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simblr backup: accessories

" three sets of horns, or two sets of horns and a set of antlers if you’re pedantic. these each come in kinu’s kosmik colors and one extra: pooklet’s afterburner for the antlers, and pooklet’s firework for the ram and dragon horns. the ram horns have a new texture to even them out a little. each set are for all ages, all genders.

extra pictures: dragon, antlers, ram"

download horns & antlers (part of a larger download)

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simblr backup: defaults

"this is a default i made for TSS’s ‘cork it over board’. there’s four pictures and four or five shades for the frame. none of it is my art and i couldn’t tell you who the artists are, i made it for personal use ~five years ago."

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simblr backup: makeup

bright red teeth based on a teeth mask by

crispsandkerosene.

download red teeth

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simblr backup: sims

clean installer | stats

download faintree

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(Mirrored from tumblr since it's held together by rubberbands and wishes at this point.)

Anonymous asked:

Hi! Could you give some tips for making thumbnails for stuff like eyes and makeup? I recolored and resclera'd an eyeset but I'm stuck making thumbnails for them because I've never made cc that needs them before so I haven't bothered to learn how to do it until now.

Hi anon!

Like in most things, my answer to tedious tasks is optimization with photoshop actions. I do not have standard actions for this since I like to make slightly different swatches per set, but basically what I do is record the steps after I copy my texture to the clipboard. Usually the steps are:

Paste texture in swatch.bmp → Resize → Adjust position of image → Sharpen → Fade Sharpen 40% → Flatten → Save

(For eyes, you will also need to rotate the image after pasting, and to hide some of the messy sclera texture I add a black fuzzy outline, I know there's a specific name for this effect but I can't remember it lol.)

I then import the file with the new swatch in BodyShop and move on to the next texture.

(If I'm feeling extra lazy I will also have additional starting steps to copy the texture, switch to the swatch.bmp image, do everything listed above, and then switch back to the psd where I have all my textures saved as layers so that literally all I have to do is click the next texture layer. But this requires you to open your images in a particular order since the actual action steps recorded will be "select next document" and "select previous document," so it matters what photoshop recognizes as your first and second documents, if that makes sense.)

I whipped up some quick sample actions so you can get an idea of how they work, but I would encourage making your own versions so that you can make sure they're the right size and centered how you want. I didn't make one for blush because it's hard to estimate what part of that you would want to show.

Sample Swatch Actions: SFS / Mega

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Blackbird Week 3 - Story Post 2

The atmosphere in the Blackbird house over the following days was… awkward, to say the least. Everyone was seemingly going about their own business, but Annika could feel the tension between her brother and herself almost like a physical sensation: Marcus spoke little, answered her questions with curt, brusque one-liners, and generally seemed distant and mopey. He’d never been much fun to begin with, always wearing his Serious Older Brother status like a prideful old maid - but this was a whole new level of passive-aggressiveness, even by Marcus’ standards, and Annika wasn’t blind to it. Especially in a house as small as theirs, where it was impossible to avoid each other.

So she decides to corner him one day and find out what the heck has gotten into him, lest she lose her own sanity.

Annika: “Okay Mr. Mopey-Dopey, out with it. What’s wrong?”

Marcus rolled his eyes at the inane moniker and let out a small snort (and it was the first time in days he did anything even resembling a smile), but then quickly settled back into his usual gloomy mood.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said simply, already starting to turn away from her, but then he remembered the nickname again with a disgusted look on his face and added: “Mr. Mopey-Dopey? Really?”

“Yes, really”. Annika cocked her head to one side in a dramatic manner, pulling a teasing grimace at her brother. She knew full well that Marcus probably thought that she was being an annoying brat right now, but there was no way she was letting him pull his usual derisive tactics now that she actually had him talking to her. They were having this conversation even if he hated her by the end of it.

“It’s not ‘nothing’, I’m not dumb! So what is it, huh? Huh? HUH??”. Annika poked her brother’s bicep harder with every new 'huh’, earning her an angry glare and a swat of the hand.

Marcus: “Ow, STOP IT! Gosh, you’re such a brat! Why don’t you go annoy your precious boyfriend and leave me alone?!”

