#i'm actually not really going to use the sims at all for this and rely on blender resources only

[sysig]

Talana in the Sims 2!

I don’t have any of the “correct” accessories and that is stopping me exactly 0% lol - I love this galaxy blush so much, it’s even blue and matches her skin tone! :D

Initially I wasn’t actually sure what to do for her clothes because I didn’t have anything suitably sexy enough, but as I mulled it over I realized hey, didn’t Revenge of the Jedi come out in in ‘83? And SCII came out in ‘92....huh. I’d still like to do my own retexture, but it’s a decent base to work from!

Of the neighbors that initially came to greet her, only DAX was another SCII member, so I had her greet just him, hoping they’d be friends :D They did not! >:0 DAX was rude to her immediately! DAX!

If you dare say something like “You’re prettier when you’re mad” >:(

Well that went well

He came back later that night and acted shady - DAX! Don’t be mean to Talana!!

DAX! >:0

Interestingly enough, I had only had her interact with DAX at this point, but she had seen multiple other people while I took her clothes-shopping earlier - she didn’t greet any of them, but they’re still stored in her hidden memories! I just think that’s a really cool design :D She doesn’t have a relationship with them, but she does have eyes! It’s little touches like this that make me love this game

Pft. Subtle, Talana

I decided after they cooled down that I could try and have them get along by slowly building their relationship over the phone - they probably would get along better if they didn’t have to look at each other lol

Talana was caught spying on Stanley, apparently he’s her type. You can’t use your telescope to peep on human males, Talana!

Now that she and DAX are on better terms, I invited the whole household over! :D Everyone is so attracted to Stanley! Stanley is unphased lol

Captain, please

Everyone thinking about the Captain! She actually rejected his compliment at first haha, oh no!

ZEX immediately went for her ballet bar, why

“The Captain is HOT!” - Talana (and ZEX)

Aww haha ♥ He came over to help of his own volition ♪

I looked back over and- DAX were you just waiting your turn??

Now that they’re not angry at each other anymore, but still mad about other people lol, angy buddies

A mermaid you say. Talana’s Lifetime Want was to be the Hand of Poseidon (Level 10 Oceanography career), it was too perfect not to haha

I gave her some sharp teeth accessories but unfortunately they kept flashing blue every time I reset the lot so I ended up taking them off for the rest of these :P I still think little pointy teeth are cool tho!

I think she missed you Captain

Hot tub time! I wonder what sweet nothings she’s whispering to him hehe

This animation is so cute ;;♥ Such a gentle kiss! Very sweet

Look! He’s sitting on her lap a little bit!!

He’s such a little spoon lol ♪ Also his hand casually on her butt hehe

Party time! Talana needed a lot of friends for her promotions so this was mostly a networking party lol, what an interesting bunch of crossovers - in this bunch we have Mariella and Stanley from The Stanley Parable, ZEX, and Miles Edgeworth :D

And on the other side, we’ve got Phoenix, the Captain, DAX, and the Curator :D I wanted to invite the Narrator but I ran out of room on the guest list D: Still though, a good mix!

Can you guys chill you’ve been here for like two seconds

Miles is not interested in your ghost stories, ZEX. Actually, I’ll need to increase Miles’ and Phoenix’s interest in the paranormal when I hop back into their lot now that I think of it

Them being in this hot tub makes me nervous - I’ve set them both to be as ace as the game will allow (0/0 attraction to men and women, I wish there was an alloace option tho :( I might be able to simulate it with ACR, but they’re so quick to jump into bed with each other! Hgh) but this specific hot tub is an Aspiration Reward and thus behaves weirdly - just don’t get any funny ideas! I see you Phoenix! Also DAX in the background checking out ZEX lol

Not that I want any of you hanging out in the hot tub but why are you two standing behind it - you can see the empty seats, right?

Back inside, of course these two are being goofy together haha

Oh hey DAX :)

Captain please, find your chill, you literally just tried to invite Talana to bed right in the middle of everyone - ACR strikes again! Yes Mariella and the Curator were subjected to that lol

Overview of the party - we’ve got Mariella on the ballet bar, ZEX and the Captain talking about robbery, the Curator in her bathing suit chatting with Talana, a broken shower in the middle there, Stanley and Phoenix in the hot tub together, DAX stepping out into the backyard, and Miles eating some chips at the bar. Pretty sick party :D

Something about these three from such different games all hanging out in a hot tub together is very funny to me lol

The Captain called! :D He invited her out on a date, though they’d actually just had one lol - he wanted a round 2!

They went out and got their pictures taken ♪

And a little something else as well lol. I like the Public Woohoo memory icon in this context, it reminds me of a flying saucer and they are both aliens so

They’re so cuuuute ahhhh ♥ I love the way it looks like Talana got embarrassed from the first smooch and blocked the camera hehe 💕 The Captain’s laughing face is so charming!

Two Dream Dates back to back, he dropped off two bouquets that night haha

Did the thing! :D Now that I’ve gotten her LTW, I’m not sure how much more I’m gonna play on her lot, but it was a bunch of fun to basically slow-speedrun her to this point haha

[whirligig-girl]

watching this video of a steam train engineer, Hyce, who works for a railway museum in Colorado, has worked in the actual freight railroad industry, etc, reacting to the Thomas 1983 pilot and being moved to tears not over the content of the video, but because of his personal history being bullied over liking thomas as a kid even though he really just always liked real narrow gauge trains.

It's such an interesting glimpse into what I think goes on in a lot of railfan's minds. In the general railroad fan communities online, it is very common to find people who hate Thomas. They will call you cringe for posting art of a train with a grey face, no matter the degree of quality. They see Thomas as exactly only a cartoon for toddlers.

Of my followers who are here for trainposting and not slimegirl posting, most of you I think are probably not like this, and you understand that Thomas is real trains, that almost anyone who grew up with the original show and it remained a special interest through to adulthood got there because they were pulled in by the worldbuilding of the setting, the real basis of the locomotives, the real stories that inspired each and every one of the railway series stories, etc.

But to a lot of railfans, Thomas is a baby cartoon for babies. There are some communities that outright ban Thomas fans, and often when they aren't those communities can be hostile towards them.

I think Hyce's video shows why that is. As kids, they were bullied for liking trains because trains = thomas and thomas = baby show. And there's a real trauma there, I don't want to minimize that. Hyce was called the R-slur as a kid and lord knows I was the same.

But then to take that pain and then take it out on other people who do like the think that people made fun of you for, well, that fucking sucks actually.

The fact of the matter is, 'normies' think railfans are kinds cringe weirdos. They probably don't think of that in terms of thomas the way a kid does, but railfanning is never going to be considered cool. As I understand it, even in countries that rely on trains for public transportation it's still considered a little weird to be obsessed with trains as an adult. That's ok. That's what your railfan or model rail or train sim community is for.

I can guarantee you that drawing arbitrary lines in the sand and rejecting and being toxic towards thomas the tank engine fans will not endear you to the normies. You will never be able to reject the cringe of being associated in the slightest with a children's show enough to be cool. It just makes you look like a jerk.

And hey, like, you, dear reader, you know this. You followed me because you like that I draw trains with faces (or slimegirls, but if you followed me because you like slimegirls i need not lecture you on cringe culture.) You know that it's fucked up to be mean to Thomas fans. And here on tumblr, you probably even know what I'm about to say next. Reddit and twitter (and maybe bsky) though have a problem with this.

Thing is: this is fractal. Thomas fans, you don't look cooler by rejecting and shit talking fanart clearly made by children of My Little Pony pngs put over screenshots of Trainz thomas models, or MS Paint drawings of Thomas smooching Rosie with comically long lips to stretch past their buffer beams. We're all fans of a really really cool show made using ingenious model filming techniques about interesting and grounded railway stories and history, but that show is a show that has always had a target audience of preschoolers. We're just going to have to live with the fact that people are going to find us cringe. You don't have to contribute to that phenomenon. (Half the art that gets called cringe is amateur art clearly made by children and teenagers, which is the other part that gets me. Have you never been twelve? It's not the most dignified thing to be, and that will be reflected by your art output.)

Anyway this is all an allegory for queerness.

So here's some gay steam locomotives. if you've reached this far, you've earned it:

[sasaofastora]

Story Questionnaire

Thanks for the tag, @historybunnny! You are always so inspiring and encouraging, and I love ya for it ☺️

1) How did you come up with such unique & fascinating characters?

Well, since I've only just start started with the Copperdale story, I don't feel that my characters are that unique or in depth just yet, but hoping definitely to get there! I guess the main thing that would make them stand out somewhat is simply the fact that I wanted to make a story about Canadians, mostly just because I haven't seen much of that on simblr!

2) When you started writing your story, what did you take into consideration?

There were a few main things which were all things I took away from the Finch legacy, which I may still revisit some day. The main thing was that I wanted to flex my creative writing muscles this time around- getting much more in depth with characters and descriptions, rather than the more snapshot style of Finch. In a similar vein, I'm planning much more ahead this time, which I think will help in writing a more developed story. Finally, this time around I'm using a more realistic aging system, which I think will really help in making a more realistic story and help to create a more logical progression as well.

3) How did you shape each character’s background/family?

So for Thomas, firstly, I knew he had to work on the railway, because it's just the most Canadian History *TM thing that I can think of. The building of the railways is such a massive part of our history here that I had to include it directly- plus making it what his father did as well just made sense as to how he got involved in that work to begin with, and then also for a reason to travel west to Ontario. Also decided to make him from Halifax purely because I was listening to Stan Rogers' "Barrett's Privateers".

As for Caroline, I wanted her to have a more wealthy upbringing, mostly just to have something of a foil to Thomas' working class background. I'm hoping to lean more into her more posh tendencies and conceptions about the world as the story goes on- so look forward to that! Also, I just wanted to have a Canadian immigrant quite early on in the story, if only to shout out my own family, none of whom were in Canada before the 1900s actually, so Caroline has me beat lol!

