Viola's Blog

[Princess Viola]

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Hi, I finally decided to make a blog. Been thinking about it for a while, but was always stuck on the 'what would I even post about?' part of it, but then I figured: it'll be my blog, I can post about whatever the hell I want (as long as I don't break the forum rules).

This blog will mostly be a...not a life update blog but just a 'here's stuff I've been doing' type of blog. Stuff I've been doing in video games, thoughts on things I've been watching (anime, other TV series, movies, etc), things I've bought recently, just a general 'whatever' blog. No real specific theme to it.

It's also open as an AMA-type thing too, you can ask me questions about me or the stuff I post about and I'll answer them (so long as the questions ain't too personal).

I will also be using threadmarks to help keep track of the actual blog updates VS replying to questions/comments/conversation in the thread.

 

[Princess Viola]

I've been playing The Sims 4 and decided to start a new save file because I wanted to build a house in Brindleton Bay, which is a world that was introduced in the Sims 4: Cats & Dogs.

The world is themed after a coastal New England town and, since I have a summer home in a coastal town in Massachusetts, that's definitely an area of the country that I am very familiar with.

It took me a few days to fully build and furnish the house, but here's a photo tour of it (WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES):

Spoiler: Sims 4 House Tour, Part 1

Since Brindleton Bay is meant to be a New England town, I decided that the house exterior should match that and went for a Cape Cod style design.

The house has a front porch with two benches and several planters where my Sim!self grows flowers (and catnip, for her cat).

Around the back of the house, we've got the back porch. There are a couple of benches, an outdoor table with chairs and umbrellas, and a grill. There some planters where my Sim!self grows dragon fruit (not very realistic since IRL dragon fruit grow in tropical and subtropical regions but they sell for $$$$), I am planning on adding some more planters to grow some regular fruits and veggies but I haven't committed to it yet (and it depends on if my Sim!self will still be able to access all the planters if I do that)

The front door...what wonders await inside?

Well, this is functionally what you'd see first thing when you get inside. Seems...normal-ish. It's just a living room.

The TV area of the living room. There's a sofa, an armchair, a TV, and a coffee table (with a bag of chips on it)

We got some flags over here (feel free to ask what they mean lol) and a couple of paintings. Also a cat and a place meant for the cat to play (but my cat in this save file is a kitten and kittens can't climb things, so it's really just decoration.

SHELF, for knickknacks. Only have two things there because finding objects in this game that will actually fit in this shelf is surprisingly hard.

WELCOME TO THE KITCHEN! Here we got the refrigerator, the stove, a bowl of fruit, a toaster, a microwave, and a tea maker with some teas.

Over here, we got the sink, some paper towels, cutting boards, knives, spoons, spatulers. Also the hot water tank is there because I didn't have any other place to put it, really.

Also got a bit of shelving here. There's an electric mixer, some canned and packaged goods, and plates and pots and pans as well.

Back in the living room, here's the fireplace and a couple of chairs to sit and relax in front of the fire. Also pride flags and pride wallpaper. Got some candles and plants sitting above the fireplace too.

The dining area, which looks out to the back porch (it's the reason why there's no chairs on one side of the table. Also got a pet food bowl for the cat and...a PLANT. Because as any Sims 4 veteran will tell you, 'Do you need some decorations? Add an indoor plant!'

A more detailed view of the back porch.

Here's what's properly above the fireplace - a very normal and not at all gay piece of official art of Cure Chocolat and Cure Macaron from Kirakira Precure à la Mode in wedding dresses, a couple of busts of Marie Antoinette, and also there's just a painting of Marie Antoinette hanging on the wall. All very normal things one would have in their house.

I wasn't 100% sure what to put in this small area here, but I put a scratching post, some coat hooks, and a cat bed.

On the other side of this little area, I put some storage tubs, a container with pet toys, and a litter box.

The first floor bathroom. Don't have much to say here, it's a bathroom. Got a sink, medicine cabinet, laundry hamper, a toilet, a bathtub/shower, towels, etc.

It's a bathroom.

THE STAIRS.

IGNORE THE POSTER I PUT THERE.

my lovely wife. my lovely disease wife. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

You go upstairs and well this is certainly looking a bit queer. But y'all ain't ready for how queer it truly is.

THE UPSTAIRS IS THIS QUEER. Pride flag wallpapers, pride flag floors, TRANS BLÅHAJ. It is incredibly queer.

EVEN MORE QUEER??????. Pride flags, a framed painting of my desktop wallpaper of Penny and Sylveon with the trans pride flag that says 'trans and autistic' ANOTHER BLÅHAJ??? Also a boombox that plays cassettes that's meant to look like something from the 80s.

My Sim!self's bed.

