be gay do crime

You are going to need:

- acrylic paint in your desires colours (if you want to put light colours on dark fabric pick up white paint too to use as an underpainting so your colours show up)

- paper sheet

- masking tape

- exacto knife

- makeup sponge you don't mind ruining

- printer (optional)

This is made using my trusty method of stenciling. First you need to pick up a pattern - for biggest chance of success pick something high-contrast and with as many details as you think you'll be able to cut out by hand - if in doubt go simpler so that there's higher chance you finish the project.

I picked the danse macabre skeletons (imagine the background is black)

If you have a printer put your image in an editing progam (if you don't have one downloaded use canva, its online and free) and invert the colours to use less ink.

If you don't have a printer I suggest taping a piece of paper to your monitor and tracing by hand, or you could even do it by putting the picture on your phone zoomed in and tracing it part by part moving the paper as you move the picture underneath. Of course you can also just design your own print, add stuff, change em, anything.

Then what you do is you cover your paper in a layer of masking tape from each side - this is to give it structure and pervent marrying of the paper to the fabric.

Then you get an exacto knife and slowly cut out everything you want to print. Don't rush this step or you'll risk ruining your stencil. Make sure to leave structural supports for your stencil, you can either incorporate them into the design or just leave out stripes that you can fill in later. You can check how your stencil will look like by bringing it twoards a light source, to track if you like the direction the project is heading.

This particular stencil took me 2 hours I believe (i did it last year I don't remember)

Then you masking tape the stencil to your shirt, pant, bag, whatever honestly, this will work on any flat fabric and make sure to put a barrier inside so the paint doesn't bleed to the other side - it shouldn't do that but it can so why not pervent it.

And now using acrylic paint you dab on the paint thin layer by thin layer - the goal is to have not a lot of paint on your sponge so it doesn't bleed but to work it into the fabric really hard so your graphic is durable and doesn't crack. You don't need fabric paint or to mix in any medium since you're working the plastic so deep into the fibers. For white paint i usually do 4-5 coats, for dark paints on light fabric usually two is enough, but it's up to you entirely.

And now just let it dry for a while and it's ready! It's safe to wear probably within 10 minutes, just check if it's not sticky. Best thing is that the stencil is reusable so you can make more, you can do it in different colours, different garments, you can do just about anything. Have fun!

Washing care is how you would take care of any graphic tee - wash inside out on the "hand washing" setting in a washing machine and let air dry and also use minimal detergent - If this is too much to ask just turn it inside out when putting it in the wash, that's where most protection comes from.

The thing is, there’s no way to know where these people are coming from. In the before, when fandom was more in the corners we all knew about, you could search LJ or a message board or whatever social bookmarking site we were using. You could join the community and participate.

You could get a little dopamine hit by seeing someone tell their friends why they loved your story.

Anymore, those recs are hidden in discords, or in tiktoks or instagram slideshows that you can’t search for. They’re inaccessible, not discoverable unless you’re already there. You may never know why 27 people left kudos on an old story of yours, what they liked and found in your writing. You just get the thumbs up and a kinda lonely feeling, cause these could be your people. You could like them, maybe. You could be friends.

But you’ll never find out why they stopped by, or what people are saying about you behind your back, and that’s sad.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

2. Your creativity matters and so does your ability to share it

3. Serial harassers in fandom spaces are beginning to express discomfort that sites like AO3 completely strip their ability to do anything about fic they don't like, sometimes going as far as leaving entire fandoms due to the influx of "problematic fiction without a chance for consequences to the author". Posting your fanworks to AO3 actively contributes to making harassers feel unsafe and powerless in fandom

4. Militant anti-fanfic content creators also cannot do anything about fic posted to AO3

5. You can post anonymously to AO3, with the ability to de-anonymize at any time