#even if it took ages because I also use the sims for other purposes now

[handelplayssims]

Now we’re just vibing until the library “opens” at 9:00. I glanced at the google at that is about the time they open up! Sent Ian to birdwatch and Derek to write a little.

Annnd this is why I sent Ian to the birds. High singing ability means we can sing with them! Beautiful! Anyway, it’s time to pop over to the library in Britechester. It’s where Derek wants to go and Ian needs to meet someone in another location for his aspiration. Also I suddenly remembered I could have Ian introduce people to Derek. Because he would if there were traits in common. (It’d be the only way he’d make friends) Anyway, Ian’s going home while Derek’s going to work on his novel. ...or the computer could break down. That too. Anyway now I’m just going to stare at the person hogging the one computer remaining.

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare. I’ll give it until 4PM until I go home ..IT BROKE DOWN AS WELL. BASTARD GAME! To home with us!

Paying bills and...3 thousand. YEESH. These men need pensions or something! The grip of mortgage payments looms over us all. -sees fox rushing towards the coop- NO! Go away! I’ve got a chick to hatch! Hopefully. Right. Ian needs to make 12 friends. Ho boy. Let’s get to work. Ohp! Wait! I was going to finish writing the book before Derek went to bed. Let’s go do that. Ian made a friend with Aubrey Shelley, a near randomized Sim I made up in an alt file and moved into Henford. Annnd his want isn’t clearing. We know what we have to do for that then. Anyway, the Creature Keeper, who is now a random sim named Barret Case (again, the starting Sim died) is out and about so befriending time! Right, after some chatter, and talking up Derek to a fellow animal lover, we head back home. Ian’s sleepy, after all! Meanwhile we finish off writing that book and send it off for Derek. Some passive income, yaaay!

Neighborhood Watch!

Brindleton Bay: The Raghavan household moved out.

Right, it’s been long enough another patch has happened. So now I have a new test file Sim to add to the world. Patricia Moss, an evil botanist. Well gardener for now but botanist is the goal. And she’s going into...Sulani. Not her first choice but we’re running low on starter lots.

Back to Moody and McMillan! Ian’s up and it’ s Love Day. Day of loooove.

Oh, Discovery Quests are a new thing. Basically tutorial for how the Sims works. I’m experienced enough to not care but I might as well do them on this file just to get the basic rewards. Anyway, Ian wants to practice a comedy routine since he’s a goofball, so let’s compose one first ...oh I evidently didn’t need to compose a routine to practice one. Welp. Ah well. Anyway, Derek’s finally awake, so let’s walk on over to the National Park for a date! ...yes I am having the two walk over there in-game as well. Gotta enjoy the scenery somehow.

Oh hey! I can have both Sims go and be playful for this date since Ian is already playful ...annnnd he’s hysterical now. God. If he dies during this date! Well we got gold for the date at least. Just some nice romantic chatting. I’m going to the restroom with Derek, (in a bush even) don’t die! No death towards eating food. Hmm, let’s have a snowball fight. That might-

And there we go.

Please Grim! It’s Love Day! Have a heart? No? Nope. Alas. I guess we’re just trudging home with a new fear of death in our hearts and much sadness. Eight days of mourning to be had. (Man mourning is overbuffed in Meaningful Stories) So we’re just going to be sad and listen to the tunes Derek likes. Or even perhaps...write! Channel that grief! Needs quest specifically calls for a nap so might as well. Let’s get back to writing then. But then!

Neighborhood Watch!

Carson Allen in the Allen household is now a Captian in the Detective career.

Book is finished and now we send it off! And get our proper sleep.

[absolutepokemontrash]

The Brothers and Side Characters Play the Sims

I don’t know what possessed me to make this but WHATEVER. I’ve been playing the Sims since I was a wee little girl, and I’ve seen my fair share of weird Sims stuff that I feel would fit these bozos perfectly.

My Sims have a Functional Family Life Because I Don’t (Lucifer)

God dammit Levi’s obsessed with another game... ugh.

Spends 5 minutes in Create-a-Sim and hops into a starter home.

Lucifer’s the type to start with all the average stuff and then build their stuff up as his sim gets promotions.

It’s just... so peaceful...

...he’s adopting a dog.

Look at his new little virtual family... his sim-kids are self sufficient and getting A’s in school, his Sim spouse MC or Diavolo take your pick loves his Sim-self, his sim-dog-

WAIT NO- THE DOG’S AN ELDER?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAA-

...

He’s fine. It was just a virtual dog. *sniffle*

He’s now spending his free time drinking Demonus and playing the Sims.

What’s a mod? Levi why does your sim have gun?

Behold, My Gorgeous Home... It’s a Box (Mammon)

Mammon, like the rest of the HOL, is mooching off of Levi’s Origin account.

“AW SHIT! This house looks awesome! I’m gonna build it for Sim-me to live in!”

Mammon proceeds to build a box with rooms. Yay...

He just picks the funnest sounding job if he picks any job at all for his Sim. That’s how he ended up making 9 dollars an hour in the criminal career.

Didn’t stop Mammon from buying that solid gold bathroom set from Get Famous... a box with solid gold bathrooms.

His Sim is broke send help-

“Leviiiiiii my sim needs money... the people my sim kidnapped and is forcing to paint aren’t making enough money...” “Ugh... press control shift C and type ‘motherlode’.”

...Levi made a mistake.

“FUCK YEAH! MOTHERLODE!”

His sim’s life is so chaotic, he has a piranha pool that his sim has almost died in twice, the sim is carrying on several torrid love affairs, his sim got struck by lightning, his sim has nearly died in a grilled cheese making accident twice... in the same day.

At least once Sim-Mammon and Sim-MC get married things calm down a little.

Mammon finds out what custom content is and proceeds to download EVERYTHING HE CAN FIND.

And now he’s asking Levi why his computer is running so slow.

Expansion Pack King (Leviathan)

He got into it back when the Sims 2 was new, he’s a veteran fan.

“Bro remember when Agnes Crumplebottom would show up and whack the shit out of your sims if they were flirting?”

“Remember when that witch would show up randomly on the lot you were on if you had Makin’ Magic?”

“Remember when Bella Goth was abducted by aliens and we just... didn’t question it?”

He whines about the Sims4 and how crappy it is but still buys every expansion pack, game pack, and stuff pack.

This boy watches like 40 hours of built tutorials and ends up sobbing over his weird roofs.

“WHY DOESN’T IT LOOK AS NICE AS THE ONE I’M LOOKING AT?! THIS ISN’T FAIR!”

The mod folder is so full istg-

Levi gets custom content for the sole purpose of making his favourite fictional characters.

This is why Henry and the Lord of Shadows are married and Ruri-chan and Sim-Levi are roommates.

Oh my god they were roommates-

Levi also added his brothers to the world and uh... Sim-Mammon died in a tragic pool accident F.

Levi then proceeded to befriend the Grim Reaper.

He’s anxiously awaiting the release of Paralives.

Wait Gameplay? In This Build Simulator? (Satan)

Satan’s here to build and leave. Gameplay who?

Our favourite bundle of rage is a master architect and the amount of followers on the Gallery he has shows it.

He takes up those build shell challenges and always ends up making them look positively perfect.

Asmo’s always using his houses, and Satan often takes requests when he gets bored.

No Mammon, he reserves the right to refuse to build a golden castle for you- YOUR SIM HAS 40 SIMOLEONS-

No mods, no CC, he’s building with what EA gave him.

...and EA gave him debug objects, and he’s not going to explain how to get them.

The one time he did actually play with a family... it was one sim and seven cats.

He tries to play without cheats... and ends up getting frustrated and turns on cheats.

All hail the Pets Expansion Pack.

Custom Content Soap Opera (Asmodeus)

Asmo spends 5 hours in Create a Sim then just... clicks out of the game.

That’s how it goes most of the time, buuuuuut when he gets super invested in a family he’s made, boy howdy is he INVESTED.

Sim A is carrying on an affair with Sim C who’s in love with Sim B who’s married to Sim A but Sim D wants to kill Sim A and C even though they’re the illegitimate child of Sim C-

When Asmo realizes that in the Sims 4 he needs to manufacture all the drama himself and he can’t just sit back with a glass of wine and watch the fireworks, he switches to the Sims 2 and 3.

“...why is this old lady beating up my Sim..?”

He immediately recoils in horror upon seeing how ugly the Sims are pre Sims4.

HE NEEDS TO FIX THIS-

Ah, there we go, perfect. Custom Content to the rescue!

He ends up remaking the entire world just so he doesn’t have to look at weird looking Sims.

Asmo is the only one to have finished a proper Legacy Challenge, but it gets crazy chaotic after gen 3.

“My sim just got abducted by aliens and now he’s pregnant- WHAT?!”

He has about 40 saves and only two he actually plays.

Just a Big Ol’ Happy Family (Beelzebub)

Beel found the game, proceeded to make everyone in create-a-sim to the best of his abilities, and made everyone get along.

That’s why Sim-Lucifer and Sim-Belphie are on a swing set together, they’re friends :D

“Hey Luke do you think you can make this?” “I-is that a cake shaped like a hamburger?” “Yes. Please make.”

He took one look at the cooking options and decided to max out his Sim’s cooking skill to unlock all the options.

Beel proceeded to drool all over his keyboard. Gross...

Boy howdy did he have some crazy dinner suggestions!

Overall, very wholesome Sim-life, except for the time Sim-Levi died because the toilet caught fire, don’t worry, Sim-Beel knows how to make ambrosia.

All is good in the Sim save...

...until Sim-Beel ate pufferfish nigiri and fuckin died-

Wait Did I Not Pause- (Belphie)

Huh, this game looks fine... I’ll play for a little- *SNORE*

Belphie makes some sims, plops them into a starter home, plays for an hour, then falls asleep.

He wakes up five hours later to absolute carnage.

Three sims have died because someone decided to make Mac and Cheese and the oven caught fire, the kids were taken away by social services, and the dog ran away.

“...heheh, holy shit everyone look.”

He doesn’t play often, but when he does, death occurs. He has found out every death method for every game from Sims 2 to 4.

And that INCLUDES the Sims Medieval! You guys remember that game?

Sometimes it’s not intentional, but Belphie got bored with the totally normal life his sims were living and decided to spice it up.

“Why are the ghosts breaking my showers..?”

Help There’s a Bug- (Diavolo)

The Crown Prince started playing when he noticed Lucifer was playing it.

He was immediately obsessed.

Dia mostly plays the Sims Medieval because he likes the feeling of achievement after completing a quest!

“Barbatos... why isn’t my Sim completing their task? The icon won’t show up.” “My lord it appears the game is bugged.” “:(“

No one thought to tell Diavolo that EA doesn’t plan on offering bug support to a game made in like... 2009

This doesn’t matter! Look at how great his kingdom is doing- oh no his hero has the plague-

He plays through the Pirates and Nobles expansion and manages to get the peaceful ending, he’s so proud of himself.

“MC! Look! My Monarch’s sword is permanently on fire and I’m fighting an evil wizard!”

When he does play the other Sims games he’s pretty basic, though, he does a great job at furnishing!

Dia gets crazy sad when his Sims die... he turns off aging.

Builder no. 2 (Barbatos)

Barbie doesn’t have time for this... but when he does, he builds.

No create a sim.

No playing the game as intended.

Just builds.

It’s relaxing, okay? A nice little suburban house he’s never going to play in, maybe a treehouse, maybe a big Hollywood Mansion...

The only time he actually plays the game outside of build mode is when someone needs his help to fix something in-game.

He does download custom content build items if he feels bored by the current selection.

Oh Crap What Am I Doing?! (Simeon)

Help him. Please.

He’s so confused.

“Luke, why is my sim upset?” “He’s hungry, Simeon.” “Oh, how do I fix that?” “...Simeon-”

There’s a toilet in the middle of the living room.

The fridge is facing the wall.

There’s no bathtub or shower.

The house is on fire- there is no god- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Okay, once he gets the hang of it he’s sitting pretty. His sims have good jobs, the kids are getting good grades, everything’s fine.

...

But Simeon won’t forget the nightmares.

What Even is This Save? (Solomon)

Solomon’s save is the definition of chaos.

One sim’s a vampire, the other is a spellcaster that really wants to fight the Callientes for some reason, there’s one normal sim that’s always sick for some reason,

It gets weird, confusing, and horrible.

Just how Solomon likes it.

His house makes no sense, like, what even is architecture?

Money cheats are needed because Solomon‘a goal of chaos and confusion is proving to be kind of expensive.

Square up Mortimer Goth, Solomon’s sims are here to steal your weird knight statue that’s worth a shit ton of simoleons for NO REASON.

He joined the scientist career for the sole purpose of getting to the alien planet and kidnapping adding an alien to the household via cheats.

The vampire ended up dying on their wedding day because Solomon forgot that he gave them the sun weakness.

Oh well, the ghost got added to the household! VAMPIRE GHOST!

The Child (Luke)

Before you say Luke’s too young to play the Sims, you should know that I was nine when I first started playing, and I turned out fiiiiiiiiiine.

He’s just happy to be playing.

Look, his sims are gardening :D

Look, two of them are getting married :D

Look, they had a baby :D

Look, his sims are building a rocket ship :D

Look, his sims’s rocket just crashed-

The concept of death hit the little angel right in the face that day.

“*sniffle*... my sims...”

Don’t worry, with tears in his eyes, Luke quit without saving and everything was fine!

Speaking of My Sims, Luke played MySims Sky Heroes and that was when Luke had his first bout of gamer rage.

MC came over to hang out with Solomon and Simeon, and in the distance they could just hear:

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY TIME WASN’T FAST ENOUGH TO CONTINUE THE STORY!? I’LL SHOW YOU FAST ENOUGH TIME!”

Okay, maybe Simeon should take the game away... just for a bit... he should take heed not to be bitten by the incredibly angry chihuahua.

Bonus:

MC: Why are our Sims married?

*Insert Boy Here*: Uh... that’s weird... I have no clue why they’re doing that...

[mahvaladara]

L I F E • S T A G E S • C A S • C H A L L E N G E • by @someone-elsa

Create a sim in all of their life stages. Or use a sim you’ve created before and create their other life stages. Or use a sim born in game or a premade. In addition to the six life stages you can create in CAS, you can add your own (like a tween for example, also maybe they don’t even live to the elderhood?). You can write their life story if you wish or let us guess. My inspiration for this challenge.

Have fun and tag some people to try this out if you like!

Tag me @someone-elsa and use #life stages cas challenge so I can reblog your posts :)

No one tagged me for this one, but I really wanted to do it, so I picked my favourite Emir, Merinn Kavar. Bellow we have spoilers.

Age 0-6 years old -Small Emir Merinnius Kavar 

Merinn was unable to take fully human during most of their toddlerhood. As a result, the young prince was kept away from public eyes for many years. As the youngest at the time, Merinn was heavily spoiled by both their parents and siblings.

Age 7-13 - Child Emira Merinn Kavar

Merinn first took fully human form at 7, and only by then did the people of Beszarin met the young, at the time considered “princess”, Merinn. As a young child, and raised by Kalahjara at the time, Merinn had no notion of gender and dressed as Kalahjara chose for them. As Merinn is a genetic clone of Kalahjara, Kalahjara treated Merinn as a “girl”.

Age 14-19 - The “Rebelius Prince” Merinn

At the end of their 13 years of age, Merinn watched their Vamir, Kalahjara be murdered and that was something that heavily changed the young prince, mostly because they came to understand the reasons why the Shah was assassinated. Unable to get along with their mother (vatir) and their siblings, and with rumours about their gender and sexuality going afloat as no one could tell what Merinn was, Embala decided to quiet all mouths by enrolling Merinn in a boys only private boarding school abroad.

The entire time there, Merinn started problem after problem, from getting sexually involved with a teacher and colleague, to illegaly performing tattoos on themself and colleagues, to smuggling drugs and weed into school property and vandalization. Eventually, the Shaharaja found herself forced to bring back Merinn as they were a bigger embarassment abroad then nearby. At least, in Beszarin the only source of scorn was what the hell was between their legs afterall?

Age 20-25 - The Generous Prince Merinn

At the age of 20 Merinn enrolled in college in social politics. Unable to accept the palace life, the prince decided to enroll in a volunteer work. It was during this time that Merinn came to understand other ways of life not priviliged by a golden crib that nobility gave them. Aiding those less fortunate, fighting against injustice, discrimination and poverty, Merinn came to understand and see the flaws of their own country when looking at other western countries. They developed a new sense of purpose, an objective of being a force of change to their country.

Age 26- Current - The Heir Prince 

It is around this time that Embala decides to change the rule of the firstborn and appoint Merinn as heir to the throne as the only one left with the Kavar dragon gene. This renews Merinn resolution to change the way their country works, falling prey to the same mistake as their vamir (change by force) and becoming a target to an assassination atempt which inevitably fails. As if that was not enough, a plot starts being developed to kill or dethrone the prince.

To ensure their place as Shah, Merinn must pick a suitor with whom to ensure dragon progeny.

Age 40+ -  Shahkiershah Merinn Kavar (human form left, dragon form right)

Merinn stands the Emperor of the small islands of [Spoiler], married to Shahvah [Spoiler]. Merinn has suffered greatly at the hands of others and therefore hides their dragon form religiously from all those not in their inner circle. 

While before Merinn sought to force change, they are much more cunning now and patient, they have many years ahead of them and will far outlive their people into change if need be. They are much more into the domestic life now, juggling between their political duties for their people and the time with their family, raising all their children equally. 

Though in human form Merinn presents themself still with a mainly masculine frame, in dragon one, Merinn is a lot more androginous and genuine in their expression.

Age 100+ - Shahkiertai Val Merinn 

The Honorable Loremaster of the kingdom of [Spoiler], they were once the Emperor of the country. They often hide within the confines of the Royal Gardens and very rarely show their face publically. Much older and spiritually unstable now, Merinn has a very large difficulty in controling their shapeshifting abilities. Keeping either of their forms spends more energy than that which Merinn can afford to spend. It is not entirely known how long Merinn still has left of life, dragons can last thousands of years, but Merinn’s instability might be signs of passing, so it might be only a matter of time before the old dragon either evolves into their next state of being, or depart existence altogether. 

