#i took these screenshots a few days ago but didn't get around to posting them until now

[pattywagon2go]

FixTF2: What Happened, Why Did Valve Step In, And What Comes Next?

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with neither Valve nor the people who run the FixTF2 petition. Do not treat anything I say here as any official announcement of any future plans for the movement. All my thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone.

As of the making of this post, the save.tf has officially closed down to new signatures, racking up a generous 343,711 total signatures. I've made my thoughts on FixTF2 clear in the past, where I said that I didn't have much hope that Valve would actually do something, but to my surprise, Valve seemed to have finally stepped in and done something about the bot issue plaguing the game for 5 straight years beyond the usual half-assed band-aid fix. In light of Valve surprising me, I want to talk about what's happened, some speculation as to why Valve is potentially doing this, and what I think comes next from all of this.

So, let's clear some stuff up: Is Casual really bot-free?

From what I've seen and heard, yes!

Starting around June 25th, multiple sources reported a massive drop in the active player count for Team Fortress 2 from Steam Charts, being around 15,000-16,000 users vanishing overnight. Many people suspect this to be a large-scale ban wave Valve enacted, and there is a large amount of evidence to support this. (More info from this video by shounic here) Since then, up until the day this post is being written (July 1st 2024), people have reported that Casual servers across all regions have been fairly bot-free, with only the occasional one popping up, a far cry from a month ago, where servers were flooded with them no matter where you went. I myself even hopped on a few games and to my surprise, there were no bots to be found whatsoever. Its honestly been super refreshing to see the game be this clean, as now its actually fun to play once again. I haven't touched the game in months, but since the bots have been kicked out for a little bit, it feels good to play once more. If you haven't played the game for a while cause of the bots, now's your chance to hop in and enjoy the game. Its actually fun to play now that the bots have been squashed. On top of that, (as of the time this post is being written), Valve appears to still be actively curbing cheaters and bots from the game, even setting up a dedicated Steam support page for anyone who gets a game ban here.

So, why's Valve doing any of this?

This is where I'm going to step into speculation territory, as Valve being Valve means there's barely any information they will share with the public, but I'll do my best to come up with some logical explanations. I would say that Valve doing a ban wave has both a short-term goal and a long-term goal. The short-term goal was Valve was always intending to do a ban wave, it just took a while to do. What I think happened was Valve took a while to collect a database of known bot accounts and (presumably) their hosters, and from there, once Valve felt they were comfortable with the amount they had collected, they pulled the trigger and proceeded to wipe them out. They obviously couldn't just outright say "Hey, we're gonna do a wipe of the bots soon" because that would have given the hosters plenty of time to set up proactive measures to make Valve's job harder. The only evidence I really have for this is the dropoff of players on Steam Charts, which shows around 15k-16k players mysteriously disappeared from the game, which seems to point to Valve issuing a game ban toward said accounts/deleting them entirely. Alternatively, Valve could have banned a limited amount of accounts, much lower than the 15-16k shown by Steam Charts, but it sent a scare to hosters who deactivated their bots and took them off the game once they knew Valve was watching them, but this explanation I don't have much evidence to prove beyond scattered Discord screenshots of supposed hosters telling people to change their bot configurations due to Valve clamping down on them. The long-term goal of this, though far-fetched and lacking evidence to support, could have to do with Deadlock, their next game, as a proactive measure to prevent these same malicious actors from flooding the game on Day 1, something many people have pointed out and what's happened to CS2 not even a year into its launch.

(UPDATE: Ok I might as well address this cause it did come up while I was writing the post, but a Team Fortress 2 DLC for an upcoming Funko Pop game called Funko Fusion was announced, and people have said that the only reason why Valve squashed the bots was because Valve wanted the game to look good in time for the crossover.

Now I am by no means a fan of Funko Pop, I think they look a bit ugly and there's a myriad of other things people take issue with, but that's all outside the scope of this post. I personally don't care that this is happening to begin with, as Funko Pops are something I routinely forget about, so as far as the DLC existing, I don't care that much. That being said, if it is true that Valve only squashed bots due to this collab happening to begin with, then that is pretty sad and disappointing to see, with how Valve wasn't motivated to fix the issue until a different company came knocking and asked them to do something cause they didn't want the DLC to look bad. But since there's no confirmation this is the case, Valve does have some level of plausible deniability here, and ultimately, something good did come from this, at a (to me, cause I couldn't give a shit about Funko) nonexistant cost so I won't complain)

So now time to return to the last part of the question in the title: What comes next?

Well for one thing, the war has not been won yet.

A big mistake with SaveTF2 was once Valve tweeted that they apparently "heard" us and were working to improve things, people largely declared victory and chose to stop there. Yet things didn't substantially improve since then, only cascading into a far worse situation. This time around, we cannot give up as quickly as last time. We are on the cusp of victory, but we need to keep the pressure on Valve. Keep holding them accountable for the bot issue. Put pressure on them to get rid of the bots for good. Don't let them off the hook and give them a slap on the wrist for only repelling the bots for a little bit, because believe me, as soon as Valve stops doing anything and slinks back into the shadows, the bots will return, and they will be far worse than anything we've seen thus far. It happened two years ago, it will happen again if we just declare victory now and go home. What Valve is doing is a great change of pace and they do deserve some praise for what they're doing, but we must make sure they stay committed to fixing the issue at hand. The best time for Valve to fix the issue was 5 years ago. The second best time is here and now. For now, hop on a few games and enjoy the (relatively) clean servers. We've earned a small break after our victory, but once you're done, make sure to grab your best bot-stomping boots, because our job is far from over.

[havin-fun-imagining-twd]

That was it.

(a new post? it's been months, bro!)

What -- Daryl had a dream featuring You. It's thrown him a little, ngl.

When -- the first day Daryl is bedridden following his two falling trips down the ridge in the episode Chupacabra. In the Slowpoke Series, it's a few hours after Redemption Arcs, which takes place the morning after Thank you, angel...

Who's in this one? -- Daryl, You, Carl, Lori

Perspective -- POV 3rd person Daryl

Relationships -- slow burn, currently platonic-but-confused Daryl x equally oblivious Reader

Pronouns - she/her

TWs -- some language, and reference to Daryl's childhood neglect, and ghastly screenshots with poor editing XD

Masterlist -- Official one here and Chronological one here

-----------------------------------

Her knock was recognizable and he got a rush in his stomach when he knew she was there. Three or four knocks, a pause, then one or two more knocks with some kind of greeting. This time, is was: “Daryl, you up for visitors?”

Was he ‘up for visitors?’

Ain’t like he’s some old dude in a nursing home, why would—oh shit, did this mean they found Sophia? Was Sophia the visitor?? “What is it?”

“It’s Carl’s first field trip out of bed other than for the toilet.”

“Y/N,” came Carl’s groan through the shut door.

“Carl,” she teased back back in the same tone of voice. “Mr. Dixon’s in the same boat, nerd, no leavin’ bed excepting for the facilities.”

Speaking for himself, the kid finally said, “I wanted to go see you first, Mr. Dixon.”

“Just—come in already,” Daryl grunted. He'd already tugged his bedsheets as high as they'd go, he was ready as he could get.

The knob turned, and as the two of them slowly walked in. He made himself relax when the nerves hit him at seeing Y/N.

It's stupid. His dumb ass started getting nervous around her this morning. Nervous around Y/N, of all the people here!

Daryl noticed Lori hovering by the doorway while Y/N and Carl walked in. She explained, “We don’t want to crowd you like yesterday. And we won’t stay too long, Y/N, Maggie and I will be going out for another sweep of our grid.”

The boy had more color than he did the other day when Daryl went to see him, which was good.

"The head wrap stuff they gave you looks cool," the kid told him. "I'm glad you didn't get hurt worse than you were. I heard you got hurt pretty bad." Slowly, Carl made his way to Daryl’s bedside and seemed beat doing it. “I would go out to help search today if I could. I was the only one of us who—well, other than you—who hasn’t gone out looking today. Beth’s older sister and Jimmy and his mom went, too.”

“Well, Mags came with us,” Y/N filled in. “Jimmy looked around the property and its perimeter only, but that’s because he got in trouble yesterday for joinin’ without permission. His mama searched with him to keep the peace.”

As the news hovered, rolled over him, then sunk in, it felt to Daryl as if were making him sink deeper into the mattress where he lay bandaged, bruised, and not much use to anyone.

He’d nearly died trying to find that little girl yesterday, found her doll. And after just about everyone went out searching today, and all them people came back with zip.

Daryl hated feeling helpless, and now he felt helpless, annoyed and angry.

Really, they all went out searching, and somehow all came back with nothing?

Carl kept chatting to him, but to his credit, Daryl didn’t snarl at him to shut up.

“I would’ve wanted to go to target practice, too. Did you know Mr. Douglas knows how to use guns? He told me he was an instructor, he’d started learning way a long time ago after something bad happened to this guy named Ronny King.”

“Rodney,” his ma corrected softly.

“I want to learn how to use a gun. How old were you when you learned, Mr. Dixon?”

Lori and Y/N reacted to the question in their own ways.

Y/N peeked at Lori and it looked like she was shrinking into her neck like a turtle as she walked to the window to get the stool for Carl to sit on.

