#considering i sort of abandoned my redbubble >>;

[crepegosette]

casual enjoyer of those creatures (deranged)

[ivycopur]

ty for the tag @simmer-until-tender!!

1. what’s your favorite sims death?

death by fright is fun with how it can escalate, ghosts killing people to create more ghosts killing more people... i enjoy the chaos of a very haunted house 😈

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

i lean more maxis match these days but i don't have a strict aesthetic

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight?

i assume this is more about ts4, i hardly ever see sims gain weight in ts2. but in either case nah

4. Do you use move objects?

of course, i'm not much of a builder tho

5. Favorite mod?

hmmmm there's soooo many i consider essential but if i had to play with just one mod i guess it would be the sim blender

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got?

ts2 university! and it's still a fave, i love playing dorms

7.  Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing?

i always assumed it was like aLIVE until the behind the sims summit which was the first time i actually heard someone from EA say it out loud lmao. ive tried to adjust to say LIVing but it still sounds wrong

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

im gonna go with Clementine Bosden, the C heir of an alphabet legacy i attempted in 2011 (which got nowhere near Z, lol). she's a family sim with 1 nice point which is a hilarious combination to me. pictured here raging in the park for some reason & cheating at chess with her wife (an aged-up Chloe Gonzaga). ahhhh digging up these screenshots makes me wanna pick that hood back up again....

9.  Have you made a simself?

the last one i made was in 2016 when i had an undercut... not terribly accurate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

10. What sims traits do you give yourself?

using TS3 traits... Vegetarian, Computer Whiz, Brooding, Loves the Outdoors, Animal Lover

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color?

again i assume this is more about ts4. but i am a fan of the various ts2 rainbow mohawks

12. Favorite EA hair?

it's basic but i've used the french braid hair a lot

13. Favorite life stage?

the younger stages are cute but it's gotta be adults, that's where the most gameplay is at

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the game play?

building is a STRUGGLE for me, im here for the gameplay. although lately i've spent more time reading about how the game works & poking around in simpe than actually playing haha

15. Are you a CC creator?

nah, i've messed around a little with texture edits but im more interested in making mods than CC

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sims squad?

me n my gf play sims together a lot but besides that not really

17. What’s your favorite game (1,2,3,4)?

ts2!!!

18. Do you have any sims merch?

i have some sims themed stickers from redbubble...

19. Do you have a youtube for sims?

well i have a sub-account on my youtube just for all the sims youtubers i subscribe to so i can keep up with them without it all being mixed in with all my other subscriptions on my main account. but no i don't make sims videos myself. i do like to imagine the sims video essays i would make if i had a infinite time to spend on that sort of thing but i doubt i ever will 😅

20. How has your “sims style” changed throughout your years of playing?

my MO is usually to start with one sim, have a bunch of kids & then a bunch of grandkids, get overwhelmed by the number of sims i'm managing & then abandon the family. but now i'm setting up an uberhood to play with LD's story progression and im very excited to see how it goes when i can just focus on one household and let everyone live their lives without me :)

21. What’s your origin ID?

it's simbly but there's nothing on there

22. Who’s your favorite cc creator?

tbh i've been avoiding going down the cc rabbithole for now... i have a ton of stuff bookmarked to check out later but idk what i'll end up using.... i'm picky about keeping my files organized and wrangling my huge mods folder has been enough of a headache, the amount of cc out there is even more overwhelming >.<

23. How long have you had a simblr?

only since fall 2022, ive been on tumblr since 2013 but this account is pretty new, i'm just getting back into the sims after not playing for a long time!

24. How do you edit your pictures?

photoshop babey

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next?

