#lots of bigger objects are

[victorluvsalice]

Hi folks -- we're back with the Chill Valicer Save this week, working our way through the trio's Spring Wednesday! And this one proved to be a bit busier than anticipated, so let's get straight in --

-->First things first – picked up with the gang just bumming around their house at about two in the morning, as they do. As Alice needed Fitness skill to help fulfill her Renaissance Sim aspiration (and thus her New Year's Eve resolution), I sent her off on a feral run, while Victor got to go back to bed for a little more sleep, and Smiler –

Got put on weeding duty. Because, despite cheating the glitched plants from the previous episode to be weedless, the minute I checked the greenhouse, I saw that the weeds had resprouted! I hoped that maybe now they were non-glitched weeds and would go away when vacuumed up, but nope, Smiler once again got stuck in a loop when they tried to weed them. *grumble* And when I tried resetting the weed growth state again later on, the weeds disappeared...and then just grew right back again! What the hell – what’s even the POINT of letting me get rid of the weeds if it won’t ACTUALLY let me get rid of them?? *shakehead*

-->Anyway – once I saw that Smiler was stuck in the loop, I canceled the action and instead had them go lecture Surprise about playing in a trash pile that was next to the garden sink (from when Alice repaired it last time). The cat didn’t exactly know what she was being lectured for, but at least she stopped making a bigger mess! Smiler scavenged the pile for parts, put it in their inventory, then went back to their robotics bench to make more mechanisms and computer chips for that Servo project I’d like them to start at some point (you know, to help around the house and the store). As they were doing that, Alice returned from her feral run, and I had her pick up the mail –

Which contained a giant plush bunny! Their reward for finding all those decorative eggs, I presume! :) I decided it could go next to the knitting basket and rocking chair in the séance room – only to discover the darn thing was not live draggable, unfortunately. So Alice had to go there manually and put it in the world herself. *shrug* I figured while she was up there, she could get some meditation in (helps keep the Fury at a manageable level, after all), and had her plonk her butt down on the stool for a little while (at least, until she started levitating). Not only did she end up getting Wellness level 6 during her little Zen session, she ALSO got a pop-up stating she’d thought of a hilarious joke while meditating and got Comedy level 5 out of it too! Two skills for the price of one, I love it! :D

-->While Alice was getting her chill on, Victor got up, used and Scruberooed the toilet, then popped down to the greenhouse to do some tending (and get stuck in a few weeding loops of his own on those glitched plants *sigh*) before grabbing some honey out of the bee box, picking all the grown over-sized crops (the big mushroom wasn’t QUITE ready), and super-selling everything else because, well, they don’t really need any more fruit, veggies, or flowers JUST at the moment. XD Smiler, meanwhile, got put on livestock duty – feeding the chickens, cleaning the coop, telling them some jokes, and telling Surprise that she was not to play in the chicken feed either, before moving on to clean and chat with Moory. Moory didn’t think much of their attempts to talk about the weather, but did like their joke, so Smiler was able to successfully milk her, yay. We appreciate when the cow cooperates with us!

-->We also appreciate when the Sims decide to be cute on their own – case in point, Victor, having finished in the greenhouse, promptly went over to Smiler after they’d finished milking Moory and made out with them right by the cow shed. XD I then had Victor offer his wrist to a thirsty Smiler (his plasma is their favorite, after all), while I had Alice return to normal after her meditation session and go get the eggs. Once Victor was done being drained, he went over and had a little slow dance with Alice in front of the chicken coop – seems like farm chores encourage him to be romantic. XD Shadow came over and started whining at them for a walk midway through, though, so I had Smiler go over and play with her a bit to keep her occupied. Cute family times are cute! :) Anyway, with the chores done and everyone having gotten their adorableness quotient for the day fulfilled, I tried to have Victor set up the trip to the store –

Only for him and Alice to get obsessed with playing with the clay blob, with Victor insisting on walking all the way to the living room even when I canceled the action in favor of them going traveling. *shakes head* Sims sometimes, I swear..

[prolibytherium]

Would kill to read animal POV fiction that has the animal POV’s interaction with humans be like, semi realistic to the level of caution most predators take with large prey and/or competitors (including humans).

