#showing up late to a fandom and giffing stuff that's been giffed 1000 times before

[echofades]

They can’t beat us, Bea. Not together. AVA & BEATRICE | WARRIOR NUN

[annakie]

Notes on a Blog Cleanup (& some other stuff) Part 4

Made it all the way back to  to page 1000. 

Started with 3021 pages.  Currently have 2954 pages, adding in posting 10 - 13 times a day for the last month... deleted somewhere around 87 pages of posts (or around 1300 total).  I’m in April 2015.  So it took two and a half years to do 50% of my posting here and nearly another year and a half to get that down to 2/3rds. It’ll just speed up from here.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of words about tumblr, fandom, and Doctor Who.

I’ve found myself deleting more news articles lately.  There’s almost no cringe-y stuff left. If I go back and do this again it’ll be even more deleting current events stuff unlessI connected to it somehow.

A LOT of the content creation I ever did happened in this time.  I did so much giffing for Who’s Line, a lot of video game stuff, especially Mass Effect, cause you know, it’s me, and a lot of edits and such.  Some way better quality than others.  I was also getting thousands of notifications a day from the few things I did that were really popular back then (still sometimes get notes on that Whose Line/Elmo/Game of Thrones gifset to this day).   

I know I’m not like, the best at gifs and edits, but hey, I think some of it is like, pretty good?  There’s a few things I’m a little sad about that just never took off, but I bet all people who try and post OC on Tumblr feel that way about some of their stuff.  A few things I made did surprisingly well, though.

I still will make the odd gif/photoset there that’s more than just “here’s some nice screenshots I took slightly edited” but honestly, I feel like these days it’s so hard to get many notes on tumblr at all?  Like there’s just so fewer people making stuff, and even less reblogging gifsets/photosets?  Idk, maybe it’s something more specific to my overall followers and who you all follow?  But I made a joking post a couple of days ago about my dash feeling weird because not everything is specifically tailored to me after scrolling through my blog, but on the OTHER hand, I also feel like, overall Tumblr has become just yet another place to post memes and text posts and has the big problem of the Reddit/Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram (+TickTock) circle where each place is like 50% screenshots/reposts of content the others?  This obviously isn’t a criticism of any actual people, but just... what tumblr has become the last year or two?  Is it just me?  Like you can find some gifsets and such with a couple thousand notes here and there but... just not as much is being produced now?  Does that make sense?

Like a month or two ago I spent a couple of hours specifically looking for good general fandom blogs specific to several fandoms I’m in and... it’s hard to even find those blogs anymore.  Like, “fuckyeah” type blogs that are someone’s sideblog about a specific topic.  And hey, believe me, I’ve created and abandoned several of these kinds of blogs on my time here (and at least one I’d keep up with but.. it just doesn’t have any content being generated for it so it’s just... sparse) so I get it.  Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, I don’t know.  

I keep wondering how much longer I’m going to keep doing this little project, and then every 10 or pages I come across a post I didn’t tag properly that’s now been found, or something I just really wanna get off my blog and I’m like “Welp, when I stop finding these, I’ll stop looking.  So maybe in like, 2018. :p  LIterally finding posts I forgot I ever made in the first place and like has made it worth it.

Notes on TAH Fandom

This was also the phase of being heavily heavily like SO heavily into The Thrilling Adventure Hour.  And I have a lot of thoughts on that, too.

Literally, one of the best decisions of my life, tbh.  Not every moment of being like a SuperFan of this thing was sunshine and roses, but most of them really were.  Honestly, I made such good friends.  I had some extraordinary experiences, doing things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done, for sure.  I traveled to Seattle, Chicago, New York twice, and LA three times, hanging out with new friends, and getting to know the cast of a thing I loved so much, and also somehow getting to be known by them as well.  There were things that happened that I didn’t blog about here because I never wanted to come off as braggy, or just to keep a confidence.  There were a few not-as-great things that happened during that time, but basically, 2014 through mid-November 2015 will likely go down as one of the best time periods of my life, for a lot of reasons, but a good chunk of that was the experiences I had through TAH.

Hoo boy though, I blogged about it a LOT.  Like, it felt like almost as much as early blog was about Doctor Who.  I was, uh, real enthusiastic and am now kinda regretful about some of those early fandom tags.  Also turns out some of the TAH people looked at my blog more than I knew, I think, so a little yikes there thinking back on it now.  But also I was kind and helpful a lot, so all of that was good.

This is a good recap post of all of the awesome stuff.  And even that glosses over a lot of the really cool stuff, or skirts around some of it, just to try and stay brief about it.

One of the big things I learned from that experience was that being a very involved person in a fandom is such a double-edged sword.  For one thing, it honestly became somewhat of a second job for me, which I 100% put upon myself.  But running FYTAH (with Shannon!) and admining/writing a large percentage of the TAH Wiki (with Ange!), working in the booths at conventions (with Jena + Shannon/Kitty/Jamie/Dani) and being available to help in a variety of other ways was A Lot.  Which again, I took on willingly.  And Ange warned me about it several times but I was like “No I want to do this.”  So then it also kind of turned into like a customer service job even outside of working at the cons.  After awhile you gotta smile and be nice allllll the time. I ended up taking a lot of things offline to a small subset of friends.  And most of that came from other fans, not from the show itself (except like, feeling like I couldn’t show my true disappointment when the show was ending, or feeling like I couldn’t air any criticisms I had about the show except in very private conversations.)  

