vintage style not vintage values @retrogirlwrites - Tumblr Blog

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

fatal-blow

okay so i know i said most of this in the replies but it might be easier to actually reblog and say stuff instead lmao

Cities - go near water! freshwater lakes and rivers (rivers especially) are the best places for cities because A) source of water and B) travel and trade is much easier cus you can put your boats like right there. Basically ever relevant city ever was built on a lake or a river.

for rivers in general - because gravity, rivers run from mountains (forming from melting snow and ice (this is why they get fat in spring–more stuff melting)) to lakes/ocean where they can empty out (and even lakes will have rivers leading out that eventually get to the ocean), which can help when mapping out where those start and end. rivers are also much thinner and faster in steeper elevations and very slow and wide when the land is flat

mountains - i like to think of what the tectonic plates look like because that’s what makes mountains! mountains are also never standalone they’re always in mountain ranges (archipelagos are really just underwater mountain ranges babey). a cool trick I like to do is occasionally separate mountain ranges across continents, because over time the tectonic plates shifted and literally split the range in half. These mountains are really old tho so they’ve eroded and therefore it makes them smaller and rounder (like the appalachians) as opposed to relatively young mountain ranges like the rocky mountains which have taller and sharper peaks

Another mountain trick: if your mountains run along the ocean, the ocean side of the mountains will get a LOT of rain while the other side will be very dry–almost desert-like, in fact. think of temperate rainforests in British Columbia vs the drier conditions in the canadian prairies

forests - depends on how warm the area might be. coniferous forests are found further north (before you hit the tree line, and then it’s only tundra onwards) but as you head south you get leafier trees, and the leaves tend to get larger too

If you think about general elevation too, you’ll have places that might be swampy (wet + lower). if your world has an ice age like we did, then glaciers may have carved the land, leaving piles of soil in the south that was left when the ice receded and places where the bedrock has been bared north of that (like the Canadian Shield in Canada–the reason we see that is because of the glaciers)

You might also have a land that’s dotted in a shitton of freshwater lakes as well because the meltwater filled the holes that the glaciers scraped out (this is why canada has so many goddamn lakes)

and if the ice age was more recent than it was in our world, then you might not even have the forest re-growth and it could be a lot of open plains

tl;dr i like to think of major climate events that might have also shaped the land on top of some basic rules

possiblypedanticrpgideas

The Artifexian has an entire series on building your world from literally the stars down and then the ground up.

All my worldbuilding videos

Though, for fantasy, you can make the world operate on entirely different principles:

With that done, the actual topic of city placement can be covered by videos like this:

Once you have your places, if you want help naming them in realistic ways, this video can help:

This one is on architecture, which is definitely a subset of cities:

But for a more relevant practical guide on making settlements realistic:

Here’s a quick guide for making demographics:

inkwell-attitude

holy shit?

simcloudlogic

Such Colorful Lives Legacy Challenge

Here are graphics I made for the Such Colorful Lives Legacy Challenge created by @starry-sky-sims!

Enjoy!

luciidsimmer

Lucid Legacy Challenge!

Welcome to my 10 generation Lucid Legacy Challenge!

Creating my very own legacy challenge has been a dream of mine for years. Im so proud of how this challenge came out and, most importantly, I hope you love it just as much!

