#I don’t do it as much now but I used to screenshot and download almost EVERYTHING related to my interest(s) at the time

[albino-parakeet]

Thinking about all the pictures and videos saved on my old phone, that is stuck in a boot up loop because of an error message. Maybe if I take it to a shop they could at least retrieve them.

Like there’s this one video back when Telltale Games was shutting down, in the middle of TWDG Final Season. So a bunch of the devs and such who were laid off or used to work on the series were like uploading funny animations they made and etc.

Anytime I think I find a reupload of this specific video, I see it’s been deleted or forced to be taken down.

Maybe because it had Seven Deadly Sins - MAN WITH A MISSION playing and it was copyright striked, or it was the dev who uploaded it that took it down.

All I know is that I have it on that phone, and I can’t look at it and it makes me sad.

[therichantsim]

#sweet beginnings tag

This tag is all about looking at your past. All you need to do is to find one of the first screenshots you ever took (preferably also published), and post it beside the recent one! And tell everybody when you took that first picture! Oh, and don’t forget to tag your posts! #sweet beginnings tag

So in September 2018, I made this sim which at the time was loosely based on me and my life as an artist. Initially, she was called Simself but as her character developed she needed an actual name. So I named her Octavia Rich or Lady O because I've always liked that name. So much so that I almost named my daughter Octavia.

Then one day not too long after that there was a public download for a male sim by @budgie2budgie. Mr. Obie Tremblay. He's now one of the main OCs in @trumpets0ng story Always Walker.

However, since he already had a strong character base and story line I decided to use him as a base for Isaiah Blackburn. November 2018.

Then I joined NSFT discord and started following sim stories got inspired and started documenting my gameplay and the dialog that was taking place in my head. That's how the beginning of the Blackburn Legacy story "Let It Burn" was born. It was a very very humble beginning. I edited pics on my mobile device, only being able to run my game on low settings, and all I had was about 5 gigs of cc mostly if not exclusively Peacemaker and CAS stuff. Yet a story was born and it was an itty bitty infant and now it's a full-grown ass adult.

Here they are the last time they were tweaked in CAS and the last picture I took of them. My blurbos, my boos, my OCs.

I miss them. They'll be back soon. We're almost done finding the next Mrs. Blackburn for this legacy story.

I'm tagging @cinamun and @glammoose and anyone else who wants to share their original OC's beginning.

[theallegedbird]

LITERALLY

Like

For example "6up 5oh (cop out)" IS LITERALLY THAT ONE POLICE EP FROM S5 where Jonny said the disclaimer at the beginning OR or bro c'mon literally "dr sunshine is dead" is about the dark OR "hand me my shovel, I'm going in" is about the buried or I personally connect "Mr. capgras encounters a second-hand vanity: tulpamancer's prosopagnosia/pareidolia (as direct result of trauma to fusiform gyrus)" to the stranger bc he keeps singing "you're trying to replace yourself" which I think really fits and also the song "skeleton appreciation day in vestal, my (bones)" also reminds me of the buried but also a bit of Jane Prentiss/the infestation and the jarchivist himself and also the rot yezyez the rotting too and also the beginning of the song "front street" where he sings about the slaughterhouse and meat...yes It's the flesh and the slaughter!!!!

And bro c'mon will wood is just so bbgirl his songs just fit SO WELL it's almost as if he wrote them specifically for tma

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'm low-key obsessed with him and I don't even listen to all the songs (I have the entire "everything's alot" album downloaded >I love it really mutch + a few other ones so I hope this counts ❤️)

Have a nice day btw love youuu❤️❤️❤️❤️ (I hope I didn't squish your brain to death with this friggin paragraph I just wrote :'] )

[ID of image in ask: a screenshot of a caption of a tumblr post by theallegedbird that the ask is responding to, it reads "memento mori- will wood, i can and will find a way to relate every ww song to tma istg". End ID]

NO LITERALLY,, YOU ARE SO RIGHT

kind of got carried away so um. long post

completely agree and feel the same about 6up 5oh cop out, dr sunshine is dead and mr capgras

6up 5oh cop out to me especially could be linked to daisy and the guy you mentioned as well as the hunt as whole because of both of them being heavily tied to and criticising the police/police brutality

warning for discussion of eds in this paragraph

skeleton appreciation day for me is the flesh,, dont get me wrong i can see your ideas too but i always interpreted the song as being about eds and negatively/unhealthily watching your weight in order to achieve "the perfect body" by society's standards; by being skinny,, "tell me you can see my bones" , "to cut down on my silhouette" and the whole end dialogue, so that fits into the flesh for me considering another situation of someone wanting the "ideal body" is something that is discussed in a flesh statement (mag90-bodybuilder), but i can see some themes in the song that can could be corruption, plus both the flesh and corruption are pretty closely linked at times (and smirkes system is just inaccurate to begin with)

dr sunshine is dead is as you said the dark to me,, in the sense of someone maybe becoming an avatar (song starts with narrator afraid of the dark/not knowing and ends with them embracing it) but also could be seen as the stranger or even spiral because of its themes (like most of ww's work) involving identity and the self

for hand me my shovel,, may i propose it is also s2 jon coded. very s2 jon coded. it is very much his paranoid need for the 'truth'. do you. do you get me

id also like to propose some other ww songs that are also extremely tma coded,, to me

blackboxwarrior!! ok stick with me but yknow that one dialogue bit that starts "hello, welcome. why don’t you take a seat?" that whole section. thats og elias and jonah in elias' interview. do you see the vision. its them. i always take it as jonah being the narrator when looking at this song with tma in mind,, with the "you’ve lost your mind and almost lost your life before, so you’ll be fine" and "for what it’s worth if it was going to kill you, boy, it would have by now" being directed at jon. please say im not insane for this i. i listen to this song a lot.

on the topic of jon and jonah your body my temple. because. because hes using jon as a pawn,, "your visage my visions" (i know this songs about sydney and elijah ch&t but can be tma too. if you think about it)

again with jon and jonah (i despise jonah and the godforsaken thing that is jonelias but their dynamic is so interesting) laplaces angel,, dont know how to put this one into words but do you Get It,, could be both or either of them really,, certain lyrics include: "it doesnt take a killer to murder it only takes a reason to kill", "the difference twixt fate and free will is whether youre singing", "whatever you think of me, if you were in my shoes, youd walk the same damn miles i do"

against the kitchen floor could also be jmart,, especially these parts: "i just havent learnt to be as human as you are yet", "i still dont know who you are, only that im still lonely", "apologizing for my life and ever entering yours" "im not a good person, im barely a person at all"

cicada days,, jon. jon coded. i really want ro make something with especially the in case i die live show version bc it just fits. so well. "it just feels inhumane to lose this much", "let all my red flags fade to white yeah i give up", and biggest one to me "here at the end of days, my god what have i done?" as in mag160,,

cotard's solution is the stranger,, again with the identity

there’s more but i’ve just realised how long this already is so ima leave it there

pff sorry for hijacking your ask but i’m a sucker for media analysis and any opportunity to do that with not one but two of my special interests causes me to black out and the autism to take over <33

also you’re so real for everything is lot,, favourite album

have a great day or night :D

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Had a conversation with someone today about browsers, and it made me decide to write a post about a thing many people have written posts about before, and I saw those posts for a long time and largely ignored them, but then one day I decided to follow their advice, and it was so much quicker and easier than I’d expected. It turns out everyone’s right: it really is a good idea! Really! So here is my post to be that person telling everyone to: switch to Firefox!

Most of the posts I’d seen about it before focused on the way it’s the only browser that doesn’t mine and sell your data, which is of course important. Dating mining by giant corporations is evil for many reasons, I understand that as a broader issue. But to be really honest, on an individual level, I don’t care all that much whether Google knows what I’m doing on the internet. For quite some time, I never cared enough to bother switching browsers.

But then I did, and learned there are a lot of advantages besides the data privacy. Mainly, Firefox is so much faster. All else equal, on the same machine with the same capabilities, Firefox will open things quicker and more cleanly and easily than Chrome. “Cleanly” is the best word I can think of for the interface – it doesn’t bombard you with ads and widgets the way Chrome does. It’s not constantly pushing stuff at you.

In terms of extensions and stuff, it can do everything Chrome can do and some things Chrome can’t. It can import your bookmarks, browsing history, and saved passwords so quickly and easily. I’d seen before that it could do that, but had assumed it would be a whole process, hadn’t realized it would take literally thirty seconds.

So that is my PSA to say don’t stick with inferior browsers for too long like I did, just due to being used to it. You can import all your stuff into Firefox and it’ll be just like what you’re used to but better. While I’m at it, here are some other applications on my laptop that I recommend:

For the video and audio player: MPC-BE. It’s open source (open source means “free, but in a really good way of community and collaboration”, so you get the free stuff and don’t even have to feel bad for benefiting from the labour of the people who created it without compensating them, though it’s nice to donate if you can), and it’s so, so much better than the default Windows video player. You can customize everything in it to work with your keyboard. I have it set up so I can play/pause, go in or out of fullscreen, go to the previous or next file, and go forward or back by 5, 10, or 30 seconds with one key each. You can set it up to not have the bar at the bottom appear on the screen when you pause it, which makes taking screenshots so much easier.

It can open almost any video or audio file type, including plenty that the default player won’t play. It’s good to have VLC downloaded as a backup, because I’ve come across a couple of file types that MPC won’t play, and I had to use VLC to play those ones, VLC will play anything at all.

Also, you can have more than one video/audio file open at a time. The default Windows player doesn’t even let you do that, which is absolutely ridiculous. Download MPC-BE and change your default video and audio players to that, it’ll make your life better.

Audio editing: Audacity, obviously. Well, it should be obvious, though I actually didn’t start using that until somewhat recently. I found it a bit difficult to work out the controls in it, so instead of taking ten minutes to learn it, I was cutting up audio in my video player. Last year I finally took the time to learn to work Audacity, and it was so worth it. It’s not complicated, it only took about ten minutes to figure out. And now that I’m comfortable with it, it’s so much easier than anything else.

Video editing: NCH VideoPad. This the only software on my computer that I’ve paid for (besides Microsoft Office, I guess), and usually I try to find open source versions of stuff I want. But I’ve tried a bunch of different video editors, and just haven’t found any free ones that work nearly as well as VideoPad. I found myself editing a video in one program, exporting it, then importing it into a different program that has features the first program didn’t have, so I could use those too. VideoPad eliminated the need for that, it’s one program that does everything I want it to.

