#I'll add a few things along the way but for now there's plenty of space to join

[aquacomet]

Happy Ruin Eclipse Day! 🎉

May 19th marks the anniversary for the day the first FNAF Security Breach: Ruin DLC trailer was revealed! In celebration Ruin Eclipse's first appearance I'll be opening a magma collab board from today!

This will be a multi day-long themed magma collab where we'll be aiming to try add as many Eclipses as we can on one page! (This includes AUs and variations! Sun and Moons and their variations/AUs are also allowed!)

Remember! The board will be open and available for at least 3 days from when this is posted! This give people a chance to join if they are busy for the opening day or generally need time to finish their art!

(The board may be open longer depending how things go, make sure to check the reblogs posted from myself for updates!)

Before jumping in here are the rules:

No NSFW

Merge your layers when finished! (This is important to prevent slowdowns and allow others to draw if we go near the layer limit)

Make sure to sign your work so I can credit you when the final result is posted!

Keep your character a reasonable size

Please try to colour and finish your character/art if you can!

The board is DCA themed (AU's and variations are also encouraged!)

Without further ado, happy doodling!

[alkaline-wtr]

WE WILL SURVIVE (oneshot)

- - CHAPTER 3.5 - -

Graves x reader Description: Graves and reader camp out on a rooftop, and Graves teaches reader how to properly eat an MRE. Genre/Warnings: zombie apocalypse AU, Ghost x fem!reader, survivor!reader, oneshot WC: 860

My Masterlist

**Nothing fancy this time. This is just a quick little oneshot as promised, to make up for last chapter being so short. I have no excuse for why it took me so long to get this done. Honestly, I just lost interest and motivation for a while. I started a new job too, so I guess I lost a bit of free time there too but, I'm working on doing better about that. Anyways, this oneshot idea just seemed silly and cute, but not vital enough to make a whole chapter out of it. On another note, Ghost is coming BACK! Very soon. As well as a few other characters being introduced next chapter. Buckle up because Ch 5 is going to wild, and LONG. I've already got it mapped out and in the works. Stay tuned and Enjoy.

<< PART 3

The sun had long set over the vacant city, leaving the sky saturated with stars. Without the haze of light pollution, they seemed to shine brighter and more plentiful than you remembered.

You looked on in awe, enjoying the view. This was the first time since the outbreak that you’d had the chance to breathe and admire the sky.

“This is nice.”

You say. You Keep your voice low as if it would disturb the peaceful night.

Phillip smiles. His face is illuminated by an orange glow as he stokes the crackling fire between you. You watch him for a moment.

“Who would’ve guessed the Military could prepare you for the end of the world?”

You add, shifting to face him, your legs crossed under you.

“No one's really prepared for the end of the world.”

He responds.

“Well... No, but you certainly learned more survival skills than I ever have.”

Phillip shrugs. To him, survival was second nature. A skill burned into his mind and muscles alike. It had been his livelihood for so long that this was no different than any other day except maybe fewer bullets.

"It's crazy to think just months ago we were all just living our lives, worried about bills, and jobs..."

Your words trail off and a sadness washed over you. Philip notices this, thinking of what he can do to take your mind off things.

His gaze follows yours to the sky. The Milky Way is much more visible to the naked eye now that the world is void of electricity.

"Just months ago, there wasn't this breathtaking view."

He reminds you. You look back at him. Watching the lines crinkle around his eyes as he smiles.

You smile back.

"You're right."

A beat of silence hangs between you before Graves drags his bag into his lap and rummages through it.

"How about food?"

You raise an eyebrow curiously.

"Okay."

Phillip pulls out two brown packages tossing his bag aside.

"What's that?"

You ask. Phillip chuckles.

"Come sit. I'll show you."

He pats the space beside him. A tarp lays folded neatly beneath him.

You stand up dusting off your backside and move to sit beside him.

"This,"

He starts, using his knife to slice open the top of the package.

"Is an M-R-E.”

"A What?"

You ask, furrowing your eyebrows.

“An M-R-E.”

