A week or so ago, I was writing a scene for Episode 19 and shared a snippet of it with the Magic Box. The scene happened to take place the night Elle left for college, and the bit I shared contained a line from Mya that made the people who were there say things like "She really doesn't get it, does she?" and "Ursula would totally put her in her place if she were still alive."

Apparently the latter comment stuck with me because I've now gone and written a dream sequence about that very scenario. This will probably not go in the update, which is why I'm sharing. It briefly references Four Seasons and is very, very mildly spoilery for Episode 19 in one comment Ursula makes about the state of the family (if this were canon, it would take place right after Billy goes to college).

Consider this your teaser for the update, and enjoy while I go work on The Art History Term Paper From Hell.

( You're going to drive them away. It's already started. )

NaNoWriMo has been giving me sound kicks in the rear over the past several days. At this point, I'm just keeping at it out of sheer stubbornness, and I'm behind because I deliberately took a day off yesterday to do some Simming and go to a friend's birthday party (we went bowling in Santa Monica, I kicked butt, and it felt goooooood).

The Simming I did wasn't much, but it gave me the last few pics I need to finish Episode 19 and got the rest of the generation 5 kids into college. After everybody got their makeovers I went around and took group pictures of the people in each house, and since it'll be a bit before I can share much else, here they are!

( The full cast of generation 5 below the cut )

Saffron and Snow got turned into dormies, but everybody else is playable. I have two college years to play through before I can write Episode 20, and I hope I can do it fairly quickly since I'll be cheating spare houses to the end of the semester once all the residents' grade bars are full.

Episodes 19 and 20 go together, so I'm still hoping to post them together if I can. I might give them to you separately if worse comes to worst and it takes me longer than I'm hoping it will from here. I am working on it, though! Promise. ^_^

Since it's Halloween, I figured Spencer and Aurora could take a break from being ballet heroes/heroines and get in touch with their flamenco side <3 I hope you have a good one, Prof!

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Just a quick update: I said I was planning to get the update out by tomorrow, but due to a necessity of studying for the Art History Midterm From Hell, I'm not going to make it. However, I'm not going to make you all wait until December for it, either. It'll be a bit delayed, but you'll still have the update within the next couple of days hopefully ^_^

Happy Halloween, everyone!

"You wanna know the difference between you and me? I make these tats look gooooood. And I bet I get laid a hell of a lot more than you do."

I hope you have a good one! ^_^

The rebuild is going pretty well so far! All the families have now been created (recessive genes added where necessary) and I have the Fitzhugh, Holm, Pitts, and Fox families all ready with the proper ages and skills and stats and jobs etc., as well as the side families (my Simself, the Langleys, the Buccaneers, Brit and Dahlia's house) and the Doran kids at college. All I need to do now is go fix up the Morgans and the Vetinaris, add the rest of the imported townies, and fix up the rest of the college kids, and I should be ready to play.

The rebuild hasn't changed the Sims that much (especially evident at the Fox house--when I played there yesterday Riku noogied Azula, Cid did his own solo dance while everyone else was learning the slap dance from Shaw Bigfoot who came in the welcome wagon, and Raikov was creepy and tried to Admire Suzy) and a lot of them rolled their original LTWs. For the most part, those Sims who came up with new ones get to keep them (Education Minister, for example, fits Billy much better than Hall of Famer did) but some will have to be rerolled (Kirby is not getting six married kids. Just no).

I elected not to recreate the Vetinaris who have already died (as killing off Cassidy and SJ twice just seems criminal) or Isaac Nebula. I did recreate Ashley so I could flag the Doran kids as related to the Pitts kids so there wouldn't be any nasty interactions there, but he's not dead either (he and Carli are townies and married). I did recreate all the Fitzhugh heirs and spouses as well as Ursula, though. I had them sleep in the appropriate beds for a bit before I killed them off so hopefully their ghosts will play nice. Rhys can get in the house now, though, so I'm not betting on it. ^_~

I also redid my Downloads folder, like I said I would, and went to my favorite sites, downloading with extreme prejudice (particularly in regards to clothing for adult women). I ended up with a folder half the size of the old one, which I'm pleased with, though I'm running short on teen female clothing so I'll need to hunt up some more of that. It's forced me to use Maxis clothing and hair more and that hasn't been a tragedy. It makes me more flexible.

