#i don't think that's allowed though so if you downloaded them from me no you didn't

[ka1omi]

[kaiomi] FLO’S APARTMENT COLLECTION

HI THERE this is my first ever recolor drop and i couldn't wait to release it omg! the rugs & frames are base game meshes however the magazines and paintings are meshes from DescargasSims and the HARRIE BROWNSTONE collection part 3.

these are all items i imagine will be in flora's apartment when the new expansion pack drops, so please enjoy and let me know if you have any issues! dl link

UPDATE: fixed the access issue if you were having issues downloading now it’s available for everyone also don't know why there are duplicates but you need one of each file so sorry 🎀🧸🤍

[olomaya]

Shhh!! It's a Library (mod)

27 Sept Update: Found a better shushing sound so I replaced with that. Also added ITUNs for the non computer interactions. Thanks to @cs2te for the Brazilian Portuguese translation! Redownload (if you want these updates) at the link below.

(Note: This mod uses the Ticket Machine animations for the kiosk. If you don't have it, you can download it here. Honestly, it's not that important and without it, your Sim will just stand in front of the machine for a second, that's it)

I'm officially in my Streets era. I'm building out all the community lots in my town so you're going to be seeing a lot of community/town related stuff from me for the next few months. My Sims are trying to be outside!

First up! This is a small library mod that allows you to search for books at the library using this gorgeous kiosk object from @aroundthesims. If the book is in the library, it tells you where they are by panning the camera to the bookshelf that has the book and putting a blue outline around it for 10 Sim minutes. Pretty simple. 

Features:

Browse Catalog… pulls up all books in the library

Search by… Category | Title | Author - pulls up any book that matches your search entry

Request a Book to Order -  allows you to add more books to the library. 

You can only order the types of books that are allowed in community libraries so no books that are destroyed after you finish reading them (e.g. recipes, song compositions) and no academic textbooks.

You can order written books, including articles, as well as books from other worlds (e.g. Shang Simla, etc) though for the latter, there is a §35 “overseas shipping cost” added to order these books. 

Once you order a book, the mod will check whether the library has enough money to purchase it and then place the order. 

Ordered books are added to the library at 8am the next day and you’ll receive a notification that the books have been added.

Library Funding

In order to pay for the books ordered, library kiosks have a budget. Every kiosk, upon creation, comes with a §250 budget.

The library budget is the total amount of funds in all kiosks on the lot. Costs are deducted from individual kiosks even if that specific kiosk doesn't have enough money for the book so long as the library budget has enough money.

Support your Local Library

Sims can donate books (up to 3 books at a time) to the library using the book donation bin. The bin must be placed on the library lot (either outside or inside) and you need to have books in your inventory. Your Sim will get 500 Lifetime Happiness points for every book donated. (this is related to another mod that I’m working on. More on that at a later date!)

There is also a computer interaction that lets you donate money to the library. Sims that donate §2500 or more will get a 4-hour charitable moodlet. Donations are added to the library budget.

Finally, Bookworms and Proper Sims can shush other Sims at the library. Once shushed, all Sims in the same room doing social interactions or playing music instruments will stop. (You'll find, like in real life, people quickly go back to doing what they're doing so it's kind of useless but it was a low lift so I kept it in). If someone can think of a good "shushing" sound from the game, let me know!

Credits/Thanks: Both credit and huge thanks go to @aroundthesims for creating this beautiful library set and the kiosk which I used as the main object. I did recategorize it to Misc Electronics instead of Sculptures. If you already have it in your game, you may need to remove it or you can just change the script to “Sims3.Gameplay.Objects.olomaya.LibraryStuff.Kiosk”.  The donation bin is from Sketchfab created by TheLatestShit (that’s their name, thank you TLS!) and can be found in Misc Storage.

Read through everything below the cut before downloading please! Important instructions below!

Important things to note:

The kiosk must be placed on a counter. If it’s not, your sim will reset because they can only interact with it if it’s on a counter. If you are having issues with resetting, place it on an EA-made counter to confirm it’s not this issue first before you reach out for support. You can use OSMP counters provided they are cloned from a counter and place the kiosk on there and put it wherever you want (like I’ve done in my photo. the kiosk is actually on an OSMP counter, not the white table).

Pulling up the entire library catalog, depending on how many books you have on the lot, can take a few (or several) seconds. Or maybe it won’t, I play on a brick laptop so it does for me

Keyword searches are case sensitive so “raymundo” yields no results, but “Raymundo” will bring up the 85 copies of that 🤬 book that your library probably has

The search will only check books that are in bookshelves, it will ignore library books that have been taken out of the bookshelf and are being read or lying around.

Book requests and financial donations can only be made at public libraries and not privately-owned libraries. So if a Sim in your town owns the lot, these options won’t come up (it should be the owners’ responsibility to buy books). You can still donate books though.

You can have multiple kiosks on the lot. If you delete a kiosk, its funds (if it has any) will be transferred to any of the other kiosks on the lot so you don’t lose the money. 

There is a debug interaction on the kiosk that allows you to check the library budget.

You can order one book at a time but there’s no limit to how many you can do in a day but once the books are delivered the next morning, the mod will check whether the library has enough money and will only order the books there is money for

Download HERE | alt: HERE

@simstifulccfinds @kpccfinds @katsujiiccfinds @pis3update @wanderingsimsfinds

[hedgehog-moss]

Summer fun with Poldine <3 We've come a long way since her first hike, back in June! We've been going to the torrent regularly all summer and she's now familiar with the place and a lot more confident in the water. She seemed to enjoy wading in ankle-deep water from the start, but places where the water starts to reach her belly were a different story! And waterfalls were yet another challenge.

She's so brave though. She'll need to snuggle very close to you and occasionally kiss your cheek to reassure herself (the above pic also features a nervous forehead-kiss) but she'll accept to go very near these thunderously-loud unknown entities if you stay with her.

(if some pics in this post look like they were taken in 1897 and then colorised it's because they are screenshots from videos that were sent to me in low quality so it wouldn't take 2 days for my weak wifi to download them)

Another important Poldine fact (besides her bravery) is that despite being 18 months-old she's still a bit of a toddler : she thinks Only She is cute enough to be allowed to be annoying. She'll happily stomp her little foot right next to you to splash you with cold water, but SHOCK and OUTRAGE if you do it to her. Here I am gently sprinkling her with 5 droplets of water and she's swerving away from me in the most dramatic and indignant way

She's looking at me in the exact same way she looked at Pyrgus in this post. The Pampoldine Death Glare.

There's an impenetrable jungle of blackberry bushes on the way home from the torrent (every year the first task of summer is to open a path through it all over again), and lately she got used to stopping there for a reward-snack after every swim.

You need good reflexes if you want to eat some blackberries yourself because by the time you've spotted a nice ripe one, Poldine will have spotted it too and she'll reach for it with her long neck over your shoulder swift as a rattlesnake.

Another cool Poldine fact is that if she overhears me telling my visiting friends or cousins "You'll see, we've made so much progress, she goes into the deep water now!" then it will be the day when she refuses to do so and pretends she has never seen this stream in her life.

(warning: nothing happens, I'm just like hey Poldinou you should come here where it's deeper, the water's so nice and safe and refreshing and she's like I don't believe you ://) (2 min after this video ended, she abandoned me and hurried back to the bank in a fit of panic for absolutely no reason.) (something touched her foot underwater) (allegedly)

On the other hand if she overhears me telling people "well I don't know if she'll go in the water with us, sometimes she's skittish about it" then it will be the day when she throws herself in like a delighted duck, taking everyone by surprise.

Just like Pampe when she was so polite with the shearer it was almost disturbing, right after I described her as a difficult llama. Pampérigouste has taught her daughter the benefits of being unlikely forever and Pampoldine took it to heart, in her own ethical way.

[putschki1969]

Kalafina 「sprinter」 (Yuki Kajiura LIVE Vol.#2) - Unreleased and Unedited

Update 24/09/07: The original YouTube "video" was made private so I can no longer link to it. Instead, I am including the audio which I downloaded last night from the video. Please note that even though I keep calling the original upload a "video", it is just an audio track with a picture.

Update 24/09/08: The video on YouTube is back up again. I don't notice any obvious changes so I'm not sure why it was put on private in the first place. Check it out HERE.

Update 24/09/09: Check out my UPDATE POST here. New information has been revealed that in my opinion proves that the track on YouTube is fake.

Thanks to @gslin (@gslin on Twitter) for the heads-up! A mysterious account on YouTube (@FJS_Official => which is definitely not "official" but pretends to be judging by their name and handle; The account has since changed their handle to "@FJS_Channel") has uploaded an interesting audio a couple of days ago. It is presumably from Kalafina's front act performance for "Yuki Kajiura LIVE Vol.#2" held at Shibuya O-EAST on July 31, 2008. Wakana, Keiko, Hikaru and Maya (who was still a member back then) sang 4 songs in total:

oblivious

Kizuato

ARIA

sprinter

Official footage exists of their "ARIA" and "Kizuato" performance (included as bonus content on the "Seventh Heaven" album) but up until recently, I think everyone believed that there were no live recordings of "oblivious" or "sprinter" featuring Maya (please correct me if I'm wrong in that regard).

