#blogspot Tag Blog

[jitt0]

Shoutout to my oc/au ask blogs!!

@askthecolourcrew

@ask-the-hyruleheroes

@mid-parasite-au

[corvidcrafts273]

Another poll...

Sometimes when i read someones text post i wonder if they are a male or a female or enby behind it(honestly idk why) but if you could relate, then

[coldsaturn]

hiii! i have a question i thought you might be able to answer: how did aftg originally get so popular? i know it was mostly word of mouth on tumblr (still is, i think) (who says this website is unmarketable!!) but what were the early days of the fandom like? personally i've "only" been here since 2016, and by then the series was already decently popular. i remember at that time that the fandom was really welcoming and kind in a way that felt really exceptional to me, and it definitely contributed to me picking up the books, which is the only explanation i can really think of for why it got a bigger following than some to other books which did receive a whole big-publisher marketing campaign aside from it just being well-written. do you have any theories for why it got so massive on here? and do you know how the first readers found it? i hope you don't mind me asking you this, but i remember your blog from wayyyy back when and thought that if anyone had the answer, it would probably be you :)

Hello! I always get so happy when I can talk about the early days of the fandom <3 Sit down here around the fire, let me tell you about this wondrous tale.

So, story time: it was spring 2013, I had just finished a thorough read of In The Company Of Shadows and I was starving for another black hole. It was automatic for me to look up the goodread lists ICoS was featured in, to see what other titles I could pick up, and ended up on the list called "Online M/M stories that deserve to be published". The Foxhole Court was right there (it's not anymore because it IS published <3), so I read it. That was the start of the end lmao

If I remember correctly I didn't wait too long before reading TRK, but TKM didn't come out until the end of the following year, so in the meantime I all but shelved it as something that had incredible potential but that was possibly doomed to never be completed. Fast forward I think the start of 2015 when I accidentally stumbled upon TKM and I couldn't believe I could finally know how the story ended. Nora had a blogspot where she talked about the books (including updates between TRK and TKM), and I remember trying to get as much info as I could on this series. And that was it. For a bit.

So, by the first half of 2015, the fandom was made by people commenting on her blogspot, on her livejournal, the book pages on goodreads, and Ao3 literally had 2 fics ( webarchive gives you what we saw - btw Don't Speak Against The Sun is FIRE and instantly became a new standard for f/f for me). You can still find all this content online. Tumblr had a handful of scattered posts about TFC, mostly Nora's mutuals/friends on tumblr, and a couple of readers screaming into the void with no one answering their call.

I was pretty active on here, especially in the bellarke fandom, and I engaged with mutuals and other blogs often enough that I knew if I talked about something, at least someone would reply. A mutual was reading The Raven Cycle and got me curious enough to liveblog it myself. Instant love, of course, and if you've read TRC you know how strong the found family vibe is. So at the end of my liveblog (we've reached July 2015) I threw out a comment where I recommended AFTG as another worthy title. With the first book being free while the other two were only a dollar each, it sounded a fairly easy commitment. One mutual decided to read it (if you're reading, hi!!!) and liveblog it, and that got the party started.

A party of 2, and I'm not kidding. While we chatted and made up headcanon after headcanon on the phone, the intention was to get others interested in this story. But they'd never do it if there wasn't enough content around to engage with and motivate them to blog themselves, so we started with quote posts, liveblog reactions, a few timid edits and poems. An important choice was figuring out which tag to use (at the time tumblr search only scrolled through tags, not post content): "all for the game" was an actual sports tag, "the raven king" was the title announced for the next TRC installment, "the king's men" was the last book of the trilogy and it wasn't even the free one, so we settled for "the foxhole court" which was an empty tag. Even now my blog content is organized around "tfc" because of it, even though we took over all the relevant tags. A couple other mutuals I had from bellarke fandom got curious as well, and now we could consider ourselves a proper group. We were so starved for fan content that whatever you put out would be automatically reblogged and enthusiastically engaged with. It was a happy little fandom bubble. Then Nora noticed us and started interacting with us, and you got the birth of what would become the extra content page as she replied to our questions.

I possibly had a little bit too much time on my hands because I appointed myself as fandom archivist and tour guide. I reblogged every single post I saw in the tags, and I started a welcome page where I could keep track of everyone announcing they were reading the series. It was meant as a way to find mutuals to interact with since tumblr hadn't yet "canonized" all the tags, and it was entirely possible to lose each other in dashboard chains. I used to reply to everyone reading the series by "officially" welcoming them into the fandom, linking them the page where they could find mutuals, Nora's blog, and the extra content present up to that point. Oh and there was a fictional exy team where you could choose your position and then put it in your blog for fun or roleplay it. I also used smashword's gift system to buy the series for whoever said they couldn't pay for it, just to try and avoid pirating the book (good for word of mouth, bad for sales). This was on my side, but this fandom had so many people pouring their entire heart out I still get emotional thinking about it.

Everyone (before January 2016) made as much content as they could, be it meta, fanart, fanfics, headcanons, edits, wikia pages etc. We had fandom challenges where we pronounced the names of the characters and aftg keywords with our native accent, others where we said our favorite scene. Every headcanon was the first headcanon ever seen in the fandom. The fun thing was that at the time there was a strong etiquette toward "if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything" so fan content really went in all directions with basically no limits. We tagged for triggers and that was it, we had free reign. For those who were around at the time, the sin squad was a group of us fans churning out the saddest/filthiest/fluffiest/most problematic content we could think of.

Then we reached January 2016. We were around 300 in the fandom at that point (I know because I counted them, literally), it had been slow but constant growth where each new fan brought at least other two people with them, and we had around 20 posts per day in the main tag. Then someone bridged the gap between us and the TRC fandom. If you ask me how the fandom got really popular, that's it. The TRC fandom was stuck in hiatus waiting for The Raven King, and now you had 300 rabid foxes spamming aftg content on tumblr, using trk as tag, too. Popular fanartists that were active in that fandom helped making aftg known, and semi viral posts did the rest. We went from 300 to 700 people in a couple of months, and shortly after I had to stop adding people to the welcome page because the post broke. I didn't even know that could happen. It wasn't long after that we were featured in the tumblr end of year recap for book ships. We were so many it was suddenly possible to meet in real life! Cosplays, tattoos, merch. You name it, someone in the fandom did it.

But how did it feel when we were only 20 people and a cardboard dog cutout? It felt like the most chaotic book club ever, and every new fan was automatically a friend. Nostalgia is a lying bitch, but I really don't think I'm making shit up here. We had fun and made great memories.

By the way, if you want to see how things were in 2015, you can! Just go through my archive starting from July 2015 (I think 17th) and onward. You can also search my blog for the tags "fandom history" and "started from nothing and now we're here", whereas here you can find a list of aftg fandom tags I used.

Tl;dr We were starving for good content, we wanted to have fun together, and we were lucky enough to half-hijack a bigger fandom in hiatus. That was all the marketing AFTG needed on tumblr.

[glowettee]

°❀⋆welcome to glowettee | mindy°❀⋆

my askbox is open!

Want to ask for advice from me in detail? fill-out this google form for glowettee hotline: https://bit.ly/glowetteehotline

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hi, angel ✨ welcome to my little corner of the internet—glowettee.

⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚｡⭒⋆⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚｡⭒⋆⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚｡⭒⋆⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚｡⭒⋆⋆⭒˚｡⋆

⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚hi loves! ♡ i'm mindy, the gentle soul behind this cozy space. thank you for stumbling upon my little corner of the internet where i share whispers of productivity, sprinkles of academia, and drops of lifestyle magic.⋆⭒˚｡⋆꙳✧₊˚✧꙳⋆˚

⋆｡°✩ about the girl behind the blog ⋆｡°✩

↳ perpetual coffee drinker with a passion for pretty notes ↳ advocate for gentle productivity & mindful living ↳ lover of soft aesthetics & pastel color schemes ↳ firm believer in creating beauty in everyday moments ↳ your study companion through late night sessions ↳ always searching for the perfect study spot ↳ collector of cute stationery & washi tapes ↳ dedicated to helping others bloom academically + romanticize your life

↳ obsessed with self-improvement, self-love, and improving your life overall <33

⋆｡°✩ what you'll find here ⋆｡°✩

main series & guides: ↳ ๋࣭ ⭑Preparing for next semester series | masterpost by mindy @glowettee - complete guide for preparing for a semester

↳.⋆𐙚 🍒Study Guide Master list.⋆𐙚 🍒 | Glowettee's Masterlist for studying - masterlist of study guides

↳glowettee x pll series - mindy's masterpost of the pretty little liars x glowettee series

overall

↳ tips for anything to improve your life

↳ study tips + guides

↳ complete series, guides, lists and more...

↳ digital products and notion templates

↳ newsletter + youtube channel

⋆｡°✩ navigation guide ⋆｡°✩

essential tags:

studyblr - all academic content

productivityblr - organization tips

mindymusings - personal posts & thoughts

aestheticnotes - pretty study materials

cozycorner - comfort & inspiration

gentleproductivity - balanced approach to work

seasonalnotes - seasonal content

quotes&motive - motivatial quotes, affirmations, etc...

studytips - helpful academic advice

lifestyleblr - daily life & routines

⋆｡°✩ weekly schedule ⋆｡°✩

this schedule is a base, it isn't always consistent, knowing i make series' sporadically.

↳ monday: motivation & weekly planning ↳ tuesday: study tips & academic advice ↳ wednesday: lifestyle & wellness ↳ thursday: productivity & organization ↳ friday: aesthetic inspiration ↳ weekend: reflection & preparation

⋆｡°✩ finding me in other corners of the internet ⋆｡°✩

[social links] ↳ instagram: Glowettee ↳ spotify: Glowettee | Mindy ↳ substack newsletter: glowettee mindy ↳ youtube channel: Glowettee

↳ blogspot: glowettee

⋆｡°✩ blog etiquette & guidelines ⋆｡°✩

↳ feel free to reblog & share with credit ↳ always welcome to send asks & messages ↳ respect this space & others in comments ↳ trigger warnings always provided (i usually never have any triggers) ↳ credit appreciated for inspiration ↳ open to collaborations & suggestions

⋆｡°✩ current series in progress ⋆｡°✩

↳ The Academic Weapon Series - by mindy @glowettee - series with guides for becoming an amazing student ↳ 'digital notes guide' - the ultimate guides for digital note-taking ↳ 'ultimate guide for creating a coquette tumblr blog'

⋆｡°✩ languages & time zone ⋆｡°✩

↳ time zone: Central Standard Time (CST)

↳ languages i speak: english, korean, moderate japanese, beginner mandarin/cantonese.

⋆｡°✩ personal interests ⋆｡°✩

✧ creative writing + literature

✧ psychology + human behavior

✧ digital scrapbooking

✧ vintage cardigans

✧ indie coffee shops

✧ studying + academic validation

✧ wonyoungism, pink pilates princess, light academia

⋆｡°✩ upcoming projects ⋆｡°✩

↳ downloadable study planners ↳ seasonal aesthetic guides ↳ study method breakdowns ↳ digital products ↳ discord server

thank you for being here, lovely. i hope this space brings you comfort, inspiration, and motivation for your journey. you're always welcome.

sending gentle productivity vibes & warm hugs

♡ mindy

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i get my amazing banners/dividers from pinterest + @dollywons. credit goes to her, her work is absolutely amazing <3333 please support her if you can! - mindy

Tumblr Website:

Glowettee | Mindy

Tumblr community:

[freezerbnuuy]

Sims Story Writers - Questions to Ask your Own Characters

I had this as a page on my blog, but it's a bit hidden there, so here we are. I don't think I've written this in post form yet. It’s time to sit your character down and get to know them better, or it's time to build upon a premade Sim! You can pick and choose what’s the most relevant to your story, characters and to you as a writer. It’s up to you how much detail you fill this in with. you might want to answer these from the first-person perspective of the character. You might not.

This is intended for you to answer about your own characters, but I can't tell you what to do : P You could turn it into a Simblr Ask Game of sorts - you could always reblog it and tag it asking your followers to pick a character and a specific bullet point for you to answer. It might be a more fun challenge because other people will likely ask questions you haven't thought about to keep you on your toes.

You have my permission to copy and paste the questions on these, filled-in with information about your character, on your SimLit Wordpress or Blogspot blog, Tumblr, or equivalent. If you do this please link back to these questions in blank so other people can fill them out if they want!

BASICS

Name

Age

Gender

Pronouns

Sexual attraction

Romantic attraction

Place of Birth

Place of Current Residence

Height

Weight

Eye Colour

Hair Colour

Skin Colour

any illnesses or conditions

Any neurodivergence

Race/Ethnicity

Occult (if applicable)

Up to 3 defining visual features

In-game traits (if relevant)

In-game Likes and Dislikes (if relevant)

In-game aspiration (if relevant)

FAVOURITES / LEAST FAVOURITES (this might cross over with some later topics)

Colour

Pattern

Person 

Animal

Type of music

Famous Person

Food

Place

Scent

TV show

Book

Film

Word

Video game

Things to do

Personality trait (in self)

Personality trait (in others)

School subjects

Topics in general

IDENTITY

Birth name

Current name

Why they chose their name / why their parents chose their name

How they feel about their name

Any nicknames and their possible origins

Occult type (if applicable)

How they feel about their identity (proud? ashamed? etc)

Anything they are currently still trying to figure out about their identity

How others treat them because of their identity

How their identity has changed or shaped their worldview (generally)

AESTHETIC

How you’d describe their overall ‘vibe’ or style 

Favourite outfits / items of clothing

Anything they wear that has sentimental value or other significance

Do they like how they look? What would they change if they could, if anything? 

Do they wear what they wear just because they like how it looks, or is there more depth to it? 

How others perceive them upon first impression just by looking at them 

How they’d like others to perceive them when they look at them 

Do they dress for comfort or to look good or both? 

Rough physical description

Anything about their appearance that particularly stands out

FAMILY

Parents

Any siblings

Partners

Children

Extended family of any kind

What their relationship is like with their… - parents - children - partner/s - sibling/s - extended family

pets

who they’ve kept in touch with

if they don’t have kids, do they want them? 

The family member they’re closest to

Anything they’re hiding from their family

CHARACTER’S CHILDREN (if applicable)

Biological or adopted- if biological, and if character gave birth to the child, how character coped with the pregnancy

How they feel about parenthood

How they feel about their children

What they struggle with as a parent the most

Their favourite thing about being a parent

Do they want more children?

If their children are grown up, what would they have done differently as a parent now with what they’ve learned raising those children?

How confident they are in their parenting skills

Lax or strict parenting style 

How their children see them  

Best memories of spending time with their children

Favourite things to do with their children

PERSONALITY

Three personality traits that sum them up

How they would describe their personality

How others would describe their personality

How their personality changed as they were growing up

What personality traits would they like to work on? (getting rid of a personality trait, or trying to nurture / develop a desired trait)

How do you currently envision your character developing within your story?

Flaws - how do these flaws affect their life / plot / interactions with others? - do they admit to these flaws, or deny them?

Generally, do other people like or dislike them? 

Their favourite traits in others

Their least favourite traits in others

Their favourite trait of theirs

Their least favourite trait of theirs 

Emotion first, or reason first?

How well they deal with criticism

How well they deal with change

How well they deal with bad news

GENERAL BACKGROUND

Where they were born

Where they lived growing up

Where they live now

How they feel about all 3 of these - how have the places they lived influenced them in the present?

 People of importance they grew up with - why are these people still significant to them? 

any significant memories - why are they significant? - how has it affected who they are now?  

