#i just wanted to see if i could follow the tutorial i reblogged the other day

[opalofoctober]

hiori in watercolor

[bobbiedebruyn]

So you just joined Tumblr?

Tumblr basics + Fandoms/Gifmaking

Congratulations, you just landed at Tumblr! This hellsite (affectionate) can seem intimidating and complicated at first, but once you grasp the basics of it it’ll quickly turn into your own personal little hut in the forest. Tumblr is a website where you and only you curate your dashboard, you’ll see the content that you seek on your own. In this post, I’ll explain the basics of Tumblr and the basics of how fandoms function here with the help of Bob. Okay, let’s get started.

1. Blog customization

The first thing you should do as soon as you land on Tumblr is add a profile picture and header before you interact with people. You want to be distinguishable from bots and therefore avoid getting blocked. You can also add anything to your bio, there's no character limit. Some folks add their name and pronouns, but there are no rules about that. There are also no rules about profile pictures. It can be a picture of you, a picture of your dog, a picture of a rock, or a picture of your favorite character. If you plan on staying on the fandom side, you might notice that a lot of fandom blogs have colorful-looking icons (a cutout of a character on a colorful background), for these icons and also headers I suggest checking out source blogs that make those icons. For starters, @iconheadersource is a goldmine where you definitely going to find something that’d suit you and your blog.

Tumblr on mobile and Tumblr on desktop are two different creatures when it comes to customization. On the desktop, you can customize your blog with coding (HTML + JS). Now Bob will demonstrate to us some examples of blogs on desktop.

If you want to customize your desktop blog, I suggest checking out @phantomcodes and @glenthemes for the codes.

Tutorial on how to install themes

Using javascript on Tumblr pages

2. Search Engine

Nice! You've made your blog look pretty! Now, let's shift our focus to the search engine and ways to discover content. As mentioned earlier, you curate your dashboard by looking for things you enjoy and like. Search using hashtags or the names of your interests (TV shows, movies, birds, music, etc.) to find your piece of cake. For instance, folks who create posts about TV shows you like use tags to ensure their posts reach others interested in the same thing. So, let's go ahead and search for something right now.

Once you search for that specific tag, you are redirected to the corresponding tag page. Here, you can see that posts are sorted by "Latest" or "Top" (indicating posts with the most notes). On the right side, you will find related tags and blogs which are frequently using the searched tag. By following the tag, both the tag itself and the posts tagged with it will automatically appear on your dashboard in the "Your tags" section. You have the option to filter tags according to your preferences. In the settings, you can choose to block specific tags if you prefer not to see content related to some particular topics.

The only method for sharing posts and content on this website is through reblogging. On Tumblr, reposting others' content, including art, gifs, and fics, is not accepted. Reposting means downloading art, gifs, etc., creating your own post, and then sharing it. And that's a big no-no, strongly discouraged. Your likes essentially function as bookmarks, and you have the option to set them to be private. When you save something, it doesn't appear on your friends' dashboards.

We don't censor things here, and I advise you not to do so too. If you need to mention a word that might be potentially triggering or could be flagged on another social media, feel free to say it. Many users have specific topics and tags filtered out, so if you use variations like "K!tKat" instead of "KitKat" in the tags, it can bypass the tag filter, potentially causing more harm as people will see content that triggers them. And remember to always tag posts that have flickering or flashing!!!

If you want to organize your reblogs or make comments on a reblog, use the tags section and not the comments section itself. This is called "#add tags." Feel free to type whatever you want, but keep in mind that the original poster receives notifications when someone reblogs their post and adds tags. Yes, all tags are visible to us.

Okay, so let's quickly recap this information with the help of our dear friend, Bob.

3. Social interactions

So let's move on to one of the crucial topics - how to make friends on Tumblr? Personally, I don't think there's one particular formula for that. Sometimes you just see a funny bloke posting about something as random as desert rain frogs, grab them, and go "You're my friend now" and that's how you become mutuals. 

However, there are other, more common ways to become friends with someone. You can start by reblogging someone's post, adding tags to the reblog, and then following the person. Create your own posts, tag them to ensure they reach the folks who are interested in the same things as you, and participate in fandom events and challenges if you're into that. Interact with people you want to befriend, message them, send them asks. You will eventually find your crowd. You'll also find swifties, and fans of supernatural who never moved on from that destiel love confession four years ago, they also can be your friends, at some point, you will become friends and chill with each other. Be open to new interests to make sure your dashboard is not dull and boring.

Tumblr doesn't have the supposed hierarchy, and you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise, you curate your own experience and blocking is pretty normalized here. Notes and followers (which are private for everyone) don't really matter, stick to your beliefs and your vibe and you'll be fine. We're all equal losers here.

4. Fandom / Gifmaking

Fandoms play a significant role on Tumblr, they're closely tied with gifmaking. As a fellow creature of fandom, I'm adding this part because we don't gatekeep - more gifmakers and fandom enthusiasts mean a better fandom experience. As I mentioned earlier, everything has its tag, making it easy to find your favorite TV show fandom by searching for the tag. This is also how you can connect with people who share an interest in that specific TV show. Upon entering the tag, you'll stumble upon numerous moving pictures – these are GIFs. People create GIFs of everything, from their "blorbo" (the term for favorite character) to beloved ships and favorite moments. There are also plenty of creative GIFs with different coloring and complicated effects. And the best part? You can do it too!

There are a lot of ways to make GIFs. Some people use Photoshop, and some use Photopea which is an excellent accessible option. I'll be linking posts for Photoshop under this text. For Photopea tutorials and guides, please check out @photopeablr.

I've been making GIFs for three years at this point, and those are the tutorials I used when I was just starting out:

how to make a gif:

comprehensive guide 101

basic gif making tutorial + mvp player installation 

gifmaking for beginners

how to install MVP player on a PC

film downloading & screen-capping tips

correct photoset dimensions 

coloring

how to fix orange-washed characters

how to: coloring east & southeast asian celebs

channel mixer

colored background

color manipulation

vibrant coloring

how to brighten dark scenes

color isolation

effects

glitch effect

blending

crossfade transition

gradient effect in the text

gradient text

red colour accent on the b&w gifs

how to add a gif in a template

blurring gif backgrounds

using templates

text

text tutorial 1

font resources

understanding fonts and typefaces

split text

subtitles

other

icon tutorial

gif headers 

For more tutorials, inspirations, and resources - please check out @usergif. It's a good source blog for all gifmakers.

Wait but what's a source blog? These are blogs that center around a specific theme, creating content for a particular topic. They are managed by multiple editors, these blogs track their own tags to reblog content related to the theme. They can be source blogs dedicated to gifmaking (just like @usergif), a TV show, a movie, a character, a celebrity, a sports team, or literally anything else. Typically, these blogs incorporate terms like "network," "source," "central," "creators," "hub," or "daily" in their usernames, making them easily distinguishable from regular personal blogs. Examples of source blogs that come to my mind right now are @dailyanakin, @heartstoppercentral, and @nancywheelercentral.

Let's also talk about tracking tags, which are often included in blogs's bios, whether they're from source blogs or solo gifmakers. You can add these tags to your posts when creating a gifset related to a specific source blog or something you know a particular gifmaker would appreciate. Basically, the gifmaker can search their tracking tag, much like a regular Tumblr tag, and view the most recent sets in which someone used their tag.

The last thing I want to talk about are usernames, and main and side blogs. On Tumblr, we have two types of blogs: the main blog and the side blog. The main blog is the initial blog created when you sign up for your account. This blog has full functionality and all features, allowing you to follow other blogs, like posts, and send asks to other blogs. In addition to the main blog, you can create side blogs on your account. Side blogs lack some of the features of main blogs; you can't like posts, follow other blogs, or send asks from a side blog. They have slightly different functionality – a side blog can be password-protected, have multiple users, and allow you to send direct messages to people. Other users can follow your side blog, and you can receive asks from them.

Many people use side blogs as URL holders. For instance, when a new TV show is announced, someone might be the quickest to save all canonical character names. You can then message that empty side blog to inquire if they're willing to trade that specific URL or if it's available for a giveaway. Canonical URLs are often challenging to obtain, so many people add letters in between or at the end or use symbols like "-", and they also mix names and surnames of different characters.

5. The End

Okay, so we've just covered how Tumblr works, how fandoms operate, and how to get into gifmaking. I hope this guide by me and Bob has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to my ask box or simply ask Bob. I hope you enjoy your stay here, and that your experience with this website will be a positive one.

[ghostoffuturespast]

Your Guide To The Archives...

Howdy, you can call me Ghost (she/her) and welcome to my digital haunting grounds!

Intro & Table of Contents below:

This blog’s been a lot of things over the years, but, as of right now, it’s primarily my repository for whatever catches my fancy. I refuse to make a sideblog, so if you’re not up for my mishmash of shenanigans, know that I’m not keeping you here. I’ve gotten pickier about who I’m following these days and don't always do follow for follow. Nothing personal, I just already have a hard enough time keeping up with people on my dash, but I know my regulars. I see you!

You don’t have to be a mutual or a follower to interact with me. I’m down for tag games and my inbox and messages are always open. (You can’t ask anonymously because I do require a return to sender address. If you want to chat in private DMs are available to everyone.) Almost all of my posts and reblogs are scheduled or queued. I may or may not be online but if you leave a message after the beep, I’ll get back to you eventually.

I like to keep it organized around here and prefer to tag my posts (weird notes included) for archival purposes. I batch queue stuff, so expect a delayed reaction on reblogs. If something’s not tagged it was probably an accident. I’m not great with buttons.

Tags

#little ghost on the prairie - Me out and about. Could be anything really but most likely it’s probably me standing in the middle of a field taking blurry pictures of plants or bugs.

#friday field notes - I work as a naturalist for my day job and this is a series of really informal posts about what’s happening out on said prairie.

#haunted - The eerie, the beautiful, the surreal. The things that stay with you.

#ghost's art - Various art projects.

#night city streets - VP related to Night City. Could be mine, could be someone else’s.

#from the top - My Cyberpunk 2077 VP collection. Lots of environmental shots and story photosets. All taken unmodded and unedited on PS5.

#oc: valerie hye jin li - My Cyberpunk 2077 OC. Corporate grunt-cog turned merc badass, aka the Notorious Stinky Grandpa V. Alternate tags are #my grandpa v and #stinky not fresh. (She’s got the personality of a grumpy old man, what can I say?)

Writing

Nothing Comes Before Night City (You'd never know just by glancing at this blog, but my second most obsessed about character is Mr. Blue Eyes.)

Part I - So It Goes - The completed first part of my CP2077 V/River Ward long fic. If you like epic length duologies, gritty slow burn neo-noir, vivid writing that waffles between prosaic and poetic, kickass action sequences, convoluted corporate conspiracies, copious amounts of angst, mind-numbingly large portions of smut, poetry references, and dumb jokes with punchlines pages down the road… Boy, have I got a referral for you. Tagged under - #fic: so it goes

Part II - Coming soon to a theater near you...

Les Préludes - Tangent short stories from the Nothing Comes Before Night City series universe. Stories will mostly be V or River centric, but expect a couple of surprise appearances.

Little House of Horrors - Unrelated one-shot horror stories set in the world of CP2077. Most of these feature original characters and plots but take their inspiration from the game world.

Fluff - The Garden - Shimmer & Shine - For something completely different.

Other Helpful Things

Cyberpunk 2077 Console/Vanilla Photomode Tutorials

Happy Hauntings, 🧡 Ghost

[nyaagolor]

Finding SV Character Heights Part 1

Procrastination leads to wonderful places, and for me that's "hey what if I could get rough estimates for canon heights using the ingame models?" So I did! Unfortunately, this post got long so I only included the heights of a few major characters for now. Teachers, Gym Leaders + League, and Team Star will be in separate posts!

Protagonist: 5'0" Nemona: 5'8" Penny: 5'1" Arven: 5'7" Clavell: 5'7" Sada: 5'9" Turo: 6'1"

I used imageJ / Fiji for analysis and some screenshots from MunchingOrange's playthrough of the game on youtube. I explain the process and attached all the screenshots under the cut so you can judge the legitimacy of my "math" yourself!

A quick overview of how I did this: there's a (free to use) software called Fiji made for processing images (google Fiji ImageJ and it'll be the first link). It's used in a lot of data analysis, which is mostly what I use it for, but it has some fun features to play around with too. (if people want a tutorial lmk I'd be happy to write one up). The most important part for our purposes is the measure function-- if you draw a line on an image, it will tell you how long that line is in pixels. This line can be straight, curved, angled in any direction, or even multi-segmented, making it pretty good for comparing things. Then all I had to do was get images of characters standing next to each other-- from there I could transitive property my way to the height of every character in the game!

First step was getting a good basis for comparison-- I can easily get ratios of character heights but without at least one confirmed height I can't translate it into real world metrics. Since the characters themselves don't have canon heights, it had to be a pokemon. This introduced another problem, which is that in SV, pokemon are varying sizes within a species, so I can't count on the overworld models to work. Plus, some of them aren't even accurate!

However, there was one pokemon I could compare to the protagonist pretty easily whose height was a little less skeptical: the main legendary (koraidon in my case). A few cursory comparisons led me to guess that Koraidon's 8'2" "height" is measured from head to toe while standing in apex form. Anything else gives heights of characters that make zero real world sense so this is what I went with in the end. Thus we get the screenshot that starts it all!

Koraidon's head is bowed, but this was the closest I could get so I guesstimated that the top of the blue ridges was about where Koraidon's head would be. Knowing that Koraidon is 8'2", we get the following heights:

Koraidon: 536 pixels - 98 inches - 8'2" Protagonist: 328 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Nemona: 372 pixels - 68 inches - 5'8"

Thus far it looks like we're on the right track! Assuming the protagonist is 14 and Nemona is 16/17, these heights seem pretty normal. Knowing the protagonist's height gives us the ability to find out most other characters, so we're off to a good start!

(side note: the calculation I used to turn pixels into inches was pixels1 / inch1 = pixels2 / inch2. The pixels we can get from the lines on the images, and the inches we know from Koraidon's pokedex entry, so we just solve for inch2)

Next up is Clavell (mostly because he showed up first). Something interesting is that he's actually slightly shorter than Nemona, you can see it in the first cutscene in front of Nemona's house (i can add a screenshot in the reblogs / replies but didn't want to clog the post with another image). From this image, we can find:

Protagonist: 685 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Clavell: 769 pixels - 67 inches - 5'7"

You heard it here first, the director is a short king

Next up is Arven!

Protagonist: 782 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Arven: 880 pixels - 67 inches - 5'7"

(The math actually says Arven is 5'7.5", but I'm not bothering with decimals. This makes him sliiiiiiightly taller than Clavell)

Penny is seen angled from the protagonist in her intro scenes, so I skipped all the way to her boss battle to find a good screenshot. To my surprise, she's actually slightly taller than the protagonist!

Protagonist: 368 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Penny: 376 pixels - 61 inches - 5'1"

(Side note 2: Characters are measured from their heels to the crown of their head-- if they have really big hair it doesn't count as part of their height)

Last one in this round is the professor (Sada in my case, as I'm using a Scarlet playthrough for screenshots). I'm gonna assume that the AI and Professor are the same height for this

Protagonist: 507 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Sada: 584 pixels - 69 inches (nice) - 5'9"

Turo forced me to use a different playthrough to grab a screenshot, which used a female protagonist. I'm fairly positive that the male and female protagonist models are the exact same height (if not the exact same model) so I don't think there's any snags with this, but if anyone knows otherwise lmk. Btw, I used the playthrough by Rubhen925 for this screenshot!

Protagonist: 501 pixels - 60 inches - 5'0" Turo: 611 pixels - 73 inches - 6'1"

Turo is pretty damn tall :0 !

This post is getting absurdly long, so I'm going to make separate posts for the League / Gym Leaders, Team Star, and the teachers! Hope you've enjoyed, and if there's any specific trainer class or other character you wanna know the height of just lmk :) I also plan on making a post of some more silly measurements (like the exact dimensions of Penny's backpack, the proportion of Geeta's height that's just her legs, the size of Arven's camping bag and whether or not his friends could reasonably curl up inside, etc)

[oneandonlycringe]

Soft & Wet

Word count: 1.7K

Summary: Simon has come home and wants to play.

