#but like the internet millenials grew up on....

[rigginsstreet]

I remember you talked about Megan is Missing and how the main girls were dumb and its true but i don't think they deserved to be brutally murdered and raped like that 😬. The last scene is unsettling

i mean yeah obviously no one deserves all that but at the same time you watch a movie and go "well all of this couldve been avoided if you simply made smarter choices" thats just... the entire horror genre really

like girl you were talking to this man via skype or whatever who never once wanted to show his face hello? and i watched that back like before we had catfish (maybe it was just coming out... i feel like they exist around the same era but i dont think catfish was a big thing like it is now) common sense tells you to leave that man alone

[hickeygender]

23 is young and i don't wanna go acting like it isn't but sometimes i see stuff from baby zoomers and i feel fucking ancient. skibidi toilet? i have yet to understand what that's referencing. reality shifting? i was into new agey stuff as a teen and i get the whole law of attraction/manifestation thing, but the rest is all greek to me. a good half of the aesthetics i see talked about online? literally got overwhelmed when i stumbled on the aesthetics wiki last year and i feel like an idiot seeing all these kids list off like 4 different hyperspecific aesthetics to describe themselves 😭 girl what does any of that mean? patiently explain it like i'm 85 when it comes up, or don't expect me to know what the hell you're talking about. i'll just end up smiling and nodding like your out of touch grandpa who loves your energy but is frightened by cellphones and the concept of smartfridges 💀💀💀

[spiftynifty]

I think the best way I can out myself as an Old™ is to publicly admit I have no idea who tf dril is

[joshneedsspace]

To the people my age (27): some of ya'll were so fucking mean in K-12 it's no wonder why people like myself wanted to off themselves. I keep remembering stuff that happened in those years; constantly being bullied for my weight, dry skin, being sensitive, "slow", and really whatever else. Legit think some people wanted me to die because of the fact that I was fat and for literally nothing else. You have no idea what that's done to me, as a person.

[monstroso]

for months now i've been hearing people in their late 30s talk about how "the algorithm" might be bad, but since we all have to deal with it we need to find ways of making sure it doesn't shape our lives or whatever and it's like. no we don't! i do not have this problem!

like i grew up on the internet with these millenials. I looked to them for guidance on how I should conduct myself online, curate my experiences, and learn how to use the resources at my disposal to become someone who creates, not just consumes. and it seems like without exception these people turned inward and let twitter and spotify and youtube and reddit push them into content ruts.

and like a real millenial, they're AWARE that something has changed, but they just take it as a given that this is what being online is like now and that there's nothing they can do except modify their behaviors so the familiarity doesn't become mundanity and i simply reject the premise of the argument.

it pisses me off that these people, people i idolized for their creativity and resourcefulness, have rolled over and become complacent. that they don't like it but "it is what it is". it's really not.

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

This has been ruminating in my brain and I have to get it off my chest: A Court of Mist and Fury is literally just some teenager's bad "Draco in Leather Pants / Ron the Death Eater" fanfiction.

[Under the readmore I reveal my true colors as a Harry Potter Millenial Child but trust me I have a point and know what I'm actually talking about here. There's analysis I promise. And I'm not going to spend a million years like, "And I think JKR is bad also!" because we've all been on the internet for this long and we know that she's a bad person. I do have an actual point to make about ACOMAF.]

For those who don't know Harry Potter (and didn't grow up rereading the whole series front to back every single time there was a book or movie releases like I did) - Ron is one of Harry Potter's friends. He's a wizard, from a wizard family, so there is some shit that he just doesn't know about the world, because he's always grown up around magic, and has been isolated from a lot of non-magic people. He also grew up in a poor, but ultimately loving family, and so while he has a lot of insecurity and competitiveness (due to being the youngest of six very accomplished brothers) he also has a lot of strengths - he's incredibly loyal to his friends, he's courageous and protects his family, he's not the smartest member of the group but he's resourceful and he sticks to his beliefs. Ultimately, he spends a lot of time acting pretty much like a dumbass, headstrong teenage boy (which he is) while evil wizards attack him and his friends.

Meanwhile, Draco spends the first few books being Harry's bully. He at first tries to befriend Harry because Harry is famous among wizards, but when Harry gets wind of how Draco treats people - like Ron, whose family is poor, and Hermione, whose parents aren't wizards - he turns it down. Draco spends the next several books parroting his parent's bigoted beliefs (for context, he's all of twelve when it's revealed that his family keeps an elf as a slave and he starts referring to Hermione with wizard slurs for non-magic people), trying to cheat at sports and beat them in exams, and generally being a whiny, annoying nuisance. This changes in Book 5, when Evil Wizard in Chief returns from the dead and Draco's parents immediately cozy up to him. They're basically portrayed as spineless sycophants who lied about supporting Evil and are mainly interested in aligning themselves with whomever seems to be winning - but Draco is thrilled by the importance of his family and the chance to finally, seriously threaten Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He gains actual power over them at school and immediately abuses his privileges, and generally takes enormous joy from being a bigoted little slimeball because he thinks he's finally winning their schoolyard rivalry.

Somewhere between Book 5 and Book 6, Evil Wizard in Chief takes an unusual interest in sixteen year old Draco. Spends a lot of time personally training him, isolating him from his family and causing him to isolate himself from the gang of bullies and fellow rich kids that he calls friends. Draco ends up so isolated that the only person he can talk to is one of the ghosts haunting an abandoned bathroom near his dorm. In the end, it's revealed that Chief Evil Wizard was grooming Draco to assassinate Chief Good Wizard, a plan which only barely failed (or succeeded, depending on how you look at it) because someone else was there to take the fall when Draco couldn't bring himself to actually commit cold-blooded murder.