Lori saw, shook her head and took it from Y/N’s hands, citing, “Let me, honey.” She placed it behind her son, then told him sternly, “You were just shot. Now’s not the time to discuss you using a gun.”

“But Mo—”

“We can talk about that with Dad later, okay, bud?”

“Y/N started learning to shoot when she was 8.”

That made Daryl blink, and it distracted him from his annoyance. His square, chick friend learned about using guns when she was 8?

Y/N gave her nephew a warning stare. “I learned because my own mama in our own circumstances made a decision for me that she determined would help keep me safe, the same way your mama’s makin’ one for you.”

He jut out his chin a little. “I would be safer with one. And I thought Shane taught you?”

“S-Sometimes babysitting me meant us goin’ to the range,” she allowed, eyeing Lori for help.

“Carl,” his ma told him, and with a look firm enough to make a nun cower. “That’s enough interrogating your aunt. We will talk about this with Dad when you’re able to leave bed for more than a few yards.”

“Okay,” the kid apologized, head lowering. “Sorry Mom, sorry Y/N.”

There were about three seconds of silence, tops, when the boy next asked Daryl, “Do you still think Sophia’s alive?”

Y/N froze, Lori tilted her head and looked Daryl in the eye warily.

As for Carl himself, he at least seemed hopeful. “If you could stay okay for nine days when you were a kid, Sophia can stay okay for five.”

Y/N’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He'd told her the other day about it, then decided Carl should know to keep his spirits up.

Lori, who knew nothing about this, looked alarmed. “You went missing for nine days as a child, Daryl?” she repeated.

Daryl nodded, getting dizzy when he did. Wasn’t no big secret, just some dumb mistake he made when he was little. He'd figured that Carl staying hopeful and expecting people to find Sophia would keep the rest of the people here searching.

Y/N already knew about Daryl’s little nine-day accident, and Andrea; might as well let Lori in on it if it meant more people wouldn’t give up on Sophia.

“Yeah, nine days. Was perfectly fine, and that was with me bein’ nowhere near as sharp as Sophia, and without miles of farmhouses and shit around.” Daryl figured exaggerating might help Carl feel happy, so he added, “I was dumber than a post, and even I got away with only an itchy ass from using poison oak as toilet paper.”

It did make the kid smile, but then Carl whispered as if he was nervous, “Quarter.”

Y/N wasn’t nervous at all. “Two of ’em.”

Oh, right. Daryl had forgotten about the no-cuss-around-kids rule.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” is how Lori responded quietly to Daryl, then to his relief, she changed the subject back to asking Y/N how target practice went.

“Lore, did you know Teddy was good with guns?” Y/N shared. “I’d had zero idea.”

“He and Shane talked about being instructors on one of the first nights at the quarry.”

“Man, I missed that whole conversation.”

Lori smiled and began to fix the extra blanket that was crumpled on the side of Daryl’s bed.

Daryl almost missed what was being said because he was distracted by how casually nice that was. Damned thoughtful.

It was that moment when he noticed how he’d grown pretty okay with shooting the shit with these people. Wouldn’t seek it out, probably, but he wasn’t crawling out of his skin, neither. He really liked that the kid wanted to see him, too. It helped him feel like he wasn’t as big an asshole as he felt.

“You, Amy and Glenn were busy playing ‘I never’, if I’m remembering it.” Lori spread blanket out at the foot of the bed and folded it in an accordion-type way. “Either that night or the—no, sorry, it was the night everyone started talking about Bigfoot, the kids were sitting around you three. That was one of the first nights, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, right! We used up all the Tapatío, and this guy mentioned his chupacabra.” Y/N stuck the tip of her tongue out and lightly bit it, grinning big.

“Luis and me got so freaked out that night!” Carl joined in, suddenly as energetic as a little bunny-rabbit. “His older cousin told him all about Okefenokee Swamp, and, and the gators and the Pig Man and the Thing!”

“Your Aunt Evie and I camped with Grammy and Grandad at Okefenokee lots of times when I was a girl,” Lori told them both with a smile in her eyes. “Never saw the Pig Man or the Swamp Thing.”

“But they saw her,” Y/N mouthed to Carl. “Thank God we lived more upstate.”

That, Daryl could agree with, he even made a hum.

He was from way up north, close to the Tennessee border. But with this group that he’d stuck with for who-knows-why, to get to Fort Benning they’d driven far enough southwest that they was basically in Alabama.

“Yeah, you’re from further north, too, right?” Y/N sighed. “I’m so darn homesick, man. We’re just about on the fall line now, aren’t we? Driving to the city was one thing, close enough to home, but the roundabout, southwest mess we made trying to get to stupid Fort Benning was—w-we’re basically in Alabama!”

…His thoughts exactly.

“We’re further from Lake Lanier down here, though,” Carl said. Sounded like he was both trying to cheer her up and rib her. Inside joke most likely, Daryl guessed.

Y/N shivered at the name but couldn’t stop herself from breaking into a smirk, which made Carl crack up. After making a face at him, she looked at Daryl. “Dude, you’d have had a good time at practice.” Her smile grew and she leaned toward him. “As soon as it was time to try hittin’ the targets, Jimmy tried to shoot his pistol sideways.”

“What, all gangster?” he grunted back, glad that he wasn’t alone with her again. He liked didn’t mind being alone with her, but he obviously got smacked in the head a little too hard yesterday, seeing as he felt all nervous around her now. Really nervous. Like, so goddamned nervous, man, it’s good the boy and Lori are here, otherwise he’d be barely able to look her in the eyes.

Give it a day or two, he’d be fine.

“Teddy thinks Jimmy will have to undo Hollywood and video game gun stuff the next couple lessons.” She scrunched her nose, and wondered out loud, “Don’t know why that’s what they show in movies so often, that’s irresponsible firearm use. Oh! But the angled aim I guess is needed when one’s using a riot shield, right?”

His mouth lifted into a grin. Y/N could be such a square.

With that, she yawned and leaned on the side of the bed, causing it to dip down slightly. Daryl’s heart did a funny jolting type thing when she did, he inhaled too quickly as a result, which hurt his stiched side and bruised or broken ribs, so he then winced as a result of that.

“How long do we have ’til we head out again, Lore? I’m hittin’ my limit. Looks like Carl’s crashing, too, you doing okay, baby?”

The conversation that followed didn’t reach his head, Daryl was too distracted. The, um, the movement of the bed dipping as Y/N relaxed and reached back to massage her shoulder caused the memories from last night and the dream that followed to whoosh back to Daryl even harder.

His heartbeat did that funny thing again. And the helpless feeling he’d had, with its anger and annoyance, whittled away bit by bit.

A weird sensation replaced it.

He wasn’t sure that it was, but it felt like it was pressing him even further into the mattress.

So, the dream he had last night: Y/N was…laying down with him.

Nothing was going on, her arm was simply wrapped around him and he could feel her heartbeat against his chest. He remembers pressing his mouth to her head for a second, then she reached her hand to brush it across his temple or whatever, and they just laid there. That was it.

Really, that was it, the whole dream, nothing else went on. And he relieved but also...disappointed when he first woke up, saw the bed empty beside him, and figured out it was just a dream, ain’t that bullshit? Then he listened to Y/N's breathing where she lay on the air mattress and couldn't fall back asleep for what felt like a while.

He was all screwed up, wasn't he?

Granted, two days ago, her shirt had been soaked after they’d got caught in the storm and the outline of everything was clear as damn day. Like, sure, he’d turned his eyes away, but he’d still seen it and liked it! Then, yesterday during their argument when they’d suddenly been standing all close, he’d randomly imagined gripping her waist and crashing his mouth against hers before cupping her face so he could see if her cheeks were as soft as they looked, like what the in the balls was his deal? He ain’t mature enough to be friends with a chick or something? It’s never been a problem before, he used to barely even notice or care when he thought someone looked nice.

Her calling him all them pet names yesterday was enough, but, like, what was last night?

She literally massaged him. Who does that?

The massage had felt as if there were an angel, don’t get him wrong, he’d been in so much pain. But being touched so gently but so…close, and right on his bare skin, it made him feel something similar to scared.

It wasn’t ‘scary’ in that sense, that’s not it, it felt…weird. Again, he didn’t know how to phrase it.

Worse still was that he thinks he accidentally called Y/N “angel.”

Out loud.

He still ain’t sure, his sleep was too disjointed to tell if he was awake or not, but — she’d started massaging his feet, he knew that much! His feet had hurt so bad that he’d almost cried again when she’d started to rub them because it was just such relief.

Fast forwarding to this morning, when he’d made his managed to power his way all by himself out of bed (oh, it hurt like a bitch) and out of his room to find the pisser, of course the first thing he saw when he opened the door was Y/N, all sleepy-eyed, messy-haired, and wrapped in a blanket like he was.

And, of course, the first thing she did was help him walk by putting her good arm around his back. He could feel her warmth and heartbeat beside his chest again, and when he turned his head, his mouth collided with her head. Kinda hurt. And she smelled good.

But all that sent the dream he’d had, the one where she was laying next to him, crashing back all at once.

Plus the fear that she’d see him in his boxers again and/or notice his morning wood (ain’t his fault, he’d only just woken up and he had to take a whiz real bad!) was the only thing pinging through his mind as she walked him to the toilet.

