#tumblr rp needs so much setup

[unalloy]

admin & rules

AMREN; any pronouns & 20+. over 7 years of rp experience. dni if -18. dlc spoilers.

slow reply & canon-divergent interpretation. heavily headcanon-based. literate & descriptive. rules are under the cut.

i do not write incest, despite its prevalence in elden ring. do not approach me for it.

my miquella exists in a verse separate from the canon established in shadow of the erdtree. while much remains the same, some key story elements have been altered or completely removed. an explanation of the verse will have its own post in the future.

i am fairly active on this blog, but my replies can come slowly.

i will always try to match the length of your reply, but you are under no obligation to do the same for me.

i do not write romantic ships for miquella, due to the nature of his character.

as always, i expect basic rp etiquette ( no godmodding, etc ) and for my mutuals to understand that mun & muse are not the same.

i double - space in my threads. i am more than happy to not do so in threads with you for accessibility or preference! just let me know.

random asks & starters are always welcome.

[gloryundimmed]

Get to know the mun ! repost, don’t reblog .

——— BASICS.

NICK NAME : Gray/Grayson

PRONOUNS : He/him

ZODIAC SIGN : Aquarius— fits me, right?

TAKEN OR SINGLE : Single, but a flirt and I'm sorry

ANYTHING ELSE ? : Nah I'm just chillin'

——— THREE SERIOUS FACTS.

I currently make money off of freelancing in web design and graphic design. I've worked for four literary journals now in some capacity, and I usually take the roll of web editor/graphic designer plus a reader. I'm also the web editor for my school's newspaper. My hands are always full, but that's the way I like it. I like commotion and stimulation.

I tend to keep people at an arms length even if I don't mean to, so if I ever feel distant, I apologize. I can just get weird when I'm too attached to someone, and I hate that feeling. Though it comes back to bite me in the ass because sometimes I feel like I have a ton of friends and I'm very social and love people, but I've got no "best friends."

I've got ADHD, which in my case means that I say yes to anything new and shiny despite how busy I may be. Sometimes I can be bad at gauging how much I can do at once, which leads to things slipping off my plate. Plus, the executive dysfunction is real af and I sometimes need a kick in the ass to get things done. Sorryyyy but you love me, right?

——— THREE RANDOM FACTS.

I have a dog named Romeo and I love him soooooo much

Death and knowing I'll die one day doesn't really scare me. Not that I want to die or anything, but letting people down scares me much, much more. It's my worst fear yet I feel like it happens all the time.

I love attending concerts, and music is a big inspiration for my writing. I'm always listening to something!

——— EXPERIENCE.

I've been into creative writing since I was at least 12, and at that age I began rp on a website called wetpaint.com with an elf OC because I was so into LOTR back then. Shortly after, I made an OC named Jake who I wrote with a lot. Wetpaint was like wordpress, a service where you could create little privately owned websites that could be made for any purpose with a forum/comment-like setup on most pages, and I would write with my in-person friends. I took a bit of a break from rp in my first three years of high school, but still wrote short stories. During my senior year, I got back into the rp scene, but that time here on tumblr. I've been writing here on and off ever since, with the creation of Kai in July 2014. Currently, I'm getting my bachelors in creative writing, so I guess that might count as experience, too. Sometimes I even write fanfiction lmao.

——— MUSE PREFERENCE.

Gosh, idk. I tend to go for a lot of different types of muses as long as they are written well and don't feel empty. I do lean toward more action/fantasy/romance than regular slice of life or platonic stuff, though. The muses I find most interesting have a lot of depth. I tend to find people with 20+ muses on their blog a little intimidating because I can't imagine having so many and it's hard to choose between them all. Also, it may not be true, but sometimes I can't help but think if they have so many, they can't possibly be at the depth that I'm looking for, but I'm probably just wrong on that. I barely have my 6 guys and write Kai the most of all, so it's hard for me to understand.

——— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT.

FLUFF : I think I like cute stuff as much as the next guy. Sometimes I can find it a little boring, though. LMAO

ANGST : I LOVE angst. I love two characters who don't get along or have some sort of friction between them. It's my lifeblood, and that's probably obvious to see since I have a muse like Kai as my main. Conflict, heartbreak, violence, despair— I love it all.

SMUT : Can you guess? Again, with a muse like Kai, I think its clear that writing sex and sexuality is a big part of my journey as a writer. It's not a must-have for me in any rp, but it certainly spices things up and goes hand in hand with angst. Anything you catch me writing solo is bound to have smut in it somewhere, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Sex is such a huge part of life for a lot of people, and I think the Puritan guilt of society has caused many to shy away from it. I strive to be a sex-positive writer. If it's not your bag, though, I can certainly understand that as well.

——— PLOT / MEMES : They don't call me the idea guy for nothing! I love plotting, even if it doesn't always come to fruition or never comes to fruition. Plotting sustains me. It has the thrill of imagining scenes without having to go through the slog of writing them. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy writing, but I don't always have the energy to roll up my sleeves and get to it. I also love memes! Any meme someone sends feels like a love letter to me and my muses. They're great because they can start things off with no plotting required. I send them in as often as I can, but sometimes I'm not around and don't see them.

TAGGED BY : @shishitoren-vc tyvm!! love u

TAGGING: @lured-into-wonderland @incandescentia @eraba-reta-unmei and anyone else who wants to. I chose some people I don't know as well but would like to!

[disruptivevoib]

Voib I absolutely Adore your aus so far, and I'm incredibly intrigued by the mysterious chatroomverse rp. It reminds me very much of me and my friends' own setup, where we nickname our hms/w variants and have them interact in Discord through the tupperbox bot. The Sun Down names are very similar to my Heart and Mind, called Suture and Cord respectively, lmao. (Soul is Titan, which... doesn't fit in with them very well. Might change that for him, might not. Sorta suits his relationship with them.)

Anyways, ramble over. I'd love to see more, please do share what you're willing to show!

Anon that is exactly what we do LMAO

Chatroomverse/Cjverse is in a private discord server with tupperbots and we have.. WE HAVE A LOT OF GUYS.

I myself am pushing upwards of 20 guys, about 14 of which are from aus where only I own them. A lot of us have made collaborative for fun efforts.

I'm thrilled to hear other folks do it too! Though I know CJFS (the discord server for CJ fans) has an RP section already anyway!

Suture and Cord are.. brilliant names omg.

Yarn, Coil, and Twine came about because they have strings and other Chatroom members thought it apt to dub them as such!

I am always willing to share literally anything about Cjverse/Chatroomverse! I am also, however, unsure what people want to hear in regards to these guys! There is a lot of information about them since this RP began back in April of this year!

We have before considered making a Tumblr blog about Cjverse.. just for funsies mainly too! Dunno though if there's really an interest though for that kind of thing!

I do think I want to share some of the memes I've drawn for it more. Idk if I've ever posted those, actually. In RP Quotes are fun too.

As for the AUs I have in the Rp, it is relatively all of them! Eleutheromania, Sun Down, Lacuna, Swap and even ones I've never spoken about which are collaborative: Syncopation, AI thirds (those no context doodles were them all along), TSP au, Good Day Au (newest one), Labyrinths, and so on.

Which those AUs I love very very much and would be thrilled to explain at least Sync, Ai, and Laby. Good Day needs not to be revealed.. spoilers for chat members, and TSP is the Stanley Parable but thirds! So nothing to.. big there!

This is a long post. Sorry Anon!

[100percent-unimpressed]

High school au prompt, twin bed rps and soft dom Ray/Gerard for Wip asks please 🌸 Also I'm so intrigued by so many of these 👀

Thanks for asking about these! <3 I'm putting everything behind a cut because this might get a little long 😅

high school au prompt

This one was inspired by a tumblr post. I don't have a link to it but I have a screenshot here:

I read that and thought that sounded like highschool!Gerard, Frank, and Mikey respectively. It grew a bit more context with Frank and Gerard at the very beginning of a relationship, having a sleepover at Frank's and a first kiss when they're lying awake in the dark and can't sleep because they're a bit overwhelmed (or at least Gerard is). The next morning, they head over to the Ways' to hang out with Mikey, which is when the scene from the prompt happens. And curiously enough, Ray is already there in Mikey's room too... Also featuring: Gerard pretending to like soymilk (and being very bad at it) and disagreements about the right tooth-brushing technique.

Twin bed RPS

This is another one of the Polyam Day Ficlet Fest fics that I didn't finish in time. The 'RPS' doesn't mean 'real person slash' btw, it's Rock Paper Scissors. The prompt was: "Winning a sweepstakes vacation for a "family of four" and having to rock-paper-scissors for who sleeps in the twin beds when they get there," so obviously I had to write about the mcr OT4 doing this. Since they all share one brain cell, they didn't expect this to be a more traditional 'family of four' setup and the whole thing where there are two bedrooms and one of them has two twins is a surprise. Obviously they need to find a solution because everyone wants to sleep in the double bed. They're all into cuddling, okay? They can't sleep alone. Because I like to write Gerard as a bit of a diva, he suggests the others can each spend one night in the double bed with him, easy. Since no one else is happy with that, Ray suggests rock paper scissoring it out. Which is basically where the fic ends because I haven't simulated that yet, so I don't know what happens next. Also featuring: Frank being too short, Mikey trying to be a smartass, Gerard calling him out on being a slut (with an eye roll), and Ray agreeing with the slut thing (but kissing Mikey's cheek about it).

