#probably process videos etc

[hellenhighwater]

I was doing research on the ArtPrize thing, because research is how I handle very nearly any issue, and I'm trying to set my expectations reasonably, given that it's one of the largest and most lucrative art competitions in North America. And I was reading up on the voting process, because some of the prizes are awarded based on popular vote. The first vote by an individual has to be placed on a smartphone in the geographic region of Grand Rapids, MI, but subsequent votes (one a day per entry) can be from anywhere, so long as the phone started in GR. There's $600,000 in awards and grants this year, so voting matters in determining who gets not-insignificant amounts of money.

You know how many votes were cast last year? 30,000. Thirty thousand. Across every category, not just for the winning art piece. That is not actually that many votes. I have more than that number of you right here, my poor captive audience.

Now, if I can just figure out how to get all of you into Grand Rapids during the month of September, I'd have this in the bag. It wouldn't have to be for long. Just a brief convention of fellow tunglr users, for just a moment, just a quiiiick....dash...c

[apollos-boyfriend]

the funniest part is that like. some modern undeniably mcyt creators aren’t. even by definition “mcyt” bc they’re twitch streamers, not YouTubers. like. it’s just clear to me that it’s not a strict and defined label one way or another but rather a catch all for a certain subsection of content creators who either started in or have had major participation in minecraft related Things at some point (or are very heavily tied with people who did) yknow.

yeah!!! it’s actually a really interesting like, phenomenon. for the lack of a better term. just how much the label has expanded and changed to fit modern-day content creation. bc there’s this divide, kind of, between people who are a part of the community and those that aren’t. fans of mcyt will kind of label most ccs that even interact with mcyt as a mcyt themselves (crumb, for example) even if said creator hasn’t personally posted minecraft videos to youtube, or rarely stream it (if at all). and then you have people outside the fanbase that hold mcyt with a negative connotation that fight tooth and nail to argue that a specific cc isn’t an mcyt because they don’t want them to be, despite said cc fitting into the category perfectly, and being okay with the label. kind of an offshoot of lovejoy fans who don’t know that wilbur does minecraft content, but more extreme. idk fandom behaviour and the sociology of it?? for lack of a better term?? is always so interesting to me. there’s a lot of Very Specific Circumstances that led to modern mcyt and its development, popularity, and stigma, and i would dig deeply into all of it if i could

[overheaven]

one goal i would like to work towards is untangling whatever roadblocks are in my mind about socializing with people and making friends. i feel like i’m recent years i’ve become way way way shyer than i ever was before and i don’t feel like i ever string together competent thoughts… and i have SO many cool pals that i would like to get to know better but i just. don’t know how to express myself these days. hmm.

[echoekhi]

I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight

What Are “What If” Videos?

These videos follow a common recipe: A narrator, given a fandom (usually anime ones like My Hero Academia and Naruto), explores an alternative timeline where something is different. Maybe the main character has extra powers, maybe a key plot point goes differently. They then go on and make up a whole new story, detailing the conflicts and romance between characters, much like an ordinary fanfic.

Except, they are fanfics. Actual fanfics, pulled off AO3, FFN and Wattpad, given a different title, with random thumbnail and background images added to them, narrated by computer text-to-speech synthesizers.

They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like “What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings”, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views.

In fact, the process is so straightforward and requires so little effort, it’s pretty clear some of these channels have automated pipelines to pump these out en-masse. They don’t bother with asking the fic authors for permission. Sometimes they don’t even bother with putting the fic’s link in the description or crediting the author. These content-farms then monetise these videos, so they get a cut from YouTube’s ads.

In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.

Project Copy-Knight

Since the adversaries almost certainly have automated systems set up for this, the only realistic countermeasure is with another automated system. Identifying fanfics manually by listening to the videos and searching them up with tags is just too slow and impractical.

And so, I came up with a simple automated pipeline to identify the original authors of “What If” videos.

It would go download these videos, run speech recognition on it, search the text through a database full of AO3 fics, and identify which work it came from. After manual confirmation, the original authors will be notified that their works have been subject to copyright theft, and instructions provided on how to DMCA-strike the channel out of existence.

I built a prototype over the weekend, and it works surprisingly well:

On a randomly-selected YouTube channel (in this case Infinite Paradox Fanfic), the toolchain was able to identify the origin of half of the content. The raw output, after manual verification, turned out to be extremely accurate. The time taken to identify the source of a video was about 5 minutes, most of those were spent running Whisper, and the actual full-text-search query and Levenshtein analysis was less than 5 seconds.

The other videos probably came from fanfiction websites other than AO3, like fanfiction.net or Wattpad. As I do not have access to archives of those websites, I cannot identify the other ones, but they are almost certainly not original.

Armed with this fantastic proof-of-concept, I’m officially declaring war against “What If” videos. The mission statement of Project Copy-Knight will be the elimination of “What If” videos based on the theft of AO3 content on YouTube.

I Need Your Help

I am acutely aware that I cannot accomplish this on my own. There are many moving parts in this system that simply cannot be completely automated – like the selection of YouTube channels to feed into the toolchain, the manual verification step to prevent false-positives being sent to authors, the reaching-out to authors who have comments disabled, etc, etc.

So, if you are interested in helping to defend fanworks, or just want to have a chat or ask about the technical details of the toolchain, please consider joining my Discord server. I could really use your help.

------

See full blog article and acknowledgements here: https://echoekhi.com/2023/11/25/project-copy-knight/

[alfheimr]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

[ch6sos]

✧.* nanami headcanons <3

He hums/sings while showering and feels embarrassed when confronted about it.

When someone he enjoys talking to speaks to him, he usually appears serious, but his expression is always unreadable. The expression conveys pure fondness for the person!! He enjoys hearing them ramble about their day, their lives, etc. He gives them a warm look.

Definitely a listener more than a rambler. He listens to people all the time, and remembers the small details about them. He tends to bring them up sometimes, which surprises the other person. But, he is extremely attentive to detail and loves getting to know people.

You know how in Korean dramas, the male lead is always a jack of all trades or something? Nanami is exactly that guy. Need assistance with your plumbing? He is there. Do you need to fix a lightbulb? He is there. Need help building a house? He is there.

He plays an instrument. He would play either the piano, violin, or flute.

He definitely enjoys watching movies in his spare time. When he is not doing anything, he enjoys watching movies. If he existed in the modern world, he would for sure have a Letterboxd account.

In a Modern AU, Nanami would undoubtedly be an English/History major. I do not care what anyone says. Maybe philosophy or business. But he would be one of those fine humanities majors you notice and immediately fall for.

Books are his specialty. He probably has several places where he goes to relax and read a book he recently purchased.

