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misc-obeyme · 7 months

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BARBATOS COOKING COMPETITION!! YES!! Also I’m glad you reminded me of his gardening! Maybe he also gives you access to increasingly rare crops? He’ll send those seeds to the store for them to sell! Like once you get the money for beehouses and they get built, you unlock flowers and fruit trees, so you can harvest Fancy Honeys.

That, and you know in farm sims there sometimes tend to be little sprites or fairies? Like the one example I can think of are the Junimos in Stardew Valley. Little D’s?? MC, Sol, and Babbs are the only ones who can see them. It’d make sense for Solomon to see them, but Barbatos could potentially be a bit supernatural too. Like how some SoS/HM games feature a Goddess too and the fairies/sprites are her aides, maybe Barb chose this particular city’s farm plot for Dia’s vision bc it’s his home and it could use some touching up while his true Eldritch Fae God Form heals? Maybe BABBS is the Dessie that lived in the pond! Idk lmao I tend to get too deep into plot aspects.

Another thing I thought of thanks to your response is maybe, under some supervision, Luke sets up a little “Lemonade Stand” on weekends, or once a month/season (depending on the game’s time mechanics), and he sells super special items, like SUPER HEALING treats, bouquets (which could be a dating prerequisite for your chosen bachelor/ette), and perfumes (A special animal friendship thing/monster repellant?) Asmo would DEFINITELY be there as sort of just a place for him to be, like how villagers/datatables in farm sims have schedules. Perfume is one of Asmo’s fave gifts so it’d make sense!

SPEAKING OF! What kinds of things do you think would be considered fave gifts? Like certainly Beel would love meals, but I feel like you’d need to upgrade MC’s little personal shack with a kitchen in order to make your own meals instead of spending the little money you make on the random meals from the cafe, making gifting Beel meals an actual challenge And there’s obvious other gift things others would like. Lucifer would love coffee (or maybe a variety of coffee beans you can grow), Simeon loves honey, and Solomon would love things that could be considered potion ingredients, among other obvious gifts we already know from the og game. But what Farm Life things would you gift the less farm-inclined characters like Levi and Mammon? Definitely ore and gems for Mammon, but that’s the only thing I can think of to gift him. And maybe… Uh… Boiled Egg. For Levi. Bc he snake… >->;

On another note, what would the “Marriage Token” of this world be? 🤔

(I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS!!! Festivals, competitions, town map, game mechanics… I think too much HNDVEHNUSRKHD)

Oh my gosh I LOVE the idea of Barbatos as the Goddess who lives in the pond and the Lil Ds as his attendants!!! And in some games, the Goddess is a secret marriage option, so you could still marry Barb lkasdflksdf. I love the idea of him just pretending to be a butler so he can get his strength back by living on the land that is his home! And he gets stronger the more the town is revived, as MC fixes things up and unlocks areas and what not!

YES to a seasonal Luke Lemonade Stand that is so cute!! Like you gotta get what you can while it's open otherwise you'll have to wait a whole year in game to get that perfect seasonal bouquet for your true love!! Of course Asmo would be all about the perfume, he's straight up there to shop lol.

Okay okay so the gifts is an interesting thing to consider! Usually there's at least one meal preference for each character and then after that it kinda varies depending on interest. So as you said, for Beel it might be that his all time favorite gift is some fancy meal. Like if it was a cheeseburger, you'd have to be able to get all of the ingredients which could be a lot. Whereas coffee for Lucifer would just be coffee beans and maybe milk. But usually they also have other options that give you a little less friendship, but are easier to make/obtain. So I would think Beel would be okay with being given stuff like crops that haven't been cooked into anything, too. Then when you've got a kitchen and so on, you can cook things that'll increase friendship more.

I think it's kinda like some marriage options are meant to be more difficult, so their gifts are harder to obtain?

But I think you're right for Mammon - definitely ore and gems. Shiny stuff lol! His only food option is ramen, of course. In some games, you can find old coins from mining, so if you ever get one of those, I think he'd like that, too. He also likes clothes and such, so maybe fabric?

Levi feels impossible lol. You can't exactly gift him manga. I like the boiled egg option. Maybe he also likes fish? Shells and stuff you can find on the beach?

Asmo would like flowers and perfume. I think Belphie would like things like wool and fabric, but also milk 'cause ya know cows. But I'm having a little trouble with Satan. I mean you can't just give him an entire cat. And I don't think you'd be able to give him books, either. Then again, Satan is known for liking animals in general not just cats. So maybe you could give him any animal byproduct and that'd work?

Ohhh the marriage token... hmm. Well I've seen the blue feather, a ring, a pendant, and a comb as options before... so like my first thought is a black feather. But then there's also the Ring of Light though that's kinda Lucifer specific. I think it would be interesting to involve pacts somehow, but that will only work for demon characters. It could just be a standard ring situation or a feather, but the color changes depending on the character. I'm not sure though!

Ahhh now I wanna play this game so bad lol!

#seriously it sounds like a lot of fun #obey me #obey me nightbringer #dread-bard #misc answers

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magpies4nights · 4 months

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GUYS DONT PRESS P ON THE TITLE SCREEN WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE (Dev log #15)

AT LAST, SUMMER IS HERE!!!!! I am so excited I can finally rest I- oh right. Summer classes. Sigh. Well, they don’t take up the whole day thank god and I don’t need to be there, but It’s still not exciting. Oh well. Maybe I’ll play the sims 4 again and check on how my poor little torture victims are doing/j Jk jk, I don’t torture my sims. Unless you consider naming them things probably EA wouldn't approve of, then yeah I guess I am a horrible person.

But yeah, on the week I released the demo (which by the way, thanks for the 58 views!!!! thas crazy) I was putting up with finals. Some of my classes had to be pushed to the next week, and that was INFURIATING. It was kinda agony because I just wanted everything to be done and over with and I was practically exhausted. Like sleeping at 7 pm exhausted. Yeah......Well, should I even talk about how my life is going? I flunked the review for my major. Thank god, honestly. I mean, I didn't do it on purpose, and I am sad in a way that I flunked it, but I didn't want to continue on the route I was going on. I feel kinda stupid for even trying but I guess it's ok to make mistakes in your early 20's rather than your 30's... for some reason.

Ok, dev time. I decided to take a break from making sprites for a bit. So I worked on a part of the game that I would have left a secret, but I think it’s quite funky hehehe

I like old computers. I would have replicated the windows XP thing because I have so many memories of it, but I'm scared Windows might snipe me or something. I once was lying on the couch my parents turned into a bed (I think I was sick at the time), and it was late at night, and the computer was shutting down (it played this sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb2jGy76v0Y) and for some reason the noise absolutely scared the absolute living shit out of me (I think I was like 4-5 years old and I was terrified of bassy sounds). I do not remember ever having any positive relationships with computers before I turned 6 lol. I’m pretty sure I used to think I could live without them. Oh you poor bastard. If you saw me now not only would you not understand a single word I’m saying, you would be incredibly disappointed with how dependent I am on computers. I think once I'm done with that I'll try to fix whatever is going on outside scene, because that's the only scene that causes the game to crash. I'm pretty sure it's because there's too many objects, because when I turned off the animations and the visibility it still took forever to load (like, nearly 2 seconds. The scene takes 4 seconds to load, and normally a scene would take me less than a second to load). soooo, uh yeah, I'm trying to find an occlusion culling equivalent to solve this because that's a 3d game thing, and this is a 2d game lol. I'm thinking of turning off visibility for when they're outside the viewing frustrum (player's line of sight, or more like rectangle) because it cuts down half the time for when the scene loads. If nothing works I guess it's just deleting and re-adding the child back into the scene every time the camera is on them... sigh. If it ticks me off too much I'll probably return to doing sprites because there's still a lot to do lol.

Well.... I so far got no other ideas for references in this game, so I guess I'll put in the inspiration of the outro (which is the Portal outro)

youtube

(not my video)

I know, I know. Cheesy. BUT instead of it being in the antagonist's view, it's the protagonist's view instead. I tried singing for the song, but every time I do I make Jojo Siwa sound like a professional vocalist (I don't even know why she still sings. Didn't she bust one of her vocal chords already? Or is that a rumor? Either way that's already gotta be a sign that you probably shouldn't continue on the route you're on.) I literally had 5 attempts on my computer and they all sound horrible. I'm not going to put them on the internet for my sake and your sake too. So yeah, no vocals. But the lyrics will still be there. They won't have the typing effect though.

I once had a strange dream that I was looking through the itch.io comments and someone kept spamming about how they headcannoned Xandra to be a trans man and were like honestly I don't know how my brain combined those several factors together but I find that funny.

yes its the caseoh meme. no i will not apologize

#gasa4sc #gasa4 #fan character #fan game #scaperat

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victorluvsalice · 3 months

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Welcome to Summer Wednesday in the Chill Valicer Save! Had a busy SimCity Founding with my favorite OT3 – which of course involved some glitchiness and some of me having to work very hard to wrangle them and stop them from doing forbidden activities. Because that is a key part of my Sims 4 experience. :p Let’s get into it –

-->Started right after midnight on Summer Wednesday, with Smiler playing Blicblock, Alice playing laser pointer with one of the cats on the porch, and Victor peacefully snoozing – at least, until the house started making creepy noises. *shakehead* I put Victor right back to bed since it was still super early in the morning, then had Smiler hop on their video creation station to edit up their latest fashion tips video while Alice fed Toothy the cowplant, did some recycling from her inventory (of stuff like spoiled sweet batter she’d forgotten to put in the fridge, some spare utranium and wraith wax, and a poop – tried to have her recycle a llama toy Victor had in his inventory from his past Love Day date with Smiler too, but it didn’t actually get ground up for some reason) before joining Victor for some snooze times. Smiler finished up their editing while those two slept, then started studying the latest trends. Turned out tech reviews would be hot for a few hours, so I had them start adding effects and transitions to their candybar phone review, figuring I could post it within the window and get some good royalties. They were almost done –

When the house made some MORE creepy noises, startling everyone and waking Victor and Alice up. *grumbles* Stop that, house! I really need to have Victor do some more seances...dunno if it would actually HELP, given how buggy this game is, but it would make ME feel better.

-->Anyway – Victor and Alice chilled in their room for a bit (Victor sitting on the bed and serenading Alice, aww) while I had Smiler resume their interrupted transitions...then I noticed Alice’s werewolf instincts demanding that she both go outside and get more sleep, so I sent her off to the front lawn to nap under the moon for a bit. Because gotta keep that inner beast happy! While she snoozed, Smiler finished up their video editing, hyped their latest release, then sent it off into the world before going back to their regular computer to play some Road Rival Alpha (which looks like a fighting game, weirdly – I would have bet money that it would be a RACING game). Their session was interrupted briefly by a busted computer, but they quickly fixed it back up and got back to it – continuing until they’d maxed their Video Gaming skill! :D Now they are a legend among n00bs. :p Victor, meanwhile, got put on upgrading duty, because, well, why not? Upgrading things is only for the good and he likes Handiness. :p Specifically, I had him upgrade the shower in the blue-and-white upstairs bathroom so it had a water recycler (using eco parts, of course), a water flow regulator, and pulsating massage jets. :D So now taking a shower in this thing must be an absolute dream – and use up less water from the collectors to boot! We love to see it.

-->With the shower almost fully upgraded (it just needs the “never needs cleaning” upgrade now), I had Victor hop in and test it out, then woke Alice up to get her started on the various farm chores – starting with harvesting the prairie grass in Moory’s pen! I was hoping for something interesting, but alas, all she found in there was an onion. *shrug* Undaunted, I then had her go clean out the chicken coop (which at least yielded some more Super Vitality fertilizer) while Victor cleaned out the spoiled food in the fridge and Smiler flew down to the greenhouse to collect their plasma fruit and herbalism stuff before heading over to Moory’s pen to give it a clean.

-->And then Victor went and had a cupcake for breakfast. XD Specifically, he originally went to the fridge for a minty mocha cupcake, but got distracted by Shock and Surprise being cute together nearby. That’s when I asked him to clean the spoiled food out of the fridge – but once he was done washing the plates, he went right back to the fridge to get a strawberry fizz cupcake instead. XD I let him have it and then directed Alice to get the same for HER breakfast. And had Smiler grab some PlasmaFizz from the fridge for THEIR breakfast as well. XD Cupcakes and what is essentially fruit soda for breakfast – living the dream!

#sims 4 #the lazy save #victor van dort #alice liddell #smiler always #haunted houses man #they are always gonna make noises when you don't want them to #fortunately this doesn't happen TOO often #so it's not as annoying as Guidry hanging around #but still #more seances cannot hurt!#other than that a pretty typical morning for the group #recycling SimsTubing upgrading sleeping #and then cupcake breakfasts XD #or a soda breakfast in Smiler's case #tell me you're not at least a LITTLE jealous XD #queued

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zootplayz · 8 months

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Bridgets Life

Welcome to the Pancakes Legacy! A legacy byproduct from Bob's spare children from his life with Snow White sim, Natalie Morales.

In case you haven't read some of my other posts the two Pancake spares left are Bridget and Theresa. Bridget, my favorite Pancake, will be founding the legacy with her fiancee Darling.

