#might create another side blog specifically for them

[jaeyleo]

.

[bobbiedebruyn]

So you just joined Tumblr?

Tumblr basics + Fandoms/Gifmaking

Congratulations, you just landed at Tumblr! This hellsite (affectionate) can seem intimidating and complicated at first, but once you grasp the basics of it it’ll quickly turn into your own personal little hut in the forest. Tumblr is a website where you and only you curate your dashboard, you’ll see the content that you seek on your own. In this post, I’ll explain the basics of Tumblr and the basics of how fandoms function here with the help of Bob. Okay, let’s get started.

1. Blog customization

The first thing you should do as soon as you land on Tumblr is add a profile picture and header before you interact with people. You want to be distinguishable from bots and therefore avoid getting blocked. You can also add anything to your bio, there's no character limit. Some folks add their name and pronouns, but there are no rules about that. There are also no rules about profile pictures. It can be a picture of you, a picture of your dog, a picture of a rock, or a picture of your favorite character. If you plan on staying on the fandom side, you might notice that a lot of fandom blogs have colorful-looking icons (a cutout of a character on a colorful background), for these icons and also headers I suggest checking out source blogs that make those icons. For starters, @iconheadersource is a goldmine where you definitely going to find something that’d suit you and your blog.

Tumblr on mobile and Tumblr on desktop are two different creatures when it comes to customization. On the desktop, you can customize your blog with coding (HTML + JS). Now Bob will demonstrate to us some examples of blogs on desktop.

If you want to customize your desktop blog, I suggest checking out @phantomcodes and @glenthemes for the codes.

Tutorial on how to install themes

Using javascript on Tumblr pages

2. Search Engine

Nice! You've made your blog look pretty! Now, let's shift our focus to the search engine and ways to discover content. As mentioned earlier, you curate your dashboard by looking for things you enjoy and like. Search using hashtags or the names of your interests (TV shows, movies, birds, music, etc.) to find your piece of cake. For instance, folks who create posts about TV shows you like use tags to ensure their posts reach others interested in the same thing. So, let's go ahead and search for something right now.

Once you search for that specific tag, you are redirected to the corresponding tag page. Here, you can see that posts are sorted by "Latest" or "Top" (indicating posts with the most notes). On the right side, you will find related tags and blogs which are frequently using the searched tag. By following the tag, both the tag itself and the posts tagged with it will automatically appear on your dashboard in the "Your tags" section. You have the option to filter tags according to your preferences. In the settings, you can choose to block specific tags if you prefer not to see content related to some particular topics.

The only method for sharing posts and content on this website is through reblogging. On Tumblr, reposting others' content, including art, gifs, and fics, is not accepted. Reposting means downloading art, gifs, etc., creating your own post, and then sharing it. And that's a big no-no, strongly discouraged. Your likes essentially function as bookmarks, and you have the option to set them to be private. When you save something, it doesn't appear on your friends' dashboards.

We don't censor things here, and I advise you not to do so too. If you need to mention a word that might be potentially triggering or could be flagged on another social media, feel free to say it. Many users have specific topics and tags filtered out, so if you use variations like "K!tKat" instead of "KitKat" in the tags, it can bypass the tag filter, potentially causing more harm as people will see content that triggers them. And remember to always tag posts that have flickering or flashing!!!

If you want to organize your reblogs or make comments on a reblog, use the tags section and not the comments section itself. This is called "#add tags." Feel free to type whatever you want, but keep in mind that the original poster receives notifications when someone reblogs their post and adds tags. Yes, all tags are visible to us.

Okay, so let's quickly recap this information with the help of our dear friend, Bob.

3. Social interactions

So let's move on to one of the crucial topics - how to make friends on Tumblr? Personally, I don't think there's one particular formula for that. Sometimes you just see a funny bloke posting about something as random as desert rain frogs, grab them, and go "You're my friend now" and that's how you become mutuals. 

However, there are other, more common ways to become friends with someone. You can start by reblogging someone's post, adding tags to the reblog, and then following the person. Create your own posts, tag them to ensure they reach the folks who are interested in the same things as you, and participate in fandom events and challenges if you're into that. Interact with people you want to befriend, message them, send them asks. You will eventually find your crowd. You'll also find swifties, and fans of supernatural who never moved on from that destiel love confession four years ago, they also can be your friends, at some point, you will become friends and chill with each other. Be open to new interests to make sure your dashboard is not dull and boring.

Tumblr doesn't have the supposed hierarchy, and you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise, you curate your own experience and blocking is pretty normalized here. Notes and followers (which are private for everyone) don't really matter, stick to your beliefs and your vibe and you'll be fine. We're all equal losers here.

4. Fandom / Gifmaking

Fandoms play a significant role on Tumblr, they're closely tied with gifmaking. As a fellow creature of fandom, I'm adding this part because we don't gatekeep - more gifmakers and fandom enthusiasts mean a better fandom experience. As I mentioned earlier, everything has its tag, making it easy to find your favorite TV show fandom by searching for the tag. This is also how you can connect with people who share an interest in that specific TV show. Upon entering the tag, you'll stumble upon numerous moving pictures – these are GIFs. People create GIFs of everything, from their "blorbo" (the term for favorite character) to beloved ships and favorite moments. There are also plenty of creative GIFs with different coloring and complicated effects. And the best part? You can do it too!

There are a lot of ways to make GIFs. Some people use Photoshop, and some use Photopea which is an excellent accessible option. I'll be linking posts for Photoshop under this text. For Photopea tutorials and guides, please check out @photopeablr.

I've been making GIFs for three years at this point, and those are the tutorials I used when I was just starting out:

how to make a gif:

comprehensive guide 101

basic gif making tutorial + mvp player installation 

gifmaking for beginners

how to install MVP player on a PC

film downloading & screen-capping tips

correct photoset dimensions 

coloring

how to fix orange-washed characters

how to: coloring east & southeast asian celebs

channel mixer

colored background

color manipulation

vibrant coloring

how to brighten dark scenes

color isolation

effects

glitch effect

blending

crossfade transition

gradient effect in the text

gradient text

red colour accent on the b&w gifs

how to add a gif in a template

blurring gif backgrounds

using templates

text

text tutorial 1

font resources

understanding fonts and typefaces

split text

subtitles

other

icon tutorial

gif headers 

For more tutorials, inspirations, and resources - please check out @usergif. It's a good source blog for all gifmakers.

Wait but what's a source blog? These are blogs that center around a specific theme, creating content for a particular topic. They are managed by multiple editors, these blogs track their own tags to reblog content related to the theme. They can be source blogs dedicated to gifmaking (just like @usergif), a TV show, a movie, a character, a celebrity, a sports team, or literally anything else. Typically, these blogs incorporate terms like "network," "source," "central," "creators," "hub," or "daily" in their usernames, making them easily distinguishable from regular personal blogs. Examples of source blogs that come to my mind right now are @dailyanakin, @heartstoppercentral, and @nancywheelercentral.

Let's also talk about tracking tags, which are often included in blogs's bios, whether they're from source blogs or solo gifmakers. You can add these tags to your posts when creating a gifset related to a specific source blog or something you know a particular gifmaker would appreciate. Basically, the gifmaker can search their tracking tag, much like a regular Tumblr tag, and view the most recent sets in which someone used their tag.

The last thing I want to talk about are usernames, and main and side blogs. On Tumblr, we have two types of blogs: the main blog and the side blog. The main blog is the initial blog created when you sign up for your account. This blog has full functionality and all features, allowing you to follow other blogs, like posts, and send asks to other blogs. In addition to the main blog, you can create side blogs on your account. Side blogs lack some of the features of main blogs; you can't like posts, follow other blogs, or send asks from a side blog. They have slightly different functionality – a side blog can be password-protected, have multiple users, and allow you to send direct messages to people. Other users can follow your side blog, and you can receive asks from them.

Many people use side blogs as URL holders. For instance, when a new TV show is announced, someone might be the quickest to save all canonical character names. You can then message that empty side blog to inquire if they're willing to trade that specific URL or if it's available for a giveaway. Canonical URLs are often challenging to obtain, so many people add letters in between or at the end or use symbols like "-", and they also mix names and surnames of different characters.

5. The End

Okay, so we've just covered how Tumblr works, how fandoms operate, and how to get into gifmaking. I hope this guide by me and Bob has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to my ask box or simply ask Bob. I hope you enjoy your stay here, and that your experience with this website will be a positive one.

[withleeknow]

cats and soup.

note: i have a newfound obsession and it's cats and soup so this might be a little niche but it's meant for me and i just wanted to word vomit lmfao

cats and soup, that's your latest obsession. all it took was five minutes of your friend introducing you to the game before you were completely captivated by the world of cute little animated cats making soup on your phone.

so much so that you had to show your boyfriend.

obviously. it's a game about cats. who else would you rather squeal about it with?

though, much to your disappointment, minho doesn't seem very impressed as you try to get him to look at your phone screen for more than ten seconds.

okay. little meanie.

"why would you need to play a game like this when you have our actual babies right over there?"

"i have them in here too!" you'd argue. "look! i named them soonie, doongie and dori. aren't they so cute? soonie is on soup duty, doongie is chopping carrots, and dori is grating cabbages. i even got them cute little hats!"

the mention of his cats featured in the game gets minho to spare you a glance, intrigued for a fleeting moment before he's turning away again.

you'd scowl at his refusal to entertain you but then you'd admit defeat pretty quickly in favor of immersing in your phone once more. it's cats !! making soups !!

it's not unusual for you two to be in separate bubbles while sitting side by side. you're not one of those couples who has to do everything with each other, but you did kinda hope that this would be something for you to have fun with together.

but oh well, if minho isn't interested, then you can't force him. the game is still fun though. even though you go to bed that night a little bummed out, you still fall asleep thinking about getting a black kitten and naming it mimo. it'd be cute, maybe you'd even put him on lemon squeezing duty.

fast forward to the next morning, when he literally shakes you awake at the ass crack of dawn, calling your name frantically.

your first thought is the house must be burning down, because lee minho never acts like this.

"i finally got you!"

"you got me what?"

"i got your cat!"

"what?"

actually, on second thought, the only time that you've seen him this hyped up was when you'd gotten you two matching pjs with soonie, doongie and dori printed on them.

"see?!" then the guy is full on shoving his phone in your face, the sudden brightness of his screen almost taking your eyes out that you have to push his hand away.

"min!"

