#woof that's a long one

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan]

Oops, forgot to post my early review of Violet

I found this just chilling in the drafts of my main blog, so I'm gonna post my initial review of Pokémon Violet here, then follow up on it with thoughts now that I'm on my seventh playthrough (sixth Nuzlocke, third Hardcore Nuzlocke).

When I was in the midst of catching Pokémon and progressing the story of Violet, it hit me that I was having some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing Pokémon. The fact that the game runs so abysmally is all the more tragic because other than that, I’m tempted to say this is one of the best games in the franchise. I grew up on Platinum, and White/White 2 are my overall favorites, but Violet is creeping real close. Performance aside, I think the biggest weakness is one that most open world games suffer from—a fragmented story. It’s eerily similar to Breath of the Wild in that sense. The story that’s there is really good, but the world design leads to a loose execution. Compared to Skyward Sword and Pokémon Gen 5, which are suffocatingly linear but deliver a tightly executed story that hits all the right beats at all the right points.

That’s the crazy thing about Violet, too. The story isn’t just good because of the characterizations and themes. The dialogue is just straight up good. It feels like you’re talking to real people and not video game npcs, or at least the most like it we’ve gotten in Pokémon. The localization was clearly done by people who are young and/or in touch. There are so many little gems. A gym leader who is a streamer and tells her audience to smash the subscribe button? The earnest but out of touch school headmaster asking you what “cheugy” means? It’s so good.

I’m surprised with how well the three-prong story fits and comes all together in the end. The gym challenge in your standard Pokémon romp and is fun but honestly the least interesting of the three. Arven and Team Star’s stories are genuinely well-written and touching. They both start kind of weird and forced, but they grew on me really fast.

Alright, and the music is fucking fantastic. Pokémon has always had great music. That’s probably the coldest take in this post. But there are some serious hits in this score. The East Province themes, Team Star themes, and very spoiler-heavy, late-game songs are so, so good. They made a great choice bringing Toby Fox in for more tracks.

In terms of the game design though, I’m a huge fan. Terastylizing is probably the most interesting battle gimmick since double battles introduced in Gen 3. The regional Pokédex is a nice balance of mons from every generation and sits at a very respectable number of 400 Pokémon. I just caught myself a whole living dex up thru Gen 6, so for this playthrough I chose to only use new (Gen 8 and 9) Pokémon. Still, I came into it knowing I wanted to catch every mon I can. I was struck by just how much encounter variety there is. On a second playthrough where I allow mons from Gen 7 and earlier, I can see myself using a completely different team.

Ah, my team. My companions for this adventures were as follows: Zaza the Meowscarada, Li’l Buddy the Pawmot, Blaze the Ceruledge, False Knees the Corviknight, Honey Bun the Dachsbun, Connie the Frosmoth, and the late substitution for False Knees to cover my crippling weakness to fire-types: Norm the Veluza. I can and will go in depth into this team and what I love about it, but suffice it to say that Weed Cat was a great starter.

I do think I’ll need a second playthrough a while down the road before I can say if I love this game, but it’s easily one of my favorites in the series. Again, that’s why it’s poor performance sucks so much. I really, really like Violet, but it can be miserable to play sometimes. I know it can be so much better then it is. So let’s get to the elephant in the room.

Gamefreak needs to slow down. From what I saw of Sword and Shield (I skipped these ones), there are points where you can tell corners had to be cut. The problem became obvious with Legends Arceus. I love the gameplay, music, art direction, and all the little experiments the designers took, but holy Arceus above, the game looks like ass. If the devs were given more time, it could have looked so much better. And now we’re here with Scarlet and Violet. The art direction is strong but it’s obvious in one look that the devs were rushed. The only parts of the game that don’t consistently drop frames are the Tera raid battles. I’m sure there are countless people listing every performance issue, so I’ll stop there.