[pi-cat000]

Magnus Archives/BNHA (1)

Fandoms: Crossover between The Magnus Archives & My Hero Academia 

Characters: Jon and Martin (friendship)

Summary:  Jon and Martin are reincarnated  into the BNHA universe after failing to prevent the apocalypse. They compare their quirks to their respective Entities. 

Will probably post on ao3 at some point. 

(Part 2 here)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“They registered my quirk as Veracity you know.”

 “Veracity?”

 “Yes. Quite abstract. I suppose they thought they were being poetic…” Jon mutters, bitterness colouring his tone. He stares out at the playground, watching his age mates run about in a boundless display of youthful energy and innocent excitement.

 From his place on the bench beside him, Martin hums, halfway between sympathetic and thoughtful, “I think it’s a nice name. It softens the edges a bit.”

 “I should have expected it…to have a quirk like this… after we saw what your one did,” he curls his small child hand into a fist, “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

 Quirks. The strange and wondrous abilities gifted to people of their new reality. Jon had hoped, when he hadn’t presented with one at the usual age of four, that he would remain quirkless. He had suffered enough with having terrifying abilities in his previous life. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t get his wish.

 Martin reaches out, hesitates, then pats him lightly on the knee, “You’re taking it a lot better than me. At least you didn’t breakdown and spend the night in hospital.”

 “I suppose,” he frowns, glancing sideward, “Though our situations are hardly comparable.”

 Martin’s quirk put any person he touched with both hands into a fog-filed, alternate dimension/temporal pocket. Its similarity to The Lonely had been poorly received by both of them. Especially, considering Jon had been the one to suffer through its first accidental activation. While he had found himself lost and alone in a grey, fog filed, void, a hysterical Martin had been rushed to hospital. There the doctors had had to wait for him to calm down enough that a Quirk specialist could walk him through the process of reversing the effect.

 “You thought you had trapped me for good. Of course, you would take that poorly.”

 The quirk specialist had banally called it ‘Cloud Prison’ like it wasn’t the residue of a primordial fear god leaking into their new reality. Not even six years of a second life could dull the pain and terror that had been their final moments before the apocalypse. To suddenly have such a stark reminder shoved in their faces had shaken them both.

 “I would never have done that to you on purpose,” Martin murmurs, probably drawing the same connection as Jon, “It just happened so suddenly…”

 “Yes, well, I am now painfully aware of how volatile and uncontrollable a quirk can be.”

 Martin winces, “Does it activate every time you ask a question? You can’t control it at all?”

 “It seems to be automatic. If I ask anyone a question they must answer truthfully. There is also a lovely mental component,” He lets his resentment grow, “so I can feel their unease when they answer. I’ll know if the person is trying to fight or when they’re trying to leave out an important detail. It is very similar to…before.”

 He grits his teeth. There were no Entities in this word, aside for the residue that lived in their memories but sometimes that could be just as bad. The last thing his recovering mind needed was a reminder of how he had slowly lost his humanity.

 “I also feel them. The people I trap alone in the fog.” Martin adds and shivers, “It’s horrible.”

 “Yes. It is.”

 They both sit in silence as the light began to fade. 

 Their time at the park is almost done. Soon they would have to return to the foster home they both shared. Jon, being a mentally unstable adult trapped in the body of a child, had been too much for a young single mum who had never wanted children. He barely remembers her leaving him at a local shopping centre being hardly old enough to walk at the time. Martin’s parents had died in a villain attack, because, alongside fantastical powers, this reality was full of brightly coloured Heroes and Villains like they had woken up inside a comic book. Six years in and it still felt too surreal to be real.

 “Well, we don’t have to use our quirks. It’ll just never touch anyone with both hands, and I’ll ask all your questions for you so you won’t have to worry either.”

 Jon scoffs, “You can get away with wearing gloves. No need for anything dramatic.”

 “You know what I mean Jon.”

 “Reo,” he interrupts, “please remember to call me Reo. We already attact more attention than is probably good for us.”

 They weren’t Martin Blackwood and Jonathan Sims anymore. That life was behind them. Here, they were Jiro Shirakumo and Reo Tsukauchi and the sooner they acclimatised to using their new names the better. Maybe, one day, he would even start feeling like ‘Reo’ and ‘Jon’ would fade away like a bad dream.

 “You’re one to talk. We would attract less attention if you would loosen up a bit. I mean, I’m not perfect, but kids don’t talk so formally.”

 “I would rather not suffer through the indignity of dumbing myself down on top of everything, thank you very much.”

 “It’s not that bad. Why are you always so prickly?” Martin pokes him in the shoulder, grinning now, forcing Jon to shuffle away, “Normal kids smile every now and then you know.”

 “I think you enjoy being a ‘normal’ kid a bit too much.” Martin had settled into his second skin with more grace than Jon had. Not that he was trying very hard. 

 A laugh, “Well yeah, I mean, no responsibilities, no nightmare monsters, no conspiracies, no apocalypse. It’s nice.”

 “Oi Jiro!” 

A heavy-set kid, two years their senior, stomps up and glares at them, “you and the weirdo coming or what because I don’t want to miss dinner again,”

 “He has a name you know,” Martin reprimands, smile quickly turning into a stern frown, “Maybe you should try using it.”

 “Tch. Whatever. Mrs Suzuki said to be back by five and I’ll get in trouble if I leave you losers behind, so you better hurry up.” The boy storms away, back to his group of friends, who all look their way and laugh.

 “I don’t remember kids being so mean when I was young the first time around,” Martin complains, standing and brushing himself down, “You would think they’d have better things to do.”

 He shrugs. Child bullies were so far beneath him that he barely registers when they shout insults at him, shove him into walls or knock books out of his hand. Not like he didn’t deserve a little hardship after dooming his entire world. Besides, Martin took offence enough for the both of them, getting into plenty of arguments on Jon’s behalf. Of course, now they both had somewhat threatening quirks, their fellow housemates were a lot wearier when it came harassing him.

 “Come on.” He stands as well, “I for one do not want another lecture.”

 “Mrs Suzuki does like to drag them out,” Martin agrees as they trail along behind the older kids.

 Their neighbourhood is full of two-story apartment blocks and tightly packed houses which line the relatively quiet streets. It is only a short ten-minute walk from the park to the share-house and one he is intimately familiar with seeing as his carers force him to take it twice a week for ‘the exercise.’ At least the weather is pleasant here.

  In the fading light of the afternoon Martin’s wispy, cloud-like hair and blue pupilless eyes catch the glow so they are almost orange. Martin’s strange physical features had become more pronounced since his quirk’s activation. Apparently, it was genetic, something a quick glance at the few photos Martin had of his biological family confirmed. This world sported many people with odd features and he just hoped that his own plain appearance, straight black hair and dark eyes, would remain that way. All he wanted was fade into the background and live his second life as peacefully as possible.

...

(Part 2 here): Jon learns more about his truth-quirk and deals with other people learning about his truth-quirk.

[12raben]

Uninstalling Inteen & Nerfing ACR

Edit 07/10/21: I’ve seen, that this post has been liked and reblogged a lot. (Thanks for that!) But I just want to point out, that I changed some parts of my “romance mod system”. The current one can be found here. The information here is still valid, just wanted to clear up, what is up to date. :)

Ok, while some of you might be interested, others might not. For all of you, who are not interested: Here, have a nice picture of the Cullroth’s home and the Sunflower Inn from neighborhood view:

For the ones, who want to know, how I set up the new mods, and are not afraid of a good ol’ wall of text you may continue here:

So, one of the main-reasons, why I wanted to uninstall Inteen, is the fact, that it conflicts with everything, everybody and their cat. I read a post by simgigglegirl, where she explained, how she edited ACR to work with Romantic Standards (a mod I wanted to use for ages), so that was a motivation as well. And forgive me, but I’m getting the creeps, when an elder is heart-farting over a teen, who just aged up (so in my mindset is barely 12 years old). I wanted to get rid of that “feature” as well. ACR is hilarious at times, because sims are horny af, but I wanted the sims of twinhills to be somewhat modest. Drama: Yes. Unneccessary, stupid drama: Meh, sometimes, but -please- not all of the time. Raising the needed STR/LTR for romantic interactions was my solution, so far, but it did not always work. The love-triangle between Moira, Madleine and Hesel is somewhat disturbing. Midgethetree uploaded a mod to add a chance for death by childbirth. And how in the name of someone holy can you play a historical game without that mod? It’s also incompatible with Inteen.

Don’t get me wrong. Inteen and ACR are a great set and I used it for many years and I am very grateful, that people put their time and effort into the mods, so people, who are hopeless, when it comes to mods like myself, can enjoy the new features. And it’s all FREE. Simbology’s Inteen and ACR are still enjoyable and if used carefully do not blow up your game. They enhance your experience and will add many handy features.

Still, I wanted to get rid of Inteen, and so I did. I tried to make my progress as clear as possible, but I don’t know, if I succeeded. At the end of the post will be a list of all mods with links.

First, I made a list of the features, that Inteen had provided so far and I need for my gameplay, which was honestly more time consuming, than I thought. I dug through forum entries and mod desriptions just to see, what's even possible and/or compatible. At the end of the day I came to the conclusion, that I need:

teens, who are handled as adults, so they can get married, give birth, take over responsibilities etc. sooner

Chance for miscarriage, which is sad, but a feature, I don't want to miss

Romantic relationships only between adults/elders and teens, who are old enough

autonomy in romantic relationships, but not as strong as ACR, mainly for reproduction

And that was it. I thought, Inteen is such a big thing, surely there is more of it, that I need.... No. XD

So, after getting an idea on how to make the new set-up working (more on that later), I read instructions on how to uninstall inteen. Surely the uninstall-instructions of Inteen are there, but there are a few tips, I found here (post #15). This is, what I gathered; Quick and dirty:

Make a backup. I feel, there is always the need to say that.

Terminate any teen-pregnancy in your game (luckily no need for that in Twinhills)

Delete the Inteen-files in your program files and in your downloads folder EXCEPT Inteenimater_C. It contains the miscarriage memory. Deleting it will cause corruption, when a sim already had a miscarriage. If you don’t want to keep the memory file, you’ll have to delete the memory and all of it’s traces with Simpe and I have no clue on how to do that.

Gather and Install new Mods :D

There is a whole ton of things, I feel like, I have to explain, so you’ll understand, why I made specific changes. Alright. Let’s follow my own list of features, I needed and how I incorporated them with the new mods:

Teens, who are handled as adults & Romantic Relationships between Adults/elders and teens, who aren’t too young That was easy and hard at the same time. I use Midgethetree’s Independent Teens. Teens become for all purposes adults, but they’ll still look like teens. Perfect. Excactly, what I wanted. The only problem with that: The span of independent teens only lasts 7 days in the original setup. I use Almighty Hat’s Aging mod, so my sims spend 24 days as teens. (In Almighty Hat’s calculation one year equals 4 days. Which make the lifespan of teens 6 years, from 14 years old till 20 years old) So, 7 days is really not long enough in my setup. Luckily Midgthetree included Bcons to edit the mod to my liking. My sims will spend 8 days as young, innocent teens, who do not woohoo and if they have romatic relationships, they’ll only have them with other teens their age. The rest of their teen years (16 days), they’ll spent as independent teens, who are for all intents and purposes adults. This also gets rid of the fact, that elders/adults hit on teens, who are way to young. Any sim, who wants a college education, will spent 8 day as a teen, 8 days as an independent teen and 8 days as a young adult, because I use Dave Luv’s Faster College Education Mod, which is very much compatible with Squinge’s Mega College Pack. Only problem, mortia mentioned, when I discussed diffrent alternatives to Inteen with her, is the fact, that independent teens do not go to school. I don’t have a school in Twinhills so far, so that is not a big deal. I think, when the time arrives and I do have a school and a college in Twinhills, I will eighter have independent teens employed in their future career or will make a student career, where they can earn skill points with chance cards. I also use Cyjon’s Edukashun Iz Gud, so the independent teen’s maximum level for any career is level 5, even if they had a A+ grade in high school. The third option (which is my favourite) is to have an actual college/school lot for independent teens, who aspire to have a college degree. The best I can think of right now, is eighter to have a few apartments, where sims rent only a room and can study in the common area or to have them live at home and set up a community lot as a school. Uuh, the community lot could be owned by a sim, who is also enrolled in the education career and his employees are professors. (Who I could add as another pool of marriageable sims... yeah, I really like that idea...) Maybe an idea for the set up of guilds? I have no idea on how to include them in my game so far, so maybe that would be a good start. Maybe it will be a mix of all of the above depending on the sim’s social status? But I digress... Sorry.

Chance for miscarriage That one was easier, than I thought. I installed Chris Hatch’s Alternate Pregnancy Controller. Yes, it also enables teens to become pregnant, even if they are not independent teens. But I myself will have to make my sims reproduce, if the parents are teens. And if I don’t, they won’t. I have full control over teen pregnancies except for teens, who run away or teens, who sneak out. Midgethetree extracted Risky sneak out and Risky Runaway, which matches my taste perfectly. Teens, who rebel and do not follow the rules, aka run away from home/sneak out without their parents permission, are more likely to have a child out of wedlock. *evil cackle* Excellent.

Autonomous reproduction Frankly, when you read through simler90′s complete mod description for romantic standards, it’s so engaging and interesting, I wonder, why this mod doesn’t have more likes. (145 updates?! Come on, even if you don’t like the mod, that is impressive.) I encourage you to read the whole description, because honestly: It made me really excited! The progression of romances in the game are much slower and sims need a little time to warm up before they’ll consider to woohoo. They’ll value their existing relationships and depending on the version you get, it can be based on chemistry. You can add or remove autonomy add ons or get rid of them. It’s highly adjustable. I like this setup much, much more than ACR’s “I just met you and this is crazy, but there’s a hottub, so woohoo maybe?” (Simler90 has also a mod to overhaul the attraction system, you should check out.) Still, I can’t deny the allure of surprise pregnancy, that comes with ACR. Luckily as mentioned above simgigglegirl had the idea to use romantic standards and ACR side by side. She also uploaded the updated ACR-controller, which I think, is really kind. The problem, I ran into, was again the age span. ACR only considers the ingame age, so pretty much all adults in my game are too old to get pregnant this way. But glorious as she is, Almighty Hat included an edited version of the ACR controller to work with her age mod. Simgigglegirl asked Midgthetree for help and I follwed the instructions to edit Almighty Hat’s version of ACR. And lo and behold! It worked out for me! ACR is not uninstalled from my game, but the only option available for sims is reproduction. So, deprived romance sims can still woohoo all the way with strangers like before and knock up/be knocked up, but every other romantic encounter will take time and effort for them. Also, jealousy is handled so much better by romantic standards. The sim will always take into consideration, how serious the relationship has been before they explode and slap the cheater.

Phew. That took some time. As promised here is a list of the mods I use for the intermingling of sims (and the ones I mentioned, but not linked above).

ACR, with an edit by simgigglegirl (follow midgthetree’s instructions on how to edit ACR yourself, if you use a diffrent version of ACR)

Romantic Standards by Simler90 (+all add ons)

New Turn Ons - Young Adult + Education + Aliens + Influential + Travel + Great Dancer + Pet Lover + Great Fighter + Eye Colours + Rich + Poor by SImler90 (You can pick and choose, which version you like the most.)

Age Transition Teens keep loves from Simblogy

Chrishatch Alternate Pregnancy Controller

Independent Teens by Midgethetree

Risky Honeymoon, Runaway, Sneak Out by Midgthetree

Death by Childbirth by MidgetheTree (slightly altered the Bcon, so sims who are younger are also affected, but the chance is significantly lowered, so sims, who give birth in later stages won’t die no matter what)

PregRel by Chris Hatch - look for “pregnancy relationship change“ Original Instuctions: “ For when a sim's pregnancy first shows and those around her realize she's pregnant. If she is a teen living at home (with at least one biological parent) her parents will become furious with her and lose a lot of LTR and STR toward her. Just how furious and how much of a relationship drop depends on her school grades. Parents of A+ students will get a lot more upset than those whose daughter wasn't doing so well at school. If she's married, engaged or going steady and the baby is not from her spouse, fiancé or boyfriend and he figures that out then he will also get mad at her and lose a lot of LTR and STR. If they've never had a woohoo he'll know the baby can't be his, otherwise he needs a logic skill of 300 (out of 1000 or 3 bars) or more to realize. If he has a logic skill of 750 or more he'll also figure out who the real father is and get mad with him as well. There is also a small LTR and STR increase from the baby's father to the mother when he realizes that she's carrying his child. That is unconditional and applies regardless of if they are married or he was just a fling.” If only it would affect reputation as well *sigh*)

NoBiGenderPreferenceDecrease by DeeDee

ACR Asexual Plugin by Midgethetree (For nuns and monks, who should not woohoo)

It's the Proportion -Gestation-Based Age Duration Mod by Almighty Hat

Edukashun Iz Gud by Cyjon

Faster College Education by Dave Luv

Mega College Pack by Squinge

And that’s it. I hope you’ll find this information useful! Please consider install instructions and load order.

Happy simming! :D

[nyctolovian]

Welcome to the Queer Beer Frontier

This is an incredibly self-indulgent word vomit of my sexuality/gender headcanons for TMA S1 Archival Gang. 

Summary: The S1 Archival Gang are all not cishet. That's the whole fic. 

Link to AO3

"Am I right, Jon?"

With eyes glazed over with intoxication, he looked up from his glass. "Huh?"

"Keira Knightley," Tim said, raising an eyebrow. "You're the only person I can turn to for this. The other two are useless in this regard."

"I don't… I don't get…" Jon frowned and glanced towards the other two at the table. Neither was of any help though, because Sasha merely stared at him silently with amusement twinkling in her eyes while Martin busied himself with… something under the table. "What are you talking about?"

"Aww... Doesn't he look adorable when he's confused?" Sasha said, turning to Martin, who sputtered and glared indignantly back at her.

