canyouhearmeow

[dentist-brainsurgeon]

Retopology is a certain kind of hell

[hedgehog-moss]

The Great Jungle Fence of ‘23

A majority of you poll-voters expressed the opinion that my fence would stop Pampe for 4 to 7 days and I am very touched by this popular endorsement of my fence-building skills, because her first escape happened after roughly 4 hours.

^ Pampe connoisseurs will know that her preferred way of defeating fences is by karate-chopping them with her neck, but I thought she could only do that if the fence was low enough for her to put some strength in the chop. The jungle fence was at least as tall as Pampe in the place where I found it all droopy-sad after she escaped, so I guess Pampe added a new jump-chop combo attack to her character sheet. I imagine it went something like this:

That’s okay! All new information about Pampe is carefully filed and will contribute to the creation of the Ultimate Fence. I decided to simply make this portion of the fence unneckchoppable by braiding branches from nearby trees into the fence like they did in Indonesia with that living bridge made by knitting the roots of two banyan trees. I ended up using five or six branches so it’d be solid enough, but here’s a pic of the beginning of the process:

The braided-branch part of the fence still stands undefeated, after 20 days. Pampe ate all the leaves but couldn’t get rid of the branches and had to concede this battleground.

I then found her staring pensively (worryingly) at another potential weak point of the fence: the gate. I used a standard wood pallet at first, tied to trees, but it wasn’t very high. I couldn’t add another pallet on top of it because that would make it inoperable as a door, so I went to explore the barn, which like all barns is full of dusty treasures. What object do I own that’s like a pallet, but much taller?

!!

A slatted bed base. Once tied to a tree it swings open easily, but it was an awful chore to carry it all the way across the pasture, I had to wait for a weekend when my mum was going to visit me. That conversation went like:

Me: Do you remember that old bed in the barn? Can you help me carry it (well part of it) across the pasture? Mum: Why on earth Me: Pampe. Fence. Mum: That’s a good reason

I was very proud of my new, impassable gate, but Pampe was weirdly nowhere to be seen as I was setting it up. Usually she’s here carefully observing over my shoulder when I add a new element to a fence, so that was alarming.

In a flash of insight I realised I had been tricked; she’d never had any intention of jumping over the pallet gate. Too easy, too predictable. She’d only examined the gate to scare me into trying to solve this non-problem and force me to use my only trump card (I don’t have several old beds in the barn), and meanwhile she’d gone and jumped over a different pallet in a different part of the fence.

That other pallet had a sheep netting stretched above it, so that a) I thought it was unjump-able, b) Pampe thought it was a more amusing challenge. Poor Baby Poldine was a bit distraught; she clearly didn’t dare to jump to follow her mum but she didn’t want to be left behind once again, so she tried to slip through the net, but that didn’t work either.

Poldine made a baa noise like a traumatised baby goat and Pampe grudgingly turned back to go bump noses with her through the fence, it was a cute mother-daughter moment.

I added a new length of wire mesh (see pink arrow in the below pic) above the pallet to discourage further jumping, and my mum went “So you can remove the sheep netting and use it elsewhere” and I was like, what, no! Do you think they remove parts of the fence every time a Jurassic Park dinosaur escapes? That makes no sense. I’m only going to add more elements to this fence. Forever and ever or until it works.

Pirlouit, a law-abiding animal with very modest fence needs, was starting to look a bit overwhelmed.

Also—for once, Pampe didn’t look annoyed about being escorted back where I wanted her to be, she was kind of bouncy and looked immensely entertained by all this.

I’ll spare you the details but she escaped again, this time by lifting the bottom of the fence in a place where it was weighed down with a crossbar, which she broke in two with the power of her neck. That was easy to fix; instead of a wooden crossbar I weighed down the base of the fence with massive rocks. Go ahead and neck chop those, Pampe. But this time around it had taken me forever to find the spot where she escaped, so I decided to make things easier for myself in the future—I cordoned off the area just outside the fence with police tape between trees, along the whole length of it. This way I’ll see easily where she escaped—the tape is very flimsy and I crisscrossed it in places, so she shouldn’t be able to get past it without breaking it.

... So I suppose I’ll have to start the next post with “You’ll never guess what I caught Pampe doing last night” and a photo of her like

Anyway, Pampe looked unamused this time.

Well, that’s all. For now. Pampérigouste is back in the lawful enclosure with her family and we are waiting for her next move. Here’s a photo of her alone in the unallowed half of her pasture the other evening, contemplating her freedom

[amethystamanda]

Pitcher and Basin Set (6 items)

This is a set I started, as far as I can tell, last September. It started as 'how hard is it to convert something from TS3?' It's been converted before, but I didn't really care, because it was just to see if I could do it.

Then, of course, I couldn't leave it at that. I wanted the basin and pitcher together and separate. I wanted them empty and filled with water. And then, when I came back to it, I wanted different designs and colours, and I wanted a sink to match--I would not have been able to do that when I first started working on these, I think, and it's still far from perfect.

There are six items, to mix and match throughout your sim's home:

An empty pitcher

A pitcher full of water

An empty pitcher in a basin

A pitcher full of water in a basin

A basin full of water

A basin full of water that works as a sink (identical to the deco basin but functional)

The basins come in 8 colours (the original 3 from TS3 and 5 solid colours), matching the pitchers.

The pitchers come in 38 colours (the original 3 from TS3, 5 solid colours, and 6 different flower designs on the 5 main colours).

Everything is properly tagged for the base colour.

The 5 deco items are tagged as sculptures and bathroom accents. The sink should be off-the-grid compatible.

Poly count is 148 to 492.

Everything costs 100 simoleons.

About the sink:

There's clipping when it's being used. I can't fix that without remaking the mesh so that it doesn't match the other parts of the set.

It gets dirty without being visibly dirty. It's probably fixable, but honestly I want this in my game now instead of spending potentially hours to days figuring out where I went wrong with that.

You can put it anywhere you can put small deco objects. If you put it too low, sim animations will happen in mid-air. If you place it too high, sims will reach inside the surface of whatever it's on. As far as I can tell, there's nothing I can do about that, because the animation is based on the sim, not on the object--the game expects the one off the grid basegame sink with decent stats to be in a counter, and animations are at that height.Linzlu's Samantha's Commode (used in the picture above) is the closest to being the correct height, which is probably because she also converted the same pitcher and made it into a functional sink. You can get both here https://linzlu.tumblr.com/post/613615726759215104/samanthas-collection-i-teased-a-remake-of-my

It can break. I am not currently aware of how to make a sink unbreakable without creating custom tuning (which makes it more likely to break with patches, which is not worth it for this set in my opinion).

Make sure the arrow is pointing in an accessible direction! It needs to point towards where your sim will stand.

I don't remember WHY I didn't make a bowl with no water, but I remember there being a reason, and I don't want to create a whole new item right now. Maybe later.

Download, individually or a zip: http://simfileshare.net/folder/222502/

[kenjakusbrainstem]

Defenseless (Mahito x Reader)

Contains: Rape, body horror, multiple limbs, Mahito's hand cock (as mentioned in my other fics).

Hello! Day 15 of Kinktober: Noncon. For the amount of Mahito dub/noncon that I do write, this was kinda difficult. I tried to make sure it was different than the other Mahito stuff I've done, don't want things to seem too samey. I wanted to try something new, which is why I took a scene with my oc and changed it. Hopefully it still reads well despite being plucked out of that plot. Crossposted to Ao3 under the same name and shared to twt at kenjakusbrain. Comment or rb if you have any thoughts or want to hear more about my AU, perhaps I'll post some of it after kinktober.

The school was supposed to be a safe place, one where there were plenty of people around to keep students safe. Especially at a Goodwill Event, when the teachers from multiple schools were there on the same campus. This year's Goodwill Event had been a disaster thus far. You’d gotten separated from your classmates and decided to simply search for low level cursed spirits to exorcise when the strange veil lowered. 

Despite the supposed safety, you knew something was wrong when you attempted to reach out to your classmates via cellphone but were unable. With Yuuta overseas you normally paired up with Inumaki, your technique’s meshing fairly well. It was helpful to nearly any sorcerer to be paired with you though, as your ability was to use reversed cursed technique on others. Your weapon proficiency didn’t usually matter, but since this was supposed to be a friendly battle, you only had your wits and two daggers you weren’t fully comfortable with to protect yourself. 

While you were confident in your ability to exorcise some low level curses, the uncertainty of what was going on had you on edge. 

Slowly you crept toward a part of the campus people rarely went to, you neared the path to the Tomb of the Star Corridor, assuming that there would be some form of guard there. As you made it to the edge of the wooded area near the stairs, you were shocked to find the end of the barrier. It seemed whatever was going on had nothing to do with Tengen. 

