June 2085: adult supervision, part 1

Ingrid and Ian Thompson are 22, Laney is 26, Heather and Adam are 52.


"Maybe this sounds weird," Ian said, sloshing his fourth beer sideways with his hand and then righting it before the entire bottle spilled. "But I kind of feel like we never left. Like maybe we might have gone to sleep after high school graduation, dreamed up the whole four years we were in college, finding Connie, dating Connie, getting dumped by Connie, then we woke up, and here we are. Everything's exactly the same. This street, this restaurant, this exact beer that's always a little too warm to be enjoyable. And I'm alone again. What's changed?"

"We got degrees," Ingrid said, shrugging lightly.

"Yeah, I guess we did."

"You got that stupid tattoo on your belly. Undeniable proof that the last four years happened." Ingrid laughed. "Go on, look. See if it's still there."

Ian lifted his shirt. The tattoo was still there. "You thought it was a good idea at the time."

"I was nineteen," she said. "I thought a lot of stupid shit was a good idea that year."

June 2085: break free, part 2

Natty is 20. Ashley is 50, Cabe is 48.

Soundtrack: “I Want to Break Free” by Queen

One thing Natty knew—maybe the only thing she knew—was that she'd always wanted to have short hair, but was never brave enough to try it. Something drastically, dramatically short. Something that left her neck breezy and her ears bare. She'd never had short hair in her life. "I need a haircut," she told her mom. So Ashley took her downtown to her stylist.

It was a busy afternoon, and there were a few women in line ahead of them. They sat to wait, and Natty had come to dread these moments of silence with her mother in the past few days, when never before had she ever dreaded time spent with her mother. When they didn't have anything to talk about, her mother only watched her carefully, like she was trying to unravel a disturbing puzzle.

"Mom, I'm okay," Natty insisted. "If you try to feed me any more, I swear I really will throw up."

June 2085: break free, part 1

Natty is 20. Ashley is 50, Cabe is 48. 

Soundtrack: “I Want to Break Free” by Queen


Natty's room at her parents' new house in Sunrise Shores was probably larger than her whole apartment back home at LCU. Boxes in the corner were still packed, things she didn't need but couldn't get rid of, like old dolls, yearbooks, and prom dresses she'd never wear again. Her bed was brand new, not the twin-sized she'd used as a girl. Now that she was a grown-up, her parents decided to buy a large and cozy queen-sized bed for her and Charlie to share when they came to visit, where they would deny they did any more than cuddle each other at night, but would maybe steal some quick, polite, very quiet sex underneath the covers once or twice while they were here.

She'd never even been here to visit them without Charlie before, and the bed was much too big without him in it.

June 2085: graduation day

High school graduating classes of 2085: 

Lakeside Heights: Ruby McCullough, Parker Michen
Sunrise Shores: Gloria Garth, Shiloh Morgan


Belated pictures from Ruby's graduation and grad party, because this would have happened in June.

I had once taken these pictures thinking I would do a blog story for it, but it became too big and involved and novel-like, so I decided it was the kind of story that would be better suited to books instead. For reasons. Too complicated, overwhelming and smothering the neighborhood. Too many books to write for one lifetime. Life happening. Need to conserve and funnel and allocate my creative energy. And junk.

But I already took these pictures, so I figured I might as well share some of them here, to mark the occasion of these proud young people at the culmination of their high school years.

June 2085: kissing frogs

Lily Riley-Kim and Claude McCullough are 13.

There was one week before school let out for the summer, and Lily wasn't impressed with the season's offerings so far. France was all she could think about. She was going to France. Sure, it was two months away still, but a girl could dream, about the clothes, about the art, about the boys. Certainly there would be boys in France. But that wasn't the only reason she needed to break up with Claude McCullough.

Lily called Claude and told him to meet her at the park near his house. Her Aunt Mariah had to drop off Quinn at her new job, so she had exactly 25 minutes, no more and no less. That was fine. She didn't think she'd need longer than that anyway.

"We have to break up," Lily said.

"What? Why?"

let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens...

Revised stars. I am very happy with them this time. They are so tiny and twinkly and perfect!

If you've been using the default game stars for a while (which look like snow to me, lol!), these might be hard to get used to at first. But once you get used to them, they are so brilliant! Especially when zoomed out a bit. They are made to approximate the way RL stars look to the naked eye... well, from a remote location at least. You probably wouldn't see even this many stars over a city IRL, but you know, artistic license. ;)

In this revision, I have made them even smaller, and managed to fix the stretching thing that was going on.

Note, I have a "darker nights" mod in my game, but I have been told these work without lighting mods too.

(click pictures for bigger)

goldfish, pt. 2: approximating the TS2 personality matrix with TS3

Warning: Nerd alert! Much dorkiness ensues! Proceed at your own risk. :p

Following on from this discussion, part 1, about the particular vacancy of TS3 Sims.

First thing: You need this mod.

You need more than 5 traits per Sim. We were lamenting the reason TS2 Sims felt more developed, and that's because in TS2, you had 5 personality points, 2 aspirations, 1 natural hobby/talent, and several other talents and interests. That's a lot of personality for a little Sim! So it's no wonder having only 5 traits pales in comparison. It's not enough when you've been spoiled on so much personality.

So take more. I like 10, but this mod comes in different flavors, some more, some less. (Note: you will need a mod like Twallan's Master Controller to set all 10 traits.)