How culture where they’re from is different from where they live now

EDUCATION

What primary school / elementary school was like (if applicable)

What middle school was like (if applicable)

What high school was like was like (if applicable)

What Sixth Form / College was like (if applicable)

What University was like (if applicable)

If they dropped out of a certain point in their education, what led to this happening?

If the above aren’t applicable, how were they educated?

Any favourite teachers?

Subjects they excelled in

Subjects they struggled with

Any significant memories from schooling?

Any awards they earned during their schooling

Best friends from school years

How well-behaved they were

How often they got into trouble with teachers / headmaster

Grades earned or other qualifications

Do they miss their school years?

How did others in general treat them? Were they popular?

What important lessons did school teach them? (if anything? : P )

OCCUPATION 

What they do for work - do they enjoy this job? - do they hope to stay in it long-term, or are they looking for something else?

Do they get on with colleagues?

How their boss feels about them

How they feel about their boss 

How happy they are with their pay

Previous occupations - why did they leave? 

Dream occupation

SPEECH AND SOCIAL LIFE

Accent

Any mottos / favourite words /recurring phrases

Manner of speech - are they blunt, or are they vague? Friendly, or seemingly cold? 

How much they like talking with others

What do they get self-conscious about regarding their speech if anything?

How much social interaction do they need to not feel lonely?

How they talk to: - friends - family - work colleagues - authority figures

Any words or phrases they hate

If they go out, where they like to go 

FRIENDS (human or otherwise!)

Significant friends in the past - do they still keep in touch? 

Current friends

How they feel about their friends

How their friends feel about them

Favourite thing about friend/s

Least favourite thing about friend/s

Anything they are hiding from their friend/s 

Important must-have qualities in a friend from them

What would cause them to break off a friendship 

Do they want more friends / less friends? 

ROMANCE (if applicable)

How they show people that they love them

How quickly they fall in love with someone

What are they attracted to in others?

Long term love or short term?

How serious a 'relationship’ do they want? 

How long does it take them to build trust with a potential partner?

Do they date a lot? How do these dates often go? 

What would cause them to break up with a lover

If they’ve ever cheated / been cheated on

How did they meet their partner (if they have one)

How long they’ve been with their partner/s

Any break-ups they’ve had - how did they deal with them? does it still hurt them to think about?

How they like others to show them that they are loved 

if they show public displays of affection

HOBBIES 

Favourite hobby

Where they began with their favourite hobby, how they got into it

Any hobbies they want to learn, if they could

Any hobbies they stopped doing- and why if applicable 

How talented they see themselves at the hobby

How talented others see them at the hobby

For fun or for profit? 

Are they happy with their experience level, or do they want to get better?

BELIEFS (GENERAL, SOCIOPOLITICAL)

What they consider to be moral

What they consider to be immoral

The worst thing they think someone could do 

The best thing they think someone could do 

Any other thing they strongly stand for or against

What is more important to them- progress and change, or tradition and the 'old ways’

What changes they think need to be made socio-politically (or what they think needs to stay the same) to improve their town, country, planet etc.

Do they trust authority figures (police, government, royalty etc) 

Any prejudices against others - what is their attempted 'reasoning’ for these prejudices if any?

How others see them for their beliefs - have they caused any friction between them and their friends / family?

Do they avoid the news / media? Do they trust it?

BELIEFS (SPIRITUAL, METAPHYSICAL , SUPERSTITIOUS)

Any religions or spiritual paths they follow - any rules they must adhere to as a result of their path - any significant celebratory days - any sacred objects, people, or places

Any metaphysical situations, rituals practiced, or creatures they believe in etc. - any encounters they’ve had with them? 

Are they happy with their beliefs? - If not, do they want to leave their path or change to another one? - anything they used to believe in that they no longer believe in?

GENERAL MENTAL HEALTH / COPING METHODS

What they do to reduce stress - Do they enjoy it, or is it doing harm to them? - Do they wish to seek help for it?

How well they cope with stress generally 

If they go to therapy, how they are finding it - is it helping them?

What would be the most relaxing place / situation for them to be in 

common stressors in their life right now

How they act when they are too stressed out

General mental health - how well do they look after their mental health? - how accepting are they of help? 

what would need to change for them to be in a better place 

How they are feeling at the start of the story, in general 

NEURODIVERGENCE (if applicable)

How it affects them in general (behavioural, psychological etc)

Is it something that they try to 'mask’ from other people?

Do others perceive them differently because of it? Do people judge them for it? 

What their family and friends are like about it (supportive or not, etc)

MEDICAL (PHYSICAL AND MENTAL)

Any illnesses or medical conditions

How they affect their daily life

What accommodations they have / what they need

What they take or do to help ease the symptoms of these illnesses

Do they get sick often? 

Do they worry about their health a lot? 

What their family and friends are like about any medical conditions (supportive or not, etc)

TRAVEL 

The places they’ve been to that are significant - any memories from there that stand out?

Where they’d like to go

If they like travelling - do they travel local or global?  

POWERS , ABILITIES 

Any special powers or abilities they have

How much of a strain do these powers have on the body and mind?

What limits are there to the power/ability?

How do people react when they find out they have these powers?

What happens if they overuse these powers/abilities?

Any powers/abilities they’d like to have  (For both characters with and without supernatural abilities)

Can they pass these powers down through generations?

Do they like having these powers/abilities or not? 

PAST

Any recurring memories / flashbacks

Their biggest regrets from the past, and how they’d change it if they could

People / places / things they miss the most from their past

Anything else particularly nostalgic

FUTURE 

Where they want to be… - in their working life - in their social life - in their romantic life

Where they want to live 

What they hope to achieve

[penwrythe]

Tumblr and other blog spaces

Seeing a few people on my dashboard worried about Tumblr's future. I'm thinking about making a small Blogger tutorial on how to use it at a later time. Till then, here's a tidbit of what I know from using Blogger since 2010.

Blogger is free, requires a Google account, but it is old as fuck.

My Blogger page: Sketching with Reckless Abandon

Blogger is very archaic, like there is no easy way to find other blogs except through some random search engine. Formatting on Blogger's post editor is not great. Images sometimes break or glitch and sometimes delete paragraphs. Also, labels on Blogger are not the same as tags on Tumblr: they are only for your blog's organization. Sometimes search engines can use your labels for their results but I'm not sure how well that works in today's internet.

Blogger's dev blog was last updated in 2020, so I'm not even sure if there's any support for future updates. Blogger still works, lol.

Blogger's dashboard is the Reading List and is out of the way of your main page of Blogger, which usually shows your entire history of your blog posts. The Reading List shows a list of blogs you follow, their posts shortened for compact display. To follow other blogs based on Blogger: first you need to find a blog (either .blogspot or .blogger), then paste the home url in your Reader List > Manage > Mangage Blogs I'm Following page. Use this page to unfollow blogs.

Old as fuck website aside, Blogger is good for Artists (if you use a blog template that favors your images) and Writers (Blogger is a long form blogging website like Tumblr, though in theory I don't think Blogger has a post cap). It is possible to use Blogger as an archive, provided you keep things organized and up to date. Like with some templates on Tumblr, you can use some templates on Blogger to make your blog into a webpage or portfolio site. Setup is a little finicky, though.

Use labels to organize your blog, don't use labels as tags or talk in tags - this will mess up your blog's organization and will be hell to clean up. I suggest not to use it as a micro-blogging platform. Small posts within a short amount of time will flood Reader Lists.

You do not have to worry (somewhat) about awkward censorship there, but still follow Blogger's TOS. 18+ art and content must have Adult Content enabled in settings. If you are an 18+ creator, I suggest reading the Community Guidelines before making a blog on Blogger.

Moderation on these blogs are extremely basic. Like, you just have some basic moderation on your comments. You can hide comments on individual posts.

