#i've unfortunately been in a car accident recently

[ask-dices-cups]

Some of my other favorite animated characters! ><

-Vik

{First}

[Broken Contract AU Details and Rules]

[tsarinatorment]

If we're talking about Apollo kid backstories, may I ask what your headcanons are for Lee's past? His mother, if he has any half siblings?

Of course you may! Given my newest project is a Lee fic I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this boy recently, so here goes! It's not as long/detailed as Michael's because, well, it's a bit less intense and there are several less people involved...

Lee's from Portland, Maine originally. He's an only child (at least on the mortal side of things, we all know that's not the case on the demigod side!), and it was just him and his mother for his early years.

I still don't actually have a first name for Miss Fletcher yet, but she was a first chair violinist in the Portland Symphony Orchestra, which is how she met Apollo/caught Apollo's eye.

Lee had some trouble at school - expected, honestly, for a dyslexic and ADHD kid back in the late '90s - although he's always been a sweet kid and the teachers never minded him. His truth-sensing ability used to get him in a bit of bother with the other kids, though, until he learnt/was gently advised by the reoccurring guy in his dreams that he shouldn't actually call out people when they lie all the time. His school life got a bit better after that!

Unfortunately, about a month before Lee's seventh birthday, his mother was caught up in a car accident coming home from orchestra rehearsal and didn't survive. Child services got involved, as you'd expect when there's a six year old orphan with no known family, but then Apollo intervened.

Not directly, he didn't show up himself and claim Lee then and there, but he sent an older satyr, one with a mortal cover that was strong enough to stand up to whatever cursory investigations CPS would throw his way, to pick Lee up on his behalf and bring him to camp - much younger than most kids made it there, but it was better than being put through the foster system.

[tsunadadudi]

Hi, I need to move by the end of April or I’m gonna be homeless

Remaking because my older one is outdated, messy, and a lot happened very fast.

Fund count -250/1750

My trans ndn ass is so tired. So, many of my longtime followers and mutuals know that I recently moved in September out of an abusive household. This was a massive boon to my mental health and freedom, but unfortunately my current rental cannot hold me any longer.

I have to move by the end of April or I will have nowhere to go.

Thankfully, my best friend has a room open for me back in NC, but I have to get back to NC.

And right as I was prepping to do this, I ran into a slew of car troubles.

I had a parking lot accident and was down $775, and then someone hit me and knocked off my driver side mirror. Thankfully, they paid for the repairs, but during those repairs I was told about issues that will be at least $500 at a normal mechanic because the dealership is a nightmare.

My original plan was to get a hitch installed on my car, but right now I've decided to just shove everything I possibly can inside Saint Pepsi and hope most of my stuff fits.

Before I can do that, she needs maintenance work done. I'm going to do a full fluid flush, take care of her loose spark plug, and try to see if the coolant leak is an easy fix. I have an appointment at my local mechanic on the 8th.

My dad gave me $500 to help with parking lot accident costs, but now with the addition of other troubles that has been swiftly devoured. My goal is the same, just with his contribution nixed because life is a nightmare.

My p@ypal is p@ypal.me/chromacrow (just take the @ out)

My venm0 is @Chromacrow

Anything sent in is a help, as I have my meds to refill and expensive allergy friendly cat food to get for my old lady who lives on the floor.

Here is my soft girl Shasta as a reward for reading this.

[emelkae]

So uh... writing's been very much interrupted because...

we got a cat. By accident.

It was Halloween and it was so NICE out and we were just supposed to go for a WALK but instead we found this skinny little rat guy in our driveway:

He was covered in ticks and was absolutely starving. This dude would do anything for shredded chicken (it was all we had unfortunately), including get in a box in a stranger's car.

We took him to a shelter and got him scanned. No chip. I looked at a bunch of lost cat posts online and didn't see any matching his description, and the shelters were brimming with so many cats that a lot of them weren't accepting any more.

I couldn't just kick him back out into the woods, so... we took him to a vet and got him dewormed, got the ticks pulled off him, pumped him full of fluids, gave him flea medication, shaved the mats out of his fur, blood tested him, and scheduled an appointment to get him neutered.

Everyone meet Harker, our little vampire hunter.

That's him when he's making his "I'm baby :3" face. I have waaayyy more pics of him going 😠 but it's because scowling seems to be his natural state.

Under the cut because there's a lot:

Scowling at me while sitting on his scratch pad

Scowling at me, closeup edition

Scowling at me as a loaf

Scowling at me (creep)

Scowling at me while sunbathing next to the lightsabers

But he also looks like this sometimes:

He's only six pounds 🥺

He seems to be settling down pretty well. He doesn't like being reached for or picked up, but he does like bumping his head into your hand. He recently got up enough energy to play with toys. He's the most vocal cat I've ever encountered, with a soft raspy meow. The only thing is that he tries to steal food because he was a stray :( So we're training him out of that. The most important thing is that he and my partner's dog get along well.