At one point I was having an email conversation with a couple of those friends and realized that, for the first time in my life, I was like a “popular kid”, which was weird.  And I tried my damnedest to be as welcoming and inclusive and not to let anyone feel left out.  But also there’s a point where like, you can only take on so much, and you can only be actual friends with so many people?   You can be kind and welcoming and enthusiastic and all, but you only have so much time and energy to give away.  There were so many messages I never answered still sitting in my / the FYTAH inbox or in email and some on twitter because I just didn’t have the bandwidth to give away sometimes.  It was a weird lesson to learn because I knew it so well in general in my personal life, but had never had to apply it... in this way before?  Does that sound weird?  Or braggy?  I feel like I’m walking on land mines with this one.

For a more specific example of what I mean, in March, 2015 ten of us rented a house and lived in it for a long weekend for the TAH 10th anniversary show + a fun getaway vacation. Everyone invited was someone I knew or were close with someone else in the group.  A few more people had been invited but couldn’t afford it, so word got around a little bit.  And it was AMAZING.  But I later heard that there were a few people, most of whom I didn’t really know, were hurt that they weren’t invited.  Jena and I spent dozens of hours and put a lot of financial risk into being the custodians of the trip for even the ten of us, and it was a huge undertaking.  It was never meant to be a thing for the entire fandom, just a group of people who were already friends.  But there was still a small kerfluffle from a few people about it.  Which, I TOTALLY get feeling bad about being left out but... it was always supposed to be a relatively small thing, never any kind of “Official Fandom Get Together”.  And we definitely didn’t have the time/money/ability to host an “open call for anyone to come” type thing.  Just coordinating 10 people (and about 25 - 30 overall getting together to hang out at designated times over the weekend) was... more than enough.

At one point sometime later people started suggesting that we organize and hold an actual TAH-Con and I... let that one pass me by without really talking about it.  It was definitely too much, and even then I knew it.  And I mean, the shadow of Dashcon was still hanging over all fandoms heavily in those days.  I wasn’t about to become the next Dashcon.  It never got past a few emails being passed around.

So yeah, to be honest, if I could go back and do those years again, I absolutely would, it was like 95% awesomeness.  But I think in regards to some of the fandom-specific things, I’d be a little less of a doormat, and I’d be a little more careful about spreading myself too thin.

So now that the show is “back”, I am enjoying listening to it, and I’ll reblog some things or post big news on FYTAH, but I’ve been lazy about even helping out with the wiki (I keep meaning to get back to it, Ange is still doing great) because... although I’m still a HUGE fan, I also am gonna be more laid back about it now.  

I also haven’t REALLY loved a thing in the same way since TAH.  The closest there has been is Critical Role, and I’ve been real careful to stay out of any actual fandom stuff there.  I really love the thing, but I’m gonna keep with my group of 5 or 6 other fans I already know (all from other fandoms) who love the thing too, and stay out of wider discussions.  With some of the stuff happening there lately, it was a good decision.  

Wow, that was a lot of words.  Sorry. 

Hey one last thing to catch up on.

Doctor Who Rewatch 2019!

I’m now already at 6x01, into the Silence episodes.

So I did finally rewatch the Desert Bus episode that I hated so much before and like... this time... it was fine?  Cheesy and all, but not so bad that I should have hated it as much as I did?  Also noticed the Doctor doing the classic “gonna hit on this girl really hard in the beginning then drop her so quick at the end” thing to the companion of the week.  Ah, Ten.  The most bi-polar of all Doctors.  I’m gonna be honest, I decided to skip on through Waters of Mars because I realized I was just ready to be done with Ten at that point.  I’ll probably go back to it at some point but I wasn’t ready for another Ten Temper Tantrum, maybe the worst one of all, in that episode.

So I finished Ten (and oh man that whole two-parter to end Ten with... like the whole Master plotline is such a stinker.  The first half, in particular, is so bad, the only really good scene is the one in the cafe with Wilf.  The rest of it... wow.  Wasn’t that whole thing written like the week before filming and never really edited or something? IDK.)  The last half hour or so is really good though, with Ten’s sacrifice (after a tantrum) and then all the companion goodbyes (except Joan Redfern’s granddaughter, bleh).  

But yay, on to Eleven and Amy and Rory and more River!

Season Five is... wow it starts off strong and really stalls there in the middle for a bit.  Picks back up a bit with Rory returning, then somehow has two great episodes without Rory and ends strong, though the first pretty nonsensical Moffat-era “this doesn’t make sense but it looks and sounds so good you don’t care, right?” season arc and ending.  Season six, I’m already remembering, is way, way worse for that.  But anyway.  Rory remains my second favorite companion ever.  And episodes with Amy, Rory and River continue to be my favorites.  Also? Matt Smith is so good.

But even early on in season six I’m remembering how really dumb the overarching plotline is... Moffat is great at “Oh man this will be cool so I’m gonna throw it in there! (and it really is some very cool stuff!) and hope it all makes sense later!  Or just don’t think about it too hard!”