Speaking of books, if he gets a partner, he will read to them. He would cuddle them in bed, holding them in his arms while he read silently to them, pressing his lips against their ear, the soft, deep tone of his voice sounding like a musical masterpiece in their ear.

Pottery!! He enjoys pottery so much. He probably went to a pottery event/class when he was bored (he failed, the bowl looked like a deformed apple) but he really enjoyed the process. He definitely began to watch more videos on pottery and probably got himself a pottery wheel.

He is definitely an animal lover. he doesn't look like it, but he loves, LOVES, LOVES animals. If he sees a dog, his heart flutters but he doesn't touch it just in case. But, he's an animal attractor of course. The dogs are all over him at the dog park, and he smiles a little while petting them.

Speaking of animals, he probably has a cat. The cat is named after a food for sure. It is most definitely a type of bread or sandwich or a nut. For example, Pistachio or Baguette.

Super gentle with children. He genuinely enjoys being around them. Ask him about having children He will Be On Board.

HE WOULD NOT BE MEAN. The amount of people I have seen mischaracterize him by making him mean just because he's serious. No. He is just introverted and serious and needs to be comfortable around a person.

During relationships, he genuinely enjoys checking in on the person he is dating. He is always there for them, comforting, cherishing, and listening. He tries to get off work as soon as possible so that he can spend time with his significant other.

If he is shown too much affection, he does not snap or become angry with the person. He just blushes. He just lets out a soft "hm" and pretends to be serious, but his heart is racing, and his cheeks, ears, and neck indicate otherwise. He also gives them a slightly surprised look that quickly turns to his stoic look.

He definitely bought baby shoes at a store just because he thought they were so cute. Mans just wants a baby.

He would be both a girl and a boy dad. I do not care what anyone says; he loves both. If he has a son, he will do everything in his power to raise him as a gentleman while also showing him a lot of love and affection. If he has a daughter, he will be so gentle with her while also raising her to be a sophisticated, strong young woman.

Genuinely would be the grandpa of the friend group. Come on. Just look at him.

As a teenager, he probably would do the emo hair flip thing because his fringe kept getting onto his eye. Gojo probably laughed his ass off.

Secretly really touch-starved. People think he is not affectionate, but he is, just not in public. He would most likely grab his significant other while they were doing something and attack them with kisses. He probably likes being a little spoon sometimes even though he looks like an old man. He is clingy, okay? But not overly clingy. Sometimes he needs his own space.

Loves kissing their partner's beauty moles. The ones under their nose, the ones on their ear, the ones on scattered around their face, the ones in other areas... Wherever they are located, he will kiss them.

Sometimes he needs to be reassured. He needs to know if he is doing okay, if he is treating a person well. It looks like he does not need it, but he genuinely sometimes gets insecure about how others perceive him or how well he treats them. He worries about hurting someone's feelings.

Loves to try and hype up his partner with extreme amount of compliments. He is truly the number one simp and hype man.

I am a strong advocate for the fact that Nanami loves people of color. Like he will date a person of color. I don't CARE. I am Afro-Latina let me have my headcanon in peace : (

Once again. He is NOT mean. He will not yell. If he is angry, he is calm. He does not yell and if he does it is extremely rare. But he would never in his life yell at his partner or children if he has any. The only way he shows disappointment is by staying calm.

Speaking of being angry, he is not the type to show silent treatment. He would much rather talk rather than give a cold shoulder. He is a grown man. He knows how to communicate, people.

Old-fashioned nicknames. That is all. My love. Darling. Sweetheart.

He is probably fluent in several languages. I understand he is overly perfect, but he is perfect in my eyes. He probably takes the time to learn languages so that people feel included. Plus, he genuinely enjoys learning about different cultures.

Owned a bakery or worked as a chef at some point in his life. Maybe even a barista.

Helps old ladies cross the street, assists people with heavy bags, is courteous to his neighbors, and is the grandson of every old neighbor ever.

Probably is the type of guy to sit down on the couch and not try at Just Dance, and ends up winning.

Despite being serious, he would genuinely be bad at the game Among Us. This is so random but hear me out.

Favorite ice cream flavor is probably coffee or pistachio. Maybe even basic vanilla. He is not a big fan anyway.

Jazz music, classical music, old music is his speciality. In high school during his emo hair era he more so listened to 90s rock/punk rock.

His most used app(s) on his Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is WhatsApp and Candy Crush.

Definitely has a whole closet of clothing and browses through them every night to see what suit he wants to wear for the next day.

When he shops or gets food, he goes to local family owned shops. He does not go to Starbucks for his coffee. He goes to the local family owned coffee shop.

Dry texter but if he gets a partner who is not a dry texter, he genuinely begins to pick up their habits. If they type with emojis he begins using emojis. I apologize but he'd unironically use the laughing crying emoji. "Haha! 😂". Okay but genuinely, he would actually keyboard slam at some point. He sends them a photo, they go like "jshekehdkehdjdlsjdl" and one time they did the same thing and he was like:

"....Kshskshdjxbsnab." You know?

He is low key sassy. He was affected by sassy man apocalypse. He hides it in that serious exterior of his but he gives the biggest side eyes sometimes, crosses his legs too.

Snores like a dad. Bro was probably recorded by Haibara while he was in the dorms and bro was snoring like a regular ol dad. Drooling too. What a silly guy.

Anyway...

Overall, the best man ever. He is the man ever and that is why he is not real. Unfortunately.

forever angel <33

[kagesstuff]

Roll for a Feedism Challenge 

Feedee Edition!

Roll a d20 to get your challenge for the day

Original poster cute-feedism-things

1. Breakfast stuffing: get a dozen donuts and eat every last one (if it's Krispy Kreme make it 18). 

2. Worth the weight: hop on the scale and take a picture of the number. Do it again at the end of the day. Share the results (and impress whoever you share it with)

3. Moisturize Me: get comfy, get naked, and get in touch with your body as you slowly lotion every inch of yourself.

4.Consequences: for every 200 steps you take today you need to eat 1000 calories. Be mindful of how much you're moving your body.

5. Planks: set a timer for 3 minutes and get in plank position. Every time you have to pause the timer for a break is another 500 calories you need to eat today (make it 1000 if you're under 200 pounds). 

6. Pizza party: get a large pizza and finish the whole thing (make it 2 if you get thin crust)

7.Low Hanging Fruit: Get on all fours and take a picture. Show someone how low your belly is hanging these days.

8. Self care day: get comfy and surround yourself with your favorite snacks. Relax today and graze while doing all your favorite low effort activities.

