#converted victorian

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This really pisses me off- an 1892 Victorian mansion in Denver, CO was converted to an office building and now they want to sell it as a home. 12 bds., 8ba, 21,285 sq ft, asking $8,407,575.

Forget about having a home with a yard and a garden, they made it a parking lot.

In the reception area, which is also the grand hall, it looks like the wood is still intact, but the fireplace behind the desk has been blocked off.

The stairs look good.

It's hard to tell what most of the rooms were. This one looks pretty good. It still has lots of original millwork, the fireplace, and stained glass.

There's a staff kitchenette back here. The cabinets are nice, but the counter is laminate and I wonder what it was before.

This must be a sitting room. It has a beautiful fireplace.

It looks like the pocket doors are intact. I'm not sure if the cabinets are original, but they were nicely done.

This has to have been the dining room. I know that some of it is new, but how did they get the original wood so light? The original ceiling was plaster. There is no longer a kitchen.

This must be an area for staff sing-alongs.

In this room, only the frame of the fireplace is left.

The woodwork in this room was painted white. I don't know if these are separate offices or the same business in the whole house.

Don't know what this room is, but even though it has beautiful brick and wood, they put up modern office lighting and ductwork.

Not bad tile work on this little fireplace, but I don't like the shelves above it.

This room was modernized. I wonder what's under all the commercial carpeting. The door with a transom indicates that this could have been a bedroom. Notice that they advertise 8 baths, but don't show any. They're probably like public restrooms, now.

This would be a landing. Glad to see the railing and columns. Hate the lighting.

If they left the wood in most other areas, why did they paint some of it?

In this area, they put in modern commercial doors and windows, plus the modern ceiling and lights. I'm not sure that the brick is original, but there's a fireplace.

More ductwork and new walls, plus cement flooring. Look at the clear glass door. That's different.

I wonder if the barn doors are original.

I'm thinking that these are different offices, not just a single business. I don't know if the steel columns could've been there. I don't even know where we are.

All modernized except for the fireplace. Nice chandelier.

Here's some sort of a loft or stair landing.

This looks like an attic office and it also has a kitchenette.

In the basement there's a staff room with a kitchenette.

Plus a staff gym. So much money, and I don't even know how much it would take to make it right- like what do you do with the ductwork and all the flush mount ceiling lights. The plaster ceilings, medallions, and light fixtures are all gone.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1115-1121-Grant-St-N-Denver-CO-80203/439736633_zpid/?

[hymnsofheresy]

what are your thoughts on your religion stealing every single one of its holidays from pagans? xo

That in order to relieve themselves of guilt and discomfort, white people create and believe narratives that deprive their European ancestors of any autonomy whatsoever. Casting their ancestors as victims of the church rather than active participants.

[beeqisch]

SOMETIMES ALL I THINK ABOUT IS YOU

LATE NIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE OF JUNE

[shadowtriovibes]

dance in a storm in my best dress

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 3K

Summary: by request: "I have a fun idea! How about Sebastian and f!mc are "just friends" until one day she asks him to help her try on/give his opinion on some new dresses, and desire and spice ensue??"

"Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow," the shopkeeper says. "I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly." While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options. "Have you even put one on yet?" you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. "Merlin's beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!"

“Thank you for coming with me,” you say softly, shyly tucking your face a bit deeper into your oversized scarf as you avoid snow swirling around you.

It’s not an intense blizzard by any means, but nevertheless you appreciate that Sebastian had agreed to trudge down to Hogsmeade with you that afternoon when he could have spent the day with a dreadfully boring book by the fire in his common room, which is typically how he spends any free time he has as a seventh-year N.E.W.T.s student.

“Of course,” he says easily. “It’s about time I came up for air, so to speak.”

Despite the ongoing pressure of your final year of school, it had felt like all of Hogwarts had been abuzz about the upcoming holiday ball for what felt like weeks. Even you and your treasured trio of Slytherins had made plans to go together, and your daydreams of twirling across an enchanted dance floor in a fabulous gown had helped get you through some of the most arduous study sessions you’ve ever experienced.

With your end-of-term exams having concluded the day before, there was now only one thing standing in the way of you blowing off some steam at the ball with your best friend.

You need a dress.

Poppy had been the one to inform you that Mr. Hill had specially ordered some lovely fabrics from London as soon as he’d caught wind of an upcoming formal occasion. While it’s certainly too late to have anything custom made, you hoped you’d be able to find something in his shop that would suit you with a few minor alterations.

You’d invited Sebastian to join you on your shopping trip primarily for moral support, as the two of you were going to the ball together as friends.

(Anne had been quick to claim Ominis as her date so that she wouldn’t have to take her own brother, and you and Sebastian had been equally loath to bother asking anyone else.)

However, you suspect you may also need some help physically donning the dresses. You may not know much about what’s in fashion these days, but hearing some of your classmates boast about precisely how many garment layers they’d be wearing had nearly made your head spin.

“Do you have your dress robes?” you press him skeptically. “Anne said you were procrastinating.”

“Yes, nosy,” he laughs. “Ominis made me pick some out last weekend, and Mr. Hill should have them in for me by now.”

“Good,” you say primly. “You’ll have to try them on while we’re there and make sure they fit.”

