jennamaxon - Tumblr blog

jennamaxon · 3 months

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This looks fun

250 followers Custom Memory Bonanza

It's finally time! To thank all you lovely people for your support, I have been working hard to get this ready for upload and here we are. Today I am sharing my custom memory object, and my library of a whopping 201 custom memories. Based on the wonderful Tattered Diary by DiLight over on MTS, and the tutorial she shared of how to make your own custom memories.

I've always cared a lot about memories, to me they tell the story of the Sims life. Some of you from MTS may recall when I did the whole several year rebuild of my hood, replicating every last detail of the original. I'm memory crazy, okay? And when DiLight gave me the power to make my own, I may have gone a tad overboard. Or just the right amount, you get to decide :P DiLight taught me most of what I know about making custom memories, and the base BHAVs are from her, but as I've learned more I've added some bells and whistles that I hope you will enjoy. It's a new clone and separate GUID from the original tutorial object set up by DiLight, so if you have your own you can have mine too without issues :) Found in misc/misc, costs 1 simoleon.

Download on simfileshare

Features - Brand new form, created by me. Resized BV photo album with new mapping and new texture (seen above, in game pictures at the end of this post). I wanted something that was uniquely mine, and that you don't necessarily have to hide away in the attic or under the foundation. If you don't like it, you also have some additional model forms you can switch between through the pie menu. - Adaptable dynamic menu. Thanks to a really neat trick from @picknmixsims the menu reflects the memories you put in your downloads. If no file with the correct guid is found, the option for it won't show. Which means that although I am crazy enough to have 201, you can go ahead and only pick your favorite ones and the object will automatically detect and adapt the menu to that selection. - Memories all have a custom icon, that's made from game icons from TS2 or TS3. Some I am quite proud of, some are admittedly not great. Not everything is easy to convey through game icons, but I've tried my best, I hope the effort shows. 5 memories have icons that are not from the game, but I tried to match them to the aesthetic as best I could. - Memory subject menu shows only relevant age groups. For example, if the memory is about having a baby, only baby/toddler Sims will show as options. Goal being to keep menu as concise as possible. If you wish to assign memories retroactively, please see jonasn's excellent Memory Commander object, which has support to add my custom memories without age limitations. As well as a whole lot of other useful memory-related stuff. - Extensive documentation detailing everything you may need to know about the memories (text, icon, background, who can get it, who they can get it about, repeatability, where to find it on the object) to help you select the ones you want for your game, and familiarize yourself with them. - English and Swedish translations of memories, and object menu. If someone wants to add their language, that would be great but it's a lot of work so I don't expect it. You are welcome to share your translated versions directly if you wish, or you can send them to me for me to update files shared here :)

Examples of types of custom memories included - Extended family members memories (got cousin, got aunt/uncle, got sibling, got twin sibling, got great grandchild, got stepparent, got stepchild) - Birth related memories (pregnancy, becoming parent, late in life parent, had multiples birth, premature baby) - Marriage related memories (divorce, parental divorce, custody things, alimony) - Relationship related memories (fighting, breakups, additional love memories) - Woohoo related (memories for specific woohoo locations, repeatable generic woohoo/public woohoo) - University degree related (declared major memories, got a minor degree memories, got a major degree memories, for remembering having studied multiple things and being able to see what major your Sim chose without looking at their diploma) - Loan related, for remembering taking and paying off loans of different types - Moving memories (first apartment, child moves out, various memories for sims moving in with others) - Kids related (child's first day in school, got their own pet, nursery rhyme, giving up for adoption, living at orphanage)

Mods automating delivery of my CC memories (more to come) Learned nursery rhyme from - Found here, by me Wrote restaurant guide - Found here, part of jonasn "Novel Writing Improvements" mod

Credits: DiLight, @picknmixsims, @morepopcorn, @latmosims, @joplayingthesims, maxon, @keoni-chan. For detailed info on how they all impacted the creation of this, see readme :) Policy: Give credit to DiLight, beyond that, totally open. Enjoy!

#ts2 mods

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jennamaxon · 5 months

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These contests are pretty nice

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My entry for the Sims Crafters Foundation Challenge! You have until Sunday to finish your build, so get out your building tools!

#sims 2 #sims 2 build

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jennamaxon · 7 months

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Frankfurt Morning

Thursday 28th

Late September in Frankfurt and it is still warm and sunny. It’s cooler now than it has been over the summer: things got very hot this year in late July and early August but it’s still t-shirt, shorts and sandals weather and will be for a while (even for Him Indoors). Germany has trouble letting the summer go. Still, our favourite Italian eis café will close for the winter in a couple of weeks and then we’ll be headed into the winter season and Christmas. The street fairs have already started with the approach of Oktoberfest and will go on every now and again till the Christmas markets begin in mid-December. I think sometimes outsiders imagine the Christmas markets are an isolated thing, just for Christmas and typical of German towns but in reality they act as a sort of culmination of a season of street fairs in the autumn starting with Oktoberfest. The Germans like their street markets. You always have to plan to have your lunch or evening meal when you go: you’ve never seen so much food and it’s all pretty good. I love the roasted almonds in particular. We’re thinking of going to Weisbaden this year: all the markets are different and we have been told it’s good and fun to try out different towns. Weisbaden is the capital of Hessen and at the other end of the S-Bahn line from home.

