#different to what I used to post on here sorry to any legacy followers :(((

[boomcrunch]

arrested for gay crimes

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

You can't hear it in the 'silence'... I have to get something off my chest

Sorry, this isn't going to be a fun post, but I've thought about it for a few days now, and I really need to get this off my chest if I want to continue talking about Taylor Swift in this space.

Reading Taylor's wrap up post for the London shows/European tour on Wednesday night filled me with relief, but left a bad aftertaste and I couldn't really put my finger on why, but it irked me so much that it kept me up all night. If you haven't seen, this was her post with the usual photo carousel:

So, finally, Miss Swift has found her voice addressing Vienna. And I don’t personally love the way she handled it, but I totally understand her reasoning and am aware that we have very different perceptions of danger given that home invasions and stalking are a frequent occurrence in her world, when that’s not something any of us have to fear.  And I thank Taylor, her team, and the Met Police for how incredibly safe the concerts felt, given the circumstances. But something has been bothering me about all of this, and it’s the way she addresses the ‘silence’.

Why is now the time she can finally “make something very clear”? Where was this when her creepy 'fans' swarmed and harassed her at Jack Antonoff's wedding last summer or when gaylors were told 8 times a day to off themselves following a simple NYT article? Yes, I’m disappointed. Because she can when she wants to. And the ‘restraint’ can sure feel like abandonment when people are hurting and nowhere is safe from Swifties… I doubt anybody really thought she doesn’t care or isn’t working hard to make the shows safe. But I have a question about that.

Why is my safety taken more seriously when I’m attending her concert than when my safe space online is being invaded by people telling me to go die? Twice in the last 8 months have I actually altered my behaviour because I felt distinctly unsafe as a gay woman in a Taylor Swift-related space. Why did it take such a scary event for that stadium to truly feel like a safe space for people to even show up wearing a pride flag as a cape , when back in June, I didn't feel safe enough to wear rainbow laces in my shoes. Because hate that turns into actual real life violence always starts online, and I just didn't want to risk it when people were calling for my public execution on social media mere months ago while Miss Taylor was yet again 'silent'....where was her ability to 'make something very clear' then? Was my safety, all of our collective safety, not important unless I've paid for a ticket to her show? Because I don't see the difference in what it would do to Taylor if even a single life was lost to excessive harassment and bullying by swifties versus if we got attacked at a stadium or during a dance class.

When you go on record saying you never want to be silent on important issues ever again, you can't act all annoyed when people subsequently expect you to say something when a fascist and convicted felon may be elected to government again, or queer people are being harassed within an inch of their lives in your name by your very fans. In the silence, actions speak louder than words and the legacy of a year of WAG Taylor catering to die hard conservative football fans and smiling in photographs with Tr*mp supporters (in an election year!) is really very scary. Those photos on the front of every newspaper may just be louder than any words she said five years ago (and no, performance art does not absolve anyone from that).

I'm all for thinking before speaking, but I don't want to feel like she's actively sending the bullies our way with her actions and verbal 'restraint'. I want to enjoy her art with the people in my community in a safe environment every day, not just when I'm coming to a stadium.

Since it's tour break, I'm also going to take a bit of a break from here, get some perspective, get my kids settled into a new school year. Maybe even try this dating in my 30s thing...(scary!). Have a good September, peeps! 😘

[queen-of-deans-booty]

As Time Goes By: Part Two

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Warnings: canon angst and violence

Author’s Note: I am so sorry I haven’t posted. I was sick with the flu and completely forgot about it. I will be posted both episodes now!

I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated.

Henry directs Dean where to go, and you get to an antiques and comic book store. Henry claims it used to be the place where the old Men of Letters used to be, but it's not that anymore. Henry seems sad as he touches the mark on the door that's faded.

"Alright, well, this was enlightening. Let's hit the road, huh?" Dean says impatiently.

"Give him a minute, Dean," you sigh.

"We just spent four hours driving, okay? All he did was stare out the window and request Pat Boone on the radio. He had his time."

"It's just a facade," Henry says, "a way to rook our enemies into believing we are housed elsewhere."

"Okay, enough with the decoder talk. How about you tell us what this whole 'Men of Letters' and 'Legacies' business is, or you're on your own."

"It's none of your concern."

"No, you don't get to do that," you approach him from behind. "You don't get to tell us we're legacies and then not tell us why we are. Is this because we're hunters? What do you have against hunters?"

"Aside from the unthinking, unwashed, shoot-first-and-don't-bother-to-ask-questions-later part, not much, really."

"No, fuck this. We're also John's children," Sam says.

"You're more than that, actually. My father and his father before him were both Men of Letters, as John and you two should have been. Your mother and her mother and her mother before her were witches that were super powerful, as you should also be. We're preceptors, beholders, and chroniclers of all that which man does not understand. We share our findings with a few trusted hunters--the very elite. They do the rest."

"Okay, but if you guys were such a big deal, then why haven't we--or anyone we know--ever heard of you?"

"Abaddon."

Henry opens the door to the comic bookstore and walks inside. You take Joanna out of her car seat and grab her hand before following Henry inside. This place is small but it has a very homey feel to it. If you were someone who was into comic books, then you would feel safe here.

"Henry. Why? Why'd she do it?" Sam asks, catching up to him.

"I think for this."

Henry holds up a brown box with the same symbol that was faded on the door.

"What is that?"

"I wish I knew." He places the box back into his pocket. "Abaddon attacked us the night of my final initiation. All secrets were to be revealed then."

"Let me get this straight. You traveled through time to protect something that you don't know what it does from a demon you know nothing about?" Henry stares at Dean before heading deeper into the store. "Great."

"Hand me your... walkie-talkie," Henry demands of Sam.

"You mean my phone?"

"Even better." Sam hands over his phone, and Henry places the end of the phone to his mouth. "Operator, I need Delta 457."

"Who are you not calling?" you ask.

"Our emergency number."

"Yeah, not like that, you aren't."

You grab the phone and hand it back to Sam.

"They can't all be gone. There must be another elder out there who can help us figure out how to stop Abaddon and what to do with the box."

There is a young woman at the counter with a laptop in front of her, and Dean slinks up to the counter with a smile.

"Hi, could we hijack your computer for a minute?"

"Like you could fit a computer in this room," Henry laughs.

"Times are different, Henry. Shush."

"Sure."

The woman hands over the laptop, and Dean moves out of the way to let Sam do his thing on the computer.

"Give me the name of anybody who might have been there that night. One of those elders."

"David Ackers. Larry Ganem. Um, Ted--"

"Here it is," Sam cuts him off. "August 12, 1958. A tragic fire at a gentlemen's club at 242 Gaines Street."

"This is 242 Gaines Street. There was no fire."

"Larry Ganem, David Ackers, Ted Bowen, and Albert Magnus are all among the deceased."

"Albert Magnus."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"Even better," Henry grins.

You didn't know that Henry needed to go to the cemetery. It's past Joanna's bedtime, but Henry really needs to dig up one of his friends for a reason you're not sure of. Joanna is sleeping in Dean's arms peacefully, not minding that she isn't in a bed. You would have stayed with her in a motel room, but you're scared that Abaddon would come for you. You know nothing about her, so you don't know of her weakness.

"These were my friends, my mentors, our last defense against the Abaddons of the world," Henry shines his flashlight on the headstones.

"Here's your buddy Albert Magnus."

"Albertus Magnus was hardly a buddy. He was the greatest alchemist of the middle ages."

"Why is he buried here?"

"He's not. His was the alias we'd use when going incognito. I believe someone planted his name in that article... so that if a Man of Letters came looking for answers, he'd know something was amiss."

"Someone wanted you to come to this grave. Why?"

Dean shines his flashlight on the grave and sees a unicursal hexagram symbol, which is carved into the headstone.

"What is this?"

"Our crest. The Aquarian Star represents great magic and power. They say it stood at the gates of Atlantis itself."

"It's on all of the tombstones except for Larry Ganem's."

Henry kneels in front of the headstone which has a different symbol carved into it.

"This is the Haitian symbol for speaking to the dead. This is the message. Have you three ever exhume a body?"

"I got this," you say and walk in front of the brothers.

You want to give them a break from digging up since Henry doesn't look like the kind of person who would do the dirty work. Joanna is sleeping in Dean's arms, and you don't want to wake her. Instead, you opt to use your magic since there is no way you're digging.

Your eyes shine blue as your magic encompasses the area around the grave. With one palm facing the ground, you lift your other hand, causing the ground to shake. The dirt lifts into the air, and you move it off to the side. You repeat this process until the grave is completely dug, exposing the coffin perfectly.

"You truly have no idea just how powerful you really are," Henry says in admiration.

"What do you mean?"

All Henry does is shake his head in amazement. Sam and Dean shrug, but you step off to the side to let Sam jump into the grave to open the coffin. Sam opens the top and peers inside, his face scrunching up in confusement. There is a skeleton inside wearing a suit.

"Was Larry a World War I vet?"

"No."

"Then who the hell is in his coffin?"

"No idea."

"Maybe Larry survived the attack. He has someone else placed in his coffin so that everyone thinks he is dead. If everyone thinks he's dead, he's safe from Abaddon and everything that comes with her. Maybe he's living this guy's life. Who is he?" you ask.

"Captain Thomas J. Cary III."

"Okay. What are we waiting for, then? Cover this up. Let's be on our way."

Henry walks off back to the car, and you roll your eyes in annoyance. Sam jumps out of the grave after placing the top of the coffin back on, and you use your magic to put the dirt back inside the hole. Once you're done, you three follow Henry back to the car.

You need intel on this guy, so you need to head back to the motel room and do some research. When you walk in the door, Dean heads to the main bedroom area in the other room and lays Joanna down on his bed. She hasn't woken up at all, so you know she will sleep throughout the night.

You, Sam, and John take the chairs at the table, and when Dean emerges from the bedroom, he pulls up a chair next to you. Sam is reading John's journal, John is just twiddling his thumbs and whistling "As Time Goes By", and you're using Sam's laptop. Dean takes a seat next to you and takes over on the laptop, not that you're complaining.

"What is that? I know that tune."

"'As Time Goes By'. It's from Casablanca."

"Right. Dad used to whistle it from time to time."

"Your father saw 'Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy' at the drive-in one night. It scared the beeswax out of him. So, I got him this little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night. It worked like a charm."

"Wow, it's hard to believe Dad was ever scared of anything," Sam chuckles.

"Hey, according to county records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is a very happy 127-year-old," Dean says, getting back on track. "I say we get some shut-eye and head over first thing in the morning."

"Wait, listen to this. According to Dad's journal, he once tortured a demon that said he made his bones working for Abaddon, who is a Knight of Hell."

"What does that mean?" you ask.

"Knights of Hell are hand-picked by Lucifer himself. They are of the first-fallen, first-born demons."

"So, very pure and very strong," Sam confirms.

"Legend has it that Archangels had killed all of them, which, as we have witnessed, is not the case. Unless she's the last of her kind."

"Wait, let's sidetrack for a second here. You're keeping me in the dark, Henry. What did you mean by how powerful I can be, and what legacy do I come from?"

"Have you ever heard of the Sapphire Witch?"

"No."

"Legend has it that the Sapphire Witch has control over Order Magic, which is the opposite of Chaos Magic. You can do anything you set your mind to. The Sapphire Witch can bend reality to her image. I've never seen a Sapphire Witch at her peak, but I know they exist. The Men of Letters have kept records of them dating back generations. I'm truly shocked you haven't heard of this. Your mother was a sapphire witch, and your grandmother was one. She was one of my good friends."

"I can't believe this," you whisper, trying to process this information.

You're the Sapphire Witch? Will Joanna and Maryann be one too? What does this mean for your magic? What sides have you yet to unlock?

"You say that belonged to your father?" Henry moves on to John's journal. "May I?"

Sam slides the journal over to Henry.

"It's a hunter's journal. I assume the Men of Letters used journals, too?"

"I intended to. I sent away for one the day before my initiation." He opens the journal and sees pictures Dean has stashed in there. He moves them to reveal a "HW" stamped in the leather. "As a matter of fact, judging by my initials here, this one, I believe."

"This was yours?"

"It must have arrived after... I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?"

"We don't know for sure. All we do know is that Dad never saw you again."

"What did he think happened to me?"

"He thought you ran out on him."

"John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the Letters," Henry sighs sadly.

"Well, he learned things a little differently."

"How?"

"The hard way. Surviving a lonely childhood and a fucking war only to get married and have his wife taken by a demon... Then, later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn. You know what? He kept going, and in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad."

"Debatable," you blurt.

Dean and Sam's head snap to you, and you press your lips together. Dean scoffs and gets up, slamming the laptop shut. He grabs his jacket and his keys with the intent on leaving alone.

"I'm sorry. I wish I had been there for him."

"Yeah, it's a little late for that now, don't you think?"

"It's the price we pay for upholding great responsibility."

"Your responsibility was to your family, not some glorified book club!" Dean yells.

"I was a legacy. I had no choice."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

Dean walks out of the motel room and slams the door behind him. You let him leave alone since he needs time to cool down on his own. Sam decides this is a good time to get some sleep. He will take the other bed where Joanna is, and you and Dean will take the bed with Joanna while Henry will take the sofa couch.

It's just you and Henry at the table now, and you feel like this needs to be said.

"John wasn't a good father," you whisper to Henry. "The best he could have done for us was to take care of us when we needed him. The best he could have done was to move on after Mary died, but instead, he took me and his sons down with him."

