A Mind Aflight

CommanderPhoenix here. Using this blog mostly for Reblogs of Critical Role, fantasy art, female warriors, rpg tools, lore, and general gaming, and Flight Rising. Talk nerdy to me!

[thethiefandtheairbender]

The Good Place (2016-2020)

[insomniac-arrest]

brah

[postilionstruckbylightning]

The Good Place’s take on morality is so important to me. It never suggests that being good is easy or straightforward - quite the opposite - but it says, over and over again, that we need to try because we’re all people and we all matter.

[mugenmcfugen]

have I yelled enough by this point that Good Place is one of the best shows of past decade period

[tineid]

Some mental wellness Talking Heads

[2012earthnoises]

Tshirt idea I had

[indigobluerose]

and eyestrain don't forget eyestrain!

[robotpussy]

i will never be against piracy ever but i also need physical media to remain

[robotpussy]

the average blockbuster carried about 3x as many films than that that are streaming on Netflix or any other streaming service, physical media along with piracy is more important than ever.

[rottenbrainstuff]

I thought this wasn’t true, because how could it be true? How could one small store have more movies than an online database? So I googled it.

I am surprised and depressed to learn it’s 100% true, according to google. A Blockbuster store was required to have a minimum of 7000 titles, but most averaged about 10,000. Netflix has 4000 movies. (And 1800 tv shows if you want to count those, but even included, it’s still less)

Now I’m even more depressed about the collapse of physical rental stores.

[siphersaysstuff]

BONUS: They weren't beholden to Who Owns What IP Right Now. They got videos from everyone. You didn't have to pay separately for the rights to rent from the Disney Shelves and the WB Shelves and bler bler bler, and they only STOPPED having those movies when the tapes broke or someone never returned 'em.

[pepperoni-oni]

friendly reminder that your local library will have lots of physical media and if they don't have what you're looking for you can most likely ask them to purchase it or order it from another library through interlibrary loan

[bogappreciation]

Shoutout to Scarecrow Video- they have over 148,000 titles, most of which you can rent by mail. Rentals have been down in the last few years so they're asking for support!

[letteredlettered]

boosting this for Scarecrow Video. It's also now a non-profit.

[kandimouse]

to those of you who are moving here from tiktok, from someone whos used both tiktok and tumbr for years...

1. DO NOT censor your posts

dont censor sex, abuse, suicide, dont censor it. we dont have censors like tiktok does, you wont be banned for talking about these things and tagging them properly helps people avoid them (also, we dont have shadowbanning here)

2. we dont really have an algorithm

you follow who you follow, and you see posts from who you follow or what you search. the 'for you page' is basically useless here. this also brings me to my next two points

3. dont crosstag

we get it, on tiktok you have to crosstag for reach, but thats not really a thing here. just tag your posts properly (also posters often leave more info about the post in the tags!! and when you reblog stuff you can leave your own notes in the tags, kind of like the old "repost comments" on tiktok)

4. dont expect to go viral/be famous

"viral" isnt really a thing on here (at least not for the average blogger). your posts will probably get 2-10 likes and you wont get nearly as many followers than on tiktok. thats just how tumblr is

5. blocking is your best friend

tiktok is VERY discussion based, and while tumblr is much more discussion based than other social medias, its still not a good place for ragebait/discourse. dont interact, itll make your experience worse in the end, just block and move on

6. you cant go into someone elses house and start rearranging their furniture

this is tumblr, not tiktok. dont diss old tumblr users for how they use the site or try to change them, thats like going into someone elses house and trying to rearrange their furniture. we've been here longer and we're familiar with the site and its culture, either find your niche, adapt, or find a different app

[goingknowherewastaken]

Another important point

You need to actually reblog posts for this site to work as it should.

Liking posts only saves them in a spot that no one checks except for the user who liked them. Most people have their liked posts hidden.

Also, this site has a spam bot problem. One way we weed those out is to check the blog to see if it's actually being used to post legitimate content. If there is absolutely nothing on your blog you're getting blocked and some users may just straight up report you as spam as a precaution.

Not to mention that the posts you reblog will only be seen by you and whoever follows you. Tagging it "fyp" does absolutely nothing.