"sorry. here."

he'd lower the brightness and hold the device a safe distance from your face, impatiently waiting for your eyes to adjust to whatever it is that he's trying to show you.

it's a cat.

an animated cat.

specifically, a cats and soup animated cat, named after you.

"you named a cat after me?"

"yeah i was waiting for ages to get another black cat. i got one first and named it after me. now we can be a black cat couple. look at the cat tower i got us-"

"minho, what the fuck? when did you even start playing?"

"i downloaded it after you fell asleep."

"have you been playing all night? did you even sleep?"

"no, but that's beside the point. look, i'm trying to show you!"

you love him, you do. truly. completely. most ardently. you recognize that this is one of the cutest things that he's done. but jesus christ...

"it's sunday. it's 6 in the morning."

"yeah i know, but-"

"i'll look at it later."

"you're up, you can look now. i got you a potted plant that grows from your head and-"

"lee minho, let me fucking go back to sleep!"

you may have unintentionally created a monster.

permanent taglist: @onlyycb97wife @starsandrqindrops @borahae-reads @abbiestearsricochet @cutiespaghetti @anthropologykpopmultistan @moonlinos @mjnhoz @caitlyn98s @piercidh34rts  @stayceebs97 @linocz @yaorzu-blog @biribarabiribbaem @kayleefriedchicken @extrhotjne

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[starry-miki]

Well when I said I might post something in March I didn’t actually think I’ll have something done and posted the first day on March, put it’s also an appreciation post to a small handful of people I see (semi) often for a while, I don’t know where this is coming from but I just decided to do it, like every other major “project” I do.

During my time when I was in my art slump I have missed valentines and I’m still upset by it cause I absolutely love valentines and it’s beautiful aesthetic, so this is kinda my “redemption” for it, technically white day is coming up in March but I just feel like it doesn’t feel just as special. 🥲

But I drew old man and barbs as markable plushies, and honestly turning them to markable plushies is oddly therapeutic, since it was so simple and fast. Still debating if I should do the entire side characters plus the additional trio, so I’ll see if people would like for me to do it. 🤔

Aside from that i just wish to to give my wonderful gratitude and appreciation w/ little note for those specific people, but to everyone else in general, I would like to thank you all for your patience’s and interactions, while I haven’t been that active until the last few months of last year, and once again haven’t been that active the last month, I do see people’s comments and replies and fully enjoy reading them, even if I don’t always reply back, I truly enjoy interacting with the OM community, and everyone who I’ve met thus far, and hope to continue being in the community for a while. ☺️💕

To my cutie patooties: 

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @nevvn 💕

Frankly I think I might be a person of few words when it comes to expressing my feelings and really try my best to come up with something to say in the last hour but nothing comes up, all I have to say is: “you cutie patootie” and the saying: an artist will draw if they like you. 🥰💕

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @blithesharem 💕

I really enjoy reading and seeing your post and your OCs and your occasional fanfics, expect that one time, I’m think I’m still in shock about it. 😀

A few days ago I did ask if you had a persona so I could draw them into a markable plushie, but if you would prefer one of your kids (OCs) into a markable plushies that’s cool too, but would love to draw out your persona if you were to create one. 🥰💕

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @yurihisachi 💕

I do see you occasionally pop up time to time in my nonfictions, but I still would like to appreciate your presence, thought it would be pretty funny if I’ve already mentioned you in post in a different username and this is a side account of some sort. But if it isn’t, feel free to contact me so I can draw you up a markable plushie of an OC you have or a persona. ^^ 💕

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @impish-ivy 💕

Another face I occasionally see pop up on my nonfictions, thank you so much for interacting with my posts! I’m not sure if you would like Minnie to be turned into a markable plushie or if you perhaps have a persona, but do let me know. ☺️💕

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @undertalefanzz-blog 💕

I honestly got no comment to you, if you know you know. 😘

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

💕 @venusdaplanet 💕

I don’t see you too often but when I do, I absolutely love seeing your comments, very interesting to read and makes you stand out in the crowd. If you got a persona or an OC I can draw up into a markable plushie let me know, I’ll be happy to draw one up for my application to you! 🥰💕

[tmblrcolouredpaper]

Solitaire - Chapter 1

overanalyzing/-interpreting and probably pointing out the obvious... just random notes and thoughts (ca. 2100 words in the form of bulletpoints)

counting got fucked up, imma fix it later, sorry if it's confusing to read -> should be fixed now

Solitaire, a fictional story with Tori (Victoria Spring) as homodiegetic narrator

Pride and Prejudice Quotes introduce us to the tone of Tori’s story

→ we know that Tori rather identifies with mr Darcy, so lets see what we find about Mr Darcy that might tell us something about Tori before we even get to know her:

Quote 1:

‘And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.’

‘And yours’, he replied with a smile, ‘is willfully to misunderstand them.’

→ we learn about Mr Darcy that he allegedly tends to hate everybody and that he assumes willful misunderstanding one sides of the other party

(PART 1) Quote 2:

Elizabeth Bennet: Do you dance, Mr Darcy?

Mr Darcy: Not if I can help it.

→ without having a specific pace as instance in mind, it definitely sounds like something Tori would word for word answer to a question as the one given

• Getting to know Tori, before she ‘officially’ introduces herself to the reader (p.3f)

she perceives the majority of people in school as almost dead, including herself (p.3)

→ creating the picture of a crowd that allegedly shares a tragic similarity

2. she observes her steady numbness opposed to the socially anticipated numbness as reaction to the contrast of a phase of event (here: Christmas) and the eventless phase after (p.3)

→ differentiating herself from the crowd

3. Becky says that Tori looks like she wants to kill herself (p.3) to what Tori responds with ‘It’s funny because it’s true’ (p.4); Tori describes Becky’s reaction as her looking some more without really looking (p.4)

→ Tori feels perceived by Becky, but not seen

4. Tori says she and Becky are laughing about something that isn't funny (p.4)

→ Tori’s inauthenticity

5. Becky realizes Tori’s apathy and moves away while Tori leans into her own arms and falls half asleep (p.4)

→ Becky not taking action but physically bringing some distance between Tori and her, while Tori stabilizes herself by her own strength, escaping into a state of being half asleep but also halfway remaining in reality

6. Tori’s focus on appearance and her insecurity about her own

→ changes in peoples’ appearance like in hair and makeup that make herself feel ‘inadequate’ to which she ‘deflates’ into a chair a.k.a. makes herself smaller and hides away (p.4)

Tori’s ‘official’ introduction to the reader (p.4f)

‘My name is Victoria Spring’

→ she starts off with her full name

2.she makes up a lot of stuff in her head

→ focus on reality in form of her interior world

3. likes to see, and blog, and is going to die someday

→ listing the obvious fact of dying right beside other mundane activities emphasizes the priority of that topic in her daily life

4. Rebecca Ellen as only real friend and therefore probably best friend (p.4); Tori categorizes her as a ‘popular girls’ due to being recognized and therefore popular because she has long purple hair (p.4); Tori differentiates between being known by name and known personally (p.4)

→ Tori categorizing people even her friends

→ Tori challenges the significance of being popular and its lack of guaranteeing depth and significance

→ Question: Since when are people popular in school when they have recognizable purple hair? In my experience teenagers with colored hair are the one’s being likely to be bullied by the popular ones 🙄

5. Evelyn Foley categorizes as ‘alternative’ due to her appearance (p.5)

6. Tori questions if Becky actually likes Evelyn and she believes people only pretend to like each other (p. 5)

→ does Tori think that, because she only pretends/ feels like she pretends?;

→ is Tori worried that people only pretend to like her (believes that she is so unlikable, people must pretend)?

7. Tori does not participate in Becky and Evelyn’s conversation and only reacts to them when she ‘deduces’ she’s supposed to (p.5); she feels ‘pressured’ to contribute something to the conversation (p.5); she expresses her disinterest in the current discussed topic (p.5) and believes she ruined the conversations, so she leaves

→ Tori doesn't connect naturally with people, even when she considers one of them her friends and rather feels pressured to react in certain way than feeling invited to share herself authentically

→ without Becky and Evelyn even saying anything nor showing any reaction regarding Tori impacting the conversation immensely negatively, Tori’s insecurity of not meeting expectations causes her to escape the situation right away

8. Tori says she sometimes hates people what must be bad for her mental health (p.5)

→ does she include herself in that statement like she did in the beginning (p.3)?

→ self-awareness

→ awareness of mental health (I’m just adding that, because when I was her age ‘mental health’ was not a term that was used too often yet nor truly cared about/ talked about, so in my reality it is somewhat remarkable that Tori observes herself and immediately evaluates whether her thoughts could be detrimental to her health, that she immediately makes that connection; I also wonder if that’s caused by being confronted with mental health due to Charlie being such a big part of her life)

9. Tori focuses on ‘social hierarchy’ in school (p.5)

→ categorizing her social environment

10. ‘shoot me in the face’ (p.5)

→ another self-detrimental joke/ phrase

→ radical way of thinking and agains with the worst outcome for herself in mind

11. Tori not feeling pretty in school uniform (p.6)

→ insecurity about her appearance

the plot commences or Tori in action

Tori sees and follows post-it (p.6)

→ she observes and takes action

2.other people don’t see post it; ‘…or they don’t care. I can relate to that.’ (p.6)

→ people oblivious; Tori differentiated from people

→ Tori can relate to the general sense of not caring, however in this case she does care contrary to her words; at least she cares enough to register the post-it and actively follow it

3. doing stuff that other people don't seem to care about makes Tori feel like she is doing something important (p.7); ‘mainly because no one else is doing it’ (p.7)

→ differentiating herself from others

→ paying attention to things that seemingly don't get attention (Is that an interior wish of hers as she feels like not truly being payed attention to?)

→ shows her trait of not leaving things (or people) alone by themself (Charlie)

→ she cares, she seeks out moments of significance

4. she’s rather paying attention to the game Solitaire than to the IT class (p.8)

→ solitaire = alone, isolated

→ again, paying attention to what others don't

→ literally involving with what’s alone, while being alone doing so; isolating herself from her surrounding by seeking out what’s isolate; bonding over isolation

→ she also evaluates that playing Solitaire does more for her intelligence than paying attention to the IT lesson (p.8) → being alone appears to be more beneficial to her

5. Michael enters the room and verbally registers the room first (p.8)

6. Tori thinks that he registers her only after he scanned the inanimate parts of the room (p.9)

7. Tori judges Michael’s appearance (p.9)

8. Michael ‘absorbs’ Tori’s face (p.9)

→ not just ‘looking’ or ‘seeing’, he literally takes her in from her perspective

9. ‘his eyes flare up’ + ‘I swear to Got they double in size’

→ most animated way Tori has described something yet

→ (I love the eye flaming up phrase so much!)

