#random people can download those things

[aurorasulphur]

Disclaimer: none of these answers are official, and may not work for your particular use case. If there is a specific feature that an unofficial app had that you don't know how to replicate on the AO3, let me know in the notes and we might can crowdsource a solution.

A lot of people used the Archive Reader app to access stories on Archive of Our Own, and have been upset that the app is now charging to read longer than an hour a day. AO3 (and its parent organization, the OTW) has made it extremely clear in recent days that this app is unofficial and that there *is* no official app. They encourage people to use the website.

However, there are MANY reasons you might want an app, and in a bunch of those cases, there are ways to do those things without having to provide your login information to a random person running an app. Here is a round-up of solutions to the most common reasons I've seen people give for wanting an app instead of the plain AO3 website.

These solutions are based on the following assumptions:

You know what Archive of Our Own is

You often or primarily access it through a mobile device running iOS or Android

You understand what a browser is

You understand what a browser bookmark is

You understand what a site skin is

Edits:

Edited to clarify that you must be logged in to use custom site skins

Edited to add more tips and tricks from the reblogs

Edited to add new entry about notifications/emails

Edited to add new entry about reading statistics and the tracking thereof

I need a widget on my phone's homescreen, not just a browser bookmark.

You can do this with any website, not just AO3! Instructions here: https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/

I need Dark Mode.

AO3 has a default site skin for Dark Mode, it's just called Reversi. Find it here, or at the bottom of any page on the website. https://archiveofourown.org/skins/929/

If you'd like Dark Mode on your whole browser (and you're on Android), sorrelchestnut has advice here: https://www.tumblr.com/sorrelchestnut/737869282153775104/if-you-want-dark-mode-and-dont-want-to-mess

I need to be able to read stories when I don't have internet.

Every work on the AO3 has a download button, so you can click on that and download the story for offline reading in the ereader app of your choice. More info on how to do that is in the AO3 FAQs: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/downloading-fanworks?language_id=en#accesslater

I need to be able to change the text size of the website itself.

If you have an AO3 account (and you should!!) you can do this with a personalized site skin! There is a simple tutorial here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3skin/667284237718798336/i-have-a-request-if-you-dont-mind-could-you

I need to be able to change the text size in downloaded stories.

My personal recommendation: Don't download in PDF format. All the other formats you can download in can scale the text size up and down, assuming you open the work in the correct app. For me, I download works in EPUB format and read them on the built-in Books app on my iPhone. I hear good things about Moon Reader on Android as well.

I need to be able to replace Y/N in fics with an actual name.

ElectricAlice has a bookmarklet for that here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34796935

I need to be able to save specific tags and not have to search them up every time.

If you have an AO3 account (which you definitely should) then you can favorite up to 20 tags which will appear on the landing page. The AO3 FAQ explains how that works: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#favtag

I need to be able to save specific filters and be able to apply them to any tag.

Reisling's beautiful bookmarklet has you covered: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33825019

I need to be able to permanently hide certain tags.

The best option is adding this to your site skin. (Must be logged in.) Instructions here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3css/719667033634160640/how-to-permanently-filter-out-certain-tags-on-ao3

I also hear things about the AO3 Enhancements extension (just for Android/desktop, sorry iOS folks): https://www.tumblr.com/emotionalsupportrats/686787582579851265/browser-extension-everyone-on-ao3-should-know

I need it to save my place on the page and not reload.

This is really mostly a browser error--Firefox on iOS does this to me A LOT. Your best bet is to download the work and read it in an ereader app. A lot of people also will make an ao3 bookmark and write in the notes section which part they were at, but that assumes you aren't falling asleep while reading. (Which is the main reason I have this issue, lol.) For more info on bookmarks, see the FAQ: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/bookmarks?language_id=en#whatisbookmark

I need it to keep track of which stories I've already read/opened/kudos'd.

If you have an account (which you should) then the "My History" page keeps track of every fic you've ever clicked on. No, it isn't searchable or sortable, but it does exist. For fics you've kudos'd, I have yet to find a solution for iOS. For desktop or Android, you can use this excellent userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5835-ao3-kudosed-and-seen-history

@the-sleepy-archivist and @inkandarsenic have a solution for iOS here to use userscripts: https://www.tumblr.com/the-sleepy-archivist/737895174683885568/this-is-a-great-guide-one-thing-i-can-help-with and https://www.tumblr.com/inkandarsenic/737827438571192320/the-user-scripts-will-also-work-on-ios-there-are

I need an app because the website's search is terrible.

(I genuinely don't understand this one but I have seen it multiple times so on the list it goes!!) The search bar at the top of the screen is a keyword search. If you'd rather search within a specific field (like title or tag) then you'll want to click on the word "search" at the top of the screen and select Work Search or Tag Search. To search users, use People Search. To search Bookmarks, use Bookmark Search. (If this is you, please tell me what the heck you mean by "search is bad" and how an app helped with this.)

I need to be able to sort stories by date posted/number of bookmarks/alphabetical/etc.

You can do this using the filters sidebar. Pick a tag you want to filter on (like a fandom, character, or relationship) and then click on the "Filters" button. The sidebar will pop out and you can sort and filter on a boggling array of specifics. A good filtering guide: https://www.tumblr.com/saurons-pr-department/718665516093472768/if-there-is-something-you-dont-want-to-see-in

I need to be able to mark stories to read later.

AO3 has this feature built in! If you have an account (which you should) there is a "Mark for Later" option on every work.

Edit: Thispersonishuman reminded me that History and Mark For Later can be disabled, so if you're not seeing the Mark for Later option, check your settings.

I need to be able to listen to stories using text-to-speech.

Microsoft Edge web browser has a built in text to speech function. Supposedly it works on both iOS and Android, but I have not personally tested that. iOS also has a native accessibility feature in settings for text to speech that will work on the Books app, so I assume Android has a similar functionality. A bunch of people in the reblogs have more in-depth Android recommendations here: https://www.tumblr.com/protect-namine/737957194510794752/seconding-voice-aloud-on-android-for-tts-my, https://www.tumblr.com/smallercommand/737884523093704704/i-use-voice-for-tts-on-android-its-got-some, and https://www.tumblr.com/doitninetimes/737869463749263360/for-text-to-speech-on-android-you-can-also-check

I need to have in-app notifications for updates/I can't ever find story updates in among the rest of my emails/checking my email stresses me out.

Set up a separate email address using a free service like gmail, and use that email address JUST for AO3. Then the only emails in that inbox will be your story updates. I use Apple's Mail application for all my inboxes, but it's very easy to use the Gmail app instead, and you could log in to JUST the ao3 email and set it to notify for every email.

(Also as a general PSA: don't use your work, school, or military email as your AO3 email. Just don't.)