You get up and head to the bedroom to get ready for bed. Dean doesn't come back for another hour, but when he does, everyone else is sleeping. Dean tiptoes past Henry and into the bedroom where you and Sam are asleep. He takes off his shoes and gets into bed next to Joanna so that she is between you and Dean.

You stay like that until the morning, but when you wake up, Henry is gone.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

My Apology.

//If you follow this blog, especially if you’re a follower who was around yesterday, then I ask nicely you take the time to listen to me.

//To get straight to the point, I’m here because I want to apologize.

//For those who are unawares, yesterday, I discovered that Tumblr had made the absolute god awful mistake of forcing me to use their god awful new post editor for asks. Before I went on a three week break, I was allowed to use the legacy editor for my asks, thus I wasn’t weighed down by any of the issues that the new editor brings. I have a long list of problems with it, and depending on how things go, I might make a post tonight about it.

//Me and the new editor don’t get along, and my problems go very deep underwater. Bottom line is I think changing the post editor to what it has now become since the legacy editor, mainly with the uncomfortable UI, different ways of posting images, and of course the image limit, is frankly an idiotic decision that I am furious about.

//And if you were around yesterday you would know that, because I said something really shitty yesterday.

//I still have access to the legacy, unlimited editor for Tumblr in the regular post asks, and I’m hoping it remains that way because, as someone who has been on Tumblr for years now, writing this story that has become a huge part of my life, so I have the right to keep the old editor. But if the people at staff decide to turn around and remove the right to use it from me, blocking me from using Legacy Editor ever again, I threatened that I would never ever use their website again, and Danganronpa Survivor would end before it’s time.

//I ended up saying things like “my days on this platform are numbered” and junk. And I realized almost immediately after I finished answering asks last night that that was REALLY shitty of me.

//It didn’t occur to me just how much some of you love this story and my work. And the fact that I threatened to take that away from you just because of my issues with the new editor was just...straight up wrong of me.

//But it doesn’t end there, because I ended up bringing it to another blog too. You might have seen me ask on main from @a-student-out-of-time what the mods way of bypassing the editor limits was, and then grieve about it over there as well.

//So not only did I kick up a shitstorm, I brought said shitstorm to another blog who had absolutely no reason to be caught up in all of it.

//The good news is that the mods and people over on that server were really supportive. The main mod who runs the blog is a well put-together person and just gave me straight up facts that being defeatist isn’t going to solve anything. On top of that, the askers who know/follow both our blogs recognized that I’ve been through a lot lately, and that these changes don’t help.

//While that is true, that’s not an excuse.

//I don’t know if I ever openly talked about it before, though I don’t really try to hide it, but here’s a fun little fact about me that you might not have known before: I am autistic!

//And unlike some people, that’s never been something I’ve ever had a problem with. I LIKE being different, and I like having the weird, zany thoughts that I do, because without them, this blog wouldn’t be as special as it is to me or to you guys. But GOD it’s a pain in the ass to function as a normal human being sometimes and deal with my problems on my own.

//Sometimes I feel like I have a brain that’s two or three years younger than my body, and I’m prone to throwing temper tantrums and getting angry when things don’t go my way. And when I saw just how nervous and upset some of you were when I said the blog would be shutting down, it made me realize that, as always, I overreacted.

//And I hate that I acted like that. So I’m sorry to those people, I’m sorry to everyone in the ask box who follows me, and I’m sorry to ASooT’s audience too for dragging you into this.

//Maybe this apology is a little overblown and excessive for what it is; it’s not like I’ve killed a person or anything, but I still probably hurt a lot of people’s feelings and upset them, and I need to make it clear that I am remorseful for that.

//So let me make it clear now that DR Survivor IS NOT ENDING. I will do my absolute damndest to power throw the shitty editor, and if what I fear will happen happens, then I’ll figure something out. Either I’ll work around it, find someone who can bring the old editor back, or my safest bet - switching to an entirely new website. What that website is, I don’t know yet, but I’m preparing to find one just in case.

//However, should all else fail, Tumblr does plan to implement a subscription service that removes the image limit. I am willing to pay for that service to keep the blog running, but that’s not the only thing about the post editor that I dislike, so I don’t know what to do about it. I do have some time to decide though.

//That all being said, one last thing I want to make clear is that even if I wish to apologize for my behavior, that doesn’t mean my feelings towards the new editor have not changed. So if Tumblr staff by any chance are reading this post, I want to say this:

//I know you don’t care how any of us feel, and I know you still plan to “develop” your new editor more, but as I said in a previous post, you fucked up massively. Even if you want to develop the editor further, if the final product keeps the changes you’ve already made to it, then congrats. You’ve officially ruined your entire website FOREVER.

//And if I’m being honest, with the way I’ve seen the people in charge act about it; and not to point fingers and spout bullshit or anything, but...it seems to me like you KNOW your changes don’t benefit anyone, and for some reason, don’t actually seem to CARE?

//Maybe I’m wrong, but if I am, I really want to be proven wrong.

//Anyway, enough of that. I’ve said what I’ve needed to say and will finish off by just apologizing one more time. I am still going to write this story, even if it becomes all the more painful for me to do so.

//And in case this post hasn’t made it obvious, your support GREATLY matters to me. I write this blog, but you guys run it, and without you, I wouldn’t be here. So I will do whatever it takes to make sure you keep your content. And that this story continues for a while to come.

-Mod

[komajordan]

Fan-Director’s Cut #1 Nickelodeon All Star Brawl 2

Welcome here at PBM where I have a new series to help revitalize my activeness. Don’t worry my reviews aren’t going away this is just something new. Here at Fan-Director’s Cut I will try to either reworking pre-established titles in media or in this case making a sequel and figuring out how to expand upon it. Today we have Nickelodeon All Star Brawl a game which attempted to be another Smash-style platform fighter but once again I have to mention fell short with only a few pieces of post launch content.

Today this cut will be broken down to 2 categories since I’ve seen what other people said on the game and that’s pretty much the main problems people have.

1.Gameplay

2.Roster

Gameplay:

The mechanics being Smash-inspired should follow more into their footsteps. The most essential things we should add are a Side-Special and Final Specials. The Side Specials need to be added as those have been a Smash stable since Melee on the GameCube. And Final Specials are heavily associated with fighting games at this point that we need to add it for the sequel.

Cosmetics really need an overhaul. Every character only had one costume and an additional one post-launch. So I don’t care if it gets added later but at least 2 more costumes would at least make fighting dittos less confusing.

The modes would be Arcade Mode but the main difference I would have is that the beginning and end would have pictures and text of the character your playing as and what their purpose fighting is to show off the character’s backstories personalities a bit more.And speaking of that, can we have the dialogue exchanges actually make sense because pretty much every exchange involved an iconic quote that has nothing to do with the fight or the character their fighting and yeah we can do better.

Online Mode could honestly be the same not that much comes up in terms of problems besides glitches or mechanics that could be patched.

But I want to appeal more to the casual market more since hey this is a kids game we need some more casual content so I would add challenges centered around characters kinda like Smash 4 or Nick Kart Racers 3 with references or setups relating to the characters something as simple as defeat Shredder as Leonardo to something really obscure like Battle of the Dad’s between Nigel or Hugh something silly like that. That’s all I want to cover

Roster:

So this section is more inspired by Thorgi’s Arcade’s Build The Roster series and like with that series I want to be realistic with my options here. So the last game only had 22 characters and 3 post launch characters making that 25 so I think we should definitely go higher especially since other platform fighters like Multiversus are getting pretty close to reaching us. So I think the best solution to how many we should add is to look at GameMill’s other rosters in the Nick Kart Racers series. The first game had 12 characters, the second game had 30 characters, and the 3rd had 42 characters discounted the 2 DLC characters. So we increased by 18 and 12 which averages out to 15 so for this roster we will have 37 Characters. And there’s no need to cut anyone since everyone has a purpose being there like SpongeBob and Jenny where their fan favorites or characters like April or Oblina where they have their own fanbase to them or are liked by the competitive seen. So before we get into the actual roster I have to discuss what characters I couldn’t add due to copyright or whatever the case these characters can’t be added.

Honorable Mentions:

-Timmy Turner, Doug, and Henry & June(Kablam)- I get these characters are have a legacy with Nickelodeon and do have people who want them in but the problem these characters face is Disney. Yeah even Timmy being owned by Nirvana for seasons 1-5 of Fairly Odd Parents around the world so I’m sorry but they’re out and believe me none of this was biased.

Any of the Rugrats or Nick Jr. Characters- The main problem stems from how Nickelodeon probably won’t want to put preschool characters or toddler characters into a fighting game and someone might say for the Rugrats “Just use the All Grown Up versions” but if they did that you lost the iconic versions of those characters.

So anyways after seeing who will not be on the roster let’s go into the 12 new characters:

Expanding Franchises Already Used:

Squidward(SpongeBob SquarePants)

Jimmy Neutron

Arnold(Hey Arnold)

Zuko(Avatar:The Last Airbender)

Dib(Invader Zim)

Donatello(TMNT)

Raphael(TMNT)

New Franchises:

Rudy(Chalkzone)

Dagget and Norbert(Angry Beavers)

Very Obscure or Recent Franchises:

Miko(Glitch Techs)

Vendetta(Making Fiends)

Mikey Simon(Kappa Mikey)

[villain-in-love]

Sorry this ask took a while to send, I've been busy deep cleaning the last few days! But in your other post you mentioned Monster High and Ever After High OCs/Self Inserts. I don't want to pressure you if you don'y want to ofc, but if you're comfortable with sharing them.. I'd love to know more about them!!

I don't know much about Ever After High myself. I watched a few webisodes on Youtube some time ago and then dropped it. But I've been thinking about picking it back up again because I love the fairytale setting. Plus the dolls look very cool design-wise! I think out of the character I've seen so far, Madeline might be my favourite :3

Also, do you perhaps collect any other doll lines? I also enjoy Living Dead Dolls, Bleeding Edge, Little Apple Dolls, ect. If you enjoy the gothic/alternative style of Monster High, I'd definetly recommend them!! Some of them are bit more gorey - but theres plenty of interesting characters.

Ever After High is a great doll line as well as a show with immaculate aesthetic and interesting concept. Personally, I still prefer Monster High over it, but I've seen people favour Ever After High because it has a serious main conflict that can be analysed on a deeper level. A lot of people tend to simplify the message to "rebels good, royals bad", but in reality, while rebels do end up being in the right, position of royals does make sense, their concerns are understandable and hold a certain weight, at the very least because the entire situation the characters are in is rather complicated.

Honestly, if we look behind the bright and pastel coloured fairy tale aesthetic, the way fairy tale society functions is borderline dystopian…

Anyways, I think I have more OCs here because with the whole premise of following or rejecting one's destiny as well as having characters represent different fairy tales, naturally, lot of ideas appear. And so my OCs are often just me playing with the possibilities of what kind relationship with their fairy tale roles different characters might have.

While she’s not my personal favourite, I respect everyone who likes Madeline, she’s pretty cool (I especially like her Legacy Day doll which is visibly inspired by Victorian fashion) Unfortunately, she often get reduced to a comic relief, but I believe she had much more to her character in books by Shannon Hale, which I didn't have a chance to read yet, but I’m planning on doing so.

By the way, I checked out the doll brands you listed, and turns out I already knew some of them. However, while I don’t mind gore, those are not exactly the type of dolls I’m interested in (mostly I just dislike child-like proportions). (Living Dead Dolls look pretty neat though) I guess I liked Monster High as fashion dolls specifically, and very elegant, elaborate and well-thought-out ones at that.

Aside from Monster High and Ever After High, I used to like Bratzillas. I know that some might say that they are just a Monster High rip-off, but even if they were heavily inspired by it, they were still good (well, I was simply excited to see another gothic fashion doll line). I’m still upset that the franchise was so short-lived and I wish I bought more of their dolls. At some point Once Upon a Zombie piqued my interest, but I got quickly disappointed in doll and animation quality.

Also I wanted to comment on your OCs, because I actually like your character ideas. I adore the pun that is Manita’s name, especially since it’s both a good joke and sounds similar to "manticore". I overall have a soft spot for characters that are man-eaters both figuratively and literally. Octavia is extremely cute, I think she’s my favourite here, and I would totally root for her and Twyla’s relationship if they were in a show together. Levi looks like an entertaining type of character, I wish I could see him (them?) in action.

I kinda want to bother you a bit more and ask about what kind of fashion styles your characters prefer wearing and what would be written in their “freaky flaw” part of the bio, but that’s up to you if you want to continue the conversation about OCs.

Anyways, going to my OCs. I must warn you, there's a whole lot of information. I feel kinda bad for not drawing them myself and using character makers to represent them instead, but depression is a bitch and so this is the best I can do currently.

So here are the character design concepts plus some notes I have about them:

Starting with my only Monster High OC who is also a self-insert. I still don't have a name for her, since I want it to be a pun like most of Monster High names are but I have no good ideas yet.

Heavily inspired by the song Necromancin Dancin by Bear Ghost.

She's a necromancer who was born in the middle of the 19th century and died young. However, in my lore necromancers themselves are undead as well and only “awaken” after their own death. And so the first dead body they learn to control is their own.

She actually started out as a villainous character who exploited other undead students using her powers, either to harm or to manipulate.

She has issues, okay? On the inside she’s just a cynical and hostile sociophobe with a “better be a bully than the one bullied” mindset, convinced that there’s no point in trying to make friends since everyone would hate her anyway.

Ends up going through a character development and redemption arc thanks to the power of friendship and acceptance because it’s Monster High we’re talking about.