Then when her brother dropped off some of his stuff from his tent, he had a sneaking suspicion it was Y/N who’d been the one to gather it up. Mainly because she’d been the one who promised him someone would bring him some things, but also because nail clippers and a toothbrush were on top of the pile.

He then got the dumb idea in his head to be embarrassed at how his tent wasn’t real clean.

The past four days were batshit crazy; getting all nervous around a chick — probably the only person he truly feels okay with around here — is the stupidest damn thing. Still, he never had a person he felt so damn comfortable with other than Uncle Jesse, his little cousin, Merle, and his old lady neighbor from when he was a kid.

So much happened with Y/N the past few days. It was like they’d been stripped and beaten together, but got back home in one piece. He even hallucinated her talking to him when he’d fallen down the ridge. And that’s not even bringing up how he’d been chill with her seeing his scars yesterday, which was only after he okayed Dr. Farmer literally teaching her how do literal goddamn stitches on him!

Almost like yesterday, Daryl could imagine the way Merle would bust his balls. “I can’t tell if you’re actin’ like a little boy clinging to the kid who was nice to ’em on the jungle gym, or a clueless virgin nervous around the girl who’ll look him in the eyes long enough.”

Lucky for him, Carl wondered out loud: “Maybe Jimmy wanted to practice shooting sideways,” so Daryl was able to shut his mind up.

Next, Carl, who definitely looked ready to hit the sack, started miming holding a gun and aiming it to the side (as opposed to shooting it forward, just cocked to the side like Jimmy had, according to Y/N).

“No, ya nerd, like this,” Y/N snorted, and held out her good arm as if she were aiming a gun forward, then twisted her wrist sideways.

“Oh, the cool way to shoot!”

“Nooo.”

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-> Masterlist link here <-

and our teeny tiny taglist :D

@spenciepoo338 @its-freaking-bats​​​​ @whistlesalot​​​​ @buffy-the-assbutt-slayer​​​​  @dreamingaboutthewonderland @kwazii-kat​ @darylsmavis​​​​​  @outlanderhornet22​​​​​ @battinsonrobs @dontputyourfckingdrinkonmytable @multiifandomhoe @writingmybeloved @boomergirl123 @iheartathena0 @moonliight-luv @suniloli @supernaturalgirl02 @cnake-garden @daryldixmedown @sophehe @crashlyrose @virgo-sunflower920 @jennythe @theficbaker @vampireautism @rosetta196 @wifeof-barnes

(inbox is open if you would like on or off the taglist, slowpokes. Please don’t feel bad or nervous if you don’t want to be tagged anymore, just let me know in the inbox! We’re all friends here and your comfort level matters)  

[wonwoosthetic]

series masterlist

word count - 2.1k

pairing - minnie x mingyu (feat. wonwoo at the end)

summary - mingyu thought to have found the perfect chairs for their new apartment… much to minnie’s dismay

a/n - as I went through my mimiwon google poll, a lot of you guys asked for more domestic scenarios and since I also once asked if you'd be okay with short writings, I thought I could post this as well :) just a little something I came up with back when I saw one of their chairs in Mingyu's live haha, kinda random but I hope you like it! <3

Chairs 🌷 Minnie

"Nini!" The familiar loud voice bounced off the walls of their apartment. The female member was sunken into the couch, her laptop propped up on her lap. She had thrown on a slightly thicker sweatshirt due to the colder weather, with a short shirt underneath, knowing she'd probably take off the first layer later in the day.

Each one of the three had been busying themselves separately for the time until their manager would pick them up and bring them to the company's building for their scheduled practice.

"What?" She shouted back at her fellow '97 Liner, who had been in his room, but his quick footsteps suddenly echoed through the hall until they stopped in the living room, right by the couch. Dressed in simple grey sweats and a white shirt - almost a signature look of his.

Mingyu grinned at the girl. "Look at your phone." Said device was on the coffee table, face down to not distract her from the very serious shopping spree Minnie was currently indulging in.

Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as she glanced to the side, up at the taller member. "You're standing right next to. Show me."

"No," he shook his head, "look at your phone."

Not wanting to start a pointless argument in the middle of the day, she leaned forward with a slight sigh to snatch her phone off the surface. Turning it around, the notification she had heard only a few seconds ago was beaming right in her eyes. With one quick click and the face-id feature, the group chat the three dormmates had created after moving in together opened. Mingyu's message, a picture, was right at the bottom. "The chair?" She thought out loud. The rapper had sent a screenshot from a website, showing a white woven chair. As all three of them were getting ready to move into the new place they had chosen to rent, the hunt for new furniture had begun. Some of their old stuff, they'd of course bring along, but as their current apartment was slightly smaller, they'd have a lot more space to fill in the future. Some of that space would be filled with a new and bigger dining table, that would ideally have chairs as well.

Mingyu nodded excitedly. "I just ordered them."

The girl's head snapped towards him, her lips slightly parted. "Huh?"

"Four of them. But I think six might be smarter. For more people, right?"

"You didn't order them." Her statement was possibly supposed to come out as a question, but it surely didn't sound like one. As she took a quick peek back at the picture an almost chuckle fell from her lips.

"I did," he repeated, nodding once again. With a few steps forward, the '97 Liner sat down next to her, grunting as he let himself fall onto the sofa.

"No, you didn't," each time, Minnie tried to convince herself of the fact that this man just admitted to buying four, almost six, of those garden stools, only for them to be put into their new dining space.

"I really did," Mingyu chuckled, not catching up with her distressed reaction. "Look," he held up his phone screen, "We have a similar dining table and it looks good," showing her a picture on the original website.

"But..." The female member stopped herself, "Why did you order them?"

"We said we'd go for a European style, so... you don't like them?" Finally, he had caught onto it.

Minnie could only shake her head, her eyebrows scrunched up apologetically as she locked eyes with him.

"What? Why not?" The rapper gasped.

She shrugged, "They don't look good."

"Yes, they do," he glanced back down at the screen, "If you sit on them, you'll feel like you're in Greece."

"Why would I want to feel like I'm sitting in Greece when I'm in my dining room? Maybe for the terrace, but definitely not for inside!" The girl started arguing.

"You said you liked the European style," Mingyu commented back, his voice getting slightly louder in annoyance.

"Yeah, European as in like... Scandinavian. Not beach style. This isn't cute for a dining room."

He shook his head, pushing himself back to stand up. "Look at them once they're here, and then maybe you'll like them. How would you know that now?"

Minnie was quick to shake her head, her laptop already back on the coffee table. "No, because I don't like this style in general. And my mom's an interior designer, I think I have a pretty good eye then."

He shrugged, "Maybe you don't."

The female member scoffed, thinking for a second if she should continue that exact conversation, but decided against it. "Why would you even order them without asking us first? I ask you guys about everything too!"

"You didn't when you ordered that knife set," Mingyu pointed out, on his way to the kitchen, but turned around when he noticed the serious stance the girl had taken.

"Are you serious?!" She huffed out, "What's bigger? The only four chairs at the dining table or three knives out of many more that we'll have?"

"But I'm gonna use the knives the most probably," he argued. A good point, but Minnie wasn't going to admit that in the heat of the moment.

"I'm gonna use them too!"

"Yeah, but me too! And you didn't ask me about them," he stated, now walking back to open the fridge door, and getting the bottle of water he was looking for. 

"Okay!" The female member shot up from her place on the sofa, palms up. "Go and ask Wonwoo what he thinks of the chairs."

The oldest of the three was on the better end of the situation as he had been sitting at his gaming set-up for the past two hours. The noise-cancelling headphones being the biggest blessing as they kept him guarded off every single word that came from the '97 Liners.

"He said he doesn't care about the furniture. And," he added sheepishly, "he actually likes the European style."

"Mingyu! This isn't European!" Minnie whined out loud, holding her face in her hands. A frustrated sigh tumbled from her lips. She took a deep breath, trying to collect herself and not get too riled up over some chairs he had ordered, but he was really testing her. 

"You know what?" With her phone in her hands, she started to make her way away from the couch and over to the small hallway that would eventually lead to the gamer's room. "I'll go and ask him since you clearly don't understand why this is-" 

"Wait-"

The girl's rant was quickly interrupted when the taller member got a hold of her arm, pulling her in, making her back hit his chest and keep her from walking further.

"Let me go!" She fought against his tight embrace. But with no luck. "Mingyu, I swear to God-"

He tightened his arms around her, "Just listen to me-"

"Let me go and I'll listen," Minnie argued, stopping her frantic movements to try and shake him off.

"No, look-"

"I'm not listening."

The rapper sighed, "You'll go running as soon as I let go of you."

"No, I won't," she scoffed, turning her head to look up at Mingyu, only to find him with a smirk plastered on his face.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes." She spoke quietly, closing her eyes and nodding her head in etiquette.

As genuine as she sounded, the '97 Liner had known her for long enough to know how good of a romancer she had become, knowing just how to use her words and facial expressions for her benefit. 

He grinned, "But listen to me first-"

"Mingyu! NO!" The girl started giggling in his arms, her hands coming up to wrap around his wrists, trying to push them off, which laughing only made it harder than it already was. "Leave me alone."

