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phannie-elvis · 12 days ago

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Phannie Census Update #2 (Preliminary Results!)

Phwoah dads, this is another very long one, so summary at the bottom. I'm gonna hand it over to the mod again now *sexy end screen dance*

Hello everyone! (I'm not gonna change color again because of how long this is). I know everyone is excited for results. Unfortunately, for some of the more complicated questions I have, google forms can't do the kind of math I want, so I need to export the data and write a whole bunch of code and stuff. That being said, for a lot of simpler questions, google forms has a little summary with some graphs and stuff, so I thought I would share that now so we can have some results a lot sooner! I'm gonna go through each question on the survey and say what percent each response got (from highest to lowest, followed by write-ins), as well as the response rate for each question and any noteworthy comments I have.

Disclaimer: I'm going to leave the survey open until I export the data for the final analysis, so it's possible that the results of this will change from I state in this post. However, given that the response rate has been slowing down pretty significantly the past couple days I think that nearly all the responses I'm going to get are already in, so this is probably a pretty good reflection of the data.

These are the results as of 6/14 at 7 PM ET. Total responses so far: 1,577!

Do you currently identify as a lesbian? (99.7 % response rate)

71.3% No, 28.7% Yes

Obviously, we're not 100% lesbians, but I still think 28.7% is pretty high! According to a recent Gallup poll, 1.4% of US adults identify as lesbian (I couldn't find any specifically lesbian stats for the whole world), so 28.7% is wayyyyy higher. Even among LGBTQ+ US adults in general, 14.6% identified as lesbian, so we have a greater "density" of lesbians even given that the Dan and Phil audience is largely queer.

2. Have you ever identified as a lesbian? (99.7% response rate)

54.5% Yes, 45.5% No

I was surprised to see this! I think it's really funny, given the stereotype, that the majority of respondents have identified as lesbian at one point in their lives. I guess Dan and Phil really do know us lol.

3. What's your sexual/romantic orientation? (99.6% response rate)

42.2% Bi/Pan/Omni, 40.9% Queer, 34.8% Gay/Lesbian, 29.3% Ace/Aro, 9.6% Demi, 5.5% Straight, 3.04% write-ins

I was expecting this, but I think it's still funny that the smallest percent other than write-ins was straight lol. I do think the fact that this is tumblr, the Gay People Website, might have something to do with that, but I think it still reflects that the Dan and Phil fan base is pretty solidly queer. (Side note: I can't determine what percent of respondents were LGBTQ+ from the google form, since I can't combine the sexuality and gender data, but I can do that for my final results).

4. What's your gender? (98.5% response rate)

50.8% Woman, 16.7% A different kind of nonbinary (specify in other), 15.5% Genderfluid, 15.3% Man, 13.8% Agender, 5% Demigirl, 3.2% Demiboy, 2.5% Bigender/Polygender, 2.4% Genderqueer (write-in), 0.8% Intersex, ?% other write-ins

I can't do the math for the rest of the write-ins because the google form is being weird, but they were mostly some form of "just nonbinary", not sure/questioning, or transmasc. I think it's funny we have more nonbinary and genderfluid respondents than men respondets. In addition to being a very queer phandom, we're also very genderqueer and I love that for us.

5. What's your gender identity? (98.5% response rate)

48.3% Cisgender, 41.1% Nonbinary, 27.4% Transgender, 0.6% Intersex, 3.6% write-ins

Most of the write-ins were people who were still questioning their gender or didn't feel a connection to gender at all. Again, I think it's funny less than half of respondents are cis. We're really such a queer and trans phandom.

6. What was your assigned gender at birth? (98.9% response rate)

96.1% Female, 2.4% Prefer not to say, 0.4% Actually my doctor was super cool and didn't assign me a gender against my will, 0.4% Male, 0.7% write-ins

I was expecting a pretty high majority female, but 96.1% still surprised me lol. I guess the stereotype that ten years ago all dan and Phil fans were "obsessed teenage girls" (or at least teenage girls) does hold some weight. The write-ins were mostly people saying that they weren't a phannie 10 years ago or they weren't a phannie until after they transitioned.

7. What's your race/ethnicity? (99.6% response rate)

85.2% White, 10.3% Hispanic, 7.3% Asian/South Asian, 2.5% Black, 1.7% Middle Eastern, 1.1% Native American, American Indian, or Alaska Native, 0.5% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 2.6% write-ins

I was expecting a pretty high percent white and wasn't too surprised by this, but I was hoping for a little more diversity. The write-ins were all pretty different, although some form of Jewish and different versions of mixed did appear somewhat often.

8. What's your age? (95.2% response rate)

Unfortunately after about a third of the results came in, google stopped showing me the frequency of each response and just listed the responses. Some people gave a range instead, so I don't have precise numbers to do math with, but the range for people who provided a precise number is 12 to 50 years old. When I could see the frequency, 23 and 25 were in a tight race for the most popular response, but that might've changed. I'll be able to find the average once I do my complicated analysis. (Also, I had multiple responses for each decade between 12 and 50 so we have a pretty decent spread in ages, even if most people are likely in their twenties/thirties!)

9. Which continent are you from? (99.1% response rate)

56% North America, 29.9% Europe, 5.9% Australia, 3.3% Asia, 3.1% South America, 1.5% Oceania/Zealandia, 0.3% Africa, 0.1% Antarctica

Unfortunately the Oceania/Zealandia was not there for the first several hundred respondents, so sorry to anyone who wanted to pick that option but couldn't! (The US education system failed me). These results are pretty much what I was expecting. One person said they were from Antarctica. I don't know if they were kidding or if maybe they're a researcher who lives in Antarctica (in which case, cool!)

10. Which country are you from? (96.0% response rate)

49.9% United States, 13.7% United Kingdom, 5.5% Australia, 5.3% Canada, 4.2% Germany (These are the top 5, I can't list every country because there are simply too many). Here is a graph to try to show you how many responses I got, even though the key doesn't fit in frame lol.

Although about half the pie graph is the U.S., there are so so many responses, which I love. There are phannies all over the world! I can't reliably see all the countries listed right now (I have to hover my mouse over each 0.1% of the pie chart to try to read it), but when I can see some, I've seen countries all over the world (which makes sense given the previous question). Sincere apologies to anyone whose country was not listed. I couldn't offer a write-in option in the drop-down and it was hard to find a list of countries that included everything, given how politically contentious the recognition of countries can be. (This list came from Encyclopedia Brittanica in case anyone was curious).

Fun fact: That top 5 list is very similar to the top 5 countries viewers are from on the AmazingPhil Video Trivia page in tabinof (which is U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany). His page lists the top 10, but I can't read that pie chart well enough to compare past Germany lol.

11. Which of the 4 Gs of the Dan and Phil demographic are you? (99.8% response rate)

87.4% Gays, 84.6% Geeks, 64.1% Girlies, 37.9% Goths, 0.7% None actually, 2.6% write-ins

Hilarious to me that only 0.7% selected "none”. Dan really clocked us with that one. Most of the write-ins are people who are not sure if emo/punk counts as goth (I feel like yes in this case, since Dan and Phil fans are more stereotypically emo but Dan wanted something that started with a G), people who said they were formerly a category (usually girlie), or people who weren't sure if they qualified for a category or not.

Fun fact: These results are pretty close to the results @a-human-beann got when they conducted a poll about the 4 Gs in May. Although the way the question was programmed led to different interpretations of the percentages, the most popular response was still Gays, followed closely by Geeks, then Girlies, then Goths, just like here.

12. Did Dan make you trans/question your gender? (99.4% response rate)

34.7% No, I questioned my gender all on my own (or something else made me I guess), 27.5% No, I've always been sure I'm cis, 14.3% No I made myself trans (or something else did I guess), 14% Yes, he made me question my gender, 5.5% Yes, he made me trans, 4% write-ins

I was a little surprised by this one. I know realistically that Dan isn't "making" anyone trans, I just thought more people would pick it to be funny, but (based on the write-ins) people were actually interpreting the question as who inspired the start to their exploration of gender, which is actually far more interesting so that's cool. The write-ins had a lot of different answers, mostly giving some but not all credit to Dan (and/or Phil).

13. What year did you join the phandom? (99.6% response rate)

14.0% 2014, 13.5% 2015, 10.5% 2013, 10.9% 2012, 10.7% 2016 (These are the top 5, there were responses for every year since 2009). Here is the chart if you want to see about how popular a specific year was. 2009 is the dark blue slice after the white gap, then they go clockwise in order. The slice before the white gap is "I have so little memory of it, I can't even guess).

This is pretty in line with what I was expecting, peak joining around tatinof and the British vlogger boom. 10.9% of respondents joined during the hiatus (or at the very beginning of Back from the Dead, since I did 2019-2023), and 8.6% joined after the hiatus (2024-2025).

14. At this exact moment in time, are you a dannie or a phillie? (99.4% response rate)

36.2% I literally couldn't decide with a gun pointed to my head, 35% Dannie, 28.8% Phillie

This one surprised me again (I feel like I say that almost every question lol). I was really expecting Phillies to be the majority given the prevailing "Phil is a precious baby angel who must be protected" sentiment that the phandom tends to have lol. However, after reading the nuance question (coming up), I realized that people interpret the question differently which could affect responses to this one (I'll discuss that later). It's also a pretty even split between all three categories, even though there were more dannies than phillies. Early on, it switched a couple times between whether there were more dannies or phillies but it's pretty stable now given the sample size.

15. When you first joined the phandom, were you a dannie or a phillie? (99.4% response rate)

66.9% Dannie, 17.5% Phillie, 15.6% I literally couldn't decide with a gun pointed to my head

I was expecting Dan to have the majority here, but that's still quite a large majority. This makes sense given that he has more subscribers (and had more subscribers around the time most of us joined the phandom). I do love that "I literally couldn't decide with a gun pointed to my head" has gone from the least popular option for when people joined to the most popular option today. Here's the graph to compare to the last question.

16. Are you a dannie or a phillie? (with nuance) (41.9% response rate)

I don't have any stats here, since they are all long responses, but I'm planning on making a word cloud or something for the final results. While reading, I realized that there are different interpretations of what constitutes a dannie vs. phillie. Some people think the question basically means who do you like more, while some interpret it more as who do you relate to more (or some mix between them). I wonder if this could help explain the general "we must protect Phil"/"he can do no wrong" type of thing we've got going on, despite the fact that apparently more respondents are dannies. Based on the written responses I've seen (which, again, have not been scientifically analyzed at all), I think that a lot of people relate to Dan and therefore really appreciate how great Phil is. Maybe there's also still some remnants of Phil's old branding as the "innocent one" that make us want to protect him, idk. I'd be interested in asking who do you like more vs. who do you relate to more separately in the future.

