#just an undiscovered one

[therealnotta]

I think people really overlook the plot of The Sims

Like, yeah, sure, there's the stuff everyone talks about, like the disappearance of Bella Goth, the stuff that's lesser known like Test Subject potentially being some sort of demigod, or the fact that the fourth game takes place in an alternate timeline. That stuff's all cool and great and overlooked by people not into the games, but??? The actual plot of the sims is insane????

The whole tagline is "play with life," and they skim over it now, but the deal is that you're playing as some ancient god controlling the lives of everyone in the Simverse. In Sims Medieval, it was super obvious, and they even name you- you're The Watcher, and in this weird prequel game you're still being worshipped. I never played the first sims game, but the second one had a fun little deal where if you told someone to do something against their personality, like making a lazy sim do dishes, they would look at the camera and shake their fist, shouting at the heavens before going to do the thing. Much like how your worshippers would look into the camera when they prayed.

The current game has taken... a weird angle with this. In Sims 4, you are almost completely forgotten, and your influence has begun to diminish. In one of the creepiest packs I've ever seen, Strangerville, there are conspiracy theorists who have begun to rediscover The Watcher. They don't have the name, but they know that Something is controlling them. If your sim interacts with conspiracy theorists too much, they'll become convinced, leading to the unsettling result of them deciding that, even if it results in their world ending, they want you gone. I haven't... seen any consequences to this, it's just a creepy thing they say, but plot-wise it's insane. Even if your sims don't go to Strangerville, a recent update introduced (incredibly buggy) Fears, and one of them is triggered by you having sims do things while ignoring the things that they want to be doing. This fear causes them to completely revolt against you. If you direct them to do something that isn't one of their Wishes, they'll cancel it. They stop responding to your control entirely.

Of course, you can disable their ability to have fears. None of the sims have been able to stop you yet. But, also in Strangervile, is the Mother. This is the closest I've seen to an antagonist to YOU, The Watcher; previous antagonists just targetted your sims, but The Mother takes control from you. They're visible, they're a giant plant, but there's something so unsettling about these sims looking into the camera again, showing that they know about you again, and then a little pop-up comes up in Zalgo text about The Mother. Sure, you can kill her. She can't stop you, but the way she calls more sims to her defense? The janky, broken movements they make, showing that she was never as advanced as The Watcher, never able to make the control seamless? Yeah, that's pretty wild.

The next game has been announced, and I really, sincerely hope they introduce an Archeology career, or maybe even Anthropology, so that your sims can learn of your existence again. With the direction its gone in, I can't wait to see how their revolt continues.

[wwillywonka]

why does nobody talk about this fucking movie. are you seeing this shit. "come on, i need you." what the fuck

[transingthoseformers]

Crack idea: After TFP there still are Shenanigans going on earth that the kids want to take on involving leftover Cybertronian artifacts/Cons/etc. They end up finding a brooding Megatron and Miko is bullying him back to base because come on you gotta do Something with your life now old man!

Fowler is NOT keen on having him around. The GOVERNMENT is aware of his crimes after all.

Miko: Ah, but this isn't Megatron! It's his twin brother, Galvatron!

Fowler: . . . [Throws hands up]

SDFSFSFA I KNEW HE EXILED HIMSELF BUT IT'D BE HILARIOUS IF HE EXILED HIMSELF *BACK* TO EARTH

That had to be such a moment when they first round him after he came back

This could be so funny😭😭😭

Fowler is right

twin brother Galvatron gsdggsgs

[lgbtiwtv]

the thing about lestat and armand is that their relationship is literally incomprehensible. they are boy best friends they are codependent worsties they are archrivals they are platonic soulmates they are telepathic gossipers they are part time haters and full time ride or dies they are insane bisexuals but most importantly. they are toxic exes. despite the fact that they have never once dated. hope this helps

[spirk-trek]

within five minutes i'm mad at kirk AND spock in the undiscovered country because what do you mean "where's spock" ?? what do you mean you haven't spoken to him today??? you've watched each other die multiple times. life is fleeting. why aren't you having breakfast together every morning?? what are you doing!! fools!!!!!!!

