#I just build and dress up sims that I can't even play with

[alltimefail-sims]

All I want is a computer that doesn't lag on community lots

[rafeandonlyrafe]

gamers

words: 800

warnings: vague descriptions of video game violence and gore, established relationship

“is it scary? i don't wanna play if it's scary.” you pout as rafe places the controller into your hand.

“ill protect you, promise.” rafe says, reaching over to flick the lamp on the side table on, that way more than just the light from the tv is illuminating the room.

“fine, but you can't get mad at me if i get your character killed.” you watch as rafe navigates the game easily, opening it up to the character customization screen, just doing default settings for himself.

“oh my god, im gonna make my girl look so cute!” you gush, taking your time to carefully choose her hair and outfit, even though none of the options are stylish, you create the best look you can out of the post apocalyptic clothing choices.

rafe doesn't care that he has to sit and wait for you to perfect your character, not when he finally got you to agree to play with him.

“okay, done.” you nod as you choose a pair of pink sneakers, practical but still cute. “so what's this game all about? just running from zombies?”

“basically.” rafe says with a light chuckle. “we gotta get to the safe house for this round. just follow me, gonna pick up some weapons.”

you pick up the hang of the controls easily, concentrating on the tv as rafe drops a knife and gun for character to use to protect yourself just in case.

“this isn't so bad.” you hum, pausing to admire the scenery in the background of the game, mountain peaks poking up into the sky. “where are all the zombies?”

“they give you a few minutes to get weapons before the storms start.” rafe says, eyes scanning the screen as you head into a building, rafe knows there's med packs in there that he will need when he sustains damage keeping your character safe.

“storms? that sounds scary rafe.” you scooch so you’re closer to your boyfriend. “and it's getting dark.”

it's already dark outside your actual window, but you can tell that it's getting darker in the game as well, the sun setting as you follow rafe down the desolate street, crashed cars and trash strewn about just like if it was a real apocalypse.

“here they come!” rafe warns, clicking the buttons quickly as his character shoots at the zombies moving slowly towards you. your eyes widen upon seeing the gore, cringing and turning to hide your face in rafes shoulder once your character is hidden behind a stopped car.

“i don't like this rafey!” you whine once the gunfire stops, peeking up to see a literal pile of dead zombies. “it's scary.”

“i know, but i kept you safe, didn't i? we are almost done with the first level, just gotta get to the safe house then we can take a break, okay?” rafe offers, keeping his eyes on the screen but turning his head to press a kiss to your cheek.

“fine.” you groan. you like playing games with rafe, but your preference is him watching you dress your sims or decorate their houses after using a cheat to get them more money, only wanting your sims to have the best furniture.

you navigate your character to follow him down the sidewalk, occasionally stopping to kill the zombies. you even manage to shoot a couple.

“wait, baby, be careful.” rafe warns. “dont go that way.”

but his warning comes too late as a zombie jumps out of a dumpster that you’re standing directly next to, making you scream as it takes up your entire screen, not just attacking your character but also jumpscaring you.

“i got you, hold on.” rafe is pressing the sprint button as hard as he can, as if that can somehow make his character get to you faster. rafe manages to kill the zombie before it has the chance to bite you.

your chest is heaving up and down like you were the one to get attacked. “come on, the safe house is just around the corner.” rafe wraps an arm around your shoulder, using one hand on the controller until you’re both behind the barbed wire fence, the game switching to a cutscene. 

“i hate this.” you look to rafe with a pout on your face. “can we play stardew valley instead? please?”

rafe sighs. he should have known better than having you play with him. you are extremely adverse to any sort of shooting game. “yeah, sure.” rafe saves his progress, just in case he can convince you to play with him again before switching to stardew valley and handing you the main controller.

“yesss, thank you.” you smile, pressing a kiss to rafes cheek as your character wakes up. “you’re the best boyfriend ever.”

“you just say that because you need me to go into the mines for you.” rafe says with a laugh.

“well, its scary!”

taglist: @winterrrnight @bejeweledreverie @drewstarkeyslut @forstarkey @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @babygorewhore @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog @outerbankspov @drewstarkeyswifehoe @cutielando @kamninaries @buckyswhxre @rafeinterlude @bellbottombaby @deeaardiary @rubixgsworld @wearemadeofstardust0 @leighbronk @starkeysheart @pradabambie @tobesolovelysstuff @alexiskirkland @rafestar @brioffthegrid @juniebugg @magicalyoura @die4niyahhh

[expirisims]

A New Outlook on Life

Oh, Boy! Another new baby and some more stalking followed up by some rebound canoodling! Andrew, get it together dude!

With town drama out of the way, it's back to our actual household!

Just a little skill building to start the new day.

And a whole new lighting mod! I know I hinted at this weeks ago, and here we finally are! I started testing out different lighting mods for the remainder of my time in St. Bernie. I've been using Fresh Cut Day by @brntwaffles with @gelinagelina's Lighting Tweaks, but had been toying with the idea of using different lighting for different world play throughs.

Up first is the BEAUTIFUL Sims 3 Beta Lighting Mod by @boringbones. Seriously! It looks like I have some Reshade or HD mod going on, it is so clear and bright and the shadows are absolutely gorgeous!

Along with testing new lighting mods, I installed Tree and Plant Replacements (also by boringbones); Reworked And Improved EA Lights by simsi45; More Light Coming Through Windows by Blyss; the Electrical Storm Mod by @mathmodder; and TS3 HD Texture Series-Terrain Pack by @greenplumbboblover.

And here we are! It's a sunny spring day, perfect for a trip to the town plaza to meet up with Gerald!

I can't get over how crisp everything looks!

Hey! We're outside in the sun and you can ACTUALLY see Simili's face! She's not all washed out or too dark to distinguish! I haven't gone for Reshade or Gshade yet, because my main focus is gameplay and I've always been a little afraid that keeping either of those programs going in the background would cause my usually smooth gameplay to stutter or crash so for me and my screenshots, this lighting mod is seriously game changing. I couldn't stop zooming around looking at everything!

Simili has been waiting for a while here...where is Gerald?

Of course it did...Well, this doesn't exactly bode well for their relationship, now does it?

Guess it's back home for Simili...I wonder what was so important for Gerald anyway?

Oh look...protesting healthcare in the ocean...seems a logical place for that! Facepalm...

At least he's got principles I guess, maybe he's concerned about how much the medical bills will be for the birth of that baby...Still doesn't explain the location, but you know...Sims...

I went to see what was going on at the City Park. How adorable! Pablo is teaching little Stevie to talk! In his pajamas, that I discovered from this point on he was always wearing LOL! And who's that? Guy Summersville and one of his dogs playing drums dressed as a robot? Again with the Sims logic! Bahahaha!!

Oh wait! I hear some commotion!

Who is that!!?? Never a dull moment in St. Bernie!

O...M...G!! Bahahahaha! A burglar and a mime!!?? Why is this so funny to me?!

Nothing like a couple of random townies brawling in the park! This, right here, is the beauty of an open world with story progression! I don't even know who these two are and neither Simili, nor Barky was even here today! This is just what was randomly going on in the park while my sims are doing whatever they're doing! Same with the protest Gerald was attending! This is the best part of TS3, there is ALWAYS something going on somewhere in town!

[steviewashere]

here's some modern au/no upside down au/no supernatural elements au head canons of mine that are kind of stupid Stobin Edition (this is all to get in the minds of their characters in my text fics lol) a list:

Steve and Robin are sending each other selfies while on the toilet. They are having in-depth conversations about their bathroom breaks. They are having a phone, speaker on, conversation while using the toilet. One of them's already in the bathroom? The other is barging into that unlocked bathroom to continue a conversation. "Hey, Steve, hand me that new roll of tp?" Steve tosses it with a quick shout of, "Alley-oop!"

They are watching Chopped while eating dinner (a frozen meal they added garlic seasoning to). They are criticizing every last little detail.

Robin helps Steve with his frosted highlights. He touches up her roots. They are gossiping about their neighbors and their on-again, off-again marriage.

Robin is constantly criticizing Steve for using an Elf bar. They will, however, throw back enough shots to consider themselves hazards.

They are karaoke partners. Even when they're in relationships with their respective partners (Eddie and Chrissy in this AU), they always perform with each other. Robin makes Steve sing some Chappell Roan, he knows none of the lyrics, he ends up just being her hype-man.

Steve is a big Stardew Valley and The Sims 4 fan. Robin indulges in Animal Crossing. Eventually, Steve forces Robin to play Stardew with him and Robin does the same with Animal Crossing. (They both enjoy their games).

They have matching build-a-bear stuffies that they dressed up to look like each other. Each with a sound button that plays out an "I love you" from the other + them breaking down into giggles in the background (they were there with each other when they recorded the voice boxes, they simply couldn't stop snickering each time they tried to get the messages recorded).

When they're drunk at home, they are curling up on the couch to watch reruns of Friends and to eat straight out of a tub of butterscotch ice cream. They fall asleep curled into each other and their respective partners (Eddie and Chrissy again) take care of them; Chrissy covers them with a blanket and Eddie takes a photo that will eventually be printed and go up on the wall (to sit with the other ones already pristinely framed).

Steve sometimes goes into Robin's room and just face plants into her bedding and screams. Robin comforts him by petting his hair and prompting, "Another stupid customer?" And Steve just goes off. Robin does the same to him from time to time, but she does it significantly less so.

They go to the zoo/aquarium and point at all the paired animals and say, "That's us." Their favorite pairing is a platonic set of sea otters that are constantly holding hands or helping the other retrieve food. (Sometimes they leave crying).

They go on plenty of 3am drives when the other can't sleep. Blasting music and laughing the entire time. Stopping at a gas station to get slurpees. Going home when the sun is up and then falling asleep in one of their beds.

