#({Slightly Modified for Relevancy})

[taichi-x-koushiro]

Meanwhile with Digimon Adventures' Taishiro {Koushiro x Taichi}, just pre 02

Yamato: Seriously... learn how to tie a tie, you football obsessed person!! TAICHI: its Not MY Fault. I Never wear suits with ties. {LAUGH} YAMATO: ITS KNOWLEDGE EVERY MAN SHOULD HAVE-!! Koushiro, attempting {+Failing} to tie new uniform tie, Off to side: ('I couldn't do it either...') Taichi: {is Oblivious (to Yamatos plight)} YAMATO, Oblivious to Koushiros plight: {SIGHING}

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

[kulapti]

Aug 2023, bookbinding of The Silent Isle Imbowers by Tharkuun.

I’m sooo so so pleased to finally share this! I have been actively working on this for many months and waited until Tharkuun received her copy before posting so the final result would be a surprise.

-----------About this bookbinding under the cut

This binding has been one of the more elaborate pieces I have attempted so far. This has been my first binding where I (1) made three copies of a piece at once, (2) used a modified a historical illustration, (3) collaborated directly with another artist on the decorative elements, (4) finished matching art for the cover and title page, and (5) layered paint and heat-transfer vinyl for the covers. These are also (6) the first non-tiny books I have made with this style of hinge and cover attachment.

Pretty much immediately after I first read this story I felt I had to make myself a copy of this. I had a strong mental image of a vintage-looking cover for a fairy tale, with a deceptively simple design of flowers on the cover, probably with fancy metallic accents, the kind of thing you’d find in an interesting used bookstore with no summary, no text on the back, no dust jacket, just the flowers and maybe a title. I’m going to make a separate post about making this cover design a reality because oh man has it been a journey lol! I designed and drew the digital art for the cover (digital because of the cut and application method), as well as the corresponding title page illustration (pencil and dip pen, scanned, title added digitally).

When I asked Tharkuun about it she was excited to suggest I get in touch with quillingwords, who generously agreed to collaborate with me! Among her talents quilling writes calligraphy, and hand wrote both the book title and chapter headers for me to incorporate into my plans. Check OUT those chapter headers! So fancy! A font could never!! Quilling has also been very encouraging and let me yell about this project in dms for months so the final result could be a surprise for Tharkuun. Thank u so much quillingwords, your calligraphy adds invaluable amounts of swag to this project.

I was going to do some kinda neat font for the chapter headers, but quilling’s work is too cool for that and I decided to use a modified piece of a historical illustration instead. The illustration also happens to be cool as heck: I was browsing the Artstor database (an academic quality resource available for free via Jstor, my beloved) and found E. N. Neureuther's 1836 gorgeous etching for etching of the fairy tale Briar Rose, an illustration made for a printing of a Brothers Grimm recorded German fairy tale with Sleeping Beauty elements. Much to my delight this illustration not only matches the general look I wanted but is actually relevant to the story, itself a Sleeping Beauty spinoff.

Slightly less stylistically consistent are the endpapers, which are prints of two different paintings by Arnold Böcklin: Isle of the Dead (1883) in the front and Isle of Life (1888). The first painting had occurred to me as an excellent visual to go with the story, and Tharkuun and I discussed this and agreed that pairing it with the related later, more optimistic piece was too thematically appropriate to resist.

I had fun and learned a lot making these books and I am very pleased with the result!!

Materials: Archival bookboard, cardstock, cotton cheesecloth mull, archival PVA glue, linen thread coated in beeswax, paper cord, red cotton embroidery floss. Blue cotton backed with archival paper, acrylic paint, machine cut black and gold heat-transfer vinyl. Laser printed text and illustrations. Metallic scrapbooking paper.

[incognitopolls]

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[Last updated 7/12/2024]

[lijoue]

Tutorial: How to Make a CAS Background With Functional Mirror

Overview

This is something that has been highly requested so I hope this tutorial will be helpful for the sims 4 cc community!

This tutorial will have 2 parts for creating 2 different types of CAS "room" backgrounds. Part 1 (The Easy Way) uses a template I created for you to use your own 2D images/screenshots with a simple rectangular mirror. Part 2 (The 3D Room) will result in a better quality background, but it’s not a beginner friendly project so I don’t recommend trying it if you’ve never made any cc before. I will not cover the basics of cc making here, only what’s relevant to making a CAS bg using my template specifically. The Sims 4 Studio forum has a ton of great tutorials for everything else.

In my own research & experimentation, I noticed that (as far as I can tell) EVERY other CAS room with a functional mirror seems to be derived originally from LittleDica's CAS room [link] I want to acknowledge credit to LittleDica for their CAS background which I studied as a reference. But to be clear this tutorial and my templates are NOT derived from another creators' work; I created mine from scratch and it took a lot of time and effort. My version is much more simple and more compatible with Sims 4 Studio because there are no extra mesh groups or diffuse maps. I also made a great effort to make the reflection in the mirror more realistic for the size of the room. I hope you will be able to use this resource to create your own beautiful CAS backgrounds! ♥

Also in case you missed it, you can download my CAS background used in the preview [here] (it is slightly different from the template package.)

Requirements:

Sims 4 studio

Image editor (Ideally photoshop)

my templates (attached below)

—————

Part 01: The Easy Way

The easiest way to create a CAS background with mirror is to use my attached templates.

The PSD template is the best option, but for those of you that don’t have Photoshop, there is a PNG version as well.

You will need 2 images; one for the main background, and one that will be reflected in the mirror. The large top area is the main background, and the smaller rectangle at the bottom is what will be reflected in the mirror behind your sim.