Before Jon could even begin to decipher what just transpired, Tim threw his head back and groaned so loudly a giggly group of girls at the other table peered at him curiously. In a futile attempt to avoid any association to this scene, Jon scrunched his body to hide behind his (conveniently) bigger friends.

His escape attempt proved futile, however, when Tim threw an arm around Jon and tugged him closer. "We didn't invite you to drink with us just so you can sit there looking pretty, boss," he said.

"Wh—" Jon grunted affrontedly, brows furrowing. He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand and tried to blink through his drowsy alcohol-induced haze. "I really don't—"

"I said, Keira Knightley is the very definition of hot," Tim drawled. "Don't you agree?"

Confusion crossed over Jon's features. "I suppose so."

"You suppose so?" Tim scoffed. "Alright, alright. Maybe she isn't your type. How about Tessa Thompson?"

Jon let out a non-committal noise as he pressed the rim of his glass against his lips. When no liquid hit his tongue, he blinked and looked into the cup.

Empty.

"Lucy Liu?"

Jon lifted his glass and looked around dazedly. "Does anyone—"

"What about Lucy Liu?"

"I really don't— My glass is empty?"

"Oh, sorry. Got distracted," Martin said, rubbing the back of his neck and slowly sliding out of his chair. "It's my round."

"I, well, yes, that'd be—"

Tim barged in with another question. "Okay, then, what about Anna Kendrick?"

"Not really."

"Not really?!" Tim yelled. "Alright, what about—"

"For god's sake, Tim, stop asking me these questions!" Jon groaned. "I'm too bloody ace for this."

Martin blinked at him, eyes owlishly wide with curiosity. "What do you mean?" he asked in a half-squat above his chair.

Jon's initially liquor-tinged face blanched. Suddenly it was show-and-tell in Year 2 all over again, eyes fixated upon him, as he struggled not to cry from stage fright. Except the topic today was far less innocuous than 'My Favourite Animal'. He ran a hand over his face.

Jon wished he could time-travel two hours back to throttle himself for accepting Sasha's invitation to drink. He should have gone home and taken a good long nap.

Unfortunately for him, he was stuck in this crap-hill of a situation. Jon gulped, looking everywhere but at his friends, as he tried to push Tim away. The silence was suffocating and he was pressured to fill it. "Fuck. I didn't mean to…"

Sasha leaned across the table. "Wait, you said you're ace? As in asexual?"

"I… uh, yes?" Jon shrunk into himself. "So what?" he hissed defensively.

Hands shooting up defensively, Sasha shook her head. "Oh, it's not like that! I'm also—"

Tim interrupted her with a whoop so loud that Jon had to yank himself out of his chokehold lest his eardrums burst. Martin had to leap off his chair and cover a hand over Tim's mouth to stop the hollering. Even then, he still did a whole lot of muffled yelling. "We're in public, Tim!" Martin chastised.

Tim tried to pull Martin's hand off, but to no avail.

"I'll take it off if you promise to stop yelling."

He rolled his eyes and nodded. As soon as Martin let go of Tim, however, he flashed the smuggest smirk and said, "So archiving is a gays-only event."

Martin let out a groan and Jon frowned in confusion. "What?"

"We honestly thought all this while you were homophobic," Tim said. "But turns out you're one of us."

Sasha raised her hand. "Disclaimer: I didn't think you were homophobic. Just uptight."

"But I..." Jon muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Wait, so you're all gay?"

"Alright, fellas," Sasha said, clapping her hands. "From the top! I'm aromantic heterosexual."

Tim dramatically placed a hand upon his chest. "And I'm the neighbourhood Bi-con!"

Nervously, Martin said, "Uh, no labels. But not straight."

Invitingly, Sasha gestured towards Jon.

He blinked. "Oh. Uh. Panromantic asexual. Um, and also nonbinary."

"Niiice," Tim said, patting his back hard. "I can't believe we took this long to figure this all out."

"I don't like assuming," Jon admitted.

"But I thought we were being incredibly obvious. Well, me and Martin were at least. We just thought you never mentioned because you were ignoring all of it on purpose."

Jon hummed. He had caught Tim flirting with a couple dudes who came to the archives before. Somehow, however, he had never registered those incidents properly and the idea that Tim wasn't straight had sailed past him entirely. He felt a bit stupid, thinking back right now.

He tried to recall an instance for Martin but drew absolutely nothing, however. "Was Martin very obvious?"

"Oh!" Sasha wheezed, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Martin here is–" she slapped his back "— painfully obvious."

"Huh," Jon muttered. "I really never noticed."

"You really should," Tim said. "Oh, right. Isn't it your turn to buy us a round, Martin? Do you want to get some right now? While we talk to Jon."

The flush that overtook Martin's face made his freckles darken as he resolutely sat in his seat, beside himself with distraught.

"Alright, alright. Enough teasing," Sasha said to Tim. "Martin, I promise I will keep him in his place so just get us the round already."

After Martin's eyes darted from Sasha to Tim to Jon, then back to Sasha, he shot up from his seat with a huff. "I trust you, okay?" Then, he made a beeline for the bartender.

"Am I missing something?" Jon asked. "I feel like I am."

Sasha shook her head. "We're just all feeling pretty excited is all. It's not every day the notorious Jonathan Sims would come out to people."

"Notorious?" Jon wrinkled his nose. "From what I'm gathering, I'm not very welcome in this archival team. First, I'm homophobic and now notorious."

"Hey," Tim said, "you can't blame me for thinking you might be a homophobe. You don't exactly give off queer vibes."

"Aspec people like us don't really get much opportunity to be overtly queer," Sasha muttered, leaning back. "We're a low-lying bunch."

"Hey! But I could tell that you weren't straight. But Jon flew right under my gay-dar. And I'm usually really good at detecting comrades."

"Time to send that radar for repairs then," Jon replied with a smirk.

"You're not much better!"

"I never claimed to be good at detecting comrades."

Just then, Martin came back, and Jon was pleased to finally get more alcohol. With how much he'd been blabbing already, it felt like that kind of night.

After a while, Jon's head started spinning in what felt like cartwheels and somersaults. Drowsily, he placed his head on the regrettably grimy table. He watched the other three's back-and-forth for a while before suddenly stepping in. "Why no labels?" he asked Martin. "Just curious."

"Hm?" He straightened up. "Oh. Just… not too fond of being put into labels. None of the terms ever sit quite right with me for some reason."

"Fair enough," Jon muttered, voice thick with exhaustion. "I took ages before finding what felt right for me."

"How did you realise you were ace then?" Tim asked.

"Don't know. Just sort of always knew but didn't have a word for it. So when the word asexuality came along…" He waved his hand as though to say, "And the rest was history."

"Is it not liking sex?" Sasha asked. "I personally never really got what's so good about romance. I think it's just messy stuff if you ask me."

"Sex is… It's fine?" Jon winced. "I don't hold any strong opinions on the matter although I do sometimes find it quite fascinating."

"Jesus Christ. It's sex, Jon. Not some academic discussion," Tim scoffed.

He pouted.

"Then, how did you figure it out?" Martin asked.

"Oh. I, uh… It just felt like there was something everyone else seemed to have no trouble getting that I couldn't. Turns out that thing was sexual attraction." He shrugged. His eyelids were growing rather heavy. "I quite like being ace, you know that? I've never told that to anyone else," he slurred the admission.

"Are you tired, Jon?" Martin asked.

"Mhm."

"Do you want to take a nap?"

He nodded, rubbing his face against the wooden table. Sasha ran her fingers through his hair and he hummed, eyelids sliding shut.

Jon remembered how frustrated he used to be when he was younger. Curious and stubborn since he could remember, there was no way he would let this thing he couldn't understand simply slide under the rug. He remembered thinking he might be pansexual, but that didn't sit right in his chest. It took years of hunting down a proper answer and a couple more to acknowledge it.

Sometimes, Jon would mourn over the fact that he would never understand what on earth this "sexual attraction" thing was. Most of the time, however, he found himself quite comfortable in his own skin, finally able to categorise his experience. Now, asexuality was a label he embraced.

And it felt good knowing there were people close by who accepted him.

[queenangst]

Glitch Techs: A Theory about Miko, the Kubotas, and Hinobi

Includes Glitch Techs Season 2 spoilers.

With Glitch Techs season 2 comes more questions and more information. And I have thoughts. Parts of this theory may not be “new,” and have been discussed elsewhere/builds on other ideas pointed out in the fandom before. 

Thank you to @happi-tree for feeding this theory and adding to it. And here’s some great theory by @frogsfangs that covers some points about Hinobi. 

So Glitch Miko is not a new concept to the fandom at all since season 1, though HinobiTech (the Glitch Techs Twitter) has debunked the theory of Miko as a Glitch. According to HinobiTech, “she's only a 16-year-old gamer!” 

We know Miko’s not a Glitch... but that doesn’t mean she can’t be Glitch-like or part-Glitch, a hybrid experiment by Hinobi from their so-called development labs. 

Theory continues under the cut, due to the length.

In seasons 1 and 2 (or seasons 1a/1b, as we can technically consider these two as one running storyline/arc), the most obvious piece of evidence is that Miko cannot be reset with the mind-wipe. This is an anomaly; as Mitch says, everyone can be reset. Why not Miko? This is pointed out multiple times in the show. Another interesting narrative choice is that when involved with the Glitch Techs, in Collection Quest and Karate Trainer, neither of Miko’s sisters were reset. The implication of this is that the question whether or not they can be reset is important to the narrative, and can impact the story later on. 

Here’s where the Kubotas come in. They’re a busy, and incredibly talented family. Nica is tech-savvy. She’s the older sister who taught Miko to game, and is proficient in mobile games, or apps. Lexi, who eavesdrops on Miko and their parents in Age of Hinobi, is proficient in karate, tracking, and seems to be highly athletic. Miko dances well, and as pointed out by Mitch in Find the Glitch, was “one of the only players to log in remotely” at the Hinobi tournament, her teamwork with Five caused “a glitch that nearly took down the entire store,” isn’t able to be reset, “incited the release of a viral glitch [Chomp Kitty],” went on to “destroy the training sim, and... released a dangerous Glitch into HQ.” Not exactly a great track record. And notably, her reflexes are “inhuman.” Nobody could be that good... except for Miko. All of the Kubota sisters (with little information on the brothers) are knowledge or proficient in skills that are what Hinobi wants from a perfect Glitch Tech: athletic, fighting, quick-thinking gamers, who are as if not better than the average. And these are the skills that will hopefully lead Hinobi to Bolypius. 

What about, and why not Nica? Nica is one of the first experiments, but maybe she’s a failed one in the eyes of Hinobi. She’s skilled and knowledgable, yes, but maybe doesn’t display the qualities or desires that Miko does. Hinobi may monitor the experiments as young children/teens, and deemed Nica to be less useful, whereas Miko has more potential. Lexi, at eleven, isn’t quite old enough.

Now for the Kubota parents. Here’s a thought—Mayumi and Hugh Kubota are former Glitch Techs, or even higher-ups at Hinobi, who consented for their children to be Glitch experiments. Mayumi seems quite excited for Miko to get a job at Hinobi, and her parents support that. When we meet them, we also see both parents wearing wrist/smartwatches. While these are shown to help them keep track of time, these could also be a subtle connection to Hinobi; a way for Hinobi to keep track of the Kubotas, or communicate with them. And it’s possible for Hinobi to record any information the Kubotas have forgotten, in case of a mind-wipe like in the first episode, which I’ll talk about later; or the Kubotas themselves may have also consented to having their minds wiped.

But let’s talk about Phil, Inspector Seven, the end of Season 2, and do a little bit of math. Based on what we know from BITT Prime, Phil has been around managing Bailley Glitch Techs for at least 20 years, though he has likely been a Glitch Tech for longer. His younger self at the end of the episode says that Phil has probably has his mind wiped again, so this has happened multiple times, enough that Phil eventually figures out to hide a file and all the information “recovered from Hinobi’s development labs” in BITT, where most won’t find it. 

Jump to Inspector Seven. This is all connected, I promise. Inspector Seven knows about Miko. She also occasionally comes by with her job as an inspector, but that might not be the only purpose. She needs to make sure Miko is progressing as desired, and to keep Phil from being suspicious; to the point whenever she comes for an “inspection,” she’s really mind-wiping Phil for getting too close to the truth about the development labs. Note that in Season 1, the first episode is when Miko is hired and Phil meets (and mind-wipes) Mayumi and Hugh. Right after that, in the second episode, is when Inspector Seven visits Bailley HQ, when she can mind-wipe Phil in case his interaction with the Kubotas causes any trouble. Whenever Phil gets close, he gets mind-wiped. The timeline also appears to line up. Nica is seventeen and Miko is sixteen, which is around the right time for Phil to discover the plans/their existence around twenty or so years ago. (This is, of course, approximate because twenty years refers to when Phil last deleted a file, and so may account for any confusions in the timeline.) 

Hinobi seems to keep track of high-profile and skilled gamers as potential recruits, which is why they host the SmashBall tournament—perhaps to test their skills. Inspector Seven is implied to know Miko, and refers to Miko specifically as “the subject,” whereas High Five is “the subject’s friend.” 

If Miko is a successful Hinobi experiment, a hybrid, human Glitch, she needs training before she can be used. This comes from her own parents and their family, but also from being a Glitch Tech—where Hinobi can keep a close eye on her progress. They need these experiments, because regular Glitch Techs haven’t been working the way Hinobi wants. And they need Miko, too; if she can’t be reset as a side effect/part of the experiment, then Hinobi needs to make sure Miko is working for them under control and not against. 

Also... if Miko is part-Glitch, maybe Ridley can mod her, too, if needed.

There’s a couple questions that still need answers, though. What or who is Bolypius? What about Miko’s brothers? What is on Phil’s files? And hey, what the fuck does Hinobi want? 

(Anyway, real or not, this is some great fic material. And I sure want to write it.)

[wannabecatwriter]

Simmer Get to Know Tag

Thanks for the tag, @treason-and-plot​. I know I took a while with it.

Tagging @sunset-melody​ @shhhushhh​ and @simcatcher​.

Your name: Diana

Languages you speak: Russian, English, a little Spanish and French.

Are you a mermaid: bruh, I can’t even swim.

Your play style : Whatever flies onto my head tends to end up in my sims game. So, whatever goes, really.

Your Selfsim picture: Don’t have any new ones at this time.

Stories or gameplay, builds, lookbooks, edits or cc: Stories, builds, some cc.

Your favorite age state: I like young adults, but really, anyone who fits story purposes works for me.

Your favorite season: In game, probably winter for how it looks. In real life? Don’t know. I live in California, so we don’t really get real seasons, at least not in SoCal. I kind of miss leaves changing color. Don’t miss the injuries and the cold that tend to happen in winter, though.

Your favorite holiday: To be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve truly played through the in-game holidays. I like the gift exchange one, though.

How was your day: Crummy, because I have an assignment that’s unfinished and that I’m not likely to finish. Not because I’m lazy and procrastinating, but because the prof my Mom and I “fondly” nicknamed “vampire” is pretty unclear with his assignments and even the simplest ones of them give me a mini-breakdown. Yeah, fun... But I did vote, so that’s a plus. Gotta do your civic duty, folks. And I am enjoying a nice brandy now, so that’s an improvement to the day.

Your favorite career: I kind of like the ghost-hunter one. Yes, I was a big fan of the Ghosbusters. I love it that they included it. Also, the PI one, obviously!

Your favorite aspiration: I like the Writer one. Because you get to name the books ;) When I was playing around with Daria, it was fun imagining the names of the books she’d write.

Your favorite EP, Sp or GP : I refuse to play without Supernatural and Late Night.

How old is your Simblr: About 6 years now?

Have you woohooed: No. I wish I had more of a wish to do it, since Mom keeps hinting she wants grandkids. Sorry, dear, you’ll have to wait.

Your favorite skill: All the music ones. 

The size of your Mods folder: 31 GB. I might need to clean stuff out sooner or later.

Your 3 favorite mods: All those NRAAS Ones, Pose Player, The Children Can one.

Your interests (other than sims): Writing, reading, cooking, going for really long walks. Seriously, sometimes tiring oneself out is a good idea.

Your favorite Sim/s (picture if possible): I really liked this one, lately. I really want to write a story for those two, but I’m still working out all the kinks in it.

Which Sims games you have played (including mobile games) : Sims 3, Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile.

Propose a crazy scheme:  What if that crazy p-bot infestation we were experiencing at the end of 2017 was actually an inside job by Tumblr staff/owners to make their adult content ban justifiable? I mean, come on, I can’t be the only one who thought so?

Best part of simblr:

1.Meeting people from all over the world who share your interests. Seriously priceless.

2. Being able to see out characters become fleshed out on screen and to see the public’s reactions to them.

3. Creativity. So much of it.

Worst part of simblr:

1. It can start being addictive. I would know. Even if it’s only a hobby, it can create a dependency.

2. Also, sometimes it starts feeling like a job. Or like, if you haven’t done this plotline or photoshoot, the inspo might disappear, so you have to do it fast. I think many of you will recognize this feeling.

3. The Tumblr ban. I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but I still get p-bots. So, what exactly did they accomplish?

What other games you play: Only mobile ones. Pocket Camp, Lily’s Garden (I love anything with a story!), Helix Waltz. Yeah, it’s a dress-up game, in essence, but the story is pretty great. Also, I’m kind of liking the character’s growth, even though she’s developing some conniving traits. My girl straight up pulled a gun on someone in one of the latest chapters! 

Other websites or accounts (origin, twitter etc..) : Wordpress, Google for pics, I have a Blogger account for commenting, but that’s it. I still have a Facebook, but don’t really use it these days.

Are you single: Yes.

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #16 (1980)

Cerebus is going up the stairs while Lord Julius is going down them. In the same direction.

