#I'm so used to it just being a basic square building

[notwordsspoken]

They finally decided to do the right thing and hired other workers instead of making their underpaid 10 year old son work himself to death

[alexanderwales]

Alright, here's my dream Stardew Valley style game, designed for my own tastes.

You come to a small town with the usual twenty to thirty people. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's a fantasy town, and no one actually farms anymore, partly because it's only questionably profitable, partly because a lot of the knowledge has been lost. Instead, everyone uses these magic doodads which are very powerful but also very limited. The tavernkeeper has a doodad that makes him a single kind of weak ale and a single variety of off-tasting wine. The clothier has basically a square mile of linen to work with, and everyone wears her drab clothes. Tools are made from a doodad that the blacksmith owns, not even made of any actual metal, just a material that wears away after a month and needs to be replaced by a new copy from the blacksmith's doodad. People get their meals from the doodads. They get their medical checkups. It's all a bit shit.

Because I'm a worldbuilder at heart, I would have this all exist in the wake of a large-scale war that depleted the town of its fighting-age population, with the doodads being a sort of government program to ensure that more of the lifeblood of the town could be drained away. And for there to be some reason for the town to continue existing, perhaps the government is harvesting some resources necessary in the creation of doodads. That's enough for a pro-doodad faction and maybe some minor drama with them, though I do like the idea that the only reason things are Like This is because there was a war and things got bad. It's not necessarily a bleak town, but there's definitely a listlessness to it, a "what's the point".

So you're a farmer, but no one is really a farmer anymore. Maybe there are a few books, but you don't learn farming from books, you learn it from practical experience; that's a lot of what this game is about. When you start, there's no one to buy seeds from, there's just a bunch of wilderness where farms once stood, now all long overgrown.

So you go out and forage, for a start, and you clear the land, and you pay attention to the plants and how they can be used, and you start in on making recipes with them, maybe with the help of your grandfather's old, partially incomplete books. You find some wild corn that's a descendant of the old times. You find some tomato seeds in an urn. You discover potatoes because you see them dug up by a wild boar, which itself was once a domesticated animal.

In my ideal game, you need to pay attention to the soil quality, to how far apart things are planted, to what crops work well together. Farming is a matter of companion planting and polycultures. You get some chickens by giving them consistent feed, and you keep them around because they're natural pest control. Your climbing beans climb the stalks of your maize. You're attracting pollinators. (From a gameplay perspective, yeah, we probably put this all into a grid, and you have crop bonuses from adjacencies, and emergent gameplay that comes from all that, some plants providing shade, others providing nitrogen fixing.) You're a scientist making observations about the plants, maybe with your incomplete book giving you confirmation on the nature of all your crops once you hit certain production goals or a perfect specimen or whatever.

Cooking is the same. There has got to be a system that I like better than just "combine tomato with bread to get tomato bread". I'm pretty sure that it's some variant of the actual process I use when cooking, which is making sure that things are properly cooked, balancing flavors against each other, adding in a little salt or acidity or umami or whatever. Time in the kitchen, in this game, is often about making meals, ensuring that if you have a fatty piece of meat you have some asparagus that's coated with lemon to go with it. (From a gameplay perspective, I think building the dish once is probably sufficient and it can be automated after that, and building the meal is the same. I don't want to play this minigame every time I'm cooking a dish, I just want to play it a single time until I have good knowledge of the best way to grill a BBQ chicken breast with a homemade sauce.)

But if we're having a little minigame here where we pay attention to how long we're cooking the kale to make sure that it's the right texture, and we're paying attention to abstractified mouthfeel and palette, then we can get something else for free: variation. See, you're not just cooking to get an S grade, you're cooking for people with different tastes. The cobbler has a sweet tooth, the librarian loves fruity things, the mayor cannot stand fish, that sort of thing. From a gameplay perspective, maybe we represent this with a radar graph with some specific favorite and least favorite individual flavors, and maybe it's visible to the player, but the important thing is that player gets feedback and have a reason to strive for both "good" and "perfection" and some of this is going to depend on the quality of the ingredients.

And this is, gradually, how the town is brought back into the fullness of life. You're not just cooking for these people, you're also selling them food, and they're making their own recipes, and all the stuff that's not food is making their businesses not suck anymore. After the first test keg of ale goes swimmingly, the tavernkeeper wants more, a lot more, and puts in an order for hops, wheat, grapes, anything he can use to make things that will improve nights at the tavern. The clothier will skeptically take in wool and spin her own yarn, and then eagerly want more, because how awesome is it to have a new textile? There's a chemist who is extremely interested in dyes and paints, and wants you to bring him all kinds of things to see what might be viable for going beyond the ~3 colors that the doodads can provide.

So by year two, if you're doing things right, you're the lynchpin of the revivalist movement. People are now moving to the town, for the first time in decades, because they hear that you're there and doing interesting things with the wilderness. Maybe there are other farmers following in your wake, but maybe it's just new characters who are specifically coming because a crate of wine was shipped to the capital city. Maybe some of them bring new techniques for you, or a handful of plants from a botanical garden, and there are new elements for the minigames, or maybe some automation for the stuff that's old hat.

I think something that's important to me is that there's a reason for the crops you plant and the things you do. I always like these games best when it feels like I'm doing something for someone, when I can look at a plot of cabbages and think "ah, those are the cabbages I owe to Leon". Where these games are at their worst, everything is entirely fungible and I've planted eight million blueberries because they have the highest ROI.

And yeah, in most of these games, there are other minigames like fishing and mining and logging and crafting, and since this is just a blog post and not a game, I definitely could massively expand an already sizeable scope.

I think for mining the player would use doodads of their own, and maybe you could make a mining minigame out of that, using the same planting tile system to instead create an automated ore harvesting machine that plumbs the depths of the earth (possibly dealing with rocks of different hardness, the water table, and other challenges along the way).

Fishing is a question of understanding the different fish species, what they eat, where they congregate, and then setting nets or lines, since I have never met a fishing minigame I really enjoyed. Again, there's some idea that the player is gaining information over time, building up a profile of these fish, noticing that some of them go nuts when it rains, understanding the spawning season, that they go to deeper water when it's cold, etc.

Crafting really depends on what you're crafting, but if you're reintroducing traditional artisan processes to this town, then people are going to need tools and machines and things. I'm not sure I know what a proper crafting game looks like. The only experience I have to draw on is wood shop, where I made wooden boxes, cutting boards, and picture frames. Since this is an engineering-lite puzzle-lite game, you could maybe do something in that vein, e.g. defining a number of steps that get you the correct thing you're trying to make, but ... eh. I love the idea of designing a chicken coop, for example, or building a trellis if I want my climbing beans to not need maize, or whatever, but I don't know how you actually implement that. There are definitely voxel-based and snap-to-grid games where you build bases, and I tend to find that fun ... but it's mostly cosmetic, for the obvious reason that doing it any other way than cosmetic requires programmatic evaluation, which is difficult and maybe unintuitive. The closest I think I've seen is ... maybe Tears of the Kingdom? Contraption building? But I don't know how you translate that to a farming game. Maybe I should ask my wife about this, because she's always doing little projects around the house (an outdoor enclosure for our cats, a 3D-printed holder for our living room keyboard, a mounting for our TV).

Making an interesting crafting system is difficult, which is why pretty much no one has done it.

And if I'm talking pie in the sky, without concern for budget or scope, I want the villagers to all have a mammoth amount of writing for them. I want petty little dramas and weird obsessions, lives that evolve with or without my input, rudimentary dialog trees that let me nudge things in different directions. This is just an unbelievable amount of work on its own, it would be crazy, but I would love having a tiny little town game where sometimes other people would fall in love. I would like to be invited to a wedding, maybe one that happened because I encouraged the chemist to hang out with the clothier, and in the course of working together on dyes, they fell in love. With twenty people in town and another ten that come in over the course of the game if you hit the right triggers, I do think this is just a matter of having a ton of time/budget. You write tons and tons of dialogue so there's not much that's repeated, you have some lines of conversation between characters that are progressed through, you have others that trigger off of events, and then you have personal relationships between NPCs that can be progressed through time or with player intervention. Give single characters a pool of love interests, have their affections depend on their routine which depends on what's changed in town ... very difficult to do without spending loads and loads of time on it though.