OpenTS2😭😭🙏🙏

[marblerose-rue]

prices'll probably be 15-20 usd and for an extra 5 usd ill make an icon!! i'll probably do everything in themed batches

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Yes, I loved fireworks when I was a kid, and I blew up more than my fair share of Black Cat firecrackers and M60s. But that’s before I understood the environmental impact of what I was doing. I know if I’d had less damaging ways to celebrate I would have had just as much fun (seriously, what child wouldn’t have a great time throwing eggs that smash into a flurry of confetti?) If you want to be extra-considerate of nature, make sure whatever you choose is as eco-friendly and biodegradable as possible; light-up poi and other battery-operated light toys can have years of use, and make sure your confetti eggs don’t include plastic-based glitter or other non-biodegradables.

I realize that I didn’t cover related topics, such as how fireworks can cause massive fires. Wildfire is a topic I’d like to give its own comic down the line; needless to say, another reason to avoid fireworks is the potential for accidentally setting things alight (such as the Eagle Creek fire in Oregon in 2018.) I do also acknowledge that smaller fireworks of the sort most people use at home, like firecrackers and smoke bombs, are less of an impact individually than mortars, but they still contribute a lot of pollution on their own, and are likely an even bigger source given how many people buy them each year.

Also, here are a few links on the ecological impact of fireworks, in case you need more talking points when discussing this with others:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2019/12/31/festive-fireworks-create-harmful-pall-of-pollution/#188f90852853

https://theconversation.com/our-prettiest-pollutant-just-how-bad-are-fireworks-for-the-environment-52451

www.terrapass.com/fireworks-impact-environment

https://www.robinage.com/environment/the-ill-effects-of-firecrackers.htm

Finally, if you thought the toad on panel four was cute, you can get her as a sticker at http://wyntkan.redbubble.com!

Website | Redbubble Shop | Ko-Fi Tip Jar

Transcript under cut.

[Title: The Trouble With Fireworks]

[Image 1: A variety of brightly colored fireworks explode in the sky.]

Once again Independence Day is upon us, and millions of Americans plan to set off firework, from single firecrackers to giant mortar displays. While it may be fun for some, these explosions carry a heavy cost for nature.

[Image 2: Several canisters labeled “copper chloride”, “strontium carbonate”, “sodium nitrate”, “barium chloride”, “calcium chloride” and “lithium chloride” are above an arrow that then points to more fireworks going off, and then another arrow points from that to two murky clouds, one labeled “greenhouse gases” with the chemicals ozone, nitrogen, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide, and the other “airborne heavy metal particulates” with the chemicals strontium, magnesium, copper, lead, lithium, potassium, calcium, and barium.]

Fireworks employ a variety of chemicals, particularly those with bright colors like Roman candles and mortars. When incinerated, they release a harmful array of toxins like greenhouse gases and heavy metals across a large swath of air, soil and water. These create a long-term health hazard for people and wildlife alike.

[Image 3: A young opossum stands between two trees alone, looking at the bright lights of fireworks in the distance.]

Noise pollution also has a destructive effect on wildlife and other animals. Fireworks scare nesting birds, causing them to abandon their young. Opossums, foxes and other mammals may become separated from their young. And the stress from the noise can lower animals’ immune systems, making them more vulnerable to diseases and parasites.

[Image 4: A toad hides under grass, behind a rock.]

The impact of fireworks noise is even greater on small animals like insects, amphibians, reptiles and rodents. The percussion affects them more severely. Birds and other flying animals may be knocked out of the sky or badly burned.

[Image 5: A red and black border around the following text.]

I won’t go into detail, but I’m sure many of you have heard stories about people deliberately harming wildlife and other animals with fireworks.

[Image 6: A sandy beach is covered in fireworks debris and gunpowder residue.]

And if you’ve ever been to a park or beach after Independence Day, you’ve likely seen huge piles of debris left over from fireworks. The gunpowder residue on bits of plastic, paper and other trash are difficult to clean  up, toxic if left there, and are a reminder of the chemical pollutants now soaking into the soil and water to be absorbed and ingested by humans, wildlife, and other animals.

[Image 7: Five children of varying ages play in a grassy field with sparklers, glow sticks, and confetti-filled eggs.]