It made sense to you that whatever the strange barrier was, that is where the trouble had to be. It wouldn’t hurt to hide or at least find someone of authority to alert. 

You met surprisingly little resistance as you burst through the veil, heading over toward the only building you could see. If you remembered correctly, it was a warehouse that the school used to store cursed objects. Looking around, you didn’t see any guards, so you slowly approached the building before slipping in through the door quietly. 

Inside wasn’t what you expected to see, two horribly transfigured humans laid on the floor of the storage room. You froze, hands immediately flying to your daggers as you looked around. It seemed like it was just you and the transfigured humans. Remembering the work of the Patchwork curse, you were on edge. 

Kneeling next to one of the bodies, you attempted to use your technique to assist them in some way. Focusing all of your energy into the palms of your hands, you attempted to restore the assistant that was still moving. Unexpectedly, right before your eyes you watched as the assistant slowly morphed back, his skin returning to a normal shade. You checked the pulse and to your surprise it was faint.

This changed things, unfortunately you felt drained, not expecting to exert that much energy. You weren’t sure if you’d be able to get the assistant back to your teachers soon.

“Oh what do we have here? Did you do this?” A playful voice filled the room. You looked up, shocked to hear another person when you could have swore the room was empty moments ago.

There was no doubt in your mind who it was when he stepped closer, stitches visible on his face, barely obscured by his long blue hair. The curse had an excited look on his face, like he’d just discovered a new toy to play with. As you both looked at the man that used to be transfigured in front of you, you thought to yourself that this was the only time you would have rather been too late to save someone.

“What are you doing here?” You asked, standing upright. Your hands gripped your daggers but with the energy you just used, you couldn’t help but feel exhausted. Still you weren’t going to back down, that wasn’t what a sorcerer would do.

The curse laughed, taking a step toward you. You couldn’t help but step back, but you miscalculated, tripping over the other transfigured human on the ground and stumbling onto your back. The move was a grave mistake, you felt yourself getting dizzy as your head cracked against the floor.

“You managed to change one of my toys back! That’s so strange, if you came with me I wouldn’t have to worry about them breaking so easily. Say, doesn’t that sound fun?” The curse sounded much more excitable than you expected. You hadn’t expected him to speak with the enthusiasm of a child.

The dizziness in your head made it hard to fully comprehend what he was talking about. When he said toys did he mean the assistants? Confusion mixed with fear in your mind to create panic, though your hands gripped your weapons tightly even on the ground, you were somehow less confident than normal in your ability to protect yourself.

You didn’t have the chance to find your voice, because he was on top of you in a flash. The curse was much faster than you had expected. He didn’t touch you immediately, instead choosing to cage you in. For some reason this scared you more, knowing enough about him to know that his abilities functioned through touch. What could he have planned if not killing you right away.

“I’m not allowed to kill any students, but if I hit you hard enough you should forget most of this,” His words didn’t match the tone he was using. The curse sounded like he was discussing a fun pass time he was unable to partake in, not murder. Even though he hadn’t said much, you didn’t want to listen any longer. The pain in your head was already making your head throb, something about trying to understand the curse just made it throb worse. 

You held up your weapons, ready to strike if he moved any closer. Or you thought you were. Before you knew it your hands were empty, daggers ripped from them by a limb protruding from his back that you somehow hadn’t noticed until it was too late.

“Now since you can negate my abilities on others, I wonder what you can do to yourself,” The curse thought aloud, hands reaching for your face. You quickly moved your arms up to protect yourself, not that you could do much. 

As you felt his hands grasp your forearms, you knew you needed to act quickly. Your skin felt like it was boiling hot where his hands touched, as if the skin could slough off onto the ground or be reshaped like playdoh. Though you were exhausted, you pushed all of your remaining energy into your arms. Even with your best attempt at keeping yourself safe, you could feel his power was much stronger than yours.

“Fascinating! No one’s ever been able to resist Idle Transfiguration before! I wish I could take you back with me, you’re exactly what he’s looking for in a sorcerer,” He rambled as he spoke, a look of amazement in his eyes. He was clearly excited, but you had no idea who or what he was talking about. 

It was hard for you to focus, though you’d stopped his attack it felt like something was seriously wrong with your arms. In the dim light of the warehouse it was so hard to tell though. 

Opening your mouth to speak, you were stopped by a pair of unexpected lips on yours. The kiss, if you could call it that, full of tongue and teeth. His tongue slipped into your mouth even though you tried to close it. Everything about him was so overwhelming and strange, you’d never felt a kiss so terrifying before.

You tried to lift your arms in an attempt to push him away, but you could barely move them an inch without pain shooting up your body. You had put all of your remaining energy into trying to block his attack, and it hadn’t even been able to stop it. Groaning at the pain in your arms, you wanted nothing more than for him to leave or knock you out. Pulling away from the kiss, he giggled at what you were sure must have been a horrified look on your face.

“You’re getting me so excited just thinking about it. Say will you stay quiet for me so I can try something? I really think you’d be perfect for one of his experiments,” His words made your blood run cold. They sounded so threatening, and who exactly was he talking about? As far as you knew, this curse operated alone, so to have him actively referencing a partner of sorts was alarming.

Without warning the curse flipped your skirt up, exposing your panties to him. You tried to wiggle away, but it was no use, you were on the floor nearly pushed up completely against the wall. The only way out was through him and that wasn’t happening without help.

You watched in fear as the hand in front of you changed shape and size, taking the form of an erect cock. How hard did you hit your head, exactly? You didn’t remember anyone saying that he could manipulate his body into different shapes, but you also just might not have been paying attention. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that, you attempted to close your legs, but you felt two hands wrap around your ankles. 

“Even at a time like this you’re trying to fight back? What a good little sorcerer you are,” The mocking tone in his voice made you angry. You felt the blunt head of the cock rubbing against your pussy through your panties, as if he were teasing you instead of torturing. You lifted your hips to try and get away from him, but the hands around your ankles pulled you closer.

The sudden jerking movement made you hit your head on the ground again, vision blacking out for a moment. Through the haze of fighting to stay conscious, you felt a hot, stretching pain as he entered you. Forcing your eyes open, you were met with the mischievous patchwork grin staring at you, he looked like he had just played a harmless prank on you. Like he wasn’t violating you.

The curse’s movement inside you was slow at first, filling you up carefully as if he were measuring your insides. You could feel the head of his cock pressing up against your cervix, a shiver running down your spine at being filled completely. No human would be able to do this, the strange image of just how large the cock inside you was filling your mind. 

You watched his smile grow wider as he slowly pulled out of you. It almost felt pleasurable, the way the thick cock felt inside of you. That is until you felt the stretch of the head against your entrance. The curse paused, not pulling all the way out of you yet. For a moment you thought he was finished, but that thought was only able to linger in your mind for a few seconds before he slammed his cock back into you.

The curse’s thrusts had gone from soft exploration to a violent attack, each one coming right after the other. You choked, having trouble even breathing as you felt the head of his cock slamming up against your cervix. The pain of being fucked so hard by something far too big made you feel sick, but the way his cock rubbed up against your walls felt good. If each thrust didn’t make you want to cry, you could have at least pretended to enjoy it.

His pace increased, the speed he was fucking into you made it impossible to try and get away. You didn’t even have time to think between thrusts. Trying to make it bearable, you attempted to focus on the drag of his cock inside you, it did feel good, the way you could feel the veins against your walls. It wasn’t enough though, you couldn’t take your mind off of the pain.

As quickly as it started though, he froze inside of you. Something had caused him to stop and you had no idea what it was. Was someone here to save you? Had you been found? Part of you didn’t want to be found like this, no one needed to see just how weak you had been.

The curse rammed his cock into your cervix again, pressing in and not moving away. 

“It seems I’ve gotta go now, the veil is gone, you’re so much fun though I hate to leave you like this. Next time I catch you, I’ll finish this. Don’t miss me too much, cutie!” As soon as he was finished speaking, he ripped his cock from you. You felt something inside you tear with the violent motion. His hands left your ankles, though you wanted to get up and fight him, you were unable to do nothing more than curl in on yourself. 

You watched through teary eyes as he picked something up. Had he been carrying something when you first encountered him? Your brain was too scrambled to remember any details. 

“Oh right, you’ve seen me! Don’t want you remembering too much,” He giggled to himself, again his speech making you think of a child. 

He stepped over you, his shoes right in front of your face. You didn’t have time to register the sharp kick to your temple as you felt consciousness leave you.