Anyway, that's one of my dream games. No one is ever going to make it, it would be a niche of a niche, and as scoped here, is too much for a small team to ever actually finish, let alone polish. But it's the sort of thing I'm imagining in my head when I think about playing Stardew Valley and its successors.

[jewishvitya]

Saw an interview with the Israeli ambassador in the UK where she openly rejects the idea of a Palestinian state at all. Including in a two-states scenario. Which, I knew this is the position of our government, Netanyahu was recently trying to push the "I'm the only one who can prevent a Palestinian state," but she was unusually open and explicit about it for an international interview.

And I didn't realize it at first (because I'm awful with faces... and names) but that's Tzipi Hotoveli. She's so right-wing that she was a popular name in the settlements when I lived there. And this is something I can say about many politicians currently running the government, they are the names that aligned politically with the most extremist community. And this is why she's so bad at being diplomatic about it - the people with that mentality rarely care about watering down their goals.

A mutual of mine on a different platform, an American anti-zionist Jew, talked about a trip they took to the West Bank. It was organized to show the occupation, the checkpoints, etc. Someone asked in response if they visited settlements too, and said that he was glad they enjoyed the trip, but it seems to be all one color.

This was a weird comment. What can you see in the settlements to change your mind, if you care about human rights. What can you see that would erase the suffering of Palestinians there, or give context to justify it. Even if settlers knew to say all the right words, this shouldn't be enough to make you forget what Palestinians are living through.

But they don't say the right words. Especially there, the people openly dehumanize Palestinians. And if you talk to them for a while, they will do it to your face. And they will be open about wanting no Palestinians living on any part of the land. Israeli Arabs are often seen as a different story, as long as they accept Israeli sovereignty. Still not fully trusted, though.

I saw someone confusing the electric fence I mentioned in a few posts, with the separation fence, which is the wall around the West Bank. Not the same thing.

The separation fence is built within the territory of the West Bank, but it's a large wall all around that cuts them off from other areas of the land.

The electric fence is smaller, and it's specific. The one I'm referring to is in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron. That's the settlement I grew up in. It's one of the more established settlements, and it's basically a small town. Right behind the apartment building I lived in, there was the electric fence. And in a distance of maybe a couple of traffic lanes past the fence, were Palestinian homes. They could see us, we could see them.

The fence was there for our sake, not for the Palestinians. But sometimes the settlers would tear it down, forcing the border police and the military to guard that spot and rebuild it. I wondered why, because a hole in the fence near my home scared me. And then I learned they were protesting against the feeling that they're being contained. The settlers, with how they're constantly expanding, felt that they're not given enough. Settlers treat "we can't expand as fast as we'd like" as if that's oppression.

They would regularly get into conflicts with border police and with the military over this. They'd go out to claim another hill, and their temporary homes would get torn down. Individuals from the West Bank settlements would have the Shin Bet keeping track of them in case they'll do something that could provoke an escalation of violence. And this isn't to claim that Israel was being fair to Palestinians or protecting their interests. It just means that Israel tried to be strategic to an extent, and the settlers are inflammatory. Their stated goal, openly talked about, is to establish a presence on the ground, so that any agreement that gives land to Palestinians won't be possible. I kept hearing sentences like "not even a square centimeter." Meaning that they want to leave nothing for Palestinians. They aren't trying to think about what Israel can get away with, they feel entitled to everything.

And these are the people that the current Israeli government aligns with. Which puts a lot of things out in the open, and pushes a lot of other things into further extremes.

[baenyth]

Bethany's Bizarre Miraculous Fic Prompt: Hawkmoth Gets Owned By Various Fictional Detectives

Basically I want to see Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Poopmoth/Monarch fail more since he kinda sorta won last season. And it's also crossovers where different fictional detectives (or just people on the Kira case square,) out Hawkmoth as Gabriel Agreste once and for all and hopefully do similar stuff such as outing Lila as a liar, dragging down other corrupt adults like Tomoe and Audrey, etc. and also just various funny moments with these characters interacting with the Miracucast. Here's some ideas I have from characters I know or are just interested in:

Lieutenant Columbo. I already made a post detailing it.

L from Death Note. I haven't watched Death Note, but if the memeposts are to be believed, he would outthink Gabriel Agreste at every turn. Probably ask him to show what's behind his ascot.

Shuichi Saihara from Danganronpa V3. Aside from him deducing Gabriel as Hawkmoth with the help from his friends, imagine the shenanigans. Gonta being ecstatic for the bug-themed heroes and how nicely they treat the purified butterflies. Kokichi takes down Lila by being Kokichi. Tenko is aware of the plot and tries to get Marigami together and make them kiss, alongside getting an Julerose kiss. Kiibo and Markov bond. So do Kaito and Rose. Kirumi somehow becomes mayor of Paris.

The Scooby Gang. In general I like the concept of silly guys managing to defeat Hawkmoth. They would accidentally find the secret elevator to Emile's pod and manage to use Ladybug and Chat Noir as bait for a trap and at the end, (since I like to imagine they're meddling adults at this point,) Gabriel Agreste grumbles that "at least it wasn't those meddling kids Ladybug and Chat Noir." They also take down the rest of Paris's elite because that's who the villains of Scooby Doo are.

The Duwang Gang. I think Kwamis and Miraculous heroes can see stands, but I'm unsure about akumatized people. Maybe. It turns out Crazy Diamond can heal people wounded by the Peacock but they pull the plug on Emile for the health of everyone. Rohan Kishibe uses Heaven's Door on the Miracukids and gets into accidental meta commentary upon discovering the full love square. He also uses Heaven's Door on Luka and it's sheet music. Maybe let Yukako join in too because of how much of a romancefest this show is and also because I like her and she had such a big presence in Great Days. Gabriel Agreste ends up with a similar fate to Yoshikage Kira, being surrounded by our heroes and helpless to do anything.

Sam and Max. I don't know much about them other that they're 1. funny guys, and 2. might just end up hitting Gabriel Agreste with their car.

Steve from Blue's Clues. Aside from the inherent humor of an educational kids show host taking down a terrorist supervillain, it also implies Blue knows who Hawkmoth is. Steve sits on the thinking chair to deduce Hawkmoth's identity and where he's hiding.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. Maybe Muriel and Eustace are dead and he was sent to live with Mylene and her dad. I feel like they'd get along well. Or maybe they're still alive and just visiting Paris and Muriel and Eustace are staying with Mylene and her dad. Either way I think this should take place around season 5 because the alliance ring works well with Courage's themes of paranoia over something supernatural putting your family at risk.

Agent P. Maybe Hawkmoth gets so desperate he gets Doctor Doofenshmirtz to build a wife-revive inator only for Emile to end up in another coma after accidentally pressing the self-destruct button on said inator. No one recognizes Agent P without his hat because this is Miraculous and people are dumb. Perry gets to beat the stuffing and tar out of Hawkmoth. Doof betrays him when he learns about how shitty of a dad he is. The miraculous heroes are allowed into OWCA on account of the animal theming.

The Smiling Friends. It starts off with a mission involving all of the main four helping Marinette smile and spirals down from there.

Not Batman. I've had enough Miraculous-Batman crossovers for one eternity.