You try to spread peace everywhere you go. Watching your parents go through a divorce when you were a kid really changed you. You didn't understand why they couldn't just get along or why they got together in the first place if they ended up being so different? You hated when people fought and that's all you saw from them growing up. You make it your mission in life to spread light and joy everywhere you go because there's just not enough of it! You work in the self-care industry teaching yoga, giving massages, doing nails, and overall trying to make people feel good. You try to always practice what you preach, living a healthy lifestyle yourself. You tend to stay away from romantic relationships because of what happened with your parents. You love the idea of falling in love and spending your life with someone, but the hurt that could come from that just isn't worth it to you. In a possible lapse of judgment, you have a one night stand with your best friend. It definitely wasn't planned but the result will be permanent because... you end up having a baby together! Despite this, you decide not to start dating. You're too worried it would ruin your friendship or, worse, end in you two breaking up and making your child go through the same thing you did. That's your biggest fear. You remain best friends as you raise your child together, always living right next to each other and being very hands on parents. There's times where you find yourself wanting more, but your inner voice talks you out of it every time. Until... One day, your child already being a teenager at this point, your best friend confesses their love for you! You've both always felt it, but neither of you acted on it until now (and when your child was conceived of course). The thing that you've lived your whole life thinking was your biggest fear, suddenly didn't seem so bad. The unthinkable happened. Your mind set changed in an instant and you didn't want to spend another second not being with your person. You feel a weight being lifted from you when you finally allow yourself to love. You didn't know happily ever after existed until you experienced it yourself, and you live the rest of your life being head over heels in love!

mdintraining

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has trouble remembering developmental milestones. I put these together, but can’t take credit for any of the photography. Hope someone finds them helpful!

thelastpilot

This is very useful to me i have absolutely no gauge for how old children are and what they can typically do at what ages

johncribati

I’ve been on Tumblr too long I was definitely expecting this to turn into some existentialist meme

bogleech

Every writer needs to see this because I’m really tired of otherwise competent novels in which a two year old is like “mother dearest I do believe I am quite frightened” or conversely they’re supposed to be five and going “me hungie!!!”

fletcher-bit-me

My mother’s job for the last 5 years, only ending this year, was being the 24 hour house supervisor for a pregnancy crisis safe house. So I E spent alot of time with pregnant women, babies and toddlers, and dealing with grown men calling us because their girlfriend was there because he was abusive and he wanted to know our address, so I often forget that not everyone knows what children can do at most ages or how to calm a 1 year old when you can hear a man trying to get in your house when he shouldn’t even know where you are.

And I tell people these things and forget that it was not a common thing to go thru.

fletcher-bit-me

And not even a 1 year old would be able to tell you they are scared, all they can really do is cry. If your writing a book in which a toddler is scared, they may only just be able to tell you at 2 ½ years old.

#child development #writing tips

i do not agree with many of the things police officers and police departments are doing today, and i know this is nothing new

however

my cousin’s ex husband was on LAPD barely seven years when he fired his gun on duty for the first time in 2014

my grandfather was in law enforcement for 40 years (1954-1994) and never once fired his gun off of the practice range

i may disagree with the fundamental policies that exist in the united states military and police forces, but that does not mean i am not proud of the service my grandfather gave to this country as a marine and a LEO

above is a part of the yearly newsletter from the museum of northwest colorado

my grandfather was born in alamosa, but raised on ferndale ranch just north of craig, co, the county seat of moffatt county where the museum is located. my grandmother was raised in hamilton, a tiny town about 15 miles from craig. they were married in january 1951 and soon left colorado as my grandfather was shipping out with the marine corps.

they moved to southern california in 1953 and my grandfather started at the los angeles police academy. he retired from lapd as a lieutenant in 1980, after taking a position as chief of police in his hometown of craig. he spent 14 years as chief there, retiring in 1994. my grandparents remained in craig until moving back to southern california to be nearer their five children in 1999. they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2001, and my grandmother passed away from lung cancer two weeks later.

my grandfather will have his 93rd birthday in nine days. he was diagnosed with alzheimer’s six years ago, and he no longer recognizes any of his children or grandchildren. little things like that newsletter remind me of how deeply respected and loved he was and is, not only by his family.