And it's interesting! We spend considerably less time with Draco as a whole - compared with Ron, who is Harry's constant companion at wizard school and who has maybe the most "normal" personality of the group - so the mystery and changes of his personality make for a compelling story. It makes the previously unsympathetic Draco into a more fleshed out character. He has people who worry about him - and its hard not to feel sad when you read about a guy who is THAT depressed and clearly been in pain. But Draco proves again and again to be unwilling to change his ways. He only really agrees to work against the Evil Wizards when it becomes inevitable that Harry Potter will fulfill his destiny.

Harry Potter is a simple story of good and evil. The good guys win, the bad guys lose. There's basically no doubt as to who the bad guys are at any time. That's the point - it's a children's story that grows into a young adult story, maturity of themes increasing alongside the protagonist but never pretending to be more complex than that. Ron starts off like a normal eleven year old, gets moody and insufferable when he's fifteen, and reacts fairly realistically to trauma and stress before maturing into a hero that everyone can root for. Draco starts off like a spoiled bully, refuses to face consequences for his actions, and quietly slips away into obscurity as an adult, never expressing true regret for his actions but no longer bothering anyone either.

Fanfiction of the series takes these dynamics and flips them: "What if Ron's character flaws drove him to Evil? What if Draco was secretly a good person with strong values who was a victim of circumstances?" This is helped along by the fact that the movies basically gutted Ron's entire character arc (because they had no faith in Hermione Granger's character arc despite her being one of the best parts of the books) while Draco is played by Tom Felton, who is a good looking, friendly, and likeable person in real life. Hence, the rise of the trope dichotomy: "Draco in Leather Pants / Ron the Death Eater." Where Draco is a hot and tortured bad boy with a heart of gold, and Ron is somehow evil.

Now I was young for a lot of this - the forums and fansites, LiveJournal, FF.net communities before the NSFW bans - so I never participated directly in a lot of HP fandom drama but I do remember seeing the debates - should Hermione end up with this boy or that boy? I stood in front of a group of people for a midnight screening of the 6th movie (in 2009!!) fully insisting with their whole chests that the Ron/Hermione romance was garbage and that Draco or Harry would have been a better choice for her.

Like, fine, I'll give a pass for Harry. But yeah, the guy who spends seven books referring to her with magic slurs is a better choice than the guy who was, at fourteen, too immature to ask her to a dance and gets jealous of her boyfriend. Sure.

[And to be transparent: There are some INSANELY good writers in the HP fandom who pull off these tropes with the most incredible finesse. I've read some superb Draco/Hermione fics. But for the purposes of this post I'm only talking about canon - what is physically on the pages of these books.]

The truth is that Draco was never a good person. When people questioned him and his values, he retaliated with spite. He never once regretted his cruelty or felt sorry for the people he inevitably harmed with his actions - he felt sorry that his life was difficult, and that he faced consequences for the evil he helped to cultivate and bring into being. It's easy to pity Draco - like all the other main characters, he's a child - but you're never meant to root for him.

Does this remind you of anyone? What if I told you that secretly, he was five hundred and thirty years old? What then??

A Court of Mist and Fury is just this trope dicotomy but worse because SJM is so fucking bad at actually writing consistent and believable characters. Like JKR at least keeps her characters consistent! Mist and Fury is just: Oh, it's revealed that Draco has been in love with Hermione since the very beginning and everything he's done - insulting her and her heritage and her beliefs, actively using magic on her to make her insecure about her appearance, driving her to tears multiple times, harming her friends and physically threatening her - was just to hide this fact and protect her. How noble! Draco being a bigot and a bully was just a cover for him being the REAL Hero of Prophecy the whole time! He's the only one who can beat the bad guys and save the world! Oh, and by the way, it turns out that Ron has been working for the Evil Wizards the whole time and all that other stuff he did - like standing up for Hermione against Draco's insults, and protecting his friends, and being willing to sacrifice himself for their sakes - was just a cover so we wouldn't suspect his true motives, which are don't worry about it! He's evil! He's been evil the whole time and you just didn't know!! Don't you feel stupid for having been tricked!? Just goes to show you!!

That's Court of Mist and Fury. That's all it is. It's cheap and stupid. It's trying to pretend that the series and the writing is more complex and deep and thoughtful than it actually is. And in doing so, it completely cheapens the ACTUAL purported messages of the books. Abuse is more complicated than Evil Wizards Did It. In SJM's work, we are presented with a story that ultimately has the heroine trade one toxic relationship for one which is still unbalanced and perhaps worse, but he has a bigger dick and a better aesthetic and more money, so she's happy now! He says the right words in the right order so he's totally a feminist and not an abuser, guys!! Everyone knows that the Good Guys can't do bad things, and if they do, its for a good reason, and everyone forgives and understands why they had to be Bad, and pities them for it. Its just so asinine. If you're going to label people as "Good" and "Evil" then don't tell me that your story is a complex and moving tale of empowerment and feminist fantasy. If you're going to write a fantasy than at least tell me how the world actually functions! ACOTAR's world is a vague blob of mountains and Velaris. At least JRK's magic system had fucking rules and make a basic amount of sense! At least her Magic Britain felt grounded in something solid!

If I wanted A Court of Mist and Fury I could just read Draco/Hermione fiction, and with a little sorting of the AO3 tags, I'd get a much more interesting experience.

