#I've seen this a lot with e-sims especially

[abisalli]

you should totally offer little silly doodle commissions!! something nice and low effort

I was actually thinking about that as well lately! I wanted to make them donation/fundraiser-commissions, when I find the time. But will keep you lot updated!

[fundielicious-simblr]

Hey there! I’ve been a fan of the Collinses (and associates! lol) ever since you started posting. Now that I’ve begun my own blog, I have to say (with the utmost admiration and respect) I’m stunned that you’re able to manage so many damn families!

I’ve played plenty of fundie saves before, but always with a single heir per generation, which means I’m woefully inexperienced with rotational gameplay. It’s so difficult, especially when you have to juggle varying levels of fundie-ness between households, extended family relationships, constant pregnancies, timeline issues and taking posed/stages screenshots for posts on top of actual gameplay!

If you’re up for it, I would so appreciate any advice/tips/tricks you have to offer re: dealing with rotational fundie gameplay. Either way, many thanks for sticking around for so long and sharing your sims with us ☺️

Hi! I'm so happy that you enjoy the blog, honestly I've been doubting whether that many people read it anymore, I just keep posting for my own personal satisfaction. As usual I'm a rambler, so this is about to be a mini-thesis, which will be below the cut!

If there's anything that I can say to explain how I do it, it's that you should just plan. Plan, Plan, and Plan. I micromanage every little thing that happens in my sims lives, I have two saves: one for gameplay and one for taking pictures. This is so that I can be ahead in terms of the plot lines and pictures without having to rush the actual game. I've mentioned it a few times here and there, but I have this mega doc with literally everything that pertains to my sims. It's got their life stories, love stories, random facts like allergies, their birthdays, the 'outcomes' for labour and delivery which effect how many kids they have, what kind of jobs they work, etc. For planning I also have a mega note on my phone with each post and what I'll write for it, I plan what will be said and who will be included, and sometimes the outfits required for them to wear or whatever poses I'm going to need for the post. It's also where I dump future ideas that I'll eventually work into a post if I want to. Since weddings are a pillar of fundie life, I have a separate note with all things weddings, before I wedding I plan the outfits for everyone from the bride and groom and their parents to the bridal party. I assign the wedding a colour scheme and then assign different people different colours. I also plan which poses I'm going to do, which for the main couples is a lot since they have a lot of posts for their weddings. For side characters that only get one post for their weddings I'll usually do a whole photoshoot then just pick two or three pictures to post.

One thing that also helped was me putting them in categories like 'heir' 'part heir' or 'side character', that helps me prioritise whose stories to focus on and how much they'll be seen on the blog. Honestly speaking, there are some sims that I only interact with when it's time to include them in a storyline, for that I let the Neighbourhood Stories take over and check in from time to time when I need to add a kid to the family or dress them for events. Since I have two saves, what I've found myself doing is playing with the side characters in the 'picture save' so I don't lose any game time that I could be using to play with the main characters in the main save. For rotational gameplay in order to make posts, I select certain narrators and basically just rotate between them with select characters sometimes getting a post or two. For this generation I've got Adalynn, Valentina, Lana, Maggie, and Brittany as narrators (there may be more, but for now I'm sticking with these). With Lana marrying into Adalynn's family I'm experimenting with her showing us what life is like for those in Newcrest since Adalynn moved away from home when she got married. Right now I see her as an opportunity to include more side characters since she's married to the 12th child in a cohort of 13, so her experiences and interpersonal relationships will be different than the older siblings and we may see more other character involvement . Maggie and Brittany are seldom narrators, with Brittany only really showing up at Harvestfest to do her family catch up - though I'm also experimenting how to bring them into the plot a bit more because they bring the political drama.

Since pregnancy is involves the changing of time and seasons (and I play on a 4 day = 1 year system vs the game's 28 day year), I make very good use of MCCC and pause pregnancies so that I can have control of how they're documented. The way pregnancies will be documented depends on how I've labelled the characters, narrators will always have more focus on their pregnancies (even though Valentina is done having children she'll narrate the pregnancies in her family) and will share about other pregnancies in the family. Circling back round to the 2 game system, since the way I play is faster than the game's passage of time, once I'm done posing and taking screenshots in my picture save then I usually sit back and actually enjoy playing in the actual game save, where I will then rotate households depending on whatever mood I'm in.

Thank you again for being so nice! I hope this extendo reply is able to answer some of your questions, but if it doesn't then feel free to message me and I can see if I can help.

