#I mean I have the ephemera too!

[adylote]

Stalker appeared two times while I was chilling out on casual missions. I felt a little bad for kick his ass with one single hit of Harmony (and one shot of the Tenno) but dude, he's weak asf. Being a single dad and a Tenno hunter must be hard...

Unfortunately I didn't think to take Jade the second time he showed up :/, it could have been interesting!

[teethkid67]

hmmm I saw "send specific art requests" so I think it would be Cool to see the gang in lmanburg and what you sort of visualize lmanburg as as like,,,,a house. also good luck with graduation 👍

honestly most bp houses originate in my mind as mobile homes. lmanburg is a bit more foundational but it still has that sort of Long Rectangle shape . living room leads into kitchen (with a little table) and then the back of the house is this long hallway, two bedrooms branching off, and a bathroom at the very end . mentally it is similar to my family's old expandable camper in terms of aesthetic ... wooden paneling, cream paint, old stripey upholstery... idk. if yall know the roomhole (heavensinterior) blog a lot of it is similar to that . also heavily inspired by the houses of various extended family members

fundy sleeps in the twin, wilbur and tommy share the queen, tubbo takes the couch . manberg era fundy and & tubbo's sleeping arrangements stay the same but schlatt and q are in the queen now

this also made me think How would i interpret the lmanburg coat in a modern context... given bps general setting id say theres a lot of Scraping to get by and that includes shitty second-hand clothes... some sort of horrible slogan i think or a logo or something im not sure. probably retcon at some point but i was sitting there thinking how can i get the "white w golden stripes" across without it looking strange?? could also be that after they start getting into little spats with dream they literally make a stupid uniform (tie-dye or acrylic paint or something) but for now it can be a little silly hoodie for chommy maybe stolen from someone else .

bonus misc outfit drawings and tiny pipsqueaks doodle of wil&tommy in a river thumbs up

[dietpitt]

💚🎃Green Is Definitely Your Color🎃💚

Stan Pines x AFAB!Reader Explicit | 2.8k words Tags: Gender-Neutral Reader, Reader wears a dress, Halloween Costumes, Trick-or-Treating, Sexual Roleplay, Cunnilingus, Praise Kink, Voice Kink, Stan is a Leg Man, Body Worship, Marking Kink, Reader Plays Bride of Frankenstein

In which body paint and Stan's mouth save the day (but ruin a perfectly good costume).

{Read on AO3}

Author's Note: Originally posted 2020 on AO3, but I wanted to give it a proper tumblr post. I'm very proud of this one except I didn't know how to end it and it shows lol

Thankfully, there are only a few things you and your boyfriend don’t see eye-to-eye on. Stan takes his coffee black (old habit from the days of shoddy motels and a life on the run), while your own brew of choice is iced (lasts longer and doesn’t get cold since it already is). He thinks it’s perfectly reasonable to scare a baby every now and then, and proceed to laugh in their pudgy little tear-streaked face. You? You told him he’d be the one bawling if you ever caught him pulling that in your periphery again.

Tonight, though? Tonight is the perfect example of just how good you two are together. Because tonight, you weren’t scaring babies. Tonight, on Halloween, you were scaring kids. And that was worlds apart from wreaking havoc in the grocery store, which happened the majority of the remaining 363 days of the year.

Sure, Stan always goes all-out for his beloved Summerween, but October 31st is when his freak flag really flies. It makes sense--  Fall brings less tourists than usual, and shorter daylight hours means fewer parents letting their kids come out to the woods to trick or treat, making every opportunity for a scare count.

With the Mystery Shack trading its typical kitsch for spooky ephemera-- fully decked out in giant spiderwebs, ghoulish figures, and angry jack-o-lanterns-- it’ll truly be a dramatic sight to behold.

But, for all the elaborate planning, special effects to make the eyes pop out of his skull and the bolts on his neck to spark and smoke, Stan still manages to miss a few spots needing body paint. 

“Alright, alright, I think y’got it,” Franken-Stan fake-grumbles up at you from his seat in front of the full-length mirror.

“Will you relax? You’re gonna sweat, and I’ll have to do your makeup all over again,” you scold, though your painted lips curl into a fond grin despite yourself.

Though the kids will start coming any minute, you’re set on completing the finishing touches, if for no other reason than to keep Stan from further grumbling later.

… And most certainly not because you also love the opportunity to dote, holding him close in ways he’d otherwise be too shy about. Not at all.

“Are you going to wear your glasses?” You ask, getting his ears nice and green with the sponge brush.

He gives it some thought. “As much as it hurts the spook factor, I can’t really scare anybody if I fall on my face.”

Another, final once-over at your work and you’re satisfied, stepping back and raising your arms in the air triumphantly to steal yourself for your best mad-scientist cackle. “My creation! It’s aliiiive!” 

Stan laughs, quickly standing and caging you with his arms against the wall. “Damn right. Alive as ever.”

You shoo both him and the remark away, looking over your white “dress” (old sheet) to check for any green that may have made its way onto your costume. “I thought you were in a hurry, hmm? There’s no time for a touch-up. Now, be a good ‘husband’ and carry the train.”

Stan’s eyes roll as he lifts the gown, following your lead downstairs. “Yes, honey.”

Trying very carefully not to trip, Stan helps you down the stairs. “I still think it’s dumb that The Bride of Frankenstein doesn’t get a name, though. Sure, she’s in it for all of three minutes, but she gets the movie named after her and doesn’t even get a line?”

“Nah, she just screams,” Stan laughs, dropping your dress as you meet the front door. “Like it hurts to exist.” He swings the door open and the both of you speak in unison.

“She gets it.”

You share a small laughing fit at that, making your way outside into the crisp autumn air, giddy to begin the festivities. A few to last-minute adjustments and tech checks, and The Shack will be ready.

“Seriously though-- why can’t she be, like, Victoria or something?”

Over by the skeleton crawling out from under the porch, Stan snorts. “Victoria? Why?”

You shrug. “Why not?”

“Touche.”

It’s finally the tail-end of the second hour, and you’re in position behind the semi-trapdoor mechanism on the porch, hidden behind a dark and stormy castle standee. You’re high on the energy so far, after making some kids scream-squeal in delight. Although, you did manage to terrify a toddler on accident without even trying-- the poor thing burst into tears at the mere sight of you walking out normally from the porch.

Maybe it was the semi-realistic stitches on your flesh? Who knows. All that’s clear is you felt awful, but Stan was very clearly amused-- and jealous, you’d wager.

But now that it’s past bedtime for most little ones, it’s time to up the ante with some added special effects-- and the fast-approaching gaggle of baby teens seem to be the first that’ll enjoy them.

Always on top of it, Stan lets out a Frankenstein-like groan, marching further from the end of the porch, arms raised in cheesy classic style. The kids stop in their tracks as he clears his throat roughly to give the spiel he’s practiced all night, an extra ~spooky~ lilt to his otherwise mostly-normal voice:

“Foolish humans! You daaaare demand gifts, when your hubris created me from cursed flesh, and your hatred ensured my demise?!” He’s truly in his element as his neck bolts flicker for emphasis, making most of the middle schoolers jump and gasp.

The one at the front of the pack though, doesn’t budge, instead holding their pumpkin bucket out with an overall look of disinterest. “Yeah, duh. Trick-or-treat, old man. Hand over the candy.”

“Rude little shit,” you frown, not even needing to see Stan’s face to know he’s going to enjoy this particular scare very much.

“Hold it, kid, ” Stan sneers, continuing his introduction, “if you want anything good to eat, you’ll need to ask the most blood-curdling-- ”

You flip the switch for the fog machine, and bellows of grey creep in around the Shack--

“--The most SPINE-TINGLING, repulsive monster of us all--!”

You quickly step on the nearby button, and lightning flashes across the house as thunder sounds--

“ --MY WIFE! ”

At his signal, your spring forward, eyes crazed as a horrendous banshee screech leaves your throat and white tendrils wave in the wind.

The rude kid screams-- and while Stan bursts out laughing and you smile evilly, you miss them reflexively reach into their bucket, pull something out, and chuck it right at you before scampering away.

With a dull thud, the projectile lands on your head with a muffled thud, sending you off balance and toppling off the platform in a second. You hear Stan’s barks at the hoodlum, but soon he’s up the porch at your side, just as surprised as you are.

“The hell-- you alright, babe?”

Stan helps you up as you glance around for the offending object that’s left your head and the arm that broke your fall aching. “I-- what the fuck was that?!”

A large, off-white sphere rolls along a groove in the deck, moved by your shifted weight. It hits the edge of your shoe, and you pick it up to find it’s…

A popcorn ball.

A really fucking heavy, rock-hard popcorn ball.

With a splotch of white from your forehead smeared across it.

Stan’s bursts out laughing, though he doesn’t let his supposedly helpful grip on your waist go. “Who the hell gave that thing out?? They must’ve been saving it for last century-- ”

It’s funny. Like, really funny. Comedy freaking gold.

But your head hurts and you fell, and shit, your wig’s messed up…

Your own laughter breaks suddenly, and before you even know it you’re tearing up.