I want statistics like how many hours I spent reading, how many words I read, what my most read tags were, stuff like that.

So we've finally hit something that isn't easy and that requires a hell of a lot of manual work. Short version: AO3 does not track this data because they don't want to. (Mostly due to privacy concerns.) The lack of this tracking is a feature, not a bug. You can crunch these numbers yourself, but it will take a hell of a lot more effort, and it's something I personally found is not worth the effort the couple of times I have tried to crunch those numbers. If you are willing to download your history to an actual computer (not a tablet or chromebook) using Calibre, you can get a rough idea of your most popular tags via their tag browser, but it won't play nice with typos synned to a Common Tag (Canonical Tag/filterable tag) like ao3 does. (If anyone has used an app that gave you stats on this, please let me know in reblogs/replies/via ask how that worked because I am very curious.)

I need an app because <other reason>.

The AO3 Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ might cover your use case: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/unofficial-browser-tools?language_id=en If not, give a shout and we'll see what other tumblr users suggest!

[suibiansubs]

Announcing: The Closure of Suibian Subs

It's never truly easy to make these type of announcements... but what would I know, I've never had to make one like this before:

I am announcing the permanent closure of Suibian Subs. The public discord server and translation work will cease.

As for our downloads, we are still deciding whether to offer them on our tumblr - which will stay open - or if there is a better solution going forward.

Please note that this doesn't mean everyone should race to upload MDZS audio drama to Youtube!! We still do not appreciate our wishes being broken.

However, if you have a friend who's downloaded the audio drama, you can have them share with you privately either online or in person. Do not upload it for the public anywhere.

Treasure Chest subs is currently working on MDZS audio drama subs. Please find their information to get access to their downloads, and respect their rules.

Thank you everyone for your kind words and support these 6-7 years.

If you're truly wondering, this closing is not about the server hack. It's 10% server hack and 90% member interest. The server being hacked is what really brought things into perspective for us. That is:

It's just time.

A little note from kittykat2010 down below:

From kittykat2010:

It's kind of hard to believe this all happened because I was impatient. LOL

I was impatient and decided to try MTL translating the MDZS audio drama, myself. We all know how well that would've worked. Luckily, the first person to contact me was iarrod before I released anything

"Since 2018, Suibian Subs has been providing quality subtitles, especially known for subtitling the MDZS audio drama, for fans to enjoy worldwide."

I never really thought it would be of such significance to hundreds of people. It was simply a passion project between iarrod and I. Then we added a bunch of other members: Gwyn, askcj1, Yen, and several more that have left over the years... and the rest is history.

Yes, people come and go, life changes, they need to take a break, then a "break" turns into leaving. Sometimes personalities clash and drama ensues. And the group either recovers from these types of changes or struggles to come back to its full glory.

I will certainly miss the camaraderie among us, the random chats, the streams, etc. It was all a fun time in my life that I will look back on and cherish.

Thank you especially to all of the team members, translators and subbing team, for sticking around, enjoying the good times and not-so-good times. Thank you iarrod for helping me out when I was so damn impatient - ha!.

Thank you to those members who have left for your work and dedication to the server.

Thank you fans!!!

Those who have donated (when we had donations for the MDZS audio drama team), those who have thanked us for our work, and those who haven't. Those who have told everyone that the MDZS audio drama is the best adaption of the novel and the best/only place to watch is through Suibian Subs.

Again, thank you everyone. Suibian Subs and its fans will truly be missed.

[elbiotipo]

The problem with Wikipedia is that it has rendered all other encyclopedias extinct or out of view (the exception are fandom encyclopedias, I guess, but those have their own problems). And people need in-depth information which also isn't highly specific academic papers that only tackle one specific thing in depth without wider context (my main problem when researching, for example, pre-columbian cultures.)

And competitors to Wikipedia like, you know, Encyclopedia Brittanica (I actually read it sometimes, and it's good until it hits you with straight up XIX imperialist apologia) aren't really good either. There is also a drought of encyclopedias in Spanish as all search results are absorbed by Wikipedia, this is why I hoard all sorts of PDFs and books, because the results in Spanish are just Spanish Wikipedia (probably the WORST of all major Wikipedias) and random SEO blogs.

There should be lots of online encyclopedias on different topics written by experts, ideally with some oversight because Wikipedia can be very, very biased when it wants (you can tell some people are really masturbating to Byzantine emperors), but I think this is a lost cause too since Google search, which let's face it, it's 99% of all internet searches, is declining into mush fast. And with AI generated content, things are going to get worse. I think we're honestly reaching a tipping point in the internet regarding access to reliable information.

At the end, my suggestion is that you go and download books, actual published books, and keep your sources broad. Because I think we're reaching a point where information on the internet is going to decline. It won't be lost, it will just be impossible to find unless you do a deep dive, or worse, mumbled into SEO/AI garbage misinformation.

[martassimsbookcc]

Hello guys! First of all happy new year ! Hope you had a great time out there :) 🎆

Today I'm writing this to explain why decimation of Sims 4 meshes is paramount while converting stuff. You know me, I don't like to make statements as english isn't my first language and I find it difficult sometimes to actually write things down - even in italian I struggle sometimes lol. BUT I think this would be useful to all the cc converters and creators out there. So please, take this as an advice, for the sake of our oldie and beloved Sims 3.

Little backstory: I was casually browsing tumblr the other day and stumbled across a beautiful food set converted from Sims 4 - which I immediately saw was high quality. Just for curiosity I downloaded it, checked the polycount of a random object (if you're new here it's the total number of polygons found in a three-dimensional model) and it had way too many polys: 28k vertices - 34k faces + 4096x4096 textures.

Sims 3 is quite an old game now. Every player had experienced lag and glitches at some point so it's very, very important to make the stuff you create/convert from other games suitable for it! Here comes to the rescue a super useful tool in blender called decimation. It basically "allows you to reduce the vertex/face count of a mesh with minimal shape changes", as said on blender website. In just 2 minutes and with not so much effort I was able to reduce those polygons down to 8,4k vertices - 7,4k faces. Do you see any difference? I don't honestly.

Optimization is the key. Converting from sims 4 is not just taking the mesh and textures and putting them all in Sims 3. I wish it was tho!

You're free to put whatever you want in your game but you have to think about the game performance as well. There are people who still play the game and as an ex player I got really upset when I had laggy gaming sessions.

Having said that, here's a tut about blender and the decimation tool, done by @simaddix and which I think covers every important aspect of that useful tool.

If you read this all, thank you! Now I can go back to convert new stuff :D

-Marta

[myunghology]

!! kazuha and freminet general boyfriend head canons

gender neutral reader, fluff, maybe crack?

a/n : freminet is so babygirl i want him. i will download genshin again just for him. (i am very normal about him), also i heard he's a minor, about bennett/chongyuns age, i think!

