#but simblr is just such a weird toxic place

[browntrait]

ik its been 10000 years since i’ve been on here, not in the space to unpack and go into everything that happened in my personal life

but apparently y’all still been racist, colorist and fatphobic since i been gone. disappointed, but not surprised. when will ya’ll realize that centering an aesthetic based around white, beige, “fitness” and wealth becomes exclusionary. VERY quickly. i got so exhausted trying to point out these issues that it made me feel unsafe and distant from this platform. it’s isolating. getting called the n-word HARD er and told to die bc i tried to speak up was ultimately why i knew simblr was not the “community” it claims to be. what benefit is there in a creative space like this when everyone’s posts look exactly the same. y’all wanna use the “everyone has their own style” as an excuse. it’s almost as if ppl create sims that reflect their ideas of beauty standards and their ideas of what’s beautiful in the real world, hmmmmmmmm

anyway, black simmers, keep posting, keep defying and diversifying the timeline. don’t get discouraged and let numbers put limitations on your art and enjoyment. simblr isnt the same without y’all. 

[qwertysims]

just call me catholicchurchsims cause i’m guiltin

two things

ONE

There's really no actual tangible difference between cc people make out of genuine interest and cc people make due to pressure/wh*te guilt/a feeling of moral obligation etc. Like I 100% guarantee you there is cc in your mods folder that is the result of someone going “ugh, I wish these anons would stop messaging me about how I only make straight hair. Fine here you fucking go are you happy” or like “wow those poor poor blacks. Here’s one braided style out of the 50 hairs I’ve put out. You’re welcome uwu” I’m fine being placated! Buy my silence by making more quality cc! 

And like of course you can always tell when research wasn’t put into black hair (why do we have mislabeled styles or like braids turning into locs halfway down or vice versa idk) but like everybody makes mistakes everybody has those days and y’all are fabricating the hoards of angry hypothetical black people that you think will come for you if you make a sloppy mesh. People eat up even this shittiest of black hair cc because were already on the floor begging for scraps! Like please spare me. No ones gonna run you off tumblr for weird looking cornrows. Worst case scenario is your post will just go completely ignored

And honestly on this site you can just say “I wish we had more black hairstyles” without any of the finger pointing at white people who make the same hairs over and over and someone will still feel attacked and you’ll still get anons saying BLACK THIS BLACK THAT UGH IF YOU WANT IT SO BAD MAKE IT YOURSEEEEELVES YOU ENTITLED BR A TS  so why am I mincing words really. Y’all suck for cranking out white hairs and you should do better  and that’s that on that! 

TWO

there’s also no difference between someone doing the same thing for social issues-

TO AN EXTENT

Like how many simmers can people like [insert sims youtuber] or [one of those TSR creators that also have a tumblr] or [idk insert somebody big I’m not naming names] reach with a simple reblog?? With one single reblog or retweet or whatever their reach is enormous. That’s literally all I’m asking. They literally don’t even have to care all that much. Y’all know how easy it is to reblog a post? So damn easy. I’m not saying that anybody needs to lead a crusade I’m literally just saying what we all know and it’s that REBLOGS MATTER!

“But Raven what about the backlash”  

what about the people being affected by these issues lmao??? 

“But Raven people come onto simblr to have fun not engage in “”””drama”””’!!” 

So do people being affected by these serious, completely not dramatic or exaggerated (what the hell is wrong with you for calling this shit something as flippant as the word drama btw) issues. Are they allowed to enjoy the community too or is it just you, the person pretending this shit isn’t happening, who wants to have a good time?

