#I'm not too familiar with different writing programs 😅

[ifindus]

if you don't have access to word, is there a way to write directly into ao3?

You can always write directly into ao3 where you go to post, and some people prefer this, but be aware that it doesn't automatically save and won't save if you close the tab. Ao3 encourage you to have a back-up copy of what you write there in the "work text". So it is possible to write directly on ao3, but I would recommend writing elsewhere to avoid loss of the text.

[devotedlyghostlyenemy]

Tutorial 3D model to sims2

second part

Now we are going to move our clothes to place them more or less in their corresponding place and to be able to continue increasing and decreasing their size until we find the perfect size

(groups, click in the name of our clothes : "default" , click select ...the clothes will turn red , click model, click move)

and now ... If you click on X and move the mouse, the clothes move up and down but in a straight line. If you click on Y, the clothes move right left in a straight line.If you click on Z it moves wherever you want without control (This works like this when you have chosen the front view, if you choose the left or right view things change, I will explain it later) It is important to say that you must have only one letter pressed, that letter will turn orange when you are using it, and the other two letters will remain gray

move the clothes until you have them placed more or less in the place you want and change the size until you have the desired one.

To keep in mind, if you are not very familiar with milkshape, there are 4 windows that are the views or projections of the model, left , front , top and 3D .They come by default when you open the program, but you can change the view you want whenever you want

you click on a window, right-click with the mouse, click on projection and choose the view you want… 3D front back left right top or bottom

You can also choose the way you see your model… also in the same window you choose wirefame, flat shaded, smooth shaded or textured (textured I will explain it later because for this we need the png with the texture of the clothes)

we can change the view and choose right or left to continue adjusting our clothes to the body

now the way to move the clothes by choosing the letters X and Z changes, if we click on X we will move the clothes where we want without control, if we click on Y we will move them left or right, if we click on Z we will move them up or down

we move it until we place it as we wish, if we see that the clothes are still too wide, we can narrow it, we continue with the right or left view, click on scale, and the same as the other time … 1.98 in the three letters will make the clothes wider and 0.98 in the three letters will make the clothes smaller.

when you have the perfect size, it's time to save our project … in case we mess something up we don't have to start again from scratch.

file, save as ... name you want and save it in the folder you want to save it in

but we have not closed the project yet 😅

now we delete the base body ... group, click on body name and delete only our clothes have to be seen

now is the time to bring it to life, we need bones 🦴

click on file export half-life SMD (at the top of the page), enter the name of our project and save it in our folder, you can use the same name as before, nothing happens because this is a different format and it will not delete the previous one.

important , check the box " with vertex weights". and click ok , close the milkshape

now we need a model, a piece of clothing, from the sims game, that is similar to the one we are working on, or any clothing that you have downloaded from another simmer, but that is similar, for example, if it is a long-sleeved sweater … look for a long sleeve sweater, if it is a short sleeve t-shirt look for a short sleeve t-shirt.

we need the mesh of these clothes to extract the GMDC... this is done with the SimPe program

if you already know how to do it, perfect, you save me the explanation and you save yourself from reading all this part, but if you have never done it … I am going to explain it , I have learned it following tutorials that I recommend you to read (and that I thank enormously to the simmers that have made them) to familiarize yourself with the programs we use.

tutorials needed in your life :

3t2 clothes tutorial of Serenity falls @rented-space

4t2 clothing tutorial of @vulrien-sims

all tutorial of @blueheavensims

tutorial of @deedee-sims

4t2 clothing tutorial (video) @mdpthatsme

....to be continued

[inkandmoonbeams]

Hello!! Do I see prompt requests! How about this: BOTW Zelda saving Link, whether it’s in combat, politically or he’s just about to step off a cliff.

Hello Braidy! 💜 🥰 Thank you so much for this prompt! I lovelovelove the Zelink dynamic in BOTW so this was really fun to write (and I'm sorry it took me forever to finish it!)

Big thanks to @silentprincess17, @zeldaelmo, @zeldadiarist for reviewing this piece and offering suggestions! @braidy-maidy, thank you specifically for the mushroom idea (dsaifhds I was not specific when I asked for help so you ended up helping with your own prompt, it's fine 😅). You were all a hugehuge help and I love you all! Full fic is under the cut.  💜

Link was never sure what to expect from Zelda’s research.

There was always something new to discover; something to test or tinker with. The princess often helped Purah program Guardians, and her study was littered with spare gears and springs. Sometimes, Zelda ventured to a new shrine or practiced using the Sheikah Slate’s runes (her favorite was Stasis–something about how it could store kinetic energy. Link just thought stopping time looked like fun). A few weeks ago, she had started studying a flower called the Silent Princess. Her evenings were usually spent huddled at her desk, reading about its medicinal properties and experimenting with various breeding methods. She said she was determined to grow the Silent Princess in captivity.

Today, she wanted to head to the Great Plateau.

