#FUN FACT THIS WAS THE ONLY THING I EVER USED PHOTOSHOP FOR

[quartergremlin]

hello tutorial 3(?)

[livwritesstuff]

Question- do Steve and Eddie (mostly Eddie) only do the fun, lighthearted pranks? Does Eddie ever try a “meaner” prank (i.e., “I hit your car with mine,” *waking from a dead sleep* “get up my boyfriend is coming,” ‘not saying I love you before leaving,’ etc.)? How does Steve (yes, he’s a therapist, but there’s still a trauma response because of what he went through) react to it?

I 100% think Eddie pulled some shit earlier in their relationship (like, pre-kids era) that he learned real quick not to repeat for the sake of his relationship with Steve (which he really does value, no matter how many of his behaviors might contradict that).

Like, maybe he once answered a phone call, and when Steve asked who it was (it was Robin), he said, “Oh, no one. Just my other boyfriend.”

(Robin just said, “Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie,” and hung up).

Steve did not appreciate that one at all, obviously.

I also feel like Eddie might have gotten somewhat lax about Hazel’s adoption (because it was their third go of it at that point and they already had her older sisters and they had the same judge as the last two, which made it basically a shoe-in in Eddie’s eyes, so he didn’t really feel like he needed to be all that checked-in), and maybe Will is learning how to use Photoshop for editing at the time, so Eddie sends him a picture of Hazel being tossed up into the air by Eddie and asks him to edit it to look like she’s way higher up than she actually is because, to him, that’s funny, and he thought Steve might find it funny too.

He turned out to be very incorrect. Steve was incredibly upset, and they ended up having a very long argument about it (because, in Steve’s opinion, that photo in the wrong hands meant game over for their adoption case, and he would never forgive Eddie if he did something to screw up the adoption).

As Eddie gets older, he finds the mean pranks less and less funny.

I feel like the only people who really find those meaner pranks funny are young people – kids and very young adults, so Hazel sees that leave without saying I love you trend on TikTok and doesn’t see any issue with it at all, but when she tries to convince Eddie to try it on Steve, he outright refuses.

“Oh c’mon,” Hazel goads, “I bet it’d be funny.”

“Nope,” Eddie replies, because he knows for a fact how that kind of thing cuts deeper for Steve than their kids realize, “Not doing it, Haze. Give it up already.”

[hlficlibrary]

- HL Fic Library's Winter Fic Rec -

Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find our other recs here.

❄️ In A Twinkling by jacaranda_bloom / @jacaranda-bloom {Explicit, 89k}

Louis’ Nan just wants him to be happy, to settle down with a nice boy, and bring him around for Christmas.

Louis is too busy with his career to bother about relationships, but in an attempt to appease his Nan, he sends her photoshopped pictures of him and his pretend boyfriend, Harry. The fact that the man in the pictures is none other than Harry Styles, world famous Gucci model—and recurrent star of Louis’ fantasies—is irrelevant. It’s not like their paths will ever cross…

So it comes as somewhat of a surprise when Louis returns home for Christmas and walks into his Nan’s sitting room only to find the real-life Harry Styles happily chatting away with the grey-haired ladies of his Nan’s Crochet Circle.

Featuring Niall and Liam as Louis’ childhood friends, Harry as the painfully perfect man of Louis’ dreams, Zayn as Harry’s very protective best mate, Louis’ Nan as a well-meaning matchmaker, and Louis as a guy who thinks he’s happy with his life, until a certain someone shows him what he’s been missing.

❄️ the impossible now by stylinsoncity / @aliensingucci {Mature, 64k}

A wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

❄️ Yet in Thy Dark Streets Shineth by @juliusschmidt {Mature, 57k}

Louis’ life has become the very thing he’s always dreaded: routine. His job is steady, his bills are paid, his friends are preoccupied, his siblings are mostly old enough not to need him, and his mom keeps pestering him about attending church. Apparently, the new minister pulls rainbows and unicorns out of his robes.

Advent arrives three months into Harry’s first call as associate pastor at St. Andrews. Life is… not perfect. He’s still figuring out how do his job and the holidays bring a whole bundle of extra stress. On top of which, he has no friends or family nearby with whom he can decompress. Louis Tomlinson shows up to worship in the nick of time.

❄️ like cranberries on a winter evening by 4ureyesonly28 / @evilovesyou {General, 47k}

Louis hates Christmas. With good reason, too. And no, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

When research for his next novel leads Louis to the website of a quirky little hotel in Northumberland, there is exactly one room available for the two weeks that Louis really wants to get away from his family.

Will the fairy lights, kind smiles, homemade pastries, and genuine friendships awaiting him in Harry Styles’ hotel be enough to cause Louis a change of heart?

❄️ Ideal: An Advent Fic by asphodelknox / @iamasphodelknox {Mature, 40k}

All Louis wanted was some god-damned time to write his novel. He didn’t expect to move his and Liam’s entire production of a Christmas variety show to a small inn in Vermont just before the holidays. He didn’t expect to save Niall’s inn. He didn’t expect Liam to fall in love. He definitely didn’t expect to fall in love himself. And he certainly didn’t expect it all to feel so much like a Christmas movie.

Oh hell. There’s a lot of things Louis didn’t expect.

A White Christmas au, complete with drama, fluff, choreographed dance numbers, and idiotic boys falling in love. Just your typical Christmas fun.

❄️ The Happiest Season by @sadaveniren {Explicit, 37k}

“You’re going to spend Christmas -and your birthday- with his homophobic WASP parents? That’s gonna be hell.”

Louis closed his eyes in frustration. “It was either that or be apart and I don’t think that’s gonna be good for either of us this year, you know?”

A fic loosely based on Happiest Season but make it ... different

❄️ All Your Mates Are Here by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup {Teen&Up, 36k}

"The pack is... It's folding, Harry."

Like every werewolf does when they get to a new town, Harry joined one of the many local packs when he started university. Now, three years into his program, he's hit with the news that his pack is giving up, going their separate ways. In the wake of the holidays, the three single wolves from the Majestic pack are pointed in the direction of a new pack to join; one that's got struggles of its own.

A new pack, a new house, and two new roommates with personal space issues... Plus exams, of course.

❄️ From the Start by @allwaswell16 {Explicit, 32k}

Louis has no idea that one act of kindness will cause his life to spiral out of control. But that's what happens when his new friend fake proposes to him and a video of it goes viral.

❄️ One Minute to Midnight by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird {Explicit, 29k}

Louis Tomlinson is at the height of his game in Boston's financial scene. He's got the instinct, and he's got the guts to take calculated risks that make everyone around him a lot of money. Everything is going well until the day after he gets promoted when he wakes up forty years older than his actual age.

Two years later he's adapted to his new life as a retiree, but he's lonely and desperate for company closer to his real age during the rigorous holiday party season. He gets some questionable advice from Niall and turns to the Seeking Arrangement app where he finds Harry Styles, a local actor he's been a fan of since they had an undergraduate class together. But what happens when a few dates here and there isn't enough?