[bucketofcrows]

they should. give me one thousand dollars every month so i can commission artists who are very clearly unwell

[whyenn-reader]

Not to go "if you have ADHD just go for a run" or anything, but I am so serious if you have ADHD you should regularly go outside, no headphones no phone no nothing and just stand and observe for a while until you've had enough. Not until you get bored, until you've had enough. Drink your coffee without watching tiktok. Have a bath without music. Turn down the volume in your headphones. I cannot overstate how much learning to be bored is cruicial with ADHD. Life is not just about pleasure, no matter what your dysregulated dopamine system thinks, and when you teach your brain to be okay with being bored, then boring tasks stop feeling like torture. By letting yourself be bored you are yoinking your system out of the high/low binary and allow for the highs to feel like actual highs and not just anything that isn't low. I am so serious go literally touch grass. Listen to the sounds in your flat. Stimulate your body the way it was designed. It lowers anxiety and makes you feel like you're real and best of all it's completely free

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I really wish more ADHD mental health care told you WHY things like this matter to our quality of life.

The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.

But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.

So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.

Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.

Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.

So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.

When you no longer feel like the world is actively killing you, it's a lot easier to navigate it.

[whyenn-reader]

S++ tier addition to the post, thank you tumblr user butts bouncing on the beltway

[justsomeantifas]

call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.

[robobun]

@ everyone in the notes talking about physical performance: if that were the case, then sports would be divided by physical performance. that’s a thing you can measure. that’s a thing that varies by individual. a weak man and a strong man would be an unfair fight in boxing/wrestling/MMA, which is why they divide those sports up into weight groups based on physical performance. but they also further segregate them based on gender. chess is segregated by gender for no reason but sexism. if it’s actually about skill and physical ability, then measure those and separate people by those metrics. don’t do some bullshit gender segregation and pretend like men and women are inherently on different levels no matter their individual abilities.

[justsomeantifas]

💅

[aggrokawaii]

Remember that time a teenage girl struck out Babe Ruth? That’s fucking why. Men are afraid of being beaten by women.

[amuseoffyre]

Remember that time male swimmers were pulled out of training because Kate Ledecky was leaving them ‘broken’ by swimming better than them? Remember how she didn’t even notice, because she was busy actually training?

[notanadult]

Shooting is a sport that has no reliance on strength and so any allowance for gender variation is irrelevant. The last time there was a mixed competition (1992) a chinese woman named Zhang Shan won it.

[murderxbaby-deactivated20190102]

It’s often presented as for the benefit of women. After all, they’ll be heartbroken when they‘re hurt or bested by men.

Projection is a hell of a drug. 

[dick-graysons-left-butt-cheek]

[yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666]

this is why they drug test Serena like crazy. the believe no woman should be that good. let alone a black woman. and black women have always been considered “manly” and less feminine.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

also can we talk about how surfing is segregated as well? like how the dude who won this years international surfing cup or whatever was given $30,000 worth of prize money, while the woman who won the women’s comp was only awarded like $16,000 of prize money???? or whatever it was. but I know it was either half or less than half of what the man won. like why can’t they get the same prize money and when they’re competing internationally in the same competition? they surely have the same level of skill and talent.

[yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666]

the pay gap in sports between men and women is fucking insane.

[torukun1]

The pay gaps, not to mention lack of sponsorships for women athletes who don’t look like models is insane. If you weigh over 250 pounds, no one will sponsor you. It’s why most female Olympic-class weightlifters live in poverty/out of their cars.

[shipitbabyonemoretime]

[intersex-mhacha-deactivated2020]

Reminder that in international (and usually national too) womens athletics anybody with 5m/mol of natural testosterone or higher is disqualified. (See legal case of Dutee Chand vs IAAF.)

Do you or somebody you know have PCOS? You are banned from international womens athletics because you are supposedly in posession of an unreasonable advantage in sports.

Folks disqualified for hyper-androgenism in womens athletics.

Francine Niyonsaba

Caster Semenya

Dutee Chand

Margaret Wambui

And more

-

Why are those disqualified overwhelmingly black and brown? Because testing is case by case when an athletes performance “raises suspicions”. They overwhelmingly test athletes of colour, for being too fast and not meeting white expectations of femininity.