Constantly giving each other the weirdest nicknames possible. At one point, Robin was just Bobby Flay for two weeks straight.

They buy a whole cheesecake from Wal-Mart and then go drive around town, while eating slices the entire time. (Totally not based on experience lol)

Robin always throws Steve a little birthday party because it's the one thing he never really got with his parents and he never knows what he actually wants to do on his birthday.

Steve takes Robin out for birthday pancakes and fro-yo. And then always finds an antique mall to let her loose in (she spends an hour inside just the first three booths).

On that last note, Robin is an antique mall girly, always looking for mugs, sweaters, vinyls, and horror novellas. Steve likes going into collector's shops for three things: baseball cards, Funko Pops, and Amazing Spider-Man comics.

Robin drags Steve to the local soccer/football team's games. Steve takes her to hockey games.

They paint each other's nails and gossip. Steve picks out a pale orange and Robin goes for a dark purple.

Matching costumes on Halloween (even if they've got their partners). Ketchup and mustard. Scarecrow and Tin Man. Batman and Robin (you know who's who). Their best ones were Peter Pan and Tinerbell (guess who was Tinkerbell)

Instead of how they met in the show, they met in high school. In detention of all places. Robin was tardy for the third time that week to her third period class. And Steve was caught trying to leave campus to get lunch. They still have that very emotional bathroom scene, just in a public high school men's bathroom (disgusting, I know).

Steve doesn't come out to Robin until he's like twenty-one/twenty-two. It takes him being on his own for three/four years at that point to finally feel safe enough to come out. His parents are very conservative. (Also, for extra angst on this one, his family eventually finds out at Thanksgiving—where he is then told to leave and then he's shunned. He becomes a Buckley that same day when he goes to Robin's parents' house to seek her out. It's the first Thanksgiving where he's allowed to be himself.) Also...Steve is gay. Comphet Steve Harrington...yeah. Yeah.

Brunch at a Mexican restaurant: margarita pitcher, sizzling fajitas, and people watching. The perfect best friend date to them.

Still work at Scoops Ahoy! just after they meet in school.

Instead of Family Video, they end up working at a local music shop. That's where Steve meets Eddie, browsing through the Metallica tapes for his refurbished Walkman. Chrissy is hanging out with Eddie the next time he comes in. Robin then meets Chrissy, who is searching for a girl in red vinyl (she gets so excited to lead Chrissy over there. and to then recommend her a bunch of artists. she nearly faints when she gets Chrissy's number)

Okay. That's all I've got for now. Maybe more later.

[misc-obeyme]

I loveloveLOVE the idea of a FarmSim! AU! Like yourself, I assume a lot of us weren’t raised as farmer’s children, and more or less grew up on Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon. (Altho I do know a bit about living in Indiana, land of the Corn and home of the Indy500, if that counts towards anything lmao). In any case, I hope you like mytake on the Sides!

In terms of Farm Sim tropes, I’d be willing to say that The Royals (Dia, Barb, and ‘Phisto) are a part of some sort of local govt. bc I cannot see them as knees-in-the-mud farmer types lol. Maybe the farm is the “ROYAL FARM OF DIAVOLO” or something to try and convince Dia’s (not-in-a-self-induced-slumber) Mega-Corp father that farms are important, and corpo factories are bad. Diavolo has no idea how farming works but he likes to watch and play with the baby animals. Barb does not appreciate the farm visits bc Dia gets super excited and cannot be told “NO” if he wants to walk across a muddy field and up to a bull like “You are a fine specimen! A complete winner!” Luckily he is blessed with “Animals Love Me” kind of luck. Barb makes sure to get the Young Master dressed appropriately for next time. You need to talk to Barbatos about ordering tools, supplies, and contractors to build/repair things like stables, wells, and greenhouses. Mephistopheles takes care of the buying and selling of animals, and you gotta “prove to him” that you can be responsible enough to handle a horse (he does inspections of the farm and makes EVERYONE take riding/horse care tests).

The angels run the local cafe/store where you can get food and seeds, among other things. They buy your products and sometimes make presents (like sweaters made from your sheep's wool). Simeon and Luke run the Cafe side of things, while Raphael runs the store. Since Luke is a bit young to be running a business, he’s more like an assistant baker and he runs the morning collection at your farm. When he has time, he’ll sing to some of the animals.

Thirteen would probably the the Farm Sim Mine Spelunking Monster Trapper or smth like that? She’ll toss some coin your way if you bring her monster parts or rare ore, and maybe she’ll give you some “recipes” to make mining tools/weapons/traps.

And like... How funny would it be if Solomon just... didn’t change? Like at all? He already fits the “supernatural element” of other farming sims. An interesting and mysterious figure that lives just on the edge of the village. If you come to him with the monster parts/ore instead of Thirteen, he could help artifice some of your farming equipment with special traits, or craft potions that help you talk to animals or w/e.

IDK what do you think?

PLEASE I AM LOVING IT.

Okay okay so I totally agree about Diavolo, everything about that is spot on. He's fascinated by farm life, but knows nothing about it just like he is with humans in the game. Totally gets himself dirty because he just wants to experience things! Come on, Barbatos it'll be fun!!

And the corporation dad, that is perfection, too. Of course Dia's trying to convince his dad that farms are good!

Barb is forever suffering lol. While he does have a garden, I can't see Barbatos doing any kind of hard farm work either. He's definitely more suited to getting permits and such, but I could see him frequenting the angels' bakery because he likes to cook. They swap recipes a lot. Maybe he hosts the cooking competition, mostly because I think that'd be so funny.

Mephisto as the animal guy is perfect, you better believe he's gonna make sure your horse area is up to par before he'll even consider letting you have one.

Love the angels running a cafe and store, that's something I could easily see them doing. And oh my heart Luke singing to the animals!! My precious baby son. I kinda see him also being partial to flowers in general, since that's the only thing he's grown in the actual game lol. Maybe he starts making bouquets or perfumes...

Oh man Thirteen as the miner/monster hunter type! She's got a forge and spends untold amounts of time wandering the woods.

Solomon is such a menace and honestly I can't see him doing anything other than being the supernatural being. I keep thinking of Witchie from Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon. Like it'd be funny if he was more like Dessie and lived in a pond, but let's be real, he's definitely the one making weird potions and magic tools and such.

And of course all the characters are also marriage candidates, so if you marry Solomon, he's gonna come live with you on your farm. Spends all day in his wizard tower on the edge of town, but at night he comes home to his lil farmer spouse lsadlkjdfjkfdkjl.

Wow my worlds are colliding so hard right now I can't even deal with it. What I wouldn't give to have all these characters in a game where I could deliberately pursue and marry one of them!

Anyway, I totally love this and your ideas! I'm pretty sure I would do some unspeakable acts to have an Obey Me farm sim game like this.

[emeritus-fuckers]

Match-up event - Jez

(Nyx and I decided to match each other up for lols)

Let's go. I'm twenty, agender (afab), somewhere between bi and pansexual, poly and somewhere under the aromantic umbrella. Don't mind any pronouns in particular. I want one match-up with a human and one with a ghoul (let's see how you handle it babes). I study writing, might pick up a second major in journalism, dunno yet. Theistic satanist. Monsterfucker. Mask kink af.

I'm 164 centimeters tall (I'm not looking it up in feet). I've got a soft tummy and pretty good ass (lmao). You know how I look like, though I am planning to dye my hair blue.

They're not done yet, but I wanna include this anyway: tattoos. I'm not including any that could guide you to a potential result :p

Little cartoon seal on my right arm (for my sister)

Little cartoon panda on my right arm (for my brother)

Spider-Punk emblem on my left shoulder

666 under my left collar bone

A little plague doctor on my right arm

Also planning to get a shit ton of piercings all over my body. (Not just face and ears if you know what i mean), but that's for later. I like getting my nails done, usually to colors are symbolic or just a reference to something.

I usually wear skinny jeans and hoodies with some weird print. I love oversized hoodies, they are like my main source of comfort. I have chains attached to my pants, and I love wearing too many necklaces. I usually have ghearrings (the ghost crosses) in my ears and another one on a chain around my neck. Also wearing a Baphomet (like the goat head in a pentagram) necklace, a pride heart one, a matching besties necklace with Vic and occasionally a choker. I do occasionally do all out, wearing a white dress shirt, black skinny jeans, a leather jacket and the listed jewelry with my favorite rainbow sneakers and round sunglasses. With lots of rings, mostly something skull/plant/occult themed. Always silverish color, never gold. I don't like gold.

Outside from Ghost, I mostly listen to rock and different kinds of metal. And FNaF songs.

I was a Creepypasta kid. Aside from Polish and English I speak some German and bits of Italian, but very little. I can read most arabic letters (as in I know what sounds they make).

I have lots of different posters on my walls and I have stickers on my furniture because I grew up too fast and I'm catching up on my childhood now. I've got mental issues, including but not limited to autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, mommy issues and daddy issues. I like calling them my pokemon.

I like writing (though I barely have time for that) and re-watching Total Drama (watched it 8 times just this year) since it manages to keep my attention, something most movies fail to do, which is why I barely watch anything. I get bored very easily. I play the Sims 4 a lot, but I can't build in it for the life of me. I'm amazing at building in the Sims 3. Big fan of Assassin's Creed (I don't like the new ones, though, since it doesn't feel like AC anymore to me). I own many true crime and paranormal activity books, though I can barely read at this point. I like manga, though. Currently collecting the Soul Eater series. I love plushies. I got a new one today. Their name is Pyza. (Yes, they're enby, I even got them a pin)

I know way more about butterflies than I should. I know lots of useless trivia in general. Most of it disturbing. I'm tired 24/7, but my body either wakes up before 7AM or after 6 hours exactly and it's impossible for me to fall asleep again. My room is usually a mess, but that's okay, so am I.