I came into Frankfurt today, getting off the S-Bahn at Konstablerwache (in the centre of the city) and setting off down towards the river through some of the back streets off the Ziel. I visited my favourite city centre café on Hasengasse. Casa Nostra is an Italian café that does arancini and canoli as well as delicious coffee and all these little pastries with crème anglais and fruit. At the weekends they do lasagne which Him Indoors loves. I’m tempted by the truffle arancini (truffles are also in season) but I’m going to have lunch later so settle with my creamy cappuccino as the bells of St Bartholomaus start ringing for a morning service. I can see the tower from where I’m sitting under the trees outside the café. It’s a very European sound.

I set off again and go through the Kleinmarkt. Today is Thursday and so market day in Frankfurt. Konstablerwache was filled with stalls but they don’t quite match the exoticism of the Kleinmarkt which is a permanent indoor market and is open all days in the week. It’s a glory hole (e.g. the Persian ingredients stall) and I spend a happy 15 minutes looking at all the strange ingredients (I come here if I want to make something unusual) and consider the array of mushrooms available including, once more, a variety I’ve never seen for sale before. A frilly thing: large but mostly made of air as far I can see. I don’t even know what it is. Like most things in the Kleinmarkt, it’s a bit pricey but I’m tempted just for the fun of using an ingredient I’ve never used before. With the autumn comes soup-making season and I’ve made some of the best mushroom soups I’ve ever made since I came here.

Then I cross Liebfrauenberg Platz and trip through back streets and arcades, going west towards Hauptwache to find Hoogen Boogle (It’s actually Hoogendubel but I can never remember the name properly) to buy some cards so I can write some letters home and browse their extensive collection of books. I settle in for a while in one of their substantial seating areas to people watch as eccentric little women in shabby but quirky clothes (pants that have shrunk up their legs and exposed their colourful knitted socks which have crumpled round their ankles for example) and untidy bookish old men fossick about the books and make their choices.

The place where I planned on having my lunch is closed today so I decide to head back towards Konstablerwache but by a circuitous route heading south towards the river and past my second favourite café (Wackers). The towers of Frankfurt’s financial district loom to the west. It’s like a bit of Manhattan got broken off and just plunked there; they loom up out of nowhere. Huge, and there are also many cranes about too hefting new walls and windows into the air as Frankfurt’s financial boom drives more development. I think about heading into Wackers for a second cappuccino and something to eat but they really only do chocolate and kuchen and I want lunch not something sweet. It’s a fascinating little place though and has been going for over a century. The interior is packed with coffee- and tea-related comestibles and lots of chocolate in various forms all stacked on dark oak shelving and with attractive glittery displays that tempt you to buy. There’s usually a queue out the door, there is today, but the service at the coffee counter is quick and efficient and you usually don’t wait too long.

The Main is glittering in an alluring fashion at the bottom of the hill but I turn back towards Liebfrauenberg Platz. I’d come through earlier but kept on going instead of visiting the Leibfrauen church or at least its precincts. Leibfrauen Kirche is actually the church for a monastic community right here in the centre of Frankfurt. They have a little courtyard behind the church between the monastic buildings which contain a seating area and a votive stand which anyone can visit for contemplation and, presumably, prayer. It’s a surprisingly restful place in the midst of Frankfurt’s commercial bustle. I sometimes come here on very busy days when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and sit for 10 minutes in the peace and quiet. It can be incredibly refreshing. People are naturally respectful and only talk in whispers if they talk at all. They light candles and spend 10 minutes in the quiet and peace like me. I leave a small donation as I usually do – I’m not particularly religious but I do think preserving places of solace like this is important.

I walk back along Töngesgasse which is filled with little and sometimes distinctly odd shops (there’s one dedicated to brushes – I kid you not). There are a lot of eye-catching trinket and jewellery shops to look at because we’re not that far from the main tourist centre which is just down towards the river from here. You overhear a lot of different languages. There’s one shop that does carvings in malachite and other semi-precious stones. The window display is a wondrous arrangement of swirling greens set in gold (or gold-looking) metal frames. I pass the flower shop with the huge amaryllis bulbs ready for Christmas planting and look into a rug shop with some very luscious bright autumnal designs in wool pile: red, green, copper colours. Very attractive. Then past the kitchenware shop (good quality pans) and the BDSM shop (I told you there were some oddities) and to a quirky little café next to the speciality tea shop. They do what they call health food though it actually sells burgers and chips (fries). They call them high protein meals or some such. To be fair they also sell avocado platters too. Anyway, they have the distinction of serving fairly tasty food, veggie and vegan options, some nice fruit juice-based drinks and a lunchtime offer which is not expensive compared to much else of central Frankfurt. I settle down for half an hour in the bright interior, painted a cheerful light sky blue and read. Then I head off back to Konstablerwache to catch the S-Bahn home. It only takes 20 minutes.