“You will not need to accompany me,” Zelda informed him. “It’s not far, and you’ll just be in the way of my research.”

She always said this.

And, as always, Link still came along, ignoring the glares she threw his way.

The glares were nothing new; after all, she wasn’t exactly happy with the fact that he was her appointed knight. Link had taken away her last scraps of independence, and reminded her of all the powers she could not unlock. She had every right to hate him. And knowing she probably did—well, it didn’t hurt as much as it used to.

But he missed catching a glimpse of her smile every now and then.

They walked along the plateau in near silence. Occasionally, Zelda held up her Slate to take photos or consult the map, muttering to herself as she tapped the screen. Link’s mouth twitched, and he had to force down a smile. She was just so cute—so focused and determined and unashamedly intelligent.

Not that he was allowed to think about Zelda in that way. She was a princess, and he was her knight, but this was no fairy tale. This was his job. End of story.

Plus, there was the whole thing where she hated him.

Eventually, Zelda found an area she deemed worthy for conducting research. There was a shrine a few yards away, and she snapped a few pictures before returning her full attention to the Slate. Then, she started pacing, venturing farther and farther until she stopped and did it all over again. Link leaned against the trunk of a tree as he watched her work.

“Princess?” he finally asked.

“Yes?”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“I want to test out the Slate’s Sheikah Sensor,” Zelda explained. She fiddled with the Slate again and frowned. “It should be able to help us find more shrines. Purah says the Slate might be able to find other objects, too. For example, if I take a photo of a Hylian Herb, the Slate could catalog it, and then I could use the Sensor to find more. It has incredible potential.”

“Oh. Can I help?”

“No.”

Well. He tried.

Link sighed and scanned their surrounding area. He had grown to love the Great Plateau, with its views of Hyrule castle and the Temple of Time. It was familiar—a comforting sort of quiet during their otherwise hectic adventures. Zelda continued her pacing, and Link counted three glowing shrines in the distance. Birds flew overhead. A cluster of bright white mushrooms grew near his feet.

He didn’t recognize the species—they were shaped differently than truffles, and were too white to be Silent Shrooms—but maybe he could try one and come up with a few recipes for later. They looked tasty enough, and he had a feeling they’d be there for a while. He cocked his head and knelt to pick one.

And then—

“Link! Don’t eat that!”

He had barely gotten back to his feet when Zelda rushed towards him and smacked the mushroom out of his hand.

She smacked him hard, too.

“Hey! What—”

Link’s eyes followed the mushroom as it sailed down to the ground. “I wanted to eat that.”

Zelda huffed. “No, you didn’t. That’s a Skullshroom. It’s poisonous.”

Her voice was almost a snarl. She looked more agitated than relieved, as though he should have known that this area of Hyrule was full of dubious foods.

In Link’s defense, they couldn’t all be scholars.

For a moment, he could only stare at her in shock. His eyes darted from Zelda to the discarded mushroom and back again.

Poisonous. He really almost ate something poisonous. Who knows what would have happened if it weren’t for Zelda?

“Thank you,” Link finally said, still trying to process the fact that Zelda, of all people, had stopped him.

Zelda rolled her eyes. “You have nothing to thank me for. I only did what anyone else would do. Besides, It’s only deadly if your illness goes untreated, and the royal medics are more than capable of handling it.”

“I think that still warrants a thank you.”

“Fine,” Zelda said haughtily. She brushed dirt off her pants and sighed. “You’re welcome.”

And with that, Zelda returned to her Slate as though nothing had happened.

Goddess, she was stubborn. Link shook his head in disbelief and returned to his post, taking care to hide his grin.

Because she could have let him eat the mushroom. She could have let him get sick and enjoyed the rest of the day alone. Instead, she had smacked the danger right out of his hand.

Maybe she did care about him.

Just a bit.

[dreadfutures]

You referenced being in school/working on your PhD (I think, might be misremembering sorry). When do you typically find the time to write? Im so impressed at your pace, dread futures is a behemoth

Hi! I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to rant about science PhDs because so many people don't know how they work 😅

But long story short, I walk to/from work every day and write on my phone during that time, and I try not to bring work home but have a lot of anxious energy so I end up needing Something To Do with the little free time I have, so I end up writing. I wasn't sleeping a lot. I also have a pretty fast typing speed, and used to transcribe interviews quite often so transcribing game dialogue is pretty quick for me too. And I was Really Feeling Things and had a story I had to tell. And I really cannot emphasize enough that for the most part I turn off my inner editor when I write fanfiction, I do not plan my stories out much ahead of time, and I treat it kind of like an improv/dnd-like experience. What got published last is what I have to work with, and I have to make it work. I also self impose a 3k goal/limit on my chapters and then it's time to publish. All those things combined yield a pretty fast update schedule.

Now for the rant:

Most people think of graduate school as just that--school. Having lived with PhD students in Classics, Chinese Lit, and Business, that's true for a lot of disciplines. You take classes. You read all the time. All the while you're forming Opinions and you explore those in lectures and articles you produce, using the vast amount of information you've absorbed over your schooling. If you're familiar with an Honors Thesis from undergraduate education, you basically produce one of those over your time in a NON science PhD program.