9. Probable pounds: Roll 2d4. You need to weigh that much more (in pounds) before you stop eating tonight.

10. Empty calories: get at least 2500 calories from drinks today (you're probably going to want a milkshake or 2).

11. Extra large thighs… I mean fries: treat yourself to your favorite fast food and make sure it's over 5000 calories (it's okay if that means you need to treat yourself for 2 meals, you deserve it)

12. Find your max: count calories and stuff yourself until you physically can't anymore. That's your max. If you've already done this once, make sure to beat your last score.

13. Quiet contemplation: turn off all media and set a timer for 10 minutes. I want you to lay down, get comfy, close your eyes and just spend this time exploring your body. Has it gotten bigger? Softer? Where do you feel most sensitive?

14. Touch yourself while you stuff yourself: get in touch with your hedonistic side by masturbating while you eat. Don't cum until you've had at least 2000 calories.

15. The best shape you'll ever be in: do as many situps or pushups (your choice) as you can. Subtract that number from 20 and then multiply by 500. That's your calorie goal for today (if it's a negative, multiply by -1 and add 2000 calories)

16.Just Desserts: in addition to your normal meals today, you're going to eat at least 2500 calories of desserts. 

17. Cupcake game: find your favorite piece of feedist porn/fic/etc. Every time you start getting turned on, eat a cupcake. No touching yourself until you've finished all of them. (This works best with longer stories/videos)

18.This still fits: put on your tightest clothes that still “fit” (you can actually get them on your body) and take a picture from whatever angle makes you look fattest. Post it if you feel comfy or share with someone privately.

19. It's about the process: cook your favorite recipe and eat the whole thing for one meal. The dishes can be future-you’s problem. Just enjoy yourself for now.

20. Double trouble: Roll 2 more times and do both!

Let the games begin

Wanna play a game 😋

[insertdisc5]

hihi!!! i absolutely adore isat and it inspired me to start making my own rpgmaker game, so i had a quick question for you! if you haven't talked about it before, how did you personally go about finding a publisher? im pretty early in my own development process but it just seems like a daunting thing to find one :o

i hope you have a wonderful day!!! :3

I'm so good at bideo game that they came to ME (sparkles) thanks start again a prologue for showing publishers I can do game good

Here's some advice for finding publishers tho (source: I have eyes, and I've taken classes about this):

-first, ask yourself: why do you need a publisher? Money, marketing, producing, all of the above? There are lots of options out there that aren't getting a publisher. You can just hire a producer (like my producer Dora Breckinridge <3)

-have a pitch ready!!!! you can find examples of pitches online, but I highly recommend looking at the Bear & Breakfast one for example. At the very least you should have concept art, if not mockups of what the game could look like, if not actual screenshots

-making a good pitch is art. Highly recommend having someone look it over. Rami Ismail has consultations available just for that purpose and he knows his stuff (all the advice I have comes from him! I took a great class of his a couple months ago)

-once you have a pitch ready, email it to literally every publisher out there. yes I know you're making an rpg and this publisher is only looking for platformers, but send it to them anyway. They will not blacklist you for this lol, worst case scenario is that they won't look at it.

-if you get zero answers, redo your pitch. If you get a couple, that's the ticket. Look at their offers and take the best one. Only say no to the others once you got that shit signed. If you get a BUNCH of answers, it means your idea rules and you could probably self publish it and don't need a publisher. But take one anyway if you want (especially for your first game!)

-having a vertical slice is always good for pitching, but not always needed? (AKA a slice of your game that shows off the story, gameplay, etc... aka shows you know how to do this)

-once you get a publisher contract, ASK A VIDEO GAME LAWYWR TO LOOK IT OVER. NOT JUST A LAWYER. A VIDEO GAME LAWYER. ITS YOUR BABY!!! FUCKING DO IT

-you should probably add a clause about if the publisher goes down. Reminder also that the video game industry is in shambles right now. Manage your expectations

-you can also self publish. It is a thing you can do. Patreon is here. Kickstarter is here. You have options!!! If you can't get a publisher it's not the end of the world!!!!!!

-I'm just a humble dev and those are my own humble thoughts as someone who got very lucky with their publisher. Armor Games was very good to me during the dev of isat!

[marzipanandminutiae]

Dear marzi, for reasons of trying not to give period characters too modern fetishes in my smut, may I have some recs as to where I may find some of that olde fetish content you've previously seen?

On the Wikipedia page for the "corset controversy," unfortunately!

Historians have been taking obvious tightlacing fetish letters seriously for...way too long. And sometimes still are. Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing. Of course, there's no way to 100% tell which letters are fetish fuel and which are real, but generally any that use particularly heightened language or common erotic tropes- or that seem to fly in the face of evidence from extant garments, unedited videos, stock and advertisements from real corset companies, etc. -are to be viewed with suspicion.

(The same is true for letters used now to claim that nipple piercing was a real Victorian trend- for, indeed, the only source is anonymous magazine letters and many of them fall into the same obvious patterns as the tightlacing letters. One DOES describe the alleged process in detail...but it's basically the same as the process for ear-piercing, a service jewelers did commonly offer back then. Just applied to nipples. So whether it's real or not is still uncertain, but it's highly doubtful that large numbers of Victorian women were running around with nipple piercings given that no extant nipple rings have been found, such piercings are never mentioned in letters or diaries or other more concrete sources, etc.)

Besides that, I've seen glimpses of most modern fetishes in various sources:

the Psychopathia Sexualis, a medical manual of "sexual mental illness" (in heavy quotes because things like homosexuality and gender variance are mentioned under that heading), talks about everything from a fetish for tight boots and gloves on women, to bloodplay (initiated by a woman, actually, who wanted to drink her husband's blood), to force-femming, to some very elaborate femdom scenarios that I hope the sex workers in question were paid well for. Of course, since the cases are anonymous, these are also difficult to confirm- but clearly someone had THOUGHT of them, since they're written into the book.

And I've seen at least some of them in other sources, too, including some of the magazines that published the nipple piercing and tightlacing letters. The Englishwomen's Domestic Magazine was notorious for its letters on tightlacing, tight gloves, spanking, etc.

Photographic porn was definitely a thing almost as soon as photography came into being. A lot of it is pretty vanilla, but I could swear I'd seen piss kink photos (with urine painted in after development) before the blog where they were hosted went defunct

James Joyce's letters to his wife get into farting and scat fetish territory. Yes, really.

Speaking of letters, there was one man living here in Boston who, in the late 19th century, wrote letters to his wife describing erotic dreams of her as a giantess who pissed on him and then ate him. I cannot remember his name and it's going to drive me insane all day, but he was the head of Boston's censorship organization, the Watch and Ward society and these letters were first released by his own children for an unauthorized biography written five years after his death. Guess there was little love lost there.