When I initially saw the video on YouTube, I thought that this whole thing was fake. I feel like these days, any tech-savvy person can layer different audio tracks and make it sound like a brand-new live recording with a few tweaks here and there (especially if you factor in the growing popularity of AI). I mean, all you'd have to do is mix the original studio recording with Maya's vocals (or Maya's unofficial karaoke performance of the song) with one of the many existing live recordings of "sprinter" and voilà, you'd have created something like the above audio.

However, after listening to the audio a few times, I'm having a hard time recognising any specifics of the live performance. I'll admit, I'm not 100% familiar with every single "sprinter" performance since it's not exactly among my favourite songs but from what I can tell, Hikaru sounds a lot shakier than in any of the "official" live recordings that are out there. So yeah, this might indeed be "unreleased" and it appears to be as raw/unedited as it gets. I did a quick research but couldn't find anything on this topic so I don't think this has been posted before...

As @gslin has mentioned on Twitter, the sound quality is exceptionally well, too good for a bootleg (possibly recorded in an official manner close to the PA system?)

The video description says that it is a sound source preserved at Sony Music but I have my doubts about that. I wonder how the person who runs the account would just get access to it and be allowed to post it on a random YouTube channel. Sounds a bit fishy to me. If there are actually people out there who can get their hands on unreleased Kalafina audios, there would be more of them floating around (someone give me all those Christmas live sound sources!!!!).

But who knows, anything is possible. Maybe the venue had some of these sound sources stored (no idea if this is a common practice)? Shibuya O-EAST could have gotten rid of them (made them publicly available) after they rebranded the venue in 2021.

[lateatnewyork]

Listen- I had an idea. I was thinking about a Lucien Vanserra and the reader feeking the bond snap? But Lucien feeling like he's not worthy of her but she tells him how pretty his eyes are? Even with the scar? I was thinking of adding the prompt 32 angst and 12 fluff maybe.

Scars and All

Lucien x Archeron!reader, Helion x reader (father, daughter dynamic)

Warnings: angst, swearing, fluff

Prompts: Fluff- “I wish you could see the way I see you,” Angst- “You… why did it have to be you?”

Summary: The youngest Archeron sister has always been ignored and rejected by everyone. When she finally finds her mate in the Day Court who thought her heart could’ve broken more at the rejection of someone who was made to love her?

a/n i legit could not find any good headers for this so i downloaded 6 billion of them from pinterest, my sister had made this dress for herself and i had direct access to it thats why the description is so long 😭 im trying a new thing with describing facial features and stuff like that more lmk if u like it or not. ✨ not edited ✨

There was a ball in Day Court, almost all high fae were invited, and as the sister in law to the High Lord of Night Court it was compulsory for all of us to be there.

The dress I'm wearing is a masterpiece of intricacy and elegance, designed to captivate and command attention. Crafted from the finest materials, it combines delicate silk and ethereal lace, creating a harmonious blend of softness and sensuality. The color chosen is a rich midnight blue, reminiscent of the starry night sky that blankets the Night Court.

The bodice of the dress is a work of art, adorned with intricate silver and sapphire beadwork that accentuates the curves of the wearer. It plunges low, revealing a hint of the wearer's décolletage, while thin, delicate straps grace the shoulders, adding a touch of allure. The back of the dress dips in a graceful V, teasing a glimpse of smooth, exposed skin.

From the waist, the dress cascades into a flowing skirt, made of layers of diaphanous silk that sways with every step. The fabric is sheer and airy, allowing a tantalizing view of the wearer's legs as she moves, creating an alluring dance between modesty and seduction. The hemline is asymmetrical, with delicate lace trim that adds a touch of whimsy and femininity.

As I move, the dress catches the light, shimmering and sparkling like a constellation in the moonlit sky. It exudes an air of confidence and sophistication, empowering the woman who wears it to embrace her inner strength and beauty.

The dress wasn't my first choice though. My first choice was an indigo dress with a sweetheart neckline, that showed just enough of my cleavage to not be named as slutty. It had a slit that showed my whole right leg, but Elain had liked that dress after she saw it in my wardrobe, so I gave it to her.

She always got what she wanted.

I wasn't a type of feminine beauty like my sisters. They all had graceful features and beautiful dainty blonde hair. Nesta and I were the most similar with our sharp features.

But that's where the similarities ended.

My hair was a lustrous cascade of ebony strands, shimmered like a moonless night sky, reflecting an ethereal sheen with every subtle movement. Its glossy surface captured the light, revealing depths of darkness that held an irresistible allure.

Once I had slipped my heels on, I headed down the stairs where everyone else was waiting for me. My lips curved into a sly smile when everyone's attention was on me, glancing over the room, my eyes stopped at Elain. Her dress (my dress) was falling at all the wrong places.

She wasn't as curvy as me, Nesta and Feyre. I don't get why she would want the dress, it's obviously not fitting her properly. Ignoring Elain's incessant huffing, I head to Nesta and Cassian.

“You look absolutely breathtaking tonight, sister,” I compliment, giggling.

“I love this dress on you,” she gushes.

Nesta was my best friend, my confidant, the sister who cared for me.

“But I would’ve loved to have seen the other dress on you,” she continues. “You shouldn’t have given it to Elain,”.

“Oh it’s fine, look at the absolute beauty I have found instead,” I reassure.

“Elain are you sure you don’t want to change your dress,” Feyre asks.

Nesta and I snicker behind our hands, Elain turns around towards us and I watch in glee as her faces turns into a scowl.

“I’m fine can we leave already” she snaps.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Cassian winnows Nesta, Rhysand and Feyre, Azriel and Elain, while Mor winnows me.

Landing outside the day court palace, I mentally take in the beauty of the place. The sandy blocks making the palace and the beautiful candles hung at every corner. There truly is no darkness.

I look down at my dress, skepticism glazes over my face. I shouldn’t have worn such an eye catching dress.

How was I meant to know that there would be lights everywhere?

Cauldron fucking boil me.

After some mindless chatter with Feyre about how excited she is to show me her paintings. We’re escorted inside to see the High Lord of the Day Court lounging on his throne, looking like the childish playboy he is. Even though he was centuries old.

His beauty was otherworldly, the way his onyx locks cascaded down his back like they were paid to do so. Piercing amber orbs stared down at everyone. Clad in only a white fabric that was draped over him, he had an easy going presence to him. The sharp points of his golden crown glinting under the bright lights.

But the vision next to him put the Night Court stars to a shame. He was the sun personified. Tan skin, lighter than his father’s but darker than mine. Auburn red hair, similar to his father’s in length, rested along his back. A scar ran from just above his eyebrow to his jaw. His eyes met mine, maroon and golden. His features picked apart weren’t attractive but somehow together on him, he looked like a god.

My breath caught in my throat as my eyes blurred in and out of focus. Once they went back to normal I saw a single golden thread tugging. My eyes followed the thread back to Lucien.

I ran outside. Mother’s tits, I found my mate.

I gave an experimental tug on the bond revelling in the feeling of being complete. Tugging on it again, I let him know I wanted to see him.

Sitting there on the roof, I waited for five minutes, then ten, soon twenty and as quickly as my hope had been born it had faded away. But still remnants of it remained, maybe he couldn’t get away so soon, after all he was the heir to the Day Court.

Holy shit, he was the heir to the Day Court, what if he wanted nothing to do with me?

My thoughts spiralled one after the other.

A throat cleared behind me. Turning around to look at Lucien, I beckon him over.

“I’m Y/N, I already know who you are so introductions won’t be necessary” My attempt at a joke fails.

Finally taking a closer look at his face, I take in the pained expression. “Are you all right?” concern laces my voice, I stand up and whisper, “Have you had enough to eat you look like you’re about to pass out,”.

I’m about to leave and grab him some food, when he speaks, “You… why did it have to be you?”.

I freeze in place, I don’t dare to turn around. My mind flashes with memories of Feyre not wanting to teach me archery because she was busy, or how the boys at Rita’s never even looked at me, or how Elain took it upon herself to make me hate everything about me, or how everyone had their other half and I had just found mine. But not even a full hour of knowing me he hated me.

And somehow after all those years of rejection, self hatred and jealousy my heart broke one last time.

I assume he could feel it through the bond, as I wasn’t all that used to blocking people out of my mind yet.

I run down the stairs to get off the roof, to get as far away from him as possible.

Finally, finding an unoccupied balcony on the opposite side of the palace, I settled there, sobbing my broken heart out. The kohl from my eyes streaming down my face. My fingers red from rubbing my stinging eyes.

I looked around at the material of the dress pillowing around me. Such a waste of such a breathtaking dress.

Soft crying filled the room, my ears were ringing as I hadn’t heard the High Lord of Day Court enter.

“My dear, may I ask what’s wrong?” He asked, worry evident in his voice.

Gasping I stood up and did a sorry excuse of a curtesy, “High Lord” I bowed my head.

“Helion is fine,”

He sat down right next to the place where I was sitting. His muscled arm gently tapped the spot beside him as an invitation.