"Promise you won't go running off to Wonwoo-hyung," he tried to argue with her, a smile still evidently on her face, as well as on hers now.

Minnie rolled her eyes with a chuckle, "Sure, whatever, I promise. Just let me go," whining the last part out loud, trying to free herself with one last wiggle of her shoulders.

"That doesn't sound very convincing," Mingyu laughed at her attempt, only tightening his grip and pulling her deeper into him, getting a groan from the female member in return. 

Her head snapped back, her hair tickling his chin for a split second. 

"I'll scream." She suddenly threatened, getting a chuckle and 'tsk' in return. "You don't believe me?"

"Minnie-"

"OPPA-!" Her shrill voice echoed through the open room and hallway, only to be cut off within a second by Mingyu's big hand covering her mouth.

"Are you crazy?!" He glanced down at her with wide eyes, genuinely surprised by the sudden outburst. "What are the people underneath us gonna think?"

"I told you, I'd do it." He could feel her grinning underneath his palm, making him roll his eyes. His hand left her face before turning her body around in his embrace, now chest to chest with the smiling girl peeking up at him

"You're really annoying sometimes," he commented, not able to hold back copying her expression with the way she was looking at him.

With a finger to his chest, she blinked up, "But only sometimes," her lips curling into a sheepish smile.

Minnie patted the big muscle underneath his top, "Cancel the order," fluttering her eyelashes extra much, "Please."

"Maybe."

Her act immediately fell, her arms dropping down to her sides while his was still around her shoulder.

"But-" she was once again cut off, only this time by the messenger sounds from both of their phones. He reached into his back pocket, giving the girl the possibility to wiggle out of his embrace, now standing in front of him with her arms crossed.

After one quick look at the screen, he spoke up again. "We have to go." Informing her that the manager was probably already waiting for them downstairs.

"Cancel the order first," the female member didn't back down, continuing her argument.

Mingyu sighed, "Later." Before turning around to get to the front door to put on his shoes and jacket, "Get Wonwoo-hyung."

"Mingyu, cancel it, I'm serious. They're ugly," she continued, but he glanced passed her and raised his voice to call out for the older member, who was already coming out of the door to his gaming room, fixing the sweater he was wearing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he passed the girl, joining Mingyu in the hallway. Minnie looked at him almost offended. "You didn't hear me when I called out for you but when he does it you're up in a second?" Putting the fact that he was probably not wearing his headphones anymore these few seconds ago.

"When did you call for me?" Wonwoo wondered, crouching down to get his left foot into the sneaker.

The girl scoffed with a chuckle, walking up to him, "Wow... good to know you wouldn't hear if I was getting murdered."

Mingyu rolled his eyes with a sigh when the '96 Liner glanced at her in confusion and slight concern at the same time.

"Don't say stuff like that," reaching out to tap her chin. Minnie just shook her head and moved to her own pair of shoes in the corner.

The younger rapper was waiting for her, already in his outerwear, holding out his hand with her jacket in his grip. Without a word, she snatched it from him.

"You're being overdramatic," he commented, grazing a hand over her head of hair.

"Cancel the order, and I won't be," she shrugged off his statement, brushing past him to get to the door, but with his much longer legs, he had caught up with her, getting a hold of the handle first. He opened it and motioned for her to walk out first, chuckling even before his answer dropped from his tongue.

"Maybe later."

"Mingyu-" she turned back around, ready to smack him, only to be pushed further out the door by Wonwoo rolling his eyes in amusement behind her.

You better bet she was sulky about the situation during their practice session as well. And maybe the multiple times she then stepped on Mingyu's foot weren't all that accidental after all.

Taglist: @waosobii @chaebb @lunarxsun @hoe4wonwoo @kimhyejin3108 @soobzao @billboard-singer @cosmicwintr @zwiehe @alixnsuperstxr @angie-x3 @smooore @allthings-fandoms

[heavenlymusickcorporation]

So I decided to look into this and it gets even weirder and more confusing. If you google "Yolanda Tarbox" a few different pages come up. One of them is a Facebook page with the same profile picture as Yaggerdang. (An image of Pete's forehead.) This account can be seen commenting on a post about a mixing console. The subject matter and writing style of the comment seem like it could plausibly be Pete Townshend. (Possibly an alt account of his? Pete's official Facebook page isn't currently run by him, I think, so it's not impossible he has an alt account for personal use.)

A Twitter account from 2013 also comes up. There are only a few tweets, also from 2013, mostly blonde jokes. The Instagram linked, "EyesChinese_", could maybe be a reference to Pete's "All The Best Cowboys" album, but more likely just coincidence. (If you visit that Instagram now, it appears to be a completely different unrelated person, FWIW.) I'd say the twitter probably has nothing to do with Pete (especially since the PFP and bio appear to be some random college girl) and is most likely a bot or a fake person. More on why I think that in the next paragraph.

Up next, we have a PDF on StudyLib, as well as several websites with random .tr domain names. These appear to just be lists of names, probably scraped by webcrawlers. (I'm not clicking on them since I don't want my computer to get syphilis.) The PDF, however, is a different story.

It looks like a list of people (students? faculty?) from an agricultural college, and is listed last name first. What appears to be "Yolanda Tarbox" is actually "Tapias, Yolanda" followed by "Tarbox, Marion E." Whatever bot or webcrawler scraped this seems to have ignored the line breaks and parsed the names incorrectly, resulting in "Yolanda Tarbox". (This would incidentally explain the random Twitter account having this name, as we know from this very website that fake/bot accounts often use random scraped names.)

So it seems that the original person "Yolanda Tarbox" does not exist; she is merely the result of a webcrawler misinterpreting a list of names.

This just raises more questions. If Pete got hacked, why would the hacker do nothing but change the name? Not change the profile picture, not start posting scams, only change the name? And if it is Pete Townshend, why would he be using a name some random webcrawler mistakenly dredged up out of some random agricultural college? How would he even have obtained this name? I'm left with more questions than answers.

who tf is Yolanda Tarbox

[zombeebunnie]

First, just wanna say that I love Trembling Essence. The art and writing are so delicious!

(I apologize in advance if you've already answered these questions and I just didn't see the post.)

How long do you think the final game will be?

Will it be free or paid?

And why does Noah have an evil purple rubber duck in the bathtub?

Thank you!

Thanks so much for all the support and uplifting words, It's awesome knowing you enjoyed the [Extended Demo]! Unfortunately your ask among several others were the ones that disappeared in my ask box some time ago which is why it took this long to reply. Somehow a few showed back up again. :,,]

No need to apologize about this as I think around that time I didn't have all the tags about Trembling Essence / Noah organized at the time.

As for how long the final game will be:

I was going to talk more about this in a master-post but It's a really tough question to answer, I'm aiming for sort of a slow burn of a horror-game/dating-sim. I'd say a couple of hours if you get all the way to the final day. :,,] I wrote a lot of routes/paths last year during late spring-summer of 2023 and only two of them made it into the [Extended Demo]. If you would like to see some sneak peek screenshots from old game development posts they'll be here! There's going to be a lot of route/path/choice balancing now that I'm going through the cabin part of the game. For example there was one route that took my play tester and I 3 hours to finish and that was just for the rest of Day 3(?) if you went through specific choices/dialog since it could drastically branch out.

As for the full game:

The Trembling Essence [Extended Demo] including possible updates to it will always remain free but the full game will cost money. :]

Why does Noah have an evil purple rubber duck in the bathtub you say? >;]

It's a mystery, for now. >:P

[blackstar5078]

EggCartonSMP Day 9!

(This happened yesterday, the 3rd).

Summary under the cut...

Slow start of the day, Bluebell proposed to Wither that they go to visit Franklyn.

Due to more unforseeable circunstances, when Wither was able to go around again, Bluebell and Purple went together to a Nether adventure already. She was not able to follow them, so she distracted herself with other chores.

She found this grave near Purple's factory on the way.

Then a while later...

Wither was so dazed that she took a few seconds more than Purple to reach the house and see Bluebell.

Without saying anything, she immediately hugged her and then sat beside her while she was typing.

Bluebell: It's not their fault that I didn't see the very clear lava.

Purple left after a while and Wither was still beside Bluebell as she was writing on her journal.

And also clawing the floor a little bit.

Bluebell gave the journal for Wither to read and then left to their Storage.

Wither approached Bluebell while she was still at the storage.

Wither: I'm sorry...

Bluebell: No one's fault :3

Wither (thoughts): It is, though...

Wither let Bluebell distract herself with that, all the while she was around the area, clawing the dirt.

Eventually she decided to sit on a spot where she could see what Bluebell was doing.

Wither (thoughts): ''All of this happened because I can't even get near a stupid Nether portal... AGH! THAT PLACE HAS ONLY TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME!''

When Bluebell was done with the armor, she met up with Wither up there and had a chat.

Bluebell: While they were here, they told me about the creature on the bed. They told me it got hurt.

Wither: Oh yeah, I saw the grave a little while ago.

Bluebell: I don't know how to feel, maybe it was normal.

Wither: Maybe it was, but who knows.

Bluebell: I want to visit Franklyn.

Wither: Sure, I have a lot of carrots for him.

They went to the first village they explored and that's when Wither got to see the changes to the village, and, the house that Bluebell built for Franklyn, for the first time.