The devs need more time to put out their best work, and the Gamefreak and Pokémon Company execs know that. But. Their main audience is children. As a former child myself, I know that children have no taste or sense of quality. Unless the game is literally unplayable and crashes every other minute, kids will not notice the myriad performance issues. So they will continue to ask their parents to buy them the games, and the games will continue being purchased. The share of Pokémon fans who are A) adults, and B) concerned with the state of the games and franchise, is tiny compared to the primary audience. So unless the next game is so rushed that it actually sells as terribly as it runs, things will never change.

So,,, yeah. I give it a 6/10. Fix the performance and I’d give it a 9.5/10. Good game. They gave me a weed cat.

~~~~~~

Alright, that was the review I wrote on December 31st, six days after I got the game. I had just finished my vanilla playthrough of the game. I'm even more conflicted on the score now than I was before. I think I'll itemize it then revisit the overall score.

Music: Easy 10/10. Banger after banger here. Battle themes, boss themes, town themes, area themes, oh man. Almost everything is great. There are some tracks I aren't the biggest fan of, namely the West Province theme and variants. But the sheer quantity of songs I like, and the phenomenal use of adaptive music makes up for it.

Story: 8/10. Easily the strongest story of the series in terms of writing quality and dialogue. I don't have much more to say than what I wrote in December. It loses points on having that weaker execution than Black and White, and if I'm being honest, it still doesn't compare to the better-written non-Pokémon games I've played. Halo 4 or Undertale, anyone?

Trainer/Boss Battles: 7/10. Where are the healing items? Where are the switch-ins? Random trainer battles aren't always easy, granted. The trainers with black dialogue boxes (the strongest trainer of each area) are no joke, especially in Nuzlockes. Boss battles though. Thematically, always reserving their ace for last then Terastallizing works very well. It makes the battles much more predictable. I can definitely feel the lack of healing items, which reduces the amount of strategizing needed. I also dock points for removing set mode. That was legitimately the only form of a difficulty option in this game and they turned it into another input and a time loss every time you KO an opponent's Pokémon. It's especially frustrating when I return to Violet after playing earlier games that have the option. Overall enjoyable though.

Wild Pokémon Battles: 10/10. Phenomenal. Perfect, even. Continuing the mapping of Pokéballs to the X button instead of needing to go into the bag is perfect. Makes catching smoother. Pokéball animations are much faster. Roaming encounters are such a welcome change from random encounters. The only problem with them is that they complicate Nuzlockes, but that's really not the designers' fault.

Accessibility: 1/10. Abysmal. Disclaimer that I almost never use any accessibility options in games because I don't need them. But there's no options for disabling or toning down animations. No button remapping. No color blindness options. No text options beside changing the speed. Forgive me if I forgot some. Again, I don't use them so I don't usually think consciously about it. Besides, GameFreak forgot all of them. I give one point because falling of cliffs is made harder by a buffer, and you can warp back up if you do fall. Nintendo-published games need to have more accessibility options and I can't believe they keep getting away with their absence of options.

Presentation: 4/10. Oh, this is rough. Character and Pokémon models are fantastic, manmade structures are great, but almost everything natural looks terrible. I don't see any anti-aliasing. It's terribly optimized. Performance issues abound. And what's with the pace of battles? The higher ups needed to let the devs and QA teams cook. Damn.

Overall: ... 8/10. In some ways, ScarVio knocks it out of the park. In others, it falls flat on its face. But the most important part to me personally is whether the game is fun. And I stand by my previous take. It's some of the most fun I've had in Pokémon game. If my seven playthroughs (four complete, two Nuzlocke wipes, one in progress) are any indication, I like this game quite a lot.

[cagedcats]

Been keeping an eye on the @whispering-clan blog a tad. Kind of inspired me to redo LostClan ngl. But also inspired me to try and make some puppy sprites.

But here you have a custom Bigpup/kit! :,D idk if I’ll do an apprentice, adult or elder sprite tho.

The kit sprite is just a random kit sprite that I yoinked

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.