But yeah! Kitty :3

[haleyhunwritess]

Hiii!!! Could you write a 🤍 fic or drabble with dad!bucky and steve is seeing reader but bucky doesn’t know and they have an argument about something and bucky says something really hurtful so then steve goes to comfort her🥺🥺🥺🥺

🤍 drabble for dad!bucky and reader having an argument then steve comforting her because they're secretly dating

a/n: WAIT I LOVE THIS, also i'm sorry i've been trying to upload more for the celebration but i've been a bit busy with school :(( i'm gonna try to answer more this weekend hopefully (btw i love the ideas you guys send in) also i'm so sorry i keep making these longer than they need to be, you're all probably so sick of my writing at this point😭😭

𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝟏𝐤 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

"You couldn’t behave just this once? You had to embarrass me infront of my colleagues," Bucky mumbled, as slumping down on the couch.

You recently started working with your father, as an intern of course. You were still in college but it was summer, and unfortunately your summer plans got cancelled. As a birthday present, your mum had bought a trip to Paris. Just for the two of you.

Unfortunately, before the end of the semester, she got into a car accident. When you got to the hospital, she was in surgery. You and Bucky waited there for hours. Steve came by to try to get you both to go home but neither of you moved. Finally, the doctor walked over to you guys. The pitiful look on his face already making you queasy as he said the words that changed your life in an instant. She passed away, she didn’t make it.

Bucky thought that maybe working with him this summer could help you take your mind off of things. At first, it was actually nice to have work as a distraction. But lately, the workload has been more than usual. It’s been tiring and hard but you’ve been trying your best. Today, however, someone else made a mistake and you got blamed for it. You tried to stand up for yourself but no one would listen to you. You looked to your dad for help but Bucky just shook his head and apologized on your behalf.

“I didn't even do anything! Why do you always have to argue with me" You yelled once again, as you threw your bag on the couch.

"I don’t want to argue with you, but you messed up and you need to learn how to take accountability for your actions!" Bucky yelled back, no longer caring about keeping his voice down.

You scoffed in response, "I wish Mom was still here, she wouldn't do this to me. She would stand up for me, she wouldn't believe some other kid over me."

"Fuck I wish she was here so she could see you right now, she'd be nothing but disappointed in you. Thank fucking god she's not here to see you like this, she'd be so fucking ashamed." Bucky instantly regretted what he said, but it was too late. The harsh words already left his mouth, and there was no taking them back now.

You both stood there like that until the sound of the front door pulled you out of your thoughts. You noticed Steve had walked in with takeout in his hand. You completely forgot he was coming over for dinner tonight. You looked back at Bucky before running upstairs to your room.

"Wait sweethear-" Bucky got cut off as you slammed your bedroom door shut. He quickly got up to follow you but Steve stopped him.

"Just let me go talk to her first.” Steve said, knowing you’d be too upset to see Bucky right now.

“I didn’t mean to say that… I just felt guilty when she said what she said…I didn’t mean to h-hurt her, fuck please just go check on her.” Bucky quickly wiped the tears away, knowing there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to forgive him for what he said.

Steve patted his back, before making his way upstairs to your room. His heart broke listening to the quiet sobs coming from your room. He lightly knocked on the door, “Angel, are you in here?”

“Go ‘way, don’t wanna talk…” You mumbled, putting the covers over your head.

“Come on, angel, you don’t have to talk it’s okay, I just wanna make sure you’re okay.” Steve waited for a few minutes, hoping you’ll let him in soon. He sighed before turning the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked, and walking in.

He walked over to you, and sat down on the bed before carefully moving the blankets down. You looked up at him, with your tear-stained face, still sobbing quietly as you kept thinking about what Bucky said.

“Oh baby, look at you. All these tears don’t look good on my angel, come on let’s dry these up.” Steve carefully wiped away all your tears with his sleeve before pulling you closer to him to let you lay your head on his lap.

“H-he said that…” You couldn’t even finish the sentence. You wanted to tell Steve the harsh words you’d heard earlier. You didn't know that he already heard them as soon as he walked in. It took everything in him to not beat the shit out of Bucky at the time but he knew you needed him more though.

“Shh shh, it’s okay, he didn’t mean it. You know how much he loves you. He didn’t mean what he said, I promise. And I know for a fact that she’d be nothing but proud of you if she was still here.” He quickly shushed you, not wanting you to cry again. He tried his best to soothe you with his sweet words. It helped a little but you couldn’t help but wonder if Bucky was right. Would she be disappointed?

“Do you think she’d be disappointed in me? If she ever found out about us? Actually, do you think he’ll be disappointed in me if I ever told him about us?” You mumbled.