[baticeer-sims]

A couple of experiments with TS2 loading time

I wanted to test out some things I've commonly heard around the Sims 2 community as ways to affect your load times. Disclaimer: I have a powerful gaming computer so my game loads fast anyways, so there might be small differences that I won't notice that are more obvious on other machines. I don't know how much of this generalizes to everyone's computer! I run the UC with Sims2RPC as my launcher on Windows 11.

My method: I loaded the game and timed how long it took the game to load from the end of the intro movie, to the neighborhood selection screen. I did it 5 times in a row for each different thing I tested and averaged out the times, just to reduce variance as much as I could.

Test #1 - Control

First I just loaded my game with my downloads folder the way it is right now (8.2 GB of pretty disorganized CC) to get a baseline value. Result: 55 seconds average

Test #2 - Do special characters affect loading times?

I used a bulk file renaming program to replace the letter "S" in every filename in my entire downloads folder, with š - if you can't see that character it's an S with an accent mark on it. (I picked S because it's one of the most common letters in English and it's also in some words common in cc filenames like "sims" and "mesh" so I thought it'd be one where I'm hitting almost every file even if I only replace one character.)

Result: 55 seconds average Conclusion: This one surprised me because it's such a piece of repeated common knowledge around the TS2 community, but I think it's unlikely that special characters affect loading times? If nothing changed from turning the vast majority of my CC from files that don't have special characters into files that do.

Test #3 - Do non-CC files in your downloads folder affect loading times?

I remember hearing you shouldn't keep preview pics in your downloads folder, because it'll slow down the game, and I was confused because I always thought it won't even try to read non-.package files at all. So to test this one, I temporarily moved 17.5 GB of photos, videos, and audio files from elsewhere on my hard drive, into my sims downloads folder.

Result: 55 seconds average Conclusion: If tripling the size of my download folder didn't change load time at all when the new files were all non-sims files, I think it's almost certainly fine to keep preview pictures (or zipped-up backups of something you don't want to use all the time, or whatever) in with your CC if it helps you keep track of your downloads.

Test #4 - Merging your CC

I knew this one was going to actually make a difference because I've directly experienced it before (on an older, worse computer where my load times were longer) but I thought I'd give it a go anyways just to see how much difference it made for me. So I merged some of my CC subfolders I knew would be the biggest (clothes, buy mode objects, & hairs) with CC Merger. According to the logs, it went from 4,308 individual files to 148 merged files.

Result: 46.5 seconds average Conclusion: This definitely makes a difference but it will make a lot more of one for people who already have long load times. For someone like me it might not be worth the amount of time it would take to be bundling every little thing I download lol.

A few other things I've heard that I couldn't think of an easy way to test

1- "Default replacements don't affect your load times as much as if you had a custom version of the same thing" - It feels to me like this doesn't make sense because surely the game still just has to read the files but I have no clue how to test this, I'm not about to spend hours gathering up the custom versions of all my defaults just to try it.

2- "The game will load faster if you have shorter file paths / fewer subfolders within the download folder" - I heard of and started doing this long enough ago that all my downloads are already only one or two subfolders deep already. I couldn't think of a quick way to make my folder structure a lot more complicated lol, and I think even if I found out this wasn't true I wouldn't change how I organize my downloads, so I didn't spend time on it.

Everyone draw whatever conclusions you want from this post, I'm not telling you to change how you organize your CC or anything, just wanted to share what I found is true for me specifically, I would be interested to hear other people who have longer load times repeating my tests and see if you get the same results, or to hear people who know more about the programming side of this weigh in, maybe something like the special characters is dependent on your computer or operating system!

[jb-rapid-prototyping-college]

Making a brick-breaker game in Unreal Engine

First I created a basic empty project and created a new level for the actual game. The tutorial states that the next thing to do would be to create an atmosphere, clouds and fog, all so that you can tint the background pink, however it doesn't add anything to the gameplay so I will not be doing it.

The next thing is to create a bunch of materials for all of the objects in the scene. this material would have a colour and an emission strength variable so that it would glow, however I think bloom is way too overused, so ill stick with just a flat colour:

The tutorial would have you still calculating every single lighting calculation, which is extremely unnecessary when all you need is a flat colour with a bit of glow.

I can then use this material to create a bunch of material instances, all of which can have their own colour.

The next thing to do is the actual gameplay, starting with the bat. This consists of a static mesh (for rendering), a collider (for colliding) and an arrow for some reason. They went with a capsule, but a box will suffice. I then created a spline for the bat to travel across and finally actually started working on the gameplay.

We're first asked to create a timeline, this will control the movement of the bat. it seems quite unnecessary and I would personally just do a lerp or something, but oh well. We then create a new track with a length of 1 second and give it two keyframes: one at 0,0 and the other at 1,1 creating a linear curve(?).

I then use the "Get Transform at Distance Along Spline" function and plug in the spline's length multiplied by the current timeline's value, giving essentially a percentage along the curve. This transform is then used to set the position of the bat.

It now asks us to test it by placing the blueprint in the scene, but obviously nothing happens other than the bat showing.

So now we create some input using an input action and an input mapping context. the two input actions are a 1D float and a bool for movement and launching the ball, the float is locked to the mouse X and the bool is set to the left mouse button.

We then actually get the input like this:

And then create four custom events to control the timeline.

We then quickly reset the bat after the input is done and begin working on the events:

This basically gets the mouse X position, multiplies it with some sensitivity and uses that to change the play rate of the timeline so that the bat follows the mouse.

Anyway, now that this is done, here is what I would have done: I would have defined an origin and a length variable and used that to calculate an starting point and an end point by adding and subtracting the length from the origin. If I am correct, the mouse position in unreal ranges from 0-1, in that case, I would then create a new vector called "target position", which would be the result of a lerp between the start and end point based on the mouse position. I'd then do another lerp where the start is the current bat position and the target position variable so that the bat smoothly follows the mouse. to increase the sensitivity, all you'd have to do is create a new variable called factor, set that to the mouse X and place that in the lerp instead. but before placing it there, you'd subtract 0.5, multiply by the sensitivity and add 0.5, making sure to clamp it between 0 and 1. but that's just how I'd do it.

I quickly placed some boxes around to make sure the ball doesn't leave

and now its time to make the ball.

This is just a collider with a sphere and a projectile movement set to bounce and only move on two axes (x and z because unreal is weird).

I actually decided to differ from the tutorial once again. they used a spherical collider and had the ball facing the direction it was moving, whereas I chose to use a box collider and no rotation. there is really no difference in my case, other than a performance gain so unnoticeable that there wasn't even a point in mentioning it. if there were multiple balls, then my change would be useful. but there aren't.

[evwuniverse]

Jasper City Luxury Estates - Hop or Flop?

From estates to rent to a beautifully made modern-day oasis city I was able to find everything I'd need to feel as if I was a modern-day princess living in luxury (no pun intended). Let's be honest, some places are still not made with new mesh objects in Second Life, and some of the best places are still prim-based. It was nice to find a city with the aesthetic I love. Everyone's style is different of course! However, if you're looking for modern-day Miami Beach or California vibes, this is the sim for you. I spent about 2 hours exploring it and finding some of my favorite things to do and explore in it. I recommend the visit, visiting places is free so why not right?

Visit Jasper City Luxury Estates by Clicking Here

They also have their own website you can find it here.

In case you needed a view of me living my best virtual life please see the below photo taken here in this sim.

In case you didn't know where you were please look at the above photo.

Where it all Begins:

It all begins when you step foot in front of the ginormous sign, telling you exactly where you are (thank you gigantic sign, I had no idea.). Then you have two pools in the front, not quite sure why there are two with little to no traffic especially at around 10:48 PM EST, but who's counting? (just me?) No, but in all seriousness, this is a very well-put-together city sim which honestly is hard for me to find nowadays. I was rather astounded by what it had to offer aside from trying to get you to buy into their luxury estates.

Pools with butlers? Check.

High-end luxury eateries? Check.

High-end luxury housing and galleries? Check.

Well, that seems to be all the main things you need in a city right? But let's not forget about the rideable Ferris wheel which sits over a body of water.

"The Good Life" - Luxury Restaurant:

But wait! I have to talk about the luxury restaurant, now virtual world restaurants are a newer experience for me. Especially after my ex and I went to one before, it was such an interesting experience. We all know it's pretend but there's something about the Roleplay experience that is so much more, but more on that on a future post. The luxury eatery on this sim is called "The Good Life" very much a fitting name.

When you step foot here let me tell you, you're truly living "The Good Life" (thank you restaurant, now tell me something I don't know). From a full bar with a bartender looking like he's about to make you a whole line of cocktails and a waitress ready to sit you in three different areas of the restaurant, each area is a different and luxurious experience. Now do keep in mind there aren't real people running it, but nonetheless, it's a nice touch and nice to see!