In the image editor, paste your images and resize them to fit into the outlined areas.

For framing your screenshots, it’s important to understand that the mirror is actually just floating in space in front of a flat background. That means you’ll have to fake the perspective a bit and that may require some trial and error to get right. I recommend taking multiple screenshots at a variety of angles so you have options to work with. Use the model sim as a guide to help you with placing your background image. (Don’t forget to hide the model sim and UV layout when you’re done!)

Save as .PNG or .DDS and import it into the template package in Sims 4 Studio.

That’s it! My goal was to make it super easy for you. Remember to only use one CAS background in your mods folder at a time since it's an override. Also note that it is not compatible with 'cas blob remover' since the instance for the dropshadow is now used as the mirror.

TOU — PLEASE READ:

I give permission to the Sims community to use my template files and modify them as needed to create your own CAS backgrounds. This took months of work, researching and experimenting, so please respect the effort I put into creating this resource by agreeing to these simple terms:

Don’t re-upload my files. Don’t claim my work as your own. If you use my templates for your cc, please share credit with my username (Lijoue) and link to my Patreon page. If you make any money from cc created with my templates, please consider making a donation via my Patreon. It is greatly appreciated.

download template files here

Part 02: The 3D Room

to be continued…

This part will take more time to finish because there’s a lot more steps involved in creating a 3D CAS room. In the meantime, the template should be enough of a starting point for those of you that already know how to make cc objects, since I already handled the hardest parts. Just understand that the mirror reflection is not automatically calculated, meaning that if you move the mirror in the mesh, you will need to change the Mirror Plane Normal and Mirror Plane Offset in S4Studio Warehouse to match the new angle or position. Otherwise it may look unrealistic or worse, it could reflect the eerie wasteland world that the CAS room is set in. (pictured below)

[titanomancy]

Since the OG resin Mechanicum models haven't been delisted yet, I thought it would be of particular historical relevance to post some side-by-sides of the old models and their newly announced plastic counterparts before they're memory holed forever.

In the case of the Tech-Thralls, it looks like the new kit may only contain las-locks - now modified to more closely resemble a standard lasgun than the previous neutron laser-inspired design.

The new design looks less bulky - the shoulders, particularly, have been slimmed down - and many of the poses present a staggering gait that feels more thematically consistent with the bionic zombies they're meant to be. Great stuff.

The Thallax, meanwhile, give the appearance of being slightly more bulky than their resin counterparts. This may just be an artifact of the photography, although the inclusion of additional armored head options does give those examples a somewhat more tanky profile.

Some superficial changes to their weapons as well - all are still clearly recognizable, with the most obvious change being to elongate the multi-melta to separate the foregrip from the barrel shroud.

Similarly superficial, the Castellax look to be very nearly 1:1 with their resin counterparts. It's tough to turn up any significant variances even on a close inspection, although I'm sure that the switch to plastic will significantly improve the assembly.

The Thanatar definitely benefits from the switch to plastic, showcased by the wide open magnetic containment ring around the muzzle of its plasma mortar. In its original resin incarnation, this assembly is cast as a single, solid ring which sits over the end of the gun. I imagine that it's meant to articulate while firing, opening up to release the containment field as the plasma discharges.

What I find most interesting is the sheer number of modifications to the Triaros Armoured Conveyor. The silhouette is unchanged, but any particular detail you care to hone in on is noticeably different; from the venting on the shock ram to the gimbles of its point defense weapons, to the coils of its flare shield projectors and the suspension of its return rollers.

I'll definitely be curious to see how they approach the rest of the Mechanicum range. We can already infer that the Termite Assault Drill is coming, since it's got an 8mm Legions Imperialis counterpart on the way, and the tooling for the Triaros makes the lightning locked and rad missile loaded Karacnos Assault Tank a lot more likely.

I wouldn't mind seeing a plastic Krios Battle Tank, either, but there's less reason to believe that's imminent at the minute.

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

So originally I was just going to draw this on top of the hairstyle timeline from 2022, but... I drew a new bust for some in-between ages I didn't have. and then I was like. I'm just gonna use this one. (15-16 year old Peter is from the old drawing though lol)

Anyway, recently I was thinking about how it might be fun/interesting/make sense for Peter to actually still need glasses after the spider bite, and how that might go. So I drew this to show Peter wearing glasses.

I'll put some closeups and little explanations below the cut:

5-6 year old Peter... little baby, unaware of what the universe has in store for him... RIP.

I decided he gets glasses in kindergarten, presumably because he can't see the chalkboard. And went for the very, very common style you see all the time, which is oval shaped wireframe glasses. This is 1992.

For the next ten years he wears a variety of similar styles of glasses—generally ovoid to round, wireframe, with occasional variation in finish. Like here, he's 15 and he has black wire frames instead of silver, and a slightly different bridge, but overall it's basically the same style.

Actually these were supposed to be a little rounder but, did you know? drawing round things is hard.

Peter stops wearing his glasses after getting bit by the spider.

But I figured what happened here is that Peter got bit by the spider at age 16, it did change/improve his vision, but it technically didn't "cure" his nearsightedness or any of that. It kind of just gave him a different nearsightedness, plus a kind of pseudo-astigmatism in brightly lit environments, and some other little quirks like his night vision.

reflect-y pupils. I also don't really know how it would actually look but I figured maybe he's got a bit of modified color perception in that maybe there's a kind of warm tinge to a lot of things and shadows might be extra red... which is relevant later.

Peter doesn't want to go to the eye doctor because he doesn't want them to be like. Hey what the fuck is wrong with your pupils?