Cerebus is often touted as the greatest independent comic book of all time (for various reasons) but I'd like to point out that Elfquest told an incredible story with beautiful art in just 20 issues as opposed to 300. Plus it had an elf orgy. Also, I know it continued on after the first 20 issue story arc but we can ignore the rest of the story because there was never another elf orgy and also the rest of the series concentrated too much on Skywise's fear of dying which was totally valid but was often used as a foil to make Cutter seem braver and more loyal to his wolf roots but really just showed he was stubborn and dumb and totally didn't fuck as many elf maidens as Skywise did. Cerebus does have some sex in his comic book but since the first sex he has is when he rapes Astoria, I don't think anybody was really clamoring for any more of that. I mean, sure, some people were! I didn't mean to erase the sickos and perverts out there. Sorry, jerks! I'm sure the "A Note from the Publisher" bit by Deni seemed like a good idea when starting out on a harrowing self-publishing journey like that of Cerebus. But it quickly became a space where Deni just says, "Self-publishing is fraught with hardships and also this is a really good issue! I won't spoil it! Goodbye!" I won't be sad to see the divorce happen! That's an okay thing to say because it already happened, right? It's not like my wishing for the end of their marriage in 2020 somehow brought about the end of their marriage in the early 80s. Is it? I never took a college course on cause and effect so who the fuck knows? Unless that Critical Literary Theory class was about that?! Oh my God! I think I understand it now! Dave's finale to the "Swords of Cerebus" essay that has been broken up over the last three issues describes how he was consciously drawing the Eye of the Pyramid cult leader's gigantic penis while drawing the snake. Sorry to report, though, that he's being sarcastic. Apparently Dave is above using phallic imagery to make a point about patriarchal themes. Only fucking hacks do shit like that! Take that, whoever wrote fucking Beowulf!

Even if Sim can't see the humor in everybody assuming he made a giant snake dick joke on purpose, he can still be extraordinarily funny with the least of materials.

This issue takes Cerebus to his first fancy dress party (that's a costume party for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was born a citizen of the United States of America who didn't have a choice but knew it was a huge mistake as I was learning about Monty Python's Flying Circus and Dave Allen at Large in elementary school and The Young Ones in junior high and Red Dwarf in college)). Cerebus changes out of his vest and puts on his costume: a furry black jumper (that's sweater for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was forced to watch mostly American popular entertainment until the advent of YouTube and now I mostly just watch Taskmaster over and over (by the way, is Taskmaster as good for people who don't know all of the "contestants" or do I enjoy it more because I recognize and like almost all of the people on the show?)). Lord Julius is dressed as an, um, a, uh, Estarcion matador? I have no context in which to guess what he is.

Certain people like Cerebus because he says what's on his mind. I purposefully used the passive voice here so you can't prove one of those people is me.

Lord Julius has a follow-up joke that leaves the reader thinking, "I guess all Pavrovians are fat?" That's Dave Sim continuing his work on Estarcion continuity! Remember how Pavrovians are the, um, you knows of Estarcion! You know the nationality I'm thinking of! The ones that are all the things people usually find insulting! Come on, you know who I'm talking about. The dumb fat arrogant stupid naive gullible ones! Yes, that's it! Americans! Try to remember Dave is Canadian. You have to think of Americans through Canadian eyes (which are the equivalent of smart, cynical Americans)! E'lass and Turg have gotten tickets to The Festival of Petunias so they can steal the Wyndmel Diamond. They're the duo composed of a giant muscular man and a little bitty shrimpy guy who last encountered (and were beaten by) Cerebus in Issue #6. E'lass is dressed like some kind of small dirt dwelling creature so I hope Cerebus gets offended by his costume and stabs him in the throat. There isn't enough random slaughter in this book about barbarians.

I haven't wanted to fuck a fish this badly since The Littler Mermaid.

I suppose I could have said "since Splash" in that last caption to seem more normal and less perverted but then you'd know I was lying. The assassins make a move on Lord Julius but Cerebus comes up with a plan to stop them that involves inducing the Palnu elite to throw herring-and-onion dip at them. Is that a parodied scene from Duck Soup or Conan the Barbarian? In the confusion, the lead assassin slips out through a secret door and E'lass, having just stolen the diamond and becoming increasingly paranoid that somebody saw him, slips through it as well. Cerebus and Lord Julius follow, having noticed the assassin but not E'lass. Most of the pursuit's tension comes from E'lass believing Cerebus remembers him and is now going to use the excuse of this new crime to murder him. It's more tense than I've even described because I really need Cerebus to murder somebody in this Swords & Sorcery book already. Reading this book waiting for a murder is like firing up a porn video on your laptop with your dick in your hands and realizing after five minutes that the video is almost over and was just a teaser for a pay porn site. Cerebus threatens to quit his job just before battling the assassin so he can negotiate a term of 8 bags of gold and a horse in exchange for killing the assassin as a pension before he goes. Julius agrees and Cerebus takes out the assassin with a rock to the head. I mean, I guess it's a murder so yay? But I was really hoping for some stabbing. Meanwhile E'lass lives through the cliché of the criminal whose paranoia gets the better of him and he tosses the diamond into a huge pit so he doesn't get caught only to discover that they never knew he took it anyway. Everything is wrapped up quickly and thoroughly with Cerebus given money and motivation to move on from Palnu. Dave complained about his heavy use of cliché in this Palnu trilogy and I have to say I agree with Dave. But I only agree with Dave on this point! Don't take that out of context and start raving on Twitter that Grunion Guy agrees with Dave's Issue #186 rant about girlfriends being illogical which is also secretly a rant about a guy who needs to get laid so badly he puts up with partners he probably wouldn't even be friends with and then finally just decides orgasms are evil and religion is super awesome but only if you smash all three People of The Book religions into one bland mash paste of ancient dogma. In the epilogue, Lord Julius receives a letter from his niece Jaka in which she expresses delight in possibly seeing Cerebus again. I guess Dave learned from Howard the Duck that comic book nerds really love for their anthropomorphic heroes to be fucking statuesque women. Perhaps every guy develops a fetish of being with a woman whose breasts are at head level due to being hugged constantly by their female relatives when they're ten years old. Deni's brother Michael's first installment of the "Aardvarkian Age" essays appears in this issue. It gives more details to the various nations of Estarcion and their inhabitants' culture, ruling styles, and brutality of their armies. I thought I'd be more interested in this than I actually wound up being. Maybe I thought it would be funnier? Instead, it's just a bunch of facts about made-up kingdoms to make them sound more believable by making them more like European countries in the Middle Ages. If this entire bit were just lifted from a history of Europe with the names of actual countries replaced by Estarcion countries, I wouldn't even notice. Mostly because I know nothing about European history. As I've always said, "Those who know about European history are doomed to repeat it, boring every single other person at the cocktail party." Dave apologizes for the quarter price increase of the comic book in the Aardvark Comments pages. Why, I hadn't even noticed! Probably because this is the Biweekly reprint issue and I purchased it as a collection off of eBay. Some people write in and discuss how Cerebus is a very fine and funny comic book. I nodded along in agreement as I read the letters. I only touched my private area twice while reading and neither time was for pleasure. The most surprising thing about "The Single Page" is that it clearly states who the comic was authored by: Kent Featherly. I don't know why so many of these single page comics aren't more clearly labeled. Isn't part of the reason for having them exposure for the artists drawing and writing them?! Not putting an effort to let a large audience know who you are and how they can read more of your work just sounds like something I would do. By the way, you should play this game I wrote, Starship Troopers: The Game. You can find it on the hard drive of my laptop. Cerebus #16 Rating: B. Look, it was funny and well drawn and all that. But even Dave said it relied too heavily on cliché plot devices. I've got to lower the grade when even the author points out some of the story's flaws! And I'd probably have come to the same conclusion without having been influenced by Dave Sim because I'm like the best Internet comic book critic who isn't a critic and isn't actually reviewing comic books. Also I almost forgot this evidence: I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Nobody else can make that claim and if they do, they're plagiarizing me and I'd like you to point them out to me so I can send them a threatening email in which I pretend to be my own lawyer who is really good at suing dumb-dumbs.

[miguel-manbemel]

Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 27: A Side is Born Part 2: Grown and Lost

New episode of this fic inspired on Sanders Sides by Thomas Sanders, Joan S. and the Foster Dawg Team. Thank you so much for the good reception that the previous episode had. Now, the story continues, right where it ended. Each episode is gonna feature in the beginning a quick reminder from the most important events in the previous episode, with the fun fact that these reminders are embedded in the story and are of an unique style for each part. Nedless to say, these reminders are full of spoilers from these previous episodes if you haven’t read them. May you enjoy this second part of the story and until next week.

WARNINGS: Romantic prinxiety and logicality. Some light innuendo. Fair warning that in the last part of this episode, the mood switches to strong angst.

SYNOPSIS: In front of the others, Chris has started growing at great speed and they wonder why is it happening. In the middle of this, fearing that they will never know him as a child, Roman decides to take the boy to Sandersia so that Ira and Roland get the news of the newborn before that newborn is an adult himself.

EPISODE INDEX

[a sign reading “In the previous episode..." appears. Flashback images from the previous episode are shown while Roman’s voice is heard off-screen]

NARRATOR-ROMAN: [off-voice] Today has been a memorable day in so many senses. It all started this morning when Virgil suddenly felt not so good…

VIRGIL: I didn’t want to concern you, Roman. Probably it’s just something I’ve eaten that’s not agreeing with my stomach.

ROMAN: Still, my duty as your husband is taking care of you when you’re feeling bad. I thought we had agreed on not hiding things from each other.

VIRGIL: Don’t worry, Roman, I’m sure this is not serious.

NARRATOR-ROMAN: [off-voice] But very soon, things started spiraling out of control.

THOMAS: Heh… It’s funny. If you weren’t a man I would say that you’ve got all the symptoms of being pregnant.

[Virgil slowly lowers his hands from his face and looks at Thomas with a face of horror]

THOMAS: [serious] Wait… don’t tell me that you can…

VIRGIL: Oh… my… goodness… [putting his hands on his belly] For the love of Gerard Way…

THOMAS: But… this is not a Sims game! Since when can a person with male reproductive organs get pregnant!?

NARRATOR-ROMAN: [off-screen] Yep, surprise. We had a bun in the oven. Although it looked more like a micro-wave oven, cause the bun was cooking really fast…

VIRGIL: [in pain, putting his hand on his belly] Aw!

ROMAN: [scared] What was that, Virgil! Are you okay?

VIRGIL: I… I think so… He moved inside me, and kicked me really hard from my insides. It was so weird…

ROMAN: Seriously, Logan. How can this go so fast? This morning he was having the first nausea and now he looks as if he was six months pregnant already!

LOGAN: Well, as I told you, we’re not human. Maybe instead of nine months, Virgil’s pregnancy will be only nine hours. Probably less, judging how fast it’s going.

NARRATOR-ROMAN: [off-voice] And before we could know how, Virgil was lying on the couch in labor.

LOGAN: The next thing coming out of there will be the baby. Now, one last time, use all your might you have left and push as if tomorrow would never come. Now!

VIRGIL: [pushing] NNNNNGGGGGHHHHHAAAAAAA!!!

LOGAN: Here it comes!

[A bright magenta smoke comes out of Virgil’s body. As it comes out forming a magenta cloud, Virgil’s belly shrinks until it returns to its normal flat form, while he shows a face of huge alleviation. Then, the cloud floats to Virgil’s chest and after some seconds, it disappears, to reveal a little baby dressed only with magenta diapers. The baby starts crying]

LOGAN: Well, it’s done. Good job, Virgil.

VIRGIL: [with his eyes full of tears] I… I… look at him, Roman.

ROMAN: [crying] I’m looking at him, Virgil. He’s as handsome as his dad. And I mean you.

NARRATOR-ROMAN: [off-voice] And we thought that was it. We had our newborn son, Chris, we were set to live happily ever after as a family… and that was all. But there was another surprise on board for the evening…

VIRGIL: Um… guys…

ROMAN: What?

VIRGIL: It looks like our little baby is not so… little… anymore… Look…

[Virgil takes Chris out of the cradle. Except that it is now a three year old boy]

CHRIS: [giggling and poking Virgil’s nose] Dad, I want pizza!

THOMAS AND ROMAN: [overlapping] Whaaat!?

[image of narrator Roman looking at the camera]

NARRATOR-ROMAN: And so here we are. What’s happened to our son? What is gonna happen next. Stay tuned, everyone.

VIRGIL: [off-screen] Roman, will you cut it out and come here already!?

NARRATOR-ROMAN: Sorry, Virge. I’m going. Rolling title screen.

[intro sequence]

THOMAS: What… has happened?

VIRGIL: Are you asking me? I don’t know how this works, Thomas, this is my first son.

CHRIS: Dad, I want pizza!

ROMAN: Don’t you think you’re too young for pizza, young boy?

[Chris looks at Roman, then his eyes get full of tears]

CHRIS: [crying] I want pizzaaaaa!

THOMAS: Well, I guess now I know which Side has inherited my passion for pizza.

VIRGIL: We’re gonna need help. Dad! Logan! Could you come here, please?

[Logan and Patton are risen up in Patton’s spot. They are kissing, unaware of their surroundings]

ROMAN: [saying the actual word] Ahem…

[Logan and Roman stop kissing and look scared at the others]

LOGAN: [angry] Hey, do you think this is an appropriate time to call!? We were… [looking nervously at Patton who is just blushing and looking away] busy!

THOMAS: I’m sorry, guys. But this is another… emergency. Look.

[Thomas points at Chris who is still crying next to Virgil]

PATTON: Who’s that boy?

VIRGIL: It’s Chris, dad. Your grandson.

PATTON: What?

ROMAN: He has just aged three years in a matter of a second and we don’t know how.

LOGAN: Oh, wow… I didn’t expect that…

PATTON: Why is he crying?

VIRGIL: He wants pizza. But I don’t think he’s old enough to eat it. I mean, he’s only five hours old. It could sit bad in his stomach. He was drinking his formula just half an hour ago.

PATTON: Young boy, crying is not the way to get the things that you want. If you want to get something, you must learn to say “Please” and “Thank you”. And even so, sometimes we just can’t get what we want and we must learn to deal with it.

[Chris stops crying, then looks at Patton]

CHRIS: [with a cute innocent voice] Please, grandpa. Can I get some pizza?

PATTON: [squeeing] He’s called me grandpa! Of course you can, kiddo. Take all the pizza you want!

CHRIS: [happy smile] Thank you, grandpa!

VIRGIL: Wait, dad, I don’t think that…

[But Chris has already jumped to the pizza and started devouring it]

ROMAN: Oh, my gosh…

VIRGIL: He looks like the cookie monster…

[Suddenly Chris stops eating. He stands still with a face of nausea]

VIRGIL: What is it, Chris? Are you okay? I told you not to eat that pizza!

[Chris burps loudly. As the burp goes out, he starts growing]

VIRGIL: Look! He’s growing again!

[In a matter of seconds, Chris looks like a twelve-year-old boy]

ROMAN: He eats and then grows? Perhaps I should have called him Alice.

PATTON: Like Alice in Wonderland? Hey, think! If he drinks some milk, the kid may shrink back. Oooh… I love alliteration.

CHRIS: Guys, why are you all staring at me? [looks at himself] Oh… I see, it’s because I’m still in these diapers. Hold on, I’ll fix that.

[Chris points at himself and his clothes change to a medieval princely outfit, similar to Prince Phillip from Sleepy Beauty, but the suit is white with a red belt, and the sleeves are dark purple. The cape is magenta and has a hood. He sports Roman’s shield on the chest, but with the background in magenta and a stormy cloud over the castle]

CHRIS: That’s more like it.

ROMAN: [with a smile of emotional joy] Oh, my God… You look… majestic!

CHRIS: Thank you, father. If I’m a prince, I must look like it.

VIRGIL: [same emotional joy] And you even carry a hood! I’m so proud!

CHRIS: I knew you’d like it, dad.

LOGAN: Hmm… Not only he’s growing physically at great speed. He’s also growing mentally. At this rate, he’ll look just as adult as anyone of us in a short time… Chris.

CHRIS: Yes, Logan?

LOGAN: Would you mind if I performed a check on you?

CHRIS: What for, grandpa?

LOGAN: Because… wait, grandpa?

CHRIS: You’re Patton’s boyfriend, aren’t you? That makes you my grandfather-in-law.

LOGAN: Well, technically not until we marry and… wait, we’re deviating. I need to make sure that you’re in perfect condition and that this quick growth is normal.

CHRIS: Okay, grandpa, help yourself.

[Logan gets a little nervous over being called grandpa again, but he puts himself together and places his hand on Chris’ chest. Logan starts shaking for a couple of seconds, then takes his hand off]

LOGAN: I see…

VIRGIL: What?

LOGAN: Chris is totally fine. There’s nothing wrong with him at all. This quick growth is perfectly natural.

ROMAN: But there must be a reason why he’s growing up so fast. We didn’t grow up that quickly.

PATTON: Well, as far as I remember, I was always an adult, so…

LOGAN: Yes, but that’s because you chose to have an adult shape on purpose, or so you said.

PATTON: To be honest, I don’t remember at all, Logan. What I said is my own explanation to that fact. When I met all of you, I always met you sharing the same age Thomas had at that moment in life, but back then, I was already an adult. When I try to go back in my memories, there’s always a moment when everything goes blurry until there’s nothing more.

LOGAN: That’s what always happens, Patton. No human can remember the first two to three years from their existence at all and their memories are blurry until they get around 6 or more. And guys, it’s true that we all took our time to grow up, but you’re forgetting one important detail.

VIRGIL: What?

LOGAN: Chris was born as a baby while Thomas was an adult. It was only natural, as Virgil would have exploded if he had to hold an adult body inside of him. But that doesn’t change the fact that we, as Sides of Thomas, must share with him, among other things, the same age. Chris was born as a baby, but now he’s bound to grow up at a fast pace to catch up to Thomas’ age. Then, he’ll start aging normally like all of us, at Thomas’ same pace.

THOMAS: Oh… Is that all?

LOGAN: Yes. What did you expect?

THOMAS: I don’t know, things with you don’t tend to be so simple.

CHRIS: Are you calling me simple, Thomas?

THOMAS: No, I wasn’t calling you…

CHRIS: [pulling out a classic medieval sword and a shield decorated with the same insignia on his chest, speaking with a theatrical melodramatic voice] Cause I could pull out my sword and challenge you to a duel, my good sir!