17. Are you some kind of mentally ill/neurodivergent? (99.6% response rate)

59.0% Yes (and diagnosed), 28.3% Yes (but not diagnosed), 6.1% Not sure, 4.1% No (and I was never assessed), 0.4% No (but I was assessed), 1.9% write-ins

Honestly, I'm just gonna stop writing that I was surprised, because I feel like it's getting annoying. Assume I was surprised unless I state otherwise lol. (I was expecting that we would have a high percentage of yeses, but this many specifically is what surprised me). 87.3% of respondents answered some form of yes. Good thing Dan's here to cure all of us (Boom, Mr. Beast). Most write-ins were people saying yes/probably but clarifying stages of diagnosis and some people said they used to have a diagnosis like depression or anxiety, but they're better now! (Congrats!)

18. Specifically, are you autistic? (99.6% response rate)

27.1% Yes (but not diagnosed), 26.2% No (and I was never assessed), 20.7% Yes (and diagnosed), 20.5% Not sure, 2.0% No (but I was assessed), 3.5% write-ins

47.8% answered some form of yes. I realized that people who have Dan and Phil as a special interest are probably more likely to be on phannie tumblr and more likely to find this survey, but I do still think that stereotype that a lot of phannies are autistic does have some basis. It's estimated that 1% of the world population is autistic (from the World Health Organization), so 47.8% is definitely way higher (which would suggest phannies are more likely to be autistic than the general population, but again this was not a perfect sample collection so I can't say for sure) (I think if we could say that, a likely explanation would just be that the phandom is pretty accepting of neurodivergence, especially autism, which could attract autistic fans or encourage phannies to explore their own neurodivergence more). Write-ins were mostly people who were basically self-diagnosed but felt the need to present their case because they weren't sure (which I think is hilarious because that seems like a pretty autistic thing to do lol (I would do the exact same thing lol)). Here's the chart so you can see how close to 50% the yeses are and also so you can see how many people gave write-ins clarifying lol (I blocked out the write-ins it showed in the key).

19. If you identify as transmasc, do you consider Dan or Phil to be gender goals? (97.7% response rate)

61.8% I'm not transmasc, 14.3% Dan, 12.3% Both, 6.2% Neither, 1.4% Phil, 4% write-ins

This one wasn't surprising (I've just heard a lot of people say Dan which is why I asked the question). A lot of write-ins specified that they weren't transmasc but still considered one/both of them to be gender goals (which makes me realize I could've worded that question better). A lot of write-ins also specified a specific era that they considered gender goals.

20. What's your political orientation? (98.2% response rate)

72.3% Strongly left, 20.3% Moderately left, 3.7% I don't really think about politics, 1.4% Center, 0.3% Strongly right, 0.2% Moderately right, 1.8% write-ins

This one didn't really surprise me. I was expecting a strong majority strongly left, given how much they speak up about political issues (particularly Dan). Although I was a little surprised to see any right-leaning at all, especially strongly right, but that's literally 7 people out of the whole 1,577 responses so far. Also, a lot of people in the write-ins couldn't remember which was left and which was right or said it worked differently in their country (they usually then explained their politics and ended up meaning some form of "left") (there's a chance the people who picked right got them mixed up as well, but it's so little that maybe there really are some strong right-leaning Dan and Phil fans somehow). A lot of write-ins also said anarchy/fuck politics/they don't believe in politics.

21. Which is better, phyuri or phaoi? (98.3% response rate)

36.6% How dare you ask me to pick one?, 31.4% Phaoi, 21.2% Phyuri, 8.6% I don't know what we're talking about, 2.2% write-ins

I didn't have any expectations for this one, although personally I am a phyuri lover myself. Most write-ins were either saying they were neutral about it or didn't like either because they don't like shipping real people.

22. Are you a furry? (99.3% response rate)

75.4% No, 18.1% I dabble, but wouldn't call myself a full furry, 4.6% Yes, 1.9% write-ins

I wasn't surprised by this one at first because I had no frame of reference for what percent of the general population are furries, and I was just expecting most people to say no (but quite a few to be somewhere in between which is why I added the I dabble option). However, I just googled it and according to a survey from 2011 furries estimated that roughly between 0.02% and 0.04% of the population are furries, so 4.6% yeses (not even including write-ins or the I dabble option) is wayyy higher. This being on tumblr probably has something to do with that, but I also think all of Dan's furry references have probably helped people find the furry community more easily.

23. Do you think Sister Daniel is hot? (99.0% response rate)

80.3% Yes, 8.1% No, 6.3% I'm too confused to tell, 6.3% write-ins

This is pretty much what I was expecting (a resounding yes). Most of the write-ins were people clarifying that while they personally were not attracted to her (usually because they were ace), they acknowledged that she was still objectively hot.

Summary:

While not every phannie identifies as a lesbian, around 28% of respondents do and around 54% have at one point in their lives, which is way higher than the percent of lesbians in the U.S. population. The respondents were overwhelmingly queer (only 5.5% identified as straight) and way more likely to be some sort of genderqueer compared to the general population (more nonbinary and genderfluid respondents than men respondents, only around 48% of respondents identified as cis). 96% of respondents were assigned female at birth, so there is some truth to the stereotypical view of phannies 10 years ago. The large majority of respondents were white or mixed race including white (around 85%). Google Forms hates me, so I couldn't get good stats on the ages yet, but 20s and 30s appear to be the most common ages (23 and 25 were the most common responses before it stopped letting me see the frequency of each response), and the ages ranged from 12 to 50. About half of respondents were from the U.S. followed by around 14% from the U.K., but there were responses from literally too many countries for me to count on the pie chart and responses from every continent (which is super cool!). Out of the 4 Gs, the most popular was the Gays (87%) followed by the Geeks (85%), then Girlies (64%), then Goths (38%), and only 0.7% of respondents selected "None, actually", so Dan really clocked us with that one. Most people actually say Dan didn't make them trans/question their gender (even most trans people said no), which I was a little surprised by, but it is just a joke, so that makes sense. The most common years to join the phandom were around tatinof and the Great British vlogger boom (2012-2016), but there were responses every year since 2009 to 2025. Right now, people are pretty evenly split between whether they're dannies, phillies, or can't decide (with can't decide being in the lead, followed by dannie, then phillie). However, about 2/3 of respondents said they were dannies when they first joined the phandom. For the long response nuance question, I discovered there's lots of way of interpreting what makes someone a dannie vs. a phillie. A large majority of respondents were some kind of mentally ill/neurodivergent (87% combining diagnosed and undiagnosed), with 48% being autistic (combining diagnosed and undiagnosed). Most respondents were not transmasc, but for those who were, most consider Dan to be gender goals (14% of respondents), followed by Both (12%), Neither (6%), and then Phil (1%). Respondents were overwhelmingly likely to identify as being politically left (72% strongly left and 20% moderately left), but a small percentage identified with the right (0.5%). Most people couldn't pick between phyuri and phaoi, but phaoi did get more votes than phyuri (31% vs. 21%). Most respondets (75%) were not furries, but 18% dabble and 5% said yes, which is much higher than estimates for the general population. Finally, 80% of respondents agree that Sister Daniel is hot (with only 8% saying No).

Again, HUGE thank you to everyone who took the survey!!! I can’t believe the response rates are so high for every question!! Over half of the questions had above a 99% and every question (other than the long response nuance question which people didn’t answer if they didn’t have nuance lol) had above a 95%! This has been so much fun to analyze, and I can't wait to get started on my full analysis. Also, thank you so so much to the people who have said nice things about how the survey was well-made/fun to take, it really makes me so happy to see!

Next week: I'm planning on sharing my favorite write-in responses for each question! Dan and Phil are right, we really are funnier than them, so I want to share some of the responses that made me laugh. They'll all still be kept anonymous (I don't even have a way of finding who wrote them), and I'm not going to share anything that I think could be personal, just things that made me laugh. (If you have a response that was funny but you don't want shared for whatever reason, DM me or send an anonymous ask with what it was and I'll make sure not to include it!)

Athankyouverymuch everyone!

#phannie elvis #phelvis #phannie census 2025 #phan #dan and phil #dnp #dip and pip #daniel howell #phil lester #dan howell #phandom

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olomaya · 2 years ago

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More Activities Activity Table

Eat, Play, Learn! Family Fun for Everyone!

2-Sep Update: Thank you @jeebeehey for the French translation. Please redownload if you'd like them.

Updated for redownload (27 July):

Fixed an issue where the interaction cancels out if a toddler doesn't like the food. Thanks to @zemyna for catching!

Added the non-English stbls. Sorry, I swear I'm not one of those Anglophones that thinks English is the only language (I actually speak 3!), it's just a small step in the upload process that's easy to forget.

This is the final part of my little Kids and Toddlers mod series. It's meant to complement the Coloring Book and the Toddler foods mods so you will need those for this.

When I started this, I didn't think through how many new animations or custom details it would entail and I as continued, I kept having to add more and more. There are like 60 animations and 40 image assets 😭 hence why the two main files are so large for a mod.

What I've done is added more activities to the Activity Table after years of being annoyed that the Activity Table we have in TS3, despite being the EXACT SAME table from TS2, does not in fact allow your Sims to draw on it. EA, so lazy!

Anyway, what this does is add 4 new interactions to the Activity Table: Coloring, Arts & Crafts, Puzzles and the ability to serve toddlers food so they can eat there.

The activities are for toddlers and kids only but Teens+ can join in the puzzles if it's already been started by a toddler or child.

Note this will work with any of the Activity Tables in the game or Store but the puzzle will look weird as it's placed in the same spot as where the blocks are. You can use it with custom/cc activity tables provided only the mesh has been edited (for example, if slots are changed or removed, it may not work).

Credits/Thanks: The glue bottle, crayon, CAS paint items and one of the arts and crafts image assets are from @aroundthesims. Thanks as always to Sandy for her generosity and creativity in making Sims content! I originally only wanted to add the option to color/draw but this set of hers inspired me to add in more features. (hmm, maybe I shouldn't be thanking you then considering what a pain that was 🤔😅) All other objects and images are from TS4. Custom animations are by me using TS4 and TS3 as bases.

All buyable objects (table, crayons, puzzles) can be found in Kids Room/Toys.

Check out my other mods in the Kids and Toddlers series: Coloring Book for Kids, Toddler Bed, Toddler Foods and Snacks.

If you run into any issues (and YOU'VE READ THROUGH THE INSTRUCTIONS) please let me know!

Please read below the cut for all the details on features and how to play.

Download here | Alternate Link: SFS

Coloring: Toddlers and Kids can color if there is a crayon box on the lot. Just like using a coloring book, coloring a picture will take up one crayon. Coloring increases painting skill for both. When completed, the final project will be in their inventory.