Yes her bed has cats on it.

Yes there is another blåhaj on the nightstand. Along with a CD player.

Also a scratching post for the cat.

A close-up of my Sim!self's wardrobe...her nail polish and perfume is being guarded...

The upstairs bowl for the cat. Also YES there is a section of flooring you can't get to because of the staircase. SHUT.

The main upstairs TV area. Got a nice and big flatscreen TV, yet another blåhaj, a DVD player, a Nintendo Switch, and a Game Boy Advance. Also some Precure posters.

Just some closeup photos of the stuff on the TV stand.

THE RETRO-GAMING AREA with a Sony Trinitron, a VCR, an Atari 2600 and some games, a SNES, a Sega Mega Drive, and a Game Gear. Unfortunately the TV is a decorative object and not a functional TV object. (I do have a retro TV that actually works as a TV in the game but it won't work with the TV table because it has its own built-in stand)

I do think the VCR looks a bit 'modern' but it was the only VCR CC I could find for TS4 lol.

Some closeups of stuff in the retro-gaming area.

This poster is so real.

OK SO DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T POST MORE THAN 40 IMAGES PER POST??? And this post was going to be over 40 images???

So I have to split it into TWO posts wow.

 

[Princess Viola]

OK here's the second part of my Sims 4 house tour lol

Spoiler: The Sims 4 House Tour, Part 2

A violin, so my Sim!self can pretend she is cultured (she has no idea how to play it).

The computer area, with YET ANOTHER BLÅHAJ. Also an Eevee. Yup.

On top of the bookshelf next to the computer desk is ANOTHER BLÅHAJ, HOW MANY DID I PUT UPSTAIRS - NOT ENOUGH. Also a different Eevee.

The posters above my Sim!self's computer. Got a Macross poster, some gay shit, and MY WIFE MY LOVELY SEA SLUG DOCTOR WIFE.

Robotech posters.

They're actually just various covers from the Titan Comics Robotech comics lol.

Robotech Defense Force roundels.

The upstairs bathroom. Nothing special here, just a toilet, a sink, and a litter box. No shower or bath upstairs.

No I don't know why there was water on the floor.

The upstairs balcony. Got a couple benches and a telescope (that actually doesn't work because the awning above the balcony makes the telescope think it's a room and you can't use telescopes indoors lol. I'm pretty sure there's a way to get it to work though but I haven't done it yet)

OH AND IF YOU WANNA SEE WHAT MY SIM!SELF LOOKS LIKE, here you go:

Spoiler: Sim!self

She looks like this.

I gave her blue hair (and pronouns).

ALSO YES the Nintendo Switch in-game is functional as a game console. The Sega Mega Drive is also functional (granted I don't use it since the Switch object means that all controllers will be Joy-Cons in the Joy-Con Grip) and so are the Game Boy Advance and Game Gear

AND MY SIM!SELF'S CAT.

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THIS

Spoiler: cate

she is a SPRIGATITO but realistic

 

[Pigrider09]

Those walls are the most wall walls ever created I love them so much

 

[Princess Viola]

Those walls are the most wall walls ever created I love them so much

it took me SO LONG to get them right tbh

 

[MelodicCharm]

what's that magenta anarchist flag represent? never seen that one before

 

[Princess Viola]

what's that magenta anarchist flag represent? never seen that one before

queer anarchism

 

[Princess Viola]

Yesterday I got back into my rewatch of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, it'd been a few weeks (actually about a month) since I'd last watched any. Rewatched episodes 8-10 today, would've watched more but I started watching in the evening before I had to go and make dinner.

I'm a big fan of the Macross franchise but it'd been literal years since I watched the OG series (I was like 13-14 years old and I watched it on some shady pirate anime streaming site in probably 360p) so I only remembered the most basic story beats of the series so this is good + I'm watching the 1080p BD version of the series and hoo-boy IDK if y'all care but classic anime in HD is just a goddamn vibe.

I really wish the BD was officially available outside Japan, but alas it isn't.

In fact, the last time the original Macross series was even released in the US was back in 2014 when Lionsgate released Robotech: The Classic Collection Volume 1, which had both the first 18 episodes of Robotech and the first 18 episodes of Macross (both in Japanese with English subtitles and the 2006 ADV FIlms English dub).

It was kind of a crap release, tbh. It was a manufactured-on-demand release on only FOUR DVDS (so 9 episodes per disc), no extras whatsoever, the English dub of Macross was only in stereo (despite it being produced in 5.1 surround sound), there wasn't even a damn settings option on the DVDs. If you were watching the Macross DVDs and wanted the English dub, you had to go into your DVD player's settings to change the audio from Japanese to English and to turn off the English subtitles.

