I'm M, 28, they/them I sometimes make art and doodles and stuff Hope you're having a good day 🙂💙 Feel free to reblog, please don't repost or alter my art :3
it's been incredibly freeing to realize that i'm entitled to never having to come up with anything original ever again because i already made cookie clicker and i can be satisfied with that. sorry this isn't meant to be relatable the rest of y'all still gotta try
Hi. I've been working my way through things I half finished like 4 to 6 years ago, and this fic had a little prequel I never finished. So.. Here's the prequel to A C.A.L.M. Reveal.
Logan had been getting some work done at his desk when his phone buzzed, glancing over at it to see that he had a text message. That was a fairly uncommon occurrence as not many people had his personal phone number. So out of curiosity, he picked up the phone and opened it to see who contacted him.
“Nerd.”
He rolled his eyes, quickly tapping out a response. “Prep.”
The next message came back immediately. “Hey, remember how you owe me one?”
Logan raised an eyebrow, looking at his phone incredulously. “Not at all. How on earth have you come to that conclusion?”
“You said you’d repay me from that time I beat up the kid who stole your lunch money.”
He sighed. “Roman. That was in high school. Over a decade ago.”
“Still counts.”
“...What is it you want from me?”
The following conversation somehow led to Logan finding himself seated in Roman’s expansive living room the following day, watching in disbelief as his long time friend laid out his entire idea. Once the famous actor was finished, Logan simply raised an eyebrow - something he did a lot around him.
“Let me ensure I am understanding you correctly. You want to put together a ‘secret band,’ so that we can create and release music that is not attached to our well-known names, just to see how well we are received by the public?”
“I mean, I feel like you took my 20 minute presentation and reduced it to a single sentence. But yes, essentially.” Roman agreed, looking back at the music producer.
“Why?” Logan asked, clearly doubtful.
Roman just sighed. “Oh come on, Lo! It’ll be fun! A secret project! Show off things no one knows we can do! You’ve been DJing and mixing for so long- I bet you don’t even remember how to play the piano like you used to.”
The competitive glint in his eye spoke volumes on how well his old friend knew how to push his buttons. It was clearly on now.
Logan had fallen right into what Roman hoped he would, and the two proceeded to discuss ways they could actually make this work. They’d have to hire the right team, bring on just the right crew to maintain the secret, they needed the necessary tech, and the people who had the know-how to run it smoothly.
“Wait, wait. Roman. We’re overlooking the most important thing to make this actually work.” Logan interjected suddenly.
“What?” Roman asked, looking up at him from his notes which were only growing more and more hectic.
“More members? How do you plan for us to do this with just the two of us? Two is not often considered enough to constitute a band.” He explained, sitting back against the couch and crossing his arms over his chest.
The actor sat back as well, tapping his pencil against his palm as he thought. “I think I have a guy who would be up for joining us. I know he can play the guitar, at least.”
“I definitely know a guitarist. I could ask him along as well.” Logan added, thinking.
“Perfect! So that keeps me on lead vocals… I’m sure those two can work out what they need to between the guitars, and then that keeps you on keyboards and your mixing.” Roman nodded, returning to his notes and going back to jotting things down.
Their brainstorming session ended with them both agreeing to contact the friend they’d mentioned and try to all group up at Roman’s the following Saturday.
Later that night, Roman threw himself back on his bed with a big smile before pulling up a number in his phone and calling.
“Hello?” A voice came from the other end.
“Hey Pat!” Roman answered, happily.
“Oh! Hey Roman! How’re you doing?” He responded warmly.
What proceeded was about ninety minutes of conversation, checking on how the other was doing, seeing what the other had been up to since they’d last seen one another, and just catching up on everything in general. They’d only met a few months back, while backstage at an awards show, so there was plenty for them to share with one another. Roman was a handful of years older than the young country artist, but the two of them hit it off immediately and had become fast friends. Of course with how busy they were between concerts and movie shoots they hadn’t actually gotten to hang out since the night they met, but that didn’t matter in the slightest to the two of them. They were clearly kindred spirits.