“This is now my second trek into Hogsmeade for this silly ball,” he points out with a cheeky grin. “I hope it’s going to be as enjoyable as you lot are saying it’ll be.”

“It will,” you insist. “We all need something like this, something that’s just… joyful, I suppose.”

Sebastian glances sidelong at you with a tender smile.

“Fair point,” he agrees. “Right as usual, you are.”

“You’re still surprised after all this time?” you tease him, bumping your shoulder against his while he laughs.

When the two of you walk into Gladrags, Augustus Hill perks up excitedly and slips out from behind the ornate counter.

“Ah! Just the young witch and wizard I was hoping to see today,” he crows. “Come in, come in! I dare say, it’s awfully frigid today.”

You hang up your cloaks while Mr. Hill rustles up a tray of tea for the both of you. Ever since that troll encounter years ago, the Gladrags shopkeeper has always had a soft spot for you and Sebastian, which often results in the two of you feeling downright spoiled every time you visit him.

“Thank you, Mr. Hill,” you say as you accept the warm mug he offers.

“Mister Sallow,” he says as he hands Sebastian his tea. “Your dress robes came in just this morning! Why don’t I send you off with young Otto to try it on and mark up any alterations?”

You glance warily at Sebastian, reluctant to split from him as you do your shopping.

As though he’d read your mind, Mr. Hill laughs and insists, “He won’t be kept long, my dear! Fitting a young man’s dress robes is a much simpler task than that which you have on your hands, I should expect.”

“Why don’t you just pick out some things to try while Otto works his magic?” Sebastian teases. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Once you agree, Mr. Hill sends Sebastian to the backroom while you sip your tea and discuss some of your preferences with the kindly shopkeeper. You admit to not being very knowledgeable about fashion, but you have some colors in mind that you think may suit you – as well as very strict expectations on how much range of motion you want to maintain.

“I need to be able to breathe,” you insist, glancing hesitantly at some of the impossibly small corsets in the window display.

Peering over his spectacles with a wise smile, he answers, “I think that can be arranged.”

He then begins to show you the collection of remaining dresses he has in stock. As the premier clothier for the majority of your fellow witches at Hogwarts, he doesn’t have an unlimited supply this close to the ball, but his selections don’t disappoint.

“This blue color is quite pretty,” you sigh, gingerly inspecting the sleeve of one of the dresses he offers.

“I suspected you might like that one,” he says brightly. “Let us pull it for now and select a few more for you to try on, hmm?”

You end up also selecting a red gown with a smart-looking cape that would show off your house colors brilliantly and a crisply white evening dress with delicate golden embroidery around the bottom of the skirt.

“This should do for a start,” Mr. Hill says.

“Really? No green?” Sebastian asks from behind you.

When you turn to remind him pointlessly that you aren’t actually a Slytherin, your words fail you.

He looked utterly dashing in his dress robes. At first glance, he appeared to be wearing what looked like a Muggle tuxedo, but the extra-long tails and high collar gave away that it was most certainly wizarding apparel. His jacket and pants were both inky black – so dark that they appeared to even darken the room around him, or maybe you had just lost focus of everything that wasn’t him.

Of course, having been expertly fitted by Otto, Sebastian’s robes seem to cling to every inch of him. The waistcoat makes his waist look exceptionally narrow, or perhaps it’s that his chest looks so broad. His shoulders appear to be broader as well underneath his jacket, and while the long tails might appear to shorten other men, on Sebastian they merely elevate the length of his legs.

He slips on a pair of white gloves that Otto hands him and you bite down hard on the inside of your cheek. He looks like a proper gentleman dressed like this, you think – not at all like the haphazardly-robed young man you’re used to seeing.

“Ah! Excellent,” Mr. Hill says with a clap, breaking your trance. “A perfect fit.”

“How do I look?” Sebastian asks you teasingly.

“B-brilliant,” you stammer. “It, um. Fits. You’re fit – I mean, it fits very well.”

“Of course, we’ll charm the waistcoat to whatever color you’d like to match your dress, once you’ve made your selection,” Mr. Hill explains as he gestures to the garment. “Or simply leave it white.”

“Of course we’ll match,” Sebastian says easily. “But getting this one to make a selection isn’t going to be easy.”

You scoff and turn back around to the rack of dresses to hide your persistent blush.

“Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow,” the shopkeeper says. “I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly.”

While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options.

“Have you even put one on yet?” you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. “Merlin’s beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!”

“Come and help me then!” you whine.

“Er – is that alright?” Sebastian asks Mr. Hill.

“Of course!” he exclaims. “He’s your date, it would be unchivalrous not to assist you.”

That’s when you realize that Mr. Hill probably thinks you and Sebastian are properly dating, but for reasons you don’t want to admit to yourself just yet, you don’t correct him.

You could also sorely use some help as well.

“Mind the petticoat,” you mumble as he ducks behind the screen.

You’re both quiet as Sebastian helps carefully bundle up the skirt of the dress and drape it over your upright arms, slowly working it down your body so that it doesn’t catch on any of the boning in your corset. Once the skirt gracefully pours down over your petticoat, you gently smooth the bodice and turn around so he can lace up the strings crossing your back.

“Too tight?” he asks softly.

“N-no,” you murmur. “You can even do them a bit tighter, actually.”

