#so might just post the cc free build normally

[moonwoodhollow]

Simblreen 2024

I will be participating in Simblreen for the first time and I'm really excited! So you're probably wondering what you might get... well only treats, no tricks! What kind of treats? 2 builds, one without cc and one with cc. When? I'm unsure about that yet, but I'll keep you updated! Definitely in the latter half of October though. Will you do a Witching Hour gift? Yes. My cc build will only be available during my Witching Hour. @simblreenofficial

[theshiftingfairy]

Games to use for face claim + designing dr houses, waiting room, etc

Life Simulation are great to well…simulate your dr and offer visuals for your shifiting script. I did a post like this in the past, it was one of my very first one, so I thought I would update it.

-Inzoi

I just tried it and it’s kind of what prompted this post. it’s great, more on the hyper realistic side, except the eyebrows colour on the female character wouldn’t change colour in my game but for the male model, it was working fine ? I have no idea how it works, but this is just a demo, not the final game. For some reason I couldn’t change the features on the child model either, I tried to do my younger siblings and nothing was moving.

The different life stages are here (no teens and no toddlers though but there are three adult life stages) and i thought the elderly looked really great. I definitely encourage you to try while the demo is on. You can see below my attempt at my dr Dad and grandma (I did try to do me, but the dark eyebrows are throwing me off, especially because I have close to no eyebrows irl)

The demo is just the character creation but I think the build mode for apartment and house might just dethrone the sims 4 for me. Although i love making fantasy houses with the sims so maybe not.

But I saw a video about the build mode and apparently you will have the ability to scan in 3D objects in your house and put them in the game, which sounds absolutely crazy !

I will also just mention paralives here, who looks interesting especially the building mode, but it’s not out yet when I’m writing this.

- the sims 4

As long as you are ok with the cartoonish style, I think it’s still a good option. Especially since mods exist and there is a way to make your sims look hyper realistic with them. Normally I don’t like alpha ccs personally , but If the goal is to make a face claim/ body claim and you don’t care your sim looks off with the rest of the game, why not?

I love building in the sims 4, i didn’t build anything in a while though. I always recommend downloading the base game since it’s free and download cc, there are tons of good one. The expansion packs are so expensive and often not worth the full price imo, especially if you’re like me and not really interested in playing in life mode.

I do think it’s a fun way to channel your dr though, by seeing how your dr sims interact with each other ( I did it for a little bit, got a lot of unexpected things happening)

- Life Makeover

The game is free, as long as you’re not weak with gacha games. I don’t spend too much, because I feel like there is enough possibilities with the outfits you gain by playing, so I’m fine not finishing limited sets. The last mermaid set was a close one, ngl but the universe heard my prayers and I got the mermaid tail with the gems I already had, so I’m not paying to pull more.

Anyway, the character creation is the best one I know. The style is in between realism and cartoony. My profile picture is made with that game. Bigger, animated like eyes look better on the character in my opinion, but I definitely saw very realistic looking characters made by people more talented than me lol. It’s one of the only game I own where I can make myself pointy elf ears and it’s very important to me lol.

Only down side for face claim is there is no male model. Then again, there is always way to work around it by making the character look more androgynous (kind of unrelated but I think there would be a market for male dress up games, they should think about it)

The big plus though is to get inspiration for your dr wardrobe ! I might have spent a whole day screenshotting my favourites piece of clothes + styling some outfits to put into my script 😂

I think it’s especially great for idol / K-pop or even celebrity dr with the style of the outfits, there is also things that would work for a fantasy/royalty dr.

Since I am talking about my addiction for dress up games once again, for fantasy outfits I also use Shining Nikki, but it doesn’t have a character creation which is why it’s not officially on this list.

Life makeover on the right, Shining Nikki on the left

Surprisingly, there is also a house building mode, which looks really great imo but definitely more limited than the sims (doing cool roofing is a nightmare in this game because the roof doesn’t disappear inside a room like it does in the sims 🥲) . Here is one of my waiting room as an exemple, my mermaid retreat:

- Baldur gates

Now, I’m starting with games I haven’t tried yet. Baldur gates is on my list but I’m waiting to have money to spend for it, and to have time to spend hours obsessing over a new game, which I don’t really have either right now 😂

The character creator looks incredible for fantasy drs. This is the kind of game where you spend a whole day in the character creator before you actually play.

literally any fantasy races you could think of is there, I think there are mods that add more too. I love how versatile it looks, there are a lot of skin tones, horns, lizards guys (I’m not familiar with dnd races, I’m sorry) I saw wings too but that might have been mod

- Once human

I found about this game in this post from @elizabethhearts-shifts : https://www.tumblr.com/elizabethhearts-shifts/758372410780221440/once-human-for-face-claims-hey-shifters-i

I don’t have a computer, don’t have the money for the kind I would need, the steam deck was a much more affordable option for my games, but unfortunately the steam deck doesn’t take in charge this particular game, I don’t really know why, it wouldn’t even let me try to download it anyway, like I had to do with Inzoi.

In any case, you can see the face claim of Elizabeth on her post, and it looks incredible so I still wanted to include it in the list ^^

I realise this is a post for the gamer shifters x)

Personally, Pinterest is not enough for me. I think it’s my autistic brain but I need to have a clear idea of the space I live in my drs, and find that having a 3D representation of the space really helps. When I get into meditation, I then get very real images about my drs in those spaces. Same goes for people, I create a representation and then can get vivid images about them in my head.

So as usual, I hope this helps and inspire,

Happy shifting 🧚🏻‍♀️

[starandsims]

Starandsims Introduction

Hello and welcome to my simblr! Here you'll find links to my gameplay as I play through different challenges, legacies, and just whatever I feel like doing!

Currently Playing:

The Carter Legacy - a decades challenge following the Carter family, currently on gen 2 circa 1910

The Poche Legacy - a Pokémon type legacy challenge following the Poche family, currently on gen 1 normal type

Personal information and more under the cut

My name is Star (she/her) and I've been simming since the Sims 2, I have a lot of nostalgia for the old console games since I didn't have a computer until Sims 3 and didn't have a gaming computer until Sims 4. I'm mostly Maxis Match, I like to think I don't use a ton of mods and CC but in reality my mods/cc foster is overflowing.

Please feel free to ask me anything or comment about my characters and stories! Constructive criticism is welcome but please always be positive and encouraging in your delivery! I'm an adult but I still get my feelings hurt sometimes! I would say I'm WCIF friendly but the truth is I might not able to figure out where something is from. I don't use reshade or gshade or photoshop, I just edit my photos in Canva so my screenies don't always look professional but I strive to do my best and focus more on writing and story!

I am NOT a builder, most of the builds in my game are downloaded from the gallery. I do so appreciate all the builders out there and will always post somewhere what build I'm using, but I won't put it on each and every post! My playstyle is to use random traits and follow the whims of sims, for example I never try for a baby unless at least one (or sometimes even both) person has the whim for it (I do lock in the whim though lol). I never save and start over, whatever happens happens and I live with it and try to use it in the story.

I use a custom lifespan with MCCC in which every four sim days is a year, I use 14 day seasons and generally have at least two holidays in a season. This is just what makes the most sense to my brain and I have a personal handwritten timeline for each save to keep up with when things happen and use that to inform when relationships should progress and precisely how old sims are.

I focus on a lot of family gameplay, I rarely play just one sim unless I'm just starting a save - and even then I usually make some sims to be their family and friends going into the save. I do a minimal amount of rotational gameplay through my saves, I usually focus on one specific household and then occasionally will go through other households in the save to clean them up and things like that. Maybe spend a day or two with them just to see what's going on and then return to my main household.

I am an adult and a lot of my stories will involve more mature themes, if you are under 18 then I would strongly suggest you avoid posts that are more mature in nature. Everything will be tagged and more explicit posts will also have a warning in the title, but use abundant caution just in case! If anything is ever missed in tagging I respectfully ask that you message me privately to alert me!

[simfluencer-network]

updated links:

@notjustabooksims cc archive: here

bag (acc + deco + pose) as package: here

bag (acc + deco + pose) as sims3pack: here

bag (deco only) as compressed package: here

More information and previews ▼

Facebook ads are meant to sell things to consumers, but when I see cute stuff in those ads, my mind immediately goes ‘OH HEY, I could make that for my sims!’ And that’s how I ended up with this happy little watermelon stuck in my mind… and my heart. There are two versions, one to decorate your home and one to decorate your sims’ shoulder – and there’s a bonus pose to show it off properly.

Watermelon Bag – Decor Item

New mesh created by yours truly

Non-recolourable with 1 preset

Found under Miscellaneous decor

Costs 150§

Proper LOD’s (Won’t look like a plant when you zoom out!)

Proper sunshadow (Take it outside and watch the shadow for hours!)

No occlusion shadow (Won’t make the entire room dark)

Polycount

High level of detail: ~7k

Medium level of detail: ~3.500

This is a HIGH poly count, please be mindful if your computer is not up to the task.

Watermelon Bag – Accessory

New mesh created by yours truly

Non-recolourable with 1 preset

Gender: Female

Ages: Young adult and adult

Categories: everyday, formal, and outerwear

Shows up under bracelets

Disabled for random

Proper LOD’s

Polycount

Very high level of detail: ~5.500

High level of detail: ~2700

Medium level of detail: ~1300

This is a HIGH poly count, please be mindful if your computer is not up to the task

Handbag Pose

Not poselist-compatible

For ages teen and up

Can be used for any gender, though the accessory bag was made for female only

Known Issues

There’s a small gap by the zipper on both versions (see photo). This is to do with how Marvellous Designer makes zippers and I didn’t think it was a big enough problem that I wanted to do anything about it.

The accessory version looks a little funky in cas, but fine outside of it. I didn’t take a picture, sorry.

However, the textures aren’t anywhere near as nice on the acc version as the decor one – sorry! I tried to make a nicer version and failed miserably.

I would normally have a custom thumbnail for the accessory version, but I just couldn’t make it work.

The bag’s strap might clip with certain clothes of if you use certain sliders.

The pose might clip with certain clothes or if you use certain sliders.

The accessory version is probably cursed, tbh. Burn a sprig of sage and sprinkle salt in the corners of your house if this affects you.

Credit

The bag is based off Jellycat’s Amuseable Watermelon Bag.

Software: Blender, GIMP, TSR Workshop, Milkshape, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer.

Zipper texture: Source

Watermelon legs texture: Source

Bag strap texture: Source

Other textures were created by myself using Affinity Designer.