!! pairings : kazuha and freminet x reader (seperated)

!! KAZUHA

the most caring boyfriend ever!! actually it depends

brings you back random things that reminded him of you when he goes out on adventures. i mean this guy is literally everywhere let's bfr.

also this is for the people who have younger siblings who are still children, he absolutely adores them. he chases them around while they're giggling and it's adorableee! he doesn't mind that they're being annoying and says that "they're just kids!" when you scold them. (clearly he has never had an annoying younger sibling)

tomo's cat is obviously your child now if i never said that before

ALSO random headcanon he has one of those girly screams if yk what i mean😭

has a soft spot for old people, so he offers to take care of your elders because he likes taking care of people, he's that type of boyfriend to impress your family even though he did nothing at all, talking about asian standards btw..

everyone in your family loves him, they immediately gave him their blessing when he asked to marry you.

he isn't scared of ANYTHING, except you when your mad, especially if you have anger issues, he is definitely shaking in his boots bro

!! FREMINET

you're his number 1 annoyer, if that word even is a word man

i have a feeling he gets annoyed easily, but also easily cracks. he's like one of those people who are shy, but not like those shy uwu boys, more like a shy annoyed guy who's annoyed by anything or anyone. at least that's was my first impression of him, don't judge me if it's wrong, he wasn't out yet when i wrote this, alr?

this guy. definitely side-eyes people.

"[name] please stop calling me 'dude' i will kill you" — freminet, probably.

can you tell he doesn't like it when you call him 'dude'

it takes all his manpower for him not to swear at you

a smile creeps onto his lips sometimes when you don't notice, but as soon as you look at him, it definitely fades away

has probably hit you on the head with a book once

possibly the only person he actually talks to (initiating a convo) besides his siblings

lynette and lyney love u bro

they think you're perfect for him fr

they're your biggest shippers actually

[buf309]

Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

[matrixbearer2024]

Get Off My Screen Series Headcanons:

A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates guys! Currently working on two interludes I'll be posting back to back later so for now- have some headcanons I have for both Vox and Reader! Btw, if you guys have scenarios you still want to see with Reader being alive- you can send those in! I'll try writing drabbles for them if ever.

Knowing Vox, he had snooped around your stuff and files when you were alive.

From sorting your files because of the haphazard arrangement-

To straight up just leaning everything he could about you.

He'd saved a few of your pictures over the time you both got to know each other better.

At the start, he was just curious and nonchalant.

Cuz I mean, he's talking with a living soul?

That's gotta be worth something right?

But in trying to get closer to manipulate you-

Vox ended up actually becoming your friend.

Your sassy and spitfire nature kept him interested, kind of like a game.

You didn't take his shit and neither did he with yours.

At first he thought you were just insufferably annoying and acted accordingly.

Then it would shift ever so slowly to him just expecting your antics.

Then him looking forward to them.

It was a ray of sunshine in his otherwise monotonous and frankly very depressing afterlife.

Also his tiny desktop pet in your computer?

That existed solely because he was irritated enough that you had the gall to download another digital companion.

Bring it up though and he'll just blow you off in flustered anger.

The internet search engines like Google, Firefox, bing- etc. were accessible to him on your gadgets, but not social media.

So he couldn't mess with your friends, which was why they didn't know about him even until your premature death.

Well, they do kinda know about him-

As that odd online friend of yours that you were always talking to or subconsciously about.

Similarly on Vox's end, despite his dumbass being terminally online-

He somehow ends up on his phone even more because of you.

Valentino is expectedly pissy about it.

Especially because Vox won't actually explain what's going on.

Over the months Vox got invested into your relationship-

His on-off with the pimp shifted into a more permanent off.

Like, at the start things would be practically the same-

But over time he'd sleep with Val less and less.

To the point he didn't let the moth touch him if he knew there were any sexual undertones.

Vox didn't see the point in partaking in something he didn't want to be in.

You on the other hand went through your fair share of crushes and blind dates.

Something that irked the overlord slightly, even if he didn't know why at the time.

His possessivenessprotectiveness only got worse after you both started talking via your TV.

He'd slightly wanted to have a proper conversation between you two that wasn't just texting.

Vox was also prone to blowing up your phone at random points in the day when he was bored.

Or when he saw you weren't giving him enough attention.

Wouldn't ever admit it but he likes being the center of your attention.

He's already got the eyes and ears of so many people with his shows and his media-

But you're like the one person he actually feels seen with.

It also helps that you don't let his bullshit fly.

You weren't ever scared of him despite the guy being a demon overlord.

What was the worst he could do?

Corrupt your files and destroy your gadgets?

That stuff was replaceable, didn't matter much.

Vox has stuck his hand in your playlist a couple times when he's busy working.

Mostly because he didn't have the time to properly talk but inadvertently missed you.

That and he'd usually check your playlist to gauge your mood.

There was a couple of times he'd been utterly confused why you had such a depressing song as your most played when you seemed happy as all hell.

He just chalked it up to another one of your odd behaviors.

Calls you doll/dollface by default but traverses into other more endearing petnames as you guys get closer.

You think nothing of it, assuming it's just him playing up his charisma but Vox kind of wishes you would give it some thought.

After all, he doesn't do that normally to anyone.

Well, not unless he's trying to manipulate them or get in their pants.

But with you, it was genuine.

He'd absolutely buffer or glitch if you ever gave him a cute petname though.

It's why you simply stick to just giving him names that made fun of his odd features.

Samsung, flatscreen, TV man-

He's gotten used to it.

But jokingly call him babe or dear and he will die.

Vox also loves your eyes, it was straight up just so easy to read you just by meeting your gaze.

Can and will get lost in his thoughts looking at you but often catches himself in time to stop.

Has kind of deluded himself into the 'just friends' mentality.

Mostly out of his hesitance and unwillingness to accept he'd truly and totally fallen for you.

Vox doesn't remember the last time he felt genuine love for someone and that scares the socks off him-

You on the other hand just legitimately have no idea your attraction to the guy alreardy borders on romantic.

Quite literally everyone can see it aside from you two.

When you get down to hell, Vox actually has to adjust to the fact you're down there-

Even if it's just for a really stupid reason-

He's just the slightest bit relieved you hadn't gone to heaven where he wouldn't be able to reach you anymore.

It's a selfish reason, but Vox is inherently a selfish person so it doesn't bother him too badly.

[moonbiscuitsims]

SIMDEW VALLEY SET 🍄👩🏿‍🌾🐷🐴🐄🧙🏿‍♂️🌻🌽

Stardew Valley Pixel Art Floors/Walls/Deco (TS4) Download Below

Aside from a couple most of these pics are just the demo pics showing what's included, more CC in game pics can be seen here

🍄Misc Large Decals

In order: Junimo huts + large Junimos, Holdiay Decor and "sky decor", furniture items, rarecrows, plants.