[thegoldenavenger]

lqg🎵?

So I drive a taxi, and the traffic distracts me From the strangers in my backseat, they remind me of you

shuffle prompt requests

[brookheimer]

i feel very mixed on shiv's ending, particularly her choice to return to tom -- i think it makes sense from a thematic/character arc perspective and is a powerful yet devastating indictment of both shiv and the world that created her as well as showing that the cycle of abuse will always continue to cycle, that shiv will become her mother etc, but i also think it does not make sense from a character/internal logic perspective. it's a choice that makes sense from the writers, but not from shiv, not yet. it could've been a brilliant ending to her character, but is tainted for me by the less-than-ideal execution of it, which felt very rushed, making shiv's final submission to tom feel forced by the show rather than forced by the situation or honest to her character. the ending is not inherently misogynistic from the writers' side as i've seen some criticisms claim (it is a dark but real portrayal of misogyny within capitalist society and how it's internalized within the white women who end up at the hips of the CEOs who run it), but i do understand how it could feel that way. the show fails at building up to (and thus convincing us) that the version of shiv we currently know would so immediately subject herself to her mother's fate, so instead of it feeling like shiv's hand was forced by patriarchy to place herself into her worst nightmare, it instead feels like the show itself was the thing that forced shiv to take that route, which does leave a sour taste in the mouth. it doesn't feel like the result of a choice shiv would make or the impact of patriarchal society bearing down, it just feels rushed and thus wrong. shiv would've benefitted immensely from a few more episodes or even just a few scenes dedicated to teasing out her newfound willingness to subject herself to immense disrespect in order to remain close to power, but given that her entire character has always been defined by her inability to do just that unless forced to (which i don't think she was in this situation as she could've easily not waited in the car for tom, not put her hand in his, but she did), her return to tom feels hard to comprehend, and her near immediate submission to him hard to stomach.

(read more under the cut because jesus christ did this get long)

in my mind, at least, i've always understood shiv as being respect-driven rather than power-driven -- she wants power, yes, but more than anything she wants to be taken seriously and respected and seen as a legitimate player, and time and time again we've seen her blow up situations that would've been very advantageous long-term because she felt disrespected and needed to speak up and force people to take her seriously (which, ironically, typically results in the opposite). shiv's overarching goal is power, but her immediate necessity is always respect. her dignity is her number one priority at any given moment, even when it shouldn't be, even when it stops her from attaining the success and power she wants. i can kind of understand shiv going against kendall because of this -- she's always had a very, very narrow lens whenever she feels like she's being disrespected, and even though it is infinitely more humiliating for your (somewhat ex) husband to betray you and boot you out of the CEO position behind your back at the behest of your supposed closest ally (and for you to still vote for them after that!!!) than it is for you to magnanimously allow your brother to be CEO (which would publicly be seen as a choice, as telly etc said - sibs need to stand united behind one chosen CEO - rather than shiv being out of the loop and fucked to infinity), the narrowness of her vision upon seeing kendall about to win makes it impossible for her to think about that legitimately. it's not just jealousy, it's indignity: shiv feels she earned CEO through her machinations with mattson and feels genuinely sick seeing the loganified kendall grinning at the head of the table, hearing his "that's fucking right" and witnessing his cocky entitlement to the job that belonged to her. so, she does what she always does when she feels disrespected, when she feels her dignity is at stake, and impulsively blows everything to fuck, including her own best interests. that makes sense for shiv, at least somewhat -- i still think that as much as she wouldn't want ken as CEO she'd feel like at least w that outcome she'd be seen as a player and a deciding factor, whereas with mattson/tom she'd be viewed as a pathetic fucked-over nothing woman pawn etc (a situation of unparalleled indignity imo), but i can rationalize her choice to go against ken anyways as being part of the narrowed field of vision she always gets upon feeling disrespected by men in her life that makes it impossible for her to think strategically (and i guess even though the disrespect was greater and more humiliating from tom/mattson than ken, ken was the most recent most present and most lifelong source so that's all she could focus on; seeing him like logan was too much to bear). it's hard to imagine shiv publicly throwing her vote behind two men who publicly fucked her as humiliatingly as mattson and tom just did, even if the other option is kendall, but i think that's part of it -- it's fundamentally illogical, even from her disrespect-lens, because there's just something about kendall specifically being in charge that she's never been able to stomach. it's visceral and impulsive. it's not meant to make "sense." it's just what she feels she has to do to preserve her own dignity, even though it works directly against those same interests realistically. it wasn't executed very well, making it hard to entirely buy it given just how publicly humiliating the alternative is, but it can still be chalked up to her historically one-track-mind when it comes to indignity by the hands of kendall in particular. it's a last-ditch attempt for shiv to at least feel like she's maintaining her dignity, her self-respect, as counterintuitive as it actually is. it makes sense. i can stomach it.

