maybe Twitter gets blocked by Apple sometimes too but can’t talk about it because they’re a public company and it would scare investors.”

Playing chicken with Apple’s App Store censors is a losing proposition. As Mullenweg describes, the interpretation of the App Store rules varies from day to day, depending on which person is evaluating your app. If you submit an app update, Apple might arbitrarily change its position on whether you’re crossing a line and block your app instead. When that happens, it’s a big deal. Mullenweg: “If Apple permanently banned Tumblr from the App Store, we’d probably have to shut the service down.”

But it’s not just the mobile duopoly that holds Tumblr’s future in its hands. Mullenweg actually ranks payment processors as more powerful than mobile companies. Credit-card companies hate porn. Adding adult content back to Tumblr threatens Automattic’s ability to process payments for all its services, from Wordpress hosting to ad-free Tumblr subscriptions. Without money, the company couldn’t last long, and its 2,000+ employees would be out of a job.

At this stage, Mullenweg anticipates a chorous of cryptocurrency enthusiasts claiming that the solution to this is to accept payment in cryptos. He heads them off. No matter whether you think crypto might solve this problem tomorrow, “today if you are blocked from banks, credit card processing, and financial services, you’re blocked from the modern economy.”

But even if you bypass the mobile dupology and find a way to live without payment processing, setting up an adult-content-friendly site is still fraught. New rules (including SESTA/FOSTA) create civil and criminal liability for adult content hosting; as do rules against nonconsensual pornography (AKA “revenge porn”).

Mullenweg doesn’t want to host illegal adult content, not just because he doesn’t want to go to jail, but because he decries the odious trade in sexual material made without consent, featuring children, or other unsavory circumstances.

But today’s environment, filled as it is with networked pocket cameras, is fertile ground for the production of those materials. When anyone can produce sexual images, it becomes extremely difficult to establish whether everyone pictured is of age and consenting.

But even if Tumblr could hire the moderators it needed to make those determinations, it still wouldn’t be in the clear, because market concentration elsewhere in the stack makes operating an “adult content business” far harder than it was in Tumblr’s heyday.

Today, hosting adult content means finding specialized network connections, hosting, DDoS mitigation and more, because every layer of the “stack” of services other kinds of sites can rely on has been turning into an oligopoly with uniform anti-sex policies.

Paying for those specialized services is a problem, too, and not just because you will struggle to find a bank and credit-card company that will serve your business. Many investment funds are prohibited from investing in “vice” related businesses due to agreements with their own backers, and even the ones that can fund such a business choose not to.

Mullenweg sums up:

If you wanted to start an adult social network in 2022, you’d need to be web-only on iOS and side load on Android, take payment in crypto, have a way to convert crypto to fiat for business operations without being blocked, do a ton of work in age and identity verification and compliance so you don’t go to jail, protect all of that identity information so you don’t dox your users, and make a ton of money.

That’s a sobering conclusion, but even more striking is Mullenweg’s back-of-the-envelope calculations for what this would take:

> I estimate you’d need at least $7 million a year for every 1 million daily active users to support server storage and bandwidth in addition to hosting, moderation, compliance, and developer costs.

Mullenweg closes with his hope that someone else will figure out how to “replace what people used to get from porn on Tumblr,” but implies that for Tumblr itself, the best we can hope for are more baby-steps.

[Image ID: A Victorian pornographic illustration of a man in coat and neck cloth touching the exposed bottom of a grinning woman who is face down on a fainting-couch. The image forms the backdrop for an animation in which a grinning Tumblr logo bounces up and down over her bum.]

#pluralistic

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scopostims · 1 year

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robot / early internet stimboard for @noonbeam17 :•]

[ID: A 3x3 stimboard of 9 GIFs.

GIF 1: A blue robotic hand with pink accents extending and curling its fingers.

GIF 2: Simple, featureless blue and green busts of people spinning around in a circle with the text "Signing in..." above them.

GIF 3: A screen recording of a webpage, a cursor hovering over different patterned squares, turning the background of the page the pattern of the square, along with a floating cube and sphere that adopt the pattern.

GIF 4: The bright pink robotic insides of a furby dancing, the ears flapping up and down and the eyes blinking.

GIF 5 (center): An old IBM PC receiving a warning screen popup.

