#have deleted everything else but i like youtube videos too much. but good for a month

[ebbarights]

for january i always do a challenge (2022 was veganism, 2023 was no tv) and this year i think i might delete the youtube app because the scroll addiction has gotten so bad that i'm watching shorts regularly now

[dykephan]

my thoughts re: how did dan and phil kiss in october and still not start dating until december? from @omatone-dnp's post here :)

i'm sorry in advance for how much forbidden material i'm bringing up here, i feel bad about it which is why i'm putting it under the cut so i can delete this if i want to

so obviously we know they talked online & on skype for months before they decided to meet up in person, and they were heavyyy on the flirting. but we also know that these online spaces were the only places dan and phil were able to be 100% openly queer, so it's natural that they both put on a persona to some extent. this was the time for them to explore who they were & who they wanted to be. dan says he assumed phil would be this super confident smooth guy but then he was awkward and dorky irl, and it was kind of the reverse for phil about dan.

phil might have felt a lot of pressure to be a good example considering he was older, he was someone dan liked on youtube, and phil was one of, if not the first, gay man dan had met. but phil didn't have much romantic experience (...his heart had never done the flippy over thing..............) so i can imagine he felt even more scared of screwing things up. we know he was super nervous the day they met and that he didn't make the first move. i think he wanted to leave that to dan because 1. he didn't know if dan actually liked him or if he was just confused, and 2. he wanted to go at dan's pace for the reasons i mentioned above. we also know that phil had a hard time verbalizing his emotions / understanding them, so he might have wanted to go slower on the romance front too, so he could have time to process everything. he talked quite a bit about how he didn't know where he wanted to go in his life, feeling lost without being in school anymore, and that his family was pressuring him to sort his life out. that's a lot to deal with all at once and adding a serious relationship on top of that can be hard.

for dan, i think the early days were more about finding inner confidence in himself than they were about purposely forming a long term relationship. phil is the one who encouraged dan to make youtube videos, which he'd dreamed about but never thought he would be good enough. phil made him feel safer than he'd felt since he was a tiny child. he introduced him to other queer people and then to his family, who welcomed dan with love (though we don't know how much they actually knew at the time). it was more than just romantic!! it was something dan really needed! :(

at this time, both of them were constantly talking about how they're trying to figure out what to do with their lives, with dan being in his gap year and phil being fresh out of college. it was a transitional period for both of them in very different ways. they weren't even sure if they were going to meet irl, they kept going back and forth about the train tickets for a few months before dan finally bought one. i think as soon as he bought it, he decided he was going to shoot his shot and worry about everything else later.

also, dan was in a relationship with his girlfriend for 3 years, and while we don't know when or how they broke up, he has some tweets indicating that they were still together in 2009 when he began talking to phil online, or at least that dan was still conflicted about the breakup. let me clarify that i'm not saying dan cheated, none of us have any idea what happened and it seems more like their relationship came to a natural conclusion when she moved away for uni, along with all of dan's irl friends which he talked about frequently. i'm more so bringing this up because it marks a shift in how dan talked about love and relationships.

for example, all of these tweets happened in october 2009, right before he met up with phil:

but fast forward to THAT week in december and dan has a completely different perspective on love:

this is the main reason why december makes so much more sense to me as their anniversary. october was about taking a leap of faith even though both of them were afraid of getting it wrong. november was about testing the waters and figuring out how they could logistically make things work, while they were building their bond. december was about finally letting go of all those fears in the pursuit of a happier future for both of them ;-;

[thatsparrow]

can’t imagine the watcher decision wasn’t informed by the success of dropout, a streaming service I and many other people happily pay for, but this news undeniably feels like a disappointment in comparison, and am trying to articulate why:

1. amount of content. I can’t speak to when dropout first launched (I think I started subscribing late 2019?), but I know that when I joined, it already felt like there was an enormous backlog of series to explore—not to mention the amount that was also uploaded to youtube, albeit on a delay (I know I watched at least the first half of fantasy high s1 on youtube, if not the whole thing, and by the time I signed up for dropout, there was also s1 of unsleeping city, bloodkeep, tiny heist on the horizon, and s2 of fantasy high currently live streaming. not to mention the number of full episodes they'd uploaded to youtube of um actually, game changer, breaking news, etc. and how much more was then available on dropout)

I don't know what conversations were happening behind the scenes at dropout, I don't know in real-time what was subscriber-only and what was getting uploaded to youtube, or what the breakdown was of series getting created and solely released on dropout in comparison to content they were releasing for free. all I know is that when I heard about d20 and wanted to check it out, I was able to watch a good chunk via youtube, enough to know that I wanted more, and also to know that dropout had a whole lot else to offer that I was also curious about.

so that's one of the things that feels immediately different about the watcher announcement. they're teasing new series that will be available, but for the moment, it seems like everything that will currently be on the new platform is already available for free on youtube (to clarify, because there's been a lot of confusion on this front, they are not deleting their old content off youtube. all those videos are staying there). there's also a question of release schedule — are they talking about weekly episode releases of one season airing at a time, as was their youtube model, with stretches in between? I guess I come back to, if you're trying to go subscriber-only going forward (with the caveat that the first ep of a season will also get released on youtube, and also with the caveat that obviously dropout had to reach a certain level of success before it was able to release content at the volume, consistency and quality it does now), are you creating enough to justify the sort of wholesale transition they seem to be implementing? i'm not sure the answer is yes

2. paying/supporting artists. no one's arguing that you shouldn't pay or support artists, and there are incredibly valid critiques of how youtube hamstrings creativity and the issues with being beholden to advertisers. more creative freedom is a good thing. more independent artists is a good thing.

that said, it feels like there's a disconnect between what supporters are looking for from where there money is going and how watcher wants to spend it. the video really emphasized wanting to make tv-quality productions, and that they feel like they've hit a ceiling with the youtube business model in terms of achieving that aim, but are watcher fans looking for tv-quality productions? of the new series they mentioned, travel seemed like a pretty big element, which is obviously expensive. I think of new shows released on dropout, and they've clearly got solid production value behind them, but they're also still all filmed on a set (it's 3am in a warehouse!!) — even ambitious and expensive episodes of game changer are still basically shot in the same set of rooms, with the stakes raised from there (the escape room ep, bingo, etc.)

look, I don't work in digital media, and so I don't have a sense of what it costs to put on a show, but I can't help but look at some of watcher's stated ambitions that clearly need to have a significant budget behind them vs something like too many spirits (something I have to imagine has to cost a lot less, but which is just as enjoyable to watch) and wonder if part of the backlash has to do with how it feels like their current revenue is being spent/prioritized

and maybe the problem is that there's just a fundamental disconnect between the kinds of shows watcher wants to make, and what their audience is looking for, but if that's the case, it doesn't feel like moving to a subscriber-only system is the solution

[lilibethmg]

love on tour | a.h.

a/n: welcome to my first social media fic of hopefully many!! i have a whole universe planned out within the british youtuber group and i thought who best to introduce the series with than arthur hill!!! all work will be ocs not xreaders

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill and 5,937 others

popped down to london to film the double denim music video today!! out on friday if you’re lucky x (and thanks to my wonderful camera man @arthurnfhill)

comments…

userone arthur and kam interaction???

| usertwo the way they are my new fave duo

userthree r u guys dating?

userfour i love your music kam!!!!

| kamrynkam tysm <3333

| userfour OMG KAM NOTICE

arthurnfhill i expect to be paid for my services

| kamrynkam oops.. maybe next time?

| | userfive NEXT TIME??

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill, georgeclarkeey and 4,937 others

surprise! we’re going on tour! tickets link is in my bio if you fancy seeing us x

its gonna be one hell of a show.. i wouldn’t want to miss it!!

comments…

arthurnfhill ar-tour! ar-tour! ar-tour!

| kamrynkam i want a funky name for tour too :(

| arthurnfhill i’ll work on it 🫡

userone i got manchester tickets!!!!

usertwo omg can’t wait to see you two

georgeclarkeey looking forward to meeting you (especially after everything arthur has told me about you)

| kamrynkam all good things i hope!!

| georgeclarkeey terrible, terrible things

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill, arthurtv and 5,924 others

tour has been a blast so far! london you’re up next 👀 it’s so surreal coming out on stage and seeing you lot go crazy, thank you for having the best energy ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

comments...

userone can’t wait for tonight!!!

usertwo you were so good last night <3

saderah gonna cheer the loudest for you tonight

| arthurnfhill not if i cheer louder

| saderah let me flirt with your girlfriend please!

this comment has been deleted.

userthree DID NO ONE ELSE SEE THAT??

