Ladies and gentlemen, truth is now acceptable

DITFT: What is sims I don't even know

2012-06-12T19:30:16Z

So it's almost been literally a year since I last posted an update for this challenge. And it's been only a little less than a year since I've updated this journal point-blank.

I guess, yeah, I quit Sims for the year or so? And considering I'm heading off to college in the fall, I don't know if I can ever start to keep up with it again. (Today I downloaded something for my game for the first time in ages and I forgot what to do for a second. It was weird.) I'd love to, but, I don't know. Anyway! DITFT!

The night is still and quiet. The stars shine high above in the heavens over Belladonna Cove. Sleep has claimed most of the populace, and, unbeknownst to them, they have been sleeping for days...weeks...months...
And one voice cries out.

Santana: WAAAAAH WHY DON'T YOU LOVE US
OKAY OKAY JESUS CALM DOWN
Uh...uh...okay I got this. I know how to play this game. Yeah! I've been playing Sims since I was seven. One little months-long hiatus isn't gonna change anything.

See, everything's fine! Get the kid out of the crib and I'm golden. See, I'm fine.

Hey, Vera. Say, why are you...wait...HOLD ON SINCE WHEN ARE YOU PREGNANT WHAT THE FUCK

oh my god why is this happening why are you pregnant again when did this happen why don't I remember you'd think I'd remember that, right?! Oh my god I need a name now and I need to randomize the genetics and--
Vera: Remember, deep breaths.
Can it, heiress! Okay. Here's an idea, how about we start with a recap.

Connor: ...and that's how all that stuff happened! Funny, right?
No, wrong. Start at the beginning. You know what? Never mind. I'll do it.
This challenge is called A Difference in the Family Tree. It is a Sims 3 challenge converted to TS2 by my friendo Heather/imxplosion (<3), founded by ex-NTM model Ameera Talbot. Ameera married Gabriel and they had two kids. Bill, the spare, married a girl named Allyn and had a daughter named Renee, who'll make a cameo later. Vera, the heiress, is currently pregnant with her second child by husband Connor, nee Weir. They already have a daughter, Santana. Now, there's to be 16 generations, each with different themes and objectives. Ameera was farming, Vera is business, and the future heir will be romance/travel, but I don't have BV, unfortunately, so I'll have to go all romantic. Should be interesting; I always play Romance Sims absolutely terribly. Haha oh god no.

Ameera and Gabriel, both being Gaming enthusiasts, spend a lot of time either like this...
Ameera: I SAW YOU! You put in a cheat code!
Gabriel: La-la-la, can't hear you over the sound of me winning!
...or tending to Santana, because Vera's meditating to keep her motives from going crazy and Connor...I don't know. I can never account for Connor. I think I told him to skill up for a promotion or something. And when he's not doing that, he's busy succeeding at work.

dammit Connor

Santana's fairly self-sufficient. She draws a lot and she's building some skills there. It's almost her birthday, so all of her toddler skills have been taught. She's golden.
Santana: Hey, that drawing looks uncannily similar to mine...
Shocking, considering you drew both.

Alright, come on, birthday girl, let's see if your face smooths out any.

Well, that's a definite yes! Santana's freaking ADORABLE. Aside from that eye shape of Gabriel's and the Talbot nose, she's the spitting image of Connor. I like it!

/obligatory aww cute picture

For some reason Connor and Gabriel get along really well and hang out a lot. I guess it's a spouses-gotta-stick-together thing. Santana wandered off and Gabriel swooped in and began telling Connor jokes and admiring him and doing all sorts of things. It was just kinda odd for me to come back from managing the rest of the house to an admire/congratulate/tell joke party in Santana's room, haha.

But then of course, once everyone was in bed and it was like ass-o'clock-in-the-morning, Vera decided to pop out the kid. Everybody meet Julius! I was trying to stick to the theme of promiscuous namesakes, considering the generation's theme (haha I still watched Glee back when Santana was born!), but I was stuck. So I asked my brother, and he vouched loudly and adamantly for the name "Caesar." Of course, that was stupid, so I named him Julius instead. /cool story bro

I'm glad because I was so worried I would fuck up and Vera would have a Santana clone, but Julius has got Gabriel's skintone, so we're good. I'm so disappointed the green skintone went away so quickly. I mean, Renee across town has the leafy skin! Why not Santana or Julius?
Anyway, this means Vera can go back to work; she's already a business tycoon, but I'd hate for her to quit. Not like we need the money, but her LTW is to earn 100,000 dollars, so we might as well keep her working. And then if she's at home I'd have to manage her and ugh do not want, I'm too obsessive to have Ameera, Gabriel, Julius, AND Vera at home every day.

It also means Connor and Vera can share a bed again. Vera's been meditating for like three days straight, after all.

And this promptly happened! Vera earned her $100,000 and Connor got promoted! Yay.

Well that seems reasonable enough. I like finding my Sims' one true hobbies, because in a challenge like this I don't force hobbies on people for plot reasons.

So let's try some stuff out! Maybe Music & Dance, San?
Santana: Nah.
Okay, okay, that's fine. I got all day, don't worry.

Maybe Nature, then, like Granny Ameera?
Santana: No.
Alright calm down, I'll figure this out.

Maybe you're an Arts & Crafts kind of girl, Santana. So look at the art. Study it and--
Santana: This is just some crappy picture of sheep you hung up in the nursery to make it less bland.
You are not studying Santana Talbot

Santana: Okay, fine. Look, I'm studying.
That's better. Now, Santana, really lose yourself in the art. Feel it in your heart and soul. Embrace the beauty of art! Do you feel it?

Santana: LOL NOPE
Does nothing please you, kid?! Alright! Fine! We'll keep looking.

Santana: Gee, they sure look like they're having fun knowing their hobbies and all...
Oh my god shut up about-- wait! Of course! Why didn't I think of Games? That's the predominant hobby in the house, after all! She's gotta be Games.

Or not at all, I guess.
Gabriel: I HAVE FAILED
Go play your Sims 3 and stop being such a drama queen. I got one true hobbies to discover.

Wow. Tinkering? I wouldn't have suspected. There ya go, San! You're a tinkerer!
Gabriel: noooo
I'm sure she'll still play games with you, Gabe.
Gabriel: It's just not the same!
Again. Drama queen.

See, Gabriel? You can still bond with your granddaughter over looking at the rain through solid walls instead of actual windows like idiots. It's totally fine!
Wait. Hey Gabriel, why can't I select you? Why aren't you controllable? Gabriel what are you doing you goddamn--

GABRIEL NO DON'T YOU DARE DIE ON ME
oh my god NO I quit Sims again, I can't take this right now

Well that's it. Show's over, folks, this is it. The most entertaining, ridiculous, stupid, whimsical, amazing spouse I've ever had in any challenge I've ever done is finally entering hula-heaven. What is even the point anymore?

...god dammit, Gabriel. Okay, now I have the strength to go on. If there was a way for Gabriel to go out in style, this was it.

And with that, Gabriel Green-Talbot leaves us. He's survived by his wife Ameera, his kids Vera and Bill, his grandkids Santana, Julius, and Renee, and his legacy of goofy shenanigans. Shine on, you crazy diamond, you'll be dearly missed.

Santana: But he never got to teach me how to watch the rain through the walls!
I'm not joking, the Reaper came just as I was directing Gabriel to interact with Santana. I had one last locked want for him, which was to become best friends with her, and I was thisclose when he died. Like, 2 lifetime interaction points. It's actually really sad.

But as we can plainly see, Gabriel's spirit lives on in the Talbot house.

SHOCKING NEWS: Burned food tastes bad!
Ameera: Want some salad? :D

Anyway, Gabriel's insurance policy came through, and it seems everyone got something. Especially Ameera. Like, holy shit. Gabriel, where were you hiding all that cash, in your goddamn pants pocket?

Connor...Connor, what? Connor why do you remember getting money from Gabriel's death but not Gabriel's actual death itself
Connor what the fuck

But anyway, it's a quiet night, everything's fine, it's all--
OH ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
NO. Get the hell out of here! When I remodeled the house I forgot to replace the burglar alarm, sure, but that doesn't give you a right to come in here and take our stuff!

NO GET OUT GO AWAY I HATE YOU

Connor.
Connor.
CONNOR.
CONNOR GET UP THERE IS A BURGLAR WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU oh my god the only phone is downstairs
Disturbing fact, I am actually pretty awful at this game.

GODDAMMIT SHE TOOK THE CAR. At least the cops are here! She'll be brought to justice soon enough.

YEAH GET HER
Connor: Not on my stairs!!

...what
Connor: At least they didn't mess up the stairs.
Go back to bed, Connor.

WELL FUCK YOU THEN

So the burglar made off with the car, a statue, and some paintings, which I have meticulously replaced with other shit because I don't care. Maybe this bearded guy won't get his dumb ass stolen. Yeah.
And yes, I also bought a burglar alarm.

Well, shit. Sorry, San, this just isn't my week.

But hey, at least you've made a friend! Remember cousin Renee? It's pretty amazing to see how the spares and the main line are so divergent already, but still in some ways the same. (That Talbot nose though!)

Vera's head got stuck like this for like two hours. It was very disquieting. She didn't move or blink or ANYTHING. Weird.

Santana: Waaaah my grandpa died and my house got robbed and my dad's an idiot and you sent home my friend to make me do homework!
There's a lot going on at the Talbot house right now. Including...JULIUS'S BIRTHDAY! Hooray! Can't wait to see what he looks like!

OH GOD IT'S VOLDEMORT
Gabriel continues to haunt the family by bestowing his nose on Julius. And sure, it'll look fine when he grows up.

BUT JESUS CHRIST LOOK AT IT. You need a microscope to see his nose in side profile!

And speaking of haunting, how are you doing, buddy?
Gabriel: Knowledge.
Okay then.

Vera and Connor have headed back to work, leaving Ameera with the kids during the day.

See? Success just running rampant around here.

NO PLEASE DON'T RUN OVER CHILDREN WITH YOUR HELICOPTER

Vera: lol don't care
At least Ameera's around to be semi-responsible.

Ameera and Julius really do get along well. She taught him a nursery rhyme! Aww.

OH NO NOT AGAIN Ameera noooooooo

Julius nooooo shh it'll be okay! (no it won't MY FOUNDER'S DYING AUGH)

And with that, both my founders go to rest. Ameera started this challenge from nothing but a shabby house and a plot of land, growing tomatoes for income. She never did get to be Mayor as per her LTW, but she got permaplat anyway simply through living a good life. You'll be missed, but at least you're with your other half now.

They sure were some good founders, huh...
:(

Santana...Santana what the fuck both your grandparents JUST DIED

Brief intermission for mildly attractive townie reading the paper.
Okay we're good.

Julius grew up! See, the nose is growing on him already. My brother, who is still sulking that I didn't name Julius "Caesar" instead, insists he looks like that kid from The Lorax and I...can't help but agree. Uh.

That's all for now, and I really hope I can make some significant progress on this challenge in the days to come! I'm glad I'm getting back into this game, kinda, haha.

Just shufflin'

2011-08-22T01:47:56Z

I feel kinda bad for referencing that shuffling song but whatever, I do what I want. Also, I found a similar meme from way-back-when, so I added those questions that weren't similar from the second meme to make one giant meme. Because my siblings have horrible choices in television and I'd like nothing more than to tune it out right now. Onward!

1. How does the world see me?

An Accent Beyond, Portal 2 soundtrack
Normally I get annoyed when songs don't match up to questions, but this song is totally my jam, so I don't even care.

2. How is my life going?

The Kids From Yesterday, My Chemical Romance
Well...kind of. Pretty soon I'll be starting my senior year of high school and then going to college and then just, like, living my life as a grown-up person...oh god I'm gonna start crying I am supremely pathetic, pardon me. ;_;

3. What do my friends really think of me?

Chromaggia, Repo! The Genetic Opera.
I would like to think this isn't accurate. Isn't the English translation something like "Others are wounded by my carelessness" or something?

4. Do people secretly lust after me?

You Will Be Perfect, Portal 2 soundtrack.
PERFECT AS WHAT THOUGH
(By the way, you all should look up these Portal songs on YouTube. I have never really liked techno-ish anything, but these songs are fucking awesome. I hope my favorite one, There She Is, pops up for the meme!)

5. How can I make myself happy?

This Tornado Loves You, Neko Case.
Well this is a vaguely romantic song. So yeah. xD

6. What should I do with my life?

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Wilco.
Yeah, no, heartbreaking does not seem like a positive direction to take my life in.

7. Will I ever have children?
(I will admit I skipped a bit for this one, because I got really absurd songs. Of course one of the precious few ~sexy~ songs I like shows up for this. HOLY SHIT WHY. mp3, just cause the song has the line "I wanna make some babies" doesn't make it appropriate for this, okay.)

Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
but what

8. What is good advice for me?

The Only Exception, Paramore.
Go find my ~only exception~, eh? Alright.

9. How will I be remembered?

The Reunion, Portal 2 soundtrack.
omg I swear I don't even have that many Portal songs on here

10. What is my signature dance song?
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood literal trailer.
omglol I totally do jam to these though

11. What do I think my current theme song is?

Helena, My Chemical Romance.
Not particularly but okay.

12. What do my friends think my current theme song is?

Pound of Flesh, Regina Spektor.
Well, I do like The Merchant of Venice...

13. What song will play at my funeral?

Firework, Katy Perry.
hahahahahaha

14. What kind of person do I like?

The Ballad of Mona Lisa, Panic At The Disco.
So, I like dead people and/or murderers. Okay cool.

15. What is my day going to be like?

Me Against the Music, Glee.
lmao that would be fun.

(Heeeeeere come the new/old questions!)

16. Will I get far in life?

Goodbye Caroline, Aimee Mann.
So I guess that's a no.

17. Where will I get married?

At the Opera Tonight, Repo! The Genetic Opera.
omg why does this work so well? Where will I get married? Why, at the opera! Tonight!

18. What is my best friend’s theme song?

Going Through the Motions, Aimee Mann.
oh

19. What is the story of my life?

Bulletproof Heart, My Chemical Romance
Weirdly accurate...

20. What was high school like?

Aim For The Head, Creature Feature.
HOLY SHIT I WISH! xDDD

21. How can I get ahead in life?

Black Dragon Fighting Society, My Chemical Romance.
I'll proceed with drinking juice while I'm killing 'cause it's fucking delicious, then.

22. What is the best thing about me?

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, My Chemical Romance.
Not sure what this means, tbh.

23. What is in store for this weekend?

Cemetery Drive, My Chemical Romance.
Pretty grim, but okay.

24. What song describes my parents?

Dead!, My Chemical Romance.
omg I really hope not holy shit mp3

25. How is my life going?

The Only Hope For Me Is You, My Chemical Romance.
Not really.

26. What is some good advice?

To The End, My Chemical Romance.
...well.

~June

It seems we're at an impasse.

2011-07-16T02:48:25Z

So I'm still in NTM this year! I even made it into the top 3 last round, which absolutely floored me.

The current active round is Color My Emotion, which was a round last year as well. Because of that it took me a while to really get inspired for the round. And now that I finally have, I find myself with an unprecedented dilemma: I have too many pictures and I can't choose three to submit.

Honestly, it's ridiculous. I stare at my seven best pictures, each representing a different emotion, and I make a decision and then change my mind, swapping out one photo for another just to swap the replacement for another or end up with the first picture again and I keep going around in circles and it's absurd. Which leads to this post: which three of my seven shots for the round are the ones that particularly stand out or properly express an emotion?

Oh, and you don't even want to know how many shots I've rejected already; the seven "finalists," as it were, are the best from their particular crop. Each feeling had five or six different shots or angles. It was absurd. No wonder my computer keeps complaining to me about disk space...

Anyway. It's picture/babbling time.

Well, let's start with A, shall we? This would be a freestyle shot. The color's gray, and the emotion's apathy. Apathy's a lack of feeling/caring for others and such. If you simply do not care, you're apathetic. I tried to convey that sense of simply ignoring feelings or just plain not giving a fuck, and threw in a robot setpiece for good measure.

Here's determination, paired with the color brown and a rather angry-looking Marnie. She looks like she's on a mission, doesn't she? This one isn't really my favorite, but it's unique and I like that. The green on the setpiece would probably lose me some points, tbh. :\

Next we have blue-tinged confusion, which would be pretty accurate for me right now. This would be a headshot. I like this one because the font I found suits the emotion and Marnie's expression is kind of funny. But I feel like confusion is kind of cliche and I'd like to be as original as possible.