No they never released a Classic Collection Volume 2.

It's also the last time that the original broadcast versions of any episodes of Robotech have ever been made available which honestly kind of annoys me more than the Macross thing?

Cause with Macross, you have the BD release. Sure, while it's not officially available outside Japan, it should obviously go without saying that you can easily find and download Japanese BD rips that have had English subtitles applied to them so you can watch this series in glorious HD and marvel at how gorgeous it looks (or laugh at how bad the off-model episodes look in HD, look I'm not gonna pretend every episode of this series is a looker)

But Robotech? I guess I have to explain this a little bit: back in 2004, ADV Films (who had the home video rights to Robotech) produced Robotech Remastered in conjunction with Harmony Gold (the company behind Robotech). Robotech Remastered featured a new 5.1 surround sound audio track with rerecorded sound effects, gave each of the three eras of the series its own unique opening and closing credits, new commercial bumpers (despite being on DVD lol), and restored some scenes that had to be cut due to content and time constraints back in the 80s (nothing with dialogue though, so the Remastered version just has like more violence and nudity lol)

And with the exception of the MOD Lionsgate release of the first 18 episodes from 2014 (that you can still buy mind you, since it's MOD), Robotech Remastered is the only version of Robotech's been made available since then pretty much. (I think at one point Amazon Prime Video had the original broadcast version of the series but now it's the remastered version too). It just really irks me when a work gets altered and then only the altered version(s) are made available (see also: Star Wars).

That's not to say that there's no easy way to get hold of the original broadcast version of the series, you can find it online easily and, if you want it physically, the old Legacy DVD release from 2001-2002 (which IIRC was the last time the original version was fully released on physical media) can be bought for about $100 online.

Anyways why the Hell has this blog update talking about how I've gotten back into my Macross rewatch become me complaining about how the original broadcast version of Robotech is no longer legally available and all you have are the Legacy versions on BD. Which look like ass by the way, just look at these two comparisons:

The top pic is the Japanese Macross BD and the bottom pic is the Robotech BD. The Japanese release is just objectively better in terms of quality.

And just for the Hell of it, here's the Legacy DVD (so the original broadcast version):

And I'm gonna be real with y'all, I think the Legacy DVD looks better than the Robotech BD lol. And the Legacy version ain't particularly a looker either since it was using degraded masters.

ANYWAYS MACROSS.

It's damn good. I wish Bandai would officially announce/release the Tiny Session VF-1S with Lynn Minmay that they showed off back in 2021 so I could own it (even though, because of the rights situation with the original series, I'd have to import it from Japan - or a US retailer that gets their stock direct from Japan - with no chance of showing up at regular US retail like the other Tiny Session releases WHICH I FOUND AT BARNES & NOBLE).

OK bye, thanks for reading this if you read it.

 

[Princess Viola]

This morning, I found out that there exists another different store dedicated to anime and Japanese pop culture about a mile up the road from my usual anime store and my comic book/toy store I go to, so I decided to go there and check them out (I had to go out anyway to Walmart to pick up my grandpa's medicine) and y'all I cannot believe this but I finally have them.

I HAVE ESPEON AND SPRIGATITO PLUSHIES NOW AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I didn't really spend a lot of time in the store, so I didn't get a good look at everything they had but in terms of other Pokémon plushies, they had tons. THEY HAD THE LIFE-SIZE SPRIGATITO FOR SALE. If I didn't have to rely on Lyft to get to places, I would have bought and then not have any place to put life-size Sprigatito plush when I got home lol.

 

[Princess Viola]

Back on Friday, I had to go to the tax office to drop off my grandpa's tax return documents so the guy he pays to do his taxes could file the taxes (since income taxes are due on Monday). I was a bit of a dumbass and didn't realize that I just had to give them the documents and they'd put it in my grandpa's file so he could do them for us and I didn't have to wait for them to call me but no one told me this, so I ended up waiting there for like 90 minutes before they called me and I learned that's all I had to do. I'll have to go back tomorrow because I didn't have cash with me to pay him but he said I could come with the money on Monday to pay lol.

Afterwards I went to Wendy's because I was hungry and it's literally like a 5 minute walk up the street and I had a grilled chicken wrap, a large chili, and a sweet tea.

After I had Wendy's, I had to go to the store because my grandpa wanted me to get a salad for us for our dinner and I decided to go to Target instead of Walmart or Publix because Target is usually less busy than either of those stores and also Target Circle (Target's reward system) had 30% off all Transformers figures as part of Target Circle Week, so hey maybe they'd have a figure I was looking for and I'd get them on discount.

Unfortunately for me, Target didn't have anything I wanted at all as far as Transformers go. They only had a small handful of figures in-stock and they were either ones I already have or ones that I don't really care enough about to get?