GIF 6: A bright pink hexapod, a six-legged robot, walking towards the camera, then turning around and walking off.

GIF 7: A screen recording of someone scrolling down a website with many bright, flashy, moving elements.

GIF 8: Clipart of a computer monitor covered in blue fuzz passing through a green line, coming out clean, with the text "Online virus check, free!" above it.

GIF 9: A robotic hand rapidly curling and moving its hand around as a red light flashes in the background.

End ID]

#scopostims original boards #flashing #eyestrain #stim #stimblr #stimboard #stimmy #robot #robotics #old internet #webcore

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eth3real-ess3nce · 2 years

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My Astro Observations (Part 6)

☁️Mars - Neptune aspects can make you clumsy. Mars rules the physical and Neptune tends to fog reality a bit so... you partly tend to lack the awareness of how your body moves most of the time.

👀People with water risings are prone to dark circles.

🌱I have noticed that individuals with capricorn placements loooove being plant parents. They love taking care of their plants and they enjoy getting to know little facts about them.

💘Venus in Aries people might have struggled with accepting love. At least once in their lives they have thought that "they are hard to love".

🤫Mars in 8th in synastry always manifests in either (or both) of these 2 ways: a) sexual relationship that occurs secretly. b) sexual relationship that is "taboo". I have observed this placement between people where one person is married / large gap relationships or simply two people who want to keep their sexual relations hidden for some reason.

👨Mars in Capricorn / 10th house... you just wish that you received an apology from your father or that he would give credit for your hard work.

🙃Moon in Libra tends to suppress their "hard" emotions a lot, especially anger and frustration. They believe that they shouldn't overburden other people with such negative emotions or they simply want to keep their kind & pleasant image towards others. They are social butterflies, but they keep their true feelings behind closed doors.

💃Gemini risings have such musical movements! They might bust a move out of nowhere or on their way towards doing something casual. Their movements and mannerisms are so lively it's quite enjoyable for me to observe so. In parties, you'll never see them simply standing, by the way.

🦷The moon/venus in aries/gemini urge to bite your partner out of nowhere as a love language.

🤳Leo risings tend to take too many selfies / photos of themselves. Good for them, though. ( you guys look good )

✨Venus in 11th house people are so well-liked online. There's something about them that people admire and feel drawn to. They're probably artists sharing their artwork online for others to see. Charming online personas. People crushing on them without seeing them up close.

😆The Mercury in Sagittarius/Aquarius urge to laugh so loud everybody in the near 3 blocks hear you.

🤵Venus - Saturn aspects, Venus in Capricorn, Venus in 10th house: your absolute love and admiration for older men, men in suits, motivated and stable men. Also , for some of you , your father was old enough when your parents had you (probably up to 30-35+ years old) so you naturally go for much older guys.

🤩Sun/Venus in Pisces men? Major casanova aspect and nobody talks about it! Unevolved ones don't cheat/entertain multiple women because they're 'bored' or anything like that, but mostly because they are constantly after their ideal partner. They are chasing their own fantasy and they won't fully commit to one person until they fulfill it. 🙅

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

#astro notes #astorlogy observations #astrology notes #astrology #astro observations

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flamingpen18 · 4 months

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When will the bullshit end?

We have to be moved out on the 15th. @helly-watermelonsmellinfellon was busting her arse helping me get our room packed today. There's an assload to do still.

Dave is going on about not having tv. I told him I have no money for tv or internet. I have 4 bucks to my name. I don't know where he thinks I can pay all these bills without help and still have money left to get service turned on at the new place. WTF?!?!

We will not have tv or internet. We will be living out in the boon docs, in farm country. We won't even have access to any internet, because there is nothing near us. Not a damn thing. @helly-watermelonsmellinfellon and I will not be online for a long time.

I'm not even going to have a cell cus I have no money to pay for a month of service and certainly no money to pay for my daughter's cell. So we are in trouble either way. With my luck, I'll end up having a heart attack and no way to call for help. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being scared.

And we have no choice but to move. Our lease is up and nothing cheaper was open.

I just want all this crap to end. The universe, God, higher power really hates me and my family. That has to be it.

Please share. We need the help.