Soft Dom Ray_Gerard

This fic is so old I genuinely don't remember what it was inspired by. I remember it's one of the fics I've talked about on a discord server a bunch and then never finished it. I always feel bad about doing that. No wait! I think it was inspired by Gerard in that Danger Days black shirt with giant armholes actually. Where the right angle lets you see like half his chest. Idek, sometimes ideas happen xD It's pretty much what it says on the tin: subby Gerard and very soft dom Ray. It's mostly kink with some smut, involving some serious hardware, restraints, a lot of praise and gentle touches, and Gerard getting really deep into subspace. And pain play! :D Because seeing all that soft, pale skin made me crave fic where someone pinches Gerard until his brain shuts off and he turns into a clingy, needy mess and Ray seemed patient and dedicated enough to make that happen.

[goldenslowpoke]

Okay so I don't usually infodump on here often. I know people don't follow me for my personal issues. Actually I don't know why most of you follow me.

But man I'm really down in it right now and I don't wanna get "whiny" on Discord so you all get to hear about my fear of rejection and how it, and the general online community I run with these days, has me feeling like I'm spinning my wheels and.... dare I say increasingly a failure?

This one's long but I'm not gonna edit it down for your sake so read it if you want or pass it if you don't. Might sneak something in the middle of it just for funsies.

Believe it or not I'm staring at the Keep Reading line because I don't freaking know where to start here there's just so much.

I guess let's start with I'm one of the moderators for a fairly niche but also fairly robust RPing Discord. I'm also the oldest active user there at 30 (and soon to be a half).

It's a server that's still recruiting fresh-faced 18 year olds so that's a 12 year age gap my friends. Which was never really an issue for me until my mother died earlier this year and now I'm trying to balance working 24-29 hours a week plus doing all the work of maintaining a house alone. In short, they're full of youthful energy and half the time I just want to sleep.

Which is where we circle back to the RPing Discord part of it. It's an RP Discord, we do big group RPs. Which used to be fun for me back when I worked 20-24 hours a week and lived with my mother, also when those RPs averaged like.... 10-12 people in them. These days they average 16-18 people in them and I have it feels like half the time to pay attention to them.

So you know, obvious answer is "well just step back from that big stuff. Keep moderating but start trying to do smaller group stuff." Which ordinarily would be the right answer but I have a problem. I'm... weird by their standards. In more than just my availability. I'm a not-yet-outed mtf (listen that's an entirely different longpost I could make about my fears over not passing the public perception test) and girl lover, this is a server that is still probably 75% ftms and gay men (of bara/dilf taste).

You can psychoanalyze me all you want on this one but I want to do stuff like Magical Girls or even just Anime Slice of Life, but I know there's no real market for it there. I've tried floating some of my ideas out before but usually it's struck down as on the lighter end being "too niche" or on the harder end I've actually gotten an "Ew why would people want to do something like that?" There's a few folks who I think would like it, but they are like me either too busy to notice or too new to know me well enough.

I've tried other Discord communities but they're all either skewed too young or too fucking weird even for me (I'm making a side blog for some of the absolute trash I've found on this hunt don't worry). I've poked around Roll20 and Reddit but honestly those sites scare the shit out of me with their applications and such. Look, my tabletop experience is about 6 sessions of Monsterhearts (before timezones doomed the group) and a session 0 of D&D (honestly it just wasn't that fun of a setup). Not to mention R20 and Reddit are just flooded with 5E games (thanks Critical Role, Honor Among Thieves, and Baldur's Gate 3...).

So instead of getting a chance to fuck around and find out, I'm stuck watching a bunch of college students with more free time than me spin big group RPs out of control faster than my head can keep up, so I lose the plot, and then limp out of the room feeling like a failure and a bad moderator. And also posting a long "get it off my chest" post on Tumblr about it.

That's it, there's no great resolution here. I literally just needed to say this stuff before it turned into what it usually does for me which is envy and hatred.

[sapphicrpc]

ROLEPLAY GROUP SERVER TEMPLATE BY SAPPHICRPC

this template is ready to go - all you have to do is fill in the channels, add your bots, and you can start letting people in! it has everything you need in here and is setup to host a discord only roleplay (ie, you accept apps and keep all muse lists in the server, you don’t need a tumblr main for this!)

below the cut is a detailed description and recommendations from me on how to set it up

i only have two rules for the use of this template, there’s only 2 so make sure you respect them please!

edit and adapt this template as much as you want to but if you use, please leave the credit in the landing channel description intact and like/reblog this post

certain types of roleplay do not have my permission to use this template, these groups include but are not limited to: slave rps, krps, proshipping groups, taboo rps, rps that depict sexual violence or sex trafficking, real person roleplays and roleplays that promote racism, transphobia, homophobia or colourism. 

CLICK HERE FOR TEMPLATE LINK

when someone joins the server they will only be able to see the public channels, or the guest space. 

i recommend you add carlbot and configure him to send a welcome message as well as a notification if a member leaves in the landing channel. this is also where my credit is - don’t remove it or i’ll haunt you

guest chat is somewhere that guests can talk, rules channel shouldn’t need an explanation, but this is where your rules go. only admins can post in rules.

i really recommend that you edit this category to suit your group! some of these channels (such as skeletons channel) may be better off renamed/deleted for your group. these channels are all viewable by everyone but only admins can post in them. 

in this category we have a few different permissions. application, updates and polls can only be posted in by admins. submissions has message history turned off for everyone but admins - messages will not be visible to members/guests only to admins. it’s a great alternative to an inbox on tumblr! 

reaction roles channel you can use carlbot to set this up!! i prefer using carlbot than pronoun picker because i noticed pronoun picker doesn’t offer neopronouns. also you can add roles like tagging preferences and accessibility requirements. 

that brings us to the end of the area of the server that anyone can see - now we’re onto the members only space.

i think most of these are pretty self explanatory - for member use only

plotting space is intended so people can make threads in here instead of starting dms in order to plot because i don’t know about you but i find keeping up with dms when a rps plotting time kicks in SUPER stressful

in character/muse area 

again... i think this is all pretty self explanatory. only available to members. feel free to just duplicate the example category to keep the same permissions. the intention is that members use discords thread function to roleplay in threads and texts channels!

you could also add events categories and more but i wanted to keep this simple so admins can adapt it to their group. 

ENJOY <3 don’t forget to like and subscribe lol

[katherine-mcnamara]

Devvvvv, I'm super sorry if this is a weird ask! But I've always wanted to try out JCINK, but I... struggle so hard at understanding how it works? I can kind of grasp how treading works there, but... Registration/doing an app? Plotting? How do you find RPs in there? Do you have any recommendations for people that want to get started over there? Thank you so much, much love to you always 🤍🤍

Hi!!!! Much love right back to you!!! I'm not sure how helpful this will be as it's just a list of links I've found ut I hope it's somewhat helpful!!! Jcink can seem scary but imo once you get the hang of it it is so so easy.

That one there ^^ Also gives you handy tumblr tags to check to find rps but I'll be going into the directory linking a bit later in the post!! <3

this one and also the one below ^^^ is also a place to find rps!!! it's a directory

Okay so apart from the ones already listed that are places to find rps theres also

And for anyone wondering how they could keep track of their stuff that's also super easy!!! there's even usually specific places on sites where you can have a thread/post SOLELY to keep track of your threads either all in one tracker or by character!! For example here's mine it's an all in one and nobody judge how zoomed in I am or my number of threads ok I HAVE A LOT OF CHARACTERS ADFLDFLAF

[quickdeaths]

TEN Q’S:

1. When are you usually online?  I am terminally online and on Tumblr in general like, all the time, but this isn’t my “main” blog so I only pop in two or three times a day just to skim and check notifications. Generally evening on weekdays and afternoons on weekends, Pacific time, is the best bet though.

2. What verses are you involved in outside of this page? I have a (dusty, kinda inactive) Dragon Ball blog, as well as a few fantasy blogs that are basically D&D + Fire Emblem things. I do have a couple hyper-specific AUs with my partner on discord as well, one featuring an entirely too complex otome game setup, and that is themed around Vampire the Masquerade.

3. What is your biggest RP pet peeve? Poor communication. I know I’m not perfect at this either, but in my very long history of doing RP, I’ve seen too many instances (both involving me and not involving me) of friendships break down because someone was upset about something but never said anything. I would much rather someone say “hey, I don’t like this thing/this thing you said hurt my feelings/whatever” than just go on thinking everything’s fine until they hit a breaking point.