VideoPad isn’t expensive, and what I really like is it’s a one-time fee. Fuck the software subscription system, if I’m going to pay for something like that, I want to actually own it and get to keep it forever. I think VideoPad does have a subscription system, but it also has an option to pay a one-time fee to buy it outright, and that’s what I did. I paid for it once quite a few years ago now, and that was a very good purchase, I’ve gotten great use out of it.

For downloading: Jdownloader is an excellent way to get video and audio files off the internet. Doesn’t work every single time, but it works for a lot. I have used it so much in the last few years. The “allow right click” browser extension can be pretty useful too.

For screen recording: ShareX. Lightweight, fast and simple program that does everything I need it to, for free. Sometimes, if Jdownloader fails me so I try a whole bunch of other options and still can’t work out how to download a file, I find it can be easier to just play the whole thing while recording my screen.

For conversions: Media Mobile Converter. There are plenty of internet programs that do this, but I found it was really worth downloading a program that will let me do this right from my computer, so I can convert multiple files at a time. I use it most often to convert video files to mp3, like if I download a song off YouTube and just want the audio. But it’s also nice for taking video or audio files that are in weird formats, and converting them all to mp3 or mp4. Occasionally I’ll get an mp3 that’s too old for Audacity to read, so I use this convert it to wav and then it works no problem. It’s a useful tool to have on hand, and again, open source.

This has been a PSA about the pieces of software that make my life better.

[curiousb]

I posted 217 times in 2022

That's 79 more posts than 2021!

179 posts created (82%)

38 posts reblogged (18%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@curiousb

@tvickiesims

@frauhupfner

@suratan-zir

@pixeldolly

I tagged 216 of my posts in 2022

#sims 2 - 175 posts

#merybury - 131 posts

#gameplay - 124 posts

#de bourgh university - 27 posts

#jasper tilney - 24 posts

#benjamin bingley - 21 posts

#bennet tilney - 20 posts

#anna smith - 19 posts

#clara dashwood - 18 posts

#sophia wentworth - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 83 characters

#at least in the process i found the offending sofa that was overwriting a maxis one

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Check-in tag

I was tagged by the superstar that is @pixeldolly - thank you!

Why did you choose your url?

CuriousB was the username I made up on the spur of the moment when I first joined GoS, all those millennia ago (there’s a story behind the name, but I’ll leave that for another day), and it became my go-to Sims-related username. I wanted to be recognisable as the same entity on Tumblr, so I recycled the name once again.

How long have you been on tumblr?

Ooh, I don’t know, about ten years? I had a hiatus of about four years in the middle there though.

Do you have a queue tag?

Good grief no, I’m not a planner by any means!

Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Because all the cool kids were here.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It’s a very old shot of a long-gone Sim, but I like her expression, and her wild, pink hair.

Why did you choose your header?

It’s a screenshot of my custom TS2 neighbourhood, which was empty at the time, but is now bursting at the seams - I really should update the header accordingly, I guess!

What’s your post with the most notes?

It’s the post where I redirect people to my SimFileShare folder to find all my TS2 downloads - how dull! :D

How many mutuals do you have?

Honestly, I haven’t a clue!

How many followers do you have?

Apparently it’s 1308 - hello, everyone!

How many people do you follow?

803 - almost all TS2 Simblrs.

Have you ever made a shitpost?

I’m not really sure I’d know one if I saw one, so probably!

How often do you use tumblr each day?

Too much!

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

Err, no, not my style.

How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

Just like with old-school chain letters, I ignore them - it’s my blog and I will post what I want!

See the full post

43 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

#3

Under construction

I haven’t done much actual playing lately, as I’ve been on a bit of a building spree instead! (And experiencing my share of pink soup, for some reason.)

Firstly, Merybury has some new luxury waterside residences, just next door to Lydia and Henry’s beach house - so they’ll no longer enjoy their uninterrupted views of Lake Merymere (or the seclusion of their hot tub). These were very much inspired by @vimpse​ (here).

See the full post

63 notes - Posted March 26, 2022

#2

CuriousB’s Question Time: Part 3

Today I built a house that I rather like. It has just one problem - the darned roof.

I really like the little turrety roof over the bay window, but unfortunately it doesn’t ‘cancel out’ the roof beneath it, like regular roofs do.

See the full post

72 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Wreckers’ Cove

@simsinlowspace wanted to see the vacation destinations I’m currently working on, so here’s a taster! I’m using @plumbtales​’s wonderful Maxis makeovers, but adding a few twists of my own to the existing lots - as I’m a CC junkie - and building a few extra lots myself, such as this one.

This is Wreckers’ Cove beach bar, newly opened on Twikkii Island. I’m afraid there’s a lot of pic-spam, as I’m a little in love with it!

See the full post

91 notes - Posted April 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[midsummermoon20]

 UPDATE March 2023: These will no longer be supported/updated to reshade. If you download it for reshade, things WILL look different 

   __________

“Neapolitan” Gshade preset collection comes with 3 different presets, depending on what you want the vibe to be!  (Click on the pics to enlarge the previews of them, I really strugglebus with formatting on tumblr, so bear with me! The pics are unfortunately not as sharp as they actually are, trust me, the presets look better in game) I named it Neapolitan because it reminded me of the trio of ice cream flavours I ate as a kid all the time. It also suits the vibe of each one, so that helps! 

“Strawberry” Is the preset I use currently for my own gameplay. It is vibrant and pops the colours just enough so it doesn’t burn your eyes out, but retains a bright and cheerful vibe.

“Vanilla” Lives up to its name by being just the right amount of different from the original EA vibes but slightly brighter and adds a pop of more vibrancy and smoothness.

“Chocolate” has a moody, almost autumnal vibe. It leans more warm, mysterious and I’m surprised by how much I like it in-game; since I tend to go brighter and vibrant. I should’ve taken screenshots of it in a forested area, but this already took my whole afternoon so, the previews are what they are lol

I am VERY picky about Gshade presets, and so I made sure that the things that bother me the most I fixed when I made these presets. They are as follows:

1) Not heavily blue-green, like EA’s ugly lighting

2) Neutralizes the overly yellow tones in EA’s whites

3) Doesn’t make sims look basketball orange

4) Doesn’t make sims of colour (especially black sims!) look washed out

5) Are gameplay-friendly, and don’t bleach out the UI in game so it’s unreadable

6) Are the vibe

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING before the download: If you go into your game and you’re like “???? why is this preset making my game a little slow?” PLEASE go and click on your MXAO settings and turn the quality down. My computer by some miracle can handle it on ultra, but it can make your computer slow if it can’t handle it. It is easily fixable by turning it to Medium or lower depending on what your computer can run.

Also, I used ADOF for the screenshots, which is a depth of field shader, I turned it off, so if you want it on in your game, just type it in the search bar and turn it on :)

TOU: Do whatever, just make sure you link back here and don’t claim as your own. You can edit them to your preference, but please don’t re-upload them without giving credit to the original. 

Okay, I’ll shut up now, have fun!

DOWNLOAD

[lyrebright]

so! you want to rip a fic from fanfiction dot net?

I’m sure at this point we’ve all seen the posts about FFN’s inevitable demise. Not to downplay how much that would suck, for all we riff on FFN--but people have been saying that for literal years at this point, and while I do not doubt that FFN is dying, it’s probably not going to up and vanish on us in the next week. It’s got some good time of chugging and wheezing along left yet.

But among the panic there are people asking sincere questions about what can be done to save fics from FFN in the case of the site going down and taking literal decades of fandom history with it, and I’m seeing a surprising amount of people saying that the only way to do it is to either screenshot the fics or type them out yourself because copy/paste does not work on FFN. And that is just blatantly not true. There are many ways in which you can save fics from FFN. Here are just a few:

You can copy/paste directly from the mobile site. This is probably one of the easiest methods for anyone to do. Just click on the URL of the chapter you’re reading, and change the www. to m. Hit enter and the page will reload in mobile mode. You can now copy/paste the chapter right into a word document. You will have to go chapter by chapter.

CTRL+S. Go to the fic you want to save, and hit ctrl+s. Save the damn webpage. This will keep it in the exact format of the webpage, which you could see as a pro or a con, but it will also keep the ads, which does suck. You’ll also have to go chapter by chapter with this method but it does go a lot faster than manually copy/pasting the text.

HTML to PDF. This method I’m admittedly a little less sure about, since when I used it it was like, 2013 and I was in highschool so I’m not sure how viable it still is, but--just a quick google search should find you a website that will let you save a webpage as a PDF file. I have folders and folders of fics I saved back in highschool using this method. It will again have to go chapter by chapter and just like saving the webpage will keep the format of the site intact--down to keeping the ads.

Use a fanfiction downloader. Two I’ve been using for years are FF2eBook and FicHub. You put in the link of the fic you want to download and it converts the entire thing into a file for you. Yes, the entire thing--you don’t need to manually go through chapter by chapter. By default, both sites download in epub format, though FicHub does have a few other options. I’ve never really experimented with them though because I’m personally fine with epub, and there are a million epub to pdf (or other file type) converters out there.

And there you go: a handful of ways for you to save your favourite fics before FFN goes under. Again, I don’t think it’s something to be too worried about, but the best time to do your part for fandom preservation was yesterday. The second best time is to get started right now. There is no reason to wait for FFN to be on its death bed to start saving fics. I’ve been doing this for years just so I have fics to read offline. 

I’m a little too young to have been around for livejournal, but I was one of those weirdos that posted their first fics on quizilla. I remember when quizilla just...changed. And so much was lost. Looking back, almost none of what was posted on quizilla was actually good, but it was still something that someone put time and effort and passion into creating, and it was important.

There is almost no way that when FFN inevitably goes down that its entire archive will be saved. But we can do our best to save as much as we can. Stop panicking and start saving.

[dollxmania]

ㅤㅤㅤ ❝ 𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ！❞

no tws/cw, gn reader. the crau by dollxmania, in which ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ you take on the role as the character in twisted wonderland, and the character takes the role of you in the modern world. read bottom.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ after hearing about the latest trending game, twisted wonderland, from Cater, Ace gets hooked and introduces the game to the first years, and pull you as their first ssr, how do they react?

