#the sims team needs to be more active on tumblr

[browntrait]

I want nothing to do w/ Project Renee

[stevetonydatingsim]

Steve/Tony dating sim announcement & writer casting call!

The best part about a multiverse is all the different Steves and Tonys we get—and imagining them meeting. And kissing. And flirting. And maybe doing something a little spicier.

But why stick with imagining that when we can make it a reality? When we can make a Steve/Tony multiverse dating game? 

That’s right, we’re making a game and it'll be free to play! What exactly does that entail? The Steve/Tony dating sim (name TBD. We’re all ears for any ideas you have) will be a visual novel-style game that’s mostly dialogue with some simple minigames thrown in. You get to play as a Steve or Tony from one of the many universes that exist who’s thrown into a rift in reality with a bunch of other Steves and Tonys. You’ll get to decide whom to work with to invent, fight, flirt, and date your way back home. 

We’ll be sharing updates on the game development and launch on this Tumblr so make sure to follow us!

Who we are

The Steve/Tony dating sim team is made up of passionate Steve/Tony fans who have come together to write and illustrate the dating game of our dreams, coded by the wonderfully talented VTsuion/@v-thinks-on. You can read more about us here.

How this works

In order to make the game, we need writers for the player and love interest characters, artists for the visuals, and more. At this point, we’re looking specifically for love interest writers, but make sure to follow us as we’ll be looking for volunteers for other roles in the coming months!

Love interest writers can either work on their own or with a partner(s) to plot out and write a simple narrative arc and series of dates for a potential love interest character (a character that the player can choose to interact with and date). They construct the foundational beats for the story and dialogue for the love interest character, and they provide choices for player responses (you can indicate that the player can respond angrily, morosely, or happily to a certain line, but you’re not writing the player dialogue yourself). Later, player writers will insert responses to the existing love interest’s dialogue you wrote. It’s kind of like roleplay! 

For example, your script may look something like this:

Tony616 “So, you’re a Steve, huh” If <angry response>: Tony616 “Sorry I asked” If <happy response>: Tony616 “You’re a cheerful one, eh?” [the player gets closer to Tony616]

To get a more detailed understanding of how this works, see this guide here. We’re also happy to answer any questions, and we have a Discord server where we brainstorm and talk as a group.

Existing love interest storylines (more to come later!)

The following characters have arcs that are outlined already, and their writers are looking for a partner to collaborate with. Here are short pitches to give you a sense of each character’s emotional journey through the game.

616 Tony 

Iron Man V.1 128 Tony is newly sober for the first time and still hiding that he’s Iron Man. The player can either help Tony open up or drive him to drinking again. 

1872 Tony

Pre-canon Tony has lost faith in humanity and himself. Will the player convince him to get back on his feet? Or will he think everyone's better off with him at the bottom of a bottle?

616 Steve 

Avengers V4 Steve has just returned from the dead after his fight with his Tony about the Superhero Registration Act. He wants to trust Player, but can he?

MCU Steve

Post-2012 Avengers Steve is lost and doesn't know his place in the new century. Through his interactions with the player, he finds his home and purpose.

Don’t see a character you want to write for on this list? 

You can volunteer to write any Steve or Tony you want! In fact, we actively want more Steves and Tonys. This is a multiverse dating sim, after all, so the more the merrier. Just contact us with the canon character you’re interested in writing for and whether you’d like to work solo or with a partner(s).

How to apply

Please email stevetonydatingsim@gmail.com with the following information:

Confirmation that you’re over 18 (just let us know you’re 18+; we’re not asking you to share personal info)

The best way(s) to contact you

What character you’d like to write for (universe and name). If you have multiple, please order by preference

Do you want to write alone or with a partner(s)?

A writing sample focusing on Steve and Tony (link or attachment) - minimum 1,000 words, ideally with a good amount of dialogue. This doesn’t have to be a complete piece with a beginning, middle, and end; it's more to get a sense of your style and understanding of characterization, so all we ask is that it’s easy to follow. This can be something you’ve already written or you can write something new for this application

Availability from now to the end of 2024. We’re pretty flexible and you can work on your script over several months, but it helps us to know how busy/free you are and when

Contact us

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. You can reach us by email, Tumblr Messenger, askbox, or Twitter DM. Thank you!

[ace-race-ace]

Autistic traits reflected by Max Verstappen - Part 1/?

Next part

DISCLAIMER: this is in no way ‘diagnosing’ Max as autistic. You should not in any way use this post as a reason to start claiming so on Tumblr or any other platform as it can be damaging in many aspects. These are just observations made by me, an autistic person mostly as a sense of comfort in some similar actions/behaviors. It’s fine to discuss and find more instances, but it’s not with an end goal to ‘prove’ anything

I also don’t have sources for everything, but will try to link as many as I can (if others have them, feel free to share them)

Hyper fixation(s)

For autistic people, a hyper fixation is an extreme interest in a certain thing - it can be media, a sport, a hobby, a collection, a certain skill, the list goes on. The particularly is that it tends to take over a lot of their lives/thinking. It’s not just a simple ‘obsession’, it’s something that becomes a primary part of the way you function day to day. Autistic people often ‘impress’ people with an encyclopedic knowledge of a specific topic because once something becomes a hyper fixation, we tend to absorb a lot of information quickly - and it sticks around. It’s also things we are obviously extremely passionate about and will take any free opportunity to indulge.

So what are examples for Max?

Racing, Geography, and Paddle (kinda)

Racing - The most obvious. It’s his full time job and he does plenty of sim racing on the side. What makes it more than just a job? The fact it’s always his number one choice of what to do in his free time. He streams with Team RedLine all the time, often hours before or after his F1 duties. Even partaking in the 24h Nurburgring online race just before the Imola GP. His knowledge of the practical aspects of racing is endless, he can talk about different corners, weather conditions, car models easily without a hitch.

While other driver take their time off to do various other activities and visit new places, Max more often than not goes back to racing and is happy to do so. It’s not just an obsession, because obsessions tend to become damaging and keep people away for living their lives. No, for Max, racing is his life and he wouldn’t be as happy to do anything else.

Geography - this one seems to be one he’s held from childhood. Again, many people enjoy learning about the world and different flags but there’s a difference between being casually interested and the hyper fixation level. Usually, people can learn to recognize flags and may have it as a bit of a random party trick. Max on the other hand says he had posters of the world map in his childhood bedroom and would spend hours learning all of them. Watching his grill the grid video where he needs to point out every track is extremely impressive, he gets them all right without hesitation. Some of the other drivers were good too, but made some mistakes, but those mistakes didn’t really matter much to them at the end of the day. Max on the other hand was extremely careful about making sure he had everything right - a huge autistic trait. Any geography related question, Max has an answer. There was even a video where he had to read a geography question for Checo off of a card and got jokingly mad the question wasn’t given to him (link-50 secs in)

Everyone knows him as the geography nerd, but at the same time, it’s not like he ‘studied’ it. Autistic people are often able to retain an incredible amount of information in one subject without really putting in a lot of effort, it just sticks around. And that information is often then part of info dumping where an autistic person just rattles on about the subject when given the opportunity. Max is seen doing this in multiple other interviews.

Paddle - I would classify this as a sort of small hyper fixation because obviously he doesn’t spend as much time doing it but the intensity is still there. Everyone knows about Max’s infamous 11 rackets he bought in hopes to become better (failing miserably). Just that makes his interest not very typical. Most people trying a new sport might get some fancy equipment and end up not really using it but 11 rackets??? There is literally no logic as to why Max would need that many unless he went pro 🤣 this lines up with the autistic tendency to get attached to something really quickly and start indulging in it with no rhyme or reason.

It’s also an activity he can share with other people. Autistic people are often mistaken to always want to be left alone but the truth is we often actually really crave human connection because of how lacking it can be in our lives. So if all of a sudden it seems everyone is getting into this one thing, in this case paddle, we can often get in over our heads and get very intense about it very quickly in hope to share a connection.

———————————————————————————

Unchanging Habits

For many autistic people, a sense of control is very important. We like everything to work according to plan. Plus there is a big sense of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ in many of our habits. This can be in the form of favorite foods/drinks, clothing, planning our time etc. Again, neurotypical people obviously have favorites, but it’s often not a this or nothing situation like it is for autistic people. They might look for an alternative, but many autistic people would rather have/do nothing if it isn’t their regular habit.

Examples for Max - Food, Gin and Tonic, Red Bull kit

Food (carpaccio and tomato soup) - Max always has the same answer when asked about his favorite food, carpaccio and tomato soup. Most people will have favorite foods but their answer may vary over time as they try more things. This tik tok shows how unchanging his answer is. Autistic people often have what is called “safe foods” that they will enjoy eating at anytime and it seems this is the case for Max too.

He also mentions it again in a recent interview

Gin and Tonic - a lot of people know that this is Max’s favorite drink. Now if you think, have you ever heard him talk about any other drink? Many of the other drivers even point out how attached he is to the drink. Same as the food, most people shift around what they may enjoy but autistic people will usually stick to what they know they enjoy.

I don’t know the favorite drink of any other driver but we know about Max love for Gin and Tonic because he constantly brings it up. It’s also a very simple drink that most if not all places will offer so it’s also a ‘safe’ favorite to have. It takes away the possibility of having to choose something else. Additionally, it’s also a very ‘bland’ drink that doesn’t taste like much apart from gin. Autistic people tend to prefer simple taste in order to avoid sensory overload.

Red Bull kit - this is another thing people love to point out about Max, the fact he’s nearly always in his Red Bull kit. Obviously he’s not one of the ‘fashionistas’ of the grid but he takes it to an extreme. He always comes into the paddock in the Red Bull kit. Other drivers often vary between team kit, sponsor clothes or regular outfits, but Max never does! He’s also seen wearing the Red Bull stuff outside of the paddock/race weekends, people often laughing at the fact he’s always wearing the kit even at other events. Even in his free time during paddle matches and twitch streams, he’s often wearing some kind of Red Bull branded clothes. Again, many other drivers often wear their team gear (it’s part of their job) but outside of the race weekend, they all wear their regular clothes. Yet for Max, it’s an in-joke within his fans to be shocked whenever he isn’t wearing Red Bull merch.

Clothing choice is quite important for autistic people. Different textures/colors/cuts can be uncomfortable so sticking with something we are familiar with is extremely common. In Max’s case I actually suspect it’s more about the avoidance of choice. Making small decisions like what to wear can be very stressful as an autistic person so just sticking to one outfit/type of clothes is simply just the obvious choice.

It could also be a sort of comfort item in wearing something that is so integral to who you are. For example, since F1 has become my hyper fixation, I always have some kind of F1 related thing on me. It gives me comfort and shows to others a part of me that is extremely important. For Max, Red Bull has been his entire career in F1, his life wouldn’t be the same without them, so constantly repping them could also be a pert of that

———————————————————————————

I have alot more observations that I will continue to release to my blog

Lots of love to everyone 🫶

[otomiyaa]

Re: Catching Up

Finally reading the reblogs and mentions of my tag game (my main reason for starting that was to read about what y'all are up to while I neglected tha dashboard lolol) and dumping some replies here to some peeps I follow^^

General note to all: so happy to see the multiple excited reactions to Inside Out 2 hehehe, I loved it so much T0T

@crazy-as-a-jaybird THE SIMS 4 LOVESTRUCK!!!!! I didn't know that was coming! I haven't played the sims in a long time, but gee that's exciting news, thnx! ..... I wonder if there will be some nice loveydovey tickle animations in there....

@italeean "You guys probably already know what I'll say" (about Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie), actually I don't know 👀 it's been a while since I saw that movie when it was released in the cinema here, but you made me curious to your reaction. What did you think? :3

@giggly-squiggily omg Blue Lock & Haikyuu hypehype and did you also love to see these lazy gamer guys Kenma and Nagi dominate the big screens as heroes to their respective movies, so shortly after each other, what a time to be alive 🤩

@fantasizes-tickles-daily My Adventures with Superman ng;dngifdgjdhljfni;oji I still need to start the new season but omfg I'm so glad finally someone else is into this hehehe, I love that! I'm also not a big DC fan, I didn't even see most movies, but I LOVE THIS ONE. Clark is the cutest isn't he?