Steve thought about it for a second before replying, “Maybe at first, but I’m sure he'll come around. He'll will have to come around, angel, because I’m never letting you go.” He mumbled, burying his face in your neck, making you giggle a bit.

“I miss her alot…” You mumbled, as you could already feel the tears making their way back.

“I know, angel, I know. We all do…” Steve laid there with you until you fell asleep. Stroking your hair, and rubbing your back every now and then. All he wanted to do was take your pain away. You didn’t deserve to feel this way. You were his angel, all he wanted to do was protect you.

[simnostalgia]

@hugelunatic Hi, it's me, the person who scraped GOS! Sorry I couldn't reblog the original post so, here is my response.

First of all, I wanted to say. Thank you for everything you do for our community. You've really been a major part of The TS2 community from the beginning!

Second, you'll stop me from archiving when you pry the archiving software out of my cold, dead hands.

Do you know about Plumb Bob Keep? That's a real question because as the TS2 modding community gets ever smaller and becomes more and more insular it gets harder to know who is on what moderation team and who co-runs what. However, if you do know Plumb Bob keep you'd know that recently the owner died. Which meant that suddenly the entire community had to scramble.

Fortunately, they were able to get in contact with the family (in their time of mourning) to ask "Hey, sorry about the dead girl, can I has password please? I need my fix of virtual doll clothes"

I don't blame them for this. They'd obviously put a lot of time into this and the reason I know that is because I got approached to see what I could do when the site was offline and they were still trying to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, when a site's only existing documentation exists in the WayBackMachine that makes it basically impossible to scrape.

And this isn't even the first time this happened, when Yahoo Groups shutdown, ArchiveTeam had trouble talking to MOST older simmers because they were so fucking touchy about their content. Literally our community has a reputation for being obnoxious about TOUs and 'rights' to the point where they'd basically given up trying to archive anything that had to do with The Sims.

So if you thought that this was because I was concerned that you were running into the ground. Rest assured, I'm doing this in case you get in a fatal car accident so we don't have to call your mourning loved ones to ask the very cringe question: "Do you know about the forum from 2008 that your spouse/son/father/sister/daughter/mother ran? Can we have access to it please. I have recolors that I'd DESPERATELY love to get back."

As far as bandwidth goes, I do my best to make sure that I scrape with as little intrusion as possible and your load is lighter since you don't host any of the actual CC or even 75% of your own images.

Now, we could talk about what this really is: a pissing contest. But don't worry. I have no real interest in encroaching on your territory of running an alternative style sims 2 forum from 2008. I love GOS, or I wouldn't have made sure that it didn't fucking disappear into the ether.

But believe me, no one is choosing to look through a list of 10,000 zip files without images or descriptions as a replacement for a fully functional forum with like... images of the items. My archive of GOS is pretty much only for creators and people who know EXACTLY what they're looking for.

And that goes similarly for everyone worried about their precious TOUs in the comments of the original post. No one, and I mean no one, prefers to dig through an entire fucking ass ton of files labeled shit like "[POOKLET] SKYSIMS MESH 007 - UNNATURAL COLORS"

In fact, I've had several creators thank me because the scrape unearthed some shit they'd thought they'd lost. And if you don't like it, or me, get in line. I assure you there is metric fuck ton of people from patreon who hate me far more.

However, I would like to say that whenever you / or any other creator who is mad about this / literally any simmer, is searching for a dependency because someone got in some obscure internet drama and deleted all their cc or Mediafire got shut down by the RIAA or whatever the fuck.

You, for as "annoyed" as you are, will remember the big ass zip file and CTRL + F your ass to what you're looking for. And I'm going to say it now, for when that moment comes:

You're welcome. No hard feelings.

[grapejuicegay]

Get to know me tag! :)

I was tagged by @telomeke here and @dribs-and-drabbles here.

do you make your bed?

I try to! On days that I'm too busy to make it in the morning I do so about half an hour before I'm getting to bed. I don't like the feeling of getting back into an unmade bed - it feels like a completely unproductive day and that just throws me off

what's your favourite number?

I don't really have a favourite but I love multiples of 7, they make my brain go brrr

what is your job?

Photography! It's something I always wanted to do as a child but gave up on as an unrealistic dream before eventually sort of stumbling into it. Happy accidents and all that.

if you could go back to school, would you?

Hah! No chance. I burnt myself out pretty badly through undergrad by taking on far too much - there were just so many things that I found interesting - and I'd much rather not repeat that experience.

can you parallel park?

I can't drive. I keep meaning to learn but the way people drive freaks me out a little too much. I've also been struggling with a bout of motion sickness recently and that doesn't help my comfort in cars. Someday though! Hopefully!

a job you had that would surprise people?

I worked on editing and post production on a documentary for National Geographic once

do you think aliens are real?

In what form, I'm not sure. But some forms of life that exist outside of our planet? Absolutely. My other answer, channeling the 12 years I've spent on this hellsite: doooweeeewoooooo

can you drive a manual car?