#family #history

i don’t know why there’s suddenly a waterfall of oldest child/eldest daughter songs sneaking into my life, but i don’t hate it

it tells me that my experience isn’t only mine

that there are a lot of us that grew up too fast

linking a few of my favorites below

these songs just get me thinking, you know

i was 2 1/2 when my brother was born 10 weeks before he was supposed to be. i was still a baby myself and even then i knew my job in life was to protect him, this tiny little boy that would one day (in the not too distant future) tower above me.

i was 5 when my sister was born. my eyes lit up the moment i saw her, with her bright red hair, and did not go back to normal for months.

i was 11 when i sat awake while my siblings slept, listening to our parents fight. i knew then that the end was coming. mommy and mama hid it from them. so did i.

i was 13 when the end came. two words and my life fell apart. but breaking down isn’t part of the job description, so i buried my feelings and held my sister while she cried.

i grew up too fast. i became the maker of lunches, the homework help, the hairdresser.

16 was the tipping point. i had a drivers license and a mental breakdown that no one saw. i drove my brother to guitar lessons and theater rehearsals, my sister to piano and softball. i did the grocery shopping more often than not, the laundry on the weekends or afternoons. i did my homework in my car waiting for siblings at lessons and practices, keeping those straight As that everyone had come to expect from me.

i was accepted to university at 18. i graduated high school with a 4.2 gpa and a state merit diploma. i got another piercing and a new tattoo and moved into my dorm as soon as they would let me.

then came the guilt. my siblings were 15 and 13 and i was leaving them.

they still call me for advice or mom’s netflix password. my sister facetimes me with the high school gossip and my brother sends me drunk snapchats from his college parties.

i’m still the golden child (and at times the family disappointment)

always and forever the oldest

#eldest daughter #oldest child #siblings #family #mental health #Spotify

writing-prompt-s

You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.

dycefic

I think I’d have minded less if I’d committed a truly heinous crime. Something that warranted death. Or even if I was the kind of person who would enjoy flinging a last defiance at my execution.

It was all just a show, anyway. They did it every year. They brought out a selection of criminals, and the Sorcerer who ruled us showed his power by bringing about their deaths by magic. Just to show, every year, what happened to anyone who crossed him.

There was a time, probably, when the people he executed really were rebels or assassins. In latter days he had to take what the dungeons offered. I was dragged up in chains between a pickpocket, sobbing in terror, and a man who’d killed another man in a brawl. There were few criminals of any note, by then. So instead of choosing the wickedest criminals, they chose based on appearance. The man who’d been in the brawl had a face like a clenched fist, and looked like a ruffian. The pickpocket, aging and with hands beginning to tremble, was a different kind of example. As was I.

“There aren’t many pretty ones, this year,” the man who chose me had said, examining me. “But this one will do. Not young, but not old, a woman, well-favoured enough for the gallows… what was her crime?”

The warder shrugged. “She tried to kill one of the sheriffs.”

The man looked down at me and I shrugged. “I hit him with a washing stick, because he tried to extort money from me, and he was a baby about it.” I refused to treat this as anything but pathetic, even after my sentencing. “I didn’t even break any bones.”

“Treason, then,” the man said, nodding. “Attacking the servants of the law. That will look well on the list. Send her.”

I had been debating ever since what to choose. Something quick? Something painless? I considered demanding that I suffer the attack I supposedly made on the sheriff, but then I realized the Sorcerer would only give me what the man had said I was going to do, and that was not a pleasant way to die. I had all but decided on something swift and relatively painless. Beheading with the sharpest of blades sounded good. It would be quick.

Keep reading

#oh my god i adore this #short story #not mine #story prompt

meme-templates

I. I need all the alignment chart memes. All. All of them. My hands are shaking. Please.

AIGHT YALL RB THIS POST WITH YOUR ALIGNMENT CHART BLANKS FOR THIS ANON

meme-templates

I’LL GO FIRST

little-bullheaded-shit

meme-templates

thewingedbolt

Saving this for later para purposes

snailstrailz

You people are saints

rudolphsboyfriend

doing the lord’s work

yegreatdragontamingpiratecaptain

we thank you for your great work

sawyermp3

Oh yeah I’m definitely using these

#saving #don’t judge

a lot of people assume that because i have two moms, i don’t celebrate or observe father’s day, and there’s a little bit of truth to that

