Sigh... In case everyone still reads this: I am very sorry I had to stop. In fact I have the story written till the end which is... far far away. But the problem is, my Sims stopped working and after months of trying to find out why, the problem turned out to be in the neighbourhoods that somehow got buggy. I had to delete and reinstall everything, and with exam period, christmas and general life, to rebuild it where it once had been was absolutely impossible. I am in the process of doing it now, so, whoever passes by, you might still get your ending.

I was devastated when it happened and trust me I did my best to get my sims back, but there was no way in hell

Thank you so much!!! :toothy1:

Honestly the animals were really really killing me, they never do what I want them to (and believe it or not the fake horses are the worst. LOL)

My long period without simming is hopefully over so you can expect updates within a few days.

these are so beautiful! Do you consider uploading them as non defaults too?

PART 12: LEEF

As the path narrowed, Leef slid off the mare and walked by her side.  Desperado clung to her thick mane by his fingernails; he could barely find the strength to stay on her back.  Leef calculated that it must be around two o’clock, maybe three.  Dawn would still be a good few hours off.  Not that it would give them any more protection, thought the captain pessimistically, unless they were well hidden.  At least Desperado had enough sanity left to think of the caves.  They now came into view, black holes in the side of the hill.  Wolves patrolled the higher plateau; Leef could see their darker shapes against the inanimate matt grey of the rock.  He hoped they weren’t that territorial.  The mare pressed against the side of the gulley when she spotted them and came to a standstill.  



So there they were, out in the open with a wolf pack up ahead and Agave knew what lay behind them back in the forest.  The mare started to paw the ground and snort.  A large lupine was approaching them.  Shadowed in the gulley, it moved with silent footfalls across the rock.  Leef felt for his knife.  Before his fingers could close around the hilt, the wolf leaped from the ridge and landed in front of them.  It eyed them, the fur on its neck rising in hackles in a poise that was meant to intimidate.  It gave a warning growl.  Recent events in the forest had put all animals on guard, including the higher carnivores.  



The mare was trembling, sweat had broken out on her skin, and it was a silky sheen in the moonlight.  Desperado had started to gibber.  Leef sighed inwardly.  It just wasn’t his night, his expedition, his year, even.  He thought about using pyralis fire to deal with the wolf but quickly realised that it would only draw attention to whoever was out there decimating the area.  Instead he had an inspiration and growled back.  



The wolf growled again and Leef growled in return, this time more viciously.  It was clear neither of them were going to back down in a hurry.

Above, the night sky crackled and a portal opened into the otherlanes.  Something from the forest rose up and disappeared into it.  The smell of ozone flooded the place accompanied by the odour of burnt sugar.  The wolf relented, and rushed off up the gulley back to the caves.  Leef followed swiftly.  They were allies in adversity now.  The wolf took a route back up to the higher levels and Leef chose a cave nearer to the ground, the entrance to which was partially covered by thick brambles.  It appeared to be unoccupied and fairly spacious within.  



By the time Leef had managed to get them all inside, his clothing was torn from holding back the brambles and he looked less like a Parasiel captain and more like a labourer with every passing minute.  The cave was warm and dry; it retained the heat of the day thanks to the porous properties of the rock.  A small stream cascaded down the eastern facing wall and disappeared underground, part of the natural irrigation for the area.  The mare was already at the stream’s periphery, drinking her fill.  Then she settled down at the back of the cave, giving a snort of relief.  She felt much safer now.



Leef assessed the place.  There was moonlight coming in through cracks in the hillside wall, so that the cave was dimly lit.  In the daytime it would be quite airy and pleasant.  There were also signs of occupation, although not recently.  Some straw lay to one side, roughly shaped as bedding.  Ashes and charred wood were scattered around a natural depression in the cave's floor that must have served as a fire bowl.  Above that was another crack in the ceiling which would whisk the smoke away.  Could they risk a fire now?  It might deter the wolves from investigating and also keep them warmer.  Desperado looked to be shivering; his pants were still wet from the river crossing, as were the captain’s.  Leef chanced a look outside the cave entrance.  The atmosphere seemed to have lifted somewhat, it didn’t feel so oppressive and energy sapping.  There was a smoky appearance to the sky where the portal had opened and then closed shut that obscured some of the twinkling constellations.  The wolf pack had posted a guard.  An imposing shaggy creature, he lay on a grassy ridge opposite the cave entrance just keeping an eye on the place.  His nose was pressed against his feet and he was dozing.  Leef couldn’t feel any threat from him and thought that he might be useful should anything else come nosing around.