#some random writing #germany #frankfurt

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jennamaxon · 7 months

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Sounds like fun

My Sims Crafters Discord is holding a "just for fun" Victorian building contest for Sims 2!

Come join the fun. If you want to join in come pop in the server and @ me or one of the other moderators/admin and we will give you the contestant role. You can see it but can only respond with an emoji otherwise. (Unless you are a member and have a higher role already.)

https://discord.gg/F5fT85ye7V

#sims 2 #building #contest #sims crafters

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jennamaxon · 1 year

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Reblogging this because I think it's important. I would absolutely help if I could but I've never really played historical games and have only ever DL a little from PBK. However, word needs to be spread.

Archiving the Keep

As some of you may have noticed, the Plumb Bob Keep site has been down for several days. At this time, we do not know anything about the future of the site; we have no contact with Sunni's family, who pay for it. Since the future of the site is uncertain, we are calling for all hands on deck to help us try to archive as much of the downloads as possible: images, text, links and actual download zips. We will primarily be using the Wayback Machine, but as Google searching was only turned on in the last year, many things will not be accessible. Fire_flower has created a spreadsheet to help organize the effort and allow us to see where the gaps are. This will be step one of the process, before we dive into our personal collections.

If you would like to help out, please add your name to the spreadsheet linked below. Large sections might need 2 or more people to team up. Please ask if you have questions over at the PBK Discord or fireflowersims or fracturedmoonlight via tumblr. Thank you so much for your time and help! PBK Archive Spreadsheet

#sims 2 cc #sims medieval

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jennamaxon · 1 year

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reposted to my main blog

Polgannon Progress Report Feb 2023

(most hated man in Polgannon)

So Polgannon. I’ve been doing a lot of work on it. For those of you who have played the neighbourhood (and solved the crime! or tried to anyway), you might think it’s done and dusted and wonder why I’ve been working on it.

Well...

I’ve been thinking about this for ages and it has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Late last year, I finally launched a new project with Polgannon and its follow-up story Market Bannaby, to convert it into a new format. I have some very modest financial backing to get me started. This is going to be a sort of interactive story.

The work I have done on it has been in developing the end of the story which was (naturally) left open-ended in the Sims version since what I was providing there a neighbourhood to play from the murder of Blaise forward. Your own version of Polgannon, if you would. I’ve also done a lot of work on the characters to develop their tales, especially Ruan and Margaret who were deliberately left somewhat blank as characters in the Sims version. And I have been working on the supernatural theme for the story (yes, there was one) which got somewhat lost in the Sims version because I couldn’t work out how to make it work in the Sims neighbourhood. It’s the same story but a fuller, more thoroughly realised version of it.

I don’t want to say too much about it all at the moment as I’m not sure I can even do this. But I’ve been having an awful lot of fun planning things and writing stuff. The aim is to produce something commercial (though I’m hardly expecting it to make my fortune). I have even set up a Patreon page for the project (NB I am NOT currently looking for Patreons but will post the link later if you’re interested. I’m not sure I’m going to use Patreon anyway since it doesn’t allow for a zero cost basic level membership). There’s probably going to be a dedicated website down the line too. For the time-being though, information about Polgannon will be posted at tflc here which is where the current version of the neighbourhood is hosted and also here on my Polgannon tumblr.

There, I did it, I finally made The Annoucement

#polgannon #murder mystery

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jennamaxon · 1 year

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A reblog - sorry if you see it twice

Sims 2 CC Making, Schedules and Creativity – a retirement story

I’ve been meaning to post this second message about changes with me and progress with Polgannon since December but have been finding it difficult to work out what exactly I want to say.

There are a couple of things here: I want to post about what’s happening with Polgannon, which I’m excited about, and to announce my ‘retirement’ from making stuff for Sims 2.

(junk shop)

Let’s take the latter first. I’ve been involved with the Sims community since the first game and have been making stuff for Sims 2 from the beginning. The first version of Polgannon was for Sims 2. However, I have not really played at all in the last two or three years. I can’t anymore, I no longer find playing interesting. I’ve been making simple CC for the last few years but that’s been about it. I decided finally that I should stop – mainly because I want to concentrate on what’s going on with Polgannon and other stuff in my life (piano is being neglected).

This does not mean though that I won’t be around because I’ve made a number of friends in the Sims community over the years and I don’t want to lose touch. It’s also a fact, since deciding to stop that I’ve been making some new walls and pictures (posts to come).

This is a bit of a conundrum. I think what I’m trying to say – or perhaps more importantly tell myself – is that I want to stop ‘officially’ making stuff for the Sims so I’m not always telling myself I need to do something. I think there’s a good chance I will, in fact, make more stuff for the game but as something I just want to do that day. The reason I like making walls for the game so much is that I just love messing around with colours and patterns. It’s a go-to activity when I get stressed or just when I want to do something creative without being serious about it. So I think I still might be doing more of that but won’t be doing much else – and not on any kind of schedule.

I’m going to post about Polgannon in another post to follow.

Isn't that picture hideous? It's a quick glimpse of stuff I've done over the years.

