Hey folks; don't know how many of you are part of LiveJournal, but I've found a very useful community that's started up lately:

http://community.livejournal.com/nanoeditors/

It's called NaNoEditors, because apparently March is National Novel Editing Month. I saw it spotlighted on my home page, so I checked it out - and it's incredibly useful. There's links to check out, and you can ask advice on any part of the writing process - I've done that myself, and got some very helpful replies. Definitely worth checking out, even if you're not a member

Hey there Squinge

I don't know if you fix bugs like this, but I've found a very annoying one regarding sims that can teleport - I found out it was an EAxian bug after browsing through MATY. Any sim that can teleport, either by ninja or spell, can no longer walk past slopes - they get stuck and need to be teleported away.

Is it possible for this to get fixed please? Pescado just says to teleport them where needed, but we shouldn't have to.

I personally have all up to AL, but not everyone with this problem has.

Thanks in advance

It's funny how these ideas can hit you. I was playing with another founder, with a less interesting back-story, and one day I was listening to Blackmore's Night (American "renaissance folk/rock" band). Lorelei happens to be one of my favourites, and this particular time the lyrics just sparked something. All of a sudden I was like "Yes, that's who my founder will be!"

So I went to work in Body Shop - then realised after some playing that I got a few details wrong, and her experiences really weren't much to write home about - no problem for just playing, but I have a story to tell here. This is my second try with "lovely Lorelei", and so far things are going a lot better. I've wanted to write about it too, which can only be a good thing - and the pictures have come out a lot better than they did the first time. Yes, it's a legacy, so the pics won't be as great - but I've grown so used to being careful and going for good quality pics it's become second nature. I tried using the in-game camera last time and the lack of quality made me cringe.

[/SIZE]
Legacy rules - Well, given the amount of mods sitting in my main program files, I couldn't play properly even if I wanted to. I'm not gonna take them all out every time I want to play the challenge I don't really have the patience to keep score either, so this is purely for fun. Mods-wise I'm a coward - no way was I ditching the fixes for a start. I wasn't going without Macrotastics either; it doesn't give any advantage, I've just got so used to getting the place clean with just one click. I ditched a lot of mods, but the really high annoyance-busters were staying put - they get so obsessive in later EPs it's beyond funny.

Pictures/story-telling - I have got a little lax on both fronts, since this is just for fun - a chance to relax after the emotional roller-coaster Xenophobia's turning into. However, after discovering Photoscape I couldn't help myself - I discovered this wonderful backlight tool, as well as frames, and I got a little carried away :angel: Backlight tool for these pics = essential, since lighting's the last thing to worry about in the beginning. It saved a lot of my pics and added some extra colour to others

One more thing - I gave her a custom skin and eyes; both by Enayla, both geneticised. I've also townified some other custom skins and eyes, so anything can happen with these guys!

Hope you enjoy yet another legacy story :angel:


I have been on this Earth longer than I care to tell you, spending the centuries singing upon the silvery rocks and luring seamen to a watery grave. While it proved entertaining for a long time, it eventually became lonely and dull. I grew tired of such an existence, starting to wonder what lay beyond the seemingly endless ocean. These mammals known as humans sparked my interest also; I watched their progress over the years, their ships becoming more streamlined and driven by different means as time went on. There was more going on in their minds than I gave them credit for, I could see that even then.

So it was one day that I decided to leave, not knowing what I would be letting myself in for but not caring. After bidding my farewells, I started to swim armed with nothing more than a waterproof case, containing clothes for dry land and a stash of this bartering substance these humans call money, which had been plundered from their wrecked ships. I swam for what seemed like days, hitching rides on passing dolphins where need be, and eventually stepped ashore on this rather empty piece of land.


I didn’t travel alone, either. I found this little lady on a deserted rowing boat some time ago, and she has been my companion ever since. I named her Ariel, after a mermaid I understand is very well known to a lot of humans.