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader

Warnings: AFAB!Reader, pet names but no pronouns, slight overstim, slight bondage (just the arms), slight dirty talk, aftercare, uhhh let me know if I’m missing anything

A/N: yall i straight wrote this at work but i’m happy with it. title is a jojo reference. my first ~on paper~ smut wowwy. comments, likes, and reblogs appreciated. *muah*

                                                  NSFW under cut

Scarlet rope ran over his calloused hands, contemplating on the best way to make you immobile but not hurt you. Even deep in thought he was devastatingly handsome. To add to that, he sat on the backs of his thighs with only black boxers adorning his muscled waist. A pang of affection hit you, until a sharp thwack rang out as he tested the strength of the rope. You laughed a little in shock and felt a roll of wet, molten heat tingle between your thighs. 

You stayed laid out on the bed, naked, relaxing against the plush comforter and stacked pillows counting down the seconds until you finally suggested he needed direction. You were entirely content watching him exist, but you’ve been turned on since the moment he had you lay down.

“Why don’t you find a tutorial? I’m sure there are some for beginners…”

“Hmph. I know how to do it. I changed my mind. We’re doing something else.”

“Ooh. Switching tactics, Lieutenant?” You teased.

He growled and leaned down to press his forehead against yours, locking blown out eyes with your own.

“The only thing I need to hear from you tonight is you moaning or crying from how fucking good I’m gonna make you feel.”

That shut you up. You could feel the impatience growing larger now, but quickly simmering when he finally made his first move. 

Simon leaned back again - far enough to reach the edge of the bed, and balanced himself on one arm while the other grabbed something from the floor. You honestly had no idea what it could be, but knew that it would leave you deliciously aching for more. 

“Close your eyes, honey.” He purred.

You did as told and smiled when the bed shifted again as he got into position. Heart rate now through the roof - you were real excited and real wet. 

You gasped when one large, hot hand grabbed your forearms together, ring and pinky slipping into the crutch of your fist. You curled your fingers in further, holding onto whatever piece of him he would offer to you. 

Next came the dry drag of rope across the sensitized skin above your clasped hands. Around and around they went, until he gave one, two tugs to make sure your hands weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Only a little space for your wrists to move apart was allowed. More tugging followed to tie off the ends into what you were sure was the most complicated knot you would ever see if you could.

Whatever Simon grabbed from the floor was now being slotted into your hands, a thick rod designed to be held with a dial in the middle that he quickly shifted away from your palms. The bulbous head already pressed against your wet lips causing a chill to run up your spine.

You had a pretty good idea of what it was, owning a variant of it yourself for those nights before you met Simon. You were honestly glad you didn’t have to put in the elbow grease for things like that now.

To cap it off, Simon’s hands fit between your knees and pushed your thighs back until they framed your tied hands. You imagine he was going to spread them more as the night went on. Lines of arousal sloped the curve of your butt and you desperately wanted to open your eyes at this moment; to see the effect you were having on your silent partner.

“Open your eyes, beautiful.”

White spots clouded your vision momentarily, but the final product got you more excited than you could have ever dreamed. Toys weren't part of you and Simon’s routine, but those two forces together scared you enough with how crazy he already made you feel. His visage both comforted and warned you that your pleasure tonight was entirely in his hands, despite you being in custody of the toy. Two black pools encompassed your own, a searing heat already building in the center of your womb.

“Thoughts?”

“I’m kind of at a loss for words, Simon.”

He tugged his lips up enough for it to resemble a smile.

“I thought about this a lot while I was gone so you better indulge me, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining.” 

Simon reached over your hands to finally turn the wand on the lowest setting. The instant thrumming startled you despite all the warnings. The head of the vibe was resting on your lips sparking a gentle but insistent buzzing inside your nethers. Not enough to get you off but rather get you wetter. You hummed in the back of your throat and leaned your head back onto the pillows. His hands never left the backs of your knees, but you quickly felt them travel up and down your thighs before ending on the inside close to the action. You smiled secretly, knowing exactly how he behaved after all this time.

Simon spread your legs farther and farther apart, gripping almost to the point of pain on the tender flesh.

“How’s it feel?”

“Good, Simon.” You swallowed. “It’s nice.” 

You might have been putting your foot in your mouth. You couldn’t come from this. He had to know that. While the vibrations were good they weren’t intense or close enough to where you needed them to be. 

He seemed to pick up on that, for his next movement released one of your legs to move your bound hands down enough for the head to slip between your spread lips and press against the hood of your clit.

Shit.

You moaned for real this time. Fuuuck - that was good. It was near knee shaking already and it was still the lowest setting. Your hips started to rock into the feeling. With enough time, this could definitely get you there.

“How ‘bout now?”

“Fuck, it’s good. R-really gooood.” A long moan stretched out. A sweat began to build on your forehead and your breath was almost knocked out of you at the increase in sensitivity.

“Fuck, darling. You look really good right now. Good enough to eat.” Simon growled out. When you looked into his lap you could finally see the effect you had on him. His thick length pressed against his left thigh, still trapped under his boxers lifting the fabric up with its weight. You swore you saw it throb. Suddenly your throat was quite parched and painfully empty, but you figured he wouldn’t let you near his third leg for a while.

“Think you can take more?” He questioned. Shit, you really had to think about it. You were definitely getting close, but you loved when the pleasure was just a little too intense to the point of overstimulation; the shakiness of your legs, not being able to catch your breath - it was all amazing.

“Yeah,” you whimpered. Soft puffs of hot air escaped your lungs when Simon’s smile grew. He loved to see you at the point of pain - the edge so close but still so far away.

Simon shifted on his knees, getting down low and using his thick thumb to again slide over the dial, increasing the vibration even higher than the few centimeters he had before. At this point, it was almost to the very max and you began to feel that painfully sweet stimulation. Tears built up and you could feel your walls clenching down on nothing, releasing sweet sticky juices. Your lids became too heavy to keep open. Hiccupping gasps and high pitched cries left your mouth. You couldn’t see Simon’s face anymore but knew he would look as smug as humanly possible.

You pushed your hips away from the plastic to try and gain some sense of balance again, but warm hands quickly grabbed your waist to press you against the comforter. One hand stayed splayed across above your mound while the other reached down past the head of the vibrator to use the hot tip of his calloused thumb to peel back the hood of your clit. The sensation was far worse as you tried to keep the vibrations off your most sensitive area, further annoying Simon.

With the hand that held you down, he used the bottom of the handle to angle the toy down into your folds. While still keeping your hood back, you couldn’t escape the mind numbing frequency pounding directly onto your many nerves. The swollen bud was puffy and irritated - and shit - yeah, now you were really coming. You screamed his name over and over and over again until you forgot your own, only knowing the one word of the only person who could do this to you. You already felt crazy and sweaty and your walls were so tight it hurt and you leaked so much the backs of your thighs were chaffed. This was probably the hardest you had come in your life. White noise traveled between your ears, and you still couldn't see, couldn’t dare open your eyes as your mind tried to process the pleasure and the pain.

After what felt like the end of your meager existence, the vibrations finally stopped short, and it had felt so long that your body didn’t know how to exist without it. The shaking never stopped, the tears, and you were so happy and so messy and never had you looked more beautiful to Simon than in that moment. 

His hands were gentle, moving the wand out of your numb hands, and proceeded to untie your wrists. They were only slightly bruised, a dark red to match your overworked cunt. You couldn’t move a single body part, and Simon knew as much. That’s why he massaged your arms, the tops, the back, and the insides of your thighs and fell a little bit more in love when he felt you melt against his touch.

Sufficiently sated and not urgently hard anymore, Simon wrapped his arms around your middle, burrowed into the back of your neck and breathed deep your scent. You had already passed out at the first touch of his massages.

He grumbled something in the secret recesses of the junction of your neck and wandered too into a deep slumber. He might make you privy to his thoughts later; how he secretly wanted you to do the same to him. Maybe he’d let you get your revenge tomorrow.

[dapolyshipping]

2023 Updates & Changes

The DA Poly Website has been fully updated for 2023, and boy were there a lot of updates to be made. Please read through the changes below the cut and let us know if you have any questions. Also don't forget:

Nominations open in just over a month!

Changes

Communications

After a lot of thought and consideration, we've decided to shut down the exchange twitter. We're sorry for those of you who use that as your main source of news, but the platform has become openly hostile to small projects and creators and it's going to be impossible for us to post there and ensure you actually see our updates. Instead, you can follow our announcements in the following ways:

Our Website We have added a blog to our website which will have an archive of all of our posts from today onward. You can follow the blog in your RSS reader of choice! (Have no idea what RSS is? I highly recommend the in depth blog RSS for Post-Twitter News and Web Monitoring, but you can also find a more bite-sized intro on mod enigmalea's website here.)

Tumblr Our tumblr will continue to host announcements and information about the exchange and will continue to host Poly Sharing (the new name for the former DA Polyshipping Day/Week).

Mod enigmalea's Mastodon If you're on Mastodon, enigmalea will be posting updates there. If you'd rather not follow them directly, you can also follow the dragon age chirp.social and gup.pe groups and see the updates that way!

The Hanged Man Dreamwidth & The Hanged Man Pillowfort If you have an account on Dreamwidth or Pillowfort, we'll be sharing updates in The Hanged Man communities on those sites!

Fandom Calendar Dreamwidth We will be posting a schedule and reminder for each stage of the exchange on Fandom Calendar!

General

Polyshipping Week info was renamed to "Poly Sharing" and updated to reflect that we reblog DA poly content at any time!

Collections for the exchange will remain open at all times for additional treats. If you have a prompt you still want to write from any previous years, feel free to do so!

Website has been updated with all new info. The tumblr pinned post has all updated info, as well.

The AO3 collection now features a short version of the FAQ to save space. Please refer to the website for the in depth FAQ.

The countdown was removed from the tumblr layout. The website homepage still has a countdown!

The website was updated to show all deadlines in your local time.

Rules Updates

The rules have been updated to clarify that previously posted works cannot be added to the collection. An exception to this might be a transformational work of a work already in the collection (for example, if someone makes a podfic for a fic in the collection and doesn’t add it to the collection initially, it could be added later.)

The rules were also clarified to disallow works which are entirely AI generated. Our Exchange Info gives a more detailed explanation of what we mean.

Nominations

There have been no changes to nominations.

Sign-Ups

Sign-Ups require a minimum of 3 ships for requests and offers instead of one. We've received sign-ups with very limited requests and offers lately which makes producing a match very difficult.

Sign-Ups now allow for up a maximum of 60 ships requested and an unlimited number of ships offered. Please see Tutorials - How to Sign-Up for more details.

Your requests cannot consist of entirely ships which use a DNW to limit your creator to creating for only your OC. For at least one of the three ships you request you should be open to receiving any OC (generic, one created specifically for your gift, or your gifter's OC) or should be a ship which has no original characters. Creating for other people's OCs is complex and is not something that everyone is able or willing to tackle within the context of an exchange, so participants should be willing to be flexible for at least one request.

If you are requesting art of your OC we ask that you have more than one reference for both face and body. Otherwise, artists may have a difficult time filling your request.

Other Exchange Stuff

Last, but certainly not least, the mods will be posting a separate Treatless list this year. The link has not been added anywhere yet, but will be shortly after sign-ups close!

[izicodes]

I posted 326 times in 2022

That's 306 more posts than 2021!

196 posts created (60%)

130 posts reblogged (40%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@xiacodes

@shahednasser

@programmerhumour

@theinsaneapp

I tagged 240 of my posts in 2022

Only 26% of my posts had no tags

#programming - 205 posts

#coding - 197 posts

#comp sci - 157 posts

#studyblr - 148 posts

#computer science - 121 posts

#100 days of code - 102 posts

#studying - 102 posts

#software developer - 88 posts

#python - 73 posts

#programmer - 68 posts

Longest Tag: 100 characters

#i said no to doing computer science at university but now i have a module all about computer science

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Calling all computer science/programming blogs!

Hello everyone! ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ

I have been getting dms of people wanting to follow other blogs like mine where I post my progress with programming / experimenting with different programming languages / tips and tricks / resources etc but they can't find them easily soooo I am making a post to reach the blogs these people want to find!

If you post about anything in the list belong, please reblog or comment your blog's @ so the right people can reach your blog:

programming a language

computer science

relevant memes

general talk about either subject

provide resources

student in any of the subjects

do challenges with computer science e.g. 100 days of Code

I just want this to reach as many people so our lil community within Tumblr can grow! Have a lovely day!

563 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

#4

Python Official Roadmap | Resource ♛

* means extras you could learn to enhance yourself

The intent of this guide is to give you an idea about the Python ecosystem and to help guide your learning if you are confused.

Also, please note that the list below is exhaustive, and the items are listed in no particular order. You don't need to learn everything listed in the picture, however, knowing what you don't know is as important as knowing things.

Link to the official site: Python Developer Roadmap by roadmap

-- > must add, the information is from roadmap.sh, but I just put it together in the image

676 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

#3

Python 3 Cheat Sheet | Resource ✎

Link to source: Python 3 Basic Cheat Sheet

1,608 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

#2

Build Your Own X | Resource ✿

GitHub is literally the best, what the fuck? ヾ(･ω･*)ﾉ

Anyhoo! This GitHub repository contains a list of tutorials that will guide you to build almost anything in web development using a range of programming language that best suits you!

Let me give you an example:

I click "Game" in the table of contents, it jumps me to the Game section. I wanna use C# so I pick a random C# game tutorial e.g. C#: Learn C# by Building a Simple RPG and it takes me to the site where someone made a whole project page with step-by-step guide to help build that game!

See the full post

1,666 notes - Posted April 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

800 free Computer Science classes | Comp-Sci Resources ♥

800 free Computer Science classes you could take online right with video lectures!

Link: GitHub - Developer-Y/cs-video-courses: List of Computer Science courses with video lectures

I found this link in a tweet and found the site very helpful! Take full advantage comp sci learners!!!

Have a nice day and happy programming ♥

1,711 notes - Posted April 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[songder-bot]

hi there! I'm relatively new(ish) to tumblr and was looking to make my own "bot" via a long queue, and was wondering if you could give me any tips? I'm not super familiar with the queue system, so any advice you can give me would be good! Thank you!

hello, anon!! welcome to tumblr!

(interloper)

it's an honor to be your tutorial npc :D i will do my best to walk you through the "bot"-making process/queue system!

first of all: this is how many posts are currently in this blog's queue.

[ID: Screenshot showing "Queue: 924". End ID.]

this is a kind of insane amount. i believe i started this bot with....700 posts in the queue? and then just kinda kept adding on more? a lot will depend on how often you want your bot to post. at the current number of posts in my queue and the current schedule of 4 posts a day, it could run for 231 more days without running out of quotes! if i bumped it down to twice a day, it could run for over a year!

what i'd probably recommend doing is adding posts in batches of, like, 20 at a time, and keeping the post amount low until you get up to a number where you feel okay just letting it run for a while without adding anything new. then just put new stuff in whenever you want!

but how do you do the "adding stuff in" part? great question! this is the part where we segway into the mechanics of the queue! this is also the part where i put a readmore because hoo BOY this got long. i am prone to overexplaining lmao

tl;dr: find the queue, make the posts, set times for posting and amount of posts per day, use mass tag editor to do tags, and shuffle queue!

the queue is one of tumblr's most special functions, imo. it will automatically put out a certain amount of posts every day between certain hours-- basically like scheduling tweets, except that the site schedules them for you! some people on tumblr actually queue basically every post they see rather than reblog it-- i call them "queuetuals" :P

Step 1: find the queue

so! first you go to your blog controls, where you can view posts and follower counts from, and then look down. under "drafts" is a section called "queue". hit that, it'll take you here.