[lilyletham]

What decade would you have liked to live in during your formative years?

I grew up as a child in the 90s and teens in the 00s, and I think that was pretty cool to watch the burgeoning world of the internet come into existence. I think if I was born a generation earlier, and experienced childhood/adolescence in the 80s/90s instead, I would have enjoyed growing up in an exclusively analog world as opposed to half&half. The 60s and 70s are a close second to me. There's something to be said about having a large portion of millenial childhood nostalgia being tied to things like brands/products/media, it leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth to know your memories are mostly advertisements for corporations. Would have been nice to have grown up in a time when that wasn't the norm, and instead of nostalgic reminiscence being about products, it would be about experiences instead. I feel like this is even more egregious now with social media.

[girlvinland]

Okay, sorry for more. But you know, it is funny to me how older gens say that millennials (and zoomers too bc they don’t seem to know the difference and tbh neither do we half the time apparently*) are perpetually stunted adult children or whatever when it feels like we’re the first generations to be more aware of how generational trauma has affected our entire families and are intentionally more careful with our decisions about marriage/children/dealing with our own trauma/etc. I don’t want to paint every generation or person with a brush, but idk. Like. I grew up with Gen X parents who got married and had me young and had literally no emotional regulation/would tantrum at the smallest things (which…they’ve gotten better about), yet they would go on and on about the entitlement of my generation and everything. I feel like I have more empathy for older gens with less choices (especially for the women and minorities of those gens), but I still don’t really get how people just kind of walked through life not giving certain things any thought. Like people who would beat their children and think nothing of it or blindly adhered to beauty standards that made no sense or felt like requirements to exist. I know societal pressure sucks but. I also don’t get it, and I do think that in some ways we are more easily able to question disparities now.

On another note, I hate online warring stuff between Gen Z and Millenials (literally never experienced it irl). Apart from my own generation, I feel like Gen Z is the only other generation I feel understands me in a similar way because we both grew up as “digital natives” or whatever the term is, but also feels like we both had a balance with more regular life stuff too before being online 24/7 became completely inescapable. Idk I feel like there is more shared there and they get it if I talk about x thing vs trying to talk about x thing to the generations who didn’t grow up online lol. There are more overlapping touchpoints and interests. Not to sound like old man, but I do wonder what it’s going to be like for Gen Alpha as they get older. It sounds like kids in schools have a much harder time now with attention spans and behavior and I wonder if there will be a kind of pendulum swing when they get older that makes them want to pull back from being exposed to so much technology or if it will just keep going like it has been. It’s weird. And I know in practice kids and teens really are kind of always kids and teens, but can we deny that having tech everywhere hasn’t changed things somehow? Idk.

Anyway. Going to be an interesting day someday when all of the people who lived their lives pre-widespread Internet are no longer around and the rest of us are ancient relics of the past reminiscing about neopets or spotify wrapped or whatever lol.

*I kind of made this remark bc going back to work I realized that to a certain point I can’t tell ages well at all, and neither can my coworkers, apparently. I work with lot of people ages 23-45 and the people I thought were closer to my age tended to be mid-twenties and then three different times those same people thought I was 24-25 (which I’m not trying to humble brag about bc idc and there’s nothing wrong with getting older, but I think it’s more that I just sound and act in a way people don’t usually expect or something and less that I look younger or whatever. Maybe it’s also bc a lot of us spend a lot more time inside or wearing more sunscreen or. Idk man. I’ve heard people are showing fewer signs of “premature aging” bc of things like that. Put that in quotes bc again, aging is fine and normal). Then there is a lady in her late 40s I thought was early thirties bc she just came off as youthful or something. When someone told me she was almost 50 I was like huh wuh. So. Just saying I do get why people don’t know the difference lmao.

[vitorroquesgf]

https://www.tumblr.com/enzofernandezsgf/748917426266226688/despite-their-wrongdoings-is-something-that-every?source=share

If you have Internet connection and are old enough to form your own opinions, I don't understand how you could still support a club with madrid's history.

As someone who grew up watching real madrid and who thought that their jerseys were prettier (ironically as this enraged anon said) and who started pulling the thread of the club's fascist history when at twelve, she realised they didn't have a women's section (it was 2016, how could "the biggest club in the world" not have one? They surely had enough money?), YES, I WILL SIDE EYE ANY GEN Z/MILLENIAL WHO KNOWS THE HISTORY STILL SUPPORTS THEM.

Like. I get having a soft spot for some players from you childhood, I still do for Modric and Casillas but cmooooon. If there is something you should know is that no one will hate a club the way someone who used to love it will.

Keep it up, my friend. Don't let madridistas intimidate you <3

couldn’t have said it better myself.

the only time the “superstar” and “jersey color” excuses can be used is when kids explain their preference. any person with access to the internet and reading comprehension skills would be able to find at least 10 reasons why not to support madrid.

thank you, anon <3

[momochiachan]

.｡.:*♡ Pop-Confetti Legacy ♡*.｡.:

As a millenial person, I love 90s-2000s aesthetic! Also, I needed a gameplay where I can do stuff that I never did on the sims 4 before, so why not combine them into a brand new legacy challenge? Pop-Confetti has a nostalgic sound to it, that’s the only reason why I chose this name lol, well, also it sounds cute i think~

.｡.:*♡ Let’s get started! first things first... ♡*.｡.:

Home decoration and outfit style of the sims should suit with the fashion of the decade.

There is nothing like “if you fail one rule, you fail the whole challenge” in the Pop-Confetti because I’m terrible at following rules and I understand if it’s too hard sometimes lol. These are rather like guidelines.

