#the palette is sooooo boring To be honest but it is what it is

[superbellsubways]

lazy grand fest fit ref for myself.. i feel i could do alot more with the outfit but this is all i have for now (i wanted to post it before fest started)

the top was originally just gonna be a zipup but i changed my mind

[icyrambles]

the cassettes are a group of characters where if i think about them for too long i start to get physically ill.

because i really like the cassettes. they're really fun and i adore the concept of a guy who happens to have a gaggle of goons to do his dirty work. the combination of making them actual cassettes who live inside of soundwave (and/or blaster but this is gonna be a soundwave cassette focused post) is really interesting.

unfortunately most bits of canon (and fanon to be entirely honest) do not treat the cassettes as actual beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and personalities outside of "soundwave's little guys."

for the sake of clarity i will only be talking about the continuity that i have the most experience with, that being idw1 and my post will mostly be talking about those versions of the characters. i've been told that the cassettes feature more prominently in the g1 marvel comics but i haven't quite gotten around to reading those in depth so i won't be discussing those.

back on topic.

i always feel so disappointed at the actual cassettes as characters. they're often sidelined into being background characters and the majority of the time when they show up in fics they're never majour characters, just background guys to pad out the cast. i'm honestly not gonna judge fan writers and fan artists too harshly because most canon sources don't really feature the cassettes as actual characters worthy of having attention paid to them.

idw1 is specifically the continuity where i feel a bit sick whenever i think about the cassettes because they go through sooooo much shit and it's never brought up. like okay, laserbeak, buzzsaw, and ravage are mostly chill. obviously they probably have the whole beastformers are lesser beings thing going on but they're overall the most well rounded of the cassettes. (ravage especially since he's actually allowed to be a character outside of soundwave)

rumble and frenzy are were my stomach starts to like... explode. because they didn't get a choice in being soundwave's cassettes and it's never brought up, ever. megatron basically tells them that they're gonna be reformatted and neither party ever brings it up. like do rumble and frenzy just tolerate soundwave because it could be so much worse? do they genuinely respect soundwave and fight beside him because they want to see him succeed in a similar manner as the beastformers? like... phase 2 shows them reformatted again into motorcycles and they seem okay with it, like neither of them seem to be hung up on no longer being cassettes.

but also i have issues and problems with rumble and frenzy always being shown as a package duo. like i think they're a fun combo, especially as siblings because i adore platonic relationships but most pieces of canon treat them as interchangeable. like it's an ongoing joke in the fandom that they swap paint colours to fuck with people and in actual canon sources they don't have consistent colours so it's harder to actually treat them as genuine individuals. and that makes me soooooo mad. i don't like it when twins/duos in media get treated as a weird conglomerate individual with two names. it's boring and it's lazy and i wish it would stop happening.

side tangent. i hate what how skybound treats the cassettes. like okay yeah sure it's fun to see soundwave go "you hurt my ravage" but what about his other cassettes. either rumble or frenzy is dead and soundwave just doesn't fucking care? does he play favourites, boy i sure would like to know but daniel warren literally fucking said that he killed off one of the twins because he found the colour debate to be annoying and that grinds my gears a bit. if you don't like them, don't fucking include them or idk, have mike spicer, the colourist, keep their palettes consistent.

and skybound also treats ravage like an object. he's not an actual character with thoughts and feelings and emotions, he's a fucking toy for soundwave to moon over whenever warren needs soundwave to be less of an asshole than shockwave. like yeah sure, soundwave being so desperate to get ravage repaired in skybound is good for his character but that dynamic, where ravage has no actual dialogue and no actual personality outside of "soundwave's cassettte" makes him so much less interesting to me. skybound is getting a small benefit of the doubt because there's only 11 issues so far, but i will critique it to all hell because any emotional tension involving ravage and soundwave falls apart for me because ravage could easily be replaced with literally any other cassette. he's not special and the comic doesn't do anything to make me genuinely care about soundwave and his relationship.

tangent over. i'm going back to talking about idw1.

specifically it's time to talk about the fucking elephant in the room that i'm always thinking about whenever soundwave's cassettes come up; ratbat.

now to preface this little rant of mine. ratbat sucks. he's a terrible person who actively believed and contributed to the oppression of millions of cybertronians. he used soundwave as nothing more than a tool and proved himself to be a slimy scumbag with the few moments that he was on screen.