[ID: The Tumblr "queue" page. Up at the top is a text box that reads "The queue lets you stagger posts over a period of hours or days. It's an easy way to keep your blog active and consistent. Automatically publish a queued post (dropbox with 4 selected) times a day between (dropbox with 12 am selected) and (dropbox with 12 am selected) Timezone: US/Eastern (change) Note: This timezone only affects the queue schedule, as well as timestamps on custom themes. The publish times on posts below are displayed in your local timezone." It then shows a Shuffle Queue button and the icon of this blog next to the icons and text for making text, photo, quote, link, chat audio, and video posts. End ID.]

FUN FACT: hitting the text (or whatever kind of post it is you want to make) button from here will automatically set the button that usually says "post now" to "add to queue" instead. i found this out like halfway into making all these posts and it was so helpful to not have to make the switch manually every time. i now pass this knowledge on to you, my protege. use it in good faith. okay where were we

Step 2: make the posts

right. okay . so you hit button you make post you hit other button (make sure it does say "add to queue") and it will automatically be put in your queue!

[ID: A drafted post from songder-bot reading "i'd like to take you through a wasteland i like to call my home!", with no tags and the post button set to "add to queue". End ID.]

now just do that like 100 more times and you're set :) (highly recommend, if you're going to be making a text bot like this, writing all the stuff you want to put in down in a text file so you can just copypaste over. i write new lyrics like the above in manually, but i was copypasting for my first couple big chunks)

you can also see up there the places to adjust when and how often your "bot" posts! i have it set to between 12 and 12 so it just posts day-round, but if you want to set it to only post while you're awake or only while you're asleep, that's cool (i did do that for a bit)

from this screen down you'll be able to see what's coming up next in the queue and at what times it'll post!

Step 3: tags and shuffling!

while i was insane enough to manually input over 700 posts in a few days, i was not insane enough to tag them all individually. for that, i used the Mass Post Editor!

found at the very bottom of the list that posts, followers, queue, etc. is on is a little item called Mass Post Editor. this is one of tumblr's other most helpful functions and i truly cannot recommend it enough.

so once i've gotten all the lyrics from a song that i want to get in there, i go in to MPE. up at the top it says "published, draft, queued". go to queued, i select all the quotes from the song i just put in:

[ID: A screenshot of the Mass Post Editor with several posts selected. End ID.]

i go up top, i select "add tags", and i add the tags i want for those posts! boom! mass tagging: SOLVED.

i will add here that the reason my tags are stuff like "lyric - green day" rather than just "green day" is because i don't want these posts to go directly into the main tag. especially if the bot posts often, it'd be pretty spammy and kind of annoying for people trying to look at posts about green day to have to keep seeing random green day lyrics instead. tag etiquette is important!

and the last tip i will give (i promise) is this: remember that screenshot from earlier and the shuffle queue button? whenever you add in new posts to your bot, especially if they're all from the same song or book or something, make sure to hit the shuffle queue! queueing something automatically puts it at the end of the queue, and shuffling ensures that your new posts are equally distributed and can come up whenever!

hope this was helpful!!! i love explaining stuff but also get very very wordy at times, so if you need a tl;dr version or further explanation of something let me know! oh-- and if you're gonna do quotes, lyrics, art, or anything at all, always credit the original creators!

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

I posted 414 times in 2022

174 posts created (42%)

240 posts reblogged (58%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@continent-of-wild-endeavor

@kaiyonohime

@saxifraga-x-urbium

@roboticchibitan

@cataouatche

I tagged 390 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#fiber arts - 53 posts

#art - 34 posts

#knitting - 33 posts

#dogs - 31 posts

#garden2022 - 28 posts

#needlework - 28 posts

#my dogs - 27 posts

#omie - 24 posts

#bloomhaven - 22 posts

#tag thing - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 122 characters

#the fuckin almond monocultures are massively unsustainable and a huge part of the beekeeping industry is built around that

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Snow bunnies enjoying snacks from the yard.

1,031 notes - Posted January 23, 2022

#4

If you imagine a system in which everybody has access to healthcare, and you reject that idea in favor of the current system because you think it would cause long wait times for care, then we are just coming from very different places on "what would be a good way to run society".

Like there are big conversations to be had about whether it would increase wait times, and how we could structure it to avoid or reduce that problem, but if it takes longer to get care, but everyone can get it? That sounds better. That would be a better way to do things.

You're saying you don't want other people to have any, because then you'd have to have less. Given a theoretical choice between a system that's not ideal but does serve everyone, and one that serves some well and some not at all, you prefer the latter.

1,276 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

#3

A moment for a petty complaint:

When people are explaining how to weave in ends, in a tutorial or any video, and they say to "just follow the path of the yarn" or "double the stitches" and then proceed to do THIS

That's a valid way to weave in your ends, assuming your yarn is wooly enough to not slip and it won't be super visible, but that's simply not what you've described.

See the full post

1,467 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#2

I read somewhere that older ppl in cultures where squatting is more common than sitting in chairs can still comfortably squat, deeply & for long times, whereas what American over 50 can do that and not hurt

It's like a "use it or lose it" thing, so I made sure to spend some time squatting, getting up and down, and it did get easier, though I still can't do it like my little nieces, who can read a book on their knees, but I'm gonna maintain my mobility in this at least

And now it's a nice way to take a break from standing for a bit, or it's the easiest way to do something brief & near the ground, but this is still not what American adults usually do

So sometimes I'm just this strange 30 something woman squatting by the farmstand peeling a peach. And I never think it's an odd thing to do until someone else does.

1,996 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I was reading a post about dipping baby carrots in ranch, and it reminded me of what I've previously described as an Additive vs. Subtractive approach to nutrition.

The Subtractive view looks at all the things you're currently eating, or might eat in a given day, and sees a pile of Bad Stuff, with probably some Good Stuff mixed in, which would be better if only you could clean off and remove the Bad. The Unhealthy, the Fattening. So this outlook sees the carrots as Good, and that ranch is Bad, so in order to eat well, the thing to do is remove the ranch.

(I fear I've gotten in too deep with capitalizing Things for Emphasis, so I'm going to back off on that now. You get the point - foods are not *actually* fundamentally good or bad, they are just categorized that way.)

Dipping carrots in ranch is not a healthy food choice, because the ranch is unhealthy. The ranch has "cancelled out" the carrots, by adding all that fat and processed sugar & stuff, so it would be better not to have eaten that at all. Subtractive nutrition is very concerned with lessening the Bad things: calories, fats, trans fats, processed ingredients, carbs, sugar, salt, meat, non-organic foods - whatever their current trend of "healthy eating" says will kill you.

On the other hand, the Additive view (which I think is more sensible) looks at the carrots & ranch snack and says, you ate some carrots! Carrots are objectively good for you, and you got that nutrition into your body. Good job! Sure, you also ate ranch, which nobody thinks is a health food, but a) the carrots are still definitely in there, nourishing you, and b) the ranch made you more likely to eat them, and enjoy them, and so eat them again in the future. Ranch also provides essential nutrients, regardless of whether it's the ~optimal~ way to get them.

Additive nutrition looks at your day and sees what nutrients you consumed, any that are helpful. Any good choices you make, regardless of if there are also bad ones. What's good, and maybe let's not go overboard on "Bad" stuff if we're really worried about it, but what did you eat that helped you? Eat food that serves you, and if you can put in more good things that's great! But if you have ice cream afterwards, it doesn't rip the kale out of your stomach. It just means you had ice cream today, and also you had kale.

And while Additive thinking helps with motivation, because it gives you little mental gold stars for lots of things, and doesn't take any away or call for shame if you do eat all the nachos, it really comes into play in decisionmaking, and weighing options. Subtractive thinking says, don't eat broccoli with cheese sauce, the sauce is bad for you. Just eat the broccoli, plain, steamed, with maybe a little low-salt seasoning mix. But let's be real - you're not going to do that. Or at least, not very often, not if you're starting from "I don't like broccoli unless it's covered in cheese sauce". Subtractive thinking says take ALL the bad stuff out, and make only the Correct choices, and then you're being healthy. Otherwise you might as well not have bothered.

Additive nutritional thinking says the broccoli with cheese sauce is adding broccoli to your diet where it would not otherwise have been. It's not a choice between plain broccoli and cheesy broccoli, not really. Really the choice is, do I add some broccoli to my diet today, along with tasty sauce, or do I not eat broccoli at all, because that's what I would be doing otherwise?

10,113 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[azuremist]

i don't really care if you post this or not, up to you, but regarding the creator of the sun/moon bi flags (assuming you mean a blog name starting with b, ending with cat, and has a hypen in the middle), i'm also friends with them directly!

anyways it's worth mentioning that gothamspride (VERY popular icon edit blog) has a lot to do with this rumor. they're unnecessarily petty about punishing flag creators that they disagree with over minor topics and like to write original posts putting them on blast just because they don't hate certain types of queer people. they created their own sun/moon bi flags out of spite, which it sounds like you already know about, and in the original version - which i should have a reblogged version of - before it was edited, they specifically mentioned that blog and i thought it was distasteful.

they even harassed a couple of new blogs the other day about "stealing" the ___spride url format and copying an editing style they think they "own" despite the fact that they made it clear they would never make a tutorial and show others how to do what they do, so how could it have been copied? plus it's really easy and i've seen a million blogs know how to do it already. the people they sent that ask to debunked all their claims and i just find it all ridiculous. nobody should be taking that seriously, i hope.

just thought you'd wanna know some of this if you weren't already aware. gothamspride treats people poorly for not acting like they're the authority over everything queer and editing and they have a lot of followers so i'm afraid of calling them out or saying anything on main. if you want my url for trust purposes or whatever let me know and i'll come back off anon but please don't answer that publicly if i do!

Yeah, seeing their post straight-up lying on the internet about the sun and moon bi flags was what inspired my post about it.

I didn’t know about all that other stuff though. I guess it makes sense. Average LGBT+ discourse enjoyer.

[plague-of-insomnia]

Yeah this post is so full of corporate bull-speak I can’t even begin to dive into it all.

But this?

Finally getting to read about this new tumblr bullshit. From one of the Reblog:

When I first joined this site in 2009, I was taken through a screen that asked about my interests and I got to pick 3 of those interests. It then showed me the top blogs who posted things related to my interests and I followed some of them. This gave my dash content. It was a lovely little tutorial on how to use the site and how to make it a place that felt like me. Somewhere along the way you seem to have stopped doing that, and thus your new users are apparently 'confused'.

This is STILL how it works. I literally made a new tumblr account completely from scratch unattached to my current one, only about 2 weeks ago, and it required that I pick topics and follow people before I could even get to my dashboard.

All they need to add is an explanation that tumblr doesn’t use an algorithm and that’s that.

New users are only confused bc rn all social media sites EXCEPT THIS ONE use an algorithm. And most people who use tumblr regularly, who have been here and will continue to do so for years (unless it changes completely) do so precisely because we do not LIKE other social media sites.

I cannot stand what twitter has become, even before Musk took over. Because I don’t feel like I can even see the crap I want to. IG is even worse. I stopped using it because I couldn’t ever find any of the content of people I followed and was just being shoved reel after reel after reel, which I do not fucking want.

Reddit has annoyed me for years by constantly sending me notifications I cannot dismiss for reddits I don’t follow and never have even visited, often that have nothing to do with my actual interests.

This sounds all well and good, like “we’ll help make sure newer and less popular creators are seen!!” And yet you keep making changes (like fucking the tags up majorly) that actually makes it even harder to be seen.

And generally, algorithms always favor popular blogs, or people who can afford to use at least half of their time doing the “right” things on social media to make sure they are picked up by the algorithm.

I use tumblr bc that’s exhausting and often futile, a never ending hamster wheel of trying to guess what words to use or when to post to make sure you’ll get picked up… and generally if you’re new or small or niche you will NEVER get picked up.

Stop

Fucking

Trying

To

Make

Tumblr

Like

Instagram or Facebook or Twitter

It’s survived so long largely because it is NOT like any of those sites.

I know it’s why I’ve been here, even when y’all majorly fucked the user experience by changing the navigation.

I get you wanna make this site more profitable. I do. But an algorithm system is NOT what this site needs.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[soul-of-vengeance]

Passing this along because I'm genuinely curious.

Hello there! You've been tagged! You don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but if you'd like, list 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! Learn to know your mutuals and followers! 💖💖💖

Holy crap, I never got a notification I had a message in this inbox, WHOOPS. Casually answering an ask uhh *checks calendar* six months late

5 things that make me happy!

My cats! They all have such funky personalities and quirks that watching them just go about their day is genuinely so amusing and interesting

Finishing projects! Whether it's cross-stitch or a painted miniature or even a session plan, I get so much satisfaction when I get to sit back and look at the product of my hard work. Now if I could only get myself to love the journey as much as the destination...

Exploring character design. I love art books that come with games or books because I love insight into the inspirations and the hidden intricacies of character design. Seeing other people's creative process (even/especially if it's collaborative like a game) is so interesting to me

Baking videos. Maybe a silly answer, but I love watching baking videos (both asmr and just regular old tutorials.) It might be the autism, but watching someone master the science of baking enough to be able to play with it and still get an amazing result just tickles my brain so good

Playing co-op games (especially with my husband!) I really enjoy playing co-op video games or tabletop games, way more than I like competitive games. My husband and I have a Halo game together, a Minecraft server together, a Stardrew Valley farm together, and we have several tabletop/card games that are two player co-op

[laheylaraeann]

Tumblr Woes Continue

I tried to say hi to someone I followed, but I think I just sent them an anonymous private message. That could look quite weird. I believe I must break down and take a Tumblr tutorial or something.

Tumblr put an alien on a sweatshirt for me. And tells me I'm a legacy editor. Or perhaps I HAVE a "legacy editor"...I've been on this platform in the past, but I had to create this new account...and I'm currently mystified.

Like, here's a questions for anyone to answer...why is it that Tumblr posts these little teaser messages over one of the regular buttons? "Press here for a little surprise" and the surprise is that you've reblogged the post. I'm followed by very weird women who seem to want to show me their body parts...and I get a lot of stuff that I don't particularly want to see when I follow others. I think it is things they like, though, so that's fine.

[erensangel444]

you’re my bestfriend

please dni if not 18+ thank u! eren jaeger x reader

modern!au

this blurb is eren x fem!reader, if you guys would want to see some gender neutral fics just let me know in my asks inbox! i’m open to any suggestions, if you want a fic that’s specifically tailored to you whether that be race-wise, gender-wise, any disabilities, etc,. just let me know!

likes/reblogs/comments are always appreciated:D

this blurb has been proofread but if i missed something just let me know!

a/n: this fic is basically the embodiment of my deepest desires. i will never get over slow burn friends to lovers trope. especially like when they like started as childhood friends and grew with each other like i will actually start sobbing.