I'm a total introvert, but I'm also so tired with life I forced myself to become the extrovert of the group. I'm really loud if I like people, although my affection is usually random touches on someone's arms and shoulders with a strange noise. I make noises. A lot.

For some reason, babies love me. Even though I personally dislike children. I love pets, though. All sorts of pets. Cats, dogs, snakes, spiders... Anything. If I can pet it, I want to pet it. I love moths from the attacus family, I mean just look at this gorgeous girl!

As for my personality, aside from daily mental breakdowns, I'm relatively chill, just... Very unhinged. I talked about Secondo's dick piercings in McDonald's. Compared to the shit I say, Terzo's an angel.

I think that's all. Have fun babes <3 - Jez

[kimmiessimmies]

Tag 9 People You Want to Know Better

I was tagged a few days back by @nocturnalazure, but didn’t get round to doing this sooner. Thanks for the tag, these are interesting questions!

Last Song: I truly don't remember... So much music reaches my ears during the day that I really don't recall what the last song was. 😄🤷🏼‍♀️

Last Show: Inside Man, now that was a psychological rollercoaster... I still haven't made my mind up whether I liked it or not.

Currently watching: Queen Charlotte, which I'm enjoying. Although in truth I'm sort of half-watching since I'm building community lots in my game at the same time. Below is a picture of my current set-up pretty much every evening. That's me though, always multi-tasking!

Currently reading: Just finished Loveless by Alice Oseman, which was the last book in my obsessive binge-reading marathon of everything Alice has written. I just love her characters. They are the real people who hardly ever (if not never) get to see themselves represented in books. Representation is so important and I love how Alice does this. An additional detail I adore in her books is how characters from one book often make sneaky cameo appearances in others. I'm a huge fan of intentional details and continuity, so this is right up my street.

Now I have no more Alice Oseman books to read, and cried in a corner for a while, I am now ready for a new author to binge-read. Just need to find the right one.

On a completely different note, I'm also reading Smart but Scattered by Peg Dawson, which is a non-fiction book about how intelligent children (in this case, she also wrote a book catered towards adults) can struggle with everyday, mundane tasks such as completing homework or getting dressed, but also things like regulating their emotions due to poorly developed executive skills. I'm quite fascinated by the topic of executive skills on both a professional and personal level, so it's a good read, be it a rather specific one.

Fun fact about my reading: even though English is not my first language (it's Dutch), I prefer reading in English. Except obviously for books by Dutch authors, I read those in Dutch.

Current Obsession: Besides the one noted earlier, I guess my current obsession lies with my Sim characters. After being away from them for so long, it's so good to be back and finally share the stories which only lived in my head for years. I have a future storyline that keeps building up and expanding in my mind. I can't wait to tell it, but now is not the time: The characters involved aren't at that stage yet, but boy, is it a plot twist! Writing before playing is new to me, but I'm loving it so much. The author inside me is finally waking up which is such a rush, it causes me to be rather obsessed with the elaborate storylines forming in my mind. I hope that makes sense instead of making me sound very self-involved. (Which I don't think I am, I still care deeply for the ones around me too 😄)

This was fun to do! Thanks again for the tag, Noctie! I won't tag 9 people, but I shall tag @simsaralove, @treason-and-plot, @desiree-uk, @lilidebergerac @aroundthesims and @missy-hissy . Feel free to ignore this though, if you don't feel like doing it.

[oraclekleo]

Kleo's Wisdom 01

You're gonna hear to grow up, mature and be an adult often, usually from your parents. What they actually mean is 'Do as I say and stop complaining, complaining is childish' and that's a bullshit. That's not being grown up, mature or adult.

Being grown up, mature and act like an adult means you have found your path, you feel confident in your own skin, you build your life the way you want it to be, you fight for what matters to you and you are able to recognize the pointless battles and avoid them to protect your energy. It also means to complain much much more. I don't remember raising so many complaints as I do now when I was a child. As an adult, you complain about things that matter to you because you have grown up and have the idea of how things should and shouldn't be. As an adult, you don't need to follow other people's orders because you are perfectly capable of navigating through your life on your own.

Immature people follow what their parents say and don't complain because they know no better.

So next time somebody tells you to grow up, mature and act like and adult... Do just that! Be yourself! Have your opinions. Walk your path. I'm not saying you should be disrespectful or violent but try to actually think about what it means to be an adult. Adulting is in no way easy but it's a stage we all should reach at certain point and everyone matures in a different way and speed. Respect that.

Being an adult means you CAN have a Barbie doll and stuffed animals collection. You CAN spend evening playing board games instead of going clubing. You CAN eat ice cream sundae for breakfast on Tuesday because nobody can stop you. You're an adult. And you will pay for not eating healthy balanced diet anyway. 😂You CAN play with rubber duck while enjoying bubble bath and sing songs from Seasame Street while doing so. You CAN watch Bob the Builder in the morning while dressing up smartly for the day in the office. That's the thing about adulthood - You CAN do things you like because you're an adult! You know you have to go to work to earn some living but nobody says you can't take a one day vacation without telling your friends and family and just spend the day on your own by PC playing The Sims. If that's what makes you happy, then you CAN do it. Adulthood is not ONLY about being responsible and smart and serious and dedicated and hardworking. It's good if you are all that but you can also have fun, be yourself, disregard other people's opinions (as long as you don't hurt anyone and don't break the law).

Adulthood is the scariest hood but it's worth it! I know that this will sound like an utopia to many of my teenage followers but life actually gets better once you're an adult. Suddenly you are in charge of your life and while it might be tough in the beginning and you might feel like everything is slipping out of your hands and you have no idea what to do... You'll figure it out. Some things pretty soon, some will remain a challenge for longer but you will get to the point where you will be able to live your life your way. 😊 I'm not saying it's gonna be easy - You're going to be responsible for yourself as your relatives will grow old, you probably will be responsible for them as well, you will have to deal with difficult coworkers or customers or neighbours, you will start to be afraid of light because of paying electricity bills, your guts will suffer for days if you eat unhealthy food, you will get genuinelly furious when you want to cook something but your favourite spatula is in a running dishwasher at the moment and you will consider ibuprofen girl's best friend instead of diamonds because those shiny gems are useless for period cramps while you have to maintain smiley face on a company meeting where you do presentation. So yes, being an adult, doesn't mean you always do what you are told and it certainly doesn't mean stopping complaining and whining.

I'm sorry if this came out of the blue but I felt a sudden urge to share.

These are purely my opinions and experiences, please don't come to bash me in my inbox. Being an adult means respecting other people's opinions. 😉

If you have read this far, you're truly... BORED! 🤣

Have a great time!

What is your experience with growing up?

Kleo 🦄

[alltimefail-sims]

Hi friends, and happy Friday!

Yesterday the sims team released its first stuff pack since Paranormal Stuff, so I wanted to give my thoughts and pseudo-review it for you all. I'm not sure if these little reviews are helpful in any way, but I've found that forcing myself to take the time and really isolate the new features, CAS items, and objects has made me appreciate, incorporate, and analyze them among the existent content a little better.

So, with that being said, here's my long and unbiased review of the CAS items from the Home Chef Hustle Stuff Pack! ↓

Let's begin with the outfits shown above. This pack provided items that I absolutely love and have been asking for whilst also giving items that are just...meh at best. (By "meh" I mean that after this review, they'll be forgotten in the catalogue.)

There are multiple variants of apron outfits for both frames and I liked all of them. I'm serious, I even liked the apron dress: it's a little frumpy, but it feels like a perfect cuddly grandma or elderly sim outfit. Also that shirt with the little towel over the shoulder in male frame? Love love love that. Crazy about it, in fact! But beyond the outfits themselves, I really like the color swatches in this pack and the fact that they have clean and dirty swatches. I say it every time, but I love the lived-in, imperfect CAS and Build/Buy items that the sims team has been rolling out lately and I hope they keep up with that style.

I also really love the turtleneck jumpsuit and honestly, it may be one of my favorite CAS pieces to date. I love all the swatches and the way it fits on sims of all sizes. They have been giving us a lot of jumpsuits lately, but this one stands out from the others in a positive way.

As for the clothing items I didn't care for and/or could do without: the one pair of pants that came with this SP. It's not that they're bad or anything; the swatches are fine, they just don't stand out as a staple item to me. Same with the chef coat - it's a nice piece, it has a variety of color and style options, but I'm not sure how often I'll use it as it's so specific/niche. Both perfectly adequate for what they are though!

However, the hoodie, t-shirt with the little ascot, and graphic tee did nothing for me. Some of the swatches on the t-shirt were good (the fire chicken for example) while some felt weird and wildly out of place with the existing animation style/graphics in the game. The shirt with the ascot is just okay, I like how it fit my sims but some of the designs are a bit on the nose and corny. I can't emphasize enough that some of the designs on the shirts were just decent while the other half were really, really bad.

The single pair of shoes in this pack aren't great either. I just thought they looked a little underwhelming, I had higher expectations I guess. I have clog/croc cc that looks much better than what came with this pack if I'm being honest, so I could leave these out all together. Plus, they warp the male ankles significantly, so I couldn't even use them on my male sim as demonstrated in the picture below.

I've seen a few people confused about the gloves that came with this pack, but I actually like them. I especially like the latex/rubber gloves: I would have a home chef wear these at their pop-up-shop for the play pretend impression of food prep safety (like in real life). It's silly, it doesn't impact gameplay, but it helps my imagination and storytelling so that's a fun touch to me. Any touch of realism is a win in my book, and they're also nice to have if you have Dine Out as well! Come to think of it, a lot of the CAS items from this pack would incorporate quite seamlessly with that pack if not for the fact that Dine Out is virtually unplayable. Anyway!