If/when I do finally learn to drive I'm going to make it a point to learn manual too. Idk, feels like an important skill to have

what's your guilty pleasure?

I make it a point not too feel guilty or embarrassed about my interests. If I started doing that far too many things I like would qualify and I just cannot live like that

tattoos?

I wish :( I have a bunch of small tattoos I've always wanted but I have a medical condition because of which I can't get any.

favourite colour?

It changes every so often but I'm particularly biased towards shades of teal right now.

favourite type of music?

I love rock of the general/alt/post/punk variety. Recently I've been listening to a goth-folk band called Charming Disaster and have been a little bit obsessed with their album Our Lady of Radium and especially Radium Girls

do you like puzzles?

Love love love puzzles of any kind. I just like having lil things for my brain to do.

any phobias?

I have a little bit of a phobia of falling off of high places which unfortunately comes from a close call during a hike where I slipped off a steep rock and almost into a sweeping rapids (luckily I ended up slipping sideways into a little pool in a gap between said rock and another big one... took a while to pull my short ass out of there but at least I wasn't being swept away!)

favourite childhood sport?

I was a sporty child, tried my hand at just about most sports. My go to was basketball for a while (though I don't play anymore) but now I'm more inclined to go for a swim or a bout of kickboxing, sometimes badminton. Funny story: over the course of a year I got hit in the nose with 4 different kinds of balls (not that kind!). My nose is fine but I was paranoid around sports grounds for a while after that 😂

do you talk to yourself?

All the time! It honestly helps me keep track of a lot of things, especially when I'm overwhelmed but it's a little funny when my everyday running commentary comes out in front of people. It gets me a lot of strange looks, especially when I ask everyday objects what they think they're doing

what movies do you adore?

Depends on the day you ask. I tried answering this 5 different times but each time I came up with 5 different movies to list out. I really could not pick for this one

coffee or tea?

Coffee! Far, far too much of it!

first thing you wanted to be growing up?

An astronaut. It took me far too long to give up on that pipe dream. But around the time I gave up on that I was getting interested in photography as something to pursue. I was bullied out of it for a few years sadly but hey, I ended up here eventually!

I'm coming to this way too late so I'm not really sure who hasn't done this yet. I'm just going to tag @casualavocados @celestial-sapphicss @jemmo

And like both Tel and Lin mentioned, I've been far too busy to be on tumblr too much recently (most of 2024) and so a lot of stuff I've been tagged in has slipped through the cracks. Most of it is in my drafts somewhere and sometimes it just feels too late to bring it back. I still love all of you though and I'm sorry!

[raamitsu-personal]

our eldest cat died today because she accidentally got hit by a car that was driven by my dad. my other cat (a mother cat btw) just went missing without any traces last month.

God's test is truly great. I'm feeling numb and heavy at the same time. My eyes are swelling from tears, and later we're going to bury her. It will be the last time I saw her.

I'm glad I got to spend time with her while she was alive. She's my precious cat and will always do.

side note: my recent deceased cat got hit by a car the same way as her mother did years ago. i witnessed it myself at the time as I was struggling to catch her daughter (my recent deceased cat) and now nobody's there to witness the accident that her daughter experienced as I was inside struggling with my period pain.

from now on and starting tomorrow, I will never get to see her running to me for food. never again. I will miss her painfully.

the one that we rose from birth until she got fat and heavy. the eldest. my baby '(

I'm tired. so tired. I've been planning with my mother to keep her safe in a big house because our house is stuck between a road where there are many cars and bikes and a wood where there are wild animals hidden but unfortunately we didn't get the opportunity to do that now.

I'm so fucking tired rn but it's my fault.

[whumpbug]

So you know the Archie pneumonia fic? I know it was written a while ago but I recently reread it and I think it's the only time where it's been mentioned that Archie used to live on the streets. Elaborate?

hi anon!!!!!! this is a very good question i haven't elaborated on it too much and the simple reason is because. this plot point is Not Developed and i feared i was in too deep to develop it. BUT here we are and i figure better late than never!!

cw: drug mention, drug addiction mention

✮⋆˙

so archie did Not have a great childhood. i briefly talk about it here but i'll elaborate a tiny bit more!

archie's dad walked out on him when he was born. he never knew him and never cared to know him once he realized how much of an effect his absence had on archie's mom, laura.

laura got pregnant with archie on accident. she never meant to have a kid with his dad. he was abusive and violent and flaky and she never wanted a permanent tie to him, but things don't always work out the way you want it to

she wasn't surprised when he completely ghosted her after she told him she was pregnant, but it didn't make it any easier. she unfortunately fell into a pretty severe drug addiction when archie was young, and it only got worse when archie got his powers because she was so stressed out on how to help her kid and she didn't realize being high all the time was Not Helping.