i don’t have a dad, i’ve never wanted or felt that i needed a dad, so there are years where father’s day comes and goes and i don’t even realize it

but i do have father figures in my life and i do celebrate them

so, this year i remembered

to my grandpa glen

i love you more than anything. i miss you so, so much. i miss the grandpa that made me shirley temples and talked baseball with me and told me stories about jack webb and always insisted on being in the picture

i miss the grandpa that gave me his dragnet tapes just because i asked, the grandpa that cried when i was born two months after grandma died

seeing you today is very different. alzheimer’s is a hell of a disease

but you are still my grandpa, i still love you more than anything in the world, and i will always be your girl

to my grandpa lyle

thank you for taking me out to ride mississippi bareback in my pajamas, no matter what my parents said. thank you for teaching me how to fish and kneeboard and taking me tubing even when you didn’t really want to. thank you for teaching me how to play cribbage and pinochle.

because of you, montana is my home just as much as california is. i am still a country girl at heart.

grandma is the talker, but you are the one who asks how the giants are doing this season. you’re the one who wears your cal poly sweatshirt (to aunt marlene’s house, because your grandchildren are smarter than hers) and never fails to tell me how proud you are.

i love you so much

to my godfather scott

thank you for being my math tutor, advice giver, and trivial pursuit opponent. one day, i’m going to beat you. that’s a promise :) i wish we lived closer, because two years is way too long to not see you.

you are one of my biggest cheerleaders, never giving up on me even when my parents have no idea what classes i’m taking and i feel like i’m drowning in physics equations

i love talking baseball with you, especially when the giants are playing the phillies

i miss you like crazy and i can’t wait to see you again

#father’s day #fatherless daughters #grandpa #godfather #i love you

dear grandma,

mommy is taking christmas down by herself this weekend. i’m at school, and cuyler and teagan are at mama’s house. i know how much she hates it because i hate it too. putting the decorations up is always much more fun than taking them down. she texted me earlier, asking if my bell from mallory had its own box. it’s a bell like the ones you had, we have a few of yours now too but a while ago mallory got me one for the cousin ornament exchange. the exchange has kind of fizzled out by now... there’s only six of us now without kids and families and they all have their own christmas traditions. but we exchanged ornaments for years after you died. it was kim’s doing - she matched up all our names and we traded ornaments because you always gave your grandkids ornaments every year. cuy and teag never got them. i have the one you made the christmas that mommy was pregnant. did you know, grandma? did you know that you wouldn’t be there for my first christmas? teagan and i do have those lace angels, too. the ones you got all the granddaughters one year. when mommy and the sibs were going through the garage at meadow mont, they found two of them and since all the other girl cousins already have theirs mommy brought them home for us.

your anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. it would be 69 years this year. it’s hard to believe, especially thinking that you and grandpa were married 50 years. in a month it will be 19 years since you died, and i won’t be 19 for another three months.

---another old draft i want to continue---

i turned 20 a month ago

20 years, three months, and 16 days ago we lost you forever

i miss you a lot

i think about you all the time, but you know that

i got a message last week from a spiritual medium

and i don’t know if it was really meant for me, if it was really you

but i’m choosing to believe it was

because i miss you and i want so desperately to connect with you

grandpa, too

you would’ve been married 70 years in January

i marked the anniversary like i always do

grandpa is too far gone to remember, now

uncle john and aunt deanna can get him to remember your name but that’s about it

mommy and cuyler and teagan saw him on saturday

we haven’t seen him in so long, it’s been almost a year and half since i’ve seen him

i’m going down in july

but this visit was good

he didn’t know who they were but when mommy told him about me and that i wasn’t there because i was at college studying engineering she said his eyes lit up

it’s hard, being without you

i know you and grandpa are both proud of me

but sometimes, i want to hear you say it

jonathan and michelle are having a baby

a girl, they’re going to name her evelyn

she’s due in early july and every time i remember that i wonder if she’ll get to share a birthday with you