Franken-Stan blanches the soon as it hits him. “H-hey, sweetheart, I’m sorry-- are you alright?”

The comforting hands on your shoulder, the concern in his voice breaks the dam, tears spilling out despite your mind knowing better, and wanting to continue laughing it off like you should-- like you want to.

“I’m fine Stan, I’m fine, I-- I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying, I really don’t,” you laugh, dabbing at your eyes with a bandage-covered hand. “That was too perfect.”

“Don’t apologize, that kid’s an asshole.”

“An asshole with a hell of a pitch,” You laugh, finally meeting Stan’s eye. 

“Wanna go inside? It’s gettin’ late anyway,”

“No! No, are you kidding? We just got started with the lightning! I’m fine, I promise--”

He raise an eyebrow skeptically.

“Really, I am. I’m the most horrifying creature of them all, right?”

“Hah! Sure are, sweet thing, sure are.”

“Then let’s get back to scaring. I’ll be ready to duck this time.” You laugh, elbowing Stan before getting back into place, and Stan follows.

11:27pm

There hasn’t been a kid in nearly 30 minutes, and with another hour under your belt, the pair of you are content to turn in for the night for some movies and the Halloween goodie bags left behind by scared trick-or-treaters.

Flopping down on the bed, your tired body practically sings. “Goddd, that kid really got me good.” The hands on your face muffle your words, but Stan gets the idea.

Taking pity on you, he pulls up the nearby chair and starts unlacing one of your boots for you. “Happens in the line of duty sometimes. Shoulda seen what one fairy princess threw at me one year-- actually, I don’t even wanna know what it was.” He jokes(?), tossing the shoe aside and beginning on the other.

“Knocked me down at the top of my game…” you mutter, twiddling with the end of a splayed-out strip of your garment.

“Hey,” Stan drops the other boot to the floor with a thud, quickly peeling off the striped sock that lay underneath. “Don’t forget, you scared the absolute shit out of that brat.”

You let out a hum, then chuckle. “Triggered his fight and flight.”

"Exactly,” he replies definitely, sling-shotting the second sock in the air. It lands on your chest, but you quickly toss it over to nowhere in particular.

“I don’t know if I can even get back up. Just let me die here,” you groan, only half-joking as the strenuous activities of the day catch up to you. “I’ll be a corpse for next Halloween.”

“Well, yer already halfway there in that getup,” Stan shrugs off the jacket of his costume and lets it fall on the chair. A glance across your form reminds him of the “bolts” attached to his neck, which he peels off with a wince. “And I’m not far behind ya.”

“I’ll be lucky if I look this good when I’m dead,” you laugh, adjusting to get more comfortable and fully prepared to just pass out, wig and all.

Stan’s eye catches on the bare skin of your leg that’s revealed when you shift, the stark white of your gown falling to the side as it bends at the knee and the other still hangs off the bed uselessly. He hums, appreciative of the sensual view of you before him: limbs draped out, black eye makeup smudged...

Your eyes fly open at the feeling of Stan’s large hand on your knee, and you’re met with a familiar mischievous grin on Stan’s still-green face. “Mmm, you’re already bewitching, babe.” 

That look always manages to send a pang through your gut. “Oh, stop it…”

This wasn’t exactly how you’d imagined the night ending, but don’t mind all that much if it’s headed where you think it’s headed.

“‘M serious,” Stan chuckles. “Yer right about The Bride too… never appreciated enough,” His thumb rubs a circle on the soft flesh on the inside of your knee, and you can’t help but sigh at the nice pressure. 

Your stomach nearly flips when he slides to his own knees, grip moving down your calf and lifting your leg to place a playful kiss to your ankle. His name falls from your lips in a whine, equal parts warning and pleading, for exactly what you can’t decide. You’re answered nonetheless by another peck just above the previous, then another with the slightest bit of teeth that makes you gasp and prop up onto your elbows.

The sight is absolutely ridiculous -- Frankenstein’s monster himself between your legs, smiling dumbly as he nips at the neglected one before he pushes excessive fabric up and off to reveal more of your form. “Stan, we-- oh my god--”

It’s when he pulls you forward on the bed that you see it: the splotches of deep green coloring the trail Stan is continuing up your thigh with a knowing look.

You laugh at first, starting to push him away so you can properly remove your dress, but he tuts, gripping your hips instead and curling an arm around your thigh, slinging it over his shoulder with an in-character groan: "You go nowhere.

You’re torn between teasing him about the fact that he’s really roleplaying as fucking Frankenstein right now, and the shudder that rolls through you as Stan noses your center through the cotton, saying: “Mine .”

“Oh,” is all you manage to say when his mouth meets between your thighs, teasing your folds through the fabric with a brazen tongue. You let yourself go then, leaning into the anticipation as after a moment Stan tugs the garment down and off, though it catches on your foot and is left dangling there uselessly.

“You’ll be screamin’ for me, don’t you worry,” he says, breath ghosting over your core before fully tucking in.

There’s no energy left in you to scream, but the needy whimpers and moans that escape as he ushers you up towards pleasure are melodic, a siren song that urges Stan to keep delving into your cunt, to hold your thighs open with a possessive grip.

“F-fuck,” you cry, reaching down and threading your fingers through his mop of black-sprayed hair between your legs. He groans mid-lap at your clit, and you gasp as his hands join in on the ministrations, caressing and petting from your hips to your stomach.

It’s when he starts sucking that you start to really writhe, tugging roughly at his locks to push him deeper. He slurps your arousal right up, the sound mortifying yet helping thrust you closer to the fast-approaching peak.

“C’mon, honey,” Stan says, thumb maintaining a rhythm on your clit. “Come for me, darling.”

The foreign pet name does it, sending a rolling orgasm that hits you in waves, crying out Stan’s name and other sweet nothings before going limp.

After a moment he sits back, more than proud as he wipes his mouth and watches you twitch and moan through the lingering pulses.

“Wow-- what was that all about?” You manage to pant out, made curious again as Stan stands suddenly, walking over to the mirror on the far-side of the room.

“Check it out,” he says, bringing the mirror to the edge of the bed and leaning against it with a self-satisfied grin.

Sitting up, your reflection stares back at you, wide-eyed and glowing-- with a prominent mess of green smeared along your skin, practically outlining each and every touch that made you come undone. A few complete hand prints are even visible, on the backs of your knees, on your hip-- even a comically clear outline against the stark white of your covered chest.

Your face burns hot as you can’t help but laugh in disbelief, both at what you see and the unexpected thrill of it; it’s delightful, and silly, and sexy, and overall just an image you think won’t leave your head for a while.

Stan chuckles at your reaction, pleased. “S’a good look on ya-- damn near electrifyin’ , some might say.”

“Come here,” you ask, arms out to beckon him forward. He does, and you don’t miss the prominent bulge in his trousers as he walks over.

Pulling him down by his shirt, you lock him into an appreciative kiss, raking your nails across his scalp and practically pulling him on top of you to continue the makeout, bed size be damned.

Needing air, you finally break away, glancing back at the mirror to see green now decorating your mouth and cheeks. “You’d missed a spot,” you inform Stan, pointing to the new addition to your face.

He hums, ducking down to nip at your neck and clavicle, painting them just the same. “Could think of a few more spots needin’ a touch-up,” he growls, rolling his hips.

Snaking your hand into the band of his pants, Stan lets out another groan at your touch and when you say lightly into his ear:

“Looks like you could use some white with that green, hmm?”

Happy Spooky Season!! 🎃💚🎃

[Masterlist]

dividers by @strangergraphics and @firefly-graphics

[teaspoonnebula]

VALL Chapter 1 - The Warning

So as a recap - yes I run this substack. No, I haven't read this novel. I'm really looking forwards to getting to experience new (to me) canonical Sherlock Holmes for the very last time in my life... and I'm going to write a bunch about it, so hold on tight.

“I am inclined to think—” said I. “I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.

LOL I love how we jump right into Holmes and Watson banter. Watson's understated "“you are a little trying at times" reminds me of his reaction to Holmes shooting holes in the walls at Baker Street being "I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it."

Of course we don't get any indication of the tone in which he says these things, but I think we can guess Watson is countering with a little acerbic wit of his own.

So, Holmes has received a letter from a mysterious figure known as 'Porlock'

Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal with the lion—anything that is insignificant in companionship with what is formidable:

This idea of the pilot fish is a very cool metaphor. Unfortunately it is entirely ruined for me because it was also used in the Christmas Invasion episode of Doctor Who to describe these things and that's always where my brain is going to go:

Porlock is one of Moriarty's henchmen or representatives! Which makes me interested in the fact that I've never come across this character in pastiches or adaptations or fanfic - why not?

(Also it makes no sense for Watson to know all about Moriarty but that's a Continuity Thing and we all know Arthur Conan Doyle didn't let that sort of thing get in the way of telling his story - more power to him, honestly.)

“You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.

I JUST SAID THAT, HOLMES.

“May I be there to see!” I exclaimed devoutly.

