#all my creativeness went into this user HELP

[fwrilled]

what should my sideblog be named. . hmm ..

[acuar-io]

Advice on how to achieve aesthetically pleasing gameplay photos!

UPDATED: 4/22/2024

I made this post earlier today and people were interested in the comments! Which made me more excited to make this post~

this is just some advice from me! this isnt a tutorial or anything of that sort, but I will be linking some things that could be helpful for editing gameplay! :D

First things first, I want to say that I use a graphics overhaul, lighting mods check my resources page for what reshade i use if ur interested.

I use these lighting mods & graphics override specifically:

sunblind

graphics overhaul

Lotharihoe's ootd* curseforge download :)

Northern siberia winds in-game better lighting mod (bright base)

these are some other lighting mods you can try out as well!

Luumia's NoBlu & NoGlo

these are some other lighting mods like sunblind

how to install lighting mod

I just wanted to add these things in since we're talking screenshots + I wanted to share for the no reshade ppl <3

Now we can move on to the advice!

I love the simple style of gameplay editing so much, but for me I love creating an ambience with my posts and put the audience inside of my gameplay. I also enjoy storytelling with gameplay more than just the "usual" gameplay post (when it comes to me). I am currently playing the globetrotter challenge with my sim Daichi. I really went all out with the editing for that gameplay. For this one its very much a virtual collage of my sim doing things. Trying new things and getting inspired by others is always fun and cool! Remember when u do take inspo: link to the inspiration and @ the simmer that inspired u!!

In my other save (my cozy save) I also take creative liberties there.

its more of a cozy vibe & silent story-telling (storytelling w/o the dialogue). for my cozy save i take inspiration from @/stellarfalls. er gameplay really helped me find my niche thing in the way i play the game tbh!

Angles/Screenshots

When you're taking your screenshots, angles are important. Depending on the shot, you're putting emphasis on a specific thing. This post is very helpful and talks about different types of angles/shots and what they mean. Check it out especially if you want to play around with the way you take screenshots!

Here’s some editing tips from @stellarfalls !!

simmingstars editing tips

Reshade

If I want to create a moody or dreamy ambience I can use reshade. Looking for a reshade that will fit the overall vibe is a must or you can make your own~

i know not everyone is able to use reshade because they're not on windows. I highly recommend using photoshop actions to create that ambience you're looking for.

*These can be used in photopea, but it cant read topaz clean. If you want to achieve topaz clean in photopea, check this post out! just something i'd like to add in case people are new to all of this + dont use photoshop. Lastly, I want to say if you decide to edit photos on photopea, it does tend to crash if you upload a big number of photos and slows down. I usually upload like 6 or 8 and then save and repeat the process. Its kinda annoying, but ive been using photopea for a while now so im used to it. My mac users, use early-grapes butter action if you want things to look cleaner and less harsh!! + the other ps actions down below. I used these a lot when I was a mac user. Of course, that comes with extra steps, but I feel its worth it in the end.

I like these photoshop action packs bc theres tons of stuff in here that can help create a reshade like look:

intramoon's ps action dump

wooldawn's ps acton dump

smubuh's photoshop actions

early-grape's butter action

hazelminesims's ps actions

Templates!

I loveeeeeee templates so much!! theres so many out there to use for gameplay. It really adds more to gameplay posts! This can be dust/dirt, film burn, that cute camera template etc etc. templates are really fun to use and play around with~

I usually go on deviantart to find templates to use! if you want to check out my deviantart account you can find it here! I favorite a lot of things I can use for gameplay screenies.

Gifs

making gifs is cool because it brings the gameplay "to life" ~

EZgif is a free website that converts videos to gifs. You'll need a recording program like OBS (which is also free).

i like making gifs when i want to capture a (cute) moment (kisses, hugs, cooking etc etc). Its also cool to capture the weather in game like when its snowing or raining.

Little details

Some people really go all out on editing gameplay posts like adding hair strands and adding more details to sims faces (catchlights, tears, blushing, etc). You dont really have to do this, but I want to mention it anyways! I want to try doing this at some point because I enjoy editing my gameplay posts/photos in general and adding tiny details is fun to me lol. It adds realism to posts, but it isnt necessary!

Procreate is a really good program that you can get if you have an ipad. its 10$ and thats, that. You dont have to make any payments. You can also animate on procreate too if you're down for that!

Find inspiration in other simmers!

the sims community on tumblr is filled with such talented people! Theres lots of gameplay simmers who dont do your typical gameplay posts that you can check out and learn from!!! Ive always struggled with getting the right angles when taking screenies. I looked at other simmers and how they take screenshots & it was really helpful for me since I noticed I would take too many over the shoulder photos on my sims lol.

I think thats all the advice I have! I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions please send me an ask or dm! :D

[zombvic]

VROOM (harry lewis x reader)

summary : in which y/n and harry get invited to go to the silverstone formula one grand prix (2023)

face claim : no one exact

notes : im an absolute noob at writing fics so please excuse the quality lmao. im petrified of posting on here but ive been thinking about starting a blog for over a year. im open to feedback, opinions and any sort of questions/advice is welcome! i happen to waffle a lot so just skip those parts if uninterested. this is my first post so enjoy 😝 also pls request because i have the creativity of a koala so id appreciate some ideas :D

pairings : harry lewis x reader , lando norris x platonic!reader

"WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?! Are you actually serious?" You asked your boyfriend in genuine shock, followed by a laugh from the man dressed in head to toe in Ferrari merch. The red and yellow colors clashed hilariously with the sleek, orange McLaren paddock pass hanging around his neck.

"What? I thought I'd support the winning team." He shrugged, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. You and Harry got invited by the Mclaren F1 team to watch the Silverstone Grand Prix from the paddock. As a Formula 1 fan youself, you were excited to see the cars upclose. To watch the mechanics to the pitstops, engineers do their things (idk what they do lmao) and to watch Max Verstappen overlap the whole grid like seven times. Even since you were a little kid you were amazed by those cars driving freakishly quickly. Now, several years later you get to experience it right infront of your eyes.

"Look, there's Lando!" Harry pointed out, spotting your friend talking to a group of mechanics. You approached Lando, who broke into a wide grin as he saw you. "Hey! There are my favorite YouTubers!"

You beamed. "Lando! It's so good to see you. How's it going?"

"It's been wild but amazing," Lando replied, glancing at Harry. "And I see you've managed to get Harry in the right gear this time."

Harry laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I had a little help with that."

Lando gave you two a playful nudge. "So, who are you rooting for today? Besides me, of course."

You laughed. "Well, McLaren, obviously. But I'm also excited to see how the Brits perform. It's going to be an interesting race."

"That's the spirit," Lando said, his eyes twinkling with excitement. "Alright, I better get back to my team, but I'll see you guys later? Enjoy the race!"

You and Harry found a spot in the back of Landos garage, it had a view on the screens but also the pit-stop. The whole race went by fast. The moment the lights went out Lando tried his hardest with a deserved P2 at his home race.

Liked by mclaren, f1 & 1,002,485 others.

yourusename mom, i got invited to the silverstone grand prix.. still lowkey in disbelief like wtf.. me?? anyways, tysm mclaren 🩷 enjoy my lovely film camera dump raaaah.

View all 2,547 comments.

user harry looking fine as always😍

user y/n and lando finest friends

wroetoshaw whos the first fella hes fit

- yourusername he has a girlfriend..

user i can imagine y/n just walking around taking pictures of everything and everyone 😭😭😭

user i almost melted when they came on the screen

- user me too 😭 forgot i was watching f1 for a second

wroetoshaw i still think i shouldve worn my ferrari outfit #hater

- yourusername youd be sticking out like a sore thumb youre lucky i stopped you #loser #youalmostworepajamapants

user y/n looked so good there 😍

user i LIVE for y/n and landos friendship

faithlouisak i cant believe you chose him over me..

- yourusername im sorry bae.. next time im taking u

faithlouisak finest woman out there

calfreezy wtf fake friends.. theburntchip are you seeing what im seeing ???

- theburntchip bunch of fakies😔

holy what a yap fest lmfao please someone REQUEST something 😭 cause this is too plain.. !

[lucenare]

A letter to the Fable SMP

I'm going to pour my heart out into this post. So sit down, take a breath, and get ready for a walk through all the ways my life has been impacted. This is pretty heavy.

Warnings: discussions of bullying, death of people and animals

If you don't know me; Hi, my name is Rin Silas. You know me better as tumblr user Lucenare.

This starts before Fable began, with a buildup to me losing my love of cosplay, and what brought that back.