4) Do you plan everything before starting, or are you more spontaneous?

In the past I have been much more spontaneous, but this time around planning is the name of the game, if only just for the sake of challenging myself. That's not to say I have the entire thing planned, I'm still leaving myself room for things to change and develop as I go, but I do already have ideas for as far ahead as the 2010s.

5) Does reality inspire you, or do you rely more on your imagination?

Definitely a bit of both, but I'd say leaning more into reality for the most part just because it is a historically inspired story.

6) When did you KNOW you were going to make this story?

Basically ever since it dawned on me that I hadn't seen any other explicitly Canadian simblr stories, I became kind of obsessed with the idea of making this story. Then after puttering around in CAS and creating Thomas and Caroline, I was off to the races.

7) What has shaped your story into being the way it is?

Oh my gosh, all the encouragement and help developing ideas I've had from all sorts of people, but in particular @antiquatedplumbobs, @historybunnny, and @aheathen-conceivably who are just amazing cheerleaders and have given great feedback parts of my story both released and not! You guys are truly amazing. Good eggs, all of ya.

Thanks again so much for asking, and I will tag @aheathen-conceivably, @applesaucesims, @antiquatedsimmer and @surely-sims!!

[magpod-confessions]

hi. so because i'm normal about jonathan sims and jmart. um.

i really like jmart. i think there could have been MUCH better buildup, but... ultimately it's a very cute ship. i think the appeal, yeah, is a lot that it's just canon. but.

they're both deeply broken people. jon wasn't loved enough. his grandmother tried her best, but he was never cuddled, never read to, never had a chance to *be a little kid*, really. and martin was never loved. maybe he convinced himself he was just never loved the right way, that his mum just didn't know how to show it because he was so *insufferable* and *incompetant*, but no matter the lies he tells himself, martin was not shown love by his mother.

and then they meet. and martin gives and gives and gives because that's all he knows. and jon has no idea how to receive because he never really had anything to receive. and jon's coping mechanism, with that unknown situation, is to reinforce his emotional walls. martin does not know how to stop giving. so they don't work at this point, not at all.

and then jon's emotional walls come tumbling down. well, moreso that they were violently destroyed, with prentiss and all. jon has no support system!!! tim hates him because he's a fucking *stalker*, martin... well... he can't rely on martin, of all people. and sasha... he never knew her too well, but she's acting strange. so jon and martin don't work together at that point, romantically, i think partially because jon won't let it.

in big part, jmart is built on mutual trauma (NOT traumabonding!! i know it's used that way in podcast, but that's not the correct definition) and ... martin being pretty much the only person jon has left. of course, there's basira and melanie and georgie, but they don't *get it*. they didn't go through everything jon did alongside him. sure, martin didn't either, but martin has been there the whole time.

it's partially a relationship of proximity, partially shared trauma, but i do think a lot of it is genuine care for each other (even if that care stems from the former two reasons).

anyways. theyre really cute. tma could have been just as good without it, but---and im saying this as someone who typically despises most romance in media---i really adore them and their dynamic. it opens up so many doors for both character- and self-exploration.

martin learning to love without sacrificing himself. jon learning to love openly, period. explorations of trust and how mutual trauma that affected people in different ways can shape them, etc etc etc. and of course, this is all in fics and in my own mind, because . theyre dead . (i wont accept any ending but that, honestly. theyre not Somewhere Else to me). but. it's nice. they mean a lot to me as characters and as people and as a pair. thumbs up.

and some jon ranting!! because i. admit. finally. that i might be a bit of a jon kinnie.

jon doubts himself, constantly, unless his decision is completely impulsive (ex. the coffin). he can't *let* himself feel, fully, because as a child it was always annoying/obnoxious, or too much, or wrong in some ambiguous, nebulous way.

he's out of touch with himself emotionally. it's... not so much that he doesn't get emotions, it's moreso that he's repressed the majority of his own so intensely that he has a hard time dealing with others' emotions because he's not too sure what it's supposed to feel like without a heavy flavouring of shame.

he's read a lot of books. he knows, in theory, what sadness or romantic love or anger or excitement feels like---and occasionally in practice, when the repression and 'compartmentalisation' (bottling it up) becomes too much and it all boils over---but he has a hard time relating those hypothetical and heat-of-the-moment feelings to actual, real life people.

he struggles with empathy, severely. partially an autistic thing, partially a trauma response. yknow. he's genuinely well-meaning when it comes to comforting those he cares about, but he's not sure of the right thing to say because of how severely that muscle has atrophied. he was never taught that with his grandmother and her neglect (and yes, no matter what he says on tape, it was emotional neglect) and then not having very many friends... he missed those prime developmental stages as a child.

he never empathised with book characters, i don't think. he was always the observer, never really fully putting himself in the role of the protagonist. he definitely used books as an escapist coping mechanism, but it wasn't in a visiting-this-fictional-world way, it was more of a losing-himself-in-the-story way, if that makes sense. there was always a sense of detachment. reading was an *in between* of his life and the life of the protagonist.

he struggles with his and others' feelings because, from his perspective, his emotions are uniquely shameful, uniquely embarrassing, and uniquely *harmful* to other people. so, he represses them, and doesn't let himself feel them unless they're 'useful'. and then, when he can't apply this ideology to others' emotions, he has no way to deal with them. he freezes up because this is a situation in which he has no real experience in, and, as a child who was punished for behaving autistically *wrong* ---whether by his peers or his grandmother---he's scared to make a wrong move.

he sees himself as a person who is uniquely capable of harm. other people can hurt other people, sure, but jon can hurt them in a *special* way, a *worse* way, because he is a fundamentally wrong, bad person.

yeah👍

.🗣️

I AM EATING THIS I agree with this yea

[canmom]

thinking about Deus Ex Human Revolution because I stumbled over its soundtrack in my game OST folder.

it got good reviews in its day but with hindsight it's not really remembered as a great game to endure the way the first one did. there is stuff to praise - art direction for example - but equally, you can criticise plenty: the clumsy handling of the 'augments' theme, the shallow orientalism of the China chapters, the watering down of the immersive sim elements. the clumsy outsourced boss fights and the rubbish ending.

if it's remembered today it's mainly for the "i never asked for this" meme, and the 'Icarus' trailer.

watching it again in 2024, the soundtrack is doing a lot of the work of carrying this. most of the dialogue in this trailer is really corny cyberpunk-isms, and a lot of its visuals are blatant riffs on Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed and Blade Runner (though I'll credit that it has a great sense of mechanical design in its robots and stuff). but the opening visual motif - the Renaissance dissection tableau transitioning into the flight of Icarus - is just the right level of pretentious for a game like this. that, combined with the wordless vocals rising and falling around the synth line, does so much work to sell the idea of 'this is grand and important'.

cyberpunk has a pretty specific sound associated with it - the electronic sounds are obvious, but in some of the best remembered cases it relies on contrasting the human voice and old school percussion against those synths, typically in some unusual vocal style that is likely to be unfamiliar to viewers - most notably Indonesian gamelan in the Akira soundtrack, and Bulgarian choir in Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. the other major genre touchpoint, Blade Runner, does not generally use vocals in the same way, but still plays the synth off against percussion sounds. in the simplest terms, it's a contrast of 'natural' and 'unnatural' right? what humans were and what we're becoming.

here we're not importing quite such an unfamiliar sound, but we have a lot of long, held notes by a solo singer (either Ariel Engle or Andrea Revel going off Soundcloud, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the specific credit). it's not unrelated to what Emi Evans was doing with the 'chaos language' in NieR, and indeed to the sound that J'Nique Nicole would bring in the sequel there. I really like wordless vocals, the human voice is such a versatile instrument and brings so much texture.

against that the synth here is actually keeping things really simple. it's mostly just repeating phrases, often simply arpeggios. I haven't really learned enough to keep track of the chord movements here, I'm sure someone more well-versed in music theory could easily take them apart because I doubt it's doing anything overly complex. but it's in a minor key, it's gradually rising for the first half of the track, dropping a bit every so often so it can keep climbing for the most part... and then the final third introduces a second synth line with a slower descending motif - goddamn it's literally just the Icarus metaphor again isn't it, rising and then falling? but it's not too obvious with it, like it doesn't climb all the way back down.

against that the trailer plays a montage of General Cyberpunk Stuff, notably Adam killing people in sicknasty ways, robot limbs doing robot limb stuff, newscasters with interesting fashion sense, and protesters getting gunned down by cops. the weakest parts are the ones that refer to the game's plot and aren't just pure vibes tbh.

that trailer wrote a lot of cheques that the game couldn't really pay, but it is interesting to look back at it with a more analytic eye. it makes me wonder how to really get that human voice texture in music I make. I mean the obvious answer is 'learn to sing', and I'm working on that and making progress, but my voice is pretty testosteron'd and inevitably that limits my range. vocaloids are great but mostly for a different kind of sound. ah well, I'll figure it out. the erhu at least has a sound that's pretty close to the human voice, so maybe that can be the ingredient I need to get that Atmosphere(TM).

[gascon-en-exil]

A Primer on Actual (SFW-ish) Male Fanservice

Has this ever happened to you? You're making a social media post or video or whatever about Fire Emblem Heroes, and you point out that a primary feature of the game is its unrelenting torrent of horny-just-verging-on-explicit female character designs: the physics-defying bras, the impossibly-contorted boobs-and-butt poses, upskirts and camel toes galore, strategically-placed rips in damaged art, the odd foot focus here and there, etc.

You're making a good case - not that it's hard, IS is not subtle about any of this - but then someone comes along and leaves a comment to the effect of "but the summer banners have shirtless men! Checkmate, loser."