however, that does not stop me from feeling just a tad bit bad for him considering how soundwave treats him. it's one thing for the decepticons to murder the whole senate, those characters don't really matter in the long run, they're nameless, they never get brought up ever again and the story just doesn't care about them once they're dead.

but ratbat is different because rather than killing him, soundwave shoves his dying spark into a cassette body and for all intensive purposes, turns ratbat into his slave. because ratbat doesn't get a choice, he doesn't get the ability to say no. he just has to be toted along and do whatever soundwave tells him to do and that alone makes my opinions on idw soundwave.... well they're not great. because later stories treat idw soundwave like he's a good guy, he's the dude who wants to make the decepticons what they were originally, he wants to be done with cybertron's bullshit.

and i have to sit there, fist clenched, wanting to grab him by the fucking shoulders and ask "WHAT ABOUT RATBAT? WHAT ABOUT THE GUY WHO YOU LITERALLY MADE INTO A SLAVE FOR AT FOUR MILLION YEARS AND WHOSE DEATH YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANY REACTION TO WHATSOEVER? DOES LIBERATION AND EQUALITY ONLY MATTER WHEN IT COMES TO GUYS WHO DIDN'T PERSONALLY FUCK YOU OVER?"

ehem, anyways, yeah i do not like the fact that idw just brushes over the fact that ratbat is not willingly soundwave's cassette. they do not ever focus on the fact that soundwave stuffed his former employer's spark into a completely different frame and then proceeded to do exactly what ratbat did to him for around four million years. and then didn't react whatsoever to ratbat dying.

like in early idw1, ratbat doesn't have any dialogue. he's a nothing burger character like all the other cassettes. but idw phase 2 specifically makes him a political rival. he's the guy in charge of the cons (along side shockwave to some extent) and then prowl fucking orders arcee to kill ratbat and no one ever talks about him ever again...

i have complicated emotions regarding ratbat because the story really wants you to see his treatment and go, yes, he deserves this treatment, he's evil and he was mean to soundwave and therefore he deserves to be imprisoned by another and used as a weapon for four million years and once he's dead we'll never talk about him ever again.

and i don't think that's fair. ratbat should've been a crucial character to soundwave after he died. soundwave should've had a moment in phase two where he realises that the decepticons have been terrible from the beginning, that he was actively a part of that terribleness, and he should've made the active decision to change the decepticons into something that stands for equality and freedom and peace.

i'm gonna move onto ravage because i feel so bad for ravage. he got shafted hard. oh the one hand, i love mtmte ravage, i adore seeing the cassettes in environments that don't involve soundwave because it means the writers have to actually care about them as more than just little guys that soundwave bosses around.

unfortunately, ravage goes from being soundwave's little guy to being megatron's little guy in mtmte. which like... okay, fine, megatron needs a guy who he can bounce off of and ravage fits that role pretty well (though i'd argue that having megatron potentially bounce off of an autobot whose morals are a bit lax is much better than simply having a decepticon who already likes him.)

but the point is, ravage, rather than being his own character who has thoughts and opinions, only exists to be a buffer for megatron. the devil on his shoulder if you will, trying to see and understand and coax megatron back into being the fearsome leader he was before. and it works to some extent, ravage getting fatally injured is literally what prompts megatron into ripping the djd to shreds. but unfortunately, that's ravage's only real purpose in the story. we don't see him interacting with any other characters means that he's entirely dependent on megatron for any insight to his character development. nautica is an exception but i have my own issues with the fact that she treats him like a pet upon first meeting him and like... to my knowledge she never really gets over that whole cute kitty aspect of their relationship.

and this makes me so mad because ravage is really interesting. he's older than most of the characters on the lost light and should reasonably be a fascinating insight to how beastformers are treated and discriminated against during the pre and post war eras. but instead he's relegated to a side character who gets murdered to further the arc of megatron, a character who sort of forgets about ravage as soon as lost light starts. this isn't helped by megatron's character arc being rushed and happening mostly off screen but ravage's death feels so unnecessary to me. he would've been much better had he been forced to be separated from megatron for most of lost light.