🍄Wall Decals Paintings and Banners:

🍄Wall Decals Misc small:

Adventure stuff and boots, small junimos, random furniture items slime monsters different expressions

🍄Wall decals Gems and Minerals:

I didn't do them all, just some that I liked.

🍄Wall decals farm animals

🍄Wall decals Fishing

Again just the fish I wanted to do, not all:

🍄Wall decals Harvestables, Crops, Products:

Here's a random in game pic (see more in links provided at top or bottom of post), all decals show through glass too!

🍄Stardew Valley Villagers (yes the bear is a villager I refuse to accept otherwise) portraits

The portraits are the only item with actual dimension, I recoloured a base game framed painting, so these are not flat like the rest of decals. (they look a bit orange but that's just my mood lighting)

🍄Walls and Flooring (indoor and outdoor flooring)

I did all the ones you see here:

For the floors I made a large and small version of all:

🍄You can see more CC in game pics in my wip post here

Are you sick and tired of those smooth graphics from Sims 4? Do you wish you could replace those pesky curves and detailed HQ textures with nothing but square pixel heaven and flat colours? To be finally rid of all those 3D bump/light effects and replace them with volume-less cardboard cut-out illusion and imagination? Do you want your build/game to look just like Stardew Valley? Or do you simply think that if the sims team are gonna give us low poly and low quality meshes and textures might as well do it properly? Fear not! The solution is here! I made a new Stardew Valley save (why I need yet another save that I'll never have time to complete I don't know) and tried my first build, the recreation of my current (and only) farm. It was ok but I got frustrated at how "Sims 4" everything looked, and checked for stardew valley cc conversions, art, decor but only find people making it using sims 4 stuff, which is probably the most logical thing but not for me! So I made this as there are plenty of game assets from Stardew Valley available online and however tedious and time-consuming resizing the tiniest of pixel art images is to fit Sims 4, it is fairly easy and doable, so I did it. I did skip some items in each category as there are way too many and just did the ones I like, sorry if there was one I didn't include. Also there are some floors in the game or icons that I couldn't find. Some Junimos were taken from the internet but most are individually resized game assets. INFO: all decals in wall deco, all are zero simoleons, and the portraits are 10. You can find my stuff typing "moonbiscuitsims" or "stardew". All have correct colour filter tags and removed "talk to object (insane)" and "can be struck by lightning" (these things annoy me or could cause more distractions for my sims, sorry if you like this though I'm sure there are plenty of objects to talk to/ lightning strikable objects). I don't know if this has an effect. All the portraits are just tagged as brown. All are resizable to your liking. Forgot to mention the floors i think are in wood flooring and outdoor flooring; and I think the walls in panelling. REQUIREMENTS: Nada, nothing. Just base game. (though I did accidentally make one item from a get to work decal by mistake, I remade it to fix it and I've play tested everything, but let me know if something doesn't show up.

PLEASE READ AND RESPECT MY TOU AND DO NOT ❌❌❌: - ❌ Reupload - ❌ Include in sim downloads - ❌ Put behind paywall of any kind no matter what. - ❌ Claim as yours. If you wanna use the texture files to make other different original content that is fine as long as it is different from mine and NO PAYWALLS and no reuploading my stuff. The images are from Stardew Valley, but I spent ages editing every single one to fit the sims, and this took me days to do. All my stuff is free. I don't care about conversions to ts2 or ts3 but NO PAYWALLS and please tag and credit me. If used for screenshots please tag me too, I'd love to see <3 🍄DOWNLOAD (including a pick and choose or a merged file with everything, don't get both) Enjoy! Happy Simming/Farming

Stardew Valley fav music playlist 🎵🎵🎵

[r3starttt]

Modern gf! Ellie hc’s

Warnings: few mentions of sexting and a bit of making out(?

She sucks at flirting, like…. bad bad. Before you started dating she couldn’t find any way to approach to you without getting all nervous and shit, she would try talk to you but couldn’t hold eye contact, she would be fidgeting with her fingers, staring at everything and everyone but you and being awkward af. Mostly doing small talk but thats how she got you lol

Also, she would try to find a way to know if you like girls. She would do anything but ask you directly, she would be looking on your social media like crazy because it doesn’t matter if you look gay af she believes that stereotypes and stuff are not trustful. Also would hint you that she’s into girls in all possible ways, anything but say it out loud.

Always wearing her converse, always. It doesn’t matter how much you insist on buying new ones or how hard you try to convince her on changing them, she won’t.

Definitely an iPad kid. Even though she doesn’t have much social media or doesn’t use it a lot she would always have her phone with her and would a hundred percent eat while watching streamers or random gameplays.

Adores minecraft and Fortnite ofc, she owns a xbox and loves it more than anything else. Also, absolutely wants to become a streamer but ofc no one lets her or supports the idea.

Sucks at texting, no one ever understands what she’s trying to say. She sends tons of messages, whether is her correcting the misspellings or just writing word by word or small sentences to tell whatever she’s trynna say.

Loves gossip, adores it, loves sending you messages and audios about it and will definitely call you randomly just for it.

Absolutely does sexting, a lot. She gets super horny at the most random times by the most random things. Also she sends you tons of pics of her without you asking but ofc you send pics back and she always saves them.

Has a backpack that takes everywhere and is full of pins (as any other bag she owns) also very crusty.

Loves teasing you, whether she’s just bothering you, telling you her dad jokes or even trying to make you horny (because she’s already needy lol) but she’ll always find a way to tease you.

Has a million sketchbooks that never gets to finish because she lost them randomly and forgets where they are. Also, draws you a lot.

Her Instagram is empty but definitely has a highlight just for you. She refuses to download tik tok too, until you beg her to because all the reels she sends you went viral months ago on tik tok and also because you want her to see all the tik toks you send her.

Leaves everyone on read, including you. If you get mad at it she would only answer with a 👍.

Loves pinterest and spotify, helps her with the inspo and also likes them bcs it’s social media where you don’t need to interact with people so it’s perfect for her. However she still prefers any other free app to listen to music because hates spending money on it.

Ken and Barbie guitar scene, all the time. She knows you hate being there for hours only listening to her playing the guitar but also knows how much you adore to have full perfect view of her hands and her tattoo :)

Slaps your ass all the time.

Adores legos, she would ask you shyly to have dates just to so you can help her do her lego or would call you so you can see her. So cute.

Is very very cheesy and romantic and dumb whenever she’s alone with you. Likes pet names secretly but won’t confess it because she makes fun of couples that are romantic in public because they’re cringy so she won’t ever admit how much she likes to be like those couples with you.