Arts & Crafts: Toddlers and Kids can do an arts and craft project. Not additional object is needed. They go pretty crazy with the glitter and glue so it can be dirty stuff if they don't have the neat trait. This activity decreases their hygiene and they will get covered in glitter paint when done. Similar to coloring, when completed, the final project will go in their inventory and they get painting skill while playing.

Puzzles: You need to buy a puzzle box and have it on your lot to do puzzles. There are two puzzle boxes but they do the same thing. And they stack! (I love stackable things) There are 3 puzzle types: Easy, medium and Hard. Toddlers can only do Easy puzzles. Children can do either easy, medium or Hard puzzles depending on their Logic skill (for Hard, logic needs to be 3 or higher). The puzzle difficulty will also determine how long it takes to complete the puzzle. Teens+ can help with puzzles but they can't start a puzzle on their own. Toddlers can kids can start a puzzle on their own or help another Sim with a puzzle. Puzzles increase Logic skill for all those playing it but will increase faster for whoever starts the puzzle. If a puzzle is completed, everyone who helped put it together will get bonus skill points. If there is already a puzzle on the table, there is no option to start another, you can only help with the current puzzle. There are different puzzle images (15 in total) but there's no difference between them. The only thing that matters is puzzle difficulty. If the Sim who started the puzzle stops for whatever reason (you or the game cancels the interaction), everyone else helping will stop as well.

Eating: Children+ can serve toddlers meals or snacks. It works the same as my Toddler Foods and Snacks mod. They will place the tray/bowl on the activity table and then call the toddler to eat. If the toddler is hungry, they will go over and start eating. Otherwise, they can always eat it later.

Known Issues:

Animations aren't perfect (but what in life is?) so there's some clipping, especially on the toddlers when they kneel.

The comically large puzzle piece accessory jumps around a little and sits kind of weird in the toddler's hand. I suspect this is because the game is using the adult version of the object animation. I've noted it for fixing whenever I do a second pass on the mod.

The food tray is upside down. Setting object rotation in-game messes up the routing for the table so I'm leaving it as is as it doesn't really bother me.

If there is a food tray or bowl on the table, you shouldn't be able to do anything else there because that slot/part is being used but I had this happen once where my tester child started coloring there. It didn't happen again but if it does happen in your game, simply cancel out the interaction and route them to another part of the table.

The puzzle leaves a shadow even when it's pile form because the shadow mesh is there but you only see it until the geostate changes.

This is not an issue but the alternate material states for objects are only available in high so if you play with graphic settings for objects on medium or low, you're going to see the default image for the puzzles or pictures.

Tagging for reblogs: @kpccfinds @katsujiiccfinds @pis3update

#download #s3cc #s3cc download #sims 3 cc #moreactivitiesactivitytable

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aziraphales-library · 3 months ago

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Hi mods! I just wanted to start by saying thank you for all the work you do here, it's incredibly well organized and very helpful. I was hoping you all had some recency AU fics where they're both male presenting and are in an arranged marriage where they come to genuinely love each other. If you could find some rated E that would be great but if not that's perfectly alright.

Thank you so much!

Hey! Here are some m/m arranged marriage regency fics...

Marriage and Misery by WyvernQuill (M)

Aziraphale firmly told himself he would not make such a maudlin spectacle of himself any longer. Fine, then. He loved. Crowley did not. They were husbands nonetheless, in nothing but name; strangers apart from their wordless shared evenings and some polite conversations on occasion. Love would not - could not - change a thing. Marriage, especially the arranged variety, is an enterprise wraught with pitfalls; moreso, Lord Aziraphale Fell is quickly learning, when hearts become involved. Troublesome things, really, hearts. Only fit to break...

Circumstances of Distinction by angelsnuffbox (M)

"Once, when Aziraphale was younger and far more of a romantic, he had hoped to be swept off his feet into a whirlwind romance: to feel his heart grow asunder over the passionate thrills of love - a Shakespearean love, filled with flowery words and heated confessions. But such aspirations did not long last. In these circles of society, people married for power. For alliance. To marry for love was to condemn oneself to a life of poverty. And to find that love, out of circumstance, from the stale negotiations of a wedded alliance was above all the greatest privilege, one that could not be afforded by even the wealthiest creature in the world." * Sir Anthony Crowley has been living his independent life as a cast-out younger son when he had a baronetcy and failing estate suddenly thrust upon him. Mr Aziraphale, son of a wealthy tradesman, could be the answer to his troubles. A balance of rank and wealth, was this not just what unions were for? A series of meetings in the ballrooms of Bath will determine what fate has in store for these two. A (non angsty) Regency era arranged marriage AU

Just Married by TawnyOwl95 (E)

Aziraphale East does not wish to get married. His mother has other ideas. After all, what other choice does a gently bred omega have? When Aziraphale persists in rejecting suitors, Mrs East takes matters into her own hands. However she has thoroughly underestimated how stubborn her youngest child can be. As does his new husband.

Duty and Desire by Purple_Rose_Writes (M)

A Regency-Era GO Omegaverse Human AU Aziraphale Heavens has resisted taking a mate, but when the family hits hard times, he has no choice. His fears about being mated to an alpha he's never met are only heightened when Alpha Anthony Crowley is rather non-traditional. Is he doomed to a life of abuse and mistreatment? Or is there more to Crowley than meets the eye?

- Mod D

#good omens #ineffable husbands #regency au #arranged marriage #mod d #adult omens

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deathlysallows · 1 year ago

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Multiple MC's/posing tutorial:

Since people ALWAYS ask, and no one ever gives an in depth description on how to use all these mods I thought I would go ahead and make one! It always feels like everyone is gatekeeping their methods but really it's just a lot to explain and no one wants to type all that out so....

Anyway! Here's how I added multiple MC's into one shot and posed them all pretty!

1. You need the following mods:

2. Once you have all of the mods working you will start out making your mc into the first character you want added to your picture using the character editor mod, then get the outfit you want on etc. (You cant edit it once its out there so get it just right)

3. Youre going to use UE tools to duplicate your MC. press f10 to pull up the command bar and the in: "uetools_summon bp_biped_player_c"

(without quotes) Exactly like that then hit enter.

4. You should now have a second copy of your character hanging out by your original one. Now press f8 to open the animation mod, it now moves the most recently summoned mc instead of the one you are controlling. Use the postion and animation settings to move them where you want and find a pose you like. You won't be able to edit them once you summon the next character so make it look pretty!

5. Once you have posed your character, repeat steps 2-4 until you have posed all of the MC's you want. You cannot pose NPC's, but with other mods you can make an mc of them!

BONUS:

For the lighting, you dont have to wait around all day for the sun to light you up just right either. Type in "uetools_setworldsettings timedilation 20" to make time fast forward until the lighting is just right, then type "uetools_setworldsettings timedilation 1" to put it back to normal.

If you want to take a pic at night you can spawn a floating light source with the command "uetools_customlight pointlight 100 180 true"

This one you will want to mess with and practice with first. The first number where i have written 100 is a number representing the intensity of the light. 100 is very soft. The second number where i have put 180 is how spread out it is, so making it bigger will cause it to effect a greater area. Where it says true - that is what determines whether the light source you add will cast shadows. Type false is you dont want them - i usually do. The light spawns right in the center of your characters body, you will want to set custom lights up before posing any characters. Just walk around and spawn them, use "uetools_ghost" to let you fly in order to make yourself go higher or lower to change where you place the lights and then type "uetools_walk" to walk again. Custom light usually only shows up at night but in extra shadowy areas it works fine.

Sorry that was so long winded, I hope it helps someone! Doing the poses takes a really long time sometimes but its still fun to me lol

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy screenshots #hogwarts legacy mods #tutorial #hogwarts legacy mc #uetools

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insidejiaqi · 11 months ago

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Sex for grades (kind of)

was not particularly the smartest girl in school in university. so i had to do what it takes to graduate

————————————

i studied computer science in university. looking back, probably not the best choice for a dumb bitch like me. chose it cuz my friends chose it too. and the bunch of nerds around me were just not it. creeps everywhere.

in my first sem, there was this particular project based mod and i could not understand anything the prof was saying. whats worse was my coding skills were close to non existent and my group mates were all experienced code monkeys.

i could tell my project mates were slowly getting fed up with me. they would assign me tasks that i would take so long to complete they end up just doing it for me. but i do try okayyyyy.

one night i was determined to contribute something. so i stayed late in school to work on one of the tasks assigned to me. i convinced one of my project mates to stay with me. he was the kind of an awkward looking nerd that wears specs. the only woman he ever talked to was probably his mom.

while i was trying to do my task, i would consistently rant out loud about how hard it is and why i keep getting errors. he heard me and came to sit beside me to explain the problems i had.

i leaned in to point at my laptop screen, acting like i was listening and got my boobs caressing his arm intentionally. i know he felt it as he suddenly looked a little uncomfortable. i could see his bulge starting to form. he carried on explaining the issues with my code but i wasnt even listening.

tbh, the plan was never for me to actually finish it. i just dont want to get complained for not contributing :)

"how about i do this and you do this for me?" i stretched out my arm to grab the big bulge in his pants.

he gave me the blank stare.

"come on, you do what youre good at, and i do what im good at. no one suffers"

"errrr"

i got on my knees under the table and started undoing his pants. it was just us there. i pulled out his dick and to my surprise, it was about 5 inches. for a nerd like him, his dick size was surprising.

"stop looking and keep typing"

he immediately looked up and continued working on my task.

I slowly pulled back his forskin to expose the dickhead and my warm saliva drip down on his sensitive virgin dick. he involuntarily moaned and squirmed as i started stroking, coating his dick with my saliva.

"fuck jiaqi, your hands feel amazing!"

"shhhh. less talking, more typing"

I leaned in to lick the head as i continued stoking. he kept moaning and the typing did not stop. without warning, his hands came under the table and forced my mouth into his dick.

"ohh fuck yesss jiaqii. i always imagined you as a naughty dumb slut. jerking off to your pictures when we were first grouped together. never thought it could be real. and now fucking your mouth feels 1000 times better. fuckkkk"

he held my head down for a good 10 seconds while he exposes dirtiest fantasies to me.

"now get up and let me fuck you over the table" he pulled me up by my hair and bent me over bent me over the table. he lifted my skirt and saw that i was not wearing any panties.

"wow seems like this was you end goal since the beginning huh. wanting that pussy filled quickly so you didnt wear panties?"

"nuuu..." he jabbed his dick into me before i could reply and started thrusting in and out.

"fuck you little dumb slut. its okay. i will do your homework for you if you continue being a good little cock sleeve. now call me daddy"

"yes daddyy... fuckkkkkk ughhh"

the thrusting continued as he added a few loud spanks on my ass as if it was not a public place. he was still an inexperienced nerd and just 2mins later he pulled out and shot his ropes on my ass and sat back down on the chair panting.