The earrings and necklace are cute, even though the knife is a little chunky. I love silly jewelry though, so I will definitely use all three of them. The tattoo, I'm sorry to say, is kind of goofy as fuck lmao. Just not my personal taste. "A" for effort though? I feel like they could have kept with the chef/foodie tattoo concept and been less on the nose, but it's fine. If nothing else, it's silly and it is in a good location at least? At least they've been trying to add tattoos in the last few packs after going a long while completely ignoring that category all together?

As for the hats...

Need we talk about the hats? They're bulky, chunky, they don't lay on any sim's head properly and it only gets worse as they get younger. We all joke about it, but I don't know that the Sims team has ever seen an actual human wearing a hat before. You'd think after we complain and make jokes about it every pack, they would get the message.

Regardless, the hats themselves would have been, objectively, super adorable if they fit correctly... but they don't. The swatches are pretty fun, the texture is actually nice. So annoying! I hope someone comes out with a default replacement fix because I would use these for my younger sims a lot.

Now...the hairs!

The first scarf hairdo in fem frame looks SO GOOD. Why it did not come in male frame, I will never know. It's one of my favorite hairs to date. Also the curly hairdo for male frames is so cute and like nothing else we have in the game, so that was nice too (and it also should have came in fem frame, but again I digress). I want to give them props as well for the short cut with shaved sides - that is one of the more fashionable, practical, reusable male hairs that have come with a pack. They always somehow manage to mess "staple" pieces up by doing something funky (looking at you Cats and Dogs hair with a fucking pawprint shaved on the side lmaoooo) but this hair is simple and good. Love that. I do feel like there are similar cuts to this already in game, but they don't look as good... so congrats to them for finally doing this haircut right on try 4 or 5 lmao.

I so so so wish they would do what CC creators do and create a headband overlay in the hats category so you could change the hairband color because I actually love the different swatches... I just hate that they're limited to certain hair colors! It's not like anyone is pairing a hat with a hairdo that has a scarf or headband, so whyyyyyy aren't they giving us that option yet? Hopefully cc creators pull through on this one as well.

Otherwise I genuinely have no complaints about any of the hairs. I think they're all quite nice!

Now onto the least exciting part of this review...the littles.

Not much to say about any of this: it's all the same stuff from the adult CAS items, with a lot left out. I would have liked to see an item made specifically for these life stages in mind, but that didn't happen, unfortunately. Everything they converted felt kind of random, and there were things they didn't convert that I thought were a missed opportunity.

For instance: I don't know why the hoodie didn't get converted, or the pants? They didn't make anything original for children, so I don't think it would have been much trouble to convert one or both of these items. In my opinion, the swatches on the hoodie would have probably suited kids better than the adults, and I feel like hoodies are a staple item in every child's closet so you can never really have too many? But yeah, big miss.

The random onesie for infants was weird and I felt like it had fewer swatches than it should have. Maybe they're trying to throw infants in as they're a new life stage and we have so little for them? I don't know. I thought it was weird toddlers got nothing but one singular hairstyle and the giant hat (all life stages got that). They could have at least given toddlers the onesie, too...or even the t-shirt. Regardless, this pack wasn't for kids/toddlers/infants, that much is clear, but they could have been incorporated better with a little more effort, and that's what frustrates me the most!

I'll be talking about gameplay in the next post. If you read all of this, I love you very much. You could have googled "Home Chef Hustle CAS items," but you didn't!! You read my rambles instead and for that I am so thankful. Big smooch on the forehead from me to you. <3

That's a wrap for now. See you in the next one, friends!

[r0sa4077]

Absolutely no one has asked for this but these are my top 10 favorite video games. I sort of ranked these based on the emotional impact they had on me, how many times I've replayed them, how many hours I have in the games, and how well I think they were made, etc.

10. Life is Strange: Before the Storm

I liked Chloe as a protagonist more than Max. I also really enjoyed Rachel and how you couldn't rewind this time, and you were stuck with your choices. And the emotional impact of the story has stuck with me after all these years.

9. Elden Ring

Elden Ring introduced me to souls-like games and showed me that they were not as hard as I originally thought. I love the gameplay, and the lore is ✨️chefs kiss✨️.

8. A Way Out

I can't describe how heartbroken I was at the end of this game. It takes you through so much laughter and heartache. And you get to experience it all with another person since it's made to be co-op. It's such a fun and emotionally impactful story.

7. Shadow of Mordor

I am a huge LoTR fun, but more than that, I am a huge lore and Silmarillion fan. Even the minor inclusion of Middle Earth lore in this game had me geeking out. I also really enjoy the story and gameplay.

6. Dragon Age 2

The main character, Hawke, has my entire heart. And so do all the other characters. The gameplay might not be as good as others on this list, but to me, the story and the side characters have left such an impact on my brain.

5. Halo: Reach

The Halo series as a whole has a special place in my heart anyway, but something about Reach has stuck with me after all these years. I love the whole cast of characters. I love the level design and the combat. I love the story. I have probably played this game about 6 times. I have another friend who loves Halo, and when we just want to talk or need to vent, we'll play Reach, and we can play it while on autopilot and just talk to each other.

4. Red Dead Redemption 2

I love so much about this game. The story, the open world, all the characters, Arthur Morgan. Unfortunately, I was spoiled for the ending before I got to play it, but the impact of it hit just as hard. I don't think I've ever cried so much about a video game besides this one and number two on this list.

3. Assassin's Creed: Blackflag

Assassin's Creed was one of the series that really got me into gaming, and Blackflag is by far my favorite. Edward Kenway is such a good and interesting protagonist, and I really enjoyed playing as him in one of my favorite series. To this day, it is the only game I've ever completed to 100% in quests, collectibles, and achievements because I just couldn't stop playing it

2. Mass Effect 3

When I tell you that I am obsessed with the Mass Effect universe, I mean it. There is just something about Bioware's world building, character work, and storytelling that I just love so much. Commander Shepard has got to be one of my favorite protagonists of all time. And like I said, this game and RDR2 the two games that I have actually sat there and sobbed over. When I finished ME3, I immediately wanted to replay from the beginning of the trilogy, but I had to stop myself and go finish other games I had already started. I think about this trilogy and the characters from it so much that I actually read Mass Effect fanfiction, and I'm not a big fanfic reader.

1: The Sims 4

This one might seem really out of place with the rest of the bangers on this list, but listen ... this game is like a guilty pleasure. I have so many hours in it that it's kind of embarrassing. I've spent way too much money on TS4, and I love all kinds of aspects about it. Dressing up sims, building houses and other stuff, playing out storylines, I love it all. And most of the characters from the rest of the games on this list, I have remade them in TS4 and given them happy endings.

[impprtante]

Eira's Children (the squad :0)

Okay, new day new me, I'm actually in my right mind and not impulsively writing things down after being awake for more than 24 hours lmao. So here's what's up.

So, right now the first gen children have moved out of Eira's house into their own households. They've kinda solidified baseline personalities and interactions (and family dynamics from parenthood) so i let them loose in the world. (To live as if they're Stanley Humphry.) Eira isn't the richest mom tho, so I staggered it out so I could give them like, 5k-10k to start off. So they all started by living in tiny barely furnished shacks. I normally get money in the sims by grinding, and in the actual legacy challenge they're super rich, but I wanted to try building up their wealth through odd jobs and work. Get them different incomes and all that. I also want to build them unique housing / decorate their areas according to them so that's also on the books. (because i didn't bother with them before :p)

And to give me a more thought out clothing design. To get into the mindset of teens i had all the kiddos wearing school uniforms (from snowy escape lol) and since I haven't really been them too much, i haven't gotten around to doing all their fashion since. BUT THE POINT IS technically i haven't played as most of these. Just a little bit, I've mostly committed to Lamia (by accident;;)

Okayyyyyy, so this is how it's going:

GUYS I LITERALLY CANNOT CHANGE HIS HAIRSTYLE. I was like, this is a very distinct sims hairstyle. BUT I CYCLED THROUGH EVERYTHING AND I CAN'T, IT FRAMES HIS FACE BETTER AND SEEING HIS HAIRLINE NOW SCARES ME.

What started has his emo, dye-ing my hair now mom, has gone too fair ;; __ ;;

But yeah, Phoenix is the same physically. I've just dressed him up as a more of a starving artist since he's out here painting in a tiny shack. I'm pretty sure that's going to change soon tho, since painting does actually give good money (probably unrealistic but :p). He's gotten the gloomy, dog lover, and family oriented. In the last save he had his house "open to dogs", so thats a nod to that. family oriented is kinda more because of his older sibling status, and he has a good relationship with his whole most of his family (and he loves them all very much, even the brats). Im still figuring out where he lands on the love things, because i've had him be a player in some saves but also he's more a reserved person so i can't image him being that out there in this version. I'm figuring it out <3

He's living in a tiny home (because i say so) and has a nice backyard pool area. He's under the recycle challenge, mostly as a nod to his upbringing out in the middle of nowhere, conservation is important.

Lamia is the most overall different from them all. I didn't really have anything going on with her character at all, besides what i later realized was a comedy aspiration, not a party one (oops). Her character is really shaped by the manners her mom instilled into her now, so she's in more conservative dressings because of that. I kept her hat as a nod to her previous version.

The vision is that she goes through her era of struggling artist (playing gigs and teaching lessons) and works as a normal salary worker (manners: she's trying to live up to the "has a normal job and will do fine for herself mom i promise i can pay bills"). Her piano-ing is more of a side gig but she really loves it so she doesn't want to stop doing it. Most of her parties at this point is so that she can break up the monotony of life. She ends up catches eyes of someone famous and is catapulted into doing more high end jobs. It makes her parties have a more exclusive guest list (not super famous but still really well known) and her high pay grade allows her to quit her job. She's pretty famous now (by the general public as a socialite, by more music-centric crowd as a pianist) and lives pretty comfortably.

