end of days party...

Please stay tuned while we reconfigure the universe.

There are only two full updates left for TS2 (one of which is mostly shot already, and I have one more left to do), so it's almost time, people! I'm excited, lol! I'm not sure if I'm prepared for the switch-over, but I'm totally going to wing it! I have shot one future update in TS3 already, and while it was tricky, and I know I have a lot of things to learn and get used to, I had a lot of fun doing it!

I'm doing a couple of finishing fixes to my LH-test terrain, and then I'm going to start moving some real families in! It's not "finished", and likely won't be really finished for many more months, but I am ready to play it and build on it for real. I'm sure I won't really know what I want from it for sure until I've played on it anyway, which is sort of backwards, but I've always been a build-as-you-go kind of girl! ;)

commence babble!

I should be ready to start work on the next update sometime in the next few days, but for now, I wanted to announce my new babble blog! For those who followed the VSS LH Babble thread, this blog will replace that thread. Babble will continue as usual, just in a different place ;)

And I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to Blackcat (who writes the brilliant Richmond story) for showing me how to import all of my archives over there!

And thank you to everyone who's listened to my nonsense chatter over the years! I hope it was interesting enough, lol! :)

experiments in social media...

I'm going to call this practice in using social media in a professional light, and I could use your help.

You can now "like" Lakeside Heights on Facebook!



If at least twenty-five of you lovely people decide to "like" it, then I can pick a custom domain for the page *wink-wink* ;)

2083, postcards from the edge, and December extras...

All work and no play for me these past couple weeks. But I do happen to have some funny gems saved up in my screenshots folder, so I thought I'd appease you all with some extras, outtakes, and updates from our supporting cast! ;)

And because you know you can never have too many pictures of angry Vicky! lol!

in case any of your husbands are tricksters like mine...

Check this out.

this is why I've got nothing...

Such a pretty hair for such a very angry girl! ;)

Vicky is wearing Carla's retextured Nouk Tommie hair, and I just love them! So if you haven't already, head over there and pick that up!

The first month of my year has been amazingly productive, full of creativity and more ideas than I know what to do with. Unfortunately, all that good work is wreaking havoc on this blog, lol! Please bear with me. I don't have Matt's story ready - I haven't even started it, to be honest, and there's a novel chapter I want to finish before I turn my focus to anything else. But there are a couple things I want to tell you about first! :)

shameless self promotion?

I am allowed to do that on my own blog, right? lol!

LH stuff: kind of, a twitter feed

Lakeside Heights now has its own twitter feed! :)

idle chatter: amusing myself

I'm a little bit sick, and just amusing myself with some new avatars...

Or ten of them, lol!

LH stuff: Dallas and Lucy wallpapers

There were a lot of things I was supposed to be doing tonight... Was supposed to be working on Jodie's story tonight, or my novel - either/or, whichever felt like being written first. I was supposed to be folding my laundry, or loading up those dishes that I started but never actually finished... but I was NOT supposed to be Photoshopping desktop wallpapers!

Guess what I was doing?

idle chatter: cool finds 'n stuff

I'm having to push back the second half of Jodie's story (part 2), mostly because my kid got sick this weekend and the past two days have dissolved into a pile of snotty tissues and vomit (oh hey, I know you're all super jealous of my life, lol!). And then I have some other things to finish the next couple days. I'll try not to make you wait all the way until next weekend, but it'll be Wednesday or Thursday before I can give it any proper attention.

But I do have a surprise mini-thing for you later tonight, from Amelia.

testing things, breaking stuff...

Pardon me while I try not to make too much of a mess out of this place.

Testing some new image sizes...

build week #3: fun with the lot adjuster

Did anyone ever try this before?

This is my campus pub, a 3x1 lot, overlapping my new campus parking lot, which is a 5x4 lot. Both lots are fully functional where they stand, and don't conflict with the other.

build week #2: it's almost a medical center!

Just a little, tiny, sneak peak ;)

I'm super-excited about my medical center! In fact, even though I downloaded a big hornking hospital for my city, I might not even use it much in the end. Most of the scenes I tend to use for this story are more outpatient kind of situations - like a therapy session, or pregnancy checkup. Those wouldn't likely happen at a hospital at all, but would probably happen in a smaller suburban medical plaza like this! :)

on character traits...

