u/Ok_Bad_5326

I fucking hate when people call others "a 2" or "a 10" and then also act like whatever arbitrary grading system they use is objective truth, as if someone who looks hot to one person can't be average to another.

It's not just terribly objectifying (literally reducing a person to a number), but just factually wrong because being attractive or good looking really isn't as objective as people think it is.

I've had this situation before where some of my friends thought a guy was really hot while I didn't find him attractive in the slightest. Meanwhile, some of them didn't understand why I thought a particular guy was good looking. If we graded those guys on a 1-10 scale (what we aren't doing because we aren't fucking losers), the same guy could easily be a 5 for one person but a 10 for someone else.

I can't help it, whenever I see someone unironically grading a person's appearance I just immediately assume they're either an incel or at least a manosphere asshole, or whatever the female equivalent of that is. They're so deep into this whole "attractiveness is objective" nonsense that you could never convince them otherwise because they'll just accuse you of lying when you point to an "objectively unattractive" person and say you find them hot.

Discovering new custom worlds for this game has been my new special interest recently, and since I am the type of person who likes everything organized, I created a google doc with thumbnails, name + creator, download links and more. The goal was to collect worlds and download links all in one place so I don't have to search the web every time I want to redownload a world, especially since I tend to forget names a lot and then have to search quite a long time until I find the world again. I originally only created this for myself, but as I've collected quite a few worlds by now, I thought why not share it.

You can find it here. It's still a work in progress and it will get automatically updated as I add new ones. If you have a favourite world that isn't on there yet, feel free to tell me and I might add it there.

Anyway, happy simming!

A few weeks ago I've started feeding the crows in my area by putting out a bowl with peanuts on the balcony. After a few days, the first crow noticed it and took some. By the next few days, more and more crows arrived and the bowl emptied so quickly that I constantly had to refill. After a week I had no peanuts left so I bought some new ones, a different brand this time because I thought it wouldn't make a difference.

After putting out this other brand of peanuts, crows have been there a few times, but they didn't take the peanuts, just threw them on the floor and left. Now I don't see them anymore.

Are these crows just picky eaters? Can it really be something about this brand of peanuts that they don't like? I noticed that the shells are a little thicker than on the previous brand, but I don't think they'd have any problem cracking it?

Can someone give me some insight please? I feel like I've been ghosted lol.

I'm trying to create a list of high quality custom worlds that are so good that they're basically indistinguishable from or even better than the official ones.

For this, I'm mainly looking for worlds that fill the following criteria:

• Reasonable Size: The world shouldn't be so big that it can only run on high-end computers, but it also shouldn't be too small in order to make it suitable for long term legacy type gameplay.
• High Visual Quality: with that I mean no flat squares floating in the middle of the ocean, use of distant terrain if it isn't specifically an island world. Basically, it should look high quality all around.
• Premade Buildings and Families: Should come with fully furnished community and residential lots, as well as with premade families (ideally with biographies and some premade skills and relationships).
• Playability: Most importantly, the worlds should actually be playable. A world can fulfil all the above criteria, but if it crashes after 10 minutes of playing in it, churning out script error after script error or causes some major lag, it doesn't belong on the list.

As of now, I can only contribute one world: Luxor by wasset aseskara. It uses lot types of all expansion packs including WA tombs and actually runs surprisingly well for its size. I've played in there for 20+ in-game weeks without running into any major issues. Routing seems to work exceptionally well in this world too because Overwatch barely sent out any notifications to me while I played in it.

I'd also like to give a shoutout to Mesa Grande by aaronrogers8i3. While I haven't tested it for a prolonged period of time, I played in it for a bit and was surprised by how high quality it is. It even comes with customized rabbit holes and is base game only, so literally anyone could play it. If anyone of you has played in it for longer, I'd love to know if it stays stable over time.

I'd love some more to add to that list. Just make sure to only suggest a world if it fits all the above criteria.