laura had good intentions, but she was careless. she wasn't a horrible mother, but she wasn't a good one either and its something archie struggles with. archie grew up often living out of a car or on the streets because his mom couldn't hold down a job. he grew up dealing with a lot of his pain on his own because he was used to having to take care of his mom.

he grew up seeing things he shouldn't have. its part of where his needle fear comes from (obviously the Incident was a little more impactful though)

overdose mention in this paragraph but: archie saw his mom nearly overdose twice. one when he was 15, and once when he was 18 which is what got her to finally go to rehab. she knew she couldn't keep doing this to archie.

so yeah. thats kinda a little more about archie's childhood. he eventually grew up and got a job and now lives in his own apartment (shh we don't talk about how thats like impossible in today's economy) and he no longer lives with laura because. well. she's in rehab. its not a plot point i've talked about a lot because i want to handle the subject gracefully.

archie still visits her occasionally and tells her about simon and his life (she doesn't know he's vigil. she knows he has the powers of course but doesn't watch the news enough to know he's the vigilante everyone is talking about)

overall, laura is doing so much better. she's found a community at the rehab center and she's gotten the help she needs, but she's most happy to see her son happy and healthy and living a fulfilling life. like sylvia, all she's ever wanted was for her son to be happy.

✮⋆˙

thank you for the question anon!! i hope this answers it and gives u a little insight into archie's story!!!

[multi-lefaiye]

hehehe ty all for the encouragement <3 tagging @astral-runic @wherearetheplants @invaderskoodge and @albatris b/c y'all replied directly hewwo <3 and ofc @skitzo-kero hewwo <3

anyway okay so sad people wip is a concept that floated into my brain a while ago and didn't get much development and ngl i almost scrapped it entirely,

BUT yes!!!!! so sad people wip can best be summed up as: a group of strangers, who have each reached rock bottom in various ways, end up becoming each other's closest friends and support system and help each other find reasons to keep going.

now i'm going to list the new cast below, as well as explain the premise in a bit more detail <33

picrew used: [link]

content warnings (please tread lightly if any of these may be an issue! no pressure to read even if i've tagged you here): mentions of drug addiction, suicide, cancer/terminal illness, car accidents, and toxic romantic relationships.

premise in more detail: four strangers come to the same building on the same day with the intent of ending their lives. however, none of them ended up going through with it, because in the end having other people there made them all reconsider. the group ends up keeping in touch and becoming friends, helping each other find reasons to live and cope with living in the hell world.

and now,the characters!

Angel De Santis - he/him

Angel has recently been dumped by his long-time girlfriend AJ, who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Without her, he's lost his main support system, and he's been floundering. He's also slowly starting to realize that this relationship was not as healthy as it seemed to him at the time.

Phoebe Ross - she/her

Ross is a recovering drug addict who recently relapsed after a year and a half of sobriety. She feels as though she's let everyone down and is terrified to face her loved ones after, and part of her believes that she'll never be able to get back up again and that she's ruined everything for real this time.

Dr. Scott Wells - he/him

Scott is a successful surgeon at a local hospital whose life was recently upended by a traumatic car accident. Unfortunately, his wife and daughter did not survive the accident. Now, Scott is struggling to put his life back together without the people that were most important to him, all the while dealing with his own trauma following the incident.

Ezra Navarro Álvarez - they/them

Ezra is a recent widower whose wife passed away after a long battle with cancer, leaving them alone to raise their young son. Unfortunately, their wife's family has started a long, painful, drawn-out custody battle with them, insisting that Ezra is unfit to be a parent. Though Ezra is fighting for their son the best they can, they're starting to lose hope, and they've had no time to grieve their loss on top of everything.

and now,,,,, the actual title,,,,,,, currently the working title for sad people wip is Twelve Stories Club. very dark humor title but this is a dark humor wip

[very-grownup]

Book 26/27, 2024

It's good to get out of your comfort zone with fiction. That's one of the reasons I try to read works in translation regularly and also why I try to avoid setting too much store by genre. This means sometimes I will just add an author or title to my list of books to buy and by the time I've gotten to it, I've long forgotten how it came to my attention in the first place.

Such is the case with Kaoru Takamura's not-quite-mystery novel, not-quite-literary-fiction 1997 work (a cursory glance at wikipedia suggests it came wright between Takamura's writing mystery novels and her moving on to literary fiction, which explains the odd place it exists, genre-wise) "Lady Joker". Inspired by the the kidnapping of the president of Glico in the 1980s and the unknown group's subsequent extortions and product tampering (read up on the Glico Morinaga case, it's interesting), "Lady Joker" is a sprawling novel spanning several years in the 1990s, but it starts in the 1940s with a dissatisfied and dismissed beer company employee writing a scathing letter alleging workplace discrimination and everything that comes after goes back to this one man's letter.