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ❝ 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘/𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.❞

— ACE TRAPPOLA. ꒱·˚

the new game “twisted wonderland” took the internet by storm, to the point it even became trending. Ace couldn’t of cared less, but Cater managed to finally get him to download the app, only for him to understand the beauty of it immediately, quite literally. he hadn’t searched the tag much, but his eyes landed on you the second you were seen in the game.

who were you and why were you so perfect? your energy was absolutely amazing, and so was your character design. he didn’t like your dorm leader that seemed way too strict, but your mischievous and playful nature drew him in. the red uniform and the heart by your eye also looked way too cool on you, he somehow got invested in you almost instantaneously.

when he got the opportunity to pull for cards, he was so pumped that you were one of the eight cards available as an ssr startup. he actually ended up trying to get both your ssr and sr in a single reroll pull he tried to attempt for way too long. your card had a light feeling with a flamingo matching the color of your hair, your pose was playful and was that a little hedgehog? he didn’t want to admit it, but that was an extremely nice card.

he’s so extremely psyched during the prologue because you appear as one of the main characters beside him and this one other dorm student he couldn’t quite put a finger on that reminded him of someone. “You don’t know the Queen of Hearts?” he’s fanboying and screenshotting every moment. “She was a queen who lived in a maze like garden of roses long, long ago.” stop showing the statue he needs to see you, game. finds the heart on your cheek so cute as your sprite is smiling.

after figuring out how to set you as his favorite card and home card he keeps poking at you for every single line. tap home one was his favorite, “I showed the housewarden one of my card tricks, and they was more impressed than I’d thought they’d be. Felt pretty great, I gotta say!” the way you smiled while saying it with your eyes closed made it so worth rolling a long time for your cards. also fanboys when you say you can give him a demo of your magic card trick.

probably wanted to cancel the game after finding out you don’t have unique magic. that’s an absolute crime that you, a main character, do not get a cool unique magic unlike the other characters and he claims it’s unfair to you despite you literally being in almost every chapter of the story. during scarabia he was extremely upset you were absent most of the story, also.

he does a whole lot of lessons with only you! he’s not doing any other character, even for an event, until he gets to a thousand lessons with you and obtained the title of your bestie. he couldn’t even wait for your lp to recharge either so now he’s like level thirty five by book two with how much he used the starshards. he can’t stop just yet, it’s too soon, he needs to see you in every lesson and max you card and also get your candy.

heart candy is the cutest thing ever because you’ve stolen his heart, but joking aside he’s still in love with your viginette. he’s read all your viginettes repeatedly and enjoys staring at your groovies after he unlocks them but it’s not enough he just can’t wait for more of your cards. it’s great to know your big brother’s credit card details at times because you are not cheap to get. he curses and swears when you take a hundred pulls, but then tells you you’re lucky he likes you so much to go for that many tenfolds.

he’s also pretty influenced by your character to do pranks. he sees fanart of you pranking people or messing with people in game and does the exact same and laughs it off. though you doing basketball motivates him a whole lot to also do his best in practice for his own club! seriously you’re just his twin and he adores you so much that he has to show you off to every other first year.

— DEUCE SPADE. ꒱·˚

after being shown the game “twisted wonderland” by Cater, Ace ran around showing it to all of the first years, constantly bringing up some character that was a bit mischievous and how much he had adorned them. he really didn’t care much until Ace forced him to play by snatching his phone and downloading the game, that’s where everything went completely downhill.

he didn’t know anything and barely got past the introduction, when he pulled he thought your card was cool and didn’t know how to reroll. but the more he looked at your card, the more he fell in love with the design, and your looks. your eyes were also super pretty!! he loved the little spade by the side of your eye. he didn’t really think much of it but he became a bit attached to you because you were his first ssr.

he gets some info from ace who dumped a lot of knowledge he barely kept up with about you, and he found you super relatable! you were such a kind character despite being a little dense but you were really hardworking and he liked that! he decided to keep reading just a bit more since you did seem like a cool character, even if he didn’t know the story plot completely so far about breaking a statue or something, it was hard.

hearing your little “…hm?” has left him ascended, you’re so much better than every other character already with just your voice and sprite alone. who are you and why are you just like him. “You want me to cast a spell to stop him?” you asked in panicked confusion then you looked worried and contemplating then the zoom in on your face with the, “I summon thee, something heavy!” and created a whole cauldron. you mean you’re one of the main characters? he’s stoked! now he has kept playing for quite a long time.

he’s up to scarabia and stuck at the overblot fight but is rooting for you. he’s upset you don’t have any unique magic like Ace, but would be super excited if you did. for now he’s stuck since he refuses to replace the cards of you despite Ace telling him to probably use different cards. he knows you’re not weak and you can do it, all of you. your dorm ssr, your birthday card, your ceremony sr, your lab sr, your school r, your pe r… no he does not need new cards.

especially not when the new event drops with you having a limited edition ssr, no sir. he never spends his keys on anyone but you so he ended up with three copies of you because you kept coming by the time he got to one hundred. he also has those ssr perfumes so you might see him and his level a ninety five and eventually level hundred limited edition starssending robes of you.

he’s gushing over all of your voice lines and lessons lines. you’re such a cool character!! his favorite line is “If you would be in Heartslabyul too, it would be more… Actually, no. I think Ramshackle House suits you in a way. Ha Ha.” it was so worth groovying you and grinding all the lessons just to level your cards. unlike his friend he choose to save his starshards but he doesn’t wake up to alarms but he’s trying his very best to get your candies, books, viginette and leveling items.

it was also worth it struggling with the twstunes to get all the perfumes. he’s got your birthday background, and managed to uncap quite a few of your cards. he’s also very happy to announce he’s gotten distracted a million times when you pop up during the starsending event and during the twstunes he constantly mistaps because he’s just been happily staring at you for so long.

he’s read your viginettes quite a few time, and loves them. he just loves your character he relates to so hard. you’re such an inspiration to him, he also hopes he can make his mom proud just like you are trying to make your’s. he’s also trying to quit being a delinquent, and you motivate him to be an honor student as well despite not actually passing and understanding what’s happening just like you.

©dollxMANIA ꒱·˚ - i own both dorm cards so no reference to dorm ssr lines. i went through the game myself for others. this was angry written so possible spelling errors.

[superfamiblog]

How I Make My Gifs: A 2,000 Follower Special

Earlier today, I finally hit 2,000 followers on this tumblr. Hooray! I’m glad there are that many of you who are interested in my blog.

To commemorate reaching the big 2K follower milestone, I thought I’d celebrate by letting you guys get a peek behind the scenes of this blog. Specifically, how I make those fancy animated gifs I post every so often. Let’s get started, shall we?

1) First things first: whenever I play through an SNES game, I always keep an eye out for moments/setpieces/animations that I think look interesting, be they particularly atmospheric, or impressive, or beautiful, or funny, or what have you. I don’t have access to a photo editor that can convert movies to gifs directly (more on that later), so I used to just focus on short, simple loops: flickering torches, brief idle animations, stuff like that. But as I kept making these gifs I picked up some tricks that made it easier to capture more complicated animations (like, say, this one). Again, more on that later.

2) I capture the screenshots that make up the gif on SNES9x, my emulator of choice. Sometimes, if it’s simple 4 frame loop, I only take about as many screenshots as the loop lasts for. Other times, if I’m capturing something more complicated (such as, say, something moving on the screen), I can take upwards of one hundred screenshots or more. Again, it depends on the situation. For example, here’s a look at the screenshots that make up a gif I posted a while ago:

Now, for fairly complicated gifs like that one, I used to just crank down my emulator speed way low and wing it, rhythmically timing the F12 presses to hopefully get something useable, and to an extent I still do that, but for more action-based games like Zelda or platformers, I make an SNES movie (basically a replay file), record myself playing for a bit, then replay that on the emulator and take screenshots then. It’s still rather fiddly, but it makes capturing complicated scenes where everything, including the player, is moving around on the screen (like this gif) possible.

3) Once all the screenshots have been captured, I open up my photo editor of choice for animated gifs, a browser-based Photoshop clone named photopea (note: website contains ads), and plop the screenshots down in sequential order, on separate layers. Then, once all the screenshots have been placed into layers, I start converting them into animation layers, which is what photopea uses to make animated frames. This can get pretty repetitive, especially once there gets to be more than about 30 or so layers/frames to work with, so I usually do these gifs in batches and listen to something in the background.

(Above: an animated gif in the making.)

4) Oh boy, now for the fun part: Timing! Since making these gifs screencap-by-screencap can get pretty fiddly (to put it mildly), timing issues are almost always going to crop up. It’s not helped by photopea’s gif timing thingy being pretty much a slider. I usually try to compare with actual gameplay to make sure everything’s moving at the right speed, but eyeballing the timing is hardly foolproof. Sometimes I just say “screw it” and wing it, as well. If you’ve ever noticed some of the gifs looking fast or slow or just wonky in general, this is most of the reason why.

4.5) After finishing and downloading the gif, I let it fallow for a while in a folder I keep specifically for this blog. Sometimes I save a post (or series of posts) for a particular holiday or special event, but mostly I just try to build up a backlog. Here’s a look at it from a while back:

I upload these posts in batches, usually about a week or so worth’s at a time, and chuck the pics in a special folder once I’ve used them. There’s more to it than that, sometimes, but that’s more or less the process I use.

[spaceroxy]

The Couch Evolved is one of my favorite game items, for real.  I love this thing.  And because it can be configured into whatever shape you want, it deserves to be in almost every color you could want, too.

So.  

Today, I have for you the couch evolved (and the matching lounger, of course, I’m not a monster) in so many colors.  So many.  My Ravasheen Adjacent Palette I love.  Done.  My Spaceroxy Almost Rainbow Palette I released earlier today?  Done.  A third palette I’ll maybe toss out there if I feel like it some day...it’s all neutrals, browns, grays, black and white.  

**All screenshots above are in game, even the ones with a white backdrop, I used Ravasheen’s preview backdrops and the only editing was cropping/borders.**

Right now, all swatches have the same leg color because today, I was more interested in having a lot of upholstery color options to play with than getting caught up on the legs because they’re such a small detail.  

Only the neutral palette has black and white.  I’m trying not to duplicate colors in my palettes too much, there will sometimes be swatches that are close, I can’t help that, but if you want those 2 colors you’ll need the neutral set as I’m not planning to duplicate them on every palette.

If you’ll notice from my in-game previews above, these were made with the counter shaders instead of the ones EA used on theirs.  It will have nice smooth lighting and shadows instead of the gradient/mismatch effect from the originals.  

If you want a fix for your game pack EA version, you can pick up an override by TudTuds HERE (there may be others, this was the one I knew of).  It isn’t required for mine, mine uses the same settings built into my objects.  Therefore, thanks to TudTuds for making the mod to override the originals and thanks to @mizoreyukii for helping me figure out how to add the settings to my versions!

On to the downloads (all through SFS, no ads)!

Couch Evolved - Almost Rainbow

Lounge Evolved - Almost Rainbow

Couch Evolved - Ravasheen Adjacent

Lounge Evolved - Ravasheen Adjacent

Couch Evolved - True Neutrals

Lounge Evolved - True Neutrals

TOU - credit is nice, play fair.  