Yet, don’t use money cheat I’d say. It ruins the fun.

The decade specific guidelines:

1990s Challenge: Use only the worst computers or use typewriters (there are nice CCs). No social media, no selfies, no funny videos. Use the worst camera to take photos.

Optional Activities: Game at the arcade, go skating. Send postcards on holidays. You can also build a drive-in movie lot and watch films and eat popcorn (we don’t have cars in sims, but well, we can pretend).

2000s Challenge: Slightly better computers. No simstagram, no selfies, no social media profile. Use a camera to take photos.

Optional Activities: If this gen can see the winter and can get the chance to celebrate the new year, it should be perfect. Throw a huge party! If they can see summer only, create a new new year holiday in summer (like in the south pole) and throw a perfect party again. Send postcards on holidays. Also, spend hours on MSN (chat with friends via computer).

2010s Challenge: You can start using laptops. Selfies? Hell yes. You can create a social media profile. Get fast internet lot trait.

Optional Activities: Update your social media profile every day. Take selfies every day. If you see a street protest, attend. Also, you can use the Simda DatingApp mod and find dates online!

2020 Challenge: Well, the nightmare begins: Social distance. Avoid crowded places. When many people come and try to talk to you, use the mean interaction “go away.” Get the fear of crowded places if possible. Do not leave your neighborhood. Live in a lot with simple living and keep your fridge always full.

Optional Activities: Gain weight! The rates of divorce increased during the pandemic IRL, so you can also break up with your partner maybe. Choose your partner as someone totally different than your identity group (for example: if your sim is a white straight woman, marry a black bisexual man).

2025 Challenge: Environment suffers… You can live in the dirty neighborhoods of Sulani or Evergreen Harbor. If you live somewhere else, get some/one of these lot challenges: filthy, landfill lot, and wild foxes (my reasoning is that because wild animals lose their home in forests, they have to find food in urban areas ;-;)

Optional Activities: You can do environmental activities if your sim cares enough. Use gaming mats. And uh… maybe go to space! What else..? if you get an idea, let me know ^^

#1. 1990: Ripped Jeans

(TW: Child neglect)

Because you were a neglected baby, you were taken away by social services and grew up in an orphanage. The orphanage was no good in terms of education, you got no skills, and you didn’t even get the skill to gain skills! But who cares? You believe in yourself. Now you are a young adult, ready to build your life from scratch.

You hate bad parents. Just the idea of it drives you mad! You believe that life taught you how a good parent should be in a harsh way. Well, you aren’t a parent yourself, but, uhh… is that important? I mean, you have been a child…? Anyways, who would know it better than you do! You the best! So you dedicate yourself to informing people about good parenting. Well, you become a parent at some point anyway, but you are so busy criticizing other families that… you lose your baby to social services.

IMPORTANT!: So, normally, when your child gets rescued by social services, they disappear. This shouldn’t happen in this challenge (See Gen #2). You can use MCCC to prevent it and have them adopted by another family.

Scenario: No Skills, No Problem Aspiration of your choice (you don’t have to complete) Traits: hot-headed, self-absorbed, outgoing Career: Education

Start with the “No Skills, No Problem” Scenario on.

Argue about parenting with the other parents and whenever you can’t win the argument, write an article or book about the issue.

Write 3 books on how to make children happy and good parenthood (because you don’t have skills, you have to write in children’s books genre lol)

Have at least 2 kids

Lose 1 toddler or child to social services (the “die in accidents” option for the other households in the neighborhood stories settings should be off)

After losing your child, complete/cancel the scenario and start getting skills along with your 2nd child does.

Leave your career and be a perfect parent to the 2nd kid: Have them the top-notch toddler trait. Knit clothes for your children, cook healthy food for them, have a special activity with them every week (such as watching movies, reading books, eating out, or going on vacation), always assist with the projects, etc.

Max parenting skill.

#2. 1995: Postcards from the Past

You grew up under the wings of perfect care. You are kinda spoilt, your life is excellent, and the world revolves around you. Your parents gave you whatever you wanted until now (or you knew how to take it). Same for romantic relationships.

However, when you are a teen, you eavesdrop on your parents one day and learn that you have a sibling who got taken away years ago! You can’t believe that your perfect parent neglected a child in the past! You desperately want a reunion. No matter what, you are going to find your sibling. You can get whatever you want, right?

Scenario: Well-Rounded Sim Aspiration: Serial Romantic Traits: Self-assured, family-oriented, one of the traits inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Interior Decorator/Police Officer (basically any job that enables you to visit random people’s homes) Gender Options: Can’t impregnate nor become pregnant

Complete the aspiration

Complete the Well-Rounded Scenario

Complete your career

Travel house by house and try to find your sibling

Complete postcards collection.

Once you find them, cheat the relationship to the -100 because they hate you and your parents at the moment. You need to gain their love!

At some point, move in with them, or you can also get them as roommates or live in a residential rental together. They will be the parent of the next-gen, and you will help to care for their child (you are not fertile. you can adopt a child if you want, but the heir will still be your sibling’s child. you are free to marry but you should still live with your sibling and their family).

#3. 2000: Shiny Face of the CD

You grew up in a crowded, happy family. You have an aunt/uncle with a serial romantic past; but your parents are nothing like them. They are way more conservative. Your parents are judgmental, especially about people’s love life. They want you to make an “appropriate” marriage within “moral” norms like no sexual relationship out of marriage, if you date someone they better be your spouse in a short while, and it has to be a heterosexual marriage. Will you able to give them what they want or will you follow your heart?