10. ‘leaps towards me like a pouncing lion’ (p.9)

→ comparison

→ wildness, strength

→ movement towards her (contrary to the last described encounter in which Becky, her allegedly best friend physically moves away from her)

11. ’ fiercely enough that I stumble backward in fear that he might crush me completely’ (p.9)

→ it is possible that Michael actually moves in such exaggerated manner, but it might also be such a drastic contrast to Tori that she uses such strong wordings to describe him due to not being used that people react so strongly to her

→ the unfamiliarity of Michaels demeanor overwhelms Tori

12. ‘he leans forward’; ‘face only centimeters away from mine’ (p.9)

→ Michael leans into Tori’s presence

13. Tori sees herself in Michael’s glasses

→ she sees herself first when she’s forced to look at him closely

14. ‘He grins violently’ (p.9)

→ I just love that sentence, okay. Michael just has such a strong presence, especially in a place like school that Tori keeps describing as ‘dull’ (p.6). So many contrasts that crystallize characteristics.

15. ‘’Victoria Spring’, he cries’ + big arms thrown in the air movement (p.9)

→ he celebrates that he found her

16. Tori stay quiet and ‘has a headache’ (p.9)

→ contrast to Michael’s reaction; her lack of reaction

→ overwhelm?, confusion?; hating people?

17. Tori finds her picture awful (p.10)

→ insecure about her appearance

18. ‘It’s like I don’t even have a face’ (p.10 )

→ lack of identity, significance?; hidden away

19. ‘Michael steps back a little’ but only to give her back her personal space (p.10)

→ he moves away, but remains as close as possible without irrupting Tori’s comfort unnecessarily

20. Michael’s ‘insane smile’ (p.10)

→ Tori describing/ judging his appearance (she’s so obsessed with his smile, haha)

21. ‘Everything lit up like it’s on fire’; ‘He notices me looking too’; ‘’It’s like it’s pulling you out, isn't it?’’ (p.11)

→ the foreshadowing, hehe

→ he notices her actions/ immersion/ interest and reacts to it by directly talking to her

22. ‘You are definitely Tori Spring, aren’t you’. ‘This should be a question, but he says it like he’s already known for a long time’ (p.12)

→ he does know her from when he showed her around at school last year; Tori doesn't know that they already met yet

→ without knowing, she intuitively interprets his words correctly; he knows she’s Victoria Spring, he recognizes her and has known about her for a long time

23. contrast of interest level regarding the solitaire case/ mystery (p.12)

Tori calling the day ‘pointless’ (p.13)

→ Tori lost interest I the post-it and blog the second Michael joined the moment; she already stated that she finds significant in moments no one but her is involved in and with Micheal now being another person paying attention to the post-it, Tori’s attention isn't the solely presence anymore ergo she looses interest and a feeling of significance

24. Tori feels deeply for Michael’s sudden sadness (p.13)

→ she can’t but care

25. Tori doesn't know what to do (p.13)

→ the post-it task lost significance due to Michael ruining her solidarity, but now Michael she is alone with him and the only one who is paying attention to him, therefore his sudden reaction forces her to go through a sudden shift as well, him bringing a sense of significance

→ Tori’s apathy and confusion collide with the rollercoaster of the situation

26. ‘You don’t say anything you mean’ (p.15)

→ Michael doesn't know Tori yet sees through her

27. Tori describes her laugh as a ‘pathetic sort of expulsion of air’ (p.15)

→ emphasis of her insecurity by choice of words connoting a neutral thing such as a chuckle or laugh

28. ‘Who are you, Victoria Spring?’ (p.15) - ‘I am nothing’ (p.15)

→ we just got an introduction by Tori beyond only her name and now she states she does not know how to answer that question beyond listing her name

→ insecurity, low self-worth

→ also, the fact that she thinks so deeply about how she could possibly answer that question by a stranger, just to realize how she does not feel like being anything/ anyone more worthy than ‘nothing’, instead of not caring and walking away, well, proves that she does care; she listens and thinks and doesn't find an answer that she evaluates as satisfying

29. she doesn't know at on point Michael hands her the post-it before he vanishes;

‘This is probably how it starts’

→ with a moment of significance (her own definition of significance in moments of seemingly being the only one paying attention and taking action)

→ with being seen and looked at and talked with (encounter with Michael)

→ by taking action as one’s own decision (following post-it)

→ by being recognizes (by Micheal)

→ by an unfamiliar encounter in an otherwise familiar and dull place

→ by being confronted with oneself (seeing herself in his glasses; being asked who she is)

Analepsis

Tori became form leader by getting volunteered ‘mostly because no one else wanted to do so’ (p.9f)

→ taking action when others don’t

2. Tori’s hair cut story (p.14f)

→ her inner tumult and its exterior display

[foibles-fables]

hi foibs, hoping you’re doing well. there’s something i’ve wanted to ask you since burning shores…can you say more about why you weren’t impressed by seyka/seyloy? i’ve valued your hzd opinions for a long time and am curious and interested to learn more about this one. but if you’d rather not answer that’s fine!

Hi nonny!! I told myself I wasn't going to answer any of these, but I really appreciate your kind tone and am happy to address this again for you!

I won't go into a list of specific reasons why here. I do enjoy a good bit of piece-by-piece analysis a LOT but--frankly, picking apart another ship in a public zone like this is not what I want to exemplify on my blog, at all. It's not the kind of environment I'd like to create or discourse I'd like to foster. If those conversations are to be had at all--which, let's face it, they're probably not--they're to be had one on one, with a promise of good faith and open-mindedness between participants.

So to answer your question, I'll give a little more info, but still in generalities.

First and foremost, it's the simple fact that their dynamic, as portrayed in HBS, didn't spark for me! If y'all know me, you know that there is a very specific ship dynamic that I tend to latch onto, and this repeats ad infinitum across fandoms. I just wasn't compelled by the material, which is fine! More power to you if you were, for sure.

That loops into the second reason I'll give: yes, I did find the writing of HBS to be lackluster in many aspects, including the relationship between Aloy and Seyka. The sloppy writing absolutely influenced the way I viewed/reacted to Aloy and Seyka as a ship. To me, it did feel rushed and very much removed from the character and pacing of the series we've known for years. And that was not a boon for connecting with the presented narrative, the same way I began to feel disconnected from HFW. Once again, though, totally subjective and valid if it did hit for you!

I wanted to like Seyka so much more than I did. (This is--as I've shared other posts before--commentary on the writer's room character work, not on Seyka.) I wanted her to oust Alva as my favorite Quen babygirl (A HARD CHALLENGE, I'll admit). I wanted to be compelled by her, and by her dynamic with Aloy. She didn't, and I wasn't. And that's not an attack on Seyka herself, or on folks who enjoyed her. That's my own peeve with the writing and the way she was presented both in the narrative and in the HBS marketing.

If I can also use your ask to be a little vulnerable, nonny? It's been a hard six weeks. I feel like the posts I've put up and the opinions I've offered with regards to this have been nothing less than respectful and pleasant and, in a lot of cases, that grace hasn't been returned. From being blocked/unfollowed/vagued by other Horizon wlw shippers with whom I've built a rapport over the years (which of COURSE it's anyone's right to curate their feeds--still stings on the other side, in this situation especially)--to being directly compared to the Actual Homophobes for supporting the idea of romance options in game three (the same Actual Homophobes sending death and other threats directly to my inboxes)--it's an unfortunate state. I'm doing my best to be positive for the whole fandom, but some days it's harder than others.

In any case--I'll say, contradictorily--there is a Seyloy idea I've been working on, in attempts to connect more with them and sublimate my quibbles with what was presented in canon. So I hope any Seyloy enjoyers who might read it eventually (and this!) will take it in good faith when it's finished, as it's being written in nothing but good faith!

And, FINALLY, because every single time this question comes up, I say "I DON'T DISLIKE SEYKA" out loud in Nadja's voice, and this is the perfect opportunity to finally make the joke in public:

[nani-nonny]

I thought I’d update my pinned so here goes:

Hello! I’m LoneAnon aka Nonny aka LoneAnonon on AO3! My current fixation is Rottmnt, more specifically Future Leonardo (peepaw brainrot) hehe, so a lot of my works as of recent are Future Leo related! Check them out when you can!

Important: my response to ai with my works

Current Work(s):

•WDS or Whispers of Distant Souls aka another F!Leo returns to the past with Casey fic but F!Leo is haunted by his dead brothers. WDS TEASER

•I’m Blue… da ba dee da… aka Reunion, DMD, LCD, and WDS F!Leos collide in one dimension due to a multiverse oopsey (aka aka a silly “what-if” story where my peepaws meet :).)

•(Accidentally) Played American Football With My Newborn aka a silly F!Leo story where he takes a small baby turtle to the past to stop the krang. Never did he think being a single parent would be harder than defeating the krang. (No turtle tots were harmed in the making of the title.) father-daughter fluff snippet

Completed Works:

•DMD AU or Dead Man’s Deal AU a series with an 8-chapter main story and ongoing side stories centered around F!Leo, who returns to the present carrying his heavy guilt that lands him in the Battled Nexus as the Barbarian. DMD Fanart

•Reunion aka a oneshot where F!Leo returns to the past in order to pick up Casey Jones (takes place after the movie).

•LCD or Leonardo Come Down aka a prologue+9-chapter fic where F!Leo returns to the past with Casey (separately) and is hellbent on getting his revenge. Casey is given the task by Michelangelo to stop the Krang and save Leonardo while F!Leo faces the consequences of his actions. LCD fanart aka my pfp

•Setting Sun aka a 5 part short, interactive story where the readers’ decisions can end the story, or discover the details of Mikey’s situation. (Unedited, no beta, silly little dumpster fire aka something bad that you might not want to look away despite how bad it is) AO3 link

•Distorted Mirror aka a 4 chapter rottmnt Leo-centric fic focusing on his role as the leader in silly time travel oopsies. (The oopsies being the future timeline with the krang apocalypse hehe)

•BYMH or Between You and Me and Him aka an ongoing series where you can ask any of my peepaws anything, or tell them you hate love them. [Peepaw multiverse interview] (please state your request as for bymh) or visit their blog @/im-leo-your-leo-were-all-leo

More to see:

Upcoming Works:

•Lost Ronin aka F!Raph returns to the past under “circumstances” and it’s up to the present turtles to solve these “circumstances”.