This post aims to counter that, to demonstrate that genuine male fanservice on par with what FEH does with its female characters looks very, very different and amounts to much more than just muscular guys with their shirts off. To do so, I'm going to have to pull example art from pretty much the only video game subgenre that can be relied upon to deliver here: sexually explicit gay dating sims. We're going to be looking at how these games frame the male body, and what sexualized (partial) male nudity really looks like outside of the aspirational power fantasy lens adopted by most mainstream, straight-male directed media including FEH.

Of course, I'm gay myself, and I can anticipate the rebuttal to this rebuttal - that women, allegedly, do not eroticize the body in the same way as men...unless they're dirty fujoshi in which case their opinions can be immediately discarded. I leave it to any women reading this to have fun unpacking that nonsense.

(It must be noted that, while the games I'm pulling these images from are all explicit, I've gone out of my way to select art that would theoretically fall within what seem to be the content guidelines of FEH: no exposed genitals or bare butts. I'm labeling this post SFW-ish all the same though, so use your discretion when viewing.)

Let's start with something simple and softcore from Coming Out on Top.

This is a variant on a popular mild fanservice image: a guy lifts his shirt, exposing his belly (and possibly stomach hair). In context this is also intended to convey vulnerability, as the character is drunk and struggling to undress. Also noteworthy is that the framing here is explicit with the MC in the shot.

Continuing with the softer stuff, here's one from clicker game Blush Blush.

This game has a bunch of technically SFW options to choose from, but I went with this for two reasons. One, it's an example of how shirtless men can be eroticized without being excessively muscular; two, it's a goofy holiday pic that teases with the strategically-placed candy cane and the allusion to the "Dick in a Box" Saturday Night Live song. The NSFW variation of this image goes full throttle with that idea.

From All Men Are Pigs:

I really wanted to include something from this game as its art style stands out quite a bit in contrast to many of the others here, although unfortunately some of the best examples break the rule. Here in a rare (for these games) non-sexual action pose, the character is performing a ballet routine on a stripper pole in a gay bar: a campy concept that works fairly well in context and that explicitly calls attention to the character as an eroticized object. He is, however, consenting to the in-universe ogling, and as he's elsewhere revealed to have experience with sex work it's understood that he knows the value of showing off his body. Call that something you'd never hear a character express in FEH...except someone like Camilla, perhaps?

Let's get a little spicier with a pair from Full Service.

This may be the tamest of the swimwear outfits seen in the game's beach episode, but I wanted something that would compare to the summer banner designs of FEH's male characters. Even so, note the pose: reclining, legs slightly open, displaying a single nipple. This guy is the biggest bottom in the game's cast and is framed as such, even with the relatively conservative outfit and the sunglasses obscuring his face (which symbolically tie into his internalized biphobia and anxiety about publicly expressing his attraction to men). Further, because this character is a model it may be assumed that the posing is intended to be read as deliberate.

This one comes from the game's costume night set piece, which includes several designs that wouldn't be out of place in some of the more random seasonal banners. I chose this one as a counterpoint to what FEH does with its shirtless men. There's the cocky expression, the crotch bulge with nothing underneath, and the angling which makes it look like he's standing over you. To contrast the beach image, this guy is the total top of the cast, so the musclebound partial nudity is less about being aspirational for the presumed viewer and more about erotic dominance.

For something more fantastical, here's one from the sci-fi title The Symbiant: Re:Union.

This game's main claim to fame is alien tentacle porn, but this scene is intended as a moment of genuine, human(oid) vulnerability for the character, on the night when he reunites with his ex (the MC and viewer here) for the first time in two years. The camera pans up over his entire body, ending on this view in profile with a very large nip slip and the cigarette calling attention to his hand and mouth. As with several others, this image is also deliberate enticement, conveying both the languor of casual hookups and the weight of the characters' history together. (Obviously a mobile gacha doesn't have the space to grant such narrative or thematic significance to its eroticism...but that is part of the point.)

Moving along, here's one from Camp Buddy: Scoutmaster Season. Get ready for the just-shy-of-X-rated.

This one's a character portrait, unlike all the others here which are CGs, so debatably it's more in line with what you'd see in FEH. And...yep. It's a sexy bull costume. "Crotch bulge" doesn't begin to cover it, there's the pubic hair, the pierced nipples, and assorted other bits like the bell and the saddle and the tailed butt plug. Some time ago I showed off a different horny character design from this game and got an anon calling it stupid, so let's talk about that. Is this design technically something someone could wear in real life? Yes; parts of it resemble bondage gear, and the character displays his interest in leather in another scene. Is it impractical and stupid? Quite possibly. Does the subsequent sex scene take full advantage of the costume for some Dom/sub barnyard roleplay? Also yes. This continues my point about designing beefy (heh) muscular guys, and how there's a world of difference between this and, like, Hawkeye or summer Ephraim/Dimitri/whoever.

Incidentally, this character also has an oversized dick to the point of straining disbelief and the MC's insides. If you're looking for the male equivalent of breasts so enormous they can barely be held in by barely-there tops, that would be giant dicks - and there's no way in hell that we'll ever see those in FEH, even in technically SFW bulge form.

Continuing with BLits's games, here's one from the upcoming Jock Studio.

It's a male boobs-and-butt pose, one that doesn't require the character to dislocate his spine! I chose this image because the pose and outfit choice is remarkably similar to that of the notorious Tharja Summer Scramble DLC pic that got censored outside of Japan. Jock Studio actually has a better instance of the same pose with a different character, one where the MC's horny dialogue even calls attention to the ampleness of those two elements; unfortunately, the character has his underwear off there so it's too horny for this post. Much like Tharja with Anna in the DLC, here the character is being surprised by someone walking in while they're changing and making comically lewd remarks about their body. The contextual difference is that, rather than being forced into a swimsuit, the character here is disrobing to film a pornographic scene, and is only surprised by the MC only just now learning that their club makes porn. Hilarity ensues in both cases, but JS's setup is ironically less voyeuristic despite the game's premise.

Finally, let's close things out with one last image from Coming Out on Top. Very borderline, but I've got a distinct point to make with this one.

Like a lot of media, gay dating sims often struggle with eroticized depictions of various types of men, among them fat, hairy, and middle-aged (or older). I believe the oldest human character with a stated age in this post is the bull guy, and he's merely in his 40s. But back to the image above, it takes full advantage of the size and age of the character on the right relative to the MC. His bulk takes up much of the frame, but it's clearly an intimate, protective embrace you'd expect of a bear daddy character. I point this out because larger and/or older male characters are often disregarded outright in FEH, or like Fargus recently they're paradoxically given more fanservice-y designs (Visible nipples and chest hair! In FEH!) presumably because the developers think that no one would look at them that way.

I think that's enough for now. The important thing to remember here is that sexual fanservice is more than simply degrees of nudity. It's about framing, angling, which body parts are emphasized, and when possible the surrounding circumstances and how they inform the character's eroticism. Is it deliberate, is it accidental...

...or is it just there to get you to gamble for your favorites?

[stargazer-sims]

Aliens & Science Babies - Info Post

THIS IS PART OF A WORK OF FICTION

Feel free to use any part of this (or all of it) for your own stories, if you want. I'm happy to share.

For ease of reference, this post will be linked in my pinned post.

____________

We all have our headcanons, right? In the "multiverse" of my imagination, I've done a lot of worldbuilding and made up a handful of alien races for various stories over the years, most notably the Erisans from my Two Worlds universe (in which there are actually six inhabited worlds including Earth and Eris, but who's counting anyway?) But, this post is supposed to be about my lore for "Sims universe" aliens, so... here we go.

I feel like my current stories are only tangentially connected to the Sims universe (meaning it would be super easy for them to be entirely independent of The Sims with only a few very minor changes), but nevertheless, when Get To Work came out, the idea of a new ready-made alien race was irresistible to me. Fortunately, the pre-established lore was fairly vague, so I basically went to town with it for my own stories. Keeping the name of the planet Sixam was convenient, because then I didn't have to come up with something else.

Aliens

in my alien lore, people from Sixam prefer to be known as Sixamish (at least when speaking English) and consider being referred to as aliens to be offensive. Their language is also called Sixamish. It's the same language across the whole planet, but it has various dialects. Most Sixamish people can understand most of the dialects.

Sixamish people are completely bald and do not have head or facial hair, eyebrows or body hair. They do have eyelashes, which are usually translucent, white or pale blue. Skin colours range from blue that is nearly white, through to deep blue and light purple. Purple is the least common skin colour, and pale blue is the most common. They have pointed ears and sharp canine teeth. The sclerae of their eyes is dark grey, with iris colours ranging from silver-grey to black to platinum or gold. Females are generally larger than males, with polychromatic males typically being the smallest.

All Sixamish people are bisexual by default. They usually bond in pairs, but trios and quads are not uncommon.

They recognize a sex binary (male and female) but gender as a social construct isn’t a concept they really understand. Their society has sex-specific and caste-specific roles, but things like clothing, fragrances, tools & appliances, toys, games, sports, careers, education, and access to public spaces are sex (and gender) nonspecific. They will not refer to things like “girls’ toys” or “men’s clothes” because that isn’t a thing for them. For example, clothes are just clothes, regardless of the style. In fact, their language has no equivalents for woman, man, girl and boy; it only has male and female, referring directly to biological sex rather than some concept of gender.

—— These next few paragraphs may be TMI for some people —— Both males and females are capable of becoming pregnant and impregnating others. Both sexes have an internal reproductive organ known as the "gestational organ" (equivalent to the human uterus & ovaries) and both have sets of external genitalia that include the "pollination organ" and "birth opening". Both sexes are capable of producing milk to feed their babies, but females have more developed breasts and are capable of producing more. Males, by contrast, will produce a small amount of milk on their own, but rely on females to produce a sufficient supply to feed a baby. The males secrete a pheromone that triggers milk production in females regardless of whether the female is pregnant/has recently given birth or not. The pheromone requires prolonged exposure, which usually means only the male's female partner will produce milk. Two males who reproduce together usually have to feed their child with formula because only the pregnant male will produce milk.