❄️ all the lights are full of colour by @infinitelymint {Explicit, 26k}

So, fast-forwarding eight years from the day Harry met Louis, he is now a twenty-seven year old owner of one of the most up-and-coming eating establishments on the London restaurant scene, father of two wonderful boys and… separated from his husband. Now, that last part definitely was never a part of the original plan.

Or, Harry and Louis are separated, but for the sake of their two sons, they choose to spend Christmas together. It may just lead to a Christmas miracle.

❄️ Yours In Fractions by @kingsofeverything {Explicit, 23k}

Louis and Harry are strangers who, because of a mix up, share their mutual friend's apartment and bed over the holidays.

❄️ Three French Hems by @100percentsassy , gloria_andrews / @gloriaandrews {Mature, 20k}

In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

❄️ Take Your Time 'verse by @laynefaire {Explicit, 20k}

When Harry finds himself in the middle of a messy break-up with no place to live, Louis offers a spare room in his flat. Unbeknownst to Harry, Louis has been infatuated for years. Over the objections of their friends, who know the truth, Harry accepts. Can Louis survive Harry moving into his home…and closer to his heart? Will Harry see what's right in front of him?

❄️ You'll Be Home For Christmas by @2tiedships2 {Not Rated, 15k}

“Honesty, Lou, just ask Harry for help.”

Louis remained silent as he continued to scowl at the Christmas calendar Niall had hung on their refrigerator.

“And be nice to my calendar filled with holiday cheer,” Niall instructed. “You’re going to burn a fucking hole in it from the way you’re glaring at the innocent thing. It’s not the calendar’s fault that your heat is starting so close to Christmas.”

❄️ Naughty or Nice by noellehenry / @noellehenrymain {Teen&Up, 10k}

Louis never intended for his boss, the very attractive Harry Styles, to find out he has a temporary, additional job as a Christmas Elf at Harrods Department Store. When he gets a request to show up in his elf costume at Mr. Styles' office, after office hours, Louis' mind goes wild...

❄️ and marshmallows by BriaMaria / @briannamarguerite {Explicit, 10k}

Louis Tomlinson’s ass was wet. Well the whole back of him was wet, but it was really, really seeping through the thin jeggings that he swore to Lottie were jeans. In this moment, though, lying spread eagle in the snow bank that was his front yard he admitted that they were indeed some kind of useless fabric that wasn’t denim.

“Ummm.” The voice was deep, hesitant and came from the little walk leading up to Louis’ house. Fucking fantastic. Someone to witness his misery. “Are you alright?”

Louis squeezed his eyes shut hoping that the person would just go away.

The one where Harry has a personal attachment to Louis' house, and Louis can't stop picturing the beautiful stranger dancing in his kitchen.

❄️ you've set my soul to dreaming by we_are_the_same / @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed {Teen&Up, 9k}

At first, when Harry wakes up on Christmas Morning with a warm body in his bed he wonders if he pulled someone last night. He’d met some friends at the pub, none of them really having anyone to spend Christmas Eve with, and he knows he might’ve had a few drinks to numb the loneliness for a while, but he didn’t think he got that drunk that he’d ended up pulling someone and forgetting all about it.

Or: Thirty year old Harry Styles goes to bed single on Christmas Eve, only to wake up on Christmas morning with a husband in his bed and a son down the hall.

❄️ Nothin' I Would Rather Do by @lululawrence {Mature, 9k}

“Louis,” Anne said sternly. “You know I have no problem with you working overtime if you need to, but I can’t have you running yourself ragged. At this rate you won’t have the energy or stamina to make it to the party yourself!”

“I’ll be fine, Anne. I swear.”

Her bright eyes sparkled as her smile turned a bit more coy and Louis knew immediately what was coming next.

“I hope so, because you know, my son will be in town and coming to the party.”

Louis froze. In all the months of her talking about her son and saying they should meet, she never once mentioned that he would be coming to the Christmas party. Well, fuck.

or...the one where Anne is determined to set Louis up with her son, but he's perfectly happy with the random sexting "relationship" he has running with the random he met at a bar several months back.

❄️ 12 Days of Kissmas by @haztobegood {Not Rated, 8k}

A collection of 12 Christmas ficlets, each one sealed with a kiss

❄️ so c'mon c'mon (and dance with me baby) by theweightofmywords / @rockstarlouis {Not Rated, 3k}

Louis and Harry meet at a corporate holiday party, drink copious amounts of champagne, dance like fools, steal rich people's food, and possibly, just maybe, fall in love.

[simulation-machine]

SIMS RELATED PROJECTS/UPDATES

My spring break is coming up in a week and holy crap do I have plans on plans on plans, especially since my summer is gonna be full of school + internship + HOPEFULLY friggin' graduating with a BA in Psychology so that I can start applying to grad schools.

Read more iffin' you'd like! It's long! Here's a picture of my golden retriever napping on her brother's food bowl to entice/entertain you:

god she is so precious i would literally kill for her

GOAL 1: MASTER GSHADE/ReSHADE

I know that some people are sticklers for this but my thing is that I had no gee-dee clue what I was doing with ReShade, whereas Gshade just kinda clicked and worked for me? That said I have a bunch of resources for learning ReShade so I might end up moving back to it at some point.

My main issue is figuring out the order of all the different effects. It obviously matters, I'm sure people smarter than me have tried to use presets only to be like "why tf does this look absolutely nothing like the baller screenshots this one cool Simblr has?" Annnd it turns out it's order + remembering to turn off certain graphic settings. Also photoshop, but that's gonna take a lot longer for me to figure out lol.

Like I'd been struggling to figure out why @gunthermunch's gorgeous Lithium preset wasn't looking as sexy as it did before annnnd it's because I forgot to turn Edge Smoothing off when switching to it. Jesus wept at how dippy I am sometimes.

Eventually, what I would like to do is maybe make my own preset at some point? I would be kind enough to show the effect order too if I did so. But this requires so, so much more shader knowledge than I currently have.

FUN FACT: My first ever degree was in art, I even went to a very fancy and private art school (School of the Art Institute of Chicago if you're curious)- I dropped out after one semester because uhhh that shit is expensive. Ended up finishing my degree at a much cheaper location in MN. That said, my art was 100% analog and 2D, and it turns out it did not translate super well into trying my hand at graphic art.

It's funny because I've been gifted really neat stuff for graphic art (like a really nice Wacom tablet and Adobe subscriptions), like people just expected my mixed-media ass would know what to do with it. NOPE! But yeah, Sims is sort of my excuse to try my hand at this stuff again, especially since I have a bit more energy now that my soul is not regularly being drained out of my body by customer service and tech support jobs.

GOAL 2: GET CRACKIN' ON ANOTHER DOOR

This one is hard because I am only on Gen 2 of the Orsons and it's sort of hard to justify starting up another story while that one is less than 1/5 of the way done.

