(i Don't Usually Rec Things, Or Make Rec Lists, But The Occasion Has Presented Itself So Here's A Short

yassssss!!!!!!! i just finished atyd and im a mess of emotions rn!!!

have y’all ever read a fanfic so good you then want to read fanfics of that fanfic?

MY FAVOURITE DPS FICS (in the order they appear on my bookmarks)

Dog Days are Over by rubylaurus - Mordern AU where Neil is a successful actor and Todd is a intern writer for his show. It's adorable with a little bit of ambiguity in the end.

lick me like a flame by perksofbeingpoet - ANGST SO MUCH ANGST. THE BEST ANGST I'VE SEEN.

Let Me Wallow in Your Afterglow by Glittery_Bubbles - This could easily be the script of the 2nd movie if Neil hadn't died. LOVED the characterization and Keating's lessons.

I Read You for Some Kind of Poem by Glittery_Bubbles - A WIP but ADDICTED hello??? Like so sad, so so sad. Cry bitches

True Blue by PureCacophony - Another WIP which is updates pretty periodically. Very fluffy, very adorable. Mordern AU. Extremely well written. Mwah

I Crawl, an Animal to You by dirtbag_dyke - Amazing Characterization, it has smut.

how it is, how it was (how it has to be) by perksofbeingpoet - TEARS. ANDERPERRY BREAKUP. Phone call rituals. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Volta by suffragettecity - Neil meets Todd after med school.

White Walls and Blurry Eyes by lightswechase - four words - crown tattoo, ring finger

@dimiclaudeblaigan asked for a tutorial on how to begin drawing. Good news! If you can draw a funky looking stick man, you have already started!

I think that stick people are a great starting point for artists because of the things you can learn from them that will be important later on.

If you are able to draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can easily put together a stick person.

Congratulations! You have started to draw. :)

A stick person is a very minimal artistic representation of a real life person. It is simple yet recognizable, and is widely used in art, media, and signage.

But what can a stick person teach us about drawing people that look more like… well, people? Lets have a look!

By simply adding a few more lines, we can add a pair of eyes and a mouth. Maybe even a little triangle nose! Or half circles for ears. We can now draw a face, which provides a basis for all sorts of expressions.

These simple additions can allow us to explore the wide range of human emotion and individuality.

This may seem like the basics of the basics. But that is what we want! In order to get to the point where we are able to draw complex, elaborate representations of humans and objects, we will need to start with simple shapes like lines and circles and build our understanding from there.

For instance, lets give our stick person some cool new features, such as hands and feet. I chose little squiggly circles to represent hands, and triangles to represent feet.

We can go a step further and modify the body of the stick person to include shoulders, hips, elbows and knees. These parts of the human body are quite complex in real life But here, all we need to do is add a few simple lines and dots to our stick person.

The lines provide some additional structural elements to our stick person's body, which are the shoulders and the hips. The dots indicate the points of articulation - elbows and knees, the places where the arms and legs bend!

Now we can use our stick person to show us an even wider range of human movement, action, and expression.

Our little drawing of a human being is evolving! All it took was adding a few more lines and shapes here and there.

By elongating some of the existing lines and making the head an oval instead of a circle, we can give our stick person proportions that resemble that of a real life human.

By this point, we have managed to add more complexity to our stick person simply by using our ability to draw lines, circles, and other basic shapes!

These basic ideas are the building blocks that will enable us to create more complex shapes.

The next part may be a considerable step up if you are absolutely new to drawing, but I have decided to include it in order to show you how complex objects like the human body can be built from shapes that are a bit more complex than circles and lines.

For example. Two ovals and a rectangle can be combined to create a cylinder.

Six squares can be combined to create a cube, or a box. Here, each square is distorted slightly depending on which way the cube is facing.

Note that the back faces of the cube and the bottom of the cylinder are hidden. These shapes allow us to visualize that which should not normally visible.

A sphere from all perspectives can be represented by a circle. But we can make it more like a sphere by adding lighting and shadow if we so desire.

Cubes, cylinders, and spheres are examples of 'solid shapes' because they consist of 3 dimensions.

Lets see how these solid shapes can be used to compose the human body.

By stacking three cylindrical objects, we can create a torso. Two spheres have been added to form shoulders, while a smaller cylinder forms the neck.

An arm is an alternating sequence of spheres and cylinders connected together. Note that the hand has been simplified for this example.

We can apply these solid shapes to the rest of the body to give us a more recognizable representation of the human form. It doesn't even have to be perfect. And just like that, our stick figure now has a silhouette that is unmistakably a person!

In the above examples, notice that we kept the stick person at the beginning while building up the shapes and solids around it. This is because the stick person serves as a guide for positioning the body and its various parts -> also known as posing.

