#though I will say that this really highlights that Sims 4 does NOT have a lot of striped clothes

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Smiler Creation Day!

The first date on my Valice(r) Calendar, the date that I first created a version of Smiler Always in Sims 4, and thus the general look for my OC Smiler Alton and all their various variants across the multiverse! Coincidentally, I’ve actually been doing some testing with Smilers in a couple of different “test saves” in the game recently, figuring out the best way to get a human Smiler Sim in case I want a version who isn’t a vampire for some reason, and making up some new outfits for them just for funsies. So I figured, might as well share all that with you today! :)

First up, the result of me putting Smiler into a save and then downloading a room from the Gallery which had the vampire cure drink in it, putting it on their lot, and having them drink it. What happened was, because their yellow eyes are a vampire-only feature in-game, even though I was using them on their “regular” form, they went away after they were cured. I decided I might as well take the opportunity to decide on their natural eye color, and this was the shade of green that spoke to me.

. . .if you think Smiler looks weird with a natural eye color, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. XD I dunno what it is, but it’s just -- OFF.

For reference, here’s a shot of a regular Smiler -- I think the difference is mainly that the yellow eyes I picked glow, so the sudden lack of extra shadows around them throws me. Fortunately, in a second “test save” (in which I just went ahead and created a full Valicer set for my library), I discovered that using MC Command Center to turn them human keeps their yellow eyes, so that’s almost certainly the method I’ll use for all future Smiler humanizings.

Onto the outfits! Here’s one I made for my “naturally cured” Smiler while looking for an outfit that might fit them for that Blades in the Dark-inspired AU I keep poking at (really need to do a proper post on that). I’m not QUITE sure it’s right yet, but I like that vest and its purple pocket square for Smiler!

Here’s a “classic” Smiler look that ended up getting deleted/overwritten in my Chill Save (I believe the “Smiler hoodie” outfit is now in its slot), so I wasn’t sure if you guys had seen it or not! Naturally, I tend to favor yellow with Smiler’s clothes, and I like the video game feel of this one, since it went well with The Smiler being so tech-themed.

I stumbled across this sweater/sweatshirt thing while doing outfits for my MC Command Center Cured Smiler and immediately liked it -- can’t go wrong with yellow and black! As this was just a “hanging around the house being comfy” look, I paired it with the purple pajama pants and some yellow slippers. :p

Another yellow-and-black sweater that I liked while poking around the various outfit categories, and some very wild pants that I thought they’d enjoy. Part of the fun of dressing Smiler is knowing they don’t particularly care about getting too matchy. XD Though I don’t think this particular combo is too horrible.

I found this shiny formal outfit and HAD to get it for them. XD I just like the dramatic contrast between the shimmery yellow jacket and the pitch-black pants. XD Gave Smiler some dramatic eye makeup to go with it too!

Some Vampires clothes that make for another good formal outfit -- I really like that purple vest (and hey, I just noticed it has a yellow tie!), and the pants with the faded yellow pattern are great. :D And still got the dramatic eye makeup going with it!

Probably Smiler’s most “normal” outfit, this was out of a desire to use those purple PJ pants for actual PJs and actually go with a solid purple theme for once instead of mixing it with yellow. I like it a lot. . .which makes sense because these actually look a lot like some of my OWN pajamas. XD

The return of the yellow vest, this time paired with yellow pants and brownish-yellow sneakers! The idea was that this was for a party that wasn’t exactly FORMAL but also wasn’t full casual. Think the pants are a bit muddy in the color, but it’ll do.

Again, a shiny formal outfit in yellow with a black shirt was a must-get. XD Smiler will sparkle at any given opportunity, thank you. Paired with a nice top hat and some black -- sneakers? Obviously they haven’t full committed to formal with this one. XD

A Smiler to illustrate my Christmas headcanon about them loving ugly sweaters and Christmas tat! I actually had my choice of ugly sweaters between the free “holiday” pack and Seasons, but I ended up going with this freezer-bunny-themed one because it was the right color scheme. XD Pair with a different set of PJ pants, slippers, and a knit Rudolph hat, and Smiler is ready to celebrate the season!

And finally, a quick shot from my Chill Save Smiler themselves, because I don’t think I’ve ever shown you their main formal outfit. Yes, full tux and tails just because that one had the yellow. XD And white and gold shoes, because who wants to match their shoes to their pants? :P

So yes, that is the Smiler Look Book for the day. XD Hope you enjoyed! Happy Creation Day, buddy!

[readingrobin]

I'm still trying to get the hang of the whole "posting content" thing, but I think providing a reading wrap-up every month will allow me a little more to work with. January was a fairly standard reading month. I was able to get through ten books, though I added quite a few to my TBR. Kind of had a mini heart attack when I realized that, according to my Storygraph, I have about 1,731 titles on there. Well, at least I know I'll never run short of reading material.

Total Books Read: 10

Total Pages Read: 3,689

Books Read:

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell - (Review) (3.5/5)

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier - All I have to say is that the best kind of children's fiction tends to be the ones that expertly balance the harsh cruelties of life, especially during the Victorian era, with an unshakable sense of hope and a lot of heart. Sweep is one of those books that doesn't shy away from the reality and history of children in peril, but there is a warmness in its pages that comes from feeling and seeing the love and protection of dear ones long since passed. Definitely a bit of a tearjerker, but in a good way. (4/5)

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu - (Review) (4/5)

Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes - Looking at the world around us, this book couldn't be more relevant, as book bans are sweeping across schools and kids are left without a choice in what they want to read. Though it presents a somewhat simplistic scenario of censorship gone wild, it's definitely meant as an accessible way for young readers to be introduced to the process of book banning and what can be done to make your voice heard. (4/5)

Season of the Bruja Vol. 1 by Aaron Duran and Sara Soler - A really beautiful graphic novel that highlights the conflict of surviving indigenous traditions vs. religious colonialism. Stories that point out the hypocrisy and brutality of the Catholic church scratch such a good itch for me. The world is a little shaky though, not much is exactly explained and you almost need some prior knowledge of Mexican mythology going in, but it's worth checking out. (3/5)

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos - (Review) (4/5)

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison - (Review) (4/5)

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman - Though it takes a while to get going, The Ivory Key does have a great readability to it as the action finally kicks in about maybe halfway through. Up until then, the book spends a great deal laying the foundation of this world: tensions between cities, the role and history of magic in this society, the dynamics of the main characters. I will say, being introduced to at least seven different important characters in the span of 30 pages is a tad overwhelming at first, but it levels out the more you keep reading. While I did enjoy it, there was nothing particularly exemplary about the story that wowed me. The Indian-inspired setting and mythology makes it stand out, but everything else used the same tropes, beats, and twists that I've seen time and time over with little to add to them. I liked it enough to want to read the second book coming out later this year, but probably not enough to keep it on my personal shelf. (3/5)

Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith - Read this one in a day and was fairly satisfied with it. It'll definitely appeal to middle grade readers looking for Marvel tie-in stories, as it has a quick pace and a good amount of action and mystery. For me, I don't think I enjoyed it enough to continue with the sequel, but it was nice to see a younger T'Challa and M'Baku out of their element away from Wakanda and how dynamic changed over the course of the book. (3/5)

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim - For a book inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, the story itself was incredibly simple and told fairly straight-forwardly, but I think that works in its favor. I'm at the point where I'm starting to tire of long-winded society dramas so I appreciated it for having a bit of focus. Everyone's motivation is clear, with a natural twist or two popping up along the way, plus a great amount of casual queerness. Though the world-building wasn't exactly intricate, there is a good sense of aesthetic and personality in the setting of Moray from its high status venues to the seedy gambling dens. I'm interested to see where the story goes in the sequel! (3.5/5)

Average Rating: (3.6/5)

[fangable]

5, 6, 8, 17, and 20 for Veronica! On the meta questions ask game.

I wish to know the vampire secrets!

thank you very much my friend!!!!!!

5. What kind of abilities and power level does your oc have? Why did you give them their powers? What's the in-universe reason?

veronica currently has blood potency 2 (she's a 10th gen ancilla), presence 4, celerity & auspex 1 and dominate 2! she's very much presence-focused, she spent most of her unlife as a spy and she preferred to use charm to make people spill their secrets.

i really wanted to give her dominate though, and the explanation i originally suggested to my storyteller was that she sucked it out of some poor fledgling while participating in gustav breidenstein's hunts:

(Camarilla sourcebook, p. 41)

this however is subject to change because i'm trying to come up with a better story!

6. What are the weaknesses in their power? Why did you give them their weaknesses? What's the in-universe reason?

i'm not quite sure how to interpret this question in veronica's case, so i think i'm just going to talk about the flaws i gave her!

enemy - this one comes from her predator type, which is siren. it's an ex-lover of hers named basilius, but the reason he's her enemy has less to do with the fact that they're exes and more with the fact that she wanted to open her own photo studio and he became convinced that they'd run it together. so now he feels cheated out of a business

stalkers - she's 1. a siren and 2. a decently popular photographer, so i figured it wouldn't be much of a stretch to give her this one

bond junkie - one of her convictions is that she won't let anyone control her, which comes from the fact that she's already spent roughly 60 years blood bound to her sire. she is also a hopeless hedonist. so i figured that giving her this flaw could be a source of some delicious delicious inner turmoil in the future

prey exclusion (unwashed and unkempt people) - went with this to highlight that she's still a pretty stereotypical vain & arrogant toreador sometimes

suspect (camarilla loyalists) - she's left the ivory tower not too long ago, so some of the camarilla kindred would certainly be pretty offended if she ever dared to speak to them

8. Does your oc have any notable flaws or activities they're not good at? Why did you give them those flaws? Why do they exist in-universe?

she's quite bad at pretty much anything physical. she has some fencing skills (courtesy of her sire who's a talented fencer), but other than that she's never really had a reason to learn how to fight. until now, that is - turns out that as an anarch you might need to get your hands dirty a bit more often.

17. List/describe up to five tropes that apply to your oc. They could be related to the oc's characterization or their narrative arc.

tragic backstory - oh she's got one. cushy life as a kid, losing it all and having to fend for herself before she hit adulthood, being blood bound for over half a century, multiple lovers who are now dead

the promiscuous bi/pansexual - i have nothing to say in my defence. she likes to have fun!!!

femme fatale girlboss whatever other words there might be. she's a businesswoman who will absolutely step on you

is "divorce coded" a trope? it should be a trope

20. Share a random piece of trivia about the creation of your oc. Examples: scrapped ideas or changes you didn't expect to make.

random piece of trivia: veronica is partially based on a sim-turned-oc i had as a teenager! her name was lilith, she was the firstborn child of a vampire lady and her crime boss husband, and had a penchant for killing family members and acquaintances. i'm not gonna lie i was a pretty edgy teenager.

so knowing that, you can see why it was so funny when veronica got invited to join the bahari. it wasn't something i ever planned for her but once she had the opportunity i knew i could NOT pass up on that

[blue-eyed-bloodstains]

1. Do you enjoy Jim Carrey movies? HELLLL YES! ALLLLRIIIIGGGHHTTYY THEEENNNN! :D 

2. Don’t you love to eat watermelon on hot, sunny days? I’ll eat it anytime really

3. Does your hair change color with the seasons? it gets natural blonde highlights the more it’s in the sun 

4. Have you ever made a CD with music that reminds you of someone/something? yep several times

5. Do you watch Saturday Night Live? What do you think of it? not really I’ve seen it in the past and I’ll see occasional clips but I was more a huge MadTV fan. I think it’s alright, some are funny and some aren’t. 

6. What is your favorite sporting event to watch during the summer Olympics? What about the winter ones? I never really watch em but if I do, I definitely love the gymnastics and snowboarding...curling too

7. Do you play the Sims? Would you say you’re addicted to it? I used to so much in the early days of it I’m so far behind!! I wanna play it so bad to see how different it is!

8. Name the last five artists you listened to. Jesse McCartney, Eppic, Michael Jackson, Tyga feat. Chris Brown, Skillet

9. Do you know anyone who is lactose intolerant? Do you know anyone who is allergic to wheat? I mean I don’t think so personally, at least they never told me or made it obvious for either one? 

10. Do you usually make plans for the week ahead, or do you just make them as the days come? nope never really make plans at all except figure out what I’m craving for dinner to DoorDash...I play it by ear

11. Is there an animal in the same room as you? yeah my passed out with full belly cat 

12. What language do you take in school? Is it boring to learn it? I took mandatory Spanish like everyone, and once I was able to choose my own I took Italian for a few years. It wasn’t boring really, I loved it...just wish I remembered more than a few words :(

13. Do you remember what the last kind of gum was that you had? Ice Breakers Cubes, Spearmint

14. Do you tend to grow out of things fast? ...meaning like, emotionally and mentally? unfortunately I lose interest in a lot of shit I normally love due to my severe depression so I guess in a way yeah...

15. Do you like to eat cinnamon rolls, or do you find them disgusting? I love em especially if they’re real moist and creamy

16. What is the approximate time and date? May 19, 2023 Friday, 8:10am EST

17. When was the last time you went on Facebook? a few days ago I’ve been too sick

18. Who is your favorite survey maker on Xanga? What about layout maker? I think I’m the only person I know who never went on Xanga! *hides*

19. What is your favorite kind of salad dressing? tie between ranch and balsamic vinaigrette 

20. Do you know where your favorite band/singer originated from? If so, where? Which one? JoJo from Mass., Tay Swift from right here in PA, Eminem from Detroit, Alexz Johnson and Avril Lavigne both from Canada...

21. Do you tend to take or make more surveys? take

22. Isn’t it revolting when big hairy old men walk around with their shirts off? And also when women wear clothes that don’t fit them? Fuck this question???

23. What color are your earphones? white

24. Do you remember the last photo you took? What was it of? What about the last photo you put on a website? I believe it was a selfie on FB, and took was of my cat

25. Do you like long surveys or short ones? long

26. Have you ever used a silver Sharpie? What’d you think of it? no I’d like to though

27. Do you enjoy Japanese anime? Have you ever seen the Miyazaki films, like Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, or My Neighbor Totoro? hellllll yessssssss omg don’t get me started!!

28. Do you like to eat out more or eat in? Which do you do more often? I love getting take out or going out to eat but we mostly DoorDash and stay home...

29. Do you believe you’ve gotten better at making surveys? I’ve never made any, only taken em

30. Do you enjoy watching shows about survival? Why/why not? meh not really, just not my thing really...I’m more about the crime shows and docs so complete opposite :P

[loorain]

Sims 4 Fontenot Legacy - What Comes Up Must Come Down

Sabrina returns from the cafe date with their friends and finishes up some final homework before exams in the morning. They even call it an early night and get some much needed rest.

Sabrina wakes early enough in the morning to go for a relaxing jog.

During the jog, they get a good morning text from Beau. It leaves them grinning from ear to ear.

After their jog they shower and grab a bite to eat in the dorm.

Heading to the computer room, Sabrina passes by a guy they don't recognize. He's not a student at the school. Is he a friend of someone? Sibling? Sabrina often sees unfamiliar faces pop up in the dorm, so this time shouldn't be any different, but something about this person sticks out in their mind. At any rate, they eat their food and just as they go to wash their plate, they hear crying from the bathroom.

Sabrina: Nyla? What's wrong? Why're you crying?

Nyla: It's all falling apart, Bina.

Sabrina: Hey, take a deep breath okay? Now explain slowly. What's going on?

Nyla: My child's father came by today... He asked to meet up for another session. I knew if I told him over the phone I might never hear from him again, so I agreed and told him to come here. Then when he saw me... he was shocked, to say the least. At first he denied it, said there's no way, we only did it once, and he couldn't possibly know who else I've been with since. But after some time... he seemed to accept the situation, but he's scared. I don't know what this means me. For my baby. Sabrina... I'm so lost.

Sabrina: Was that the blond guy I saw outside a little while back? Curly hair and glasses?

Nyla: Yeah. Alex.

Sabrina: Don't worry, I'll kick his ass for you.

That elicits a small giggle from Nyla.

Nyla: No, I kind of need him in one piece for now. Thanks for the offer though.

Sabrina: Okay, but you just say the word. In any case, I know things feel really difficult right now. I can't imagine what you're going through. But know that, if no one else, you've got me. And we're going to move out and get that place and raise the little bean together!

Nyla: Yeah... You're right. Thanks Bina.

Sabrina: No problem. Now let's enjoy the last day of the semester and finish our classes with a bang! Ooh, bad pun.

Now Nyla laughs wholeheartedly.

Nyla: You're the worst! And the best.

Like Sabrina said, they go to their classes to do back-to-back finals with a pep in their step. They know what the plan is and have prepared for this.