Phillip repeats with a chuckle.

"It stands for Meals-Ready-to-Eat."

He explains.

"They are meals given to soldiers on the field, not the best tasting but, more substantial than anything you’ll find out here.”

He inspects the writing on the front in the dim light of the fire.

“Would you like Spaghetti? Or Chili Mac?”

Phillip asks.

“Uh, Spaghetti I guess?”

You reply still a bit confused.

"A shame... The Chili Mac is a classic."

You chuckle, moving to sit closer to him. Phillip finishes opening the package. He dumps the contents on the ground in front of you.

It was hard to imagine anything appetizing behind the muddy brown plastic.

You followed along with Phillip's instructions as he explained the process of cooking the meal. You nestled the 'entree' packet into a larger green bag, watching as he used his canteen to pour water up to the thick black line at the bottom and seal it up with a cardboard sleeve.

“Now, we wait for this to heat up. Here, is the snacks, dessert, and of course, a spoon. And this you can ignore.”

He says taking away the last package.

“Why, What is it?”

You ask curiously.

“It’s not important.”

You give him a quizzical look and look at the small plastic in his hand.

"Gum?"

You asked, eyes scanning over the two white rectangles. Philip nods.

"Not the kind you want."

You knew better than to defy Philip's warning but, you couldn't help but wonder the reasoning.

"How come?"

Philip smirks.

"Do you really wanna know?"

"Yes,"

You answered persistently.

"They are laxatives."

Phillip finally says. Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

"Oh..."

Philip nudges your shoulder with his.

"Don't worry about it. At least I didn't wait to tell you while you were chewing them."

He teased. That was a fact you were grateful for.

As the two of you waited for the entree to heat up, Phillip showed you which bag to make the powdered drink mix and you both shared the crackers and cheese spreads that came with the MREs. It was all so mundane, yet comforting. Something about the routine of it made you feel almost normal again.

Once the entree had finished You and Philip sat side by side enjoying your meals.

"Not bad, right?"

Phillip asked, watching as you picked at your half of the cookie.

The snacks weren't too bad, and just as Philip had said it was more substantial than anything you'd found out here. The entrees themselves weren't the most delicious thing you'd eaten but it was nice to have a hot meal regardless.

"No, it wasn't."

Philip tilted his head back to finish off the lime-green drink he had shaken up earlier. His eyes caught yours studying your expression. He dropped the drink to his lap and raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?"

You shake your head.

"I... just wanted to thank you for all your help. You've saved my life. I owe you."

Philip chuckles.

"You don't owe anyone anything."

He sighs,

"If you spend too much time thinking about who owes what, this world will swallow you whole."

You thought back on the past months of survival and how desolate the world had been. But up here, with Phillip beside you, it didn’t feel so lonely.

PART 4 >>

Tag list

@yourfavbabigirl @keiraslayz @dcnocap207 @nicolebarnes @jupiternighties

[olderthannetfic]

This might be a somewhat controversial opinion/rant, but as a black queer woman (i really id myself as being more genderqueer, but since i'm afab there are just things about womanhood growing up that has just stuck with me as formative experiences.), I find it really difficult to build community with queer men, even in fandom. I've tried to have friendships with transmen, but so many just feel the need to ramp up misogyny to 1000 to validate themselves as men, and then with gay men, some will say the most out-of-pocket, misogynistic things but because they're not attracted to women, it's somehow okay, I guess. But lately, there's been this trend among queer men of saying and doing misogynistic things but justifying it by stating they're talking about white, cishet women. But the thing is, there's nothing in what they said that can be specifically applied to only white women. It's a target to all women (I refuse to play the oppression olympics of who has it worse). And now I see other queer women in fandom saying the same things to each other. I typically stay in anime/manga and danmei fanbases because that's where a lot of my interests are now, and I don't have to deal with USAian nonsense as much. But now that 7 Seas has unfortunately decided to translate more danmei into English that's changed. A queer male fan of a popular series has been unfollowed en masse by danmei fans for saying wildly misogynistic things about the author. Everyone all week has been scrambling to figure out where this came from. "He only ever said these things about cishet white women," but you guys... he was always talking about us the whole time. Now, I just don't know. Now I see why men aren't generally welcomed in or are common within romance-genre circles. It's just really frustrating to see the same thing over and over again. I'll add on that the only genuinely cool queer men in fandom I've met have come from yuri circles. The ones who try to talk about BL are, from my experiences, generally misogynistic, toxic, and feel as though everything should center around them because they're men and in BL the characters are men, as well. But when other women don't want to form community with them, they scream about 'homophobia' and 'fetishizing gay men.' No, you're just an annoying, awful person to be around, and the queer male yuri fans didn't want to deal with you either. Has anyone else, or you specifically, dealt with this? Is there a way to become friends with more queer men in BL spaces who aren't... like That? Or are there specific things/patterns to look for as far as who to avoid?