Really it's Darling's fault for rolling try for baby and taking the Pancake name after their upcoming nuptials. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Bridget is the only really outgoing sim in the house and her sister and fiancee are both loners.

Which obviously leads to great early-morning conversations for these two. Things are just kind of dull around the home until Bridget starts entertaining everyone.

She was always the heart of the family. Nothing is going to stop these two from marrying at the perfect outdoor venue.

Not even a blizzard can keep them apart.

Ok, so here's what happened.

I really wanted them to get married in the snow because Bridget absolutely loves it.

The forecast said 'chance of snow' then this happened.

So, ya know it's not really my fault they are all freezing their tails off. Besides I just placed some heat lamps and no one froze to death, all's well that ends well.

See, even the mean Theresa had a good time. Blizzards are far less exciting when you have to trudge in them to get to work.

But at least your ghostly mama is there to warm you up.

Snow is great and can be a ton of fun! Especially when Snow Bunny Day comes around. You can take the ever-exciting polar plunge.

--No Pancakes were hurt in the making of this post.-- Go streaking in the brisk and crisp air.

However that may not be all that fun when you hit some ice.

I swear they weren't hurt! Then of course, the icing on the snowy cake.

Terrorizing the Flower Bunny with the mischievous spirit of this amazing holiday. A far better holiday than Winter Fest if you ask me.

Though Bridget may have the right idea by sneaking her presents early.

Which might explain why when the big moment came she got a whole lot of nothing. That won't keep her down she loves a good belly laugh.

And making the day of her beloved.

Let's get the rest of these Pancakers over here to enjoy the festive spirit.

Gah! Almost all 7 in the shot, Vincent's mia Maybe Father Winter will actually give Bridget a gift if we ask him nicely.

He totally did by the way. Apparently, New Year's Eve is only like 2 days later (I gotta fix that) and it's my last day with the Pancakes so at least we get to go out on a high note.

I do have to say I enjoy that random word they say when they're counting down ... It truly makes me happy. Before we head out let's get a ghostly shot of the mean Theresa with the sweet Jewel.

Part 02 Read the full article

#bobpancakes #bridget #gen01 #gen1 #legacy #pancakes #sims4 #sims4legacy #thesims #thesims4

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pixel-bloom · 1 year

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SIMS TAG

Ahhhh thanks for the tag @natolesims ^_^ I’ll tag @ashubii @mosneakers @payte and @ashubii

What’s your favourite sims death?

Hmmm, drowning is classic but I was so shocked when the meteorite killed my sims in ts2, so let’s go with that one.

Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

Gotta go with MM; I tried Alpha back in the day but it just looks off in my game.

Do you cheat when your sims gain weight?

Not usually. I did have a pear shaped sim back in gen 3 of the insectas I fixed, but most of my sims keep their weight.

Do you use move objects?

Always.

Favorite mod?

I like SoL, but I’m looking into the other game enhancing mods...

First expansion/game/stuff pack you got?

Sims 1: Vacation, Sims 2: University, Sims 4: Seasons

Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing?

ALIVEEEE, like, “LETS DO IT LIVE”.

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

I don’t MAKE too many sims (I steal them all from the neighborhoods) but Ant was my favorite for a loooong time. Theo is my favorite currently :) They’re both entertaining to “play” the game with lmao

Have you made a simself?

Yeah but she’s been sitting for years in her sad house in Windenberg. I don’t play simself stuff, but sometimes I’ll dress her up for a simblr challenge.

What sim traits do you give yourself?

Cheerful, Geek, Goofball. I’m very basic.

Which is your favorite EA hair color?

I don’t really have one...uhhhh, black!

Favorite EA hair?

I always use the city living hairs. Love the one ponytail with the braid on the side. I also love the Island Living hairs.

Favorite life stage?

I like my moody teenagers the best. The phases can be irritating but entertaining if I integrate it into the story.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

Gameplay but I actually really like customizing lots. I’ll download a lot or redo an existing one.

Are you a CC creator?

Nah, I honestly don’t have time :(

Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad?

I have some pretty awesome mutuals. I’m too MIA to be a part of a squad. Work, relationships, and life get in the way of playing sims lol. I’ve tried to join a general discord but I’m awful at using it.

What’s your favorite game?

Currently, Disco Elysium. Usually, Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon or whatever the current Zelda game is. (Actually I’m playing Minish Cap rn!)

Do you have any sims merch?

No T_T I might have in the past. I REMEMBER DISTINCTLY that I had the Sims 1 ONLINE but my mom and I didn’t understand how to set it up so she gave it away.

Do you have a YouTube for sims?

No, that sounds terrifying. I barely post on tumblr LOL

How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing?

Hmmm good question. I think it’s less “basic NPC” (base game??) and a little leaning towards my own lil funky style. When I first replayed sims 4 again in 2020, I downloaded all the basic CC that was trendy (and kinda outdated). In 2022, I moved my save to a new PC and started over, so that helped.

What’s your Origin ID?

I do not know. I do not use Origin or any EA app for socializing/sharing

Who’s your favorite CC creator?

Looking at my CC folder: simandy, clumsyalien, sentate, nolansims, and deetron.

How long have you had a simblr?

2020 I believe. Maybe a bit earlier but I didn’t post anything

How do you edit your pictures?

I used to have photoshop T_T (RIP) and used PSD and actions and EVERYTHING LOOKED SO GOOD. I lost access and I can’t bring myself to pay monthly rn. I miss it though, I hate the way my screenshots look now.

What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next?

I’d honestly like packs to be refreshed. I’m not one to ask for new stuff...I think there’s enough stuff. We need things to work properly LOL

What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far?

City Living has gotten the most focus from me. It’s SO much fun to go thrifting, go to festivals, and I love apartments. I’m sure I’ll love Island Living but I haven’t gottten to explore it yet.

#text

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punkscowardschampions · 3 years

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Liam & Edie

Liam: [a picture of Rio with her eyes crossed out like 1. Miss you and 2. Guess who I just talked to]

Edie: ofc she did 😑

Edie: what’s the damage

Liam: 0 to us I deflected the - to Lexie

Liam: do you want her framed for jumpscaring herself or is there anyone else

Edie: That’s all she cared about?

Edie: Bitch

Liam: it just didn’t take no time to convince her we’re perfect for each other

Liam: bc we are

Edie: yeah we are 🥰

Edie: surprised she copped to anything of the sort though

Edie: clearly can’t resist being nice to you

Edie: Lexie needs to calm down

Edie: 🤔 I mean, be kinda fucking hilarious if everyone reckoned she was doing it to herself

Edie: but maybe I’ve been too mean already 🥺

Edie: what do you think?

Liam: I think it’s pretty close to showing everyone her true colours if we do, Lex has gotta have been talking to your sister about me, I could tell, she thought I was a dick before I talked her round

Edie: She wouldn’t be happy for me unless you were a total 🤓 with no dick

Edie: that’s just what she’s like, crazy

Edie: but also not a stretch to see Lexie being a gossipy cow, I’ve heard her on other people before so

Edie: why would I give a fuck if her life is ruined

Liam: she basically accused me of wanting to hit you up for one reason and then wanting to immediately dip, if she thinks that’s what I’m like that’s only coming from one person

Edie: She’s pathetic

Edie: it’s clearly her saying it because you didn’t sleep with her

Edie: it wouldn’t be hard to spoof some shit, make it look like her

Edie: and she has nothing to say it was me, or you like she thought, and it weren’t no one else so she’s fucked, basically

Liam: [send her some shit that you’ve already started to work on because you knew she’d agree with this plan and the bits of the Rio convo where you said you’d try and find out and made it sound like you thought it was her but obvs it couldn’t possibly be hehe]

Edie: You’re so smart

Edie: She deserves this, she was definitely bitching about you, you can tell from how hard Rih said she weren’t

Liam: don’t be upset with me, but I was thinking about how Lexie also deserves to see us together and you happy and I invited them both to your show

Liam: you did say you want your family to take your music seriously

Edie: I’m not mad

Edie: You invited Rih too so she isn’t going to think you’re trying to get back with her

Edie: and I get to rub that and the fact I’m talented in her face?

Edie: It’s a good idea, baby

Liam: still, if you wanna create me in game and spend your time testing out different murder options, I won’t be mad, I should’ve asked you if it was a good idea before saying yeah to having us all there

Edie: [an 8-bit Liam but obvs we’re making an 8-bit us to smooch him not murder him, a lil gif moment of this or whatever it would be]

Liam: you only want a play through where we 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏻

Edie: that might make the thread 🤮 but idk if they’d be 😱

Liam: we’ll keep it off thread

Liam: [send her the floor plan to where your dad lives/holiday cottages so she can build it in sims like my boo would, live your dreams kids]

Edie: don’t need to make 50k nerds jealous, I get you

Edie: [just nerd out with that]

Edie: I’ll show you how generic the 👶 is

Edie: very rude

Liam: if the mods and cc don’t fix it, I’ll pretend I don’t 👀

Edie: the 👀 are already insane colours

Liam: no match for yours in real life

Edie: [pics forever]

Edie: [obviously also make your enemies to actually kill and send that]

Liam: if you sent it to Lexie nobody’d believe she created herself looking that accurate

Edie: harsh reality of a sim

Edie: the alpha CC does look like her facetune attempts, tbf

Liam: at least you can make her try to seduce the grim reaper instead of me

Edie: she’ll have ample opportunity to meet him

Edie: [all the dramatic deaths cut with her sim when they get hysterical]

Edie: I’m still mad at her

Edie: Rih blatantly thinking it was me too, not surprising but still 🖕

Edie: how’s it been today

Liam: only bc she knows how smart you are and most people who Lex hangs out with ain’t, I barely had to cover for you so she don’t really wanna think it

Edie: story of her life

Liam: how 😡 are you

Edie: it’s exhausting being mad at her, there’s nothing to do

Edie: people like Lexie, you can fuck with, or care even less than that

Liam: would it make you feel better to fuck with Lexie more

Edie: I wanna make you feel better more

Edie: you must be feeling as bored and crazy as me, if not more

Liam: if I could feel anything it’d be 💔 you’re not happy or here

Edie: is it worse

Edie: nothing

Edie: maybe that’s stupid

Edie: nothing seems preferable sometimes but only sometimes, which is maybe what takes it over feeling too much

Liam: it’s isolating, everyone expects me to feel too much, that’s acceptable, even years after

Edie: acceptance would be easier

Edie: you have me

Edie: no matter what

Edie: idc if no one else gets me, you do

Liam: I dunno what it says about people that they’d be happy if I was going round punching holes in walls but I know my ma would

Liam: she looks at me like she’s waiting for it, watching for a massive crack or something

Edie: they’ve got their reason, they want the reaction

Edie: then they can link a and b and ???

Edie: problem solved, not really

Edie: but they understand it and can wash their hands of you

Edie: that’s what they give a shit about

Liam: yeah

Edie: enough sympathy and hot meals dropped off and you’ll be ‘fixed’

Edie: you weren’t even the sick one

Liam: get enough hobbies, a part-time job, a girlfriend, move the fuck on

Edie: right

Edie: it’s so

Edie: I can’t think of the word

Liam: “she’d want you to be happy/have a life” no she fucking wouldn’t, she wanted it for herself

Edie: dead people get sainted

Edie: no room for who they actually were, better and worse

Liam: she’d hate me having any of those things just to rub in her face

Edie: what was she like, between being sick

Liam: I’ll show you

Edie: do you reckon she’d want you to remember what she’d want for you then, instead of how she was at the end

Edie: not to be like every other cunt about it

Edie: not that simple, or at all

Liam: she was a teenage girl, she’d probably want me to do more fitting in too until I’ve completed the coming of age shite milestones everyone else is, instead of telling other teenage girls from the internet how fucked up I am 😏

Edie: I think that might be a milestone so 👏

Edie: the bullshit of your sister not having her own life to live dealt with then, in this scenario

Edie: we have to find what you want

Edie: even if that’s not 🤵👧🐶🧒👰 with me

Edie: not gonna be Lexie about it, you know

Edie: I’ll still help you find it

Liam: I want you, not to be gay about it

Liam: to see where this is gonna go, how far I can take it before it ends

Edie: then let’s do it

Edie: what can I do today

Liam: what would you be doing if you could do anything

Edie: that’s the problem

Edie: I wanna be with you

Edie: but I don’t know what we’d do yet

Liam: I said I’d show you what my sister was like, the quickest way to do it is to act like nothing matters, your behaviour has no consequences

Liam: it’s not about me at all, only what you want, what’s gonna happen

Edie: and I can’t hurt you

Edie: because you don’t feel anything yet, yeah?