@eliankrios YOU PLAY THE SIMS 4????? 👀 also thank you for those banger song recs. I only knew 'save my life' from xandria but not valentine or others :3

@wertzunge Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, I saw that one on the plane a while ago, I enjoyed that too!!! I wonder if they will do more :3 I never played the game though....

@tiklart SHARK MOVIE SUFFERERS WE ARE HAHA, also good luck on your exams!🫶 sending good luck vibes~

@gladdygirl18 ❤️❤️❤️ sending good love life prayers, hope all will go well! and yay for fellow minecraft enjoyer :D

@sunstone-smiles I LOVE ESPRESSO odjs;dgjhih ih but I didn't like it at first either :') it had to grow on me too.

@kusuguricafe seeing you talk about your genshin abyss teams makes me go 💀💀💀 it's been so long since I played genshin, especially abyss. Are you managing the 3 stars each chamber f12 cuz I've only succeeded like once at it or smth. oh and I hope you'll have fun writing again soon! Don't push yourself too much for tickletober, as long as it stays fun*w*

@blobbirobbi wow I knew all 3 of those artists but not those songs, thnx for the recs :D especially the Måneskin hohoho

@sleepysheepytea feels indeed like ages since I saw your activity on my dash, wishing you the best of luck with work and stuff^^

@hypahticklish that was literally my reaction too to the movie The Fall Guy, I loved that so much and you described it so well 😍 I thought it would be a "Haha funny" movie but it really moved me and I also didn't expect the first part to be so emotional. p.s. thnx for the blank copy paste, sorry for forgetting 🥲🥲

@a-fluffer-nutter wow good luck on the move to the UK and congrats on 8 years tumblr, I still remember you being one of the first tk blogs i encountered 😌

@lovelymessybubbly wooow it feels like AGES, sorry to hear about the low mental energy but hope you're doing well ^^!

[chussyracing]

wishlist for summer break except it gets more specific and unhinged as you read:

leo and roscoe joint content

lewis hanging out with his bestie fencer

ferrari posting a mixtape of bryan activating charles' praise kink agressively for all of us who have second hand praise kink

fernando alonso posts a video of himself twerking on tiktok (shirless for the people who need to see the samurai tattoo shaking as it happens)

pierre obtaining a dog tail butt plug, taking a pic of it and posting it on main with one singular dog emoji attached thinking he is incredibly funny only to get cancelled on twitter by the moms thinking he is ruining the youth

alex gets a new pet, this time it's a parrot named chilly and the reason he chose him is because he can teach him a few phrases that will annoy carlos to no end, so he can bring him to some races next year when carlos gets too cocky

logan joining youtube to give his fans vlogs from his daily life and routine that start off normally by going to target and stopping by starbucks (while calling it errands) but by the end of the summer break he is already making 2017 logan paul esque kissing contest videos and throwing patriotic parties

valtteri sadly runs out of seat options for 2025, so he starts his own initiative called cycling grand prix championship where he travels with f1 and makes a cycling race on the circuit on thursday of each race weekend (carlos is welcome to join anytime williams won't have the second car for him)

oscar gets lost and nobody thinks anything of it, knowing he prefers to only spend time with his close ones away from the public eye and he never posts during the break, only for everyone to freak out when mclaren posts official announcement he has gone missing, they call up theo pourchaire because he is always their last choice for everything and when they bring him to zandvoort they discover oscar has been there for a while now, taking a nap, waiting for the season to continue

lando speeds through 6 new landogates during the summer break (including but not limited to: being danica patrick's whistlerblower on who in the paddock is probably a reptilian, hogging kate middleton to himself while she was away from public eye and getting accused of keeping an affair with zak brown to get preferential treatment in the team over oscar when grainy photos of them in compromiting positions on a golf course start making rounds on tiktok gossip pages)

daniel gets a minor role in a new hollywood romcom with anne hathaway in the main role through his management agency and he is very excited to reunite with the bestie he found in anne during the met gala last year, except he plays a porter that she barely sees as she steps into a hotel and go past him straight to the reception, so when the shooting is finished the director has to explain it was daniel ricciardowho tries to speak to her because anne believed it was adam sandler the whole time

guanyu tries to find a new hobby over the break after spending all of his free time with his little ball of fluff that is Sweetcorn and since he is vulnerable to peer pressure and Valtteri started rubbing off on him, he gets talked into making a nude calendar like Valtteri did, except this time they cannot make ass jokes so they go full out with the concept - full frontal and all - Guanyu gains so many new fans and sponsors that Red Bull replace Checo with him for the rest of the season

frederic vasseur keeps low profile during the summer break and everyone thinks he is just having a nice quiet time with his family and friends except he formed a petanque team with some other ferrari employees and they went on a tour across croatia entering as many games as they could and nobody found out because the grandpas they played against generally had no social media or any idea who fred is until tumblr tifosi discover a team named charlie's angels and break their cover

max spends most of his days of summer break streaming his sim races on twitch way past 3am not necessarily because he wants to but because he would do anything to piss off helmut marko who coincidentally sees the content on social media and gets so angry the monica geller esque vein on his forehead pops, he gets taken into a retirement home and randomly screams names of red bull juniors when watching tv from his bed, spitting his puree all over the room

estie bestie finds out about dashcon 2024, decides to support it and turn up to the event, he cosplays batman with full gear, makes his partner wear catwoman costume and even gets two more (last standing) alpine employees into costumes and inside his batmobile specially bought for this event, what a surprise it is to him when he enters and the only thing that welcomes him is a singular kid sized ball pit

lance discovers what child defiance means and decides to get a personal trainer to learn to play tennis on a professional level, he starts preparing for his atp tour debut without letting his father know and then announces he is leaving in the middle of f1 season, leaving mike krack scraping for a replacement (lance is very decent which surprises not only his father but also a few doubters among the fans)

[mack3030]

Things the Sims 4 Community Can Do About Paywalls...A Post...

[This is going to be a bit long, so you may want to save it and read it when you have time, or just...you know, buckle in.]

I thought I would ring in the new year by talking about something that I feel we as a community need to finally decide on. (It’s been debated since 2017 or so, and it’s now 2021...) I’d like, if possible, to try to suggest some real solutions and choices that we can make that will hopefully create a better and more honest community out of all of us.  Now I would like to start by making some postulates. In geometry, postulates are facts that do not need proven with a mathematical proof. They are assumed to be true. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers would call these “Self-Evident Truths”. I would like to use these as a bit of a basis for my arguments. 

Truth: The Sims 4 has been enough of a cash cow for EA.  If you buy the base game ($40) plus all expansion packs (40 each x 10) + all game packs (20 each x 9) + all stuff packs (10 each x 17) you would come to a total of seven hundred and 90 dollars ($790) plus tax. This is of course, without sales, bundling, etc, which many people DO take advantage of, but STILL. That is a TON of money for EA’s pockets.  EA makes a majority of its money on the fact that the Sims 4 is an “incomplete game”. It “completes” the game further and further by adding more “expansions” to the game to the point that it seems almost useless to buy the base game alone without adding to it. 

Even with sales and other things, it’s easy to spend over $500 dollars on the sims 4 game + expansions. Still a lot of cash for a game that is years old. This is just money that is spent on the game that goes to EA. This does not account for:  * Money spent to buy a new computer because your old one wouldn’t run the sims.  * Money spent supporting CC artists who have donations open or early access.  * Money spent on access to sites that have ads/paywalls/exclusive sims 4 CC such as Leosims, etc. (Which are the problem, frankly)

We should be able to respect the fact that a majority of us paid a hefty amount for this game. It is unfair, and frankly greedy to REQUIRE people to pay MORE just to unlock or gain access to specific user created content. 

I am not talking about a VOLUNTARY support or donation because they like what you offer. I am talking about FORCING people to pay if they want to ever be able to use the CC or mod you offer. 

Now, the typical defense for this is “Well, I’m an artist! I spend time/effort/etc working hard on these meshes, the code, etc to make this content!”  Which leads me to point #2. 

Truth: Mods, CC, and other content for the Sims 4 are useless without the game. Once they are created/uploaded to the game, all copyright to those objects IMMEDIATELY transfers to EA. 

I teach art in a Missouri public school. Our state standards dictate that when art students are in middle school grades, they have to learn about copyright, fair use, and creative commons. While I am not a copyright lawyer, I have had to learn enough about this subject to teach it. So allow me to break down a few facts about copyright: 

First, when ya make it, ya own it. There’s not a process to apply for a copyright. The moment you create something that is 100% your own work, you hold the copyright to it. 

Second, when you make something that is created based off of or USING someone else’s intellectual property as a reference or resource it is a fan creation. In art, we call this “fanart”. It is not 100% your own work. Someone else’s intellectual property is involved. 

Fan creations always have tread a very thin and shadowy line when it comes to different companies and the legality of them. You can easily search google for various articles explaining it, but to summarize it in a short method: 

Most companies do not actively go after those who create fan creations unless they are making profits that could instead be going to the creators of the intellectual property. If the fan creation is discovered to be making profits and/or taking the intellectual property in a direction the creator does not approve of, they have legal options to pursue (court, cease and desist letters, etc). 

Third, Copyright can be transferred from person to person. In most cases this is done through a written document that both parties sign, however there IS an exception to this that EA uses to allow itself to transfer your copyrights to your content to them: 

EA’s agreement with you is non-exclusive, meaning that the moment you hit “agree” on the sims 4 terms and conditions, you have handed over your rights to any CC you create for the game. 

If you want to maintain full creative rights over the mesh/mods/etc you make then, you have to not make that content for the sims 4 and make your own platform to host it on. This is way easier said than done. 

Truth: There have been various examples in the past of CC creators who have stolen meshes, bases, bits/pieces of work, or “inspiration” for CC from other sites/companies, who have been called on it publicly. 

The most recent event concerning this was drama concerning itsbrandysims and their use of meshes from imvu/secondlife (you can see my opinion on the subject HERE), but there have been other documented cases. Leosims, for example, has been listed as an example of someone taking meshes from secondlife creators and reuploading them (when it was told to me, I was shown THIS thread as evidence). Another well known creator was accused by a former sims 4 cc creator (who now makes content from second life), and was called out in THIS post in 2019. 

The horrible part of this? Many of these creators are charging people (often at not so great rates as well), for STOLEN content. Content they don’t even own, that they ripped from another place. This should not be accepted by a community that loves a game as much as the Sims 4 community.  Truth: EA has provided a way for people to make money while not hiding content behind paywalls entirely, and the INTENT of this was to OFFSET COSTS.  Almost every post about content locked behind paywalls features this post found on the Sims Forum from 2017. In it, SimGuruDrake, who was the community manager at the time (she has since left the Sims 4 team for another job).  Most of you who have seen this discussion topic before know this post by heart, but I’d like to highlight one important aspect of it: 

One thing that is always important about communication is the intent behind it. The intent for people to be allowed to make patreons and allow early access wasn’t so people could just make money for themselves, the idea was to offset costs to buy programs to make the content. For example, a yearly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which has photoshop, illustrator, etc) costs a couple hundred dollars US a year. If someone was using photoshop to help them create their CC in addition to blender or other free programs, EA/Maxis wanted to allow the creator to not have to pay for making the CC out of pocket.  Can EA/Maxis control what people spend the money they make off of patreon on? No. But it should be noted that the intent of this action was to help people pay for supplies for their hobby more than to make a business out of it. 

Onto the next truth! Truth: There is an image that disputes this post above, however the authenticity of it and timing of it are very disputed. 