When I was in high school, I was a horror SFX cosplayer. I was going to cons all the time, finding my niche in the local cosplay community. Some of my friends came to be professional cosplayers. I did not. When I got diagnosed with POTS, cosplay became hard for me. I wasn't sure how to do it. I stopped being active. My self image plummetted. And one of my "friends" turned out to be an awful person. A professional cosplayer, who was a bully and made that self image worse. I couldn't go to certain cons for years because of her. She would bully people until they left if she saw them-- and she was so popular in the community. It crushed me, to see her rise in the community. It stripped the joy out of cosplay. I didn't *want* to be in this space, and it soured the craft.

I wanted to get back into it, but I was unsure of how. I started working on clothes again, making my outfit for senior prom. At my highest point mentally in all of high school, finally being creative in a way that made me feel good again, with a clear path for college; the world shut down. With all that free time, and multiple generations worth of fabric hordes, I started sewing again. My grandmother got me a graduation present- a heavy duty sewing machine all to myself. No more borrowing my moms. I sewed so many plushies durring that time- but I still wasnt making cosplays again.

And then the DreamSMP happened.

And then I signed up for Tiktok.

And suddenly, I had all of these tiktok cosplayers cosplaying minecraft cubitos all over my feed. No fear, just fun. All different body types- going crazy with it, not being "canon accurate"-- two things my "friend" had strongly ridiculed me for. And it was great. It felt so good, from my heavily sterilized cosplay scene, to see so much freedom and love put into it. I was too scared to cosplay again, but I saw a love put into it that I hadn't seen since I went to BLERD, a smaller local con geared towards minorities. All of these cosplayers- whos names we all know, as so many of them were part of Fable- let me see the love in something that had been taken from me again. And years later, I love cosplaying again. Without this, i don't know if I would have started cosplaying again.

And then those cosplayers started to cosplay their own characters- and they were all *connected*. It was such a pure form of enjoyment- watching people love what they had made enough to cosplay from it. And then I found myself tuning in to Sherbert's streams, mid corruption arc.

And that's how it started. My love for Fable. The impact it had on me- the vessel for healing my relationship with cosplay. I also healed my relationship with makeup in this time.

Throughout 2022, Fable was a source of fun, and something to look forward to. I loved it. It became a hyperfixation. I started cosplaying again, privately. I wanted to show my love for what was bringing me joy. As my grandmother who gifted me my sewing machine's health worsened, I met George witchcrafting in person for the first time, my work closed for remodel, and I became my grandmother's caretaker. Being woken up in the night to help her, until eventually I was sleeping at her house. Stay awake until 3 playing splatoon, wake up and watch whatever fable lore was happening to pass the time around caring for her.

By the end of this, I was waking up at 8 am and going to bed at 3 am, waking my mother up so I could get a couple hours of much needed sleep before doing it all again. Having to call my brother to watch her for a couple minutes at a time so I could go outside and cry. She was only on hospice for a week, that's how fast she got bad. She passed a week before Christmas, the night before my work re-opened. I was the only one awake.

Fable SMP became my escape from the grief and pain. The funeral was the day after my 21st birthday.

In Febuary 2023, I came home from my trip to visit my beloved GB for our anniversary, and my cat was sick. She passed a couple days later. Fable was once again my primary outlet. Being silly on tumblr was my primary outlet. I changed my url on my minecraft blog from craftsunemineku to lucenare. As more random cast members started following me, Ghosty started to mess with me in replies. I never let anyone know my twitch, though. I didn't want anyone to. I wanted to remain an Entity on tumblr.

Until Ghosty send me a meme, with an accidental spoiler of Allerion's mural in it. And that was too funny to pass up. The next time Ghosty was live, I subbed with prime, and hit him with the famed "oh tumblr user ghostyjpg we're really in it now" in my sub message.

I wouldn't be where I am today without that, truly. We were silly goofy, I got goofier on tumblr. I had been wanting to get back into streaming, as I had started to right before my grandmother's health had declined and had to stop almost immediately. I became a mod for Haunt, Ghosty's viewer smp.

In early July, I lost one of my guinea pigs. Jack's partner, Phineas. Phin was a birthday present I got when I turned 17. He was my emotional support for grief especially, and the world took him away when I needed him the most. A month later, the world took away my other cat, too. Three pets, and my grandmother.

Being Tumblr User Lucenare got me through the worst time of my life.

And then I started streaming again. And Ghosty grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and flung me. And because of that, I'm now a streamer, I've made so many friends. I changed my major-- the trajectory my life was on changed.

And here I am.

Without Fable, I would have never healed my relationship with cosplay the way I did. Without Fable, I would never have met the people I have. Without Fable, I wouldn't have started streaming again. Without Fable, I wouldn't have started Terramortis.

I hope that Terramortis can do for someone a fraction of what Fable did for me.

To Heyhay: thank you for being a creator I could look up to. For inspiring me to bring my crazy UV makeup into cosplay. Sorry Rae's Big Naturals ended up being a major bit on my streams, I dont know how that happened. Also thank you for the elytra tutorial on your youtube that is my Rock for texture pack things.

To Sherbert: thank you for helping heal my relationship with cosplay, even before you knew I existed. I will always appreciate that. Thank you for inspiring me to script out CMVs, showing your processes to the world, and inspiring me to change my major to one I actually enjoy.

To Ocie: Thank you for helping me get my dog back from Ethan and Eagle on EOD in season 4. Unbreakable bond of theres a rule written about us.

To Beck: my fellow old bay hater, thank you for joining my smp and all the silly conversations we've had. I cant wait to work with you more going forward.

To Connor: One day we need to make teas together on stream. You are a delight to know and never let anyone tell you otherwise. I can't wait to see where these bugs go.

To Ven: thank you for joining in on the occasional splaturday, even in chat. You are so brave for the costuming you're doing right now, I hope we can hang out more in the future and do cool things

And to Ghosty: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything. Without you, I don't know where I'd be. Thank you for playing splatoon with me, for the silly messages I get, for all the little spoilers, accidental or otherwise. Thank you for helping me through one of the worst years of my life, before you even knew me. I genuinely did not know if I was going to make it through 2023. I did, in no small part thanks to you. I made it through and I thrived and the foundation for it was so simple. A meme. Some jokes. An accidental spoiler.

It's funny how fast your life can change.

So, to the cast of Fable:

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for building this story and this community. This community that saved me, that guided me through the dark. That allowed me to meet my dear friends that I have now. I am meeting so many people at vidcon this year, so many friends that I didn't have a year ago are now some of my closest.

I can't wait to see what comes next, and I can't wait to create with some of you.

Thank you, so much, for everything.

[bfpnola]

Trans Reads is an ambitious project created by and for transgender people to openly access writing related to our communities. We believe education should be free and writing shouldn’t be behind a paywall. Transreads.org provides the opportunity to access, discuss, and distribute texts for free.

If you’re looking for books, chapters, texts, essays, or articles by, for, or about people who transverse or transcend western gender norms, you’re in the right place!

Trans Reads was formed through the work, consulting, and creativity of an anonymous group of trans people of various genders and races around the U.S. involved in organizing, academia, and trans liberation efforts. Trans Reads was launched in 2019 following increasing violence against trans people alongside the lack of accessible resources for trans people to learn about our own community.

There is a serious barrier for most trans people accessing content from our community. Trans people on average have less disposable income, time to read and purchase literature, and knowledge of the available texts. We created Trans Reads to address this problem directly. We offer the largest collection of free trans texts on the internet.

Get Involved:

Trans Reads is almost entirely generated through user content. By uploading, you can help a trans teen in a rural area learn about other girls like her. You could help a trans student who can’t afford a textbook easily pass their class. You can even share your own writing with the world on an easy-to-use platform exclusively for trans content. You can help grow our collection on our upload page. If you are interested in helping us upload texts for our collection, you can reach out on our contact page.

Ethics:

We are faced with the common ethical question about hurting the sales of trans authors. However, the largest ever study on piracy actually found that the piracy of copyrighted books, music, video games, and movies has no effect on sales. In the case of video games, piracy actually helped sales. As far back as 2002, we can see piracy boosting sales of media. Trans Reads strongly encourages you to purchase the books that you enjoy here or find other ways to support the author.

Academic authors rarely – if ever – see income from sales of their books, articles, or chapters. Most want to remove the paywalls withholding their content. Trans Reads is open to collaborating with authors, publishers, and journals on making this a possibility through our website.