“But Raven some people have anxiety” 

Y’all don’t think that when some shit is going down regarding gross kid shit/abuse/racism that those people don’t have any kinds of mental illnesses??????????????TRAUMA???????????????????? hELLO. What about victims of shit that have to step away from their computers or take a hiatus whenever they see people ignoring/praising gross shit in the community! Part of being a compassionate human is doing shit that’s hard oh my GOD standing up for what you believe in isn’t always easy please uSE YOUR BRAINS. Y’all can #hunty and #tea and #shade and #vaguepost til your fingers fall off but when it’s time to stand up for someone that’s not you thEN you feel a panic attack coming on and you have to take some time away from this Super Toxic Community huh? Curious! Peculiar!

Y’all really say “I came to this community to be selfish and now you want me to care????? Put in effort into making it a better place for everyone????” and y’all mean that shit with your whole heart and I don’t undersTAND that EVIL!! CAN’T RELATE TO IT!!!

But anyway the bottom line is I don’t really care all that much if it makes people feel bad???? IMO guilt and feeling bad about things and regretting things (ofc not in a heavy soul crushing way just like a...normal level of regret) is how people grow and become self aware and change! It’s important every once in a while to say “what am I doing right now and how can I do better” like imagine if every day in your head to yourself you were just like 

SO YEAH! FEEL BAD FOR A SECOND! CRY ABOUT IT IF YOU HAVE TO! THEN DO BETTER! CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOR! GROW!

[simmancy]

I was wondering how you first started your berry legacy? Did you make a new simblr for it? How did you first start posting and getting into a routine? I really want to make a legacy myself but i'm scared that it would look really mediocre and unorganized! Any tips on how to plan out the storyline and start posting? Thank you!! (asking this to a few different blogs so sorry if yo see this question somewhere else)

I’m honestly super honored that you’re asking me! I’m still a pretty small simblr compared to a lot of people.

I’m going to put this under a cut, just so it doesn’t clutter up people’s dashes because I RAMBLE (like seriously, I’m re-reading it all now and I go on and on and on) but I’m gonna cover everything you asked!

TL;DR: get mildly inspired, get involved in the community and have fun with it!

I cannot recommending creating a new blog enough. While it’s definitely easier to just create a sub-blog off your personal, you’ll have a harder go at keeping things separate once things take off. Plus then you probably won’t have ALL your million tumblr things that you’re already following mixed in with your sim stuff, making things so much harder to follow.

Once you start your simblr (whether a sub-blog or whole new tumblr), TAG EVERYTHING. XKIT SAVES LIVES. Not really, but it will save you a lot of time once you install the Quick Tags and make tag bundles. Seriously.

At least once a day, a “reblog if you’re a maxis match simblr” thing comes across my dash–don’t be afraid to reblog those when you’re starting out. (Or the alpha equivalent if that’s your thing).

Seriously, don’t be afraid to reach out to people and get involved. Ask for sim requests, reply to things, join a Discord server–don’t be afraid to talk to people! I’ve actually made a few good friends this time around. It’s awesome.

This is just one of the unfortunate realities about things–if your pictures look good, you’ll get noticed quicker and blah blah. You can get by on just writing, but it’s a lot harder. This is still tumblr. It’s microblogging. LOOOOONG text posts (like this one lmao) are not what it’s geared towards.

Anyway. I play TS4 on Ultra, and that does a lot of work for me. Sometimes all you really need to do is sharpen and brighten things up. Reshade is another good alternative, if your computer can handle it–that takes a lot of the decision making out because it edits for you! I used to use PickyPikachu’s reshade presets. The downside is that it’s pretty resource heavy.

The basic point here is that having good lookin’ pictures goes a long way to making your stuff look “not mediocre.”

Also, and this is a side thing–find a good theme for your simblr, something that looks good for both text posts and pictures, probably something with either a sidebar or header (or both).

This is the meat of the section and it’s all really Kit/Pastille-specific.

I started up the Pastel Pastilles because I saw Berry’s challenge–I had already read Splash of Color a long time ago, and had a (now obviously abandoned) TS3 rainbowcy. But TS4 was fun and ran like a beast and I liked berry sims, so I dove in. If you were to go back in my archives, though, you’d see that I started posting a TS3 LEPacy, and that’s not even my first one.