BDSM is old. Like, really old. Old, to quote the sacred texts, as balls. I'm pretty sure there are sexual flagellation texts going back to the Renaissance, but don't quote me on that.

Basically, Rule 34 can be back-applied, too. If it existed, there was a fetish for it, probably. Of course, things that specifically involve modern technology or properties are out, but beyond that...the sky is the limit

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by A.N.I.M.

Allow us to introduce ourselves, we are The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery, or “A.N.I.M.”, a very small TTRPG studio based out of the southern U.S. but ultimately made up of people from many different walks of life.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is a neo-noir investigation-focused RPG with (as you can probably guess from the title) a supernatural twist, that is currently in production after an extremely successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

How far would you go to learn the truth?

Play amateur detectives caught up in things they barely understand, and explore how the lives of your characters unravel as they push themselves to dig deeper into the unknown!

Eureka innovates on and revolutionizes investigative gameplay, TTRPG combat, and what it means to play as a monster as a character in a TTRPG, filling several voids we have noticed in the TTRPG space. Eureka supports investigation to a degree never before seen, ensuring that searching for clues is a granular and player-driven process, but also ensuring that the whole story doesn’t grind to a halt after one single failed investigation check.

Character-driven gameplay!

Stats and abilities are based on who your character is as a person. Freeform character creation allows you to build a totally unique little guy, and have a totally unique gameplay experience with him! This is supported by the backbone of the Composure mechanic. Stress, fear, fatigue, and hunger will wear your investigators down as they trudge deeper into the unknown. Food, sleep, and connections with their fellow investigators are the only way to keep them going!

Secrets inside and out! 

Any investigator could be a monster, helping their friends while trying not to reveal their true natures. The party will learn to trust and rely on each other, or explode into a tangled net of drama!

Though most PCs will be mundane humans—or perhaps because most PCs will be mundane humans—Eureka also supports playing monstrous PCs, such as a vampire, in a way never seen before. This isn’t just a watered-down stat bonus, it’s like playing an almost entirely different game, with all the monster’s strengths and weaknesses to account for while solving the mystery, plus the added incentive to keep it a secret from the other PCs as well as their players.

(You can also play as something like The Thing from John Carpenter's The Thing!)

If you like or are interested in Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Dresden Files, X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Apocalypse Keys, World of Darkness, or Gumshoe, you’ll probably find something in Eureka to really enjoy.

Intense, tactical combat! 

Hits are devastating, and misses are unpredictable–firing a gun will always change the situation somehow, for better or for worse!

Now in Technicolor!

Evocative artwork from talented femme-fatales @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot and the mysterious @theblackwarden paint a gorgeously-realized portrait of a world with shadows lurking in every corner.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[catskets]

A more in-depth guide for creating visual novels, especially in the horror, horror-romance, etc circles

Some of you have seen my previous, smaller post on crafting visual novels, especially in this little space of Tumblr that a lot of us have found themselves in. Since that post took off, I've wanted to create a longer guide to help touch on some points I've thought about for the past few months.

In case you've never heard of me, I'm Kat, also known as catsket. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Game Design. I've been making games for nearly 5 years, and I've been doing visual novels more "professionally" for 2. You may know me for Art Without Blood, 10:16, God is in the Radio, or Fatal Focus. I'm here to help you make your first visual novel.

Please note that my advice does not fit everyone, and you may disagree with what I say. That's okay! It doesn't work for all. That's why there's thousands of resources out there.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NEVER MADE A GAME

So, you have an idea for a huge visual novel. Horror, a shady and obsessive love interest, a little bit of woo-hooing. 100k words. Maybe a million. What is this, the 07th Expansion?

I notice a lot of people getting into visual novels are artists first. That's okay! I wanted to do art for games before I realized how much I enjoyed writing. And even less of you have probably touched Visual Studio. Again, perfectly okay. We all start somewhere.

My number one piece of advice? Make shitty games.

What does that mean?! My recommendation to those who have never done games is to make a bunch of shitty ones. Think of a theme, or hell, even join a game jam, where you make a game that fits a theme in a short amount of time. Spend about a week on your game. Focus on making something polished. Polish your mechanics. Polish your output.

I recommend, if you can, to make at least 4-6, if not more, kind of shitty games before hopping into longer projects. Making a game is a skill, just like art, just like writing. And game development is combining ALL of these together into one big soup being stirred by a skeleton hand puppet. You'll get into the rhythm and see what works for you.

It also helps you learn, perhaps, the second most important thing here: do you even like making games? There are cases out there where people have created video games (not saying visual novels) just for clout. That's no fun for you, that's no fun for your players. And you might go through this process and find that you don't like making games. That's completely okay! It's not for everyone.

Also, you can use these shittier games to gather an audience. I've built my audience because, for the past few years, I've been releasing games that slowly give me growing fields of eyes every day. A success story overnight is a rare one. It takes time. It's like building a brand, but you aren't a brand, you're an artist.

REV UP YOUR ENGINES!

Ren'py is the number one engine you will be recommended. It is very beginner-friendly, with lots of tutorials, assets on itch.io to use and download, and support. The engine comes with a few tutorials in the form of games, whose code you can freely browse. This is the engine I use most often. Most visual novels you see are made in this engine.

Twine is a text-based engine that most people use for interactive fiction. You can add images and audio, though, if you don't mind messing with HTML. I use Twine for text games and for outlining for my larger games. Ever played Degrees of Lewdity? Yeah, I know you have. Don't ask why. That game was made in Twine.

RPG Maker has multiple versions and has been used for exclusively VNs if you don't mind fucking around with plugins. It can definitely give your game a super unique feel. I recommend RPG Maker MV, since it has the most resources. This line of engines usually costs money, but it often goes on sale for under $5-$15.

People will recommend TyranoBuilder, but as a user and player, the lack of options and the format the games often come in is just...not fun to navigate. It advertises itself as little to no code, but it's often evident in the final results. Some good games have been made in it, though, so if you want to use it for prototyping/practice, you can. I'm not a fan, but that doesn't mean that fans don't exist! This engine costs money.

Not an engine, but check out Ink! Super useful scripting language that's used for more professional projects.

DEMOS, DEMOS, DEMOS

You've got an idea for a long-term project, and now you want to show it to the world! But wait, wait, don't do that yet!

When should I start advertising my game? This is a personal opinion, but I say that you should not start advertising your game until 50-60% of your demo is complete. Why? As I've discussed with some fans of indie VNs, they can name quite a few projects that have been in the "working on the demo" age for 1-2+ years. I've been in the Kickstarter MMO circles. If you, making a single-player experience with little mechanics to balance and polish (aka a visual novel), are taking that long on a demo, I am going to assume the game is not coming out. There are some games I have seen out here that have been in "working on the demo" phase where I haven't seen a single ounce of what the project will look like.