"heheh how does it feel to lose your virginity?"

"tiring... how was it for you?"

"heheh here is lesson 2. dont ask a girl that."

he was still trying to catch his breath while i started packing my bag.

"now get that task done for me alright? its due tomorrow", i whispered in his ear before leaving.

"yea sure dont worry about it."

I went home and when i arrived home, i got a text containing all the files required to complete the task.

from then on, he helped me do my work for the rest of the sem and i got an A. heheh

————————————

Appreciate yall for reading my sexual recounts. Writing it gets me turned on as well. If you liked it, do give it a like and reblog!

Follow me on twitter at @jiaqi2602 for short snippets and uncensored content.

Till next time!

#sgleaks #sgfbt #sggals #sgleak

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memepocalypse · 3 months ago

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Rich, Famous, and Alone.

For muses who might feel more than you think they do. mod note: I am aware that it's nearly impossible to be super rich and not cruel in the real world. But in our fantasy worlds, there are choices.

"I just want to be loved, is that so bad?"

"I want what you have. I want to feel that."

"I have everything in the world and yet... I'm lonely."

"You don't know how it feels to have everyone know you, but... nobody knows you."

"Money, sex, cars, houses, whatever... it doesn't mean anything. Not really."

"I want a connection. Something that's based on who I am, not what I have."

"Is it so bad to want to be... myself? Not just a wallet?"

"Yeah, I have money. Fast cars. So what?"

"Because I'm rich doesn't mean I don't have a heart."

"I didn't want this money. I inherited it."

"I've... been hurting people, haven't I? All this time? I didn't even know."

"We're sheltered from it all. Nobody lets us see the harm we're doing."

"I have to have guards, or I can't even leave the house."

"I want to go to the store in my dirty shirt and not have people taking pictures of me."

"I was just doing what I loved. I didn't realise it would cost me my private life."

"People feel like they're entitled to my time, my energy."

"Would it kill people to leave me alone?"

"I don't want to be 'on' all the time."

"Sometimes I just want to watch a movie with... someone."

"It's funny, when I'm with you, I don't feel like I have to be... famous."

"I'm allowed to be a person! I'm allowed to make mistakes! God!"

"Yeah, I fucked up, but now I can't even apologise without people calling me fake."

"How can I make it better when they're determined to see me as a monster?"

"I regret all of it, sometimes. All the fun I was having."

"I could buy you a nice meal. A house, a car, a yacht. I would, if you asked."

"Sometimes I feel like all I have to offer is what I can buy someone. They can't see me past that."

"I built something, a long time ago. And now I get death threats."

"I want to fix it all. It seems so... overwhelming. All the good I do is overshadowed by the bad I've done."

"I haven't been paying tax? What do you mean I haven't been paying tax??"

"I'm... sorrry. Nobody wants to hear the rich guy talk about how lonely he is."

#roleplay meme #rp meme #starter #rp starter #starters #prompt #rp #prompts #roleplay #meme

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haveyoureadthistransbook · 3 months ago

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Trans/Rad/Fem by Talia Bhatt

goodreads

Second-Wave feminism is, today, nearly synonymous with ‘transphobia’. Any mention of this era or the movement of ‘radical feminism’ conjures images of feminists allying with right-wingers and the authoritarian state, providing legal justification for outlawing gender-affirming care and spreading deeply evil caricatures of trans women to rationalize their exclusion as feminist subjects. In the ensuing struggle to reconcile trans rights with feminism, the specter of the trans-exclusionary radical feminist has often reared its head in opposition. One may be tempted to conclude that the Second Wave, as a whole, has done irreparable harm to feminist, queer and trans politics, and must be discarded entirely.

But is that truly the case?

Radical feminism also is responsible for repudiating bioessentialistic notions of gender with theories that place it as a firmly social phenomenon. It gave us the language to describe patriarchy as a regime of mandatory heterosexual existence and dared to dream of a post-gender existence long before anyone spoke the phrase “breaking the binary”. Modern transfeminism owes much to radical feminist theory, and despite all propaganda to the contrary, the two schools of thought may be far more allied than believed.

This series of essays aims to reconstruct and reintroduce the radical feminist framework that its misbegotten inheritors seem determined to forget and in doing so boldly makes the claim that transfeminism, far from being antagonistic to radical feminism, is in fact its direct descendant. It shows how a comprehensive social theory of transsexual oppression flows almost naturally from radical feminist precepts and dares to declare that a materialist, radical transfeminism is the way forward to seize the foundations of patriarchy at the root.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this series of essays yet, but it sounds like it could be really interesting.

#trans/rad/fem #talia bhatt #polls #trans books #trans lit #trans literature #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #feminism #essays #nonfiction #politics #to read #btw just a warning if you cant be normal on this post i am actually going to delete my tumblr and go to bluesky because tbh i dont #trust tumblr to be normal about transfeminist writing at all. please dont make this exhausting for me. please be normal.#trans woman #own voices

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catiecat1320 · 5 days ago

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I'm back for the Sonic Big Bang #2, hosted by the lovely mods at @sthbigbang!

HUGE thanks you to my artists: @12shelves, my original warrior. Thank you for sticking through the insanity LOL @thatphantomstar, God’s strongest soldier. So glad you got your CSP fixed!! @noxunderground, Sonic’s silliest soldier. Both the fastest and TWO arts… I salute you o7

And thank you to my beta readers! @starzdeath, my conspirator; @mattreverse, my Sonadow guy; and @ghostonthelnternet, my hype squad! Love y’all <3

All of the arts will be linked in the [MasterPost]

Without further ado, I present,

Legend

Summary: Sonic the Hedgehog. He goes by many names, takes on many roles. To those closest to him, he’s the best friend you could ask for. To those who challenge him, he’s a force to be reckoned with. To most of the world, he’s a hero, a legend to rival the days of old. If you were to ask Sonic himself, he would say he’s no one special. He’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong. He knows he’s special in ways he doesn’t yet understand. It’s hard to ignore when the chaos emeralds thrum constantly in the back of his head, reminding him of the role he’s meant to fill. The role he rejects every time he borrows their power. When the time comes, he will accept, because that’s just who he is. For now, he tries to live life like he always has, because there comes a day when he will no longer be able to ignore what lies ahead of him. Tell him, how does he make the most of the moment when the moment lasts eternity?

(AKA: The chaos emeralds claim Sonic as their guardian, essentially turning him into a god. Now, he has to deal with the implications of that— and immortality.)

…………………………………………

Chapter 1 (Prologue): Do You Believe in Destiny?

Summary: Sonic has a complicated relationship with fate. More than anything, he wants to forget their connection. It isn't so keen to do the same

Read Below 🔽

Do you believe in destiny?

If you asked that question to Sonic the Hedgehog, chances are he would say no. He would smile and wink and reassure you that nothing’s set in stone. He would laugh, not unkindly, put a hand to his heart, and tell you that only you can control your life.

He would be lying.

Sonic wishes he could say no, and mean it. But the truth is that long before he was born, he lived in the mind of the Ancient Echidnas, in prayers and prophecies largely lost to time. The truth is that his fate was sealed before he ever opened his eyes, etched in the aged stone of Angel Island by careful hands that promised power to a kid yet to come, that promised the world a savior to the likes which they’d never seen.

The truth is that maybe his life had been woven by forces outside of his control, scripted before he ever knew how to read.

He tries not to think about it too much. Yet fate and all its friends haunt him like a ghost, trailing in his footsteps and reminding him of their presence. He sees it in Amy’s tarot readings, some of which are eerily accurate. He sees it in Silver’s hopeful face, determined to save the future and rewrite history that hasn’t yet happened. He sees it in the Time Eater’s glowing mouth, filled with events past and yet to come.

Most of all, he sees it— feels it— in the chaos emeralds and their hum that no one but him can hear, beckoning him to accept a role that he was made to fill.

…………………………………………

There are some days when Sonic does nothing. Contrary to popular belief, he does actually relax. If he were to be honest, constant peril does wear on him, though he’d never say it outright. He lives as much for the adventure as he does for the peace his antics tend to bring the Earth. It’s nice to quiet down.

There’s something so calming about taking a winding run and flopping down in a random field, letting multicolored wildflowers tickle his peripheral vision as he breathes in the fresh air. The grass is cool where it slides between his splayed quills, slowing his heartbeat to match the sway of the breeze.

It’s in these moments where he lets himself be, setting his mind loose and melding with the planet. Before his eyes, the sky turns into a moving canvas of oceans, mountains, and valleys in rich blue and bright white, spinning a world he’s content to view from below. Beneath him, he could almost feel the Earth shift, breathing like a living being in itself.

Without realizing, the hum of the planet lulls him to sleep.

His dream is quite innocent at first. Dirt shifts under his shoes as he runs through a forest, surrounded by vibrant plant life at every step. The sun shines through the canopy, shadows of leaves dancing with light rays dappling the uneven ground. The occasional critter darts about, barely noticeable even with his enhanced reaction time.

Running isn’t unusual of his dreams. Neither is the inconspicuous setting. He spends most of his waking moments moving, after all, and he was pretty much taking a hike through nature just like this before he fell asleep.

Then, the forest gives way to ancient ruins. Intricately patterned structures stand smoothed by the weather, crumbling in some parts yet clear-cut in others. Statuettes dot the pillars and niches, figurines of people he’ll never know.

Recognition strikes him. Angel Island.

He realizes where he’s going.

His path suddenly drops underground and he whispers a temporary goodbye to the surface. The sound of rushing water is the first thing to hit him, then the vibrant brick-built structures of Hydrocity. Pillars prop up the high ceiling, ducts funnel water through the cavern until they break off and further flood the ruins. It wasn’t his favorite place, sure, but it was far from his least. He could commend the work of the echidnas.

In fact, he’s glad he’s here this time. He’s not sure why his dreaming mind decided to drop him in Hydrocity, but he’ll put it to good use. Gently pushing aside his aversion to water with a mutter of ‘This isn’t real,’ he tucks himself into a ball and spins at the nearest waterfall.

As he suspected, the sudden action forces the dream to show him exactly where it was leading him. The other side is thankfully dry, and the cold water slips off him like it was never there. Momentum carries him forward and he skids to a halt deep in the bowels of Hidden Palace, turning to face the mural that sprawls across the adjacent wall.

A jagged crack behind him allows a ray of sunlight through the caldera’s opening to hit it at just the right angle, illuminating the shining green gem in the center. A man with a mustache and out-reached arms grabs at it, opposed by a blue hedgehog wreathed in golden fire. The whole thing is abstract; geometric shapes covered in lines and patterns, captioned with a language lost to time. Once vibrant colors have dimmed with age, but not so much that its meaning has been lost like the words have.