#sims 2

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jennamaxon · 1 year

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Reposting to my main channel

Polgannon Update - 1

I have a couple of things to report about Polgannon and, to some extent, something to say about what I’m doing at the moment and will be doing in the future. I’m going to put the update into two posts to break it all down a bit. I’m also cross-posting this to my main Tumblr blog so if you’re subscribed to both, you might see the message twice – sorry about that.

Polgannon, Hall of Fame and the True Solution!

Ruan Finally Breaks Through

Polgannon Stream

Earlier this year, Tea Addict – a much loved member of the simming community and Sims 2 streamer – played through Polgannon live on her Twitch stream channel (linky above). I attended most of the streams providing background encouragement and the occasional bit of help. I really, really enjoyed it. I’m not kidding. For me, it was a lovely experience seeing people having fun with something I’d made.

TeaAddict and her cabal of watchers looked at the murder scene, deplored Blaise, collected information from all the residents of Polgannon, went through all the evidence and motives and discussed the many shady and dreadful characters – suspecting many along the way. However, they worked very, very hard, TeaAddict did her homework(!), they sorted through the evidence and, collectively, they (streamer and watchers) came to a successful conclusion. Hurrah! The streams are a lot of fun: lots of laughing, tea drinking and pointing collective fingers at sus characters.

So following on from that..

Hall Of Fame

Following on from that, the true solution to Polgannon has now been in the public domain for some time. For this reason, I am now closing the Hall Of Fame with TeaAddict and her stream community members the last on the list of successful solvers.

This is the final list of successful solvers of Polgannon's mystery (or the ones who contacted me with a proposed solution that was correct). Congrats to them:

Jojoa777

koololdster

bloodstained_black_lace

Amairani

vllygrl

Lord St.Croix

lorinsv60 & Little Nemo

vaayvaay

Sims2 4ever

Medollga

notreallifeliving

letmereadinpeace4

Paolopollo

TeaAddict and all members of her stream community (especially Jo)

This does not mean you cannot contact me, if you want to have a shot at the solution by yourself. I will still respond with a breakdown of why you are wrong (or possibly right) but I will not now add your name to the list of glory. Sorry.

The True Solution

Tea Addict has now uploaded all of the streams to her You Tube Channel and you can go and watch them if you’d like to. If you really just want to know whodunnit, you may want to skip to the final broadcast in the series with the solution:

youtube

The point where they actually got to the solution is from about 1hr:20mins. They’re searching for the murder weapon and find it! They knew it was there somewhere because it’s in the CC collection for the neighbourhood! This lead them, bearing in mind the evidence they had uncovered, to the correct conclusion about who it was who murdered Blaise Penhaligan on All Hallows Eve!

TeaAddict’s UTube Channel where you can watch the whole series (along with other things she’s done and is doing) is here.

And her Twitch channel is here. She broadcasts 2-3 times per week.

#polgannon #sims 2 #murder mystery #sims 2 neighbourhood #mystery neighbourhood

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jennamaxon · 2 years

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The third Little Carping post - if you've read my first two posts before, this is new

3. Early Days - The Goths

So you might be wondering why Mercer was so bad, what happened to Cecilia and how did the Sororah sisters end up with one dad apiece. It all started in October 2004. I managed to get a whole lot of play in in Little Carping, before the release of University in March 2005 when, finally, I brought in some new characters so the following stories are about the early residents of Little Carping. The Goths, Vaughans and Phoebe Sororah all moved on quite considerably during that very brief time just after the game released and the arrival of the University expansion. It’s kind of strange writing up these stories more fully after so much time. The original events were much more fragmented of course, and I kind of melded the sims responses into a story for each family based on my interpretation of what they did. When I talk about Randolph’s response to Cecelia’s boredom and frustration below, for instance, he did actually have the gall to lecture her one evening. If I had been Cecelia I would have punched him but she just apologised at the time. Still, Cecelia’s frustration stuck at home looking after Gunther, as a knowledge sim, was very apparent at the time.

-------------------- The senior Goths quickly settled into a large square house (based on their house in TS1) on the most exclusive road (Buckingham Road) in Little Carping. They had almost no money left after the purchase of the house and grounds and much of the interior was not even furnished but they still just managed to buy it. Randolph though thought that it was important for them to live in a property commensurate with his social standing and Cecelia’s for that matter – Randolph had married in Cecelia, a scion of the Crumplebottom family of course.