But I was walking around the store, I did end up buying a few things there, I got this stuff:

It turns out one of the deals for Target Circle Week was 'Buy 2 Get 1 Free on Movies, Books, and Board Games' and they had exactly two Studio Ghibli films on BD so I had to grab them. And uhh well I got season 1 of Wednesday on BD because it was the only other thing they had that I was remotely interested in as part of the B2G1 deal (I wasn't going to buy any books and definitely not any board games). They did have some Disney movies too but Disney stuff was specifically exempt from the B2G1 deal and everything else was nothing I was interested in.

And then I bought TWICE's latest EP because I am an unabashed TWICE stan and just had to buy it and some Pokémon cards because I mean I like Pokémon cards, they're fun to collect. I don't even really play the damn game (outside of in TCG Live on my phone).

After I went to Target, I headed on over to Macy's at the mall and then Barnes & Noble (both are like right by Target) and I got this stuff there:

I got the Quagsire plush, Transformers Legacy Bomb-Burst and Grimlock, and Thomas Wooden Railway Rebecca at Macy's and I'm in Love with the Villainess: She's So Cheeky for a Commoner Vol 2 at Barnes & Noble.

Macy's had sales on everything in the Toys R Us section, so the Quagsire plush was normally $21 and I got it for $18, Bomb-Burst and Grimlock (despite the $9.99 stickers) were normally $11.99 and rang up for $4.61 and $3.70 (I have no idea why the prices were different even though they're both toys in the same size-class and same MSRP), and Rebecca was normally $24.99 and I got her for $15.

GOD I wish Mattel would put more effort into the current Thomas Wooden Railway line because we haven't gotten anything new in the line since it came back in 2022 (outside of the annual Day Out with Thomas engines + an upcoming 'Celebration Engines' pack with special repaints of Thomas, Percy, James, and Gordon and a birthday cake cargo car) but either way it's still a million times better than the damn Thomas Wood line we had to deal with for a few years (you do NOT want to get me started on Thomas Wood, terrible line).

 

[Princess Viola]

Went to Barnes & Noble today because I wanted to buy some books (and BDs). Also went to Macy's at the mall and Target cuz they're all in the same general area.

Ended up getting this stuff at Barnes & Noble:

Yes I know there is an irony in purchasing a copy of a book by Peter Fuckin Kropotkin AKA one of the primary guys you think of when you think of anarcho-communism at a bookstore operating under a capitalist economic system but also I just prefer reading physical books, y'know?

Also UGH getting that Gender Euphoria book was a pain in the ass because there was literally someone sitting in the Barnes & Noble right by the goddamn LGBT books section and for rather obvious fucking reasons I don't like it when there are other people around me when I'm in the queer section of stores and he just would not fucking leave he was just sitting there on his phone scrolling through like Instagram or TikTok or YouTube Shorts or whatever but eventually I just barely managed to get over my fear because I specifically went to Barnes & Noble for this goddamn book and if I went home without it, it'd be like 'Well what was the fucking point then?'

Then I went to Macy's and I FOUND ANOTHER EEVEE?????????????????????????

im love them i love eevees. this is my fourth eevee. already friends with the others and my other plushies.

Then finally I went to Target and got this:

I love Fidough and I had been looking for this damn Tech Sticker collection with the shiny Fidough sticker and card for ages and I ended up finding it on an end cap display at Target (one that was promoting Pokémon Day...which was in February and this display certainly had never been at Target any previous time I'd been here this year)

ALSO THE TRANSFORMER, that is G2 Universe Mirage. Specifically, it is a redeco of the 2021 Kingdom Mirage figure that is based upon an unreleased redeco of the G1 Mirage toy that was planned for the Transformers Generation 2 toyline in the 1990s.

I was not supposed to find this figure.

G2 Universe Mirage was released as part of the Toxitron Collection, a set of Walmart-exclusive figures. Notice how I was at Target and not Walmart and yet they actually had three of them:

And well long story short, the figure was (rather obviously) not in Target's system and the cashier was like 'Do you remember how much this cost?' and I just said $15.99 when the actual MSRP was $24.99 so I got the figure for $9 off lol.

I shoulda said something like $9.99 instead (didn't wanna say something blatantly ridiculous like $1 or whatever) but $15.99 was just the first thing that came out of my mouth.

 

[Princess Viola]

Went to the local comic book store today, grabbed a few things.

I got a Cinderace model kit, Transformers Energon Arcee and Battle Ravage figures, a lunar moth plush, and the Titan Comics Robotech trade paperbacks 3-5 (I already had 1 and 2).

I also got a new set of nippers for model kits but that's boring.