Scenario: Finding love after breakup Aspiration: One of the location aspirations Traits: Proper, Romantic, one of the traits inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Shopkeeper (you can additionally be freelancer or enter a job you can work at home)

As a teenager, you are invited to participate in an exchange program. Pick any other household in the save that has another teenager and swap them in manage worlds. Befriend the exchange student. You can have them stay as long as you want (This rule is actually one of the rolls written for the random legacy challenge which is full of amazing ideas! check them out!).

Complete the aspiration

Have a highschool sweetheart, preferably a bad boy/girl.

Have a very well-managed retail shop as a young adult.

Expect a baby with your highschool sweetheart! but they refuse to take care of it.

Make a marriage of convenience with one of your employees before your family notices that you will have a child soon.

Have an isolated room for the baby.

Die as an adult.

#4. 2005: Bankruptcy

You had a pretty interesting childhood... that pushed you to make interesting choices in life. You are definitely not the favorite of your family. You keep making mistakes, but you always laugh them away. You hate school, but also you couldn’t care less. You love eating and cooking even though you cause fires all the time and everybody hates it. You lost your parent so young and now you live with someone hating you and your half-sibling(s). You want to be independent and show everyone that you are actually full of capabilities! You are the star chef of the future!

Oh and also, you want to be rich in easy ways. You love gambling! Too bad that you will lose all the money your family hardly earned...

Scenario: Trouble Maker (optional); Unlucky Chef Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy Traits: Lazy, Clumsy/Glutton, one of the traits inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Chef/Mixologist

Start playing cards as a teen and create a gambling club. Have club gatherings every week.

Once you are a young adult lose either family house or retail shop and then set household money to 0$.

Be kicked out of the household. You can get a tent and maybe 100$ with you while moving out. You can use freerealestate cheat but the lot should be empty. This will be a kind of rags to riches.

Enter the chef career while going on gambling by playing cards, don’t wake up llama, and the like games (I guess there is a gambling mod but you can also play it like +50$ when you win the game and -50$ when you lose the game).

Definitely buy the lottery tickets when you get the option.

Complete the career and unlucky chef scenario.

#5. 2010: Twilight

As a child, you loved being in the scouts: getting badges, camping, telling ghost stories, and all! Dark nights you spent in the forest while camping made you love every possibility of occults and mystery. You just would never guess that your story is going to be one of them as well.

Aspiration: The Curator / Outdoor Enthusiast Traits: Child of the islands, Geek, another trait inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Paranormal Investigator / Sell stuff you find

Join the scouts as a child & teen

Complete your aspiration

Move to the first gen’s house. Make the house haunted (if you don’t have the pack or you don’t want to play in a haunted house, give the house these lot traits: gremlins, spooky, quake zone). You can use freerealestate cheat if needed.

Live with a ghost. Don’t move out until the ghost achieves something big in their afterlife with your help (for instance get mentor trait and help them maxing 3 skills out, complete a scenario or complete a quest together; if the ghost is a child or teen help them to get 3 positive character values or be an A student; if the ghost is a toddler, max all skills).

Once the ghost is saved, remove them from family and make the house residential again.

After the ghost leaves, change one of your traits into erratic.

Max the medium skill and host a seance every week (if you don’t have the pack, max handiness).

Complete the sugar skull collection (optional)

#6. 2015: Selfie Stick

As a teenager, you hate how you look. You want to be one of those beautiful popular sims at school, you have cool friends but your body insecurity makes you less confident among them. You are obsessed with taking selfies, you want to capture your best look but you can’t find it. You have a bestie from your class and they find you very beautiful already, yet you can’t be convinced.

Despite everything they say, once you are a young adult, the first thing you do is having plastic surgeries. Now you are who you want to be! You start to work as a fashion photographer, meet famous attractive models, and your bestie works as your assistant though you doubt if they still like you as you are. Are they too judgmental? Aren’t you the same person, or did you change? Who does love you for your looks and who for who you are?

Scenario optional Aspiration: Party Animal Traits: Jealous, Art Lover, another trait inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Freelance photographer / Style Influencer

Complete the aspiration & career

Max photography skill

Have a photo studio in a public venue

There must be 3 different sims you are attracted to. Try to get out of this love square with the person you finally choose as a partner

Have at least two children and they should be science babies (because you don’t want a pregnant body)

Have very weak relationships with your children.

When you are an adult, you go through a midlife crisis. Do all or some of the following:

Secretly leave home one day and have a vacation alone

Choose a new hobby and max the skill

Change one of your traits

Meet new friends

Make big changes at home decoration

Cheat to get uncontrolled emotions or if you are famous, get emotional bomb quirk

Have some arguments with the family members

Change your fashion style

#7. 2020: Pandemic

You have a competitive, ambitious, career-focused life since your childhood including your relationship with your sibling. You have a very romantic side too, but you always wanted to ignore it. Your heart wants a cute, cozy, loyal marriage while your mind is, embarassed, seeing these feelings as the virus of your success plans. How will you manage your inner conflict?

Scenario: Engaged in Conflict Aspiration: Soulmate Traits: Ambitious, Materialist, another trait inherited from the previous heir’s partner Career: Business/Salaryperson/Law

Grow up as rivals with your sibling and have a competitive relationship with them

Become an A student at school

Complete a part-time job as teen

Study and finish university with honors

Join the Braniacs/Debate Guild and attend at least 3 events of them

Date someone from the guild and catch them cheating on you

Have a freelancer job as a university student

Complete the aspiration, career, and the scenario

After graduation, pandemic begins. Live in a lot with the simple living trait.