[statementlou]

so after seeing your anon and for shits and giggles i went to lthq's page and saw that they tagged pinkpop in the photo dump post and tagged the location of main square festival in louis' stories and correct me if i'm wrong but any social media posts and interactions would have been agreed upon in writing before he signed the contract for the festival, so i really don't see what the problem is. not even counting in the fact that louis is not a social media influencer that would lose fans for his lack of tagging etiquette 😂 new fans or old fans are not gonna go on his socials and say "oh my, he didn't tag the festival, what a dbag. i'm unfollowing" 😂

he's doing a lot of festival and so far with really big crowds! the festivals are featuring him on their socials (which is really what matters cause new fans will check the festival's ig for more info) and i'm sure he'll gain more and more fans as the summer continues. all things considered i think this festival run is already going really well.

mHMM. And honestly ALL this nitpicking is SO STUPID because the actual FACT is: he is gaining fans. Continually. His fanbase has basically doubled every year for the last 4 at least (going off ticket sales), so saying they aren't doing a good job of promoting him is just fucking stupid: clearly they ARE. The problem is solos literally think all that is happening because THEY make social media posts and that Louis and his team are just bystanders which like... oh babes. We the fans are important sure and yes Louis appreciates us but get some perspective, a couple twitter trends didn't build this and do you truly not understand that Louis is more than just a pretty face, that hailing him as the boss and a king of the business side of things and smart isn't just being cute that he actually IS good at the industry and at these things and extremely fucking smart and savvy? Maybe even- gasp- BETTER AT IT than a bunch of randos on the internet creating an echo chamber?? I seriously don't understand these fans that say they're the only ones who really appreciate him and then spend every minute tearing down everything he does- his clothes his choices his music his team his words his lifestyle... EVRYTHING. I genuinely want to know- what do you like about him besides his physical appearance and maybe a version of him you made up that he is failing to live up to? Because it doesn't seem to be his actual self that's actually right here in front of us doing awesome things and THRIVING and having a great time

[rowanmutt-afterdark]

For the requests could we have some nsfw with the Bumblebee movie?

Since i have a thought that cybertronians have sex organs (can't remember the science term) but don't use them since it's not how they reproduce they don't really know what to do with them.

Basically I'm asking for a bottom bee cumming for the first time with a top reader?

If you get around to it thx for writing & ttyl ❤️:]

Sub/Bottom Bumblebee X Top GN Reader

🔞NSFW Warning: Blowjobs, first times and tooth rotting fluff because bumblebee is a sweeties🔞

When Bumblebee asked you to top, you were thrown off by the request. This was his first time after all but also him asking for you, a small five foot tall being to top a close to over ten to twelve feet tall robot was something you never expected to happen.

You stared at the Autobot who sat on the old worn out futon mattress you had salvaged for him to lay on at night. You straddled his wide hips while his big baby blue optics watched your expressions and facial features trying to figure out what you were thinking.

"Are you sure, you want me to top?" You ask him again, the yellow scout merely nods. A buzzing sound following in the sound similar to a hum.

You haven't topped before in a long time, guess it wouldn't hurt to try this put for Bumblebee. With a new energy that even Bumblebee seems to be surprised by, you push him onto his back with both your hands. You carefully scoot up further on his body to straddle his waist rather than his hips. The Autobot watches on with confusion yet also a curiosity as you start to shimmey out of your clothes.

You strip yourself free of your clothes, leaving yourself naked on his lap as you let him take your naked body in with an awed expression. His optics widening with a brightened shine that you assume to be lust and excitement.

You grab one of his servos and guide it to your chest, his servo tries to pull away but you hold it steady as you place it on your chest. He stiffens beneath you and watches your reaction as you smile and nod. Encouraging him to explore, first times were learning about each others bodies and what the other enjoyed.

Bumblebee seemed to enjoy how soft your chest was, his servo explored the area of skin. Groping at the mounds that were there, from the shiver you felt under your body and the pressure building under his modesty plate, you assumed this was getting him excited.

You have him explore your body, testing the waters. His digits crawl over your skin, mapping out evert square inch. He listened for any sounds you make. So he knew what was good and what was bad. His favorite noise was when his servo cupped your lower extremities a sound equal to that of a squeal and a moan left you. He whirred in glee before he pressed a digit further to your folds earning another pleased sound from you.

Except, he wasn't supposed to be topping.

You grab his servo and pull his hand back. He looks confused until you smile at him. "I'm the one in charge big boy~ Now open your panel, I wanna see what I am working with."

A click follows your order, from over your shoulder you can see his growing erection. He was a lot bigger than you had thought. He was a alien but you had expected smaller since he was quite small for most of his species.

His spike was a black and yellow pattern. The colors were pretty and matched his whole aesthetic. You grab for his spike, the whirring he made of surprise as well as his body jerking as you grab the phallus and tease the soft, sensitive tip earning a few sounds from him that male you wet at just how horny he was making you.

You stand from his waist and walk down to stand between his thighs. You sit down on yoru knees and take his spike in hand again before you decide to make eye contact with him as you lower your face closer to his spike. He tries to say something but your lips and tongue make contact with the yellow tip. His next noise almost made you laugh.

He cries out with a hint of static as he bucks up towards your face. You pull back in time before that had ended badly and then go back to the tip to start kissing at it and gently lathering your tongue along the slit on his tip. His pink transfluid was sweet yet bitter, it also was thicker than you had expected.

You start off slow with your blow job. Starting off with your tongue swirling the tip and sucking on the top of his tip earning sounds that send heat straight to your core. His optics shut with another moan ans you slowly start to take more of him in. His noises are absolutely arousing. He sounds so good as he moans and gasps at the small ministarations to his tip.

Not to mention he didn't give much warning as his spike starts to buck up into her mouth more. A slight gag of surprise leaving her as he tries to fuck her mouth but it is put to a end with her hands pressing down onto his hips as she suckles on the tip and urges him to let go while you used your own methods of getting what you wanted during sex.

Grabbing onto his hips you take his spike down your throat and try to take a portion of it and suck rather loudly and quickly onto it. His hips hump against your face as he tries to fuck your mouth while you help get him off with a blow job. He doesn't fair very long as it's not even a few moments later he's spurting his release down your throat making you gag with a surprise pull away as the warm cum covers yoru mouth and throat.

You struggle to swallow his large load as he fucks yoru face with a vigorous pace that has you reeling to a stop as you pull away with a loud gasp. Cum dribbles down your chin as you smirk with a chuckle.

"How was that for your first ever bj?" You ask nervously, the corners of his optics ceinkle in what looke dto be his way of smiling as he reports it was great now that he had the most attractive and best partner to be intimate with. You were amazing, according to his report back.

"Good, because I am about to start Round two with you~"

[nonsensical-pixels]

1000 followers gift, part 4: morning dove reshade and teeny tots collection part 2! [download - sfs | mf folder]

it's finally here: the final gift for my 1000 followers weekend! and it's a two in one deal!

over the last year i have come to realise that i really like making two things: reshades, and toddler stuff. it's so satisfying watching the environment my sims are in, and the whole mood of the game, change with the click and drag of a few buttons. also, toddlers are really cute and there isn't nearly enough stuff out there for them.

part 4 has two things: my second reshade preset ever, morning dove, as well as my first every clothing conversions--and for toddlers too! i have received many, many questions about what reshade preset i use, so this is it!

update 10-4-23: fixed issue with weird squares/rectangles on ep05 dress holiday and ep05 vest bowtie, please redownload and replace the original meshes!

credits

@kindlespice for the dove 2.0 preset i used as a base for morning dove!

ea/maxis for the original meshes & textures of the toddler formalwear

@skittlessims for helping me with all of the errors and confusion i encountered while converting the clothing, and also for just being an amazing friend and mentor in general. love ya anna 💕

for more info, on both the downloads and the future of this blog, please keep reading 😊

part 4a: morning dove

previews feature all effects except fog, artistic vignette, & chromatic abberation. these effects however are present in most of my cc posts, so if you look at my previews i believe you can see them 😅

if you've been following my builds/gameplay for awhile, then you probably recognise this preset. i use it in almost every screenshot of mine, and many people have asked for it, so here it finally is! it is based on @kindlespice's dove 2.0 preset but with a lot of tweaking to make it more versatile in ts2. this preset comes with a number of different shortcuts to enable/disable certain effects: Alt + 4 -> mxao Alt + 6 -> adaptive fog + canvas fog Shift + 2 -> ring dof and gdof Alt + 5 -> artistic vignette Alt + 7 -> marty mcfly dof Alt + 8 -> chromatic abberration Alt + 9 -> directional anti-aliasing the basic goal of morning dove is a preset that looks good in any style--maxis match, realistic, or clay!

part 4b: teeny tots part 2

this particular download just makes me very happy. i love ts2 toddlers, they'll always be the best in the franchise in my eyes, and just look at those happy lil faces! also, milo stylo is being milo stylo and looking so damn cute. there never seems to be enough toddler formalwear (imo) so it just makes me really happy that i was able to make my own.

