#so i. just made a new one from scratch that was a lot simpler

[yuellii]

a heart drawn around your name.

𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓-𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐗 ;; from the one that loves you, forever, and how they write such love letters

feat. kaveh, neuvillette, ei, ayato, lisa ( separately )

notes. gn reader, repost from an acct i never used iykyk

KAVEH.

Splattered strokes, always so, so dramatic.

He loops his letters like a simultaneous calligrapher and perfectionist, and you almost wonder if he does this for every piece of parchment he writes on. He once insisted that he doesn’t—and that fact alone makes you giddy at the thought. He admitted to writing so perfectly for you, and you alone.

His desk is a mess, but only on the side he keeps letters for and from you. As an artist at heart, he goes through many trials. not that he lets you see it, of course, but on nights he’s writing to you, his desk is scattered with scratch paper. And such loose sheets are filled to the brim with trials of poetry he comes up with in his head, or certain words and loops.

It has to be perfect, and he will ensure that. You’d find crossed out lines on those sheets, full of testing. you’d find the cheesiest of pick-up lines, the most dramatic ways to write a single word, and multiple practices of his own signature.

Because he needs you to be impressed. What good is he, if he cannot write you a new poem every letter he sends you? What good is he, if his handwriting does not look like pure art to you? He could easily stay up for hours on syntax alone.

And if you looked at the cuffs of his sleeves, or the skin of his wrists, you’d find black smudges. Little pen scribbles reminiscent of the very same phrases you’d find in your letters, for he writes them throughout the day. Whenever he thinks of you, it’s always a new line to add.

NEUVILLETTE.

His letters are like a storybook, developed in the passing time.

He begins with his letters so stiff, so formal in a way that is not uptight, but rather inexperienced. It’s something he initially curses himself for—so uptight and unable to express his emotions. And that’s when he develops the obsession with reading storybooks and poetry, for he becomes desperate to learn the ways of romantic speech.

Because of this, his letters become a certain type of endearing. They’re filled with metaphors and analogies galore; some are wrong, some don’t make sense, but the best part of it all were that they were completely original and they came from his heart. Transparency were not difficult either, not when he poured his entire soul out onto paper.

His fears, his emotions, his love—he tells it all. He write how his love for you hurts like a swallowing ocean sometimes, and how being away from you almost becomes too much to bear. He spills of secrets any other man would be too embarrassed to admit; but no, not him. His heart is laid out for you in the tear-stained parchments scratched with ink.

Once he sends one letter, he becomes a bit obsessed. He sends another one, and then suddenly another—until he’s writing almost every day just to speak to you.

After all, how could he help it? When he finds new ways—new words and new phrases to describe his love for you, how could help but write you another letter? You were his passion, his flame that made him human, and if he express such emotion through pen and paper instead of his face, then he’d take it.

RAIDEN EI.

She’s random with her letters, you never know what to expect.

The feeling is akin to passing notes in a classroom. Sometimes, within the passing, she’ll quickly jut out her hand, expecting you to take that piece of paper as fast as possible before she leaves. She's on official business, yet she still looks a bit shy.

Such notes are always so childish. you can tell they were written so quickly on an uneven surface—and they were always so thoughtful in a way that made you giggle. A lot of these messages were just letting you know she catered sweets tonight at Tenshukaku, implying she wanted you to come for the sugar. Other notes were simpler, some of which just noted that she thought your hair looked particularly pretty that day.

And other times, her messages are completely different. On some days, they come delivered to your door as a fully sealed letter, one that has the official shogun seal securing it closed. These are ones she actually has time to write—ones where her handwriting is more eligible.

But she has such a difficult time with words, she gets so frustrated. From embarrassment or from dissatisfaction, her trash bin is filled to the brim with crumpled pieces of papers—all of which were prior attempts of writing you a letter. It is times like these she wished she spent more time in humanity, for even writing you a simple letter made her nervous.

But she wanted to do this, no matter what. It’s worth it when she’s finally able to voice her love for you in writing.

KAMISATO AYATO.

His letters come in pure white envelopes with a red wax seal… so formal and pristine.

It's a bit weird. Something akin to an invitation or letter from the shogun herself. But the Kamisato crest stamped right on the seal tells you otherwise; and really, it was the only form of indication it was from your lover.

His letters are always folded so nicely inside of the envelope. you wouldn’t notice it—and he doesn’t expect you to—but the creases of the paper are exactly the same every time. He puts time into it; way more than a busy man should. If you scouted through his desk, you’d find a drawer with gold-lined parchment to the side, as well as expensive imported ink from Liyue, and a feathered pen imported from Mondstadt. There's also a creaser made of bone marrow from Sumeru and a metal architect ruler from Fontaine, both of which he uses to perfectly fold each letter every time.

He's an enigma; so machine-like, that he knows you don’t pay attention to all those little details. For all he knows, you probably think these letters were factory-made or processed as a batch, not handcrafted specifically by his fingertips. You probably thought this was something secondary to his time, unbeknownst to the delicacy he has adapted just to send you the most perfect of letters every time.

But, that was okay with him. As long as you were reading his words—and as long as he still felt sparks every time he drafted a new letter, it was alright. Plus, he always has more fun when he knows something that others don’t.

LISA MINCI.

There’s always a state of serenity when you cut open her letters. She sprays it with her perfume every time before she seals it; so that when you open it, you’re reminded of her. Very thoughtful, isn’t it?

It makes you smile every time, she just knows it. She's so confident in your love for her ( or, perhaps, she was so comfortable in her swelling adoration for you ), that she pays nothing to worry when she’s writing letters. They’re always so mindless with no coins to perfection or even prestige—one could even call it lazy-looking if they had no idea.

But if anything, she was comfortable. Her handwriting has always been fancy with a pinch of delicateness as her strokes were so thin, though they contained the pretties of loops in her letters that you could not take your eyes off of. Even when she was scribbling so fast, her handwriting was still so pretty. And she does this so, so often—for it’s hard for her pen to keep up when her unspoken thoughts about you raced miles in a minute.

Her parchments are simple; old, even, like pages you’d find in an old book at Mondstadt’s library. Which she likes to quote, in fact. Sometimes, she’ll open her letters with a quote from a romance book she was just reading, or one she randomly remembered. She’ll talk about it in the following sentences; and then at the end, she’ll always somehow tie it back to you.

So simple, yet so endearing. She doesn’t care if you find it that way or not. It’s because she trusts you, more than you’d think.

#neuvillette x reader #ayato x reader #kaveh x reader #raiden ei x reader #lisa minci x reader #ei x reader #ayato kamisato x reader #lisa x reader #genshin x reader #genshin imagines #genshin x gender neutral reader

[corrodedbisexual]

Suck it better

Steddie | E | ~3.5k | AO3 link

Featuring: Porn With Plot (a little bit of plot ok I tried), Hand & Finger Kink, Thumb-sucking, Praise Kink, Competence Kink (if you squint), Hand Job, Blow Job, Masturbation, Fluff and Smut, Boys Kissing, Experienced Eddie Munson, POV Steve Harrington

A slightly belated gift for @stobinesque 🥰 happy birthday new friend!!!

“Sorry, sorry, just a sec,” Steve chuckles, scrambling to tug his sweatshirt from underneath Eddie’s butt. “I’d really rather not have a needle stuck in my dick.” Above him, Eddie giggles. Steve tosses the shirt away and looks up. “What?” Steve raises his eyebrows, unable not to smile back at Eddie’s cheeky expression. Eddie bites on his fist, looks away, then back to Steve, his grin impossibly wide. “Well. If that happened, I could always suck it better, you know.” *** An impromptu lesson in mending clothes takes an unexpected turn when Steve accidentally stabs his thumb with the needle.

They are in the middle of their weekly hangout at Eddie’s trailer, stretched out on the bed in his room, when Eddie suddenly says, “Hey, you’ve got a hole in your shirt, Stevie.”

Steve tugs on the edge of his green sweatshirt to see where Eddie’s pointing. There, he sees it; just below his armpit, the seams have come apart, revealing a gap about two inches long.

It was about time that happened, he supposes. He’s had this shirt for years, and it’s a little tighter on him now that he doesn’t regularly play sports or adhere to a diet. But it’s one of his comfiest ones, so soft and worn. Also, kind of a bittersweet reminder of simpler times, when he was just a high school student, blissfully clueless of what lurks beneath Hawkins. 

“Shit,” he murmurs. “I really liked this one.”

Eddie snorts.

“You sound like it got set on fire, or something. It’s fine, it just needs stitches.”

“Right, if only I had a… girlfriend who could fix it for me,” Steve replies. He almost said mother, catching himself at the last moment; it’s kind of pathetic to assume your mom would be mending your clothes at nineteen years old. 

Eddie narrows his eyes at him.

“Well, maybe not a girlfriend, but you do have a friend. ”

Steve shakes his head.

“Robin doesn’t know how to sew.”

Eddie groans, kicking him lightly against his shin. 

“And that is exactly why it’s sexist to assume you need a girl for the task, Steve.”

Eddie bends over the edge of the bed and reaches under it, pushing some items around audibly, then letting out a triumphant grunt and coming back up with a metal tin box. Bigger than the one he usually carries weed in. He opens the lid, and when Steve looks inside, he sees a bunch of various colored threads, a small pillow of different sized needles and pins, scissors, and several other items he can’t quite place. 

“Not all girls can sew,” Eddie speaks, taking a couple of green thread rolls and bringing them to Steve’s sleeve in turn, putting aside the one that looks almost the exact same color. “And not all those who can are girls.”

“Oh,” Steve says dumbly. “I wasn’t… trying to be sexist, sorry. I didn’t know you can sew.”

“What, did you think my battle vest was custom ordered?” Eddie smirks, untangling the thread and biting through it once he has the length he needs; Steve’s too ashamed to admit that it’s kind of exactly what he assumed. “I made it myself. I make a lot of things. Been sewing my Halloween costumes from scratch since I was thirteen. Plus, I patch up my own and Wayne’s clothes all the time. This kinda skill saves you a whole lot of cash.”