#moving #help #internet #disabled #helly-watermelonsmellinfellon #go fund me #gofundme #donate #gfm #frightened #paypal #venmo #cash app

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naturalrights-retard · 3 months

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Looking at the websites of The World Economic Forum and the United Nations, one might think that earth was inhabited only by women. Empowering women. Women of the future. The Gender Gap. Women’s Healthcare. Women inventors. It is nauseating. In Palestine these ‘women’ are murdered daily. In America they are raped by illegals every day. And McKenzie Scott’s ‘charitable donations’ are targeting baby deaths, ie abortions, and trans, ie men who want to be fake women. While Bill Gates wants to sterilize all women. YEAhhhh….

The women on these WEF and UN websites are all powerful. Wonder Women who are going to save planet earth from humanity. Pictures of smiling African women wearing brand new designer clothes working the fields in Africa… Or board room styled executive women sitting in ivory towers wearing Hillaryesque pant suits. YUCH!

But then I open a fashion magazine online and all I see are fat women. I have absolutely no idea what that outfit would look like on me – so I simply shut it down. Other retailers seem to be under the impression that blacks make up 75% of the US population. Who are they appealing to? Their base of maybe 4% blacks? Europe remains the least diversified country – with roughly .5% to 3% black populations. Are these stores forced to comply with black and fat mandates?

Victoria Secrets: A thin black woman with a triple A bust is jump roping to prove the bra she’s wearing is ‘bounce proof’. An obese black woman wants me to stretch with her while she ‘moves very slowly’ on video camera. And plump toneless ‘runners’ video themselves errr ‘running’ to get me to buy their jogging tights. And then there’s the ‘ask a black stylist’ what to wear… only she’s wearing a Captain Kangaroo jacket….

I’m not sure whether to be offended or to laugh!

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weirdthoughtsandideas · 3 months

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Did everyone who watched Charlie and the chocolate factory as a kid get nightmares from at least ONE scene, but everyone from completely different scenes? Because I discussed this with my friends.

One of my friends got super scared of the squirrel scene. She spent time being afraid real squirrels would attack her.

One of my friends chewed gum the first time she saw Violet's demise and got very scared from that.

Several people have claimed they need to close their eyes during Wonka's welcome song due to the uncanny dolls that burn up and lose their eyes (the doll whose eyes pop out did always make me uncomfy tbh)

I know one person being scared about the glass elevator and have been having nightmares about being stuck in it and it drops to the ground.

Then... there is me. Watched this movie for the first time at the ripe old age of 4, an age where children still have a hard time separating reality and imagination. We rented this movie from the library thinking "ooh! They're going to a candy land!! How fun!!"

I thought the opening was a little eerie with the camera going inside a pipe, and the burning dolls were a bit uncanny, but it didn't bother me too much.

And then... Augustus falls into the river. I immediately feel very uneasy. He gets sucked up the pipe. It looks so uncomfortable. I feel so bad for him. And then, the camera decides to have a CLOSE-UP SHOT OF HIM IN THE PIPE. THIS CLOSE UP SHOT IS THE REASON FOR ALL OF MY NIGHTMARES.

It would be one thing if it was just a 2 second close-up shot, but NOPE. They CUT BACK to this very close-up shot SEVERAL TIMES, and EVERY TIME I get jumpscared.

The rest of the movie is absolutely fine, but this one scene took a big toll on 4 year old me. But, being so young, as you probably now, you wanna watch movies over and over again. And I wanted to watch this movie again, and again, and again... but every time this scene came, I ran out of the room and hid. I couldn't do it. I didn't care that the song was a banger, I couldn't watch it, due to that close-up shot constantly showing up.

Then when I was 9, I started getting interested in searching up everything catcf, and I loved watching clips of it online and hearing bts information about it, and watching people play the games they released of it. And I literally had to COVER MY HAND on thumbnails on youtube, in case any of them would have Augustus in the pipe on it. This is still a problem I have today. It doesn't matter how many times I see it, I may stare at it and stop being scared, but the next time I see it I will be jumpscared again. When I watch video essays of catcf, I can't watch the video in case it shows up, and have to rely on just listening. It's a curse, I'm genuinely interested in catcf, not only this movie but also the book and the history behind it, and yet every time I look for content online I have to cover one hand when scrolling in case someone decides on the bright idea to have the close-up shot of chocolate-covered Augustus in the pipe as a thumbnail.