Nyla finishes her exams before Sabrina does, and looks especially exhausted by the end. She is miserable in more ways than one, but the main thought racing through her mind is Sabrina. Will they really be happy giving up school to help them raise their child? They don't want to bring anyone down with them.

Sabrina finishes their classes feeling super relieved and on top of the world. Now they can't wait to get back to the dorm and start packing.

Sabrina: Hey Nyla, do you have anymore... Nyla?

Nyla's bed and desk area are clear of anything connected to her; it's like she was never there. Sabrina goes around the dorm looking for her and asking others, but no one has seen her.

Sabrina: Huh?

Sabrina sits down at their desk, opening the mysterious letter.

"Dear Bina,

I'm sorry I left like this. I just couldn't let you throw away everything you've worked so hard for. It's selfish of me to allow you to do that. I don't know what will happen to me, but I need to figure out this first part alone. Focus on school, don't let anyone distract you from your goal. Philip, Beau, Alton, anyone.

You were truly the highlight of my time in university. Maybe I'll return one day, but for now I need to be the best mom I can be. That means leaving this behind. Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself.

Love Always,

Nyla"

Sabrina: Oh Nyla... where have you gone?

And with perfect timing, Sabrina gets a text from Beau. However, it's not the sort of text they expect.

Who the heck?! Who is Lanuola? Why hasn't Sabrina ever heard of this person before? Have they always been in Beau's thoughts? Had he actually lied to their face to get what they wanted? Sabrina's mind was swimming with questions, but even quicker emotions of rage and sadness overcame them. They told him to think about it himself and immediately muted his calls and texts. They couldn't deal with this right now. First Nyla leaves, and now this? What is happening?

Sabrina goes to their last practice of the semester, but afterward can't will themself to return to the dorm. Beau has betrayed them, and Nyla has disappeared. There's only one person they think to call.

Sabrina: Hey, can I come over?

[dandylion240]

All of the story asks please :) (Character specific ones I'd say up to you, but would love to have them be Jonah/Cecil or my usual favorites ;) )

what’s the last screenshot you’ve taken for your story?

2. describe your story in three words or less

Family, Angst, Drama

3. describe (insert character here) in three words or less

Jonah - unassuming, brave sensitive

Cecil - insightful, supportive, caring

Evan - self-sacrificing, helpful, innocent

Jayden - protective, stubborn, active

4. how did you choose the name of your story?

I try to use titles that is kind of thematic of the story I'm writing. It takes me forever to come up with a name and sometimes the name changes multiple times before it gets posted.

5. how do you choose your characters’ names?

It depends upon the story. For my Reagan family stories (TS4) I use the parents names. It's kind of a family tradition. For instance Jonah/Ethan. All boys will start with E and the girls will start with J. In my TS3 stories I sometimes choose a theme for names and use that. Like next gen of NSQL the theme is nature.

6. how long have you been working on your story for?

Well it depends on the story. With my Reagans I started writing for them in the summer of 2019. For my TS3 legacies I started in 2014 I think.

7. whats the biggest risk you’ve taken with your story? did it pay off?

I think my biggest risk is my current story Into the Depths of Darkness. I wasn't sure I could pull it off and the story has changed from what I thought it would be and the hero of the story has changed from first conception. I'm happy that Jonah is the hero of his own story and it's given him so much character growth and he's becoming more of what I always invisioned him being. I owe a lot to @mahvaladara to how the story has progressed and the ideas she has contributed. It wouldn't be what it is without her.

8. what about your story are you proud of?

There are many things I'm proud. Mostly that I continue writing even though sometimes it feels like I'm ripping my heart out to write some of things I write about and also that I don't quit even when it's hard.

9. what about your story are you looking to improve on?

There's always things that can be improved. Writing is a process that the more you do it the more you learn and get better. I could say pictures but I'll admit the storytelling will always come first over pretty pics and sometimes I just can't find the right pose to fit. Maybe one day I'll be able to make my own poses but I'm not there yet.

10. is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? is there a definitive end?

It's a work in progress. I start writing from an outline of how I think the story should go but it's loose enough for me to rearrange things or remove/add things to it as the story evolves.

11. why have you decided to tell this story? are there any messages or meanings within it?

I just like to write. If there's any message in my stories it's that family is important and no matter awful things you might face in life if you have people who love and care for you that you can endure it. But mostly that you can rise above your circumstances and still be a healthy, functioning person despite everything even if you have a mental or health problems, you can still be happy, loved.

12. do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

It's mostly a storytelling medium for me. I do play it sometimes but tbh though TS4 lacks so much depth and gameplay I find it boring after a while. I've gotten into playing TS3 again now that I have a better computer that it doesn't lag as much.

13. from basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you?

I don't honestly know. I've never stopped to consider how long it takes.

14. do you have any regrets about your story so far? if you could go back in time, how would you fix these?

No I don't think I have any real regrets. Sure I go back and think I could have written that better or edited that picture more but for the most part I'm happy with my stories.

15. what have been the highlights of creating your story?

The highlights have always been the people who become involved in my characters lives.

16. what about the process do you enjoy?

Seeing my stories come to life. How my characters change as the story progresses.

17. what about the process do you hate?

When I struggle to write a scene and it doesn't flow the way it should. It's generally because I'm coming at it wrong. Once I figure that out than it flows. Sometimes the seeming lack of interest in what I write from the readers is hard to overcome and I feel like quitting. But the few who comment I thank because that always revs up my motivation to continue.

18. choose a song that reminds you of your story

Just one song....that's really difficult say. There are so many songs out that fit my current story. This song fits Into the Depths of Darkness because where there's a lot of darkness there's still hope to be found.

19. choose a song that reminds you of (insert character here)

Ok I'll do this for Jonah - Fight Song

20. choose your favourite shot from your story so far

21. choose your least favourite shot so far

22. choose a favourite character from your story so far

Jonah is my baby. It may not show it by I love him.

23. choose your least favourite character so far

Hmm this is difficult because there were characters I created purely to be hated. Currently my least favorite is Ethan but it's not because I don't love him but it's because of his roll in the story.

24. are there any characters who remind you of yourself?

Not really. There are certain aspects of me in all my characters or people I know in them but none are an incert of myself.

25. what inspirations have you drawn on for your story?

There are so many. I draw inspiration from people around me. From movies and TV shows I watch. The books I read. Sometimes from the people I interact with on here mainly @izayoichan @mahvaladara @jenpants and @legendofsim They've let me bounce ideas off of them and their input helps me in my stories.

26. have other sim stories inspired you?

Yes they have. See above. All their stories have inspired me.

27. what genres would you describe your story as?

Modern fantasy drama??? I have no idea if that's a thing but it best describes what I write.

28. if you could reproduce your story in another medium (movie, novel, comic, etc.) what would you choose and why?

Hmm I'd say novel or maybe series. A movie would be cool too.

29. what would your story’s rating be? (G, PG, M etc.)

Hmm interesting I'd like to say its somewhere between PG-13 and mature just because of some of the topics.

30. if you were leaving simblr and had to choose another creator to continue the story for you, who would you ask?

I think either @izayoichan or @mahvaladara for my TS4 stories since they've helped me write some of them and they would keep true to the characters as they love them as much as I do.

For my TS3 stories I would say @legendofsim since for a long time our stories had been intertwined.

31. drop some random trivia about your story

Ethan was supposed to die trying to save Jonah

Caiden was supposed to have played the part of the hero instead of Jonah

Cory was going to heal Jonah's broken heart over the of Ethan.

But as they say the story changed...

32. give a light spoiler

Someone will be heartbroken at the end of the story.

33. recommend another creator’s story!

There are so many: @izayoichan @mahvaladara @nikatyler @justkeeponsimming @amuhav @legendofsim @simlit @lilyshadowwriter @wannabecatwriter

Please don't be upset if you weren't listed on here. I love everyone I follow but these are my favorites. I have others but some aren't active anymore and stuck with the ones I'm always waiting for the next installment, even if I'm behind on a few of them.

Thank you for asking!

[johannas-motivational-insults]

“Friendship” in the Horde

Season 4 raised some interesting questions about how people who grew up in the Horde define friendship. Kyle claimed that his squadmates were his friends, despite how we've seen them bully him, and Scorpia admitted she didn’t even know how to be a good friend. We also saw further developments in Catra and Lonnie’s dynamic that have some interesting implications about their bond, both past and present. However, while these themes became more explicit this season, they are hardly new. The Horde worldbuilding is really quite brilliant, as the writers have been laying the foundation for these revelations by showcasing certain patterns since season one.

This got a little lengthy on me, but there was a lot to consider. The lack of healthy emotional expression and relationship modelling is one obvious problem in the Horde, but the hostile environment has also led to some very specific power dynamics and social structures. These structures, while potentially helpful in hostile environments, are maladaptive in terms of fostering healthy relationships. Ultimately, every character who grew up in the Horde is emotionally crippled. (I’m not even going into Adora, an excellent example, because her repression and communication problems are well-documented and I wanted to focus on characters still in this environment.)

Scorpia

Let’s start with Scorpia. Her revelation that she doesn’t understand what friendship is was a big moment for her, but for those of us who have been watching closely, it’s no big surprise. Scorpia was so desperate for a meaningful connection that she latched onto the first person who showed any signs of considering her a friend, ignoring all the red flags indicating that the relationship was not healthy. Actually, she didn’t ignore them so much as not recognize them, because she didn’t even know what a healthy relationship looks like. To her, the fact that Catra invited her to her room and chose her to accompany her on a mission was enough for her to dub them the Superpal Duo.

Of course, we all know how that went for her. She continued to support Catra unconditionally despite the latter’s tendency to use Scorpia as her emotional punching bag. They did settle into a somewhat more reciprocal and caring relationship after Scorpia saved Catra against her orders during 2x05, proving that Catra was more important to her than the mission (even if that wasn’t what Catra thought she wanted). It’s sad when you think about it, because that was probably the first time Catra ever experienced her wellbeing being prioritized above all else.

Unfortunately, the revelation that Shadow Weaver had gone running back to Adora after betraying her triggered a trauma response and made her clam up again, lashing out at Scorpia and shutting her out even though she had done nothing to betray her trust. It took Catra blatantly attacking and insulting Scorpia when she failed to bring back Entrapta’s recordings (and some well timed reality checks from Emily) for Scorpia to realize that Catra was being a bad friend and she couldn’t win her over by being a good friend.

And actually, Scorpia’s confession in 4x10 that she “thought” she was being a good friend to Catra implies that she had since realized that she wasn’t actually being a good friend to Catra either. She knows the scorpions were a loyal people and she ascribes to that ideal, and she has so much love to give and always tries so hard to be positive, but not setting boundaries with people or demanding a measure of basic respect does nothing for them or you. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that Scorpia forced her affections on Catra, inserting herself into Catra’s life in a way that made her uncomfortable, and continued to ignore Catra’s attempts at setting boundaries with her (which is also very disrespectful). While Catra was certainly the aggressor, she was not the only one who failed in this partnership.

Let’s go back for a moment to Scorpia’s earliest indication that Catra might want to be her friend, when she confides in her and enlists her help coming up with and then executing a plan. Being chosen as Catra’s wingman seems to be important here, and perhaps she was wilfully ignoring how she was the only person who could make Catra’s plan work, but being confided in and trusted was huge to her. And since Horde soldiers are so used to being used, they don’t see it as a red flag. Catra actually flat out said Scorpia was the only person she could trust. How could a lonely gay not interpret that as a sign of being special to someone?

The squad

The importance of trust also becomes evident when considering the interactions among the main squad. Loyalty seems to be paramount in the Horde, not just the scorpion kingdom. Adora defecting to the Rebellion and leaving her squad behind was seen as a huge betrayal, and not just by Catra. Did anyone else want to cry when Lonnie struck back at Adora with “we were your friends” in 1x09? Lonnie was deeply hurt by Adora’s abandonment, feeding into her disillusionment with the Horde. Similarly, when Double Trouble revealed they had double-crossed Catra, her devastated reaction was not that her plans were ruined, but that they had betrayed her. That no doubt was also related to her previous betrayals, but also serves to highlight the importance of loyalty in their subculture.

While all the Horde characters were interesting to watch this season when it came to the themes of friendship, the arc was most pronounced in Lonnie. As I’ve mentioned previously, Scorpia had a short arc over one episode where her rosy worldview was destroyed, causing her to leave (much like Adora), while Lonnie was already a cynic who was aware of the Horde’s imperfections and had to go through more extreme hardships to detach from this unhappy but familiar environment (much like Catra, we hope).

Though she and the boys didn’t leave the Horde until the finale, her disillusionment was already evident in her first episode this season. After Catra berated them for something that wasn’t their fault and demanded they risk their lives to fix it (big Hordak energy), she had her first big revelation: “Catra doesn’t care about us, Adora left us. Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless. It’s everyone for themselves.” In the next episode, she was frustrated by Scorpia’s naïve enthusiasm and trust in Catra, but it took a big blow up between her and Catra for her to finally decide she was done with her, done with the Horde in general.

Kyle represents a sort of middle ground between Lonnie and Scorpia in terms of outlook. He was not treated well in the Horde, but still believed in the ideals of loyalty and squad unity. He wanted to believe Catra had sent them out on a mission into the Whispering Woods because she trusted them and wanted it to be a team-building exercise. His take on it was: “She may be mean, but we’ve always had each other’s backs. Ever since we were kids.” He saw the squad as his family, including Catra (and previously Adora). It took Catra baring her claws and threatening to attack Lonnie outside of a battle sim for him to lose faith in her.

Bullying, the pecking order, and squad unity

As is clear by this point, the Horde defections this season were driven by Catra mistreating the others, but we can’t lose sight of how mistreatment is a fact of daily life in the Horde. And as I mentioned above with Lonnie, it’s those who were most aware of and desensitized to the mistreatment who had the hardest time naming it and leaving the toxic environment. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, call it the sunk cost fallacy, but either way once you’ve submitted to a system that dehumanizes you, it’s hard to admit that that system is wrong and leave it for a better life. Scorpia and Adora grew up somewhat privileged in the Horde in that they were destined for greatness, so they were never abused overtly and they had a level of protection from power-hungry cadets looking to claw their way to the top of the heap. They were already at the top and couldn’t be taken down, so they didn’t have to bully or be bullied.

The importance of pecking order is much more evident when considering people like Kyle, Catra, and Lonnie. Within their squad, Kyle is obviously the omega of the gang (get your heads out of the gutter, that is not what I mean), the one who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong and is constantly getting picked on. Lonnie shits on him, Catra shits on him, and even Rogelio gives him shit and goes along with the blame game. Despite all this, Kyle considers them his friends, his family.

This starts to make sense when you consider it in terms of intra vs. extra squad relations. Maybe the squad didn’t show Kyle any respect or treat him with kindness, but they did protect him in battle sims (sometimes lol) and rescue him from the spore storm. You also kind of get the impression that although they bullied him and asserted their dominance on the regs, they would protect him if other people tried to hurt him. You might say he’s the pet of the gang – he has no power within the structure and it may not be pleasant, but the structure still offers advantages. Having allies was still good for him even if he was at the bottom of the pecking order within the alliance.

Through a sociology lens, you might say the squad (and the Horde in general, given it’s a military society) follows the stereotypical male model of friend groups with clear pecking orders that everyone buys into (with exceptions for blatant power struggles), as opposed to the stereotypical female model that appears less hostile and more cooperative outwardly but involves a lot of underhanded infighting. (Obviously those are broad generalizations and it can be argued how much of it is nature vs. nurture, but they are observable patterns that boys and girls are socialized into in many human societies.) This ties in interestingly to @jaelav3​‘s observations about masculinity equating to strength and femininity equating to power in the Horde (a meta she really needs to write, because it’s brilliant). The hostility of the Horde forces soldiers into these rigid pecking orders in order to find protection in a dangerous place. When everyone knows and accepts their role, it is easier for the squad to function in a unified manner and protect each other, even if it’s at the cost of their mental and emotional health.

Now, when not everybody buys into the pecking order or it’s ambiguous, and/or if there’s a sudden power vacuum, that’s when things get interesting…

Catra and Lonnie, the perfect case study

Catra also suffered a lot of bullying and abuse in the Horde, but in a very different way than Kyle. She was in a unique and kind of contradictory position where she was somewhat protected by her close friendship with Adora, but she was also Shadow Weaver’s favourite chew toy and everyone knew it, which made her a target as well. If Shadow Weaver abused her, she wasn’t going to care if the other cadets abused her as well. Catra’s defensive body language and general distrustfulness and hostility gives the impression that she was bullied behind Adora’s back and Shadow Weaver turned a blind eye, perhaps even encouraged it.