We can celebrate holidays without doing this much damage. Consider lower-impact fireworks like sparklers, and clean up your trash after. Other alternatives for kids and adults alike are having a red, white and blue tie-dye party, creating your own light show with glow sticks or—even better—light-up poi, and throwing eggshells dyed red or blue and filled with rice paper confetti that “explode” upon impact with the ground!”

[druiidboy]

REPOST  ,  NOT  REBLOG !  TAG  6  MUNS  YOU  WOULD  LIKE  TO  GET  TO  KNOW  BETTER  WHEN  YOU’RE  DONE !

NAME  : private NICKNAME  : Bas AGE  :  25 FACECLAIM  :  Asa Butterfield/Alex Vlahos (Avan Jogia) PRONOUNS  :  she   HEIGHT  :  5  ft  9 BIRTHDAY  :  august 11 AESTHETIC  :  dr pepper, wood burning in the winter, subtle fandom shirts from redbubble, and deep conditions at the salon LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO  :  The World Will Know (Newsies 1992)

FAVOURITE  MUSE(S)  YOU’VE  WRITTEN  :  Philippe Duc d’Orleans, Athelstan, and Eggsy Unwin, and Ender Wiggin by far. All for very different reasons. Philippe is just a breath of fresh air and I am so happy on him, I am rarely as happy as I am when I get to just be Philippe. Athelstan is what I am in George Blagden character form, not to mention I talk to my Ragnar EVERY DAY. And Eggsy is my smol egg, I got to meet my Harry IRL over the summer when I was in England and that is something that I am forever going to remember. And then Ender, I made an amazing friend on him, River, is my other butt cheek and whenever I can talk to her it brightens my day.

WHAT  INSPIRED  YOU  TO  TAKE  ON  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE  (  THAT  YOU  ARE  POSTING  THIS  ON  )  : So when I first got into Merlin, I followed two blogs on my personal, one being servinglies and the other being ardentlyarthur (now found at pugnamus), anyways they both inspired me to dive into the fandom initially. I started out with a verse on one of my other blogs, and met some really cool people, but who really inspired me was Ryan. They played Mordred and I made my Mordred, but I only played baby!Mordred at first. My dream was to do a thread with them, and like have my Baby!Mordred be there’s when he grew up. I will never be as good as them, but I like to try and reach that immortality status they have in my mind. I also decided on baby!mordred and yes he is the main focus of this blog still, because it was different and something NO one was doing. I thought it would help spring board me into the fandom because I was doing something a bit different. 

WHAT  ARE  YOUR  FAVOURITE  ASPECTS  OF  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE  :  I shall only name a few for the sake of this post. But his inherent goodness. He doesn’t want to cause trouble, but it sort of finds him, he gets caught up in it especially as a boy. His complexity, he keeps you guessing, but you have to why he does that, and its because he is a bit mysterious but think about it he has a kind heart, and a view that not many in Camelot has. His life, lord almighty I could go on and on about his life. 

WHAT’S  YOUR  BIGGEST  INSPIRATION  WHEN  IT  COMES  TO  WRITING  :  The words that Alex and Asa have both used to describe him honestly. And some of the blogs I follow, some of which are abandoned and some are still going strong its the people around me. 

FAVOURITE  TYPES  OF  THREADS  :  ALL OF THEM. Especially when I get to do stuff with the main gang. one of my favorite threads was with a Gwaine and Mordred coerced him into fixing up one of his foster homes as a project when he was older, and it came from that breaking news meme. Like I love that kind of stuff, and give me all the angst of Mordred being a knight which is his worst nightmare. 