Basilisk is the point where i start saying i got nothing. He's got the slob and kinda jock personality, but truly im looking for something else to flesh him out with. But he's the buff one of the bunch. Traits of slob, bro, and foodie, i haven't gotten around to updating his wardrobe. He's closest with Lamia, though the eldest three make a bit of a trio since they grew up the closest in age. He was team captain of the sims football team tho since the sports in the sims is so limited im debating changing the sports (but football would be fitting because he's a tank). He has piss-poor manners, but he's really in touch with emotions, having strong empathy for people. He's also the reason most of his siblings are fitness freaks; he convinced his mom to makeshift a basketball hoop that they used a lot in childhood. The biggest offenders were Sphinx, Phoenix, and Lamia. He challenged Phoenix in football and Lamia in basketball, but Sphinx just liked sneaking into his fitness gear the scrawny bastard.

Griffin and Sphinx still out here twinning hard. Eira must've had a blonde gene from her parents because three blond children can't be a coincidence wow. Freckles were also unexpected. I don't have anything to say about clothing preferences here either. Griffin was on the chess team? and Sphinx as a lazy person was not in any afterschool things, preferring to tinker. Both of them work on the handiness side of things, but i like to think Griffin is into woodworking and Sphinx is into metalworking (his type of jewelry he makes for his family is lacking in the gem department). I have Griffin working as a civil planner ingame, and Sphinx is unemployed selling jewelry at home (its.... its going. I only played like 3 days though to start off).

Griffin is more applied in general (was valedictorian), being clumsy, overachiever, and a bro. Sphinx is lazy, perfectionist, dance machine. Sphinx was one more for sneaking out (mostly out into the forest), once and a while teaming up with Lamia to go to some party (school mate get together) after curfew. They're both little shits, still living up to the mischievousness, but Griffin hated Lamia with a burning passion, and Sphinx really got annoyed with Phoenix's dramatics (neither dared anger basilisk too hard). And, yes, they teased their little sisters as well but they didn't despise them as much as their elder siblings got on their nerves for daring trying to have superiority over them. Eira had a time with them. Got stuck doing many chores as punishment. Griffin is pretty insensitive, but he's gotten really good at *dealing* with his own emotions. He's chill like that. Sphinx meanwhile gets into way more trouble being irresponsible, but he's great at resolving his conflicts.

Nephele has changed as much as phoenix. Aka, she's just had a skin changed, mostly because i didn't want to mess with her too much considering her genes are he one's carried onto the next gen. Gen 03's heir does happen to take over her father more though, but she has her mom's blond hair, so we kept that. She looks like she has such a baby face, but you can see she has Eira's eyes (WHICH IS A TREND, THEY ALL HAVE HER EYES).

I've been trying to make her seem more polished, mostly because I had her be a secret agent in the past (i don't even know how to integrate that into anything ;; __ ;;), and i haven't changed her wardrobe yet either. She also is well mannered so that's a part of it. Personality wise, she's neat, foodie, and socially awkward. She's used to picking up after her family as mostly trying to help out her mom with the hecticness of an 8 person household, and when she was old enough she did the cooking as well. But, her mom being an excellent cook, made her standards for food really high (it's why basilisk is a foodie too). Retreating into working like this was also kinda coping for being terrible conversationalist. (With the neat trait she autonomously cleans things too which is really funny. It's like she can't help but clean even things that other people think are already clean.) She tag-teamed with Griffin on fixing anything throughout the house though. She has a strong personality however, being the type of person who has people she likes, people she doesn't, and they don't change. She doesn't like to apologize (it's like pulling teeth) and likes to be seen as correct.

Arachne I've played a little more of too. Mostly because she was left alone in the household with Eira once all her siblings moved out. But she became an accomplished writer at a young age (so, a really well receiving book that will forever be remembered and a lot of other pretty big hits). I had her go through a redemption, mellowing in her original version, but I really liked the punk thing she had going on before that i decided to keep the kind of rebellious aesthetic.

She was supposed to be a spoiled brat but in a big household its too much to be doing that kind of thing me thinks. She gets more irrationally angry, but she's a perfectionist in her craft, and grows up to be a wee self absorbed. She grows up to fame because of her books (it was pretty out of nowhere fame) so i gave her slightly more daring clothes than her siblings. She's super argumentative though, she feels all her emotions super strongly. She has the healthy outlet of writing however so she is able to regulate, even if it takes a bit.

oke im falling asleep again so i will randomly blog whenever i feel like it again peace

[regencysims4]

like literally don’t read the tags will delete later just venting

[kidinthenight]

okay so i've seen some masterposts for medieval games but never for a regency game, and there's A LOT of regency cc out there, we always get asked on the historical sims discord (that you should join us here!) where to get started when building your folder from scratch. and it'll also be helpful for when i decide to do a rebuild of my downloads folder since my game is crashing already lol. if you're interested on this type of lists, let me know and i'll do more detailed ones :)

the plumbbob keep aka medievalsims.com: the home of sun & moon and all historical cc related. there's a bunch of things in here, i recommend making an account and just take a look at each topic and forum you possibly can, also the search option is quite handy for when you're looking for an specific era, like the regency.

simbury / cupcakeyy: the queen of the sims regency, for real. she has made sooo many cc for this era that you can find on her tumblr, livejournal, gos, even on pbk! she also has a cc finds tumblr that's a great place to start.

maya40: another queen. she often collaborates with cupcakeyy, they have an awesome bonnet collab that's an absolute must have for any regency game.

sun & moon: i know i've mentioned them already, but they deserve their own section. maaany amazing mods they made, i have literally all of them, except for anything too medieval or fantastic (and even then i've made some exceptions). there are things like laundry, butter churning, better farming, livestock, candle crafting, TEA. everything is functional and very detailed. you can't really play a historical game without their stuff.

dicreasy: her stuff is a bit late for this time period, but due to the lack of many cc creators that focus on the regency, we have to get creative and include victorian stuff. thankfully, di has a lot of gorgeous stuff that works very nice for any 19th century english inspired game. if you love food defaults, or defaults in general like me, you should check out hers.

hat-plays-sims: speaking of defaults, we cannot forget the almighty hat. she has defaulted like every single thing your sims will use for something textured more rustic or medieval-like. also, HER HAIR DUMPS! if you are a fan of pookleted hairs, that also fit a historical game, hat is your go-to.

ladyaqua's regency era pinterest board: pinterest boards are your best friends when you're building an historical folder, watch out for dead links tho. but still, veryyyy helpful.

yandereplumsims: another amazing clothing creator, she has so many good stuff that i also have like all of her stuff.

heget's 18th century clothing dump: this is quite early for us, but we're still using it. specially the men attire that we lack in every era. the lower classes wouldn't be up to date with the fashion and would still wear clothes from the past century. the dresses are a bit of a stretch though, and they still look a bit too fancy even for lower class to wear. luckily, the other creators i've mentioned have lower class women covered :)

changeling / feydecay-blog: another great 19th century cc creator, has recently released some painting defaults that are *chefs kiss*

delonariel: more maxis-match, but has some historical deco clutter, conversions, even some lovely rustic defaults.

[fordarkisthesuede]

I got tagged by @fractualized - and I had to think about this for a while. Sorry for the delay, frac'! I pretty much felt like this all week (lol):

GIF by lostwithoutmyboswell

Ok, so we're gonna start from #5, because I decided to rate these like a loon:

#5:

Birth. Starting off on the disk horse topic of HP fanfic. Listen, regardless of how I feel about the series now (which is messy, to say the least), there's one thing I still can't help but love about it...and it's not only tiny, but half of the reasoning behind it is of my own making. It's Peeves the Poltergeist. I LOVE Peeves. He's my favorite character type - short, temperamental, powerful, 90% humor and fun, inhuman, and neither a Good nor Bad guy. I rarely used to read HP fic back in the day, but I noticed that for such a big fandom, he never had much to his name. (And what I did find was...disappointing for me.) I reread the series in 2015 for the first time in a while and did some Deep Thinking about him. What his limits are. How he's presented. Where he even came from. The bare scraps of canon and Word of God (distasteful) material pushed my buzzing brain to write about him, and eventually churned out this little origin story. I wrote several one-shots surrounding him, but this is my favorite of the bunch. In my eyes, it's simple, short, and effective in storytelling. So I like it. (^_^)

#4:

The Whole Nine Yards. Yes, my current WIP is on the favorite list. It started off as a sex-romp list, because I had too many positions and kinks I wanted John and Bruce to try. It first grew into showing Bruce/John as a couple at home, because my main fics in the Perseverance Project series don't get to show them being all lovey-dovey as much as I'd like. Then I added a few dashes of angst for character building. Then it evolved into including what AtBoM skipped over (for various reasons) - visits at Arkham showing their [growing] love and trust rebuild post-S2, and showing different sides to them.

So what we have now is: "Two guys in love met in an asylum 2.5 years ago, and less than one year after they first met, one keeps coming to visit the other. The visits' subjects are then related to current day, where they finally live together like a real couple, with all it's ups and downs, and sexy results". It's a mouthful, I know. ;D But I think it works!

It's great to explore all these things and essentially back-track a bit versus rewrite any part of AtBoM. Plus, I get to mumble about something that always interests me in this 'verse: Bruce's relationship with his parents. To go from loving them and putting them and their deaths on a pedestal to look to for inspiration to keep going on being Batman, to learning they were the biggest criminals in the city and a key reason while he's even having to be Batman... That's gotta affect how he looks at things. Like, I mentioned Bruce's dislike of his house in AtBoM and TToJ, but here it's full-force. It was a mausoleum for their memory and now it's just a means to an end. He doesn't consider it home, or even rightfully his. But John living there with him makes it a home. Their home. :')

Also, I feel like I'm playing a decorating game and a dress up game with it! Kind of like The Sims, I guess. xD John's room and summer wardrobe are fun to craft as I go. (Don't worry, you'll get to see John's classic outfit at the end. For...reasons.) Plus, soon* you'll see Bruce's bedroom revamped!