Likes matching outfits, again, secretly.

Loves messy make out sessions. Hates how your lipstick-gloss spreads all over her lips when you two kiss but loves the taste and loves your face so it doesn’t really matter. I repeat, she loves your ass, so eventually her hands get all over your body and this make out sessions would end in having messy sex.

Loves cuddling, probably small spoon. Also likes resting on top of you and you resting on top of her. Loves the intimacy of it, loves the warm and the calm.

She takes many pictures of you, every time you’re together she ends up with tons of pics of you two (just because you ask her to) but mostly pictures of you.

Has a minecraft world for you too where you two have millions of cats and parrots. She does the scary things while you pick the flowers and decorate the house (she insisted even though she gets freaked out at those random sounds at the caves). She gets killed a lot too.

Most dates at her house would end in her sleeping because movie is boring or she playing w random game and bothering you a lot with “this one’s for you babe” comments (she always loses) and always asking you to watch her play, showing you proudly whatever random trophy she won or what she just bought in the game. Also screams a lot and loves bothering kids.

—————

I want a gamer gf :(

[trekwiz]

Food Replicators: A Missed Opportunity

I was just thinking about how we see food replicators portrayed in Star Trek: people generally eat their "staples". It's even a way to offer "a bit of home" for traveling alien species--just download the appropriate culinary database and you're good to go.

But we haven't really seen the shows explore what happens to a cuisine once you introduce replicators.

Sure. You had a busy day at work so you come home to your go-to. We make a lot of quesadillas: they're low effort, and it's easy to get a lot of variety in the fillings. And yeah, if I had a replicator, I'm probably still going to eat quesadillas.

But I really love dumplings. Especially fried dumplings and soup dumplings. I can make fried dumplings. It's a lot of work and it never tastes anywhere near as good as restaurant dumplings. I get them maybe once a month or every other month.

But if I had a replicator? My diet would probably be mostly dumplings. That's only a slight exaggeration. I would probably eat them daily--and try a variety of recipes--some days for lunch, some for dinner. And I might even explore what breakfast dumplings would be like: would egg and bacon dumplings work?

If I had a replicator, my staple foods would be different from what my staples are in reality. Not drastically. But it would be noticeable.

I want to add one more layer of complexity, though. I'm imagining foods I know I enjoy, and removing the expense and effort from the equation. I can easily recognize how my food norms would change under those terms. Exploring that concept is interesting enough, but it doesn't really capture how deeply a replicator could affect cuisine.

Can replicators make impossible foods?

What completely unique thing could come out of a replicator that revolutionizes what we eat?

The premise of a replicator is that it doesn't cook food. It assembles molecules in the right sequence, at an appealing temperature. That would necessarily suggest something huge: cooking methods can be irrelevant.

Could you have soft, steamed broccoli stems, with a crisp sautéed floret still attached? Roasted Potatoes with an au gratin interior?

How many desserts with mutually exclusive bake times and methods could now be seamlessly combined together? Maybe a perfectly baked meringue inside a cake instead of on top?

You could probably have a literal creme brulee snack bar, with a crispy caramelized shell all around it, holding it together.

People would experiment. Which ones take off as a standard after dinner treat for local culture, and which ones are so fantastic that they become tomorrow's festival foods? Which ones spur "gross" eating competions? Will this affect food fights?

I feel like this would be an interesting side plot for a random food historian on the crew to geek out over.

[copperbadge]

What do you mean by digital cleaning?

It's something I've been working on more this year because I had a bit more travel than usual so couldn't do actual home cleaning, but I always take a couple of days in the Month Of Cleaning where I'm focused on my digital life. It's good to make your physical home a comfortable place for yourself, but it's also good to recognize that we have "digital" homes that need attention. And often this is at least less physically demanding, so it's good to keep it in your back pocket for days when you're mentally okay but physically too tired or sore to do more of that kind of work.

In the shortest possible terms, digital cleaning is just making sure that your phone, computer, socials, and other digital "presences" are organized in a way that you find helpful, and that you take a moment to either answer those messages you've been putting off or give yourself amnesty on doing so.

This tends to make a lot of people extremely anxious in a way ordinary physical space cleaning doesn't, so I'm going to put the rest of it behind a cut...

So when I say digital cleaning, I refer to stuff like going through my likes on Tumblr and clearing them out, going through my drafts and turning them into queued posts, answering my asks. I spend time in my email inboxes, either responding to messages or removing them. I am not an "inbox zero" kind of guy, but I like to keep the read-but-not-answered messages to a minimum, and towards the end of the year that usually means a clear-out and amnesty. I clean my Google Drive -- delete old files I uploaded for others, move documents I'm no longer using into an archive, move documents I want to work on into a central work folder. I go through my catch-all folder on my hard drive and organize it; I sort through the year's photos and organize those, partly to archive them and partly because I make a scrapbook from them each year. I don't usually have a ton of tabs open but often have more than I'd like, so I go through them all and either read, bookmark, or get rid of them.

I look in my phone's file tree to make sure I delete files I don't need (mostly menu downloads, Restaurants Stop Making Your Menus PDFs Challenge 2K24) and I sometimes go through each app on my phone, make sure I still use it, and make sure it's set how I want it. If this sounds like a nightmare, bear in mind that I very rarely put apps on my phone to start with -- I think my mother has more apps open at any given time than I have apps on my phone ever.

Everywhere I clean, I look for files named things like "notes" or "deal with" or "random" and move them all into one place so that whatever is in them, I can sort through it and make sure it goes somewhere permanent. Logins go in the login/password spreadsheet I keep, addresses go into my contacts, story notes go into a "fiction scraps" file, random thoughts either get moved into a journal file or put into drafts to become Tumblr posts, etc.

If this sounds like I might have some kind of compulsion disorder, I get that; when I explain my digital hygiene systems a lot of people look at me like I'm spouting a mad but harmless conspiracy theory. But it's something I used to have to do periodically even before I created National Clean Your Home Month, because otherwise I could never find anything, and everything was just...harder. As I once told a boss who admired my organizational skills, "It was this or endless chaos."

Putting addresses into my contacts list means I always know that the addresses I have for my friends are up to date. Putting logins into a spreadsheet means that five minutes spent now will not result in five weeks of procrastination later because I can't find the login and can't do anything else until I do that. Going through my email and archiving old conversations means not only can I find them easily when needed, I don't have to look at them the rest of the time. Sometimes I even go through my various wish lists and remove old/purchased items, or clear out all my "save for later" carts.