History:

In 2014, Leslie Feinberg published the 20th-anniversary edition of Stone Butch Blues, one of the most influential works of transgender literature. The novel was a way for trans, gender nonconforming, and queer people to realize ourselves. It told us we aren’t alone. However, when the publisher went bankrupt, Leslie had to struggle to regain ownership over hir own novel.

“I had to work to recover my rights to Stone Butch Blues. When the first publisher went into Chapter 11 court, I had to spend thousands of dollars of my wages on legal fees to recover the right to this novel… While very ill in Spring 2012, I recovered my rights again.”

Ze didn’t want the book to be released as a film adaptation exploiting hir story for straight fantasies. Ze also used the opportunity to make the book more accessible. First editions shot up into hundreds of dollars. The least expensive print versions are still over $30 on Amazon. This simply isn’t affordable to most queer and trans people. The fight ended with Leslie publishing hir novel on hir website as a PDF, a strategy of reclaiming transgender narratives from greedy publishes by collective ownership of the text.

Trans Reads is dedicated to the memory of Leslie and all those who feel alone. Most individuals don’t have institutional access and cannot afford to pay for texts. Transreads.org allows visitors to effortlessly read texts by, for, or related to trans people online for free as PDFs. Trans Reads is the space where anyone can easily discuss, add, or download trans content.

This project is intended to foster discussion around the current state of learning. We refuse paywalls and withholding education. Trans Reads provides the opportunity to access, discuss, and distribute texts related to our community on its website in a matter of seconds.

Knowledge, learning, and community must be de-commodified for our collective liberation. Take it from Leslie:

“And on the day those paper deeds of ownership are torn up, it won’t matter about protecting Stone Butch Blues anymore from commercial exploitation.”

Authors shouldn’t live in fear of their work being exploited or inaccessible. Trans Reads is just one small part of trans autonomy from corporate publishers. However, it is a necessary step toward engaging with our radical history, politics, and futures.

Click here to upload a text.

[piedpiperart]

Phantom of Gotham 18

Chapter 17

”I can’t believe you!” Tim exclaimed, punching Danny in the arm when he spotted him in class. 

“Ouch!” Danny laughed nervously, rubbing his arm. “You-”

“You could have told me you were leaving! Or at least talked to us about it first,”Tim said, exasperated. Danny watched him throw himself into the seat next to Danny dramatically and throw his bag down, only to dig through it for a tupperware of… oh, were those Alfred’s cookies? Danny hoped they were for him. Alfred’s cookies were awesome. “Now even Damian is bugging me about you and telling me to just take you home after school.”

“Uh, you guys did say I could leave and that you wouldn’t call CPS,”Danny reminded him, rubbing the back of his neck. Tim gave him a look, blowing some bangs out of his eyes.

“Yes. And we’ll stick to that. But you know we only said that because we’d hope to convince you to stay at the manor. Because we’re rich and we have an infinite amount of space for you to stay,”Tim stressed. “Seriously. Where are you staying now?”

“Not telling,”Danny deflected immediately. “You guys got a frickin’ vigilante working for you, I’m not a snitch.”

“That’s not-” Tim threw his hands into the air exasperatedly. “Fine! But only talkers get cookies,”Tim glared, sliding the tupperware of solid gold goodness away from Danny’s hands. Danny pouted, but didn’t relent. 

The day continued like that, with Tim trying to convince him to stay at the manor, while Danny deflected and changed  subjects like a bored teen changing channels on a tv. I was getting cumbersome for both of them by lunch though, and they’d settled for a truce. Danny ended up getting a few cookies while Steph joined them at the lunch table. She was soon cackling over the Waynes losing a potential adoptee and for Danny sneaking out. They high-fived. Tim was not amused. By the multitude of texts to Tim’s phone, the family wasn’t either. 

RobinHood

Went to the Pizzaria, kid’s stuff is gone. 

LittleJohn

Damn. I got nothing on my end. Any ideas?

RobinHood

Tail him after school

MaidMarian

You think he’ll notice?

LittleJohn

Well, he might if he’s got a ghost looking out for him Steph. We’re not sure where Phantom went the other day but we do know that Danny got out of the manor without triggering any security.

RobinHood

Plus Phantom is friends with Danny. 

MaidMarian

Eh, we can still try. Or just kidnap him as civilians (≖⌣≖)

LittleJohn

Eh… Maybe. Last resort.

RobinHood

I could just take him from school

MaidMarian

•̀ ᎑ -

LittleJohn

No!! That would be so much worse oh my god

Jason sighed at his brother’s lack of creativity. He’d thought the Pizzaria might have been cleared out but seeing it for himself still made his heart sink. If only there was some clues to where the kid had gone, he thought. No doubt he was anywhere but around Hood’s territory now. 

To be fair, he wasn’t nearly as worried about the kid now that he knew he had ghost powers that helped him survive. Still, Jason knew living on the streets wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Part of him thought that maybe the kid was scared that everyone hunting him would put the Waynes in danger. He wasn’t wrong to think that, but they could handle themselves. Sure, ghosts were a new thing for them, but they adapted. Made plans. 

Jason wasn’t sure they’d be able to keep Danny or Phantom in one place without using some kind of ghost technology like the GIW or call in a magic user. Except Jason didn’t want to think about having weapons that Danny’s parents made to hurt him. From what he could tell, ghosts weren’t as much of a problem to humans as humans were to ghosts. Jason didn’t need ghost weapons to deal with the GIW, and he sure as hell was gonna deal with them. 

The Bats had been gathering information on them like crazy. Babs was still hacking their databases and Batman was putting together a plan to inform the Justice League. They weren’t entirely sure this was something the Green Lanterns needed to take up to the OA, but if it was they’d cross that bridge when they got to it. 

-----------------------------------------

Damian was furious. 

He’d been texting Timothy nonstop about Danny and yet- unsurprisingly- his older brother had been unable to convince the boy to come back to the manor. Frustratingly, Timothy had not even responded to any of his text messages since lunch time and hadn’t come to the manor after school. Even Todd wasn’t answering any of his messages- plans- to convince Danny to join the family. It had been two days and Danny had still been staying who knows where. The family had not even tried to follow him home out of some misguided respect for privacy and free will. He was sure Danny was somewhere abandoned, likely somewhere lacking proper water and heat. Damian was beyond frustrated that all his hard work getting Danny used to a stable meal plan was for nothing. 

It was ridiculous how dumb Danny was acting in regards to his own safety. As one of the few species of half ghost around, he had the survival instincts of a paper bag, and Damian was of the opinion that he should be trying a lot harder considering his status. Damian had no idea why Danny would think they wouldn’t be able to protect and care for him at the manor. Obviously, Danny was an asset when it came to the Ghostly dimension given his halfa status and friendship with Phantom. There was no other reason why he wanted Danny to stay. It wasn’t like he missed the boy. Even if he was better than Timothy in every way, and had intriguing powers that he trusted Damian with. Not at all.

Damian scoffed, adjusting his tie for the third time. He didn’t want to go to this infernal Gala, especially when only Grayson and his father were attending. Cass was still in Hong Kong, and Jason and Timothy had other plans. Damian hoped those plans included getting Danny to stay at the manor. He would no doubt be a good sidekick for when Damian was older, and he would not be letting Danny slip through his fingers. 

“Are you ready Baby bat?” Grayson asked, a grin on his face and despite the formal wear, he’d somehow convinced Father to let him wear a glittery monstrosity instead of a tie. “There’s gonna be a few people B wants us to keep an eye on, wanna help me with surveillance?” Damian scoffed. “Why not. It’s not as if there will be anything else of importance going on,”He added. Grayson gave him a knowing smile, as if he was recalling just how boring and overly formal these parties were. 

“I’d say you get used to it, but…”Grayson trailed off, sighing dramatically. “Never do.” He shook his head, then they made their way to the front where Alfred and Bruce were waiting with the car. 

As far as Galas go, it was certainly not the most boring, but it definitely wasn’t providing any riveting conversations. As far as surveillance, Damian was able to trade off with Grayson during the night, switching targets and gleaming information as they went. It was no surprise that Mr. Elwood was simply in an affair than any nefarious business deals. Ms. Green on the other hand was definitely collaborating with some of the shader patrons in the Gala, whom Father suspected had ties to Penguin. 

Though, there was one target that Damian couldn’t get a read on. He was tall, haughty, and self-absorbed, yet according to B, had a perfectly clean multi-million dollar business despite multiple complaints and signs to otherwise. Damian in particular hated him on principle for the way he looked down on everyone around him. He ignored how hypocritical that statement might be and chose to eye the billionaire talking with his father. 