4. Are you drawn to specific types of muses? Hmmm I’m not sure? I’m not sure if it’s a specific thing as much as it is “is there something I can do with this character?” The hook for me can be a lot of things, but there does need to be something that can hook me.

5. Are there recurring themes in your writing that people might not notice? Haha I doubt it. At most, I think you could say that I like putting characters in situations that they’re not fully prepared for, or veering them off course. I used to joke that my D&D character creation process was to write a background for a character with a class in mind, and then find a way to explain how they ended up in a wildly different class, like my priestess who ended up being melee fighter, or my thief who ended up gaining eldritch magic after nearly being sacrificed to a great old one.

6. What are your favorite RP trends? I don’t know anything about trends haha. I like dash memes like this one that let people talk about whatever for a while. I guess I’d say that I like the more recent trend of more relaxed aesthetics. I’m always impressed by a blog with a really pretty theme and a cool banner and custom icons and stuff, but I’m glad that that seems to be seen as a bonus rather than a requirement these days. I used to stress about making a new blog because it felt like I needed to spend a dozen hours or more pouring over themes, editing the code, finding icons, and painstakingly cultivating a specific image before I could start. I think it’s so cool that some people are into that thing, but it seems like the barrier to entry is a lot lower, and for me, I’m glad to just be able to jump in and write.

7. What is your process for starting a new story with someone?   I’m a light plotter, generally. The thing I didn’t anticipate about being a multimuse was how much harder it would feel to approach people. I’ve got like 15ish characters, and unless people have filled out my interest tracker, I have no idea if there’s a specific character they like or dislike, or who they want to write with. This makes me a little nervous about sending memes, because I wouldn’t want to spring on someone a character that they weren’t at all interested in. Plotting helps, even for just simple scene set-ups like “the characters are at X event” or “they meet at Y place doing Z activity.” My experience is also that the light plotting communication usually helps communication down the road too? Like follow-up threads or memes or whatever, but for me, I prefer talking a little bit and then writing a starter as opposed to sending someone an ask out of the blue.

8. How do you feel about duplicates? As a mostly-OC RPer, I don’t run into too many. For my canon characters though, it depends on the muse I guess. For the muses like Hana and Hela who are pretty “sometimes-characters” for me, I don’t mind them at all, and I’d be happy to write my other characters opposite them. For Maki and Jason, though, I don’t think that I’d follow a single-muse blog, and while I would follow a multi-muse that wrote either of them, I probably wouldn’t write my characters with those two specifically. I'm always glad to see people loving them and appreciating them, but I guess I feel like I have a particular take on those characters and don’t want to compare myself or be compared, or have my portrayal accidentally influenced.

9. How long have you been involved in roleplaying? I started out doing RP on this old forum in... 2005 maybe? 2006? I did some stuff on Livejournal around that point as well, and then migrated to Tumblr RP maybe in 2011 or 2012. I fizzled out for a while and came back in 2015 and have been more-or-less here since then. Kind of side-by-side with all of that, though, was doing Dungeons and Dragons off-and-on from middle school through college, and now I’ve been doing two games a week for almost six years.