It is fortunate that she is a strong swimmer, although of course I had to take a lot of breaks to let her rest. Eventually we stepped onto dry land for the first time, and I soon learnt that walking with a fish tail just wasn’t going to work. I needed to dry off and change if I was going to get about properly.


What my seafaring friends neglected to tell me was that, once I began my new life on the surface, my powers would considerably weaken, all those talents I had nurtured throughout the ages would be lost and I would become mortal. Funny really, that the last part at least I’m not so bothered about, having already lived for hundreds of years. Although it all depends how long I have now I will be living as a human – will it be enough to build myself up again? More importantly, what shall I do with this time? So much to explore – where to start…?

Just to let you all know, SimPE for K&B has been released, with some bug fixes too It's also been tailored to handle the new CEP.

xenophobia [(zen-uh-foh-bee-uh, zee-nuh-foh-bee-uh)]

An unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or different.

~ From Dictionary.com

Fear breeds hatred. Hatred breeds violence. Violence is fueled by aggression, which runs rampant through the all-human, all-male household. Caught in the crossfire is a boy in his mid-teens, bound to one family by blood, and the other by friendship. All he wants is for the two sparring households to make up and move on, but what will it take for that to happen?

Author's Notes

Hi guys, it's me again! As you may be able to tell, I've put a lot of effort into this one (so if this suffers the same fate my others seem to have, I'll be pretty upset ), mostly meaning a testing/enhancing of my Photoshopping and picture-taking skills. You may also have noticed, I've changed the looks on a few sims, but I made sure you can still recognise them There is/may be a few issues with the meshes, but I can't help those sadly

This story is mainly about the aforementioned family feud, but there are sub-stories that add twists and turns to the main one. It's also in a different style to that you've previously seen from me, and the chapters are longer and more picture-heavy (advance warning for those of you with slower connections ). You may ask why I did such-and-such with so-and-so - this is just the way I imagine them to be for myself, or maybe even the way they act in my game - not elaborating much here, but one sim who may be horrible in other games is a sweetie in mine :love2:

A word about the setting; my other stories are based in England as that 'hood was completely custom, whereas this one was made by Maxis. It's obvious from things like mailboxes and police uniforms that it was set in the States, so that's where I've kept it - now, I face the challenge of an English author working with American characters and settings. Although I think I've pulled it off pretty well, don't hesitate to pull me up on any mistakes I make, I'm bound  to slip up here and there

What of the other stories?

Think of this as a break. I get the feeling from lack of comments lately, that guys are beginning to get bored of my utopian (comparatively) neighbourhood, and I wouldn't blame you - I'm getting bored with it! :laughing: They've made good writing/picture practice, but my nice nature put up a boundary against being too mean to the characters (especially since I got attached to a lot of them), which now I'm beginning to get past as I seek new material to work with. There are a few interesting stories in Strangetown, but this one stood out the most for me - not to mention the back-story offered just by the Grunts.

Special Thanks

Joe Mulcahy and his video series for inspiring me to rescue Strangetown from the depths of my Program Files folder
SaraMK at MATY for fixing the default neighbourhoods, and her tutorial on merging them
Decorgal at MTS2 for her posing hacks (especially her custom poses box)
Spookymuffin for tweaking Stargazer's main lighting mod
HystericalParoxysm at MTS2 for her Seasons lighting mod
XPTL297 and alkaloid for their default hair overrides
Oepu for her gorgeous skintones and whoever made them default
Margierytka for her remakes of the Strangetown community lots
All you other CC creators and modders out there :worship:

*looks above* Think that's everything - enjoy the story!