Liam: you can’t hurt me

Edie: you promise

Edie: do that and then we can do what I want

Liam: how do you want me to promise

Edie: 🤏🩸

Edie: mine is 📫

Liam: [brb father he’s gotta go draw some blood and put it into something she can wear as jewellery like Angelina Jolie and record the endeavour to send to the bae]

Edie: [that’s exactly what we gonna send, I know you can legit buy them so I’ll find a cool pic tah, his poor father so confusion]

Liam: [great minds boo]

Edie: kiss it better for me

Liam: [send her another video boy we’re in this deep]

Edie: god

Edie: okay, what do you do to relieve stress, let go and let off steam

Edie: do that

Liam: what do I do or what should you, bc I have an idea that I think would make you feel better about your sister

Edie: you can start by telling me what I should do because I’m intrigued

Liam: she said she’d lose it at Lexie if she did anything to you, if you lower your IQ by at least 100 you could have fun trashing her room but making it look like she did it herself to frame you, you’d have to wait til she was forced out with her family and bc there’s no check in or selfie proof everyone would just think they’re covering for her, but that’d be the only boring bit

Liam: your sister would feel bad for falling for it and believing you might be involved at all

Edie: I definitely don’t want to see her at mine ever again

Edie: I’ll do it

Edie: Bet she has a shrine to you

Liam: a curse would explain me being dead inside

Edie: she has no ✨

Edie: so whilst I’m ripping the heads off all her 🧸s

Edie: you’ve gotta do…

Liam: 🏊 the only thing there is to do

Edie: your da didn’t come prepared? 🔥🪓

Liam: he’d be prepared with a 🧯 more like but I don’t need his help 🔥🪓

Edie: you should see if anyone is around, like anywhere

Edie: see how easy it is to 👀 them without getting caught

Liam: it’s like you know me inside out

Edie: I do

Edie: I’ve got X-Ray 👀s

Liam: next time you miss me you can do an artistic rendering

Edie: of all your vital organs

Edie: not to kill the mystery and show myself up as a fake fan on the forums

Edie: but I think the outside view of you is a lot prettier 😳🥰

Liam: ok I’ll not send you any in the 📫

Edie: only the non-vitals, tah 😏

Liam: what’s left Alexis hasn’t got in her shrine

Edie: she 🥺 so hard you gave her your gallbladder

Liam: 10% risk of shitting myself side effects after it’s gone, 100% chance of that putting her off wanting to jump me, I’d do it

Edie: no need to do that now I’m here

Edie: no one is gonna wanna jump her when she’s outed as 😵🥴🤡

Liam: I’ll keep the scalpel sharp for lads who wanna get with you when they realise you’re 🤩🤓😎😇😈

Edie: I’m not complaining

Edie: I only want you around, ever

Liam: I’ll be going nowhere without you ever when I get back

Edie: Good

Edie: because I feel like

Edie: it’s like I’m doing so much to fill my time but I still just think about and miss you constantly

Liam: I’ll climb a tree and call you from the top

Edie: Describe your view the best you can

Edie: like I’m there too

Liam: facetime’ll make you feel like you are

Edie: not quite VR but I’ll take it

Edie: talking to you feels like our own 🪐 anyway

Liam: [do climb a tree and call her because what a mood just like you’re Elizabeth Allen]

Edie: [save that tree henny]

Liam: [do we wanna skip to his bday now or is there anything else you can think of that you wanna do while he’s still away?]

Edie: [hmm, we probably know the vibe, she’s busy with all the things they’re gonna continue when he’s back, also finding the first house they can break into and stay in, fucking with Lexie loads more]

Liam: [yeah and if we do think of anything specific later we can skip back it’s chill]

Edie: [let’s do it]

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savrenim · 4 years

Text

okay so looking at tma fic in general and tma time-travel fic and the various ways they decide to resolve things has given me an idea for a time travel fix-it fic premise that, like, I almost certainly will never write because way too many writing projects but it is Haunting me so I need to blab about it somewhere

so clearly the way that the ‘time travel’ / ‘knowledge of the future’ bit works is that Jon stumbles across a book that he assumes is a Leitner but then there’s no name in the front cover so he opens it proper and oooh this is weird but it’s too late the compulsion has set hold and and reads it, oops

the experience of reading it is the experience of fuck-it-feels-like living the entire timeline of the show up through the end of episode 160

(actually all the way through When Jon Finally Dies if he ever does but the important bit is he gets that knowledge of the timeline)

(the book is channeling the power of the Ceaseless Watcher, it’s all about knowledge, although very specifically in my brain this book is something that future!Jon and future!Martin constructed and sent back, which still tracks because hey Archivist is an Avatar of the Watcher. it’s just important to me that this is active action as an attempt to prevent the apocalypse and not dumb luck)

so Jonathan Sims now knows his future and because I have strong opinions about memory/ personality/ what makes a person, has arguably just been replaced with his future self.

‘oh fuck’ Jon says

‘I ended the world so I gotta fix this’

but how does he fix this, because oops Elias is still stupidly powerful and is going to notice if anything is up so he can’t act weird

but he can’t bring anyone else in on this because he doesn’t want to Curse Them with such Angsty Knowledge

he is acting a little bit weird, Martin notices that he’s acting weird because he is now being nice to Martin

‘this cannot be how the universe exists, Jon is always mean to me,’ Martin goes. ‘like I want the universe to exist this way but Something Is Up With Jon and it would be selfish of me not to investigate just because Jon is actually being nice to me’

Martin stumbles across the book and reads it too

‘oh fuck’ Martin says and immediately goes and talks to Jon and Jon has terrible selfish mixed feelings because he missed his Martin but also didn’t want Martin to have to go through everything he went through but also now Jon is not alone in trying to figure out how to alter this timeline without Elias noticing

(’wait what gave me away,’ Jon goes)

(’you were being nice to me,’ Martin goes)

(’fuck I really do need to be meaner to everyone don’t I,’ Jon goes. ‘it’s just really hard I’ve had Character Growth and I don’t want to be an asshole again’)

(’well suck it up you’re going to blow our cover,’ Martin goes. ‘maybe you should have thought of that before Being An Asshole.’ he immediately feels bad at Jon’s Very Sad Face. ‘you weren’t actually that much of an asshole you were just under stress and prickly and didn’t realize that the people you weren’t appreciating could be people that you would lose and now you do and that’s fine but you gotta still treat them like you’re an Asshole.’)

(’fine,’ Jon goes.)

so now they’re trying to figure out how to stop Elias

but also their main priority is to stop Tim and Sasha from dying at this point and they kind of figure that Elias doesn’t know the timeline and as long as he’s getting what he wants which is naive Jon stumbling through interactions with Entities and getting marked but not killed, he won’t suspect anything, and he doesn’t know Tim and Sasha are going to die so that at least is something immediate they can fix

‘I want to murder Jonah,’ goes Martin

‘you are super valid but also Gertrude tried that and was 1000% more badass than any of us and she ended up dead so maybe we should concentrate on saving our friends like we’ve got a few years to figure out how to do that,’ goes Jon

‘fine,’ goes Martin

Tim and Sasha notice that something is up, OBVIOUSLY, because Jon was weird-nice for like a week and a half then is weird-mean like he’s actually trying to be mean and hates it, and has gone from brushing off Martin all the time to pretending to brush Martin off but obviously secretly pining

he also gives off feral apocalypse energy

Martin meanwhile is pulling this all off perfectly

he fooled Elias and Peter and everyone else back when he was faking out the Lonely, he can handle this

Elias does notice Jon acting weird and thinks this is a soap opera workplace romance gone wrong but because he hasn’t seen all of it as Jon and Martin have been very careful to be using Martin’s Lonely powers when they want to Actually Talk and make it look like they’ve just casually wandered off when Elias isn’t paying attention to them so Elias doesn’t actually look like anything is up, he calls Jon in for a ‘performance review’ to make sure

(Martin has Lonely powers and Jon has Archivist powers from the future and they can both feed off of the long terrible fears that they remember from the horrible horrible lives and deaths they and the entire world had in their own timeline, just give me this I need a plot device that can explain why they can Actually Talk to each other while not being able to use the tunnels)

anyways Elias starts his performance review and pokes about Martin

‘um yeah,’ Jon confesses. ‘I um had a very awkward conversation with Martin because it seemed like he was being nice to me and I asked him about his feelings and he Confessed to me that he Liked me and I was caught by surprise and was thinking about it for a few days because idk nobody ever Likes me but then came to my senses and um but also it’s totally inappropriate because I’m his boss and I told him and we’re trying to forget that the conversation ever happened and just go back to concentrating on the statements’

‘you seem very nervous right now,’ Elias goes

‘please do not report me to HR,’ Jon goes looking appropriately mortified and trying to remember everything Martin has been coaching him about lying by telling people what they want to hear. ‘I know I should have rejected him immediately it just caught my by surprise that he would actually Say It To My Face people have been saying a lot of honest things to my face it’s very weird and I know that I shouldn’t have run away from that conversation and acted Weird for a few days but I did come to the Correct Conclusion I am very devoted to this job and don’t want to do anything but this job and didn’t do anything with Martin we just had a conversation and I’m really trying to do a good job here and please don’t fire me’

‘nope you’re good that’s fine concentrate on your job,’ Elias says, quite satisfied that his Archivist is developing truth powers very quickly

Tim and Sasha are not so easy to fool

Tim and Sasha find the book

Sasha, who worked in Artifact Storage, is Actually Smart and goes ‘dON’T READ THAT’

Tim reads it anyways

‘oh fuck I die stopping the apocalypse’

Tim doesn’t seem to die from reading the book and doesn’t seem to change except for being given this foreknowledge but Sasha is Smart so she doesn’t read it. Tim does fill her in on her future.

‘oh fuck I die when a weird worm-lady attacks? and don’t even get to help with the apocalypse? that’s bullshit.’

they start their own little huddle conspiracy

which Martin immediately finds

‘nO YOU GUYS YOU GOTTA BE MORE CAREFUL TALKING ABOUT THIS STUFF’ Martin explains the future and methods of communicating without Elias watching, which is mostly him subtly hiding them in the Lonely

(’why do you and Jon have secret special powers that’s not fair,’ Tim goes)

(’because we went through literal hell??? and also didn’t die??? idk maybe if we keep you from dying you will also get special powers but seriously Tim they are very evil these are Evil Powers we don’t want them they just kind of happened to us in the process of trying to survive,’ Martin goes.)

‘so what is the plan,’ Sasha goes. ‘like besides us not dying how are you actually going to deal with the real apocalypse’

‘well we want to kill Elias but we haven’t figured that out yet because he’s watching our every move perfectly and if we’re not acting like he think we should act he’ll dispose of us and start again with a new Archivist,’ Martin goes.

‘okay but like in your story there is a part where Peter Lukas personally escorts you to the panopticon and tells you to kill Elias/Jonas and you go no and Elias wins the bet,’ Sasha says. ‘what if you just murder him then, he says he wasn’t going to stop you and if he tries you’ve got another Avatar backing you up’

‘huh we didn’t think of that,’ Martin goes. ‘why didn’t we think of that. I swear there is a Very Good Reason we didn’t think of that. um. uh. there’s also the problem anyone working in the Archives will die if he dies unless they are powerfully enough connected the Ceaseless Watcher which is like. MAYBE Jon.’

‘W H Y did you not lead with that,’ Tim goes

‘yeah I really agree you should have led with that,’ Sasha goes

‘this has been a very stressful time and we have been doing our best and right also everyone can quit they just need to blind themselves to do it,’ Martin goes. ‘or I guess pledge allegiance to a different evil god but that is really unpleasant you have to sacrifice fear to it or you starve’

(’okay why did you not lead with--’ Sasha goes. ‘I’m starting to really see some benefits for being an evil fear-monster,’ Tim goes. ‘Like we could be ethical evil fear-monsters. like ethical vampires. only scare really shitty terrible people who deserve it and, like, scare but not kill.’)

(Martin looks like he is about to cry.)

(’okay maybe not p l e a s e stop making that face I cannot stand your puppy-dog-but-also-on-the-verge-of-tears eyes,’ Tim goes)

(Sasha stops death-glaring at him as Martin looks slightly less like he is about to cry.)

‘so everyone loves rituals what if we, like. construct a secret ritual. that you’re saying Jon is dumb powerful chosen one Avatar right so let’s just, like. switch over being the ‘Heart of the Institute’ from Jonah to him. big proper paperwork ritual passing on of ownership claiming his position as Jonah’s heir or something,’ Sasha says

‘that seems like just the sort of bullshit that might actually work. Sasha you are the smartest person in the world and I’m pretty sure the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened if you had survived the Prentiss attack,’ Martin says

‘actually honestly Gertrude wanted you as her replacement that sounds very true and is probably why Elias didn’t choose you,’ Jon says. he has entered the room at this point as he was curious where literally all of his assistants had wandered off to. he does actually have work to get done the Archives are A Mess and Martin has been gone at this point for far longer than it takes to Make Tea so he figured something might be up and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s finding Martin in the Lonely

‘real rude to not let us in on this,’ Tim goes. ‘also are you SURE this is not a weird Leitner fucking with you’

‘we’ve obsessively kept track of the things that are supposed to be happening and they’re all happening on the right days and stuff,’ Jon goes.

‘okay so let’s stop like two apocalypses and not die,’ Sasha goes.

the rest of the fic is everyone subtly not-so-subtly trying to recreate the exact timeline while also making events Less Terrible while also trying to seem Not Too Competent

because this is a fic there’s gotta be adorable ridiculous fluff so everyone decides that the Cover Story in case Elias thinks people are acting weird has got to be Jon and Martin starting to secretly date

(Jon and Martin are in absolute h e l l over this and it is a hilarious comedy of errors because they didn’t tell everyone else that they got together they both decided that was too private so everyone else is aggressively trying to actually matchmake them through this all and they’re now too embarrassed to drop the act because Sasha has been giving them hell every time they have accidentally withheld information from her so it’s like. three layers of fake dating.)