This image is often thrown around by people who lock content behind paywalls, but I would like to take a second and try to provide an honest assessment of it.  First of all, I have a bit of a problem with the fact that the original person who “messaged” SimGuruDrake this question has not been identified. This image was not posted on the tumblr of a CC creator who claimed “Hey I reached out to a sims guru and this is the answer I got!” The main pages that have this image are either tweets from CC creators using it to defend their stance on paywalls (ex: here), or tumblrs/tweets “debunking it” (ex: here, here).  I even reverse image searched this image using google, and another platform and could not figure out where this originated from. Of course, I’m not an expert, but...still. 

The fact that the origin of this picture is unknown casts doubt on it. If it were a well known CC maker who is known for being honest, that’s one thing. But the fact that we don’t exactly know where it came from is suspicious. Because frankly, anyone with some decent editing ability could photoshop this. 

Here’s my imperfect edit, but I’m just a self-taught graphics nerd and I am not as dedicated at faking screenshots as some. (And the crap photo quality didn’t help.) Another common issue is that at the supposed “time” that this question was being asked, some state that SimsGuruDrake had already left the Sims 4 team. I will admit, this photo is within the correct timeline, as SimsGuruDrake did not officially depart the sims 4 team until February 2018. (There is a post on the sims forums that has a timestamp that confirms this.) But, if you were in the process of leaving your job within the next month (as a two week/30 day notice is common when leaving a job), would you REALLY be answering questions in DMs on twitter, or be focusing on packing up, and training your successor?  The last thing that really makes me doubt the validity of this picture is the fact that it’s not really easy to message the sims gurus on Twitter. This appears to be twitter from the screenshot (although there are some things that are a little out of place from the current UI): But when I attempt to direct message a sims guru I get this message: 

I even tried seeing if I could reach out via DM to Drake herself, (who now posts under a different twitter) to see if it was possible: 

Could the policies have changed since 2018? Possibly, but I feel that opening up direct messages is just asking for Sims 4 team members to get angry messages, so this could very well be a long running EA policy. I have also reached out to her via a twitter tag (as of 1/2/21), and will update y’all if I get a reply:

Okay, so now that we’ve gone through all of this, let’s talk about the last truth that’s really important:  Truth: Putting content behind paywalls has generally been considered disgusting by many in the sims 4 community, and TAKES AWAY the choice of people to support CC creators they love/appreciate WILLINGLY.  A few notable posts sharing the disgust with this practice can be found: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE). And these are just what I can find from a simple precursory search.

Okay, Brainiac. So what can we do to solve this problem? 

Well, there’s a few methods we can employ, and sadly, it’s going to take a bit of a commitment and concentrated effort from the community. 

Step #1: Make the COMMUNITY the VICTIM instead of EA. 

Now when I say this, I don’t mean we’re actually victims, but mean that instead of constantly saying things like “WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU VIOLATE EA’S TOU!”, thus making EA the “victim” of the crime. We change the dialog to saying “When you lock stuff behind paywalls, you cheat the sims 4 community and disrespect their choice to support you or not.”  Because let’s be honest. Maxis/EA really doesn’t give much of a care about if people aren’t following this rule. You can report people to the team, but as far as most people have seen, it doesn’t get anywhere. But if we make it where the community is the party being “wronged” it is much harder for those who have paywalls to not be scared. Because the community, in the end, has to be with them.  DepthofPixels had a really amazing post about this HERE. 

Step 2: Decide to not support anyone who puts their content behind exclusive paywalls and do not hesitate to spread the word about why you choose not to do so. 

By that, I mean

not paying any patreon accounts that don’t offer either their content 100% for free, or offer early access.

And sharing about why you choose to do that on your social media. Something I might suggest would be to make it a bit personal and share something like:

Instead of spending $15 a month to get exclusive content from Leosims (or any other patreon/paywall creator here) I’m spending that $15 supporting creator x, creator y, and creator z, who don’t put their work behind paywalls! 

Link their patrons, share why you like their content, and why you take the stance to make the community better. Make it a positive thing, praising the people who are doing RIGHT by the community. 

Yes, you may not get their content for a while (although there are some different places (

x

,

x

) to find them *cough*. But in the end, is it worth supporting someone’s content when they’re treating the community badly? 

Step 3: Report creators who actively steal content from IMVU/secondlife to those respective companies, and all others to EA. (Even though nothing may happen.)

Here’s the deal. When people steal from either of those sites, they are infringing on someone’s copyright, as well as Imvu/secondlife’s copyright as well. It’s not okay, and they should be held accountable for it. Here’s the LINK for submitting a ticket to Secondlife. I haven’t been able to find one for IMVU, but maybe someone else will find one. Let those companies know and allow them to handle those specific creators.  As to the other creators, EA may not handle them at the moment. But IF (and this is a wishful thinking “if”) there were suddenly a flood of messages about certain creators...? I think they might have to pay attention to some of those messages. There is an official report form, but it might even be worth tweeting to SleddingGuruFrost, who is the current community manager asking about their stance on paywalls.  And last but not least: 

Step 4: Make sure that those who are doing the right thing and not putting their work behind paywalls feel appreciated. Show them some love via a tumblr ask, or by tagging them on twitter, or by going up a tier on their patreon (or pledging for the first time). Celebrate these heroes who are creating content and not forcing it on us. 

Us asking for people to give us a choice to support them isn’t being greedy, or disrespecting their time. We just want transparency, and respect from those who create content for the game we love so much versus them treating us like we’re just a source of income. I know it might seem a bit hard to do this for some of you, and for some it may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but we have to decide where we stand on this issue and stop letting those who abuse this system keep doing it. We can make a difference if we decide as a COMMUNITY to work together.

With commitment,  ~Sunny

[misstrashchan]

Hi!

I have seen you are into podcasts? I wanted to try consuming some stories in this media format because I am curious... however, I do not know much.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you!

Okay, so I don't know what kind of genres or stories you might like or be looking for, but the majority of podcasts I'm familiar with and can recommend are mainly horror, or have horror elements. So, fair warning there. (Most podcasts on this list include trigger warnings in the episode descriptions too)

The Penumbra Podcast- I'd say this is a good, safe starting point to see if you like consuming stories in podcasts. The first season started out as an anthology series for a variety of stories, ranging from sci-fi noir detective mysteries, swashbuckling westerns, haunted houses, knights slaying monsters, etc. The main premise of the podcast is "stories you've heard before told in ways you'd never expect".

There are two reoccurring storylines, Juno Steel (sci-fi/noir) and the Second Citadel (fantasy/adventure) that the show focuses on more so as it goes on and drifts away from the anthology format, but you can choose to just focus on one and come back to the other later, as the two stories are completely seperate from each other and don't need to be listened to understand the other. Same if you don't want to listen to the horror anthology episodes like Shaken and Home and would rather skip them over (though they are fantastic if you do like horror). It's very engaging, fun, diverse and energetic, and excellent voice acting and sound design. Just a good time all round.

Currently there's three complete seasons out, episode runtime ranging 30-45 minutes and a currently ongoing series. Here's the teaser:

Alice Isn't Dead- So this is just a firm favorite of mine in podcasts, hell, it's one of my favorite stories in general.  Keisha, the narrator – a truck driver who is driving across America, delivery to delivery, is looking for her missing wife, Alice. We listen to her speak into the truck radio, partially musing to herself, partially addressing Alice as though she is leaving her a voicemail describing her travels and the bleakness of the road ahead – and worse, the potential of what follows her. It's a horror, a psychological thriller and a mystery, told in short, sharp chapters. The way in which the story is told makes excellent use of the audio medium and actively incorporates it into how the story at hand is being told, which I just adore when podcasts do. (There's a book version out and it just doesn't quite hit the same mark as it does in podcast format). In general it makes for a very intense and intimate experience that just keeps you hooked all the way through.

The story is complete at three seasons with 30 episodes each with a 20 minute runtime.

The Magnus Archives- If you follow me, or if you've been on Tumblr in general, you might already have a vague awareness of this series because of how popular it is, and for good reason too. It's a completed slowburn 200 episode cosmic horror/tragedy/drama that at it's core is an anthology series, every episode being a seemingly self contained short horror story.

Given as "statements" by people who have had paranormal or esoteric encounters to the Magnus Institute based in London, which is dedicated to researching such things, is then recorded onto tapes by the narrator and protagonist Jonathan Sims, (one of my favourite tragic heroes) the newly appointed Head Archivist after his predecessors mysterious death, who appears to have purposefully disorganized the Archives, much to his annoyance. But then patterns begin to occur within the statements, characters and previous statement givers appear in other's stories as they intersect like a huge web, and it's clear that there's something much larger and sinister at play as an overarching narrative comes into view that then draws the Archivist in.

Similar to Alice Isn't Dead, the Magnus Archives makes use of the audio medium and actively incorporates it into how it tells the story with how every statement is recorded onto tapes, as well as the events of the strange happenings in the Archives that the main characters (the Archivist, his research team, and the head of the Magnus Institute) experience themselves. Though without spoiling anything, the tapes themselves have a far more relevant and a active role in not just telling the story, but as the story and world itself.

This was a passion project for the writer, Jonathan Sims, (yes that is the name of the main character which he also voices, yes it is confusing) for a long time, and you can absolutely tell with how planned out the meta plot and intricate lore is, as well as just the quality of the writing in general. It covers all kinds of horrors and explores the concept of human fear itself, our personal relationship to it, which ties into the themes of agency and humanity the series also explores.

(trailer starts at 1:00)

The Silt Verses-

Let Me Speak First of Revelations

And Next of Dark Deceit

Then I'll Speak of Champions

Of Lovers, Gods and Beasts

My Song is Long and Twisted

It Winds, it Worms, It Rends

It Carries Few, It Drowns Many

And Those I Love, It Rends

This podcast is a fairly recent newcomer compared to the rest on the list, the first season is still ongoing, with only nine episodes out so far out of its fourteen with a season two planned ahead as well (with a roughly 40 minute episode runtime) but is absolutely divine. I'm genuinely frustrated that I'm not articulate enough to properly describe just how clever this series is, and can't recommend it enough.

A folk horror/religious fantasy serial drama that follows Carpenter and Faulkner, two river worshippers of an outlawed god, travelling up the length of their deities great black river, in search of revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories.

If you like themes of religious existentialism, how capitalism will commodify everything once deemed sacred, the indescribable horrors that arise from religious fanaticism/cults, rich lore and world building and complex morally grey protagonists who act as fascinating character foils to one another, lyrical and poetic narration, an eerie atmosphere, and don't mind the occasional intense scenes of body horror, you will love this podcast.

Oh, and crabs.

(I would also highly recommend I Am in Eskew by the same writer, his previous and completed podcast at 30 episodes, about a man living day to day within the monstrous city Eskew, but as an overall story and characters the Silt Verses is the much stronger of the two.)

[mosneakers]

Tag Game

tysm for tagging me @natolesims and @skywardoasis!! 💖

Your thoughts on the Sims 1-4

Sims 1: LOVE LOVE LOVE. The vibe, the MUSIC, the cheekiness. Alls it needed was the graphics and 👌🏻💋

Sim 2: I also love ts2 so much. The storylines. The lore. the drama. THE CHAOS! I remember how excited my friends and I were to try it out. Literally freaking out over the trailer, and I think I have the most memories and nostalgia attached to this one.

Sims 3: Ahh, the sims 3. The ugliest characters for sure, but it really opened up a whole new world. (literally open worlds!) There's sooo much to do and see in ts3, and I feel like it was the most fleshed out game of the franchise. It was incredibly glitchy though, and my families couldn't stay in one world for longer than a generation or 2 before becoming completely unplayable and needing to start a new save. It is where My Darling originated though, so I'll always hold it close!

Sims 4: *sigh* I think at the beginning it was complete shit and unfinished and lousy. It still kinda does feel unfinished and lacks so much compared to the others. With the amount video game technology has, there's no excuse for some of the things it's lacking. WITH THAT BEING SAID, I really do love ts4 and all that it has to offer, and I think the sims team is just starting to listen and fix their issues. I do also think it gets more hate than it deserves, and I think it's my favorite so far. ♥

What is your favorite Expansion pack in the Sims 4

Cottage Living, my oh my ♥

Small pets or Horses?