Honestly though, despite all the quibbles, most of the episodes work on an individual level if you don’t think about the the overall arc Moffat is trying to do.  Even those that are a bit sloggy, like the Cold Blood/Hungry Earth two-parter, have enough great moments to justify watching them.  (Ambrose is still maybe one of the worst “regular people” characters to ever be on this show, though.)  There’s still no “Fear Her”.  And that’s pretty good.

Also?  The blog itself is now about as Doctor Who oriented as it is in the last year.  Like... oh the season is airing?  There’s a lot more good stuff to reblog, I’ll reblog good stuff.  Season not airing, a scattered post here and there.  It’s a much better place to be.

After Amy and Rory leave, that was about the end of my true like “Doctor Who Obsession” phase.  On my Blog we’re in the break between Amy and Rory leaving and Clara showing up. I never really clicked with Clara, I think like a lot of people.  Like I really liked the season with Danny, but after that season I never really rewatched episodes, so I’m looking forward to getting there and experiencing some stuff again for the second time.  

[findingmarvinchavez]

hi!! 🥰🥰🥰

i totally get what you mean about liking cooking a lot or not at all!! i felt the same way (more often hate than not though) up until like a few months ago when i randomly started to enjoy baking and cooking?? (more baking than cooking though). but i still feel too unmotivated to actually do it like half the time akdkd. also that’s so great that you have started cooking more, and it’s so cool how it was because of your friends :’)

ty so much for giving me a rundown about 911!! i actually do not know what the announcement was because my mind tends to ignore like the words on the gifs bc they all blur together to me at this point since it’s a show i don’t watch, if that makes sense?? it probably doesn’t but regardless i am very intrigued by that 👀👀. also i am curious if you watch the spinoff or no?

i didn’t realize we are the same age!! that’s so cool :)) unfortunately though i cannot relate, i have had four fandom blogs (two were very short lived though), and the one i am sending you messages from i have had since late 2011 rip (but it’s also sort of a main one, it’s turned into a bit of a mish mash of things).

thank you!! do you have any fun plans for the weekend? :D

-♥️♥️

p.s. if you do spotify what was your top artist of 2021?

(also sorry if you get this a bunch it kept saying there was a problem with my ask so wasn’t sure if it went through :/)

hello!!

23 gang yeah! Do you enjoy your age, currently? 🙃

I envy people who are patient enough for baking! do you have a favorite thing to bake? Or do you like to try out new stuff (when you do get around to it, haha)?

i mean, since you're probably gonna watch the show, it's probably gonna super cool that you don't know about what's going to happen! Also yeah yeah it's funny the kind of selective vision scrolling through Tumblr creates. If I don't recognize either the show or the quotes or whatever, I'm just huh colors!

I do watch lone star, the spinoff. I think it's fun and that the cast/character choices are intriguing, but I also find the critique that appears to come lone star's way more than valid. It is slightly different in ~vibe~ than 911, which I guess is also something not everyone enjoys. I'm not that deep into the subject matter here, tho, so I'll leave it at this for now. I'm always gonna recommend just giving one or two eps a try, tho! And the crossover episode with the regular 911, which is in season 2 of lone star, is very dear to my heart! 😇

would you...would you mind sharing (some of) the fandoms? 😳 I'm intrigued now lol! (If you know how little I'm gonna judge, i literally still reblog the occasional supernatural post and I do watch that show for fun. 😬

oh, Spotify, my best friend, my worst capitalist vice! I do Spotify, I do it excessively, and I look forward to Spotify wrapped for weeks before the fact lol! My top artist is DeWolff, a Dutch "southern psychedelic rock band". If that kinda music is your jam, I highly recommend them! Just to give you an impression of how my taste in music is not communicable.in one stat, though: my top genre is blues, and my top two songs are for your entertainment by Adam Lambert and Montero (call me by your name) by lil Nas X, so basically pop*1000 haha. sry for being so obnoxious about this I should have put a disclaimer *do not ask about music unless you want to talk for hours* 🤐

BUT i also cannot hear enough about other people's music so share your own top artist, song, whatever you're happy to share, pretty please! 😊

Oh almost forgot about the weekend plans, so I'm currently visiting one last new city before leaving the country (Lithuania) next week, so yeah, lot's of fun! (Typing this in a bar, no less) what about you?

looking forward to your next message!

♥️

P.s. i did not get this a bunch, and if I did, i would have just been happy about it a bunch! 💞

[elizabethrobertajones]

It is I, plot twisty. I was wondering if you could link me to some stuff you have written about Castiel's trench coat (bc I'm 99% sure you have) I'm just so excited because I love the new one so much. Also, I happen to be the person asking about the Winchesters and plaid shirts in season 12. I loved the way you analyzed the clothes of the characters and your attention to detail, because that stuff mostly remains unseen by my humble eyes. (Also I think you have a tag for the clothes stuff?!?)