(Elias decides all this drama is simultaneously the funniest thing he’s ever seen but also kind of a Bad Distraction and is subtly trying to break them up but doesn’t want to mess with things too much because he is Very Impressed with all the ‘progress’ Jon is making)

(Jon who is a complete badass and is mostly desperately attempting not to reveal all his powers)

(there are also a lot of different things that can go various ways. like do Basira and Melaine still join the Institute? I think they all read the book and make Informed Decisions about their futures but I have not decided yet what those Informed Decisions are. Daisy learns how to control Hunt powers without it overwhelming her, because Tim is totally right about it being possible to be an ethical fear-monster although as Jon and Martin can draw from the fear of the apocalypse-world they don’t really need it so it’s just a question of whether or not I want to give everyone else cool powers. we’re in a fix-it fic everyone gets cool powers without terrible consequences Because I Say So)

(Elias doesn’t give them trouble over this because he is delighted that he’s kind of collecting avatars of other Entities because it makes it really easy to make sure Jon has marks and he thinks this is his genius plan going even better than expected)

we get to episode 158

Martin really wants to dramatically kill Elias i m m e d i a t e l y but is waiting for a walkie-talkie signal that the ritual above is going as planned so he stumbles through all of the dialogue the same

“Then do it. Kill him and help me save the world.” Peter goes

Martin pauses in silence because oops there’s really not that much more Avoiding he can do

“No” Martin says.

Elias starts to laugh.

The Signal Comes Through

‘fUCK YEAH,’ Martin says. ‘F I N A L L Y. I am murdering him and I’m saving the world but this isn’t for you, asshole, and Imma deal with you next.’

stabbity stab

it’s very satisfying

‘okay but what do you mean it’s not for me, you’re supposed to sit in the chair and help me look for the Extinction?’ Peter goes

‘nah fuck that I’m from the future and I do what I want that was me stopping the Jonah Magnus’s final ritual,’ Martin goes. ‘you really think I fell for that Extinction bullshit you aren’t nearly as good a liar as you think you are, you stay right there and we’ll decide what to do with you when everyone gets down here it’s Jon’s Institute now and we’re both very pissed at you’

Peter tries to escape into the Lonely

it Does Not Work as Martin has More Angst than Peter to draw from so is Way More Powerful

everyone gets down there

ritual worked nobody died!

‘okay but why DON’T we try to look for the Extinction.’ Sasha says. ‘that seems to be a pretty important thing to stop.’

at this point everyone agrees Sasha has the best ideas

have I mentioned that every single female character is very gay for Sasha

quite frankly maybe Tim too

Sasha is a Badass and this fic portrays her as Gertrude Robinson’s Rightful Heir

she Deserves Good Things

and she is Gonna Stop All Future Apocalypses so actually going through with Peter’s plan is maybe not a terrible idea

they do the thing but in a careful way that traps no one in the chair and get the info

the Extinction is still very stoppable

there are lots of ways but honestly the best way to do it is to manipulate humanity into actually Being Better and not being on the brink of extinction

‘this is my Institute now let’s use it to fucking save the world,’ Jon goes

and they use all their knowledge and power to go from being a massive conspiracy about causing the apocalypse to being a massive conspiracy about bringing kindness and preventing wars and stopping the rise of fascism in politics and poking humanity from behind the scenes into something Better that can Rise Above its fears

and everyone lives happily ever after

but yeah this entire fic is around the premise of ‘what if the actual fix-it isn’t Change Everything To Stop Bad Things From Happening it’s Keep Everything The Same Until We’re Handed The Opportunity To Stab Jonah On A Silver Platter And Then Take It’ which I have yet to see a fic do and oops that kind of grew away from me there but anyways that’s it that’s the fic

#tma #the magnus archives #gods I have so many fics but I'm mildly tempted to write this one anyways #maybe if the ending of tma ends up being very sad I will write it #can I write a SINGLE fic without weird time travel bullshit happening?#no #no I cannot

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pooklet · 5 years

Photo

1, 2: lol it’s ok anon! i’m glad u found it cuz i would have been no help. my sims puke purple glitter. and ty for the well wishes! :D hope u have a great day too.

3: hmmmm it might be the photoshop version you’re using? cuz i have no idea if later versions are compatible with my actions. i’m not sure how to go about fixing this cuz im still using photoshop cs3 (don’t have the $$ for anything newer) so there’s a fair chance my actions use commands that no longer work the same/at all. there’s not much i can do about this from my end, but if you’re willing to try another program, there’s the GIMP version by @iakoasims!

4: aww, thank you anon!! it was so sweet of you to send this and to think of us. :D :D :D im sorry this response is so profoundly late!

5: mnope! i’m sorry but i don’t know who that is and don’t have their textures! you should probably ask them about it.

6: oh shit that is TOTALLY my bag!! thank u for letting me know, anon! i will def check it out.

7: i’m sorry anon, i don’t use a lot of facial hair so i can’t be of much help :( i feel like i have seen some facial hair in unnatural colors (not necessarily mine tho idk) but i have no idea where to find it. all i learned from searching for “pookleted beards” is that google is really certain i’m actually looking for “pickled birds.”

8: it’s def not you, anon, i gotta overhaul that whole set of actions cuz my explanation was so opaque and unhelpful that i don’t even remember how to do it. just know that if you export from the brow files i made, you will have a bumpmap to play around with, so any existing tutorials on how to edit bumpmaps should hopefully be helpful for giving them a more dynamic/3d look. i’ve been planning on updating all my eyebrows anyway cuz i mostly use unnatural colors now, so hopefully when i do i can write up a better tutorial! sorry bout that.

9: @cakehatwombat we have an instagram now but it’s kind of sparse cuz of a sudden avalanche of IRL health issues that have been keeping me in bed most of the day, with azayawife too busy takin care of me to do her own doll stuff. but! i had a procedure that will hopefully help with the pain and make it easier to get up and do stuff, both dolls and sims. and omg thank you. being married to azaya is literally my favorite fucking thing in the entire world!! def the goodest, purest thing in my life.

10: oh anon, i’m so sorry to hear that. :( i hope you are doing better in the ridiculously long time i took to answer this. i’ve been sitting on your ask for ages just tryin to figure out what to say. it’s really hard for me to give generalized advice for relationships cuz like ....... this is the only one i’m in. i don’t know how others would work, just how we work. which is by being best friends and having been that for years before we got together. we both wanted to find The One and marry the crap out of them and be attached at the hip all the way to the grave. and it’s cuz we both wanted that from day one that i think it has worked out so well.

like, it’s one thing to change and grow together, something you should definitely do, but it’s another to give your heart to someone who has to change before they’re worthy of it, you know?? if you don’t want the same things going into the relationship, you won’t have a strong enough foundation to build on. it also helped a lot that my psychologist was one of our staunchest supporters, even when very close members of our family were uh .............. less than pleased about us getting queer married. and thought they were doing the right thing by telling us we shouldn’t be together or pointing out perceived flaws that were just rooted in their own homophobic fears. having someone in our corner, someone objective who knew how to spot an unhealthy relationship versus a healthy one and assured us that ours was the latter, made it possible to tune out those family members, tell them that we loved them but that they needed to work out their shit on their own time, and get back to us when they could be a positive, supportive influence in our lives. obvs this is not relevant if u have a family that supports u and yr identity 100% already, but for us it was so crucial.

so ... yeah. i’m sorry if this was not helpful! i really don’t know how else to answer other than that u should a) be with someone who wants the same kind of relationship that you do, b) have folks outside the relationship that you trust to give you objective feedback, and c) never settle for anything less than someone that you would trust with all the weird shit in your browser history.

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composereggwrites · 5 years

Text

Love will not break your Heart (but dismiss your Fears)

Chapter 2: just let me go (we'll meet again soon)

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Rating: T

Characters/Ships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Alice “Daisy” Tonner/Basira Hussain, Gerard Keay, Gertrude Robinson

Additional: Reincarnation AU, Soul Bond, Team as Family, Autistic Jon, Post-Canon Fix-it, Childhood Friends, Hurt/Comfort

They stand in the Panopticon, fire raining down from the sky, as the Eye stares down at them.

Jon takes Martin’s hand in his.

A wedding, a death, a fire, and Tim.

Chapter: 1 | 2 (below)

Ao3: 1 | 2

They stand in the Panopticon, fire raining down from the sky, as the Eye stares down at them.

Jon takes Martin’s hand in his.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Martin?” he asks, one last time, because fear has made a home in his heart. A palace in his bones.

“Jon,” Martin says, looking him in the eyes, so full of determination, filled with warmth, with love. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Sap,” he mutters, but a smile creeps onto his face nonetheless. “We’ve already left the message for the girls, and well… This is really it, isn’t it?”

“Got cold feet?” Martin asks with a laugh.

“Always,” he snorts. “You’ve felt them when we’ve slept. You’re the space heater between the two of us.”

Heart beating in his chest, Jon takes Martin’s hands. The world is crumbling in every direction. A year of this hell has been far too long. Searching, aching for answers, for a way to fix the devastation he has wrought-- no, the devastation Jonah Magnus used him to usher into the world.

Jonah Magnus, who, like the rest of the institute, is no more than a pile of ash at their feet now. Martin had been quite happy to have the honor of setting that blaze.

It’s touching, in a way. Finding the answer on how to set them both free, and Martin chooses to do it for him. No more ash on Jonathan’s hands.

(He’s more than a little fragile, at the end of the world, but he could’ve been the one to do it. The one to bring Magnus to the ground. That he didn’t have to means more than he can express with words. Martin has always been looking out for him, even when he was too much a fool to realize).

The Web’s strings hang heavy in the air around them, coated with the remnants of their old life, of their meeting. But the Mother of Puppets doesn’t have control of all these ties. Jon’s body is linked to everything now, the perfect conduit of fear. The lynch-pin in this hellscape. Take him out, and the rest crumbles. The issue is in managing to kill a near-immortal Archive.

Martin has always been his anchor. He never needed that rib, Jon gets that now. And this is something they can use. Here.

“Martin, I love you,” Jon starts. “You keep me grounded. When I start to fall apart, you hold me together. Even as I dealt with the end of the world rather badly, you drew me back out of my shell. I promise to be at your side forever more, I promise to return the favor. You are not just a caretaker, you deserve to be taken care of, and I will be there for you. I am here, with you, as we stand, united.”

Martin is already tearing up, as his hands shake in Jon’s grasp. “Jon,” he says, with a waver in his voice. “I love you. I know, it was a long time coming. Back when we were both researchers, I thought I could ignore this little crush, because that’s what it was. But you’re so kind, underneath that abrasive exterior. You pretended that nothing could get to you, that you at most tolerated the people around you, but I could see through that.”

He takes a shuddering breath. “I’m with you, until the end of time. I tie myself to you like I’ve done a hundred thousand times before, in less words. In actions. Every step we take together has brought us here, bound to each other at the end of the world, and I wouldn’t do this any other way.”

The strings around them pull taught, smash them together. Jon clings to Martin. Holds him tight as the web holds them tighter. It hurts, the Eye observing this, burning through them as he clings for dear life, but observation just makes it real. The Web tries to resist, but Jon pulls harder, pulls the strings of his own design, and lets them bind.

A thousand stars scream in the sky, but the roar of the still-burning fire is louder. The pounding of his heart in his ears louder still. Or maybe that’s Martin’s. He can’t really tell anymore, as their hearts beat to the same tune, in the same time.

As the pain dies down, he can feel Martin, there in his chest. An ache subdued by his presence at his side. A new hole carved and filled with love, with his anchor.

Jon laughs, hysterical, for just a second. Tears on his cheeks until Martin puts his hands on his shoulders, steadying him.

“Ready for the next step?” Martin asks, worry flooding his voice, and oh, he can feel that in his heart. All the concern for him, bubbling over the edges of the pot. It makes him gasp, legs trembling, and all he can do is grip Martin back. It’s all he can do to not drown in the Tsunami of Martin, the whirlpool with them both at the center.

“Give--Give me a second, yeah?” he whispers. “Don’t tell me when.”

“Oh,” Martin replies, no doubt feeling the outpouring of gratitude. “Yeah, alright.”

They hold each other. Letting the waves of emotion crash down, drowning out the fear, out the pain. Held close together. This is what matters.

Then--

Pain.

Sharp, biting pain. Driven into his chest.

Blood meets his lips as he coughs, his own sharpened rib embedded in his heart, by Martin’s trembling hand.

As Jonathan Sims falls, he holds Martin’s hand, and wishes he could muster the energy to wipe those tears away.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, as the door in his mind becomes a vacuum, sucking all the fear out of him, waves of love and safety and peace replacing the frostbite of terror. “We’ll meet again, yeah?”

Martin nods. He sits down by Jon, and kisses him, ignoring the iron taste. Ignoring the poison that he takes from Jon’s mouth.

