#Original wordpress themes

[propluginsnet]

We offer genuine products with official license and do not deal with any nulled or cracked products at all. The licenses that come with the installations are the same that you would purchase directly from the developers.

If you want dedicated support, we encourage you to purchase directly from the developer. However you will not benefit from installation support on your website(s) that we offer and most probably will have to pay a higher price for a license.

[deadly-danaid]

"I used to think that I had no choice but to live in your shadow, but that was before I found a flashlight and learned to cast my own."

Moka Lynn, I outgrew you

[transcendragon]

A Spark of Touch

How is it, my love, That feeling your warmth against mine Eases the ache in my soul? When I am nothing But a short-lived sack of flesh Carrying a mind that grates against the world A connection with you Takes me through to being more? – I can know I’m nothing but A biological machine, nerves and hormones Circling until I’m finally done, yet When I’m in your arms I’m greater Your…

[xcziel]

i am SO IRRITATED with @support @staff right now

like this detaching a post from its link to each individual reblog in a chain is a NIGHTMARE

-> new hyperfixation, and i'm trying to backread some of the associated blogs that have been around a while, yeah?

and i'm on mobile, which is relevant because hey fuck app users is i guess the motto?

so used to, if you wanted to read a few months/years back on a blog you could: find a tag of theirs, click on a post that was around the time you were interested in, be ported to the blog's dash AS OF THAT TIME IN THE PAST, and just scroll along

but now, because tumblr, for whatever moronic reason, has isolated posts so that

clicking takes you to an individual pane for *only* that post, not where it is on the blog timeline

AND NOW you CANNOT reach a previous reblog from clicking on the username in the reblog (only the og post)

the ONLY way to get back to older posts is to SCROLL MANUALLY FOR LITERAL HOURS

if i want to see posts from 2017, finding an old post and clicking on it does NOTHING to help me - it has been snipped out of its native environment and shown to me, but the other posts available as links at the bottom pane are just whatever tumblr algorithm thinks are 'relevant', not access to the rest of the blog timeline

this is true EVEN ON MY OWN BLOG and

I HATE IT

either make the Archive function work on mobile or GIVE BACK THE FUNCTIONALITY THAT WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD

[tinystepsforward]

autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

[emporium]

How did you find tumblr?

I really enjoy talking with tumblr users so I thought I'd try posting more prompts to get some conversations started.

I was in a nostalgic mood this week and was trying to remember how I first came to tumblr. It got me thinking that it would be cool to learn other's origin stories. I'll go first.

Even though I'm a big nerd who loves Star Trek (DS9 4 life) and Anime (Fairy Tail forever) it was WordPress that brought me to tumblr. Back in 2010 while in college I worked part time for a WordPress theme shop called Obox Themes. They were looking for new markets and decided that tumblr themes would be a good area to get into. I fell in love with how easy it was to modify my digital home and how there was a whole community of people hacking and releasing themes. Creating a WordPress theme from scratch would have been impossible with my skillset then but with tumblr I could do anything with my handy CSS guide and a few energy drinks.

Over the years what kept bringing me back was the themes. They were funky, weird and sometimes a little broken but who cares. It seemed like the entire web was trying to be grown up but tumblr was Toys R Us, they said it’s ok to be a kid. I loved that. Whenever I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere else I’d come back to tumblr and make a new theme (https://www.tumblr.com/themes/by/nick). I use to love clicking on the installs and seeing what kind of fun folks were using my stuff. What kind of people liked the weird stuff I did. It's your turn. What brought you to tumblr?

[ashubii]

in honor of the nature event and hopefully fairies here's a throwback to my Wonderland themed story I wrote years ago, long before I started posting on tumblr or knew how to use reshade and barely knew how to edit screenshots

my wonderland fairies were always some of my favorites! anyway, their names - as originally written:

Orange - Igni Dazzletwig, who’s wings had captured the pale light of the sky…

Blue - Ora Blueflip, fae of the water…

Green/Teal - Quinn Limedash, the only male faerie to appear, with wings that glimmered in shifting hues…

Pink - And Caliphe Petalwing, the youngest of the four, who had only just earned the color of her wings…

IF WE GET FAIRIES I AM REMAKING ALL OF THEM

the story is also currently privated b/c wordpress devoured my final chapter and epilogue before they got posted and i lost everything. still devastated.

[greater-than-the-sword]

I do think that if tumblr does eventually go down, Automattic ought to at least give us the ability for people with a blog theme [blog.tumblr.com] to convert their blog to a WordPress. Their original content at minimum.