10. Is there a muse or verse you wish you could write in, but haven’t? I wouldn’t say that, exactly, since I feel like I have relative freedom on this multimuse to write whoever or whatever I want. There are some characters that I’ve thought about adding at various points, but just haven’t necessarily had the final push to yet. I do have my Genshin verse for some of the OCs, and it’d be nice to be able to explore that a little more, but thankfully I get to write some of it with my partner on Discord.

~~~~

TAGGED BY: @inxtricabilis (thanks!)

TAGGING: @chibitantei @cherryblossomdreamings @thuganomxcs @dilffactory @healingbrews @ssrdraw @ultimaterealmofchaos and the RPer reading this

[just-the-mage]

Review-Love Death + Robots (Pt 1. Episodes 1-4)

So here we are again.  You, dear readers, and I, a mostly defunct tumblr page.  I was thinking...I’ve written a few reviews on here before, and I’ve rather enjoyed myself to be honest.  So until RP starts up again for me, I’m going to grab some popcorn and start reviewing some of the media I’ve been indulging in during this exceptionally fun pandemic we’ve all been saddled with (and are becoming increasingly more and more used to as time goes on).  Here we go! 

Spoilers incoming! I don’t like to discuss a show without going through it entirely-no stone unturned.  You have been warned! 

Love Death + Robots is a compilation series-each episode is self-contained content, based on what I have experienced thus far.  The content varies wildly from cute and sweet to surreal, to horrific.  For right now I’m going to stick with the first four episodes since they are fresh in my mind.  

Episode 1: Three Robots

Three robots shows a short adventure shared by, you guessed it-Three robots exploring the crumbling remains of human society.  It comes across as three tourists making their way through an area that they are completely unfamiliar with, attempting to define and understand elements of the environment as humans once did.  Their analysis and attempts to understand not only human culture, but also basic human biology, were entertaining to say the least.  Each robot has flair, character, and a their own take on humans and humanity.  Over the course of the episode, the fall of mankind is referenced a few times, being initially explained as a mass extinction due to environmental disasters (global warming is probably a factor-one of the buildings has an entire ship sticking out of it).  However, the twist ending throws that whole theory into question once the cat that has been accompanying the robots for the last leg of their journey reveals itself as capable of speech.  And, interestingly enough...being in possession of opposable thumbs.  It was certainly unexpected, and a bit odd-the cat (and its many, many brethren) manage to finish out the episode by convincing the robots that if the robots do not pet them, the cats may explode.  I will say that the ending, though it was rather silly and fitting with the tone, felt like an out of place twist intended mostly to give a bit of closure to a story that had no real need to have an ending.  It felt a little out-of-left field, at least to me.

This first episode, I think, is one that I could recommend to a much more general audience than almost all of the other content of the show.  It’s whimsical and cute, despite inhabiting such a grim setting (and grim it is-post apocalyptic is not taken lightly here.  There are plenty of corpses, some skeletal and some not quite so much.  At least one of them appears to have died by suicide).  I found it to be a nice addition and a good introduction to ease people into the tone of the show.  Definitely give this one a watch, even if the ending sort of comes from nowhere. 

Episode 2: Beyond the Aquila Rift

This episode was definitely a change of pace from the first.  It begins as a high science fiction story starring a hunky, middle aged man and his two crewmates, making some sort of cargo run (?) through a wormhole of some kind, but promptly finding themselves in a completely different place from what they expected.  Hunky space captain wakes up first, finding that he is greeted by an old friend (read: lover) of his, who explains that there was a navigation error that led them off course-way off course.  They’re in a completely different area than they expected.  The ship’s navigator wakes as well, swearing that there couldn’t have been an error in her calculations, but seems ill and is placed back in her future tech cryopod to rest.  Space captain man then bangs it out with his ex-lover (Greta) in a scene that was almost definitely written by a man, and she reveals to him that she lied, and that him and his crew are actually hundreds of light-years further off course than they had thought they were, basically dashing any hopes that he could have of returning to his old life.  The two then wake the navigator again, who immediately starts ranting that ‘Greta’ isn’t who she says she is.  At this point, enough clues have been given that the captain catches up with the audience (it was all a simulation the whole time), and he confronts Greta, demanding that she reveal herself as she truly is.  She does, after some prodding-and the captain finds himself in an infested husk of a ship, aged and haggard, obviously dying of starvation.  Greta reveals herself as a lovely spider-beast, and the captain wakes up from his pod again-back in his comfortable illusion once more.  

I love the premise of this one.  Crazy aliens and shit like this is a huge draw for me-sci-fi horror is probably my favorite subgenre of horror when it’s done well.  I would count this episode as doing it pretty well.  They don’t go into much techno-babble, which I think is a pitfall for some sci-fi stories.  The writers are well aware that we aren’t spending too long in this world, so we don’t need to know much about the rules under which it operates outside of ‘computer mistake your ship fly here.’  The twist ending didn’t end up being too much of a twist-in my opinion there were too many clues given throughout the episode to make it that much of a surprise that things weren’t as they seemed.  The odds of this man meeting his ex-lover in the infinitesimal reaches of space just by chance were a bit too impossible to make it believable-and the navigator was far too convinced that her work couldn’t be incorrect.  In the end, it was an expected twist, but still pretty jarring.  Execution is pretty good overall though-and the sex scene is pretty decent as well, even if its strictly a dude-fantasy thing.  Also, call me a sucker for cool looking beasties, but I adore the design on spider-Greta.  That’s a lady right there for you.  

Episode 3: Ice Age

The only live action episode I’ve seen so far-this one gives an *entirely* different tone than the majority of the other episodes in the series.  Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead happen upon a lost civilization that exists entirely within their refrigerator.  They watch in awe as it develops incredibly quickly-hundreds of years passing within the civilization in roughly an hour or so of real time.  What starts in the morning as a town in the viking ages eventually develops into a modern society, almost destroys itself with nukes, and then rebuilds from the ashes into a fully futuristic society that quickly ascends beyond physical form, appearing to disperse itself into the cosmos, no longer bound by such petty rules as the laws of physics.  A disappointed Topher asks if they’ll return-to which he receives a sad ‘no’ from his partner.  It seems all is lost, and the couple go to bed for the night-only to find that the cycle has restarted overnight, and they probably won’t be able to keep any frozen chicken in the freezer for quite some time.

This one is probably one of my favorites of the series so far.  It’s fairly well acted, but the real beauty of the episode is getting to watch the mini-civilization develop itself in a glorious time lapse-the work that must’ve gone into it must have been monumental, to be honest.  The final product certainly felt that way, in any case.  What I also found fascinating was a specific scene in which the protagonists were abandoned in place of some of the tiny denizens of the lost civilization-which made me realize exactly how slow the ‘normal sized people’s’ actions must have looked to the diminutive people of this rapidly developing society.  Reminiscent of the earth’s motion in relation to our own perception-and reinforcing the concept that to an individual, perception is everything. 

Episode 4:  Sonnie’s Edge 

This episode opens with three people transporting mysterious cargo into a heavily guarded complex, quickly encountering and interacting with a ‘bigwig’ of sorts with a beautiful woman on his arm.  Through context clues the audience is easily able to discover that the three (pictured above) are here for a fight-and that their cargo is their fighter, a living creature of obviously immense proportion.  The bigwig asks the team to throw the fight, and they refuse, even after he offers a large amount of money.  (It’s worth mentioning that during this scene, ‘Sonnie’, the leader and controller of the beast fighter, shares an EXTREMELY homosexual gaze with the bigwig’s beautiful lady friend.  Don’t think I didn’t notice the setup, because I definitely noticed the payoff, even though it was rudely interrupted).  Sonnie and her teammates enter the ring, setting up as it appears that she will be piloting her fighter in some way.  Her opponent is also introduced, though he is hardly important in the story-imagine a cake of beef with a big sticker on him that says ‘mysogyny’ in bold print.  What follows is one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in animation (this is just my personal opinion though).  These creatures fucking tear each other to shreds, with Sonnie’s beast only just barely emerging as the victor, tearing the opposing fighter’s head clean from its body.  The bigwig is obviously angry, as is Sonnie’s opponent, and Sonnie and her team retires to a hotel room of sorts, with the exception of Sonnie-who slips away into the room that houses her fighter, promptly encountering the beauty from earlier! (Payoff time)..and it gets gay.  Fast.  I love me some wlw content, and there’s some nice tension here, right up until the beauty stabs Sonnie through the head.  Rude.  The bigwig reveals himself, which was a bit of a surprise-the part of me that hadn’t seen much of this show yet was hoping for a fluffy little happy ending.  It wasn’t to be though..after the beauty crushes Sonnie’s skull, the two promptly realize that ‘Sonnie’ wasn’t Sonnie at all-just some biotech.  The *real* Sonnie...was the fighter, the whole time.  Who promptly makes short work of both the beauty and the bigwig, (implied), in what I can only describe as the most satisfying moment in the series that I’ve seen thus far.  

This was easily my favorite episode of the show, and has continued to be, and I assume will continue to be my favorite through the rest of the series.  It’s not just because of the lesbian rep (my people!), or the misogynists getting fucking destroyed, but the strength of the reveal, the choreography of the fight scene, and the *power* of the protagonist.  I love her.  I love her sooo much.  We are seamlessly introduced into the world, shown a woman who has been beaten, scarred, faced sexual abuse, and she remade herself into a being of pure power.  She fought back, and *look how she fights back*.  I cannot describe just how much of a cheer-worthy moment it was to watch the smug smile be summarily wiped from the face of the bigwig.  I *love* seeing a villain who has full confidence in their victory suddenly realize that they don’t have the upper hand anymore...and that they are, in fact, absolutely screwed.  This was one of those wonderful, wonderful moments, and I can think of nobody more deserving than this villain of being torn to shreds.  This was an A+ episode for sure-100% recommend this one for anyone who can handle a bit of gore.  