Also, it's possible Blogger might break a few posts. It's rare, but it would explain why my earliest posts from 2010-2013 don't have me as the author. I can still edit them, but can't change author. It might be because I had a Google+ account back then before Google deprecated it. Anyway, today Blogger uses my main Google account as the author of my recent posts.

There is no way to share posts easily, except copying other posts and linking them in your blog post (talk about it, so it's not just a link). To interact with others, just comment (if available) under blog posts. Make sure your comment is set to public (either your google acc or name with url). If you want to comment anonymously, you can do that as well.

Blogger's biggest pro is its Stats page. It shows you how many views you got for your blog and your posts, and it also shows detailed information on what keywords/labels that helped bring views to your blog. Might want to get used to using SEO techniques.

You can monetize the blog with Google Adsense, but you might need to find an updated way to get it started - I never set mine up and I'm not sure if that still works for this site.

That's it for right now.

[thebleedingwoodland]

UPDATED 07/01/2024

I updated the tags you can find on left section of my Tumblr page.

Since from now, you can browse all The Sims 4 CC content by clicking TS4CC category.

For TS3CC, including all --> The Sims 3 CC content uploaded on Blogspot and The Sims 3 CC & old Mods originally uploaded for Tumblr only.

---------------- MOBILE LINKS ----------------

‣ MAIN SITE (TS3 & TS4 CC DOWNLOADS)

‣ MTS

‣ TS2 CC DOWNLOADS

‣ TS3 CC & MODS DOWNLOADS

‣ TS4 CC DOWNLOADS

‣ TUTORIALS

‣ INDONESIAN FOOD (NON SIMS)

‣ CHINESE CULTURE

‣ ABOUT ME (READ FIRST)

Enjoy and have fun.

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General Term Of Use rules:

Do not monetize my CC. If you convert my CC to The Sims 4 or The Sims 2, or other game titles, do not put Donation link or adf.ly/similar monetization link, paywalled Patreon. My Sims CC including my mesh work are all 100% free of charge or gratis.

Feel free to use my CC / mesh to your mod or pose.

No CC/ Mod requests.

⚠️❗ READ BLOG RULES FIRST BELOW

Comments on my blog posts must be polite and respectful. Any troublemakers and rudeness with cursing / vulgar slang words are not tolerated in this blog.

Terimakasih atas perhatiannya. 感謝諸位的時間！

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[the-everlasting-empty]

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Mikey // 16 // he/him // uk (ni)

This is my new blog, my old blog was @telecrushxx (termed 16th Sept)

My other blogs: @konflictdreaming (war/conflict history), @looking4mikey (studyblr), @voidsangcl (teen wolf fanpage)

Things I like: true crime, horror movies, industrial + nu-metal, twee pop, emo, anything indie, books, movies, mortal kombat, my husband <333

I'll be posting and reblogging stuff abt fandoms (supernatural, teen wolf, etc), as well as aesthetic photos, little blog-diary posts, and my writing (which I post on AO3 and Wattpad)

Last.fm ♡

Blogspot ♡

Deviantart ♡

Spacehey ♡

I may post some stuff with blood or otherwise morbid things in it so just be aware. I do tag it

Bye!!!!

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

[sims3archives]

Hi! I absolutely love the fact that you are doing the hunt of old cc and hoping for many more, but if you can, I would love to see one for Forever & Always Sims/Valeocatty/SilentRebelSims as her current(ly inactive) tumblr does not have all of her cc hair and the F&A Blogspot has sadly been deleted for years :( It'd be great to see quite a good number of these hairs as a whole again :3

hello! thank you! I'll answer this as a shoutout to anyone out there who might have some Forever & Always Sims content!! Luckily, it looks like her mediafire links still work :) In the meantime, here are some links for the content: Forever & Always blog through archive.org / Forever & Always Sims tumblr though archive.org / simblrccresources valeocatty's tag

[cinemaocd]

The first twenty five: A fight to the death or I defend every film on this list: (warning insanely long post, do not look under the cut unless you want color of the sky length text post about movies)

Intimacy: only film on here likely to be found on pornhub. A weird choice for number one but I was looking at my Wolf Hall poster when I began the process of thinking of my favorite films and this is my favorite Mark Rylance film. It's so difficult to watch and edgy and messy and real and the performances are all amazing and the director is French which I forgot lol so it's almost a French film. Anyway I wrote a one shot fanfic about this movie which I don't do very often so it must be special.

Lawrence of Arabia: I've been obsessed with this movie off and on since the 80s. I met my best friend in college because we both liked Bob Dylan, and she had drawings of T.E. Lawrence and Peter O'Toole in her dorm room and a still from the film and then we just started quoting it to one another. When we were roommates we had a fort in the basement we called Feisal's Tent and we had a tv and bunch of cushions in there it was the greatest. Once during a bad period I just watched Lawrence on loop while I was getting ready in the morning or eating dinner. I can't count how many times I've watched it. I've liveblogged it. It took three days and I hit the post limit every day.

Grand Budapest Hotel: I recently realized why I love this film and keep coming back to it. Yes it's a visual delight, yes it has all the (to me) charming set up devices, the usual Wes Anderson parade of mechanical tricks to get you into the movie, but it's really the relationship between Gustave and Zero that is the heart of the film for me and my love for Gustave knows no bounds. He's kind, he's elegant, he has impeccable taste and he is a practical man as well as a canon bisexual. The world would be a better place if there were more people like him. There is also something about the setting on the edge of fascist takeover of Europe that makes it incredibly prescient and worthwhile for me. It's a love letter to classic film, especially the Archer's and it's no accident because they went out of their way to style Ralph Fiennes like Anton Walbrook.

The Two Popes: Not Gonna Lie, was temped to put Conclave on here but in the name of battling recency bias and just being honest, I chose this film instead which I've seen four times now, as opposed to seeing Conclave just the once. Great performances here and a meaty topic to dig into: the nature of atonement versus forgiveness.

Oh...Rosalinda!: This has risen to the top to become my favorite Archer film, despite spending five years of my life co-writing a fanfiction about The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. It's wacky, it's bizarre, it has so many strange takes and performances from my faves. It's like someone took my brain and made it into a film. Anton Walbrook and Michael Redgrave are so gay for one another in this film, director Michael Powell had to repeatedly interrupt scenes to demand they quit acting camp. It didn't work! Also Anthony Quayle soldiers through a bad Russian Accent and is adorable and I just want to drink vodka with him and dance home drunk with John Clements. The world of this film is deliberately artificial, poking fun at that the seriousness of the Cold War in a way that anticipates the attitude of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: I watched this movie for the first time and just casually mentioned that it was a love story about two men that actually has a happy ending and one of my tumblr mutuals read that in my tags and next thing I know it we are talking on the phone transatlantic, visiting one another's homes and embarking on a five year writing project together. Good times. Thank you, Movie. Thank you.

I Know Where I'm Going: If you care, I used to have an old film blog on blogspot and I once did a roundup of films about Scotland, and when I didn't include this, I was chastised by my readers, who punished me by sending me a copy of the film (I can't tell you how many times this happened on my old blog.) Amazing movie and of course I fell in love with Wendy and Roger and guh....it's just so good.

Star Wars (1977): Lifechanging movie for me. Changed cinema forever, for good or for evil. A visual masterpiece. A legendary ensemble cast. Some of the hoakiest shit ever written as dialog and acted with perfect sincerity so you had hardened teenagers telling each other "May the Force Be With You." The fandom is a whole other animal, but the movie? The movie is good.

Double Indemnity: i love this movie so much because yeah it's a gay love story but it's hidden inside of one of the two most excruciatingly tense thrillers ever written. Fantastic performances from the leads, especially Stanwyck who is so nakedly ambitious that you can see the wheels turning in her head but you still root for her anyway. Damn.