Aaah hi! Were you why I wrote a 1000 mile long post with a screen cap of every shirt Mary wore in season 12? You are most welcome back in my inbox, that was a ton of fun :D 

I think my trenchcoat tag (the serious one not the “sam shoe saga” where all the fashion nonsense goes) has largely got other people’s meta in it because so much awesome stuff has been written before I ever got there so I mostly just summarise what everyone else has said when asked :P It’s like the Car Is Dean’s Soul thing: I’m 100% behind it but other people are way more into it so… :P I mean I will write the trenchcoat stuff and sob about it but @floatingaboveclouds​ really picked it up a while back (and sadly she’s been not around much lately) and at the moment @gneisscastiel​ is sobbing about it all the time. 

Aah my “trenchcoat meta” tag isn’t even on my tag list… See, there’s always something :P

http://floatingaboveclouds.tumblr.com/post/100097338173/cas-trench-coat-meta

This is what I always think of as the Definitive Trenchcoat Meta just because I read it first, ages ago, and it really got me into it :P 

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/133234217428/excuse-me-while-i-need-a-moment

Some thoughts about VERY early Cas and coat stuff.

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/96865417548/interruptingpanda-savingsammyhuntingdestiel

Me being sad about it in 7x17

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/147044421392/dustydreamsanddirtyscars-8x07-a-little-slice

A season 8/9x01 look at it (I mean… written at LEAST after season 10 if I remember but from the POV of 8x07 about the early Carver era trenchcoat stuff we usually skip before going right to the new trenchcoat and all the nonsense they use it for :P)

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/105554354818/today-is-one-of-those-days-i-find-myself-having-a

Oh and more on the original coat and Cas’s identity (circa 9x23 at least)

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/117930210038/jimmys-clothing-meta-10x20-edition

Some overview on Cas up to 9x09 and Jimmy in general

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/149775846930/castiel-knight-of-hell-i-know-we-all-miss

This is a like 1 line meta on the new coat in 9x10

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/161446778708/littlehollyleaf-neven-ebrez-cas-jacket-is

Here’s a season 9 original - I think the first post really yelling about the discovery of the plaid under the collar!

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/164795829481/mittensmorgul-littlehollyleaf-drsilverfish 

This is a great one from 9x18 when it aired that I stumbled on recently but remember reading at the time so it was one of my Formative Meta Experiences (I just didn’t reblog a whole lot until the season 9-10 hiatus really started so all this great stuff is kind of lost to time to me unless I’m blog snooping and stumble on it >.> Thankfully I blog snoop a lot.)

I’m so frustrated because I can’t find my reblog (if I ever did) of the deleted scene gifs of Cas sewing the trenchcoat with commentary about him doing Human Things™… >.> My blog from before like… late season 10/the hiatus after… is really badly tagged so the good stuff is all a mystery :P

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/130068247568/littlehollyleaf-4persephone-i-actually-find

(I found another!)

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/97817693623/a-deep-shade-of-blue-is-always-there

Here’s a season 9-10 hiatus post from me where I talk about how the combination of coat and song got me to ship Destiel textually because it was all so intrinsically linked and the whole deeper symbolism of what the coat means to Cas and how the lyrics in that song used it.

https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/98218136134

And the no need for words version… >.>

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/163908715733/gneisscastiel-replied-to-your-post

This one I wrote myself recently about Metatron in 9x22 trying on the coat and what I thought it meant in this context (as you can see I am still basically in a season 9 mindset about it :P)

https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/142607939029/the-plaid-trenchie

Mel has all the gratuitous plaid shots…

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/101030511793/deathbyspookyopen-hallowedbecastiel-10x02

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/100110462763/can-we-talk-about-how-as-soon-as-cas-went-through

This from 10x02 but the first doesn’t take into account that in the shot of Hannah putting the coat over Cas WE can see the plaid, I guess just from her perspective she misses it or doesn’t understand the symbolism (especially not that everyone leaped on the meta idea of “being draped in the flag of heaven” and what her actions were doing :P) - Floatingaboveclouds’s original Trenchcoat Meta is circa this episode and explains it best and it’s sort of the words in the back of my head about that scene all the time now.

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/147389591616/cas-crowley-trench-coats-and-parallels

Something from 10x14 which makes perfect sense because the new trenchcoat was from 9x10 but I just skim read the post and I’m not 100% sure they really got into it like I would have…

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/116643283603/cas-trench-coat-meta-10x18-edition

For 10x18 and Cas taking off his coat there :D

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/131414819958/cas-trench-coat-meta-11x02-edition

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/131982763978/cas-clothing-meta-11x03-edition-part-1

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/131983260278/cas-clothing-meta-11x03-edition-part-2

Some early season 11 meta!

