#because the old people can’t use websites or whatever…

[crowley1990]

Anyone here an event organiser know anything about selling tickets offline in an efficient way…

[justwhumptypethings]

tw: heavy objectification, conditioning, torture, mention of limb death

art piece whumpee.

strung up and injured and hurt to look pretty and literally exist as an art piece in a gallery.

their arms are folded, intertwined with their legs so that their bony arm is twisted around their left leg, the other under the right, the right leg splayed out and upwards farther. their knuckles go red and their body suffers long term damage for being kept in a stress position like that for so long.

they lost feeling a long time ago. When they eat, they get spoonfed by one of the employees at the gallery. People gather around to watch and it becomes part of the art because the employee has to wear something that evokes whatever morbid image they think it’s displaying.

they get let out twice a day- before and after opening and closing- to use the bathroom, and otherwise they’re constantly strung up. their body is in a constant stress position, and both of their shoulders have been dislocated to achieve it for a long, long time. their vocal cords were also cut. whumper would have just cut their tongue, except they thought that had value to add to the piece, in whumpee licking their scabbed chapped lips, or getting their jaw pulled open. they decided to cut their vocal cords instead.

before they got strung up, they had to be turned into an art piece. Whumper scarred them to all hell, not trying to hurt them, but trying to evoke a certain image. their clothes aren’t normal clothes, obviously, they’re the type of thing you’d imagine on a statue. That type of revealing, robe-ish thing.

there’s a little plaque that sits on a stand next to them, with whumper’s name and credits to them, and the name of their website if any viewers want to buy one of their own to keep, and the title of the piece. not their given name, not the name their mother gave them- the title of the piece.

they’ve stopped being able to feel things a long time ago. They almost dislike when they’re let down, because it gives their body just enough time to recoordinate to normal gravity and walking before getting strung back up. they have to start the process of the initial blood rush, followed by the asleep feeling, followed by pain and then numbness. they haven’t been able to feel their feet or their fingers since training. if they do get rescued, they won’t be able to use either- their toes and fingers both look purple, almost black, from the blood- almost like bad hypothermia. it adds to the look. they think their fingers and toes might be dead.

whumper was looking for the type of look you see sometimes in old rennesiance oil paintings, but more tangible. whumpee’s body wasn’t the only thing they worked on- they looked through different types of bonds- ropes, chains, before finally landing on strings. whumpee is a proper art piece to whumper- they spent hours styling and changing whumpee’s clothes, if you could call it that. Whumper spent days sketching and thinking about ways to string up whumpee- which arm and leg should go where to achieve the most pain and blood flow block up, making their knuckles and every one of their bony joints red and swollen.

alternatively, art piece whumpee who’s heavily conditioned. they’re an art piece. that’s all they are. there’s nothing wrong with the way the viewers look at them or touch them or the mocking way they talk to them. they want to be a good art piece. that’s all they are.

human speech sounds garbled in their mind. somehow, whumper’s training managed to make whumpee unlearn language, all human language coming out strange and gibberish to them. they can’t communicate, can’t understand.

the strings are light and clear, and they give enough for whumpee to be able to move and change their position slightly, but they can’t get out. the strings are wrapped too tight around them, further affecting their circulation and biting into their flesh, leaving permeanant scars. the strings don’t give, despite how thin they are, they’re sturdy.

if whumpee does manage to get out of them, somehow, they’ll be decommissioned. A new living art piece will be up a couple months from now. they’ll hand in a heap on the floor, much too dizzy to get away from the security guards.

they’ve long stopped trying to fight it. They’re a touchable exhibit, and so people are allowed to pinch their cheeks and laugh when their eyes widen or touch them however they want as long as they don’t break their strings. People poke them in the sides and laugh when they flinch, looking over at them with terror.

they’re surrounded by objects- paintings and cloth and clay. Beautiful objects, human expression, but objects nonetheless. they’re left there after lights out, just like all the other art pieces, sitting in the dark for 15 hours surrounded by objects just like them until the next employee comes in to open at seven.

they’re the pride and joy of their exhibit.

[sickofthis666]

Man, I miss when tumblr wasn’t the "t4t" website. Now we only got girld*ck jokes and trans rights are the only social issue that's worth mentionning, apparently. It's obvious if only by seeing the amount of posts, pinned posts, and bios with the mention "terfs/transphobes dni".

As an afterthought, some may add racists, ableists and/or homophobics to their little list. Sexism doesn't even appear.

Reading users bios, it's like everyone on this website is trans now - see also, reblogs of people's own post years later with the mention "im a girl now :3" - even though statistically, they're... what? 2% of the population?

Meanwhile somehow half of said population doesn't deserve to fight for their rights. BLM vanished but fear not, TLM is there. Online feminism peaked in 2016 with "the future is female" and #MeToo ended with a lot of calling out by victims but very little consequences for the abusers.

Your brain won't explode if you campaign for more than one cause at a time, I promise.

Old sexism was "your biology determines your behavior". New sexism is "your behavior determines your biology". Same result. Same harmful stereotypes. Some things are meant to harm, no matter how much you want to reclaim them or have fun sounding quirky by using insults/politically incorrect language. No, calling yourself a slut doesn't change from a man calling you that, because the very definition of that word is harmful. An insult doesn't stop being an insult because you enjoy it or because you decided to interpret it in a way that fits you, like religious leaders interprets scripture in a way that fits their interest.

We were supposed to get rid of the idea that women enjoying sex like men do is shameful, bad, disgusting, unnatural. We were supposed to make it neutral, just the way men get to have it, but nooo, you guys wanted to be quirky, rules breakers, special. Somehow you're convinced that doing the complete opposite of what society commonly deems acceptable automatically makes you cool, Good, right, and better than the others. It doesn't! It's not a dichotomy! Same thing with whore. Calling a man that moves his hands when he talks or has a high pitch or exaggerated manners "effeminate" makes you a misogynist and a homophobe, actually.

P*rn doesn't automatically becomes Good and healthy just because society frowns down upon it. Degrading women became a trend. God forbids you kinkshame, but somehow mocking vanilla sex is great, actually. Obviously vanilla must be Bad since it's the opposite of porn, and we all decided at some point that porn was Good. Can’t find f/m erotica on this website that doesn't include at least One sentence specifying how the woman is degraded/seen like a toy/less than human by the man. It's Very Important.

The solution to "women shouldn't have to wear make up to be considered seriously/human" wasn’t "women like their cage actually", it was destroying the cage or put the men in it with us. Cause that is the definition of gender equality. Treating men and women the same regardless of gender.

Hijab will never be feminist as long as men don't wear it too. It's the difference of treatment, simply because of gender, that is sexism/misogyny. The intention of the wearer doesn't matter - the result does.

"Taking your husband's last name isn’t sexist because *I* would be honored to do it" affirmed a woman to me - Since when does sexism mean "mentality/behavior/outfit/etc that all women as a mindhive dislike"? Oh wait - it doesnt - never did; it means difference of treatment between genders, overwhelmingly balanced in favor of men. The day men don't see taking your wife's last name as emasculating, degrading, insulting, belittling, diminishing, disgracing, shameful; the day they take their wife's last name spontaneously, almost systematically, the way women do; the day merely suggesting the idea to them isn’t preposterous;

the day women don't see taking your husband's name, as honorable, normal, the bare minimum, the day women stop taking their husband's name almost systematically, because it's an evidence in their eyes; the day women are not pushed to take their husband's name because it makes administration's work easier, because it's the only way for them to prove that they're related to their children - when i was a little kid, school staff once refused to let me leave with my mom at the end of the day simply because, since she hadn't taken my father's name, obviously she couldnt possibly be my legitimate mother; that "incident" lead to her renounciating her own name; before that, she hadn't entertained the thought; - the day french civil service stops differentiating between Nom d'épouse (wife name) and Nom de jeune fille (maiden name), making marriage an event so decisive in a woman's life that it changes her status; whereas men are born, live and die with only one name, their own, and no one else's.

That day only, we'll be able to affirm that this part of society/culture/custom is not sexist anymore.

In favor of men, not because I hate men, or because women need someone to blame, or because men are inherently evil, but in favor of men because men have been ruling society for thousands of years. Our kings are men. Our presidents are men. Our Prime Ministers are men. Our religious leaders are men. Our CEOs are men. Billionaires are men. The most powerful and/or rich on this earth are men. And people in power, in a logical conclusion, decides measures that will favor themselves over others.

Feminity isn’t real. Masculinity isn’t real. Just like the economy, or borders, it's something humans made up. And yet it would never cross your mind to romanticize or fantasize about those concepts.

Boomers' sexism says "if you're a woman, you must act feminine." Gen Z's sexism says "If you're feminine, you must be a woman."

Feminism says "You'll always be a woman no matter what - but so what? You can do whatever you want."

This website is full of selfrighteous, full of themselves assholes who pretends to be Better than everyone else because they're sooo tolerent, sooo inclusive, they condemn nazis and terfs - but mostly terfs. Terfs never commited murders, contrary to neonazis/white supremacists/incels, but that is but a detail my friend - vigorously, they boycott JKR absolutely - but not their favorite rapist male artists/authors/actors/singers -, they have the moral High Ground. Yet the second they smell an Enemy, someone who doesn't adopt 100% of their causes, verbatim, no holds barred! Anything goes! Death threats, rape threats, stalking, doxxing, going after family members... calling The Other, the Villain - of course they're the villain, since I am the Good Guy and they're against Me! - names, a loser, ugly, fat, a virgin, who can’t get laid/p*ssy. Yes I said Asexuals were a part of the community, what does this have to do with anything? Death and rape threats are okay if they come from My mouth!

[pensat-i-fet]

Not a crush (Pedri x Reader)

**I got this request and thought it could be cute and fun. It’s true that the Spanish press has been talking about this arms situation a lot, so it’s a good blend of fiction and reality. But then it turned into one of those writing projects that changed 7 times before its final form. For a second I even thought about turning this into a series. My brain! Anyways, enjoy reading! ❤️**

ETA: I ended up writing a series based on this imagine that you can read here!

Word count: 2685

Masterlist

Wattpad

“All those years in uni to end up doing this”, you muttered. “I’m never going to be taken seriously”.

“What are you talking about?”

“This article I have to do”.

Your colleague Jordi moved his chair closer to yours to peek at your computer screen.

“You know that we can’t use the computers for personal stuff, right?”

You put your head on the table. Really, no one was going to take you seriously.

“Huh?”

“Why are you looking at photos of shirtless Pedri? Got a crush?”

“Shut up! I have to do an article about the evolution of his body in the last couple of years”.

“That’s cool”.

“It’s stupid!”

“I’ve done worse when I was an intern. Don’t be so negative”.

You guessed he was right. It could be a lot worse. And you didn’t have a crush but…there were worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon than looking at photos of a cute player. And being given an excuse to stare at his body, which had definitely changed in the last couple of years. You didn’t visit the gym much but liked it when others did. Especially if that was the result of their gym sessions.

Writing the article actually took a good chunk of your day. Between getting the right photos and videos for it and asking for permission to use them, the actual writing and your colleagues' stupid comments about it, it wasn't as easy as you thought it would be at first. But it was a good article. And once the editor saw it and was happy with it, it was posted on the newspaper's website.

The following day you posted a link to it on your social media accounts and a little later you started to go through the comments. So many of them talked about how you were only picked to do that article because it was about a man's body and you were a woman. Right…nothing new on Twitter.

“Stop replying to hate comments”.

“It’s therapeutical”.

"It's pointless".

Just one more…

                                      **

It wasn't just the press or people on social media talking about Pedri's muscles. His teammates loved to tease him joking about that too.

"Here comes the Spanish Lewandowski", laughed Eric.

"So funny".

"Please don't be mad at me. I'm afraid you'll use those big strong muscles to punish me".

Pedri did use his muscles to push his friend and get him out of the way. He knew it was just banter but it all got boring after a few days.

"There needs to be a big signing or something so your arms stop being the topic of the week", told him Ferrán, who was looking at his phone.

“Yeah, I saw Barça posting about it on social media too. People are so overdramatic”.

“Totally, but I didn't mean that. I meant the new article”.

"What new article?"

Ferrán showed him your article and Pedri sat down to read it properly. It was a great article. You took the time to analyze the way his game could be influenced by this body change and picked different photos than the ones used by everyone else. He guessed there were still proper journalists out there. What a plot twist.

"It's a good article", he said, giving the phone back to his friend.

"The internet seems to disagree".

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know if they disagree but the girl who wrote it was getting a lot of shit on social media".

"Why?", Pedri couldn't hide his frown.

"I didn't look much into it but I saw people saying nasty things to her and then they found some old tweets and …seems like she used to have a crush on you and now she writes about your muscles or whatever and people on Twitter are the way they always are".

"Right", he murmured. He had listened to everything his friend said but also got stuck on how you used to have a crush on him. And he didn't even know who you were but footballers…they just loved being loved.

                                     **

"No point in deleting them now", said Jordi.

"I wasn't going to…".

People had too much time on their hands. That was the conclusion of the day. Somehow, just because of your article, someone decided to check your entire Twitter history to see if there was anything they could accuse you of. They probably were mad to find no offensive tweets but they found two where you retweeted a Barça fan page and wrote about liking Pedri.

The funniest thing was you barely remembered those tweets. You saw him, thought he was cute and posted that. Then you moved on. There were many players you found cute but had no time for crushes. Pedri got a mention purely for the fact that he signed for your team.

But now this was being used against you. So childish.

"Are you busy next week?"

You looked up to see your boss talking to you. He never talked to you.

"I guess. I mean, I'll be here working. So…".

"Do you have a passport?"

"Yes".

"Your English was good, right?"

"Pretty good, yeah".

He only had to look at your CV to see all the qualifications you had, including all the diplomas that proved your English was more than good but…no one cared that much about an intern.

"You're going on the US tour", he said and left. How could he drop that bomb and leave?

Your jaw was on the floor and Jordi was staring at you with a similar expression.

"Wait!", you said, finally able to get up and follow your boss. "What do you mean I'm going on the US tour? There is a group of people chosen for that already. It was decided months ago".

"I know", he said casually. "But one of them can't go and you'll take his spot".

"But I'm just an intern".

"Do you not want to go?"

"I do! Of course I do!", you said quickly. "But it doesn't make sense".

"Look. You're doing really well here. And you've gotten people to visit our website more than ever with just one article so…you earned it".

You had heard about all the visits to the website after the Pedri article was posted. But the way your boss was avoiding holding eye contact told you everything you needed to know.

"Am I just going because people think I have a crush on one of the players that'll be there?"

"If you weren't a good journalist, that wouldn't be enough for me to send you with that team. But it doesn't hurt".

"Ok, I'll start packing".

This was a great opportunity and you weren't going to reject it just because of some of the reasons surrounding it. But the excitement you felt when you first heard about the trip completely vanished.

And when you checked your Instagram and saw a certain player was looking at your stories…it was even worse.

No one took you seriously but you'd prove them wrong.

                                     **

The pre-season was both loved and hated by players. Pedri didn't really have strong feelings about it. It was just part of the job and they got to visit some different places so there were positives to take from these couple of weeks.

Another positive was having you around. After finding out about your article and your past crush on him, he checked your social media accounts. There wasn't much on any of them, since they were professional accounts. But there were a couple of photos of you and your dog.

Stories were something you also used to mostly promote your work and it was while checking those he found out you were going to the US too. He was hoping you'd meet at some point but didn't expect you'd be the one to interview him.

"Hi, nice to meet you", you said, extending your hand for him to shake. So professional.

"Nice meeting you too. I really liked your article about me".

Something changed in your expression and he couldn't understand what it was but you quickly got back to professional mode.

"Thank you. Let's get this done quickly. I was told we only have 15 minutes".

The interview was pretty uneventful. You asked good questions and Pedri gave you good answers in return. But you were so serious. He didn't know you personally, so maybe that was how you always were. But Pedri had a feeling there was more to it.

"Was that good?"

"The interview? Yes, thank you for your answers. They were really good".

"Easy when the questions are good too".

You nodded, quickly looking away.

"Are you ok?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because it seems like you would want to be anywhere but here".

You closed your eyes and sighed.

"Is it because of what people said about you?"

His words made you open your eyes and you finally looked at him. Instead of answering, you simply nodded.

"Don't pay attention to them".

"Easier said than done. Especially when they are the reason I'm here".

"The reason…".

"I'm not here because I'm good at my job. But because people thinking I have a crush on you got us a lot of attention. And now this interview will get more attention. So I'm basically just a pawn and I guess so are you".

"I'm sorry".

"It's not your fault".

Picking up your things, you got ready to leave but Pedri stopped you.

"I don't read what people write about me but my parents do. They like to keep the articles and print the photos and all that. Things parents do, I guess", he shrugged. "I read your article because Ferrán showed it to me and thought it was great. And then my parents told me about it, praising your writing multiple times. Your newspaper might be using you but you're good. You showed it to me in this interview too so don't feel sad".

"I don't have a crush on you".

"What?", but then he realised what you meant. "I didn't praise you because of that. God, you really need to get out of that mindset".

When Pedri started to laugh, you were more confused than ever.

"It's not you against the world. And people will praise you just because they genuinely want to…but now I'll be the one who's sad".

"Why?"

"I liked thinking you had a crush on me".

Now you were laughing too. Finally, he got to see the smile he had seen in those photos.

"Thank you for your words. I needed them. And you must go to train. I'll see you around".

"Yes".

The interview was posted just a couple of hours later. And even if Pedri's words helped, the comments you got still hurt.

Got what she wanted. To meet him.

"Yes, that's all I wanted in life. I can retire now".

"Why are you looking at your phone like it offended you?", asked one of your colleagues.