[unpretty]

Hi I also do not have time for web dev* but since reading your post about Patreon-Memberful being terrible and Ghost looking appealing I can't stop thinking about the migration sounding kind of fun. What's your current hosting situation and if you went to ghost would you keep it or switch to their managed hosting Ghost Pro offering or is that all as yet undecided?

*My job is web dev and this ask is at least 90% procrastinating at Job web dev with Daydream web dev, but since it's sticking I figured I might as well try to make the daydream web dev mildly useful

i'd love to do ghost's managed hosting BUT i need custom themes since none of the defaults are geared toward multi serials. and i don't trust them to be cool about smut long-term.

my current cheapo shared hosting for wordpress can't handle ghost so i'd probably do a digitalocean droplet since. that seems like something i can manage lmao. my original plan was to Make A Theme but it turns out i don't want to. so instead i'll probably buy a docs theme (i like the table of contents functionality) and hope for the best.

[blumoonfiction-blog]

Fairy Tale 101: Myths & Legends (The Fox Wife)

“Sometimes, a fox isn’t just a fox. Sometimes, it’s a mystery, a lesson, or even a lover in disguise.” The story of the Fox Wife is one of the most enduring and captivating tales in East Asian folklore. Originating in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean traditions, the legend of the Fox Wife reflects the intersection of the mystical and the human, blending themes of love, deceit, transformation, and…

[bardic-tales]

Happy Friday, everyone. I hope that this week has been awesome for you.

Every day, there will be a theme: such as Blorbo Blursday where it is encouraged you go into each other’s ask boxes or even a post on your blog asking about each others’ weekly project or muse.

This group is open to all creators: writers, visuals artists, and readers. It is for those who appreciate these types of creators. All fandoms are welcome. We accept original works, original characters, alternate universe, strict canon, opt, x reader, and so on.

We aim to support, nurture, and cheer on our fellow content creators, as well as give everyone visibility. Different levels of participation are okay. I understand that schedules change, as does health. Participate at any level, as it feels right for you and your heath.

Make a post discussing what you accomplished creativity this week. This could be a new OC that you came up with, last lines of the WIP you wrote, or some cool World building you came up with. Feel free to link to your AO3, Wordpress, or even Tumblr.

The skies the limit. This is open to original and fandom authors.

Weekly Friday Roundup Answers

@wyked-ao3: original work: TPKODR

@bardic-tales: original work. FF 7: Various

@seastarblue: original work: various

@chickensarentcheap: extraction: lost and found

@themaradwrites: marvel: Andie

@thebadphilosopher: original universe: various

@glbettwrites: original universe: RETROSEER

@nightingaleflowlibrary: naruto: various

@happypup-kitcat24: original work: Dragonfire Chronicles

Part One:

@bardic-tales @megandaisy9 @watermeezer @littleshopofchaos

@nightingaleflowlibrary @kricketbee

@themaradwrites @pinkevilwriter

@serenofroses @asirensrage @aalinaaaaaa @goldenlilium-ocs @glbettwrites

Part Two:

@wyked-ao3 @badscientist @thebadphilosopher @andromedalestrange

@fantastictrashpolice @seastarblue @happypup-kitcat24 @chickensarentcheap @allaboutmagic

@ryns-ramblings @kathaliabloodyrose @riemmetric @andromedaexists @kckramer

@tales-from-nocturnaliss

To sign up for the Creators’ Club, please see this post on @bardic-tales’ blog about it:

Creators’ Club Tag List

Thank you for your interest, and we look forward in getting to know you and your works.

[rainmustfallts4]

One day, you’ll fly (short story)

New Note: Here is another story that I wrote back in 2023 as part of my 'uploading old stories from my old wordpress blog' project lol I wonder if I should have uploaded these in order hmmm Original Note: It’s not normal to submit two different entries for MSSS, but I just had both of these ideas and couldn’t resist. Thank you, Min, for letting me submit both! I feel like this one is much nicer than the first. Also a huge thank you to the amazing creator whose house I used in this story: – Newcrest Starter by SimsOnlineCom

Theme: Take Flight

Challenge/Month: Monthly Simlit Short Story/April 2023

Genre: Friendship, animals, fluff

Word Count: 861 words

Sprinkles slowly approached the kitchen counter, feeling more intimidated the closer he got.

Why was it so tall? He didn’t understand why it had to be so tall.

His older brother, Zeus, easily jumped from one counter to the next, seeming to soar through the air with ease.

Why couldn’t Sprinkles also do that? He just didn’t understand. He had tried multiple times, but he failed every single time. Zeus made it seem so simple but, to Sprinkles, it was the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Zeus glanced over the counter, watching as his younger brother paced around the island.