•Estranged aka an AU where the Hamatos reunite with their long-lost sisters, Jennika and Venus. (Based on the two turtles meant to be introduced in rottmnt future seasons—we were robbed tsk tsk.) Teaser: Two Birds Jennika and Venus appearance

•(possible?) The M-Word aka a 5?-chapter post-Rise-movie angst fic that deals with Raphael’s trauma regarding what he endured in the midst of the invasion.

•(possible?) Inimitable/Spiderweb aka Big Mama imprisons F!Leo to force him to train her upcoming Battle Nexus Champions in exchange for his freedom.

•(possible?) Reunion F!Leo returns to the past once again to provide ultimate peepaw advice and give the kids the reassurance they need.

•I’m In The Wrong AU aka a joke idea where F!Leo goes through the portal to find the key and stop the krang, but he finds himself in a New York unlike the one he knows. Rottmnt x ‘12tmnt crossover

•Mystic Mirror on the wall, who the fuck are those turtles?/A Genius’s Curiosity/Mirror Realm Activities (name still undecided) aka a separated au where Donnie is raised by Draxum, Mikey raised by Big Mama, Raph raised by the Krang and Leo raised by the streets. The turtles are reunited by Donnie aka Subject 03’s newest creation, a mirror that goes beyond its purpose and creates a realm inside its reflection that the turtles use as their escape from reality.

•Attached aka an rottmnt au set during the apocalypse where Leo is too late in providing backup for the ambush attack on Casey. Upon finding her body, he finds an infant protected in her embrace. An infant with the unforgettable gleam in its eye signifying the Krang.

[Tcest DNI]

[Story tags and asks tag below]

[mdhwrites]

In an answer to another question, you said that Amphibia acknowledges how change can be beneficial but also difficult and harmful, partly because the ‘quick’ and ‘forced’ change Andrias inflicts on Amphibia by trying to bend the world to his will is presented in a negative light. This is a very good point, but isn’t there a bit of a double standard when it comes to the forced change inflicted by the Guardian?

At journey’s end, the Guardian drops Anne back in Amphibia with three shards for a one-way trip home. It was nice of them to give her a ticket back to Earth…but it also forces Anne into a position where she has to leave a world she loved enough to give her life for, and potentially never see her found family again.

Now, it would be pretty hypocritical for Anne to talk a big deal about accepting that things change whether we like it or not in All In, only to turn around and pick a fight with the god of the multiverse out of a refusal to tolerate being separated from the Plantars. But the Guardian didn’t even consult Anne or ask her if she’d be okay with this before putting her in this position. They just…sent her back, left a little note saying “TTYL,” and didn’t even explain why they couldn’t give her a way back to Amphibia.

Sure, the Guardian knows how much damage was caused by creating the stones to see what mortals would do with unlimited power. Recreating the stones for Anne would have easily risked another disaster happening. But if the Guardian is truly all-powerful, surely they could have given the Calamity Trio a two-way portal that couldn’t be exploited by the wrong hands?

And in the deleted alternate ending, the Guardian does recreate the stones anyway when an old Anne forgets the deal she made and forces them to start their search for a replacement all over again. Now, this alternate ending isn’t canon, so it might not actually be what the Guardian would do, but again, the Guardian never explains why they’ve given one-time-use-only shards.

By all appearances, this is a quick and forced change to inflict on Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. You say the forced changes Andrias inflicts on Amphibia are portrayed as bad, but the narrative doesn’t even question the forced change brought about by the Guardian. Nobody raises so much as a word in condemnation of its actions. Not once does Anne even think to look up to the sky and ask ‘What gives? I sacrificed my life to save Amphibia, and you won’t even give me a two-way portal?’

I understand two-way transportation would have contradicted the message of accepting change and how love transcends distance. But throwing an entity who supposedly could, but won’t, give them a way back muddles things, in my opinion. A big part of Anne’s arc was learning to stand up for herself. Shouldn’t she have stood up to the arguably unfair hand she was dealt?

(Sorry for how long this ask was, I just have a lot of thoughts on this stuff and I get carried away rambling sometimes XD)

So for the sake of focus, I'm going to take all the stuff about the two way transportation and Anne supposedly being out of character for not arguing about the stones and put them to the side. One: because you yourself admit that approaches are flawed, Two: things get deleted for a reason. I could literally probably give you a clear, logical, narratively consistent reason why EVERY storyboard we're shown for TOH was changed or deleted, and Three: I could genuinely go into each topic on its own and so it would make this blog incredibly long.

Instead, I'm going to focus that while it wasn't my first point, I did continue for one more line about why Andrias' change upon the world was so destructive. I specifically point out that it is forcing the world to be something it is not and to bend it to his own will. It is selfish and uncaring of others and the show's themes of community always punishes selfishness.

Instead, the Guardians' final choice... Actually evokes the first sin in Amphibia's timeline, at least for the trio. The Guardian's logic is actually pretty easy to figure out after all. After what the girls did, especially Anne, they deserve a chance to go home, even if the Guardian is now done with allowing inter-dimensional travel, at least easily and by his intervention. So they're given shards to allow them to choose what form of change they want, what sacrifices they will make, but change HAS to happen either way. It is simply best for everyone, you yourself admitted this and a two way portal would not magically fix the issues with it, from the Guardian's perspective to keep the worlds separate..

It is not selfish. Instead, he is doing it for the best of the dimensional community... Just like Marcy's father was going to make them move likely for the sake of keeping his job or a promotion or any number of reasons that were likely motivated by trying to keep his family together or help them prosper. The change it would inflict on Marcy would not be of her own choosing, just as we cannot control the change those around us inflict upon us, but it wasn't done maliciously, nor was forced to be faster than the nature of the change required. There is no way to make a change like that smooth or consequence free. It was always going to hurt, much like when someone around you dies.

Instead of running though, the trio embrace it and head back home where they'll have to deal with reality the most. It's a stark contrast to, while still paralleling, the actions that began the show. A scared girl running from inevitable change and deciding a fantasy world was better than her actual home. For an ending, it's perfect.

So why not show the pain? Well... Because a story needs to end eventually. Amphibia in the end is extremely optimistic about good intentions, community and change so showing Anne or any of the trio cursing God himself for not giving them a fairytale ending makes literally no sense to include in the finale and just adds more time whining when that time could be better spent saying farewell to the characters and staying committed to the hopeful message that it has.

That's something I don't think a lot of people entirely get with stories. There are actually plenty of TOH scenes I've dug into HARD not because there isn't a logic to them or I couldn't explain to you why the characters are behaving the way they are or because it is literally written badly but because, you know... It needs to actually serve the story and the point of a scene. Even if it doesn't 100% adhere to pure logic, it needs to adhere to the thematic and emotional logics of the piece. Those are ALWAYS more important.

Otherwise, you get people bitching at SpyxFamily for the fact that trained spy Loid doesn't give a shit that his wife has literal superhuman capabilities. Logically, they're correct. But... The show IS a comedy. And 90% of the time, Yor's strength and skills are used comedically because that is the tone and purpose of whatever scene is going on. It adheres to the logic of what the show at least pretends to be. It's actually why I find myself questioning the serious portions of the show more. Not because they make less literal sense but because they make it so when the show shifts back into silly times with Anya at school, it is fucking JARRING.

And for Amphibia's ending, the point is how much good change has done these characters. Saying farewell and embracing how much both the characters and the audience have treasured the characters they've been with. There's a reason why the epilogue, and even the farewell before it, come across like a curtain call to a play as much as a natural scene. A final chance to say farewell before we probably never see them again. And, you know, because they commit to that instead of trying to prove they're so smart or address every potential thing someone might claim is illogical about the show mostly set in a frog world, it is able to genuinely say goodbye to those characters and stay emotionally and thematically consistent throughout.

Because those things, in 99% of stories, is WAY more important than being 'logically correct'. It's also why I don't really think there is a better version of Amphibia's ending. Period.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[korcariiwitch]

for all the fellow durge x astarion brainrotters out here.

Sooooooo I kind of wanted to throw this out there as an experiment/tentative prelude, but I’ve been considering for a good long while that I’d like to start posting some BG3 writing on here.

Specifically a dark urge x Astarion story that has been rolling around and banging against the bars of its enclosure inside my head. I think I could also make it a mixture of Astarion x reader/Tav and Astarion x OC!durge too. (And a sprinkling of durgetash too).

Please be aware if you read ahead and haven’t played the origin yet, there will be spoilers. So I’ll leave the rest under the cut!

Essentially I have begun to write about the dark urge origin and my character’s journey. Also about Astarion’s and various ways in which their stories parallel one another. Not that the game itself doesn’t already do an incredible job at this. I just have a lot of headcanons that I think could be fun to explore and flesh out and honestly the brain rot is so bad that if I do not put it somewhere, I will absolutely turn into a mindflayer.

I don’t really have anything linear in mind, closer to a cluster of a bunch of different ideas/moments that I just really want to get out of my brain and word vomit them somewhere. It would be a mixture of post-game adventures, moments during the game’s acts, and also quite a bit of pre-amnesia dark urge and some durgetash for good measure because I am a degenerate.

All that being said – I do absolutely want to be inclusive as much as I can. There will be moments where the story can be written in a more neutral way regarding gender and also not include appearance at all if people would like to imagine themselves/their Tavs/OCs instead. Not everything will be just my OC!durge specific and for those particular moments I will tag them as such (including things like content warnings, etc. so people are aware what they’re fulling getting into).

Don’t get me wrong, I still very much want to write about my durge and flesh our their story and  really get into the nitty gritty of what I felt their journey was like. Also just their own personal character development in juxtaposition with their relationship with Astarion.

It has been a very very very long time since I’ve posted anything online and I know there’s always a risk with doing so, but I’ve just been honestly so genuinely inspired not only by the writing in the game but the incredible content other people have been creating because of this game and I just want to give a shot. To be a small part of it, even if it truly is just only for me (not to sound presumptuous) and no one notices.

At least, I don’t want to make that the main point but I know there’s a lot of you dark urge enjoyers out here and was essentially just wondering if people would be interested in a story like this?

It’d also most likely be 18+ so I was considering either just making a whole other blog or a side-blog to post there since this account is very very old and I wasn’t sure if it’d be safer and more comfortable for people who might want read this.