again, shiv's fatal flaw (in logan's eyes and aside from her original sin of being a woman) has always, always been her inability to shut up and make the smart move in situations where she feels she's being disrespected or not taken seriously. if shiv stayed quiet during that dinner with the pierces, maybe she would've been logan's CEO, but no, she couldn't stop herself, she needed to feel she was being taken seriously, she burst out 'cmon, dad, just tell them it's going to be me.' she is unable to play it smart, to keep quiet, to win when winning means perceived disrespect. she's allergic to it. even on a personal level, she shoots herself in the foot constantly because of this: she is unable to let herself have the things she wants because she can't put herself in positions that open her up to disrespect and perceived inferiority. she can't be vulnerable because she needs to be respected. tom asks her if he could 'try to make love to her' in episode one of this season, and even though she clearly wants to, she says 'no, i don't think so, tom.' tom tells her he 'wants her, wants this' back in episode six, and even though she clearly wants that too, she draws back and says 'well then you shouldn't have betrayed me.' shiv is fundamentally incapable of allowing herself to remain in possibly advantageous situations when she feels at risk of being seen as lesser, of being disrespected, of being perceived as weak. that is her response to patriarchy. when patriarchal forces bear down, shiv is unable to grin and bare it -- she has a short fuse, a sharp tongue, and an inability to entertain even a second of being treated like The Woman, of being looked down upon, especially when it's for her gender. it's the one thing she cannot do, cannot let herself do, and it's why she fails to "win" over and over and over again. she shoots herself in the foot the second her patriarchy disrespect sensors tingle. she makes the wrong choice, the dumb choice, the one that makes her feel like she stood up for herself in the moment but ends up leaving her powerless and helpless in the end. that's the only explanation for why she chose to vote against kendall (the clearly better option for her long-term as she'd 1) be respected as part of the decision, as someone who helped choose the CEO rather than a Woman who got fucked over and had the door slammed in her face by her husband and close ally simply because she possessed a womb, and 2) probably be head of ATN or some other area of waystar, she'd have actual power within the company and be respected as a legitimate source of power rather than the CEO-to-be made CEO's humiliated wife -- if she was capable of making the smart, selfish choice in terms of power instead of having a hair-trigger reaction to gendered disrespect and cocky male superiority, she would have voted kendall. but she is not capable of doing that. she never has been. so she voted tom and mattson.