BIGGEST  STRUGGLE  IN  REGARDS  TO  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE  :  Well.. first please don’t consider me a bitch when I say this. But is really hard to get interactions on him like at all. And so I try not to complain but then I vague about it, and its just a vicious circle. I honestly stopped coming on for a bit because I was tired of getting threads to go maybe two replies and then they would be dropped. Like that makes it a really tough atmosphere to RP in, and since I want to do those threads, I recycle ideas hoping someone will bite and do a full thread with me. Its hard for me to get my muse noticed, some people in the fandom refuse to acknowledge him, I saw one post completely ignoring him when describing characters that have done certain things, and I wanted to add HE DID THAT TOO, but didn’t. Its hard when you feel like no respects your muse as much as you do, and kind of throws him off to the side because he is a “villain” but then don’t do that for Morgana because she is too perfect and stuff. Like its hard to be in this fandom as Mordred, and I understand why I am the only one, while other characters in the main gang have at least two playing them actively as I write this up. I just kind of feel like he is a second thought, which discourages me from writing him, which is my big struggle. I want to do so much but I can’t garner the interest, and never really have, like I try to connect with the fandom, but I don’t know what else to do, because I am not mutuals with some people so I can’t like their starters, and people don’t like mine, and when I do like them, half they time they aren’t written for whatever reason, probably no muse or thread idea, But like I feel like I am trying and am just not seeing the fruits of my labors. Its a discouragement and that is my biggest struggle with him. 

TAGGED  BY  :  @etfuturus indirectly TAGGING  :  yo beautiful face 

[mysticsparklewings]