“That’s… really cool,” Steve finally says, genuinely impressed. Narrowing his eyes, Eddie pokes the thread into the needle once, twice, then swiftly pulling it through the eye. “Wow, how’d you do that so fast?” Steve laughs. “I remember my mum cursing up a storm for several minutes every time. She was obsessed with embroidery for a while.” 

Eddie smirks, setting the thread down and wriggling his fingers in the air. “I guess I just have very talented hands, Stevie.” 

Steve swallows, hoping his cheeks don’t look as red as they suddenly feel, because… he’s having a really, really hard time not thinking about exactly how talented Eddie’s hands could be. 

Steve blinks back to reality when he realizes Eddie’s saying something to him.

“What?”

“I said, gimme.” Eddie chuckles and tugs on Steve’s sleeve. 

“Oh.” Steve looks down at his sweatshirt, then up at Eddie, needle with a green thread already in hand. “Eds, you don’t have to do that.”

“I’m aware, I don’t see you holding me at gunpoint,” Eddie rolls his eyes. “I can’t bear witness to a perfectly good thing being thrown in the trash. Also, it literally takes five minutes, do I look busy to you? Come on, shirt off.”

Read the rest on AO3

#took a break from my virgin Eddie agenda for this and it was fun to write #steddie #steddie fic #steddie smut #smut #misha-bawlins fanfic #tw blood #(very minor literally just a pinprick)

[cthulhusstepmom]

Four Times Hootsie Ran Away to Join the Circus

There’s a certain hustle and bustle that comes with being the most important person at the Carnivalé, or so Hootsie has come to learn while observing her father. There’s always one thing or another that pops up and rears its unpleasant head. Whether it be the other people that work for him or the many beasts that he cares for. Today that was talk of an Oliphaunt, a word that made her Dad incredibly excited so it had to be a good thing. Unfortunately it seemed to be one of those good things that meant a lot of work, which translated to a lot of time spent playing with her fly-pad while her father directed the hands about. Though there seemed to be a problem with Uncle Kremy, the details of which are lost on Hootsie, but some form of one sided argument wherein her dad is too busy bouncing with excitement to listen to words like “wrong account” and “fucking sales tax Gricko”(oops a bit late on the ear muffs there). 

So at the very least it was a good day, which is never a bad thing, bad days aren’t fun; but, something Hootsie has learned in the wisdom of her(from her point of view) impressive age, is that good days can be just as un-fun as bad days if there was nothing to do. So in the spirit of making a good-but-un-fun day into a good-and-very-fun-day Hootsie took the liberty to slip under the loose flap of the beast tent and out into the grassy area where all of the horses grazed. Taking no mind of the panicked whickers and snorts of the fickle ponies, she sets her beak to the breeze and treads up the worn path out to the stand of trees currently obscuring the staff wagons from view. 

The air of the Carnivalé carries with it a bombardment of different smells. It’s always overwhelming whenever they set up at a new location, adjusting from the relatively constant scent of the carnies and the wagons, their beasts of burden and their cargo, but they’ve been here a few days and already her brain has worked to filter the new sensory input to make it more manageable; such that it’s a simple task to zero in on the deep aroma of parchment and canvas and something distinctly feline. An even simpler one to follow it. 

Uncle Frosty has shared space with her and her Dad for as long as she could remember. Whether it be tents or tavern rooms or most recently their nice wagon, where one is the other follows. They balance each other, Hootsie thinks. The stoic tiger and her effusive father, one always preventing the other from swinging too far into their respective extremes. Both kind hearted and wise beyond their years, each in his own way. Though she is just a little owlbear so really who is she to say. 

Regardless it is he who sits calmly in the center of the small space, legs crossed and eyes shut on a small mat he keeps with his many meticulously organized belongings. Hootsie tries hard not to make a sound and disrupt the serene atmosphere but she trips on a half carved block of wood and triggers a concentrated avalanche of clothes and band memorabilia from the interwoven clutter of her father’s side of the room. Thankfully it all finds its own way to the floor carefully and in a much neater fashion than it had previously been, due in large part she suspects to the mind magic she has come to associate with her Uncle. Her suspicions are confirmed when she feels a gentle not-quite-there pressure scratching behind her ear accompanied by the crisp scent of chilly mountain air. 

“I apologize I don’t have any rat snacks for you right now, but if you will wait until I am finished meditating perhaps we can go and find some.” 

Offering an affirmative Chirr in response, Hootise moves to a plush owlbear bed(definitely not just a big dog bed) set against the wall. Old and worn, with more patches than original fabric, the bed is nonetheless plump and slightly overstuffed as she circles three times before laying her head down on her paws. More often than not she just sleeps in bed with her Dad but he says it’s important for her to have her own space as she grows up(even if it does take up almost a quarter of the floorspace of their wagon).

Uncle Frosty had tried to explain the concept of his meditation to her before, something about emptying your mind and becoming at peace with the universe, but truth be told she had just nodded until he gave her a rat. Regardless, it's more peaceful than the chaos of the beast tent and her toys are here: an army of little wooden figurines her Dad had made her: detailed carvings of all of the characters from Sea Cucumber Robert Rectangle Trousers, an ever expanding cast of monsters each of which her father had named and taught her the significance of, and a wooden representation of her strange family(though to a little previously orphaned owlbear it’s not that strange at all), complete with a painstakingly accurate Hootsie made of aromatic pine. 

Later, one Gricko Grimgrin rushes about the Carnivalé in a state of utter panic. Searching for his wayward adorable-lovely-perfect daughter. In all of the excitement of being waylaid by Kremy and then almost trampled by an agitated Oliphaunt he’d somehow lost track of her and after searching the entirety of the beast tent, the big top, and the rigged games he’ll admit he’s started to lose his famed collected and indifferent demeanor. 

“Hootsie! Hootsie! Hootsie, where are you?” Not pausing for so much as an answer, the flustered goblin continues rushing through the rows of canvas and out towards the collection of brightly painted wagons. Bursting through a green and red painted door he shouts: “Frosty you gotta come quick! Hootsie is missing and I can’t find her anywhere!”

“Careful Gricko, you’re about to cross the picket line.” A cool voice cautions. 

Taking a moment to examine the scene in front of him, he sees a variety of wooden figures placed purposefully about the room. On Frosty’s side of the rug stands little wooden Kremy and Gideon and, is that Necky? As well as (he thinks) Mr. Lobster and the sea cucumber himself under a building made of stacked books. Outside, a line of figures hold tiny parchment-scrap signs, at their forefront being tiny birch Frost and Hootsie. Speaking of; his daughter herself sits, enraptured by the tableau, a paper beside her covered in colorful scribbles under a pristinely penned headline reading ‘Notes’. 

“We’re learning about ethical labor practices.”

“Uh-huh. You know the last time I brought that up I woke up in the back of the wagon on the way to a farm.”

#just wanted to write Hootsie bonding with all of her uncles #that's it that's the whole thing #(next chapter is Gideon) #legends of avantris #once upon a witchlight #gricko grimgrin #morning frost #hootsie grimgrin #fanfic #cthulhu's stepmom

[repurpose-yourself]

Vintage│Source Material

Crying. It didn't matter how hardened of a criminal a man was - crying happened. And it was even more common on death row. Hell, there were even times I shed a few tears over my situation.

But unlike others claiming they were innocent, I knew the cause of my incarceration and accepted the judgment. I won't go into detail about my criminal background. Just know the death penalty was justified in my circumstance, as hard as it may be to willfully acknowledge that.

Still, the crying I endured during my final prison bus ride was vastly different than on death row. Five of us were in this lot, with over half openly sobbing. It was understandable, though. You see, it wasn't exactly a ride to our death. Prisons do not farm out executions, so what they had planned for us wasn't a standard death sentence.

We all knew what awaited us, which was why emotions ran high. Normally prisoners didn't find out until the final moment of being walked into the chamber. But the prison guard accompanying the bus driver today didn't think it was necessary to hide our fate.

I had my fair share of run-ins with the guard prior to this bus ride. He was an asshole, plain and simple. So, it didn't surprise me one bit that he opted to inflict such misery on us.

The building our bus pulled into couldn't have been more bland and non-descript. It looked like any other factory we passed on the street. Inside, the bus parked and the garage door closed. Not far from the door was the chamber, which just seeing it sent shivers down our spines.

One by one we were led off. Screaming inmates were forced in and sealed away. Minutes would pass and a door would open on the other side. A worker would enter the chamber and carry out a round, black ball roughly about the size of a basketball. It was deposited on a cart and the next inmate would be led in.

Death would be simpler and kinder than what I was being led into. But my concerns didn't matter any longer after conviction. As the responsibility of the state, I was at their mercy. But mercy they did not show. Rather, pushed inside and confined to the chamber, I would join a long list of people repurposed for other needs.

Death row prepares you for your life being cut short. But no amount of preparation readies a man for the horrors of that chamber. Scratching at the sides, my humanity was gone nearly instantly. Replaced with excruciating pain and agony, my new existence was nothing more than an in-between state.

Being turned into black material allowed the Vintage website company to better handle the influx of human sourced material. Nothing made you feel worthless like sitting on a shelf inside a vast warehouse with other balls of material, waiting for your final form as an object.

What you became wouldn't be known until a customer ordered something and your turn came around. Until then, I went from one prison cell to another. But this new confinement was within my own existence - all my senses with no ability to talk or communicate my needs.

But in the end, I guess that makes sense. Product doesn't talk. It only makes money. Instead of costing tax payers to incarcerate me, the state prison system made a nice chunk of change for turning me over to Vintage. And eventually the website would profit off of me too.

How I wish for death, as it is much more freeing than this horrific reality...

Story content is original and human produced. Imagery created using Microsoft Bing Image Creator.

#inanimate object #inanimate tf #inanimate transformation #nonconsensual tf

[tj-crochets]

How do you make stuffed animals? I’ve bought a pattern for less complicated animals, but you made that blorbo and I don’t think there are any templates for that? What should be my next step in developing my animal making skills?