Me and my friends talked about how we all loved the movie as kids and we all wanted to watch it all the time, almost breaking our dvds because we watched it so much. And yet we all had one scene that just scared us. Some closed their eyes during the dolls singing Wonka's welcome song. Some closed their eyes during the squirrel attack. Some closed their eyes during Violet's blueberry transformation. And some were like me, and closed their eyes on Augustus going up the pipe.

It's a shame the Augustus Gloop song is such a banger. I want to see the Oompa Loompas bust a move watching the drowning boy. But I need to close my eyes, because in-between their dance moves they suddenly cut to the goddamn close-up shot that makes my heart stop.

But I have also met people who found nothing in this movie scary.

Did any scene scare you in this movie, and in that case, which?

#charlie and the chocolate factory #catcf

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angelicguy · 12 days

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how im feelin rn, and this is all from the perspective of a guy who JUST plays jin.... more below. and i think everyone on this list is REALLY viable sans like, the bottom 3 but even then you can get to GoD on anyone online with the right mindset

S tiers

reinas godlike in all regards, can enter when she wants, has incredible whiff punishment, a near-generic df2, the works. mixes that you can respond to, but she can then change her response so you can never give a comfortable answer. buuusted dmg and wall carry too. fuck reina. regardless of what character youre playing, she has an inherent edge from roundstart that you cant erase, you have to punish her for mistakes and if theyre NOT making a lot of those youre fucked

nina

INSANE dmg, her jab pressure canceling thing makes it so you really cant contest her like you would someone else, her power crush is absolutely incredible too. sway for evasion, incredible lows... safe mids... good tracking... the gun moves are FULL SCREEN and INSANE chip too. also generic df2, ch launching 20 frame low, i could go on. shes nuts.

feng

good for all the tekken 7 reasons and then throw in the 8 mechanics. if you manage to play this guy with a tekken 8 style of aggression you are fucked. hes just too good at playing off of very little risk for big reward consantly, you gotta hang yourself to respond (which is a theme for the top tiers!)

A tiers

xiaoyu is fucked. some chars are a much better matchup against her compared to jin, but she can really erase her hitbox from the match which really takes a lot of your mixes from the table. so if you cant take your frames back, she essentially gets to bully you endlessly while you hope they overextend themselves. you have to be so so patient against xiaoyu but youre never rewarded with anything other than a normal neutral situation, esp if the xiaoyu isnt taking big ass risk.

shaheen is really, really, really, really good at poking. his df1 is enough to carry his character, honestly. its -1 on block, tracks to both sides (well not technically left but its sticky), lows that track to his weak side that set up for a mix, great dmg, safe everything, AND a slide mix. with the risk reward skewed more towards pressing, he can press good tekken 7 style buttons more than the other char can

alisa is moronic. 2nd best sidestep, chainsaws completely pin you down, good powercrush, damage, wall carry, throw game, evasion... her backdash, like the single backdash, can also evaporate a lot of your pressure if you buffer too much. also the changes to some of her lows make it so they jail for some reason, so her pressure is really non committal for her. So good

lili is really really really good at mixing you constantly. b1 into dew glide is just a free no strings attached guessing game that your opponent has to suffer from. f4 is just a better version of bryans 3+4 and jins f4. and you can NOT hit this motherfucker, the best sidestepping in the game PERIOD. a lot of built in evasion to her moves too. oh and her feisty rabbit bullshit is a free 50/50, no answer other than guessing. dmg isnt that good though

yoshi is freeky in this game. has all the tricky shit from prior games but they gave him an incredible canned dominant mixup with his manji butterfly stance, along with a good power crush, regen, range and guardbreak. AND he still has flash and df2. the only thing he doesnt have is a really really good low OH WAIT I FORGOT ABOUT HIS LAUNCHING UNBLOCKABLE LOW. so if you get hit with his safe launching df2, he can carry you to the wall and make you guess for your life again. christ

dragunov is in a good spot rn, not insanely busted like he was at launch but still really good. dominant pokes, great CH game, his new low is scary as fuck, his new mid is like +5 on block, his crouching stance gives him a scary entry into your guard, AND he still has d2 and his wr2. theyre much, much worse, but combined with all those tools and INCREDIBLE wall carry and dmg you got a good fucking character.