these are my first ever clothing conversions, i did my best but they're not perfect, so there may be clipping and gaps especially around the shoulders of gp11 dress flower. i apologise for this, i really tried but didn't manage to fix it 😔

EP05 Dress Holiday - PU only, 14 colors, casual & formal, 3.7k polys [swatch] - paired with @skittlessims' base game mary-jane shoes from their lunar dress💕 GP11 Bowtie Shirt - PU only, 10 colors, casual & formal, 3.8k polys [swatch] - paired with base game sneakers taken from @lucilla-sims' ep11 suspenders 💞 GP11 Dress Flower - PU only, 10 colors, casual & formal, 5.3k polys [swatch] - paired with @skittlessims' base game mary-jane shoes from their lunar dress💕 EP05 Vest Bowtie - PU only, 9 colors, casual & formal, 4.0k polys [swatch] - paired with base game sneakers taken from @lucilla-sims' ep11 suspenders 💞

final words

well, i guess that's it then! it's the end of a long gift-filled weekend. and also, the start of a very long break.

my final exams will be starting in about two weeks and ending around november; they are the most important ones i have ever faced and i cannot afford to lose focus. after that will be exam after exam, as i enter tertiary education.

if you still wanna chat with me/hear how i'm doing you could probably join the simscord by @skittlessims, i'm a junior moderator on there now so i will still be semi-active on my break. also, if i do find the time to post cc anymore, it will probably be on there lol.

the sims has always been a sort of escapism for me, a way to pretend that the trials of real life don't exist. but in the last few months i've felt myself drifting farther and farther from it. i need to focus on my studies and stay focused on my life goals.

the future of this blog is still uncertain. i have cc queued up until june--leftovers from my original break, stuff i finished up, requests i got during my holidays--but after that, there probably won't be any more until i come back... which could be anywhere from 9 months to 9 years, tbh, with my current mood. until then, consider this blog on semi-permanent hiatus.

there are so many of you who have supported this blog from day one, who have always stuck with me even when i'm not at my best or when misunderstandings occur. i cannot thank you enough for your continued support and love. the last year has been a difficult time for me: losing pets, friends, and in general, my mental health. this extra-long gift weekend is for you--a thank you for the over 365 days of kindness you have shown me.

i am sorry for this, but for now, i am going to have to leave you again. thank you for the love, and i hope you enjoy the cc while it lasts. until next time,

~ Ky, nonsensical-pixels

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

How would you have handled the other miraculous holders?

I would have massively cut them down. The season two lineup was fantastic, though you could get away with two or three more. Eight really is about the max you can hit for a team before you start bloating the characters assuming that you're only dealing with one central group. If you're dealing with lots of side teams, then things get more complex.

There's a concept in writing called "Kill your darlings," which I'm only mentioning so that you have something to Google if you want to know more than what I'm about to tell you. The basic idea is this: to tell a good story, you need to be willing to cut things you like if they're detracting from your overall story.

As a personal example, I really like Juleka and Rose. I think they're cute and I like putting them together as a couple. But narratively speaking? They don't matter. You could cut them from the story and nothing would change because they're just casual friends to Marinette and Marinette really doesn't need more close friends for the stories I want to tell. Add in the fact that Purple Tigress and Pigella have awkward power sets that aren't all that interesting and, yeah, my love for these two does not override the fact that they have no place in the stories I want to tell. So I find ways to mention Juleka and Rose from time to time and I use them in a scene when I can, but most of the time? They're not in my stories because the goal of my stories is usually love square shenanigans and not showing off a cute healthy sapphic couple.

Similarly, the goal of Miraculous is the tales of Ladynette and Chatdrien, so the focus needs to be on them and these extra characters are really not needed. A fact that's super clear because of how underdeveloped the side heroes are. Most of them get a single recruitment episode and that's it. There's no build up to establish them as solid heroes, leading to them eventually being chosen. It's all shoehorned into 20 minutes and then largely ignored after that. I mean, Nino has been Carapace since season 2 and he's in a mere handful of episodes, none of which are all important character moments outside of his initial debut. The only temp heroes with anything interesting going on are Viperion, Queen Bee, and Rena Rouge/Furtive.

If I HAD to include the other holders? Then I would have massively cut back the love square content and come up with ways to power up the butterfly so that the extra heroes felt necessary. I might have even brought in additional forces of evil to battle. I also would have given the various team member clearer roles and given them their miraculous full time because you really do need to make massive changes for the team setup to work.

Team shows are wildly different from dynamic duo setups. Compare Kim Possible to Teen Titans and think about how different the focus is. Kim Possible has two very clear main characters while the supporting cast takes back seats. Teen Titans doesn't have a clear main character. All five Titans are given a chance to shine as the main character shifts from episode to episode and even season to season with each Titan getting a chance to be the center of an ongoing plot. If you want to have a team while keeping Chat Noir and Ladybug at the center of the story, then you need to build that team around them which you really can't do if you have a massive team of 18. A smaller team, though? You can make that work. For example, I still think Chloe's recruitment should have been a chance to give Adrien a character arc around boundaries and trust because it's really hard to jump into parent/child conflicts. Starting with a best friend one with the same vibe is a much easier path.

[snakeeyesdraws]

Overly Analyzing Fortune Street character dialogue (Mario and Luigi)

So I've spent a lot of time browsing Mario wiki pages (organized easy to read information about a current hyperfixation makes for great destressing material) and one of the pages I've been really into is the quotes from Fortune Street (2011)! I've been thinking about talking about and discussing some of the character dialogue from it, since some of them actually have some fun character tidbits, and after seeing this post from pianokantzart (please go check out their stuff!) I decided to go ahead and do so!

Today we'll be focusing on Mario and Luigi's dialogue, and dialogue that involves them! If you would like to view these quotes for yourself, you can do so here and on the character's quote pages. I'll mainly just be highlighting some of the fun ones under the cut!

Mario

"Brr! This ship gives me the creeps! Best to win fast so I don't have to hang out here too long!" (The Ghost Ship)

This is an area-specific dialogue line for the Ghost Ship, and I find the implication that Mario is a bit creeped out by ghosts/haunted places, seeing as Boos/ghosts are an enemy that have notably defeated him numerous times via the Luigi's Mansion series.

"Wow! What a fancy palace! But I still think Peach's Castle is the best…" (Castle Trodain) "Ha ha! I'm gonna do well here. Peach's Castle is like a second home to me!" (Peach's Castle)

Simple but cute!! He thinks of Peach's Castle as a second home and feels safe there!! This is extremely important to me

"Dooo-doo-doo-doo-doo-dooooo! Hey, I love this tune!" (Super Mario Bros.) "Doooo--doo-doo doo-doo-doo! That sure is a catchy tune I've got stuck in my head! Oh, sorry, is it my turn already?"

He also really loves the Super Mario Bros. theme! The theme that is associated most with him and Luigi ;w; I like to imagine he hums its to himself whenever he's working

To Yoshi: "I'll help you find your cookies, Yoshi - just give me a second to brush these cookie crumbs out of my mustache!" Yoshi to player: "Yoshi! Yoshi! (Nice job on that promotion, (player's name)! Here, have some cookies to celebrate!)" Mario's response: "Why no cookies for Mario? Can't I have just one?"

There's also a running theme of him wanting Yoshi's cookies which I think is so funny. The Legendary Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom cannot turn up a tasty snack. Some people seem to push back against the idea that Mario enjoys eating?? But I think it's such a cute characteristic of his (and the fact that he basically admits to Yoshi's face that he swiped his cookies jsadjkkdlsa)

"Not to look a gift Yoshi in the mouth, but I was hoping for more coins..."

Mostly highlighting this one for the substation of "horse" with "Yoshi" in this quote. Fun little world building tidbit of Yoshi's being the Mushroom Kingdom's horses.

After player warps: "Ever get a stomachache when you warp, (player's name)? That happens to me sometimes!"

Even though he presumably uses the warp pipes all the time? Interesting... (side note but because I'm movie brain pilled, you could potentially read into it more here for that verse 👀)

After landing on a Take-a-break square: "Heroes never take the day off! What am I supposed to do with myself - go to the beach?"

Bro that is not a good mindset let yourself take vacations!

"Thank you for your patronage! You're very generous, (player's name)... Just like me!"