Hey! This answer is probably going to get pretty long, so it's going below a read more

You're right, I did not use a pre-existing pattern for the blorbo plushie. There's a couple different methods people use to create plushie patterns; if you find you don't like the method I use, that doesn't mean you can't make plushies! Keep trying until you find methods that work for you In my experience, the best way to develop skills in plushie pattern making is to sew a bunch of different plushies. While you use patterns, look at how the pieces look in 2D on the paper and how the end up in 3D in the finished plushie, and start to make a note of what it takes to make simple 3D shapes like a sphere (darts or different segments), a cube (six squares), a cylinder (a rectangle with two circles for the end pieces) If creating a new pattern entirely from scratch seems too much to start with, you can repurpose pieces of other patterns*! I've got a fluffy ostrich-y bird pattern that's just a pattern for a round dumpling for the body, a pattern for a...I think it was a snowball for the head, and then some simple rectangles to make the cylinders of the neck and legs. Another thing! A lot of plushie pattern making for simpler plushies made of knit fabric is just drawing. My manta ray patterns are just a drawing of a manta ray, plus a seam allowance added around the outside. Same with my eel pattern (mostly. it has one dart), my fish pattern, my other manta ray pattern...there's a lot of patterns you can make flat when you're starting out and use stuffing and the stretch of the fabric to make 3D. It's still what I use for simple flat pieces of patterns like wings, arms, ears, etc. That reminds me: seam allowances! I use 1/4" seam allowances, because that's what my sewing machine is set up for and it's the most common seam allowance I've seen used for plushies. You can use whatever seam allowance you want, but I have found it's a loooot easier if you have a tool you can use to add your seam allowance once you've drawn your pattern. I use two mechanical pencils taped together whose points are 1/4" apart. I put one pencil on the line I drew for the pattern, and use the other pencil to draw the line of the seam allowance. A few other tips, in no particular order but numbered so I can keep track of them 1. when matching up pieces of a pattern, make sure they match before the seam allowance is added. It'll make your life easier 2. fold paper to get symmetry in your pattern pieces 3. if you need to match a straight line to a curved line, or two curved lines together, you can use a pipe cleaner to measure the length of the curved line and then straighten the pipe cleaner to know how long to make your straight line (like matching the bottom of legs (rectangular pieces) to feet (circular pieces)) 4. If you are creating a pattern to use with a particular fabric, check how much of the fabric you have BEFORE you draw the pattern just like an inch too long to cut out of the fabric (I learned the hard way lol) 5. if you are worried your pattern won't turn out how you want it to, you can always start with monsters. There's no wrong way to make a monster plushie, you can just accidentally make a different monster than the one you intended to make. It's still a monster plushie, and that's not a bad thing to make! :D 6. if you have multiple pattern pieces coming together at the same point, like the top of a beach ball or the top of my octopus pattern, think about what angle you want that junction to form. For the octopus, I wanted the very top of it to be flat, so I made sure the pieces coming together totaled 360 degrees to be a flat circle. If I'd gone for less than 360 degrees, it would be pointed, if I'd gone for more, it would be kind of ruffled? Almost? Point is: divide the angle you want by the number of pieces you want to form that angle to get what the angle should be at the point each piece comes together *don't sell patterns made from pieces of other peoples' patterns though

#ask away! #weasel-the-scout #how to create sewing patterns #sort of. this is very freeform as I thought of it #if you (or anyone else) have more questions please feel free to ask!

[bingoboingobongo]

task force 141 + favorite christmas movies

Characters: Simon “Ghost” Riley, John “Soap” MacTavish, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, John Price, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra

Warnings: none

A/N: sorta did this already with ghost but now it’s time for the entire team

john "soap" mactavish:

what can i say soap is a home alone kinda guy

he fell in love with them as a kid and he just never fell out of love

it's that sorta violent but still comedic and overly dramatized kind of humor that soap likes

plus he's a sucker for montages and you know home alone has a bunch of them

he's a fan of the whole series too

but the first one is definitely his favorite, just because it's classic

definitely gets freaked out by the bird lady in the second one (i think it's the second one)

and yes he's always wanted a home alone situation whenever he was a kid

he would literally pray for a duo of goofy robbers to try and break in whenever his parents weren't home

of course it never worked

but you know

a man can dream

he also knows all the home alone lore

and he freaked out when he found out macaulay culkin was married to brenda song

kyle "gaz" garrick:

so this goes hand in hand with my christmas songs headcanon

but gaz's favorite christmas movie is the grinch (2018)

bc 1. it has a fire soundtrack

2. it's got great animation

and 3. beneficiary cumberbun as the grinch was unprecedentedly good

he also doesn't like the live action grinch

he watched it when he was younger and it really scared him

like im talking it really scared him

he saw it in a hotel while his family was visiting new york for christmas

and then he refused to sleep on the wall side of the bed because he was scared the grinch was gonna come from under the bed in that sorta shadowy area between the bed and the wall and steal him

and yes he still sleeps on the lamp side whenever he stays at hotels now

even though he's a grown man

so yeah the grinch (2018) was a very welcome change to that

i mean the animation is so bright and cheery

what's not to love

plus he really likes how fluffy the grinch looks

and yes he watched it in theatres with his family so there's a lot of good memories associated with that as well

simon "ghost" riley:

so kinda similar to gaz

but ghost's favorite christmas movie is actually how the grinch stole christmas (1966)

for those of y'all who aren't up to date on the grinch movie release timeline that's the cartoon one

gaz doesn't like that one because that smile the grinch does in the beginning (you know what i mean, it's the one where his cheeks literally like migrate to his ears) freaked him out

but ghost actually enjoys that scene

he says it scratches an itch

he also likes the 1966 grinch because it brings him back to simpler times

he first watched it in school right before winter break

and then he went home and made his mom watch it with him over and over and over again

and so now whenever he has the chance he'll watch during the holiday season

it does make him a little sad though

you know since his mom's dead

anyways

john price:

price's favorite movie is charlie brown's christmas

he's actually a pretty big fan of the peanuts

is that what they're called? idk

so it's only a no brainer that the charlie brown christmas special brings him a special kind of joy

before he used to watch it on cable on christmas day

and then he got apple tv+ so now he watches it to get in the mood

guys this isn't an ad for apple i swear

he likes to cozy up with a blanket, some nice socks (he's a sock guy what can i say), a cup of tea or hot cocoa, and some biscuits

sometimes he falls asleep before the end tho

but it's not like he's never seen it before so it's fine

yet despite his love for the peanuts he does not have a charlie brown christmas tree

no his tree is always freshly cut down and usually pretty hefty

rodolfo "rudy" parra:

alright so this one also goes with my christmas music headcanons

but rudy's favorite christmas movie is the frozen franchise

and yes it's a holiday movie

he will fight you on that

in his mind snow + fire soundtrack = christmas movie

so yes goncharov would technically be a christmas movie by rudy's criteria

and yes he will fight you if you bring that up

he also really hates claymation

like really really hates it

it's too uncanny valley for him

like for it to be enjoyable it better be super duper obvious that the characters are clay

but even then it still catches him off guard

he also really likes christmas specials for like a bunch of shows

so after he's done with his frozen marathon he'll turn on his favorite shows and just watch the christmas episodes

and yes he does that for every holiday that has specials

alejandro vargas:

okay so potentially controversial opinion

but alejandro really enjoys hallmark movies

like it doesn't matter which one it is as long as it's a christmas hallmark movie he's down to watch it

he doesn't even know why like he's aware of how cheesy they are

but they've really mastered that feel good formula

even if each movie is riddled with plot holes

but even then that's also part of the fun too

like he enjoys inviting rudy or even the others over so they can poke fun at all the logistical impossibilities of the movie

and really that's what he likes when he watches the movies

the good memories he makes

ig it's true guys

the real lesson was the friends we made on the way

or whatever the saying is idk

he also likes the cheesy romance of it all

and also he doesn't tell anyone that he secretly enjoys the hallmark movies

with everyone else he pretends that it sucks

but he eats it up every time

and yes he always checks to see if the kiss happens at the same time

and so far it has almost every single time

#bingoboingobongo.com #bingoboingobongo's christmas extravaganza #ghost x reader #soap x reader #gaz x reader #john price x reader #alejandro vargas x reader #rodolfo parra x reader #ghost headcanons #soap headcanon #gaz headcanon #john price headcanons #alejandro vargas headcanons #rodolfo parra headcanons #ghost cod #soap cod #gaz cod #john price cod #alejandro vargas cod #rodolfo parra cod #call of duty #cod #modern warfare 2 #mw2

[irinaseverinka]

Update Mod "Realistic Cooking" Version 3.0

DOWNLOAD HERE

Literally, we had to rebuild the entire mod from scratch🤪 and change a lot of settings to add more compatibility with other mods, as well as make it simpler and easier to use. It took longer than we expected, but it was worth it! We strongly recommend everyone to upgrade to this version, as it is more stable and convenient! If you still only thought to try our mod- it's time to do it😜!

What was added:

🌟 New products for the store - ketchup, mustard and ready-made sauces

🌟 A new recipe for making dough at home (find in the refrigerator menu "Homemade" - "Ingredients" if you have EP "Get to Work", since you need level 3 baking skills)

🌟 New recipes from the EP "The High School Years" - Hamburger Slider, Meatball Tamale Bites, Tortilla Wrapped Dog, Churros, Rainbow Brownies and Acai Bowl

🌟 The new recipe "Crackers with caviar" from the EP"Get Famous" is now available in the restaurant and refrigerator menu, and not only for stars from level 3 in the bar

🌟 All our custom recipes are now in the refrigerator menu

🌟A download with the 2nd version for products from the mod has been added to all our custom recipes, where you can use both all our products and products of other authors

What has been fixed:

🔨Food packages are now stacked in a pile to take up less space in your Sim's luggage and refrigerator

🔨All products for sale have different carrying animation

🔨The products in the sim's luggage are now sorted correctly for drinks and food

🔨All product names have been changed for easier search and sorting. Now boxes, packages, bottles will be indicated AFTER the name of the product itself after the comma. And new descriptions have also been added to more clearly reflect for which recipes they can be used, whether they contain small portions, how much and what quality

🔨Sims will no longer take foods such as chocolates, chips, crackers or bread as leftovers (while a plate of bread can be taken in the Quick Snacks section). They will still take yogurt, cottage cheese and sausage, but it will not have such a high priority over other food as before. Sims will prefer cooked food over snacks again! It's time for them to start eating more properly😜!