The house has an impressive entry with two story windows and a double stairway to the upper level. To the right is a large dining room at the front and a kitchen behind. The kitchen had some furnishing (in blue!) but the dining room was unfurnished at first. To the left of the hallway is the lounge (or drawing room probably for the Goths), furnished in red and cream. This was also unfurnished at first. Behind that is Randolph’s study and then across the back of the ground floor is a music room (nothing in there at first, LOL) and the downstairs bathroom. Just in front of that is a set of stairs which lead to the cellars. Going upstairs, there is also a large landing space with five bedrooms to the sides. The master bedroom is at the front of the house to the right with an en-suite bathroom. There is another large bedroom on the left frontage. Three smaller bedrooms are at the back of the house. Only two rooms had beds at first – there was nothing else up there apart from bare wooden floors and one small wall light on the landing – they couldn’t even afford to decorate the walls. Randolph and Cecelia got depressed just going to bed. I’ve always liked having sims earn absolutely everything they have – I don’t use money cheats all that often. In buying the plot of land and building the shell of the house, the Goths were practically broke. They had one toilet and a fridge, counter and sink downstairs and a bed and crib upstairs. There were several rooms where the windows had not been put in and the upstairs landing had no bannisters (so watch your step in the one light dark up there – sadly sims don’t fall off edges). So although Randolph had a place to live that was sufficiently impressive and reflective of his status as a representative of the Goth family, they were flat broke and he had to get to work pretty quickly.

Randolph naturally went to see his father

“I need a job, father”, he said, “or Cecelia and I won’t be able to manage.”

“You will need to learn the ropes my boy, if you’re to be any use to the firm” said his father

and so Randolph started at the very bottom in the mailroom at the family firm and started bringing home a small salary with which to keep the family afloat. For the first few years, they were living hand to mouth buying food and paying bills and occasionally buying some décor or furniture to open up a bit more of the house to use. Most evenings were spent studying for the skills and knowledge Randolph needed for work leaving little time for his wife and son. After that, he also had to spend quite a bit of time socialising and pressing flesh to develop the necessary friendship network in order to advance. And advance he did, as time passed, Randolph was a success at work, earning several promotions in rapid succession.

In the meantime, Cecelia stayed at home. She spent most of her time reading cookery books with the aim of not incinerating her entire family at dinner time. She did wonder why she had spent all that time at school studying hard and doing well when what she ended up with was caring for a small child all day, doing the housework and not a lot else. Little Carping offered her little in the way of distraction and entertainment. The only community spaces at that time were a grocery, a clothes shop and a – albeit nice – little park. “There only so much shopping and strolling I can do,” she complained to Randolph one evening, “and you can’t have an intelligent conversation with a small child.”

“I really think, as my wife, you need to remember what I am trying to do for our family,” Randolph responded pompously, “I need to come home to a quiet well-ordered house and to be able to get on with preparing for work.”

Cecelia then became pregnant again and barfed all over the place – apparently Randolph didn’t need to spend absolutely all his time pursuing knowledge and skills. The physical toll of the pregnancy, her constant hunger and tiredness, plus looking after Gunther’s needs, meant she hadn’t time to get round to everything and much of the housework got left undone. Randolph was often doing his studying surrounded by dirty pots from breakfast which meant the socialising he had to do was done outside the house since it was not a pleasant place to invite people over. Cecelia was miserable and found herself thinking back to when she was at school. “I was such a good student,” she thought, “I enjoyed it so much.”

Poor Gunther was stuck between a bored and increasingly fractious mother and a father who had no time to spend with him.

On the other hand, Randolph’s success meant more money coming into the house in wages and a series of bonus payments. This meant that completing the build by inserting windows and the occasional door and decorating and furnishing more spaces was possible. They furnished the lounge (in the aforementioned red and cream) and bought a TV so Cecelia had at least something to watch and pass the time. They bought an easel to stick in the study though that appealed more to Randolph than Cecelia. He needed the creativity points. They were even able to afford a new bed for Gunther when he aged up which was fortunate as Marianne arrived shortly after. She was a brown haired, grey-eyed baby like her mother.

Then, while partially furnished (they may have had the piano by then), they invited the Headmaster of the local public school (one Vince Walter*) over and Cecelia gave him Mac n Cheese for dinner (not burnt). Both Randolph and Cecelia schmoozed for all they were worth and Gunther showed Mr Walter the piano. Gunther got into the local public** school – probably more on the Goth name than how impressive the Goth residence was at the time I should imagine. The Mac n Cheese was probably good though – Cecelia is pretty clever and practical after all and she had several points in cooking by this point.

So Cecelia was bored and being lectured to by her ambitious distant husband with a small baby to look after, Randolph was out most of the time with work concerns and Gunther went off every morning in his natty school uniform. Randolph tried not to show disappointment in Gunther’s slow academic progress. Because he was a bit slow. Poor Gunther. * This is the early days of the game remember, so I still had all the regular Pleasantview townies in the game. I got rid of them all later ** yeah, I know private school in America but I’m British so I’ll call it public school. Actual schools for the public are called state schools here.