Gain weight to the max.

Live with your fiancé who is romantic.

Often have arguments with them about the wedding.

Don’t leave the neighborhood until you are an elder.

#8. 2025: Heat Wave (subjected to change)

Scenario: In the moodlet Aspiration of your choice Traits: Good, Gloomy, another trait inherited from the previous heir’s partner  Career of your choice

Move out as a teen and live in air-bnbs (which means other sims’ houses), rental lots & camping areas.

Learn at least 10 different local recipe (San Myshuno, Sulani, Selvadorado, etc.)

During your trips, meet/get closed with your love of life

As a young adult, live in a house made only by pre-made rooms of EA (you can make some changes but keep the general frame and style).

Start the scenario

Your love has a kind of disease that stems from environmental disasters and requires an organ transplant. Yours is compatible with their biology. They will die once they age up.

To be able to save them, you should get the never weary reward trait before they age up (for some reason lol). If you can’t, only choice left is to sacrificing yourself for them. Before doing that, set them up with someone else hoping that they can have their happily ever after.

If you die, play as the partner and organize funeral for your sim. Also name their child after your sim.

If you can save them, get married and move to a lot within a natural paradise. Adopt a child and name them after the first gen.

I hope you enjoy it! Please don’t forget tagging me if you play this challenge, I’d definitely love to see your posts and reblog them ^^

[talenlee]

A Cursed JPG

A Cursed JPG

I am a millenial of a particular age. One of the habits I have is that I am prone to trying to save things. I used to save IRC logs when I was a kid, and it took me a long time to get around to putting that habit behind me when I realised I was saving redundant logs that other computer programs were saving. Discord is a resource I search regularly, checking back on when I brought up other topics with my friends, that kind of thing.

I am circling around the way this story makes me selfconscious.

This is also why I’m not sharing any visual examples.

Anyway, so I grew up with a habit of saving files. These days I try not to bookmark everything but there was a time when my bookmark folder was immensely overfilled, and then a lot of services I got used to would ask me to add likes or saves or hearts to things so I could find them later, which I did not like. I actually really liked usenet for this reason because you could go to a newsgroup, download a giant pile of posts, and make your responses to them while offline, then upload them all at once. On one level, I was familiar with an internet where every file is eight letters then a dot then three letters.

I like email.

Anyway, uh, yeah, so anyway, watermarks are great! I like when images have watermarks on them so I can find where they came from. That’s great for archiving because then the thing I’m archiving has the source for them when I want to go back and find them anew. And so I save things and they go in my download directory and then I come back and work out where they go and ultimately, I eventually delete them. I mean there’s nothing in that folder that’s too old —

Well, today there’s nothing in the folder that’s old, for reasons we’ll get into.

Anyway, have you ever looked at how instagram looks under the hood? Streaming media really battered this desire to save local copies of things, where a youtube series is largely going to be ephemeral and I can’t play local copies, ever. That makes them a lot more like leaving the radio on while I work than necessarily something I habitually archive. I save links, I make sure I point people to the history I have with it when I find a channel, but I mean, we all bathe in a shower of content that’s basically constantly marinating our brains. Showers? Marinating? Beaugh, you know what I mean.

Point is that instagram is a source of a lot of interesting kinds of things I want to look at. Sometimes it’s maps, sometimes it’s high quality photographs of toys I don’t want to buy, sometimes it’s landscapes, sometimes it’s game asset art, sometimes it’s game layouts, all sorts of stuff. It is also, if you’re not aware, a website where people can post pictures of themselves, and network with people who want to see those pictures of themselves.

If you’ve ever looked at instagram, not the things the site presents, but the structure of the site’s code, you might be surprised how much of instagram is containers to put every other part of instagram in, which is, itself, mostly containers. Like you may look at any given page and go ‘well, there’s a picture here, buttons to go to the next picture here and here, and a comment section here,’ and think that means the site is broadly, three sections and you can bounce between them but no, the site is hundreds of subdivided sections into sections into sections into sections and they’re all being generated by the finest of computer touchers, and they’re not made for humans to look at. They’re made for a computer to look at, and that shows up in the files and variable names.

Did you know that Youtube tries to make sure the codes for any given video doesn’t form a word? Yeah, It’s made up of letters and numbers and they block a bunch of things that could be words. It’s a good practice, I get it, so you don’t get companies rerolling videos trying to make it so they get a really good tag for a thing, instead of just making each instance of a video name completely garbled. The filenames, the signifiers, aren’t used for people to handle. And that means they don’t have to be recognisable. Why should they be?

If you want to save a file off instagram, you open up the dev tools, pop open the div div div div div div tree all the way down to get to the image you’re looking for, pop that open into a new tab, then save that file. They’re usually watermarked so you can find them again, too, so it isn’t something I think about when I save the file. Bring it into the incoming directory, then sort them out later.

And this is how I found my cursed file.

I had an image in my incoming recently, where the file name was over 200 characters long. Do you know what this does to a windows 7 machine? Because somehow, my browser could create this file, somehow my explorer could find this file and open this file, but at that point the ability to interact with the file ends. I can’t edit it. I can’t save over it. I can’t rename it. I can copy the visual information from the image while it’s open and put it into another file, the image is totally standard visual information, but the file itself presented itself as being somehow wrong.