🔨The reaction to lactose for recipes corresponds to whether the dairy product is included there or not. And you will also see more accurate hints in the description of the recipes

🔨Delivery will not be available if there is no internet at the lot

🔨Cheeses can now be bought individually, not just in packages

🔨The mod is assembled in such a way that you can combine it with any other mod without any conflicts when installing only part of the files

🔨Files in folders now have not only the extension number, but also its name, so that it is easier for you to determine which packages to install and which to remove

Additionally📔:

🔑 If you install the Littlemssam "Transfer Inventory" mod, you will be able to put all the products from your luggage into the refrigerator and back with one button

🔑 Our mod is compatible with the SCCO mod, and is also assembled in such a way that you can install only our products and delivery without using any overrides of EA files and combine it with any other mod

Separate information for those who want to use RCM with SCCO at the same time:

At the moment, this only works one way - you can install any SCCO functions and any of our files, except what is in the "EA Override" folder (that is, not our version of EA recipes, prices for vegetables-fruits-fish EA, as well as the test recipe), if you decide to use both mods are together.

Or you can wait for an update from the author of Srslysims (as far as I know, it will be soon) in order to use them together fully and get the opportunity to choose to install any functions from different mods. We will write the installation instructions as soon as it comes out.

At the same time, all our products now contain SCCO tags, which means you can use products from both mods for recipes. As well as products of other authors that include these tags, for example, products of authors Brazenlotus, Oni and others

DOWNLOAD HERE

#ts4 #sims4 #sims4cc #ts4cc #ts4 download #ts4 mods #ts4 cooking #rcm

[ophexis]

I've returned from my supply run earlier and I'm happy to say I shall be making not one, but TWO whole recipes from the neopets cookbook! Mostly it's just that the one I really wanted to make was very simple, and would have left me over with ingredients that the second recipe uses, so it works out perfectly lmao.

Anyway I shall now speak of the Neopets Cookbook and what I think of it in between two rounds of Sakhmet Solitaire.

The Neopets Cookbook came out last year and it was one of those things I: 1) never expected to happen 2) didnt even consider being a possibility 3) makes so much sense

They only tell you how to make like 3-4 omelettes but it's really just omelette+toppings so you can be creative.

Neopets has a gajillion food items, and while a good chunk of it is questionnable, theres a lot I wanted to eat irl as a kid lmao. I'm happy that all recipes in the book are actual neopets food items rather than just like, neopets-shaped cookies or whatever. I do kinda wish the book was bigger to have more recipes in it. The recipes for main meals are a bit sparse and you will mostly find snacks and desserts.

This cookbook does expect that kids will be picking it up, so the recipes are on the simpler side, and there are several warnings throughout the book about being careful with knives and to not burn yourself. If you're an experienced cook, you're not gonna learn much or discover anything new in this book, but if you've just started cooking on your own (or have kids) this could be a really good starter book! The recipes mostly count on the presentation to be fun rather than the use of unique ingredients and techniques and stuff.

You go you funky little gay neopets

There are many many recipes that include tips on how to make meaty recipes vegetarian or vegan, on how to make vegetarian recipes vegan, or how to make a lot of the recipes gluten-free.

It's super colorful, has a TON of photos of the foods, and specifically at least one photo for EVERY recipe! Which you may discover through my journey with these books is, for some gods forsaken reason, not always a given! So the Neopets cookbook gets a gold star for the beautiful giant photos of the food on every page, and the cute neopets art spread throughout. There's also some templates you can photocopy at the end to decorate with.

The two recipes I'm gonna make this week are the Hot Dog Burrito, which I might do tomorrow and the Space Quesadilla, which I will do……either wednesday or thursday depending on my mood lmao.

tl;dr:

GOOD: Great for beginners! Photos on every recipe! SUPER colorful! Really fun presentation! Fun for the whole family! Great party food ideas!

LESS GOOD: Recipes on the simpler side! Tends to depend on store-bought items! (which is fine but less stuff is made from scratch) The food might not be mindblowing but it'll be fun as heck!

"Let's get cooking!"

If you want to have another look at this book I suggest watching Misohungrie's review of it where he cooks 3 meals from the book and shares his thoughts!

#Phex cooking adventures #neopets #misohungrie is a good channel if you wanna see reviews of all these cookbooks btw

[unicyclehippo]

Imodna prompt: "i miss when it was just us"

‘i miss when it was just us.’

the room is quiet for a minute. the room. gods, she’s getting avoidant even in her own damn head. laudna is quiet for a minute. when imogen finally looks over, she’s fiddling with some of that red string, making something for one of her dolls.

‘laud?’

she glances up, smiles prettily. the corners of her mouth tremble.

imogen doesn’t know what she wants laudna’s attention for, except that she always wants it. ‘did you hear me?’ she asks, and knows laudna did because her dark eyes lift away from her and starts flicking around the room. nervous. when did that start? ‘it’s okay if - if you don’t feel the same. i don’t know if i really mean it,’ she confesses, tucks her legs up under her.

‘i - quite like our little family,’ laudna says softly, and her eyes stop darting around. settle somewhere near imogen. on her knee, imogen thinks is where laudna’s eyeline connects. ‘i can’t begin to fathom how you feel—‘

‘you always seem to know.’

‘do i?’ laudna murmurs, and her gaze lifts. she meets her eyes again. there’s something new about her. it takes a second for imogen to note the crinkle above her brows, a line of tension. worry. it must be powerful and persistent if it has made a mark on her; laudna is fragile but she doesn’t scar, doesn’t mar, doesn’t change. not easily.

imogen wants to touch it. wants to smooth it out with her thumb. something slick and dark squirms in her belly. avoidant in her own mind. she wants to smooth out the mark on laudna’s forehead of her worry not because laudna has been worrying but because imogen is jealous that the world gets to mark laudna and she doesn’t. she wants to put her hands on laudna, wants to know what it would take to make something permanent. in a few years, imogen will be dead or gone and laudna will be unmarred by their time together except for a few callouses, maybe.

her fingers twitch in her lap.

laudna doesn’t seem to notice; her eyes dip to imogen’s knee, and away. return to her knitting or stitching. do i? laudna says when imogen insists she knows how she feels. the words are soft enough, a whisper, that imogen can’t glean any kind of tone from them. sad? bitter?

‘they’re noisy,’ imogen says, because if laudna doesn’t know how she feels, she needs to tell her, and a lot of feelings start to crowd her, jam up at the base of her throat. she lets the little ones out. ‘feels sort of like when we first met. scary, bein’ around new folk. but nice.’

laudna nods. why isn’t she speaking?

‘it’s not that i don’t like them. or what we’re doin’, it seems important. and i sure would like some answers. but—i miss it. do you?’

the scratch of needles is a skin-prickling sound. imogen hasn’t grown used to it despite its frequency—laudna is often crafting, and her needles, her talons, her tools often scrape while she works. imogen wonders not for the first time if when she’s free of her powers, or totally in control of them, if she’ll still feel like the world is too noisy. seems like everything is always too much, not just peoples minds.

‘everything seems like it was simpler then,’ laudna says.

imogen knows she’s right. that’s a little of what she’s yearning for: the ease, the simplicity, the knowing what the next day would bring. but, that means she misses laudna, because every day was the two of them, no distance, no delay.

‘it only seems that way because we’re so busy now. but if not for this group, it would have taken us months longer to learn of the moon, and months travelling to basuras, and—‘

‘i know, i know. i’m not saying i want to leave them or nothin,’ she says, frustrating leaking into her words. how was it that laudna was misunderstanding her so bad? ‘i’m sayin’ i miss you, laud.’

‘i’m right here?’

‘you’re as far as you can get from me, and you ain’t said a thing all night.’ laudna blinks, owlish. a dead owl, maybe, all empty sockets and silence. ‘it’s fine, if you don’t want to talk. i shouldn’t press.’

‘no.’

‘no i shouldn’t press?’ imogen asks, clarifies, begs her to correct her. to close the distance between them and talk. to close the distance between their minds and let her in again.

‘no, i’m not as far as i can get.’

‘what?’

‘i am as close as i can be,’ laudna continues softly. ‘i shouldn’t be. but i like being close.’ her words come out so fucking quiet. she barely moves. she’s a shadow of herself, a ghost of herself. imogen stares at her, not daring to blink, in case she disappears. in case she’s being haunted by laudna and if imogen closes her eyes for a second she’ll fade like a bad dream. ‘i miss it too,’ she says. ‘it was easy. easier. you trusted me more.’

imogen tries not to flinch. somehow, her attempt at opening up to laudna became this. something more honest than she had prepared for.

‘i- i know it’s not your fault,’ she says.

laudna’s smile is curved like a scythe. sharp, too. ‘do you? that’s nice. i don’t.’

‘laud-‘

‘it doesn’t feel like she controls me, you know. i think it’s still me. can you imagine being talked into doing awful things? just words. not magic. she only talks to me and i’m quite prepared to hurt my friends.’

‘family.’

laudna’s smile buckles at the ends. ‘quite right,’ she agrees, tone frosty. ‘hurt my family.’

#tagging my stories #prompt fill #laura bailey said Imogen can read minds but she still is queen of misunderstandings #imodna #imodna my beloveds #it was going to be sweeter but it became a little sad sorry

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who still remembers and loves CDs. Vinyl records have made a comeback and are now considered cool among certain varieties of hipster and audiophile, but CDs haven't had the same treatment.

And like, to some extent, I kinda understand that. CDs aren't cool. Records are cool. They're big and textured and elegant and they're objectively old enough to feel vintage rather than dated. They're not exactly durable but they make up for their fragility with their other positive qualities, and you could certainly argue that warping and scratches add exactly the kind of character to a record that we've lost with digital music and therefore crave from physical media. A slightly damaged CD pretty much always just becomes totally unplayable.

