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shivasdarknight · 10 months

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OTW reprimands & punishes volunteer of color for speaking out against racist practices

If you at all care about the working conditions of OTW volunteers, then you must be made aware of what OTW just did to one of their volunteers of color.

You can view the entire piece here - which I highly encourage you to - as it's the letter sent to volunteer, Dhobi Ki Kutti, as apart of the first steps of Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (CCAP). In effect, it is OTW punishing Kutti for speaking out against the racist practices of OTW towards their own volunteers.

Please read the full letter if you can for the full context. I'll post a few excerpts from the letter + Kutti's response. It should go without saying, but what OTW has sent to Kutti is deeply inappropriate given that Kutti has been speaking out against the racist treatment of their volunteers of color. To reprimand and punish Kutti for speaking out against this is extremely telling of where OTW stands in regards to anti-racist practices, and have shown that they are willing to maintain a space that is hostile towards their volunteers of color for the sake of their white volunteers' and board members' comfort.

For the letter itself, key highlights include:

-Accusing Kutti of publishing confidential internal documents:

Several volunteers have also reached out to us with concerns that you have shared the contents of internal communications publicly in violation of the Wrangling Communication Policy. As you agreed when joining the Tag Wrangling team, [Link to How_to_talk_about_wrangling_in_public redacted] specifically prohibits the posting of internal communications externally which have not been made available to the public. "Broad topic discussion is acceptable, but giving specific details or copy/pasting quotes from mailing list e-mails or Slack rooms to public spaces is not. Doing so may be subject to CCAP or immediate dismissal.” This includes quoting internal conversations or emails directly. It seems that you've been in violation of this policy a number of times over the last month or so in posts where you have made a point of referencing and posting internal communications or quoting conversations externally. The specific incident cited to us in several reports is in regards to the comment you made on this post: https://www.transformativeworks.org/the-otws-commitment-to-safety-responding-to-recent-concerns-about-ao3/ The concerns that have been relayed to us include the way that particular violation of policy has impacted the volunteers' well-being. Your willingness to share internal details publicly has made them feel disconcerted and unsafe. Some have also said that they feel their privacy has been invaded.

-Made volunteers "uncomfortable" for discussing "tense topics" (it's clear that they mean racism)

Additionally, while this is not a policy violation, a number of volunteers have informed us they feel that the way you have repeatedly brought up tense discussions in public rooms has made the work environment unpleasant. While we agree that the issues you’ve highlighted are important, many are things that can’t be addressed quickly, and will require a lot of time and effort from the org. We don’t want you to feel that conversations about change are unwelcome, but we would ask that you be more understanding of the fact that not everyone wants to participate in them. We also want you to understand that the changes you’re asking for require an immense amount of work from volunteers who already have an existing workload. All in all, these aspects of your behavior of late have generally made other volunteers feel unsafe, stressed, and uncomfortable. It has also made Slack a considerably less pleasant environment for those who have reached out to us, making it more difficult for your fellow volunteers to communicate on the platform, and impacting both their mental well-being and their desire to actively volunteer with the OTW while it continues.

-Actions against Kutti:

Actions:

- Due to an abundance of caution, cease linking to social media posts which may, however unintentionally, link the fannish and real identities of volunteers within the OTW together. - Do not quote or cut and paste sections of documents, email communications, or internal conversations into external conversations or public forums. - Do not summarize internal communications for external spaces. Internal communications are not, and should not be, considered material that can be shared elsewhere (even in summary form) if they have not been released publicly by the OTW. The fact that this is something you have been doing consistently over the past month or so is a large part of what is contributing to some of your fellow volunteers feeling unsafe. - If you wish to ask a question about a particular social media post or comment on a post, and feel it is necessary to link the post or comment for reference, email committee chairs rather than posting in the Slack public rooms. - Be more cautious about how you link things, and consider whether links to other posts are really necessary when asking your questions. You will not be welcome to continue to volunteer with the tag wrangling committee if you cannot be considerate and respectful of the needs of your fellow volunteers. We hope you will take the concerns of your fellow volunteers seriously and adjust your approach going forward to take those concerns and their well-being into account. We also hope you will strive to be respectful of your fellow volunteers’ time and boundaries.

Kutti's response:

-Permission to repost and quote:

I am waiving my right to confidentiality and posting the entirety of the CCAP text below this, so that other volunteers can decide for themselves whether your actions are warranted or not. I also give permission for anyone to share this text and my response to it here, along with my org handle, in any public internet location they wish to disseminate it to.

-Response to the actions taken against them:

For my part, I had not expected the organisation would provide me such a blatant example of racist retaliation, but clearly, I had not set the bar low enough. I reject the authority of white people in positions of structural power in this organisation to punish me—a volunteer of colour trying to hold you accountable for your structural racism—by intimidating me and placing restrictions regarding my participation in OTW communication channels.

-Regarding the accusations of breaking the confidentiality policy:

I reject a cultist confidentiality policy that denies volunteers any opportunity to provide citations to back up claims of abusive organisational practises. The only quotes I have publicly posted are from official statements made by the Board and Chairs to all volunteers, and I shared them in response to a post where the official organisation statement was denying an accusation of insufficiently protecting its volunteer base. As a member of said volunteer base, I have the right to provide proof of my own experience. You have accused me of violating the confidentiality policy a number of times, without providing any other citations. Because I have been entirely focussed on demanding accountability within the organisation, it is very easy for me to enumerate any public comments I have made (copies of which I have recorded here: https://dhobikikutti.dreamwidth.org/). If you consider me citing my own words, voiced in internal channels, to be violating my own confidentiality then... you have overstepped, because I gave myself permission to ‘violate’ my own privacy.

-Regarding OTW referring to Kutti's discussions of racism as a "threat" to volunteers:

I reject your framing of my actions as a threat to individual volunteers. Anyone who will look at the history of my comments will understand immediately where the false accusation of me ‘outing’ a volunteer comes from, and can also find the evidence of the volunteer themselves linking the identity in question. I can say much more about the racialised double standards that this accusation is a part of, but it is obvious that you don’t actually think I outed anyone. Because, as the CCAP makes a point to reiterate, this is cumulative action being taken for everything I have said over the past month. That my comments have made the atmosphere ‘tense’ and ‘unpleasant’. That I have made multiple volunteers feel ‘stressed,’‘disconcerted and unsafe’, to the extent that I have affected their mental well-being. I am not ‘considerate and respectful’ enough to be welcome as a volunteer.

-Regarding Kutti's actions going forward:

I will make no statement of victim impact regarding what my experience as a hypervisible person of colour speaking out against racism in this organisation has been, because I know that you do not care. For the record, I have filed no complaint against any individual volunteer because my focus has always been calling out the institutional patterns of racialised inequity and hostility. I will continue to document this organisation’s racism till you suspend me, and afterwards. I will always be open to hearing from current and former volunteers of colour, and I will continue to maintain the confidences of people who trusted me.

-Important final words:

The Organisation for Transformative Works has been weaponising its incompetence since its inception to argue that it is not racist, merely hapless. This CCAP is evidence that despite all the issues that plague the official machinery— when it feels a sense of urgency and desperation to lash out at someone, it is, in fact, right up there with the best of liberal white institutions at performing racism masked in policing.

Again: please see the full letter & response.

This is deeply inappropriate behavior on the part of OTW. To the people insisting that if fans of color should volunteer if they want to see/make any substantial change: this is what happens when volunteers of color try to make substantial change to the organization. Their volunteers are already at risk because they don't do a good job of ensuring their safety in a general sense, but their VOCs are at an increased risk of racist harassment within the organization from white volunteers, attacks from people outside of the organization, and apparently from the organization itself!

OTW has made its stance known that it will not support its more vulnerable volunteers, and will side with white volunteers who report VOCs because they feel "threatened" by discussions of racism. Telling FOCs to just volunteer is asking them to be subjected to the same reprimanding and punishment that Kutti has just experienced.