“As I was saying, my son Daniel reminds me a lot of your sons,”Vlad was saying to Bruce. He was wearing a gray suit with a black shirt and an annoyingly green tie. Damian was certain it was some type of football paraphernalia. “He’s very headstrong and independent for one. How do you deal with your sons when they refuse to listen to reason?”

“Oh?” Brucie said with an exaggerated confused look. He ignored the concerning question for now.“I was unaware you had any children.”

Annoyance and something else flashed across Vlad’s face before he schooled his expression to exasperation. Damian sneered at the man internally. “Ah of course, Daniel is technically my godson, but he’s like a son to me. We have a lot in common,”Vlad explained, a sneer suddenly forming and taking Damian by surprise,”At least more than his father has with him. Honestly, his mother could do so much better than that bumbling idiot.”

“Where is this Daniel then?” Damian cut in, garnering the attention of both men. Vlad seemed surprised to see him, if not a bit jealous. “If you are so close, how come he didn’t join you here?”

“I would have loved to have the little badger here beside me,”Vlad’s face twisted into something like sadness, but missed the mark. “Unfortunately, Daniel’s gone missing these past few months without so much as a word.”

Damian frowned as his father offered meaningless sympathies. Daniel? Vlad had been from Wisconsin, but he recalled the man having some sort of dealings in Amity. After a moment he remembered and scowled. This man was the Mayor of Danny’s town. He was the one who’d let the GIW in in the first place, surely. Looking up at the man’s false mask, set on gaining sympathy from his father made him light up with contempt. 

“Of course,”Vlad was saying when Damian started paying attention again.”I had originally come to Gotham to find him, you see. I’d heard something about him being spotted in the area and just had to check it out for myself.”

That was bad. If he was talking about Danny, then Vlad somehow had gotten ahold of information about his whereabouts. Who else had that intel? Was the GIW or the Fentons on his tail? Was Danny in danger? He quickly excused himself from the two adults and meandered over to his elder brother to relay the information. Hopefully they could get Danny to a safe location before something bad happened. 

Chapter 19

[cookinguptales]

I went to go see a movie a couple days ago at the Alamo Drafthouse in Manhattan and I've been to one of their locations before and enjoyed it, but I ran into something really frustrating at this one.

Sometimes I look at design choices and think, "oh, they really didn't ask any disabled people what they thought about THIS one." Like, for example, I see this photo bandied around a lot like some super creative accessibility integration but any actual disabled person would tell you it's an extreme safety hazard:

Steep grade, sharp curves, and very little to keep you from rolling down those stairs if you make one false move. Plus, as usual, disabled folks who don't use wheelchairs are being ignored because there are no railings or anything for them to use on the "accessible" path. It's just bad design, as much as able-bodied people go apeshit over it.

Ran into that again at Alamo Drafthouse. It was really, really clear to me that they thought they were doing something innovative with their accessible seats, but all they did was create an accessibility nightmare. There were several problems with their "solution", which I suspect was designed more to maximize profit than anything, but I think a lot of them wouldn't be noticed if you've never like... actually been disabled.

I reserved a companion seat at the theater, like I do every time I go see a movie. For the uninitiated, most modern theaters have an accessible row (usually in the middle of the theater) that is at ground-level. There are large gaps between seats to be used for wheelchairs (either to sit in or to park, if they prefer transferring to softer seats) and then "companion" seats next to those for their loved ones to sit in with them. These companion seats are also often booked by disabled people who need physical chairs to sit in (i.e. are not wheelchair users) but still need to be in an accessible row and/or need space for medical/accessibility devices, service animals, etc.

When I got to the theater, I immediately realized that no one at this chain realized that companion seats are usually used in this way by the disabled community -- because the companion seats were not accessible. I looked at the row (in the back of the theater, sigh) for several minutes in confusion, trying to figure out where the wheelchair seats were. There were no visible gaps and you could only get to the entire row by going down a step.

Then it clicked. Two of the chairs were removable. My guess is that staff would roll the chairs out and a wheelchair could be rolled into the gap that they created -- but to actually get to the front of the seats, you had to go down a step.

So in other words, you are presumably supposed to arrive early if you're a wheelchair user (something not specified on the tickets page) and get someone to remove a chair for you, and the seats surrounding you are not accessible for transfer or for people with other disabilities.

(I guess this is great for the theater, as it allows them to sell those wheelchair seats to able-bodied people if disabled people don't show up... but it kind of feels like actual disabled people are shit out of luck here.)

Now, I had some train trouble so I arrived about five minutes before the trailers started. Totally acceptable for able-bodied people, but I can't help but realize that if I had been using my wheelchair that day instead of just my cane, that wouldn't have been nearly enough time to get the chairs removed before the lights went down. So that's already one extra step for disabled people.

But the companion seat thing feels like an even bigger problem. It's what made it really clear to me that disabled people weren't consulted in the design of this theater because clearly no one ever wondered what someone who is disabled but not a wheelchair user would do in this theater. There were literally no accessible seats for a disabled person who didn't bring their own place to sit.

The best case scenario is... idk, maybe they'd pull the seats out, you sit in one, then they roll them back in? But it just seems like that would have a high potential for injury, especially because the seats fit pretty snugly into the row. And it's really not an intuitive solution; there were no signs explaining how these seats worked or anything, so it'd be hard to even know to ask for that.

And again, none of this was mentioned on the website. I wanted to go to this theater because it was close to where I'd been earlier that day and because I knew it was by an accessible subway station (not... always a given in NYC), plus I do like the vibe at Alamo Drafthouse. I liked the pizza and boozy milkshake I had there. I thought the vampiric preshow, what I saw of it, was fun. But I absolutely would've just gone to an AMC or something if I'd known that they would not have accessible seating.

Being real with you, going to movies is one of my favorite things to do when I'm having a high-symptom day. It's dark, it's cold, I can sit in a comfortable chair for two hours. It's a way to get out of the house and do something fun even if I can't move much. So... I know that one step might not have seemed like much to them, but I was there because I was already in a lot of pain. And that one step hurt like a bitch.

And idk, man, call me fussy but sometimes I just want to have fun without it hurting! Like damn, I needed that booze after going down the stair, then having to go up a stair and falling into my seat.

(And a hearty fuck you to the guy next to me who was like "WHOA, JEEZ" when I toppled into my seat. Like damn, you see a visibly disabled person fall after dealing with stairs that should not have been there and then you get judgy? Shit, dude.)

Anyway... I told an employee about my concerns when I left and he seemed fairly receptive but also at a loss as to how to fix things. I mean, I think putting a warning that the seats aren't actually accessible on the website is a MUST but I agree that I'm not sure how to fix the problem with the way that the theater was physically built. The whole design was flawed, which feels in some ways unforgivable in a movie theater built in... *googles* Jesus Christ, 2021?

2021 and still making functionally inaccessible theaters. What the heck.

So that was frustrating! Also, this part isn't Alamo's fault but the office building the theater was under was also super difficult to get around in if you're disabled. The entrances/exits I could find all had stairs, but one had a largely unmarked hydraulic lift. I've used these before, so I knew how to use it, but I bet a lot of people would be confused as hell. (Especially how to get the door unlocked, lmao.) There were no signs saying where it was or anything, either. I only found it by chance.

THEN, when I was leaving, I found out that the accessible exit had been roped off for... cleaning? Repairs? idk. All I know is that I got off the lift and suddenly realized that I was surrounded by caution tape that had cordoned off the stairs I had just bypassed.

But it was the only accessible exit (that I could find, anyway) and I was essentially trapped, so I had to just like... pull down some of the caution tape and go around it and try to stick it back up as best I could. I hope I didn't ruin whatever they were doing, but I'm not really sure what choice I had.

All in all, just a weird, frustrating, and unnecessarily painful adventure. So if you're disabled uhhh maybe find a different location.

[pawborough]

Hello, all! Thank you for the patience at the later update! It's my goal to get them back on track with updates on or near the 10th. We waited this month for two reasons:

1. A few artists went on short hiatus, leaving less to show on the art side.

2. We're focusing a great deal of manpower towards the Cat Creator, including hand-selecting every color and its accents for each gene, balancing the wheel choice in our new system, and full steam ahead illustrating coverage and patterns you all are familiar with on new poses.  We are MIGHTY proud of our work, and feel all the effort going into colors and genes will pay off, but there's not a lot to show off until the huge update (aside from a very extensive and colorful spreadsheet. We are drowning in hex codes!) Our wheel is truly like no other in its aesthetics, but it is taking a healthy amount of effort. 

It was for this reason that we chose to wait until there was a bit more content to show. Next months update may be smaller as we get back on track to the 10th of every month. 