She seems very cool and confident when she’s being mean, but she’s so painfully awkward when put in a friendly environment. She doesn’t know how to be nice, she’s afraid of making a wrong move and ruining everything again.

Has a good sense of humour, but it’s dark and sometimes downright rude or offensive, which often puts her in uncomfortable situations.

She’s adopted since her parents were regular humans and she long since outlived them. After their death another necromancer – who was her mentor – took her in.

Now this is Ekaterina Bayun, the daughter of the one and only Bayun Cat. She was sent to Ever After High to better get ready for taking her father's role, since she's the first ever person to replace the original Bayun Cat. Because her father is immortal, she's didn't have to do it and it was entirely her own decision, which made her somewhat famous in school, being that she’s the only fairy tale character’s descendant who was actually given a choice.

While Ekaterina counts as a "royal" simply by the virtue of choosing to take her parent's role in their fairy tale, her view on the royal vs rebel conflict is rather neutral. And if you ask her opinion, she thinks that humans of their world would benefit more from rebel’s movement than they would if everything stayed the same as it always was.

She's actually a big monstrous cat who is capable of transforming into a human-like form. She spends half of the time in her cat form and assumes human appearance when it’s more convenient.

Ekaterina takes villain classes since, while she’s not The Villain TM, she’s classified as a beast that usually antagonises heroes. Also she literally kills and feasts on human flesh and it kind of automatically puts her into “evil” category.

Very chill, very lazy, prone to sarcasm and snide remarks. Like every cat, Ekaterina subconsciously thinks of herself as superior to everyone else and doesn’t like following any rules she disagrees with.

She’s a great storyteller and a singer with low and slightly gravelly, but very attractive voice. However, she has to be careful with it as to not accidentally put the entire school to an endless sleep.

Ekaterina has got a creative streak and is pretty intelligent, so she’s also good at making up her own stories. Her favourite school subject is creative storytelling.

She couldn't care less about human etiquette or morality. She's nosy and impudent, and has a habit of wandering into places where she shouldn't be.

Mstislava The Wise – daughter of Vasilisa the Wise from “The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise”. Headstrong and prideful, she never wanted to accept the role of her mother, which is why her family sent her to Ever After High in hopes that she will be put in her place here and stop rebelling. But boy, if that wasn't the miscalculation of the century.

Mstislava is a hardcore russian woman – she will walk into the house on fire and stop the horse running at full gallop, looking fabulous while doing so. She’s talented and intelligent, and absolutely refuses to become an obedient and loving wife of some Ivan Tsarevich who will sit on his ass while she does all the work in their story, only to be denied credit later.

Just like all women of her bloodline, Mstislava is a powerful sorceress. She's a master of transfiguration who is closely connected to the forces of nature, plus she possesses an impressive collection of enchanted items. She's also implied to be not quite human.

She doesn’t actually hate being a princess, and she would love to become a queen, but she's willing to sacrifice her royal status for the sake of her freedom of choice... or just for the sake of making a point.

She threatens her family with magic or refusing to go home if they don't accept her wanting to write her own destiny. She either gets to become the queen on her own terms, of she will run away and become a wicked forest witch.

Despite how serious and intense she appears, Mstislava does have a mischievous side and sometimes uses her magic powers to play tricks on people.

Mstislava is good at poetry, but unlike what is expected of a princess, she’s a terrible musician. (And so Ekaterina proceeded to teach her how to rap to pass the Muse-ic class…)

She's hard-working, but she's also a night owl, so you can catch her angrily banging at the door where the party is going at night, complaining that they're disturbing her while she's trying to study.

She's actually Baba Yaga's distant relative, and Mstislava considers Yaga to be her role model.

Meowriel Savatier – daughter of the Puss in Boots. She's a natural born hero and a royal who is very excited about fulfilling her destiny, especially since her destiny is to be with and help her best friend Marquise de Carabas (she's in love with her but doesn't fully realize it yet).

She’s technically considered to be Marquise’s lady-in-waiting, but it’s not as obvious since they both treat each other as friends and equals, with Marquise being especially considerate, even though Meowriel herself still goes out of her way to please her.

She doesn't have many close people, but she's an incredibly loyal friend, even to the point of selflessness.

Meowriel is bold, energetic, and resourceful. She seems to be in high spirits all the time, having a plan for any occasion and never giving up.

She's an incredibly persuasive and charming opportunist.

She takes hero classes and is the best in the Dragon Slaying class, where she uses cunning tactics to succeed instead of trying to rely on brute force.

She's an example of a royal who is actually selfish. She genuinely wants to fulfil her destiny which will give her and her beloved Marquise a happy ending, while the rest of the royals and rebels can rip each other to pieces for all she cares.

She doesn't mind rebels, but only as long as it doesn't affect her own story. However, if someone in her story tries to rebel, she's willing to force them back into their role by trickery and manipulation.

Because every character cast needs a cheerful French with a bob cut and a sinister side.

Once I actually get to drawing her myself, I hope to make the design of her boots much more elaborate, since they are her character's signature piece.

Marquise de Carabas – daughter of the miller's youngest son from the story of the "Puss in Boots". Marquise wants to be an active character in her story and she's worried about her best friend having to do all the work for her. She feels that it's unfair that she doesn't have to do anything while Meowriel alone ensures their happy ending.

She's a bit spoiled, but I wouldn't say that she's entitled. More like she's not used to hard work and discomfort, all her life she didn't even have to lift a finger or deal with serious problems herself.

She loves art in all of its forms, so she wishes to keep living an easy and lavish lifestyle so that she could dedicate her time and effort to it.

She's not particularly skilled at writing, drawing, or singing but she doesn't let it stop her. She's got a good sense of aesthetic and yet unexplored theatrical talent. Also she's a great violinist.

She considers the possibility of rebelling, while she secretly tries to find the way to prevent her story from even starting. Just like in the case of Ashlynn Ella, Marquise is destined to lose her royal status and fall into poverty for her story to begin, and in the end she’s going to have to marry to become a princess again.

She has serious issues with having to marry a "designated" person as a part of her destiny, especially since she still didn’t even have a chance to meet them. She’s the type who can only fall in love with someone she already shares a deep bond that lasted for years, and there's exactly one person like this in her life...

However, seeing how excited Meowriel is about following her destiny, Marquise wonders if she should just give in to make her friend happy. After all, in their story they will stay together for ever after anyways, so it shouldn’t be that bad..?

Maybe it's because she's so observant, but Marquise can easily spot acting or lies. Bad acting irritates her.

She doesn't fully trust anyone except Meowriel because she's the only one who is always honest with her.

By the way, I'm still only figuring out her character, since she was recently revamped in design and I started over with her personality. I'm also currently thinking about possibly changing her name.

Hua Li Ming – daughter of Hua Mulan, raised both as a capable warrior and a perfect lady. She's torn between wanting to honour her family, both like her story and fairy tale society tells her, and being absolutely terrified of having to bear such responsibility and spend 12 years at war.

She's noble and prideful, so on one hand she considers it a honour to become the next Mulan. On the other hand, she hates herself for being reasonably scared and unwilling to fulfil her destiny.

I imagine it will get revealed when Darling Charming tells her that she's lucky for getting to be a warrior instead of a damsel in distress, causing Li Ming to snap and go into a full-blown "you know nothing" tirade.

Actually has to deal with the pressure of being both a soldier and a lady. It's not like she was given an opportunity to choose one or even reject both.

She's a royal who desperately wants to rebel but still can’t let go of the thought that it's somehow beneath her.

Everyone around her constantly going on about how she would make a perfect Mulan doesn’t help.

Soft-spoken but firm, knows her own worth.

Known for being well-mannered and highly disciplined, Li Ming is a pleasure to work with and is considered to be a great company.

This showcases her level of self-control, and unfortunately it also means that she’s used to repressing her feelings, especially negative ones, which doesn’t do her any good.

Does meticulous work like weaving and sewing to calm herself and sort out her thoughts.

Li Ming studied combat and the art of war ever since her childhood. She likes it all in theory, but she'd rather not have to use it.

Instead of serving her country as a soldier, she wishes she could prevent the war before it even starts.

Character makers used:

The first one

The one that is made in Ever After High style

The third one is Anime Avatar Maker found on Google Play

[fayesdiary]

Hii can I ask about your OC ideas for your fe game concept? Ooo and do you have any ideas for an overall story? 🤗

(Follow-up to this post)

First of all I AM SO SORRY ANON FOR TAKING SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS

I don't know what is it about my OCs and concepts, I want to talk about them but every time someone asks me about them I just procrastinate answering until the end of time😭

Anyway, here's all my main concepts, but they all have their posts where I go more into detail about them!

No. 1 - Gaia

The first OC I ever made is Gaia, a princess able to wield earth magic!

Her whole deal is that she constantly tries to hype herself up as this larger-than-life hero of legend (like the one she was named after) complete with theatrics... But it's all a facade to hide her massive impostor syndrome.

Basically, she'd be the comedic rival in a shonen.

But it turns out her impostor syndrom is kinda justified, since she's adopted. Which wouldn't be a problem if she didn't live in a world where the right blood gives you suoerpowers. And yes, this means she doesn't naturally have access to her earth magic and only does so temporarily because her parents secretly infused her with some of their blood without her knowing, which is not a viable solution for the future since bloodlines play a massive role in politics and basically every noble has access to some special blood. And if word got out that Gaia was adopted and her parents were infertile all along...

Gaia's whole story is about her whole world crashing down in multiple place, and finding her place in a world of demigods.

I don't have many ideas for her world yet save from being so reliant on bloodlines like Jugdral, but a few other ideas I had in mind were of it being a world where all dragons have gone long extinct but their legacy heavily influenced human culture, and the main villain trying to transfuse within himself every kind of Divine Blood in existence and using all their powers to become a new god and remake the world.

No. 2 - Sci-fi vs fantasy

The second main idea for an FE concept is one about fantasy vs sci-fi, where your typical FE world is invaded by a corporation from outer space, and the whole game would be about that dichotomy.

Two different cultures shown in a way very similar to Fates, with its separate sets of classes and weapons, two different campaign that take place in the same continuity where you play as a magic scholar trying to fight back against the invaders and a rogue engineer who becomes part of a rebellion, and a third final campaign to wrap the story up.

Basically the entire game would be about discussing the differences between the two worlds but most importantly the unlikely similarities, the fact magic and technology might secretly be connected and whenever the two can exist in symbiosis with each other.

Also a loose idea I had was of the local Divine Dragon being the descendant of a space tribe (because fuck yeah space dragons), where its monarch has been seized by the corporation and either has been turned into their ship they use to conquer planets or turned into an AI, and having the final fight be a confrontation between the two.

No.3 - Global turn count and time loop

Third and final main concept is one where you have a global turn count that affects the world and story, complete with a time rewind mechanic where the protagonist Kayla teams up with the local Dark Dragon to figure out what caused the end of the world and stop it, with a lot of context-sensitive dialogue in the style of Undertale and Hades. I went more into detail about this concept in a previous post.

And as a bonus small idea, I pictured an FE game that takes place in one of those cozy post-apocalyptic worlds where nature has taken back modern society, if only because a Fire Emblem with that setting sounds cool as shit

[jazziehart]

New Year, New Beginnings

Hello to all of my lovely readers/followers,

As you may have noticed I have taken a fairly long hiatus from Tumblr. I've decided to use this account as what Twitlonger used to be for me which is to post lenghty things that don't just fit on my account so, I will be posting here a lot more frequently come 2024 with lots of new and exciting content, especially regarding the Sims verse so if you're a fan, please stick around.

What can I say, 2023, for me was truly the year from hell. There were so many wonderful things that occured throughout the year (mainly the concerts and movies I got to attend especially the Eras Tour) but for the vast majority of the year I found myself enthralled in a deep depression like I had never had before.

The reason for said depression, sadly isn't a new one I've had in my life, people decided to say untrue things about me which blindsided me. Especially since it came from people who had barely spoken to and hadn't met before.

I was incredibly fortunate to have friends who stood by and defended me against these allegations saying it was something I would never do which I greatly appreciate that the vast majority of people I've met could speak to my character in a great way.

However, that incident and others since then in what is known as the ORG (Online Reality Games) community became a place of toxicity to me which has led to me going on an indefinate hiatus from being a part of any of those games ever again.

Unfortunately, what became apparent to me as time went on was in order to get away from it, I would have to let go of most social media platforms I was using which is where this post really comes into play.

For my new beginnings of 2024, I decided to focus a lot more on myself and the things I love rather than be a part of fandoms that I have felt were incredibly toxic. So, with that being said, this is kind of my goodbye post to the ORG community, at least for now.

To the friends I've made along the way,

I'm still willing to talk more through messaging via twitter or instagram but I will no longer be using Skype or Zoom. My reasons for this is just because I want to get away from the community, not from all of you. I just know many of you are embedded in the community and I don't want to be a downer who complains if you talk about it since you guys love it. For me, it's no longer a safe space or at this point a space I intend to be a part of in any way, so if you could please respect that.

Another new beginning I'm going to start in 2024, is to focus on making videos. I know I promised videos in the past and haven't delivered and I sincerely apologize for that but my life itself has been chaotic with a lot of medical and physical issues besides the mental and emotional ones.

I will be starting a few Sims series following an Eras Legacy Challenge (Something I am curently testing out before I officially post the rules because yeah I'm a perfectionist) as well as the long awaited Quinn Fabray series I promised you all.