I wound up exploring some really weird avenues to get rid of this file. Delete. Ctrl-delete. Delete in a command prompt. Delete in a powershell. Delete everything in the directory, and see that left alone. Delete it in blocks. Delete it in a group.

Nope.

Nope, this file is wrong.

This file that you somehow made is refusing to be deleted. The eye of the operating system slides off it, when it’s required to interact with it in the wrong ways.

BE NOT AFRAID.

Anyway, what I wound up doing was clearing out the entire directory, making a copy of it, then with nothing in it but this one image, deleting that directory, then re-creating the directory and moving everything back into it, and praying the system didn’t react badly to it. That seems to have gotten rid of it.

This is a nothing story! It’s not remarkable beyond ‘I encountered a weird file,’ and I’m not used to being defied by windows explorer! But the way I wound up telling the story to Fox as I tried to work out what to do all kept circling around the picture and me being awkward and finding tangents.

‘cos the image, if you’re curious, was a picture of a pretty lady’s boobs.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Diary

[insanepoll]

HEHEHEHEHEHE

Blaseball Characters part 3!

Lōotcrates: Makes magical equipment for players, makes clones of players, probably a god??? Definitely a lame-ass librarian/affectionate, technically a sentient pile of boxes but also technically the physical embodiment of the Vault where stored players and items go, their stadium canonically has Zero protection against the elements despite being inside of the supposed safety vault and also canonically has a mega fuckton of birds and salmon for some reason. Technically the narrator of blaseball, which gets them into fights with SIBR (Society of Internet Blaseball Research) on the classical historian issue of "accuracy vs. storytelling". Definitely fucked off to the Vault when the sun blew up. Most people hate them but I am very attached to this freak.

Chorby Short: Argentinian magical girl and herpetologist that can turn into a frog, they once batted for literal hours due to their blood type keeping them in by hitting foul balls (112 in total) against a crazy good pitcher. Got redacted after getting hit with a pitch from York Silk before re-emerging a season later. Went back and forth between the New York Millenials and the Boston Flowers for a while. got traded rapidly between four teams before landing in Breckenridge. Became a theatre kid on the Breckenridge Jazz Hands. Also, they're queer and have been on 9 active teams. The Garages have a song about them, and as of falling out of the black hole, they're on the Core Mechanics now! They could kill a god by themself, I think.

Nagomi McDaniel: technically the child of dead people (Japanese mom that grew up in Hawai'i and a Scottish dad) , she started off in Hades before going to Hawai'i, growing up there, becoming an ASL interpreter (she's selectively mute), and eventually getting married to the mother of another player named York Silk, whom Nagomi taught the basics of blaseball to. Nagomi played for Hades for one season before getting pulled to the Fridays. She was transferred to the Baltimore Crabs after a while, became carcinized (took on some aspects of a crab), and got her head chopped off and regenerated as a gift from a technically dead crab god (that all of Baltimore had a part in technically killing) named Deborah. Was the first player to steal every base. She had to deal with York getting trapped in a giant peanut shell and eventually getting controlled by a peanut god. She discovered her love for Japanese jazz on the Breckenridge Jazz Hands, and also took turns with Valentines Games hunting each other for sport. For Some Reason. Nagomi then got trapped in a giant peanut shell by the peanut god for being too popular for like three seasons and was yoinked back to Baltimore. Started siphoning blood from people for stat boosts pretty soon after being cracked out of the shell by birds. Was able to eat umpire flame instead of getting incinerated. She had to play against York while he was being controlled by the peanut god. Then her team ascended after 3 championship wins, and she was pulled back to the Fridays with no chance to say goodbye. All of her original teammates are either dead or on other teams at this point, including york, the kid she helped raise. She then got traded to the flowers, briefly got to reunite with her wife and York, and then started getting bit by sharks (called consumers) in an effort to protect other players. She got sent back to the Crabs AGAIN, got bit and lost the last of her soul, became redacted, and then exited the secret base (oh yeah blaseball has one of those) onto the Maimi Dalé's team. Then she got sent to the Mexico City Wild Wings before being pretty quickly Vaulted after that for being too popular or something. York got Vaulted soon after.

Note: there's a real explanation for why she and York got Vaulted, but it's complicated and has to do with star density, and if I get into that someone from SIBR is gonna explode on the spot from sheer stress.

the fact that there's a latine character tells me i was right to route for blaseball. also "the child of dead people" sounds metal af

[dancesingay]

Gen Alpha is actually SO smart and Gen z is very culturally literate. Both reasons are bc of covid, kids not being in school, but they're still learning, they're just learning about pop-culture, which is still valid. Gen Alpha got the attention ALL children deserve because their parents were home with them, and are absolute geniuses because of it. So many great songs and funny plays written by the babies of gen Alpha, like they are so cute.

Millenials, we're the ones who grew up with a crazy amount of toys and games that just became available to us, so can you blame us for being into nostalgia so much? I don't really have anything more to say about us, but ask your local millennial what internet games they played. That's what we did for fun. Neopets taught me coding, webkinz taught me nothing, pbs kids, club penguin, dress up games.com, the barbie website, shockwave, etc. We're mentally still here lol Happy place.

watching gen z and millennials make fun of gen alpha has been torturous. "But they're actually stupid" 1. theyre middle schoolers 2. isn't that what older gens said about us? don't you remember being 11?

it truly is just "impulse reaction to cringe <- has not yet unlearned shame"

the cycle continues let me out of here

guys. guys I think we should kill cringe culture

[lunarsilkscreen]

The Rise of the Child Star (I mean Child VLogger)

Us old an ancient ones; who were young when the internet was new; we learned how to keep our public fursonas personas separate from our private lives.