There's a lot of playful lines like this from Mario, I like when we get to see his competitive side and how he has a teeny bit of an ego (he's still overall humble and kind, but he knows he's the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom)

After player buying his circus tent: "I can't believe you took over my circus, (player's name)! Didn't you like my fireball show?"

FIREBALL SHOW???? HE PUTS ON A FIREBALL SHOW????? I am desperate for any crumbs of reference to Firebrand (even though he likely used a Fire Flower for this but still)

To Luigi: "Hey Luigi! Stick with me, Bro, and we'll win this one together!" Luigi's response: "You got it, Mario! We'll show (player's name) some real Mario Bros. teamwork!"

To player: "Nice work, (player's name)! But Luigi and I aren't going to give up quite yet!" Luigi's response: "Right you are! The Mario Bros. are just getting warmed up!"

THEM........ 🥺💖 WE LOVE TO SEE THEM WORKING TOGETHER

To player: "Psst! Hey, (player's name)! Princess Peach is watching, so I'm afraid I just can't lose to you today!" Peach's response: "Mario, I heard that! But don't you worry - I'm the one who's going to win!"

Dude is SMITTEN for Peach and it shows. He wants to impress her! I do like that we get to see that Peach is also competitive and playfully rolls with it

To player: "Keep going, (player's name)! It's way too early to give up!" Peach's response: "Hey, Mario-what gives? You seem like you're more concerned about (player's name) than you are about me!"

That said, Peach clearly likes having his attention on her LMAO it reminds me of the scene in Paper Jam where M&L Peach visibly got a bit jealous of Mario getting blushy and flustered over Paper Peach

Bowser to player: "You're in luck! If you beat me, you automatically get to become one of my minions! That's the law around here!" Mario's response: "Don't listen to him, (player's name)! I've beaten him a million times, and I'm no minion!"

Almost all of Bowser's quotes that invoke a response from Mario play out like this; Bowser provokes or taunts the player and Mario immediately snaps back or defends the player. It's fun to see a version of their rivalry here, albeit one in a much more relaxed and lower stakes setting. They will get extremely competitive even when it's just a game for fun

Bowser Jr. to player: "You're just being a big show-off, (player's name)! I'm NOT impressed!" Mario's response: "Don't be jealous, Bowser Jr.! Sure, (player's name) is doing great - but you're not doing bad yourself! Try to stay focused!"

While Mario will do the same if Junior taunts the player, here we can see him being encouraging towards him. It's a cute little moment! I feel like Bowser's Fury enjoyers will like this quote lol

Peach to Mario: "Hmph! Why does (player's name) have all the luck? Mario! I order you to go out and gather me some gold coins!" Mario's response: "Sure thing, Princess Peach! But, umm..how?"

I mean it when I say dude is smitten. One order from the princess and he's ready to drop his competitive streak to go fetch some coins for her LMAO

Toad to player: "I'm impressed with your business acumen, (player's name)! I wish I was more like you… Mario's response: "You can be, Toad! Just keep up the hard work!"

Friendship between Mario and Toad can be so personal, actually... and more encouraging and sweet Mario! Never forget that this man is kind and caring before anything else

To Birdo: "Ouch! Birdo, you're charging me an arm and a mustache! That's precious gold I'm never going to see again!"

AN ARM AND A MUSTACHE HE SAYS............ this man is a DORK

To Bowser Jr.: "I'm surprised you're charging folks so much to shop here, Bowser Jr. ! Just like your daddy, you are!" To Bowser Jr.: "Bowser Jr.! You're just like your daddy. Always getting in my way!"

He'll be encouraging and overall gentler with Junior, but it doesn't change that fact that Junior still gets in his way a lot JADSKK

To Donkey Kong: "Hey, Donkey Kong! Would you mind if I paid you in bananas? Ha ha ha! Oh, I bet you get that joke all the time!" To Donkey Kong: "You sure know how to roll that die, Donkey Kong! Almost as well as you roll a barrel!"

oh my god he's so obnoxious sometimes you KNOW this man is telling dad jokes even if he's not a father. And it's a small hint towards the DK and Mario rivalry that started in the old games!

To Luigi: "Oh, Luigi! Can't you give me a special discount or something? I thought we were the bestest of buddies!"

the bestest of buddies I could cry.... it's a very sweet sentiment, even though clearly it's said in a bit of teasing tone here. I now HC that Mario calls Luigi his bestest buddy whenever he wants something from him

To Peach: "Looks like I need to start picking some flowers for your victory bouquet, Princess Peach!"

THIS. MAN. IS. SMITTEN.

To Waluigi: "I hate to fraternize with my brother's nemesis, but it looks like we're going to have to work together! Let's swap shops, Waluigi!" To Waluigi: "What!? Waluigi's about to win!? I don't think Luigi is going to be too happy about that…"

Interestingly, we get to see the Waluigi / Luigi rivalry acknowledged by someone outside of them. I do like the implication that out of principal, Mario avoids anyone who has beef with Luigi.

Luigi

”Eek! No one told me there would be gh-gh-ghosts here! I wish I'd brought my Poltergust 3000 with me.” (The Ghost Ship)

LUIGI'S MANSION REFERENCE!! An obvious one, but it makes me happy whenever it's referenced regardless

"Leaping lasagna! This place is even bigger than Peach's Castle!" (Castle Trodain) "This place is wackadoodle! It's turning my brain into spaghetti!" (Good Egg Galaxy)

HE DID IT HE SAID THE FOOD JOKE THINGS!!!!

"Looks like my bro really cleaned this place up! I hope they gave him the key to the city!" (Delfino Plaza)

this one is just, so pure and cute???? supportive Luigi confirmed??

To player: "Hey, (player's name)! I'm Luigi! Oh, you've heard of me? I'm so flattered I think I'm blushing!"

This is also so cute and a bit sad - he thinks it's amazing that someone has heard of him enough to know his name outside of just "Mario's little brother"

"This game has got my mustache all mussed up! Where's my little comb?"

Implying he carries a comb with him specifically for brushing and cleaning up his mustache! Which makes total sense, considering these other lines of dialogue from him;

"I take a quick time-out to trim my mustache, and someone buys up almost all the shops! What gives?" "Ack! One shop left? All I did was take a minute to trim my sideburns… I need to stop doing that!" "Who bought up all the shops? Guess I was too busy grooming the 'stache to pay attention to the game…"

A lot of people interpret Luigi as very neat and tidy and almost obsessively keeps himself cleaned, and this dialogue most certainly solidifies that! People pointed out in the recent film that Luigi's hair is also a lot neater than Mario's, which lends to this idea. Apparently more than once he's been so focused on grooming his mustache and hair that he's missed something important lol

"It's not so bad being in second place. As a matter of fact, it feels just right! I wonder why that is…"

Ohhhh buddy,,,,,, the eternal player 2 mood LOL

"One day I'm gonna dominate this district. Then everyone will see who's the real brains behind The Mario Bros.!"

JDSJKASDLDASKLA this is such a sibling quote. Though it is interesting considering many people consider Luigi the more strategic of the two

After player lands on a Take-a-break square: "You've been working so hard lately, (player's name). Promise me you'll take it easy on your day off!"

A lot of characters will gleefully remark that they can advance while you're on a day off when you land on a Take-a-break square, but Luigi seems to genuinely want you to take it easy and I think that's neat

To player: "Did Mario teach you to play this game, (player's name)? 'Cause you've definitely got some sweet moves, just like him!"

CUUUUUUUUUUTE Luigi thinks the world of his brother, so of course if you impress him, he will compare you to him!

After player builds a tax office: "Built yourself a tax office, (player's name)? That was a calculated move! Ha ha ha ha!"

"You got any hobbies, (player's name)? I'm into lots of things: golf, tennis, basketball, beating you at this game…"

DORK I am going to lovingly push him into a locker. This was the blueprint for "You just got a-Luigi'd!"

After building an estate agency: "I bet Princess Daisy'd be really impressed if I owned a few more shops! Help me out, estate agency!"

One of the most favourite moments for Luigi/Daisy enjoyers. Because it really is cute! He just wants to impress her!