A/N after finishing: this may be my favorite fic i’ve ever written

side note: i originally had eren driving an audi r8 but him driving a pick up truck is a very necessary part of the fic n you’ll see why :D

warnings: language, alcohol consumption, drug use(just weed), smut [slight breeding kink, creampie, oral f!receiving]

word count: 13.9k words

summary: love can only be ignored for so long.

eren loves telling the story of how the two of you became such good friends. and he doesn’t love telling it because it’s such a heartwarming story. he just loves to see how you get all

embarrassed. 

eren always starts the story the same, regardless of his audience: “flashback, nine years...” 

eren can’t recall every explicit detail from middle school, but he can remember the sheer awkwardness of being 12. eren knows he was a bit of a nerd in middle school, constantly watching minecraft building tutorials, and still playing with action figures( he’d take that one to his grave, though).

that’s why eren’s first interaction with you was completely new territory. obviously eren knew girls were like....a thing, but he had never really talked to any besides mikasa. he’d had small crushes, but he never confessed, too scared of being rejected. 

but, you, you were a weird one. too intriguing for him to ignore. he really hadn’t ever noticed you before you had sent him that first message. his mom had finally allowed him to get kik, after putting up with his incessant begging for months. 

he felt so cool getting the app that was such big talk around school. after watching tutorials, he could finally work it properly and was messaging back with armin and mikasa constantly. 

eren can easily recall that fateful day that the kik notification flashed across his screen. he figured it was a message from mikasa, or a funny minecraft meme from armin, and he grabbed his phone with giddy excitement. 

to find a message from, you. eren had cocked his head in slight confusion. you and eren had never talked before. sure, you sat two rows to the front and three seats to the left of him in history, but you’d never held an actual conversation before. 

eren could feeling himself getting nervous now, his finger inching towards your message. 

every time eren tells this story, he makes sure to include this next part: “i swear to god i let out an actual gasp when i read the message. i think y/n ruined my innocence,” and it is always followed with your “fuck off” being shouted from somewhere in the room. 

the impending message of anticipation, of doom, read, 

hey papi >0<

eren just sat for a moment, staring at his screen before wondering if he should ask armin for advice. papi? what is that supposed to mean?

after three minutes of contemplation, eren figured he could handle this one on his own. he carefully constructed his response before hitting send, 

umm hi?

eren felt a strange sense of triumph. his first ever message to a girl. he thinks he handled it pretty well. 

you were quickly responding, and that washed away eren’s triumph with more nerves. 

lmao it was a dare from my friend

oh. you had probably only texted eren to tease him. he felt the butterflies in his stomach turn into clumps as he typed back his reply. 

oh haha which friend?

he waited eagerly for you reply.

her name’s lily, she lives in texas, but we’re playing minecraft together :3

eren would’ve never taken you as someone who like video games. his little heart couldn’t take how fast it was beating. eren didn’t know what else to say besides, 

oh i see

god, why was he so stupid? he could’ve said he liked minecraft too, he could’ve kept the conversation going. instead, it reached its inevitable end, your simple reply being,

yep

fuck, he’d scared you away, hadn’t he? eren put his hand over his mouth quickly. that was the first time he’d ever cursed. 

you were bringing out the worst in him. 

he threw his phone on his bed before putting his head in his hands with a whine fit for a 12 year old boy.

the next time eren had talked to you was at the end of the year school dance. 

unbeknownst to him, you had mutual friends, or a mutual friend, mikasa. she had gone with a group of girls to the dance, claiming she didn’t want to be stuck around “you two bozos all night,” in reference to eren and armin.

eren can vividly remember this next moment, even with the strobe lights blinding his vision. he remembers mikasa trying to push you into him in an anything-but-subtle manner. 

he remembers the faint smell of your shampoo. apples? it suited you. 

and he remembers how quickly you scurried away from him with a small, “sorry!”.

he remembers feeling like he grossed you out. 

and most importantly, he remembers the joy he got when he saw your message that night before bed. 

sorry about tonight. it must of made you uncomfortable with mikasa pushing me into you. 

you were much more formal in this message, and overly apologetic, eren thought. you had no reason to be sorry, it wasn’t your fault. he wanted to talk to the same person he had talked to those 2 months ago. 

haha it’s alright it was pretty crowded in there anyways

would the ‘haha’ be enough? eren was visibily stressed, gnawing on his bottom lip as he waited for you to message back.

thanks for understanding sorry again eren

had he read that right. did you type out his name? why’d it look so pretty in your message? it had never looked like that before. 

eren fell asleep imagining his name falling from your lips.

though eren can recall those specific memories easily, he can’t trace back to an exact moment in which the two of you declared your friendship. he remembers the first time you hung out, the two of you with mikasa, armin, sasha, connie, and jean. 

he remembers watching you play guitar hero and thinking you were so fucking cool. he can also remember the jealously that began brewing in his chest when he watched how comfortably you spoke to jean. 

the two of you didn’t talk much that night besides eren handing you a piece of pizza on a plate. your smile and soft ‘thank you’ made his heart feel like he was about to have a stroke. 

he couldn’t have gone home happier.

eren doesn’t know if his romantic feelings for you just disappeared over time. he doesn’t think they did. he knows they didn’t.

eren would describe his feelings for you as coming in waves. some days the tide would be strong, and on others, it would barely brush the shoreline. 

as your relationship began to gradually progress and as you became closer friends, eren found no room for his romantic feelings. he didn’t want to risk losing what he was so gracious to even have. your friendship was better than nothing. 

that fear of rejection always found a way of creeping back in. 

and here you were now, 21, in a random living room with his basketball team and some of your friends, and he was telling this exact story. 

though, as he told this story, and as he had in the many retellings before, he was leaving out the most fundamental part. 

eren still loved you. 

he attempted to convince himself that it was merely platonic. 

that did not work. 

so, he ended up concluding that he could ignore what he felt for you. he could try to. 

he remembers having a serious girlfriend in highschool, and at the beginning of their relationship, eren remembers wishing you were jealous.

but, you weren’t. you supported him and cheered him on. you even congratulated him on dating someone so pretty, your exact words being, “what’s she doing with you, she could do so much better, give her my number!”

after that relationship ended, eren’s feelings for you were only magnified. he would never tell you this, but it ended because his girlfriend knew he was in love with you. 

he thinks that he did love her, she was kind to him, and pretty.

but she wasn’t you. 

and for all his relationships thereafter, he found himself holding every romantic partner to the standards at which he regarded you, and no one lived up to those. this led to eren’s slew of pointless hookups and his renowned title as a “playboy.”

eren could be in a relationship if he wanted to. hell, he was captain of his college’s basketball team, and though he broke some hearts, it was never intentional.

he felt bad because he’d never intended to hurt anyone. eren had always been straightforward with his intentions, and had never made any promises that he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep. 

he just simply didn’t want a relationship if it wasn’t with you. 

and as he sipped his beer, and listened to his teammate make some joke, his eyes gravitated towards you, like they always did. you were talking to some girl from your chem class that you had invited. she had been quiet for most of the party, rarely chirping in during conversation.

that’s another thing, eren thinks that his love for you is also fueled by admiration. you’re so friendly, and people gravitate towards you, even though you deny it. eren’s always found it difficult to blend in, but you make it so easy for everyone around you.

and as he watched you smile and hold a stupid conversation, he could visibly see how the girl relaxed. you made people comfortable. you made him comfortable. 

you could feel his eyes on you, and you turned to him, smiling cheekily before turning back to your friend.

you were going to be the death of him. 

“ren’, come on, you can’t smoke in here,” you chastised eren before turning back to your chemistry textbook. 

“come on angel,” eren muttered around the joint in his mouth, “there’s a reason there’s these private study rooms, and for me, personally, in order to study i need some recreational motivation.”

eren cast his signature grin towards you before bringing the lighter towards his joint. “eren s’gonna smell,” you warned, to which he simply shrugged his shoulders. 

“at least open the window,” you begged, trying to focus on your work. 

“fine, don’t get your panties in a twist,” eren puffed out after inhaling. he walked over to the window, fumbling with the latch for a minute, muttering a ‘fuck’ and ‘why would they make this so fuckin’ difficult’ before he finally got it open. 

eren sat on the ledge, his legs dangling out of the window. “s’nice out today,” he hummed thoughtfully. upon your lack of reply, eren turned around to look at you. your eyes were slightly squinted as you tried to make more sense of the words on the page. you were muttering to yourself, which eren found rather endearing, might he add. 

“we should go to the beach,” he said, still looking at you. you looked up at him, raising your eyebrows, “eren,” you sighed. “c’mon,” he pleaded softly, his feet back on the ground of the study room. 

“you study so much, you should take a break,” eren reasoned, coming up behind your chair now. his hands found their way to your shoulders, making you suck in a sharp breath that you hoped wasn’t noticeable.

“y/n, i can literally feel the knots forming in your back already, you’re gonna be like dead by 40.”

he was massaging your shoulders as he continued to ramble. you let his smell invade your senses, the woody scent of his cologne, the hint of weed from the joint he had just smoked, and something like a sweet cinnamon smell. 

“y’know you needa fix your posture,” eren teased, his hands falling from your shoulders. “oh fuck off,” you laughed softly before closing your textbook. 

you didn’t miss the excitement that lit up in eren’s eyes at the small action. “let’s go, ren’,” you groaned softly, attempting to mask your own joy as you began packing up your school items. 

“yes, fuck yes!” eren grinned, grabbing his backpack that had yet to be unpacked for the entirety of the study session. 

you honestly don’t know how eren convinced you to do half of the things that he did. for example, this moment right now. 

you had made it to the beach, and you and eren laid on a beach towel as the sun set. he ended up laying his head in your lap, which prompted him to force you to braid his hair. 

he was rather demanding, and you told him as such, “i’m so surprised you’re not an only child,” to which eren scoffed and attempted to head butt your stomach, which only resulted in a slap to the forehead from you.

“ow!”

but that was an hour ago. now, you and eren were in the water, the both of you stripped down to your underwear. you were thankful that you had decided to wear a bra today, otherwise your bare tits and eren would have had an unlikely meeting. 

he had somehow convinced you to go swimming, even though you tried to rationalize, “we don’t have swimsuits,” to which eren replied, “underwear, swimsuits, same thing.”

and he wasn’t necessarily wrong, but you wish he would’ve been. the water was cold, and yet you, you were anything but freezing. 

in fact, you felt extremely hot, your face burning under the intensity of eren’s gaze.

it almost felt too cliche, the way you felt drawn to eren in that moment. he must of felt it too, because almost subconsciously, the two of you started to navigate closer to each other.

your faces were inches apart, your lips so close to brushing when eren whispered, “eyelash,” his thumb brushing across your cheek. that fucking asshole. 

you couldn’t help the visible pout that made its way onto your face, eren softly laughing, “what’s the matter?” you chose to respond with actions rather than words, splashing eren with water. 

“oh you’re dead,” he grinned, wading over to you now. you attempted to turn and run, looking back at him over your shoulder, but the water slowed your movements. “ren’, no! eren, eren no please!” you were laughing around your words as eren lifted you over his shoulder.

“did it to yourself, princess,” you swore you felt him softly slap your ass before he was dunking you underwater. 

you came back up wiping at your eyes and coughing softly. “i’m gonna stab you one day, jaeger,” 

“i’d love to see you try.”

“where’d you go?” eren whisper-shouted into your ear, the bass of the song playing was vibrating the walls of the living room.

“had to piss,” you yelled back, eren laughing softly. “wanna dance?” eren asked, his voice muted slightly by the music. you just nodded with a grin, grabbing eren’s hands and dragging him through the mass of bodies. 

soon after you had made your way to the center of the poorly-coordinated mosh pit, sky by playboi carti started playing. you turned to eren, mouth open in an o, eren grinning at your silly expression. 

you were close to each other, but that wasn’t that weird considering the other bodies pushing up against yours. you and eren began rapping the lyrics to one another, eren doing silly hand movements in front of your face causing you to laugh around the lyrics. 

“she my bestfriend, yeah we not a couple,” eren’s arms were linking around your lower back now, pulling you closer to him as he continued singing the lyrics. 

and you were attempting to be playful back, but you couldn’t really focus when you could smell his cologne, feel his stare and that annoying fucking smirk. you attempted to mask your flustered state with a light-hearted contempt. 

eventually, the song ended and eren’s hand was falling to your hip, pulling you closer to him so that he could whisper in your ear. “you wan’ a refill?” he half-shouted over the music, to which you nodded, grabbing eren’s hand and dragging him towards the kitchen.

as the music and noise became muffled behind the kitchen walls, you were reaching into the bucket full of ice and grabbing two smirnoffs for you and eren. there were a few other people scattered throughout the kitchen as you turned around to hand eren one of the bottles. you leaned back against the countertop, watching eren pop his bottle open with his teeth. 

he handed the bottle to you, grabbing the one from your hands, the brush of your fingers against his doing something to your heart that it should not have. 

eren grinned at you after popping the cap off his bottle, taking a swig. “wonder where sash’ and connie went,” you said absentmindedly, sipping on your drink. “if i had to take a guess, sasha is in the pantry and con’ is probably trying to hold her back.”

you laughed softly, smiling at eren but before you could bounce off his joke with your own, someone was yelling, “body shots!”

once the words registered in eren’s head, he was giving you that cheeky smile, grabbing your hand and dragging you towards the center of the kitchen. people had begun filtering in from the other rooms of the fraternity house as jean began setting down shot glasses, limes, salt, and tequila on the kitchen table. 

jean stood on a chair, a couple whistles and ‘woops’ sounding out for him as he began talking, “as president of this lovely chapter of sigma alpha, it’s my job to carry on one of our most faithful traditions,” he got more whistles at that, his fraternity brothers cheering him on. what odd specimen. 

“and, you all came here tonight for some fun, yeah?” the huddled crowd got louder at that. “then without further ado,” jean huffed, hopping down from his chair, “can i get a pretty volunteer up here?”

girls began pushing their way past each other, and so much for wondering where sasha was. there she appeared next to you, a donut in hand. “you should do it,” she mumbled around a mouthful, pushing you towards the front of the crowd. 

eren opened his mouth in rebuttal, but you were already at the front, lined up beside fourteen other girls. jean smiled when he saw you make your way into the line, beginning his presidential speech once more, “now ladies, thank you for your dutiful service,” laughs filled the room at his small joke, “but it seems i’ll only need one volunteer.”

he began walking along the line with murmurs of “who to pick, choices, choices.” you knew jean was fucking with you, he knew you best out of all these girls and if he was being honest with himself, he’d been dying to get with you.

that task proved to be difficult, though, with eren as your guard dog. 

now was his chance. 

making his way down the line once more, he stopped in front of you, “now what’s your name?” jean teased, grinning at you. “y/n,” you said simply, “and yours?” the crowd oooo’ed at that, and you could hear eren’s laugh behind you.

“feisty, i like it,” “oh fuck off kirstein,” you laughed, brushing past him to sit atop the table. you began pouring tequila into one of the shot glasses before sitting back on your arms. 

“are you gonna do it?” you grinned at jean, his eyes glinting with something unreadable as he smirked at you, “or do you not have the balls?” once more the crowd was hollering at your response, and jean was making his way over the table with a new determination.

he softly grabbed at your shoulder, pushing you to lay down flat on the table, your legs dangling off the edge. he grabbed a lime, chuckling around a husk, “open,” before placing the lime in your mouth.

he began sprinkling salt on the dip of your cleavage, leaning down to whisper in your ear, “tryna’ embarass me in front of everyone, huh?” a soft laugh falling from his lips as he grabbed the shot of tequila. 

“to y/n!” jean shouted, the crowd falling in close pursuit, cheering as jean downed the shot of tequila. he was quickly leaning to lick the salt off of your body, the heat of his tongue shocking your system.

and then before you could even recover, his lips were on yours as he sucked the lime from your mouth and into his. he lingered for a moment longer, leaning up and spitting out the lime as he raised his arms with a smile.

his frat brothers came up behind him quickly, patting him on the back, and putting him in a chokehold. you sat up with a soft laugh, looking around the kitchen for eren. yet, he was already walking over to you, looking somewhat, angry?

eren was clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth with a ‘tsk tsk tsk’ before turning to jean with a cocky grin. “it can’t be over yet, can it, pres?” 

he was walking over to you now, grabbing the tequila bottle of the table. “yeah body shots are fun,” the whole crowd was intrigued by eren now, he was radiating an aura that was captivating everyone’s attention, “but i like something more...nasty, so to speak.” 

“open,” was all he said before bringing the bottle up to his lips, and taking a swig. you obeyed his command without even realizing, and his hand was wrapping around your neck and pulling you closer to him. 

you felt it before eren’s actions registered, the liquid from his mouth falling into yours. his lips brushed against yours for the slightest second before he pulled back with a grin. the alcohol was overwhelming your senses, but even so, you could taste the faintness of cinnamon from the mints that eren was constantly chewing. 

“now swallow,” he hummed, gripping your neck a little tighter so that he could feel the liquid travel down your throat. “now how’s that for a shot?” he teased, turning back to the dumbfounded crowd. 

the room was quickly full of roars and cheers, eren grabbing your hand and dragging you back to the center of the floor. the crowd was quick to follow, everyone dancing once more as eren pulled you against him. 

you were too hazed to worry if he could feel the quickness of your heart beat, too comfortable with eren’s hands on your hips, pushing you further against him. 

he was leaning down to your ear now, whispering something, his voice traveling straight down your body, “much better than horseface, huh, angel?”

you don’t know how or what god you have to thank for it, but you and eren somehow made it back to your shared apartment. eren was rummaging through the fridge as you sat on one of the stools at the countertop, your head in your hands as you groaned slightly.

eren was humming trademark usa by baby keem, that being the last song played before you and eren had eventually decided to bid everyone farewell. and somehow, drunk of your asses, the two of you had made it back home.

