#and it wasnt set by default

[krysteena]

random fun debian fact for tonight, if you got a .deb file and it won't install when you open it (or it shows what's inside instead), right click on it, go to properties => open with => select "Software install"

[pancakeke]

a windows update reset my default browser to edge and something corrupted cause nothing I do will let me change it back. after failing with group policies and registry edits just went nuclear and used the refresh/repair utility 😔

[mamawasatesttube]

impressive. just looked at the timkon tag on ao3 and not one fic on the front page today is actually about timkon.

[coriander-candlesticks]

Note to self: word prayers better when doing divinatory sessions

I think I've mentioned this before, but I do yes/no stone pulls on Sundays to ask for guidance about maintaining my health re: my commute because it's 2-2.5 hours each way via public transit if everything runs on time. It's rough on me in multiple ways and can lead to even more migraines than usual or being too fatigued to work at all, and it can be difficult to tell whether I'll have the spoons to go in person.

This past Sunday I was exhausted & stressed because of, you know, the horrors, and said my initial prayer a little differently than I usually do. I still invoked Apollo and Hermes as always, as both of them cover divination by lots, Apollo's domain covers health & disease, and he's the one I turn to for divination by default.

Now, the vast majority of the guidance and lessons Apollo has given have had to do with recognizing my physical & mental limits, especially around this issue. The answers I was getting this time around were...odd but not quite in the way they have been with just dud pulls, so I started asking clarifying questions to figure out what was going on. After a few - establishing that there was a reason for the answers but it wasn't a test or punishment or Apollo messing with me (which would have been. odd) - I realized that while I'd invoked Hermes as a god of divination by lots alongside Apollo, I had not explicitly asked him to act as a messenger and aid in communication this time around, nor had I asked Apollo to guide the divination session with the wording I usually use.

I think you can see where I'm going with this.

I re-said the prayer (correctly this time) and confirmed that it was, in fact, Hermes at first while re-doing the initial set of questions (which were much more consistent in the usual way), as well as confirming that the issue was the prayer wording. Lesson learned lol

[alkemylabz]

apparently i have been running my graphics card without a fan control override for over a year and thats why its been acting up so bad

[technicolorxsn]

shes so beautiful......

[intincrmars]

Improved Maid Uniforms

I've never really liked how maids looked in Sims 3 compared to the rest of games. For some reason EA decided to go for a bare-minimum look, no stockings, no accessories, and simple heels. So I took matters in my own hands and fixed the way they looked. For female maids I changed the dress color from the default plastic-looking pitch black to a nicer black with a hint of blue that resembles maid dresses in Sims 2 and 4. Added dark stockings, changed the heels with the leather pump ones from base game, and added basic white pearl earrings. For male maids I changed the pants to a more formal pair with a belt from base game, and changed their color to match the female maid's dress. Added light pink gloves that mimic latex cleaning gloves, based on Sims 2's male maids. Lastly, changed the shirt color from light gray to white.

Download

On MTS

Technical Stuff

Due to the way the game was made, this mod might not work straight away. Most premade maids in different worlds already have set the default maid uniform, meaning that you need to remove their career outfit with Nraas Master Controller and then wait until the next day in-game so the game regenerates their career outfit. So please follow the previous instructions before reporting any issues. Randomly generated maids will use the mod's uniform by default, so no need to remove any outfits. I didn't add makeup to female maids because depending on the sim, some maids will show up with extra accessories or makeup, plus I wasnt able to make makeup work on the CAS Texture Unitool. It works the same way as normal careers outfits do, it depends on their everyday outfit.

Thanks to the creators of: ♦ S3OC ♦ S3PE ♦ CAS Texture + Unitool ♦ SimOutfitter by CmarNYC

[getouyuri]

AIGHT, ASSORTED QUESTIONS AB THE CONCUBINE AU BC IM INSANE AB THEM :D

Do you have a set number of chapters you want to write?

Who typically tops/bottoms and doms/subs? Or are they all just switches

✿ What's their sex life like in general?

Do they usually sleep together or alone? + How do they usually cuddle

When both of them become concubines, is it just sexual/platonic, or is it with an expectation of romance?

✿ If it wasnt romantic, how do they/reader go about realizing+admitting to having romantic feelings?

When they're established poly, do they ever get jealous of each other/ heir!reader? or just generally get insecure

✿ Does heir!reader ever get insecure/feel like they're not enough?

After the hater arc, how do they go about realizing they like-like each other?(and do they feel bad that they like each other?