This was all illustrated in 1x03, when Catra and Lonnie butted heads and Catra was forced to back down when two other cadets backed up Lonnie, then Lonnie told her to watch it because Adora wasn’t around to protect her anymore. That one line alone told so much of their story. This was also one of the few times we saw cadets using people from other squads to affect their own squad’s dynamics, as – like I said – that seems to be kept mostly in-house. It may have had something to do with Lonnie’s overall standing among the cadets or how Kyle and Rogelio rank lower in their little hierarchy and seem uninterested in getting involved with the power politics, but I digress.

The argument itself was meaningless, really - the whole thing was a pissing contest, an attempt to assert dominance within their squad’s sudden power vacuum. Lonnie fancied herself the new leader of the squad, and she ended up getting her wish in a backwards way when Catra was promoted out of the squad and given official power over her. Catra, of course, took every opportunity to rub this in Lonnie’s face, perpetuating the cycle of abuse she’d fallen victim to.

The reason they had a power struggle in the first place wasn’t just because Adora left, it was because their pecking order was previously unclear. Catra wasn’t very cooperative and tended to go rogue, so she didn’t slot nicely into the power structure. She was also perceived as lazy, as she had adopted an air of nonchalance once she realized she’d never get the recognition or praise so easily heaped on Adora. (Why try when failing hurts so much?) That being said, she was Adora’s best friend and basically her sidekick, so in a way that made her second-in-command of the squad.

On the other hand, Lonnie was devoted to the squad and was always around to provide tangible support, so she was also kind of Adora’s second-in-command. Combined with her harder work ethic, this also gave her a very legitimate claim to the throne. She was obviously pissed when her teammate she saw as a lazy asshat got promoted, but to her credit she lived up to her own personal ethics, buying in and not pushing back against Catra’s authority until late in season 4.

Despite the power struggle, however, Catra and Lonnie do seem to have a bond. Even if they don’t like each other, they have a certain level of trust in each other. When the princesses invaded the Fright Zone in 3x04 and shit started to go sideways, the first person Catra was looking for to try to get support and/or answers was Lonnie. Then in 4x10 when she was starting to lose her mind amid a lack of sleep and Scorpia’s defection, she pulled Lonnie aside and demanded to know what was going on among the soldiers, what they thought of her.

This was an incredibly interesting scene with some deep implications. Because while it was on one hand an expression of trust in Lonnie, it was also an acknowledgement that Lonnie was one of her bullies and held clout among the people who have demeaned and abused her in the past. It also showed that Catra still has social anxiety and her sense of social power (as opposed to power in terms of rank) is very fragile, which is extremely characteristic of a bullying victim. Also, the fact that Catra said, “Just leave. Like everybody else.” implied that Lonnie leaving would hurt her emotionally, which is rather illuminating.

As for Lonnie, her loyalty meant she bought into the system and expected to Catra to do her job running the place, taking care of the Horde. And Catra certainly succeeded early on, taking territory and increasing productivity. In return, Lonnie was a loyal and obedient soldier, even if she never hesitated to give Catra a bit of attitude. But she became frustrated in season 4 when Catra went on her sunk cost fallacy spiral and ended up making things worse for everyone else as well as herself. This failure was a huge betrayal to Lonnie, and it’s important to note that she wouldn’t feel betrayed or disappointed if she had expected nothing of Catra in the first place. It’s one thing to be kind of a dick about your superior rank, another entirely to endanger your squad/friends (or anyone you are responsible for, really) and run them into the ground as a remedy for your own anxiety.

The breaking point of course was the scene in the locker room in 4x12, when a lonely Catra tried to be “friends” with the squad again and was briefly successful in mending fences a little until she snapped at Kyle and then at Lonnie, calling them pathetic. This prompted Lonnie to shove her, which in turn made Catra bare her claws and rush Lonnie. There was really no coming back from that, even though Kyle intervened before anyone got hurt.

As an aside, Kyle stepping up in this scene was amazing - this season in general was everything I wanted for him. And it’s important that it was him who intervened, because he was really the only one who could ask Catra, “We used to be your friends, why are you treating us like this?” It makes perfect sense for Catra to push back at Lonnie given their history, but Kyle doesn’t have a history of bullying Catra (quite the opposite). And wow, it had an impact on Catra. You could just see the confusion and regret on her face before she brings back the façade of anger and kicks them out.

When the squad left the Horde, Lonnie said that they were done protecting Catra. This assertion is interesting, given their checkered past – since when was anyone protecting Catra? Lonnie bullied her, and none of them protected Catra from Shadow Weaver, not even Adora (though bless her heart, she tried). But this does make some sense when you consider how much of the idea of friendship is based on loyalty, and how important that adherence to the structure is for protection. In Lonnie’s mind, even if Catra was now their commander, they were still a unit in a way. And she saw standing by and obeying Catra to be a form of protection, helping her stay respected and carry out her plans. Lonnie is a good support person, and by removing her support, she was in a way removing her protection as well.

(After the series is over I might just go all out and do a huge-ass meta about Catra and Lonnie through the seasons. I am absolutely fascinated by this relationship, if you can’t tell.)

Allyship

Overall, you can’t help but get the impression that the Horde’s version of friendship is more akin to allyship. It’s protection, unity, loyalty. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t get emotionally attached, it’s more that how you feel about someone is less important than what that relationship can do for you. That’s why Scorpia doesn’t even understand what friendship is. That’s why Catra tolerates “friends” who annoy her, because they’re useful to her (not that she doesn’t get attached in time, but that’s not why she tolerates them in the first place).

Catra’s one of the few people in the Horde who has experienced real friendship, as her bond with Adora was much more emotional than practical (even if it was both). And that explains why she eventually lashed out at Scorpia and said they were not friends when clearly they were by the Horde’s definition. Her and Adora really had taken the friends thing to a different level, and she was missing that dearly.

It will be interesting to watch the interactions between the Horde characters when they are thrown back together in new circumstances, out of the Horde’s rigid power structure. Honestly, the redefining of these alliances and friendships is one of the things I am most looking forward to in the final season.

[jcmoneydick]

TharnType SS2 Episode 7

*sigh of relief* Thankfully, that wasn’t a marriage proposal. I’m really happy Tharn took the time to show Type some loving. The romantic staycation seems to be exactly what they both needed. Type is being so shy about it after 7 years! They’re so cute! 

Also, is that rooftop’s floor marble? The Kiriguns really got dough.

THAT’S NOT HOW FRIENDS SLEEP. I don’t know what lies MewGulf and MaxTul have been telling you Fiat, but you don’t snuggle up to anyone like that and not catch feelings. How can he possibly think that doing this with Leo and chasing Type at the same time is okay? And now Fiat is stalking Tharn’s instagram… I told yall, Lhong is Kengkla is Fiat.

So, what’s going on with Cir? Is he kinda noncommittal? I don’t think Cir should have anything to worry about, so I’m confused as to why this conversation with Tharn happened. The scene would’ve been just fine without it. I can only assume they are setting up for a sequel/spinoff for CirGun, or they are gonna have a really big role in later episodes.

They are playing Uno wrong. Even if they are cheating, they are cheating wrong. There was no finesse in this game. No flavor. It’s like they’re playing to please No (which is prolly true) and mid-way Type was like “I wanna win”. Also, why is Techno calling Type “Daddy”? Again. Did he hear something again? Pro tip: if you cannot shuffle the whole deck of Uno cards, don’t be the dealer.

I was today years old, after 7 weeks, that I learned Type’s boss’ name: Thiti. Yes, Type punch him. You can do it. I will support you.

 I despise work gossip. As someone who used to be in Type’s shoes, I really feel his pain. It’s hard to deal with people who don’t know what they’re talking about and don’t care to learn the details. I know Dr. Khunpol means well. I don’t think he’s going about it the right ways. I fear Type will punch him too.

Tharn and Type wouldn’t fight nearly as much as they do if they both knew how to talk about their feelings.  Like, Type, just tell Tharn you’re jealous of Gil. Like just talk. Please. I’m sick of it. He’s not laughing and joking all day. He is literally a music producer. Gil is pretty much his management. 

Alas, Klui is good for something besides eavesdropping. His house is a mess though. He so busy in other people’s business, he can’t clean his house.

Seo’s back! Standing at Klui’s door like a reset sim… Seo is crying. Seo didn’t debut… The mascara trails. The broken Korean… the tissues... Poor Seo...

Let’s be honest, Type deciding listening to Seo cry is less of an annoyance than being around Tharn is a mood. (unrelated note, whatever highlighter the makeup team has been putting on Type’s cheekbones is *chef’s kiss*)

Not Fiat texting Type about his job mid break down.

Another thing I don’t understand. Instead of telling Type to quit and “let me take care of you”, why don’t you say “quit and let’s find you something new”? It takes away the “dependency” Type doesn’t want. I am so good at taking apart Type’s character. I knew since ep 1 that the boy named “T” didn’t wanna be gossiped about again. I feel so bad for Type. All that said, look at Type’s face. Tharn is his safe haven. And Tharn called him “my little Type.” Like his parents. I’m so soft right now. 

Tharn, how does one conveniently forget to tell their significant other, the love of their life, their mia that they are leaving for TWO (count em, uno, dos) weeks.

So I took an ethics class once, so I think I’m an expert logic dissector. If A (Type being credible) is B (Thiti’s business) and B is not  C (Type having a boyfriend), then C is not B. Simply put, mind your own business. This is made in a time where workplace discrimination should not be a thing. A person’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with their capabilities as a medical professional. I didn’t see this energy when you were picking on Type for “dating” the nurse you wanted, Thiti. You look like you would cheat on your wife. You look like you throw food on the floor when it’s too salty. You act like your mama didn’t give you affection as a child. You look like you were bullied as a child for having braces. You spineless, rotten sow. You deserved that punch and I wish Type would’ve pulled you back for a second. There should’ve been 4 punches in this scene. One to the boss, one to lil bitch #1, one to lil bitch #2, then another to the boss. Triflin wench.

Onto the trailer: Tharn should punch Fiat. Full stop.

[becky69lu]

im really bored, so I decided to list reasons why The Sims 2 and 3 are better than The Sims 4

- There’s so much detail that was put into Sims 2 that you don’t see in the Sims 4. Both games are not open world, which means more detail has to be put in everyday sim life at home. Yet Sims 4 is very lack luster in comparison to Sims 2. Sims 2 had small details like when Sims were cooking they actually opened counter drawers to grab cooking utensils to make their food

If you want all the small details there’s a video that shows a lot of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWEvlW9jbY&t=276s

- Sims 2 and Sims 3 have cars!! Even though Sims 2 isn’t open world, cars come to take them to work and home. They can even have their own. Not to mention, in Sims 2 they have an animation that shows the Sims actually getting into the car, pulling out of the driveway, and driving away rather than just teleporting into the car

- Sims 3 is open world!! You can explore so much and let’s not forget that the way maps look in map view are so beautiful compared to the very modern disconnected look of worlds in Sims 4

(bruh why does it look like that) I know not all of the Sims 4 maps look like that but a lot of the base game maps feel so empty and disconnected from reality. 

like why is this one empty? literally no lots. I know once you move in it kind of fills in the blanks but from map view it’s so ugly

- Sims 3 had so much customization! It had a darn color wheel for anything!! You could add any colored highlights to people’s hair and have any eye color you wanted! Even furniture could be changed at any time. Sims 4 has like 4 colors for each thing and that’s it

- THE LORE!!!! Sims 4 really fucked up this one. sims 4 is on an alternate timeline than all the other sims games for some reason. Which really sucks because the other three games followed a timeline in case some of you didn’t know. So Sims 3 comes first in chronological order because Bella Goth (a reoccurring character throughout the Sims games) is a child there. Sims 1 comes next because she’s an adult Sim, and then Sims 2 because she’s missing and her husbands an elder. Lore is a really good aspect of the game, and Sims 2 had THE BEST LORE EVER

just look at the gif. Those are all the cover photos for the families in Pleasantview, which all have their own descriptions about their family and their drama. For example, the Pleasant family. The dad’s cheating on the mom with the maid while their two twin daughters don’t get along and one will run away immediately if you don’t up her relationship with her parents. Sims 4 could never

- Sims 2 and Sims 3 had better expansions and stuff packs. EA has kind of become a money grab instead of making quality games recently (they still make great products for the Sims 4, it’s just that they do it in a strange way) what I mean is that there’s a whole separate pack you have to buy if you want vampires. Both Sims 2 and 3 had vampires come with their nightlife/ late night expansions. Most monsters/ species come with expansions for free and don’t require you to buy something separate. Game packs weren’t a thing with the other games either. Sims 3 was superior with expansions I believe because they’d put so much new things in it at once. With Sims 4 they’ll make an expansion, leave some stuff out, and make it a separate game pack which is ridiculous. They have 16 stuff packs and only 8 expansions within 6 years. Meanwhile Sims 3 had 11 expansions and 9 stuff packs in 5 years.

I’m not saying that they have to rush anything, because quality products take time. My only point is that they make so many stuff packs just so people will buy them for 20 bucks instead just including good amounts of content to work with directly to the game with expansions. 

Finally, I’d like to say that Sims 4 has amazing elements in the game that I enjoy such as multitasking and how they constantly update the base game with new items. I appreciate how they added transgender sims and added pride content to the game. I’ll be honest, I still like the other games more but Sims 4 is still great, they just have to try to do better when they can 

[haberdashing]

As If You Were There (3/4)

The statements from Episode 100 rewritten as regular statements, with a fair bit of creative liberty taken to fill in the missing details. 

on AO3

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Statement of Robin Lennox, regarding a stone circle discovered in the South Downs. Original statement given May the 20th, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

It started about two weeks ago, on the 6th, when me and Jackie--Jackie’s my dog--were walking down the South Downs which is what we normally do before we go visit my mother--she lives in Lewes--for a roast.

I visit her most Saturdays, she does a big Sunday roast for the occasion except it’s on Saturday, so really more of a Saturday roast, I suppose. But she always home cooks a big meal for just the two of us--the three of us really, counting Jackie, but she just gets the scraps.

We’re close, my mother and I, especially after my father... well, my father wasn’t a nice man, didn’t treat either of us well at all, and that could have torn the whole family apart, but I think it just brought my mum and I closer together, you know? It was just the two of us against him, the two of us against the world really. And then when he passed, there was no more “against” there, but it was still just the two of us.

Well, and Jackie. My father never let us keep a dog, so I think me getting Jackie was a big thrill for both of us. Mum spoils her, always gives her lots of attention, I think Saturdays must be Jackie’s favorite day of the week now because of it.

Anyway, it was about noon that day when things started to get a bit weird. Jackie and I, we were walking along--Jackie was off her leash, she just loves to run off the leash--and off in the distance, something caught my eye. I just barely saw it at first, and I have pretty good eyesight, too. And I thought to myself, that stone circle, that wasn’t there before.

So me and Jackie went off to investigate--Jackie’s quite a curious dog, most Jack Russell terriers are I believe--and as I was walking towards it, I noticed it got quite a lot chillier. It was quite a sunny day, I don’t think there was any wind or anything, and I hadn’t taken a jacket with me, but I definitely felt a bit of a chill as I got near it. And Jackie started to walk closer to me, running off a lot less than she normally does, which struck me as rather odd.

When I got closer, I realized that something about the stone circle, maybe the texture of the rocks, made it look quite old. But I was sure I hadn’t seen the stone circle before, even though they looked like they had been there for a long time. I’d taken that route a few times before, at least five or six times at a guess, and I didn’t remember seeing it at all.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time. I do like to vary up my route on these walks a fair bit, try and find new things to check out along the way, so when I saw the stone circle I just figured, hey, here’s something new to look into, good way to spend a few minutes. So I was actually kind of excited when I looked and saw that the circle was just the outside bit of it, that there was a whole stone spiral path on the inside. I didn’t hesitate to follow it, and Jackie stayed right by my side the whole way.

You know those little hedge mazes at places like Hampton Court, how rather than bounding straight into the middle of them you have to follow it through? It put me in mind of that, exploring that maze. The stones weren’t actually that tall, I could see above them if I wanted to, but I figured it was more fun to just go through the maze, try to solve it on my own. Though I was pretty rubbish at it, really, kept getting caught up in the same few turns...

As I was meandering around, I heard the sound of an old man crying. I couldn’t see the source of the cry, you understand, but it was definitely an old man just from the sound of it--there was an age in that voice. It sounded like it was coming from the middle of the spiral, best I could tell. So I picked up the pace a little, tried to see if I could find who was crying, but that just meant I made the same mistakes but faster trying to find my way around.