i think victors for new players, genuinely. he has definite flaws (hes linear if youre buffering a lot) but he has good dmg great range a GUN his wr2 is kind of like azucenas old wr32 but less pushback, a lars style db4 on top of a bunch of other fantastic lows that are less committal, and his ease of use keeps him simple and effective. good CH, good range, its hard to play the poking game against him, beating a victor requires harder reads. im pretty scared of him going forward i just dont think anyones gone above and beyond with what he can do yet

law is crazy crazy crazy, the 2nd best poke game in the game (behind shaheen), great dmg, easily accessible DSS makes the mixes more relevant in every game, you gotta really read a good law in order to beat him. slide mix is OD too. also law used to have a lot of trouble mounting a comeback in 7, but since he has his heat engager combos (he has a 10f ch combo in heat can u believe that) hes scary at all health levels

jackk is weird in this one, because they just added a bunch of shit to him on top of his 7 style poking game. so alongside his db1, f2, jackhammer, throw game, df2, etc now he has gamma howl so you HAVE to deal with his pressure and a fucking. 10f heat smash. AND a guardbreak. also his backdash is weirdly good

jins sooo good in this one. so many quality of life changes from tekken 7. more dmg, more mixes, his raw f4 doesnt require an insane conversion to combo from, the fact that 2 3 4 knocks down, the jab range... i could go on and on. really really good character, busted heat smash. fuck i forgot about everyones HEAT smash. but his specifically is insanely good, you can be halfway across the stage and his heat burst will land him like a 90 dmg combo, and if you block it its a free mix for jin. really good! also d2

eddy is still new to me, but i can tell hes pretty solid. imagine all the annoying stuff eddy had in 7 on top of an actually forceful 50/50. like if hes in heat with his weird install he can just force a 50/50 at like halfscreen where you gotta choose between getting combo'd with heat and getting hellswept. difference between his 50/50 and lili/xiaoyus is that if you block the low youre actually rewarded, so he cant be too braindead about it. great movement too.

king on second look should probably be above law, or at least next to him. the system changes in this game mean that his throws are genuinely fucking terrifying now that they catch sidestep and are really difficult to block on CH. AND you can punish with them. plus his new stance literally does not have a good outcome for you other than getting lucky and ducking the throw, but even then you cant launch him consistently off of it. ffn2 is now -13, so no one except for kazuya can launch it. AND he has huge dmg. AND his backdash is huge. AND he has a launching 13 frame mid... i could go on. he's crazy

juns real fuckin annoying. her lows are insane. real dominant frame game, fantastic range and dmg, the moves that remove her health dont really hurt her in the long run, and her heat burst is just a gauss rifle. thats on top of the annoying asuka style shit he has with the cartwheel, hopkick, parry, etc. im not gonna act like ive labbed her that hard, but shes good.

leo is in a bit of a weird position in this game, because he still functions so deeply on his stance pressure and good pokes that kind of falter in the face of heat smash and heat burst. but hes still tricky, still evasive, still has EVERYTHING he needs, its just a little worse than it was in 7. thats not to say he's not still good, but he doesnt have that one sniper rifle move the people above him have. great lows though, hellsweep AND ch launching -13 low. like nina a little! ohh and that wallsplat throw fuck that

devil jin is still really good in this one, i just think the nerfs to his pokes (which were pretty terrifying pre-sept 2022) have finally taken their toll. which is fine, conceptually it was fucked to have someone with incredible pokes on top of a launching hellsweep and electric (cough reina cough) but now shit like uf4 is kind of paltry compared to the other mids we have to work with on other chars. and his 50/50 is still good, but not as good compared to lili or xiaoyu. ALSO his fuckin uhhhh new stance is crazy, because theres not really a perfect choice to make on the defenders behalf, and he can put you in it a LOT. the heat smash nerf was needed but damn. still good dmg, still devil jin, just a little worse at what he was good at compared to a month ago

claudio is good. his pokes are still fantastic, and his b2 is even MORE dominant in a game where side steps are a much more involved part of everyones gameplan. his heat mix between the w2 and i think its wr1+2 isnt that great though, but he's the kind of character where you can beat someone on fundamentals alone really easily. good hopkick 2