✿ Do they feel guilty about liking each other? Like they're betraying heir!reader? Or did they fujo out enough that they know heir!reader would be okay with it?

Does heir!reader ever feel bad/guilty for making them concubines? Like they're limiting them or smth

Do you have a playlist/any specific songs you associate with them?

What kind of hobbies do they have?

(also plz dont feel pressured to answer all of them, or get it out soon! Only do what ur comfortable with :3)-✿

getting back to u saur late but I’ve been slowly answering each question over the last few days cos all of these questions hooked me in and I absolutely could notttt leave any of them unanswered 👹 time for me to be insane about the stsg concubines au

• nope I don’t really have a set chapter count! and I wouldn’t really say there’s chapters either because that implies order and im…. Gonna go horribly out of order on purpose 😭 so ig you could call them snapshots? assorted oneshots in a collection? yeah. i have 6 planned out as of rn but im currently pondering a 7th (im thinking you and satoru tying up suguru with shibari)… and if anyone has any suggestions/requests for oneshots in that series I’d be happy to read them over and see if i like it enough to write it 🙂‍↕️

• for the most part i see heir!reader & concubines stsg as switches tbh. HOWEVER… i think heir!reader leans more towards domming though, either from the top or bottom it doesn’t matter. you like having control of sexual situations and you get a bit of a kick out of ordering your boys around lmao. and due to that, that determines what roles your concubines play

satoru and suguru are switches for sure. they’re extremely versatile and will adapt to meet your needs & demands in a heartbeat. if you’re feeling more dominant and bossy than usual, they turn into two eager to please and sub-leaning puppies. like two yes-mans essentially lmao. they’ll do whatever you want them to and they obey you to a fault. on these occasions you either play around with both of them, guiding both of them to eat you out or suck/jerk you off (depends on genitalia) at the same time or having suguru between your legs while you touch satoru, stuff like that. orrr sometimes you’ll essentially tag team one of them with the other by your side (ex: you and suguru tag team satoru, or you and satoru tag team suguru)

if you’re feeling particularly lazy or overwhelmed by your needs and your outside duties, making it hard for you to decide what to do, they still default to letting you exert control (ex: they’ll both ask if something is okay with you Before they do it, rather than assuming they can just go ahead with it). but they won’t be like ‘tell us what you want and we’ll do it’ because clearly you’re not in the headspace for that, hence why they go the ‘is x okay’ route

again, they’re both switches buuuut satoru can be a little more sub-leaning. he grew up the pampered son of a daimyo but never wanted to succeed his father and become the next daimyo. he made executive decisions (under the direction and supervision of his father) but didn’t enjoy the role. like at all. he likes ordering people to do things or expecting that people would do things for him, rather than making decisions as a ruler that people depended on; that’s where he’s different from canon satoru. so in bed he likes being pampered, lying back and being spoiled and worshipped and touched

suguru is the true switch here. as long as you and satoru are satisfied, it doesn’t matter to him what role he takes. like at all ahrkahejd he seriously does NOT care. though sometimes he does get flickers of insecurity (it has nothing to do with you and satoru nor do either of you cause it) and that’s like a SIRENNN call to you and satoru to let suguru bottom/sub; that’s when both of you push suguru down, cooing at him soooo sweetly and taking it slow with him

• their sex life is fairly active 🙂‍↕️ you all go at it a few times a week lol. but its not necessary for all of you to regularly have sex; y’all just like it. its just another aspect of the relationship. in order of kinkiest to least kinky (but all of you very much are), I’d say satoru, you, then suguru. things you’re all into… well there’s a few things. shibari and wax play make appearances a lot. praise & degradation. consensual somno. satoru and suguru sometimes dress up as women and wear makeup so feminization/crossdressing too. edging. voyeurism. stuff like that

• as for sleeping alone or not, its kind of half and half. for the most part suguru and satoru sleep in their own rooms in the inner palace where there’s a wing dedicated to concubines (and you only have two concubines so… lol. its not full at all) but sometimes they’ll sleep with you if they’re too tired to leave your chambers. sometimes satoru ditches his room to sleep with suguru. but you’re all veryyy cuddly and pile together when you all sleep together ahrkahrjd. usually you’re in the middle, satoru’s arm around your middle and his face in your neck, suguru curls up a little and puts his head on your chest

• when suguru first became your concubine and was your only one for a year, it was purely sexual/platonic but there were 10000% romantic undertones because suguru felt himself fall a little when you first met at a festival and danced together, but neither of you spoke those feelings aloud even as they further developed over that year. suguru was of the mind that he wasn’t deserving of your romantic affection as a concubine. but you both knew you fell in love with each other!! you just didn’t say anything until after satoru joins the mix. when satoru first became your concubine, he went in not wanting nor expecting romance; he was of the mind that things would stay sexual/platonic… until he fell in love with you and suguru LMAO