--

God, so much of this sounds so familiar.

I've known a sad number of trans dudes who overcompensate in dickhead ways. A lot of them do calm down a few years into presenting publicly as male, but it's infuriating to see that crap even if it's temporary.

I will say that two of my close circle of offline friends are trans men, including one who came out during the time we've all been friends. The defensive tomfoolery is in no way inevitable. Both of these dudes are nonwhite and have experience in various other geeky and queer spaces beyond BL (gaming, drag queens, etc.). Maybe that broader perspective helped, or maybe they're just nicer and more mature people than a lot of the little jerkfaces I run across online.

TBH, I often have better luck in offline meetups because to show up at all, people have to be a little more comfortable with getting along with others and behaving themselves. It's also sometimes easier to detect the people you want to back away from slowly when you can see how they treat people in person.

One of my neighbors is a cis gay guy. White, able bodied, middle class, yadda yadda. Exactly the demographic you'd expect to be the worst in certain spaces. He and his partner have lots of queer friends, and plenty of them aren't fellow cis gay guys, which is basically my litmus test for non-annoying cis gay guys offline. (Toxic cis gay dude culture is its own kettle of fish with a different set of issues than defensive trans boy culture, but I've encountered it plenty too.)

This neighbor is interested in geikomi and was delighted to find out I'm a fellow nerd and eager for all my nonfiction book recs about queer Japanese stuff. We don't necessarily overlap in our manga tastes, but there's still a lot we do share. When I ramble on about how AFAB queer people and/or bisexuals study history that's presented as cis gay men's history because that's all we have for most historical periods, he's like "Yeah, that makes total sense!" and not "Mine and not yours!"

I think the key here is that this is a dude who is secure in his identity, who's getting both his media and queer community needs met, and who's in his 40s, so he has some god damn perspective and doesn't need to pretend BL is aimed at him.

A lot of the little jerkfaces make me think "Did your preschool teacher not teach you how to share your toys?"

--

To be honest, there seem to be plenty of dudes hanging around my tumblr. A few cis. Many trans. But they're not going to bring it up incessantly in some defensive "you know I'm not a cootie-having girl, right?" way because who does that?

It comes up when there's a discussion about trans shit or BL as #ownvoices or whatever. (And, in general, any dude worth hanging out with will not think BL as an industry is, or should be, anything of the sort—even if he's expressing his own sense of queerness by writing some.)

On the flipside, I have seen some pretty extreme "no boys allowed" clubhouse nonsense in fandom. It's less common than it was, and past shitty dudes have often been the inspiration, but it can still be a bit much. The nicer class of fandom dude is often pretty hesitant in certain spaces because he's expecting to be met with hostility and is trying to figure out how to participate without tromping all over everyone. (TBH, the guys worrying about this are rarely the problem, but you know how it is.)

I've had dudes send me private messages being like "this thing you said seems kind of stereotypical and anti-man", but in the adult capable of conversation way, not in the tantruming 5-year-old way. And we had a conversation, and they stuck around.

I think having a very clear "It's not #ownvoices, fuck off" stance deters a lot of the more pestilential set. Being equally clear that everyone is welcome and that male yuri fans and female BL fans are pretty equivalent makes the guys worth knowing come out of the woodwork.