I sit down, smoothing my skirts out.

As if he can sense the awkwardness he clears his throat and says “We can stay quiet or we can talk about my son or your mate?”.

My eyes widen in shock. “How do you know me?” I mutter out.

“Sunshine I’m the High Lord of Day Court and unbeknownst to you, Rhysand talks a lot about you during meetings so most of the high lords consider you a little sister, but for me you’re like the daughter I never had,” he confesses.

A man I had not met before today, considered me his daughter, and six other high lords think of me as a little sister. My eyes well up in tears, my father had been one of the only people other than Nesta to ever truely care about me. And I had cried for months when he died.

To have someone think of me as their daughter again brought out a fresh wave of tears.

As if reflex, my head rests against Helion’s shoulder, we gaze into the night sky, in a comfortable silence. A strong hand reaches out and softly taps my head in a soothing rhythm.

“It’s ok sunshine.” he whispers.

After a while my tears stain my cheeks, Helion speaks up “I think you should give your mate another chance, I think you’ve mistaken his intentions,”.

Taking in his advice, I wordlessly stand up and hug the high lord. “Thank you” I breathe out.

Pulling away, I walk through corridors in search of Lucien.

A hand grabs mine and pulls me into a dark corner, while another hand muffles my screams.

I’m about to put the training Cassian gave me into use when I see a familiar pair of mismatched eyes.

“You can’t scream, I just wanted to talk to you,” he pleaded. Once his hand reluctantly leaves my mouth, I nod as a signal for him to keep going.

“When I said what I said before, I didn’t mean it as if you weren’t good enough for me,” he started. “I meant it as I didn’t think I was good enough for you.” My eyes soften at his words. “I mean yes I am devastatingly handsome,” I roll my eyes at his smug words, unable to hide my own smile when his lips twitch upwards.

“But I don’t think I could ever be good enough for you, a thousand lifetimes over,” he whispers, impossibly close to me but at the same time painfully far away.

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, Lucien,” I mumble cupping his cheek. “Please have me,” he murmurs.

I grab his face gently and fuse our lips together.

“I’m yours, if you’re mine,”

a/n i’m sorry girl dad!helion is just too good to resist and like imagine being like a little sister to all the high lords (instead of heron it’d be eris), hope you like it anon 🫶🏻

[melien]

CORNELIA ARCHER’S BC (attempt 2.0...)

I announced this BC almost three years ago but overestimated myself with the ambition and just wasn't in a good place mentally in the following months (to put it mildly), but now I feel like I've missed projects like this a lot and am still vibing with the idea of this BC. Also my ts3 is running so much better now, which was one of the initial reasons for cancellation, but now it's a lot easier for me, woo!

Before it got cancelled, I've got a few contestants. I think some of them were given for public download since, but it's really not a problem for me, I can still use them. Right now I'm thinking of still using the same contestants and maybe accepting a few more. I also asked a few people on discord who said it's fine to use the same sims.

In case someone would like to join and make a contestant, let me know under this post or in an ask! The catch of the BC is that the contestant should be based on a song/album (of any artist), as Cornelia herself is very Taylor Swift inspired and is a Lover girlie, actually made on the singer's 30th birthday in 2019 as a tribute sim (she and the winner may even appear in the Lover gen of my swiftacy if I get there hehe) (yes I'm an absolutely hopeless swiftie, all of my saves have some inspo from her) (and what about it).

I don't know how many sims I would accept (11 would be perfect... I'd dress her as one of the eras for every episode). But it would be fine for me if I got less than that, realistically the simblr climate isn't the same as back when BCs were more popular, I guess.

Contestants:

@vintageplumbobs - Lucy Starr

@poisonfireleafs - Laura Oak

@dragonplumbobs - Carson Lake

@cloudberry-sims - Aella Wonders

@tosimornottosim

@arogaba - Sara Nix

@berriespunches - Lara Mooney

@blurrypxls

@bellakenobi - Lilian Pendragon

Rules:

Your sim must be YA vanilla or banilla.

All genders are welcome. Cornelia is pansexual.

Occults allowed (except ghosts)

No Irresistible trait, please.

CC is allowed, though don’t go overboard with it. I mostly use Chazy/Poisonfireleafs hair retextures, and I may change makeup and eyebrows to similar ones because I like keeping everything in my style, unless it’s something that makes the sim unique and is a part of them.

No custom sliders, please.

I have all the packs. You may set all outfits for your sim so they can match their color scheme, but it’s fine if you can’t.

Private download, but it's okay if you decide to make it public (to those who already made it public, don't stress).

Please write a bio for your sim. It doesn’t have to be long, just basics of their personality.

The most important aspect of this BC: it’s not a regular one, it’s a music-inspired BC. Therefore, your sim must be inspired by a certain song, music video, artist, or music album - it could be whatever you wish! (absolutely no pressure if you can't think of anything and would just want to make a regular sim, but I just thought it would be a fun prompt)

The deadline for making a sim is September 30 (flexible). The faster I get all the sims, the better, but no pressure!

[simplyanjuta]

Adjusted Thumbnails for the Household Panel (incl. a version for shorter teens)

Some of this started off as an experiment following a chat in Creator Musings but a few people wondered if I can share it sometime, so here it is.

1A) Adjusted camera settings for kids and pets

This is just something that bothered me and it mainly affects thumbnails in CAS. There's a strong perspective view applied to the CAS thumbnails of kids and pets, which makes them look a bit distorted and the zoom is too close cutting off the face in some cases:

The adjustments are somewhat a compromise of CAS and in-game settings leaning towards the latter. The adjustments for human sims are also included for in-game thumbnails (due to some restrictions this is not quite possible for pets, but their in-game version looks fine anyways).

1B) Adjusted camera settings for shorter teens (tested with the Shorter Teens mod by Menaceman44)

Disclaimer that sims aged teen-elder use the same camera settings and there's no way that I know of to treat teens differently or assign different settings based on the height of a sim, if you use such a mod.

When you use a height mod, the sims faces will be cut off with the default settings.

My workaround here is zooming out to allow shorter sims to fit into the picture frame. It's not an optimal solution, but the only solution I can think of. Below a preview using the standard teen height (first row) and the "shortest" teen height (second row) from the Shorter Teens mod.

This version uses 1A) as a base, but zooms out more on human sims (pets have the same settings as in 1A).

Note: Also not optimal, but you can try making the UI bigger via the game accessibility settings to make the household panel incl. the thumbnails a bit larger if these settings make the sims portraits too small.

2) Angled Pose (made for Waffle ^^)

Waffle mentioned that we used to have angled pictures in the household panel (seems like this was the case until pets were added to the game). Below I tried to recreate the original settings (based on a very old blurry screenshot :P).

Below an example of how it looks standalone and with the camera settings 1A/1B.

The pose override is only for human sims, not for pets. I feel like the very different proportions and profiles of cats and dogs won't always look great when angled (and I suspect that's the reason this was changed when pets were added).

You can use this option in addition to the above settings or standalone. (This is a pose override, not an override for camera settings and can therefore be used independently.)

Download links are below the cut.

DOWNLOAD

1A) Adjusted camera settings for kids and pets: SFS | MF

1B) Adjusted camera settings for shorter teens: SFS | MF

2) Angled Pose: SFS | MF

Notes:

Pick either 1A) or 1B)! Don't put both files into your mods folder.

You can use 2) in addition or standalone.

You need to delete the file localthumbcache.package to let the game generate new thumbnails. Otherwise you won't see any changes in game until the game needs to update the thumbnails on its own. (You should see the changes in CAS immediately, though.)

[dotster001]

hihi! just in here to say that i love your twisted earth au very much, its such an interesting concept and i love the way you write the characters?!!?!/ and to request some twisted earth hcs with rollo, chenya, and neige!

Twisted Earth Part Six

Summary: non NRCx gn!reader. You are the game. They are real.

A/N: full disclosure, I'm on the English server and have worked really hard to avoid masquerade spoilers. So Rollo's part is based on the snippets I've seen. After I play the event, if I think my assessment is off, I'll redo his part. Also, initially I was going to have Neige be a VA of your best friend, but an anon gave me an idea to have him as a villain. Special thanks to you boo!

Parts: One Two Three Four Five

He is a little like Floyd in that he's always searching for fun. Unlike Floyd, instead of crashing, he just continues to up the silliness stakes. His friends downloaded the game on his phone as an attempt to keep him out of trouble for a while.

And it worked! Kind of!  When he's not sneaking onto NRC campus, or going to his own classes, he's got his eyes trained on his phone. It's the first time a lot of his peers have ever seen him sit still.

He decided you would be the most fun to prank, and the most likely to enable his behavior. Whether this is true or not, if you were real, he'd be dragging you along for the ride. I wish you luck man. If you think you hear breathing or giggling behind you, but can't see anyone, trust your instincts. He wants to see you jump.

He didn't start playing until later so he only has one or two of your cards. He is incredibly jealous of his classmates who have the cards he wants, and may or may not make it very difficult for them to play during event periods so that they don't get any farther ahead of him.