There's no doubt this is stressful, but like every part of NaClYoHo, it's broken down into smaller tasks; I don't have to look at my computer and organize everything on it all in one day. I can answer a few asks, then sort photos (something I find very soothing up until the moment I Don't), then read and delete some emails, then I'm done for the day. I can spread "answer or file all your work emails" out over a couple of days. I can maybe empty out my Likes but just turn the ones I actually want to reblog into drafts for now and deal with them later in the "drafts" phase of cleaning. And if I don't manage to empty out my inboxes, at least they're emptier than they were.

I'm struggling this morning with having put a bunch of physical cleaning on the to-do list but not feeling physically up for it, so I did what I felt capable of doing (measuring cabinets for new shelf liners mainly) and later today I might sit down and start building this year's photobook. Or not -- I have to code Radio Free Monday, sort out a prescription and possibly go pick it up, plus a very full day of work and a couple of afternoon appointments I can't shirk, so today may simply be a "get through the day" kind of day. That's okay too; some days the spirit is willing but the schedule is full.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/23/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; How To Help; Rotten Tomatoes Reviews/GoggleBox; Cast & Crew Sightings; Taika; Rhys; Leslie Jones; New Watch Party: These Thems; Save OFMD UK Billboard; Transparency policy; RhysDarbyFaction; We'reWolves; Fan Spotlight; Podcasts/Youtube vids; Articles; Love Notes; Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika

Hey all. I'm starting out with the how to help section tonight because there are some things we'd love to see happen to try and help with the renewal.

== HOW TO HELP ==

= Rotten Tomatoes Reviews =

Okay all, this is a big one. It's been brought to my attention by @bzy_hands on twitter, that there are less than 1000 reviews on rotten tomatoes for Season 2. They have an excellent point, Con DID screenshot Season 2. If you haven't already, please go over to Season 2 and review it to help get over that 1000 review mark.

Need help on how to review on RT? @lowrahh Was kind enough to make a tutorial for us, check it out on the repo: Review on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB

== Let's Get OFMD On Gogglebox ==

Our crew-mate @queerly-autistic was kind enough to have written up a How-To on on getting OFMD on Gogglebox!

"One of the biggest things we can do to try and get Our Flag Means Death picked up by another network is keep making noise about it, and so I had a wild middle-of-the-night idea about one way we could do this: try and get the show on Gogglebox! For anyone who doesn't know, Gogglebox is an extremely popular and successful show in the UK on Channel 4, where ordinary people (and sometimes celebrities) watch and react to television shows, pop culture moments and films."

Wanna give it a go? Please check out their tutorial here!

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

==Taika!==

It's been a minute since we've seen Taika! But he's out with Rita at the Taylor Swift concert.

= Rhys Darby =

Well, even though Rhys is taking some time off until March, we still have some Cameo's coming in from prior to him closing cameos!

= Cameo 1 - Cryptids! =

Thank you to @iamadequate1 for sharing this fun little cryptid video +

Tumblr / Twitter Links

= Cameo 2 =

Our friend @blackcravatart over on twitter was kind enough to share a birthday video for her (edited for names). I don't know if it's anywhere else and I didn't get permission to download it, so I apologize I'll try to do that and get back to you if we are allowed to share it elsewhere! Cameo Video on Twitter.

= Red Dead Redemption 2: Episode 3 =

The next exciting episode of Rhys playing Red Dead is up!

= Leslie Jones =

I really don't post enough about Leslie, who is my absolute idol. She's out doing comedy at the Hawaii Theater in Honolulu tonight with @lennymarcusnyc! Just wanted to give a shout out her way since she's a BAMF and deserves all the love.

== New Watch Party ==

Join @adoptourcrew on Friday 3/1 for a watch party of #TheseThems! Times haven't been secured quite yet but mark your calendars!

Watch Party Hashtags:

#TheseThems

#These Gems

#AdoptOurCrew

Wanna see what other watch parties are planned? Feel free to visit the repo for Watch Party Events.

== Save OFMD Billboard Campaign ==

Some of you may have noticed that there's been some suspicious pictures going up across multiple platforms regarding a billboard with the hashtag #WatchTheHorizon from our SaveOFMD Crew. There's definitely some Billboard planning in the works and the crew has provided a bit more transparency on the situation this time. All links in the images will be listed below.

Links:

SaveOFMD Crew Transparency Policy

Team HAVEN

Trans Lifeline

RainbowYOUTH

Outright International

Full Twitter Thread

== SchadenFreude ==

Just a little karma for WB.

== Rhys Darby Faction ==

So for those of you not on twitter, there was a bit of fun had with a random film poll guy who posted a poll that included Rhys Darby on Twitter.

It was found by OFMD twitter, and immediately started being retweeted, which, is how twitter works, right? His Response to this was:

So several of our OFMD Twitter group decided to OWN that lovely little name, and put together an actual hashtag #RhysDarbyFaction... and start polite menacing and trying to boost engagement for #AdoptOurCrew and #SaveOFMD Which triggered a meme factory, here's a few:

#RhysDarbyFaction is now a trending Hashtag on Twitter, and the Faction is using that to help support the #SaveOFMD and #AdoptOurCrew effort as well as spread positivity and love around Rhys Darby works. There's even a discord server if you're interested in joining: https://discord.gg/r7db78j4 There's been talks of putting together some events for a Cryptid Scavenger hunt, but in general it's just a small safe space to try and promote little guys and support the ofmd renewal effort. You don't need to join the discord to be part of the crew, just use #RhysDarbyFaction and be a polite menace/positive force!

== We're Wolves ==

So according to the #WellingtonParanormalPodcast's tiktok, it sounds like Jermaine is finally in talks for writing "We're Wolves"! A sequel to the 2014 What We Do In the Shadows movie. I know we've all been in a Vianton mood since that one Rhys Cameo, so just wanted to make sure you'd heard if you hadn't! SRC: Tiktok

== Fan Spotlight! ==

Getting close to the end of the month so gotta catch up! More collages from our friend @wnderngnomad on Twitter!

Day 23: The Cinematography

Day 4: Nat Faxon

Day 5: Vico Ortiz

Day 6: Leslie Jones

== Podcasts / Youtube Vids ==

Speaking of podcasts, checkout some podcasts from our fandom!

= Citizen Dame =

First up! @celluloidbroomcloset, has a podcast that’s called Citizen Dame. While it doesn't specifically discuss OFMD in this episode, they do discuss Taika, and you all know how much we love that man. So give it a listen and support a fellow crew-mate! Podbean Link / Patreon / Spotify

= Never Left Podcast =

Another fan-podcast I'd like to add tonight is Never Left! More podcasts and discussions on all things OFMD -- give them a listen if you feel up for it! "Welcome aboard our Safe Space Ship! Your Co-Captains, Ariana Perry and Amanda Catron, will be hosting this completely spoiled, totally unofficial, deep dive into Our Flag Means Death." Podbay / Linktr.ee

== Movies With Marty ==

Marty has a new First Watch video out! If you haven't watched Marty's vids yet, feel free to check them out! He's a hoot and is a HUGE supporter of OFMD!

