#please read this isn't just about the beatles anymore

[zingaplanet]

I don't do fic recs usually but this one must be the quirkiest, craziest, most beautiful, most heartbreaking one I've ever read. The plot finds Paul McCartney waking up again and again on the same day, December 8th, 1980, the day John Lennon was murdered. It explores every single possibility of how the event would've played out and tackles questions of time, history, inevitability and existence brilliantly. Most of all, it's a story of grief and closure, of second chances, of saying what you want to say before it's too late, of saying goodbye.

[kimmiessimmies]

Changes

A brand new town (sort of) feels like a new beginning, so I decided to make some changes.

This is a looooooong (text)post, but here's the short version:

TL/DR: I'm going give my story a title (below you can vote for what you think the better title is) and I'm going to start posting my updates to Tumblr in full. Want to know more? ⬇️

1. A story needs a title

Those of you who've been following me for years know that I've undergone some style changes. KimmiesSimmies, both on WordPress and on Tumblr, started out as a gameplay blog. I visited my Sims, played for a  bit, took pictures, added a few lines, and that was my (non-)story. Pretty soon, a shift started to occur. Even though gameplay remained my main focus, there was usually a theme, a story-like idea which played out. While my Sims led lives that ran as a thread through the tales I created, these could also easily be read as standalone stories about a prom, an athletic festival or a summer camp (I do miss Windiwell 😢). This shifted further when I wanted to write out more significant ideas, such as the story of a runaway girl (Go, Martha, go!) and what would happen to her. I couldn't possibly fit all that in one story update, so it became more extensive. Characters evolved, and my mind started working overtime, constantly coming up with new ideas. After a five-year pause (life got in the way) during which my mind never stopped coming up with new ideas, I decided to write my stories down and then go in game to take the pictures to support my story. And with that I had gone from "gameplay-based" to "story-based". Now, the stuff I write aren't standalone stories anymore; it's all part of one big story about the Sims of Honeycomb Valley (and The Hills), where everything is connected somehow and always ongoing. And a story needs a title. Which is why I decided "KimmiesSimmies" is just not fitting anymore. This will remain my username (because that's my public identity) and the address to my WordPress blog, but the story in itself will get an official title. After a loooooot of thinking, discussing and web searching, I've narrowed it down to two possible titles, and I would like you to give your opinion (yes, you, one of the six people who are actually reading this entire essay).

The options are "A Taste of Honey" and "Life with a Drop of Honey". The honey bit is important because I will never stray from my bee/honey theme. That's everywhere, so it should be in the title as well. "A Taste of Honey" is, in my personal opinion, more catchy. However, it's not unique. It's the title of a Beatles song and a movie from 1961. Now, I haven't seen this movie, but I looked it up, and the genre description was "drama, LGBT", which did make me chuckle, but with the current state of my story, those keywords are pretty fitting. "Life with a Drop of Honey" is unique but makes less of a statement and isn't as memorable, I think. So, please let me know which you prefer! I'm not promising this will be a democratic choice; I might go against the grain and pick the one with the least votes because it feels better, but I'd still like to know what you think.

2. Bringing the story to Tumblr

(Are you still here, reading this? Wow, I'm impressed! 😄)

Until now, I've posted my story on my WordPress blog only and made a post containing some pictures and a link to my WordPress blog here. Now, some people actually click through to my WordPress blog to read the full story (and if you're still here reading this much-too-long post, you're probably one of those people, so thank you for that ❤️), but many click like and move on, which is fine. However, someone I've come to consider as quite my closest friend (and therefore wouldn't lie to me) and who's a very excellent storyteller herself (and therefore knows what she's talking about) recently convinced me my story deserves to be read. So, after going back and forth on this, I've decided to start posting my story updates (since it's all part of one story, I will refer to them as either updates or chapters instead of stories) on Tumblr as well as on my WordPress blog. I haven't quite figured out the details yet, but I think I'll post a link to the full post for all those who want to read the whole update in one go (like I did up until now) and post the story in parts over the following days for those who'd rather read on Tumblr. My WordPress blog will remain "home base" where story updates, sim bios, and town tours live together.

So, that's it! Changes! Couldn't I tell that using fewer words? Probably. But I've never been one to keep things brief...

[innitmarvellous]

Like last year I tried to compile a rather sad little list of positive (and positive-ish) things and accomplishments of 2024. There really isn't much I could come up with, but better than nothing, I guess? Dunno if it's too early for it, but I can still add to this post if I can think of something else.