You gasp softly when he pulls on the strings and cinches your waist tighter, and Sebastian pauses for a beat, but you don’t instruct him to loosen it.

Once he fumblingly ties the strings together at the small of your back, he mumbles, “All set.”

He offers you a hand to steady you while you shuffle out from behind the screen. Mr. Hill immediately laves praise onto the dress, and while you agree that it is quite lovely, a glance in the mirror reveals that periwinkle blue just isn’t a color in which you shine.

“No matter,” the shopkeeper insists. “Onto the red, shall we?”

Sebastian again helps you slide the dress off up over your head and replace it with the red one, this time lacing you tightly from the start. There’s a delicate cape that goes with this one, so you turn around to face him so he can drape it over your shoulders and tie the small silk ribbons that sit just at your collarbones.

“Ought to be plenty warm in this one,” he jokes halfheartedly, trying and failing to resist the urge to sneak glances at your décolletage.

“Is the cape a bit…?” you ask quietly, wrinkling your nose. “Is it too much?”

“What?” he asks dumbly. “O-oh, no, I – I think you look great. It’s a great dress, really.”

You’re nearly as red as the dress when you emerge for a second time, and once again Mr. Hill thinks you look like “a buxom Beauxbatons beauty from the boulevards of Paris.” However, regardless of your house pride, if you’re going to be blushing like this all evening at the ball – and the odds on that are significant – you know you simply can’t go with red.

“I have one more to try on,” you tell Sebastian softly. “It’s that white one, just there.”

You notice Sebastian’s gaze linger on the ornate embroidery, a pleased look passing over his face.

“It’s stunning,” he tells you. “Shall we get it on you?”

You merely nod, not trusting yourself with words at the moment.

The moment Sebastian helps you slip into the white dress, you know you have a winner. As if imbued with magic (and perhaps it is indeed), the white silk shimmers almost like the fresh snow outside the shop window. However, instead of feeling like a proper ice princess, you feel warm all over – especially where Sebastian’s hands mindlessly reach out to trace the fine embroidered patterns on your bodice.

“You look…” he exhales. “You just need to see, come on.”

He walks you out for the last time and even Mr. Hill refrains from commenting until you twirl in front of the mirror, your skirt gracefully lifting and falling with your movement.

“...I look beautiful,” you whisper. “Oh, Mr. Hill, it’s just lovely.”

“This is the one,” Sebastian insists. “You have to pick this one, it’s hardly even a choice.”

“Your companion is correct!” Mr. Hill crows. “My dear, it’s as if that gown was made precisely for you.”

Otto comes by to charm a few simple adjustments into the fabric of the dress and you watch yourself in the mirror with wide eyes as it molds itself to your body. Now it looks just like one of those custom dresses in the illustrations that the girls in your year pour over in the shopping pages at the back of the Daily Prophet.

“I think we’re done here,” Sebastian says quietly, his eyes still fixed on that one embroidered seam at your waist where your bodice meets your skirt.

“Of course,” Mr. Hill agrees. “Let’s get you out of that crinoline so I can send you two lovebirds on your way for a nice Butterbeer or two!”

As he babbles on about how it’s just like the last time the two of you came into his shop together, you meet Sebastian’s gaze and realize both of you are steadfastly refusing to correct the man. You know that you’re blushing, but seeing him blush just as fiercely is quite revealing.

After you pay Mr. Hill and make plans for Otto to deliver the dress to the castle once the storm lets up, you and Sebastian wordlessly trudge down to Sirona’s lively pub. There you manage to snag a small booth in one of the far corners – one that you’re well aware is a popular spot for snogging.

“So…” he says softly. “Lovebirds, are we now?”

“Don’t start,” you warn him. “You know how Augustus is, it’s usually just better to let him talk than spend all afternoon trying to correct him.”

“You didn’t even try,” he observes.

You counter, “Nor did you.”

Just then Sirona drops off your drinks and Sebastian forfeits his turn in your verbal duel by taking a pointedly long sip.

Then you forfeit your own turn when you get too distracted by the bit of Butterbeer foam on his upper lip to offer anything remotely witty.

“Well, regardless,” Sebastian eventually murmurs. “You did look beautiful in that dress.”

“Thank you,” you say. “And you were very handsome in your robes.”

“Proper fit, one might say,” he retorts.

The cheek, honestly.

“Sebastian,” you say quietly. “I need you to be honest with me about something.”

“Go on,” he says, taking another long sip while you consider your words.

Slowly, you ask him, “Since we met… have you ever once thought about us being more than just friends?”

“Have I ever once thought about it?” he repeats. “Of course I have. Countless times, probably”

“Then why haven’t you ever said anything?” you ask, staring deep into your mug to avoid having to meet his eyes.

You flinch slightly when Sebastian reaches across the table and plucks one of your hands off your mug. He laces his fingers with yours and pulls you closer, and the noise in the room seems to dwindle to a whisper as he meets your gaze.

“Between you and me, you’ve always been the brave one,” he tells you earnestly. “And I’d rather have only friendship with you than ask for too much and lose you entirely. Believe it or not I have learned when to stop.”

You smile ruefully at the reminder of just how much Sebastian has grown since you chose to give him the chance to do so.

He drags his thumb across yours. “So, if you want to be brave, I’ll be brave with you.”

You exhale shakily before you finally confess, “Of course I want to, Seb.”