Upstairs in this restaurant, there is a sitting area as well as a YOGA studio, how nice. After you "pitch till you win" (eat) you can relax and work it all off. Beautiful! Now you don't have to worry about your virtual body losing its already perfect physique.

Luxury Estates:

Of course, there are also their luxury estates and there are a lot available currently. However, to be fair I never recommend renting off a sim, it's nice if you enjoy the Roleplay way of life and enjoy a place that is part of the aesthetic your looking for that matches the idea of the sim created by its creator. However, if you want to make it authentic and yours and not have a specific house then I always recommend buying a plot of land or finding a way where you can rent from a friend who has land and do your own thing. That's not to say you shouldn't tip the sim to keep it running. I think it's a great place to hang out with friends, explore, and live the luxury lifestyle in your virtual life.

In conclusion, I feel this sim is perfect for exploring, photos, and just spending a day in luxury taking everything in. It's nice to be in a place that gives you the luxury city experience. There is a lot to explore and it's overall just a great place for some friends and yourself to spend some time and relax. I highly recommend visiting.

[spikefinalfmp]

Star Flares Tracking

Wanting to expand this effect I added some movement to the particles by adding a velocity cone shooting the particles upwards into the air. Watching the system run it reminded me off the elden ring ability effect that I reference back too. Thinking this is my chance to learn how to use blueprints to change properties in Niagara emitters I researched how too. I looked for a long time but I couldn't find anything I exactly needed but looking back at my blog posts I used blueprints to change the colour of a effect. I thought it wouldn't be that different to what I need as I am only changing the position of a parameter so I went for that technique. 

I started off with adding a attraction point force testing to get the particles to attract to the position I set. Then in the user parameters I created a new position parameter enabling it on the attract position on the module. As I needed a target to attract to I made a actor with a character mesh to reference off. Making a new component I went into the blueprints. At first I tried to set up the cast on the player character but I could not cast onto the target as I had no object. So I moved the cast to the target, I set it up so on every tick the target would set the variable as it’s world location. I also made a quick piece of code allowing the actor to move forward to show how it would track. I then moved onto the character blueprint to use this information, I knew I had to set the parameter I made so I made code using that variable to set the parameter. This worked but I only had the actor stay still to show wherever I move it would track the target. When I moved the actor it would not track as I only had it trigger when I pressed 1 it would trigger and set the variable so it would track to the position when I pressed it. To fix this I experimented with what I could do. My first thought was to use a event tick to constantly trigger the set parameter module. Which I did but would get errors as the tick would set the parameter that technically has not been made yet, at first I thought a gate or branch would work as I could set a boolean check to see if the effect was triggered. Using this it worked but a event tick uses a lot more resources up so I got some feedback to try a timeline. Adding a timeline I set the value to increase from 0 to 1 over the time of the particle lifetime set in Niagara, this worked as it would constantly trigger the set parameter module. 

Overall it worked great and I am pleased with it. Knowing I am able to track and be more confident in using blueprints with Niagara is a massive skill as my effects can now have a purpose being able to be used in a combat system. The tracking can be improved within Niagara and refined but other then that it works as I wanted. I can use this technique to spawn systems on target positions and potentially develop a target selector to pick a target to use the ability on. If I wanted to push this system further I could add a health bar and code each projectile to do damage on collision, as I am only focusing on the effects at the moment this might be a option if I have time left.

Video of this in another post

Solutions

Fail ^

Attract Position  

[goboymusic]

“#StarWars is like pizza. I like good pizza, and I like bad pizza.” I can’t remember who originally said this, but I love it.

Knowing “#Ayla” would be the last song on GoBoy 5, the prospect of finishing it was far more exciting than most songs.

While most of the names that I use for song titles are arbitrarily selected, some of them are named after people from my past, like this one. Normally impatience gets the best of me when I reach the end of an album and I begin to cut corners to speed up the production process, but since this song was named after a person that I always had a healthy connection with, and that I’m fond of, I made sure to take my time and not half ass anything. I was going to release the song when it was worthy of being heard by that person, and not before then. Is the song amazing? No, but it’s pretty alright.

After about one week of recording and mixing vocals, I began experimenting with different genres for the instrument tracks, from EDM to rock to hip hop. After a few days of trying to come up with instruments for the “oh she got everything I want” chorus, I opted to leave it as an a cappella, because no matter what instruments I added, they weren’t meshing with the vocals. Loud rock drums were added to the post-chorus vocal skippy segment, because that’s the best thing that I could come up with, and were subsequently added to a portion of the 1st chorus because it sounded cool.

The verse vocals were an ordeal. I wanted to add the same loud rock drums from the post-chorus vocal skippy segment to the verses, but the original rhythm of the verse vocals didn’t fit, so I deleted and re-recorded them. A few days later, after the new verse vocals were mixed, I discovered that my nasal passages sounded clogged during the latter portions of the verses. Rather than record the verse vocals a 3rd time, I opted to add a transition midway through the verses from loud rock drums to a lofi style that consisted of a rhythmic synth, vocals, and a high-end filter to make the music sound muffled (if you listen to the song you’ll hear exactly what I’m describing). That lofi style hid my vocal blunder sufficiently.

Ever hear of a #McGuffin in the film industry? A “McGuffin” is an object that the plot revolves around, like the ring in Lord of the Rings, or the infinity stones in the Avengers movies. In songwriting, names are like McGuffins. It’s really convenient to pick a name and then write a song that revolves around it (excerpts from post 89).

“Hannah (Song 89)” was the first of many song titles on GoBoy 5, 6 and 7 that were named after girls. Some of them are real, some of them are arbitrarily selected. Gotta admit, I think it’s pretty funny seeing three or more tracks on the same album with different girl names (excerpts from post 89).

Beat + bass + melody. That’s the style of GoBoy 5. While I’ve appreciated this minimalistic style for years, “Tell My Mama (Song 42)” was the first time trying it. I went whole-hog with GoBoy 5, in which most songs primarily consist of a beat, bass and melody (excerpt from post 80).

For GoBoy 5, instead of creating for the sake of creating, like I did for GoBoy 4, I wanted to make poppier songs that would appeal to a larger audience. Was that goal accomplished? Well, maybe, I guess. It resulted in the song “In Love (Song 82),” which everyone and their mother seems to like (excerpt from post 79).

GoBoy 5 ragdolled me. I remember wondering if I’d live to see the completion of the album. While the style is minimalistic, the writing and production processes were chaotic, akin to throwing darts with a blindfold on. Most songs turned into a puzzle once they reached the mixing phase, with a portion of the pieces being destined not to fit. It required constant compromising - discarding segments, restructuring, rewriting, etc. The combination of the difficult production process and temporary chaos at work left a blood-soaked trail behind me (excerpt from post 80).

In April, 2021, almost all of GoBoy 3, 4 and 5‘s songs were restructured to be under 3 minutes (preferably under 2m 30s), including this song. I became okay with releasing songs around the 2 min mark after realizing The Beatles and The Beach Boys had some songs around that length. In an attempt to increase replay value in this streaming era, most of GoBoy’s songs are now purposely around 2m 20s (excerpts from post 37).

A bass boost was added to songs 37-101 in Nov, 2021, while I was stuck at home with covid. As a result, this song feels more powerful. The bass boost isn’t a simple plugin nonchalantly added to each song. It’s a process that took about 3.5 hours per song, or one whole month to complete all songs. Admittedly, I pushed the bass boost a little too far for some of them. The bass in some songs sounds like a freaking earthquake (unnecessarily pronounced low frequencies 20 - 50 Hz). Might dial that back someday. The bass boost was also applied to every song on GoBoy 6 and beyond (excerpt from post 37).

[cosmic-dev]

Penguin Slide

Originally posted: Sep 27, 2022

First prototype

Yesterday, I planned out some features I want to include in my game. This includes collecting and crafting materials, such as wood from trees.

I began to begin my very first prototype this morning. The goal of this prototype is to have a movable player, a single tree, and to be able to chop the tree down by pressing a button enough times. The tree should then spawn a bunch of logs.

There are a number of simplifications I'll make for the very first version of the prototype: - No player animations (for walking or chopping) - Chopping will be performed with an action not requiring any Item to exist, such as an axe - The tree will not despawn after being chopped. - The logs will spawn in a fixed location

Then, I opened Unity for the first time in a while.

Lessons in Unity

TLDR: Nothing is easy!

Adding the ground

I began by adding a cubic mesh to the world which would serve as the ground. Then, I remembered to create a non-falling ground, I need to add a box collider to set its bounds, rigidbody to apply physics, and freeze the x, y, and z positions on the ground object to keep it from falling through space.