I was so focused on finding my way through the maze that I didn’t pay attention to much else, but it was still quite a shock when I looked at my watch and realized that six hours had gone by in the blink of an eye. Suddenly I realized I was going to be late for my mum’s dinner, and I couldn’t do that to her. Those roasts are the highlights of her week--of both our weeks, really--and she would be quite disappointed if she knew I’d missed it just because I got distracted by some stone maze I’d stumbled upon.

The thing is, the stones weren’t so tall that I couldn’t see the next path over, but I was in pretty deep now, and I couldn’t actually see the way out from that far in. Working my way out the same way I’d gone in would take hours too, I imagined, maybe even longer than the first time around. The funny thing was, the stone circle hadn’t even appeared that big from the outside, but now it seemed like it stretched almost to the horizon.

Almost to the horizon, but not quite. In the distance I could see a patch of rusty red sticking up from behind the stones--that’s the color of my mum’s roof, bit of an unusual choice but she always liked how it stood out like that. I noticed Jackie was shivering a bit, so I gave her lots of pets along the way, tried to ignore the chill that I could still feel myself, and just sort of... followed my mum’s roof out of there. I knew that way was home, so I took every turn that would get me closer to it, and within a matter of minutes I got out of the spiral.

After I got out Jackie seemed a bit more spirited again, and I went to dinner, and everything was normal enough. I walked that same path last Saturday, though, and I didn’t see the stone circle, though I kept an eye out for it and everything. Seemed like it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared in the first place. Can’t say that I miss it, really, though I do still wonder what would have happened if I’d made my way to the center, who that old man I heard crying might have been. Opportunity missed, I suppose, but some things have to take priority, and my mum’s weekly roast is definitely one of them.

Statement ends.

[australian-desi]

Qurban Hua ~ Episode 1: Of Rakhis, Token White People and Mithai

So like I was playing the sims 4 and my sim’s only daughter (she has 5 kids - 4 sons, 1 daughter) just died from an accidental drowning on her eldest brother’s birthday party (but I quit without saving so she’s back to life). So that killed the whole gameplay mood. And I’ve decided to absolutely ignore my master’s degree (yes I’m going to be at uni for 5,000,000 years - fight me) I am going to liveblog both shows (Qurbaan Hua and Pavitra Bhagya coz that’s what was asked of me). My tolerance for shitty television has reduced since KZK so let’s see how long these liveblogs last....

So without further ado, here’s the first Liveblog of 2020: Qurban Hua (honestly just watching this show for Karan Jotwani’s face and physique) 

Ooh we’re in the hills, with Krishna’s bhansuri and the feelzzz of sanskar

So we’re in Uttarkhand (sorry if I botched the spelling) with moustache uncle and representative white dude who has come to ‘find himself’ 

Do not give a damn about the religious talk (also this white dude doesn’t even know who Ram ji is, he’s just here to drink some bhang, go to a wedding, witness some poverty and go back home) 

Moustache uncle is blind and we see this when he walks with a tree branch (no exaggeration) and his eyes closed. Nothing speaks ‘this person is blind’ than having them close their eyes for every shot 

SO MANS ISN’T EVEN BLIND - HE’S JUST MOTHERFKN COSPLAYING TO BE A BLIND PERSON 

honestly, what is this bakchodi where is my boi 

Yaar ab shivji ke gaane bhi sunne padenge, kya loge main characters ko introduce karne ke liye 

Ohhh he’s the head priest’s son and has become an ‘awara shehar waala’ rather than take over for his dad, who is too weak to carry the aag thaali (I do not know what it is called)

“daya aati hai mujhe Vyasji ki hassi par, pata nahi Vyasji ka launda, unki kaleje mein aag laga kar, shehar mein kaunsi aag bhuja raha hai?” So I thought what a weird dialogue, and then in the next fkn scene: 

THERE’S SOMEONE LITERALLY ON FIRE AND HE’S COME TO SAVE HER

Also behen, toda dimaag laga, the fire isn’t that bad yet, her fkn arms are so loosely tied, and she has the lung capacity to scream ‘aag aag’ rather than find a better way to save herself, and save her energy and breath so she doesn’t pass out. 

All these people and not one person calls the fire brigade 

They call Neel instead, coz he’s invincible 

Now comes a dramatic sequence of events

My man runs, unaffected by the spitting fire, there is another boi who is so happy to see him and willingly crouches just so mans can quite literally yeet himself on to the roof and break the window to save her. Not before giving some dramatic looks

A. Only her apartment was on fire, not the whole building, he could’ve easily taken the stairs. B. why was the fkn fire not spreading and C. It took him 3 seconds to get her out of that knot, so like as if she couldnt wriggle her hands out of it (maybe if she wasn’t wearing 300 chudiyas, she might’ve been able to) 

I would also thank the gods they gave him winter clothing with a high neck to wear (coz nothing is hotter to me than men in high neck sweaters - it highlights their jawlines, shows off their muscles and shows how long their neck is) #FashionTipsWithAustralianDesi 

OMG IT WAS A SCENE FOR A MOVIE OR SOMETHING OMG. OKAY YOU WIN FKN HELL. HINDI SERIALS: 1, AUSTRALIAN DESI: 29043284 

Look how adorable he looks

“Production? sorry mera naam actually  woh Neelkanth Bhatt Dhyani hai aur main baju-waale hotel mein chef hoon, mujhe laga tha aag lagi thi toh bachane aa gaya” 

Hahahah, noice mans is a chef. Also his name is longer than my life. And so far, in the 3 minutes I’ve watched of him, I really like him. Let’s hope he stays that way

Let’s be real, I watched the promos, I’m going to savour whatever niceness we get of him 

Okay so dude that looked at him, is the Pushkar/Rudra/Insert-comedic relief-younger-sibling, and basically said that our mans here is on a mission to save a girl every day. Wow what a hobby 

“Aag, Aag, continue, aag, aag, aag, continue” hahahah he’s slowly backing out of there 

Mans wants to do one good deed everyday - that’s a rare quality for a tellywood man (he does it because his sister does one good deed a day for his wellbeing - I don’t understand the logic but whatever)

OH MY FKN GOD WE HAVE AN ANJALI 

She’s made a fkn shrine for him (absolutely love the pictures though) 

And he calls his sister ‘Bhags’ - short for Bhagwan because she is god for him

I think these two could give Arnav-Anjali a run for their money 

...And she’s preggers - and so he doesn’t want her pregnancy to have any complications so he’s going to do one good deed a day

let’s see how shit blows in their face - is it a kamina husband, a manipulative mother or a cunning father 

Also gotta love how her husband is probably chilling while Neel is all like ‘MY DIDI’ 

No one: 

No one:

Not even Neil’s fkn mother 

Saraswati: NEIL IS COMING AFTER 3 MONTHS EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT 

Welcome Saraswati Anjali 

This man is completely evil. Change my mind. 

So they went with the Kamina husband/brother-in-law 

Who has a problem that Neel is a chef. But let’s be real he wants Neel to be a chef so he could become the head priest 

I AM ONTO YOU. THIS ISN’T MY FIRST RODEO 

And she’s just here to talk about the successes and accomplishments of her brother, because like Anjali, she has nothing better to do in life 

Whatever her husband says goes right over my head, also it’s Saras-Wati not Sarasti 

So proud of his Personal Protective Equipment. Thank god a career being shown properly

Also this looks really small and homely for an industrial kitchen 

So the ‘villain’ of his life is here. Little does he know, that whether he keeps his job or not does not matter, all that matters is that his rakhi is never removed. 

“Main apni behen ko bhool nahi sakta, isliye yeh rakhi agle raksha bhandhan tak, nahi utregi” ummm how bad is your memory that you forget your sister unless there’s a rakhi on your wrist???? 

“Mere kitchen mein yeh sab bilkul allowed nahi hai, no rings, no watches, aur yeh tacky rakhi toh bilkul nahi, afterall hygeine har cook ki responsibility hoti hai” 

“Yeh rakhi toh na utregi sir,” “acha toh phir yeh jo haath mein hai, woh meri kitchen mein khaana nahi bana sakte hai” 

Wow he didn’t have to call the rakhi tacky. Also like, couldn’t you have a dimaag like Arnav, and keep them in a little box, and then show your sister like “look I kept all your rakhis” 

Now watch him cook with one hand, just to prove a point 

TOLD YA 

Also the dude seemed pretty happy with him, I would’ve been like “banda chuthiya ho gaya hai” 

Also his friend is really annoying me with his overreactions to simple things 

He’s saying that he’s going to make the Singoria for the ‘bhakts’ and not for his dad, coz he doesn’t think he needs to ask for an apology to follow his heart 

I enjoy this content, I like this boi. At least he stands by his actions

“Shaakal ko khush karne ke liye jijaji kaafi hai” Wow the Shyam vibes from his jijaji are through the roof 

He said that line like he’s plotting murder or something with the fire reflected on his face

Also can they stop with the Kedarnath soundtrack 

Lol this procession is still going on, it’s been going on for like 3 days. Like, in the time Neel did his wall climbing stunt, saved a woman who was ‘on fire’, stopped a film shoot, told his whole life story and his love obsession for his sister, went through an inspection and made food for a whole restaurant while sassing his boss, and the procession is still going on

 Omg no, now there’s a fkn murgi - WHICH IS ALIVE HOW IS THIS A PROBLEM, JUST MOVE IT AND CONTINUE WALKING 

I mean making him slip would’ve been more fun than a fkn murgi stopping him - also its alive so how is this an apshagun? Imma skip this I cannot 

NOW FKN FAKE ANJALI IS LIKE “the chicken is a mother, do not touch her eggs, she will not look after her children and then they will never be able to feel the mother-child love” 

Gurl, its a chicken. Chill. If it had this much feeling, it would not let go of it’s child 

Okay, here’s a wild thought - why not just walk around it

The chicken isn’t even taking over the whole step, if everyone walks in a single file, you should be able to pass the chicken

but if we use our brains how will this be a hindi serial 

Man fkn hell this the problem in India, the fkn mindset that “dharm se badke aur kuch nahi hai” is2g if people move away from that thought, life would be easier

Also Sarasti is just here caressing her belly, being all like motherhood is the biggest dharm #OhSnap #MicDrop 

So Vyasji has said his first lines of the show and basically whatever I’m understanding is that dharm should be a part of your life, not your whole life and disregarding emotions for your dharm is in fact the opposite of dharm. Wow the man has some sense. Also the actor looks done and does not seem into it - I do not blame him one bit 

And fake Anjali is all like “yay papa is on my side - fuck you husband” 

NEEL YOU FKN IDIOT, IT’S JUST A BAG COULDN’T YOU TAKE IT WITH YOU, NOW THE SANGORIA ARE GONNA GET MISPLACED I ALREADY KNOW. 

ab yeh kaun hai, jo Dhoom ke set se yahan aa gaya 

and he took the wrong bag - well done Neel, that’s all on you

OMG AT LEAST HE REALISED THANK GOD 

Great, now he’s gonna do some Dhoom-esque stunts 

How dumb is the other dude, like there’s someone that’s literally chasing you and you aren’t going to stop to ask them why

Omg he’s actually grabbing it. Is2g if the prasad is completely fine still, Imma flip 

Yeh chal kya raha hai? Is the other dude literally fighting for the supposed kachoris? 

Oh wow its a wamen. And here we begin the #Romance  

HE LITERALLY JUST SAW HER HAIR AND IS SMITTEN - ARE YOU THAT DESPERATE MY FRIEND 

Lovely, he got distracted and she’s gone off with his Sangoria 

Ofcourse he’s like a girl tricked me, now it’s an ego thing. At least he’s admitting it to be an ego ting 

But also like dude do you not believe women can be cunning? I mean we’re literally known for possessing that single trait 

Wow look how happy she is for some Sangoria - and look how dumb she is for not questioning the dude that was chasing her as to why was he after the bag 

OF-FUCKING-COURSE she had to be a social worker who helps the gareeb bachche 

I gotta love how she’s like, why is there mithai here instead of kachoris - proceeds to eat them because the kids were like we like mithai

Behen, kya aap kisi ka bhi khaana leke kha leti ho? 

Like why wouldn’t you put two and two together 

Why would someone be ready to fight you for this mithai. Do you have any logical thinking skills? 

Me when I check my results. The absolute shock horror on his face is sending me 

"Tum pahadi ho?” “Haan aur sharminda bhi” “Itni der se tumhara peecha kar raha tha, tab nahi samajh aaya?” “Nahin mujhe laga koi chor badmaash hai,” 

Love the logic, love that she was so ashamed that she didn’t bother to give his mithai back - what is this character 

She’s literally telling him how to handle his father that she’s never met. 

Dude if it was that easy, would he be this stressed? 

That was quick - she had video evidence that some gunde were making these kids become beggars, and got them arrested while also making Neel feel like he did his one good deed today and she conveniently has her own childcare 

Wow we have an evil maami too, and some random man wanting to kill our gurl

She’s basically saying how Neel will definitely forget to bring the bhog 

Little does she know he won’t forget, he’ll just have some misfortune which will cause him to not bring it

Now poor Sarasti is bringing her dad a shawl and convincing him to go change, but him being the brown dad he is, is all like “If only your idiotic brother was here, I would be sitting on the terrace watching this pooja, looking at him proudly, but he is a nalaayak and alas I am here,” 

He’s literally so salty that he wants to cook, it’s so funny, I can’t 

First of all, why is everyone just taunting Sarasti about her brother’s actions, like I get how close they are but they aren’t the same person??

Now she’s saying that he’s on his way - ah little does she know, he’s distracted by a wamen 

Omg he’s literally telling the story of the Prayag Pushp (a flower I think) “that only blooms when 2 true lovers meet for the first time, and no one has seen it bloom, and no one will see it bloom in this family, and with the same confidence, I am telling you your bhola will not come” wow the amount of trust in your son. I am loving it

Also like who wants to bet the flower is going to bloom when he marries this girl or when they have a dramatic meet up 

“Hey bhole baba, agli baar mujhe uss theeki shezwan sauce se mat milwana” Lol is he dumb or is he dumb 

OMG GOD IN THIS SERIAL IS EXTREMELY FAST. HE PRAYED 2 SECONDS BEFORE AND IN THE NEXT SECOND SHE’S IN FRONT OF HIM

She’s deaf as well, he’s literally calling her and she’s like nope, I am looking outside can only focus on one thing at a time 

“Bache hai kya, joh window seat ke liye itne excited ho rahe hai” “Sifaljiya kahi ka” Okay I’m loving the banter but also have no idea what she just called him 

“Kya kaha tumne? Kaunsi bhasha mein gaali di?” “Mars pe boli jaati hai yeh zubaan, gaye ho kabhi?” 

People I ship it! 

“Lokhar ka sir hai kya tumhaara?” This idiot 

Oh good its these ainvayi ke gunde, mans is never going to reach home in this decade  

And they’re on the bus to beat her? Very normal

And ofcourse this our mans’ good deed of the day

“Kya ho gaya bhai ji? Koi takleef?” Love this man so much. The sass and the politeness how does he do it? 

“Teri saki lagti hai kya?” “Meri patni hai yeh” wow man, like honestly dost bol deta, behen bol deta. Nahi she is now my wife for rescuing purposes (what an Omkara thing to do) 

OMG YES THEIR BACKGROUND SCORE IS KURBAAN HUA FROM KURBAAN - I LOVE THAT SONG 

So the episode ends here and wow this took so long to do coz they decided to make the episode 40 minutes long. So far I like it. I just wish the girl becomes smarter (also what even is her name?) 

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG130 /o/

- Fun game!

(MAG106) BASIRA: Hm. I dunno, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist. […] Huff. That [INSERT TITLE HERE] needs to relax. MELANIE: Or at least find someone else to fuss over. BASIRA: Yeah, [x]’s got it bad. … Do you know if [x] and Jon ever…? MELANIE: No clue – and not interested.

Is this conversation between Melanie and Basira about: a) The Distortion about Jon? b) Elias about Jon? c) Martin about Jon? d) The Web about Jon? (Jon, you serial heartbreaker.)

In all seriousness (kind of.): the Web has it BAD about Jon, indeed. Which is necessarily not a good sign given that if someone from the Web were to tell you it wants you to carry its babies, you would have to understand that it means hollowing you out and turning you into a spider egg sack.