i miss you grandma

i love you

#old draft #grandma #family #fuck you cancer

It hurt when my mom broke up with her

Not as much as when my parents divorced - nothing can rival that

---this is an old draft that i discovered and want to continue---

i miss her

now, my mama is dating another woman, Michelle

they've been together almost three years now and they're moving in together this summer

i love her, she's great

but there's still a part of me that misses Terri

she really cared about me, about all of us

and hell, i still text her sometimes

parents' relationships are weird and strange

and i don't think my mama fully understands how her girlfriends have impacted my life and my siblings' lives

but they have

i don't regret that at all

it just takes a lot of processing

#lizzie rambles #old draft #parents #divorce

the more i think about it the more i realize

my love language is quality time

and realizing that

i realize why i struggle so much sometimes

especially this year

why unanswered texts hurt so much and why being unable to call or talk in person is so difficult

when i care about someone, love someone

i want to spend all the time i can with them

i answer texts right away

i miss people

and it hurts

it’s a deep, aching feeling

being far away from everyone i love is physically painful

i'm thinking about it more as i'm planning my summer

i'm not going home, not for more than a couple of weeks

i'm staying in my college town, the place i now consider home, and working as an orientation leader for my school

and i'm so excited

it's a gorgeous place, i'm looking forward to the beach and spending time outside and also leading orientation

but i'm also so, so sad

i won't be going to montana with my siblings and cousins to spend time with my grandparents

i won't get to see my best friends

and that will be really hard

i need that time

#lizzie rambles #ramblings #my writing

it’s scary when the people you rail against online happen to be those in your own family

and what can you do?

you try to educate

explain

in this case, explain why a publishing company deciding to discontinue the publishing of six books out of a collection of hundreds is not an attack that will somehow lead to the banning of the bible

and that america is not and never was a christian nation, no matter what you learned at the church of christ

and they don’t listen and they don’t care and eventually you block them and stop listening because it’s too hard

where do you draw the line

i still love you, because you are family

i don’t like you, and i don’t agree with the way you live your life

sounds familiar, doesn’t it

isn’t that what you said to me when i came out

feels different to be on the other side

for both of us

i still love you, because you are family

but i cannot talk to or be around someone who blindly follows a dictator and votes for people who vote for policies that will directly harm me and my family

maybe you’re a one issue voter

maybe you’re voting for them because you really care about abortion, or gun rights, or whatever

that doesn’t change the fact that the people you want in office want to hurt me

that is something i cannot forgive

i gave you a chance and you just continued spouting your lies

saying that this was “just another step in the attack on america’s christian values”

and you refuse to realize that america’s values and christian values are not the same

you call yourself unbiased because you don’t watch fox news

but you get your news directly from the man who led our country to the brink and all the people who followed him there

am i biased? sure

do you know why?

because i spent four years living in fear

grateful to live in a liberal state because maybe when the government collapsed i, as a neurodivergent queer woman, might have a chance at survival

not if, when

because i know that if you didn’t live in colorado on a limited income

you, too, would’ve been at the capitol on january 6

will i ever say this to your face?

hell no

but it needed to be said

i’m tired of the attacks from all sides

and the cries of “attack” from people who know nothing about what it actually means to be attacked for who you are, for who you love, for the way you were born

you chose to call yourself a christian

i did not choose to be gay

i did not choose to be neurodivergent

our siblings of color did not choose to be black, or asian, or native

our disabled siblings did not choose to be disabled

you will never understand the realities we face

i will never understand the realities they face

but i will try

and that is where we are different

•

#poetry #politics #family

i am the product of the dreams of generations

edith eileen

fern

shirley judy

deanna lisa

dorene leah

alison melissa

melanie

joanna alyssa

dawn carlin

kimberly brylea

nicole teagan

danielle

mallory

carlin

teagan

lexie

laney

brooke

emma

victoria

“everyone has heard stories of women like us - cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. if you set off into the world alone. everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.”