Terms of Use

You may:

Edit the meshes to suit your own needs

Retexture and recolour to your heart’s content

Convert to other games

Share those edits/conversions

Include the deco version with builds

Include the accessory version with sims

Include the accessory version with poses if you make any for it

If you make poses using the objects, please let me know and I’ll include them in this post. 😊

Please avoid:

Sharing unedited versions (it’s a waste of time man)

Putting any versions behind paywalls/adfly

Besides this, I like credit – it’s nice, so feel free to give me some of that. I also ask that you let others freely edit your edited versions. I share things that I make because I want to contribute to the community that I’ve been a part of for a long time now. This community wouldn’t be anything without the things we create and share and I’m 100% for taking that creativity further by building on my work. That said, I know Simsdom will be using this to grease their greedy pockets. Do your worst, you fuckers.

Watermelon Bag 🍉🍉🍉

Finally! It’s up for download on my bloggo-blog. It includes decor and accessory versions plus a pose for showing it off!

Get it here >>> 🍉Download🍉

[mack3030]

Me vs We: The philosophy of monetization of creator content and how it falls on the pendulum of society...

So this might seem a little bit different from my typical paywall rants in relation to the sims, but I want to get a bit philosophical today, and share with you a very interesting consceptual theory that I believe shows why platforms such as tumblr and twitter have been moving lately towards the route of monetization of content for creators. It's a bit of a read, so I'll leave it below the cut and if you want to read further in your spare time you can. It's just a bit of geekery on my part.

First, let's talk about the Pendulum Theory. This theory is shared in this amazing book, called Pendulum, written by Roy H. Williams and Michael H. Drew. To save you a smidge of time and money on it, I'll summarize the basic premise and concept of the book. The idea is that the authors looked back at human history, and found a repeating 80 year pattern that to them, represented a prendulum. On one side is "ME" and the other side is "WE". Now it is important to note a few things: First, EITHER side taken to the VERY EXTREME is bad. Second, different countries/societies can be at different "places" on this pendulum. (For example, China and the U.S are inverse of each other right now.) Third, this pendulum is often reflected most in our artistic, literary, and advertising media. {And I would argue social media, for those living in the 20th-21st centuries.} Those are the most obvious places to see this pattern play out. Fourth, this pendulum "swings back" towards the other side every fourty years. Currently, we are due to start swinging back the other direction in the US in 2023. So let's talk about what these ends of the pendulum mean, exactly: ME: [Individually-centered society] Can be summed up as "I'm not okay, you are okay." It is up to ME to change MYSELF so that the world becomes better. Emphasis on personal freedom and expression, materialism, personal goals, etc. The extreme end of this however, can lead to self-centeredness to the point of hurting others. A prime example of the "extreme end" of ME being America's "Manifest Destiny" expansion, which resulted in thousands of tribes of Native American peoples losing their native lands and being killed. Can also lead to hollow and phony people suffering from burnout as they try to chase the material and personal goals they have set for themselves. WE: [Community/Group-centered society] {USA is currently in WE, due to switch back towards ME in 2023.} Can be summed up as "I'm okay, you're NOT okay." WE can work TOGETHER to change the world for the better. Emphasis on responsibility to others beside ourselves, authenticity and transparency, and group conformity for the common good. The extreme end of WE however, can result in Witch Hunts where those who do not conform to the standards set by the group as a whole are determined to be problems. The Salem Witch Trials being a prime example of "WE" playing out, along with the rise of regimes such as Hitler and his Natzi party. Again, want to remind you all that BOTH of these are bad when taken to the very extreme. A healthy "middle" of both of these tends to be the best place for a society to be, but we rarely stay in that healthy middle for long. We normally are swinging one way or the other. I'm attaching a graphic that was attached to a review for this book that illustrates what I just spoke on.

Now how does this relate to tumblr's post+ and twitter? Easy. These companies, without realizing it, are starting to see that we are at the peak of WE right now in the US and that we will be shifting to ME very soon. "ME" culture is a prime place for content-creators and side-hustlers to blossom, and this is only compounded by the fact that "Gen Z" is a very material generation. They like their money, and nice things, and they fully embrace the side-hustle culture. {Again, like most generalizations, this doesn't apply to everyone, but does seem to show an over-arching trend.} Meanwhile, Millenials like myself are here dumbfounded because we aren't as material as this upcoming generation. It's very easy for us to be pissed off and want to protest Post+ and other forms of "monetization" of our social media, because we aren't here trying to build up a follower base for profit. We're here trying to connect to others, and for some of us, maybe be able to make a small profit while sharing our content with others we connect with. But, looking at things from this lens, it's hard to 100% blame Twitter and Tumblr for going this route. All they are trying to do is stay ahead of the eight-ball and follow the trends they are seeing. And while it make certain generations that aren't wired up that way pissed, it will certainly fit the upcoming culture shift that will occur. Sad to say for those of you who are {like me} generally pissed with the constant monetization of everything in our lives, that if this theory holds true, things will get worse from here. The only way that this can be "stopped" is if somehow, the monetization of content gets to the point that it starts trampling on the rights of individuals...leading to copyright issues and lawsuits. This is why accounts like @postplus-protest are out here trying to get Post+ stopped, is they can see this occuring with Post+, especially with how many fanworks are on tumblr. It is the same for the Sims 4 CC world. Until 3D modeling sites/creators, and EA start defending the rights to their intellectual property, we will see the paywalling and monetization of sims 4 content get worse as we swing back towards ME. The "I have a right to do things my way and express my individual choices" defense will continually be used to try to sway people to support paywalling content. Only if the people who actually are having their OWN individual rights to their content such as EA and model creators who are victims of converters speak up, will those who are on the side of "ME" be appeased. Because the individual will trump the collective every time as things swing back towards that end of the pendulum. It'll be an interesting show. That's for sure. I'm not very much looking forward to it. :/ Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. :)

[kittenkatsims]

ok so. i don’t know how many people will engage or even care about this but i’ve been thinking about making a discord for smaller cc creators to communicate and help each other out, along with just vibing. i’ve seen a lot of talk about discords with lots of popular creators and i think it would be a cool idea to make one with smaller creators/blogs to support each other and show some solidarity. being a smaller creator can be tough and in my experience it can feel like there’s not much of a community for those who are smaller or haven’t been on simblr for like forever and a year. there’s also been a lot of talk lately about how small and free creators are often sidelined for bigger, sometimes exclusive, content creators and i think it would be really great to have a place where us little guys could talk about our experiences both in and out of the sims world and share our content to use in builds or on sims as opposed to always gravitating towards the large creators because they’re the most visible. so yeah. if you want to join, you can just message me and i’ll write your name down and if enough people are interested then i’ll make it happen! there won’t be any restrictions about size or how often you post you can have like 2 followers and post cc once every 6 months it doesn’t matter this isn’t a place to compare or judge people, just to talk, share tips, and help each other out! larger creators are also welcome as long as you’re willing to throw away any superiority complex you might have and just talk like normal people and support each other. let me know if you’re interested!

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading

[antiquatedplumbobs]

Tag Game for Historical Simblrs!

I haven't seen one of these on historical simblr in a bit, and I feel like there's a bunch of new faces I want to get to know a bit better! And I've always found these to be really fun, so I threw this little tag game together. I figured I'd put my answers in to get it started and then tag some people!

1. What has been your favorite time period to play in or which one are you most excited for?

This is a bit far away, but I'm so excited to play the 1940s, it's one of my favorite decades and I have so many fun ideas for the decade!

2. Do you have a favorite piece of historical cc? (CAS or BB)

I really love the keroseeing lamp by @vampireloreskill, I use it in all my builds and it just makes my builds feel so much more realistic. @linzlu 's two sinks are also really amazing, I love how they transform my kitchens.

3. Who is your favorite sim currently?

Currently my favorite sim might be Freddy, we haven't seen much of him in the story, but I think there's so much potential with him and I'm super excited to explore it all.

4. What is your favorite world?

Brindleton Bay, I'm from New England so it feels like home. 🤷‍♀️

5. Are you more gameplay or story focused?

I feel like I'm a good mix of that, I play the game and let game events influence the story, but I also do steer based on storyline arcs I want to explore.

6. Do you like to play with pets in your historical saves?

I do! I have pets myself and I think they're just an important thing, also they're a good way to get fun and social needs up in early decades.

7. What's your biggest immersion breaking pet peeve with the game?

Probably the constant need for sims to get on their phones, I really dislike that!

8. What's your favorite in-game historical item? (CAS or BB)

The braided rugs, I love putting those all over my builds, they're perfect for historic builds! The new icebox from Cottage Living is also amazing.

9. What would you like to see as a new pack or asset to the game?

I really want to see a new pack that's like generations, and addresses aging and makes that process more natural. I'd also love to see more for teenagers, they honestly aren't super interesting right now.

10. What pack do you think is invaluable as a historical simmer?

Either Get Together or Cottage Living, the build objects and world from Get Together are great, but the gameplay introduced with Cottage Living was pretty game changing.

11. Do you have a favorite mod to enhance historical gameplay?

It's basic but I love the timeless mod by @pandorasimbox, I forget what the world looks like without it at this point.

12. What's your ideal family size for playing?

Oh maybe like five? I like having enough to do different things, but it does get hard to manage with too many.

13. Do you use poses?

I do! I've recently gotten into making them myself, but I'm still not great at it haha.

14. Do you use any overrides in your game?

I use a couple, a fireplace lighter override, the baby onesie override, and a dining dish override, maybe a couple others but I can't remember.

15. Do you, or did you, play off-the-grid during your game?

I've tried it a couple of times, but I never felt realistic for historic gameplay, since it was so limiting.

16. What lifespan do you play on?

Basically normal, I've had to tweak it a bit lately but it's equivalent to that.

17. What inspired you to start playing a historically?

Several years ago I saw a post on Reddit about the decades challenge and it just opened up this completely new way of playing and the whole simblr world. I was very much in a funk prior to historical simming and I didn't use any cc, so it's really impacted how I play!

I'm going to tag @historiasim @cosisim @sinclairesimblr @thesim-tea @pixelnrd @ivyandink and @stargazingsims (edit: just gonna add a few more tags! @sims-half-crazy @hesitantpixels @peebsplays) feel free to ignore, but if you want to play just copy and paste with your own answers and tag whoever you want so they can play too! Also of course please feel free to take part even if you don't get tagged! If you end up doing it give me a tag so I can see your answers!