- I randomly decided that I wanted to learn to play an instrument & that's why I started with electric guitar in February and added electic bass in Autumn. I'm not particularly good at either of them which often frustrates me a lot, but I still don't regret trying it. Well, not much. I just hate having to deal with expectations aka "oh, so you want to play in a band?". No, I don't, because I started way too late for that and no band needs a shitty guitarist/bassist, lmao. (Oh, and I'm already planning to try and learn the violin next. I'm even worse at that, so there's a lot of fun to be had, except for the people who have to listen to my playing :D)

- I also learned how to crochet, after huge initial frustration. That's a new skill acquired, I guess? I did a lot of crochet stuff over the year, but unfortunately it doesn't feel that fulfilling because I'm not that good and also don't know anyone to gift the finished stuff too. The scarves and shawls are piling up in my wardrobe and it's so frustrating, lol. But at least I could make myself very ugly little HIGNFY and Beatles dolls :3

- I wrote more unsexy porn fics, which might not be good for the readers, but is kind of good for me as it doesn't feel very cringe anymore. Now I only need to find a way to make them at least a little sexy!

- I didn't have one of these massive self-hate attacks for a silly small reason, which was good. Well, I had several small moments, but I hated the big ones way more...

- I at least tried to accept some things about me, like being possibly asexual and getting over the fact that I hate my name. Unfortunately I only tried without much success, but the attempt has to count for something. Since I don't want to accept that I might be aspec I'm just thinking of myself as queer now to avoid having to think about it any further - which is also rather practical for gender reasons since I've got no idea about that either :/ (Although using it still makes me feel like an intruder into queer communities, but the term is useful for me...so a big sorry to anyone who's truly queer. Hope that's a forgivable sin.) And I'm trying to come up with an alternative name I can address myself with in my thoughts, lol.

- I tried to work on my self-acceptance. Again: I tried. Some things happened that made me doubt myself again when I thought I had made some progress, so I'm not really sure about how successful I was. I wish I would just figure out whether I deserve to feel better about myself, that would be a nice start. xD

- I decided to develop a taste of my own. Sounds weird and is something I should have done long ago since I'm fucking old, but...I often watched a show or read a book I didn't like simply because of things like: 'but a comedian I like said that's his favourite book!'. Well, and now I'm trying to tell myself: if our tastes align on something, very good. But if not, whatever.

- I'm still rather insane about HIGNFY and religiously watch at least one episode a day. Also, I had two nice and very long conversations with other fans on AO3 and these honestly gave me such a good time. Too bad they didn't last even longer, but the other people probably moved on to new fandoms and even so, I had a blast. (And of course I'm also still weird about Paul. If anything I got weirder about him. Just look at my fics in case I still haven't deleted them yet! Actually, no, please don't look, but you get what I mean.)

- Not an accomplishment, but I'm kind of happy that I got interested in The Beatles at the end of last year. I read so many books and stuff about them in 2024 and wrote fics and listened to the music (of course) and that usually was a source of happiness, so yeah. That was good :D

[once-upon-an-imagine]

Sorry just dumping my thoughts here but I was listening to the beatles come together and welp if this isn't sirius black 🎵 "got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see" 🎵

poor boy convinced that the only reason anyone pays him the time of day is cuz of his somewhat pretty face, knowing that someday his face will become another blacked out stain on his mother's wallpaper cuz she can't stand him. Fully invisible in his family cause he doesn't hold thier ideals about magic, they only see him as a stain on their 'purity'. Believing that most at Hogwarts only want him around for his face or his name or both. And then his photo being blasted through all the papers, arrested for the murder of one of the few people who actually saw Sirius as a person.

I'm mildly embarrassed that I'm this invested in a fictional character 😅 but when reading fics and y/n calls him pretty I imagine that it nips him a little, like he gets an actual sharp physical pain inside like oh no not you too but he'll never say anything cuz he doesn't want you to see him the way he sees himself

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!! ❤️ character thoughts + songs is just THE BEST COMBO FOR ME!

please don't be embarrassed about being invested in a fictional character because I can give you a top 10 of characters that I would love to talk about non-stop 😂

I had never really thought of this, and how Sirius felt after his picture was taken for a mugshot like OMG! and this is why I love post-Azkaban Sirius stories so much, because I feel like he thinks nobody would ever want him again like they did in school because he's not pretty anymore and is genuinely surprised when someone does? 🥺 (that someone being either Remus or me 😂)

ugh! if you let me, I'd love to write something about this (at some point cause I have a million WIPs) but I truly love this thought so much and how Sirius feels about his renowned beauty being taken away from him and feeling that there's nothing left!