Finally, I have added the generation 5 main house kids to my downloads post (Azula and Elle have been up since July, and I added Billy today even though I don't have an adult picture of him yet). I'm not going to do the cousins unless by request. If you want one of them, let me know and I'll put them up as well.

I hope you are all having a good weekend!

And you thought you could defeat me with your corrupted files, you stupid neighborhood. Well you were wrong! WHAT NOW, GAME? *victory lap*

Since I figure Lark could use some cheering up right now, here's who gave us the very last star we needed to be done with this FOREVER:




Yakko: "Marina will love me forever, you say? That sounds like a good enough reason for a star!"
Gabriel: "We are all much obliged, sir."

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So yes, a rebuild is necessary. Thanks to all of you who suggested things I could try before I jumped the gun and rebuilt with it potentially not being necessary, but after testing some things I discovered that there IS something in the neighborhood itself that is corrupted (it's not CC or the game itself) so I need to do a rebuild. But at least the neighborhood lasted long enough that I could get THIS done, which was all I wanted.

My next item of business is to go around the neighborhood and get everyone's stats so I know what they've earned skill-wise and made my best guess at recessives so I can put them back once they've been recreated. I also want to get Azula permaplat (just for the sake of it, I'll film the scene I need for that after the rebuild) as well as a couple other minor things. And then after that I'll start putting families in a fresh 'hood.

The good news is I can probably keep my downloads, though I'm thinking this is a great excuse to just start fresh. I really don't need as much CC as I have right now and I'm sure there's a lot of crap clogging up the folder. I don't know. We'll see.

Thanks again to all of you who read my rants and offered sympathy. You're awesome.

Allow me to introduce my new computer...



His Royal Highness Czar Nicholas IV, or just Nicky for short. <3

(No, this is not an actual picture of the computer. I snitched it from the Apple website. You may or may not be getting an actual picture soon though, because I want to share a pic of my workspace once Mom and Dad get me the new desk they've been talking about.)

The origin of Nicky's name goes WAY back to my high school days. As some of you may or may not know, De and I met because we both wrote prose stories for fictionpress.com back in the day, and Nicky was the name of a character of hers that I adored. (You know, in the "OMG PLZ MARRY ME AND HAVE MY BABIES" way.) My first computer, the 2005 model I got for a graduation present, was originally just going to be named Nicholas II, but a mutual friend of ours said "No, you have to add some kind of awesome royal title on the front of it!" And so the computer became Czar Nicholas II.

Now I pretty much just name all my MacBooks after Nicky because that's how I roll. The computer I bought in 2008 that got its monitor busted and necessitated the purchase of the new one was, naturally, Czar Nicholas III. May Nicky IV's life last longer than Nicky III's. *moment of silence* If I ever get a desktop, I might change things up, but for now this is how it's going to go.

So tonight I reinstalled TS2 (I uninstalled it from the old computer before I transferred my files), put my EA Games folder from the old computer in place of the new one, and loaded up the game.



This is the kind of picture Nicky currently takes. This is not the picture I remember taking in game, nor is the quality as good as on the last compy, so I think I set the game's resolution wrong. I'll play around with it. But that is not my biggest concern at the moment unfortunately.

Reinstalling the game did not fix the makeover issue. And not only that, but it is now a problem in all my neighborhoods (I checked Sierra Plains, Riverblossom [where the Nebulas live], and my photoshoot hood, and no makeover would stick). Maybe there are a couple more things I can check, but I think at this point a rebuild is going to be necessary. And if that's the case, then I'm going to need to put the Apocalypse on hiatus for a while while I 1) get that last business done so I don't have to do them all over again 2) package up all the Sims I need and lots I want preserved 3) tear my hair out 4) do the rebuilding and 5) play to where I wanted to play so I can update.

In short, GRRRRR.

But, y'know, new computer. <333333333333

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

That is all. More details after we get it set up and the files transferred. The end is in sight!

1. Make backups more frequently than I've been doing

2. Keep past backups instead of automatically replacing them with the newest one like an idiot

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I was planning on a post with cute pics of random antics tonight until I went in the game to take some and found out Spencer's family was corrupted. The twins, who turned child a couple of days ago, reverted back to their toddler selves. I also noticed that Spencer was wearing an outfit he shouldn't have been (the outfit he was wearing in Episode 14 which got changed when I played his house a couple of days ago). Moving them did not fix this. Neither did messing with ages.