He's been acting ever since he was a child. But he's never gotten a chance to let loose! With this project, it wouldn't be outright clear that Neige was in it at all, so he got to be an antagonistic millionaire's son  in the second book. And he had so much fun! Plus, now he's friends with all these voice actors, who really want to allow him the chance to let loose as the villain. He's so excited for his new opportunities!

He plays because it reminds him of working with his voice actor friends. Because the cast was so large though, he didn't have a chance to work with everyone.  You and your immediate friend group were not an arc he got to see come together. He thinks that's why he was drawn to you. You were a route that was completely new to him. The novelty, and just how precious of a character you seem to be, keeps his attention, no matter how long he plays.

If you were real, he would wrap you in a blankie and tell you all the ways he loved you until you loved yourself, and could never doubt in yourself. He really really really wants to kiss the tip of your nose. (He can't explain it. It's just an urge he has) 

He has all of your cards but one. It's just the bonus of playing since its release. He's missing an event card where you are dressed in a Halloween costume. He really wanted it too, but it's alright! He can just ask to see the script, that way he doesn't miss the story.

A world without magic? Magicless humans? He is wondering if the Devs got a little glimpse of heaven when they were making this game.

You. You are so perfect. You could be his pure human, who will help him fix this world. After he helped you see the light of course.

(I am so sorry. My image of him is kind of like a psycho)

He plays after a long hard day of being surrounded by flawed mages (himself included). It just eases his spirit a little bit. Not all is wrong with the world.

He doesn't really bother collecting cards. He has what he has and he's alright with it. He gets what he needs from you from the main story, and his late night shower thoughts.

Side note, he does not like other people's fan theories about you. Only his are correct, and he'll fight people on it until they get annoyed and give up.

[hauntedtrait]

🐴Once Upon A Time In Chestnut Ridge: A Bachelor Challenge

Meet Dakota Blue Heron, Chestnut Ridge's most eligible bachelor!

Dakota is 29, stands 6'3 tall, living on Crow's Head ranch, primarily a horse ranch that is open for guests in the spring and summer months. The ranch is owned and operated by the Heron family, being passed down through generations for over a century. Kindly, Dakota's parents have allowed the ranch to be used this season, in hopes that the show's popularity will help bring in more guests and customers.

Dakota accepted the network's offer to be Bachelor in hopes of finding a life partner, having little time to meet new people in his regular life. Also because, in his words, "this seems fun!"

Here's a few things he wants potential contestants to know about him: he spends his days working in various different parts of the ranch (in the horse stalls and gardens especially), he grows most of his food and whatever he doesn't grow he sources from local and ethical producers, he loves being surrounded by people (especially those he holds dearly), occasionally hunts (deer and invasive species mostly). He speaks navajo, navajo sign language, english and spanish, and is a tribal member of the navajo nation. Dakota wants kids and is looking for a partner with similar desires to start a family.

Keep reading below for more info!

Likes: fellow animal enthusiasts, physical contact (his love language), his grandmother's cooking, gardening, spending his days outside, being with family, cinnamon, old hollywood films, people who are connected to their families or communities, fry bread

Dislikes: being cooped up inside, snow days, musical theater, cilantro (he's got the soap taste gene), sudden loud sounds, stand up comedy, cold showers, people who don't like getting dirty, cops, cigarette smoke

GUIDELINES:

8 contestants will be accepted

contestants should have at least 5 likes and/or dislikes

contestants have 15 skill points to distribute as they wish

contestants can have 3-5 traits, except for unflirty or romantic, do give them at least one negative trait, it's more fun that way

unfortunately, only human contestants for this one. YA and adult only, any amount of story/backstory, any aspiration except for romance related aspirations, any gender (pleaseeee give them pronouns). include all this information in your entry please.

any cc and outfits, though try to keep to 1 outfit per category. maxis match or maxis mix is fine EXCEPT for alpha hairs, no alpha hairs please.

Download can be private or public, up to you, BUT please include ALL cc in the download!

i own most of the packs except for some of the kits, but i do have the ‘kits made bgc’ so i can replace stuff if needed

i will be changing skin details and giving them more outfits, if you submit a sim you are consenting to have them be changed to fit my sim style. honestly i highly encourage everyone to use sliders and custom presets, i think sims look a lot better with those and i dont love how vanilla presets look tbh

if you do not have the horse ranch pack but would like for certain skills, traits or aspirations from the pack to be used on your sim, let me know and i will add it in game!

tag me in your posts and use the hashtag #chestnutbc

UPDATE:

NEW DEADLINE: AUGUST 14

PLEASE READ:

As stated previously, Dakota likesmasculine-leaning sims. No strict gender preference, but I am looking for masculine contestants. Be it women who are more butch, masc leaning non binary, cis or trans men on the masculine side of the spectrum. Dakota's type tends to be people with muscles, masculine-leaning, who look like they could pick him up and throw him around. Dad types are a plus too. He prefers people who aren't very skinny, who have some meat on their bones. Strong types, protective vibes, and obviously people who can and are willing to work on a farm and live and deal with animals every day, it's not easy work!

[shepherds-of-haven]

I know it will never happen, but after hearing those voice claims on Patreon, I would pay ungodly amounts of money for a Fire Emblem-esque SoH game. Like, I don't know where you would even start, but if you did end up deciding to make one, no bank would be safe from me 💰

Hey, never say never! A Fire Emblem-esque ShoH game would be a dream! 🥹 You never know, who knows where my future in game development goes after this entry gets published?... I can dream too, right? 😂

Actually, if you want some little-known trivia, before I started working with ChoiceScript, I actually made a proof-of-concept intro for Shepherds as a JRPG-style turn-based pixel game back in early 2017! It was basically just to learn the engine, RPG Maker (my thing seemed to be throwing Shepherds as a story template at any new programming language I came across), and didn't follow the prologue of our version (no Caine or Prihine, the protagonist just gets plopped into Haven right away and joins the Shepherds), but I built a whole map of Ashtown and Whitestone in it; that 100-hour venture ended up planting the seeds for some of the stuff that takes place in our version of the game! You could explore every nook and cranny of the Shepherds' compound and Ashtown, talk to several hundred NPCs who all had their own routines and walkabouts around the city, and even play minigames and engage in turn-based party combat!

Unfortunately, it was all made on the 3DS version of RPG Maker, so it's not shareable as a demo unless you have a 3DS and are willing to download a free app (but Nintendo pulled the servers for the 3DS, so I don't even think that's possible anymore). I do have some bad pictures I took of the 3DS with the demo running, though!

Is this a proto-Chandry or just some random clown? ↑ If you keep bugging him he starts adding the below to his speech lol: ↴

Dog!! You can sneak a peek at Trouble hanging out in front of the Shepherds' compound on the left: this version of RPG Maker only allowed for premade assets, so the character art for the Shepherds themselves was extremely limited... 😔 ↴

Thieves Guild, though the player doesn't know it because Rafe won't move until later in the game: the only hint present in the "prologue" is that there are little wanted posters of Chase all over the city, but this particular one, if you read it, has the words altered to: "WANTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE AUTARCHY BEING VERY HANDSOME" ↴

Miscellaneous stuff (Qael-Qanaeon, Arta and Hal's house, etc.) ↴

Shepherds' compound! I only took screenshots of a few of the rooms, like a sparring gym, Blade's office, the main atrium (there were two guardian 'Viveks', lion gargoyles named Leo and Lionel, and they'd randomly stop you if you walked by them to engage in some silly random dialogue and generally be a nuisance before letting you get through the door), the refectory, one of the dormitories, etc.) ↴

[ello-sims]

Whew, long time no upload! Partly a busy start to the summer but also because I wanted to finally, at long last, get this followers' gift out for you guys! I hit 2500 + followers a little while ago and was just so overwhelmed that my little lockdown escapism has been shown so much support. Thank you guys! I come armed with gifts to show my appreciation, in three parts and I'm super excited because I'm sharing stuff I've not done before. Starting off with some default eyes 😌

Maxis eyes defaulted with @entropy-sims Remussirion’s Indel eyes 4to2 and @mouseyblue Black Eyes.

(non-squished preview - thanks tumblr...)

This mouseyblue set (which I can't find an original link to, just in her mediafire file grrr) has always, always been my favourite and I always hoped they'd release an eyeset in a similar style to make a full set of defaults but they never did. When I ran across entropy's eyeset I thought the size, shape and placement of the highlights could work and they do! I think they look really good as a complete set!

One thing to note about these defaults: as I believe mouseyblue wrote in the original download, making sims of certain ethnicities is kinda hard because the brown eye colours are always too pale. I made this set because I wanted a dark eyeshade that I felt could be used convincingly on black and asian sims. I also wanted a paler brown as well so sacrificed the dark blue for it. It's only an aesthetic difference and if you take my set out, they'll go back to having blue eyes. With this default though, sims like Dustin Broke will now have brown eyes instead of dark blue for example.