so what i still cannot for the life of me understand is what would compel this shiv, the one who cannot stomach indignity even when power's on the line, to immediately return to tom's side the second he beckons her, which is like five minutes after he becomes CEO (the job she was promised) by mattson (who gave it to tom instead of shiv because 'why get the baby lady if i can get the man who put the baby inside her?'). it makes perfect, cruel, devastating sense from a show perspective, and that's what most people are talking about, understandably. it's a devastating yet unavoidable, inevitable outcome. she's left with no other choice once she makes the decision against kendall, and patriarchy compels her to play the good wife to stay close to power. except, like... she does still have a choice. she does not have to go back to tom's car. she does not have to sit patiently waiting for him. she does not have to quietly congratulate him on his victory. she does not have to place her hand in his. these are all choices she made very voluntary. they're choices between maintaining her dignity and self-respect at the cost of future power versus maintaining the potential for future power at the cost of her dignity and self-respect -- the classic siobhan roy conundrum. she's been faced with it time and time again (even just five minutes prior with kendall) and she has never, not once, chosen the latter of her own volition. she hasn't been able to. that's her fatal flaw. maybe i could stomach her going back to tom if she didn't congratulate him, didn't place her hand in his when he expectantly held his out -- then some dignity would be preserved, maybe. but her complete and total submission for the sake of future power does not make sense with her lifelong inability to do just that. it makes sense that this would be her eventual endpoint, but we have seen nothing that implies shiv would so willingly subject herself to this feminine submission of wife and mother before person or source of power, to the complete and utter humiliation of being the quiet wife at the side of the man who knifed her in the back (and notably handed said knife by the man she thought her closest ally) in order to steal the job she fought for her entire life and, in her opinion, had earned. maybe she would come back to him eventually, for love or (more likely) for power, but it is incredibly hard to believe that shiv 'impulsive when faced with indignity' roy would be capable of immediately and publicly playing the role of the good wife after such intense and public humiliation at the hands of her husband.

really, the way i feel about the shiv ending is similar to how i feel about the daenerys ending -- unlike most people, i really wasn't that against the daenerys outcome. i thought it made a lot of sense and was interesting, devastating, and fascinating. i thought there had been a few signs all along and that that ending for her would make sense and be far more interesting than a Hooray ! Girlboss ! ending. however, it was poorly executed -- it was rushed. it did not make sense from where daenerys was at that point in the text. it could've worked, it could've worked brilliantly, but it needed more time to build and fester in order for her ultimate turn to feel earned rather than forced for the sake of the point the writers wanted to make. that's kind of how i feel about shiv. i get the ending and i don't think it's inherently bad or misogynistic or anything, but it feels like the writers saw the possibility for a shiv 'mommed' ending and immediately took it, with little regard to what actually made sense for shiv herself to do in that moment. outcome > character. that's frustrating for me particularly for succession because my like number one reason for adoring succession as much as i do is their consistent refusal to operate the way most media does (using the characters as instruments to achieve the plot/outcome the writers want), instead prioritizing following the characters themselves in a way that feels honest and real. it's character-driven, not plot or ending driven. i think that this fell by the wayside a few times in the latter half of this season simply because there was so much that needed to happen in such a short space of time (especially during the finale), but in my opinion, at least, the most egregious case is shiv. given more time, more development, more build-up, the last shot of her hand in tom's would've struck the chord the writers wanted it to -- and for some people, it did anyways! but for me, it rang out and fell nauseatingly flat. it felt hollow and wrong and unearned. shiv could end up becoming her mother, that feels entirely possible, but not in this particular sense, not yet. in what world would siobhan roy willingly choose to be seen as nothing more than a woman hanging off her husband's arm, especially when said husband had publicly humiliated her and ruined her entire life just five minutes prior? when, just five (metaphorical) minutes prior, she was the one poised to be CEO and everyone knew it? when now everyone will see her on tom's arm and whisper and gawk? she has become her worst fear, yes, but unlike kendall, it does not feel earned. it does not feel like she has actually become her worst fear. it feels like the show forced her to. not patriarchy or the situation or her own desire for power, but the show itself. that's what feels so shitty.