And there it was: the root of all of Marcus’ pent-up frustrations. Not that Annika couldn’t have guessed it on her own, but hearing him say it out loud still felt like a small victory. “My boyfriend, huh? You mean your best friend Phillip?”, she asked, donning a sly smirk.

“He’s not my friend”, her now flustered brother spat with disdain.

“Since when?”, Annika pressed.

“Since…“, glaring at his sister, Marcus was evidently having an internal debate over whether to keep the following words to himself. But the temptation of actually saying out loud that which has been plaguing him all these days proved too great to ignore. “Since you both betrayed my trust!”, he finally retorted, then let out a long, ragged sigh, like he just dropped a big sack of grain from his shoulders.

Annika couldn’t help roll her own eyes now. Marcus wasn’t a bad guy by any means, but he could be such a gigantic stick-in-the-mud sometimes. She knew he carried a chip on his shoulder ever since he found out about her and Phillip dating, but what exactly about it frustrated him so much, Annika couldn’t possibly fathom. Was Marcus really hypocritical enough to think that Phillip was good enough to be his buddy, but not good enough to be Annika’s boyfriend? And if that wasn’t the problem, then what was it? She certainly wasn’t buying that dumb 'betrayal’ excuse even for a second - as far as Annika was concerned, it was just a cover-up for the real reason, and she could only think of one plausible one.

“Oh Marky, why are you so jealous? We can both hang out with Phil, it’s not an either-or thing!” She hung herself around her brother’s neck like a baby chimpanzee, nearly toppling him. Dumbass or not, Marcus was still her brother, and despite her better judgement, she still loved him.

“I am NOT jealous!”, he broke free of the hug and pushed her away, putting a bit more force into it than he’d meant to. “You just don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about jealousy! It’s about me worrying out of my damn mind because my barely-14-years-old moron of a sister is sneaking around with horny dudes without so much as a second thought for her own safety!”

Annika stood with her mouth agape. Whatever turn she’d been expecting the conversation to take, this certainly wasn’t it. Did her brother really just say 'horny dudes’? “Uh, I’m almost 15,” she tried to correct, but Marcus wasn’t in the mood for semantics.

Marcus: “How do you not get it?? Guys that age only want woohoo and nothing else! And yes, your precious Phillip is no different! I’ve heard him talk about 'bedding lasses’ at least a million times! I’ve overheard YOU and him talk about woohoo in the dining room that day too, for the record, so don’t even try to play dumb with me!”

Annika’s entire face was now a bright, burning shade of crimson. Goddammit, she really should have kept her voice down.

“But of course he doesn’t care about the consequences, because it won’t be him who’ll get knocked up and shamed for not being careful enough!”, Marcus continued to lecture. “That’s gonna be all on you! But have you thought of that? No, of course you haven’t! You don’t even know where to get birth control here - hell, I bet you don’t even know what birth control is! You’re still just a big, dumb baby trying to act all grown up!”

The unexpected insult coupled with the sheer awkwardness of the whole conversation was simply too much for Annika to handle. Was she really standing there, listening to her stupid brother rant about bedding lasses and birth control and getting knocked up? But the most frustrating part of it all was that, in her short-circuiting state of mind, Annika didn’t know what to say to any of it. All she could think of was stare at her older brother in utter shock and disbelief.

Frustrated tears started to well up in the corners of her eyes; she was not going to cry, she was not, shewasnotshewasnot. The last thing she wanted right now was to give this asshole that happened to be born into the same family as her proof that she actually was a baby like he accused. But the thought came too late - the floodgates had already opened.

Marcus: “Oh, Annika! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

All of the aggravation Marcus had felt just moments ago had instantly vanished at the sight of his crying sister. He rushed to her side and put a protective arm around her violently shaking shoulders.

Marcus: “Hey, I didn’t mean that at all; you’re not a baby and you can date whoever you want, all right?”

“Like I need your permission,” she countered with an angry sniff, simultaneously trying to punch Marcus and wipe the tears off her face, not really succeeding at either. “You can be a real jackass sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m totes a jackass. A mega jackass, even. Jackass extraordinaire. King of all jackasses”, Marcus was reciting softly, still squeezing his tearful sister in a tight embrace. Her soft sobs were slowly being replaced by giggles. “But I’m also your big bro who cares about you and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you, okay?”