Here's a very orange curiosity; this one's almost definitely going in because I wasn't happy with any of my other bodyshots so it's kind of the only one I have. lol. Anyway, I surrounded Marnie with a bunch of orange things and tried to convey an attitude of "What's that? Ooh, what's THAT? What does this do?! :D"

Purple Empathy is another one I really like. I don't even know why, it just kinda speaks to me, I guess. Marnie's really giving off a sense of empathy and caring and friendly concern. Also she looks adorable. Several times I've considered it for the headshot but not quite with absolute certainty.

Burning-red hatred turned out pretty cool-looking too. She really does look like she's staring at someone with intense distaste. It'd be a freestyle. She looks really scary, as well. My notes list "dangerous anger" as an alternate title for this concept. (Yeah, I had so many different ideas I had to like write them all down and take notes. Dx)

Finally, we have yellow obsession. This one's kinda random; alternately it could have been "enthusiasm" but, as stated, I was trying to be ~speshul so I went a little beyond enthusiasm into obsession. As for the prop, I chose the first pretty yellow thing I saw. I don't know why this sculpture is so fascinating to Marnie. xD

Anyway, those are my seven shots. Even after all this I really do like them all for different reasons, which is awesome because I really wasn't enthusiastic at all for this round at the start. (I got eliminated before I could post in this round last year, I think...bad memories and such. jk, jk~)

Also Deathly Hallows Part 2 was so freaking fantastic and I cried so much and just...I don't have any words. It was beautiful. Go see it.

~June

So this meme

2011-07-12T00:03:00Z

Give me one of the characters from my story and I will tell you:

* How I feel about this character
* All the people I ship romantically with this character
* My non-romantic OTP for this character
* My unpopular opinion about this character
* One thing that will happen to this character in the future of my story.

idk what non-romantic OTP really means, but I'm guessing it's like, who their best friends are? Ship romantically isn't going to have much variety, I'll admit. I think like all my characters are monogamous. /lame

Anyway! I got some characters ready to go, a video game taking a million years to install itself, and a quiet afternoon with nothing better to do.

1. Mimi Granger (Hermione's ABCs)
* I really do like Mimi. She ~blossomed into her own person without me doing much but watching, haha. Although I don't really do jokes and whatever in Hermione's ABCs anymore, she allowed me to have a long and illustrious time with one-liners and such.
* Just her husband, Simon, pretty much. I don't even know why, but they really click for me.
* Gotta be Mimi/Chip, doesn't it? xD
* Unpopular opinion: I didn't think Mimi would get such a positive reaction from such a wide range of my readers.
* Not much, really. Her cameo in that one chapter when teen!Inigo and Imago was like her last appearance in anything, really. She's been phased out, I suppose.

2. Pen (Survivor Radio)
* Pen's fun. I like writing her because there's a lot to her to be explored. Developing her in SR was like a journey for me, I guess. At the start there's not much to her and her behavior seems bitchy and mean at times, and slowly the whole story's dragged out from her psyche.
* Nat. Even in the rudimentary stages they ended up together. Before they had names I was like "OTP fighting zombies FTW!!1"
* I dunno about non-romantic OTP here. She's not the sort of person who has a big circle of friends.
* Unpopular opinion: I'm willing to admit she can be a real bitch sometimes.
* The future? If I ever get around to writing this sequel that's been poking at my brain, Pen's going to have to face her past and fight her demons to save a life. Shit gets real.

3. The Snowflakes, aka Gemelle and Tamsyn (The Villain Academy)
* They're pretty hardcore and creepy. Out of all the villains-in-training at the Academy, I really would not want to meet them in a dark alley. They can't be reasoned with and they will straight-up murder your ass if you look at them funny. In retrospect they were pretty good characters for 2009-me.
* No one, really.
* Each other? idk villains don't keep friends. Oh my god why do I suck at characters.
* Unpopular opinion: Snowflakes? Really, self, really? I hate retrospect. *facepalm*
* Well, they died. So no real future there.

4. Helena Granger (Hermione's ABCs)
* Yaaaaaay, Helena! Unfortunately her storyline coincided with my initial burst of MCR-fangirliness so I was kinda squeeing and making references at every turn. /awkward
* Seb, obviously. Garrett can go hug a sheep.
* Mimi? That sounds weird, though. Why can't this question be "your character's best friend" or something?
* Unpopular opinion: See, I had this whole plan relating to Helena dying and her funeral being set to the song that acted as her namesake but I'm really glad it ended up getting shoved aside by her psychic and drama-ridden children. >_>
* I don't have much planned for her. She'll go on being awesome but eventually die and break my heart.

5. Imago Granger (Hermione's ABCs)
* Oh, Imago. Imago Imago Imago. Drama and angst all up in this girl's face. She practically breeds dramallamas on a farm. But at the same time she's awesome to write because, like Pen, she's really deep. She acts capable but she's actually really needy and clingy and sad. She loves getting a reaction because then she knows for sure someone's paying attention to her. She knows when she crosses a line but doesn't really do much about it. And she's coming back, yep.
* Her husband, Ned Switch.
* Her best friend's definitely Inigo; he understands her best. I picture her and Cassandra as kind of kindred spirits in a really weird and fucked-up way.
* Unpopular opinion: OH MY GOD SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR SAD LIFE. (I know I write her that way but apparently I do it really well because most of the time I just want to hit her until she comes to her senses.)
* The future! She's in 46 like a whole lot, but it is not fun times. It is sad times that wrenches my heart and will make everyone mad at me. But at least she's not dead, right? Ha ha?

6. Draco Granger (Hermione's ABCs)
* Damn, we're going retro, aren't we? Draco was cool. He was in the story around the same time I found out what a plot was and took part in the murder mystery extravaganza of the Generation D college years. And then I brought him back to ~save the day again. Him and Demelza are very akin to Inigo and Imago in my mind; the level-headed and empathetic brother paired with an exuberant, witty sister. Inigo and Imago veered quite far from the Draco-and-Demelza-model, though.
* His wife, Astoria Greengrass.
* Demelza's his BFF~ but I seem to recall him getting along with Dolores and Druella as well.
* Unpopular opinion: Wow, dude, way to be super-dramatic about that fucking gelatin.
* The future? Nothing much. He's just chilling with Demelza, Pollux, Joule, Astoria, and Scorpia. Fun fact: Scorpia was Mimi's son Knox's first kiss. It didn't go anywhere; he took her to a bowling alley, smooched her in what was likely some creepy incest-ish thing, ate some dinner, and ran off without paying while she bowled. Good times.

7. Angie (The Villain Academy)
* She's super-easy to write. Mean, aggressive, and quite the pyromaniac. Very basic villain. Her one-liners were a lot of fun, second only to Rune's, probably.
* Altair, because they are the random couple that just kind of happened but worked anyway.
* She gets along with the Snowflakes. Rune, not so much.
* Unpopular opinion: She kinda peaced out towards the end. I wish I could have done more.
* Her future was rife with super-villain shenanigans. I like to imagine her and Altair blowing shit up all over the world.

8. Altair (The Villain Academy)
* Hey remember there was another dude in TVA? He had a lot of potential which I feel I didn't do enough with due to time constraints and general laziness.
* Angie, naturally.
* I dunno, he kinda does his own thing and flies off to some vague location most of the time.
* Unpopular opinion: Where the hell do you even go, dude?
* His future with Angie, as stated, is just shenaniganed out.

9. Inigo Granger (Hermione's ABCs)
* Seriously one of my favorite characters in Hermione's ABCs because he's grown and developed so much. I love it. I bought a shirt at Old Navy because it looked like his and that was part of the reason why I liked it so much. xD He's multi-faceted and writing him is very natural to me. I don't have to puzzle out dialogue that much.
* Vanessa Benson-Granger, of course. They just go together.
* Imago's his best friend but he really gets along with everyone. Except Cassandra.
* Unpopular opinion: idk I kind of agree with all of Inigo's life choices.
* In 46 he comes face-to-face with someone he thought he'd never see again and he's got to deal with that and stuff.

10. Chrissy Lidner (Hermione's ABCs)
* I've only barely introduced Chrissy (girl with yellow hair who Isla's son Arthur is into) but I'm really excited to go on and write her and stuff, because she's interesting.
* I do ship her with Arthur but things between them aren't always going to be really simple.
* I like the idea of her and Leonard's girlfriend Jodie Page and Leo's sister Liana being friends for some reason. Sleepovers to bitch about men, hell yeah.
* Unpopular opinion: Holy shit why did I choose YELLOW HAIR. So few people do that shade of neon yellow with their hairs! Dx
* She'll be around in varying degrees having a hard time of dealing with her ~feelings and insecurities and all.

11. Nat Scott (Survivor Radio)
* I could spend my life writing about Nat and his misadventures. He's a ridiculous amount of fun while still being deep and awesome and stuff. He's funny, he's kind when it suits him, he's not the brightest but he gets along, and he's a real character. I can envision passing him by on the sidewalk or sitting next to him on a bus or something.
* With Pen, because she really completes him and helps him be a better person.
* Nat befriends the group of survivors who help him and Pen at the station in my mind. Otherwise I wish I could have explored the dynamic between him and his older sister Cassie more, because I feel like I'd love writing their interactions.
* Unpopular opinion: Nah, like Inigo I agree with Nat's life choices and everything he chooses to be.
* Again, if I ever write the sequel, Nat's not going to be a very happy camper, which makes me sad. But it won't really be his fault. Prior to Very Bad Things happening to Nat, we're going to see he's become a far better person than he was at the start to Survivor Radio.

And that's that. If there's anyone else you want me to talk about, comment, I guess? Yay. I liked doing this, it was fun!

~June

I'm supposed to be on vacation BUT...

2011-07-04T19:02:02Z

You just keep on trying til you run out of cake!

2011-07-01T02:10:17Z

Step 1: Put your iPod/iTunes on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song or artist the lines come from.
Step 4:Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!

'Cause I'm a sucker for memes. Let's roll.

1. Well, here we are again / It's always such a pleasure
2. This is my vindication / With a little decoration / No need to keep you waitin'
3. ~~Try to see it my way / Do I have to keep on talking til I can't go on?~~
4. ~~For what you did to me / Or what I'll do to you / You get what everyone else gets~~
5. Peaceful nighttime shot of New York...I MEANT LOS ANGELES (lol this one's barely even a song)
6. Baby can't you see / I'm callin'
7. ~~Drugs, gimme drugs, gimme drugs / I don't need it~~
8. ~~I'm distilling everything she said into a potion / But it's always going to my head in slow motion~~
9. ~~They're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books / To make a citizen out of you~~
10. ~~Well, sometimes I go out by myself / And I look across the water~~
11. You're not in this alone / Let me break this awkward silence / Let me go!
12. ~~Sing it out / Boy, you've gotta see what tomorrow brings~~
13. ~~There might be something outside your window / But you just / Never know~~
14. If I'm a bad person / You don't like me / Well, I guess I'll make my own way
15. A fire burns / Water calms / You cool me down
16. ~~When I was younger, I saw my daddy cry / And curse at the wind~~
17. ~~If you're never sorry / Then you can't be forgiven~~
18. ~~Well, if you wanted honesty, that's all you had to say~~
19. When the lights go out / Will you take me with you? (oh goddammit I'm getting all misty-eyed and remembering concert-going and asjfghjgfdsbhjg I am a pathetic excuse for a sensible person)
20. ~~I / Am not the kind of girl / Who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion~~

BONUS SONGS!!!1eleventy!12 because once I start pumping the jams I just can't stop

21. ~~Gravity / Don't mean too much to me~~
22. ~~And if your heart stops beating / I'll be here wondering / Did you get what you deserve?~~
23. ~~Well, let's go back to the middle of the day that starts it all / I can't begin to let you know just what I'm feeling~~
24. ~~I know a thing about contrition / Because I got enough to spare~~
25. ~~You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar / When I met you~~
26. ~~Baby girl, where you at? / Got no strings, got men attached~~
27. Put on your shoes, girl / I'm going to the coast
28. ~~Hello, hello, baby, you called / I can't hear a thing~~
29. ~~Can I pose a question: how do you kill what is dead? / I just shoot from the hip / And I [title drop]~~
30. ~~We'll drown ourselves in misery tonight / White lies / You've worn out all your dancing shoes tonight~~

Oh my God like over half this list is one band and all the others are ridiculously obscure. FAILURE.

But anyway, guess as you will, I shall look at everyone's playlists and then watch videos on Youtube until 3 AM. xD

Also I'm going away on vacation on Saturday, but Mom says there'll be wifi so I'll be popping in when I'm not chilling with my family. I'm really excited, it's going to be fun times and the house we're renting has a Wii as well as a pool AND a lake nearby. :DDDD

~June

It's us that made this mess!

2011-06-29T04:19:05Z

For ages I've been clamoring for someone to write a supernatural romance story where the girl is the dangerous killer and the guy is only a hapless mortal and the other day I decided I might as well try it for myself. So here is a short story I randomly spouted out one night. It's called "Only Human" and it is not a happy story. Names are utterly random; the protag actually shares a name with my neighbor's son just because we were at their house the other day and it was the first name I came up with. Anyway! I probably could write the full story instead of just this little segment if I wasn't so lazy, but it's an interesting concept and if anyone wants to write their ~version of the story, feel free. (I'd much rather read someone else's story with a plot like this than write my own to be honest, haha!)

Blathering over. Story now.

"Only Human"

He tore through the underbrush of the dark forest, the world an inky-black blur around him. Thorns tore at his clothes and his hair, and he could feel branches scraping him and tiny rivulets of blood streamed helter-skelter across his face.

The crushing of branches ominously close to him echoed in his ears; she was close, and she evidently hadn’t given up the chase. He strained to run still faster, every muscle so sore he barely felt like he had legs.

Faster, faster, faster: the words were his mantra, his only thought besides blind panic. He could barely catch his breath, but he couldn’t pause. He didn’t dare look back, but he knew somehow that she was gaining on him. But he simply couldn’t run any faster; he was only human.

Human, he reflected grimly. That was what got him into this mess, wasn’t it?

He was slowing down, despite his best efforts to keep pace. His stupid human body was weak and easily tired out despite months of drills at baseball practice, and he simply could not keep running forever. The footsteps behind him grew still louder, still nearer, and terror struck his heart like a knife, joining the stitch in his side. He couldn’t even draw breath properly.

The forest was a maze and it seemed to have no end. He was running and running with no destination, no goal except to escape the creature pursuing him so relentlessly. How long had he been out here? Surely someone had noticed his absence by now, hadn’t they? The darkness and the forest and the fear stretched on and he could easily imagine an eternity of it.

Suddenly he burst pell-mell out of the cluster of trees, and there he stumbled and fell with a cry into the brook running through the clearing. He struggled to rise, but his body refused to run any longer, and he remained sprawled in the paltry current, feeling it soak through his shirt.

In an instant she was there, moving quickly as a photon to the brookside. She stared down at him with an infuriatingly amused expression on her face.

“If you think you’re going to endear yourself to me by being fun to chase, Brandon, you’re quite mistaken,” she told him, flashing that grin he had once found so pretty.

“Sarah,” he gasped out, completely without breath. “Sarah, please…”

“Begging’s not going to help much, either. You’ll only make me sad,” Sarah replied, without even the slightest hint of melancholy. “Now, I thought we went over this? You know why I can’t let you go. You know my secret, and considering that you don’t wait to join me, I can’t just let you walk away with that sort of knowledge.”

“I won’t….won’t tell anyone!” he insisted desperately, struggling to breathe. “Never! I’ll take it to my grave…just please don’t--”

“Oh, I’ll make sure you take it to your grave, darling,” she interrupted.

In his mind he was screaming, but physically, he was too weak to do much more than shake his head vehemently and whimper.

In a flash she was crouched over him, her nose millimeters from his; he stared cross-eyed into her bright blue eyes. Feebly, he reached up and tried to push her off. She laughed and rested her forehead atop his.