I also will try to do an outfit haul of the many gorgeous pieces I own that were worn by Quinn Fabray. If you want me to recreate any scenes let me know, I may do them over TikTok or YouTube depending on the lenght.

I also will be focusing on my writing which is something that has brought me so much joy. I'm probably unfortunately going to abandon the projects I have been working on and will be completely starting a new.

Gleewrite and Twins Fabray will be making a comeback but in a very different way than I had started them. Sorry for the long rambly article you have to read but I felt I wanted to update everyone on what I'm hoping to focus on.

Here's to 2024 being a good year.

[lesyasun]

A while ago I received an interesting question about game aesthetics. The person in that ask really struggles with downloading stuff and finding their own style. They asked me how I came up with what you see on my screenshots. Have you ever thought that you can recognize whose screenshot this is by just a quick glance? Is editing important in photoshop? How to take beautiful screenshots? Today let’s talk about how different one single game could be for each of us and what really makes this mysterious “sims aesthetics”.

EDIT: Sorry, it turned out to be huge with lots of random thoughts :D I hope at least one percent of these is useful!

NOTE: English is not my native language, I apologize for possible grammar or spelling mistakes. I tried my best in writing this!

Ok, let’s imagine that you’re a person who just obtained the sims game or just want a nice fresh start and demolished your download folder. (We all need fresh starts sometimes, right?) The struggle is that you have no idea which style you like the best. There are so many sims blogs. Everyone seems to enjoy what they post but you’re a little bit lost in that jungle. Don’t worry! I’ll try to guide you and share my thoughts.

STEP 1 Choose your general style

I roughly divide all sims blogs that I see on my dashboard into a couple of so-called styles. I’ve been doing it in my mind for ages. I like following different people and seeing diferent editing. None of them are better than others. I hope you understand that it’s just a matter of liking. Ok, here we go. Let me put this sorting hat on you :D

1. Realistic 

Screenshot by @luchiatores

Perhaps, it’s the most important thing that you should decide for yourself. Wether you should use realistic textures in your game or you’d prefer to stick to more cartoonish maxis match ones. Why is it so important, to my mind? I like things that match. Just imagine game Witcher 3 where characters and surroundings are realistic. And now imagine Minecraft where things are pixelated. Both games are great, both games have certain beautiful styles. And now imagine Geralt hunting for monsters in a pixelated Minecraft swamp. A bit strange, isn’t it? :D The same applies to Sims. If you put a super realistic skintone on your sim and put a Maxis ponytail, that would probably look strange too. If you choose this style, just try to dig for a good quality content, start following simblrs in this style. Unfortunately, I’m not an expert when it comes to realistic content. So, try to drop an ask to someone whose realistic game you like. There are so many helpful people around in the sims community no matter what style they have :)

2. Trully Maxis Match

screenshot by @whattheskell

This is a complete opposite of a realistic style. I’ve always called people who use a lot of original maxis textures “trully maxis” :D If you can decorate a house without any custom content, if you like the way original hairstyles look, if you like Maxis clothes, you should go this way. From what I’ve spot after being so many years in the sims community, “trully” maxis simblr are so creative when it comes to storytelling. The stories that they write about either their sims/or maxis premades are so breathtaking. So much drama, so much fun. The only thing that I write about my screenshots is “Ok, this is my cat! Look, it can eat flowers and puke afterwardst! Yay! Cute”. If you choose this way, I can recommend you to check out @holleyberry, @didilysims or @moocha-muses. Obviously there are a lot more blogs that I follow. These people are just so sweet and helpful and they’re first who came to my mind. 

3. Bright Maxis Matchery

screenshot by @muupi

This is where I refer myself to. This style is still Maxis but what stands out is the use of bright colours and saturated photoshopped pictures. Ah, my love for overedited pictures is endless <3 This is what I’m going to talk a lot below since it’s my cup of tea. It’s all about colours and pallete addiction. If you love looking at super bright/silly/cheery screenshots and they boost up your mood, than join the squad! 

Basically, Maxis match (I’ll just shorten for MM from now on) players avoid super shiny skins or hair textures and prefer to have content with Simlish letters instead of English ones. This is a very important factor for me when I choose paintings or prints for T-shirts. I don’t know, I feel like it’s so cute that sims can’t understand our languages, talk this funny gibberish simlish language. It’s cute! There are so so many people that I can recommend. @lina-cherie @keoni-chan @kahlenas They are first who came to my mind <3

4. Grungy/cosmic

screenshot by @lilithpleasant 

I don’t know if these are suitable words :D But this is how I describe people’s game who like aliens/supernatural sims/grungy textures with or without bright colours as well. Just think would you prefer a bit of a grungy stuff or less-textured but cleaner MM? You always need to think about textures while you download stuff. I can recommend to check out @pooklet or @furbyq-sims 

5. Semi

screenshot by @whysim 

You might ask me “Why am I not allowed to put a realistic skintone on a maxis sim? What the hell?” Of course, you are! Do it please, if you want. There are no rules, no restrictions. You CAN go semi-realistic, you CAN mix patterns, you CAN mix colours. There’s only one rule: please, enjoy what you do. Don’t be afraid to share your pictures on the Internet. There will always be people who can judje your style and say: “meh, it’s too dull, meh, it’s too bright, meh, too shiny, meh, too plain meh, meh, meh”. Just don’t pay attention and enjoy your game. As for semi-realistic I can recommend such wonderful people as @marvelann @lilith-sims @falkii @knowledgeaspiration 

A bit about my style: I’ve always loved cartoonish/bright style. I’ve never ever played with shiny textures. Before Tumblr era I just played either without CC or with a bunch of maxis recolours. How I came up with the idea of cartoonishness? Pretty simple. It’s a part of my personality, I think :) I’ve always loved Disney/Pixar movies. Cartoons just make life a lot funnier! They make me happy. I’m a pre-school teacher after all :D. You can’t imagine how many cartoons I’ve watched throughout my life. I can quote Peppa Pig and will never be tired of that :D Before Tumblr I just played some funny legacies (I’ve never finished any though :D) When I found out about Tumblr, and such great content that can make my game even more Disney looking, it just blew my mind! Every time when I download stuff, I imagine that I’m watching a Disney/Pixar or whatever studio cartoon. When I create sims, I feel like I’m a cartoon designer. Pretty silly, right? :D 

Let’s take a look at my screenshots from the past. I tried to find similar ones with a lot of greenery.

2014

2021

I stil like a lot of greenery. Editing has changed, photo angles have changed. But bright colours and Maxis stuff are forever in my heart <3

Risa (2014)

Gage (2021) 

As I’m a big cartoon addict, I love recreating game/anime/cartoon characters. No matter, if they’re my favourite or requested ones. I love when my sims have different traits. I love when they’re funny looking/clumsy/absent-minded or when they’re evil/supernatural. When they are pirates/detectives/vampires or witches. This is my way of playing Sims. I love this game as it gives us possibilities to show your creativity, a chance to recreate our favourite characters. A chance to be a writer of storylines or if you’re bad at telling stories, just being “a cartoon designer” like me :)

STEP 2 Colour palettes

If you’ve chosen the path of “bright maxis matchery” than colour palettes are super important! Oh, you can’t imagine how addicted I am to certain colours. I can download GBs because of it.

Here are some of my favourite colour palettes:

1. Anna’s colours

My absolutely favourite palette. I would download absolutely anything in these pretty colours. Just looking at them makes me so cozy *0* There’s a photoshop action for those who want to recolour CC in this palette.

2. Poppet’s colours

I especially like the latest one. So pretty! @poppet-sims is the queen of lovely recolours. She has some more palettes. But “Back to Basics is my favourite”

3. Eversims colours

@eversims has got a lot of pretty colour palettes. But the most iconic one is Ever So Lovely

So, these are the basic colours that I like downloading furniture/clothes with. 

There are a couple more pretty palettes that I like:

Huning’s Pony Colours

Back in the days it was my ultimate favourite one. But these days I edit my pictures in Photoshop excessively and prefer calmer colours and add bright layers in photoshop instead.

Nyren’s Kosmic Colours

If you’re more into pastels, than try to download some stuff in this pretty palette.

You might wonder if I use all of these colours. Of course not! I have a selection of colours that I use: apple green, sky blue, yellow, red, pink, orange, purple, teal, mint. I absolutely love combining 2 or 3 of these in my interior shots. I also love choosing my sims’ favourite colours and dressing them/decorating their bedroom in this certain colour(s).

For example, my sim Mia likes apple green/purple and mint.

I think @deedee-sims can relate. While I prefer choosing a favourite colour per sim, she chooses favourite colour for the whole family!

This is a great idea, I think! :)

STEP 4 Bodyshop stuff

Ok, I hope it’s clear that I’m colour palettes addicted, now let’s move onto actual custom content and what I prefer adding to my game. I decided to divide CC by sections. Let’s start with Bodyshop.

4.1 Skintones

Another important thing that you need to choose for yourself. There are tones ofoptions. I’m going to recommend only MM skins as obviously I have no idea which realistic or semi-realistic ones are high quality.

screenshot by @deedee-sims

If you prefer trully maxis skintones, I recommend you to try Leh’s skintones. It’s super close to original ones in terms of shades. Also look at those button noses! These cute noses is the reason why I started using this skin back in 2014. But later I switched to Lilith’s feather as I wanted more variety and those noses there got a lovely shine.

It was my default skin for a lot of years. These days I own every possible skintone by Lilith and various blends by other people.

Lilith’s Alien Flavor

Lilith’s Android Skin Edit

Lilith’s Apple Pie Skinblend v.2

Lilith’s Apple Pie Skinblend

Lilith’s Apple Pie by Kahlena

Lilith’s Feather Skinblend

Lilith’s Feather Skins 

Lilith’s Feather by Sim-Strangers

Lilith’s Feathers Colourful by Berrynooboos

Lilith’s Honey Supernatural Custom

Lilith’s Honey with freckles

Lilith’s Honey with no freckles

Lilith’s Honey Unnatural by Berrynooboos

Pixel-danger-sims pastel skins

Here’s a very handy set-up by Vimpse with Lilith’s skins being townified.

Try to choose one set of skins or download all of them by one certain creator. I need a lot of skins because I love creating tones of sims and I want to make them various looking.

4.2 Eyes

 ♦  Polaroid ♦ - my favourite

♦ Transcendental ♦

♦ Sleeping Lion ♦

♦  Sharp Eyes ♦

♦ Shallowed in the Sea ♦

♦ Hand Outs and Punch Ups ♦

These are just some of my eyes. There are some more by Poppet, by Kahlena. And I have various addons to these sets that I grabbed over and here. I remember having struggles of choosing only one set. But than I thought: why do I have to choose if I like all of them and want my sims to look as different as possible? I just love when they are cartoonish but high-quality with nice white clean sclera. Just look at Disney Rapunzel. You’ll see what I mean ^_^

There’s one little trick that most mm players do for making sims’ eyes bigger and rounder - adding a whiteline eyeliner by jesstheex. I personaly do it for every single sim of mine.

4.3 Makeup

I use tooooons of blushes, lipsticks and eyeshadows. I have everything by Lilith and Jesstheex. And lots of bits and bobs by various creators. I love using both matte or shiny textures. I sometimes add nose shine or use special nosemasks. There are various lovely things in my collection. What I can recommend you is to download a sim that you like by another creator with the help of Sims Clean Installer and just steal makeup from the sim to add to your collection *evil laughter* I recommend to do it because sometimes there are some mouth corners or various eyebags and etc which are difficult to find. It’s easier to grab them together with sims.

For example, I grabbed the shiny nosemasks from one of Lilith’s sims.

Sometimes I like adding a bit of shine on Sims’ noses. Some sims of mine don’t have shine. It really depends on a sim. But what I definitely like is cute button noses! I like using nosemasks to achieve that. I have all the masks by Lilith and these ones by kahlena.

4.4 Hair textures

Another important decision for you is the hair textures. I recommend you to choose one certain retexture. Back in the days, I used to have Remi’s textures

screenshot by @selenaq13 

I liked Remi’s ones because they were non-shiny. They had maxis colours and a really cool yellowish blonde! 

Receintly I switched to Simgarooped as I’ve always loved that there are 6 naturals. The yellowish blonde is still there! Plus my favourite Deedee-sims keeps updating every week with the retextures of new meshes <3

There are lots of various textures blends. Just search, download, play test. Think, if you’re ready to look at such type of hair hours of simming.

Also try to decide if you’d like to have more natural looking sims or go crazy and have supernatural/aliens. I used to have really bright sims with colourful skins and hairs.

Even my toddlers had unnatural hairs. It’s a lot of fun! But right now I prefer to create more natural looking sims though I like vampires/witches/aliens anyways!

screenshot by @honeylungsims 

If you would like to have colourful supernatural sims, check out Honeylung! She has the brightest and most unusual supernatural sims <3 

You’ll need a lot of face masks/bright lips/shadows. Check out @berrynooboos​ for the cutest alien CC.

4.5 Facial hair and Brows

I don’t think they should really match as long as they look great.

For example, I use eyebrows by @suratan-zir which are super cute and high quality but use Poppet’s textures instead of Simgarooped.

As for facial hair, I use some Poppet’s as well.

by Skoogy

by Poppet #1

by Poppet #2

by Simgaroop

4.6 Clothes

As I already mentioned, I love clothes in my favourite palettes. I love Simlish prints. There are so so many creators who share wonderful clothes.

I love @deedee-sims for age conversions, shoeswaps, morphs. I love @mdpthatsme for really cool 4t2 conversions. I love @moocha-muses for colourful T-shirts <3 Don’t be shy to send me a WCIF about a certain item of clothing.