You’re nearly in his lap at this point, and there’s absolutely no way the conversation you’re having could be interpreted as merely friendly by any onlookers. So, you think, why not be brave?

When you kiss him, the first thing you notice is that he tastes like the caramelly richness of the Butterbeer you’d both been drinking. But then it melts away and it’s just him, just Sebastian. He’s wonderfully warm, and underneath the initial sweetness he tastes a bit like the fluxweed stem he mindlessly chews on while he studies to help him focus.

His nose slots against yours as he tilts his head to kiss you deeper, and you wonder what he’s noticing about you.

But a moment later, the feeling of his warm hand on your thigh immediately makes you lose your train of thought.

“Seb,” you whisper, pulling back just enough to press your forehead to his.

“Let’s go back to the castle,” he blurts out eagerly.

You fondly roll your eyes and let him steal another kiss before you push him back with a gentle hand on his chest.

“I believe you just said something about having learned when to stop?” you tease him.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he says cheekily.

“You’re just going to have to be patient, Mister Sallow,” you insist as you reach for your drink. “I thought I saw quite the gentleman in you today. I don’t suppose you could act like him until after the ball?”

“I could,” he offers. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Tell you what,” you bargain, leaning in close. “If you can be a perfect gentleman from now until the ball, I’ll let you help me put my dress on, and then afterward I’ll let you take it off.” 

You hear him loudly swallow and take a deep breath before he holds out a hand for you to shake and breathes, “You have yourself a deal, love.”

[marzipanandminutiae]

i just reblogged that post about saying nice things abt prev but i wanna send an ask too, so: thank you for being one of the only people to be correct about the winchester mystery house and sarah herself!! so many people spread the stories of her being weird/crazy/whatever when she was just. a woman who suffered some tragedies and liked architecture.

i went on a tour of graceland recently and was intrigued by how they barely talked about elvis as a person, whereas winchester tours are basically a trap where you think you're getting to explore a weird fucked up house but actually you're going to hear about how wonderful sarah winchester was for an hour and if you say anything mean about her design skills one of the tour guides will push you out the door to nowhere.

i go through your winchester tag sometimes when i'm nostalgic and missing the house (i got laid off during quarantine) and it's just nice to see that even people who didn't devote years of their lives to the house can genuinely understand and appreciate it.

I'm so glad it's gotten better! Someone once anonymously told me the guides had to sign a contract saying they would only stick to the story made up by that ridiculous carnie family that bought her house in the 1920s, and even though it was an anon and therefore unverifiable...I believe it, sadly. For Profits often are more about...well, profit. As opposed to history. But it's good to know the guides care about getting the truth out there.

In Sarah Winchester I see a woman whose character assassination for being different(tm) has carried on after death. It's not that she was perfect- far be it from me to lay perfection at the feet of a white 19th-century gun fortune heiress -but she seems like a genuinely caring person in many ways, about her workers and her community. She was an unattached woman of means with an unconventional hobby (architecture), though, and that seems to have made wagging tongues nervous. During her lifetime that meant claiming she thought she'd live forever if construction never ceased (it did, several times), and after- well. The tale of the mad widow fleeing from invisible ghosts has come to prevail.

It feels unfair to me that she should forever be remembered by what her detractors said about her, instead of her own triumphs and setbacks, merits and flaws. And that her beautiful house, where she poured so much love and attention, should be so misrepresented. I'm glad people are trying to fix the narrative.

[regicidal-defenestration]

The housing market might be depressing but at least we have sort by > highest price

[nervosims]

I've been on a downloading spree. im dedicated. I've decided to start up a bacc and the theme is edwardian steampunk cowboys

[caterpillarinacave]

[kieren-fucking-walker]

It is so fucking cold.

[tvickiesims]

Functional 4-tile Gates And Matching Fences

This is a set of 3 functional 4-tile gates and matching fences converted from Sims 4.

Absolutely Marbleous:

Iron Victorian:

Estate:

The gates function as normal gates: make a cutout in fence, are lockable and are also animated (a big thank you goes to @pforestsims for making it possible by editing the animation skeleton and to @episims for adjusting the routing).

The last wrought iron gate/fence set is converted from here (selected colors only).

Compressed, clearly labelled, picture and collection file are included.

🔑🚫👉🏼Download at SFS👈🏼🚫🔑

UPDATE 30/10/2024

This project turned into a collab! With @pforestsims making the gates animate and @episims adjusting the routing, we now have fully functioning 4 tile gates. Thank you guys! 💐(the post's text was adjusted to reflect this update, the archive was updated too)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Today's WTF house is a once-beautiful 1920 Victorian that was converted into an office in Charlottesville, Virginia. It has 3bd, 2 partial baths, and they're selling it as a residence for $1.8M. Outrageous.

Walk in the front door and you've already got an office exit sign.

The original railing is there, and the floor looks original. They stripped and lightened all the wood, which I'm sure cost them a lot.

If there was ever any crown molding in the sitting room, it's gone. The walls and ceiling are plain modern and I can see a reception window on the left.

I don't know what this is, but walls were definitely taken down b/c this is the 2nd fl. where the bedrooms were. Looks like those blue structures are built-in and I hate the lighting. Clearly cats work here- those have to be cat towers.