Curious, he jumped down in front of the smaller feline, head tilted to the side. “What are you doing, squirt?”

“I’m not a squirt!” replied Sprinkles with a scoff.

Zeus hummed. “Were you sizing up the counter again?”

“No…”

“You’re worrying too much about it. You’ll be able to jump that high one day, just be patient.”

“What do you know?!” hissed the smaller of the two, his back arched. “It’s been months and I’m no closer, but you can do it so easily! You’ve always been able to jump so easily with your long legs. It’s not fair!”

“Calm down,” Zeus told him softly, lightly tapping the kitten on his nose. “Here, why don’t we practice your jumping?”

“Practice?” he tilted his head to the side in confusion. “How?”

“It’s simple! Just jump in place as high as you can. Let’s go on three, okay?”

“I don’t see how that’s gonna help… but okay.”

“One… two… three!”

Together, the two cats jumped into the air. Sprinkles didn’t make it very high because of his tiny legs and Zeus only made it a bit farther because he had held back, not wanting to make his brother feel worse than he already did.

“You’re doing great! Once more!”

This time, it was just Sprinkles who jumped.

“Oh ho ho, look at you go! You got a bit more height on that one.”

“Did I really?”

“Yes!” Zeus held up his paw, a grin on his face. “High paw, little bro!”

Despite himself, little Sprinkles smiled back, high pawing his older brother.

For hours, the tiny kitten practiced his jumping, marking his progress with a claw mark to the side of the counter. His jumps were not getting higher, though. If anything, he was finding it harder to reach the same height consistently.

Little Sprinkles finally gave up, running into the bedroom to hide under the bed, trying not to succumb to his feelings of inadequacy. Just like his attempts to reach the counter, it did not go well.

His brother’s words echoed in his mind.

One day, his brother had said.

But it had been a lot of days already and the kitten was no closer! Sprinkles was beginning to think that his brother had lied to him. He curled up into a ball beneath the bed, stuffing his face into his fur.

‘I’ll never be able to fly like Zeus can…’ he thought to himself as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

// One Year Later \\

Sprinkles was no longer the tiny kitten he once was. If anything, he was actually a bit bigger than his skinny older brother. That did little to boost his confidence or stifle his nerves as he stared up at the counter.

Zeus came up beside him with a grin. “You ready? Today is the day, I can just feel it!”

Sprinkles wasn’t so sure. Even less so as he watched his brother jump effortlessly onto the counter.

“You’ve got this! Just believe in yourself, little bro!”

Sprinkles took a few deep breaths to calm himself before he sat back, wiggling his butt before pushing off the ground. It felt as if he had grown wings and taken flight! He soared toward the counter with incredible speed.

When his paws finally touched the countertop, he released a yowl of happiness that made his owner nearly fall out of bed. “Oh my grim, I did it! Zeus, I did it!”

“See? I told you you could.” Proud of his baby brother, Zeus moved toward him with the intent of rubbing against him, but the young cat jumped back down before he could. “Eh? Where are you go – AH!”

In the blink of an eye, Sprinkles had jumped again, nearly tumbling right into the older cat. With his heart racing, Zeus moved himself to the edge of the counter, watching as his brother continued a seemingly endless loop of jumping onto the counter, then down and back again.

“I’ve created a monster…” Zeus muttered to himself before moving to the opposite end after nearly being clocked again by the excited feline.

Seeing that his brother’s back was to him, Sprinkles crouched down low against the surface of the counter, slowly approaching his brother.

In the blink of an eye, the younger had pounced on the older, his arms wrapped around Zeus’ neck as he bit down playfully. “Thank you so much, big bro! I couldn’t have done it without you!”

“Alright, alright!” Laughed Zeus as he tried to fight off the excitable young cat. “Just get offa me already, you’re heavy!”

[mediamatinees]

Love Knows All Bound(arie)s: a Lore Olympus Volume Two Discussion

Come dive into the world of gods and scandal. My review of "Lore Olympus Volume Two" is finally here!

Content Warning: Lore Olympus regularly explores themes of physical and mental abuse, sexual trauma, and toxic relationships. Reader discretion is advised. Spoilers for Lore Olympus Volume Two ahead! The gorgeous and colorful world of Lore Olympus, created by Rachel Smythe, is a playground of subverted myths and excellent dialogue. A twist on the original Taking of Persephone myth, this story…

[sometimesraven]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TWO AMAZING GAMES

Today marks the 10th anniversary of both Dragon Age: Origins and the 15th anniversary of The Longest Journey — two of my favourite video game series’ of all time and two of the most influential on my writing style. In celebration, here’s a quick rundown on what the games are about, their influence on my, and why you should experience them too!