Like instead of the usual - “the human is such a weak, pathetic creature... so slow, no claws, blunt teeth… completely helpless without its 'Fire Sticks'. how is it the master of the earth?” type crap it’s like, the bear protagonist or whatever approaches some dude who spreads their arms and yells and the bear is like “FUUUUUUUUCK THAT THING JUST GOT HUGE. IT'S LARGE AND MAKING NOISES. HOLY FUCK.”

[tea-time-terrier]

We...don't have a broad jump.

[fadedandromeda]

“Welcome to Scarland...” A lil doodle for @majickth ‘s #Hermits Hollow AU. This was such a massive pain in the ass.

[rxttenfish]

things that make miravi what it is, for me: miranda wholeheartedly believes what aaravi says about being a video game protagonist and seeing the UI and everything.

listen, miranda's entire Bit is believing what people say to her and what they give to her. this is what gets her labelled as naive, yes, but also i think it can go the other way too, where she can very easily meet people where they're at and not be overly confrontational about what they care about.

and no one ever really seems to believe aaravi when she talks about being the hero? as in, this too is another part of the joke, that aaravi is part of a different genre that isn't the one she's actually inhabiting, so everything she says comes with a lot of tongue-in-cheek and no one else giving it a lot of weight or credence. her being the chosen hero has a lot more significance to aaravi herself than anyone else, and even in the moments where aaravi is focused on, its always centered around this being something important to her, sectioned off from the rest of the game and the rest of the characters by detachment.

but if you put the two of these together... miranda's a big proponent of fairytales. she knows about the prophesied hero, this is something that is important to her, that she already puts weight in. and aaravi says, yes, she is a prophesied hero, she's here to save people, she's here to do good, she's the one this story is about.

and i think miranda would sincerely believe her without any real stipulations or doubt. if anything, miranda would get excited! she'd become an enabler if anything, wanting to hear more, wanting to see more, wanting to see aaravi save the world, wanting to see her be the hero, be the thing of legends. she wants to know about aaravi's exploits! where has she been? what monsters has she defeated along the way? has she won a game of wits? has she found a legendary magical sword to help her along? miranda wants to see it all! she wants to hype up aaravi, because she loves this and she believes in aaravi too!

and i think that'd be good for aaravi! i think she could genuinely benefit from having someone wholeheartedly be in her corner, to play cheerleader for her, to not doubt her all the time or have to struggle to convince her of any part of it. in general i think aaravi deserves more support than she gets, that it would do her very good in feeling confident and assured in herself, in not having to struggle with perceived insecurity in so many things all the time. she is the hero! someone does believe her! someone does think she's helpful and good and protective! not to mention i think it'd benefit her to have someone to talk about all of this to, someone who isn't judging her and isn't a therapist, who she can feel safe and secure with in turn.

and i think it would do miranda good too, to have someone who appreciates her help and wants her help, who she can feel like she's helping and being good in doing so. miranda does have a tangible motivation in wanting to make her friends happy and be liked, and i think having someone who appreciates her efforts would also be good for her.

i think they both deserve to feel like they're being good and doing good! i think it'd be good for them to just have someone who unironically appreciates what they're doing and believes them when they say who they are!

[blujayonthewing]

dungeon meshi's plot and lore get really complex and interesting the longer it goes but my toxic trait is that my favorite thing about the whole series is still the early chapters where it's mostly about diagrams of monster anatomy and explorations of fantasy life cycles and ecosystems

[moonclans]

every where i go in the hotd fandom there’s a new person introducing their alicent hightower reinterpretation that is invariably cersei 2.0 but without the borderline schizophrenic tendencies (i say this with love), insane levels of gender envy, and cyclical love for her children. so basically just her original female misogynist book counterpart. and i’ve got to say, no amount of ambition, poisoning viserys, or TVTrope misogny will make me think these ideas are as nearly interesting as what the show offered.

especially when we’re only one season in and it couldn’t be more obvious that we’re at the precipice of her descent to madness. what happened to patience… my beloved patience..

[fireflowersims]

We haven't learned. We haven't learned shit at all.