LOGAN: [sighs] He’s just as dramatic as his father.

ROMAN: [squeeing] He even has a shield of his own! Oh, my God, you look gorgeous! And what is also great is that now I’ll have someone to practice fencing with. [hopping] Oh, my goodness, I’m so happy right now!

VIRGIL: [smirks] Be careful, my love. You’re gonna slip on the puddle of your drool.

ROMAN: I suddenly had an idea. Since it’s clear that we’re too excited to go to bed right now…

LOGAN: [looking at Patton] Well, I was really excited to go to bed a moment ago…

ROMAN: [beat] You’ll have time for that later. I think we should take Chris to Sandersia, so that he meets my brother Roland and Ira. They don’t even know that he’s been born and I can’t wait to see their faces.

THOMAS: Isn’t it a little late for a journey, though? It’s eleven o’clock, and I’m a little tired, you know? Couldn’t we leave this for tomorrow? It’ll be Sunday, and I have all the day free of compromises.

ROMAN: [begging] Oh, come on! I want them to see him while he’s still a child! If we wait, he’ll be an adult already, and it just wouldn’t have the same surprise effect! I don’t wanna miss it! Pleaaase!

THOMAS: [sighs] Okay, if it’s so important to you, okay.

ROMAN: [hopping] Yayyy!

THOMAS: Are you good to walk, Virge? You’ve just given birth some hours ago.

VIRGIL: Oh, I think I’ll be fine, Thomas. I don’t have any pains and I feel strong enough.

LOGAN: You don’t need to fear for Virgil, Thomas. His recovery will be a lot quicker than in normal physical childbirths. If he doesn’t go through too intense physical activities at least for tonight, he’ll be fine, and tomorrow he’ll be good as gravy.

THOMAS: Okay.

ROMAN: Then it’s settled!

THOMAS: Okay… Let’s go to Sandersia, then.

[All of them sink down and rise up in Roman’s room, then they head to Sandersia. It’s nighttime over there too. They all get in the royal carriage, always waiting at the door as usual, and head to the royal castle. As usual too, the carriage arrives in no time]

ROMAN: Well, here we are. Oh, the door is locked? That’s weird.

LOGAN: Weird? What did you expect, a welcome committee? You didn’t announce our visit and it’s freaking nighttime!

ROMAN: Not for long, though.

[Roman rises both hands. In a matter of seconds, the sky turns blue and the sun rises over the sea]

LOGAN: [a little blinded by the sudden sunlight] That’s cheating.

[Roman knocks the door using the knocker several times]

VOICE: [from inside] Okay, okay… why the rush?

[the noise of locks opening from inside are heard and the door opens. Ira comes outside wearing a green pajama

IRA: Oh, it’s you. When I told you to come for a visit, I didn’t mean for you to come in the middle of the… [noticing the sun is in the sky, confused] …morning? Did I oversleep? What time is it?

ROMAN: Oh, it’s twelve midnight, I just did a little tweak, so that you didn’t trip over anything in the dark.

IRA: But why? Is there any emergency of some kind?

ROMAN: Yes, and no. I just want Roland and you to meet someone.

IRA: Someone? [noticing the presence of Chris] Oh, good morning… I mean evening… I mean… whatever.

CHRIS: Good evening, sir.

IRA: And who is this lad, if I may ask, Roman?

ROMAN: I’m not telling yet, it’s a surprise. Go call my brother, please. I want you two to know who he is at the same time.

IRA: Okay. I’ll call Roland. You can wait in the throne room. Come in, make yourselves a home.

ROMAN: Thanks, Ira.

[Roman and the others get to the throne room while Ira goes away]

THOMAS: [yawns] Roman, I’m a little sleepy. We should have waited till tomorrow.

ROMAN: Hold on a little bit, Thomothy. Soon we’ll be done. Maybe we could even sleep here if Roland lets us.

THOMAS: Is that possible for me, though? What would happen if I fell asleep while inside the Mind Palace?

LOGAN: Well, for certain we would all fall asleep with you. All except Virgil, who is the only one that, if he wants to, can resist sleep or wake up while you slumber, due to him being your fight-or-flight impulses.

CHRIS: I can do that too. A gift from my dad.

VIRGIL: Oh, that’s good to know.

THOMAS: But would Sandersia stay in place?

LOGAN: Of course, Thomas. For Sandersia to have structural problems, you would need something worse than sleep. You’d have to be almost in a coma.

THOMAS: Well, I’m not going to that extent to do the experiment, and besides I don’t want Sandersia to be damaged, so it’s good to know that. Thanks, Logan.

LOGAN: No problem.

[Roman and Ira enter the throne room. Roland is wearing a dressing coat]

ROLAND: Hi, Roman, hi guys.

ROMAN: Hi, Roland.

IRA: Okay. We’re both here. Why all the rush, Roman?

ROMAN: Well, let me introduce you to our new addition to the family. This is Chris. Chris, these are my brother Roland and our good friend Ira.

CHRIS: Good evening. Nice to meet you.

ROLAND: Nice to meet you.

IRA: Good evening.

ROMAN: I think I’m gonna let him to properly introduce himself. Okay, go ahead.

CHRIS: Well, my name is Christian Gerard Sanders. And I’m the Side of Angsty Creativity. But you can call me Chris.

ROLAND: Angsty… Creativity?

IRA: Hold on, weren’t those two concepts assigned to Virgil and you earlier? [face of realization and shock, then he smiles widely] Oh! Oh, my goodness, I get it! Congratulations, Roman!

ROLAND: What? What’s the matter?

IRA: Don’t you see? This boy is the son of Virgil and Roman! Angsty Creativity!

ROLAND: Oh, my goodness! How…? When…? Congratulations, guys!

[Roland and Ira hug Roman and Virgil, then they also give a quick hug to Chris]

ROLAND: I should have paid more attention. Of course he’s your son. His shield is a mix of both your insignias. I’m so happy to meet you, young man.

CHRIS: I’m happy to meet you too, uncle Roland.

ROLAND: Oh, that’s right. This boy is my nephew. And as your son… he’s the new heir to the throne of Sandersia! That’s great! But when did this happen?

VIRGIL: Today.

ROLAND: Today?

VIRGIL: Well, yesterday already. He was born just a few hours ago.

ROLAND: But he’s so grown-up already!

CHRIS: [suddenly showing a funny face] Oh…

ROLAND: What’s wrong?

CHRIS: If you think I’m a grown up now… wait and see…

[Chris points at his own clothes. They grow until they are of an adult size, too big for him]

ROLAND: Why would you do that?

CHRIS: [suddenly with adult voice that startles everyone] It’s happening again, I can feel it.

[Chris starts growing up in front of Roland and Ira, who watch with a stunned expression. In a matter of a few seconds he looks like an adult, and his outfit fits him perfectly]

IRA: I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. But now… now I’ve just seen everything.

CHRIS: Well, I think the growing phase is over. Now I just have to age a little bit until I get synchronized with Thomas’ age and that will be it. Now I’m totally ready to start working as a Side of Thomas.

VIRGIL: Oh, my God… Kids grow so fast. It feels like yesterday when I was cradling you in my arms and now you’re a full grown-up man. Except that it was literally yesterday, of course.

CHRIS: It’s okay, dad. I may look like an adult, but I’m still your one day old son, ready to learn from you and father anything you’re willing to teach me to be a better Side.

VIRGIL: [bursting in tears] Why am I suddenly so emotional lately? Yesterday, I would have dismissed all these emotions as corny and now look at me. This feeling of love is so overwhelming I can barely resist it.

PATTON: [putting his hand on Virgil’s shoulder] Welcome to my world, kiddo. Nice to have you. That’s exactly how I feel about you all the time.

VOICE: [evil mocking tone] Isn’t this nice?

[everyone starts looking in all directions trying to find the source of the voice]

THOMAS: Who’s there!?

VOICE: I’ve been waiting for so long for this moment to come and finally, it’s here!

[Suddenly, Chris is surrounded by what looks like a dark bubble]

CHRIS: What gives!?

[the door opens and the Dark Master enters in, wearing a black cloak with silver ornaments on the shoulders and the hood. The dark bubble flies next to him with Chris inside]

THOMAS: You again? How many times do we have to defeat you, boy?

DARK MASTER: Long time no see, Light Master.

ROMAN: [pulling out his samurai sword] Release our son! Right now!

DARK MASTER: Release him? Oh, sure, I will release him, as soon as I’m done with him.

VIRGIL: If you touch just one hair of him, I swear…

DARK MASTER: Oh, don’t worry emo, I’m not going to harm him. I need him in one piece for my plans.

VIRGIL: [progressively angrier and more hysterical as he speaks] What plans? What are you going to do to him? Let him go, you bast**!

DARK MASTER: Let him go? After all the time I’ve been waiting for one of his kind to appear? Never.

PATTON: What’s so special about him? I don’t understand.

DARK MASTER: [giggles evilly] I certainly did a good job with you, Patton.

PATTON: What?

DARK MASTER: Erasing your memories was so easy. It wasn’t a perfect work, but nevertheless it worked. You wouldn’t even try to get your memories back. You just got contented and started behaving like the stupid father figure you are right now.

PATTON: I don’t understand…

VIRGIL: Neither do I, but I don’t care! Release him!

DARK MASTER: It’s your only fault that I’m taking your son right now, Virgil! You brought this onto him!

VIRGIL: What?

DARK MASTER: The original plan was to take you instead of him. You were born for that only reason. But you had to escape to the Light Realm and ruin everything.

VIRGIL: What would you know about my birth?

DARK MASTER: Oh, everything. I know everything about it. I even had you in my arms not long after you were born. You looked so tiny, so vulnerable. So suitable. You just needed to grow until you were mature enough. But Patton had to be a goody daddy and the Light Master had to ruin it all!

THOMAS: Me? What…?

VIRGIL: What is he talking about, dad?

PATTON: [confused] I promise I don’t know, kiddo. I don’t remember…

DARK MASTER: Perhaps I can help with that.

[The Dark Master points at Patton. A light blue sphere appears on his hand]

DARK MASTER: This, on my hand, are your stolen memories. You’re no longer a worthy enemy, so I won’t be needing them anymore, and I need to make room for… another procedure. Here, take them back.

[the light-blue ball is projected at light-speed and impacts into Patton’s head, making him walk two steps back. The light enters inside Patton’s head, who holds his head with both hands and groans as if he was suffering the worst headache ever, as if his head was about to explode right there.]

VIRGIL: [scared] Dad!

LOGAN: Patton!

[in a few moments, Patton adopts a serene face. He stops holding his head and looks fiercely at the Dark Master]

PATTON: [serious deep voice, never heard before from him] Now I remember… everything.

DARK MASTER: Good. Then now you know it all. How does it feel? Please, tell me that it hurts you, it would be so rewarding for me.

PATTON: Yes, I remember. Yes, it hurts. And no, you won’t get away with your plans.

DARK MASTER: [evil voice] I challenge you to stop me. If you want to find me, you know where to look for me… sweetie. [back to an unconcerned, mocking voice, to Roman] Oh, by the way, thank you Roman, I couldn’t have done this without you.

ROMAN: What?

DARK MASTER: If you hadn’t entered Sandersia with Chris, I wouldn’t have been able to reach him, and if you hadn’t turned the night into day, I wouldn’t have known you were here, allowing me to come here to check what you were up to. What a pleasant surprise you gave me when you introduced your boy. Thank you for your invaluable help.

ROMAN: [face of remorse] What have I done…?

[the Dark Master starts levitating and so does the dark bubble holding Chris in. Chris shows a face of fear for the first time and starts banging at the bubble, desperately trying to break it]

CHRIS: [scared whining] Father! Dad! Help me! Don’t let him take me!

VIRGIL: [in tears] You bast**! He’s just a baby! Thomas, do something!

THOMAS: I’m trying! I’m trying to go into Light Master mode… but I’m so tired I get dizzy when I try! I can’t keep it together!

DARK MASTER: Well, as the old cartoon said, that’s all folks! Bye!

[The Dark Master flies away through the door and the bubble follows him with Chris inside]

CHRIS: [screeching in horror] Heeeeelp!

[his cry for help gets lost in the distance before the others have time to react. Then Virgil starts running to the door]

VIRGIL: Come back! Give me my son back! I beg you! Take me instead! No!

[he stops before reaching the door, with pain in his stomach over the effort. Roman runs after him and holds him]

VIRGIL: [hysterical, he turns around and starts punching Roman’s chest with both fists, while Roman looks at his husband with a face of intense suffering and remorse] Don’t touch me! This is your fault! This is all your fault! They took him away because of you! I hate you! I hate you! [he stops punching Roman’s chest and lies on it sobbing on it while Roman hugs him, also crying] I hate you…

ROMAN: I’m sorry, Virgil. I didn’t know this would happen… But we’ll fix it. We have always defeated the Dark Master and this will be no exception. I promise by my royal crown that he’ll get what he deserves and we’ll rescue our son! I solemnly swear it!

[a sign reading “To be continued, guys, gals and non binary pals appears”]

[ending card]

[a couple of minutes have passed, The guys are sitting down on some benches. Virgil is lying on Roman’s shoulder, his face completely void, looking at the infinity, trying to evade himself from the horrible reality he’s facing]

THOMAS: I’m so sorry, guys. I wish I could have been of more help. I just couldn’t call my powers out of exhaustion.

ROMAN: It’s not your fault, Thomas. Like the Dark Master said, it’s my fault and only mine. I’m sorry, guys. [to Virgil] I’m sorry, my love.

VIRGIL: [looks at Roman and holds his hand, then speaks with a weak, heartbroken voice] And I’m sorry for hitting you earlier… I was out of my mind and I didn’t mean what I said. Of course I don’t hate you.

ROMAN: [kissing Virgil’s hand] I know, my love. But you were so right at the same time…

PATTON: You didn’t know this would happen, Roman. Don’t torture yourself.

ROMAN: A marvelous father I’m turning out to be. The first thing I do is delivering him in a silver plate to the enemy.

PATTON: Well, I don’t think I was any better, to be honest.

VIRGIL: [looking at Patton] What do you mean, dad? You have always been there for me.

PATTON: Not always, son. Not always. Now that I’ve got the full picture with the missing piece of my memories, I had… I have so much to regret and so much to apologize for.

THOMAS: It’s hard for me to believe that you, among all of us, could have a dark past of some kind. My mind simply can’t process it.

PATTON: And yet, I do. The Dark Master took good care of shaping my mind in a way that would never ever make me question the holes in my mind. He probably gave me that stupid naive personality so that I would never wonder about the kind of stuff he didn’t want me to remember. And it worked. I was so happy in my stupidity I got completely blind about that.

LOGAN: Don’t say that, Patton. You were not stupid.

PATTON: Yes I was. So silly, so childish. I’m so ashamed when I look back and remember the stupidity of my mind I had these past years.

LOGAN: We loved you the way you were. I loved you. I still do.

PATTON: I’m sorry, Logan, but as Deceit would say, you’ve fallen in love with a lie. The Patton you fell in love with is not real. It was never real. I don’t deserve any kind of love.

LOGAN: Falsehood! That’s not true!

PATTON: Yes it is. You don’t know what I did. What I made Virgil go through because of my weakness… Oh, my God, you’re gonna hate me so much when I level with you all. I’d wish that the Dark Master hadn’t restored my memories. I was happier in my stupidity and now I feel like I’ll never find peace in my life again. Maybe that was his intention, to see me suffer and torture myself forever.

VIRGIL: Dad, you are my father. Nothing you could have ever done could be so bad that I couldn’t forgive it.

PATTON: You don’t know the truth yet, son. Once you know, you won’t be able to say that again with conviction.

VIRGIL: Then tell me dad, to prove you that you’re wrong. What is that truth that is so unforgivable?

[Patton sighs]

PATTON: The truth about who your father is.

VIRGIL: You are my father, what do you mean?

PATTON: I mean your other father.

VIRGIL: My other father? You remember now his identity? Who is he?

PATTON: You already know him too well. You’ve lived with him for years in the Dark Realm. You lived under his yoke and his tyranny for many years, and I couldn’t save you, may God forgive me.

[Virgil looks at Patton. A grimace of horror slowly starts appearing]

VIRGIL: No… that’s not true… that’s impossible!

PATTON: Yes. As painful as it is for me to admit it, but it’s true. The Dark Master is your father.

VIRGIL: [progressively more hysterical as he speaks] I can’t believe you! He can’t be my father! He can’t! If he was my father, he would have never treated me the way he did in the Dark Realm! He would have never taken my son away from me! It’s impossible! No! I refuse to believe you! You’re a liar! You’re no better than Deceit!

ROMAN: [holding him by the shoulders and shaking him] Virgil, calm down! You know he would never lie to you, especially in a matter so serious!

[Virgil sits down. He can’t look Patton in the face]

PATTON: [sad] See? I told you you would hate me.

[Virgil doesn’t answer. He just stares at the infinity, with rivers of tears running down his cheeks, in complete silence. Patton looks at his son, and his eyes also get watery and red. Logan hesitates about if he should hold Patton’s hand, his face noting he'd really wish to do so. Eventually he shies away and doesn’t.]

ROMAN: Just give him some time. It’s too much to assimilate in one go.

THOMAS: I have so many questions…

PATTON: [sniffs and swallows his tears, then trying to show the voice of a dad commanding something to his son] I know, Thomas. But for now, they’ll have to wait. If we want to stand a chance against the Dark Master, you need to sleep. We all need it, for the record.

THOMAS: That’s easier said than done, though. How am I going to catch sleep with all this turmoil of emotions and thoughts running through my mind? I don’t feel sleepy, just tired, really tired, but not sleepy.

PATTON: You’re exhausted, Thomas. You don’t feel sleepy because of your nervousness over all of this, but I’m sure if you try, it won’t take you long to fall asleep. And while you sleep, we will all fall into slumber, including the Dark Master, so that could at least delay his plans with Chris. And since Chris can resist slumber, it could give him a chance too, if he could ever break out of that ball, that is.

THOMAS: What are the Dark Master’s plans?

PATTON: No, Thomas. Not now. Now, sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything.