i wouldn't necessarily call the writing misogynistic as a result of this, as it's less a flaw of misogyny and more a flaw of bad, rushed writing that could happen to any character. it's the same as with daenerys -- although (somewhat unlike succession) there were many, many aspects of GoT's writing that were deeply misogynistic, especially in the last season (just look at fucking brienne), the core issue with the daenerys plotline is not one of misogyny but of time. they did not give daenerys the time needed to become the version of herself seen burning down the city. that could've easily been a focus of previous episodes, but it wasn't. they simply did not develop her enough for that turn to make sense yet. it could make sense, hypothetically, at some point down the line, but at that point it felt sudden, off-putting, and wrong. shiv could easily become her mother. that's been made evident especially regarding her relationship to pregnancy/children, love, and vulnerability (or the lack thereof). but for this ending to make sense, we would have needed to see signs of shiv imitating her mother's willingness to be relegated to the sidelines, to bring out the food while the men eat and make deals, in order to remain tangential to power. that is a concession shiv roy had never been willing to make prior to the last five minutes of the entire show. other signs of shiv imitating caroline or falling prey to patriarchal norms throughout the show are not enough to undo shiv's fundamental refusal to weather gender-related indignity even when doing so would benefit her. in my opinion, that's why the final five minutes of shiv's plotline were so unsatisfying.

shiv could become her mother, and her ending could be a devastating portrayal of the inability for even rich white women to escape their original sin of being a woman in a man's world, as well as a dark, ironic criticism of both women like shiv and the patriarchal world that breeds them into existence. but because the show did not develop shiv in this particular direction and because her entire character thus far has been defined by her self-destructive insistence on being respected at all costs, shiv's ending did not land the way it could've, or should've.

[spider-man-2o99]

another Important Interaction from sm2099 v1 issue #10 between miguel and his mother, conchata

[christopher067]

~ a new blonde bombshell has entered the villa ~

the way i haven't used a blonde sim since 2021 is crazzzzy also rip to that model from 2021 she's lost forever since I accidentally deleted all the game files off my computer during a manic episode when the game wouldn't open... 🥰 but now we have this diva so slay

also a widdle wip if yew even cared 😔

[ofdarklands]

I - Isa

>song. indeed

my current anima character, she is a warrior mentalist, which means she's both a physical combatant as well as a psychic. her powers are mostly telekinesis (sending enemies to the moon godbless), minor telepathy, and self and object teleportation. she also has something called eternal blood, which means she, well, has no critical points. stabbing her in the heart is the same to her as stabbing her hand, and she doesn't fall unconscious when at negative health, which is both good and bad. perhaps it's related to the way most people don't tend to remember her after she leaves their sight? a mystery for sure! she loves cheese and stories and bright clothes. she's also got the, i believe, highest count of cold blooded murder in the campaign so far :')

when she was a kid, the world ended, you see. a mysterious flying city started obliterating countries, and dragons roamed the world again. one of them destroyed her home, and the only reason she survived long enough to be magically healed is because of her gift, and even so it left her without the capacity to speak. the one who saved her took her with him for a while, but eventually left her with some willing family, leaving to continue his strange mission. it's been years since then, and while she never saw him again, she's not forgotten. she knows he had something to do with the end of the world. now she roams looking for clues to learn about, well, anything and everything. so far, so good.

[erika-xero]

Drew myself a tiny B-day gift.