#otw #our transformative works #ao3 #end otw racism #eotwr #racism #original #important

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juney-blues · 1 year

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ever since i made THIS POST a lot of people have been asking for a tutorial, even though in pretty much all of the screenshots i included the specific part of inspect element showing exactly what i edited.

so buckle the fuck up I guess because the tumblr userbase want to find out how to make html pages unusable and who am I to deny you.

get ready for Baby's First HTML and CSS tutorial lmao

ok so first things first we need to go over BASIC HTML

html is made up of these things called "tags" which specify certain parts of the web page, such as

HEADERS (<h1> through <h6> in terms of importance)

PARAGRAPHS (<p>paragraph here</p>)

LINKS (<a href="linkhere"></a>)

BOLDED SECTIONS OF TEXT(<b>bold here</b>)

and a bunch of other stuff,

by default however, specifying all of this just gives us a plain white page with plain black text of varying sizes

that's of course, no fucking good, and sucks shit, so the arbiters of html decided to let us STYLE certain elements, by adding a STYLE parameter to the tag

this can change any number of elements about how things are formatted.

text colour, page colour, font, size, spacing between elements, text alignment, you name it? you can change it!

you might've noticed that, certain elements are nested in other elements

and that any changes that apply to one element, apply to everything included under that element!

how convenient!

anyway this method of styling things by adding a style=" " to their tags is called "in-line style"

i think because the "style" goes "in" the "line"

it's generally ALSO a pain in the ass to style an entire website like this and should be exclusively reserved for small changes that you only want to apply to specific parts of the page.

for any real change in style you want to create a <style> section in your page's header!

this can be used to make changes to how all elements of a type in your page are displayed

or even add new elements with whatever wacky styling you want that can be used with the <div> tag!

wow! isn't css just dandy!

and hell you can even use External CSS™ if you're making multiple pages and want them all to have a consistent theme, by pointing to a .CSS file (which is basically just a <style> header without the <style> tags lmao

ok this is all well and good and very interesting if, say, you're making your own website

*cough*neocities*cough*itsreallycoolandfree*cough*

but you came here because you want to FUCK UP A WEBSITE and make it look STUPID!!

so this is where the transform css property comes in~

you can read up on it HERE if you want the details but basically it allows you to apply mathematical transformations to any html element you want,

all of these fun bastards,

they can be really useful if you're doing some complicated stupid bullshit like me

OR for having fun >:)

if you'll remember, earlier i said that css properties apply to literally everything nested in an element,

and you MIGHT notice, that literally everything in pretty much all html files, is nested in an <html> tag

you can use style=" " or regular css on pretty much ANY html tag,

INCLUDING HTML!

ok ok that was a lot of buildup for something that i could've explained in one or two lines, but i gave you all this fundamental knowledge for a reason,

well, two reasons, go make a neocities

CHAPTER 2: THIS POST HAS CHAPTERS NOW

CSS KEY FRAMES BABYYYY

THESE FUCKERS DON'T WORK AS INLINE STYLING

I HAD TO TEACH YOU HOW CSS WORKED, TO GIVE YOU THE KNOWLEDGE YOU NEED, TO ANIMATE PAGES. TO MAKE THE FUCKERY COMPLETE!!!!

OKAY SO AGAIN READ UP ON THIS IF YOU WANT THE FULLEST POSSIBLE UNDERSTANDING

BUT WHAT KEYFRAMES ALLOW YOU TO DO, IS ANIMATE CSS PROPERTIES

and then make a class, which calls that animation...

and then assign that class. to your html tag.

and then vomit forever

we can do it in 3d too,

the only limit is your imagination... (and how many parameters you want to look up on w3schools and mozilla mdn web docs)

CHAPTER 3: APPLYING IN PRACTICE

ok now the fun thing about all of this, is you can apply it to your blog theme, literally right now

like literally RIGHT now

like step one, make sure you have a custom blog theme enabled in your settings, because that's turned off by default for some reason

step 2: edit theme

step 3: edit html:

step 4: apply knowledge in practice >:)

#juney.txt #html #css #web development #psa #long post

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midnightsilver · 1 month

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Tips for Spn Artists posting on Tumblr 😄👍🏻

I see a lot of new artists posting Spn art and it can be a struggle to get your art out there. Or you might be new to Tumblr and not sure how best to put yourself forward.

I post Spn art and do a lot of bangs when my health permits. And I have picked up some tips that I have found helpful for posting art tumblr 😄 so I thought I would share.

Please feel free to take any of these points or leave them as suits you!

✨Personalise your header and icon. Bots will often make posts with popular tags and stolen art, to try and gain followers before throwing out the spam links, but some clues the account is a bot is not having personalised headers and icons, not having a long history of posts (more than a few days), and not talking about their art or fandom. So make sure you don’t look like a bot 😄

✨Interact with accounts you enjoy. Like, comment and reblog your favourite accounts and they will likely return the favour and you will get more followers. The first way your post gets noticed is by your followers. Interacting isn’t always easy if one is an introvert or doesn’t have much time for social media, but do what you can where you can.

✨If don’t have many followers then the next best thing is to use tags more. People follow key tags to find new posts from blogs they are not aware of. I recommend using the ‘Spn fanart’ tag on all your art posts. Also be sure to include: common ship names, the character names, and key words like: cute, funny, angst, angel, wings, etc 👍🏻 😄 this will help people find your posts, so be sure to tag consistently!

✨Make a personal art tag, it could be ‘your name art’ or something as wacky as you like. But tag all your art with it! If someone sees your art post out in the Spn fanart tags and they like it, they can click your art tag to see the rest of your art posts.

✨Don’t include links to outside webpages unless absolutely necessary. If you are posting for a bang, reblog the bang master post for the story which has the links to ao3, but then make your own art post and only link to the tumblr master post. Tumblr often hides posts with links to outside webpages (so that the porn bots sending you to spam websites get minimised, but unfortunately this also minimises links to ao3 or shops 😔). Links to another post inside of tumblr are ok tho! So to keep your art post from being hidden from searches, only link back to the master tumblr post with the story info. If people want to read the story they can follow the ao3 link from there. But it’s better that they actually get to see your art (the ‘advert’ for the story) in the first place so that they know it exists!

Also keep this info in mind if you are linking to your shop or your other socials. Your direct followers will see your shop posts but because of the external links the post might be hidden from searches. Consider doing a mix of posts with direct shop links and ones that get the info out there but link back to a pinned tumblr post or bio post with the outside link.

✨Don’t crowd your art. Many people view tumblr on mobile so your pictures will look small. People can’t really see the details if you put 2 images side by side. Put one image on each line and consider making some cropped images to show close up details of your favourite bits. You need to catch people as they are quickly scrolling past, so be sure that you make it easy for them to see what you are offering.

✨And finally don’t be afraid to do reblogs. It isn’t rude to reblog your own work, it’s helpful. Dashboards can get very busy and even if people follow you, your post might be burried a long way down if they don’t get back online multiple times a day. Reblogs will give them a chance to see what they missed. As long as you are not posting on the hour every hour, most people appreciate 2 or 3 reblogs at different times to save them having to scrolled back for days! 😄 and don’t forget that tumblr is multinational. Time zone reblogs can be helpful.

✨oh I forgot one more thing! Don’t put yourself down! No piece of art is perfect! Ever! But Michelangelo doesn’t start off by apologising that the statue of David is out of proportion. And neither should you! Let your work shine where it shines and don’t bury it in put-downs before you even give others the chance to enjoy its triumphs! You deserve better and so do they!

Those are the main points my friends. If you have any other helpful tips that you want to share, feel free to reblog this and add on points. We were all new to this hellsite (affectionate) at some point. And life is already hard for us struggling artists so whatever we can do to help each other is a good thing 💛

Stay awesome my friends, and happy Arting 🙌🏼😄

#supernatural #spn fanart #artists on tumblr #tips #art #tumblr #helpful #posting tips #bangs and challenges

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reevepheusweek · 7 months

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Since Reeve Carney is leaving Hadestown soon, from November 12th to 19th we're going to celebrate Orpheus Week in his honor!

Day 1, November 12th, "To the Sunshine and the Fruit of the Vine" (Edmonton): A day dedicated to the first, rural incarnation of Reeve's Orpheus in the Edmonton era of Hadestown

Day 2, November 13th, "Always had a Crowd" (London): A day dedicated to London's stylish rockstar incarnation of Reeve's Orpheus, who never walked alone

Day 3, November 14th, "Touched by the Gods" (Broadway): A day dedicated to the Broadway incarnation of Reeve's Orpheus, the sweet bartender who lives under Hermes's wing

Day 4, November 15th, "I Believe in Us Together" (Love/Relationships): A day dedicated to Orpheus's relationships in general, whether with Eurydice, Hermes, Persephone, the Workers, even an OC!

Day 5, November 16th, "If It's True what They Say" (Grief/Poverty): A day dedicated to Orpheus's circumstances and lowest points in his life

Day 6, November 17th, "Spring Will Come Again" (Nature/Environment): A day dedicated to Orpheus's love for and connection to Nature in general, and his environmentalism

Day 7, November 18th, "Working on a Song" (Music): A day dedicated to Orpheus's musical gifts and his writing/composing process!

Day 8, November 19th, "To Orpheus and All of Us" (Free Day): This is the day we bid Reeve's Orpheus goodbye, so feel free to contribute to the final toast with anything!

Just tag us (@reevepheusweek) and/or tag your work with #Orpheusweek and we'll reblog! (Or send us the link if it's an external work, like a fanfic in AO3 or a Youtube performance!) Submit your fanfics, fanarts, poetry, songs, anything for our beloved poor boy, whether new or old!

Spill a drop for Orpheus, wherever he is now...

#hadestown #hadestown broadway #hadestown edmonton #hadestown london #reeve carney #hadestown orpheus #Greek mythology #Broadway #orpheus week #orpheusweek

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trillscienceofficer · 10 months

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I saw you said in the tags that you don't agree with Seven being about 13 etc, and I could not agree more because it irks me so much when people say how Seven was mentally 6 when they freed her from the Borg, or something to that effect. She was abused by the Borg to the point of not having her own thoughts but she still aged. Maybe she struggled socially after she was freed from that but it didn't take away the years she spent in the collective. It's basically infantilizing and paired with Seven being perceived as autistic by some, or just the fact that she went though the trauma of being Borg, is ableism to me. End of rant.