These are EA meshes.  Don’t upload behind paywalls etc.

Check out @maxismatchccworld for other great content, I saw some recolors of the other sectional over there but didn’t see any of the “Evolved” set.  I’ll probably do the other one soon in these palettes now that I know how.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Wishmaker

Goddamn it... 

It's bad enough Astruc tastelessly axed Lukanette, but now he just had to show up to give a sarcastic eulogy at the funeral.

Let's get into the fourteenth (chronologically the eighteenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Wishmaker

Right out of the gate, we get a “Chloe bad” joke with her insulting Marinette for being poor or whatever as she hands out flyers for an upcoming career fair. Chloe doesn't have much of a role in the episode, but she will be important towards the end, trust me. We also get a funny “Marinette stares lovingly at Adrien” joke while she sees him, so it's good the writers are at least trying to get their strange habits out of their systems now instead of later.

While reading over the flyer in his room, Adrien ponders a possible career as he doesn't want to keep being a model.

(The episode came out in English first, so I'm just going to be using quotes instead of screenshots of subbed scenes for this review)

Plagg: Don't you wanna continue to model?

Adrien: I don't think so, Plagg. I'm doing it now because my father asked me to. But now I realize I don't know what I'd want to do. I've never asked myself that question.

This is a really interesting dilemma for Adrien. Unlike other episodes that just have him feel sad for entirely superfluous reasons like Ladybug turning him down or generally moping about his mom, it feels like something you can really understand. He genuinely isn't sure what he wants to do with his life because he's had everything chosen for him before. I also like the use of the English dub saying Adrien modeled because his father asked him to, as if he couldn't actually say no. I also like how Adrien is still starting to lose faith in Ladybug for giving out Miraculous to everyone, which makes even more sense after his view of her was shaken in the previous episode chronologically, “Rocketear”. I also like how Plagg suggests ideas for a career for Adrien, like the two of them opening up a cheese shop together, which shows how Plagg cares for Adrien and wants what's best for him, ultimately highlighting how healthy their relationship is. He's almost like a big brother who gives advice to Adrien, even if it isn't the most sound advice at times.

On the other hand, Marinette already knows what she wants to do with her life, but the Kwamis start to argue over what she actually means by it by saying they know what she wants to do, a painfully accurate metaphor for the writers dictating Marinette's actions no matter how inconsistent they are.

Pollen: What's a career, dear Guardian?

Marinette: Oh. Well, it's... your job! Something really important that you do and gives meaning to your life!

Roaar: Oh! So, your job is being the Guardian of the Miraculous!

Mullo: Of course not! It's being a student!

Xuppu: Not at all! It's making presents for Adrien!

Marinette:Well...

Longg: She said “something important”, like when she crafted the big doll house to hide the Miracle Box!

Wayzz: Or when she designed the alarm for this room! What a masterpiece!

Marinette: Sure, I love crafting but—

Ziggy: You guys don't get it! What gives meaning to her life is to be in love with Adrien, or Luka, that's her job!

Fluff: Luka's the one with the guitar, right?

Kaalki: Her real career is being Ladybug and carve her name in history by her glorious deeds, of course!

Of course, their bickering somehow makes Marinette realize she isn't sure what she wants to do in the future after all.

We then cut to a reality show hosted by TV personality, Alec Cataldi. He's generally an asshole to the people on the shows he hosts and takes pleasure in humiliating or just being a dick to them, making you wonder how he still gets work with that attitude. Basically, he's the Alec Baldwin of the Miraculous Ladybug universe. The current show he's hosting is one where he roasts people for their jobs, making Andre a target by pointing how counterproductive his “business” is.

Alec: Here's a perfect example: Andre, the Ice Cream Maker, the ice cream man that is never around! Let me remind you how this goes: Andre doesn't have a shop, no one knows where he is, it takes forever to find him, and he gets to pick a flavor of your ice cream! You've gotta be kidding, Andre! Give me one reason why I should bother to chase after you when I could get my choice of ice cream in any corner supermarket!

Andre: Well, people don't just come for ice cream when they find me. They come to share their love and experience of magical moments! A supermarket cannot do what I do! I am a creator of magical moments!

Alec: “Creator of magical moments?” You've gotta be kidding!

I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of people thought of Andre when they first saw “Glaciator”. The idea behind Andre is that he chooses ice cream for you representing something about yourself, so he gives Alec a scoop of lime to represent his sour exterior and chocolate cinnamon to represent the dreams he still has within. Alec flinches a little at the ice cream, presumably because of how terrible of a combination that is, and decides to go to commercial to think.

Marinette talks to Andre about what he does, and he explains he used to be an office worker, with the only highlight of his days being making ice cream for himself after work. It eventually inspired him to quit his job and start making ice cream for everyone. It's a nice backstory, and I think a lot of people watching who are struggling to think about their future can relate to this like with the earlier scene with Adrien. It's also a nice touch for the flashbacks to reveal Andre has served ice cream to some of France's most famous couples.

(Jean Coutau and Jean Marais)

(Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin)

(Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet)

Granted, I'm wondering how old Andre is to have even met some of these people given Jean Cocteau died in 1963, but seeing how Master Fu is 186, I'm guessing the Miraculous Ladybug universe just has really good healthcare. Either that, or the people in this universe take Jay Kordich's diet very seriously.

Andre gives some ice cream to Marinette, who is soon joined by her ex-boyfriend who she never loved according to the writers. Actually, judging from her face when Luka talks about the very first guitar he made, the writers made another 180 regarding Marinette's feelings for Luka.

Of course, because the show wants to remind the audience Alec still exists, he makes fun of Luka for taking two years to perfect the delicate craftsmanship it takes to sculpt any instrument when you can just download an app on your phone. Your inner boomer is showing, writers, even if you were born after the time period for that generation. Luka retorts with some vague philosophical line he's known for that's one of the reasons why people are so mixed on him as a character

Luka: Musical instruments fill the space and space fills the instruments. No phone in the world will ever be able to do that.

Despite it being incredibly confusing, it gets to Alec, causing him to run off in tears. Luka and Marinette continue to talk, but it turns out that's Adrien decided to sit down nearby because of course he did. Though, like the last scene, it's a pretty interesting one as the three discuss what they want to do with their lives. There's also a really nice visual of a blimp with an ad Adrien was in passing by while Adrien talks about his father dictating his life, a really nice symbol. Of course, the scene is somewhat ruined by Luka suddenly deciding to be an Adrienette shipper.

Luka: You two will eventually find what's already in front of you, but you can't hear it clearly. Just let the melody flow.

He's referring to their uncertainty of their futures, but earlier on, Luka wanted to help Marinette be honest with her feelings about Adrien, and even before that, Andre was saying that Marinette and Luka didn't have to be in love to enjoy his magic ice cream. It's here when I realized this episode is subtly trying to end any chances of Lukanette still happening with so many little details. Right when the two spend time together, that's when they decided to help Adrien who showed up for no reason, preventing them from potentially coming to terms with their feelings for each other or at the very least discuss how hard it is to be friends with their history. And things only get more frustrating towards the end, where you'd swear someone decided to smother Lukanette with a pillow in its sleep.

Back to Alec, he's roasting a wig salesman (does he even have permission to film any of these people?) for his job, but as soon as the salesman puts a wig on him, Alec immediately gives us his life story.

Alec: When I was a kid, I used to have long hair, but everyone made fun of me. That's why I shaved it all off. I've been making the wrong choices my whole life. My TV shows are nothing personal. I make fun of people when they make fun of me when I was a kid. (Starts to tear up) I should've been the person I always wanted to be, trying to change the world instead of mocking it! (Falls on his knees) I've wasted my life!

I didn't paraphrase this at all. This is seriously what happened. He goes from mocking everyone he meets, to slightly doubting himself after seeing an ice cream vendor and a young musician, and then he starts having an existential crisis about his tragic backstory. It's not a bad idea, but if there was some more buildup in previous episodes, I'd understand. But this goes from confusing to straight out insulting towards the end. I'll get to that later on.

Shadowmoth notices Alec's emotions and akumatizes him into Wishmaker through his microphone.

Wishmaker has a pretty cool design. The grey skin color coupled with the mostly black outfit really highlights Alec's broken heart, and he looks pretty sinister. His powers... leave a lot to be desired.  Like the name states, Wishmaker has the power to make everyone's childhood dreams come true, like this one guy's dream is to be Santa Claus, so he transforms into Saint Nick without any hitch. Wouldn't it make more sense if Wishmaker twisted the dreams of his victims like a genie and made them miserable while they ironically lived out their fantasies by twisting around their words? Instead, all of his “victims” seem pretty happy, which doesn't really do much to make him a threat in my opinion.

So the aforementioned Santa starts dropping presents like bombs near Marinette, Adrien, and Luka, and they're separated by a giant robot. Marinette quickly transforms into Ladybug, and gets Luka to safety, though as soon as she leaves, Luka goes to check on where he told Marinette to stay for safety, and doesn't see her there. Instead, he sees his deadbeat father (transformed into a crocodile) drowning and goes to save him.

Ladybug meets up with Cat Noir (who transformed off-screen) and the two easily incapacitate the robot before engaging Wishmaker, avoiding his blasts. Apparently, they'll get their secret identities revealed if they get hit, so Ladybug goes to get Luka to help out as Viperion while Cat Noir holds off Wishmaker. Ladybug goes to get Luka, leading to the funniest joke in the episode.

She gives Luka the Snake Miraculous and he transforms into Viperion, immediately activating his Second Chance. For newcomers, Second Chance allows the user to set a point in time when activating it and if something goes wrong, they can go back to that checkpoint in up to five minutes. Ladybug also summons her Lucky Charm, a stuffed dinosaur toy.

Back with Cat Noir, as he engages Wishmaker, the Akuma starts to tempt him with the idea of living out his childhood dream, because he genuinely doesn't remember his. As Shadowmoth orders Wishmaker to use his powers on Cat Noir, Ladybug and Viperion show up, but in the chaos of the fight, Ladybug gets hit by Wishmaker, revealing her childhood dream as the “Knitting Fairy”, and exposes her identity to Viperion, who uses Second Chance to undo the timeline.

In the new timeline, Cat Noir's vulnerability gets to him, so he willingly lets himself get his by Wishmaker, not only exposing his identity as Adrien, but tragically reveals his childhood dream, to be whatever his parents wanted him to be. I feel like this works a lot better than some of the other moments where Cat Noir defied orders or screwed around on the battlefield because it's clearly framed as a moment of weakness on his part, and it was naturally built up over the course of the episode. The reveal of Adrien's childhood dream is a real gut punch too, as it shows just how much Adrien's life has been controlled by his family.