Males and females are also distinguished biologically by the size and shape of their external genitalia. The pollination organ in females is a long, thin organ, and its natural relaxed position is retracted into the body. It extrudes when the female is sexually aroused, although some females are able to extrude it at will. The male pollination organ is shorter and wider, and males can retract or extrude it at will (most males find it more comfortable to keep it tucked in). the female birth opening is bigger than the male birth opening, but both will become larger during pregnancy, and will dilate during labour.

Males in particular often experience an increased sex drive during pregnancy. The external genitalia can become extremely sensitive, especially in the later months of pregnancy, and for some individuals, stimulation can cause not just a heightened sense of pleasure but can create a sense of euphoria. External stimulation is a common pain relief technique in early to mid-stage labour.

The typical Sixamish pregnancy for both males and females is 38 weeks. Labour can last anywhere from 3 hours to 24 hours. The preferred birth position is either kneeling or squatting as opposed to lying down. Over half of all births take place at home and not attended by a medical professional. —— ********** ——

Another important physical feature of Sixamish people is that they have spots on their face, back and chest. Spot colour plays an important role in Sixamish society and functions almost like a caste system. The most common type of spots are known as monochromatic, where all the spots on a person's body are the same colour or varying tones of a single colour. People with this spot configuration belong to the class of average citizens who can engage in any type of education or work they want to do, regardless of biological sex. People who are polychromatic have different statuses in society, depending on their biological sex.

Polychromatic spots are ones that are more than one colour.

Common Polychromia - like the name implies, this is the most common form of polychromia. In this variety, the spots are pink, purple, teal, blue and green on a single individual. All five colours can be present, but even a combination of two of these colours is enough to classify it as common polychromia

Floral Polychromia - This one is any shade of pink in addition to purple

Cool Polychromia - This is one of the rarer types. It's the presence of blue, turquoise, teal and green (cool tones), or at least two of those colours in combination

Warm Polychromia - this is the second-rarest type, and it's the presence of spots that are pink, coral, orange, gold and yellow, or at least two of these. Most people with warm polychromia have all five colours present. Warm polychromia is part of a set of genetic mutations that also includes delays in development and delays in physical maturity. Many people with this condition experience congenital disabilities or health problems such as deafness and autoimmune conditions. Most have some level of cognitive delay or learning disability.

Atypical Polychromia - a combination of two or more spot colours that don't fit into the categories above. This is the rarest type.

Sixam is a matriarchal system, which means the females are the dominant members of society. They occupy the majority of important positions in government, law, finance & commerce, science and technology. While monochromatic males have plenty of freedom to do what they want, monochromatic females still enjoy more privilege. However, even monochromatic females aren't as elevated as polychromatic females.

Polychromatic males, by contrast, have an unusual status. In terms of societal power, they have virtually none. They're generally not educated beyond basic education (think Grade 9 or so in Earth terms) and in general aren't required to work. Many polychromatic males have mild to moderate intellectual deficits or delays. They're often married at a young age, in marriages arranged by their mothers, and the mothers often collect a "bonding gift" of money or other resources from the chosen wife's family.

Polychromatic males are considered the most beautiful, particularly if they're small and delicate. Powerful females will pay a lot to arrange a marriage with a poly male, especially if he has one of the more rare spot variations. Generally speaking, he'll be treated like (stereotypical) royalty by his new wife, sometimes even with household staff specifically hired to wait on him. He won't have to be involved in any major decision-making if he doesn't want to be, he'll get to pursue any hobby or interest he likes, and his wife will typically spoil him and provide him with whatever he wants. His biggest responsibility will be to give birth to children and be the primary caregiver for them.

There are many people who disagree with the way polychromatic males are treated and think it's a "gilded cage" phenomenon. The idea of bonding gifts and arranged marriages are divisive topics in Sixamish society.

Miscellaneous

Sixam discovered faster-than-light space travel over 150 years ago. They have been aware of Earth for some time, and have been visiting it since the early 1960s. Sixamish people began living secretly on Earth in the late sixties.

They are exceptionally gifted at learning languages, and many Sixamish people learn Earth languages as well as the languages of other sentient races they're aware of.

They're also gifted at singing in particular and music in general.

Sixamish people have the ability to camouflage themselves. They can blend in with their surrounding environment to seem "invisible" or they can mimic other bipedal species, such as Earth people. Camouflage is a learned skill, and most don't master it until adolescence.

Sixamish people are natural empaths. They can't read minds, but they can both receive and project emotions. Babies and young children project involuntarily, which helps parents understand their needs. By the age of two or three, children begin to learn from older family members how not to project involuntarily, but they retain the ability to project deliberately, into adulthood.

They also have an aura, which is visible when they feel strong emotions. It has different colours depending on the emotion/the hormone driving the emotion.

Males take on more responsibility for bearing and raising children than females do, although both males and females can become pregnant

The average Sixamish lifespan is 120 "Earth years". Males can safely have children well into their 50s, and are physically capable of having children into their late 60s. Females can safely have children into their late 40s but typically experience the Earth equivalent of menopause in their mid to late 50s.

Twin pregnancies are common among Sixamish people; however, triplets and quads are extremely rare, and there are no recorded instances of multiple births with more than four babies.

They're genetically compatible with Earth people, and having hybrid offspring is possible.

Many Sixamish people can't swim

Sixamish people are omnivores

They prefer warmer climates

They have highly advanced medical technology, particularly in the area of reproductive technology and fertility

"Science Babies"

When I first started thinking about this and doing my worldbuilding, the game hadn't given us the term "science babies" yet. I absolutely love that term, though. It's a neat, concise way of referring to the whole process, so of course I adopted it, because... why not?

In my lore, during the late 1970s/early 80s men started randomly disappearing, particularly from towns in the desert (Oasis Springs, Strangerville). They would be gone for several hours up to a day or two, and then would be returned to the spot where they disappeared. They would be disoriented and confused, but otherwise unharmed. At first, these multiple accounts of alien abduction weren't taken seriously, but soon the men were no longer coming back with no discernible harm done. In fact, doctors quickly discovered that the men had been impregnated with alien fetuses.

Human science scrambled to understand how this happened and how to deal with it, and government officials did as much as they could to suppress the information so as not to cause a mass panic. But, of course the stories got out and many people believed them.

What was really going on was that Sixamish doctors and scientists, who had been living secretly on Earth for well over a decade at that point, had observed that many human couples were unable to have biological children together, either because one of the partners was infertile or unable to conceive or because it was a same-sex couple who literally could not conceive naturally. Sixamish people were already experts in reproductive science and had perfected many scientific techniques that were fully authorized and in use on their own world. They wanted to be able to help Earth people, and began to conduct experiments with human reproduction.

Government officials launched a massive investigation to find out what was going on, and they uncovered the existence of the Sixamish people who'd been living on Earth. That was the official first contact, regardless of the fact that the real first contact had happened years ago.

After the Earth equivalent of "take us to your leader", government negotiators were able to meet with Sixamish officials and scientists for an explanation of what was going on. In a remarkable display of common sense and non-reactivity, negotiations began and eventually an agreement was reached between Earth and Sixam. The Sixamish scientists would be allowed to continue their experiments, but they would have to do it openly and it would have to be monitored by the appropriate Earth government agencies. It would also have to be approved by Earth officials before it could be offered as a medical service to the public at large.

The Sixamish people established the original Nookstone Clinic for Reproductive Science in Oasis Springs in the mid-80s.

Fast-forward to the mid-90s. The Sixamish reproductive procedures are approved, and Nookstone clinics are popping up all over the world. They don't have a huge uptake at first, but by the late 2000s, they've gained traction and are generally accepted by a large percentage of the population and are often a first choice for people who wouldn't naturally be able to have a biological child together.

Other services that Nookstone provides for prospective parents and parents-to-be are information sessions, peer support groups, counselling, and parenting classes. Most parents take advantage of some or all of these services during the process.

There is still a faction of political and social opposition to The Process, as it has become known, with people decrying it as unethical, immoral, strange and "against nature". Protests crop up from time to time, and political candidates will sometimes make it an election platform topic, but on the whole there is far more acceptance than opposition and the Sixamish clinics aren't in any danger of going away any time soon.

"The Process"

The process is similar to cloning, in that prepared DNA is placed inside a human egg cell with the nucleus removed. In this case, two sets of donor DNA from the parents are collected, prepared and combined before being placed into the egg cell and then implanted into the host or "gestational carrier".

The process always begins with a complete physical examination and psychological evaluation of the parents, as well as genetic testing for compatibility and suitability for the procedure. A Sixamish doctor (or one of the handful of human doctors trained in the process) will examine the results and meet in person with the parents for prior to doing anything else. This is an opportunity for the doctor to explain the process in greater detail and for the parents to address any questions or concerns.

The next step is DNA collection from both parents. After this, the DNA is combined and prepared. Four to six embryos are usually prepared, in case the first implantation doesn't work or in case the parents want to have further children later.

The next step will be either the implantation procedure or placing the embryo into a specialized container. There are three ways gestation of the baby can take place:

One of the parents, regardless of biological sex, can be the gestational carrier (i.e. the person who is pregnant)

The parents can choose a surrogate to carry their child. In this case, the surrogate will have to undergo the same physical, psychological and genetic testing as the biological parents

They can choose extracorporeal gestation, where the baby is grown in an artificial womb rather than in a living body

female biological parent or surrogate as carrier - This is the most straightforward and the least expensive. If the gestational carrier is a biological female, the prepared embryo is implanted directly into the uterus, and the pregnancy proceeds normally, just like a naturally-conceived or IVF pregnancy. The gestation period is the typical 37-40 weeks, and labour and delivery are also the same as a naturally-achieved pregnancy, with either natural birth or C-section, depending on circumstances. For female carriers, only one embryo is typically implanted and the rate of rejection is less than 10 percent.

male biological parent or surrogate as carrier - This option is far more complex and therefore more expensive. It also has more risks associated with it than with the female carrier option. In the case of male carriers, the embryos are encased in a bio-engineered membrane that grows with the fetus during gestation and essenially fulfills the functions of uterus and placenta. The membrane is designed to attach to the abdominal wall, and the male carrier will essentially be "pregnant" for 37-40 weeks.