[sammygems]

JJBA Sims CC Ideas List

ight, so, i've been playing sims a lot lately, and i've downloaded a lot of cc for it, especially JJBA cc, but I haven't been able to find any CC for certain characters, so I wanted to make a list of potential CC outfits & character ideas for any JJBA CC creators, without feeling like i'm pressuring anyone in particular. List is organized by Parts + some spin-off stuff.

Phantom Blood

Childhood outfits for Jonathan & Dio

Childhood outfit for Erina

Any of these Jonathan outfits

Jonathan's Volume cover outfits for Volumes 2, 4, & 5 and his chapter cover outfit from chapter 31 (which appear in ASB)

Stone Mask as like, a wall decoration.

Any of these Dio outfits

Battle Tendency

Joseph clackers accessory

Part 2 Speedwagon & Erina

Literally anything for Smokey, i've seen nothing for him

More Lisa Lisa outfits

Suzi Q's other outfits that aren't her apron dress

Joseph's childhood outfit from his first plane crash

Joseph's dress

Old Joseph's part 2 outfit

Any of these Joseph outfits

Joseph's volume cover outfits from volumes 6, 7, & 9, and his chapter cover outfits from chapters 57 and 58.

Childhood & teen outfits for Caesar

Really any of Caesar's outfits other then his main outfit.

Stardust Crusaders

Outfits for Holy, Suzi Q, and really any of the followers of Dio (i'm not saying that there's nothing of the followers btw, i've found Mariah, the D'Arby brothers & Vanilla Ice)

Joseph's outfit with the turtleneck & trenchcoat

Avdol's main outfit but with the jellabiya (aka the skirt) and his "Avdol's father disguise" outfit

Polnareff's outfit but with the weird little skirt thingy that he has in the manga at some point.

Diamond is Unbreakable

Anything for Koichi, I've found basically nothing for him.

Any of Rohan's various outfits

Jotaro's first & second outfits

Outfits of Hayato & Shigechi

Anything for Mikitaka, Yuya, Tamani, Hazamada, & Tonio

Golden Wind/Vento Aureo

Bucciarati's hair but for children

Bucciarati's childhood outfits

Polnareff's part 5 outfit

the Bow & Arrow as like, decorations and/or accessories

Stone Ocean

Jolyne's main outfit, but the skirt & boots version.

These variants of Jolyne's outfit

Young Weather & Pucci outfits

Most if not all of Jolyne's outfits that appear in ASB, ASBR, & EOH.

Anything for the Sons of Dio, Johngalli A., Sports Maxx, Thunder McQueen, Miraschon, Lang Rangler, Westwood, & Miu Miu

Gloria's hair

Perla's hair

Outfits for Anakiss & Eldis (alt world's Anasui & Ermes)

Steel Ball Run

Anything for Steven Steel, Mountain Tim, Scarlet, Wekapipo, Pocoloco, Sandman, Norisuke Higashikata I, & Sugar Mountain

Jojolion

Anything for any of the Highaskata family, Kei, Toru, Rai, & Holy

Jojolands

Anything

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan

Rohan's various outfits

Spin-Offs, One-Shots, & Novels

Jolyne, Bucciarati, & Abbacchio's Fly High With Gucci outfits

Coniglio from Golden Heart, Golden Ring

Sheila E from Purple Haze Feedback

Ryoko Kakyoin from Crazy Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak

Also Hol Horse's outfit from CDDH

Other

Jolyne's childhood outfit that appears in Eyes of Heaven and this one is the only one that i'm despite for guys

If you've found any CC of any of these, please let me know, if CC creators wanna take inspiration, go for it.

[theanxiousghostartist]

TMAGP 25 SPOILERS

(Reactions and Theories)

Pre-Case (Sam/Alice chat):

I'm glad Sam and Alice are finally communicating! Sam explained to Alice how he feels like she is overbearing, especially when worrying about Sam. So many problems could be solved with communication, and I'm glad they're getting along again.

Also, Celia is asking Sam to reassure Alice was so cute.

Case:

This case disgusted me, I was nauseous the entire time. I don't think a case or statement has affected me that much, ever. I hated it, but that's the goal of horror, so I'm not upset about it, lol.

It definitely reads Corruption, but maybe with Web in it as well? I don't have many notes about this case because, well, I hate thinking about the case lol.

Overall, I think the Hungry Man Grill works similar to the Distortion's Hallways or Hilltop Road in TMA as a certified location for the fears to feed.

It could also be a breeding place for Avatars. The hunger that Harte felt was definitely unnatural for their situation. Perhaps it wasn't a human hunger at all - perhaps it was the hunger for fear. Maybe the people that escape this place are meant to Become, while the rest are used as feeding.