ROLAND: You can all use the guest bedroom in the castle. I always have it ready in anticipation for days like this when all of you would come over. The sheets were changed just this morning. And you, Thomas, can find some sleeping clothing in the closet that will suit you. After all we all have the same size in this world, right?

THOMAS: Thank you so much, Roland.

ROLAND: Don’t mention it.

ROMAN: Okay, time to bed, then. Tomorrow, we’ll call Deceit, Honesty and Remus and we’ll think about what to do.

ROLAND: Is it really necessary to call Remus, though? I’m quite unnerved by his presence. He tried to kill me, just in case you’ve forgotten, that’s why Ira came to live here with me, to be my protector against him. It just doesn’t feel right for me that you’re all so… attached to him right now. I don’t trust him.

ROMAN: I know what you mean and I understand your concern, but Remus is no longer the same as he used to be. I mean, he’s still pretty chaotic and all, but he’s harmless now, and he’s trying to fit in with us, in his own unique way. Besides, we need to be all together for greater chances of success.

ROLAND: [sighs] Okay, if there’s no choice, okay. But don’t ask me to behave nicely to him, because he wasn’t nice to me.

ROMAN: It’s fair, but you should try to give him a chance. Now, let’s go to bed. I’ll turn the day back into night so that we can sleep well, even though it’s almost morning at this point.

[they all stand up and follow Roland. Virgil, apparently unaware that the others are leaving the room, remains sitting down for a moment, still looking at nowhere, before Roman grabs him by the hand and asks him to follow them with the sweetest glance he could come up with. Virgil just follows them like an automaton to the huge guest bedroom which has eight beds. Thomas puts on the pajama he finds in the closet and gets into bed. The others just summon pajamas for themselves and get into the other beds. It only takes a matter of minutes for the exhausted Thomas to fall asleep. When that happens, the rest of the Sides fall asleep too. All of them except Virgil, who just keeps staring at the ceiling, still crying in silence, all night long]

[roseswatered-blog]

introducing  ~   𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐃𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐀 𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐒 !

hi everyone ! it's such a pleasure to be part of this group ! i haven't rped in a while and definitely haven't been in a mature rp in an even longer while, so i'm excited to see how things go ! clara is one of my oldest muses, and in this version she aged up about seventeen years and became a muggle, so i'm really excited to see how this version of her shapes up !

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ANYTHING THE BOLDED PASSAGES SHOULD GIVE YOU A GOOD IDEA OF WHO SHE IS

if she was a sim her traits would be romantic, outgoing and snob

she is the child of wealthy brazilian parents that immigrated to the us in the early seventies due to the military dictatorship. she is the third of four girls and the first to be born in us land

she was actually born in miami but her family moved to elmerton when she was a newborn baby

whilst her two older sisters were more business savvy and wanted to be involved in the family business ( originally it was wands but i never played with her in a non-hp rp ? so i don't really know what it is now akjakjl ), clara and her younger sister followed in the footsteps of her mother

which meant they like parties, fashion and all kinda all about appearances

and that's the way clara was for a really long time. she was extremely pretty and popular in high school which made it a easy as ride for her. she had all the boys wrapped around her little finger and all the girls doing anything to get into her good graces

she was never a cheerleader but she was class president. she's a surprisingly good mediator and an even better leader

after high school she graduated in marketing from florida state, but it was never something she was passionate about

clara moved back to elmerton soon after graduation because her mother was ill. she passed away years later, and her dad passed two days after

her parents truly loved each other and her biggest goal in life was to find someone to love her in the same way

clara's older sisters took hold of the family business, and clara became a marketing consultant from their miami office. it was mostly just a title. she didn't have any passion towards her job

so she started focusing on finding prince charming, which was also a huge disappointment. turning to one night stands and flings became her acceptance of failure

but then sofia was born and she basically found her purpose in life. her one true love wasn't a man, it was her baby girl

her blog ( name is a wip ) started out was a way for her to showcase just how well she was doing in life but it became a fantastic community for single mothers !

she's great at giving advice and is a really good listener despite how selfish she seems

𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 | 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄 | 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

[dramallamadingdang]

Reply time. :)

They’re for @simtzu, @ellupelluellu, @hollywood3015, @holleyberry, @taylors-simblr, and @skyburned.

Also, a blanket “thank you” to those who left comments about the music-post “Christmas card.” I’m glad that you enjoyed the piece. We had fun arranging/recording it. :)

simtzu replied to your photoset “Norbert & Susan Hawksley, Spring 2, Part 5/8 And then middle child...”

PLEASE let him keep the outfit

Oh, I pretty much always keep grow-up outfits, especially if it’s a full-body outfit like that one. If they grow up into mismatching, migraine-inducing separates, then, yeah, I’ll just keep one piece or the other and give them a top/bottom that better matches the piece I keep, but I keep the “theme” of whichever piece I keep. 

Really, I see grow-up outfits as something of an expression of a Sim’s personality. Like, if as a girl-child they wore a frilly pink outfit and then when they age up to teen they suddenly goth out or something, that tells me something about them. I mean, I know that it’s really just completely random, but for the purposes of adding to the Sim’s character, it tells me something. So, yeah, Emerson’s outfit tells me something about him, along with how he generally behaves. I never have any plans for my pixels so I take any cues from them that I can get.

ellupelluellu replied to your photoset “Norbert & Susan Hawksley, Spring 2, Part 5/8 And then middle child...”

hehe, cool , better than the ballet tutu I keep having when male kids grow up to teens :)

See, that would tell me something about them! ;) But no, as amusing as it might be, I wouldn’t want everyone running around in tutus so...Yeah, I’d probably change that. *laugh*

hollywood3015 replied to your photoset “Norbert & Susan Hawksley, Spring 2, Part 4/8 Norbert took Trevor and...”

That swimming hole looks lit.    

It’s a pretty cool lot. I didn’t really build it, though. It’s a lot I downloaded and then deleted pretty much everything but the swimmable “pond” part. I do know how to make those, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass to do it, so I just use that downloaded lot and “remodel” it as necessary for the neighborhood I plop it into.

But yeah, lots of drama and friend/enemy-making happen there, so it’s just fun to sit back and watch pixels play or fight or just do endless belly flops into the pond. :)

Annnnnnd regarding the Beatles, since apparently the Activity page won’t go this far back anymore???? Or is that just me? Well, anyway...                

@holleyberry I know, I know! See, I think Paul McCartney and John Lennon are/were wonderful, top-notch songwriters. But singers? Um...Not so much. Especially not when they’re singing together. Sometimes, they hurt my ears. I like George Harrison a lot, though! 

@taylors-simblr Yep, I am a heathen heretic in MANY ways! *laugh* Even so, I prefer your 2-year-old’s preference to my kids’ preference when they were toddlers/young children. They would only listen (and dance) to Britney Spears from around 2000. Oops! I Did it Again over and over and over and...although in my son’s case, ~6-year-old him singing and sashaying around to that song has made for excellent blackmail material nowadays, now that he’s a Big Bad Special Forces guy who probably kills people for a living, so I guess I shouldn’t complain...

@skyburned I think it’d be really fun to recreate the album cover. I even have vehicles that would work, like a classic VW bug and some other vintage-looking cars that ought to work. The hard part, I think, would actually be finding big-enough trees... Well, that and the perspective (though that might be fixable with photo-editing, if I can figure out how Photoshop’s perspective tools work) and relative sizes of things. (Like, Sim vehicles are way out-of-scale with the size of the roads.)  And, of course, making the Sims because I suck at doing that...but at least they’re not in close-up, so that would be easier to fudge... So yeah, maybe I’ll take a stab at it at some point, although I still have this nagging feeling that it’s already been done, that I’ve seen a recreation of it somewhere...

[the-magnus-archives-archiver]

Vampire Killer

Case: 0100710

Name: Trevor Herber Subject: His life as a self-proclaimed vampire hunter Date: July 10th, 2010 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

Right then. Been almost 50 years I’ve been meaning to pay you people a visit and get this down on paper, but I finally got here. So where to start? My name is Trevor Herbert, like I put at the top of your form there, and I’ve been homeless for most of my life. In fact if you lived in Manchester there’s a good chance you’d have heard of me. They call me “Trevor the Tramp”. I mean, I’m not exactly easy to miss am I, and I’ve been living there in public view for so long I guess I’ve become kind of an institution. Helps that I’ve always had a kind of uncanny knack for guessing people’s ages. People will come up to me on the street and ask me to guess their age, and I’ll tell them and most of the time they’ll be shocked when I get it right. It’s fun. So everyone around Manchester knows about Trevor the Tramp, sure. I hear someone even made me a page on the Internet and it got a few thousand likes. I don’t know exactly what that means but it sounds nice. Obviously that’s not why I’m here, though, is it? No, I’m here because I have also dedicated my life to finding and killing vampires.

I have killed five people that I know for sure as vampires, and there are two more that may or may not have been. There is one man I have killed, unfortunately, who I am now sure was human, but I also know he was a violent criminal so I try not to feel too badly about that. I’m sure it’s hard to accept for anyone, even an organisation such as yourselves, but I do not have proof to give you except for the vampire teeth that I will leave with this statement. Do not feel bad about reporting me to the police for the murders, as I am sure you must, since I have recently received a diagnosis of late-stage lung cancer and it is doubtful I will be living much longer anyway. That is the main reason for finally putting down on paper the details of the mission I have been secretly undertaking for the last half a century.

I killed my first vampire in 1959. At that point I was still living a mostly normal life, save perhaps for the abuse my family was subject to from my father. He was a vile man who ended up killing my mother in ’56. It was a clear-cut case of drunken murder but the courts ruled it as an accident and my father stayed out of jail. Luckily, myself and my brother only had to endure four months of unpleasantness from him before he finally finished drinking himself to death. I was thirteen when he finally died and my brother was fifteen. Following his death, there were several attempts to rehome us as orphans but they always split us up, and we couldn’t be doing with that, so we’d generally run away. After a while it became so we were happier finding our way on the streets than in another stranger’s home.

It was in autumn of 1959 that we were taken in by Sylvia McDonald. It wasn’t any sort of official fostering agreement, but it was getting to be quite cold at the end of October and it just saw us shivering in a side street next to the Kings Arms Hotel, as it was back then, on Tipping Street before the ring road took it over. Looking back I believe it to have been visiting the pub for the purposes of locating down and outs for use as victims and in my brother and myself, I must say, it successfully found some. It looked like an older woman, a widow I assumed, from the way it dressed in black and had a strange manner, which I now know to be the mark of the vampire, but back then I paid no attention to it. Many of the older folks had lived through both wars and it was not uncommon for them to be somewhat strange. I thought this was the case with Sylvia McDonald and after a small amount of discussion my brother and I agreed to the offer of food and shelter.

Let me say a little bit about the vampire’s manner, because once I taught myself to read I read as much on the subject as I could and it isn’t covered often or clearly in those books I have found. You see, from my own observations I believe a vampire to be more like an animal than a man. That is not to be taken as merely a turn of phrase but more to do with how they work. I do not believe vampires are human in anything more than their appearance, nor have I ever seen evidence that they create more of their kind through feeding. One thing that should be noted is that they do not speak. In fact they are in my experience totally silent, having no need for air and no room in their throats for a windpipe. They are able to make themselves understood, however, with absolute clarity, though the manner through which they do so has never been clear to me. When Sylvia McDonald came to us in the alleyway that day, we understood that was the name it gave itself and that we were being offered a meal and a bed, even though it never uttered a single sound. More than that, I do not recall the fact that it never said a word as striking either of us as strange in the slightest. I have never fully understood how they are able to do this, and I doubt that I ever shall, but I can only assume it to be some instinctive form of hypnosis or mind control.

Another misconception I have always faced when trying to discuss vampires is that people think they cannot go out during the day. They can. While I have witnessed them avoid direct sunlight if possible and wear generally more covering clothes when moving around during the daytime, they seem to have no significant problem doing so. I would describe them as weaker during the day, but whether this is scientifically due to the sunlight or simply because evil has less power in the daylight hours is unclear to me. Sylvia McDonald came to us on an overcast afternoon and enough of its pale flesh was uncovered that, were sunlight to truly harm a vampire, then it would likely have been destroyed.

On that afternoon my brother Nigel and I agreed to go back to the house of Sylvia McDonald in the hopes of a roof over our heads for a little while. She lived on Loom Street, which is still there, though the house itself was torn down long ago and there’s just a bit of scrubland now where it used to be. I sometimes go there to pay my respects, since my brother has no burial or grave I can visit. The house was old, even when I went there in 1959, and entering it I was hit by a stale, coppery smell that I did not recognise as old blood at the time, since I was barely 16 and did not have then the experience I have now. The furniture and wallpaper had clearly not been changed in many decades and a thick layer of dust covered everything. Even the floor was pale with dust except for a stark line where Sylvia McDonald moved, the train of its dress dragging behind it. I remember wondering whether Sylvia McDonald walked exactly the same route through the house always, as I saw other clear lines of passage in the rooms we passed through. None of the furniture looked used and when I picked up a book from one of the shelves the pages were solid with damp and mould. I began to feel very uneasy at this point, but whatever powers of persuasion the vampire had calmed me enough to continue following it with my brother.

We went up the stairs and I was led to a small room with a bed in it. I was made to understand that this would be my room and was left there as Sylvia McDonald led my brother away to the room next to it. When it returned it brought a bowl of fruit and offered it to me. The fruit was clearly a few weeks old and in various stages of rotting, but just to appease the thing I found an apple and a couple of grapes that seemed edible and I ate them. It watched me silently the whole time and then turned and walked out towards Nigel’s room. By this time whatever the creature had done to make me compliant seemed to be starting to wear off, and I was realising just how wrong everything was. I was also realising that it didn’t look like there was any easy escape from the house. All the windows I had seen were barred, and I recalled Sylvia McDonald had locked the sturdy-looking front door behind it after we had all entered. So instead I just laid down in the old musty bed and I waited.

Couldn’t rightly say what I was waiting for, but soon enough it got dark and I assumed Sylvia McDonald had gone to sleep, not yet realising the manner of being that I was dealing with. I wanted some light to comfort me but the old house seemed to have no electricity at all, so I used my cigarette lighter on a candle I found next to the bed and crept towards the door. It wasn’t locked, thankfully, and I left the room assigned to me and walked over to where I believed my brother was. I went in and found him lying in his own bed, pretending to sleep. After a bit of talk it became clear that Nigel was no happier with our situation than I was and we both resolved that another night on the cold streets was better than staying with this strange woman. As we talked through possible ways to escape, however, we heard a rustling sound outside the door, and the handle began to turn. Not wanting to anger our strange host, I crawled under the bed to hide, while Nigel returned to pretending to sleep.

From my vantage point under the bed, I could see the door open and the skirt of Sylvia McDonald enter and move towards the bed. I simply laid there and tried not to make a sound. I am not proud of this and sometimes have a certainty that my inaction led directly to my brother’s death, but most of the time I accept that if I had alerted the vampire to my presence then I would also have died. Either way, the fact of the matter is that I did nothing as I heard the sounds of a struggle overhead and Nigel’s strangled cry. The creature turned quickly and hurled him down, something fell to the floor in front of me, but I didn’t look at it, my eyes locked on Sylvia McDonald as it pounced upon my brother. It opened its mouth for what I then realised was the first time since we met it, and I could see nothing inside save for a dozen long, thick, pointed teeth like a shark. In one fluid movement it plunged those teeth into my brother’s neck and tore out a great chunk of flesh. Blood started to spurt from Nigel’s spasming body, as Sylvia McDonald’s throat began to twitch. Its jaw detached and a long tubular tongue about the thickness of my forearm snaked out of its throat and clamped onto the gushing wound. There was an awful slurping sound, the first noise I’d ever really heard the creature make, as the tongue sucked the blood from my brother’s throat. I just lay there watching as its stomach began to distend and swell, the now bulbous belly straining against the black dress it wore. After the longest ten minutes of my life, the vampire finished. Its tongue retracted back into its throat, still dripping blood onto the now-pale corpse of my brother, and it lay back upon the floor, apparently contented.

As this had been happening all my energy had gone towards not screaming or giving away my presence. But as the vampire lay satiated on the floor, I turned my attention to what had fallen from Nigel’s hand when he had been dragged out of the bed. It was his pocket knife. I had no idea what a small knife like that would do against a creature that seemed far stronger and faster than me, but I didn’t see any option other than to try. I moved so slowly as I reached for the knife that at times it seemed like I wasn’t moving at all. I was worried that the creature would spot me and strike as it had with Nigel, although I now know that smell is in fact the vampire’s major sense and, with all the blood around, there was little chance of it detecting my scent. Grasping the knife in my hands, I crept over towards the creature as it placidly digested my brother’s life, until I stood over it. I felt a sudden surge of rage and adrenaline come over me and with a speed and strength I never knew I had, I plunged the knife into Sylvia McDonald’s blood-bloated stomach.

It burst like a sick balloon, and blood began to pour out. The creature’s eyes shot open and it clutched at the wound desperately. Its throat was not capable of uttering a scream but its face displayed a silent pain and anger as it flailed on the floor. Stumbling back, trying to wipe the blood from my eyes, I felt an unexpected burning in my hand. I realised I’d touched the still-lit candle on the bedside table. I don’t know what I expected to happen when I grabbed the candle and pressed it to the dry part of Sylvia McDonald’s dress. I was just trying to find anything else I could do to harm it before it could recover from its split belly, but I certainly didn’t expect it to catch like dry tinder. The fire spread quickly over its repulsive form, though it did slow somewhat where the clothing or flesh was still moist with blood. It struck me that the vampire must be a very dry creature when not fresh-fed and engorged. Perhaps I had struck before the liquid could spread throughout its body.

Whatever the reason, Sylvia McDonald was alight, and to such a degree that the rest of the room was starting to catch fire as well. I was distraught at the idea of leaving this house without my brother, but he was clearly dead and I needed to escape. I recalled the vampire had been carrying a handbag when we first met it, and had used a key from it to lock the front door. It did not have the handbag with it now, though, so I began to desperately search the other rooms of the house, trying to find it. I did find it in the end, in what I assume to be the vampire’s bedroom. I’ll not describe it in detail, except to say that it appears to be where the creature took most of its meals. Hopefully that makes the picture clear enough for you. I found the key, though, and escaped that house before the fire did me any serious damage. I was terrified of the police coming and thinking I was a murderer, so I didn’t stick around. I just fled into the night.