After that first hour and a half had passed, Roman finally remembered why it was he’d actually called. “Oh! I had something to ask you about! I’m putting together a little secret music project. I wanted to see if you might like to be part of it.”
“Aw! You’d like me to? I’d definitely want to if you’re sure!”
“Perfect! I’ll send you my address, could you swing by on Saturday? A few more friends are going to come by as well, we can see if we’re all a good fit!”
“I’ll definitely be there! I’m looking forward to it! Thank you so much for the invite!”
And with that, they fell back into another hour of friendly conversation, talking into the night.
Logan had gotten home, had something to eat, done a little bit of arranging for a song he’d been working on, and then finally pulled out his phone to send a text as he was settling in bed.
“Virgil. I’m being pulled into a music group project against my better judgment and you’re going to accompany me so I don’t have to suffer alone.”
“Goddamn it, Lo. Do I have to? This already sounds annoying.”
“It assuredly will be. And yes, yes you do.”
“Fuck you.”
“Here’s the address, see you Saturday at 11 am.”
Then he simply rolled over and went to sleep.
About a week later, Virgil found himself on his motorcycle, heading toward the address he'd been given. He couldn't believe he was getting roped into whatever this was going to be. Sure, he technically could have said no to Logan - But the producer had been a good friend to him since he came onto the scene, he was at least going to hear out… Whatever this was about to be.
He knew that the huge house he was pulling up to certainly didn't belong to his friend, the stone lion statues that sat on either side of the drive way really didn't suit the understated genius. He made his way up to the gate and hit the button on the intercom, an automated voice immediately responding.
"Please state your name and business."
"Uh.. Virgil Grimm, Logan Brooks told me to show up here."
The voice that responded was clearly a live person, the intercom was probably connected to an app or something. "Oh! You're the guitarist Lo mentioned? That's so awesome. Come on up, I'll see you in a second."
The voice sounded familiar to some degree but with the shaky clarity that came through an outdoor speaker, he didn't completely place it. Either way, the gate blocking him slid open and he was able to ride up the drive way, passing a large fountain made up of at least four more stone lions, and parking right between a fairly nondescript black SUV and a sky blue convertible beetle with flower cutouts on the break lights. This was certainly going to be one hell of a something. That was for sure.
He slid off his bike and walked up to the huge front door, leaving his motorcycle helmet on his seat. He normally wouldn't, but they were clearly gated in at a personal residence. Virgil warily made his way up to the huge double doors of the… Home didn't seem like the word. Manor? Estate? Wildly large living space. He didn't even have to grab one of the grand door knockers, both of which were a bronze ring held in the mouth of a bronze lion face, as the door swung open when he got close. He'd already seen eight separate lions since he'd arrived but didn't at any point consider he'd been walking up to Roman Lyons' house. Because in what world would anyone think that that was what was happening? However, something Virgil had been realizing more and more the more famous he had become - the world he lived in really didn't seem real most of the time.
"Virgil! Great to meet you! Come on in, Logan and Patton are already here." Roman said happily, waving him to walk past him as he held the door open. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be some sort of awestruck? This A-lister had been making movies since before Virgil's career took off. But even if he was, a little, it certainly didn't suit his style to fanboy. And if Logan was here, he'd just follow his lead on how to deal with this situation.
"Uh, great to meet you too. Thanks." He said, lamely, walking past the actor and into his huge entryway. Lord. Virgil was plenty famous in his own right, but this... This was money he didn't think he could really fathom. Everything was so open and enormous, shiny and white and marble and gold and-
"There you are, Virgil. Thank you for coming, I don't know how much longer I'd have survived this without you." Logan's trademark deadpan brought him from his thoughts and forced his gaze to settle on him.
"Yeah? Why's that?" He responded, making his way over to where he was sitting perfectly properly on a large couch in the living room.