Also probably even though it didn't fix his eyes the spider-bite might have changed it enough that at first he doesn't quite realize he still needs glasses because it's still like, a big improvement compared to before.

anyway

From summer 2005 to summer 2006 (17-18 years old), he's got the symbiote which kind of corrects his vision for him. It doesn't cure it, it's just like... wearing nanobot contacts... lol

This is where the story is at currently on AO3, more or less ~ Creep is set in 2007 when Peter is 19. So he's doing undergrad, not wearing glasses, probably shouldn't be smiling in this picture now that I think of it, etc. (but maybe this is in December XD)

So he's like. "Boy, I think I need glasses again." But he's uninsured, so he just suffers instead.

Finally gets glasses again for the first time in 6 years when he's around 21 or 22, sometime in 2009. I'm not sure exactly what time because I don't know... if he would be able to get on the poor person insurance at any time of the year or if he would have to wait until like, November. If he had to wait until November he'd probably not even be wearing glasses again until early 2010 lol

But in Jan 2009 he gets hurt saving some people from a burning apartment building (which is how he gets that gnarly scar on his leg) and is like... realizing... maybe he should have some kind of insurance so he doesn't end up in a crazy amount of debt if he gets hurt doing Spidey stuff.... on top of his student loan debt lol

So then he has coverage for one (1) pair of glasses and finally goes to see an eye doctor he finds on recommendation from the Night Nurse, who 1) specializes in "unusual" patients (so like, mutants and stuff) and 2) accepts FHplus

Generally photochromic (Transition) lenses are not covered however if it's considered necessary for health reasons, it is. And I figured that if part of his vision problems is caused by glare and bright lights he could probably get these covered. Using the darker tone that doesn't get totally clear inside. Now that I think of it the dark gray should probably be darker but it's fine.

These are vintage Ray-Bans btw — Probably the real catalyst for Peter getting glasses. Finds a really beat-up pair of Willoby sunglasses at the thrift store for like $10 or whatever, takes them home and repairs the frames, and has the lenses replaced by the optometrist.

My excuse for him wearing vintage brand-name glasses.

I also decided that in the curse of the man-spider, which I need to edit again (lol), Peter proooobably ends up losing/breaking his glasses (both...) Which is why, in the above pic, he's extra fuzzy.

After the events of that fic, which I have not brought up in any published fics yet, Peter ends up actually working for the FF once they convince him to accept instead of insisting that he's not a charity case.

Meaning he has extremely good health insurance.

So he can get expensive new glasses. This is through a different optometrist than his old one, because the FF have hook-ups and that includes a specialist with proprietary lens tech that can do tinted photochromic polarized lenses (in Real Life, Transition lenses only introduced photochromic polarization like... pretty recently iirc)

they only polarize when the lenses are dark since the polarization is a tint itself. Anyway, the mint color is basically to improve his color perception and the green should improve clarity when darkened, too. Probably the optometrist was like, you should really have deeper teal tinted lenses even indoors and Peter was like. "No." So mint is a compromise because he doesn't want to look like a pretentious hipster (too late.)

Oh yeah they're also bullet-resistant, and he also gets prescription lenses for his Spidey costume.

I don't have any backstory reasons for him to get new glasses when he's 30, I just thought these would be cute.

By this point Peter will be rocking the techy unstable molecule suit so that definitely also has vision correction built into the masks.

And here's a bonus of silver fox Peter in his late 40s with some generic-looking big black frames. Basically, I figure most of his life he'll just get whatever vintage-looking (or actually vintage) frames he likes and continue getting the green tinted lenses when possible, though honestly I don't really know if he would still be working with the FF by the time he's 48 or whatever so idk if he would have those lenses... but also this would be like... in the 2030s... so there might be more availability for tinted polarized photochromic lenses...

And that's it.

I'm also planning to do one for Kaine who only gets glasses for the first time when he's almost 29, but I might wait until I've also drawn his future service dog since both glasses and dog are related to his degrading vision.

Of course this means I'll need to edit a couple of fics and wips but there's not too much yet... so it's like, eh. I can deal with that 😂

[kit-williams]

Nap Together

Male Lead: 91-Yrac Female Lead: H3X Universe/AU: Warhammer 40k/Yandere Space Marine Canon Status: Yes this is after H3X gets some flesh crafted leggies

Yrac cocked his head to the side as this agriworld was not very much relevant to what he needed nor anyone else needed but it's what his little sweet spark needed. He could see her stimming, her hands shaking as she made a low noise from her throat as a bit of spittle ran down her chin. She was excited... elevated heart level and other vitals ran by him.

Her frame had to be modified to handle her mass as that is what her replaced legs were doing but just a bit of a modification and some load bearing adjustments and he watched her touch her legs again as a spider like contraption bore most of her weight until she was ready to give up her legs again.

"Are you excited?" Yrac said wrapping his mechadendrites around one of her own. Watching her nod as she pulled off her boots hissing and whining as she wanted to do it all on her own. Today has been far too exciting for her... seeing equines as well... it's why he chose this planet... they had suitable skull structures that pleased her.

She hissed and jerked her foot back up having stepped on a bramble as she plucks it out and giggles seeing her foot bleed, "It hurt!" She says with tears in her eyes.

"Yes isn't that what you wanted?" Yrac says cocking his head to the other side of him as the imposing towering man follows behind the small woman. His eye brightly glowing as he watches her closely.

She skitters over and puts her new legs with her new toes... into the soft slightly damp grass. Yrac's servo skull watches for combatants behind him but otherwise he is fully focused on his sweet spark. Again she makes her excited closed mouth noise, slapping the ground with not only both of her hands but all her mechadendrites as she stims. He lets her do that till he just watches her hold her head as she's gone and over excited herself.