STEP 5 Buy and Build

Tooons of bright recolours, IKEA items, Maxis add-ons, 3t2 and 4t2 conversions - all these things make my heart beat :D

These days I play in a rural-type world. I download a lot of craftsman-style build things, a lot of plants and garden deco.

I love bright wallpapers and greenhouses, I love clutter and kids CC for nurseries. Patterns with polka dots and plumbobs. Sunflowers and tulips. This is what I usually drop into my download folder :)

STEP 6 Taking screenshots

No matter which recolours and textures you prefer, I think high-quality pictures are important. The first thing that you need to playtest for yourself is a camera mod. It’s upo for you, but I can’t live without Gunmod’s Camera Mod. There are some more available, just check out.

Also lighting is important since Maxis original is terrible. I use Dreadpirate’s mod. 

I recommend to take screenshots in a camera man mode. Click Tab to enter it. Use W, A,S,D,E buttons to move right/left/up/down etc. And what’s important, use X and Z for zooming in and out. I always use Z for example, when I take close ups of my cats.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with angles. Try some artistic ones.

You can move your camera down and take a screen from below.

Or vice versa from above.

Sometimes I’ll just take a screen of my sims’ hands or feet. It really depends. I love spending hours on just “walking” in a camera mod around my sims houses.

Another useful feature of this mod is to use Ctrl +4,5,6,7,8,9 buttons.

These can fix the angles for you. And after fixing them, when you click on 4,5,6,7,8,9 you camera will go back to those positions. It’s very handy when you want to screen 2 sims who are talking and there’s no need to constatntly move camera from sidde to side. Just fix it and wait for them to perform cute emotions!

As a bonus, you can fic positions in the life mode too. For example, I always choose a proper angle from above where the wgole house can be seen. And wait for something cute/funny/to happen.

Also there’s such a thing as The Rule of Thirds. It’s the rule of photography composition. I always try to follow it :)

STEP 7 Photoshop Editing

I love oversaturated colours. It can be too much for someone’s eyes, but I like the brightness :) I’ll share some good Photoshop resources. Probably, one thing that I can recommend to absolutely everyone no matter how bright you want your screens to be is sharpening! Seems that Tumblr eats our picture quality for breakfast. Sims screenshots seem so blurry to me. I love sharpening them first.

I use sharpening from Kalekaloo’s action.

After sharpening I run the base from Eversims Action and then add some colour layers from Simburgerr’s one (I like gradients and fluffy lights layers especially). It makes the reds colours a little bit too saturated but I think it’s cute!

There are a some more cute actions and PSD files out there:

OhMySims - Action 1

OhMySims - Action 2

Sterina’s Action

Photoshop PSDs by Pleyita

Snapdragoned PSD

Mandragore PSD by Kiinuu

JellyBeanery’s Action

Roguebotanist

Nnilou - 12:51

A generic PSD by Knowledgeaspiration

Colorize IT by Bonnypixels

Colour Crush by Bonnypixels

Just Like Heaven by Pixeldemographics

For more tips/palettes/cute fonts I recommend you to check out @bepixeled

That’s all that came to my mind. I hope at least something was useful!

[babyboibucky]

Deserve Better

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky disappeared and came back only to say goodbye.

Word Count: 2,887

Warnings: angsty angsty angsty angsty angsty

A/N: Post-endgame timeline with lotsa angst! Included Andy Barber here because why the fuck not but he’s really not a major character lol

Deserve Better || Undeserving || Deserve The Best

MAIN MASTERLIST

-

The day you got Bucky back was the same day he said goodbye. He left you— said it was for the best— just as when your fingertips touched him for the first time after five years of longing.

Your reunion with Bucky after the snap was nothing like the movies, far from it actually. A lot of things happened when he was snapped back, in between the battle with Thanos and Tony’s funeral. Besides, you weren’t an Avenger; you didn’t work for SHIELD nor the CIA. In fact, you remained oblivious of the battle that was going on until the moment of chaos caused by the sudden reappearances of half of the world’s population.

And then you received a message from Steve, about the tragedy and the sacrifice of Tony Stark. He was inviting you to the funeral and as much as you felt devastated from the loss of a hero, you couldn’t help but focus your attention on the last line of Steve’s message.

Bucky’s going to be there too. He’s back. He needs you to be there with him.

It wasn’t until the funeral was over that you finally got to have Bucky all to yourself. You had locked gazes when you arrived and staring back into his beautiful blue eyes again made your knees weak.

Bucky was really back.

“Hi.” He greeted you first, his voice remained the same— soft and gentle.

One word was enough to make you feel the warmth of his existence. Hearing him, seeing him again felt like finally coming home after a very long, tiring day.

“Hi, Buck.” You whispered.

Bucky’s smile was all it took for the dam to finally break. You’d burst into tears right then and there and you were more than ready to feel his arms around you after years of hugging yourself to sleep during his absence.

But the warmth never came. If any, Bucky stopped himself from doing so. You frowned when he took a step back from you, extending his metal arm to keep you at a certain length away from him.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered, refusing to meet your gaze.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go.” He explained, gently squeezing your arm before rubbing circles on your skin using his thumb.

You didn’t understand why Bucky needed to go when he just got back. You just got him back. You had spent years crying over his disappearance only for him to come back and disappear again?

Bucky explained that he thought he got better but things have become so vastly different after the snap that it left him feeling broken and different again. He told you about Steve’s decision to go back in time, never to return again. How Tony’s death made him feel like it was too late to set things straight and how he would probably carry the guilt and regret from not being able to apologize for what he had done.

“I’ll help you, Buck. We’ll work through this together. I want to be by your side when things get better.” You insisted, tears blurring your vision as you tried to reach for Bucky, wanting to feel him again after such a long time.

But Bucky kept on moving away from you, he kept on pushing you away and you wanted to understand why he wouldn’t let you touch him.

“I’ll only hurt you, I don’t want that to happen. I want to get better because you deserve better. But I can’t do that with you because this...this is something that I gotta figure out by myself.” He further explained.

You shook your head, unable to accept his decision. “Buck...I don’t think I can lose you again. I just got you back...I can’t afford to lose you again, please?”

When you attempted to reach for Bucky’s hand, he finally let you. You quickly entwined your fingers through his metal ones and savored how they felt against your skin. They were cold as usual, but Bucky always oozed a certain warmth that made you feel safe.

But now they’re just that— cold and hard.

“I love you. I’ll wait, Bucky.” You murmured and tugged at his hand before he could even let you go.

Bucky smiled sadly at you, “You don’t have to, doll.”

You shook your head and brought Bucky’s hand to your lips as you cried, “I want to. And I will.”

Pressing one final kiss on his hard knuckles, you watched Bucky slip his hand away from yours before turning around to leave. You felt your chest tighten as if you lost all the oxygen in your lungs the same way you lost Bucky.

Losing him the second time around proved to be even more painful. Because this time, he didn’t just disappear.

He walked away.

-

You waited for Bucky to come home to you for days and weeks until they turned into months...and then years. Still, no Bucky walked through your doorstep but you never stopped hoping.

Sleep was such a rare occurrence to you since Bucky walked away. How do you honestly cope with the loss of someone when you haven’t even healed yet from his first disappearance? You wanted to get mad at him, curse him for suddenly deciding to leave you. But you felt selfish for even thinking about that, because Bucky left to better himself.

To be better for you. He said so himself.

So you kept waiting for him to come back. You made it your reason to keep going. You looked forward to the day you’d hear your door open followed by his heavy foot steps. You wondered, would he smell the same then? Would he still be using your favorite perfume on him? One that smelled like cedar wood and mint and well, Bucky. Would his hair still be of the same length? What about his beard? Would he shave them off before coming back home?

How about his gaze? Would his blue ones still look at you as if you were his moon?

As much as these thoughts made you miss him more, they were the ones that you held onto. They were like your glimmer of hope on nights you were the loneliest, on nights you cried and dreamt of his return only to wake up to an empty, cold space beside you.

You held onto these thoughts every single day in hopes of them becoming real soon enough.

People have told you to move on, to not waste your time waiting for someone who walked away just like that. But you trusted Bucky when he said he wanted to be better because you deserved better. You couldn’t move on, not from Bucky.

You love him with your entire being, so much that his absence caused you physical pain too. You couldn’t even find the right words to describe how much you love Bucky.

In the three years that you spent waiting, you’d met a lot of people too. People who showed interest but none of them really won you over.

You’d met a man named Andy through work. He was a lawyer and was dealing with his own divorce. The connection was there and you wouldn’t deny that.

Two people dealing with the grief from losing someone they love, it wasn’t that hard not to find a common ground. And you did find some solace in Andy and him in you. But it was just that, nothing more and nothing less.

“How has it been?” You asked Andy after he had settled into the booth across of you.

The restaurant was surprisingly scarce on a Sunday morning. Usually there were plenty of customers, their chatters overpowering the soft music playing in the background. Now, it was peaceful and the radio was turned off. There were only the clinks of plates of being set on tables and the footsteps of the staff walking around the place as they attended to the few customers around.

It was serene and peaceful, pretty much like Andy’s aura when he arrived.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fine but I guess I’m at a much better place now than before.” He said with a nod, as if he was finally agreeing with himself after questioning his emotions for the past few months.

You offered a kind smile and placed a hand on top of his, “It shows, Andy. I’m glad. I’m happy for you.” You said.

He had been going through a lot of emotions since he signed the divorce papers. He didn’t want to but knew it was for the best. Andy had a son, Jacob, and he didn’t want for his son to grow up in an environment where his parents no longer slept on the same bed. As much as he loved Laurie, the relationship was no longer working and was becoming toxic the more they stayed together.

“And you?” Andy asked back before calling the waiter.

You let out a deep breath, “Still waiting.” You chuckled as your stared at your hand that remained on top of Andy’s.

Andy spared you an apologetic glance but nodded, “I do hope he knows how lucky he is.” He said, turning his palm up so he could hold your hand.

To others, the gesture may seem romantic but it really wasn’t. You and Andy both knew that despite the similarities and the comfort you found in each other, the both of you were not meant to be together in that way.

Your heart still belonged to Bucky after all.

-

When you received an invitation from Sam Wilson, you felt confused and excited. There was going to be a huge gala at the compound to honor Steve Rogers’ legacy as Captain America.

You’d heard the news about Steve’s passing not long after he went back in time. He finally got to live the life he deserved and when he came back, it was as if everything had been corrected. He may no longer be the super soldier that many knew but he remained the same person— but he wasn’t the man out of time anymore. Despite his white hair and wrinkles, Steve looked the happiest he had ever been.

You wondered how Bucky coped up with such a huge loss, you always worried for him.

It sparked debate though, Steve’s decision to leave the Avengers. Some got angry, said that Steve was selfish for doing that. Others showed sympathy, that Steve didn’t owe the world anything. He’d spent a lifetime fighting for everyone. It was time that he fought for himself and what he deserved. And Sam fought just as hard for Steve’s legacy and finally, all his hard work finally paid off.

What confused you was whether Bucky was going to be there? Does he know about the gala? Was he finally back? If he was, why hasn’t he come home to you yet? You had so many questions that you wanted to ask.

The answers though, were literally in the palm of your hand— the invitation.

-

It was no surprise how big the gala was. Just on your way inside, you’d already come across a lot of big personalities. There were politicians and popular celebrities too. You felt intimidated given that you went by yourself and that you weren’t really part of their world.

You were just you, someone who had fallen in love with one Bucky Barnes who introduced you to the world of superheroes. The rest was history.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” You turned around and found Sam approaching you with a huge smile.

You embraced him and smiled as you pulled away, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” You told him.

It was Steve and Sam that you’d met first and they were nothing but kind to you. Despite being well, ordinary, they welcomed you like their own when Bucky had introduced you.

Sam’s expression changed at your response, “I honestly thought that you wouldn’t show up after Bucky said—“

“Bucky?” You immediately cut him off upon hearing his name.

“Bucky’s back?” You asked and Sam had never looked more confused as ever.

He carefully nodded, brows knitting together as he frantically looked around. “I thought you knew about it.”

“How long? How long has it been since he came back, Sam?” You probed, feeling your throat constricting at the unexpected revelation.

Sam merely looked at you with what seemed to be pity. Why? Why was he looking at you like he was sorry? And why didn’t Bucky tell you when he came back? Was he simply not ready? Or was he waiting for the right time?

“Sam, how long?” You asked again, voice firmer this time around.

“A year ago. He decided to join the Avengers but wanted to undergo formal training before taking on the responsibility of one.” He responded.

You opened your mouth to say something but it’s as if your whole body was paralyzed. He had been back for an entire year now...and yet he kept you waiting?

A hand on your arm pulled you back to the surface, looking up at Sam you shook your head in utter confusion.

“I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me.”

Sam sighed, “I thought you knew. He said he saw you and—“

Sam’s words died on his tongue when he saw that your attention was no longer on him. Following the line of your sight, Sam turned around and saw that Bucky had walked into the venue. He swallowed and couldn’t hide the guilt he felt from assuming that you knew about his return. Before he could apologize, you’d brushed past him as you kept your gaze on Bucky.

Why he didn’t inform you of his return was beyond you and to be honest, you couldn’t bring yourself to care about it for now. Because Bucky was right in front of you and it felt like forever since you last saw him.

A lot has changed. He chopped off his hair but he still sported some scruff. Bucky looked closer to his younger self back in the 40’s. You remembered the conversation you had with him about cutting his hair.