It was almost a decade before I encountered another vampire. I’d been living on the streets all that time, occasionally in and out of various institutions, and had just about managed to convince myself that Sylvia McDonald had just been a bad reaction to the stress of watching my brother’s murder. It was in the late 60s that I learned different. It was 1968, I remember because that was the year United won the European Cup, and I did quite well out of it – people being generous to begging when they’re happy over a sports win. On a Friday night I would generally spend my time around the Oasis Club in Lloyd Street and hit up for change anyone who was slightly the worse for drink. Well, this night in particular I was doing quite well, as it was a warm June evening not too long after the Cup Final, and everyone was in a good mood.

Now about half eleven that night I spied a stranger all turned out for dancing, making his way from the club with a lady friend. I reckoned they might be good for a tanner, so made my approach. I gave them the spiel and waited. The man looked at me and I understood he wouldn’t be giving me any money, and I stepped away. It was as he turned to leave I realised that he hadn’t opened his mouth, and memories of Sylvia McDonald came rushing back to me in a flash. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I followed behind them at a distance. I didn’t try to hide or disguise myself, as I had long since learned, and it’s true now as it was back then, that no-one pays any real attention to a tramp. As I watched, I saw the clearly drunken woman asking this stranger questions and each time he’d just look at her and she’d smile as though he’d given some reassuring answer and stumble on behind him. All the while he never once opened his mouth.

I didn’t rightly know what to do about this. I had no weapon save my brother’s old pocket knife which I had kept sharp all these years, and while I was pretty sure of what I was seeing, I was still hesitant to attack with no provocation and no plan. As we walked, I kept an eye out for any discarded wood or timber and, sure enough, noticed a broken wooden palette partially sticking out of a bin. I grabbed a long shard and used my knife to quickly hack it to a point, ignoring the splinters. While I had not, at that time, done much research into the creatures I faced, believing as I did my experience as a youth to be the product of a disturbed mental state, I was still aware of their supposed weakness to wooden stakes. I had now followed the vampire, who I would later find out called itself Robert Arden, and its victim back to the building where it apparently lived. It let itself in the front door and the woman followed. I wasn’t fast enough to get in before the front door closed and obviously didn’t have a key, so I went round the windows and, luckily, it seemed the vampire lived on the ground floor.

I watched through the window as it led its victim into a sparsely furnished living room. I couldn’t see any obvious signs of previous slaughter, but I remembered how cleanly Sylvia McDonald had sucked up all the blood from my brother, so this did not strike me as odd. I gently tried the window and found it locked, so searched the garden for the heaviest stone I could find and watched what was happening inside. I had to be sure. Soon enough Robert Arden moved smoothly behind its now-seated prey, and finally opened its mouth to reveal those rows of shark-like teeth I knew would be there. I hurled the rock I held through the window, showering the room with broken glass and causing the woman to scream in shock. Robert Arden raised its head in surprise and for one moment our eyes locked and I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The woman looked at her monstrous companion and, seeing his now open mouth, screamed her terror even louder. In a single movement, far quicker than I expected, Robert Arden was through the window and on me. I struggled and fought, but it was far stronger than I was, and I could barely keep its jagged teeth from finding my throat. It was the first and last time I ever touched a vampire’s skin with my own. The flesh was cold and spongy, like the inside of a bruised apple, and I felt bile rise in my throat even as I fought for my life.

Finally, its teeth bit into my neck. Not enough to kill me outright but with enough force to cause the blood to flow. At that moment I saw a sort of frenzy enter the eyes of Robert Arden and with a spasm its leech’s tongue surged from its throat and I felt it attach to my neck. I do not know if you’ve ever felt your blood being sucked out of you, but I would not recommend it.

Now it is at this point I have something of an admission to make. For the three years preceding this event, as well as on and off through the years since, I have had a relationship with the drug heroin. I tried it for the first time shortly after Nigel’s death and since then I have periodically relapsed. I have always tried to keep this a secret, as I am aware that I have a certain reputation to uphold and I would not want it to be damaged with the revealing of my addiction. But it is important to this account, as I believe it was whatever heroin still remained in my system that night that caused the vampire Robert Arden to remove its tongue from my neck and start to shake, as though having a violent choking fit.

I lay there, trying to compose myself enough to fight back, when I became aware of the screaming. The woman, who had been brought in as a victim, was standing over the flailing Robert Arden, stabbing it repeatedly with a kitchen knife. Strong and quick as it was, the vampire didn’t seem to be able to cope with the sudden onslaught of violence and was on the ground. This gave me the precious seconds I needed to get to my feet and locate my improvised wooden stake. I took aim and plunged it into where I believed the thing’s heart should be. It was easier than I thought it would be – the chest was soft and yielding and there didn’t seem to be any ribcage to stop the blow. Robert Arden went rigid and froze, apparently unable to move its body, though I saw its eyes darting around wildly.

It was at that point the woman whose name I never discovered, dropped the knife and ran. I never saw her again, but she had already saved my life. I took out my cigarette lighter and set Robert Arden alight. Like Sylvia McDonald before it, it caught fire in a matter of seconds and, by the time the police arrived, there was nothing left but a small patch of scorched tarmac. I was lucky that night, and nobody saw anything or called the police before I was finished and had made my way from the scene but I was always more careful after that.

Following that night, though, I was never again worried that I might have been wrong about the existence of vampires. I always kept my eyes open for them, although sometimes I was too eager, as was the case of Alard Dupont who I killed in 1982 and later discovered was a human. It is my belief that they are very rare and feed only infrequently, as all evidence I have seen points to their feeding being fatal. If there were many vampires or if they ate often, the number of disappearances would quickly become noticeable to the rest of society. I do not know what they do with the bodies of their victims and this has always perplexed me, as they do not have any mechanism for eating solid food and I do not believe there are many, if any, cases of murder where the body is found completely without blood. I certainly do not think they rise as vampires themselves, as the vampire population seems far too small for this to be a possibility.

Archivist Notes: 

According to Martin, who was here when they took this statement, it was at this point in writing that Mr. Herbert announced he needed some sleep before continuing. He was shown to the break room where he went to sleep on the couch. He did not awaken; unfortunately succumbing to the lung cancer right there. Martin says the staff had been aware of how serious Mr. Herbert’s condition was and had advised him to seek medical aid prior to giving his statement, but were told rather bluntly by the old man that he would not wait another second to state his case. I can’t decide whether this lends more or less credibility to his tale.

Regardless, there is substantial evidence to support the version of events told by Mr. Herbert in all aspects except the vampirism. There is a news report of a 1959 fire that consumed a house on Loom Street and apparently claimed the life of an 18-year-old boy, although no mention is made of the homeowner, and a police report from 1968 confirms the disappearance of Robert Arden in Manchester amid circumstances of violence, including a broken window and signs of a fire, though no human remains were found. There is also a murder report concerning one Alard Dupont, whose partially burned corpse was found in his home on August 2nd 1982. Unfortunately Mr. Herbert was never able to give details of others, so we cannot corroborate further.

There was, however, a small bag left on top of this statement, which appears to contain six shark teeth of varying sizes. According to correspondence with the Zoology Department at King’s College, they didn’t match any currently known species.

Personally, I don’t know what to think. I certainly don’t believe in wild tales of vampirism, but I can’t help but notice that the statement above appears to be a photocopy of a photocopy, and can’t find these supposed vampire teeth anywhere in the Archives or the Secure Containment Room. I don’t know where the originals are but the file number is listed among multiple information requests from the Institute’s government and law enforcement contracts. It may be that they take Mr. Herbert’s statement far more seriously than I do.

Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 10 Vampire Hunter)

[madelineelleramst3570-blog]

Curatorial Statement

Although it is often thought that videogames are a shallow form of entertainment, I chose these pieces to prove otherwise. Each of these videogames is a piece of art expressing a philosophical lesson or question. I was especially focused on how the player relates to these videogames. For my gallery I selected Passage by Jason Rohrer, To The Moon by Kan Gao, Undertale by Toby Fox, Creatures Such As We by Lynnea Glasser and The Beginner’s Guide by Davey Wreden.

It is true that some games have no substantial message, but if one does, is it then considered to be a piece of art? I found differing opinions on the subject in Games Can Never Be Art by Roger Ebert and Perspectives on Videogames as Art by Jeroen Bourgonjon, Geert Vandermeersche and Kris Rutten. Roger Ebert argues, as the title indicates, that games can never be art. In Ebert’s piece there is a quotation which is applied to videogames, "Art is the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions” (Ebert). Ebert finds issues with this definition, as well as others, finding there to be exception almost everything. In the end he does correct himself though, saying, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets" (Ebert). But I have to disagree with him. As he writes, based on conversations with an advocate for games as art, it is possible that art should be judged within their own time period, to truly be able to distinguish what was genius and what was not, during the time. But I would counter that many artists only became critically acclaimed after they passed. In this case, when does the art become real art? Simply when enough people like it? No, I believe that anything which is intended to carry a message to the viewer or player is a form of art, regardless of how many people like it.

In their paper, Jeroen Bourgonjon, Geert Vandermeersche and Kris Rutten enforce this belief, but also reveal an important aspect of the current gaming world. Recently game developers have become more aware of the familiar tropes that videogames have always followed: shooters, racers, fliers and builders. They believed that videogames were not really art when they took these forms. The games lacked depth and were only for entertainment purposes, not to make the player think (Bourgonjon, et al.). But now, with this awareness, developers have begun to branch out into different genres. Many of these developers are, in fact, indie. Perhaps this can be explained by a lack of corporate or social influence on these companies.

But how do game developers relate to the people who play their games? And how do players relate to the games that developers make? Shall we play a game?: The performative interactivity of video games has some of the answers, but really, these questions are still being figured out. The author, Micheal J. Beck, emphasizes the players place in the relationship. He explains that people in videogames will closely associate the avatar with themselves. They can do this even to the extent that is a level of cognitive dissonance in cases where the player needs to act unlike themselves within a game (Beck). However, he explains that this may be more likely in games where the player makes choices in order to arrive at a certain ending. They have greater control over their avatar, increasing the connection to their character and to the game (Beck).

This brings us to our first game, The Beginner’s Guide.  The Beginner’s Guide was created by Davey Wreden. The entire game is a narration by Wreden of his relationship with another developer named Coda. Through a series of puzzles the player discovers that the narrator may not be trustworthy. The two developers co-developed a game and Wreden began to show it off without Coda’s permission. This causes Coda to separate himself from the relationship. Wreden begins to pick apart all of Coda’s work, looking for clues on his friend’s mental state. Based on what you/he finds, he determines that Coda is actually depressed and unhappy with his own work. Coda believes that Wreden’s act of projecting his own beliefs onto the games takes away from them. It appears to violate the line between game developer, game and player. Perhaps intended, Wreden creates the same effect in his own game. He provokes players to project their own thoughts onto the game. Patrick Klepeck makes some great points in his paper The Controversy Over A Video Game's Suggestion Of A Crime, where he evaluates The Beginner’s Guide. Today, because Wreden has chosen to be silent on the matter, people are still developing theories about whether or not this was a work of fiction or nonfiction. They also debate whether this means that the work Wreden shared was actually technically stolen by being distributed without the consent of Coda. This game addresses deep philosophical questions about what artists consent to when they have produced something (Klepeck). Should their intentions be taken into account? Can the player project, like Wreden, their own assumptions onto the games’ maker? Should they? How much of themselves should developers place in their games? Wreden is clearly trying to provoke these questions, by using his own name to insinuate himself into his game. It appears that the game creates the same effect that Beck was speaking about, referenced earlier, a feeling of cognitive dissonance. Beck writes that that, “The Beginner’s Guide disturbed me. It felt invasive—predatory, even. The mere possibility that Wreden had repurposed Coda’s work for his own, selfish purposes was uncomfortable to consider” (Beck).

The next game I found is Creatures Such As We, made by Lynnea Glasser. It is a game that follows the same structure of Depressions Quest, allowing the player to have control over the main characters choices. In this game the main character is a tour guide on the moon. In her off time this character plays videogames but ends up being upset by the game’s unsatisfactory ending. Luckily, her next tour group consists of the people who made that very game. The game begins to take on a dating-sim feeling, as the character decides whether to romance certain characters in the tour group or to stay strictly professional. The really fascinating part of the game, though, is the commentary on the relationship between the game and the player. The game addresses whether or not developers actually owe positive endings to players. Players often go into a game thinking that by the end, their character will have reached a satisfactory outcome. When this doesn’t happen, the player feels betrayed by the developer, often deciding that they do not like the game and it is bad. Game developers often walk a fine line between pleasing players and satisfying their own intentions. The great thing about these new, small indie games is that they do not necessarily need to cater to players desires. They are allowing a new front in games that is working to combine entertainment with important messages.

The third game I found was To The Moon, a videogame created by Kan Gao of Freebird Games. The game is based in the future, where people have figured out how to manipulate memories. In this case, they are manipulating them to give dying people their last wishes. Two scientists go to perform this job on a man named Johnny, who is on his death bed. Johnny has false memories, creating the need for the two scientists, controlled by the player, to look around for clues outside and inside Johnny’s head. All they know is that his last wish is to go to the moon. It is found that Johnny had a wife, and that she had a sort of low-functioning form of Asperger’s. Because she could not directly tell Johnny, she kept leaving hints about something Johnny had forgotten from when they were kids. He doesn’t understand her, and he falls ill while feeling this guilt. In the end of the game it is revealed that he couldn’t keep the promise because of a tragic loss and a consequent issue that causes him to lose some memory (Gao). This game is incredibly emotional and sentimental, with very beautiful imagery and narration. It is meant to provoke strong feelings in the player and make them think about their own lives. It touches on topics like guilt, loss and death. I think, most of all, that this game is a message to the player, telling them to resolve problems with the people important to them in life. Life is fleeting and unfortunately, in this age, we don’t have the technology to grant last wishes.

The fourth game I looked at is Undertale. This game was developed almost solely by Toby Fox, including most of the score and art. In this game the player plays as a young child who has fallen down a hole and into the world of the Underground. In the Underground the character is taken in by a motherly goat-like monster but decide the player decides that they need to get back to the human world. To get there, the player needs to go through the entire underground but they have choices to make. When players encounter monsters, they can choose to either use mercy on the monsters or fight them in order to defeat and progress. This, and other interactions with NPC’s, will determine the ending that the player receives. If the player chooses to never harm a monster, then there is a great ending where the player and all of the monsters, who also want to be free, escape to the human world. Along the way the player encounters funny characters, pun-filled dialogue and the mystery behind the main antagonist, an odd little flower named Flowey. This game is interesting because it really gives players the opportunity to depart from the typical trope of violence common in videogames. It gives players the option, if they really want to use violence, to do so, but gives another option that I think is just as entertaining. I think this game is a clear comment on the amount of violence in the gaming industry and in society. Toby Fox used the structure of a dungeon crawler, where fighting is the expected action, intentionally. Undertale is actually advertised as, “an rpg where you don’t have to destroy anyone” on its official website (Fox). What Undertale lacks in combat (if you do the pacifist route) it makes up for in humor, heart and story.

The last game I explored is Passage. It was developed by Jason Rohrer, a Cornell graduate who began to ponder life and death when a childhood friend passed away. In the beginning of the game you start at the far left of the screen, only able to move right. The game is purposely designed to be narrow, to create the idea of this timeline. As time progresses and you keep going to the right and the center shifts to the right. You begin creeping towards the other side of the screen. As you do your character becomes older, until he eventually passes away and becomes a tombstone. While you progress through the beginning of life to the end you can make several decisions that will affect game play. You have the opportunity to have a wife, however, taking a wife limits what you are able to do. There is treasure that cannot be reached if you choose to have a wife. I think this is addressing how having a life partner can limit options in life but can also make your life happier. Although you now cannot reach as much treasure, the creator himself says that having companion is more enjoyable (Rohrer). Throughout the game, either way, your goal is to collect treasure and walk around obstacles. Having a wife reduces the treasure you can get but when you die, your wife is buried with you. I also found this game to address materialism. Although you can gather treasure with or without a partner, no matter how much you get your avatar will die in the end. Perhaps it is a somewhat melancholy message, but I look at it as advice to live life to the fullest without obsessing over material things.

In conclusion, these games all have substantial messages that the game developers have intended to impart to the player. Or at least, that is what I would like to conclude. However, I think it is interesting to ponder the philosophical questions brought up by Davey Wreden regarding videogames. Although I know for a fact that Passage and Undertale were created for the reasons I stated, it is difficult to say whether or not I have projected my own world views onto the remaining games. It could be that I, as the player, am merely seeing what I want to see. It is an interesting question, but either way, each of these games stands apart from the standard games that exist today. These games are often not as popular as the mainstream first person shooters but have substantial messages that players can interpret in their own ways. After all, this is the definition of art. Who is to say what Leonardo Da Vinci intended people to think when they viewed the Mona Lisa and who is to say what a game developer has intended someone to view in their game? I think one of the most interesting lines I found in curating this gallery was on Jason Rohrer’s site. Before giving an account of his game he wrote right at the top, “Your interpretation of the game is more important than my intentions. Please play the game before you read this” (Rohrer). 

Bibliography

Beck, M. J. (2014). Shall we play a game?: The performative interactivity of video games (Order No. 1601221). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1719513722). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/docview/1719513722?accountid=14518.

Bourgonjon, Jeroen, et al. "Perspectives on Video Games as Art." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 19, no. 4, 2017. Literature Resource Center, http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA529046139&v=2.1&u=22516&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w#. Accessed 7 Dec. 2018.

Ebert, Roger. "Video Games Can Never Be Art." Roger Ebert's Journal (2010): https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/video-games-can-never-be-art. (This source was used in an academic journal and is peer-reviewed).