"It's the people inside it that offend me".

"Are there people living inside your phone?"

You half laughed at his bad joke.

"I know what you need to cheer up".

"Really?"

"Yes. Thoughts on karaoke?"

That made you laugh. You were such a terrible singer. "I like it. People don't like hearing me sing, though".

"I want to hear you sing so you're coming with us tonight".

                                   **

One of the easiest ways to get in trouble during pre-season was to go out and wake up to paparazzi photos of the party. But when it was the coach that took you out…then it was fine?

Pedri wasn't really into parties anyways but he thought karaoke night could be fun. He wasn't planning on signing but knew which teammates would. His phone was going to record all of it to tease them in the future.

"It started already", said Xavi, who was the first one to get inside the bar.

And he was right. There was someone leaving the stage while they found their tables. And someone else took the previous person's place immediately. Pedri wasn't interested in the random people who were going to sign but still looked up to see who was talking to the guy that controlled the machine.

And it was you who was on the stage.

"Well, that's a surprise", he said, almost to himself.

"What is?", Ferrán was now looking at the stage too. "Who is she? She's hot".

"The journalist who wrote about my muscles".

"The one that doesn't have a crush on you?", he laughed. "That's funnier now that I know she's pretty".

Pedri rolled his eyes and continued staring at you. He could see you were giggling and it was such a change from the super serious woman he met for the interview.

You picked a Franz Ferdinand song. They were one of your favourite bands when you were a teen and after seeing them live at the FIB, you were back to listening to all their songs on repeat.

Oh, when I woke up tonight, I said I’m

Going to make somebody love me

I’m going to make somebody love me

And now I know, now I know, now I know

I know that it’s you

You’re lucky, lucky, you’re so lucky

Your voice wasn’t great but who cared about that on karaoke night? Pedri didn’t. He just stared at you. You looked so relaxed. Just having fun instead of the worried version of you he got for his interview.

“Whoever she chooses would be lucky. She isn’t lying”.

Ferrán’s words took Pedri out of his daydreams. “What do you mean?”

“The song”.

“I’m not really paying attention to the lyrics. What do they mean?”

His teammate explained the meaning of the lyrics quickly and Pedri had to agree. Whoever you chose would be very lucky.

“I wouldn’t mind being the chosen one but you saw her first. Shame she doesn’t have a crush on you anymore, Pedrito”.

Yeah, it was a shame.

When you finished your song, you felt so much better. This had been the right plan to improve your mood. None of your colleagues wanted a drink, so you went to the bar to get one. It was needed after all that singing.

“I didn’t know you were a singer too?”

You turned to face Pedri and snorted. “Yes, it was my plan b if journalism didn’t work out”.

“There is always autotune to help”.

Pedri was pleased to see you laughing at his words. It was the second time in just one day he had achieved that.

“Do you want a drink too?”, you asked him when the bartender was taking your order.

“Just water, please”.

Once you got your drinks, none of you moved from the bar to go back to your friends. You just kept chatting.

“I mean, who knew writing about someone’s arms could lead to so much drama”.

Pedri followed your eyes which were now staring at his biceps. “Want to touch them?”

Yes. “No”.

“After reading the article I wondered if you knew more about my body than I do, you know? So it’s ok, you can touch”.

You bit your lip, trying not to blush. "I know you hear every day about how good you are at everything and that makes you overly confident but you aren’t as great at flirting as you might think".

"I heard about how great I am from you too. So you're at fault".

"I've barely written about you apart from that article".

"Yeah, but the old tweets…".

"I told you I don’t have a crush on you”.

“And the way you’re blushing says something different”.

When he leaned closer, you noticed how your knees were touching beneath the bar. They had been touching for a couple of minutes and you hadn’t even noticed. Nor did you feel the need to move.

“Not here”, you said.

“What?”

“Not where people can see us”.

“I thought you didn’t…”.

“I just want to test a theory”.

“What theory?”, he asked, smirking at you.

“If the crush I had on you two years ago is still there”.

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Zeke Yeager x f!reader [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] Another remastered oldie. No cute banner this time because I'm lazy. [ SYNOPSIS ] Your slutty boyfriend convinces you to fuck in a nasty bar bathroom. [ WORD COUNT ] 2.9k [ CONTENT ] Modern AU, established relationship, dom/sub undertones, sadomasochism, exhibitionism, public sex, rough oral sex, degradation (Zeke calls you a slut, says you're dumb), cum eating, drugs (marijuana), alcohol, Zeke's pullout game is mid tbh, and there's Neopets nostalgia.

Any establishment that opted to have red lighting as an aesthetic choice never failed to put you on guard. There was nothing quite like a wannabe speakeasy to set the mood. You had sad men hiding in corners. Sad men waiting for cute girls to talk to them. Sad men who hoped their presence in a trendy, gaudy bar with old guns hung on the walls made them interesting.

You and Zeke passed by it one cold morning and you mentioned how tacky you thought those kinds of places were. You said you wanted to go ironically. And of course called your bluff and decided your next date night would occur there. You reluctantly agreed. Denying him was a near impossible task.

You were the first at the bar, a disappointment because you wanted to have some form of comfort greet you. But no, Zeke was late as always.

He was probably at home, sitting on his ugly couch, smoking his ugly weed. His perfect body laid out next to an ugly ashtray overflowing with ugly cigarette butts, watching old Jerry Springer episodes on Youtube.

There was no other place you’d rather be. You wanted to be sprawled out on top of him, your head on his chest as he dithered about class disparity in the United States.

We can laugh at Beau and Cletus all we want, but look at us. I pay for high-speed internet so I can watch this shit unfettered and make fun of their shoes. You just complained about two-day shipping not being fast enough. And you ordered, what, loose leaf chamomile tea? We’re just as embarrassing as them, maybe even more so. The difference is that we have disposable income.

On second thought maybe you were better off languishing in a faux speakeasy. The ground may have been sticky underneath your shoes, but at least you didn’t have Zeke blabbering in your ear.

“Miss me?” Zeke purred in your ear before.

“Nope, I’ve been too busy.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah. I got caught up feeding my Neopet… Or if that’s not an acceptable answer, I can say I was sleeping with your dad. You choose.”

“Neopet. I like knowing you care about things.”

“Did you know they never die?”

You order a round of Cuba Libres.

“I don’t like rum,” Zeke whined.

You shoved the drink in his hand and stole a handful of cut limes from the little container behind the bar.

“Really?” he asked bluntly.

“They never put enough. Trust me. Anyway, that little green Mynci you made in 2001 is sitting there. Literally starving! Zeke.” You grabbed his wrist. “That is verbatim what it says on the website. Starving.” You plopped two slices of lime in his drink.

He stared at you, his grey eyes full of concern. He was high off his ass. “She was yellow.”

“What was her name?”

“I can’t remember, but I know it had like six numbers and probably three underscores.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every fucking day.”

Laughter overtook both of you. You grabbed a table closest to the exit and he slid his backpack under it. You figured he didn’t want to linger long as well. The chairs were freezing. You shifted in your seat. The cold didn’t help your sore ass. Zeke took notice of this.

“I told you I was paddling you too hard.” He took a tiny sip of his drink.

“I still stand by that you weren’t hard enough.”

“You were crying, pet.”

“They were tears of happiness. You know, like when people win a Golden Globe or whatever.”

“No one gets that excited over a Golden Globe.”

You slumped down into your chair. You had no witty retort. This happened more often than not when he was around. In just about every other social situation you were the paragon of humor, a true queen of comedy.

“Aww, did I hit a nerve?” He kicked your shin from under the table. The pain perked you up. You proceeded to stomp on his foot eliciting an audible wince from him.

“How long are you trying to stay here?” you asked, hoping he’d say something like zero seconds or if I stay here any longer I’ll turn into sand.

“Long enough to have sex in what I am assuming is a gross bathroom.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re high, right? You can’t—This place is gross.”

“I had this planned from the beginning.” He leaned back in his chair. “It shouldn’t be too gross. This hellhole hasn’t been open that long.”

“My feet stick to the—”

“That’s character.” He leaned forward over the table, yanking you by the collar of your shirt so you were inches away from his face. “It makes for an interesting experience.”

You let out a nervous laugh, desperately fighting off the beginnings of arousal. The gross old men leered.

“Ugh. Fine. But I wanna be high too,” you complained.

He glanced at the growing pod of old men. “Let’s hit the bathroom.”

He got up, leaving his unfinished drink behind. It prompted you to do the same. They weren’t that impressive. You walked down the hall turning corners until you saw a sign for a bathroom. Zeke kicked in the door and shoved his head inside.

“I’m pretty sure no one is in here. And look, there are even stalls.”

He made his way over to one and tried to lock its door.

“Well that’s broken.”

He repeated this process on the remaining two stalls. None of them had working locks.

You looked around. “This is—”

“An even better opportunity than I could have imagined.”

You were speechless. You knew he was a borderline insatiable tramp, but this was a lot. You were conflicted. On one hand, getting railed by him always sounded like a good time. But on the other, getting potentially caught by one of those decaying dinosaurs sounded like torture. And you hadn’t committed any crimes bearing that level of punishment.

“But those guys are so weird looking,” you whined like a child.

“Who cares?”

“I care. It’d be one thing if they were like your hot friends…”

“You can’t say that and not specify which ones. It’s illegal. You and I both know that.”

“Fuck… Pieck, duh. Or Colt.”

“Oh god. Really?... Colt?” he sounded vaguely disgusted.

“Fuck you! Yeah, really Colt. It’d be a learning experience for him.”

“I wouldn’t let him join in.”

You smirked. “You say that now, but in the moment the tides may change.” You punctuated the sentence with a wink.

“Alright, you might have a point with the Colt thing. But I’m disappointed Reiner didn’t come up.”

“You know you can just say who you would want to catch us? Like my answers aren’t the end-all-be-all.”

You went to join him in the decrepit stall. You hugged his toned body and buried your face into the crook of his neck. His hands went straight to your ass, typical.

“Reiner, because I know it’d fuck with him,” he yammered on. “Or what’s that one guy’s name? The one that hangs out with my brother?”

“So many people hang out with your brother. You really want a 19-year-old catching us?”

“Hush. I’m thinking. Blonde. Blue eyes.” He paused. “Also Colt’s 19, dumb ass.”

“Colt doesn’t count!! Are you thinking of Historia?”

“What?! No.”

Zeke broke the hug and rubbed his temples. “It’s a boy. He is a boy.”

“Well, more like a man.”

“You’re not helping. Blonde. Blue eyes. He’s a,” Zeke paused for emphasis, “man.”

“I think that’s Armi—”

He barreled through your sentence. “Armin! Yes, him. It’d fuck him up too. He’s like an angel; we’d be stripping him of all innocence.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure a cute, 19-year-old college boy is getting at least some form of action. We all know who the right option is.”

“Alright, fuck it. Fine. Colt. Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Pervert,” he mumbled.

“Like you have room to talk.”

You grazed his cock with your hand. He smirked and pulled a joint from his pack of cigarettes. He held it between his lips and sparked it.

“I see you’re not concerned about getting caught.” He took a hit and then passed it to you.

You took a heavy drag off the joint. “I’m already going to get loudly fucked in a bathroom. I might as be high.”

You passed the joint back to him and he took a lengthy hit. He let the smoke drift from his mouth slowly. You plucked the joint from his fingers.

“I recommend taking another. A long one.”

“Why?” you said, smoke drifting from your mouth.

“Because you’re getting on your knees the second you exhale.”

You held the rest of the smoke in for as long as you could to spite him. But Zeke quickly tired of your bullshit and took the joint from you. He grabbed a chunk of your hair from the back of your scalp and pulled.

“Knees,” he muttered.

You scoffed. “Rude.”

However you did as you were told and he loosened his grip. He took a hit from the joint and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. The ground wasn’t sticky, but that did little to quell your disgust. You were always ashamed at the depths of depravity you allowed yourself to descend into for your boyfriend.

You looked up at him and asked, “Are you really gonna be able to keep the door shut?”

“No. Undo my belt.”

You gritted your teeth and started to fiddle with his belt. His rough hand rested on your head, softly caressing it. You knew such tenderness wouldn’t last long.

“I know you can work faster than that.”

You sighed dramatically. You quickly pulled his belt off and unbuttoned his jeans. You pulled them down and noted that his black briefs were sullied with precum. You yanked his underwear down and was greeted by his thick cock, a beautiful sight to behold. Drool pooled in your mouth, a small drop of it trickled from the corner of your mouth. Zeke lifted your chin and wiped it away with his calloused thumb.

“You’re foul. What will I ever do with you?”

You gazed up at him. “I don’t know… Let me milk every drop of cum from your cock?”

He smirked. “You’re so fucking stupid. Are you done talking?”

“I guess. I can’t think of anything else to—”

He grabbed the back of your head and forced his cock into your mouth. You lurched forward, using the bathroom stall door to keep some semblance of balance. His thrusts were methodical. Never too deep as he didn’t want you to gag on him, it was too early for that.

“You’re filthy, you know that? An utter degenerate.”

He continued to plunge his cock deeper and deeper into your mouth. You carefully breathed through your nose and tried to not cough on his length.

“You deserve to get caught. Everyone deserves to know what a disgusting slut you are.”

You attempted a nod, but Zeke put his rugged palm on your forehead and shoved you off of his cock.

“Say it.”

“I deserve to get caught.”

His grey stared down at you hazy with lust. “And?” He took one last hit off the joint.

“And everyone deserves to know how gross I am.”

He frowned and blew the smoke directly in your face. “Not quite, but close enough.” He shoved his cock back down your throat.

The bathroom stall proved to be a poor source of balance so you rested your hands on his tense thighs. His muscles contracted with pleasure. You relaxed your throat, finally getting the entirety of his cock in your mouth. You held it there for a few seconds before you felt the beginning of a gag. You pushed his hips away from you. He pulled out and continued to jerk off as you coughed and caught your breath.

“I’m getting really close,” he teased.

You smacked his hand away. You spit in yours and jerked him off while running your tongue along his slit.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. He held your head in place and rammed his cock in your mouth. You grabbed onto his taut ass for leverage. His thrusts were becoming sloppy. He came hard, filling your throat with cum.

“I’m getting fucked, right?” you asked, wiping your lips.

“No, I thought I’d just stand here in this bathroom with my dick out.”

You rolled your eyes and got undressed. He led you out of the stall and shoved you against the sink. He groped your breasts, rough fingers pinching your nipples.

“Ouch!” you yelped.

Zeke laughed and pinched harder. He slipped three of his dexterous fingers into your slick pussy. They slid in and out with ease. He pushed you harder against the sink, the basin digging into your spine. You winced. He took notice and put his hands under your ass and lifted you up.

“Lock your legs around me,” he commanded.

He slammed his cock balls deep inside you. There was no tenderness in his thrusts. He wanted you to moan his name louder than you’d moan anyone else’s. But you resisted. The last thing you wanted to do was to bring any attention to yourself.

“Come on, pet,” he practically begged. “Say my name.”

You shook your head. You pictured those leering old men sipping their martinis, cocks stiff as they heard you moan. Zeke rubbed your clit with his thumb and started kissing your neck. His soft flaxen beard tickled your skin.

“Say my name or else I’ll go find some cheap whore that will.” 

His breath was hot on your neck. He pressed his thumb down hard on your clit.

“Fuck! Zeke!” Your legs tightened around his waist.

He placed his hand under your chin and forced you to make eye contact. His eyes were feral, darkened with desire.

“Weak. You can do better than that.”

You hugged him closer, fingernails digging into his chiseled back.

“Zeke!”

You felt your body growing warmer. Every cell in your body writhed with pleasure. You clung to his body as your orgasm intensified.

“I don’t remember giving you permission,” he whispered in your ear.

You attempted to hold back but it was too late. You moaned his name louder than even he anticipated. He held his hand over your mouth, his cock still inside you, thrusting away.

“I don’t remember saying you should start screaming either.” His tone was anxious. “I never thought I’d say this, but please shut the fuck up.”

You glared at him, but remained silent and allowed him to continue fucking you with his engorged cock.

“Good girl.”

The words barely left his lips before he let out a hearty moan. He pulled out of you.

“Hurry, get on your knees.”

You dropped down to them and opened your mouth. For the first time in years he missed, getting his cum all over your chin and down your neck. You were not impressed.

“You look so cute.”

He pinched your cheek and ordered you to stand up. He held your face in his hands. Just as he went to lick your neck the bathroom door swung open. It was one of the old men. Zeke didn’t stop licking you.

“Oh my word! I am so sorry. You, uh… You two… have fun.”

The guy ran out as quickly as he came in.

“I wonder if I could pay that guy to walk in on us whenever I want.”

You went to search for your underwear and found them inside a toilet. You flushed them away.

 “No. We talked about this already.”

“Colt would be traumatized if he walked in on this.”

Zeke finally put his dick away. You both stood at the sink washing your hands.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?! Whatever, let’s leave before we get kicked out for being absolutely disgusting. Not that I ever plan on coming back here.”

You walked out of the bathroom and faced the geezers. You kept your head down. Zeke on the other hand seemed to relish in the shame and even tried to high five the man who caught you.

Zeke grabbed his backpack from under the table you two had been previously sitting at. You headed to the spiral staircase that led to the exit. It was one of those rickety metal ones that would be considered decorative in a world that made sense. Zeke offered you his elbow and you held on while you cautiously made your way down the stairs. You pushed through the heavy doors and were greeted by a rush of cold air.

You shivered. “Fuck! I was inside before the sun went down.”

You were woefully unprepared for the weather.

“Good thing I’m a genius then, huh?” He pulled out a sweatshirt from his backpack. “Arms up.”

You raised your arms and he tugged the sweatshirt down onto your body.