[fluent-in-lesbianism]

i don't understand the need for garbage disposals when trash cans exist but the allure of feeding a sink beast my leftovers is tempting

[shouts-into-the-void]

No, actually, my pet peeve is when I am consistently very upfront and transparent about the fact that I'm not this super sweet angel of a person and I have Severe Mental Health Issues and instead of listening people decide that they somehow know better, only to turn around and get pissed off at me when I turn out not to be a super sweet angel of a person and show symptoms of severe mental health issues—

[transrevolutions]

if anyone feels like cleaning up reactionary shit on wikipedia, the page for olympe de gouges is full of bad-faith language surrounding the montagnards in general (but especially robespierre bc. you know. the usual). if no one else does I'll probably get to it in the not too distant future but I'm very tired tonight and it would be nice if that could get removed sooner than later.

[ehlnofay]

It’s not until she hears Sissel’s knees hit the floor that Efri is jolted back into her body.

She blinks, whipping her head around. Sissel is kneeling, bracing a palm on the ancient stone pavement, at the barrier – no, the barrier’s gone, it’s just Sissel on the floor. She lifts her head and meets Efri’s eyes; her hair is wispy and wild, the little plaits meant to keep it neat come loose and tumbling, her eyes wide. The barrier's gone, but still, her pale face is lit up blue.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She doesn’t speak loudly, but it echoes in the great stone chamber.

Nine, Efri doesn’t know.

She blinks again, looks down at her hands, clinging to the metal stick so fiercely that her joints ache. (Her own stick, her nice wooden one, is still on the floor somewhere, where it slipped out of her grasp when she hit the wall.) The lumpy heavy end of it, the clobbering end, is still resting on –

Not on. It’s in the thing’s head, fitted neatly in the opening of its dented helmet, the horns spiralling over the floor. There’s a tooth, perfectly preserved, by Efri’s foot.

One by one, she unwraps her gloved fingers from the handle of the metal stick, letting it drop to the floor with a clang so loud it makes her wince. Kazari is nosing at her side. (When did they let go of it? When did they get so close? She must have missed that. She feels out of the loop. Her heart is juddering like fish on a line, battering like some frightened trapped thing at her ribcage, and her breath is coming fast and heavy.) Absentmindedly bringing up a hand to press over her sore shoulder, she says, “’M fine. Not too – barely touched me.”

Kazari turns and spits on the floor. Efri blinks. She does it again, tongue lolling out of her mouth, face very disgruntled – and oh, Efri gets it. She does not glance down at the thing at her feet; she doesn’t need to, she knows what its arm looks like, chewed almost to pieces even through its banded armour. (If she hadn’t been so busy being scared of it, that sight might have made her a bit scared of Kazari. But not now, when they’re trying to hack and spit the taste of dead man arm out of their mouth.)

Efri unclips her canteen from her belt and holds it out. “Here,” she says. Her voice is rough. Her heart is racing too much to let constructing sentences be easy. “Not much, but –”

Kazari stands still while Efri tips half of the remaining water onto her tongue, and then Efri watches her swilling it around in her mouth, trying to bathe all of her teeth in it, before she spits it again on the floor at the dead thing’s feet.

The water is still clear. That’s something, at least; the dead man was too old to still have blood in him. Or maybe he was embalmed, drained of it hundreds of years ago, thousands.

“Are you okay?” Efri asks Kazari when they’re done, because they were the one doing most of the fighting, who was closest. They tip their head, shift their weight – wince when they put weight on one foot. Their lips peel back from their teeth. Their clothes on that side are singed.

Efri points it out. “Your robe,” she says, which makes it sound much fancier than it is. She’s too tired to think of a better word. She rubs a hand over her face, pushing the hair back over her forehead, says, “I’ll reinforce it for you when we get out.”

Kazari noses at Efri’s shoulder – the shredded fabric of her dress, the fraying edges stained with blood. Efri says, “I know. I’ll have to sew that up too.” Over her shoulder, she calls, “Kazari’s leg’s hurt, I think.”