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill, lisahull_hill and 5,926 others

ar-tour/kam-fest was awesome!! you guys were all so lovely and have made my year xx

p.s. do we want passing thought (feat. kam) to be released 👀

comments…

userone you were so good!!!

usertwo yours and arthur’s voices sounded heavenly together omg

| kamkamryn tysm oh my gosh <3

lisahull_hill you were brilliant darling!

| kamkamryn thank you lisa 🥹

userthree can’t believe i got to meet you!! thank you for being so lovely

arthurnfhill ❤️

| kamkamryn mwah

userthree your chemistry was a little too good for my liking 🤔🤔🤔

saderah girl you were awesome!!!!!

| kamkamryn love you sade :((

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill, saderah and 6,293 others

‘i’d step on lego for you’ is now all yours! i hope you guys have as much fun listening as i did making it! this ep is a collection of my favourite songs i’ve made in the past year with 2 brand new songs!!! let me know your favourite song on the ep!!! 🩵

comments…

arthurnfhill forever proud of you

| kamrynkam ❤️‍🔥

| | userone HELLO??!?

usertwo naked poetry goes so hard!!

userthree afterlife is a banger tbf

saderah straight fire!! no skips!! she’s done it again!!!

| kamrynkam stop it 🤭

userfour WHO IS THAT IN THE LAST PHOTO???

| userfive i think we all know 👀 @arthurnfhill thoughts?

commented liked by kamrynkam

@kamrynkam

liked by arthurnfhill, saderah and 4,834 others

finally found my muse ❤️‍🔥

comments…

userone hard launch 🤔

| kamrynkam hard launch 😌

usertwo OH MY GOSH!!!!

saderah sister-in-law!!

| kamrynkam sister-in-law!!!!!!!

arthurnfhill i expect 3 songs about me written by the end of the week (love you x)

| kamrynkam stfu loser 😭😭 (love you too x)

userthree 2nd photo is giving rockstar’s girlfriend

| kamrynkam *rockstar girlfriend

[theoneofwhomisblue]

Maybe following 3,000 people isn't great

Because I fucking hate scrolling through this fucking site now

I'm not even joking, I fucking hate this shit

This site sucks ass

Also if this post has less than 10 notes in 3 hours I'm deleting it

I know this is completely my fault. I also don't give a fuck

I'm too tired to curate my page to be decent for me

I'm so fucking tired

This site sucks ass

Reddit sucks ass

Tumblr sucks ass

The Internet fucking sucks

Google is constantly bitching at me to pay for more space in my account cause I habitually download every Tumblr and reddit image resulting in 13 gigabytes of bullshit

I fucking hate this

Anyway

I'll find better stuff to post tomorrow

Or not

I don't know

I'm so fucking tired

Kill myself

What the fuck do I do with my time now? Is there another site or app worth my time?

Tumblr's ass, I'll still use it but it's dogshit

I'm too tired to even do reddit anymore

Twitter is fucking disgusting and gets worse by the day because of dipshit mcmusk

And that's all that comes to mind

YouTube is constant background noise, but the algorithm there is fucked up too

I hate every video thats recommended to me

I'm not doing fucking tiktok

I don't care about my standards anywhere else, but no fucking tiktok

What else is there now?

Oh yeah, I can't comment on webtoon because I accidentally said fuck in a comment, so all the fun community stuff there is gone now too

All the webtoons suck ass anyway

The only fucking app that hasn't disappointed me is cookie clicker

Been playing it for like 400 days

I make continual progress

I just check in every two days to pop the wrinklers

Then after a month or two on a run I check in after a week

Until my legacy points start to plateau, then I reset

And get all the upgrades I can afford

Buy 5 grandmas, then 90 more, then as many more as I can afford that'd a multiple of 100

I do the same on everything else

Except the fractile engines, which I buy as many as possible, no matter the multiple

And buy all the items

Then at that point I start the research facilities, then start one, and check back in 30 minutes until I've researched them all

Then I top off the fractile engines and leave for a day

Then check every day, popping the wrinklers until a week in, then every 2 days. Then after a few months once every week

Then I do it all again

And spend all the legacy points on the upgrades I can afford

It's rewarding you know

Consistent anyway

Unlike reddit and Tumblr and Twitter and YouTube and everything else, it doesn't fuck me over on the algorithm whatever the fuck

Reddits decent for the porn, that's all

You know, I used to use a lot of sites for porn

Dozens and dozens of sites bookmarked

Then at some point I started to only use r34 reddit nhentai, and occasionally the good ol hub

I didn't use to have accounts, I'd depend on my memory for different images and accounts and artists and comics and shit

Then I made accounts on r34 phub reddit e6 gelb nhentai and half a dozen others

And started saving things

It used to be a fun game to try to remember

Now it's gone

But I'm too tired to continue that anyway

Anyway, same shit everything else as with the porn at this point

No variety

Nothing fun

It's all annoying bullshit

With the Advent of machine learning chat bot whatever the fucks, there's a little bit new

But aside from that, it's just the same thing every day

I'm so fucking tired of living like this duxe

The fucking internet used to mean something

Now it's just the boring status quo bullshit

And I know that it's because of me

But still

It fucking sucks

I don't want to do this shit

And I spend like 10 hours a day on the Internet too

More than ever

But I'm not happy

Barely entertained

But it kills time

If I need information, porn, music, videos, whatever elze

Entertainment

I get it

But I'm not happy about it

It's shitty

I feel like shit

Like, my life outside the internet is decent. But the Internet consumes so much of it, and I don't even like it anymore

I don't know if there's a fix

Or if I should just stop being so online and shit

I'm too tired to do anything anyway

I don't know

I take pride in what I achieve for some reason

But as soon as I get the imaginary goal point, I don't give a shit

Over a year I got a shit ton of reddit karma on a new accoutn

A specific number, that I won't say to keep myself from seeming like I'm trying to brag

But once I got it, I no longer cared to comment or post

Over 2 or 3 months, I don't remember, whenever 196 shut down, I got a relative shit ton of followers

Again, a specific number, but I won't say

I'll keep that number secret, cause I can

But once I got this imaginary amount that I thought I'd never reach, I didn't care anymore

I still posted as much as I did before

But I got no joy out of it

I just post, wait a few hours, then check to see how many notes

If it's an amount equal to what I think is average for the amount of followers I have, I feel kinda good, then post again

But that's it

I don't scroll anymore, except occasionally on my followers profiles when I accidentally click on them while looking through my new notes

And I enjoy that

But other than those fleeting moments, and the small satisfaction I get from high note counts I don't care

I don't care for Tumblr or anything else on this shit

I don't know man, is this how other people do stuff on the Internet?