The Web sent him a lovely lighter in MAG035, that Jon still had on him as of MAG111, because Jon ~chose~ to go back to smoking after five years of quitting! Jon discovered the worms infestation back in MAG038 thanks to a lil’spider on a wall (BECAUSE OF COURSE: JONATHAN “I PERSONALLY READ MAG016’S STATEMENT ABOUT A GUY MINDCONTROLLED TO REPEATEDLY SMASH A SPIDER ON A WALL” SIMS ASSUMED THAT HIS OWN ACTIONS WERE HIS OWN AND TOTALLY NOT CONTROLLED UH.) Lovely helpful spiders eat the worms carcasses in the tunnels! Cobwebs were welcoming him into the wax museum when they were planting bombs in MAG118! “She” sent Handsome Black MLM Oliver to encourage him to wake up in MAG121! And now the spiders are leaving tapes for him in his desk when Jon is having trouble thinking about his next moves! uwu

… Meanwhile, what have you done for Jon, Beholding. You fucked up a perfectly functioning researcher, gave him anxiety, nightmares and the constant feeling of being watched, is what you did. (… Well, the Web also gave Jon trauma, misguided hatred, and a visceral phobia of spiders but HEY, at least, it’s giving Jon useful presents in his Quest!)

Oliver had confirmed that the Web had never really left Jon alone after all these years (MAG121: “But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what She asked!” and the mere fact that Oliver came… because “She” had sent him to talk to Jon), we still don’t know its/Her intentions and neither does Jon:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I found this tape tucked in the corner of my desk drawer. [AGGRAVATED SIGH] Covered in cobwebs. I suppose subtlety is gone out the window a bit. And the question is now simply … how much I trust the Spider to have my… best interests at heart. … Hm. I suspect my assuming it has a heart might be a clue I’m looking at this the wrong way.

(Obviously, the answer is that it wants to win YOUR HEART, Jon!!)

The Web has Plans Involving Jon, nothing new. And I have no serious ideas about why – seriously trying to woo him because Back Off Big Eyeball, We Saw Him First? Needing him to be ready for the Watcher’s Crown in some way either because it’s allied with Beholding, either because it needs the ritual to come close to completion in order to crash or hijack it? What was Jon supposed to make out of MAG130’s statement, and he did he completely miss the point or did he draw his own conclusions All According To Keikaku? … are they Jon’s own conclusions or The Web making him think about the conclusions It wanted.

I’m also wondering if, after all, Jon getting drawn to this and that statement since the beginning of season 4 wasn’t… Web-induced more that Beholding-induced. Actually, Jon has never explicitly said that knowing which statements to read, specifically, was coming from his Insights (the knowledge seeping through the cracks of the door):

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook […]. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hope something from it would just… come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement […].

(MAG127) BASIRA: And what was that you were doing yesterday? ARCHIVIST: … When…? BASIRA: You were sat on the floor for like four hours. ARCHIVIST: … Oh! Er, n–n–no, I was, er, I was… listening. Y’know, it’s, trying to see if any of the statements… called to me. BASIRA: And? ARCHIVIST: [FLIPS PAPER] BASIRA: Brilliant.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I don’t like this. I don’t like… not being sure what’s going to be in my mind. What thoughts are mine and what are from… elsewhere. Why I just know some statements are what I should be reading. I assume this one is related to the coffin. To Daisy.

Is it knowledge seeping into his mind, or is it, let’s say, a web string pulling him in towards specific statements? Jon’s comment that “subtlety is gone out of the window” couuuuld possibly (it’s a possibility!) imply that he knows that the Web had been directing him towards them before (just… without wrapping them in cobwebs). Case in point, though: Jon got to Know about how Gertrude stopped The Buried through his Insights, and that one was pretty clearly Beholding-stamped. So, at the very least, it’s not only the Web teaching Jon about how Gertrude stopped the previous rituals. Somehow, both The Eye and The Web are glad to feed him the knowledge.

In the particular case of MAG130: this means that the Web has quite a strong hold on the Archives themselves – or did it send the tape randomly, à la Elias in season 3? (Your casual reminder that the conclusion of Jon’s thrilling saga of wondering for 20 episodes why Elias was sending him this or that file was: because Elias had no idea what the fuck he was doing.) And: where does this tape come from? We know there are more tapes than the ones Jon had listened to: Basira had been given three boxes of them when they discovered Gertrude’s body, and she gave him a few tapes and at least one of these boxes when she quit the police in MAG075. Leitner had told Jon, and then confirmed with Elias (MAG080), that Elias had gotten his hands of Gertrude’s files regarding The Stranger (and posssssibly about Beholding?) and Elias had indeed begun to send some of those documents in season 3 but explicitly refused to give them to Jon in one-go (MAG092), so drip-dropped them instead. Elias mentioned in MAG116 that he had taken Gertrude’s tapes into his “safekeeping” during Jon’s absence at the beginning of season 3, so he was still in possession of all of them at the end of the season.

Is MAG130 from Elias’s secret stash? Or from somewhere else, another hiding spot? In any case, it means that, in true spiders fashion, the Web can crawl its way into anywhere, unnoticed. It is there and it’s able to operate in the Institute. It knows the place as its own. (Is it also its own already…)

- Jon had wondered, a few times, why Gertrude was recording some statements and not others and… we still don’t have the answer to that?

(MAG044) ARCHIVIST: I will admit to some disappointment it doesn’t address any of my more… pressing questions about Gertrude’s tapes. Why did she begin recording them, and why stop? If she’d been doing so right up until her death, she would have likely gotten through much of the Archive […].

(MAG087) ARCHIVIST: I had assumed Gertrude had recorded to tape for a while and then stopped, but it sees she was recording them right up until the end. But if they did span decades of working at the Institute, why aren’t there more? And what decided which statements she transferred?

It’s a bit hard to guess a logic behind Gertrude’s recordings, but so far, we’ve listened to these ones, listed by order or recording (SINCE UNLIKE A CERTAIN SOMEONE, GERTRUDE ROBINSON HAD ENOUGH WORK ETHICS TO GIVE THE DATE OF HERS :wwww I’m not calling anyone out) (Jon, u suck.):

*04/11/1996: reading Lucy Cooper’s statement about the “Changeling / Imposter”, Not!Them (MAG077) *15/04/1997: reading Yuri Utkin’s statement about the Russian circus (MAG044) *05/09/1997: live statement of Walter Heller about the old Archives in Alexandria (MAG053) *02/09/2007: reading Robert E. Geiger’s statement about The Buried’s ritual coming close in America (MAG099) *03/07/2008: live statement of Mary Keay about getting her hands on the book of The End (MAG062) *19/12/2008: live statement of Lucia Wright about the Flesh’s ritual attempt in Istanbul (MAG130) *04/10/2013: reading Abraham Janssen’s statement about the last Stranger ceremony, in the Court Theatre Buda in October 1787 (MAG116) *04/04/2015: reading Sebastian Skinner’s statement about The Stranger’s people in the Gwydir Forest (MAG087)

Noteworthy: the oldest one that Jon accessed was about the Not!Them, and Gertrude had specifically highlighted (thanks to the statement-giver providing a recording of her true mother) that tapes were able to resist the Not!Them’s rewriting of reality:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: It is at least reassuring to know that magnetic tape seems to escape being overwritten [by the Not!Them], so if I get changed, you can be sure this is my real voice. Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

I could imagine that Gertrude might have recorded a few tapes with this in mind – in case the Not!Them would attack her, to leave some proofs of her existence and of her ongoing researches, since, following this one, almost all the statements that Jon listened to were tied to some aspects of rituals she was working on stopping. MAG044 dealt with a very active period of the Stranger’s Circus; MAG099 helped her narrow down the location of the Buried’s “Sunken Sky” (in America); MAG116 was a survivor describing the last Stranger’s ritual attempt; MAG087 was about the current activities of Stranger’s minions, now that the ritual was coming closer. The three other statements were lives: Mary Keay is an oddity, but Gertrude had sarcastically commented that it happened because Mary insisted on talking:

(MAG062) MARY: You… don’t really go out and look for yourself, do you~? Just wait here for the researchers’ leftovers. GERTRUDE: Mm! It’s not that bad. Sometimes, someone will insist on giving me a statement directly, though… I rarely see the point.

(YOUR CASUAL REMINDER THAT GERTRUDE WAS SAVAGE LIKE THAT.)

The other two dealt with what Gertrude suspected to be an old Archive (MAG053), and a witness testimony of the explosion that put a stop to The Flesh’s ritual (MAG130), so… still related to Gertrude’s activities: she had been searching for Walter specifically (MAG053: “It’s taken a long time to track down someone still living who found the Serapeum of Alexandria.”; the site was ~curiously~ bombed six months after she discussed its location, in March 1998) and she was in Istanbul ~in the flesh~ during “The Last Feast” (the old woman that Lucia spotted but didn’t recognize). Moreover, there are a few mentions alluding to the fact that she already had talked a bit with the statement-givers (and narrowed down what they experienced) before deciding to record their statement:

(MAG053) WALTER: Yeah, er, right. Er, wh–where do you want me to start? GERTRUDE: Well, you say you were serving in North Africa when it happened.

(MAG130) [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: Do you mind? LUCIA: What? Oh, hum. No. GERTRUDE: Excellent.

Whether live or written, was Gertrude almost only recording statements dealing with the rituals attempts? But then, it seems like there were three big periods of recording: 1996-1997, 2007-2008 and the last years of her carreer. We’re still back to Jon’s initial questions: why the gaps? Is it because tapes exist from the years in-between, but we only got a few samples that aren’t enough to discern anything conclusive…?

- But then, back to the usual question: what was the thing that made her decide to record Walter and Lucia live, when they could have… written it down or dictated it to another member of staff? (We know it was a thing that could be done in the 70s, with Nathaniel Thorp’s statement from MAG029.) (I doubt it’s Relevant but: fun thing! “Lucia Wright” shares her surname with the previous head of the Institute, “James Wright”, who ran the place from 1973 to 1996. Elias took over when he passed away.)

- Well, in Lucia’s case, it sounds like Gertrude’s initial intentions might have been a bit grim?!

(MAG130) LUCIA: Telling my story. To you. Will, will it help with the nightmares? GERTRUDE: […] whatever nightmares your experience has left you with, I’m sure they won’t be bothering you much longer. […] GERTRUDE: Well…! That – is – a relief. When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all.

What were you initially planning to do if she had remembered you, Gertrude.

Because, uuuuh… we know from Basira&Daisy’s exchange in MAG112 that they kept having “dreams” long after giving their statements to Jon; telling their stories didn’t allow them to get rid of the nightmares (it’s just that apparently, becoming an archival assistant cuts you off from them, and from Jon seeing them?). So, hum. Could Gertrude have been planning anything else than… straight-out murdering Lucia then and there, and only changed her mind when Lucia mentioned an old woman without linking her to Gertrude?

That aside… we got confirmation from Gertrude herself that she was aware that live statement-givers also give their dreams to the Archivist – the “slim collection of gifted nightmares” described by Elias in MAG120:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: […] I’m honestly impressed she had the strength to get through it, even if she does seem to have been… deeply affected by it. Shame about the dreams; I would avoid them if I could.

… Why couldn’t she in this case, though? Why did she have to take this one live, when we know that she tended to prioritize written ones (going as far as to ask François Deschamps to write down what he had witnessed alongside her in MAG102)?

There has been quite a huge amount of statement-givers mentioning their recurring nightmares when writing their statements; the specific of the Archivist receiving a live statement seems to be that it synchronizes their dreams a bit? Makes Jon able to see them? Or traps the people in his own nightmares of their experiences? (In Jon’s dreams, at least, the statement-givers blame him and feel like they’re here because of him.) Regarding Gertrude, there had been Adelard’s and Mikaele Salesa’s expectation that just writing their statements could have an effect too:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) I’ll even make it a statement. Give your patron something to keep it satisfied. It’s not like I sleep enough to worry about dreams.

(MAG115, Mikaele Salesa) So it’s another statement is it? Like I owe you something?  […] So I suppose if it’s a statement you’re wanting… it’s no inconvenience to me. I don’t sleep well anyway.

Does this mean they might have given live statements to Gertrude in the past, and assumed that writing it down would have the same effect? Does writing a statement end up having an effect on you, even though the Archivist doesn’t access those dreams? I wonder, now, if the dreams are not actually supposed to happen to… everyone touched or coming close to the Fears, and it's just that some people don’t think to mention their dreams in their statements? Adelard got interested in the case he described in MAG113 and was reminded of his hypothetical new emergence partially because people had been hurt when asleep – could it be that new emerging fears tend to first manifest through dreams…?

- Gertrude, are u lying through your teeth again.

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Are you quite ready? LUCIA: H… uh. Will it help? GERTRUDE: I’m sorry? LUCIA: Telling my story. To you. Will, will it help with the nightmares? GERTRUDE: If that’s your primary goal, my dear, I would suggest you speak to a qualified counsellor. We can suggest one, if you like; that said, I do believe most people find the process of giving a statement to be rather… mm, cathartic.

I’m squinting at that “cathartic” (if it’s about the actual concept: WOOPSIE, catharsis in Greek drama does rely on you EXPERIENCING the terror and pity. It is not a nice process on the moment.)

Meanwhile, in Jon’s case, giving him a live statement has rarely been described as a nice experience for visitors, mostly because of Jon himself:

(MAG084) MELANIE: […] There’s nowhere left for me to go. I don’t know why, but… I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help. And talking things out with Jon. I mean. I mean he’s awful, but at least he listens, you know?

The only “positive” ones about it that I can think of are Helen, Tessa and Mike, and Oliver a bit (he was surprised to have managed it); and Julia, back with Gertrude, had felt that it helped:

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: Perhaps. … Leave it with us, we’ll… do some digging and… see what we can find. HELEN: You believe me then! ARCHIVIST: I, er… yes. Yes, I think I do. (MAG101) ARCHIVIST: A– are you still going to kill me? HELEN: No. That was Michael’s desire, not mine. ARCHIVIST: So… S-So what do you want? HELEN: I don’t know. Helen liked you so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave. (MAG115) HELEN: Before, talking to you made Helen feel better. ARCHIVIST: You’re not. that. Helen! HELEN: I just want…! I just want to feel better.

(MAG065) TESSA: […] And it does feel good to talk about it. Y’know? ARCHIVIST: [LIGHT CHUCKLE] Yes, I… very much understand.

(MAG091) MIKE: Hm. You know? That was… that was nice. I’m not… not usually the sort for speeches, that was… pleasant change. So.

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: Ah, yes. You–you know the Institute? JULIA: Oh yeah. Checked myself in there a while back. Ended up spilling my guts to this old woman about my dad, just letting it all out. ARCHIVIST: O–oh, that, that would be, er, Gertrude. My, my predecessor. JULIA: I didn’t catch her name. Weirdest thing, really. Didn’t mean to spill half of it, but. Really helped me put the pieces together, you know? ARCHIVIST: I’m… starting to.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Right. That’s a… hit, I suppose.

(But Oliver is cheating since Jon was still unresponsive when Oliver gave his statement – Oliver got Jon at His Best, uh.)

Then, I don’t have any doubt that Gertrude was probably better at sweetly coaxing people into telling their stories, rather than showing off in Jon’s apparent blunt manner (he does care!! But he’s also very off-putting, which… didn’t help when he was receiving statements.)

In the meantime: still nothing from Jon about his own dreams :www

- So Adelard also helped Gertrude in destroying the Gnostic temple!

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Well…! That – is – a relief. When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all. […] Dekker really came through with the explosives! It almost felt like cheating. Sad about the loss of history but Miss Wright didn’t seem to think the old Gnostic church got many visitors anyway.

Gertrude sounded so giddy to have blown the place up, efdusijrezkds. Did she provide the explosives and he handled them? He was super interested in the stock she had managed to get for The Unknowing, in his letter from MAG113. They’re adorable. Old people saving the world and bonding over their creative use of explosives.

Interestingly, it seems that Gertrude kept her allies separate? Gerry and Leitner didn’t seem to know that Gertrude was working with the other (which… makes sense considering Gerry’s distaste of Leitner because of the books); but neither did they ever mention Adelard.

Which puts me to mind again: what happened to Adelard? We know that he came in contact with the Institute at least in 1991 (MAG077, Gertrude: “I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the ‘NotThem’ in statement 9910607”), whether he was personally acquainted with Gertrude or not at the time. Since then, they’ve apparently been allies on multiple cases: they collaborated to blow up the Gnostic temple housing the Flesh’s ritual (MAG130), and Adelard moved out the plastic explosives for Gertrude because she felt that she was under surveillance (MAG113). That was chronologically the last time we’ve heard of him at this point – from a statement that, according to Jon, was “undated, likely circa 2012”. Did he die, since then…? Became something worse than dead…? Is he hiding somewhere…? Peter Lukas has been looking for his statements to get information but didn’t mention the possibility of tracking him down: it could be either for manipulation purposes (better to not let the Archives team meet Adelard, who specialises in dealing with spooky creatures, when you’re yourself a spooky creature), either because he knows that Adelard is not around anymore…? (Then, my bets for the culprit are the New Emergence he was investigating, or someone amongst the Lukases, or Peter PERSONALLY.) (Could be Elias, I guess, since Adelard must have been a bit old at this point, but we would need to know what his voice was, since Elias’s criteria for murdering people so far have been 1°) you must be old, 2°) you must be voiced by someone from Jonny’s family.)