Well THAT is a sucker punch of a line. No, Watson, you won't be there to see, I'm afraid. See, there will be this Swiss boy... anyway, we're getting off track.

Turns out Porlock is a bit of a mole (I wouldn't quite go so far as to say 'double agent'), and has been giving Holmes information provided he is paid enough. This includes a secret cipher which relates to a particular book, which Holmes assumes will arrive in the second post.

GUTTED I didn't read this book when I was 11, I loved ciphers and would have lapped this up.

“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the delight of your friends...

"your friends" Lol Holmes just say "Me" we know that's what you mean - and gosh, he's being so sarcastic with Watson!

Billy the page shows up with the second post and readers, I CHEERED at Billy. Does he say anything? No. But BILLY!!! Alas the letter from Porlock says that he just had an unpleasant encounter with Moriarty (with an envelope addressed to 221b in his possession, whoops!) and so so he won't be sending along the key to the cypher.

I love that Holmes' reaction to this isn't frustration at not getting his cypher, but worry for Fred Porlock, and hope that Moriarty doesn't actually suspect him. THIS is why I love Canon Holmes - I think he is fundamentally kind...

“Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect.

Holmes points out that they might be able to work out which book is required for the cypher, and guides Watson through his deductive process - which is adorable. And I loved following along with it too - with my knowledge of Victorian ephemera I was hoping it was going to be a Bradshaw, but as Holmes notes to both Watson and me, the range of vocabulary needs to be broader!

It's a Whitaker's Almanac! But not the new edition - the old one. This is a fun little reversal which gives us a moment of Holmes thinking he's 'failed'.

The message suggests that someone called Douglas who lives at Birlstone House, Birlstone, is in danger.

(Clearly this is a totally different house to Hurlstone, from Musgrave Ritual....)

After deciphering the message, Holmes and Watson get a visit from an Inspector MacDonald. I was a little sorry this isn't one of the familiar Yarders (Hopkins, my beloved...) but I'm going to be interested to get to know him. Alas, Holmes is too late to save Douglas - he has already been murdered.

***

So, uh, I'm having the time of my life reading this, honestly. It's such incredibly good fun. I'm intrigued that whatever has happened to Douglas must somehow be linked to Moriarty.

There's a lot of banter about Watson's intellect which I feel should frustrate me more, a lot of the dialogue feels like it's bordering on being quite patronising to Watson, but I think his reactions suggest this is comfortable back and forth done from a place of security in each other.

[goldensunset]

🌟calamitous-star

🔁 princesslight400

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🌃 ad-astra-purr-aspera ♦️

Hey all! This is your friendly neighborhood reminder that Founder’s Day is coming up on Saturday, and with it, the deadline for the annual required donation to the Master Ephemer Heritage Center. Don’t forget to get everything in order before then! ☺️

🌅 borninthewrongera Follow

how absolutely RICH for a pampered little society-of-the-heirs princess like astra to make a psa about paying your dues. i bet founder’s day is super fun for someone who only has to worry about getting dressed for her public appearance and not the actual financial bullshit the rest of us go through right?

📚 all-academia-is-dark-here

🤍 princesslight400

that person’s entire blog is full of posts romanticizing the keyblade war 💀

#YO??? #also lady astra i am so sorry as well

500 notes

🥀beauty-in-red ♦️

🔁 starlight-and-social-justice Follow

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this post contains filtered tags:

#master ephemer bloodline discourse

🤍 princesslight400

🔁 scala-ad-crylum Follow

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🔐 scala-ad-crylum Follow

so every day on my way home i pass by this one random guy always standing out on his balcony and today i accidentally made eye contact with him 😭

🗝️ ephemerally♦️ Follow

Soooo is he cute? LOL!

🔐 scala-ad-crylum Follow

i mean it’s not like i can really see much of his face cuz he wears this big hat but he does seem kinda hot. or at least in a romantic melancholic solitude way if nothing else. but like i’m not about to ever actually go talk to him

🔐scala-ad-crylum Follow

if this post gets 30k notes i’ll say hi and blow him a kiss

🔐scala-ad-crylum Follow

nonononoNONONO I DIDN’T MEAN IT STOP REBLOGGING THIS

🕵🏻 thevirusofficial Follow

So, this is how I figure out I’m Tumblr famous…

🔐scala-ad-crylum Follow

BALCONY GUY????

#HELPPPP #fish i’m sorry but this is the funniest thing i’ve ever read in my life

30,467 notes

🌊 fountainwaterdrinker-29

remember when, for about a week, they made it so that any random non-heir who paid 800 munny to the site could get a red diamond badge next to their username too? the way all the heirs on here went absolutely BALLISTIC lol

#you had to have been there #i swear we were about a day away from civil war breaking out

1 note

🦋 no-good-usernames-left-5

🔁 imissthechirithies Follow

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⚜️ littledandelion ♦️ Follow

Why do some people act as if being descended from Master Ephemera makes you inherently privileged and prideful? I assure you I see myself as your comrade and equal and share in your struggles and sorrows to the same extent as anyone else. I wish only to befriend you all.

⬜️ verdandi-simp-deactivated10962310

don’t care

✊ starlight-and-social-justice Follow

goodnight sweet prince 😔

#NOOOOOOOO THEY NUKED MY MAN VERDANDI-SIMP #absolute hellsite

5097 notes

[trek-tracks]

hi.

I just wanted to say...I ended up landing back on your blog a while ago, following an ongoing TOS hyperfixation. it was the first time I'd looked at tumblr again in ages. and I happened to stumble across a post where you had left these tags--

and that, uh, absolutely floored me. like, when I say I didn't think anyone would notice I was gone, I don't mean that anyone did anything to make me think that--it's just, when you get a head full up with depression, it's real easy to convince yourself of things like that, you know? and you can do all kinds of positive thinking exercises to try to fight it, but actually having a concrete rebuttal come along and knock the whole narrative down is something else entirely.

it's a whole thing and I don't want to traumadump on you or anything. I just, uh, wanted to say thanks, I guess. also I now have a folder full of TOS text post memes saved, so thanks for that too.

I spent the past few days debating whether or not to answer this publicly, and please let me know if you'd rather I take it down. In the end, I think it's important that a) everyone knows I think you're awesome, and b) to send the message to everyone that more people care about you than you think. (Yes, you, reading this. I don't care what your brain says. You are important to people, even if you don't know it yet.)

I had no hope or expectation you would ever see those tags, and they are honest. You were one of my early friends on Tumblr, back when I was really seeing what this platform was all about. I loved your insights, I loved your jokes, and I always enjoyed our interactions. I saw that you were having a hard time, and I was definitely worried when you left. However, I didn't want to ask you to come back to a platform that was clearly draining to you, or be another expectation in a sea of expectations. I googled you a few times for my own peace of mind, but that's as far as it got. In this online world, sometimes it's hard to show we care without feeling awkward or overbearing.

Ultimately, though, the thing about this online world is that we also never completely disappear, especially if we interact with each other. Chains of posts and responses are snapshots of friendships, ephemera preserved in time. It's sad and fond and lovely all at once. Every once in a while, that past resurfaces, and we remember. Sometimes I wish we could know when someone is thinking about us, a little pinprick of warmth we could carry around, but maybe it'd get excessive and feel like heartburn.

I want anyone who follows this blog to know--if we're mutuals, or if you show up in my notifications every once in a while (because after my initial burst of following people I've become really remiss about adding mutuals, which is only a good thing because it would mean I'd spend even more time on Tumblr), I think about you, and I hope you're doing well. You matter.

When I say that I am thrilled that you're back and recovering, Rev, I mean it with my whole whole heart. It made my week. So often we don't get to read the next chapter of our online friends' lives, and thank you so much for updating us.

[montrosepretty]

Ranking taz pcs by how likely they are to vape. just to blow absolute mad cotton. coauthored by @melonkittii

Emerich: has the most insane hardlight doohickey gadget ass vape rig known to man which he cooked up in his lab

Merle: WOULD vape COPIOUS amounts. earns the nickname merle vapechurch {which it's not clever but it still sticks}

Aubrey: yes. uses the smoke in her shows and has strong opinions on her favorite flavors

Devo: vaping is like an essential part of his magic. he does it a lot but there's not as much joy in it {"guidance taught him how to talk, brother seldom taught him how to vape" - robin}

Montrose: dentonic canonically sells cigars in gutter city so it's not a stretch that they would sell vapes. if there was an ephemera branded vape {and there definitely is} montrose would have twenty of them

Argo: high dex means he can do cool vape tricks

Duck: started vaping after smoking because it's better for the forest + also he has asthma

Firbolg: the code is not explicitly anti vape so i think he would. but he's chill

Zoox: wouldn't seek it out, but there is a hole for that

Magnus: only vapes if offered {wants to seem cool} but he coughs like a bitch

Taako: everybody thinks he's the kind of guy to vape but he doesn't actually because he thinks he's too cool. wouldn't take the vape pen if offered

Ned: doesn't know what a vape is. mf smokes a pipe which he stole because he thinks it looks cool but he doesn't know how to do it right. there's not even tobacco in there he's just blowing into it

Beef: did an anti vape commercial for his public persona but he wasn't convinced by it until he got soft and now he has nightmares about dying of vape inhalation {he gets into fights about it with montrose and emerich}

Fitzroy: swore off vaping for fantasy DARE in like fifth grade but hits it at a party at wiggenstaff {festo's influence} and goes WAY too hard and dies. Snippers however is a vape god

Amber: pretty explicitly not a fan of drugs. but she would be good at it

[commodorez]

I absolutely adore the passion you have when you're speaking about this old tech hehehe

Well thank you!

