#because i think that internet celebrities are

[pixelplayground]

hi, i'm a little embarrassed to say it but nobody likes what i publish. i have more than 2k readers but in the end there are always 2 or 3 who follow me by liking or sharing my posts. i spend time creating interiors or lookbooks that may be liked but in the end it is not so. i would like to ask you for some advice to improve, to understand where i am going wrong if i don't bother you. i like what you publish.

Hello @valerysims,

First don’t feel embarrassed about arbitrary internet numbers. I know the world makes it feel like social media = validation but I promise you that your worth as a person is not tied to numbers on a post. Second, I checked out your blog and think you have a good number of likes to follower ratio! I have a little over 40K followers, and as you can see I get a fraction of that amount in likes per post on average. (I’ve also been around literally for a decade so please don’t burden yourself with comparisons, many of those followers came to me when I was posting sims 3 downloads, and when I was very active in the 2017-2019 period. Many of those people are now inactive/left the sims so it’s meaningless).

As far as content, I would recommend that you play this game for you and try to think less about what others want to see or what’s trending or will get likes. I hate so much how even simblr has been infected by the influencer mindset. I wish the community would go back to remembering we’re nerds playing virtual doll houses and would celebrate non-conformity more. I know it’s hard to resist, but I think people can sense when you are passionate about what you’re making/posting versus trying to create content that keeps up with the trends.

Back when I started doing coastal in 2017, I did it because I adore the architecture style, and it was around the time that Cats & Dogs was released so we now had the perfect world setting to compliment and exploration of this style. I wasn’t thinking about making it a trend, I always build and decorate for me and what I want to see in my game, and back then it wasn’t that popular. I had a phase of being really interested in modern farmhouses/low country builds and spent time doing that — they don’t resonate with me the way they did so I moved on and that’s ok. You don’t have to do anything that no longer interests you. Along the way people followed me because I guess they liked it, but a common sentiment I receive from followers is that they can see how much time and love I put into my builds, and I think that’s what resonated most to find an audience as it were.

It's the same with CC creation, I never learned how to make CC because I want lots of followers, monetization, or exposure. I had to learn to make the items I could not find back in the day, and now that style is trending, so I don't have to create so much to fill gaps and execute builds the way that I like.

Find joy in the act of playing the game, posting pics etc. whatever it is that you love most about the game, and you may find a niche there. Don’t pressure yourself to have to post X times per week if you’re not feeling it. Work on finding out what you’re passionate about and share that passion with your followers — usually the audience will follow you from there.

Also, I open this post to others to share their input. Some people I think are killer social media marketers, and I've never felt like I have that skillset. I feel like I gained a following accidentally rather than setting out with that goal in mind.

[vintagesimstress]

Northern & Southern European Dyes Palette(s)

It's been almost exactly two years since I made my Iron Age Palette. To celebrate that anniversary... No, you know what, actually not, it's a total coincidence 😅 I was working on a new thing and started wondering about this and that; to not bore you with the details, let's just say that one thing let to another and of course I ended up revisiting the very basics. So here it is! Not one, but TWO new colour palettes for our oldtime-y sims. Based on the lives of my Britons at some point in 1st century CE, shortly before the Roman conquest.

An important note: the southern palette is actually rather an add-on than a separate palette. As in, Romans would surely have access to the dyes from the northern palette as well. But as stated above, I made this whole thing from the viewpoint of a British Celt, hence we have two palettes: one with dyes which he could just obtain from native plants and the other with those he'd have to import. The southerners were more blessed in this aspect :]

You can download PDF files for both of those palettes and .txt files to be used in Paint.net (put them in Documents\paint.net User Files\Palettes). If anyone wants to help me out and make them useable in Photoshop too, please go ahead!

DOWNLOAD them on my Patreon! (always free, no early access etc.)