Racism and intersexism(discrimination against intersex people) in sports is abject evil. Desegregate sports.

[jeanjauthor]

All of this.

[annonymousp]

Oh, this some good stuff. I share to others 

[lov3rgrrrl]

ABSOTUTAFUCKINGLUTELY. I AM SO INCREDIBLY SICK OF EVERYONE REGARDING WOMEN AS INHERENTLY LESS THAN MEN. “THERE IS NO SEXISM IN BA SING SE” MY ASS

[catboybiologist]

Yup to all of this, especially the racism highlight

[awesomefitnessrecipes]

[theageofsims]

I don't care if you build, gameplay, story tell, create custom content -- or all of the above. If you're over the age of 30 -- reblog!

[myshunosun]

Myshuno’s tips on rotational gameplay in The Sims 4

This guide describes how I’ve been approaching rotational gameplay in The Sims 4. You will find some tips on gameplay settings, links to mods, and some ideas on how to keep things interesting.

A bit of an unconventional post from me, but I hope that this inspires some of you to try out new things, and perhaps rediscover your passion for The Sims 4 gameplay with all (or most) of its nonsense. Read more below.

Why rotational gameplay?

Throughout The Sims 4's entire lifecycle, I really tried to get into generational gameplay a few times: I tried to focus on playing with and expanding one specific family. However, I found myself getting bored each time, ultimately abandoning both the save files and the game itself. Prior to The Sims 4, I'd always gravitated towards rotational gameplay, especially in The Sims 2.

For me, rotational gameplay is all about variety. It involves playing with storylines across different households and neighborhoods. These narratives may intersect or remain entirely separate.

You would enjoy rotational gameplay if:

You want to explore different game mechanics

You want to focus on specific gameplay features that come with various DLCs

You want to play with a diverse set of households (with varying traits, relationship dynamics, careers, etc)

You get easily bored with the progression of your save file when you play with a single household

You fall under the “chaotic” axis on this alignment chart

You probably wouldn’t enjoy rotational gameplay if you know that you’d rather focus on playing with the same household over a long period of time. Some people juxtapose generational and rotational gameplay styles, but I think you can nicely combine the elements of generational gameplay when playing rotationally.

Households that I currently play with include:

Sims of all occult types (some of them aim to excel at their occult shenanigans)

Varying family and relationship dynamics, conflicting personality traits, and conflicting preferences

Different age groups (unless it’s a household comprised of a single Sim)

Sims who pursue all sorts of careers and aspirations (or don't)

Progression and other settings

The story progression principles outlined below are a combination of gameplay settings and personal guidelines I follow.

My general rule is to switch households when a child, teen, young adult, or adult Sim in my current household ages up. I then play through another age phase with a Sim from a different household, and repeat this cycle.

This approach works well if you're managing multiple households with interconnected storylines. It allows me to engage with all my households while ensuring that Sims with related narratives grow and develop together.

For households with a single teen, young adult, adult, or elder Sim, I switch when the household expands or when that Sim dies.

The foundational setup:

Autonomy is set to full

Auto age is enabled for the active household and unplayed households, and I do not speed up aging

Auto age is disabled for played households

Sim lifespan setting is set to normal, with a small adjustment for young adults via MCCC (set to 30 days, more about recommended mods below)

I have the vast majority of pack settings set to default, with a few exceptions:

Sims are not opted out of fame

Lifestyles are disabled

Werewolves are limited to Moonwood Mill

It’s up to you whether you want to enable neighborhood stories or not. I find that the vast majority of the changes that this system introduces in the world are not super balanced (I have a similar issue with lifestyles), so I opt for only enabling a few configurations for other households. I occasionally adjust these settings just to see what happens during one week of in-game time, but I typically have only these enabled:

Leave a career

Retire from career

Join a career

Ok, let’s say you started a new save file. You created a new household, or picked one of the pre-made households. Once you play through the entire age phase of one of the Sims, it is time to switch to a different household. You can create a new household, or pick one of the pre-made households.

Feeling overwhelmed? In case you can’t keep track of what’s going on in your save file, I’d suggest focusing on 2-4 households in your rotations.