Small pets I guess? But I love horses too!

What is your favorite active career in the Sims 4?

Paranormal Investigator 😎👻

What is your favorite Aspiration in the Sims 4?

I think the family related ones

Whims or Wants?

Wants!

What is your favorite Occult in the Sims 4?

Spellcasters ♥

Cowplants, Bonehilda, or the Social Bunny?

Bonehilda

How do you pick your sims names?

I try to think of something meaninful to their family or I'll choose something based on their parents' favorite colors. If I'm creating a townie, I'll randomize a name and change the letter 😄

Do you create a spouse for a sim, or do you go after a townie?

Create! Or heavily edit a townie 😁

Do you prefer to follow storytelling Simblrs, or do your prefer gameplay Simblrs?

Both! ♥

What year did you join Tumblr/Simblr?

2013 I think? oof. Just tagging you all lol

[julimond92]

The DLC Legacy Challenge

CreatiI wanted to share a legacy challenge that I came up with to change up my own gameplay and explore more content in TS4. Each generation focuses on one DLC. It does not follow the traditional/original legacy rules as I haven’t assigned any points or anything like that. It also isn’t a super elaborated challenge. The player can choose themself what kind of story they want to tell with each generation.

Disclaimer: I do not own Vampires, Realm of Magic, or Star Wars GP packs nor any of the new kits, so any gameplay included in those DLC is obviously not included in the challenge. All other packs are included in the order in which they came out (last generation = Snowy Escape, 14 generations total). If you don’t have all the DLC, you can simply skip a generation. You may share this challenge, but please link to my tumblr. 

Have fun and let me know what you think! Happy simming! :)

Rules: Each generation must produce an heir, but there are no rules as to who can be an heir, that’s up to the player. Adoptions are allowed too. You may only proceed with the next generation (= move them out) when the next heir has a) reached the Young Adult life stage, and b) the previous heir has fulfilled all their objectives. You may, however, start working on the succeeding heir’s aspiration etc. while they still live with the previous generation. The objectives do not need to be completed in the order they appear here. If an heir has fulfilled an aspiration, a new one may be chosen. Each new heir starts out with starter funds (§20,000) on a new lot in the world assigned to that generation. You may play in a Tiny Home and use those perks if you own that pack. If you want, you can limit each generation’s CAS and B/B to their respective pack. However, you can always include other gameplay aspects from other packs too. Spares and spouses’ traits and aspirations may be chosen freely. One objective for each generation is to get married. You may opt to neglect that objective and choose to play with other types of families as well. Just make sure to have a subsequent heir for the following generation. The legacy is intended for a normal life span, but you may change to longer/individual. I just wouldn’t recommend short life span :D You may use CC and mods to enhance gameplay as long as it doesn’t give you an advantage with any of the objectives (no cheats allowed!). 

Disclaimer: Parenthood GP has not been assigned for a specific generations as I feel those gameplay features will be used anyway in raising generations.

Gen 1: Founder -- Base Game

World: Willow Creek

Career: Writing -- Author

Aspiration: Knowledge -- Bestselling Author

Objectives:

max. career

max. writing skill

max. 1 additional BG skill

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

Gen 2: Get to Work

World: Newcrest

Career: Doctor / Police / Scientist (any of the GtW active careers, you choose!)

Aspiration: Love -- Soulmates

Objectives:

max. career

fulfill aspiration

max. baking skill

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

finish elements collection

if you own Outdoor Retreat: vacation in Granite Falls at least once

Gen 3: Get Together

World: Windenburg

Career: Style Influencer -- Stylist

Aspiration: Popularity -- Leader of the Pack

Objectives

max. DJ skill

max. dancing skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

if you own Spa Day: max. wellness skill

Gen 4: Dine Out

World: San Myshuno (if you own City Living, if not choose a BG world)

Career: Critic -- Restaurant / OR: own and operate successful restaurant

Aspiration: Fortune -- Fabulously Wealthy

Objectives:

max. cooking skill

max. gourmet cooking skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

collect all food photos

if you own City Living: acquire all city recipes

Gen 5: City Living

World: San Myshuno

Career: Politics -- Politician

Aspiration: Location -- City Native

Objectives:

max. singing skill

win karaoke contest

max. career

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

live in a penthouse

participate in all festivals at least once

collect all posters

collect all snowglobes

if you haven’t done so in Gen 4: acquire all city recipes

Gen 6: Cats & Dogs

World: Brindleton Bay

Career: Vet -- Own and operate pet clinic

Aspiration: Animal -- Friend of the Animals

Obejctives:

max. vet skill

max. pet training skill

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

own pet clinic

breed pets

showcase pet

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

collect all feathers

If you own Bowling Night SP: max. bowling skill

Gen 7: Jungle Adventure

World: Oasis Springs

Career: Secret Agent -- Diamond Agent

Aspiration: Nature -- Jungle Explorer

Objectives:

max. archaeology skill

max.  Selvadoradian Culture

max. career

fulfill aspiration

collect all artefacts

explore all caves and hidden places in Selvadorada

get married to a Selvadoradian

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

Gen 8: Seasons

World: Windenburg

Career: Gardner -- Botanist

Aspiration: Nature -- Freelance Botanist

Objectives:

max. flower arranging skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

(get married)

celebrate all seasons and holidays

successfully change the weather at least once using the weather machine

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

have at least 1 child complete the scouts career

finish gardeining collection

own a ‘farm’ on 64x64 in Windenburg

secretly own a cow plant

Gen 9: Get Famous

World: Del Sol Valley

Career: Actor/Actress

Aspiration: Creativity -- Master Actor/Actress

Objectives:

max. acting skill

max. media production skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

own a house in the Pinnacles

get married to celebrity

have excellent reputation

be a 5 star celebrity

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

have a child fulfill after school acting

win an accelate

Gen 10: Strangerville

World: Strangerville

Career: Military -- Covert Operator

Aspiration: 1) Location -- Strangerville Mystery; 2) Knowledge -- Nerd Brain

Objectives:

max. fitness skill

max. career

solve Strangerville mystery

fulfill both aspirations

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

collect all postcards

Gen 11: Island Living

World: Sulani

Career: Conservationist -- Marine Biologist

Aspiration: Beach Life

Objectives:

max. career

fulfill aspiration

max. guitar skill

marry a mermaid/merman

become friend with a dolphin

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

collect all shells

collect all hidden treasures

Gen 12: Discover University

World: Britechester (you may move to another world once you’ve graduated)

Career: 1) Student; 2) Mechanical Engineer 

Aspiration: Knowledge -- Academic

Objectives:

max. research + debate skill

live in a dorm for at least one semester

max. robotics skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

get a distinguished degree

join an organization / a team

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

join secret organization

Gen 13: Eco Living

World: Evergreen Harbor

Career: Civil Designer -- Green Technician

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

Objectives:

max. juice fizzing skill

max. candle making skill

max. fabrication skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

make world’s footprint green

change all common lots

have self-sufficient home

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

If you own Nifty Knitting SP: max. knitting skill and teach your child how to knit

Gen 14: Snowy Escape

World: Mt. Komorebi

Career: Sales Person -- Expert Branch

Aspiration: Athletic -- Extreme Sports Fan

Objectives:

max. skiing skill

max. climbing skill

max. snowboarding skill

max. career

fulfill aspiration

visit all festivals at least once

collect all simmies

(get married)

have at least 1 heir to continue (adoption is OK)

explore all hiking trails

[maxismatchccworld]

Hey you lovely Simmers! It is time for our new Spotlight of the Month. Please give a warm welcome to LittleMsSam aka @littlemssam​ 😊 I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t play the game without her mods and am so grateful for all of them!

Aloha everyone!

First of all thank you Kerstin for the Opportunity to introduce myself here.

My name is LittleMsSam and I am a Sims 4 Modder since January 2017. I used to play Sims 3 a long time ago and loved it. Not only because of the Game itself but because of the fact that it is a Game which supports modding. I love Games that gives Players the opportunity to mod it and make it more individual. Back then I was fascinated what modders could do with the Game but unfortunately I lost interest in Sims 3 because of lags and the long loading screens.

When Sims 4 came out I immediately loved the new Style. But of course in the beginning not much was to do since it was only Base Game. So I lost interest again for a while until I got back into the Game in the end of 2016.

I was on a Mod Hunt again but there was one thing I simply could not find. The Game was too easy for me so i was searching for a certain Mod to make it a little bit harder. But the only Mods I could find did the opposite: Mods that were making Painting & Writing faster. This was the reason i started to dig into modding myself and the beginning of a Modding Journey that quickly „escalated“.

I learned the Basics of Modding via Scarlet’s Tutorials on Sims 4 VIP. Which Tools do i need, how do i update my Mods and so on. From then on it was and still is a lot of trying by doing, failing and succeeding, laughing and crying.

My first Mod was…

now you can guess…

A slower Painting & Writing Mod. Tadaa!

I was so proud of myself back then and it is still one of my personal favorites that i use in my Game.

After that another Mod followed and another after and more and even more and now i am at a number of 164 Mods, 60 more Mods in a Random Small Mod Collection and a few Bug Fixes.

The main time I spent into modding now is to actually keep all those mods updated and to tweak them here and there. Especially after new Expansions Pack Patches it takes me sometimes up to 10 hours to check & update all of those Mods. Unfortunately for me I still use 95% of them myself so there is no way i would abandon them as long as i play this Game. And by playing I mean I load up the Game, play ten minutes, close the Game and tweak some Mods or make new ones to tweak the Game.

My Mods are various Mods from small tweaking Mods to bigger new Gameplay Mods.

Some of my favorite smaller Mods are the Slower Painting & Writing Mods like mentioned above. The Choose who you Call to Meal Mod which lets you choose who you want to call to Meal and if you want to eat too or not. The Auto Employees | Custom Lot Trait Mod which let’s Barista, Bartender and more auto spawn on Community Lots. The Automatic Thermostat & the Automatic Stereo System Mods which let’s you “upgrade” your Thermostat/Stereos to be automatic. The Cookbooks Cultural, Experimental, Seafood & Jungle Mod which adds new buy-able Cookbooks into your Game. The Sell via Simbay Mod which is a new unique Selling Service where you can submit all your crafted Items and Artifacts. The … annddd I should stop here or else this List will be endless. I use almost all of my Mods myself so yeah they are all kind of my favorites.

Those „smaller Mods“ are usually done in a few hours. Testing them though takes more time then doing them.

There are also some bigger Mods that add new Gameplay and/or took much more time do them and to test them. Those usually take a few days to do and even more days to test.

My first really big Mod was the More Buyable Venues and new Venue Types Mod which let’s you buy more Venues and adds new Venue Types to the Game. It was the first Mod where i had to dig deeper into the Game to figure out how I could buy Bars, Clubs and Co. just like I could with the Retail Lot. But in the end I got it to work and my first big new Gameplay Mod was finished.

My personal favorite bigger/new Gameplay Mods are:

The More Servings Options & Better Meal Time Menus Mod which adds new Servings Options via the cooking and gourmet cooking Menus of stoves & fridges (2, 3, 5, 6 & 7 Sizes). It does not sound big but it took me a hell lot of time to make all those recipes ;)

The Social Activities (Visit Friends, Family and more) Mod which adds Social Activities for your Sims to go to. You can go visit Friends, Family & more or go on Vacation & Honeymoon. Or you can visit a Music Concert or a Cooking Competition and have a chance to win a prize. You can also send your Toddlers to the Daycare or your Pets to the Pet sitter or Dog Trainer.

The Ultrasound Scan Mod which let’s you visit a Gynecologist to do a Ultrasound Examination. This Mod was only possible thanks to Turbodriver who helped me with the script part of this Mod. I really love this one i have to say!