#3:

A Ghost Too Far. Disk Horse, part two. Peeves is the one thing I still wistfully sigh over and go "ah, what could have been"...all while knowing that I took the bones of my blorbo and crafted him a full body myself. It's been 7 years since I started writing this particular story, and it clocks in over 230K words. As things are now, I have no idea if I'll ever actually finish it, for a myriad of reasons. So to make a long story short (HA!):

Out of the hundreds of thousands of HP fanfics, and the handful that had Peeves as a character, I found Peeves had no proper big epic romance story of his own and decided to make him one, combining it with one big exploratory setting of How He Is, all set in 2003/2004. His destined romantic partner is an American witch (queue eyeroll), acting as a one-year-only DatDA teacher (queue harder eyeroll), who I can describe in modern** terms as a gender-non-conforming adult punk who is absolutely fascinated with ghosts. She makes it a point to study the castle ghosts, especially Peeves, as poltergeists are super rare and physical ones are apparently unheard of outside of him. She makes a deal with Peeves that he can break just about anything she owns and annoy her all he wants, in exchange for information on how he works. Which I worked out via the aforementioned HP reread and lots of Deep Thinking as literally by feeding off of (aka absorbing) magic from humans, like his "relatives" the Dementor and Boggart. Unlike them, he primarily eats high energy feelings of "anger" "sadness" and "excitement", because he was created in a castle with children who can have powerful feelings of all three very easily. Is this theory of mine presented in canon? Who fucking cares anymore, the author's dead in all senses but literal.

It might not be finished, and it might never be, but writing out this monstrosity of a theory while getting a guy like Peeves to fall in and explore love for the first time holds a special place in my heart. Because not only does Peeves reside permanently in my brain (I'm pretty sure he's the Writing Gremlin who suggests those "this is what goes painfully wrong" scenarios), but so does Dandrane, who I hand-crafted to be Peevesy's romantic partner. I love her. I owe her. Her favorite color is hot pink; because of her, I have gotten over my old feud with the color pink. I wrote her to be 30 while I was then 24; after a while, nearing/turning 30 no longer bothered me. I wrote her to be cool, confident, and a little horrible. Because we all have that bitchy little voice in our head sometimes... The desire to break something without consequences... The need to have our anger recognized rather than ignored or attempted to be placated... Dandrane is a wonderful vessel for these feelings, even after all this time.

She's my cool girl. My tall bean. My silly little flamingo. I want to put her in an enriched enclosure and watch her with a set of binoculars.

#2:

At the Brink of Midnight. My most popular fic is second-place in my heart, at this current hour. (Ha!) For reasons I'm sure you long-time readers already guessed, that I have mentioned time and again in it's author notes: this fic was FUN to make!!!

The Halloween setting! The fresh takes on Scarecrow and Poison Ivy! John recreating Joker! Bruce rescuing John! Bruce finally hugging John! THE CONFESSION SCENE! A rave scene in a graveyard!!! Batman and Joker teaming up to kick ass!!!!!

It's! So! Great!!! It's not too long, but still a big novel-length! Easy to read and get lost in! It presents an original character who carries the possibility of redemption! It hits all those story beats I craved to see for a Season 3! Hell, even now I'd be hard pressed not to expect to see Dr. Crane in any potential sequel we'd get IRL!

Are there things I'd change? Sure. But nothing major. I'm still happy with it, even 4 years later. Maybe part of my love for it is also a desire to be able to pump out 110K words within a few months again...

#1:

The Tolls of Justice!

Is it my most popular fic? Nah, it's #2. But it's my #1. The king of my heart. It took 2-and-a-half years to finish, in no small part because 2020 was a bitch. And despite the frustration at writer's block, despite the silly errors that I still need to go back and fix, and despite the time it took...God, I LOVE it.

Whenever I reread part of it, I get sucked in and read more than I meant to. I know the majority of the little notes I made, but whenever I read one of the tarot hints I can't help but go ehe he he. I read John's breakdown in Arkham, and his transformation into what is his final form of vigilante!Joker, and I still tear up. I see the theme of a writer playing God, of having a defined inescapable ending but proving that choices still matter, and just sit with it in utter delight.

I have many favorite moments: Tiffany and John's day out, the entirety of the Wayne Gala, John and Iman's investigation at the theater, Batman's descent into the Court of Owls' secret lair with Robin... But I have a favorite bit. It's the kind of thing I giggle over while kicking my legs in my seat.

So in Chapter 12, Batman and Joker are having a few moments together before the Big Battle in the high tier of seats above the main floor/"stage area", able to watch the Court of Owls' mock-trial below. In theaters, the highest tier is sometimes known as "the gods" seats.

As my version of the CoO has their whole thing built on "our God wrote down our destiny exactly and the Evil God keeps causing chaos to interfere", and considering the DC multiverses and that Batman and Joker are constantly in them, and as Bats and Jokes are generally simplified as "Order and Chaos"... They're figuratively 'gods' in "the gods" seats watching the show below. ౧(*മ് ധമ്)੭ु⁾⁾

As for WIPs, I only have 2 at the moment. I use OneNote to write all my ideas for it (when I'm actually writing them down):

As you can see, I have sections for The Whole Nine Yards (abbreviated "W9Y" in notes only) and the untitled "BtTTS S5" below. (The "After Hours" is just IRL work notes, when I had to use my personal PC for work in 2020, and "Noir "is literally a list of film noir movies I'm keen to watch. I've been really into them lately!)

Right now S5's notepad only has 2 sections - the Thinkbox and "J Tech". The Thinkbox pages are pretty much the brainstorm dumping ground...but TWNY's is actually laid out rather nicely, like this. I'd post a screenshot, but then this post would...uh, turn nsfw... (; ' o' )

Right now, the only WIP word docs are here, in my "BtTTS - The Perseverance Project" folder:

As for tagging...hm. Um... Since it was frac' who tagged me... I choose @distort-opia, if they're so inclined! (And anyone else who wants to!) Edit: I am a fool who does not reread properly. 😭 Sorry hun, you already did it! So field's wide open!!!

*at the time of this posting, TWNY Chapter 7 is still in progress. It's 2/3rds of the way done! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

**at the time of writing the story in question, the term "gender non-conforming" was not known about as widely as it is now; basically, I knew what it was without knowing what it was called.

[carletes]

Hello! A couple of thoughts i had about the kids cause I’m in love with them. Imma just drop those here and go:

-I believe you mentioned Lan being a linguist or interested in linguistics. So I think this kid will have a field day if they went to the paddock with the amount of multi-lingusts there. And I noticed people who grew up bi/multilinguals are usually more capable of picking up other languages easily or at least getting the feel of it quicker. So imagine Lan, Aurelia or any of the kids roaming around then coming back to Lando and throwing a couple of sentences at him and he’s like “???” Only for Daniel to go “That’s dutch. I had two teammates that can speak it I know that shit. One of the sentences is I love you but not sure about the rest.” Like they will just leave for a bit and come back with a few sentences of some random language and Lando thinking “this feels like a foreshadowing of some sort”

-Pretty much most of the drivers will try to dress the kids in their team’s merch. Lando will go through the paddock with the twins in a stroller, and by the end of it they’re wearing #16 Ferrari jackets, red bull caps, aston martin shoes and their honey badger plushes somehow are holding tiny Mercedes cars now..

-Maybe they enjoy uncle Charlie playing the piano! Maybe he tries to teach them or they just like to mess around with it when he finally convinces the parents to babysit sometimes. The kids are just randomly pressing keys and pretending to play and it’s all just fun! When they get sleepy he actually plays them their favorite lullabies and they fall asleep to it.

-whoever the most chaotic kid is, they’re gonna get along really well with uncle daniel. Carlando will ask him to babysit and when they come back everything is ok. But when they chat with the kids about their day and it’s “- and then we ate dinner and then we build a volcano and the lava reached the roof and then we had ice cream an-“ “WAIT WAIT! You did what?!” “We had ice cr-“ “before that?!” Angelic responsible kid “in my defense, I tried to stop them”

-We established that Allegra took the racing gene, would it show that she have the eye and the intuition for it? Like if as a kid she’s chilling in the mclaren garage watching the race with everyone and she goes “hum, this driver took the turn too wide and breaked too late. That’s gonna cost him time. Oop and he just wasted an overtaking opportunity tsk tsk” andreas and zak will look at her and be “we got dibs on this one. Let Ferrari know that.”

Maybe when she’s a bit older she challenges Charles to a Monaco race on the sim and she wins. Next day Carlos meets Charles with the biggest proud papa grin ever and Charles just greets him with “Not. A word, Sainz” or is it Norris-Sainz? “My baby girl bea-“ “I SAID NOT A WORD!”

I AM SCREAMING I LOVE ALL OF THESE SO SO SO SO MUCH more (many, many more) thoughts under the cut oh my god. I love the Norris-Sainz household. I should make sims of them.

1. I think a year or so after Lan is born, Lando retires but he and Carlos still occasionally haunt the paddocks in the way all former F1 drivers do LMAO so yes, absolutely, all of the kids (except poor Allegra - I mean, she is genetically Lando's daughter, so it checks out) are pretty damn good at languages. Even though they never check Lan's paternity, Carlos and Lando privately agree Lan's most likely Carlos' child because of the ease with which they learn languages. But yes absolutely Lan is EXCEPTIONAL with languages, and they love love love being paddockside for exactly that reason. Even though the bulk of their translation work is for negotiations/diplomatic summits, they do translation work at FIA events "for fun." You can't kill that motorsport gene.