I don't think so, people always have strong emotions on the Internet

I emulate my internet behavior to match, which makes me think that maybe more people do the same as me

But I have no evidence

I don't know, I'm too fucking tired of this shit

I just got an apathy about the Internet at this point

Apps, sites, everything

I just don't care

But I'm always on it

It makes no sense

I should probably proofread this post as I go

This is just a stream of consciousness at this point

I won't check it as I go

Maybe I'll make this a thing

Just typing my unfiltered thoughts for like 30 minutes then posting

Depends on the notes I get

If the notes are bad I'll just delete it and forget about it

Who knows

I guess I keep trying to do that

I'll do something new on Tumblr like this

And think "oh, maybe this'll be a new thing I do" then it dies

At first it was my consistent posting of reddit shit for like a year ago

Then I stopped posting that consistently

Then it was random screenshots of mine

I even made a tag for that one

Then it died

I keep thinking of myself as someone important because of my follower count

Which doesn't make sense as it's not even a lot

But still

I don't know

My delusions of microcelebrity status are the only thing keeping me on this site/app at this point

If I didn't have that, and the fuel for the delusion that is notes I'd be gone

I did already fuck my recommended tab

And following tab

And tag tab

It's already all bullshit

I guess I can keep my narcissism about my status in this site because of the top post by notes tab on a blog

I just click into someones

And 9 times out of ten, they don't have top note counts even comparable to time

Which fuels the delusion

It's the same thing I'd do on reddit

"oh this person only has [x] karma, when they've been on reddit for 3 years. And I have triple that, and I've had this account for 6 months. I'm better"

Shit like this is what makes the internet garbage

I don't let it bleed into the theme of my posts and comments tho

I let it make me feel superior than everyone else

But if I made that obvious in any post it'd be for naught

For that reason I'm considering not posting this anymore

Whatever, this post is already super long rambling bullshit

If it gets good notes a single anecdote in it won't matter

And if it doesn't get good notes I'll delete it

Then there's no harm

I just thought of that reasoning now to keep doing this post

Cause I got sunk cost fallacy on this at this point

It was a vent thing at the start

Now it's just me trying to think mildly interesting shit to add

I guess I can use that other reasoning to post anything

If it goes bad, delete it, and no one would have saw it, and no one will, so I matters naught

And if it goes good, who gives a shit

Nothing I post would be bad, maybe cringe, maybe rambling bullshit, as this js

But not bad, so it'd be fine

I lost my train of thought

I think I was gonna say something else about what I'm posting, and how it would be fine

That's gone now

Poof, into the abyss that is lost thoughts

This does kill time tho

It's been like 40 minutes since I started this

This is basically what I do in my mind if I just let my mind run, uninterrupted

But here it's written down, with line breaks, and exact words rather than a mix of words and images and concepts

So it's more digestible

I suppose it's not completely true to say this is my pure train of thought, not just because of the exclusion of images and concepts

But also because I'm listening to music

Just enough to mild my mind so to speak

My mind is always going man, and if I don't have something to dampen it

Like music, or weird fidgety things I do with my hands (I don't know the word), or exact things to focus on, I think way too much

And spiral and shit in stress

But then my thoughts are too frantic and fast to write down before they disappear, so in a way this is as pure a log of thoughts as anything could be

You can tell the theme of how I sound now, vs at the beginning

If you don't want to scroll up you can just look at the tags

I typed them near the beginning

And haven't added to them

Nor deleted them

So you can just look slightly down to see the notes

It's not even the right topic anymore. It's still on reddit

And Tumblr and internet shit

Oh yeah, speaking of

I've just said my Tumblr scrolling is bad without specifying

But to specify now, it's like scrolling through Twitter

Weird serious discourses

Arguments

Peculiar topics

Shit like that

You know, not the Tumblr I had before

And if I don't like scrolling through Twitter, why would I be here? And that's the bind I'm in now

I only stick around anymore because of the notes, as I said

I'm back to using punctuation occasionally

Not too much, but at least some commas

No periods though, they seem too intense for a stream of consciousness thinf

Question marks too, but that's about all

Oh yeah, stuff I was talking about before

Webtoon

I shit talked webtoon

It's not too bad

I just fucking hate slice of life shit, dumb "funny" shit, and worst of all romance

I fucking hate romance webtoons

I can't stomach them

And webtoon is constantly shoving exactly those down your throat

And when my tolerance is low to begin with, and I enter webtoon, and it throws a fucking popup in my face for a dogshit new romance thing, I damn near snap my phone in half

But it's not too bad

I just read the fantasy/action/thriller/horror/drama (ones without romance shit) ones

But I can't navigate the canvas section decent at all

By design obviously, canvas doesn't make webtoon money, the originals do

But I'm too tired to work against them

So I only read originals

But at least they post regularly

I read around 70 webtoons now

Which is to say, I read the new episodes of them when they come out

With such a large selection, I have like 4 webtoons minimum updating every day at 7:00 pm

8:00 when there's time change

But 7:00 most of the timr

It notifies you at 7:30 but they update at 7:00

Except for the goblin one, which updates at like 7:20 for some reason

And the daily pass ones, those update at 8:00 for some reason

But they notify you directly at 8:00 for those if I remember correctly

Even still

I remember roughly which days are best

Tuesdays have the most, like 15 updated at once

And ones I really like too

Fridays have a handful, and the one daily pass that I read as they come out week by week

Saturdays have like 4 I really care about, then like 5 I think are mediocre, but they kill time so Saturdays are good

Mondays are ok, but that's about it

Wednesdays are kinda ass, but they're decent

Thursdays used to be amazing, but after like 3 I really care about went on hiatus, Thursdays don't matter anymore

But having like 60 (because 5-10 are on hiatus at a time) new episodes a week, divied up across the week pretty well

Is nice

Now, I did accidentally say fuck in a comment, because there was a guy shipping children and saying sexual stuff about it, then there was a reply on it from another guy defending it. So I got mad, and typed a paragraph saying why that was fucked up

But I said fuck

So I can't comment anymore

I don't know, webtoons ok tho

I was just pissed off earlier

What else was there

Oh yeah reddit

I've actually been temp banned from Reddit (like my entire account) twice for using up too much server space on bullshit

There's this thing where you type u/profanitycounter [self] and it tells you how many times youve said certain swears in like the past 500 comments

So, for a joke, twice I've copy pasted "cum cum cum cum cum cum cum cum...", The max amount of times you can in one comment (a few thousand, I can't remember), then do that in a comment chain with myself for like 150 comments in a row

And it takes me several hours, but it's funnt

But it resulted in a temp ban for 2 days

Then like 4 months later, a temp ban for a week

Cause I used too much space, or bandwidth or whatever the fuck doing that

Also I got banned from r/Barry for saying the last season was ass

And I got banned from r/notinteresting for a reason I don't fucking know

But aside from that, my accounts clean

With a shit ton of karma too

Oh yeah, I use the same username (or a derivative of it) for every porn site account I make.

If you can find it out somehow I'll give you the passwords to the accounts

I doubt anyone could, it's a different username than I use for anything else

But there's hints

If anyone cares I'll even give you a few more hints directly in a DM if you ask

Though I will be vague as fuck

Been doing this for over an hour now

I wasn't paying enough attention to when I started

I'm pretty sure I heard someone say that Tumblr has no character cap

Let's hope so

I'm too tired to continue this shit

I guess this ends it

Let me know if y'all want more bullshit like this

I, personally, always like an unfiltered look at someone mind

But that's me personally

Maybe my mind is bland and uninteresting

Who knows

I'll stick with what I said at the beginning tho

Less than 10 notes in 3 hours and this post going bye bye

I got a headache from this shit

I thought way more than I usually do

Now that I'm more chill, I don't hate tumblr

I fucked it up for me

But y'all are good

Tumblr's good

[wrightedgar]

I understand posting this on tumblr makes no sense, but if this partially hits one person it’s good enough…

Curing my social media addiction was the best think I ever did, in every single way possible. Not just tumblr.com, I have no accounts. No Twitter, no Instagram, TikTok, whatever the fuck. Can’t delete this one tho because it feels like killing my own child. I also only watch one YouTube video a week and honestly sometimes even that doesn’t feels interesting. I don’t really feel like playing anything either.

You don’t have to be so radical, just get to the point where you control your usage without feeling an agony if you don’t. If you never felt like this I’m so envy, but this has been my experience. I hope it half helps someone.

My life has simply skyrocketed. If you believe you are also addicted to social media really think about these:

Your memory will get insanely good. You will remember everything simply because you won’t be bombarding your head with 257346833 images, words, thoughts, you will forget.

You ware going to get SO MUCH free time. you are going to get more time to THINK, and you have no idea of what that really does. Everything will heal faster. Crazily fast actually (compared to months or years), and hurt a lot less.

You are going to get your creativity back and your curiosity you might have left on the way. No random impulses, you control your own life. Because you have time to think you will choose what’s the best thing to do next instead of jumping into your first impulse or agony.

Nothing will seem boring. This one is crazy but it’s the most true. Also the most important by far. Things won’t look hard or too boring to do because you are not a Las Vegas old man pressing a button 756434523 times. Aka you can make your self do whatever you want, and the struggle will be minimum. You can focus for hours on the most long term reward and not notice the time going by. Whatever struggle you have to go through to stop wanting to be online at every free second you is 100% worth it, I absolutely promise. As you get out you will notice 99% of the things you see are irrelevant. What’s actually relevant will find its way to you, don’t worry. It always does.