Again, I really REALLY don’t want to sound pretentious at all. Just thought it might be cool to share and honestly, I’d love to have people to talk about this game with. Especially about the dark urge, I just have so many feelings about it and I enjoy getting to read all the interesting and insightful meta/thoughts/headcanons people have come up.

To quote our favorite fanged boy, “Honestly, I have no idea what we’re I'm doing. Or what comes next.”

[crow-raven-crow]

hey first of all i LOVE you’re work

i wanted to ask which fics you’re currently working on ?

𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨, 𝐝𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐲 - tldr at the bottom of the post xx

first of all - thank you🥰 I honestly never knew I would get this far, but posting my work here was the greatest decision I could've made. It feels amazing to post my work and have people enjoy it just like me :)

second - I have six requests in the works right now. I work in order of request and (because I'm traveling a lot these next few months) I'm mostly going to be doing requests and any other one shots that I come up with/want to indulge myself in. I really want to do fics with Brienne (i love her so much) and even some of the lovely Morningstar, so I'll either follow the requests or post something of my own.

This is also going to allow me to build up my next series because it's actually a really cool idea (to me) but I have absolutely no idea how many chapters its going to be.

★ In terms of requests, I have (in order from top to bottom):

Enemies to lovers - hate sex, Larissa x Reader

Lyric Fic to Eat Your Young by Hozier - going the sexual route with this one instead of the real meaning (about capitalism lol), Larissa x Reader

Sex Tape - g!p Larissa x Reader, plot twist, good ending

Lyric Fic to Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Ray - romantic, full of fluff, Larissa x Reader

Hecate Hardbroom x Reader - I'm currently looking into this character, but she seems really cool. Anon, if you have any specific requests for this, shoot me another message in my inbox please. I wanna know if you want fluff or smut or if you want anything specific to play out <3

Virgin Reader x Larissa Weems - first time, everyone expected otherwise from reader, soft

What's above is what's in the request. When I get there, titles will be posted to my masterlist of what is in the works in sections, but the titles are subject to change. The top request is the one I'm currently working on, so the title is actually already on my masterlist.

★ In terms of series (in the works, not coming out for A WHILE):

Larissa Weems x Professor Reader (title on my masterlist)

Brienne of Tarth x Reader

these are both on the longer side, are still in the works, and are listed VERY vaguely because the ideas I have behind them are ones I haven't seen before (I am and will continue to gatekeep, sorry xoxo)

★ When it comes to my own ideas:

I have around 6-7 one shots, two of which have the potential to become series. HOWEVER, I do prioritize my requests, so I won't mention my ideas for them because I do not know when they will come out. Most are Larissa x Reader, there's one that's Lucifer x Reader, and there's another where I don't know if i should do Brienne, Larissa, or Lucifer (it will probably be Brienne, though).

★ Other Notes:

sections of other characters will be created on my masterlist when a fic with them in it gets posted, but I seem to be a main Larissa Weems blog. If they're one-offs, they'll be posted in an "others" sections.

please remember I'm in college and also work, so things might take longer than some of you may like (I'm getting there, I swear)

look at my masterlist before turning in requests - there are some things I won't write, so if it's requested then I'll skip over that part of the request or the whole request entirely

TLDR: 6 requests, 2 series, 6-7 of my own ideas in the words. I prioritize requests sent to my inbox, and I work in order. Titles of things will be posted on my masterlist in sections and are subject to change. Series are on pause for me due to travel, so don't expect them for quite some time.

Thank you for the ask, lovely anon. This is the first one I've gotten that was just a question, and it was a nice excuse to update everyone else as well. Any questions like these will be under the same tag on my profile (second tag down below).

~ 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐯𝐲𝐧

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

[sonicenvy]

To new tumblr users:

please turn on custom blog theme in your settings. custom blog theme is something that is actually so wonderful about having a tumblr, and we need to show @staff how important of a feature this is to this site.

Propaganda:

Having a custom blog theme gives you a yourURL dot tumblr dot com site. Having your very own website is cool as fuck.

Having your own site makes it much easier to search and view your blog, and use tags to sort posts.

Another fun thing that you can do is create custom side pages for your blog with useful static information, like an about page or a tags page.

show off your personality and interests with a cool site. organise your posts to find them later, and to give your followers the ability to view all the posts on your blog with a specific tag, like a tag for your writing or your art. This can be done by providing a link to a specific tag that looks like this: yourURL dot tumblr dot com/tagged/myCoolTag

You can have a cool site, even if you don't know how to do web code, I promise. Here's how your turn this feature on:

go to the little person icon in your top ribbon (circled in red):

2. in the resulting pop up, scroll down to "blogs" < yourBlog (highlighted in red):

3. click on "blog settings". This will take you to a new page. (highlighted in red)

4. on this new page, scroll down to "custom theme" and flip the toggle switch to on. (circled in red)

5. now click that "edit theme" button. This will take you to a new page that will look something like this:

depending on what theme you end up using, the options in the white sidebar will be different. For now, that's not what we're actually interested in though!

6. to get started with your theme, click the edit HTML button.

7. This pops open a thing with the code from your blog. This is where you can edit or paste code into to customize your blog. This is where the fun starts!

If you know code, you can write code yourself, but I'm going to just assume that you don't know enough code to write a tumblr theme. Fortunately for you, there are lots of people out here on tumblr dot com that do know how to write code and make tumblr themes and do this AND make these themes publicly available for anyone to use.

8. Where do I find this, you might ask? Great question! A good place to start is Theme Hunter, which is a blog where they share lots of independent theme creators themes. Typically when you use someone's theme, you should reblog their post about it, as this is often a term of use. Theme hunter is nice because they are really organized so you can find some nice categories to start you theme hunt in their "more" drop down:

you'll notice that they also have pages about how to install tumblr themes. The "page themes" section is for side page themes. We'll get to that in little bit, but for now what you want is the "Tumblr themes" Most themes will have a set of easy to use customization options for stuff like background colors, font sizes, sidebar images, links, accent colors, etc. Most theme posts will have an example or "live preview" of the theme in question so you can play around with it and see if you like all of the features. Remember that you can change all of the colors and the font sizes if you like.

9. Once you find a theme you like, click on the "code" link in the post which typically takes you to a pastebin page with the code of the theme.

10. click "raw" in the top ribbon, which takes you to a new page that has nothing but the code on it. (highlighted in red)

the new page will look something like this:

11. click anywhere in this page, and hit ctrl + a (on windows) or command + a (on mac) this selects all of the code. Now hit ctrl + c (windows) or command + c (mac). This copies all of the code to your clipboard.

12. Now go back to the theme editing page for you blog and click anywhere in the code box. hit ctrl + a (windows) or command + a (mac) to select all of the text in the code window. hit backspace (windows) or delete (mac) to erase the text.

13. now that your code window is empty, click in it again. Hit ctrl + v (windows) or command + v (mac), which should paste all of that code that you copied before into the code window.

14. Now hit "update preview" (highlighted in red)

this will update the preview of your blog so that you can now see it with the theme! It may not look quite right yet, but that's because you haven't set up all the customization options yet! Note that until you hit "save" the theme does not become live on your site.

15. hit "save" then hit the back arrow on the code window next to the gear symbol.

16. Now for the fun part! Customizing! Scroll down In the little sidebar to the section called "theme options." This is where you'll get to select stuff like colors, sidebar images and fonts. Sometimes, things still won't look right in the preview, but once you go to your page, you can see what it actually looks like. I recommend having a copy of your blog page open in another tab that you can refresh every time you hit "save" while customizing your theme, to make sure that things look right.

Tadah! you have a new cool website. share the news with your followers.

If you want to get into learning how to make your own themes, check out buildthemes or buildatheme or theme-hunter's tuts page. To learn about web code in general you can sign up for an account through codeacademy or dash general assembly or W3Schools or html dog

[aparticularbandit]

Murders and Truces

Summary: Celeste finds herself in a different sort of killing game, one with no trials and a wholly different set of expectations. Can she live up to them? Or will she end up as just another victim?

For DR Rarepair Week 2024 Day Four: Killing Game Life/Mastermind AU, hosted by @dr-rarepair-week-blog.

Rating: T.

AO3

“And if somehow you can impress me with your murder,” the scrawny bear standing in their midst remarks, “then you will receive the greatest reward of all.”

Celeste would roll her eyes if all of this didn’t seem so elaborate.  Someone who had both the money and the networking required to create such a situation, as well as the connections with the government to allow for such a game, must be high enough in the world to give whatever they want.  But there’s no assurance that what this mastermind believes to be the greatest reward will be what she believes is—

“The chance to marry me.”

The bear should giggle.  It would be better – more apt, somehow – if the bear were to giggle.  But Oukuma is not the sort of creature to giggle or laugh; in fact, he doesn’t seem like the sort of creature who has any fun at all, except for overseeing these sorts of…competitions.  That’s probably the best word for it: competition.

Celeste stares at Oukuma, split down the middle gold on one side and silver on the other, with a deep slice of ruby red for an eye on his silver side, teeth built of diamonds that sparkle in the light.  “I hope you would not expect us to marry a bear, my dear.  I do not believe any of our delicate sensibilities are prepared for such a thing.”

“The fuck are ya talking about?” the biker – Celeste knows his name, but none of the others’ names matter if they’re all going to die in the end – spits out.  “Ain’t none of us gonna marry a fucking bear.  He’s gotta be talking about whoever’s…you know.”  He shoves his hands into his pockets and leans forward towards the bear.  “What if we don’t wanna marry your lousy ass?”

Oukuma tilts back so that he can look up at the biker, so that he can meet his eyes.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.  I can provide you with everything you might ever desire: acceptance, forgiveness, retribution, popularity, riches, entertainment.”  He says each word like it is meant for someone there in specific, and in turn, each of the others flinches when he mentions their word.

Celeste feels a thrill of her own desire when Oukuma mentions riches; she barely hears the word after it and then blanks out completely on the others, too focused on the possibility laid out before her.  She’s not much on the idea of marriage, particularly not to whomever decided the best way to choose a spouse was to throw a murder party, but riches.

He could give her a castle, she’s certain of it.

Right then and there, casting a glance about the other fifteen students around her, Celeste begins planning the perfect murder.

(Creative, he said.  Oh, she can definitely be creative.)

~

There are no rules to this game.

In point of fact, their benefactor seems to enjoy keeping all of the murderers together in one spot.  They call it weeding out the weak.

Through Oukuma, of course.