It then struck Brandon how quickly his life had changed. He could recall just a week ago how Sarah would perform this exact same action and he would react not with terror, but with happiness and affection. He could remember softly kissing her forehead, lips, neck, nose, anywhere she let him; he used to run his hands through that dark, wavy hair now soaked with water from the brook; he would tell her she looked beautiful, laugh at her jokes, enjoy her company…and now? Now he was sprawled on his back in a secluded forest, regarding her with fear and contempt.

She sighed dramatically and murmured, “It’s such a shame, though; you would have made such a handsome vampire.”

He whimpered again in response, unable to articulate the pure horror coursing through his veins, soon to be emptied if Sarah had her way.

Brandon had never expected her to be a fucking vampire, of all the crazy things in the world. Sure, she was graceful and beautiful and talented, unnaturally so, but he had assumed he was simply seeing her through the lens of first love. In his eyes, she could fall flat on her face and she’d still be perfect, not that she ever did. He was amazed when she had shown interest in him, too, and for a few glorious months he had had it all: a good life, a starting position on the varsity baseball team, decent grades, and a beautiful girlfriend, envied by all the other guys in school. He had noticed a few strange things, true; she was away often, on purported “hiking trips” with family, and she drank exclusively out of a canteen which she never shared with anyone. There had been times when she’d bitten him when they were kissing, but he had kind of liked it and thought little of it. But he couldn’t believe she was anything but perfect.

That is, until she had told him, revealed her immortality, her affinity for blood (mainly animal, to avoid suspicion, but she liked human blood “as a special treat every now and then”), her supernatural reflexes…and she had offered to share her lifestyle with him.

“Just a little bite,” he could recall her telling him. “You’ll be in something of a coma for a couple days, but when you wake up you’ll feel marvelous. And we can be together forever.”

Well, what was one to do? He had freaked out, startled and shocked at her secret, and declared their relationship over. She had warned him of dire consequences, which he had ignored.

Of course, he hadn’t realized “dire consequences” translated into “I am going to murder you and suck out your delicious blood.”

“Oh, Brandon; I could have spent forever with you,” Sarah said, more to herself than to him. “You’re interesting enough.”

“Sarah, if you ever cared about me you’d let me go!” he cried out, in the first semblance of coherent speech he’d had all night.

“I do care about you. Of course I do,” she whispered, and he could see sincerity in her expressive eyes.

She pressed her lips to his, and he kissed her fiercely, as though proving his affection for her would change her mind.

Was he willing to change his mind? Could he be a vampire, a creature of the night with a thirst for blood? A monster? But better undead than really dead, he reasoned, and, come to think of it, an eternity with Sarah couldn’t be all that bad…

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a set of fangs piercing through his lip. He screamed in agony, writhing under her as sticky blood dribbled down his chin, swirling into the current of the brook.

She pulled away from him, sharp fangs stained scarlet. “There, that should keep you quiet,” she said lightly. “It’s poison, by the way…you ought to die of that in a minute or two and leave me to my midnight snack.” Sarah regarded him curiously and poked the holes she had made, leaving them stinging. “Aw, you’d look cute with piercings there. It’s such a pity. This whole affair is a pity, really; so much potential gone to waste.”

“Sarah!” he yelled out thickly, paralyzed by her venom, bleeding from a dozen different places. “Sarah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just let me go! Turn me into a vampire, I don’t care, just please don’t kill me!” Hot tears rolled down his face as the reality of his situation sunk in: I’m dying extremely painfully and my girlfriend’s going to suck my blood. I’m dying. I’M DYING! The pain of her bite was acute, raw, so painful that he couldn’t think straight, and all he could taste in his mouth was metal. His body throbbed from wounds, from exhaustion, and even from heartbreak. This was the girl he had loved, trusted, protected, cared for…and this was how their story ended.

“Yes, you’re sorry now. Of course you’re sorry now,” she said, sounding disinterested.

She bent down and licked one of the many scrapes on his face, as though she was sampling his blood. He murmured her name one last time, and she stared at him.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way. But you won’t join me, and you won’t beat me, so you’re just going to die,” she said softly.

The world was losing its color, going dark at the edges; her face was swimming before his eyes. Bleeding, bruised, broken, defeated, and delicious, he felt himself slip away into the poison’s grip. His eyelids felt heavy, but before he could shut them, he felt her mouth at his neck. She kissed the spot gently, as she always used to do before he was simply her midnight snack, and then tore into it with the ferocity of a wolf. He felt blood being drained from him, siphoned out with tooth and tongue.

He didn’t even have the strength to scream.

~June

DITFT: Buy something or get out!

2011-06-24T20:04:39Z

I'm finally finished with exams! Finally I can sit down and type up this update without feeling like I'm neglecting schoolwork or not studying enough. (Not that it helped, lol, I'm pretty much fucked with all my exams except history.) But anyway! We have a nice update today, filled with many silly shenanigans in an effort for an extra two points. Intrigued? Read on!

So last time on this lovely challenge, heiress Vera Talbot married Connor Weir and they had a daughter, Santana. Both Vera and Connor are currently in the Business career. Ameera and Gabriel, our founders, got old and engaged in daily video game tournaments, occasionally interacting with their younger granddaughter (designated spare Bill had a daughter, Renee, in the spare update). What's next for the main line? Probably not anymore babies, but we'll see.

Oh. Also apparently this happened. Cool life.

Oh, the game tournament must be on break. Wait a second, I never even looked at Santana's stats, did I?

Well, if San could be any less like her namesake, it'd be news to me. But I'm avoiding ridiculously mean Sims this challenge! Yay.

Santana: I'M SO NICE
Yes, yes you are.

Here we have the stark contrast between Generations 1 and 3. I'm actually really disappointed that we're losing the leafy green skintone already.

I know Gabriel already pulled this face a couple chapters ago, but Ameera just looks so cute doing it I couldn't not take a picture.

Santana really is the spitting image of Connor, save for the family eye shape.

Speaking of Vera and Connor, their lives seem to be alternating between working and sleeping. They're hardly around these days.

Vera tops her career and gets me a point. And now, the main event of this chapter can occur...

Oh, yes. We're opening a business.

So Vera and Connor head off alone to work the family business up to level 10, an endeavor which will surely take up the entire chapter.

So here it is, a remodeled premade community lot in Belladonna Cove. It's called Executive Apparel, and it's a clothing, jewelry, mirror, and dresser drawer store.

Here's the main shopping floor. It's a pretty classy place, right? I redesigned a lot of it, because it wasn't very pretty before.

Look, customers! Here we have my Belladonna Cove prototype of Chloe O'Brian. (idk what happened to that Legacy; probably me being lazy.) But she bought a mirror, yay!

But while Vera is quite adept at sales, Connor isn't so with the cash register. You better hurry that up, Connor, Chloe's got her gonna-smack-a-bitch face on.

Statue: And let there be light! Haha, just kidding, it's a witch.
Pretty sparkles spam now!

Vera: And here is our selection of-- OH GOD WHAT IS THAT

Customer: OH MY GOD A FIRE I BLAME THE ESTABLISHMENT! *minus minus*
*headdesk*

Vera: Are you ready to get excited about this mirror?!
Customer: IT'S ALL I NEED
Unlocking the ability to Dazzle: +9000

So these two are a premade couple and they both showed up on the lot at the same time and proceeded to act all couple-y. And block the register.
Vera: Are you guys going to buy something or what?

Really? Are you guys really getting it on in a photobooth in someone's store right now? That is so--wait, you're getting star points for this?
Carry on, then.

This was almost the cover page because it's so funny, but I figured the other one worked better.

Statue: Check out my sweet moves! :D
Sally Riley: *doesn't care at all*
Statue: :(

Vera: Something horrible is on the horizon. I can feel it in my bones.
I think it's just that creepy dresser drawer with three eyes getting to you.

...OR NOT. GODDAMMIT.

Connor, what the hell are you doing out here? I ordered you to stay at the register and, like, accept the customer payments.

Guy: Oh hey, Connor, you're not doing anything, are you? SMOOCHIES!
Customer: Can I buy stuff yet?
WHAT IS THIS TOMFOOLERY

Connor: See, I can totally do it without even looking at the register! Uh...uh...
Customer: I'M REALLY ANGRY AT SOMETHING OVER THERE
Guy: Haha, I totally got it on with my wife in your photobooth.
Connor: What?!
Stop distracting him, jerk!

Other Guy: UM EXCUSE ME SOMTHING IS BLOCKING ME FROM DISTRACTING YOUR CASHIER
Connor: What does "void" mean again? Oops...

Guy: I have examined your life and found it to be full of failure.
Connor: D:

So every now and again I'd have to close the store and have these two abuse the energizer and interact a little bit, represented by this otherwise irrelevant shot. They're cute, okay?

OH MY GOD, FINALLY.

That awkward moment when one of your customers has a similar-sounding name to your daughter.

Vivian Cho: Ooh, that cashier can check me out any day!
HEY. No usurping my cashier! I paid for this one fair and square!

So my NTM entrant Marnie Tivian wandered into Executive Apparel and I followed her with the camera. Why? Because Marnie Tivian. That's why.

She's so cute, aww.

See, she's not even getting angry at Connor's ineptitude!
Connor: Hey!
Shh.

Ugh, I hate when evil witches come to the lot. They make it rain and never even have the common decency to buy anything.

Hey! You better not distract him, or your life will get significantly less cordial, know what I'm saying?
Samantha Cordial: *creepy stare*

Oh, look! Your far-less-annoying sister's here. Kimberly doesn't distract the hired help, no siree bob.

Note to self: get Kimberly Cordial into this challenge somehow.

Okay, Connor, now you're just being obtuse. FACE FORWARD, DAMMIT.

OH
MY
GOD
SHUT IT OFF

Vera: So, would you like to buy something?
Jerkass: HOW DARE YOU
Vera: Wha...?

You gave us a negative star for trying to sell you something in our store?!
Jerkass: LOLZ
Get out.

HOW ABOUT NO

Witch: EHEHEHEHEE
Customer: Oh. Hello. Your broom is kind of jammed in my hip, but that's cool.
Vera, I think we need to do something about these witches.

Vera: What witches?
Other Witch: Whee, sparkles! Of magic!
Uh...
Vera: *WILLFUL IGNORANCE*

Samantha Cordial: Wait, how come this neighborhood has more witches than your Harry Potter-themed neighborhood?
Quiet, you.

Samantha Cordial: Okay. Yaaaaay, magic!
Um, Vera--
Vera: THERE IS NOTHING THERE
Okay then.

Ha! Remember this guy who wouldn't buy anything? Well, Vera just sold him our most expensive item in the entire store. HOW 'BOUT THAT?

Connor: WAAAAH MY ASPIRATION
Shut up, you're not even a proper Fortune Sim, your LTW is to have six grandchildren.
Connor: my neeeeeeeeeeds
Fine, I'll let you have a spot of want-fulfillment. Just be quiet.

Wait, where the hell did you come from, Overalls? Uh, you're gonna have to wait a second...maybe browse some more?
Overalls: *stare*
...or you could do that.

Overalls: *minus minus*
Could you two hurry it up back there?

Overalls: So you're done, then?
Connor: Don't hate me 'cause you ain't me.
*facepalm*

Lady: Even with your ugly mug and your ugly fro, you're still boring. YAAAAWN
Don't fight here! I don't need any stars lost to old lady fights!

Witch: Muwahahaha, I control the weather! I control your very lives
BUY SOMETHING OR GTFO

And just as we're on the verge of level 10, Connor finally maxes out this skill.
Connor: Do I get cake?
No, your wife maxed out sales AND restocking in the same time frame. And the cake is a lie.

BOOYAH! That's bonus points for me and it spells the end of the chapter for all of you. But I want to continue making money via Executive Apparel...I think I'm gonna need a manager, right?

Aww, what a sweet little F1 who just randomly wandered in here. I've got a job for you, honey.
F1: My name's Diane.
Just let me hire you, okay?

Diane: Well, golly, Mrs. Talbot, I'd love to help here!
Vera: Good. Go restock everything, I don't want to anymore.
Diane: But I only have a badge in make-overs.
Vera: Yeah, and I have a badge in I-don't-care. Hop to it.

But before we leave for good, I though it would be funny for Connor to learn how to breakdance.

Breakdancer: You call that a "robot"? I'd prefer a murderous android hell-bent on exterminating my ass to your "robot"!
Ooh, burn.

Breakdancer: DEAR GOD WHY
Vera: You know, Connor, he's right, you're terrible.
Connor: GEE, THANKS

Breakdancer: Okay, look at me. And now look at you. Do you know what the difference between us is? I DON'T SUCK
Vera: Well, he certainly told you.
Connor: Honey I am trying to concentrate

I just liked this angle. So I made a banner out of it. See, I don't know, Connor's moves look passable to me most of the time, but Connor's coach always reacts like he just triggered the nuclear holocaust with his lack of abilities.

But at the break of day, Connor finally gets his technique down. Awesome. Let's leave now.

And so, our dynamic duo head back home, leaving this mini-challenge and chapter behind them.
...Connor where the hell are you get into the vehicle immediately. (I seriously thought I lost him for a minute in-game.)
Well, that's all for this chapter. Next time, we're back home! But before that I'm going to be working on Hermione's ABCs, and before even that I'm going to finish watching this musical. (I paused it right as Act 2 was starting and said, "I'm going to finish this chapter before watching the rest of this OR ELSE," haha.)

~June

junebug_13 @ 2011-06-19T14:26:00

2011-06-19T18:26:19Z

Treat your dads nice today, 'cause they love you and stuff.

(Unrelated note: happy!Inigo makes me smile.)

(Unrelated note 2: It took an eternity to get the posing just right on this, oh my God.)

~June

NTM again?

2011-06-13T22:06:54Z

Hi, everyone! So I'm doing the NTM event on Boolprop again, and I actually made it through the first round this time, haha. And I've found myself with an excess of unused pictures/general spam of my model, and I don't have exams until Wednesday so here is some picspam for you all.

Everyone say hello to Marnie Tivian, artist and model extraordinaire! She is a Popularity Sim with a secondary of Romance, with a LTW to be Captain Hero. Personality-wise, she's a Libra and her one true hobby is Arts & Crafts. Like Ameera Talbot last time, Marnie's a resident of Belladonna Cove and likely will find her way into the DITFT sooner or later once the competition's over.

She's very friendly and excitable, I've found. I love playing her household, because she's always doing something interesting.

Marnie: HELL YES! A PLATE! ~celebrate good times come on~

Arts & Crafts is clearly serious business.

Anyway, Round 1 was called High Fashion Seasons, and the models had to portray a season with their expressions/makeup/outfits. Marnie's season was summer, because in my mind, it would definitely be her favorite season. My actual entry's still there in the thread, so here are the outtakes.

This is an alternate headshot for that round. I was happy with the one shot that I took and didn't feel the need to redo it. Mostly I took this picture because Marnie looks cute in it and it shows off her makeup more. The bodyshots and freestyles have a lot more outtakes, bodyshot specifically; I completely redid it because the original shot I took wasn't actually that great, lol.

So as you can see from this rejected bodyshot, some things are identical to the final shot. The hair/glasses/bottoms, for example. That shirt's got some sort of MCR-related logo on it, which I thought would be cool if it wasn't really noticeable. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it nearly-unnoticeable. The effect I achieved with the top was more "LOLZ I LIKE EM-CEE-ARR CAN YOU TELL YET." Wish I could have made it work, though.

More MCR-tee bodyshots!

As you'll see in this and following photos, I really tried to convey a sort of seductive/flirty air to accentuate Marnie's Romance tendencies. Didn't manage it. It's a shame, I wanted to show off one of her inherited traits. She can totally pull it off, as evidenced below.

One more thing about this outfit: it's not really an outfit. See, I found these bottoms made to look like underwear for ladies, and I paired off one that could pass as a swimsuit bottom with the tee. The overall effect was awesome, imo. :D

This last bodyshot is most similar to the one I submitted; in fact, it uses the same animation, only in an earlier part of it. Swapped out the MCR tee by this point and once that happened I got the shot I wanted pretty quickly. Onto the freestyle!