I geared it towards historical simming, since that's what I do, but please feel free to partake even if you're not a historical simmer and just adapt for regular gameplay or whatever you do!!

I hope you guys enjoy and have fun!

[oversimplify-it]

Story Process Tag by @herpixels​

I was tagged by @dynastiasimss​ - Thank you so much for tagging me!! 😊💖💗 This will most definitely get a bit wordy because I’m terrible at explaining things concisely! 😂 Also, I’ll mostly be talking about my process for 2.B.A Grandmaster but I’ll touch on my process for Erin in San Myshuno too!

I’m also going to get tags out of the way up here so that no one has to scroll all the way through this ... absolute novel that is under the cut LMAO so I tag: @cyansimblr  @x-simss @matchacake and any other simblrs who wanna do this!! and feel free to skip if you want!

1. Your writing process My writing process is very, very chaotic, and changes with the wind... Erin in San Myshuno doesn’t really have a process, I just play the game and then put in some dialogue based on the events. None of it is guided by my hand at all though! 2.B.A Grandmaster on the other hand is written in part based on what happens in game and in part by my own creative vision. Most of the time, I let stuff happen, and then fill in the blanks in between events. I go in game, play Sims as I normally would (skill build, take care of needs, go out to venues, etc.) and then watch what weird and interesting things happen. For example, Augusta’s meeting with Xavier in the beginning was completely the game’s doing! He was the only one to show up for the Welcome Wagon event, so I rolled with that. Scenes like Kaitlin’s meeting with Maverick and those sort of things are planned by me, as they’re necessary to create a more full narrative! It’s like collaborative storytelling, but my “partner” is a game that is weird and random and crazy. 😂 After stuff happens in game and I get screenshots, I then actually write for it. I chose to write novel style for the series because - as some of my long-term followers may remember - I had another story that was just screenshots with dialogue on them? And it was very hard, LOL, it didn’t suit my workflow very well and I ended up dropping it after a month or so. I wanted 2.B.A Grandmaster to be something I could post consistently, and so I opted for a style that I was more familiar and experienced with!

2. Scene building For the most part, I just work with what sims gives me, but as I mentioned above, some scenes I actually go to the trouble of setting up. For those, I still use the sims animations mostly (I’ve used poses about 3 times in 2.B.A Grandmaster so far) but I do usher my sims around the "set” as I see fit. I build a lot of my own lots and locations for 2.B.A GM because I tend to get a vision in my mind of what I want and refuse to settle for less. 😂 One such case is the scene where Maverick meets up with Octavia--

I made the alleyway we see here - it’s two entirely empty buildings sandwiched side by side on an otherwise empty lot in Oasis Springs. The only part I bothered to decorate was the alley itself because I knew I wasn’t going to use the rest of the area, but maybe we’ll revisit it sometime and I’ll finish the two buildings! I actually loved making this set and like how it turned out, LOL~

Then I just have whatever sims are involved in a scene interact with each other for ages until I feel like I have enough screenshots to make a scene. I usually have a vague idea of what’s going to be said in any given scene - especially the ones I actually planned out beforehand - but I get some excess screenshots to be safe. I try lots of different interactions and pause like every few frames to get interesting expressions and stuff, LOL. Lots of “Complain about Cold Weather” and “Give fake bad news” ...

3. CC/Pose making I don’t actually make my own CC for 2.B.A GM specifically (I’ve made a couple eyeshadows but I don’t use them super frequently) but there is a scene coming up in the future that I plan to make poses for. I have a very clear image in my mind that includes a lot of subtle expressions and very specific things that I doubt I could find poses for, so I’m gonna have to brave the terrifying landscape of blender in order to make it a reality. 😧

4. Getting in the zone I don’t have any sort of “ok, show time” ritual like some people do but I wish I did, because my motivation waxes and wanes so unpredictably. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything, and other days I edit and write for 5 posts in a row! I am always listening to something though, usually music, every once in a blue moon a video with lots of talking. 5. Screenshot folder

UGH... 

6. Captions I don’t do captions on 2.B.A GM posts, but for my city living gameplay I do! I keep them simple, because I don’t want to make it too much work for myself. Erin in San Myshuno’s style of editing is 100% based around ease, because I wanted something to post often that didn’t put too much of a strain on me. Verdana in white, typically 35-40 px, with a gradient border. Each sim we encounter has a different gradient color, usually based on their outfit or just the ~vibe~ I get from them. Erin’s gradient is Hot pink to ... gee, what would you call it. Sonic the Hedgehog Blue LMAO-- I chose that gradient because that’s the color of the overlay, which I’ll talk more about in the next section!

7. Editing My two ‘series’ - and I use that term loosely LMAO - have different editing processes, so I’ll try to summarize them both. Basically, for 2.B.A Grandmaster, I touch up the saturation and brightness depending on the scene. If it’s evening in the shots, I usually won’t touch brightness, and if it’s night, I might even lower it a bit for more accurate lighting! Once that’s done, I blur everything but relevant elements of a scene, usually the character we’re following or who is speaking. I have to select the character from the background manually which takes a bit, but other than that it’s very minimal.

My shots aren’t super glamorous, but I prefer simple screenshots and actually being able to keep up with a story schedule as opposed to what happened with my last story. 😬 As for Erin in San Myshuno, barring captions which I only do when I feel it’s necessary, it’s literally just an overlay on otherwise untouched screenshots. 😭 I would do more, but again, it’s supposed to be an easy downtime sort of series for me so~

This goes over top all screenshots on the “Add” setting at 20% opacity. It brightens things up and softens them, as well as making the colors slightly more harmonious! If anyone wants me to go more in depth on editing, or maybe captions, please let me know! I’m happy to talk about it if it’ll help anyone, and I know that a lot of tutorials cover how to do stuff in Photoshop, whereas I use FireAlpaca (which is 100% free btw! It’s more of an art program, but not bad for editing) 8. Throwback!

Oh boy, so this is one of my first posts on simblr. For starters, I didn’t know about camera mode at the time, so that’s the first thing I would change obviously LOL. 😬 The framing I did at the time was ... cute, but it makes the pictures feel kind of cramped and small in my opinion, so I did away with that for all of my later stories. Also, Amy and Gemma aren’t very well centered in this picture! Other than that, this isn’t actually terrible I don’t think, so aside from maybe blurring the background as I do on 2.B.A GM now, I wouldn’t change too much! Thankfully, I had observed other people’s stories before making my own on here for a little bit, so I wasn’t starting with absolutely no idea what to do, but I still think I’ve improved since I made these. 😊

This was a ton of fun!! If anyone has questions or wants more info on anything I covered in here, absolutely feel free to ask, and thank you so much if you actually read through all of this - I know I rambled for quite a while!! 🙏

[tigerkirby215]

5e Zac, the Secret Weapon build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Christian Fell. Made for Riot Games.)

No one:

Literally no one:

@tigerkirby215​: “HEY FUCKERS WHO WANTS A ZAC BUILD?!”

Full disclosure: I watched Dorans and Dragon’s video for Zac and while it’s really well done (like really well done. I honestly suggest you watch it) I felt like it took a bit of an interesting direction. Ds&D and I have always had different ideas for our builds and I think with the release of Tasha’s there’s actually a lot of interesting new directions to take Zac in.

Also spoiler alert but this build is the most jank-ass fucking shit I have ever made but it strangely works really well? Like I literally sat on this build for two months debating if I should even post it. Also Zac’s a grappler, because of course he is.

GOALS

There's plenty of me to go around - Zac stretches and bounces and changes his shape more-or-less at will.

Why thanks; I do work out - Zac is one of those “hold you down for 10 seconds total in a teamfight” types of junglers.

I'm not as squishy as I look - Of course to be a big bundle of green goo we’ll need to be big. Like, really big.

RACE

END ME I’M MAKING A BUGBEAR! :D

Okay to be fair Bugbear hate is kinda overblown, especially by yours truly. You get +2 to Strength and a +1 to Dexterity as well as Darkvision and several other useful traits: you have a Powerful Build to carry more stuff, for one. You are also Sneaky and get proficiency with Stealth, which is nice because if you launch a Surprise Attack you can do an extra 2d6 damage.

But of course the main trait of a Bugbear is their Long-Limbed bodies. All your melee attacks have a 5 foot longer range, which is obviously important to make Stretching Strikes!

Custom Lineage: If you’re insistent on making a custom “goo creature” race with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything rules here are my suggestions: make yourself Medium (yeah duh) and give yourself proficiency with the Athletics skill. Increase your Strength by 2 and take the Skilled Expert feat for Expertise in Athletics along with a +1 in Wisdom. You will have an uneven DEX score but I dunno just go for Athlete or something later in this build.

ABILITY SCORES

15; WISDOM - Braum isn’t the only champion who believes the heart is the strongest muscle, as if you’d read Zac’s lore he is actually quite a compassionate soul. Also we need Wisdom for our main ability.

14; CONSTITUTION - Zac is a tanky boy, so up the tankiness!

13; DEXTERITY - When you can stretch and squeeze like silly putty dexterity comes naturally. We need that dexterity to jump over walls, among other things.

12; STRENGTH - A lot of it is elastic strength, but if you’re going to throw Cho’gath into Shyvana you do also need upper body strength.

10; CHARISMA - He’s a nice guy when you get to know him, but Zac’s also a bunch of Zaun sewer goo.

8; INTELLIGENCE - Living in the sewers and then later being raised as a weapon means you don’t know any math, science, or history.

BACKGROUND

Zac did grow up in the streets, but the skills from the Urchin background don’t fit him well so we’ll be modifying it heavily. Take proficiency in Acrobatics to squash and stretch as well as Perception to keep those wards up. You can pick your choice of languages or tools because Zac kinda... doesn’t do much other than fight? I mean he’s literally called “the Secret Weapon” what do you want from me?

But your background feature of City Secrets is very useful for traveling the streets of Zaun, letting you find your way around alleys and jungle gank paths to travel through the city twice as fast as the average person! "Put some spring in your step."

(Artist unknown. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - MONK 1

Been awhile since we’ve visited the good ol’ Monk class eh? Well you can grab Athletics finally, as well as Insight to know if someone’s worth clobbering. You also get proficiency with an artisan’s tool or musical instrument, and I mean... Zac still doesn’t have much lore.