I’m not going to even talk about the Grims in this post, since they’re really new. But they’re a prime example of using community involvement to stay interested haha. I’m very excited to play with Ruby and her future family because of all the nice sims people sent for her to eat alive become friends with. 

Planning with the Pastilles

With the Pastilles, I honestly got a little tipsy one night and did my initial planning based around Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. Like… Not even gonna lie. That was honestly my starting point. You can almost see hints of this in some places. From there, I had certain scenes I wanted to hit.

Gen 1 - Luna - “Hopeless”; it’s about being in a shitty relationship and hoping that changes lmao (“I hope hopeless changes over time”). Luna and Dianthus were meant to have a much more obviously toxic relationship but Luna ended up having four kids by her second pregnancy and I just couldn’t play and write that fast. However, I always knew that Luna’s big moment would be telling Dianthus to get out.

Gen 2 - Verity Vine - “Now or Never”/“100 Letters” - There are a couple things that have stayed consistent in this gen: Veri and her dreams, the peach spouse’s dad was gonna be a dick and they would be separated for years, and they were gonna hook back up at a wedding. 

My very first concept was that Riesling was going to be a bit more wishy-washy and bend to his father’s will (hence “Now or Never” being the song). By the middle of the generation, it was clear that Veri would become the distant one (“he said ‘please don’t go away,’ I said ‘it’s too late’”).

Part of writing a sims legacy sometimes is… letting the sims do the writing for you. Meri and Forest weren’t supposed to be the ones getting married (it was supposed to be Chai Tea and Black Cherry) and they definitely weren’t supposed to have the twins but honestly the story is better for it, you know? And obv most of Veriling’s story isn’t the way I initially planned.

All this said, once I knew where I wanted the story to go, I knew I wanted to plan around a few set-pieces: the fountain scene where Riesling trips onto Veri and she realizes “OH SHIT,” the scene where Eiswein walks in, Punk!Veri’s “I don’t dream at all anymore,” and Riesling’s “Hi, I’m Riesling Puck, you might recognize me from your dreams.” Those were all scenes I knew I HAD to get.

Gen 3 - ??? - “Angel on Fire” - it’s about anxiety lmao so I don’t mind linking it, it’s pretty obvious. Gen 3 has an anxious heir, a song about anxiety was on the nose.

I don’t really recommend the getting tipsy part, but definitely do recommend going in with a basic concept.

The cool thing about challenges is that you already have the guidelines as a starting point. One of my favorite parts about this challenge in particular is seeing how people re-interpret the rules–for instance compare the Gumdrops, Frosts, Amours, Pastilles, Fairyflosses, Prisms–we all started from the same basic rules and there’s still a lot of variation, especially once you get past the initial introductions.

Also, SERIOUSLY: don’t be afraid to take inspiration from crazy places–a song you heard on the radio, a movie, your own life, whatever. Like, I decided Veri’s generation would have it’s first Act at Oxtail University because of the “dream of ivy covered walls and smoky french cafes” line in “Beautiful” (from the Heathers musical). The song otherwise has VERY LITTLE to do with Gen 2. It’s just that line became a starting point for me.

Keeping Things Lookin’ Snazzy with the Pastilles

Looking back, you can kind of see Gen 1 was a bit brighter and lighter/different in editing style than Gen 2. I purposefully set out to get a “dreamy” feel for Gen 2′s pictures. It works for me and the Pastilles–it might not for your legacy! Play around with things to see what works.

I’ve also noticed a lot of banners nowadays (they weren’t as big my first go around here on simblr, but they’re everywhere now). I think that helps to keep things “on brand,” organized and consistent too. I personally don’t use a banner for the Pastilles–I didn’t start with one, and now it looks super wrong to me when I try to use one…. So instead, I’d recommend looking at @frost-rainbowcy–she is SUPER on-brand. I can only aspire to reach that level of #a e s t h e t i c.