My country's wealth is directly linked to the exploitation and colonization of other peoples. We call the violent acts commited in Indonesia after ww2 "police actions" as if it wasn't horrific crimes against people who were (justifiably) tired of being occupied and abused by foreign invaders and colonizing dickhats.

Sure, we "lost" the Dutch East Indies. We are not actively colonizing anymore. And yet, we still haven't learned a thing. That "VOC mentality" was never gone, it's still there. It's that mentality of thinking business above everything else, money makes right, who cares how horrifically you abuse people, who cares about the massacre of the Banda islands when you now have all the yummy nutmeg to use and sell. It's not something to be admired, it's something we have to address and resolve, but we're not. We're not doing that, but we have to if we ever want justice of any kind.

We're ruled by dickheads who think that saying "from the river to the sea" is a hatecrime that should be condemned. "Yeah sure, you would've probably said the same thing about the utterance of "Republik Indonesia" less than 100 years ago, no?" is what I say to that. We have not successfully freed ourselves of this damn colonizer mindset!

The only reason the Netherlands ever stopped the "police actions" is because we were threatened with sanctions. Post WW2, it was stop the "police actions" (read: many war crimes) or lose the money from the Marshall Plan needed to rebuild your ruined country. The choice was easy enough.

But noooooo, we can't sanction Israel to get them to, ya know, STOP BOMBING HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS AND CIVILIANS IN GENERAL!!! They're our friends! Fuck no. I know why those asshats ain't sanctioning Israel (at least one of the reasons): they'd lose access to fucking Pegasus; spyware surpreme. Wanna spy on some journalists? Perhaps the opposition? Scary activists? Pegasus is THE spyware for you! Infect ppl's phones and suck up All Teh Data wihout them knowing. Suspected detection of the stuff somehow? Self-destruct, boom. Fantastic stuff if you're into violating ppl's privacy. I don't see this talked about a lot, but Israel is Scary in the cyberwarfare department. And they sell this expertise.

I support Palestine. I hope to see it freed someday. Hopefully soon

To Israel(is): decolonize ur shit. I know, it's hard, it's painful, you'll have to question and unlearn a lot of things. Heck, it may give you an existential and/or moral crisis for a bit. I still get one about nutmeg sometimes. But just like desinfecting a wound, it is ultimately beneficial.

PALESTINIAN PEOPLE DESERVE LIFE AS MUCH AS ANY OTHER PEOPLE

[whamss]

I am as toxic yuri brained as a lot of people, but every now and then I see people complaining about "wholesome dynamics" in shipping fandoms and acting like a relationship being loving and functional is innately boring and want to whip out that "who's an edgy boy???" Dog meme like get over yourself lmao

[jabberwockprince]

on the subject of hanahaki disease x NSR, I'm specifically thinking about how it applies to Yinu and her mom since they're. plant beings to an extent?

putting this under a cut because it got a bit too long and it turned into mostly an analysis lmfao

like, for example, Mama's most prominent trait is the fact that her hair changes into branch-like tendrils when angry, so I assume hanahaki would be harder to recognize because. they're already plants. changing radically, coughing up petals, growing flowers and stems or whatever wouldn't be too alarming for them in GENERAL? since those things already happen with their different moods and emotions, perhaps even health, so how does extreme repression look like? growth of invasive plants that they certainly shouldn't have maybe? symbolic flowers for the type of things they're repressing? a slow process of decay? something else?

LIKE. HEAR ME OUT. OK. I HAVE A THOUGHT PROCESS IN HERE SOMEWHERE. BEAR WITH ME

Mama as a character is so very interesting, because she's clearly an attentive, loving and protective mother - but at the same time, she and Yinu represent the concept of young prodigies forced on the spotlight by parents who live vicariously through their kids

maybe Mama is aware of hanahaki disease, but hasn't experienced it herself because she already has an outlet for all of her feelings - her own daughter. whether she does it on purpose or not is up to you and how you like to characterize Mama, but personally I like to think is something she does unconsciously specifically because Yinu takes so much after her father. IF YOU LOOK AT THEM SIDE TO SIDE? the only things that Yinu and her mother have in common are the forehead markings and the possibility that Yinu's hair might be actual flowers, like Mama's branch-like hair.