So I get it. And I'll readily admit that the biggest reason why I like CDs is simply that I grew up with them and have fond memories of them. But I do also think it's objectively true that there are certain positive features unique to CDs. I will never tire of the experience of giving and receiving mix CDs. You can't do that with a record. (I mean, I don't think you can? Not easily, at any rate.) And it's not the same as a playlist! It's not the same. When you make a mix CD, you not only curate the music for the recipient, you burn the disc, you decorate it, you make the sleeve or pick the jewel case and make the paper insert for it, figure out how to wrap/package it. I mean, obviously you don't have to do all of these things, but the opportunity is there for a lot of creativity and love. And in the end the person gets both the physical object as well as being able to make digital copies of the songs on their computer (which also allows them to use those songs in their future mix CDs, continuing the cycle!).

The mix CD is just so unpretentious, wholesome, and kind. It gave the average person unprecedented power over how music was curated and shared. (I mean, of course mix tapes did something similar, and maybe they deserve more credit than I give them, simply because they're from before my time; but I kind of have to assume that CD mixing is a much simpler and more efficient process.) The mix CD creates a loving context for experiencing music. Here, I made this! Special from me, for you! I think context is one of the things which we most desperately miss in this modern age, where we're fed our newest songs by the goddamn algorithm (whether that's Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, or whatever). The mix CD is personal, human, earnest and sweet.

(And yes, to some extent, playlists do this as well, and they have their own advantages. But I think the shareability of playlists, while making it possible for many more people to experience your creation, has ended up discouraging the intimate act of making something just for one other person and instead promotes the idea that what is most desirable is to have your work seen by the greatest possible number of people.)

I started thinking about this because I saw another post talking about the removal of CD/DVD drives from computers and it really does make me sad thinking that this may be the final nail in the coffin of the mix CD. I've had to depend on external disc drives to make my mixes, and I'm sure that for most people, CDs have passed totally out of their awareness.

I'm not saying the mix CD is the end all be all of sharing music. There are already lots of other ways to share music and I would quite like to think that we will continue to invent new ways. But I do find it very sad that the art of the mix CD is dying, and while the mix CD itself may be doomed, I really hope that we don't forget its virtues, and find a way to keep the spirit of the thing alive. Physical object as well as digital copies that can be shared with others, permanent ownership of the music (rather than just streaming/renting), the burning and reading of this object being cheap and accessible, personal touch/high customizability (not being limited simply to song order, a single cover image, and a short description), intimacy. These are what I don't want to lose.

#text #thoughts #media #music #physical media #CDs #mix CDs

[calmrot]

Personally, I hate ads, so this feels a lil gross

This is here cause I’m looking to generate interest in my card game! Board game? idk, it’s kind of in between the two. It’s called Drawn to Rule - read all about it under the cut. As of today, version 0.4 has been sent to the printers!~

You can play it for free through tabletop simulator, or print it out at home!

Join the Discord Pick up the files on Itch.io Just hop right into the game yourself with the Tabletop Mod

So, whats this all about?

Here’s the pitch.

Drawn to Rule is a customizable and replayability focused free-for all. A race to build the strongest character, and roll the most dice!  With Legacy, Hidden Role, and Character Building mechanics, a totally unique combat and injury system, it is quick to learn and surprisingly in-depth. Every single piece of this game, except the fonts, are made from scratch by myself!

Included plenty of optional decks to add unique mechanics, allowing you to make your individual game simpler or more involved.

Drawn to Rule wears a lot of its' influences pretty openly. It's a battle royale, it's a hidden identity game, it's a character builder, and it's a drawing legacy game. There is a focus on the esoteric, unknown, creating its own mythos by what is missing, while still being rich in content.

The hidden role cards focus on making many alternative and unconventional ways to win - I don't want the game to always turn into a slugfest. But, I love a good combat game, and this one makes sure that it's very interesting, with unique injuries instead of health, and dice rolling that have both the attacker and defender both doing something.

The game intentionally incorporates asymmetry as a way to force alliances. Throughout playtests, there often was a clear antagonist: a character who's starting stronger, and will only get stronger with time. Forging temporary alliances is something that's really satisfying. It's a game that leads well into betrayal, and sudden upset wins.

Finally, the Legacy & Drawing aspects. This game is entirely in black & white, with very simple iconographic design. There is no card art, and none of them are named. Instead, you have canvas space, and name tags. Name your characters, and draw them up! Everyone's copy of the game will be totally unique to them. And, whenever someone wins a game, they have an opportunity to change their cards permanently, using those new cards in all future games.

Sound interesting? I’m looking for playtesters, and anyone who can give good feedback. If you want to get involved, I’d be happy to make you a card that would be featured in the game as well, and try to get you an official copy for cheap.

I’ll be running games, and it’s always a good time.

#board game #original work #developers & startups #battle royale #tabletop games #freebies #discord group #playtest #dark ages

[bitchfitch]

I'm still chewing on Renard and Zephyr in the background and while I'm not any closer to having the shape of their plot i do have another series of little moments i want for them.

On a quiet day Renard comments on Zephyr's earrings, they're a lot simpler than what he would normally wear. Zephyr shrugs it off and does something he does very rarely, he tells the truth about himself. They were a gift from a friend. When he was younger he briefly apprenticed at a piercing parlor. His mentor had been the one to give him these earrings shortly after Zephyr's piercings had healed enough to swap out the jewelry. That mento had died not long after, and it was the anniversary of his death, so Zephyr wore them today in memory of him.

He told the story with the same nonchalance he used absolutely anytime conversation drifted too close to home. A very performative 'cool guy' vibe. Renard had already learned it was just a shield he kept up to prevent anyone getting too close and hurting him.

Renard didn't have any piercings, so the conversation sorta drifted in the usual direction from there. Did it hurt, does Zephyr like them, why he wanted them, does he have any other piercings, etc.

Zephyr gets a little uncomfortable having the conversation focus on him for so long so he spins it around on Renard. Would he want his ears pierced? Zephyr still has his kit and he wouldn't mind putting the old training to use.

Renard is hesitant, the whole 'super-soldier ultra fast healing' thing made it seem... challenging. Zephyr points out that that just means it won't take long to retire the piercings if he doesn't end up liking them. Renard agrees to give it a shot.

Next time they see eachother Zephyr has everything ready. Renard's pain tolerance and the fact Zephyr is using proper needles and such means it's a really quick and no fuss proceeding. Externally. Internally, Renard is learning the wonders of non-violent touch and that proximity to another person can feel good and relaxing. He's a brick of a man, not especially emotive, so Zephyr doesn't notice Renard's little revelation that he likes it when Zephyr lightly scratches his nails against his scalp or guides him to tilt his head the right way.

The fact he does like how he looks with earrings ends up being secondary. Tertiary even, after he realizes that there's no rules in the dress code about earrings beyond the fact they couldn't dangle more than an inch below the lobe. It's the most freedom he's had with his appearance in... ever.

Still, the night before he suspects he'll be seeing Zephyr again he takes them out to let the piercings heal shut overnight. He swears he had to take them out for a mission or something. He's not a good liar. Zephyr offers to do the piercings again, and Renard accepts way too fast.

It ends up being a habit. Zephyr keeps the piercing kit at their usual meeting spot instead of taking it home everytime. He points out there's other sorts of piercings he can do for Renard. It doesn't just have to be the lobe over and over again, they can try something new if hed like too. and he did. It ends up being a habit of his to 'forget' to put multiple piercings back in after a shower or smthn right before he would be seeing Zephyr again.

Zephyr isn't stupid and he knows the piercings are just Renard's way of asking for touch without going against the terms of their sorta... contract? It's complicated. Zephyr still makes a point to touch him more often, holding his hand or putting his legs up on Renard's lap, sitting closer, patting him on the shoulder, leaning on him when they were just chilling. Little things that could be overlooked and treated as platonic. And which, at that point, were platonic.

Zephyr has a little crush by that point, sure, but Renard is, in this matter, inexperienced and delicate. The crush is not something Zephyr is going to push and risk hurting Renard by making him feel like things Have to change or like Zephyr expects things from him he might not be comfortable with. It's not worth the risk when they're both happy to be just friends.

#and then Renard asks to see Zephyrs other piercings because hes heard some things about certain types of piercings #and it just escalates from there. #anyways. the inherent homoeroticism of piercing needles. thank you for your consideration

[archfeyworkshop]

Let's start with worldbuilding rambling, shall we? Above is the world of Arturium, what is ultimately a five-year project that has gone through...three and a bit iterations and two editions of gaming. So let's summarise quickly:

When I started GMing for TTRPGs, I made the big mistake of making a whole world from scratch for three weeks and ended up absolutely in over my head. I was a worse storyteller and world designer, and I don't think I even have the original map, made in Hexographer, anymore. At the time it was so much simpler too - the pantheon was pulled wholesale from Eberron despite knowing nothing about it, I had more cities in some places and fewer in others. For the time it wasn't bad but...it wasn't a world exactly. More a caricature.

The next iteration made some big changes. I laid out much clearer overviews of each nation, and threw out a lot of the Eberron gods in favour of my own. I kept one or two that I appreciated, but the new pantheon still kept the dual-domain style of the old pantheon, and a couple of higher powers like Asmodeus and Mephistopheles remained even today. The Hells just don't feel the same without them. That was the first glam-up on the map too.

I had a drawing program, go figure. It looked better than the original but was essentially a redraw, and continued with the geographical issue of me not being very aware of how terrain formed. But it was mine. And was still...pretty empty. It was made during my first campaign which ended up running for three years, which ended up taking place over two continents and a lot of lore that was ultimately altered but not quite abandoned.

This most recent iteration and a bit has been the most substantial and worthwhile one. The pantheon got properly cleaned up with the last of the remnant gods being remade into entirely personalised ones, and resulted in the map above. Between iterations I had picked up bits and pieces about how terrain was loosely shaped, and that resulted in the remade mountain ranges and rivers. National borders became properly contained by natural terrain and we got some actual islands. It was the biggest change that took the world into feeling like proper terrain, breaking things up like landmasses that have drifted.