This has been my hobby of choice for about 20 years now, I'm in it because I enjoy it. Why take half-measures with what you love to do?

If this is the sort of thing you enjoy as well, and you want to interact with more of the vintage computer enthusiast community, you can always come hang out with the rest of the Retrotech Crew on Discord.

We spend our time talking about pre-Y2K computers and other sorts of technology. Lots of the discussion pertains to people fixing stuff, programming for old machines, or playing games. Minicomputers, micros, game systems, televisions, associated ephemera, and the community events where these machines are celebrated are all common points of discussion. Meanwhile, others are homebrewing their own computers using processors of yore to get the 1970s DIY experience (it's where I built my 6502 homebrew: the Cactus).

I always think about the sort of informal space that I wanted when I was first getting into the hobby, when the forums I was traversing felt too daunting to a newcomer who didn't know all that much like myself. Hopefully it's fulfilling its purpose of being a good place for folks to interact and share in that enjoyment, regardless of experience level. Many of the earlier members all came from here on tumblr initially, after which we started a Skype group chat, which migrated to Discord in 2017. Since then we've picked up folks from many other circles of the community at large, so I hope that means we're doing something right.

[do-you-have-a-flag]

was watching late night with the devil yesterday and got so annoyed by the use of ai interstitials

is that supposed to be a pumpkin or a wood carving of an owl? a painting?

i was like okay, lets see what i can throw together in an hour as a non professional (who doesn't work in this style) without diverging too much from what they were going for (as i assume any artist they hire would be able to do a more polished job than me in a similarly short amount of time)

imagine how good it would look if i were working with the same graphic assets or put more time in or a more established artist made it or if an artist who could make a real 3d object irl or in blender were doing this

ultimately it's not just that at the moment a lot of ai art is actively worse than a real person. it's that there is no intentionality behind the placement of pixels, that the image generation relies on art theft where even if you asked you have no way of finding out exactly what was taken from, and that opportunities for real people are being taken away which is absurd in a creative and collaborative medium like film especially cause why make films if not to be creative with other people why engage with art if not to have someone tell you a story what benefit is there from the computer element if it is substituted in to such a large extent.

and yes the 3 interstitials that only show up for seconds a handful of times IS to a large extent not in screentime but because the filmmakers are paying homage to tv station custom images, which would have used a mix of original work and stock resources, which would mean either hours of original work or the reuse of art which was made decades sometimes even centuries before and lives on in the public domain, which would have been put togethere for only a few seconds of screentime a year. the ephemera of station idents is so cool because artists and graphic designers make these cohesive bits of corporate art that become so familiar to so many households yet are almost never noticed. that are so powerfully nostalgic they were deliberately included in the world building and atmosphere of this film

so what is the benefit that it's ai? because it's fast? (irrelevant to the audience and they had to manually tweak the results so the time saved was negligible) it's cheap? (irrelevant to the film and the audience) it's an empty use of corner cutting creatively that is NOTICABLE and will stay noticeable since it's unlikely to be updated with a better rendering. a corner they didn't cut with any of the other elements of the film, so it stands out even more starkly.

[pixxyofice]

i do. not know your swap au. swap au rundown possibly. please :wibbly:

OH THAT WOULD HELP YES.

Bonnie -> Mirabelle, Loop -> Isabeau, Siffrin -> Odile, Mirabelle -> Siffrin, Odile -> Bonnie.

Oh, and also Euphrasie -> Loop and Isabeau -> Euphrasie.

Under the cut is descriptions.

Bonnie is the one blessed by the head housemaiden to not be frozen in time. Petronille and Bonnie ran to dormont's house when she ran away from home and Bonnie's been raised by the House, basically. So when Bonnie was blessed and had to run they have alll sorts of Responsibilities now. They call themselves Boniface to be taken more seriously. It doesn't work until...

Pyxis. Loop wakes up one day and finds themself somewhere different, in a House, and takes the opportunity to Change and then go out searching for Sadnesses (huh there are a lot more than you would expect after the king's been defeated-) to fight to blow off steam and be someone new until Boniface runs into them begging for help and citing their blessing and Pyxis gets a rock in their stomach and is like I AM HELPING YOU RIGHT NOW and they look around for orbs, finding...

Siffrin! Who washed up on the shores facing the stars and remembers that they used to know what they were and spends their life dedicated to trying to relearn them. He wanders into the party of a kid and a strange person with a star on their chest and joins in, eager to find a purpose beyond the stars... even if that is what their mind is at. Stars were their home. They can feel it.

Mirabelle. After a few years at her former house never quite knowing her parents and her parents never quite understanding her, she didn't go to the house. Instead, she wandered. Wandering and fighting and getting to know the land. Wanting to know herself. Reading books and hoping for a future where she understands a found family home. When she saves siffrin and pyxis from a sadness, she joins and, maybe, feels like perhaps they can be her home.

Odile. A 12-year old, so some years older than ageswap odile, but kinda similar vibes. Except Odile refuses to fight because hey she's a kid and unlike Boniface, she isn't immune to time stop, so she'd rather not risk it, thanks. Especially not after her father got frozen! She's a curious soul and she enjoys everyone, even if the circumstances weren't great. She has pretend beef with Boniface.

(Ephemera. She misses her Mirabelle. She'll help whoever it is she sees looping, and she won't lay a hand on whatever they're involved in. She won't make that mistaken Change again. She needs to get used to this body first.)

(Isabeau is the Head Housemaiden of Dormont's House of Change. I don't have much on him, but he's admired for helping figure out faster ways to Change. He's a smart buff man, and insanely protective. He and Claude are in a QPR to me. They were making bombs for the king.)

The King is still the same. Pyxis doesn't react well upon seeing him for the first time in person again. I mean. The three main fighters are scissors type and only Boniface is rock type. Odile doesn't fight. Its.......... um.... the King is the same. How funny, to stay the same when you want to preserve change.

Pyxis, due to being a Loop, remembers the time loop when it happens too. Mirabelle is the main focus of the initial looping.

[powderblueblood]

From your prompt list, for Eddie Munson, If it strikes anything in ya. 🖤🖤

" A woman falls in love with you and you think that's a curse?"

200 CIGARETTES SENTENCE PROMPTS! tripped and fell into hai verse sowwy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

eddie reacts in a way you think should be memorialized in history books, a full pantomime of his flailing hands, his rings catching the low light of the bar, his grimacing face with his tongue sticking out.

"blegh!" and, a lightning quick recovery to point at you directly in your face, "exactly. cursed."

you swirl your straw in your cranberry and whiskey which doesn't taste very much like either. you're helping drunk sam to prop up the bar at the hideout before the new year's rush starts; eddie had begged you to come keep him company, come keep him anchored because apparently shit gets weird here when the veil between this year and the next thins.

"you'll be a terrific anchor. all you have to do is sit there with that sour look on your face--exactly! that one!--and remind me that i'm not having a good time, no matter how many decrepit drunks tell me i am."

anyway, this is confusing. you knit your brow. "but why?"

"expectations!" eddie barks, fwipping a bar towel from his shoulder and grabbing a glass out of the drip tray to dry. "someone falls in love with me, right, and then i've got to like... keep them entertained. keep finding reasons to--..."

he trails off, mouth screwing up a little bit. hold on. hold on. there's something there. you try and reach for the thread before he tugs it out of your grasp. unraveling eddie munson's become an unlikely hobby as of late. he's like a ball of yarn someone let get tangled in a dump, so you keep finding all sorts of weird rocks and sticks and trash and ephemera every time you ask him a real question.

"hold on. what do you mean?"

"what do i mean what?"

"keep them entertained."

he sighs. really stepped in it now, because you're not a just drop it kinda girl, just like he's not a just drop it kinda guy. you two haven't read into that. might be worth cracking out the reading glasses, i don't know.

"i don't know!" eddie shrugs, "i'm-- you get someone to love you, and then you want them to keep doing it, right, so you need to like... it's a lot of pressure!"

"no. shut up," you wave your hand in his direction, "are you seriously trying to say that you think falling in love is a curse because you think you've got to perform a certain way to keep people interested? like no one--" you snort a little, tone going to the mocking zone, "--could ever love you for you?"

he puts his hands on his hips, partaking in your laughter a little too. but it's strained. "i don't need to take this from someone who hid a brain the size of a planetary moon behind a can of aquanet for the better part of her high school career so some haircuts would give her the eye, okay? you know aaaaall about performing."

eddie knows he has you nailed so you throw your straw at him. fucker.