Adding in a tree

There was no way I wanted to spend time modeling a tree at the time, so I found a free tree asset on the Unity Asset Store. I added user Ada_King's fir tree to my game, and it imported easily and at a reasonable scale.

Player Bean woes

I had created a quick and sorta cute model of a "player bean" in Blender the night before. I was easily able to import this into my project by clicking Import New Asset. It entered the world being absolutely gargantuan, but it was easy to scale down.

But I noticed a problem when applying a blue material to Player Bean: only their main body turned blue. The head, arms, and feet remained the default grey color. I realized then that the object itself was composed of multiple different subdivided cubes, and as a result the material could not be applied universally in one click. Admittedly, I didn't waste too much time figuring out how to correctly reparent/unify the individual components of the model in Blender. But this will be something I want to figure out in the future.

Penguin Slide

I went to Blender and quickly rendered a penguin which would serve as the player character instead, taking care to only work with a single cube during the process. I'm glad it was so quick and easy to throw it together-- the Blender controls are really becoming muscle memory now!

I was able to easily apply the blue material to the entire penguin, but Penguin shared a problem with Player Bean: it would slowly slide across the ground. I troubleshooted this for a while, reading through the different settings I could apply on the penguin's rigidbody, but ultimately not finding a solution. I even considered that the curved shape of the penguin's soles could cause it to move, and created a cubic penguin to test my theory. That also did not fix the issue (and in retrospect, since the box collider on the penguin has a perfectly flat bottom, the roundness of the soles would not have mattered).

In the end, the issue ended up being that the ground's rigidbody needed to be marked "Is Kinematic." From what I've read, this setting seems to allow the rigidbody to be influenced by attached scripts (in this case none) rather than the physics engine. That's probably not the most accurate understanding, but a workable one for now.

Overall, the prototype is coming together nicely, and I'm pleased that I was able to figure out all of my issues so far. Next steps will be adding player movement so that Penguin can approach the tree to chop it down.

[granny-griffin]

Twelve years down the road and I finally figured out why how to train your dragon resonated with me so strongly when I was eleven and saw it for the first time.

I used to joke about how dumb I thought that movie was based on the promotional things I had seen for it. I had read the hobbit, I had read other lesser-quality Christian literature. I knew that dragons were actually evil and that anyone who thought they could tame one was stupid or uninformed and was setting themself up to be eaten in their sleep. So I went into the movie thinking that none of these characters could possibly understand the genre they were in.

As it turned out, I was the one who was unprepared.

I think most of you are familiar with the difference between "this media is good" and "this media is something that I enjoy a lot." For me, the second category has a lot to do with resonance. A story can be beautifully constructed, but if its main point isn't applicable to me personally, I'm not going to get obsessed with it. The stories that have consumed my brain for years are the ones I happened to encounter at exactly the right time, the ones containing some core message that neatly aligned with the thing that I needed to learn in that moment.

How to Train Your Dragon is about growing up. It's about individuation. It's about taking the worldview your parents passed on to you and the dissonant self growing in your gut and fitting them together in a new way.

With as much as I had decided I was going to dislike the story, it hooked me pretty fast—mostly because when the movie starts, all the characters view dragons as their enemy. That was something I could get on board with. I completely bought into the status quo. Of course killing a dragon meant everything to Hiccup. That was the right thing to do. That was the thing his community wanted to do. There wasn't anything else to it.

So when he had the chance to kill a dragon and then didn't I decided that he was an idiot. He had been so on board with the whole program! How could he have suddenly forgotten that dragons were evil? He was lucky that his mistake hadn't killed him! But it was hard to keep that opinion for long. Because the more Toothless appeared in the movie, the more I realized that dragons were objectively pretty cool. And in hindsight, Hiccup's decision to spare his enemy hadn't come from nowhere. He was incredibly terrible at performing the ideals of his community. The way he was put together didn't mesh correctly with them, and he'd spent forever trying to pretend that wasn't the case. So maybe this was inevitable. Maybe Hiccup had simply held back his innate impulses as long as he possibly could.

Because Hiccup, who has never been good for anything, turns out to be exceptionally good at befriending dragons. It's the antithesis of everything he has been taught is right, and he loves it. It speaks to him in a way that nothing in his life ever has. More than that, it makes him good at fighting dragons, a thing he has never been able to succeed at before. Suddenly his community sees him and celebrates him—but it feels inauthentic. Because he knows if they ever found out how he was getting these results, they would reject him. They wouldn't understand—or at least, Hiccup can't think of a way to communicate it in a way that would make sense.

So when he decided that he needed to leave his community for good, I understood. He'd done the thing I had always been warned against—he had rebelled against the teachings of his father and followed his heart. I couldn't blame him for it, but there was no way around it. The thing inside of him was incompatible with all of his former ideals. He could only have one, and he had made his choice.

And then Hiccup picked option three. He went back to his people and tried to explain to them that training dragons was actually pretty cool, and it went terribly. And this time, I understood why he did it. Because the perfect impossible dream would be to have both the dragons and his people—for his father to find out about the version of himself that he had kept hidden and accept it. It wasn't something that could even happen, but I understood why he would want it. I understood why he would try.

Then the ending highlighted something that I had somehow missed for most of the movie. The viking's goal of "kill dragons" was actually an extrapolation of their main ideal—protect the village. And while Hiccup takes plenty of opportunities to not kill dragons, at no point does he purposefully endanger his community. A lot of the incongruence between his perspective and the perspective of his people is that Hiccup has stopped viewing dragons as something inherently threatening. And he's right! Toothless goes out of his way to protect him! He's the opposite of dangerous!

So when Stoick takes his army to attack a dragon that Hiccup knows he can't beat, Hiccup uses his ability to train dragons in order to defend his people. And it works—it works better than anything anyone had ever been able to do before. He's able to defeat the dragon that was forcing all the other dragons to attack the village. He completely ends the dragon attacks that had been plaguing his people for hundreds of years. The dichotomy that I had superimposed on the story was proven completely incorrect. The thing spilling out from inside of Hiccup was not only not incompatible with the ideals of his people—it was the only thing able to empower him to live out those ideals. In order to actualize that he had to be willing to stand up to everyone he had ever respected—but he never had to rebel against the core of what he believed. And at the end of the day, when he was able to show his community that he had never stopped caring about their safety, they understood. They realized that the synthesis he had created wasn't antithetical to their own worldview, and they accepted it. They accepted him.

I couldn’t have told you why when I was eleven. But I knew that somehow it was a story about me.

[lamare-sims]

Hi 👋 I love all your mods, thank you for your contribution to this community.

I’d like to ask you, how would one go about adding a new placemat to your controller? I tried replacing the mesh of existing placemats (BB and LordCrumbs) , but for some reason they didn’t show up in game :(. Thank you!

Making New Placemats Recognized by the Mod

Here's a tutorial for editing placemats to be supported by the mod. Two tutorials, actually -- for placemats with and without intricate multiple states.

Preface

Older supported placemats are checked by GUID, so you don't have to worry about them: - SPX Murray Placemat by Xiomara - Useable place setting by SimAddict99 (for tables) - BB Sage Clutter Placemat by Buggybooz

I excluded a few existing placemats from the "supported" list because they either went in slots or required to be placed off-grid to align with sim's plates. The thing is, in gameplay, to be able to tell which placemat corresponds to which plate, the mod has to know exactly where the placemat is. I went by BB's, Xiomara's and SimAddict99's way of placement, because it's the best and most convenient way for players to place placemats, in my opinion. Not all placemats are made this way, this is why there are so few of them supported.

If you know of an old placemat that is placed the same as the ones I listed, let me know and I'll add it.

If you want to create or update your placemat, read further.

Static No Fancy States Type

If your placemat doesn't have states and you want it to just fully hide/unhide, this is for you. There are 2 important steps to this.

Add a "password" BHAV Create a dummy-returning-true BHAV named "CT - I Am Static Placemat" (without quotes). If you don't know how to do that, you can download the resource I made here and add it to your placemat's package: - unzip the zip file - open your package in SimPE and click Add… - add CT - I Am Static Placemat - if your placemat's existing bhavs have group number other than 0xFFFFFFFF, change the added bhav's group to that number - make sure the added bhav's instance number (10A0) is unused in your package, it must be unique. If there's another bhav with that instance, change the added bhav's instance number to something else.

Make sure your object follows placement rules You may have to edit the mesh for this! - Freestanding at table's height (NOT in table's slot); shiftable up from the floor is also fine - On the same tile as the table; quarter tile is fine - Direction -- facing the chair - Must NOT require off-grid placement -- must snap in a way so that it's right under a sim's plate; look at how supported placemats are placed - Optional, but highly recommended: allows object and person intersection

Dynamic Type With Multiple States

This one is more advanced. If you want your placemat to work like LordCrumps', with different states and interactions, you can start by cloning it. I'm not going to cover the cloning process here, make sure to follow all the common steps like changing GUIDs and all that. I'm going to focus on things that make a placemat go along with the auto mod.