“Thank you. I didn’t think it would be so chilly.”

Zeke pointed up at the perfectly clear night sky. “Yeah, we’re in for a cold one. Look.”

You both let out a collective whoa. It was a gorgeous sight; it almost made up for the ugliness that had previously occurred moments ago.

Zeke lightly slapped your ass. “Let’s get moving. We need to shower.”

“Come on, you don’t wanna stare at something dumb ass beautiful?”

If you had craned your neck back any further to see the stars you would have toppled over.“I already have a beautiful dumb ass I can stare at whenever I want. Now come on. I was balls deep in a paternity dispute before I got here. You’re going to love it, the baby daddy threw his gold tooth at his ex-wife. Jerry is pissed.”

[thesimscurator]

For Rent Update to Career World is Live!

The For Rent update to Career World is here! Before I link it, though, a quick:

CAUTION: There is a serious bug in the game right now that causes irreversible save file corruption. The causes of it are unclear, but it seems to have something to do with residential rentals. I actually GOT this bug while doing this update, and had to scrap two weeks’ worth of work on the update and start over completely from scratch by downloading the previous version of Career World from my own Tumblr—because once it’s in, it can’t be fixed. Luckily, I did not get it on the second attempt (I checked obsessively as I was going), but I don’t know: A) why I got it the first time, B) why I didn’t get it the second time, or C) how to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Because of this, I have not opted to overwrite the previous version of the save file with the new version as I usually do. Until this bug is fixed (please go click “Me Too” on the bug report, it’ll encourage the devs to give this more attention), I want people to have the option to play with or without rental residential lots, knowing that there may be more risk of save file corruption by playing the version with rental residentials. To be clear: neither of these two versions of Career World is currently corrupted. I have uploaded clean saves for you to download. But since I don’t know what triggers the bug, the save may become corrupted as you play, and it looks like this is marginally more likely to occur in the version that has been updated to incorporate For Rent. You will know you have triggered the corruption if you begin to see exclamation points over lots instead of the usual lot identification symbols.

If you get this bug as you play, do not save your game! And perhaps even more importantly, do not close the save you were just playing and click into another; exit the game entirely. There is some evidence that this can spread from one save file to another if you play several save files in the same session. There is, I repeat, no fix for this. The only thing you can do with a corrupted save is restore old versions until you find one that doesn’t have the corruption yet. In the case of Career World, you can always come back to this page and re-download a clean copy from this website.

That was the important info for everybody, but for a few players, I must also give the usual . . .

IMPORTANT MOD NOTE: If you use Frankk’s Language Barriers mod, you must download and install the latest version of that mod before opening the save file in order to retain language data for Tomaru, the newest language.

OK, now that we’ve covered the important need-to-knows, here are links to:

Career World updated for For Rent

Career World only updated as far as Horse Ranch—i.e. without any content from For Rent

Both are also now linked in the main post.

Phew! Alright, now we can get to the details of:

What’s New?

Rental residentials, of course! The thing to know about them first off: there is another, far more minor bug in the game right now that hard-codes the names of all rental residential lot types as whatever EA originally called the lot rather than any new names the player might have given that lot. So, many of the existing apartment buildings—which used to have names that told you what they were, like “Sunny Retirement Village” or “FutureSim Employee Housing”—have reverted to having unchangeable informationless names, or worse: misleading and defunct names, like the house with a basement rental in Britechester that has gone back to being called “Pepper’s Pub” even though I moved Pepper’s Pub and it already has that exact name on a totally separate lot (ditto for the now-duplicated “Thebe Estate”). This is a mess. I will fix it if they ever change this bug/feature/whatever it is, but at the moment, please know that rental residentials have weird names that I can’t change, and the real identity of the building is probably buried several clicks deep in the unit descriptions.

In order to combat this somewhat for players who are willing to read these Tumblr updates, here’s a list of rental residentials with specific gameplay identities that I think should be more obvious than they are with the locked lot names:

Special Rental Residentials:

1) The apartment building on the FutureSim campus (Mirage Canyon) in Oasis Springs is employee housing for employees of FutureSim Labs (the scientist career employer), or its subsidiaries Obscure Logistics (the engineering employer) and Rainy Day Entertainment (the tech guru employer), and their families. If you do not have a scientist, engineer, or tech guru in the family, you are not eligible to move into these apartments.

2) The trailer park in Bedrock Strait in Oasis Springs is a retirement community. We don’t want any young whipper-snappers here, nor any of these go-getter old folks who still work and will just remind us of the daily grind we’re trying to forget. Don’t even dream of moving here unless you are 1) an elder, and 2) retired. And no live-in children or grandchildren, either! If you can’t remember the golden age of landlines, find somewhere else to live!

3) I did a little playtesting of the solar farm in Oasis Springs for this version of the save file, and discovered that A) you couldn’t even get to any of the solar panels to maintain them the way this was originally set up, and B) it wasn’t actually possible to make money from selling electricity—the lot value was too high relative to the payback from the solar panels. But, I discovered, it is possible to have the electric payback exceed your bills if the lot is changed to a rental residential with the living quarters set as the one and only unit and the solar farm itself as common area. So that’s what I did: I fixed the solar panels so you can access them, and set the place as a rental with only one unit. You can now functionally play as a solar plant operator. And of course, the Landgraabs are your landlords. They do own the whole electric utility, after all. (This is also now true for the power plant in Evergreen Harbor and the hill house/micro wind farm in the Windslar neighborhood of Windenburg.)

4) The cluster of huts at the top of the hill in Sulani’s Ohan’ali Town is an eco-living commune that blends traditional Sulani ways of life with new green technologies. Residents live in separate off-the-grid huts with little more than bedrooms and kitchens, powered by the commune’s on-site solar panels, windmills, solar hot water heaters, and dew collectors. In the collective space, however, you’ll find a thriving taro patch, a communal art studio, game tables, a full bar, a small basketball court, chickens and insects to raise, a roadside stand for selling the commune’s produce and crafts, and lots of opportunities to interact with fellow members of this intentional community. One of the huts is generally reserved for students on study abroad who have come to learn about Sulani culture through this communal living experience—see the List of Study Abroad Opportunities (now updated for Tomarang!) for details.

5) The defunct motel in StrangerVille was bought for an almost-literal song by an eclectic throuple of artists who are very flexible about making changes proposed by tenants. Currently, all the former hotel rooms are just in the state they were when the place was a hotel, but if you move in here and want to—say—combine two units into a larger, single unit like they have done with their own, they’d be open to that. If you want to add a rooftop space to your top-floor unit, or even create some kind of wonky townhouse by linking two units that are directly above one another with a rooftop space, they’re open to that, too. If you want to install blackout curtains over all the windows, paper the walls with conspiracy-theory notes, and run secret experiments in your former hotel room, go nuts! They’ll really let you do just about anything. All you need to do is play as the owners for a minute to change these things before moving your sim in.

6) The big house where Pepper’s Pub originally was in Britechester is just that—a big house. They rent out their converted basement to university students, but this isn’t really an apartment building. The understanding with this one is that whoever lives in the above-ground house portion will always be the property owner and not just a renter—and in order to make this true, I have had to add an owning family to that section of the property, which means the college administrator Jade Rosa has been house-sitting for all this time has returned! You now have the option to dive right in to professoring or college administration with the new family that now lives there (thanks to Ivelle_creates for making the couple).

7) Both the large piazza in Tartosa where the Thebe Estate used to be, AND the apartment building at Ro Kaya Rockside in Tomarang, are mixed-use areas with commercial establishments on the ground floor (and sometimes into the upper floors) with apartments above. This is not exactly possible yet in The Sims 4, but several of the businesses are still usable—you can buy wedding dresses off the mannequins in the Tartosan bridal shop, for example, because that gameplay is tied to the mannequin object and not the lot type. Mostly, however, these commercial areas are designed with gameplay as their associated workers in mind, allowing you to live in an apartment but do work tasks in one of the on-site businesses (EX: be a cosmotologist who works in the on-lot salon).

(And a quick sidenote on the piazza in Tartosa: there is the potential for A TREMENDOUS NUMBER of apartment units on this lot. I have only designated the three that are occupied as actual units for now, because I was already running up against the per-save-file unit limit, but if you want to move your own sim in, just pick whichever of the many empty spaces suits your fancy, create the perfect apartment for your sim, and designate it as a new unit. Or, if you are really into furnishing/interior decoration and you want to turn this into basically an entire town, you can just bulldoze the existing rental residentials in other worlds, use the bb.increaserentalunitcap on cheat to allow yourself all the space you need, and go to literal town.)

8) Tam Nang Sands in Tomarang is a resort hotel. The place is set up for short-term rentals only, and is really meant to be played from the property owner perspective, to create a faux active career as a hotel manager. While it is possible to play from the tenant perspective and “stay here” on “vacation,” the game does not register it as a vacation and will make you sell your current residence in order to move here. I don’t really recommend doing that unless you live with someone else and are planning on going on vacation without them; then you can use the “split household” feature to send part of your household for a temporary stay while the other part of the household holds down the fort. If the Sims team ever release an honest-to-goodness hotel system, I will update this, but in the meantime this is better played as the manager.

9) Isda Riverfront in Tomarang is the site of the Linh family compound. While most Tomarani people have abandoned this traditional mode of housing the entire extended family in a walled compound with central courtyard and a special family spirit house, the Linh family is determined to stick to it, no matter how many foreigners marry in. And that, of course, means that unless you’re marrying in, you may not move here. Marry in or be born in, that’s the deal.

10) The colonial mansion on the former site of The Screaming Gecko in Tomarang has been set “for rent” so it can be used as a private second home by a wealthy sim. One of the new and unique things the rental system now allows us to do is have sims own multiple homes and just swap between them at will; all you have to do is set all the homes you want to own as residential rental lots, assign all the rooms to a single unit in each, and then buy all the homes as a property owner. Since property owners pay no rent to live in a property they own, voila! You can live that snowbird life and just move to Tomarang when you get tired of winter, then move back to your original house (or any other vacation homes you own) when you need a change of scenery. I seriously considered having Judith Ward buy this house, since there is text in the tiger sanctuary about her having a particular connection to it, but ultimately decided I wanted you, the player, to have the opportunity to buy this with whatever sim you’re playing—whether Judith Ward herself or any other. And bonus, you can actually use this method to play out tax-evasion-by-the-wealthy storylines, because the property taxes on a big, expensive mansion that you own outright are astronomical, but taxes on “rental” properties you “manage” is just a flat $50 per unit per day, which is often far less than what you would have been paying on an owned house. This pack introduced lots of new paths to crime, for rich and poor alike!

All in all, there are 22 rental residentials in the save file now, with a total of 90 units (so you have 10 to play around with still!), the overwhelming majority of which are just empty and waiting for you to select and move your own sims in. If you choose to live in one of these buildings and want to have more neighbors, just move a few in from the gallery or elsewhere in the save.

And a quick note about a choice I didn’t make: I have not split any of the boarding houses in Copperdale into separate units for different students, because having a whole bunch of high school students with common interests in the same household is what allows you to control them as a group at the school and have them engage in active club activities together. This was half the point of creating the boarding-house system for Copperdale in the first place, so they are always going to be giant, unwieldy households full of sims. Embrace the challenge! You can play single high school students in any old save file. The same goes for the three movie set households added in the last update: all those sims need to be in the same household and simultaneously controllable for the gameplay to function correctly, so they have not been subdivided.

Tomarang Makeover:

As with some previous worlds, I’ve tried to lean in to the differing neighborhood identities by making Morensong bustling, crowded-together, modern, and rundown, while Koh Sahpa has a much more chill, spread-out, traditional, and upscale vibe. Morensong is overrun with street cats (i.e. it has “cat hangout” as a neighborhood trait), while Koh Sahpa has “peace and quiet” as its neighborhood trait. Both neighborhoods of Tomarang, however, have “mold” as a world challenge, because the air is just so heavy with moisture—the only exceptions to this are lots with absolutely no indoor space whatsoever, and therefore sufficient airflow to prevent mold growth. But if there’s an interior, there’s going to be mold.

The limited number of lots presented a challenge for filling Morensong with businesses and activities, but I think I did pretty well, considering. Its four lots are split half-and-half between residential and community, but one of the residentials is a mixed-use building with businesses on the ground floor, including a functional street market where you can play as a vendor if you’re living in the building. And I managed to pack quite a lot into the two community lots, as well! The one currently set as a thrift and bubble tea shop can have its lot type changed to karaoke bar, bar, lounge, or nightclub at will, depending on which spaces you want to focus on, what events you’d like thrown there, etc. And for the other lot, simmers made so many wonderful and creative alternatives to the bland national park that I couldn’t pick just one, so I picked four. I have turned this into one of the Eco Lifestyle four-in-one community space lots, with each of its states a completely different venue by a different simmer. If you want to keep it as a botanical garden, just leave it on the “community garden” state and you will have a fuller version with actual plants for your sims to tend (all flowers and tropical plants), spirit houses, and a picnic area—great if you’re playing as a botanist or a florist. If you’re some kind of vendor who doesn’t live at Ro Kaya Rockside and you want a more playable version of the night market, just set it to “marketplace” and now you’ll have easily editable stands at which to sell your wares. If you want a community center with tons to do, set it to “makerspace,” and if you’re looking for a non-rabbit-hole temple / Tomarani wedding venue, set it to “community space.”

In Koh Sahpa, I played around a bit with the new career and lifestyle possibilities unlocked by the new rental residential venue type. Three of the five lots out here are rental residentials, but none of the three are classic apartment buildings or townhouses like you’ll find in Morensong. One is a luxury hotel, where playing as the property owner means keeping the guests happy and the place in tip-top shape with very short leases and lots of rules. Another is a traditional family compound, where your “tenants” (or your “landlord,” depending on which household you’re playing) are actually your family members, and the point is to do lots of gathering and socializing in the common space, throw potlucks every night to represent big family dinners, and all pitch in to help when a maintenance or emergency event hits. In this “rental,” there are no rules and the leases are basically forever. The final “rental” is only marked as a rental residential to enable you to buy it as a second home—once you’ve purchased it, all you have to do is turn your own home into a rental residential and you can move between your two houses at will. In addition to these rental residentials, a straight-up vacation rental and a spa round out the primarily vacation-oriented neighborhood of Koh Sahpa.

Of course, this is a career-focused save, so a lot of the choices I made with Tomarang’s lots—like the ones described above—were career driven. But identifying careers for Tomarang was a bit tricky. For Rent certainly came with new ways to make money, a new part-time career, and several interesting gameplay features that fold particularly well into existing careers . . . but interestingly, none of these new features were particularly location-specific. You can be a landlord or a handyperson anywhere, and the same goes for blackmail or break-ins. So while I made many additions to the Career Chart as a result of this pack, none of these new career options are limited to Tomarang. Instead, Tomarang has joined the lists of especially good places to pursue several other pre-existing careers, like fisherman (I mean, those waters!).

That said, I did make Tomarang an especially great spot to pursue anything that jives well with vending your wares at the Night Market (and the many extensions to it I added), so being a freelance crafter, artist, food stall owner, fisherman, gardener, florist, jeweler, or anything else that consists primarily of making or collecting small items to sell will be particularly rewarding when playing in Tomarang. I had also listed a new ministry of labor career as a masseur back when the Spa Day refresh came out, but never had much of a dedicated space for it. Now, with Tomarang, I decided to lean into the well-regarded tradition of Thai massage by including three different venues of varying quality where your masseur sim can give commercial massage in this world: a seedy downmarket massage parlor on the Ro Kaya Rockside lot, a mid-tier venue at the historical spa in downtown Koh Sahpa, and an upscale open-air massage area at the four-star Tam Nang Sands Resort Hotel. Plus, there’s a private massage room in the colonial mansion, so if you’re playing as a massage therapist and someone moves in there, feel free to invite yourself over and charge them for private massage services.

On the subject of things at Ro Kaya Rockside being seedy, I chose the building I did for that lot because the builder, eenitmartini (Matinee on YouTube—go check her out!) made this absolutely fantastic criminal lair/hideout/underground nightclub as part of her building, so all credit to her for the fact that there is now an “Illegal Gambling Ring” club in this save file, hosted at Ro Kaya Rockside and open only to criminals, secret agents, and undercover cops. This means that, while not exclusive, Tomarang is also now an especially good place to be a criminal—which is great, because the For Rent pack enabled me to create a plethora of new specialties within the criminal career, including things like “B&E specialist” and “blackmailer” (see the Career Chart for details).

As usual, I have also used the T.O.O.L. mod to add extra activities to the open parts of the world—most notably, I added several extra stalls to the night market, so you can play there as a vendor. You’ll note that most of them do not have sales tables/food stalls at the front of the tent; this is because, as I was testing, I discovered that you can’t actually sell anything using these objects unless the game knows you own them, so you’ll have to bring your own and place it from your sim’s inventory for these spaces to be functional. There are two that are already complete: Alon Sadya’s food stall in the main part of the market, and Chánh Linh’s fish stall on the other side of the buildings, over near the public toilets. These stalls are completely functional for these individuals, but will not be for anyone else unless you have the owners remove those key objects so you can replace them with others that belong to your active household.

Townie Updates:

Vanesha Cahyaputri, poster child for the pack and model landlord, is now running a four-star hotel in Koh Sahpa! She has quite the job trying to keep her little sister from breaking into people’s hotel rooms to snoop, in addition to keeping the buffet table stocked with local delicacies, making drinks for guests and offering them massages when they emerge from their rooms, and of course keeping up with maintenance and bookings.