Thank you so much for reading!  This is only part 1...more to come!        

[livewireprojects]

So I was working on a pic for day 16 but I was working on it after work so didn’t have much time before 5pm to get pics.(I need a scanner one of these days) At some point I just looked at how dark it was getting in the room I take pics in & gave up. I also don’t know what to do for day 17, I want to guess something like Future Foundation or characters being in the simulation from DR2 due to the name of the project but I dunno. I might do something but the theme future is coming up so I’ll likely save it for that.

I’m rambling & kind of feel bad for my posts for day 15 So day 16 was alternate universes & I really enjoy AUs though a large amount of the ones I like are crossover plots. Most of the pics aren’t crossover based & are largely just based on past RPs. I made a bunch of pics & didn’t want to spam with posts for each so I tried to put as many as I could together.

The first three pics are based on a thing I call Monster Community AU thing, pretty much characters are secretly some kind of creature(witch, alien, merpeople, harpies, etc) living among humans but sometimes do things in secret areas other monsters hanging out at like a community of monsters.

The two scenes here are from different mermaid RPs, both from my Monster Community AU stuff again. Both pics involve RP plots that were DR1 happened, DR2 characters were trying to survive the aftermath of the world going mad(pretty much surviving in the destroyed city until finding somewhere or something) & some other stuff I’m going to leave out due to rambling. Just know this is technically a simplified version of the series post-DR1(if that makes sense? probably not) that was used because I keep doing shit in RPs.

The one to the left is from a plot were the survivors find a cave they end up staying the night in only to decided to check further & find themselves in a place other monsters are living in. For some reason Makoto is a grey eyeless big mouth monster, I think I was obsessed with a design I saw on Tumblr but can't find anymore. Byakuya is an octopus merperson because for some reason I imagine he'd be on if he was a merman. The second one is vampire Byakuya is living in a mansion his family had by the sea on a cliff area that leads to the beach. He ends up learning Makoto is a merperson(whose parents tried to keep him from learning about other creatures for safety) & expecting their kids. Makoto is a species of merperson that make nests in the sand when they have kids so Makoto had to stay in the water until the babies could swim by themselves. Byakuya will probably have some special pools setup in the house for the twins since they'll be to young to go into human form after the being old enough to swim.(It'll only be a couple months) At the moment Makoto is in a cave inside the cliff that leads to the ocean, some how the inside of Byakuya's mansion has a secret stairway leading down here. Makoto can't leave the water because his nest is here & his merperson instincts don't want him to leave until the babies hatch & are old enough to swim. Due to Makoto's parents hiding his & Komaru's mermaid/creature side Makoto didn't think much on the fact he was a merperson until he got pregnant & his instincts demanded he make a nest... That's also how Byakuya learned his family had a secret area of the mansion & proceeded lug a futon mattress/blanket down there to be close to Makoto. I didn't think much about it at the time but I guess something lead to his parents getting protective & scared if someone knew they were merpeople, then again there's a Japanese myth about eating mermaids/some kind of fish people would cause immortality. I almost forgot this but Byakuya hung up a net & decorations so the babies when down in the cave don’t swim into the sea.

This one is based on an RP were Byakuya is a werewolf while Makoto is a harpy. DR1 happened, Byakuya & Makoto had a relationship but went their separate ways to find their families(see if there’s hope of them still being out there) while working on getting their lives together.(Since with the despair event they likely need to recover/figure out what to do now)

Byakuya at some point is house sitting for Hinata & Komaeda(originally it was his vacation cabin in the woods but something changed forget why) when he ends up having to help a harpy who lost their nest because a tree landed on it. He took the harpy in because they didn’t have anywhere to go & the crash broke one of their wings. He was to tired to think much about figuring out who the harpy was after patching them up because he was tired.

Byakuya ends up learning in the morning that the harpy is Makoto & pregnant. Byakuya reassured Makoto knew he was safe now & he(Byakuya) isn’t going anywhere. Byakuya later learned Makoto found his family but someone attacked & ditched him in the woods while injuring his eye. After that Byakuya helps Makoto recover & they eventually move to his vacation house when Hinata & Komaeda come home. Byakuya has a nursery for their eventual kids & Makoto ended up staying in the nursery sitting on the egg Ichigo was in when he had the twins. Len kept barking when he found her until she finally hatched.

Here’s Makoto perched on Hinata’s couch singing a bird tune as Byakuya listens, sometimes the blond will sometimes whistle which makes Makoto squeal in delight because it sounds like Byakuya trying to mimic a bird. Makoto is meant to be a House Martin harpy because the bird is cute & has fuzzy feet. Makoto’s hood/cape is just his hoodie tied to his neck, he can slightly still see out of the injured eye but without something to protect it things seem to bright during the day through that eye.

This was the pic that lead to not posting anything the other day, as you can tell I made more pics right after managing to finish it. This pic is once again based on an RP(well two of them), for some reason I really liked doing this plot. The AU is pretty much everyone lives in a world of animal centaurs(in Kazuichi's case he's a shark merperson) & for some reason this is before modern technology exists. Everyone lives in caves that have been carved into homes with some having multiple rooms, they have furniture made from leftover stone, wood, some other stuff & clothes made out of normal animal skin like they're in Brother Bear or something. Given the state the world is currently at they seal off the entrances to their caves in the winter after making sure to have enough food to last it.(There's some that have the ability to hibernate luckily) I have absolutely no idea why I enjoy this so much. So Byakuya is a wolf(lol blond wolf fur) & Makoto is a pygmy goat(I made him a little bigger because again awkward size) but for the first RP I kept switching the species(from pudu deer to pygmy goat) because I was obsessed with those animals at the time. It ended with S having Gundam call Makoto a goat/deer hybrid so he's a deer goat in the first RP.(I didn't switch it often but kept talking about confusion) In the second RP Makoto stayed a pygmy goat for the entire RP. Len is a wolf centaur & Ichigo is a goat centaur, Byakuya & Makoto had other kids but they're preexisting characters(Komaru & Chiaki for some reason) & I'm mostly focusing on these characters.(I don't actually know what I was getting at) The twins are a couple days old, since Ichigo is a pygmy goat she's already active. Byakuya is laying down so she won't get hurt, Ichigo & Makoto's goat side makes them enjoy climbing things so the little baby is climbing on daddy. Len's eyes & ears haven't opened just yet so he's kept safe in a portable cradle thing since he's to small to play with his little sister right now.(Makoto will retuck him in in a moment) Makoto has a poncho thing because he has trouble keeping warm which luckily his kids didn't inherit. Also Byakuya is pretty strong so he can take his daughter & his mate trying to climb on him especially when Makoto is pregnant. It's ok & doesn't bother him in fact it's kind of cute especially since sometimes after that Ichigo will do a little jitter dance that baby goats some times do.(He'd also whether they climb on him or a stool thing than try to climb the side of their home or something bigger due to worrying about the two hurting themselves.

Byakuya & Makoto have slightly long hair because it's hard for them to cut their hair with a dagger Byakuya worked on for hair cutting. Byakuya is hoping to eventually trade something for a mirror some traveling trader visits, maybe see if someone in the pack can help with cutting hair not that it matter much.

Go check out @naegamimonth​

[ask-the-wordsmith]

hello!!! you're really talented at roleplaying on tumblr and i was wondering if you had any tips on how to write for rps and just generally how to get started if you havent really done it before! thanks so much, ur very cool!!

OHHHH thank you so much for asking!! no seriously, thanks for asking, I’m in a bit of an original-content slump so I will grab any chance to talk about RP and feel better about myself—

First off, I have a writing tag on my most well-known RP blog (percival-queen) with a few posts that might be worth the read if you can get past my rambles. There’s quite a few on getting a RP blog started, at least (things like making icons and whatnot). #[ 2 feathered quills - writing advice ]

But, that’s boring to me, so I’m not gonna rehash any of it! Writing tips below the cut!

The very basics

“Yes, and!” Basically, never negate anything your partner says! And I don’t mean your muse can’t say no to something. I mean YOU, as the narrator, should never change something your partner establishes, even if it’s not what you had planned. Jello gives the funniest and best example of this on an episode of Tip Of The Tongue, where is one guy says “hey dude, pass me the soda!” and the other replies, “there’s no soda! WE’RE ON THE MOON!” ...Yeah. Don’t do that.

Don’t godmod. This is what makes the rule above work. Remember that in role-play, you can only 100% control YOUR muse’s actions. You have 0% control over your partner’s actions: try not to assume even little things, like that they’ll accept a handshake. The world around your muses (such as minor NPCs, weather, and other events neither muse caused) might be a 50-50% split, or one person might have more control than the other— but unless you and your partner really click, it might be best to communicate about this number beforehand. Which reminds me!

Communicate OOC. The amount in which you have to do this varies depending on the length/importance of the thread and how chill your partners are. Goldbricker-ramsey and I almost never planned past the setup (“hey can my muse show up at your muses’s doorstep on the verge of fainting” “YES! ...do you know why?” “nah I’ll figure it out later” “OKAY!”), but donutbadge likes to discuss at least the outline of the entire plot before starting. Everyone is different! Figuring out how much you need to communicate is the first step of communication.

Slightly less basic basics

Conflict is good. In all writing, but ESPECIALLY role-play. Note that this does NOT mean every thread has to have conflict— but something I notice a lot of beginning role-players do is that they (usually subconsciously) avoid any kind of rude/mean/conflict-inducing behavior because it makes them uncomfortable. They feel like they’re doing something wrong. But conflict, whether life-threatening or just siblings yelling at each other, is often the source of the most interesting threads, and can even lead to the best fluff further down the line! This is where OOC communication can come in handy, if you feel nervous about your muse doing something that you wouldn’t do.

*disclaimer for the advice above: do communicate OOC if you’re going to have any “heavy/mature” conflict, or even heavy/mature themes in your thread. If it’s the sort of stuff that needs to be tagged for triggers, you MUST ask your partner about it first.