The Live in Business Mod which let’s you run Businesses at Home like a Bar, a Club, a Daycare, a Vet Clinic, a Shop and many more.

And last but not least (before I get carried away again…) the Foster Family Mod where you can become a part of the LMS Foster Family Network and take care of Toddler, Children, Teens or Pets who are in need of a Foster Family. This Mod was only possible with the help of NisaK who helped me with the script part of this Mod. I use this one all the time to foster a bunch of Pets and find them a new Home in the Sims 4 Worlds.

There are also some Mods I personally don’t even use but I was up for a challenge to do them anyway. The biggest one is the “SimDa” Dating App Mod which can help you find your true love, have adventurous Blind Dates or hot One Night Stands.

Now enough of me, my Mods and my shameless self advertising.

I want to say that even if it can be pretty exhausting to support those Mods, I am really grateful I found my way into Modding and that I could meet some amazing people out there. Turbodriver, Basemental, Deaderpool, NisaK, RoBurky, Icemunmun, Scarlet and many more who are all amazing modders and personalities. Scumbumbo who was an inspiring, helpful, kind and amazing person who will be greatly missed. The MCC Discord Team who help the community each day as much as they can with Game Issues. EA & everyone involved for making a great Game that I really enjoy playing.

And of course everyone who uses and enjoys my Mods which is a huge motivation to keep going.

Everyone who did not know about me or my Mods feel free to come over and check my tumblr out.

Thank you all!

[ravasheencc]

I love your work, but please, you have 400+ patrons, it's time to leave TSR. It's not safe to download from there without ad blocking, so now that they block downloads when adblock is detected it's not possible for simmers to get most of your work unless they can pay.

I debated even answering this, but I figured I would in case anyone else felt the same. Let's begin my typical, novel-length response.

TSR is completely safe to download from and saying otherwise is false. The ads may be annoying, but it is far from ad.fly etc where your computer is at risk of getting malware and viruses. On top of that, the admins at TSR individually check and in-game test uploads to verify they meets strict standards. This ensures you, the downloader, can confidently download CC knowing that your gaming performance and computer memory won't be negatively impacted. So if anything, you are much safer downloading from TSR than anywhere else.

You can absolutely get all of my CC for free. If you don't want to see the ads, it is only $4 a month for the VIP membership which removes the ads in addition to other benefits. The very small team that admins the site work incredibly hard and care very much about the community. Their effort, which again includes checking uploads to keep downloaders safe, is their full time job and isn't free. In addition, TSR is the only site that directly compensates artists for their CC. Not only does making CC take an incredible amount of time, but typically artists use programs (like photoshop) that cost money to use. So whether you pay for the VIP membership or have to see ads and wait 15 seconds to download - the outcome of that is artists are compensated for their hard work. But I digress, bottom line is in no way is my CC behind a paywall. You can access most of my CC, for free, on TSR in addition to direct downloads on my website which are hosted on Sims File Share and don't use pay-per-click links.

I am incredibly grateful for each and every one of my patrons. I value everyone in the sims community, not just patrons, and constantly engage/seek feedback to create CC that adds aesthetic and functionality to the simmie experience. I open as many lines of communication as I can including DMs on all my social media accounts in addition to my discord servers which are open to everyone. Point being - I don't close that off for patrons exclusively. The CC I create for patrons is not behind a paywall either and I only make early access 1-2 weeks so the rest of the community doesn't have to wait a long time to get it. And as far as my patreon benefits are concerned, the only complaint I have gotten so far is that I post/message too much so I feel that I am providing benefits that reflect my extreme gratitude for their support.

I have put in love, dedication, and countless hours to build the 400+ patrons I have and it isn't up to you to tell me what to do. Like many of you, I was hit particularly hard by COVID. My boyfriend (AKA life partner/bff/roomie) owns his own company and instead of laying off his employees he choose to cut his own pay by over 50%. Because TSR is wonderful and appreciates/compensates their CC creators, this has become a lifeline for me during this time in addition to my support on Patreon. In turn, I have spent significantly more time creating CC so I could continue making 3 sets/month on TSR and also produce additional sets for Patreon. Since starting my Patreon in March, I have consistently released sets outside of TSR which have many more objects/set as compared to my TSR sets. I have also fulfilled requests and published single items in between larger sets. All of which I have made available completely for free, without the use of pay-per-click links, after a short early access period (and sometimes immediately).

After working a full-time job, I spend almost every night and the majority my free time to create CC for the community. I also help new creators/artists with problems they have, create tutorials, dedicate a lot of my time to responding to messages/comments on all platforms (TSR, Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Discord, etc.), and generally put a lot of effort into being active in the community/listening to your needs. This being said, I sympathize that you have to wait 15 seconds to download my CC but have you ever considered that I spent weeks creating that?

Again, I debated even responding to this but wanted to make my perspective clear in case others felt similar to you. I am a person - not a CC making machine. My time and effort is worth something and I work incredibly hard to make *free* CC for you. In conclusion of this over-explained response to an anon ask, I am glad you enjoy my CC and hope in the future the few second wait isn't such a bother.

P.S. For all the wonderful simmies who I am sure will respond showing me love and support, just know I understand this anonymous opinion is not speaking for the majority of simmers. The warmth I typically receive from this community has brought so much happiness to my life. And even to the anon... no hard feelings, just hope this brought some perspective to the other side of CC.

[theouijagirl]

Hey Tumblr. It’s been a while.

It’s not you, it’s me. Lately I’ve had to shelve quite a few things in my life, and Tumblr wound up being one of them. I’m really sorry if any of you became extremely worried or distressed at my sudden absence. I didn’t intend to be gone for so long.  

I should start off by saying: I’m fine. The cat is fine, my house is fine, etc. Everything is okay; nothing is wrong. There’s nothing to worry about.

Honestly the only thing that has gone wrong lately has been the fact that a new virus evolved that is extremely deadly, and my government has decided that it would rather wish it would go away than try to do anything to stop it or prevent people from dying. My job was an indoor facility that mainly involves active play for families and manly profits from birthday parties, so obviously my building closed with no knowledge of when it would open. And toward the end of August, I got an email from my CEO saying that she decided she would not be reopening my building. 

At first I felt okay, because the worry and the wondering was over, and now it was a sense of excitement of a new chapter of my life starting, and wondering what new people I would meet at my new job. And truly, I have met some incredibly wonderful people at the places I work (two part-time jobs, so I can still be full time) and I feel more like I’m really becoming the professional person I want to be at my jobs. On the other hand, the sense of grief at losing my job that I’ve had for five years has really hit me hard during October. My coworkers really were some of my dearest friends, most of whom I haven’t seen since March. Some of them have had babies, and I don’t know when I can see them. We had Halloween traditions which involved Costco pizza and lots of candy, and it physically hurts to know it won’t happen this year and that last year was the last time and we didn’t even know it. It aches to know I’ll never again walk into my old office. It hurts to throw out my old employee shirts. It truly has felt like a death to me and I really have needed to take some time to process it.

But really, Good News Number 1 is that I am working full time again, which doesn’t allow me as much time on this blog. I was at my desk at my old job, in which I could totally go on Tumblr whenever I wanted, and there’s no way I can do that at my jobs now. Also, Good News Number 2 is that I have new health insurance and I have the best team of doctors I’ve ever had in my life, and they’ve put me on some incredible medications to manage my depression and migraines. For the first time in my life, I’m not depressed every day. We are still working on the migraines, but I don’t have a headache all day every day. However, I still have the fatigue from having chronic pain, and I’m dealing with some pretty severe side effects, so when I come home from my jobs I go to bed.

Good News Number 3 is that my ASMR YouTube channel has given me more joy than I have ever expected. I actually really delight in making a schedule, filming, editing, and posting, and of course checking and replying to comments. It feels incredibly rewarding. I’ve been meditating on why it feels so different from any other hobby I’ve had, and I’ve come to realize that all my other hobbies are basically “Put money into the thing to make yourself feel good.” So I’ve tried distancing myself from any of my hobbies that encourage spending, such as video games and Kpop. I haven’t watched anything on a paid streaming service. I’ve been limiting my time on Pokemon GO, only because their Halloween event right now is actually good, compared to other years, but I’m not doing any activity that is made easier by purchasing items. And everything just feels more freeing, like there’s suddenly a weight off my shoulders that I didn’t even know was there. I allow little things here and there, like I’ll listen to a new Kpop release when it comes out, but not stream it, and the new Sims pack looks amazing so I’ll have to play for a bit once it comes out (and the only game I’ve allowed myself is Among Us, but really only because of the social aspect). But just having my hobby be something I create that people around the world can relax and enjoy and learn from, since it’s an educational channel, feels so incredibly rewarding. It feels better than working on my Animal Crossing town, or learning a Kpop dance. It’s my favorite thing out of all the Good News.

And now there’s this Tumblr. I always do a big blog post project in October. I started it early in October. I kind of hated it. But I didn’t have any other big ideas for what to do. And I mostly felt uninspired for two reasons. 1) Even though I made a post asking people not to do this, a majority of my asks was still people asking my opinions on Shannen Doherty and Keke Palmer. For the record, I literally have no opinions on these women, so please stop asking. 2) Even though we really don’t want to admit it, Tumblr is dying. It’s nothing like it was before, and it’s easily not even in the top 5 social media sites these days. Like, what’s the point of doing a big series on a social media site that nobody uses? And this isn’t toward my solid fan base, but my solid fan base is like a couple hundred people. I used to get the “wow, I just found your blog!” Anon once a week, now I’m lucky if I get one every few months. Our community just isn’t using Tumblr like we used to. Now, it seems like TikTok is the way to go. And I just don’t want to use TikTok. I’m a writer. I just figured out how to use YouTube, and even then, I don’t like the TikTok format style of video. Like, it’s great, but it’s not the format that I feel creative with. So I just feel stuck. And it makes me not want to write on this blog, honestly.

Of course I’ll still answer questions, I always will. I don’t think I’ll ever quit this blog. And of course, if you send me an ask or message that is life or death, I’ll respond the second I see it. But I really don’t know what the future of this blog is going to be anymore.

As for the spooks, that’s never going away either. If you don’t feel that energy outside at night right now then are you even human. It’s tangible. Not to mention, when I was filming an ASMR video about spooky places and was talking about Salem, and mentioned the name of the first young girl to be hanged, I felt a cold hand run down my right hand and arm, and my room was very warm considering I close all the windows while filming and have a warm cat in my lap. 

Regardless, it’s gonna be a good Halloween.

[eldritchteaparty]

Chapters: 13/20 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane, Melanie King, Georgie Barker, Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter Summary: Martin contemplates the future, now that he realizes Jon is recovering his powers. Then, when they return to work, a body is found in the tunnels beneath the archives.

Chapter 13 of my post-canon fix-it is up! Read above at AO3 or read here below.

Tumblr master post with previous chapter is here.

***

“Wake up.”

Martin opened his eyes to the immediate sensation of a headache, followed by the slightly less immediate sensation of pain in his back. On top of falling asleep against the wall, he’d probably overdone the sake a bit. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he just didn’t feel good.

“Ugh.” He could tell from the light coming in through the window that the sun was just starting to come up. Jon stood in front of him, holding out his hand.

“Come on.”

Martin took the hand and got to his feet, but had to lean against the wall for balance as soon as he was up. Jon reached for him.

“I’m all right.” Martin moved Jon’s hands away.

***

It was very late when Martin woke again. He’d managed to sleep most of the pain out of his back, but his head still hurt and his mouth was dry. His back was to Jon’s side of the bed, and he assumed Jon would be gone by this time—at least in the other room, if not at work—but just as he’d decided he really was alone, he felt movement behind him.

“Hey.” His voice felt scratchy. “I didn’t think you were here.”

“I am.” Jon’s hand touched his back under the covers. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.” He felt Jon move closer to him, and the pressure from his touch grew stronger. “No—I mean—I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me, I’m just talking.”