They say that it has 3 bds, but I think they mean HAD, b/c this is all that's left of them.

One of the powder rooms. I like the fixtures, and it's ADA compliant.

I would venture to say that the boardroom may have been the kitchen &/or dining room. It's completely remodeled & modernized, and there's no kitchen.

The sink in the other powder room.

The patio outside the boardroom. Garden is overgrown, but there's potential.

Driveway beside the house leads to a parking area.

I don't know WTH this is. Maybe it's a sound deadening structure for the train behind it?

Aerial view. The yard is big, so there's potential, but the price is prohibitive at $1.8M.

[whereserpentswalk]

People don't realize how liminal it is to be a time traveler. How you don't ever really feel like you're in the time you are. Even when you're in your own time, everything is off, your coat was something you bought in interwar France, the book you're reading on the train is from a bookstore you had to visit in Victorian London, even your necklace was given to you by a Neolithic shaman, from a culture the rest of the world can never know. You find yourself acting strange even when in the present, much less in the past you have to work in.

You remember meeting a eunuch in 10th century China, and having him be one of the only people smart and observant enough to realize you were from a diffrent time. You could talk honestly with him, though still you couldn't reveal too much about your time. And it was still so strange hearing him talk casually about work and mention plotting assassinations. You're not allowed to but you still visit him sometimes.

You remember that the few times you were allowed to tell someone everything it was tragic. You knew a young woman who lived in Pompeii, who you had gotten close to, a few days before she would inevitably die. On your last day there you looked into her eyes, knowing soon they'd be stone and ash, that the beauty of her hair would be washed away by burning magma. And you hugged her, and told her that you wanted her to be safe, and told her she was wonderful and that you wanted her to be comfortable and happy. And you let her tongue know the joy of 21st century chocolate, and her eyes see the beauty of animation, knowing she deserved to have those joys, knowing it wouldn't matter soon. And you hugged her the last time, and told her she deserved happiness. And when you left without taking her it was like you were killing her yourself.

You want to take home everyone you're attached to. There's a college student you befriended in eighteen fifties Boston. And you can't help but see him try to solve problems you know humanity is centuries away from solving. And you just want to tell him. And it's not just that, the way he talked about the books and plays he likes, his sense of humor. There's so many people you want him to meet.

You feel the same way about a young woman you met on a viking age longship. She tells stories to her fellow warriors and traders, stories that will never fully get written down, stories that she tells so uniquely and so well. She has so many great ideas. You want so dearly to take her to somewhere she can share her stories, or where she can take classes with other writers, where she can be somewhere safe instead of being out at sea. She'll talk about wanting to be able to do something, or meet people, and you know you're so close to being able to take her, but you never can, unless she accidently finds out way too much then you can't.

You remember the longship that you met that young storyteller on. You were there before, two years ago for you, ten years later for the people on it. The young woman who told you stories wasn't there ten years later, you had been told why then but you only realize now, her uncle, who ran the ship, had been one of the first people to convert to Christianity in his nation. He killed her, either for not converting or for sleeping with women, you're not sure, but he killed her, and bragged about it when you met him ten years later.

You talk to the storyteller on the longship, ask her about the myths you're there to ask her about, the myths that she loves to tell. You look into her eyes knowing it's probably less then a year until her uncle takes her life. You ask her if you think that those who die of murder go to Valhalla. She tells you she hopes not, she doesn't see Valhalla as a gift but as a duty, she hopes for herself to go to Hel, where she wouldn't have to fight anymore. You slip and admit you're talking about her, telling her that you hope that's where she goes when she's killed. You hope to yourself you'll be forced to take her to the twenty first century, you're tempted even to make it worse, you want to have ruined her enough to be able to save her.

[rallamajoop]

So why are there so many gay vampires?

From the time of Carmilla all the way up to the works of Anne Rice (a universe that seems to get only less subtle as the years go on), gay vampires have been a thing basically as long as anyone was writing about vampires. Lesbian vampires have been a genre all their own for decades. Bram Stoker, author of the most famous vampire novel ever written, was gay himself. So why vampires specifically?

I’ve seen people attempt to answer this one before, and there are all sorts of contributing factors I could point to here, from the genres’ beginnings with Lord Byron (infamous bisexual disaster fuckboy), to modern discourse about why queer folks so often find themselves identifying with the monsters and outcasts of fiction. Few other monsters besides vampires can so easily pass for ‘normal’, or are nearly so well known for their snappy dress sense and ‘unnatural cravings’ for human flesh. And that’s without even getting into all those skeezy outdated stereotypes casting queer people as predators, or the idea that even one ‘gay experience’ could somehow ‘convert’ you into being one yourself.

But to my mind, there’s just one really important thing that makes vampires so gay, and it’s the same thing that makes them sexy in the first place: plausible deniability.

You see, a vampire’s bite is simultaneously a) ridiculously sexual, and b) not even a little bit sexual at all.

You don’t have to look far for vampire canons where there’s nothing sexy about being bitten by a vampire. Bloody, violent, painful, sure ‒or just clinically miserable, human bodies torn open or hung up to drain like a human blood bag. What’s sexy about getting bitten by a mosquito, or a fecking leech? The diet of the actual vampire bat requires it to process so much water that it apparently spends mealtimes busily pissing out the difference, and the anti-coagulants in its saliva leave the wound bleeding messily long after it’s gone. The basic act of feeding is no more inherently sexual for a vampire than it is for a zombie.