2. I am obsessed with this idea. Allegra and Charlie become a battleground for team PR. Everyone wants the Norris-Sainz babies sporting their merch. Carlos is a little affronted because he spent a lot of time matching outfits with the kids, only to have them be covered in clothes. People are like "Please, it's just for a photo!"

Caco, not jokingly, suggests that Carlos and Lando carry around a non-disclosure form to make sure the kids don't end up on some F1 team's Instagram. They still do, of course - and once Andreas and Zak catch wind that Allegra is a racing prodigy, Carlos and Lando have to ask the teams to take down pictures of her in non-McLaren merch LMAO. (There's an exception for Ferrari, of course - Carlos insists). Charles absolutely lays claim to Charlie ("he iz mai namesake, oui?" "charles he's CARLOS' namesake" "ah zen wai iz his name shar-lee?" "i hate you so fucking much") until Charlie is old enough to share his parents' penchant for bullying Charles. They're still incredibly close, and Charlie really treasures all the #16 merch he has. Allegra has a million honey badgers. Lan rocks their #5 and #44 merch.

3. Uncle Charles is definitely responsible for a lot of the kids "culturedness." Allegra doesn't have the patience (see below), but Charlie, Lan, and Aurelia all love Charles' piano playing. I think I've mentioned this before, but Charles is the reason Carlos and Lando find out that Charlie is a naturally talented baker/chef - Charlie WRECKS Charles' kitchen one time when he's 10 because he wants to bake muffins for everyone and while Lando and Carlos are apologizing profusely to Charles, he just takes a bite of the muffin and goes "wait shut ze fack up and eat zis." Charles takes the kids to the FANCIEST, most EXPENSIVE restaurants; which, in fairness, only Charlie appreciates. Carlos and Lando work hard to bring up the kids comfortably but as normally as they can. Charles is dedicated to undoing their efforts. They have several VERY expensive presents held in trust for the kids (from both Charles and, it has to be said, Lewis). "A six month old girl doesn't need diamond studs." "Well until she tells me that herself, you can just hold onto those."

4. Uncle Daniel isn't allowed to babysit the children, and he CERTAINLY isn't allowed to babysit Allegra. They bring out each other's worst tendancies. See also Fernando, who has appointed himself as Allegra's godfather (he is not). Charlie gets VERY stressed when Uncle Daniel is around. Everything you said is completely spot-on.

5. I think Carlos and Lando have a serious conversation about this before they have the twins. They're like "Listen, we're not going to force our kids into racing. It's not fair to them to have that pressure." Carlos feels very strongly about this in particular. Now imagine their shock when one of the other drivers sends Allegra and Charlie a toddler-friendly toy car that they can ride around in and Allegra, at all of 2 and half, starts doing donuts. "Haha, what a coincidence," Lando says, while hyperventilating. Fernando takes them karting one time without telling Carlos and Lando. They get sent a video of Allegra absolutely wiping the floor with everyone's ass (Charlie comes second, but he's not quite as excited as Allegra is - it was fun, he had a good time, that's about it). "Haha, what a coincidence," Carlos says, ignoring Fernando's multiple phone calls.

Then Carlos takes the kids trackside while they're still very young (Lan is strapped to Carlos' chest) to watch one of daddy's races. Allegra, uncharacteristically quiet the entire time, watches her daddy race, and then says, "He didn't use the racing line, that's why he almost spun there."

Carlos just buries his face in Lan's curls and tries not to cry. They receive several calls from several different team principles that night.

They never wanted to admit to themselves what a dream come true this is, but later, they hold each other and kiss and cry because they, in their heart of hearts, wanted the racing tradition to continue in some small way. And Allegra is a true prodigy; the daughter of two champions - what else could she be? All the kids are talented drivers, but Allegra has the hunger for it. There was nothing else in the world she wanted to be.

[Note: Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris-Sainz. They both agree Carlos Norris-Sainz sounds a little weird. The kids are all Norris-Sainzes.]

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Back on it' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"Back on it"

"Sometimes, I'm feeling so free, forgetting about the big problems I have in my life because you're there for me and I just want to enjoy those rare moments with you."

Chapter Summary : After paying her respects to Lazar, Yirina is finally going to Laos with Park to join Woods team to work against Naga.....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3500

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I didn't know of what Park was planning but she did right today, she managed to give me an moment to finally pay my respects to Lazar himself at Tel Aviv, his homeplace. Even if I still feel that guilty in me of that particular day for what happened, I still remember the positivity of Lazar's behavior that he was showing to me, he was really my brother....it's been 3 years since he's gone but he is never forgetten by me & Park. I wished things to be differents but it happened sadly. I hope that he found better peace at where is he now....He can't be forgotten !

It was hard for me to leave the cemetery and it was the same thing for Park too but we finally managed to get out, still having tears on our faces as we were going back into the plane that was awaiting for us, ready to fly away from the city to get to our destination : Vientane in Laos. Since we left Tel Aviv at nearly 10 AM, we should arrive in the Laotian capital after midnight. I didn't sleep too much on the flight, mostly checking up my diary and everything I did write for almost 2 months and also writing down that memory about meeting up with Naga.

Like I thought, we arrived at Vientane after midnight at 1 AM and to say, we were an bit tired of the flight as we didn't take an nap for the large part of it, hoping that we could get to the place Woods is awaiting for us. Me & Park were surprised to discover that Garrett was awaiting for us at the airport, asking if we did have an good flight and how I was feeling after what I did. We did answer his questions before we could leave the airport, our equipment with us to the direction of Woods's team safehouse.

"Wait, where's the safehouse ?" I was asking that question to Garrett who was driving, Park on the front passenger seat and me on the backseats as I could see that we were getting out of the city limits, 5 minutes after we left the airport.

"Yes, where it is ?" Park added as she didn't know like me.

"Okay, you're ready to hear this ?" Garrett started, his eyes quickly looking at us before getting them back on the road in front of him. "Let's just that the CIA managed to reuse an old Laotian Air Force base for them." He replied, making my eyes go wide...how did they succeed ?

"Are you kidding ?" Park raised an eyebrow to him.

"Not at all !" Garrett scoffed, removing his right hand from the steering wheel for an few seconds to strectch his fingers.

"But the governement is communist !" I exclaimed, having some history knowledge about the country in my head. "They will found out that the CIA is here."

"Maybe, the CIA is bribing the governement to keep their eyes shut." Garrett said, his right hand passing through his lips before putting it back on the wheel. "Since Naga is hiding in the jungle, having an old base at our disposal is helping us." He then looked through the mirror to me. "I heard that Woods briefed you an little on that."

"He didn't tell much about it." Park told him, looking outside in the darkness of the night as we were leaving the Laotian countryside to enter its jungle "He said that he will make an full briefing for us tomorrow."

"He's right since everyone is exhausted after today." He stated to us. "We had an mission today and it was very long." He looked at an roadsign outside before he take an turn to the right on an dirt path. "We shouldn't too far from the base now." He added before he start to make some signal with the car lights, shutting it down and lighting them up in an quick succession.

"What's that for ?" I demanded, pretty curious.

"Signal code to say that we're friendly." He responded as from afar we could see the entrance of the base that was looking pretty old and its gates opened. "It's the best way to make sure that we aren't greeted by bullets."

"Because they're shooting at sight ?" Park asked to him, an bit confused.

"Why they wouldn't be ? They want to keep their presence an secret and no one want to have problems here with the local authorities." Garrett expressed, nervous about thinking about it, that could be heard in his voice and his face. "And also because it's the CIA." He continued as he was parking the car in an parking space, filled with military trucks. This base was guarded like an normal one with military personal on watchtowers and guards patrolling around.

"Yeah...because it's the CIA !" I thought to myself, saying it in an very low voice, knowing well of the CIA's bad business...well, everyone in his car know about it. "This place is looking well to not be old." I proclaimed, looking outside to see the base that was in an good shape.

"Of course, they renovated the place down." Garrett breathed before he got out of the car with us too. "They even decide to use some Huey helicopters." He pointed to us in an direction, discovering some helicopters that were checked up by crews.

"Looks like some people here wanted to relive the Vietnam War." I spoke up, seeing those helicopters, having flied in some of them...in my fake memories of course and I'm sure that we will have to use them in the future. I was thinking of it as we were unloading our own bags from the car trunk.

"Some of them are from the US reserves and two of them are belonging to the Lao People's Liberation Army Air Force." Garrett told us, helping us to get our bags out of the car. "We can thanks the CIA's bribes to the governement." He sighed in relief before he closed the trunk. "Okay, let's go join the team." He started to move away from the car as me & Park follow him inside the main building of the whole place that was looking like an big hangar.

"Here you are, you two !" An strong male voice said as we were entering the hangar with our bags in hands, it was Woods himself dressed in civilians clothes coming towards us. "Welcome to Laos." He offered his hand to me & Park and we shook hands with him separetely, getting our bags on the ground.

"You did miss us, it seems." I scoffed in an funny voice and Woods rolled his eyes around.

"Both of you ? Well...yes." He admitted, sounding not sure. "Before we start...."

"Yes, we know the warning, Woods." Park stopped him as she knew of what he was going to talk along with me...don't be too public, girls !....."It's good to see you too."

"Fine, since you know that....It's still for you too, Garrett." Woods continued to his statement, pointing at Garrett.

"I know but Song is been away with Sims, Mason and an small part of your guys in the jungle." Garrett expressed to him and me & Park were pretty curious and he could see it on our faces. "Woods send them for recon, should be back in the afternoon today." He added, giving us details about it...until I saw from afar, Hudson himself, arms crossed and leaned against an wall, looking at us, me especially, he wasn't willing to get to us to say something...he's kinda creepy....must not look at him, now...