The mod recognizes multi-state placemats by calling this "password" BHAV: CT - I Am Dynamic Placemat

States are changed by running these BHAVs: CT - State - Set CT - State - Eating CT - State - Empty Here, you change materials or even models that you want to use for different states. Apart from that, you should zero out object's hidden flags and lockout count in those procedures.

What is lockout count for? It's an automatic countdown measured in ticks, about 30 ticks per sim-minute. My auto mod doesn't reset a placemat to its default state if its lockout count is > 0. You can set lockout in an interaction, so that when players manually set the table, say, to prepare for a party, it stays this way for a while (I did it for LordCrumps' placemats).

What are hidden flags for? My mod may completely hide placemats in some cases, so we have to make sure that the object is unhidden when it changes to any of the visible states.

Additional stuff. You may include conditions like time of day, presence of the party controller, or a random coin flip to determine what your object should change into. For example, create different looks for breakfast and dinner, everyday and party.

What about attributes, interactions, etc.? Our placemats use attr 0 to keep track of states and have interactions to manually change them. You can copy our code or do something else, the mod doesn't care about any of that.

The mod cares about named BHAVs, lockout count, hidden flags, and placement rules. The latter are the same as above, but I'll repeat.

Freestanding at table's height (NOT in table's slot); shiftable up from the floor is also fine

On the same tile as the table; quarter tile is fine

Direction -- facing the chair

Must NOT require off-grid placement -- must snap in a way so that it's right under a sim's plate; look at how supported placemats are placed

Optional, but highly recommended: allows object and person intersection

You may have to edit the mesh to comply!

[scienceandstorytelling]

could you talk more about Kim, the monkey who [checks that i read it right] who tried to phase through a wall??

lmaoo absolutely! Kim was an elderly squirrel monkey who I was trying to teach to exchange tokens for food. Scraggly little thing, going a bit blind, best friends with the bully of the group (which was hilarious, tough aggressive Gwen and her little frail grandma sidekick). I worked with her through the wire door of the enclosure; I would hold up the token and she would reach through the mesh and take it. She got the concept, she knew this would get her mealworms, she was invested.  

(This is a picture of a squirrel monkey who is not Kim)

Now, one day they put a transport cage in there for the monkeys to get used to. It was basically a wire cube that was attached to the middle of the door, hanging in the air. One side was open and they would go in and out of it, and the one wall of it was flush with the door. So I go up and Kim is sitting in the box, and she sees me coming and starts reaching her little hands through the wall of the cage and through the door. Please picture cute little pink soft hands with horrible fingernails and golden fur. Adorable when they grab your hand but also they pee on them so not great. Anyway, I didn’t want to try to work through the double mesh of the wall and door, so I held the token above where the cage was, naturally thinking that she would come out and sit on the top of the cage to be up against the door. This was a logical thought, they had no problem climbing around on the door to get to where the token was.

Reader, this did not happen. Kim looked up at the token and proceeded to reach up through the ceiling of the cage, squishing her little shoulder and face against it and making annoyed screeches because it was very rude of this token to be out of reach. And she kept doing this.

These monkeys are pretty smart, they have object permanence and shit, Kim’s old and experienced - I was not prepared for her to not comprehend that she had to leave the cage in order to reach the token. I remember standing there going “how in the hell am I supposed to explain this to her?” And how do you? How do you explain to a tiny elderly monkey that no matter how hard she presses herself against the ceiling she can’t magically phase through it to get to the token? I thought, maybe she’ll get it if I hold the token below the cage. Reader, this did not happen either. She plastered herself against the bottom of the cage with her little arm reaching futilely through.

This went on for like, five minutes. And you say, well, Kim had issues with her eyesight, maybe that was the problem? But the thing is, as I kept moving the token to different spots hoping one would work, she kept moving around the cage and would go so far as to sit in the doorway of the cage and stare out of it, look around, look over where the token was with her face out of the cage, and then go the fuck back inside and try to phase through the walls again.

I’ve never been so completely at a loss. How do I communicate to this animal that she can’t break the laws of physics? That she has to physically leave the box she’s in to reach something outside of it? That she isn’t fucking Gumby and her arm is not going to be long enough no matter how hard she tries? I don’t remember how, but eventually she got it. Eventually something clicked in her little monkey brain and she climbed out of the cage and came over to the door where - astonishingly- she was able to actually reach the token with ease.

She never advanced to the higher stages of the experiment (Exciting new tokens! Exciting new foods!) but that’s okay because she conquered her own Sisphyean task that day, and made the major accomplishment of understanding that she had to exit one area to get something in another area. We should all be very proud of her. Good ol’ Kim. Idk if she’s still around, but may she be remembered for conquering spatial dynamics, befriending Gwen, and being the geriatric subject of a “swiggity swooty coming for that booty” meme. We shall all eat a mealworm in her honor.

[ballodellamarlena]

m o o n l i g h t

damiano david x reader + ex!gjon muharremaj (gjon’s tears)

genre: fluff, minimal angst

wc: 1.7k

notes: non-canonical OOC, also my first fic in a long time, this is a result of me ignoring my finals with a dash of projecting

feedback is appreciated! if you are interested in reading more i have more ideas :)

-

2021 just can't stop surprising.

In hindsight, it was worse for some in comparison to year prior, but life goes on.

And so does Europe's most famous song competition.

2021 just can't stop surprising. In hindsight, it was worse for some in comparison to the year prior, but life goes on. And so does Europe's most famous song competition.

2020's cancellation of Eurosong was devastating, to say the least, but now it's back and in full shine; different singers, different songs, lots of changes made. Your job as an audio technician swept you off to places you'd never thought you'd see. From concerts to musical artists in recording studios in their whole essence; the making of a song, the process fascinated you. It kind of didn't surprise you when you were accepted to be a part of Eurovision's sound squad. It was, after all, everything you've been working for.

It was not soon after Tel Aviv when you met Gjon in a recording studio, where you were temporarily stationed before departure to Rotterdam to start preparing for the next year. Gjon was a nice constant to your hectic life, always there to shine on a new perspective and always there to comfort you on your worst days. In turn, you were there during his journey to be chosen as Switzerland's contestant in 2020's Eurovision. You were there when he wrote his song about being and belonging. Your blossoming relationship became too great to ignore, and soon you became the team's sweethearts; his firm but soft composure meshing with your assertive and curious nature in the best of ways. You were not afraid to say that you knew him, and vice versa. Everything really was perfect. Until the epidemic hit.

It was like a domino effect, one thing encouraging everything else to fall apart. Being in a foreign country while it was in a state of emergency was not the most ideal, and it didn't really help your job. Your recently appointed position in Eurovision's sound squad was gone with the wind when the cancellation was announced, and so did Gjon's hard work. Tensions rose, and while your relationship was as healthy as could be, it simply wasn't enough. Or maybe it was never supposed to be something more than a prolonged period of deep infatuation between two human beings.

The departure was bittersweet, to say the least. But you knew, a year with him would never compare to anything else. You two parted gently, on a windy airport, almost ignorant to the tears in Gjon's eyes; you saw regret, pain, and fear, but you both understood that if you decided to give your all to each other before knowing what that 'all' even is, it would hurt much more.

You remember his arms around for the last time, whispering promises of sunnier days and warm reunions, the lump in his throat preventing him from promising you a better him.

You haven't been able to completely process his intentions, too keen on leaving. You were itching for something different, but everything seemed too claustrophobic in this state of the world. So you accepted the first job offer that presented itself to you and flew off to Sanremo.

-

"You okay?"

You turned abruptly towards Victoria, one of the band members you were here with here in Rotterdam in the middle of rehearsals and navigating through Rotterdam.

Your job offer as one of Eurovision's sound technicians still stood even throughout the epidemic but after Måneskin's success at the Sanremo Festival that granted them the first row in the finals of Eurovision you decided to stay with them, so the job kind of integrated being an official technician in charge of Italy and being their personal plus one.

You stared at Victoria with a blank stare, reminiscing the past short few months; Sanremo brought new experiences and new people. Italy's contest for the contestant at 2021's Eurovision started from square one, giving new chances.

Maybe Måneskin was just what you needed, the four of them. Victoria, Thomas, Ethan, and Damiano.