• branching off of that last answer, suguru always knew he was in love with reader. he didn’t really… hide it exactly, because he sure showed it with his actions, but again he never spoke his feelings aloud. neither did you. you both always kinda knew

as for satoru, it takes him a while to fall in love + realize he has romantic feelings for you and suguru. he goes from ‘i like when they spoil me ☺️’ to ‘i want to spend the rest of my life with them… oh.’ i think he realizes during a week that you’re away and suguru is also away to visit his mother and father. satoru’s stewing in his thoughts and feelings all alone and it eats at him, so a few weeks after you both return he’s the first to say something. you and suguru realized that you loved satoru at different times (you first, then suguru. the brief ‘hater’ arc blows by pretty fast). the talk you all have is what unveils everything between all parties

• there’s definitely some insecurity & jealousy for the first few months after you all establish a poly relationship between you three. for you, you briefly fear that suguru and satoru will realize they don’t ‘need’ you and will start to prefer each other the more and more you’re away to handle your duties since you’re often away. suguru briefly fears that he’s not enough for either of and struggles with inadequacy + the fear of being left behind. satoru briefly fears that you’ll both grow bored or tired of him and that love will transition to hatred. all of these worries, insecurities, and jealousy are entirely valid and realistic feelings, and you’re all bound to feel this way in the beginning. but after you all communicate these insecurities and promise to continue communicating in the present and future, things smooth out very quickly. all of you do your best to make sure that no one ever feels that way again. jealousy becomes nonexistent but on rare occasions the other fears crop up, but never for long since you all make a point to check in with each other and be honest

• mentioned it up above but yup you definitely got insecure in the past

• neither suguru or satoru ever feel guilty for liking each other; I just don’t think they’d ever feel guilty in that regard at all imo because there’s nothing to feel ashamed about or feel like ‘oh god is this even allowed’ about considering you, satoru, and suguru always interacted together as a unit in sexual situations. hope that makes sense cos i feel like im not explaining myself properly ahfkahrn. and they never have any reason to feel as though they’re betraying you because they’re definitely not betraying you or doing anything behind your back

• you felt brief guilt about offering the position of concubine to suguru tbh. just because he was a komusō when you met him and his life revolved around traveling and abstinence. so you were like ohhh yeah there’s no way he’s gonna accept because he’ll feel hindered even if i give him free reign to do whatever. suguru mulls it over for two weeks after you meet at the festival before penning a letter to you about accepting the position. and as stated before you give him free reign to whatever; so its not uncommon for suguru to take a week or two to himself to go out and travel, but with the addition of some of the imperial guard at his side because you’re paranoid that someone will target him

and you felt no guilt about offering the position to satoru. his situation was incredibly shitty, he seemed so unhappy and tense, and you offered it without hesitation. and he accepted without hesitation so you never felt the need to worry about if satoru truly wanted to become a concubine or not

• I don’t have a playlist for the stsg concubines au (YET. yet. because I do wanna make one soon) but yep I do have some songs I associate with them!! like anything by SWV, blue dream by jhené aiko, my jinji by sunset rollercoaster, lay by black party, soakin by black party :3 all really good songs that I associate with the stsg concubines au for a few reasons so PLEEEEK listen to them

• you have lots of hobbies that overlap with suguru’s and satoru’s but I won’t go into heir!reader’s specifically

suguru enjoys writing poetry & haiku, calligraphy, origami, reading, bonsai cultivation & gardening in general, tea ceremony, kendo, traveling, aikido, komusō traditions, horseback riding, playing his shakuhachi and biwa, and more. in general he excels in courtly arts & diplomacy. suguru sometimes advises you and provides his own input but he’s not an official advisor ofc

satoru enjoys calligraphy, watching and learning kabuki (theater & dance), collecting insects, archery, kendo, aikido, swordsmanship, making and observing dioramas, horseback riding, and more. in general he excels in military affairs & statecraft. satoru sometimes advises you and provides his own input but he’s not an official advisor ofc

[seeminglydark]

what's the timeline for caros gender exploration and settling in to their identity? in some of the comics earlier I thought they mentioned wanted to be a boy pre transition, so I'm curious as to how they settled on the enby identity (did they ever play around w he/him pronouns for ex.?) and what that looked like. i absolutely LOVE their design and learning more abt them!!