But how about some class features? Monks get Unarmored Defense equal to their Wisdom plus their Dexterity, for 14 AC total. Would medium armor be better? Yes, but you can’t wear armor if you want to use Martial Arts! Martial Arts gives you a variety of benefits: you can punch with DEX or STR, your punches are now a d4 (and will scale as you get levels), and if you punch with your Action you can punch with a Bonus Action after the fact!

LEVEL 2 - MONK 2

Second level Monks get Ki points to use for a variety of features: Flurry of Blows lets you attack twice with your Bonus Action instead of once, Patient Defense lets you dodge as a Bonus Action, and Step of the Wind lets you Dash or Disengage as a Bonus Action. An important thing to mention about Step of the Wind is that it doubles your jump distance, for those big Elastic Slingshot jumps!

You can also put on some boots and get some Unarmored Movement. 10 more feet to be exact!

I guess I’m also obliged to mention Dedicated Weapon from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything which lets you turn any weapon you’re proficient in into a Monk weapon as long as it’s not Heavy or Special. This will be important later but it’s not exactly in-character for Zac.

LEVEL 3 - MONK 3

Third level Monks get to choose their Monastic Tradition and Way of the Astral Self will give you some long stretchy limbs! As a bonus action you can spend 1 Ki to summon Arms of the Astral Self. When you do so, each creature of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take force damage equal to two rolls of your Martial Arts die due to your Unstable Matter.

Your arms will stay up for 10 minutes and give the following benefits:

You can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength modifier when making Strength checks and Strength saving throws.

You can use the spectral arms to make unarmed strikes, which has the following benefits:

The reach of the arms is 5 feet greater than normal, which stacks with your Bugbear arms. 15 foot reach with extra stretchy arms!

The unarmed strikes you make with the arms can use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls, and their damage type is force.

You can also absorb some blows with Deflect Missiles. When you are hit by a ranged weapon attack you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 + your DEX mod + your monk level. If you reduce the damage to 0, you can catch the missile. You can then spend 1 ki point to throw it back as part of the same reaction. You make this attack with proficiency, regardless of your weapon proficiencies, and the missile counts as a monk weapon for the attack, which has a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet.

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everyone also gave Monks the Ki-Fueled Attack ability which pretty much doesn’t impact you in the slightest.

LEVEL 4 - MONK 4

4th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement but we’re instead going to grab the Skilled Expert feat. You can increase your Wisdom by 1 and grab proficiency in Survival for optimal jungle clear. But what we’re mainly here for is to make our hands extra sticky with expertise in Athletics! Is the build starting to make sense now?

You can also land safely after an Elastic Slingshot jump thanks to Slow Fall, reducing fall damage by 5 times your Monk level. If you want to keep yourself in the fight then Quickened Healing (also from TCoE, because that book really likes giving new Monk features) will let you take advantage of Cell Division for 2 Ki points, healing you for a number rolled on your Martial Arts die plus your Proficiency bonus. It’s not much but in a pinch it might save you!

LEVEL 5 - MONK 5

5th level Monks get an Extra Attack, so you can punch twice with your action, and then punch some more with your Bonus Action! You can also bring some heavy CC into the party with Stunning Strike; if you hit an enemy in melee you can force a Constitution save or stun them! Yes actual honest-to-god League of Legends stun!

Oh and because Tasha’s Cauldron really wanted to buff the Monk you get Focused Aim, letting you use up to 3 Ki points to increase your roll to hit, at a 2:1 ratio. (1 Ki point = +2 to hit)

(Artwork by SemLimit on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 6 - BARBARIAN 1

Jumping over to Barbarian, land of the true tanks. Barbarians get Unarmored Defense based on Constitution that we won’t be using but I’m obliged to mention anyways. Of course what we’re here for is Rage which will augment you in a number of ways: you’ll resist Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage and will do more damage with Strength-based attacks (which you probably won’t be making.) But the most important feature is this line right here:

You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.

You know what’s a Strength check? Athletics! So even if you use Wisdom for it you’ll still have Advantage on top of Expertise! And Athletics is used for grappling! At least that’s how I’d rule it, but talk to your DM just to make sure they’ll let this dopey shit into their game.

LEVEL 7 - BARBARIAN 2

Second level Barbarians can let themselves go with Reckless Attack. Your Unstable Matter will give you advantage on your attack at the cost of giving enemies advantage to hit you.

You also get Danger Sense for advantage on Dexterity saves against effects you can see coming. Is a Jinx rocket heading your way? Slingshot out of there!

LEVEL 8 - BARBARIAN 3

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything gave Barbarians Primal Knowledge for a free skill proficiency from the Barbarian list, so take Intimidation I guess because you are a huge freaky slime guy.

Third level Barbarians get to choose their Primal Path and guess what? It’s Totem Warrior time! As a Spirit Seeker you can cast Speak With Animals and Beast Sense as a Ritual but we all know that’s not what we’re here for. What we’re really here for is the Totem Spirit of the Bear. You can now resist all damage while Raging, with the exception of Psychic damage. Hey there has to be %health damage to deal with tanks after all. (Now if only they’d nerf Grievous Wounds.)

LEVEL 9 - MONK 6

This will be our last Monk level; sad I know. But it’s worth it for the Visage of the Astral Self. You can use a Bonus Action and a Ki point to summon the visage. (And can do it while summoning your arms.) While the spectral visage is present, you gain several benefits:

Astral Sight lets you see through magical (and nonmagical) darkness up to 120 feet.

Wisdom of the Spirit gives you advantage on Wisdom (Insight) and Charisma (Intimidation) checks.

And Word of the Spirit lets you either whisper in team chat to a creature of your choice that you can see within 60 feet of you, or shout in all chat so that everyone within 600 feet can hear you.

Your regular fists are also considered magical thanks to Ki-Empowered Strikes, and you get 5 more feet of Unarmored Movement! "Woohoo!"

(Artwork by Dragonflamebg on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 10 - FIGHTER 1

Teamfight time? Team Fighter time! First level Fighters get a Fighting Style and since you’re punching people your only real option is Superior Technique, giving you a d6 Combat Superiority die to use on a Battle Master Manuever. That Manuever shall be Grappling Strike, letting you grapple as a Bonus Action after punching someone for some Stretching Strikes!

You can also heal with Cell Division assuming the enemy team doesn’t stack Grievous Wounds thanks to Second Wind; it’s a d10 plus your Fighter level. "Keep it together."

LEVEL 11 - FIGHTER 2

Second level Fighters get Action Surge for even more punching! This will be more important in like, two levels.

LEVEL 12 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype and for some crowd control in a teamfight Battle Master is a great choice. You are a Student of War which means more tool proficiencies which make no sense because Zac has no lore woo! But of course what we’re mainly here for is Combat Superiority: you have four d8 Superiority Die (plus a d6 one from your Fighting Style) which you can use on a variety of Maneuvers:

Trip Attack is good if you want to bounce, forcing the target you hit to make a Strength save or fall over!

Distracting Strike is like stunning the target in the sense that it gives your allies an opening, but unlike Trip Attack you don’t have to force a saving throw. (Instead Distracting Strike just works after you hit them!)

And if you think your arms aren’t stretchy enough already? Boom; Lunging Attack for 20 foot reach!

LEVEL 13 - FIGHTER 4

4th level Fighters get an Ability Score Improvement: hey it’s everyone’s favorite feat Grappler! You have advantage on attacks against enemies you grappled, and if you’re grappling someone you can then pin them to hold them in place!

Now pinning someone you’ve grappled does take an action but here’s where Action Surge comes in: turn 1? Grab them. Turn 2? Pin them! Easy!

LEVEL 14 - FIGHTER 5

5th level Fighters get an Extra Attack... which you already have. "I hate it when this happens."

LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 6

Hey more Ability Score Improvements! Want all the fun of a high Constitution score without the Constitution? Look no further than the Tough feat: it gives you +2 HP per level for some big gains!

(Artwork by GisAlmeida on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 7

7th level Fighters get to Know Your Enemy: by spending a minute studying someone (IE looking at the scoreboard) you can learn if an enemy is superior, inferior, or equal to you in a number of areas described by the ability.

You also get one more Combat Superiority die and learn two more Maneuvers: Goading Attack will make it harder for enemies to hit your friends (and it works against Tier 4 enemies who likely resist fears), and Disarming Attack will let you stick your hand to your opponent’s weapon to make them drop it!

LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 8

8th level means more ASIs and I’m starting to think ignoring all your stats was a bad idea. More Wisdom means better punches, better grabs, and better AC.

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 9

9th level Fighters get Indomitable, letting them reroll a failed saving throw once per Long Rest. Regardless of what you roll on the new die however you have to use the new result. This can be used on Death saves to try to keep alive a little longer thanks to Cell Division.

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 10

10th level Battle Masters get Improved Combat Superiority. Your superiority die are d10s now; even the one from your Fighting Style! You do also learn more Maneuvers but honestly? We got just about everything that we need already. If you’ve hit level 19 playing Zac League of Legends then you deserve to make some choices of your own.

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 11

Our final level is the 11th level of Fighter for an Extra Attack that does stack! That means you have 3 attacks total and one extra from Martial Arts!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Beat up, or beat down? I'm flexible - No matter how you look at it 4 attacks per round is great, especially since you can give yourself Advantage and boost your damage output with Battle Master Maneuvers.

Pick on someone your own size - If everything goes well you should have a solid 200 health by level 20! Definitely nothing to sneeze at, especially with Rage giving you resistance to almost everything and Second Wind letting you heal yourself!

This is gonna get messy - You’ve got a +16 to Athletics checks for Grappling when using your Astral Arms, and can give yourself Advantage or add Superiority die to your Grapple checks. Do I need to explain that that’s really good?

CONS

Don't push your luck, champ - None of your stats are maxed out, and that’s bad. Your hit modifier isn’t great, your Battle Master saving throw is low, but most importantly your AC is really bad. Big health is nice but not being hit is also very helpful. Just saying if you have the chance to go for Point Buy I’d take it.

I never skip breakfast - A small pool of Ki combined with limited Maneuver die means that you’re running on some very potent fumes. Frequent short rests will be needed to make the most out of this build.

These jerks don't know when to quit! - Grappling builds have the ever-constant problem of falling off in the late game when most foes simply can’t be grabbed. This build honestly peaks around level 13 and just falls off from there. This is definitely one of my builds that I think works better in a low level campaign.

But if you want something unique that works well early here’s your build! Big reach to hold everyone in place so your party can beat them up. Playing the CC tank might not be that glorious but it’s a job someone’s gotta do. And remember: "It's not how much you can lift. It's how good you look!"