The fire closes in, and consumes them. But there is no fear. No pain.

The world bends.

Good cows stand in a field, and no Eye bears down from the sky. No people scream in terror on that day.

Four bodies are found dead in The Magnus Institute, and the world dreams of a year that never happened. A year of fear and pain burying itself deep in their hearts.

A year that will never come to pass.

And Jonathan Barker-King wakes up.

---

Jonathan has always been an odd child.

Georgie and Melanie knew this when adopting him.

But that doesn’t change the fact that one night, when he’s twelve years old, Melanie can feel him shaking her awake.

She rolls over, facing him. “Mm, what is it?” she murmurs, knowing the shaky hands as someone who is afraid.

Jon’s voice is heavy, edged with static, and Melanie wishes she could see his face, as he says, “There will be fire. We need to leave.”

That gets her out of bed, kicking Georgie awake.

“Mel, what’s wrong?” her wonderful, sleepy wife groans.

“Up up up, now! Phone Basira, tell her we don’t know how much time we all have, but we need to go.” She tries to keep her voice level, urgent but hushed.

It gets Georgie up, at least. Springing to her feet. “I’ll get the emergency bags. Fuck. Alright. Guess it couldn’t last forever.”

Melanie makes sure she’s holding Jon’s hand, as she leads him back to his room, digging out the always-packed travel bag hidden there. Filled with clothes and food and money, and for him, some books he’s shoved into it. “Pack up your laptop and anything else you want that will fit, alright?” she says, soft.

“Got it, mom,” he replies. “Go take care of what you need to. I’ll be out in five minutes. That’s the plan, yeah?”

She nods at him. “Very intelligent, you are.”

And then she dashes, grabbing her own bags and the keys, tossing them all in the trunk of the car. Important documents, keepsakes she knows they wouldn’t be able to bear losing, anything irreplaceable. From the the meowing coming from the back seat, it sounds like Georgie had managed to catch The Admiral and bundle him into the cat carrier, too. The stubborn old cat refused to die of old age or illness, but Desolation’s flames might be enough to do the trick, and none of them would want to risk it.

There’s sounds from the house next door, and that reassures her that Daisy and Basira are up now, no doubt going through the same protocol they’d set in place for just this event. Hopefully it’s a fluke, but they can’t take that chance.

If it’s the past coming back to haunt them, with fire and flames, then they can’t afford to wait.

In ten minutes Georgie is at the wheel, and the car roars to life. Basira is getting the last of the Hussain-Tonner bags in their car, Martin bundled away in the back no doubt.

“Can I say goodbye?” Jon whispers, and Melanie sighs.

“Sorry, kiddo, but we gotta go.” She reaches out, holding his hand between the seats, as they peel out, headed far away.

He’s quiet, solemn. After five minutes of quiet, he sighs. “That’s alright. I’ll see him again, someday.”

“Yeah, no doubt about that,” she whispers back.

The next morning, their houses are on the news, as they watch in their hotel room, a hundred miles away. A fire, a roaring blaze, arson. But no bodies to be found.

“It was Jude, no doubt,” whispers Georgie, while Jon is fast asleep.

She nods. “Guess we tested our luck too long, staying in one place like that. If Jon hadn’t… Known. Then we might’ve been dead by now.”

“I’m worried,” Georgie sighs. “About him, about Martin. They-- We’re right, yeah? They saved the world together, and it involved a soulbond. They were both absolutely miserable before they saw each other that first time.”

Leaning her head on her wife, Melanie says, “Yeah, but… We’ll just have to make do, for now. Keep an eye out on them both. I think it might be a good idea to keep them separate, no contact, otherwise they’ll be sneaking out to the car some day and meeting each other halfway.”

Georgie snorts. “That’s absolutely something this Jon here would do. We’ve really spoiled him, huh?”

“From what I understand, we’ve been parenting just fine,” she says back, a roll of her unseeing eyes. “It’s his grandma who gave him all that childhood trauma last time. And a Leitner, what the fuck? How do you let an eight year old get his hands on one of those?”

That gets a full blown laugh. “Yeah, alright, you’re right. We’ve probably fucked him up somehow, but he’s not nearly as fucked up as when either of us first met him. Man, he needed some intensive therapy.”

---

Tim Stoker looks at the new-hire one time, and after the thought of I’m going to flirt with him so much passes through his head, another pops in of, wait that’d be weird--

Why?

He stares. Jonathan, the name tag reads, and why is that so familiar?

“Welcome aboard the library crew, my man!” He says out loud, giving a casual grin. “What’s a pretty boy such as yourself doing here?”

“You’re quite the flirt, Tim,” he says back with a laugh. “Sorry, not in the market right now. I’m not really… I’m not interested, mostly.”

He holds up his hands. “Hey, all cool, no worries, Jonny-boy.”

That gets a snort. “Call me Jon, nothing like that, please.”

“Got it, boss. Still haven’t answered my question,” he says.

“Oh, well…” Jon takes out a pen from his pocket, and twists it around his fingers, spinning to and fro. “I’m going to be working down in the archives, mostly. Gertrude’s taking me on as an… Well, an intern, I guess? Assistant? It pays decent, and it’s my chosen field, so… It’s a good chance.”

Tim nods. Opportunistic. Not many people get to work with good ole’ Gerty. “She works in the paranormal department yeah? That oughta be fun.”

“Parapsychology, specifically,” he says back. “With a focus currently in the not-apocalypse. Lots of info on that still to be gathered.”

“So you’re interested in spooky stuff, awesome!” Tim laughs. “You gotta tell me all the weird things. We should do a scary movie night sometime together.”

Jon stares at him, as if trying to piece together some mysterious puzzle. With big eyes, intense eyes, meeting his, looking into him, in a way that he hasn’t felt since--since--

A nasty migraine is forming in the back of Tim’s head.

Jon looks away.

“Sure, why not? You're off shift now, though, right? You should get to your class.”

“How did you--?” he starts to ask, but Jon has already descended the stairs into the archives.

The pain doesn’t go away, as he makes his way through math. It’s all numbers and easy problems. A blur as the teacher speaks, and he can’t focus. There’s something he’s forgetting. A nagging sense at the back of his mind, and he’d ask Sasha, or his roommate Martin for some help, except that seems like a very bad idea right now. He doesn’t know why. But it does.

Crashing onto his bed as soon as he gets back to his dorm is the best idea. Martin will assume he’s been out having fun, and he can sleep this stabbing agony off.

It almost works, too.

Fire, fire, so much fire.

Danny--who is Danny?-- Danny dead. The world a mess. Revolving around him in Stranger ways.

Falling apart.

Sasha is Not Sasha. Jonathan Sims is a Monster.

Martin is a stubborn fool.

The world blurs.

Explosions ring in his ears.

Tim Stoker r e m e m b e r s . . .

Shooting upright with a gasp, Tim stumbles out of bed. It had only been a few hours, but if anything the migraine has gotten worse.

He runs to the toilet, puking up whatever's in his stomach from that morning. Dizzy as another wave of nausea hits.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

There’s a knock on the door, and Martin -- Martin Blackwood, Martin Hussain-Tonner, fucking Martin -- is there, asking if he’s okay, in that kind way he always has.

“Yeah--” his voice cracks. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Just some bad food.”

“Alright,” comes the reply. “Let me know if you need some help.”

“Got it,” he croaks. And then he’s alone.

Sitting on the cold tile, he holds his head in his hands, groaning.

He needs to contact someone.

Who?

Jon--? No. Not Jon, not yet. It was Jon’s presence that did this to him, no doubt, but he didn’t seem to actually know Tim.

Gertrude, maybe?

Fuck it, Gertrude it is. He has her number, she’s his boss, after all.

^Hey, Gerty, I think my head just died. Absolutely exploded with pain. Not coming in tomorrow.^

Not the most formal, but she hasn’t minded before.

^Well, I hope you feel better, Tim. Remember to check in if you’re staying out too long. It’ll be a circus here, otherwise, if we’re understaffed.^

“Fuck,” he hisses out again, because she definitely remembers. And she knows what happened.

^Mind filling me in on how the circus is doing?”

^They’re all in bits and pieces. It was quite the display, or so I hear. I have the tapes, if you want to listen to them.^

Of course she does.

^Sure, I’ll grab them on my next shift, sound good?^

^See you then. Feel better, Tim.^

He does.

Looking at Sasha now, it’s bizarre. A deep pit in his stomach, knowing he forgot her, believed the Not!Sasha had been her for so long. It doesn’t sit right.

As he makes his way down the steps to the archive, he finds her following. A few feet before the door, he turns to look at her.

“Need to speak to Gertrude too?”

She blinks, crossing her arms. “If I do, it’s none of your business.”

A snort escapes him. “Learning how to be abrasive from our lovely head archivist?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You know, he wasn’t really that bad. I mean, I totally got killed during the worm thing, so whatever you went through, I guess I still need to find out, but… He was trying his best,” she says, nonchalant as she picks at her fingers.

“Did seeing him give you the worst migraine of two lives too, then?”

“Absolutely. I thought I was dying. Turns out I had!”

They both start to laugh. He bumps his shoulder against her. “God I missed ya, Sash. Things went whack without you there.”

“Did the two lovebirds ever manage to work out their problems?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

“Not before I got exploded! Shit got weird. Honestly, you missed a lot of stuff. I--Well I’d fill you in, but whatever tapes Gertrude has will probably do that for me,” Tim says, gesturing back to the door.

“Listening party?” Sasha suggests, as she steps forward to open it.

“Sure, maybe the trauma of listening to our own deaths will be easier with a friend and some good wine. Gotta be at your place though, cuz Martin doesn’t know.” He steps in with her.

Gertrude looks at them, a box set on the empty chair. “Take it, have fun. I believe it’ll do the job enough to fill you in.”

“Thanks Gerty! We’ll get them back to ya’ when we’re done!” Tim says, giving a wave as Sasha scoops up the box. He can feel her hatred of the nickname, but it’s far too late to stop him from using it now.

They pick up on tape 39, conveniently labeled in order by Gertrude no doubt, for Sasha’s sake.

It’s awful.

She’d been spared the paranoia, the depths Jon had been plunged into.

They stop on tape 50, for the night. It hurts too much to keep going.

---

Jon wakes up from his nightmare.

Shaking, terror coursing through his veins. Memories he can’t remember. He’s not a fool.

Reincarnation was part of what he’d studied, while looking into parapsychology. No conclusive evidence, of course, that’s impossible to get. Almost everything presented as esoteric is false. The most true subjects tend to involve the apocalypse, and even then, it’s not a sure shot.

But they always involve dreams. Dreams of memories. Past lives mean past memories, trying to find their way to the present.

And his dreams have been getting worse.

But that’s ridiculous, right? Utterly ridiculous. He’s being superstitious. Gullible. There’s never been proof of reincarnation adequately presented. To think he had a past life is to give into the folly of the people he criticizes.

(He knows, deep in his soul, that some things are true. He can’t discount everything.

But there’s no need to let this knowledge consume him.)

Jon sighs, sitting up. It wouldn’t do to dwell on this, not when he has a test today that he needs to last-minute cram for.

His phone lights up by his side, though, and he picks it up. Blinking blearily at the screen in confusion before yesterday hits him.

^Hey Jon! Good morning! How are you doing?^

From the contact of Martin!!

A smile spreads over his face, dragging him out of bed and through his morning routine. Food. Toothbrushing. Clothes. Heading out for his class early, instead of almost late for once.

^I’m good, Martin. I have a test today, soon. Going to study for that. How about you?^

The reply comes almost instantly, which drops a small pit in his stomach, because martin’s first text had been two hours before Jon had gotten up.

^I’m good too! Thanks for asking! I’m working on an essay right now, but nothing super important.^

^Well, don’t let me keep you from your work.^ He’d feel bad if he were the reason Martin got a bad grade. It’d be awful.

^Nah, I don’t really need to worry about this class. I’m passing with a 96% right now, and I’m one of the only people who talks in class. Like, during the discussions and all!^

^Teacher’s pet, are you?^

Jon can picture the little laugh Martin does at this, scrunched up nose and crinkled eyes. ^Better than failing, that’s for sure. You’re absolutely someone who sits in the back of the class and does his best to avoid conversation, though, aren’t you?^

He chuckles, smiling. Then he rubs his neck, glancing around as he walks to make sure no one is staring. There’s the usual bustle of people, but no one looking at him. Just leaves falling in the breeze, and the nip of the autumn air. He’s good, so far, but it’d be dangerous to keep this up inside.

(He might not care, because this is Martin. Self-consciousness be damned.)

^Yeah, you’ve got me pinned.^ he says back.

^I hide behind my laptop screen whenever I can, studiously take notes, and never talk to another living soul if I can avoid it.^

^Wow, what a nerd :P^

^Can’t believe my best friend is a nerd :P^

Jon has to take a second to pause, sigh, and roll his eyes, because Martin, please. ^You mean the same friend who would spend hours recounting books he’d read to you in perfect detail? Or the friend who once asked their teacher for more homework because he was bored? That friend?^

^Absolutely.^

^What a shock.^

^I’ve been completely betrayed by your sudden nerdom that has arisen in the past 11 years that I have totally never encountered before.^

That tugs a full-fledged laugh out of Jon, and he has to duck onto a less-used path behind a building to hide for a full minute, because Jonathan Sims does not randomly laugh at his phone in public.