He moves quickly pulling her off the grass and wrapping her in one of his mecadendrites. "Alright H3X I think we've done a lot today. Wouldn't you agree?"

He watches her nod as he puts her boots back on and leads her to a waiting flyer. This planet really isn't for him it's far more for her.

-----

His fingers drummed on the side of the throne as he was looking over reports his eye dull at the sight of reports but when he turns his head to see his dear sweet spark standing there is suddenly shines brightly, "H3X what is it sweet spark?"

She doesn't ordain to tell him as all she does is crawl into his lap and shove her head under his chin. He feels his pacemaker sputter for a moment before it continues on its rhythm. "H3X? What is-"

"I'm tired and want nap." She says with a pout in her voice.

"Ahhh I see." He plugs his mechadendrite in and reroutes his calls and queries and ways to run the ship from his quarters. "Come on up." He listens to her whine as his own hydraulics whine as he picks her up before she moves on her own. "I know a better spot to nap."

His hands run through her hair as his living eye is closed while he continue to run the ship from the comfort of his bed. Slightly luxurious in its materials but still able to hold up the weight of two tech adepts. Her head on his chest as she fell asleep listening to his processes working inside of his chest. His crew under strict orders to not disturb him lest pain of death and/or slow servitor conversion. The mechanical parts of his brain are running suboptimal as he is in a resting phase and letting it do automated tasks... when was the last time he allowed himself to... nap?

H3X on the other mechadendrite loved to nap as he had ensure there were spots suitable for her to nap in throughout the ship and this was the first time she sought a joint nap. Yrac wouldn't complain about this development hoping that she would request him for more naps. As he holds her close and she holds him.

Fluffuary Taglist: @bispecsual @the-californicationist @egrets-not-regrets @libraryshadow @bleedingichorhearts @liar-anubiass-blog

[isobug]

Dichotomyless / Non-Dichotomy

A representative flag for those who are totally outside of dichotomy categorization of any kind ( Dichotomyless ) and / or not conforming to the orientation / gender / etc. dichotomy in any way ( Non-Dichotomy. )

These terms were not coined by me, but were defined by Anon via my inbox. This was requested as Anon wanted something more specific than Absrose.

The symbol on the flag is "≅". I believe this is a great symbol to represent being Dichotomyless / Non-Dichotomy as it means "approximately equal to" in mathematics. The antonyms of "Dichotomy" are "equality, similarity, harmony, and agreement". This represents those concepts, but avoids exact sameness.

( I want to avoid the creation of a new dichotomy of "similar vs. dissimilar" via the modifier "approximate", which means "close but not exactly the same" aka both and also neither. This can be conceptually similar to or the same as Recursion if you find that useful to describe your experience! )

The symbol itself can also represent the experience of being one who is Dichotomyless / Non-Dichotomy, with the tilde representing the individual(s) in question being literally above or removed from any or a Dichotomy ( represented by the two parallel lines ), but also not totally removed ( again, to avoid another dichotomy of "removed vs. attached". )

I've also chosen "≅" because it's already easily available / accessible as a text symbol, so one could easily put it in their bio, their icon, or recreate it irl for handmade pride accessories and the like.

The flag itself has the blue and purple-pink stripes at the top / bottom to represent any relevant dichotomy or all dichotomies. These colors are often used to show "opposites". The orange-yellow stripe is a color intentionally removed from blue/pink/purple and is "above" the dichotomy stripes, but still slightly overlapping with both ( as well as neither / the rest of the flag. )

The grey expanse is meant to show the "grey area" of every dichotomy, people often think in "black and white" when I've found that every established dichotomy has it's grey areas or those who are literally unable to be fit into "either/or" systems. It is both removed from the other stripes but touching all of them, again representing a lack of dichotomy.

The teal stripe/circle holding the symbol is above but overlapping with the orange-yellow stripe to represent how, even if one were to try and make any Dichotomyless / Non-Dichotomy experience / identity into a Dichotomy ( via "label crunching" and the like ), one would still be Dichotomyless / Non-Dichotomy even in relation to that newly created dichotomy. ( Again, you may related this to the concept of recursion if you'd like. )

I'm sorry if this is a little high-concept or if i've repeated myself somewhat here. These are intentionally broad terms and I want to make sure I'm properly explaining all of my thoughts and reasonings. I'm happy to tweak any language if something isn't totally clear! ( I may have made a few typos, this was a lot to type. )

Taglist - @radiomogai, @revenant-coining

[wetcatspellcaster]

Have you ever thought about what kind of person Rosalie would be without the agoraphobia? Or is it too important a part of her character to imagine without it?

awww, what a sweet question! and also one that's very relevant, because the circumstances of the modern AU (and lack of tadpole) have actually modified this part of her characterisation a little - it's been changed to something slightly milder but still plot relevant (it is actually talked about in the next chapter!)

so I guess my answer is... the modern AU characterisation, but with the magic and wizardry added back in :) I don't think power is ever going to be a motivating factor for her, but passion and study would be, so I think she'd be a funky little languages wizard at a funky little university. maybe Candlekeep, lol (sorry Threnn). she'd be more well-adjusted, so she'd have more friends - probably not as many as the bg3 party, without the tadpole extrovert hack- and she'd have a thoroughly comfortable, quiet life for herself. I think she'd still take the break up hard regardless of if agoraphobia happened or not, so i'm not sure if she'd have a partner yet or not.

she would never reach the heights of strength/power she reaches on any trajectory where the nautiloid happens, because she'd have no motivation for doing so x

[yourcubitoyourculture]

Hyperspecific Prompt Suggestions from the Community

In the Prompt Suggestion Google form, on top of the broad prompts we expected, we received a few very detailed/specific writing prompt ideas. It felt wrong leaving them out of the main Prompt Suggestion post, so we've decided to make a separate post for these instead!