While I was at it, I also chucked the rest of the indel eyes set into wardrobe wrangler and geneticised/townified them so you can enjoy the full spectrum of this gorgeous set. Entropy has kindly allowed me to share them with you too. Please remove her set if you are using these ones, as they will conflict. I haven't done any supernatural versions as I don't tend to play with them but happy to add them if anyone would like them! 😊

indel / black eyes as defaults | indel eyes geneticised

As I said, Mouseyblue's set is my fave, so why default one swatch from it when I can default all of them?

Maxis eyes defaulted with @mouseyblue Black Eyes

(non-squished preview)

I thought these might be useful for simmers playing in a hood/world with a dominant ethnic group or you just really like the aesthetics of the dark eyes 😊 to get the most out of this set, I suggest downloading this mod alongside it, so babies have an equal chance of getting any of the 'shades' in this set. Not a requirement though!

Download Mouseyblue's black eyes as defaults

Just a quick reminder that you can't have both defaults in at the same time. indel / black eyes defaults and indels geneticised are intended to be used as a set so you can download both!

And that's part 1! Look out for the next two parts in a little bit 😊

[subsystems]

Hello -

As a person with DID who has successfully fused alters/parts, do you have any information, resources, or advice for systems hoping to do the same?

My system is hoping to reach a point where we can act and function as one, but it’s been horrible trying to find resources on fusion. Nearly every article about fusion we could find places this second to functional multiplicity and seems to confuse fusion and integration. Or worse, claims that fusion is a way to kill alters!

Our therapist has been immensely helpful, but we find ourselves wanting to read more about this process or hear from others who have successfully managed a fusion. Any help would be greatly appreciated - thank you!

Hi, anon. I'm so sorry that you've been struggling to find resources on your desired recovery. I went through that struggle too, it's hard. I'm glad you have a therapist to help you out through all of this.

If you want, I've talked about my own experience with final fusion on this blog and I'm always open to talking about it more if there's anything in particular you want to hear about!

Definitely seek out other systems who have experience with partial/full fusion, too. Off the top of my head, there's @system-of-a-feather, @reimeichan, @hiiragi7, and @smokee78 (hope it's okay to tag you guys!). They haven't been active recently, but back when I was working towards final fusion, @puppydeathfarts made posts that I found really helpful. If there's anyone else who has experience with partial/full fusion, though, please leave a comment!

I also recommend checking out Rachel Downing's experience with final fusion/full integration and Jess's from Multiplicity & Me:

Their experiences helped me feel less alone when I was pursuing final fusion. There was also another person, but unfortunately they left the community due to harassment and deleted their posts. I will forever for grateful to all of them for being brave enough to share this vulnerable and personal part of their lives, they've certainly given me the strength to share my own.

As for articles, unfortunately I don't know of too many that don't stigmatize final fusion. DID-research offers a good summary of final fusion and a few interesting links to check out here.

You can find a bunch of free downloads for self-help books here. Out of all of them, I feel like Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation is a great self-help book for people who are a being supported by a therapist and interested in pursuing harmony and stronger integration within their dissociative system. I don't think it would've been possible for me to achieve final fusion or even functional multiplicity without the techniques I learned from this book. I cannot emphasize how useful it is!

Some extra things from me:

You have to work with your parts, first. You can't skip ahead to fusion. Aim to pave for understanding, acceptance, and harmony within your system. Fusion, if you want it, is the natural progression to that!

There are ways to test out fusion. Talk to your therapist about "blending" (it's also described in the coping book, but definitely mention it to your therapist). You can test out what it's like to be fused as many times as you want.

Fusion can feel weird at first. It shouldn't feel bad, but it can be strange. It took me time to get used to it. It can also feel differently depending on what stage of recovery you're in... ->

When I still had amnesia and less co-operation in my system, fusions slid under the radar and surprised the hell out of me! As I continued lowering those dissociative barriers, developing better communication and co-consciousness as a system, things become way clearer.

After you become fully fused for the first time, it's completely okay if you fall apart a few times before it really sticks! Final fusion is a process, not a destination.

You're allowed to choose whatever labels you want after final fusion. Call yourself a system or plural or say you've become a singlet or whatever you want. It's also okay to go unlabeled!

Your parts aren't gone after final fusion, but that separation is gone and it's okay if you need to mourn that. Sometimes I miss what it was like being fragmented. It's not because I want to be fragmented again, but because that was how I lived my entire life up until now, it was what was most natural to me, and it had its good and bad sides. I'm thankful for it because it was that separation which allowed me to survive! I view this similarly to how it was like to move recently. Sometimes I miss my old home, but that doesn't mean I want to go back or that I'm not happier where I am now. Things can be complicated like that!

After final fusion, you continue to learn new things about yourself and your system. It's a new journey in of itself -- a very, very wonderful one. 💚

I hope you find something helpful here. Either way, know that you are not alone on this journey. I support you whole-heartedly. Good luck with everything!

- Sunflower

[azukisoul]

Translation of GinHiji manga/dj: "Together." by 礼央。(pixiv) [non-h]

This was requested on Twitter, a heartwarming reincarnation story :") I loved translating it.

CLICK HERE FOR MANGA LINK | Out of courtesy to the artist I'm not reposting their art here, please visit the page, refer to the translation as you read along, and show the artist some love!

I do not mind uncredited text reposts but please DO NOT use my translation to scanlate/edit the manga and post the edits. Keep it text only and link to the source.

Downloadable translation on Google Docs

Translation

[page 1] S: Hijikata-san! H: Oh, glasses. G: Um, have you seen Gin-san?

[page 2] H: Oh, so you're alive. G: Huh!? G: Is it a bad thing that I'm alive? G: Wait. G: Hold on, you're on break? H: Well, yeah. G: Are you here to see me? H: I'm just taking a walk. G: Hmph. I know you're here to see me, though. H: Die, idiot. G: What have you been saying!? Am I not allowed to be alive!?

[page 3] H: Earlier, H: I saw glasses. G: Shinpachi? H: Yeah. H: He was looking for you, y'know. G: …. H: You… H: What are you H: thinking of right now? G: What's this all of a sudden? G: Is it because of Shinpachi? S: Gin-san has been acting weird lately. S: This morning, too, he said he's just heading out to buy Jump, but… H: Nah. H: Well… H: Yeah.

[page 4] H: He was worried about you. H: Hurry up and go home. G: Pfft. That's why you were surprised I'm alive? G: Hijikata-kun, are you an idiot? H: Shut up. G: Hey, wanna listen to me? H: Sure.

[page 5] G: You know, I… H: Mm. G: I found myself thinking that I'm happy. H: Mm. G: And then I ended up thinking about whether or not I'm allowed to be this happy. G: And then, somehow G: I suddenly got scared. H: I see. G: If I'm at home, G: there's Kagura, and Sadaharu, G: and during the day there's Shinpachi, too. G: It's fun there even if we're not doing anything. H: Mm.

[page 6] G: I ended up thinking that I don't want to let them go. H: …. G: It's silly, right? G: I've never even thought about what's ahead of me or what my future looks like. G: Someday, they all will go to walk on their own paths and leave my side. G: This won't go on forever. I know that, and I don't have a problem with that. G: I'll tell them that I'm happy they all found something they want to do. G: But then I thought about what I'm going to do by myself when that time comes. G: I closed my eyes G: and tried to picture that now emptier room. G: And then…

[page 7] G: I can only see you there, Hijikata. G: Hey. G: Will you live together with me?

[page 8] H: Those words made my heart clench. H: Ah. H: I want to protect this person. I want to be by his side. H: That's what I felt.

[page 9] H: Things progressed surprisingly quickly after that. H: Kondou-san cried and was happy for us. H: The kids welcomed us. H: And then, we H: someway somehow, became a family.

[page 10] G: Hey. G: Hijikata-kun. G: If I die first, what'll you do? H: Let's see. H: I'll put my ring on you H: and then I'll put your ring in a small bottle along with some small shards H: and I'll carry it with me until my death.

[page 11] G: So we can meet again up there? H: Nah. H: Not up there. *taps* H: So that in our next life H: I'll keep you from being alone again.

[page 12] H: Hey, hurry up!

[page 13] H: You're so damn slow, you fucking perm! You want us to leave together, right!? G: Wa-wait a minute, okay! I'm coming now, dammit! H: Your slowness is gonna make me end up being late! G: Sorry, sorry. *step step step* G: Man, Mr. Public Servant Police Officer here sure is strict about time. H: You're the one who's too loose about it! Also, hurry up and find a job already! G: No need. Right now, I'm trying to think about what I truly want in life. It's an important time for me. H: You'll probably go to the Employment Service Center today, anyway. G: I can't say anything to that! H: Hey. H: You…

[page 14] G: Okay, then. Be careful. H: What are you thinking about right now? H: Yeah. You too. H: What do you see? G: I'm gonna make dinner and wait for you, darling. H: That's freaking gross. H: Are you not afraid anymore? H: Right now, H: are you happy? *clack*

[page 15] H: Me? H: Yeah. I'm here with you, H: so I'm happy.

[page 16] The following is an additional story for "Together." that I drew for REOLOG (my doujin collection). *Depiction of death *Post-reincarnation

[page 17] G: I've been holding on to it as long as I can remember. G: I don't know who it belongs to.