This is all invention on Takamura's part. The actual Glico Morinaga case has never been solved.

In the 1990s a recent graduate of a prestigious university has an unsuccessful job interview with a major beer company and dies in a car accident.

A pair of shady men visit the grieving father with a copy of the old letter and the suggestion that it, and a familial connection hidden by a web of adoptions, is the reason behind his son's rejection by the company and, ultimately, his death.

The grieving father takes half-hearted steps to threaten the beer company before he second guesses himself and pulls back, eventually dying by suicide.

His father-in-law finds out about the letter and the beer company's possible involvement in the deaths and it acts as the fuel for a criminal plot by him and his acquaintances who bet on horseraces, a plan for kidnapping and extortion without any real victims, but which will economically hurt the company which, like all companies, takes and takes from people and never benefits any but the top brass, eventually forming a group they refer to as Lady Joker.

The motivations and backstories and connections of the members of Lady Joker are the focus of the first part of the novel and then disappear from narrative view almost entirely until the end of the novel, as Takamura focuses on the kidnapped executive who is threatened not with death or violence, but with damage to the company's reputation and stock value by tampering with a newly launched beer, other executives, members of the press, and detectives investigating it.

It's a lot. "Lady Joker" is a dense book and as wide ranging as its subject matter is, it's probably inevitable that certain parts are more engaging than others. The stuff dealing with the members of Lady Joker was probably my favourite and, unfortunately, those sections only bookend the dense middle of the novel where there isn't a mystery and you're kind of on the side of the men of Lady Joker. The knots of corporate obligations and expectations the kidnapped president twists himself into, his justification of the decisions he makes and what he does and does not share, are interesting but do little to make you /not/ want Lady Joker to succeed in their scheme and get away clean. The parts about the newspaper and other media reporters had me really struggling to stay engaged. The fact that it became increasingly apparent that Lady Joker was NOT going to get caught made the police sections feel odd, almost treading narrative water. I was far more interested in the main detective's increasing disillusionment with the police and his persistent refusal in recognizing his ex-brother-in-law's romantic interest in him.

It's an interesting novel with lots of good bits, but knowing it was a transitional novel for Takamura helps me understand why some things worked so well and others didn't.

I think I may have also had a bit of difficulty because the translators of "Lady Joker" are not interested in giving you much in the way of extra-textual cultural information that you, the reader, might lack, not being a Japanese citizen in the late 1990s. It's not that I mind, I've read plenty of translated works without handholding, but I'm wondering if more context would have helped me in the areas I found more sloggy. Who can say.

I'm glad whatever happened that brought "Lady Joker" to my attention. It was interesting and different and well-worth the effort to push through the areas I found less than interesting. It's just cool to read something off your usual path sometimes.

[arobinwithoutbatman]

((Alrighty! Onto Knightsend! ...I'm so glad this arc is almost over, I am straight up not enjoying this. It's important context for everything else Tim goes through but *my God* it's been a very heavy slog))

...ooooohhhhh it's Knight's End not Knight Send... my bad

Ah, Shiva backstory

Dude fights only with his feet because he literally has no arms... cool

And Shiva is wearing a bat mask. Not a Batman mask, a literal bat... why?

SO Bruce has already been out here for weeks to get back in shape to deal with fucking Azreal

...SHiva have you set Bruce up to be ambushed by these 7 masters after you killed their teacher? *Because he won't learn to kill?!*

I really hate Shiva. Now idk if she's met with Cain yet and if Cassandra is somewhere in the world but given that Cass is around Jason's age... yeah the poor girl is around somewhere

Jean-Paul is mcfucking losing it and Tim is back to his stalker ways reporting on it all

Lunch acquired. Let's continue with this bullshit

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

Okay, wood chopping to get some muscle back, not a bad idea

And his next opponent is on his way

Oh yay, Tim's visiting!

Nightwing! Welcome back! You're about to get understandably upset over everything that's been happening

They're brothers, Your Honour. Such brothers and I love Nightwing and Robin team ups

Look at them go!

And Bruce is getting tested and Azreal is getting so much worse

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

Yeah that's fair, Nightwing

Oh... oh that's a bloodthirsty grin you got there, buddy

So Harold was a recent thing? Huh

"This place doesn't seem like home anymore" It still is home! It's just been corrupted by an asshole! It can be home again!

Bruce has another fight *in the middle of the road while cars are driving?!*

Dick and Tim just watching Azreal have his most recent break with reality

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

Last test for Bruce

Bruce only has to do it alone because he's a highly traumatised emotionally repressed adult who has unfortunately passed several bad habits on to his ward and current Robin

Oh fuck... Bruce actually did it... and Tim and Dick witnessed

Oh! It continues to Robin 8! Which means I actually need to back track and read the rest of Robin's issues first or it's all gonna be disconnected!