Vampires are even a surprisingly acceptable monster to market to children. There’s a vampire muppet, a cartoon about a vampire duck, and a whole series of books about a vampire rabbit. You can put a vampire on the side of a cereal box without undue outrage. Vampires do not have to be R-rated for sex or violence.

So of course vampires will go after victims of the same sex. Do you stop to inquire whether the cow you’re eating was male or female? It’s all just predator and prey!

Until it’s everything but.

Do not let the ‘vampires aren’t supposed to be sexy!’-purists fool you. The tradition of sexy vampires goes all the way back to the oldest folklore, where the first victim of a newly-risen vampire was often their still-living spouse. Vampires were even occasionally known to get women pregnant (a convenient excuse for any widow who might turn up pregnant slightly too many months after their husband's death). The ‘original��� Nosferatu sounds more like an incubus than the naked mole-rat creature they made that movie about. The demon lover aspect of the vampire has been there all along.

And it’s not hard to imagine why. If someone is biting and sucking on your neck, then either they’re a vampire, or they’re well on the way to second base (other folklore has its vampires feed directly from their victim’s heart, which is scarcely less suggestive). The implications of an exchange of bodily fluids were never subtle, even in Stoker’s day (I'm looking at you, Lucy-with-the-three-husbands), and the vampire as a sexual predator was a popular literary device well before Stoker's time. Beautiful vampire women would seduce men to their demise, and the males of the species might visit the bedroom of some innocent maiden time and again. The Victorian obsession with mesmerism, meanwhile, provided the perfect explanation for how victims might be hypnotised into eager compliance, and perhaps not even remember being fed upon at all. Vampires have been the ultimate guilt-free sexual fantasy since way back in the day, compatible with all your awkward Victorian mores! (Not quite ready to admit they're sexual fantasies? No problem: he's just here to, y'know, suck on your neck a bit. No subtext here!)

The whole act of biting is so suggestive that in the early years of vampire cinema, it wasn’t shown at all, not even between opposite-sex participants. The camera of 1922’s Nosferatu maintains a demure distance during the climactic scene where the heroine is finally bitten and slowly drained of blood, and Universal’s Dracula conveniently fades to black or cuts away whenever it’s about to take place. But even if the biting has to take place off screen, who’s to say a vampire isn’t going to pick victims of both sexes?

The stately tradition of the lesbian vampire has cinematic examples going all the way back to 1936, with Universal’s Dracula’s Daughter. Though the titular vampire has a nominal male love interest – a psychologist who naively advises her to confront her temptations without fear – the result of his advice is a famous sequence where she picks up a young woman under the premise of wanting an artist's model, and convinces her to remove her top. No actual biting or nudity is shown (it was only 1936), but her fate is left in little doubt.

By the era of 70’s sexploitation, all such subtlety had been abandoned. If we’re all good with naked boobs, who’s going to be offended by a little biting?

In fact, when it comes to men rather than women, a vampire bite was, for many years, far too sexy to be shown, or even alluded to. Nosferatu clearly feeds on that film’s Jonathan-expy, but our only evidence is the bitemarks on his neck in the morning, and the final sacrifice to defeat the evil monster must naturally be female. Universal’s Dracula had to ignore explicit studio mandate that only the brides should be allowed to feed on their own Jonathan-equivalent, as to even imply that Dracula himself had fed upon a man was obviously far too homoerotic to contemplate (never mind that it’s Dracula who must be established as the threat in this opening sequence, or that it’s Dracula his victim will spend the rest of the film obsessed with).

But in that unspeakable land of male-on-male homoeroticism, you might be surprised how much homo we can squeeze in even without resorting to fangs-in-necks. The Lost Boys is surely one of the most homoerotic vampire films ever made, but there, the one big blood-drinking scene is rendered in a bloody massacre of slasher-movie violence. And though Anne Rice certainly describes the scene where Lestat drains Louis of blood in lurid detail (and even has them spend their first sunrise together sharing a coffin), Louis is already thoroughly seduced before he ever reaches this point.

You see, the lore of the pop-cultural vampire conveniently comes with a second and equally-compelling target for plausible deniability: the act of making a new vampire.

Obviously, to work, this has to be deliberate. A world where anyone bitten by a vampire becomes one hasn’t much to offer us, and the relationship between maker and fledgling can just as easily be framed as parental, as recruitment into a cult, or purely transactional. But whichever way you twist it, the implications of choosing another to share in your own eternal youth and immortality… like, I don’t have to spell this one out for you, do I? Did I mention how that thing where a vampire’s traditional first victim tended to be their own mortal widow goes all the way back?

But if we’re not ready to be completely obvious with our mainstream audience, some alternative explanation can always be provided for cover. Lestat doesn’t really want Louis, he just wants Louis’ money! (He also really wants Louis.) The Lost Boys just want Michael to join their gang! (Their very, very pretty gang, who swan around in mesh shirts, tank tops and assless chaps.)

The two sides of the vampire-deniability coin aren’t mutually exclusive, either. Carmilla drinks her new paramour’s blood, but also gazes into her eyes while promising her you will be mine. Drinking blood is a key part of making a new vampire in so many vampire stories, after all.