and unfortunately this is much the same for most other continuities. transformers prime my forever detested treats laserbeak like a fucking drone. it doesn't have any voicelines, it's just a little creature hooked up to soundwave's chest. (i haven't read the books because i cannot be bothered with aligned continuity and also if i have to go to external sources of canon beyond the original show to get key character information, it probably wasn't too important to begin with)

earthspark is fun in season 1, i'm happy that frenzy and laserbeak are allowed a few moments of time outside of soundwave but they're very minor characters and unfortunately ravage isn't much of a character considering he can't speak (which is weird because laserbeak can) and only gets a few scenes throughout seasons 1 and two.

cyberverse only has laserbeak and once again she/he (i don't think they state their pronouns) only exists to be soundwave's little guy.

tfa soundwave is so nothing burger that i genuinely forget that he exists 90% of the time. so his cassettes, as to be expected, not characters and just random objects to be played around with.

my point in all this is that the cassettes deserve better. they deserve to be actual genuine characters who are treated as more than just set pieces for soundwave and the other decepticons. i hope that in later transformers series, the writers give the cassettes the opportunity to shine.

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 16

haha remember in July when I said I was gonna answer stuff every month... yeah me neither 🙈🙈 anyways lots of stuff under the cut

Anonymous said: You should get along with other Simblrs and start a new cc group now that PTS is disbanded, your hairs and clothes are always amazing! :D

Firstly thank you! Most of the clothing in AxA is 99% ayoshi with me going in after and cleaning/adding some stuff. So I give him props for the clothes :P As far as a ‘new PTS’ style group idk, there are a lot of amazing creators on simblr but I think the reason PTS was such a special thing is because the bond they all had. I feel that when working on collabs with some of my really close friends (such as the one coming out this month with @dogsill​ and @ayoshi​) because we have known each other for over 2 years now. A group of friends built only for collabing purposes would be more of a hassle than an enjoyment imo. <3

Anonymous said: HELLLOOOO! just curious bc why not but what is your favorite creation that you have made??

It varies every month to be honest lmao. If you asked me to pick a favorite hair from each month? Easy, always the last release of the month. But favorite hair ever? Awwww shucks 🤠 lmao I would say my Madison Hair is one of my favorite hair releases, I am planning to revamp it soon to work with my Mia ombre accessories and tidy the mesh up some. 

Anonymous said: hello, when will this collection be free for public download please? /post/186706149526/patreon-08-19

That came out in August luv, go to my downloads page and click AxA 2019

Anonymous said: Hi! Idk if you do wcif!!!! But if you do, wcif the freckles on the girl with the short hair on the BOP AHOOB collab?? If you know! Thank you much in advance!!!!!

Hey! You’ll need to send Bowl-Of-Plumbobs a message for that WCIF, that was his Sim otherwise I would link you. Sorry hun

@lumalinrose-sims​ said: Not a question, but you are like so cool I can't even--

thank you lmao I appreciate it, your profile pic it pretty cool :P

@ang3lba3 said: sarah is so pretty!!! is there a way to download how she looks in its entirety, or no? (sorry if this is a silly question im pretty new to the sims) 

not silly don’t worry :P the Sarah hair is for download on the post, the sim can be downloaded here but she is a bit outdated as I have changed her somewhat since then. 

Anonymous said: Hihi just stopping by to tell you how much I love your hairs!!

thank you so much! I appreciate the love<3

Anonymous said: hi! i just wanted to say that i love your cc so much i and always look forward to your posts! you make the cutest cc ever and honestly you're probably my favorite cc maker. you also seem like such a chill and genuine person we truly stan.

fgvhbjn thank you lmao I am literally TOO CHILL irl lmao I let people run over me so much but it’s whatever. Thank you again for the super sweet message. Have a great day if you’re reading this :)

Anonymous said: Heeeey we have the same name

Austin club :P great name til you’re trying to sign something and it looks awful (at least for me I can’t do my signature for shit)

Anonymous said: the collab with bop is so boring and dull it’s drier than a cracker it’s a no from me

well not everything is going to be someones cup of tea lmao I’m sure there is someone that enjoys it which counters you’re negative view <3

Anonymous said: Hi I love your cc! I have almost all of it in my game and I love your tropical punch palette so much I was wondering if you would ever consider releasing the palette.

If I ever make an ombre accessory tutorial video I will release a set of actions for the palette. If you wanna use the palette feel free to grab the hex codes from S4S.