What should I put in my demo? The purpose of a demo is to showcase the mechanics and the vibes and the mechanics of your game. It's a demonstration. In my last post, I pointed to the Dead Space 2 demo that was showcased at E3 (RIP), that takes place about 2 hours into the story and shows how enemies are defeated, some animations, bits of the story, etc. Usually, because it's less about mechanics and more about vibes, visual novel demos showcase a certain percentage of the full thing (5-10%.) Can you showcase the vibe of the game here and what players should expect? If not, show off another portion.

How long should I work on my demo? Before, I said 3-4 months. That can be true, that can also not be true. Think about how long the demo takes you in proportion to how long the actual game should take you. Don't put too much effort. The demo is to showcase the vibe. It's to see how much the public and fans may enjoy the game.

My game is 18+, what should I do? Make a splash screen when the game is downloaded to let players know your game is 18+. If it's going to contain sexual content, you can hide it with itch.io's adult content filter. Write it on the page itself that your game is for adults only. Don't put your demo behind a paywall. This is genuinely ridiculous. The purpose of a demo is to showcase what a game is like before a player purchases it. That defeats the point of a demo. I've seen this happen, and it discourages players from approaching, especially because most demos never make it past the demo phase. So...I'm paying you $10 for 2-3k words of a game that may never come out?

Should I make a social media for my game? YES! Go for it. These anchors are how people will find your game. Make a Tumblr and open that ask box. Make a Twitter. Go to BluSky. Advertising is not bad. Some YouTubers even take e-mail suggestions from developers. Feel free to shoot your shot. The worst they can do is not respond.

HOW TO SET UP YOUR ITCH.IO PAGE:

Getting your itch.io to a presentable state can be very challenging! There's many ways to do it. I highly recommend using this page image guide for learning how to size your images to make your page pop!

Itch.io themselves has suggested to not publish a page until the game or demo is released. You can make the page and keep it as a draft, but do not publish it until you're ready!

Your cover image is the image that will appear in the search of the website, on any front pages, in collections, and on your profile. What have I seen that works? Key art of one of the characters up close and the title of the game! If you can make it a .GIF, do it! Bitches love .GIFs!

Itch.io recommends 3-5 screenshots on your page. I recommend 1 of these 5 be a .GIF that shows how gameplay feels. This is effective, even for visual novels!

Write a 3-5 sentence summary about your game for the description. What is your story about? What is the draw?

DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO IS GOING TO SAY "This is not like other visual novels. It doesn't have that cheesy this or that or-" No one cares. Genuinely. You're putting down other games in your genre and elevating yourself to the pompous level.

TAG YOUR GAME! itch.io gives you a list of tags to choose from when you go to tag. DON'T USE THIS! Try to go for more specific tags. Arimia has a very good guide on how to use itch.io's tagging system to your advantage.

GENERAL GAME MAKING ADVICE

SCOPE KNIFE IS SUPER USEFUL! Everyone makes games that are way over their workload. It's okay to cut out features and add them later. Prioritize making a finished game before hitting those stretch goals.

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN! Writing outlines is super helpful. I use Twine for my outlines, because you can connect your passages together and make really well-thought webs.

IT'S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP! Whether it's from friends, professionals, or anything in-between. They can help with assets, editing, etc.

HONE YOUR SKILLS OUTSIDE OF GAMES! Write some poetry. Do some sketches everyday. Improve on your craft to improve your games

MUSIC IS HARD. THERE ARE RESOURCES. Most of us aren't musicians. That's okay. Make sure the music you get for your game is allowed to be used. You can use anything non-commercial if your game will not cost money or donations. I try to do songs in the public domain or free to use overall with credit if I don't have a musician. Consult the Creative Commons website if you're unsure how you're supposed to use a certain piece of music. If you don't use the right stuff, not only can it put you in legal trouble, but it can put streamers in hot water if they play your game and they can't upload the video because music is copyrighted.

PLEASE, DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR UI. Wanna know an easy way to get your game to look more professional? Edit the damn UI for your game. Make a new textbox, even if it's just a black box. Change the font. Eventually, players recognize the defaults and patterns of games made in certain engines and may attribute a lack of UI changes to a developer being lazy. It doesn't take very long to change the colors around and move text! Please do it to add a little pop to your game.

DEADLINES ARE AWESOME. Not everyone works well under pressure, but if you give yourself an infinite amount of time to make something, it'll never get done. Set goals for yourself for how much you can work on something.

IF YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP, GIVE UP. Making things is hard, especially long-term. Emergencies happen, jobs happen, life happens. Let your fans know that a project isn't happening anymore. Don't leave them in the dark. You don't need to tell strangers your medical history or anything, but transparency + honesty are really hot traits. You should use those in your creative work. This is one reason why I advocate for not publishing or advertising things until you know it's stable.

SHOWCASING YOUR CONTENT

People love to see WIPs for games! This is what the devlog is good for! A devlog is a post where a developer talks about and showcases some things happening in the game? What can you add to your dev log?

PERCENTAGES! How much of the artwork is done? How much of this character's route is done?

SNEAK PEEKS AT ARTWORK AND SPRITES!

GIFS! GIRLS LOVE GIFS!

Anything else to showcase your game's content! Posting consistent updates retains and even gains a fan's attention for your work.

RUNNING YOUR TUMBLR

You've joined us, and you've made a Tumblr for your blog! Link it on the itch.io page, so people can come find you after playing your awesome demo!

Do I have to respond to every ask? No. It's your blog. Delete whatever asks you want.

I got a hate comment! What do I do? Delete it and move on. I have a more detailed section on hate below.

I want to interact with [blog]! How do I do that? Reach out to the devs for silly little collabs. If you come onto a developer slightly headstrong, they might feel you are being abrasive or using them for content.

If people make fan content, interact with it! Encourage it! Reblog it. Show your love.

OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS

PROFESSIONALISM IS KEY. These may be pet projects, but you want to appear some level of professional on your actual itch.io page.

Being dismissive of player and fan complaints or criticisms will make you appear childish.

If your game is broken, fix it. I have been told by some amateur developers to ignore game-breaking bugs. It does not make me, a player, want to engage with your content. It seems messy and unfinished.

With the above point, it's 100% okay to have bugs and errors upon release. Every developer and their brood mother has. To decrease these issues, get playtesters. Friends can play your games, spot any errors, and help you point out things that can be improved upon. I recommend having playtesters at every stage of development.