After they were done getting emeralds from Franklyn...

Bluebell: Where now?

Wither: Well, I will leave the emeralds at home. After that... I don't know if you would want to explore.

Bluebell: I can. I'm just not feeling well, but being holed up feels worse.

Wither: Umm, good point. Then we can carefully search for the wood.

They got across the mansion again, it was completely in flames for no reason.

Bluebell also feel into a hole of water, which gave her deja vu and Wither hugged her in turn.

Eventually, they did find the Mangrove Trees!

They got a good amount and returned home. That's when Wither started to hear hurt noises from Bluebell...

Wither: You think you might be ill?

Bluebell: Can't wear armor, it's too heavy... just like what happens to Purple. But it looks like it's different for me...

Wither: I think it's for the best if you rest for a bit. I could find something easy to digest too.

Bluebell: Best thing that tastes ok seems to be potatoes.

Wither: How about mashed potatoes?

Bluebell: It tastes better at least...

Bluebell: Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow...

Wither: I hope so.

Bluebell: I'll get some sleep, maybe it'll help.

Wither: Good idea, I will be awake for a little bit.

She hugged Bluebell once more before she headed to bed with her bear plushie.

---

And that was day 9!

The angst of this day was brutal kdjsndks.

Like, of course Bluebell's first death was in the Nether xD.

As you can see, Wither is not okay, surely everything will be fine <3.

Creedits as usual:

Bluebell: @bluefoxproductions

''Purple'': @iglooshoe (They were here, I just did not manage to get them on screenshot kdjsnk).

See y'all for the next smp lore drop post o/.

[readingismyhobby24]

hiiii faith !!!! how have you been today? i mostly played rainworld lol, i discovered a new region in survivors campaign and i ALMOST found a second slugpup (baby slugcat basically)!! but then i died :( the region im in right now (pipeyards) is also one of the regions with one of the highest slugpup spawn chances for every cycle (50%) so i really wanna find one!!

i started playing at like 8am and stopped playing at around 12pm-1pm i think? i got yelled at by SOMEONE for playing rainworld at 9am anyways i just stopped playing rainworld for the second or third time today (i took a BUNCH of screenshots ill post them at some point)

i also made progress in omori soo (im doing a different route than my first playthrough which was a year ago lol, time flies😓😓)

sooo anything interesting happen? anything you wanna yap about?

I'm so sorry for taking so long to get to this 😔

I'm doing okay :)

Rainworld sounds like such an interesting game! I'd want to find a bunch of slugpups if I played the game because that sounds adorable.

And honestly, I can't see for the first few hours after waking up, so the fact that you can play rainworld at 9 in the morning is impressive to me 😂

As for anything interesting? Yeah, definitely some interesting stuff, but I can't really talk about it since so much of it's personal. But I did have a crazy couple of days because of some weather and then I had to disappear for a bit because the power went out because of said weather. So then I was living in the dark for over 24 hours, and missing my mutuals very much 😂

It probably didn't seem like I was gone that long, but it felt like forever to me 🤣

[azerothtravel]

Secret Origin

I'm just an old time Warcraft nerd who's too dumb to quit. My first WC game was Warcraft II, when I was in high school. I gravitated toward the Horde because they were funnier. I liked the game, but wasn't too good at it. Jump ahead to the release of Warcraft III, it's a whole other thing. I read all the lore in the huge manual. I was completely taken with the concept of orcs as once noble, tragic victims trying to make their way in the world and atone for their crimes. A friend of mine had me read some of the novels. I was suddenly way, way into the setting. Plus, I knew a lot of people who played WC3. I enjoyed the Orgrimmar campaign in Frozen Throne with no idea it was more or less a test run for WoW.

But I didn't like MMOs. I wasn't sure about WoW. Then I got into the beta. I hauled my whole-ass desktop over to the house of the same friend who loaned me those books, and we were up til 4am downloading the client and then getting started. Gormorash the orc warrior was born that night (And so was Skarsnik the troll hunter, but he lost interest after BC). I was immediately sold. Running around Azeroth at ground level, full of detail from the RTS games, was a ton of fun. Gormorash went on many strange adventures in beta, like a hilariously inept "raid" on Westfall where half our group died before we got there and none of us were even level 60.

Then Gormorash was rebooted on Argent Dawn US when the game launched, a member of <Flaming Skull Clan> with several other friends of mine.

By middle 2005, almost literally everyone I knew played WoW. My oldest friends, friends from college, friends from the internet, relatives. Basically 2 friends and my parents were the only people not playing. Friends of mine who didn't know each other met and bonded through WoW. It was a glorious time.

By the end of 2006, I'd been through 2 guild collapses and one server move, as they opened up free transfers to Eitrigg and my friends all took it. I wasn't sure I'd keep playing. The novelty had worn off for most of my friends. I wasn't that into raiding, and doing Arathi Basin over and over was only so interesting (Gormorash just lived in Hammerfall for like a year). I was maybe gonna quit. And then, in early 2007, my brother found 2 Collector's Editions of BC just sitting on a shelf in a store, and asked if I wanted one. I had the vanilla CE, but I'd missed BC when they were released, and didn't buy BC at all. He bought them and shipped me one, and we leveled 60-70 together. It was a lot of fun.

Along the way, I started a new guild with some online friends, and Gormorash is still in it. He's never missed an expansion. Most people have fallen off the wagon. Our guild typically only has 3 active members at any given time these days, but that's fine with me. Sometimes a couple people come back for major content. It was lore that got me into all this, and that remains my primary motivator for playing. My endgame is more PvP and leveling alts than raiding, but the game has literally never supported those 2 things better than right now (2023), so that's pretty good. I still have a good time. And that's why I have hundreds of screenshots to choose from stretching from the 2004 open beta to just a few days ago to post on this blog. With the sad exception of most of 2006, lost in a hard drive failure, I have a comprehensive collection of every screenshot I ever took, and that's what this blog is all about.

I've made a few other Gormorashes on other servers, but rarely leveled them very far. Someone out there made a Gormorash that isn't me, a fact that shocked me when I found out. Who stole my name? Was it you? I have characters of every race on both factions, but still tend to prefer Horde. If you see me, say hello!

Gormorash is an orc warrior who came of age in the camps. With his brother, Rugurrash, he's led a guild of adventures for many years, with trusty allies Snarfner, Vallkillmore and Canon rounding out the core group. His hair's started to gray after saving the world 8 or 9 times, traveling through space and time and the realms of death, but he's still out there, still exploring, still getting into trouble and mostly getting back out of it. He's an alchemist and herbalist in his spare time, and has a completely unmanageable collection of pets. He is really, really tired of being forced to fight his own Warchief, and really hopes the gods don't lean on that already very tired trope again in the future.

[alt-bluesman]

Animal Crossing memories, part 2

It's brand new day, time to get back to it! I'm going to toss in some of my favourite ACNH screenshots between the paragraphs. Stuff that I wasn't able to fit in previously, most of it silly, some pretty. They don't have anything to do with what I have to say, but I'd like to share them somewhere & I don't want this post to be a plain wall of text either. Let's go!

So what is my overall opinion on the game? I think it's awesome. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't get around to experience any of the previous AC instalments, so I have no way to compare. I know that some of the faithful fans of the series aren't necessarily thrilled with New Horizons & looking at their criticisms, they raise good points! Personally I enjoy the game for what it is: there's no wrong way to play it and there is no pressure to do it one way or another. I keep coming back to the Sims and Minecraft for the exact same reasons.

When I opened New Horizons on my birthday this year, I finally took the time to check out all of the features they added over 2 years ago. Better late than never I say! They were met with a mixture of excitement and disappointment, haha. Mostly that first one, thankfully. Cyrus' customisation workshop is hands down one of the best things ever - you no longer have to hunt down your desired item variations on Nookazon or beg your friends for them. There are so, so many new objects in the game. Some of the prices were reduced. You can customise your home inside and outside as well as expand your storage. Froggy chair is back!

Let me tell you though, I was appalled when I found out that bulk crafting wasn't implemented. Why, Nintendo. Why! I know they're still adding minor patches to the game, but I'm afraid it's safe to assume that we're never going to get that at this point. I understand why it wouldn't apply to big items, but fish bait? Come on. We can already buy stuff in bulk. Same thing applies to Nook Miles tickets, why the heck can't we print several at the time? Or fly from one mystery island to another, skipping the airport? Eugh. I heard that Nintendo is notorious for not taking the voices of their fanbase into consideration, so I believe we're stuck forever with these pesky mechanics!

But I don't want to be a negative Nancy. I will stand by my words: the game is awesome. I'm thankful for what we got! I believe New Horizons truly deserved its success and I hope the next instalment in the series will receive a warm welcome just like this one. Unlike some players, I don't think another major update is necessary. Of course it would be great, though the game feels finished to me - with all the events, items, recipes, customisation options, it's a solid title. I can safely say it's one of my favourites as far as all games go.

Now, with all that said, what does the future hold for my little island of Pan? Well... the days of Pan are numbered. After some back and forth, I decided it's time to delete my save file and start fresh. I will take a hot minute to explain why (so bear with me if you're curious), but first I want to say why it was a tough choice. Pan is nearly dang perfect for me. Great layout, long pier, blue airport, oranges as my native fruit and windflowers as native.. flowers! I have quite a few items & board drawings that I hold very dear because they came from friends. I like all of my villagers a lot. I love how the island looks. I have so many memories. After all, it's my true and only Pan.