"You'll see soon enough." Was all Logan gave him to work with. So that was helpful.
A few moments later a gasp sounded from the mouth of a hallway leading away from the space they were currently in. "Oh my goodness! You're Virgil Grimm, aren't you? Oh, I'm such a big fan!" He heard, having to turn to see who was speaking to him.
He locked eyes with a very expressive young man in a sky blue flannel and cowboy boots. "Oh, uh, yeah. You're Patton, right? Patton Campbell?"
The young man gasped again, rushing forward to take one of Virgil's hands in both of his, sort've giving him a handshake. "Oh my goodness, you know my name!"
"Oh, yeah, I've heard some of your stuff. You're really talented." The punk rock guitarist gave the country pop artist a small smile, he couldn't help it. He was just so sweet and sincere, he was literally squeaking with joy.
"Well, I'm glad were all here. Let's get down to business!" Roman said excitedly, clapping his hands together in front of his chest and then rubbing them a bit, drawing the attention back to himself as he joined them in his living room.
The three reactions to this were quite different: excited, exhausted, and exasperated.
Roman waved the two standing to come fully into the living room, smiling as he gestured for them to sit so he could tell them the same idea he'd pitched to Logan a week prior.
It wasn't a complex idea, but it did raise a question for Virgil. The very same one it had raised for Logan, actually. "Okay. But, like. Why?"
"It'll be fun! Besides, wouldn't it be interesting to see if it's more than just name recognition that gets us our acclaim? With no one knowing who we are, it's all based on our merit and skill. That's one hell of a challenge."
"So… This isn't about money or anything. You just… Want to?" Virgil asked, looking at the actor again.
"I think he's just upset he didn't go into music." Logan said, a soft smirk growing on his face as he turned to the guitarist.
"It's not like I couldn't if I wanted to." Roman murmured as he rolled his eyes. "But this would be so much better! I don't want to get attention just because people already know me."
"And it sounds like so much fun!" Patton was clearly fully sold already.
Neither Logan nor Virgil had really met Patton before today, but they could both already tell it was going to be a lot more difficult to turn him down than it would be with Roman. Virgil hadn't been quite sure how he was expected to react to Roman at first either, but Logan was clearly not intimidated in any way, so he was defaulting to his usual snark when it came to the actor.
"Alright, so if we did do this… How exactly do you plan to pull it off? And what is it you want us to do?" Virgil asked, turning to Roman again. "If you have Patton sing people will know it's him."
"I'll be lead singer. Logan will do what he does best, and then you and Patton will be on guitars." Roman explained.
Before Virgil had a chance to give a sarcastic response, Patton had turned those big eyes on him. "I mostly play acoustic, but I know a little bit of bass guitar. I know I couldn't do lead guitar like you can, but I'll try my best to keep up! Um.. Do you think you'd be able to help me practice?"
He really wasn't sure about this. He'd never liked working in groups. There was always drama and people competing with each other and other assorted bullshit. But he spared a glance at Logan, who was giving Roman one hell of an arched eyebrow, before focusing on Patton again. Logan wouldn't have called him over if he didn't actually think this could work. And he clearly had enough of a relationship with the actor that he wouldn't let him do anything too annoying. "…I can help you, that's no problem. I have a few guitars we can practice with." He finally said, unable to stop a small smile as Patton's entire face lit up with glee.
"Excellent! Logan and I have been working on logistics a bit already, we both have some connections we can pull that should help with the background stuff. We just need to coordinate between the three of us and figure out the fun parts." Roman smiled, clearly overjoyed this seemed to be going ahead.
"Fun parts?" Logan asked, his skeptical eyebrow seemed to be taking up permanent residence arched high up above his glasses.
"Like our band name! How we want to present ourselves! We can't let anything lead back to us, it has to be something we can agree on that's us but not too obviously us." Roman had brought his finger to his chin, clearly thinking.
"Like what? Do you want to open the dictionary to a random page or are you planning on coming up with some kind of acronym?" Logan asked, clearly sarcastic.