When the coast is clear, he keeps walking, and slips into the building with the ease of someone whose had classes in it for three years already. He navigates to his classroom and takes his (unofficial) seat in the back, pulling out his notes and pretending like he’s studying, not thinking about Martin.

^I feel like I’m not the only nerd in this conversation.” The text sends as a quick reply, and then he follows it up with: ^Also, in class now. Going to study. Chat later?^

^Of course! Let me know when you’re free! See ya :D^

He rubs his face, setting his phone to silent and in his bag, trying to scrub away the blush that must be rising to his cheeks.

Martin is… So Martin.

Over the past decade Jon had wanted so much to reconnect with his old friend. An ache in his chest, screaming until all he knew was the noise, yearning to find him. Fixated on the missing piece until the misery became background radiation in his life, his new normal. Settled deep in his bones. Uncomfortable weight buried in his skin, just enough to fade into his usual, everyday pain. There, but not the focus.

(Not usually. There were some days, some nights, where the loss of Martin dug its claws in. His body full of hooks and they pulled. As if trying to tug him closer. Back to Martin.

He almost followed it, a few times. Deep in his mind, a haze of the gaping hole, guiding his feet onto an unknown path. But he never went far. Always turned around and walked back home. His moms raised him well, he knows better than to be alone.

College the first year was scary. Terror welling in his throat. New people, new places. Too many unknowns.)

One small, niggling little voice in Jon’s head, a voice filled with the needles of anxiety, had tried to tell him that Martin wouldn’t be the same. That if they ever reunited, Martin wouldn’t care about him. Or maybe, maybe the years had warped his thoughts, his understanding of who his friend was. An idealized image instead of the real person.

But he also remembers Martin fretting over him when Jon fell ill. Spending the night out of worry, sneaking in through his window to bring him medicine at midnight.

He remembers Martin listening as Jon rambled, and then rambling in turn. Jon knows so much about spiders to this day, because Martin had found a book and read all about it to him.

He remembers the poetry, still scrawled in notebooks and on pieces of paper he refused to throw away. Packed into that bag as from the fire they escaped.

That voice in his head never held any real sway.

But it’s nice to be proven right, for a change.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #georgie barker #melanie king #jonmartin #what the girlfriends #gelanie #guess who realized they never posted this to tumblr!!!#I forgot #pls subscribe on ao3 #that's so much more reliable than following my tumblr I beg of u

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spnfanficpond · 5 years

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October 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with @evansrogerskitten tonight! Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom!

Today, we got together and talked about writing smut! We discussed the legalities around sharing smut on the internet, vocabulary choices, created a spreadsheet of terms we can all share and use, and encouraged each other to not be afraid to just write. A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut. Due to the nature of the chat, there may be some parts of this recap that might be considered NSFW.

To start us off, @mrswhozeewhatsiswrites shared some research into the legalities of posting erotica on the internet as it relates to minors. (We are not legal experts. This information was obtained through Google searches. If anyone can provide links to sources that contradict these, we will add them to this post to ensure the most correct information is provided here.)

Michelle: To try and keep it short and sweet, from everything I read, if a minor reads smut online, it's not the writer's, poster's, or web site's responsibility to keep it from them. It is the parent's, or the school's/library's responsibility. (Basically, whoever is providing the internet connection to the minor is responsible for filtering out content that might be harmful to that minor, not the parties creating or disseminating that content online.) Schools and libraries and other institutions that get government funds are usually required to have some sort of filter in place to prevent minors from accessing porn and erotica.

What makes this so difficult to research is that written erotica is not mentioned very often in obscenity laws. Most laws focus on images or videos, not the written word.

No matter what it is, though, to be prosecuted under obscenity laws, the material must first be ruled to be obscene. Legally, there is a difference between obscenity and erotica. Obscenity is generally illegal, and erotica is protected speech. There are many different sets of rules and guidelines that have been used to determine if something is considered obscene or not. The most widely used current set of guidelines is the Miller test. From my research, most (if not all) erotic fan fiction would not be considered obscene because of its ‘literary, artistic, political, or scientific value’.

Some interesting links in relation to this subject that go into detail:

Wikipedia - US Obscenity Law - About halfway down, there is a section on non image-based obscenity cases in the US. The first part of this section, which deals with the written word, is very enlightening about the differences between obscenity and erotica. Further down is a section about criticism of the laws which shows some of the gaps in the law where free speech lives. Continuing on, the section about censorship in schools and libraries explains the part CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) plays in protecting minors from material that could be considered harmful to them.

Online Art Rights - Sexual Content - This site details the many attempts at limiting indecent material on the internet through the years. (Scroll down and click on the plus signs in the black bars to expand each section.) In each case cited, the court ruled that to ban all objectionable material would interfere with free speech because it would reduce all content to a level appropriate for children. They also concluded that since less restrictive means exist, such as user-controlled filters and the like, those tools can be used without reducing all discourse on the internet. The section on Child Pornography at the bottom might be of interest to anyone who writes Weecest smut, though.

The only possible exception that I think would affect the SPN fandom would be those who write Weecest smut. Child pornography seems to be the exception to every rule that protects free speech. Where every other depiction of a sex act might have a ‘but’ that makes it erotica (and therefore legal) instead of obscenity, child pornography in any medium is considered obscenity. Anything that even just looks like child porn is considered child porn, even if no children were a part of the making of it. This includes cartoons and CGI and adults made up to look like kids. If it’s advertised as children in a sexual situation, it’s child porn. So, I imagine it could extend to written erotica IF someone were to decide to push it.

Now, that’s a huge if. Someone would have to read it, object to it, and insist on prosecution for it. I think if that were going to happen, given 15 years of SPN fan fiction, it would have happened by now. But I would still keep my Weecest smut-free, or implied, or at least over the age of consent (which varies, so 18 is just easiest to use).

Also, AO3 complies with the laws regarding filtering for minors. If you do not have an account, you are required to click through a step that tells you that you are about to view something explicit. That's really all that sites and such are required to do. Hence, Tumblr making you click through and view on dash blogs they mark as explicit.

@emilyshurley I think there might also be a sorta solution just to play it safe. I saw that people who make mods for games like Sims 4 and stuff have a page for terms of download. What that is is that if you click their masterlist it will take you to a post where they list their conditions and have the words "I agree" and link the actual masterlist to that. Now this might take a little effort but we could add something similar before our masterlists.

This is all legal stuff, not site-specific rules. Each site can implement their own decency rules and enforce them how they see fit. For example, Tumblr, as a company, can decide to delete your blog. (They’ve stopped doing this since The Purge, now just marking each blog explicit and making you click on a couple things to get to those blogs they deem explicit.) Should they choose to do this, it does not mean that you’re in trouble with the law.

Now, onto the fun stuff!

Q: What is the first thing you think of when someone asks you for advice about writing smut?

Ash: Word choice- don't make the reader cringe. It's easy to fall into that because smut can be graceful and tasteful if it's done right. And that starts with thinking through word choice and how the scene is flowing. It's not easy to write smut! I think a lot of non-writer readers do not realize that.

Note: During the chat, we created a Google Sheets spreadsheet, with two sheets in it, with lists of words to use to refer to different things when you’re writing smut. The first sheet is Good Words, and the second sheet is Bad Words. Everyone can enter words they like and don’t like on both sheets, and we’ll crowd-source this problem! Check it out and add your favorites!

Michelle: A smut scene takes ten times as long for me to write as anything else. Just keeping track of limbs is difficult! And clothing....sometimes, I just make them dry hump so I don't have to deal with removing all the clothing! Other times, it's just, "Somehow, you suddenly found yourself naked." Like, there's a million great ways to get characters naked, but if I'm tired, angels snap.

@fictionalabyss (Mel): I've read stuff where a position makes no sense and it ruins the whole thing for me. Michelle: I actually bought a couple of those posable dolls from IKEA. (IKEA - GESTALTA, Artist’s figure) @babypieandwhiskey (Cam): I’ll have to use my daughter’s old Barbie dolls! I can keep track of both limbs and clothing!

Q: Ash, what are a few of the words that turn you off when you're reading smut?

Ash: It's usually words that sound so "romance novel"-ish to me. So "turgid member" is a good example. Please no one ever write that. Mel: Sometimes, keeping it simple is the safest and best bet. Ash: Absolutely, Mel! Sometimes we don't need all the extra words if we're showing the heat that's already there between them.

[What followed was a long discussion of various terms you definitely should not use in serious smut. They’ve all been added to the spreadsheet linked above, so fee free to check it out.]

Michelle: EVERYONE has those words that squick them, and it's damn near impossible to write a smut scene that doesn't include a word that will squick someone out there. So, don't stress about what words you do or don't use, cuz there's always gonna be someone out there who doesn't like something. Just make sure YOU think what you're writing is hot. If you don't get warm under the collar from it, no one else will, either. Ash: I highly recommend everyone is reading their fics out loud to see how it all flows. You'll catch errors and weird words there too.

Q: Ash, how do you get in the frame of mind to write something you personally have never experienced? For example, certain kinks.

Ash: Whiskey? LOL No, I do a lot of research- google, porn, erotica. Trying something out in person helps too! But we're writing fiction. You can make a kink work for your scenario too.I mean, I've written a reader squirting after 5 minutes to move things along but we all know it takes longer usually. And that's the fun! I've never actually been with 2 dudes but I f-ing love writing it. @atc74 (Angelina): I've always said I don't need to kill someone to write a murder scene. Ash: Smut is all about having an open mind. It lets us and the readers be someone else.

Question submitted earlier by @erins-culinary-service: I've wanted to try writing smut but never known exactly how to start and what words to use to describe everything. I've had sex so I know the sensations, positions, etc I'm just not sure how to write it all down any advice?

Ash: So sometimes I can't just start from "they kissed..." I start wherever I can see it best. So is it oral sex, or already doing it, I just jump in. And then I come back and fill it in. And I just write, no stopping once I get going. So the "cock into her hole" can be fixed later on my next edit. I just gotta get the idea out and then go back and make it hot. My smut is never hot in my first draft. Michelle: I think that's what stops a lot of writers, is thinking they have to publish their first draft. Editing is totally a thing. Just get the ideas on paper, and then make them hot later. Ash: Oh yeah, I go through at least 3 drafts per fic. Plus my beta version. Yeah, no one is ever going to see your drafts so don't worry about starting somewhere, anywhere. Michelle: And remember, practice practice practice - As with any writing, the more you write it, the easier it becomes. I wrote Third Wheel as a way to challenge myself with writing smut. Do a kink bingo or alphabet challenge. Just remember, you’re gonna write crap at the start, but crap makes good compost. Ash: Taking some time between edits is important too. It'll help you see different ways, AND you'll start having breakthroughs during the time away. Bingos are a great challenge that will help a writer grow. Cam: Writing smut is like sex, you're first time is going to be awkward and things won't be perfect, but with practice it gets better. Mel: I have a series that shows even the millionth time having sex isn't perfect and can be all laughs 🤣. But yeah.

Question submitted earlier by @focusonspn: i wanted to know about ways and words to describe orgasms and how to approach the moment after it without being awkward or forced. some people say those are the easiest things to write, but somehow i always have a hard moment trying to write them.

Ash: Hmmmm, as for the moments after- that's understandable, it is hard because its a transition. I think it's doesn't have to be an extended part of it- unless they're about to have a talk or aftercare needs a scene, it can be as simple as "we drifted off to sleep." Michelle: As always, my advice is to read smut that other people write that you like, and take note of what they do. Mel: Someone can get up and get dressed and leave. They can play in the fluids. They can lay there catching their breaths for a moment. It can be simple. Sometimes it doesn't need a flourish and that flourish can make it seem forced. Michelle: I think it depends on what type of smut fic you're writing. Is it fluffy smut where they're all in LOVE and kissy and stuff? Or is it Soulless Sam and Demon Dean just getting down and dirty and claiming you for themselves? Or, Soulless Sam or Demon Dean just getting their rocks off and they don't give a shit? @emilyshurley (Emily): Also this might be my f*cked up brain but I think if someone is not comfortable with a lot of fluffy buildup to smut trying soulless!Sam or Demon!Dean could be a great start. You also have a little room to do a little out of character. Michelle: We are blessed with a world that includes all types of characters and all types of situations, from curses (sex pollen, love potions, etc) to supernatural beings, to inspire and give us chances to write all kinds of smut. There are no limits to what you can do in Supernatural, so there are no limits to what we can write. Ash: Yeah we can really make most kinks work in some way in the SPN worlds. Emily: Also again with going out of character I read a captain America fic where it could have been a little out of character how he jumped straight to sex (someone commented that) but sex pollen made it work. So basically these tropes/kinks can also be good devices for writing NSFW fics to if you struggle to get the characters write in the beginning.

Other links mentioned:

Emily: I saw this advice list on Tumblr, so thought I should share it: List of Smut Writing Guides

Ash: This one, too: @smut-101′s Smut Tips Masterlist

And last, but definitely not least...