Because the bio-engineered membrane isn't a muscle and biological males don't have the physical capacity to give birth naturally, birth is done surgically. This means a male patient won't experience labour. From week 36 onward, male carriers are monitored closely to track the development of the baby, and surgery is performed when the doctor determines the baby is developed enough for birth.

Biological males also naturally lack the hormones to sustain a pregnancy, so during the process, they have to receive hormone injections on a weekly basis. These hormones can cause most of the same symptoms a biological female could experience naturally during pregnancy; fatigue, muscle aches, nausea/morning sickness, acne, mood swings, food cravings, weight gain, etc.

In male carriers, the rate of rejection is still less than 10% but it is higher in males than in females. Two embryos are implanted in males, and in the majority of cases, at least one will implant successfully. If both are successful, the parents may choose to keep both or to terminate one.

The implantation procedure in males is done by injecting the embryos in their bio-engineered membranes into the patient's abdomen with a needle and surgical tubing. The patient receives a local anesthetic, so he doesn't feel any pain or discomfort during the procedure. Also, because what is essentially a foreign body is being introduced into his body, he's given medication to suppress his immune response, to limit the possibility of rejection.

During the implantation period, male carriers often experience flu-like symptoms and mild pain around the injection site. This usually resolves by itself with no medical intervention needed.

Approximately 10 days after the implantation procedure, the patient will have his first ultrasound scan, blood test and urine test to confirm that implantation was successful.

Biological sex of the baby can be determined by a scan around 20 weeks, just like it can in a female patient's pregnancy. Scans and checkups are scheduled throughout the pregnancy the same as they would be for a female patient.

Male patients are subject to the same risks as female patients, such as high blood pressure or gestational diabetes. Additionally, because the bio-engineered membrane isn't a normal part of the body, there is a risk in the later stages of pregnancy of the membrane tearing or detaching from the abdominal wall due to the weight of the baby. This is rare, but enough of a risk that it always gets explained to patients from the beginning. If this happens, it's extremely painful for the carrier and life-threatening for both him and the baby. It's a genuine emergency, and the baby has to be delivered immediately. If doctors think this is likely to happen to a particular patient, they may put him on strict bed rest until the baby is fully developed, or they may admit him to the hospital for close observation.

Extarcorporeal Gestation - This third option is the newest to be approved and has only been in use since 2010. It's the least-chosen option, because most parents really want the experience of having their own baby (or supporting their partner in having a baby), and also because it's the most expensive option with the lowest percentage of insurance coverage. However, just because it's the least-chosen option, that doesn't mean it's not a thriving program. Enough couples choose it for the Nookstone corporation to continue to develop and offer it as an option in three-quarters of their clinics worldwide.

This option starts in the same way as the other two, up to the point of implantation. Instead of implanting the embryo(s) into a living carrier, They're placed into the same type of bio-engineered membrane and then suspended in a specially-developed machine with an "artificial womb" tank and sophisticated monitoring equipment. The tank is maintained at the same temperature as the inside of a human body. Nutrients and hormones are measured and administered to the growing baby, and wastes are eliminated through the machine's filtration system. The gestation period is still 37-40 weeks (38 weeks in the majority of instances).

This option has an exceptional success rate, with gestational failure at less than 5 percent.

Parents who choose this option are told immediately that they cannot choose the sex of their baby, nor can they choose specific physical characteristics or anything else. There is a common misconception that this method is a way to get "designer babies", but beyond the initial process of combining the DNA and encasing the embryo in the bio-engineered membrane, there is absolutely no "editing" of the fetus. Sixamish people consider this to be unethical, and even if it weren't against the law in many countries on Earth, they would refuse to do it.

There are no physical checkups for the parents in this option; however, parents are invited to come to the clinic at the same intervals as gestational carriers, to receive updates on the development of their baby. This includes scans of the developing fetus, as well as updates on baby's current size, weight and overall health. It also includes hearing a recording of the baby's heartbeat at 12 weeks and finding out the baby's biological sex at the 20-week mark, if they want to know the sex.

At the end of the gestation period, babies are "decanted" from the extracorporeal gestation machine. Parents are not allowed to be present for this, but will be able to wait in an adjoining room and will meet their new baby just minutes after their birth. Babies will usually be taken to hospital after this, to be thoroughly examined and then monitored for 24-48 hours, and to complete government paperwork such as birth registry documents/birth certificate and universal healthcare programs (in countries that have those). Then, the new parents can take their baby home.

As one might expect, extracorporeal gestation is the most controversial of all the already somewhat controversial options provided by the Sixamish doctors and scientists. This is the one that far more people find creepy or uncanny, even more than the idea of pregnant biological males. It was also the most difficult to get approved and the one that is the subject of the most protests and political wrangling. The social risk involved in choosing this option is another reason why it's the least often chosen.

But, for couples in which neither partner wants to or is able to carry the baby for whatever reason, and who would rather not involve a third party surrogate, this option is the proverbial godsend. It's been the pathway to creating happy families for people who might not otherwise have had the ability or opportunity.

____________

Feel free to ask me any questions!

I may add to this post from time to time, as there are more aspects fo Sixamish culture I'd like to think about and explore for my own story purposes.

[thebramblewood]

10 and 13 <33

Thank you! 🥰

10. Is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? Is there a definitive end?

I think I've mentioned (probably several times) before that I've had the ending in mind since the beginning but the path there has been a lot less clear. Actually, I've sort of rearranged the ending recently. It's still the same basic idea, but it plays out in a bit of a different way. As for everything leading up to it, I feel like I've got the broad strokes planned, but there are lots of little details to fill in and who knows what will inspire me along the way. I know starting something without a set plan scares a lot of people, but for me I find that it's been really beneficial because it means I'm always coming up with new ideas, which helps me stay excited about it, even when I fall into the occasional slump (and even when it makes the story ten times longer).

13. From basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you?

This wildly varies depending on how involved the set-up for said post is! My big Forgotten Hollow 101 post took at least a month to fully complete. It was partially because I took a few breaks, but I also had to figure out what Sims I was going to include, get them all in game, find places to pose them and poses to use, take screencaps, write the notes and dialogue, edit the pictures and then edit the notes onto the pictures... It was a lot! On the other hand, I knew I wanted to take it easy with the next couple posts after that one, so I mostly relied on gameplay, let it inform the (brief) dialogue, and edited the pictures, and that kind of post usually takes me only a couple nights.

[skunkes]

sorry if this is a silly question but do you like. sit down and talk with your ocs in your head? and they tell you about themselves? how do you get them to reveal information....i am begging mine to let me know them orz

I do! In several different ways ^_^ the trick is to think of yourself as a character in your brain theater... ill mostly be explaining thru examples and using silly language ^_^ and its more How I Do It vs a how to....

"Sitting down and talking to em" interrogation style only happens before they're fully formed. when talon still didnt have very many traits it was like we were in a white room with 2 chairs... although you COULD make a scenario out of this its usually the Before for me. final tweaks in the form of basic traits and info before sending em out for further development

the way i get ocs to tell me about themselves is more thru actions! with talon I "locked him in a room" with al in the form of imagining how they'd meet. because I set it in talon's decrepit home with no running water or electricity, there come questions like. would he be accommodating? would he explain the vampirism or just rely on flashing his fangs or hiding them until its time to bite? these arent questions i actually went into the scenario having, but as you Play Dolls its questions that get answered anyway, ykwim? (although you could also go into the simulation (lol) with questions you want answered!) And its your brain so you can do as many takes and tweaks as you want, and things develop as you imagine the same thing, or different things, which all inform a character.

Scenarios could be anything. Im a serial daydreamer so anything goes depending on how bored I am or what im doing... and just like with real people, every scenario is a way to learn more about somebody...! It's like improv in your brain as you think up how they'd react and respond to things, and what they'd say. But also, going with your oc to the grocery store or a restaurant or to slay a dragon could give you insight into their behavior but likely not any info about their trauma or whatever, just like real people (but it also depends on the person) (and the oc!)

I DO have "sit down and talk" scenarios once i feel ive learned enough standard, early level friendship stuff about em though. It's much fun if you set the scene in your mind to mimic a real life Deep Conversation session. Sitting in the backyard on those plastic chairs, or aimless car ride at night. right now the one I keep going back to is just. Loafed in bed when you're really sleepy and just starting to say anything about anything and maybe get a little sentimental. sometimes its just me talking but I obvs have the ability to imagine how he'd be interpreting that in his brain, ykwim?? You play several roles at once I guess. It's like the sims, switching back and forth between povs, but the level of immersion i get into never feels like I'm Making Them Say It, it just feels natural at that point because I've learned enough.

There's also information that's shared by you figuring out what they'd Think (as above) vs what they say which is also fun characterwise... AND ALSO while im daydreaming scenarios I do multiple takes to find their voice. Like, I'm an overexplainer, a detailed therapy-speak-er. Sometimes I catch myself giving ocs that Voice and I have to do a retake. Like hold on, Talon would NOT be introspective. He wouldn't share all that shit I just "made" him say even if it is true and now I know about it. He'd say something insanely vague and confusing if anything at all. Let's take it from the top. etc

It rlly is about immersion! You have to have fun with it! Sometimes it's so Real to me that I genuinely can't develop an oc further because I cant make something up for them and they wont "tell me", which means I just have to spend more time with em I guess! or maybe need to leave em alone for a bit. or maybe ill never know (<- which also tells me about em!) just like real people. treat the fake people like real people in your fake dollhouse brain theater sims lot puppet show simulation.... also i added more in the tags bc i didnt know where to put it in the main txt 😭

[galaxy-fleur]

<climbs in here> so you know how the resident evil protags are like "color coded"? (Like Chris is green and Jill is blue and Claire is red) what color do you associate with your ocs?