“Should I cut it?” Bucky stood in your bathroom, observing his long locks in the mirror as he ran his fingers through them.

You walked over to him, hugging him from behind and pressing your lips on his back before moving to stand beside him.

“Do you want to?” you asked.

Bucky scrunched his nose, “Maybe in the future. I do miss my hair back then.” he smiled.

You chuckled, “Back when Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes used to sweep the ladies off of their feet?” you teased.

Bucky turned to you and wrapped an arm around your wait pulling you closer to kiss your lips, “Hmm, I wanna see if that hair will have the same effect on you.” he said and kissed your cheek.

You hummed as you caressed his face with your delicate hands, “I’d like to see that too, but maybe you should keep the scruff.”

But it wasn’t just his hair that changed. It was his entire demeanor— his aura seemed a lot lighter now, he seemed happier and confident. You knew it for a fact because he wasn’t wearing a glove to hide his metal hand. It was out on display for everyone to see and shake, apparently.

You watched in awe as Bucky interacted with the people around him. He used to avoid eye contact with strangers but now he seemed relaxed doing so. Although he would still open and close his metal hand, something he did whenever he was anxious. The crowd still made him uncomfortable but he’s shown a lot of improvement since then.

The question as to why he never told you about his return continued to linger in the back of your head. But you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling from ear to ear, eyes brimming with tears as you quickened your steps.

Your Bucky was finally back.

And then the world seemed to have stopped when a certain blonde walked over to Bucky, her hand sliding over to his cheek as she leaned up to press a quick peck on his lips.

You knew her of course, Sharon Carter; and you knew about her and Steve. It was Bucky himself who told you about them and how proud he was that Steve finally decided to try his luck at romance. Which is why you felt even more appalled at the scene playing before you.

The way Bucky slid an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him and how he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. How he was smiling down at her, whispering to her ear as they laughed.

Bucky was in love with Sharon. You didn’t have to ask him that anymore because he was looking at her like she was his moon, his source of light in the darkness.

You knew that because he looked at you the same way, back when you still had his heart.

Suddenly, the questions plaguing your mind found their answers. You understood now why he never came home to you.

He did get better, you could tell that by the way he smiled and laughed.

Bucky was better now, but not for you. At least, not anymore.

-

Everything Bucky Tag List:

@ddowii @jessou893 @stealapizzamyheart @bagelofthelord @mxnt @dontputyourfckingdrinkonmytable @jeeperky @ohladymacbeth @wildflowergubler @supraveng @twinerd14 @buckysmar  @bakugouswh0r3

[catty-words]

on the school dance fallout or, a thorough examination of the boys’ apologies to julie

full disclosure, i used to take serious issue with 1.06 for what it did to julie’s righteous anger in light of the boys letting her down, and my gripes haven’t fully gone away. but i have spent some time thinking on the fallout since my first (several) viewing(s) of the show and i finally noticed some emotionally nuanced storytelling that i needed time to come to appreciate. so, if you’ll indulge me another gif-filled meta post...

everyone knows that a good apology demonstrates an understanding of how you wronged the person you’re apologizing to, otherwise the words i’m sorry end up being fairly empty. and luckily for the boys, julie does a good job of immediately and effectively communicating her hurt feelings:

the first part is directed at luke specifically as her main co-writer, while the rest is about how all three of them let her down. it couldn’t be more clear that the reason she’s so betrayed is that a) they’ve made her feel like julie and the phantoms is less important to them than sunset curve and b) they’ve failed to consider her point of view or empathize with how important the show was to her.

which is why singing sorry a bunch of times, though charming, leaves her unmoved. and it’s why booking another gig actually makes her angrier. a gig the boys have deemed important enough to show up for is not a present or an olive branch to her, it’s a slap in the face. and if the boys had actually been paying attention to what she’d said the night of the dance, they could have anticipated her reaction.

but they clearly haven’t listened, so they haven’t learned how to do better or make things right. which is why this is such an important beat in the scene in the studio:

hounding julie to rejoin the band, even with such nice sentiments as “you’re the best thing that’s happened to us since we became ghosts”, does nothing to address how undervalued julie feels getting stood up because, as she points out above, their ability to do what they love is very limited without her. that makes her a powerful and essential member of the band, but it doesn’t prove that they care about her, julie, the person. and you can see in the reaction shot how the truth of her words lands for all of them.

their remorseful silence gives julie the opportunity to reiterate one of the points she made the night before, and it’s important to note which part of her hurt feelings she chooses to revisit.

the fact that they made the choice to pay more attention to their old music in spite of the music they were creating together is the thing that hurt her feelings the most. and, of course, her open hostility and her imagined reasons for why the boys picked sunset curve over julie and the phantoms (i.e. selfishness) puts luke on the defensive and ends with everyone leaving the scene dissatisfied.

great! okay, so here’s the part that’s bugged in the past (and the present, just. a little less so.) — in their attempt to deescalate the situation, alex and reggie give julie, and the audience, the all-important luke backstory. but like asking julie to rejoin the band with a shinier gig than a school dance flies in the face of actually making amends, so, too, does asking julie to empathize with luke’s emotional journey when the boys failed to take julie’s into account when they hurt her. only this time, it works as an olive branch.

now, i’m not saying that julie’s acting out of character in being sympathetic to luke’s pain, quite the opposite is the case. and i’m also not saying it’s bad that she does find sympathy for his situation — again, i’d argue that the opposite is true. it’s just, at the same time, it’s not a good look to force aside the young woman of color���s hurt in service of the white dude who hurt her feelings in the first place’s tragic backstory. the narrative is asking julie not to be mad at the choices luke made in the past two episodes because he’s really sad, actually.

and sure that’s an ungracious read of the moment, but i stand by the fact that it’s present in the text of the episode all the same, even with a little more nuance than i’m currently giving it credit for.

all that being said, alex and reggie do a bit to win back this highly insensitive maneuver with another stab at an apology.

alex addresses julie’s comment about them knowing “how tough it’s been for her to play” by reiterating that not showing up let her down and they get that that’s a crappy way to feel, while reggie takes a crack at julie’s “our songs were good” by emphasizing that they all love being in a band and making music with her. it’s a slight step up from their sorry in the garage, but not a complete fix because they’re all still sitting with the fact that they need julie to make the most of their music and how that complicates their declarations of loyalty.

the thing that makes this attempt at reconciliation different than those prior, of course, is this line:

the acknowledgement that things haven’t been fixed + the politeness + the implication that they’re willing to put in the time to earn her trust back so long as she lets them makes the apology a good enough one to accept. well, that, and:

one gets the sense that if rose could actually speak to julie in that moment, she’d be reminding her the value of grace. and, of course, we know that this also serves as a reminder to julie that good things are fleeting, loss is around every corner, and holding close what you care about is important. so she does just that by letting go of her (righteous, righteous) anger and reuniting the band.

still, even though alex and reggie have had their chance to make amends, luke doesn’t get the same moment to show he’s actually paid attention to julie’s needs in 1.06. so, naturally, he starts immediately in their first scene together in 1.07. 

i mentioned in my exhaustive list for “finally free” that julie picking a sunset curve song for their reunion number is a lovely, understated way for her acknowledge luke’s lost musical legacy, and i have similar feelings about the fact that luke suggests “edge of great” for their follow-up gig. it’s his first step in proving to her that he does care about the music they’ve written together with actions instead of empty apologies and misguided gestures.

by the end of the episode, though, the three of them take a step back (reggie gets points for his being, like, half a step) when they learn that, in addition to letting down julie, one of the consequences of their night chasing revenge is a ticking clock on their existence.

though i understand the urge to protect julie from the alarming news that their power is going out, there’s also a lot of selfishness behind the decision. julie loses them in the end no matter what, but lying to her about it and planning to leave without an explanation shows a disregard for her emotional journey in a similar way standing her up did. in fact, this plan is basically to stand her up for eternity. not cool, guys.

naturally, since it’s luke who’s the one proposing the terrible plan and it’s luke who never officially demonstrated his understanding of how he hurt julie’s feelings by not showing up when it mattered, it’s fitting that he’s suddenly more in tune with his own feelings. and, with that, comes a new awareness of how his and julie’s feelings interact, starting with this moment in 1.08.

you can see his conflict over her declaration. she’s worried without knowing just how much there is to be worried about, and that makes him sad because it’s confirmation of the fact that he’s important to her. that losing him will mean a lot of pain for her. but instead of cluing her in, he makes a conscious choice to continue withholding the information of his imminent departure. and maybe it’s such a weak deflection because he’s already starting to come to terms with how unfair he’s being to her, but even so, he’s not being a good friend when julie is showing up for him in big, unexpected ways he’d never even thought to ask for.

and again, here — 

— just after they’ve acknowledged that there’s a something and not a nothing between them, you can see him sober with the thought that she doesn’t know they’re about to lose each other. but it’s still not enough to move him to share. maybe because he prefers that she live with the possibility of that something when he no longer can, maybe because he’s too caught up in his own feelings about how crappy this hand they’ve been dealt by the universe is. but in any case, he keeps tight-lipped.

UNTIL.

it’s seeing her excited about a future their music can’t have that finally pushes him into coming clean. and i love how subtly this demonstrates that he has been paying attention, actually, and he knows that what hurt julie the most was the feeling that their music took a backseat to his past. if he crosses over without telling her the whole, ugly truth about the mistake he made by standing her up, then he crosses over stuck in that mistake. because part of that whole, ugly truth is the beautiful realization that no music is worth making, julie, if we’re not making it with you. and he’s not quite at that particular aspect of his truth yet — he still has to experience the what if of caleb’s club to be able to make the declaration with the conviction he does — but when he finally does tell her that and means it, she’s given the catharsis she’s needed since the dance. because he’s backing up his apology with action (i.e. being willing to literally no longer exist instead of making music with someone else) and providing her with the same consideration she showed him when she rejoined the band because his loss felt more important than her anger. and reaching that level of give and take in their relationship, physically represented in their hug, finally sets them free.

so, yes. even though 1.06 is clunky and a little tasteless at times, i can acknowledge that the story manages to win any missteps back. quite poetically, honestly. all’s forgiven.

[soonhoonsol]

Welcome to soonhoonsol’s gif tutorial!

As a nice anon asked me how I make my gifs, I thought it’d be cool to create an in-depth tutorial :) Perhaps this can help some others enter the gif-ing world too!

What we’ll be using for this tutorial:

Software: Bandicam, Avisynth, Photoshop CC 2018, Topaz Labs

File Format: .mp4

Operating System: Windows

Disclaimer: This is just my method. Every gif maker works differently and has different preferences. What works for me may not work for you, and that’s completely okay!

Let’s get into it!

1. Find the best quality video you can find

This really depends on the content you want to gif. For variety shows, music videos or photoshoots, any video of [1080p] should be sufficient. Try not to use anything below 720p.

For stage performances, fancams tend to have higher resolutions [1440p, 4k]. Use these if your computer can handle it. If not, usually 1080p works fine. The best option would be to download .ts files, which provide clearer and less grainy videos.

For Seventeen, you can get .ts files from The Rosebay on Twitter :)

2. Screen recording

As a Windows user, I don’t have a built-in screen recorder on my laptop. So, I use Bandicam, which is a free screen recording software. The only con to it is that it has a watermark.

To combat the watermark, I always have the boundary box a little bigger than the video itself so that I can crop it out of the gif.

This is what the recording would look like:

Just record the scene(s) that you want to gif so your video file doesn’t end up too large! Your recording should be in .mp4 format.

(You may use pure .ts files in Avisynth but it never worked well for me so I usually screen record the .ts video and move on)

You can find your recorded videos in Documents > Bandicam.

3. Avisynth

I followed THIS tutorial to download Avisynth. This software is really helpful if you want sharp and clear gifs! I recommend to follow the steps in the tutorial as the below method stems from it.

- Once you have downloaded it, open up your recorded video from Step 2 and watch it. Take note of the duration you want to gif. (e.g. from 00:01 to 00:05)

- Drag your video file into normalwebrange.bat. On Windows, you can find this in File Explorer > Local Disk (C:) > video. For other .bat files, you may check out THIS tutorial.

- In the pop-up box, key in the start time for your gif (e.g. 00:00:01). It has to be in hh:mm:ss format. Press “enter”.

- Key in the end timing and press “enter” again. A resizer should pop up in an Internet Browser. I found that Firefox works best for me.

- In the resizer, you may indicate the size of the gif you’d like to make. You can also click and drag the video to resize and frame it to your liking. You may refer to THIS post for Tumblr dashboard sizing.

(These are some common gif sizes for stage performances):

1 gif - 540px by 540px (square)

2 gifs - 268px by 350px

3 gifs - 177/178px by 250px

- Under “Preprocessor”, select “debilinear” for the second box. For the first box, you may pick between qtgmc 30 (same frame rate as video) or qtgmc 60 (doubles the frame rate; smoother).

- You will also see “fast” or “slow” options. These are just how long the video will take to render. “Fast” will give you slightly lower quality as compared to “slow”, but usually is good enough.

(You can see that his features are sharper and more defined in the “slow” gif as compared to the “fast” one.)

- Copy the code in the white box. Navigate to the scripting window (it should have popped up with the resizer) and paste the code at line 17. Type a “#” before qtgmc on the same line. This will prevent the software from lagging.

- Click on the inverted triangle at the bottom of the screen. Your video will now appear in the scripting window. Drag the slider to the intended starting point of your gif and press the “home” key on your keyboard.

- Drag the slider again to the intended ending point of your gif and press the “end” key on your keyboard. This blue area you see is the duration of your gif.