Make sure your game runs before you publish it. Please.

You can still be silly and giddy! There's no reason to not be, especially when you get positive comments! The point of this is to not be outright rude to potential players and fans.

IGNORE HATE COMMENTS. In this case, a hate comment is a statement that contains no constructive criticism and are only here to be insulting or malicious. People are going to leave you with actual piles of dog shit in your ask box. They are trying to provoke you. Giving hate comments any attention, even if you're there to "clap back" proves that they got to you, even if you don't take the hate to heart. They will continue to pester you. Delete any hate comments and ignore them completely. Laugh about them with friends in a private setting, sure.

THINK BEFORE YOU REFERENCE! I know one big thing in this community is adding references to other games in yours, such as plushies of other characters or putting them on posters. The best thing you can do it ask the developer before adding this. How would you feel if some random person you've never met put your character in a video game? Most of us would feel weird and potentially violated. Open communication with devs is awesome. I am usually okay with it as long as someone asks for permission.

As a complete aside, I prefer more tasteful references to other games as opposed to 523482346 plushies and posters. These have been slightly overdone. Why not theme a candy after another game's character? Maybe your characters know each other.

OTHER RESOURCES I RECOMMEND

Devtalk is a server dedicated to independent visual novel creators. You can find jobs, resources, advice, talks, and, like, everything there! Devtalk is super useful. Everyone in there is so cool. They have a really great and comprehensive list of resources that I could not even begin to cover.

Visual Novel Design is a great YouTuber. No other words, check the guy out!

Ren'py and whatever other engine you're using has documentation that's super useful to follow.

Arimia not only has amazing VN resources, especially for marketing, but she also just has? Amazing games that you should check out?

And for a shameless self plug, I'm the lead of Sacred Veins, a collective of devs creating narrative games, whether it be horror, humor, romance, or everything in-between. Come hang out with us!

[darnell-la]

𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗗 𝗨𝗣 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗥 (ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ)

pairing: dark!stalker!logan howlett x bartender!reader

warnings: kidnapping, breaking skin, manhandling, choking, hard orgasm, begging, change of mind, teasing, degradation, etc.

note: lil pervy bastard. fuck, I just know he’d make sure you knew who you belonged to.

follow our Instagram @ darnell.la so we can start posting random videos, photos, edits, and memes of the people we write about!

———

“W-Where am I?” Y/n asked as Logan finally played her down his bed. The layout on the room scared her, because it was similar to her own layout, just more things she’d been wanting to get that she has noted in her notebook.

“Home, princess — Gotta lay low for a couple of days though, after that stunt you pulled,” the man had glanced back at y/n as he went through his drawer that was full of clothes y/n would definitely wear, and some clothes that she noticed him missing throughout the months.

“Logan-“ y/n was scared at how much work he put in for her. He was a grade a stalker, and the worst one at that. She wouldn’t be able to fight him off. No one could, and he knew that.

“C’mere, princess,” the man said after finding a nightgown for her to wear for the night. “D-Don’t come near me!” She shouted, but it sounded so pathetic. She knew that once he laughed and continued walking towards her.

“N-No,” Logan pulled on y/n’s ankles until she was on the end of the bed. “You needa be comfortable around here, Bub. Can’t have my princess worried, stressed or anything. Not one issue,” the man said like he hadn’t kidnapped her.

Y/n could hear the sirens outside of the apartment, making her think he probably lived close to the bar, and he did.

He worked hard to earn money for his own apartment. He didn’t need to stay with the x men or anyone else for that matter. He needed his own place to have y/n in.

“Stop it, let go of me!” She yelled at the man as she kicked and swung, but the man eventually got her clothes off. Every last fabric.

“Don’t fuckin’ piss me off, y/n. I’m just gettin’ you ready for bed,” the man tried being calm. He didn’t want to hurt y/n, but she’s leaving him no choice just about.

“N-No! I wanna go home!” She yelled as she finally got loose from his grip somehow. It wasn’t long before his hand wrapped around her arm, but she was read.

The young woman had grabbed a lamp that seemed brand new and untouched. She raised it and broke it across the man’s face.

She soon regretted it as the man turned his head back to her with a terrifying look as his the cut in his cheek healed back in her face.

“You’re in for you fuckin’ bitch,” Logan cusssed before he lunged at the girl, two hands wrapping around her neck as he slammed her against the wall. The wind was knocked out of her.

Y/n cursed herself out in her mind, unlucky that she was completely naked and he was only in his boxers. If she had played along, maybe she could’ve snuck out. Or maybe she’d just stay. He’d come for her again, anyhow. She was fucked either way.

“Wanted to treat you like my little princess, but sometimes pretty girls like you needa be stooped down to a slut,”

Logan lifted the girl up and threw her from the wall to the bed. She flew across the room, shocked when she hit the mattress, but before she could process the fact he threw her like a baseball, the man lunged over her.

Logan waisted no time bite at y/n’s neck. She cried in pain, but she knew she was fucked when her head became light from the instant rush of lust.

“Mhm,” the man growled in her neck as he pulled his boxers down. Y/n pushed at the man’s thighs, begging for him to let her go, or maybe even take it easy on her, but he didn’t want to listen.

“Whores don’t get what they want,” the man whispered in the girls ear like some game, before he plunged into her, stretching her in an instant and violating her walls.

The girl cried loudly, feeling him deeper than when he fucked her over the bar counter. This man was a an animal, a fucking beast the way he bullied through her.

“Nah uh, you shut the fuck up! Fuckin’ callin’ the police on me and breaking lamps over my fuckin’ head. You’ve gotten on my last nerve tonight, y/n. Last fuckin’ nerve,” Logan’s hips snapped hard.

“P-Please, Logan — I-I’m sorry,” she cried out, regretting it all. She knew the cops were going to be no help, she knew that damn lamp wouldn’t do shit to Logan, and she knew she was so close to cumming dumb around his cock.

“Oh, really, baby? Well, you’re gonna have to show me how much you’re sorry to deal with me tonight,” Logan gave y/n a chance, but she barely wanted to take it, but she couldn’t lie anymore.

All the crying, all the trying to get away — It made no sense when the young woman knew she was going to fall apart on the man.

“S-So sorry,” y/n’s hands gripped the man’s shoulders. “S-So fucking sorry,” she cried as his teeth pushed at her neck, making sure to leave something, rather people would see it or not.

“So fuckin’ sorry, princess? You’re so sorry?” The man mocked as her head fell back. Logan looked down at the woman, watching her mouth part and eyes switch. He couldn’t help but chuckle at how fast she fell apart.