THAT SAID, I don't plan on posting Another Door until I have a decent chunk of it done. Since it's not a casual gameplay story nor a legacy challenge, I plan on editing the bajeez out of the screenshots for it, really honing in on the aesthetic. I want it to look and feel very different from my random legacy challenge.

Fortunately, this story has been fucking up my sleep schedule for *months* now and I have a lot of the writing for it done. The hard part is translating that into the Sims, making sure I get the right poses and stuff, maybe even learning how to make some super easy CC (like, posters and stuff), and stuff related to GOAL 1 above.

What I'm saying is that it's going to take a bit. But I'm super serious about sharing it because it's my obsession and honestly the first time a story of my own design has possessed me in literal years.

Also, I want to make sure I have a significant backlog of the Orsons before I start seriously simming for it, because I don't want to screw over my favorite little pixel babies. This legacy challenge is going to be the one, I have done so much to keep my save files to keep it safe from harm (ask me how many backups I have of the save files. JK don't, the number is frankly silly).

GOAL 3: START YET ANOTHER MASSIVE CC PURGE

Y'all, my CC folder for this game is honestly an embarrassment. I go so hard on CC shopping because this community is stupid-talented and I like giving my pixel babies nice things and cool looks. When I'm bored and not quite in the mood for gameplay, I just like making neat-looking sims that I do absolutely nothing with because I love fucking around in CAS.

I have built my own PCs since I was 17 years old, and when I first built COMPUTERMACHINE (current rig) back in the autumn of 2018, it was with the goal that it would run Sims 4 flawlessly no matter what I did to it. It's got ridiculous amounts of RAM, I religiously update parts for it. And to be fair, even with the current 6,907,907,890 TB of CC I have atm it runs better than Sims 3 ever had with a measly 50 GB of CC.

But for me, it comes down to finding all the stuff I wanna use. Making myself get rid of the stuff I don't wanna use. Straight up yeeting the CC that I thought was going to look incredible that uh, didn't deliver.

I do CAS CC purges about once a year but have literally never done it for Build & Buy stuff, because OMG some of this shit I've had since 2014. Like when Sims 4 first came out. YIKES. My CAS CC obsession is notable but it's honestly nothing compared to my Build & Buy. Even before For Rent made building lots slow af, my PC was starting to take a solid minute to switch to different buy categories.

It would take a long af time so I want to make sure I have a bunch of content in the queue before I do it. It's gonna be a whole ass thing and be so, so boring to do. So I'm putting it off for when I have a ton of time to do it. Like, oh, my entire Spring Break?

GOAL 4: MAKE A FRIGGIN' RESOURCES LIST ALREADY

This would obviously need to wait until after GOAL 3 is completed, but I wanna make sure the awesome creators whose stuff I use get credit, and that people know where they can grab neat stuff. It would include not only CC but mods, Gshade/ReShade presets, and maybe even lots and sims I've downloaded from the gallery?

(Since I am super anti-paywall and very unapologetic and rude about it, I will also share where one could perhaps get some of these CCs without paying some dip a Trenta Starbucks Unicorn Frappucino amount of $$$)

It's ambitious as hell because *gestures vaguely at GOAL 3* but it would make things like doing WCIF asks and lookbooks so much easier.

Somewhat relatedly, I wanna make a navigation post, especially once Another Door starts getting posted. That story is gonna be a bit huge with multiple arcs that take place over the course of like, 14 years. Plus once the Orsons get to the 4th+ generation, it would be easier to track things down.

IN CONCLUSION...

I have been having so much fun sharing my silly little Sim adventures on Tumblr, so much more than I ever thought I would! You all have been so great to me, and all of this stuff is sort of a way for me to repay that. Ever since I stopped being able to be artistically creative ever since a really nasty depressive spell in 2017, Sims has been my #1 artistic outlet. And having people who are even somewhat entertained by my pixels is incredibly motivating.

Basically, if you read all of this, DAMN would you have been a rad livejournal follower of mine circa 2007. On the seriousness, however, thank you all so much for being rad and encouraging and sweet. I promise to do you all, if not proud, then at the very least not disappointed.

Time to hit the bong and take some pictures of Lou and Tatertot before taking my IRL doggos on a walk~

[katie-the-bug]

Chapter/Song/Book Titles That I May or May Not Use

When Did I Say I Had a Plan?

Portrait of an Idiot on Fire

Haters Will Say It's Photoshop

Making Friends with Sidewalks

In a Surprising Turn of Events, We Actually Do Have Bananas

This is How You End Up on a List

I Didn't Come to This Corn Maze to Make Friends

Deceleration is for Pansies

Not Only Do Facts Not Care About Your Feelings, They'll Actively Make Fun of Them

Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Good Riddance

Houston, YOU Have a Problem

Never Has the Phrase "Go Knock Yourself Out" Been Taken So Literally

Finding Yourself by Screaming a Lot

Oh My God They Were Roommates

Who Needs Silly Things Like Context Anyway?

Ya Dun Goofed

Doing the Akira Slide on an Imaginary Motorcycle

There's Literally a Movie About Why You Shouldn't Do This

And Then The Lights Went Out

Ten Months Detention for Sheer Nerve

You Made Your Bed, now Get Fucked In It

FOR SCIENCE!!!

It's Okay When Superheroes Do It

All That and a Bag of Chips

Now is Not the Time to be Pedantic About Dinosaur Names

Get Down From There

Gravity is a Harsh Mistress

Bungee Jumping as a Rite of Passage

Of Chimps and Chumps

As the Kitchen Sinks

Turns out Kissing is Just as Icky as it Looks

Put Down the Chainsaw and Listen to Me

Out of the Frying Pan, into Another, Bigger Frying Pan

Those TV Nature Programs Will Be the Death of Me Yet

It's Not Wrong, It's Metaphorical

Oh YOUR God

The Longer You Look At It, the More Unforgivable It Gets

Jessica Privileges Revoked (That's What You Get For Haunting My Dreams)

The Harkness Test Did Not Prepare Me For This

I'm Sorry for Tearing Your Family Apart, but You Kinda Deserved It

The Catholic Church Is Gonna Be So Mad

Silly Mistakes to Avoid While Wearing Poisoned Lipstick

Okay Fine I'll Eat My Vegetables

I'm Getting Kinda Sick of Basic Physics

Forever and Ever Amen or At Least Until the End of the Month

Then One Single Winged Hussar Arrived

Deus Ex Machina, Bitch

[teecupangel]

I feel like one of the best parts of the vamp lover au would be the genetic lip scar

because the obvious reaction to the classic "this person looks exactly like this old painting" things is like, okay we're having fun but obviously it's a coincidence that these people look similar

But not only do the sketches look like the wanted poster

*they all have the same scar*

and it's not photoshopped! it's super prominent! scars are one of the main facts listed in an apb! and Leonardo *definitely* did some uh, "studies" of the the vampire lover's lips. so????? what's less ridiculous? That this guy has been alive for a thousand years? or that there's some kind of secret society that ritually scars their lips as part of membership, and three guys centuries apart just *happen* to look very similar?