== Articles ==

What to watch on Netflix and BBC this weekend?

Keeping promises of queer representation

== Love Notes ==

Today has been a long day lovelies, and I'm out of spoons so I'm gonna take a night off from writing out love notes and spread some from someone else. Just know I'm very proud of you for everything you did today, I hope you're doing well and feeling safe. <3

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Idk if these really go together tonight, but here we go. Both of them were on tenor with no srcs? Sorry! Hope you all enjoy!

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Fanfiction Etiquette 101

(Things You Didn't Know You Need To Know)

So, I have seen some discussions about these things on my dashboard, and I know some people are new to tumblr and new to fanfiction in general, so I decided to put this list together in case it might help people. And this stuff goes for all fandoms, no matter what type of fanfiction to write and post.

Also fyi, this post is mostly for people who write and post fanfiction.

1: Putting A Readmore/Cut On Fanfiction

So a 'readmore' (also known as a 'cut') is the ability to put the body of your fanfiction under a cut off link so that people's dashboards are not clogged up by long sprawling paragraphs of text. This is also helpful if your fic contains smut and people don't want to be subjected to smut - people have to click through to keep reading sensitive topics.

The button for it looks like this on desktop:

And this bar of options comes up on desktop when you hit 'enter' on a blank line.

And it looks like this on mobile:

Tumblr put it permanently into the hotbar of options so that it's easier for people to put a readmore on their posts on mobile.

Once you have inputted it, it comes up as a light grey jagged line, showing you where your text cuts off in the main post aka what text is visible before the cut and what's not.

And generally, I think it's a good idea to put the readmore after the first paragraph of your fic, or after the description/summary.

I have noticed that some people put it in after several paragraphs for a longer fic, but I think to make fics easier to reblog, you could put it closer to the top. And even if you're writing smut blurbs, you should put it close to the top to keep smut concealed in case people don't want to read or see smut.

If you don't use a readmore, people are less likely to reblog your fic because they don't want to put a long text wall on other people's dashboards.

2: Using (Stolen) Gifs As Fanfiction Covers

I have seen some discussion about using gifs from google, and people putting a gif that they have downloaded and simply writing under it 'this gif is not mine, please DM me if it's your and I will give you credit'.

It's generally established among gif makers that downloading random gifs and putting them on your fanfiction is bad etiquette. Those are considered stolen gifs.

Even if you say it's not yours and offer to give credit, any gif you repost that is not yours is considered a stolen gif.

Fanfiction writers and gif makers need to work together, not against each other. Reblog gif sets you like, and don't download random gifs, no matter what the source is.

The best way to use gifs as fanfiction covers is to make them yourself or to use the tumblr integrated gif search system.

The gif search system is in the same hot bar as the readmore, labelled under 'gif'.

When you pull it up and click on it, you type in the name of the character you are looking for, and then you can scroll through the results. You can click on a gif to add it to your post, and remove it if you don't like it. So you can try out different gifs to find the right fit of what you're looking for.

And when you find what you're looking for and put it on your post, it automatically credits the gifmaker.

And the credit appears like this. And the name of the gifmaker can be clicked and then it takes you to their blog, so you can see who made the gif. This is a much better way to use gifs, because if someone likes a gif they see on your fic post, they can click through to the original gifmaker and reblog it.

Alternatively, using stills from the show/piece of media you're fanfic is about is a great way to avoid using stolen gifs.

2.5: Using Flashing Gifs On Fanfiction

I have noticed that a lot of people use flashing dividers for their fics, and they don't tag it with a flashing warning (#flashing gif or something similar) and they don't see this as a problem.

Using a flashing gif in fanfiction without a warning can negatively affect disabled readers. Not just people with photosensitive seizures, but people with migraines and different types of eye issues.

3: Using Coloured Text For Fanfiction

Speaking of accessibility issues, I have noticed that many people (especially people new to tumblr/new to fanfiction) use Tumblr's coloured text option to differentiate characters in fanfiction - assigning one colour per character with dialogue.

Some people also just use coloured text for the whole body of their fics, just making it straight up unreadable for disabled people.

Using coloured text in fanfiction makes it inaccessible because certain types of colour blindness makes it unreliable to see on a white background, and bright colours can cause eye strain for different types of disabilities.

It is kinder to use the traditional black text for the body of your fic, and any important information (like the content warnings, DNI criteria, etc).

4: Putting Thorough Content Warnings On Fanfiction

Speaking of content warnings - I could (and probably should) make an entire post about this topic alone, because many writers (both new and old) are severely lacking in this department.

Content warnings are supposed to be more for just smut - and if you do have smut in your fic, you should put warnings for that, instead of just releasing for fic into the wild with no warnings at all. Content warnings are supposed to be for anything that could be potentially triggering for a reader - phobias and fears, sensitive topics, uncomfortable or fear-inducing situations, and kinks and nsfw topics.

Tbh I think not enough people put warnings for alcohol and alcohol consumption in their fics, because alcohol is far too normalized to most people, but again - I could probably make a whole post just about content warnings in fanfiction. Basically: if you think your post could be triggering to someone with an addiction or in addiction recovery (or triggering to a sober person who doesn't want to read about drugs or alcohol) - then include those things in the content warnings.

Fanfiction is about informed consent.

People need to be better informed about what the content of your fic is before they consent to reading it. Also, if you're worried about the warnings being too detailed and giving away 'spoilers' for your fic, then you're probably worried about the wrong thing. And you can just put a warning at the very top that says "the content warnings of this fic contain spoilers for the plot of the fic" and let people make their choice if they want to skip the content warnings or not.

Please, write about all the dark or sensitive topics that you want, but just put detailed warnings on your fic so people can be informed about it before reading your fic.

People always appreciate thorough warnings, and they are more likely to read your fic if they are fully informed before clicking into the body of it.

4.5: (Not) Censoring Content Warnings

Tumblr is not tiktok. (Same goes for posting fics on AO3, but this post is mostly about Tumblr fics.) On Tumblr you can say/spell out any word you want without your post being suppressed or taken down - suicide, kill, murder, fuck, abortion, hell, porn, tits, cumshot, etc.

So that means that when you're writing out the content warnings of a fic, you should write them out fully, rather than putting slang or alluding to the topics in a fic. (Again, informed consent.) Rather than saying 'this fic contains SA', say: 'this fic contains sexual assault' or 'this fic contains rape'.

I saw someone using the term 'unalive' in the content warnings of their fic, and tbh, that's what inspired me to make this whole post.

If you're not mature enough to spell out all the topics in the content warnings of the post, you're not mature enough to be writing and posting about those topics.