Remember your character basics. I know this feels like it shouldn’t even need to be said on the list, but it’s insane how much I see this just... not happen. With villains, it might tie into the whole “avoiding conflict” thing, but it’s not villain-exclusive. If your muse’s DEFINING PERSONALITY TRAIT is being a hothead who’s easily ticked off, don’t have them immediately forgive the random guy who bumped into them on the street! I think “nice” muses tend to be easier to play because less people are inclined to make a nice character act mean (unless it’s in the context of a joke or crackpost, and ofc those are fine).

Look for contrasts. With same-world characters and new interactions alike, searching for evident contrasts can get past the awkward “hello my name is x what is your name how do you do” stuff and into the actually interesting dynamics. Contrasts can be anything from “one muse is a farmer and the other is a city boy” to “one muse a pacifist sweetheart and the other is literally a murderer.” Once you’ve found your contrast, look for an excuse to bring it up in IC conversation and let the fun begin! (A classic trope if you want a less-serious thread is one muse not knowing or misunderstanding something, e.x. “hey look a pizzeria!” “a what now?” “YOU’VE NEVER TRIED PIZZA?!?”)

Look for similarities. Contrasts are sometimes harder to find but easier to make threads out of. Similarities are easier to find but less interesting most of the time, so try looking for the unexpected similarities between your muses! Do they have similar backstories? Personalities? Especially if it’s something you’ve never seen explored before, find a reason to bring it up and let the Bonding Moments (TM) happen.

Make strong choices. ...when it’s in-character, of course. Some muses really are just Chill and that’s kinda their Thing, but 99% of them are super expressive— because, guess what, those characters are the best ones for writing, whether in RP or prose! If you have a decision, but it seems kind of boring, go back to your character basics and see if there’s anything you can use to make it stronger.

If a partner muse asks your muse to dance, you know what’d be the most boring answer? “Sure.” Unless you’re part of the 1% of muses that would do Exactly That, you know what would be more interesting? “HECK YEAH!” or “I thought you'd never ask!” or “Really? You’re sure you want to dance with me?!” or... pretty much anything!

The same can even be said when the choice is negative. You know what else is a boring answer to being asked to dance? “No thanks.” Again: unless you’re RPing as the 1%, please, PLEASE give your answer more flavor. “Not in a million years, you shallow jerk!” or “No... I’m sure I’d just step on your feet and get in the way...” or “N-no way, b-baka!” or “(*PANICKED SCREAMING, RUNS AWAY, TRIPS ON THE STAIRCASE, AND DROPS A GLASS SHOE AS THEY FUMBLE WITH THEIR HAIR*)” are all more interesting than the first response.

Get used to feeling out endings. This might take some practice, but what I mean is, try to be aware when you’re reaching the natural conclusion of a thread. A lot of threads just kinda lose momentum and die out, sometimes without even an official end, and while that’s okay (role-play is supposed to be relaxing and for fun!), it’s MORE satisfying to have a thread wrapped up with a nice neat bow. For threads that have conflict in them, the ending should be shortly after the resolution of the conflict— whether good or bad. For non-conflict threads (the ones that read like domestic fics), a good ending is for the characters to finish whatever they’re doing— eating a meal, going shopping, whatever— and wrapping up their conversation at the same time.

There are of course a billion variations on ending threads, and I could probably make a whole post dedicated to the subject, but for now I think this ramble is plenty!

[corvidry]

All About RP Icons For Beginners by Birdy

Hi OP, I’m not sure how experienced you are with all the nonsense surrounding the making and using of RP icons, so I’m gonna come at it as though you don’t have any experience with it at all and I’m sorry if that’s too simplified for you, but also if I’m gonna write many paragraphs about one topic I may as well make it accessible for as many people as possible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post goes into what tools are out there for the popular methods of finding/making RP icons in the first half and my personal methodology for choosing and using them in my RP for the second half. This is a very surface level answer to the question and is not meant to be an in depth tutorial for the more labor intensive aspects of the process, but if you guys want more information and can’t find it elsewhere, please ask and I'll know what I should be talking about next. 

Also I’m also contractually obligated to mention to the masses that I do take commissions both for the drawing of RP icons and the service of capping, cutting, recoloring, and framing canon icons. Sometimes I even post batches of canon character icons for free on this blog so like,,,,, hit me up if you want. But!! You don’t need me, you can absolutely do all of it yourself!!  I go into the broad strokes below.

Question 1: “How do you get icons?” 

This is kind of a broad question and the answer depends on what your needs are. The right answer for you is gonna live in one of two camps 

Find some that already exist that are free to use

Make them yourself / commission somebody else to make them for you. 

What you'll choose is gonna depend a lot on your character first and foremost.  The big determining factor in most cases is whether or not the face you want has been in anything you can take pictures of. 

If you have a canon character who exists in visible media--

--you're in luck! The chances of you finding some resources that exist already is higher when you have a canon character who is in at least a few pieces of media. OP asked about Pearl from Steven Universe, and she's a great example of a character with a lot of resources. Searching for rp icons of a popular character will often yield packs of icons on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Livejournal, etc. Most of these will be completely free to use or have very reasonable conditions for use (like credit the person who made them for example.)  It's often a good first step to see what preexisting resources are available to you even if you still plan on making your own icons. 

If you have an OC or a character that's not all that popular--

--you're gonna fall into the second camp. If you want icons, you have to have them made. So what are your options?

Help! My character appears in no media! What are my options?

If your character appears in no media you're in a tough spot. Different people approach this problem in different ways. 

Face Claims

One option you have is to choose a face claim to represent your character. In roleplay a face claim or ‘FC’ is a person or character whose appearance you use for the physical description of your character. I personally am not big on doing this, I prefer drawn icons and I tend to RP as animated characters, but some people really like using celebrities and stuff to represent their characters.  When I was playing Angus McDonald he hadn't appeared in any visual media yet, so I sometimes used Bryce Clyde Jenkins as the face claim for certain types of threads.  

If you're somebody who likes to use face claims there are loads of resources out there for finding the perfect one, including here on tumblr. Try searching up RP Faceclaim Directory and playing around with some of the ones that pop up.

DIY RP Icons

The other option you have is to create those icons from scratch. Draw them yourself based on icons you like or commission an artist to draw some for you.   If you can't draw yourself, I've seen some people get really creative with this. Some people create their character in the sims, dollmakers, or their favorite RPG and then take screenshots of that to use for icons.  There's also no law that says every icon you use has to be your character's face. When I was writing a trashy mermaid AU I got a lot of mileage out of icons that depicted harbor and oceanic scenes with no actual faces. Get creative, go nuts, have fun.

Icons Aren’t That Important

The other thing to remember that icons are not a must in many RP circles. It's perfectly possible to have a great time and write cool stuff without any pictures at all. Depending on your platform of choice there are probably also other interesting ways you can make your posts unique to you by formatting the text or using symbols or emojis or otherwise denoting your personal style in text.

Help! My character appears in lots of media! How do I make icons?

Again, there are a million and one answers to this question and it really depends on what tools are available to you and what your preferences are. This section is not a tutorial but it will outline some of the options you can look into.

The icon making process is typically in 2 stages-- stage 1: get all your images of your character, and stage 2: edit all of those images into icons.  

If you have access to the source material, any version of Photoshop, and software that automates the collection screencaps from video (KM Player, VLC, etc) you're pretty much gucci. You're gonna have no problem getting loads of nice icons in a reasonably short amount of time and there are a million different tutorials on how to use those things whichever way you prefer. 

If you don't have access to those things you still have options. 

You can still screencap things manually, and you can screencap in batches by holding down the windows key and pressing PrtSc any time you want to save an image. They should be saving to >pictures>screenshots unless you’ve set things up differently. It’s a good way to take a lot of screenshots without stopping in between.

( EDIT / UPDATE: to say that if you use automation for taking screencaps remember to turn that shit off when you’re not using because it oh mylanta it WILL continue to take images without you realizing. Figured out where all my disk space has been going with this rookie mistake, thanks OP)

Additionally, PhotoScape X is a really great little tool for windows and mac that I've never seen anybody talk about, but I use it sometimes and it's totally free with the exception of a few paid features I’ve never once needed or wanted. This program is not as efficient as using Photoshop but it has presets for cropping images easily as well as batch editing options for some basic borders and color retouching.  While it’s not as powerful as Photoshop, you can get a lot done with it reasonably quickly compared to other choices. You can also take and edit snips of anything on your screen with it, which is really really useful if you don’t have access to the video or image files you would need on your hard drive for other version of this process.  The program looks like this:

Also, not to be like a minimalist about it, but you can also just fucken use Microsoft Paint or whatever you have. Like, whatever, there’s no law. You graphics dont have to be comlpex or deep fried. Half of my icons have been made or edited in paint at some point. It wont be as fast as some of these other methods but a lot of us aren't out here making icons in batches of 100 at a time. 

Anything that you can use to make smallish images of your characters face will work to make icons.

If you want more information about any of these methods of icon creation let me know and I’ll talk about them.

Question 2: “How do you make your icons ‘work’ in posts?”

I'm a little confused on what you mean by "make them work" so I'm gonna cover my bases here. I'm assuming what you're getting at is a sort of sense of cohesion in the icons I use, or having the "right" expression for the scene I'm writing. Either that or them not stretching and looking weird thanks to tumblr. I’ll get to both of those.