Her name is Cootie and she is a werefox (a fox who sometimes put on a human disguise)

[leefi]

i just know these two tiny short bitches are gonna ruin her fucking life

[ahollowgrave]

Hiiii do you have any more writings or musings about None? I was in your writing tag the other night and they came up a couple times but I'm not sure if I should be picturing a miqo'te or some sort of service animal/familiar lol

Hello! That's so fair, my Odette writings do not offer a lot of description for them! They do have their own tag [HERE] although not much is in it, currently. Some of the screenshots I'm including here and the writings which you've already seen! I'm very sorry for how rambling this is but None is where a lot of alts and relationships spawn from! None is neither a miqo'te nor a service animal (though I think they'd give a huff at the title)! None is the saddest creature in the whole world, a widower, Odette's favorite lil guy, Gerry's estranged step-parent, and a Lalafell:

A Lalafell ranger who makes their living guiding people through the Shroud. These days they are 'mostly' retired. They're well past their middle age and when they were younger they made a deal with sylphs. To be fleet-footed and quick and the best hunter. It came with some side effects:

They wear a hat to cover the ears. It's a bit silly to have two sets and, frankly, None doesn't wanna talk about it. They are stoic, pragmatic, and a bit of a hermit when they can afford it. None is a widower, their late wife was an duskwight woman named Aloutte, who was a widow herself with a young child; Geraldine. None and Gerry were never close and in the wake of Aloutte's passing that distant only grew. None and Odette met at the Menphina temple she was raised at. The Sisters there offer grief counseling and when Aloutte first fell sick she made them go to make the transition easier. A child at the time, Odette was obsessed from the moment they met. A pale shadow trailing after them. Where None failed with Gerry, they bonded with Odette. After Aloutte's passing None returned to the temple to live long term, some grievers need more support than others, they and Odette spent a lot of time together. They very much fill a uncle/aunt role for Odette; a trusted advisor who isn't the adults who raised her. When Odette took her vows and started to travel it was None who traveled with her, taught her basic outdoors skills, bought her Beauty and taught her how to care for chocobos. When Odette has to leave her flock of karakul to travel it is None she calls to care for them. Also, while Aloutte's loss and the grief that follows is very important to None as a character I feel it is important to note they were the saddest creature in the whole world before they knew the warmth of Aloutte's embrace! Sometimes you're just born with a heavy heart, you know? Because of how important they are to Odette. Odile... fucking hates their guts. Oooh, she hates their guts so much!!! The feeling is mutual and Odile and None have come to blows a few times. Something they both keep from Odette; None because they don't want to make her worry, Odile because she'll use the information to drive a wedge at some point. None also features in Odette's WoL AU, they're an honorary scion and spend most of their time with the other off-screen members. They spend time with Krile and Tatatru discussing lalafell things and I like to imagine that F'lhaminn and None have a lot to talk about. This is... pretty long so I will stop here! But I hope this satisfies some curiosity about None and thank you SO MUCH for asking about them!

[recallback]

forgor to post this for a second because I was sleepy, but I did the colorwheel challenge with some creature-shaped dudes! Guys who are shaped like little beasts!

First time drawing some of em, and I didn't use a sketch layer, so they're a bit wonky (my deepest apologies to charjabug) but that's okay. They're friend shaped anyway :)

[pupstim]

HRM I've been thinkin on it a lot on like Bad wondering what the right thing to do as a parent and I've not looked more into what other people but wanna just throw my 2 cents in. It'll be under the cut because it is a little bit heavy

Hrm this is just me thinking aloud and I might be getting jus a little bit personal but what really struck me was Bad asking what the right thing to do is. It's a moral conundrum and one I've had to scrabble with myself. What's the right action to take like with helping someone or figuring out how best to help them.. talking with my therapist though she's never said what the right thing to do is and when I asked her she said because really people are like so complex and multifaceted that the right thing to do with one person isn't the right thing to do with another. So there isn't really a right thing to do. Instead just the best thing to do and that's completely up to you.

That being said though I do think the best thing for Bad to do with Dapper is to talk to him about it. I know most of Chat wants Bad to respect Dapper's privacy but... I dunno... It just feels like all of Dapper's actions are a cry for help. Dapper knows he can talk to his dad about this but Dapper also has Bad's trust in coming to him, and Dapper is really worried about the wrong word getting out. Bad has Chat and it kind of seems like Dapper knows the Federation somehow is able to know whats going on with Bad when Bad's live. HRM This is hard for me to articulate.

I think Dapper is feeling like he HAS to keep this a secret to prevent the Federation or someone else getting this information about this potion. He's worried the info will leak out and obviously the less people know the better. Plus it sounds like in his own way he's trying to protect Bad and Pomme (and the thoughts of maybe he is being coerced by the federation) So anyway I think he's feeling like he has to keep this a secret but he doesn't want to. He wants Badboy to find out about this and ask him, He wants Bad to dig deeper and find out more and help him. To me all of Dapper's actions, at least from an RP perspective is a call for help. Which is devastating.

