#its hard to explain but tldr sometimes i do wanna slap a 'its not that deep' sticker on him. not everything he does is some master plan lik

[masqueradeoftheguilty]

man. scrolling through a0.3 makes me realise just how fucking picky i am about kaeya interpretations fjdkjkdlks

[axemetaphor]

im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

[gir-posting]

*paparazzi surrounds you*

George! George! Give us the the ranking on all sims games! Or explain what makes the sims 2 so fuckin great

okay so i’m putting this under a cut so that my followers/long suffering mutuals that have no interest in the sims dont have to scroll past this lmAO

SO

this take is probably less controversial than it feels like but. COMPARATively........ the sims 1 is definitely the worst sims game out of all of em. NOW NOW NOW that is not to say that it i think it’s a bad game! but when you pit it against the rest of the games it doesn’t stand a chance

i can see the appeal though! the nostalgia is there and the gameplay can be very silly sometimes, like the prank calls for one thing

and then there’s the super adult humor that not many sims games have even begun to match since

AND THEN THERE’S THE MUSIC *chef’s kiss*

BUT unfortunately in the end the gameplay falls super behind for me because it’s like. incredibly clear that the sims 1′s sims and all the social interactions that come with them were created as an afterthought since the sims 1 was initially designed as a house building simulator. and since i’m in it for the sims, it just gets very boring to me very quickly. and then i kind of take issue with how they integrated the expansion packs, which i don’t actually blame them for since they were still trying to figure everything out. but adding an entire extension to every single one of the towns just. it just. :(

when every single neighborhood has the expanded old town it just really takes any individuality out of the neighborhoods that they had in the first place :( so unfortunately i do think the sims 1 takes last place

in third place (a MUCH more controversial take i think) we have the sims 3.

AGAIN. NOT HATING ON YOU IF YOU LIKE IT! i think it has a lot going for it!

LIKE. OPEN WORLD SIMS? OPEN WORLD???? NO LOADING SCREENS? YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOAD IN A SEPARATE LOT? THE ENTIRE WORLD IS JUST RIGHT THERE??? KILLER! ABSOLUTELY SICK! I’M IN LOVE!

and the ability to completely customize EVERYTHING with a color wheel and patterns? THAT’S ABSOLUTELY AHEAD OF ITS TIME AND IT NEEDS TO COME BACK. *points a gun at the sims 4 team*

but i just. i physically can’t put it any higher i can’t. not even above the sims 4.

because it is the ugliest fucking game i have ever seen in my god damn life

WHY DO YOU ALL LOOK LIKE THAT. I PHYSICALLY CAN’T STAND TO PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE ALL OF THE SIMS ARE SO RIDICULOUSLY UGLY

LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO THE POOR PLANT SIMS. THIS IS A HATE CRIME

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE BABIES

and then there’s the issue that a lot of it just doesn’t run the way i want it to and it makes me super pissed? like i have a super good gaming pc but on startup it refused to actually render the sims with any decent clarity. and speaking of the world that comes with the pack “island paradise” refuses to run on anything besides super good gaming pcs and that’s just INFURIATING. imagine being a little kid in like 2009 and wanting to play with the mermaids so bad but their parents’ regular pc overheats and dies trying to render isla paradiso. that just pisses me off so much

the music is also super fucking bad i can’t stand it

idk i just. if it weren’t for those glaring issues i would probably love the sims 3!!!! the gameplay looks like a lot of fun and there’s probably a lot of potential with it that i just refuse to see through because i hate the graphics so much.

in second place, which is a fucking SHOCKER if you’ve spoken to me for five minutes, we have the sims 4.

now. let’s start out by saying that most of the anger i have towards the sims 4 is lingering salt from the launch. because oh good god the launch. the launch for this game was horrendous and i don’t even want to talk about it.

