eyes on the stars, feet on the ground

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

Alistair Morgan, one of two remaining survivors of the Bloodmoon conflict and one of the last known Lunvinchenaîné (translates in their language to 'moon-shackled', the mooncasters/werewolves). Alistair was a devout Peteran at one point, raising his children as such. 'Peterism wasn't just about pacifism, however- it was about defending the good from the evil, and I couldn't do that kneeling in front of a statue every single day.'

and while i'm at it, what i've come to realize with early acces and paywalling is that has become so normalized in ts4 community is this model was never meant to be sustainable. yet some creators seem to put all of the pressure on the consumer to pay compensation when this is a hobby we are all doing for free. i will never give my money for someone who has clearly never given a damn about the people who are apart of this community. i'm glad we're realizing how harmful and incredibly greedy some creators are but i also want people to realize that the consumer will always hold the power. don't let anyone guilt trip you into thinking that recolored assets from game, broken meshes, repetitive sets, broken mods, ai-gen cc that looks like absolute garbage- need i continue? anyways don't let anyone guilt you into believing you are responsible for their livelihoods when in reality it has been show time and time again, they do not value the labor you’ve put into earning that dollar. please understand this before you find the need to defend an adult who is very much capable of that.

(In case it's not clear, I'm making fun of paywallers who are like aS a CrEaToR)

If you can't "afford" to do this hobby without demanding money from other people, what makes you think you have a right to charge OTHER people money? Why should WE have to pay YOU so YOU can do YOUR hobby?

Let me put it this way: Trying to prop yourself up in a shitty economic system by becoming part of that system of exploitation makes you part of the problem.

(No, getting a job in a capitalist system does not disprove this argument. Going to a job in a capitalist society is a built-in and inescapable reality. Modding communities DO NOT NEED TO HAVE PAYWALLS TO FLOURISH. While some people do make a living off Sims 4 modding, most do NOT and it is NOT a reasonable expectation that you'll open up shop and earn a roof over your head.)

It's one thing if creators do reasonable early access for Sims 4, a game that has been out for over a decade. 1-2 weeks! That's reasonable! At least in my opinion. I am personally willing to grant fellow creators that kind of grace, especially because I only opened my Patreon in 2020 so I could pay for my medication.

It's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MATTER if your content is early access for 1 month, 6 months, a year, y e a r s; you put trackers or even malware into your content; you threaten/dox people who share your content; you lash out and harass or get other people to harass others; you believe you are ENTITLED to OUR money, money that you so desperately cling to yourself.

There's a difference between advocating for respect for creative endeavors and endorsing a systemic divide within a community.

Let me put it another way: 95% of human (pre)history was spent in mostly egalitarian societies. We know this based on archaeological evidence taken from caves, meeting places of hunter-gatherer nomadic bands, burial sites, storage/food cache sites, etc. We don't have evidence of large scale conflict and patriarchal hierarchy until after any given culture has developed agriculture and developed the concept of an excess of personal property.

In short: Modding communities that do not tolerate pay models of any kind tend to be egalitarian and have actively produced the equivalent of entirely new games-- the Dark Souls modding community is particularly legendary in this respect, but there are so many others.

And what do we have with the Sims community's decades of paywalls?

Creators become paranoid. Backbiting.

They lash out at the community that has supported them.

Paywall creators start treating their PAYING SUPPORTERS like dogshit - we've seen how Felix and Harrie talk to people and treat them like peasant scum. Any creators who do this are spineless, entitled, and pathetic.

They begin to see the sharing of their content as "theft" even though it... really isn't theft at all; theft implies a wrongful claiming of ownership, but sharing an infinitely copyable file isn't claiming ownership.

Paywall creators become willing to do ILLEGAL ACTS (doxxing, violations of privacy in sharing someone's personal info/payment info/wrongful use of such, direct and/or indirect harassment, stalking, bullying, etc)

Free creators don't get the support they need because there is now an air of exclusivity around the paywalled content.

I don't know about y'all, but I do NOT want that in the Paralives community. I don't want it in the Sims community either, but if I can help stop it at its roots in Paralives, I'll sleep a lot better at night.

Consider: The Palantiri, those Big Glass Orbs you can look through and See Some Shit, are not evil in and of themselves. However, like any other "machine" they will reflect the intent and character of their user.

(For context: They also expose you to the wills of the person on the other end if they're also looking at you through a palantir of their own.)

Saruman overused the one he found when he moved into Isengard's Orthanc tower. He became corrupted through his own lack of self control and his arrogance thinking he could go toe to toe with Sauron.

He ultimately used his for control, deceit, and power, and it got his bitch ass brought to ruin, then stabbed by Wormtongue in the Shire. He died, bitter, alone, and his spirit forever left to linger impotent and unable to return to his home in the West.

Denethor overused his palantir to the point that, even though he was able to resist Sauron's will - a very impressive feat - Sauron was able to deceive him into despair. He continued to use it, further obsessed with control in his grief over Boromir, and his paranoia and jealousy of Aragorn. Eventually, when he saw the ships of the Corsairs coming up the river, he gave in to despair entirely - not realizing that the Corsair ships were in fact Aragorn coming with reinforcements.

Peter Thiel, coward that he is, naming his investment firm 'Valar Ventures', and his surveillance/AI bullshit 'Palantir' is in my opinion an unprecedented and stupifying level of billionaires' lack of self-awareness.

The sheer arrogance, the hubris of it, is fucking astounding.

One of the MAIN THEMES in Tolkien's ENTIRE body of work is that those who seek power will inevitably be corrupted by it; that the intent to seek power, control, dominance, is in itself a corrupting force and nought but a blight upon the world. And finally, that those who have power, ought to use it to PROTECT and STEWARD the world and those living within it; to be willing to give that power up when the time comes to do so.

My "favorite" example of this is people still jumping to get the EA Marketplace sets despite the literal terabytes'-worth of Sims 4 content that is already available for free. This, despite the Marketplace sets not being all that unique if not already outright copies of older creator/EA content.

Just so we're clear: You can do what you want with your games. I don't fuckin care. I myself have 250GB+ of mods in Sims 4.

The actual ISSUE here: It's a bit wild that we can't go a week without paywallers trying to fill the Paralives niche on one hand, AND that there are people who are more than willing to shell out cash for it, on the other.

Since when was making mods a form of compensatory outlet? Mods were well known to be a hobby. A passionate art form fanbase’s would create to evolve and expand their favorite games and share that amongst their fellow community. NEVER has mods been monetized in any gaming community before the Sims 4.

No one answer that, I actually do not give a fuck