#sims 2 #Little Carping #Goths

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jennamaxon · 2 years

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2nd post about Little Carping (since the first one seem to go down well)

2. Little Carping Original Concept

This was originally posted at tflc: https://littlecarping.com/mybb/showthread.php?tid=34

So this is a copy-paste of a post I wrote elsewhere a good while ago telling about how Little Carping came into being. I decided not to update the text (some of the information is a little out of date now) but it gives a good overview of how Little Carping started and what I was thinking and introduces the initial founding characters of the neighbourhood: the Goths, the Vaughans and Phoebe Sororah. I got TS2 the moment it was available here in the UK (probably a couple of days after it came out in the US). I had been playing TS1 since it was released. TS1 was my most played and enjoyed game ever (though SimCity 2000 gave it a run for its money). Anyway, I installed TS2 and had a look around. Pleasantview didn’t attract me (I think I had a look at the Goth house) but Strangetown looked more quirky and interesting. I played the Curious brothers first for a short while and that was pretty fun. It was obvious the game had taken a huge leap forward and I think, even then, I realised I wouldn’t go back to TS1. I never did. EXCEPT - I realised though that I wasn’t ready to give up my TS1 characters. I played Neighbourhood 1 almost exclusively in TS1 and had filled EVERY SINGLE LOT with sim families. I had left the Maxis families in there and, in my head, had built an entire sim community. So in the first week of having TS2, I decided I would try to recreate the neighbourhood I had developed in TS1 BUT that I was going to grow it not just make it. It’s interesting to me that even then, I was able to recognise the potential in the game to develop a neighbourhood over time and give it a real history. So I thought about it and planned. The oldest residents in TS1 had been the Goths (senior) and a couple of sisters - Sororah - I had created to run a kennels (when Unleashed was released), followed a little later by Ginia Katt and Mama Hick. I’d also created an older couple called Porter who were the janitors/caretakers for a hall of residence I built for some student sims. Remember TS1 didn’t having aging so although the Sororah sisters were later additions to the neighbourhood (coming in with Unleashed) as they were created as elders, they - well - stayed that way and were some of the oldest residents of the neighbourhood. I developed a schedule to introduce them to Little Carping. It helped that the senior Goths were my favourite characters from TS1. A bit unusual, I think, but then I just loved subverting their respectability. The other thing to say is about where I use EAxis sims. It should be remembered that this is my version of those sims - not the canon version. I don’t follow the EAxis stories and there’s significant deviation later on. Though some things are the same - Mortimer does marry Bella (eventually). Cornelia doesn’t really like her though. But that’s getting ahead … I wanted history (and possibly hysteria). I decided to bring in the Goths first along with Sororah. BUT I wanted the family background for Gunther and Cornelia so I pushed the timeline of the neighbourhood back and made a family for each of them and a parent family for the Sororah sisters too. First I made Randolph and Cecelia Goth. Randolph was a businessman (fortune) and, in my head, was to develop into a very successful financier (which he did). Cecelia was clever (knowledge) but, the origin of Little Carping being set some time ago, she was stuck at home with the kids while they were small. That was Gunther to start with (made as a toddler in CAS), then the first born-in-game child arrived (after Pascal’s in Strangetown), Gunther’s sister Marianne. You can see Gunther is blond in the picture (as is Cornelia, also born to dark-haired parents). This, of course, doesn’t gel with the in-game genetics (at all - silly maxon). You have to bear in mind that they were created in CAS in 2004 and we -I- had no idea about how the genetics in-game actually worked (semi-realistically as it happens and is something I like but whatever). Although both children have genetics generated from their parents (in CAS), I changed the hair colour. I had to retro-fit that by pretending both parents carried a recessive blond gene.

The first Goth family

Randolph went on to be very successful and Cecelia, once the kids had grown up a bit, went back to work and into politics and eventually became mayor (the actual story of that is quite complicated). The storyline developed of Gunther growing up in this high-achieving, competitive climate but always feeling he didn’t quite measure up: he had a clever mother and a thrusting successful businessman father. It made his character more interesting to me than the original version in TS1. He’s always been morose and bitter (though with some surprising talents - he learnt to meditate and levitate and to move around lots like a ninja - a talent he needed). Gunther in TS1 had been Dean of a college but in TS2 I decided to send him into business following his father in an attempt to impress him (Gunther is also fortune) but Gunther was not as successful and never got the helicopter to go to work. His situation was not helped in the slightest by his wife.

Cecelia and Randolph - as they were at first. There’s a recessive blond gene in there - yes, there is. One thing I loved about the senior Goths in TS1 was that Maxis had given us this apparently conventional and respectable, high-status couple and I spent hours and hours disrupting that - mainly via Cornelia. She had affairs right, left and centre. She picked fights and made enemies. She drank and partied. If they’d had shop-lifting in TS1, she would have done that. Cornelia was hopeless at concealing affairs, mainly because she had me to deal with and I set it up so that she’d get caught every other day when Gunther came home at 3pm. Gunther was forever coming home to find her in bed with some man or other. He’d stand in the bedroom and stamp and shout and pull his hair out and then they’d have a stand up slap fight. Ah, fun times… So, Cornelia needed to get that from somewhere and so the Vaughans were made. Cornelia’s mother was Amelia: a loving, patient woman (family) who had married a dashing and charming advertising executive who worked for Randolph Goth: Mercer. Mercer was a sleazeball (romance). They came, along with Amelia’s mother Isabella Briggs and a toddler Cornelia, to live in Little Carping.