It’s something that Sonic has seen just once, yet he can recall it in vivid detail as if it were drawn into the backs of his eyelids.

It might as well be, with the way it haunts him. For it told him the reason the chaos emeralds seemed to give him favor, allowing him to behold their power, the first in many years. He wondered what they would’ve done if he’d never found them, or if that was even possible when he’d already been scripted to take them on.

If he never used a chaos emerald, what would he be today?

What would the world be?

Questions like that hurt his brain. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder…

As if it could read his mind, the sunburst hit a particularly reflective section, bringing Sonic out of his thoughts. How long had he been standing there?

Long enough for the day to shift, it would seem, the sunlight falling on the hedgehog instead of the emerald. Sonic steps closer on impulse, carefully reaching up to touch the history that he’d been bound to before it ever happened. A tremor runs through him as he brushes the cracked stone, accompanied by the ever present hum he’s grown to ignore.

A single question embeds itself into his miraculously quiet mind. ‘Why me?’

The edges of his dream crumble as he traces a finger over blue-green. He closes his eyes and lets it take him.

When he opens them again, he’s greeted by vast blue skies. It stretches across all corners of his vision, marred by a single fading cloud the color of fire. The belated realization that there was no ground beneath him only comes after the wind whipping his quills around causes one to poke a tender spot, and his attention flies to the fact that he’s falling.

There’s nothing but sky above him and the unforgiving ground far below, yet he feels a disturbing sense of peace that seems out of place for a hedgehog about to be a blood splatter on the ground. Perhaps that says something about him. Or perhaps he’s just fallen enough times to know that he’ll be okay in the end.

Something tells him it’s not the latter.

He realizes he hasn’t awoken.

This is the first time he falls. The charred Death Egg, its ugly death attempted by his own hands, would make its first descent alongside him. In his periphery, a red dot appears on the horizon. Tails, piloting the Tornado full-throttle in hopes of saving his newfound hero from an untimely death. He would be too late, but it doesn’t matter. Sonic knows how this plays out.

Seven emeralds slip out of his quills, singing seven notes in harmony as they circle him. It’s quite beautiful, their melody, yet there’s a hollow edge to it that he hadn’t understood. All he knew, back when he was still young and unversed with chaos, was that these seven gems he’s spent his time collecting and protecting held power that they were now offering to him. Power that he could use to save himself.

He embraces them as he would embrace the Earth, and they embrace him in return as if he were an old friend. That eternal hum ran itself through him and for the first time, his soul sings in tune with the emeralds. His breath is robbed from his lungs as it lights a fire in him, golden with potential, bright like the sun. In that moment, cradled in their support for the first time, the chaos emeralds claimed Sonic as theirs just as they were now his.

Suddenly, at 11-years-old, he knows what it feels like to have all the world just a touch away. It’s scary, yet euphoric, the feeling of connection to everything from the stars to the sea. Then he blinks, and it all melts faster than he could comprehend.

This time, he realizes what’s happening before it starts.

This moment is something he dreamed about a lot, a moment of many firsts that he also wished to be lasts. The blue sky prior is replaced with the vast expanse of space, dotted with dying stars and fading galaxies. The broken moon disappears from view as Sonic falls, this time with intention, chasing the meteor bleeding gold in its descent.

Amid his desperation, there was confusion. By all means, the striking red-and-black hedgehog was more powerful than Sonic could compare to, not that the latter would admit it aloud. So Sonic didn’t understand why he won their unspoken competition. Why he could step into gold like a second skin while Shadow struggled. Why the latter exhausted while the former stood strong. Why the Ultimate Lifeform could not compare to a random guy who just wanted to live as he saw fit.

The sentiment echoed in time with his heartbeat as he dove with an urgency he’s never felt, yet like Tails in the Tornado the day Sonic fell himself, he knew he’d be too late. It didn’t stop him from trying, begging the emeralds to save Shadow in the same vein he’d been saved back then.

They didn’t comply. Rather, the chaos energy bleeding from Shadow’s form circled back to Sonic, and he choked on the fire that he wished would fuel the other falling star. In vain, he tried to establish a connection, to loop energy to the fading hedgehog if only to buy time. Shadow took no notice of his efforts, but at least his expression was unmarred by the troubles that seemed to live there for all the time Sonic’s known him.

Ruby eyes pierce his soul as consciousness is returned to Shadow at the arguably worst moment. They’re covered by a haze that twists Sonic’s gut with such force something shifts inside him, like setting the last piece of a puzzle.

Tumult waves crashing into a jagged shore smooths to gentle tides. In, and out. Multicolored strands seep into the corners of his vision as he pushes forward with newfound strength, the chaos emeralds within him aligning in such a way that they felt an extension of his will rather than an outside tool. Unknowing, he takes up an irreversible offer and taps into a power he’s never dared to touch.

His entire form flickers with a spiral of colors he didn’t know existed. It melds with pure white, a concert of lights that floods his vision and coats everything he sees. There’s a strange feeling of falling apart yet being more complete than he’s ever been.

Almost there…

The two hedgehogs, one fading, one forming, brush fingers. Through the light cascading in his vision came Shadow’s smile, a tether to reality as Sonic realizes what he’s doing.

In an instant, he stops, the force of the deceleration enough to kill him had he not been in Super form. All the blooming power snaps back to his core like a collapsing star, overwhelmed by its own gravity. In the time it took for Sonic to recover, in the time it took for him to blink, Shadow fell out of sight, leaving the former with nothing but the whispers of a goodbye and that serene smile to remind him of his failure.

Sonic chokes on the non-existent air. Despite burning with seemingly infinite power just a moment prior, he feels as cold as the void around him. He stays like that for a while.

When he restarts, it’s to grab the lost ring slowly descending to the same fate as its owner. The golden material buzzes with residual power as he wraps his fingers around it and presses it to his chest. The chaos emeralds hum stronger, like an urge. He shoves it down, then promises himself that he’ll never do that again.

Even as iridescence taunts him with that smile.

When he opens his eyes, the setting sun greets him rather than the ARK. Sonic sits up in the grass, stray flower petals falling off his body, and breaths in the breeze that ruffles his quills.

It’s so scenic it hurts. Yet he can’t help but stare at it, a deep-rooted sense of appreciation winding around his heart.

“What do you want?” Sonic mutters, as if the landscape could hear him. Well… in a sense, it can. The same energy that pined for his attention ran through every living being in this world and more. That’s what this is all for, isn’t it? To appease him in some way?

The world answers his question with a rising hum and understanding floods through his head. ‘You already know,’ it says. His dreams, his memories, play back like an old film reel, its edges soft as if it’d make him want to watch it any more. He shakes it out.

“No.”

It chirps in response, settling with a weight he wants to be rid of. Only when it sounds again does he realize that it is physically on his head; a little bird pecks at the spot where blue quills meld into fur.

He sighs, reaching up with a finger extended, gently coaxing the bird to stop trying to drill into his skull. It eagerly hops on the new perch as Sonic brings it down, holding it close to his chest. Beady eyes flash up at him before it pecks his fingers and flies off.

Sonic doesn’t want to follow it.

The green of the forest darkens in the reddening light, throwing long shadows that hide the hazards of the rough ground. He’s versed enough at running through trees in the dark that he doesn’t fall, thankfully. He'd say it was difficult to chase after such a small figure darting about above his head, but as much as he resists the chaos energy’s wants, he’s not willing to deny its benefits. He can feel exactly where his guide is at all times.

Realization sinks in like a stone in water, heavy with knowledge in the tide of ignorance. The melody in the back of his head lulls as he nears one of the seven chaos emeralds, growing louder, brighter, like it would convince him today.

Against his petty hate, Sonic stops in the clearing, toes brushing against the jutting roots of an old stump. The source of his irritation rests in the hollow, its glow strengthening as he leans in close.

“You just won’t leave me alone, will you?”

The emerald flashes as if to agree. The hum rises with it, hopeful. Sonic rolls his eyes and directs as much of his thought as he could to firing sarcasm at its general location in his mind. He thinks he gets his point across when it dims, only to hear a sound akin to a violin strum through him.

The environment responds to the call in like and lifts. Suddenly, Sonic’s surrounded by fireflies, blinking a language he doesn’t speak as they swirl in a dance to mirror the stars gently peeking out of the oncoming twilight.

He heaves a deep breath, brows knitting together as one of the bugs plants itself on his forehead. He carefully plucks it off, a look that could be mistaken for fondness weaving itself on his face as he lets it fly.

In his heart, he can pinpoint which beetle is the one he released, despite the hundreds of them it’s among. That’s what’s so special about chaos energy: its uniqueness in every individual being, no matter how small.

Sonic supposes he’s the most unique of them all.

The chaos emerald flares again. He crouches, gives it a long, hard stare, then picks it up with as little grace as possible. It, in return, is just happy to be held.

He runs a thumb over an edge as he holds it up to the moon now settled in place of the sun. A waxing gibbous, so round it could be mistaken for a full moon. He adjusts his gloved hand to cover the crescent of darkness missing, filling in the empty spot in his vision. Through the colored facets of the emerald, the moon distorts, and he could almost imagine it to be complete.

With a sigh, he drops his hand and shoves the rock into his quills. Tails will probably find some use for it.

The mist of fireflies pepper him with kisses as he walks through. Sonic gently waves them away, but they don’t seem to get the memo. Sucking in a deep breath, Sonic shakes them off and drops into a running stance. He can feel the pulse of the emeralds in the back of his head as he peels out through the forest, opposite the way he came, eager to take his mind off the events of the day.

Weight trails his footsteps like a shadow, forever tethering him to a fate he wishes to avoid. No matter how fast he darts through the landscape, he can’t leave it behind.

#sonic big bang 2025 #sonic #sth #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #chaos emeralds #hyper sonic #Legend AU #sonic au #writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #cross posted on ao3 #CatieCatWorks

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theangrycomet-art · 6 months ago

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Sparks and Optics, What the heck do they have to do with an Alien Robot’s Health: A Minor Set of Headcannons on how Sparks work in TFA

A long winded and doodled brain worm that has been haunting yours truly because I got an ask about optic colors :)

This takes @paradimeart orbabies au/"how were more bots built without the allspark" headcannon/au into account so check that for some context on the exact details of Protorbs/Protomechs and the whole “Vector Sigma is now in charge of repopulating cybertron in place of the Allspark”

Alright, enough dilly dallying, let’s dive into this headcannon turned into a Chapter in a high school science textbook

First Off, Sparks

Each Cybertronian requires their spark to live, it powers their bodies and serves as a “soul”. Basic Transformers lore there.