Social media addiction is normalized as if losing all of this is normal but at this point I really do not believe it is. I’m happy to be someone else from who I was just 5 months ago. And for the first time in my life I feel like I know who I am and where I want to get. Stay cool 🩷

[thegrimreaperisanerd]

hii i have a maybe somewhat difficult question:

how do you go about writing all of the police/detective stuff? I have no knowledge at all about that except having played the game a few times and watching bbc sherlock back when that was a thing.

I have so many cool kimharry things in my mind that i need to get on paper but i don't know how to involve all the cop stuff in a natural way because i don't know anything about it and don't want it to be too wildly incorrect.

so yeah.. how do you even learn the things for this?

thank you so much i love your work

Quite a difficult question I won't lie...... But I've answered at length so it's going under a readmore

This isn't my favourite thing to discuss online as it can trigger my psychosis, but I have an actual dismaying amount of experience with cops. I don't want to talk about it but... Bit like Cuno I suppose. Good ending for that kid is doing public services training ages 14 - 16, and going "oh this is shit actually" once he's got an out from his abusive parent, then working at a restaurant

I quite literally cannot go into detail - so don't ask because I WILL delete this post - but an ex military police officer told us a "funny story" about a "prank" he played on some kids in an occupied location during the late 80s that I recognised as psychological torture, but made my peers laugh. So I decided to become a faggot and poet instead.

~NOW FOR THE FUN ADVICE THAT IS ACTUALLY OF USE TO YOU!

Research:

Honestly, the amount of time I spend looking up stuff for writing is probably more than the time I spend writing. The internet's being fucked by SEO but it's a start. Like... There's plenty of info out there written on the police and their role in systematic oppression, I'm pretty sure there's free PDFs floating around on Tumblr actually...

If it's more "day in the life" I honestly don't know. Maybe reddit or if there's one of those "Ex-[blank} reviews [blank] in movies" videos on Youtube for cops, but obviously take everything said with a pinch of salt.

FAYDE:

Fayde is the best tool at your disposal. We bully Kim a lot for his dedication to the RCM but that makes finding out info pretty easy. EDC too! I've never played with high EDC so just typing in key words (especially names of other officers to try and get character info) and scrolling through is helpful.

Good keywords are "precinct", "RCM", "Militicia" as they'll bring up opinions/ info from other characters.

The RCM is not a traditional police force:

I would worry less about accuracy and more about being interesting. It doesn't need to be a perfect representation of police work since the canon makes a point of there being a distinction in the powers and roles of the RCM. Go listen to the collapsing tenement cut content. You don't need to write about them filling in forms if it's not relevant. It'll show in your writing if you're unsure/ bored.

Make them worse:

If you're going to write one of the officers doing something shitty (yes, that includes Kim and Harry) but worry that you've gone too far then I promise you haven't. Dickheads are drawn to positions of power and the impunity it gives them. There's a reason I wrote one of the 57's officers as a groomer.

Make them less competent:

Don't trust the police, but also don't expect anything of them.

As recently as Monday I had to call for the fire brigade because a lit (thankfully poorly made) petrol bomb had been left under a neighbour's car (I live an irritatingly interesting life for somebody who lives in the middle of fucking nowhere) nobody was harmed. Cop came to find me afterwards to get an interview from me since I'd spotted it and he told me, I kid you not, "Yeah, we're not gonna do anything unless anything else happens." Like, I expected as much but I wasn't expecting him to up and fucking say that. You're welcome for 85% of my council tax, you fucking moron.

Harry's a special case because he's, like, psychic and got "maybe if I solve *THIS* one my wife will let me sleep in the big bed" disorder, and nobody wants to read a case fic that they... don't solve (or do they..? *winks*) But if you care about realism you need dick-in-hand dipshits. Another favourite quote of mine from an officer two years back; "Is 'right wing' the good one or the bad one?" So the advice here is you're writing a cop well if you're reading it and thinking: holy shit please just go work at a TESCOs instead.

Don't worry so much:

You should write, first and foremost, for yourself. I like detective fiction, I have wasted an unfortunate amount of my life dealing with police due to my job and shit childhood. (I did originally write far more about this, but frankly it's better for myself if I don't bother. That's why it's taken me five days to answer this)

I've read/ watched a lot of detective fiction and I'm always more drawn to stuff that is less based in police work. Private investigators, investigative journalists, kid detectives like Nancy Drew, ect.

In particular my favourite book, perhaps of all time, is called Hideaway by Dean Koontz and is two fathers (one: the killer's father - a talented doctor who brought his shithead son back to life - and another, the doctor's most recent patient to be brought back from the brink who has developed a psychic link with the killer as a result) trying to stop him, but never actually meeting! It's one hell of a read if you need inspo.

Val McDermott is a good author for crime writing with less police input, too. She has a book called Killing The Shadows which is excellent. The Killer's motive is taking out crime writers who've romanticised psychological profilers after he was wrongly convicted. Fair enough! Until he starts... Killing about it? Sort of defeats the message... Anyway, what's fun about this book is that before each crime writer is killed (in the same way they wrote THEIR killers killing!! Love that) you get to read the first chapter of each writer's most famous work. So you are essentially getting six crime books in one (first chapter of at least) ...Also the main character's husband is a crime writer called Kit, which I've only remembered just double checking the book name now. Lol???

...This is just turning into me recommending books.

TLDR: write what you know, write what is fun, ACAB, don't even worry about it

[ariel26c]

Hi Ariel,

firstly just wanna say I enjoyed reading your posts and thank you for the posts.

I’m on a SP journey, and I have been battling many issues and wavering a lot. The breakup was bad and ever since, after what everyone told me to do, which was to feel my emotions and let everything out, and after i did, I continued with affirming myself that he still loves me no matter what, and that he realises that i’m the only one for him etc. But honestly, i have started feeling good while persisting throughout May because i deleted my socials and only read success stories and watched manifestations videos on youtube throughout the month. and I was feeling quite good and I was focusing more on myself like my appearance, my skincare and stuff. But just few days ago, I happened to see my flatmates instagram where she still follows my SP, and he posted a story on IG. I had a bad feeling and asked what it showed. It showed a 3P and they went to an event that me and my SP did last year. He even posted a picture of their shadows together which was what I did last year. I last talked to him in early Feb and I was devastated that he “moved on” so quickly. I broke down like crazy but right now i’m thinking that I would rather persist in my new story than seeing what i saw few days back. I don’t know how to affirm with conviction that my desire is already mine because I know he deleted my number and he said that he will never want to call me or answer my calls anymore. He said there was no hope of getting back because he fought too hard for his peace.

I don’t know how to persist because it feels like forever, even though I know time is an illusion. How do I continue affirming and persisting even though whenever I wake up, I get reminded of the 3D and everything else? Sometimes even though I try hard to have inner convo saying he loves me still, he’s just making me jealous (even though i’m not following him) and he’s suffering without me, I can’t seem to get myself in the state of having him by my side because the 3d is literally slapping my face. In our last convo, he said things I never thought he would say, and he said good bye as if our relationship meant nothing to him.

I don’t know how I manifested a 3p because in the previous months, i’ve only been focusing on our relationship (me and him) as I didn’t believe he would have a 3p. Some posts said EIYPO but I genuinely thought I didnt manifest the 3p because my attention was focused on him and me.

Do you have any advice you could give? I know the story is little here and there and I apologize. I hope you could help me with my process as i have been feeling really down lately but I am tired of being a victim to my circumstance.

Thank you in advance again!

Hello my love, firstly I wanna tell you to not stress about how you manifested a 3P. It doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t because 3P isn’t something you should be focusing on. Your desire is to be with SP and 3P isn’t in the picture so, 3P is completely irrelevant.

Even if it feels like the 3D is slapping you in the face, you have the power to turn the tables in your favor.

SP is posting on his story trying to make you jealous??? Don’t focus on that. Focus on the fact that he’s obviously thinking about you if he’s going to places and doing things you guys did while together. Look at the positive side.