I apologize for not replying sooner to this ask but I wanted to grab a couple of links before replying because yes, I think you're totally right that saying anything to that effect (that Seven is actually a child, or that 'she doesn't actually know what's best for her') is infantilization of a character who is canonically a physically disabled adult, as well as having a very strong subtext for neurodivergence, and that it plays into ableist stereotypes that contribute to making the lives of real disabled people tangibly worse.

First, I want to make clear that no matter how muddled the metaphors get when it comes to Seven (and oh boy do they, between the cyborg technobabble and the completely absurd way Seven was "dressed" and made up on Voyager, talking about her is always a struggle), she is disabled. She makes use of many prosthetics and she has to regenerate (ie she has to make use of an external device) regularly or there are unpredictable consequences to her health. I realize this is maybe not super clear from the text, which sometimes conveniently forgets about Seven's limitations re: regeneration (see this post) and turns her prosthetics into a sort of superpower; I'm not saying it's an accurate depiction of disability by any means, but it's not something that can be completely ignored when discussing Seven either. In all honesty I've downplayed this aspect of Seven's character in the past and I really regret it because after it was pointed out to me, it's indeed pretty obvious. The trauma of Borg assimilation was disabling, and it's embodied in Seven even more than it is in other xBs, since it happened to her so young. She can never 'get rid' of it and she doesn't exactly want to, either*, even with all her very understandable ambivalence about it ("I am human, but I am also Borg").

(*I think Picard S2 makes this argument more complicated but recent live-action shows have been truly fucking awful at dealing with disability and metaphors thereof so I won't try to make sense of it. What matters is that Seven ultimately couldn't be 'magically cured' there either.)

ETA: I forgot to add, Seven is absolutely an adult. To me there's no question about it; she's played by an adult and none of her storylines, none of her struggles about figuring out how to be an individual in a group, about how to live with the terrible guilt and responsibility about her actions as Borg drone make sense if she isn't an adult. The whole character of Seven of Nine falls apart if she isn't an adult who is struggling with the terrible consequences of trauma.

Second, infantilization is a very real manifestation of ableism. This article defines infantilization as "a nondisabled person having more power than a disabled person and using that power against them to invalidate their thoughts, opinions or experiences. This can show up in numerous ways, such as indirectly speaking to a disabled person or assuming that the individual can't advocate or speak for themselves." In short, treating a disabled person like a child who needs to be directed at all times and who is assumed to not fully understand the ramifications of any independent decisions. It's not a matter of just language, either: the same article points out that 1.3 million disabled adults in the US were under conservatorship in 2018, and that forced sterilization of disabled adults is still legal in at least 31 US states plus Washington D.C. So let me make this super clear: disabled adults having their autonomy revoked, especially their bodily autonomy, is absolutely an issue in our current world. And it all stems from this ableist conceptualization of disabled adults as being like children, incapable of making the right decisions by themselves and for themselves, especially about their own bodies.

Now it's maybe clearer how this relates to Seven's whole deal, both in the show and in fandom. On the show, so many things about her prosthetics and about her looks were decided by the Doctor without consulting her at all, and how ironic it is that the one taking the decisions is a hologram coded with the biases of so many medical professionals, and it's one of those cases when no one, no one challenges the EMH! Sure, the Doctor pretty much saved her by making the reclamation process very smooth, but of course the idea that he can 'shape her' and ultimately 'cure her' of her disabilities (subtextual neurodivergence included) keeps popping up in the show pretty frequently, and she almost never gets a word in edgewise. Seven and the Doctor end up striking up a friendship, and things get a little less eyebrow-raising, but still it's pretty horrifying how the sexism of the production translates into ableism diegetically, though to be fair to Voyager it's definitely not the only Trek show where this happens. It's just that being about Seven, it's a very sustained theme on Voyager, and one I really wish wasn't there.

Off the show, in fandom, I think it would behoove us to at least try to do better than Voyager. Ultimately Seven of Nine is a fictional character that has no real feelings to hurt etc, but again what message does it send to real people when (part of) the fandom insists that Seven is 'mentally a child' or 'doesn't know what's best for her' and can't take her own decisions about her own future, even her own name? Again I'm not saying this to be a scold, and I can recognize that I haven't always been fair in my approach of Seven's disability. There's a lot of work I still need to do, and language is just a very tiny start. But it is a start nonetheless; I'd like it if people could see it as well.

#askbox #this post owes a lot to @avoicefromthestars once again #whose perspective really opened my eyes on this issue #seven of nine #voy #ableism #ask me to tag

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pfhwrittes · 5 months

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🔞

THIS IS AN 18+ BLOG, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT THANK YOU.

hi, i'm pfh, call me p or parker. they/them pronouns. i'm 28 and i live in the uk. i write silly AUs, fluff, a little bit of smut, and 18+ content and i'm dipping my toe into dark fics.

currently writing for the CoD:MW (reboot) fandom.

i go out of my way to avoid minors, so blank blogs or blogs with no indication of age will be blocked.

I DO NOT SUPPORT THE USE OF AI OR C.AI IN ANY FORM. blogs that do will be blocked indiscriminately.

external links: PFH on AO3 Ko-fi jar

tumblr links: PFH talks about england aka the tag where i talk about predominantly english cultural quirks and my own lived in experiences. Answered asks (sometimes 18+ content) Personal posts WIP snippets PFH headcannons (sometimes 18+ content) FAQs Tag games PFH inspiration tag aka stuff for the brainworms to feed on. The Horrible Creechurs aka my cats (with guest appearances from my family and friend's creechurs too) PFH Prompts Current project status: ON HIATUS

ANON ASKS ARE ON

Masterlist for all projects taken emoji anons (separated with a semi-colon): ✨♥️🗡; 🐙; 💪;🐆;

faqs/boundaries under the cut

updated: 03/05/24. (dd/mm/yy format)

repeat (or "spam") likers, rebloggers, repliers and askers will be cherished. this isn't tiktok or instagram so scroll as far back as you want to interact with my blog, i will love you forever.

this is a sideblog. i follow back from my main account.

i do have a masterlists tag, i try to keep it updated but i kind of suck at it. also not everything has a masterlist (yet!).

yes i'm aware there's a spelling mistake in my url. at this point i like it, it's cute.

DO NOT PLUG MY WORK INTO ANY AI (YES, EVEN C.AI).

things/characters i won't write: könig, feet worship, scat, vore, vomit, feeder/feedee, kidfics, forced feminisation, incest/pseudo-incest, paedophilia / underage (all my reader characters are of age and usually headcannoned to be 21+), necrophilia, bestiality, ageplay / age regression. (more to be added at my discretion).

#pfh faq

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seancosy · 9 months

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I saw ur post in the solarpunk tag and! I think we can do better! I think nobody should have to work ever, because how do we pick who's exempt? who's making that decision? the only way I can think for it to be fair is if the person themself gets to make that decision.

bc like the system you're describing isn't hypothetical and as someone who's gone through a nightmare of uncaring bureaucracy just to be allowed not to work due to disability I can say it doesn't work and definitely doesn't feel like a utopia!

I don't follow you and not gonna come back to this so do with it what you want but yeah something to consider I guess

Points I agree with:

People should have the ability to self-determine their capacity to work, and should not be expected to work if they are unable to.

External parties should not be deciding who is able or unable to work.

Points I disagree with:

"Nobody should have to work ever"

I may be misunderstanding you, but... life is work. Someone needs to drive trains, design functional sewerage systems, deliver babies, rescue people from burning buildings, grow rice, implement grain shipping logistics, change diapers, develop vaccines, wash clothes, teach children to read, sterilise surgical equipment, provide counselling to antisocial or dangerous people, cook food for the elderly, insert urinary catheters, repair potholes in roads, pick up rubbish, code the software that checks pressure in dam walls, etc.

None of the above jobs are particularly sexy. Very few people would dream of performing any of these roles when they are growing up. But the work is necessary to maintain a functional society. What links these jobs is that they are meaningful. They help. They improve society. People can find purpose and fulfillment in these tasks because they know they are helping society, even if indirectly.

There are so many jobs in our current society that do not provide a benefit to anyone other than a select few capitalists. If we restructured to become more 'solarpunk' (which I interpret as more communist and likely more anarchist than current societies), these capitalist jobs wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't miss them. Merchant bankers, advertising executives, influencers, soldiers, funko-pop factory workers (I have a personal dislike for these products; such an overt waste of materials and for literally no benefit! people often don't even take them out of their packets?!?!), mortgage brokers, the list goes on.

If we redirected the people working in these capitalist jobs towards roles that directly help society.... everyone would work a lot less, but society would function just as effectively, if not more so. There would be fewer jobs, and more people to do them. There would be more chance to rest and enjoy leisure time. And yes, some people would probably be able to never work at all, if they chose to. But if the work is meaningful, I genuinely believe most people would want to work, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to do something meaningful for others even for just a few hours a week (clean the dishes at the cafeteria or babysit your friend's kids). But no, I don't think people's work contributions should be monitored or quantified at all, unless it's to tell people to rest when they are overworked. People should work of their own volition. And of course those with disabilities or any other factors that prevent them from working safely shouldn't need to work if they are unable or unwilling.

An interesting book that portrays a world that is anarcho-communist is The Dispossessed, by Ursula K LeGuin. It details the struggle between the need for work VS personal freedom exceptionally well.