@fanworldbuildingfun asashjksdhfakjhfdjskahdfjk THE GENETIC SCAR!!!

You know there will be conspiracy theorists pointing at all of Leonardo's sketches focusing so much on it (maybe even one sketch where the focus is on Ezio's face and it's so clear that he's expecting a kiss, "HOW CAN YOU SAY THEY'RE NOT AT LEAST FUCKING??? HAVE ANY MODELS EVER LOOK AT AN ARTIST LIKE THIS AND NOT WANT TO FUCK THEM???")

Anyway... it's a very common evidence used by videos and posts trying to explain why The Wanted Poster Boy (also known as Da Vinci Wanted Boy and Abstergo's Most Wanted) and Leonardo's Secret Vampire Lover are the same person.

And now, this sketch from Syria has the same scar and face and asjdhjkasdhfjhsadjkhjksadjkfhsajkdhf EVERYONE IS UPDATING THEIR POSTS, VIDEOS ARE GETTING UPLOADED WITH MORE MINUTES

It's glorious chaos.

Someone is suggesting Reincarnation AND NOW THE TOP THREE HIGHEST TAGS IN AO3's Leonardo Da Vinci/Secret Vampire Lover pairing tags are:

Vampire AU

Reincarnation AU

im not naming vampie altair

[gloriousmonsters]

what is the new book concept?? (if you don’t mind sharing — but if you do mind it’s ok not to reply)

also what is that font you used btw? is there a full alphabet somewhere and if so would you mind sharing the link? i like that it’s a very understated gothic-looking serif. or very calligraphic looking i guess

sure thing!! with the understanding it's a lot more half-baked than most of the ideas I've been talking about, so i'm going to briefly walk you through the few ideas that went into it before explaining (also briefly) what it is so far, lol. Also, the font is Fondamento - it was one of the fonts available in Photopea (free online photoshop-like) which I used to make the cover, but it looks like it's also on Google Fonts. If you want to know how I did the bronze metallic-ink-ish look for the text I can expound on that as well, btw, or you can just enjoy the font :)

So I've been having a resurgence of my Tempest emotions

(for those who are unfamiliar. i would summarize it, but it would take a long time. just. find a summary and read it with a MASSIVE grain of salt that's labeled 'prospero is an asshole and nobody understands Caliban but tumblr user gloriousmonsters and the poet Robert Browning')

and this time reading it was especially having fun with the parallels between Caliban and Miranda's characters and also thinking about how EXTREMELY weird and screwed up their relationship would have been growing up.

Despite interpretations/stories based on it sometimes having it otherwise, in canon neither of them seem to have ever seen or spoken to Ariel (at least in capacity as A Person You Can Talk to; Caliban is more aware of the spirits Prospero commands in abstract, at least). Aside from Prospero, who is notoriously not good at being present for what he's supposed to be looking after, they are the only human being the other one knows. It's serving twisted Eden vibes. It's serving tmg's 'the last man on earth'. it's serving 'not that Prospero would have encouraged it, but to an extent they must have seen each other as family, right? especially in Miranda's case, considering she grew up her entire life with him. the psuedoincest is off the charts'. Then shit goes bad (in whatever way you want to interpret) and now suddenly they're in a place of seeing each other daily, because Caliban does literally everything around the place, but having an uncrossable rift of mutual hurt and betrayal between them* that has little choice but to curdle and get worse because neither of them can do anything to change their situation. Depending on how lines are assigned, they never speak to each other in the play. And they have nobody else to talk to save for cursing out Prospero (Caliban) or trying to get in two words between Prospero's monologues (Miranda). And then the play events happen and they just part ways because Prospero has decided it, after probably expecting they'd be stuck in this forever. And then the next-to-only person you've ever known is on a different landmass and you're probably never going to see them again. it's So fucked.

Anyway I was revolving all of that with quiet awe in my head, and going 'man, I want to write a fucked up Caliban/Miranda book, but I don't have a non-play plot and I don't want to just write a prequel'

Then I encountered Caliban upon Setebos for the first time, and despite the fact i could still nitpick some things it slaps insanely. Only good Tempest fanfiction. It's a long poem consisting of Caliban theorizing about Setebos--a god his mother supposedly got her witch powers from, but that Caliban knows very little about. He theorizes that Setebos is either indifferent or malignant or both--impossible to predict, driven by whim. The only other divine force is 'the Quiet', an even more inhuman and incomprehensible force that doesn't do anything at all; cosmology is cruel, the world a sandbox under the eye of a god with as many arms as a cuttlefish, capricious and sadistic, whom we can only hope will someday grow decrepit and sleep, which is the closest to it being dead we can pray for--

It was about this point I realized Caliban/Browning was inventing the Lovecraft mythos 50ish years ahead of schedule, and got hit by the lightning bolt of 'PUT ELDRITCH BEINGS IN IT' and, five seconds later 'CALIBAN DESERVES TO BE A MAGICIAN' and five seconds after that 'miranda deserves to break out of being her father's Perfect child, let's set it in the future and kill Prospero off'

So Bitter Heart (taken from a line in the poem, 'Caliban/a bitter heart that bides its time') is conceptually a dual perspective novella/short novel focused on how about nine years after the conclusion of The Tempest, Miranda (unmarried, I'll handwave it; Ferdinand bores me so much sorry dude) finds her father dead and surrounded by rambling half-incomprehensible notes, remnants of a type of magic that's far different from his old ways, and a creeping sense of Wrongness that begins to slowly manifest in distortion, mutation and decay of elements of reality. People search for solutions while Miranda tries to find the source of the bizarre power in her father's notes and what hidden books she can unearth from his study, but she hasn't made it very far before a man comes to Milan at the behest of someone who's decided we should throw magic at the magic problem--a man she's heard rumors of as the hot new 'guy you keep in your court for a bit to show him off at parties because he's learned and also Moorish or something, he has this crazy backstory that's probably fake but is a lot of fun, also he does magic probably' in other cities, but never met.

A man who, when they meet face to face, turns out to be Caliban, who after about a year of 'finally peace and quiet' realized that living completely alone on an island was going to drive him insane and also he still really wanted revenge on Prospero (and had a lot of ambiguous ideas about what he wanted from Miranda) so he scraped together what Prospero had left behind and taught himself magic for the next few years until he could figure out a way off the island. He's extremely annoyed that after that, and after spending more years building himself up and finding his footing in the outside world, Prospero had the nerve to die RIGHT before he showed up, even if he wasn't promised a reward if he can stop people's arms from turning into fishes and shit he'd find out what did it so he can give it a piece of his mind. Miranda understandably never planned for this scenario and has a really hard time knowing what to feel about it, but she and Caliban form a tentative truce in order to try and figure out wtf Prospero was doing before he croaked.