Right now, I rotate between 5 household. There were more played households in my save file, but I decided to “give them up” and let the game take the wheel - as mentioned above, I have age up enabled for Sims under other households.

Mods and enhancing game difficulty

Some of the vanilla mechanics and settings already work for rotational gameplay, but mods can definitely make it more exciting and challenging. If you’re looking for a challenge, of course.

Some weeks ago, I decided to return to my save in The Sims 2 after a very long hiatus, and I was absolutely bamboozled by how difficult that game is. The difficulty levels combined with the lack of story progression outside of the played household pushed me to play rotationally.

Personally, I think that such challenges encourage me to try out different gameplay mechanics, and subsequently approach the game differently within the context of each household. Enhancing the difficulty is not a definitive prerequisite for enjoying playing rotationally, but I believe that it can help you discover things that you may not have necessarily reached for previously.

I enjoy it when choices that I make, or events that are out of my control, have consequences. In other words, I like playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.

Can you play rotationally without any mods? Absolutely. I like a good challenge - however, I don’t personally find the balance of existing systems to be very compelling. That’s why I wanted to include a few of my favorite mods in this post.

You can find the full list of mods that I use here, but below are just a few notable highlights:

MC Command Center. Probably no introduction needed, but you can check out the mod’s documentation and see what kinds of core adjustments you can make using MCCC. Things that I have adjusted include, for example, age phase duration for young adults and relationship culling settings. You can also adjust modifiers that impact relationships, skills, and fame gain.

Random Traits & Aspirations by graycurse. This has been my must-have mod for a long time. I like the idea of not being able to assign traits myself as Sims age up. This also forces me to play with traits that I typically would not typically gravitate towards.

Career Overhaul by kuttoe. In short, this mod significantly enhances the career progression difficulty.

Lower Payments by satira. This is a nice companion mod for kuttoe’s Career Overhaul.

Home Regions by kuttoe. This mod adjust the way townies and household Sims spawn across the different neighborhoods. For instance, it prevents Sims who are not residents of the active neighborhood from spawning there.

Compatibility Matters by bienchen tweaks the relationship changes based on Sim compatibility.

Whim Overhaul by bienchen (in my opinion) vastly improves the whim system.

Trait Overhaul by bienchen tweaks all EAxis traits and makes them impact the gameplay more.

In summary

The key word of this post is variety. Each time I get back to The Sims 4 when playing rotationally, I notice that I’m always looking forward to it.

I think that a lot of really nice The Sims 4 systems and features are not that easy to explore when playing with the same household. This rotational approach to playing the game has definitely helped me discover things that were simply not on my radar, because of how attached I was to specific game mechanics.

Anyway, hope this was helpful! If you have any tips, feel free to share them under this post.

Follow and support me here: Tumblr / Patreon / Instagram / Bluesky / PayPal / Creator code

[cowplant-pizza]

🎃GIVEAWAY: LIFE & DEATH🎃

#AD Thank you EA for giving me the opportunity to give away free code of the upcoming expansion!

One lucky winner will win free game code for the upcoming EP: Life & Death 💀⚰️

These will be valid for the EA app on PC only. You must have The Sims 4 Base Game in order to use these codes!

How to enter:

Follow me here on tumblr! @cowplant-pizza

Like and reblog this post

Extra entries:

Follow me on youtube

Tag your simblr friends in the comments (1 entry per tag)

No giveaway, spam or bot accounts

Open until Oct 31st when I will DM the winner!

[positiveseed]

SUPPORT US ON YOUTUBE

@positiveseed

[alice3876]

9 out of 10 boxes checked :))......

[nerdgamery]

Everything except the dim lighting.

I need ALL the lights on.

[introvertsnation]

[uloelu]

⚠️ ADVISORY: Malicious Mods, Identity Theft, Malware, and You ⚠️

Hey, all! Not sure how many people will see this, but if you do, please reblog. This is a 'little' post regarding a potentially big problem affecting the Sims 4 community. If you download mods/CC at all (and yes I know CC is a type of mod), this applies to you.