All my oc's are color codded! I specifically create my characters with a set color palette in mind, and I design them accordingly. Mostly because I'm a massive nerd. I honestly got inspired by your own wonderful oc profiles and finally sat myself down to properly design them in the Sims, so I'll plaster them here for fun!

Natasha's color is green. It does go with her eyes, but it is also reflective of her gentle and caring nature. I always associate her with something nature and plant-related, honestly. No matter how dire things can get, she never wavers in the kindness of her heart and her strong desire to see the good in everyone around her. You could compare her to a patch of grass growing through the concrete! Well, that, and her casual style of dressing is very much grandmacore. Here's to her and Leon retiring and enjoying a peaceful life on the farm.

William's color is brown, although I sometimes use other tones with him that are more orange or yellow. But officially, his color is brown! It really just fits his more down-to-earth personality. Brown is not a very popular color. It's often overlooked or seen as plain. Sort of similar to his own journey of never feeling like enough and ultimately learning to stand on his own instead of relying on others to guide him. Plus, it's associated with all things cozy like coffee and brownies, and this aspiring writer to be just fits into the light academia aesthetic far too well. I should give him cute glasses as he ages, honestly.

Chaewon's color is blue, although a more dark, deep shade of it. This one's a more tricky one, because she doesn't actually wear many colorful things, so I often struggle with incorporating blue into her design. Her casual style is very much 'butch-lesbian-biker', and she's not ashamed to show it off. That said, blue just fits her, because she's really much softer on the inside than she appears on the outside. She has a big, caring heart, and blue is the perfect color to go along with it. Some think of this color as cold, but for others, it's calming and soothing. I think it fits her because of that.

Dave's color is red. His fiery hair sure screams of it! But, honestly, he's just all sparks and flames in terms of personality. Just as bold and passionate. Sometimes it lands him opportunities many would not even dream of because he's bold enough to just go and take it with no hesitation. Sometimes it lands him into a ton of trouble of his own making, because he's all heart and little brain, in spite of his intelligence (this man is a fantastic engineer and a science geek, you wouldn't guess that at all by talking to him). Dave is someone who's loyal and passionate to a fault, and red reflects that passion of his pretty well.

Aruna's color is purple. She's a very eccentric personality, and purple expresses that pretty well, in my opinion. Being a big nerd brought her very far in life and her career, but it wasn't always easy for her. Standing out among her peers brought with it many downsides. But, at her core, she's someone who never lost her charm with age, and that in itself makes people gravitate towards her. She's unashamed to be herself, and that energy is infectious.

Wendy's color is black, although I use red accents on her. But that's mostly because her fashion choices directly correlate with Ada's. Ada wears red with black accents, Wendy wears black with red accents. Can't have a pair of fashionistas without them coordinating every time they are out and about! But, aside from Wendy's passion for gothic fashion, black is also reflective of her as a person. It's a dark color, one that has many negative connotations to it. But it's also a color of elegance and poise, as well as confidence. She does not wear black as a show of her pain or struggle. She wears black because it makes her feel confident and true to herself. It's also the color of the night sky, and she is a big astronomy nerd.

[fireheartedpup]

Dad asks if I want to get on his spectrum plan because they're offering a mobile line for $0 for a year. I say I'll think about it.

I think about it, $0 seems better than $25, I say yes.

He calls into Spectrum and figures out what we need, I call into Boost and get the transfer pin.

He texts me to say the sim card is here, because I didn't want to rely on an e-sim so I asked for a physical one.

The transfer pin expires tomorrow, so I spent all day convincing myself to DO SOMETHING DAMMIT and eventually made myself drive over.

He asks if I have made progress with packing. I answer noncommittally because I can barely function. He starts talking about the process, I say I know, he says he doesn't think I understand how it affects him because he's paying for it.

I already feel pathetic for not being able to pay for it.

I make a few attempts to salvage the situation, he says I'm throwing it in his face and giving him shit.

I would not have asked for the sim if he had not offered.

Up until this point he's seemed fine with the whole thing.

I tell him he can use the sim himself, I don't want it anymore, walk out, and switch the payment method to my personal account instead of the shared one.

I know I should have done this a long time ago. I've felt paralyzed. I can barely make myself go outside.

I would like medication but RFK.

If he hadn't blown up I might've told him something like hey, I drove for door dash yesterday. It was only $11. At least it paid for the burger I ordered. Instead he got tears.

I think part of what's hindering my progress is never knowing when they're suddenly going to be upset about supporting me when they have repeatedly said they want to support me in the past.

Called Mom to see if she knew what was going on. She barely understands the sim thing.

Most of my stuff isn't packed. I need to get this done. I have no friends to call.

I'm ashamed of the state of my apartment so I don't want to invite anyone in anyway.

I haven't eaten yet today because I couldn't make myself eat what I had already, so I was planning on getting something at home or right after the sim card discussion.

Dad didn't actually pay for the phone btw. Grammy said it was a birthday present.

Dad would also be paying for Spectrum whether I said yes to the sim or not. It's a package deal.

I do feel guilty about the birthday present. However I do feel it's not as big as, say, when I was in the car with my cousins and one of them casually demanded a new rabbit from her mom. Like, a show rabbit. When they already have one. And a lot of other animals besides.

Or my uncle using my grandma's funds to buy a new chair and a cyber truck.

Things like that.

Dad helped his biggest client buy houses for his daughters.

If I'm spoiled, it comes with a lot of guilt. And it's not worth it anymore.

At this point, he can have his money or he can have me. Financial issues are basically the only thing keeping me tied to them. And I think I know that if I can become financially independent, I won't talk to them again.

I want to call him and demand he listen to me. But that'll make things worse.

If I didn't understand the situation I wouldn't have waited to travel until no one has to pay for an apartment anymore and I wouldn't be canceling the Internet for the apartment, I would be asking to keep it, and I wouldn't have signed up for door dash even though I really don't want to because I'm not great at directions and it hurts my leg, and I wouldn't have asked for the sim in the first place because I would have just accepted paying $25 a month instead of trying to opt for free service for a year.

But sure, get pissed at me for asking about the thing that you repeatedly offered me without a hint of malice in the first place.

It's kind of hard to want to keep going instead of just. Not doing that.

[boolpropper]

Hey, I've been really enjoying looking at your posts! I'm trying to start modding the Sims 2 to be medieval too and I was wondering if you had any recommended custom content or mods or anything.

Hey! Omg totally, I'd love to share. You are too kind!!

This blog started as a way for me to keep track of my own stories, honestly. I play with the intention of creating stories for my own enjoyment, and if others find them compelling that is great! That said, I typically don't play with a ton of CC. Enough to immerse me. A lot of the time, I still use base game hairs, play maxis careers, etc. I can look past a lot of things because it is just my silly little game. Info under the cut so as not to bungle up or spam anyone's feed!

I do have a decent amount of build/buy CC and clothing CC. I have gotten a lot of it from Plumbob Keep! I have spent hours just looking through all the stuff in Sundry Goods and Wares, which is their forum for any CC -- clothing, wall paints, objects, you name it. I only got what I felt was necessary to immerse myself, like I said, and have found myself looking for specific other sets to accommodate specific story needs. For example, I rolled a random event that a fucking WAR has started, so now I need some cc bandages and what not. Generally, I like looking for The Sims Medieval conversions and Skyrim conversions. I also have gotten a lot of clothing for my medieval hood and my game in general from Skell. They have done so much work repo-ing and recoloring existing Maxis meshes in a way that doesn't gunk up your CC folder and fits seamlessly with the game. A lot of my other CAS CC (hair, accessories, makeup) comes from DeeDee! I really like their maxis matchy style and the high saturation of their color pallets.

I also use a set of defaults. I have a separate folder of my default replacements labeled "DR Medieval" that I swap in when I'm about to play my medieval hood. Things like plate and bowl recolors, aspiration failure objects, etc. Almighty Hat has some great ones.

I do play with a decent bit of mods, most of which just make the game run properly -- thing things like the nounlinkondelete, smarter EP check, etc. The rest are for my own benefit and storytelling, such as the 3-2 traits project! A lot of my gameplay mods come from MidgeTheTree. Usually I'm looking at mods that expand supernatural sims to make them more fun to play (more witch spells, more plantsim shenanigans, plantsim wings to make them look like fairies, alien telepathy, hereditary supernaturalism...the list goes on) and romance/queer mods. The latter is more to make my game a little more realistic and a bit more aligned with the relationships I like to see in stories. Not in a graphic sense, but more in a "I want my queer sims to have found family, my trans sims to have reproductive autonomy, and my gay sims to marry instead of being civilly joined" type thing.

For medieval specifically, I have a few of the Sun & Moon Star Factory Mods installed. They have A LOT and it is a little overwhelming at times to be honest -- I can't imagine playing with all of their amazing sets. But, some of them are crucial to my medieval immersion -- I want my sims to have a chicken or two, and to farm, and to craft. Many of them require other sets to run, or so they say -- usually this just means a texture from another pack is required, or a core function like collecting/autonomous behavior comes from a different mod. Often times you can do without some of the required mods of theirs -- for example, I have their fishing mod, and their guide says it requires the mining mod. I have no need for a mining mod now but might in the future, so for the time being I only downloaded the physical objects I needed to run that mod -- I need this bucket or whatever, and I'll delete the rest of the mod.