He went back in and gathered up the charred wood.  There was enough for a fire, especially when he’d added to it the remains of dead bramble.  He stilled his mind, conjured fire and carefully lit it. He was second level Ulani, thanks to spending some time in Immanion, courtesy of Tiahaar Swift’s alliance with the Gelaming.  He’d embraced the blossoming of his psychic abilities as enthusiastically he’d done with the honing of his martial arts skills.  In his eyes, it could only be an advantage, never mind what the Varrs used to think.  Those days were over with and now they were more civilised, supposedly.   He decided to take off his clothes and to wash them in the stream.  If they were then arranged properly near to the heat of the fire, they’d dry by the morning.  It was a good plan except for when he washed the knee of his trousers.  Then he had to stop breathing for a while as the stench of rotting bowels assailed his nostrils for the second time that night.



When he finished he did the same task for Desperado.  The poor har made little protest as his garments were summarily removed, washed and placed to dry.  Leef rearranged the straw nearer to the fire and laid Desperado down on it.  Then, without further hesitation he joined him.  The straw was old but still smelled sweet, the dry cave had preserved it and it made a pleasant bed.  



Leef lay on his side, his back towards the western wall and Desperado lay on his back.  Leef noticed that Desperado’s skin had the same sheen as the chestnut mare’s pelt.  It was velvety to the touch and very inviting.  



“My name is Leef Sariel,” he said, as his fingers played over the young har’s stomach.  “I can’t call you Desperado for much longer.  It’s undignified for a creature of your obvious breeding.”

THIS IS AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

my sims will adore it

I apologize that this is so late, and the post so short, but I promise, if anyone is still reading this, an interesting twist is about to come the next time...

PART 11: MYSTERE

Despite of the turmoil behind our backs, I felt strangely comfortable. Of course, I was aware of the danger – the peace was only illusionary, the stillness in the eye of the storm. It was the touch that provided me comfort and a false sense of safety, and the warmth of another body that assured me that I wasn´t the only being left there. Something to hold on, something that told me that it wasn´t just me against the rest of the world anymore. It was the young mare, too - the only survivor of the herd, as I was the only survivor of the entire village - whose legs were carrying me away from where the whole land was dying in cramps. And of course, it was the har whose name I didn´t know – I thought him a stuck up brat, he thought me an unexperienced baby, but it didn´t really matter. He was there where I needed him to be. Maybe he felt something similar, that was the reason why he chose to carry me to the stable instead of leaving me behind and buying time for himself. If we make it out alive, we won´t mean anything to each other. Anything at all. But now, all we had was one another.



I knew the only reason why I was still in the saddle was his arm that kept pulling me so close to his body that I could take in every single muscle of his chest, firm and tough, as I could feel the horse moving under me, muscles stretching and flexing in regular intervals. When I concentrated enough, it seemed as though I was one with the two bodies, moving in their rhythm, a single being. I used the poor leftovers of my life energy to preserve that state, so that my weight wouldn´t be an obstacle for either of them, forcing my mind to stay alert. They say there´s something good about all bad things… Maybe its true, because the deafening noise scared me enough not to fall asleep. I still felt slightly nauseous, but I knew I wouldn´t womit anymore, because I was too weak even for that… and my stomach was as empty as it could be.



He had enough power for us both, but I had the knowledge of my country. Maybe he didn´t trust my judgement when I gave him the directions, but he had no choice… and maybe he did – either way, the „sweetheart“ sounded less offensive when we shot out, heading North. Avoiding the branches that threatened to hit our heads and fallen trees, nearly invisible in darkness, he lead the horse for what seemed to be ages, but might have been an hour in reality, and pulled the reigns when we reached the river. I could feel his suspicious eyes burning through my neck from behind, so I chose not to turn over my shoulder and simply pointed to the right.



„There´s a place where we can cross the river, down the stream.“ As he sped the house towards the shallow, I laid down so that my head was resting against the mare´s mane, holding on it. I knew that it would be better for the horse if we got off its back for the crossing, but I would probably drown at my current state… and I didn´t even dare to imply to the captain to do so, if I myself would stay seated. Thankfully, the mare didn´t give us a chance to consider it and threw herself into the stream with the vitality of a battle ship. Poor thing, she wanted to get away more than we did... if that was even possible.



„Our shaman used to say, when something from another realm follows you, you might want to put water between yourself and that thing. Not a sea or a lake, but streaming water, a river, possibly a waterfall.“  The words sounded stupid as I said them, and I itched to provide some further explanation that would hopefully correct my previous half-mouthed statement, but speaking had exhausted me so completely that I wasn´t able to. „It might be just a superstition, but we will still be safer on the other side. There are caves in those hills where we can hide until the sun is up.“ I half muttered into the fluff of the mane, half thought, directing the animal towards the rocky path that lead towards the hills and meandered upwards, around the massive rocks. Most of them were hiding deep caves, but some of them actually hosted more shallow ones, used as a shelter by the first people in our region thousands of years back, forgotten, and occasionally rediscovered by a tramp throughout the years.