What's wrong, then?! A lot, man. A lot. Even though I'm proud of how the island looks, it's not fun to play on and that alone is a big deal breaker for me. I (mostly) finished it around the time when heavily-terraformed and decorated islands were all the rage & unfortunately developed that unhealthy mindset of comparing myself to all those much more skilled players. For whatever reason, I wanted to live up to somebody else's standards. Not anymore! My next keyword would be "less": less decorations, less flowers, less trees, less cliffs, less waterfalls. (Seriously. They are so frickin' loud)

Admittedly, Pan doesn't have nearly as much clutter as some other islands do, but it's still a problem in many different ways. The whole central part lags and it drives me nuts every time. I'm pretty much confined to walking on paths as there isn't a lot of open space anymore. Said custom paths flicker a lot. Performing some of the daily tasks can be difficult. Wanna catch a fish? There ain't no space. Shoot down an airdrop? Nope, no space. Build a Snowboy without the snowball getting obliterated 10 times in a row? No. Space.

I know there's always an option to declutter, remodel or flatten and start over - I did these and considered them again! But each and every one seems so daunting now. This brings me to my next point: I miss so many things from the early stages of the game. The spacious, natural feeling of a brand new island. Darting around the place like there's no tomorrow. Slowly building everything from scratch, making your own way through it all. Catching all the critters, searching for fossils, getting scammed by Jolly Redd. Heck, even paying off all the effing debt!

I'm always a strong advocate for a second playthrough. It's true that I love jumping into games with as little knowledge about them as possible, hardly anything can replace that fresh, first experience! But it's so much fun to rediscover too. I pay a lot more attention to detail whenever I replay because I already know the main story and I'm ready to take in all of the smaller things. There is no real story in Animal Crossing, just progress and I hope to take it a little at a time. When the game came out, I had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with it, haha. (Who didn't, though?)

I never visited any of the famed treasure islands, but I did time travel quite a bit. Both things can be absolutely okay if they're exactly what you're looking for. Not sure if that was the right choice for me. I played for hours on end, grinding so hard that I think I just burned myself out much sooner that I wanted to. I couldn't bring myself to touch New Horizons for a long time after that. I believe many other players experienced something similar. That and also all the dramas that inevitably erupted with an introduction of so many new players to the AC community. The game kind of faded into obscurity after its prime. Folks were collectively tired.

Many aspects of that initial hullabaloo were great, not gonna lie! Jumping on the bandwagon, sharing our adventures, making memes. Still, it feels nice to come back after it all subsided - to a game that is, after all, supposed to be relaxing and mellow. I've mellowed down over the years too. Not only that, but I also don't feel the need to rush through it as there is no fear of spoilers anymore, I already know all the unlocks, I know what happens in the game. I'm looking forward to getting back into it with a fresh, blank canvas to have fun on and a more open mind.

------------------

There will be part 3 to this! Hopefully soon after I can access my Switch again. I ain't letting Pan go without a bang either, I will snap pics all around it and post & describe them here. If I can figure out how, I will record a tour. If it's worth it, I will save a dream address. This little fictional land meant so much to me (and I can't even fully explain why I get so attached to stuff like that). I even don't know why I just spent so much time talking about Animal Crossing. Perhaps it's easier for me to talk about games, cartoons and fictional characters than my personal life? It is easier for sure!

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I'm not entirely sure what to say about Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. It's good?

I first attempted to play it forever ago, but I only made it like 70% of the way through. I never had a GBA or anything else I could play GBA games on, but my ex had gotten me a Dingoo. Picture basically a GBA Micro, except with four face buttons and an SD card slot, and also it had emulators for basically every 2D platform from the NES through the GBA (and there was a third-party PS1 emulator you could install that worked ok with a decent number of games too).

It worked pretty well for most stuff I played on there, and it seemed to be going perfectly with Aria of Sorrow too, but I eventually managed to get it stuck in a weird state where no matter what I did it would crash ~30 seconds after loading my save. I never could figure out why or how to fix it, and I just kind of gave up after a while and never touched it again even though it had been a lot of fun.

And then finally a couple years ago Konami took a break from releasing shitty low budget spinoffs of formerly good series and making pachinko machines and put out the Castlevania Advance Collection, and then finally more recently the Switch version was on sale when I wasn't in the middle of a bunch of other stuff and felt up to playing through the entire game again.

It's still one of my favorite metroidvanias (and definitely my favorite Castlevania) up there with stuff like Super Metroid, and it holds up pretty well. I did a 100% souls run and had a good time with it. I know I've complained multiple times recently about Squenix trying and kinda failing with their attempts at proper real time combat that actually feels good in stuff like Harvestella and NEO: TWEWY, but here's this GBA game from like 20 years earlier running on a potato that feels tight and crisp and has good feedback on stuff.

I can tell something does that stuff well when I start picking up on things like noticing you can cancel out of the recovery lag from attacks if your attack is a few frames before you land from a jump, letting you attack again almost immediately. I never figure things like that out when they're so mushy that it's not obvious or hardly makes a difference.

And of course the pixel art still looks good and the music is still fun, and the writing is obviously still complete nonsense just like it's always been in Castlevania games. I probably won't ever get around to the other ones in the collection, but this one is still definitely worth it after all these years.

And just to show how far behind I get on making these posts sometimes, I screenshotted that when I saw it on Steam because it was almost the same day that I got it, and I saved it as a reminder to poke @ion-somnia about it because it was a funny coincidence and I hadn't in a while. And then obviously I didn't, and then even more time passed after I finished the game before getting around to this, so I'm totally doing great at doing all sorts of things before I half/completely forget about them, which is really useful when I try to write these posts so I can remember later what I thought about things when someone asks me. Might work better if I remembered to write them before I forget playing them...

Oh also the fake out intro for the Balore boss fight is too good:

[female-buckets]

Brianna Turner knew something was up when her bedroom door flew open around 7 a.m. CT Thursday and her mom rushed in, waking her up.

It wasn't bad news, however.

"BG's free! BG's free!" Turner's mom yelled.

Still in bed and hardly awake, Turner wasn't sure what she was hearing.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked.

Then the Phoenix Mercury forward opened Twitter and saw national outlets confirming the news that teammate Brittney Griner had been freed from Russian custody after 294 days in a high-profile U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange.

"I honestly thought I was dreaming still," said Turner, who's staying with her parents in Texas while she's back from playing overseas in Turkey. "I was confused. Like, it was utter shock.

"I hopped on social media, we turned on the TV and, yeah, all the news stations were like, 'Breaking news, Breaking news.'"

Turner's grandmother actually saw it first, calling as soon as she saw Griner had been released. "So, thank God my grandma was up early watching the news," Turner said.

She quickly took a screenshot of a reporter's tweet confirming Griner's release and sent it in a group chat to fellow teammates Kia Nurse and Shey Peddy with the message: "Oh my gosh guys." As word broke and eventually spread throughout the day, many members of the Mercury franchise had similar reactions. Tears were shed, mouths dropped agape, texts were sent. Lots of texts.

In Phoenix, Mercury president Vince Kozar also awoke to the news when the second of two calls from future Hall of Famer Diana Taurasi finally roused him. The first thing Kozar did was cry.

"To say it's been a cloud doesn't even really capture it," he said. "I think I probably feel like everybody feels -- tremendous relief. It's certainly a celebration. I guess a little bit of disbelief waiting for it to fully hit.

"I didn't know the next time any of us were going to see her again."

Kozar fought tears as he sat at his desk at home writing the statement the Mercury would eventually release, and when he saw Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker share the statement on Instagram. He eventually made it to the office at Footprint Center around 10 a.m. MT. He had work to get to: among other things, ensuring Griner has everything she needs for her return to Phoenix -- the city, not the team -- whenever that happens.

"We're not thinking about basketball," Kozar said. "Our main concern is her, and -- as I've told people before -- if she never plays another game of basketball, another minute of WNBA basketball again, we will still love her and care for her all the same, and nothing about how we feel about her or what she means to us, or this city or her family or any of that will change."

Outside the Footprint Center, however, were few signs of the Griner news. A maintenance crew was putting up lights around palm trees. A man shot video of the BG42 sign adorning the outside of the arena. Suns employees streamed into work mid-morning after a loss to the Boston Celtics the night before.

Two groups of Jehovah's Witnesses greeted folks as they walked by on the sidewalk and offered them pamphlets. Outside the arena is one of their regular spots to post up because of the heavy foot traffic. They figured out Griner had been released when a local news crew arrived and started interviewing people on the street.

But by and large, it was business as usual in downtown Phoenix. People strolled through the plaza in front of the arena while others got in a mid-morning run. Lunch hour was just beginning. And a few Griner fans made their way to the arena.

Danae McKnight is a 33-year-old who moved to Phoenix three years ago from Florida with her wife. They knew no one in the area and bought Mercury season tickets as a way to find a community, McKnight explained while standing in front of a Black Lives Matter mural that features Griner on the side of the Footprint Center. McKnight said they watched Griner be "unapologetically herself."