HOWEVER, I do keep everything on my blog hyper-organized–there’s a main page where everything’s pretty much linked, and the character page. 

TBH, you don’t need to go that in-depth. I just like leaving weird easter eggs in places. You might too.

Posting Consistently

So, I started posting the Pastilles officially almost a week after I made the first post with Luna. That’s because I played a BUNCH right at the beginning, so I’d have something consistent to post for a while. It wasn’t initially as story-heavy as it is now. That’s something you probably want to decide before you start posting.

Right now, I’m posting inconsistently because I’m trying to wait around for Cats and Dogs and not give into the temptation to give Veri and Ries the babies they keep wishing for, but….

I’m in game almost every day–I get off work most days between 2 and 4 now, so by 6 PM I’ve eaten/showered/started up TS4. Even if it’s just to make a sim for someone.

I tend to do all my picture editing on Sundays, as it’s my day off. Sometimes it bleeds over into Monday, my other day off. I don’t always write posts up those days, but I at least stick them in the queue so they’re THERE. For me, it helps giving myself that weird deadline lmao

As a result, I almost always have something queued up.

I utilize the queue like MAD. Right now it’s set at 6 posts a day between 3 PM and 12 AM EST, but I change it up depending on what I have going on and what I can crank out. Usually I leave it on 13 posts a day.

Basically, learn what works for you. It does take some trial and error, but you’ll get it eventually.

Now here’s the real truth: you won’t post consistently if you don’t love your game or your sims.

I love playing the Pastilles as much as I love writing them. To the point that I have them backed up in several places just in case. I’m genuinely attached to the family, and that makes it worth it to me. Sometimes that doesn’t happen immediately (I love Luna, and Vino, and even Dianthus that shitbag, but you can tell that I got invested with Veri and Ries–Gen 1 is 30 pages long on my blog. Gen 2 is 92 and counting).

Storywise, I stay interested because I love the fluffy romance bits and snappy dialogue as much as the Drama Bombs, and also (spoilers) I’m a sucker for supernatural stuff. So I tailored my legacy to fit that.

But when I don’t want to play sometimes I just go in game, grab a few pictures of them in CAS and redo the character page for the 25th time. And that’s okay too. I just always try to make sure I have something to post, even if it’s a small (even if it’s just Riesling’s face. Because I know that’s what y’all want. It’s cool. I get it).

I seriously rambled a lot, but I hope this helps!! Once you get started, please let me know too! I’m rooting for you, non, and any nons to come after you.

[mamboloa-blog]

Look I just wanted a cool place to share screenshots and find CC and talk about a fucking video game. I didn’t know I was getting into one of those horror stories you hear about tumblr dogpiles and suicide baiting but here I am.

I thought a discord server sounded cool so I joined. Less than an hour later I was contacted by an admin who at first came off as extremely passive aggressive about me not filling out some form, who must have then misinterpreted my response because they immediately got aggressive and pushy about the fucking form and started making veiled threats. I argued back, realized that the server wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to be with people like that running it and told them no thanks. They banned me less than an hour after I had joined, before I had gotten the chance to post anything, cutting off any further contact with them or the other mod who had contacted me for the same information, in a much more reasonable tone.

I do not regret that callout post. Everything in it was true and I provided receipts. The response was, at first, gaslighting. Trying to convince me that the word “chill” is somehow aggressive and that thinly veiled threats, aren’t.

Then the admin I disagreed with contacted me here with the same old shit. That I was being rude, and that it was a unanimous decision to ban me among all the admins because I was obviously a horrible person who shouldn’t be there.

The thing about it being a unanimous decision seemed to be a lie because another admin who contacted me (and many did, apparently the callout post triggered some kind of panic) seemed not to know that I had been banned and asked me why I didn’t continue talked to the admins and sorting things out. Which I could not. As I no longer shared a common discord server with them.

