#also i know this is all arbitrary and doesnt rly matter obviously. i just like to play around with it so yes ;-;

[connormoving]

explanation under the cut hopefully someone whos brain like . works is able to help me with this bc mine is failing me ;-;

ok so basically im trying to like. the point of the spreadsheet is to figure out like. human equivalent ages for the sims you know. so for the first 3 games ive picked age ranges for each game based on like. ive assigned years to each game (i have sims 3 taking place in 1950, sims 1 in 1975, and sims 2 in 2000) and then ive assigned age ranges to each of the life stages in that game if that makes any sense at all.

cropped but hopefully this illustrates what i mean. (tb is twinbrook and mf is moonlight falls, i imagine both of them as in a different time from most ts3 worlds, so i have twinbrook is 25 years earlier and moonlight falls as 25 years later (during sims 1) bc that matches up some of the timelines a bit better in my head... there r other ts3 worlds that also probably take place in other times but i havent started dealing with those just yet). so each lifestage in each game i give the earliest possible birthdate and the latest possible... One issue i have already decided to fix is i currently have the overall lifespan ending at 80 buttt ive decided to up that to 100 just bc i think the 80 is throwing me off.

anyways all of that is just background context. obv my main thing to find the ages is to use the age range ive assigned to each lifestage BUT later on the ranges get a lot wider (esp ts1 where 'adult' can be anywhere from 18-80(/100 once i fix it) and ts2 where. well theres weirdness in ts2 bc of how the young adult life stage works. but i hope you understand what im saying. and also if its an ancestor sim whos dead in their only appearance i cant rly use that to figure out how old they would be during the year the game takes place since they couldve died like. one year prior or 50 and theres no real way to figure out (im not using memories atm bc this is like. my preliminary pass and ill use memories in a later stage If necessary...). so ive been using like. the ages of their children/descendants to help me out here. this is the meat of the issue sorry for rambling and all of that was probably pointless info

essentially ive made it so that parents have to be at least 13 when they have their first child. and then the birthing parent has to be under the age of 55 for their last child (and currently i have it so the nonbirthing parent has to be under 70 . but thats mostly just to help me Have an earliest birthdate). the issue is i dont know whether to like. i dont know if they need to be at least 13 at their first childs earliest possible birthdate or their first childs latest possible birthdate. and i dont know if they need to be under 55 at their last childs earliest possible birthdate or at the latest possible. if that makes sense. and i made an example to illustrate this issue

so i used albany and goneril as examples here as you can see. and i cut out hal and desdemona bc theyre middle children and not rly important to this issue. so the first column is names obvi and then its imm. so early/early is earliest birth of last child -55/70 and earliest birth of first child -13. late/early is latest birth of last child -55/70 and earliest birth of first child -13. early/late is earliest birth of last child -55/70 and latest birth of first child -13. and late/late latest for both. If that makes sense at all.... goneril is kind of bad to use as an example since i do have a better way to ascertain her age (she appears as a child in ts3 store so i can use that to know that she was born between 1938 and 1944) but i already made the chart so we will deal.

essentially i just dont know which is the most accurate between early/early late/early early/late and late/late. would it be early/late bc it has the widest range ?? my brains just rly not working with me here and im hoping somebody can help bc its stressing me out ;-; i already have to redo a lot of work bc i realized i was kind of just flipping between all of them randomly. + i need to up the. or i guess lower the earliest years for elders across the board so that will change a lot. so um yes. and also let me know if i should change it so that the rule is the nonbirthing parent just has to be under 100? the under 70 thing is a bit arbitrary but i have to have Some sort of maximum age for them... so yes. let me know your thoughts.actually

my sims spreadsheet is like hurting my brain i cant figure out whether to like. ugh its complicated and stupid also

[constablegoo]

@astralglam​​​​ filed a report .

mint: does your muse view themself as virtuous & moral? what do these words mean to them?

OHOHO. hey hi ily. this is, of course, one of odo’s deepest ongoing battles, and the moment he stops questioning it is the moment he becomes a founder.

the founders grant themselves god status.  GOD!  status. they just reach out and pluck it. Within their range of power, the founders become unquestionably Just and Virtuous and Moral, their Word becomes Law, it becomes “the way things are” and “fact” and they create their own reality stemming from thousands of years of intense xenophobia. they’re above it all. gods don’t make mistakes, right? sure, maybe changelings were hunted and feared ages ago but they still fear it, and that drive for Order and Control over the galaxy is now encoded into their genes and they place a companion structure into the genes of every other species they control, subjugating them to the founders’ own cozy position as Gods, or-- ‘gods’. the founder (i rly don’t like saying “female” founder so she’s THE Founder. she speaks for the link.) makes it quite clear on many occasions that the founders are not here to negotiate. they fully intend to control EVERYTHING at any cost. it is absolutely  chilling  when she cuts garak down with: “they’re dead. you’re dead. cardassia is dead.” and draws the line between the dominion and everyone else miles deep into the sand.

that same genetic coding is one of the first semi-concrete things odo comes to understand about himself and, horribly, he’s landed into conditions under the occupation that very easily could have taken advantage of a less meticulous or stubborn changeling. no, odo says initially (and incorrectly), i am not bajoran** and i am not cardassian and i stand apart from either side of this conflict and so i am bound to PURE Virtue and Morality because of it. he can’t be bribed or bought or won over, and he won’t allow for anything less than a kind of incorruptibility. this effectively wins him allies (and enemies) on both sides, however -- that’s just not how the universe works. the truth of it is that no matter how much he tells himself he is not a part of their regime, his working with the cardassians makes him a collaborator in that he has then recognized their authority and ultimately upheld their legitimacy, even if he never agreed with the cause, even if he was also on some level a casualty of it. at some point when he moves past ‘contract’ investigation and begins to work permanently, he falls into the trap of thinking Order is the same thing as Justice... huge yikes. in that moment he becomes a true and apathetic villain, but he’s subsequently haunted by the resulting execution of innocents. it shakes something up in him. years pass and he still wonders, what other mistakes has he made? what other less direct consequences of his ‘neutral’ arbitration exist? he (and everyone around him) has to live without really knowing, and it’s a constant reminder to him of the power he holds and it informs his understanding of what Real (and imperfect) Justice Means.