At this point all the nations got fuller updates on their individual cities with a paragraph for each, and a more complex interaction with the world around them. A topic for another post, perhaps. Keeping things at a macro level for now though...a number of species got reworked or renamed, or cut out entirely as I decided they weren't doing anything in the setting ecology. The Crayshaw Mountains got renamed to Agryphida, and then mysteriously disappeared from the earliest ages of the world...but that's its own story. Oh nine, there's the entire reworking of the timeline getting shorter and shorter too...welp, there's going to be a lot to talk about, much of it that will never make it into campaigns, so here's as good a place as any.

That's the final thing I'll talk about for this start post, I reckon. When I started my setting it was a D&D 5e setting. Now, thanks to my own system preferences, it's been adjusted to Pathfinder 1e. But I mean, with all the holes in 5e...that wasn't too difficult. It did force me to assign proper mechanical domains and alignments to the gods.

But I'm writing this quite late at night. A world has a lot of stuff you can do with it and plenty I want to talk about. Hell, there's plenty to do with a breakdown of each nation, the history I'm still writing, how the species interact. There's an entire dissertation I could write about how the northern nations on Almahd came out of one bit of art of a Lamia in a crop top...

So I'll leave you with that. The promise of much worldbuilding rambling and character design in the future. Probably tall and wide.

#worldbuilding #pathfinder1e #ttrpg #oc #fantasy #pathfinder #art #fantasy world #oh god I have so much lore to write #maybe this will convince me to get it done ffs

[elendiliel]

Brotherly Love

As requested by @gaeasun, this features her OC Twitch. (I recommend reading her fics, in general and for more and better Twitch content.) (Sorry this took so long; life has only just ceased to be more chaotic than usual. If it has insufficient Twitch, or otherwise isn't up to scratch, please say so and I'll think of something else.) I'm still accepting requests, by the way, and hopefully will fulfil them faster now that I'm a person of fixed abode once more (as opposed to a series of unfixed abodes).

Timeline: Healing AU, the day after the battle of Sundari (described here).

---

That’ll do. Helli let the tension drain out of her shoulders and back for maybe the twentieth time that day – or possibly the fiftieth. She’d long since lost count. The man on the makeshift med-bay bed in front of her, a vod in Wolfpack grey by the name of Torak, slept on, blissfully unaware of anything around him. As the young Jedi Knight had just finished reassembling his right femur, as well as cleaning the deep cuts left by fragments of his cuisse, driven into his flesh by the impact of the slugthrower round that had broken the bone beneath, and fitting a bacta cast over the top of the whole mess, that was a blessing – one bestowed by a medic armed with some very strong sedatives. Helli could take pain away without resorting to drugs, but the sensation of bones moving around under the skin is none too pleasant, as she knew all too well from her own past injuries.

Medicine had never really been her field; she had plenty of first-aid training and rather too much practical experience, but hadn’t made any systematic study of the area. And she wasn’t aware of any affinity for Force-healing, and didn’t dare try to find out just then. But the battle for Sundari had left a lot of people injured, and anyone with any kind of expertise had been called in to help treat them, including Helli and her riduur Torrent. (It was better than listening to Master Kenobi and Lady Bo-Katan Kryze sort out the new relationship between Mandalore and the Republic. Helli was a diplomat by training, with no interest in politics – the main difference being that while diplomats deal in decades and centuries, politicians deal in weeks. Besides, she and Bo-Katan had been at odds since they first met, and any favours the new Mand’alor might owe the jetii had been well and truly used up when the latter insisted that all the casualties of the battle should be treated – Maul’s forces as well as Bo-Katan’s, the Republic’s and the few civilians that had, despite everyone’s best efforts, been caught in the crossfire. Hence the overflowing medcentre and overworked medics.)

Helli had been working flat-out for hours, like every baar’ur in the city – though her skills were rather more specialised than those of most others. She couldn’t heal, exactly, but she could convince a dying person to stay alive a little longer, set a complex fracture faster than any surgeon (at the cost of a splitting headache), or even treat a recalcitrant Child of the Watch for a head wound blindfolded. Usually, though, she had been confined to simpler cases under the official supervision of one of Bo-Katan’s junior medics and a young clone from the 501st, Twitch. Despite being attached to that battalion herself, Helli hadn’t really known Twitch well up until then – he’d first been deployed only the previous year, just before the Umbara campaign, and her unit as a whole had spent little time with the rest of the legion since that near-disaster – but she liked him immensely. He was a talented medic, compassionate and patient, brave enough to be kind in spite of everything the galaxy had tried to do to him. And by all accounts – including that of Fives, Helli’s vod’ika and one of Twitch’s special ori’vode – he was clever and cunning as well, able, for example, to manipulate the most stubborn brother into letting himself be helped or slip hair dye into the shampoo of anyone who deserved it.

The other medic, Bess Skirata, was even less familiar to Helli, but she was clearly cast in the same mould as Twitch, sweet, gentle, smart and very good at her job despite being only about nineteen or twenty, younger than the Jedi woman and not much more than Twitch’s biological age. She was a medical student, on a fast-track programme and likely to go far. And she was also what would be called on Helli’s birth-world a wee brammer. That might have been part of the reason Twitch kept staring at her when he wasn’t consciously focused on a patient, only to look away, blushing furiously, when she seemed about to turn towards him. (Not the whole reason by any means, Helli was sure. Twitch wasn’t that shallow – no clone she knew was – but he was remarkably intuitive and good at reading people even after such a short acquaintance.) Which meant he couldn’t see that Bess was watching him in exactly the same way.

Shaking herself mentally, Helli brought her own focus back to her work. She’d had no sleep for well over a rotation and no caf or food for much of that, and her attention was wandering even more than Twitch’s apparently sometimes did. (One or two of her classmates had the same issue. It hadn’t prevented them from reaching their full potential as Jedi.) Mechanically, she stripped off her latest pair of surgical gloves, stained with Torak’s blood – the medic who’d originally treated him had had to prioritise the fractured femur, so the cuts had been a mess by the time she dealt with them – turning them inside out as she did so and adding them to the ever-growing pile in the clinical waste bin. Still on autopilot, she washed her hands thoroughly before typing a brief report on her datapad, having to self-correct multiple spelling and grammar mistakes as she told the Wolfpack’s medics what she had done and what Torak would need to help him recover fully. Mostly physiotherapy.

As she checked the datapad and her intuition for cases requiring her immediate attention (there were none), she found herself zoning out again, her focus locked on her own hands. Tools of her trade, as meticulously maintained as any other, and almost as battered. Still long, slender and elegant, nearly as pale as the rest of her, musician’s hands, surgeon’s hands, but criss-crossed with a warrior’s scars, one finger adorned with a durasteel band engraved in the spiky Mando’a script. Deft and dexterous, but so strong, able to break bones as easily as set them. Instruments of pain and healing. Like her.

Stars, she was tired.

“Your prescription’s here.” Helli was smiling even before she turned around and saw who had spoken to her. Fives was always a welcome sight – doubly so when he was holding out a cup of caf. Three more disposable cups were balanced precariously in a holder in his other hand, presumably destined for Twitch, Torrent and himself. He must have prised himself from Echo’s side to take care of his other brothers and sister.

“Lifesaver.” Helli meant it. If she’d kept going without either caffeine or a break, she’d probably have made a mistake – quite possibly a fatal one. As she took her cup from her vod’ika, she could tell it was already at a comfortable drinking temperature. Fives had probably even let the hot water cool slightly before adding it to the powder, knowing she had Views on how to brew caf and tea – especially tea. In fact, he’d made it just how she liked it, as the first gulp of her favourite drug told her. Double strength, no sugar, and the right proportion of milk, cooling the caf and taking the very edge off the bitter taste without ruining the flavour. Not that there was much flavour.

“I couldn’t find anything better,” Fives said apologetically. Helli wondered how hard he’d tried. And how many people he’d argued with in the process.

“Medcentre caf is always bad. It’s a galactic constant. Probably to try to stop the staff overindulging, but when you’re as tired as I am the formulation doesn’t matter, only the dose.” She took another sip, the headache she’d been resolutely ignoring already starting to ease. “Tor’s been roped in to help in surgery, but Twitch is just finishing up, if you’d like to wait.” Fives did like. Putting the other cups down on a spare table, he leaned against the wall beside her, his own caf in one hand. Single-dose and drowned in milk, presumably. Helli raised an eyebrow and a half at him – he was supposed to be cutting down on stimulants after a near-fatal injury to his heart – but he was entirely unabashed. The battle had been hours before, and if something were to go wrong, it couldn’t happen in a better place.

The remaining cups were easy to match to their intended recipients. Torrent’s was almost pitch-black, double strength without milk or sugar. He was the only one of their team who didn’t complain about the way she made caf, even as a joke. Twitch’s, on the other hand, didn’t look like caf at all.

“Is there any caffeine in that?”

“Some. But it’s mostly hot chocolate. That’s how he likes it.” Of course it was. Fives was fluent in all the love languages, though his native one was touch, and used them at every opportunity. And few things say “I love you” like a perfectly made cup of a tired vod’ika’s favourite hot drink.

Companionable silence fell over their end of the room as they drank their caf and demolished a couple of small packets of biscuits (medcentre standard issue again, shortbread studded with little pieces of dried fruit), watching Twitch and Bess at work. Helli could sense Fives’ growing unease even before he “spoke” telepathically (not wanting the others to hear).

Are you seeing this? He knew she knew what he meant – and what her answer would be.

I’ve barely seen anything else when I’m not concentrating on a patient. They’re not as subtle as they think, except to each other. More subtle than Anakin, I suppose, but that’s not hard.

True. I am happy for Twitch, or will be if this comes to anything. He deserves all the good things he can get. I just didn’t think he’d be the first one to have a crush on anyone. Twitch was the youngest of Fives’ 501st squad, not yet ten.

I think it’s more than that. Helli was no expert on romance – she hadn’t even noticed Torrent’s feelings for her for months, and it had taken her over two years and a near-death experience to be sure of hers for him – but she was as sure as she could be in that case. On both sides.

Seriously? Under other circumstances, Fives would have looked at her in astonishment, his eyebrows almost at his hairline. That young? He’s nine, and she can’t be more than twenty. I thought that was reserved for cheap holonovels.