Carmilla isn’t even the only gay vampire story of the Victorian era. I recently posted about two other fascinating examples, both featuring male/male pairings: one being pretty much just a gender-flipped version of Carmilla, and the other a tragic love story filled with significant "vampire = gay lover" metaphors (why oh why must the townsfolk keep us apart, when we’ll only ever be happy once we’re united once more?) This stuff goes surprisingly far back.

In fact, you can find queer subtext in vampire fiction that predates even Byron and Polidori. 1819's The Vampyre was the first published vampire story, yes, but the first known work of vampire-fiction in the English language is a poem published by John Stagg in 1810, also called The Vampyre (look, the genre didn’t exist yet, you didn’t have to be creative with your titles).

In brief, Stagg’s poem recounts a conversation between a wife (Gertrude) and her dying husband (Herman), whose dear friend Sigismund, lately deceased and deeply mourned, has returned as a vampire. Night after night, he crawls into Herman’s room to drain his blood. Herman’s fate is already sealed, but unless Gertrude takes action, it will surely be she that Herman will take as his own first victim when he rises from the grave.

There may be nothing intentional about the queer subtext of this tale. A vampire’s victims often include friends he knew in life, as Stagg himself cites in his introduction. But if Herman’s first victim will be his wife, what are we to read about the fact Sigismund’s first victim is Herman? Especially given how long he’s kept secret from poor Gertrude that his dear ‘friend’ has been climbing into his bedroom each night, lying beside him in bed and sucking and draining "the fountain of my heart!" while Herman moans and tosses (in pain, obviously!), always leaving him "exhausted, spent." Ultimately, Gertrude is saved only when both Herman and Sigismund are staked through the heart, and we close on the image of them slumbering together in the tomb.

It is, however you turn it, pretty gay.

I reiterate: this is the very first known work of vampire fiction written in the English language. The second was the one that was kind-of-written-by, kind-of-stolen-from, and unambiguously based on bisexual-disaster-fuckboy Lord Byron. And the two most influential works of vampire fiction of the next hundred years would be Carmilla, the very lesbian vampire story written by a… presumably straight man? And Dracula, the not-completely-convincingly-hetero story written by #1 Walt Whitman fanboy Bram Stoker. Vampires have always been very equal-opportunity kind of monsters.

There are, of course, plenty of influential heterosexual vampire tales to fill out the roster too. Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful from the 1840s, was so successful it ran for over 200 chapters. The 1960s had their own wildly successful Varney-equivalent in the soap opera Dark Shadows. Love it or hate it, we really can't ignore Twilight either. My own introduction to the genre was Christopher Pike’s The Last Vampire series, which came out alongside the original Vampire Diaries novels. So there's plenty of material around to keep the straights entertained – and honestly, that’s only as it should be, because the very thing that makes vampires so queer-friendly is that the sex of their victims doesn’t matter. And it’s so easy to make vampires sexy (let alone a full vampire-proposal!) that even the Victorians could do it.

Now, if your reaction to all this theorising is to tell me "but the LGBTQ’s shouldn’t have to hide behind plausible deniability!" I can only counter, "well sure, but why should the straights have all the fun?" Because playing with all the ambiguity of "is this monster really just after my blood or is this going somewhere?" can be all sorts of fun, regardless of the genders involved. And as long as they’re up for exchanging bodily fluids with persons-and-or-victims of either gender equally, why not have some fun with it?

So, okay, maybe the real title of this post should have been "why are there so many pansexual vampires?" But the answer doesn’t change. Vampires have been the bisexual disaster fuckmonsters for as long as anyone’s been writing about vampires, and have been a metaphor allowing people publish barely-coded gay attraction since 1872. And much like the queer community, they’ve only become more complex, more sympathetic, and all the more popular as romantic paramours as the years have gone by.

[hancyan]

World Downloads(Added information about rabbithole rug).

Hi everyone!　First of all, I must apologize. Regarding my previous post about "Victorian Sunset Valley", I deleted it because there was a problem with the save file. There is no problem with the empty world.

I'm really sorry to all the simmers who downloaded, liked, reblogged and commented.

It seems that the problem can be solved by separating the save files, so I decided to share it again. There are no changes to the empty world, so if you have it, please try again.

❖Empty World There are just a Public Lots, a Farm District, and Goth Manor.The two hilltop mansions don't exist yet. This is Sunset Valley long before Mortimer Goth was born.If there is a historic town you have in mind, you are free to build it here.

※An empty world requires the store item "Artemis Temple Frieze (Muse Luxury)".

❖Save files You can enjoy the Victorian era right away, but there are no film careers, universities, or diving spots. There are a few empty plots, so feel free to add them.

This time, I did not build any houses. I only built some public lots, but I changed the color of the buildings I shared before and placed them. The Equestrian Center of EA is very conspicuous, so I built a small racetrack. There is a fire station of EA next to it, but it does not blend in with the scenery very well, so I am thinking of rebuilding it someday.

The address of @ri-el's Sherlock Holmes residence is 221B Baker Street. I wanted to place this residence on the main street, so I set the lot size specifically. Then I placed the lot built by @nornities to match the cafe next door and the stairs leading to the harbor across the road. The harbor is a bit of a tourist area, with trade ships, sightseeing ships, and passenger ships arriving and departing. Some Sims may come to see the steamships, so I prioritized placing it here. There are also lots of great builds by other creators included. Thank you.