I also rely heavily on random events and dice rolls, tabletop RPG style, to form my gameplay. My sims are not, for example, actually going to kill each other in war. But I AM going to roll, "ok, what are the odds that this day goes in their favor?" Usually this looks like me writing my own scenarios and assigning them numbers/chances to roll, or sometimes I use other people's ROS, like Fir3Princ3ss' medieval ROS doc.

I hope this is helpful! I know it's a lot of info lol, but I tried my best to include links to creators I like. I just try to have fun with it and have a minimal impact on my game folders!

[hopeymchope]

Theoryposting: Is 2025-2026 time for some kind of Danganronpa game?

Theory Background

First of all, it's important to remember Spike Chunsoft's assertion in 2021 that the Danganronpa franchise will continue to expand with games in various genres. And this was ultimately just one of multiple times that they've teased future DR games.

Up to now, the longest we've gone without a new Danganronpa game of SOME kind was the 2017-2021 window between Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (aka "New Danganronpa V3") and Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp.

In terms of global release, those two games were four years and two months apart.

In terms of Japanese-specific release, they were four years and 11 months apart—just barely shy of five years.

(And before that, the gap between Dangnaronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa V3 was two years and four months in Japan, or three years on the worldwide market. Unbelievably, this was the previous record for gaps between games. That's just how blessed we were with DR content during the 2010s.)

If you want to keep your IP relevant in the minds of your audience, you do have to occasionally seed some new content out there. And at this point, they don't even have spin-off manga or light novels to rely on keeping DR in the minds of consumers; Danganronpa Kirigiri wrapped up in 2020, a year before we got Ultimate Summer Camp.

So it seems to me like 2025-2026 is a logical window in which to release the next side game. It's time for the next diversion that will keep the name "Danganronpa" relevant—presumably without actually making a proper Danganronpa 4. (Personally, I'm imagining that SC wants to leave the possibility of a Kodaka return open for a little while longer before they go down that road themselves without his involvement... which is probably what will have to eventually happen. One day.)

Possible Release Timing

To keep things copacetic between Spike Chunsoft and TooKyo Games, SC probably wouldn't want to release some new game at a time that would step on the toes of The Hundred Line. One has to assume that The Hundred Line will follow the example of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code and release onto other platforms roughly a year after its initial Nintendo Switch and PC releases. With The Hundred Line scheduled for April 2025 and probably landing on other platforms some time in between April and July of 2026, that leaves the back half of either 2025 or 2026 as the safest windows.

2025 is also the 15th anniversary of Danganronpa. I'm just sayin'.

What kind of gaming are we talking about?

I'm honestly not sure I should even hazard a guess. I imagine the eventual answer, if there is one, will likely be NOTHING that I'd predict. But I will at least try to come up with working theories.

Ultimate Summer Camp was really a giant-sized expansion of the post-game "Ultimate Talent Development Camp" mode from DRV3. So the easiest course of action would be to expand some OTHER post-game mode into a bigger, fuller game. That serves as the fuel for most of my theories.

Using "Despair Dungeon" mode as the basis for a more full-featured dungeon-crawling RPG game that has an actual story to it. This seems like the easiest and most logical pathway to me...

Using "School Mode"/"Island Mode" as the basis for a much bigger resource management/allocation game of some kind.

Or maybe using the resource management of "School Mode"/"Island Mode" AND the dialogue-choice-consequence system of "Love Across the Universe: Dangan Salmon Team" as the basis for a DR dating sim?

Outside of just expanding existing concepts like that, though, I think there's still another possibility. Remember that 2022 Spanish interview where Kodaka suggested remaking the original Danganronpa with slightly altered plot details and in full 3D as a way to revitalize the series? One has to assume that a remake—even one with some altered storytelling—would take a lot less involvement from Kodaka than a full-on new game would, so it's at least possible.

Or maybe not.

But of course, this is all just a theory. (A GAME THEORY!) Spike Chunsoft could always opt to keep Danganronpa in the public eye in far lesser, quieter ways. They could continue to rely on DR characters showing up in other games ala Crypt of the Necrodancer, Mystery Chronicle: One-Way Heroics, Riichi Street and the like. And/or they could finally free DRAE from its PlayStation prison and port Ultra Despair Girls to the PC, Nintendo, and Xbox platforms. These are hardly the ideal scenarios. ... But then again, nothing I've posited here is really "ideal."

"Ideal" would be getting an actual DR4 or that long-hoped-for Danganronpa Fighting Game. :P

[sol-consort]

Aah it's so good seeing you post x] I've been wondering what are some of your favorite video games?or some you would recommend? I think I kinda need to expand my horizons.. I can only play so many elden ring runs lol

I feel you, there are only so many posts I can make writing about Mass Effect before it becomes redundant.

As for expanding horizons, you're in the right place! My taste in videogames is all over the place; I like to keep the algorithm on its toes.

Currently I'm playing

Taisho x Alice

Visual novel

Otome (dating sim)

Anime stylised

on the really really long side

Refreshing writing for an anime otome game, characters actually use critcal thinking and common sense. It's devoid of infuriating easily-solved-misunderstanding tropes and the characters aren't idiots.

And

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Open world realism game

Red dead redemption level of survival and player interactivity but in medieval times

You're a knight

Your character starts illiterate and can't read and you need to teach him to read, and actually pass some reading tests, as in you the player need to read and pass them

Hard combat that relies heavily on player skill instead of stats/equipment

Actually intricate world with npcs that have their own schedule, life, and attitude towards you. You can stalk people like in skyrim and see them sleep, eat, shit, socialise, buy groceries, work, then go to sleep

Grey morality allowed and encouraged, never locks you out of main quest

Main lore is actually fun, no one ever monologues at you

You can be gay in the second game, while in the first you can only hint at it + have heavy gay subtext with the lord you're guarding

I'm saving up to buy the second game, damn you 80$ gaming industry.

-

As for my favourite ever games!

Hardspace shipbreaker

Like one of those cleaning simulators where your task is just to clean, except you break apart abandoned ships in this one

Actually helped me learn and understand the mechanics and compartments of science fiction space ships. I look at the Normandy and can perfectly picture taking it apart, the core, the engine, the thrusters, the controle pannel.

Requires your full attention but can be done on autopilot, it's one of those games you go to when you want to disconnect from life for about an hour or two and don't feel like doing fetch quests in triple A games

Has a plot about the exploitation of workers under capitalism (space capitalism) and the befits of a union. You can affect the plot only in the "final" mission, otherwise you're an observer. But the game still goes on after the plot is finished, same as before, except you actually have healthcare now.

It gives you a goal of repaying your massive cripple debt at the start of the game, every ship you take apart and carefully recycle its material earns you money. But also the costs of living in space + interest chips at your saving so you never feel quiet safe

Has tool upgrades!

Death and revive has an ingame explanation and consequences that make you desperately want to avoid it. Basically since it's sci-fi we can create copies of people now, each time you die, the company you signed away your DNA structure to has the right to create another copy of you

But it's very VERY expensive for a copy to be made, and it gets added to your debt

If you're someone ever into ships, mechanics, and floating in space, you'll love it.

Also, this is the most relevant game to Mass Effect and this blog. If you liked the world setting of mass effect and want to experience being an npc in it, this game really scratches that itch. You get ships from exploration missions and get to see the aftermath of battles on them + some even have sentient evil AI.

-

Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip

You're a kid who's parents left and went on vacation

You're supposed to go to school but you don't care and decide to steal a car and go to space instead!

That's the entire premise of the game

Cartoony, think of Loony Toons shenanigans. Npcs are hilarious + you're an unsupervised kid and everyone is concerned.

You collect hats!

It's very light hearted and fun, has a heartfelt touching ending and a piece about parental neglect

I played it during a low period, for a week it was the only reason I smiled.

-

Pathologic

If you're a masochist and you know it clap your hands!

Clap Clap

Do you like reading? Do you like ominous clairvoyance? Do you like worms? Do you like evading the plague and curing the town? Do you like trading children used syringes and razor blades for vials of morphine?

Then this is the game for you!

Pain pain pain and more pain the game hates you and makes you walk extremely slowly everywhere. Survival is very very hard.

But it's the closest thing a video game ever came to a piece of art.

-

Bugsnax

You're a journalist sent on an island to make an article about the animals there! Apparently the bugs there look and taste like food? A pizza moth butterfly, an ice cream caterpillar, a strawberry mouse

And you meet a bunch of people who were the first expedition of pioneers sent there to establish a town

Except... the leader disappeared and everything fell into chaos, the people seperated and now you must reuinte the villagers and catch bugs while you're at it

Very cartoony and colourful graphics

The main gameplay loop is catching these bugsnax because they get tricky and sneaky the more and more areas you unlock

You have traps and tools to catch them. For some you lay bait, for others you need a trap, sometimes a mix of the two. Endless creativity is allowed, as long as you get the job down, the game gets you free rein on how to approach capturing these creatures

Has a shitton of well written queer characters

"imma lift your crib dawg!" one line said by a hunk bf to his nerdy bf

Puns a lot of puns

No cheap analog horror of bloody gore hidden behind the cuteness facade. It has some "scary" moments but they're done tastefully as part of the ingame lore and with the same cartoony graphics

You do actually get some journalism done + do interviews around the town to write your article

Helheim Hassle

DO YOU LIKE PUZZLES???

DO YOU LIKE NORSE MYTHOLOGY

DO YOU WANT TO PISS OF ODIN AND PLAY AS A ZOMBIE VIKING BOY WHO CAN DISCONNECT HIS BODY PARTS TO SOLVE SAID PUZZLES

do you hate bears?

Do you like funny sarcastic and self awate writing?

This game is for you!

You might recognise the creators, they're the ones who made Manual Samuel, that game that trended for a while in the 2010s between youtubers bc it made you blink manually, breathe manually, and walk manually.