Damiano was a breath of fresh air. A breeze of fast wind. Assertive and confident. You couldn't deny it was attractive. You tried not to let his aura control your way of seeing him, but very soon you found him to be one of the best people you've ever met. You helped you express yourself more, welcomed you like family, made you see life and yourself like something more than you had originally thought. You two clicked, and between new friendships and an interesting job position you allowed them to take you with them to Rotterdam. And you did so without hesitating.

Besides, no one could deny something heavy between you and Damiano.

Back to the present, at Italy's table with the band and the delegation, Damiano comfortably sitting on your left, you stared at Victoria to your right, trying to come up with an answer when you heard it again.

"Will Switzerland's contestant please begin their rehearsal?"

And there he was, no different than that day at the airport. Last you heard about Gjon he came with a new song, after managing to keep his place as the contestant, something many preparing contestants had to give up prior to this year's competition.

You were sitting on the edge of your seat, elbows on your knees. You felt Damiano's fingers twirling one of your locks on the back of your hair, a bit uninterested to be watching somebody else's rehearsal while the band was already done with theirs.

"Yeah." you smiled lightly. There was no lie, why wouldn't you feel fine?

You felt Damiano's hand weaving with your elbow, pulling you to him, and you leaned back against the cushion, leaning your head gently against his shoulder. And if he noticed you seemed lethargic all of a sudden, he didn't say anything.

You stared intensely towards the stage, but relaxed and turned to the rest of your company after realizing this rehearsal only included the technical side of things. No song from him today.

-

22nd of May, 2021

Entirely skipping the semi-finals, you and your team only focused on your own band. Being one of the Big 5 was admirable, and everyone expected a show.

The clothes fit, the makeup was on, and the band was ready to enter the arena along with you and Italy's delegation. Nine pm was nearing and you were going to be sitting through all of the 26 songs, along with voting.

Songs went by fast, some fun, some less, but all were good until it was time for Switzerland. You were about to hear his new song.

Je vois derrière nous des morceaux de toi Et ce que la douleur a fait de moi

The somber tone, the lyrics. Your limited knowledge of french allowed you to understand the basic point of the song.

Nos deux cœurs sous la terre

He was still not over you.

But maybe he was but was singing about somebody else, you tried to rationalize.

Damiano squeezed your hand that you didn't even realize he was holding, you were so tense. The band was aware of your previous association with the Swiss singer, but you didn't even want to know what they were thinking about.

You only thought about the song. The melody, the words sang of his anguish, and it wasn't a bad song. You wanted so desperately to heal him but knew it was not your job to do anymore.

Comment soigner nos coeurs qui éclatent?

Your eyes made contact, and it was like going back in time. But all songs end, and so did yours.

The crowd cheered, it was a great performance. The table clapped and you watched him getting off the stage, not knowing what to think.

"It's going to be okay, carina."

That one pull you needed, and you didn't doubt anymore.

An hour and a half later, after Italy's performance, which was quite an experience, finals were coming to an end, and the voting began.

You will never get used to feeling nervous about getting results, even when you weren't the object of it. But watching Switzerland get so many points from the jury made it a whole new experience. Italy was places below and everyone was silent.

The televoting points change everything, it was unpredictable, just like the whole competition. You had Damiano's hand in your left and Ethan's in your right, squeezing them, but adrenaline prevented you to feel anything else besides your heartbeat.

You wanted them to win so bad. They worked so hard to get where they are today, and while all contestants deserved a chance, you couldn't not be a little biased.

The 318 points to Italy were a game-changer, the crowd cheered, Victoria and Thomas jumped and screamed, and Damiano pulled you up into a hug, cheering with them; they were in the first place now. Crowd's favorite, obviously.

All that was left to hear was the number of points for Switzerland.

You've got to be kidding me, you thought.

It was tension between Switzerland and Italy, and you honestly didn't know who would win. But did it really have to be the two of them?

You felt the cameras focusing and your table, And everything was silent. You felt Gjon's stare, piercing through you. But the only thing you could focus on was Damiano's skin touching yours, his fingers intertwining with yours, and you knew that no matter the outcome, everything would be okay.

But alas, the points weren't enough to overthrow Italy, and you grinned, suddenly feeling Victoria's arms around you and Damiano's tears of joy on your neck. Everyone's screams made it seem like total silence and you smiled big, proud of your friends.

You were so happy you didn't realize they were soon dragging you with them to the stage to perform once again. In fact, you never felt so happy, you even started to sing loudly with the crowd.

Damiano, in his whole element, shining with pride and glory, motioned you to the stage by the end, pulled you in, and kissed you deeply, holding you close, and silently thanking you.

You knew life wasn't always going to be this pretty, but you thought, maybe you could live in this moment for a little while longer, kissing your frontman and giving yourself completely to the blinding lights of a victorious arena.

It was time to move on.

-

a/n: this was so bad i'm so sorry

[pink-flame]

Soft

A little introspective Juke fluff from Luke's perspective for @xxprettylittletimebombxx who went on a delightful spiral with me earlier about how Luke and Julie look at each other. I hope you enjoy it my friend! 💜

Luke had always been a little soft.

It wasn’t something he would have readily admitted back in 1995, wasn’t a descriptor that meshed well with the image of a rock star on the brink of legend status, at least not in his very much teenage boy mind.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

The way that he had handmade valentines for his entire 4th grade class after he overheard some jerk making fun of Alex for the glittery ones he was working on, scrawling completely illegible messages on each one in a show of support.

The way that after he had run away he had taken his first guitar, that little acoustic his parents had bought him for Christmas as a kid before they realized he would never put it down, and donated it to Goodwill. He had liked the idea that some kid would stumble across it, feel the magic Luke felt under his fingertips when he played it, give it a happier ending.

The way even on their big night at the Orpheum (their first big night at the Orpheum) his instinct had been to monologue about the way their music had the potential to connect people, not the adoring legions of fans that they would soon have.

So if he was being completely honest with himself, which he was getting better at doing now that he was dead, he had always been a little soft. Not that he considered that a bad thing, not really in 1995 despite his reluctance to admit it and definitely not in 2020 when he had been granted a whole new chance at life and music and...well, everything. How could he not feel excited, and grateful and awed by absolutely everything in his situation?

And given all of that he really shouldn’t have been surprised that when he looked at Julie he could feel his face rearranging into a brand new expression, or that he could tell the gaze beaming out from behind his eyes was, well...soft.

But he was surprised.

Because he didn’t look at Julie like he looked at his guitar, like an old friend, a piece of his soul that came back to him unexpectedly.

And he didn’t look at Julie like he looked at Reggie and Alex, like his family, the ones he wanted to be standing next to in their last life, and this one, and any others they might get too.

He didn’t even look at Julie like he looked at the crowd at one of their shows, like the other half of a connection he’d been searching for his whole life, the answering echo to the songs he poured himself into.

No, the way he looked at Julie was a decidedly different, decidedly even more soft, look that was reserved just for her.

He couldn’t help it, even if he had wanted to, which...he wasn’t that motivated to stop looking at her like that if he was being honest (which, again...he was getting better at).

He looked at her like that when she sang, a note bursting out of her that was almost too beautiful and too powerful to believe.

He looked at her like that when they wrote together, when she suggested a line that was exactly what he had been about to say only better.

He looked at her like that when she helped him find his way back to his parents and when she helped call him back from the brink of hell in Caleb’s club and when against all odds she placed her hands on his face and pulled him back from death (again).

But he also looked at her like that when she was doing nothing in particular, sitting on the couch in the studio, tapping her foot while she worked on her homework. When she got up in the middle of the night to make a sandwich because she couldn’t sleep and let him watch just because she knew he missed eating. When she showed him something on her phone that she swore was meant to be hilarious but he didn’t get whatever memo...meme? She was trying to explain.

No, this wasn’t just about him being in awe of everything he came across in this second chance of his and it wasn’t just about the fact that Julie was objectively amazing.

It turned out that was just how Luke Patterson looked at Julie Molina.

And he understood that deep down, he really did.

Because Julie was objectively amazing and because this was his second chance and because she felt like coming home in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that she played some CD and yanked him back to their studio.

What he couldn’t understand...what he would have stayed up trying to understand if he could still sleep...was why Julie looked at him the same way.

What had he ever done for her to justify the way her eyes softened, and her head tilted and her mouth curled into a shy smile when they were close to each other?

Given a folded up piece of paper that she had no way of knowing contained a tiny piece of his heart?

Poofed onto the stage at her school to act as backup she never asked for?

Stood her up for her school dance?

Kept what Willie had told them about Caleb’s plan from her until the last possible moment?

Given her one half decent speech about how music without her didn’t matter anymore when he thought they were never going to see each other again? When he couldn’t even bring himself to say the words he really wanted to say to her, not even at the very end?