Going bankrupt: "Bankrupt!? I'm gonna get laughed right out of the Mushroom Kingdom!"

highlighting this one just because every time I read it all I can think of is "they're beating my ass in the QRTs"

Daisy to player: "If you win, (player's name), maybe I'll invite you on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Sarasaland!" Luigi's response: "Wow, what a prize, (player's name)! I wish I was in your shoes!" Daisy to player: "Yay! You got your salary, (player's name)! I guess that means you'll drop by my shop soon, right?" Luigi's response: "Wow, Princess Daisy! You're good…"

THIS. MAN. IS. ALSO. SMITTEN. I find it so funny that both Mario and Luigi are so head over heels for their respective princess GFs.

Waluigi to player: "Hope you're comfortable in last place, (player's name), 'cause that's where you belong!" Luigi's response: "Knock it off, Waluigi! I'm pretty sure you're the one who belongs in last place!" Waluigi: "Luigi, (player's name)… Is there anyone they DON'T let into this thing?" Luigi's response: "Ha ha! You're one to talk, Waluigi! How did YOU get on the guest list?"

LUIGI, KILL!!!!

More of the Waluigi / Luigi rivalry, and it's interesting to see someone who is usually more timid and soft spoken like Luigi be so confrontational and angry addressing someone who is clearly getting on his nerves. Waluigi seems to be one of the few people who can really push his buttons like that.

Mario to player: "Nice job, (player's name)! You're a real hero - just like Mario!" Luigi's response: "I wish Mario would call me a hero sometime…"

The post I linked before delves a bit more into this, but Luigi has a couple of dialogue lines about wishing Mario would think more highly of him. It doesn't come across as out of spite or disdain; it just reads as a younger sibling wishing he could impress his big brother who he looks up to. But as we all know, Mario clearly thinks the world of Luigi and he even shows it in this game;

Mario to Luigi: "Great job, Bro! Ha ha! You're my hero!"

They care about each other and I will hear NO arguments.

[yakuzabrainrotlive]

Gaiden has been progressing well! I'm having a TON of fun playing and it's just. SO GOOD SKDJKWKW. I'm having fun with fights again! This is already shaping up to be a contender for my TOP3 games list.

I'm in chapter 2.

Okay first of all, Kiryu has an agent arc??? Interesting! Also this game is GORGEOUS. As gorgeous as Kiryu himself kdjdkwksw🫡 Damn does he look mighty fine in this one.

Based on the year given, this seems to be set around Like a Dragon? So this is a kind of "Meanwhile elsewhere" type of thing? Makes sense now why my mutual said that this game HAS TO be played at this specific point.

Please do not. Remind me of this. I haven't healed yet. Ouchies. Brb, gonna cry a little. Just a bit. I KNOW why he made this decision but it's painful 😭

I don't know why, but the whole "I gave up my name" thing hurts me surprisingly lot. I never really thought about it much, the thought of having to give up my name and being forced to live behind aliases makes me ache.

It's one thing to have your name changed on paper, but not having a proper name at all just makes it feel even more like you're totally isolated and will never be able to settle and be a part of society again. Never fully belonging anywhere; just drifting along without proper attachments. And in this case, fully dependant on Daidoji to have a place in the world at all. And I know it's basically what Kiryu signed up for, but... oof.

Kiryu in general has this extremely depressed look and vibe. He seems very numb and sad. Which is totally valid considering EVERYTHING, but it really does show just how terrible his mental health is right now. The last time he seemed this apathetic was at the start of Y5, but even then he seemed to at least have a sort of anger or frustration keeping him going. Now he's just... empty.

For a single second I was going HANNYA MAN FROM YAKUZA KIWAMI??? And then realized this guy's build and hair are totally different and that Majima's tattoos don't go that far down his arms :( And there's the whole fact that Majima saw Kiryu for the first time again at the Daigo-Watase "We're quitting and so are you" party.

First of all, MASSIVE meme potential here.

Secondly...

PLEASE DON'T DIE, COOL OLD MAN. I love you <3

I find Kiryu and Hanawa's dynamic interesting. Despite Hanawa being... well, not an asshole, but seemingly not very pleasant either, Kiryu seems to actually like the dude somewhat. He did say Hanawa is "the only connection I have made in this dull, pathetic existence" which is... okay - first of all - let's not unpack all that trauma, hurt and depression right now!! But I also get the feeling that there is a type of fondness here. Idk; maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome. But I have a hard time believing that 100%.

The first "That's a Lot Of Men" of the game for me. It's not like a MASSIVE horde of people, but this is still kinda early on in the game.

Yupp, knew immediately Kiryu wouldn't take the deal. Firstly, reviving Kiryu Kazuma and going back to his family would basically just take him back to the situation he escaped by dying. Back to square 1.

Secondly, Kiryu would never have a man killed just to be happy himself. That's just not how he operates. You'd think people would have that figured out by now.

Also can y'all stop using the Morning Glory kids as a "haha gotcha now you gotta help us"??? That never ends well for anyone, never has; y'all are idiots😭

I love Akame!! She's incredible ^_^ She's like... Sotenbori's own Florist but she looks after her people more and takes on a more active role in helping them.

....

Speaking of... what DID happen to the Florist? Did the man die?? Or was he finally sent to... The Side Characters We No Longer Need Void™ ??? Insane. RIP you legend.

ANYWAY. I feel like being around Akame will definitely do Kiryu some good. Having someone who's not a total asshole around might help him feel at least somewhat better for a bit.

I'm gonna grind the SHIT out of Akame network, the perks are way too good to pass up on. And I don't wanna rush through the game.

Hii my precious!!! ☺️🫶🏻

Tiger Drop is actually very cheap. Gonna go for it fr. I'm not in the habit of spamming it on everything, but I find learning the timing and using it properly very satisfying. I feel like it's gonna be VERY difficult to pull off in this game since the combat IS very different from Y6.

[bbgliker-teehee]

This might sound like an unpopular opinion of mine but... Is it just me or is Fizzarolli becoming an annoying character to me now. Like before season 2, I used to like him and I found the conflict between Blitzo and him really interesting and I wanted to learn more about it despite me not liking the show at the time (I mean I still do, but you know what I mean)

But when season 2 came along, I was left with a sour mouth when it comes to Fizz, and his conflict with Blitzo. Fizzarolli became from what season 1 gave us, he gained the most success and he felt proud of it, didn't care of the others feelings when insulting them, and was basically an asshole that rubs the success and Blitzos face and was the first one to genuinely get on Blitzos nerves (even have implications of Blitzo being jealous towards Fizz because he hoggled the spotlight more than him) but when season 2 came along, he just now resorted to being a huge scared puppy that shakes in his boots when someone insults him/threatens him. Like what happened to season 1 Fizz? What happened to the overly cocky and sassy asshole of a gremlin he was, can we bring that one and Season 1 Asmodeus back please?

And his conflict with blitzo and how it was executed, OH BOY. He gave him the most guilt-tripping ass apology, downplayed his disability just because HE REALLY MISSES MOM SO MUUCH, FEEL BAD FOR HIM HE'S JUST A MISUNDERSTOOD LIL BABY DEMON, like fuck off man. That episode didn't make me feel bad for the guy, it made me hate him even more.

And when in the end when they reconciled and shit, I was over here asking "Why bother building this rivalry up, when you're jist make them reconcile faster than the flash himself then?" Like, they should've just enemies imho, because that was more interesting than them being friends again.

I'm suprised that noone even brought this up too, but... This one piece of dialogue of Mammons shitty special I had to restrain myself from yelling at my screen. My god did I wanted to choke him to death when he says this:

OKAAAY, so not only did Blitzo give a guilt-tripping ass apology ever and they became friends again because of that shitty apology, instead of him comforting Fizz in this very moment, he resorts to saying THIS to Fizz when it's clearly shown that Fizz does not feel okay right now and looked he needed some comforting, and then Blitzo going back to square one and bullying someone when they're not feeling in the mood for it. Yeah good friend Blitzo, am i right? Fuck you Blitzo, genuinely like go die in a hole along with Loona & Stolas....

I'll probably be the only to say that BlitzFizz sucks, not a big fan of it because it felt like they just made Blitzo have a crush on Fizz to make him more sympathetic, yet they should've made them more like brotherly type of dynamic, to me that is idk about you.