Amelia and Mercer - my favourite sim ever I’ve written elsewhere about how Mercer took me by surprise and behaved incredibly badly (though the unanticipated behaviour of romance sims played into the plotline in a most satisfactory way). He romanced just about every adult female in Little Carping, except Cecilia Goth who always saw through him and disapproved (but then she ended up with a lot to disapprove of). Poor Amelia was permanently depressed throughout (until she met Kennedy Cox – more on him in a bit). Cornelia, poor girl, is like her father (she’s also romance). She got pregnant by Gunther as a teenager (the only time I have used InTeen for its intended purpose and also, yay, the first Inteen was out around the time University was released) and had to marry him before Mortimer arrived. It was a very quiet affair at the Goth house though she got the memory of marrying into money. Afterwards, she felt trapped in her marriage (she eventually had four kids though one of them wasn’t by Gunther – something that hadn’t cramped Mercer’s style (he had seven by the time he died)) and was jealous when her two younger brothers, Henry and Horace (twins) went off to university. So she started misbehaving and poor Gunther was back to stamping, shouting and pulling his hair out. Fun times…

The Vaughans - the name Vaughan always makes me think of advertising execs and sleaziness. Poor Amelia got saddled with that I’m afraid. Well she married him. Her lookout I say. The other ‘family’ was Phoebe Sororah - also a romance sim. I’d envisioned her as a silly romantic woman waylaid by Mercer into an extramarital affair. Well Phoebe’s romance sim inclinations soon put paid to that but she did have an affair with Mercer (you get a more straightforward answer if you ask who *didn’t* Mercer have an affair with) and also had an affair with Randolph. So the Sororah sisters who had originated in my TS1 hood (Cecily and Clarissa) turned out to be half-sisters rather than full sisters. Phoebe had a string of amorous adventures too (between her and Mercer, Little Carping was a seething hotbed of lust) and eventually had five children by three different men. She died a while back after having moved in her latest (and newly adult) lover (a townie: Amin Sims) who now is about to die but lives in her house keeping it open for when her youngest child (Chloe – his daughter) returns from university.

Phoebe

That’s how it started. Mama, Ginia and the Porters came along shortly after - Ginia just in time to have a romance with Mercer and bear his seventh child (Stephen, still at school but only just) - and Little Carping has grown and grown from there. It’s still a hotbed of lust though there’s plenty of envy, jealousy, ambition, greed and all the rest of it too. I found recently that Fergus Crims wishes to see the ghost of Maddy Jayalapan (an EAxis generated apartment neighbour) because they had a fight - well series of fights - their relationship is -100/-100. He just bought a gun and will be laying a nice new concrete patio in his back garden shortly. The Curious brothers and Nervous will come to join us eventually because I do have a soft spot for the Curious brothers. I went through Little Carping’s screenshots folder and realised that when I started in 2004, of course, the quality of snapshots was horrid. So I’ve taken some new pictures – remaking Randolph, Cecilia, Mercer, Amelia and Phoebe from clones of the originals in Little Carping. The pictures show them with my newer defaults (of course) and I tried to get the spirit of their original homes though it’s inevitable I’ve forgotten details or used the wrong stuff. The original lots only used EAxis content of course, it was a while before we got recolours for objects (CC skins were available before the game was released – I even have some still. Well one or two). They all had custom skintones which they’re still wearing and Phoebe has custom eyes.

#sims 2 #Little Carping

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jennamaxon · 2 years

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Reminder for anyone interested - should be good!

TODAY!!! At 7 pm EST, on Discord:

Builder’s Workshop ~ TS2 Building Basics

A basic building workshop for beginners, covering the in-game building tools, roofs, and CFE. We will briefly touch on the Lot and Grid Adjusters - there will be other workshops covering the Adjusters in more detail later.

Please have an idea (or floor plan) of the lot you would like to build. I will be building this Cape Cod style house with dormered attic living space. And, we’ll be adding an attached garage to the foundation on the right side.

We will be using CFE to create a large enough attic space, and to attach the garage to the house on a foundation.

Presented by CatherineTCJD of MTS & Sims2VirtualRealty

Hosted by Sims2Shenanigans Discord

Interested? Sign Up & Share on your Sims 2 Socials!!

REBLOG!! Help Spread the Word!!

Sims 2 Shenanigans YouTube Channel! Subscribe Now & never miss a Workshop!

#sims 2 #sims 2 lots

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jennamaxon · 2 years

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I have been slowly writing up some of my early TS2 stories for Little Carping - my one and only neighbourhood. There are several posts now so I thought I might start passing it around a little. It's on it's own sub-blog. I wonder if it's possible to post stuff to my sub-blog and main blog at the same time. All the stories (so far) can also be seen on my own site tflc, here: https://littlecarping.com/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=6

1. Little Carping introduction

This post originally appeared on tflc: https://littlecarping.com/mybb/showthread.php?tid=33