I don't know *what* inspired me to start a mega-post on characterization, lol! But I had what I thought was a simple project of adding character traits to my profiles (like Apple Valley or Heredon Cove), and then I got started writing this and I couldn't stop.

This is something I've always done for my characters, behind the scenes. And for more serious stories, I'll even write out a whole page of defining characteristics for my characters. These are the sort of inherent personality features that we guide our lives and decisions by. We all have them - and not just aspirations, though those are true too, at a much simpler level. But not all [insert your favorite aspiration] "Sims" want the same thing, or go about it the same way. Their character is deeper and more unique than that. We don't always hold true to our inherent nature, but when we don't, there usually has to be a reason for it.

Not that I feel at all qualified to give a lesson on character writing or anything, lol! But I do know a couple things that help me write my characters, so maybe it might help you too ;)

build week #1: moving mountains

First, welcome to build week! Or weeks, I guess, since it ends up taking about a month, lol!

You can expect fluffy building posts, some storytelling discussion, and lots of picspam! If you're not interested in the building and remodeling stuff, and would like to skip ahead to the start of the next story season, go here: winter 2083/84: still hear you.

I have a list of the projects I intend to work on in the "coming soon..." box, though I don't expect I'll have enough time to finish all of them. I hope to at least make some progress on each of them. And I'll share pics as I go along.

My first project was learning to use the neighborhood terrain editing cheat. It's kind of an essential cheat to laying down rail track, so I dug into it. And I practiced by moving a mountain, lol!

Before...

And after! :)

this is the sorry excuse for why I've got nothing...

Well, this is how I spent my Simming time this weekend, but unfortunately, it did not amount to much shooting of the next story update.

But... Lakeside Heights now has skies!!!

one day, Carly gets a little spend-happy...

One day, Carly Cook gets a little spend happy. This is her shitting-a-brick face, because she just got the invoice for the reconstruction of the roof on her new boutique. "I didn't know a roof could cost $15,000," she says.

"Sure," I tell her. "That roof can. You want me to send it back?"

"Well, no," she says. "It's cute. Can we charge it?"

And so it begins...

You guys still have a story update coming this weekend, but Carly's boutique will be featured in one of the scenes, and I thought you might like a better look at it than just story shots. Carly's gone a little bit spend-happy in here, but you know, it was cute.

idle chatter: a hole in the head

Guess who? Couples edition!

Wouldn't that be a fun game? I'd show you couples, in different clothes and with their faces obscured and you'd have to guess who they were, just from their surroundings and mannerisms.

You all shout, "Yes!"

Well, maybe I'll put one together some day ;) LOL!

No, I'm not that mean. But I do need to finish out this chapter of stories first, so maybe we'll do that in the next chapter break.

You can try to guess who this couple is though. They've both had recent makeovers, so it might be a little tricky. I'll reveal them at the end of this post.

I'm kind of itching to finish this round by the end of September (I know, longest round ever, right?), which I'm aiming to coincide with the completion of my novel, because I'm itching to play FFXIII in my intermission. And you all should know that when I play FF games, I disappear from the conscious world for a solid two months! FFXIII is going to be my prize to myself for finishing the first solid draft of my novel - what more incentive does a girl need than that?

Of course, when I actually sell the damn thing, my prize will be a supercool new gaming computer! :)

guess who???

This game was inspired by Carla's "guess who" game over at Sullivan. I personally found hers much more surprising than mine, though maybe I would be biased. The only changes to these Sims are the removal of custom eyes, skintone, makeup, and clothing, and I've left them in whatever outfit and hairstyle the game defaulted them to. For those who were already wearing Maxis clothing, I photoshopped their clothing so it wouldn't be a give-away ;)

I'm very eager to see how many of these you guys are able to guess! Feel free to use the resident database if you think it might help.

As Carla mentioned in her game, any Sim wearing an in-between skintone would default to a lighter or darker tone. Same with custom eye color. There are 18 to try, and you can guess as many or as few as you like.