“wanagrilledcheese?” eren mumbled quickly, grabbing the cheese out of the fridge. “huh?” you laughed softly, eren laughing at the sound of yours.

“do...you...want....a....grilled....cheese?” eren said very slowly, grinning all the while. “yes.....i.....do.....thank....you,” you mocked, hopping off the stool with a slight wobble and making your way into the kitchen, over to eren.

“you forgot the butter,” you jokingly chastised, grabbing some from the fridge and handing it to eren. “how could i?” he joked back, placing his hand over his heart with a ‘shocked’ expression.

you laid your head on the arm eren wasn’t using, watching him cut the butter and place the slice into the pan, the heat causing it to sizzle and bubble.

eventually he was placing the bread in and laying cheese and bread on top of the slice. “this is gonna be so good,” eren hummed mindlessly, to which you nodded in agreement. 

you grabbed the chocolate milk from the fridge, the one that eren had insisted on getting the last time you were at the grocery store(though you swear he doesn’t even drink it).

you poured two glasses for you and eren , bringing them to the kitchen table and sitting down. before too long, eren was in front of you with two plates, sitting in the chair beside you.

after taking a bite, you turned to eren with a closed-mouth grin, chewing on the grilled cheese. 

no joke, you were pretty sure this was the best grilled cheese you’d had in your life. 

or maybe you were just drunk.

either way, you were thanking eren endlessly to which he replied, “i know, i know,” jokingly patting himself on the back. 

the two of you continue eating as you told eren about connie jumping off the roof and into the pool, “i looked away for like one second and that happens!” he sighs, exasperated, causing you to laugh softly, “it was so fucking funny ren’! you shoulda’ seen his face.”

laughter was mixed in with mouthfuls of cheese and bread, and sips of chocolate milk. 

why are headaches a thing? 

that is the question you found yourself asking at 1:18 PM. the pounding in your head was incessant, and may have been unbearable, if not for the way eren’s arm wrapped around your stomach.

he drew you closer to him in his sleep, nuzzling his nose into your neck with a deep exhale. “g’morning,” he spoke, his voice gravely. oh, so he was awake, and yet, that was not stopping him from pressing his body against yours.

you tried to ignore it, to quell the flippant pattern of your heart beat. “morning, ren’,” you said softly.

you both laid there for a few moments, neither of you wanting to move. after attempting to slow the quickening pace of your heart, and albeit reluctantly, you went to shuffle out of bed.

“no, come back,” eren grumbled, gripping tighter on your midsection. you turned over to face him, laughing softly at him as he squinted his eyes, “ren’, we have to get up eventually.”

“10 minutes,” eren mumbled, settling his head on your chest, barely above your breasts. there came your heart again, beating like nobody’s business. you’re pretty sure eren is this close to sending you into cardiac arrest.

“heart’s beating s’fast,” eren teased softly, “yeah cause you’re like a fucking furnance, feel like i’m gonna die of heat stroke,” you scoffed, attempting to mask your flustered state.

“a furnance? what are you 80?” eren said, voice still slightly husk as he looked up at you with an amused expression. 

“that’s my final straw, i’m getting up” you laughed softly, moving to get out of bed. “no, i was just playing,” eren whined, chuckling softly as he watched you slip on your his slippers. 

he remembers when you gave him those as a small part to his more than extravagant birthday present.

“these are for you!” eren couldn’t help but grin at how happy you looked, grabbing the shoe box from your hand.

he grabbed the tissue paper quickly discarding it to the side to see fur slippers. he looked up with an arched brow, confusion and humor on his face.

“just a way to make sure i don’t have to see your dogs 24/7!″

“my toes are beautiful and you know it, y/n,”

eren watched you grab your phone from its charging port across the room, and the way you all too comfortably grabbed a hoodie from his drawer. “are you gonna make breakfast or what?” eren said, sitting up in bed now, back against the headboard. 

you turned to him, grabbing one of his shirts off the floor and tossing it at him. “now, you know damn well how my hangover routine goes,” eren laughing softly at your tone.

“yeah, yeah, i know, starbucks and you forcing me to drive,” 

“well if you know, come on then, damn.”

“i swear to god i’m never drinking again,” you groaned from the passenger seat, you and eren waiting in the starbucks line.

“you say that every time, and then end up going out that same night,” eren turned to you smirking.

“i better not be sensing judgement from the one and only, jaeger bomb”

“that was one time!” eren huffed, causing you to laugh softly.

you tease him about that constantly. the two of you had been out at one of jean’s parties, and jean’s fraternity brothers had come up to eren, begging him to join their frat. “come on, jaeger-bomb”--this for real happened, by the way--“we need you as our alpha.”

upon hearing your laughter, eren’s cheeks flushed a bright red as he knew you’d never let that one go. 

and here you are, cracking up in the passenger seat of his two-seater truck as though you’re the funniest person in the world.

“fuck off,” he scoffed, laughing softly as he pulled up to order. you were about to tell him what to get you, but he was one step ahead of you, “can i get a grilled cheese, and a mocha frap with no whip. oh and also an iced matcha latte?”

you smiled at the fact that he knew your order by heart now. not that it surprised you, because you guys spent so much time together, but it just felt good. safe.

“that’ll be 17.35,″ snapped you out of it as eren thanked the barista and pulled forward. you watched him pull out his card, despite your argument with your own card in your hand. eren handed you your food and drink before bringing one hand back to the steering wheel and pulling out of the drive-thru line.

you ate your grilled cheese in quiet happiness, eren turning to look at you every so often, smiling at the tranquil expression on your face.

okay, so maybe eren was right. you did have a tendency to complain about hangovers and then go out and get drunk the very same night. for example, tonight. you couldn’t reject sasha’s invitation to karaoke, and as you always did, you dragged eren along with you. 

as you scrolled through the karaoke list, the vodka thrumming in your system so sweetly, you were perfectly content in your dazed state. sasha squealed pulling you from your mind fart as she tapped incessantly on your shoulder.

“they have take a hint, we have to do it!” she exclaimed, and upon her words registering, you were sharing that same excitement. eren was simply reclined on the comfy sofa of the karaoke room booth, watching you with a hint of amusement.

somehow, you and sasha managed to scramble on stage with two mics as the music began. you started to jokingly strut around one another as the music began playing as sasha started singing tori’s line.

the song ended with some squeaky high-notes and less-than-par dance moves, but eren couldn’t help but grin from his seat as he watched you move around the stage, all care-free and pretty. 

“you know my mom gave me this recipe,” eren hummed around the spoon, tasting the pasta sauce. “needs some more basil,” he muttered under his breath, reaching into the spice cabinet. 

“i remember her making it for us before homecoming, you remember that?” you laughed softly at the memory, eren joining in.

it was your freshman year homecoming, and you were very much still in your awkward phase, as was eren. you wore a sparkly, poofy, yellow dress, and eren matched in a poorly-fitting black suit, with a yellow spongebob tie.

after pictures with armin and mikasa, you and eren went back to his house, where his mom was making her infamous rotini pasta. you still remember eren spilling some on his suit, and the mouthful he got from carla.

“god,” eren sighed around a soft chuckle, “she was so mad at me for spilling it on myself.” 

“well she did say like 5 times to be careful while you eat.” 

“you know she’s not here right now, you don’t have to be a kiss ass.”

you hit eren in his arm softly, smiling up at him as he continued to stir the pasta sauce. he lifted the spoon from the pan, bringing it close to your lips with a small, “here try some.”

you were all too quick to obedience, opening your mouth in a small ‘o’. eren put the spoon into your mouth, the basil from the sauce instantly flooding your senses. you were staring up at eren as he said softly, “is it good?” 

“mhm,” you hummed around the spoon, feeling your cheeks flush with heat. he pulled the spoon away, albeit reluctantly, the both of you still looking at one another. 

you broke the tension by clearing your throat and declaring, “i think we need some wine, yeah?”

two glasses in and you were already feeling it. you weren’t a lightweight usually, but wine just made you feel...carefree, so to speak. 

and unbeknownst to you, eren was feeling similar. 

“have you ever been in love?” eren asked, out of the blue, the two of you sitting curled up on the couch, your plates from dinner sitting on the coffee table. 

“i don’t know,” you hummed softly before continuing, “i think that’s an answer in itself, y’know? like, if i had ever been in love, i’d know what that felt like and could give a for-sure answer.”

eren hummed, nodding, the two of you growing quiet.

“have you?” you asked, eren looking up from the rim of his wine glass as he took a sip. 

“have i what?” “been in love.”

“oh,” eren said, almost surprised, “i don’t know.”

you both laughed softly at that, “i don’t think i know what love really is, so i can’t define whether or not i’ve been in love.”

“i agree,” you spoke, your voice gentle, “but you’ve felt platonic love, you know with your mom, your friends, with me.”

eren had to contain a laugh from slipping out at that last one. platonic love, for you? what a joke. instead of laughing he just agreed with a “mhm.”

“don’t know if i’m cut out for anything more than platonic love, if i’m being honest,” you continued, the wine slowly, but surely, chipping away at your filter. 

“why do you say that?” eren said, eager to know the answer. 

you sighed softly, tracing your finger along the rim of the wine glass as you spoke softly, “being in love, you know real love, means showing people the worst parts of you. it means being vulnerable, and i-” you choke up for a moment, quickly clearing your throat in an attempt at a recovery, “i can’t do that.”

“but you can,” eren said seriously, moving closer to you, his knee nudging against yours. “you’re vulnerable with me, i’ve seen you, i know you, what’s to say you can’t do that with,” this next part pained him to say, “s-somebody else?”

“i’m only vulnerable cause, cause it’s you ren’, don’t wanna be that way with anyone else.”

fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

you both fell silent for a moment before eren looked over at you, he had never seen you look so....embarrassed. “well it’s the same for me,” he said softly. god, he sounded like a 12 year old all over again. 

“i’m only this way with you.” he finished, looking down at his wine glass.

the two of you smiled at each other, taking sips from your wine as the melodies of otis redding continued playing in the background. 

since the start of highschool, it’s been tradition within your friend group to spend the first days of spring break in jean’s dad’s cabin. mikasa, ymir, historia, annie, and armin had gone down a day earlier since they had finished their finals before everyone else. 

the cabin was about 2 hours from paradis, and the car ride usually consisted of jean and connie fighting over who was on aux, until one subsided. this time, jean was the one to lose but not without going on tangent.

“fine con’ go ahead n be a fuckin’ dipshit and play some fuckin’ horrible music for the rest of the car ride, go ahead, i don’ care, even though i’m fucking driving so, i should have aux, but whatever, s’fine,” you swore you felt the car swerve as jean ranted.

the top was off of jean’s red convertible. the wind was brushing against your face, causing your eyes to water. connie was in the passenger seat, and you were sat in the middle of the backseat between sasha and eren.

you turned over to look at eren, who was admiring the scene passing by him. the pretty brown wisps of hair that had come down to frame his face were blowing from the breeze. he turned to look over at you, catching you staring, to which he raised one eyebrow with a genuine smile. 

you simply just turned back to look straight ahead, laughing softly. eventually the city subsided into a beautiful forest with large sequoia trees. the roads began to curve a little more and you couldn’t help but look up at the trees towering over you.

california love came on shuffle through the car stereo, connie wooping loudly before singing, terribly by the way, off-key, “california looooovee!” you all laughed softly, joining in as you began rapping along to the song. 

unbeknownst to you, eren had yet to look away from your face. he watched your pretty lips form the lyrics, and the silly expressions you made as you mindlessly sang along. 

you are so fucking pretty.

the rest of the group greeted you outside, jean parking his car in front of the house in the large circular driveway. he was so fucking rich that it was actually mind-blowing if you stopped to think about it. 

mikasa and armin came up to you and eren, giving you both big hugs. armin offered to carry your bags in for you, but eren quickly said “there’s no need,” and grabbed your bags along with his. 

you followed mikasa into the house and up the stairs as she led eren to yours and hers shared room. “you can set her bag down here, eren, n’ your room is jus’ down the hall,” she said.

“i’ll see you guys back downstairs,” she smiled, her tone filled with implications.

eren set your bags down by the closet before sitting down on the bed and looking at you, “you guys always get the good room,” he joked before laying down on the bed.

you laughed softly, walking over to sit down on the bed beside him. you laid down too, turning over to look at him before looking back up at the ceiling. “can’t believe this is like our 7th year coming here,” eren sighed softly.

“me either,” eren turned to look at you before looking back up at the ceiling. he was praying that his cheeks weren’t flushed pink. “m’glad you’re in my life ren’,” you said softly, looking at him once more.

this time though, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. and neither could eren.

“m’glad you’re in my life too, cupcake,” you giggled at the nickname, eren grinning at the pretty sound. interrupting the sweet moment was the hollers off all your friends and connie’s shout of, “drink up bitch!”

you both chuckled before eren sat up, leaning back on his arms and looking down at you. 

“ya wanna go kick some ass in beer pong?”

“you know i do.”

and that it is exactly what the two of you proceeded to do. you and eren were a force to be reckoned with. eren’s celebrations for you sinking the small ping pong ball into one of the beer-filled solo cups differed each time.

the first time he simply just nodded with a teasing, “okay, i see you!”

the second was a silly hip bump, though unaware of his own strength, you were tumbling over a little, to which eren grabbed you and pullled you back up steady, the two of you giggling. 

it was evident that the two tequila shots that you and eren had taken before the game were kicking in.

and when you got the game-winner, eren grabbed you around the waist, lifting you up and spinning you around, your sharp squeal sounding throughout the room. 

if you had been sober, you would have seen mikasa shaking her head as though she knew something that the two of you didn’t.

eren put you back down, still grinning as he flipped connie off. connie just groaned with a “kiss my fucking ass, bro.”

the rest of the night was drinking games, and jean finally got to be on aux. around 1:00, though, everyone started to call it a night. apart from you and eren. 

the two of you were sat at the kitchen table, and you were fiddling with the cap of another smirnoff. eren promptly grabbed the bottle from your hands, opening it with his teeth.

you offered a sweet, “thank you,”, taking a small swig from the bottle. eren was nursing a beer that was probably luke-warm by now, but he didn’t care. 

he couldn’t find it in him to care, not with you sitting right next to him, looking like an angel.

eren attempted to shake those thoughts away, his voice wavering as he began to talk, “y-you wanna go down to the lake?” eren asked, standing up and looking down at you.

you raised your eyes to look at him, flustered at how big he looked standing over you, “s-sure!” you said, standing.

one of eren’s hands fell to the small of your back, leading you to the back door and opening it for you. the cabin had a dock that attached to the back patio and the expansive backyard.

the two of you walked down the wooden dock, a soft silence falling over you. upon reaching the end, you looked up at the night sky. the moon was casting a soft glow over the two of you, and there were so many stars out.

you always loved coming out here, especially because of how pretty the nights were. you sat down, your legs hanging off the edge of the dock, eren quickly following suit. 

“s’pretty” he muttered, still looking up at the sky, “mhm” was the only answer you could give as you admired the side of eren’s face. 

“ask me something,” eren said abruptly, turning to look at you. you sputtered around words for a second, embarrassed at getting caught staring, before you were able to form a “huh?”

“ask me a question,” eren repeated, “anything you wanna know.”

“i already know everything about you, ren’.”

“not everything.”

a soft silence fell over the two of you once more before you sighed, “okay,” you planned to blame this on the alcohol ruining your filter in the morning, but in all honesty, you had always wanted to know what you were about to ask.

when eren had broken up with his highschool sweetheart, he hadn’t offered any explanation, just that “it was a mutual decision.”

something about it irked you, especially because when eren talked to you about her, he made her seem like his whole world.

“why’d you break up with historia?” you asked, quickly pressing your lips together after the question fell onto the peaceful silence of the night air.

eren would also blame his lack of filter on the alcohol when he woke up tomorrow morning. 