- On an empty line (I usually go to line 8), place your cursor there and click “Apply” in the mini pop-up window. Afterwards, remove the “#” from line 17.

- Go to File > Save or press Ctrl + S to save the code. Close the scripting window. The video renderer will pop up. When it’s done, it will automatically close by itself.

4. Using Photoshop and Topaz

I’m using my school license for Photoshop 2018, but if you don’t have that, there are plenty of cracked versions for free. I don’t have any to recommend though so I’m sorry about that :(

I followed THIS video tutorial to download Topaz plug-ins for free. I use Topaz DeNoise (the most helpful) and Clean, but you may use others if you’d like :)

Alright, let’s dive in to the steps!

- Open up Photoshop and go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers.

- A pop-up will appear. You can find your deinterlaced Avisynth video in File Explorer > Local Disk (C:) > video > temp > video.avi. Follow the settings in the picture and click “OK”.

- Go to Window > Timeline to open up the timeline. You should be able to see your gif spread out in frames. If you press the play button, it should play like a video.

- (Quick optional step I learned from THIS tutorial) Go to Image > Canvas and set the Resample option to “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.)

- Select the first frame of your gif in the timeline. Shift select the last frame. Go to Window > Layers. Shift select these layers as well.

- With everything selected, click the 3 lines at the top right corner of the timeline. Select “Convert to Video Timeline”.

- At the top of the screen, select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. Your layers will condense into one layer. Don’t worry, your gif is fine.

- Now it’s time to sharpen the gifs. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. Play around with the settings to your liking!

- If you’ve downloaded Topaz correctly, it should appear under Filter > Topaz Labs. If a pop-up asks you for an activation key, you may use THESE to activate it for free.

- Go to Filter > Topaz Labs > DeNoise and/or Clean and play with the settings until you’re satisfied.

5. Blurring

If your gifs have captions/logos that are distracting, you’d want to blur them out. Don’t be like 2018 me that blurred out the logo frame by frame; it’s very tiring. Instead, using this method from @scoupsy‘s tutorial, you’ll save lots of time.

- In the Layers tab (Windows > Layers), select the “New Layer” icon. It should be blank.

- Select the Brush tool. Make sure the “Hardness” setting is below 20%. This will blend the blurring nicely into the gif.

(For the sake of this tutorial, I will be blurring out the Bandicam logo to show you.)

- Paint over the captions/logos. Make sure this is on the blank layer!

- Duplicate (Right Click > Duplicate) the gif layer and drag it so that it’s on top of the blank layer.

- Right click on the duplicate layer and select “Create Clipping Mask”.

- Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and play around with the settings until you’re satisfied with the level of blurring. Click “OK”.

6. Flattening & Colouring

- Once you’re done with sharpening and/or blurring, click on the 3 lines on at the right corner of the video timeline and go to Convert Frames > Flatten Frames Into Clips.

- Topaz layers and blurring will take some time to render so you can just chill for now~

- When it’s done rendering, click again on the 3 lines and go to Convert Frames > Make Frames From Clips.

- Convert it back to the gif timeline by clicking on the 3-box icon at the bottom left of the timeline.

- Select the first frame of your gif. It must be the FIRST.

- Scroll to the top of the layers and select the layer at the top. Any other layers you add should be on top of this layer. VERY IMPORTANT!!

- In the Adjustments Tab (Window > Adjustments), there are many different things to play with. There’s a high chance you won’t use everything, but here’s a few of my favourites.

Levels - Adjust the brightness and contrast of your gif in depth.

Hue/Saturation - Useful for changing colours, or switching it to black and white.

Color Balance - Tweak the colours to your liking.

Colour Lookup - Comes with built-in LUTs that you can use as a preset. Great starting point for colouring. Saves time too. You can even download plug-ins for this. 11/10 tool.

Selective Colour - Adjust the vibrancy of specific colours.

- Colouring is completely up to the gifmaker. Go crazy go stupid :D

7. Exporting

We’re almost to the end!

- Set the timing for your gif.

If you used qtgmc30, the best timing would be 0.04s / 0.05s / 0.06s.

If you used qtgmc60, the best timing would be 0.02s / 0.03s / 0.04s.

- Once you’re satisfied with everything, go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).

- Follow the settings in the picture below:

- Tumblr’s gif limit is 10mb per gif. Check the gif size at the bottom left of the pop-up window. Make sure it’s below 10mb; the smaller the better.

- Click “Save”. Choose where you’d like to save the gif.

- Done!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that’s it! You’ve successfully made a gif! Good job you :D

I hope this tutorial was helpful! Please leave some feedback if it helped, or if you have other methods you’d like to share :)

Lastly, if you have any questions, feel free to send in an ask or DM me!! :)

Good luck and happy gif-ing :’D

[demonslayedher]

I'm glad you reactivated the questions, here are some flowers for you: 💐 Seriously speaking I'm sorry that because of a question I asked you a few weeks ago you watched a series of videos of psychopaths 🥲It made me laugh at first but then I felt guilty 💔 it's all Muzan's fault for leaving us all with curiosity (imagine his parents' reaction once they realized there was something wrong with him even as a human)

Yay, flowers (which I shall kill with my black thumb)! And no, no, it’s fine, I had hoped it came off funny! I like listening to stuff like that while I draw anyway because I’m a nerd anyway and I found it very interesting.

Speaking of being a nerd, you have innocuously unlocked the following essay about Heian period nobility and wisteria flowers: There is nothing to state so in canon, but I find it highly reasonable to say Muzan might had been of the very powerful Fujiwara clan. Step inside my office, Anon.

Okay. So. The Heian period, simply put, was a time of cultural flourishing and beautiful pastimes, the origins of a lot of Japanese style aesthetics, and a romantic courtly like of romancing everybody else in the court. This is assuming, of course, that you were at the very, very, very, very top of society. Otherwise, the vast majority of people were poor and sick and starving and ew, in young Muzan’s world, we do not wish to associate with that. In the Heian court, Kyoto basically is the whole cultural world. Even though there were other cities that could rival Kyoto, the emperor was there, so it was essentially the cultural center of the country. The nobles who lived there got money from owning land in far-flung provinces, but actually having to live in those provinces? What a drag! Having to live away from Kyoto for work, even if it wasn’t an official banishment, often felt like a punishment to the nobles and their families who were used to the social scene at court. And, like affluent courts around the world throughout history, understanding all the intricacies of style and “Heian Rumors” was key to having social clout, and popularity was power. And yeah, nobles would be vicious to each other. While clan dynamics and history are complex and not something I’m getting into here (I don’t consider myself well-versed in it enough), the Fujiwara clan is a BIG DEAL.  Basically, in Heian times, children were typically raised in their mother’s home, thereby heavily influenced by their mother’s clan, so besides a young man’s parents, his in-laws also would had been hugely influential in his life, as they will have a long-felt influence on his progeny. The Emperors typically married Fujiwara daughters. This, in addition to other positions of influence of the Fujiwara clan members usually held with influence over the Emperor, means that politically, there was no messing with them. Now, just because I say Muzan might had been a Fujiwara clan member, I don’t necessarily mean a member of the main branch of the family. Often, due to inheritance management, different branches of various noble clans might be given different surnames. The Fujiwara clan does have different branches, some of which did go one to have close ties with the imperial family even after the fall of their power at the end of the Heian period and all the way through the Taisho, and some branches carry some impressive family legacies but otherwise live like normal or high-class common folk in modern-day. (I know one such Ojousama from a renamed Fujiwara branch; she’s a sweetheart and never brings it up herself but every time I hear other people say things about her family, I’m like, dang.) We can venture from Muzan’s likely expensive medical treatment, multiple marriages (meaning other clans sought to be connected with his family even by marrying their daughters to a sick man), and even preparation for cremation as a baby that he was of a very, very high status. 

Being the sick son of a prominent family may have warped his personality in multiple ways: first, he was probably already used to a culture of popularity equated political power. We see in Muzan’s dealings with humans in the Taisho period that he can be exceedingly charming to get what he wants (a psychopath trait, haha), so he was probably pretty aware of the complex ways of socialites in the court. But, even being aware of that, it probably frustrated him to no end that he was too sick to take part in the social pastimes where he’d gain clout. It’s also possible that he was a bit of a bargain husband for his wives’ families who were seeking to a make ties with his family, as they must not had been politically useful enough to be married off to other powerful matches. This may be some of why he was so ruthless to them, for he never saw them as useful to him in the first place. This probably got a bit worse once he became a demon. Now to be lewd, but he probably got more vigorous in his pursuit of more powerful lovers, and knew how to slay the women’s hearts as he liked (you know, popular Heian pastime, everybody had lots of lovers, it was the norm, though political marriages and legitimate children were still important). That new sense of power probably went to his head. But, ultimately, he must had been limited in clout since he couldn’t take part in any daytime activities, thereby limiting his access to more powerful spheres of influence. His reputation from having grown up sickly must had followed him too. It’s anyone’s guess how much affection his parents had for him and how happy they were about his health at first, and if and when they might had noticed his changes. He was a full-fledged adult by the time he turned into a demon, so who knows how closely they even associated with him. They likely had healthier children who they devoted more care and attention to, and invested more family resources in while assuming Muzan would probably die young.

Who knows what the final straw was in Muzan leaving court? Was it frustration at not being able to walk in daylight that made him flee to the Kanto area in pursuit of the blue spider lily (from near where the doctor lived) long before Kanto became politically affluent? Or was it the rumors at court about how he didn’t age, and that he was eating people?

Of note, a lot of the early legends of demons in Japanese culture take place in the Heian period.

In his book “Japanese History of Demon Slayers,” retired Shizuoka University professor Tetsuo Owada capitalized on the success of Kimetsu no Yaiba to dive into a lot of ties between the series and what it may pay homage to throughout Japanese history and culture. While this was published last September and a handful of his theories have been disproven by the second fanbook published last February, and while I think a lot of his theories are stretching a little too far to make strong connections, it’s still deeply, deeply interesting stuff. He goes into some specific comparisons of demons, like Minamoto-no-Raiko and his posse of four big bad warriors taking on the Tsuchigumo (giant spider demon) terrorizing the mountains north of Kyoto harkening to the case of Rui’s family (and, ding ding ding, this was the primary focus of the official Kabuki/Kimetsu crossover last November), as well as takes little questions left in canon and dives into them a bit deeper. One such question is, why were wisteria lethal to demons? According to Prof. Owada’s research, there is no historical basis for this. Some of the talk online is that: 1. Wisteria are in fact poisonous, and consuming too much of them would cause vomiting and diarrhea (though I’ve also seen people make jam out of them because of the fragrance, so, like???) 2. Beans are thrown around at Setsubun to ward off demons (like so, Feat. Muzan and Kimetsu Beans), and wisteria are of the bean family 3. Wisteria like sunlight, so perhaps like Nichirin, they soak up some of the sun’s properties that are lethal to demons 4. In the language of flowers (Hanakotoba), wisteria symbolize kindness, welcomeness, refusing to leave someone’s side, being drunk with love, being straightforward and truthful, not losing the humanity in one’s heart, thereby containing a lot of meaning contrary to the conduct of demons Interesting, but some of its kind of a stretch. While still finding it a stretch to apply it to wisteria being poisonous to demons, Prof. Owada goes on to say that since ancient times, while the wisteria has some negative connotations of how it was sometimes written with characters meaning “doesn’t heal” (不治) and growing downward with smaller and smaller flowers like symbolize the slow downfall of a family line, it conversely also carries positive connotations of longevity and flourishing family due to the fact that its vines grow upward.

Now, you might picked up at some point that the Japanese word for wisteria is “fuji.” Not to be confused with Mt. Fuji (that’s written differently), it IS the same fuji as in “Fujiwara”: 藤.