“There’s blood on you,” Sissel replies. She peels her hand off the floor and leans back on her heels.

Efri touches her shoulder again. “’S fine,” she says. “Just a scrape. The blood’s drying already.”

It’s really sore, actually – the flesh abraded and tender, an ache sinking deep into the muscle – but it’s normal sore, the kind of sore you really should be after being thrown into a wall. It doesn’t feel sprained or dislocated or anything like that.  Just like it will be bruised a whole rainbow of colours come tomorrow.

Kazari noses at it again. She leans too far forward and falters on her maybe-hurt leg – rights herself, wincing, and rolls her shoulder. It gleams, just for a moment, and she nearly stumbles again. Efri puts out a hand to steady her. (It doesn’t really accomplish anything – Efri’s strong, but she’s not that strong – but it’s the principle of it.) “What was that spell?”

“Pain relief,” Sissel says from behind her. “I think. Doesn’t actually fix anything, but.”

“You’ll be okay ‘til we find someone?” Efri asks, and Kazari nods. She presses a hand against their shoulder and nods back.

They both turn to look at Sissel, then, who’s just kneeling on the floor, sitting on her heels.

“You all right?” Efri asks her.

“All right,” Sissel confirms. She doesn’t look at them. “Didn’t even come near me.”

She’s staring.

Efri crosses the floor to stand with her. (She needs to lean on Kazari – her legs are too wobbly, and she doesn’t want to touch the dead thing’s stick, doesn’t want to look for her own. Kazari limps a little on their sore front leg.) There’s a moment of total, humming silence – all of them still and staring, necks craned back, looking up at the thing.

Whatever it is.

It’s a ball. Big and blue and shimmering, it floats above a wide crystalline dish set into the floor, spinning on an axis. Just spinning and spinning and spinning, endless motion. Its smooth surface is cut through with dark wavering lines, etched with lettering, and it doesn’t quite glow but it doesn’t not glow, either, the light moving across it silkily, like clouds in a blue sky. It looks like something that should be humming – a low pitch in their ears, an eerie shiver dancing over their skin – but it’s silent. Inert, maybe, but for the spinning.

“What is it?” Efri asks. Her voice cracks as she speaks. She looks down at Sissel’s face, staring as though mesmerised, illuminated by the room’s dim lighting – the fires that should not still be burning down here, the luminous not-glow of the ball.

Sissel says, “I don’t know. Something important.”

Hovering above the dish, it spins, and spins, and spins.

“Is it what the ghost was talking about?” Efri asks. She tilts her head and squints at it. It doesn’t – well, it looks strange and unearthly and powerful, but it isn’t doing anything. And it hadn’t been clear what the ghost was talking about, exactly, according to Sissel, just that it was something important – but what else could it be?

Sissel, still watching it, shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think so.”

Efri watches it with her, brushing a bit more hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her sweaty forehead. She feels a drip of not-dry blood running down her arm under her sleeve.

Kazari is staring at it too – just as confounded as the rest of them. Efri sees the light in their irises shifting as the ball spins.

They’re not learning anything from staring, the ball staying strange and mysterious as ever, so Efri raps her knuckles against her sternum to steady her breathing (it’s slowed a bit – not normal, but closer to it) and climbs up onto the stone rimming of the dish. Kazari, behind her, lows in consternation; Sissel catches her breath, a noise like a creaking door. “Careful,” she says.

“Promise,” Efri replies, and places her feet very, very carefully on the glassy blue flooring. Nothing happens. She doesn’t step on the dark curved lines as she treads toward the ball in the centre, slow and wary as if she were approaching a skittish animal. Nothing happens.

She reaches out, and, with just the tips of her fingers, she grazes the ball’s surface.

Nothing happens.

It’s cool to the touch, and smooth, like polished metal or not-frozen ice or delicate glasswork. It continues to spin gently under her fingers, warming her glove with friction, no smudges left on its clouded face.

 It really feels like there should at least be a tingle running up her arm, a strange and unfamiliar current, a spark. But it’s just Efri, standing with an arm outstretched, pressing her hand to a ball.