Sunset Boulevard: the other most excruciatingly tense thriller ever written--despite knowing the ending from the beginning. Billy Wilder they don't make em like this anymore. THE movie about Hollywood that every other film about Hollywood has to bow down to and play homage to whether they want to or not. Wilder brought Silent Star Gloria Swanson out of retirement for this raw and entirely brave performance. Wilder's men just stand around with gaped jaws and watch Wilder's women and that's just fine with me.

Metropolitan (1990): Whit Stillman makes movies about the kinds of people I'd like to see get run over by buses--debutantes, society jerks, rich guys, the children of hedge fund managers. They are well educated, well dressed and still behave like 20 year olds which is what they are. I just love this movie, maybe it's the references to Jane Austen, maybe it's the performance of Caroline Farina as Audrey Roget, the quiet, bookish heroine who identifies with Fanny Price of Mansfield Park--the Molly Ringwald I wanted but never got in the 80s!

Mulholland Drive: Speaking of Hollywood movies that reference Sunset Boulevard... If you follow Sunset Boulevard up into the hills you will eventually cross Mulholland Drive and that's where shit really starts to get weird. Naomi Watts performance is everything here. She is so good at the sincerity bit and shifts so naturally into the cynical, dark shadow version of herself. Who knew? Well, David Lynch apparently.

The Mission: This was one of my favorite films for years. I loved the idea of Robert Deniro being a former slaver who devotes his life to the church as penance. The politics of this movie hover somewhere between Colonialist Apologia, Pure Fantasy and Revisionist History. I came very close to putting Dances With Wolves on the list, but chose this instead because it's somewhat forgotten and I think it would vibe with many of you. Note to self: would make great double feature with The Two Popes as they essentially cover the same territory: forgiveness versus atonement.

In Order of Disappearance: The Snowplow Movie! Stellan is a snowplow driver in Norway who goes on a quest to avenge his son's murder. I find this movie weirdly comforting: lots of Stellan being badass, lots of Stellan plowing roads in his giant tractor and lots of black comedy ala Fargo or Raising Arizona. (Oh shit this reminds me I meant to put Raising Arizona on my list lol oh well.) Anyway, this is a Cohen Bros. Knockoff, but that's ok because literally the U.S. film industry steals movies from Europe constantly. Also, final performance of Bruno Ganz.

Master and Commander: My beloved! One of the best period dramas ever filmed and there probably will never be a better depiction of the Napoleonic Wars than what we are given in this movie. Peter Weir takes the claustrophobic atmosphere of the ship, which is filled with great actors giving amazing performances by the way, adds the richness of authentic detail that came from the cast living on a ship to train for the movie and sound design that is so perfect as to make me think I've lived through several battles by the time the movie's over. An absolutely cracking film with so many memorable characters and moments.

The Death of Stalin: I've always loved political dramas focused on tense moments of history (I am the audience for shit like Darkest Hour I'm afraid to say). I've always loved screwball comedy. A screwball comedy set in one of the tensest moments in history? A delight from beginning to end.

The Triplets of Belleville: When my son was little we were looking for animated movies that weren't Disney to show him and came across this gem. Everyone in the family loves this movie, which is weird and a bit debauched but so beautiful and with a truly sweet message at its heart: don't fuck with grandma.

Dune (1984): My love for this movie is something I've always worn on my sleeve defiantly. I carry it into the Villeneuve era, quite aware that you think I'm just being contrarian. Well I am but I love this weird movie and it has seeped into my consciousness. I quote from this film all the time. These actors, and Lynch's vision have become Dune for me and there's no going back.

Brief Encounter: Not sure at one point in my exploration of British film, I casually thought to myself that I should watch this. I kind of wish I could find her, that pre-Brief Encounter Jenny and say, hey, it's ok, you know, there are always lovers coming together and always lovers parting. Someday you will be resting comfortably in your married bed with a laptop watching a film that makes you bawl your eyes out because it reminds you of how fucking hard it is to just walk away from someone you are in love with. You have had this experience in life and so have others. You are part of something bigger now.

The Phantom Menace: Another movie I wear defiantly. If this is one of the worst films of all time, how come I managed to sit through it nine times in the theater without ever getting bored or annoyed? I think it's because I'm a grown up but I don't expect kids' movies to be grown up too. I know that sounds mean, but like I think half the reason this was so loathed was people who had forgotten how shit star wars is. Like it's not original. It's not cool. It's very dorky and it steals from some pretty obvious and callow sources. The dialog? Anyone remember the dialog of the first three films? I was just really happy to get new star wars after such a long time and took pleasure in actually enjoying this overstuffed mess of a film because I could. Is it a series of pointless meetings interrupted by a series of pointless battles? YES. Do I care? NO. There are actual lightsaber FIGHTS and wire work and space battles and I love Qui Gonn and I love Ewan's Obi Wan and I would die for R2D2 in this film I really would.

The Gold Diggers of 1933: If there is one pre-code film everyone should watch it is this one. It captures the manic energy, the horniness, the unmatched BALLS and political commentary mixed with a kick line. Warren William is ridiculously hot and so is Joan Blondell. It's fun. It's sharp. It will cut you and laugh and you will come back begging for more, I swear.

The Thin Man: Setting the bar for hetero relationships unrealistically high since 1934. This whole series was hugely popular with good reason. It's actually hilarious and the leads are so incredibly charming. Depression era audiences wanted nothing more than a couple of rich alcoholics solving crimes and handling firearms irresponsibly. You know what? Me too. I love all of them but you have to start here with the first one, which is actually based on a Dashiell Hammet novel. The later films all follow the formula and get increasingly dumb but I just don't care. Back up to my Phantom Menace review if you don't think I have the capacity to fuck with dumb shit.

The Lady Vanishes (1938): One of the movies that The Grand Budapest Hotel references, it is set in a fake country in Europe on the eve of a fascist takeover. The lead characters get caught up in a spy adventure and fall in love. It's just so good and Michael Redgrave is just utterly perfect as the Manic Pixie Dream Boy who convinces Margaret Lockwood, about to marry a stuffy millionaire, to take a chance on love. It's a pretty standard formula but Hitchcock brings his own verve to it and bless him for his equal opportunity perversion: there are just so many shots of Michael Redgrave's tweedy bum. It's almost a framing device.

The Importance of Being Earnest: More Michael Redgrave, this time in the classic Oscar Wilde comedy. Michael was bisexual and if you have any doubt of it, just watch his performance here, his code switching is almost continuous and seamless. Every line means like seven things and Michael interprets all of them. The rest of the cast is a delight as well especially Michael Dennison's Algy and Joan Greenwood's voice alone turned me gay. It's powerful stuff.

Mr Kipps: rounding out the Michael Redgrave Trinity of films, here is one of the first classic films I ever got obsessed with. For years this movie was impossible to find. I happened to catch part of it on tv one day and went on a quest to get it. Eventually found an ad in back of a magazine, called a number of some dude with a satellite dish in like Alabama and he sent me a copy for like the cost of the tape and shipping. This guy went on to be a resource for my Cary Grant friends who eventually gathered all 72 of his films, a full decade before many of them were released on DVD. Anyway Mr. Kipps turned out to be a delightful romantic comedy that satirizes the British class system. It's got beautiful cinematography and excellent child actors, and we'd expect nothing less from director Carol Reed.

See you later, or not, for the next installment. I'm so sorry. This is my life now...