Prof. Owada goes on to explore the association with the use of Wisteria crests in Kimetsu no Yaiba, especially on the houses of supporters of the Demon Slayer Corp. His recurring thesis is that the pandemic is partly responsible for Kimetsu no Yaiba’s popularity since demon legends have long since had origins in epidemics, and he supposes the Wisteria crest has a protective effect on the houses, similar to a talisman used in a lot of real life rituals for warding off illness and then often displays in or on the entries of houses to protect the family every year (I have one such item gifted to me, it stays by my doorway, along with a couple sticks of charcoal (but the culture of charcoal is a post for some other day)). The talisman is in reference to a god of Hindu/Chinese origins being treated with hospitality by the So clan, so although other families perished in disaster/disease, he promised to always protect the So clan descendants, so the talisman says “Descendants of the So Clan” so that any household may try to claim that divine protection. The gratitude-exchange of hospitality and protection and sure sounds familiar! Prof. Owada isn’t done yet. While the crest design used in Kimetsu no Yaiba isn’t an actual family crest in in real life, there are lots and lots and lots of family crests that use a wisteria design and have the character for “wisteria” in the name. Any time you hear “—tou”, like Satou, Saitou, or even Gotou, you can typically assume it’s 藤. It’s very common nowadays, but the first family to be granted the use of this name was the Fujiwara clan, when one of the pre-Heian and very powerful emperors granted their clan head this surname, which was a major honor, and it marked the start of the Fujiwara clan’s political dominance (there was already influence leading up to this, but meh, we like clear-cut stuff to simply centuries of history, don’t we?). Furthermore, although we often think of the Fujiwara clan for their influence at court, and we might think of the Minamoto clan for warrior heroes who fought demons, Prof. Owada concludes his argument of wisteria’s protective influence by pointed out a long list of Heian period Fujiwara warriors who also were the heroes of demon slaying legends, stating that their name has also long been tied with demon slayer culture. SO!!! Let me go on with my theory here. Muzan is from the same family line as Ubuyashiki. At some point (I assume after Muzan is long gone from Kyoto), the family is told while their children keep dying, and they accept their mission to bring an end to Kibutsuji Muzan and clear this curse on their family line. My thought is that their ancestor was a full blood sibling of Muzan, one whom was more invested in than sickly Muzan. While perhaps already an off-shoot of the Fujiwara Clan and thereby not entitled to the same sorts of inheritance, they probably maintained close ties with them. But, as it was already not direct by that time, the other Fujiwara clan branches were not affected by this curse. To further spare the clan the effects of this curse, this was probably when that sickly branch took the name Ubuyashiki. (And yes, I have things to say about this name and its possible mythological origins which I find a highly, highly interesting connection. Prof. Owada supposes it is tied with Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine and that is why there are nine pillars, but as much as I love Izumo Taisha and its giant pillars I base my argument in separate Shinto (but also Izumo!) mythology and accept that there are not always supposed to be nine Pillars specifically and Gotouge simply chose that number based on the number of strokes in the kanji for ‘Hashira’ (柱) BUT I DIGRESS). So, the Ubuyashiki Clan is it’s own thing, but is sort of like a cousin to the other Fujiwara branches and thereby continues to enjoy Fujiwara support throughout the Heian period, like some of the Fujiwara warriors going out there and slaying some of Muzan’s early demon experiments, and using their influence to bring in other warriors to the demon slaying cause (pet

theory: Genpei War warrior Kumagai Naozane was a member of the proto-Corp and using Kasugai-garasu was in practice since at least late Heian period). While the Ubuyashiki Clan probably already their own inherited land (and funds that came from it), throughout their history, their cousin clans might also have provided financial support to the Ubuyashiki Clan. But, they probably distanced themselves from the clan due to the curse and not wanting to be tainted. When you bring back in the wisteria associations this puts the contrary associations with a flourishing and dying family line in a new light. Furthermore, the “not healing” way of writing “fuji” also means a lot more in the context of Muzan’s, and later the Ubuyashiki clan’s illness.

[snifflesthemouse]

Harry’s Blaming the Wrong People for his Genetic Trauma... Chapter Two of Lady Colin Campbell’s book reveals a lot!

         The more I listen to Lady Colin Campbell’s YouTube Channel, the more I realize how little I truly paid attention to what she was really saying in her most recent book. Lady C is a woman of high caliber. She understands better than anyone that HOW something is said matters MORE than WHAT is said. She knows how to get information out there in a way that prevents any lawsuit happy turkeys from getting litigious. There is more than one way to say something. Finding the way that says it all without saying it all… well that is an artform.

         To be honest, I believe all the answers we really want to know are woven into that book. Here recently, especially since the video about Princess Anne and the conversation had with Harry, I have noticed little clues dropped. One could almost argue that Lady C has somewhat direct information being given to her from close sources. And it is worth noting, to date there have been zero legal actions taken by the Montecito Muppets. Because of this, I have started re-reading Meghan and Harry, The Real Story. It’s important to remember I am taking this go-round literally line-by-line. This post is specifically about chapter two in the book.

         Chapter two is the chapter in which Lady Colin Campbell provides us with Harry’s and his wife’s upbringings. She draws comparisons between both spare and spouse, as well as contrasting points. When she gets to Harry’s side, the light bulb started to get juice. You see, when you consider that Lady Colin Campbell was first chosen by Diana to write the biography Andrew Morton later got tapped to pen, Lady Colin Campbell was given a unique opportunity. She was able to see who the person was behind the media image of Diana, Princess of Wales.

        She could not put aside her dignity, her responsibility of the truth, to seal that deal. Andrew Morton had no qualms with twisting truths slightly to perpetuate the Diana Saga. When you factor in Lady Colin Campbell’s knowledge on the British Royal Family, especially regarding the Queen Mother, you realize that Lady C is telling us who’s really behind the Montecito Man-Child just called Harry. Which again brings me back to the light bulb moment.

         This whole time, Harry and his wife have been hurling accusations at his family. Harry especially pointed blame toward his father, grandmother, and late grandfather for causing his “genetic pain” and trauma. But if we look at what Lady Colin Campbell writes in chapter two of the book, we learn the reality of life growing up for William and Harry. Lady C writes in chapter two that Diana would encourage the boys to go against the grain, even if that meant bucking the protocols and measures put in place to protect the Crown’s survival.

         Lady C mentions that William and Harry both were wild children with little to no rules to follow from their mother. She writes that Diana was infamous for screaming matches, throwing matches, and the peace of the home rested solely on the status of Diana’s love life. She says Charles was approving of James Hewitt, knew of their affair, and was okay with him teaching the boys how to ride horses. Diana would rotate between James Hewitt, Hasnat Kahn, and eventually Dodi. When trouble was brewing for Diana and a lover, she brought that trouble to Charles.

          Furthermore, the Queen Mother was so concerned with instilling her own influences on the future of the Crown, she was a major influence in the issues between Prince Charles and his mother, Her Majesty the Queen. Lady Colin Campbell even writes in chapter two that the Queen Mother would tell Prince Charles it isn’t his place to stand up to the mother of his children, even when she was leading her boys down a wild-child path.

           History cannot ignore the facts. Lady Colin Campbell even highlights how Diana’s own grandmother was so disgusted with how Diana was behaving and undermining the monarchy, she died before Diana and she could make amends. Her grandmother was a Lady of the Bedchamber for the Queen Mother, and she died 4 years before Diana. Her own grandmother saw through her tricks, as the Queen Mother did.

         Again, what’s my long, drawn out point? Well, just in the first half of chapter two… we learn that Charles is a hot mess because of the Queen Mother’s meddling and Diana was the one in control of how the boys were raised. As a matter of fact, Diana was known to tell the boys “do whatever you want as long as you don’t get caught”.

         Of course, I still have the rest of chapter two to finish, but I found it especially interesting that Lady C quotes the Kensington Palace chef, Darren McGrady (1993-1997) as remembering Diana telling him frequently to keep an eye out for William. She would tell him that William would manage, but Harry was an airhead like her. The exact wording on page 47 of the book says “You take care of the heir; I’ll look after the spare” (Campbell, 2020). So what does all this mean? Why does it matter? And how is THIS a light bulb moment for me?

         Well, when you consider the fact Harry and his wife repeatedly bash his own family (more so from the former lately than the latter)… and you consider the factual recollections from everyone else… you realize Harry is blaming the wrong people for his problems. He says his father and grandparents are to blame for his own pain, that his father only treated him how he was treated by his own parents. But that goes against reality and truth. Because Charles was raised differently than his siblings; mainly because of the Queen Mother favoring him. Plus, William and Harry spent far more time residing with their mother than they did their father. By the age of twelve, a child’s personality is already well-seeded and developed. Essentially, who you were around puberty is who you are now, save for the maturity gained.

         What we have here is repeated historical recollections of both women, the Queen Mother and Diana, being at the source of it all. Charles failed to step in and prevent his boys from growing up wildly misbehaved because he took more advice from the Queen Mother than his own mother and father. We have Diana constantly instilling in Harry this sense of bucking tradition and being the rebellious one. Both women had a direct hand in creating who Harry is. Both women left him rather large chunks of change when they passed. Yet… neither are blamed when Harry goes on the record? You mean to tell me, the two women who essentially gave you all of your wealth… the two women who predominately raised you to a teen… had no impact on you life nor bare some of the weight of responsibility for your issues? Just your father? Hmm.

         Why does Harry only blame his father and his grandparents? Why doesn’t he ever utter one word about his mother that is honest instead of some fanatical warped version of a distant memory? He instead hoists all the blame from his own mother and great-grandmother onto the Royal Family. Why does he never mention how his mother would have screaming matches with his father, throwing things, or how she had multiple heated affairs of her own? How she struggled with her own relationships and would gaslight his father? We hear him slant his father for cheating on his mother, but never a word about his mother cheating on his father, too.

         My whole point is Harry is comfortable blaming the people still living who cannot respond to these accusations. He is not comfortable with the truth. Why? Well, let’s face it. A lot of the affection and love people have for Harry is transference. Most people “loved” him because they loved her. They loved Harry because she loved Harry. People felt like they were serving, honoring even, Diana’s legacy by sparing Harry a harsh glance. He’s the spare, “Diana’s second son” who’s not so bright. Hey let’s give the ol’ chap a break.

         He can’t let anything get in the way of his mother’s victimhood, martyrdom, sainthood status. It tarnishes his own brand. When the world starts remembering the facts or realizing Diana wasn’t so innocent, the world stops garnering sympathy for Harry. The world isn’t as easily manipulated when they don’t feel sorry for you, remember? So, Harry’s biggest chore to date is protecting that image of the lamb taken to slaughter that he paints his mother to be. Without that, his own brand crumbles.

         Sorry again for the rambling, but it’s important to truly think and consider just how vital a role both women had and still have in Harry’s life now. Two of the biggest reasons he could just leave the Royal way of life are the Queen Mother and Diana. They are also two of the biggest influences that made life as traumatic as it was. Yet, never a word mentioned about their own responsibility in Harry’s “generic pain”. Oops, meant genetic.

[sineala]

Is Tony E. Stark bi in the comics?

Sadly, anon, the answer to this is no. I wish it were true. But he is not canonically bi. By this I mean that he has never canonically dated or otherwise been involved with men, nor has he made any explicit statement -- other than for one very specific purpose, that I will tell you about in a second -- that he is attracted to men in any way. Just women.

There are, however, a lot of hints that at various points in Tony’s history there have definitely been people involved with the Iron Man comics who would have liked him to be bi. But none of them have ever made it to the realm of canon confirmation.

I can tell you about a lot of the evidence that people like to present in this vein. Mostly what you will see these days is this panel from Tony Stark Iron Man #4:

The context of this panel is as follows: for Plot Reasons, Tony needs to come up with a way to crash a certain dating website. So he makes a profile, and a lot of people immediately message him at once, and he achieves his objective: the site goes down. His profile must have listed him as interested in men and women, because we see men messaging him as well. After the site goes down, he apologizes to all the men and women who messaged him, because he’s actually not single -- he’s dating Jan.

So, I mean, it was nice of Marvel to have men interested in Tony -- but it’s not explicitly clear that the interest is reciprocal. Tony made the profile to crash the website, and he presumably set himself as interested in everyone in order to crash the site faster. That’s not exactly a canonical statement of bisexuality. At most, that’s posing as bisexual to crash a site. That doesn’t say anything about who Tony actually likes.

There is also Superior Tony’s evil bisexual orgy, in Superior Iron Man #8:

There are a lot of people in this room and at least one of them is a man. However, we only see this one panel, the aftermath. We don’t actually know how many of these people Tony slept with. So that’s not conclusive either. (Not to mention that it’s kind of a bad look if he’s only ever with men when he’s, well, evil. As I’m sure we all know.)

There’s also this panel from IM v1 #284, in which Tony has faked his own death and the news is reporting rumors that he was HIV-positive:

This comic is from 1992. For anyone reading this who does not personally remember the year 1992, the extremely heavy implication here is that Tony has died of complications from HIV/AIDS which he would have acquired from sleeping with men. But this really isn’t Tony coming out either. This is just people making assumptions. And, sure, it’s interesting that they are making these assumptions, but it’s not confirmation of bisexuality.

The only other instance I can think of, of someone assuming Tony is gay/bi, is this exchange from Eternals v3 #2. Tony has just come out to the public as Iron Man; one character is asking another character what they thought of Tony coming out, and the person being asked assumes that it was a different kind of coming out. (And also they think it can’t possibly be true, FWIW.)

And, I mean, if you’re looking for subtext, there is definitely a lot there, but none of that is actual text. I personally think it’s definitely very... telling... that in flashbacks of Tony’s childhood, we often see him interacting with his father and being reprimanded for things like being a sissy and weak. He’s basically sent to boarding school to toughen him up. There are also several pages from Legacy of Doom, in which (adult) Tony encounters a demon version of Howard in hell (comics are really something), and Howard spends the entire meeting insulting Tony in ways that specifically malign his masculinity. Basically, almost all of the insults Howard canonically levels against him are from a realm of insults that are often applied to men who are attracted to men. Now, I mean, it’s certainly interesting to speculate that Howard might have been worried that Tony would grow up gay, but... no one ever actually says that out loud.

Tony has been known to comment that other men are handsome -- Doom in Bendis’ run immediately comes to mind -- but, I mean, that’s not proof that he’s actually attracted to them.

There’s also the relationship between Tony and his old friend Tiberius Stone. They were never canonically in a romantic relationship. There’s a photo of a gutter note on a piece of the original inked artwork in which someone has written a thought bubble suggesting that Tony and Ty slept together once. That did not make it to the printed page. I also spoke to someone else in fandom who talked with the artist for that arc, and apparently she confirmed to them that she’d wanted Tony/Ty to be canon. But they... didn’t actually make it to canon. Tony & Ty’s relationship is very intense and it would sure make an awful lot of sense, but it’s not canonical.

(I have a couple posts here and here where I’ve talked about most of this before, also gathering up the various pieces of evidence that people have used when making a case for Steve being bi. There’s... not much there either.)

In summary: Would it be awesome if Tony were canonically bi? Yes. Do I think Marvel could very, very easily make him canonically bi if they wanted to? Also yes. Is he canonically bi at this time? Nope. Sorry.