And before I go into my own rationale for icon choices I feel I should point out that a lot of people who aren't me do successfully manufacture cohesion out of their images by doing fun stylistic things like recoloring their images all the same way or putting cute borders and stuff around them or making them fun shapes, and that's totally something you can learn how to do if it interests you.  I do this for icons commissioned by other people and I’m not against talking about how to do those things, but I don’t really bother with them for my own icons all that much. That stuff is all fun and it’s a neat thing you could get into that can make your icons all look really nice together.

BUT ANYWAY --

Since the character you asked about is Pearl, I’m going to focus on her. Nearly all of my Pearl icons are completely unedited and a lot of the credit I would have to give regarding icon quality goes to Pearl herself and the consistently good lighting that the show uses. I don’t have a huge need for editing or color retouching beyond making memes or whatever other goofy things I might be getting up to. Pearl is extremely expressive compared to other characters I have written and since she's in nearly every episode, I've managed to collect…

...oh god, that’s too many icons.

Pearl is a main character and I've been RPing as her for over 6 years now so I have a fuckload of images to choose from and I'm not gonna pretend that doesn't help when I wanna “make things work”. She gives me a lot of options.

That said, you absolutely don't need 3000 images to make a good post. The way I've collected and organized these images may be of use to you even if you dont have as many icons. I've done a lot with my setup to make finding the right icon very easy. 

For starters, a minor subset of my Pearl icons are grouped by a particular defining feature. I have one large Pearly folder full of icons and then a few smaller folders inside for icons I thought worth grouping separately. For example, all icons of SUF Pearl in her new jacket are in the same folder. All icons of Pearl in short term alternate outfits are in the same folder. Anything I sourced from Attack the Light is in its own folder. I do this with anything that has a very specific use, such as writing AU content or flashbacks to specific time periods. If I can picture an icon in my head, I usually know where in my ridiculous hell collection to go to find it. 

This folder was originally just for her pre-canon outfit but now all of her outfits that only appeared temporarily are in there.

Perhaps more important for the sake of cohesion is that nearly all of my icons that aren’t squirreled away in some smaller folder are loosely arranged by episode. What that means is that most of the time I have icons from the same scene right next to one another. It makes it incredibly easy to make my RP replies appear as though it's all one cohesive scene even if I use more than one icon. When you do it this way it becomes very easy to choose icons that have the same lighting or that appear to lead from one expression seamlessly into another. Exhibit A:

While the vast majority of my icons are numbered, I do take the time to name ones I find myself using a lot or that have particularly unique expressions. Usually I'll choose names that I'll find descriptive or easy to remember based on the context of the icon. You can have a lot of fun with that and never lose your favorites.

Also don't be afraid to lean on icons you got from weird places if you like them.  The icons of Pearl from the official comics run don’t look like most of what I have. I think them being different would turn a lot of RPers off, but I use them a lot because I like the style and I almost never see other Pearl RPers using them.  It either makes me stand out or it makes me tacky, one of the two, haven’t figured out which, but also I’m not stopping.

And just to reiterate, you can use icons that aren’t your character if they’re thematically relevant or vague enough to look like them. When I’m capping I’ve started saving a folder of miscellaneous environments of interests, hands, and other everyday types of scenery that appear in the thing I’m taking screencaps of.

You can use any size you want for RP icons but the most common is 100x100 or 150x150 pixels.  Any smaller than that and the image gets to be difficult to read and work with in my opinion. That doesn’t stop people, of course, but I’m elderly and need glasses now, so no tiny icons for me.  On that note, I rarely see RP icons larger than 300x300. Any larger than that it tends to get bulky and be in the way of other people’s comfortable internet browsing experience, especially on mobile.  Of course, these are just my suggestions. What you choose will ultimately be up to you, but somewhere in that 100 to 300 px range is pretty safe.

A very tumblr specific thing to know is that any image that is wider than 300 pixels will be stretched to hell, so you probably want to keep it smaller than that.

Thanks, Tumblr, I hate it!

Also, don’t be afraid to make trash images for fun if you’re so inclined. People love that, or at least I do. Not having the right icon can be fun and lead to a very silly solution. Lean into being a shitposter if that’s what you’re called to do. 

So yeah, that’s basically what my suggestions are. Collect your images in a way that helps cohesion and ease of use. Keep them a good size. Don’t be afraid to get unconventional with your choices or make memes or whatever. It’s all for a fun time.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now, but more info on any of this can be obtained at the price of one ask, I know it was a lot of different moving parts.

[vcsecretgifts]

Hi! I’ve never taken part before, but I would be very interested in doing so this round. I would prefer to take part in sfw prompts

(Edited this for a few grammatical errors and to clarify my responses a bit better)

Response from mod @i-want-my-iwtv: Excellent! Yep, we’re thinking of keeping this SFW, and perhaps starting up a separate kin/kmeme. 

This ask was re: a possible 2020 VC Secret Spring/Summer Santa, which got a surprising amount of support! 

…so we’re working on it behind the scenes, hopefully will have a setup and signups deadline soon! Responses to the tags/comments on that post below.

Just looking at that gif above, SUCH SIMPLER TIMES. I miss the days when our biggest fandom arguments were so fictionally indulgent and inconsequential, like Louis’ hair length and texture SIIIIIGH THOSE.WERE.THE.DAYS. 

——

@orangedarcy: Can I ask just a general question about fic posting in the VC fandom?  I know most fic is now posted on AO3, but is there another more community driven place like LiveJournal used to be? I have fallen so far behind on the fic world, where does one post stories these days? Is it all here on Tumblr or is it mainly AO3 now?

Very good question. AO3 is the main place for just fic, some comment threads there, and ppl sometimes posted drabbles here on tumblr, and there are roleplayers here who do threads that are like collaborative fics… you can check my #RP tag to try to find them, but I admit I am out of date myself having taken a big step back from tumblr to focus on real life. 

There were LJ-esque places on Dreamwidth long before Tumblr, and I believe they’re all abandoned except for VC-Media where I’m a mod. You can find it through @vcmedia, ppl do post fic there, mods post drabble prompts weekly, and there have been some wonderfully lively times!

I had started the VC-Media tumblr blog a few yrs ago when we (the mods) wanted to try directing some traffic to the DW comm, to bring in some fresh blood (pun intended), but I hadn’t promoted it much bc I didn’t want the tumblr anti-shippers and/or trolls flooding it and trampling ppl. At that time, I had seen the antis in other fandoms choosing targets to bully on tumblr and twitter, using social justice window-dressing that was really only about them wanting attention. In our fandom, I’d seen similar bad-faith arguments over problematic characters/ships and I didn’t want to engage with it or invite it to a comm setting, bc that’s not what fandom is about for me.

Not to go on a rant here but I need to say it: Criticism is going to happen, and everyone has a right to criticize media. What was lost for a few years there is the concept that no one owes you their time or engagement in a conversation, especially not one in which one side demands complete submission from the other, and nothing less. Whether or not the criticism is the “One True Interpretation,” no one owes you their time or engagement. 

That’s still a concern of mine, but I am confident that my wonderful co-mods of VC-Media are ready to freeze comments and ban ppl who attempt to bully others or provoke arguments in bad faith.

There are a few other obscure places, but I don’t like to promote them publicly, bc they have little traffic, or are older, or I’d rather that AR not be aware just in case she changes her stance on fanfic (she had waged war on it in the 90s).

So that was a long answer but AO3 is probably the best if all you want is just finding fic to read, but please check out VC-Media to post your fic and have a lively discussion, it’s still thirsty for fresh blood! 

@the-disgruntled-vc: I would like to participate but I don’t know what I have to do.

We’re not sure what the setup will be yet, but we appreciate your enthusiasm! We’ll post about it when we’ve decided and then you can choose to participate.

@the-disgruntled-vc: NYC is hell in a handbasket right now. 😰

I knowwww. I left NYC on 3/17, with 2 pairs of pants and 2 tops. I’m with my parents about 5 hours away. Wearing my dad’s clothes now :,-} Strange times.

@annabellioncourt: I’m not sure I want to commit to a direct gift exchange, but if it was done as an inktober style prompt filling thing, and we could just tag it/submit it as we did it, then maybe? I’m not sure what kind of free time I’ll have in the upcoming months as I job hunt.

Totally understandable, and I like your suggestions! We want to be able to accommodate ppl in your situation, so this is a good thing for us to keep in mind. Good luck in the job hunt! If running an awesome tumblr blog was a job, you’d be all set ;D

@amelthebravennian: //I would truthfully enjoy doing it!

We would love to have you back!

requiemforrose: Count me in. I need something to help my anxiety over the current climate

YES THATS EXACTLY THE POINT ^________^

@lestatthebiprince: Sign me up for the gift exchange!!

YASSSSS (let’s hope you still want to if we change the format ;D )

@pour-some-aspartame-on-me: I would be interested in participating in the vc secret gifts

Awesome! Would love to have you!

@desanctii: //I’d be in favor. this time around I even have the time to participate ;)

We need you for those Santino prompts! 

@amadeo-child-of-the-renaissance: //Count me in for the kink (obvs) XD

We love to see enthusiasm for the kin/kmeme… And your art is just *chef’s kiss*

@good-night-kick‘s tags: #great idea :3#It would be a good chance for me to get an excuse to draw art properly… I haven’t been drawing so much recently

Yes! We love your art and your comics and we need more of it, how can a person be so talented and so hilarious in their artwork, too?? Did you make a deal with the devil? (Sign me up.)

[sapphicrpc]

Hey hon! Could we get a review on our semi-appless survival/horror RPG, Bermuda HQ?

hi lovelies, i absolutely can. 

starting off, i love the concept. as a conspiracy theory fiend the bermuda triangle has always fascinated me, and the way you’ve adapted that to suit your roleplay is awesome! i like your graphics, the geometric shapes over the background pictures are simple but effective and to be honest, that’s all you need from your graphics! (plus your co-ordinates speak to the geography nerd in me) i like that the overall vibe is dark because it very much fits with the theme of your rp. also, some of your pages, like the map page, have different themes and i’m so impressed by that. i know exactly how long it takes to setup pages like that so the effort you’ve put in is incredible. your site is also easily navigable by mobile which is such a relief!