We have great news on what we have completed!

First, let's look at some art!

New Fauna

More backer sponsored Fauna!

Starchaser

Sponsored and concepted by J. Tazer Pones, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Irimar

Sponsored and concepted by Isb, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Glasswing

Sponsored and concepted by SolsticeStar, designed and illustrated by Hydde

And here is a peak at what's being lined currently!

Icons

How about those icons? We think they're coming out quite charming!

Squid, Bok Choy, Wool, Feathers, Hay, Pebbles, Clay, Cream, Brick, Salt Lick, and Sulfur, illustrated by Remmi

Backdrop WIPs

We're chipping away at backdrops! Here are a few work in progresses!

WIP Luna theme header by Runeowl and Mirko

WIP Harvest theme header by Runeowl and Harriertail

WIP Flower Meadow by Harriertail

UI Updates

Next, we're pleased to share what we feel is a fantastic final for our UI layouts. 

Cat Creator

The cat creator went through the industrial meat grinder of testing and iteration. We had several prototypes working, all with pros and cons. A lot of consideration went into user experience, including:

Ensuring the least amount of clicking to see all the options, while still categorizing the content intuitively

In tandem, best utilizing the space to show the most amount of content at once, giving as many options as possible

Help the user best understand the relationship between what is being clicked and what is changing on the cat, with ease of navigation between each option

Give the user an easily accessible "summary" of each trait, color, and pattern that was chosen for the cat 

Find an intuitive way to express the "Saturation / Luminosity" relationship on each color choice while not overwhelming the screen with jumbles of words

We are still toying with colors and superficial visuals, but this is the final layout being built!

The "Summary & Navigation" section will showcase what traits the cat shown is sporting (ex. Ragdoll Adult, Orange Solid, No White, Traditional Eyes.) 

On mobile, the trait summary is represented by a third icon option the user can click. Otherwise, a mobile user can toggle between color and pattern for each section. 

You also will see a color navigator with buttons for every hue, and symbols for "saturated," "dark," "medium," and "light."

Some of these options may seem incongruent from the current creator. Most notably: two accents! 

It may seem like a damning choice. Really, more colors to worry about?

As a reminder, we will be grouping colors to allow for a larger chance at complementary colors (we are not ridding the chance at full randomization, just weighing it more equally against a large number of coordinated options.)

Furthermore, we are adding both line-breaking accents and very, very minor accents like ear fluff (we figured out a way to group it with mystic breeds), skin colors, or freckles on the skin. This was the best direction for both creative freedom and restriction among these options. 

The largest worry we had when considering this decision was user pressure to utilize every slot on the cat. This was at the forefront of our minds all throughout PB's concepting!

As a solution, we are taking a design approach which will encourage users both to use and not use accent slots, depending on the character they are building. We have a reward system in the works which incentivizes both routes! As a character building game with focus on your characters and near limitless possibilities, we are designing a system which values cats and rewards the player not necessarily by abundance in design, but direction and creativity. 

Simply put, building a cat the way you like it will be rewarding. This system will be unveiled at a later date, but it's great addition for the casual, creative, and breeding side of the playerbase! All of this combined made the most sense for a second accent. 

Cat Profile

This is halfway built on the front-end, and will be done very soon!

Breeding

Big news, generative breeding functionality is done!

We wrapped up the breeding logic, and banged out what I believe is an excellent UI. Everything is fully functional!

Users can view not only a rotation of offspring previews, but view all the colors available to the offspring in each slot. 

As well, users can choose what Borough their cat nests in as a premium feature. This includes a "traveling" option which randomizes the Borough for each potential kit!

Also in the preview is the nest tending page. Nests are tended to with items, and users can add midwives to forego the need to manually give said items. This mechanic is being built out!

I realize these previews might look abysmal. We want to be transparent on what we're doing and show "the sausage being made" per se. What's missing from these deployments currently is final pattern assets (previews are dummies for function testing), theme assets, icon placements, and hex codes; all things that aren't actually slowing down development on the technical side. They are very quick inserts once completed, and while it looks like a mess, this page is 99% done! 

It's one step closer to a live update on the website!

We're working next on finishing the cat profile build, the customize functions (scene building, outfit building), and the daily item garnering mechanic!

Thank you everyone!

To Summarize: We shared new Fauna, icons, backdrop work-in-progresses, the final cat creator UI, the cat profile UI, and a look at our completed breeding functionality. 

What to expect next month: Further asset renderings, outfit/scene building design, further functionality previews of what we are working on next. 

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: Anonymous

our interviewee today is the anonymous author of the "SBI Crit Post". he's asked to both remain anonymous and not to be sought out; he's been incredibly helpful and polite through this entire interview process, and i would ask you all to leave any residual feelings you may have from that time at the door. If you think you remember who posted it, please keep it to yourself. that said, let's begin!

Q: Before we begin talking about the ‘Crit Post’, I’d love to hear what your experience of MCYTblr was like before it was posted. Do you have any standout memories from this time?

A: Not particularly. There's some things that I guess looking back on nowadays is kind of wild, like how in the groups I was running in, shipping of any kind that wasn't DNF was super frowned upon (as in, I trigger tagged for IRL shipping)…but truthing wasn't really? Or, how back then the lines between 'critblr' and main mcytblr were super fuzzy. I hung out with both groups before the Crit Post to no issue. Oh!!! And this is a wonderful piece of MCYTblr lore that you may not know, but when I posted the Crit Post, I was apart of a MCYT art exchange themed after MCC called MC Creatives. I think it only happened once, and I can't exactly remember who ran it. They were a really nice DNF (? or just DTeam) blogger. I think it's cool to see that even back then the community was pretty tight knit and had overarching community activities like we see today. It's interesting to me that our fandom has missed out on some of the more important parts to being a fandom… not many big bangs, only one or two that I know of. It's very sad, but we are a weird fandom in general, and definitely a Modern Fandom, if you understand what I mean by that LOL. There is one memory that does stick out, completely irrelevant to this interview though. The fake Dreambur meetup. I pulled an all nighter for it. I was shaking. I drew fanart (though never posted it). Everyone was hysterical. And then it was faked and everyone went WHAT.

Q: As you let me know in your dms, you were the user who made the original “SBI Crit Post”. Would you mind giving a quick rundown of what it was exactly, for anyone who may not know?

A: I would, but frankly I barely remember anything about it. It was like… I saw someone being like "weird that we aren't as critical of SBI as we are of DT" and I thought, "Well, I can probably try?" and made shit up. It was nonsense. I can't even remember what I said about Philza. The points against the others were "Tommy is too young to be in this business" "Wilbur queerbaits" and… "Technoblade needs to be less honest about his ADHD he's glorifying it" or something like that. Again, it was nonsense at its best.

Q: What was your reasoning at the time for making the post? Did the overall culture around you play a part in it?

A: Here's the part no one knows: At the time of posting, I was 13 by maybe… one, two, or three weeks. And I'd spent almost the entirety of my time as a 12 year old in a community that was like "we need to be Critical of our Favorite Creators because this is Righteous and the Only Good Way To Engage With MCYT" and I was like "Everyone here is older than me and therefore endlessly smarter than me," and therefore just accepted it. You can see it very clearly in the part that was "critical" of Wilbur Soot. He was queerbaiting for what? Acting like he wanted to kiss men? Dressing nice? Ridiculous! But if we called Dream a queerbaiter (and never GNF, because everyone was convinced he was gay), then I thought surely Wilbur Soot could also be a queerbaiter! This made total sense to baby 13 year old me. It's not fair to really call that indoctrination: it's not like I was falling down an alt-right pipeline or anything. I was just a stupid kid with too much internet access who liked minecraft and knew nothing about like Dan & Phil or Septiplier (kind of thing that would make me suspicious of this activity--especially truthing). I thought I was fufilling some honor by saying "and yes, my favorite minecraft boys aren't without fault either!" The people that stayed friends with me after that… some of them were my closest normal non-Critblr friends, who refused to abandon me (shout out to you guys you know who you are), and the rest were the people in Critblr who were… okay with my behavior.

Q: I understand that the backlash to the post was very intense– what was it like from your perspective? Did it have any affect on you?