[cosmicanger]

okay so achillesinhighheels used to follow me on twitter but doesnt anymore. i think it is mostly funny, i dont know what was the final straw but his blog and mine blog in dialogue is another prime example why i blog the way i do. we have very similar blogs, he just doesnt post fine art really and he posts more celeb culture than I do. but the major difference between my blog and his is that he doesnt really post many sociopolitical posts and when he does, it’s at the liberal level at best or only when it is trendy to post about politics like right now for clouted accounts. post a FUCK ICE image and call it a month lmao. a white person in Buckwick or Echo Park or Berlin or South Africa or Australia can say “Fuck ICE” and still not want to connect that their existense is the reason why ICE exists. he has great taste and always looks good and hope they get booked model wise all the time. lets all just be real why certain blogs get the most likes on here, it’s the blogs that are majority escapism during accelerated global violence. if i have to exist on a social media that will never truly denounce antiBlackness is all about escapism and defeatism, i have to post the way I do. Maybe someone learns from my posts tagged “theory”, that’s the MOST i could hope for on this website. Also, all of these blogs get their posts from IG, Twitter, Pinterest and Blogspot, alllll of them (exceptions are the ones that scan images and only a few even scan for majority of their content). achillesinhighheels removes credit i know he got from twitter but *it’s okay* because he doesnt make any direct sociopolitical posts beyond images and trendy people know he will never drag someone for being antiBlack or risk their platform calling out antiBlackness directly. thats the kind of accounts w the most love on here, ones helping maintain status quo. there is enough resources and social capital for all Black people on here but most on here are antiBlack and only think antiBlackness exists when someone w a certain level of clout experiences antiBlackness, it is really sad. oh well, just ranting there is enough space for everyone 😊

[fitzrove]

I noticed your tags on the "bad localisation"-post and now I must know the lore... the Finnish translator of Elisabeth didn't speak German???

Hehe, I'm glad you asked!!

Mind you, this production happened when I was a small child, so all I have is second-hand knowledge from the internet (and an audio recording). Also, I may have exaggerated for comedic effect in my original tags lol, I don't know if he genuinely didn't speak it. However...

The guy who translated the Finnish Elisabeth was a very famous (prolific, if nothing else) theatre director and musical translator, starting his career in the late 60s already with a wildly popular production of Hair. Elisabeth seems to be among the only German-language shows he ever worked on - most of it was translations from English and French. ngl I also sort of hate his musical translations from English LMAO - because of how prolific he was, they still haunt the Finnish musical scene today... One big one he did is Cabaret back in the 90s, and a theatre that put a big fancy production on in 2020 actually redid all of the songs and only kept his dialogue because the translation was so clunky lmao. But I once went to the library to dig up his original lyrics to the title song and omg they suck, I wrote better ones in two minutes because I needed a Finnish version quickly ahshshsh. So already, it's a bit of a bad sign - this man is not a translator by profession or training, he's a director who started out doing it for practical purposes, and has a pretty broad set of languages he works in.

But then again - maybe it wouldn't have been a problem, especially since he had such extensive experience. In fact, Elisabeth was the last translation he ever did before passing away rather shortly after (of old age), so maybe I shouldn't be too harsh on him... However, the fact remains that the translation, just as lyrics, is pretty terrible and nonsensical sjjsjsjd.

My initial comment was actually largely inspired by this blog post by someone who actually saw the prod live (from onenightintheatre on blogspot), quote:

It sounded like the translator hadn't really understood German, because many lines sounded like someone had taken a dictionary, looked up the most important words of the sentence and then written a whole new sentence(-ish) based on those words. An example that remained etched in my mind: ("Eine Kaiserin muss glänzen"; Finnish, the Finnish translation in English, and the original German text) Countess Esterházy: Suunne aukaiskaa! ("Open your mouth!") (Öffnen Sie den Mund!) Sophie: Keltaiset ei olla saa! ("[Teeth] may not be yellow!") (Die sind zu gelb, das darf nicht sein!) Elisabeth: Tammalla saa! ("Mare's [teeth] may!") (Bin ich ein Pferd?) So... Instead of asking why they're treating her like a horse, Elisabeth thinks she is a horse and can therefore have yellow teeth? Oddly, "Bellaria" was significantly better translated than rest of the musical and actually sounded beautiful and made sense. There were also factual errors, like Rudolf complaining to Elisabeth that he must get married, when at that point of the story he had, in fact, been married for several years. The translator passed away half a year after the derniere, though, so maybe he wasn't at his best anymore when he did the translation.

As for me, I don't know the Finnish translation by heart, but some of my favourite songs (well, mostly Schatten 2) which I do know by heart also had the ball dropped on them... in that song, Rudolf complains that the court is wasting money on parties (woah good job working in the "dancing around the golden calf" metaphor, I'm sure the original author didn't mean it metaphorically to go with the pied piper thing, he meant literal dancing - though I guess this is accidentally accurate to irl rudolf and his ranty pamphlet on the idle nobility xD) and it's just quite clunky and repetitive overall without getting the main point across too well. Which is such a pity! I mean, translations are hard, but Kunze's work has since been translated into Finnish well, with the references and thematic messages intact, it's not impossible. So in a way, I think this one is a case of someone well-established in the industry getting the job because he happened to be there and have an extensive track record, not because he actually had the skills to make the best possible translation...

Ahsdhsfhfs so yeah. There's no proof that he didn't speak German, but it's my personal theory. Also, according to a few sources, Kunze himself hated this translation......

[ruanbaijie]

um ok so i have a backlog of tag games (I love them okay I just take very long to get back to them 🥲) so instead of answering them one by one and spamming everyone's dashboards, I'm gonna smash all of them together to create one HUGE tag game

tagged by @thitiponqs [x] [x] and @asterdust [x]

presenting:

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

1. why did you choose your url? i mean, look at him. what a bitch (affectionate).

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. nope this place is a dumping ground

3. how long have you been on tumblr? october 2010 *awkward monkey meme*

4. do you have a queue tag? luQiao - which is the most common question i get 🌚

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? my friends were mentioning it (this was during blogging heyday and everyone was on blogspot) and i was like cool what is it let's check it out and uh i've been here ever since

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? i wanted to something red + black (my favourite colours) to go with the overall ✨ aesthetic ✨ and xia zhiguang just happened to have this ridiculously out of this world badass modern wuxia-esque photoshoot with a red and black theme so

7. why did you choose your header? because hua chenyu is an AMAZING singer and god it's on my bucket list to attend his concert live

8. what’s your post with the most notes? this rainbow edit for jjk [x]

9. how many mutuals do you have? um so i keep an excel sheet that lists all my mutuals including main blogs (if the mutual blog is a side blog), names, what i tag their posts by, and tracked tags. said list is currently at *checks list* 288 🌚

10. how many followers do you have? 5.4k+

11. how many people do you follow? 455 but i think a lot are inactive 😭

12. have you ever made a shitpost? oh yes this is one example which i did for shl [x] and which got reposted on instagram (ugh) and i made them take it down yes i still remember it

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? too much

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? yeah a whole episode that involved death threats instant report and block

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts people don't have to reblog every single thing but at the same time this is tumblr the reblog place don't just like things all the time without reblogging yknow

16. do you like tag games? YES i can be very long-winded i love them a lot

17. do you like ask games? yes but i get worried that people don't send in anything at all and i'm just talking to myself so i don't do them

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? definitely you @thitiponqs 💕

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? eh no i don't crush on people easily? and i probably need to meet that person in real life before any crushing happens

20. what is the last song you listened to? currently having blaze of clear sky (the insert song of episode 19 of the apothecary diaries) on repeat for DAYS now it's so good and it makes me want to cry

21. what are you currently watching? the apothecary diaries, yatagarasu, dededede, the king's avatar donghua season 3, isekai shikkaku, meet you at the blossom

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? SWEET

23. what is your current relationship status? single (anyone wanna date lol)

24. what is your current obsession? THE APOTHECARY DIARIES i'm so sorry i'm so late to this game but also STILL NOT OVER the spirealm it still causes me a lot of pain and rips my heart out and stuffs glass shards down my throat on a daily basis

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

齐天（华晨宇）- equal to heaven (hua chenyu)

双节棍（华晨宇）- nunchucks (hua chenyu)

斗牛（华晨宇）- bull fighting (hua chenyu)

麒麟（早安）- qilin (zaoan)

星星（早安）- stars (zaoan)

乡下来的（玖壹壹）- from the countryside (nine one one)

abyss (yungblud)

gento (sb19)

blaze of clear sky (takenaka daichi)

26. tagging (no pressure!) @alienwlw @lianhuajing @guzhufuren @miwtual @kolomo

@xiaobaosnoona @naughtynanzhu @mokacheer @alicenthighstower

[hyba]

Will be re-routing everything to my blogspot and keeping my tumblr as more of a feed (project updates, links, announcements, etc). Tag lists will still be operational, and it's going to feel much the same for my followers tbh. The difference will mostly be that logs, blog posts, articles, etc. will be published on my blog and shared here, and I will probably interact less here on tumblr too.