Even if the 3D hasn’t conformed yet, know that because you’ve been persisting the 3D will reflect that and he is thinking about you. This separation in the 3D is perfect because it gives SP the opportunity to realize just how much he loves you and what you mean to him. What matters is that you are together in the 4D.

Things will change no matter what and are in fact changing right now. You have the power to decide what matters and what doesn’t. Decide what you see in the 3D that is negative doesn’t matter and give more importance to the positive.

Who cares what SP said??? He could block you, live on another planet, have 30 wives and none of that would matter because you are affirming that you and him are in fact together. You are God/the creator, so start acting like it.

ily and thank you for your support 🫶

[rstarsims3]

Hi! What tutorials helped you learn how to mesh clothes in Blender? Or what tutorials or tips would you recommend? Thank you

Hi,

I've watched a lot of character modelling videos on YouTube to get better acquainted with Blender. What I can recommend for you to watch is this 10-part tutorial by Darrin Lile. The creator even provides the images he's working with which makes his workflow easier to follow. The notions you'll learn here will help you create basically anything in Blender, from a bed to a crop top to a bridge.

Another good series you can watch -and specifically made for creating clothing in TS3 - is this one by Lyralei.

Once you're more comfortable with Blender, you can search all kinds of tutorials (like how to mesh flowers, coats, skirts, pillows, etc)., if you're interested and need further clarification.

What I strongly recommend is for you to export the EA game meshes and break them apart in Blender to see how the dev team has approached the category you're interested in. At the beginning, I wouldn't look too much at anyone's meshes except EAs because every creator has their own style and views over what a reasonable polycount is (you can have the same skirt at 2k or 4k- for instance, depending on how much detail you want to add to the mesh). But it is useful to look at other creator's meshes when you deal with transparency, for example.

You can also try to convert CAS stuff from TS4 if you have the possibility. This helped me a lot in getting used to meshing in general because, while being similar to TS3s, their meshes are a bit more detailed (a belt is often painted on the mesh in TS3, but in TS4 the belt will be meshed).

Another important process in Blender is UV mapping. Because it's TS3 and you can't get away with wonky and stretched textures -as long as you make your stuff recolorable, that is - you need to pay special attention to this part.

In general, for Blender I'd say:

keep your polycount in check; too detailed/high poly meshes will "explode" in the game;

close the openings on a mesh (where the sleeves, pants or skirts/dresses end); I also UV unwrap these and find them a spot on the UV layout to make the textures more cohesive.

avoid using the "subdivision surface" modifier as it increases the polycount too much;

try to delete as much of the body under the clothing mesh as possible (I'm also doing this part in Blender for a while now and it's a lot better, easier and more precise to crop it; it helps a lot with avoiding clipping too);

for baggy clothing you can use a plane or cylinder to start with; for skin-tight clothes you can use the EA body meshes ((like in the second link);

If you're really set on creating custom clothing -and sharing your stuff- I'd get used to some good practices from the beginning (because we humans tend to get used to do things one way and keep at that from there on):

create all the LODs required for your item (if it's clothing you'll need all these three: HLOD, MLOD and LLOD) and load them into TSRW. This way your carefully crafted blouse won't change into a t-shirt when zooming out in the game.

in TSRW leave only the maps/images you created for your item. Delete everything else.

for every LOD in TSRW, go to Mesh -> HLOD (MLOD, LLOD)-> Material and load your maps by using Browse. Don't import over the same map again.

textures are really important and the more time you spend working on them, the better your item will look. It's very useful to know how to create normal maps as they add depth to your mesh.

never export packages directly from TSRW as it doesn't compress your file the way it does for sims3pack files. Export as sims3pack, use S3RC to compress it further, then use the Sims 3 Pack Extractor to convert into packages.

Note: When I say TS3 and TS4 meshes, what I'm referring to is meshes from the games, not CC. Also what you're going to learn here is how to make Maxis-Match content for TS3, which I do 90% of the time. The only differences is that my textures are usually more "alpha" looking. I've got a similar ask a while ago if you want to check it out.

The most important thing is to keep at it and don't get discouraged. All this info might seem like a lot now but with practice you'll get used to it. Start with something easy like a tube top and see how it goes. If you have any more questions you can contact me again, either through ask or through DM if you feel comfortable.

Hope this helps!

[despite-everything]

I wrote out this list of instructions/recommendations for making Firefox your default browser, and setting up some extensions I recommend. This is all my personal preference - I’m no expert, but I made these instructions for some friends and family, so I figured I’d share here, too! All the extensions are linked for convenience.

1. Download Firefox, pin to dock of computer, set as default browser 

Why Firefox? Mozilla is a non-profit organization, so unlike Google, they aren’t looking to continually turn a profit, and is an open-source project, meaning you can check the code at any time. Firefox and Safari are independent browsers, but others like Chrome, Brave, and Microsoft Edge all run on Chromium - meaning they’re essentially all Google. The downside to using them is that if your entire internet access is connected to Google, then Google is going to collect data on everything (and then turn around and sell it all over the place).

2. Add DuckDuckGo, set as default search engine for Firefox

Why DuckDuckGo? Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo doesn't collect data from users, and allows IP addresses to remain hidden/protected. Doesn’t use cookies to track activity. Doesn’t share IP address, search terms, etc. with sites you visit (Google, Yahoo, and Bing all share this data). I find that the search results are more “clean” and I usually find what I’m looking for faster, and with fewer “listicles”/bullshit SEO-filled nonsense.

Downsides: Some complex searches may not work (niche content can be missed, but pretty much everything else is good) - so if searching for academic sources, I recommend using Google Scholar instead. Also uses Apple Maps instead of Google, which I don’t like as much, but isn’t a huge problem on the desktop. I have some privacy-centric extensions listed below, which help protect me when I do need to turn to Google.

3. Import browser data from old browser.

4. Set homepage/new tab defaults → Settings.

5. Download Firefox on phone, follow instructions to sync to computer desktop.

6. Install extensions! Improve internet browsing experience! Check out my list of recommendations below.

7. When installing extensions, take a look at the “themes” and customize the look of your browser.

Ad Blockers

Adblocker Ultimate (blocks ads)

uBlock Origin (also blocks ads)

AdGuard Adblocker (guess what this is.)

AdBlock for Firefox (I just really hate ads and want to cover my bases)

Privacy extensions

Privacy Possum (interferes with data collection by sites, helps prevent tracking)

Don’t track me Google (speeds up search results, removes Google tracking feature)

I still don’t care about cookies (allows cookies for sites/prevents pop ups - use with cookie auto delete for privacy)

Cookie autodelete (automatically deletes cookie info from sites, pairs well with above)

Youtube extensions

Return Youtube Dislike (shows the number of dislikes on Youtube - Youtube removed this feature in 2021 for no good reason)

DeRound Youtube (personal preference - makes Youtube thumbnails “sharp”. I think it looks nicer like this.)

Youtube NonStop (prevents “are you still watching” prompts)

SponsorBlock (removes embedded sponsor promotions within Youtube videos)

Other helpful stuff

Unpaywall (checks database of 16 million legal, open-access articles when you view a paywalled scholarly article to see if there’s an open version available)

Don’t Accept image/webp (lets Firefox tell sites webp formats don’t work - enables easier access to downloadable jpeg/png formats on search results)

Absolute Enable Right Click and Copy (some sites block the right click copy/paste option, this extension restores that ability - this seemed to interfere with my use of Google Docs so I disabled it for the site, but it may be coincidental. Need to investigate - this extension is newer to me.)

Facebook Container (prevents Facebook/Meta from tracking all your web activity)

LeechBlock NG (can be enabled to prevent you from using certain sites in a certain timeframe - good for productivity)

Recommended extensions for Tumblr users

Shinigami Eyes (works on other sites too, but highlights trans-friendly people/orgs/etcs green, highlights anti-trans in red. Very useful for Tumblr - makes identifying and blocking hateful users easier)

XKit Rewritten (Tumblr XKit! OG XKit doesn’t work anymore, but I’ve had success with this one. Helps customize the site, sometimes can be used to get rid of/override stupid UI updates)

My personal XKit recommendations:

Toggle on: 

Anti-Capitalism (hides ads)

Mutual Checker (notes who your mutuals are, useful if you follow a lot of people/have a lot of followers and want to know who your “friends” are - especially helpful if you have friends who often change icons/urls)

No Recommended (gets rid of recommended stuff - I clicked “hide” for all the options - I only want to see things posted/reblogged by the people I follow, or things I search for specifically. Clears up the homepage, too.)