So I thought I might post something about my main neighbourhood, Little Carping. I’m not sure my stories and ideas would be that attractive to others since playing the game my way is a pretty personal thing for me. I have my particular obsessions and interests and simply won’t consider any other way of doing things. I’m aware I don’t do things like other people but then again, what’s attractive about the game is the enormous possibilities. That’s why it’s still going strong 18 years after its release. The bottom line is I just like fiddling about with stuff: stories and ideas (not to mention the CC I make). Also, perhaps I should warn you all before we start that my sims are not always pleasant individuals. That sometimes seems to be an issue. I like drama. Lots of it. On the other hand, the idea of making a thread about Little Carping is attractive to me. This is because I have a love of documenting and recording stuff and the notion of using this forum to do that with Little Carping – a project of 15 years now – is enticing. I guess we’ll see how this works as we progress but the next posts will give an outline of Little Carping’s concept and history, its geography and built environment (I got that phrase from one of my students) and then the families who live there. These posts are going to be long - and I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to read through them all. Remember, I’m mostly indulging myself here. I’ll post pictures though. 15 years? Yeah that’s right. I started Little Carping the month the game was released in 2004 and I’ve been playing it ever since. Though actually, that sounds more impressive than it is. I haven’t played with the sims in Little Carping on a regular basis for quite some time now. I do go back every now and again and progress a story here and there but regular play has not happened for several years. Progress, therefore, is VERY SLOW. BTW, although I’ve been playing Little Carping since 2004 (when it was called, unoriginally, Great Bay), I rebuilt the neighbourhood in 2007 and so the files for Little Carping are only 12 years old (only - LOL!). I rebuilt it when we first started to learn about corruption of neighbourhoods and how you could build them with empty templates. The current version of Little Carping, therefore, started with no townies or NPCs though it has acquired them since – I made them all myself! The main characters though were rebuilt in 2007 from scratch – it’s when I learnt a lot about how to clone sims, create empty neighbourhoods and edit memories (and other stuff) in SimPE. So I say I still ‘play’ the game and, if I’m not playing with my sims, what am I doing? Well, my main interests are two-fold. In the first instance, I like making things and fiddling with game settings. I have uploaded some CC for others to download and use, here on this site (and elsewhere), but the amount of stuff I’ve made for the game (for my own use) is much, much more than that. There’s piles of it. I particularly like fiddling with hacks and mods, usually just adjusting BCons or BHavs and I’m known to hacks/mod stuff myself from scratch. Though for most things I want, someone else has had a go at it long ago so I will use that (with edits). Having said that, I think I have edited, in some way or another, practically every CC file in my game – well maybe not everything but a lot of stuff. I change catalogue settings as a matter of routine and will do things like replace base textures in objects if I don’t particularly like the original, slave stuff and so on. I also fiddle about with meshes and textures though I will say here what I’ve said elsewhere, that I’m not a natural skinner or texture maker. I can do crude stuff but nothing like the subtle stuff some people do (which I admire immensely). Secondly, a favourite thing for me is trying to create a sense of place for Little Carping. This is a long term project and there have been several phases already. Basically what I mean is remodelling the neighbourhood. I’ve been fiddling with the current version for a couple of years but I think I have decided to have another complete overhaul, especially in the light of some of the newer neighbourhood objects and graphical improvements we’ve seen lately – but more on that later. You might say that neither of those two things is playing with the game but I would disagree with that. I’m playing with the game as an object in its own right here rather than playing sims. Maybe you don’t agree but I keep myself occupied doing this. People do play in different ways – some people play sims and families, some people like to build, some people like to create neighbourhoods, some people like to make meshes and textures – I like to do all of those things but I like to play with the game as well. If that makes sense. TS2 is a wonderful thing really. Will Wright said he created it as a toy rather than a game and he did – but it’s perhaps more of a toy than even he thought it was. The picture is of Little Carping as it is now. Little Carping has a shopping district, Carping Magna, and Sirencester, the downtown. There are also two universities attached to Little Carping (Redbrick and Metropolitan) and three vacation destinations (Noboku, Yellerstone and St Neots). I have no idea how many lots there are but the vast majority are custom built, either by me or are something I downloaded. There are 489 sims in Little Carping, 173 of which are playable in 40 families (at present – that does change fairly regularly) with 27 cats and dogs (200 playable sims and 286 NPCs (I know that doesn’t add up). At the time of starting this series of posts, it is 6am on Saturday the third day in Summer – how do I know? I play in strict rotation and everybody is at the same point in the year, plus I religiously save at 6am in the morning. It’s always 6am in Little Carping. NB I’ve posted a version of some of these first few posts before and there’s some copy-pasta going on. Just so you know.

#sims 2 #Little Carping

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jennamaxon · 2 years

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I know a lot of people will like this.

LotCatalog Refresh Project ~ a complete Lot Bin overhaul

This is a Complete Overhaul of the Lot Bin. Every lot has been fixed, improved, cleaned, and now comes with a custom thumbnail. Many of the lots have been shrunk, and several of them have 2-Step foundations… After installing these files, the next time you generate a new TS2 Saved Game your lot catalog (“Lot Bin”) should look a lot better, and the houses should be easier to use. Your sims will be able to move-in and start living - without having to worry about missing fire alarms and telephones, nasty sim references, or if they paid too much for extra acreage they just don’t need. I really tried to keep EA/Maxis’ original intent for the houses in the Lot Bin. They are meant to be a “starting point” for your sim families. I tried to keep each lot’s original ‘flavor’… Every Lot Bin house/lot has been edited and has a custom thumbnail…