A STEM PhD is much, much more like an elementary science fair project, but instead of asking What Is The Most Efficient Design for a Solar Cookie Oven, you're asking questions that contribute to issues like climate change, chemical waste production in manufacturing, Alzheimer's treatments, and vaccine development.

Sometimes your adviser is the one who tells you, "Hey, study this and see what happens" just like your elementary school friend might have had a parent or teacher give them an idea. Sometimes you yourself come up with the idea. Either way, here's the real difference between a science fair project and a PhD project:

In a PhD, no one has ever asked the question you're asking, and no one knows the answer. And your Question might be so small and seemingly inconsequential, you will never be able to explain it truthfully to your grandmother over Thanksgiving dinner. Even if your Question is fundamentally important to something like the race to efficient carbon dioxide fixation.

Also, it's not fair to say you have One Question in your PhD. A PhD researcher is a one woman army against a whole battlefield of Questions, and you spend about 1 year per Question (Project) answering (and all the little side questions that come up, curiosities, flashes in the pan, that you think might help you answer the main Question). A typical chemistry thesis is about 3-6 big projects that are related to one another usually only tangentially.

Day to day life is NOTHING like being a student. I walk to work and get in ~8am, and leave at 6. I work 6-7 days a week. The whole time I am doing research work: either at a fume hood, or in a glovebox, doing chemistry, or MAYBE I will sit down and analyze my data or look up prior research in the field to inform my future experiments/learn how to do a certain analysis.

I am teaching myself new techniques, new chemistry, and producing new techniques and new chemistry.

Science PhDs come out of their programs and go into jobs and their bosses tell them to stop working so hard, to only do what they're told, to stop taking work home. Because in normal industry jobs you get contracts that include time off, regular work hours, and regular performance evaluations, whereas a PhDs job is never done, your hours are dictated by what the experiments require, and the amount of time you spend doing your work is pretty proportional to how long your degree is going to take. :-/

Oh yeah and if you're lucky, you have a contract with your university! If you're lucky, you have a union! But most of us have neither of those.

STEM PhDs fortunately will pay you, rather than you paying the University. However, better settle for 25-30k (US)/year. Maybe you get health care. Good luck if youre in a more expensive rent area because 30k is already pretty high for a program offer. Oh, and unless you're very lucky, you likely will need to be a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses multiple times a year. Some contracts stipulate that TAships cannot require more than 20 hrs of your time per week (that's a 50% appointment, and the rest of your time you're supposed to be working in your research lab) but good luck, most of the time your teaching/grading load is going to be ~30-40 hours of its own. And just because you're teaching doesn't mean you get to produce any less work for your research!

Because here's the other thing: you're not an employee, you're not a student. You're supposed to be doing research to answer Questions that will save the world. But you get paid, and your adviser/professor gets paid, and your SCIENCE gets paid, based off of how many Questions you've already answered and how Important someone in the government judges your Answered Questions to be. So if you're not Answering those Questions and simultaneously proving that your Questions are Important, then your funding, and your adviser's funding, are at risk.

I worked in a startup for a while and it was very similar in mentality: your life and your work are the livelihood of the company, and you have to do everything in your power to ensure the company is popular and productive, with as little funding and time off possible--because if you don't do the work, there's no people or money to pick up the slack.

The upside to working in a startup, though, is that in my PhD I come across fun questions like: hey, why is this *that* color? but this other thing is different? And I have the freedom to try and explore those questions. Whereas in a startup, there is no space or time to waste on side projects. I'm in to this work for the curiosity and the passion (when I have energy enough to remember them lol). And a PhD not only provides me with specific skills and knowledge, it also proves that I can pick up any new field and dive in, teach myself, and be productive in it. Most of us never go on to work in anything immediately relevant to our PhD work, because our PhD work is so open ended, but also so narrow in scope within a field. It's important work and it's how most progress gets made in our quality of life and technology and healthcare and other developments as a society--this brain-breaking labor of love by underpaid and over caffeinated, unprotected workers in labs that are constantly at risk of being defunded.

Oh and halfway through, after you've wasted 3 years of your life melting your brain with big Questions, you have a Candidacy Exam where you prove your worth to a committee of Expert Professor Researchers in your field, and they say whether you even get to finish or not. 🤗

Which is what was happening when I started writing DPDF. in the middle of a pandemic. With a lot of my friends and support systems leaving me. And DPDF was born as a coping mechanism for the hopeless, worthless, existentially threatening place I was in at the time. Nothing gets the fingers tapping more than feeling like you want to die every moment you're alone with your thoughts, and having every other moment eaten by blistering brain work. Not working, and sitting, and relaxing were impossible and made me feel extraordinarily guilty. So I wrote. Like my life depended on it. It did. It does.