"Oh! An acronym would be neat!" Patton smiled, clapping happily.
"Yeah! I like that a lot! Let's see… Well, our initials don't spell anything." Roman said, thinking.
Logan shared a look with Virgil, the other two clearly weren't fluent in sarcasm like they were. This really did seem to be going ahead.
"Oh! What if we had code names?" Patton said suddenly. "We could use those to make a word."
"Oh, I like that! Hmm. Like what though?" Roman had picked up his notebook, trying to think over options.
Logan scoffed, looking at his long time friend. "Isn't this your area? You're the self-proclaimed creative one."
"Well, I am! I embody the concept." Roman was quick to reply, but then continued after a momentary pause. "Wait, that's it! We could do descriptors. I'll be Creativity." He gestured to himself with a flourish.
Both Logan and Virgil rolled their eyes but Patton was, like usual, the first to pipe up. "Oh, that's so fun! What should I be?"
Virgil huffed, looking directly at Roman, gesturing at the country singer. "Is this how this project is going to go the entire time? You just have this angel on your shoulder telling you everything you do is right?"
Patton's eyes widened, him quickly turning back to the guitarist. "Oh no, I don't want you to not get your opinions in though, I'm sorry. I can talk less."
"No, Patton, I don't mean- That wasn't a comment about you, it was about him." Virgil quickly turned back to Patton, not wanting to make him feel bad.
"But I'm the one who… I just want to make sure it's fair. And if-" Patton began.
"Morality." Came Logan's voice, drawing everyone's attention.
"Huh?" Patton quickly spun in his seat to look at Logan.
"You embody the concept, Patton. Morality." He explained.
Patton tilted his head to the side, looking like a curious puppy. "Isn't that like, deadly?"
Logan blinked, holding in the sarcasm he'd have employed if it had been Roman who said it. Or even Virgil. "…You're thinking of mortality. Morality is about what's right and what's wrong."
"Can I be Mortality?" Virgil piped up with a smirk.
Roman just shot him a look before looking back to Logan. "Alright then, nerd. What do you want to be?"
The music producer thought for about half a second. "Logic."
"That's barely not your name." Roman raised an eyebrow.
"It certainly suits me as the voice of reason around here. Though.. We don't have a vowel. We might need to change something if we want to make an actual word." Logan took another moment to think.
"I mean, I have anxiety. Does that help?" Virgil added in, the bored tone in his voice and expression on his face not matching the sarcastic flourish he employed to raise his hand - clearly mocking Roman's exaggerated gestures.
Patton quickly turned back to Virgil, taking one of his hands in both of his once again. "Oh, I'm sorry Virgil, is there anything we can-" He'd begun but once again was cut off by Logan.
"Calm. That is the word we can spell. Which, I'd like to point out, describes none of us." Logan interjected, cynically. He'd originally opened his mouth to inform them that they could only make two words with their letters, but realizing one of them was "Clam" and it would undoubtedly invite painful wordplay and potentially horrendous themes, he thought better of pointing it out as an option.
Roman and Virgil both piped up in unison, though the latter's sarcasm didn't at all match the volume of the former's enthusiasm.
truly from the bottom of my heart i hate the level of enshittification etsy has reached because it's still the best place to buy patterns for my hobby and every time i go scrolling through endless ai-generated bullshit to finally dig up a human-designed pattern i like, i'm hit with a deluge of 'popular!! 563 people are looking at this right now!! it's in 134632 baskets!! you must buy immediately!!!' it's a pdf file. it's a fucking pdf file. do you get off on trying to give people fomo over a fucking pdf file. fuck off. get diarrhea forever.
and that's not even touching the ai-generated patterns with hundreds of 5-star bot reviews that are stupidly easy to spot if you know what to look for. but most beginners don't know what to look for, so they're straight-up scammed into buying based on a nice picture. then their 'hey, i made this and it looks nothing like advertised' comments get buried under hundreds of 5-star bot reviews, and this is how someone who might have otherwise discovered an interesting and fulfilling hobby drops it, thinking the pattern's fine, everyone else likes it, so it's on them for not being good enough. it pisses me off so much, you have no idea.