B tier (this is where it gets fuzzy)

lars pisses me off. he gets constant free engagement where the onus is entirely on you as the player to make a good read. his den 3 into sen1 is literally a tracking plus on block mid into a tracking heat engaging mid. you have no choices! and his lows are solid as fuck, his df1 is great, he has a lot of evasion, etc. nothings incredible to the point of being busted or even that competitive, but hes annoying

my conception of asuka is " if you try and fight back on your natural cadence, you are fucked" and it pisses me off. weird evasion, weird pokes, weird pace... its like fighting against a jellyfish. at least her heat stuff isnt that great

azucena got nerfed into the dirt, which im fiiiine with. really annoying char before, now just kind of annoying. used to be that you would fight an azucena until they got really bored of pretending to try and they would spam wr32, but now they cant do that so they try and out poke you. which sometimes works, but once you realize whats up the flaws in her gameplan become too obvious. sorry azucena!

lee gives ME a lot of trouble, but that might just be a jin thing. he still has a pretty functional magic 4, hitmans a little better, great new heat engaging move (ff4 or something?) and his wall carry and dmg are REALLY REALLY BUSTED NOW. he should probably be above azucena now that i look at it. also a generic df2... fuck it i just put him in low A instead. also his just frame stuff being free in heat is crazy

ive tried so hard to lab zafina but im still never sure what the fucks going on. i know her key moves, but im not totally certain about how to deal with some of her stances like tarantula. her new heat moves got buffed recently so she really can keep the pressure going almost like lars, so she can put your ass on your toes. pretty good! her best moves dmg herself though, and her damage/ wall carry isnt great either. so shes a pretty balanced version of herself i think

Paulll. whats up paul. how you doin man. do you smoke? reclaim? like im scraping the resin off the resin pal. pauls so cool i love him. but in a game where aggression is paramount you really gotta be on top of your pokes with him, having a 14f df1 kinda hurts him but his df2 is still as good as its ever been. he has some slightly evasive shit now, but to me paul is still all about getting that one good read and snowballing off of that. thing is with chip and shit being the way it is its harder to survive being paul style patient, but youre still mega rewarded. hes alright

bryan is in a weird spot right now. because like 7 once you get the ball rolling with him you are HEAVILY rewarded with dmg, wall carry, unblockable wallsplats and shit, taunt pressure, etc but GETTING there is not easy. his 3+4 is still good, but in a game where backing up/neutral sidestep is a great choice for most of the cast he has to stick his neck out a lot, usually in a dangerous way. this is all for insane dmg, but its the kind of dmg that someone like nina or reina get for free so what the hell

hwoarang is in a weird spot. he's still a noob killer, but once you know whats actually going on in this game he has a much harder time staying in your face. in 7 he could just mix you over and over again, but with everyone having a good powercrush in heat smash that takes priority over his stances, its hard to keep it up. on top of the fact that his heat stuff requires him to be in flamingo stance (and i think his d4, 4 jails now so its harder to bait a ch) hes just a little too slow at what he does best.

boyyy howdy. kazuya needs some tuning (his jabs dont connect sometimes?) but he's not disastrous. his hellsweep mix is still really, really good, the improvement of sidesteps makes ss-> electric a better option than its ever been, and he's actually pretty scary in heat. but the big issue is that he's still punished HEAVILY for fucking up his 50/50 and the top tiers just arent, simple as. theres no reason to play kazuya over say reina.

leroy feels like a t7 character, his whole thing being a dominant parry game kind of melts away when you realize that half the casts key tools carve thru parries. so they tried to make up for that in a recent patch by improving the chip dmg on a lot of his tools, but still in a game where defense is always king its not really the easiest thing in the world to keep up, youre always sticking your neck out. the cane is pretty good though, and hes pretty slippery. he's not dog ass (in fact, i would say everyone is super viable) but he's not scary.

raven is really good, but the only reason he's lower is that a lot of his tools are glitchy rn. his df1 string literally whiffs on HIT, and his backturn stance even when blocked can render him launch punishable in totally random situations. on paper id say mid-A, but the fact that its mathematically impossible to play in a way that cuts down on risky situations puts him in a tough spot.

man steve fucking sucks. his stance sucks, his b1 sucks, im sure hyper steve specialists are doing absolutely fine but there are too many system level changes that dont allow him to just completely dominate the frame game like he used to be able to. and a lot of his old tools that led to a big combo now lead to an EXTREMELY risky mix in the form of lionheart, which is just the worst. he sacrificed dmg for mixes, which most people have in this game, but he was too dependent on the 5-7 style of play to sacrifice any of that

bears are really annoying in this one with the new mechanics, but they still have to resort to heavily punishable risky shit to really seal the deal if you find a way to deal with the hunting stance mix. great heat smash though, im not gonna act like they havent taken a lot of games off of me

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sheliesshattered · 3 months

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Like I mentioned at the end of my last post, besides making a few alterations to my shirt and vest for my Batuu Bound outfit, I also got started on a new sewing project over the last two weeks, something which might also make an appearance if/when we're able to go to Batuu again, but until then will also be a nicely functional piece just around the house.