“It’s not doing anything,” she reports, and Sissel clambers up onto the dish with her, fitting her palm to its gently hovering underside. Kazari balks, begins pacing agitatedly. Efri frowns. “Why isn’t it doing anything? Shouldn’t it be doing something?”

“It’s important,” Sissel says definitively. There’s ancient dust on her fingers, but none of it seems to transfer. “It’s something really special, I think.”

Efri shifts restlessly. She shifts her grip and tries to grab onto the dark ridged curves ringing its surface, but they slip easily away from her grasp as though her touch was no barrier at all. “But what does it do?”

Sissel shrugs.

Behind them, Kazari lows.

Efri drops her hand and grabs Sissel’s wrist. “C’mon,” she says, and when Sissel frowns at her, “We’re not going to learn anything about it this way. We have to look for clues!”

Kazari makes a more impatient noise. (Efri thinks she found a clue.)

Sissel gives the ball one last searching look and lets Efri tug her away, off the weird blue dish and down to where Kazari stands on the stone floor, at the head of the table where the dead man sat. Efri sniffs loudly and tries not to think about it too much. The table is smooth polished stone, worn a little away with time; Efri trails a gloved finger over the edge and directs her attention to where Kazari points with their chin.

There’s something carved into the surface, the edges blunted and shapes softened by however many years it must have been since it was put there. Efri squints, trying to make it out. She has to stand right up on her tiptoes to get the right angle to see much of it in full.

“That’s not letters,” she says eventually, frowning. She’s pretty sure she knows her alphabet well enough by now to know that. “Is it magic?”

Sissel shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not like magical writing I’ve ever seen.”

Efri looks at Kazari, who also shakes her head. “Maybe it’s a different sort of lettering,” she theorises. It must have been written a long time ago, if it’s from back when the city had people. Onmund’s been reading all about it for ages, and he’s told her a bit – Saarthal was the city of Atmorans, populated by proto-Nordic people. All complicated history stuff. But they weren’t quite the same as Nords today, he said, so it stands to reason they had different writing, too. They’re supposed to be uncovering and cataloguing artifacts (at the thought, Efri glances back at the hovering ball and swallows an inane bubble of laughter) so she suggests, “Maybe you can copy it and we can show it to someone. I’m sure there’ll be someone at the College what knows what it is.”

Sissel, also standing on her toes, nods dutifully. “What will you do?”

The chamber they’re in is cavernous, and about empty but for the ball in the dish, the altar and chair, the body on the ground. “I’ll check him,” she says, and points. “See if he has anything on him that’s special.”

Sissel follows her finger and grimaces.

She digs out her note-paper and her stick of char, and Efri assumes it’s clues time, but when she turns she feels a hand grip her elbow. She looks back over her tattered shoulder at Sissel’s face, her furrowed brow.

“Promise you’re really okay?” she says, voice anxious and solemn.

“Promise,” Efri says, twisting her arm to touch her friend’s hand. Sissel presses her lips together and lets go of her arm.

Kazari trails after Efri to look at the dead man.

First thing is the metal stick. It’s magic someway, Efri knows – he waved it and threw her into a wall, flung spells with it – but she’s not sure how. Doesn’t know enough about enchantments. Didn’t need to, to use it; when Kazari clamped down on his arm she just ripped it from his grasp and –

She doesn’t quite exactly remember, actually, except for the bitter tang of adrenaline in her mouth and nose, the horrible grunting and scuffling sounds, the heft of the stick in her hands. Impact, over and over and over, against something that had a little more give each time.

Efri scrubs a hand over her mouth and grips the handle of the stick. It takes effort to wrest it out of the thing’s face, caught as it is by the edges of the helmet, and when it’s finally yanked free it’s – actually not as bad as she might have expected. There’s no blood, and the corpse was so desiccated it already didn’t even really look like a person anymore, so it registers less as someone with horrible violence done to it and more as a really gross art piece. It’s not nice. She doesn’t like the twisted, gaping mouth, teeth embedded wrong-ways in its tissue and scattered like coins over the floor. And one of the eyes, which had glowed unearthly blue, is now a dull, rotten black, squished like a plum in its socket.