My freestyle shots were all using this outfit/concept of piracy. Unfortunately the judges didn't seem to like my shot very much, saying it didn't ~fit the mood~ or whatever. I probably should have used one of the more playful ones, but whatever. (The complaint about blue lipstick, to be seen momentarily, confused me though. Blue's solely a winter color? bzuh)

(probably should have used this one in my submission. but it's okay, water under the bridge, I got through anyway~)

And today I posted my entry for the next round, which is called Object of Desire and involves models posing in various ways in an attempt to sell a product of some variety. I chose an in-home bowling alley, because why the hell not? Who else was gonna think of advertising an in-home bowling alley? (I wanted to make the catchphrase for the campaign "In-home Bowling Alley: Why the hell not?" but I didn't think the judges would be too pleased and shit.) Anyway, my shots were a basic advert, an advert encouraging people to "get fit" via bowling, and a final theme of "going retro" via bowling.

Rejected headshot. I took it and then realized that I was blocking most of her face and the judges would not look kindly upon my life.

Rejected headshot (with different hair as used in entry) because I liked the other angle better and stuff.

I had a lot of fun with the retro-themed bodyshot. I got Marnie all dressed up, haha.

I really liked this one, but obviously I couldn't use it because it didn't show her face.

Used a different hair in the final entry and I think the light's shifted over.

The most difficult part of using the bowling alley was actually showing it and Marnie at the same time. Ugh whatever I'm using a bowling alley, I don't care about anything.

I really liked this one, because it achieved the kind of nerdy persona I was going with for her in this shot. But it didn't show her face enough, so.

And I couldn't use this one, because it's clearly a headshot and I wanted to show off this outfit.

Finally, the freestyle, which ended up as a basic advert like you might see on a billboard/in a magazine.

But my original idea for the freestyle was having Marnie dancing atop the bowling alley and about to fall:

...along with a disclaimer that went like "we do not condone dancing on our product" but that doesn't really sell a bowling alley, does it? I thought it was funny, though.

But anyway. Marnie is clearly tired from her illustrious adventures, and so I bid you adieu. Hopefully I get through Round 2 so I can do the Hero & Villain round and then the Color My Emotion round again. woooooooo~

~June

DITFT: Whirlwind romance!

2011-06-02T21:20:28Z

I really love being off from school. I probably ought to have been writing my paper for English today, but I was waiting for a phone call that never came and so never really got around to it. But I told myself that I either would have to do the paper or update the challenge here, so the latter it is! As said in the last update, I've had all these pictures for a long while. I'm really looking forward to being able to play again, actually.

So in our last update, new heiress Vera was off to find a spouse in order to spawn Generation 3. Conveniently at this moment, Bill called up requesting an outing. After a long process of instructing Ameera and Gabriel that they were not invited and they were to stay home, we were off!

Here for the ride are Allyn, Bill's wife, and their daughter Renee. No, I have no idea what happened to Bill offscreen, so don't ask me.

Looks like some party, huh?

This is largely how the evening went. Bill and Allyn flaunting their romance and Renee and Vera awkwardly attempting to ignore them.

Renee: *PURPOSEFUL IGNORANCE*

Can't we have any male NPC witches flying about? I would have no problem with Vera marrying a warlock.
Vera: I would! Magic is silly.
Quiet, you. It's not for you to say.

But after playing with Renee for awhile, it was apparent that no spouse opportunities were available here.

So Vera went out on her own, visiting various community lots in search of a spouse. Cut to random shots from various locations!

Why is the interior of this lot so dark and shadowy all the damn time? It gives my pictures an often-unneeded sense of ominousness.

Creeper: Yeeeees, yeeees, he will do quite well...
Townie: I sense a disturbance.

New community lot! Vera gets her groove on.

Bill, we ended the outing because we didn't want to hang out with you anymore. Go home.

Well, nothing could possibly go wrong here.

Except that. New community lot time!

Since when do you have hobby enthusiasm in Film & Literature?

That awkward moment when townies are getting it on as you're having an epic fail of a spouse hunt. We're going home.

Oh, what's going on at home, you ask?

Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Isn't this cue for you to scream about BEEEEEEEES?
Ameera: At this point there's not much reason to bother.

Gabriel retired, though.

Anyway, I was starting to feel pretty desperate for a spouse and nothing was working. Then one evening Gabriel invited a friend over, who in turn asked if he could bring a friend. I said yes, and then this happened.

Wait a minute, what?! Boltage? ACR caressing? They don't even know each other, but they're getting on like a house on fire. This is Connor Weir, by the way, another Belladonna Cove playable. Damn, I just love the playables in this challenge, don't I?

Vera: *giggle*
I don't know, Vera, this all seems kind of sudden. You just met him! And there are still options to be explored--

--OH MY GOD. Connor, you work in Business?! I had given up on that +2 bonus points, and this totally counts! He's a co-worker, he's in her career and stuff. Welcome to the family, bro! You officially have my blessing.

ACR APPROVES OF THIS RELATIONSHIP

I'm not kidding, this is probably the fastest romance I have ever experienced in my game. From zero to love in nothing flat!

After so much struggle for ~true love~, I'm glad to see Vera all happy and shit.

Connor proceeded to pull that "it's late I should probably go home" bullshit. Don't think you're getting away quite that easily, Weir.

Gabriel, that is not your bed. Please exit it immediately.

Then the next night, this happened. Yay, Generation 3!

So she takes up meditation because I can't be assed to cater to her many hormonal whims and needs.

So at a proper hour, Vera invites Connor over to make this shit official.

They get engaged and he moves in, all that good stuff. (I feel like I really didn't take enough pictures, but everything happened so fast there really wasn't much chance.)

With his addition to the household, it's makeover and stats time! Connor's got some new glasses and a new 'do, which is always nice.

He's a Cancer, as you can see; fairly balanced but very playful and rather lazy.

He's a Fortune Sim like Vera, but his LTW is to have six grandchildren, which is possible, I suppose. *ponders*

And there's his One True Hobby!
Ameera and Gabriel: ONE OF US
Connor: ...wha? D:

Vera, kindly decline from handling food in your underthings. I understand you and Connor are very excited about beginning your life together, but try to have a bit of restraint, okay?

THAT APPLIES TO YOU TOO, CONNOR. FFS.

Anyway, the next day it's time for a very classy shotgun wedding!

And the crowd is ecstatic!
Bill: I can't believe my sister is getting married. *nervous*
Gabriel: I can't believe I got ice cream on my other suit! This does not fit the dress code! *worry*
Ameera: I AM THE VAMPIRE QUEEN
Allyn: *doesn't even care enough to be in the shot*
I always forget to fix elder formalwear, and I always regret it deeply.

Nice dragon wings and chain mail, dude.

And with that, Connor Weir becomes Connor Talbot! Yay.

Vera: Congratulations on attending my wedding, Bill!

Wedding reception, Talbot style. Add your own caption! There's just too much material here for me to handle right now.

And just as Bill and Allyn depart, Vera abandons her meditation. You all know what this means!

Generation 3 incoming!
Vera: THIS SUCKS I'M GOING BACK TO WORK

It's a girl! And thus far she looks a lot like Connor. Interesting.
Everybody say hello to the newest member of the family, Santana. Next generation's theme has to do with promiscuity because I don't have Bon Voyage, and San's namesake from Glee fits the theme to a T.

Uh...

WINNING
I like the idea of Vera and Connor as co-workers; it just seems cute to me.

Before long, it's time for Santana's birthday! Let's see who she looks like.

Gabriel's wonky eye shape continues to wreak havoc on the Talbot gene pool. But I think Santana works it. Otherwise, she looks ridiculously like Connor, which is cool.

And with that, we conclude another chapter. Damn, we got a lot done! Spouse, bonus points, chance cards, potential heiress...next time, the Talbots may be experiencing business unlike usual. Or maybe not. I don't know, I haven't played through yet. But until then!

Ugh, now I need to start thinking about my English paper. Ew.

~June

DITFT: Not the chair!

2011-05-30T17:46:39Z

I've actually had the pictures for two updates ready for awhile now. And once again, I taught myself that there is a very good reason why I don't play ahead: it's because then I just want to play forever and ever and not actually write updates. To be honest, I've lost a lot of ground in all my projects, which kinda sucks but is also kind of expected, considering this is the end of my junior year and everything matters a whole lot for college so I have to focus on my grades for a bit. But regardless, look, an update just in time for Memorial Day!

Welcome back to the Talbot household! Vera's won the heir poll by a landslide, as you probably guessed due to the spare update being centered around Bill.

So chop chop, Bill, you've already got a daughter.
Bill: ,..Wha?
Something else I don't often do: skip around time-wise. Everyone gets confused and tries to kill their past or future selves.

Wait. What's your problem? Are you serious right now? Just because your aspiration bar wasn't entirely full you go into failure the instant you grow up? Suck it up!

Bill: Blibbedy-blibbedy-boo...
*facepalm*

Bill: asjhgtyfrdsfghjkuy--
Gabriel: Gee, absolutely nothing is amiss right now! Wanna play SSX 3? Does this seem familiar to you at all?
Vera: Nah.

Vera: Bye, Bill! Have fun in relative obscurity!
Bill: Ha! My future self totally got an update to himself in the past!
Vera: You want me to call the therapist again? I think he still has some work to do.
Bill: Shut it.

Gabriel was asleep, but he dashed out of bed to bid good-bye to Bill.
Gabriel: Wait wait wait! I'm here! Have you seen my shirt?
Bill: Uh...
What a touching farewell.

And now it's Vera's turn! If you've forgotten, our lovely heiress's LTW is to make $100,000 and she is destined for the business career. I don't know what I'm going to do for a spouse yet, but I'm hoping it's a co-worker of hers so I can get bonus points. :D

And here she is all grown up. She looks just like Ameera, but with Gabriel's eyes.

So here's me getting +5 for redecorating the house. Since the theme of this generation is business and the big city and all that sort of stuff, the decorating scheme is rather elegant and clean-cut. Ameera and Gabriel's room gets to stay the way it is, though.

Also, look, we have a second floor! Up here is Vera's bedroom, cluttered with stuff relating to business and her love of art.

Speaking of love of art, look, Vera maxed out her hobby meter!

Gabriel: Wait a minute...this isn't my house! I hate when this happens!

Ameera: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES
Yes. This still happens. As the title says, it's just business as usual around here.
Honestly, I am befuddled at this. How come this still happens? She's maxed her enthusiasm! She has a plaque! Why is she still getting chased by bees?!

Gabriel. Are you drunk? First of all, you're still an adult, you can't retire. Second of all, you're almost an elder, no more babies! EVER! Is it possible to go completely senile early? Because I think Gabriel makes a convincing argument for the affirmative.

Well, it's birthday time for our founders. But they're in it together, so it's okay.

(I must say, I'm really glad I got to redecorate the kitchen. I love how it looks now.)

...Oh my sweet monkey lord. Gabriel Green-Talbot. What...I don't...how...BEST SPOUSE EVER. I officially regret nothing.

Elderly Ameera for you all. She looks very grandmotherly, don't you think?

And elderly Gabriel, once he peeled off the Santa suit. (HAHAHAHAHA BEST THING EVER)

But then everything abruptly took a turn for the totally boring. Entire days would go by where absolutely nothing new would happen.

Vera kept searching for an opening in the business career, but nothing would ever come up.

Ameera fixed the bathtub, which of course was extremely invigorating.

Someone kept knocking over our garbage and then Bill wandered by randomly one day. Bill, you don't live here anymore. Go home.

Vera was seriously skilling just so she'd have something to occupy her time.

The most exciting thing that was going on were the daily Old People Video Game Tournaments.
Gabriel: See, this is why we don't play co-op! Because YOU SUCK AT GAMING.
Ameera: *sulk*
When you're in The Zone, gaming is serious business. But unfortunately god-moding two people playing video games is not especially interesting.
*ding* Wait! A pop-up?! Is something finally happening?

WAIT.
WHAT?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHO FORGOT TO PAY THE AUTOMO-BILLS?!

What the shit?! We don't even have any mail! We paid up! GET OUT, WE PAID UP! D:

There's been some sort of mistake, dude! Wrong house! Get back in your van and get away!
Repo Man: BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA I AM HERE TO JACK YOUR SHIT
NO YOU ARE NOT GET AWAY FROM OUR SHIT

YOU'D BETTER NOT BE TAKING OUR WALL. I HAPPEN TO LIKE THAT WALL.

NOOOOOOOOO, NOT THE CHAIR! YOU BASTARD-- wait a second, you took our chair? What about all our new and expensive decorations? You're not gonna take the fancy paintings? Instead, you take our chair?

You're stupid.
Repo Man, Destroyer of Dreams and Chairs: Don't make me go back in there.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bill, what the hell happened to you?

YAY GABRIEL! He's perma-plat now!

Gabriel Talbot! You have just brought Samantha Cordial home from work, and in many people's games, you and Samantha end up wed due to implied attraction at the game's start! Yet in this world you are old and married! How do you feel?
Gabriel: Awkward. D:
She's totally checking you out.
Gabriel: OKAY BYE SAMANTHA I WILL SEE YOU AT WORK

Also apparently at some point this happened. Cool.

Vera maxed her charisma skill. That's points for me! But it's incredibly boring.

FINALLY. Vera's in the business career, everyone!

But the few coworkers she's brought home haven't proved to be suitable spouses.
Vera: Meh.
Co-worker: I'm right here, you know.

Uhhh...

Shit. Other than this, though, Vera's doing well in her career.

Vera, you're doing a lot right. But we need an heir, and on that front you're doing rather poorly. But worry not!

Vera, we're going out on the town to find you somebody to love!
Vera: Yay!
But that is a tale for another update. Hope you liked this one! Next one should be up reasonably soon, because I do have all the pictures for it already. Til then!

~June

I Feel Pretty/Unpretty: A Songstory

2011-05-01T17:56:52Z

It's really awkward when you devise a songstory heavily involving self-image and imagine all sorts of cool shots involving mirrors and then you attempt five different ways to turn on reflections only for the game to crash every. fucking. time. So you justify it in your mind in some weird way (read: reflections in mirrors don't actually matter that much, so all the mirrors are blank! DEEP) and attempt to go on with your life, and then come up with the following.

I really liked Glee's mashup of "I Feel Pretty" and this other song I'd never heard of, "Unpretty." It actually touched me really deeply and I sought to find a way to live in the song in the tiny remainder of my spring vacation. So I decided to do a songstory (which is completely unrelated to any of my various projects) with some leftover Sims from a Sim Scenes entry I never actually did. About halfway through I developed a disparaging case of "Holy shit I suck and everything I do sucks" anxiety due to the whole lack-of-mirrors-that-actually-reflect thing. But by that point I had done too much work to give it up without feeling like more of a loser, so I decided to keep at it. It's a songstory in the style of "Nightmare Girl," if you'll remember that, in that there's a bit of it that's not just the song, but otherwise it's just me fangirling over the song. Enjoy.

Thea walked into school, trying to attract as little attention as possible. Normally, whenever people did pay her attention, it wasn't exactly positive. So she clutched her books like a shield and passed the knots of conversing students in silence.

She opened her locker easily, wrinkling her nose at the gym clothes she had left in there overnight. You really gotta take those out, she told herself, remembering with embarrassment how terribly awkward she looked in the school-issued shorts and t-shirt.
Thea transferred a couple books, piling some on top of the misplaced gym clothes as though trying to hide them.

Suddenly from behind her, she heard someone say, "Hi, Thea."
Closing her locker, she curiously turned about and then promptly felt her heart flutter. "Hey, Connor," she replied, forcing herself not to trip over her words and contemplating how her day had suddenly gotten several hundred times better.

"Do you, like, need some help with homework or something?" Thea asked, rather questioning of the whole situation. Connor was in the large majority of her classes, and she had watched him make more excuses for not having his homework in the course of a few months than most people ever made in their entire academic careers.
"Damn, we had homework?" Connor joked, and she couldn't help but grin.

"Nah, I just wanted to say hey. You alright with all those books?" he asked, regarding the heavy stack of textbooks and notebooks.
"I'll manage," Thea replied, still grinning.
"You know, I'm pretty sure Ms. Ross is going to be wrathful on this science test later today," Connor said, while Thea nodded her grim affirmation. "Think you could help me study over lunch?"

Thea felt her heart swell as she said, "Sure, I'd love to!"
His smile widened and he said, "You know, you should smile like that more, you've got a nice smile."
Connor bade her goodbye as she basked in the glow of his compliment, feeling lighter than air.

Unfortunately, Celia had been watching Thea and Connor's conversation, and she was simply not having it. She threw a glare at Thea, whose happy expression fell off her face immediately.
"What do you want, Celia?" Thea challenged, feeling as though her insides were writhing.
"Nothing from you, braceface," Celia sneered.