[hsslilly-blog]

i think blair should have a blog. claire has a tumblr blog where she spends her days hating on the chris winters x claire swanson tag but blair should have a blog. like blogspot dot com. super ugly layout. they share their knitting projects there and pictures of clover. everyone thinks theyre an old lady. they are, in a way

[lavolamp]

Too late to make a blog?

Hello. In a conversation with friends I decided to start using this Tumblr blog as a means of, well, blogging. I would use some website like Wordpress, Neocities or even Blogspot, because those tend to have features that make organizing blogs by tags a little easier, but I will admit I am a bit vain and don't want to feel like I'm screaming in to a void when I could instead reach out to the remains of Tumblr's userbase post-porn. This is absolutely the best website for it at the moment. And this would also make it easier for people to reach me for whatever reason. I kind of thought of blogs as outdated, because everybody's lives have become so consolidated in to websites like Twittex and Instagram and even this one that leave little room for larger scale personal thoughts and travels. I remember the Myspace or Geocities or Blogspot days where everyone had their own cute little website, and the internet was much smaller so it was easier to find people posting things that fit your interests. Nowadays things are just too huge, so apart of me thinks blogging might be a little ridiculous. But I think there is still a use for these, because I would ultimately like to use this blog to organize my thoughts on things and document my progress on my projects, mainly so that I don't just end up bothering my friends on Discord about stuff, because I'd feel bad. Maybe one of the goals of this blog is to find out if there is a reason to blog in 2024.

I suppose I should introduce myself. I've posted a few pieces of art on this blog before, so as you could guess I'm somewhat of an artist. The medium I primarily work with are comics, because not only are they a very accessible medium to work in but I also just have a deep appreciation for the medium. I'm working on many comics at any given time, but at the moment I'm focusing down on two. A comic made for the Webtoon platform and one that I would like to be published as a book. I'm more enthused about the book than the webtoon. Maybe I'll make a post about that later. Otherwise I'm big into cinema, animated cartoons and especially video games, and one of the two things I pretty much only think about is storytelling. Whenever I am not thinking about that and the other thing, everything in my life kind of feels like a dream. So I suppose this blog will primarily be focused on storytelling, but that's just a means about talking about my opinions on art in general. Otherwise, I think people would tend to describe me as very passionate in my beliefs, which is to say when I like something I really like it, and when I hate something I suddenly transform in to one of the world's leading professional haters. And I guess I'll make you know it. I'm bad about making impulse and useless purchases and I really like chocolate. Don't ask me how many video games I have on Steam or how many tubs of chocolate ice cream I've had stacked sitting in my room at some points.

Anyway, to kick things off I'd like to talk about the last thing I did, which is beat the game Alan Wake II from Remedy games. They've done a few things like the Max Payne games and the critically acclaimed Control, but the Alan Wake series in particular holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first "triple a" games I ever played, because at that point I had mostly played Nintendo games on GBA, DS and Wii (I played Gamecube games too, don't worry) and adventure type games on my computer. Games outside of PC classics and Nintendo games were a new frontier for me. Earlier in 2010 I got an Xbox 360 in order to play Modern Warfare 2 with the other kids at school, in which afterwards I found out that they all had PS3's instead. But at least I could play Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing with Banjo Kazooie, whom I didn't even like or even ever had played his games but his design is fun so whatever. By the way, no spoilers for Alan Wake or it's sequel here aside from me saying how I felt about the ending.

The original Alan Wake game came out in mid May of 2010. I was about 11 at the time, but I was about to turn 12 as my birthday was at the end of the month. Around when the game came out I ended up catching a lot of press footage and playthroughs showing off the game, and I was just enchanted by it. It was a game that was really nothing like I'd ever seen before. It was dark, gritty, moody, realistic, and revolved around shooting but unlike other 360 games it had this incredibly unique and eerie vibe that pulled me in, and while I didn't really understand the story very much, I thought Alan was a really funny protagonist because he just kind of came across as a dick. Kid me's mind kind of rationalized it as Sonic but he's basically just in the real world. I also thought the main mechanic of the game was also really cool. I guess it sounds too convenient to be true, but I've always loved flashlights. It's a device that's just a beam you can turn on to dispel darkness. I feel like a detective. It's fun to wave them around and point at things, I always kind of thought of them like a really cool sword. I especially love the big ones because it feels like I'm holding a cannon in my hands.

But anyway, everything about the game was just really interesting to me, and in a way it also kind of made me feel a little more adult because of the graphics and tone. So with my birthday at the end of the month, you can imagine what I asked for. In the days leading up to my birthday, I was kind of obsessed with the game and I spoiled much of it for myself. But eventually my birthday came and I finally had the game in my hands! I've still got that copy next to me as I type this. It's in far better condition than my other 360 boxes too, cause my Sonic Unleashed box is in real bad condition. Maybe it's an object of power. Anyway, I played through the game, loved it, loved the twists, scares and turns, surprisingly hilarious characters and utterly beautiful music, and how unique of a protagonist Alan was. But then, I beat the game. I won't spoil the ending, but it's the kind of ending where I'm still not sure how it's designed to make you feel. It's basically a cliffhanger, (and while there eventually was DLC that continued the story I never got around to playing it and none of it really took the story anywhere) and it left a longing in me. I wanted more. I wanted to see what happened to Alan and the people in his life. But the game didn't provide any real closure. Afterwards I scoured the internet for answers, reading other people's theories and consuming all the lore in the game that I missed, obsessively trying to get a a straight answer, any kind of meaning. I desperately wanted someone to tell me anything so I could know how to feel. Nothing else before really left me like this! You know how a lot of people, especially in the past decade enjoy watching videos that explain the lore of their favourite games, like Dark Souls or Five Night's at Freddy's? That was me with this game. But it wasn't just for the sake of consuming content, I needed closure. But I couldn't find it. I guess like Alan I was left wandering in the darkness fruitlessly searching for a way out of this headspace this stupid game got me in. Sonic had fucking closure. I was happy I had the experience, but other games had closure!

By the way this is kind of irrelevant, but in case you're wondering why my parents would let me play games like this at a young age like that, I think my dad stopped caring after I had a little argument with him in 2008 when Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out and it had a T rating but then he saw the game was fine. Or maybe he just thought I could take it, or maybe he just didn't care. He let me play No More Heroes, which, for the uninitiated, is not a child's game.

Anyway, I eventually got bored of searching for answers and my interest in the game eventually faded into the background. As I grew older I didn't forget about the game. I still listened to the music from time to time, but it definitely became a second thought, and sometimes I felt it might have been because of the ending. Sometimes though, periodically, I would revisit the game. Watch the cutscenes, look at the ending again, try to formulate a theory. It was still a game I liked, but I couldn't kick the feeling of a giant blueballing. But as you grow up, you change, and experiences you just had become a nostalgic memory. I don't think you change as much as people say you do, I think it's more like you realize things about yourself as you're able to better articulate your feelings into words. As I grew up, and now I think I almost fully realize, is that I kind of love not knowing some things. Maybe not in like a, hell yeah I love not having answers kind of thing, but I find it's utterly intoxicating. Witnessing the rise of Dark Souls and Five Nights at Freddy's in the 2010s and also being able to think about storytelling on a deeper level, I realized something that seems kind of insane to me. Alan Wake is a video game with a definitive beginning and a definitive end. At some point, the game runs out of content to show you and you will have inevitably seen and done everything. But what if I told you there was a way to keep the game going even after it's exhausted it's digital limits?