In the third timeline, Viperon deflects Wishmaker's blast meant for Cat Noir and redirects it toward a man whose childhood dream was to become a giant stuffed dinosaur. The stuffed dinosaur in question goes to give Wishmaker a hug, restraining him long enough for Ladybug to steal for Cat Noir to cataclysm (It's a microphone, how hard is it to break???) before she de-evilizes the Akuma. Ladybug uses Miraculous Ladybug to force everyone to stop living out their childhood dreams, she gives Alec a Magical Charm, and Luka decides not to tell Ladybug he knows both her and Cat Noir's secret identities. Why did Ladybug expect Luka not to know her identity when the whole reason she recruited him was to make sure nobody else found out her identity?

Now, while it isn't outright said, it's hinted at that now that Luka knows Marinette is Ladybug and Adrien is Cat Noir, judging from his dejected look after finding out the latter, he may be giving up on all attempts at the idea of getting back together with Marinette, and may or may not start shipping the Love Square now, just like how Kagami decided to ship Adrienette in “Mr. Pigeon 72”. I'm not saying the idea of Luka knowing someone's identity is bad, but it feels like this only happened specifically to stop him from having feelings for Marinette because now he knows Adrien loves her alter ego, and vice versa. Maybe it'll be touched upon in a later episode, but this was just a dick move by the writers in terms of ending all chances of Lukanette like this in order to ensure the Love Square has absolutely no competition.

So the episode ends with Marinette and Adrien deciding to focus on their futures while Alec starts a new show where he helps people live out their childhood dreams, albeit dressed like Style Queen for some reason.

Eh, he still picked a pretty cool Akuma to dress up as in my opinion. A lot of people have viewed this ending as evidence Alec is a drag queen with how he dressed up, coupled with the fact that he said something that was very similar to famous drag queen RuPaul.

Alec: And now, we're gonna love one another, starting with everyone loving themselves! Because how are you gonna love other people if you don't love yourself?

Though Astruc, being Astruc, once again decided to be vague when asked about the subject on Twitter, though at least the subtext is better than when he said he didn't make Juleka and Rose girlfriends because of censors while making it seem like a noble act.

Overall, this was a really good episode, though there were some underlying issues that really kept me from actually liking it. For the most part, it had some good drama with the main character, a rare scene where Marinette didn't stammer around Adrien, a creative (albeit flawed) Akuma with some good action, and an interesting idea with Luka knowing everything about the Love Square now.

There are just two big problems that really got to me about this episode. Let's get the obvious one out of the way, Luka. Honestly, he really didn't need to be in the episode. Sure, he gave some sound advice to Marinette and Adrien about their careers, but it felt kind of strange to see someone their age talking to them about their future when Andre, someone who actually had experience struggling to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, was pushed to the side. And like I said earlier, I think the only reason Luka found out about Marinette and Adrien's identities was to discourage him from thinking about getting back together with Marinette. After all, now that he realizes how “made for each other” they are, he can't stand in the way of the Love Square.

The problem is that in the context of the episode, we don't really see what made him see things that way. At least in “Mr. Pigeon 72”, Kagami consistently viewed Marinette's attempts to get her and Adrien back together as a subconscious desire to be with Adrien. It was dumb with how she decided to go to Team Adrienette at the end of the episode, but it was something. I'm glad the episode didn't force in too many Love Square shenanigans, but I think more should have been done to contextualize Luka's feelings towards the reveal. I get the writers wanted to make sure Lukanette had no chance of coming back, but this just feels rushed.

And then there's Alec's redemption arc. While it's not a bad idea in concept, the problem is that it flies in the fact of a recurring theme this season, that being redemption. Because, here's the funny thing: Alec blatantly said he became an asshole TV personality because of his history of bullying, and decided to retaliate as a result, but he eventually saw the error of his ways and turned over a new leaf. For long time readers of this blog, I apologize for bringing this up yet again, but what exactly makes this different from everything Astruc said about Chloe? You know, when he said that you make your formative choices when you're fourteen? Just like how Alec decided to become a reality TV host making fun of people after a troubling experience from when he was a kid?

Let's say that I agree with Astruc's views about Chloe. How is Alec different from what Astruc's said about Chloe for almost two years at this point? What makes Chloe, someone who was the victim of a troubled childhood who never got help, an irredeemable monster while Alec, someone who also had a troubled childhood and had even more time to get help while never getting any, capable of change? I thought he Alec made a formative choice when he was young and stuck with it, just like how Chloe started to fully develop at the age of fourteen. I mean, Astruc, you yourself said that Chloe's troubled childhood “was no excuse to treat people like shit”, according to you.

I'm just saying, dude, if Chloe can't be redeemed because of the stuff you yourself said, then that shouldn't apply to Alec either. When you really think about it, it's almost like Astruc either made up a bunch of excuses to not redeem Chloe, or he's a massive hypocrite for going back on his word. You can't really justify this kind of hypocrisy relating to Alec's redemption when you remember just how much of a hardass Astruc was when explaining why redemption was impossible for Chloe.

This coupled with the treatment of Luka really drags this episode from really good to blatantly insulting to certain viewers. Then again, these two choices just got to me personally. I feel like if those two things weren't there, things could have made this episode a lot better for me personally. I can see why a lot of people in the fandom still like this episode, but I'm honestly not a fan of it.

[writer-k-pop]

Inside My Phone

나는 그의 연락처를 바꾸는 것으 잊었다. I forgot to change his contact name.

Description: During an appearance on a talk show about all things woman, YouTuber (y/n) reveals some cute relationship facts about her relationship with Seventeen’s Seungcheol. The hosts asked to call him and then his voice appeared in the interview as he’s asked a couple questions about you. Warnings: Swearing Genre: Fluff, Idol!Seungcheol x Fem!Youtuber!Reader Word Count: 2.3k

Seventeen Masterlist | Masterlists

"Alright," Sook, one of the panelists clapped her hands together, "Shall we move onto the next topic?"

My hands got a little sweaty with nerves, "This is the topic I'm most nervous about." I commented, looking at the other women sitting at the camera facing tables.

"The fans love 'Inside My Phone.'" Narae said and I couldn't deny that because I also really enjoyed watching this segment also.

A staff member handed me my phone and I looked to Sook who had a cord that would display my phone on the screen behind me.

"This," She said, holding the cord in front of her face, "Is the magically cord that will reveal what is on your phone. Are you ready, (y/n)?" She asks me with a quirked eyebrow.

I let out an airy chuckle, "I hope so." I tried to burst all the bubbles of nervousness but they still bubbled.

"I'm so curious!" Oh My Girl's Seunghee squealed excitedly from the spot next to Narae as Sook handed me the cord and I plugged it into my phone.

"Won't it be similar to what's on your phone?" Youngja wondered.

Seunghee shook her head, "Youtubers and singers are similar but she's totally different than me." She explained, "Plus, she might have cute photos with her boyfriend."

Narae clapped her hands, "Right! You don't have anything we should be worried about, right?" She asked her heavily hinted question, tilting her head down and rapidly blinked her eyes.

I shook my hands and head, but played into her joke. "There aren't any. I double checked last night." Though, there were never any naughty pictures on my phone to start with. We kept those somewhere else (😏).

"So, should we start then?" Sook asked everyone once the PD's gave us the clear connection for my phone.

"First up, your lock screen." Narae reads from her cue cards.

I awakened my phone and my lock screen shined up at me. The picture of Seungcheol and I surrounded by cherry blossoms graced my phone screen, only the time and date distorting the picture. The memory of the day made me smile and made the others coo.

"As expected." Youngja nodded her head in approval.

"When was this taken?" Sook asked me with curiosity.

"Mmmm, about..." I trailed off in thought, trying to pinpoint when we took this photo, "3-4 months ago, I think..." I answered her and gave her a slightly apologetic look for not remembering more clearly.

"Yah, that's so cute." Seunghee sighed, staring at the screen. I nearly blushed from all the compliments about us.

"Next, if you would unlock your phone." Sook pressed forward and I quickly followed her instructions. "What's the most recent photo you took?" She finished her part.

"Uh..." I opened my photos app, "Like selfie or screenshot or...?" "Selfie." Seunghee piped up excitedly.

I smiled at her answer and scanned my pictures for the last selfie I took. Which just happened to also have Seungcheol in it. I clicked on it and it filled my screen.

In it, Seungcheol has his post-practice face smooshed up against my left cheek and my face shows a smile of shock that he had done that. In the background, however, are a few of the members doing some interesting things.

"Stop being so cute!" Youngja exclaimed and swatted her hands in my direction.

"Can you explain what is happening?" Narae wondered and I nodded.

"A few days ago, I went to pick Seungcheol up for a small date and he was a little sweaty." I explained, "But he had asked to use my camera to fix his hair. Then he smooshed his cheek against mine and took the picture."

"All sweaty?" Sook asked.

I nodded with a laugh, "Yeah. It was gross."

"But the picture is cute." Narae complimented.

"But what is happening in the background?" Seunghee asked, pointing up to the screen with a little bit of worry.

I squinted at my phone and zoomed in on the background where Hoshi and DK were caught posing in some really weird ways and Vernon and Woozi just stare at them with their arms crossed over their chests.

"Ah, I think that's Hoshi and DK, uhm, yeah, I don't really know what they're doing." I laughed, "Probably some thing that only makes sense in their minds."

"They sure are characters." Sook chuckled. "Shall we continue on?"

I nodded, ready to get Hoshi and DK's weird poses off my screen.

"Last song or album you downloaded onto your phone." Narae said.

"That's easy." I opened my music app and scrolled down a bit, "It was Monsta X's new album." I tapped on the album but Seunghee's squeal made me quickly swipe back.

"OH!" She covered her mouth with her hand, "You have our album on your phone?"

I scrolled down a little more and there it sat. "Yeah, I really enjoyed it." I told her with a smile.

"Wait, how did you see that? It was like not even halfway visible." Sook wondered, looking at Seunghee with bewildered eyes.

"An artist knows their album cover from anywhere." I said, recalling the many times Seungcheol would point out their new release from a ridiculous distance away.

"Exactly." Seunghee said smugly, liking the fact that I defended her, "I could find our albums anywhere."

"Don't test her, Seunghee." Narae warned her as Sook pointed a playfully threatening finger at her.

"I really like their album." Youngja said absentmindedly and we all whipped our heads toward her, "The Monsta X album." She clarified, pointing up at the screen.