Celia's pretty brown eyes glittered with malice as she said, "If you think you've got a chance with Connor, you've got another thing coming! He wouldn't want to date an ugly little nerd like you."
The blow stung, but Thea replied coolly, "Don't get so nervous; I don't think he'd want to date a huge bitch like you, either."

Celia's bag dropped from her grip as her eyes narrowed. "That's some brave talk from a nobody like you, Thea," Celia hissed.

"Go away!" Thea exclaimed furiously. "If you're so jealous of me for talking to Connor--"
"Jealous? Of you?" Celia scoffed. "Why would I be jealous of a tiny ugly nothing like you? I'm popular, I'm pretty, and I'm more important than you are. I'm just reminding you of that."

"Just leave me alone already! What did I ever do to you?" Thea yelled, starting to become painfully aware of her braces, her unruly hair, and her innumerable freckles in contrast to Celia's poised and pretty appearance.

The bell rang abruptly, and students began to file out to their classes.
"Thea, I could go on for days detailing everything that's wrong with you, but I have to get to class," Celia said dryly, sounding aloof. "Have fun talking with Connor, because that's all a girl like you could ever manage with a guy like that."
Thea set her jaw, but the words hurt and she could feel her eyes starting to burn with angry tears.

She turned and broke into a run, refusing to look back even as Celia's taunting rang in her ears.
"Just run away, that's right! Maybe if you run far enough, you'll find some sort of backwards place where they think girls like you are beautiful!" Celia heckled at Thea's retreating form.

Celia stood there seething in silence as the last few stragglers went off to class. Her mind was full of all sorts of questions and, startlingly, fears. No one spoke to her as they passed, not to reprimand or congratulate her on the encounter with Thea. She felt oddly lonely; she expected someone to react somehow.

She picked at a hangnail in thought. Why would Connor be talking to Thea? Celia could remember how he hadn't wanted to go out with her last year, and Celia was regarded as one of the prettiest girls in school. Thea wasn't pretty; how could Connor like her better and want to get to know her, then?
Celia had worked hard to be pretty, to be popular; shouldn't she get what she wanted? Who was Thea, some loser with crazy hair and all the answers in class, to take anything from Celia?
It made her feel strange, like perhaps, she wasn't pretty at all...

♫

I wish I could tie you up in my shoes
Make you feel unpretty too

I was told I was beautiful, but what does that mean to you?

Look into the mirror, who's inside there?
The one with the long hair

Same old me again today...

My outsides look cool
My insides are blue
Every time I think I'm through, it's because of you

I've tried different ways, but it's all the same

At the end of the day, I have myself to blame

I'm just trippin'

You can buy your hair if it won't grow

You can fix your nose if you say so

You can buy all the make-up that mac can make, but if
You can't look inside you

Find out who am I to

Be in a position to make me feel so

Damn unpretty

I feel pretty

Oh-so pretty

I feel pretty and witty and bright

Never insecure until I met you
Now I'm being stupid

I used to be so cute to me
Just a little bit skinny

Why do I look to all these things to keep you happy?

Maybe get rid of you

And then I'll get back to me

My outsides look cool
My insides are blue

Every time I think I'm through, it's because of you

I've tried different ways

But it's all the same
At the end of the day I have myself to blame

Keep on trippin'

You can buy your hair if it won't grow

You can fix your nose if you say so

You can buy all the make-up that mac can make, but if
You can't look inside you

Find out who am I to
Be in a position to make me feel so

Damn unpretty

I feel pretty

Oh-so pretty

I feel pretty and witty and bright

And I'd pity any girl who isn't me tonight

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh
Tonight
Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh
Tonight

You can buy your hair if it won't grow
(I feel pretty)

You can fix your nose if you say so
(Oh-so pretty)
You can buy all the make-up that mac can make
(I feel pretty and witty and bright)
But if

You can't look inside you
Find out who am I to
Be in a position to make me feel so

Damn unpretty

I feel pretty
But unpretty...

~June

100 Books: Book 10- "The Scarlet Letter"

2011-04-29T02:41:38Z

*currently rereading Goblet of Fire and can't be assed to read new books holy shit GoF is an enormous book I love talking to my mom about all the stupid plot holes in it, how the fuck do people spectate the goddamn second task we ask you we love Harry Potter but goddamn, Queen Rowling we think your editors were too afraid to like edit you and stuff I can't picture the book shorter because I'm too used to it like this but there must have been a way you are like a genius after all*

Rambling run-on sentences of death aside, I read The Scarlet Letter ages ago but was too congested to hold my head up for longer than a couple hours, and then it was only to aimlessly watch videos on YouTube and not string along coherent thought. Anyway, on with the show!

The Scarlet Letter is, of course, a classic of American literature, and I'm sure everyone here who has been through the American high school system has been exposed to it, at least, but I'm positive that pretty much everyone knows the deal behind this book. Maybe you know it, maybe you saw a film adaptation (I think there are a couple), maybe you saw "Easy A." (I did, but I didn't draw many parallels between it and the book besides the whole scarlet-A-for-adultery shtik and the central theme of misunderstanding and harsh judgment. "Easy A" had way more sex jokes and Emma Stone, to its credit, but The Scarlet Letter had SAT words and one of the greatest tragic heroines in literature ever, so I think the book wins.)

In any event, The Scarlet Letter, which isn't actually all that long (my edition was 180 pages), takes us back to lovely and welcoming Puritan Massachusetts, ruled by strict and unforgiving religious and moral codes. Within it is Hester Prynne, the adulteress. Pregnant without a husband, she is made to wear a fantastically bright scarlet letter A affixed to her clothing. She's an outcast, a pariah, and after her stint in prison, she is a solitary woman with a young infant attached to her along with the A. None associate with her, all reject her, and yet she refuses to reveal the identity of the father of her child, who would be punished as she was. Hester keeps her silence for reasons only she knows and attempts to move on with her life and raise her baby, a girl she names Pearl.

Hester's life revolves around the scarlet letter; most times she abhors it and all it represents, for it indicates her sin and her folly, but at other times it is her vanity. A skilled seamstress, Hester embroiders the letter with gold and fine thread and it's described to be quite impressive and eye-catching. It becomes her entire identity, even though she only committed adultery once and since then atoned significantly with the innumerable good deeds she performs for the village that so detests her, and so at times she hides behind it, while at all time it bends her into essentially a second-class citizen.

The main driving force of the plot is Hester's journey learning from the scarlet letter and from her mistake, as well as the identity and struggles of the man who fathered her child. Then Hester's husband finds her. He had sent her over from England alone, and no one in Massachusetts knows she was ever married. But he hangs around generally attempting to sabotage Hester's life and get revenge on her baby daddy (it's weird to use the phrase "baby daddy" in conjunction with this book, but honestly, a lot of it could be a fucking episode of Maury ["HER HUSBAND SENT HER TO THE NEW WORLD AND NOW SHE'S PREGNANT; BUT SHE WON'T SAY WHO THE FATHER IS!"]), and he becomes the main villain of sorts. Most of the struggles in the book, though, are people versus themselves and the pressures of society.

In fact, a lot of The Scarlet Letter revolves around putting people in boxes and expecting them to stay there, which was probably very accurate of Puritan America. Hester's a sinner, so they all put her in that box and don't expect her to ever change. But she does; she becomes as "pure" as any of her neighbors, but despite this, her neighbors mistrust her, treat her as less than them, and see her as nothing more as the letter pinned on her dress. Same thing later in the book, with Hester's co-adulterer, who she has protected for years. He's avoided the stigma of being an adulterer through Hester's loyalty, and he is regarded positively by the community. They've put him in a box as an infallible leader, but the weight of his sin is pressing on him and literally killing him. It makes him sick to know he's lying to everyone he knows, it makes him sick to see Hester stuffed away as a sinner when he knows it's just as much his fault as hers and he deserves everything she's suffered, but he's afraid and weak and human, not infallible, not a saint like all his admirers say he is, and he wants the freedom to just be human and admit he made a mistake. But again, he's afraid and Hester has accommodated him all these years; she'd never reveal him, but this secret is poisoning him slowly and he can't shake it off any longer.

It really is a beautiful book, filled with so much emotion and so much beautiful language. When I go back to school and everyone starts bitching about how they didn't get it because the language was too difficult or the phrasing was weird or it was just dumb I'm going to get so pissed off, because there's too much amazing wonderfulness in The Scarlet Letter to miss out on. I got so wrapped up in it; I read straight through lunch periods and was reading the Dramatic Conclusion in the school library. I was rocking back and forth in my chair going all "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH SNAP, LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW! OH SHIT SON, THIS IS SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS RIGHT NOW, OH LOOK HE'S DOING IT! OH MY GOD HE'S ACTUALLY-- HOLY SHIT!" And then the bell rang in the middle of the conclusion and I walked through the halls finishing the last couple lines, barely looking where I was going. I hope at least someone in my class got it; or better still, that my teacher can explain it so that everyone can get it and see it for the amazing work of literature it is.

I was talking about it to my mom and told her that I was considering pitching a modernized and condensed version of the events of the book to people, making it sound exciting and scandalous as all hell, until someone realized it was just The Scarlet Letter. Then I would be happy that I could make someone realize that basically every drama and soap opera in existence owes its "BUT WHO'S THE FATHER?" and other adultery-related plots to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

My one complaint? Too many goddamn fucking exclamation marks. I mean, seriously. I kept hearing everyone yelling their lines melodramatically in my head. And then when the narration started getting infested by them! Ugh I wanted to punch something. I know it was the style at the time, but it drove me bonkers. There were just too freaking many of them. Otherwise: awesome book, you need to read it at some point in your life, and that is all for tonight.

Book List
1. Wintergirls
2. Brave New World
3. I Know What You Did Last Summer
4. The Titan's Curse
5. The Battle of the Labyrinth
6. The Compound
7. The Last Olympian
8. Misery
9. 1984
10. The Scarlet Letter

~June

DITFT: Bill and Allyn do stuff

2011-04-20T18:13:47Z

Hi, everyone! So I'm on vacation now, the show went wonderfully, How to Train Your Dragon is a goddamn beautiful film that made me weep repeatedly, and in my spare time I've been playing our designated spare, Bill, and his wife Allyn. This update's just about as long as a normal chapter, and after I post this I'll return in-game to Vera and, y'know, the actual challenge. But for now, enjoy the first of presumably many Spare Stories. (In other news, I really need to discover a more descriptive way to say "stuff happens.")

We begin at the Talbot home, where in the background of this picture, our official spare is having aspirational failure. Yeah, we'll get to that when we go back to Vera.
Gabriel: Gee, absolutely nothing is amiss right now! Wanna play some SSX 3?

Anyway, once Bill had gotten a band-aid applied to his brain, he was off and into the Sentinel Apartments, one of the already occupied complexes in Belladonna Cove. He's neighbors to the Cho and Riley households, if you care. Although they're assholes and took up the first two floors so it takes Bill a jillion years to get to his front door from the sidewalk.

But he invited over an all-grown-up Allyn and they hit it off again, although she didn't move in quite yet. Also, Bill got a better outfit.

Now, if you'll recall, Bill wants to be a World-Class Ballet Dancer, and it is his dream so he's really giving it his all.

Pfft, let someone else take over? Forget that shit, Bill's star power needs to ~shine~!

Yay! Jazzercise!

Bill, please stop channeling your father. I can't deal with any more Sims who can't freaking cook.

Yeah, Bill's kind of...over-doing it. What? You mean I'm actually over-doing it? Well, what can I say, Jazzercise is serious business.

See, look, he's platinum, so it can't be that bad.
Bill: This isn't my bed...
What was your first clue?

Bill, I said stop channeling Gabriel. That doesn't mean go ahead and channel him some more, in case you were confused.

In any event, it's high time to get Allyn properly into this Legacy.

I guess Allyn approves of her make-over, then?
Allyn: Damn, I am sexy! So's my boyfriend! :D

So Allyn's officially part of the family, now that she's controllable. Stats time!

Allyn is a Fortune Sim as well, and her LTW is to become a Hall of Famer. Is that a normal Fortune LTW? I've seen it with Romance normally.

Well, her LTW suits her personality, which is kind of cool.

Well, she's not a Talbot quite yet, but she's well on her way!

Now, I was dumb enough to wait around for one of them to roll up the want to get married, forgetting that such a thing isn't exactly foremost in a Fortune Sim's mind. I swear, I see one Fortune Sim spin up the want once and assume all of them will eventually do the same, which unfortunately is not true at all. So both of them focused on their careers for a good while.

They're still cute, though.

Ha, I love the Dance career. Any career that requires you to wear outfits like that must be amazing. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a leotard. But a leotard with silvery designs like that? Sorry, I'm gonna laugh.
Bill: Shut up.

Well, okay then, sassy mouth. Next time we won't call Vera.

See, Bill? Allyn can cook. What is the deal with the incompetent dudes in this challenge?

Bill: *sulk*

This has got to be one of the best outfits ever created for this game. The top hat just completes the whole thing.

Allyn, meanwhile, goes to work, gets promoted, and gets a lot of vacation time. She really doesn't need that much supervision, so I've decided to have her pursue the Fitness hobby. Her one true hobby's Sports, but that's kind of difficult in an apartment, so Fitness it is!

He's pretty much constantly tired, poor thing.
Bill: Can I go to sleep now?
NO. STUDY MORE.

Allyn: *is totally fulfilled*

And now: Tara DeBateau. I have to make a mental note to marry her into the main line, because she is gorgeous.

Yes, this is Bill looking at the rain through a wall. I distinctly recall instructing you to stop being your father, Bill.

I picked Family as a secondary aspiration for Bill in an effort to make him roll up the want to get married and/or have a baby. *waits patiently*

And I chose Popularity for Allyn in light of all her wants to make BFFs.

/spam

See, Allyn's smart. Bill was blocking the dishwasher, so instead of whining about being blocked, Allyn washed her dishes in the sink. Bill, why can't you be more like Allyn?

Wouldn't it be cool if I could figure out how to get Allyn to play the intro to "Planetary (GO!)" on this synth? But I'm too lazy.

Bill's perma-plat now! Maybe he'll roll up some wants with more variety than "BUY A TRILLION-DOLLAR STATUE"

This is their landlord. I think his name is funny. That is all.

Wedgie?
Bill: GO AWAY.

Allyn gets her LTW, too! But there's more than one reason to celebrate...

Allyn: Woah! This dress doesn't have a pregnancy morph!
YAAAAAAAY

And so, it's time for a shotgun wedding, and Allyn Chung becomes Allyn Talbot.

Suddenly, Sally Riley. I like how she just randomly pops into the playground and then back to her apartment, it's a bonus touch of realism.

Allyn spent her entire pregnancy meditating, because she didn't have anything else to do. Thus, hers was a rather easy pregnancy.

Baby time!

Everyone say hello to baby girl Renee! Brown hair, brown eyes, and Bill's skintone. And since I'm easily bored, birthday time!

Well, she's definitely a Talbot, Gabriel's wonky eyes and all.

OH. WELL THAT JUST FIGURES, DOESN'T IT?

Now she's very much a Talbot, and very much Bill's daughter. Neat, mean, and active. Are all my Legacy families interwoven so that they share all the same traits or what?

But, you know, we've seen Talbot kids grow into their looks very well, so I'm not too worried for Renee.

Besides, how do you not love a kid who repeatedly body-slams her teddy bear?

Anyway, it fits that Renee looks just like her father; she's a total daddy's girl. (Bill quit Dance because he earned slightly less than Allyn, and someone had to stay home with the baby.)

I found this ridiculously funny.

Look, it's Renee's future playmate Etsu Cho! (I grew up Sally and Etsu because I felt like it. More pictures at the end.)

ur doin it rong

Dreaming about billiards? My dreams have dragons and virtual-reality video games. With demons. (I wish I was joking. My mind invented some ugly-as-sin demons.)

While Bill raised their daughter, Allyn was hard at work being a Hall of Famer and attempting to max out her Fitness enthusiasm. I decided to have her visit the Fitness secret hobby lot, because I've never been there in-game.

But all that really happened was Carlos Contender getting in a fight with the hobby leader.
Carlos: I was wearing that kind of baseball cap before you were even born, you poser!

Allyn: BOO I WANNA SEE SOME BLOOD!
We're leaving.