the longer i explore, the more in awe i am of the amount of effort and detail that has gone into the world building of this roleplay, from the beautifully written plot, to the living locations, to the monster in the forest, to even the types of plants and animals that are found in each location. like, wow. seriously, wow. you even have inventory updates? i feel like i’m playing a video game! i’m really impressed by this, and the admin(s) should be really proud. you’ve paid so much attention to the setting of this rp! also, i love the different archetypes in your skeletons & that most of them have fcs that are up to player but... i’d suggest more pocs in the suggested fcs part! you could even have certain skeletons be poc only.

your rules are thorough, the only thing i might change is your poc rule, make it so half your characters must be poc rather than one third, as this will encourage even more diversity. that’s just something that’s very important to me personally, though. the other thing i can recommend to help you get more interest in the rp is to create a sideblog and post your promos from there, if you need any help with setting up a promo blog just let me know and i’d be happy to help you or setup a guide. i don’t know if you have this already, so sorry if you do!

honestly? i haven’t rped on tumblr for actual years but this group is tempting me to make a sideblog and send an app... there’s so much information on your world that you’ve created, and the admin has been very sweet in dms too. i’d happily recommend this!

[dogxfiend]

Seeking: people who are here to rp!! idc how slow you are, idc about fancy graphics. if I follow you it means I dig your character(s), let’s dO thinGS. I love people who are excited about interacting. I’d love for more developed relationships with Syde but it can take some time to get there;;

My muse is: an infernal dog monster / manic pixie nightmare boy. will provide all the juiciest supernatural gossip for the price of a Taco Bell combo

My muse gets along well with: quirky types, chill people who will roll with the weirdness, villains, dandies, snobs & gossips, chaotic types who thrive on making a mess just to see what happens 

My muse gets along poorly with: downers, indiscriminate killers, people with no sense of humor, lawful goods, anyone who’s very squeamish (this isn’t to say I don’t want interaction with any of these types or that Syde wouldn’t still enjoy interacting with them lmao)

Desired genres: urban fantasy, supernatural, horror, romance, crime, bits of comedy, slice of life, and action, some historical

Avoided genres: scifi, post-apocalypse, superheroes, school/college. I can make this stuff work but I really didn’t design Syde with any of it in mind, so especially futuristic verses would take some plotting because he’s just not,,, built for that stuff or developed that far

Desired thread types: in general I like loosely plotted threads where we have an idea, head in that direction, and then throw more things together as we go along if need be. I really like first encounter threads?? a lot of Tumblr rpc seems to not. but for me it’s just a really good way to feel out character dynamics, give them a lil bit of history and setup how future interactions might go. I love an occasional dose of combat where Syde gets to make use of some of his abilities, or having him thrown into even more dire situations - and I love messy post-action patching up lol.

Mun: uhhh I know A Lot of Things about animals, dinosaurs, and Pokemon

Activity: “offensively high” -- lately I’ve been doing a bunch of drafts at a time and then taking a break for a couple days to let them pile up again, but if I’m really feelin’ it I can go back-and-forth with someone all night;; my aes/musings reblogs I pretty much use just to break up all the text lmao. I’m rly picky so it’s hard to find ones I like tbh.

Icons/Formatting: I will tell you all my terrible secret. I only use small text because 75% of the Tumblr rpc wouldn’t follow me otherwise, and that’s the tea. I use an icon now and then but I don’t have many and I’m not very satisfied with them. I really prefer minimal formatting in general - all the fancy fonts, double spacing, and aesthetic shenanigans just makes things harder to read for me.

Tagged by: @kxllerblond​

Tagging: @vihilum​ @harbour​ @driftlikesleep​ @imbicilite​ @oblivionlotus​ & anyone who’d like to!

[staysocky]

answering a handful of asks under the cut !!

answers & replies here are generally:

brush settings

misc. responses

(MANY OF THESE I’M ANSWERING...VERY LATE.... IM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY I JUST WANTED TO WAIT A BIT SO I COULD COMPILE EVERYTHING ALL TOGETHER.....)

Anonymous said: Hello friend may I ask about your brush settings? Because I am in love with your colouring and line work!

Anonymous said: Your art is so cute! What brushes do you use?

Answer: i main SAI2 now, but here are the same settings when i was using them in the original SAI!! 

(i just copied my own settings in SAI2 now so they should work the same... also sometimes i use the marker tool for doodling nowadays)

Anonymous said: do you post speedpaints anywhere? i'd love to see your painting process! your art style is phenomenal hngh 

Anonymous said: Do you have a youtube channel? Just wondering, since I can't seem to find it. I'd like to watch some speedpaints or something .u.

Anonymous said: could do you a tutorial on how you color hair??? its so pretty and baffles me all the time

Anonymous said: Would you ever do a tutorial showing how you draw? I've see you post on how you color but not lineart (ps your style is super duper cute!!)

Anonymous said: Ayy ;3c hello stocky, your art is amazing ;; how is your process for color your drawings? Plz need to know! God bless you♥

Anonymous said: How do you color soooo well? Can I get some tips? ( ;n; )

Answer: i’ve sometimes done lil art streams for friends before! i could use the same capture software to make speedpaints sometime.... i’ve been considering it for a while actually! 

my process can be a lil sloppy when i try to break it down into steps for tutorials so i think the best way to show + explain is through art streams (& video process)... 

i was thinking of starting art streams on twitch in the near future too... it’s just when i’ll finally be able to get setup finally that i’d be able to set a streaming schedule

Anonymous said: I never played Megaman but I used to watch my older brother play it, and I finally started playing it because of your art too lmao (i love it)

Answer: MEGAMAN GOOD!!! im so glad you’re enjoying the series now too!!

Anonymous said: Socky, will you restock the sanic charms (the knuckles and tails link one) or make other characters?? i love them !

Answer: THANK YOU i’m glad u like em!! each time they sell out i do plan to restock them so no worries!! 👍 I AM AIMING TO MAKE MORE CHARMS OF OTHER SONIC CHARACTERS TOO they’ll come eventually when i’m able to make the designs & get them ordered!!

Anonymous said: ((whispers, this may have been asked before and I wasn't sure where to ask it, but what does "i tried my best x5" mean? is it a reference to something? ;;))

Answer: OH NO WORRIES I’LL CLEAR IT UP!! it’s in reference to a youtube user’s rp comments as “kagamine len”. i’ve seen it MANY years ago & at that time it became sorta an inside joke between me & my friends. 

later i referenced/used it as a response a few times on my len askblog to keep it going.

it’s a small lil thing i guess but i’ve sorta adopted the saying now haha

Anonymous said: socks r gr8 doncha think

Anonymous said: ookay im going to sleep now sorry

Answer: no come back you are valid !!

Anonymous said: your aRT gives me heARTATTACKKKS

Answer: BREATHE, ANON

Anonymous said: I JUST FOUND YOUR BLOG AND I LOVE YOUR ART STYLE! <3

Anonymous said: Wanted to say I absolutely love your art and how you draw the Kagamines. Please keep it up!

Anonymous said: HELLO I JUST. WANNA SAY I ADORE YOUR ART AND BLOGS !! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND I ALSO WISH YOU ALL THE BEST !!

Anonymous said: your art makes me cry out of joy. I am actually crying because your style makes me so happy!!!! keep up the good work!! <3

Anonymous said: your artstyle. CUTE

@transjackatlas​ said: you art style is absolutely adorable 💙💚💕

@emmi-san​ said: I only wanted to say that I love your art style and the cute representations of the vocaloid songs ✨💕

@tyranart​ said: Your arts wonderful and I hope your day is full of nothing but enjoyment

@thekillermarti​ said: how do you draw so cute?!

@neykoart​ said: YOUR ARTSTYLE IS SO CUTE OH MY GOD YOUR TETO DRAWING WARMS MY HEART SO MUCH

@dumiz-hyper-saiyan​ said:  Hiya! I wanted to ask, how is your art so great!? You are so so talented (I know it’s not really a question but I love your drawings so much! I hope we can be friends cause you seem to be a amazing person!) hehe!♥️

@seraphofivorylight​ said:  (￣▽￣) i just found ur blog today and i want to say i really love how soft ur art is !! its super pleasing to look and i definitely wish i could have some of these as prints to slap onto my wall of posters ✨ keep doing ur good work !! i hope ur doing well !!

Answer: THANK YOU SO MUCHHCH!!!!! i’m glad y’all are enjoying my art u folks are the MVPs & it’s super motivating to get your nice feedback _(┐「ε:)_ 💕 💕 //sends you all my lov e

@moderndayoutsider​ said: Just thought I'd shoot a message and say that I absolutely ADORE your art and you're one of my inspirations <3 God bless! Keep on doing what you're doing! :D

Anonymous said: ahh i wana say that ive been a fan of you for years and youve inspired my own art sm T_T... bout time i told you how much i love ur stuff 💖💖💖

Anonymous said: Woah, I'm a bit new to your blog and I just want to say how cute your art is. I'm literally so glad this was on my recommended. If I hadn't clicked on your blog then I don't know where I would be. To be honest, I would send you this on my real account but I'm actually really afraid to talk to you, and plus I'm really shy heheh. But keep up the good work! You're an inspiration to us all.

Anonymous said: Hi socky!!! I just wanna drop by and say that I love ur art so so so much !! The coloring and shape of it is so appealing and sometimes I spend hours at a time on your social media just marveling your art. It's really pretty!! Keep up the good work ✨✨✨

Answer: sdfgFDGDdsf knowing that u folks are inspired by my works makes it all worth it, i hope u know (;__;💕 💕 thank you so much for sticking around & enjoying!!! it really means A LOT pleas y’all have a lovely week!!

Anonymous said: Do you take commissions?

Anonymous said: Commission?

Answer: I SORTA HAVE COMMISSIONS OPEN tho i take them by a commission form which puts you on a waitlist. i’m more active on my twitter and tweet updates, & handle most contact about them there...

here’s a link to the tweet about my current commission info + the link to the form is inside --> [comm info]

Anonymous said: Where are you from? Your art is so clean and stylish!! 💖✨

@mysticmangaanimepainter​ said: What year u start drawing???😮 

Answer: started drawing wayyy back when i was able to first hold a crayon haha. tho i sorta started paying attention to what i was doing around middle school? started drawing digitally between middle & high school iirc... im from the US also !!

AAAND AGAIN A LOT OF THESE WERE ASKED/SENT VERY LONG AGO.....  & IM SORRY FOR JUST NOW ANSWERING THEM... o+<

but to all who’s sent me nice messages & words of encouragement, thank you so much 😭💕💕💕 i rly appreciate em all & even tho i’m not very responsive here on tumblr i rly like to look at and read the messages from time to time;;;💖