Sorry for this essay like ask btw, just really wanted to get this out of my chest somehow. God watching these characters exist is hard man...

SAMMMEEEEE like- I think Fizz was a cool character, but since we can't have anything nice...Viv made him 'baby uwu'...

And Blitz whole ass apology was literally:

"Hey, I know you lost your legs and arms and you got all deformed and shit...BUT MY MOMMY DIED SO PWEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And yeah...I want my super swag sigma Ozzie who gets bitches back...not this loser beta dripless Ozzie that gets 0 bitches....

[kylejsugarman]

as a dedicated andrea crusader i must know, how does au^2 impact andrea and jesse's relationship? do baby and brock get along? i'm picturing it in my head and🥹🥹

ANDREA CRUSADERS UNITE, u are one of the ultimate andrea understanders 🥺 so their relationship is a little different in au squared!! around the time that jesse infiltrates the recovery group and actually meets andrea is the same time that demi moves back to abq and tracks him and baby down. he and demi have a weird, semi-formal relationship for a while before they start developing romantic feelings for one another and during that time, jesse dates andrea. any initial plans to just sell meth directly to her as a recovering addict and put together his own walter white-esque "fund" for his daughter instantly evaporate when he sees brock and realizes that andrea is also just a single parent trying to navigate addiction. they're so similar and jesse, having not encountered anyone in this specific situation yet, kind of desperately clasps onto her. he really likes her and she likes him, but a big part of it is truly just. jesse desperately wanting to be around someone who Understands. and andrea does understand!! she has support from her mom, but she had to figure out a lot of this child-rearing stuff by herself and sees a lot of her slightly younger self in jesse. the way he wants to provide the Best for his kid, but doesn't trust anyone else to give it to her. she feels the same way about brock a lot of the time, even though she knows now that its not necessarily them vs the world.

the thing about au squared andrea is that she realizes through observing jesse's behavior and his feelings about raising baby that he's a very sweet guy who is great to be around, but they are not on the same timeline and she doesnt really feel like "dating" is the right arrangement for them. andrea's not in a place yet where she wants to incorporate a romantic relationship into her life and jesse, god bless him, has an overeagerness to him that tells her that he's diving into this because he badly wants A Connection, which doesn't necessarily have to be romantic!! she talks to him about this and asks instead if they can just be friends, so that's what they become. andrea is his dear friend :') jesse still cares very deeply for her and brock and tries to spoil them both (if he's going to get baby a swagged out play mat, then its only fair that brock gets a sick new transformer toy and andrea gets memory foam slippers for after long shifts on her feet at work. u know. if he's already going to be out). brock adores him, but is initially less enthused about baby because well. she's a baby. she can't really talk coherently or play a significant role in his games and he can't use his toys with smaller, choking hazard parts around her, so he doesn't really know what his mom expects him to do with baby while she and jesse are talking. but he realizes that it's actually kind of fun to assume a "big brother" role (brock's a sweet kid :') he likes to be helpful) and teach baby things; she basically copies whatever he does after a certain point, which is extremely validating to him. plus, she's a pretty patient, docile little playmate, so she can play the role of "building that is on fire that the brave firetruck must extinguish" with tremendous skill. the highlight of his month is when they all go to the zoo together and brock gets to feed a handful of feed to one of the giraffes while baby looks at him just shocked and awed like :O

andrea remains a source of support and eventually befriends demi too, but as things get darker towards the end of the show (post-drew shooting), jesse withdraws a little from her to try to protect her. he already feels responsible for tomas being murdered and drew's killing just reminds him of how nobody, no matter how innocent, is safe from this shit. andrea and brock are too important to him to endanger, even if it means cutting himself off from a good friend. demi visits them a few times while jesse is in captivity just to be around Someone and so baby can play with brock, but it's weirdly uncomfortable and baby isn't acting the same without jesse there and demi soon worries too that the cantillos might become endangered through association with them, so she reluctantly withdraws. once jesse escapes and he and demi and baby make the trip to alaska, he still writes a letter for brock that he gives to ed, but he also writes one for andrea. he wants to thank her for the support she gave him, for guiding him and baby through so much uncertainty, for being such a wonderful woman and friend. "i hope baby grows up to be like u. i want to make sure she grows up to be like u." andrea never learns what became of jesse and baby and demi after the news breaks, but she keeps that letter in her nightstand drawer along with a messy scribble drawing that baby made for her and the ticket stubs from that zoo trip. she doesnt care what the news says. she doesnt care what the dea agents who come to question her think of jesse or their friendship. she knew him, the real him, and she will always love him.

[docholligay]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is when I'm supposed to tell you about the weight of history and what it is to see the human experience of the human experience all collected into a large building, and how it being labyrinthine is a part of the art itself, giving one the feeling of the human journey, up and down and backwards and lost, always lost, but surrounded by beauty and blah blah I'm sure it would have been very evocative and I'm clever as shit or whatever but honestly one of my FAVORITE things to do in museums is play games with myself. I like to pick categories, and find things that fit them, and here's a sampler of what I found

Something I’d like to steal: 

This punch bowl could very possibly hold two gallons of my sangria in one go, which would enable me to be an even better hostess, not having to constantly be looking to see if the sangria needs to be refreshed with the jugs from the kitchen waiting in the wings. There’s such an intensely organic feel to it, I just think it would feel good to carry this. I feel like I always pick a serving piece for this category--I always spend a lot of time in the functional arts--but in fairness, that’s the things I like and also, it sounds very frivolous to say that I love throwing parties, but it’s a part of connecting with my community, and I think, in some way, serving them. Genuinely, I would love to host something like a Sailor Moon mixer or something if people could teleport in. That’s what I do for my congregation, is basically catering for the shabbat meal. Anyway, I would use the SHIT out of this for the Shabbat meal, and also for parties. 

Something that moved me:

This is The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, and I must have stared at it for five solid minutes. My mom was wondering what in the hell I was looking at, and it was hard to describe. There is something so beautiful about the way the young sculptor is caught by his wrist, in the middle of his art. It will ever be unfinished, but no less the beautiful for that imperfection. The look on his face, as I moved around the piece in the corner of the Parisian-style square set into the Met, that horror and knowledge all in one. The Angel of Death cannot look him in the eye. He does what she needs to do, and then moves on, but that in no way means that each work is wanted, and this is not the act of calling an ill old man home. He was scultping the sphinx! He was doing greatness! But that matters not at all, when Death comes to call. I thought about it a lot then, if I had been alone I might have sat there and written down every fool thought that came into my head, but I wasn’t, and so I moved on, but it was lovely, and I was really touched by it. 

Something I learned: 

I did not know this kind of multi-shelved thing made to hold mostly objects was called an étagère! I had seen them plenty in interiors, but hadn’t connected a name to them.

The ugliest thing i saw: 

This fucking??? “Display platter”??? So it’s a platter, but you can’t use it as a platter because you have the ugliest fuckign fish this side of Billy the Big Mouth Bass over here blocking every useful part of the platter, joined by his good friend why the fuck is there a crawdad desperately trying to escape this place, and several venomous snakes circling the place. This looks like something my beloved and very sexy wife would buy at a garage sale for 2 dollars and put up in the garage because I deemed it too ugly to hang by the dead animal skulls in our house.

[butchsophiewalten]

notable things from the update so far:

- the camera screen above shows the same area as "birthday" picture from charles's page

- the one below shows the lobby in front of the much-hyped poker maze (i think?)

- white box thing (?) in the right bottom corner

- name tag/plate behind the drink cup with "Bunny" and the letters C and H (i assume), which could hint at both CHris and CHarles. i want to lean towards charles since he is rumored to play a big role in twf4 but chris is always hiding around the corner here so anything is possible.

- the fact that we now have a security guard character, with the setup very much reminiscent of the classic FNAF security office (the plushie, the posters, the drink) which is clearly the afformentioned "CH-" character

- lots of questions about the yellow poster with the uhhh drumstick things on the far right of the screen.

Lol, a lot of this is basically what I was going to say in a post this morning!

For anyone who didn't see last night: the main page of Findjackwalten updated!