Allyn: Hey, Bill, want to do some yoga with me?
Bill: HAHAHAHAHA--oh wait, you're serious? But I'm in the Zone!
I like how they're different but similar all at once. Two mean, ambitious, perma-plat Fortune Sims who somehow have completely different pastimes.

And it's one last game of peek-a-boo before Renee's birthday.

And here she is! Yeah, everything's starting to smooth out with her appearance. She looks a lot like Vera did as a kid.

With that, we end our visit with Bill, Allyn, and Renee. But before we end, look, it's grown-up Sally Riley and Etsu Cho!

I made Sally a Popularity Sim, but for some reason her LTW is to max out all her skills. Whatever, I'll make it work. She's really pretty in a unique way, which is awesome.

Etsu, who's also very pretty. I'm hoping to get her and Renee to be friends next time I play the household.

Etsu and Vivian, who also got a makeover.

Next time we'll be back with Ameera, Gabriel, and Vera, and the next generation of objectives and all that fun stuff!

~June

100 Books: Book 9- "1984"

2011-04-09T23:23:37Z

I actually read and finished 1984 like a month ago, but oh well. I read it and here's what I thought.

So I read Brave New World with my English class this year and I liked it, although I heard several people complaining about the ending because, quote, "nothing even happened." Not like that was completely the point or anything. In that same English class, we're now in the midst of The Scarlet Letter, which has big words and long sentences and little dialogue, so everyone's complaining about that too. (The Scarlet Letter isn't the easiest book ever, but I'm 50 pages to the end and I'm personally getting a lot out of it, so this is pissing me off too.) Oh, and two weeks ago some girl asked if a red herring was "a type of food," which made me want to punch myself in the face with a chainsaw.

Why am I listing things my classmates that piss me off in English class? Well, because one of them relates to 1984, which is yet more dystopian lit for me this year. As we were starting Brave New World, this kid I don't like raised his hand and, in an attempt to sound intelligent, asked if BNW was the book involving the phrase "Big Brother is always watching you." The teacher, who I think is awesome, informed his stupid ass that the phrase instead is from 1984. (Yeah, it bothered me. I hadn't even read 1984 at that point, but it bothered me because I know this kid, and I know he was just trying to seem smarter than everybody else in the room, which he consistently attempts to do and fails at in history class, so that he complains that the teacher hates him and she obviously doesn't, she just doesn't call on him whenever his goddamn hand goes up but honestly if I had to teach this smartass I would hate him.)

Anyway! Novels titled after years! 1984 and Brave New World get compared to each other quite a lot for some reason, because they're actually really different books. The world of the latter is one of rampant sexuality and drug use; the government controls the masses by hypnopedia (sleep-teaching) and by distracting them from the emptiness of their lives with excessive hedonism. The former is a world of fear, a world of inevitable demise, a world where free thought isn't ironed out of you, but suppressed via the iron fist of Big Brother. Big Brother isn't really a person, but rather a figure, someone the people can look up to and believe in...and fear.

1984 follows protagonist Winston, an average guy in this fucked-up future world. He works with the government, destroying records and rewriting history whenever it is deemed necessary. But he's got a problem: he's developed free thought and the feeling that this world is actually evil and wrong. This, in his world, is "thought-crime," treason against the regime.

The government, run by The Party, the only political force around, relies on trickery, on editing history to favor themselves, on erasing not the perpetrator of thought-crime, but the desire and ability to commit thought-crime. They are based on the property of "double-think." If my classmates think The Scarlet Letter is difficult, I'd hate to see them wrap their minds around double-think. The Scarlet Letter is in an older style of English, with words they don't know but can define. Double-think is the idea of believing that something is true and not true at the same time, and it threw me for a loop at first, requiring very meticulous read-throughs of entire chapters. It's not a tricky vocabulary term one can look up, it's an idea you have to learn to accept but cannot. It breaks every law of logic and reason but it works in Winston's world. In fact, in Winston's world, if you don't make it work, you're going to be tortured until you do.

"Big Brother is always watching you" is unfortunately a phrase that is horribly literal. Every home has a TV set that can both watch and hear you. If you're seen or heard doing anything remotely suspicious, forget it, you're going up the river. Turn off the set? You get arrested. Seen doing something creative? You get arrested. Writing anything even remotely detrimental to the regime? You get arrested. Say something anti-Party in your sleep? Guess what, your sleep-talking ass is getting arrested. People just fucking vanish. If you wake up and your coworker is gone, you know what happened: he got fucking arrested. And just like that...he didn't exist. He never existed. You don't say, "Oh, Fred got arrested? Shame." You don't even say, "Fred died." He isn't on vacation. He isn't dead. He isn't gone. He never was. Then, everything about him gets erased and no one ever talks about him again.

And the worst part is that getting arrested is inevitable. You simply cannot live your entire life without performing several acts of free-thought and resistance. No matter how hard you try, they're going to get you sooner or later. You'll be tortured. You'll die after enough time. It will happen and nothing can be done to stop it. And you can't even go down fighting. There is no going down fighting. They torture you until you believe in the Party. And they still fucking kill you.

It's a very complex and scary book, with a lot of layers and surprisingly deep characterization. I think everyone should read 1984 at some point in their lives, even though it's frightening and sad. I really want to study it in English, maybe just to see everyone flounder about at it. Somehow I know double-think will go over about as well as beginner quantum physics in my class. (For the record, quantum is not going over well. I think I get it, but suddenly there are formulas and I'm upset.)

(Also happy 34th birthday to Gerard Way. I shall be seeing you in two weeks, good sir! *SUPER FREAKOUT*)

Book List
1. Wintergirls
2. Brave New World
3. I Know What You Did Last Summer
4. The Titan's Curse
5. The Battle of the Labyrinth
6. The Compound
7. The Last Olympian
8. Misery
9. 1984

~June

DITFT: Passing the torch

2011-04-02T21:22:05Z

Whoo, I have a performance in two weeks! Yay for never having a life again until Easter break (not that I ever really had a life to start with, but that's not the point). So basically, that's why it's been just about a month since the last DITFT update, and that will likely be the reason why there won't be another for at least the next two weeks. But it's all good. Onward!

Last time at casa del Talbot, potential heirs Bill and Vera had their teen birthdays and became Fortune Sims, their mother Ameera worked closer towards fulfilling the generational requirements, and Gabriel went about simply...being himself.
Ameera: For the love of God, Gabriel, no. Pawns can't pistol-whip other pawns.
Gabriel: I thought we were playing hardcore chess!

Meanwhile Vera, apparently, likes to dance and/or do gymnastics.

Oh no, she lost enthusiasm in a hobby she doesn't even care about. Whatever shall we do?

And here's Bill, apparently posing for an oil painting.

Vera kept spinning up wants for money and jobs, so I enlisted her in the Military career, because it paid best among the three jobs in the paper. Vera's LTW is to earn $100,000 and it's never too early to start, right?

These two guys followed Vera and Bill home from school and promptly ignored them both and played video games with each other. Nice.

Hmm. I don't see Vera as an underhanded person, so let's go with video surveillance.

Yay! I'm so good at chance cards, you guys.

Bill: Woah, look at the graphics! They're so awesome and realistic! I'm gonna play this game all night long! Haha, bend to my will, pixel-people!
~~gpoy~~ I mean what.

So I exited the lot while Ameera was in the zone, and when I came back she was glowing green like she was radioactive. Maybe she'll get spider powers?

Vera: Thanks for coming over, I really like hanging out with--
Ameera: HOLY SHIT, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!
Ameera how do you still suck at this hobby!?

Gabriel: Aww yeah, my wife is smokin' hot!
Stop being Edward Cullen, Gabriel.

Bill: I get to make my bed?! HUZZAH!
No one in this family can start their days without making the bed first.

YES! Ameera's earned her gold badge! That's another point for me and a nice platinum mood for Ameera.

Bill's preferred hobby is games, and he kept wanting to win a gaming competition and stuff like that. So I sent him off to Games of Glory for a little time away from the family and a bit more time with one of our potential heirs.

GABRIEL. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? You're not even a member of Games of Glory, nor is your predestined hobby games! I honestly can't find any reason for Gabriel to be present here.

Gabriel: *strikes a pose*
Games Guy: Hey, Bill, do you know this guy?
Bill: NO. NOT AT ALL. deargoddadstopmakingthatpose

So not only does he randomly show up at this hobby lot for no discernible reason, but he waltzes in and plays billiards like he belongs here. I swear to God, Gabriel is the source for pretty much all the hilarity in this freaking challenge.

Gabriel: Damn, that exterminator lady's ugly! I sure am glad I married my flowery and pretty wife.

Gabriel: Yeah, totally not as pretty as my wife.
Exterminator Lady: You don't even go to this hobby lot!

I've needed an icon of Gabriel playing billiards since like, yesterday. *scurries off* Wait I need to finish this update first.

Oh, yeah, and Gabriel freaking won his game. At a hobby lot he does not belong at with approximately like, two things of hobby enthusiasm.
Gabriel: Take that, losers!
Games Guy: But...but...you're not even allowed at this hobby lot!

I definitely should have seen this coming. Looks like Gabriel's made an enemy.
Gabriel: IT'S NOT MY FAULT YOU'RE NOT AS PRETTY AS MY WIFE, OKAY.

Well, like father, like son, I guess. After this Bill headed home and neither he or Gabriel ever spoke of this again.

I really love the "talk to" interaction. It's like instant-thriving-state for these plants. Everything Ameera harvests is mouth-watering nowadays!

And this photo exists merely to prove that Ameera has cultivated a garden containing each type of plant. Three orchard trees and six plots, each with a different crop. Tomatoes, peppers, pole beans, strawberries, cucumbers, and eggplant.

Apparently Vera just got +3000 for becoming victim to the magical bubble-expulsion glitch.

Okay, I lied. She just became an overachiever by maxing the teen military career.

Vera. The entire point of your generation is that you don't like planting seeds. Cut that out.

Vera: Wait a second, the square root of 144 isn't bubbles...
I honestly want this glitch to become a part of her. It can't ever go away.

And Vera falls asleep with visions of soap bubbles dancing in her head. Unfortunately the next time I loaded up the game, the bubbles were gone. I was very upset.

I was playing my game and my mom happened to be looking over my shoulder as I was taking this picture, leading to following exchange.
My mom: What's he doing?
Me: Looking at the rain.
My mom: *odd look*
Me: Yeah, except there's no window there.
My mom: *after a moment of consideration* He's an idiot.
Me: Pretty much.
In conclusion, Gabriel totally got pwnd by my mom, you guys.

HEY. HEY. I DID NOT SANCTION YOU TWO GETTING IT ON.
YOU'D BETTER NOT GET PREGNANT AGAIN OR I WILL MURDER YOU. WITH MY FACE.
Yeah, that's what I thought. No pregnancy here, no siree.

Gabriel: Woah, Vera, you totally suck at this game!
Vera: SHUT UP, DAD.

Gabriel: Wait, Bill, where are you going? I don't wanna play by myself!
Bill: It's like midnight, Dad.
Gabriel: ...so what?

Despite Bill's rather un-gamer-like adherence to curfews, he maxes out his games enthusiasm quickly. Yay!

Just give the kid his plaque, dude. You don't have to hover over him like a creeper.

Up on the wall in the hobby room it goes! A sign of changes soon to come, perhaps?

I have meanwhile discovered a new means of keeping Gabriel out of the way: meditation. How do you feel?
Gabriel: I PULLED A MUSCLE.
I guess meditation isn't as relaxing as everyone says.

But quickly, he's off to work.
Imagine Gabriel was your doctor. Like, you paid him cash money to keep your body healthy and keep yourself from not dying. And meanwhile he shoves his hands through car doors and looks at rain through walls.

Looks like Bill's made a friend. This is Allyn. She's kind of cute, although that whole brown hair/brown eyes combo isn't exactly ideal. Guess I could give her a recessive eye gene in SimPE if they get attached...

Ugh that sundress is absolutely horrid. They've got two bolts, but I want one of them to initiate the flirting, dammit. I don't like forcing romances in my non-plotty endeavors.

Walk-by: Young love, hell yeah! *finger gun*
GO AWAY.

Pillow-fighting: Clearly the way to a girl's heart. Although she looks rather serious about it. Better watch your back, Bill.

Okay, so do something about it! Maybe she's not even worth the trouble. *sulk*

Oh, man, she's a finger-gunner too. That's just so nice and familiar to me. Ugh why I can't I resist your charms, Allyn?
Allyn: Beats me! *finger gun*
But I get +2 for the next generation if the heir marries a co-worker...

Well, then, I guess that's settled. Fine, you two can have each other, go to town.

sofuckingcuteohmygod

Ameera just maxed out her logic skill. Because I felt like it, that's why.

Haha, look at that little memory doodad. Gabriel making a significant amount of money? I laugh at the thought.
Gabriel: *pout*
Let's look at your memories then, shall we?

asjkhgfhjgftdxfcgh WHAT.
Oh yeah, he got that $75000 bonus two chapters ago. Even so, he just totally achieved Vera's LTW before she did. Nice.
Anyway, Gabriel brought a nice elderly co-worker home today, and he went to network quickly. I anticipated a shiny new TV.

UM. HOW ABOUT NO?

Oh, I see your game, old man! Yeah, I bet you "know a person" who would "hit it off" with Gabriel! Well, too bad, he's married.

Gabriel: Hey look, there's my wife! She glows when she tends plants. Isn't she pretty? I love her so much.
Old Man: </3
There's plenty of fish in the sea, man. And I don't think you'd want Gabriel, anyway. He's kind of a dunce.

Vera has morphed into one of those Fortune Sims who turn to creativity to earn money, and I do think she rather enjoys it.

I know I make fun of Gabriel a lot and swear to smite him and all sorts of stuff. But honestly, it's times like this that I realize that I regret nothing.

Ameera wanted to make juice, so look, eggplant juice! The only worthwhile beverage, clearly.

I wonder if one can make eggplant juice in real life...?

GABRIEL. REALLY? STILL?
I will kill him I swear oh my god he had better start digging the hole holy shit why can't be prepare food for his stupid ass he's almost an elder holy hell

Vera brought Allyn home from school, so this happened. Aww, cuteness.

Hey, Bill. In case you were wondering, that is decidedly not the proper way to treat a lady. Cut that out right now.

/spam

Well, would you look at that? It's the last crop in the garden, ready for harvest. With this, the first generation ends. A change is in the air, you see.
Before we get to our heir poll, let's tally up our points for the generation. (I'm only going to be listing the requirements and objectives I fulfilled.)

-Get a gold gardening badge (+1)
-Have a garden containing each type of plant (+1)
-Get married (+1)
-Have a boy & a girl (+1)
-Generation completion (+1)
-Max the nature hobby (+2)
-Interior design to match the generation's theme (+5)
Point Total for Generation One: 12

And on to our heir poll! We have two lovely candidates.

First up is Bill, the elder child. He's a Fortune Sim, and his LTW is to become a world-class ballet dancer. He's a Sagittarius, 9/2/9/10/1, and games is his predestined hobby. He's got a girlfriend, Allyn Lastnamehere, who is potentially a barrel of laughs.

Then we have Vera, also a Fortune Sim, with a lifelong dream of earning $100,000. She's a Cancer, 9/2/9/5/9. Her predestined hobby is tinkering, but she leans more towards Arts & Crafts and other creative endeavors. She doesn't have a boyfriend, but her turn-ons are black hair and charisma, while her turn-off is creativity. (That's weird, considering she's creative herself.)

Both kids are pretty smart and have their wits about them. But who will carry on the family tradition by ridiculously altering the family tradition? You decide!

View Poll: #1726073

Happy voting! Hope you enjoyed the first gen!

~June

100 Books: Book 8- "Misery"

2011-03-13T01:28:24Z

There is no way in hell I am going to get through 92 more books this year, is there? Anyway, we got another one today, and let me tell you, it's a doozy.

I like to think of myself as a fan of the horror genre at large. Despite this, though, before Misery, I had never read a Stephen King book. In retrospect, it's kind of odd that it took this long, considering that my dad has pretty much been reading all of King's work since he was my age. But that's something I find about myself; I don't want to like something just because of the hype or because someone else does. I'm always afraid I'm going to be let down or something. Anyway, after reading Misery, I can certainly say I wasn't let down at all.