Though with the whole Headmaster thing, there is evidence to argue that a transformer of any faction can theoretically survive being separated from their spark chamber for some time, as Bulkhead, Sentinel, and Starscream all were able to operate and function just as heads. I believe that there IS a time limit for this determined by how much power their heads can store. There is also the fact that some bots such as Blitzwing, Lugnut, and Wasp (and maybe Bumblebee- I don’t remember 100% for him) have more “modular “ frames that allow them to move their body parts independently when seperate d drone them. Both of which aspects are another interesting topic to explore but THAT’S a topic for a whole ‘nother post.

Transcript: The default color of a Cybertronian’s optic is determined on their spark. Pre-War, when customizations were more readily available, there were far more Optic Colors. This trend , however, has all but died in present day. End of Transcript.

As read on the tin, the optic color of a bot is shown to match the colors of the charged lining of the interior of a bot, blue for Autobots, red for Decepticons, purple in Wasp’s case. Given the the uniformity of eye colors in TFA, the inverse explanation I believe is that getting Optic Mods is considered a faux pas.

Between the strained resources from the war, Autobot propaganda, and the Decepticons’ limited access to such amenities, wasting materials on such minor modifications would not only seen as wasteful but highly suspicious. Those outliers with optic colors outside the typical hues of their faction likely face scrutiny from their peers on both sides.

But what is the difference between an autobots and a deceticon’s spark?

I believe that the critical difference is their ability to process and store energon.

Spark Anatomy

The spark is built into three major components, the shield dome, the outer core, and the inner core. Each is critical to maintaining a Cybertronian’s health and ensure their long lifetimes.

Transcript 1: a Healthy “Autobot-Typical” Spark. Shield Dome -serves as defense for the spark, EXTREMELY sensitive. Inner core: -extremely dense,innermost energon, made of multiple spheres contracted together, individual spheres CAN be removed. Outer core: -CRITICAL FOR SPARK STABILITY, keeps inner core safely in place.

Transcript 2: a Healthy “Decepticon-Typical” Spark. Shield Dome -serves as defense for the spark, EXTREMELY sensitive. Inner core: -larger energon deposits, tho (avg) the same amount, red tint indicates (here there are three upward facing arrows indicating “increased”) endurance. Outer Core: - more prone to breaking down but recovers quickly.

As shown above, the concentrations of energon that build up the inner cores of a transformers spark are significantly larger in Decepticons than in Autobots, allowing them to handle larger frames with ease, but also generate greater forces of strength without tiring themselves out as easily. It’s’ built for higher endurance and energy out body, which allows them to carry heavier duty tools (and weapons) naturally without easily exhausting themselves.

However, this comes at a cost, as the outer core, or this sparks “lining” is at a higher risk of warping or or worse damage.

Which leads us to OverCharged Sparks.

Overcharged Sparks

Overcharged sparks, or O.Sparks, have occurred for as long as the Allspark has been granting life, a minor glitch in the system. They are varied, but they’re all sparks who generate high maintenance cores with very limited outlets for the excess energy they generate. They come in two major types, depending on the source of their “overcharge”.

Transcript: Overcharged Sparks: Type 1. -sparks creation had too much energy output -> hence the name, excess charge cases the inner core to be over stimulated and lash out, bashing into the outer core, warping it, or worse tearing it.

Type 1 O.Sparks’ inner cores are permanently disrupted. They cannot stabilize nor can the individual energon spheres concentrate together on their own. There is very little treatment for grown frames with this condition, with protorbs/protomechs there is a limited window during which one can encourage the spark to concentrate its excess energy into developing an outlier. HOW one is supposed to go about this is completely unknown, and though Yoketron had some theoreys, his focus was more on making sure the protorbs/protomechs in his care survived into adulthood.

Due to this fact, there was an attempt made to force more outliers out of the latest batch of Protorbs by overstimulating their Sparks at creation. This experiment forced a generation of “experimental frames” to acquire with O.Sparks.

The experiment was a complete failure.

With 60% of the frames not surviving outside the proto-mold (so many little puddles of shiny melted baby goo to mop up), only half of the remaining batch not making it past the Protorb stage. Out of the surviving batch- a little more than a 200 grew to full maturity. With all that carnage, only 7% of the survivors developed any desirably outliers l.

The rest continue to suffer a lifetime of symptoms that few doctors could diagnose, much less treat with no gain. Most of these models aren’t expected to life so much as a fraction as the average expected lifespan for an autobot.

This was done without Yoketron’s knowledge, as he did not directly interact with the Vector Sigma when it was doing its thing and left the maintenance of VS to it’s keepers. But when he found exactly WHY so many of the children in his care kept suffering… let’s just say few have ever had the misfortune to see the cyber-ninja master terrifying fury. The already limited amount of outsiders allowed access to the “Daycare” went down to exactly 1 (and it certainly wasn’t Ultra Magnus or any of his lackeys) and the bots selected for “babysitting” were run over with a fine toothed comb.

After this, the Autobots focused on standardizing models. Two of the selected models were the smaller, more energy efficient, “scout” protoform model that Bumbleebee has and the sturdy, reliable truck model that Ratchet and Ironhide share.

Hence why there are so many younger bots share frame types.

The “Success” Stories

Despite the tragedy of the Council’s meddling, there are a few notable survivors success stories of the Outliers Experiment, some who even live with minimal symptoms and some desirable outliers.

Transcript: Notable Bots with O. Type 1 Sparks: Blurr. Blurr’s spark channeld his excess “charge” into his speed. Since his spark figured this out as a protomech & stableized some, his optics were able to settle closer to a healthy cyan.

Most well known amongst the Elite Guard would be Blurr, with his outlier being, of course, his speed. His spark used the excess charge to increase his processor efficiency and in turn encouraged charge release through movement. Holding still for extended periods of time is not an option, leading to limited and short recharges, which in turn lead to increase in irritability.

Transcript: Notable Bots with O. Type 1 Sparks: Bulkhead is an anomaly amongst the O!Sparks. His spark addressed his excess charge by enforcing his frame to a heavy duty build and "grow" until his frame could better handle it. He literally "broke the mold".

Bulkhead is the only bot with an O!Spark who's excess charge was directed to re-enforce his frame. According to his specs, he is supposed half his size (and a quarter of his weight). With this re-enforced frame, he is also the asymptomatic O!Spark.

Transcript 1: Moonracer is an atypical O!Spark. Her spark tuned her excess energy to a gravity manipulator. However her small frame still struggles to compensate for the remaining charge, resulting in her going into stasis at random.

Moonracer, like Blurr, proved to be an outlier with her built in Gravitic Adjuster. However, like Blurr, her spark does not allow Moonracer to stay still for long periods of time. Her charge builds up and leads to forced reboots to re-stabilize her energy levels. (ie if she stops moving for too long than she passes out) While not the worst of the potential side effects, it has impeded her desire to be a pilot.

Transcript 2: Most Cybertronians with O!Sparks don't adapt to the excess charge. These unlucky frames life spans are much shorter due to their sparks literally burning out their frame. Their lives can be extended through extensive modding and in some cases a complete frame change but their symptoms will always remain.

Most of the survivors of the Outlier experiments do not make it to 10,000. In fact, their lucky to make it to 3,000.

Typical Side Effects for Type 1 Overcharged Sparks

Eye Rings/cracked optics

poor vision

insomnia

higher core temperature

joint stripping (can be treated with regular oiling)

chronic pain

slow self-repair nanite response (can be supplemented)

Type 2 O!Sparks

Transcrpit: Type 2 is the most common type of O!Spark, and is typically the result of severe physical trauma, whether from combat, medical procedures, just plain bad luck.

These are the result of an Outer Spark Core failure, damaging the inner core and resulting in instability. As such, Type 2 O.Sparks are rarely found in Decepticons.

Most importantly, they are Treatable.

There are 3 sub types; 2-a, 2-b, and 2-c.

Type 2-a

Type 2-a O!Sparks are typically the result of poor mental health.

Long-term emotional distress can cause the Outer Spark Core to breakdown and weaken, causing instability within the Innermost Spark Core.

The most obvious symptom is a yellow tint to the Optics. The stronger the yellow tones, the worse state the Inner Core is.

The spark must repair itself on its own but in order for that to occur the patient must address the root problem. Treatment focuses on restoring the Outer Core and minimizing stimulation of the Inner Core.

Though uncommon, many veterans of the great war have develop some degree of Type 2-a O!Sparks.

Side Effects

memory purges

poor recharge cycles

lethargy

limited EM Field extentsion

chronic fatigue

Type 2-B

Type 2-B is the result of the Spark Chamber being damaged, BUT the spark core remained intact.

Research in Type 2 Overcharged Sparks began anew when the ailing Ultra Magnus's spark stability was under question.

In his case, his Innermost Energon was severely destabilized within the InnerCore, but the cores themselves remained intact. Until the cores are stabilized and the Innermost Energon stabilized, it is best to keep the patient in a medically induced coma.

Often times the circumstances of this kind of spark damage are in an unsalvageable frame, so there is not much research in long-term treatment, but First Aid believes it to be curable with the right treatment. How much of that assessment is First Aid being overly optimistic and under a lot of pressure is left to be decided

Side Effects

Optic Cracking (permanent)

lethargy

limited EM Field extentsion

chronic fatigue

chronic pain (though this could be due to the frame damage associated with such injuries)

Type 2-C, a recent discovery

Type 2-c O!Sparks have only recently been reclassified as a separate subset with the Autobots Aerial project.

Not much is known about them, and with only 2 known surviving holders of 2-c sparks, the data pool is extremely limited.

Type 2-c damage seems to be the result of the spark overextending itself to it's breaking point. It is believed to occur during medical procedures or extreme physical trauma, or in the Jettwins cases, both. The running theory is that the sparks are so desperate to live they open themselves up to any possibility of survival.

As a result, Type 2-c sparks can be artificially stimulated into developing outliers.

Optic notes: a second pupil ring developed in the optics after the Spark is manually/medically stabilized, geometric cracks are develop. A case of nearsightedness has developed in one of the subjects though this has easily corrected with a visor.

Symptoms: None. Then again 2-C overcharged sparks typically result in short but extremely painful deaths.

Medical Notes: The Jettwins have shown none of the typical symptoms associated with Overcharged Sparks outside their optic color changing and their inner core scattering. This requires more research, but Wheeljack's running theory is that the decpeticon coding taught their sparks outer core to repair itself, and in the process somehow stabilized the center core.

Waiting for comparisons with Blurr's Spark (one of the only "stabilized" overcharged sparks known) for comparison.

