trains coming out of my ears!

Welcome to the great train station and bus stop extravaganza! (Now with parking lots too!)

Okay, is that dramatic enough? Because I kind of went a little overboard here. Seriously, if I see another train in the next six months, I might go insane!

I'll go ahead and share these links at the start - Criquette's neighborhood deco building sets, and Sunni's deco cars - both of which were used extensively in this project.

And it all started with this, the LCMTA Rail Map.

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...

my biggest fan needs a dictionary...

Lyf? I'm afraid that isn't a word, my dear.

LH stuff: not a llama clock, batch 1

It's so hard to find good clocks, isn't it? What I wanted was simple yet stylish - not fancy, not antique. Like the kind of clock you might buy at Target?

So I made some!

And now I'm *totally* about to make five thousand clocks! Or maybe a few dozen, eventually. And for tonight, we'll start with eight ;)

how to materialize a family background in five seconds or less...

Believe it or not, this all started with a building project.

build week #3.5: what not to do with the lot adjuster

Experiments and failures on placing lots "off-grid"

So I had this grand idea that I'd take some houses, and place them along a fake street, to use up some of that pesky middle space in one of my city blocks. So that street in the middle of the picture is completely decorative, and the homes there are placed "off-grid", meaning they're not attached to any actual road.

These houses I used are by Maisie by the way.

And for the most part, it worked. But I did run into a few deal-breaking (in my book, anyway) problems.

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! :)

take it down, extras

*warning: this is ridiculously long! No joke! *

Extras, outtakes, and misfits from the "take it down" season...

(I think I'll call them seasons now, rather than chapters. Does that make more sense? I mean, each entry is big enough to be its own chapter, right? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that made no freaking sense? lol! So since the collection usually spans about a season, it seems only logical. Season?)

Anyway, whatever we call it, this collection of stories was the longest EVER, and gave us a crapload of extras!!! These stories took me 8 months to write, covered five major story progressions and many independent pieces and mini-updates, and added up to a whopping 50,881 words!

(If I ever want to know why my novel isn't finished yet, I think I have my answer!)

Let us begin? ;)

from myself, extras and author's note

first, a note on the ending of stories:

Since this is kind of the first storyline that's been well and truly wrapped up in this blog, I thought I'd do a little author's note. I'll also probably want to give them each their own author's note when they're finished. For a time, I was doing the author's notes by round, but I think this works better, maybe.

But on the ending of stories in general, this is how it will work:

The storyline tags cover the arc of the story itself, from beginning to middle to end, and only the story. Both Micah and Mariah existed as Sims/characters before this story took shape, and those entries are not included. Likewise, the whole Buchanan family will still exist in Lakeside Heights in the future. You'll still hear from them in other stories, and they'll still get their once-a-round family update. But as far as I'm concerned, this story is finished, and I'm happy to let them have their peace, lol!

Basically, the storyline tags contain only what I would include if I were writing this as its own stand-alone book. It's still a work-in-progress, but main characters are also getting their own name tags as well, and those name tags will span the entire collection of stories, any entry they make a meaningful appearance in. So for further reading, you can continue to follow their tags: Mariah, Micah, and for entries relating to the whole family, Buchanan.

And James too. James is one of those who doesn't really have his own storyline, yet plays an important role in about three or four different stories. Or maybe he does have his own story, and I just haven't discovered what that is yet.

Anyway...

This obviously contains major spoilers, so if you haven't read through all the from myself stories, you'll want to finish those first.

Author's note on the "from myself" storyline:
The hows, and whys, and hitches in the writing of...

Price-Hudson wedding outtakes

For as simple as this wedding was, this was also the most FUN I've had doing a wedding in a really long time. They just wouldn't stop, lol! I thought I'd put all the funny in its own post, so not to disrupt the narrative flow ;)

This was actually the normal shot I thought I would use for the story (and that I'd put Chandler's "Score!" shot in the outtakes), but seeing as how they've always been a big bunch of goofballs, I just couldn't resist using it. But here, proof that they did have some serious moments.

from myself, part 3

November 2083 - Micah and Mariah Buchanan are 25. Chandler Price and Jane (Hudson) Price are 25.

* Soundtrack: "Songbird," by Fleetwood Mac *

In the beginning, Chandler and Jane had nothing but love.

No really, nothing but love.

And a used garage sale couch, folding card table, and two lawn chairs. They had some clothes, but they weren't very nice ones, so they didn't bother to wear them most of time, when they were just home alone.

For the first week of their life together, they spent their evenings in the dark. Chandler had forgotten to buy a lamp and they had to wait for his next paycheck to be able to have even light. But that was no big deal - they considered it an adventure. They loved each other in the dark, and when all else failed, Micah and Mariah lived just up the street a bit, with their hot meals and actual dinnerware to eat off of.

poll: who needs the biggest hug right now?

Whoa, holy 96 votes, Batman! I think some of y'all figured out how to vote twice ;)

So, who needs the biggest hug right now?