(I might add on to this later, once I've processed everything, but IDK)

Post- Case -

Colin:

Woo! He's back and alive!

He reminds me of S2 Jonathan "Supplemental - I broke into Gertrude's Flat" Sims here. He just wants to save everyone, like he said, and he believes FR3D1 is the one causing everything (the fears, the externals, [Error], ect), and therefore, it must be destroyed. It's odd to me, though, that he didn't go directly to the servers, FR3D1's main system, and instead targeted the computers. If he really wanted to destroy FR3D1, why go to the extension instead of the head?

There are two reasons he could have done this:

1. (The most likely imo) - He wanted to protect the others. By destroying all the computers first (and probably their phones/other technology), he could safely explain what was going on and then destroy the server. If Alice believed him, it would satisfy that small part in him that's questioning if he's just crazy. I pinpoint Alice here because we know she's much closer to Colin than Sam. Therefore, if she believed her, it would be more reassurance for him than if Sam believed him. Furthermore, if he destroyed their computers, he could, in theory, destroy any influence Fr3D1 has over them.

2. He was compelled to, in order to minimize damage. Colin was compelled by someone ( who could've been Fr3D1 (I'm pretty sure it's an entity of some kind itself), Lena (while she did seem surprised about Colin, she didn't seem too worried about the servers, only the initial computers), Jon/Martin/Jonah (who I'm theorizing are trapped in the computer, and thus, could manipulate the systems (as we've seen with cases popping up for specific people) and possibly outside figures close to the system via the compute), [Error], or some other force we have not met yet). If the damage Colin did was minimized, it would dave Fr3D1 and the overall function of the OIAR.

Group Chat:

Lena speaking to the group with a tired mother tone was very funny to me; I love the interactions in this series so much!

I'm glad people are worried for Colin - thank you, Alice and Sam (although, arguably, Sam is more worried about the information Colin provided than Colin himself, which is very Web vibes).

"I thought he might hurt Alice" - awww

Gwen seems to be agreeing with Lena, a lot, which is kinda put of character for her - I wonder what her plan is...

"While I understand your concerns [Sam], there is no way we can realistically act upon them." Lena's higher-ups have something to do with this, don't they? I wonder if Lena is trying to protect Sam by shutting down his worries. Maybe she was doing the same with Colin?

The server is essential for the OIAR? I wonder if she means more than just cases? Perhaps it serves as a way to find future Externals (like INK5OUL and [Error]). Maybe it also serves as a way to keep tabs on Lena?

Celia:

Celia is in Oxford again, and her teleporting/sleepwalking seems to be getting more and more frequent. I've been wondering for a while - why now? Why would she go looking for everyone (besides Georgie) now, when she had time to do it before?

Maybe it's because her "late-night travels" to Oxford are getting more and more frequent (as supproted by her thoughts at the end of the episode and Lena being concerned about her absences affecting her work). Perhaps she thought she had more time, but now- now, "her self" is rejecting being in this new universe and is taking her to the portal to go back. She can't stay here long because eventually, she will be pushed back to somewhere (maybe not even her home universe).

I called "her self" because I'm not quite sure if I should describe it as a soul or her unconscious or something else, but with the themes of self in many cases, it seems fitting to call it "her self."

(Sorry for the tangent!/gen)

I loved the character interactions in this episode! Very fun stuff. Although the case disgusted me completely, it was really good.

[readingrobin]

I'm still trying to get the hang of the whole "posting content" thing, but I think providing a reading wrap-up every month will allow me a little more to work with. January was a fairly standard reading month. I was able to get through ten books, though I added quite a few to my TBR. Kind of had a mini heart attack when I realized that, according to my Storygraph, I have about 1,731 titles on there. Well, at least I know I'll never run short of reading material.

Total Books Read: 10

Total Pages Read: 3,689

Books Read:

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell - (Review) (3.5/5)

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier - All I have to say is that the best kind of children's fiction tends to be the ones that expertly balance the harsh cruelties of life, especially during the Victorian era, with an unshakable sense of hope and a lot of heart. Sweep is one of those books that doesn't shy away from the reality and history of children in peril, but there is a warmness in its pages that comes from feeling and seeing the love and protection of dear ones long since passed. Definitely a bit of a tearjerker, but in a good way. (4/5)

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu - (Review) (4/5)

Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes - Looking at the world around us, this book couldn't be more relevant, as book bans are sweeping across schools and kids are left without a choice in what they want to read. Though it presents a somewhat simplistic scenario of censorship gone wild, it's definitely meant as an accessible way for young readers to be introduced to the process of book banning and what can be done to make your voice heard. (4/5)