Apart from a bunch of visual changes (maybe the font will actually be readable this time? Gasp!), there's some new stuff in the palettes themselves (duh). Let's take a quick look, shall we?

undyed wool - hard to call it a dye, lol, but ofc it had to be here. The so-called primitive sheep of the Brittonic era looked quite different from what we imagine when we think 'sheep', and they most certainly came not only in white, but also in many shades of brown or even black. Perfect for making a colourful garment even without any dyes;

birch leaves - easy to obtain, easy to dye; almost no changes here, other than one added shade which used to be under 'mixed ingredients' before;

birch bark - OK, I don't remember where I took the old colours from, but I'm afraid I was being too optimistic. Birch bark gives rather pinkish than reddish shades; actually, it needs a looooooong soak and proper pH to turn anything but very bright, subtle pink. But it seems you can get them and they don't wash out that easily, so - there you go;

elderberry - here I was for sure being too optimistic, especially with that one pretty, saturated blue shade which got thrown away. From what I've read (and seen in photos...), elderberry is a very tricky dye, not particularly water- and lightfast. 'Not particularly' is mildly put - it just washes out in no time, leaving you either with a very pale or very greyish shade of the once vibrant colour. Adjusted accordingly (and they're still too pretty tbh);

apple leaves/twigs - that's a bit of a tricky point, because the Internet claims it was only Romans who brought apples to Britain. But at the same time apple cider was Britain's national drink allegedly already during the Celtic times. Heck, Welsh mythical island of Avalon literally means 'isle of apples', and mythology tends to be... you know... old. Huh? After a bit of research on the topic I'm inclined to believe that what Romans really brought with them were big, sweet apples and their organised cultivation; but small, tart, 'untasty' varieties did exist in Britain even before, growing in the wild. Perfect for making cider - or dyes 😉;

nettle - no changes here. Easy, cheap, grows everywhere, just that the colours are probably not something you'd wear to a party;

hedge bedstraw - seems it's growing everywhere in Britain, so it's plausible the ancients would've made use of it;

lichen - aaaaalriiight, now, that is a big discovery! Beautiful shades and absolutely possible to obtain from the varieties growing on the British Isles. One of the most crucial omissions from my old palette, here finally in its full glory.

That was it for the northern palette. And the southern? Glad you asked:

weld - previously called 'dyer's rocket', but no one in the whole wide natural dyeing Internet calls it that. Beautiful, vibrant, very steady yellow; won't give away even if you overdye it with indigo or woad. It's native to the Mediterranean and while it was cultivated in Britain in later centuries, I have no reason to believe that was also the case in 1 c. CE. I dub it imported;

madder - I keep reading that it's giving saturated red shades, but I have yet to see anyone dye a skein of yarn deep red with madder only. All that keeps popping up in pictures are gentle, pinkish reds, so that's what I included in my palette too. The orange comes from changed pH of the water;

woad - OK, that's my most epic fail of all. To make a Celtic palette and not include woad?! Putting aside the whole matter of Britons possibly maybe but actually maybe not using it to paint their faces (a very controversial matter, let's not go there 😅), woad was the blue dye in those times. Indigo was far away and while it was being imported to Rome, afaik it was used mostly for painting, not cloth dyeing; and besides, as crazy as it may sound, woad seems to do the job better. Seriously. Higher water and light fastness. The question is, was it cultivated in Britain or imported? Just like weld, it's native to the Mediterraean. There is a British find of a bunch of woad seeds, from 1 c. BCE - but then again, it's just one find. So... Mostly imported but slowly being introduced to the Isles? Maybe?

mixed ingredients - the ingredients specified in the PDFs are given in the order they're used - that makes a difference! My biggest discovery of this whole natural dyeing research is that, surprisingly, vibrant green is the absolutely most difficult colour to obtain. That dark green you see at the bottom - so-called Lincoln green - requires super high levels of both weld and woad, and you must put your yellow skein in the blue dye asap - if you're too slow, you get a lighter shade, e.g. like the one above it. The Hightowers surely knew how to show they're rich, huh...?

and last but not least, the luxury dyes! Some imported from far away (turmeric), some from nearby lands (Tyrian purple), some even grown locally (there were saffron plantations on Sicily. True story), but nevertheless, all super duper expensive. Tyrian purple was actually legally reserved for the emperor only - even if you could, by some miracle, afford it, you'd probably get arrested if you dared to dress in that particular shade of purple. Good that lichens could always come to the rescue!

Guess that's enough of behind-the-scenes trivia, isn't it? Props to you if you managed to get to this point, lol. Have fun with the palettes and happy recolouring!