“because of you.”

your eyes widened, turning to look at eren in a sort of disbelief. the look in your eyes was enough for eren to know that you wanted him to explain further.

“sh-she....historia,” his voice got really small at the next part, “historia thought i was in love with you.”

the air was not peaceful anymore, no. now it was full of tension, of withheld confessions.

you almost stopped yourself from muttering your next two, simple words;

“w-were you?”

“don’t play dumb, y/n.” 

the silence was back once more. you turned to look at eren, and you swore you saw a glimpse of his 12 year old-self. you hadn’t seen him take on such a shy demeanor in so long, but with the way he was looking down at his lap, fiddling with his hands, it was like he was that small boy all over again.

“ask me a question.” you said boldly, eren almost getting whiplash from how quick he turned to look at you.

“w-what?” “ask me a question, eren.”

you were hoping that he would ask the right one.

“oh-um, okay, um,” he hummed to himself for a moment, and you kept taking glimpses at him out of your peripheral. 

his cheeks were flushed pink, his lips opening and closing a couple times before he finally got the courage to ask, “why haven’t you ever been in a relationship?”

you smiled softly to yourself. he asked the right one. eren was oblivious to your small glee, attempting to clarify his question, scared he might of offended you.

“w-well, i mean! uh-i know you’ve like uh-” he cleared his throat, “been with people, but i mean, t-there’s never been anything serious so, i guess i’m...hm, i’m just wondering, why?”

your smile grew at eren’s rambling before your answer fell from your lips.

“because of you.”

eren’s eyes were on you again, and he was praying that you couldn’t see the desperation behind them. 

“w-why?”

“do you even have to ask, eren?”

and there was that silence more. it wasn’t peaceful, nor was it tense. it was in a state of juxtaposition; content, but eager for more.

it was always like this with you and eren, beating around the bush with your feelings. there’d be innuendos, unspoken answers, but neither of you had ever been outright with your feelings. 

perhaps it was the fear of the losing the best thing, the best person in your life. that was enough to quell the incessant beating both of your hearts. 

even if you couldn’t have eren in the way you wanted him, you still had him. he was still here, sitting next to you, talking to you. that was more than enough, right? 

you nor eren would let your feelings overturn the years of friendship. neither of you would be able to cope with the gravity of losing the other.

you couldn’t deal with the thoughts racing through your mind, standing up and holding your hand out to eren.

“you ready to go in?” he nodded, grabbing your hand.

neither of you let go as you walked back to the cabin, and up the stairs to the bedrooms. 

“so, um, goodnight ren’.”

“goodnight, cupcake.” you both smiled at the nickname, letting go of one another’s hands and walking your separate ways. 

you opened the door to your room, expecting to see mikasa sprawled out over the bed, but to your surprise it was empty. you stood there for a second, confused, tired, n’ drunk. 

“huh, where’s she-” you muttered to yourself, eren interrupting you with a whisper-shout down the hallway, “think i found her!”

you walked over to eren, who was still standing outside his room. you peered inside to find jean and mikasa in bed, a white sheet covering their body. mikasa’s arm was over jeans stomach, jean’s arm wrapping around her waist as they snuggled into one another.

“i’m so gonna give her shit about this in the morning,” you laughed softly, eren chuckling as he turned to look at you. you were smiling as you snapped a quick picture, and eren wasn’t sure if his heart could take anymore of you tonight.

“you can, uh, come sleep with me tonight if you want,” you offered.

eren tried to stop it, he really did but his cheeks were flushing pink as he nodded, “yeah, that’d be great.”

he watched as you closed the room to his jean and mikasa’s room softly, before following you down the hall to your room. it all felt like eren was watching this blur past him. sure the two of you had slept in the same room, many many times, but he’d basically just confessed to previously being in love with you.

and he was pretty sure you were smart enough to infer that he still was very much in love with you.

he was sitting on your bed, taking his shirt and his pants off, because, well, he forgot to grab clothes. sure, it was just a walk down the hall, but he was tired.

and then, eren watched your shirt come off. he saw the lacy intricacy of your bralette before you turned away from him and towards the dresser. you unclipped the clasps of your bra, and eren swears he almost dissolved into the bed.

just the image of your back, your bare back in front of him, was enough to have him popping a semi. he brought his hand to his bulge, silently hissing as he willed it to go away.

you grabbed a big white shirt, which he was pretty sure was his, and tugged it over your body. next came your shorts, and thankfully he couldn’t see anything due to how large the shirt was. 

eren decided that he needed to get under the covers before he embarrassed himself. you turned around seeing eren already under the covers.

the way his eyes lingered on you made heat travel through your body.

“tired, huh, ren’?” you laughed softly, eren smiling as you made your way to your side of the bed. he turned over to face you as he mumbled, “tired doesn’t even cover it,” a soft smile on his face.

you lifted the covers up, catching a glimpse of eren’s toned abdomen, choosing, more so attempting, to ignore the image. 

you both laid there, keeping your distance. you opened your eyes, saying a soft, “goodnight, ren’.”

eren didn’t respond back, his hand simply came to your waist as he said a soft, “c’mere,” and pulled you in closer to him. your face was nuzzled into his shoulder, eren’s head softly bumping against yours.

your legs were slowly becoming entangled with one another, and eren’s grip on your waist was holding you close to him.

“goodnight,” he sighed, pressing a soft kiss into your forehead.

everyone slept in the next morning, but eventually the sound of pans and movement throughout the kitchen lulled you and eren out of your sanctuary of sleep. 

“m gonna go grab somethin’ to eat, ren,” you mumbled into his chest, still not moving. “mhm, go head,” he huffed, his breathing slow as he pulled you into him more. if you were being honest, there’s was no way you were getting up and leaving the embrace of eren’s arms. 

the two of you laid there, reveling in your shared warmth until you heard a knock on the door. you and eren quickly moved to opposite sides of the bed, practically falling off the edge from how fast you separated from each other. 

“c-come in!” you shouted, turning to look at eren for a second before turning back to look at the door.

its not that either of you cared if your friends saw you sleeping together, but you didn’t want them to get the wrong idea. y’know....think there’s something there when there isn’t. cause there isn’t.

sasha opened the door and you could see the big grin on her eye turn into a suspiciously-sweet smile. “goodmorning!” she paused for a moment, looking between the two of you before stopping on eren, “nico’s downstairs making breakfast if you wanna go help, eren.”

eren sat there for a good minute, thinking of what the most logical route was. 

why would i go help? sasha knows i can’t cook for shit, what is she--oh. they’re about to talk shit on me. oh. okay. y/n is gonna tell her how she woke up to me being little spoon, fuck, okay, uh--

“yeah, uh, i’ll go do that,” eren said, quickly getting out of bed, but he was forgetting one major detail. he only had on briefs.

sahsa yelped with a cry of, “why are you butt-ass naked right now? oh my god!”

“i have briefs on sash for fucks sakes!” 

“it-it’s not what it looks like!” you sputtered from the bed as eren pulled his shirt over his head and grabbed his sweats from the floor.

“g-get out!” sasha cried jokingly, trying not to laugh, “you are banned until further notice” she pointed a finger at eren as he chuckled slipping on his sweats.

he just shook his head as he started walking towards the bedroom door. he slid past sasha with a “see you downstairs, bozo,” and turned to you with a softer, “see you in a minute, y/n,” 

“mhm” you replied, a soft smile on your face as you watched eren’s figure leave the doorway. 

sasha watched him walk down the hall and once he got to the top of the staircase and began walking down, her head whipped towards you. “what. the. fuck.” she mouthed before closing the door and hopping on the bed. 

“sashhh,” you whined, not ready for her incessant questions. “come on, y/n! you know i have to ask, mika would do the same!” 

“you cannot tell mikasa, she will never let me forget about it,” you cried, putting your head in your hands as sasha laughed softly. 

“don’t worry, she has no room to talk with all the shit she’s doing with jean,” sasha grimaced as she continued speaking, “the walls are so thin here, you can hear....everything, and i mean everything.”

you laughed softly, sasha smiling before she continued, “sooo.....”

“nothing happened,” you said, sasha raising an eyebrow in disbelief. “seriously we didn’t kiss or fuck or anythin,” you huffed out a breath before continuing, “last night was just...weird, n’ not bad just weird.”

“how so?” sasha asked as she shuffled across the bed to lay against the headboard. “s’just...we went down to the lake, right?” sasha nodded as you continued, “and we basically confessed to liking each other when we were younger,” you mumbled quickly, sasha’s mouth falling open in a soft ‘o’ before she laughed softly.

“and what about now? did you guys talk about how you feel now?”

your stomach dropped at that as you turned to sasha with furrowed eyebrows, “nothing’s happening now, me n’ ren’ are just friends.” “ren’?” sasha teased.

“stop, i’m serious, it’s not like that,” you crossed your arms over your chest, unsure if you were trying to convince sasha or yourself. “okay,” sasha subsided, “there’s pancake downstairs when you’re ready, lover girl,” sasha sung the nickname as she opened the door.

“you’re so corny, sasha,” you giggled softly, standing up from bed. “n’ you love me,” she hummed, following you down the hall. “yeah, yeah,” you teased, walking down the steps of the staircase.

everyone was already sitting at the table. eren’s head perked up at the sound of footsteps and he smiled once he saw you. you sat in the chair next to him, eren sliding his plate in between the two of you.

“saved you a chocolate chip one, know they’re your favorite,” eren smiled, the expression mirrored on your face. 

“thanks , ren.”

the rest of the trip was really fun. connie tried to drown jean, which was normal, jean then returned the favor. niccolo barbecued, which was probably your favorite part. 

eren went back to his room and mikasa came back to yours. 

so there was that. 

jean drove you, eren, sasha, and connie back. you and eren were the last stop, and you thanked jean again for driving and letting you guys stay. 

“of course, always,” he smiled at you. “text when you get home please,” you said sweetly. jean chuckled, hoping his cheeks didn’t flush too pink at your thoughtfulness, “i always do,” he said softly.

eren was quick with a “bye horseface, thanks,” grinning at jean, who quickly flipped eren off. the engine of jean’s convertible roared as he drove off from yours and eren’s apartment complex. 

“you guys are so sweet to each other,” you teased, eren laughing softly. “gimme your bag,” eren grunted, and you knew better than to argue with him about carrying your own things.

you grabbed the keys from your back pocket, unlocking the door to the apartment complex and holding it open for eren. the elevator ride up to yours and eren’s apartment was quiet, the two of you tired from the car ride.

as soon as you made it into your apartment eren dropped the bags by the door and slumped onto the couch. you laughed at eren’s long legs falling over the armrest of the couch as you walked into the kitchen.

“ren’, you want some water?” you yelled softly, receiving an affirmative, “please,” from eren. you walked back into the living room, setting eren’s glass on top of the table. 

“m gonna head to bed,” you said softly, looking down at eren who’s eyes were shut softly. “i’ll come with you,” he said, his voice low. you could only get out a soft “okay, c’mon then.”

eren grabbed his water, and walked behind you towards your room. you were too tired to change and the clothes you were in were comfortable enough.

the same could not be said for eren.

he ditched his shirt and sweats, leaving him in his boxer briefs. as soon as his pants came off you forced yourself to look away and try to let sleep take you over.

you felt eren slide under the comforter, lying right beside you. and though you couldn’t see it, you knew eren was close. you cold feel his knee touching the back of yours, and although faint, you could feel his soft breath on the back of your neck. 

“thanks for letting me sleep in here,” eren said softly. 

“always, ren’.”

one thing about eren is that he can roll a good blunt. and god, did he look good while doing it. a tray was sitting in his lap, a grinder, weed, rolling paper and a lighter on it.

eren was so concentrated, tapping the rolled joint against the tray. after he was finished, he placed the joint between his lips and handed you the lighter with a soft grin.

“would you do the honors,” he mumbled around the joint to which you smiled. you came closer to eren’s face, striking the lighter. the flame flickered between yours and eren’s faces as you brought the flame towards the tip of the joint.

eren took in a deep inhale, blowing the smoke out of his lips, turning to you with a soft grin and holding the joint out to you.

you accepted it, gratefully, inhaling and letting the smoke fill your lungs before you exhaled. “can we shotgun it ren’?” you asked, scooting a little closer to eren. you didn’t miss the pink that flushed to his cheeks, “yeah, you want to? c’mere,” eren said, reaching for the joint.

you shook your head softly, eren arching an eyebrow in confusion. “i wanna try blowing it into your mouth,” you smiled softly, eren’s eyes widening a little bit before he nodded.

eren’s body tingled when your hand came to hold his chin softly and your sultry, “open up,” almost had him ruining his pants.

eren was quick to listen, his pink lips parting as you took an inhale from the joint. you leaned closer to him, your lips brushing for just a moment as you blew the smoke into eren’s mouth.

you pulled away, still looking at eren as you watched him exhale a cloud of smoke. “did i do good?” you teased, eren just smiling with a slow nod, his eyes raking up and down your figure.

you knew you wouldn’t be able to handle eren teasing you back, so you quickly shifted conversation, “y’hungry ren?” 

obviously that was the wrong question to ask because eren was licking his lips and eyeing you down with an “mhm.”

“i-ill order us something!” you said scurrying off the bed and grabbing your phone from eren’s desk.

“thanks dude,” eren nodded towards the doordasher, shutting the apartment door behind him. you looked over at him from your spot on the couch, turning back around as eren walked over.

he set the bags of food on the coffee table, plopping down beside you on the couch. you watch as eren unties the bags, setting your food in front of you on the table. 

you open up your sushi, asking eren to “hand me the soy sauce, please,” the two of you eat in peaceful silence, the high you’re experiencing softly settling over the two of you.

“you wan’ one of mine?” eren asks holding his tray out to you. you nod and eren grabs a piece with his chopsticks and brings it towards your mouth. he got a california roll, per usual, but you had to admit it was pretty good.

“mm” you hummed around the roll, eren smiling as he watched you chew, “s’good huh?” he said, to which you smiled. “want one of mine?” you mumbled around the food in your mouth, eren laughing softly at the way your words were jumbled.

“ywes plewase” eren mocked you, but opened his mouth, patiently awaiting you to hand feed him a roll. you laughed softly, grabbing a piece of the sushi with your chopsticks and bringing it to eren’s lips.

“woah,” he mumbled as he chewed, “wanna swap?” he asked after finishing the piece, beginning to reach for your tray. “funny, ren’,” you said, grabbing your tray from the table and holding it to the right of you.

“you’re not gonna share with me,” eren jokingly pouted, “guess i’ll just have to take it from you then huh?” he began reaching over you, one hand resting on your thigh, the other reaching for the tray of sushi that you held far to the right of you.

eren could grab it if he wanted to you, his wingspan being much larger than yours, but he was far too content with listening to your soft giggles and feeling the warmth of your skin under his palm. 

“come in, come in,” your mom said, ushering you and eren into the house. “how was the drive down?” your mother asked as you and eren followed her into the kitchen. “wasn’t too bad,” you answered, as eren pulled out a seat for you at the kitchen table.

your mom was stirring some sauce at the stove, and eren was taking his coat off and setting it on the back of his chair.

“do you need any help with anything, mrs. y/l/n?” eren asked, your mom turning around to gift him with a big grin. “oh no honey! you sit, you must be tired from driving all this way.” 

eren sat next to you as your mom began plating dinner, and called for your dad. “he’s napping again,” she muttered, calling for him louder this time. “m’coming hold on!” your dad yelled from upstairs, and eren couldn’t help but laugh at your parents antics. 

your dad made his way downstairs, grinning when he saw eren. he bounded over to him, eren standing up as your dad pulled him for a hug, patting him on the back. 

well, it was more like a slap on the back, your dad was pretty heavy handed. your father pulled away, still grinning, “how come you didn’t call me down earlier, i didn’t know eren was here,” “oh, hi dad,” you said jokingly, “yeah, yeah you too,” your dad teased, coming over to kiss you on the cheek.

your family sat with you and eren, asking the two of you questions about college and life. you couldn’t help but laugh to yourself at how invested they were when eren would speak.

when dinner finished up, eren gathered the dishes from the table and headed towards the sink, “i’ll wash up,” he offered turning towards your mom who was already objecting, “the cook never cleans,” he stopped her before she could tell him no.

she laughed softly, patting eren on his back, “thank you, eren,” she smiled, “ya could rub off on this one a little, she hates doing dishes,” your mom pointed at you. you laughed at the insinuation. learn...from..eren ? if only she knew what he got up to.