Quick Reblog (I personally love this feature - I have it set up “above the reblog button” and checked “yes” for showing the blog selector (useful if you have multiple blogs on the same account), and the “show tags” field. With Quick Reblog, when you hover over the “reblog” button, it pops up a little box that lets me quickly select what blog (defaults to main), add tags, then reblog, queue, or save the post as a draft. I don’t usually add a comment, and never using Quick Reblog, so I didn’t enable that field. You can add more settings, but this is how I like to use it!)

Tweaks (I clicked “Restore links to individual posts in the post header”, “Remove the coloured shadow from focused posts”, “Hide the ‘blaze’ and ‘tip’ button labels”, “Hide my follower count where possible”, “Hide the ‘’Now, where were we?’ button”, and “Hide the Tumblr Live carousel” (I also “snooze” Tumblr Live weekly, but still). Again, these are all personal preferences! This is just how I like the site set up).

[thatdesklamp]

Hey gang. I accidentally deleted a lovely, lovely ask from @lemonsbesour when I was in the middle of writing a response to it. I have no idea what I did. I feel old, ffs. But I will post my response to it, with [brief interjections] from me now to explain it all, hopefully:

Hello! Hi—yes, I so rarely use tumblr but figured that I should have one, just for the shits and gigs most of all, lmao. I feel like a grandma: I don’t know how to use it at all. But it’s fun! It’s kind of like chatting to ppl in the comments section, but in a less formal (???) situation.

Firstly, thank you so much for such a lovely message. You are so kind, omg. It’s difficult, sometimes, to actually take in praise about your own work—I look up to other authors so so much, and feel like a fangirl so much, that it’s so foreign for me to accept that kind of admiration from someone else. It’s especially cool of you to mention the feeling-feelings thing, though, [I was told I was good at writing feelings; my writing was emotive] since that’s something I properly feel I’m not great at sometimes!! The amount of times I have to remind myself to ‘show not tell’, or feel like I’m doing too much ‘telling’… genuinely, when I edit my chapters, half of it is just reworking or straight deleting paragraphs and paragraphs of Hebi-being-emo-soliloquies. If you think there are a lot of them now, in the stuff I’ve actually posted, just trust me: you should see my first drafts.

I am fist-pumping reading that I got you to finish ‘One Day’ [self-explanatory]. Writing intrinsic warmth has just been one long con, just to convince people to read more David Nicholls. When I finally finish IW (gah!!!), I plan on leaving a list of book recommendations, those I’ve read that give me the same emotions that ‘One Day’ did; the emotions I’ve tried to capture in IW. It’s my favourite niche genre of fiction, lmao: Books About Intimate Love (Usually Between Just Two People) That Feel Bittersweet And Also Happen To Be About Time And So Also Feel Nostalgic.

I’ve been thinking about your advice question for a while now. [Asked for writing advice; how to write emotively/depict emotions accurately] Truthfully, I have no bloody clue—in my head, I’m just like, eh, that kinda feels good. What suits the vibe? That suits the vibe. No, no, that *doesn’t* suit the vibe. And etcetera.

There’s a few bog-standard, general tips that I always subscribe to, that I’ve picked up along my way and would be happy to explain in greater detail if that’s wanted; always use ‘says/said’ unless you really have to use something else; never use adjectives instead of someone’s name (e.g. “the brunette looked away” vs. “Susan looked away”); avoid clichés like the plague (explained well in the YouTube video, ‘How to Bore Your Audience’ by The Closer Look); use the Emotion Thesaurus for everything. All the time. It is the writer’s Bible.

Honestly, other than those tips (which are more pragmatic than anything), the only thing I can say is to *practise*. Yes, yes, it’s the wankiest thing in the world to say, and yes, it’s been said twenty million times before, but there’s a reason for that! Just write. And then write some more. Which is why yes, you have to start writing!! [was told @/lemonsbesour was thinking of writing because of IW] Please do. Oh my goodness. I didn’t write for years and years and years until Covid time, really, when (no lie) I watched atla for the first time and subsequently wrote about 40k words of a Zuko x reader. Yes, I look back and wince at its quality, but that’s the point!! Writing is the same as any skill, and you only get better at it when you do it again and again and again. But please write. That would be so cool.

Thank you again for such a lovely message. I was truly giggling and kicking my feet and shit, lmao. Huzzah!! <3

[petewentzisblack1312]

hi i wanted to ask something but also share something personal as well. my q is: do you feel like your relationship w social media has changed? meaning, do you catch / notice when you are on it for too long and you start to notice, and then you say: okay let's take a break. for me, i have been online for a long time ever since i was a kid, and now my relationship to it is i only limit myself an hour to being on my phone. as an adult now i am no longer social media "obsessed". like, when i am in school i am not thinking about online, i am present when im at school. i feel like i am really close to just deleting sm tbh. it does not grant me happiness like it used to. now as an adult i feel this need to live my life freely.

i also wanted to ask what are ur thoughts on content influencers? to me when i see these ppl i think...i could never post about everything about my life, but then again understanding that it is just a highlight reel. no one is posting every sad / frustrating thing that happens in their life as influencer, only the "great" parts.

this is an interesting question! i think ive never really had a relationship to social media where i feel like i need to post constantly or felt pressured to share everything. while im definitely the most online out of my household, compared to a lot of other people im not really very present online. i dont like using twitter, i only really use instagram to look at and post art and occasionally post a picture of my cat or nature or food on my main account, i dont really get up to much and i never use facebook unless i have to. i hate it. even here on tumblr i dont post a lot about my personal life unprompted, and this is the social media site i use the most by far. i do scroll tumblr a lot, i do watch a lot of youtube videos (though almost exclusively video essays on politics and recently also artist vlogs) and i do notice myself scrolling a bit too much, particularly when im overstimulated but instead of doing something less stimulating im anxious and looking for a distraction so i like. scroll harder. but ive never been like doing something else and thought 'man, i wish i was scrolling right now'. i dont really know. i do have trouble putting my phone down, like when i need to sleep, but i have trouble putting ANYTHING down. games, books, art or writing or projects im working on, music im listening to, i dont think tumblr is special, its just another activity for me to be distracted by.

all that being said, i did leave social media for a while. i had a really bad experience in a fandom on tumblr (not the pwams incident. that led me to step away from bandom and move to another fandom) and honestly it made me realise that the problem i had with social media wasnt that i was using it too much, but that i had a toxic relationship with the communities i was interacting with on there. the nature of my relationship to social media was unhealthy, not the fact that i had one that was a large part of my life. i think when i wasnt using any social media i actually wasnt in a great place either, because i was isolated from people id cared about, especially since i had just undergone a very traumatic incident, and because of that became very isolated from my in person friends as well, even before the pandemic pushed me away from even the acquaintances i had made. i was worried about coming back to tumblr, but i think ive grown and learned in such a way that i know how i like to comport myself in cyberspaces, and that its been good for me in a way. which is weird, but. i think id kind of have to go in depth about my life and how the pandemic affected me and the specific nature of coming of age in st lucia and stuff. which i dont want to do haha.

as for influencers. i hate the concept. i understand it, and i dont universally hate influencers as a whole, but like. theres this specific kind of content creator where the thing they are sharing is just their life and there isnt like a specific thing theyre logging, like an artist sharing their creative process and how they manage their life around that, or a chef sharing recipes, and its not like theyre doing it just to do it, they have the goal of growing a following, and theyre not advertising anything but themself, like JUST themself, as a person-brand, and i find that so deeply annoying and repulsive. and like thats strong wording its a dog eat dog world and the girlies of all genders need to secure the bag like i get it. i get it. but its revolting to me. like. the vlogbrothers werent trying to get famous they were using youtube to communicate with each other and as an open video diary and people found them to be interesting personalities to watch. right. do you get it. annoyingly i gotta put myself out there if i want people to find my art and pins and stuff so i have to fuckin. make videos. sell people on me. the idea of making vlogs makes me dry heave bc im not important i dont want to have to sell myself like im important i dont want to put my face on a camera and implicitly say with every quirky performed statement i make 'i matter, pay attention to me, i need to exist so look at me' but unfortunately i might have to. a video essay i could do. thats me saying something. but a vlog? with the goal of people finding my stuff? good god. it sounds like poison.