hello! So first off, Caro mirrors my own gender journey growing up in the mid nineties pretty closely, just translated onto paper and at a younger point in their life and set in mid 2000's, which is why i write them the way I do, and also why i explore different stages of their journey openly. They were created to help me understand and cope with myself <3

Timeline wise, they've always known they didn't feel like a girl, living in a small town with the only queer person they know being a 15 year old gay teenage boy, they didn't have access to resources to know there was more out there, and that gender didn't exist in a binary. Of course sully explains trans to them, but he doesn't know much or totally get it either at that point. They DO experiment with he/him pronouns, because they don't know there's more options out there for them, switching over shortly after leaving home and starting work at the GasCo, so 18-to about 20, and Sully uses 'he' for them in private before that, at 16. Their he/him years are spent emulating the boys they knew and looked up too, sully and his crew mostly, so a lot of oversized clothes, black, punk things, even though that wasnt really them either. It still felt like a costume. They still didn't see themself in the mirror or hear it in peoples voices. They feel out of body, like a ghost.

They start learning more about trans things when they meet Goldie, their 'handler' and manager for their show, once they start gaining traction. I haven't fully written this part so it might change later, but I never actually use Caro's pronouns in the podcast, because I have this image in my head that when Goldie meets them for the first time, she is unsure, and defaults to 'they.' and Caro has their AHA moment. This is closely related to my AHA moment when someone who met me was unsure and defaulted to 'they.' I can't explain the euphoria of finding your moment, but if you have with ANY set of pronouns or descriptor words (for example, both Caro and I prefer masc descriptors ie: handsome), you know what I mean. Personally I burst into tears and probably terrified that poor person. I'm sure Caro did the same ahaha. Sometimes we can't know things until we try them on, sometimes that can take a few tries. Sometimes we find ourselves by complete accident somewhere along the way. And thats ok.

Slightly related: I usually default to 'they' if im talking ABOUT them, though I will use their current pronoun if I'm telling a story. I don't have an issue with people using they/them or he/him with adult Caro or she/they/he for young Caro. Their hairstyle is usually a tell for those following along, long for she, mullet for he, undercut/crop for they <3 but we don't stress about it around here.

heres a post I made actually that breaks down Caro's Gender Journey in a Sears Catalog kind of way <3 https://seeminglydark.tumblr.com/post/760091118673313793

[bed-buge]

after doing nothing but play rain world: the watcher for 4 days (bar monday i had to go to college sadge) and i have now completed the whole dlc as it currently stands. i have many thoughts

EVERYTHING BELOW HERE WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!!! FOR EVERYTHING!!!!! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING

alright. starting with the generic spoilers

first up, the beginning. HOLY FUCK I ADORED THE BEGINNING OF THE CAMPAIGN. i wish my clipping software wasnt broken so that i couldve clipped my reaction to That One Chimney Canopy Room. literally as i was climbing i was speculating on when in the timeline Watcher was (my thought was around hunter/gourm) and then Boom. rot jumpscare. i am The Rot Enjoyer so i was genuinely ecstatic. also the jumpscare of Hydroponics being in Industrial was rather funny

(also idk where else to mention it but all the drawn art for watcher is so gorgeous. the colour theory used is geneuinely breathtaking. the last frame of the intro cutscene is beautiful)

secondly, the world (or, what of one there is). being able to get lost in the world is something i havent been able to truly experience up until now (i didnt play any of base game or downpour blind) so it was delightful getting lost in these gorgeous and unique regions.

and aether ridge i suppose

i really dont think aether ridge was a good choice for a modded inclusion. i mean just off the top of my head i can think of several Better regions with better maps that they couldve used. but like. thats also a handful of regions amongst TWENTY THREE. THAT IS MORE THAN THE REST OF THE FUCKING GAME. INSANE. so many regions that i straight up didnt see two of them in my first playthrough

i do wish the world has at least some interconnectivity like in base and downpour. i miss the cohesive and grounded world but also that is just Not what watcher is about so its alright. its still cool regardless. also the implications of some regions being timeline variants of others??? hell yeah

thirdly, the new creatures. fuck barnacles all my homies hate barnacles

in all seriousness though, most of the creatures are cool additions (sea slugs my beloveds <3) i just wish there was some more interspecies interactions besides the moths throwing lizards around. itd make the world feel more alive. the barnacles also need a massive tweak they are just actually bullshit sometimes.