We all dropped our jaws slightly in realization and chuckled.

"Next question: what is the last text message you received?" Sook tapped her cue cards against the table and my heartbeat jumped.

"Uh, last text message I received..." I said slowly, and opened my messages app. Preparing for it to be a really embarrassing conversation in the group chat, I'm relieved when my most recent conversation is a private conversation with Seungcheol.

"Cheollie?" Narae read out his name and I almost bursted into laughter. He definitely told me to change his contact name yesterday and I definitely forgot. Oh, he was going to be so pouty when this show aired.

"I forgot to change his contact name." I squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment. "He's going to be pouty."

"Why?" Youngja wondered, "It's cute!"

"Hey, you sound like a fangirl." Narae pointed at Youngja with a laugh.

"I'm just stating facts." Youngja defended herself.

"What did Seungcheol send you?" Sook wondered, ignoring the other two women.

"Uh, he said," I opened the conversation and the last message he sent made my heart fill with love.

'Hey, you, I don't remember when you said your filming thing is but good luck! You'll do amazing! Call me when you're done and we can do something. Love you!'

Seunghee giggled and Narae and Sook put their hands over their hearts and leaned back in their chairs. Youngja just awed at the message. It was a little weird having such large reactions to a simple, pretty normal, text message so all I could do was laugh at the awkward position I was in.

"Ya, I don't think any of my friends get messages like that and they're married!" Sook said, regaining some of her composure. Seunghee was still very much still in the feels.

"It's pretty normal for us." I told her, "We don't do it often but if we know the other has a really big schedule, we'll send supportive messages like that."

"By chance," Narae started with an unexplainable excitement in her eyes, "Do you think you could call him?"

I paused to glance at the PD's behind the cameras but they were saying it was okay to go off script.

"If he's free." Sook added, quickly taking in my silence, "If he's busy, we don't want to bother him."

"I don't think he has anything going on today." I tried to recall if he told me of any plans he had for the day, "I can try calling him."

Narae and Sook clapped their hands for me while I tapped on Seungcheol's profile picture and hit the call button before turning it on speaker.

We all sat in silence, listening to the first ring. Then the second. Then the third.

"Maybe he's busy..." Seunghee whispered.

"Maybe his phone's off." Youngja suggested.

I shook my head, "He doesn't really turn his ringer off if he-"

The receiver picking up cut me off.

"Hey, love." Seungcheol's deep voice rings through the phone. "Are you already finished?"

All four women got really giddy and their jaws dropped open.

"No, not yet." I answered him before he got worried. "Do you have time to call? Are you busy?" I asked.

"I'm not busy. I'm just hanging out at the dorm." He told me and I felt relief spread across my shoulders. "Are you good?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I chuckled at his question, "We're just recording and we are doing 'Inside My Phone' segment. They saw the text you sent and wanted to call you."

"Ah, that text." He chuckled over the phone in embarrassment. "Wait! That means you're recording right now?"

"Yeah." I told him and he instantly cleared his throat.

"Hello, I'm Seventeen's leader, S.Coups. Also known as YouTuber (y/n)'s boyfriend, Choi Seungcheol. Nice to meet you." He introduced himself with his leader voice and I nearly busted a lung from laughing.

"Nice to meet you, S.Coups." Sook said, getting closer to my phone. "I'm Kim Sook and Park Narae, Lee Youngja, and Oh My Girl's Seunghee are also with me."

"Seunghee's there?" Seungcheol asked, clearly surprised.

"Yes I am, sunbae!" Seunghee jumped up with excitement.

"Oh, Seunghee, I didn't know you'd be on the show." Seungcheol commented.

"(y/n) didn't tell you, sunbae?" Seunghee asked, shooting me a glance but I just shrugged. I didn't even know she was coming until I showed up for the recording.

"No, but I don't think she knew." Seungcheol explained and I clicked my tongue.

"S.Coups." Narae spoke up, "(y/n) said that you guys send texts to each other before big events."

"Yes, that's true." Seungcheol said.

"So when was the last time she sent you a text like that?" Narae finished her question.

"Uh..." Seungcheol trailed off in thought, "Last month when I had my first solo magazine shoot." He answered and the studio erupted in reactions.

"Yahhh. You two seem to match each other really well." Sook commented and Seungcheol let out an embarrassed laugh.

"What is your favorite thing about (y/n)?" Narae suddenly asked, turning the show into a special on our relationship.

"This suddenly?" Seungcheol chuckled nervously.

"You don't have to answer." I quickly tried to save him from having to answer it but he decided to answer anyway.

"No, no, it's fine. It was just unexpected." Seungcheol said and took a couple seconds to collect his thoughts, "Well, my favorite thing would have to be how considerate she is."

"Can you explain that?" Sook wondered and I lightly smacked her arm while giving her a 'why?' expression.

"She's just very caring towards everyone." Seungcheol explained, "The Seventeen members, our staff, other staff, and even the fans. She's very kind to them."

"That's right. She is really kind." Sook nodded her head in agreement and patted my shoulder.

There was some noise on his end of the line and I leaned forward to take over the conversation again.

"Everything good?" I asked, knowing the noise was probably the other members talking to him.

"Yeah, but I think I'm going to have to go. I'm being summoned by Woozi to fix some lyrics or something." Seungcheol said with an apology laced into his tone.

"Yeah, yeah. Go ahead." I told him, "I'll call you when I get done."

"Okay, sounds good." He replied, "Thank you Sook, Narae, Youngja, and Seunghee! (y/n), have fun!"

We all said bye before I hung up the call. After settling back into their chairs, Sook was the first to speak.

"That was so nice that he was able to talk for a little bit." Sook commented, scooting closer to the table.

"It was." I mirrored her content.

"So, tell us, (y/n)," Narae turned to me, "Do you have any big projects coming up?"

"Of course, I have many projects planned for the next few months." I teased her with a smile, "But they're all secrets for now."

Seunghee let out a small whine, "Can't you tell us about one of them? Like just who it's going to be with?"

"Yeah," Sook agreed, "Just give us a little hint. A tiny baby hint."

Youngja sat in her chair nodding aggressively.

I rested my hand over my lips, contemplating if I can or if I should. Glancing at my manager, she gave me a small shrug of indifference.

"Okay, I'll give you three hints for certain upcoming videos." I caved and the others clapped in excitement. I listed off the hints with my hands, "First hint is shopping. Second hint is colors. Third hint is boyfriend." I said and then clamped my mouth shut, not giving any other information.

"That's it? You're not going to explain?" Youngja said with a pout.

"She can't do that." Sook calmed the other woman, "They're hints. The fans have to try and guess, right?"

"Right, that's how hints work." I nodded, confirming Sook's guess.

"Well, thank you for coming, for talking with us, and for giving us those hints." Narae began the ending. "We'll see you at the Girl's Table next week."

"On Wednesday night." Sook continued.

"At 8:45." Seunghee stated the time.

"On KBS!" Youngja finished and we all smiled and waved at the camera.

Once the cameras were off, I moved to pull the cord out of my phone. But just as I do so, a text from Seungcheol lit up the screen.

It read, "You did remember to change my contact name, right?"

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

People might like to know that NextUp Comedy’s got a sale on at the moment, annual memberships are going from twenty pounds, which is 34 Canadian dollars, which I know because I just bought one. Don’t know what it is in other currencies, but it’s a good bit cheaper than their normal price, and their normal price was, to be fair to them, already pretty cheap for what you get.

For anyone who doesn’t know, NextUp is a streaming service for UK stand-up comedy, featuring fairly frequent livestreams as well a lot of stuff that can be watched on demand. Livestreams are sometimes individual shows and sometimes a gig with multiple acts on it, I know they do regular work with Mark Watson’s Inpatient company that’ll put on a night that features a bunch of their comedians and stream it on NextUp.

If I’m honest, the fact that I’ve purchased a NextUp membership doesn’t actually give me access to more comedy than I already had, because of course there are ways to find this stuff for free (also someone else was generously letting me use his password), but it does alleviate my guilt about enjoying this stuff while failing to compensate people who deserve compensation for making it, recording and producing it, and publishing it.

Also, having my own account means I can mess around with things like marking as “watched” all the shows I have watched, and having an easy way to see what else there is. NextUp has some playlists that group shows by type and things like that, and I’m thinking I might try going right through some of those. Some people claim to have completed Netflix during the pandemic. I’ll see how close I can come to completing NextUp. But I won’t actually complete anything because I’m not watching Tony Law. I don’t care how funny he is, he’s gone all Comedy Unleashed now and I cannot watch his stuff because I might enjoy it and then I’ll be annoyed with myself for that. It’s almost worse than hate-watching a comedian who’s right-wing and bad at comedy.

Anyway, I’m currently down a rabbit hole of Lee and Herring, which has recently expended to include more Stewart Lee stuff that I haven’t seen before. Last year I watched his two TV shows (Comedy Vehicle, Alternative Comedy Experience) and all DVDs, but that’s it, and there’s more out there than that. So I’ve decided that’s where I’m going next in my comedy watching/listening, but it does go against what I’ve been thinking I should do lately, which is get into more recent comedy. I’m so focused on this 00s/CMG-era stuff, I should see more things that are going on now. Is what I thought, but as I write this I’m listening to a 1992 episode of a Lee and Herring radio show, because I’ve accidentally gone to the generation before the CMG, instead of the generations after.

Incidentally, the other thing I'm in the middle of right now is s01e05 of This Morning with Richard Not Judy, and would anyone like a screenshot from it?

Baby Mel and Sue sitting awkwardly on couches that two clashing shades of orange, making awkward conversation with Baby Lee and Herring. I think it might be the 90s.

Anyway. What I'm thinking, to make up for the extreme 90s-ness of that image, is I’ll trade it off. My comedy for the next will be alternative between things from the 90s (or things from after the 90s but they started in the 90s – ie. Stewart Lee, and I’ve downloaded some Alan Partridge audiobook things), and things on NextUp comedy, which are all relatively recent. Not all from this year or anything, but all more recent than the 90s.

Today, I watched Ian Smith’s Half Life (because he’s been turning up on The Bugle lately and I will always reward people who go on that podcast by seeking out their stand-up) and Tom Parry’s Parryoke. The former was pretty decent, nothing Earth-shattering or anything. The structure was a bit weak, but the stories were funny. Tom Parry had the fact that he looks and talks so much like Matt Forde working against him in my mind, but he made up for it by not actually being Matt Forde. It was fun. Just really, really fun. It was pretty much an hour about weddings, which are not my favourite comedy subject, but he was so much fun that I had fun watching it anyway. It was easy and light and entertaining and at one point he did show us a picture of his penis but it’s fine, it was tastefully done. So stay tuned for more searingly insightful reviews like those ones.