A few of them group together in gangs, of a sort.  The hall monitor says that he will protect anyone who hides under his banner, and so a chunk of the weaker ones join with him: the lucky boy, the baseball idiot, the fanfic creator (who says he isn’t playing simply because he doesn’t want to marry someone in 3D; he would be an easy kill if Celeste was considering him as her prey), the clairvoyant (who said that he foresaw everyone who joined this group surviving (what a laugh)), the writer, and the fashionista.

At least, the writer wanted to go with him, but her obsession with and addiction to the blond heir meant that when he went off on his own, so did she.

The detective, too, went off on her own.

The martial artist and the swimmer paired up with the biker and the soldier, a group of formidable fighters, and while they also suggested protection for those with them (and had more than enough strength to support that claim), the hall monitor decried something to do with morals – which is how the programmer and the idol ended up in their group.

Celeste didn’t feel welcome after that comment, but she didn’t feel particularly safe with the second group.  All of those physically strong people could rip her to pieces, if they wanted.  Sure, she could come up with some creative ways to kill them, but what would be the point?

In her mind, the most creative murder would be to murder one of the murderers.

So she waited for the perfect opportunity.

~

Oukuma is both massively pleased and massively disappointed with the bloodbath.

It isn’t as though the two major factions fought each other, although that might have been fun.  No, the fanfic creator and the hall monitor got into a fight because the hall monitor decided that the kind of fanfic the creator made was inappropriate, and when the creator decided to leave that group for the other one, the biker decided he wasn’t trustworthy and slaughtered him.  Then the hall monitor got upset because the biker had murdered someone and the two of them….

Well, it looks like they killed each other.

Not very creative, from Celeste’s standpoint, but most deaths really aren’t.

The blond heir was found dead in a manner consistent with the murder of a currently unclaimed serial killer, and when the writer saw that, she ran off screaming only to be found dead later, hanging from the exercise equipment in the girls’ locker room.  They suspected suicide, but the detective showed her face for the first time in days and said it didn’t seem likely.

The baseball idiot, after the death of his group’s leader, decided that he would be the new leader and that anyone who wanted any sort of protection could come stay with him just as long as they were girls, which led to the murder of the programmer – bludgeoned by baseball bat – and then the idiot got torn to shreds by….

Well, the funny thing is that they never really figured that one out.

Or the detective might have and just not told anyone, but that’s less fun.

Ironically, most of the second group survived intact, while the first one split.  The clairvoyant went off by himself, and the fashionista and the lucky boy joined with the detective, while the martial artist, swimmer, and soldier stuck together.  The pop idol waffled for a bit before, finally, deciding that Celeste, who had avoided all of this bloodshed by simply staying away from everyone, is the safest person for her to stay with.

Nearly half of them dead – which Oukuma finds immensely pleasing – but in no particularly creative manner – which he finds immensely disappointing.

His eyes rest on Celeste when he says this, and she knows that means he’s waiting on her to make her move.

She considers.

Most of the murderers are already dead in one form or another, although whomever killed the baseball idiot appears to have survived unscathed.  Of course, the detective said the writer’s death wasn’t suicide (and has thoughts about the heir’s death), but why should they trust someone who was gone all that time?

They shouldn’t.

…at least that’s the rumor Celeste begins spreading around.

~

The most creative murders, in Celeste’s opinion, are not the ones you personally perform, but the ones you convince others to perform for you.

Not necessarily for you, but as a result of your—

Oh, you get it.

~

Celeste learns Junko’s name eventually.

It only takes a few moments of actually speaking together before she realizes that in that belief they are one and the same.

Why get your hands dirty when you can get everyone else’s hands dirty instead?

They smile and they wink and they nod and they go their own merry way.

(She is convinced, in the end, that one of them will kill the other and that she will be the victor.)

~

“Let’s call a truce,” Junko says when there are five of them left.

The detective – Kyoko, enough of a nuisance for Celeste to learn her name – and the lucky boy – an actual honest child whose luck should never have brought him here – have disappeared somewhere within the school.  Both of their hands are clean, as far as Celeste knows, which defeats the purpose of the game.  That’s okay.  They’ll be dead soon, too.

Once they’ve fulfilled their purpose.

(It’s a risk – a gamble – but Celeste is so good at gambling.)

Still.

Celeste glances to the soldier, whose name she still hasn’t learned and never will, and then back to Junko, raising one eyebrow.  “You have your own personal attack dog, and you wish to call a truce?”

Junko rolls her eyes.  (Someone should say, You’ve got a point, but who would say that?  Who alive would still say that?)  Then she holds her hand out.  “Mukie, can I borrow your knife for a second?”

“Oh.  Uh.  Sure.”

“Cool, thanks.”

In one quick motion, without even looking at her sister, Junko slices the knife through her throat.  The soldier reaches up for her neck, fingers scrambling at the cut but only worsening it, and then she slumps down on her knees, eyes looking up at her sister, unblinking as the light fades from them.

Junko sighs and twirls the knife through her fingers.  “You were saying?”

Celeste does not smile.  “That was foolish.  What makes you think I will not kill you?”

“You can certainly try,” Junko says with a grin full of piranha’s teeth.  Her eyes flash with the same dark light the knife did before it grew scarlet with blood.  “But I suggest the truce.  I’m not really interested in marrying that boy.  You can have him.”

“Boy?” Celeste asks, blinking.

“Oh, you didn’t figure it out?”

Celeste sighs and flicks something from her fingertips.  “I presume you mean the heir.  He’s the only one of us it could have been.  But I would call him a man, not a boy—”

“See?  You’re much better fitted to the whole marrying him thing.”  Junko waves the hand still holding the knife in the air with exasperation.  “I just want something else from him.”

“And what would that be?”

Junko shrugs.  “Entertainment.  He could fund a thousand and one of these games to find the perfect women to carry all one hundred thousand of the children he needs to fight for the Togami crown, or whatever, but they’ll be super boring if they’re all the same.”  She twirls the knife again.  “I could improve them.  That’s all.”

Celeste raises an eyebrow.  “That’s all?”

“Maybe a kiss from a pretty girl.”

Junko winks.

~

Lucky boy’s luck keeps him alive until the very end before it runs out.

Truth be told, if Celeste had anything to say about it, that is very, very bad luck.  It’s bad luck to live through the deaths of all these people and see them and be scarred by them in the way this boy very clearly is and then to have the horror of your own death coming towards you while you’re clearly mourning someone with whom you’d trauma-bonded—

It was bad luck to see Kyoko slaughtered right in front of him, although between the two of them, Junko and Celeste came up with some very…interesting ways to murder her.  (It had to be interesting; both to prove creativity to their benefactor and also to keep Junko from growing bored.)

It was bad luck to not be able to do anything about it.

Celeste would have given him a mercy killing if she thought it would go over well.

Unfortunately, she had no reason to believe that.

~

Byakuya – the blond heir – eventually reveals himself with a soft golf clap.  He, of course, had killed the writer after faking his own death.  Something about not wanting to deal with her…something or other.  Not that it matters anymore.  His eyes light on Celeste with a wolfish smirk.  “I’d hoped you would live up to your potential.”  Then his gaze sweeps, less happily, over to Junko.  “You, however, I do not want.”

“Works for me.”  Junko carries that same dagger, now dripping with more shades of red than it once did, and flicks it once.  “I don’t want you either.  Just the game and the ability to run it again.  For all of your…concubines, or whatever you want to call them.”

Celeste glances at him.  “Concubines?”

“I wouldn’t call them that.”  Byakuya meets Celeste’s eyes.  “The Togami heir is and has always been chosen not by birthright but through competition.  Just as I arose from the defeat of my half-siblings, so my heir will.”  Then a curious glint flicks in his eyes.  “So also should my potential mates.  You simply have the luck of being first.”

“I take it…this was a gamble.”

“I expected you.”

Celeste glances to Junko and smiles, an easy thing.  “Both or neither.”  Her gaze returns to Byakuya.  “I do not think you would survive denying us.”

~

She’s right, by the way.

Byakuya, at least, is smart enough to acknowledge that.

(And Oukuma makes a good butler, when Celeste wants one.)

[r-i-fakier]

The editor was sitting on the floor, his laptop on his lap, fingers running down the keyboard. The day felt slightly colder than usual, even though that was a big deal for the editor, due to his severe frostbite, he didn't care. As he wandered through forums and other social places, looking for something interesting to do or someone who was looking for a new editor, he comes across a social media page. "Tumblr?" He mumbles out to himself, he looked at the page for some time, before finally clicking on the sign in button. Who knows, maybe he could find some new friends.

//RP Blog introduction!!//

//More info under the cut. Check before interacting.//

Hi guys! I am Lem, the person who runs this roleplay blog. This blog is part of the bursonaverse thing created by @emeraldsandpearlsxx, and is made just for fun.

This blog is "partnered up" with @coldarg , who is another argbur blog that's also part of the bursonaverse, our blogs might eventually interact.

My main blog is @ghostlem, I am a 15 years old Chilean. (fun fact I'm also an argbur fictionkin)

This is a "Canon-divergent" roleplay (canon-divergent means that it follows the Canon pre-established, but also adds some changes, or at least that's what I understand from the word).

When I'm talking OOC (out of character) I will write with // on both sides in a specific way.

//Example text.//

Asks and written stuff that contain NSFW insinuations will be seen and answered, as long as they don't contain visual stuff such as NSWF pictures or videos or isn't too explicit.

I created myself a system for asks, since I get confused if I should answer it on the "blog" or as if it was an interaction outside it. When sending asks to Jubilee's Blog please put something like "[{user}/anon sent and ask!]", when is an interaction outside of the blog, please put "(interaction outside blog.)" If you have any questions about this please feel free to dm me!

This blog might contain stuff that can trigger some people, they will be tagged properly, but please keep it in mind.

(with headcanons I mean the important data you should know about argbur before interacting with him and his blog, I'm just trying to make this intro thing look good)

☆-Argbur's name is currently unknown, as he doesn't like sharing too personal info about him.

☆-He uses He/Him pronouns.

☆-He uses this blog as a personal space, sometimes he might post stuff that could be seen as "incoherent".

☆-The glasses will be a current thing happening in this blog, it won't be explicit most of the time, but pay attention in the way he writes the posts.

☆-He's a video editor, sometimes he will post videos he has edited, but something might feel odd about them.

☆-He doesn't use tone tags (he doesn't even know what that is), because of this, the tone he writes in might be misinterpreted as mean.

☆-You can always interact with him, he'll be just a little weirded out about the social interaction since he's not exactly used to it (he's just weird over all /hj)

☆-He is Chilean, but doesn't speak Spanish often, and when he does, the Chilean accent is very noticeable, as well and the fact he speaks way too fast.