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/138413634723/heey-i-rewatched-11x06-and-i-think-cas-is

Some thoughts about Cas in the start of season 11 and parallels to Casifer and how he was wearing Cas’s clothes…

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/139716966318/why-is-casifer-shown-wearing-the-coat-in-the-next

11x15 and some more thoughts on Casifer

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/158190035758/do-you-think-cas-would-change-into-another-outfit

This is from earlier this hiatus giving an overview but I think I should add now with hindsight, talking about a full wardrobe upheaval, because there’s obviously different meaning in Cas going right back to something nearly identical to his original get up, and I’d rather muse on what that means when I know HOW he ends up with his new costume for season 13, so that’s a meta I’ll only write after 13x06. No leather jacket yet. >.> 

Here’s some interesting takes on it with a different perspective:

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/163901981347/a-study-in-trench-coat

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/163903036052/heya-hope-youre-having-a-good-day-onwards-with

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/163786906919/gneisscastiel-as-season-13-approaches-i-have

All of this is informing my thoughts right now on it and I know there’s a bunch of meta I missed… I mean just scrolling these posts I’m sure there’s gaps in trenchcoat-related events that I or others have talked about and uuugh even when I try and collect all the meta I’ve tagged badly in the past or was too shy when I was new to fandom and missed a whole bunch of the most important posts at the end of season 9 which drastically shaped how I read the show… I’m always happy to talk MORE about it :P

I guess adding this all up the one thing I can say about the new trenchcoat for season 13 is that is it a trenchcoat and that means it carries all this baggage, just as the 2nd one carried the baggage of the first, but it’s in a different form. If Cas picked it for himself, it will be like 9x10 and 8x07, where he chooses to go back to the original look. If it’s picked for him it will be a different story - more like 7x17 or 9x18 or 11x06 - times when he put the coat on hesitantly or was given a strong push to go for a choice that wasn’t particularly a choice, or because someone else was shaping his image for him. 

10x01-3 especially were LADEN with Cas identity stuff and included a lot of messing around with the trenchcoat, and it was also the first part of the show I enjoyed in fandom meta-ing with everyone else, so I have ideas about it very planted in my head :P I think I will always associate it with his angelic identity as the “flag of heaven” because of the 9x18/9x22/9x23 synergy about Cas, Metatron, and all the stuff going on between them. I think that whole chunk of the show with 9x14 as an outlier on one end and 10x18 on the other but mostly the end of season 9 and start of season 10 separated Cas out to tell a very specific story about who he was and what he wanted, and the trenchcoat played a huge part in that symbolism. And that starts with him picking a new one in 9x10 when re-asserting his angel identity (after joining in as a hunter in 9x09 in the same get up including the season 10-12 tie in an early appearance) and that act in itself was a sort of “be useful to the Winchesters or die human” scenario, and so I think like Dean on the phone in 9x09, I am very suspicious about Cas’s choice actually saying anything about what he WANTS when it comes to his identity, and the main block of episodes about this unpack it a lot more…

If Cas comes back in a new trenchcoat which is like the original flavour one, it might be like what it was used for in 8x07 - a “everything is okay” red flag that Cas put himself back together for appearances’ sake but of course he was being controlled by Naomi and it was the first scene Dean voices his immediate suspicions Cas did not come back naturally and there was something fishy about it - which of course he carries on worrying about until the Crypt Scene when it all becomes clear, and then Cas only stays in that outfit a handful more episodes until he becomes human and has to pick drinking water over maintaining the image and wearing his original battle armour.

There’s also the fact the trenchcoat IS the original battle armour to him and like in 9x18 or 11x06 the new one at very least feels like armour and we can see him using it as that emotionally… It’s not a bad thing for him to have a new old trenchcoat style to mimic how he used to be if it’s for his own strength and comfort… I just think that overall he’s headed in a different way than staying in the trenchcoat forever and a 3rd variation is going to be fascinating. I hope there’ll be a lot to comment on, like with the 2nd one when it was new there was like 2 seasons of heavy exploration of it as a meta subject before they sort of chilled out again and it became a more incidental feature. Or the times Cas had the original restored to him or like how it looked in Purgatory (see! even more incidents I couldn’t quickly find a post on :P)

And of course there’s the mystery about what Cas might wear while he’s dead, why he’s in a $2600 suit in the first scene of 13x06, and so on and so on. Season 13 has SO many more ways to fuck with us before we get to the new coat :P 

[dramallamadingdang]

Lotsa replies

Figured I’d better do ‘em before I get absorbed in writing up this tutorial thing...

These go back a ways because I’ve been, as usual, lazy/preoccupied. :) They’re for @esotheria-sims, @maybesomethingdunno, @nerianasims, @penig, @holleyberry, @plumbobsquareface (who has an awesome username), @immerso-sims, @eulaliasims, @lisac-h, @mustluvcatz-reloaded, @sim-boo, @acquiresimoleons, @pensblr, @didilysims, annnnnnnnd @mrningbrd...

Geez, I need to not put off doing these like this... And I should probably split this up, but...meh.

esotheria-sims replied to your post “So, um....”

Well, with an introduction like this, even if I *weren't* interested in the stuff you have to offer (spoiler alert: I am), I'd still be curious to see what it is at the very least. :) Some of those old Pandorasims sets (if those are what you were referring to here) could definitely use better textures.

Yup, some of the stuff is from Pandorasims, indeed. And from xxxsims. Slig did some nice recolors of some of the latter’s stuff, at least, but I want to high-res ‘em a bit and do some different colors for my own uses. The Pandora stuff, though? Needs serious help. I mean, I get that the textures for these items were probably not the main attraction and all, but...well, such things are important to me. :) I want my game to look nice even if no one sees this particular aspect of it but me. And I imagine storytellers would want better-looking textures, too, for pics/videos.

maybesomethingdunno replied to your post “So, um....”