Luke didn’t get it.

But that didn’t mean he wasn't crazy, stupid, counting his lucky stars every night and then some that she looked at him in a way that was just so...soft.

So Luke had always been a little soft, and coming back from the dead, and meeting Julie, liking...loving Julie...had only made him softer.

No regrets.

[teawaffles]

The Conspiratorial Bullet: Chapter 7, Part 1

T/N: For the first time, a chapter will have three parts ( ; ω ; ) This is one very long scene..!

TW for this chapter // Mention of death, blood

If there were a hole in the ground, he would dive right into it.

——Is that what one would call this state of mind?

That was what Kevin Curtis thought as he nervously wandered the forest alone.

After they’d bid farewell to Albert, for a while, he and the elderly nobleman Andy had continued walking on with no destination in mind. Then they ran into a couple of nobles from the opposing team, and somehow started shooting at one another; before he knew it, for some reason, he had found himself all alone.

When the fighting started, Kevin had panicked and knocked into Andy. He’d then dropped his revolver somewhere, and descended into an even greater panic. Kevin crawled on the ground to search for it after that, and just as he’d finally found his own gun, the next thing he knew, he was both lost and alone. For about a minute, Kevin had hugged his knees as he fell into despair, such was the height of his misery.

“But it’s a good thing this card was here.”

Kevin spoke to himself, brushing his fingers over the card that had been tied to the revolver. Without it, he wouldn’t have had the confidence to say that the gun he had picked up was his own. On the card, the number 8 was clearly written.

“But what should I do now……?”

He kept going “But, but” over and over as he swayed, repeatedly turning his head to look around him. Even though the forest wasn’t very large, perhaps it was the strangeness of his surroundings that heightened his unease, for it had begun to seem oddly complex and bizarre.

In times like this, if he were here——

The figure of that man rose to his mind: his business partner, Helena’s father, and his best friend.

In contrast to the timid Kevin, he had an endlessly bright and cheerful personality. There were times when Kevin had thought that cheeriness bothersome, but the man was optimistic, and loved a challenge, which meshed well with his own pessimistic and cautious nature. The store they’d opened and run together had been a success, so much so it had grown into an enormous department store.

Why did he just disappear? Kevin knew it was useless to think about it now, but even so, he still couldn’t help but feel that way.

They’d known one another for ten years, yet Kevin hadn’t noticed him being particularly troubled. Their business was progressing smoothly, and it didn’t seem as though he was having problems at home. After Helena had been born, his wife had fallen ill and passed away, but Kevin was certain that he and Helena had come to terms with her passing for a long time now.

Even so, perhaps there was something else that no one knew about, which had been gnawing away at him for some time. Then, why hadn’t he noticed anything? Kevin had asked himself this question many times over as he was interviewed by the Yard.

Of course, there was the line of thought that no one was to blame, and he’d been abducted by someone. In an industry where resentment was common, perhaps there were some people who would resort to such extreme measures — and Kevin had been too careless to anticipate it. Whether he wanted to or not, that incident came to mind. That was why…….

Unconsciously, Kevin’s eyes began to search for the girl he had taken in.

That was why he would at least protect Helena — that was the duty Kevin had taken upon himself. Even after her beloved father had gone missing, Helena had never once lost her outspoken spontaneity, nor shown the slightest sign of grief, and he was staunchly determined to protect that resolute spirit of hers.

“Hm?”

Unexpectedly, his train of thought had been interrupted. Speak of the devil perhaps, or maybe his thoughts alone managed to influence reality. As Kevin stumbled through the forest, before his eyes appeared a lone girl with her back turned to him.

——Was that Helena? From her hairstyle and clothes, it did appear so. Strangely, she was sitting in the tall grass, her back hunched as she hugged her knees. She appeared to be staring intently at something before her, without showing any sign of having noticed Kevin behind her.

He pondered. Now, he and Helena were on opposing teams. Moreover, this girl, who seemed to be Helena, had exposed her back to him, leaving herself full of openings……. In this situation, what was the right thing to do?

If he were to play the part of a kind and generous father, he could call out to her, and let her shoot him on purpose. But he was quite certain that Helena, prideful as she was, would want a serious battle; if she knew he deliberately let her get away, it was inevitable that she would throw a big fuss about it no matter what good intentions he had.

In that case, should he fire on her right now? But then he was worried he might upset her, and just as all sorts of concerns whirled around Kevin’s head, someone thumped a hand on his back.

“………!”

Kevin had almost let out a yelp, but he frantically clapped a hand over his mouth as he spun around. There, he saw Andy Krueger, whom he’d lost sight of in the battle earlier.

The man placed an index finger over his mouth, signalling Kevin to stay quiet, and walked up beside him.

“That’s Helena-kun, isn’t it?”

Andy sounded fairly certain on that, and Kevin lowered his voice as he spoke.

“I just happened to come up behind her, and now I’m not sure if I should shoot.”

Andy gave him a wry smile.

“That’s quite like you. But even though it’s just for fun, you shouldn’t bring parental affection into a fight. Go on, get her before she runs away.”

“A-Alright.”

He had thought of Andy as a compassionate person, but it seemed he also had this surprisingly severe side to him. At the elderly nobleman’s rapid insistence, Kevin was on edge as he aimed his gun at the girl.

“Come on, quickly now,” Andy pressed.

There was no space for objection. Without thinking straight, Kevin pulled the trigger.

——Bang. A sound like a crack resounded through the air.

The recoil was stronger than expected, and Kevin fell on his bottom. Half stunned, he felt a little out of sync: perhaps it was because he was a complete amateur with a firearm.

However, that shot had felt subtly different from the previous times he’d fired his gun. The sense of incongruity that had arisen when he fired the shot, as well as a mysterious unease, both hit him simultaneously. Getting to his feet, Kevin looked at the girl in fear.

The girl lay curled up quietly on the ground. On her back was a huge splash of colour. But it wasn’t the hue of some artificial paint — rather, it was an ominously bright red.

“……Huh?”

That sinister red blotch gradually bloomed across the girl’s back. As he looked on, Kevin tilted his head in a comical motion.

It was the first time he had hit his target: to think, the colour would be as realistic as that. Moreover, the girl had yet to move a muscle. Maybe she was diligently pretending to be dead.

Kevin’s thoughts couldn’t catch up with the reality happening right before his eyes. As he stared ahead in a daze, beside him, the elderly nobleman spoke up in horror.

“Kevin-kun……. Was that, a live bullet?”

At that word, Kevin came back to himself. He looked at his revolver: both his hands were trembling abnormally. No way. Just now—— did he fire a real gun?

“Why? This is a toy, isn’t……”

“Give it here.”

Andy snatched the revolver from his hands. The card with the number 8 fluttered in the air. That’s right. Wasn’t it precisely that card which proved definitively that the gun was the one he’d been given? But even that little hope had been so easily crushed.

After briefly inspecting the gun, Andy gazed at him, wide-eyed.

“This is the real thing. You’ve just shot and killed her.”

His tone was emphatic, as if he were pronouncing judgement upon him. Kevin’s mind was a complete blank, but Andy shook his shoulders and immediately jerked him back to reality.

“You’ve done something terrible now, Kevin-kun! To think, you’ve killed your own child!”

“N—No…… I was just, playing a game—”

“That excuse won’t hold up! You’ve committed murder!”

As Andy shook him over and over, the word “murder” echoed in Kevin’s mind. Certainly, it was as the old man said. No matter what reasons he had, it was an unquestionable, irreversible fact that he had killed someone.

Andy went on volubly at a rapid clip.

“This is bad. If you go on like this, it’ll be your end. A murder conviction will strip you of your wealth, your name — everything. But you’re lucky that I’m the one who witnessed it. First off, let’s hide the body somewhere inconspicuous. Then we’ll make it seem as though Helena simply disappeared, and you can hide away in a foreign country. Once the furore dies down, you can come back; until then, leave the plans for your new store with me.”

“N-Now hold on just a minute!”

Even as he was overwhelmed by the force of Andy’s arguments, Kevin somehow managed to interrupt his proposal.

“We don’t know for sure whether she’s dead. If we give her first aid right away, she might still be saved. And what did you mean about leaving my plans for the store with you? What does the management of my store have to do with you?”

Kevin’s points were valid, but Andy refused to listen.

“Look at her! She hasn’t twitched at all: of course she’s dead! And it’s the same with the store! You’re a murder suspect, while I, a noble, am clearly more trustworthy, so it would be obviously more effective if I were to operate it——”

“——You’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Lord Andy.”

As if he’d been possessed by something, Andy was just making an impassioned speech when a refreshing voice cut him off.

Kevin looked up, and caught sight of a man standing behind Andy.