anyway, here's some shops selling amigurumi (crochet soft toys) patterns fully created by crafters. i've either bought and made patterns from them or saved them for later, meaning i already checked that they aren't ai-generated. i might make a post later on how to spot ai-generated amigurumi patterns, but i wanted to give these a shout-out. go buy from them if you can, it's cool stuff and an interesting skill to learn.
straw animals design (etsy store) plushies and accessories, including some knitted patterns. beginner friendly!
green frog crochet (website store). mostly doll patterns, very pretty and totally worth the time and effort. they also sell full kits for some of the patterns, that include all supplies except for crochet hooks and fiberfill. also, youtube channel with tutorials.
moonlight crochet (etsy store). mostly doll patterns, lots of clothes you can adapt to dolls of similar sizes
yan schenkel (website store for individual patterns) has several books out that i really love. it took a bit of digging to figure out if this online store selling the pdf versions is legit and i found that the publisher sells directly through them. there are three pattern books (1, 2, 3) with animal plushies.
natura crochet (website store) has colorful animal and holiday themed patterns, plus two books of aquatic themed patterns. same publisher/seller as above.
hanichan (website store) has a distinct and minimalist style that i think is very beginner friendly. there are also useful general tutorials for amigurumi.
aquariwool crochet (etsy store). a lot of colorful and fun animal patterns. i haven't bought anything from them yet but i have a few saved and honestly just looking through the patterns makes me happy.
make me roar (website store). one of the more unique styles i've seen out there, especially these.
jo handmade design (etsy store). both plushies and more realistic toys, the patterns are very well written and illustrated.
whenever possible i linked to a store outside etsy, but not all pattern creators have one, so it's 100% worth checking them out and supporting them despite the absolute tar pit they operate in. also whatever creative hobby you're curious about, don't let an ai-generated picture discourage you from trying it. you are a god capable of summoning something out of nothing and generative ai is a pathetic little string of mathematical operations with ideas above its station.
I AM GOING TO SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM to the heavens until everyone knows about the Etsy competitor goimagine!!!
Shop Handmade | Shop Local | Shop with Purpose
The founder of GoImagine refuses to go public or sell the platform: NO SHARE HOLDERS TO APPEASE!!
They have a STRICT vetting process for sellers: NO BOTS, NO AI, NO DROP SHIPPING, HAND MADE CRAFTS ONLY!!
You can narrow down stores you're shopping from by STATE! EASILY SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES!!
2% of every sale transaction is donated to charity!!!
This is baked into the platform. Right now they're partnered with four different charities to fight childhood hunger, provide relief childcare for families dealing with domestic violence, end childhood homelessness, and fund art accessablity. HELPING KIDS!!!!
I have a shop there that I will be stocking soon! If you're a creator, their basic ship front is FREE and you get 12 listing slots! The next size up is only $5 a month and you get 200 listings, and the topn you're at $15 gives you 1,000 product listings and a whole ass customizable store front website. That's cheaper than anything else on the market rn.
Current downsides that will not remain downsides: they're only available in the USA but they're planning on expanding into Canada soon. And they've been mostly focused on growing their seller side, so not a lot of buyers know about them yet. But!!! That why I tell everyone I can! Shop with them! List your products with them! Use a platform that has a dedicated mission for community good and is there to support sustainable creator markets, not create endless bloated corporate growth!!!!
Canada has MavenFair which doesn't quite do as much on the charity side but it does have the "free bunch of listings at the lowest tier" thing. Anyways if you wanna say screw Etsy, it's an option for Canadians. (And I look forward to goimagine being available here.)
I think if you can figure out what is causing Symptoms that the inside of your brain should go DING DING DING and then the Symptoms say Fuck, you got me! and leave
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