but!!! in kind of a stockholm-y way (for lack of a better term) i think they really have improved on the gameplay? they really have taken the time and effort to make the game seem more fleshed out and fun in its own special way! granted you do have to get a lot of the dlc and it took them just around seven years for them to get to the point where it’s not just entirely mind-numbing but. but! there’s not much you can expect when *rambles about capitalism destroying art until i’m foaming at the mouth*

ANYWAY. some of the main sells of the game still genuinely impress me? like create a sim???? that shit’s genius! the click and drag mechanics offer some really good customization that can create some really good likenesses if you know what you’re doing. also being allowed to make transgender sims............ :cry_pepe: (i still think it’s stupidly limited by the [STILL] limited skin and hair colors but. can’t have everything these days i suppose) and the building????? holy shit!!!!!!!!! this game has the best building mechanics out of any sims game so far! talking from personal experience you can just take a building blueprint and bang it out and you have an exact recreation! and by far the best part is that you can MULTITASK NOW. THAT’S SICK

BUT....... i still do have a fair amount of issues with just. how the game feels. absolutely nothing feels natural in this game which is really hard to explain unless you’ve played it. i think the only way i can summarize it is this image

(op)

none of the interactions flow well anymore and i still really hate how every. single. building. requires a loading screen to go to. just atrocious! and even though i’m not much of a stickler for the sims lore (just never got into it) it’s still incredibly insulting that they twisted the familiar characters like that so hard JUST LEAVE EM OUT IF YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE WRITING FFS.

the music is at least better than the sims 3 but. not by much. it’s not an accomplishment

ANYWAY i have a lot of mixed feelings about the sims 4 but i will never refer to it as a good sims game when we have the sims 2

HERE IT IS MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE SIMS GAME OF THEM ALL

i’m not even gonna continue until i show off the soundtrack because it is my absolute favorite out of all of them pls enjoy this with me

god. where do i even begin

the utter detail and care that went into making the sims 2 feel special just surprises me every time i play it because there’s so many little details you really don’t notice unless you’re looking for them like. married sims cuddling in bed when one of them has to wake up before the other........... kids running to the door when their parent gets home from work............. the sims having unique animations that relate to the topic they’re talking about........ sims from the neighborhood around you having unique relationships to each other which make them react to each other accordingly in public.................. HAIR PHYSICS........ it’s just. ugh there’s SO MUCH DETAIL where they didn’t have to put it and they have NEVER matched it since :cry_pepe:

i also really think that the art style just looks the best out of all of the games? it’s super blocky looking and obvs kind of outdated but this just slaps to me

GOD AND SPEAKING OF I ALSO REALLY LIKE THE UI???? IT HAS THAT OLD INTERNET LOOKING GRADIENT and i keep seeing people on modthesims that have switched it out with a more minimalistic modern ui and i just wanna cry what was wrong with this!!! why do you hate fun

AND AND AND the fact that you can just up and make your own neighborhood and ignore the premade ones that came with the game is SO UNIQUE like don’t care abt the maxis sims at all?? that’s okay just start from scratch!!

that being said there are some. issues with it that i do feel like i have to address, like the uhhhhhh. the racism

yeah this is gross here’s a replacement mod. the entirety of how the vacation pack portrays different cultures really tears at me too but i have no idea how you would even begin to be able to fix that

and the fact that the only body types are A Little Worryingly Skinny and Realistic Looking Person, i can count the number of black hairstyles on one hand (most of them look real subpar too,) and a lot of the game is just plain broken???? i have so many fixes modded into my game that frankly it’s just embarrassing. modthesims is your friend

that being said i grew up on this game and i think if you have the resources and time i really think you should give it a play!!

tldr; the sims 1 is last place by default because it’s very basic but i still have respect for it, the sims 3 is in third place because the graphics are eyebleedingly bad despite the gameplay, the sims 4 is in second because the building and CAS make up for the subpar gameplay and shitty development, and the sims 2 wins out because *blows farting noises into my hands*