[sisterssafespace]

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatahu sister. I must say I am very proud of you and your team to keep growing in this particular platform. I used to be your very old follower and I have also sent you a few anon asks. I appreciate for your patience and sorry for my rantings. I appreciate for your replies to my every ask. 🤍 It fills me with joy to recieve a big-sissy-kind-of advice from you. My mumma is too an admirer of your beautiful knowledge despite your age. I previously deleted my Tumblr account because I was in my low point of life. And again created a new one just to thank you, I realised I was ungrateful for such a blessing. Subhanallah! I am an adult and in my college. I often spend my time alone because sadly my Muslim University doesn't have much practicing friends from my department. I am no one to judge but I know things won't go right if I join them. I always fantasy to marry a man of my dreams and probably a best friend would be a bonus. So I make dua in tahajjud everyday and ask Allah a number of things. I ask him from A to Z and I don't compromise in asking cause I know he is the Giver and the Provider. Buuuuuuuuttttttt as I make these duas I get constant bad thoughts in my mind and start to doubt Allah's power to fullfill my duas. I start to doubt to a point where I get demotivated to even make one dua. I rush my prayers, I rush my dhikr, I rush in everything and I get impatient to get my dua accepted. I have seen a lot of YouTube videos where muslimah just posts how their tahajjud duas got accepted few days ago, some said next hour. It baffles me and I ask myself, "how come my dua doesn't get accepted?", "How come they get everything they want whereas I don't?", "Did I commit too many sins to even get any dua acceptance?" And so I tried saying Astagfirullah 200 times after each 5 prayers. Sometimes I miss them due to classes. I have also recently unfollowed a muslimah social media influencer who never attended any University and is of my age. She has got beauty, health, weath and support. She vlogged her whole life for 3 years and showed how she got engaged and married and even gave birth few weeks ago. I was like, "woah! must be a true believer" and I almost start to cry over my life problems and sufferings and all. And I know this too that usually social media doesn't show the reality but sometimes it hurts so much that I tend to see what's really in front of me and not take a deeper look into it. Please help me how should I overcome such negative thoughts and feelings. And what else do I need to get my specific duas accepted in tahajjud? I'm not ungrateful, I am just impatient. How do I master patience? P.s: some of my duas got accepted and I am grateful for it. But negative thoughts just kicks in you know. 💔😢 The devil doesn't take a break.

Assalamualaikum habibty 🥹🥹🥹💗

MashaaaaaAllah such a long multidimensional ask :') where do I start?

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delayed answer, as you may know, the genocide happening right now in Gaza is taking a toll on all of us and our mental health, I am trying my best to deal with my survivor's guilt and find strength to function as normally as possible. Allahu al mustaān.

With that being said, thank you thank you thank you for the kind words, may Allah swt bless you and your momma, and grant her good health and happiness ameeeeeen !! I appreciate your words habibty, Jazaki Allahu kulla khayr 🤍 Sometimes I forget that we have been doing this for a while, and that our posts and answers have helped sisters through different periods of their lives, it helps to be reminded, alhamdullillah 🤍

O Allah swt make me better than what they think of me and forgive me what they don't know about me :')

Now let's talk about your negative thoughts. Those are basically shaytan trying to pull you far from Allah swt and distract you habibty. As we know, shaytan's biggest promise/challenge is to distract the slave of Allah from their worship. So whatever you are focusing on, shaytan will come and try to pull you as far as possible from that. And the harder you stick to that act of worship (in your case duaa and Tahajjud) the harder shaytan will try and fight you. But you have to put in mind one thing: Allahuma barik laki, you are already winning by waking up and praying Tahajjud, you are already winning the Love of Allah swt. Tahajjud is not for everyone, it is only for the brave hearts and the pure hearts, they say that Allah swt invites his beloved slaves for Tahajjud, it is like a superpower, so you should know, waking up for Tahajjud is already unlocking doors for you and taking you up many levels in Jannah in shaa Allah, regardless of whether the duaas are accepted or not. And that is one thing you should be comforted by I hope.

As for duaas being accepted, there are a lot of lectures online by expert shuyookhs and imams who talk about this matter. What they have almost all agreed upon is that making duaas is in itself a beloved act of worship to Allah swt and you'll be rewarded just for that. Then Allah swt has three ways or responses to your duaas: 1) yes, now. 2) yes but not now, later. 3) no that's not good for you but I have something better for you.

And we don't interfere with Allah's timing my dear. All you have to do is ask and leave things in His hands. It is a matter of faith. It is sufficient that you truly believe that Allah swt knows what's best for you and when is the right time to give it to you my dear. You just have to believe that and be at peace with not knowing, and be at peace with waiting. You did mention Sabr, patience, which is crucial in waiting for our duaa response. Prophet Yaqub (as) waiting his whole life for Yusuf (as) to come back to him, he knew in his heart that Allah swt will reunite him with his son, and he never despaired. It took years and years but he never lost hope, or felt frustrated. And that's just one example.

But anyways, if you need to strengthen your chances of your duaas being accepted, you need to start and finish your duaas with sending salaams and prayers upon Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and you need to ask Allah swt with His specific names, so for example, if you are asking Allah for forgiveness you need to use His names that carry the meaning of forgiveness ( Al Ghaffar, Al Ghafour, Al Ghafir..) and if you are asking for rizq in marriage, ask Him swt by His names Ar-razzaq (the provider/ sustainer), Al-Wadud ( the loving one) .. Al Fatih (the opener).. Al Aleem (The knower of all..) etc.

+ about the topic of rushing after prayer, I do struggle with the same issue sübhanallah, and here is a personal hack that helps me with it. I am a visual person I need visual reminders, so what I would do is make notes on papers, I would write the after-salah adhkar, some duaas, tasbeeh.. and stick them on the wall in my salah corner so when I finish my salah it is right there in front of me I can't skip it. But if you're rushing to go to class then stick to the bare minimum: Ayatul kusee after every fard (obligatory salah) and on your way to class say Sübhanallah x10 Alhamdullillah x10 Allahu akbar x10, and you're all set in shaa Allah 😚 See, Islam is beautifully easy and simple if you want to simplify it. Sübhanallah, our deen is that of ease 🤍

To conclude, I don't want to make this any longer for you, for the negative thoughts keep in mind that it is from shaytan and he is only trying to distract you, whenever you feel like you're slipping into that hole pull back by saying I seek refuge in Allah swt from Shaytan, say la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah x100 a day if you can as well.

I will leave you with this simple but powerful duaa:

Allahuma aenee alaa thikrika wa shukrika wa husni ibadatika : O Allah, help me with remembering you, thanking you, and well-worshipping you.

I, from the bottom of my heart, pray Allah swt grants you ease, relief and comfort habibty. May Allah swt grant your heart its biggest wishes and reward you with an immense joy that makes you burst into tears, soon ya rab ..

Fi Aman Allah my precious one 💗

- A. Z. 🤍🍃

[illfoandillfie]

Hi sweetheart, i hope you are doing great! i think you are a beautiful person and an amazing writer, i’ve written lots of things already but i would like to hear some advice from you about writing so i can improve my skills, i really love writing 🫶🏻😩🥹🥰💌✨

lots of love from Argentina

oh gosh im 🤧🤧 thank you, thats so lovely of you to say!

First of all I keep a writing advice tag for any posts I come across with useful writing tips. Some of them are really general, some of them are about writing specific things (like kissing or children), so probably not everything in there will be useful but hopefully some of it is.

As for my own advice.... none of it is going to be groundbreaking stuff. I've never studied writing, I don't think too hard about how I write, and at the end of the day I just write silly fics about silly boys to keep myself entertained. But I'll put a few things under the cut. These are all more general sort of tips so if there are any specific parts of writing you want me to talk about let me know and I'll see what I can give you!