[page 18] G: G to T… G: G is for Gintoki, I guess? G: Then who is T… G: I have absolutely no idea.

[page 19] G: My mom said G: I seem to have picked it up out of nowhere when I was a baby. G: Even when they took it away out of fear of me accidentally swallowing it G: or threw it away because it seemed strange, G: before they knew it, it always returned to the palm of my hands. G: My mom then had the idea of putting that ring around my neck.

[page 20] S: Heey, Gintoki! S: The entrance ceremony is about to start. G: Yeah, I'm coming. G: I have no idea if this ring even has any meaning at all. G: But, G: when I look at it, my heart becomes calmer, yet also excited, yet also painful. It's strange. G: I'm sure there is a meaning. G: I believe that. H: Haha. K: And then, Otae-san was like…

[page 21] G: Hiji… G: …kata.

[page 22] *glare* *ba-dump* G: Huh? H: Who the hell are you? G: Oh, sorry. Did I say something? H: Huh? Say something? Nah. You called my name, right? G: N… Name?

[page 23] O: Hijikata-san! What are you doing? H: Tch. You damn perm. G: His name is G: Hijikata, huh… G: Hijikata? I said his name? I did? G: Why? G: …. G: Hijikata.

[page 24] G: Hijikata. G: Who is that? G: Hijikata. G: Is that someone I know? G: Hijikata. G: Who the hell are you? G: Hey, Hijikata. G: Will you live together with me? G: Who?

[page 25] G: Hey, Hijikata-kun. G: If I die first, what'll you do? H: Let's see. H: I'll put my ring on you H: and then I'll put your ring in a small bottle along with some small shards H: and I'll carry it with me until my death. G: So we can meet again up there? H: Nah. H: Not up there. H: So that in our next life…

[page 26] H: So that in our next life… H: I'll keep you from being alone again. *rustle*

[page 27] G: Hijikata… G: …Toshirou. G: Yeah. I remember now. G: I remember now. G: G to T. G: This is G: the ring I gave him.

[page 28] G: In our next life… G: We met. G: We met, G: Hijikata.

[page 29] -

[page 30] H: I'll go too, soon. H: Wait for me, okay?

[page 31] H: Yorozuya.

[page 32] -

[page 33] H: I've been holding on to it as long as I can remember. H: Who does it belong to? H: What shards are these? H: I have no idea.

[page 34] G: And then, Zura and Sakomoto's like… G: Then, Takasugi fell (lol) G: Hilarious, right? H: …. H: Hey, Sakata. G: What is it, Hijikata-kun? H: Which class are you in? G: H (Ecchi) ♥ H: Don't say it in such a weird way. H: And this class is? G: A Class. H: Then, let me ask you this. H: Why are you always eating lunch here everyday!? We're not even on the same floor. H: Furthermore, here in front of me!

[page 35] G: That's clearly G: because I want to be next to you, right? G: Just kidding. *GROSSED OUT* *fidgets* G: Hey, come on! Don't look so clearly grossed out like that! H: Stop those jokes already. G: Hahah. It was just a joke. Don't mind it so much. H: Geez. I really don't date guys, okay? H: ….

[page 36] H: ? G: I know, I know. G: Hahah. H: Sakata Gintoki… H: The first time I met him was on the day of our high school entrance ceremony. G: Hiji… G: …kata.

[page 37] H: Who the hell are you? G: Oh, sorry. H: A guy with lazy eyes that resemble those of a dead fish. H: Rarely-seen silver hair. G: Did I say something? H: It should've been the first time we met, but it didn't feel like the first. H: You damn perm. H: After that day, H: For some reason, Sakata took a liking to me and popped up in my classroom whenever he had the time. O: Oh, it's Danna. K: Ooh, Gintoki, you're here. G: Don't interrupt us. Get the hell away, Gorilla. H: Kondou-san is not a gorilla!

[page 38] H: The guy is suspicious, H: but I don't think of it as strange and end up hating it. H: In fact, that smile H: perhaps even feels familiar to me. *ba-dump* G: Hm? What's wrong? H: Oh, nothing. H: I never knew you wear that thing.

[page 39] G: Oh, this? G: You're curious about it? H: Nah, not really. G: Don't worry. I don't have a girlfriend or anything. H: L-Like anyone even asked about that! G: Come on, just hear me out. G: This is something I've been keeping safe for as long as I can remember. G: I've been holding on to it without even knowing who it belongs to or why I can't let go of it. H: Without knowing… H: All this time? G: Yeah. G: All this time. H: For as long as you can remember? G: Yeah. G: As long as I can remember.

[page 40] H: I was shocked. H: His story is exactly the same as mine. H: The ring in that bottle… H: And his ring… *thump* H: What is happening? H: There's a strange pain in my chest. *ruffles*

[page 41] G: Take your time. H: …. G: I'll wait.

[page 42] H: T to G. H: Does it mean from Toshirou to Gintoki…?

[page 43] H: That can't be the case. H: The first time I met him was on the day of our entrance ceremony. H: I don't think I've met him before that. H: But… is that true? G: I'll wait. H: Could it be that I've just forgotten? H: I want to remember. H: I feel like I have to remember. H: If there really is something to remember. H: Or do I just want that to be the case? H: I don't know. H: On his ring… H: Are there somebody's initials carved on it?

[page 44] H: Sakata. H: Sakata Gintoki. H: Who are you? H: Sakata Gintoki. H: Really? H: Sakata Gintoki. H: I called his name like that?

[page 45] G: Hey, Hijikata-kun. G: If I die first, G: what'll you do? H: Let's see. H: I'll put my ring on you H: and then I'll put your ring in a small bottle along with some small shards H: and I'll carry it with me until my death. G: So we can meet again up there? H: Nah. H: Not up there. *taps* H: So that in our next life…

[page 46] H: So that in our next life… H: I'll keep you from being alone again. *shock...*

[page 47] H: Right. H: I know him. H: I know Sakata Gintoki. H: Something as important as this… H: How could I forget… *grip* G: Hijikata-kun. H: Tch. H: Damn it…! *runs*

[page 48] H: Haa… H: Haa… *ring* *ring* H: Hey, where the hell are you? H: What? H: Heading back home from work? Where!? H: Whatever, just tell me! H: Huh? H: Near the park? Then right now I'm… G: Hijikata!

[page 49] G: Hey, what's up? H: Sakata… H: Gintoki. G: Hijikata? What's wrong? H: Sorry. G: Hm? H: I said I'll keep you from being alone, but… H: Sorry. G: … H: You've been in front of me all this time, but H: I didn't realize. I'm sorry. H: I've never even called your name properly. H: I'm really sorry,

[page 50] H: Yorozuya.

[page 51] G: Hijikata, you… H: Hey, Yorozuya… H: Can you put it on me, too? G: …

[page 52] H: Hah. H: It fits me perfectly. I've been holding on to it as long as I can remember. I don't know who it belongs to. But…

[page 53] G: We finally meet, Hijikata. G: Don't cry. H: I'm just sorry for making you wait. H: Also, I'm not crying. G: You're totally crying. H: I'm not crying.

[page 54] Those faraway memories, bond, love. The miracle of being able to meet again.

[page 55] I won't let you be alone. I'll be by your side. To make you happy. To become happy. From now on, too, always.

[page 56] Together.

[scopostims]

stim gifs in photopea

[PT: Stim gifs in photopea /End PT]

Hello! This is my (lengthy) tutorial for how I make GIFs for stimblr using Photopea. It's not going to be as extensive as how I make for shows, celebrities, etc, because I have different processes for both, however I'm still aiming to cover everything I think necessary!

It'll be split into multiple sections with headers, so feel free to skip whatever you want if you don't find it necessary :•] Reblogs appreciated if you found it useful, but no pressure obviously!

Sections:

Getting your video

Importing into Photopea

Making the GIF

Sharpening the GIF

Coloring

Exporting & Optimization (in EZGIF)

End results, and misc tips and comments

1. Getting your video

[PT: 1. Getting your video /End PT]

Short section! These are the ways I download and source videos for use

Youtube - yt-dlp (installation instructions)

Instagram

Tiktok (Allows without watermark)

Pexels

For yt-dlp, check out this basic list of commands I made solely for downloading material to GIF! If you have further questions, either send me an ask or refer to the github page.

2. Importing into Photopea

[PT: 2. Importing into Photopea /End PT]

There are two ways to import into Photopea, the first is importing footage directly, and the second is screencapping (which I won't cover in detail, but this tutorial is for installing the program I use on mac & how to use it, and this is for installing on windows)

Option 1: Importing footage directly (see end for comments)

On the home page of Photopea, you'll want to click "Open from computer", and select your clip, upon selecting you'll be presented with a popup like below

All that really matters here is where you see "30 FPS", that's the videos native frame rate. I always put whatever that number is as my frame rate because I find it to be the best, but you can use different presets (Like ezgif, which gives you 12, 20, etc). The less frames you have, the chopper it will be. If you plan to slow it down later, I'd also recommend having more frames so it looks smoother after slowing.

Now you just have to wait for it to load all the frames, then you're set!