- Something that I found quite interesting in the statement itself is that Lucia had, from an overall point of view, no relationship whatsoever with meat – no attraction to it, nothing from her personal history that would imply that she could get drawn or involved with the Flesh. But, at the same time, the evolution from her being fascinated by religion to the Flesh felt only natural because of the Eucharistic dimension, and by the fact that her own appreciation of churches was both spiritual and sensual?

(MAG130) LUCIA: […] I loved churches. These big… quiet… echoing spaces of peace and beauty, designed to quiet the soul and prepare it for communion with the divine. Even if I didn’t actually believe in the God they were supposed to house… I always found them… meditative. And whenever I went on one of my breaks, I’d always try to find a local church – hopefully… not too full of other tourists like me – and spend an hour or two in quiet contemplation. I’d listen to the shuffling footsteps of the other people, and breathe in the lingering smell of incense, before lighting a candle to my grandmother.

With the Demiurge in mind, it’s almost surprising that The Flesh is (officially) the last Fear to have emerged (Gerry had mentioned that it had begun its ascendance around the time Robert Smirke had established his list of fourteen); but at the same time, you would have to fear the specific aspect of it as related to Flesh bending, twisting, getting reduced to a pulp, etc.? In True Flesh Fashion, Lucia ended up getting very conscious of that aspect during the whole ordeal (THANKS FOR MY WEDNESDAY’S DINNER, JONNY):

(MAG030, David Laylow) “There’s not so much difference between people and animals, you know? […] Weirdest thing is, you start to kind of see people as meat too. Not in a food sort of way, you know. I don’t wanna eat my co-workers. It’s just that, when you spend all day taking these living, breathing creatures – animals that move and cry and tremble in fear – and you turn them into lifeless blocks of dead flesh, it’s hard to believe in any special spark that makes us humans any different.”

(MAG072, Craig Goodall) “There’s nothing inherently special about us. We feel as much pain, see the world with the same eyes as a real pig. Meat is meat. That’s what John Haan said when they arrested him. The only thing he said. Meat is meat. […] It looked like this was what the kid had been doing. He’d been spraying the phrase ‘MEAT IS MEAT’ onto the door of the freezer, but the cops must have gotten him before he’s finished, so what was actually written upon the matt silver surface were the words ‘MEAT IS ME’.”

(MAG130) LUCIA: […] Squirming limbs were dragging, rising, extracting themselves from this mound of flesh, and making their way down to join their companions on the ground, one by one. Most of them could still be mistaken for humans at a distance, a few even wore clothes. […] All through this, the mouth got closer and closer to the edge of the pit, the pile of flesh within it larger and larger, sat there in an awful, half-solid slurry, chewed and crushed together. It was impossible to tell what had once been animal, and what might once have been us. It was all just meat.

-Curiously, Lucia didn’t mention any anchor in her statement? Orrr was it, in her case, an anchoring thought?

(MAG130) LUCIA: My back was screaming, my legs were weak, and my mind was numb from terror. But I was spurred on by one thing: the woman with the backwards arms had fallen, some time in the night, and her companions had shown no hesitation. They had gripped her shoulders, hoisted her up, and hurled her straight into the gaping maul. I swore it wouldn’t happen to me.

Could it be the focus that matters, more than thinking about something/someone from outside of the box? Focusing on something, whatever it is, and preventing the Fears from getting to you and swallowing you whole? It’s also how Basira had managed to exit The Unknowing on her own… So in the same way: would going into the coffin with the clear resolution of finding Daisy and getting back out with her be enough…?

- We’re slowly completing the list of failed rituals from the current batch!!

*The Buried: “Sunken Sky”, 17th June, 2008. (<- Vast-touched Jan Kilbride was thrown in pieces into the pit.)

*The Flesh: “The Last Feast”, October 2008 (since it was (until now.) the new Baby, this was probably only its first or second ritual attempt? Awww ;w; (Don’t worry, you’ll get used to seeing your ritual derailed.) (WE HOPE.) <- also with this one that Gertrude apparently confirmed that she could deal with the rituals with non-spooky means (maybe… Jan Kilbride… would have liked to know that a few months earlier…))

*The Spiral: “The Great Twisting”, somewhere during October 2009 or shortly after. (<- No explosives for this one, Michael Shelley gave an Identity to the Distortion instead.)

*The Stranger: “The Unknowing”: 6th August 2017. (<- TIM WAS THE BOMB…)

*The Eye: “The Watcher’s Crown”, incoming and Jon Has Suspicions about the year 2018. (<- Gertrude had a Plan for this, MAG080 seems to hint at “Fire.”)

Unclear: The Dark (15th May 2015? 10th February 2017? It Was Coming Soon according to Nathalie Ennis), The Desolation (before April 2015).

No indication (yet?): The Lonely (I’m very subjectively suspecting that this one might not have a ritual, since “almost” all of the Fears have one according to Gerry, and that that’s why the Lukases are collaborating with various other Entities’ clusters by throwing money at them), The End (I’m also thinking that this one could turn out to not actually have a ritual?), The Vast (are they planning to yeet Earth into Space), The Hunt (Gertrude was not convinced but mentioned that it could happen in America), The Slaughter (… we got a few statements showing that when a Slaughter event happens, it goes HARD anyway, so I fear (ha) what its ritual attempt would look like – maybe during a recent war or civilian repression?), The Corruption (though might have tried something in the tunnels below the Institute during The Hive’s invasion, given the ring of worms? Though it would sound a bit low-scale, since only Jane Prentiss was there…), The Web (Though There Is The Matter Of What The Heck Is The Deal With The House On Hill Top Road).

- Alriiiiiiiiiiiiiight, so:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: […] Tom Haan might be a bit more of a problem, as it looks like he also survived, but I’m hopeful he has been weakened enough by this failure to not be an issue in the near future. Hopefully, he’ll fade away or burn out, as they tend to when robbed of their purpose. Still… I should keep a watch on him in case of any erratic behaviour that might lead to complications. Also worth watching out for any additional esoteric fall-out from the ritual attempt, like that Carlisle boy down in Wandsworth.

a) If I remember, Craig Goodall (the statement-giver from MAG072) had never explicitly mentioned that the Chinese-looking man that had attacked him was “John Haan” (the original owner of the takeaway restaurant, who had been arrested years before the events) – the fire was reported on 27th September 2009, almost a year after the Flesh’s ritual attempt, and the avatar talked about the relation between meat and religion… so indeed, it was probably Tom Haan there, too (I had been a bit confused, back then, unsure if it was John or Tom)?

b) Alright, and MAG030’s events happened in July 2013, we don't know of Tom Haan having been spotted since then, and what was described really sounded like… he put an end to Things then. So same as Breekon, maybe: he faded/self-destructed?

c) Toby Carlisle from MAG018 (“The Man Upstairs”) confirmed as Flesh! Though apparently, he didn’t participated to the ritual, dying in October 2007, although he was affected by its imminence.

I’m late to the party, only realizing now that the “Mrs. Carlisle” whose husband’s corpse wanted her to cannibalize him in 1845 (MAG058) shared her surname with “Toby Carlisle” – both about (MEAAAT) Flesh. Which means that Mrs. Carlisle probably gave in and ate her husband after her statement in order to survive, after all? And that one of her descendants was also Flesh-related? And we already knew about the fact that two people from the Haan family had a special relationship with meat?

We have the Carlisles, the Haans, the von Closens/Keays, the Lukases… Maybe Gerry had been a bit wrong in saying that the Fears don’t care at all about blood? Or are they, like the Fairchilds, adoptive families and the Lukases are still an exception?

- ;; Insisting on this: according to Gertrude, (avatars? monsters?) tend to “burn out when robbed of their purpose”, which indeed seems to have happened to Tom Haan four years and a half after his failed ritual. That…………………… is a short life expectancy if you fail indeed…………….. So even assuming that Jon is still alive (well, “not dead”) when a Watcher’s Crown attempt will be made, and even if he doesn’t die during it, and even if it is stopped in time… it means that Jon would be done for anyway.

Counter-points though: *Jared Hopworth began experimenting with The Boneturner’s Tale starting in 1996 and we know that he was still active and very chill About His Life in 2012 (MAG090). Though… did he even participate in that “Last Feast”, or did he just ignore it to keep doing his own thing?

*Jude Perry didn’t look especially erratic when we met her in 2017 in MAG089, although Gertrude had mentioned that The Lightless Flame’s plans had been stopped shortly before she recorded MAG087’s statement in April 2015 (“their own plans have so recently, erm, gone up in flames.”) So… we’ll… “see”…

- Once again, I really have no idea what state Daisy will be in, assuming that Jon does even manage to get her out of the coffin and that she’s still breathing (even if, hum, not human-shaped or human-minded)……………. But listen. Listen. We had an example of Jon managing to ground someone through compulsion: he did that to Tim during The Unknowing, and it worked! Forcing people to admit the truth manages to get their awareness back!

(MAG118) ARCHIVIST: Tim!! [STATIC:] What do you see? TIM: I see my asshole boss! W– wait… wait… […] ARCHIVIST: Tim! [STATIC:] What’s in your hand? TIM: It’s… I don’t… the– the– … the detonator…

My shipper heart really really hopes that Jon might compulse Daisy into remembering Basira, asking her ~who is it who matters to her~, since Basira was, almost literally, presented as Daisy’s anchor (MAG092, Elias: “the only person you care about […].Your last connection to humanity.”)

Problems: as of MAG122, Jon didn’t remember anything of the Unknowing past Gertrude’s entrance, which means… not remembering Tim’s last moments. And: Jon still had trouble pinning down the relationship between Basira and Daisy in MAG117 (“I–I– I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone.”), so… I’m not sure he would think of this option. Jon often has troubles with people’s relationships ;;

SO IT MAKES IT EVEN MORE VALUABLE THAT HE’S GOING TO TRY, ANYWAY, TO SAVE DAISY FROM THE COFFIN……………… Daisy who tried to kill him, who threatened him a few times afterwards, but whom he seemed to kinda like in his own awkward way? Jon really doesn’t want to lose anyone anymore, uh. (;; They’ve not been mentioned recently, but you can still feel the ghosts of Sasha and Tim lingering around.)

- YEAAAAH so Jon is getting ready to get injured again, and he does it in the most self-deprecating, heartbreaking way:

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: […] What was it she said, “the siren call of Flesh”… Hm. It’s possible, I suppose. It would… hurt, but… Well. What’s another scar? … It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira. I’m not waiting any longer. I’m getting Daisy back. End recording.

JON ;;;;;

a) If it is indeed a Flesh-related scar (will he get his hands on something from Artefact storage? or would it be “Flesh”-compatible by the simple fact of purposely injuring oneself?): Jon… is making progress on completing the set of Entity-related wounds. And we know he’s aware that it’s been a lot of injuries (MAG127: “Just another scar for the collection!”), but did he notice that he’s been covering all the Fears? We still don’t know for sure if the diversity is relevant, but it’s been a noticeable pattern (for listeners), and it sounds really suspicious… especially when keeping in mind how Elias had described the Archivist’s role (MAG092: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…”).

Jon was touched by the Web when he was a child (MAG081: “The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”); he’s Beholding’s Archivist. As for the Corruption, he got almost eaten alive by Jane Prentiss’s worms (MAG039); “Michael” from the Spiral stabbed him when he tried to retrieve Helen (MAG047); Jude Perry from the Desolation burned his hand through a handshake (MAG089); Mike Crew made him experience the Vast and probably fucked up his lungs a bit (MAG091); Daisy strangled him and/or cut his neck (MAG091); the Not!Them toyed with his memories of Sasha (starting MAG040), Nikola punched(?) him (MAG097) and held him captive for a month (MAG101), and Jon ultimately experienced the Stranger’s Unknowing himself, getting temporarily lost in the madness (MAG118+MAG119); the End couldn’t totally get his grasp on him while Jon was in his coma but Jon was then “balanced on an edge” (MAG121); Melanie stabbed him in the shoulder with a scalpel while she was infected by the Slaughter (MAG125); since Peter Lukas has been running the Institute, Jon has mentioned multiple times that he was feeling alone/lonely, which… could be a Lonely-induced state of mind (MAG125, MAG129), with everyone drifting away because of its effects.

Jon is still missing the Buried, the Flesh and the Dark. If Jon is getting his scars from the Buried AND the Flesh in one go, he will only be missing the Dark’s (and potentially the unidentified ~New Emergence~), which is already lurking around the Institute.

It’s going FAST.

b) Jon has been holding back, so well and on multiple accounts é_è He stuck with it and didn’t try to come in contact with Melanie! If he didn’t lie by omission, he has been managing to not Know about Basira’s current activities (MAG129: “I haven’t heard from Basira, since she left on whatever secret errand”)!! Well, he went to see Martin when he got the Insight that he was around in MAG129, but Martin hadn’t told him to “stop finding” him yet, so Jon didn’t break any promise. And, well, although he’s resolving to go into the coffin at the end of MAG130… he managed to not try anything since Basira left two weeks ago, and she’s been taking longer than what she had announced (MAG128: “I’ll try and be back in a week or two. Don’t think about me.”); the fact that Basira is still not coming back indeed changes the paradigms a bit. (What is she doing… Where did Elias send her to… Was Elias’s plan precisely to remove her from the Institute, to get Jon more prone to getting involved himself…)

Even statements-wise!

MAG121 (+MAG122?): February 15th 2018 MAG123: February 17th (“Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”) MAG124: February 24th~ (“It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened.”) MAG125: ? MAG126: ? MAG127: ? MAG128: 3rd March (Basira leaving) MAG129: ? MAG130: 17th~ March (“It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira”)

There was a very intense period from MAG124 to MAG128, but since Basira’s departure, it seems that Jon has gone back to the casual and safe rhythm of one statement a week. Take that, Elias and your “And I know you’ve had problems with moderation.” :www Jon has been doing good on his own!

c) It’s SAD, once again, that Jon reached the conclusion that he had to do something by himself, and that this something involved getting hurt. I don’t see any of the others taking it kindly: Melanie could be indifferent, but Basira will probably point out that Jon didn’t prove himself trustworthy (going into the coffin when she had told him not to) and Martin… would probably scream at Jon a bit for getting injured.

But at the same time, yes, what is Jon supposed to do? He lost Sasha when he was ignorant; he lost Tim when he was knowledgeable, and thought that Daisy had disappeared too. Jon is still the one who has the best chance of not dying; he’s the one with the most powers; he proved that he could neutralise Breekon when he was on the verge of attacking. Of course that, now that he’s discovered that he could possibly “undo” another death, and if the only downside would be him getting injured… he would take that chance. Especially when Gertrude casually mentioned that:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time. I’ve had ten years tracking supplicants drawn by the siren call of Flesh, watching them gradually stockpiling meat. Very useful, in terms of preparation time for derailing the final push, but in future… I think I need to get a little bit more… proactive.

Meaning she let a few members of The Flesh run wild for ten years, for the Greater Good of “derailing” their ritual later. Meaning she probably allowed them to hurt, torture and kill innocent people all this time. Typical Gertrude and she had her priorities (saving the world, and at what cost?). Jon’s priorities are… Well. We don’t officially know them, but the assistants seem to be pretty much at the top of his list right now.

And damnit!! Jon tried to reach out to the others, to explain to them what was happening! He tried to infodump to Martin! He confessed to Martin that he missed him and was worried for him! He told Basira about his new powers and told her they were on the same side! And Martin and Basira both chose to remain solo in their own quests. But Jon tried; it has nothing to do with the way he tried to protect Tim and Martin at the end of season 2, or the way he avoided all the assistants before Nikola kidnapped him in season 3 (MAG098, Martin: “Yeah, we talked. Not long, he– Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine.”) He tried and just spent two weeks with the coffin for sole company, knowing that there could be a chance of rescuing Daisy and knowing that she is not having a great time inside (MAG128, Breekon: “You can stare at it, knowing how your feral friend suffers, knowing how powerless you are to help. And when you can’t bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her…”).