Contents

• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14a
  
• Chapter 14b
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
• Epilogue

While MTS2's messing about I'll post this here too - I can't be the only lefty on the forum

*****

After i_like_cheesy_oranges started replacing the in-game cursors, someone made a suggestion:


One I agreed with, and finally decided to do for myself, so here they are - left-handed versions of the in-game cursors; nothing in them changed or edited, just flipped over (yes, I did all the ones needing it, including the sledgehammer tool):

 
 

Installation Instructions

These do not go into your Downloads. In order to use these, first track down and back up this folder*:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UI\Cursors

*Assuming that you installed at the default location. Your path may be different otherwise.

Additionally, if you own Pets or up, do the same with this one:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 [EP]\TSData\Res\UI\Cursors

where [EP] refers to the highest EP you own, including TSS.

Now, download LeftyCursors and extract the whole folder to here:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UI\
 
You'll get a dialogue box asking if you want to replace whatever's already in that folder, click yes. If you own Pets and/or over, also download the LeftyHammerCursors file and extract to here, same rules as above:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 [EP]\TSData\Res\UI\

That's it - although if you get confused, don't be afraid to ask, I'm not the best of explainers :oops:

Special Thanks

i_like_cheesy_oranges @ MTS2 for the initial idea of replacing cursors
The guys behind Real World Cursor Editor - the program I used to edit these ones

This is in response to a request on my Gender Defenders story thread - meet the quietest of the Sedoni trips, Luca



At his happiest either out jogging/racing with his brother Leo, playing Red Hands with their Dad, or pouncing the family piano during a rare moment when it's free



Starsign: Cancer
Aspiration: Your choice - all I did was take a finger, close my eyes... :laughing:
Personality: Maxed on nice and active, one behind on playful, very neat but also pretty shy
Turn-ons/offs: Again, I'll leave that up to you.



After the fun I gave you with Chris, I felt I owed it to you to make this guy as CC free as possible:



He has a peggy (pay?) hair above, but I might give him a hair-cut - seems shorter hair suits him better. In any case, for what it's worth, this is how he looks in my copy of Bodyshop:



My folder is brimming over with default replacements, so he may look different in your game depending what your replacements are, if you use any.

Enjoy!

First it was a teen drama that flopped, then it was a thread to house what would have been contest entries had either of them made it. (Yes, I know one had another chance, but meh ) This time it's a bit of a mixture - during my stint in Gender Defenders, this vivid imagination of mine woke up from its rest from Uni to bombard my mind once more with story ideas. I needed somewhere to put them, so here they are Title slide courtesy of last mini-task in fact, was so proud of it I decided to show it off

A word about the format though: this is a little different to how I usually write. To save you from skipping to the contest to catch up, I'm mixing my entries into this story, although those of you also watching/participating will notice a few differences here and there, nothing major but there'll be times you'll think "That wasn't there before." Think of this as a director's cut Anyway, back to the point, the contest is run like a reality show of sorts, and that's how I've written my entries. You'll have periods where it will seem like he's talking to the camera, and other parts that revert to normal dialogue, which are generally the parts the "viewer" doesn't see. I hope it isn't too confusing, but that's the best way I found to do this.

Before anyone complains about there not being enough background on the character, I left it out on purpose - round one's mini-task goes a little more in-depth so I handle it then Enough of me babbling, I'll let you get on with it - enjoy!



Since there seems to be a little confusion over which sim belongs to who, I'm putting up this little list of credits to the sim-makers concerned:

Alec Banks and his Mum - adalita
Kiichi "Kii" Misho - brendabond
Zamir Nuñez - nextor_torres
Katsumi Takahashi - erica_jean
Autumn McPherson - skizicks
Ginny Harris - aprilcrow
Rowan Murphy - 3Alissa

Sims were downloaded from links in the contest chatter thread, apart from Alec's Mum, who I asked ever so nicely for in a PM :angel: All other sims are my own

Love them or just sick of seeing them, here they are - my favourite muses of the moment, Andy and Chris Turilli!