Option 2: Importing screencaps

This is my personal way of doing things, so this is assuming you've installed a screencapping program and already have your frames ready.

For this, when you click "open from computer", select the first frame and open it by itself. Once that's loaded, look in the top left at the "File" tab, select "Open & Place", then ctrl + shift to select the rest of your frames. Once they've all loaded in, you can either rasterize them now, or wait until after cropping and resizing (goes faster then).

What's important though, is ctrl + shift to select all your layers, in the top left open the "Layer" tab, hover over "Animation" at the bottom to expand it, and select "Make frames". With your frames still selected, hit the folder button in the bottom left.

Without this, Photopea won't recognize this as an animation, therefore you'll be unable to export it as a GIF.

3. Making the GIF

[PT: 3. Making the GIF /End PT]

3A. Cropping

To begin with cropping, select the crop tool, which is the fifth one down on the left bar (if you hover over, it will say the name), or the "C" key on the keyboard.

Along the top now, you should have some new options. The dropdown menu that says "Free" is going to be how you select an aspect ratio or fixed size, and I always set to 1:1 since most people on stimblr use square GIFs, but you can do whatever works for you! Make sure to leave "Delete uncropped pixels" unchecked, because that lets you move stuff around later without having to recrop.

Crop your animation down as you see fit, then either hit the enter key, or the check button along the top bar. If you're unhappy with the placement, you can undo it OR, select all your layers, then use the move tool (First icon on the left, or the "V" key) and drag it around as you see fit.

3B. Resizing

With all your layers selected still, open the "Image" tab in the top left, towards the bottom select "Image Size", then select what you want to resize to.

Tumblr's exact GIF sizing

1 per row: 540px

2 per row: 268px

3 per row: 177px

HOWEVER. For stim GIFs, I find the quality difference so negligible, you can resize to what you want. It's also better for it to be bigger and scale down, then smaller and scale up. For this reason, I typically do 268px no matter what, or 300px.

As far as resampling goes, leave it turned on, and I personally leave it on bilinear, but the different options vary slightly, so experiment and see what works for you!

If you're happy at this step, go ahead and skip down to exporting! But when doing this way, I do recommend sharpening for better quality at smaller size.

4. Sharpening the GIF

[PT: 4. Sharpening the GIF /End PT]

The fun thing about this section is you get to experiment and find what works for you! I'll give you my personal method, but you can play around, add and remove bits, etc until you get something you're happy with!

4A. High pass

High pass is my personal favorite way to sharpen GIFs, and for stim GIFs I'll often use only this.

(Steps 1-3 in image) To do, start by right clicking the *Folder* all your frames are in, and select "Duplicate Layer". Select all the frames in Only the folder on top, then go to the "Filter" tab along the top left, hover over "Other", and select "High Pass". The grey look is entirely normal! I normally set my high pass at 2-4, but play around with this step and find something you like!

Select the *Folder* all your high pass frames are in, and change the blending mode (fourth step in image) to "Soft Light", it should be on "Pass Through" initially. With that done, you've used high pass on your GIFs! If you're content here, skip the next section about smart sharpening, and see about merging animation folders under it.

4B. Smart Sharpen

Note: I recommend testing your sharpening settings on one layer BEFORE applying them to all layers, as it will be easier on your computer.

I utilize this in addition to high pass usually, but you can do it all by itself as well! To begin, select all the frames in your folder (if you used high pass, select the frames in the *Bottom* folder). Open the "Filter" tab on the top left, hover over "Sharpen", and select "Smart Sharpen". Now find what you like!

For stim GIFs, if I used high pass, I'll go for 75-110% amount, and a .1 radius. I personally don't like the look of an over sharpened GIF, so I only use smart sharpen if I want to enhance some small details high pass didn't touch enough, which is why I use so little. If you don't like high pass, you might use more here!

4C. Combining animation folders

If you used high pass, you'll notice you have two animation folders. To fix this, select both folders using ctrl + shift, open the "Layer" tab, hover over "Animation", and select "Merge". It will give you a popup to confirm, and you can go ahead and accept!

If you don't merge these, Photopea will think they're two GIFs in one document, rather than only one, which is why this step is so important.

As a note, once you merge these folders, you can no longer shift the frames around to change where they are in the crop like you could earlier.

5. Coloring (Image Heavy)

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This section is going to be less of a tutorial and more a basic rundown of the adjustment layers and what they do. Coloring will change from GIF to GIF, and you can do light or intense coloring, so this is just a guide to begin with, but really just play around and find what you like!

To access the adjustment layer menu, in the bottom right where "New Folder" was, the one directly next to it that looks like a circle made of two half-circles, will bring up your adjustment layers.

As a note, I always group my adjustment layers in a folder above my animation, for ease of hiding to compare with and without.

5A. Levels

Levels is one I almost *Always* use on a GIF because it makes it look cleaner to me. In the first box, sliding the black square on the left *increases* the blacks, sliding the white square on the right *increases* the whites, and the one in the center changes the general brightness up or down.

Sliding the black box on the bottom bar *decreases* the blacks, sliding the white box *decreases* the whites.

If you change the channel from RGB to another option, you can change the balance of reds/cyans, greens/magentas, or blue/yellows, I personally don't touch this for stim GIFs. In the RGB channel, I set the top black box at ~10, and the top white box at ~245 usually.

5B. Curves

This is another way of adjusting brightness, blacks and whites, or color balance. By adjusting the dot in the bottom corner you adjust blacks, the top corner adjusts whites, and if you make a dot in the center, it adjusts general brightness! You can also make multiple dots to separately adjust some values. By changing the channels, you adjust color channels rather than white/black.

5C. Exposure

This is another way of adjusting the lights and darks of the GIF. Sliding the exposure up and down will add/take away light from the lighter parts of your images. Adjusting the gamma correction up and down will add/take away shadow from the darker parts of your image. Offset increases/decreases the brightness of the whole thing but I almost never use it.

5D. Vibrance

Vibrance is what I like to think of as a "softer" way to increase intensity of colors, instead of using a Hue/Saturation layer. It affects warmer colours more intensely than cooler colours, whether you use the vibrance or saturation slider. The saturation slider here is more intense than the vibrance one, but less intense than saturation in a Hue/Saturation layer.

5E. Hue/Saturation

This one is simple! Sliding the hue slider changes the colour, sliding the saturation slider increases/decreases saturation, and sliding the lightness is basically like directly adding black/white to a color. I use lightness only sparingly.

What's cool here, is you can adjust the range to target a specific batch of colours! If you find your reds are too bright compared to everything else, you can target the saturation of them specifically.

5F. Color balance

This is a simple way to adjust the base colors of an image, by changing it to be more cyan or red, magenta or green, or yellow and blue. This can be useful for making a GIF appear warmer or cooler!

I almost only touch the shadows & midtones, and highlights sparingly. "Preserve Luminosity" preserves the highlights and shadows of the image, so by unchecking it, you can achieve some more intense results.

5G. Black & White

The black and white layer is useful because you can change exactly how light or dark a color appears after making it black and white. For that reason, I prefer it over a gradient map if I need to make something black and white.

5H. Photo filter

Photo filter is a simple way to add a color filter over the entire image, and adjust how strong or weak it is. "Preserve luminosity" once again just keeps the darks and whites of the original GIF.

5I. Channel mixer

I couldn’t even begin to cover channel mixer here, but this is for very intense color edits (I typically use it when I'm trying to make a GIF fit a board). However, here's another tutorial solely about channel mixer if you're interested in taking a crack at it!

5J. Selective color

Finally, selective color allows you to adjust the amounts of color or lightness/darkness of a specific batch of color.

By changing the color channel, you can affect different batches of color. The cyan slider controls cyan/red, the magenta slider controls magenta/green, the yellow slider controls yellow/blue, and the black slider controls black/white.

Checking the "absolute" is essentially like "Preserve Luminosity" in the other layers. With absolute, it's like shifting the color one way or the other, and without absolute, it's like adding to the pre-existing color.

6. Exporting and Optimization

[PT: Exporting and Optimization /End PT]

6A. Exporting

With all that done, we're ready to finish it up! To finish your GIF, open the "File" tab in the top left, go to "Export As", and select GIF!

Here you can rename, adjust the size (WILL ruin the sharpening you did), the quality (I leave at 100%), and the speed.

Another important thing to note is the "Dither". If you leave dither off, you can potentially encounter color banding, which is where (typically gradients) with look like strips of color, rather than smooth. This is because GIFs only have 256 colors they can render, so if something has too many, it bands.

By checking dither, it can get rid of color banding, at the cost of dots on the image (around where the worst color banding is usually). Sometimes the dots aren't noticeable and this is the better option, however it will Also increase your file size. It's up to you if you want to use it!

6B. Optimization

This is technically an optional step, as tumblr's GIF size limit is 10mb, so as long as you're under that, you can post, however, smaller GIFs load faster and I personally find are better for use in stimboards where you're loading a lot of GIFs! So to help this, let's head on over to the optimize section of ezgif. My personal goal is UNDER 4.5MB, ideally under 4MB.