In 99% of spaces, I do not give a fuck if some man has his precious feelings hurt by a double standard or default suspicion of men... But fandom is a little unusual because of the demographics and relative power here being so different from in most spaces.

I've definitely seen some people who think women liking BL are fine because we care about characters' personalities, while male fans are all predators or all write f/f that is just fetishy porn or m/m that sounds like Nifty.org and not other fanfic or whatever.

And, yeah, I'll shut down the dumbasses crying in my inbox because I made a joke about Nifty and "coke can dicks" (the kind of guys who have clearly never read m/m that's aimed at dudes outside of fandom spaces), but at the same time, we should extend a little benefit of the doubt to our fellow fandom members of whatever gender. There are usually plenty of men facepalming right along with me at these inexperienced young fools who cannot bear to share.

I think you're just running into the problem that the loud people whose identities you know are often using those identities to browbeat other fans on social media.

--

There are fewer men in BL spaces than women or nonbinary people, so one will typically end up knowing fewer men.

Honestly, I think you find the reasonable people and get rid of the unreasonable ones in the same way regardless of gender: Gatekeeping bullshit is a red flag. Very Online understandings of oppression are a red flag. Enthusiastic and clueless blanket endorsement of own voices as a concept is a red flag. Lots of talking about "fetishization" or even "appropriation" in a very online way is a massive red flag. Monetizing fanfic or seeing other pro authors as competition instead of peers is another. (Professional jealousy and fear about earning potential are behind a lot of bad behavior.)

A lot of it is down to whether you're willing to make yourself a target by publicly telling annoying people to fuck off.

If others can tell what you stand for, they can figure out if they want to hang out with you. Most people keep their heads down a lot of the time, so it can be hard to even hear of them, let alone know if they're your sort of person.

--

tl;dr – Be nice to nice men. Tell shitty men to take a hike. Making friends with men is really as simple as that.

There are larger issues here with what kinds of queer spaces exist and whom they prioritize and with toxic understandings of what representation even means and what should be demanded of whose art. But as you say, a lot of women are also promoting toxic-ass understandings of these things.

The bottom line is that we must resist social media clout-driven understandings of justice. The loudest assholes in the room are rarely worth listening to.

[ladypepperofdavenshire]

One final piece for 2023, featuring Muriel and her lil pet phoenix (before it's fully grown and starting it's death/life cycle ;D

This year definitely went by faster than anticipated, and had plenty of ups and downs for me along the way:

Ups:

I made the decision to finally pull life support on Genesis Dissentire and Galactic Patrol, and use certain things from the respective stories to fit into the various stories that'll be taking place in the Sci Fi WIP, which I haven't forgotten! It's just that I'd like to get back into my first love of comicking for a bit, so I'm setting the Wip aside for a while to work on Knightsbridge Hollow and--hopefully--finish it within 2024!

Speaking of Knightsbridge Hollow...I've been working on that more and the Parallels universe in hopes of actually doing something with a bunch of characters and storylines that my sister and I have had sitting around since high school!

I took a massive step back from fan characters this year to focus on original stuff, and I think my social media presences suffered a lot from that LOL The lack of engagement is especially more significant here, so I might space out my posts to a few times a month or so, though if things keep going the way that they go, I might hop off this account indefinitely. We shall see!

I got into candle making! It's actually very relaxing and very fun, and I'm hoping to add some onto my Etsy this upcoming year!

Downs:

I've been feeling increasingly more useless when it comes to my job, the 50+ job applications I've thrown out this year (and only a handful of interviews I got out of them), and friendships, as I've gone through being the friend who gets left in the dust yet again. I can't help but feel like something is Wrong with me, and that I'll have to be satisfied with my job, and being the obnoxious person who can't read the room and gets ghosted until I learn my lesson.