Generally speaking, I feel like if you want to create something (whether it's Sims content, a story, or a goofy sketch), then create it. When it comes to Sims content, there's always someone who'll download and appreciate the content. Simmers are a diverse breed with a wild assortment of stories, hoods, and gameplay needs/desires. So on the heels of "If you want to make it, make it" is "If you want to share what you've made, share it." Kinky Sims for all! :D

*high five* Yeah, I know what you mean and that’s generally my attitude, too. This stuff, however, was going to be just for me, but then I got to thinking about how there’s a dearth of nice-looking stuff of this type and...Well, I can do something about that. I think, anyway. We’ll see, with some of the stuff. But, due to the more sensitive nature of this kind of stuff...Well, I second-guess. :)

nerianasims replied to your post “So, um....”

I'm interested and have no need to be anon about it. (Also grr 50 Shades times a million, such a horrible example and SO badly written to boot.)

OMG, don’t even get me started. I mean, OK, yeah, the whole thing sort of normalized mine and my husband’s lifestyle a little bit which on the one hand might be a good thing....but on the other hand, it didn’t do it right. Even if it was well-written (which it totally isn’t; it was a bad Twilight fanfic that was obviously written by someone who’d never had even remotely kinky sex, much less any contact with real people who practice BDSM), it portrayed an abusive relationship, not the sort of thing real people who are into this sort of thing practice. Just...ugh. Awful, awful thing. >:(

penig replied to your photo “Owen has…interesting…jammies.  And, like Aaron when he was a kid, Owen...”

What pervert even made those in a kid's size?

Skell, I think. I think it’s part of her repository project. I don’t think it’s necessarily perverted, though, especially not in game context. I mean, if you go by the speech bubbles, kids regularly talk about sex with their parents/siblings at the dinner table in the game. :) But even if that wasn’t the case...Well, kids will wear or have or do inappropriate things that they don’t know are inappropriate. They just think it’s pretty or something. Like, in this case, I imagine Owen likes those jammie pants just because they have purple hearts on them. He’s purple, so he likes purple things. :) He has no idea what they mean, and his parents probably think it’s funny. Because they’re that way.

holleyberry replied to your photo “Do you think she adores him? I think she adores him. He, of course, is...”

What's a Gilsbruty to do?

Not much, apparently. *grumble* CERTAINLY NOT PROCREATE! *glares at Simon and wills him to pass on his genes, dammit!*

plumbobsquareface replied to your post “Were-Klingons! Actually, wouldn't that be a nice idea for a default...”

i'm so glad to see other simers that are also into star trek :')

Ohhhhh, I’m a big huge honking dorky Trek nerd. Even published a fanzine, back in the day, was heavily involved in Usenet newsgroups in the early days of the internet and was staff on one of the big-at-the-time forums when such things came to be. I’m not in the fandom per se anymore at all for various reasons, but I’ll always watch the shows and read fanfic and that sort of thing. (DS9 is my fave. TOS will always have a special place in my heart, of course, but most of my Trekker heart belongs to DS9. :) )

immerso-sims replied to your photo “Aaron GilsCarbo, dancing like the nerd he is.”

Dem pink sandals tho ;)

Aren’t they precious? He actually aged into the outfit all by his little self and the pink sandals just sort of define him. That and the surfer hair. :)

maybesomethingdunno replied to your photo “This is Josephine. Young, pregnant with an unknown number of babies,...”

Next she will become addicted to Sim cat nip :P

...And then she’ll be in and out of rehab for the rest of her life. Such a sad, sad tale of woe. :)

lisac-h replied to your photo “Aaron rolled up a want for that “I was abducted by aliens”...”

Mark Twain saw Worf and said, "Werewolf!"

He did, didn’t he? HAH! :D God, it’s been forever since I’ve watched TNG. It’s not my favorite of the shows, but I should give it a rewatch one of these days...

eulaliasims replied to your post “Oh, God, it’s the 10 questions meme again!”

I would add an evil laughter gif here, but Tumblr won't let me, so you'll have to imagine it. :P Yeah, it can be surprisingly hard to find historical fiction that isn't focused on romance sometimes. I don't mind some, but when it seems to take over the rest of the story... meh. That's what I read fanfic for. And now I have the Ride of the Valkyries in my head too, but at least it's not Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer again.

It’s not that I can’t deal with ANY romance in historical fiction. I can if it makes sense within the story and the real history because, hey, these were real people and they fell in love and had relationships and all that. One of my favorite books (The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman) is about Richard III, and a chunk of the 1000-page plot is about the relationship between him and his eventual wife and what impact that had on him as a person which in turn affected what kind of king he was, and that’s all good. But then there are those that are set in, say, Henry VIII’s court and it’s all thinly-veiled trashy romance novel tripe. (Yes, Philippa Gregory, I’m looking at you.) If I want that, I’ll sit and watch The Tudors, for God’s sake because ooh! Really hot men, gayness, AND boobies, yay! :) I’d rather read about about how that court really was. I mean, it was intriguing enough without having to pruriently sex it up. :p 

Geez, this is my “ragging on popular books” post, apparently. :) And you’re welcome for Ride of the Valkyries. *evil* It is now, thankfully out of my head.

mustluvcatz-reloaded replied to your post “Oh, God, it’s the 10 questions meme again!”