“yeah, yeah, eren’s amazing,” you joked, your mom coming over to you. “your beds all made up, and i laid out a mat on the floor for eren,” “thanks mom,” you gave her a hug from your chair.

“you kids sleep good, see you in the morning!” she said, heading out of the kitchen. eren was still washing dishes as he spoke, “she laid out a mat for me,” he laughed softly, “think she knows that we practically share a room?”

you chuckled at that, standing up from your chair and walking over to the kitchen island and sink where eren was washing dishes. “don’t tell her, it’ll destroy her,” you joked, eren grinning at you.

you propelled yourself up on to the island, sitting on the island as you watched eren scrub one of the plates. “thank you,” you said softly, eren looking up at you.

“for what?” he asked. 

“everything,” you answered.

“getting sentimental on me, huh?” eren teased.

“anddd the moment’s over,” you laughed softly, eren chuckling. “get back to scrubbing bus boy,” you nudged eren with your foot.

“oi!”

everytime you and eren visited home, you always split the trip in two. half of the time was spent at your house, and the other half was spent at his. 

today was your second day at eren’s and carla was helping you build a charcuterie board for the family picnic. “i saw one on pinterest that included chocolate shaped as roses.”

carla gasped at that, layering the salami to create a flower shape, “that sounds like too much work,” “agreed,” you laughed softly. 

the two of you began to pack the picnic basket with drinks and sandwiches, eren coming back inside from loading the car with sports balls and blankets.

he watched from the hallway as his mom laughed at a joke you made, and he couldn’t help the smile from breaking out on his face. he felt like a lovesick fool. 

he decided it was time to announce his presence before he became anymore embarrassing, “car’s all loaded, ma,” he said walking over to the two of you.

“thank you baby,” she said, grabbing the picnic basket and handing it to eren for him to carry.

the car ride over was pretty short, and you and eren unpacked the car as zeke and carla laid out the blankets in the grassy field of the park. grisha was called in for a last minute surgery, so he couldn’t come with today. zeke was back in town visiting and he did not miss a beat on teasing eren for his crush on you. 

after a delicious lunch, and many compliments from eren on yours and carla’s charcuterie board, zeke offered up the idea of basketball. you and carla had decided boys vs girls was the way to play, and the two of you quickly huddled up to devise a game plan.

the two of you also decided that girls should get the ball first, just because. the game started with you playing point guard and eren as your defender. he smirked at you as the two of you checked the ball.

should he go easy on you? nah.

he was right up on you, playing defense. and the way he towered over you was flustering you, but you needed to focus, you had a game to play!

you tried to get past eren, to no avail, but you were able to pass the ball to carla. 

now, eren didn’t get his athleticism from nowhere. carla pulled it from the 3-point line, and it was a straight sinker. 

you cheered loudly running over to carla as she brought you in for a big hug. you stuck out an L at eren, to which he shook his head softly, laughing. 

“okay, c’mon then, get on defense n i’ll show you sumn’,” he said, voice low.

you and eren checked the ball, and you jokingly waved your arms up and down in a crazy manner. eren was quick to juke you out, it was embarrassing honestly, and pulled it from the 3 point line and sunk it.

it’s safe to say the rest of the game proceeded in a similar manner, zeke and eren developing a steady lead. at the end of the game you shook your head with joking mutters of “rigged,” and carla joined in with, “did you score the first point, though? nope.” 

on the ride back home, carla rolled the windows down, and eren watched you from the other side of the backseat. you had yet to stop smiling the entire day, and so had he. 

the walls of yours and eren’s apartment were very thin. and eren knew that. so when he decided to jack off at 5 pm when he “thought you weren’t home!”

was it intentional?

no way!

and when you sat on your bed, listening to eren’s pretty groans and whimpers that was in no way on purpose.

and when your hands began to trace down your body, unbuttoning your pants and sliding under your panties, it was just a coincidence that you happened to be doing it at the same time as eren.

and god, if his ears didn’t perk up at that first pretty sound you made. his hand stalled on his cock, needing to hear more. but as he went quiet, so did you.

he was guessing that you might of needed a little motivation. he began stroking his cock once more, moaning as he threw his head back at the image of you touching yourself in the room right next door.

and there you went. your soft moans, albeit muffled, were music to eren’s ears. 

they were making him feel more and more bold.

“fuck, need you,” he groaned, thumbing at the slit of his cock with a whimper. he moaned again, tuning his ears in for what he hoped could be an unspoken reply. 

“m all yours,” you whined and with two more strokes, eren was cumming with a loud moan and a couple curses. he could tell you followed soon after, listening to your whimpers increase in volume until...silence, and a short whine after.

the apartment was then dead quiet, neither of you moving or speaking. even your breath was soft and bated. 

it seems both of you may have been tired of beating around the bush.

but, life went back to normal. neither of you made a move, and that shared moment of unspoken ecstasy went unmentioned between the two of you.

you couldn’t lie and say you weren’t disappointed, but you couldn’t expect eren to balls up and say something when you couldn’t either.

you were sitting in the passenger seat of eren’s two-seater pick up truck as he drove down melone drive. the windy road lead to yours and eren’s favorite lookout. there was a small lake there that you and eren had found during highschool, and you’d been coming to it ever since.

it was so quiet out here, and that was one of the things you and eren loved about it. it was only the two of you out here. 

and it never had to be anything else. 

you grabbed your towel out from the bed of the truck as you unbuttoned your shorts. eren leaned on the hood of his truck laughing softly, “already?” he joked.

you turned to look at him over your shoulder, grinning, “i wanna swim c’mon ren!” 

your shirt was next, and eren had to look away. he peeled of his white cotton t-shirt, already in swim trunks as he followed you into the water. he watched as you floated on the surface, looking up at the crescent shaped moon.

mesmerizing. that’s all eren can think when he looks at you. he’s so captivated by everything you do. and now he’s coming closer to you as you stand upright. the water’s still shallow here and your feet plant at the floor of the lake.

“ren, what’s wrong?” you ask as eren stops in front of you, just looking down at you.

“i-” he huffs out a breath, looking down at the water that’s reflecting the light of the moon. “i can’t do this anymore, y/n,” he looks at you, his eyebrows furrowed.

“huh? can’t do what? eren, if you don’t wanna swim, we can get out now.”

eren shakes his head with a mutter of “s’not that.”

his heart is beating so fast, it feels like it’s about to fall out of his chest. he thinks about the moments he’s had with you in all his years of knowing you. he thinks of every laugh of yours, of each fight, of every shared moment of eagerness for more.

and then, he thinks about all the new moments he wants to have with you. he wants to know what it’s like to love you. he wants to be with you in every way. he wants to wake up to you in the morning and kiss you. he wants to cook for you and spoil you with gifts. he wants to marry you and watch you grow full with his kids. he wants to have a life with you. he wants to know what it's like to give you all his love, to give you everything he’s worth.

he hopes his words can convey that.

“i can’t beat around the bush anymore. we’ve bee playing this game for 9 years and i can’t anymore.” 

“eren, what are you saying?”

“you have to know i love you, y/n. you know, i thought the way i looked at you would be enough for you to know i love you. you can’t see how i look at you? i can’t ever tear my eyes off you n’ i’ve never wanted to.”

eren’s panting now, and his heart beat is still so quickened, “i want to hear everything you have to say. i tease you so much cause’ hearing you laugh makes everything better. you make everything better. you’re what i think about as soon as i wake up, and you’re my only thought as i fall asleep.”

you’re watching him with watering eyes now as he continues, “and i-” he’s huffing out another breath, “i can’t, i can’t just be friends with you anymore, y/n, i thought i could but i can’t. and i’m sorry if that puts you in a weird position, but i needed you to know how i feel because i just can’t take this anymore.”

eren stops there, and he feels as though he has to manually force himself to breath. he watches you, watches one tear trickle down your cheek before you jump up and wrap your arms around his neck.

he’s quick to catch your legs and he listens to you sniffle into his shoulder. “ren’,” you hiccupp, “i love you n i always have.” 

he’s holding you tighter at your words. eren doesn’t ever want to let you go and now, he knows he never will. you pull back to look at eren and his eyes are watering too. 

you bring one hand to his cheek, brushing your thumb against his skin softly. your lips are gravitating towards one another, and they meet, hesitantly, before you’re falling, plummeting into one another.

you’re breathing one another in, your lips moving in dance as eren’s grip on you tightens. your hands are drifting to his hair now and eren’s moaning into your lips.

you pull away breathless, panting into eren’s lips, “i need you, ren.”

your words are all eren needs to start walking out of the lake, with you still wrapped around his figure. he’s glad there’s already a blanket laid in the bed of the truck as he sets you down on the edge of the bed.

he’s leaning over you and kissing you, his hands holding your cheeks tenderly.

you’re smiling that beautiful smile of yours as you pull away and scoot further into the bed of the truck. you begin to giggle as eren makes his way over to you and now he’s laughing too.

eren’s lips are on your neck now and he’s blessed with finally hearing the sounds of your pleasure up close. he’s fiddling with the top of your bikini and you’re leaning up to quickly undo the clasp.

nothing could have prepared eren for this moment. he’s known his whole life that you were breathtaking but seeing you in this manner was the final nail in his coffin.

your pretty nipples were hard from the night air, and eren went with his first instinct and wrapped his lips around one. you were moaning now and your hands were gripping eren’s hair and undoing his messy hair bun. 

his fingers twisted and flicked your other nipple and now eren was pulling away from your chest. he was grabbing your breasts, squeezing them in his hands as he licked his lips.

“so fucking beautiful,” he was muttering into the skin of your stomach as he began kissing down your body. eren’s legs were hanging off the edge of the bed of the truck, and his feet were brushing the grass, but he couldn’t find it in him to care as he was met with your body.

he tugged the bottoms to your bikini down your legs. you were getting shy now, eren could tell but he wasn’t going to have any of that. “nuh’ uh, open up, angel,” eren was saying breathlessly.

he was met with the sight of your dripping center. you were visibly needy, your clit pulsing and puffy. “you need me here?” eren asked, running a finger through your slit. “y-yeah ren! need you so bad,” you whimpered, running eren’s hair through your fingers.

he couldn’t hold off anymore, he needed to taste you. his tongue jutted out to lick up the arousal drooling down your slit, and you were yelping at the feel of eren’s tongue.

he chuckled before wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking. you were a mess now, squirming and moaning as you gripped onto eren’s hair, which had him moaning into your pussy, the vibrations sending shockwaves through your system. 

“ren’! m’ i’m gonna cum!” you were panting, eren’s hands holding onto your hips to stop you from running away. “c’mon then, baby, lemme taste you, i need it,” eren was mumbling into your clit.

one more suckle onto your bundle of nerves and you were falling apart on eren’s tongue. he didn’t waste a drop, moaning as he worked you through it, his hand rubbing soft circles into your hip as you came down, eren still leaving soft kitten licks at your clit.

he pulled away when he could tell you were sensitive and stood up from the bed of the truck. he was peeling off his swim trunks, his cock springing free and hitting against his toned abdomen.

he had never been this hard in his life.

your eyes were glued to his lower body as eren chuckled making his way back into the bed of the truck. his hand came to the back of your head, the two of you sitting up as he pulled you in for another kiss.

a string of spit connected your lips as eren pulled away. “lay down for me,” eren told you, his hand cradling your head. eren was leaning over you now, one hand holding the rim on the bed of the truck to keep him towering over your figure, the other grabbing around the base of his cock. 

he started to tease the tip through your folds, relishing in the way you’d jump when he brushed against your clit.

“are you ready?” eren said softly, looking at you for any sign of hesitation. “m ready ren’,” you pecked him,  “are you?” you teased.

“born ready,” he joked the two of you laughing. though, as eren’s tip nudged against your entrance, neither of you felt like joking anymore. his tip was going into your tight hole and you were wincing at the stretch of his girth.

“you alright?” eren asked, stopping. “m good,” you breathed, “your just big, ren’.”

eren knew he had a big cock, but hearing you say it made him twitch. “tell me if you need to stop,” he groaned softly, pushing into you more. eren caressed you through the stretch of his cock, cooing sweet nothings in your ear until he finally bottomed out.

“fuck,” he groaned, stilling inside the warmth of your cunt. your walls were squeezing down on him, “trying to milk my cock n’ i’ve only been in you for two minutes,” eren moaned. 

you were a mess. you couldn’t cope with the size of eren’s cock, with the way his tip was barely brushing against your cervix. “need-need you to move,” you whined, your nails raking down eren’s back.

“you sure?” he asked, running his hand down the curve of your side. “m’ sure, please, ren’.”

that’s all eren needed to pull back from the warmth of your insides and slam back in. you both moaned loudly at that, pushing each other more and more down the path of complete ecstasy with each thrust. “so-so good for me,” eren’s voice broke.

your nails were raking down eren’s back harder, breaking the skin, and the pain was making him wince and moan. “fuck never want anyone but you,” eren groaned, grabbing at one of your tits. 

“gonna fill you up n’ make you mine, you want that, baby?” eren was slamming into you now, your hips turned up as he folded your legs towards your shoulders, his hands holding the back of your knees it.

“need it, ren!” you were crying now, moaning loudly. “gonna give it to you,” eren panted, “but i need you to cum first. need you to cream all over this cock, make it yours.”

his words were enough to send you over the edge, your cum spraying on the base of eren’s cock and his abs.

feeling you pulse on his cock and watching your pretty eyes flutter close as your eyebrows furrowed in pleasure had eren filling you up. he came deep iside you, his load coating your walls white.

the both of you panted as you came down, and you pulled eren in by his neck for a deep kiss. 

“i’m gonna need a plan b tomorrow,” you laughed, moaning softly at the warmth of eren’s cum inside you. “i’ll set a reminder,” eren chuckled, “i meant what i said, i do wanna watch you get full with my kids, but maybe just after college.”

you laughed softly after that, pulling eren in for another kiss.

“i love you, ren,”

“i’ll love you forever.”

fin

thank you for reading! this is the slowest slow burn fic i’ve ever done so i hope you guys enjoyed! please reblog to show your love n i hope you all have an amazing rest of your day or night or afternoon or whateva <333

[simlicious]

I'm so grateful for all your feedback and suggestions, thank you! I've had some things to deal with IRL and also needed time to think and brainstorm a bit more about all that has been said, my feelings, my personal reasons why I create, and why I share CC, but now it's time to acknowledge your replies properly!

This time, I will put your comments inside the post because tumblr likes to remove comments after some time has passed and I feel this is the easiest way to bundle all the feedback and my responses! Note: I edited the quotes to merge multiple comments by the same person together.

@frank-e-sleep-n-tea wrote:

"Maybe you can do an initial shot to show off the pattern, followed by what the pattern looks like in game"

Definitely, showing how the patterns look in-game is important to me, as well as giving everyone an overview of what patterns are included. I partly show a lot of WIP images so you can get a feel for the pattern in the game 😊 My WIPs are mostly done, the colors might change and I sometimes fix some quirks or tweak small aspects like the placement, but in general, they are finished enough to give a good first impression.

@medleymisty wrote:

"Look at the reblog chains of the posts with notes you want and see if you can find an “influencer” to hype you up maybe."

I've never consciously thought about that, but you are right, getting bigger blogs to reblog something will broaden the reach. I'm just not sure I have the guts to blatantly ask for that (and I do not want to seem like I use people for clout). But I think bigger blogs could use their influence by featuring other creators, regularly like @ice-creamforbreakfast does on fridays in her new feature showcase posts. I think it's a brilliant idea and we should definitely make that a trend! Even smaller blogs can post about their favorite creators, tutorial writers, modders, storytellers etc. If lots of simmers post about someone once a week, we can cover a lot of ground and that is a great way to show appreciation to all kinds of simblrs in our community. It is also a great way to showcase older, forgotten creations and give them a second chance to shine! How about #simblr feature friday 🤔

@simtanico wrote:

"I like showing them in game and just have an icon to represent the ones shown. I think it helps visually to have people imagine what it’ll look like both in menu and in game! (Also I feel you on the notes thing. I try not to think about it too much but it’s wild how some posts flop and others don’t.)"