(Artist unknown. Made for Riot Games.)

[pandorasimbox]

Timeless (version 1) A world decluttering mod

If you’re a fantasy or historical Sims player, all the modern clutter in the worlds probably really bugs you, huh? Me too! And I’m an impatient (but fabulous) bitch who doesn’t like waiting around for other people to make stuff. So I created this mod to demodernise and declutter the Sims world. 

Modern street lights? Gone! The constant background of cars and planes? Outta here! City skyline? Bye byeeeee! Big ugly casinos and strip malls? SEE YA. Now you can play in a world that feels a little more... Timeless! (psst, see more pics here)

Download link and extremely full details of what the mod does and doesn’t do under the cut.

Features

removes almost all modern (post 1900) buildings and landmarks from Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, Magnolia Promenade, Windenburg, Brindleton Bay and Forgotten Hollow

removes almost all modern street lights (pre-1900) and replaces some others with the Victorian-style lights, 

removes almost all billboards, signs, structures, sculptures, etc. (please see below for exceptions)

removes all city skylines and leaves lovely treelines/mountains instead

removes all cars and planes, but NOT boats or trains. Full credit goes to @teanmoon​ for this part of the mod

removes the elevated freeway in Brindleton Bay

If that’s all you need to know, you can go ahead and download Timeless adfly-free from Simfileshare.

And remember by downloading this you’re agreeing not to claim this mod as your own or reupload it behind any paywalls as per my Terms of Use. <3

Keep scrolling for install instructions, known issues, credits and what’s coming in version 2!

Install Instructions & Known Issues

Install is easy, just put the ‘Pandorasimbox Timeless Mod v1.package’ file into your Mods folder and you’re good to go. 

This mod has been rigorously tested. If Timeless doesn’t perform as expected, it means it’s conflicting with another piece of CC you have. That CC is will be something that is either removing or liberating backgrounds/cars/world objects in your game. If you have anything already installed that effects these items, please uninstall them first before adding Timeless.

You might notice your neighbourhoods take a little longer to load the first time you open them - this should go back to normal after it’s all loaded at least once.

The modern street lights are invisible but technically still there, so you will see floating “ghost lights” at night. The same is true for cars - you will see ghostly headlights at night, ooo 👻

Occasionally you’ll still see a taxi on the roads. It’s part of the game’s vfx and can’t be removed. (Fun fact - sometimes they fly over the Dachshund's Creek lot in Brindleton Bay! Harry Potter, that u? 🤓 )

Some of the HVAC units, billboards, signs and lights on buildings are part of the building’s mesh and haven’t been removed for version 1.

There are a couple of orphaned building foundations in Newcrest that haven’t been removed for version 1.

There are leftover billboards, community signs and hydrants in Brindleton Bay, and two modern sculptures in Windenburg. These are either unremovable or part of the building’s mesh and haven’t been removed for version 1.

Credits:

Made possible by @sims4studioofficial​

Full credit for the vehicle overrides goes to the wonderful @teanmoon​

Big thanks to my fellow nerds on the Sims of History Discord, for the testing and the cheerleading

Thanks to @siminimonster​ for helping with the streetlight switch out on the @sims4studioofficial​ forums

Aaaaaaaaand finally...

Coming in Version 2:

Complete retexturing and model edits of the storefronts, including removal of the stuff mentioned up thar ^^

Rustic replacements for the pop up food stands

Wooden override for the Seasons roller/ice rinks

Replacements for the public bathrooms

Overrides to replace some of the remaining background houses with basic wooden shacks

Retexturing or override of the playground equipment to look less modern

[rosebloodcat]

AHIT Continuation Thoughts

I’ve seen some posts around talking about wanting a sequel to A Hat In Time, but after thinking about it for a while, I’ve realized no one is actually talking about what they want to SEE in a sequel game.

Sequels are hard to get right. It’s hard for a gaming team/company to recapture the charm of the original games and they often end up falling flat when they come out. Not to mention writing a compelling/interesting narrative that wouldn’t clash with what fans already know about the game tends to be a lot harder than people would think.

If (IF!) Gears for Breakfast DID make a second AHIT game, I’m not sure how well it would do.

BUT!

A Hat In Time DOES have some advantages over other games that are loved enough for people to want sequels. Those advantages being:

The story itself is very loose, meaning there are no die-hard rules about how it needs to/can go.

The overarching story/goal was simple and straight forward, and not restrictive to the player. (Find the lost timepieces to power your ship so you can get home. Very simple!)

Each level/area of the game is small, but it’s obvious that there’s a much larger world that can be connected to them.

There are even some places where you can SEE areas that could be used to expand the level/area while either keeping the original location or even adding a whole new one!

The game isn’t over-saturated with characters that you’d need to account for and keep track of.

Every chapter has 1-2 characters who are central to the chapter, but that also means that there aren’t so many of them that you’d lose track of them all.

The problem (in my eyes) is that the main story for A Hat In Time is already perfectly wrapped up. It doesn’t really have lingering questions we need to be answered, or any goals that Hat Kid didn’t already see to the end.

Hat Kid has reclaimed her Time Pieces, she’s helped the people of the world she has ended up on and left to finally go home.

That’s the end of it.

(Not counting the DLC, since that’s not part of the main story and it can be played BEFORE the actual end of the game.)

[I’m putting the rest under a ‘Read More’ because this got kinda long. Also, there’s a reference to the very end of the game, but considering you’re reading a thing about sequels, you probably already know about it.]

And the reason I’m not too crazy about the idea of a DIRECT sequel is because of the choice we (the player) made at the end of the game. And that was whether or not to drop a single Time Piece to help Mustache Girl.

The game devs would have to make an assumption/decision that would change which action would be “canon” to the series and also open up the idea of “multiple timelines” that could get messy to keep track of. (But also make it possible to have more than one sequel game that could be Canon.)

I can see a couple of possible follow up games, depending on who you follow and what game details you factor in.

The Sequel Focused Games

Two of my ideas could follow Hat kid after leaving ‘Earth’ to return home. (Which means we probably won’t be seeing the characters from the original game.)

One could be based on the timeline where HK dropped the timepiece for Mustache Girl and her ship runs out of fuel, standing her on another world while she searches for an alternative power source to get the rest of the way home. And her possibly discovering a hidden cache of Timepieces and building a story around that.

That would be interesting since it would allow for a whole new world to explore and new characters for us to meet while also letting us keep the gameplay we’re already familiar with. It would also let us have a similar story/goal without things being changes up too much. (And each new chapter would have their own new stories, of course.)

The drawbacks to this version are that some people might not enjoy the new areas and feel like it’s just AHIT with new levels as opposed to a new game.

The second idea could either follow the timeline where HK DIDN’T drop the timepiece for MG or it could be the THIRD game in the series. (I’d say it would be best to leave it ambiguous, so anyone could pick it up and play without someone going “You have to play [blank] first before you can REALLY enjoy it!”)

It would be the one where HK would finally get home and mark herself down as finishing whatever mission she had left her world to complete.

Just like the other game, it would let the devs make a new world and characters for us to explore and it would give us the chance to explore the kind of world Hat Kid came from. BUT! It could also let them revive some of the cut content that they hadn’t been able to use before. (Like Tim the CEO of Time!)

But, as I’ve already said, for both of these story/game ideas we wouldn’t be seeing the characters we know from the original game. I know some people won’t be happy about that, but it’s something that would/could happen.

A completely different route would be making a game that focuses on the residents left on ‘Earth’!

Personally, I can see them doing it like the Sonic Adventure games or Sonic Heros. Instead of making a new character to play the ‘hero’, they have a selection of characters we already know that we can choose from. And each of the characters have different stories/levels to play through, all geared towards their various skills/powers.

I love the idea of being able to play through a story/game that focused on Snatcher and using his various powers to complete levels. Or playing as the Conductor and making use of his train or engine skills. Or as Mustache Girl and fighting epic bosses and bad guys. Something like that would be awesome! And a great way to explore their stories/characters from a different view than we would normally have.

Admittedly, Co-op play might be a bit harder to put into a game like that. Unless you found a reasonable way to group everyone into pairs and put in a tag out feature. Although it would be interesting to see how something like that could be incorporated into the story.

(For the pairs, I can see;

Conductor and Grooves being teamed together [maybe learning to get along could be part of their story?]

Mustache Girl and either Cooking Cat or Mafia Boss. [I’m leaning towards CC, just because I’d love to see her character be expanded on.]

I’m vetoing Snatcher and Vanessa being teamed up though! That’s would be a recipe for disaster. [Maybe pair him with a cut character? Like Moonjumper? Just a thought.] )

Prequel Game Ideas

Another approach could be making a PREQUEL game instead.

Again, it would be divided based on who you wanted to follow for the game. Either Hat Kid, or the residents of ‘Earth’.

I think these prequels wouldn’t have as many levels as the original game but might be fun to use to explore how everyone got to where they were when HK arrived.

If we followed Hat Kid, maybe it would be about how she got her ship and why she was off in space in the first place. What tests she had to pass, the challenges, and maybe even if she was actually SUPPOSED to be in space or if she took off to explore without telling anyone.

I’m not so sure about everyone on ‘Earth’ but maybe have someone who’s exploring the world be the main character?

For this one, I can see them bringing back a cut character to act as the one wander through the world. Maybe the Shapeshifter could be the player character? That would be interesting, playing as a character who’s power was shapeshifting!

(They could even their form change depending on where they actually were in the game!

Like an Owl when on the Express, or a Penguin when around Grooves, or a Person when on Mafia Island. [Maybe even before it was Mafia Island?]

The only place I can think of where they wouldn’t change would be Subcon, but that’s more because I think Snatcher has an exact count of the number of minions there and would IMMEDIATELY know when there was one more than there should be.)

Anyways, those are my ideas of what Gears for Breakfast could do if they wanted to make some new AHIT games.

But what do you guys think?

Do you have any ideas for how a new game could be done? Or what the story could be for one of the ideas I presented? Feel free to mention them!