To back up a bit, I ordered a lightsaber for my birthday -- as you do when you're an adult going through a resurgence of your childhood love for Star Wars, lol -- but the one I bought on Amazon ended up being not quite what I was hoping for. I returned it and spent some more time researching exactly what I wanted for my purposes (spinning and flow arts) and what would fit my small hands and short stature the best.

I ended up ordering from an excellent small business called Vire Sabers that lets you assemble your own lightsaber from the 'variable hilt component' system of pieces that all fit together. I spent a lot of time looking through all the various pieces and combinations, including putting them all together in a photo editor until I had something that I was happy with, that is just mine, and no one else's.

The saber really deserves a post all of its own, but first I want to do some weathering on the hilt and get some video of the flow skills I've been building up over the last week and a half since it arrived. I'll post something about it eventually.

And anyway, this post is really more about sewing a padded sheath for the saber.

It's another stash-busting project, like everything else in my Batuu Bound set, for which I only bought ~$4 of cotton batting -- which is handy because when I started on it, I wasn't sure when Jack and I would be working next. The contract work situation has resolved now, but even without that, it's always nice to move fabric and crafting supplies out of my stash and into a finished, useful item.

With consideration to possibly wearing this on my back with my Batuu Bounding outfit in the (near?) future, I decided to go with a brown color palette. From my stash I pulled out:

some yardage of non-stretchy faux suede that I probably bought more than 10 years ago for a project I can no longer remember, that has kind of a grippy texture to the suede surface

wool scraps left over from the screen-accurate Jedi robe I sewed for Jack in 2012

the tan cotton canvas I bought in January when I was thinking about covering the zippers of my Moment vest rather than sewing a completely new one

brown RIT dye that again I have no idea when or why I bought it, along with a little pink and violet RIT dyes probably left over from Hit Girl in 2010

brown velcro left over from an ill-fated attempt at building disability-friendly pillows for my couch nest

~34" of 1" wide twill tape left over from my steampunk corset I sewed in 2011

rock climbing-rated seamless aluminum O rings left over from the tensegrity stand and tent I built for Wasteland Weekend 2018

dark maroon thread that came in a set of thread that I bought online when I sewed my Oswin Oswald cosplay in 2020 and couldn't go to a store to buy just one color of thread, lol

The cotton canvas was perfect for the exterior of the case/sheath/bag thing, but the color wasn't a great match for the rest of my Batuu Bounding outfit. I had used a bit of the canvas to make a collar stand for Jack's jacket late last month, so I zigzag stitched the cut edges and threw it in the washing machine with a bunch of nearly boiling water, salt, and the brown, pink, and violet RIT dyes. I had more of the brown than the pink and the violet together, but my hope was to bring the "dark brown" RIT color plus the slightly greenish tan of the cotton towards a warmer brown. I let it agitate for about half an hour, and ended up really loving the final color.

With the exterior in progress, it was time to figure out the interior. I knew I wanted to make this case/sheath padded to give the saber a bit of cushioning while being carried around, but I also didn't want to buy more than I would use (or spend a ton of money, given that I was buying this while we were in between work contracts), so most quilt batting was out, as was most foam. I ended up buying half a yard (18") of 90" long cotton batting, then cutting it into four 9" x 45" pieces and layering those on top of each other. It's not a huge amount of loft, but it is a good amount of squish, and hopefully reasonable padding for the circumstances I expect to use the case in.

I sandwiched the cotton batting between one layer of the brown (Jedi robe!) wool and one layer of the non-stretch faux suede. In the picture below, the darkest brown is the wool, and just to the left of that is the dyed canvas.

The wool won't be visible at all once this is all sewn together, and the faux suede only slightly visible at the top opening, but I like how the colors all coordinate without matching exactly.