The extended members of the Linh-Sadya clan now live in a traditional Tomerani family compound that has allowed me to split them into three households instead of two. They routinely throw big potluck-style family dinners in their shared courtyard. The elder patriarchs have both retired from their more demanding careers and are now in relaxing part-time jobs that cater to their interests—namely, fisherman for Chánh (complete with functional night market food stall!) and handyperson for Arturo. Their elder daughter Liên and her husband Alon both work in Morensong, where Liên makes over sims at the salon at Ro Kaya Rockside and Alon runs a night market street grill. Auntie Thi is still a secret agent, but as part of her work she has now infiltrated an illegal gambling ring in Morensong and is trying to uncover secrets at their weekly poker night. She also adopted a new cat, Bub II, a toyger who is a smaller, more approachable version of the tigers that are Tomarang’s special animal. All members of the extended Linh family now know learnable recipes for Vietnamese and Selvadoradian dishes, reflecting their mixed heritage.

The Bun Ma family have established themselves as fixtures at Ro Kaya Rockside, Morensong’s shadier district. Bua runs a hole-in-the-wall noodle soup place, Nin gives massage at various locations around Tomarang, and Kasem runs the illegal gambling ring under the building that Thi has infiltrated—in between break-ins and expert hacking of various trust funds. Yes, you wouldn’t expect it from the sweet-faced young father of an adorable toddler, but that’s part of what makes him such an effective criminal.

But wait, there’s more! A few sims outside of Tomarang have also been updated:

Eliza Pancakes has become much more investigative since becoming a cop. Some people might even call her nosy. Kasem had better hope she never uncovers any of his secrets.

Katrina Caliente took the scads of money she has gotten from selling expensive Selvadoradian artifacts to museums, bought the other three condos in her building, knocked the whole building down, and built a modern desert villa for herself, her two daughters, her dog, and whatever boy toy she’s currently entertaining (still Don, at the moment). She was tired of sharing space, and there are more than enough apartments in Oasis Springs, anyway.

Geoffrey Landgraab got tired of playing secret agent and has returned to what he really always has been: an electric company mogul who owns and operates power plants around the worlds. It’s up to him to fill job vacancies in these plants by “hiring” onsite managers, keeping them happy, and handling maintenance on the plants. What is more, at the same time that he realized he was only fooling himself about the secret agent thing, he also realized he was only fooling himself about being family-oriented, because let’s face it: he disowned one of his sons, the other one is evil, and his wife is a criminal. Instead, he has decided to focus his love and attention outward to the world by re-branding himself as a generous philanthropist. He now regularly attends charity benefit parties, gives to online charities, says yes to anyone who calls him asking for a donation, volunteers his time, and will even go on sprees where he goes around just handing money to random sims on the street. Good thing he has so much that he could live off just investments for the rest of his life.

SimTube star Dustin Broke is running out of material. His jokes, memes, and dances have gotten a little dated. Over time, he has become—well—cringe.

Judith Ward has adopted a tiger (and given a boatload more money to the tiger sanctuary, besides!), as per her lore in the new pack. Her in-house handyman is also now in the actual handyperson career. It’s good to be the queen!

The university administrator who had Jade Rosa house-sitting for so long has returned from the family vacation she took to Tartosa to show her kids their father’s homeland. The family is now happily reinstalled in their big fancy Britechester home, back to work as Dean of Admissions and adjunct art professor, respectively, at the University of Britechester, and back to charging Jade rent for her basement apartment underneath their house. If you’re looking to play either of the advanced branches of the Education career, they are now an option.

The group of salarypersons I downloaded originally as unhoused NPCs in order to give Kado Akiyama some co-workers to do karaoke with have now moved into houses on his own street! While I left most units empty in the places I converted to rental residentials, I did feel kinda weird about leaving an entire street’s worth of stand-alone houses empty except for the Akiyama family—it was just a little too post-apocalyptic for my taste. So since I already had this Mt.Komorebi-based club, I figured I’d turn its other members into neighbors and integrate them into the community a little more.

For users of Frankk’s Language Barriers mod, which is a supported mod in this save file, I have updated the native languages of some previously-existing townies for the new inclusion of Tomaru. Before this pack came out, I used Komorebigo as the stand-in for all languages originating from Eastern Asia writ large—now, I have separated it out into Komorebigo for East Asian languages (not only Japanese but also Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Mongolian, etc.) and Tomaru for Southeast Asian languages (Vietnamese, Thai, Tagalog, Malay, etc.). So now, for example, the Filipino sim Jules Rico, who shipped with the Eco Lifestyle expansion, is natively bilingual in Simlish and Tomaru (previously, I’d had him set as natively bilingual in Simlish and Komorebigo). So there have been a few alterations to townies like that. I hope to get to do more updates like this in the future as the Sims team diversifies the worlds on offer and Frankk—who absolutely makes my game with this beautiful mod—continues to expand the language offerings of the Sims universe.

Other stuff that has changed:

I took that excellent new object that looks like a “for sale” sign and stuck it outside every unoccupied house in this save file. I just thought it was a nice touch.

While I was working on this update, I saw a YouTube video that reminded me what a great object the photo booth from High School Years was, and realized I was under-utilizing it. I have now gone back and scattered several more of these around, ensuring that each world has at least one photo booth somewhere. Thanks, lilsimsie!

Pressure cookers and kettles have been strategically added in places where I thought they were needed.

A few of the more run-down houses have the new “maintenance” lot challenge—and some have mold, as well!

I realized there was nowhere to get nectar in Tartosa (a serious oversight), so I scattered a bunch of bottles around the public areas of the large piazza that is the local rental residential in Porto Luminoso. They are just debug bottles and nothing special—for that, you’re going to have to help Hugo Villareal restart Tartosa’s defunct nectar-making business. I’m sure his bottles will be better than the debug ones.

All this updating took me into spring, so seasonal lots (including prom!) have been updated.

That’s it for this update! When you don’t randomly get the corruption bug, it’s actually quite enjoyable. I had a ton of fun doing all the building conversions and playtesting, and I hope you’ll have fun playing, too!

Download now: Career World For Rent update

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

genuine question: how can we use this website to be less annoying to others?

Glad to give my thoughts. Like I said, I’m very petty and most of this stuff probably isn’t as big a deal to most people. Anyway I’m bad at being brief so I added a readmore. Here are my personal rules:

1: Don’t add anything to the body of a post unless you have something that you really feel will add some degree of value, meaning, humor, context, or at least something to people further down the reblog chain.

This is the most important rule. Adding something to a post makes it longer, it makes it so everyone who reblogs it in the chain after you has to see it. If you have nothing to add but “wow” or “holy shit” you are lengthening the post for no reason. Those reactions can easily go in the tags.

This is also the reason I think gimmick blogs are so annoying. It’s one thing for a “heritage post” blog to reblog things related to its respective gimmick. Simply reblogging them puts that thing on their blog, so anyone looking at it or following them because they want to see “heritage posts” will see it. But they go a step further and add “X heritage post” for no real reason other than to brand the post as theirs.

When I see a post that I like that has useless additions that take up space while adding nothing I get mildly annoyed and go to the reblog of the person who reblogged it before they did just to trim the useless comments off. But if that person deactivated then I can’t trim the comment. Tumblr lets you trim to the original post without any of the additions regardless of if op is deactivated or not with the little X on the reblog menu, but only to the original post. It’s better than nothing though

This whole point is, to me, a bit of tumblr etiquette that makes it so you don’t have to see unrelated comments from someone you don’t follow just because they thought to add a pointless comment way up the chain. This definitely is petty, but if you remember how the old tumblr formatting worked, this was extremely important because each addition took up even more screen space with the line to the next persons url and squished the original post into smaller and smaller spaces. So that’s probably why I feel so strongly about it even though it doesn’t matter as much anymore.

2: The tags are mostly your free space to say what you want, BUT try and respect that OP will likely see them.

A LOT of communication done on this website is done through talking in the tags. That’s not what they were originally meant for but that doesn’t matter anymore. People will likely be looking in their notes to see tags by their mutuals.

The original poster can and will see every tag on a post, unless they delete the post or mute notifications. Mute notifications seems like it doesn’t work, but that’s because it only mutes future notifications on the post, the tags in your notes before muting will still be there regardless

This is to say that in most situations, if the op is someone like me who uses their notes to communicate with their mutuals and others in their communities, your irrelevant tags might also be there and annoy them. So use courtesy when tagging. Thankfully tumblr cuts off tags after a certain point on the notes page but still keep it in mind. I go overboard writing mini essays in the tags all the time, and while I do think that is a little annoying I do it anyway so I can’t blame people.

3: Keep blorbo tagging to a minimum if you can help it.

This is probably my most controversial stance, but blorbo tagging can be really annoying in certain circumstances.

The biggest offender to me are tagging make characters on posts about women. I don’t care that you think he’s your babygirl or whatever, I find this extremely annoying. I get it, sometimes a post fits your character really closely but the gender is wrong, but usually it doesn’t and they’re just doing this on any post even slightly related to a single aspect of a male character they care about. Often because most tumblr fandom people couldn’t be bothered to care about female characters if that was the only way to escape a saw trap alive.

There are other blorbo tag type things that annoy me, and again I’m a petty bitch, so take it with a grain of salt. But to me this one is a little personal (for lack of a better word). One of my first big posts on this blog was about wizard girls leaning in to kiss and having the brims of their hats get in the way. I didn’t mind the blorbo tagging about men that much, but they got less and less related to the post that it was annoying. The last straw before I deleted the post (back when I didn’t realize mute notifications actually worked. It might not have at the time) was a tag about their male blorbos leaning in to kiss and their belt buckles got in the way???

Idk I just find blorbo tagging in general mildly annoying and only do it when the post is an extremely perfect fit for on the characters I care about. I often block people for blorbo tagging about characters from things I dislike, I’m petty and the block button is fun for me to press, so I do that often. :)

4: NOT EVERY POST IS ABOUT YOU!!!

If you see a post that isn’t about you or your demographics or gender or whatever, you really don’t need to make it about you. That will very likely annoy op, especially because no one would have anything against you if you went and wrote your own post inspired by whatever the post in question said.

Not every post about lesbians needs to be made about gay men. Not every post about trans women needs to be made about trans men. Not every post about women needs to be made about men. And probably most important:

Not every post needs to be made about white people!

I know you might be thinking how writing something in the tags about your experience as a white person relating to what op is talking about, but I promise you they don’t want to hear it from us. They almost certainly are seeing tags from other white people because for some reason we can’t seem to see someone posting about issues of racism without having either the “I’m sorry for being white” or “white devils advocate” voices appear in our heads, just ignore it. Bite your tongue and reblog or move on for the love of god stop pestering the op.

Obviously the lesbian, trans women, and women ones are the ones I see in my notes that are annoying. But I can’t pretend I haven’t seen other white people say some really unnecessary shit in the tags / haven’t seen posts by nonwhite people who are clearly annoyed about how we always make everything about us.

Remember, you can always write your own post!

5: OP didn’t “turn off replies”

This feels like something that wouldn’t happen that often, but multiple times when I’ve made even mildly controversial takes about like video games or whatever, people will either add in a reblog or send me an ask complaining that I “turned off replies because I was afraid of hearing them disagree” usually followed by them calling me a coward. It’s very simple, I have reply settings so that people I follow and people who have followed me for at least like a week can reply, that’s it. I don’t have replies from everyone on because most people outside of those categories I don’t care about their opinions and they are annoying. If you can’t reply, that’s probably why. And if they actually did turn off replies, that’s because they don’t want replies, especially from people like the ones I just described.

6: I actually don’t have a problem with spam reblogging

This might seem backwards given my other stances on things taking up unnecessary space like useless comments, but I really don’t mind spam reblogs. I frequently do it when I see art I really like or when there’s a post that really resonates with me. Yes, it is annoying! No, I probably won’t stop. I do it so I can’t judge other people who do too. I am trying to keep it to like 5 times at most though, any more is just overkill.

7: OP is a stranger, not your friend

This one applies basically everywhere on the internet, but unless the person who made the post is someone who is like a mutual or someone that’s you’ve interacted with a lot before, they’re probably a stranger. Don’t try to be “playfully rude” or overly familiar. It’s annoying and weird and you will get blocked.

8: If you’re sending an anonymous ask, remember that OP is not going to take you in good faith most of the time

A lot of anon asks aren’t meant to be malicious, but a lot of others are. Bait, hate mail, insults, you name it, there’s a very good reason people like me assume every anon is sent in bad faith for some purpose. If you are going to send an anon ask, try to make it clear that you genuinely just want to ask a question and that you aren’t trying to trick op into saying something you can use to write a callout post against her or whatever.

You did that in this very ask thing and that’s why I’m writing out this long post instead of deleting it or letting it rot in the inbox.

9: Prev Tags etiquette / “Peer Reviewed” Tags

The usage of “prev tags” is controversial, a lot of people have different opinions on it. But with all the changes they made last year that made it harder to see the tags of the person before the person who’s reblog you are viewing, I think prev tags etiquette has changed.

My personal rules for prev tags are to copy the tags into my own tags, and then follow them up with a tag that says “<- prev tags”. Unfortunately tumblr tags convert dashes into spaces for some reason so it ends up looking like “< prev tags”. I’m stubborn and don’t want to like use an emoji arrow though. Anyway, tumblr mobile conveniently allows you to copy the tags of the person you are reblogging from surprisingly easily which I appreciate.

Unlike previous tags, which stay in the tags and don’t turn into an addition to the post, “peer reviewed” tags as they are sometimes called do get added to the post permanently for the remaining blog chain.

The unfortunate truth about this website is that some people have bad opinions on what qualifies as being meaningful enough to be cemented as an addition to the post via “peer review”. As such, the phrase “how could you leave this in the tags 🤣” has essentially become another “you sir have won the internet 🤣”

The shitty part about that is sometimes there are good and meaningful additions in the tags that are worth being added to the post as a whole. But you can add someone’s tags to a post without saying “how could you leave this in the tags”. Anyway this one is more subjective and hard to define so I hope I got my point across at least somewhat.

Anyway, there are probably a few other rules I personally follow that I’m not thinking about right now, but just follow general internet etiquette and try to keep in mind that op is a person who will likely read whatever you type, that covers most things tbh! Thanks for reading if you somehow read this far. Hope this helped! If it didn’t, oh well, I did try and warn you I’m petty and have strong opinions about things that usually don’t matter afterall

[princess-of-the-corner]

K, 2 things:

1. — So, yeah, looked at potential vampire beings for Himiko hero names and either 1), they are not actual “vampires” but creatures that simply primarily drink blood, otherwise have no connections at all, or 2) they really lean into the “Ancient, Sexy Immortal”. I basically made my criteria “drinks blood” after a bit, because it was otherwise REALLY HARD to find anybody who sort fit. Of the few I found that KIND OF fit:

Strix - in Greek myth, a creature that largely resembles an owl, but seems to reflect the behaviour of a bat, hanging upside down from perches, and making high-pitched noises that sound like crying. They drink blood (though a few tales mention feasting on human flesh) and were either the familiars of malevolent witches, or merely ill-fated omens which themselves posed no harm, but seeing one was the harbinger of doom or despair coming your way. Also called “vampyre owls”. Apparently six strix feathers were main ingredients of several love potions. Strix also became synonymous with “witches”, specifically used to refer to “flying women”, at some point, though it seems to be fairly even between the witch and vampire association.

Mullo - a kind of vampire from Romani culture, though more specifically, an undead, usually a person who did not receive proper burial rights. This isn’t being included as an actual name suggestion, I just got a kick out of Mullo also being the Mouse Miraculous, so I imagined a little vampire mouse.

Jubokko - a Japanese yokai, basically a demonic tree that grew near a battlefield. So many people died on said battlefield, that the tree would suck up blood rather than water, and seem to become addicted? (The website I found this one on was oddly translated, and Wikipedia did not help much). So, the trees start kidnapping travellers who venture near it, wrap them in its roots, and drain them dry.

Dhampir - supposedly the offspring of a vampire and a human. Can really only see this if Himiko was making some kind of statement about her parentage.

Empusa - both the best and worst one I found. Greek mythological beings, they were blood drinking shapeshifters (often said to have one leg of bronze/copper, and the other vaguely reptilian). They also lured young men in, so they could Black Widow them (the spider, not the Marvel character). So like, on the one hand, actual blood-drinking shapeshifter! On the other, Greek myth monster that liked killing people! I could definitely see Himiko making it work, but again, it doesn’t really fall into the “cute” category she’s going for, even the one she has that’s different from most peoples.

2. — Now I’m thinking about it, Termina could be an entire side quest section of No Fate. Like, you get introduced to it by whatever the Zora Quest is (cause I am really attached to the Trio turning into different species). Like, Trio can’t get to Zora’s domain, because it is COMPLETELY flooded/underwater, so they follow a rumour about a mask that lets you breathe underwater. They end up in Kokiri/Deku Forest, and find a hut with an old man, who says he’ll carve them the masks if they get wood from the Deku Tree. So, the go to the Great Deku Tree, who gives them some wood to use, they go back to the Old Man, and he carves the masks. My main thoughts here are 1) as the Trio travel through the forest, they see glimpses of Termina. 2) Maybe at some point they fall asleep and their dream selves get briefly transported to Termina, where they encounter [Fairy Whose Name I Forgot].

Regardless of how it happens, they first ask the Deku Tree about it, and he tells them that the Forest occupies a “Space Betwixt and Between”, a kind of crossroads that can lead to other places. Then, they ask the old man, as he’s carving their masks, and he makes some vague remarks about the state of his “home”, and why he might be in the Forest in the first place. You get the masks, and go do the Zora thing (Ganon and Zelda are both surprised to actually TURN INTO Zoras, while Link is like “oh, should I have warned you?”). The Zora masks let the Trio breathe underwater and swim fast (or in Ganon’s case, let him swim), and maybe let you explore the Great Lakes or something, but are the only Masks that are plot relevant.