Note that some of these prompts may have been modified slightly. As usual, feel free to mix and match however many prompts in whatever combination you wish!

[Regular prompt suggestion post HERE]

(1) A lost Character A explores an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar buildings, symbols, cultures, music and sounds, etc., with Character B, who's familiar with the culture, as a guide.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Architecture; culture clash/shock; customs, superstitions, and traditions; food and drink; jobs and professions; locations and settings; music and dance; transportation; urban legends

Potentially relevant general prompts: Alternate universe, bonding, crime, dates and days out, exploration and discovery, fluff, ghost hunting, relationships and character dynamics, travel/tourism/road trip, urban exploration, worldbuilding

(2) One or more characters swap outfits – for fun, at an event/sleepover/festival, etc. Bonus: A step-by-step guide on how to put on a garment.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Clothing and accessories; community and relationships; festivals, holidays, and seasons; gender identity and/or expression; media; music and dance; mythology, folklore, and religion; national/regional symbols

Potentially relevant general prompts: Bonding, coming of age, exploration and discovery, fluff, identity, relationships and character dynamics, school, seasonal activities

(3) Character A learns a new sport or cultural skill specific to Character B's culture/region/etc. The reason for doing so can be to gain someone's trust, win a bet, get some money, or anything else you can think of.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; culture clash/shock; customs, superstitions, and traditions; flora and fauna; food and drink; games and leisurely activities; language and linguistics; music and dance; respecting indigenous peoples; sports and cultural skills

Potentially relevant general prompts: Baking and cookery, bonding, camping, dates and days out, fluff, gathering food, nature, relationships and character dynamics

(4) Character A learns to speak to people from Character B's culture (e.g. their family, locals, etc.) in their language/dialect/mother tongue. Can be low stakes – e.g. for fun, out of curiosity, "What's the word for [something] in your language?" / "What's the silliest word in your language?", etc.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; culture clash/shock; customs, superstitions, and traditions; languages and linguistics; media

Potentially relevant general prompts: Alternate universe, angst, crackfic, fake dating, hurt/comfort, identity, miscommunication, relationships and character dynamics

(5) Related to Prompt 4: Character A tries to speak to Character B but doesn't know or remember a certain word – in English or another language, and has to describe it to Character B. Alternately: They're playing charades.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; games and leisurely activities; languages and linguistics; media

Potentially relevant general prompts: Angst, bonding, chatfic, crackfic, fluff, funny/humour, miscommunication, relationships and character dynamics, school

(6) Character A is injured/sick and Character B (can be one or more characters) has to prepare and apply cultural healing remedies – herbs, soups, etc. Optional: Two or more characters clash due to having different ways of handling things, and/or they find a way to work together for the person they care about.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; culture clash/shock; customs, superstitions, and traditions; flora and fauna; food and drink; respecting indigenous peoples; traditional medicine, remedies, and/or self-care practices

Potentially relevant general prompts: Angst; apocalypse; baking and cookery; bonding; camping; exploration and discovery; fluff; gathering food; hiking; hurt/comfort; miscommunication; monsters, mythical creatures, and misc. non-human beings; nature; science and technology; seasonal activities; sickfic; supernatural elements

(7) Someone dies. Explore the different symbols and traditions that different cultures use to emotionally process and cope with the grief. (For example, some indigenous Australian groups believe that they shouldn't speak the name of someone who has passed.)

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; customs, superstitios, and traditions; grief and funerary culture; music and dance; mythology, folklore, and religion

Potentially relevant general prompts: Alternate universe; angst; apocalypse; hurt/comfort; introspection; names and naming conventions; relationships and character dynamics; worldbuilding

(8) Explore how different cultures have different ways of experiencing seasons or have different names for them.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Calendars and timekeeping; climates and geography; culture clash/shock; customs, superstitions, and traditions; festivals, holidays, and seasons; flora and fauna; games and leisurely activities; languages and linguistics

Potentially relevant general prompts: Bonding, camping, crackfic, dates and days out, fluff, funny/humour, hiking, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, relationships and character dynamics, seasonal activities, travel/tourism/road trip

(9) Character A hasn't been in touch with their culture since a bad experience in their childhood. On the other hand, Character B is part of the same culture and it makes them happy to feel like a part of something larger than themself and to participate in the traditions. They are both aware of A's reservations about the culture, but they don't talk about it much until it all comes to a head one day…

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Community and relationships; customs, superstitions, and traditions; festivals, holidays, and seasons; food and drink; music and dance; reconnecting with one's culture; sports and cultural skills; traditional medicine, remedies, and/or self-care practices

Potentially relevant general prompts: Alternate universe, angst, coming of age, hurt/comfort, identity, introspection, miscommunication, names and naming conventions, relationships and character dynamics

(10) Explore or otherwise make reference to a historical period or event. Make it as silly or as serious as you want it to be.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: History; mythology, folklore, and religion; urban legends

Potentially relevant general prompts: Alternate universe, angst, crackfic, exploration and discovery, funny/humour, historical, supernatural elements, time travel

(11) Write about a worldbuilding headcanon that is inspired by an aspect of your own culture.