Ash: Always, always, always write for you. Readers come and go but you have to be satisfied and proud of what you've written. And everyone should get so much credit for trying to write smut. It's difficult but its does get easier and more fun with practice!

General Pond Updates and Reminders

What we’ve got cooking up next: Not much, at the moment, since everyone is busy, so we’re just trying to keep up with the day-to-day at the moment! Our to do list is still long, though, and will not be neglected forever!

Reminders:

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work! IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

Say hi to September’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the Skype chat room/discord general channel and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details! The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for November’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!

#spnfanficpond live chat #chat room #let's chat #pond chat #THE CHAT ROOM #chat recap #smut #vocabulary

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emathevampire · 5 years

Note

👹💥🌊🍇 for Alexis!

This got kinda long, so I’m gonna put it under a cut here. Alexis is one of the NPCs in my d&d campaign, True Neutral and good at staying that way, so these were actually pretty tough.

👹 How does you OC act around different people and how does their personality change to match the environment they’re in? How do they act with: friends, family, strangers, children or their lover(s)? Alexis is an Amazon, and she’s trans, in a race of people with extremely obvious sexual dimorphism (male Amazons are much less muscular, and usually cap out at 7ft tall maximum, while female Amazons are much taller, between 7 and 9ft. Alexis is 6′5.) so she’s uncomfortable in a lot of spaces in her homeland due to misgendering and sexism from other Amazons (non-Amazons can’t usually tell the difference between the sexes, and are more likely to think she’s some sort of tall weird elf, so it’s less of an issue for her among other races). Though things are better than they were for others like her now, in large part due to her efforts. She’s always on edge in her homeland, which is part of why she likes adventuring. In a dungeon, everyone respects the trap finder. In the city... not always so much. She’s generally quite friendly, being a champion fighter in her guild, but gets very aggressive when strangers make comments they shouldn’t. She’s estranged from her blood related family (stole their relic shield and ran away to join a tribe of Gnolls as a child and never looked back), and doesn’t have many real friends (Aodyni is the closest thing she has to one, and even then, the only reason she’s trying so hard there is out of guilt). She’s a mercenary, and tries to keep things professional: she fought hard to earn the reputation she has, and isn’t about to lose that because she winds up emotionally compromised over her team members. That being said... she’s very protective of others, very loyal, and it shows in the combat styles she pursues, built around perfect teamwork and defense. One whiff of infighting in her party and she gives them a single chance before she forces an intervention. Friendship may not be the tie that binds her, but so help her, this team is NOT falling apart over something that can be fixed by just talking to each other, dammit. No drama. She’ll kill for you, die for you, spelunk through an ooze-infested dungeon for you, but she won’t talk behind another’s back, no matter how much you pay her to. She tries to set a good example for children, and though she doesn’t particularly like them, she doesn’t mind them. Especially if they think she’s a cool adventurer. As for lovers... I don’t really write a whole lot of romance, so I haven’t really explored that for her at all yet. I don’t actually know how it would go! She is available to be romanced as an NPC, potentially, though I don’t think anyone is going to go that route. I have tragically failed to make this campaign a dating sim for anyone except me, it seems...

💥 Are there any emotions your OC doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t understand or hates having to feel? Any reason behind this? She’s actually... pretty darn well put together, emotionally. But she doesn’t handle betrayal well at all, doesn’t like being lied to... her skill set is all built around trusting others, and if anyone were to break that trust, she wouldn’t know how to handle that at all. Hates to feel disrespected or have her efforts go unappreciated, and she isn’t afraid to speak up and be blunt about it when she feels this way. Mostly because she’s dealt with sexist people dismissing her due to her appearance her whole life, and has painstakingly carved out a reputation for herself as a skilled professional. She knows her worth, and she’s not about to take any crap from people who can’t afford it.

🌊 What does your OC do on their days off from working, school or whatever else it is they may do? Do they enjoy relaxing, shopping, hanging out with friends? What is a normal day like for them? Days off usually get spent training for whatever’s next. She enjoys entering tournament fights, meeting new people, learning new things... and more importantly, making money. She’s always on the hunt for her next job. If she didn’t enjoy what she does so much, you might call her a workaholic... but when “work” involves jailbreaks, cat burglary, and dungeon crawling, the term somehow feels less accurate. Relaxing for her usually means getting drinks and dinner with whatever team she just got back from a job with, getting in a brawl... and starting all over again with whatever adventure is next.

🍇 Does your OC have any bad habits? Does your OC have any addictions like smoking or drinking? How did they fall into these habits and why? Bad habits... none of the usual ones, she doesn’t really have any vices. Loves adventuring, but isn’t really a thrill-seeker, doesn’t generally start a fight she can’t finish, either, and she’s a good sport if she ends up losing. Only one I can really think of is that she offers to waive her fee for whoever can beat her in a fight. This is more a pride thing than anything else, and she’s only ever actually lost that wager once. Maybe grudge holding? Insult her once, and not only will she kick your ass for it, she’ll never forget... or forgive. Only thing I can really think of is that she doesn’t just keep people at arm’s length, she keeps them at spear’s length, literally, with a 15ft pole. She doesn’t make friends, she doesn’t want responsibilities, and has a habit of pushing them away with her blunt “We’re not friends, I’m a professional, pay me for my damn services or I’ll find someone who will” attitude. Which may have started as a defence mechanism, but at this point is a bad habit that she’s struggling to unlearn, as she’s faced with an elder evil that can only be defeated by the power of love... so this party of misfit adventurers she’s with has gotta learn how to overcome their differences, traumas, and “We’re Not Friends Just Allies Until This Mess Is Over” attitude real quick, or this is a battle they can’t hope to win. She lost this fight once before when her last team fell apart, and isn’t willing to lose again... though she has no idea how to stop pushing others away, and neither does anyone else.

#rixa's rants #rixa writes #thanks for the ask!! sorry its so long oops #alduinsbanes

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stillgotme · 6 years

Photo

HELLO EVERYONE ok i’m finally doing this after like 84 years lmao

SO yeah several people in the past few months have asked me about my editing process and i said that i’d hopefully do it after gen 2 stuff and since i’m taking a break from gen 2 and wanna stall bc returning to gen 1 will be painful, ya girl got her ass to go through with it. keep in mind, this tutorial is for people who already know the basics of photoshop. if you don’t there’s many tutorials online that’ll help beginners. i’m gonna be editing a pic of val and chance all dressed up and ready to crash a prom to get lit with their homies maggie and eli

*rosanna pansino voice* LET’S GET STARTED

so i use reshade and i believe the version i have is 3.0.7 or something idk but it’s 3.0 and i switch between 3 presets that are my own. the one i use the most started with pickypikachu’s cinematic preset as a base.

now, i know not everyone has reshade, but there’s still a way you can mimic the DOF effect with photoshop. when my stubborn ass edited everything myself all i did was duplicate the photo, apply field blur and adjust the bokeh lighting, added a layer mask and with a brush using the color black, i “colored” in what i didn’t want to be blurry and BOOM ya got that DOF goodness

so for DOF i use either the marty mcfly shader or the matso shader and even both, like in this case. i also love that sweet mxao bc ooh yess them SHADOWS. but unfortunately bc i’ll never ever let go of alpha hair and you’ll have to rip them away from my cold dead hands, ya get this shit.

the dof and shadows cutting through the hair making it look ugly and blurry and just all around BLECH

so when taking screenshots, i take two photos. one with the dof and mxao and another without those shaders

now i open both pics in photoshop and layer the photo with the effects over the one without

ok this is totally optional and you don’t have to do it but i like to crop my photos and the preset for my cropping dimensions is 1150 x 705 bc that’s what i’m going to resize my photos to (w/ 300 resolution). again, totally optional, you don’t have to do this part but i do.

so now i add a layer mask to the top layer

next i select the brush tool and choose whatever brush i wanna use. i usually switch between these two brushes depending on what i need at the moment. and make sure the color you’re painting with is black.

and now just “paint” over the ugly parts to erase them. depending on your photo this can sometimes take a while, but hey ya get that dof and beautiful alpha hair. i also take this time to erase some of the blurriness that forms around my sims from the dof effect

right click on the layer and select “merge down” and i’m left with this. obviously, you see some parts that aren’t blurred anymore but i just fix it with the blur tool at 100% opacity, zoom in on the unblurred edges and blur them in with whatever brush i choose. i personally choose the one with hard edges and i make sure the brush size is very very small. this part’s also a lil time consuming so ya gotta be patient.

doesn’t that look better? now it’s time to get to the actual editing lmao. first, click layer > background layer to make it a background. this is necessary for me bc of the photoshop action i use.

so in order to give my pics that “crisp” look, i first reduce noise and these are my default settings

then i do topaz clean

then smart sharpen

then i use the liquify tool bc sometimes there’s jagged edges on the shoulders, elbows, chins, etc. that i wanna smooth out. i also use this to adjust facial expressions, like for this i wanna make the smiles curve up a lil bit more bc chalerie are in love and happy

now this is the part where i kinda nitpick bc i’m a perfectionist lmao like i clean up some lines on val’s arms and fix that weird spot on the collar of chance’s shirt, all that small stuff people wouldn’t notice but I DO so i fix it

alright now it’s time for me to draw hair! again, this is optional and i understand not everyone has a tablet or likes drawing hair so skip this if it ain’t your thang. first add a new layer for the hair.

i like to add extra hair to make it more full or fix clipping and “highlights” to kinda emphasize the lighting effects i’ll do later and i usually go with a lighter color of the hair for the highlights OR i do the color of the lighting. in this case i’m just going with a very light brown color. this brush is from this set by castrochew and i have the opacity at 100% and size at 3 px.

this is what it looks like after i draw all the hair. and for the highlights i always reduce the layer opacity to 50-60% or even less than that depending on how subtle i want them to be. after that, i merge them all down.

now it’s time to do all the shading and highlighting. make sure you do it all as separate layers, too. even tho i use mxao it still doesn’t do enough for me, so i always add shadows and i recommend you use dark brown for the shadows as black is a a bit too dark especially when you’re adding shadows around the faces. like y’all don’t want it to look like your sims put mud on their face. trust me guys i contour my face.

now take a hard edge brush and draw where you wanna add shadows

apply gaussian blur and erase any excess “shadows” then reduce the layer opacity to your liking. now keep doing that in other areas where you wanna add shadows. it all depends on the picture and i really just use my general knowledge of how lighting and shadows work. remember, make sure each shadow and highlight you add is a separate layer!

for highlights, use a light color, a soft edge brush, change the brush opacity to 60% and change the layer mode to “soft light”. like with the shadows, just paint whatever you wanna highlight, gaussian blur, reduce layer opacity, etc. then after you’re done shading and highlighting, merge all the layers down.

then to enhance the highlights even more i use the dodge tool with the exposure at 25% and paint over all the highlighted areas

so this is how it looks after i did all the time consuming stuff and now it’s time to play with COLOR YEAHHHHHH

this is the action i’ve been using forever and it’s a ride or die, always got my back, never fails me, always there when i need it. all i gotta do is click on that and press the “play” button and everything’s beautiful and colorful and all my problems seem to go away and suddenly the your lie in april soundtrack is playing the background

but most of the time i untick the “curves” layer from the action as it can be too bright for me and i just adjust the curves of the image to what i prefer.

now it’s my favorite part! time to add that good-ass LIGHTING and since i went crazy with the lights for the background, it’s gonna be fun to do this one hehehe. ok so first duplicate your image and then choose the color of the lighting you want. for this pic, i want the lighting to be a nice light warm yellow/orange color

now for the brush mode, choose “linear dodge (add)” and change the opacity to 35%-45% or hey even higher if ya wanna go bright as fuck. and get a soft edge brush and make it big. like fucking BIG. you see the size i put it at? yeah, make it big bc we want that beautiful shit EVERYWHERE

YEAH DAS DAT SHIT I LIKE. keep painting over areas ya wanna see glow and even paint over the same area twice to make it brighter. hell, don’t just stop at one color. add other colors of light if ya want. add some pinks or blue or purple, adjust the brush size, go crazy. BLIND EVERYONE.

buuuuuuut with all the sweet lighting, it tends to make your pretty pic look all washed out and also lighting doesn’t always work that way. and that’s why i told y’all to duplicate your image bc we’re gonna add a layer mask again and with a soft edge brush you gotta erase some of that lighting. change the brush mode back to normal, put the opacity at 100% and make sure your brush is black and get rid of what you need to. but what’s good about this is you don’t have to be perfect and it’s ok if there’s still some lights on your sims bc now it looks like the light is shining on them awwww. now merge that layer down

now color balance! i like to enhance the red, magenta, and blue most of the time but as always it all depends on the photo and what your preference is.

all that’s left to do now is change the image size. i change the resolution to 300 ppi (it doesn’t really do anything but like it’s become a habit of me to do it so i do it idk) and make sure if you’re making your image smaller, you apply “bicubic sharper” so your image stays sharp when you change the size

AND THIS IS THE FINAL PRODUCT.

so this is my editing process and i hope some of you learned some stuff from this. also please keep in mind that i also encourage y’all to do your own spin on things when you edit. i’m all for taking tips from others and learning cool new tricks but develop a style that fits YOU. eventually you’ll find it and i know that you’ll end up creating something amazing that shows how unique and lovely you are.

anyways, i’m so glad i finally got this done. love you guys 💖💖💖

#the sims 4 #sims 4 #ts4 #simblr #tutorial #aliya's editing tutorial #giving it that tag so i can make a link on my blog #i really hope i explained things well #like i don't do tutorials #but here ya go #now i gotta edit the other photos for this photoshoot byyyyeee

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murfeelee · 5 years

Text

Backed Up Replies! (Long AF)

So, small RL update: I’ll be starting a dinky little summer internship starting this Monday. (I’m just doing it for the résumé boost, cuz the pay’s literal peanuts; not even enough to cover my frikkin train fare. Effing exploitation, effing scam, I hate everything.) I won’t know exactly what my schedule’ll be till I go in and talk to them, but this is just a heads up in case I can’t be around much. I’m not dead (heavens willing), just out here doing more for less. ^_^

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@simaddix replied to your post “Replies? On a Tuesday?! Say whaaat!”