Wait... I might need to double check my reading list again, cause I think I've done something out of order

...yeah I've got a bit out of order and skipped over Robin issues by accident cause I've got those in their own folder... okay so I'll start Robin's stuff next week and then back track to where I am now with KnightsEnd to continue that

[jesytr]

Lately I've been struggling with my mental health. ( I'm diagnosed with schizophrenia, PTSD, generalized anxiety and major depression ) and I've been put through a lot with my recent changes of believes. My struggle is daily and unfortunately I need better medications I think. ( I take invega sustena and we moved me on a higher dosage ) but I still feel like my schizophrenia has had flare ups ( auditorial hallucinations as well as internalized ones ) I've also been struggling with life goals. I have PTSD due to almost getting into a couple car accidents and because of this I have HUGE ANXIETY if I'm ever put behind the wheel and I've even blacked out And somehow drove back home. I was recently told that those were signs of PTSD. FINALLY UNDERSTANDING WHY I REFUSE TO DRIVE. I've been harsh on myself because of my life goals and my age. I'm turning 30 in November 25th and that's not fair. I AM DISABLED. I cannot expect myself to live like everyone else and have met goals like everyone else when I am disabled and handling life goals more slowly. With that I'm going to throw myself back into the rp community and do hobbies that I love. I'm going to surround myself with things that I enjoy doing and surround myself with supportive people and LOVE.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

tw: csa/sa (?)

hi there, i hope you're doing well <33 first, i just came across your blog & i wanted to thank you for all that you do. you are so very loved! <3

i'm reaching out about a situation i've been dealing with for quite some time, & i was wondering if you would be able to give me some advice/support/validation in what i'm going through. basically, i have very fuzzy memories of my uncle showing me pornographic videos when i was about 5 or 6 years old. again, these memories are fuzzy, i suppose because i was so young & couldn't really comprehend what was happening. then, when i was about 9, i remember being alone with him, and him grabbing my hands and rubbing them against himself inappropriately, very briefly. these memories are also super fuzzy & hard to recall, almost as if they never even happened. most recently, the last time he was over my house, he got very drunk, and kept looking at me suggestively. i hid in my room, but he followed, sat next to me, & started rubbing my back while touching himself inappropriately in front of me. i froze up completely, but then he started apologizing, & suddenly i was able to move again & i ran from the room. he got very angry at me afterwards, however now he says he "can't remember a thing" because he was "blackout drunk." i just want to know: would these things be considered a form of sa? i feel as though, because nothing considerably "serious" happened, & especially because i have so much difficulty recalling the events from my childhood, i would not be taken seriously telling these things to a professional/that they don't really "count." however, these things haunt me day in & day out, they are pretty much all i can think about at any given moment...any advice or support would be appreciated, thank you so much <33

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry about what you went through. This can absolutely count as SA, as well as CSA and even incest since it was a relative.

It's important to remember that there is no objective measurement for the severity of trauma, because it's all subjective to how survivors perceive their experiences. It's common for trauma survivors to compare their trauma to those they believe have "had it worse" but focusing on someone else doesn't help you process and heal from your trauma. What you went through is serious enough.

It's frustrating when people who have harmed us claim to not remember, especially when they blame it on being too drunk. Often times, abusers will merely claim to not remember in order to avoid accountability. Mine was in a serious car accident and claims to have memory issues. Please know that it doesn't matter whether or not he remembers because it doesn't change the fact that he did it and he is still responsible for his actions. Just because he may not remember doesn't erase the impact his actions had on you.

Please know that while there are an unfortunate amount of mental health professionals that don't do their job properly, a therapist who is doing their job right would never invalidate your experiences, and would instead help you explore and process them in a healthy way, in order to heal from your trauma.

I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[bikepackinguk]

Day Eleven

It's my birthday! So of course I fully intended to take it easy today. You can imagine how that went!

As I was scouting for a place to sleep last night, I bumped into someone doing the exact same thing with his own laden bike, and turns out we were attempting the exact same ride! he was 14 days out of Wimbledon, and we happily chatted and traded experiences and tips for nearly half an hour before parting to find our spots for the night.

There's a great sense of community with most cyclist out and about regardless of what we're each doing, but bumping into another tourer is less common and almost always an occasion for a quick stop to trade tales and plans, and there's a wonderful sense of camaraderie that goes with it. So far this trip I've also chatted with a Dutch guy heading home from Liverpool, a German couple riding the coast to Plymouth then on to Portugal, and a couple from Zurich on their way up to Shetland. As I did at the time, I wish you all the very best!

After waking near Ryehill, I eased into the day with a walk of the bike along the nearby bridleway down to Patrington, where I had a long stop for a good brunch.

Once a bit rested a fuelled, it wwas time to get back on the bike and on to the coast once more. First stop, the very picturesque beach around the Spurn by Kilnsea.