Just... He kept the book Bad read in the beginning for so long, adding more and more onto it and just putting off burning the book. It became he's going to burn this book after a few pages, after 10 pages, after 20 pages, after he finds a way to give it a proper farewell just... He put up these super secret documents right where Badboy is in his own room, he changed the shed so much that Bad couldn't have helped notice, he left the clipboard and blueprints where anyone could see it, he's come to talk to Badboy about this like 3 or so times I think.

And yea I know from a meta perspective most likely this is just Dapper's Admin trying to lay out some clues for Bad to investigate but purely from an RP perspective its just... This really feels like Dapper trying in some way subconsciously asking Bad for help. He feels like he has to carry this burden all on his own, he's always held as the most responsible one, the one that has a plan, the one that has the most resources and is considered a genius and one that OTHER PEOPLE always go to. He doesn't feel like he has the luxury of asking someone for help, maybe even especially because Bad is becoming unglued after the election but he's also just a lil kid. He's like 3 months old and still a kid and a baby but he HAS to do this even though he doesn't want too. Even though he desperately wants his Dad to come in and help him. Just... yea...

tl;dr I think Bad should ask Dapper about it because Dapper is asking for help in just about all ways except outright and he clearly needs it.

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

40 Hours Left to Submit!

Hey, folks, just wanted to let you know that if you have any last-minute musicians you'd like to submit to the Google form, get it in now, because time is running out! If you think that your nominee might have already been submitted--don't be too sure! There are lots of guys that haven't been submitted that are truly surprising.

That being said, I'm very excited for the amount of contenders that we do have so far! We're seeing so many different bands and solo acts competing (so far only one complete band, though,) we're seeing brothers, we're seeing a father and son in the melee, we've got representation not just from English-speaking countries, but from Italy, Brazil, Germany, Cuba, Austria, etc. We have legendary names in rock music, jazz greats, composers, pop icons, and country stars! Lots of names you know, some you may just be hearing for the first time, it should be fun!

Now for something a little less fun: there will, no doubt, be figures in this bracket that some will deem controversial. I'm not here to pose a litmus test to each nominee, but I do understand that many of these musicians/singers/artists have done objectionable things in their lives. Having said that, I would like to implement the policy carried out over at the Hot Vintage Polls and avoid negative propaganda. I won't reblog it, and I won't entertain it. If you want someone to lose, promote the one they're facing in the matchup. I obviously can't stop what people want to comment on in their reblogs, but I'm not taking part in the negative propaganda. I hope you folks will understand and I thank you for reading.

And despite technical difficulties, I think we'll be able to start posting polls when I was hoping to start! I'm aiming for February 11th starting at midnight PST. Thanks for playing!

[mx-blue-sky]

hitting up the park with Hope!

[ask-ursa-tonypeter]

[fic: wicked love] Soooo, iirc, Peter does call Tony "Dad" in bed. Tony and Peter, if that's ok to ask, - how does that makes you feel? Does it make the situation more awkward? Does it hurt? Does it feel right? Is it a turn off or a turn on? And just generally i wonder if you've discussed this aspect of your relationship at all.

Peter: Oh-- we really didn’t talk about it? It’s just… he’s my dad. I don’t even think about it, really. It got to where it didn’t feel weird calling him ‘Tony’ when I was Spider-man, but that was… It felt different. He didn’t see me as his son then, and now he does. And I… I mean-- don’t take this the wrong way, but-- I like that he’s my dad? That part is important to me, too.

…But I don’t know. I do kind of… Things did feel different between us when I was Spider-man, and I kind of miss some of that? He cared about me, but he wasn’t... trying to take responsibility for me like he does as my dad. Maybe changing what I call him at home could help us get back to that, but-- I don’t know if that’s even possible, really…

Maybe I should ask him what he thinks about it.

-----

Tony: He calls me that because I’m his dad. There’s not really any point to trying to pretend it’s anything other than what it is.