The path itself narrowed down dangerously in the hilly area, and normally I wouldn´t dare to take a horse up there at night, under any circumstances. Now I just wanted to slide off and curl up on the floor somewhere remotely safe. Maybe a few hours later I would be able to think about what to do with the rest of my life. It would be a shame to die a few days later if we actually survived THIS. Provided we got over the …necessity… as quickly as possible, it couldn´t be much worse than what I´ve already been through.

usually it should stop flashing blue if you fix the sims appearance in the mirror- Trouble is you have to do this everytime you enter the lot.

Its normal when they drunk too much of coffee. They´re on coffee high :-P

*bows* THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, You really fullfill all my sim egyptian dreams. PLEASE, MOOOOORE!!!!!!

Oooooh so that is why my stars are gone!!!!!
I was not getting sad because I hoped they would be there some nights and gone on other nights, thinking it had to do with the seasons or weather. But now I realize Ive really never seen them since seasons. Crap- but I see clouds!

See I need the lots packed, but I cannot do it in the game, although I can get into it. My game has this terrible problem that in certain neighbourhoods, it restarts the pc when I stay in the neighbourhood view screen longer than about a minute. For packing a lot in the game, more than a minute is needed and the game explodes before I succeed. That is also why I want to get rid of those neighbourhoods and bring those sims and lots into new ones. I won´t reinstall because it won´t help me, when I reinstall and load the old saved game and neighbourhoods back, the troubles will also be back.

If the game crashes when you go to the bath category, it means you have some object that for some reason became corrupt within your bathroom downloads. I highly recommend to use the 50 x 50 method to find out which file it is. That means, take out half of your downlaods, load the game, if it still happens, try the other half, if it does not happen then, your file is in the first half... keep doing it this way until you get to it. It may sound lenghty but it´s the only way to find the item. Of course there are things about which you can safely say they are not causing it (hair, clothing, etc), so you may exclude them from your searching to make it quicker. I had exactly the same thing happening, except my game crashed when I went into the light cathegory. I learnt it does not mean anything that this wasn´t happening before. In my case, it was a light that I had for over a year, and that was working perfectly until it strangely started to cause these problems. When I removed it, I redownloaded it and it works now again. Sometimes things get damaged for no reason.

I definitely do not recommend reinstalling before you have tried it without downloads and attempted to find the file. Even if you reinstall, it will still be there and the game will still be crashing.

I dont want a backup of the neighbourhood, I want the lots separately.
I am going to disard the neighbourhood because it is damaged and restarts my pc, but I don´t want to loose all the work on the lots. I packed the sims with simpe.

I was wondering, is there a way to save (pack) lots except for saving them ingame?
With simpe perhaps? How do I do it?

Well, in my opinion it´s one of the best EP´s. You actually get some new objects clothing-wise and furniture-wise that are not ugly... You get the seasons of course which is great, and you get lovely new things that I personally wanted in my game for ages, such as the waterslides, the skating rings - great for storytelling, photoshooting etc. You get new interactions... new hobbies like fishing, etc. And new animation that are really nicely done (f.e. when a sim is freezing, hehe). You can harvest trees and use what you get without having to have hacked trees. Then there´s the Plantsim thingy which is really adorable AND in comparison to the maxis zombie skin, vampire skin or werewolf, they look lovely without replacements. And then there´s this great option I really really wanted (and that for some reason doesn´t work for me but I hope it gets fixed) is the ability to assign hairstyles to certain types of clothing. I was really excited about that because changing it yourself is a bit lenghty - waiting for it to load everytime you change the sims appearance, so, would be definitely nice to just change to formal clothing and have an updo. If you like the sims working, there are actually interesting careers as opposed to the normal doctor etc (explorer, journalist, gamer, musician...) which was nice for me too, as I used to have a lot of downoaded careers but they messed my game so I had to get rid of them. Plus the supercute penguin tops it all. I think you´ll love it, it´s def the best EP for me, besides NL.

Now...eh does it slow down the game a lot, I don´t really know. My game slowed down quite a lot when I installed it, but I installed it together with Pets, so it was double the trouble and I cannot say which EP causes it. People say though that Season fixes some bugs that stayed after the Pets EP, so it may be even helpful in that sense.