Since the cotton batting is pretty solid, quilting wasn't entirely necessary, but I did want to make sure the layers stayed together without shifting around too much, and also give the thick layers specific places to bend to form a nice round tube shape. I ended up quilting it into six narrow panels that run the whole length of the sheath, with the outer two panels each 1 cm wider for seam allowance when I sew this into a tube.

I also narrowed the entire interior from 9" (measured flat) to 8", so that it hugs the saber better, and so that I can fit the narrow portion of the canvas around the bulk of the interior + saber.

The notch cut out of the upper left corner of the interior is there to create a flap that will fold over the open end of the bag/case and secure in place with velcro. I may try to find ways to sneak a few velcro attachment points into the exterior, so that it can be closed at various lengths (ie with or without the hilt).

The dyed cotton canvas will eventually get a matching notch cut out of it, and the right sides of the interior and exterior sewn together before the interior is stuffed into the exterior, at which point it will look somewhat like this:

Before I sew the exterior into a tube, I'm going to sew a pocket or two for carrying small essentials like blade tension screws. I'll also sew the twill tape into place, set slightly in from the top and bottom, and put those aluminum rings onto the twill tape when I do. That way the carrying strap will be gripping the whole case, all the way around, rather than have all the stress in one place. The lightsaber is only about two and a half pounds, and I can't imagine the case will weigh any more than that, but still, I want to be sure that there's nice firm support that won't give out and end up dropping the saber on the ground.

Also, can I just point out the color match between the dyed canvas and the old left over piece of twill ribbon? I wasn't aiming for that! I wanted a warm brown, which is why I added the pink and violet dyes (and would have added red if I had any on hand), but I didn't even pull the twill tape from my stash until after I was done dyeing the canvas. It matches so well it looks like I bought them as a pair, but they were bought more than a decade apart and didn't match before I just chucked whatever dyes I had on hand into the washer, lol. I would have been fine with a bit of a color mismatch, but this works too!

At this point, I think I'm ready to sew the interior into a tube, with the grippy faux-suede on the inside, and the wool on the outside where it will eventually be sandwiched next to the canvas. I have squares of the cotton batting from where I cut out the notch for the flap, so I think I'm going to try to sew those to the outside of the seam along the narrow bottom edge, to give that even more padding. That's a lot of layers to put through my sewing machine, so we'll see if it'll cooperate or if I'll end up doing that bit by hand.

After that, I'm going to turn my attention to the exterior. I have some smaller pieces of dyed canvas that aren't in the above pictures, that I'm going to use to make a crossbody strap that connects to the those rings, along with a pocket or two. The pockets, some of the velcro closures, and the twill tape and rings need to be sewn down before I can turn the canvas into a tube, so all of that will be the next major step in this project.

I think I also want to paint (or sharpie) some Aurebesh on the exterior canvas, something along the lines of 'fragile antique - handle with care'. The character I put together for my Batuu adventures isn't a Jedi (or a Sith), but rather makes a living finding antiques and oddities on outer rim worlds and transporting them to the inner rim and core worlds to sell at a profit. Not many people can read Aurebesh, but it'll add a bit of visual texture and storytelling all the same. And then if I have another run in with Kylo Ren, I can state for certain that I'm not a Jedi sympathizer, just an antiques dealer looking to turn a profit, lol.

If we do end up going to a Star Wars Nite at Disneyland, I think it could be fun to take my saber along, participate in the lightsaber meetup in front of the Falcon, and maybe even get some photos or videos of my spinning skills while I'm there. But even if this case is only ever used to store my saber here at home, it'll give it a place to live that's not my sewing table, where it's been living since it arrived, and the rings will let me hang it from a hook on the wall rather that take up any horizontal surface space. It'll be nice to look at while also keeping my saber easily accessible and ready to spin.

We don't have tickets for a Star Wars Nite event yet, but the first one is on April 16th, so I'm giving myself just under a month to finish this. I don't think I'll need that long -- but with the new work situation starting up tomorrow, it's really hard to say. I could have it finished by this time next week, or be hurrying to finish it the last weekend before we go back to Batuu, we'll just have to see how this next month works out.

Either way, I'll post more pictures here as it comes together.

#my sewing #Batuu Bounding #lightsaber bag #2024 mood #long post

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