i ADORE the rotzards though. ough the pained noises they make,,,, i love them sm theyre so cool. i wish more creatures got rotted. i wouldve KILLED to see a rotted whale or loach. that one rotted void worm took me OUT

fourthly, the gameplay loop. the weakest part of the game. the total lack of any direction or assistance is upsetting. in base rain world you have the overseers to guide you, and in downpour you have your anchor points in FP and LttM. but here?? nothing. i didnt even know i needed to be finding the echoes until 8ish hours into my first run. i needed my friend to read me a guide for my second. the game needs to at least give the player hints or clues. i found a workshop mod that implements saint's echo ping and both me and my friend had such a better time playing after that. that should be a default setting

its even worse for the second ending. as i mentioned, my friend had a guide pulled up and walked me through it as spoiler-free as she could. and i would have NEVER gotten it blind. this combined with the sheer number of regions (as mentioned previously, twenty three!!!) honestly ruins the game. my friend almost gave up on the whole DLC because of it. i know they plan to start patching things in, and their first action should be implementing better guidance

also i didnt even know you could go through ripples at top karma?? or that you could warp without a karma flower (with consequences)??? the game just. didnt tell me. which i feel like it should because those are both Pretty Big Things

i do think that the gameplay loop could be genuinely fun with actual assistance. because i actually had fun finding the echoes after i got that mod.

and now, onto the ending specific spoilers, starting with the echo ending

WE GET TO ACTUALLY FUCKING SEE ANCIENTS????? LIKE WALKNG AROUND AND SHIT????? IM SO INSANE ABOUT THAT

the storyline of helping an echo detach themself from their wordly desires and move on is so sweet. but i did NOT know that was the story until the last region. it almost made the ending feel unearned. it felt a little shoehorned in tbh. but also like. i dont care WE SAW ANCIENTS WAHHHHH

also hey we watch an echo ascend. neat. i do have a theory that an echo can ascend (or at least move on) if their attachment to whatever desire binds them is destroyed (Four Needles disappearing after their body no longer exists at all) and can move around space and time in accordance to their desires (Rhinestones choosing to come to Undergrowth to appreciate the life thriving there) so. hell yeah more echo lore i LOVE echo lore

but you know what i love more than echoes. the rot

the second ending. is peak i fear. not only is the campaign progression significantly better and more impactful than the echo story, but the ENDING. OH LORD THE ENDING. again, i am The Rot Enjoyer so i was going INSANE at the whole world getting fucky. and dont even get me STARTED on the rotted base game regions. i could go on for hours about how genuinely fucking cool the rotted regions are.

and everything surrounding The Throne and the roterator (The Prince??) (me and my friends nicknamed them "Yapper") is insane. the rot gaining sentience???? and having a pure and genuine trust in their beliefs???????? holy moly. fun fact if you hit them with a spear they get happy that youre playing with them <3

i cant even put my thoughts of this ending into words because its just So Insane (also i experienced it like. an hour before writing this so my brain is still reeling) but my theory currently is that every single strand of the cycle will eventually fall to rot (as the echo says that "it all ends up like this" if you wrongwarp to a rotted region) and that we simply witnessed and assisted in the end of one of these strands. theres. more to that theory but i just Cannot words it yet. ill probably make a seperate post about it soon

overall, The Watcher is an inherintly flawed product that i hope gets fixed up and improved soon, because i did genuinely enjoy it and want more people to. outside of the region bloat and lack of any direction, the game is genuinely peak, but those two things really do just kill it unfortunately. it is deserving of its mixed reviews on steam, but i do hope to see that shift more positively as the rest of the planned content is added and QOL changes are made.

also fix those damn barnacles PLEASE

[puhpandas]

I actually just wanna go over all the evidence there is/was for which side (3 star fam or cassie's dad) was in charge of mxes

people who believed cassie's dad built mxes had theories for a while before any info past hw2/I think during the ruin era too that because he was a technician, he had the resources and brains to build a machine like m.x.e.s, mxes was connected to the ar world, and technicians have vanni ar world masks by default. mxes also is designed after a rabbit and has very similar chest patterns to glamrock bonnies bodysuit, and like the only thing we know about Cassies dad is that hes a fan of bonnie

a lot of this stuff has been disproved. first of all bc it's been recently revealed in the past couple months during the john fuhnaff + steel wool interview + this Tuesday update that m.x.e.s is an old supercomputer from the 80s and was designed to look like one. the mxes ending in the hw2 update also shows them in rabbit form outside of the computer resisting before getting sucked back in. this scene is implying that mxes was FROM the sotm factory/the circus attraction it makes things for, and they have their rabbit form BEFORE the person driving the van takes them, so that's confirmation them was capable of having that form before it got taken. meaning nobody programmed/upgraded them to be able to do that, they already could