"That's something that a lot of people, including myself, struggle with," said McKnight, who wore a "We Are BG" T-shirt. "It took me years to figure out who I was and to accept that, because there's so much fear with the LGBT community and coming out that you feel like you have to hide yourself or you feel concerned.

"... Just the confidence that she has, and she just knows who she is and she just wants to be that and it's inspiring. It's taught me that it's OK to be me."

McKnight bawled when her wife told her Griner was coming home, and knew she wanted to come to the Footprint Center.

"It just felt like the right place to be," McKnight said choking back tears. "This has really impacted me a lot more than I thought it would. I'm married and I can only imagine my wife being away from me for almost 300 days, and it's really personal to me."

Turner is in Austin, about 90 miles from San Antonio, where Griner landed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on Friday. She wants to give Griner space and privacy as she adapts to her old, yet new life.

Turner joked that she's close enough to drive over and wave at Griner through the gates.

"I'm sure hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to maybe talk to her, figure something out," Turner said.

Kozar, who had over 300 unread text messages by lunchtime, also is hoping to see Griner "soon," but only on her timeline, whether it's in Arizona or in her home state of Texas.

"I and everyone around here who just has been desperate for nine months to give her a hug is going to follow her lead on when she wants to see people and when she wants to leave the house and when she wants to go to the grocery store and when she wants to go to a Suns game," he said.

The mood around the Mercury's and Suns' offices was celebratory all day, Kozar said. The Mercury players and coaches he talked to throughout the morning were experiencing a combination of disbelief and joy. Their teammate, their friend who they had talked about, lobbied for, campaigned for for almost a year, was on her way home.

"When you talk about missing a family member, missing a piece of your culture, missing a piece of someone who you have a personal relationship -- she's made you laugh, she's made you feel better, she's picked you up, she's helped you connect with other people -- we've been missing that," Kozar said. "So the idea of that returning, completely separate from basketball, is just really, really joyous."

When Kozar talked to Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard on Thursday, she had just finished physical therapy to treat a back injury she suffered while surfing. When he mentioned her "poor back," Kozar said Nygaard responded: "Nothing hurts today."

While the focus is on Griner's safety and well-being, and helping her readjust to society, her basketball future wasn't too far from Kozar's mind. One thing Kozar learned through all the letters he and Griner exchanged was that it wasn't just her freedom, family and friends that were taken away from her. So was, as she calls it, hoop.

"We'll follow her lead, we'll do whatever she wants," he said. "Part of the joy that she's brought to people is how she plays and the way she plays and who she is when she plays.

"And I'd be lying if I didn't say there was some kind of anticipation or excitement about the idea that everyone would get to experience that again, but that's not what matters most."

[sims-half-crazy]

I posted 242 times in 2022

That's 62 more posts than 2021!

198 posts created (82%)

44 posts reblogged (18%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@twentiethcenturysims

@antiquatedplumbobs

@ivyandink

@happylifesims

@anachrosims

I tagged 212 of my posts in 2022

Only 12% of my posts had no tags

#ts4 decades challenge - 144 posts

#sims 4 historical - 141 posts

#ts4 historical - 140 posts

#sims4 - 131 posts

#sims 4 - 128 posts

#sims 4 screenshots - 125 posts

#decades challenge - 117 posts

#waldrop records - 115 posts

#waldrop gen 3 - 98 posts

#waldrop gen 2 - 86 posts

Longest Tag: 44 characters

#wanted to build a small french inspired town

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

May 16, 1910

Dearest sister,

I hope things are well there. We celebrated Margaret's thirteenth birthday a few days ago. Hard to believe the two oldest are teenagers now. Daisy took her shopping for more appropriate frocks and I can't believe how grown up she looks.

See the full post

15 notes - Posted February 20, 2022

#4

March 3, 1918

**excerpt from Margaret's private diary**

The horror of war is something I never want to see again. There are so many men who made the voyage back to Simerica only to die at the hands of infection or influenza. It's all I can do to keep my hands from being rubbed raw from all the handwashing I do.

We have a new patient. We didn't think he'd make it through the first night, but he did. He'd been caught in an attack with mustard gas and then a nearby shell threw flaming debris at him. He's more bandage than skin at this point. I sing to him. I sing to all the patients. it soothes them, and keeps me in practice. He woke one night while I was tending him, and I had the unfortunate task of telling him that he was never going to regain the sight in his left eye. I told him that he would heal and that the doctors were hopeful that the scarring wouldn't be too bad. He asked that we pray, so I grabbed his hand and said a small, quick prayer with him.

He then introduced himself as Otho Petrie Roper and that his family immigrated here before he was born from Finland. He tells me stories that his mother and father told him. He's quite engaging. I feel so terribly that he's in such pain as he heals, but I'm glad for the chance to lessen his pain with my company and care.

15 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

#3

See the full post

15 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

#2

January 14, 1911

I had to tell the girls that their mother would need more help over the next few weeks. I don't know rightly know what happened, Daisy is a competant cook and knows her way around the kitchen but she'd been complaining that the stove was acting funny of late. I should have paid more heed to what she was saying. The dadgum thing caught fire and in her attempts to put it out Daisy was burned. Not badly but her arm is burned. I don't know how badly she'll scar, but that's not even the worst of it. She was with child. We had no idea. She didn't even think she could get pregnant anymore; it's been so long since Josephine was born. My poor Daisy has had such terrible bleeding that the doctor put her on bedrest for the next week.

19 notes - Posted February 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

27 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lifesimsshane]

catching you up to date on my sims 4 family

I started this family a year ago on April 16, 2023. It all started with Mo Everest. He was a gardener and once he became a young adult, he moved out and got a house with a garden and began to sell the plants he grows.

He had just moved out of his parents' house. Their names were Matt and Autumn. They never wanted kids and Mo was an accident, so they didn't really raise him. They were very rich and polished businesspeople and not very supportive of the hippie that Mo had become and had a strained relationship with him.

One day, he went to a bar and he felt an attraction to the bartender so he started flirting with him and his name was Ahmed.

The two went on a date at a karaoke bar and had a great time.

They went on a second date out in a park where they had a picnic, a bonfire, and had their first kiss.

This was several dates later but they eventually got engaged and married!

They later had two kids: Penelope the first kid and Forrest the second kid.

Mo continues Gardening a lot and works himself up the gardening career and spends most of his time gardening, while Ahmed continues bartending while doing boydbuilding as a hobby since that was his aspiration, which gets him into better shape, and also spend time parenting their kids. Their kids get older obviously and I have a ton of screenshots but I'm just gonna share a few here.

Penelope is kind of a loner/over achiever who started writing and video games as her hobbies and she also begins dating her childhood friend, Bailey.

They get a puppy dog named Ninja also. Forrest seems to take after Ahmed and is really into outdoor and physical activities so he plays on playgrounds, plays with a soccer ball and his basketball hoop in the backyard, and rides his bike around town.

Also, eventually, Forrest became a teenager, and he really inherited Ahmed body's genes because he went from being a skinny kid to being like, jacked when he aged up, lol. He also joined the football team at school.

Forrest also has a crush on his classmate, Jordan, I took them out on a date together.

Okay, that brings you up to date on this family that I've played for a year. I will probably post more about them regularly! At the moment, Mo and Ahmed are probably in their late 40s, Penelope is almost a young adult who is going to go to university, meaning that I'll be officially beginning with Generation 2 of the family, and Forrest just started high school. I hope to use the new expansion pack coming out in a few days and use the family to test its new features.

[skruffie]

A little bit ago, Alice sat down with me to try to clean up my Pathfinder character sheet because Pathfinder is a rather crunchy system and some stuff came up in the last session that I didn't realize I needed. Whenever I've tried to sit down and do the research myself, I would get overwhelmed, frustrated, and sometimes angry because I was given too much information--everything from the volume of info to how it was laid out on the SRD (which is very much designed I think for people who are already familiar with the system rather than brand new players) was discouraging. She took the time to go line by line with me on the character sheet, help me make sure all the math was correct, explain the different skills applicable to my character, and also at the end of the day empowered me to be able to go into the next session with more comfort and confidence.

This post is not actually about Pathfinder, though what I just described is a real thing that happened. This post is actually about a recent, stupid thing I've seen on a local FB group.

I'm in this group that's more for the alt crowd in my town and to join the first question you answer is "Is gender binary? (Transphobia will not be tolerated)" Great, right? The admin posted a screenshot of someone who tried to join and their answer was "So I'm very new to all these terms and what exactly they mean. But I think everyone should be who they want and who they want to be with. No hate toward anyone"

The admin rejected the answer and gave the feedback of do more research before reapplying. The criticism from some of the other group members was met with "Well this is my group, you can make a different one and run it how you like."

I take the empowerment approach. When I'm at work, patients get overwhelmed with their choices and they especially get overwhelmed when they don't understand their insurance. I don't just write up a glasses order and flip the screen around and say "Your total is a few hundred dollars" and leave it at that. When they ask why certain things are priced how they are, I just explain it: this is a feature of your insurance. Most of the time, they already did the research somewhat on their insurance breakdown and you know what they get? They get the eligibility sheet that "basic materials are fully covered" but basic materials is not defined to them. They come in thinking basic materials would be the frame and lenses regardless of price or lens material and I am the one that corrects them. Sure, it's my job, but overwhelmingly they leave the store empowered because now they know how the insurance works.