You can do the same thing to everyday objects! Here, I drew a wine glass by stacking these three dimensional solid shapes.

The cup and its contents are two ovoid shapes that were cut in half. The stem is a very thin cylinder shape. The base is a cylinder with a slightly wider bottom.

Solid shapes help inform us how objects and parts of the human body may appear from different perspectives.

For example, a sphere can be used to demonstrate how the human head appears when looking up or down, turned to the side, or tilted at an angle.

With these examples, I hope I have managed to convinced you that if you can draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can draw a person! You just have to train your eye to recognize the simple shapes within complex objects. Try it with everyday objects as well! Or even your favourite media! A drawing subject can be as simple or as complex as you envision it to be.

Once you have mastered that, there are many aspects of drawing you can explore from here that may require you to seek additional resources or a fellow artist's advice.

Last of all, remember that drawing is an iterative process. Even if you draw something correct the first time, you will need to draw it again and again to get it right all times! And by making small changes like the ones we explored in this tutorial, your drawings will gradually transform!

I hope what I've demonstrated here are enough to provide the basics of how to get started with drawing objects and people, and also to help refresh more experienced artists. :) Hopefully I didn't go too off topic with what was requested, and let me know if there are any more questions I can answer.

Cheers :3

Rest in peace, Robbie Coltrane 30 March 1950 – 14 October 2022

pink in the night

I just remembered my second Pride, where I made different flag themed daisy chain bracelets/necklaces to hand out. I need folks to understand something:

They were free.

They were fucking free.

They were maybe ¢60 of acrylic yarn each at the most, and the whole ziploc bag of them took 2 hours max.

Three people gave me sad eyes until I took their money.

Someone who was clearly the mom friend of their group made me take a $5 and gave a 10 minute pep talk.

At least four more people insisted on getting change to pay for the, once again, free bracelets.

In spite of all these shenanigans, the absolute best was this one person who I can only describe as, “queer surfer dude who looks like a boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend.” I can remember nothing of the outfit, only the impeccable vibes. I did the same thing I did with everyone else, explaining the bracelets were free, and they nodded along as they took the last 6 strand rainbow bracelet. As soon as they had it on their wrist, they pointed at something over my shoulder and, like a fool, I looked.

Next thing I know, they’re running off cackling, yelling, “YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!” and I’m holding a fucking $20. I had to stop at least two people from chasing them, cause they thought the person stole something, and then they tried to give me money cause they thought it was funny seeing me flail over people being Too Nice.

That was the year I got reverse-robbed at Pride. I hope everyone out there is having a good time and, in particular, that queer surfer dude is out there still causing benevolent chaos.

how do people not have gay thoughts ?

(a snippet from the same unpublished raising harry AU except make it wolfstar for all of you who have been suffering through shitposts, have a treat for sticking around <3)

context: sirius and harry relocate to grimmauld place.

-

“Are you sure you’re going to be--”

“Ask me that one more time, Remus,” Sirius said harsher than he intended.

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright here?”

“Arse.”

Remus gave him a wry grin over his glass of wine, lips already stained berry from the glass he had before, looking perfectly relaxed on the opposite end of the couch from Sirius. “Still haven’t answered the question.”

“I’m not sure I have an answer.”

Remus clicked his tongue, “You always have an answer. An opinion. It’s one of my favorite things about you, even if it is frustrating.”

“Am I frustrating you?”

“Every second since I met you,” he said, and Sirius opened his mouth, Remus holding up a finger immediately before Sirius could say a single word, “And before you respond with something clever regarding your time prison, no the 12 years there were not any sort of reprieve. Every time I thought I had gotten rid of the traces of you….one more would appear. Dog hair on my clothes, a neatly folded sweater, one year I even found an old letter you wrote me from hols when we were fifteen.”

“Well at least I know I won’t have to become a ghost to haunt you when I die…” Sirius mused, giving Remus a wink before taking a sip of his own wine. 

“...Are you going to be alright here?” Remus asked for the third time, and Sirius actually laughed, watching as Remus’s smile split his face wide open and suddenly Sirius was fifteen again, sitting across the Gryffindor common room with a quiet, golden boy who had the best barbs tucked away behind books and big sweaters. 

Sirius laughed quietly, looking up at the mantle where the ticking clock was. Sirius missed the stained glass windows already and the handsome emerald green clock and the soft beige rug that was in the sitting room at his home by the seaside. And then he thought of Harry’s smile when they arrived that day, trunks in hand, Harry rushing to the backyard to go flying, leaving his trunk in the middle of the hall.