The Termina thing could be a whole side thing, where you visit the old man, fall asleep, and get Dreamed to Termina, where you sort out various problems, probably find some rare items or materials. Completing the various sections would also earn you new masks, which while cool, giving you new forms to wear, wouldn’t be required to beat the game. Like, you could have a Rito Form, who increases your jump (and changes any gliding animations from a Glider, to using your wings), and maybe gives you default cold resistance, maybe makes using bows easier. The Goron mask lets you roll around, and has a built in heat resistance. Zonai could give you increased magic buffs. None of these things are required to beat the game, but they are helpful, since they wouldn’t take up any armour slots. You put the mask on, and your “base” changes, but you can still wear all your other gear.

Thoughts?

-

Re: Himiko’s Name: I think the thing here is that yeah a lot of them are so off--handedly scary. And while some Heroes can have ‘scary’ names, Himiko is trying for more cute than scary.

I have a Thought™ on what I may want with MM but I’ll come back to that

[maryholmes94]

‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom. Essay №1

For several years I’ve been writing about ‘Sherlock’ and its actors, Sherlock Holmes and his various adaptations, and a couple of weeks ago I’ve decided: why not to write about it in English on Tumblr? As some of you pointed out, it is not that easy to find any analysis of this show, which is not johnlock-related (at least on the English-speaking websites). So I’ve decided to express my thinking in writing, hoping that it could be useful not just for me, but for somebody else. I have no idea how many essays I’m going to write, but I want to unite them under the title “‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom”. And by that I mean that I’m not going to give any attention to the theories and speculations which were based on the incorrect interpretation of the original source (which in this case is the ‘Sherlock’ TV-series itself). So I’m not going to talk about the so called “Johnlock Conspiracy”, or about “season 4 is not real” theories, or about any other fantasies this fandom is so full of. Furthermore – I’m not going to be involved in the discussions which are concerning such theories, so I warn you in advance: if you want to talk about ‘Sherlock’, please be kind enough to talk about the actual show. The show that was actually released on television and not on AO3 in some fics you like so much. That would be a different topic and I’m not interested in discussing it.

Since we established this simple but important rule, I think we can move to the first essay in this series, which is titled

Three things that make ‘Sherlock’ special

The viewers may like ‘Sherlock’ or hate it, but whatever their personal opinions on this show are, they can’t deny that it is indeed very special. And not just because of the unique place it occupies in the ‘multiverse’ of interpretations of the original stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And even not because it helped to speed up the revolution that changed the whole TV industry and our perception of it. What makes ‘Sherlock’ really special is its authors’ innovative attitude towards the old narrative. It was a radical break from traditions, which, surprisingly, is still unnoticed – maybe because other subjects interest people more, but maybe because, however radical this break was, it looked so natural that people simply didn’t realize its significance.

This innovation is visible through the entire series, but there are three milestones, which are the fundament for the whole narrative and story-telling of ‘Sherlock’, so let’s have a look at each of them.

The analytical approach to the original material

The fans of Conan Doyle’s stories know that there are basically two ways of bringing them to the screen. The first one is the good old ‘filmization’ – or, to put it simpler, the film adaptation, when the creators take the original story and adapt it to the screen. That was the path taken by the famous ‘Granada’ TV-series, the Wilmer-Cushing series from the 1960s and the Soviet version from the 1980s. The second way is the good old ‘based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’, when the creators write a new story and add here and there some ‘easter-eggs’ and references to the original source. The best examples here are Rathbone-Bruce movies from the 1940s, the Guy Ritchie’s movies, and all these young sherlock holmeses, extremely old sherlock holmeses, enola holmeses etc. Which way have Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat chosen? Some may say – both, but the more correct answer would be – none. What they did is what every true scientist is doing when he or she needs to analyze their sources: they’ve read them all, they’ve singled out the essentials and they’ve drawn the balance – which at the end became the carcass of their story. So therefore each episode of their show is not just an adaptation of the original story, and not something new that they invented – it is a profound analysis of the Conan Doyle’s stories which is put under the lens of their own perception. And that makes ‘Sherlock’ not just an adaptation, but a philosophical research both of Sherlock Holmes as a cultural phenomenon and of the world Gatiss and Moffat – and their audience – are living in.

Which brings us to the second point.

2. ‘Sherlock’ tells the story of its own time

Again, the fans of Conan Doyle’s Holmes certainly read many books and articles about the famous writer and his attitude towards his creation, about the origins of his ideas, and about many other things, but what sometimes is overlooked is the fact that all the stories about Holmes written by Conan Doyle are a huge source of historical material. His stories present a chronic of his own time – yes, it has its flaws and it is far from complete, but nonetheless, if the reader wants to know something about the late Victorian and Edwardian era, Conan Doyle’s books are a rich source of knowledge on the subject. And ‘Sherlock’ is the first interpretation of it which is also a chronic of its time. Yes, there were other movies before that which were set in the contemporary era, but how much can a viewer find out about the 1940s from the Rathbone-Bruce movies? Yes, there was a war, and people wore certain clothes and travelled by trains, but who were these people? What a world they were living in? The information on this subject is scarce and hides behind the human drama and detective plots. ‘Sherlock’, on the other hand, is rooted in the time it speaks about – just like the original material it is based on. That’s why Conan Doyle’s stories were so popular, and that’s why ‘Sherlock’ is so popular too. People see in it the world that surrounds them, they know it and understand it, and understanding brings interest and a sense of belonging – the key to any TV-show’s success.

3. As its title says, ‘Sherlock’ has only one main character

The third milestone of ‘Sherlock’ narrative seems at first sight to be more concrete, but it is closely tied to the other two. A long history of bringing to the screen the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle accustomed the viewer to a certain paradigm. Sherlock Holmes is always accompanied by Dr. Watson, and sometimes (though in fact very rarely) they are joined by other characters, such as DI Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson (more often) and Mary Morsten or Mycroft Holmes (more rare). And here ‘Sherlock’ broke the tradition again: not only did Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat give the supporting characters important roles, but at the same time they also made Sherlock Holmes a little bit lonelier than he already was by putting his personality at the center of their attention. In the end, it’s all about Sherlock and the circumstances which made him a man he is. Yes, his interactions with other characters are part and parcel of the story, but the fact that Dr. Watson doesn’t have the “exclusive access” to him anymore enriches the narrative and enables the writers to show all sorts of Sherlock’s personality. Suddenly he takes a whole number of roles nobody before thought him capable of taken: he is a son, he is a Godfather, he is the best man at the wedding, he is a close friend of Mary Morsten, a defender of Mrs. Hudson, a sarcastic, but caring younger brother and a tender forgiving older brother. And the main subject of the show is the moral and internal evolution of this extraordinary man. Sherlock Holmes written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and played by Benedict Cumberbatch is not a legend and not a monument: he is a man of flesh and blood, and it is his extraordinary inner world and not his deduction skills that makes him so unique – and special.  

These are the three major things that in my opinion make ‘Sherlock’ a special adaptation of the original Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. It presents an analytical take of the original source, it perfectly depicts its own time (and its main problems), and it brings Sherlock Holmes at the center of the narrative, making him not just a hero of his time, but a man who has a story all of us can understand, and some – even relate to. In the end, ‘Sherlock’ is not just another adaptation – ‘Sherlock’ is an original story everyone can take to heart without even knowing about its source.

@rey-jake-therapist - tagging you in case you find it interesting

[otterandterrier]

Maybe if some people took their heads out of their own assholes they'd realize that people outside of the Global North can’t afford to come back from the bookstore with ten books they won’t read in years just because their covers are pretty, or take books out of their public libraries at no cost, or even find the books they want to read in their local libraries, which are actually not connected to all the libraries in the country or have ebooks and audiobooks and movies to lend, or access public libraries and legal websites from the US internationally, or enter book giveaways when most of them are US and Canada only, or get ARCs unless they have a social media platform, or use Amazon Unlimited when they can’t buy from Amazon, or buy online when they have a devalued currency and high import taxes, or, or, or whatever solution you want to give me while you sit at home in the US with all your options.

No I don’t think I’m entitled to books, and yes I understand that piracy hurts writers the most. But I want you to understand that the alternative to many of us outside the US is literally just not accessing the books at all. I might not be able to buy the book if I can’t pirate it. I’m simply not going to read it, probably ever. Is it stealing if someone “loses” something they didn’t have in the first place?

I want you to understand that it is entitled for you to claim that everyone who pirates books has all the same options as you and simply doesn’t want them. I want you to understand that it is classist to be like “just buy the books like the rest of us!” “just use Libby!” “just go to your local library!” “just request ARCs!” I would love to! But I can’t! By all means spread those solutions for the people who can do it and simply weren’t aware, but for the love of god stop assuming the whole world is run on USAmerican standards and that only USAmerican people are in online spaces.

And you know what? As someone who didn’t grow up in the Global North, I’ve been doing this since I was old enough to use the internet. So you can dance on the grave of the Z-Library all you want. I will find another way.

[dervampireprince]

dervampireprince’s Fanwork Guide

I can’t believe it’s gotten to a point where I need to make one of these? It’s insane that for the past year you guys have been getting invested in my original characters and been making fanart of them. I had an ask today asking whether it was okay to make headcannons about my characters, so I thought I should make me boundaries clear, and explain certain things about my characters so you know what they are like and what they would be comfortable with. (I have to also be grateful to the creator of Welcome Home for making one of these ‘fanwork guides’ otherwise I wouldn’t have known this was a thing I could make).

I’m going to break this down into general things I’m okay with and things I’m not okay with, as well as facts and information about individual characters and what they would be comfortable with, as most of my original characters are trans I want people to be respectful and not draw them in ways that would cause them dysphoria nor draw them with body parts they aren’t comfortable with. And remember that while my persona/vtuber model has his own backstory, I’m still a real person and do not treat my persona or myself like you would treat a fictional character.

I reserve the right to be uncomfortable with any fanworks, and to disagree with any headcannons that you have for my persona or my original characters. Don’t get personally offended if I don’t accept your headcannon for my characters as canon. And while I have listed that fanfic is okay, it’s still something I’m more sensitive about as it’s much easier than fanart to portray my characters in our-of-character ways if you’re going to write about them rather than draw them. So, please be respectful.

There may be things listed here that don’t line up with some of the info about these characters in their audios, that’s because things can change and with my older characters I didn’t have an actual guide for them or details about them when I first started voicing them. Whatever is listed here is what is the up-to-date versions of the, not whatever you heard in an old audio.

I have an FAQ tag but if you have more questions after reading this and my faq tag, feel free to send me an ask.

Overall just think before you send fan-works my way. If this was a fan-work of a movie or film would you send this fan-work to the creators or actors? If the answer is no, then probably don’t send it to me.

This post will be continuously edited and updated. Last updated: 28th May 2024.

General Guides

When making any fan-content of me or my characters you must credit me as the creator of those characters/vtuber in that content. You can use the hashtag #dervampireprince and also tag me @dervampireprince (if the website/app allows that) in the post.

You must be 18+ to make and post fanart of me or my ocs online. (You should already be 18+ of you’re following me or interacting with my content. Youtube is the only exception on this as I don’t post 18+ content there, and my sfw art account isn’t 18+).

Fan-Merch Policy

Fan-merch means anything that is made of myself or my works that wasn’t made by myself and is being sold/monetised in some way.

It is okay to sell fan-merch of my original characters that are listed on this post as long as they adhere to the rules in the rest of this post. You are not allowed to sell fan-merch of any of my original characters not listed on this page or of myself or my vtuber model.

Items that are allowed to be sold: stickers, pins (enamel, wooden, acrylic, etc), badges/buttons, prints/posters, keychains/charms.

Items that aren’t allowed to be sold: apparel and clothing (t-shirts, hoodies, etc), figures/figurines, plushies, bags.

You are not allowed to sell fanart on places like RedBubble, Society6 and any similar site where you upload the image and they make and sell the products for you.

No mass-produced or factory made items are allowed to be sold (exception being if you’re an artist who uses a company to print your stickers or make your pins but you personally then get the items and ship them out).

Kickstarters or any other fund-raising campaigns for fan-merch is not allowed.

Label your work as unofficial merch, do not claim to be made by or affiliated with myself.

You are not allowed to use any of my works (or works made by anyone other than yourself) to create products/listings to sell. I can and will take copyright action against anyone stealing my work and selling it, please don’t make me have to do that.

Selling fan-merch is only for other artists (for example on their Etsy/Shopify stores, at comic cons), business (for example Hot Topic, Sharkrobot) are not allowed to sell fan-merch.

I reserve the right to change, update or even reverse decisions on this policy at any time. Please respect these rules and boundaries so I don’t have to reverse any of these decisions.

Okay

SFW and N-SFW art and fics of my original characters.

SFW art of my persona/vtuber model.

SFW art of my persona/vtuber being platonic with my original characters and existing fandom characters that you know I like.

Drawing my persona and original characters in other outfits that what I’ve drawn them in. (Within what they are comfortable with (see character guidelines)).

Shipping and making romantic/sexual content of my original characters with each other, whether the relationship is canon or not, including those who are already in relationships.

Shipping and making romantic/sexual content of my original characters with other fandom characters or you own original characters, self-inserts, or yourself.

Making sfw romantic drawings of my persona/vtuber and my partner @julia-cmoon ‘s persona/vtuber model.

AUs of my characters that change the setting/location, such as mediaeval, Victorian, future sci-fi, superhero etc.

Making your own original characters based in the same worlds as my original characters.

Moodboards, stimboards, and similar image edits of my original characters (as long as they do not use any images and artwork I’ve made).

Art, fics, etc based on my fandom characters audios but if you're directly illustrating my audio or quoting my audios please credit me. I am unsure how I feel about if someone wanted to pair their own drawings/animation with my audios so if you want to do that please ask me first.

Fics and headcannons are okay BUT I am sensitive to seeing my characters in ways I don’t imagine them so even though I’m a small content creator and not a big author. You wouldn’t send an ask to your favourite author or film director telling them about a fanfic you wrote or headcannon you have, so please don’t tell me about them, it’s sort of weird, and I think you’ll ultimately get upset when I don’t agree with your portrayal of my characters.

Cosplaying my original characters.

Not Okay

N-SFW art of my persona/vtuber model.

SFW art of my persona/vtuber being platonic with yourself, your own original characters, self-inserts, personas, etc.

Drawing/writing/etc myself or my ocs interacting with minors.

Drawing myself or my ocs as minors, aging them down, age regressing, pet regressing.

Making fics or any other type of content about of my persona/vtuber model that isn’t SFW art.

Shipping and making romantic/sexual content of my persona/vtuber with anyone, fictional character or real-life. I have a partner and my persona/vtuber model is in a relationship with her persona/vtuber model.

Shipping and making romantic/sexual content of my original characters with characters who are minors, or characters who they are related to (eg. Satin and Silk as they are siblings).

Writing fanfic, even if it’s SFW, about my persona/vtuber, including anything shipping me with my partner.

Making headcannons about my persona/vtuber.

Making content about my persona/vtuber or my original characters that includes: underage sex, incest, rape and non-consensual sex or sexuality activity, beastiality, kinks that are hard limits for them / that they aren’t canonically into, changing their sexual dynamics (eg Ambrose is a dom and uncomfortable subbing) changing their gender or sexuality, graphic gore, sexualising age regression, changing their physical features (human or monster AUs are okay, but keep their physical features the same, this includes not changing their nose shape, body type, whether they have facial hair or not, hair length, make them more masc or fem than they already are, putting trans male characters on t who aren’t, giving them top surgery if they haven’t had it), wearing their ‘clothing dislikes’, age/pet regression even if it’s sfw, anything to do with alcohol or drugs or smoking.

Having headcannons about my ocs is fine, but please don’t send me asks about them, inform me directly of them, or ask if they’re canon because it's likely that no I won’t agree with them, I won’t think they’re canon, and I don’t want that to upset because you’re still free to have whatever headcannons you want in your mind. I have headcannons about characters that aren’t mine all the time, but I don’t message the character creator and tell them about them.

Gender-bending, genders-swapping or changing the gender of my persona/vtuber or any of my original characters. I don’t have anything against gender-bending in general, but myself and most of my original characters are trans and it would be extremely uncomfortable and dysphoric to see me/them depicted as other genders. This includes genderbending one of my trans man characters into a woman, or into a cis man. Do not change any of my trans character's gender identities or assigned-at-birth-gender.

Changing the personality, gender, sexuality, morals, religion, body type, body, genitalia, hair, age of my persona or my original characters. If a character doesn’t have a canonical body/genitals/chest/etc please do not draw what you assume they have.

Re-posting, re-uploading, or editing any of my work (even if you do it with credit). This includes my audios, artwork, photos and any other content I’ve made. Including making video edits that include my artwork, voice, or other content I’ve made.

Re-posting, re-uploading, or editing any fanworks of my characters made by others without their permission (even if you’ve credited them).

Cosplaying me/my vtuber model.

Portraying yourself as my characters in any way eg using my original characters for your vtuber model, using my characters for your own asmr audios.

Character Guides

I’m not going to list kinks and hard-limits, I’m just listing the kinks for each character and assume that anything not included is a hard limit.