(read this post on Wordpress linked above, or click "Read More" to continue)

The Longest Journey

TLJ, also known as Dreamfall, is a trilogy of adventure games created by Funcom. It is set in two worlds. The first is Stark: a futuristic version of Earth with sci-fi cyberpunk elements, and the second is Arcadia: the world where magic and dreams come from, which is more of a high fantasy setting.

In this Sandman inspired story, you follow characters from and through both worlds, seeking to save the Balance between these worlds from complete collapse, as things on both sides get more and more unstable and sinister.

Dragon Age

Dragon Age is an ongoing series of fantasy RPGs created by Bioware, set in the world of Thedas. You follow the story of a different hero per game, backed by an ensemble of characters who recurr throughout, as they try to save the world from a combination of fantastical threat and tense political divides.

The story is character-focused but thick with worldbuilding. It contains elements of dark fantasy but also maintains a good level of humour and goofiness as you navigate through themes of oppression, leadership, war, corruption, friendship and romance.

The Worldbuilding

Both TLJ and DA incorporate rich, interesting worldbuilding into their worlds. Dragon Age puts a new and fresh twist into the traditional fantasy world, while The Longest Journey is one of the most beautiful and richly varied takes on the “hidden world” urban fantasy trope I’ve seen to this day.

TLJ in particular has a huge influence on my worldbuilding. The way Arcadia is built to feel so completely alien, and yet homely and familiar, while mirroring the mundane world’s conflicts, fits so beautifully into balance of the dreamlike wonder and gritty realism I want my stories to hold.

The Representation

Dragon Age in particular boasts some of the first and best examples of transgender inclusion in the games, and The Longest Journey series has the earliest examples of casual gay representation I can remember seeing, prominently features characters of colour, and even makes the “manly warrior with a heart of gold” archetype playable character openly gay in the final game.

Even though the gestures are small by today’s standards and some have aged badly (TLJ briefly has a non-passing trans woman as a joke, though even this is presented far less transphobic than most other examples of its time), they impact me to this day. This is what I hope to provide to the underrepresented demographics that exist today, which is why I put extra effort into representing stigmatised identities such as plural systems, aro/ace people, etc. in my stories.

The Characters

Representation is one thing, but it matters very little without a solid cast of characters to go with it. TLJ and DA both have a huge cast of characters that live in my heart to this day. From the playable characters to the prominent NPCs to the villains, it’s clear how much care is put into each and every character, making memorable and lovable even some of the brief roles that are allowed to be forgettable.

While it’s not my place to decide if my characters feel that way, I do strive to convey at least some of that kind of care and love in my work. Everything I write is character-focused and it’s partially thanks to the games I played in my formative years, but especially these two franchises. I believe the characters are the single most important thing about a story — there have been countless stories I’ve consumed that are objectively awful, but the characters and their personal arcs have made me adore them anyway.

In Conclusion

Whether you’re following an art student through two worlds at war, or battling corrupted creatures in Thedas, The Longest Journey and Dragon Age are two franchises that I believe to be utterly unmissable if you’re a fan of beautiful worldbuilding, diverse and lovable characters, and a story that will live with you forever.

(there's even a funny talking corvid!)

I genuinely can’t overstate how influential these games have been on my life, my love for urban and low fantasy, and my storytelling style as a whole. If anyone is interested in what I’ve stated so far, please try these games out! Again, even just watching a playthrough or playing the most recent games to get a ‘feel’ for the story — I just need people to experience these games one way or another.

[zeldauniverse]

Tears of the Kingdom official soundtrack to be released in Japan

The official soundtrack of Tears of the Kingdom is getting its first physical release as a CD box set on July 31, 2024. The announcement was made on Nintendo’s Japanese website. It contains 344 tracks across 9 discs and includes original recordings, as well as BGM and sound effects. There also will be a limited edition with an exclusive box design and a Master Sword themed USB containing 15 high…

[sonadowfujoshi]

Sonic Frontiers Original Soundtrack: Stillness & Motion - CD Liner Notes

Sonic Frontiers, scheduled for release on November 8, 2022 (Tuesday), will have an original soundtrack CD “Sonic Frontiers Original Soundtrack Stillness & Motion” released on December 7, 2022 (Wednesday), containing 150 tracks of background music from the game, including the main theme song “I’m Here.” In addition, the soundtrack is scheduled to be released on music distribution services from…