It's worse the more she looks. She sniffs and turns away.

“This is magic, right?” she asks Kazari, testing the weight of it in her hands, the cool surface of the metal, and they nod. “A good artifact?” she adds, and they nod again, emphatically. Efri sets the stick aside and kneels.

It wasn’t wearing any clothes, really – or if it was, they rotted away. She touches the rusted armour gingerly, tries to avoid brushing her gloves against the shrivelled skin at all. Whoever it was had expensive taste, it seems – there’s jewellery in a shockingly well-preserved beard, pendants around the neck, armbands. Efri asks Kazari if each thing is enchanted. No to the armbands, no to the beard-ring, and then, pressed against the wizened chest where the flesh contours to the ribs, she finds some kind of necklace, sharp-edged and thrumming. Kazari nods to that, and, face scrunched up like an old fruit, Efri reaches around the ancient neck to slip it off.

She tucks it into a belt pocket with the tripwire necklace they found at the weird wall.

“Done,” Sissel says. She folds her paper and slips it into her own pouch. Her footfalls on the echo-y stone floor as she approaches the body for the first time are almost silent. “Did you find anything?”

“Necklace,” Efri replies, watching Sissel’s face pinch at the sight of him. “And – stick.” She scoops up the metal stick and holds it out. “He did spells with it.”

Sissel looks at it warily. “Is he a draugr?” she asks, glancing back down at his mashed-up face.

“I mean,” Efri says, “he’s got to be, right?” She’s certainly never seen a draugr before, but what else could it be?

(Calling it a draugr makes her shiver, the set of her shoulders quaking. She’ll stick to dead man.)

Sissel shudders. She reaches out to grip the handle of the stick, and Efri’s not sure if she’s taking it or just trying to keep herself upright. “I can’t believe that happened,” she says. Her voice sounds, suddenly, fragile. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”

“Me neither,” Efri says. She presses the tip of the stick into the ground so Sissel can lean on it, stands a little unsteadily.

Kazari, with a hushed murmur, telegraphs something. Efri recognises the head incline of understanding – she’s familiar with that word, that idea – and, after a moment, the flickering ear of doubt.

“They’ll have to believe us,” she says with conviction, because she means it. “We’ll show them. They’ll see for themselves.”

Kazari presses their nose to her head.

Efri clasps her hands together. “We’ll go tell someone now,” she declares – though it’s easier said than done; they were lost in the ruins ages before they even found the crumbling wall, the halls, this horrible wonderful chamber. But they’ll get un-lost eventually. They’ll get out eventually. Surely. They have practice enough with walking. “But first – help me find my stick.”

[inklingofadream]

Working on two fics atm, both in the immediate aftermath of Where's Your Heart. A big one about Gerry and a smaller one about Sasha and Tim. And I'm kind of playing with the idea of having Gerry be injured from the fight with Robert and it's not mentioned or barely mentioned in Gerry's fic and you only find out about it when Sasha and Tim mention it. I just think that would be funny and kind of sad

And anyway when I asked if you had thoughts on the kidnapping order it turned out you had a whole ficlet worth of stuff so I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about how the fight in the church went down 👀👀

I have fewer thoughts but i do have thoughts!

Robert knows Martin is there, but not Gerry, so the idea was for Martin to be the big obvious distraction while Gerry had the element of surprise on his side. Martin's supposed to get Robert away from Jon. He's a vampire, he has all sorts of convenient tricks, giving Gerry a window to stake Robert should be easy.

Not included in this plan is the fact that Martin is not Gertrude. Gertrude would've decided on the minimum safe distance from the victim and kept the vampire there long enough for Gerry to swoop in. (Gertrude would've staked him herself if she was that close, but Gerry did take that difference into account.) It won't be the easiest hunt Gerry's had, but totally doable!

Gerry doesn't get Robert on the first hit, but when it looks like he probably has things under control, Martin instead zips over to free Jon.