The only time I've lost my patience was when someone asked me why they had a material copay, and I said "I don't know, call your insurance and ask them why they want you to pay an extra $25 dollars".

Telling someone to just go research and come back is lazy, and then meeting criticism with "Well this is how I run it" is stupid and dangerous. How you're running it is bad.

[justanotherquinnfan]

So this beauty of an audio came out only a few days ago, but has already caught the Quinnisphere (is that a word? meh) by storm. Now, to be clear, when I thought about writing this post, I wanted to make sure that I am being as careful as possible with my language. Mostly because Quinn is so deeply personal for many, if not all, of the creators as well as the listeners. In no situation will I be yucking ANYONE'S yum and while I get one person's kink is another person's squick, this is not what it's about. Like what you like, it's stuff like this that is what's getting most of us through the day.

That all being said, I can't begin to describe the actual full-on joy this audio gave me. I often feel that the more produced audios don't get the same love as the more stripped down (hah, puns) stories that are more like the general friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, spouse experience ones. And while there is definitely a niche for those, the part of me that joined Quinn and immediately binged all of the originals feels sadness for the ones that actually have some real universe added to them that don't get as much love.

Which is why I absolutely LOVE that drRapture and Adrian's collab [It's Alive!] has gotten as much traction as it has. I took the screenshot above LAST NIGHT and you can see it has almost 1600 plays and nearly 500 favorites (one of them being mine, but of course). I think the main draw for many is the fact that it's a collab and a surprising one at that. Or maybe just surprising to me, even though it honestly shouldn't have been. drRapture is a phenomenal voice in this industry, bringing so much color to his audios, really working hard to make you feel like you're in the room with him. He is dynamic and natural and at no point is your suspension of disbelief broken around him. He is SO much fun to listen to and his curve appreciation audios are...hard to beat? Difficult to top? Hmm. Some compliment that doesn't IMMEDIATELY sound like a double entendre, I'll let you decide on one.

Adrian is also an incredibly unique voice as well. I will admit that at the time of writing this post I have not listened to many of his audios. A big part of that is that I am in the process of finding an entry point to his work. This has happened to me with a few other creators and it's just part of my journey especially when I find a voice so different from what I'm used to. If I could describe Adrian it would be, "Intense, SO INTENSE OMG" and I just need to ease into that. But despite my lack of experience with Adrian, what I HAVE encountered has fully cemented him as a fantastic and talented actor on this app.

So, to have them both in one was intriguing, to say the least. And as it dropped, to IMMEDIATELY make the Rocky Horror Picture Show connection, I went from somewhat interested to laser focused.

Now, normally, I like to give a first listen to these audios while commuting to work. Sometimes, it's the only thing that gets me actually moving to the office. But I decided to give this one the space and quiet of just listening at home and I'm glad I did. The production values on this particular audio are amazing. If I didn't already know that this was done in-house by the creators themselves, I would have thought this was an Audible-scale production. Though, honestly, just because some people call him Daddy Bezos, Amazon could never.

I am going to put the rest of this post under a cut, in case people haven't listened to it yet (WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR) and want to not be spoiled. But read on if you have!

We find ourselves in a waiting room talking to Nurse Joy, a character whom I adore both for the fact that her name fits in so well at drRapture's lab, but also for the potential Pokemon reference.

As an elder millennial, I'm not mad at it.

While we wait for our appointment, the Doc himself appears and he is just as delightfully unhinged as I would have hoped for. One minute incredibly serious, while the next cackling with unabashed scientific glee, he leads us through the facility, wherein we hear about all manner of...sticky situations happening. And we are finally led to the room in which our new friend, Adrian, is waiting to be booted up and tested. It then becomes one of the best binaural experiences I have ever had. With Doc in one ear and Adrian "in front of us" (you know what I mean), what follows is tremendously sexy with Adrian SO ready to please and Doc Rapture barking orders in the background. My favorite moment was just hearing him go, "Be. Louder." Like, damn ok, sure, doctor's orders and all that.

Adrian himself undergoes an evolution as the audio goes on, going from near-grunts to full sentences, showing how he learns as he...works. The effect is subtle, but undeniable, it creates this sense of "you're learning how to teach him and he is learning how to fulfill his purpose." And then, by the end, he even has a naughty sense of humor that we don't see at the start. This really underscores how incredibly tight the acting is. And yes, I know, another pun, I have fully given up on trying to find other phrasing. But the acting is, indeed, tight and at no point do I ever get pulled out of the story itself, even if I were getting swept up in other feelings. His character is not as fully fleshed-out, being that he is a Rocky pastiche, but despite that, Adrian can take the tiniest amount of character development and really go the mile.

Throughout the encounter, you also hear what sounds like muffled moans from behind what we know to be the one-sided mirror in which Doc Rapture is behind, "observing." This further adds to the environment that is created and adds the wonderful sense of reality to the whole audio.

I think, whether you're into any of the tags associated with this audio or not, it's absolutely worth a listen. It's funny and sexy and such a loving homage to both The Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as scifi campiness in general. I never thought, when going into this audio, that I would enjoy being the Janet in this situation. Columbia was always my favorite. But this feeling of being somewhat wide-eyed (I mean as wide-eyed as one can be given that they ordered a man to be specially created for their pleasure) and just going along with the ride, so to speak, was just so much fun, in a way I don't see as often. Don't get me wrong, I love the more serious, more straightforward stories. I love the Regency romances and the sweet girl-next-door moments and the darker, rougher stuff. But who says you can't have a good laugh while having a good time?

Dammit, Janet, I just love this so goddamn much! And I can go on, but I won't at the risk of Tumblr enforcing a character limit. But I would love to know what anyone else thinks of this audio because it's just so fucking good.

[underturnedapplecart]

Good Morning,

I feel like I want to die and can't tell anyone.

Two days ago, an internet troll took two solid days to run my name through the mud. He peppered me with calls, laugh reacts, etc. …That's not so bad, except.

Except I ran out of money this week. Except I found out this house has an end date. Except everything is falling apart in my real life, and the only friends I have are on Facebook.

So now, going online to talk about my very real mental issues feels dangerous. I thought my Facebook circle limited to people who would, at the very least, -let- me be crazy. I even dropped over 350 people when I switched accounts. I only added safe folks. Or so I thought, because he started out encouraging. And took offense that I didn't thank him. I used Matthew 6 1:4 on this Christian to remind him not to ask for gratitude openly on Facebook, and he went for two days about how nasty a person I am, who doesn't do anything for himself, and how I will be asking for money soon. …He really did pick the wrong target. A slew of my mutual friends came to each of his posts, with screenshots and evidence that I'm just a quiet generous person having a mental health crisis. (In one case, a friend admitted that I had given them money, so I admitted that I'd given hundreds to different people over the past year.) Most of my friends on Facebook have been reassuring, but… One has declined to see me at all while I'm here, so I have no St. Louis friends to see anymore outside of the ones I'm visiting. (This should be normal, right?) I do need money, and tbh if I asked for it, I'd likely get enough to leave the state. It's not about principle, though…

He just dragged up that I was taught to never ask for money, ever. I ask for help, they offer money, I take that. If no one offers money, then I just get by with whatever people offer me. And so here I am in St. Louis with barely enough money to get to Little Rock, and trying to get back to Florida, and I can't ask anyone for help anymore. My last place where I felt open to talk about my problems was poisoned in my mind, now that Facebook is re-drama'd.

No one here seems to be inclined to help, but instead they seem to pity me. That's what it feels like. They pity me, that I have nothing and no one and they'd help if they could but they don't have anyone or anything to give me. Jessie sent me a few job leads for the area. I put in for a part time Sound Guy job at the Y, "For while I'm here with my parents." If I have that job at the Y, even part time, I can save to get out without much help from the Jessie & Mike. One week is enough for the train ticket(s) I need. Two weeks to break the trip up. Three weeks and I could take a sleeper car halfway.

My reasonable goals are still intact, and my plan is still here, but…I didn't realize that my hosts were looking forward to my departure at all. Last night while I was asleep, Jessie sent a text reminding me to be quiet in the morning, that they were sleeping in for a long day today. They didn't need any singing or affirmations. This is what my life is like, though…anyway, I've tried to keep it down. Dressed quietly for my walk. And…I set the alarm off.

I'm utterly embarassed. I spent the first fifteen minutes just utterly frozen in fear as Mike dashed around the house doing several alarm things. I had already turned it off - I knew the code - but I could tell he didn't want to be up but needed to check everything. He left the alarm off. The next fifteen minutes were in tears as I slowly undressed from my walk. It's windy. Snow blasting my face. I didn't want to go far, so I only walked to the driveway and back. I walked back in the door and the alarm went off…I didn't know I had to go hit the code right away, and the thing screeched us all awake. It's been an hour or so now. I want to eat, but I'm afraid of making too much noise. And I don't feel wanted here. And I feel like I'm trapped and unsafe. I am safe here. I know this! I could fall apart and I'm safe here. Except people will now be on me, every single day, to meet their expectations, and I don't believe that I can.

I'm trying to get a job and I even have an informal interview planned.

The point is, I can fuck up BAD here and still probably be OK. Alright?