[hollisims]

“wow we love space” legacy challenge

I started a legacy and got an ask for the rules, but I realized it didn’t really have any so I wrote rules for this legacy! This legacy is all about space and each generation follows a space-themed thing but not every generation requires you to go into space, it’s just loosely spaced themed! Feel free to use the hashtag #wowwelovespace if you post your sims and gameplay!

here are the rules in a google doc if that’s more your style :D

Basic rules:

Cheats, like money cheats, are allowed but not excessively

You may live wherever you want unless it says so in the rules of the generation

Keep the lifespan on normal

Some packs are needed for certain traits, skills, and careers. If you don’t have the pack feel free to change anything to fit.

all of the generation rules are down below! If you have any questions feel free to send me an ask. (also this was very quickly done and there might be a few mistakes, although I have read through it. Just let me know if there is something wrong, thanks!)

Generation one: rocket ship

You were such a happy kid before the accident, but then your life changed forever. A part of you is broken, literally. Now you have set your life out to tinkering and building, to prove how much you can do. Your goal is to completely build an entire rocket! Or two…or three!

Traits: genius, geek, hot-headed

Aspiration: nerd brain

Career: astronaut, interstellar smuggler branch

Rules: 

Your sim must have a broken bone of some sort (you can use cc or just pretend)

Reach level 10 of the astronaut career

Master rocket science skill

Master handiness skill

Complete nerd brain aspiration

Build both the steampunk flyamajig rocketship and the retro rocketship

Generation two: telescope

Your parent was into rockets and technology but you’re more fascinated by detailed things. While everyone else is living their normal daily lives, you spend your time focusing on the small things of our world, like what it’s made of and how we came to be. Some may call you a freak or a nerd, but you don’t pay attention to them and continue coming up with theories about the meaning of life. 

Traits: vegetarian, loner, bookworm

Aspiration: renaissance sim

Career: astronaut (until you reach level 3), writer (until you reach level 5), then gardener, botanist branch

Rules: 

Complete renaissance sim aspiration

Master logic skill

Get to level three of the astronaut career

Get to level five of the writer career

Get to level 10 of the gardener career

Have twins (you can cheat for this)

Generation three: alien

Your sibling was very well mannered and well, very clean. You on the other hand loved to roll around in the outdoors and play with all sorts of gross creatures. You didn’t mind and loved spending your days outside. You’re not very judgmental at all and love the weird side of everything!

Traits: slob, loves outdoors, erratic

Aspiration: angling ace

Career: unemployed, you make money from outdoorsy things (gardening, selling collectibles, fishing)

Rules: 

Get married to an alien

Never get a job, make money from the outdoors

Master fishing skill

Master gardening skill

Complete angling ace aspiration

Have 3 kids (next heir must be the middle child)

Generation four: shooting star

You never got attention as a kid because you were the middle child. Now you want to shine like a star! It’s your dream to become famous! Sure you may be a little annoying, but you’re a super hard worker and will do anything to get to the top! 

Traits: ambitious, self-absorbed, materialistic 

Aspiration: world-famous celebrity 

Career: actor/actress

Rules:

Complete world-famous celebrity aspiration

Master acting skill

Reach level 10 of the acting career

Get married to another celebrity

Become a millionaire

Have only one kid and have a negative relationship with them

Generation five: planet

Your parents were too busy worrying about their fame to spend time with you, you won’t be that kind of parent. You move away with 0 simoleons to live your own life and start a family. Even though you don’t have a lot of money, you will do anything to give your kids a good life! Like the solar system, you are going to have 7 sims (planets) in your household!

Traits: family-oriented, good, childish

Aspiration: super parent

Career: unemployed, stay at home parent

Rules: 

Move out of your parent’s house as soon as you age up to be a young adult. 

Get married as a young adult

Complete super parent aspiration

Have 5 kids (you must have 7 sims in total in your household)

Have all of your kids get As in grade school and high school

Have all of your kids max at least 2 skills

Generation six: galaxy

Like your parents, you love your children! But your children just happen to be well, pets! You are very into cute things, things that sparkle, and everything happy! Except you hate kids. Growing up with 4 siblings, all you wanted to do was move out, play video games, and be alone with your pets.

Traits: hates children, cat lover, dog lover

Aspiration: computer whiz

Career: tech guru, eSports gamer branch

Rules:

Have at least 4 pets

Get married as an adult

Have a kid by accident

Complete computer whiz aspiration 

Master video gaming skill

Reach level 10 of the tech guru career

Generation seven: meteor

As a child you were crazy. You had so much energy and was always up to something. Causing destruction was and is your favorite thing to do! Some might say you’re a meteor. Your dream is to be a secret agent and “play” with spy tools all day. So that’s exactly what you do!

Traits: hot-headed, evil, goofball

Aspiration: chief of mischief 

Career: secret agent, villain branch

Rules: 

Complete chief of mischief aspiration

Reach level 10 of the secret agent career

Master mischief skill

Master charisma skill

Have a kid with someone different to who you’re getting married to

Go through 3 different relationships before settling down

Generation eight: black hole

You’re a little dark and a little scary, but you mean well. Just because you’re a little more down than everyone else doesn’t mean you’re not fun to hang out with. In fact, you love a good party, but no one will join you. Your goal is to find someone who really cares about you. Also, you’re obsessed with all kinds of music.

Traits: gloomy, music lover, dance machine

Aspiration: musical genius

Career: entertainer, musician branch

Rules:

Complete musical genius aspiration

Never have friends, only acquaintances

Master violin skill

Master piano skill

Master guitar skill

Reach level 10 of the entertainer career

Get married as an elder

Generation nine: constellation

You see the beauty in everything around you. You love to paint and take photos of the stars. It’s your dream to sell your art and photos to people! You’re scared of everything though, especially people. You mostly do your thing inside your home where it’s safe. Some may say you’re crazy and paranoid, and well you are, but you’re also trying to get over this fear of yours.

Traits: paranoid, loner, creative

Aspiration: painter extraordinaire 

Career: painter, master of the real branch

Rules: 

Complete aspiration

Master painting skill

Master photography skill

Reach level 10 of the painter career

Live in a quiet secluded area with no neighbors

Get married to someone with the romantic trait

Generation ten: universe

Your ancestors were obsessed with space, but your family kind of drifted away from that. You really want to follow in your ancestor’s footsteps and learn about space, maybe even go to space??

Traits: perfectionist, outgoing, insider

Aspiration: friend of the world

Career: astronaut, space ranger branch

Rules: 

Complete friend of the world aspiration

Reach level 10 of the astronaut career

Master rocket science skill

Be the leader of a club

Have 20 friends

[world-without-authors]

15th anniversary of our madness!

Yes, you read that right. Today, April 13th 2021, marks the 15th anniversary of when I was crazy enough to bring out the idea of a crazy roundrobin crossover on the Moony Witcher Forum.

When on that day, April 13th 2006, I made a post with the general idea for Mai Dire Fine I never thought I would be starting a saga that would be still ongoing 15 years later.

But here we are, with me and Aelit still working on its latest sequel of sorts, The World without Authors. Compared to back then, our writing skills improved a lot (Mai Dire Fine was not a good story) and, while there’s always more we can still learn, we are proud of our improvement.

So, where are we? We published recently the 10th chapter of The World without Authors, which is currently around 69.000 words – we’re already closing in towards Blank Sprite‘s length (77.000) and that’s just part of the first arc, Scattered Shards. Adding in the previous stories, we’re past 320.000 already.

Even with The World without Authors‘s “all-stars” cast, we still only have a total of five characters from Mai Dire Fine, only three of which (Sergio, Nikki and Kathleen) were part of the main cast as the other two (Faith and Virgilia) were introduced towards the end… well, technically there’s a sixth character, the mysterious “Professor”, but his identity is spoilers as of now. I believe there might be enough hints between The World without Authors and my older behind the scenes post for you to be able to guess his identity already, but the reveal is meant to be a nasty surprise that will set up the second and third arcs, Venezia Immortale and The Dove and the Crow. Yes, we’re planning (well… sort of planning) that far!

But enough of that, let’s head to the celebration specials!

Unfortunately, the Q&A session was a complete failure. We didn’t receive any question by the deadline, but the mailbox is still open! Feel free to ask us anything, we’ll make a Q&A post as soon as the question come in, and we’ll keep it updated every time new questions arrive.

We still have a few more goodies, though. The first is a bit of an experiment on my part, I took one of my early PPC missions, A Very Awkward Exorcism, alongside a couple scenes from the interlude set chronologically just before it, Planes, Guns, Clones and other usual PPC Stuff, and gave them a complete makeover into a comic. Yes, I made what I believe might be the first full PPC mission in comic form! You can download it in PDF format (Trigger warning for rape, contains some partial nudity) here. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Another thing I made is a special anniversary illustration, in which our characters, and a few we borrowed, from all over our works enjoy some partying. With all the things happening due to the Unravel they deserve some off time, don’t  you think?

Let’s start with the back row, left to right.

First one is Ai Minase, from Koikatu. She has the distinction of being the “adopted canon character” of The World Without Authors – while we have other canons working with Strike Dove, she’s the only one who became part of the main cast on a deep level. While Hayate Yagami, her crew, the Razgriz and Long Caster also work with my main cast, they’re more of external allies. Her dress looks a bit like a tablecloth, but that’s a canon-ish outfit of hers: while she never wears it in her route, it is in her character card in the slot that gets used during dates in normal gameplay.

Next to her we have Keiko Caterina Turbo, Sergio and Nikki’s daughter with her own PPC spinoff, Wings of Canon: Second Strike. She is also the only survivor of the Second Strike cast, having lost Shiro and Saki in the Unravel, and as such the role of representative of her series is all on her. She also doesn’t like skirts, at all, why do you ask?

Then we have Hajime Irene Turbo, Keiko’s half sister/alternate incarnation from the timeline in which Sergio got together with Ami instead. She’s an original The World without Authors character, but still related to characters from my previous works. Fun fact: Keiko and Hajome’s birthday, April 13, in indeed based on the day and month we began Mai Dire Fine. If we consider HQ Standard Time (the PPC’s timeline) to coincide with the real world, they turned two years old today.

Next is Hajime’s mother, Ami Tanegashima. Mentioned first in I don’t like luxury cars to pave her way for her posthumous role in Blank Sprite, we can consider her the representative of my Blank Sprite original characters here. She’s now stuck with the absurdity of not only having a daughter she never thought she could have, but also of said daughter being currently only four years younger than her. Considering Ami’s small frame, there will likely be plenty of times in which she’s mistaken for Hajime’s younger sister… also, now that she’s 20 years old and of drinking age in Japan, she discovered she actually likes alcohol. And can deal with it surprisingly well despite her light build (as opposed to Sergio and Nikki who both can’t hold their liquor)… yes, she had more than a few glasses here. Luckily, she doesn’t drink very often.