Mostly.

We have a kind of Anonymity those who grew up with Meta and Instagram and YouTube very much do not.

As we grew up; and some of your parents not seeing the dangers (from overbearing parents not explaining them) may have allowed you, or even forced you, to become Child Stars.

Like me, you also experience a kind of dissonance in your lives where you can't seem to grow up; because your Fame or Infamy prevents you from doing so.

But why do I keep saying this phrase; "Child Star". Over and over and over again? Because this isn't a new development.

When the film and television industry were new; this same thing happened then. The same dangers were present, the same lucrative opportunity, and the same "Millenial" parents underestimating the potential dangers.

Shirley Temple, The Jackson 5, Macauley Caulken... To name a few of the most obvious examples.

The Cast of the Nickelodeon and DisneyKids channels... Boy Meets World.

I'm pulling up these names because they have a much better understanding than I ever will. (Even my Wife does in this area.)

And our YouTube stars deserve help in the same facet that we offer to those same tv and movie personalities.

And while the internet will grow and change; The online video stardom will start to die off, and children will likely be forced into "children only" variants of our most popular platforms, for their protection.

Which has different dangers only those professionals will even think to address.

We must also, as a people, begin discerning which future tech may also present these same dangers to our children. Too much focus here, on something that's already changing, will prevent us from seeing the same dangers in whatever Brain Chip Elon starts installing in willing participants.

Something I'm heavily against.

Seek out your peers in different mediums, and pressure Congress to address things in a well thought out manner.

And if you feel stuck in your childish persona of yesterday; give yourself room to breathe, and grow, and reinvent yourself. And reinforce your boundaries to your fans against what no longer suits you.

Become masters of the double-edged swords you've been bestowed Kingdom Hearts style.

I believe in the future. I believe in you.

[dem-bones]

Going through social engineering and security training at work like im a goddamn millenial i dont even answer the phone i grew up in the “everyone online is a child molester” era of the internet u think im gonna click a link

[8054yamato]

I'm shut out, I'm shut in

And every time I try to reach out, to reach in, I break my fingers on the bricks

I'm tied up, I'm tied down

And every time I try to fly up, I fly down into the sea and hold my breath

I am a mirrored rumble fish

Life is so clenching for the kill

So could you reach down and pull me out?

Or am I just too far gone?

I may be too far gone to be saved.

My eyes have gone blurry. Meaningless quarrells, escapism, and suicidal thoughts have run rampant as an everyday occurance in my life. Everyone else who was around me has moved on, but it seems that I can not. Life fucking sucks and I do not think I can thug it out anymore. It is too stressful and I am a disappointment and a shame to myself. Everything about me is horrid. From my mental down to my character. I am tainted. If I can't even stomach myself, how can others handle me? Not only am I unstable, but I fake my happiness too often for it to be noticable.

It absolutely is ironic how I say bullying will never get to me. To an extent, it is true. Why the fuck would a random's opinion matter? Until you realize self-hate is a form of bullying as well. My biggest enemy is myself. Every year, my mirror wins an argument against me. Over time, that gets to you and makes me feel empty. I lost who I truly was ages ago. I am a husk of despair, desparate, and fake emotions.

I am turning 19 this year which will be my final age until the universe goes under a heat death. They say a person truly dies when everyone has stopped thinking of them post-mortem. I wonder how long that'll take for me? 1 week? 1 month? I hope it's no longer than 3 days, but that's a little to optimistic. I hope I am not used as a statistic or a fuel for someone's propaganda.

Since 2019/2020, I have attempted suicide at least once per year. Each time I (obviously) have failed. 2025 will for sure be my year. By my next attempt, my ex-friends would have already been near at the end of their first year of college or maybe preparing the start of their first year. People who I love will be out working on their respective career or retire that same year. I won't be there to experience their feats, but I will be looking up and cheering them on.

Looking back at my life, I am happy I dragged nobody into my problems. I would just waste their time since I can not be fixed. It would be as hopeless as taping up shattered glass. Of course, even if I were to rewind time, I do not think I can fix myself still or have the confidence for that at minimum. Some people are meant to quit and I am destined to be one of them. Some people are just too vulnerable to carry on and persist through mental barriers.

I am wondering: "Where did it all go wrong?". Birth probably. Jokes aside, the internet influence on a 6 year old me was bad. I developed dark humor and learned slurs like the hard R.

2011-2012 was a wild year for a boy surfing on the internet alone. The very first porno I watched was, I shit you not, 2 Girls 1 Cup. There might've been porn ads on that site which led me to my first real porn site. I don't remember it exactly but I think it was hdporn.com or something.

I may be a Gen-Z kid, but I grew up with millenial household so I was into cultures of that time. I love emo, anime, very early K-POP, rock, internet memes, forums/threads, and so on because I grew up in that environment. Unfortunately, while I was able to make friends, I could not find anyone who could really relate to me 1:1. As a child, I grew up not having any similarities with people in terms of childhood and so our interests were vastly different. I was still able to make friends because we all enjoyed each other's company. Until I crashed out in fifth grade and became a loner for the entirety of that year and half of 6th grade. I was severely depressed at this time.

So I guess the start of it all really was fifth grade. That might have been where my life gone to helplessness.

People say suicide isn't the answer. That's their opinion. I honestly am just tired of fighting. They are right, but I just do not give a fuck anymore. I would like to sleep forever and rot underground or in a jar. In the ocean would be pretty badass too.

6-7 months left on my lifespan.