Every house has some sort of vehicle (either a horse-drawn carriage or a historic bicycle), and the sight of so many carriages going around town is truly impressive!

It looks heavy, but if you can play the EA Store worlds then I don't think it will be an issue.

Basically, it is a town for enjoying historical play such as the Victorian or Edwardian, but I think it can also be enjoyed in normal play.

The decoration is minimal, so feel free to edit it however you like and have fun.

Residential 38　Community 40　Empty ８

Please download the carriage from below.

@barnacleboots

Two-Horse Carriage conversion

The new carriage is here too.(I'll advertise it)

@danjaley

Schoolbus Default and Driveable Wagon

Car Default Replacements

❖World (It remains "Sunset Valley Empty" because it has not been renamed.)

❖Save files

❖CC (Please be sure to download the "patterns" in the folder via the launcher.)

❖Store Content (You probably already have many of these. Use only what you don't have.) ⚠ If the store items you own are not reflected, try this.

※Sorry. To ensure a reliable download, they are separated.

Required

Every hilltop amusement park needs a boardwalk rollercoaster.

All EPs except ITF

Requires Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Midnight Hollow, Aurora Skies,Dragon Valley, and Roaring Heights.

You need a rabbithole rug.(Bookstore, Theater, Spa, Diner，Business ,Chemistry)If you don't have the same one, replace it with what you have.

Thanks

Thank you for your kind words and advice, and for downloading and playing the town.@samkat10423

Long test play@ayaka-nonno

@nornities was kind enough to answer my beginner's questions.

And, even though you're busy, @yorithesims checked the final folder.

@blamseastore for converting and providing us with store content

CC Credit notation

Mutske, Around the Sims3, LunaSimsLulamai, mammut, armiel, Lisen801, LilyOfTheValley, MARTA'S SIMSBOOK, omedapixel, Cyclonesue, Awesims, Mspoodle, douglasveiga Thank you for the wonderful CC.

And especially a huge thanks to Sookielee at Custom Sims 3 for making the Sunset Valley CAW files available.

Anyway, some simmers, including @enjoji101, were concerned and encouraged me. And they asked me to share this town. I originally created this world for myself, but if there is even one simmer who is interested in this town and wants to play, I would be very honored and grateful. And I would like to make that wish come true. Thank you very much. I love you all.

※If you have any questions, please send me a message. (I would appreciate it if you could speak simple English. )

Have a smashing time! 

@pis3update @sssvitlanz @kpccfinds

[marzipanandminutiae]

You Didn't Do Enough Geographical Research For That Movie/TV Show, a game I love

The Handmaid's Tale: when June and Moira are trying to escape the Red Center, they mention trying to get into downtown Boston. but the subway station they enter has a sign that says "ARLINGTON" being removed. there IS an Arlington, Massachusetts outside the city- but it doesn't have a subway station. the real Arlington Station is in the middle of the Back Bay...in downtown Boston

The Handmaid's Tale again: Moira and Emily are comparing notes on the gay scene in Boston, and Moira says Emily seems "like a Somerville kind of girl" and mentions her going to Club Cafe in the same breath. Club Cafe, a well-known Boston gay bar, is also in the Back Bay, and Somerville is a suburb north of the city

Also The Handmaid's Tale: there are way too many hyper-modern buildings for that to believably look like the Boston area. I get that they filmed this in Toronto, but they could at least...TRY to make it look like the city it's set in? probably more than half of the buildings here are pre-1920s. June and Luke apparently live in Somerville- they take the Red Line, so I'm guessing around Davis? but their apartment is once again super-modern. most apartments in that area are duplexes built around 1910-1920

Legally Blonde: Brooke apparently has a pool and a pool house while living on Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill is mostly row houses with very little outdoor space- while apparently some do have small and/or indoor pools, it's extremely unlikely for any to also have a pool house. there just isn't any room for it

Also Legally Blonde: that doesn't look like Cambridge. at all. come on, now

Legally Blonde again: 45 Dunster Street (not "Dunston" as they said in the movie), Cambridge, doesn't have a lawn or a long front drive. it's right on the street, with just a bit of sidewalk in front. it's also not a residential house- in 2001, it was the home of the Fly Club, an all-male Harvard social club

Brooklyn 99: at one point, a criminal's alibi is that he was at a nightclub in Cape May, New Jersey. Cape May is a very quiet family-friendly resort town, with lots of Victorian summer houses converted into BnBs. my dad's cousin used to own one; we went to visit her a few times. it's not a nightclub type of place at all

[tiarascrowns]

Late Victorian Opal and Diamond Tiara

"A late Victorian opal and diamond tiara/necklace, consisting of seven knife-edge gold bars graduating from the centre, each set with two round cabochon-cut opals and an old-cut diamond in-between, the bars connected with six diamond-set arches each arch with a diamond-trefoil and a round cabochon-cut opal within, terminating on each side with a small diamond and opal trefoil motif, the diamonds estimated to weigh 2.9 carats in total, all mounted in gold and silver, attached to silver-gilt tiara frame and accompanied by gold chain back section to convert to a necklace, circa 1890, measuring 4 x 14.5cm, gross weight 36.4 grams."

- 1st Dibs