"those come out of my paycheck, jackass."

"sorry for bankrupting you," you say, not done. "but eddie. c'mon."

"i'll come on anything you want me to."

"seriously."

"seriously, i will."

"no-- like, you can't possibly expect me to believe you think you're unlovable." you press your forearms into the bartop (ew, sticky) like level with me here.

eddie flings his bar towel around his neck, tugging at either end hard. "i'unno."

"unlikable, sure, you're the most irritating person i've ever met but--"

"--but i don't have the best track record for getting people to stick around." he lifts his shoulders, like it's nothing, like whatever. he's even smiling. pleading, in a way. drop it, for once.

no. anger bursts under your sternum like a tiny firework.

"so?"

eddie double takes, something like fear or frustration flashing in his dark eyes. they're only made darker by the shitty backlight of the bar. makes him look older, which makes you feel weirder. "so?"

"so none of that was on you." you say. like it's nothing. sipping your drink. "none of that was your fault."

eddie's eyes drop from yours. he stares at the sticky bartop.

"and you're never pretending. at least, i've never seen you pretend."

there is no act of anti-god, no dastardly intervention that will let you stop yourself from speaking. this is what you get for sitting around the hideout at six in the evening on new year's eve.

"you've always been horribly yourself to me and i still... can't stand you." a beat. because you're waiting for eddie to look back up under the glower of his brow. his mouth is kind of a snarl, kind of a smile. "so don't treat it like a curse when it isn't, asshole. don't jump ahead in the story."

don't jump ahead. he says it all the time, talking about dnd, talking about some dumb anecdote, talking about music. don't jump ahead in the story.

he looks at you like, you remembered, and pulls a bottle of no-name brand tequila and two shot glasses from behind him.

you shrug at him like, you're around, and have to get up and do a walking lap of the bar after that shot. disgusting!

[drawing-way-outside-the-lines]

Could you make your cc links available? (If that wasn't too much to ask) Or at least the objects and skins 👉🏻👈🏻 Your Sims are so beautiful ❤️

But thank you for the ask 😂 Hey I really do wanna help, but I use so much cc on my sims, it's impossible to list it all. However, I will help as much as I have time for at the moment. Most of my sims you see often have personal skin blends, so I can't link to those. But 99% of my sims use Ephemera skins as a base. What I love about these skins are, that they are quite detailed, but they are not HQ so they are not hard on your computer :D YAY! My favorite Emphemera skins are: Fresh, Rhys, Skinny, Tan, Chaos and Lion. You can find a link to the skins here: https://www.tumblr.com/pitheinfinite/184172979667/ts3-skin-collection-by-ephemera-just-saw-a-post A lot of my makeup and eyes I got from S-Club. It's really good quality, and again not HQ which means it wont murder your computer ;) I also suggest using their eyelashes for a realistic look, but be sure to download the eyelash sliders in that case. Link to S-club cc here, you gotta skip many pages before makeup starts coming, see it as a treasure hunt: https://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/S-Club/downloads/browse/category/sims3/skipsetitems/1 The majority of my makeup is from Tifa, they have a lot of great pores/eyebags/eyes/lips that I use a ton of times! But most of that cc is only available on creepy Russian sites full of mallware, so I don't suggest you download from those, please. Edit: @perseusx42 was kind to share the link for the backup folder of Tifa makeup: https://mega.nz/folder/NmpzVRSC#_0Jn-YtPc8UfOJDDtbGTVQ I also use a good amount of Pralinesims makeup, again you gotta skip a bunch of pages to find their makeup: https://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/Pralinesims/downloads/browse/category/sims3/skipsetitems/1

I also use hairlines/babyhairs on most of my sims, but it's such a long time since I downloaded them, I can't remember where I got them. Perhaps you can find some through cc finds sites or Google. Eyebrows: Sk-Sims <- Brntwaffles (These also work for males) <- Andhisrabbits <- Kurasoberina (I suggest all brows and the makeup) <- I use this face shadow blush a lot on males: https://synestesi-vtmb.tumblr.com/post/45610726195/have-made-it-some-time-ago-may-be-youll-also As for female blushes, I mostly use Sehd's blushes, and also some of their lips: Lips <- Blushes, mouth corners, chin cleft and more lips, nose shine, I recommend it all <- Nose masks is another good thing. I most often use the ones called Glow, Pancake, Blueberry, Nectar, Cherry and Strawberry. link: https://leafvy3finds.tumblr.com/post/628683325013360640/brntwaffles-inspired-by-the-nosemasks-of-lilith That said, I do use NRAAS mod to layer makeup, with that you can have multiple makeups in each category, which helps a lot making sims much more detailed. (You can find that one on Google I think, if you need it) Last but not least, I do have some sims up for download, and I will hopefully upload some more one day soon, that's also a way to get sims similar to mine, if you like :) Have fun!

[katsurinssims]

Katsu's alternative Afterglow Palette

as I mentioned in my last post, I made a lil alternative hair colour palette. Before I got into Afterglow, I really wanted to try out @0201-sims VK actions, as I love the idea of a visual kei inspired hair colour pallete. But I got into afterglow, so forgot about it for a while! Then when I was ill and making a bunch of sims and downloading a bunch of CC recently, I thought that I wished I had a secondary family of naturals to chose from, as when I was using Pooklet's colours I used 2, one being what my DRs were in, and the other being just another option. So I tried out the VK actions, but wasn't 100% happy with how some of them looked on Afterglow textures. Afterglow has a subtle, silky shine (which is what converted me, aha) that can easily become flat looking with certain colour actions applied- so I trialed some other colours I like and this is what I came up with!

The colours and why I chose them:

It's a mix of Cassis' VK actions and @digisims2 Ephemera Inspired Color actions. Cassis' Aliene is a much cooler (as in cooler tone) and slightly more unnatural, alternative looking black than Poppet's, which fits well with the Vkei theme. I knew I wanted cooler, but the green undertones are really striking! Basier is used as the red rather than the brown, its the main one I wanted as it reminded me of when I was a teenager and took a picture of Hizaki to the hairdresser as a reference photo. I suppose you could call it a strawberry-esque colour, its very fun. For blond and brown I picked out a couple of Digi's Ephemera colours that were dissimilar from the colours already included in afterglow naturals, and Digi's always been an inspiration for me in my CC making journey, as well as Ephemera, so it seemed only fitting. The main idea I wanted to get accross with the main 4 colours is hair that has clearly been dyed, but in natural types of colours, maybe for alternative types of sims, aha. For the grey I knew I wanted something richer and warmer, so went with @blackswan-sims Pipe Bomb x Finade mix, which I have had saved by for a while because it intrigued me so much! Finally I'm adding just one unnatural because I missed having a bright pink option, and this was the hardest to pick out. I went through a lot of options before landing on ol' reliable @pooklet, in Pentolite. It's warm but not too red, and doesn't blast out all the subtle detail. So yea, the main purpose of this alternative selection is to suit my game with a lot of late 90s FRUiTS and other Japanese street style inspired fashion ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

That may be too much information/explaination on my choices there, I'm mainly just excited to show you all these colours!

As much as I just picked these out because I liked and wanted to use them, anyone else is welcome to try this alt palette; but I don't expect others to like or use them, or for them to be a norm amongst afterglow creators. Besides these being maybe a bit of an odd choice- having one family of naturals makes CC creation easier, cuts down on the size of your downloads folder, and keeps your bodyshop neat! Nothing wrong with that, I'm just someone who's a lil over the top with these types of things I suppose, aha.

If you do want to use them, I'm uploading them as a set of actions for PS:

Download my Afterglow Alternative Palette actions

I didn't alter the original creators actions at all, just bundled them together- which means they may not work on all versions of Photoshop. I've included individual swatches in the file with the creators names so they can be found easily!

Intended to be run over Afterglow but would work on any volatile base. Check @the-afterglow-archive for more Afterglow ₊˚⊹♡

I'll be posting anything I make with these colours to this tag!

[chantsdemarins]

Find Tom: Part 2

(a little new art too)

The whole "soccer era" Tom was the push I needed to jump back into a Tom fic, although I am by far much more comfortable just sticking with Loki. I hope this isn't cringey. It’s not that great but I feel like it needs to be posted. 😑

⚠️It's mature so no under 18 readers!

❤️It's a love poem with not a lot of plot!

☠️I used some new smutty words

Lastly, I truly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my work! No comment is too small, no reblog is unfelt. I wouldn't do any of this if I didn't have readers. You mean the world to me.

@lovelysizzlingbluebird @mischief2sarawr @five-miles-over @lokischambermaid @lokisgoodgirl @mochie85 @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @kats72 @fictive-sl0th @sailorholly @tbhiddlestan83 @peaches1958 @huntress-artemiss @goblingirlsarah @jennyggggrrr @mjsthrillernp @wolfsmom1 @lady-rose-moon @mygfloki @buttercupcookies-blog @lokixryss @simplyholl @eleniblue @kingtwhiddleston

Thank you-thank you-thank you!