Jenn, Lark, and Rose have spent the past hour talking me out of my tree (thanks, you guys) and a rebuild is not necessary YET. But I have to nuke the family and replace them with clean versions. EDIT: I might not necessarily have to get rid of the Langleys, but there may or may not be a neighborhood-wide problem with makeovers. Further investigations later this week.

Hopefully this is going to stave off a total meltdown until the Apoc is done. The last time I played the Langleys before this was January, so I don't know how long the lot has been glitched, and Spencer and Virginia have both been to all of the businesses. I'm hoping this is a recent enough development that it won't matter.

In better news, though, I am exercising my willpower and not spending anything this week so I can for sure get that new computer on Friday when I get paid. Here's hoping its life is longer than the last one.

I hope you have a great day!

I hope you have a good one, babe ^_^

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but this week's Sim Scenes prompts were so well suited to the Dorans that I couldn't not try to put something together! If you have read the RR, you will know what this is about. If you haven't, I'm sure it will make sense anyway.

( Hunted, Longing, Family (+10) )

Class is going well so far and I've had some time to play, so I've been going at it as much as I can. Business #3 is level 10. (Well, it fell to level 9 as we were closing up and I elected not to get it back up again until AFTER Mya is permaplat for the sake of doing this LTW the right way the first time, but, details.) #4 is level 6. I was playing last night and trying to get it all done in one go as usual but my desire to sleep got the better of me, so the rest will wait until later this week.

However, while I was playing, something AWESOME happened. Gabriel was on the top floor for a while, crafting Water Wigglers and Spin, Twirl, and Wobbles for Elle to stock, and I wasn't paying attention to him or to what was going in Mya's inventory.

( Evil jack-in-the-boxes, yes, but... (+6) )

Thanks to Lauri for coming up with half of this scenario and Lark for being an enabler <3

It's still the 29th in Hawaii!



Happy birthday, hon, I hope it was a good one ^_^

Last night I was reading an article by sarahtales about female characters and bias against them and how awesome they can be (read it, it's very interesting and has a lot of truth to it, I feel). There's a section partway through that begins by mentioning the Bechdel test, and a couple people I was chatting with at the time and I got sidetracked and started talking about it. I was curious, so I went through the list of current Apoc episodes to see which ones would pass and which would not, so before I go work on replying to comments, I want to share.

( So how does the Apoc rate, exactly? )

I get the general point of the Bechdel Test (female characters should be able to stand on their own without relying on male characters) but I don't think it's foolproof by any means. Female characters can have strong characterization even if men are a large part of the plot.

Episode 1 didn't pass because, like I said, it's from Rhys' POV, with a lot of flashbacks to his college years when he was working on fulfilling his LTW.

Episode 10 didn't pass because most of the female characters in the main house had either died or moved out just before. Marina asks Ursula if she's happy, but men are mentioned quite a bit during the conversation. Bella and Rhi have a discussion about the matchmaker, but Rhi talks about her man and it's obvious Bella is looking for one.

Episode 14 didn't pass because the primary female character is Marina and the rest of the characters that get extended focus are men. Plus, the episode dealt with the aftermath of Carlos' attack on Bella and Andrew's incarceration, so naturally most of the conversations between anyone were going to be about that.

The fact that they didn't pass doesn't mean that the women in those episodes were poorly characterized or dependent on men, though.

Anyway, that was fun just to satisfy my curiosity and refresh my memory on exactly what was in the episodes I've already published before I move on to what's coming up next, and I thought I would share because it interested me ^_^

I don't really have a behind-the-scenes planned for yesterday's update since most of the thought processes that went into it were stated in my Author's Note, but there are BABIES and they're really cute, so I have a brief picspam for you all ^_^

( SERIOUSLY, SO CUTE (+14) )

Tomorrow I'm going to try to play something productive, like Business #3. I want Billy to be a teen before I play some of the other houses.

I was up until four in the morning last night writing this and still didn't manage to get it up before I had to pass out, but here it is now and I hope you all enjoy ^_^

Boolprop Thread

Mom and Marshall moved the desk for me Wednesday night and yesterday I got in a massive play session. Ahhh, it feels nice to get things rolling again.

Instead of filming things for the interlude yesterday (that should get accomplished within a couple of days once I get around to it--I'm looking to start soon), I played catch-up. Azula's house, the girls' house, the Morgans, and the Vetinaris were all a little behind where the last update ended. I got the first three caught up yesterday and will do the Vetinaris for the interlude.