Except this is not the same premise or playstyle of the game, here you really just solve puzzles. Some complicated, some easy, mostly fun

But set in the same universe and same sense of humour

Check out "The Holy Gosh Darn" if you end up liking it

-

Now I'm tired of writing synopsis after synopsis, but here are more recs! I'm just shooting games after another in quick succession.

I don't care the least about the graphic and art quality of a game; it could be made with sock puppets and I'd still take it seriously and evulate it based on the actual story/gameplay instead. I know it could put off some people, so yeah. It's also why I have cartoony family friendly games and gooner looking games in my fav list, I actually give them a chance and look beyond the surface, If the story and gameplay hits then it hits idk what to tell you dude.

Crimson Spires (visual novel + murder mystery + vampires + you're a cop)

Demonheart (Visual novel + dating sim + legit the most difficult ending choice I ever had to make in a game. It genuinely baffled me how the dev even thought of it. When I was faced with that choice, I just closed the game. And consulted my parents + friends the following days trying to make up my mind which choice to make, besides that the game itself is pretty average)

Vampire Therapist (cheaper than an irl therapy appointment + devs consulted actual therapist in its making + teaches you about cognitive distortion using vampire terms so it's not intimidating)

Toree (2, 3d, panic pack, fun retro racing game)

Quiver Dick's Terrible Tales For Terrible Parents To Read To Their Equally Terrible Children (RPG maker, juvenile Humour)

Echos of the Fey (Visual novel, murder mystery, elves! my fav depiction of elves and human vs elves war ever)

Jester/King ( Visual novel, time loop breaking mystery)

The Cave (PUZZLES!!! crude humour, requires multiple playthroughs. Creativity encouraged.)

The Forgotten City (Puzzles + break timeloop + ancient Greece misogyny. I picked a woman character and wasn't allowed to vote in the electons bc of it :( mind you the electons were a very important game plot point)

The Blood Mage (a love letter to old-school RPG games)

PikuNiku (Okay tbh I know nothing about this game + never played it. But it is the single game my now 6y niece plays in my 700+ games steam library. She is obsessed, it has been going on steady for 3 years, so that has got to amount to something)

Webbed (puzzles, spider powers! you're a spider and you adventure through the bug kingdom and help the ants and the bees using your webs so that you can save your spider boyfriend who was kidnapped by a crow)

I deliberately avoided mentioning the well-known games That Everyone plays and Everyone likes (Hades, Cyberpunk, Andromeda, Stray, etc etc) because it's redundant, you can find the same renowned 100 games listed in different orders in every single recommendations thread.

No, I'm giving you my secret stash of hidden gems, some of them I actually found digging through the trash of wholesale steam keys on shady websites, others I found by pure chance. I wasn't recommended a single game on this list by anyone ever, and trust me, I have looked; I'm nosy and lurk in a lot of gaming places.

so here I am recommending them to you!

All of these games are also ones I played from start to finish, which is quite a feat for me. I have the attention span of a humming bird, I'm quick to ditch a game at the slightest offence, the tons of half finished games in my library attest to that.

It's not just enough that playing a game is fun, but I need an incentive to come back. So many times I had fun playing a game but completely forgot about it the second I went to sleep.

Those are the annoying buzzing flies of games that latched onto my brain and consumed my thoughts at every waking hour. The ones that I'd cut my lunch short just to go play a little more, the ones I called off hang outs for, the ones I sacrificed sleep for and immediately booted up first thing in the morning because I really REALLY wanted to know what happens next + do more of this thing.

[thesimquarter]

Jade Pingree is the all-business (and pretty rude) head of the Barkersville Companion Club.

Meredith is part librarian and part party girl. She’s serious during the day, and playful at night.

v - ramblings under the cut - v

I almost never see people talking about the characters from the Sims 2 Pets GBA. I mean. that's understandable. Sims 2 Pets for GBA was not only released two years after the DS was released, but it was also bad.

The Sims 2 Pets for GBA takes a lot of inspiration from the other GBA Sims games, with an isometric artstyle and a mixture of adventure elements and simulation elements. Howeverrr, the problem seems to be that it doesn't feel like it actually knows what to do with it.

The minigames are tedious and boring. Aforementioned minigames pay peanuts and rely on an NPC being in a specific location to do them. Characters have little personality; 70% of the dialogue in this game is completely exchangeable. There's no way to easily find NPCs that you need to find (read: phone call), even though they all have schedules and move all the time. The game doesn't keep track of missions. There's like three different kinds of burglars, and there's no way to stop them from coming to your house (what the fuck). Training your pets is so tedious and repetitive and yet everything else feels like a distraction from it. You can randomly, and frequently, get sick, from fully cooking your food with eight levels of cooking skill and using good kitchen items. Everything breaks down and is dirty all the time. Eating dog food is safer than cooking. This game is having me eat dog food because just cooking feels like a risk. And there's just so much more that annoys me about it.

Okay, I'm done complaining. There's not much to compliment about the game. It does have its charm but wears off as the tediousness of all of its various mechanics settles in. I mean. I'd like to know more about the characters, but also... I don't care.

I really wanted to make Jade. Unlike nearly every other character, she does, actually, have a personality. Even if it absolutely sucks. Meredith is my favorite character in the game. I can't explain why, but her design is neat and she seems really nice and likable. I was considering doing more (read: Elza and Hugo) but after I finished these two I. couldn't be bothered.

I feel as if Meredith brings the Blue Hair and Pronouns to Barkersville. She also has this kind of warmness that I haven't really gotten from other characters in this game. And I believe she's close with Kirk (... Carbon?). I'd suspect they were dating, as they both have positive reactions when they mention each other and I caught them going on a Graveyard Date at 1:00 AM. But when I talked to Kirk he said even though he's with a girl, he thought Celina was hot. So I can only make one conclusion: leave your shitty boyfriend, Meredith!!!

And on Jade: She's definitely on the Barkersville HOA (and Barkersville definitely has one!). She's just that kind of demon. It's mentioned that the Pingree's are a wealthy family. So, I don't think she has a job. Instead, she just torments her community with her influence.

Anyways. I don't actually know anything else about these characters beyond this. So. Um.

I had a lot of fun making these; I'm planning on doing something similar to this for all the Sims 2 GBA characters. I remade them all a few months ago, wanted to do renders to show them all off, and I want the excuse to write things like this about every single character. :) (and. I tried to do them all at once. but um. hm. that's just a little too much.) It'll take a while to actually finish anything w/ that because i need to experiment with format. I gave some of them outfits in other categories than 'everyday,' so I'm thinking about rendering those out, butttt that's up in the air.

[alltimefail-sims]

"📩 Simblr question of the day: according to you, what are the most underutilized gameplay features in the sims games you played, dlc included?"

Sharing the SQOTD from @simblr-question-of-the-day. I really liked this question because I'm excited to get more gameplay ideas.

Also, you talked about being busy recently so good luck with everything you are working on!

Yes I have been bit busier lately than I've been in a tick, but that's because I'm trying to be better about working on the book I'm writing!! But please continue to send asks and such, I'm still here and active just posting my own content a bit slower - but I'm still active and lurking about!

As for underutilized gameplay features...

I think the Club feature from Get Together is a really underutilized feature in the Sims. @sojutrait actually has a great guide up on their page that explains how clubs can be used for a more custom, immersive, hands-on gameplay experience.

I also think people don't realize how much fun the sales tables can be: I love doing "yard sales" to get rid of stuff in my sims home (for realistic gameplay), I love creating community lots filled with those sales tables to create a farmer's market/small community festival feel, and I love using them for my free-spirited, rancher, farmer, and homesteader sims specifically so they can sell their goods and rely on that income solely! Also you can create better custom food booths now with Home Chef Hustle and you can build a "food truck" OR like a pop-up ice cream stand at the park, for example. Idk it's just a fun feature to me, and exciting for those who don't think any of the rabbit-hole jobs suit their sim (or for those who want more flexibility in their sims' income without having to buy a whole ass additional community lot business).

The handiness skill as a whole is a gamechanger because of the "upgrade object" feature. The upgrades are actually super helpful and many of them will improve the functionality of the given object, will give custom moodlets, and will even help avoid disaster (fireproofing your dryer in the sims is a must... that shit catches fire if you look at it the wrong way lmaoooo).

The robotics skill is really cool and I love making the servos!! Cute little robot friend/family member and they can help around the house (crucial when you have big families, fun if you're going for a futuristic vibe or eccentric household).

Occults, in my opinion, are an underrated feature of the Sims. I think everyone should add some kind of weird, campy, supernatural shenanigans to their gameplay. Have your sim fall in love with a ghost; have your sim accidentally get bitten by a werewolf or vampire; befriend a mermaid; build a rocket in your backyard and go to space; get abducted and raise an alien; the possibilities are endless! Occults can shake shit up, especially if you're tired of vanilla, realistic gameplay.

FAMILY VACATIONS!!! HONEYMOONS!! FRIEND TRIPS!!! I love taking my sims on vacation and taking photos, making memories, etc. This feature is great too because you can get extended family members to go on vacation with your household and then it'll be a little family reunion (and you'll get moodlets for this as well that are like "The whole family is together" or something like that, it's really cute!). I think because you can literally travel to anywhere at any time without using the vacation feature this becomes really under-utilized, but it's a fun little thing to do!

Custom summer vacation holiday with seasons: depending on your lifespan/how you have your calendar days set up you can make it lasts a few days, a whole week, or even two weeks (so the kids can be off school during that time - I do one week in my saves). I just make the "mandatory events" swimming, grilling, spending time with family, stuff like that! Some days I literally have no mandatory events lol, just a day off school!

Honestly that's all I've got off the top of my head: I use a lot of mods and always have, so it can be hard for me to isolate what is a modded feature and what is just a part of the game itself! I hope one or more of these can help you spice your gameplay up a bit! Thank you for this question as always!!! <3