"But the rose motif-" PAPA. TAKEN FROM PAPA. THE GOLDEN ROSE IS ATTRIBUTED TO HIM AND THEN INHERITED BY YINU. I don't think they outright say this anywhere, but the implication that the piano Yinu plays used to belong to her father explains her attachment to it and why their entire fight ends when it's broken (you could even argue that the roses on Mama's outfit were influenced by Papa, since she goes from a white dress with yellow roses to a black dress with red roses after his death, yknow. mourning widow and all)

(the last picture is taken from this official tweet, drawn by one of the concept artists of the game!)

but back on track, the point I was trying to make here is that I think Mama unconsciously projects all of her feelings about losing her husband through Yinu. instead of the usual "I want to be famous, so I will make my child famous", it's more of a "I'm keeping the memory of Papa alive through our daughter" vibe? if that makes sense?? and that's why Mama presents as this very collected woman who can, and will lose control if angry - because she's not used to repressing.

which then takes me to how that affects Yinu, my favorite subject ever.

they both bond through music because it's the legacy that Papa left them, but taking into account Mama's overbearing and overprotective nature towards Yinu, using her as an outlet and whatnot, that definitely. has consequences.

I vaguely remember the devs at some point saying that Natura, the lungs of Vinyl City, has a lot of crystal domes around because they represent Mama's desire to keep Yinu safe since Yinu is represented as a flower? but take that with a grain of salt since I can't find the source rn </3 (still, I love thinking about each charter's relationship to their own district and all so I'm eating that up anyway) and it's obvious that the puppet themes allude to the fact that Yinu has no control over her career and/or life.

there's also the thing about Yinu being. INCREDIBLY SMALL. LIKE. LOOK AT HER. SHE COULD STRAIGHT UP FIT INSIDE DJ SUB'S SHOE OR SOMETHING. yeah, she's 9 years old and it makes sense for her being small, but I wonder. what if this is how hanahaki manifests for Yinu?

she's visibly small and lacks any sort of presence when compared to everyone else because she's, essentially, carrying her mother's emotional baggage. she's actively being smothered and kept from properly growing because of it. and Yinu is much too young to properly recognize her mother's actions as harmful - this is her mother, she might be scary when angry, but she loves her all the same. someone her age probably does as told with one thing in mind: to make her loved ones happy.

hanahaki affects her because Yinu is confident, in her skills and in the way things are supposed to be. she plays and the entire district, NSR and Mama are happy - so I imagine she would struggle with the idea of being unhappy when nothing is physically hurting her. with the idea that her loved ones are putting her in situations that make her uncomfortable and all. like. come on. shes literally a child.

and maybe that's why it's so hard to notice the signs of hanahaki within Yinu, because she's stagnant. nothing changes, she doesn't grow or develop, she remains the same and that's exactly why it goes unnoticed, nothing is visibly affecting her. that's why Mama doesn't realize anything is wrong for a long time. until the stress of hanahaki starts to actually take a toll on Yinu, with the accumulated stress and repression affecting her body - maybe her petals start to fall or and no one understands Why. maybe her plant abilities start growing inwards instead, taking root in her organs and such. something something, plants will always find a way to adapt and grow under harsh conditions

[somecunttookmyurl]

i think you just slightly cured my fear of spiders because i can't stop laughing at the thought of this spider going through all the stages of grief as the world gets flipped (again)

"...and then i moved over to the big lot next door and it flipped upside down AGAIN"

"have you been on the whiskey again"

[sunburnacoustic]

Someone's just put out a thirty minute video on youtube titled something like 'this is why muse setlists are a nightmare' like have you that much free time in the day because I do not

[doedipus]

sliding scale of speedrun weirdness that goes from "looks a lot like playing the game normally" to "looks nothing at all like playing the game normally"

[tmntkiseki]

Last post was the result of browsing a thread on the TMNT subreddit btw

[wheucto]

did not realize the size of a fandom until i went into the ao3 tag and saw 43 fics

[moonsidesong]

got around to watching new tpot, insanely good!!!!! love these funny little objects. awesome to see it bounce back twice as hard after a sorta mid episode last time lol