(Original post linked below)

#ask #anon #solarpunk #work #communism

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eldritchamy · 1 year

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WAIT hold on hi abt the tags on the post about terfs being stupid about periods you reblogged - does HRT really end up causing similar hormone change cycles to periods? i've never heard abt that before and it's kind of boggling my mind because on the one hand why WOULDN'T HRT do that but on the other hand why WOULD it?

So keep in mind I am not an expert on the subject and everything I’m about to tell you is for the purpose of introducing you to the subject matter.

The short answer is yes. And it’s not similar to periods. It’s EXACTLY periods. Caused by the exact same hormones interacting with the body in the exact same way.

So yes it does happen, and it happens because a period doesn’t come from a uterus. It comes from the hypothalamus. A uterus is just the organ most noticeably affected by it. A uterus is not necessary whatsoever to experience period symptoms.

Everyone has a hypothalamus. It’s just a little thing in your brain that does some endocrine/hormone stuff. Under the right hormone conditions, ANYONE can have period symptoms. Not everyone can bleed because you need uterine lining tissue for that (some amab intersex people do! I’ve read at least one account from an amab person who found out they were intersex BECAUSE they had a small amount of uterine lining in their rectum which caused monthly bleeding when they hit puberty).

But literally every other period symptom is fair game.

And yes, that sucks.

If you want quick links to some sources I’ve read about the subject without clicking through for my rambling bullshit, here:

Yes, Trans Women Can Get Period Symptoms (2016)

Cycle Dynamic - Why Trans Women Can Have Periods (2018)

If you DO want my rambling bullshit, buckle up because I’m Very Normal when I find a subject interesting.

The background fact you need to understand the rest of this is that the human body doesn’t actually HAVE separate “versions” of anything for ‘male’ and ‘female’ bodies (I may be using these terms more liberally than they should really be used for ease of reading, but for the record the gender binary is bullshit, which is the point of where this is going). Even a penis is just a modified clitoris. It’s not an analogous structure. It’s literally the exact same organ. (And it does change in response to hormones).

The human body is just the human body. It decides how it behaves based on chemistry, not genetics. There are CERTAIN STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (namely embryonic/EARLY fetal and puberty) in which major diversions in form and function happen. And of those embryonic is faaaaaaar more significant because it’s what sets the harder to change things (primary sex characteristics) in place. Most secondary sex characteristics can be changed later just by changing the hormone chemistry of your body, which is the entire principle behind why HRT is possible.

At no point ever in the entire span of a human life cycle does anything like “oh okay, you have a BOY hypothalamus :) enjoy :)” happen. You just have the same hypothalamus as everyone else, barring medical conditions.

SO. Basically how it works is your hypothalamus knows how much estrogen is in your body at any given time, and if it notices a spike in that level, it says to itself, “OH SHIT! WE HAVE A MATURE EGG! Time to MAKE SOME CHANGES.”

Your hypothalamus does not know or care whether you have a uterus. It only responds to the estrogen cycle.

Both cis and trans women (and anyone else who either has a working uterus or takes an estrogen supplement, but again, using simple language to get the ideas across) have estrogen cycles.

In CIS women, the estrogen cycle is internal and based on ovulation. TL;DR, your ovaries release different amounts of estrogen throughout the cycle based on the maturity of an egg cell.

In TRANS women, the estrogen cycle is external because we get our estrogen from pills or injections instead of from ovaries, and it’s based on how your body metabolizes that medication. You usually get a big hit around the time you get the dosage and then it tapers off until you take the next dose. Back to this in a second.

IN EITHER CASE, your hypothalamus tracks those changes and responds to them by releasing the period hormones (GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone), LH (Leutinizing Hormone)) at a certain point in that cycle. When your hypothalamus feels that estrogen spike, it doesn’t CARE where that estrogen came from because it’s not its JOB to know where the estrogen came from. It only cares that it’s there. And you have the exact same hypothalamus no matter what genitals you have.

This next bit is speculation on my part based on experience and anecdotal evidence, but it seems like the greater and more predictable the VARIATION over the course of that cycle, the easier it is for your hypothalamus to be like “AHA! NOW!” and keep you on a regular cycle. Trans women who take INJECTIONS, which are on a much longer release schedule than pills, tend to experience more ups and downs in their estrogen levels and more noticeable, and regular, period symptoms. FOR ME, I’ve only ever been on pills, at a few different dosages. Earlier on I noticed that for (surprise) about 3 to 5 days every month, I would get all kinds of symptoms like headaches, backaches, joint aches, muscle aches, irritability, mood swings, depressive episodes, odd cravings (usually just crunchy and salty but sometimes really specific things), bloating, cramps (yes really), gastrointestinal stuff, etc. I suspect, with no evidence either way, that these symptoms were mild, but I’ve heard other trans women describe their symptoms as much less severe than mine, so idk.

ALSO earlier on, I used to take all of my pills at once, one time per day. I noticed something interesting when I switched to splitting my dosage and taking half twice a day: a huge reduction in severity and regularity of period symptoms. My levels are a lot more consistent throughout the day now, and I guess my hypothalamus can no longer sense a spike in my levels. (It used to be ESPECIALLY severe when I ran out and it took a few days to get my prescriptions refilled, cause then I had an estrogen crash (which gives you symptoms of menopause and wow THAT’S a wild ride, hot flashes are the actual worst) followed by a spike when I got back on them and almost always would have a super noticeable period within days of this happening).

So when I started spreading my dosage throughout the day, I basically made my hypothalamus too confused to know when to release those hormones. Either that or it thinks I’m pregnant. I’m not sure.

Coming back from that tangent.

It is a VERY KNOWN THING that when you take estrogen INJECTIONS, you need to work with your doctors a bit to figure out the exact dosage and timing that works best for you, because a lot of the time what happens with that is you’ll experience pretty severe dysphoria and depression symptoms in the days leading up to your next injection, and if this describes the experience of anyone you know, congrats, that’s PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder), and you need your injections to be a few days closer together to prevent those symptoms. It’s literally your body experiencing an estrogen crash because your last dose wore off too long before you got the next one. This is also more common in people who take Progesterone.

The long and short of what happens when your hypothalamus registers an estrogen spike is that it releases the period hormones, which basically among other things go down to your abdomen and say W̶̫̬̒I̶̧̬̤͛Ĝ̴̦͆̽G̴̢̞̈́L̴̩͖̂E̷͇̲̊͐̀. And if you have a uterus, all that wiggling is what makes your uterus cramp up and squeeze out its lining and start bleeding. It ALSO has the delightful side effect of not really caring enough to target the uterus specifically, so it also makes your INTESTINES start cramping up and squeezing themselves, so fun fact that’s where period shits come from if you have those.

Everybody say “thank you, hypothalamus.”

So yeah that’s why it happens. The TL;DR is blame the hypothalamus. The human body is differentiated by chemistry not chromosomes. Put the right chemistry in place and you can absolutely get periods.

And yes, they suck for us too.

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noraleedoes · 1 year

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The Community Palette Project

New Update!

The submission form has been updated, and now you can:

Submit the form as many times as you'd like - though try to be respectful of others; if you've got another 20+ submissions lined up, perhaps space them out over a day or two.

Complete the form for your V/OC OR for your favorite NPCs - there are plenty of shades left to name, so I've opened the form up to NPC shade naming as well!

Share the form elsewhere - the form has been updated so that you no longer need a tumblr username to submit it; please feel free to share the link to the form with friends in the Cyberpunk 2077 fan community on other sites, on Cyberpunk 2077 discord servers you're a part of, on twitter, wherever!

We're currently at 379 out of 720 shades named! That means there's still quite a ways to go (so feel free to bust out a few of your less prominent OCs for naming :p), but that's also just plainly amazing to see. Thank you all so much for contributing up to this point, and for all of the joy in the tags; this project has been a really lovely reminder of the best things about being a part of this community.

You can ⭐complete the form here.⭐

The link for sharing is: https://forms.gle/5uEfg2bUTQLus3wk6

As with previous posts, I must also kindly ask that you pass this around; due to external links in the post, it's possible it won't display properly in the tags, and thus will only reach a larger audience via reblogs. If you contribute, please also consider reblogging this post, so that we can reach more folks and get all those shades named. <3

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #cbp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 modding #cp2077 modding #nldoescontent

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anim-ttrpgs · 9 months

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TTRPG WIP meme

tagged by @ostrichmonkey-games

We’re a small team with a lot of aspirations among us, but thankfully we can each help keep the other on track.

TTRPG projects in some form of active development:

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy (99% complete, external playtesting)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is, well, our main big thing that we’ve been posting about a lot. It’s a rules-medium 2D6 system for investigation-oriented adventures in any time period between about 1850 and the present day, with a bit of a supernatural twist. It’s made to be partially setting agnostic, able to run just about any adventure that isn’t based entirely around combat, and even effortlessly run adventure modules from other systems. There are many unique things about Eureka, but we have been posting in-depth about them for weeks, so you can just check out this blog if you want to know more. Instead, I’ll just rapid fire off a few: A unique approach to investigation that builds up points with each roll even if the roll fails, and with enough points a previously failed investigation roll can be retroactively turned into a success, resulting in a ‘eureka moment’ where certain pieces of the mystery finally fall into place.