There'll be intercut flashbacks to their past and the time they spent becoming incredibly codependent and eventually tipping into confused romantic attraction and sexual experimentation, which both of them have tried very hard to convince themselves was a bad idea for one reason or another, it clearly wasn't and will never be good for them, etc; and of course in present day they both immediately resume having bitter gothic sexual tension and trying to ignore the instinct that, now they've met each other again, they're the only two real people in a world of dreams and spirits.

Also they have to find the entrance to an eldritch realm and figure out what's coming through and how to stop it, and have a lot of insanely weird and pretentious thoughts/conversations about God and sin and abuse and vengeance/hatred and so on. So that's the mess Bitter Heart is at the moment :P

*ymmv may vary on how justified on either side depending on the situation, obviously

[pharahsgf]

i:m sad lwj gets such a bad rep from jc fans and non wangxian fans in general. he's so good... i struggle to put into words why i like him but he's such a good character. he deserves to not be made ooc in fandom stuff :,|

g-d fr. anyway here's my incomplete list of things i like about lan wangji in no particular order

his resting bitch face and intimidating icy exterior hide a soft and romantic heart but also he is genuinely a bitch and intimidating and would stab someone for disrespecting his husband

the fact that he would stab someone for disrespecting his husband

very strong 'would get rained on to hold his umbrella over a tiny stray cat' energy

when jin zixun tries to peer pressure him into drinking only for lan wangji to 1. not care 2. make the gayest most openly homosexual expression humanly possible when wei wuxian swoops in to save him, no shame whatsoever

every time a social event occurs you see lan wangji sitting somewhere by himself just staring peacefully into the middle distance and thinking lwj thoughts and i always get the distinct impression that lan xichen went to him beforehand like "wangji i know you don't like to socialise but you should really try talking to some people today, it'll be good for you and you might make some new friends" and lan wangji was like hm and proceeded to not do any of that

it's such a stupid cute detail that lan wangji buried a'yuan in a pile of bunnies. like what the hell. i am on the verge of tears

conversation: *gets personal* lwj: *leaves*

his little smirk when he calls wwx boring in ep8 like you can almost see the photoshopped sunglasses and hear denzel curry's ultimate

he's considered an unequaled prodigy when it comes to guqin abilities and inquiry specifically like he can communicate with ghosts by playing music and they're not even physically able to lie to him how is that not the coolest shit ever

HE SAID BYE TO THE BUNNIESSSS

wwx doesn't even expect to be doted on and treated like a princess after coming back lan wangji did that entirely on his own volition. wei wuxian just exists in peace and lan wangji will start picking him up and throwing money at him and composing soaring love ballads dedicated to his beauty

the fact that despite all this he will hesitate for exactly zero seconds to make fun of wwx when he's acting stupid

very strong emotional inertia causing his character to be in a near-constant state of mourning as represented visually by his white clothing and the frost/snow motif that accompanies the respective apotheoses of said mourning. which, in addition to being genuinely heart-wrenching, FUCKS as an aesthetic

associated with rabbits and dragons, easily two of the coolest animals

episode 43 drives me insane. lan wangji with his hair down dressed down domestic as fuck bringing wwx emperor's smile and setting out tea and playing their song, laying no expectations on wwx but making it clear that he's welcome and wanted and offering his love and warmth for wwx when he's ready... augh romance, tenderness, throwing bouquets and roses

"you are not qualified to speak to me"

he's canonically good at math which isn't relevant to anything but i do feel like it adds a new dimension to his character

he wrote a gentle, soul-baring, beautiful song that silently confesses his love for a person who remembered the melody even decades after first hearing it and then made its title a portmanteau of their names

kneel.

*spends 3 years in seclusion to learn from & reflect on his grave sin of defending and siding with wwx the evil demonic cultivator* *returns to immediately add wwx the evil demonic cultivator's inventions to the core curriculum*

was a cute baby so you know he's blessed

he's one of the best if not Thee best cultivator of his generation yet refuses to indulge in the narcissistic posturing his peers engage in and instead uses his privilege and access to exclusive resources to serve lower class people completely for free.. yes lord

*grips sword handle to communicate emotional issues*

very polite and well spoken and clearly well-versed in all kinds of etiquette but if he hates you he has no qualms about being as rude and disrespectful as he reasonably can (pov you are jiang cheng)

he is very fundamentally misunderstood by almost everyone he's ever met and when wwx starts figuring him out and realising what makes him tick he's entirely resistant and hostile to his intrusions despite deeply craving that intimacy and acknowledgement.... mortifying ordeal of being known in its purest form truly. i want to study him in a lab

how he slowly goes from being distant and frosty and rejecting all of wwx's offers of friendship to being so warm and attentive towards him and you look at those gifsets of early lwj vs later lwj and it's like the first rays of sun after a long winter like he's radiant

ally to bi women (nice to mianmian)

when he was punished alongside wwx jc & nhs the first blow landed and he didn't even FLINCH, he sat there back straight and chin up with the dignity of a king and wwx was so impressed he caught himself mid-overreaction to follow lan wangji's example. absolutely iconic

188cm

the fact that he spends the entire gusu lectures arc in an ongoing emotional crisis bc wei wuxian is too attractive and he doesn't know how to deal w it

there have been zero small animals who didn't immediately trust lan wangji with their life so again. blessed

[buckys-metal-arm]

God it's fucking wild how someone says one thing to you and it sticks with you forever in a bad way

It's been a year now and every so often my brain decides to remind me that one time in a Bucky Twitter GC I was in one of the people in it had this joke (that had stopped being funny a while ago imo) where they would Photoshop our selfies so we were bald, and they kept sending mine over and over, and one of the people in it called me "not a looker", and when I woke up and saw that and called them all on it everyone acted like it was no big deal and dismissed it as "well maybe they're just saying that because you've been acting weird in chat" and then used the fact I was mad about it as the catalyst to confront me on how I'd been acting in the chat. And I won't minimize, I DID do things that were absolute shit in there and I still feel guilty and have been working to be better. But they mixed genuine concerns with things like "you project too much onto Bucky" and "you only started posting BuckyNat stuff on Twitter after we mentioned liking it" and like...?? They also said that mentioning a situation with a person that had been in the chat was triggering for one of the current members and that I "knew that, but was still bringing it up by saying i didn't want the current situation to turn out like that one". And obviously that's AWFUL, and I hate that I was responsible for triggering someone, but I genuinely did not know that it was a triggering thing for them, and they never said until it was brought up during this.