meaning that Cassies dad no longer has that design aspect adding to his evidence pile bc he wouldnt have a say in m.x.e.s' design

the mxes machine ALSO is very dirty in the van scene, just as dirty as it was in ruin, so that means it's pretty close to modern day, being pre ruin but post security breach. with this in mind, gregory vanessa and Freddy would all be outside the pizzaplex with a job to do at this point, and their footprints are clearly seen during ruin around the map out of the way of roxy raceway, meaning they had business elsewhere that wasnt just a straight beeline to where the mimic is, which could be concrete evidence they're responsible for the nodes that are connected to m.x.e.s.

Gregory's backpack is ALSO in the exact same basement m.x.e.s is in ruin, plus Gregory tells cassie that he knows what m.x.e.s was designed for.

that's a lot of red threads connecting Gregory vanessa Freddy and mxes. not to mention how Cassies dad canonically dies at the end of hw2, which if he was the protag would be a prequel to ruin. an unknown amount of time yeah, but the info that hes dead before ruin where mxes is found and already set up is important to note

but with Cassies dad, I think most of the evidence ppl had was just the nature of him being a technician, and the fact that he EXISTS as a character, so he has to have SOME kind of importance. that thought process makes sense but with him being immediately killed off in help wanted 2, it feels like he was just there to serve the plot, not really do anything. he was just there to be the one to help vanny kill glitchtrap, and be the player character they needed in hw2, and just. I dont know. he doesnt have a name or a face or even any connection to mimic at all, so what motivation would he have to go take mxes from the factory, the computer that was specifically built to combat mimics ai? and how would he even know its there?

cassies dads character is very confusing and weird lol. but I think that Gregory freddy and vanessa actually have a lot of concrete evidence drawing a red thread between them and mxes, and I think this van ending might have been the thing to finally prove who it was. it revealed that neither side had a hand in reprogramming it, so the design hints are out the window, and all that's left is motivation to take it and the knowledge theyd have to find it, which they definitely have. plus ALL that ruin evidence its just. it's a lot pointing to them. they're the number 1 victims of the mimic, so everything just makes sense here

[dreamsy990]

I don’t know anything about murderbot so this is a genuine question: is it a factory-line produced bot, as in there’s dozens of other murderbots with the same face? You could make the argument that in universe its creators chose to build it and the rest of them with a typical white male face, either to whitewash the implications or in the same way that they try to call those quadruped robots ‘dogs’ irl. If not then obviously it’s only on the casting directors/anyone who gave them direct orders.

ok so to answer the murderbots face question. secunits are basically cyborgs made from a mashup of robotic parts and cloned human tissue. theoretically there are other secunits with the same face as murderbot, but we havent seen any.

i feel like its important to note that 1) whiteness is not really the default in murderbot. there are no characters who are confirmed to be white in text (as far as i remember, although overse is commonly perceived to be by the fandom. and an important thing to note is that murderbot very much doesnt note things like that). race is very rarely even brought attention to. and 2) murderbot is not a white character. it just explicitly is not. martha herself has said this! nobody in the fandom really sees it as white, or at least nobody did before the skarsgard casting

anyways. if it wasnt set in a distant future society where race isnt a particularly notable thing, id agree the company that made murderbot would totally do that. but as it stands, within the future shown in tmbd, wanting a """typical"" white male face" isnt really a concept that works as justification for that casting

[crimeronan]

quick dunmeshi thoughts now that it's been a few hours since i finished the manga:

chilchuck good. love a bitch.

i was hoping i'd have a new popular femslash ship i can write for but unfortunately the yuris are too sweet and fluffy for me. i need my sapphics to try to kill each other at least once :(

similarly: marcille did great being unhinged within the constraints of the genre but baby girl i wanna see you in a yellowjackets type setting SO BAD. set marcille free in an adult drama where she can do true atrocities. FOLDED TOO FAST GIRLIE I BELIEVE IN YOUR ABILITY TO SUCCUMB TO DARKNESSSSS DONT LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS!! DONT BELIEVE IN LOVE!!! DONT HAVE A POIGNANT MOMENT OF EMOTIONAL GROWTH AND ACCEPTANCE!! DONT COME TO TERMS WITH GRIEF!!!! DONT LET THEM CONVINCE YOU NOT TO DO ATROCITIES YOU ARE SO POWERFUL AND CAPABLE OF RUINING EVERYTHING FOREVER!!!!!!

wasn't attracted to laios except for in one single scene.