☆-He's so cold.

When he posts about stuff that happens in his life, it will go with the tag #An Editor's Life

When he posts a video he has edited, it will go with the tag #New Edited Video

When he answers a question, it will go with the tag #Editor Ask

All his posts will be tagged with #Argbur's Roleplay

Ooc posts (out of character) will have the tags #ooc post and #tda chatchat (which is shared with my main blog)

Posts where he speaks Spanish will be tagged with #Chilean Editor

I might add more tags, depending on what happens.

[fizziefactory]

10 Facts Meme

♠︎ Mortis

Mortis uses he/him pronouns first and foremost, but doesn't mind when folks call him "it". He is at peace with the fact that he is a robot. They/them and she/her are not his cup of tea though.

He has a shack where he stores his tools and charging station quite a bit outside Ragesburg, on top of many graves of stray imps from across Wrath. There, he also has a stable for his beloved mare "Mallory", as well as three carriages parked on the empty lot. One that he uses for when he travels across the realm with passengers inside, another specifically built for transporting a coffin to a funeral that is very well kept, and finally, a larger one that allows easy transportation of coffins and tools for when he just needs to go around the realm and bury bodies as he finds them.

He doesn't change his attire much, most of the time he'll be dressed up and clad in dark robes and coats of different kinds, the desert sun doesn't bother him none after all, but it's a bother when the metal gets too hot. He will occasionally change up his hat, and when he deals with dead bodies, versus when he holds a funeral, he'll dress accordingly for the job.

While his body was made in Lust in a collaboration with Greed, Mortis answers first and foremost to Satan. That is because he was specifically designed for a business deal between Mammon and Satan; he buries the excess bodies littered across Wrath, cleaning it up in a sense, and he also directs funerals in Satan's name, a Sin that has similar of a deity status to imps as Lucifer does to others. Mammon doesn't deal much with Mortis anymore, and occasionally Mortis does work for others if he gets rented out or simply just asked. He doesn't care much, even if his creators might.

Like stated above, Mortis directs funerals, laying mainly imps to rest since Wrath is littered with the little guys. He will throw out a word or two to Satan, instilling both a bit of fear in those attending [as is the nature of things around here], but also reminding them from whence they came, and the strong ties, bonds, and feisty memories the Wrathian sun has witnessed while gazing down upon the dearly departed. Did they live? Did they Fight? Did they fill your hearts with Pride? ... Then their life was a good one, and the finality of the hellborne death is truly their chance to finally rest.

Mortis is the strongest out of all the fizzies on this blog! He is designed to toss around dead weight all day, dig for hours, build and carry coffins, and has size on his side as well, standing 6'3" feet compared to most of the other fizzybots.

He is one of the older models, created about 7-9 or so years ago. He is kept in good condition thanks to Satan seeing him as a worthy investment, but he still has to wear boots to make sure that his heels don't snap. He may have been made for this job, but they didn't think of everything...

Mortis has experience with grief counselling, not because it was programmed into him, but because he took it upon himself to learn about it. While many shrug death off in hell, Mortis takes the matter very seriously. He doesn't enjoy playing with lives, but he also recognises when there's nothing he can do about it. He picks his battles. Just don't ask him to kill anybody. That's not what he does.

Life on the countryside is slow... and that's a blessing to this fizzy. Because few other fizzies get to experience the isolation from the Fizzarolli-craze like Mortis does. While some might recognise him when he's in more crowded areas like Ragesburg, most sooner realise who He is over who Fizzarolli is. They know of the undertaker that shows up all across their realm, and you won't have any Wrathians fangirl over Mortis any time soon, at least not Fizzarolli-stans... His arrival is more of a bad omen. Or that a new stupid contest is going to be had where a ton of imps die.

Because Mortis is alone so much, because he gets to reflect on matters of life and death, think about his own mortality in regards to when upkeep no longer is a priority, and because he is so very far away from the posters, commercials, merchandise and drooling fans for Lust and Greed's biggest jester... he got a chance to develop a strong sense of self. He has confidence in who he is, what he does, and what his purpose in life is. He understands that worrying about the future isn't going to get him anywhere, that he should focus on the here and now, and find peace and fulfilment with his lot in life. Yes, it could be better... it could be less depressing. He could've avoided seeing so much misery. But the highs of his life are what he'll remember when his battery finally runs dry. The thankful smiles of a grieving family, the blood red sun setting over the desert horizon, the delightful harvest moon festival... and you know what? It wasn't all that bad.

[zapperman26]

Dungeon Master's 10-Step Guide to Worldbuilding 

Dungeon Master's 10-Step Guide to Worldbuilding 

When it comes to being the Dungeon Master while playing Dungeons and Dragons, one of the most intimidating parts is how you go about crafting the world. The process of creating a diverse setting, NPCs, antagonists, and gods can seem like a lot to tackle, especially if it's your first time DMing. To help new and old Dungeon Masters alike tackle the daunting task of world-building for your Dungeons and Dragons campaign, here are Ten Steps to make engaging you and your players fun, easy, and effective. 

STEP 1: Read the Dungeon Master’s Guide. 

It is a bold move for a blog to start with “read something else,” but it is warranted here. The official Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Master’s Guide (5E, but any edition works) contains, among other things, many tips and tricks for crafting a solid campaign setting, grand world, and striking multiverse. It is a godsend for a beginner DM trying to wrap their head around the specifics of what a setting would need, and it offers a lot of practical insight into how your world should intersect with your player's play style and preferences. 

For example, the first few chapters of the 5E Dungeon Masters guide discuss not just how to tailor make your campaign to your player's tastes but how to craft gods and unique faiths, developing locations (with all sorts of details to think about like scale, commerce, governments, etc.), factions, magic systems, inciting events and much MUCH more! It is a must for DM, but where do you get it?

The book is reasonably straightforward to find for free online (such as the Internet Archive), but it can also be easily acquired from any bookstore, hobby shop, or major retailer. Many mom-and-pop bookstores sell used copies at reduced prices and in excellent condition. 

Overall, the Dungeon Master’s Guide offers a lot of well-written, nitty-gritty advice to help you craft a setting and would be an excellent place to start for advice. In contrast, the meat and potatoes of this blog are more concerned with the macro craft of world-building, offering the broad strokes of the best approaches to save time, reduce the anxieties of the daunting task of world-building, and make your role-playing sessions more memorable. How do you start this? By setting the scope of your campaign. 

STEP 2: Set the Scope of your Campaign

A good trick when outlining your worldbuilding is understanding how broad its scope is. Is your campaign just a one-shot? Is it going to be a handful of sessions? A multi-month, even multi-year campaign? How many players do you have? What level do you plan to start your players on, and when do you plan to cut them off (if at all)? While seemingly unrelated to making a world for a role-playing game, all these questions offer an excellent framework for designing the world and how much you’ll need at a given time. 

For example, a one-shot, which is literally just a session or two long, will not necessarily require your players to traverse many drastically different townships, cities, and civilizations like a multi-month or year campaign might, so temper your focus to accommodate that scope. A one-shot set in one or two story-rich towns will be more rewarding for you and your players than a vast world that will remain unexplored in any meaningful way. On the flip side, a multi-year campaign set to traverse all sorts of locations necessitates a more expansively planned world that could fill out such an extensive duration of time and, therefore, be worth the effort in the first place. In either scenario, another critical factor is how many players there are and what level you intend them to be at.

The number of players and the general level of the party are also significant to know when going in. A handful of level one characters, compared to level five or twelve, will require different challenges that scale with their power level, and the setting they inhabit must reflect that difference. A few level one players are best set upon by bandits or wolves on the road, while a level ten party of the same number can tackle an Aboelth and its cult or even a Dragon in its lair! With that specific level of power, your players kept in mind, you can craft your setting to accommodate the level of danger they would face without it coming off as jarring. For example, a village facing a kobold problem sounds like a perfect starting point for a campaign of early-level players (of any duration of time), while a capital city besieged by demons is either best suited for the middle or the end of a campaign for higher level players; or the inciting incident of a high-level campaign. 

In any case, understanding the scope of your campaign and the amount of firepower your players have (in level and numbers) is just as essential when crafting the setting you wish them to inhabit. 

Now that you have a good idea of the campaign's length and your party's numbers and strength, it's time to start world-building! Where do you start? Small. 

STEP 3: Start Small and Build as you go

Rome wasn't built in a day, nor will your massive role-playing world be. The previously discussed scope of your campaign provided an excellent blueprint for building the world, but now the actual construction has begun, and it's best to start small. 

What is “small” in this context of role-playing game worldbuilding? That would depend on your priorities, but a good rule of thumb is to start with what you need as soon as possible. A long-running campaign will unlikely need the intricate lore of the lost city the entire story will be building to on day one when the party first meets at a tavern, but some lore on the local happenings and monsters in the area would come in handy. You are not writing a novel or making a video game when you are the Dungeon Master in D&D (even if there is a lot of overlap). When you are the Dungeon Master, you are playing just as much as the players, and prioritizing the immediate things you all will be engaging with will make your life a lot easier when you start and then build up as you go. 

A campaign can begin in many places, like taverns, prisons, battlefields, etc. Whatever the case, beginning where you will engage in play first, as a player and a DM, is a solid place to begin. That is not to discourage future planning or more scattered bits of world-building lore you string together as you go, but what matters is that you start one piece at a time.

Creating a world, be it for a one-shot or long-running campaign, is a big task, and breaking it down into sequential little steps will make it more manageable and less daunting. That can shake out in any manner; starting with the first immediate location I just described, making a handful of continents and some general locations you might use, the gods your world has, etc. It can be tackled however you want, but it does not have to be all at once. It does not have to be all on your own, either. It is a team game, so why not get your players involved?

STEP 4: Make Your Players Invested in Your World By Making Them Part of It

The relationship between Dungeon Masters and their Players should not be adversarial. They are not trying to defeat one or the other but collaborating and enjoying a role-playing world together. Consulting the players could make the world that the Dungeon Master is building even more engaging in its early stages.

A world in which your player's characters exist is one in which they already have a history. Those characters, be they knights of a kingdom, wandering magicians, cutthroats with a dark past, or whatever the case may be, will need personal connections, backstories, etc., for the world they live in. Now, that is not to say you or the player need to write an entire book on the subject of their character’s life up until the start of the campaign, nor should they need much of one at all. What matters is giving them personal stakes in the setting. 