I'm half tempted to answer your questions just because they're so NOT about the sims, but I may be too lazy to right now, lol.

You should do it! I want to know what brand of TP you use! :)

acquiresimoleons replied to your photo “Aaron got his wish to grow up, ‘cuz, y’know, it’s not like it’s...”

I never could work out how to make a restaurant run properly either.

The “secret” is to run them with as few employees as possible. Especially at first. Because they will suck out all the money you make and more. So, you either have to have the owner do all the functions (Host(ess), cook, waitstaff) -- which you can do at first because you won’t have a lot of customers until the place levels up to at least Level 3 -- OR you have to use slave labor family members to fill the roles. 

Also, having a limited menu of items that don’t require a lot of cooking skill is necessary, unless/until your cook levels up. Otherwise customers will end up with a lot of burnt meals, which lowers loyalty and makes it harder to get stars and level-ups and all that.

acquiresimoleons replied to your photo “And Owen, Arcadia’s other alien sprog, grew up, too. He looks like a...”

His face kinda scares me ��

It’s the eyes. They’re creepy. But it’s what the PT who spawned him has, so...

sim-boo replied to your photo “Simon being macho… …and, afterwards, not so macho. :) And that’s it...”

R u saying bubble baths arent macho?

Well, anything that a macho man does becomes macho, right? :) But, traditionally? Not so much, no. :)

didilysims replied to your photoset “Simon taught Suzy to roll over….and then cleaned up an ocean of dog...”

Wow, that's more pee than I'd think would fit inside that little dog!

*laugh* Well, it is two dogs’ worth of pee. :) And one of them is a big dog. They just both chose the same pee spot. Right by the front door, of course. *eye roll*

pensblr replied to your photo “Nekkid treadmilling. Saves on laundry.”

*laughs* Just imagine how unfortunate it would be if sims experienced the real life pain of falling on a treadmill...while naked.

I know! I have visions of dangly bits caught in the mechanism, and OW! :) That’s totally a bad kind of ow, too.

mrningbrd replied to your photo “Oh, Benny. Benny, Benny, Benny… Of course, it happened right after...”

tell simon i can relate. this happened the other night at 4 am. my condolences

Oh, God, you poor thing. My dogs at home in Colorado are constantly having skunk encounters lately, apparently. (I’m not there, at the moment, but the ranch hands report in regularly. :) ) It didn’t used to be so bad, but apparently there’s a skunk population explosion in the nearby area...

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 30: Thoughts on 1x06: My Sister’s Keeper

Instead of eating dinner at a normal time like a normal person, or even watching TV in a normal way like a normal person, I took over an hour to watch a 40 minute episode and write these incoherent notes on it.

Okay, so the flashback saying seventeen years ago implies Octavia is seventeen, and here I was, pretty darn sure she was supposed to be sixteen as of the pilot. Not super sure how I got that idea but regardless, I actually do like it better, it makes somewhat more sense to me.

Aurora’s a pretty terrible person and tbh I wish the show had just gone there 1000%, more along the lines of the books. Like this show is so weak sometimes. Not that making her son an accomplice to a crime and telling him that making sure neither his sister nor mother is brutally murdered by the state is his sole responsibility isn’t bad enough but like...they could have gone harder on just how screwed up this situation is.

I guess since the massacre in S3 no one gives a fuck about Bellamy throwing away the radio but I remember when it used to be the Hugest Deal Ever that he did that (a laugh btw), and isn’t it funny how the very next episode starts out Hardcore Humanizing him by showing him as a small child just trying to take care of his sibling??

“It’s Octavia. She’s probably chasing butterflies.” Girl does that one time and it’s like her only character trait. I feel like ‘being a petulant brat’ should overshadow it but okay. (I don’t even dislike Octavia, I just think ‘butterfly chaser’ is more of an anomaly than a primary character trait.)

Lincoln’s mancave: OMG he has paper bound books and something that looks like a toy car?!? I’ve never noticed this before.

Generally though everything about Lincoln’s introduction (kidnapping Octavia, chaining her up, and most importantly refusing to speak to her in her language even though he’s fucking fluent in it) tells me that the writers cared 100% about drama and suspense and 0% about believability or long-term character consistency, which is part of why I have a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt ever. Sorry.

First appearance of Monroe. Like 20 years after the pilot, sorry again but I still don’t believe she was cast that early and didn’t show up in a single frame for 5 whole episodes.

Never forget that Jasper was known for, what, weeks maybe, as the kid who can’t leave camp. Also I miss Jasper + Octavia friendship stuff tbh. Totally underrated.

Finn was considered a good tracker, that was like his one skill. Literally.

Raven’s so beautiful.

I know I always say I don’t hate Finn and then I badmouth Finn but like it’s so hard to see the connection between Finn and Raven and I’m trying, sincerely, but...I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fandom. Maybe it’s the annoying way he tells Clarke he’s “not sure” they can stop having an affair when, like, she literally just told him, she’s not going to have an affair and that’s totally the sort of thing one can choose to do or not do. Hard to tell.

Jasper is bi headcanon continuously constantly confirmed. “Finn? We’re not gonna find her with you?”