And like. Looking back a year later I've realized they also sucked too. And again, I KNOW I did shitty things. I know that. But like the instance with the GC member essentially calling me ugly and everyone dismissing it as okay because of my misgivings was definitely a thing, but like. I watched them start to make a fake pro shipping Twitter so they could make fun of the people that followed it (they ended up deleting it bc me and one of the other members said it felt like a bridge too far), I saw the shit they said about people who would leave for a bit for whatever reason until they came back and suddenly they were best friends again. They got mad at me when I said I saw Bucky as Bisexual, going on about how he was "CLEARLY gay" and that I was "projecting onto Bucky because *I'm* Bisexual", and it made me really upset because I felt like I was being shouted down.

I don't know what this is, and I'm purposely being vague about what group it was and names and stuff because I absolutely REFUSE to call people out by name. I have no desire to make it a smear campaign or anything, I just needed to get out the fact that someone said something to me in a Twitter GC I was in that is permanently branded into my brain and has left me feeling more self conscious about my body and my fear that no one will ever see me as beautiful or worthy of love and the one year anniversary of that happening is coming up so it was on my mind.

Again, I KNOW that I did bad things in there. I'm not minimizing and I still feel guilty about them. I'm working on being better. But idk with the privilege of hindsight I also kinda think the entire group was sort of mutually toxic I guess

[calicomeoww]

Some rant from a Nordics related server I encountered recently.

I do not wish to spell out the server name but if you have ever been in that server you will know.

At first the server seems pretty normal except for it extremely long rules, which I can understand most of the rules about triggering history, being nice to one another, and keeping NSFW in certain channels (you have to have the NSFW role to gain access to the NSFW channels).

And then absolutely not fun part came, one of the rules of the server is you have to send a photo of your REAL LIFE ID DOCUMENT to the mods with name and other identifying information blocked except your birthday to verify your age, in order to get the NSFW role.

Mods’ logic is that they are afraid minors will lie their way into the server. To be fair, that is a real concern. However, at the same time I personally feel like whoever made this rule is actively encouraging people to give their personal ID to potential strangers online. You can argue that, “well they let you hide you other information except for your birthday.” But if you ever know how to photoshop or basic editing, blur and then unblur is very easy. Using papers to block out other identifying information? Fun fact: papers are actually paper thin. For this reason, I personally do not want to think about the potential consequences of encouraging such reckless behavior.

Like I said before, I can understand why people want to prevent minors from lying their way in to see some porn, but at the same time what about basic personal security? Protecting personal information online is probably more important than some minors lying to be adults just to see some porn, right? Also, you are just a hetalia server. Why are you asking people for their driver’s license, health insurance, school ID, state ID? Normally irl only police, border control, visa office, your school will ask you for this kinds of things. And normally when pub staffs ask you for your ID they would only take a quick glances on it. This is of course impossible online unless people are using snapchat. And even Snapchat is not 100% safe to leaking personal information. But this server doesn’t even mention HOW the government issued IDs that are sent to the mods can be protected. For example, the mods promising not to save the photo and use it in any other instances.

In conclusion, minors lying to be adults to see NSFW is an important concern. But what about actual personal security? What if it is actually important to not let other people see your personal information ON SOCIAL MEDIA where you don’t know who will do what to your information. So tell me how is preventing minors lying to be adults to see NSFW more important than protecting personal information online. I don’t care if it’s someone’s individual choice to share their personal information on social media. You can share your real name, driver’s license and other stuffs on your blog all you want. But in no way I want to tolerate an online fandom server actively encouraging this behavior all for some preventing minors from lying to be adults to see porn excuse.

[miraiq]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER.

repost, do not reblog this

NAME: Prince/Jehr/PJ. PJ is just a combo of the two alias' first letters. Jehr was my original when I first started out using aliases ever, which was created for me by my best friend at the time. I slowly tried to make a new alias for other muses I wanted to write without having them be associated with me-- for some reason? Wanted to hide or start fresh or something I guess? Same friend also made me take a HomeStuck quiz to get my... uh... vibe? I don't recall what it was, but the answer was Prince of the Light and I used that as my personal url for years, so I actually took the newer alias from that.

PRONOUNS: He/Him

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Discord is the fastest way to get responses from me, simply because the app is always logged in on my phone and pc, while tumblr is only logged in to my personal tumblr via my phone. Any mutuals that would like to add me on Discord: princem0n

NAME OF MUSE(s): For my sanity, google doc for full list. Otherwise, main/actively in use muses: Severa/Selena(FE), Caelus(HSR), Serval(HSR), Kyo(Fruits Basket)

BEST EXPERIENCE: To be perfectly honest shit-posting/memes are always a welcome relief and the best way to destress. I recall previously that myself and group of fellow hooligans would constantly make photoshop edits of stupid things that would go around on the dash. Example(s) of something(s) I made during that time:

But I also really enjoyed being able to deep dive into characters relations and how they worked against or with each other. Especially when it came to characters who didn't have their entire story brought to the forefront, like most videogame characters. You don't get to see the behind the scenes stuff with them, most the time, so it's fun to see how they could have gone about or reacted to different situations/after the fact/how it affected them.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS: Lack of communication. Sometimes I forget things, so I'll typically come ask for an answer or reconfirming that I didn't miss something or misinterpret anything. If there is an issue, I am begging, please just approach me. I often will do this if I have a problem, all I ask is the same in return. I can't stand constantly being left on read, especially when trying to discuss stuff plot related. We can't be on the same page if we don't have conversations going BOTH WAYS.

Other than that I'm pretty relaxed. I, as a slow writer, won't hound people practically ever for responses. We're adults, life happens, things come up, muses hide or aren't as strong as others. As long as you aren't actively ignoring me/our threads, there's no problem. If I don't see you posting at all then I know you just need a breather and that is A-OKAY. This is a hobby for fun. Why be fussy and cause problems due to impatience? I guess that is another pet peeve- impatience- lmao.

MUSE PREFERENCES: Bottoms. I notice myself writing of lot of "tsundere" types? Or redheads. I just love them. Misunderstood but fight against the world because they don't want anyone to know that they're broken.

PLOTS OR MEMES: Both. Both is good. Everything in balance. I used to meme a lot, and I've definitely toned it down. But I don't know, sometimes getting too serious or having too many think-hard-about threads can be tiring, and lil shitposting is a good breather to be able to let you get back on with it.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Both are nice. I tend to overwrite, simply because my style will typically go into my muse's thought process(es), or if the thread is still being established, I try to set the scene or give background information. But, short replies are nice. Gives you a small thing to work on and take a rest between lengthier threads. That's also why I like random inbox prompts. Not all of them have to go anywhere- just gives you a space to do something else aside from your drafts.

BEST TIME TO WRITE: I am absolutely not a morning person. Night owl to the max. You will see me up still at 3am more often than not. I typically wake up around 10am-1pm, so I'm usually writing right around dinner.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): In some aspects, sure. Not entirely like one-for-one with any muse, but there's always at least a piece of myself in each muses. Helps write them better, in my opinion. Only exceptions typically being any "self-insert" like characters. (ie. Robin/Avatar from Fire Emblem: Awakening). Most of those characters still have a base personality to them though, so unless you completely customize them, they're still pretty "how do YOU respond" choices change how they are.

