this is kind of like a break-up...

This is the last bit of decorating that I'll ever do for Sims 2. It's Ryanne's bedroom. I thought I'd share those pics here, because I'm not sure how much of her room will make it into the story shots, or from which angles, and well, you won't ever see it again.

I did have a lot of fun putting a couch through the wall like that, like a little window nook, where a teenage girl might sit and daydream - or in Ryanne's case, angst at the world! They can't actually sit on it though - I tried. I have no idea if I tried the same trick in TS3, if they would be able to sit on it.

Hayden and Piper's new house was one of my favorites, so I'll probably try to recreate it for the new version of LH. I never even got to play Bella in her new house, which is a bummer. I won't be recreating all of the houses - I'll download most of them. But I'll try to match their decorating styles and personalities.

It doesn't help that every time I make new TS3 versions of my characters, I just want to tell their stories in TS3 all that much more! And it makes going back to pose them in TS2 all the more like pulling teeth. In TS3, I can just hold down the "alt" key and slide them right alongside each other. No need to go find the right OMSP in my catalog, spend 10 minutes trying to click it because the damn #1 size blends flat into the floor.

There's no freezer clock in TS3, and that is a tragedy. But really, it must be coming soon, right? I would commission it, I'm telling you!

My LH world, while happily coming along, is nowhere even near ready to use. I don't have the best system or graphics card yet - in TS3, my grass looks like pea soup. I don't have nearly all the right CC or mods. I'm finding new things by the day, and there's a lot more awesome stuff out there that I can't wait to find!

But then it also dawned on me that that doesn't mean I can't tell interior stories with TS3!!! And it just so happens that I've got a good bunch of stories set inside the houses, or in generic outdoor settings, for a little while ;)

TS3 sims can be transported between neighborhoods in their houses! (I haven't heard that this is unsafe, the way it was in TS2, am I right?) So I could begin telling their stories now, in the fake LH world, and then when my real world is done, I could transport them all over, link up their family ties again (which is super-easy to do with the master controller!), and have most of my household work done already!

And it might be nice to alternate work on the world with work on the houses and Sims. World-building is exhausting and tedious, even if sometimes fun.

I would love to wait for the right time, wait until everything is ready and finished, wait until I might have a better computer or crisper graphics, or when I might know more tricks in posing the Sims than I do now. But then, I never waited when I jumped in on TS2 either, I built and finished things as I went along.

This next story set (4 pieces, I think) will be our last stories illustrated with Sims 2. That's a lot faster than I said it was going to be, and really, I'm only giving it that much time because I've already gotten about a third of the shots in Sims 2. There will be a small blip of Sims 3 shots in one of the pieces, and I suppose it will be a test run. Will it work? Can I get their expressions and poses right? Will they pass off for the real deal?

I had intended to finish out the rest of the season on TS2, so that the transition to TS3 illustrations would start with a new story, and might not be so shocking, but I'm not sure I'll make it that far. The simple fact is, I just don't *want* to work with TS2 anymore. And when I have so little free time to work on this as it is, the last thing I want to do is spend that little bit of time working with something that's not fun.

It's kind of like dating... You know, when you already know you're going to dump your boyfriend, but you say, maybe let's just make it through the holidays, nobody wants to break up with someone right before the holidays. Definitely by spring, because you want to be single for the summer, but not right smack dab in the middle of the holidays. But when it comes down to it, when it's over, you know it's over. And he knows it's over, because it feels like it's over, and everybody can see that it's over because it's written all over your face. And maybe sometimes it's just best to let things be over.

I never thought I'd say it, but here I am, and here it is - my dear TS2, I am SO over you! :\

I don't know what I'm saying exactly, except that I hope you'll all understand if my pictures are boring or fewer for a little while, or if I don't have much cool CC yet, or if all the shots are indoors to mask the fact that my world isn't finished yet, or if they do manage to be outside, if my grass looks like pea soup. I'm sure the shots will seem bland for a little while, compared to what I've been able to do in TS2, at least until I learn some new tricks. And though I'll try to make the transition as seamless as possible, there may still be a couple bumps in the path.

I know breaking up is always hard to do, and I know it's especially hard when it comes sooner than you expected. So I'm sorry about that! But I also know we're all grown-ups here, so I hope we can be kind about it.

Somebody think of the children! ;)