COMMISSIONS OPEN

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acourtofladydeath · 6 months ago

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Hope Is A Fickle Thing

🎶 I've been keeping a seeeecreeeeet... 🎶

HELLO @yanny-77!! I have lied, schemed, and manipulated (with so much love) my way through the @acotargiftexchange to ensure I could deliver you the most perfectly curated fic possible. It was an absolute honor to be your Satan this gift exchange, and I hope you love this fic: an Empyrean angst inspired Azris calamity of errors featuring as much sword lore as I could wrap my head around. -Love, your Satan 😈🖤

Eris travels to the Night Court to surprise Azriel, hoping to sneak in a romantic rendezvous. Unfortunately, the night goes horribly awry. How many members of the Inner Circle will walk in on them? Guess we’ll find out.

***This fic takes place post HOFAS and includes spoilers for the Crescent City series.

***This fic contains direct quotes from Fourth Wing and Iron Flame woven in as parts of the plot. How many can you find?

Read a snippet below or start the full fic on AO3!

Running a hand through his hair to wrestle the short strands back into place, Eris let out a determined sigh. His steps echoed through the wide, empty halls deep within the Forest House as he set out toward his room. The day had been long and advisors more tedious than ever; pushing back against Eris’ attempts to prepare Autumn for his eventual reign. Beron still sat atop the throne, High Lord in title, though his power waned. Each day Eris felt a new trickle join his amassing magic and he knew it would not be long before he’d need to make his move. All but one of his younger brothers stared at him with hungry eyes, anxious to steal what was rightfully his. Pushing open his door, Eris tried to act unsurprised by what he found. His youngest brother lounged before the fire, long legs draped over the chair’s arm. Eris groaned internally, struggling to keep his eyes from rolling. He’d been hoping to unwind by himself for a moment, but no matter; he could prepare for what came next with or without Lucien there. “Who let you in?” Eris asked, voice monotone in an attempt to disguise his disgruntled state. Lucien scoffed, righting himself in the chair. “Why, I let myself in. You did get father to lift my banishment after the war.” “Stop making me regret that.”

Continue reading on AO3.

Thank you to @suebswrites for being the absolute best spy and beta, and to @climbthemountain2020 for betaing and being the most supportive mod! Shout out to Vanth for connecting me with Suebs in the first place!

Let me know if you want on or off the taglist! @pippsmcgee @born-to-riot @chunkypossum @bubybubsters @queercontrarian @yanny-77 @fieldofdaisiies @iftheshoef1tz @secret-third-thing @jules-writes-stories @the-darkestminds @climbthemountain2020 @amalhe-kofee @molcat07

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pudding-parade · 1 year ago

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It's the tutorial that no one asked for! And I blew my entire day on it, so you better appreciate it! :) No, seriously, this is as much for me as for anyone else. I don't do this process often, and when I do, I have to re-remember the steps, and sometimes I forget some of them and have to figure it out again. This will save future me from having to do that.

Even if you aren't me, if you're interested in being able to place diving lots in most any world you like and that has ocean, this will be relevant to your interests. Unfortunately, it is a sometimes fiddly process to get a working lot at the end, and I went into a lot of detail, so the tutorial is long, but please do follow it closely because if you skip a step or mess anything up, your lot will be wonky or it might not work at all, and I don't want to hear your whining. :)

Note that this is a tutorial for placing a new, empty diving lot, which is the first step in placing a downloaded diving lot or one that you yoinked from another world, but this tutorial doesn't cover how to get such lots working. This just shows you how to place an empty lot, which I'm assuming for this tutorial's purpose that you will then build/decorate yourself. Frankly, I've discovered that building your own is much easier than trying to ram square pegs into round holes, which is what placing downloaded dive lots often feels like, even if you know what you're doing. It can be as time-consuming, if not more time-consuming, to get a pre-made lot placed and working than it does to just build your own.

So, here we go.

Step 1: Pick Your Poison. Choose the world/save you'd like to plop a dive lot into, open it, and go into Edit Town. You can use any world you want, EA or custom, so long as it has accessible ocean in it. (More on that in Step 3.) I'm going to use Sunlit Tides, just because many people want to put dive lots in it yet can't always get them working.

Step 2: Cheats! You need some cheats, so open the cheat box by pressing Control+Shift+C and then enter these three:

testingcheatsenabled true buydebug on enablelotlocking on

Note that you need to enable testing cheats first because the other two aren't available otherwise.

Step 3: Placing the Lot. Go into World Editor and in the Lots submenu of it choose the lot size you want:

As far as I know, a dive lot can be any size you want from the minumum 10x10 to the maximum 64x64, any of the EA standard sizes or any custom size you might add using this mod. If you are bound and determined to try and place a downloaded/yoinked lot, then in my experience, it's best to make the new lot a little bigger than the lot you want to place, if possible, so that you have some wiggle room to get it to fit better. But, I'm assuming you're going to build your own here.

If you plan to do lots of terrain sculpting on your dive lot, bigger is better. That said, unless you're going to do something really elaborate, it doesn't have to be 64x64, the largest possible size, either. Smaller will mean that your prospective lot will fit in more places on the map. So, it's up to you. For this, I'm just going to place a 30x30 lot, because I'm not going to build/decorate it or anything.

Now, it needs to be said that not every world will be able to have diving lots. The world must have ocean, obviously, and that ocean must be routable or else sims won't be able to get to it. The ocean also has to be deep enough. Generally speaking, "deep enough" is if the water is dark blue. (Or green, or whatever color the lighting mod you use might make it.)

For instance, in Sunlit Tides here, it's pretty obvious where the deeper water is:

But you know what? I'm going to place a dive lot in some of the shallower water, anyway, because I/you actually can, within reason. And if you're interested in doing this in Sunlit Tides, I'll warn you that the deep spot in the pic above has a very uneven bottom. It's really not a good place to put a dive lot. And I'm not sure what the deep water on the outskirts of the map is like, but the good news is that much of the deeper and flat-bottomed shallows, as I've noted, work well.

So: With your chosen lot size selected, move your cursor around in the ocean where it seems to you that the water is "deep enough" until you come to a spot you like and where the lot grid is green. If the grid is never green, then the ocean likely isn't routable at all and you won't be able to place diving lots in that world. I have never run into that, myself, but I also haven't done this all that often, so it's certainly possible. Anyway, I'm picking here:

My advice would be to not make your lot too far off-shore even if you can do so, or else it will take sims a long time to get to it. Especially merfolk, because they always swim out to dive lots rather than take a water taxi, and they swim much more slowly than a water taxi moves. Once you find your spot, go ahead and place the lot. Doing so will create a square island, not a sunken lot. That's fine. We'll fix it in a moment.

Step 4: Change the Lot Type. Click the lot's icon and change the lot type to community and then choose "Diving Area" as the subtype:

Note that this option will only show if you've enabled lot locking. So if you didn't enter that cheat up in Step 2 or if you entered it incorrectly, rectify that situation now so that you can set the lot type.

Step 5: Sinking the Lot Enter the lot and flatten it with this tool in build mode:

This will submerge the lot so that it's level with the sea floor rather than being an island. You can now move the camera down under the water and have a look at your potential diving area, like so:

In particular, check the edges of the lot to see if there are any huge drop-offs or other great differences between the level of your lot and the surrounding terrain. Whether or not this will happen is world-dependent. Some worlds have very uneven/jagged underwater areas, which is what will make you end up with drop-offs, while others, like Sunlit Tides here, are (mostly) pretty flat.

You can see in the above pic that this lot is a little sunken along two of its sides. That's fine; that small amount of difference can easily be smoothed out with the terrain sculpting tools. If there are steep drop-offs or upward slopes, you can sculpt the lot to try to blend it with its surroundings, but be advised that 1) Interactable objects like dive caves can't be placed on uneven terrain and still be usable and 2) If you end up really deep down, the camera goes wonky and it's frustrating-to-impossible to build or play the lot. So, if you've got a huge drop-off and/or a steep upward slope on one or more of the edges of your lot, I'd recommend just trying a different spot. But, it's up to you. If you feel you can work with the uneven edges in some way, have at it. You are braver than me.

Step 6: Save that MFer. Once you have a lot you're satisfied with, this is a good time to save. So, go back to Edit Town and do that.

I recommend saving often during this entire process because, I don't know about your game, but sometimes mine will "hang" or even crash when moving between Edit Town and Build/Buy, especially if I do it a lot. And with this process, you will be doing it a lot, not to mention exiting out to the main menu and then going back into the save a few times. Since getting a dive lot placed can be a fiddly business, it sucks to lose a lot of progress to a hang/crash. So, in my opinion, you can't save too often, but in this tute I'll only prompt you to do it when you must.

Step 7: Exit Stage Right Remember long ago in the last step how I said you'll be exiting to the main menu a few times? Yeah, the first time is now. You do this because, for whatever reason, the game doesn't register changes made to the "structure" of dive lots without exiting and re-entering the save. So do that. Once it's reloaded go back into Edit Town and then back into the new diving lot. Because now it's time to place a dive buoy.

Step 8: Deploy Buoy The dive buoy is located in the debug items, so if you haven't turned on access to that yet, do so now. Then, go into the buy menu, sort it "by function," not the default "by room," and you should see this question mark here:

Click that, and then I recommend that you go to the filters on the right-hand side of the menu and choose just Island Paradise objects. Because you'll be going into the "Misc. Objects" tab and, especially if you have all EPs/SPs, there's a crap-ton of objects in there to sort through. So, filter, then choose the "Misc. Objects" tab, and you'll see this much-more-manageable selection:

Choose the dive buoy, as indicated, and place it anywhere on your dive lot. It doesn't matter where because (spoiler alert) this one's going to be deleted, anyway.

Step 9: Ogle That Shapely Buoy Once your buoy is placed, move your camera down to the ocean surface and have a closer look at it. Like so:

See how the ball part of it is just sitting on the surface of the ocean? That's bad. If you were to leave it like that, you'd have sims (and sharks, if you place a surface shark spawner) swimming/snorkeling in the air, if the lot would work at all. But don't panic! We can fix it. We just need to shift the entire lot down a l'il bit, so let's do it!

Step 10: Copy the Lot to the Library Go back out to Edit Town. Check to make sure that your lot designation is still "Diving Area." (Because during this process, it will sometimes change.) Then, save the lot to your library. The game will give you a warning about cancelling all sim interactions or something. That's fine. Just put a copy of the lot in the library. The thumbnail in the community lot catalog will look like a blue square.

Why are you doing this, you ask? Because now you're going to bulldoze the original. Why? Because we need to move the entire lot down a little bit, and you can only do that by placing a fresh copy of the lot. And you may need to do this several times until you get it at the right depth, so having a copy of the lot in your library is necessary. You can delete it out of the library once you've got your dive lot in the right place, if you want.