Season of the Bruja Vol. 1 by Aaron Duran and Sara Soler - A really beautiful graphic novel that highlights the conflict of surviving indigenous traditions vs. religious colonialism. Stories that point out the hypocrisy and brutality of the Catholic church scratch such a good itch for me. The world is a little shaky though, not much is exactly explained and you almost need some prior knowledge of Mexican mythology going in, but it's worth checking out. (3/5)

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos - (Review) (4/5)

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison - (Review) (4/5)

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman - Though it takes a while to get going, The Ivory Key does have a great readability to it as the action finally kicks in about maybe halfway through. Up until then, the book spends a great deal laying the foundation of this world: tensions between cities, the role and history of magic in this society, the dynamics of the main characters. I will say, being introduced to at least seven different important characters in the span of 30 pages is a tad overwhelming at first, but it levels out the more you keep reading. While I did enjoy it, there was nothing particularly exemplary about the story that wowed me. The Indian-inspired setting and mythology makes it stand out, but everything else used the same tropes, beats, and twists that I've seen time and time over with little to add to them. I liked it enough to want to read the second book coming out later this year, but probably not enough to keep it on my personal shelf. (3/5)

Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith - Read this one in a day and was fairly satisfied with it. It'll definitely appeal to middle grade readers looking for Marvel tie-in stories, as it has a quick pace and a good amount of action and mystery. For me, I don't think I enjoyed it enough to continue with the sequel, but it was nice to see a younger T'Challa and M'Baku out of their element away from Wakanda and how dynamic changed over the course of the book. (3/5)

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim - For a book inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, the story itself was incredibly simple and told fairly straight-forwardly, but I think that works in its favor. I'm at the point where I'm starting to tire of long-winded society dramas so I appreciated it for having a bit of focus. Everyone's motivation is clear, with a natural twist or two popping up along the way, plus a great amount of casual queerness. Though the world-building wasn't exactly intricate, there is a good sense of aesthetic and personality in the setting of Moray from its high status venues to the seedy gambling dens. I'm interested to see where the story goes in the sequel! (3.5/5)

Average Rating: (3.6/5)

[lycheesmods]

So I've seen a couple people doing this ranking thing with Sims 4 packs and I thought I'd make one in terms of witchy gameplay, especially since some of those packs can be so useful for a fun pagan gameplay even if that's not what they're advertised for.

So I'm going to highlight my reasons for ranking the packs as above below the cut.

[Quick breakdown TL/DR, witchy-wise you got:

The litteral Seasons, Meditation Day, Witches, Outdoor Potions, Necromancy Stuff, Ocean Living with Ancestors, MOAR Familiars, Discover The Fae Cult, Eco Candlemaking, Spiritual Forest Escape, Spooky pUmPKIns, The Greek Well Garden, Get a Coven, Backyard Birds and Tumbled Adventure.

+Vampires, Country Kitchen, and Laundry Day. for a e s t h e t i c s.]

Essential:

Seasons : I'm sorry if you're pagan or a witch you need seasons in your name, literally. It adds the 4 seasons, snow, dead leaves, and on top of that it adds fully customizable Holidays, meaning you can make your own sabbaths or esbaths celebrations to put on the calendar. It also features gnomes that spawn and wait for the appropriate offering, give them the right thing and they will gift you seeds, otherwise they will be angry. They are linked to spring and are very much akin to the fae. Oh and of course, this is the best pack for gardening.

Spa Day: With that name it seems weird to put it so high but listen: Meditation, incense, and the wellness skill (developed with meditation and yoga). I use meditation as a way to have "circle" time in game (and there are meditation stool cc for that purpose!). It is for me essentially, the "ritual" interaction.

-

Needed per taste / path:

Realm of Magic: I almost put that one up in essentials but only a fraction can be used in a realistic way, and I'm talking about potions. The main reason this is not in essential is because you could choose either this pack or Outdoor Retreat for the "potion" feature. Anyways: this is the actual witch pack, including spells and potions in cauldron and a bunch of cool plants for gardening (and if you feel fancy you can fly on a broom). It also comes with familiars that can boost your confidence when you summon them.

Outdoor Retreat: This pack is the absolute best for more realistic potion-making but has less interesting options than Realm of Magic. Herbalism remedies they are called, though some are to help with stress and sadness or fertilizer (which can be used as a way to bless your plants). You have to collect a variety of wild herbs and bugs in order to mix your brews or you can keep the bugs as pets! How fun.

Paranormal Stuff: This newer addition to the sims is a blessing for any necromancer out there. Séances, which can be done with a séance table with a crystal ball or with a chalk circle on the ground, allow you to communicate with the dead, to appease the spirits (which can help calming and reducing ghostly activity in haunted houses), and to do a ghostly ritual which will make you a ghost for a few hours (which I like to imagine as astral travel). It features not only special interaction with basegame ghosts but also spectres, a new form of spirit which are more simple in personality and that can be appease with offerings or otherwise talked to.

Island Living: This pack is known to add a beachy world with mermaids and boats, but is also hides a very pagan tradition with the trait "child of the island" which has been called "shaman" by some, it makes your sim care about the island, its pollution state, the community events and feel a connection to the ancestors, which are spirits you can meet for wisdom. There is a drink called 'Kava', which is made in a special bowl and can be a nice thing to use as a special sabbath drink or offering. You can also collect seashells!

-

Got that ONE good feature:

Cats and Dogs: As the name states, it introduces Cats & Dogs and if you have Realm of Magic, your pets can be bound to you as familiars!

Discover University: As a university witch you can join the secret society which have meetings around a mushroom circle just off campus where they hang out in cloacks with the sprites and give them offerings on a stone altar for good luck and positive moods. Basically there are fae witches in University and you can be one.

Eco Lifestyle: Candlemaking! You can make your own candles! They like melt and stuff! Also for anyone interested in environment gameplay this is the pack with pollution and working as a neighbourhood to make the earth greener!

Snowy Escape: Actually this one got a few good pagan things. You can go hiking! Take a meditative walk in the woods, be inspired by nature, or walk up to the mountain shrine to make a wish and/or give an offering. You can also encounter various kinds of forest spirits on your walks and have multiple kind of interactions with them.

Spooky Stuff: Pumpkins! This pack comes with pumpkin carving and I use it every in-game Samhain.

-

Fun extra / could be useful

Romantic Garden Stuff: This one comes with a wishing well, give it various amounts of money (the bigger amount boost your chances of the wish coming true) and make a wish amongst the various options the game give you. Aesthetically this may be interesting for Hellenic witches who like the ancient greek vibes.

Get Together: The club system is useful for everyone and can definitly be used to make a coven.

Backyard Stuff: It comes with birdfeeders! And also windchimes and lemonade.

Jungle Adventure: This one almost went lower, but I do often use polished crystals on my altars. In basegame you have these relatively big crystal chunks but with the archeology table in jungle adventure you can polish them into smaller oval shapes, basically you can make tumbled crystals.

-

Just for Aesthetics

Vampires: For those of you who like the goth side of "witchy" aesthetic the Vampire pack will be good for you. One word: candlebra.

Country Kitchen Kit: My kitchen witches with country farm dreams will love the look of this small kit!

Laundry Day: Another one for some rustic fun. Don't like the washing machines? You can wash your clothes by hand! This is great with the off-the-grid lots that come with Island Living.

-

For the rest of the packs I couldn't think of a single witchy / pagan use to them.

~lolnyny

[csykora]

i don't know if you know the answer, but if you do, would you mind explaining why some Russian names are always transliterated the same way (like Никита to Nikita), but some very much aren't? i've seen Evgeni, Evgeny, Evgenii, Yevgeni, and Yevgeny - is one 'more right' than the others?

Thanks for asking! You’re right, there’s some whacky variation in the League right now, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

(I’m going to focus on North American English speakers: if you’re not, sorry! The basics should still apply and make sense.)

The NHL follows the International Ice Hockey Federations 2011 standard for transcription of Russian names. Probably.

The NHL is a loose confederation of franchises. Historically, it’s been up to each team what they wrote on their Russian players’ jerseys. A lot of their creations were more artistic than phonetically accurate, but the surname would stay pretty consistent for PR and jersey purposes. First names were a free for all, with the team and official NHL media or licensed materials like video games all spelling them differently.

It’s still technically up to teams, but since 2011 the League is pushing a little harder to pick one spelling and stick with it across all media, and to have the spelling reflect how the name should be said.

Any Russian player who came over before 2011 is grandfathered in as whatever spelling they were assigned at the time, for PR reasons. (Like Craig MacTavish being the only one on the ice without a helmet, but less horrible.) Anyone who debuts in the League today should, theoretically, be assigned a spelling that follows the new rules.  

The IIHF transcription standard has three basic principles:

Sound-emulating: Yevgeni instead of Evgeny

Simplicity: Yevgeni instead of Yevgeny, Alexander instead of Aleksandr

Consistency: same spelling for same name (and different spelling for different names)

Sound-emulating  

What does Russian sound like?

This is one of my recital pieces, Tchaikovsky’s Moy geni, moy angel. Music is a great snapshot of the sounds that a language likes to use, particularly the vowels. Listening here, you’re going to hear a lot of “eh” and “ooh”, a lot of soft schwa sounds, and no “ae” or “oh”—the only long vowel is “ee”. You might pick up an odd nasal quality to a lot of those sounds, as if the singer is actually say, “yeh” or “yoo”.

Russian has different phonemes than North American English. A phoneme is “any of the speech sounds which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, skit.” There are a couple Russian consonants that seem to give English-speakers trouble (most obviously Ж in hockey fandom. The (Y)evgeni(i)ys just have to go and confuse North Americans more by also calling each other Женя, “Zhenya”, which fans often try to say with a G or a J sound. It’s pronounced like the S in “pleasure” or “treasure.”) But mostly, it’s all about the vowels, which don’t line up with English spelling or pronunciation very neatly.

In North American schools your teacher probably talked about how English has long and short vowel sounds.

And Y does double duty, as a mystery vowel and a consonant that can jump in before or after other vowels.

You’re not really going to hear any long vowel sounds in Russian, except for ē. Instead, Russian has hard and soft vowels:

The hard vowels are close to English short vowels. The matching soft vowel is pronounced pretty much the same but you glide into them with a “y” sound.

So Э and E are  “ĕ” and “yĕ.”  

O and ё are “ŏ” and “yŏ.” 

(Standard Russian speakers splinch O and A (“ŏ” and “ă”) into a schwa sound, a phenomenon called аканье/akanye.)

And so on.

The exception is Ы and и, who are both shifty characters. Ы drifts between ĕ and ĭ,  and и moves between ĭ and the long e sound.

(“и” also happens to mean “and.” You’ll hear hockey players, especially Kuznetsov, make a sort of horrible high-pitched eeeee sound all the time in interviews. That’s Russian Hockey Player for “…uh….” )

й is the Cyrillic character for the Y-consonant sound after a vowel, as in “Moй/Moy”. The symbols ь and Ъ can also appear on their own, and they palatalize the consonant before (adding a sort of Y twist to the end of it), or explicitly forbid you from doing that. This sound is rendered with a J or a Y after the consonant in different Russian transliteration systems. The IIHF uses Y.

So when we get transliterating, we’re going to have to have Ys all up in everything.

Евгений 

This is where the many Yevgenis come in. 

Every Евгений is best said as “Yev-gen-ee-y.” (I’d say it kind of ends in a little Y twist, but that’s because it’s kind of easier to say and a Cyrillic spelling artifact. You say “Yevgeneeee” or “Yevgenee-y” depending on your natural voice and how quickly you’re speaking.)

You don’t necessarily say the first syllable with a heavy Y like “yeah,” but the glide has to be there. “Eh-vgen-ee” would be an entirely different name, spelled Эвгений. And Э just isn’t a very popular sound in Russian: only 2 male names start with it. Maybe there’re some hipster parents out there naming their son Эвгений right now to annoy people, but otherwise, no.

Simplicity

Since Y is playing an important role in the basic vowels, we don’t really want to use it to represent the long e sound the way it sometimes does in English.

So “Yevgeni” is preferred over “Yevgeny” or “Yevgeniy.” Yevgeniy is the most technically accurate, but let’s be honest, North Americans are going to pronounce them all the same and the second two are just way too much Y.

The one time you will see reliably Ys standing alone is in patronymics. Yevgeni Kuznetsov’s father is also named Yevgeni, so his full, intensely boring name is Евгений Евгеньевич. “Yevgeneey Yevgen-ee-e-vich” is not exactly a delight to have to say. The suffix -евич/-evich means something, so you don’t change the letters in there, but you can drop the last vowel of the first name and palatalize the last consonant, making it into an easier “nyuh” sound. So it becomes “Yevgenyuh-evich,” which we can transliterate as Yevgenyevich. 

With a name like “Aleksandr,” the IIHF standard says go ahead and spell it as the familiar “Alexander,” because you’re gonna pronounce the two the say anyway.

Consistency

So every Евгений whose name is pronounced the same way should be spelled the same way—and players whose names are pronounced differently…should be spelled differently.

Семён и Сёмин

The IIHF standards were introduced after feedback from Russian players, most directly Semyon Varlamov.

By 2011 the NHL had officially spelled Varlamov’s given name, Семён, as:

Simeon

Semyen

Simyan

Simyon

Semin

and of course, Semen.

Ah, cross-cultural respect.

Listen, the fact it’s Varlamov makes that feel just. But it was being done randomly to everyone. 

And it was especially on the nose because Varlamov was on the same team as  Александр Сёмин—Alexander Semin.

Semin’s surname, Сёмин, is pronounced something like “Syaw-min”. (Akanye turns it into an A-sound, which is how his nickname, Сёмa, is pretty much pronounced “Sam,” rather than the way North American fans probably read it when they see “Sema.”) Under IIHF rules, his current KHL jersey is spelled SYOMIN.

But when he entered the NHL someone said, “That sure looks like an e to me,” and wrote down “S-E-M-I-N” Few years later that same spelling wizard looked at Семён (pronounced “Sim-yawn”) and said, “Man, I got this.”

Team officials, media, fans, even their teammates read the Latin spellings, naturally assumed their names were pronounced the same way, and went around calling both of them the same thing. Someone yells something that sounds like “semen” in the locker room, or on the ice in the middle of a game, and both of them have to turn around.

Semyon addressed the pronunciation with media, pointed out the confusion with his own teammate, filed paperwork to officially change the spelling (because he had to do that, the League had functionally taken away his name), and contacted the IIHF to ask them to step in, which they did.

(Semin did…nothing, because he would literally rather turn into a snow leopard and run away to nap in the sunshine and eat flowers and squirrels and live in the forest forever than talk to an official. So his name is still spelled SEMIN.)

More “Right”

Pronunciation isn’t a moral issue. As we grow up, our mouths learn to shape the phonemes we’re using all the time and our brains trim away the nerve connections for making sounds we don’t need. Some of us can learn some of those back, and some of us can’t, and we certainly can’t learn very well if we don’t have examples and help.

And it is strikingly hard to find that for Russian in North America.

Until the ’90s, management and especially announcers had no way to hear names pronounced before they had to try to spell or say them because there was no real cultural exchange between North America and the USSR: no TV, no radio, no way to hear the voices of Russian people except briefly on the ice. Miracle had Al Michaels recreate his goal calls because at the time he’d only had a hasty list of the Soviet line-up that he begged off the officials, and he took a wild swing at Vyacheslav Fetisov. A decade later Fetisov came to America and we were able to hear him speak and learn his name.

It’s unimaginable now, but when Ovechkin was drafted, many broadcasters were calling him “Alexander ov-itch-kin,” not “Oh-veh-chkin.” Because they actually did do their homework: they were trying to listen to Russian-language broadcasters and recreate their pronunciation. If you hear a Russian speaker say it, the middle vowel does sound a lot more like an I than a drawling North American “eh.” But then we all said it a thousand times a day and our mouths settled into sounds that are comfortable for us.

Which is fine, we’re not in any way Wrong for calling him “Oh-veh-chkin.” Just saying a Russian person’s name differently than native speakers say it isn’t a horrible thing. (‘Native speakers’ of every language fight each other all the time, too.) What matters is respect: trying our best to transliterate and pronounce a name shows that we’re listening to that person and we’re valuing them.

I think it says something that it’s still hard to hear any Russian in North America, it’s still hard to learn these names, and so we still say them in a very North American way.  Even if we’re not the ones making it, the Russian voice still mostly exists in our consciousness as a joke.

Sometimes that joke feeds into innocent not-quite-accuracies. And sometimes like with the Se(i)(y)(o)mi(y)(o)ns, it feeds something that feels a little…less of us.

It’s been 16 years* and we’re still turning their names, one of the few personal things they were able to bring with them to the foreign world of North America, into dick jokes. It’s hardly the worst insult in the world or in the NHL: making each others’ names into dick jokes is hockey players’ primary sport. It’s just that the foundation of the joke is, “I actually didn’t take the time to listen to you say your own name,” and that makes it seem small of us. And it seems smaller after they made repeated requests and took legal action to ask for their names back, and we’ve not only kept doing it, most of us don’t know or remember that they asked us to stop.

some very much aren’t

It’s worth remembering Russians still make up a small percentage of the NHL, and most of the active Russian NHLers came over before 2011.The Russian voice in North American hockey is still small. So the spelling of Russian names is still controlled by North Americans NHL officials, and it’s a small and wild pool of possible spellings. Change comes slowly, if it comes at all.