The stars of my story on the adult forum, so I can't elaborate too much on their relationship... let's just say they were born twins and leave it at that :angel: Being such, I fudged their astrology to make them both Cancers (their birthday was mentioned in the story, so I made it fit), so when I cover them individually I'll give their original starsigns. Their Dad's around here somewhere too - remember "Garfield", the lazy alien vampire? These two are his sons Not even their real names, just shortened/pet versions:


In my game, Andy is now a "bloodsucking fish" as he so nicely puts it, meaning a dhampir who grows fins in the water However, in order to get the size of the fangs right (matching the smaller fangs replacement for all vampires), I had to dive into the mesh files to the point where uploading them isn't an option, so you're getting the fang-less version - think of it as before he got into his current situation.


These are the clothes he comes packed with, but not the body hair I'm afraid. What you see there is a modified version of Morague's anatomy bits found on Sexysims2 - I added the hair myself. His skintone is actually a replacement alien default, an Oepu skin I recoloured, so depending on the skin you're using he may look different.


Aspiration: Friendship
Starsign: Capricorn
Personality: Very playful, nice and outgoing, maxed on neat. Was as bad as his Dad in the activity department, but deciding I didn't fancy a repeat performance I got him "encouraged" up to three.
Turn-ons/offs: I'll let you decide, but one's got to be fitness


I don't know how the creator of his hair would feel about my including the mesh, so to play safe I'll offer a link instead. As I said before his skin's a default replacement, but so are his eyes. You may recognise the shirt if you've visited the group project section here; given he's a parent himself I thought it appropriate


Chris is a good ol' fashioned vampire In fact he was bitten once before at fifteen out of necessity, got cured the next day, and missed the "night life" so much he asked his Dad to bite him again. Now anyone who's exported and tried to use a vampire sim before (like me!) will tell you it'll just be a normal sim with red eyes and fangs once you get them into CAS, but fortunately that hasn't happened here - while giving him better freckles and saving a copy, the red eyes went. So not only will he be a normal sim in CAS and beyond, he'll look normal too!


Now Chris is a little more customised than Andy. I'll save the rest for later, but all you need to know at this point is that's how you'll get him, in all his gothic glory


Aspiration: Friendship, but knowledge would suit him too
Starsign: Pisces
Personality: Bursting with energy, maxed on nice but also very serious, with three neatness points. Add to that his more extrovert nature and you have a wannabe sleazy comedian - he's forever telling dirty jokes! :lol:
Turn-ons/offs: Completely up to you. If you have BV I'd have to say creativity though (I think that's what the artist's palette means).

Freckles by migamoo: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=216553
I didn't realise I had another set, but to play safe they came from here

Before I say any more, I have to say a big thank you to Yakov for allowing me to include the mesh for his outfit! This guy's more complicated to install as it is, but worth every second For instance, he won't shrink in the shower - that's an Oepu skin he's wearing that I added body hair to, and linked to the Slimmer Bodybuilder and the BBM Teen - you must get the necessary meshes, otherwise you'll have a case of "Floating Head Syndrome" on your hands. The hair is a piece of cake however; just go here to get the mesh. The file matching the sim pictured is named Chris.rar - see below for more details.

I've thrown in an added bonus with this guy - for those of you who remember and prefer his older look, go for the file labelled ChrisOld.rar Same applies as for above, all that's different is his face I will warn you though, I can't promise that sim's babies will look so pretty... :angel:

One last thing. These two are young adults. If you don't have Uni and really want them, check post #7 for the adult versions (When I said I added the hair, I just meant I used Allen's hair transparencies. I'm not that talented )

Enjoy!

I've looked everywhere for info on this, but I've only come marginally close with the results. Given you can't do this in-game even with a cheat, I'm guessing this is a more technical/SimPE question, but here goes:

Is there any way to age a sim down to a baby? I've tried adjusting the age data and property sets in SimPE, as well as changing the age in the sim description, but that alone resulted in an invisible baby with a toddler's head, buggy as the nearby adult couldn't interact with it. Probably missing something, the question is what? :scratch:

Why am I asking? Story reasons - it's a tad annoying trying to tell a story involving babies when the sims concerned are now adults. I have pics of them as babies but they're old (read: different skintones and taken with in-game camera). I really don't want a mismatch of pictures in my story if I can help it, I'm guilty of doing that enough with past stories already.