The two main things I recommend are Lossy GIF, or removing frames, and I always start with Lossy GIF. I do anywhere from 5-15, and usually this will bring down GIFs a lot if you made them in Photopea! My example GIF was 6.7 MB to begin with, and afterwards it was 4.2MB.

However if you find that to be not enough, you can remove frames. When you remove frames, it speeds the GIF up, so I also recommend slowing it down (this is why I set my frames high in the beginning as well). I typically do "Remove every 4th frame" and slow it down to 75%-85%.

7. End results, and misc tips and comments

[PT: 7. End results, and misc tips and comments /End PT]

(source) The first GIF is without sharpening/colouring, the second is with sharpening but no colouring, and the third is with sharpening and colouring. I didn't color it much besides making it slightly warmer, but I hardly ever do much anyways!

As for misc comments:

In firefox, when you import footage directly, sometimes it glitches and tries to load 4000 blank frames, which is extremely resource intensive on a computer. The solution is import the footage in chrome, save as PSD, then open the PSD in firefox. (Or work in chrome but why do that /half silly). The other solution is screencap which I do since I do this often, but both work fine.

In firefox, sometimes you're unable to slow the GIF down upon export and it will export faster than it actually is. Slowing the video down to 50% restores it to native speed I've found, and you can do this in ezgif before other optimization.

When colouring, my number one tip is slide something all the way up first, then adjust down! By seeing it at max, you have a better idea of what's getting adjusted.

If you have any questions, drop me an ask :•]

And that concludes our tutorial! My apologies for the length, but I wanted to cover every possible thing here. It definitely seems like a lot, much more than working in ezgif, but when you get used to what you're doing, it goes extremely fast (even if you spend extra time screencapping). I personally find it worth it for the ability to sharpen GIFs alone, but as well as more detailed coloring opportunities.

Thank you for reading, I hope this has been useful!

[mayalaen]

VPNs aren't just for pirates and company data anymore

A friend complained to me that they couldn't access pr0n anymore because the government is now requiring ID to verify age where they are, and due to data leaks and privacy issues, didn't want to share their ID even though they're of legal age.

Shit like this doesn't work on the intended target. It only frustrates people who are aren't tech savvy while a lot of kids have already found their way around it because that's what kids do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I talk about VPNs (virtual private networks), non-tech savvy people's eyes glaze over 😂

It sounds like complicated, unknowable magic. It's not! And you don't even have to understand it to use it!

With the government and ISPs (internet service providers) invading privacy more and more and hackers breaking in and stealing user data from companies, VPNs are becoming necessary.

Some Things a VPN Does for You:

hides your data from others

can make your internet speeds faster if your ISP does speed throttling (purposely making your speed slower)

hides what you're doing from your ISP

keeps you safer from some malware, viruses, hackers, and trackers

allows you to access things that are either restricted in your area or not available in your area (such as content in other countries)

keeps you safer when you're out in public connected to wifi

Below is a basic infographic on how VPNs work. When you access the internet, a VPN encrypts your data - making it into a secret code that can't be read by anyone else including your ISP.

Tech companies, ISPs, etc. want you to think VPNs are complicated so that you won't use them.

When searching for a free VPN, please be aware that a lot of the free VPN services out there are malware or full of viruses and trackers.

Either do some research into which one to choose or use a paid VPN service. You can either pay monthly or yearly - the yearly is always cheaper in the long run.

Some of the Top Rated VPN Services:

ExpressVPN $7 - $13/month

NordVPN $3 - $13/month

Surfshark $2 - $14/month

PrivateInternetAccess $2 - $12/month

ProtonVPN (some sites block this one) $4 - $10/month

CyberGhost $2 - $13/month

I use ExpressVPN, so for the purposes of this post, I'm going to use screenshots from ExpressVPN.

Once you have an account, download the program from the website to your desktop/laptop or find the app on Android or iOS app stores.

Signing in requires a code that the VPN will email to you that unlocks all the features. Pay attention when the program installs because it'll ask you about preferences, and you can easily check yes on blocking pr0n when that's the reason you wanted a VPN in the first place 😂

When the program is open, you'll see this:

As you can see in the screenshot, not only do I have the program, but I have an ExpressVPN icon on my browser. The program installs this automatically, and when the program is running, the icon will have a green checkmark on it so you know it's working in your browser.

You'll notice I've recently connected using Japan. I did this so I could watch a series that isn't available outside of Japan.

The program automatically chooses a location near you, but if you want to access things that are restricted to you, make sure you click on the three dots to the right of the selected location (see screenshot below) and search for a state/country/place that your content will be available in.

Once your location is selected, click on the start/power button, and you'll get a popup notification from your computer that ExpressVPN is connected.

Go to the site you want to use and use it like you normally would.

Here's what it should look like when it's running correctly:

Keep in mind that if you leave a VPN running all the time (which is perfectly fine to do), search engines like Google will assume you live wherever ExpressVPN tells it you live, so searching for "stores near me" will give you results that aren't close to you.

When you're done using the VPN, just hit the power button again and it shuts off.

I use this on all my handheld devices, my desktop, and my laptop for business and personal reasons. I'm a pirate, and I've been using VPNs for a long time, yet none of the ISPs I've used have ever given me a warning about torrenting.

Good luck, and enjoy all the new things you can access!

BTW for anybody wondering, my desktop wallpaper is a map of the world's time zones. So pretty!! 😍

[n7punk]

What’s your beef with Spotify?

It's less beef and more just a product I don't like - because that's what Spotify is, a product. They really don't want you to think of it that way, but at the end of the day it's particularly invasive product packaging around the thing you actually want to listen to, and there are dozens of different ways to listen to music. As far as gripes, though, number 1 is that it doesn't really pay its artists for shit and its objectively kind of shitty audio-quality wise (I'm not a snob on this, but depending on your hardware it can be especially crunchy while other things like Youtube sound just fine). Number 2 is how much it spies on you and tracks your data. Number 3 is the ads. Number 4, and the actual reason I will never use it, is that it's the enshittification of media consumption.

I do, actually, have a Spotify account. I used it for all of a day before never logging in again or verifying my email. Spotify forces you to experience music the way it wants you to, with absolutely no benefit aside from cloud syncing cross-platform for your playlists that I don't actually need, and I'm used to the freedom from the dawn of the accessible mp3 era.

Better Kind Of Best Friend is a single. I bought it as part of the entire The Sex Was Good Until It Wasn't album, so it came with the album artwork. I wanted it to have its single artwork - so I changed it. And now, in MusicBee and on my phone, I see the single artwork because it's in the file metadata. Spotify doesn't give you that option. It's a little thing, maybe, except when it isn't, like when a song's cover art is graphic or otherwise upsetting to look at, or just plain doesn't fit it.

Sometimes I don't agree with a song's "official" genre (usually because the entire album classifies the songs one way while they actually span genres). The range of things that are classified as indie rock is insane. Anyway, other times I use the genre more specifically, such as "Dark Pop", which isn't actually a thing but if I played you Dark Pop songs you would understand what I mean. In MusicBee, I can change genres to be whatever I want, which is important for various auto-playlists in filtering.

I also have a custom tag for any sapphic songs that automatically populates my lesbian love auto-playlist as they're defined, and another playlist that automatically adds all music from my custom-defined list of queer artists to the "Gay Life" playlist. When I buy a new Reinaeiry song, it automatically gets added without me having to do anything.

I can't listen to demos or any music that Spotify has lost licensing to on it, which means that if I want a complete playlist with a demo song on it, I have to have all those songs exported anyway, and at that point why am I bothering to split my listening across platforms? Idk if you heard, but Spotify lost licensing to a giant catalogue of Kpop music at one point because one company pulled out, and all those listeners were fucked. I don't have to wait for an artist to upload their shit to Spotify (although right now I am waiting for Reinaeiry to put Too Sweet up for download - pls queen - this is luckily more rare of an occurrence than me seeing "please add this to Spotify" comments is).

I like music I can keep forever, listen to whenever, and do so without ads or paying three figures a year to hear uninterrupted. I'd rather buy one album a month with the Spotify premium money than pay for it. I like creating folder after subfolder worth of an unlimited number of playlists (admittedly idr if Spotify allows this feature. It varies by online listening platforms and I don't bother to track the ones I don't use). I like being able to drag and drop my playlists from MusicBee into iTunes to instantly listen to them on my phone (and thus cross-play isn't a concern for me as long as I remember to synch my phone). I like the feature of being able to instantly and permanently adjust the volume, as well as the beginning and end point, of any single song I chose (super helpful for when certain albums are inexplicably quieter/louder than others or have a stupid incongruous music or dialogue part in them).

If I want to listen to something without actually getting it, then I do it on Youtube, which has a wider music selection with more control. Don't like album art? Find a lyric video upload with a generic nebula background. Weird movie sample at the beginning? Someone might have cut that out in their upload (shoutout to the person who turned DICTATOR into a part 1 and 2 to match the two different mood halves), but otherwise Sponsorblock will skip the non-music segments. The only downside of Youtube versus Spotify is I can't share the playlists without exposing my name, but again I actually create those playlists in MusicBee 99% of the time so I wouldn't be sharing a link anyway.