Depression's been Real this year. Turns out the therapist I got last year was only good at taking my money and not actually helping me, and I can't really afford therapy right now anyways, so I've just been floundering around this year, clawing my way to the surface from depression cycles, only to fall back under again and force myself to get through the day when the only thing I wanna do is curl up into a ball and die lol

Prayers for being happy with my circumstances, a new job on the horizon with better pay/hours, and not letting social media and stuff get me down would be appreciated!

If you made it this far, BLESS. Thanks for sticking around with my and my goofy lil imaginary people!

[victorluvsalice]

And, with everything in pocket, they finally arrived at the store -- where I promptly had them stand outside in the rain for a while while I dumped a bunch of their money into the place and spent a good chunk of time doing a bit of remodeling! Namely -- remember how, in a previous update, I complained about not having enough processing space, but didn't want to make the store significantly bigger? And then remembered in the tags that basements exist?

Welcome to the new Van Liddelton Groceries employee break room and basement processing center! XD Yes, I decided that the best way to get more space for everything I wanted was to go down and expand THERE. So the previous processing room was turned into a chill out area for the trio and any future employees they may have (complete with fridge and microwave for meals, some seating, a bookcase for those who like to read, and a TV for those who like to watch -- it still feels a little unfinished and empty to me, but I'll figure it out as we go along), and all the processing stuff was moved into the basement area! Now they have a nice long kitchen with plenty of counter space and TWO fridges and stoves to play with; two bulk processing machines; the juice fizzer and the cupcake machine; a cauldron for Victor should he want to to make potions while on the lot (once he actually learns a few more recipes); and -- well. I know it looks like a science bench. . .

But it's actually an APOTHECARY bench. Because that's one of the mods I downloaded from @simsonianlibrary -- The Apothecary Kit! This mod allows a Sim to make gummies based on herbalism recipes, and tablets based on Scientist serums -- you need roughly twice the amount of ingredients, but you get six gummies per bag and six tablets per bottle, so, kind of a deal? I spotted this while perusing their Patreon for a different mod (which I will get to in just a moment), and was like "okay, that'll be PERFECT for Smiler -- I was originally gonna make them a Scientist anyway to learn those serum recipes!" So now the store can have a pharmacy section too! :D

However, first things first -- we still had room on those front shelves for flower arrangements! So Smiler started making one final one of those while I sent Victor and Alice downstairs to do a little more processing and clean up any spoiled food hanging about. Alice made a few boxes of tomato sauce, then started working on milk products while Victor filled up the juice fizzer with some lemons --

And then started making some deodorizing perfume! For THAT is the mod that I originally went to Simsonian's Patreon to download -- Perfumery! Because it's another good use of all the flowers the gang grows. This mod adds a ten-level "perfumery" skill that allows you to eventually create a variety of perfumes with different effects -- mostly triggering different emotional buffs. And since they're scents, they effect not only the Sim wearing them, but any Sims who smell them (to a lesser degree. . .and, naturally, this doesn't work with the deodorant. Unfortunately. :p). I thought it might be fun to have my Sims get into, so Victor brewed up a batch of deodorant from a bunch of snowdrops and brought it upstairs...

Where I ran into a rather weird problem. Namely, the perfume just will NOT go onto the SrslySims consignment shelves I'm using in my store. Or, rather, it won't go DIRECTLY on them -- but it WILL stack onto items that are already ON the shelves (like a box of sauce, or a bag of flour). Which is -- puzzling, to say the least. It WILL go onto other custom content shelves, so I'm not sure what's going on with Srsly's. I think mayhaps I may have to make a custom display for any future perfumes! O.o

For the moment, though, the perfume went on the front counter (along with one of the spare decorative eggs from Easter -- look, all the ones in the store are duplicates, I may as well sell them), and while Smiler finished up their flower arrangement, I started Victor on another important task -- namely, seeing what in the store could be hit with Copypasto! I already know the bulk food items can't be copied, but what about animal treats? Herbalism potions? Smiler's baby robot toys? Science must know!

[no1gaytheist]

A list of helpful English writing tips for amateur writers!!!