**sidenote but later in s7 he introduces himself as ‘from bajor’ and AAAAAA. its good. very good. yeah, you’re bajoran, odo. he gets it now.

Mirror odo is really the ultimate example of an odo having taken those instincts to extremes in an environment that rewarded him for them -- there is no guilt there, and even a sadistic kind of pleasure in it. i’d argue that gaia!odo is another, less extreme example of an odo who’s been alone too long and lost sight of things when he single-mindedly (and against kira’s wishes) chooses her (one person) over 8000. like holy shit? NOT ok? uhhuhhhhfff. anyway. very fortunately, neither of these are OUR odo, but act as great foils to reflect on the worst (bastard cop) qualities or potential qualities of our goo pushed to highly visible extremes, which star trek just loves to do all the time.

but regular/prime odo isnt exactly a rule-follower, either. throughout his life, he frequently takes things into his own hands, uses his abilities to his advantage, spies, wiretaps, eavesdrops, and yes, harasses [quark] sometimes -- he develops his own set of values and personal rules and follows them; even starfleet comes in wary of him and how he operates and hes on thin ice. but because of possibly his most redeeming quality, odo is able to adapt those self-ordained values toward something increasingly honest: for how rigid he can be in personality, he is HIGHLY influenced by the world around him,  listens hard  to what his friends and allies have to say and adapts that feedback; this allows him to evolve and grow and take important matters to heart. he becomes more flexible and better able to hold onto what’s really most important after locking into a decision, because above all else, he is passionately committed to doing the Right Thing. he PLEADS with himself in things past, “your job is to find the truth, not obtain convictions.” by his tendency to push back against what is laid down as ‘law’ (something he becomes more and more aware of and effective at doing) as not always being good or right, or necessarily even creating Order (the thing he’s driven genetically to want), he prepares himself to challenge the most deadly voice of authority -- that of his own people.

so... yes and no. odo’s role and persona as ‘your average security chief’ might dictate that he be virtuous and moral, but he so obviously can’t fit the same exact mold as others in his position -- he has these insane abilities and this mind-consuming nature and it requires he tread with extra care, but he also has a potential for more adaptive, more nuanced morality. he has to build up his own definitions to the words, constantly examine and tease and test them, or else he risks straying too far from what he really wants to achieve -- harmony, honest justice. he has to accept that he’s a part of the system he operates in (not, in fact, alone or isolated! something he actually wants), and know that he is not exempt from making the wrong choice, just like anybody else.

carnation: what is your muse’s relationship with their gender? how do they express or not express this relationship?

ODO AND GENDER!!! i love odo and gender. let’s take this one step at a time. he starts out as an amorphous glob -- he has no gender. there’s no basis for assignment, no culture of difference, and all the goos are goo. odo takes on the shape of the first living thing he sees / the thing he sees most frequently: dr mora. he adopts an image of masculinity from mora and he adopts the hair. that’s about it, and it’s pretty much arbitrary. (maybe the hair is simple enough for his skills, too?) the next people odo meets are also these very masculine, military, cardassian leaders, so again -- this is all he knows! this is neutrality. i imagine it takes him some time to work out what the differences in gender are, and sex, and orientation, romantic vs sexual stuff, all of that. it’s all got cultural baggage he knows nothing about and does not experience, and he’s also dealing with multiple, clashing cultures to boot. since he doesnt have any strong inherent leaning, he simply opts out. he/him becomes his default because thats where he started, thats what he’s been able to successfully present and how people know him, and, terrifyingly, under cardassian rule, it probably offered a bit of safety, too, which was obviously something he needed at the time.

way way way way way down the line in season seven, odo asks kira to (paraphrasing) look at me. what do you see? [i see you.] but this is NOT me, this is only a shape ive assumed in order to fit in. she says, yes, i know that. but this is who you have chosen to be. “a man. a good and honest man.” (i knowww shes not really talking abt gender here BUT) its hard as a trans person not to read the metaphor. he’s chosen to express SOMETHING. he’s chosen something other than what he was given (neutrality) and although he doesnt personally buy into what ‘masculinity’ “should be” (ie the ferengi, smh) / would certainly not argue he doesnt feel non-binary, this is how he has presented all his life, its how hes been treated, and it is what he has chosen to adhere to. there’s a choice in that, kira’s right, and now it reflects something about him.

parallel this, i’ll mention the “female” founder again bc of course there is no discernable reason for her to have a gender -- other than to appeal (im not talking sexually here although there’s,, obviously weird shit happening with the link... yike) to odo in the sense that until that point odo has lived with “gendered” individuals and, i think importantly, kira is with them when they first meet. i think its safe to say the founder saw her, figured she was a friend/ally to odo or at least familiar to him, and took her general representation to appeal as a friend/ally.

otherwise... why, honestly? the founder’s got NO love of humanoids lmao why would she bother.

anyway i’d like to see odo experiment a bit. because when hes safe, he can!! aside from his own doubts and insecurities about shapeshifting, at some point he really has no reason not to, at least a little bit. really, it should just be another thing to practice, much like becoming a convincing rock or a leaf, its just that there are other significances in the cultures around him. i’d just like to see him loosen up a little. have fun. grow ur hair out a bit, odo, why are u still looking like ur terrible dad.