“So fuckin’ easy. I can impress this cunt in less than twelve hours,” Logan’s lips now grazed against hers. She chocked in her moans as her body stiffened. “Yeah,” Logan repeated in a low deep voice, feeling her juice soak into his mattress.

“That’s my girl — So damn good lookin’ when she goes dumb,” y/n finally cried out, feeling his thrusts get faster. “L-Logan,” the girl softly placed her hands around his neck to pull him closer.

Her mind was forced to forget every red flag about him. The way he fucked into her, made her clueless. She couldn’t understand how dangerous he was, knowing he fucked like this. She couldn’t deny how much she loved being used by an animal.

“Gonna fill this cunt up, and give you another chance to relax tonight,” the man said through his teeth as he felt his cock twitch.

Y/n never thought the man that got drunk everyday would be deep in her system one day. He was always out of it. She thought the man wouldn’t even be able to recognize her, but she was wrong.

Logan was a mutant, and the downfalls of being a good person, is y/n forgetting all about that. Forgetting that the alcohol doesn’t blind him from beauty. Forgetting he’s capable being a bad guy. Forgetting he’s capable of breeding her until she can’t carry anymore.

“F-Fuuuck,” the man buried his face in her neck as his hips rolled, stroking against the right spot, but she couldn’t react. She felt unconscious, but she was still there. She was high off of his cock.

“My fuckin’ slut,” was all her throbbing cunt could think of throughout the night as he pulled her into his hair sweaty body.

ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ

[tau1tvec]

Some tips for The Sims 3 Buy/Build

Install LazyDuchess’ Smooth Patch to alleviate lag, esp in Buy/Build and CAS.

Keep your CC merged and organized, esp your patterns, this will also alleviate a lotta lag across all modes.

When building on community lots, or any lot rlly, avoid going to the edit world menu, and just put testingcheats enabled into the cheat window, then shift+click the ground of the lot to enter Buy/Build mode. This makes leaving it to save a lot easier, with less “preparing” screens to possibly get hung up in.

Lower your settings, you don’t need any adjacent lots loaded, and you certainly don’t need super water on either. You can always switch these back on when you’re done.

While you’re at it, remove your HQ mod, and turn off your Reshade/Gshade preset, or at least turn off your depth shaders. I only ever turn on my depth shaders when I’m taking screenshots for better fps while playing. The DoF shader esp requires a lotta resources your game could be using to simulate all those 78 townie sims instead.

Save as… vs Save, I Save as… at least every third save. It’s also just good habit to keep backups.

When using the CASt tool, set down everything you plan to CASt first, then switch to a category like the wall tool to avoid eventual lag and drag when using it a lot. Love yourself. You don’t have to suffer using CASt tool in an overpopulated category like misc deco.

Utilize the clone option through testing cheats to duplicate already CASted objects, it’ll keep your design just like the dropper tool, but it’s a lot less time consuming, I promise.

Don’t be afraid to use the swatch save tool for objects you use often, esp community lot objects, as it helps to keep your aesthetic consistent. I also keep all of my favorite streetlamps, benches, and public trash bins etc in a convenient custom collection folder to speed up the process of doing multiple lots in one sitting. These handy tools are there, use them.

The issue with custom counters. They mess up sometimes, if you can’t recolor it suddenly, here’s how to fix that. Now if you can’t place down a cupboard suddenly, even though nothing’s in the way, and you’ve got moveobjects on activated, try putting it on the wall a tile over, and then try adding it to your desired spot again. Lastly if you set down counters or cupboards at a corner, and it messes up the textures, but you can still recolor it, you could do what the video I linked above does, or you could simply pull out the CASt tool, and switch it back to any of its original swatches and click the check, then feel free to recolor it as you want.

Railings will also do the “can’t recolor” trick too, but this is a simple fix, just delete it, and replace it, and you’re good.

“Oh no, I switched between buy and build mode, and now my catalogue won’t load, and I can’t click on anything at all!” Don’t panic, hit F2 and/or F3 on your keyboard, these are shortcuts for switching between them, and if you’re lucky it’ll load properly again. Should you get the bug where you load a category and it’s somehow empty, don’t fret, just click on a different category and this should fix it. Then if you get the bug where all the objects you put down disappear suddenly, sorry your game is haunted. Call an exorcist, or just reload, they might reappear if you do.

Tbh, if you run into any kind of major bugs, it’s likely a sign to either save immediately or just restart your game. These only ever show up when you’ve been at it a while ( at least for me ), therefore starting fresh wouldn’t hurt. Probably also wouldn’t hurt to check whether you might’ve installed something the game didn’t agree with by running Dashboard, or put it through the ol’ Save Cleaner.

Honorable Mention: Keep an eye on the texture sizes and poly counts of objects. I know it’s tempting to build these ultra hyperrealistic lots with clutter at every inch, but unless you’re just doing it for screenshots, or for your story, or using it very sparingly, it is not by any means recommended purely for gameplay. This is just the truth when it comes to any Sims game. You don’t want lag, or max memory crashes, or save errors? The Sims 3 is a 32bit game, that’s almost old enough to drive, be easy on it.

[cleolinda]

I’ve read a few of the umpteen thousand upset comments about the paid Watcher service, and I’ve read comments angry about the upset comments. There’s one thing I want to point out, and it’s that this isn’t, or shouldn’t be, “You’re saying people don’t deserve to earn money for their work.”

The Watcher guys do deserve to earn money. I already give them money. I give them $5 a month on Patreon, not because I think they do or don’t give me $5 worth of media, but because I want to support them. I canceled Netflix for pissing me off with its price hike/ad tier, but I give Watcher Entertainment money.

They’re saying now that the Patreon will be solely about the podcasts, and they understand if people leave. I’m perfectly happy to switch the support I can afford to the streaming service. With the early adopter 30% discount, I’d actually save money. In fact, I tried to subscribe, but the site didn’t work.

Watcher wanting to profit from their shows isn’t the problem. It’s that they’re now discovering that their fanbase is young and broke in a terrible economy, judging by tens of thousands of comments on multiple platforms. I can throw them $5/month, so I do. But the Patreon only has (checks notes) 5874 paying followers, and there’s a reason for that. $60/year upfront would not be “accessible.” Patreon is literally patronage from the people who can afford it.

If the guys had said up front, “ONLY new shows and episodes will be exclusive to the service,” I think we’d be having a different conversation right now. But at first they did say, “We’re pulling all our content from YouTube,” to the point where Variety had to issue an update. Like, that’s in print and I’m pretty sure it was on video. Now they’ve backtracked to ONLY new etc.—but most people haven’t heard, and they feel crushed. And the trust is probably gone regardless.