Derwent Inktense Pencil Tests

Hope nobody thought I'd be abandoning my regular supply tests now that I have a Worksheet specifically for Colored Pencils! :D   (Truth be told I got these before I finished designing the worksheet, but even so, I still think proper field tests like this are necessary to really get a feel for what pencils are like to use, so I wasn't planning on ditching them anyway; and this set I'm not sure would work well with the worksheet set up, but I do plan on trying it out to see.) So just like with the Arteza Woodless Watercolor Pencils, the nature of these pencils insisted on having separate Dry (on the left; no water) and Wet (on the right; water) tests. The Derwent Inktense, as the name might imply, are ink-based pencils and are also water-soluble (both of which are selling points). The first time I heard of these, the ink-based concept really intrigued me. Typically, pencils are wax or oil based, or they're watercolor. And then you have oddballs like the Crayola Signature Colored Pencils, which are said to be gel based. Likewise, I noticed pretty quickly once I started these tests that they are very much their own unique creature like the Crayola oddballs were. Before I get into that though, a little about the particular set I got: Fresh off some commission money, I was on eBay looking around and stumbled upon this Inktense Portable Pencil Stand, listed at $30. It came with 18 pencils, a brush, eraser, sharpener, and of course the stand/case. Even at $30, considering the regular tin with no bonuses of 24 pencils goes for around $30 on Amazon (and closer to $50 elsewhere), it seemed like a good deal. I tried to look up this specific set to compare, but miraculously it seems to have vanished from the internet save for a few blog posts. Still, taking into consideration what's here, what I know about Derwent's prices, and colored pencil set prices in general, I would guesstimate it probably sold for around $40 at least. Me being me, I took advantage of the "Make an Offer" feature and haggled the seller down to $23. After having the set in my hands, it makes more sense why it's disappeared; to my surprise, the set came with a little leaflet kind of like the Faber Castell Polychromos did that talks about the pencils and shows you all 72 colors available. The cover of said leaflet features the packaging/artwork Derwent was using years ago. In the past year or so, they've switched the packaging up from a dark blue/Peacock motif to a light blue/Underwater one, but there was a switch before that (I'm guessing at least five years ago or so) going from an indigo/flowers theme to the Peacock one. The flower packaging is what's on the pamphlet. Said paper also taught me after a little looking that this set actually has different colors than water you would find in 12 or 24 sets. If you were to purchase the 12 set in addition to this one, you'd only get one repeat color, and if you purchased the 24 set you'd have five. And yet this set manages to still have a fair color range. This impressed me. (And I'm actually thinking about getting the 12 set to expand my color choices). However, there is a bit of a downside here. Even though the set was in its case and still factory-sealed in plastic with a cardboard sleeve, it shows its age. Some of the text printed on the pencils has gone dark and is hard to see, a couple had cracks on the paint-dipped ends (and I have managed to get a noticeable chip on one as a result), and most notably of a all; the zipper on the case (which structurally reminds me a lot of the case that the Prismacolor Brush 24 & 48 marker sets come in) after a few pulls just sort of fell apart in my fingers, in no less than three pieces. I have never in my life seen such a thing happen, and I can only guess that it was just old an no longer structurally sound as a result. Fortunately, that doesn't ruin everything; the case could be held shut with something like a rubber band, and I'm very sure you could just replace the little zipper bit, as the track for it is still intact. Me personally, I'm just slipping on the cardboard sleeve since I don't really travel with my supplies and I have a dedicated place on a shelf for the set. Other than that, I do actually really like the case and it works quite well for holding everything. Plus, it has enough room for up to 36 pencils, so if I do purchase the 12 set in addition to these, I could fit them right in if I wanted to. (Or if I did want to travel with the set I have I could slip in a few other supplies to take with me.) As for working with the pencils themselves... To put it bluntly, they aren't really that impressive dry. They require quite a few layers to get smooth, rich color laydown, otherwise, they're particularly rough/scratchy looking. However they do layer up pretty nicely; I didn't really notice them eventually having that feeling of "I am not going to layer properly anymore and you can't make me," and they actually layer light colors on top of dark better than I would've expected. You can see where I layered a bit of yellow overtop of several layers of pink and purple a lot better here than I would say it normal. It's not perfectly opaque, mind you, but it did surprise me. Also, some of the colors do come out notably darker dry than when you hit them with water. For example, this set didn't come with the blackest Inktense pencil; instead, the darkest is "Sepia Ink" which is a particularly dark brown. I used that in place of black both times, and I would say it still did the job nicely both times. (Just to make sure it read as black I did go over it a bit with the dark blue on the wet version, but on the dry version even without mixing other colors in I feel like you'd never know the difference without putting it next to a true black.)   Even though it does still look decent and my gel pen didn't fight me overtop of these, I was underwhelmed by using the pencils completely dry. (The white being specifically disappointing.) I think it's fairly obvious these become a little more special when you use them with water. For one thing, most of the colors become more vibrant when wet, and mixing and blending them together feels better. And yet they retain that same quality of the lighter colors going over the dark colors really well. The only thing is they don't melt down the way watercolors do; it takes more water the get the texture of the pencil to fade away and to really get them going. Or to re-activate if you didn't fully activate them the first time. (As they're supposed to dry permanent if you've fully activated them). Whether this is a good or bad thing really just depends on what you're trying to do. Fortunately for me, this strange nature lends itself to fairly nice textures for galaxies. But if you're expecting the smooth, easy texture of watercolors or watercolor pencils, you're going to be disappointed. And possibly frustrated. Although, using them wet I was able to pick up the pigment directly from the pencil tip with the brush (and I did use the one they came with; no issues there) and tip the brush to get some splattering, and I have to say that I did try just dipping the pencil tips straight in the water and it made them very temporarily really nice and creamy to lay down. And that method also made the white much more opaque and better to work with for the stars. I wasn't too surprised that my gel pen was pretty agreeable with both versions; the ink base in the pencils made me suspect they'd be compatible and get along okay, and I was right. The most important thing about the pencils, after testing, I'd have to say is all in the name: Inktense. The colors of the pencils are intense, deep colors, like what you would get out of an ink pen. Even with all 72 colors, I don't think you'd have much in terms of bright, pastel colors. to work with. They can be very vibrant, but they're very saturated colors. I think this might also be why there's only 72 to being with; there's probably a limit to what kinds and how many colors you can make with the ink base. Overall, I do like them, but I don't really recommend just using them dry with no water. They just take some getting used to since they are really different. I'm not sure I'd recommend them for beginners because of that. Still, I know I will be asking the Easter Bunny to bring me the 72 set in a few weeks. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be waiting with bated breath for some other supplies and a book to come in the mail. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram