#a rant about nothing

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[fizzingwizard]

I got to play Life and Death a little more last night. Game was still super slow in live mode, even after I moved to a smaller household (just two sims). Better than a large family at least. The large family is unplayable right now.

I was mostly building so I didn't get to experience much of the new gameplay - although I did get a popup from a ghost who needed two whole paragraphs to tell me about the mysterious inheritance she was leaving me. Half of her speech was literally a tutorial about Life and Death. Obnoxious. I just declined the inheritance.

I did give my new lot the "hallowed grounds" trait but so far nothing's happened. It's a community lot though so that may be why.

The worst is the crows!!! I was soooo excited for the crows. The nighttime sounds in Ravenwood are great (I'm over the moon about the loon calls, it's so atmospheric), and the crow calls really add to it magnificently. BUT... again, I was playing on a community lot. I put a crow there and couldn't feed it!

This drives me crazy. It's like how you can't have sheep or cows on community lots because you're unable to care for them. Why?? Why can't I make a community farm so sims who live in apartments or whatever can enjoy animals... Since horses and cats and dogs are "sims," I understand why that's not possible. But sheep, goats, cows, llamas, and now crows are OBJECTS. As objects, they actually seem to do worse than the other animals when left alone - if you leave a household with a horse in it for a full sim year, when you go back to the house, the horse will have full needs anyway.

But the cow? I made a residential lot for a sim and gave her a cow. Then I played a different family and brought them to visit the first sim to make friends. The in-game time difference was mere minutes and the cow had been freshly fed and cleaned when I left the first house. When I arrived with the second sim... the shed was filthy, the cow was starving, AND there was nothing I could do about without switching back to the first sim! (Which if I'd done it, then the moment I switched back to the second sim the cow would have been dirty again, or very soon to be. I honestly don't know if this is a bug or just how it's supposed to be. It's dumb either way.)

Other Sims should be able to at least care for animals on a residential lot. That or the household sims should be programmed to drop everything to care for their animals. They don't. I do think ranch hands usually do their job. But this is an issue of crosspack gameplay. Who has a ranch hand outside of the Horse Ranch world (forgot its name)? But of course the Sims team does not seem Sims 4 as a single game - it sees it as a bunch of overpriced mini-games under the same umbrella. Why would someone in Willow Creek want a horse, lol? Why would a player think it's funny to have a rabbit hole from Cottage Living in their City Living apartment penthouse? It's the players who are Doing It Wrong!

anyway back to the crow.

The upside of sheep and goats, at least, is that they're small, so you can "put in inventory" and carry them to community lots. Since they're yours, you can then care for them on the community lot. I expected it would be the same for crows, because they're small and can fly... I was even hopeful they might like ride around on your shoulder or something (omg rein it in Fizz!, don't get such fanciful ideas). But at LEAST I thought they'd be able to go in your inventory.

Nnnnnnoooooope!!!

So I can't even buy a crow at home and carry it with me to the community lot. I CAN buy the crow FOR the community lot - but why is that even an option!? Why are crows purchasable in build mode IF YOU CAN'T CARE FOR THEM ON COMMUNITY LOTS? Sheep and goats need to be ordered in live mode! You can buy the cow/llama shed but you have to then order the animals themselves in live mode too! Same for chickens!

Not crows! You can just... buy them anywhere! And let them starve! Why???????????

For what's it's worth I did try buying a crow in my sim's own private lot where it's supposed to work... And I couldn't feed THAT crow either. That crow was not hungry, however, so that could be why. There was literally no "feed" option of any sort in the menu so I'm not sure if it's broken or it just only shows up when the crow is hungry.

Also I read that you can buy a crow with no hungry need (the deluxe crow) from Waylon in Ravenwood. But... it will be delivered to your household inventory. So still a no-go for community lots. It doesn't seem like an unlockable in build mode. but it's possible I could find it in debug maybe and put it on community lots - will have to look into that)

I know this has got to seem like an infinitesimally small thing to the Sims team (and probably every other player). But guyssss the combo of the crow with those loons at night was AMAZING. It's so far my favorite part of the pack. I'm all about the aesthetic do you get me. ;_; just let me have crows!!!!

update: I think Ravenwood night sounds might just include crow sounds actually. I haven't played long enough to say for sure. But yeah night in Ravenwood is really great. Also I did find the deluxe crow in the debug menu so we'll see how that goes on the community lot.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

"You and me, Ethan. Together we go save Rose, and then we can grind Miranda into paste!"

[zorangezest]

thanks for listening

[phantomoftheorpheum]

listen, I think audiobooks are great. I think they "count". I'm not bothered by people calling listening to audiobooks reading. however, I think a large part of the reason people are annoyed by this recently is that there are many, many people online saying, "I've read 300 books this year" and then posting a lot of stuff implying they are superior to (or like to read more than) people who haven't.

But then, all it takes is to scroll back on their profile a little ways to find out that they "read" 300 books because they listened to audiobooks on 3x speed while they were doing other things and flat out didn't listen or absorb any of it and couldn't tell you what 90% of those books were about even if their life depended on it. And THAT is not reading. If you're actually taking in the story, sure, then you've read the book. If you're speed running the process without paying attention, then no, that's not reading. I would say the exact same thing about skimming/flipping through the book.

[bookinit02]

i really do think there’s a huge disconnect on here w/ people who have never used tiktok as to what it actually is and who actually uses it. the number of people i’ve seen call it a “teen dancing app” is actually insane. it has not been a teen dancing app since i was in high school, around 2016 - 2020. the main communities i saw on a daily basis were 1) black history/anti-racism educators, 2) high school & college teachers sharing in-classroom strategies and frustrations with the education system, 3) local/state political leaders giving real-time updates on behind-the-scenes government decisions, & 4) community activism & leadership. like tiktok is an adult platform. almost every person i interacted with was my age or older. and yes it completely depends on your fyp and how you interact with the app, yes there’s still teenagers and dance videos and literally anything else you can think of. but these communities of adults aren’t insubstantial at all, they have literally millions of interactions on a daily basis. there’s about a million other types of communities that i could name just off the top of my head, because the range of users was SO diverse and thriving. it’s a long-distance community tool, just like any other social media—and honestly much better than any other social media, because it relies primarily on the kindness of strangers. i saw at least 5-10 videos today of queer people in rural areas panicking because they don’t have any access to queer community on any other platform or in real life. and before i end this i do want to say i think tiktok is coming back, i think this is a highly orchestrated political move, etc., but i do know it won’t ever be exactly the same. people are panicking about free speech violations because tiktok was a place where people fucking SPEAK. i have never seen mass mobilization and communication in this same way for as long as i’ve been alive. it is the people’s app, not just a silly teenage thing. if you’re not on tiktok and never have been, please stop talking about it like you know anything at all😭

[lunamugetsu]

Perpetrator? or the next victim?

Tim is working on a case where a series of accidents have been happening that have all landed the victims into comas. The police don't seem suspicious of it but Tim sees it differently. They are all random people, but when looking at the photos/video footage taking during the accident. Tim has noticed a common variable.

the new barista from his usual coffee shop, Danny, is always somewhere in the background.

Now Tim has two theories.

Theory 1: Danny is the perpetrator!

Something that Tim is not a fan of because Danny is the only one that gets him his coffee order without any questions and evens adds more espresso when he asks for it.

Theory 2: Danny is going to be the next victim!

this is based on that Danny is the intended victim of whatever the heck is happening and that the victims in the coma were just caught in the crossfire. This is also not something that he wants because Danny is genuinely a pretty nice guy to talk to.

So what can Tim Drake do?

Stay by Danny's side of course!

Take his time with finishing work at the coffee shop.

Conversing with Danny whenever business was slow.

Hanging out with Danny at times.

Asking him out to dinner-wait what?

--

Meanwhile

Danny is in Gotham because he's helping Constantine with some evil Demon business.

The demon's been targeting certain people and Danny's job is to hold onto the people's souls until the demon is dealt with by Constantine. When that's done he'll return everybody's souls back to their body. No harm done!

And he's even making a friend with that guy who also drinks the coffee on steroids beverage he made.

Plus Constantine told the vigilantes of Gotham that he was there to help so there's no problem of him being there right?

...

Constantine told them why he was here right?

[dreamyblanket]

[akiiame-blog]

It's always confused me how people still claim that Mario is this self insert, blank slate character.

When I think "blank slate self insert" I think of the protagonists you play as in the Pokemon games. Characters that literally have no reaction to anything going on and don't have their own thoughts and feelings because their entire purpose is for anybody to project themselves onto.

If Mario really were a self insert kind of character, he wouldn't have feelings for Princess Peach. He wouldn't react to the things going on around him. Charles Martinet wouldn't be giving him silly little voice lines like "Come back here, you big monkey!" (Shouting to DK). He wouldn't be falling asleep dreaming of all kinds of different pasta noodles and Peach like in Odyssey.

I'm not arguing that he has a deep personality. I'm arguing that Mario has his own character. And a lot of people don't even give him that.

[ohitslen]

*Vampirizes your Vashwood*

keep reading for more :)

If there needs to be much closer close-up please let me know!

[calculatedklown]

When people deny the treatment that Wyll Ravengard gets from the fanbase and the game.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

🧙‍♀️🐈‍⬛

[tenderjock]

I’m with you, my love The lights shining through on you Yes, I’m with you, my love It’s the morning and just we two

[oceanwithouthermoon]

saikis powers are a vital part of him so it makes sense that people who dont know about them cant truly understand his whole self, but its also very silly to me when people act like its the ONLY important part of him... people act like his friends that arent in the know are completely blind to who saiki is, but i feel like that kinda means you missed some major points... he cant keep his powers a secret forever and it DOES matter, but he can still be loved and KNOWN without knowing about them... hes still human, he still has a personality, he still has regular likes and dislikes, etcetc

his friends perspectives on him may have been wrong at first, but they CHANGED... they know him and love him, and theyll KEEP loving him the SAME once they know of his powers...

​some people cough cough cough in this fandom like to reduce saiki to JUST his powers and its so obvious that you just. missed everything. you didnt absorb anything from the show, you just saw it and went "ha, everyone thinks hes just a guy when hes actually super cool and powerful" no no no, he IS cool and powerful but look a little closer and at his core he is still LITERALLY JUST A GUY 😭😭😭

hes such a guy.....

[rainbowsuitcase]

So much BTS lore feels like fanfiction and I can't get over it

Two of the members hated each other at first. They argued a lot and one time, they threw folded clothes at each other and the member who folded them had to come scold them. And now they keep reminding everyone how long they've known each other for. They wrote a song together where they said that "respect is a higher tier than love" and then called each other "my respect."

The smartest member of the group (one the previous two morons btw) didn't know how to tie his shoelaces until highschool. He doesn't eat seafood because he loves crabs. He's a literal geniues and he's so clumsy and such a dork (and I relate so deeply). And that body, guys, I'm telling you. This whole guy was made by a fanfic author.

Their company was near bankrupcy when they debuted. One of the members, who was getting offers from so many other companies, joined this one because he admired another member who was already a part of it. When these two met for the first time, member two was only wearing underwear and member one said "wow, thighs."

Another member came to an audition, not to audition himself but to support a friend. He was the only person from that audition round to get in. The friend did not.

Another member, who was studying to be an actor, was street cast on a bus.

One of them lost confidence and tried to leave before the debut, but another convinced him to come back, because they "needed him."

The whole industry hated them when they debuted and now they're arguably the best kpop group worldwide. (Arguably, read: argue with the wall)

(Add your own pls, I want to make a collection from this)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.