Fast, but deep and realistic combat, with a lot of strategy based more around the environment and positioning than use of special abilities; guns will typically take a target down in one shot, so keep your head down—or better yet just don’t get shot at in the first place if you value your life.

Freeform character creation where you can easily make either a normal person or a supernatural creature of the night without being constrained and forced to compromise by the system—so long as the monsters adhere to a few basic rules: Must be able to pass for human at a glance, must have some supernatural weaknesses that don’t just apply to combat, and must feed on people in some way. There is also the option to make a much less powerful supernatural character that doesn’t have to worry much about weaknesses or eating people, but they won’t be the combat powerhouses they the monsters tend to be.

Unique roleplay mechanics where supernatural PCs must hide their true natures from not only society at large, but the party and even the players at the table as well. Even if you’re on the same side, it’s usually best not to tell your teammates that you’re an eight-hundred-year-old vampire. They’ll start asking uncomfortable questions like “Where are the neighbors?” That’s between you and the GM only.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is coming to Kickstarter later this year. Follow this blog for more information and updates.

FORIVA: The Angel Game(99% complete, external playtesting)

FORIVA: The Angel Game is our first “completed” adventure module for use with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, and i really could not be happier with how it has turned out. It is a horror-mystery adventure, as most Eureka adventures will be, and man is it scary. I’ll link the post we made about it here

but also give a very short synopsis of the hook: The year is 1999, and a small American city is quietly panicking as more and more teenagers end up either missing or hospitalized in a strange half-catatonic state. Those who can still talk don’t seem to remember anything about their regular life or identity, and only talk incoherently about an “angel” they see. It will be up to the investigators to hunt down the cause of this phenomenon, and put a stop to it, if they can.

Eureka Kickstarter Page(80% complete)

This is self-explanatory.

A.N.I.M. Substack Newsletter(70% complete)

Also self-explanatory.

Oil Rig(70% complete)

“Oil Rig” is only the working title, we hope to come up with something better before release. But hey, it does take place on an oil rig.

This is another horror-mystery adventure module for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, though this one really leans more towards survival-horror. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, an oil drilling platform in the open ocean has been reduced from a crew of 200 to a crew of roughly 12, but is still expected to keep up the same level of efficiency for no extra pay of course, even when an unseen force begins to pick them off one by one. Sound familiar?

At the time of writing this, “Oil Rig” is about 70% or 75% complete, but this post is going in our queue, so by the time you read this is might have already been handed to playtesters.

Free Demo Module(30% complete)

“Free Demo Module” is of course the working title for what is going to be our free demo module, made to work with the free demo rulebook we plan to release. This module is going to be short, and only engage with the mechanics that will be provided in the free demo rulebook for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.

On Halloween, the investigators try to unwind with a fun visit to a local haunted house/escape room experience where they will have to use all the wits and skills at their disposal to solve a staged Victorian murder before it’s too late(and they have to clear out and let the next group have their turn.)

But, is everything as it seems? (Yes it is, this module is intended to showcase the Eureka system’s ability to run investigation and puzzles. There is almost no possibility for combat or death or supernatural hijinks because those things are something you’ll have to buy the full version for.)

TTRPG projects on the backburner:

Seedtown(30% complete)

Seedtown is not just an adventure module, it’s a full campaign for use with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, centered around several mysterious disappearances in a remote rural town in the mountains of Arkansas. The plan is for this one to be even more ‘sandbox’ than the other smaller modules, which already anticipate that different parties will reach conclusions in different ways. This one is just bigger and longer because it has more locations, more NPCs, and multiple mysteries that may or may not overlap and lead the investigators to a terrifying end.

Eureka Mobster Manual(10% complete)

This is another working title, but we might still keep it because it’s funny. This will be a sold-separately supplement for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy packed with fully statted NPCs, bad guys, and monsters for GMs to populate the world of their campaign with. The monster entries will also include behavioral guidelines, possible motivations, plot hooks, and weaknesses that aren’t necessarily “just bring a really big gun”. Even when weapons are involved, defeating most monsters in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy will be more about thinking, researching, and planning rather than just having better stats.

Even though this will be sold separately, we plan to make it a very affordable price, probably even “pay what you want”, because unlike some RPGs, we don’t want our game to require 5 $50 books as the bare minimum investment to play.

Eureka Medieval(1% complete)

This is what it sounds like, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, but set in the Middle Ages rather than the modern era. It will use the same core systems, but with more advanced and deeper melee combat and armor rules, and of course plenty of setting information for how to run realistic and historically accurate mysteries for investigators of the 14th and 15th centuries, and guidelines for how to create historically accurate player characters. (And no, that doesn’t just mean “everyone is covered in dirt and women aren’t allowed to exist.”)

Death Bed(50% complete)

This is another working title, but one we might stick with.

Death Bed is the result of me being stuck at home for over a week with no car and a chip on my shoulder about the fact that the “official dark souls tabletop role playing game” is just a D&D5e reskin. So I spent three days typing literally all day writing a system that I felt might actually translate the gameplay of Dark Souls to a turn-based RPG. It is still, in some ways, a D20 system, but borrows more from AD&D than any 21st century iteration, and borrows some from the dark souls board game as well.

Enemy behavior can be easily predicted, to the point that the GM doesn’t even hardly do anything during combat. When you attack, you don’t roll to hit, you just roll your weapon’s damage, and when an enemy attacks, you only roll to dodge or block.

PCs may die and return to life multiple times in the same combat encounter, though each death puts them closer to the brink of madness, at which point they will become another shambling corpse the rest of the party will have to defeat to reach their goals. Each stage of this regression grants the character unique advantages and disadvantages as well. For example, those right on the brink will be recognized by some enemies as one of their own, making them less likely to be targeted by attacks.

I wrote so much of this in so short a span of time that I had to stop myself and force it into the backburner, or else I might’ve dropped dead.

Eureka: Overdose(1% complete)

Similar to the Mobster Manual, this is a planned supplement book for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.

This book will also be sold separately for a very low price, and feature a large number of pre-made combat encounters complete with environments and fully statted enemies to be slotted in as big climactic showdowns in Eureka adventures. Each of these encounters will feature multiple difficulty levels changed by adding or removing certain elements from play, and guidelines for estimating what a party of investigators will be able to handle.

And then of course we also have a whole document full of one-sentence to one-paragraph synopsises of adventure modules to write for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, but none of these are quite out of the idea stage, so I’m not including them on this list.

And we are tagging @efangamez, so everyone can hear about her projects as well!

#eureka: investigative urban fantasy #eureka #ttrpg #call of cthulhu #roleplaying #tabletop #coc #meme #dnd #dungeons and dragons #projects #art

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copperbadge · 2 years

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(This is a little heavy, but I wanted to apologise.) To be honest, the kinning ask was partly due to expecting you to know something about it, since you seem pretty well informed about fandom history and lore.

...But some of it was also spur of the moment upset, I'm afraid. I've repeatedly asked people on my fanart posts not to tag the characters as kin, and a lot of times they don't respect that. It's deeply anxiety inducing to see things tagged as something that I knew many neurodivergent kids/teens who tried to hurt themselves to get "back" to where they believed they came from, and seeing it bandied around so much ended up with me wanting input from a internet guy who's known to be more chill and objective.

Which isn't your responsibility, or something you could have read intothat short ask before. It's alright whether or not you decide to publish this ask, I just wanted to be clear and say sorry about the weirdness.

(Link to initial ask here, for the curious.)

You know, this is really interesting, and I feel a bit weird saying that in response to an apology, but I'd like to dig into this a little! And up front, I’m sorry you’re going through that -- Tumblrites are not always known for reading or adhering to the fine print even when the fine print is...huge. It sucks that people aren’t respecting your pretty reasonable request.

A lot of times, when I get an apology like this, I will say "Hey no need to apologize" or similar, and honestly I wasn't expecting or in need of an apology from you. But I do appreciate that you are saying you had a kind of knee-jerk reaction to something external to the two of us and came to me about it, and that maybe that wasn't entirely appropriate. So in this case I want to say apology accepted. I don't want you to feel bad, but I want to accept the apology rather than say it wasn’t necessary, because I think it validates good behavior in you. This was a good ask for you to send and I know it can’t have been easy either. So you can absolutely stop reading here if you want to, knowing that I think you did a good job and I’m not mad in any way.

But I do want to discuss it more, because it's actually incredibly common for me as an experience.

I was aware -- which is why I took the stance of inquiry that I did -- that when you sent that ask you were very likely responding to something I couldn't see. I was a little wary, because one never knows when one is about to be sucked into some fight through sheer lack of context, but I didn't see the harm in responding honestly; if you were in earnest you'd get to hear my thoughts, and if you were being disingenuous I wasn't giving you much to get your hooks into. And hey presto, you were in earnest!

If you had said "I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the term kinning, because XYZ" you would not even need an apology, that's a legit thing to want to ask someone when you know they'll have an interesting perspective. I think the minor struggle for both you and myself is that you made a statement of a stance, rather than asking a question. But again, I am not here to make you feel bad, I'm pointing it out because it's something a lot of people do. Not even to me -- just in the world in general.

But yes also to me sometimes.