It annoyed Sirius that Harry did that at first, because trunks didn’t belong in the middle of walkways and Sirius had told him to bring it up to the bedroom he had chosen the last time they had come together. Harry had blindly chosen a bedroom then as well, waving Sirius away with his hand and just nodding along, more interested in the backyard and his firebolt. 

It annoyed Sirius, and then…it didn’t.

It was so normal. As if Harry had been leaving his things around and Sirius had been getting mildly irritated for their whole lives. 

He thought of Harry’s messy hair and flushed cheeks when he finally came inside after Sirius had called him for dinner twice. Remus had come over to help them settle in, so had Andromeda, Sirius offering dinner in exchange, the table that Sirius had eaten lonely meals at just a few months ago feeling much bigger. 

“I think so,” is what Sirius settled on.

“Were you thinking that entire time?”

“Oi!”

“It was a long pause, thought you had fallen asleep.”

“I believe that’s your modus operandi, Moony,” Sirius said so easily, the nickname fizzling into the air like smoke after a firework. “Remus,” he corrected when he realized his fumble. Remus. 

“I can be Moony…I…missed being Moony.” Remus cleared his throat, “I missed you.”

“Remus…”

“I can’t tell you that? I can’t tell you how I missed you? And even though the dog hair on my clothes and the sweaters and the stupid notes you used to write me were frustrating to find…they also made me miss you? Can I not tell you I thought about you every day for almost 13 years?”

“You can tell me whatever you’d like,” Sirius said, “And I’ll tell you I did the same except it’s not quite so endearing or sentimental. Because what else was I supposed to think about? You were my…you were going to be my fiancee and you didn’t even try….”

“I’m sorry.”

“I…I know.”

“Then--”

“I’m not at forgiveness yet, Remus.” Moony. Whoever you are. “I’d really like to be, but I’m not.”

“I should go.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t get there.”

“You think you will? You think one day you’ll be able to look at me and want me again?”

“I want you right now. It’s not a question of want.”

Remus put down his wine glass on the end table, shifting on the couch so he was closer to Sirius, no longer on opposite ends of the couch--of the world. On the same page, in the same proximity for the first time since that night in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. The lights were dim, the clock ticked on the mantle as Remus’s knee touched Sirius’s. Amber eyes scanned his face looking for any type of sign and Sirius closed his eyes.

Moony.

“Can I hold you?” Sirius opened his eyes. “...Can I hold you?”

He breathed in deeply, already watching Remus’s hands between them, itching to touch Sirius. Sirius’s hands were longing to do the same. 

Remus was all scratchy cardigans and half-shaven face. Bumps and bruises, and Sirius remembered running his hands over every part of Remus entranced by the indentations of scar tissue and raised freckles. Nothing about Remus was smooth. Clever, but lacking social charm. Knew how to clear a room. Knew precisely the wrong thing to say at the wrong time. But their relationship had been. 

Against all odds, Sirius and Remus, Moony and Padfoot, my love and my darling, had been the smoothest course Sirius had ever sailed. 

“Can I hold you?” Remus asked one more time, even softer, his face moving closer.

“....the only thing I can think of to say is your name. Every version of it.”

“Yes…no…” Remus offered, “maybe…in a few hours…just for a second…”

“That’s a lot of options.”

“Yes or no, then.”

Yes.

Yes.

Hold me. Please. Remind me of what it was like to give my burdens to someone else to carry just for a little while.

“Yes.” 

Remus moved slowly, daring to touch Sirius’s hands first, then his wrists, thumb caressing his pulse point while long fingers skimmed over tattoos and the dark hair on his arms again. Sirius sat still, inhaling and exhaling deeply, afraid Remus was going to make him come undone with the most innocent of touches. Remus’s hands moved up to his arms and Sirius continued to fight with lingering resolve. 

It wasn’t passion, though.

No.

Not like when they were seventeen and they would take turns edging each other into madness with wanton looks in the hallway and hands in places they definitely shouldn’t have been in the middle of class, and kisses that always left someone begging for more. Or even when they were nineteen and finding intimacy in learning how to fix a leaking sink and a tiny shower that really couldn’t fit the two of them properly, but they insisted on being in there together anyway. Sirius would have to hold Remus’s arm when they got out of the shower, so much excess water on the linoleum flooring, taking care not to let his boyfriend-fiance-nearly husband slip. 

The one thing Sirius always handled with care…was Remus, and now it seemed like it was the opposite. Not that Sirius asked for it, or explicitly told Remus that.

This Remus now though, this thirty-something Remus was feeling every valley and curve of Sirius’s arms, then shoulders, moving closer until their faces were mere centimeters apart. 

Sirius inhaled.

Remus exhaled.

Sirius and Remus. One name it was always said so fast and together- SiriusandRemus, carved into trees, etched into pavement, signed on leases and wedding certificates that never came to be.