Potentially relevant cultural prompts: Any of them can apply

Potentially relevant general prompts: Bonding, fantasy and sci-fi, gathering food, names and naming conventions, nature, science and technology, seasonal activities, worldbuilding

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I’m starting to think that the kid the lady is next to in that one painting (when the guest are chasing you) is probably not their daughter or someone important, maybe it was a promotional painting to show people thus “hey, look the lady is good with kids!” When the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

DUDE I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR CENTURIESSSS THAT GIRL IS NOT HER KID BROOOO

Look with all the evidence I've gathered atp I am very convinced that the girl in the painting is her. I am compiling everything in a post to answer another anon rn but I deadass started to dislike any theory involving the concept of the Lady being a mother.

I myself have done this in the past (the parallels between her and the Pretender were not lost on me), but tbh I think she works so much better without having a kid for a multitude of reasons.

She does not like people. She wants to be left alone. To go out there and find someone who would have a child with her -- no actually scratch that, FOR HER TO FIND SOMEONE SHE TOLERATES ENOUGH TO HAVE A CHILD WITH would be out of character considering what we know about her.

^ same reason as to why I think she wouldn't adopt under normal circumstances.

^^ a child under her care would last a maximum of 3 days.

None of the children that were indicated as having relations back to her look like the girl in the painting. RCG's hair are too brownish and too long + how would she leave the Maw? Where would she find a hot air balloon near/on a submarine?, the Pretender is albino + the developers went out of their way to make her face very different from the other kids, the Flashlight Girl looks like any other girl in the Maw because they reused her model + she has 0 relevance before and after that + I think the girl in the painting was slightly remodeled and differently rendered just for the pictures like the other Ladies were resized and had their hairstyles modified.

^ These are all great in AU context, but I think canonically none of them would work/line up. The best bet for daughter title was Six and the developers went out of their way to publicly state that they are NOT related in that way.

IN SAID STATEMENT THE DEVS SAID THAT THERE IS NOTHING MOTHERLY ABOUT THE LADY.

The fact that so many people want to push the mother theory onto her really sounds like a scapegoat to not explore her character further. I would not be as upset if I hadn't seen her be dismissed as just a "heartless mother who hates her daughter/wants their beauty/is envious of her child" and yadda yadda yadda so many times.

Do you know how many times that trope has been done? And for it to be applied to such a layered, complex character as her only traits? That and being vain maybe if you're feeling generous, when the truth is that she is quite literally the most complex LN antagonist -- much like Six is the most complex protagonist. Six and the Lady are/have both been victims of fandom misogyny and it kills me to my core send tumblr post

I'm sorry for the rant. Again, I do enjoy the thought of the Lady being in a motherly role (I HAVE MADE A LADY MOM AU MYSELF) but not if it means assassinating her character. The only Lady assassination I support is the one carried out by Six.

[ask-princessandromeda]

[Hey y’all, I’m doing some blog cleaning. Not sure if it’s relevant to anyone, but a few posts might be modified slightly]

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

D&D basics for first-time watchers

The Player's Handbook is great, but a lot of people want to watch Dungeons & Dragons-centric shows without reading five hundred pages of rules. Below is a crash course of basic D&D stuff that's relevant to watchers (it gets more complex as the post goes on, so just read until you feel like it's getting too complex)

send this to anyone who is watching Dimension 20, Critical Role, or another D&D campaign for the first time!

The Basic Basics:

dice are referred to using "d" (for dice) + the number of sides. So a typical cube die is a d6, and a 20-sided die is a d20. (d20 is the most used one)

"Nat 1" : stands for "natural 1." This is the lowest possible number on a d20, and is considered an automatic fail at most tables.

"Nat 20" : stands for "natural 20," and is the highest possible number on a 20, and an automatic success.

DM/GM: Dungeon Master or Game Master; works as a sort of video game computer. They run the whole game, including the world, combat, and any NPCs, as well as direct plot or storyline.

PC: Player Characters, people who play a single character at a time during a game.

NPC: Non-Player Character, a character played by the DM for PCs to interact with.

The Slightly More Complex Basics:

Ability Scores: the numbers that make the game work and form characters, (ex: Strength, Charisma), higher means the character is better at that skill, details below.

Class: a category which a character falls into, giving them specific skills, spells, or abilities, allowing them to directly manipulate the game world (ex: Wizard, Fighter), details below.

Race: really should be called species (ex: Human, Elf, Dwarf)

Combat: times when PCs are directly fighting NPCs or each other, uses a specific order and series of turns, details below.

Getting Pretty Complex: Skills and Skill Checks:

When it happens: when a character is attempting to do anything not seen as extremely simple (ex: walking in normal conditions does not require an ability check, but swimming in a violent tide probably will)

What happens: the player rolls a d20 and adds their modifier to it. These are specific numbers to each character and aren't worth memorizing, but this is how players will sometimes get numbers larger than 20 or lower than 1.

What are modifiers?: modifiers define how naturally good (positive modifier) or bad (negative modifier) a character is at a given skill. This number then gets added to the number on the d20.

What is a success?: the DM sets a number (known as Difficulty Class, or DC) that is needed to succeed. When the character succeeds using the steps above, they are able to do whatever is attempting to be done.

What is a failure?: when a character does not reach that DC, they fail whatever they are attempting to do.

Note: Saving Throws: saving throws are similar to ability checks but are required by an outside influence on a player. These are super complex and not necessary to enjoy watching.

Getting Pretty Complex: Ability Scores:

Strength: measure of a character's physical ability to punch, lift, push, or break something (raw muscle mass, usually).

Dexterity: a character's ability to be agile, dodge, react, avoid, or pass over difficult terrain (speed or agility).