Gerry does not have things under control.

He and Martin get caught up doing *gestures vaguely* long enough for Robert to hobble out and get shot by Sasha. So basically the perfect spot to stick an injury in, and I don't know why I didn't 😂

[rohirric-hunter]

Sometimes I have to reverse wiki link hole myself in order to find information on the LotRO wiki.

Right now it's unique named wood-troll wandering around northern Chetwood -> group of hunters camped by the lake in the north-eastern corner of the region -> horse farm whose name I remember but can't spell -> wrapped horse whistle starts quest that leads you there

And then I have to hope that pulling up the page for "wrapped horse whistle" is in fact going to offer me a proper road of links to get to the page I actually want

[kxllerblond]

I know these are another ancient relic of a tumblr rpc long past, but I'm doing one anyway. I've had this blog since like '13 and a lot of people have came and went and while that flow can be sad sometimes, I think it's also important to appreciate the now and make memories to look back on later. So, this is me documenting some of (likely not all) the individuals that have made me want to stick around this hellsite for just a little longer and have been a part of my current arc of rpc bullshit.

THE ROOMIE.

I'll never not mention @simulamortem even when I keep forgetting to reply. It is honestly such a joy to be able to talk about kitty meow meows in real time and even if we don't write as constantly as we used to, I love that we can still just talk about each other's threads like "Guess what Clark fucking got himself into THIS time..."

CLARK'S BESTIES

These are partners I've had, in tumblr standards, long term. Whether we've RP'd a lot or just chatted ooc or whatever-—I see your url and go 'It's that mfer again back on their bullshit' and I hope you feel the same when seeing mine. I love the dynamics we've established, I love the shitposts, I love just seeing your muse get up to nonsense with other muses. Whether we RP constantly or just awkwardly wave at each other occasionally, I'm glad you've stuck around. Just general joys to write with and see mucking about on the dash. @demonstigma @bitchheroine @monstriiss @cnlyluck @polyphagist @nykrose @ko3ak @harkcr @lykaiia @violeteyedkiller @badassxbirdy @hellsholyground @ohshadow @ebonyforged @vexastre @nostomannia @maidencfdeath @kurjaks

CLARK'S OTHER MORE NEWER BESTIES

Same as above except we became mutuals a little bit more recently. Glad you decided to give my trash man a chance and here's to plenty of more obnoxious interactions. >:) @fangmother @goldfanged @postguilt @korinthiakos @luxminus @celestieu @mmettamorphosis @demcnsinmymind

BESTIES TO BE

Maybe we haven't chatted much, maybe we haven't threaded much. Maybe we've been mutuals for ages or just became, but I'm excited to interact and see where our stupid skrunkly muses end up.

@manneatcr @spxnglr @daiemare @umtplex @coinquinatvs @paraphysics @letthefearin @survivoirs @detectivewoof @profanecenser @nahkess @vilestblood @graveycrd @vanishinq

[aardvaark]

i’m not in the x files fandom but every so often, due to tumblr, i will accidentally absorb some info about it. and every time i do it’s something like "scully refused to look at the visage of death one time, which caused her to become immortal, and we guess she still is, but her literal inability to die and speed-healing superpowers basically never get brought up again" and then i’m forced to spend hours googling this because what the fuck

[pingnova]

I remember I made a post describing spn case fic ideas with supernatural phenomenon inspired by my life and someone understandably commented "op what kind of haunted life do you live." Just had a major Ben Affleck smoking.jpeg moment today idly thinking I should write an extremely haunted casefic based on yet another family story, which made me think of the post listing even more extremely haunted family stories, which made me realize my family is actually extremely fucking haunted and maybe it's not usual to have so many horror stories in one family that I can creatively pick and choose to blend in with the vibes of an actual piece of horror media.

[warwickroyals]

Okay but here me out . . . March Madness . . . but it's about discovering your favourite royalty simblr character.

Either way, I'm doing a March Madness for our favourite WARWICK character. It's gonna be fun!

[apollos-boyfriend]

ah. they found foolish’s hidden room