Jon is only finding another way now because communicating didn’t work when all he got was doors getting shut in his face. He would even have reasons to snap if someone were to reproach him for trying something alone… ;;

- Regarding MAG131, since we already have the title, I wiiiiish we could have Melanie stopping Jon dead (…) in his tracks and instead giving him a statement of The Flesh attack on the Institute, but alas :| If Jon is planning to amputate (perhaps temporarily, before sewing it back? He said “another scar”, didn’t mention a missing body part) or hurt himself (blood to attract Daisy once inside?), I don’t knoooow what he would aim for. Something grand and over the top like HIS HEART, SINCE HE MENTIONED THE WEB’S “HEART”? Something symbolically appropriate like his eyes (L I S T E N, ~THE RELATION BETWEEN EYES AND KNOWLEDGE~ HAS BEEN AN OLD ONE SINCE ŒDIPUS………………)? His head? … Honestly, I think I would be more disturbed if it turned out to be something small and… closer to a real-life injury (a finger, a bit of an ear, etc.) Another option would have been to use The Boneturner’s Tale or to ask for Jared’s, uh, “help” (stealing bones/organs directly from Jon), since Gregory Pryor had mentioned how he could still feel his own bones “twisting in someone else’s arm” after they had been stolen from him in MAG049, but we don’t know where the book is, The Flesh already tried to destroy the Archives when Jon was in a coma (they’re not allies), and Jon seemed keen on acting as fast as possible. Still, not totally excluding the possibility of Jon taking the time to go after a Flesh avatar in MAG131 (although it sounds like he’s getting ready to jump in the coffin already). Martin had even highlighted that he couldn’t be sure whether “J”’s gym was still running or not since August 2013 (MAG090: “The, um… the supplemental materials that should go with this statement, providing more details on addresses, names, and stuff, seems to be missing, so we don’t have any way of tracking down the gym, or finding out the name the business might be operating under. Not without a 2013 copy of the Aberdeen Yellow Pages. A bit of relief, in some ways.”) Orrrr I guess that Jon could also be cunning and only pretending to totally miss the point, just to make The Web freak out and come out of its hiding spot to stop him, but Jon hasn’t been hiding from his recording since the whole Sceptical Show from season 1… So I don’t know. (Why are you so intent on getting honest on tape now that you know that Fear entities are listening to you, Jon?)

Re: the coffin, by the way. I wonder how we would be “told” of what is happening down there, if Jon goes inside? Would we witness it live, through a tape recorder? Would we get the reactions from people outside (Martin, Melanie and/or Basira) while Jon still hasn’t come back, before Jon would give a quick summary? Would Jon (or Daisy) give a full statement of what happened? … Would Elias give a Statement Never Given of the whole thing? (In that case, I’d really hope that Jon’s anchor would turn out to be MARTIN INDEED IN THE END, because then, Elias would have to narrate the whole ordeal, and I’m ALL for Elias’s pain while he would grit his teeth with utter disgust, come on, you know you want it too.)

And still no idea about Jon’s anchor /o/ I said last time that I felt that MAG129 was precisely introducing the idea that it wouldn’t be Martin, since Martin told Jon to stop “finding” him… but it wouldn’t mean that Jon would stop. And it’s one of the few things that Jon actively seeks out himself – the tape recorders are the ones stalking him, for example, and sadly so was The Distortion (;; I want Helen baaaack…). We don’t know whether he tends to go back to the Web’s lighter or if it’s the lighter which stuck to him.

The call of a cigarette? The Archives themselves? The Eye’s presence? The jar containing Jane Prentiss’s ashes? Jon’s fondness for meat? (MAG115: “I suppose in some ways it’s strange I’m not a vegetarian yet, what with everything I know. But… I rather think someone in my position has to take their small pleasures where they can, and if it occasionally delights some grotesque meat-god, well... c’est la vie.”) Regrets about his life choices?

[1112lw]

Every question!!

SDFFSDFG DAM OK SIS

LONG POST AHEAD IF U LITERALLY WANNA KNOW ME PERSONALLY JUST READ THIS LMFAO

1: Name: Arche/Jupiter, my close friends know my real name so!

2: Age: High school has just been done so try to guess

3: Fears: Heights, oral presentations, the dark

4: 3 things I love: Drawing, men- concept art n stuff like that

5: 4 turns on: Oh here we go- uhh thighs, messy hair? when they give u The Look or when they. say things i will not talk about here HHGBDF n uhhh Arms 👀👀

6: 4 turns off: weird macho attitude, overly confident bullshit, being selfish and fuckboys in general

7: My best friend: not sure what this means but my bff is named Daphnée n i love her and ive known her my whole life so 

8: Sexual orientation: homosexuale

9: My best first date: :))))))) as if

10: How tall am I: sigh. I’m 5″4

11: What do I miss: sometimes i miss the feeling loved ig

12: What time were I born: 12:19

13: Favourite color: pink!

14: Do I have a crush

15: Favourite quote: My senior quote!! “if what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, I’m telling you I’m immortal”

16: Favourite place: well? my room ig? I like my yard too

17: Favourite food: ugh ramen,,,korean dishes are TASTE as fuck but i also like classic ass spaghetti so like lol

18: Do I use sarcasm: does it look like i dont

19: What am I listening to right now: dr.phil LMFAO

20: First thing I notice in new person: Hair and eyes!! also how they laugh

21: Shoe size: Like. a 7-8 in women’s 6 in men’s 

22: Eye color: Hazel/Golden yes bitch let me be special

23: Hair color: it’s either dark brown or golden brown idk

24: Favourite style of clothing: bruv its either kpoppie fuckboy or uwu skirts pastels

25: Ever done a prank call?: no i have anxiety

26: Meaning behind my URL:

27: Favourite movie: rise of the guardians and HTTYD

28: Favourite song: Comeback Home (BTS cover)

29: Favourite band: looks in the camera i dont know nan molla huh

30: How I feel right now: I’m fine im hungry

31: Someone I love: shoutout to my babeys in my server ily

32: My current relationship status: Single(tm)

33: My relationship with my parents: theyre fine ig just a bit tired

34: Favourite holiday:

35: Tattoos and piercing I have: Ear piercings? that’s it

36: Tattoos and piercings I want:

37: The reason I joined Tumblr:

38: Do I and my last ex hate each other? I sure hope not?

39: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? A bit ig?

40: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? Literally no

41: When did I last hold hands? Like last Friday

42: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? 20 minutes

43: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? no i havent shaved in like months

44: Where am I right now? in my room, in quebec, canada

45: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? bitch i sure hope my friends would

46: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? fuck my ears 

47: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? yeah

48: Am I excited for anything? yeah? yeah

49: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? ig? always

50: How often do I wear a fake smile? just at work tbh

51: When was the last time I hugged someone? not long ago i cant tell but my friends r cuddle monsters so 

52: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? i havent kissed anyone so 

53: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? lemme think uhhh no not rlly im not dumb 

54: What is something I disliked about today? i woke up n i thought i had school lol

55: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? oh john cock i want to be ur best friend

56: What do I think about most? i daydream 24/7

57: What’s my strangest talent? uhhh i can put my thumb behind my hand?

58: Do I have any strange phobias? trypophobia, if thats “weird”

59: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? depends on what the video is, mostly behind

60: What was the last lie I told? idk answering to my deadname

61: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? online

62: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? I slightly believe in ghosts? also aliens GOTTA exist so 

63: Do I believe in magic? i think!

64: Do I believe in luck? yeah

65: What’s the weather like right now? very pretty i filmed a video outside!!

66: What was the last book I’ve read? L’Étranger d’Albert Camus in french class

67: Do I like the smell of gasoline? yes my dad’s a mechanic

68: Do I have any nicknames? a lot a lot

69: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? bitch @ my birth #neverforget 

70: Do I spend money or save it? i have 40$ in my name right now

71: Can I touch my nose with a tounge? no

72: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? yes highlighter

73: Favourite animal? cats or otters

74: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? FBISDFD NO WE DONT TALK ABOUT IT

75: What do I think is Satan’s last name idk he can have any last name he wants!!!

76: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? everytime i start hearing “waiting for you anpanman” or “i just wanna go home” 👀👀

77: How can you win my heart? aaahh. be a twink. b fashionable. b funny. cheesy. pls romance me like a npc in the sims 2

78: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? s(he) died smh

79: What is my favorite word? cunt is SUCH a satisfying word

80: My top 5 blogs on tumblr? oh great uh honestly cant be fucked 

81: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? please have brain. PLEASE

82: Do I have any relatives in jail? i sure hope the fuck not?

83: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? either invisibility or mind reading

84: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? ahaaa “what are your intrusive thoughts”

85: What is my current desktop picture? my lesbian sims getting married LMFAO

86: Had sex? no

87: Bought condoms? no

88: Gotten pregnant? NO

89: Failed a class? i think yeah maths last year

90: Kissed a boy? :(((

91: Kissed a girl? no

92: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? no

93: Had job? I have a job rn so 

94: Left the house without my wallet? yeah when i go to school

95: Bullied someone on the internet? define bullying?

96: Had sex in public? virgin squad

97: Played on a sports team? yeah

98: Smoked weed? no ew

99: Did drugs? no ew

100: Smoked cigarettes? NO EW

101: Drank alcohol? yep 

102: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? no i’d die

103: Been overweight? i’m twig

104: Been underweight? i think i was underweight when i was young? i was very Small

105: Been to a wedding? yes very long boring

106: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? bruh. everyday

107: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? probably?

108: Been outside my home country? ONCE

109: Gotten my heart broken? TWICE !

110: Been to a professional sports game? yesss canadians game!!

111: Broken a bone? no

112: Cut myself? not technically 

113: Been to prom? SOON SOON SOON SOSOSNSBFSHDD

114: Been in airplane? once

115: Fly by helicopter? i am not rich bitch

116: What concerts have I been to? noneeee- WAIT NO MARIE MAI

117: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? not sex but for the purpose of pretending i have a penis yes plenty

118: Learned another language? yeah!! i learned english, i almost learned spanish and i’m trynna learn korean now

119: Wore make up? i try!! but i’m not super good

120: Lost my virginity before I was 18? not 18 yet but it’s goin that way

121: Had oral sex? as if 

122: Dyed my hair? i wishhh

123: Voted in a presidential election? I WISH THE ELECTIONS R ONE MONTH B4 MY BIRTHDAY 

124: Rode in an ambulance? nope

125: Had a surgery? yes at a week old 

126: Met someone famous? i think yes but i was super small

127: Stalked someone on a social network? define stalked?

128: Peed outside? yes

129: Been fishing? YES

130: Helped with charity? i think? we do volunteering so 

131: Been rejected by a crush? not directly

132: Broken a mirror? no 

133: What do I want for birthday? boyf......boy..boyff

134: How many kids do I want and what will be their names? oh man uhh maybe 2-3, i dont know their names yet honestly

135: Was I named after anyone? MY DAD NAMED ME AFTER A FUCKIN CLIENT HE MET. as for my actual name now I named myself after my fav video game character. lit

136: Do I like my handwriting? yeah!!

137: What was my favourite toy as a child? bitch hot wheels

138: Favourite Tv Show? hells kitchen,,,,judge judy,,,anythin like that

139: Where do I want to live when older? honestly i wish i could just live in japan or tokyo, or new york? but i will most likely end up in montreal 

140: Play any musical instrument? i used to play the clarinet last year!!

141: One of my scars, how did I get it? the one on my knee, i scratched my desk with my knee 

142: Favourite pizza toping? my dad makes AMAZING sea food pizzas,,,

143: Am I afraid of the dark? a lot

144: Am I afraid of heights? A LOT

145: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? idk prolly? im a bit of a goody two shoes or however u spell it

146: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end: dont we all

147: What I’m really bad at: organizing my anxiety n shit i get overwhelmed

148: What my greatest achievments are: finishing high school 

149: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me: honestly has to be that time someone dug up my vent post about being dysphoric to try to say i hated myself with some dumbass DySphorIa Is SelF HaTRed argument

150: What I’d do if I won in a lottery: pay my parents’ debt off, buy 284223$ of BT21 merch, pay my whole college/uni and transition

151: What do I like about myself: idk i like how i literally do not give a fuck anymore and ive learned to love myself instead of trynna care

152: My closest Tumblr friend: @peptobismol-official​ @ace-landofthesun​ @dorkalisious​ and ana but idk her @ anymore :((( ana pls

153: Something I fantasise about: we dont talk about that

154: Any thoughts on the paranormal?: lit. please stop crawling in my ceiling !

ok now that u know my whole biography. go doxx me ig. bye bye

[foxallabout853]

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I’m pretty sure that some of you are still playing Square Enix’s previous FF online game, Final Fantasy XI. So, great news everyone as “Amelila” has released a new graphics overhaul megapack for it.

This graphics mod significantly improves the Final Fantasy XI’s textures, transforming its blurry and ugly visuals into something that is actually pleasing to the eye, that is actually able to compete with titles released a few years ago. This mod also includes optional HD Bump Maps which will greatly improve your gaming visual experience, though they require a beefy graphics card (according to the author).

The Final Fantasy XI graphics overhaul mod is 277MB in size and you can download it from here. Amelila also claimed that this megapack will always be kept updated as new mods are released, and will be distributed free of charge to everyone.

In order to celebrate its release, Amelila has also released a teaser trailer that you can watch below.

Enjoy!

Watch this video on YouTube

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. Solidworks 2012 64 bit free download. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities.Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved - and still does - the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the 'The Evolution of PC graphics cards.' Contact: Email

Hairstyles in the Sims. Can things ever get stranger?

Some people think thehair that comes with the base game feels a bit too bland, while some don’t like the way hair looks in vanilla Sims 4 at all.

Thankfully hundreds of modders from all over the world have created custom hairstyles to freshen things up.

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for the hairstyles for male sims or females or even kids– you’ve come to the right place for all of it!

I’ve divided this list in two parts; the first will give you a breakdown of the best female hair mods for Sims 4, and the second part will tell you all about the best hair mods for male Sims in the game.

Choose wisely and dress up accordingly.

Girl Hairstyle Mods

12. Jealousy Hair

This long hairstyle takes a spot on my list because it reminds me of one of the coolest hairstyles that already comes in the game; but it’s far better and much more detailed.

I would dare say that this mod could easily replace the one that comes with vanilla Sims 4, but some of you might prefer a more traditional look.

In any case, in terms of long hairs with a tail that runs from back to front, you’ll struggle to find one as good as this.

11. Vapor Hair

When you’re going to rate hair mods, you have to understand that transparency plays almost as much of a part as the quality of textures and the design itself.

Rammstein feuer frei free mp3 downloads. As such, this one takes a spot because it ticks both boxes quite perfectly.

It’s a short hairstyle that suits almost every type of lady, and the transparency between the strands feels surprisingly accurate.

10. Ominous Hair

This mod is fantastically detailed, and it offers a unique look.

Actually similar to only one hairstyle that I can recall from the game.

With a small bun on top of the head and some loose hair all over the place, this gives you a stylish look without many similar options.

There are some minor transparency issues but I’m forgiving the issues with this mod because it can’t be easy to model such a unique hairstyle; especially when loose hairs are not intended to be a thing in Sims 4.

9. Paradox Hair

This neat little hairstyle can be used by ladies of all ages, and it comes in a staggering 27 different colors to add plenty of variety to your Sims world.

Try out some of them and see which one fits your Sim the most.

This is a long hairstyle with a ponytail, and it’s detailed enough to be one of the best I’ve seen for the game.

8. Runaway Hair

Detailed and beautiful, the long Runaway Hair is by far one of my favorite hair mods to put on.

Granted, I think the hair itself looks pretty good in real life too. And that might’ve played a part on my decision.

But hey: that doesn’t take away from the astonishing level of work that went into this creation.

7. Prisma Hair

Am I going crazy, because I don’t think there’s a single hairstyle as long as this one in the base game.

I’m trying to recall but I just can’t think of any!

Those who love to see their female Sims with long hair might want to check this one out.

The level of detail is fantastic, it comes with plenty of different colors, and what’s even better is that the hair drops to the front of the body as well as a bit to the back.

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It doesn’t seem to have much transparency issues given that it’s mostly uniform in color, so that’s an added plus.

6. High Life Hair

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about short hair options.

And this one takes the cake as one of my favorites for the game.

I mostly play with male sims, I do admit that. But I have to tell you that those of you who want to see their Sims rock a short hairstyle with much more details than the ones that come with the base game are going to want to try this one out.

It can be used by Sims of all ages(starting Teen) but it does fit better on Young Adults, in my opinion. Encyclopedia britannica software download.

Yet it’s up to you to decide who rocks it!

5. Envy Hair

Another hairstyle with a unique design, this time being one that is far more withdrawn and less loose than others.

But I figure this can work pretty well on entrepreneurs and businesswoman Sims.