Happy International Women’s Day 2021

#international women’s day #family history #generations

In the fall of 1950 Shirley Ottens was 17 years old and studying architecture at the University of Colorado. Glen Sherman was 22 and was getting ready to leave his father’s homestead in Moffat County to enlist in the Marine Corps.

On January 23, 1951 Shirley Ottens became Shirley Sherman. She left CU to get married and start her family.

Their first daughter was born in 1952 while Glen was serving in the USMC. By the time their second daughter was born in 1955 they had left Colorado and were living in the San Fernando Valley because Glen had just started with the LAPD. They had three more children there, and Shirley went back to school at Cal State Northridge to get her degree in social work.

In 1980, when most of their children were adults, Glen retired from LAPD and took a job as Chief of Police in their hometown of Craig, Colorado. Their youngest daughter moved back to Colorado with him that summer, but Shirley stayed in California for an extra year to finish her Master’s degree.

She joined him in ‘81 and they lived in Craig, but traveled all over the world, until they returned to Southern California in 1999.

In 2001 they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with all of their children and grandchildren. At the time it was five kids and ten grandkids with one more on the way. It was the last time the two of them and all of their five children were together outside of the hospital. Shirley died two weeks later of lung cancer.

This is the only picture I have that I can even make an argument of having a photo with my grandmother. My mom, on the far left, was seven months pregnant. I would be born on April 19.

My grandparents are my greatest inspiration. Even now they stand as the beginning of our family. We label ourselves as Glen and Shirley Sherman’s descendants. Today, 70 years after their wedding, they have five kids, thirteen grandkids, and seventeen great grandkids. I will forever consider it my greatest blessing that I was born into this family. I carry their name with pride. Grandma, Grandpa, I love you both. Happy Anniversary.

self discovery is a journey

that’s what they all say

it’s not a phrase you understand, though

until you’ve lived it

when i was 15 a girl in my band class asked me out as a joke

both of us knew she wasn’t serious

but it got me thinking

at 15 i realized maybe i wasn’t 100% straight

i found asexual

and it seemed to fit

biromantic, maybe, but that wasn’t quite right

homoromantic, demiromantic?

by the time i was 17 i settled on aromantic

aromantic and asexual

then oriented aroace because i was definitely attracted to girls

what kind of attraction?

well aesthetic, queerplatonic, maybe sensual too

then i was 18 and thinking maybe i’m not as asexual as i thought i was

graysexual fits better

and maybe i’m not aromantic either

quoiromantic sounds more like me

and i’m a lesbian

i’m gay

i like girls

i finally truly came to terms with my attraction, i didn’t have to hide it anymore

now i’m 19

i’m a graysexual quoiromantic lesbian

i use she/they pronouns

gender is a whole other story

i always just figured i was cis

being a woman didn’t really bother me

maybe it wasn’t the perfect label but it was okay

but then i tried they/them pronouns and i kind of liked it

a lot

she/her is okay too but

they/them is really nice

right now my label is demigirl

only to myself

haven’t told anyone else

i’m a woman, sure

but not completely

some days i’d rather just be a person

genderless, unperceived

demigirl

for now

graysexual quoiromantic lesbian demigirl

self discovery is a journey

it can’t be rushed

that’s what they say

you don’t understand it though

until you’ve lived it

i’ve lived it

i’m still living it

#self discovery #personal #poetry rambles #poetry #rambles #queer #gay #demigirl #she/they #ace spectrum #aro spectrum #wlw

this video will never not make me cry

especially now, i am so so grateful to have these pictures and videos of my grandpa

this is the grandpa i remember

i was not quite two weeks old here

my grandma had passed away three months earlier

and there he was

insisting on being in the video with his youngest grandchild

his new granddaughter

grandpa, i love you

i am so proud to be your granddaughter

#family #grandpa

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vintage style not vintage values