World-building does not stop when you have a slew of fantastical locations, NPCs, etc.; it is about connecting your world with the players to best engage with it. This engagement can involve the player characters actively consulting with their NPC close friends and loved ones in the campaign, villains from their past taking center stage in the world, or the locations they call home being the central setting of their activities. Either way, making the players feel like they are a part of this world is vital. The specifics will vary from group to group, but it almost always starts with communicating with your players beforehand.

When your players are constructing their characters, be it during Session 0 or beforehand, try to communicate with them to understand the stories their characters are going to have. Knowing what sort of backstory, places of origin, fears, and goals the player characters have can go a long way in designing settings and conflict that lead to attractive roleplaying opportunities and greater engagement. It would be good to have a hand in crafting your player's backstory, giving them input on what would best fit, and collaborating on how both parties can enjoy them to the fullest. 

Admittedly, these practices are better for more well-established groups where open communication is more accessible, like with friends and family, than, say, a group of strangers meeting up at a local games club or Discord, but even just tossing a few references to their characters' lives in your already established setting makes all the difference when crafting your world for your players' enjoyment and your own. 

If all else fails, you can draw inspiration from elsewhere to spice up your world and foster more engagement from your players. 

STEP 5: Don’t be afraid to be Inspired

Coming up with a world for a D&D is, shocker, hard! It is even harder to come up with a slew of new ideas right out the gate, so what better way to fill those gaps than to get inspired from outside sources?

No story or setting is perfectly original. Every creator draws inspiration from their favorite books, shows, games, etc., to help inform their unique creative voice. D&D is brimming with direct inspiration in its most official sources (drawing heavily from Tolkien's works to the point that their Hobbits needed to be renamed Halfings for legal reasons), so why not do the same with your own?

Do you have a favorite plotline or faction from a video game or movie? Take it, put your spin on it, and put it in your world! Read up on other people’s D&D campaigns and settings, see what most appeals to you, and see how you can translate it to your own. Even just reading setting guides and other official Dungeons and Dragons books can offer a wellspring of different sources of inspiration to help craft your world. It may feel like cheating, looking at other people’s work and putting it on your own, but it's a necessary start to many creative processes. Your sources of inspiration can be molded and changed to best fit your tastes and be modified in practice when your campaigns begin in earnest until they are no longer some other idea but your own. The world is filled with so many incredible pieces of art and media to draw from, and there is no shame in taking some aspects of any of it and making it something unique to you. 

Whatever you decide to be inspired by, there is one thing you should never let fall by the wayside when creating your world: ORGANIZING IT. 

STEP 6: ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE!! ORGANIZE!!!

Worldbuilding takes a lot of pages and notes, so you better organize them. It cannot be overstated how much extra time and effort is saved by doing some basic organization when coming up with your world from the onset. 

How do you organize your concepts, locations, and gods? It is a pick-your-poison situation where your preferences for writing and note-keeping matter most. You can use Google or Microsoft Suite programs (Drive, Doc, Sheets, Word, Excel, etc.), use dedicated world-building and writing programs that streamline the process (like World Anvil, Fantasia Archive, and Obsidian to recommend a few), make use of simple pen and paper binders and notebooks, or whatever works best for you! What matters is using something you are comfortable with writing with, can keep organized and easy to refer back to, and, as needed, share with your players. 

Disorganized world-building can be disastrous for your creative process and campaign when it begins in earnest. Imagine how much time you could have spent designing a fantasy culture if you just didn't have to search through each document/paper for a particular lore idea you had. It will save you a lot of headaches by keeping all your world-building elements tidy, well-documented, and organized for your mental health and the health of your fledgling D&D world. 

No matter how many ideas you generate and organize for your world, you will almost certainly encounter something in the campaign proper. What do you do when that situation arises? Improvise! 

STEP 7: You won’t Know it all. Improvise!

At its core, tabletop RPGs have a lot of built-in improvisation. Players constantly make role-playing plans and combat choices on the fly, and the DM is similar. The players will throw as many unexpected situations, questions, and scenarios at the DM as they will at them. When interacting with worldbuilding, there is no question that something you have yet to consider will arise in the gameplay. How do you handle a situation like that? You do what your players do: Improvise!

As already discussed, world-building is a step-by-step process you will not complete in a day. It is just as accurate that you will never truly have a totally complete world. The very nature of roleplaying, where an infinite number of eventualities, questions, and activities could be involved, does not invite the possibility of ever really having a world filled out. So, improvisation is as vital to your world as methodical writing and organization. 

There is no Dungeon Master on Earth who has not gotten blindsided by something from their players, which then forced said DM to improvise. It is just part of the game for the DM as it is for the players, so expect it and account for it in your world-building. You do not need to have every name of every shopkeeper in a town that is not plot-relevant, so just make something up when asked and integrate it into your world if you like it. You will get players wanting to explore areas that are not as fleshed out or going in directions with the plot you have yet to account for. Roll with it (within reason) and allow your world to build itself organically around this new route. In essence, allowing for gaps in your worldbuilding, large or small, is natural, as improvisation is just part of the game and an organic way to build your world through your player's interactions with it. 

That said, there is a big difference between allowing for improvisation and having your players take the reins of your world in a way that you would instead not go, and you must stop it. 

STEP 8: Make sure your Players know the Limitations of the Craft

Dungeons and Dragons is not just a game for the players, but the DM, too, playing in the world together. The exact modes of enjoyment between both parties may differ, but the game is a collaborative experience where the enjoyment of everyone involved should be the chief concern. The sensation of seeing the world you painstakingly constructed, being engaged with, enjoying, and actualizing via RP is hard to describe and an experience any Dungeon Master can relate to. With that fact in mind, it is not wrong to prevent your players from taking things in your world in a way you do not enjoy, as your fun is just as important as theirs.

The nature of D&D, a game where coming up with things on the fly on both sides of the table happens often, can snowball or go in the direction the DM or other players might not be comfortable with. Situations like that can usually go for the better, like a one-off NPC becoming a player favorite, a dumb joke becoming integrated into the world, or an in-character argument that keeps everyone engaged. These examples(and more I did not outline) can result in new and dynamic ways for your evolving world and the players to interact with it, but it also can go wrong. 

A situation might arise where players try to go dramatically off course in a way that you are both unprepared for and frankly unwilling to go, be it active defiance of the plot to go to a completely unrelated location without ever engaging with the story or even NSFW elements uncomfortable to most involved. It will happen somehow and in some way, and it is imperative to communicate that these situations are not cool as early as possible.

When creating your world, do what you can to curb any potential “off the rails” shenanigans you are frankly uncomfortable with. Dungeon Masters, while just as much playing the game as the players, are the ones actively creating the setting, story, and direction of the actual “playing” that is occurring, and have a right to establish ground rules for proper conduct and keep the world from spiraling in ways they don’t want. 

The most common way to achieve this is to establish and discuss some ground rules before the game starts properly. Player etiquette, the types of story elements in the setting that might warrant a trigger warning you may or may not use, and even the types of player lineages, classes, or backgrounds that are and aren't allowed are all perfectly valid things to outline and encourage when making your world and campaign. Your ideas and interests do not just shape your world but what you are and aren't comfortable with, and making sure your players understand that is just as much about worldbuilding as it is about collaborative gameplay.

Be it rules to keep things on track, intentional gaps to improve, or worldbuilding tools, a DM needs many tools in their toolbox to make the most of their setting, so why not get as many ready as you can before letting your players interact with it? 

STEP 9: Set yourself up for Success!

To bring back the “Rome was not built in a day” analogy, it was also not built with a single tool for its entire process. It takes many diverse and specialized tools and resources to make a building, let alone a whole empire, and that is also the case with worldbuilding for D&D.

We have already discussed many potential resources you can draw on to make your life easier, like world-building programs, official books, and more, but why stop there? D&D is a game enjoyed by millions, with many incredibly talented enthusiasts taking the time to create resources waiting to be used to make your world-building a little smoother. 

Let's take some time to outline some of the many out there in the hopes that a few can used to make any reader’s worldbuilding woes a little bit easier to weather:

Map Making Tools

Here is a collection of free and paid tools for constructing maps that can be as big as worlds or as small as cities or streets! Either way, they make great visuals when presenting your world. 

Inkarnate

Wonderdraft

medieval-fantasy-city-generator

Song Of The Eons

Dungeondraft

Fantasy Name Generators

Names can be some of the hardest things to conceive in writing, especially in fantasy settings where they can be odd and esoteric. Here are some robust free online name generator tools to save you a headache by generating any name you need at the click of a button. 

Fantasy Name Generators

Donjon

Behind the Name

Homebrew Tools:

Creating your monsters, magic items, and lineages is just as much a part of worldbuilding as anything else. Here are some free tools to help you craft your homebrew or even generate it!

Giffy Glyph's Monster Maker

The Homebrewery

Kenji's Magic Item Generator

Here Be Taverns

Rules, Resources, and Reference Guides:

There are A LOT of rules, player options, monsters, items, etc., in D&D! It can be hard to keep track of what cool things you can integrate into your world when so many options exist across the many books that possess them. Here are some handy catch-all reference websites for 5e materials and some 3e and 3.5e tossed in there, too!

5e.Tools

dnd5e

d20srd

These tools, tips, tricks, and steps in this guide are all meant to make worldbuilding for your Dungeons and Dragons campaign straightforward. It makes the chief reason for even playing the game as achievable as possible: having fun!

STEP 10: Have Fun!

At its core, a tabletop RPG is played as a dungeon master or as a player to have fun. These steps and tricks aim to make the daunting task of world-building much more straightforward and ( ideally) fun by giving it more concrete aims and tools to eliminate much of the tedium.

As explained before, worldbuilding has many components and is unlikely to be genuinely “complete,” but it never has to be. The world you craft is nothing but a stage for your players to act on and for you to direct them from; the immersion and depth will only need to be as deep as you all need to find enjoyment in. Even with that in mind, it can be a long and tedious task, but having a proper scope, tools, and know-how can make it all the easier. It becomes all the more fun and engaging when you build your world with your players in mind, set firm boundaries so everyone can have a good time, and have some fun by letting some improvisation and spontaneous thinking shine through!

To reiterate, you are not writing a book when you present your players with your world, but rather a vehicle for them and for you to have a good ride together in the crazy ride that is tabletop roleplaying. 

By following the previous steps (in whatever order you choose), I hope you are prepared to offer a fun experience when your setting is complete and have a stellar time playing in it for your campaign!