You probably know where this is going, but I realized that it wasn't the fact that Alan Wake had an ending with a ton of closure that kept it going in my mind, it was the that it left a ton of things unanswered! There are so many pieces of media I've played, or watched where it just ends, and while I enjoy them I never really paid a second thought to them afterwards. They just fade. But Alan was a light that continued to burn bright in my mind. This feeling of longing that I had after beating it, in a way that's better than just a happy ending. Other works of fiction have used this to their advantage. I don't think it's any coincidence any time David Lynch gets his hands on Twin Peaks, which Alan Wake is teetering very close on being a ripoff of sometimes, it ends on things that leave you with a billion more questions than you came in with. Sam Lake and Lynch understand the power of planting a seed in your head. Because that not only lets the work of art live far past it's expiration, but that's where the imagination also flourishes. There are so many other people who come up with theories trying to interpret these works of art, and because of this I don't think they'll ever truly die. Now, I don't think every piece of art should do this, because I will admit, most of the time it is nice to just have a neat bow placed on something. But like every device in a story, it is merely a tool that is waiting for the right time to be used. Even in stories with closure we can use this to keep things going, the possibilities are never ending. It's so exciting to think about.

But like I said, as time passes other things take precedent. Other works of art and stuff, so these things, even Alan Wake will eventually fade in to the background. The game if I recall sold well and became a cult classic through word of mouth. Even some of my normie friends know about the game. But I never really thought it would continue. Mainly because of the open ended nature of the ending and the fact it isn't an uber popular game that exists in a gaming environment where the maximum amount of money needs to be pumped in to every game in order to make the maximum amount of money back, which is why to my absolute jaw dropping, during the Game Awards 2021, a fucking Alan Wake II was announced. When the trailer first came on, I had my suspicions it might be Alan Wake II, because even in my faded memory I could still recall the layout of the main town in the game. And then he showed up, it was fucking Alan Wake. Rocking a beard and looking very conspicuously a lot more like John Wick, but still, it was him. The title dropped and I couldn't believe it. It was actually happening. Now, this was already kind of insane year for me in games. Because it just so happened not one, but THREE other games I liked a ton as a kid got sequels I thought were utterly impossible earlier that year. In the same week no less, Psychonauts 2 and No More Heroes 3 came out! And then a couple of months later, a Metroid 5! Hell, Mega Man 11 also came out in 2018. What the hell was going on? Why are all these old ass games that I thought were just made for me getting sequels? Now, of all times? I guess nostalgia plays a big part in getting these made, but it's still kinda weird. Hell, even Shadow the Hedgehog is getting his own fucking game this year. If a Portal 3 happened, I think that might just be a sign of the end times. But, regardless, because of this, I also have to wonder if, just like starting a blog in 2024, if it's just kind of too late to make sequels to these kinds of games.

Admittedly, I don't think about this topic a ton, because at heart I'm a consumer of media and much of the time I like to see things I like get continued, but the adventures of Alan Wake is a weird one. This is a game that opened me up to the idea of never getting closure, but here we are with a sequel. It could either do two things, give us closure and kill the vibe or continue not giving us answers and leave us feeling the exact same way the original game did.

Because I'll finally cut to the chase, I think Alan Wake 2 is pretty much a perfect video game. The new survival horror gameplay that is apparently just ripping off Resident Evil 2 now was great, the puzzles were great, the scares were legitimately good, the music was still amazing, the game was funnier and had even more quirky characters and moments than the first one, and the story was very well thought out! I would recommend it instantly. Despite all the differences from the original game in gameplay, tone and even featuring a new protagonist, it still felt like a perfect followup. But I beat the game, got to the ending...and to what I suppose is not justified shock, I felt exactly the same completing Alan Wake 2 as I did completing Alan Wake 1 all those years ago. I feel a longing. Maybe not as painful, but it's still there. But for the record, I think this is a really cool thing, I think that just proves Sam Lake and the team at Remedy haven't lost it, that they can make a game that feels just like the original. But....is that even a good thing? It makes me feel good, on some kind of dopamine level to think that they haven't lost it, but do we actually want those exact same vibes? Is it healthy? Playing the game, I was ready for something different, something new, but instead I kind of just got exactly what I paid for...I got more Alan Wake. Like, you feel me, right? It's intoxicating to have a perfect recreation of those same feelings, but I'm also really conflicted here. From a consumer point of view, it's great that we just got more of what we like. And in a lot of cases, this is what a "good" sequel is considered to be. But here's my thing about that; I've never felt like that is sustainable. Assume a franchise keeps going forever with the same vibes, eventually it's just going to get stuck in it's own tropes and formulas and themes. You need to introduce new elements to the story to keep things exciting, I think that's just how it is. Some people might tell you that it's possible to do something new with a franchise while sticking to all the same things, but I think that's total bullshit.

Eventually, you will hit a wall where there isn't a new topic to be explored without introducing some kind of tonal shift or alien plot element. I think that's just how stories fundamentally work. Everything is a runner that eventually runs out of track to run when it reaches the end. Why do you think so many sequels to things end up so repetitious? I think many creatives at heart are aware of this, and in today's environment of nostalgia and IP centric mania we have people attempting to do new things with certain franchises, but sometimes that just ends up pissing old head consumers of those things off! But we're not allowed to make anything new so what else are we to do?? Everything these days like fucking Star Wars or Batman needs to be beholden to it's own internal logic and rules and established characters and themes to work, but if you don't do anything new it's just not interesting! But if you be different you'll just make people mad! It pleases nobody! Hell, an example is Psychonauts 2. I've seen several people complain about Psychonauts 2 (one of my all time favourite games for the record) because of the tonal shifts from the first game (granted, a few other things too, like not focusing on the previous game's characters more, but that's also another thing that contributes to my argument). It's an incredible game that I believe is a true work of art, but would it have just been better if it were a new IP rather than a sequel? Maybe so. I think it manages to build upon the established lore, themes and rules of the first game magnificently while still retaining the same twisted sense of humor, but for some people, they just wanted a goofy cartoon game with interesting looking levels and instead got a careful examination of several individual's deeply held personal trauma. It's just a like, a different thing!

We don't need new IPs...no, new worlds, NOT because of new characters, or even new storylines. We need them because we need new rules for stories to function under. We need them in order to elicit new, different feelings in us.

I'm conflicted. I think having the same vibes as the original thing is truly intoxicating, but I worry that it's not healthy. I worry that this definition of a "good" sequel just creates a negative trend where we just can't allow anything new to be done with established franchises. If we will just hit a point where any change is instantly disagreeable on the basis of not fitting some perceived version of the original product. Like, it gets even more insane when everyone just has their own version of something in their head, it all depends on taste. I could probably go on about what I think makes a sensible evolution of something, or if we should even respect the notion of evolution in favor of a new creation, but this post is already excessively long so I think the easiest way to put it is that I think we just need a healthy balance of the old and the new In both established series and new series, and in what the big slop corporations feed us. I look forward to the day this trend of sequels pass and companies seek out new stuff again. Despite my complicated feelings on Alan Wake 2, I think it is almost an exception to this, because I feel it is a true work of art that came from a place of passion and hard work. It thoughtfully takes elements from the original game and expands upon them in ways that are fresh and interesting while also introducing crazy new elements that make it feel fresh! But I guess this sentiment could also vary from person to person depending on what the work of art is.

The point is, Play Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2!

and uhh, Alan Wake's American Nightmare. You can play it, I think it's cool too. Anyway, as a reward for getting to the end of this post, here's an old sketch of the main character from the comic book I'm working on meeting Alan Wake. Your reward is more reading.