Toasting with her is Aya Kibokami, the “fragment” that split off Madoka Kaname at the end of Blank Sprite. As such, she’s here as a representative of canon characters of Blank Sprite. Due to a certain scene of Madoka Magica, in which Madoka expresses a desire to go out drinking with her mother (who really enjoys drinking) once old enough, there is fanon of her eventually developing the same taste for liquor. While we’ll likely never know if the canon Madoka would, Aya is the other heavy drinker of my cast and here is depicted finally having a toast (or two… or a few…) with Ami to celebrate the success of their “Save Sergio and Homura from their spirals of self-destruction by making them defeat Vera and save Madoka together” master plan.

And, of course, fussing over Aya’s excessive drinking we have Kuroko Tenshimi, AKA the “split fragment” of Homura Akemi retaining the memories of the Blank Sprite Incident. While her and Aya haven’t featured yet, they did make it to the Unraveled World. However, I don’t plan on making them part of the main cast yet (in fact, I’m planning to reduce the amount of characters we’re following as the cast is getting too big), and I’m actually considering having them star in their own The World without Authors spinoff, but nothing set in stone yet. Oh, and fun fact about them, they did already have a bit of starring of their own as they were the hosts of the Third PPC HQ Hunger Games. How Nutmeg TV managed to get hold of them for that will forever remain a mistery.

Next, a character very few of you are likely to be familiar with. Nina De Nobili, the title character of the Nina, the child of the Sixth Moon book series. Acting as a representative of the Mai Dire Fine canon characters here, she’s been chosen since, as I said in the past, we started Mai Dire Fine on her author’s forum, and even received encouragement from her to keep writing at one point… despite the fact we were basically butchering her work. However, everyone has to begin somewhere, and Moony Witcher (real name Roberta Rizzo) knew that, so I’m glad she didn’t shoot down our hopes – I might not be here now with a 300.000+ words saga under my belt otherwise. Nina is not planned to reappear in the Unraveled Worlds, as she’s from a series intended for children that wouldn’t mesh well with our current plots.

The little guy sitting over the counter doing karaoke is Conan Edogawa from Detective Conan (anyone insisting on calling the series Case Closed can leave now). He’s again a canon character featured in Mai Dire Fine, but there are plans to involve him and some other characters of his series in the third arc. Also, as you can guess by Nina’s reaction, he’s a terrible, terrible singer.

Leaning on the couch we have Hiro Shirogane, our Gundam pilot. He’s a fully original character created for The World without Authors whose original concept was made by Aelit, although I was the one developing his backstory and relationship with Miksa. I admit that for a while we weren’t too sure about what to do with him, but I hope his current subplot will be enjoyable.

And now, the front row. Leftmost is Hanami, Nikki’s alternate from Kathleen’s alternate timeline (and as such a The World without Authors original). She’s been adopted by the Kinomotos (as she’s also an alternate of Sakura) and is now living with them. Something that debuted in this illustration are the glasses: those are her timeline’s Sergio, and she doesn’t actually have a need for eyesight correction. She had the lenses replaced with fake ones, and wears them due to them being one of the few things she has left of him, though they’re also a good way to differentiate herself from her “sisters”.

Then we have Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura herself. If we go by name only, her first appearance in my works would be Mai Dire Fine, but that particular Sakura ended up becoming Nikki so it is safe to assume her first appearance was actually in the first mission of Wings of Canon, my main PPC spinoff, titled Don’t Forget The Canon, and she has been confirmed alive in the Unraveled World, in which she is now legally Nikki and Hanami’s younger sister. As in the comic I posted above, her hair is actually lighter than Nikki or Hanami’s as most CCS media have her with a light shade, but Nikki and Hanami both derive from the 1998 anime that had a darker brown as Sakura’s hair color.

Next to Sakura is Syaoran Li from the same series, who instead did appear as himself in Mai Dire Fine. He was badly OOC though, and if the The World without Authors incarnation of him does remember Sergio, things might a bit tense between them at first… though, hopefully, just until he gets explained that no, the “Sakura” Sergio was in love with was actualy Nikki and there’s no need to be jealous.

Then we get to Kathleen Leone. She is not the Mai Dire Fine incarnation of the character, but an alternate made for The World without Authors. Despite that, she started considering the main timeline Sergio as her own brother even before he had to kill her timeline’s, due to the latter’s descent into madness. We haven’t been able to give her much space until now, due to the action being mostly in the air, but that will change soon. I won’t spoiler anything, but Chapter 11 will be a big turning point in the story.

Of course, holding arms with her is Faith Leone, Everything I said about Kathleen applies about her too, as they’ve arrived in the Unraveled World together. We haven’t shown much on our plans to develop her so far, but trust us: we’re going to both fill in more of her bakcstory, and give her chances to shine soon.

Cutting the cake together we have Sergio Turbo and Nikki Cherryflower, both of which made their first appearances in Mai Dire Fine and appeared in all sequel works. For as much grief the Unraveled World is bringing them, it is arguable they’ve gained more than they have lost, as they’ve both got their families back thanks to it. Fun fact: their outfits are loosely based on the ones they wore during Chapter 7 of Blank Sprite.

Last but not least, Corolla. Introduced in Don’t Forget The Canon, she’s my most successful character. Defined by Aelit “Kathleen, but written well” way before we started working on The World without Authors, it isn’t a suprise they synergize so well together… much to Sergio and Nikki’s dismay. Here, is she more excited for the cake, or because they are cutting it together like it was a wedding cake? Probably both.

And that’s it, 15 years of writing, condensed in one image. We hope you’ll keep following us in the future!

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

The Sims 4 Realm of Magic - Early Access CAS Review

Huge thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play the Realm of Magic Game Pack early!

I have been quietly hoping for a long time that we would get some kind of Makin’ Magic style pack, so needless to say I was VERY happy when Realm of Magic was announced. I was even happier when the Gurus started “leaking” gameplay images, and completely ecstatic when the trailer came out! So you can imagine how psyched I was when we were given our early access codes and I could finally get in and look everything!

You all know by now how this works, right? If I like something, I generally can’t think of much else to say besides screaming at the top of my lungs “OMG I LOVE IT!”, and if I don’t like something I will straight up tell you guys and explain why... Yeh I’m looking at you Moschino reviews. So with this pack, there are a couple things I had issues with (not as many as Moschino lol) so if you don’t want to hear my nitpicky opinions about those things you can just skip straight to the "The Verdict” section at the bottom of each review.

As per usual, I’ll be posting both CAS and Build/Buy reviews, but instead of a gameplay review (because let’s face it, I never seem to be able to get around to that damn thing lol) this time around I’m going to be posting a short gameplay “story” instead, and will be voicing my opinions about certain things on the posts as it goes along. The gameplay won’t be all posted before the pack releases though, so...

Anon will be back on for the next few days so if you have any questions about Realm of Magic, feel free to send me an ask! ✨

See a preview of all the new CAS items here

I’m still a little uncertain how I feel about CAS as a whole. It has a lot of great stuff and it’s definitely worth having in my game, but it also has quite a few things I don’t like, things that (in my opinion) should have been included that weren’t, and the usual issues with some of the meshes/textures that continue to happen with every new pack. 

✨The Hair

For some reason I was expecting more than five hairs? I don’t know why, but based on the trailers this pack seemed like it was going to have a lot more content than any other Game Pack, and it does to a certain degree... just not hairs; there are only five of them. Because let’s be honest, there might be six hairs in the catalogue, but they’re are only five new hairs... and one identical hair with coloured streaks.

Probably a completely unpopular opinion but I’m not a fan of this new trend of getting extra hairs with ombre and streaked textures, I’d rather leave that up to CC makers and have the Sims team work on more new meshes.

Which brings me to the only real issue I have with the hairs in this pack. The streaked version of the long braided hair is really weirdly textured in my opinion. The streaks start right at the hairline and haven’t been feathered/blended out into the rest of the hair very well so it kind of looks like when I accidentally add one of my accessory overlays to a hair it doesn’t belong on LOL

✨The Clothing

The clothing in this pack falls into two categories; Netflix Sabrina and Hand-me-down Winter Harry Potter. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, and in this case the clothing is really well made and looks great, but I do find myself a little disappointed by the lack of what I call “Comfy Casual” clothing.

This could be entirely just a me thing but much like me in real life, my sims rarely leave their homes, and I dunno how you live your life but I don’t walk around my home in fancy button-down shirts and dress pants and shoes. I wear leggings, a hoodie and slippers; and that’s provided I even bother to get out of my PJs that morning! I keep waiting for more comfy casual clothing to be added so my sims don’t have to get all dressed up just to sit around and play video games or finish off that novel they were writing.

But with the exception of a few things in this pack, everything is either ripped, leather, mesh, buckles, collars, or corsets. Which works really well with the whole magical theme of the pack, but spellcasters deserve to be comfy too! That’s not to say the clothes we got aren’t amazing though, they definitely are and I will definitely get a lot of use out of them!   

But we all know I mostly talk about the issues I have in these reviews so let’s move on to them properly shall we?

Let’s go from left to right, starting with the drop-crotch pants. This one is quick and simple: can we all just agree that this is not a good look and move on please? It was bad enough in the 90s, we don’t need to be over here in 2019 looking like we’re wearing diapers, thanks.

Oh, key necklace... I was really looking forward to using you. Sadly, unless my sims have literally the smallest possible breasts hanging all the way down to their knees, you look like someone threw you in a fireplace to melt a while 😭

The yellow dress is another classic example of “Instagram vs Reality” meme that tends to happen with every pack. The dress looked really good in the trailers and promo images, but sadly looks butt in game.

The leather bodysuit is cool, huh? Yep, it’s definitely cool. The mesh looks good, the texture is really well done... oh what’s that? You want to wear leggings under it? Well you can’t, sorry. No leggings at all can be used with this bodysuit.

Up next we have the... ahem, Slave Bracelet. I promise you I tried to find a better name but this is the name it usually goes by and the only other one I could find, Harem Bracelet, wasn’t much better 😬 Not the point though! This bracelet/wrist cuff has some weird things happen when you pair it with an outfit that shouldn’t technically allow the bracelet to show up underneath it. As you can see in the example on the far left, with some long tees it doesn’t show the bracelet but still shows the specular for it, and in the image on the far right, with other long tops it kind of merges with mesh and flattens itself on top of them.