Intelligence: a character's ability to retain knowledge, objectively analyze, and remember things (raw knowledge).

Wisdom: a character's ability to infer, connect dots without having all the answers, or see something not initially apparent (analysis or reasoning).

Charisma: a character's ability to bend others to their will, whether through kindness, flirting, or threats (influence).

Constitution: a character's ability to endure and resist, affects Hit Points (sheer willpower).

Very Complex: Combat

Initiative: rolled by all participants at the beginning of combat, defines the order of turns, uses Dexterity as a modifier

Turns: include movement of a certain distance (usually 30ft for most humanoids), an action (usually a major spell or attack), and a bonus action (minor spell or extra ability that applies only to certain classes)

Armor Class: the number that defines how difficult a character is to hit.

Hit Points: the amount of damage a character can take before falling unconscious

Falling unconscious: when a character hits 0 hit points, they begin making death saving throws, where they roll a d20 and add no modifiers. A 1-9 is failure, a 10-20 is a success, 3 failures = full dead, 3 successes = stable but still at 0 hit points and therefore unable to take actions.

Full dead: occurs either at 3 death saving throw failures OR when dealt negative damage equal to a character's hit point total, a character can only come back to life when revived through magic.

Very Complex: Spells

Cantrips: minor spells that do not use spell slots

Leveled Spells: major spells that become more powerful with higher levels, consume spell slots

Spell Slots: the limited number of specific level spells a caster can cast between rests, increases with character level

Casting Time: certain spells take a longer time to cast, which is especially important in combat (each round is only about six seconds, so a spell that takes a minute to cast would take ten rounds and is not advised).

Very Complex: Classes

Wizard: Intelligence-based spellcaster, uses knowledge and study to learn magic.

Sorcerer: Charisma-based spellcaster, is born with magical ability and works to harness it.

Cleric: Wisdom-based spellcaster, is gifted with magical ability by (usually) a deity.

Warlock: Charisma-based spellcaster, bargains for magical ability with some sort of powerful entity via a contract.

Bard: Charisma-based spellcaster, channels magic through music or performance.

Druid: Wisdom-based spellcaster, harnesses the magic of nature

Barbarian: Strength-based physical attacker, fights through the power of rage.

Fighter: Strength- or Dexterity-based physical attacker, studies the skills required for effective fighting.

Ranger: Dexterity-based physical attacker with limited spellcasting, focused on survival, tracking, and ranged attacks.

Rogue: Dexterity-based physical attacker, strikes from the shadows and goes unseen.

Monk: Dexterity-based physical attacker, gains ability through meditation and training.

Paladin: Strength-based (typically) physical attacker with limited spellcasting abilities, fights for the sake of an oath.

[disclaimer: some DMs will change up/create classes, ability scores, etc., so these just typically followed rules, also there are many exceptions to the things above, these are just basics]

[crystalelemental]

"books-are-my-life-stuff: Yeah... The Arc Outfits Lance-Steven-Cynthia are basically the improved version of their OG versions, but are made separate units, with slightly modified outfits, and, uh, I guess they're broken units, but as you mentioned, the game has never been that difficult. Overly complicating the gameplay by adding more roles and new mechanics are unnecessary."

It's not even just that, it's that...we had all these systems for improving performance: 5/5 grids, 3/5 expansions, EX Roles, hell the boosted energy cap. And what's the solution to powering up now? Selling back the same thing. These aren't new pairs. They have a new outfit, but they're the same character/Pokemon combination we've always had, and this is the only way they're going to upgrade them now. Not by adding mechanics to keep old things relevant like they used to, but by re-selling the same pair with the upgrades you'd want, on significantly worse rates and higher pity requirements. And they're couching all of this as a "Celebration of the game." They can fuck right off with that.

"Oh and by the way, Lillie got an alt, a free alt even, with Solgaleo. But her outfit is basically just her Anni 2021 outfit with the colors adjusted to Solgaleo's color scheme."

I did notice the Lillie but by that point I was too in awe to really parse that it was her. Can't wait for this free Solgaleo to be stronger than her Lunala alt!

"But yeah, that 500 scout points fucking sucks. DeNA will definitely release some popular characters (like N) there, and probably Volo's "true form" is gonna be called Arceus Outfit whenever it's released eventually. And then I'll have to deal with that stupid scout point just to get a copy of him. Good thing I don't play that much anymore."

It's just absurd. I can't even say I'm that surprised, but upping the pity requirements on rates that are already so bad you have around an average chance you needed to spark before this adjustment is just wretched. This is the kind of change that should decimate their sales with how many people leave, but the addicting factor of gacha as it is, the noose will tighten for those who stay and their profits likely won't be impacted anyway. It's disgusting.

[sovereign-skyy]

So was the cypher just a 22 shift cypher with + at the end of the alphabet or did you do something special beyond that? Bc while I know what the correct translation should be I can't quite put together why an answer with just the 22-shift would be close if the decoder is just using the regular alphabet but completely off when using a 27 letter alphabet of A through +. I know the paragraph before is supposed to have all the clues but there's definitely something I am missing and I gotta know what. Sorry to just pop up randomly and ask you this but I saw Amity reblog another question about it and just like zeroed on your blog in bc cryptography and flirting is so fucking cool and your rules do say to send you an ask.

First of all, don't apologise for popping up out of nowhere I love this! I have it in my bio for a reason lol

For anyone who didn't see the cipher in question (which I expect to be almost everyone who sees this) here's the link to @k1nky-r0b0t-g1rl's post (I'll also be quoting the relevant stuff but if you wanna try to kinda still solve it for yourself start there, I'll be explaining it in detail here):

I'll make this a more comprehensive explanation for anyone who wants it so it's probably gonna contain quite some stuff you already know, if you want to skip it just scroll until you see 'NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF' in big text!

