#otp: patience placeholder

[thievinghippo]

placeholder tag post. turns out tumblr will only link the first twenty tags. rip to my old placeholder post that had about 40 tags in it

oops

just trying to get my spreadsheet and character page in order!

[utilitycaster]

FCG for the ask meme?

How I feel about this character: Keeping it short as I've covered it already, but: don't like him; he feels almost like a placeholder.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: None.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: also none. I know what you're thinking: Ashton. True, but they just in the last episode marked Ashton as a "trusted companion", and Ashton seems to have already become closer with others in the group.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I honestly do not have a sense of how popular or unpopular my dislike of FCG is; people got really weird the first time I brought it up and rather reflexively defensive but every time it's come up again (and I really have attempted to stick to 'responding to questions' and have avoided main tags for most of this) I've gotten more positive responses so I don't know if people who love them are just not following me or people have been slowly coming around to “yeah actually what is going on” because they do not share my absolute lack of patience or what.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: If there is some kind of reveal, could we like, get to it, because ngl I would in fact probably change my tune if we get a full Charlie-to-Devexian personality switch, but my patience had already worn thin by like episode 7. I mean Charlie was around for like an episode and a half and was an NPC in a backpack.

my OTP: changing subclass.

my cross over ship: I, Robot. Susan Calvin please figure out what the fuck is happening. Or at least let those two guys who have to figure out what the deal is with new robots get to do a full Waldorf&Astor from the muppets on them. Fun fact: the telepathic robot in I, Robot ends up self-destructing because it cannot bear to hurt anyone due to its programming and the Laws of Robotics so it lies to people to make them feel better and the furious roboticists who had been lied to point out that the lies hurt them just as much if not more.

a headcanon fact: I mean, I guess I do hc that there is even a Devexian personality within because if there's not then really I don't know where we're going, and far worse, I don't know why we're going.

[whatwillthegirlbecome]

19, 23, and 24!

From this list of delightful questions!

19) Have you ever stopped reading a fic? Why or why not?

I answered this here, but I will add something that really exposes one of my bad habits.

I don’t always handle angst very well. I’ve read a few breakup fics that left me feeling like I had been recently dumped up with, for a couple of days. So generally, when I am reading a fic that starts to get too sad or traumatic for me, I will jump to the last chapter and kind of skim to see if the story ends roughly where I need it to end, or for an unfinished fic, to see if that the last chapter leaves off somewhere other than the narrative equivalent of the bottom of a deep well of misery, and then do some emotional algebra to determine if I can keep going.

I have actually stopped under these circumstances, on two of the best fics I have ever read. I waited/am waiting for them to complete before I go back.

23) What do you wish more fic authors would do?

Answered here, but I’m going to add something because you, @darknessaroundus, are an absolute master of this.

I wish more authors would experiment with writing against the traditional HEA of “married OTP and baby makes three.” I love the happy domesticity of marriage and parenthood fics as much as the next reader, but there are already SO MANY of those.

There is a special place in my heart for stories where someone really doesn’t want to get married, and the payoff isn’t a wedding, but the happy realization that commitment comes in all different forms. Couples who can’t get pregnant, and decide to adopt, or they make peace with childlessness. Blended families where a step-child isn’t just a placeholder until a biological child can be conceived to “really” complete the family.

24) What do you wish more fic authors would stop doing?

OH MY GOD THIS ONE WAS SO HARD TO ANSWER, I HAVE DISCARDED LIKE EIGHT DIFFERENT RESPONSES FOR THIS QUESTION! BECAUSE WHO DO I THINK I AM HAVING ANY OPINION ABOUT WHAT FIC AUTHORS SHOULD STOP DOING?

This isn’t exactly a widespread issue, however, I have noticed it enough to form an opinion on it. I would love it if authors who are not from the country where there fic is taking place would not skip the step of getting a cultural/slang beta, or at least do some google searching to update some of the obvious inconsistencies. Nothing takes me out of a fic about American teenagers faster than reading them talking about what they saw on the telly while on holiday.  Alternatively, make them not American teenagers! I think I like that solution even better!

Thank you for the great questions @darknessaroundus, and for your patience while I agonized over all these responses. You are a delight and a treasure!

[baldysims]

Strange Legacy 3.3

This one’s going to be a short one, guys.

When last we left off, Angeline and Betelgeuse had finally died, and Fornax and Danni’s oldest daughters left for college along with their vampiric aunt Diadem. This left plenty of room for Danni to get pregnant with yet another set of twins, one of whom will hopefully be a boy, because Danni’s uterus could use a rest and so could I.

What do you know, it’s a boy and a girl. Welcome to the family, Kornephoros and Lilii Borea. Kornephoros is the heir and the baby factory is officially shut down!

As you probably gathered from the wishing well in the last chapter, the Stranges’ garden has been thriving and we have all the produce necessary to make every kind of juice, officially netting us an additional Seasons point.

Once the produce was mostly harvested, I repurposed the greenhouse to display all of our career rewards. That’s right, Cassie and Danni did it! That’s every single career reward in the game, and another sweet sweet collection point.

And while we’re looking upon my works and despairing, we might as well get this shot of another 25 Elixirs of Life out of the way.

Ahhhh. It’s good to have points.

Anyway, back to the family. It has come to my attention that I’ve given approximately zero screen time to Ilkil and Jishui, Fornax’s middle set of twin daughters, so please enjoy this shot of them as toddlers.

Ilkil is the one on the right sweetly cuddling with an angelic expression to match her personality. Jishui is the one on the left, with eyebrows as sharp as her bangs. The two of them have kind of a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.

They’re children now, of course. It’s just that I don’t have that many pictures of this time in the Stranges’ lives on account of being bummed that I essentially had to play generation 4′s childhood years twice.