Another admin who contacted told me the reason for the weird spreadsheet. That another admin had had a panic attack about strangers entering the (open, public) discord server and the rule was put in place, poorly enforced. A better way to do this would be what many discord servers do and restrict viewing and posting rights to only people who had done whatever signup process was required, which would have forced people to fill out the form if they wanted to do anything but read the channel where the form and instructions were posted. This also wouldn’t put the pressure on new users to fill out the form as soon as possible and the admins to herang them until they did.

And through all of this, I have received many non-apologies (”I’m sorry you were offended”) from quite a few of the server’s admins. All laced with yet more passive-agression. All “sweetie” and smiley faces. The one I got from the server’s owner offered to let me back into the server if I wanted, and also offered a “polite” suggestion that, while I had every right to post whatever I liked on my blog, I also had the choice to take the callout post down. If I wanted, that is. The implication of this message that I saw, was that the offer to rejoin the server hinged on my deleting the post. I told them where they could shove their discord server and threatened that if they ever tried to pull that manipulative shit with me again, I would make sure that callout post ended up on more trafficked places than my tumblr. And by then I had a couple of things to add to it.

After that, the owner made a final reply to my callout post, telling me that I was never welcome in their server (more gaslighting) because I was a mean and horrible person blah blah blah and that the request to delete my post wasn’t a request but just a “suggesting” (even more gaslighting).

And you know what the worst thing all of these people could even accuse me of was? That I called them names. Which I did. And because of that, I am the type of toxic person who the spreadsheet was designed to keep out and was always designed to keep out DESPITE THE FACT that I was offered to be let back into the server MINUTES earlier. And when I called you out on the bullying and the manipulation, all you did was turn it around back on me. Because I called you names. I even had one poorly spelled message in my ask box threatening to get the tumblr staff involved because I was apparently the one doing the bullying and harassment.

And I don’t know who has been sending me “anonymous” messages over tumblr’s IM or my site’s contact email using what I guess are dummy(?) accounts because I had my ask box turned off until just recently. I don’t even know if it’s one or more than one person. I don’t care. In less than twelve hours I’ve been suicide baited 7 times. My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing with new and interesting suggestions on how to end my life. I don’t even know if they’re any of the people involved in this whole mess or just some sycophantic hangers on. But enough is fucking enough. Since when trying was to get someone to commit suicide an okay thing to do? What kind of fucked up ass moral compass do you have to have to do something like that? Who the fuck hurt you?

And for what? An argument I had with a friend of yours? A discord server? A discord server dedicated to a dollhouse game for children? What is wrong with you people?

That being said, I have gotten quite a few lovely messages over IM and from people who I shared this experience with on Twitter. And I’d like to thank everyone who sent them for at least trying to keep me sane and reassure me.

But, in all of this, I never received an apology from the admin who aggressively insisted that I drop everything I was doing in real life and then acted threateningly when I needed time. And that’s the kicker. None of you were ever fucking sorry. No one ever admitted fault. At least not to myself. The original admin admitted on their blog “that they handled the situation poorly” but never actually apologized to me. You wanted the receipts taken down silently because they made you and your friends look bad.

And you know what, I’m done. It’s been a great night and I learned a lot about what kind of community this is. And it is absolutely not one that I want to be a part of. From wanting to share screenshots to this abortion of a nightmare. I’m out. A lot of the people behind this harassment were people I followed and really liked up until today, even if I’d never interacted with them. But under all the pretty screenshots and recolors you are all fucking jokes of human beings.

And to anyone who sent out the kind of threats, suicide and hate mail that I got tonight, - and not just to myself, as I know the admin who started all of this has apparently been getting some shit too - y’all are fucking monsters at best. At worst, attempted murderers. I hope we all live in a just world because cunts like you need to get what’s coming to you.

Good fucking bye, simblr. May you all continue tearing each other to shreds over a children’s game.

And fuck you, too.