Things of note that happened:

- Azula is 19/20 on her LTW. She actually could have finished, but I need to wait for Elle to get there for plot reasons. Either way, that is the fastest I've done that lifetime want and I'm quite pleased with myself.

- The freaking burglar showed up TWICE; once at the girls' college house, and once at the Morgans'. That makes the third time Gordon has been hit, and the second for Robin (who may have eight nice points, but dammit you do not piss off a Vetinari. You just don't). These burglaries are seriously starting to annoy me. Law Enforcement is DEFINITELY getting lifted this generation just to make them go away already.

I wanted to do the third business today but don't have enough time to do it all at once because my grandmother is throwing one of our cousins a celebratory dinner of some kind, so that'll be later. However, what I think I'm going to do instead is some setup. Part of the interlude focuses heavily on Brit, Dahlia, Nero, and Amanda, so I need to get them out of college and set up with a house. (I can probably film the opening scene after that, too, since it's pretty short.) Then I need to build a pretty simple set--a concert stage. I might be able to film that scene too, depending.

Since I'm starting to send generation 5 to college, I've been thinking about housing assignments for next generation and have seriously been considering dropping some of the Sims from the rotation by having them "move to the city." I do love playing on rotation but I need to keep my rotation down to a manageable size, and I don't want to add too many houses this generation, mainly because I'd like to be finished by my two-year Apocaversary on March 7th.

The conclusion I've come to regarding that is that I can part with Callie/Laney and Kirby/Cid. I need to keep Azula and Billy for plotty reasons and I have a genetic experiment planned with the Doran twins and the Morgan kids. I could have parted with Mikey, but I can't do without Lex. I also want to keep Bella's line going but Edie interests me more as a Sim than her sisters do, so she's going to be the Pitts heir instead of Callie. Then I adore Robin and her boy together and want to play them. Riku I'm keeping because I want his awesomeness to stay in the gene pool. I'm still undecided about Woody, but I'm probably going to have him move back home with his sister or in with another house. So what I'm thinking I'll do is have Callie and Laney become world travelers, and have Kirby and Cid (who are both family) move to the city for better opportunities for their kids.

Anyway, that's all from me for today. How are the rest of you?

So my to-do list got grossly disrupted because the fact that my brother lives in the house full time now is preventing me from playing as much as I want to this month. Good news: Mom told me she'll move a desk to the living room for me to use whether Dad shampoos the carpet like he says he will or not, and I will be able to get a new laptop next pay period (FINALLY, THAT ONLY TOOK ALMOST A YEAR). Bad news: I am working tonight and therefore unable to make sure that dang desk gets moved, and my next pay period is not for two weeks.

However, I am anxious to get the show on the road with regard to Fiona's Story and my generation 5 plot, so I have been working on things the best that I can. I've been scribbling down some future scenes for the Apoc so I don't forget them, and I have a list of things that need filming for Episode 18. I also think I'm going to be writing Fee's story before I film any of it so that I can get the filming done quick once I have the whole story (it's going to be a series of journal entries).

Today, I got a window of about an hour between Marshall leaving for work and me leaving for work, so I used it to get some things done. I built Mya's third business, a boutique called Elle's Enchantments. Having only four people for this will make things interesting, I'm sure, but I bet I can manage it.

The second thing I did, speaking of Fiona...



Allow me to present the cast of Fiona's Story. That's obviously Fee on the right, and the family behind and to the left of her consists of Pamela Quinn and her two sons: Peter, the blonde college graduate who's got it all together, and Ted, the sulky emo wannabe. This is probably going to be my cover. What do you guys think?

Today I'm going to catch up on replying to comments and then get cracking on my list of reviews, in addition to writing some things down. I'm at work until midnight, so no time like the present I suppose!

A bit of ramble, a few pictures that never made it into the story, and hopefully a few giggles as well ^_^ Spoilers for the end of the BC, obviously, so if you haven't read it, don't click any of the cut tags or even look at my icon.

Tee hee, made you look

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( A few brief comments on setup )

( Mini-meta: How I Viewed The Final Three )

( Picspam )

And that ends my braindump for the next very, very long while. I hope you all enjoyed it ^_^ Hoping to see everyone soon with either Fiona's Story or Episode 18.