SO

Here we have the original message:

E sxjp pk ejopxhh x oqynkqpeja ejpk ukqn ouopaio pdxp ixgao ukq osepzd ejpk dknju ik+a sdajaran E oxu "Kd Xiepu gjkso sxuu ikna xykqp pdxp," ok pdxp E zxj ixga ukq atlhxej atpnaiahu zkilhezxpa+ pklezo sdeha ukq'na oq++ajhu qjyaxnxyhu dknju xj+ pnuejc +aolxnxpahu pk de+a ep.

And this is the hint I gave:

There's three important parts to this so I'll go through them in order

Firstly, the hint is about Julius Caesar, hinting at the fact that the later text is encoded by a Caesar cipher. This is a cryptographic method where you move all the letters forward a certain amount (called the shift) of letters in the alphabet. So a caesar cipher with a right shift of 1 shifts all the letters one space forward, eg. A -> B, X -> Y. Generally the right shift is the default so I left it at that. A better hint would have also incorporated the right part but eh I'm not perfect.

Secondly, I talk about 23 people stabbing him, which indicates a shift of 23, giving us the following conversion table:

where the top row is the original letters and the bottom is the shifted letter values. If we left it at this and tried to decode the message we'd get:

H vams sn hmrsakk a rtbqntshmd hmsn xntq rxrsdlr sgas lajdr xnt rvhscg hmsn gnqmx ln+d vgdmdudq H rax "Ng Alhsx jmnvr vaxx lnqd abnts sgas," rn sgas H cam lajd xnt dwokahm dwsqdldkx cnlokhcasd+ snohcr vghkd xnt'qd rt++dmkx tmbdaqabkx gnqmx am+ sqxhmf +droaqasdkx sn gh+d hs.

Which is very much not correct. Now, we can cheat a little and change this to a 22-shift cipher (which is not correct) and get the following:

I wbnt to instbll b sucroutine into your systems thbt mbkes you switdh into horny mo+e whenever I sby "Oh Bmity knows wbyy more bcout thbt," so thbt I dbn mbke you explbin extremely domplidbte+ topids while you're su++enly uncebrbcly horny bn+ trying +espbrbtely to hi+e it.

Then we see something comprehensible, but not quite correct: there's some random B's, C's and D's in there and still some plusses in the middle of words. Regardless, you can make out from this wrong result what the message was supposed to be (an oversight on my part, and something I will take into account if/when I do it again)

And now comes the spicy part!

Thirdly, I say "a little (+) at the end" which (as you correctly identified in your ask) refers to the fact that I didn't use the default 26-letter alphabet, but instead used a slightly modified 27-letter alphabet with a + at the end, so we'd have the following letter order (I'll be referring to this as alphabet+ for brevity)

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ+

If we try to decode the message as a 23-rightshift caesar cipher with alphabet+, we get the following conversion table and message:

I want to install a subroutine into your systems that makes you switch into horny mode whenever I say "Oh Amity knows wayy more about that," so that I can make you explain extremely complicated topics while you're suddenly unbearably horny and trying desparately to hide it.

Which is finally correct! Yay, we have the original message!

NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF

But now we finally get to your question: why does the regular 22-shift almost work if it's totally wrong for alphabet+?

For that, we can consider the equivalent left-shift operations of our right-shift decodings:

For any standard alphabet caesar cipher, the 26-shift (left or right) operation is the same as the unencoded version (because A + 26 spaces is once again A), which means that we can also express our right-shift operations as a left-shift operation of shift 26 - R where R is the shift of our right-shift (if this doesn't make sense to anyone I'm happy to try to expand on it btw).

For the alphabet cipher, that means a 23 right-shift is equivalent to a 3 left-shift, and a 22 right-shift is equivalent to a 4 left-shift.

However, for alphabet+, it doesn't take 26 shifts to get back to normal, but 27 (since there's 27 characters in alphabet+). This means that a 23 right-shift alphabet+ operation is equivalent to a 4 left-shift and NOT a 3 left-shift.

Now, since they're not the same set of characters, an alphabet 4 left-shift is not the same as an alphabet+ 4 left-shift. However, it's good to take into account that the solution in alphabet+ is also very similar to our almost-solution in the regular alphabet.

If you'll look at Table 1 and 2 again, you'll see that while A, B and C translate to X, Y and Z for both 23 right-shifts, the + in the middle for alphabet+ messes everything up and leaves us with an icky leftover left-shift of 1 (which is close, but still incomprehensible to humans since it's such a big portion of letters)

However, if we create a conversion table for the 22 right-shift of the alphabet we get the following:

If we compare this to Table 2, we see that A, B, C & D are not the same for both. However, from E on, these two are EXACTLY the same. The part left of the + just has a right-shift of 1 (which is symmetrical to the left-shift of 1 we saw in Table 1).

So, in conclusion: because of the difference in amount of characters, both the 22 and 23 right-shift alphabet decodings are not EXACTLY the same as the 23 right-shift alphabet+ decoding. However, due to the similarity of the lower 4 left-shift, the 22 has more correct characters and is therefore more comprehensible.

I hope that helps a little and I didn't make it more confusing lmao, this is longer (and also took longer) than I thought it would be but it was fun to write, so thanks for asking! If anything is still unclear feel free to reblog with a question or send me an ask (that counts for anyone reading this btw)! Also, since you said you're a fan of flirting + cryptography, how about I unleash the next cipher on you? ;)