Ambrose (Flirty Vampire)

Nickname: Rose (But!! Is only comfortable with Arden calling him Rose.. No one else can call him Rose)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: trans man

Sexuality: omnisexual, demiromantic, greyromantic, polyamorous

Personality traits: flirty, cheerful, uses pet names for others all the time, between Ambrose and Arden it’s Ambrose who you should be scared of, don’t hurt someone he cares about

Physical features: blonde hair, pink eyes, nose is upturned at the end, pointed ears, fangs, A-cup chest (and doesn’t wear binders), vulva (refers to click as his cock)

Likes: singing, fashion, musicals, playing piano

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: historical fashion, 1800s menswear, nail polish, earrings, lingerie

Clothing dislikes: skirts, dresses

Sexual dynamic: dom vers (bottom leaning)

Kinks: obedient subs, biting and blood drinking, pet play (for his subs), pegging

Hard limits: being submissive, prey/predator play, any dubcon roleplay, being hypnotised, hypnotising others, anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Amaros (Flirty Cupid)

Other names: Eros, Cupid

Pronouns: he/they

Gender: trans man

Sexuality: pansexual, polyamorous

Personality traits: cheerful, flirty, comforting

Physical features: light pink-peach hair, light pink eyes, top surgery with visible scars on chest and nipples, Greek-statuesque nose

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: makeup, chitons, gold jewellery and cuffs

Clothing dislikes: covering up most of his skin

Sexual dynamic: switch vers

Kinks:

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Arden (Protective Werewolf)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: trans man

Sexuality: bisexual, demisexual, polyamorous

Personality traits: grumpy, protective, standoffish and hard to get to open up, shy when talking about romantic feelings

Physical features: 5′10″, brown hair with some greying at the temples, brown eyes, hooked nose, side burns and a little peach-fuzz facial hair on his chin, ears and tail can come out when in human form but normally just has his ears out, wolf form is a humanoid wolf, scar around left side of neck (the scar that turned him into a werewolf), a little facial hair in center of chin and sideburns, shaved line through right eyebrow, fangs, bigger build, top surgery, bottom surgery, cock has a knot

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes:

Clothing dislikes: skirts, dresses

Sexual dynamic: Switch vers (top leaning)

Kinks: pet play (as a dom and sub), collars and leashes, praise kink (as a sub), edging (as a sub), breeding kink (doing the breeding, but also being bred), being restrained (only by ambrose)

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Cassius (Dom Prince)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: trans man

Sexuality: achillean/omnisexual with a stronger attraction towards men, masc and androgynous people

Personality traits: teasing, flirty

Physical features: red wavy hair, deep green-brown eyes, Greek-statuesque nose, top surgery, vulva (refers to click as his cock)

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: corsets, showing off skin, jewellery

Clothing dislikes: skirts, dresses

Sexual dynamic: dom vers

Kinks: obedient subs, servitude, using toys (and objects) on his subs, cock warming (receiving end), boot humping (receiving end), light objectifying/dehumanising his subs, being called royal titles

Soft nos: bottoming

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Dmitri (Dom Vampire Butler)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: trans man

Sexuality: bisexual

Personality traits: likes to tease, flirty, strict

Physical features: dark purple hair, yellow eyes, beauty spot under his left eye, pointed ears, fangs, hooked nose, flat chest and penis

Likes: playing piano and violin

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: suits, vests and waistcoats, capes and shawls

Clothing dislikes: skirts, dresses

Sexual dynamic: dom top

Kinks: brat taming but prefers obedient subs, servitude, role-playing master/servant with himself as the master, edging and overstimulating his sub, hypnotising his subs

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Ellis (Soft Vampire Priest)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: cisman

Sexuality: gay

Personality traits: caring, fatherly

Physical features: curly brown hair, short beard, pointed ears, dark red eyes

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: long sleeves, long pants and long skirts, robes, suits

Clothing dislikes:

Sexual dynamic: soft daddy dom top, sometimes up for switching but not usually

Kinks: daddy kink

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Father Hawthorn (Guilty Priest)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: cis or trans man

Sexuality: demisexual, demisromantic, bi/pan/multisexual

Personality traits:

Physical features: short black hair that is greying at the temples, green eyes, small side burns

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes:

Clothing dislikes:

Sexual dynamic: vers sub

Kinks:

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Other: he exists in the same universe as all my other audio original characters and worships the pantheon of gods that exist in this world. he is not, as people have assumed, a Christian. none of my ocs are of real world religions.

Orpheus (Lonely Siren)

Pronouns: he/they

Gender: cis/trans man

Sexuality:

Personality traits: introverted, distrustful, easily flustered by kindness

Physical features: webbed fins where a human’s ears would be, entirely black eyes, a tail where a human’s legs would be with a twin-tail fin at the bottom and smaller fins on the sides, scales dotted around his skin, long straight black hair

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: doesn’t like clothes, but he likes jewellery and shiny things

Clothing dislikes:

Sexual dynamic: dom leaning switch

Kinks: hypnosis (hypnotising his sub, not being hypnotised), breath play (on his sub as in seeing them struggle to breathe via choking or being under water)

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Satin (Flirty Femboy Incubus)

Pronouns: he/they

Gender: trans masc / genderfaun / demiboy / non-binary

Sexuality: achillean/gay (attracted to men and masc non-binary people)

Personality traits: flirty, playful

Physical features: black hair, purple eyes, hooked nose, pointed ears, long horns that curl back and to the side, top surgery, vulva, tdick growth

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: elements of modern goth and emo fashion, lots of black, chokers, stockings and lingerie, skirts, graphic tshirts, corsets, earrings, makeup

Clothing dislikes: dresses

Sexual dynamic: switch vers (sub bottom leaning)

Kinks: oral fixation, breathplay, being lightly degraded, having his nipples played with

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Silk (Demanding Incubus)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: cis/trans man

Sexuality: bisexual

Physical features: black hair, purple eyes, hooked nose, pointed ears, long horns that curl straight up, flat chest, penis, (the heart symbol on his main outfit is velvet attached to his shirt not a tattoo), uses a cane to walk (it is not an accessory, it is a mobility aid that he needs)

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: elegant clothes, long robes and skirts, mesh and transparent fabrics

Clothing dislikes:

Sexual dynamic: dom top

Kinks: master/servant, body worship, royalty kink, bondage (on his sub)

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Sorrow (Touch-Starved Symbiote)

Pronouns: they/them (I mistakenly said ‘he’ in their first audio, I’ve always intended Sorrow to use they/them pronouns, I mispoke while improvising. Please don’t use he/him pronouns for them).

Gender: ???

Sexuality: doesn’t like labels but is attracted to all genders

Personality traits: flirting, curious, somber

Physical features: when contained without a host he is dark blue with light blue veins, when attached to a host is over 7′0″ tall, white eyes that stretch back over his scalp, sharp teeth, light blue tongue, dark blue body with light blue veins and highlights, parts that seem to drip down and up off him like tears that don’t all obey gravity

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes: ???

Clothing dislikes: ???

Sexual dynamic: Dom top

Kinks: breeding kink, pinning you down, somnophilia

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

Valentine (Shy Pastel Goth Vampire)

Pronouns: he/him

Gender: cis/trans man

Sexuality:

Personality traits: shy

Physical features:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Clothing likes:

Clothing dislikes:

Sexual dynamic:

Kinks:

Hard limits: anything on my ‘will not record’ audio request list

[takaraphoenix]

Dear Anonymous Shithead

why is this shit on the DCU (Comics) tag? Fefe and Olishitty not part of the comics. Get the hell out there with that bitch.

1. The cringe of using crap fake names for both Felicity and Olicity, in a comment on AO3, is... absolutely the level of childish behavior I’d expect from someone who can’t just scroll past fics about ships they dislike but have to click on them and leave shitty comments on them to let the author know how Very Very Upsetty they are that the Bad Bad Ship uwu exists. Makes me feel like I’m interacting with a toddler, so I’ll try to use simple words, kay kiddo?

2. Felicity is literally a comic book character. To act like the character of Felicity Smoak herself has no business in the DCU (Comics) tag just shows that you don’t know shit about the comics. She’s been around for a while, in different forms (as Ronnie Raymond’s stepmother, as a Batgirl in Bombshells), but specifically thanks to the New 52 we know Felicity Smoak exists in the main timeline in current continuity.

3. But the DCU (Comics) tag includes all the comics, like, all of them, as an umbrella term. And, you know, due to the concept of reality itself, everything is a part of that. If you write about DC stuff and want to keep it all under one umbrella, that is the umbrella.

4. And, hey! Want me to introduce you to the concept of fanfiction? It’s this super neat thing where I can make characters fall in love and be happy together, even in the medium where they aren’t canonically together?

4.1. Fun fact: Authors  can cherry pick their fanfiction canons and I love to mix em up between canons of movies, cartoons, shows and comics. This also relates to 3.), because I put the actual DCU and the Arrowverse into a blender and just press the button on that.

4.2. And in all of them, Felicity Smoak exists. Every single reality I create, whatever DC medium the starting point, even if in canon, Felicity didn’t exist. If I write for it, now Felicity Smoak explicitly exists in it.

4.3. This story, in particular, does not take place within the canon of the Arrow show. It very specifically takes place in the comic continuity. For reasons. People like you are the reason. ;)

5. Please learn how to use AO3. This story is nearly a year old, I have no fucking clue how you just... dug through the past year of all the fics in the DCU (Comics) tag totally unfiltered or whatever, but this fic is properly tagged to include both Felicity as a character and Olicity. So if you are such a sensitive little bitch, learn how to use the tools this website provides you with and filter your user experience yourself, but don’t leave shitty reviews like this on properly tagged fanfiction.

6. Fuck you.

7.

[youkaigakkou-tl]

What do you think makes this series so good/fun to read?

AHA YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

(using a readmore bc its 1k words)

I think a manga has to do 2 things well, mainly. To grab your attention so you start reading it, and to keep your attention so you don’t drop it, and come back every month/week/whatever for it.

I actually started reading Yohaji because I saw it in a bookstore and the art, characters and premise caught my eye. While the “student transfers to a wacky school” scenario has been done to death (though I do enjoy it), I’ve never actually seen the teacher version of it done. I think I’ve started appreciating it more as I’ve grown up and grown out of “14 year old swordboy saves the world” plots, it’s just as fun to see an adult MC and adult characters having fun.

And speaking of characters, I think Haruaki is the perfect character, in general. His design is clean. Simple. To the point. I think a good indicator of a good character design is how easy you can shorthand it, how many details you can take away and still have it be recognizable. You put a ahoge on a distressed circle and that’s him.

My favorite phenomenon is the fact that on any book website, the first volume is always rated the worst. The biggest criticism I see of the manga, and of Haruaki specifically, is his sailor uniform fetish and “I can’t stand to watch him get bullied”. The second one is a common attitude problem I see of people going into comedy media, of taking things too seriously. Of course different genres of media have to be enjoyed with different metrics, you don’t go into Looney Tunes expecting high literature, and “sucks that Wile E Coyote got an anvil dropped on him”, said no one ever. “You’re supposed to laugh” is the most cringe thing to say about a joke, but I think some people ought to have a wider collection of lenses to look at media through.

I have thought about the sailor uniform fetish thing long and hard. The knee jerk reaction is “fetish is a strong word” and “he doesn’t need that character trait” but those are COWARD THOUGHTS! The more I think about it, the more I think it’s a genius move. First of all, it grounds him. In another more serious series, his combination of character traits (smart, athletic, has exorcism powers, reincarnation of Abe no Seimei) would be pretty scary, but his patheticness and his sailor uniform fetish grounds him firmly in the comedy genre. It’s also a good setup for jokes, and punchline to other jokes. Also, it gives him a reason to use his powers and do all the other weird shit without the story getting too serious.

Second of all, it acts as the great filter. Too many manga have your turn-off way too late into the story, whereas Yohaji has it in the synopsis, and if you don’t read that, on page two of chapter 1. It sets the tone, and you’re immediately confronted with the decision of “am I okay with this”. And if it’s not a turn-off, it’s almost certain you’re the target audience and are going to enjoy it. It’s almost like a thesis statement, “if you like this thing you’ll like the rest of it”.

The progression of the story is good too, while it starts with the tried and true “ahh the students are youkai so scary”, it’s actually a good thing, since it grounds the reader and gives a point of reference to jump off from. And as someone who reads other manga, and has seen fiction before, you probably get used to it pretty quickly, and the story does as well, and by the end of volume 1 it’s no longer doing the “youkai so scary” thing. (Chin up, Seimei-kun! There’s more things to be scared of in the world!)

The 25 students of class 2-3 are also handled super well. It’s a daunting number going into it, but most of them get a focus chapter early on, as well as earlier chapters being focused on the core group of Sano, Mame, Hijita and Beniko to ease you into the world. Even the ones that don’t get focus chapters show up in the background and interact enough that even if you’re bad with names, you can at least remember a trait or schtick of theirs. (See: the amount of times I’ve heard “oh yeah the merman” or “oh yeah the toilet paper”)

As a comedy manga, Yohaji gets to pull my all-time favorite trick: “Ohhhh there’s plot”. This is something I realised watching chainsawman analyses, which is “openly showing emotion is cringe”. This is true of basically everything, casual conversation with your friends, a song that hits too close to home, a story that sees you like a specimen under a microscope to pick apart; instinctively, many people show aversion to this, after all, isn’t it terrible to be seen so thoroughly by something other than yourself?

The great trick of comedy, is its ability to let your guard down to things like that. Unlike sadness or outrage, also exploitable and addictive emotions, joy is positive, and there’s no reason to pull yourself away. Comedy also typically doesn’t take itself as seriously, so when there IS an emotional moment, you’re vulnerable and it hits you full force. Basically it’s like this:

And now, the most important thing that Yohaji does well IMO, is each chapter’s structure. With monthly manga, a huge problem is by the next month you’ve forgotten what the previous chapter was about. (This is a problem I personally have with a lot of the Jump SQ monthly mangas, that shit just keeps escalating and I don’t know what’s going on anymore and I’m just along for the ride) This isn’t even usually a problem with Yohaji, since most chapters are standalones anyway (or 2 parters) but we’ve gotten to see how it handles this with Renren arc and Kyoto arc, and I have to say, really well!

Each chapter sets up its own minor conflict and resolves it by the end, while also setting up a vague direction for the next chapter. And the first 1 or 2 pages of each chapter has enough information to remind you what happened previously. This self-contained conflict-resolution makes each chapter a lot more memorable and satisfying, as well as being more effective for establishing new information for the rest of the arc to act on. (See: the common complaint on monthly manga chapters of “what? that’s all that happened this month??”, which is what happens, I find, when you keep escalating and escalating without ever resolving anything)

Well. All that said, the simplest answer to “what makes this fun to read” could probably be boiled down to clear panelling and clean character designs. Without those nobody will stick around to see what else the manga has to offer. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal taste, and I think it’s better to have a specific target audience than casting the net wide, and it just happens you find out if you’re that target audience by page 2 of chapter 1.

[beardedmrbean]

Idk why some people can’t just refer to Latinos as Latino. It’s already a gender neutral word, so there’s no need to call them “Latinx” or even Latine or whatever. It’s a useless and performative made up word that doesn’t exist in any dictionary. Not to mention most Latinos find it offensive because it was a bunch of woke white people who came up with it and they never asked Latinos what they think of it, just started calling them Latinx out of the blue and expecting them to be perfectly ok with it, which they’re not. At all. And they treat “Latino” like it’s a dirty word. I’m not even Latino myself, but the fact we even have to talk about this is just ridiculous.

'Latinx' Isn't Popular With Latinos - WSJ

Many Latinos say 'Latinx' offends or bothers them. Here's why.

'Latinx' not a preferred term among Hispanics, survey says

Latino groups want to do away with “Latinx” - Axios

Over 90% of Hispanics and Latinos don't like to be called Latinx

When I ran the post I just copied up there I assumed people would read past the headline since there's all kinds of pretty pictures, I was wrong and apparently some people thought I was in support of forcing people to use latinx instead of agreeing withe the Latino community that it's idiotic, my bad forgot the website I was on

^^^(Babylon Bee)^^^

Adding this one down here for funzies and to remind people that it's not just the Latino population that's dealing with this shit.

RIP Boozy's old account

Shut up and stop being a linguistic colonizer alex.

Does she even speak Spanish? If so ask her how to pronounce latinx properly within the rules of the Spanish language.

______________

Latine is less of a fight for me since it works linguistically even if imho it's still kinda dumb, there's other places to direct that energy.

latinx is linguistic colonization plain and simple,

[he-flies-with-his-own-wings]

throwing ideas your way in case you want them (NOTHING underage): 1- dick loves being held by bruce (bruce loves it, too; whispering sweet and filthy things to him depending on the mood); 2- phone s*x or s*xting/pics; 3- au where they're not heroes (lawyers, drs, bankers); 4- skinny dipping or another getaway; 5- mutual m**turbation; 6- dick surprising b with something really nice/meaningful.

yo are we allowed to have p()rn on this website again, because if so maybe i'll take a run at a few of these other ideas sometime too. but in the meantime, here's a piping hot #6 for you!

perfectly safe for work unless your work doesn't want you using tumblr during business hours. established relationship, no smut, lots of feels, light angst. tried to do my best by romani dick & jewish bruce and then fell down a rabbit hole of 20th century circus town history.

thank you for your prompts and please, folks, feel free to keep 'em coming!

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

These days, when mail addressed to Dick Grayson arrives at Wayne Manor, which hasn’t been his legal residence in like a decade, it’s generally an excuse for Bruce to have a little fun with it. 

(“This relationship is very new, still,” he said the last time, sitting somberly across from Dick at the breakfast table with an envelope in his hand. “Things are delicate between us, Dick.”

“I understand that. We’ve talked about this before, Bruce. I know you want to take things slow.”

“I do. That’s why I’m concerned. It’s far too early to be telling everybody at -” as he looked down at the envelope with a solemnly furrowed brow - “Gotham City Bank Preferred Platinum Visa Rewards Card that we’re moving in together.”

“Very funny.”