Jon pulled himself closer still, until his chest was pressed against Martin’s back, and his legs were curled into the space behind Martin’s. Martin reached for Jon‘s hand in spite of himself, pulling his arm tighter.

“Do you want breakfast?” Jon asked.

“Sure. Just give me another minute and I’ll—I’ll go get it started.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to make it. I asked if you wanted it.”

“Oh.” He squeezed Jon’s hand. “That’s really—nice—but honestly, I don’t. Want breakfast. But thank you.”

“Ok.” They lay in silence for a few minutes before Jon spoke again. “Do you want—some time?”

“What?”

“By yourself, I mean.”

“Not particularly.” That was actually the last thing he wanted. At the same time, though he didn’t want Jon to feel like he had to stay. “But if you—”

“No.” Jon shook his head against Martin’s shoulder blades.

“Look, if—hang on.” Martin rolled over to face Jon. “What I’m trying to say is—you don’t have to keep doing this for me.”

“Doing what?”

“Acting like—well, like this is all real. Like it matters. Like—like we have a future.”

Jon lay still for a moment, then reached for Martin’s face. Martin couldn’t help it; he clasped Jon’s hand in his. He so desperately didn’t want to be alone, yet he couldn’t stop offering Jon the chance to leave.

“Martin.” Jon spoke softly, so that even if they hadn’t been alone only Martin would have heard him. “I don’t know what’s in the future, but this—us—is real.”

Martin sighed. “I don’t mean—it’s just that I feel stupid.”

“Why?”

“Well—you know, like—when I got worried about us moving in together. I wanted it to be for the right reasons and all that, blah blah blah, but really—who cares. It’s not like it’s forever because—we don’t have forever. You never thought we did.”

“It wouldn’t be any different.”

“You don’t know that though, because it’s never been any different for you.” Martin closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of Jon’s hand on his face. “And—and you don’t even want it. It doesn’t bother you. And that just—hurts.”

Jon was silent.

“And yes, I know, I’m being incredibly selfish and it’s wrong for me to even want that, I get it—”

“It’s not wrong.” Jon’s lips closed over his. He kissed him back, but only for a moment.

“Jon, I want you to know—nothing’s changed. I’m going where you go. Wherever that is.”

“I know.”

“And whatever happens, I’ll—I’ll stay with you. Until I can’t. And then—”

“Please. Not—not now.”

Martin opened his eyes.

“And there is—there is one thing I won’t do again.” He let go of Jon to touch his chest, to touch the place his hand could find now without even searching for it.

Jon nodded. He pulled Martin’s hand away from him, and pressed his fingers to his mouth.

***

Martin was tired at work on Monday. Despite spending more time in bed than usual over the weekend, he had somehow slept much less. Melanie wasn’t in yet; Tim and Sasha were chatting in the assistants’ office when they arrived. Sasha looked up and broke away from the conversation when she saw them.

“Morning. Just so you know, maintenance just got here—they’re doing their quarterly check on the tunnels today. So if you see them around the archive—that’s why.”

Martin nodded. Since their first dinner all together with Melanie, Martin had realized—remembered—that there was nothing secret or hidden about the tunnels here at all; there never had been. Sure, they were a historical oddity, and as Melanie’s interest in them had suggested, their connection to the prison had long made them a source of rumored paranormal activity—but mostly, they were a safety liability to the Institute. So, while they were generally off limits, the maintenance crew performed regular upkeep.

He sat at his desk and tried to concentrate on something—anything—but he wasn’t very successful. There were some new requests in the system for research materials, but he wasn’t feeling particularly excited about those just yet; maybe he’d get to them later in the day. He checked on the Leitner group in the database, just in case something had gone wrong in the notification system he’d set up, but no—those were all still checked in and on the shelves.

He looked over at Jon; he seemed busy enough.

“Jon,” he called over, trying not to disrupt Sasha and Tim. “Is there—anything I can help with?”

Jon shook his head without looking up. “Not really.”

Martin slumped back into his seat. For all the futility he might have felt before, in the other world—he had never felt this completely directionless. Or useless.

“Wait,” Jon said. He started to shuffle through some of the files on his desk. “Actually, if you want to, there is something you could take a—”

“Jon, it’s fine.” Martin shook his head. “And don’t do that. Any of—what you just did.”

Jon looked at him with slight confusion, then looked back at his desk after he realized what Martin meant. He hadn’t even realized he’d been picking up Martin’s feelings. “Sorry.”

“It’s—I know.”

He had just about decided that prepping those research requests was better than sitting in the office after all when a man walked in, looking extremely pale. Martin didn’t recognize him, but the badge and lanyard around his neck indicated he was part of the maintenance team.

Sasha immediately broke off her conversation with Tim. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry—there’s no one at the front desk and—we need to call the police.”

“What?” Sasha straightened up and set the folder she’d been holding on Tim’s desk. “What’s going on?”

“There’s—” He wiped at his face with his hand. “We found a body down in the tunnels.”

“Oh.” Sasha’s eyes grew wide. “Oh.”

“Ma’am—I’m sorry—we really should—”

“Right, come on.” She was walking for the door, taking the man gently by the arm to go use the phone at Rosie’s desk. “Tim—get Elias. Call him or—or go find him if he doesn’t pick up.”

“Right.” Tim already had his phone in his hand and was pulling up Elias’s number.

“Oh god.” Jon was already at Martin’s side, pushing him toward the door. “Come on.”

“Jon, what’s—”

“Have either of you seen Melanie?” Sasha asked as they emerged, worry visibly spreading through her features now. The man who had come into the office was speaking into the phone next to her. “You don’t think she would have—I mean, she doesn’t even have a—wait, you’re not going down there, are you?”

“We are,” Jon said, pushing ahead. Behind them, out of the corner of his eye, Martin saw Tim head out of the office in the opposite direction.

“Jon,” Martin said, “what is—” Jon was already walking past the small maintenance crew; they had gathered outside the trapdoor that led into the tunnels and were talking in low voices to one another. They fell uncomfortably silent as they watched him head down the steps, and Martin had to pick up his pace to catch up with him.

“Hey, Jon—come on—”

“This is bad,” Jon said. “I’m—I’m sorry. I should have—”

“Jon.” Martin was still struggling to keep up with him as Jon followed the curve of the tunnel walls ahead of him. “Tell me what’s going on. It’s not Melanie, is it? Please tell me—”

“It’s not Melanie.”

Martin was relieved, but only for a moment; that meant it was someone else.

“Jon—”

“You’ll understand when you see.”

Martin started to ask Jon again to tell him when they arrived at the first junction in the tunnels, and Martin did understand. On the floor, in front of them, was the body of Elias Bouchard—exactly as it had been left when Jon had killed its most recent occupant.

“Shit.”

“Martin.” Jon turned to him and reached for both of his hands. “Whatever is about to happen—don’t forget where we are. Don’t put yourself in danger.”

“Why would I put myself in danger? What are you—”

“Please.”

“Jon, I don’t know what you’re—”

“Shh.”

Martin heard Sasha’s footsteps coming around the curve of the tunnel.

“Jon?” she called. “Martin?”

“We’re here,” Jon said flatly, just as she came into view.

She walked slowly toward them, with her eyes on the sprawled figure on the ground; the recognition registered on her face just after she reached the spot where Jon was standing.

“Oh god.” She turned toward Jon without thinking, and wound up turning into his chest, her hand over her mouth. Martin made eye contact with him over her shoulder; Jon looked as if he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He had just raised a hand as if he were going to attempt to comfort her when she turned back toward the body.

“Who would do this? What was he even doing down here?”

Martin glanced back toward Jon again; he seemed lost in his thoughts.

“I—I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any sense. What—why is he dressed like that?” She moved as if she were going to step closer, and then thought better of it. “Oh god.”

Martin couldn’t decide what to do; he had just made up his mind to reach for her arm when they heard more footsteps coming down the tunnel hallway. Sasha gasped when they were joined by Tim and Elias.

“Elias? But I thought—”

Elias looked at her, then from her to Jon and Martin, and finally to the body.

“What is this?” he asked, looking around at all of them again. “Is this—some kind of joke?”

Tim also looked around, ultimately meeting eyes with Martin. “What’s going on?”

“I—” He couldn’t see Jon—Sasha was standing between them—but he recalled the words he had spoken right before everyone had joined them. “I don’t know.”

“Is it—real?” Elias asked, stepping even closer. For a moment, Martin thought he was going to touch the body, but he didn’t. “Look, I’m going to be completely honest with everyone. I might—I might be high right now.”

“Jesus.” Sasha held her hand to her mouth again.

“It does—it does look like me, right?”

No one answered him.

“But the eyes are wrong.” He stooped down to look into the face that Jonah Magnus had stolen for himself. “Those—those aren’t my eyes. You all see that, right? Those aren’t my eyes.”

Martin thought he had felt every kind of uncomfortable feeling there was, but this was proving him incorrect. He felt sick.

“Elias,” Tim finally spoke out. “Maybe you should—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, though, because the man who had first come to tell them about the body had arrived with several uniformed officers in tow.

“Don’t say anything unless you have to,” Jon said quietly, having made his way over to Martin. “Let—let me talk.”

Martin didn’t know what that meant exactly, but he thought he didn’t like it.

“All right everyone, out of the way. Let us through.” With a small tug at his sleeve from Jon, he stepped back toward the wall as Daisy and Basira made their way through the small group of officers. They all watched as Daisy knelt down next to the body, inspected it for a moment, and then frowned. Martin didn’t know anything about murder scenes, but he knew there had to be a lot wrong with this one.

“Is this where he was found? Has anyone moved him?”

No one responded, and Basira spoke up. “All right, people. She asked if anyone’s moved him.”

The man from maintenance who had brought the police down shook his head.

Daisy surveyed the group, and her eyes quickly focused on Elias. She looked back down at the body and up at him.

“Do you know him? Is he a—brother?”

Elias shook his head. “I don’t have a brother.” He started to move toward the body again, but Basira stepped forward to block his path.

“All right, everyone—let’s go.” Daisy nodded her head at an officer behind Martin, who stepped forward and began to take pictures. “Back upstairs. Come on.”

Tim fell in step with Martin and Jon.

“I don’t understand.” Martin could hear Elias talking to Sasha behind them. “Is it real? Is it a real—”

Martin glanced over at Jon, who was deep in thought again. How is this possible? He supposed the body could have come here when they did. Given that it was in the tunnels, it wasn’t surprising that no one had found it before now. What was surprising was that it seemed to be in exactly the same condition it had been when he had last seen it months ago; if he didn’t know better, it could have just happened.

Had the Eye done this? And if so—why?

When they got back out to the front office, they found Melanie there arguing with yet another officer. Rosie was standing silently a few feet behind her.

“—I’m just asking for you to tell me something. Look, are my coworkers here? I’m—” She visibly relaxed as she saw the group come into the front desk area. “Oh, thank god. Are you—”

She stopped when she saw the looks on their faces.

“Go home, Melanie,” Sasha said. “I’ll be in touch later.”

“Oh—ok.” She frowned. “Are all of you all right?”

Sasha shrugged. “Go on. You too, Rosie.”

The two women looked at each other, and did as Sasha asked.

“All right,” Daisy asked. “Who’s in charge here?”

Sasha looked at Elias, who still seemed to be in more shock than the rest of them, and sighed. “I guess—I guess we are.”

Daisy peeked into the assistant’s office. “Is that another office back there?” When Sasha confirmed, she waved another officer out, who brought Sasha and Elias back to Sasha’s office. Martin heard the door close behind them.

“You. Your work crew found the body?”

The man from maintenance nodded yes.

“All right. Get their story,” she said to the other two officers who remained. “And you three”—she indicated Martin, Tim, and Jon— “come in here with us.”

They entered the assistants’ office; the three of them sat at the conference table Sasha had been using for a desk, and Daisy and Basira stood, jotting down occasional notes. They started with some basic questions, asking about their role at the Institute and what they had been doing that morning. As they spoke, Daisy’s eyes kept settling on Jon in a way that made Martin very nervous.