It's a good point to mention the menu, I also want people to recognize the patterns and be able to find them in the menu (which is still a bit difficult sometimes since the menu thumbnails are so tiny). That is actually also a reason why I try to mix up my color schemes so that the patterns are easier to distinguish (though that might not be relevant for someone who has hundreds of my patterns anyway).

@gardenof-sims wrote:

"When I was playing TS3, you were the one-stop shop for patterns. Yes, there were the odd ones from other creators, but your quality is consistent throughout, and for me that's what counted. So in game shot on furniture and thumbnails is what I'd go for."

I appreciate the compliment! I definitely like showing off my patterns on furniture, you can often see the pattern repeat too, and see that they are truly seamless.

@aisquaredchoco wrote:

"You know, I really feel you on the notes part. It's kinda disheartening when someone else who makes things pretty much similar to what you make get more engagement. I've already given up questioning tumblr's algorithm and why it hates me, so I already settled with the fact that numbers are well, just numbers. It also feels satisfying when I see my stuff in someone's game screenshots (pretty rare moments, but still rewarding nevertheless). With regards to previews, I'd say do away with photoshopping and show the patterns the way they are in game, and sample usage on furniture and CAS stuff is very welcome too. You're already the GOAT in making ts3 patterns, I'd just like to remind you that, and just do what you always do best..💚"

@kevinvoncrastenburg wrote:

"I personally love the way you present your CC and I don't see the need to change anything if I'm honest. I also have to say that I never ever noticed any differences in the way your patterns look in game vs in previews. Maybe that's on me but I'm always satisfied with the quality of your patterns. Without exception. What I love the most is the transparency in everything you provide. I know what I will get and I can even, if necessary, pick and choose since you provide thumbnail files with each download. I certainly see variety, creativity and development in your download posts and really think you are too hard on yourself. I know it's not a matter of choice, and easier said than done to discard, but I'd just wish you could see what I and probably many others see. I see the hard work and appreciate it, a lot. About the notifications: I noticed that tumblr is swallowing posts. Everytime I log into tumblr I try to go as far back as I can until I recognize the "area" if that makes sense. On the way I see a lot of beautiful things, like them, comment etc. Later I also like to check my favorite tags and notice that my dashboard is not even remotely showing me everything the people I follow are posting. Maybe that's the answer but it's certainly not your way of presenting"

@wavingwheat wrote:

"I'm a cc hoarder and am going through an edit phase of which content and creators I REALLY want in game. Your work is so high quality and I really appreciate it. I echo what @kevinvoncrastenburg said about being too hard on yourself."

@nectar-cellar wrote:

"how about trendier patterns, color palettes, and models/furniture? if the presentation feels modern and on trend with current fashions/designs it can be more eye catching. maxis match or vanilla ts3 can sometimes look too much like it's stuck in the early 2010s for good or bad. also more, steady releases can help build consistency and momentum."

It's true that those original game meshes are just not exciting to look at for the most part! The sad thing is that they are still the best way to show off patterns because they are consistently well-meshed to display patterns in a clear and non-distorted way. About 90% of Conversions and new CC I try have inconsistent UVs that distort, stretch, blur, dissect, or otherwise maim applied patterns. A lot of them also have baked-in textures which may look like they are part of the pattern itself when they are not. It's a bit frustrating, I would love to use more contemporary stuff! Even most converted furniture has those problems. I'm open to any pointers to trendy CC that is well-mapped, I'd love to go on a good download spree 💜

Having a consistent color palette throughout a collection vs different swatches both has pro's and con's. Of course, that looks fantastic in the previews and is great eye candy, but it makes the selection process in the pattern menus a bit more difficult too (though most people probably click through a lot of patterns until settling on one anyway). I often edit patterns and add color channels that have not even been there in the original just to make them extra versatile. I then want to make the channels different enough for people to recognize that they can recolor them. I could also make those extra channels just one color but then people would just not know! And that in general make my patterns seem very colorful, and not exactly minimalist. Some people may prefer the minimalist design. But of course, that is where in-game pics can come into play. I could also show patterns recolored in two-color style even though they could have 4, just to demonstrate the versatility a bit more.

I'm afraid I am not good at sniffing out trends or knowing how to match furniture and clothing to be particularly stylish. I've always thought of myself as a bit quirky in that sense and have pretty much given up on creating sims because they just looked horrific and distorted and I am inept at using custom sliders and make them work properly. Someone told me that you should never ever hit the randomize button when making sims but instead select a premade. I admit that hitting the randomize button is that is what I have done in the past and back then there weren't as many sliders, but now I realize why I have so many problems...and I only recently got the meaning of "base sim" and what they are used for and why they are so important. Of course I cannot get better without practice, but I would need to really start over with getting CC for that and everything and it just feels very overwhelming. Does anyone know a good source for a tutorial or CC shopping list like "basics to get for making decent sims"? Like skins, makeup, and how to layer that stuff so that it looks good. Are people even sharing their sims anymore? It's been ages since I saw a sim for download (maybe it's just my dash). I feel like I'm not a skilled simmer in the sense that I never even play the game anymore and just have limited CC in my game since I want it to load faster for testing CC. I forgot how to do all the cool shit you people do! 😭 But maybe I should ask other simmers to make some previews for me in their gorgeous games 🤔

@sweetdevil-sims wrote:

"Without exaggeration, your patterns are the best I've ever used in this game. Re: notes, it's possible that the posts aren't reaching too many people because you don't post downloads too often. If you have many patterns, dividing them into 2-3 posts could help with that. As for previews, it's fine IMO to do a "cover" image with patterns in w/e colors you want, then 2-3 images with the exact thumbnails of the patterns in-game (which really helps to see how they'll look in the catalog)."

Thank you 🥹

I honestly do not know how tumblr's algorithm even works. Some people get a viral post after months of not posting anything. But if I would post on a schedule then people would know when to look, which would make things easier. The problem is that I am not a structured person at all and I am terrible at planning and judging how much time I need for something. Life gets in between everything too, so consistency is very hard for me, unfortunately. I do dream about pulling off monthly releases though! And I want to find a way to work toward that goal.

@windermeresimblr wrote:

"I think your download posts are wonderful and don't think you need to change anything about them. Maybe splitting your posts like SweetDevil said may help the engagement (and/or showcase some more of your showstopping work)?"

Thank you 💜I think creating smaller sets could work in that regard. In my head, this is a huge deal though as I regularly have to hype myself up to publish anything. It feels like a big deal every time and a lot of effort. The way I create preview pics takes a lot of time , and also uploading the files, posting across social media, patreon, my website, tumblr etc. isn't exactly my favorite thing about sharing CC. And to do that much more often kinda scares me 😶‍🌫️ but it would probably also mean that I would establish a routine and things wouldn't take as long as they do now.

@baufive wrote:

"Your work is TOP SHELF! I understand the frustration - all of your hard work and you look at another's post and see four digit numbers for likes and they seemingly came out of the blue. One suggestion I might offer is to show the patterns in various color palettes. I have seen those real estate shows where people say 'I hate the color of this room' and buy another house. There are times where people can't see what is in front of them. Give CASt a workout! The other suggestion I would offer is 'brand reinforcement' in that - show a room with all your catalogue of patterns - transform a space the way you want to see it with just your offerings. Your work is consistent and it will play well with your other wares. Make people think about how to mix and match your patterns across your catalogue. I struggle with this problem - so many of us do. Your fans love you and are excited when you release something new."

🥰 thank you, you've got some excellent ideas! Showing off different color palettes would indeed be valuable, as it also shows the versatility of the patterns. I also love your "brand reinforcement" ideas, as this would also give my older collections some love. My followers could help me with that too by showing off their favorite patterns! I remember I did that many years ago, but that idea was not well-received back then. Maybe I can offer some kind of reward for the engagement🤔

@batsheba wrote:

"I think your patterns look great the way you present them! Just do you <3 Oh I forgot…. maybe tag some cc simblrs, so they can reblog your posts as well?!"

Thank you for believing in me! 💜 You mean tagging CC finds blogs? I might do that, even though it feels a bit weird to do (I fear that I may annoy those blogs, what if they do not want to feature me). But maybe the blogs appreciate it to be notified? I could check who featured me in the past though and only notify those!

@sims3thingsbymd3434 wrote:

"I love your Patterns. I go to look for yours before I download anywhere else. My suggestion would be to release a few at a time that you can display. My things I look for are what is recolorable in the pattern if it is at all."

Thanks for the love, I appreciate it! Smaller collections will mean that a single pattern matters more and gets more attention - I could do that with patterns that are very special to me or stand out from a crowd 🤔 I definitely want to show off the recolorability, as this is not a given with pattern downloads. I try to make it obvious which parts can be recolored by choosing different colors for the channels, but I do have patterns that are more complicated when it comes to recoloring. I could maybe explain or show how to recolor those!

@ice-creamforbreakfast wrote:

"Your patterns have never done me dirty and I appreciate your unedited previews. You're doing great imo 💜"

Thank you, that means a lot 🥰 I strive for a clean look that shows off the natural colors of my patterns.

@simdreams wrote:

"you ARE the GOAT in sims 3 patterns, and for me, your work speaks for itself - so detailed and high quality. but I get your frustration! sure you put a lot of work in them! I enjoy your preview style - straight to the point and realistic - and maybe baufive's idea can help? do some type of showcase of your patterns, like a lookbook of sorts?"

Wow, I'm flattered! Thank you! I think lookbooks are a great idea and tie in with what baufive suggested. I can also feature older patterns! I once did a lookbook with my patterns, which was a lot of work, but I put a read more section in there because it was a long post with all the thumbnails and everything. I got only a few notes back then though and no comments, it probably just was not obvious enough... but maybe it is time to try again!

Conclusion

All in all, I get spooked easily by little things because I do not have the best self-esteem. I'm not the best when it comes to consistency or completing goals in a specific timeframe. That sucks sometimes, but I have to remind myself to get back up and try again, and sometimes just do the thing that makes me happy regardless of the notes. Because I know that you are my fans and support me and love what I do. And I'm grateful for people who engage in conversations and genuinely want to help! And in the end, those comments mean much more than hundreds of likes.

Thank you for believing in me and supporting me like you do!

I need your input

I feel like I am always working my ass off with my patterns but still, other pattern creators tend to have more notes. The algorithm and aesthetics have always been my nemesis. I know it is probably because I try to make my patterns look good in-game instead of looking good for previews. Brightness and saturation look vastly different in-game vs in the previews, and sometimes patterns are way too bright and too contrasting in-game if they look good in previews. I really want my default colors to work as-is so they can be used without recoloring them, but then also can be recolored, of course. I've done some patterns that are a bit too bright and too contrasting in the past, but it tends to bug me in-game after a while. What are your thoughts on this? I guess I have to figure out a good way to make them look good in previews while also making them look good in-game but it's so hard, especially because the trend favors very light and bright colors. What do you think, should I just make a preview that does not show them off at all, or maybe just a couple of them on a sim or furniture and provide only the thumbnail pngs that I always include in the download as a preview? Should I photoshop the previews so the patterns look bright and pleasant but then they will not look how they really look in-game? I just wonder what the heck the secret sauce is and how I can get some...

Maybe how my patterns look in-game is my strength and showing that off is better than just an overview... Do you have thoughts or suggestions?

[manonamora-if]

hia. errr... its kinda a weird ask... i read your guide thingy (im trying to be more supportive but i have hard time enggagin) and you said to not behave like a bot. im mainly a lurker (not comfortabel sharing stuff about me online) but i don't want my fav author think im a bot when i like thier stuff. what do i do?

Hi Anon,

I (and your favourite author) appreciate your efforts. <3

Lemme make you a small tutorial to not look like a bot when you are liking their stuff.

HOW NOT TO LOOK LIKE A BOT

What is a bot?

A bot is an autonomous program that interact with systems and users on the internet.

On Tumblr, they may follow or like account (or send users some weird spam links). They often will not have a personalised account (avatar, colour, posts and reblogs, etc...) or will be very obvious spammer (risqué/famous people avatar, weird letter/number name combo or obvious p*rn words, spammy posts/links). The second one usually don't follow accounts.

Aside from the spammers... I don't understand why the other ones exist.

The annoying thing about bots following you is that you can't be sure if this is an actual lurker person who just want to enjoy the ride or an actual bot. For someone following a bit the stats and guessing the potential engagement for posts/announcements, they are really a bane.

You could block and report them, but I can't be bothered (unless it's too obvious) because there are a lot of them. I know some people who block any account that is not a little personalised (see below).

For example, this is what I have in my Follower list for @crimsonroseandwhitelily (I blurred the name, in case the accounts are real people). I think 2 or 3 of those are actually account, but I am not sure.

[ID text: In the Tumblr dark mode, the image shows a screenshot of a blog followers list. All names are blurred, personalised avatars and some blog description are blurred too. /end ID]

What can I do not to look like a Bot?

[ID text: Screenshot of the top of the Edit Appearance Page, showing a basic, newly created account. The account is named "not-a-bot-temporary" and has one of Tumblr's basic lozenge avatar and grey dotted background. /endID]

This is my totally not a bot account made for the purpose of this post (will delete it later). It is very plain and has nothing. Aside from the name, it could pass as a bot (i just need to mass-like stuff and sent people weird links :P).

So what can you do?

1. Change your avatar.

Below are the basic Avatars.

[ID text: a screenshot of Tumblr's basic avatars. /endID]

The easiest way not to look like a bot is to change it to any kind of image. It can be literally ANYTHING you want: something you like, something you hate, your fav celebrity/author/artist/..., a planet, a flower, a meme, the letter R...

Here, I made a few of them on Canva:

[ID text: an image with 10 spaced-out squares. The background is Tumblr blue. The squares represent the following: the letter r in a white background, a lineart of a flower on a green background, a picture of a nebula (?), a drawn plate with 3 sushi (salmon, egg, shrimp) on a yellow background, a picture of Terry Pratchett holding an owl with spread-out wings, a vector picture of a forest, a rainbow on a light blue background, a picture of dew on a green leaf, a lineart of a lion on an orange background, a picture of a pizza. /endID]

Use that, take your own picture, do whatever. But change the basic avatar.

How to do that?

In the Edit Appearance page of your blog, click on the Edit Appearance, then the Avatar picture and Choose photo. Upload the one you want.

[ID text: same screenshot as the second image, but the avatar is the letter r on a white background. /endID]

Not-a-bot me chose the letter R.

2. Chand the background picture.

Same thing as before. Add whatever you want. Don't want to show yourself to the internet, no worries: it can just be a picture of a colour.

How to do that?

In the Edit Appearance page of your blog, click on the Edit Appearance, then the little pen under the Save button and Choose photo. Upload the one you want.

[ID text: same screenshot as the previous image, but the background is green. /endID]

Not-a-bot me chose the colour green.

3. Change your tag line/description.

When the description is empty, it shows as Untitled in the follower list (or in the user's language). You can change it to whatever you want. It can be a quote you like, your nickname/pronouns, what you enjoy doing on tumblr or key smashing...

A few options if you can't think of one:

I am not a bot, just a lurker.

Lurking is my passion.

Fancy seeing you lurking here.

GREEN.

What am I doing here?

How to do that?

In the Edit Appearance page of your blog, click on the Edit Appearance, then the empty line under your blog name. Click Save to save what you added.

[ID text: same screenshot as the previous image, but the text now shows "Def Not a Bot" as the title and "I promise I am not a bot" as description. /endID]

Not a bot me added a tag line and changed the visible title when you click on the avatar.

And you are done!

If you want to go further:

Add a post to your blog

Reblog posts of stuff you like

Change your Blog Theme (Edit Theme button in the Edit Appearance Page)

I hope this helps! Enjoy your lurking!