Read Find Tom Part 1

He had stayed an extra week-you had called in to work with hope and a prayer you wouldn’t lose your job.

How could you have known that the remarkable business of bedding a movie star not only included being passionately taken on every mid-modern furnishing capable of withstanding Tom’s athleticism but also came replete with nuanced discussions of such things as little-known facets of British history?

A mere night with this man would have been impossible. His words alone filled the time so completely while his cock took up the rest of the hours left in the day. You needed a lifetime but would have to settle for a week. You also felt like Tom’s spare thoughts were enough to earn him a second Cambridge degree.

You often found yourself pouring strong coffee between glasses of Cab to keep your mind sharp enough to ask intelligent follow-up questions. Which you always did. It was impossible not to notice how his conversational ability effervesced through him, a surging sparkle that galvanized in his eyes, creating a disproportionate lure and the impulse to return the enchanting discourse in kind. Over the course of the week, you had time to observe how many of Tom’s features would appear as backdrops to his emotions.

Like the plane of his nose, its pristine alpine slope, when he was grinding his hips into you. Or how his smile consumed half of his face while his lips found yours.

His eyes were mesmerizing vehicles of his intellect like twin comets streaking the sky. You had to watch them. You couldn’t take your own eyes off them. He saw not only you but what was beyond you, possibly what you would become. He had a witchy sense.

Also, strangely when you least expected it, a pallor of sadness would also occasionally descend between your bodies. A departure from his enthusiastic nature that usually led the way. It was clear something had made a lasting impact on him. Was it another woman? A situation? Strife of the elite? Champagne problems that you could never understand. You wanted to ask him to tell you, but you let the sadness be a silent companion to your passion.

All this revelation was amplified in the vintage quiet of the Sea Ranch cottage you had all to yourselves.

That first night, he took you easily. Perhaps embarrassingly easy. After all, you’d been wet since you saw him from across the crowded room. An uncomfortable distraction while you talked about your lives and listened to the quartet play The Lark Ascending in the main room of the after-party. Something about the tender violin and his deep voice from a place far away. The details. The decorations, wild peach-colored streamers blowing in the ocean wind battering the rafters. A hum in your ears.

The way he leaned in closer when you knew he could hear you. You’d swallow him up if given the chance. Later at his Sea Ranch cottage, what felt like an eternity after so much conversation and ephemera, you were finally a crumpled passionate mess. You remember looking down and seeing him finally enter you, the implications, the spectacle.

You felt your breath leave and never quite return.

Later as dawn coursed through and put the evening to rest, Tom made sure to use the California poppy napkins to tidy you both up but stopped himself short of a full janitorial protocol. There was something a little wicked about his disregard. He liked seeing you wrecked. He liked seeing the lingering elements of the sex you just had, still on you. He didn’t want to make things too neat. You felt exposed but did not want to assemble a wall between you.

The instinct was that of vulnerability. Only sometimes found in casual romance. Only sometimes experienced by you.

By Tuesday, Tom’s effulgent historical discourse had fully found its way into your conversation yet again. You sat on the ocean-facing porch in two aging red deck chairs, a temptation for Tom’s fingers. He easily peeled off their flaking paint and collected it into a neat pile on the property’s 1972 glass Sands Hotel ashtray.

He would continue to move the small pile around with his long finger mixing the chipped paint with the singed tobacco and marijuana wrappings from the day for the hours you talked. Tom would grow quiet only when he rolled his own cigarettes one-handed.

You wondered if he smoked back in London or only when on holiday or business, or as an affront to suffocating California standards of healthy living. The sea wind picked up and moved through his rust-colored hair, salt air conjuring it into full attention.

Apparently, he had forgotten his blow dryer, but now, surprisingly, he seemed besotted with his curls. He ran his hands through them as he resumed your previous conversation.

You tried not to lose your concentration on the details. Tom’s mental ephemera began to have a companion in the details of his being you were collecting in the hallows of your own mind. Topics spun wildly from one to another but often fell back into history and philosophy. You prided yourself in keeping up, even if you had to use the cottage's old ethernet cable and early 2000s PC to look up “ontology.”

"British history is rife with privileged white opportunists, wouldn't you say?" His words were intended for both the relentless waves below and you as he stared off into the inky distance. That was quite the conversation shift. You had both just been talking about Steinerberg, Switzerland. He’d been while filming The Night Manager. He went on.

"Take William Bennett, for example, a complete ass."

"William Bennett?" Repeating his choice of subject often gave you a few vital seconds to collect your thoughts.

"Indeed. He essentially earned his fame from an aquatint print of the New York City fire in 1836. The untold story is that he bought the original sketch from an impoverished Italian artist, Nicolino Calyo. Calyo was there amidst the 700 homes succumbing to flames. Bennett essentially duplicated it, and therefore, as a wealthy, idle British artist, he managed to elude any consequences." You scrunched your nose in a silent response before replying.

"And Calyo?" you finally ventured, already anticipating Tom's reply.

"Naturally, he ended up dead and destitute. The old D and D, if you will.”

You laughed but felt a parallel emerge within you. Your life seemed uncomfortably akin to Nicolino Calyo's. Your mind raced - was Tom, beneath his casual Louis Vuitton button-down, a modern William Bennett? Your thoughts looped back to yesterday's breathy exchange after you’d gone down on him and where you confessed that after a long hiatus, you'd begun painting again. Was he secretly archiving the ideas you'd shared about your nascent series, ready to unearth them during his leisure in Margate - a place allegedly sharing the "spirit and design" of Sea Ranch? While Tom moved your things inside as the chill of the evening overtook you both, your mind was fixated on your previous conversation.

In your carnally vexed state, you'd unveiled your infatuation with the hues of mint green, adobe red, and translucent pink. His curiosity had been particularly piqued by "adobe," which led to a discourse on the disparity between the tangible "true adobe" and the digitized shade we've now associated with the word.

He reflected on his time in New Mexico during the filming of the first Thor movie, where he was first introduced to the color scheme of the American Southwest. It had been a captivating conversation that moved fast. An image of Tom as a reincarnated William Bennett, unveiling his own mint green and adobe masterpiece at a glitzy auction event eight years from now felt lodged in your mind.

Apparently, this emerging anxiety of trusting such a departure from your usual type of lover was hard. None of your other partners would still an idea you had for a painting and make millions from it, but of course, neither would Tom. You were becoming irrational. You poured yourself a new glass of wine, emptying another bottle. Closing your eyes for a moment by yourself while Tom assembled the next part of your evening with his usual intentionality intact, even if he didn’t catch your mood. He tracked even the tiniest details in the short time you’d spent together. You wondered if his sadness had descended, preventing him from noticing.

The next day you made love in the early morning hours, savoring his body. He was deeply asleep his naked luminosity shining against the white of the sheets. Tom still smelled like the rosemary he had picked from the bushes out front. You had watched him in his running shorts and nothing else, springs of rosemary in his hands.

He remarked about how wild rosemary doesn’t grow in England; at least, he didn’t think so. He joked he would take some of it back in his suitcase. He’d smell like California. He’d smell like privileged things like taking an extra week off. At that moment, you had felt his lineage as if a halo surrounded him - an impenetrable force field.

The afternoon found you both in the living room, wrapped in tartan blankets, partaking in an improvised indoor picnic. Tom had run a 10-mile round trip to Jenner's only grocery store. The sight of him returning with baguettes, ham, brie, and more wine bottles settled his existence in your mind as a true enigma. His sweaty, proud smile covered his face completely as held the baguette up to the sky in a triumphant cheer. You ran to him and held him around his middle.

You always loved the way tall skinny guys felt. It was a too-familiar gesture for such a casual situation, you tried to pull back, but he nestled his head into the crook of your shoulder. You closed your eyes and heard only the ambient sound of birds.

The morning of the sixth day, you dressed in his white undershirt and boxer shorts. You both reveled in the amusement of exchanging clothing items to create new outfits each day. The addition of Tom’s packed subtly luxurious clothing gave you both interesting options. His Armani suit jacket with just your black underwear. Tom amusingly in your skirt, paired with his unexpected choice of nude suede Herve ankle boots.

Your scarf and his sleek Ray-Bans. His running shorts were cleverly repurposed as a strapless jumpsuit. In the end, the clothes would always come off. You would be naked. You would have your hands consuming one another in a shocking discovery of hidden pleasure. The responses were the truth.

The thing you both could trust. In his sighs, in the warm breath that haunted your collar bones. In the flush of his cheeks. In the sweat on his forehead or the goosebumps on your arms when his fingertips traced the edges of your body with the precision of an engineer, you held on to the touches, the utterances of euphoria. With every orgasm, you felt the incredible raw honor of being human.

You wanted to slow it down long enough to feel it truly. To feel a king cuming inside you. To feel his cum and his claim while lost in the gravity of his eyes. Those magnificent extensions of his brain were a lifeline. Your bodies became sculptures, black quartz in the hot sun.