it was the one where he suffocated falin.

we're not going to unpack this.

izutsumi would be a blorbo if she wasnt just straight-up me.

as is though so many of her lines are things i have directly said aloud in real life conversation that i spent the whole time going "well. this is freaking me out."

kabru is an icon. love guys who play 3d chess

come to think of it, i'm pretty sure his relationship with mithrun is the only one that had any emotional impact on me whatsoever. cunt who can't feel dick about shit x bitch who's pissed off about it 5EVAAAAA

i still default to snack packs of cheez its and goldfish crackers to replace the meals i don't wanna cook. an entire 100-chapter manga about the love of cooking and eating has done nothing to improve my outlook on cooking and eating.

sorry senshi. :(

[rottenpumpkin13]

I think the biggest factor re: Seph being the only one who broke down so spectacularly is that he actually had the power to back it up.

Everything about how he was raised, what was done to him, and the perfect storm of Nibelheim just lined up perfectly with the fact that he actually had the power to back up his breakdown.

Like no one else is as strong as Sephiroth. Other characters whos only major kneejerk problem solving skill (violence) simply do not have his firepower. He has the magic, he has the physical power, he has the skill.

The games have power creep and all so its hard to see this, but Sephiroth in the lore was just totally unmatched except for Cloud in terms of what a single person could do. Zack is crazy strong, and Sephiroth had to have been sleep deprived and not eating for a week and mentally compromised for Zack and Cloud to just barely win and nearly die in the process.

Sephiroth has the biggest rampage because he has the tools to do it in a way that any of the other people on a violent mental breakdown bender simply do not.

I dont think, strictly speaking, the reason why he broke down like that specifically was simply because he was always destined to do so - I dont think he was destined to always go evil- but it was 100% only a matter of time before he simply couldnt take the strain of everything and had a serious mental breakdown of some kind. Eventually the untreated trauma just piles up so much you cant function anymore.

He didnt have to have chosen violence as his method of mental breakdown, but with the situation as it was, that is what he landed on. He could have just as easily chosen to take his own life or made a beeline for the brass and killed them all instead given other circumstances.

Without Jenova whispering in his ear, he probably would have chosen one of those, I think. In even fairly well adjusted people irl, discovering what unnecessary violating medical atrocities were done to you as a child secondhand off your medical records is often incredibly harrowing.

Theres just so many layers to why Sephiroth snapped and why Sephiroth behaved like that beforehand.

When characterizing him, I feel like people really undersell and underestimate what chronic trauma starting from childhood does to your sense of self, decisionmaking skills, emotional regulation, and ability to cope with shock.

Like without the way he was raised, he would simply not be the same person. Chronic childhood trauma becomes your sense of self when you experience it because your sense of self was forming when you were put through all of that. Its baked into your bones and how your brain is wired.

A Sephiroth who was raised in a loving family that wasnt medically violated or stuck in a lab or trained as a child soldier and set loose in war and put up as a carefully cultivated symbol would simply be unrecognizable. He would not act the same, he would not have the same preferences, he would not have the same insecurities or instability. He wouldnt be recognizably Sephiroth- not just because no cat eyes and white hair.

Because to be Sephiroth, he has to be incredibly traumatized by default.

Im not saying that his trauma of all the characters was the Most Awful and therefore he blew up the worst or w/e, but more that this multilayered complex trauma left Sephiroth unable to healthily cope with all the events piled on him during the events of Crisis Core.

I think the factor of how childhood trauma and continued abuse completely shapes how you respond to things as an adult is often lost in the discourse when people try to detangle Sephiroth's actions, so thank you for pointing that out.

Another thing, when talking about how Sephiroth's power is unmatched, is the Jenova cells in him (and how he later became one with Jenova) The only thing that took down Jenova was the Cetra because it/she was that powerful. So while he wasn't destined to break down, you have to admit that something was waiting to happen given what Jenova was.

[randomsporefacts]

going off of this post, using the same method to view a few other xml creation files, those contained in the main packages

unfortunately these are only a couple of paint buddys, as i wasnt able to do this for any of the building or vehicle editors. i decided not to view the limb icon crt files, or the flora editor paint buddy. maybe later

-

creature editor, PaintBuddy.crt

its actually rather tiny! it consists of 4 vertebrae total

i saved a copy where the only change is that i added a mouth to it (saved with no issues unlike squish)

it (top right) is actually rather different compared to the paint icons used in the final game (top left) as its legs are set further apart, so its more similar to the cc demo paint icons (bottom left) and the ga uniform paint (bottom right)

so that makes it clear the ga uniform icon was made after all the other ones, and uses an earlier version of paint buddy!