TL;DR: For the sake of your personal info, identity, bank account, et cetera, please STOP downloading any mods/CC for the time being. Especially from the following sites: CurseForge, ModTheSims, The Sims Resource. It doesn't matter if you know the creator or not. Give it at least a week while we all figure out what's going on. If you must, I would recommend only downloading directly from a creator's Patreon (assuming they have one).

Other people have written at length about the mods in question, so I'll just share their posts below.

What's going on?

From the Sims 4 After Dark Discord server (a server you should join if you're not in it already):

⚠️If you downloaded any mod listed in the above post and played the game with them installed, this is the cleaner program Kuttoe (creator of the Home Regions and Townie Demographics mods) mentioned in their post: GitHub - overwolf/sims4-social-events-cleaner: Source files and exe release for a tool to clean up your machine if you have downloaded the "Social Events - Unlimited Time" Sims 4 mod ⚠️

Got confirmation from Kuttoe that as long as you didn't boot up the game with the malicious mods installed (or deleted them completely from your computer before playing the game), you *should* be fine. Still, I recommend that anyone who thinks they might have downloaded any of them run the cleaner program.

Here's an explanation from @anadius2 (reposted by Kuttoe) in the Sims 4 After Dark server (not providing a link to prevent brigading or spam, but you can DM me and I'll give you the link) about what the malware will do to your computer:

And a little dive into the back-end coding stuff for the more tech-savvy Simmers out there:

So, to recap:

Fake mods were uploaded to Curseforge, ModTheSims, and The Sims Resource

@msqsimsofficial had their account compromised on 2 of those sites (they are a victim of hacking, so do not send them hate!)

If downloaded, these malicious mods have the ability to steal very sensitive info (your passwords, credit card info if saved somewhere in your browser, data)

As of right now, antivirus software may not be able to detect the malware

Mac and Linux users seem to be safe; Windows users are the ones that could be affected

Why is this happening?

Unsure. Lots of theories are being made by people far more knowledgeable than me, but from the looks of things, could be crypto bullshit and/or an attempt to steal your data and sell it. This is very, very serious, and could wreck your life if said data/personal info falls into the wrong hands.

Identity Theft: What It Is, How to Prevent It, Warning Signs and Tips - NerdWallet

It's always a good idea to change passwords every couple of months or so, but if you think you've been affected, you also need to change your passwords for things like online banking, email and social media accounts, healthcare sites AFTER running the cleaner.

What now?

I want to talk about how we approach modding our games and downloading files in general.

Please STOP downloading mod file folders from people who did not create the specific mods. Period. This includes Sim dumps, building/lots with CC, mod folders promoted on YouTube, etc. This does not mean that anyone sharing them is doing so maliciously. In fact, I appreciate the amount of effort people put into compiling these resources! But unless you're super careful (and super knowledgeable), you run the risk of downloading malware like this on your computer. Make no mistake, the malicious files in question look like run-of-the-mill, everyday mods. Two of them were even posted from a trustworthy creator's actual account! The only way to know what they actually do is to peek into the code, and idk about you, but I don't know Python. So even after this issue is resolved, you really should only download files from the creators themselves.

But what about CC shopping?

Here's how I like to approach it: I stick to lookbooks and combing through the Patreons/accounts of creators who make items I like. If I see a Sim dump with CC that I'm interested, I try to reach out to the poster and ask where they got specific CC. If I can't do that, I see if it was shared via Drive, look at the individual files themselves, then head to the original CC creator's official download page and get it from the source.

That's all I have for you! Stay safe, and happy Simming! 🫶🏾

[blewis50]

Please read and share.

[quasi-normalcy]

Did you only come to Tumblr after Twitter turned to shit?

Yes

No

I returned to Tumblr, but I'd been here years earlier

Voting ended onFeb 7, 2024

I'm looking to see how much influence "Twitter refugees" have actually had on the culture of this site.

**Pease reblog! I want to get the biggest and most varied sample I can!**

[quasi-normalcy]

You people really aren't grasping this "please reblog" thing, eh?

[blumineck]

"Why can't you use a bow in melee?"

Another one for the D&D/ Baldur's Gate fans: what's going on with the 'archers can't shoot close up' rule?

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