On it we see this:

With the top left screen playing a filtered version of the minisode from last month.

You're right that the top right screen is showing the same room as on the /0714-74 page!

We're also seen this room one other time, in Martin's twitter banner from June of last year:

Looking at the map of Bon's Burgers we get from the Bon's Burgers Commercial, I think its safe to say the hallway in these images is "Corridor A"

The location visible on the bottom screen we're also seen before, in a teaser provided by Martin to Instagram user Waltenews:

As well as in Martin's current Twitter banner:

But a problem I'm running into here is that I have no idea where this room is. Identifying features I'm looking for on the Bon's Burgers map is a med-large square or rectangular room with a door to the right side of the wall, and a table opposite the door (not completely necessary to be there -- the table may just not be marked on the map). The only room I think even resembles this in layout is the Employee area leading into the Backstage, which makes no sense because this room is obviously public-facing.

The only real clue I can gather is that this room appears to have a door in it with a sign hung on it, one that I would have to assume reads something like "Employees Only", considering it appears to be a metal door with handle instead of an open curtain like we've seen for public areas?

If that is an employee door, this could possibly be Corridor B?? even though I doubt it. The only thing that leads me to say that is the door layout being roughly correct, if we assume the curtained door leads to the censored area on the Bon's Burgers map? It being the location of the poker maze doesn't make no sense, but the room's layout isn't exactly consistent with anything we can see on the Bon's Burgers map, so it confuses me. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing here.

About our mystery "CH" security guard character here, if we're meant to interpret the presence of the minisode on the screen as indication that the Local 57 spotlight on the mystery of Bon's Burgers already exists and has aired/is airing, then Charles would be long dead already. Which I think gives us a good idea of who this CH actually is...

Which begs the question as to why there's security cameras monitoring the inside of Bon's Burgers even after the restaurant's closure, if that really is what we're meant to glean from this. It also makes me wonder where this office building is, if the Bon's Burgers building is shut down and unused, and we've never seen or heard of this room in K-9 before. Maybe it's in the warehouse we've heard of? Or even some unknown 4th location?

This weird white box in the corner is interesting to me, too. Whatever it is, it's being obscured here on purpose. This corner of the image is the only one to have this weird shadowy vignette.

This yellow poster on the side is really killing me, too. Especially in how the "drumsticks" so obviously have Something written on them that is just illegible.

Lots and lots of interesting stuff happening in this FJW update...

[vro0m]

Seeing how confident McLaren is about their car and their drivers makes me nervous. I saw that Toto extended his contract at Merc through 2026 and it just feels like same sh*t, different toilet. I think Toto should just be satisfied as the owner of the team and step aside and let another TP come in and change the culture at Merc. I think that could potentially attract new engineers that could help with the development of the car.

Lewis is struggling with his qualifying times and George is overconfident. At this point, it's starting to feel like Merc is just not that girl. Why are they starting all over again with their car? I'm fairly new to f1, but I thought it takes years to develop a championship-winning car, yet they're developing a brand new one over the winter? That doesn't feel right to me.

Also, I didn't understand TeamLH bragging about Lewis retaining Monster as his sponsor, when Monster jumped ship from Merc to McLaren. Isn't losing sponsorships a bad thing, since the team is losing money that it would likely use to develop the car that would help Lewis win his 8th WDC? A loss for the team is a loss for Lewis..unless I'm wrong.

I truly hope Merc proves me wrong, but something's gotta give. I just don't have confidence in them.

Do you think that Merc needs a major overhaul or do you think they're going to make progress continuing on the path that they're on?

Okay i was gonna answer this in the morning but i can’t sleep so here we go, sorry if it’s a bit unhinged.

Here’s the thing. In my book, the second rule of F1 is never ever listen to a team principal. (The first rule being, of course, you always, always have to do better than your teammate.) So I’ll believe McLaren’s confidence is warranted when I’ll see it. Hell, I’ll believe they really are confident and it’s not basic 101 PR when I’ll see it. And mind you, Toto seems pretty confident too. (The only thing I’m happy about here is that he also said they’ve been working on their pitstops but due to Rule 2, I’ll also only believe it when I’ll see it.)

They’re starting over with their car because, as you noticed, the past two cars were Not Working. So no real choice here but to get back to square 1 rather than spend a third year trying to make a car that doesn’t work, work. Building a championship-winning car is less a matter of time (I mean especially nowadays with the costcap and windtunnel allocation etc. it’s getting irrelevant), and more a matter of getting it right. RedBull got it right and they won. The problem is : the others need to develop to catch up to them because they didn’t get it as right as RB, and that takes time and resources and is very complicated. And if you have a bad starting point, it’s that much more difficult. Basically there were too many things that needed changing with this car concept anyway. So they’re starting over. But it's also not like they don't have data and experiments from the past two years. They know more about these regs and cars than in 2021. Are they gonna win the ‘24 championship with the W15? No. But they weren’t gonna win by keeping the last, dysfunctional car concept either anyway. At least now they have a chance to develop in the right direction.

I did not read anything about the Monster sponsorship because i really, really don’t care. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I don’t think Monster leaving Mercedes is gonna make a dent in their budget. First of all, there’s a costcap now, so they can’t throw money at a bad car to make it good anyway. Second of all, they have a lot of other sponsors. Third, they’re the second most expensive team in the paddock. And fourth, their parent company is worth 85 billions of dollars. Lewis’ 8th has pretty much nothing to do with Monster or any sponsorship.

To answer your main question : no, I don’t think Merc needs a major overhaul. Given that you’re fairly new to F1 I concede it might not look like it in the current context but changing TPs is actually Not All That. And it generally doesn’t really solve anything. If anything I’m against major overhauls. Imho a stable ground is the best ground to build up on. Toto is... Toto. But he’s not the reason why the car is bad. It’s a whole team. 2’000+ employees. You can’t pinpoint any of the problems they have on one singular person. I mean Ferrari has had 5 different TPs in the last 10 years and that has solved exactly zero of their problems, and they still haven’t won a championship since 2007.

They are making progress. All of them are. It’s just, it’s F1. We’re talking about such tiny tiny differences in performance now, millimeters off of a piece of carbon fiber, milliseconds off of a time sheet. The time the pecking order could be turned upside down from one race to the next has been gone for decades. It’s all about the long game when the differences are so subtle. Even more now that they, again, can’t just throw money and wind tunnels at issues. It’s frustrating when it’s not your driver/team on top but success is mostly cyclical in this sport. Right now it’s RedBull. Next who knows. Merc is just not that girl, at the moment. It is what it is.

ETA : btw I think firing Toto would really throw Lewis off so. Another reason not to imo.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

I'm reading "Amatuer" by Thomas Page McBee and the opening passage is just lodged in my brain.

Why do men fight? What makes some of us want to get hit in the face? What makes others show up to watch?

What makes a man?

When I first began injecting testosterone, I was thirty years old and needed to become beautiful to myself. I clocked my becoming primarily in aesthetic terms: the T-shirt that now fit me, the graceful curl of a bicep, the glorious sprinkle of a beard. I loved the way men looked, and smelled, and held themselves. I loved their lank and bulk and ease, their straight-razor barbershop shaves, their chest-first centers of balance. I loved the quiet efficiency of the men's restroom, the ineffable physical joy of running alongside my brother, the shadows we cut against the buildings we passed.

I loved being a man in that I loved having a body.

And...

I had surgery to reconstruct my chest; I stuck a long needle into the meat of my thigh each week; I changed my name and my place in the world-all so I could quit hiding behind pulled-low baseball hats and rash guards, free to pull off my shirt and jump right into the waves.

The joys I found at first were daily, simple, and rooted in the warm physicality of a new freedom- toweling off after a shower and catching a glimpse of my flat chest in a foggy mirror; the way clothes sud- denly fit my squarer shoulders and slimmer hips. The extra muscle mass that squared my walk, broadened my hands, my calves, my throat. I touched the dip of my abs, half-naked in the bathroom, and the muscle and skin synced in the mirror. I turned, and he turned. I smiled, and he smiled. I expanded, and so did he.

The hope, the warmth in my chest, right now. It's indescribable. This man transitioned at 30 and it makes me feel like my life isn't basically over.