"They should come back here with intels about where this little drug warlord is hiding inside the jungles." Woods stated, crossing his arms to look to, what I suppose to be his desk as he walk to it. "But there's something you two should see." He sniffed as he was taking in his hands two playing cards before getting back to us. "You need to watch your back." He told us, handing the first card to Park

"What the fuck ?" Park started, looking at the playing car that she was given : an picture of her on it, she was the Queen of Hearts. "Helen Park : To be captured alive !" She repeated, seeing the inscription on the photo.

"You're not the only exception, this is your playing card, Yirina." Woods gave me the other cards and I could see that I was also the Queen of Hearts alongside Park.

"Yirina / Bell : To be captured alive !" I whispered with the same inscription Park had on her cards. Now the whole Perseus Collective know that I'm alive and well. "Where did you find them ?" I demanded to Woods.

"From the Perseus agent that allowed us to know about Naga." He replied, leaning against his desk behind him. "The same thing like Adler, you became Perseus targets." He added.

"Yes but you know well that we ain't going to hide." I spoke up, giving my thoughts to Woods about it. "And besides, they think that I'm 'Bell'." I continued, seeing this name alongside my real name even if it was troubling me to be honest. "Damnit." I sighed, pulling the card in my jacket.

"Seems that someone needs some Bourbon !" Another voice came in and when I look around, I could discover an old face I didn't see for an month..

"Wolf ?" I breathed, amazed to see him here.

"I heard that you worked with Wolf an month ago in the New Orleans and Sims asked for him to come so I agreed." Woods explained as we were shaking hands with Wolf, he didn't change in an month to say.

"It's good to see the two of you here." Wolf said with an smile to me & Park before he look at Woods. "Any news from the recon team ?"

"No, we should have informations about them in the morning." Woods responded before he removed himself from his desk. "Anyway, you might want to take an look around." He suggested to us as we just arrived and we nodded.

Once we nodded, Woods took us for an little tour around the place and also outside, presenting the base like if he did live there, he did also gave an workplace near Garrett's desk and we learned that we were going to sleep in an dorm with everyone....great ! All of that while been watched by Hudson himself, still at his same spot, looking at us with his eyes hidden by his usual sunglasses, he's looking like Adler in my first days in that safehouse 3 years ago.

When the whole presentation 'à la Woods' was finished, we got our gear out of our bags and put at our personal workplace with Park until it was time for everyone to go take an nap but not for me as I wanted to do something before actually going to sleep. So, as Park & the other were going to sleep, having an little kiss from her before she left for the dorm, I decided to go see Garrett that was the only one with me to not go directly to sleep.

"Garrett ?" I started in an low voice, walking towards his desk with joined hands. "Is there any secured lines here, I would like to make an call." I explained to him.

"Oh, an call ?" He whispered, getting up from his chair. "Yeah, sure, follow me." He gestured as I follow him behind and then, we arrived in a another room where there were some phones on an table. "Who do you want to call ?"

"Zasha !" I replied, getting myself near an phone.

"Good...well, I will leave you to it then, Yirina." Garrett smiled at me and it was reciprocal until he left the room, not closing the door behind him as I start to dial Zasha's number from their office in Century House. It's one of the numerous things I have noted in my diary, not wanting to forget about it....one ring.....

"Zasha Smirnov !" I could hear their voice in an rapid moment, having heard only one ring, meaning that they were near the phone at their office.

"How's my best friend at work ?" I said in an good mood, trying to think positively. Because of timezones, it was only the beginning of the evening in London.

"Oh, Yirina !" They exclaimed, sounding happy that I called. "I'm so happy that you're calling, you arrived in Laos ?" They demanded.

"Yes, it's almost 2 AM in here, what about you ?" I responded, checking if no one was coming in in case.

"Almost 8 PM, I was going to join Portnova at her place of work." They replied, making me smile, knowing that today was the first day of job as an maths teacher in the University of London. "Hopefully, your call was well made because I was ready to leave." They stated.

"Well, guess that I'm lucky !" I said before I make an little laugh and they did the same too. "How's work, Zed ?"

"Honestly, it's perfect, very nice." They answered, hearing them having an breath and sounding very good. "The people I'm working for are very nice." They added, sure of their words.

"That's the main thing, I knew that you will like the MI6." I stated to them.

"Hey, today, they brought me to play an little game during an break." They told me, getting my attention on it and removing my eyes from the door.

"Really ? Explain." I said, very curious.

"They called it 'Bullshit'." They started, narrowing my eyes as I thought that they were insulting me before realizing that was the name of the game. "It's hard to explain but I will try : we're playing with an deck of 52 and we had to get rid of the cards that we were given" They breathed as I heard it before they continue. "You have to play cards in an order but if you don't have it, you have to lie but if you get caught lying, you're taking the pile and if you're thought that someone was lying didn't cheat, you take the pile."

"That's sounds an great game to say." I exclaimed, sounding happy that Zasha was able to have an good animosity with their new friends at the MI6.

"At first, I thought I was so bad at it but then, it worked and I won by an lot." They admitted to me, laughing about it. "The others were either focused on calling out the others instead of me."

"Now, you got very lucky !" I scoffed, making them laugh through the phone.

"I have an lot of fun to be real, it's wonderful." They told me. "It's sure that me & you are going to make an game."

"Count on me & Park !" I affirmed to them, raising my index finger.

"By the way, me & Portnova are....well, we're organizing an little private wedding party to celebrate our union and you & Park are invited." They revealed to me, making my eyes goes wide.

"Really ? I....Zasha, it's amazing." I was in an loss of words, feeling the happiness in me about hearing that idea from them. "When it will be ?"

"Since you're in Laos for undetermined time, it will be the 4th of June." They responded and I nodded to myself before I look around....to see Hudson standing at the door and looking at me.

"Okay, Zed, I will be there, don't worry." I smiled before Hudson creepiness remove that smile, making me look away from him. "Listen, I have to go...say hello for me & Park to Portnova." I demanded.

"Don't worry, I will, give my regards to Park too." They asked.

"Good, I will call you later, bye Zed !" I told them.

"Bye, Yirina." They said before I hang up the phone, finding myself alone in that room with Hudson who, when I turned around, was still there near that door.

"Are you going to stand there and still looking at me as an creep or you're going to talk ?" I asked to him, serious in my voice and clenching my fists

"No." He answered briefly before he took an pack of cigarettes in his hand. "Follow me, we need to talk." He ordered in an harsh tone, gesturing at me before he walk away.

I could have tell him to fuck off and going to bed for good but then, I found myself obliged to follow him and wanting to know what does he want with me. I thought that he was going to talk with me near his desk or mine but instead, it was outside that our talk was going to take place, near the big door of that hangar. He stopped himself once stepped outside, to light up his cigarette but he wasn't talking at all.

"What do you want ?" I directly ask to him after an few seconds of weird silence.

"Need to talk things about you." He responded, blowing some smoke out of his mouth, his eyes focused on looking in the horizon.

"Really ? You're suddenly interested in knowing me better ?" I said, offusqued as I was crossing my arms, looking away from him. I wasn't pleased to be with that guy.

"Listen, there's things I'm sorry with."

"Oh yeah ? Like you're sorry that you worked with Adler to brainwash me ?" I asked him rhetorically.

"Do you think that I was pleased with that ?" He got his eyes back on me as I was doing the same by hearing his words, getting my attention. "It's not because I'm Adler supervisor means that I did agree on that." He added to his statement as I was keeping an straight face. "Believe me, I wasn't happy about that at all."

"But still, you still treated me like if I was only an terrorist." I exclaimed, remembering the few little talks I had with him in the past and they weren't good. "You're the one who ordered Adler to terminate me...why aren't you finishing the job since Adler wasn't doing it ?" I questioned him, sure of my words.

"I have my reasons, Grigoriev." He responded, taking an deep breath.

"Wow, I'm not 'Bell' for you, anymore ?" I breathed, faking to be amazed towards him as inside of me, I was wondering what make him change his mind to call me by my real name. "Are you going soft or it's maybe one of your usual lies ?" I continued, wanting to know even if I could prevent in advance that he wasn't going to respond. "It's sure that you don't believe someone that isn't an american."

"Yes." He simply whispered.

"For you, you need to know that I'm an british-russian woman but I guess that it doesn't change an thing for you, still staying the good american patriot, right ?" I stated clearly in front of him, remembering some words that Park used to describe him.

"What I wanted to say is that it's good that you're here." He affirmed to me, making me narrow my eyes. "I know that Adler did brainwash you, left you for dead and an lot of things but you know well of the dangers of letting Adler in Perseus's hands." He continued, trying to convince me of 'Adler's good side'

"It doesn't please me but since 'I have no choices'." I quoted the numerous times I think about that possibility. "Isn't strange to see the brainwashed woman trying to rescue the man who has broke up her brain ?" I demanded, not wanting any answers from him and I even gestured that he didn't need to respond, it was strange to be sure.

"Do you have memories back ?" He chuckled, changing the subject as he crush his cigarette with his feet.

"Yes." I replied in an low voice. "Why do you want to know ?" I added.

"I just wanted to know about this, wondering what was your past." He answered, scratching the back of his bald head.

"Sometimes good, sometimes bad." I sighed, thinking of all of the memories I did relived, it was an lot of them. "Things that I can't talk about and if I do, it's only to my closest friends." I admitted, making him sure that he's not part of that category.

"I understand." He breathed before I decided it was time to get back inside and to go to sleep. "Grigoriev !" Hudson stopped me before I could have one feet inside the hangar. "How do you feel right now ?"

"Right now ?" I repeated, an bit confused of that ordinary question from him, my hands right on the door handle. "I don't know, been to an place that I thought to have set an foot in my 'old times', it's making me nervous." I said, mentioning that fake memories I had in my head. 'Bell' knows Vietnam...not me. I then put my right feet inside before I stopped to look at him witn an serious glare....

"I'm just trying to redeem myself and make the good, Hudson, keep that in mind !"