Bellamy is looking particularly beautiful in this episode. If no one has giffed his face when he finds the skeleton graveyard, someone should do that.

Speaking of: skeleton graveyard! That’s the kind of creepy shit I like. No idea what tf it is or why it’s there but it’s cool as heck.

So Bellamy braves the skeleton yard because O’s his sister, obviously, and Jasper because he likes her, and Finn because IDK gotta be a hero or something, but you know who else goes with them when all the little boys get scared and leave? Monroe. Boom. Another wasted character.

Aurora: “Fear is a demon. Close your eyes and tell yourself you’re not afraid. That is how you slay the demon.” Bellamy is such a wide-eyed innocent. He’s just trying so hard.

I stand by my theory that class disparity on the Ark has little to do with material wealth but I will admit the Blakes have a much shittier housing unit than the Griffins, the Chancellor, or anyone in Alpha based on the S3 quarters.

I still ship Clarke/Raven something fierce; I miss scenes like this one where they...you know...interact. I love that Raven loves flowers and thinks Abby’s a badass and I also love that they either walked all night or stopped to rest and ended up (literally) sleeping together.

The Grounders are obviously lame as a whole but even I am impressed by their sneak attacks. RIP other John.

Okay also by the way: the Grounders only attacked when the kids crossed the skeleton line, or as this helpful exposition points out, when they “crossed the boundary.” In other words, as of now, the total Grounder interaction with the Sky Kids has been: spearing Jasper when he crossed a boundary, (possibly rogue) spying, having their spy go (extra?) rogue and kidnap someone, and killing a couple more kids when they crossed another boundary (this one admittedly more clearly marked). So far, almost halfway through season 1, the Grounders really do not seem to give a fuck about the Delinquents. I really don’t think this ever had anything to do with land. I think if the kids were on Tri Kru land this entire time they would have been wiped out in Episode 2.

Anya will of course later cite the destruction of the Grounder village by the flares. Retaliation seems to come pretty late for that lol (I’ll have to watch, actually--DO they ever retaliate for that?), but at least it’s a definite, though accidental, form of aggression.

Okay, wow, it is canon that Bellamy and Octavia are from the section that would have been quietly killed in the original culling plan; it says Section 17 on their door.

Octavia’s first walk through the Ark is really beautiful though. Lovely sequence.

I love how they have their dance...in a hallway? Like undergrad parties in the atrium in Main.

How completely overwhelming and magical to be Octavia in that moment though, like she‘s literally only met 2 people her entire life and now she’s around all of these other kids, just dancing and having fun.

(Also it still bugs me what tf is behind Jasper’s goggles in this scene why I do obsess over random shit? And yet. Also also he’s 14 in that flashback what a trip.)

Lincoln’s neck thing with the skull hands on it is one of my favorite pieces of Grounder wardrobe.

I wonder if Lincoln doesn’t speak because in his head he’s like ‘oh shit, I’m in so much trouble, what the fuck am I doing, this is such a bad idea.’

I feel like they should have started figuring out that Jasper has some Pretty Big Issues sometime around here: can’t leave camp, starts screaming for Grounders to kill them, etc. Funny how no one is suspicious about this.

I find it semi-weird that the response to a solar flare is to start taking names, like--this makes me think there was no solar flare, this is just a trick of the totalitarian state. I mean “you know the drill, masks off, id chips out” sounds like this happens a lot--random person inspections just like random housing inspections. Also what is an “ID chip”? I feel like this is something you carry but you know what would have been cooler? Something in your skin. But this is a Fake Sci Fi show so they’re not going to go that route.

Was Bellamy going to “create a distraction” for O using police brutality?

Major props to make up making Marie Avgeropolous, a woman pushing 30 at the time this was filmed, look like she’s actually 15/16 years old.

Bellamy’s realization that O doesn’t know how to get home breaks my heart EVERY DAMN TIME.

This is definitely the moment when Shumway picked Bellamy to be his Chancellor assassin.

It’s not funny, but Finn, Bell, Jasper, and Monroe squeezed under a tent together just looks like the most awkward sleepover ever. Which is to say it is pretty funny.

No commentary, only respect, for the Clarke + Raven discuss Finn scene, but: “Do you love him?” / “I hardly know him” is gold because, yeah, she does hardly know him, and even though Finn would 10000% think otherwise, level headed people like Clarke know what’s what. (Aside: I actually think she was lying to him when she killed him--or that she meant ‘love’ in the general sense, the same way she loves, say Monty or Octavia or any delinquent. But that’s just me.)

I feel a little cheated over a proper Jasper/Octavia hug tbh.

LOL at Jasper wanting to take the knife out of Finn. “Mom, Dad said I couldn’t take the knife out...”

Next time on The 100: Raven and Clarke work together to save the life of a boy who two-timed them both. Then they fall in love.

Bellamy and Clarke and leadership, since I’m semi-trying to develop a theory here: nothing really about leadership in this ep. Clarke seems initially to be heading up the search party with Bell, but then she goes with Raven and has basically the C-Plot. From the point of view of the delinquents, in this ep, Bellamy is definitely the leader (again) and Clarke is the doctor.