By Sunday, the end of your time together had finally found its way to you. He whispered in your ear after pulling out, catching any breath he could. He could only stay until Monday, he had to go back to London. You stared at the slow oscillations of the Casablanca ceiling fan. “I’ll miss this,” your words were an echo of the real words you longed to say.

His eyes closed, lashes casting delicate shadows on his cheeks.

The woman he would one day choose to marry, you thought, God help her. She would undoubtedly be transformed if your brief moments with Tom were any sign. However, for some melancholic reason, you knew it wasn’t going to be you.

You weren’t destined to be the lover who would eventually turn into a wife. He only had room for the ecstasy of passion and intellectual tête-à-têtes. This affair was incomplete, with no clear conclusion in sight. It wasn't a tale like that of William Bennett and his ill-gotten fame through art theft—a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

No, this was something else entirely. Suddenly, as if he was privy to the endless stream of inner thoughts, Tom spoke. "I met you at the right time, y/n," he said, his piercing blue eyes now open.

He jumped out of bed and casually dressed, slipping on a single item of clothing or, more accurately, an accessory — his Gucci belt wrapped sideways around his bare body. It was difficult to concentrate as he strolled past the expansive windows of the cottage. His muscles and his semi-hard cock were the only things holding that thing in place. Your cheeks grew hot. Tom followed up his emotional revelation with a more practical question.

"Shall I make us eggs on this, our final morning together?”

Without waiting for your response, he ventured into the kitchen, energetically rummaging through the cabinets in search of pepper before swinging open the refrigerator.

As he busily prepared breakfast, his underlying sadness was emerging, defying the rational part of his mind that wished it weren't there. Balancing a glass bowl against his stomach, he swiftly began whisking eggs, his intense gaze fixed upon you. This prompted you to inquire once more, "Why is this the right time, Tom?"

He continued whisking the eggs as he replied, "You found me, truly. Sometimes, we serve that purpose for others, akin to amateur archaeologists. Returning to London, I will be more whole, not less."

You found yourself fidgeting with the hem of Tom's t-shirt you were now wearing.

"You desired this life you have didn't you? You wanted fame?"

"I don't know, y/n. I wanted to do what I loved," Tom confessed, pouring the frothy mixture into the heated pan.

"I doubt it’s that simple, I'm sure you've had to make difficult decisions to reach the top."

"Like parting ways with a beautiful woman I met while on an extended work trip?"

"Yes, exactly like that,” you struggled to say.

"It happens all the time, love, all the time. Regret is my middle name. Thomas Regret Hiddleston."

With that sentence, he refocused his attention on cooking, his hands and mind engaged in a synchronized activity not unlike sex, serving a similar yet less emotional purpose.

You discovered a tablecloth tucked away in the back of a cabinet and spread it over the aged blonde table. Professionally, he placed the plates of food before you.

"Quite the last supper we have here," you remarked, attempting a joke to mask your emerging underlying sadness, though failing in your intended delivery.

Your gaze fell to the floor, unable to meet the sunlight streaming through the windows or Tom's eyes. He continued in his relational eulogy, "Its breakfast, y/n, and many more will come. Someday, you'll have a partner, and I'll have someone too. We'll be enjoying meals with them, and something will trigger a memory. Perhaps we'll be by the sea on vacation, and you'll remember me, and I'll remember you."

So he was thinking similar thoughts as you. He did not feel he met his future wife at a Bay Area film festival after-party. It was a long shot at best. You nervously tried to continue talking.

"Of course, not simultaneously. How could we possibly know if we remember each other at the same time?"

"We will never know, y/n. We will only remember each other out-of-sync for the rest of our lives."

With that bittersweet but strangely truthful statement, he reached across the table and gently took your hand and kissed it. You wouldn’t watch him leave late that night. You skipped the coffee after the wine, and poured yourself another, watching the moon reflect off the darkness of the glass.

[cobalt-knave]

For those who doubted the number of NPCs named Justin, here are four of them. Clerk Justin, Justin in security, Host Justin aka Beefy Justin, and Justin with a knife.

Transcript is very long, so it's under the cut!

(ep 19)

Justin: And you see a… sign that says, “Check in … here.”

Travis: Oh, okay?

Justin: Yeah. [chuckles]

Griffin: Seems this is the place to be, man.

Travis: We go there.

Justin: Okay, you go in and there’s a person sitting behind the counter. He’s about 5’7’’, he’s wearing—

Griffin: [laughs]

Justin: [chuckles] He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

Beef: Hail and well met!

Justin (clerk): Hey.

Beef: All right.

Justin (clerk): My name’s Justin, welcome.

Beef: Woah?

Griffin: You’re not 5’7’’, are you?

Justin: No, the character in the— what are you talking— no, this— the character in the game is 5’7’’.

Montrose: We’re staying in cabin 37, may we please have our medallions as quickly as is possible?

Justin (clerk): Oh, yeah, sure.

Justin: He reaches into a drawer without even looking and pulls out three medallions

Justin (clerk): Here you go, you’re in cabin 37.

Justin (clerk): There’s probably just a bed in there. [chuckles]

Montrose: Just one?

Justin (clerk): Three.

Emerich: Oh, thank God.

Justin (clerk): Yeah.

Beef: Okay.

Montrose: I thought we were about to have ourselves a little Kevin McCallister, a little… a little party in there.

Justin (clerk): There— yeah, there’s three.

Beef: Could we… could we request some extra pillows?

Justin (clerk): Yeah, sure, you can request that.

Beef: Will we get ‘em?

Justin (clerk): Nope.

Justin (clerk): Yeah, I just sit here. It’s very boring and doesn't seem to be important. I just kind of sit here and wait for people to come, like yourself. And then hand them the medallion for their room, and then… just kind of cease to…

Montrose: Oh, well, sir—

Beef: Can I have—

Montrose: You must have more of a higher aspiration—

Justin: I mean, I have other stuff I’d like to do. But I—

Montrose: Oh, like what?

Beef: Like what?

Justin: Well, I like to do podcasting, actually.

Beef: Really, podcasting?

Justin: Yeah, I’d like to get into podcasting. But I’m not great with voices, and I’m worried that it’ll be—[chuckles]

Montrose: Hey, that said it was cool for you to give us your keycard.

Justin (clerk): [chuckles] Who’s they?

Montrose: The, you know, higher ups here at Ephemera.

Beef: Shroog.

Justin (clerk): The thing— the only things that I’ve ever done in my life are get medallions out of this drawer and hand ‘em to people, that’s it.

Montrose: Well then, you should be pretty well equipped to hand over the medallion that you have on your neck right now.

Justin (clerk): I don’t have a medallion. They don’t let me go into any of the rooms. This door in front of me, the one that you just walked in, it’s always unlocked. I’m a fucking sitting duck here. But—

Beef: Hey, it sounds like you hate your job? Have you ever been—

Justin (clerk): I don’t hate my job, I don’t love my job. I nothing my job. I don’t have anything interesting to say or do about my job.

Beef: You are fascinating! We’re gonna come back and talk to you. I can’t get enough of this.

Emerich: I don’t know what you’re gonna talk about in your podcast. What will you talk about in your podcast?

Justin (clerk): People that stay too long in here when there’s nothing for them to do or see!

Beef: Oh yeah, I hate that, man! I hate when people do that.

Montrose: I just, I—

Beef: I’d listen. I’d listen to your podcast.

Montrose: I’m updating my speed dial on my phone, and my emergency contact at the hospital, to Justin and Shroog.

Justin (clerk): I can’t leave! I can’t leave this room, I’ve never left.

Montrose: The door’s unlocked.

Justin (clerk): [chuckles] I’ve never left this room.

Montrose: The door is unlocked, though.

Justin (clerk): I was born in this room, I’m terrified to leave.

Beef: Oh, come with us!

Justin (clerk): No.

Montrose: Come with us? We’re having a—

Justin (clerk): [laughs] I’ll never leave! I’ll never leave this room.

Travis: Justin, I pick up Justin and I carry him out the door with us.

Justin: [chuckles] The second you touch Justin—

Montrose: [chants] Justin, Justin, Justin!

Justin: [laughs] The second you touch Justin, you’re electrocuted, for level one harm.

Travis: And I punch Justin.

Justin: Okay?

Griffin: Yeah, let’s kick his ass!

Justin: Okay, you take a swing at Justin. And you’re… he—[chuckles] Your fist lands squarely against his jaw and he is knocked out. It is a beautiful punch. But it isn’t until this exact moment that you see the camera directly behind Justin that starts— [Griffin giggles] And you noticed it’s turned directly at you. And you start to hear the phone on Justin’s desk ringing.

Travis: I pick it up.

Montrose: Real quick, Weekend at Bernie's. We’ve practiced for this. We have practiced this!

Griffin: I put an arm under Justin’s armpit.

Justin in Security: Hi, this is Justin in security. Is everything okay over there? ‘Cause it looked like Justin got punched out or something—

Beef: No, he wanted to learn about stage combat, and I was showing him how to do a punch. He’s here, though. Say hi, Justin!

Clint: I’ll wave his arm. I got a hold of his arm and I wave it from behind him.