I took the book from the school library on Thursday and I finished it last night, so I guess you could say I completely ripped through it. It definitely had that can't-put-it-down quality, which is funny because that sort of desire to find out how a story ends is discussed within the actual book. The protagonist calls it "the gotta," as in "I gotta finish this." Misery's got the gotta, unless you're squicked out easily, in which case you develop a case of the "gotta put this down right now and cleanse my mind of the horrifying mental images."

Misery is the story of a writer named Paul Sheldon. Now Paul is rather well-known for a series of novels he writes detailing the Victorian-era adventures of a giant Mary-Sue of a harlequin novel heroine, Misery Chastain. In his own words, he hates the bitch and everything the Misery series represents. His "real work" is eternally forthcoming, roadblocked by the desire from his fans for nothing but more Misery. So he finally kills her off and, he hopes, the entire series with her forever. He even has a shiny new manuscript he's ready to debut. Life is good for about five seconds.

However, our dear friend Paul has a bit too much too drink, runs into a snowstorm while in his car, and ends up in a horrible accident that mangles his legs beyond recognition. Fortunately, though, someone rescues him: an ex-nurse named Annie Wilkes, who enthusiastically informs him that she's his number one fan. Doped up to the point where he stops breathing twice in his hazy semi-coma, disoriented, and completely dependent on her, he ends up at Annie's house where she cares for him, but doesn't tell anyone and doesn't call the hospital. Even in the daze of painkillers, Paul realizes within ten pages he's in a spot of trouble here.

Everything gets worse when it quickly becomes apparent that Annie is completely off her rocker. Likely bipolar or manic-depressive or both, she keeps him prisoner for months on end through alternating cycles of happiness and destructive depression. She reads the final Misery novel and is outraged when the heroine is killed off. Additionally, Annie is distasteful of Paul's latest novel and forces him to burn it by withholding his painkillers. Shortly afterward, she forces him to bring Misery back to life in a new book.

The book had numerous moments when I probably visibly flinched; in parts it's truly horrifying and gruesome, but all the while captivating and very, very good. It hooks you in rapidly, and despite being told entirely in the third person, the reader gets extensive insight into Paul's mind and his own rather complicated psychology. Paul comes to greatly fear, intensely loathe, and strangely understand Annie, often all at once, and I know I mimicked those feelings. Although when he started to understand and predict her moods, I got a bit nervous and scared. Understanding and still being completely helpless against any foe is somehow more disquieting than not knowing.

Far aside from the various aspects of psychological horror and gruesome body horror, Misery has some rather interesting insights on writing and on the various psychology of people. Paul ponders his craft a lot, and weirdly I was completely on the same mind-wave as him. I mean, honestly, if I was forced to write the escapades of a Sue such as Misery, I would want to kill her off, too. And there are some other reflections that were nice and insightful and stuff. On a personal level, it added an angle to the story that was easy for me to identify with.

All in all, it's very gripping and intense and I'm glad I chose to read it, and now I'll definitely pursue other Stephen King books. My dad has actually been bugging me to read The Shining for awhile now...

Book List
1. Wintergirls
2. Brave New World
3. I Know What You Did Last Summer
4. The Titan's Curse
5. The Battle of the Labyrinth
6. The Compound
7. The Last Olympian
8. Misery

~June

100 Books: Book 7- "The Last Olympian"

2011-03-10T02:22:21Z

Yay, I read another book.

Anyway, this review is destined to be brief because this Book Number Seven is the last of a series which I have already reviewed and basically I've said all I wanted to say about the series in general. But onward we go!

The Last Olympian is the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, although now there are spin-offs which I have to collect and read. As stated in the last review, in which I discussed two prior books in the series, I do like these books. They're fun and energetic and, while not exactly complex, you do get emotionally invested and it makes you think a little bit. In the series, this big final battle between the Big Bad and the good guys has been brewing for ages and it finally all explodes into wonderful battles in the midst of New York City. Considering I'm a little more than familiar with that particular locale, it really did grip me and I was able to imagine everything nicely.

I forget if I mentioned this, but all the titles in this series are all rather literal. (Considering both The Villain Academy and Survivor Radio have ridiculously literal titles, I probably shouldn't talk.) The first book, The Lightning Thief, revolves mainly around a thief of lightning. Sea of Monsters takes place largely in the aforementioned Sea of Monsters. The Titan's Curse has a Titan's curse. The action in The Battle of the Labyrinth leads up to what is later named "the battle of the Labyrinth." And then The Last Olympian names one of the old Greek gods as the last Olympian. In fact, a line of dialogue is "I am the Last Olympian" and I went "OHHHHH GUYS IT'S LIKE THE TITLE. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE."

It was a fitting end to the series. When I finished my brother asked me what I thought, but all I could manage was "EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL BAWWWW I WANT MORE" Although my brother is a little shit because he told me something happened at the end that didn't actually happen, and when I called him out he laughed at me for buying his bullshit like two years ago when he first told me before I had even read the back flap of the book. Hmph.

Book List
1. Wintergirls
2. Brave New World
3. I Know What You Did Last Summer
4. The Titan's Curse
5. The Battle of the Labyrinth
6. The Compound
7. The Last Olympian

~June

DITFT: Stuff gets done!

2011-03-05T22:02:35Z

It's been a little while, but I've been in hyper-studying mode, especially with my SAT coming up in May. I've found myself once again totally ignoring my game for days in favor of faffing about on YouTube and Tumblr simply because I am too worn-out to order around imaginary people.

Anyway. New chapter! Children grow up, objectives are reached, random things occur. Enjoy.

In the last chapter, the Talbots welcomed potential heirs Bill and Vera. Ameera got a bronze talent badge, Gabriel got a giant bonus at work, we expanded the house and the garden, and there was much rejoicing.

And since we're actually going to be tallying up points in this challenge, let's see where we stand. Ameera's gotten married (+1) and had a boy and a girl (+1). In addition to this, the house is decorated according to this generation's theme (+5). And onward!

What's this now?
Matchmaker: Hello, little boy! Don't mind me, I'm just sneaking up to your front door.
just keep walking, Bill

See, this is the first time I've seen this whole animation for myself, and I gotta admit, I laughed my ass off. Everything about it was so over-the-top and theatrical, which I suppose is par for the course with the Matchmaker.

What did we do, though? I guess we planted a bunch of trees and that counts for something.

Vera, if you'll recall, is the nicer of the Talbot siblings. Bill somehow, in a way that defies all logic, ended up with one nice point. Vera's got nine, which was more what I was expecting from the kids, seeing as both Ameera and Gabriel are quite nice.

Vera: LET. ME. OUUUUUUUUT!
Calm down, you're the nice baby, you can wait patiently!

Anyway, Vera, your mother has other priorities at the moment. Ameera, if you'll recall, is attempting to cultivate a thriving garden, max out her nature enthusiasm, earn a gold gardening badge, raise her children, and fix everything that goes wrong around here at the same time. It's a tough job.

Bill, you're like ten years old. What are you going to wish for? Candy for dinner?

JESUS CHRIST, AMEERA. I thought you were starting to get good at this goddamn hobby!

But at least she caught an itsy-bitsy spider.

IT'S "AN," EAXIS. *twitches*

What is this children-get-chance-cards deal? Anyway, Bill is an ~innovator! He shall make a better bird feeder! Take that, shop class!

Victory! But it is all futile, since Bill's one true hobby is Games.

But he also got an A+! Yay, Bill!

Even though Bill is very mean, he is also ridiculously playful, and thus when he comes home from school he requires an hour of fun-bar maintenance before he does his stupid homework.

So apparently this is a cheese platter. Seems a bit lacking. Are the round things blueberries or those cute little spheres of cheese that come wrapped in foil? Since when are those blue?

Oh, well. It's sparkling. That's all that counts.

Gabriel still pretty much refuses to wear a shirt, but at least he's being productive and teaching Vera how to walk.

I honestly can't wait for these kids to grow into their faces, because I'm confident they will be gorgeous.

OH FOR THE LOVE OF--

Okay then.

Since we have come into wealth, I expanded the house to include a recreational room, and also we got a computer. Bill just looks puzzled by it all.

Gabriel: So this is what you do all day?
Stop being my mom, Gabriel.

Vera's birthday!

I am appeased.

Ameera got her silver badge! We're planting new crops and shit now!

Now we cultivate tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, pole beans, eggplants, and peppers, in addition to the lemon, orange, and apple trees.

OH MY GOD
MEDICINE FINALLY CAME UP IN THE JOB SEARCH!
Gabriel is now one step closer to fulfilling his LTW!

Ameera, however, is still several million steps away from bug-hunting prowess.

Vera: Water balloon fight? YOU'RE ON!
Bill: WOOOOOO!
Ameera: AUGHHHHHH SOMEONE PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

Ameera's maxed her Nature enthusiasm! That's another two points on our scorecard and the first completed optional objective!

And she even gets a plaque!

It hangs proudly in the recreation room, with the garden visible from that window there.

Nature Hobby Lady: ...what a n00b.

The younger Talbots really are making an effort to differentiate themselves from their parents. Gabriel watches TV, the kids happily study. If this was a plotty story, this would be foreshadowing.

/synchronized cheering spam

Anyway, despite her over-excited parents, Vera successfully learned the Physiology skill.

Generation 2 bravely marches onward with Bill's transition into teenhood.

Not bad, kid. Not bad at all!

Both of the kids this generation are going to be Fortune Sims. As for turn-ons, I pretty much take whatever rolls up, and if there's something I don't like, I don't try and change it too much. (For example, if a Sim's turn-on is a certain skill, I'll only change it to a different skill if I so desire and such.)

Well, okay then. That is perfectly alright. Follow your dreams and so forth.
*hums I've Got a Dream*

Gabriel. What are you doing. Family is only your secondary aspiration. No one is going to hug you. Cut it out.

Vera, like her brother, got her A+ at school. Yay!

Why are you buying ballet tickets anyway? Going out on the town with Bill?

But you still could have gone with Bill, though!

Shop classes and science fairs alike bow down before the might of the Talbots, I see.

Bill, meanwhile, practices his charisma skill in preparation for a potential future as the heir.

Gabriel, this is why no one hugs you. Because you smell like FAILURE.

Bill: WHAT IS LIFE
/angst angst angst

It's Vera's birthday yet again!

And here she is! The glasses suited her quite well, especially because eye makeup doesn't particularly suit her. She's a Fortune Sim, and here are some other stats (I forgot to screencap the transition pop-up.)

It says earn 100,000 if I messed it up in the process of trying to fix it.

And that's where we'll leave off. Next chapter, we'll have an heir poll and hopefully more fulfilling of objectives!

~June

Birthday!

2011-03-01T23:58:12Z

Happy birthday, Sydney! I hope you have a wonderful day. :D

~June

I'll keep you safe tonight...

2011-02-19T16:09:45Z

I was tagged by Ellis, so here goes! I think I'm going to replace a bunch of these questions...

The rules:

1. People who have been tagged must write the answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new, original question.
2. Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
Tagging: I know there are at least eight of you on my flist who haven't done this yet. /lazy

1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up:
My school bag, bag of candy hearts, my Snuggie, my dad, and my brother.

2. Insert the last thing you copy-pasted here.
*insert Ellis's version of the meme here*

3. What are you wearing now?
My pajamas; sweatpants, knee socks, slippers, MCR tee, argyle cardigan, brown hoodie. (I get really cold sometimes.)

4. What's your occupation?
Student and author. Occasional babysitter.

5. What do you hear right now?
"Heaven Help Us," My Chemical Romance

6. Who was the last person you hugged?
My little brother.

7. What is/was for dinner?
Last night was chicken nuggets and French fries.

8. Do you name inanimate objects you own?
Haha, a little bit. My laptop is named Frankenstein, and I swear I've named my mp3 at some point but I can never remember what name I give it.

9. What's your favorite class at school?
I absolutely adore acting class, and English is a close second. Sometimes history is fun.

10. What's the most-played song on your iTunes?
I don't have iTunes, but honestly, I don't know. Lately I've been listening to "When I Get You Alone" from Glee a lot, though.

11. What was the last thing that you bought?
Uh...I think Skittles on Valentine's Day.

12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I would go on a giant expedition and meet all my online friends. Also, I'd visit my family members who have moved far away.

13. Where do you see yourself in five years?
In 2016? Hopefully in college, yeah?

14. Where's your birthmark?
I have one on my collarbone and a couple on my arms.

15. Now what do you hear?
Time Warp from Glee.

16. Which book are you reading at the moment?
I'm not reading one right now, although I keep telling myself to start 1984.

17. The last movie you've seen?
Yesterday we watched Prisoner of Azkaban which was fun times.

18. What are you doing tomorrow?
Going to church/teaching CCD and probably playing my DITFT.

19. What should you be doing right now?
I've been trying to write this SR drabble+ for like two weeks now but I haven't even looked at it, which makes me sad because I really do like the idea.

~June

DITFT: Money, my dear boy.

2011-02-18T05:09:40Z

Guess who played her DITFT all afternoon and has therefore gathered enough pictures for an update? These intentionally-short chapters are working out pretty well for me. But onward!

Believe it or not, Gabriel has a reason to look all smug like that.

In the last edition of my DITFT, the challenge began with Ameera Talbot, former modeling competition entrant. The goals of the founding generation revolve around plant life, and Ameera began humbly with a small garden plot. She married Gabriel Green, and both of them aren't the smartest Sims I'd ever had. I mean, not even Mimi Granger set a fire making a freaking hamburger. Ameera is now heavily pregnant with the first child of the challenge, as pictured above.

I love this picture. Ameera just looks so cheerful as she goes off to tend her plants.

Let me explain to you what is occurring in this picture.
It is the middle of the night and Gabriel is at work, striving to be the best slacker he can be. Outside, there is a thunderstorm. Lightning keeps hitting the orchard tree and scaring the shit out of me. And in the midst of it all, Ameera is in labor. It was a dark and stormy night--

But everything went well, despite the above monkey wrenches tossed into the process. It's a boy. Since the next generation's theme is business-centric, I will be naming the babies after famous businesspeople. So here we have little Bill, named for Bill Gates, because I am writing this on a PC.

But Ameera has her priorities straight. Baby in crib, mom outside pulling weeds. Yep.
The Talbots are ridiculously poor right now; they've got a little less than 4k in the bank. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT

Gabriel, for his part, was extremely excited about Bill's birth and immediately spun up the want to learn the Parenting skill. So I decided to set his secondary aspiration to Family.

Ameera's a good mom, and Bill is a relatively stress-free baby. So it's all good.

Ameera: Hey, Gabe? Gabe. Gabe, I heard the lullabye again.
I think the effort got to him, Meer.

BREAKING NEWS: GABRIEL IS A DUMBASS. Honestly, dude, it's macaroni and cheese. Children can make macaroni and cheese from the box.
Also, guys, next time could you put on proper clothes before preparing food? Thanks.

Hey, cool! Maybe next time, you can sense when the food is telling you it's ready!

I'm pretty sure this is the next day. Bill's got a little brother or sister on the way!

...sometimes, I kind of suck at this game.

Gabriel, how many times do I have to tell you to put on a shirt in the areas where we prepare food?
Anyway, it's Bill's birthday. Let's see how he looks, shall we?

Well.
I'm not going to lie; he's kind of funky-looking. He's got Gabriel's weird eyes, which really don't complement anyone. But I am confident he will grow into his face appropriately.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS.
Did someone inflict a minor curse on me at some point? Did they deem that all first born children in the first generation of any Legacy of mine were to have no more than two nice points? WHY

Gabriel: He looks so much like me!
Unfortunately.
Gabriel: Huh?
Stop breaking the fourth wall!

Yeah, he'll totally grow into it. I believe in you, Bill!

The instant I took this picture, I knew I wanted it as the cover. I just knew.

I often wonder who on the EAxis team was assigned to writing all this text on the chance cards. Usually when I wonder this, I also wonder who sprinkled crack into their oatmeal the morning they wrote these things, because they are just weird.
Hmm, tragic clowns or fluffy bunnies on a stealth mission?

WOAH.
WOAH.
WOAH.