Tagged by: Stealing dis from Rath Tagging: Yo who wants to let me know their lore?

[cator99]

There was a party of 20 people at my work tonight that was mostly russians all very slaylicious people and I don't know how to describe it but they had a very specific very cohesive vibe and I have never seen more Russian group of people in my entire life no that's not true I had a Russian friend growing up and her mother was a very wealthy veryyy stylish Russian criminal defense lawyer with very russian friends and one time she sat me down very seriously by the way this was a very serious and intense moment where she put her laptop in front of me and made me watch a pro-Putin propaganda video on YouTube which included a clip of him photoshopped riding a tiger to the song Eye of the Tiger and she got incredibly angry when I laughed... anyways they were complaining about the drinks not having enough vodka and making us remake them even requesting repour the drinks into a bigger glass so that we could add more vodka one guy was really skinny with high cheekbones and a very sunken face small jaw thin neck you know the type slicked back hair and an oversized leather jacket and tiny black oval sunglasses that he wore the entire time he was inside he kept going in and out for cigarette breaks while I was taking out the trash and we would get in each other's way and laugh because it just kept happening and he was like oh my it's like I came here just to get in your way and for no other reason lol ohhhhh god also there was a lesbian couple and one of them had short dark hair and a labret piercing oh my God she was so beautiful Jesus Christ I'm going to kill myself she was so like intense just intense scary intense but so gentle most people in the group were dressed up but she was just wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. I didn't think she was with any of the women there until I was cleaning up and I saw her with her arm around a tiny blonde woman who I had interacted with briefly earlier she was very sweet and had these giant glimmering eyes she had accidentally gotten in my way too and was apologizing profusely staring at me with those giant eyes and a sheepish little smile oh my god. Very cute but also very alarmingly intense. Honestly they all were very intense in a way but in a really fun way you know..... very down to earth people, all of them. There was one of them who looked and had the cadence and honestly had a presence which immediately brought to mind a sort of Russian John Wayne Gacy you know like if you've ever seen his interviews it was like that anyways he was paying for everything. There was also a black man with them who was dressed so impeccably I mean they all were but this guy even moreso... he had this whole color coordinated suit with a matching velvet fedora that was tilted and large sunglasses that stayed on all night as well. Pretty sure I heard him speaking Russian with a much older man who reminded me of my doctor who is Moldovan... A lot of them were clearly family- the older man really closely resembled a few of the younger men, however they seemed a bit less intense and less involved- you know what I mean there were obvious social things happening here that they were not a part of. I'm trying to remember who else stood out from that group but yeah there was 20 of them and I was mostly just dealing with Russian Gacy and the lesbian who ended up ordering a lot of drinks directly from me. Anyways they had the main hall due to the fact that there was so many of them and most rooms can comfortably fit anywhere from 5-12 people at most- however the hall isn't private, as it attaches to the main area where the bar is. The two rooms are only separated by a curtain. This is important because unlike everyone else in the karaoke bar I can hear every song the people in the hall sing. And for the record they started off with Barbie Girl by Aqua

[jazzyblusnowflake]

Which brushes do you use for CSP 😳??

oh i always dreaded this question lmao-

ill be honest and clear cut with yall~

✨I have no idea✨

//wHEEze-

ok lemme explain, [tho if you dont wanna read all this just skip to the images in the end that i posted of my dumb self made and modified brushes] i have always used different mediums in my art~ ive used SAI, Gimp 2, CSP and occasionally Photoshop for the effects, filters and some brushes~ and i almost never remember where i downloaded them from because, first off, they were free anyway and i also almost always change them to fit my style beyond recognition to how they originally looked by default XDDD

MOST of my work is usually with SAI with almost the only brush i use in general for everything [ Inking, Coloring the edges, Shading, Lighting, and most other hand drawn shapes and hatching and etc ] is used with these settings. i never change it because i had years of experimenting to finally be comfortable with these and i will die a painful death if anything happens to my laptop before i could save these settings so i keep it in my art files just in case lmao~ [i do NOT like change and trying new stuff is2g i need therapy-]

HOWEVER when it comes to CSP i have had..... very depressing progress yay :D ... SAI in my experience has been a bit sucky in being able to handle large sizes and layers or anything else and having the possibility of crashing but the way it makes some things easy has been a MIRACLE for my lazy ass, i might have given up art before i ever even started if SAI didn't exist, but as how all EASY things usually are they start lacking in variety after a while, and i realized since one of my friends had bought me a CSP a long time ago, heck i might as well use it and oh my GOD the anxiety it induced ended me up with an IV and several trips to the hospital for injections to calm me down [and potentially temporarily blinding me] im not even joking. i mean yeah i was going through stuff back then that did NOT help my situation in general but the fact that CSP doubled my anxiety cuz i just couldn't draw with it made me have several existential breakdowns where i thought i will never be able to improve my art as a self proclaimed artist anymore because i had gotten so used to only working with what i found PERFECTLY comfortable to my own tastes that im just useless at getting used to anything else... so what happened was that i went on the most violent weekly spree of downloading any brush i could that even resembled REMOTELY to what i wanted- i also searched for brushes on tumblr or google or anywhere else- i watched so many CSP transition videos on youtube my brain was spinning and i was on a rout of self destructive agony to make this WORK. so now i have a bajillion downloaded brushes and all of them have spawned 20 other copies that i have aggressively modified beyond any sort of resemblance to what they used to be- it doesn't help that the file names and the brush names are different so i cant search for them either 😑

but if the brush names could help you in finding them uhhh, heres like.... 1/10th of the brushes i downloaded and modified that i actually did NOT go back and delete because they are fun to have around XD

have fun, //goes to cry in a corner-

[authoralexharvey]

I'm going to copy you because I thought talking about fictional media was really fun so I want to know about yours 👀? What kind of subjects feel right at home in a fantasy dark academia anyway?

Hey June~ Happy WBW and welcome to the funzone lol uhhh so the short answer is I have in fact discussed this before--here--but as a refresher and an expansion:

A divisive but still kinda popular medium of writing is what is called Prophet Prose. Essentially, speculative fiction, except the authors are trying to predict the future via writing in the most accurate ways possible. Most of them don't get to see the fruits of their labor, however, due to the nature of their work. They make it, die, and hope they were correct post-humously.

There is also a.... very controversial but anonymous author who writes... I guess,,, anti-chosen one fiction? It's clear from their writings that they themself are a priest to one of the divine, but no one knows for which god, only that they probably hate their job and being a priest, because all their works are all about how being a priest or otherwise divinely-chosen fucking sucks.

Photography is also a thing at this point in time and there's a popular medium of art called Arcane Abstractivism which is essentially people trying to make the weirdest, most photoshopped shit ever without the use of photoshop (as it and computers do not exist). As the name implies, magic is often used to achieve the desired effect.