Geeks out a little bit - you replied to little old me!(((: lol Thank you!

I love comments and simmer interaction more than anything -- I will reply to absolutely anyone! It saddens me to see just how little interactive exchange there is in the simming community. I don’t want anyone ever feeling too shy to drop in and speak to me. 😘🤗

solori replied to your photoset “Chibi Pics! I’m seeing everyone and their mother turning their OCs &...”

awesome!! :)

I can’t get ove how cute that app is. :3

ice-creamforbreakfast replied to your photoset “Memes Charts - sims!Spartacus Household Thanks to @in-sempiternam for...”

This post had me at "would you stab someone" XD Best post of the day.

Sometimes you just gotta stab someone. 😂

altaaira-ashuratan replied to your post “Replies? On a Tuesday?! Say whaaat!”

Wow, cool! I may have watched too many documentaries about people living in Russian countryside... o_o Anyways, well done! ':

I love watching historical & cultural documentaries. So cool.

bloody-personalblog-mary replied to your photoset “Windows Meme - Pt1 Super super SUUUPEEERRRRR late, I know. (－‸ლ) ...”

wow what a cool house !

Thank you! I was very inspired. ^__^

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DA:I REPLIES

bloody-personalblog-mary replied to your post “Replies? On a Tuesday?! Say whaaat!”

oooooooooooh, how nice !!! Herah is very happy about it !!!

I thank your sim!Herah Adaar for convincing me to get back into Dragon Age Inquisition! 👍

altaaira-ashuratan replied to your photoset “Party Banter on the Road - Adoribul Pt2 Dorian: I hope it doesn’t...”

Need time to play DA:I. So far, I've got the GOTY version for PS4 and created my character - and I bought it over three years ago. Lame. ._.

SAME. My first run was bad. I bought it in 2015, for like $60. Mofo took for EFFING EVER to install. Then the gameplay was just SO slow going for me, stuck in those frikkin Hinterlands & going on endless fetch quests and requisitions and blah blah. And Bioware’s glitchy AF animations are...interesting to experience. By the time we FINALLY got to the actual PLOT and met the big-bad at Haven, Corypheus was just running his mouth monologuing, and after wandering aimlessly around Skyhold I lost my patience with DA:I entirely. I returned it at Gamestop and got The Witcher 3 instead -- BEST DECISION EVER.

But DA:I was always at the back of my mind, and after all this time I decided to revisit it. I like it! TBH, the best part about DA:I is the party banter, and getting into the lore about Thedas’ history and what’s up with the Fade and effing Solas and everything. And I already told y’all about my crush on The Iron Bull -- I missed him so much! XD

nemexia-of-the-nightfall replied to your photoset “Party Banter on the Road - Adoribul Pt2 Dorian: I hope it doesn’t...”

AHHHHHHH! love these so much!!!!! Great job!! XXXX

omgdoubleume replied to your photoset “Party Banter on the Road - Adoribul Pt2 Dorian: I hope it doesn’t...”

Cool❗

rottenxroses replied to your photoset “Waylaid on the Road Inquisitor Lavellan and her fellow mages take a...”

I love this!! amazing!

nemexia-of-the-nightfall replied to your photoset “Waylaid on the Road Inquisitor Lavellan and her fellow mages take a...”

Love your DAI posts! so accurate :D

I’m blown away by all the positive feedback, y’all! ❤️ Thanks!

omgdoubleume replied to your photoset “Thawing the Ice Queen Iron Bull: You know, ma'am, you’re not bad with...”

I see someone's flirting here 🙈🙊

LOL, Vivienne ain’t slick! XD She DEFINITELY wanted to Ride the Bull. Too bad he only sees her as a mother-figure. :P

nemexia-of-the-nightfall replied to your photoset “Thawing the Ice Queen Iron Bull: You know, ma'am, you’re not bad with...”

Damn, really can't get over Iron Bull, you really made him perfect!!! ❤️❤️❤️

gaiahypothesims replied to your photoset “Banter at the Campsite: The Lone Vint Vivienne: I presume you know...”

That bull is amaaaazing

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!! I’m relieved that sim!Bull’s being well received. I’m struggling with the joints being kinda awkward in places, and there’s some UV mapping I need to fix, and close-up his whole horns/eyepatch business is NOT kosher. But I’ll keep working at all of it. The support means a lot, trust! ^_^

simsmidgen replied to your photoset “Banter at the Campsite: The Lone Vint Vivienne: I presume you know...”

Lol, look at those healthy appetites with a dozen sausages on a skewer XD

LMAO! It’s so effing ridiculous, the nonsense these stupid sims roast at the fire pits! XD A whole frikkin pumpkin? Come on, EA. XD #Because TS3.

andantezen replied to your photoset “Banter at the Campsite: The Lone Vint Vivienne: I presume you know...”

gorgeous scene!

Thanks so much! Frikkin horses PERSISTENTLY kept photobombing all the pics, but yeah. :D

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TUTORIAL REPLIES

pitheinfinite replied to your post “Hologram Lights - Tutorial Time!”

Awesome!! Murf’s School of Crap and Crap-Making is my all time favorite!!♡♡♡

Aw schucks, thanks! XD

nornities replied to your post “Hologram Lights - Tutorial Time!”

Thank you!

rollo-rolls replied to your post “Hologram Lights - Tutorial Time!”

Hottttt. Thank you for sharing! 👏👏👏

The more we know, the more The Sims grows!

gaiahypothesims replied to your post “Hologram Lights - Tutorial Time!”

Omg this is amazing. I may need to try this out one day.

Do! It’s extremely versatile, what y’all can make -- neon signs, glowing crystals, magic sigils/seals, holograms, etc etc.

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CC REPLIES

samkat10423 replied to your post “DAI Guitars”

Thank you!

simsmidgen replied to your post “DAI Guitars”

Thank you!

bmit04 replied to your post “DAI Guitars”

cool!

bmit04 reblogged your post and added:

brilliant!

swordcoastsimming reblogged your post and added:

WOW

packagedblyss replied to your post “DAI Guitars”

They look great! Thank you so much 😍

simsmidgen replied to your photoset “Maker: A Bard’s Song ♪♫ Maker, have you left me here? /...”

Your guitar thingie is looking awesome!

Cuz we can never have too many exotic & cultural musical instruments! ^_^

enchandycorn replied to your post “TS4 to TS3 Crystals as Lights”

Hoooleeee sheeeeet!!! Thank you so much Murf!!! This is just what this crystal thirsty dork needs!!!! 💙💙💙

I feel you! I’ve been wanting those TS4 crystals for a LONG time; just never got around to it till now. :P

doka-chan replied to your post “TS4 to TS3 Crystals as Lights”

Yeah ! Thank you !

nornities replied to your post “TS4 to TS3 Crystals as Lights”

Oh, wonderful, thanks!

pitheinfinite replied to your post “TS4 to TS3 Crystals as Lights”

brilliant idea!! thank you♡♡♡

simsmidgen replied to your post “TS4 to TS3 Crystals as Lights”

Ooooohhh, shiny! Thank you <3

Glad y’all like them!

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Enjoy, and Happy simming!

#replies

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kindlespice · 6 years

Text

🍑 Sim Making 101 w/ peachpxel 💁

So recently I started getting asks along these lines:

and i don’t really do anything too special, but i decided to make a “guide” anyway for anyone else who wants to know CAS tips/how i go about making my sims.

under cut because it’ll probably be long :3

Okay so first, if I have a good idea of what i want my sim to look like, before I go into CAS I google some reference images. For this tutorial, I searched:

I got a lot of stuff, but I really liked this image in particular, so I saved it and pulled it up on my laptop to reference while I make my sim!

Also, an important note, skin details really make or break a sim. Like you can have the same sim but they’ll look totally different depending on what default skin/overlays you use.

My tastes change quite frequently, but right now I am using this as my default skin (it works as a pretty nice, clear base) and either this or this (less frequently and usually for the guys) as an overlay; they add some more dimension but I don’t think they’re overly realistic. Also don’t be afraid to change your style and defaults! My earlier posts/sims definitely look different than they do now. Find what works for you and roll with it!

Okay so, when you’re actually in CAS, my #1 tip = use the random button. Before making a sim I almost always randomize 3-5 times just to get new faces to start from; it really helps to break the habit of same facing too. So I randomized (actually six times XD) and got this:

Not great, but definitely not the worst I’ve ever gotten XD. To start, I’ll make some basic changes: skin color, eye color, remove the god awful glasses, etc.

Looking better! Also, pro-tip: try and pick out the hair you want from the jump! when you’re making your sim, you will try to format the face to fit the hairstyle even if you don’t realize it. So, if you start bald, your sim might not look good with hair XD. Next, I’m gonna apply my skin blend (hazel):

See what I mean about the same sim looking different? Also, pro-tip: apply the skinblend before you start editing! if you wait until after, some of the features may not translate quite as well! ---- So my next step usually varies depending on which area I think needs the most help lol. In this case, she is severely lacking a jaw. So next I’m gonna format her jaw:

I start by manipulating that area of the jaw in detail edit mode. going upward creates a stronger, sharper jaw--going downward creates a more square jaw. For this sim, I moved the slider upward and slight outward. Personally, I think the jaw really adds character to a sim and my sims, especially the guys, usually have sharp jaws.

Ah, now she’s starting to look like a real person :D . Next, I will fix the brows:

The eyebrows are also very expressive and tend to change the whole look and feel of a sim + ea, for some reason, loves T H I N brows so.. ya know ya gotta change that shizz! Next, I want to work on the eyes:

this, was actually the easiest part... lol. Pro-tip: USE THE EYE PRESETS! If you use no other presets off the list ea provides... please use the eyes! They control eyelash length (i use default ea lashes, but if you use 3d lashes it won’t matter so much), and lid pronunciation (some skin blends will have options for that though) so there are some looks you just can’t get unless you switch! So try to know what length you want the lashes and the type of lid you want BEFORE you start manipulating the eyes, or else you may have to start over!

In this case, I had it easy because there was pretty much a preset i thought was perfect for her face

After ward, i tilted them slightly upward and moved them down a bit and voila!

Next, the lips!

So, pretty much the same thing with the eyes, I looked for a preset that was close to what I was going for before I started manipulating: I wanted a less pronounced cupid’s bow. You can see I also have some lip presets, but I actually very rarely end up using them.

So, the next part is totally niche and it’s just something I’ve always done, I give the lips some pout. You just take the mouth corners (not in detail mode) and drag down. It’s very rare that I don’t do this to my sims. After that, I made the lips a tad bigger and made the upper lip wider! :

Next, the schnoz!

uhm, so i actually liked her nose and didn’t really change anything. I made the nostrils a little less wide, widened the bridge a bit, and made it a tad longer, but that was it! Okay so the next step is fun! The diversify step!

Basically, you want to make a face a little more quirky and less perfect. Usually I pick a feature and find some way to make it more interesting. My go to are the ears, if they’re visible, but I’m gonna change it up this time!

Okay, so all I did was make her eyes smaller and tilt her nose upward a bit, but it made a huge difference. Little things like that go a long way in making your sims look more unique. Try to break away from perfect features and do something quirky every once and a while!

From here, it’s all skin detail, makeup, and clothes! I can’t really give a tutorial on that part since you really just pick what you like, but (after a few more minor tweaks) here’s the final sim:

I changed her hair AGAIN, but she was giving me edgy vibes so whatever lol! I made her ears stick out more, and tilted her eyes up some. Then I slapped on some makeup + a few things from the about face kit and BAM! A new sim!

I definitely deviated from the reference, but the point isn’t necessarily to recreate the picture (unless you want to) but rather gain some inspiration from it. I liked the bronze playing off of the black, so i made her makeup more orange and have her black earrings and a black romper. And I did steal her strong jaw XD!

So that’s pretty much it! I hope that this was helpful to everyone who was asking how I go about making my sims!

If you guys want more tutorials in the future I’d be happy to make them!

~ ❤️🍑

#s4 #s4 tutorial #s4 cas #ts4 #ts4 tutorial #ts4 cas #create-a-sim #tutorials

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