-

cell editor, PaintSwatch.cll. edited the base cell editor setup, so this should affect the cell editor launch state too theoretically

there isnt a lot to say about this one. in fact its png is already in the final game's Spore_Content.package, but it just wont display in the sporepedia if added (as its name is completely blank), it has no pollen metadata file (despite taking up an asset id) and theres no apparent way to show it ingame (what ? are you gonna try to drop it into an adventure ?)

that said you do get a better angle of it, closer to othographic so itd oesnt look like it has these bulging eyes (the pngs actually save with unflattering angles like that)

also it has 5 vertebrae, also suggesting cells used to have 5 by default until it was changed to 6 later in dev

curiously its first skincolor, 1,0.600000,0 (FF9900), isnt recreatable in spore normally, so i had to approximate it

(and the other skincolors are weird too, cells dont even use those)

[clovis-enthusiast]

Hey Clovis, with Mother’s Day around the corner, I’m curious: are you close with your mom? Will you be celebrating with her?

(ooc: not me answering this months later 💀)

"huh, oh mother's day? that was... ah... a week ago or something, right? *yawn* yeah im close with my ma mère. my mom, i mean. i don't see her a lot physically anymore since ive got *yaaawwwnnn* counselor duties and whatnot, but i talk to her in my dreams at least once a week or so. try to at least. even just a small check-in with a nice hug is better than nothing."

"i see my dad far more often than my mom because... you know... i do be sleepin' and hypnos is actually one of the more attentive godly parents, but i grew up with my mom so she'll always have that edge though i love them both a lot."

"*yawwwnnn* oh, yeah. the other question. i asked nico to shadow travel me to see mom on mothers day. brought her some cookies the dryads made since she loves sweet stuff. also gave her a fleece tie blanket i made in arts and crafts that took me... well... approximately A Long Time to finish but she loved it and she smiled a lot and thanked me and told me she loved me and gave me a hug and *yawn* it was really nice. what was Not really nice was will badgering me and nico later because apparently will wants me to leave my cabin and go outside but when i ask nico very nicely to shadow travel me somewhere he gets all grumpy. *shrug* beggars cant be choosers."

"but yeah... yeah. i love my mom." 💙

(ooc/headcanons under the cut)

hi hi!! so i headcanon that clovis's mom was originally from france (hence his very french name) and moved to new york under the guidance of hypnos through dreams in order to get his son to camp without being too far away from his mama. his mom speaks almost solely french and very little english so clovis grew up speaking french AND english since he attended public schooling before going to camp and switching to be a year round camper after he became the head counselor of his cabin.

i imagine they are very close. his mother had to be very attentive with clovis due to his narcolepsy and hypersomnia. as a baby and toddler, it was often difficult to figure out if he needed to be fed or was sick etc. because he slept so much, and he also was slower to learn how to walk and hit other developmental milestones because of that. due to his mother speaking little to no english, as clovis got older, he often stayed by her side when he wasnt at school to help translate.

i have two ideas for what his mother does career-wise. one idea is that she works in a library which is why and where clovis obtained a ton of his knowledge about mythology aside from his dreams. the one i default to though is that she owns a small bakery (nearby a library) where she handmakes everything. clovis used to "work" there as well, usually to translate, but he grew up around his mother's baking so he is actually a very good baker! not many people know this since he's usually asleep which is a tragedy truly. now that his mom can speak and understand english a bit better and was also able to get enough funds to hire a translator once clovis became a year round camper, clovis doesnt venture down there too often. every once in a while though, he will ask for someone (usually nico) to go with him to visit his mom for a bit.

his mom has met and greatly enjoys the people he has befriended including but not limited to annabeth, nico, will, and lou ellen. she's very chatty and very generous so she often tries to convince clovis and his friends to stay for a homecooked dinner or spend the night. she also still has clovis's bedroom all set up and cozy for whenever he decides to drop by, just in case.

also, chiron actually helps clovis's mom out on the down low by allowing her to take some of the camp's strawberries for her baked goods under the agreement that she will send some over sometime which she is more than happy to do!

as stated above, i think clovis has, at the very least, weekly dream check-ins with his mom. he might not always have a lot to share but his mom adores him and listens to every word. on rare occasions, sometimes even clovis's half-siblings, his friends, or hypnos himself will stumble/be pulled into these check-ins and they'll all have a lovely lil hangout sesh.

but YEAH!! clovis loves him mama, and his mama loves him!!