Because I have a large readership, and because I have a reputation for thoughtful response, I get this kind of interaction with relative frequency. Many are perfectly fine, healthy things to say to someone with an open inbox, and that one wasn’t especially unhealthy. But sometimes, also, people who are caught in toxic habits will see my blog and without even realizing they’re doing it will try to use me, and by extension the readership, in unhealthy ways. Usually that’s pretty visible and I’m able to head it off, because people in that much pain aren’t subtle, but I also can’t always fix the problem, and sometimes the best I can do is silence.

One of the reasons I stopped offering hugs to individual people and instead do the hug-for-all every Saturday is that I was beginning to get a lot of people who were using me -- using my platform to trauma-dump to a large audience, which can be emotionally gratifying but which is not behavior to encourage. It's not a healthy way to deal with pain, and it's not an appropriate way to interact with others; it doesn’t help the person in pain and it tends to isolate them because people pull away from constantly being subjected to a stranger’s suffering, especially if there’s nothing reciprocated.

And to your credit you didn't roll up on me and just drop this pallet of understandable pain that you're feeling on my head. You wanted to hear my thoughts, which of course is gratifying to me, but also speaks to an urge in you to try and reconcile that pain, to figure out how to process it. And in opening up more about why you brought it to me, you’re now giving me context rather than, say, just yelling about people or yelling at me because I didn’t fully understand.

Ultimately, I think the message I want to convey at large is that if you (the generic, population-of-tumblr you) are in pain or sad or need help understanding something that’s causing distress, reaching out is absolutely the right thing to do. But we need to remember when we reach out that we are not asking a vending machine for a band-aid, we’re asking a whole person for their compassion, and that is not something we have a right to demand on terms we set. The easing of pain is a relationship, even if it’s only a temporary one, and a relationship is reciprocal.

And you, Anon, personally, shouldn’t beat yourself up for not quiiiiiite getting there with the first ask -- you got a lot closer than a lot of people would. If I can put my Dad Hat on for a second, you’ve got good sound instincts, kiddo. Trust ‘em.

#fandom interaction #trauma

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nellie-elizabeth · 9 months

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Some whining about fan responses to GO2 below the cut. I'm just being a jerk mostly lol.

Not gonna tag or link the posts because I'm not trying to stir shit but I see some people doing the thing for Good Omens season 2 that people did for Sherlock or Supernatural where, they didn't really like some aspects of season 2, and instead of saying "oh, that part didn't really gel with me" they think "Oh, it's actually all part of a long con that Neil Gaiman is playing on us! The stuff that I thought was bad? It was bad on purpose!" (Remember, the secret final episode of Sherlock, or the fact that the penultimate Supernatural episode was "bad on purpose" so the finale would fix it all?)

And it's so frustrating because I think these people are setting themselves up for further disappointment when season three comes. I personally loved season two of good omens! It really hit the spot for me, I thought it was funny and charming and clever and perfectly heartbreaking. If you didn't like it, that's okay, you don't have to construct a whole conspiracy theory around "why it was bad".

I want to be clear i don't mean just having theories about potential mysteries/clues leading to season 3. What are the Metatron's real motivations? Will we get to know who Crowley was as an angel before the fall? That sort of stuff is fun to speculate about, and we certainly don't have all the answers!

What I'm talking about things like... I saw someone say that the Eccles Cakes were a secret clue: why bring them up and put such emphasis on them only for them not to get eaten, hmmm? That couldn't have been just a simple oversight... it must be a grander point about the secret undercurrent plot that's been hiding right in front of our eyes this whole time.

And... no, it's not a simple oversight. It's not a grand clue to a big mystery (imo) either. It's pretty basic storytelling. Aziraphale asks Nina for something that calms people down, he procures the Eccles cakes on her recommendation, and then hands them off to Crowley as they enter the shop. There's a pointed shot of the uneaten cookies as Crowley storms off because, guess what, nobody ate them, and nobody's calming down! I think that's it, y'all. No grand mystery to parse here.

Or one thing I saw that really had me scratching my head was "why did we spend so long in the '40s minisode seeing Aziraphale pick out magic tricks in the shop, do the whole fake-out with the bullets, etc.? What was the point of showing us all that?"

I mean... because it was funny and charming and good character development? I don't know that it was leading to any grand secret behind the scenes. The setup and the pay-off is all right there in the 1940's flashbacks. Aziraphale is bad at stage magic, and then real miracles are blocked, and in the moment of truth he's able to use trickery correctly, for once in his life. Crowley and Aziraphale both manage to keep each other safe in the human way, even when their miracles are blocked. It's all right there, it doesn't have to be a clue leading to some big switcharoo later down the road.

Or one last thing I saw was people saying "where were the Zombies? Why have a plot about digging up corpses, and another story about Zombies, what does it all mean?"

And like... I don't know, maybe it means some Secret Extra Thing that i just haven't seen yet, but isn't it also possible that it means... thematic foreshadowing of season three's external plot? You've got Job's children being "reborn", you've got corpses being dug up, you've got zombies roaming London. The third season is about the Second Coming, y'all. I don't want to say "it's not that deep" because it is that deep, it's not just... extra made up layers of obfuscation that give it unnecessary confusing deepness. If that makes sense.

Bottom line, if this season didn't gel with you, I'm sorry! But I promise you, you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you spend the next couple years divining all the secret codes Gaiman put into the work for you. He didn't write a "bad on purpose" season of television. He wrote a good season of television! I'm sure there are mysteries to unravel, and fun clues to go back and find later on when we see how it all ends up. But he didn't write an entire season of TV to be a big giant misdirect in and of itself. I really don't think that's how this works.

End of soap box.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #slightly prickly meta #i've just seen a couple people trying to convince themselves that their dissatisfaction is all part of a grander plan #and it's.... not #okay?#maybe you just had really high expectations and you've seen season one ten bajillion times and something new/different just didn't hit righ #and that's valid #i didn't love 100% of the new season #there were some jokes i didn't like #some elements that felt a little boring #but i think that's just because not everyone enjoys everything?#not because Gaiman is pulling an elaborate con #lol

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enkhanthor · 1 year

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LEGACY HISTORY CHALLENGE

Hey guys! Welcome to my Simblr!!!

*Note: English isn't my mother language and I’m not an expert in idiomatic expression. So if you find any errors or something weird, please forgive me and let me know on “ask me” if you want.

Tradução em português aqui.

LHC Doc - EN/US

LHC Doc - PT/BR

INTRODUCTION

The Legacy History Challenge is a Sims 4 challenge based on the Legacy Challenge, History Challenge, and Ultimate Decades Challenge that takes your Founder Sim and descendants on a tour of Sim history, from Prehistory to the 2030s, whose events parallel human history. I dare say that this is the most complete, longest and ambitious challenge of The Sims ever done, because even narrowing down the ancient history, it should cover almost 500 Sim years (the year of the game), all expansions and game packs, completing all the achievements and adding other known challenges. At some point along this challenge I intend to incorporate and adapt The Amazon Challenge, The Great British Challenge, Ultimate Decades Challenge, Decades Challenge, Trash to Luxury Hardcore, Not Enough Human, Black Widow Challenge, Asylum Challenge, Bunker Challenge, Seven Babies Challenge, among others.

GOALS

The main goal of the Legacy History Challenge is to build a genealogical legacy from prehistory to the present day based on human history and complete all the achievements of The Sims 4. To do so, each Age has its own specific goals and rules.

REQUIREMENTS

LHC is designed to play with different ethnicities over time and different types of gameplay, including various packs and expansions. In the rules for each Age there is a topic where I detail which expansions and packages are required and optional. If you don't have the expansion or core pack, you'll have to adapt your game.

This challenge also requires the use of mods and custom content for complete immersion in the Age being played. The main mods I use are listed in the rules for each Age, and you can also check out my Custom Content inventory. I'm always updating. Remembering, I don't host, I just direct the links. The inventory also breaks down ccs by creators. So for broken links you should go after the original creators. This video can also help repair objects broken by updates. If you are a creator and I have mistakenly listed your content as someone else's, please let me know.

RECOMENDATIONS

I recommend recording your challenge progression through a spreadsheet and family tree. This will facilitate the organization and control of your game and allow the preservation of memory, bringing a sense of satisfaction and reward at the end. The spreadsheet I created is based on Morbid Gamer's spreadsheet for the Ultimate Decades Challenge with some modifications, such as adding a Calendar, Human Chronology Events, suggested baby names and a tag for each Sim. I control every Sim in the world through the MC Command Center. I know when they are born, grow and die through notifications, but you can choose to use it only for your family/group.

You can download my spreadsheet here, updated in September 2023. This table is always being updated with new information. At the end, you can access it in the driver or download and copy and paste the new information into your table as the original table is updated.

I also recommend that you save a new game before each drastic modification in the game (a Sim aged up, for example) and always have a backup on an external HD organized by Ages folders. At the start of each Age you can delete old saves and NPCS ghost Sims from your game. This way, your game won't be so heavy and you'll always have a backup of the old Ages in case you need it.

TRIGGER WARNING

This challenge is based on the narrative of Western world history. I learned history at school from a Eurocentric view of the world and I also don't feel comfortable talking or creating stories about experiences I don't have (the place of speech) or about something I don't know. However, I am doing research to include different ethnicities and locations.