As for other types of media, I guess more "dark academia" sounding ones would be the obvious studying of classics and such. In this case, old plays and songs. There is one in particular, which started as truth and has warped into more of a folk tale. It's been called a ballad but also has un-ballad-like iterations as well and centers on two Luricaen lovers during the Crusades and them sacrificing each other to avoid death at the hands of others.

There's also a uh,,, subject of writing, previously popular and now somewhat taboo a la "mysterious anti-chosen one writer". Collections of works, often plays, similar to how the ancient Greeks wrote plays, all about divinity and its many layers. They were especially popular when the world was "between pantheons", so to speak, and mostly penned by philosophers and alatrists who recognize that divinity has existed but doesn't see the use in them. Think Aristophanes' "The Clouds" except instead of how college and philosophers are useless, it's deities. For obvious reasons, pretty hubristic by the time of ASMLP, even if many are shaky on their belief in divinity at best. Kinda like how a lot of people are "casually Christian" until anyone dares mock Christianity, I think.

Most of what I've thought up has been books and plays and whatnot because I think if I try to think about or invent types of music I will just. Die.

Anyway I hope this was a satisfying enough answer! Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday!

[kvnghs-archive]

just gotta have a lil real dump here for a min.

i don’t feel very wanted/needed on this platform anymore.  it feels like my ideas and muses have run their course and no one is interested in what i have to offer.  conversations to start the most basic and simple plots are often one-sided, ending before they even begin, or just left on read with nothing to ever come of it.  i need to discuss plots, characters, etc in order to even have the motivation to be here to write, and i’m not getting much of that anymore (unless i write a specific canon male character on a solo blog, but we’ve learned our lesson there).  when i started here, regardless of who i was writing (canon or oc) i would always get random questions about my muses in the inbox.  just dumb little things that people were interested in — what’s their shampoo smell like? do they sleep with the closet door open?  socks on or off at night?  simple things...ya know?  that makes such a difference to me, that someone thinks my silly little muse is interesting enough to know some funny little facts about them.  now it just feels like people are only in search of a plot device to insert into their story and not the actual character they’re writing against.  i want to know about your muses.  i want you to tell me their morning routine, i want to know the dumb little things my muse would know too.  i crave the interaction the rpc is no longer giving out freely like it once did.  

i am slow, and i very much understand that, but the reason i am so slow is because the rpc as a whole is failing.  people have decided it’s not worth reaching out anymore because they’re being ignored, the elitism and cliques are once again getting out of hand with the drama, and it’s just kind of a sad place to be when you’re not in one of those cliques.  especially you 30-somethings out here trying to start drama with kids like it’s high school...but that’s a whole different and very long post for another time.  anyway, what used to be an escape to enjoy with people in my hobby is kind of just a depressive place to be now.  i don’t feel the excitement for my muses, i don’t feel like people are here to learn anything about my muses, and i’m very much starting to feel like a pity party.  while i am fully away this is also my bad mental health speaking, at the same time it’s also not.  

edited*  what happened to the support the rpc once had?  is it only applicable if you have the correct aesthetics and use the prettiest graphics?  i can’t use photoshop very well, but i like to think i can write okay, so why do my graphics dictate how you see me as a writer?  i don’t care if your promo is pretty, i want to support you so i’m going to reblog it.  the rpc is not as supportive as it once was and you cannot tell me otherwise.  i rarely see promos cross my dash ( mine have less than 10 notes, and it’s me and like one other person most of the time...it literally hurts my feelings to spend time on something that gets completely ignored and i am not sorry about that ), people aren’t commenting and communicating as much as they once were, and i think it’s completely skewing the rpc as a whole.  the same goes for edits, is it hard to like a post someone spent time on?  you can unlike it later if you need to clean your likes, but sometimes people just like to be acknowledged for something they’re excited about.  i have been so excited to post something like an edit or what i thought was interesting about my muse, or just fun that other people might think was cool, to only be met with crickets on the other side.  it’s disheartening and not what the rpc is supposed to be about.

i’m complaining to myself as well, because i’ve stopped being as interactive with the dash as i once was.  but as i said before, after time and time again of being shut out, ignored, and even blocked after speaking to someone...can you really blame people for no longer reaching out?

anyway, sorry if you came in to read this.  i’ve been very much struggling here, and thought making harley would help, but it’s only further solidified that feeling.  i’m really trying to navigate around it, but i’m not even sure where to start with people anymore.  like i’m almost afraid to even reblog things from people anymore because they’re so adamant about reblogging everything from the source, not messaging first, and not even following them first like?  isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing here?  idk, the rpc has lost its luster and i really miss the community we used to have here.

so anyway...if you’d like to talk about our muses, plots, etc, i’ll do my best to ask random questions, send asks, make edits, and all that jazz as long as it isn’t one-sided.  my ims, ask, and disco are always available though i do miss (or just never get) notifications sometimes so don’t hesitate to boop me.  i’d just love to find some more writing partners to bounce ideas back and forth with.  i have either lost contact with most of mine over the years or they stopped writing all together unfortunately. :/

disco: shiny shitbag ✨#6427

[edenfm]

𝕥𝕒𝕤𝕜 𝟘𝟘𝟙

as a part of your welcome package, or the continued effort to bring people together through making welcome to eden a more interactive experience, please don’t forget to complete your profile, available for all to search through at their leisure using the eden app, affectionately called “eros” (available in all app stores). 

tl/dr: for your first task, we’ve put together a list of prompts and questions for you to answer in character, which will be available in character to anyone who chooses to download the eros app, available only to those on the ship. the premise is just like any other dating app or site, and we thought it might be a fun way to get to know one another, and your characters. we’ve also compiled a list of free dating app templates to use. please remember it is not mandatory to use a template, or even complete the task. these are for fun, and please let us know if you have any questions. 

note: you do not have to use all the prompts/questions, but we do ask that you use at least five, to include “describe yourself”.

describe yourself in as many or as few words as you would like

favorite drunken story

gay awakening story/moment/character

most important tip for dating your species

favorite bedtime story

name your unusual talent

name three random facts you think everyone should know

what would your warning label be

how would you describe your ideal date/partner

theme song for your life

what do you hope to get out of this experience

what were your thoughts on the supernatural “coming out”

what are your favorite places on the ship or favorite ports/places you’ve visited

how long do you intend to stay aboard

two truths and a lie

what is the largest animal or deadliest species you think you could take in a fight and win

would you rather fight a chicken every day when you get in your car, or a monkey with a sword once a year

what’s your zodiac sign and do you believe in astrology

what broke up your last relationship/why didn’t it last

never have i ever

whats your guilty pleasure

when was the last time you cried and why

what would be your villain origin story

favorite form of entertainment (music, books, film, etc)

whats your most bizarre, strange or nervous habit

whats one thing you miss about living on the mainland

favorite scar story

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