If someone in the know can help I'd be eternally grateful Cheers.

While we all wait for SimPE to be updated, for those of us who use The Sims 2 Enhancer it's now been updated for use with BV. It's backwards compatible and now lets you choose your hood before loading (thankfully!). Also, if you've already installed the Seasons version it's free to update

Right, I'll make a proper job of it this time. I decided in the end to upload one of my all-time favourite sims, Johan Turilli (prefers to be called Joe )



The earring was a present from his wife, who nicknamed him Garfield for being "lazy but loveable"...



...well it's hardly through being a slob



Personality

Maxed on neat and nice, nearly there on outgoing (seven or eight), no active points and two playful points. Hell of a combination I know :? I would say feel free to add an active point or three, but part of his charm is the way he makes the bed

Starsign: Capricorn
Aspiration: Wealth, although family would fit him just as well
Turn-ons/offs: .. you can please yourself on that one ^_^
Misc: Another born-in-game, and another of Luca's probing incidents. One of twins who were literally an accident (long story!), albeit a very happy one in this case

Content

Packaged mainly with Maxis content, the only exceptions being shown below:



The mesh by Kavar isn't included, you can get it here
Black recolour is included, as well as colour-binned by Yours Truly

EPs needed: NL, OFB - if enough people not owning these show an interest, I'll make a base-only version

Extra notes

Although he's a vampire in my game, I'm uploading the "non-vampirised" version - I know the condition's not exportable, but I'm referring to the eyes. I made contacts out of Rensim's red alien eyes so his naturally black eyes wouldn't revert to the default vampire set - I'd advise you to do the same kind of thing if you vampirise him. His eyes are that big he looks awful otherwise >_<

Unlike his brother Carlos, I've kept the default skin and eyes on him. I have replacements for those, so he may look different in your game.

He needs a lot of TLC right now, so be gentle with him - he's an absolute sweetheart despite being so lazy, and he makes an awesome Dad

I think that's everything. Enjoy

These are in answer to a request here
 
*****
 
Okay, here they are. Extra thanks go to ParasiteX for his default templates
 
I couldn't make up my mind which skins to use for light (s1) and tan (s2), so I did two versions. s1_Pale... uses @Stefan's pale skin as the light default, and s1_Light uses his light skin. Same layout for the s2 skins using his light and tan shades respectively, just pick and choose which ones you want I won't use them myself, I'm too stuck on Enayla now, just let me know how they're working if you'd be so kind

I know I've another thread lurking here somewhere, but this one's different enough to start a new one.

Anyway... I'm a perfectionist On looking at her with fresh eyes, I decided she still wasn't right so I gave her an overhaul, with some new clothes to boot





Aspirations: Knowledge, family, friendship, wealth
Turn ons: Fitness, make-up, dark and red hair, cologne
Turn offs: Stink, facial hair, fatness
For the rest see screenshot

Content



Hair not included - go here to get it. Eyes are default replacements by corvidophile2

For comparison here's a mugshot of me IRL - the camera quality's lousy >_<



Enjoy

ETA: Oh, I was using Dudley's breast augmenting mod to bring me up to a C cup (my natural size), but now it's gonna have to be Warlokk's 34C Natural (or enhanced) if you want to keep me in shape

For those of you not following The Seven Deadly Sims, I put two sims forward for it but neither made it through. I still had ideas for what turned out to be round one, and several contestants have said they'd like to hear their stories anyway, so I'm posting them here instead.

Two words to anyone following a certain story of mine on the adult board - spoiler alert! If you like surprises look away now...