I'm constantly seeing these types of questions pop up in asexual spaces and in 99.9% of cases, it won't work and the asexual partner will most likely get the shorter end of the stick in this arrangement. Sexual compatibility is really important in relationships, and when this doesn't work the whole relationship will most likely fail. That's just how it is.

In allo-ace couples, it is almost always the asexual that has to "compromise" by having sex they don't want just to keep their partner happy. It's always the ace person who has to change themselves for their partner, completely ignoring the impact this will inevitably have on their mental health in the long term.

Don't date allos unless they'll be 100% fine never having sex again. As a community, we should stop normalizing allo-ace relationships as a realistic goal. Find yourself another asexual, or just stay single and learn to enjoy your own company or something. It's not worth it.

I know there are some other people on this sub who didn't like SOTR either, so I hope I don't get immediately downvoted and shut down for voicing my opinion on the book. Just to be clear, I've got nothing against you if you enjoyed the book. I have my opinion and you have yours. As a long time HG fan, I'd LOVE to love SOTR, but unfortunately it's not meant to be I guess.

This isn't really meant as a discussion thread per se. I know the typical arguments regarding my main criticisms, and they never managed to convince me otherwise. This is more so a place for me to vent my frustrations with the book and maybe find some likeminded people who think the same as I do, because damn disliking a book everyone else seems to love gets lonely sometimes.

Anyway, here are the things that stood out to me in bullet points:

• Too many trilogy characters reappearing: I think it's fine to have a character from an earlier book appear in a prequel here and there. I actually really loved the inclusion of Tigris in BOSAS, for example. But it was just too much in SOTR. Haymitch can't just be childhood friends with Katniss' dad, he also has to be in a relationship with Maude Ivory's daughter. Plutarch happened to work as a cameraman for the games responsible for District 12, Mags and Wiress of all people had to be Haymitch's mentors, and of course, Beetee actually had a son all along who happened to be reaped into the same games as Haymitch (which conveniently never gets brought up in the trilogy, either). Don't even get me started on Effie's inclusion. Don't get me wrong, I love Effie as a character, but she had no business being in this book. The inclusion of so many known characters unnecessarily shrinks the world and makes everything seem way too convenient to be believable.
• The rewriting of relationships: Namely the relationship Haymitch has with Katniss in the trilogy. By making Haymitch good friends with Burdock, SOTR inevitably rewrites the relationship he has with Katniss in the trilogy and also makes me question why he didn't do anything for her and Prim after Burdock died and they were starving. Surely he could've sent an anonymous care package or two with his victor money, no? Also, Louella's existence in this book basically retconning the sweetheart nickname from condescending to secretly endearing was something I did not particularly enjoy either. It seems really cliché and unnecessary.
• The Rebel Plot: This just seemed like rehash of Catching Fire with the difference being that we all knew it's going to fail. The fact that so many characters from the trilogy were involved, yet no one ever mentioned this to Katniss later down the line also seems really far fetched. This makes the whole thing feel really unbelievable in hindsight. I know SC obviously has not thought of that when writing the trilogy, and I know that Katniss wasn't really entrusted with a lot of information, but part of writing a good prequel is making sure that whatever happens can be connected to the main story without it feeling contrived, which this just failed to do imo. I don't think this whole rebel plot was even necessary. I think the book shouldn't have spent so much time on him as a tribute in the games and should've focused more on his mentoring years. It would've been something new. The way it is almost seems like a rehash of THG and CF. If I want to read about yet another underdog tribute going through the games, I'd read fanfic.
• Haymitch's characterization: Something just felt off about him in this book, and I can't really put my finger on what exactly it is. I know he's only 16 in SOTR, and obviously his personality wouldn't be the same as it was in the OG trilogy, but it felt like he was a completely different person here. His decisions didn't really make much sense sometimes. Like for instance, he knew that Snow would target his family and Lenore Dove if he stepped out of line, yet he still worked with the rebels and then acted surprised when his family and LD were killed? I just didn't like this version of Haymitch at all. I would've greatly preferred his personality to just be as he was presented on the tape in CF. It would've made for a more believable character progression and would've made him more convincing as a younger version of trilogy Haymitch. The deaths of his family and LD would've also hit harder if he genuinely just tried to survive by using the forcefield without intending it to be a rebellious act. This particular aspect of his backstory always stuck out to me as unusually cruel and unfair, and it's still cruel and unfair in SOTR, but there's a difference between a boy being this severely punished for just trying to survive and a boy getting punished for repeatedly, openly, rebelling.
• The fanfic level writing and prose: This might come across as harsh, but that's genuinely how I feel about the writing in this book. The prose is simple and lacks description, especially the characters. Everything, from dialogue to Haymitch's internal monologue, have this fanfic-esque aspect about them I can't exactly describe (those of you who've read a lot of fanfic might know what I mean). Some scenes by themselves also had this fanfic thing about them, like the introduction of Mags, Wiress and Effie made me feel like I was reading a fanfic rather than an official HG novel. It was as if SC wanted to get a specific reaction out of the reader, as if she was looking over my shoulder going "See this? You know this character!" What also came across as fanfic-esque was the whole scene with Haymitch and Snow, with Snow basically going on a rant about covey girls, which just felt so out of character for him, and the milk scene was just so ridiculous and did not fit the serious tone of the book at all. If this was a fanfic for real the writing would actually be above average, but since this is a published novel by a global bestselling author, I simply expect better.
• The plot armor and lack of consequences: Every trilogy character who appeared in this book had plot armor. We know why, because SC needed them to survive for the trilogy, but I can't see why Snow let Beetee, Plutarch, Haymitch, Mags and Wiress live after all that. I also don't understand why Snow didn't just arrange Haymitch's death in the arena by using targeted mutts like he did with other tributes who did far less than Haymitch.
• The clumsy, dumbed down handling of themes: Could just be me, but I feel like SC really didn't leave any room for interpretation or critical thought regarding the themes in this book. Was this a reaction to the criticism BOSAS received, because people were too dense to get the message of the book unless it was directly spelled out to them? It felt like she had no trust in the reader to get it otherwise. Also, why write a book about propaganda and its impact on people while still writing the careers, who are a textbook example of propaganda victims, as schoolyard bullies, especially Panache? And no, the Silka chocolate scene wasn't enough and especially didn't do anything since she still went on killing Wellie in the most brutal way possible.

And this is just the stuff off the top of my head. I feel like there were more things that bothered me, but I really can't think of anything else right now. I might come back later and add to the list in case I remember something else.

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Anyway since I don't want to be too negative, here are some things I liked:

• Maysilee. She's one of the few new characters that I feel are well-written. I loved her from the moment she stood up to Drusilla on the train and she was basically the only one I felt really sad for when she died despite fully knowing it was coming.
• The cover. It's the prettiest of them all and I only say that because I love the color purple.
• Maysilee.
• Wyatt was an ok character too. I liked how he looked out for Lou Lou and I was mildly sad that he died so early.
• Maysilee.

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Again, I cannot stress enough that I don't care if you liked this book. But I certainly didn't, which is insane because I absolutely love all the other books in this series, including BOSAS. This one just completely missed the mark for me and I can't bring myself to see this as canon because it just seems too far-fetched and contrived.

I hope this is the correct flair since this is just speculating about a theoretical prequel rather than being about either of the already released prequels.

I was rather disappointed in SOTR for a variety of reasons, but one of my biggest complaints about the book was how sloppily the propaganda theme was handled. It was too in your face, no subtlety be found, and greatly undermined by the book being written from Haymitch's POV, or any District 12 POV for that matter. I think it would've worked much better had the main character been someone from a career district, someone who genuinely fell for the Capitol's propaganda and would spend the book slowly unlearning it.