A: Lots. Lots and lots and lots. I lost a bunch of my close friends who weren't okay with what I'd said or how I'd doubled down, and it really messed with me as a kid in the middle of quarantine. There were times where I genuinely considered hurting myself irreperably as either a way to "apologize for what I had done" or just a way to stop worrying that everyone I knew was going to block me one day. Those feelings lasted for a long time, I still struggle with them to this day, over three years later (? I think). And I was kind of lead to believe that was an okay response. I recieved asks the night that it all went down where I was told I should hurt myself. Of course my own behavior wasn't cool, but neither was that. I know there was a post out there by a popular (at the time?) Technoblade blogger that detailed the faults in that post, but I never read it. All I knew about it was that people saw it, and harassed me because they saw it, and that the OP of that post hated me. It got to the point that seeing that blogger's URL caused me to have panic attacks, a ridiculous thing because that blogger as far as I know never actually did anything wrong. I don't know. Every once in awhile, someone in the server I'm in (hi some of you are definitely reading this :3 i love you guys) will bring up the post in passing and I'll have to mute the channel for 24 hours because I'm scared. Or even when we're discussing normal drama, if something feels too close to the Crit Post, or like it might come up, I'll get shaky and nauseous and have to mute the channel for 24 hours. It's weird, the shit being told to kill yourself because you did something dumb as a 13 year old can do to you.

Q: As a follow-up: What, if anything, do you wish had happened instead?

A: I don't know really. I guess the obvious answer is "I didn't make the post" or "I didn't double down", but I think the real answer has to be that I wish the community I was in hadn't taught me that what I was doing was an okay move.

Q: Do you have anything else to add about the Crit Post, MCYTblr, or the community as a whole?

A: Not really. I "retired" from MCYTBlr in I think 2022, but kept a passing interest in it for a long time, and I'm still active in a discord (hi again) comprised entirely of fans and retired fans. I loved MCYT, and in some ways, I still do. When I'm sad, I put on old Technoblade videos. When I'm really sad, I put on old Purpled videos. These things are my comforts, things that I haven't ever been able to give up. And that's good! Even if I don't talk about MCYT anymore, I'm glad it's there for me.

[beybladeninja]

A few days ago, a Tumblr user and I were sharing My Hero Academia Villain OC ideas. I was so inspired by the discussion that I decided to draw out my “villainous” character!

Meet Amai Ame (which literally translates to “sweet candy”)! She’s known in certain circles (and by the heroes and police) as Candy Queen.

(More below the cut.)

Her Quirk is “Sugar World” (I would have called it “Candy Land”, but I’m pretty sure that’s copyrighted). How it works is that she can replicate any sugar structure in her system and cause it to sprout in abundance up to 100 meters around her. She can make the sugary item small enough to be handheld, or large enough to dwarf a building (though she can’t recreate the sticks or wrapping that the candy comes in, so clean hands beware). She’s known for turning entire city blocks into sugary wonderlands.

Her Quirk’s not really an offensive Quirk, so she likes to avoid physical confrontations if at all possible. The most she can do is create a wall of candy that she can take advantage of in order to make a quick getaway.

Her only limit is that she can’t sprout candy from organic surfaces, which means that she’s at a disadvantage in a park or forest. She also can’t make the candy sentient, or able to do her bidding. If she went through a Quirk Awakening, she might be able to, but due to her carefree nature, such an event is highly unlikely. The only physical drawback to her Quirk is that overuse leads to an upset stomach - doesn’t deter her one bit, though!

Though a mental drawback is that, thanks to her sheltered upbringing, she gets easily flustered when she sees exposed skin. Which means if she’s going up against Creati or Red Riot, she’s probably going to lose!

Due to the nature of her Quirk, she is always seen carrying a large wicker basket full of candy so that she always has something sugary in her system.

Amai was raised in a candy factory, meaning she quite literally had a sweet childhood. She grew up believing that every problem could be solved with a sweet treat. As she grew up and entered the real world, though, she realized that the world had many many problems. She took it upon herself to fix those problems by spreading the joy that candy brings, whether the public wants it or not. She views her sugary rampages as her gift to the “struggling masses”.

She’s either a Hero or a Villain, depending on who you ask. Children ages 3-9 think she’s a goddess of sugar. Those ages 10-19 tend to think she’s an annoying, overly cheerful weirdo who eats too much candy. Those in the workforce view her and her rampages as a nuisance and a hindrance to their jobs. Though the elderly population sees her as a sweet girl who brings them sweets every now and then.

The League of Villains hasn’t approached her yet and has no plans to. They think she’s not the right kind of mind they want in their cause.

Gotta say, it was really fun designing one of my own OCs for a change! I’ve been in an artistic slump for a while now, so the freedom really helped. I think I might design some more - I’ve got a bunch already sketched out! What do you think?

@sweetheart-weeb-33 , thank you so much for getting my creative juices flowing again!

[bratfied]

Windy City Roleplay

#Bratfied Fivem Servers

- - - The server is nice, and the community is great sometimes but can be very helpful sometimes (Not Always). Few admins can be bia, admins below Lead Amin should learn how to not pick and choose. The Server is still in beta, so please don't be surprised that the server to going down a lot, developers are fixing situations and really fast making the server a workable and playable place for New users and returning users. But I Can Say Windy City is amazing, V3 Is very fun and very different from V2, I have been here since the first time the server went up and there are a lot of things that have changed. Very impressed with the owners and developers. Shoutout to the Mang team and developer team for making the server look just like Chicago.

💜 ─── Server overview;

Roleplay Experience:

Roleplay from males: Can improve, less trolling; more being serious. It's very rare to see non-Staff teams that roleplay correctly, but there are a few people that are not staff that can roleplay correctly, but I can say. I love how they're kicking noobs out, including banning them! Great work. 7.6/10

Roleplay from females: Females can improve... 8.9/10

How Serious is the server?: The server can be serious if the community wants to be serious. But I have seen a lot of players be serious, few can be nooby, but It's not as bad as V2. 9.8/10

Faction Roleplay: I believe, a few factions are overpowered and love talking sh** to random people they don't know, must improve... gang members don't randomly check for someone inrl when the other party hasn't done anything. So if you join this server be alerted, a lot of faction roleplay can be nooby, But when the staff team is involved in Faction's is very a great place to roleplay, there are a few people that are not nooby into factions that are not staff, kinda rare. 6.9/10

Whitelisted Jobs/Business: Never actually had a job in the game myself, but I saw a lot of great ownership and leadership with the whitelisted Jobs, discord is organized; promotion is well-made following with their promotion flyers, can't wait for Jobs to open up. 10/10

Server's Staff Team:

The owners: The management team can be fair, Annoying, Cap & Zarty . Has a very awesome leadership on this server, they worked hard and made a very creative map I had never seen on a server before. If there was anything I believe these three people should change is the Staff team, A few of them are fair but a lot of them are not fair to other people, it's a pick-and-choose favoritism thing.

Lead Admins: lead admins are almost like what management does, but they are active in helping other people around, few of them are fair; few are not. But I will say my favorite Lead Admin that gives out great verdicts and amazing explanations is: Billion, Qac & Rey. These three leads are an amazing choice for the team and the community. They're willing to help at all costs!

Staff on Forums: Like I said, there are staff friends of friends with someone and do favoritism some are not and actually here to work, but one thing I can say is, that they do answer forum questions/reports/ bands quickly, also Whitelisted applications, It won't take more than 24 hours to view it.

Requirements To Join Windy City Roleplay:

Gaming PC/Good Wi-Fi/GTA & FIVEM Computer Requirements.

Must-Have a Forums account and pay for a whitelist in the Upgrades section

Must understand the simple rules of roleplaying on the server.

(ps. Be sure to learn all the basics about roleplay before paying for the whitelist, if you know all the rules you can purchase prio, it helps you up in Q, without it, you will be in a Q for a very long time, a lot of people are interested in the server)

SERVER JOIN INFORMATION:

Discord: Here

Forums: Here

Twitter: Here

[an-inspired-eternity]

👀

ok full transparency this is infact. an au i still really want to write. but you know how it is the 2020s urge to just have no joy or motivation to make creative fan products

ANYWAY my wxs* focused fantasy au!! i have a couple rp blogs for it but that's the closest i get to making content for it rn..