(ep 22)

Justin: Dad, here’s what I want for you to do. I want you to roll a sway. And this sway roll is going to be convincing this unnamed gentleman… who I’m going to call…

Travis: Oh, I can't wait.

Griffin: This is gonna be good!

Travis: Brace your asses, everybody!

Justin: Justin.

Travis: Nice.

Griffin: God damn it.

Justin: And—[chuckles] I want you to try to convince Justin for the tier of work that you are ready for.

Justin (Host): What do you— hey, I know you’ve been out of the game for a while.

Emerich: Yes?

Justin (Host): Where are you at right now, skills wise, Emerich?

Emerich: I am really at the top of my game.

Justin (Host): Wow. Wow. Huge stuff, huge stuff. We can all agree, right? Huge stuff.

Griffin: [in silly voice] “Huge stuff, boss!”

Emerich: And if I’m able to sway you, I will demonstrate this projection to you, so you can see.

Justin (Host): You know, it’s so rare people just openly say that they’re attempting to sway you. I appreciate your forthrightness.

Emerich: Well…

Justin: Wow.

Clint: Whoo!

Justin: Great job, dad. Great job.

Clint: Now wait, is that Justin or Justin telling me great job?

Travis: Woah…

Justin: That was Justin.

Griffin: Yeah, this guy’s not your dad in game.

Justin (Host): Hey, you did a great job.

Emerich: Thank you, son.

Justin (Host): I’m really proud of you.

Travis: Now, that was Justin.

Griffin: [chuckles]

Justin: That was Justin.

Travis: Okay.

Justin: [chuckles]

Justin (Host): Okay…

Emerich: Well, Scott, I would like you to meet Justin, who is not my son.

Travis: It’s weird, people don’t often clarify that as much as they should.

Griffin: Yeah, I appreciate it.

Travis: When I’m introduced to people all the time, I’m not told whether or not they’re their son.

Griffin: Yeah.

Scott: Hey, I’m Scott Boldflex, and I’m just realizing I only have one voice for real guys-guys.

Griffin: [chuckles]

Scott: You know, it’s just this one. One voice for guys-guys. Guys that are more guys than me. And I just have this one voice for guys. You know, guys—

Clint: And I recall Scott. I recall Scott into the Give a Ghost Projector.

Justin: Thank fuck. [chuckles]

Justin (Host): That is really impressive!

Clint: No, I said I recalled Scott.

Justin: [chuckles] Fuck off, Dad.

Griffin: [laughs]

Justin: Eat shit forever. [chuckles]

(ep 30)

Justin: The doors open. And you hear the speakers come on again.

Funnyman: And now it’s time for you to [laughs]

Montrose: Go ahead, Funnyman. No, don’t crack yourself up.

Funnyman: And now it’s time for you to face my – one of my most devious, most devious henchmen. Get ready [laughs] Get ready to meet a middle aged man with a paring knife!

Knife Justin: Oh hey. Oh hey, guys.

Beef: Hey, man.

Knife Justin: Welcome to my floor. I guess.

Beef: Are you evil?

Knife Justin: Um. I mean, nobody thinks they are, right?

Beef: Oh wow.

Knife Justin: But I mean I am working [sound] I am working for Funnyman. I guess he’s not the – the best guy, but I mean—

Beef: Well, in this economy…

Knife Justin: If you follow the ladder far enough. I mean, even if you buy fucking salad dressing, Black Rock owns it. You know?

Beef: Yeah.

Knife Justin: So if you follow the chain, it hard to say are any of us evil or good, but I mean, I don’t know. I do have a paring knife, and he told me to try to – I mean, stab you.

Knife Justin: Well, I’m not gonna put the knife down. I mean, that’s—

Beef: Ok try to stab me. Try to stab me.

Knife Justin: You sure?

Beef: Yeah.

Justin: Alright, Travis. You see him. He’s gonna go Norman Bates, like, he rears back with his hand over. He’s gonna go—

Montrose: No, no, that’s – That ain’t. That’s not proper stabbing.

[overlapping voices]

Beef: No, no, no, no. Do underhand. You’re going for the gut, man, what are you doing?

Knife Justin: Oh, ok.

Emerich: This is a paring knife!

Knife Justin: I’ve never actually…

Emerich: You know—

Beef: Yeah, don’t go for like –

Knife Justin: So you go for the— Go for the gut?

Beef: What are you – stabbing me in the top of the head? Yeah, man, you’re trying to chu-chu-choo, ya know?

Emerich: Are you left handed or right handed?

Knife Justin: I’m left – I’m a lefty. Should I be using my dominant—

Montrose: You’re holding it in your right hand. What are you doing?

Emerich: Yeah, it’s in your right hand.

Knife Justin: You guys are being so cool about this. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Beef: We wanna give you a chance.

Travis: I slap him again.

Knife Justin: AH FUCK!

Justin: So, he, uh [laughs] I don’t even think you have to roll for this, Travis. He just – He goes to stab you, and he does! And he stabs you in the stomach. And you can see his eyes, like, pop out, and the knife’s like buried in you, and you don’t seem to be daunted by it at all. And he pulls the knife out. And he’s kinda looking at you to see if you’re gonna do anything.

Beef: Ok, so now’s the part where I get to, like, either seriously hurt you, or can just, like, give me the knife.

Knife Justin: Oh! Uh, yeah. I mean, here. You can have it. I’m—This is what he told – I only had to stab you guys, so…

Beef: Ok. Now [overlapping]

Montrose: And how did that feel?

Beef: Good question!

Knife Justin: Can I, Can I be honest? I think I’m gonna go to, like, a night school or community college or something. I don’t think career wise this is for me.

Montrose: What’s your name there, bono?

Knife Justin: What?

Montrose: What’s your name?

Knife Justin: Justin.

[anamoon63]

Your TS3 gameplay really does inspire me to give that game another shot. Are there specific mods you use to make sure the game runs smoothly/is stable? What mods/cc are the best to use so the sims look good?

Hi, Marci! 😊

First of all, thank you very much for your ask. Knowing that my sims and/or my gameplay can inspire other simmers to play means a lot to me cause The Sims 3 is my favorite game in the whole Sims series. Plus, I love my sims, so this makes me twice as happy. 🤗💖

That said, it is my duty to warn you that The Sims 3 is not an easy game to maintain, it requires a lot of care and patience, even from the moment of its installation. You ask me what it takes to make it run smoothly and make it stable, well I'm no expert, but what helped me with that is all contained in this Steam post. I believe these tips you can follow even if you don't have your game on Steam. I followed all these steps when I reinstalled my game back in 2017-18, and I have never had a problem like lag or crashes since then.

It's thanks to the amazing person who wrote that post and to talented modders like @lazyduchess and Twallan (Nraas Mods), whose mods I consider indispensable, that I have been able to play The Sims 3 without problems for years now. I may have had a couple of crashes due to some wrong or corrupt cc, but that's on me because I download a lot of stuff. In those cases, it's a matter of locating the bad cc, taking it out, and that's it. The game runs great, even with a ton of mods installed. (I have a 9 GB mods folder, and I've had more than that at times, lol, but I try to keep in less than 10 GB always).

As for what mods and cc's to use to make the sims look good, well, that would depend on your taste, or as they say now, on the aesthetics of your game or your sims.

For what it's worth, I have always used Ephemera's E-WEAK skin as default. I also use some other Ephemera's like E-Skin Natural MIX, Asia and Fresh. I use some by Kurasoberina too.

I think Ephemera's site doesn't exist anymore, but the E-WEAK skins I use can be downloaded on MTS here. Kurasoberina TS3 skins you can find them here along with more of their fabulous content.

I'm sure there are other skins much newer, and super nice too, but these are the ones I use, cause they give my sims the look they are known for. 😊

Also I use Tifa N38 default eyes, as well as Buhudain's You Are Real body and face maps replacements to give some realism to my sims' skins/bodies. Neither Tifa's nor Buhudain's sites exist anymore, unfortunately, but you can still find Buhudain's archives on this SFS page. And those of Tifa in this other one in Mega. (I hope I am not doing wrong by sharing them, otherwise I will remove them).

There's also this stunning version of Buhudain's You are Real by @nectar-cellar named You are Hyperreal. :)

As for the rest, if I start listing all the other content I use such as hair, clothes and makeup I would never finish, I'd gladly share my whole mods folder, but I don't want to piss off the creators, or blow-up other players' computers, lol. I'm WCIF friendly, though, so feel free to ask for any specific content, of any type, CAS or Buy/Build, I got my custom content well documented, so I'll provide you with links to any of them.

For the time being, here is this link to my custom Content List on my Blogger. I have kept this list for many years, and I still use most of that content; it may be a little outdated of course, cause I have a lot of new stuff now, so my intention is to update the page soon when/if I have the time. Also, some of the links may not work anymore, if so just let me know and I'll fix them for you if I'm able.

I hope this answer has helped you. Sorry for taking so long to reply, but I wanted to make this post as detailed as possible. If you have any other questions about The Sims 3, I'll be here whenever you need me. Good luck and happy simming! 😉💗