Trust me, though, you’re not missing much. Six kids + functional relationships among the adults = the only thing anyone does around here anymore is talk about toddler skills.

And it goes without saying that the headmaster is over here constantly.

It’s cute that Danni’s trying to impress him by talking about the Stranges’ fabulous wealth, don’t you think? There’s really no need for that as long as the tour ends in the same room as the open bar. I can see why he was such good friends with Angeline and Sharon back in the day; the man’s a complete lush!

“When are you going to change me out of my default Maxis clothes and bowl cut? I’m the heir, right? I thought that meant you were going to focus on me, but here I am halfway through childhood and this is only the second photo you’ve ever taken of me."

You know, he’s got a point about the bowl cut.

There we go. Sorry, kid, it’s just that I was burned out on your generation before you were even born, plus I’ve never found kids all that riveting to play in the first place. We’ll revisit when you hit your teen years, kthxbai.

And that goes double for your sisters! Hurry up and grow up, all of you!

“But dad, what if I’m the only one she got a picture of acknowledging that you wrote your memoirs and fulfilled the Storytelling handicap for your generation? Then she’ll have to take another picture of me as a child, won’t she?”

Jishui might be a little too smart for her own good.

Is it really so much to ask that they take a leaf out of big sis Gomeisa’s book and grow up and move to college as fast as possible? Danni and Fornax are elders now; they should not still be raising four kids under 10 years old!

Although if it was an option, I’m sure they’d be making more as we speak. These two are still just as in love as the day they met, and actually might be even more adorable in their old age.

Awww. Yep, they’re definitely my legacy OTP. Now that every woohoo doesn’t have to result in children, I’ve been sending them on lots and lots of dates in the hopes that Fornax will roll the want for 100 Dream Dates. I’ve never seen it, but damn if I’m not determined to force it for the sake of another impossible want!

Anyway, back to Gomeisa.

Gogo’s been having all kinds of fun at college. Between the coeds, the parties, and the makeover of the house Aunt Diadem was able to fund with her scholarship money, it’s been a blast.

I expected there to be some friction with Christy, what with the house being occupied by three competing Romance Sims, none of whom are particularly nice, but she surprised me by becoming fast friends with both Gomeisa and Hamal. Maybe last generation’s cowplanting actually took!

Back on the home lot, Ilkil bucked Gomeisa and Hamal’s trend and rolled Family. I gave her a correspondingly wholesome makeover.

Jishui, on the other hand...

Boy, I’m glad we have that wishing well. Handling all these Romance teens’ first kisses when all I want to do is get their asses to college would be hell otherwise.

F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. Kornephoros rolled I-don’t-remember-what but I’m pretty sure it was Romance too (these pictures are well over a year old and I’ve since played him through his sophomore reroll, sue me) and Lilii Borea rolled... well, I’ll just let you guess based on her 8am pillow fight date with the creepiest Tricou kid on the front lawn in her pajamas.

God bless Pleasure Sims.

Kornephoros was no different than his sisters; as soon as he got home from school, he too went straight for the wishing well and conjured up Swan Tricou for a first kiss.

It was at this point that I realized, hey... I have six Strange kids and six Tricou kids. Wouldn’t it be kind of adorable to send them all to college and marry them off to each other Seven-Brides-for-Seven-Brothers style?

There’s just one problem: Swan doesn’t have enough chemistry with Kornephoros to work with the True Love restriction.

Clearly, I had no choice but to make him fall for her sister.

“Kestrel, we’ve only known each other for a few hours, but you can’t tell me you don’t feel what’s between us. Will you come to college with me?”

“Um... I don’t know if that’s going to work, Kor.”

“We’ll make it work! It’s true love”

“No, I mean literally, I don’t see how that can work. Don’t you already have five sisters, an aunt, and a placeholder going to that lot with you? I don’t think I’d fit.”

Damn it, she’s right! Pardon me while I go do some rearranging.

The choice for who had to go was clear. Christy has always been a Sim who tried my patience at the best of times, and she’s been living (and deceased) on this lot for well over fifty years now. It’s time for this perpetual student to graduate.

Plus she keeps messing with Di’s coffin in the middle of the day, and I just can’t have that. It’s hard enough keeping a vampire alive in college as it is. The lack of a magic school bus has been really killing me over here, especially since Di chose the physics major and her classes are all in the middle of the day.

So byeeeeeee, Christy! Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you!

Next time: How much trouble can 8 college Sims get up to when 4 of them are Romance and 2 are Pleasure? Is marrying two groups of six siblings off to each other primarily because the symmetry appeals to you a good idea? And just how long does it take to get back on the horse after your neighborhood explodes into a BFBVFS?

Legacy Scoring:

Legacy: 3.5 Money: 3 Family friends: 38x.25 = 9.25 Impossible wants: 9 (Alph 20L, Sharon 30F, Zaniah 7Sk, Angeline 7Sk, Fornax 7Sk, Electra 50FD, Diadem 7Sk, Danni 7Sk, Cassiopeia 200S) Platinum graves: 4 (Family, Popularity, Fortune) Ghosts: 1 (Old Age) Business: 4 Seasons: 4 + 2 (tree and fish/well/juices) Free Time: 3.5 (Games: Zaniah, Betelgeuse, Alpheratz, Electra, Fornax, Cassiopeia, Angeline) Collections: 3 (25 Elixirs x2, Career Rewards) Master: 2 (Social Bunnies Need Love Too, Child Prodigy - Fornax, ) Handicaps: 0 Overflow: 0 Penalties: -1(bills) Total: 47.25

[thievinghippo]

this is a placeholder post. just need to add some tags while I wait to make proper posts about these characters or ships!

(feel free to ignore!)