“I know you’re preapproved for a special offer with 0% interest APR, but -”

“Oh, just give me the goddamn envelope and shut up.”)

But this time, both he and Alfred see the return address on the big cardboard box when it arrives, and they know whatever is inside, they can’t joke about this.

Gibsonton, Florida has been the winter home of circus and carnival performers since the early Depression. Its unique zoning laws allow residents to keep everything from monkeys to elephants to giant tents and trailers on their property, and in its glory days it was a safe, albeit colorful and bizarre, home for all kinds of people who might have been treated like freaks anywhere else. Pop Haly had been born there, back when the town was at its wildest, and had always spoken of it fondly, though in Dick’s time the circus traveled so far and wide that they didn’t really take whole winters off anymore the way they used to, so his memories of the place were more fragmented.

It would not take Batman - or even an ordinary detective - to figure out what’s in the box. Alfred gets there just as quickly as Bruce.

“Master Richard did mention plans for the circus to sell off some of the assets that were no longer in use, in order to reinvest them in the new permanent site,” the butler ventures. “I do not recall specifics, but I would imagine property -”

“And somebody going through it for sale found something that belonged to the Graysons.”

“Would you like to call him, sir, or shall I?”

Bruce shakes his head. “It’s Wednesday. He’ll be here at seven for dinner anyway. Leave it on his bed in his old room. He might want to be alone when he opens it. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s in that box, or how it will make him feel.”

He doesn’t get answers to either of those questions that night. Dick finds Bruce in the study and kisses him hello with an easy smile, but it falls off his face like a painting on a loose nail when he hears the word “Gibsonton.” He’s alone upstairs for so long that Alfred has to put the chicken pot pies back in the oven to keep warm, and when he comes back down to the dining room he’s uncharacteristically reserved and somber.

“What did he tell you?” Alfred asks Bruce quietly, as he helps the butler carry the dishes into the kitchen, leaving Dick staring wordlessly into his coffee and playing with a brownie he isn’t really eating.

“Nothing. I didn’t ask.”

“Not even to see if he was all right?”

“He’s not all right,” Bruce says simply. “It’s private, Alfred. If he wants to tell us, he will.”

But he doesn’t say anything over coffee and brownies, and he doesn’t say anything as he puts the box in the trunk of his car and drives home, and he doesn’t say anything for days and weeks afterward. 

Bruce still doesn’t ask. But he hasn’t stopped wondering.

* * * * *

It’s nearly two months before the topic comes up again.

It’s a nice night, warm for October, the skies clear. Bruce is sitting alone with a cup of coffee on one of the benches near a corner of the grounds where the leaves are already turning. He still has a few hours before it’s time to leave for patrol, and it’s peaceful here. His parents liked this spot. It’s gotten easier, slowly but surely over the years since Dick came into his life, to live alongside their ghosts without feeling quite so . . . haunted. He can remember the nice moments without as much pain. When he was little, after the fall leaves were raked up into piles but before the landscapers hauled them away, Bruce was permitted to jump in them. He liked the crunching sound.

He hears the same sound behind him suddenly, an odd coincidence, and turns to see Dick approaching across the flagstones, scattered red and gold leaves crackling under his feet.

“You’re early,” he says, smiling, and moves aside to make room on the bench.

“Alfred said I’d find you here.”

Everything okay?”

“Yes. Yeah. I just had something -” Dick pauses, shaking his head a little like he’s gathering his thoughts, and takes a seat beside Bruce. They look up at the stars in silence for a few moments. Bruce doesn’t press him. Dick will talk when he’s ready. He always does.

“So you probably remember that box,” he says finally. He doesn’t look at Bruce as he speaks. “The one that came here for me.”

Bruce nods. “I remember.”

Another silence.

“You know, I kept waiting for you to ask me what was in it,” Dick says.

“It was private.”

“Like you’ve never seen me opening the mail and asked, ‘oh, a package! Who’s it from?’”

“I know exactly what Gibsonton is, Dick. Did you want me to ask, or were you afraid of me asking?”

“I don’t really know,” says Dick.

“Are you bringing it up because you want to tell me now?”

This silence lasts even longer than the others. Bruce doesn’t reach out to touch him, or turn to look at his face, but he lets his knee shift leftward just a centimeter or two, enough to bump lightly against Dick’s. I’m right here, the gesture says. Take your time.

“There was a warehouse on the property,” Dick finally says, eyes fixed on the trees in front of him. “All the other outbuildings were empty, easy enough to get them ready for the sale, but behind the stable there was a big old bunker of a thing I didn’t remember when the real estate agent sent me the photos. All she told me at the time was that the guy who was managing the property had found some personal effects in there and needed access to Pop Haly’s list of addresses of former employees. It was full of shelves with crates and bins on them, labeled, personal things people didn’t want to take with them on the road. I didn't think anything of it, I didn't assume there'd be anything in there for me, so I just sent over the copy I had in the paperwork he left me. But it must have been old -"

"Because the address he had for you was here."

"Gibsonton was home base, see," Dick goes on. "The place they always came back to. Sometimes when you were going out on a long-haul, you might leave a box there for the crew to watch over, if there were things you didn’t want to get lost or broken from months of traveling in a caravan.”

His voice has been impressively steady up until now, but when Bruce hears it begin to break a little, he steps in to let Dick breathe for a moment.

“So the property manager went through the warehouse to ready it for sale,” he guesses, “and found a box with your name on it. Things you didn’t go back for, because you stayed here in Gotham and didn’t go back to Gibsonton when the rest of the circus did.”

“Not my name,” says Dick, and he reaches out for Bruce’s hand.

Bruce exhales deeply. “Oh.”

They sit there like that for a long time. The moon’s almost full. A faint breeze shivers through the tree nearest them - a dogwood, which always erupts into riotous white and pink blossoms each spring - and a few red-gold leaves flutter downward.

“They left a bunch of things in Gibsonton that they didn’t have room for anymore in the caravan after they had me,” Dick says. “Things from their life before.”

“I see.”

“Things that were fragile, or delicate, or just things that there wasn’t a daily use for, so they had to choose between that and, you know, diapers and a stroller and all that. We never had a lot of room. And going from two people to three people in the same tiny space -”

“Of course.”

“They left a lot of things behind,” Dick says, and there’s something strange in his voice. “They left a lot of things behind, to make room for me.”

Bruce turns and looks at him, and squeezes his hand. “You don’t need me to be the one to tell you that nothing they left behind in a cardboard box in Gibsonton, Florida was more precious to them than you were,” he says, “but I’ll say it anyway, if it would help you to hear it out loud.”

Dick gives him a fleeting, weary smile before moving in closer, resting his head on Bruce’s shoulder. At the implicit signal that Dick wants comfort, that proximity and touch are now more important than the distance and silence he’d seemed to require when he first sat down, Bruce puts his arm around him, letting Dick curl up into the massive, sturdy wall of his chest. It seems to ease something in the younger man, who lets out a long, exhausted sigh.

“The biggest thing in it was a lamp," Dick says. "The base is a glass elephant. Mom told me about it once. She’d had it in her bedroom as a little girl. She’d dreamed of joining the circus because she wanted to make friends with an elephant. They’re matriarchal, did you know that?”

“I did.”

“Mom had dreams as a little kid of a trapeze act starring her and a bunch of girl elephants. They would be her best friends, she said. It always made me laugh when she told me about it. They left the lamp in Florida after she got pregnant; Dad was afraid a kid running around a space that small would knock it over, and he knew it was special to her. He always said someday, after they’d retired, they’d buy a little house somewhere, and -”

Dick’s voice breaks off. Bruce squeezes his shoulder.

“We always think we have more time,” Bruce says simply.

Dick nods. “Yeah.”

“It’s nice that you have it now.”

“That was the biggest thing in there,” Dick says. “There were some antique-looking books, and a really old dress - like a prom dress maybe. And some jewelry - nothing, you know, fancy, they weren’t rich, but things that were special. A few pieces that I think were maybe my grandmother’s. I remember them from photos. And a glass box full of shells. They must have collected them somewhere. Maybe on vacations, or maybe when the circus was traveling and hit seaside towns. Dad always liked to go to the beach on days off if we could.”

He sits up, pulling away from Bruce a bit, and reaches into his pocket to pull something out of it - something small enough to fit inside his closed fist, which he doesn’t open right away.

“And then there was . . . there was something else.”

Bruce turns and looks at him. Dick’s eyes are thoughtful, and warm, and a little sad.

“I think she forgot it was in her jewelry box,” he says, looking down at his hand, still clenched tight around something Bruce can’t see. “She talked about it a lot, actually. She always believed she’d lost it somewhere. She wasn’t a terribly superstitious person, it wasn’t that, not really, but it was a habit. And it was special to her. She’d gotten it from her mother.” He opens his palm and looks down into it, but Bruce still can’t quite see what he’s holding. “And the first thing I thought when I opened the box . . .” He shakes his head suddenly, looking up at Bruce with his eyes suspiciously bright. “I’m not explaining this very well,” he says apologetically.

“Take as much time as you need,” says Bruce. 

Dick opens his palm all the way, and holds it out for Bruce to see. It’s a tiny gold oval, tarnished and faded. It looks very, very old. Bruce isn’t Christian, but he’s seen enough holy medals to know one when he’s looking right at it. And despite the fact that whatever graven image the medal once held is impossible to make out - probably long since worn down by decades' worth of fingers rubbing it for luck - he knows enough about Mary Grayson to make an educated guess.

“Saint Sarah?” he guesses. “Patron saint of the Romani.” Dick nods. “This was your grandmother’s?”

“At least,” says Dick. “Maybe older. Mom didn’t really know. She said that her mother gave it to her as a child, for protection, and told her that nothing bad could ever happen to her as long as she had it with her.” He closes his eyes. “She didn’t know it was in the jewelry box, she didn’t know it was in Gibsonton,” he says dully. “She thought she’d lost it. Used to joke about how that meant she was unlucky now. It was funny, when I was little. Every time she got stung by a bee or something went wrong at rehearsal or she was the only one in the whole circus who caught whatever cold was going around, she and Dad would laugh about it. ‘If only you’d had your Saint Sarah medal, this would never have happened.’” One bright tear wavers for a moment on his thick black lashes before falling. Bruce watches its slow progress over the rise of Dick’s cheekbone and down his jaw, wanting to kiss it away but uncertain whether that’s pushing the moment too far. “The medal was in the jewelry box all those years,” he whispers, “and they only left the jewelry box in Gibsonton because they had me.”

Bruce is a pretty good detective, true, but he also knows Dick Grayson better than anyone else in the world, and Dick doesn’t need to say it out loud for Bruce to know exactly what fear is haunting him.

“Your parents’ death was not your fault,” he says quietly, moving closer and leaning forward just enough to rest his forehead against Dick’s. “Even if your grandmother’s belief was provable, Dick, even if the medal truly was some kind of talisman invoking the protection of a patron saint - well, I know very little about saints, but I have a hard time imagining any of them granting or withholding their favor as capriciously as that. Your mother didn’t discard it, after all. She didn’t give up on Saint Sarah because the medal was lost. Perhaps she had her own kind of private rituals or devotions that she maintained in her own way.” He takes Dick’s empty hand and squeezes it. “Or perhaps she had less need of a talisman in her life to make her feel like the luckiest woman in the world,” he murmurs, “once her child was born and she realized how blessed she really was. Maybe she allowed herself to forget it because she didn’t need it anymore, the way she had when she was a child. Maybe it was all right for her to let it go. Mary Grayson always seemed to me like a woman who made her own luck. And her life was more than the worst thing that ever happened to her. She would be happy that her things have finally come home to you, Dick, but she would never, ever want you to blame yourself for being the reason that she’s gone.”

Dick sinks heavily against Bruce’s chest, not fully crying yet but not able to speak either. Bruce can feel the emotions pressing him down with a palpable weight. He’s so preoccupied with listening to Dick’s breathing to make sure it’s steady and he isn’t heading towards an anxiety attack, that at first he doesn’t notice the feeling of something small and warm and hard being pressed into the palm of his hand. 

He looks up at Dick, who closes Bruce’s fist around the medal and lays his own hand over it before lifting his head to meet Bruce’s eyes.

“I know you don’t believe in it,” he says. “I don’t even know if I believe in it. But I need you to take it. I need you to have this, Bruce. Keep it with you, and don’t let it go. I’ll sleep better if you do.”

“Dick -”

"I lost you once," Dick says roughly. "I'm not going to lose you again."

Bruce closes his eyes. He doesn't know what to say.

“If anything ever happened to you, and I wasn’t there,” Dick tries to say, but he can’t quite get the words out.

“Dick,” Bruce says softly. “I’m honored to hold a piece of your family’s history. I’m honored to have this. It’s priceless to me, to have something in my life that belonged to your parents. I don’t want you to think that I don’t . . .” He swallows hard. “That I don’t know what this means.”

That your family is my family. That my family is your family. That if they were alive today, Mary Grayson would be my mother-in-law one day and Martha Wayne would be yours. That it would matter to you, that much, what they thought of me, and what I thought of them.

“So yes,” Bruce says. “I’ll keep this. I’ll keep it forever. I’ll treasure it. But I don’t need a talisman to protect me and keep me safe, Dick. I already have you. And you’re all I need.”

[littlecreativecorner]

Feedback and Suggestions to Tumblr Changes

Rant that has been coming for a week or two now, extremely expedited by the recent change they made to literally make it look like Twitter. I’m assuming the change stems from this statement they put in their latest Staff post:

"The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use."

The thing is - nothing is easy to use, the first time. If you've never been on a website, if you've never used a program, a game, an app - the chances are, you are not going to know how to use it easily if you haven't encountered it before. Does that intrinsically make the service you're using bad? No! So what could Tumblr do to help instead? Well. Huge feedback and suggestion dump under the cut, with the LEAST rant-driven comparisons I can muster. I'll be sending this post as feedback myself, but I want it public too.

I'm going to break these down into bullet points with explanations, but keep in mind that I'm just one person, and I'm bound to miss out on plenty of things others might have thought of; this is not the blog to send in feedback or suggestions or other thoughts, it's a one-off long as all fuck post because I'm opinionated. Take the list and run with it, add to it, use it - whatever, but please don't come to me for more takes about this. That being said:

Section 1: Layout

Feedback: New layout

I won’t be the first or the last person to say this: the new layout is basically Twitter. You know this, I know this, the staff knows this. Tumblr…is not Twitter. The obvious pro to this change is that everyone that’s ever used Twitter in their life is going to know where things are, because it looks like a worse version of their (already bad) platform. The cons are…everything else. From this point onward I’m referring to the 19/7 layout as the Twitter layout because it’s simpler, and it’s true. Also I don’t like it.

I don’t want to spend my time here when it looks like this, and frankly, people don’t want to use any social media platforms that are an obvious rip-off of others in looks and function; they are going to use Twitter regardless until it dies. This is why few people have gone to Mastodon and kept using it even if it IS a better alternative to Twitter, and quite similar. It’s the same with games. You want more people to use Tumblr? Make it unique. Keep the old layout, or do adjustments that actually benefit the interface, and double down on the uniqueness of what it can do different, and better, not what it can do the same. Tumblr is a blogging platform; lean in on it. I digress. The Twitter layout dissection below.

Suggestion: Layout (desktop) and interface

I have a wide screen, and my personal experiences are written from that point of view; however, everything I mention here should be tested for ALL screen sizes, to optimize placement and user experience. I’ve gone through the tags to gather some opinions and mellow out my initial reaction of “oof, change bad”, but also I’ve always hated the Twitter layout which is the reason I don’t have one. Shocker.

The layout is cramped to me. It feels squished. Opening one thing overlaps on the other, having to scroll down for basic account functions feels insane to me because that’s where the likes, the drafts, the posts are. It makes me less likely to go through any of the website actual functions because I just can’t see them, and I have to put in extra effort of scrolling around to find them. The general upside of Tumblr for me was the ability to have sideblogs and easily access and edit them, and see posts, and likes, and other blog-specific things.

The Messages, Activity, and TumblrMart tabs still open as pop-up like features. For messages- no issue, there’s no need for it to take up further space. It was like this beforehand, and I didn’t mind it then either. I think that’s fine. Activity and TumblrMart, to me, feel spammy to look at. Personally, opening Activity in a half-tab like the one you get where you report blogs would be ok, because you can actually look through it with less fear of clicking off, but also, I don’t get a lot of notifications so I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. I have seen that it covers the dashboard which you might want to be looking at, so frankly, it’s probably best to not have it pop-up there at the very least. TumblrMart…please let it lead to its own site segment. No wonder people aren’t using it. It doesn’t have a clear overview, or options, nor do you feel like you can peacefully look around.

The fact that everything is on the left side sucks from an user standpoint as well because going swiftly from reblogging/liking/refreshing to account/messages/settings is not friendly user interface. This, to me at least, essentially discourages the interaction wanted. I digress. I think it’s a decent idea to separate left and right side and make things in part more accessible, but not like this.

My personal subjective opinion for a new (“more intuitive” interface) and suggestion:

Keep what is currently the account tab on the right, permanently open (likes, following, what’s new, help, shortcuts, log out) OR toggleable, with a toggleable (separate) “blogs” tab under it for privacy on the dashboard lest someone walk by and sneak a glance. Opening the blogs drop-down would by default make your main blog interface open, and side blogs closed; leave the toggleability and options as-is on the Twitter layout, that is fine.

Above this, put back the Home, Explore, Activity, TumblrMart, Domain, and Ad-Free icons. Home, Explore and Activity for usage, make TumblrMart lead to its own distinctive site instead of being a pop-up, and the rest people will eventually click on and know what they are. Potentially you could merge Ad-Free and Domain into one site you can just scroll through instead. Bind this with the search tab in the middle the way that it was, so things don’t stick cramped to the top of the page.