*other characters involved but wxs has the most developed and involved

ANYWAY let me go sicko mode under the cut hehe. taking a bit from my rui blog bc i dont wanna retype all dat

worldbuilding

there is a big magical forest at the center of the region, it's considered dangerous and somewhat risky to travel through, as the inhabitants (which are primarily either magic users/"witches" or other inhuman beings. but there's also some standard like. fantasy jrpg monsters yk how it is) consider it their safe home and may not take kindly to outsiders or anyone trying to harm the forest.

magic users have varying reputations in the kingdoms outside of the forest, some don't mind and maybe even are welcoming towards them, others frown upon it but ultimately don't care, but some might even consider it taboo or forbidden to dabble in. it's for this reason that magic users born in the kingdoms may ultimately leave their homes to live in the safety of the forest instead

virtual singers (theyre the only ones to come up in story, but not the only ones) are among many of the guardians of the region, originating from the forest.

miku is basically the god of the world (likely under another name- or the goddess's name is known only as hatsune but not miku), but can't physically interfere in her primary state (think the law of cycles from pmmm), and so sends "fragments" of herself (sekai mikus) to help people and in the case of this au its the prsk characters

wxs :)

the otori family are the rulers of one of the kingdoms (the kingdoms do not have names. do not look at me), rakunosuke, the original king of the otori kingdom before emu's father kounosuke took over, was a lot more of open to magic users and other fantastical beings, and taught his son and grandchildren accordingly. when he passed, however, kounosuke and his elder sons would teach the younger children to be more fearful and wary- that not every being they'd encounter would be friendly

tsukasa & saki grew up in a small town with their parents, but fell on unexpected hard times, this resulted in them having to leave the town and it's inhabitants behind, the two ended up on their own, later joined by a semi amnesiac toya, where they were later adopted and raised by the otoris, being raised as royalty accordingly. (tsukasa trained to be a knight however, and toya felt very strongly about not wanting to be a heir unless absolutely necessary, resolving to use his smarts to tutor the other kids)

hinata helps emu and saki do their hair btw they r the sisters ever

rui is a natutal born magic user who grew up in a town that was not quite favorable to them- atleast not to magic users who don't restrain themselvesm rui wanted to experiment with his magic to see what he could do- all for the sake of helping people- be it healing, or doing visual tricks to make others smile, but the other villagers were afraid and/or distrusting of him. fearful of the villagers turning that hatred towards his parents, rui fled the village one night without telling his parents (at best leaving a note explaining why he left) to go stay in the forest.

nene is a friend of rui's- a mermaid from said forest, rui would visit when he was younger, coming to see her at the lake she stayed at. there, alongside their third companion (mizuki), the kids would discuss all sorts of things- magic, nature, society, the world.. nene doesn't know much of the world outside the forest, but wants to see the ocean someday.

tsukasa went out on a patrol to scout the areas of the region a bit further out from where the kingdom was situated- it's there he comes across rui and his "familiars" (kaito and wxs!miku) and the story begins! but tsukasa's big adventure also inspires emu to go on one of her own and play catch up ✨️

[astercontrol]

Some complex thoughts about OCs in fanfic

So... I recently finished and posted a story in 3 parts, about Ram and Tron and Yori going out to a club together and having a threesome.

(because I love them and want them all happy, ok)

and... I was exploring a bunch of things in this story.

including:

Tron and Ram and Yori, a study of them as characters, their pasts, their motivations, their relationships (love 'em, ok, want to study every detail of them & their love)

Details of things in that world-- identity discs, the different ways programs charge on energy, what sorts of control the MCP exerted and how stuff changed when that control went away (I love the world, wanna figure out answers to all my questions bout how it works)

And, finally... other programs, other characters and how they fit in with the Main Three that I'm writing about.

So this involved me getting creative, both with worldbuilding, and with populating that world.

This called for some background OCs.

First I had Ram and Tron and Yori enter the club and take in the scene, the crowd of strangers. Overview of what this looked like; brief descriptions of these background extras and what they were doing.

And then they get to their table and sit down, and Yori starts making conversation with some programs at the next table-- who she knows from work, in the laser bay.

These include Voca, a text-to-speech program who works as an announcer... Mag and Iox who work with Yori on the laser... and Rollo_3.77 who's the record-keeping software in the laser bay.

So right from the start I've populated this whole setting with a bunch of characters I straight-up invented.

Except... I didn't.

Not even the extras in the crowd. One of them, at least, I described very recognizably as The Bead-Curtain Program, canonically encountered in the hallway while Tron and Yori were on their way to the Tower:

As for Voca... of course there's an automated voice making announcements in the laser bay! We heard her!

And yeah, one interpretation is that this is a live announcer, or some human who pre-recorded a bunch of announcements that play automatically at the proper times. The voice is too lifelike to be a typical synthesized computer voice in the 80's.

BUT, we know Encom had a bunch of technology far more advanced than what was publicly known in the 80's (MCP? this laser bay itself?) So, why not an unusually advanced text-to-speech program as well?

(She's got a pretty distinctive voice too; almost mistakable for The Majel-Barret-Voice Computer in Star Trek TNG. One thing that really suggests to me that she's a program: I'm pretty sure she's also the same voice who called out for "Program Aloo" in the Solar Sailer Dock.)

In my story, Voca the text-to-speech program is the main speaking character of the table that Yori's chatting with. But her companions Mag and Iox are also inspired by a scene from the laser bay:

Two programs' names are known to appear on the screen when the orange gets digitized. Yori, of course, in the lower right corner. And MCP, in the upper left.

It's entirely possible that the additional text above MCP is just indicating the orange is "magnified ten times."

But I can do whatever I want forever, so I decided it's the names of two other programs that work in the laser bay.

Now, as for Rollo_3.77.

I described him only as a program in warrior armor, introduced as the record-keeping software from the laser bay. He's quiet, seeming stiff and uncomfortable, especially when Yori mentions Ram's heroically strong resistance to the MCP's conversion tactics.

You'd only guess who he is from my other story.

The one about RedGuard_3.77. About the despair that wore down his User-belief until he caved, about his rectification into an elite red warrior... and his life-changing experience with Tron and Flynn, and how it finally drove him to question his loyalty to the MCP and take one final act of passive rebellion that might just have helped turn the tide in the favor of the good guys.

Of course he's having trouble adapting to being a blue-circuited record-keeping program again.

(With how hard he struggled to write a report for the MCP in that other story, I thought it would be kind of cruelly fitting to imagine him designed for laser-bay record-keeping. His name comes from Rolodex.)

So... this is my long-winded messy way of saying-- there's so many gradients between "canon character" and "totally made-up OC." Have fun. Explore all of them.

stories referenced:

Party at Pomu

What's All In The Wrist Stays In The Wrist

[thejaymo]

I’m sure you have all seen this clip of David Bowie talking about the Internet back in 1999 “I think we're actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”. 

One of the things that is always missing whenever that clip goes viral is the context from which he was speaking. 

David Bowie was in the Metaverse before most people were even on the web. Here’s an overview

At the time of the recording ALL of the following was already happening and going on in his life:

BOWIE WORLD (1999)

Created by World’s Inc. in 1999, Bowie World was the first 3D virtual world created by a creative artist on Bowienet. Bowie World allowed users to experience the immersive world of David Bowie, interact with fans from around the world, purchase merchandise and meet with David in avatar form.

The 3D environment was powered by worlds.com technology and featured integrated chat room etc.

See this paper from 1996 ACM interactions, Sept-Oct 1996 journal for more details.

"He would never announce it in advance, but he would get on to the chat board and talk to us. The handle he always called himself by was Sailor," says Mr Carrington.

In 2016 daily dot went to visit Bowie World and documented their experience. there were people in the world chatting! Still! 17 years later! 

// If you’re so included you can read my experience of doing something similar. I toured Active Worlds (launched 1995) in the book Lost Zone. Hiking the Dawn of Metaverse //

Cyber Song (1999)

The same year 1999, Bowie recorded the worlds first ‘Cyber Song’.

Fans were invited to send in lyrics to help co-write a track, and 80,000 people responded. The song Bowie chose was by a 20-year-old American, about the idea of having a virtual life on the internet. 

You can find the song on the album Hours...

"What's Really Happening?"

Grown inside a plastic box Micro thoughts and safety locks Hearts become outdated clocks Tickin' in your mind

Fans were invited to watch the track being recorded live via a 360-degree interactive webcast!! back in 1999! 

The chat logs from that session are still online and archived at bowiewonderworld.com

The chat reads like literally any twitch livestream you’d read today:

*** Now talking in #BowieNetChat

Eileen: hmph - pFuRs: looking glass studios Bonster1: I like the hair especially ;) Eileen: (duh) Mechnic: his hair! *sigh* Eileen: I LOVE his hair.. Bonster1: it's getting really long Bonster1: my husband is jealous Eileen: first time in my LIFE I have actually LIKED the way he wears it LdyofDarkness: if I could be anyone's hair in the world, it would be his William: silly old man

Bowie also showed up

TotalBlamBlam: Is that Davis Bowie? Bonster: (David Bowie) yes I smell great

A potion of that chat in addition to the recording session is taken up with discussion about the (then upcoming) adventure game: The Nomad Soul developed by Quantic Dream and published by Eidos Interactive. 