There isn't much in the way of ridable trails out here, so then it's back on the road for a ride up to the seaside town of Withernsea, where I treated myself to an ice cream.

A challenge arose after setting off once more as an unfortunate accident between a motorbike and car meant that the road ahead to Roos was blocked, and would need a fair diversion to get around, and the alternative road had been very recently destroyed due to coastal erosion.

Thankfully with the assistance of a very helpful local I was guided across some fields and managed to drag the bike straight across the top of the crumbling clifftops, a little hairily at times but eventually leading out to the back of a caravan park where I was able to get back to the roadside.

With the connecting road closed, it was happily mostly traffic-free for much of the ride up past Aldbrough, though also with little to note for it aside from getting some more miles in and dealing with some steep hills.

As it stands I'm not just a few miles short of Hornsea, and given the exertions of the day I think it may be time to have a bit more of a rest and then find a spot for the night, before rolling into town early in the morning.

Thank you everyone for the wellwishes!

[simnostalgia]

I'm the person who scraped GOS! I already wrote a response to this post but couldn't find the original but now that I have, I'm going to rewrite my reply.

First of all, I wanted to say. Thank you for everything you do for our community. You've really been a major part of The TS2 community from the beginning!

Second, you'll stop me from archiving when you pry the archiving software out of my cold, dead hands.

Do you know about Plumb Bob Keep? That's a real question because as the TS2 modding community gets ever smaller and becomes more and more insular it gets harder to know who is on what moderation team and who co-runs what. However, if you do know Plumb Bob keep you'd know that recently the owner died. Which meant that suddenly the entire community had to scramble.

Fortunately, they were able to get in contact with the family (in their time of mourning) to ask "Hey, sorry about the dead girl, can I has password please? I need my fix of virtual doll clothes"

I don't blame them for this. They'd obviously put a lot of time into this and the reason I know that is because I got approached to see what I could do when the site was offline and they were still trying to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, when a site's only existing documentation exists in the WayBackMachine that makes it basically impossible to scrape.

And this isn't even the first time this happened, when Yahoo Groups shutdown, ArchiveTeam had trouble talking to MOST older simmers because they were so fucking touchy about their content. Literally our community has a reputation for being obnoxious about TOUs and 'rights' to the point where they'd basically given up trying to archive anything that had to do with The Sims.

So if you thought that this was because I was concerned that you were running into the ground. Rest assured, I'm doing this in case you get in a fatal car accident so we don't have to call your mourning loved ones to ask the very cringe question: "Do you know about the forum from 2008 that your spouse/son/father/sister/daughter/mother ran? Can we have access to it please. I have recolors that I'd DESPERATELY love to get back."

As far as bandwidth goes, I do my best to make sure that I scrape with as little intrusion as possible and your load is lighter since you don't host any of the actual CC or even 75% of your own images.

Now, we could talk about what this really is: a pissing contest. But don't worry. I have no real interest in encroaching on your territory of running an alternative style sims 2 forum from 2008. I love GOS, or I wouldn't have made sure that it didn't fucking disappear into the ether.

But believe me, no one is choosing to look through a list of 10,000 zip files without images or descriptions as a replacement for a fully functional forum with like... images of the items. My archive of GOS is pretty much only for creators and people who know EXACTLY what they're looking for.

And that goes similarly for everyone worried about their precious TOUs in the comments of the original post. No one, and I mean no one, prefers to dig through an entire fucking ass ton of files labeled shit like "[POOKLET] SKYSIMS MESH 007 - UNNATURAL COLORS"

In fact, I've had several creators thank me because the scrape unearthed some shit they'd thought they'd lost. And if you don't like it, or me, get in line. I assure you there is metric fuck ton of people from patreon who hate me far more.

However, I would like to say that whenever you / or any other creator who is mad about this / literally any simmer, is searching for a dependency because someone got in some obscure internet drama and deleted all their cc or Mediafire got shut down by the RIAA or whatever the fuck.

You, for as "annoyed" as you are, will remember the big ass zip file and CTRL + F your ass to what you're looking for. And I'm going to say it now, for when that moment comes:

You're welcome. No hard feelings.

As long as the adsense revenue and donations cover most of the costs, GoS isn't going anywhere. So far my out of pocket cost is less than 25% of the total costs for the site, which is within my budget still. I'm hoping this coming year will be the same but ad revenue is down. I understand ads suck and do my best to remove the auto generated page take over ones and keep them small.

But you know what scraping the site does? Increases bandwidth and server load which costs me more money. This annoys me. I have a budget man.

If I were not willing/able to continue, then there would be an announcement on GoS. All costs are paid annually. The biggest in May which is the hosting itself, the domains are scattered throughout the year. All in it's only about $225 annually.

I mean, if someone is concerned about the state of the site, they could. I dunno. Ask someone?