Finnick would have been the perfect candidate for this. He was a career who supposedly volunteered at 14, which would indicate that he had internalized propaganda fairly early and was convinced he could win despite his age, or that entering the games would at least give him glory. The book could've been spent with him slowly coming to the realization that the games are not glorious and that they'd follow him for the rest of his life, even after he left the arena. Sure, this kind of storyline could've worked for any career, but he's a fan favorite character. I genuinely think the propaganda theme would've worked much better with someone like him than with Haymitch.

I know people are getting kind of annoyed with requests for a Finnick book, but I don't think it'd be that useless from a thematic standpoint. I'd love to know who he was before his games, and him being a career turned rebel is just such an interesting character arc to explore in a book. It would also help humanizing the careers by having one as a main character. As of right now, career tributes are the Slytherins of the Hunger Games series, their roles often confined to being evil, bloodthirsty killers who only show glimpses of humanity here and there before going back to killing (as seen with Cato and Silka). Also, it would finally shut up the kids on tiktok insisting that 4 wasn't a career district just because Finnick and Annie are "good" characters (as if these two things were mutually exlcusive).

Thoughts?

One of my sims won't stop doing this stupid school cheer and it's really annoying, so I want to get rid of her. What's your favourite (non-cheaty) way to kill a sim? I don't want to just drag down her hunger bar with testingcheats or insta-kill her with DebugEnabler, where's the fun in that? I want it to be intentional, but look like an accident, basically.

This is just a random thing I've found, but before writing the books, JKR has written a list including the names of 40 students who attended Hogwarts the same year as Harry, with names for 5 boys and 5 girls for each house. Anyway, on this list there was a Ravenclaw girl listed named "Sue Li". She was never actually mentioned in the books, literally a blank slate that Rowling could've easily used to name her token East Asian character. 'Sue': normal, innocuous name. 'Li': regular Chinese last name. It wouldn't have even mattered if Rowling wanted her to be a year older than Harry because as I said, this girl was never mentioned in the books, not even during the sorting ceremony, so she could've easily just aged her up and used the name for Harry's love interest in books 4 and 5.

Now what I'm wondering, why did she still go for the incredibly racist and ignorant sounding name Cho Chang when she literally already had a perfectly valid Chinese name listed in her notes???

Gen 3 of my legacy has arrived and I plan for one of them to perhaps work in the Film career or as a DJ when he's older, while his sister I plan to become a diver or something similar. Definitely something IP-related. I'm currently playing in Sunset Valley, which doesn't exactly lend itself well to this type of gameplay and since I'm too lazy to add the required lots myself, I'd rather just move them to a different town when they're older.

Can you recommend me any custom worlds that have lots for Late Night, Showtime and Island Paradise, that also run well performance wise and are (ideally) populated?

The mental gymnastics these people will go through to defend this series and its multiple severe plot holes is mind-boggling to me. Just look at any posts that are even slightly criticizing aspects of the series or calling out plot holes. They'd always find some random explanation why everything actually makes complete sense and then treat the original poster as if they're stupid for not coming to the same conclusion. I don't know what it is, but something about the way potterheads act makes me feel like they look down upon anyone who is critical of the series. And I know this is generally a problem with online fanbases (the hunger games sub for instance can be like that as well), but Harry Potter fans really stick out to me in that regard.

Idk why I'm even making this post, I guess I just wanted to let off some steam and ask you guys if you've noticed it too or if it's just me.

Am I the only one who thinks it's absolutely fucked up that in ace-allo relationships, it's always the ace who is expected to "compromise" and have sex with their partner despite having zero desire for it? If anything, it should be the allo compromising by simply not having sex. Having sex when you don't want it is humiliating and potentially traumatizing, meanwhile simply not having sex for an allo might feel like a sacrifice, but at least it wouldn't traumatize them.

Both options suck for the people involved, but I think abstaining is still the lesser evil than pushing someone into having sex.