I get it, the English language is hard and stupid. As someone who has taken advanced English writing classes, I tend to notice a lot of simple mistakes that new writers make. So I am compiling a list of these common errors and how to fix them! (If needed, examples will be put at the end)

Dialogue! Dialogue can be really hard to write sometimes, and the most common mistake I see new writers make is with their spacing. This is important, so remember this: every time a different character speaks, you start a new paragraph. This is an English literary rule, and it also makes writing dialogue a lot easier. If you follow this rule, it will be easier for the reader to tell when the dialogue switches from character A to character B.

This is just a little grammatical thing, but it does bother me quite a bit. Instead of saying "for gods sakes," say "for God's sake." That's proper grammar *finger guns*

This one is a bit hard to explain, so be sure to check the examples at the end. When you start a new paragraph within a character's dialogue, leave the end of the first paragraph open (no quotation mark), and then start the next paragraph with a quotation mark.

This one is pretty simple and it probably seems obvious, but don't be afraid to use a thesaurus!!! I personally use wordhippo.com, but there are plenty of other resources online! This is also helpful for when you can't quite remember the word you're looking for.

Remember in school when your English teachers (if you had them) would tell you never to start a sentence with and, but, or so? Well if you're doing creative writing, throw all that out the window. You don't need that shit. If you feel like starting a new sentence with any of those words instead of just using a comma would be more effective, go for it!

Semicolons. Confusing little things, aren't they? Well never fear, because I can explain! It's actually not too difficult. Semicolons are exactly what they look like: a cross between a period and a comma. When using a semicolon, look at the statements on either side of it and ask yourself, "Would this sentence still make sense if I replaced the semicolon with a comma or a period?" If the answer is yes (to both the comma and the period), then congratulations! You've mastered the art of the semicolon.

Now that you've mastered the semicolon, it's time to move on to the apostrophe. Here are a few quick tips for you: apostrophes can indicate possession, such as "Marion's pencil." But here's a mistake I see very often: if a person's (haha check out that apostrophe) name ends in "s," you don't add another s to the end of it. For example, you wouldn't say, "Mars's blog." You would say, "Mars' blog." Along with this, there are some other weird rules with apostrophes. The main one (that even I struggle with) is the possessive "it." You probably already know that "it's" means "it is," but an apostrophe and an s usually indicates possession, so what do you do for the possessive form of "it?" This is one of those instances where the English language is stupid, because the possessive form of "it" has no apostrophe. In short: it's = it is; its = possessive form of it.

NEVER PUT THE PUNCTUATION OUTSIDE OF THE QUOTATION MARKS!!! (See the examples at the end)

This one is more of a personal preference, but have you ever heard of the Oxford comma? It's easiest to explain by example, so I'll just put the example right here. With the Oxford comma: I went to the store to get apples, oranges, and pears. Without the Oxford comma: I went to the store to get apples, oranges and pears. Both of those sentences are technically correct, so it's just a matter of which you prefer. (I prefer the Oxford comma)

I sometimes see people end dialogue with "said [character]," and while this is technically grammatically correct, it's a fairly old fashioned way of writing. Unless that's the style you're going for, I suggest you switch the two, i.e., "[character] said."

Correct forms of your! It's real simple but I see people mess it up all the time. You're = you are. Your = possessive form of "you."

In the same vein as "your" is "their." They're = they are. There = a place. Their = possessive form of "they"

When writing a quote within a quote, use apostrophes where you would normally put quotation marks (see example).

I'll be sure to add more if I think of them!

Examples:

1. "The English language is really dumb," character A said.

"I know what you mean," character B replied.

3. "Pretend that this is a really long paragraph of emotional dialogue.

"Now I am continuing that emotional dialogue in a new paragraph."

6. This sentence could be split up with either a period or a comma; but I think a semicolon would work best.

8. ❌ Is it too late to say "happy birthday"?

✔️ Is it too late to say "happy birthday?"

11. "You're looking beautiful today! I love what you've done with your hair."

12. "They're having a party at their house, and they want us all to be there."

13. "In the words of my lesbian cousin, 'a flannel a day keeps the straight dudes away.'"

I really hope you found these helpful. Please reblog to help out new writers!