Being based on Western world history also means that your Sim will often be prejudiced, sexist, slave-owning, violent, and will commit or be subject to numerous atrocities. You won't always have complete freedom to choose your ethnicity. Of course, you can ignore this and adapt the LHC in your own way, but keep in mind that it will no longer be historic. (I'm thinking of another type of challenge for those who would like to play more freely that also involves historical progression and I'll release the rules soon).

In this challenge, miscarriages, deaths in childbirth, deaths of babies and children can also occur, as well as population control events that involve the death of Sims in the world, which can make the player uncomfortable. Moreover, this challenge incorporates the 100 Baby Challenge. There will be many children being born, as the chance of them dying in the early stages of life is very high. So if you don't like the little ones crying or the time wasted taking care of them, playing the LHC can be a little torture.

ORIGINS AND INSPIRATIONS

When I started this challenge I wanted to play the History Challenge, but some of the rules just didn't make sense. Why bother raising money in prehistory when there were no coins yet? And how does your Sim have a yoga mat when they should be busy with more important things? Really, a yoga mat? So these rules needed to be changed. Another Challenge that I really like is the Decades Challenge by ZombieCleo. My original intention was to adapt to the two challenges.

So I was looking for Decades Challenge gameplay when I found Morbid Gamer on youtube playing the Ultimate Decades Challenge. At the time, she was playing at 1550, with death rolls, particular life stage duration, and a spreadsheet. It was all fascinating. But not everything that works for the Ultimate Decades Challenge works for the Legacy History Challenge. How to play more than 10 thousand years considering each year as 4 Sim days? Well, I think I found a solution for that. I'm also always watching other creators and how they play their challenges. Marina Montenegro has perfected the History Challenge through its Legacy Eras Challenge, Severalperson is adapting the Ultimate Decades Challenge for multiple countries, and Ermersed Crown has a unique way of adding plot and drama, taking the player on a journey through British history. And they all have really good ideas that can be incorporated.

The sources used in the construction of the challenge are often romanticized and don’t have complete historical accuracy (Even the sources of the History Channel). This is what happens with The Tudors and Vikings series, for example. In this case, they were mentioned just because it is the closest we have to a vision of the described period. However, I'm making sure to make the necessary corrections to the rules so that they are reliable. These corrections are based on books by real historians like André Leroi-Gourhan and Georges Duby. I also make many references to A Song of Ice and Fire, since even though it is a fantasy book, the author is based on the real world to create the narratives and the political scenario always stands out, leaving the fantastic elements in the background.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LHC AND THE HISTORY CHALLENGE

Legacy History Challenge is slower and harder than History Challenge, I would even say hardcore. HC uses financial objectives and goals and a scoring system. LHC focuses on maximum historical accuracy and the gradual progression of the Ages. HC usually starts with a couple of Sims that are Generation 0 and from their heir each generation counts as an Age. LHC starts with a Founder Sim, the Legacy Matriarch, she has age, traits, aspiration and specific goals and her lineage must continue through several generations to present times. Each Age has a suggested gameplay, duration, number of generations, and Sim lifespan, which the player can adapt as they see fit. The more you follow the gameplay guidelines, the greater your immersion in the historical period covered. The LHC is genealogical, which means you only lose the challenge if for some reason your Matriarch and all of her descendants die in the game. While the HC is hard for a Sim to die, the LHC incorporates death rolls, meaning all your Sims rely on luck to survive. At the LHC, you don't change heirs every generation. When an heir is chosen you must play with him until his death and fulfill the aspirations and tasks assigned to him. Heirs cannot be removed from homes, even if they are elderly and their children are marrying and having children of their own.

After July 2023 update, the LHC incorporates an optional Age called Genesis, where you start with a couple and can complete the Genesis Challenge which consists of populating the world of The Sims with a descendant of your legacy in each house. Within the LHC this challenge can be completed across all played Ages and is based on mythology rather than history. In this case, the couple would be Generation 0 and the Founder Sim must be one of their daughters. Those who play with the Original Age - Genesis will be able to experience a challenge closer to the original HC of cloudseeker, but maintaining all the rules and Ages of the LHC.

THE FOUNDER SIM AND THE PRECURSORS

As stated, the Founder Sim must be a female and the original Matriarch of her family. She is the most important Sim in Legacy. As the daughter of the original precursor couple (if you play Original Age - Genesis) she doesn't participate in the dice roll. Let's consider that by luck of fate (or grace of The Watcher) this Sim managed to reach old age (which in the standard normal playing time of EA games and in prehistoric life expectancy meant about 30 years). Now her descendants have a chance to survive to the present day. It is important that you think about what physical characteristics you will give your Matriarch, as her descendants will be able to carry them in the future. I, for example, made my first Matriarch with very thick lips. I thought it looked beautiful on her, but on some of her descendants it was a little strange. Her name was Eva, she lived in the Costwolds in Prehistoric England (Henford-on-Bagley) and her look was inspired by the game Horizon Zero Dawn. As I initially ignored that Cro-Magnons had darker skin than modern Europeans, I decided to remake her and restart the challenge.

That was before I thought of adding the Original Age - Genesis to the challenge, which I am currently departing from. Below are the Precursor Sims, the founders of the Original Age - Genesis, Adamah and Hawah, created from the genetics of the new Eve with some modifications. I wanted them to look like Hebrews, but I'm not that good at creating Sims from existing models, nor do I know the genetics of that population very well. So I made them a skin tone darker than a European and lighter than a Cro-Magnon, Egyptian or Sumerian.

SIM CALENDAR

The game year has 28 days with four weeks of 7 days each. I like to play the time of the seasons in 7 days so that each year closes a cycle. Just like in Game of Thrones, here the seasons last for years. So I created a Sim Calendar based on that.

The letters P, V, O and I are abbreviations for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (Primavera, Verão, Outono and Inverno in Portuguese). Instead of the days week names, we have numbers. 1 is Sunday, 2 is Monday, 3 is Tuesday, 4 is Wednesday, 5 is Thursday, 6 is Friday, and 7 is Saturday. The first number in front is equivalent to Sim Year. So this is Sim Year 1. In this logic 7p4 would be the spring Wednesday of Sim Year 7 and 25v3 would be the Summer Tuesday of Sim Year 25. I put colors that remember the seasons for easy identification. Pink for spring, yellow for summer, orange for autumn, and blue ice for winter.

In prehistory, before the invention of writing, there was no calendar. So in the Original Age - Genesis I named the days G1, G2, G3 and so on. The days played in the Paleolithic I named P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 and so on. In the Paleolithic the world is always frozen, so the color is blue ice. In the Mesolithic, the seasons last 15 days, the climate is changing, I named the days M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 and so on. In the Neolithic the climate is stabilized and the year has four well-defined seasons. I named the days in the Neolithic N1, N2, N3, N4, N5 and so on. You may notice from the spreadsheet that my calendar starts in G1 and the Original Age - Genesis lasts exactly 2 Sim years. The decade goes through the Paleolithic for 4 Sim years, Mesolithic for 2 Sim years and ends the Neolithic with another 2 Sim years. From the second decade, the first year begins with the official calendar on day 1p1. In my test this count of days was well adapted to the gameplay, but you don't have to follow it strictly. In the LHC rules there is a suggestion of time to play in each phase, but in this period when there was no time control (at least as far as we know), the challenge gives you more freedom to play as you feel more comfortable. However, I advise you to start the Sim calendar on the first day of the second decade and adapt the first decade between Genesis, Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, organizing the duration of each of these periods into Sim days as you see fit. This will ensure a minimum of organization.

Around the year 3500 BC there were already traces of a proto-script in Mesopotamia. From then on I set the Early Simvilization and the calendar at Sim Year 1, where each Sim Day is equivalent to 1 human year. Thus, events in the Sim world in antiquity will be faster than in human history. I think this is too long a period of time to play on a closer to real scale and there aren't as many recorded events and changes in fashion (as far as we know) as there are from the Middle Ages to present times, which could leave the game monotonous. The Bible, Chinese legends, and the Sumerian King List suggest that ancient men lived for hundreds of years. At this point I have taken the liberty of adopting this conception. So, consider that your Prehistoric Sims lived thousands of years and ancient Sims lived longer than current Sims. This is in relation to events and not to life expectancy, of course. In other words, during antiquity Sims had a faster technological and intellectual development than humans.

In the 100th Sim Year (Year 700 BC) I changed the calendar, so that each year is equivalent to 4 Sim Days as in the Ultimate Decades Challenge. In the game, each Sim Day equals one trimester (considering the Sim's gestation). So 4 Sims Days would be equivalent to 1 year. (Pregnancy actually lasts 4 days: 1 day without finding out, 1 day in the first trimester, 1 day in the second trimester and 1 extra day in the third trimester until the water breaks, but we have an illusion that it's only 3 days). But why did I make this change only in the year 700 BC? Good question! I don't know, I thought it should be time to do that, that it should already have historical records and more interesting events every year, since it's closer to the Classical Age. Aquilus Acta playing The Syderis Legacy in Ultimate Decades Challenge mode a century earlier in Sparta also excites me. Counting each year as 4 Sim days, from 700 BC onwards, in 100 Sim years one arrives at Gregorian year 1, which makes the calendar organized. This is also in the testing phase, I can change the calendar before or after that date. You can also adapt the challenge as you see fit, these are just suggestions.