I've wandered through a few topics in this post, but just to re-iterate the main point: if you have any interest in this sort of thing, I highly recommend getting a discounted NextUp membership while the sale's on (it says it applies to the first 200 people who sign up, and I have no concept of how popular that site is so I don't know how fast that'll go), it's really good value. A streaming service that won't cancel your favourite show after one season or fail to pay their creative people or spend their nights dreaming of ways to fuck over their userbase more.

This also seems like a good time to get in there, because they're going to film a bunch of stuff at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and livestream it.

[fatehbaz]

ughhhhhhhhh noooo stop it! aha! don’t release non-native earthworms in random plots of soil for enhancing gardens or free bait, don’t do it anywhere in North America lmaoooo! stop, it’s so dangerous and extremely harmful, with devastating and surprisingly dramatic and visible biome-wide effects! haha popular tumblr blogs should stop repeatedly and widely sharing advice recommending the release of non-native earthworms and calling it “anti-imperialist praxis” and “bioregional autonomy” and “vegan self-suffiency” lol! dooooon’t! it straight up destroys soil and outright kills forests :/ it directly causes death of understory plants; death of iconic species like goblin fern and serviceberry; elimination of vital fungal networks providing both soil structure and tree-to-tree nutrient-sharing; loss of native invertebrates and amphibians; savannification of the boundary between woodland and tallgrass prairie; death of red maple, sugar maple, and red oak stands; and especially harms hardwoods forests of the Great Lakes and Midwest lmao seriously stooooop it >:(

Anyway for real, I sure hope no one is deliberately releasing non-native and invasive earthworms, or bait worms, anywhere on Turtle Island/North American land, especially west of the Mississippi River or north of the Wisconsin glaciation. Earthworms and bait worms sold in stores are, by and large, not species native to the continent. They severely harm forests and soil ecology, leading directly to disruption of fungal networks; death of saplings and seedlings; death of forest understory plants; replacement of typical understory species with grasses; mortality in adult trees, as well; changes in pH; and other harm, especially devastating in northern hardwoods forests of the Great Lakes region.

Not gonna name names, but several times this year, popular blogs from the [forest-lover, anarchist/leftist/solarpunk, Moomin-fan, environmentalist-ish] realms of Tumblr have widely shared advice recommending the release of non-native earthworms or bait worms into the wild, as a form of “praxis”. I’ve got these posts screenshotted, but since I generally respect people in these circles - and in the interest of avoiding discourse and drama - I’m not going to share them. (A popular post was widely shared in February 2019; another “release store-bought earthworms” post was shared in December 2019.) I appreciate where their hearts are at. But:

Source: [x].

Some things:

From a Phys dot org summary of Great Lakes Worm Watch:

"The western Great Lakes region, which is the area we're focused on, has no native earthworms," says ecologist Cindy Hale, a research associate with the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Native earthworms in the region were all wiped out after the last Ice Age. The current population was brought by Europeans hundreds of years ago, (soil was often used as ballast in ships) and they’re now changing the face of local forests. Anglers are adding to the problem by dumping worms that don't end up on the end of a hook.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Hale's team created the Great Lakes Worm Watch website and outreach programs to stop the spread of non-native earthworms and to clear up the common misconception that they're harmless. [...] Earthworms may be small but when they take over a forest, the impact is dramatic. They cause the rapid incorporation of organic material into the soil, changing its structure, chemistry and nutrient dynamics. What's known as the duff layer is suddenly removed, and this duff, or decaying organic material on the forest floor, is habitat for several species of insects, spiders, small vertebrates, bacteria and fungi. It is also the primary rooting zone for most plants."What's really the biggest negative effect on the plants directly is the removal of their rooting zone. It can cause mortality of adult plants but, furthermore, it can cause a loss of reproductive potential. A lot of these native plants have seeds that have very complex seed dormancy and germination strategies," says Hale.

--

Caption by Shireen Gonzaga for EarthSky: “A forest understory with a high diversity of native plants, the result when there are no earthworms in the soil. Image courtesy of Paul Ojanen.”

Caption by Shireen Gonzaga for EarthSky: “Forest soil with an abundance of non-native earthworms can result in a bare understory. Image courtesy of Scott L Loss.”

Non-native worms disrupt fungi networks, alter soil pH, damage seedlings, and allow grasses to gain stronger footholds to replace native/natural forest understory plants (from an EarthSky review of 2016 research by German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research):

Bottom line: European earthworms, introduced by early settlers, are changing the physical and chemical characteristics of soil in northern North American forests, creating a decreased diversity in native plants. [...] At the top soil layer, earthworms convert fallen leaves to humus. That’s a good thing if you’re growing a garden, but, in a natural forest, it causes a fast-tracking of the release of nutrients instead of allowing the leaf litter to break down more slowly, as it would without the earthworms.

Also, as they burrow through the ground, earthworms disrupt the mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants. Some deep-burrowing worm species change the pH of upper soil layers by mixing in alkaline soil from deeper in the ground. [...]

All of these changes adversely affect native plants that did not evolve in such conditions. For instance, the goblin fern is rarely found in areas with high earthworm density. Other native plants facing threats include largeflower bellwort, trillium and Solomon’s seal. Earthworms also consume the seeds and seedlings of some plant species, influencing what grows in the forest understory.

In some locations, grasses, with their fine root systems that quickly absorb nutrients, dominate the forest floor. Non-native invasive plants that evolved in soils containing earthworms gain an even stronger foothold in these forests.

--

Cindy Hale, the prominent University of Minnesota-based researcher of non-native earthworms in the Great Lakes region, has published this book through Kollath-Stensaas Publishing:

--

Non-native worms harm birch trees specifically and hardwood forests generally (excerpt from University of Toronto research, 2016):

The worms can cause dramatic changes to ecosystems by altering soils, reducing leaf litter and disrupting microbial interactions, which reduces biodiversity. Now it seems they are also eating plant seeds in the wild, potentially altering the make-up of forest communities. (…)

“They eat a lot more seeds than we think,” says Cassin [ecologist at University of Toronto in Mississauga], now at the Ontario Invasive Plant Council in Canada.

The study shows another way that earthworms can alter forest ecosystems, particularly for small-seeded species such as birch, says Lee Frelich, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota in St Paul. (…)

Once earthworms have invaded a habitat, they are almost impossible to eradicate, says Erin Bayne, of the University of Alberta in Canada. Conservationists must instead work to keep worms out of pristine habitats, he says, for example by restricting the use of worms as fishing bait and by controlling accidental transport of contaminated soil.

--

Non-native worms lead to wildflower, fern, and sapling death. In hardwood forests, this loss is probably due partially to how worms degrade the duff layer; the loss of this layer also provokes soil erosion and directly eliminates the forest floor shelter of larger invertebrates and amphibians. When saplings cannot establish themselves, there is tree loss. (From Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

Studies conducted by the University of Minnesota and forest managers show that at least seven species are invading our hardwood forests and causing the loss of tree seedlings, wildflowers, and ferns.

--

Sugar maples, important both for forests and human food production, are devastated by the worms (from several years of research by Michigan Technological University across multiple national and state forests in the Upper Great Lakes):

A new study suggests that non-native worms are eating up the forest floor, causing sugar maples to die back and perhaps harming other forest dwellers.

Sugar maples are prized as much for their valuable lumber as for their sugary sap and dazzling fall colors. In Michigan alone, they are the basis of a multi-million-dollar industry. But several years ago, foresters began noticing that the crowns of the big trees appeared unhealthy, with bare limbs and little new growth. “They were losing trees before they could harvest them.” (…)

--

Great Lakes Worm Watch has some fun links and resources:

You can download a comprehensive key that helps identify earthworm species. Available for free, via Great Lakes Worm Watch:

Text from Great Lakes Worm Watch: “Different plant species respond to earthworm invasions differently. Some native plants appear to be very sensitive, so much so, that they can rapidly disappear when earthworms invade a forest. Some examples of these plants include…” 

Worm Watch: “If earthworm invasion leads to changes in the mycorrhizal community of fungi, the diversity of plants that make up the understory would be dramatically changed. Fungi are a preferred food of many earthworm species and they graze it heavily, which could dramatically impact the abundance and composition of fungi in the soil.  By grazing fungi on or near plant roots, the earthworms not only can damage the roots, but they prevent the plant and fungi from forming the symbiotic relationship where mycorrhizal fungi exchange nutrients and water for carbohydrates with green plants.  If the fungi can't get enough food, they will die back even further.  For some of the native plants that need mycorrhizal fungi, especially when the plant is young and small, survival will be difficult if earthworms prevent this relationship from being formed.”

-

NO MUSHROOMS

[musmus-simblr]

Mood Overlays / Внешность под настроение

Compatible with / Совместим с: 1.101.290.1030 (PC) / 1.101.290.1230 (Mac).

EN:

This is (again) not a mod, but something much more better. This is a template of a mod.

After you set it up correctly, it will change the appearance of your sims depending on their mood. For example, you can add blushing to the flirty or embarrassed moods, tears to the sad mood, or even automatically put on a sleeping mask while your sims are asleep.

This was requested by members of the Origamika's group: https://vk.com/origamika_sims4

RU:

Это снова не мод, а кое-что получше — это шаблон мода.

После того, как вы его правильно настроите, он будет изменять внешность ваших симов в зависимости от их настроения. Например, можно добавить румянец на кокетливое или смущённое, слёзы на грустное или даже автоматически надевать маску для сна.

Сделано по просьбе участников хомячьей беседки в группе Оригамики: https://vk.com/origamika_sims4

EN:

Attention! Before downloading, please read the instructions carefully! Do not install the mod “as is”, it will not work!

In the archive you will find a whole bunch of files: one script (this is required, install it in any case), file musmus_MoodOverlays_Core.package (also required) and one file for each game mood (except fine), including sleeping mood. You will only need to install and edit files for moods you wish to change. Which file belongs to which mood is indicated in the file name.

The mod works almost like the mod template for wedding rings — that is, it adds something from the CAS to the sim when they are in the right mood. Therefore, at first you need to decide what and for what mood you want to add, and, of course, download CC you need, if you have not downloaded it yet. With this mod, you can add only one CC for each mood! And just like with wedding rings, the mod does not touch the CC that adds to the sim in any way. That is, if this CC conflicts with something on your sim or does not suitable for their gender frame, then the mod will not be able to do anything with it.

Important: since moods happen to sims of all ages and any gender, the CC you choose should also be suitable for sims of any age and gender. Otherwise, the game should not give out errors (the mod should prevent that), but CC will simply not be displayed on sims of the age and gender that it does not fit according to its CAS settings. Of course, you can add different CC depending on the sim's age, gender, gender preferences and other parameters, but the mod is not designed for this at this stage. If you want to do something like that, please contact me and specify exactly what you need: what moods, what differences between the CC being added, etc. When and if I have time, I will try to make a template for your request.

Of course, you can use not only CC, but also standard Maxis content.

After you have selected CC (or something Maxis), unzip archive with the mod and edit the files of all moods you want to change. They should be edited in Sims 4 Studio like the files for the wedding rings mod, the instructions are available here: https://musmus-simblr.tumblr.com/private/662813641803988992/tumblr_TXB10HCmYG6mkeS30

Each file has one line of the Buff Tuning type, you need to insert copied value (according to the instructions) instead of CAS_PART_ID there. The screenshot below shows an example, a file for an angry mood.

After everything is done, do not forget to save the files. If necessary, you can merge files with the package extension into one via Sims 4 Studio, this will not break the mod. That's it, now the mod is ready for installation.

Installation: put all the necessary files in the Mods folder, the mod files should not go deeper than one subfolder. And don’t forget to enable script mods in the game settings.

It will conflict with any mods that do something similar, for example, with "My Appearance" pack in SOL. Such conflicts should not break your game, but if your sim in a flirty mood, for example, both the effects from SOL and the effects from my mod will be applied to them, if you install the file for a flirty mood from my mod.

It should not conflict with mods that add new moods to the game or change something in existing ones.

You can find download link at the end of the post.

Changelog:

16/09/22 (v1.1): Reworked overlay adding system (like I did with wedding rings last year) and removed overlays from werewolves in their werewolf forms. ATTENTION! There is one new required file musmus_MoodOverlays_Core.package. Don't forget to install this and transfer IDs from your old edited packages, instruction didn't change at all.

RU:

Внимание! Прежде, чем скачивать, пожалуйста, внимательно прочтите инструкцию! Не устанавливайте мод «как есть», он не будет работать!

В архиве вы найдёте целую пачку файлов: один скрипт (его устанавливать обязательно в любом случае), файл musmus_MoodOverlays_Core.package (тоже устанавливать обязательно) и по одному файлу на каждое игровое настроение (кроме нейтрального), в том числе сон. Устанавливать и редактировать нужно будет только файлы для тех настроений, в которых вы хотите что-то изменить.

musmus_MoodOverlays_Angry.package — сердитое настроение

musmus_MoodOverlays_Asleep.package — сон

musmus_MoodOverlays_Bored.package — скука

musmus_MoodOverlays_Confident.package — уверенность

musmus_MoodOverlays_Dazed.package — ошалелое состояние

musmus_MoodOverlays_Embarrassed.package — смущение

musmus_MoodOverlays_Energized.package — возбуждение

musmus_MoodOverlays_Flirty.package — кокетливость

musmus_MoodOverlays_Focused.package — внимательность

musmus_MoodOverlays_Happy.package — счастье

musmus_MoodOverlays_Inspired.package — вдохновение

musmus_MoodOverlays_Playful.package — игривость

musmus_MoodOverlays_Possessed.package — одержимость

musmus_MoodOverlays_Sad.package — грусть

musmus_MoodOverlays_Scared.package — страх

musmus_MoodOverlays_Stressed.package — напряжение

musmus_MoodOverlays_Uncomfortable.package — дискомфорт

Мод работает примерно по такому же принципу, как и шаблон мода на обручальные кольца — то есть добавляет что-то из CAS на сима, когда он в нужном настроении. Поэтому для начала вам нужно определиться, что и в каком настроении вы хотите добавить, и, естественно, скачать нужный CC, если он у вас еще не скачан. На каждое настроение с помощью этого мода вы сможете добавить только по одному CC! И точно так же, как и с обручальными кольцами, мод никак не трогает CC, который добавляет к симу. То есть если этот CC конфликтует с чем-то на вашем симе или не подходит по полу, то, увы, мод ничего поделать не сможет.

Важно: поскольку настроения случаются у симов всех возрастов и любого пола, то и выбранный вами CC должен подходить симам любого возраста и пола. В противном случае ошибки игра выдавать не должна (мод на это настроен), но CC просто не отобразится на симах того возраста и пола, которым не подходит согласно своим настройкам. Разумеется, можно добавлять разный CC в зависимости от возраста сима, пола, гендерных предпочтений и прочих параметров, но мод на данном этапе на это не рассчитан. Если у вас возникла такая потребность — дайте мне, пожалуйста, знать и укажите, что именно вам нужно: какие настроения, какие различия между добавляемым CC и т.д. Когда и если у меня будет время, я постараюсь сделать шаблон под ваш запрос.

Разумеется, использовать можно не только CC, но и стандартный игровой контент.

После того, как вы выбрали CC (или что-то стандартное), мод надо разархивировать и отредактировать файлы всех настроений, в которых вы хотите что-то изменить. Редактируются они в программе Sims 4 Studio по такому же принципу, как и файлы для мода на обручальные кольца, инструкция есть по ссылке: https://musmus-simblr.tumblr.com/private/662813860011687936/tumblr_ikOBz78ISTRttKBPH

В каждом файле есть ровно одна строка типа Buff Tuning, и именно туда, вместо CAS_PART_ID, нужно будет вставить циферки, которые вы получили по инструкции. На скрине ниже — пример, файл для сердитого настроения.

После того, как всё сделали, не забудьте сохранить файлы. Если нужно, можете объединить файлы с расширением package в один через Sims 4 Studio, на работоспособность мода это не повлияет. Всё, теперь мод готов к установке.

Установка: все необходимые файлы положить в папку Mods, не глубже одной подпапки. И не забудьте включить в настройках игры моды сценариев и пользовательские материалы.

Будет визуально конфликтовать с любыми модами, которые делают нечто похожее, например, с модулем «My Appearance» в SOL. Игру вам подобные конфликты сломать не должны, просто в кокетливом настроении, к примеру, к симу применятся и эффекты от SOL, и эффекты от моего мода, если вы установите файл для кокетливого настроения.

Не должен конфликтовать с модами, которые добавляют новые настроения в игру или изменяют что-то в уже существующих.

Перевод к моду не требуется, текста в моде нет.

Лог изменений:

16/09/22 (v1.1): Переделана система добавления оверлеев, она теперь точно такая же, как в моде на обручальные кольца. Кроме того, убрала оверлеи с оборотней в форме оборотня. ОБРАТИТЕ ВНИМАНИЕ: в состав мода добавился еще один файл musmus_MoodOverlays_Core — его нужно устанавливать обязательно. Ну и напоминаю, что это шаблон мода, то есть придется взять значения из старого (отредактированного вами) мода и вставить в новые файлы на те же места, инструкция не изменилась.

Attention! Before downloading, please read the instructions carefully! Do not install the mod “as is”, it will not work!

Внимание! Прежде, чем скачивать, пожалуйста, внимательно прочтите инструкцию! Не устанавливайте мод «как есть», он не будет работать!

DOWNLOAD / СКАЧАТЬ: https://www.simfileshare.net/download/2736618/

[yukihime242]

In my previous post, I talked about the games I’m currently playing. In this post, I’m gonna talk about the games I want to play.

If only I could just play all of them without caring, but reality is never kinder. I will have to ponder long and hard on which games should take precedence for me to try.

1️⃣ Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds

(Picture Source: Ni no Kuni official webpage thru Google Image Search)

Ni no Kuni is an MMORPG which uses inspired characters from Studio Ghibli in the game. The game looks absolutely beautiful and it makes me wanna try it.

(Picture Credit: Nintendo Everything)

In order to save the storage space on my phone, I decided to download the PC version which they have. The bonus part is that you don’t have to download some emulator to play. 

But, when I got to the download page...

I was quite put off by the word “Beta” being there because it seems to be saying that it’s not fully functional on PC. At least, that’s the message I’m getting. Hence, I decided to wait a while and my assignments came in. Coincidentally a good timing for me to wait it out. But when I went back again today, it was still written there “Beta”.

I know a lot of other players download the PC version and seemingly does not have any issues with it. But I don’t want to take my chances because I still need my laptop for school work. 

Welp, I guess I have to download it onto my phone if I ever want to try it out.

2️⃣ Tower of Fantasty

This game was finally released globally and it is currently the only game anyone is ever talking about. There’s bound to be some slander to the game about the developers copying everything from Genshin Impact. 

(Picture Credit: Polygon)

I usually don’t mind characters’ movements in the game because there’s a limit to how much you can create movements from scratch. There’s definitely bound to be some similarity in movements as long as you don’t nit-pick and scrutinize frame by frame. 

Seeing the screenshot above, I’d say it’s Genshin-inspired since the game is still one of the most popular games to date. I have also seen on my TikTok feed of people quitting Tower of Fantasy but reasons are unknown to me.

Although I do take into account of the reviews, I’m not one to look at one side of the story. Perhaps it’s just their preferences and may be I will like it. It was the same with Honkai Impact where everybody said that they love it but it was kinda boring to me (personal preferences, people, personal preferences).

I will probably take a look at Tower of Fantasy but I’m not feeling optimistic since most of the gameplay is cyber-ish. Hopefully it will be a good game to play when I’m bored of Genshin.

3️⃣ Neir Reincarnation

(Picture Source: Neir wiki fandom)

I DID download the game and I DID play it for a while. But right now, I’m having second thoughts about it.

First of all, the Nier series is super long. Second, THERE WAS NO FREAKING TUTORIAL ON HOW TO DO THE BATTLE! I almost died in the first story.

I’m quite inclined to just uninstall it and watch it on YouTube instead like how I have always done with the Drakengard and Nier series. So, yep, I would probably do that (please don’t hate me).

4️⃣ Arknights

I did play Arknights previously but felt that with all the juggling of my then active Genshin, I couldn’t handle Arknights. But now that Genshin is more of when I feel like picking it up to play, I can probably spend a bit more time looking into this game,

I may start it brand new since my previous progress wasn’t much. Moreover, I was still in the tutorial stage so I guessed I could try recording my game progress right from the beginning again. Think that would be lovely.

Guess what I really need to catch on in this game is the mechanics and put on my thinking cap for strategic purposes. 

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There’s still a whole ton of other games I want to try (I have a whole list of it) but this will have to do for now. Until I drop a few or it became super inactive (like Genshin), I may probably visit a few more.