It just seems like a perfect fit for them, you know?

It’s that classic short hairstyle that seemed to be quite popular in the 80s, in which the hair wasn’t really short per se… but it was made to look like it was.

A picture is worth a thousand words though – so check it out!

4. Perfect Illusion

The creator of this mod used Lady Gaga as a reference. And I think the result turned out to be quite accurate.

This hair is super complex and you’ll have a Sim rocking quite a unique style like a rockstar.

Although this type of hair is already included in the base game (or a very similar one, at least). So it may not add a totally unique twist, but it’s worth a download if it could fit with your Sim’s style.

3. Parallel Hair

Wait, braids? I mean, DOUBLE BRAIDS?

How come these are not a thing on the base game?

This one takes the classic “good girl” look to the next level by adding this fantastic hairstyle, which can be used by Sims of all ages.

The best thing about the mod is that the braids are compatible with most of the hats that your Sim can wear too.

Which means it won’t interfere with your quest of creating that hat-loving personality you’ve always wanted.

2. Eden Hair

Another extremely long hair design takes the number two spot on my list. Mainly because I really love long hairs and the base game didn’t provide us with as many options as I would’ve wanted.

In any case, this one flows like a cascade through the left side of your Sim’s body and goes all the way down to the waist.

By far one of the longest hair mods that you’ll find, and it comes in dozens of different colors.

1. Nightcrawler Hair

Look, as much as I love long hair in this game, I couldn’t really avoid putting this mod as the number one on my list.

Fantastically well detailed as well as brilliantly executed in terms of transparency and compatibility issues, the Nightcrawler hair is as modern as it is eccentric.

This hairstyle fits women of all sorts, but housewives or business ladies might look particularly good with this.

You decide, though, as this mod puts the choices in your own hands.

Guy Hairstyle Mods

10. Nicholas Hair

A simple short design that is widely used by men in today’s world, the Nicholas Hair mod makes quite a fantastic addition to the game.

Well, mostly if you’re looking to add a style that suits almost every type of serious-looking Sim.

If you’re playing with a different type, like one that looks to live more of a bohemian lifestyle, then keep reading. There’s something here for you too.

9. Haunting Hairstyles

Shorter hair on the sides doesn’t always have to be as noticeable in order for it to look stylish.

And this hair mod shows exactly why.

Hair that is well-combed is sure to attract a lot of attention, and the Haunting Hairstyles mod will add exactly that to the game.

Plus you’ll have the option to paint various colors thanks to the mod creator’s hard efforts.

8. Hair N4

If you’re into the modern hairstyles usually rocked by sports stars and celebrities, then this mod is going to fit perfectly.

There isn’t one quite like it in the main game, as most that come with The Sims tend to have either an exaggerated mohawk or simply not as much on the sides.

This cut is as balanced as it gets. And you’re going to love the way your Sim looks with it.

As many others in this list, it also comes with color options that’ll give you an extra touch of variety!

7. Like Lust Hair

Are you trying to have your Sim look better than the rest?

Are you tired of the way some of the game’s basic hairstyles look, but you still want a stylish and not-so-cartoonish hair put on top of your male Sim’s head?

This one is like an improved version of the last mod, and in my opinion it looks even better.

You’re going to love watching your Sim rock it; I’m sure of it.

It comes with custom shadowing too, which also enhances realism by a landslide compared to others on this list.

6. Wavves

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Those who have wavy hair might not feel as represented in The Sims 4 community, well as much as those with straight hair.

So it’s time to put a stop to it with the Wavves Hairstyle mod.

This modern update takes a different approach than the rest by adding hair with waves to the game.

But beware – you’re going to need a good computer to make this one look its best. But again, this is The Sims we’re talking about… not exactly a GPU hog.

5. Hysteria

Faded on the sites and very long on the right side of the head, combed to the left.

Quite a unique look, if I may say so myself.

This is the typical hairstyle in forms of modern advertising rocked by those models looking brand-new the day of the photoshoot.

Wish we could all pull this off…

In any case, the hairstyle should suit any man quite nicely. In real life or in Sims land.

4. Electric

Stylish, modern, and worthy of any businessman.

This short hairstyle looks quite good on Sims of all backgrounds.

But I have to say that it’s quite a fantastic one to try on teens or young adults. I think it fits them quite well, but I’m sure you’ll love the way it looks on any wearer.

Plus it’s free so what do you have to lose?

3. Darko

Another modern style that starts with a faded cut on the sides.

But this one has more hair atop of the head, much like the original one that comes with vanilla Sims 4.

If you look closely you’ll notice this one is far more detailed though!

2. Blackout

Feel like a true samurai with the blackout hairstyle.

Which is actually quite a longer hairstyle than you might think on first glance.

Well-rounded and a bit messy, this hair add-on definitely offers something that no other hairstyle in vanilla even comes close to.

1. Psycho

I’m not really sure why most male models used for Sims hairstyles look so weird. But hey, I’m sure Maxis has a good reason.

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Now this hairstyle (fully compatible with hats) serves as a shorter option for men that like to have messy hair, and enough style to rock it regardless of the situation.

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Parties, weddings, business meetings, and more.

It doesn’t really matter what type of Sim you like to play as; this has to be one of the best hairstyles for those looking for an all-rounder man design.

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[itsyourturnblog]

Let’s say Bill and Janet are equally qualified product managers who are each given a critical product development project.

Bill is a good guy, a smart guy and a solid guy. You’ve known guys like Bill your whole life. You know you can count on him. You’re very confident in his abilities.

Maybe Janet is a person of colour. Maybe she’s a recent immigrant. Maybe they’re non-binary. Maybe she didn’t go to the same school as you. Maybe she came from a different socio-economic background than you did. Maybe she practices a different religion than you do. Maybe she’s an atheist and you are not. And maybe, deep down, you have some ideas about what those things represent. And maybe, this leaves you less confident in her abilities.

Janet’s team is solid, but their product is breaking new ground for the company, so they experience some early delays as they perfect their technology. Bill’s team is building on existing technology and gets off to a quick start. At their first progress report to the board, Bill really shines. Everyone gets super excited about his product. You knew Bill would do a great job, and he is! Janet’s report is encouraging, but she and her team still have a long way to go. You’re still not quite sure about her.

Soon, Bill hits a snag and requests more resources. Because his product seems to be a winner, you redirect a few developers and a designer from Janet’s team to his. Janet’s team was just hitting its stride, but the loss of key members has slowed them down once again.

Bill launches two weeks ahead of schedule. He secures additional marketing dollars to give his product a big push. Janet’s progress is steady, and her minimum viable product is testing well with beta users. Her financial models are projecting big numbers in Q4. Meanwhile, Bill’s product is already in market. His targets are modest, but he’s already hitting them in Q1. More marketing dollars are directed to him, and away from Janet even though long-term, her product has the potential to be truly disruptive in their industry. By the time Janet launches, there’s only enough money for a lackluster marketing effort. No one is excited.

Bill is assigned another important project and knocks it out of the park. Everyone loves Bill. He’s learning and improving with each new launch. Janet, not so much. She gets less important work and as a result, her skillset doesn’t grow as quickly as Bill’s.

Soon, Bill is a far better product manager than Janet, and the contrast is obvious. Rather than engaging in an uncomfortable conversation with Janet in which you build an understanding of her and the issues she’s facing, you simply decide that she can’t scale (one of Silicon Valley’s favorite put-downs). Janet’s disruptive product is killed, and she is let go not long after.

According to System Leadership Theory, this pattern is called Success to the Successful. And it is by far, the system trap I hate the most. It’s insidious, systemic and to most people, conveniently invisible. But above all, it’s lazy.

In the Success to the Successful trap, those who are successful are granted additional advantages that give them the ability to compete more effectively and therefore win more easily in the future. Sound unfair? Well it is. And it’s everywhere.

We see it in education when the amount of funding received by a public school is determined by the amount of property taxes collected in its catchment area. By default, poorer neighborhoods have poorer schools, making it difficult for the kids from those areas to make it into university. Speaking of universities, many have “legacy” admissions where the children of alumni are prioritized for admission, regardless of their academic accomplishments.

There are further advantages for children of privileged backgrounds. Research has found that grade inflation is more prevalent in wealthier schools than in poorer districts. And it makes sense. If your mom is a lawyer who is highly skilled in the arts of influence and negotiation, she’s going to have a lot more success when pressuring the teacher than will a mom who works as a grocery store cashier.

Once out of school, the advantages for wealthier people continue. In their book The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged, Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman show how due to a series of “hidden mechanisms”, those who grew up wealthier are better prepared for success in elite professions such as media, architecture and acting. Those from wealthier backgrounds have access to a larger, more influential network for professional advancement, have a better understanding of professional norms and behaviors and have access to their parents’ money to fund their ambitions. If mom and dad are paying your rent, it’s a lot easier to take that internship in London or New York that will lead to a more prestigious position down the road.

We’re all supposed to know this stuff. Yet why does it keep happening?

And, the problem goes beyond the inherent unfairness of it all. It’s also the fact that organizations that fall into the Success to the Successful trap suffer for it. They wind up with the same ideas, the same strategies, the same people, the same technology, the same measurements and the same tools. They become unimaginative, closed minded and slaves to the past. Those who think differently or approach things in unorthodox ways become disenchanted and demotivated. Opportunities for change and innovation are lost.

What makes me the craziest about the Success to the Successful trap is the way most people are entirely blind to it. Take a look at your organization. If everyone is the same color, or the same gender identity, or went to the same school, or have the same mother tongue, or the same physical abilities, you and your senior leaders have some thinking to do.

Success to the Successful isn’t leadership. It is the very definition of privilege.

Next week, we’ll talk about how leaders can ensure they’re not perpetuating this privilege in their organizations.

Hey there! If you’re digging this System Leadership Theory stuff, you can read more about Success to the Successful and other system traps in my book, The Unstuck Leader, available in print and for Kindle on Amazon.

Success to the Successful: Are You Perpetuating Privilege? was originally published in It's Your Turn on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Judy Sims via It's Your Turn - Medium #itsyourturn #altMBA #SethGodin #quotes #inspiration #stories #change #transformation #writers #writing #self #shipping #personaldevelopment #growth #education #marketing #entrepreneurship #leadership #personaldev #wellness #medium #blogging #quoteoftheday #inspirationoftheday

[demonphannie]

dan and phil - april 2017

4/12

tldr: *muffled screaming and happiness*

first week (1-7): april fools! new crafts video: DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Potato Prints. they appeared in asdfmovie 10. phil is glad attack on titan is back what a nerd. in a louise vlog: The Big Boss Of YouTube! | The Weekly #13. dan’s old teacher is concerned for his mental health after the crafts video. new gaming video: Dan and Phil play CLUB PENGUIN! (RIP). dan and phil as hedgehogs #content. new danisnotonfire video: Dan Takes Quizzes About Himself. phil tells us dan wants a weasel to nibble his finger? dan liveshow! (NOT ON HIS COMPUTER AND HIS WIRROW PAINTING ISN’T THERE AND HIS BEDSIDE TABLE STUFF ISN’T THERE IT IS A WARNING, dan does not hate us, philisnotrude, end of danandphilcrafts, shirtless phil ya ya, he has a daddies list, relocating his wirrow painting : ), wow wearing phil’s coat in public for twenty minutes why is dan more excited about this than us, wants to change his video background *cough* moving, assaches, phil and i discourse, dan is having a long puberty, he used to rp sonic). dan’s life is a long tuba note. phil thinks a drunk man is an owl. no liveshows for three weeks even though they are only in australia for two weeks? interesting. new amazingphil video: 5 Things I Regret Buying - SILVER HAIR DYE. silver hair selfie. phil is a danger to himself. new lessamazingphil video: PRANKING DAN WITH CHILLI GUMMY BEARS (iconic amazing award worthy and also the reason dan has trust issues). 

second week (8-14): dan literally put his head in someone’s ass im screaming. new gaming video: DIL'S MIND CONTROL STRIPPING - Dan and Phil Play: Sims 4 #38. phil doesn’t know what elbows (arm hinges) are. miiicroowaaaves are good for phil. dan and phil go to singapore!!!! some ppl see them at the mall and a sky bar (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen). phil posts a cute selfie of them in singapore. some people see dan and phil at an aquarium?? couple goals. merlion pics from dan and phil. dan sets the goal of being a disappointment to make himself feel better. new gaming video: TWO SANDY BALLS - Dan and Phil Play: Golf With Friends #2. dan pretends to be fake deep but it’s really just a pretty pic at the aquarium that phil took of dan. phil posts a lot from the aquarium (mmm yes dad feed me the aesthetically pleasing pics of you and dan). dan posts boomerangs of the cool jellyfish. finally in australia again! phil’s a pale person on a pretty beach. dan threatens us with a stingray. dan flirts with anthony padilla. new amazingphil video: Easter Baking - PASTEL LEMON MERINGUES (also the kitchen is very empty it’s like they are moving or something). dan and phil #spotted in sydney (one, two, three). cocktail pictures with phil! the baking video is either blessed or cursed. dan needs to stop worrying about things (almost as if he is moving soon i don’t know!). 

third week (15-21): HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE BEST SELFIE IN THE WORLD THANKS DAN HOWELL FOR MY LIFE. first cool for summer meet and greet (some especially good pics because i don’t want to link all of them: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen). videos of the stage event in sydney (one, two, three). special amplify shirts. professional sydney amplify pics. dan is a v v S O F T boye <3 (glittery nail polish and sexual fantasies shirt yes plz). people met dan and phil at the airport and there was some #drama over it but like,, please don’t actively search for dan and phil at the airport (pics: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty). phil has a stalker and his name is dan please help him. second meet and greet (highlights: dan messages mums, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten). melbourne stage event videos (one and two). dan is appreciative of m+g selfies with filters. phil is an L kinda guy. sixty five floors of nope. new gaming video: ARE WE EVIL OR WHAT - Dan and Phil play: What Would You Do If.. (dan’s the monkey and is into friendly kisses). dan gets laughed at by an immigration officer for being an emo fuck. dan and phil #spotted at a botanical garden (pic with some fans) and pretty pics of phil from dan (one and two). phil wants the unicorn frappes. dan finds a very phallic cocktus. dan and phil go to the science and art museum! (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen). aesthetic instagram posts of sparkly rooms and matching captions (dan and phil). new gaming video: THE YASUHATI SINGING CHALLENGE (ouchie v v loud boyes almost as if they are moving and don’t give a crap about noise complaints! also toxic covers more of those please). the roar door from phil (and extra aesthetic pic). dan’s an aesthetic bae amirite. dan thinks he has to post cute selfies with an ironic caption to justify them but really he should just post his shamelessly cute selfies all over the shop.

fourth week (22-30): phil and sad movies on a plane. phil does not like olives (what a weirdo). phil’s about to eat a cookie (cockie) bigger than his face so this week is off to a good start (also wowie it was a good week). dan shows up on bryony’s insta story. phil has a laminated hit list. dan’s a wavey dude and i love him :(. dan tweets a warning before the shitshow and i am crying as i type this. new amazingphil video: We're Moving Out (OKAY I CAN LITERALLY DIE NOW THERE IS NOTHING TO LIVE FOR THANK YOU DAN AND PHIL FOR MY LIFE AND IMMINENT DEATH I CAN’T EVEN BREATHE). dan enjoys ripping the metaphorical carpet from out under our feet good to know. so many boxes (queue many domestic tweets). the creepshot war continues (as does the increasing amount of pictures phil takes of dan). first joint liveshow in the new house! (highlights: uh phil only uploaded 40 mins of it because the rest was extremely laggy, new house is a duplex, no dog because they are still renting #killphan, a dog will be adopted when a house is bought, glass wall, phil is keeping his room basically the same and dans room apparently looks like the moon, no apartment tour #killphan, new gaming room looks about the same, dan and phil airplane adventures include rude people and dan not playing eye spy, dan loves museums and zoos and phil says they always have to see every single thing, two lounges in the house?, phil wants a fish, lester holiday after playlist, no more one direction poster #killphan, phil really likes harry styles’ new music and i have ascended, cheeky dan video from the old apartment coming soon, the new place is not a forever home, dan’s hair is soft to phil, dan is trying to peer pressure phil into painting his nails). they bought a giant floof. new dan and phil merch (mostly just japhan remakes but also aesthetically pleasing hats). first gaming video in the new house: If Dan and Phil were Girls?! - FACE APP. dan’s hands and phil’s elbows #spotted on bryony’s insta story. first interaction with the neighbors was them asking phil to not feed pigeons on the balcony (THEY HAVE A BALCONY?!).

april ripped my thrussy.