Also, try not to use terms that need to be looked up/implicit terms. Certain terms for kinks (like dacryphilia or somnophilia) might lead a person to google those terms and find things they don't want to see. So instead of using those terms, just say 'crying kink' or 'sleeping kink' instead, so that everything is spelled out plainly.

...

This is all I can think of for now. Basically, just be kind to others when posting fics. Be kind to gif makers, disabled readers, and anyone from your fandom who might have an interest in your fic! Be safe and have fun writing! <3

[anim-ttrpgs]

I was interviewed on Storyteller Conclave!

You’ve probably seen several posts on here about how I’m going to be on Storyteller Conclave talking about Eureka. If you haven’t, you’re going to, because there’s still some in the queue and I’m not going to remove them.

But, that happened, and it was a great time! You can listen to the episode here, here, here, or here!

I wasn’t on my A-game the whole time unfortunately, I had some mic trouble for about the first 20 minutes, along with some other distractions on my end that kept me from focusing early on, but luckily I had team member @ashweather to support me and help me out.

If you can bear with the rocky start, there’s a lot of good insight into the design of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy in this podcast, and a lot of it goes into stuff that we haven’t really covered on this blog, especially the themes.

We talk about the realistic and simulationist nature of Eureka and how this serves its gameplay and themes, we talk about how it takes inspiration from John Woo films such as Hard Boiled, its pretty unique approach to the concept of HP, how it approaches and flips the concept of "winning", and its deeply character-driven nature.

Of course we also talk about Eureka's unique and awesome rules for investigative gameplay, and how it improves upon games that did investigative gameplay before it. How it trusts the players' intellect, but also won't leave them totally twisting in the wind after a bad roll or two!

My favorite thing we talked about, near the end of the show, was Eureka’s approach to monsters, disability, and its sympathy towards “bad people.” I’m actually going to be writing a whole essay on this topic hopefully before the Kickstarter ends on May 10th, but you can get a really good gist of it just from listening to this episode of the podcast.

Oh and on that subject, the hosts, two veteran Vampire: The Masquerade players, said in the show that in many ways, Eureka does vampires better than VTM. Like, wow, that’s high praise..

Here’s a reminder also that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th, 2024. Back it and get yourself a copy plus custom artwork or the chance to get your blood sucked by vampires as an entry on the random victim tables for playable monster PCs! With every stretch goal we meet, the game gets better and better. Tons of beautiful new artwork, new options for gameplay, and even two entirely new playable Monsters could be added to the book, so visit the Kickstarter and secure your copy today!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[prettieinpink]

being smart makes u prettier !!

If you’re somebody who’s not an active student rn, you’re on holiday, you want to become more smarter, looking for brain exercises before studying or you just want to be smarter without studying everyday this post is 4 u!!!!

READ!!!!!!! 

This is crazy to me, the amount of people who don’t read is so high. You don’t even have to read a hard-copy book, just reading an article is literally enough to keep your brain exercising. 

Some benefits i’ve noticed with reading consistently are my memory is literally boosted and my vocabulary is better. Though, i’ve only started reading every night like 2 months ago. 

It does not need to be an educational or extensive literature book. Even some random book like an fantasy romance is gonna give you the same benefits. 

Start writing whatever 

This goes in pair with reading, but writing is literally the best brain exercise ever. Even if its journaling or some stupid short story, it all counts plus its really fun

One you begin writing, your mind just becomes less cluttered and you’re just less stressed. And its a perfect creative outlet for those who arent as artsy 

Focus meditations

Before literally any task, whether its deep or shallow work but its still exerts your mental energy, do a focus meditation

Helped me become 10x productive and its so much easier to get into the flow of work 

So important if you're an student or studying anything!!!

Download elevate!!

Its available on IOS but idk about androids 

Basically it's an app where you can do three mental exercises each day, and it keeps track of your progress and gives you highlights after each session 

It helps with mental maths, communication, eloquence and general writing!

Learning how to think on your own

It's crazy to me how much people rely on the internet. You do not need to scroll pinterest each time for outfit inspiration, searching up writing prompts each time you write or even ask the internet for personal advice

OR

When people are bored, so instead of just being bored they decide to consume a whole lot of content that is not nourishing the mind 

Its definitely okay to do, but not always

So take a step back, and ask yourself, ‘could I really survive a day of doing tasks without once using any source of the internet?’ ‘is this media allowing my mind to flourish? Or is it killing it?’

Thinking by yourself is now such a valuable skill, if you don't have it, DEVELOP IT. 

Randomly research everything

If u get curious about something don’t just let it float in your head, taking up mental space

Instead research it! Even the little things like an random flower, how are playgrounds manufactured, the history of beds or the most expensive pencil ever.

conservations are so easy 4 me now because i know a lot of random stuff that the usual person doesn't care about! It makes it so easy for you to stand out too

[any-other-fandom-blog]

Whenever Spotify Wrapped releases, it reminds me of this project I've been thinking about for a while.

And now, The StoryGraph released its version of wrapped for the year (at the actual end of the year, as god intended) and I always think I read a lot less than I used to when I was younger.

Except...I still read on ao3. And I am, at heart, a stats nerd, (see me: nerding out about TSG graphs) so I've always wanted to analyse my ao3 reading history. I've seen people make their own version of ao3 wrapped, but I like having comprehensive stats, so instead of doing any of my actual coding work, I made my own version (with maybe too many stats and graphs according to my horrified non-coding friends I showed this to).

And I figured that there would be some folks out there who are as nerdy about this as I am and would appreciate it as well. So I made the code shareable and hopefully something that anyone can run.

So without further ado, here is my ao3 wrapped:

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1DikTD0T9YjwPAL-Z3DTD8bdkM5fk_TS9?usp=sharing#scrollTo=cdaded40

Some things that my code can do:

scrape your data from Ao3 and organise it in a nice neat table you can download and keep

allow you to pick a time period

sample a random fic you read from that time period

look at the total number of fics you read, and what percentage of those have been deleted

look at how many works are on your 'Marked for Later' list and see information (top fandom and top characters) about them

show you graphs of the percentage of fics you read with each type of warning, rating, and ship type, as well as your ratio of completed works read

show you the last time you viewed a fic compared with the last time it was updated

the number of fics read over time (sorted by years, months or days depending on whether you are looking at all time, a certain year, or certain month respectively)

analyse the number of words you read and words read over time (similar to fics read over time)

identify your top 20 authors, fandoms, relationships, characters and tags

dynamically choose and plot the changes to your top 10 authors, fandoms, relationships, characters and tags over the time period (by years, months or days depending on the initial overview, similar to , read over time)

see how the rankings of your top 5 have changed from the previous time peroiod, and check the ranking of a specified author/fandom/ship/character/tag in that previous time period

So anyways, have fun!