Step 11: I'm a Steamroller, Baby Once you've got a copy of the lot safely in your library, bulldoze the original lot you placed. Once bulldozed, the game will change the lot designation back to "No Visitors Allowed," so you'll need to change it back to "Diving Area."

Step 12: Go Down on That Lot To move the lot down when it's placed, you need this cheat activated:

setimportedterrainoffset -0.1

The value at the end can be whatever you want, as many decimal places as you want. A positive number will move the lot up, and a negative number will move it down. (You can use a larger negative number to make deeper a lot that's too shallow, and it can also be helpful if you're intending to try to place a downloaded diving lot on this lot so that it might better match the depth of the water in whatever world it came out of, but this won't always have the effect you want. For one, your lot will be down in a hole.) For the purposes of this tute, all I need to do is move the lot down a teeny bit so that the dive buoy on the lot is sitting IN and not ON the surface of the water. Hence, the -0.1 value.

(Now, I should mention that other tutes I've seen will have you just lower the terrain right under the buoy to sink it a little bit rather than doing this bulldoze-and-replace-with-a-whole-lowered-lot thing I do. This method can work, but I don't like it for various reasons that I won't go into for brevity's sake. I'm just telling you what I do, which has worked every time I've placed a dive lot, including shallow-water ones like this one.)

Step 13: Re-Placing the Lot Go into your library and place your saved lot back where it was. DO NOT ROTATE IT or else things will get screwed up. (Namely, your lot will become an island again and resinking it won't really work.) Just click "Accept." And then check its lot designation and change it to "Diving Area" again, if necessary, which it probably will be because stupid game.

Step 14: Ogle that Shapely Buoy 2, Electric Boogaloo Now, enter build mode and move the camera down to the ocean surface again to check the dive buoy. Ideally, it will now be sitting IN, not ON, the water, like so:

If it's still sitting on the surface, the lot needs to be deeper and therefore moved down farther, so go back to Edit Town, bulldoze the lot again, change the value of the imported terrain offset cheat to a larger negative number (Perhaps -0.5) and try again. Be aware that, as I said, once you get to larger numbers (as in greater than -5 or so) you start ending up with your diving lot down in a hole, which may or may not be workable.

Now, there is a marker on the buoy, the little black rectangle I outlined in the pic above. If the ball part of the buoy is at least partly in the water but that marker is still above the water, as in the above pic, the lot will still work, but there will be a "hop" (and sometimes a pause) when a water taxi or a swimming merperson crosses the boundary of the lot. The higher the marker is above the water line, the larger that "hop" will be. (Because, if you haven't figured it out yet, the dive buoy is what tells the game where sims can swim, vertically, on a dive lot.)

If such a hop doesn't bother you, you can leave the buoy as-is. If you're a perfectionist like me, you go back to Edit Town, bulldoze the lot, and change the value of the terrain offset cheat to try again. Do this as often and with as many decimal places as your level of perfectionism demands. :) I'm not that fussy, so I usually just move the lot down in increments of 0.1 until the marker is at or below the water line but the ball of the buoy is not completely underwater because you don't want the ball completely underwater, either. At least some of it needs to be above water. So, fiddle as much or as little as you feel you need to.

(For reference/scale, the gap between the marker and the water line in the above pic would probably be fixed by an offset of about -0.15 instead of -0.1. But it would also be fine as-is unless a little hop at the lot boundary will bother you.)

Step 15: Bye-Bye Buoy! Once you have the lot so that the buoy is where you want it, DELETE THE BUOY. I repeat: DELETE THE BUOY. Yes, DELETE THE BUOY. For whatever reason, dive lots drawn from your library that contain buoys won't work. I don't know why. They just don't. You need to place a fresh buoy. (I'm pretty sure this is why lots of people can't get downloaded dive lots or lots that they pulled from other worlds to work. Sometimes the answer is simply to delete the buoy, if the lot came with one, and place a fresh one.)

Step 16: Exit Stage Left Once you have DELETED THE BUOY and only once you have DELETED THE BUOY, go back to Edit Town, check to make sure the lot is still designated as a diving area (and change it back if necessary) and save. Why? Because now you need to exit to the main menu and reload the save again. So do that.

Step 17: Fresh Meat Buoy! Once the save is reloaded, go back into Edit Town, and check to make sure the dive lot is still designated as one. Redesignate, if necessary. Then, go into build/buy and place a fresh buoy, just as you did before. This one will be staying permanently, so place it where you actually want it to be. (Which really doesn't matter; aside from defining the vertical space of the diving lot, it just designates where your sim "enters" the lot.) If you want the lot to generate sharks on the surface, you can also place surface shark spawners now, too, as few or as many as you want, and because you have properly adjusted the height of the lot, the spawned sharks will not be swimming in the air. The spawners are also in debug mode, under the fish spawners. (There is also a spawner for underwater sharks. Do not put that one on the surface. Make sure you only put surface shark spawners on the surface.)

Step 18: Set the Lot's Skill Level You set the required skill level for the diving lot by going to buy mode (if you left it), making sure the hand tool is active, and then holding down control and shift while clicking on the dive buoy. Choose the option "Set Required Diving Level…" from the menu that comes up:

…and then from the resulting options under that choose a NON-ZERO number. For some bizarro reason, buoys default to level zero when placed, and a diving lot set to skill level zero is inaccessible even if a sim has level 10 scuba skill. (Good move, EA! Why is zero even an option if it doesn't work??) So, pick whatever skill level you'd like, so long as it ISN'T ZERO. (I suspect that this is another reason why people can't get downloaded dive lots that they place in a world to work.) Once you have the skill level set, go back to Edit Town and save.

Step 19: Test And now you're pretty much done. All that's left is to test the thing to make sure the lot works before you bother with building/decorating it. So, return to the game and send a victim to your new, empty lot and see if they successfully arrive (with or without a "hop" at the lot boundary) and successfully get themselves underwater. (My advice, for testing purposes, is to just give the sim you pick enough diving skill to use the lot. This can be done with NRAAS Master Controller.) Don't bother with doing anything further with the lot until you make sure it works.

Here is evidence that my lot, though shallow, works:

If your lot doesn't work, then something went wrong somewhere. Most likely, you missed a step or did a step wrong. I know there are a lot of words here, but they're all necessary to (more or less) guarantee a working lot in the end. So, try again. It's possible that you will have to pick a different location and start over, but I've been able to get a lot working wherever I've placed one, so long as it was in deep-enough routable ocean.

Step 20: PROFIT! Assuming that your lot works, "all" that's left is to build it! :D I'm not going to go into detail about that. It's all up to you. You can sculpt the terrain, paint it with whatever terrain paints you want, place objects, whatever. If you're in shallower water, any objects you place that are tall enough to stick out of the water will just be chopped off at the water line; you won't be able to see the rest above water. The corals and stuff are in debug mode under "Underwater Objects," but if you don't want the tropical look, so long as you have moveobjects turned on, you can place (almost) any object you want down there, aside from things like walls and fences and other build items that can't be drawn underwater. Rocks, plants, trees, columns, and anything from the buy and debug catalogs are all good. If such an object has a function, sims won't be able to use them, though. They'll just become deco. (So, no underwater basketweaving sculpting. Sorry.) So, go to town. Have fun. For this tute, I'll just mention a couple objects and their settings and we'll finally be done.

Miscellaneous Objects:

First, treasure chests. Like the dive buoy, they're located in the "Misc. Objects" of debug mode. There are two versions, one for land and one for water. Obviously, on a diving lot, you want the water one if you want any at all. If you do want to use them on your lot, place down as many as you want, and then set the diving skill level necessary to open each one and designate the treasure each one will hold. You do both by holding down control and shift while in buy mode with the hand tool active and clicking on a chest, just like setting the skill level of the lot on the buoy. This brings up this menu:

The "Assign Treasure" option gives you eight different treasures for the chest. You simply pick the one you want. The "Set Required Skill Level" option allows you to assign the diving skill necessary to open the selected chest. You can choose any number you like from 0 to 10. (Yes, zero is OK for this purpose, even though no one with zero skill can scuba dive, so…Yay EA.)

Then there's the dive caves. I think they are in the "Underwater Objects" section of the debug catalog; I'm not sure because a mod I use moves them to the regular rock section. Anyway, there are two styles, which you're probably familiar with, but they both function the same way. If you have more than one of them in the world, even if they're all on the same lot, your sims can travel between them, much like a subway. Unfortunately, I can't show you how to set this up because that mod I use to move the caves to the rock section also makes them recolorable, but it breaks setting up this functionality and I don't feel like hunting the mod down and taking it out. But it's pretty easy. You Control-Shift-Click on each one, give them a name, and then you can connect them by using the names you give them. Again, it works much like subways. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Finally, there's the fog emitter. If you're unfamiliar with this object, it's a base game object located in the "Misc. Objects" section of the debug catalog. The thumbnail in the catalog looks like this:

And it looks like this when it's placed:

They can be used on any lot, they disappear in live mode, and they can generate not just fog but many, many different effects. Literally thousands of different effects. You place the emitter where you want, and then control-shift-click on it and choose "Set Visual Effect" from the resulting menu:

When you click on it, you get this:

In that window, you type/paste the code for the effect you want. Of course, you will need to know the code for the effect you want. For your convenience, I've uploaded my list of effect codes, which is complete and includes the codes from all EPs, here. It's just a text file, and the codes are in alphabetical order. Since the list is all-EPs, some of them may not work if you don't have the EP the effect comes from, but if that's the case, then any such code you enter simply won't do anything.

The most relevant effects for a diving lot all start with "ep10," but there are others you could possibly use, too. Some of the names of the codes are more helpful than others in terms of knowing what it will do. Generally, you need to experiment. But, you can add schools of fish, single (but non-catchable) fish of all kinds (if you want catchable fish to spawn, you need to use the spawners, not the fog emitter), sharks (non-interactable), light rays, bubbles, glows, fog, all sorts of things, if you're patient enough to go through the list, look for interesting possibilities, and try them out to see if they will work for you. There are whole tutorials dedicated to the object, if you look for them. There's also a mod that makes them shiftable, which can be very useful, here.

One final suggestion: If you go through this process in a world that you know or even just suspect that you'll want to use again and you'll want the dive lot(s) you made in that future save, for the love of pie keep a copy of this save file somewhere. That way you won't have to go through all this crap again. Because even if you save a copy of your finished lot, unless you manage to place the empty initial lot in the new save in the exact spot you placed it when you built the lot, it's not likely to be quite right. So beware.

And with that, I think we're done here. If anyone has any questions, or if you decide to try to make your own diving lot and have questions along the way, feel free to hit me up and I'll do my best to help. Just keep in mind that I'm not an expert by any means.

#sims 3 #sims 3 tutorials #diving lots

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