As far as I can tell. And he’s mentally eighteen, remember. It’s unusual to fall in love so young, but not impossible. I was eighteen when I fell for Torrent, though I didn’t realise it back then. I thought it was just a crush, and I knew those feelings weren’t anywhere near as important as my duty, so I put them on one side to deal with another time. Maybe when I wasn’t his CO. Perhaps that wasn’t a healthy thing to do, but I thought it was necessary. I couldn’t have known what that other time would be.

Nobody could. But you’re happy with him now, aren’t you? It was mostly a rhetorical question, but not entirely. Fives was fiercely protective of his vod’ikase. If he thought Torrent wasn’t good for Helli, or Bess for Twitch, he’d have serious words with them at the very least.

Very. But I’m glad we waited as long as we did. If we’d – started anything – when he first told me he loved me, I doubt it would have gone well. Logistics and the Code aside, we were too young, and we didn’t know each other well enough. We didn’t quite have that kind of two-way respect and trust that’s essential for a good marriage. They can grow after marriage, of course, as can love, but the other way round is better. Helli watched Twitch and Bess for a while. I hope those two realise that. I think they will be right for each other, but rushing into anything could be a recipe for disaster.

Twitch will. He’s smart enough, and mature for his age, even by our standards. He’s had to be. What do you know about her? That protective instinct again. Fives wanted to make sure his kih’vod’ika didn’t get hurt in any way if he could help it.

She’s Clan Skirata, which is a decent start. Kal Skirata’s cousin. Fives was too young to have been taught by any of the Cuy’val Dar, but he clearly knew Kal’s reputation as one of the better instructors on Kamino before the Mandalorians left and the Jedi took over. Clan Skirata tended to be relatively moderate – not hard-line pacifists like the New Mandalorians, but not as extreme as Death Watch either. Bess obviously agreed with the majority of her family. Her traditional beskar’gam, no doubt inherited from a family member and reforged, was painted with symbols and designs associated with healing and peace. A good match for Twitch’s shell, and especially his bucket, marked with a medic’s cross and four dots and four lines on each side, representing his batchmates, who had marched on one by one on Umbara. The brother they had left behind had, if anything, become more compassionate, more determined to save everyone he could, especially his vode, as a result. Medical student. Started two years early, and likely to graduate early as well. Top of her class. Helli had asked her and Fives’ teammate Spark to slice into Bess’s university records between patients. She might not know Twitch as well as Fives did, but she still had an interest in his welfare. Personality-wise, she’s a lot like him – maybe a bit more assertive, which is no bad thing in the circumstances. I think they’ll make each other happy one day.

One day, Fives agreed, having probably made his own assessment of the young medic. Out loud, he said, “Well, I’d better deliver these before they get cold.” Picking up the other two cups of caf, he made his way over towards Twitch, timing his approach such that his brother was clearly occupied, but Bess wasn’t, so it seemed natural for him to give Twitch’s homemade mocha and another packet of biscuits (chocolate, presumably) to her to pass on later. Helli had to conceal her smile with another sip of caf as Fives left. Smooth, vod’ika. Very smooth.

“I know that look.” The sound of her husband’s voice caused Helli’s heart to skip a beat. She leaned against Torrent, unbothered by his new beskar armour, as he put an arm around her shoulders, inhaling his scent – bacta, disinfectant and soap as well as caf and the sweet-spicy-sharp biscuits he liked, all overlaid on his indefinable but unmistakable Torrent-ness – and only mildly annoyed with herself for letting time slip away from her again. “What have you been up to?”

“Nothing in particular.” Technically true, Helli thought as she gave her cyare a playful look.

His smile, and his sigh, told her he wasn’t in the mood for her games, but wasn’t annoyed with them either. “All right. What has Fives been up to, with your blessing?”

“Just a bit of matchmaking.” Torrent followed her gaze to where Twitch and Bess were chatting away and sharing Twitch’s mocha and biscuits. “So I see. Though I didn’t see that coming. Any other vod would be in for a lot of teasing, but not him.” Not just because Twitch had many ori’vode at least as protective as Fives. The canny young lad was entirely capable of looking after himself. “How long would you give it? Five years?”

Helli considered the question for a few moments. “I’d say three.”

They were both wrong. It was about ten years before they found themselves at the younger couple’s wedding in the newly rebuilt Mandalorian city of Keldabe, surrounded by their own fosterlings and adopted children, a host of vode and their adike, Bess’s extended aliit – not just extended but elongated and protracted – and even a few other Jedi, including the chaos incarnate that was the Skywalker-Amidala family. Helli was sure Twitch and Bess had been ready to take that step for years, but it just hadn’t happened until then. Other things kept getting in the way – Bess’s training and career as a high-flying doctor, Twitch’s as a physical therapy assistant, and many other factors. They had even completely lost touch a few times, much to their burc’yase’s chagrin, but always rekindled their friendship. At last, a year or so before, Bess had finally started actually flirting with Twitch, and he had been more than happy to respond in kind. The rest was history.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet, in traditional Mandalorian fashion. Helli remembered the vows well from her own wedding, but noticed that the final part – mhi ba’juri verde, we raise warriors – was not just included but clearly important to both parties. Twitch would be a good buir, she thought, having noticed how well he got on with his many nieces and nephews, and even with Anakin’s unruly ade. And as he’d been one of the first clones to have his ageing acceleration reversed, he’d get to see his children grow up and have adike of their own, in a peaceful galaxy. Neither he nor his new riduur deserved any less.

The wedding feast would not be so short, especially as it was impossible to stop Fives making a speech when he wanted to do so. Not that anyone minded. Twitch was the last of his vod’ikase to marry and move away – though if Helli were any judge, 501st vodpiles still weren’t a thing of the past, merely rarer. And he could claim an amount of responsibility for that marriage. After all, if it hadn't been for one act of brotherly love, anything else might have happened.

---

Mando'a glossary:

Vod: brother/sister/sibling; informally, clone or honorary clone. Ori' means "older"; kih' and 'ika are factual and affectionate diminutives, respectively; -e and -se are plural endings.

Riduur: husband/wife/spouse.

Baar'ur: medic.

Beskar'gam: armour, especially Mandalorian beskar armour.

Cyare: beloved.

Adike: little ones, sons, daughters, children. Diminutive of ade, which means much the same thing.

Aliit: clan, family.

Burc'yase: friends.

Buir: father, mother, parent.

In Scottish (possibly specifically Glaswegian) slang, a brammer is a beauty, usually used of a girl or woman.

#star wars #the clone wars #jedi oc #original jedi character #fives #clone trooper fives #arc trooper fives #clone trooper oc #clone medic twitch #fanfic #healing au

[oyelabstech]

Guide: How to Launch a Website Like YouTube

"How do I create a website that looks like YouTube?" That's most likely the query that brought you here! 

In short, we would advise using one of the top YouTube clone scripts available to address your query! Considering how many blogs advise you to create your own YouTube website from the ground up, this response should seem a little unusual. And for that precise reason, you must finish reading this! 

The ideal method for making a website that looks like YouTube is to use YouTube clone software. And it's undoubtedly much simpler than creating it from scratch! And it's undoubtedly much simpler than creating it from scratch! After reading this, you should be able to create your own YouTube channel without having to invest a lot of money or time. 

We'll go over things like why you should create your own YouTube channel, how to do it, and—wait! I won't give everything away at once! As usual, we'll quickly review the fundamentals before moving on to the important portion of the text! 

So, shall we now proceed?

When YouTube already exists, why create your own?

That is a legitimate query! I mean, with YouTube already operating at maximum capacity, why would you want to build a similar website? Why would someone want to create a video-sharing website when they made over $19 billion in sales the previous year? 

In a sense, you are correct if that is what you are thinking! But consider it in a different light! Isn't now the ideal time for you to create a website similar to YouTube, given that the platform generates enormous profits annually and continues to grow year over year? 

Here, we've gone into a little more detail for you!

1. YouTube Is Huge & Extensive

That's exactly it! YouTube has grown to such an extent that everything may be found there. While some enjoy it this way, others would rather have a community experience with limited video selection. 

You can take advantage of this chance and find a way out. For example, you could make a YouTube-like website that features all there is to know about restaurants and food! And just that! All of the people on your platform are going to be potential users because you are targeting a particular niche. 

2. YouTube Is Showing More and More Ads

advertisements Advertisements! Advertisements! 

YouTube advertisements

Since 2009, YouTube has gradually increased the number of advertisements that are shown. In the fourth quarter of 2019, YouTube's revenue from adverts alone reached $4.7 billion. Although this is advantageous for YouTube, users of the platform will not benefit from it at all. This is not to say that you shouldn't run advertisements, just watch out not to do too much! People start searching for alternatives when they grow weary of the advertisements, especially those who would rather interact with the community! And now is your opportunity! 

3. YouTube Is an Emulation 

Not that there are rivals! However, 90% of individuals consider YouTube when looking for video content. 

This merely indicates that competition is possible and that the trend is still in its middle stages. YouTube is rivalled by other video-sharing services such as Vimeo, Twitch, and others. And what do you know? They're doing fairly well! Hopefully, the explanations above have made it clear to you why you ought to make a website similar to YouTube! 

We could have produced the standard statistical data! but believed that this would work better! Was it not? Now that you have three compelling reasons to create a website similar to YouTube, how about we investigate the process?

But hold on! Let's take a brief look at the elements your new website should have, modelled after YouTube before we get into the processes! An illustration of YouTube's business model may be found below.

Banner for BMI

What Features Are Essential for a YouTube Clone Website?

Make sure the functionality listed below is included, regardless of whether you're building a YouTube clone from scratch or using a video-sharing script like YouTube! Because, in the end, creating a website that is even slightly different from YouTube is going to be useless! 

Let's take a brief look at the qualities that your YouTube clone website ought to contain.

1. Channel Development and Membership

Users of your platform have to be able to make many channels and subscribe to other available channels. Subscribed users ought to receive notifications whenever a new video is posted on that specific channel.