LOOK AT ALL THIS MONEY. LOOK AT IT. IT IS FIVE DIGITS. THAT'S LIKE, MORE THAN FOUR DIGITS. OH MY GOD.
THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS RIGHT NOW. THIS IS $MADCHEDDA$. THIS IS LEGIT.
IT IS LIKE, ALMOST SIX DIGITS. FROM A CHANCE CARD. ABOUT VIDEO REELS OF BUNNY RABBITS.
OH MY GOD. WE ARE EXPANDING THE HOUSE. WE ARE EXPANDING THE GARDEN. WE ARE GOING TO BATHE IN DOLLAR BILLS.

You know that's an expensive bed. You wanna know why? BECAUSE WE HAVE MONEY NOW. THAT'S WHY.
Also the bedroom got new wallpaper.

So here is the renovated house. The nursery got added onto. I build a bedroom for the kids. We bought orchard trees, one of every variety. We upgraded beds, chairs, and couches. We got paintings. And once that little tomato plant is harvested, the garden will be moved further down so the house is open for more expansion.
At some point there's going to be a second floor, but not right now. And we still have a load of MONEY. WHICH I AM EXCITED ABOUT.

And here, Bill is awakening from his nap into the lap of luxury. Aww yeah.
Ameera-harvesting-fruit-spam!

The tomatoes were bland, too. Whatever, I'll just sell them and add yet more money to the ~family coffers.~

Oh my God, FINALLY. I was beginning to think she'd never get a badge.

Ameera: A...a badge? For me? Oh, I'm so overwhelmed, I could just...just...BAWWWWWW
She'd like to thank the Academy.

So the garden is moved and strawberries, cucumbers, and yet more tomatoes are planted as the lemon, apple, and orange trees start to grow and flourish. It's a good day.

My brother was greatly amused watching Ameera fall asleep into her salmon repeatedly. I wasn't quite as cheery about it.

Pet food delivery? There are no pets here, you n00b. Also, what is with you and chance cards? Slow down, crazy.

I like how he just decides to promote himself. But I'm cool with this, considering we lack the proper amount of family friends for him to get promoted sans chance card.

One evening, Ameera was teaching her slightly bug-eyed son how to walk. It was a quiet, tranquil evening, and Ameera, ever the Knowledge Sim, was happy to be teaching her son the most basic of skills.

And then this happened.
Bill: I'm so out of here...

Ameera: GABRIEL GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!

Typical.

But after much ado, baby girl Vera was born! Vera's namesake is Vera Wang, the fashion lady. Or something. Honestly, I just thought the name was pretty. But I know I've seen clothes with her name on the labels at the mall.

The garden is thriving and I love it. It makes for pretty panoramic shots.

Bill finally learns to walk!

Speaking of Bill, I still don't know where I stand on his looks. I think I've grown accustomed to them, but all the same, I am feverishly hoping he grows into his face, or I will have to smite Gabriel.

Well, let's see, then. *crosses fingers*

Ha, I was totally right! He's looking way better now. I think the glasses help to obscure his still-slightly-wonky eyes. He's definitely got Ameera's nose, but I can't decide whose mouth. Might be Gabriel's.

Ah, and already he's starting to diverge from the interests of his parents.

First day of school! First day of school! First--
Wait, the driver has a fro. Pretty fly for a white guy. Or something.

Good on you, Bill! Although I never got cash prizes for school projects.

Bill brings a friend home from school, and Ameera is very, very passionate about pulling weeds.
Ameera: DIE DIE DIE--
Okay then.

I love harvest time. The oranges match the butterflies on her dress!

It's Vera's birthday! I wonder how she'll look.
Please take after Ameera, please please please...

GABRIEL. YOUR WEIRD EYES ARE STEADILY BECOMING PROBLEMATIC.
Well, I'm sure once she's all grown up she'll look cute with her tiny eyes or something.

Here's her personality. Damn, that's a lot of extremes.

And as little Vera dozes, the chapter concludes. Next time there will be more birthdays and we'll see if Bill and Vera caught the stupid from their parents. I sincerely hope not, but I hoped that the kids would look more like Ameera than Gabriel and quickly learned my hopes tend to get dashed against rocks. 'Til next time, then!

~June

DITFT: My founders are dumb.

2011-02-17T03:16:14Z

Hi, everyone! I mentioned in a previous post that I was doing a DITFT challenge. DITFT stands for "Difference in the Family Tree," and the challenge chronicles sixteen very diverse generations. It's kind of like a Legacy, except with objectives and slightly altered rules. I was bored one evening, the DITFT challenge had been calling to me, so I decided to do it. Originally it's a Sims 3 challenge, but Heather converted it for TS2 and plays her own unpublished one. I thought it would be fun, and so we have my DITFT, The Apple Falls Far from the Tree. Enjoy!

Ameera Talbot had once been a reasonably well-known model. She participated in photoshoots and the like until her agency dropped her from their good graces. So she retired to Belladonna Cove, content with the promise of a peaceful, quiet life out of the limelight.
But unfortunately, I needed a founder.

So Ameera lost it all; her skill points, the few days she had aged, her nice house, her constantly platinum plumbob. Someone else moved in, leaving her with the typical 20k any CAS founder would have. But now she gets to have babies and do a lot of farming!
Anyway, Ameera's a Knowledge Sim with a lifetime want of becoming a Mayor (not gonna happen until she fulfills this generation's objectives).

She's a very neat Virgo, and, hate to break it to you, but there aren't any other PlantSims in Belladonna Cove. At least someone neat can max out the Nature hobby simultaneously and potentially get me a point.
Oh, yes, I keep babbling about points and objectives, but we don't yet know what Ameera's is! Each generation has a theme that correlates to their objectives, which must be fulfilled by the heir; or founder, as it were. Whoever invented the challenge even went to the trouble of writing cute little paragraphs for each generation.

"Your family was always into the farming deal. They spent their days working hard and asked for their children to do the same. So when you turned 18, your parents surprised you with your own plot of land to continue on tradition. And having always been one to want to impress the folks. You begin creating your own small garden, dedicating your time to that rather then dealing with a dreadful 9-to-5 suit and tie job."
Oh, yes. Welcome to the Garden of Talbot! It's so fitting that Ameera has PlantSim skin. Anyway, here are this generation's objectives:

- Get a gold gardening (or flower arranging) skill badge if you have the required EPs. (Seasons for gardening, OFB for flower arranging)
- Have a garden containing each type of plant/Make every type of flower arrangement
- Get married, no premarital woohoo
- Have a boy & a girl

So I'm opting for gardening and planting, because I've had Seasons for ages and never managed to do much with gardens. And here are the optional objectives, for an additional one point each!

- Catch every type of fish (No.)
- Max the nature hobby (Should be easy enough.)
- Marry a sim whose predestined hobby is nature, or marry a gardener (Let's see.)

And here's Ameera's humble abode which has seriously depleted her funds. It's decorated to suit the generation, so I can get +5. (Wow, look at me actually caring about points.) And that little plot of land is the beginning of our objective-fulfillment!
I know the rules don't say Ameera can't have a job, I feel that getting a typical nine-to-fiver would be going against the spirit of this generation, so Ameera is going to be really poor for a really long time.

I figure maxing out Ameera's Nature enthusiasm will be easy enough, with all the gardening she'll be doing. So it's bug-hunting time!
Oh, Ameera is also my third consecutive brunette female founder. *headdesk*

Look, Ameera, it's Mr. Humble, here to give us FREE MONEY! Yay, I love FreeTime.

Mr. Humble: GRAAAAR NO ONE APPRECIATES MY COMPUTER
...bye now.

Some of these bugs have funny names. I think I only took this screencap because I like the play Pygmalion. I get the joke, EA! Because Eliza had a ~transformation~ just like caterpillars turn into pretty butterflies! Or something.

OH CRAP. OH CRAP. WHAT DO I DO I'VE ONLY HAD FT FOR A LITTLE WHILE

Yes, this is me attempting to cancel the interaction "Be Chased by Bees." I totally think it helped, though.

HA.

Anyway, the welcome wagon showed up. Look, Ameera! Marriageable neighbors! She scoped the room and found the second of the Outfit Twins over there attractive, and I was excited.

But then he tried to flirt with her and she was having none of it, so I decided an outing was necessary. They only had one bolt anyway.

She played some chess, someone else joined her and she made friends, but there were no spouse options in sight.

Oh. Hello, Gabriel.
See, in Ameera's past life, I was attempting to find her a spouse, but the only person she had any attraction to was Gabriel Green here. But I hesitated and didn't pursue anything besides friendship for them. I know he's a playable, but do DITFT rules prohibit that? No?
But that means brunette brown-eyed babies without any variety whatsoever...

But he's kind of sweet. I guess. Maybe.
Yeah, I'm lying to myself. I like the idea of them together.
Ameera went and said hello, but nothing happened and everyone went home. Ameera tended her plants and went to bed, and then morning rolled around.

But look who paid Ameera a random visit! At this point, Gabriel's prospects as co-founder were looking good.

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED
Nothing unusual, Gabriel's just casually kissing my founder

This isn't even ACR! This is just free will going on right now!

Then this guy walked by, and I'm pretty sure he's the most fashionable son of a bitch in the whole Cove. Seriously, someone put him on a billboard. I will be so heartbroken if I never see this townie again.

Gabriel moves in as he and Ameera become best friends.
Townie: Oh, you crazy kids! To be young and in love, hell yeah! *finger gun*
I get way too many walkbys in my game. They are getting uncomfortably familiar.

WHAT THE--
DAMMIT, GABRIEL. I was gonna build a second bathroom with whatever you brought into the household, which is apparently diddly-squat.

Anyway, here he is, Gabriel Green, soon to be Talbot. Brings in no money, has a low-level job, but is sweet and therefore gets to live.

Gabriel is also a Knowledge Sim, but I will be fulfilling his LTW. Currently he's in the Slacker career, where he will remain until Medicine comes up in the paper. (Too poor for a computer, you see.)

Dude. How are you a Scorpio? You're way too nice to be a Scorpio.
Both he and Ameera are pretty nice and somewhat neat. I'm used to really mean Sims; maybe this Legacy I'll finally have a nice, sweet personality gene from the beginning!

Ameera: OH MY GOD, BEEEEEEEEEEES
Gabriel: Honey? Are you alright?
Scratch that. They'll be nice, but I get the feeling they'll be kind of...dim.

The Knowledge Sim couple at rest in their natural environment.
Oh, yeah, did I mention Gabriel has precious few skill points? Well, he does.

Well, there go my chances of getting +1 for marrying a Sim with the Nature hobby.

Maybe he should turn off the machine beforehand? The hell kind of chance card is this?
Eenie-meenie-miney-mo...

Dumbass.

But this happened! Yay, engagement time.

He said yes, of course.

A living room marriage occurred, and Gabriel Green became Gabriel Talbot. There was much rejoicing.

Ameera does everything over at casa del Talbot. Gabriel brings home his meager paycheck from his Slacker job, because Medicine absolutely refuses to make itself present. But in the meanwhile, Ameera cleans and fixes and makes dinner and tends her garden and works on building her Nature enthusiasm. It's tough being a founder.

Gabriel, why the hell are you getting so many chance cards? Chill out, dude.
*randomly points at screen*

CHARISMA WON'T BUY ME MORE PLOTS OF LAND, GABRIEL!

I think Ameera is actually trying too hard. Hit the showers, girl.

Then this happened! Conception on the first try, hell yeah!

It's our first harvest! But I'm terrible at raising crops, so these tomatoes are probably tainted with arsenic for no reason. (Also, we got a ladybug house! Yay.)

WOAH, CHECK IT OUT, THEY ARE TASTY

So now we get sparkly salads. Go, Ameera! She still has no badges to show for her efforts, but good things come to those who wait, after all.

HOW MANY FREAKING TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO GET ASSAULTED BY BEES, AMEERA?!

Townie: *observes the chaos quietly*

Generation Two is well on its way!

Gabriel. I think you are a little late there, buddy.

What the hell, who desecrated our front lawn?

I love conflicting pregnancy morphs, you guys. *seethes*

This popped up and then I brought up my internet browser for a second, and when I came back it was gone. So.

Anyway! This is a maternity outfit, and Ameera looks adorable.

The garden got expanded to an orchard tree, so Ameera can earn her badge faster.

I liked this picture so much that I made it the cover. Ameera went on a hike, and nothing of note occurred.

OH MY GOD.
OH MY GOD.
YOU DUMBASS.

DIAL THE NUMBERS FASTER. FASTER FASTER FASTER! OH DEAR GOD NOT THE STOVE, WE HAVE NO MONEY

Wow, that was literally one second after Gabriel hung up the phone. I'm impressed, Belladonna Cove.

Yay, he saved the stove! And Ameera just slept through the whole thing, which I suppose is a good thing.

Gabriel: OMG MY FOOD BURNED
*headdesk* You are going to eat it, and you are going to like it, mister! Oy, is it only the first generation?

Next time, a baby will be born, and hopefully he or she will be just a tad smarter than Ameera and Gabriel. Just a little bit. Maybe Ameera will fulfill an objective. I don't know, dude.

~June

100 Books: Books 4, 5, & 6- Percy Jackson & "The Compound"

2011-02-16T23:03:23Z

So since I've recently gone through three books, I've decided to combine them into one post. Two of the three are part of a series involving Greek mythology, and the other is yet more dystopian literature. I had a fun time reading all three of them, which was awesome.

Book 4 was the third in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series, The Titan's Curse, and book 5 was the following entry in the series, The Battle of the Labyrinth. I have a long history with the series. I read the first one ages ago, did not recognize it for the awesomeness it is, and didn't look for the rest of the series. Then my brother got into them and read them all. Then the movie came out, and I took my brother to see it for his birthday, because it had a cool trailer and I knew he'd like it. (Since he turned twelve I've been taking him to movies, both for his birthday and just whenever we both really want to see something. The first thing we saw together was the last Indiana Jones movie, LOL.) Anyway, I really liked the movie and the lead actor was really cute and the entire experience piqued my interest in the series again. Then my family went to a museum and they had a whole Greek art exhibit and the movie was kind of tied into it. They were selling the series at the gift shop, I bought a copy of the first one, and read the whole thing that afternoon. As you can tell, I'm still in the process of reading them all, but I only have one to go! Yay.

Anyway. The series is about the eponymous protagonist, Percy, and his various adventures as a demigod. The whole series is centered around the idea of Greek mythology being real and half-blood children of the many Greek gods risking their lives to become heroes. Percy's kind of an ass at times, but I like my protagonists imperfect. They're really fun books, and the mythology is woven in so skilfully that it's easy to imagine the world operating on the whims of immortal beings. They're fast-paced but very cohesive, and the characters practically leap around on the pages killing monsters; it's all very energetic. I definitely recommend them. (I recommend the movie, too, but it diverges a lot from the books. Maybe I only liked it so much because I didn't care about the book-canon.)

And onto book 6! Entitled The Compound, I literally only finished it ten minutes ago. I wasn't so impressed with The Compound as I was with Percy and company. Book 6 tells of a rich family who flee to an extensive bomb shelter called, (what else) the Compund, to escape the fallout after a nuclear attack. They live there for six years in isolation. The shelter is equipped for fifteen years of survival, fitted with all sorts of fancy things, but within, the family ceases to be family and on and on.

I liked it overall, but there were definitely several places where it got a little choppy and odd. Even now that I've finished, there's a couple loose threads of plot points that I didn't understand. Characters' motivations really were unclear at many points; I still don't understand the reasoning for a lot of things. But most of it is a fun, suspenseful ride, even though I totally called the twist ending in like the second chapter. Most of the time the narrator/protagonist Eli was just a whiny little bitch, though, and I wanted to hit him constantly. Like, he had this whole thing about people touching him/him touching people that was never really explained properly and as a result it was just weird and I wanted to smack him around even more.

There's really not much to say about it because the twist ending is pretty much the whole thing, although some parts of it are pretty sick and twisted. I could really imagine the actual Compound well in my mind, and I definitely got the feeling of total isolation and hopelessness and misery from the narration. (Usually I don't like the first person, because I prefer occasional removal from the main character.) I mean, it's not bad, but it could have been tightened up and fixed in places, y'know? It was engaging enough for me to finish it in a day.

And now, on to typing up the first entry of my DITFT challenge! I am super-excited and I have a week without school to play. And also, do my huge amount of homework. BOO.

Also I need a new mood theme. I'm considering running back to my mini-MCR one. I liked my Repo one, but there were too many repetitions and I got bored of it. :(

~June