Eventually she addressed Jon directly. “We came out here before, a few months ago. You weren’t here.”

Jon nodded.

She turned to Martin. “You weren’t here either.”

“No, he wasn’t.” She looked at Jon again, raising an eyebrow, before turning to Tim.

“Were these the two you had called about? That were missing?”

Tim looked at her with a disgruntled expression. “Yes. Thanks for all your help with that, by the way.”

“Were you two off together?” Daisy asked, having turned back to Jon.

“Yes.”

“Look, it—it ended up being nothing.” Tim said. “You were right.”

“I’m not asking you.” Daisy didn’t look away from Jon. “Where were you?”

Jon started to answer her, but she cut him off.

“Wait. Both of you. On three.”

What the hell. Martin really didn’t like this now; it was clear that Daisy had somehow already zeroed in on Jon.

“One—”

Shit. He grabbed on to the first thought that popped into his brain, and thought it very, very hard.

“Two—”

He hoped Jon would understand this was an appropriate time to break the rules.

“Three.”

“Visiting his grandmother,” Martin said, at the same time Jon said, “My grandmother was ill.”

“Hm.” Daisy seemed almost disappointed; obviously she didn’t know that Jon’s grandmother had passed. Martin noticed that Tim didn’t so much as blink at their story.

“It was—something of an emergency,” Jon said.

“So you two are—a couple?” Basira asked.

“Yes,” Jon answered.

“Did you know that when you reported them missing?” Daisy asked Tim, without taking her eyes off Jon.

He shrugged. “Can’t blame them for not wanting to feed the office gossip mill. Look, it really was just bad communication.”

“I see,” said Daisy. “So—tell me about this.” She drew her hand across her neck, indicating that she was asking about the scar her counterpart had left behind. “Looks like someone didn’t like you.”

Jon’s chest rose just a little faster than it had to that point; it may have been imperceptible to anyone else, but Martin saw it.

“He was attacked,” Martin said, defensive. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“Martin.” Jon spoke his name sharply.

“When did that happen?” Daisy asked, ignoring the exchange.

“Not recently,” Jon answered.

“And what about the other scars?” Basira asked, waving her hand vaguely over her face. “The—the small ones?”

“Bug bites.”

“Bug bites,” Daisy repeated.

“Yes,” Jon said acidly. “Bad ones.”

“Well,” Daisy said, closing her notebook. “I have just a few more questions, and I think perhaps—just to help things go a little more smoothly—you should come down to the station with us.” It was clear she was referring specifically to Jon.

“Really?” Basira asked. Her concern wasn’t lost on Martin.

“Wait,” Martin interrupted again. “Why? He hasn’t done anything.”

“I’m not saying he has,” Daisy answered, unbothered. “I just want to talk to him, and I find we get better cooperation there.”

“You can’t do that!” Martin was indignant. “You have no reason!”

“Martin—”

“I do have a reason.” Daisy cut off Jon’s warning outburst as she turned toward Martin. “He is a witness to a crime scene, and I have more questions. Although now I wonder if maybe you should be the one to come with us.”

Martin froze. The look in her eye wasn’t right. It hinted at what he’d seen in her when they’d finally found her in the apocalypse, right before she’d turned on Jon. He was just trying to decide what to say when she turned away from all of them, suddenly appearing uncomfortable.

“Hm.” She shook her head.

“Are you all right?” Basira asked.

“I—I’m fine.” Her actions didn’t match her words, though. She shook her head again, and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

“You don’t look good.” Basira put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe—maybe call this quits for today?”

“I don’t—I don’t—ugh.” Daisy held her hand up to her forehead as she sat on Tim’s desk, which she had been standing in front of.

Martin remembered himself and looked over at Jon again; Jon had a fierce look of concentration on his face, and Martin understood.

He wouldn’t, he thought.

But he is.

“All right, come on.” Martin thought Basira looked almost equal parts relieved and worried as she took Daisy by the arm. She turned to the three of them as she began to get her up from the desk. “We have your contact information—we’ll be in touch.”

Martin waited until he heard Basira explaining the situation to the officers at the front desk on their way out to face Jon.

“What did you do?” he hissed.

“What I had to,” Jon answered through gritted teeth.

“What did you do?” Martin asked again.

“I—I showed her what Calvin Benchly experienced in his last moments. After she tracked him down.”

“Have you—have you done that before? Did you know that you could?”

“No. I guess I got lucky.”

“Lucky?” Martin was rapidly forgetting to keep his voice down. “Do you—do you know what that feels like? To have someone—”

“I do, actually,” Jon said coldly. “In fact, I know what every awful thing that can happen in the world feels like.���

Martin hesitated; he hadn’t considered that. “Then—then that’s worse, that you would do it anyway.”

Jon stood up. “Did you want to go with her?”

He started to say no, of course not, but he didn’t get it out; Jon lost his balance and began to crumple to the ground. Martin reached out and caught him, forgetting his other emotions as he pulled Jon into him for support.

“I’ve got you,” he said, not sure if Jon was even conscious to hear him. “I’ve got you.”

He lifted Jon up just long enough to get him to the sofa, where he tried to lay him down as comfortably as possible. He knelt at Jon’s side, and ran his hand over his damp hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s all right.” Jon struggled to open his eyes. “I don’t know if—but I wasn’t going to let you—”

“Shh,” Martin picked up his hand and stroked it gently. “Rest for a bit.”

Jon closed his eyes, and soon appeared to be sleeping.

“Well.”

Martin turned his head to find Tim facing him, now sitting on the conference table.

“Tim.” He hadn’t exactly forgotten he was there, but at some point he had stopped caring.

“You need to tell me what’s going on.”

Martin looked back down at Jon.

“Martin—you looked—you looked scared of him, just now. Before he fainted.”

“I am not scared of him.” Martin dropped Jon’s hand and turned on the floor to face Tim. “I have never been scared of him. I’m—I’m scared for him.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.”

“You know what that was about down there, don’t you?” Tim spoke quietly enough that the officers who remained in the nearby rooms wouldn’t hear. “In the tunnels. That body was real, wasn’t it? But you—you knew it wasn’t Elias. You weren’t even surprised when we showed up.”

Martin thought back—no, of course they hadn’t been surprised.

“I’ve given you a lot of time, Martin. Look—Sasha and I—we know you and Jon never went to the hospital. Well, not right after you showed up again, anyway. You did the next time, but—in Oxford. Why were you in Oxford that day? You certainly weren’t in therapy like you said.”

Martin stared at Tim, shocked. He and Sasha had known even more than Martin had realized—and they’d known it since the beginning.

“And then—all the other stuff—how did you know that guy we met? Oliver Banks? You knew exactly what he was going to say. And then—you, and Jon—sneaking around the Leitner Room—”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“We have security cameras, Martin.”

Of course they did. Martin knew they did. He could have smacked himself.

He tried to sound reproachful. “OK, but—why were you watching us on them?”

“Because you were sneaking around.” Tim shook his head. “Look, this—today—it’s gone too far. Whatever you know—whatever you can tell us—please. It’s time.”

Martin looked over his shoulder at Jon one more time, resting peacefully.

He wondered if he would lose him after all, after everything they had been through—after everything Jon had been through. He didn’t want to.

They needed help.

“Ok,” he said simply.

“And I realize—I really do—that whatever you’ve been through must have been—”

“I said ok.”

“Oh,” Tim said. “You did. Sorry.”

“Can you—can you help me get Jon home? I don’t want him to—to be here anymore.” He swallowed. “Then I’ll tell you everything.”

[everygame]

Blaseball (Web) 

Developed/Published by: The Game Band Released: 20/07/2020 Completed: n/a Completion: Maxed everything in the shop. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Alright, if you’re here there are two options:

You already love Blaseball and just like reading about it.

You have no idea why people are obsessed with Blaseball.

Now, in the grand tradition of my article on Cinco Paus, because it turns out this tumblr shouldn’t just be about me finishing games and then complaining about how they failed me, I present:

Blaseball or: How You Learn To Stop Hating The Fact The Canadian Team Is Called The “Moist Talkers” And Love A Game That’s Usually Sold As A Communal Storytelling Experience (As Wank As That Sounds)

There’s a challenge here. Blaseball, once you’re in, makes you want to immediately gush about the cool things that are happening in the game, to tell the story of it, but unless you’re definitely tuned in to it, I think it can be somewhat alienating. Like here’s what I want to say, right?

That after the Raptors went out of the NBA playoffs I stopped caring (this is not entirely true; I stopped after the Nuggets put the Clippers out because spite/the lols) and was kind of looking for something else to obsess over in a not-too-active fashion. You see, what kind of got me into sports, as much as learning to enjoy the actual games, is the… theorycrafting? I might be using the term wrong. But it’s looking at the schedules and thinking, “ok, if they beat them, then they’re here, but if they get beat, then they might struggle there” or “trading X player for Y would be the best move… will we do it? Can we do it?”

It’s part of the reason why this year’s NBA bubble was such a success--they created a play-in situation for a group of teams on the edge of the playoffs, and then even though I don’t really care about any of the teams involved, there was so much drama, and so many ways for things to go, that you could spend ages just thinking about how X thing had to happen for Y thing to occur and then get excited if it happened or have to recalculate.

So: Blaseball. It is, ostensibly, a game in which you gamble on baseball blaseball games. I mean for the most part, I will be clear with you, that is it. It’s a game where you make bets and use your winnings to increase your ability to make bigger bets. It’s not even a particularly effortful example of this. There’s no clicker mechanics outside of one involving peanuts that turned out not to do anything, and all games are pretty clearly given odds so you can mostly fire and forget.

However. The thing you have to do with blaseball is actually the thing I have to do with a sport: pick a team and care. It’s not a baseball blaseball betting sim. It’s a sport fan experience. I say experience, not sim, because you will not be pretending to be a fan. You will be a fan, and if it’s for a made up team, who cares? 

I think for a lot of people (the kind of nerds who play this kind of game) that’s a novel experience and I think that for people like me (who like sports) there’s an immediate sense that people are being ironic. You know; “blaseball” doesn’t feel that far from saying “sportsball” and I can’t guarantee that a lot of folk aren’t enjoying it… wrong. But then I also feel like people enjoy actual sports wrong so fuck it (I’d just warn you that if you go hard and join the discord--which is kind of necessary--you might find some people… annoying).

So you might think I’ve just described a few things at cross purposes there: I said you’ve got to be a fan for this to work, but then I also said that the NBA bubble succeeded because it made me care about teams I didn’t care about because of theorycrafting. Well, not exactly: what I’m saying is that in this game you’re going to need one (the ability to be a fan) to make the other pop.

I’m lucky here, because I’m Canadian (among other things) immediately and violently defending the one Canadian team in the thing is instant. I don’t need to put any effort in. I’ve never been the kind of guy who could just pick any team because I like the look of them, maybe you are or maybe you’re actually going to have to live in Charleston to want to support the Shoe Thieves, but let me say: if you are not American, the only correct decision is to support the Moist Talkers despite their terrible name (that I have come to terms with.)

Anyway, now I’ve given you the background, let me explain what happened last season to my team.

During a game, an legendary undead pitcher swapped places with our worst pitcher before, in another game, swapping places with a dog who used to be owned by one of our previous players. Then our fans started a campaign to make sure our best pitcher, who was trapped inside a peanut, would be idolised enough that they’d meet the “Monitor” a huge squid god, which most people assumed would kill them. At the end of the season, the squid cracked open our pitcher’s peanut shell, chose not to eat them and as a result saved them from the end of the post-season, where a vengeful peanut god turned all the players trapped in peanut shells (or, uh, who had Peanut in their name) into an evil team who then played the season champions in a RPG battle-style blaseball game (with hit points and everything) and cursed them. Then, at the end of the season blessings were handed out and thanks to having our best pitcher and receiving and absurd four blessings (including one which increased the size of one of our batters and one that gave a player a fishing net) we were suddenly one of the best teams in the league… with the danger that we might actually win the next season and be forced to fight the peanut god.