Leave Messages, Inbox and Settings on the left, and instead of “t” write “tumblr.” because there’s lots of empty space up top there otherwise, and it would look less awkward. Drop-down settings especially is a good thing to me because the settings interface was amongst the least intuitive things for new users, and it’s important because it shapes the entire usage of the site, and is one of the first things people go to for customization of their experience. Under this, stick “Check out these blogs” and “Radar”. Or only “Radar”. Workshop it or ask for user opinions.

That’s just one opinion of possibilities of one user, and no one has to agree with me whatsoever, but I’m not going to sit and pretend that things will never change ever even if I don’t want them to. There’s plenty of ground to cover here, but I really shouldn’t be doing the job of the Tumblr board of 200 people who already work there. Regardless, I’m upset, and I don’t want to use Tumblr anymore because of the changes you’re making, and I want to fix the leaks in the roof of my only house, because honestly? I don’t use social media besides Tumblr. I digress.

Feedback: Blogs (layout-adjacent)

I’ve been on this platform for over 10 years and I want to be absolutely clear on something; I hate the simplification of everything with a burning passion. I don’t want to spread misinformation and say that blogs not having their own immediate domain and theme on sign-up saves money, or space, or what-have-you, because I don’t know, but if it’s true then I understand the reasoning for the change. However, I do know that the slow erasure of personal themes makes the entire website bland as all fuck to me. I’m going to separate this in chunks because it’s important to me and I think Tumblr should use this function (as well as chronological non-algorithmical feed) to attract new users instead of trying to be something it isn’t. Is it realistic? Not my job to figure out, nor how to make it work! I’m already making a whole itemized list for a lot of things.

Feedback: Regarding mobile blog layouts:

A good change! I like that it’s simple and sleek and still customizable in a way where you can hide your likes and followings. I also don’t mind that the same settings are retained on the desktop version of your blog to keep consistency. It’s neat! However, I’m not the biggest fan of the desktop version of blogs, and so, regarding desktop layouts:

Suggestion: Make blogs that have a theme open in a new tab when clicked on.

In all honesty, I scroll less on blogs when I’m not on their personalized theme. It’s simply not inviting. It’s fine for one post; sometimes I just want to take a link from the source to pass it on, but when I further click on the blog icon to get to the main page of the blog itself, I wish it led to the actual theme as opposed to the dashboard version. I love looking through others’ posts and blog on their own personalized page, and frankly, it’s the reason I joined and spent so much time on Tumblr. If the theme is Godawful, or difficult to see, there’s always a button in the top right which literally leads to the dashboard version of the blog, on any blog with any theme. When I scroll through the dashboard version of a blog, I last maybe 5 posts at most, don’t like/reblog much, don’t follow, which further just stops the chain of engagement in this platform.

I can agree this isn’t for everyone, and people might not care too much about it. However, it’s like…a few lines of code to implement, and put in settings as a toggleable function. It would keep everyone happy. And make it known to new users.

Section 2: Retaining new users

Now that we’ve determined how nobody wants a rip-off website, and how changes are possible and have potential and don’t have to be bad, and how, certain layout functions are out there that little people know about, we’re going to move on to the statement that Tumblr staff made about not being able to attract and retain new users. I’m going to make a separate post completely that goes in on the topic of engagement (important for a website!), but here I want to focus on the differences in old and new user experiences.

Feedback: User experience for new accounts

I feel like lots of old users aren’t aware that this is what the new sign-up for Tumblr looks like, with all the steps. To Tumblr staff: no wonder people don’t understand anything or stay on the platform, and you think that algorithms are the way to go. Changing the interface to “please” or “attract” new users won’t do much if they still can’t understand and use the core functions of the site. The functions that are actually not badly described on the help page. The functions that make the site worthwhile visiting and being on for what it is.

The steps given after signing up force people to mindlessly click on things, without any understanding, and the interface looks…spammy. There’s no indication on making someone unfamiliar with the culture or layout actually familiar and understanding of it, there’s no explanation, nothing. It’s not inviting and it looks like a hassle, and if people don’t understand this, they will click things randomly, then go to their dashboard and be cranky because they don’t get what’s going on.

Suggestion: Signup and post-signup interface changes, tutorials

On the “What are you into?” page, elaborate on what following “tags and topics you want to see” means; will this show up on the dashboard, will it give you notifications, what? Let people know that they will see everything in a tag from all users, where it will be located, how if they tag an original post it will also be found in the tags, but that tagging reblogs won’t. People don’t know. Teach them as they go along.

Leave a few suggested (popular) tags, potentially a list of currently trending tags. Introduce a search function next to it that allows a quick scroll through whatever tag people might think of, with a sentence or two about how to use search/tags: this both familiarizes people with the difference between the “tagged” and “searched” terms on their dashboard (you could explain this, too!), and gives people the incentive to write whatever they want and follow that instead of one of 20 randomly generated tags that they then have to unfollow. Naturally, add a button saying “no thank you” to this step so that people that know how to use Tumblr don’t have to do any of that while making a new account.

On the “find your people” page, you should straight up explain what following people means and how to find people to follow, given that it’s the core function of the website, no matter how much you try to force the algorithm. The issue with following random people for new users is that they don’t know how to find them after this step, and there is only so far that the “check out these blogs” tab will get you. This ties into engagement, and so, I’ll go into a little more detail later.

Likewise, managing of the “For you”, “Following” etc. is not customizable and removable for new users. Please make this customizable the same way that the old users have it, wherein you can turn off certain tabs. In all genuine honesty, I find all that unnecessary, but I know some newer users might use it (whether it’s because they like it, or they don’t know any better, I can’t say). I think the choice of what the “primary” tab is should be given to the user though.

Regarding the rest of the website functions: You know when you download an app or a game and you have a darkened screen with highlighted points that let you know where is what and point at it, sometimes including pictures? And you read it to get familiar with the interface/controls, and skip it if you just don’t care? Brainstorm on how to make one of those. This solves 99% of your issues with people that want to use the platform and also read. Make it simple, to the point, cover the raw basics, and include an easily accessible link to the other tutorials with screenshots on the help page that I know exist but are horribly hard to find. Which brings me to my next issue…

Suggestion: Make the help and feedback sites easy to access and use.

It’s as simple as putting the words “Help” and “Feedback/support” on the right side under whatever text there was, or under the “suggested blogs” batch, or something. This is literally THE easiest change to make on the old layout and would undoubtedly help a lot of people that don’t understand the platform. Likewise, honestly, the help page with actual tutorials is kinda bad (the tutorials seem ok from what I’ve skimmed though). It’s big and bulky and stretched out and it makes getting to the actual tutorial you might need a little bit of a hassle. I’d suggest to rework that layout over the dashboard layout any day.

And regarding the people that don’t read? Well, first of all, that’s their issue. Secondly, the way new account making works on Tumblr needs to be reworked in a way where doing whatever is necessary while making the account before getting to use the platform needs to be optimized and clearer, with better instructions. The issue isn’t the layout, as much as a fundamental misunderstanding of the platform, which I’ve written about 6 paragraphs of just above.

Section 3: Engagement

With all of that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of the problem. One of the key issues Tumblr seems to have is this:

“To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.”

I’d like to go in on this because to me this is the most important facet of why Tumblr is changing things. I urge you, staff specifically, to read this carefully and clearly.

Feedback: Engagement with the platform

A lot of reasoning for changes comes from a lack of engagement with the platform and its contents, and the want to get more users and as a consequence earn more money to keep the site running. I’ve already written about introducing new users to the website interface and culture better, so I’m going to write the following with the assumption that all site features are understood. Platform engagement and features are intertwined, and so this will include both feedback on current features and suggestions for future ones that I think would hopefully help engagement. Because this is about Tumblr changes, it’s only fair we start with the obvious.

Feedback: Make blogs and polls related to changes easier to access.

I’ve gone through a few blogs such as @/changes, @/wip, @/labs and @/staff. First off, most of these aren’t interlinked with each other, and it’s very very annoying. It costs 5 minutes to make a pinned post on each of those blogs that links to the others so people know what to turn to regarding which update/change. Likewise, please stop silencing/refusing blaze/putting mature setting on posts that discuss and complain about changes. This has never gone over well with anyone. You’re alienating your userbase.

Regarding polls about changes that you apparently do on one of your changes blogs: I’ve never seen them, and I’ve never seen any notices about them. If you care about retaining any user base you might still have, you might want to have these more often, and facilitate and encourage discussion and open suggestions. Mostly, just make a notice about the poll last until it is over just like you make the notices about “ask X from Y show!” things. I’d be more than happy to contribute if I actually knew there was a poll happening.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the rest of them.

Feedback: Algorithm and the “for you” page.

Plenty of people have said this before me, and better than me. I want to stress the fact that the “for you” page discourages reblogs, discourages interaction, and above all, discourages new content creators. The new algorithm functions use popular posts (without reblogs, no less!), which further pushes good and popular creators or bloggers, and leaves others in the dust. Making this the default dashboard and search results not only stagnates content, but also alienates creators you oh-so-dearly want to see bloom. I think having it as an option is inevitable in this day and age, but also, I would much rather see emphasis on the chronological, following and self-curating experience, than a trend-chasing one. You need to give people the space to grow if you want to encourage their growth. This space is hard to find when only popular things are pushed upwards.

Feedback: Search and tagged.

We all know the search function is broken in unspeakable ways. Unfortunately most new users a) don’t know that and b) don’t understand the difference between the search and the tags. For the latter, I’ve already suggested things. For the former: fix the search function. And maybe let people pick whether they want to default to search or tag they’re looking for when pressing enter in the search bar? I’m tired of double clicking because I tend to prefer going to tags.

Feedback: Issues with the Tumblr Live function.

Remove it. Few people use it, I doubt that it’s highly moderated, and I’m absolutely certain it’s costing you money more than it should. The fact that a recent Staff Q&A livestream was on it was a slap in the face given that at least a third of the userbase cannot access it given that they are in the EU. If your website function is banned in the EU, you might want to reconsider implementing it. If people want livestreams, they will go to Twitch, or less likely to Instagram. Tumblr doesn’t need this. It won’t make new users come. Market it as a blogging platform that it is, not a livestreaming platform.

Feedback: Issues with spam and bots.

There’s so many porn pots in all tags spamming everything and messaging users, and we all know it’s an issue. Work on removing them from the site more than you work on removing actual real live users that post porn on the site. At least the live users aren’t likely to give you viruses and scam. Related, make new users aware of this issue and urge them to change their icon or at least make an introductory post. If they get blocked for the assumption that they’re a bot, they see less on Tumblr, there is less engagement.

Suggestion: Following, specifically regarding new users.

The reason why “most users see only 25 posts a day” isn’t that they are lacking an algorithm, it’s that they’re lacking people they follow, and the fact that most suggested blogs to follow are ones that create content as opposed to reblogging it, and because creation takes time, well…people don’t get posts on their dashboard. The simplest way I can think to fix this would be to also suggest blogs that reblog based on source content tags they reblog. And because I know some people would rather have their little private corner: make this toggleable based on if their blog is searchable or such.

Alternatively, coin a known tag such as “New user follows” or something, wherein both new users can post asking for people to like if they post about XYZ fandom/topics so they can check the blogs out, and the old users can post a list of topics they talk about, and new users can just follow that way. “Like if you post X” in fandom tags used to be such a common thing, but I don’t think encouraging spam in said tags is a good idea, and so: new highly specific tag, which can also be noted and explained in the sign-up process!

New users don’t know this, but I (for one) find people that reblog things either by going up a chain of reblogs, or just visiting random blogs through reblogged posts of posts I like and content I enjoy. I’m sure every other user out there has their own method of finding new blogs. For this to work though, you need to have people that reblog, which leads to my next point.

Suggestion: Reblogging regarding new users only.

For the new users, it’s confusing to differentiate between a reblog and an original post, especially considering you can tag both. This kind of ties into tutorials that I suggested beforehand, but it should at least be mentioned somewhere, preferably during (or right after) the sign-up process. Granted, this might be mentioned in the help page somewhere, but after this entire manifesto, I don’t have it in me to check.

Suggestion: Encouraging reblogs for both new and old users.

I’m running out of singular brain cell power to one-man brainstorm things for the staff here, and I’m certain people have their own ideas to boot. The only thing I can think of is to give people a boon for a 1-minute crab run or 24-hour badge choice per, like, 1000 posts reblogged, 4 times a month to avoid spam. Either it will be funny or it will be ignored. I don’t have it in me to think about this because the moment I had started reblogging a decent chunk of things on my own blog, Tumblr made the layout change, and now I simply don’t want to.

Suggestion: Change replies to posts.

If there’s any one thing I ever actually wanted on Tumblr that Twitter has, it’s the fact that replies to an original post are threaded. I know this has been asked for plenty of times, but keeps getting delayed. You want to encourage connection and communication? Thread the replies. Please.

Feedback/suggestion: Reblog chains.

Bring back the ability to look at singular reblogs by going through a reblog chain. You're killing the culture of "previous tags". Also this just sucks. And it's harder to find blogs through a reblog chain that way. This suggestion is not eloquent because I'm adding it in as an edit since my brain is literally fried from writing the rest of this.

Likewise, don't condense reblogs. People have said it better than me as well, but that kills the culture of the site, it kills engagement in the way the site is made, and frankly seeing a punchline before the joke isn't going to make anyone reblog anything.

Feedback/suggestion: Advertise the option to have custom themes.

This is primarily meant to attract new users, and is bound to my suggestion of letting blogs open in new tabs. People love custom things and self-expression, and most new users don’t even know that this is an option. I know that the theme shop wasn’t profitable since the themes weren’t all that good; fine. But you can still use this function of the site to attract and keep people. Yes, the dashboard is the same for everyone, but each personalized blog can look however you want it to, and that’s the joy in it.

Suggestion: Accessibility

This goes without saying, and given that I luckily don't have many things that hinder me in using the site, I am not the best person to speak on this. Make gifs toggleable. Let people zoom in on images. Listen to those that need these features to happily use your site if you want them to stay.

Suggestion: More items in shop.

I imagine the reason most people don’t outright buy merch is that items with the name of any kind of internet site aren’t usually “cool”. I understand Tumblr needs money, and there’s only so many silly trends that are always going to be popular to buy. I also understand that a decent chunk of users probably don’t want crabs. The items in the shop are not my job to workshop, but honestly you could ask for userbase suggestions for it to get a feeling for what people want.

A few things that come to mind for me would be: more critters (just change the crab to something else!), more badges that are really just emojis, icon frames for you on the dashboard, self-picker for dashboard colors beyond the basic 12 offered, etc. Cash in on the customization. That being said: listen to your userbase regarding changes, features and functionality of the site, so that they in any way shape or form want to spend money on you in the first place, and so that they’re even there to do so. People won’t want to buy things if you’re actively working against them. There was a post about trust in website changes somewhere which explained it well; if I find the term I will edit it in here. I find it important.

Suggestion: Introduce a function to spoiler text and/or images.

This speaks for itself. The function to put text under a spoiler bar (think: Discord or Reddit) is to me, less necessary on Tumblr than the function to spoiler images. This leads back to the fact that Tumblr is a blogging platform, and you don’t censor things on blogs like that. However, spoilering images would be a good addition, especially given that some people might want to post leaks and/or content they don’t want people to see outright. This also introduces the option to have more suggestive content under a filter if people so choose. But I’ll be straightforward here: we all know what my next (and last) suggestion is going to be.

Suggestion: Bring back porn/mature/explicit content.

I want to preface this with the fact that I frankly don’t care about consuming porn, but I do care about content creators, fandom, and seeing art. And I do understand that Tumblr staff, for every request they have had to bring back porn, said that the issue is with apps and Apple etc. But this also needs pointing out, explicitly:

You want to attract and retain users? Bring back porn. Everyone and their mother knows that some porn is still alive and well on Tumblr, if you know where to look. Everyone but new (and non-) users. It’s a bit of an open secret, but if new users don’t engage with the old users because they don’t know how (issues and resolution suggestions mentioned beforehand), they are never ever going to find out. Let me be absolutely clear: People are not on Twitter because of the layout, or the algorithm. People are on Twitter and other popular platforms because they allow mature content, and so, a lot of content creators they care about are there.

And the issue here is, is that the mature content remaining on Tumblr is either live porn, comes from porn bots, or absolutely censored in like 3 posted art pieces. You want to encourage content creators and retain users? Stop alienating half of them from your platform. A lot of adults enjoy and engage in mature content. I repeat: the issue isn’t in the interface, or the function of the website; the issue is the content, or lack thereof, and fundamental introduction to the functions of the site.

I considered making Twitter JUST for the fact that certain artists were alienated on Tumblr and (shadow)banned for posting suggestive art, or porn art, and moved to Twitter to put their mature content there. It’s not about the layout.

It’s not my job to figure out how to do this. Frankly, I think a step in the right direction would be to enable and un-shadow mature content on desktop first and foremost, while still censoring it on app, especially for people who in their settings do have mature content enabled. Why can I still not see mature posts in the tags and search even though I’ve enabled it? Go from there. Figure it out. But you’re lying to yourself if you think the lack of engagement only stems from the layout and certain functions.

Allow mature content outright. I can guarantee you that this will help with the userbase, considering a majority of it left after mature content was removed, and some tried to “come back” after the false (recent-ish) assumption of it being once again allowed. We all know they went back out the moment it turned out mature content was still banned.

That's it! If you read this far as an user, thanks! I've surely missed out on a lot of things and barely scratched the surface, but this helped get things out of my head, and will hopefully stay in the thoughts of staff. If you're staff: you should have read all of it.