Anonymous said: How did you become a ea game changer? Was it through Tumblr or youtube?

About a year ago SimGuruKate was the community manager and had applications for Tumblr Game Changers, I applied and got accepted. Follow SimGuruFrost on Twitter to stay up to date on when new applications are open.

Anonymous said: Are you going to upload the hair you made on your livestream? I literally love your work and am a Patreon subscriber!!!

Hey! The hair will be in my October voting (I think) and if it wins, release will be November. If it doesn’t win I will put it in November voting and so forth til it wins. Also thank you for watching the stream and supporting me on Patreon 

Anonymous said: hello!! i just wanted to see if knew is there’s anyway i can save my cc and save files somehow where i can download them again if my computer breaks so i don’t have to download it all again.?

zip your Sims 4 folder and upload it to Google Drive/SimsFileShare/OneDrive. Then when you install Sims 4 again you just replace the folder made in Electronic Arts in your Documents.

Anonymous said: what face do you make when your in love with a bee?

this is an old anon so I doubt they’re gonna check for this, and I can’t find the joke on Google so.... anybody know it?

Anonymous said: i love these collab sets they are honestly gifts from above

mhmm gifts from above for every collab except those in October... those are from below  👹 😳

Anonymous said: the pack is sooooo cute i love everything omg!!!! The male stuff is so adorable i can’t wait to download   

Anonymous said: you guys are the only ones i go to for packs i would love to see build buy items in the future we don’t get a lot mm stuff like that

Anonymous said:i just want to say thank you for putting in so much time and hard work and dedication to creating cc for us. i hope there's never a moment when you feel unappreciated, and i want you to know we all love you!

@primadonnaliferiseandfall​ said: all hail you and ayoshi for the cc pack its so pretty omg!!!!

Anonymous said: omg the kings have delivered!!

Anonymous said: since we got axa 2019 and 2018 will there be an axa 2020? 👀

Anonymous said: Great job on the pack! Everyone's items look gorgeous! Thank you for making this, you talented human being.

Anonymous said: ilysm! that’s all 💓💫

Anonymous said: just wanted to let you know that your content is absolutely amazing and i love it all :) sending love from the uk👍

Anonymous said: would you and ayoshi consider sharing the psds for some of the stuff in your collab? please?

thank you guys so much! Me and Ayoshi were super super happy with the AxA 2019 release and we are so happy with how many people have liked it. AxA 2020 will be a thing, yes. Also I have been working on PSDs that are super easy to navigate. I will get those up soon hopefully.

@graphicpickles​ said: Hey um, I dont know if you were aware of this but your discord link is broken ^^"

hey! this is super late sorry, discord link should be working now. If not: https://discord.gg/CtQR9tb

Anonymous said: Why would you include a cc hair in a preview for a cas review

because I liked the hair and wanted to use it 😗

@goddesssimmerina​ said: I just stopped by to tell you how much I LOVE your content. *_* I just went through and downloaded soooo much! xD I actually just switched to using MM hair and i'm so glad I did because I'm finding so many of you amazing creators and I thank you all sm! :*

awe thank you!! I appreciate it. Welcome to MM hair world :P

@moonbrightsims said: whats ur origin id?

AHarris00Britney

Anonymous said: how are your photos/screenshots so high quality? seriously, do you use a mod for it or idk editing? or maybe your settings?

Ultra Settings, and I use SRWE for HQ pics. 

Anonymous said: if you don’t answer this ask you’re straight

It has been answered. I am no longer straight. Was a hard two months not answering this 😔😔😔

Anonymous said: Hi, would you mind teaching us how you make the LoDs of your hairs? I opened one of them in S4S and found out your LoDs are great looking. I use decimate tool in blender and they look really bad.

I edge split everything before I decimate in Blender, I also delete the hairline and extrude the mesh inside the head before decimating as well. Really confusing to explain in words sorry. Might make a tutorial.

Anonymous said: omg ur cc finds blog has apink namjoo as icon and header. i'm.. sCREAMING. austin knows royalty

yes ma’am now where is the comeback

- it was at this point I realized I have caught up with my last asks post and have answered 4 things over again from Asks 15. Well... I guess that’s it folks

see yall in asks 17 in 2 months.... maybe the end of October idk