2. Infinite Regarding Everything

Verify that there are no caps on your platform. Make sure users have an infinite number of channels, genres, and videos to create. Your platform won't be scalable or able to draw in more users till then.

3. Mobile Apps for iOS and Android

Mobile devices account for half of all internet traffic across the globe today! In actuality, 37% of mobile traffic comes from YouTube! Thus, if you intend to develop a website akin to YouTube, be sure to include native applications for iOS and Android as well! 

4. Search History and Customized Interface

There ought to be times when you're watching something online and your browser unexpectedly closes! And you go to resume in the history section! Similar to this, a history monitoring function that lets consumers know what they've done should be included in your YouTube clone. Your YouTube clone will be the greatest if it can suggest videos based on viewers' viewing habits! 

5. Report & Flag Abuse

These days, the main concern is a platform's user safety. Ensure that users may flag videos and report abuse about the same on your YouTube page!

The aforementioned are the most crucial aspects of your platform, while it should also include other features like integrated payment processing, ad management, and a comprehensive admin panel.

After learning what elements a YouTube site should have, let's move on to the most anticipated section: how to make a website that looks like YouTube.

How Can I Create a Website Like YouTube That Hosts Videos?

There are two ways to create a website that allows users to share videos, similar to YouTube. Additionally, that would be creating a Website That Looks Like YouTube From Scratch with a YouTube-Like Video Sharing Script

Let's examine them in the specified order! 

Building a From Scratch YouTube Clone

As the title suggests, you must create a YouTube clone from scratch, which will take a significant lot of time and work! It always takes time to build something from scratch, and this YouTube-like website is no different! 

How to Make a Youtube Clone from Scratch 

Creating a YouTube clone from scratch involves several steps, covering aspects like domain purchase, hosting setup, content management, and more. Here's a simplified guide on how to make a YouTube clone:

Step 1: Planning

Define Your Niche: Decide on the specific focus or niche for your video-sharing platform. This could be anything from educational content to entertainment.

Step 2: Domain and Hosting

Buy a Domain

Choose a unique and memorable domain name.

Purchase the domain from a reliable registrar like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or others.

Select a Hosting Provider

Choose a hosting provider that suits your needs. Popular options include Bluehost, HostGator, or SiteGround.

Purchase a hosting plan that accommodates your expected traffic.

Step 3: Website Setup

Install Content Management System (CMS)

Use popular CMS platforms like WordPress or Joomla.

Follow the hosting provider's instructions to install your chosen CMS.

Theme Selection

Choose a theme that aligns with the design and functionality you envision for your YouTube clone.

Customize the theme to suit your brand.

Step 4: Video Management

Video Upload and Management

Implement a system for users to upload videos.

Create a video management system that includes features like titles, descriptions, tags, and categories.

Implement Video Player

Develop or integrate a video player that supports various formats.

Ensure the player allows smooth streaming and supports features like playback control.

Step 5: User Interaction

User Registration and Profiles

Develop a user registration system with secure password handling.

Allow users to create profiles with details like profile pictures and bio.

Comments and Likes

Implement a comment system for users to interact with videos.

Include a 'like' or 'thumbs up' feature for users to express appreciation.

Step 6: Monetization (Optional)

Monetization Strategies

If desired, implement monetization features such as ads, subscription plans, or sponsored content.

Step 7: Security

User Authentication

Implement a secure user authentication system.

Include options for password recovery.

Content Moderation

Develop or integrate a content moderation system to ensure uploaded videos comply with community guidelines.

Step 8: Testing

Quality Assurance

Conduct extensive testing to identify and resolve bugs.

Ensure smooth user experience across different devices and browsers.

Step 9: Launch

Deploy the Website

Choose a launch date and make your YouTube clone live.

Promote the platform through various channels.

Step 10: Continuous Improvement

Gather Feedback

Encourage users to provide feedback.

Use feedback to make improvements and introduce new features.

Remember, building a YouTube clone from scratch is a complex task that requires technical expertise. If you're not familiar with web development, consider consulting with a professional developer or using ready-made solutions like YouTube clone scripts for a more efficient and reliable option.

Why buy a ready-made YouTube clone from Oyelabs for launching in the USA?

Before making a decision, it's essential to research and evaluate Oyelabs, our product, and customer reviews. Here are some potential benefits:

Time and Cost Efficiency:

Ready-made solutions can save significant time and resources compared to building a platform from scratch. This is crucial for a quick market entry. Proven Solution:

If Oyelabs has a reputable track record and positive reviews, their ready-made script may offer a reliable solution. Look for testimonials and case studies to gauge its effectiveness. Feature-Rich Solutions:

Many ready-made scripts come with essential features already built-in, such as video uploading, user profiles, comments, and likes. This can accelerate the development process. Customization:

While it's a ready-made solution, it should ideally allow some level of customization to meet specific business requirements or branding needs. Support and Updates:

A reliable provider should offer ongoing support and updates to address potential issues and keep the script up-to-date with the latest technologies and security measures. Security:

Established solutions often have security measures in place. This includes features for user authentication, content moderation, and protection against common vulnerabilities. Scalability:

Ready-made solutions are typically designed with scalability in mind, ensuring they can handle a growing user base.

Before choosing a YouTube clone script or any ready-made solution, carefully evaluate its features, security measures, scalability, and the level of support provided by the vendor. Additionally, ensure that the script aligns with your business goals and regulatory requirements, especially when launching in a specific market like the USA.

#Youtube clone'

[cruzotecapp]

How to Start A Delivery App Business in South Africa

Placing an order to taste the culinary staple like Peri Peri Chicken at home or a basket full of items for households — a delivery app makes it simple. Delivery app business remarkably gives a starting point for new-age entrepreneurs to launch their venture.

Often when you start with a research, too many jargons can gobble the idea of a delivery startup right at the beginning. We don’t want to nip this wonderful idea in the bud. This blog covers the fundamentals of the business that you need to begin with. Let’s get started!

Delivery Business Idea

First of all, you’d need to think of what you can sell on the platform — is it fruits and vegetables? Or tasty food platters? Does it matter for grocery delivery? Will the demand for liquor & beverages be too high? How about delivering water or medicine? What if you can take the whole lot?

South Africa has a phenomenal hyperlocal market for the aforementioned category types. Consider these categories for fulfilling on-demand delivery, such as within 30 minutes to 1-hr. If you are confused to take all, just begin with a single kind to gauge the popularity.

Recommendation: Food, fruits & vegetables, groceries, alcohol, etc. has a big market.

Inventory of Items

Customers would want to see an inventory where they can find easily available items. If your delivery app doesn’t offer them, it’s something you should work upon.

To help with that, you can conduct research on commonly purchased items online or offline. Guess what’s more interesting? Talk to family and friends, they shall give you a picture of what people like to shop a lot.

Build a solid inventory from time to time and upgrade items by checking in the latest buying trends, consumer behavior, pricing changes, competitor offers and so on.

Recommendation: Even a small inventory can start well if they are in great demand.

Delivery Apps for Business

A lot of searches using Google on “how do I create a delivery app” has created great excitement. Though creating or developing an app by yourself is a great idea, it may not be feasible immediately for two reasons — time & cost.

Of course, you can put yourself in the shoes of a developer, pursue a developer training and develop the apps — especially to enhance your skills and career scope. But, again, it may take a good amount of time to start from scratch.

On the other hand, white label delivery apps facilitate an ideal alternative. No expensive investments or hardcore training — a ready-to-start platform allows you to launch the applications easily. Basically, the app functions to help with the following:

Collect & manage orders

Track & deliver orders

Lucrative offers

Branding & reach

Recommendation: Consider white label delivery apps with a suite of necessary features like order management, delivery tracking, digital wallet, repeat order, etc.

Payment Integration

Payments via Cash on Delivery and Online Payment Modes are accepted in different South African regions. Both options being convenient from a consumer point of view, a payment integration makes it simpler for you to collect and keep track of payments.

Different payment gateway options are available in South Africa, which includes:

Peach Payments

PayFast

PAYGATE

Delivery Partners & Integration

Hiring good and reliable delivery drivers is one of the key factors to focus upon for the delivery app business. Having a network of delivery partners result in high-quality delivery yet may prove expensive if the business doesn’t expand proportionately.

So, considering one of the following options:

Payroll — Delivery partners on a monthly payroll.

Per-delivery — Payments made to delivery partners on a per-delivery basis.

Delivery integrations — Partner with existing delivery or logistics partners.

Recommendation: Option 1 & 2 weigh equal based on existing market requirements. If followed by critical observations and analysis, option 3 is quite easy to substitute work yet less rewarding towards profitability.

Business Model & Earnings

The delivery business thrives on different models of earnings, mainly covering:

Earnings on delivery services

Commissions on sale of items

Advertising & marketing

Followed by streamlined execution, a delivery app business model achieves palpable success and profits through on-demand deliveries at the customer’s doorstep.

Recommendation: Utilize each model in a well-balanced manner to earn profits.

Marketing & Advertising

Reaching out to people will help you gain a positive word of mouth at the start. But, you also need to take certain steps along the way, which includes:

Introductory discount offers

Social media marketing

Influencer marketing

Reward programs

Remember, budgeted investments powered by smart marketing strategies effectively earn great publicity rather than heavy investment on poor marketing tactics.

Recommendation: Intro offers, special promotions, social media outreach and word of mouth works right at the start to shore up app downloads.

How do I shape my business to achieve great success in this niche?

As it boils down to the quality of services and customer satisfaction rendered, your business mainly thrives in this niche with:

Timely & accurate delivery

Discount offers

Prompt customer service

Grievance redressal

Response to feedback

Client Testimonial

Real Stories, Real Success! 🌟 Watch as Grant Makhathini share his incredible journey and transformation with Cruzo. Don’t just take our word for it — see the results for yourself!

Watch as Brian, The Rred App, South Africa share his incredible journey and transformation with Cruzo. Don’t just take our word for it — see the results for yourself!

Launching into the untapped market shall yield impeccable results, in terms of profitability, brand recognition, increasing sales and revenue generation.

Launch your own Hyperlocal On-Demand Delivery Apps hassle-free with our complete SaaS technology suite.

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