The Nomad Soul (1999)

David Bowie is not only *in* the game and also wrote the soundtrack with Reeves Gabrels from The Cure!

I’ve never played the game but here’s a two line review:

In an alternate reality, all hell is breaking loose. And only one person can stop it - YOU.... sitting at your computer. That's not a witty commentary on video gaming, it's the plot of the game. And that's just the start of this bonkers bonanza. 

Lastly, for completeness I should also mention BowieNet

BowieNet (1998)

From 1998 - 2006, BowieNet wasn’t just David Bowies website with its virtual world, chat rooms, live-streamed concerts etc 

It was also the name of his ISP

Thats right, for 8 years Bowie ran an Internet Service Provider offering high speed and “uncensored” access to the Internet. 

The ISP provided every user with 5MB of web space, encouraging them to create and share their own websites. Newcomers were told they’d need at least a 28k, but preferably 56k modem connection – this was demanding at a time when the commercial WWW infrastructure was still in its infancy.

Through his Ultrastar company he negotiated deals to give users access to music services like the Rolling Stone Network, which livestreamed concerts, and Music Boulevard, one of the first companies to offer paid-for downloadable music tracks. 

For Bowie, this ISP wasn’t just a new means of marketing his material to the masses, it was the realisation of something he’d always understood about music: that the fan response completes the art. 

Anyways, hope his ‘Alien Life Form’ have a little more context. 

Bowie was in the Metaverse way before many of us were even on the web!

[sixzeroes]

🖇️ 7DREAM : tiktok trends (bf ver.) !

PG13 | boyfriend!dream x reader(f). fluff, romance, slice of life. non-idol au.

lmh | “let me raise a toast...”

mark is not an avid tiktok user—he’s not exactly into social media as a whole. but when he hears this certain tiktok audio coming from your phone, he can’t help but open the app to create a video of his own. selecting a few (of the only) good photos he has of you, mark posts an appreciation tiktok for the girl he loves the most. unexpectedly, it garners over one million views. (“hey, babe, why are people commenting about sleeping on the highway?”)

hrj | “if i was a… (according to my bf).”

both you and renjun like to spend some time on tiktok, sometimes creating silly drafts, sometimes uploading couple videos. when the “if i was a…” trend started going viral on tiktok, both you and renjun just knew the two of you had to do it. renjun, artistic with the most creative mind ever, gives elaborate answers (e.g., baby blue or hydrangea flowers), and your final product reaches well over 100k likes. (“oh my god, people don’t think the answers are real!”)

ljn | manga couple silhouettes.

tiktok is what brought you and jeno together. both popular influencers on the app, you naturally ended up hanging out with him. it’s only been a few weeks since the two of you went public as a couple, and since then, fans have been eating up every couple tiktok either one of you post. naturally, the two of you partake in this trend just for fun, but happen to gain millions of likes. and everyone agrees the you and jeno are the capital it couple of tiktok.

ldh | “bound to fall(ing) in love.”

your love story with donghyuck is rather cliché—the typical rivals to lovers who just so happen to have a deeply buried desire for one another. now, a year into your relationship, donghyuck is scrolling on tiktok when he comes across the bound 2 sound. immediately, you dash to his side to make a draft, forcing donghyuck to take part in it. rivals to lovers is cute and all, but rivals to lovers that happened in real life? definitely bound to fall(ing) in love.

njm | “i was busy thinking about—”

you are no stranger to jaemin’s affectionate side—in fact, you find it extremely attractive. jaemin isn’t very active on tiktok, but when he is, all he does is upload tiktoks about you. when he stumbles upon the remix of charli xcx’s boys and siri’s monotonous voice, jaemin quite literally trips over the carpet to make a tiktok. any chance to show off his wonderful girlfriend is a chance he will always take. (“baby, baby, act natural, okay? i wanna make a tiktok.”)

zcl | the photo crop filter.

chenle is a goofy boyfriend, and just like popular belief, enjoy making silly tiktoks—silly tiktoks that involve you, of course. after watching a few videos of couples fighting to either fit within or miss the frame, chenle begs you to partake in the trend. this leads you to sit in his gamer chair as he props his phone against his monitor. needless to say, the two of you have a little too much fun making the tiktok, avidly working to push each other into the frame.

pjs | “sorry, i’m not into short guys.”

everybody knows jisung at your high school; the tall senior with the pretty face and godsent body. you also know the popular guy, but for a different reason: he’s your boyfriend, and the cutest one at that. the height gap between you and jisung is attractive, and it’s one of the factors that made you fall for him (yes, you like cliché things). when the sound starts circling all over tiktok, you waste no time in having jisung lift your phone above his head and well above yours.

© NABI (2022); ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[blackbird-brewster]

Good Vibrations - Part 1

Tara/Rebecca || Rated: Mature || WC: 697 Fill: Multiple Orgasms (for @cmkinkbingo2024) Additional Tags: Sex toys, established relationship, fluff and smut

Tara's job calls her out of town frequently, which puts a damper on her new relationship. Good think Rebecca has a creative solution.

[Read on AO3] || [Kink Bingo Masterlist]

They'd barely finished dinner before Rebecca was basically bouncing with excitement as she set a red gift box on the table between her and Tara. "I got you a present. Technically, it's a gift for both of us, but mostly for you."

Tara picked it up and slid the ribbon away so she could lift the lid. Inside was some kind of vibrator she wasn't familiar with, which instantly piqued her interest because she had a very good knowledge of sex toys. "A vibrator?"

Rebecca excitedly took the package and flipped it over to show the description. "Yes, but not just any vibrator. The egg goes in your cunt, the outer bit gets placed against your clit. And the best part? It's app-controlled....from anywhere."

Tara's eyes lit up. "Anywhere?"

"Anywhere," Rebecca repeated. "No matter where you go, I'll be just a vibe away."

"I mean, before I take it on the road....we should probably test it out, right?"

Rebecca nodded eagerly. "I was hoping you'd say that. I may have already charged it and downloaded the app on my phone."

When they were comfortable and undressed in the bedroom, Tara lubed the toy and slid it into her cunt. It was fairly small, but it stayed in well enough on it's own. She wiggled a little to get it in the right spot then nodded to her girlfriend.

Rebecca pressed some buttons in the app and Tara jumped as the device came to life with powerful vibrations. "Oh, god. That's....yeah. That's, uh, great."

"That's only the lowest level," Rebecca replied. She began playing with the controls randomly. "Let's see what settings you like most."

For the next hour, Tara was subjected to all sorts of sensations and pleasure as Rebecca experimented with the app. The device had a wide variety of pre-programmed patterns, but it also allowed users to create their own with any combination of vibration patters and intensity.

Seeing as Rebecca was usually happily at Tara's mercy in the bedroom, their current power swap was thrilling. With the help of their new toy, she had Tara coming over and over again. From small, gentle orgasms, to full-body climaxes that had Tara screaming, Rebecca was drunk on power.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," Tara panted after a particularly intense orgasm that had her whole body lifting off the bed like she was possessed by a malevolent spirit.

Rebecca kissed her while reaching between her legs like she was going to pull the toy out of her partner's pussy, at the last moment, she held it in place and used her other hand to swipe the controls.

"Fuccccckkk!" Tara groaned, eyes snapping shut, her fingers half-heartedly grabbed Rebecca's wrist. "Okay, maybe, one more...for science..."

She leaned in to kiss her girlfriend while writhing with every wave of vibration. She came again in barely any time at all, then her body went completely limp. She removed the vibrator herself to make sure Rebecca couldn't trick her again. Tara smiled at her, "I love it."

Rebecca cuddled into her arms, gently kissing all over Tara's sweaty chest. "Me too. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this."

"How's it going to work? Should I just call you when I'm away and feeling horny just to tell you to get the app ready?"

"I'm sure we'll think of a good system," Rebecca responded. She admired the device, chuckling at how covered in cum it was. She cleaned it down with a sanitising toy wipe, then dangled it in front of her girlfriend. "But I think for me to truly understand how to use it...I need to know how it feels. You know, for science. "

Tara bit her lip with an affectionate laugh. "Well, you know I can't argue with science."

Rebecca got the device inserted and handed her phone over to her. As soon as she was given control, Tara maxed out the vibration intensity, making Rebecca moan loudly as she clawed the bed. Tara continued playing with the vibration patterns in random order, laughing when certain ones made her girlfriend shriek. She laughed, "Science is great, but payback is a bitch."

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3