“Gee Marky, don’t get all cheesy on me now”, Annika chided playfully and smacked her brother across the shoulder, finally freeing herself from his embrace. Her tone was dismissive but not hostile, and Marcus knew that the show she was putting on was just an attempt to recuperate her hurt pride. He hated himself for losing tact and making her cry, but the point he was trying to get across was important and he hoped that he’d managed to drive it home.

“Date whoever you want, but please promise me that you’ll be careful,” he called out after his sister, who was now idly prancing around the living area and mostly ignoring Marcus’ presence.
She slowly turned around.

Annika: “Marcus?”

Marcus: “Yes?”

She flipped him off, then burst out laughing.

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Blackbird Week 3 - Story Post 1

(This post is a continuation of this!)

The cat was out of the bag, but that didn’t exactly make the whole situation any less awkward. Phillip had this sheepish, near apologetic grin on his face, almost like he was trying to say ‘Hey Marcus, I’m dating your sister but kinda forgot to tell you. No hard feelings?’, but without actually saying it. Maybe it was for the best he kept quiet, because if he did actually say that, Annika would kill him and then die of embarrassment herself.

Marcus too was silent, almost ominously so. He was completely ignoring his sister and instead stared unblinkingly at Phillip, his grimace a mix of anger and disappointment (or was that hurt...?). Annika studied her brother’s face warily, trying to gauge his thoughts. She could clearly tell something was brewing in his mind, and whatever it was, she knew it couldn’t be good. And sure enough…

“So this is why you’ve been avoiding me this whole time??“ - he finally launched his tirade, glaring daggers at Phillip. “When you said you might have met a girl, I never imagined you were sniffing around MY LITTLE SISTER!“

He put special emphasis on ‘my’, ‘little’, and ‘sister’, giving them a particularly venomous edge; Annika winced at the harsh words even though they weren’t directed at her. Across the table, Phillip was squirming in his seat, his meek attempts at protest mercilessly shut down before he even had the chance to articulate them. Marcus showed no intentions to let this slide, and Annika listened to the heated exchange, feeling oddly transfixed despite herself: her brother was usually such a softie, so seeing him this enraged was completely uncharted territory for her. If she was being completely honest with herself, she didn’t even think he had it in him to be this pissed.

But her musings about Marcus’ temper were soon cut short, as the subject of said musings was apparently done chewing Phillip up and had now turned his focus on her.

Marcus: “And you! I thought we agreed never to keep secrets from each other! Way to go behind my back!”

Annika’s first impulse was to go on the defensive: he was being unfair, her and Phillip hadn’t done anything bad, why was he making such a big deal out of it?, but she stopped herself before blurting out something she might have regretted. Her instinct was telling her this situation required a subtler approach, and if she wanted to get Marcus off her case, she needed to be smart about it.

It would seem that Phillip followed a similar thought process, as both him and Annika started blabbering in near-perfect unison. Phillips speech seemed a tad better argumented, so Annika fell back and let him talk, smiling her best Innocent Sister smile and nodding occasionally to accentuate the truth of Phillip’s words.

You had to hand it to the kid, he was an eloquent orator. Yes, he understood Marcus’ doubts, he said, and as a good brother he had every right to express concern about his sister’s well-being; but he (Phillip) loved Annika (her heart skipped a beat at those words!) and he would never, ever do anything to betray her trust or, Watcher forbid, hurt her. He also made a point of saying how much he cherished Marcus’ friendship, pointing out that he and Annika didn’t keep their relationship a secret for any nefarious reasons. It was still new for them both, and they were just looking for the right moment to break the happy news!

It was a very good speech indeed, sounding like it came straight out of the pen of some old-school romance novelist (knowing Phillip’s reading habits, it may very well have). Marcus was frowning mildly during the whole of it, but didn’t interrupt. He seemed somewhat placated by the end of Phillip’s monologue, if still not entirely ready to let the issue go. Annika could tell he was trying to come up with some point he could protest, but having found none, he finally shrugged in defeat and muttered something under his breath.

The silence that ensued was interrupted by Annika, her voice sounding panicked after suddenly remembering an important detail: “Marcus, please don’t tell dad! I don’t want him to know yet!”

Marcus shot her a bemused sideways glance.

Marcus: “If you keep yelling like that, you’ll very well tell him yourself, shrimp. He’s in the other room sleeping.“