Number 1 is to just have fun with it. Don't get hung up worrying about if a concept is cringe or if its something no one else will like or if it sounds too much like something else you wrote. If it's an idea that interests you, then you're going to find it easier and probably more fun to write. And if you already love writing then you don't want writing to turn into a chore or something you don't enjoy.

Number 2 is to read real books. Reading fanfic is great and fun but it's very useful to read some books that have been professionally edited and published too. There is a craft to writing things that sound good and one of the fastest ways to learn what sounds good is to read books. You don't have to study them or analyse them, your brain will just pick up on patterns, on how sentences fit together, on what sounds good and what doesn't.

One of my fave examples of this is the way we describe things, at least in the English language. There is an unwritten formula for making a description sound good. opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. It's why saying "the silly little pink French book" sounds good but "the pink silly French little book" sounds very strange. No one is taught this formula, no one does it consciously. It's just that one sounds better than the other. And it's the sort of thing you subconsciously pick up from reading.

Number 3 is don't be afraid to do some research. No one knows everything. Sometimes you'll want to write about something that isn't super familiar to you. Whether that be because you're writing is set in a different country to where you are, or you're writing a smut scene with a kink/position you've never done in real life, or you're writing a character with a kid when you don't have kids. Research it! Go on google maps and find the place you want to write about so you can see how the streets look. Find a cosmo article or a youtube video that talks about the kink. Find a site that includes those little drawings of sexual positions (or heck, find some porn if thats more helpful) so you can see how it looks. Find a blog post from a parent and see how they talk about their kid. Listen or watch interviews if you're writing RPF to see how your person talks and what their mannerisms are. Not everything has so be 100% accurate and you're absolutely allowed to make some stuff up but if there's anything you feel unsure about, see if some research helps you.

Number 4 is to read everything you write out loud, but especially dialogue. Sometimes things can sound good while you're writing it but then when you read it back you realise it sounds clunky or it doesn't flow properly. Plus it helps you pick up on mistakes you might otherwise miss (like incorrect spelling or if you meant to delete a sentance but didn't). And I say especially for dialogue because when people talk they'll abbreviate words, they include slang, they use contractions. By reading things out loud to yourself you can hear where inflections are, you can hear if something sounds too formal, or wrong for the emotion you're trying to convey. When I write I make sure that I read it out loud to myself when I'm editing. You don't have to read it to someone else and you can whisper it under your breath so no one else will hear, but it is one of the best things you can do while editing or even if you get stuck while writing a conversation. Sometimes just hearing it out loud will help you identify why its not working.

Those are all the things I can think of off the top of my head but like i said if theres any areas of writing that I haven't mentioned that you'd like my take on let me know!

[whatsthepointinstayinghere]

I can't take this anymore

I'm going to abandon my account. Just uninstall this shit. I spent too much wasted time to delete everything. Hopefully some of my posts may brighten someone's day.

But if Pixel doesn't want to unblock me or even talk to me then there's no point in trying anymore. I know that they'll never unblock me, no one does. I know that too well. This pain. I know what it means when someone can't stand you. They will reject you, push you away. No matter how much you try and change yourself or own up for your mistakes, it's never good enough.

I feel worthless. They'll never forgive me. I'll just be seen as this person who made them uncomfortable forever. Blocking is exactly the same as a perma ban, no turning back... That's the way it's always been for me.

No one forgives me.

I was in the wrong for trying to care.

And I'll face my eternal punishment.

Tumblr is just another void for me. Emptiness...

I belong nowhere. There is nothing for me out there. I no longer have any confidence to try and be myself here.

YouTube is my only form of online communication. I risk harming myself if I stay on here. Because I just know.... Deep down.

That I'm not worth that person's time. I've committed the ultimate sin. No amount of apology or effort to talk will win back any trust. I'm just a stranger to them.... A fan who was stupid enough to try and help them. Tumblr is a constant reminder of that mistake, and if it's just going to be silence as usual then I need to leave. I can't stand being here anymore with these thoughts... I thought I was doing the right thing but ended up looking like a terrible person. I'm nothing to them, I don't deserve to be in their presence or in the community they love so much. I've screwed up in the past... And it just keeps repeating. The only thing I'm good at is staying out of everyone's way and just uploading my own gaming videos on my own channel.

At least it's something to do online. I'm trying... One last time, to show people that I'm not a bad person. By doing the things I actually love. To try and create a cool YouTube channel for gamers to not only choose to watch my videos if they want to but to access other amazing games and channels they may not know about.

Here.

In case anyone cares.

This will be my online home from now on.

I have no purpose here anymore. No reason to stay.

No point in posting, since I'm too depressed to do so. Especially with the constant fear that the person I've upset is still keeping me blocked away. Why should I stay when they feel that way about me? Warned others about me? I feel afraid to even look at their artwork or anything to do with them. Because of immense guilt that I've said the wrong things and they'll never forgive me. Being here is like a prison, I'm a prisoner in my own thoughts and emotions. I feel alone, since I don't deserve to post anything else to do with the game they love.

I'm really really sorry I failed. Sorry for disturbing you. Sorry for my existence. You didn't deserve someone like me to trauma dump in your blog. I deserve the rejection. Like how I deserve every single ban.

Thank you to those who did reach out to me.

I'll never forget your kindness. It's time for me to depart and not look back. I'll only just make videos and keep my mouth shut.

[livewiregoth]

Tamagotchi Ps Setting up Sonictchi VDP

I was originally going to try for Pumpkin Deviltchi & then Sonictchi(along with random characters I liked if I had to wait for another boy) but decided to scrap the idea. I can try again at any time then get Sonictchi again if I feel like it but I think I'm also burnt out from the Pix. I'm not going to explain too much since it will make this long but the Pix makes it hard to be interested in stuff despite how much I like the features so it led to being nervous despite the fact I have way more control with the Ps, technically the Mix/Meet/On(at least on gen 1 & with certain characters for age stages) & Uni.

Anyway I decided to do Sonictchi not only cause of the Pix burn out but also cause I'm on a massive Sonic kick again. I could get Pumpkin Deviltchi later if I feel like it & I could just setup custom Halloween stuff if I want Halloween stuff while playing with Sonictchi.

Here's clips I decided to get of setting up the firmware patch to prevent the vdp from ejecting since without a physical pierce it'd eject itself in 12 hours. You can also see that I forgot I already had it installed but it's a good look into what you need to do.

I was a little hesitant at first cause I didn't know what to do & for some reason Mr.Blinky's site(especially with the page for vdp+ which was the page I needed) wasn't working(failed to load) for a while but it luckily came back up after some time though I did also find a video on his youtube channel. Setting everything was really easy after getting everything setup but because I didn't know what I was doing I had no idea what I was doing.

All you have to do is send the patch, go to the patch in the travel area(the door) & press "A" a few times to continue threw the process.

So yeah I set this up when I setup the English patch & forgot, on the bright side it's setup & you can see what the screens say

Here's setting up the Sonictchi vdp, I took a little too long to setup cause I forgot the tamagotchi needs to be a certain distance instead of really close to the inferred device

I forgot I needed to delete the vdp patch setup, I'll do that when my tamagotchi returns from daycare(ok after getting him fed & cared for but you know what I mean)

All I have to do is travel to the patch & everything will be prepared

Pretty

And now I'm prepared for trying to get Sonictchi

I really like the menu layout for the Sonictchi patch, not only cause of the design but because of something else. I've rambled vaguely in the past & it's made no sense but I like when the layout for the menu has a design for each icon.

The default menu I used up until now was not only nice looking but had a spot for each icon, the Sonci based menu also has a spot for each icon whether that was intentional or not.(As you can see with the door icon in front of the ring between Knuckles & Tails) There's a starry based menu I like but the menu felt off to me without little designs behind the icons. I know it's stupid & I'm sorry about that.

I feel bad Knuckles is where the bathroom icon is but it's nice to see Cream is in the menu. Kind of interesting she's were the clover/med kit icon is.

Anyway I'm ready to get Sonictchi in the teen stage(need to feed him 3 chilidogs) so we'll see what happens in a few days.