***

Sources:

dzikiebarwy.com - in Polish, but the pictures should speak for themselves. Here you've got a post about dyeing with summer plants, including birch leaves, here - elderberry, here - apple leaves and twigs, here - nettle;

https://woolandpalette.com/blogs/news/making-vibrant-green-with-natural-dyes was my first step in finding out how to obtain a proper green shade with natural dyes;

wooltribulations.blogspot.com - dyeing with birch bark (here), another failed elderberry experiment (here) and overdyeing weld with woad for a deep Lincoln green shade (here);

www.jennydean.co.uk - an absolute godsend, especially two posts: 'Dyes of the Celts' (here) and 'Colours of the Romans' (here);

https://craftinvaders.co.uk/making-dye-from-lichen/

https://earlychurchhistory.org/fashion/colors-dyes-for-clothing-in-ancient-rome/ - on the posh dyes for the rich;

https://www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/gallery - except for the general vibe (*chef's kiss*), the 'animals and nature' section of the gallery has pictures of the 'primitive' sheep which they keep at the farm;

...and a bunch of others which I didn't save in my bookmarks 🙃

[sequencefairy]

I'm sorry but no one is asking the people at Watcher to provide a "solution" to the situation. All that is wanted and required is to speak out against the genocide and to offer their voice to the cause, which is a very straightforward and bare minimum thing to do. And in this case it matters more than usual that people with any kind of platform speak out against it, because most of the major governments of the world are pushing a pro-Israel narrative. I am genuinely shocked at your take on this. It would cost them nothing.

Please bring this energy to calling your legislators and representatives as they can actually do something to bring about a ceasefire. An internet media company is neither lobbyist nor lawmaker and unfortunately for all that they have grand influence in our enjoyment of their content, they have very little influence or say in geopolitical conflict.

I would much rather they say nothing and not accidentally, through ignorance or human fallibility, share antisemitic or zionist propaganda. I don't know why we have equated celebrity to expertise but we should have learned during the initial run of the pandemic that these things are not equivalent and I'm surprised constantly that we haven't.

Bothering me about how I don't think we should rely on moderately famous internet weirdos to tell us how to think about a complicated geopolitical situation is kitty-corner to the point of my original post.

I am not an expert. I work hard to vet the things I do share. I put my money and my time into causes I believe in and want to help but that doesn't mean that I should have to make a post about it so that other ppl know how I feel about it.

Harass your fucking congresspersons.

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[doctorsiren]

What would a Klapollo swap to match DefenseWorth and ProsecutorWright look like?

I accidentally turned them into Howl and The Scout 😨

[fungi-maestro]

Internet mutual thrice removed: did you hear about the newest person with bizarre/disgusting/repulsive beliefs & behaviors that we just found in a weird corner of the internet and are dragging around publically where no one has heard of them and no one wants to see that shit? You have to have an opinion on this btw.

People in real life: did you hear it's going to be in the 50s next week?

[prophetmuhammad]

Nah obviously the tumblr population didn't know that Neil Gaiman is a rapist when they chose to horribly bully John Green so I'm not gonna act you guys chose to bully him over a rapist while knowing that the other guy was a rapist. But it was in fact very obvious the whole time that John Green has done nothing wrong so it's just crazy to me that HE was the celebrity author most despised by tumblr to the point of real life harassment and totally baseless accusations of being a pervert. You guys were joining the evangelical christians on the looking for alaska is pornography and John is a groomer for writing it train while Gaiman was out here raping women fr🙄 makes me mad

[brutalmasks]

in my heart, i like to think that bunny mask will be going down to tyler's place in roanoke to visit him around the holidays in her DC verse this year and will be introduced to the concept of ugly christmas sweater's through him, which... yeah, bunny is pretty much guaranteed to love. ESPECIALLY since the one he'll be gifting her will definitely have cats on it like this one LOL [ though this one is honestly cute in my opinion (,: ]

but yeah, she'll be introduced to that as well as to the general idea of gift-giving, and tyler will just tell her about the general idea behind it (unless... one of y'all's muses wants to tell her about it, perhaps? 👀 idk it's just an idea, JSJSJ, but yeah) + bunny mask will then probably proceed to pull out this big ass freaking lego set as his present NGL 💀

because i have a feeling that she likely looked up 'what's a christmas gift that everyone wants?' and legos popped up so, in case any other characters in tyler's life were to wonder how he ended up how he ended up with a dragon lego set... they would definitely be hearing about that story

[mint-ty]

maladaptive daydreaming about fandom ships is my favorite activity ✨️

sometimes brain can get tired and the only effective way for clearing it - is to imagine how people that I admire bonk 💞