Next is one of my pet peeves with quite a few of the clothes in this pack; the addition of gloves, scarfs and other accessories to the outfit/top that should have either been made into their own separate meshes, or left out completely. That top in the image would have been really nice to wear during all seasons, but because of the gloves, it now only makes sense in the colder months.

Then we have the new makeup options, which I know isn’t clothing but shhh lol. It’s EA makeup... do I really need to say more? It probably wouldn’t look as bad if it weren’t so pixelated but whoever is in charge of creating makeup looks for this game needs to get in touch with @crypticsim ASAP ‘cause OOF!

And the last of the pics is something that has constantly bugged me about a lot of meshes in this game, all the way back to base game; why do they change the shape of my sims like that!? Like look at this comparison of my model sim with and without the outfit... WHY!? HOW!? WHY!?

Lastly... This is probably the biggest disappointment with this pack for me and I just don’t even know how to begin to describe how annoyed I am that ONCE AGAIN there is nothing for kids and toddlers. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a damn thing. That’s two packs in a row with no new content for any sims under teen age and I just don’t get it. Moschino actually make kids and baby clothing! And with this pack, Gurus specifically mentioned that there was a special trait for sims who were born into spellcaster families...

SO WHY NO KIDS/TODDLER STUFF!? 😡

✨The Verdict

I know this all probably came off as sounding really negative, but as I said at the start, when I don’t like something I have a lot to say about it. But I do genuinely love the clothing, it fits the theme of the pack really well and most of it looks great. I just wish a little bit more attention had been paid to certain things, that there was more comfy casual stuff, and that kids and toddlers weren’t once again neglected.

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. I am not paid by EA to “hype” their games; I am given the opportunity to review their games early in exchange for an honest review.

Click here for my Build/Buy Review

[blind3dbylight]

FNAF thoughts and timeline pontification

Been on a major FNAF kick lately and god damn it I want to solve this goddamn series. Spoilers abound. I’ll probably edit this post a lot if I think of something or get corrected on anything.

Bite of ‘83 victim/Crying child: I am of the mind that the BV and Michael Afton are one and the same, and that Michael is an android. Using the books as an example, the protagonist Charlie Emily (short for Charlotte) is discovered to be an android created by her father Henry. The real Charlotte Emily died as a very young child to William Afton, causing the relationship between Henry and Afton to fall apart--and Henry to build the Charlie androids before committing suicide. In the games’ canon, this could be the same--William had lost a child, and tells him “I will put you back together”. Literally.

We know this has to be William talking through Plushbear due to the Private Room in Sister Location having a Plushbear with a walkie-talkie by it, and by punching in 1-9-8-3 on the keypad, camera views of the house from FNAF4 appear on the desk monitors (also confirming FNAF4′s minigames took place in 1983).

Finally, there’s the issue of Nightmare Fredbear--if the CC is Michael, then it makes sense that he would draw NF in the Survival Logbook, which is all but confirmed to have been owned by him in-universe (why else would he draw casual bongos and the exotic butters in it, if it wasn’t him?), following a strong theory that Michael Afton is indeed the series’ overarching protagonist operating under pseudonyms (excepting Jeremy Fitzgerald, who WAS a totally different dude).

Elizabeth/Charlie/BV kill order: What makes the most sense to me is that either Elizabeth or Charlie were first to die. Elizabeth has to have died before CC because Plushbear tells the CC “NO! Don’t you remember what you saw?”, implying CC saw Elizabeth get captured by Circus Baby. This also makes sense for Nightmare Fredbear (as well as his black counterpart, the Nightmare) having a toothy abdomen--the CC knows about Baby’s snatching arm that extends from her abdomen. In this case, the CC isn’t a William victim--that was done by the CC’s unnamed brother (I’ll call him Foxybro because of his Foxy mask).

Charlie died sometime after that. We know she went on to inhabit the Puppet from both “Take cake to the children” in FNAF2 ,the Security Puppet minigame in FFPS, and the true ending of that latter game where Cassette Man/Henry outright addresses his daughter while images from those minigames are shown on screen. We know she is dead-set on protecting children because of what she learned while she was the Puppet and how she “gave life” to the original/withered robots by placing their souls into them.

Alternatively, Charlie was the second to die after Elizabeth, as William was beginning his research into Remnant and how it basically acts like soul glue--Charlie was just an unfortunate victim as he went about trying to get research subjects.

FNAF4 regular gameplay: I believe that the regular nights in FNAF4 are taking place in 1993 while Michael is operating under the name “Mike Schmidt”. He’s having recurring nightmares about the mascots, and again I refer to Nightmare Fredbear’s toothy abdomen. He remembers what happened to his sister.

During the night, a low pitched voice can be heard: this is a pitched-down and reversed form of the night 1 phone call from the first game. It’s important to note that Scott didn’t put these Easter eggs into that game for no reason. Why would a young child know about that phone call? Why would he know Bonnie and Chica’s habits of coming in through the left and right respectively if he’d never been in a Freddy’s security office? And then there’s the changing objects to the side of the bed--implying a hospital visit. Michael knows the robots are trying to get to him while he takes the night shift at the FNAF1 location, and the regular gameplay in FNAF4 is the nightmares he’s having when not there. And again, the Survival Logbook is strongly implied to have been owned by Michael Afton, and he drew Nightmare Fredbear in it. He wouldn’t have known what NF looked like if he wasn’t the CC.

Michael being an android: Baby alludes to this in Sister Location, telling him “You won’t die” shortly before he is scooped--and the scooper makes a more metallic impact sound when he is. (This could simply be because Scott generally doesn’t do outright gore in FNAF, Springtrap notwithstanding, but still...)

Of course, the scooper also injects Remnant, as stated in the blueprint of it seen during the Insanity ending of FFPS. Also how he was able to survive Ennard controlling his body, and when he rises after Ennard bails out, he has pinprick eyes just like the robots do. And while he’s on the ground, he is recalling Baby telling him he wouldn’t die just before he rises back up.

Eh...it all points to Michael Afton being an android like Charlie is in the books. There’s no way a normal human could have survived all that.

Michael and William looking similar: Why are the possessed robots so dead set on getting to Michael? They think he looks like his father. Michael himself confirms this in his monologue after completing the Golden Freddy preset on V. Hard: “They didn’t...recognize me at first, but then...they thought I was you.”

Phone Guy also alludes to the robots not being able to recognize adults in the night 4 call of the second game: “Someone may have tampered with their facial recognition systems...we’re not sure. But the characters have been acting very unusual, almost aggressive towards the staff. Uh, they interact with the kids just fine, but whenever they encounter an adult, they just...stare.”

The robots believe Michael is William because they can’t tell the difference between them and no longer trust any adult, and that is a big part of why they are so determined to end him. (In the Toys’ case, they aren’t possessed--they’re just malfunctioning or possibly being manipulated by the Puppet.)

William Afton’s deeds: The robots (missing children) are aware that William used a Spring Bonnie suit (one of the springlock suits) to lure kids into the safe room and kill them out of sight. This is confirmed by FFPS on the third and final round of Fruity Maze, where a man in a Spring Bonnie suit tells the little girl playing the game “He’s not dead...He is over here. Follow me.”

It’s also alluded to in FNAF2 during the night 6 phone call: “Someone used one of the suits. We had a spare in the back--a yellow one--someone used it...now none of ‘em are acting right.”  Although this is meant to be the player’s cue that Golden Freddy is active, we know about the Spring Bonnie suit from FNAF3.

The Missing Children Incident: This has to be the reason the safe rooms were sealed off. Fazbear Entertainment knew the kids had been taken in there, but would rather have saved PR face than own up to anything. So they just sealed off the rooms hoping it wouldn’t happen again. They’re not known for their integrity...

This is alluded to during the Night 5 phone call from FNAF3: “The safe room is reserved for equipment and/or other property not being currently used and is in fact a safety location for employees only. This is not a break room, and should not be considered a place for employees to hide and/or congregate - and under no circumstance should a customer ever be taken into this room and out of the main show area.”

And in the same phone call, it’s confirmed that the Spring Bonnie suit was used: “Management has also been made aware that the spring Bonnie animatronic has been noticeably moved.” The springlock suits had been decommissioned by that point.

In the Nightmare/Night 6 phone call, you are informed that the safe rooms were sealed off due to “budget restrictions”. Yeah, by now we should know that Fazbear Entertainment is not particularly honest, as evidenced by: “Management also requests that this room not be mentioned to family, friends or insurance representatives.“ Again, they knew damn well what happened in the safe room, and chose this rather than properly address the issue. While Phone Guy himself may not have been fully aware of all this, upper management sure as hell was.

This is all very likely why the Toys no longer trusted adults--especially not the Puppet/Charlie, who knows damn well what’s really going on. Phone Guy knows the Puppet is watching: “To be honest, I never liked that puppet thing. It was always...thinking, and it can go anywhere...”

Michael trying to set the children free: It’s heavily implied we are once again playing as Michael in FFPS. If you die to Scrap Baby, she might say “You’re not who I expected to see...”  and when Scraptrap is in the vents, he may remark “You may not recognize me at first, but I assure you...it’s still me.”  Upon killing the player, he can also remark “Bittersweet...but fitting.”

Henry (Cassette Man) also makes remarks about this during the true ending: “Although there was a way out planned for you, I have a feeling that’s not what you want. I have a feeling you are right where you want to be.”  Michael is sticking around, not only so he and the children can finally be released from a decades-long un-life, but to make sure daddy William goes down with them. When Henry and Michael die, they die ready for it.

And if it’s to be believed that Michael is the overarching protagonist, he is following behind his father, attempting to undo his crimes and set the children free--the pink slip received after completing FNAF1 and 2′s custom nights mention “Tampering with the animatronics” as a reason he gets fired.

Finally, if he’s the guard in FNAF3, the implication could be that Michael is the one who tried to burn down Fazbear’s Fright, in an attempt to end his father for good. (It didn’t work.) He did not do this right off the bat because he was busy trying to set the kids free (the minigames) It wasn’t until FFPS where the kids, Michael, and Henry finally were able to rest in peace--except William (Scraptrap), who is outright told he’s going to Hell and not to keep the devil waiting.

Takeaways: Michael Afton is the CC and is remade as an android. Elizabeth died first. We still have Mrs. Afton and Foxybro unaccounted for. William Afton killed the kids to get subjects for Remnant research. Michael is the overarching series protagonist up until FFPS. I still can’t figure out Midnight Motorist. Jeffery Epstein did not kill himself. All your base are belong to us.