So now four years of back catalogue will stay public. And now, you’re paying $6.99 a month for one episode, maybe two, of something a week, and now, not an exclusive back catalogue. I would pay for Watcher shows before I’d pay for anyone else, but I just don’t think the company is big enough yet for a SVOD at that price. They’re not Dropout size. They needed to build more programming and get a higher follower count first, or at the very least, charge less.

The international price/exchange rate situation is a nightmare and I don’t know what it is they’re not doing to make it… not… be like that.

I don’t know what they should have done instead of a full streaming service, but surely there were alternatives? I’ve seen comments from people suggesting they GET a Patreon. Lean on that more! Do the shows exclusive for a month and then let them roll onto YouTube! I don’t know! Anything but One More Fucking Streaming Service, which enraged me, and I was willing to move my support to it!

And I shouldn’t say this, but I will. In the “Goodbye YouTube” video the guys posted, they say that setting up the streaming service has allowed Steven to do a remake of Worth It where he and his cohosts travel the world and eat expensive food. This is the first new show they announce. Not “We have always been committed to diversity and we’re now able to bring on new creator(s) to expand our programming.” No, a redo of an old show that by definition has got to be expensive. Commenters are saying they can’t pay for the streaming service because they can’t make ends meet in this economy. The optics are terrible. I genuinely question what the thought process even was here.

I love the guys and I still watch their shows. I want to see Watcher succeed. I started watching Buzzfeed Unsolved in 2018 while recovering from surgery—as with a lot of people, their shows got me through a tough time. I’m as attached as anyone. If I can continue to afford monthly support—this is not a certainty—I’ll give it to them. I’m not a ~hater who doesn’t want Watcher to make money. But I am absolutely BAFFLED by every single decision here. I want them to figure out how to turn this around and go in a better direction, because right now, this ain’t it.

[striped-carpet]

M. List

First Date Headcanons

Characters: Kuroo, Kenma, Bokuto, Akaashi, Oikawa, Iwaizumi

Kuroo:

A first date with Kuroo would probably consist of either a walk in the park or a movie

Maybe even both depending on the situation

I feel like he'd definitely be insistent that he pay if you two were to go get food

Or even if you just found a little trinket you like

I also think he'd be the type to walk you home and drop you off, and he might even be interested in a second date depending on if things went well

Kenma:

Kenma very obviously prefers low-activity, indoor sorts of things

That being said, I feel like to even get him to ask you out (if that's what happened), you two would have to be friends beforehand

I think the actual date part would consist of playing video games with him or something of that nature

And if video games aren't your thing, he'd offer to teach you how to play. But if you don't want to do that, either, he'd just have you watch

Either that or he'd put on a movie for the two of you

Bokuto:

For me, your first ever date with Bokuto is split between a casual movie date or something more energetic

I feel like he'd definitely be the type to take you out to a playground, and for some reason the kids there absolutely love him

The two of you would also probably grab some ice cream or something along those lines as the very last activity

Either way, it would definitely be a fun-filled date

Akaashi:

This feels so stereotypical, but I have a gut feeling that Akaashi would take you to a book store for your first date

You don't even have to buy anything, since he's mainly there to look around and get to know you

He'd follow it up by stopping at a local café for something to eat as his initial anxiety starts to fade away

To him, the first date is less about having fun as much as it is getting to know each other since he wants to make sure the two of you would be a good match

He's very sweet the whole time, though, and makes sure to take note of what makes you happy, sad, uncomfortable, etc.

Much like Kuroo, he's another one to walk you back home.

But i feel like instead of asking flat out, he'd send a follow up text to see if you'd be interested in going out again

Oikawa:

Oikawa's idea of a good first date is something fun, yet laidback

That being said, the two of you would probably meet up somewhere before heading to get something to eat

Afterwards, he'll start to actually try and get to know you

During this process, I feel like he'd either take you to something volleyball related, or to a cinema to see a movie

At first, I don't think he'd consider the date anything more than casual, but if he finds himself actually taking an interest in you, he'd try to show that a little more in hopes for a second date, and maybe even a third

Iwaizumi:

Unlike Oikawa, Iwaizumi would actually take your first date seriously, since I see him as the type of guy who dates to marry, or at the least be with someone for a while

He'd probably be decently nervous, but wouldn't show it, of course

I see him as a trampoline park on the first date type of guy, or if that's not really your thing, you could do something different

However, he'd prefer something activity based since-especially in the time skip-he seems like a fitness guy who doesn't really enjoy sitting around

The entire time, he definitely makes sure to be respectful of you and your interests, but also tries to make things as fun as possible for both of you

And again, he's the type of guy to walk you back to your place. He'd probably wait a day or two to ask you out again, though, since he wants to take time to process and think about how the date went and how he felt during it

---------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes, and hope you have a great rest of your day/night!

[esamastation]

Well

Metagaming started with a plan and then veered WAY off course. Also, a little bit of spite was maybe involved.

Might end up lol. But yeah, the Cast Iron thing was plan from the very start. There was also some video I watched on YouTube, can't remember by who, but it had a mention of concept of mana in Polynesian cultures and how it can be gained through sexual acts, etc, not really important. Still, there was some spite and previous random research influencing the planning process.

*going out his way.

Yeah, so the original plan was for Shen Qingqiu to figure out the sex thing out and also have a lot of it probably, and eventually turning it into mastery, etc etc. It was a fun enough plan. There was going to be a lot of smut. Experienced and confident sqq, hell yeah.

.... And then I actually wrote a bit further and the story turned into something else. Arguably what it ended up becoming as it progressed is probably better - but I still have this other story in my head about Sqq with more confident and comfortable attitude towards his own, healthy, sex life. Alas, no plan survives encounter with the enemy and Sqq's various issues won, and then various issues of Qing Jing Peak started cropping up. That's the risk you take when you go in depth - you find the depths.

Still, the rough shape of the harem survived, if not all the educational and casual sex I was planning for sqq to be having. His character just didn't work with it.

Yeaaah this sort of thing happens to me a lot. I start writing one thing and end up writing another. But that's fine, it was fun exploring mental health care and stuff in xianxia setting and it went interesting directions later on in Character Optimisation. I ended up hanging onto the idea of "Sqq as eventual Master of Dual Cultivation" probably to the story's overall detriment, really should've killed my darling there, but I just couldn't. Hindsight is whatever, that's just what happens sometimes when plans go awry.

I haven't abandoned the fic yet. The last part is going to be called Power Levelling and I have like 10% of the start and 20% of the end roughly planned out but I have no idea what happens in the middle and that's why I haven't yet written a word of it. Still, I hold onto hope. I'll write it one day.

In conclusion, plans change, stories go off the rails and overall it's all going to be okay 👍