Now, as I said above, there’s a fair chance that seemed like absolute drivel to you. And even if it is exciting, I think the most important thing to do is to scroll back up and look at the screenshots and remember that the game doesn’t really have any graphics. Blaseball games occur in a tiny window with a diamond graphic, and so it’s a bit like watching just the corner of the screen in a baseball game. It is not particularly entertaining to watch games (although you can learn how to be captivated by it anyway). The game also, despite not being anything, can take up a massive amount of mental real-estate because you’re going to be checking in on it every hour of almost every day even though all you’re doing each time is clicking ten things and checking scores. It’s probably much too much, and it gets worse when you start to engage with the discord, because as a fan you really have to co-ordinate how to vote for blessings to make sure your team is always improving and you’re raising money for a good reason.

Alright, by this point it’s almost sounding like I’m trying to talk you out of getting into it, and I *do* recommend you don’t sicken yourself of it too quickly by checking it all the time. But most importantly I sort of glossed over what the genius aspect of Blaseball is: that being a fan has a weird, roundabout effect on how well your team does, and that reflects the fact that being a sports fan is not passive. When you watch a game you’re somehow putting everything into it even though you can’t affect anything. It’s why you spend all that time theorycrafting. Here, you, as a group, pool the votes you’ve spent all week raising money for and try and make your team what you want it to be. You don’t get to change what’s going on in a game like it’s Twitch Plays Baseball, or something. That wouldn’t be a fan. In Blaseball, instead, what you do is you try and make your dreams real via collective wishing. It’s only the slightest step up from just being a fan of a real team, and it gets to the heart of the communal experience of being a fan.

If I was the NBA, the NFL or very specifically the MLB I would 100% be looking at Blaseball and how to learn from it. I think there’s a crass version of it--imagine fans of teams in the NBA bubble could have voted to like… make sure their team got the nicest hotel rooms, or nicer meals or something--but giving fans a way to boost their team (outside of the brute force of their psychic power in a home game) by, I don’t know, checking into an app or otherwise engaging is a truly interesting (and honestly kind of disturbing, for people who hate the implications for tracking) concept.

Anyway. Try Blaseball! Pick a team, bet based on the odds, invest in snake oil, idol the best pitcher every game you check, but don’t check too much (and invest in the pitcher pendants, once you’re maxed buy votes and join the discord to find out what your team is voting for/get involved in the conversation. That’s it. But it’s pretty cool.

Will I ever play it again? I mean, it still feels a bit rich to say I’m playing this but I’m invested at least until the Moist Talkers win a season. Which could be this season. I’m really interested to see how much The Game Band expand this, too--I can think of a lot of ways that fans/players can be ever more empowered, but I’m interested in how carefully they could destroy the balance, and so many ways this could simply be more entertaining to look at and engage with (I mean the fact that you have to go to external sites for things like future schedules is kind of wack imho.)

Final Thought: There’s a ton of other stuff people like about this game--making up stories about the players, who they are, drawing them--and the nice thing is I don’t give a flying fuck about any of that and I don’t really have to. You can completely ignore the wiki’s fanfiction if you like and just deal with the reality of the game and how you personally react to it. Or you can really get into it and care about it way more than what’s actually happening on the field. I don’t care, I’m not your dad.

Even if I did just spend a long time shouting at you about sports.

[rnbwrv]

“The Sims 4″ Gamer Review 6/10

Hello everyone! This is Rainbow Raven Jezell (he/him) with the initial major post of this tumblr, the intro & 1st gamer review. I hope you enjoy!

Welcome to the Rainbow Rave, home of the Rainbow Raven streaming community based from my twitch, twitch.tv/rnbwrvnjezell. Here I will be doing amateur game reviews. I am by no means an expert or even an experienced gamer. All of these are my own opinions. I am writing with the primary audience of new or non-gamers in mind, those who are interested in getting started gaming in-general or in different game genres / platforms than they are used to. Ultimately my goal is to get you thinking about what you enjoy about games and whether the games I review are worth your time and money.  

“The Sims 4” - 7 years after release, is the simmer dream still alive? …Eh yeah, if you believe in it enough- 6 out of 10 stars  

[Disclaimer: I play and stream on the PS4. I have multiple packs and kits of different varieties, but I do not own them all. I have owned “The Sims 4” since 2018, and it is the primary sims game that I have played as well as my primary game overall. I stream Sims 4 on Twitch through console 2-3 times a week.]

Gameplay- I’ll be putting my reviews into 3 categories that mean the most to me. The 1st of which is “gameplay,” and I say “gameplay” for lack of a better word. What I mean is the overall experience of the game, such as the main activities, side quests, actions, and diversity of things to do in the game. Is it complex or simple? But most importantly, does its content engage with the player to pull them in? “The Sims 4” is a “sandbox game.” There are aspirations, worlds, careers, and families to engage with / build up. However, there is no “story mode.” And it might be controversial to say, but I give “The Sims 4” 3 out of 3 stars for gameplay. I never lack for activities or things to do in this game. You are only limited by your imagination. There are so many player-created challenges that can keep one occupied for years. I don’t see this as lack of gameplay in the sims. I see the open nature of the sims as it’s strongest point. For me, it is a storytelling device, and I keep coming back to the sims to create unique sims and narratives. I return to many other simmers / content creators on twitch + youtube to watch their stories / series as well.    

Aesthetics- As all of these are subjective, aesthetics really are a personal preference. For me, I give “The Sims 4” 1.5 out of 3 stars for aesthetics. I like more realistic looking games personally. Overall, “The Sims 4” has a good look; the quirky nature and styles of the sims are realistic enough but campy in the right ways. However, it was knocked down in points due to the visuals not working often because of glitches and crashing. Top simmer news sites, other content creators, and myself can name multiple visual glitches that happen every time the game is played, breaking the emersion too much to avoid deceasing the quality of the game. Also, players with strong PCs can get custom content to make their sims look more realistic or more cartoon-like. Build and buy objects can also be downloaded, often for free or much less than EA sells “The Sims 4” DLCs. Custom content allows the game to become more personalized in gameplay and aesthetics. Sadly, a lot of PC high quality tech is needed to use this content plus console players, like myself, cannot get custom content at all. With a franchise as old and well-supported by a huge fan-base as the sims, the game should be fully playable and customizable for players of all ages (teen and up) on all platforms to enjoy the whole experience, running relatively-well.    

Enjoyment- This is the hardest one to rate for me. “The Sims 4” offers a sandbox experience like no other out right out. I constantly play the sims and, for the most part, enjoy the experience. However, the experience is by no means smooth. I give “The Sims 4” 1.5 out of 3 for enjoyment. “The Sims 4” has a huge fanbase with tons of content creators + storytellers + modders that are constantly inventing new ways to play and improve the game. The blank slate of no story mode with the backdrop of the sims worlds allows a wonderful individual playground on your platform while connecting you to a community of lovely simmers. If you love the idea of creating your own sims and growing their grandkids up for generations, “The Sims 4” is for you. If you like the idea of being left alone to provide care or inflict chaos on your sims while also having a huge base of fan ideas for gameplay, give this game a shot! However, to the other side, if the past two sentences don’t intrigue you, there might not be much for you in the sims. There is no direction for how to play from the game itself and sims can feel generic on console without a lot of imagination. From a larger view, the enjoyment of the game is largely knocked down by the constant crashing and game-breaking bugs that frequently prevent the storytelling that players are tying to portray. The lack of response from the sims team is concerning. Some apologies and explanations have been posted, but it’s unrealistic to expect the average player to constantly be turning in save files for bug inspection when everyday gameplay is prevented due to those issues. Larger social justice issues like bad skin tones and hair textures for sims of color still linger while pronouns have finally made the “laundry list” too little too late in 2021. With DLC such as “The Sims 4: Knifty Knitting” less than a year old (July 2020) excluding non-binary sims + they/them pronouns, featuring “Lord and/or Lady of the Knits,” I fail to see the sims team living up to their proclamation of being super progressive in their support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Supporting a few LGBTQIA+ content creators and adding a trans flag to new trailers (Dream Home Decorator Game Pack, 2021) does not de-construct the gender binary in the game (language such as “boyfriend/girlfriend, male/female bodies, he/she” only pronouns). The sims team listens to some of the sims community, but whether it is EA or Maxis or something else that is blocking a deeper social justice dialogue is still unclear. Only time will tell if “The Sims 4” addresses the issues with an overhaul, but with leaders discussing 10-15 years of sims 4 while sims 5 is in process, I am not hopeful.        

Overall -  6 out of 10 stars. “The Sims 4” is worth buying, especially if you’re new to the game and if the game is on sale. With 3 points for each above category (9 total), I leave a single point for myself to award games if I definitely recommend them. However, I stand by 6/10 for “The Sims 4.” The game offers an experience like no other main simulation title out there right now, but the lack of forward planning and game-improvement focus leaves many with unfulfilled dreams 7 years after release. Some of the packs are worth the time and money, but sims content for the sake of content is becoming unplayable due to bugs. I recommend buying the packs that intrigue if they go on sale while leaving out the rest. Spend your money on other games to experience, “The Sims 4” will likely be here for you to come back to with us simmers trekking along (hopefully not) decades later.  

[tatschu]

Creators for Bloomingrosysims!

Hi my dear friends,

You all know, that I create for Bloomingrosysims a long time now.

Bloomingrosy is growing fast. We have a nice and familiar community and a Download Section with a lot of awesome CC.

2 Years ago Tilly Tiger started with Bloomingrosysims, and since than we had nearly 2 million Visitors! Thanks a lot to all of you who visit our FREE Downloads!

But we need more active creators. You know how it goes: Creators quit the Game and stop create for many reasons: real life, healthy issues or just because they got rid of the Game and creating. And that happen to Bloomingrosysims too here and than.

Well...what did I want to say with my Posting?

Bloomingrosy is looking for active and high quality Creators who are willing to create in a regulary Base for us. That means, not create 2 or 3 times and than leave or something like that.

You don’t have to stop with your own Blog, Site etc! Thats not what we want! I have my Tumblr AND I create for Bloomingrosysims. So thats absolutly fine!

Wouldn’t it be great to know, that your creations are know from thousends of Sims4 Players? Many CC Finds Blogs reblogging our creations, so your CC have a bigger rage.

What is Bloomingrosysims?

Blooming Rosy Forum is a Sims community of members who are here to share, learn and to help each other. We are more a big Sims Family, because we all respect and like each other. For me the Ladies at BR are so much more than just members, creators etc. We became close friends, familiy like, and I love all of them <3

You can always ask for help, because there is allways someone who is happy to help.

We also do contests here and than. Some are just for fun. But this October we had a Halloween Contest where the first 3 winners got a amazing Price: 1 Place wins an Sims 4 Expansion Pack of their choice, second Place a Gameplay Pack and third Place a Stuff Pack :) ( its close know )

What are we looking for?

- Active and high quality Sims 4 Creators - it doesn’t matter if you create own Meshes, do recolors, build houses for download, create CAS CC like clothes/skins/MakeUp etc or converting Sims2/3 CC to Sims 4...all of this is very welcome!

- And yes! Sims 2 and Sims 3 Creators are welcome too! We want to be a Place for everyone. You just have to be an active Creator with good/high quality CC.

Do you want to know more? Please visit Bloomingrosysims and have a Look!

Bloomingrosysims

Come and visit us! Meet all the lovely, kind, nice and helpful People I’ve ever met!

If you are interested in being a Creator for Bloomingrosysims, visit our Site and click the “join us” Button on the Frontpage. We cant wait to hear from you!

Thank you for reading my dear friends! <3 It would be awesome if you reblog this Posting! Thank you <3

UPDATE!

Bloomingrosysims is very happy to welcome 2 new amazing Creators in the Team!

A warm welcome to @lavi3enrose2019 and @msteaqueen!!

But we a still looking for more! So please feel free to ask!