Most of the new prospects’ surnames do seem to have been effectively standardized, but I’m not really sure where future Yevgenis stand at this point in the NHL. Евгений Свечников is the newest I know of: under IIHF rules he’s Yevgeni Svechnikov, but it seems he’s still being spelled “Evgeny” in the NHL. Because it’s such a common name and several Yevgeni-spelled-Evgenys have been high-profile players, we’re all already used to seeing Evgeni and Evgeny, and NHL officials might easily choose to keep using them for PR reasons.

This was fun! somebody ask me about nicknames or patronymics or the Czechs next, please. I need to keep expanding my embarrassing tabloid glitterbomb vocabulary.

[pictureamoebae]

I've just stumbled upon your tumblr and aside from the great screenshots and awesome Sims cc I simply love your nails. I've read your post about how you file and shape your nails. I was wondering how often you change your nail polish and what kind of nail polish remover you are using. Would you make a post about your nail care routine (if you have one) please? :3 Every time I use nail polish it flakes after two days and my nails splinter after using nail polish remover.

Hi anon, thank you for the sweet words

I think I’ve made the odd nail care post here and there, but there’s always more to cover!

I change my polish roughly once a week. I’m being a bit lazy at the moment because I have loads of work on and not a lot of time, and am choosing polishes that can go right over my last one without removing it. I just did that yesterday, actually. I was wearing some silver holo along with a shocking fuchsia pink, and I covered it all up with a burnt orange magnetic polish that only needed one coat to cover it up. (I’ll eventually get pictures of it all sorted out.)

But this is just because I’m busy and lazy at the moment. Usually I take it all off once a week, and I use Zoya’s Remove+ - I buy a biiiiiiiig bottle that I can refill one of those nice pump bottles with. I do also have neat acetone, but I just use it to clean up all my terrible mistakes. Anything with acetone will be really drying, so definitely look for non-acetone removers.

I like to take my polish off the night before I’m going to paint them again. I take the polish off using cotton wool, and I clip it to my fingers using these little clips (mine are blue). I let it sit for about five minutes, and usually the polish just slides off. I have lots of layers of polish on there, with base coats and colour and top coats, so it needs a bit of time to sit, otherwise I’d be scrubbing a lot and I don’t want to do that. More stubborn polishes require longer, especially anything with glitter.

Once the polish is off I tend to use Orly’s Cutique to get rid of any staining if there is any, and to remove any dead cuticle skin. Then I wash my hands using Dr Bronner’s soap, because it removes all the oils that might stick to the nail bed and make polish not stick as well.

Then I put on a coat or two of whichever Nailtiques formula I’m using. I have formula 1 and 2, and currently I’m alternating between them. It dries very fast. Then I moisturise my cuticles a ton.

When it’s time to choose a new colour the next day, I wash my hands again with Dr Bronner’s to get rid of those oils. If I think it needs it, I’ll add another coat of whatever base coat I fancy, but sometimes the Nailtiques is enough. Then it’s however many coats of colour I need. And once that’s dry I use a top coat. Usually it’s the one from Glisten & Glow, but if I have a more textured polish on I’ll use Plush by Superchic, which is super thick and helps even everything out, but I go over with the Glisten & Glow afterwards because it’s super shiny and dries everything down really fast. I have Superchic’s Marvel Liquid Macro top coat on order because lots of people seem to rave about it.

Once I’m all done it’s moisturise moisturise moisturise again. And then I try to remember to do that as frequently as possible to keep my cuticles from getting all dry and ragged. Pretty much anything will do, anything oily. Jojoba is good because it soaks in nicely, and mixed with Vit E it makes a good cuticle oil. I like CND’s Cuticle Eraser cream too, as well as Lush’s Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter.

The shape of my nails helps a lot in terms of my polish lasting longer. But a good base and top coat is half the battle. In my opinion, the top coat is the most important of those, because I’ve seen no difference between using base coats that are marketed specifically to help bond polish, and the Nailtiques formula treatments which aren’t. One crucial thing is to wrap your tips/free edge. What that means is that when you’re applying the polish (base, colour and top) run the brush along the sides of the free edges of your nails, so it’s basically wrapping the nail over and under with polish. That helps it last longer than it ordinarily would.

I hope some of that is helpful, anon. Do let me know if you have any other questions! I’ve just spent more money than I should have on some new autumn polishes by ILNP. Nailstagram (nail polish Instagram, lol) once asked what brand would people choose if they could buy every single polish from them, and I said ILNP. I have more polishes from some other brands, but I have more ILNP on my wishlist than anything else. They’re wonderful quality, and they have loads of what I call transformative polishes -- that is those you can add over the top of others to change the look. If I ever win the lottery, I’ll be making an ILNP haul one of the first things I do!