Fox, Toby. Undertale. Undertale, 2015. PC, https://undertale.com/about/.

Gao, Kan. To The Moon. Steam, 2011. PC, http://freebirdgames.com/to_the_moon/.

Glasser, Lynnea. Creatures Such as We. Choice of Games, 2014. PC, https://www.choiceofgames.com/creatures-such-as-we/.

Klepek, Patrick. The Controversy Over A Video Game's Suggestion Of A Crime. Kotaku, 2015, https://kotaku.com/the-controversy-over-a-video-games-suggestion-of-a-crim-1749448664.

Rohrer, Jason. Passage. Sourceforge, 2007. PC, http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/.

Rohrer, Jason. What I Was Trying To Do With Passage. Sourceforge, 2007, http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/statement.html.

Wreden, Davey. The Beginner’s Guide. Steam, 2015. PC, https://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/The_Beginners_Guide/.

[jacks-future-hearrts]

Morning, 24 February 2022

I'm so tired. I woke up really tired.

I worked until 1 am yesterday because I have a user testing meeting today. The functionals were keeping me awake for bugs in my code as they tested it. My part, the one that I fixed, wasn't done anyway because it's still broken. But then one of the functional managers just said "It's okay, let's just fix it after the meeting, It's only the notification part right?"

Then, because I worked from 9 am to 1 am. I didn't have a lot of free and relaxing time. I exchanged it with my sleep. I played genshin up until 2 am then read some fanfictions. Then I fell asleep. I don't remember much about the dream but it was kind of comforting? It's such a shame that I have to wake up and work again.

It's all there is for my life, isn't it? Just work and work but no purposes as to why am I doing this. Money, sure but sometimes in my stupid brain I always think why do I even think about chasing money if I don't want anything to begin with? It's not like I'm ungrateful for the paycheck and the savings that I have it's more like why do I have to chase for it if I'm not even going to be using it that much, you know?

I think in the future all of my life savings will be gone because I'm going to be very, very sick with the kind of lifestyle I'm going through day by day now. I do need to fix it but then same question, to what end? I sometimes think, not in that suicidal way, but like at this point in age I still can't live for my own sake. I always live for someone else's and at this point, it's for my mom. I keep thinking that if she's gone one day, then I have no reason to stay as well.

There's just nothing? I do love my life now but I don't see why I have to keep on living? To what end? Maybe it's just me still pms-ing and the quarter life crisis. I hope it'll pass because if I keep thinking like this then I'd feel so guilty and just feel like I'm being ungrateful for everything God has given me. I have a little hope that one day in the future I'll find something or a reason to stay. I'll just keep holding on to that tiny little spark, I guess.

Speaking of future, I've always had a dream about waking up next to someone that I loved in a house far away from everyone. In that lazy morning where the both of us could just lay there in bed. Maybe this is one of the reasons that I'll keep on holding to that tiny spark, to experience it firsthand. Maybe I'm also a romantic at heart who hides behind this tall, sturdy exterior.

I'm pretty decent at expressing my emotions but love? Not so much. Asian family tendency, we never say I love you to each other in this family. We act on it but sometimes words are needed to, you know.

Ugh, as I said before. I have UAT meeting today. I'm so lazy, I just want to curl up and play the sims all day. It's so tiring :( Oh, also! last night, my project manager was in the call as well. His profile picture reminds me of that ex/friend of mine so I took a snap and send it to the group chat.

He did respond and laughed at it and I also responded out of politeness. My other friend also responded and they teased each other saying that this project manager is more handsome than my ex/friend. Then he answered screw you, my girlfriend's family said that I'm handsome and that's all I need.

It's so weird that he keeps twisting everything and has to mention his girlfriend at every single occasion. Maybe because they're in the lovey-dovey phase? Maybe I'm just petty or something because after that I don't reply anything to the group chat. I don't know if in the future, when I have someone, will everything I talk about is my significant other?

And to be honest, one thing that irks me is the fact that the other friend in that group, or in our circle keep teasing him about his girlfriend as if I'm not there. No one cares enough about how I feel. It does kind of invalidate whatever feelings I have. I might also be sincerely happy for him for finding someone new if the others are not being jerks for mentioning / teasing about it in front of me. But then again, I shouldn't act childish and throw a tantrum when people don't understand how I feel. They don't owe you that much.

[lunaschild2016]

Stand Alone: Chapter 8

A little something I cooked up while editing and working on Worth Fighting For; which I will be posting a chapter for in the next couple of days! In the meantime hope you enjoy this story. Will be a short but hopefully good one.

Rating T/M ( Language, Violence, There will be smut, Angst, Tragedy, Romance, Fluff)

@kenzieam @pathybo @jaihardy @ericdauntless@beautifulramblingbrains @bookgirlthings @jojuarez26@oddsnendsfanfics @offroadinjandals @singingpeople@iammarylastar @irasancti @captstefanbrandt @clublulu333@fuckthatfeeling @tigpooh67 @ex-bookjunky @jughead-wuz-here@badassbaker @beanzjellly @beltz2016 @meganbee15@affabletimelady @scorpio2009 @gylisaa @geekybeyondallreason @violetsonthelam

[Choosing age is 16. OC transferred year after Eric. Tris and Co. came in the next year. This begins a year after Tris comes to Dauntless. Tori Wu is younger than the books but six years older than OC]

Inspired by the song; Stand Alone by Generdyn ft. Zayde Wolfe

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Thank you guys so much for all the love the story is getting. It has made my week!

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Chapter 8

It took a week for Elle to be able to move around without a good amount of pain but both her and Eric knew that it needed to be done to be able to heal. Neither would admit they had come to enjoy the times he had to carry her to the living room or restroom.

Another thing they didn’t talk about at the time was the first time Eric suggested a bath for her instead of the method he had been using, of a bowl of warm soapy water and a sponge. It had been the first day after she had been able to stay awake for a good amount of time.

After they had woken and he had made her a small breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, he had asked if she wanted to try and be setup on the couch so he could change the bedding. This led to her realizing how awful she must look much less smell.

Eric hadn’t even given her the option of arguing after he had realized her thoughts. He had went about running her water and getting things ready while she was on the couch and eating.

She had thought he was just changing out the bedding and washing the dirty ones to be hung for drying outside. It was with a surprised yelp she was lifted into his arms and then noticed the bathtub ready.

There was a small argument between them but the bath really looked appealing and she realized that Eric had seen everything she had already during the time he was tending to her.

The fight went out of her and at first it was awkward. Until Eric started talking to her in an effort to distract her while he helped bathed her. He told her about his childhood and his family. How their father had been taken for questioning by the Erudite internal security. It wasn’t until two weeks later when that same security came for the rest of them to be tested that they realized he was Divergent and not coming back. Eric never found out what happened to him but it was alluded to. He had been tested on and executed.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to Elle when Eric revealed he too was Divergent. He had always shown to her moments of what could only Erudite aptitude. Even more than Will had occasionally even a year after his transfer.

It made sense for who she had discovered he is and became, that he would come up with the plan to protect his family. That he placed more importance on their and other people's lives then his own. His Dauntless instinct was to protect and that was something he embraced. But working as he was, trying to act like he was fully under Jeanine’s thumb, was difficult. It created paranoia in him on just who he could trust. He saw for himself how corrupt multiple factions proved to be.

Then came the first opportunity he had to do some good and for someone he had known of in his own faction. When the name Wu had been heard and what was discovered or suspected he had went to the only source he could think of.

Another set of names had been uttered by Jeanine often. Unconfirmed suspicions and dislike was enough to send young Eric their way. He didn’t dare approach Andrew. It seemed too obvious but one day he arranged to be near the volunteer center. It could have gone wrong but he made a show of purposely running into and knocking down Natalie Prior. In the scuffle when he untangled himself from her, he passed a note.

It was all he knew to do at the time but it had been enough. A few days later, Natalie confronted Eric as he made his way home from school. She didn’t ask many questions other than his name and about himself. Before she left she told him that if he ever needed help with something that herself or Johanna Reyes would try and assist him.

With those two contacts only Eric had been able to give advance warning to at least a dozen people that were targeted.

After her bath, along with him washing her hair for her, he had helped her get dressed and back out on the couch.

He moved around doing chores and cooking while she dozed from the medication and bath. She also took that time to process all he had opened up about and decided that she would as well. Tori was gone and the guilt from everything that had happened before her death was eating at her.

Her chance to talk came the next day when the subject of Brendan came up. Eric wanted to go see him, was even told by Johanna that when he thought Elle could stand to be alone for a few hours, it would be safe enough to see him.

“I will be fine for a few hours, Eric. You need to go check on him. I want and need you too as well, to know he is ok after all of that.” Elle was pleading with him as they sat together on the couch, her legs were in his lap so she could still be laid down slightly.

Eric thought for a few moments before answering. He really was anxious to see his nephew but he wasn’t sure leaving Elle was ok so soon after she just woke.

“I’ll make you a deal. If by tomorrow I am sure you can at least make it to the bathroom and back to the bed by yourself without too much discomfort then I will go. But you will stay in the bed otherwise and I will be going after breakfast but back before lunch.”

With a nod and a small smile Elle agreed. “Thank you. It’s just...after everything…”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Eric asked understandably.

Elle nodded but looked away and took steadying breaths before she began.

“We didn’t know each other in Erudite but I know you knew my brother and sister. George and Tori.” Seeing the question in his eyes she answered. “Why didn’t anyone know about me and why do I have a different name?”

Eric nodded in reply.

“I am their half-sister. My very young mother had an affair with their father. We didn’t know about each other until I was just two years old and George and Tori overheard their mother and him arguing; where I was mentioned. After that the two of them sought me out. My mother agreed that they could see me and spend time with me but that it had to be kept quiet. Their mother was really angry and jealous so would have and did cause problems for my mother as much as she could. We grew really close and they never treated me as anything other than their sister. George taught me to cook actually and Tori loved to work with me and drawing. When they transferred, I was devastated even though I knew they belonged there. Tori went the year before George so that entire year we talked about when I would transfer. I can be honest and say that if they hadn’t transferred I would have been happy to stay in Erudite.”

“But you never showed divergent tendencies.” Eric said as he thought back to her arriving in Dauntless. He had watched her sims closely and refused to let anyone else do them. He had honestly thought at first she would be divergent.

“Because I’m not. When it was discovered about George, shortly after his death, I was taken to be tested. I was so angry and scared. I had just seen George on visiting day. I met his boyfriend and saw how happy he was to finally be able to be himself fully. Something you know was never allowed or condoned in Erudite. He was happy and still making plans with me for my transfer. There was just no way he committed suicide! I think maybe before that happened and before the year spent with George in preparation for his transfer, I would have tested Erudite. But I think that time changed the way I thought and felt. So when I was tested I came out Dauntless. I was still watched closely though.”

“I never thought of it like that, or that would be possible. To change aptitude like that.”

Elle shrugged. “We could sit here and debate all day long what little good those aptitude tests really are and never get any closer than years of arguments and research. Regardless it was clear I was going to go to Dauntless. That first year after his death, Tori shut me out. She was angry and looking for someone to blame or punish. She was scared to bring attention to me or herself but scared that I might have been turned against her after she found out that I was taken in for testing. When she did finally find me again, I was so hurt and angry that this time it was me that shut her out. I didn’t understand how or why she could or would think that of me. It makes sense now that I heard what happened to you. We were both still grieving and Tori channeled hers into hate. Of Erudite, Jeanine, Silas and then later...you, before you even transferred she had already started to hate you.”

Eric could hear the guilt in her voice at that, the apology. So he rearranged them so she was pulled to his side and stopped her. “To her and the entire faction it would have looked like I was a future divergent hunter. One of her little child minions she was grooming for whatever plot she had in mind. It was what I needed and wanted it to look like.”

She nodded then started again. “We did end up making amends to each other but there was always this divide between us because Tori had started to make contacts. Dangerous ones that she didn’t want to bring down on me if things should go badly. Two years before I was to transfer that is exactly what happened. They wanted more from Tori, they wanted me and they weren’t above threatening her to get it either. I guess, with how things turned out...I don’t think there was truly a good side. I was forced to become a spy and get information. To contact people and pass along messages. That was how I met Johanna and Natalie myself but they weren’t considered as part of the group, just sympathetic I guess. Natalie didn’t believe in their methods any more than she believed in what Erudite was doing. That was how my path started but then they also trained me in what they could for when I was to go to Dauntless. Eric…” she looked at him with pain in her eyes and he knew.

“You were sent to take me out. That was the main thing you were trained for.” Eric stated and help no anger or malice in his tone, just acceptance.

“Yes. But by that time I had already found something out. I found out about George in an unlikely run in with someone else it was thought was dead. Someone you supposedly had a direct hand in their death, when in reality it was rescue you engineered. Someone I trusted to never lie about this because George meant the world to him too.”

“Amar.” Eric smirked as he replied. “I am guessing he showed up in Amity or something?”

Elle smiles at his correct guess. “He was shocked to see me and then when he found out what I was up to...what they were wanting me to do...he became livid. He told me what you did for George and then later him. He cautioned me that I needed to find the answers to things on my own. That not everything was always as it seemed in this city. So I did. I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to kill you if I found everything I had been led to believe was a lie. Even before I actually transferred I think I knew I wouldn’t kill you. I didn’t know that I would end up having to do what I did in the end.”

She trailed off and got quiet, looking off into the distance at nothing in particular. Eric tensed beside her and asked what he feared the most right now.

“Do you regret it? Saving me...saving Brendan and trying to...”

“No!” She snapped her eyes to his with an angry look. “No, I don’t regret it Eric. I regret that Tori wouldn’t listen to me. That no matter what I tried...she just couldn’t let go of that hate. It was like I had my sister but at the same time, she was gone. I regret that I couldn't save Emma and Robert. I regret that because I was determined to try, it led to Cara, Will and Tori’s deaths. I regret that it wasn't me instead.”

“I have regrets too.” Eric admitted. The strain of grief and guilt filling it while at the same time making him speak softly. “I regret not finding some way to keep in contact with my family. I regret that I didn't try harder to get over my shit with Four so maybe we could have worked together. I regret letting you face all of that alone. I also really regret that you had to take someone's else life at all but especially because of me. Some of those are far from logical things to carry around guilt for, and I know it. Just like I know you know yours aren't logical. We each made our choices as best as we could. Even your sister, Cara, and Will; they all made choices that they knew if they didn't at least try for...they could never live with themselves.”

She wanted to get angry at first, feeling like he was trying to lecture her when she knew he was just trying to help them both. With a sigh she laid her head on his chest and felt his arms tighten around her.

It should be so odd and uncomfortable being alone and so close here together. They had both almost made a career in their time at Dauntless of harassing each other. It was a well known fact among Dauntless the two couldn't stand each other yet somehow they always ended up working close together time after time.

No one dared say anything to their faces because neither was exactly friends with anyone that would even attempt to kid with them.

She knew why she had been the way she was to him, but she had honestly believed he really did hate her. She had assumed it was because of Tori though and her very vocal dislike of the leader.

“Eric…” she started to ask hesitantly after he had casually took her hand in his and was idly rubbing the callouses on it softly.

“Hmm?” Eric was just, for once, not thinking about or over analyzing a damn thing. Soaking in and drawing comfort from this and hoping to hell things won't go back to the status quo for them.

“I always wondered...why it seemed from the beginning...I mean...you hate me right? Or did...or at least you….”

“I never hated you.” Eric said to interrupt her. “I can admit there were things that annoyed the shit out of me that you did. I can also admit I tried to hate you because I thought it would be easier that way. You coming to Dauntless the year after I transferred brought up issues for me that I was trying to compensate for. One was, I wanted you to do well. I saw this potential but always felt that you were holding back. I was trying so hard for people to forget I was from Erudite, to distance myself from the faction for my own reasons but also because it was what I was ordered to do. I was supposed ingratiate myself with the leaders and be able to influence them to her way of thinking. My own person goal was to do that but in the hope that maybe just fucking maybe I could do the opposite. Then you come along and it was like looking in a mirror in some respects. You isolated yourself purposely, the way you approached training; like you were on a mission and everything and everyone else could fuck off.”

“Because I was. Even with any of my training before it was hard and add to that I had to walk this edge...do well but not too well. I was stressed all the damn time.” Elle admitted in a huff.

“Like I said it was like looking in a fucking mirror. But what I saw in your eyes and what I just knew you were capable of wasn't matching up with the performance you were giving. So I pushed you harder and I know I went over a few lines with you. That was to make sure no one could accuse me of favoring someone from my old faction and to see what you were really capable of. But also a little bit because there was a part of me that was paranoid you were sent by Jeanine for some reason. Maybe in case I failed or as an informant. I never really hated you though.”

He looked down at her, her expression the one she had when she was deep in thought and processing information.

“Did you?” Eric asked the last part quietly, almost as if afraid of the answer.

“I never hated you either. I had to act like it and sometimes I almost felt like I could with how it seemed like you were targeting me specifically at times. I don't and didn't hate you.” She admitted and looked up into his eyes.

It was enough for them both at the moment and neither were ready to ask the questions that were occurring for them both. Those feelings and questions went unspoken and a routine began for them as of that night.

For the next week while Elle was still not up to much activity, she was able to show Eric she could make it to and use the bathroom on her own. He still insisted on her having her breakfast in bed, with him eating in the chair beside her. After breakfast he would make sure she was dressed, had anything she might need and then set out to pick up the supplies they might need but also to see his nephew. He would be back before lunch and immediately make sure she was ok, then she would move to the living room.

Eric was able to resume some of those scheduled tasks he had once done on a religious basis but found that the ones he used to keep busy weren't necessary anymore. He finished his chores quickly so he could get back to Elle.

In between meals they talked more about things that had happened, how Brendan was doing, even things in the faction system that were good and bad. There had always been a connection for them from the beginning though they both fought and denied it. Even now, as it deepened, they denied it for their own reasons.

It wasn't a state that could be maintained for much longer because as the week passed their touches became different. They found reasons to do so and often. They ended each night in the same bed and no longer waited until one of them was asleep to find a way into the others arms. What their minds and insecurities were denying, other aspects of themselves had other ideas on.