SIM LIFETIME

As established, 1 Sim Day equals 3 months and 4 Sim Days equals 1 human year. If you notice, the lifespan of the Sim, in normal mode, isn’t equivalent to human life. Considering the duration of EA life stages, at age 29 your Sim would already be an elderly person and would die around age 33:

This may even be valid for prehistory, I've seen some professors saying that in prehistory people lived to be 30 years old and we have nothing written to prove the opposite. But it doesn't make much sense in today's times. Therefore, my suggestion for a more suitable lifespan in Early Simvilization follows in the table below:

People died early in the old days, a 30-year-old woman was already considered old. I've read newspaper pages on the internet saying that this is bullshit and that in the Roman Empire, the rich lived to be 70 years old. But honestly I need to research more about this. My suggestion for life expectancy in the Modern Age is shown in the table below:

You can also increase life expectancy in the 20th century, as the elderly currently live to be 100 years old due to advances in medicine:

Another alternative is to play on short lifespan. Thus, the challenge would run faster and each Sim Day would always be really equivalent to 1 human year. In that case, I suggest changing the pregnancy to just 1 day. You would have to do this in the MC Command Center. If you use Wicked Whims or Wonderful Whims, you need to change the pregnancy settings of those mods too to work. In a short time, the suggested duration of lifetime at the Early Simvilization is shown in the table below:

Now there is a question. Sims in the world grow up on their own, without birthday cakes or player intervention, exactly 1 day after their birthday. So, even if the Sim you play with is born after them or on the same date, if you grow him on his birthday, he will live less than an NPC. For example, your Sim is born on day P1 and they are 1 day old as a newborn. Assuming that newborn is the only stage you're really going to play more than a day past the birthday or let it grow alone to enjoy the stage a little, you'll grow him to infant in P2. After 5 days you get the birthday notification and grow him to toddler in P7. Another 7 days, he gets another birthday notification and grows him to child in P14. In 14 days you will grow him to a teenager in P28. In 21 days it will grow to a young adult in P49. Another 24 days and he will be an adult in P77. After 33 days, you will be an elder in P119. The Sim in the world that is born in P1, grows into an infant in two days (P2) and in another 5 days grows to toddler (P8). He has seven days to become a child and grows up on his own a day later in P16. He will grow to teenager in P31, young adult in P53, adult in P82 and elder in P125. That's one extra day for each life stage change (except newborns), for a total of six extra days, as shown in the table below:

This means that in order for all your Sims in your save to be the same age you should always grow your Sim the day after their birthday or let them grow up on their own. In fact, it should change the life stage duration to 1 day less than suggested in the tables above in the MC Command Center settings. (Morbid Gamer turns off in-game aging and calculates each Sim's lifespan through the spreadsheet. This generates errors. I find it much easier to change settings in the MCC. That way, the age changes will be automatic and you only have to worry about growing the Sim one day after the birthday in the game's Calendar or simply letting him grow up on his own). Below are the settings considering normal and short time:

MC Command Center only modifies life stage duration in normal mode. So, if you're going to play with the short life, you should play in normal mode and change the duration of life in normal mode to the one specified in the table. Note that in the suggestion the life stages of newborn, infant and toddler have also been adapted so that when added together they result in multiples of 7 days (the newborn grows naturally without player intervention in 2 days, the infant in 7 days and the toddler in 19 days, totaling 28 days. In short mode, the newborn grows in 2 days, the infant in 2 days and the toddler in 3 days, totaling 7 days). Infants and toddlers often share similar clothing. So in modern times, in normal game mode, you'll enjoy the little ones for almost an entire Sim year, experiencing all seasons. The other stages have also been adapted so that the Sim when growing alone has life stage durations in multiples of 7. You should note that this way, starting from the Child stage, your Sim will always grow up on the same day of the week, making this closer to the birthday concept. Just remember to always grow the Sim played one day after the birthday marked in the game's Calendar or let him grow alone and all Sims in the world will have the default life stages. This makes it easier when you want to marry your Sim to an NPC of a similar age, making a friendship from childhood, as the two will not have a very large age discrepancy and you will not need to change the NPC age through the MC Command Center (doing so always bugged that NPC's life stage).

As for dogs, cats, horses and other animals, I don't usually mess with their life expectancy. A Sim year is equivalent to 7 human years and animals already live a short time. But Morbid Gamer has a suggested lifespan for dogs and cats in the Ultimate Decades Challenge.

DEATH ROLLS

I think Morbid Gamer invented this and I loved it. Each time your Sim grows to a new stage of life, you have to roll a dice to find out if he/she can grow to the next stage or if he/she must die in that stage and how many days he/she can live (in case of death. I added this second dice because I didn't want all the unlucky Sims to die on their birthday). Death rolls bring more drama to the game and make it unexpected. The data is usually based on life expectancy at the historical moment. It is assumed that if a child manages to survive the early childhood stage, he/she will have a better chance of surviving in the future. Pregnancy should also be more difficult if the Sim is very young (near puberty) or old. The original Sims, including the Founder Sim, are the only ones who are exempt from rolling the dice, because if that generation dies the challenge is over, but descendants must roll the dice on every age change since birth. You can also choose to use some mod that simulates illness and roll the dice only when your Sims get sick.

SPECIAL EVENTS

This is something I adapted from The Great British Challenge by Emersed Crown. In every Age, specific historical events occur, usually tragic as wars and natural catastrophes. This is a way to reduce the game's population so that it doesn't weigh too much. These events are decided by the dice rolls. Some are optional and some are mandatory.

RULES

The rules for each Age are still under construction. I try to test it in my gameplay first and it takes a lot of time. This is a very long challenge, and it takes time to write the rules and make the translations and adaptations to the English language. (If you compare the doc pt/br with the doc en/us you will see that I try to make the adaptations by changing the links with information in each language and not just doing a literal translation. Some of these links remain in the original (generally when it is a font produced in Brazil) and others only have the font in English, because it was the font I used and there is no better match in Portuguese).

Another problem is my perfectionism, I want to make everything perfect and I end up wasting time on it. My goal with the LHC is for it to be as complete as possible and that involves a lot of research and constant revision and improvement of the Ages rules. This challenge is ambitious and must have the perfect historical construction so that it can be easily adapted to The Sims 5, Paralives and future simulation games, as these games must support custom content. So, if you get to the point where you are missing the rules for the next Age, my suggestion is that you start playing The Great British Challenge so you can continue its legacy, rather than waiting too long for updates. Sometimes I make some modifications to improve, although I don't really like to do that after posting on tumblr. I am also open to suggestions and criticism as long as the objective is to improve the challenge and have a historical aspect.You will also find some information repeated throughout this document, such as mod indications and cheat tips. This is because each Age is designed to be played independently. Thus, the player can choose to play only one of the LHC Age, or else take a long time to pass the Age, but have his memory refreshed when reading the rules.

Original Age - Genesis | Era Original - Gênesis

Prehistoric Age (Paleolithic and Mesolithic) | Era Pré-Histórica (Paleolítico e Mesolítico)

Agricutural Age (Neolithic and Early Simvilization) | Era da Agricultura (Neolítico e Início da Simivilização)

Ancient Age (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Minoan Greece and others cultures) | Era Antiga (Mesopotâmia, Egito, Grécia Minoica e outras culturas)

Classical Age (Classical Greece, Persia, Macedonia) | Era Classica (Grécia Clássica, Pérsia, Macedônia)

Empire Age (Romans and Barbarian Peoples) | Era Imperial (Romanos e Povos Bárbaros)

Medieval Age (High and Low Middle Ages) | Era Medieval (Alta e Baixa Idade Média)

Modern Age (Tudor and Elizabeth) | Era Moderna (Tudoriana e Elisabetana)

OTHER HISTORICAL CHALLENGES

History Challenge - It was oiginally created by Cloudseeker and is out of date. The History Challenge is a Legacy challenge that aims to take your Sims through world history with 7 Eras, where each one equals a generation. You can find the rules here.

Legacy Eras Challenge - It was created by Marina Montenegro and improves the History Challenge. Legacy Eras Challenge is based on legacy and aims to take your Sims through European history across 16 Eras. It brings death rolls and objectives closer to the Legacy History Challenge. You find the rules here.

The Great British Challenge - It was created by Emersed Crown and intends to tell the story of Great Britain since the Bronze Age. The Great British Challenge focuses on building a storyline for each Era and has greater freedom of choice than the Legacy History Challenge. You can find the rules here and you can follow the story on Simblr.

Decades Challenge - Created by ZombieCleo and starts in 1890, following European history to the present day. In Decades Challenge each generation lasts a decade. You can find the rules here.

Ultimate Decades Challenge - It was created by Morbid Gamer who modified the decades challenge starting at 1550 and adding more difficulty. In 2022, she released a prequel starting in the Medieval Era in 1300. You can follow her on youtube channel or twitch tv and find the rules here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to all custom content creators and challenges creators, to everyone who will play this challenge. And a special thanks to cloudseeker and @morbidgamer, without whom I wouldn't have thought of creating this challenge.

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