[cobraonthecob]

i'm just. going to sneeze out some thoughts regarding junior drivers being arrogant enough to publicly like tweets regarding lance. the tl;dr is that everyone should get off of lance's back for being a pay driver and that every single celebrity should reduce the time they spend on social media interacting with fans and fan content, because as we have just seen with bianca, it turns into a very, very ugly situation and a reputation set on fire and thrown away

drugovich makes sense since he is aston martin's reserve driver would be called up to drive for the team should anything happen to fernando or lance. this is not to excuse him, and he should not be taking out his frustration on any driver (if i'm going to be spicy, maybe turn your ire to the driver who retired a few years ago and then came back), especially when said driver is in the same team as him and technically higher in rank. if anything, if he really wants to play his cards right, then he should wait until fernando finally retires, get the seat, and try to prove why he thinks he's better than lance (and then he makes rookie mistakes and the fans turn on him. that's just how it all goes for most rookies. do really well in feeder series and f1 throws lemons at you. george russell was a victim of this, as was mick. yes, horrendous cars, but fans are quick in changing their opinions on young drivers)

bianca however, makes no sense on why she would be frustrated about lance's presence in f1 unless there was a valid point to make about how financially inaccessible this sport is becoming (which none of the tweets from what i heard, did not talk about and only insulted lance). if we are to ignore everything else for a minute and put it in a vacuum, then bianca's frustration at lance having a seat at aston martin makes zero sense. bianca is currently in an f4 equivalent series and a midfield driver who should be focusing on becoming a better driver and a contender for top three, not liking tweets talking shit about a driver in a series way above her and in a team she is not backed by. like, let's say bianca does well next year, gets into an f4 series, does well there, rinse, repeat, and rise to the top, 2027 rolls around, she would be up against whether or not lando or oscar are still with mclaren or if they've moved to other teams or left f1 (let's just assume both of them are still there). she, as a rookie, would be going up against the talents of two drivers who have been with mclaren since 2019 and 2023, respectively. her concern should not be to a driver who is in a completely different team, but to proving that she is a capable driver

now back to actual context, there is no excuse for either drugovich or bianca liking anti lance tweets. that is extremely disrespectful from both of them, and i hope that this situation becomes a lesson to all junior drivers that the fans' eyes are on you and you have to distance yourself from the fandom. if aston martin or the fia really had a problem with lance, they can deal with it on their own.

[jittyjames]

“lmm popscare” is so unoriginal y’all. write some new jokes. it’s just boring at this point.

[iguessitsjustme]

Choose Your Own BL Adventure - Day 24

Options:

Laugh and walk back to the table, away from the mistletoe. Join your friends and enjoy the rest of your evening laughing and talking.

Stand there awkwardly and wait to see if anyone stands up to join you.

Walk to where Gelt is sitting, pull him up and back to the mistletoe with you.

Panic and run away back to the bathroom. Splash water on your face a few times before you go back out to your friends. Avoid walking under the mistletoe this time.

Day 23 here.

[stimmingandstruggling]

ok i need people who are happy about the tiktok ban to understand your opinion should actually have nothing to do with the fact that it’s tiktok. like you can hate tiktok. but supporting the ban is supporting censorship, full stop.

like, i fucking hate twitter. it’s a hellhole. would i celebrate if it went bankrupt and shutdown? probably! would i celebrate if the GOVERNMENT BANNED IT? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT. because the government SHOULD NOT be making decisions about how and what people are allowed to talk about on the internet. ever.

“i don’t like the precedent but im happy if it’s just tiktok” stfu and think for a second if they only ban tiktok and nothing else ever that’s still censorship

[singull]

Was derping about YouTube the other day and came across a terribly obnoxious thumbnail:

*chin in hands*

[kstarlitchaotics]

Okay so the internet says no guns while also celebrating the violence that was caused by a gun to kill a guy ...

Make up your minds

[annarubys]

and one more thing even though it’s been a whole hour. you know not everything needs to be qualified by you reaffirming that you think someone who just died is a bad person. don’t speak ill of the dead is bullshit but that doesn’t mean you have to be cruel on a literal post where you’re finding out someone died. if someone yells at you on the internet for saying hey it’s sad that this person probably killed themselves without you qualifying with “even though he was a bad person because he was a trump supporter” that doesn’t mean you deserve to be attacked. that means they need a therapist and they need to develop real human relationships offline. also literally just block them lmao. the internet has truly rotted our brains. having to qualify human empathy is insane. it is objectively horrific that someone can die and have no one find out until weeks later. no one deserves that point blank period and if you feel the need to qualify that ask yourself why. why are you giving in to strangers on the internet over your own instincts. i am being so serious this is how extremism starts.