profbutters

 I didn't get any sleep at all last night.  Some glitches and errors cropped up that had to be dealt with right away.  I spent all night fixing them.  Not panicking--fixing.  I was just afraid that if I went to sleep, I would forget what I had been doing. 7 am.  I'm wiped.  

( Don't panic, in large friendly letters on the cover. )

And because it's boring to read a Sims glitch whine without pictures, have some minor picspam!  Consider it a teaser or a sidelight, what you will.

You may remember these guys.
( I've been to a marvelous party. . .  )
Anyway, hope you enjoyed that!  The Uni households are in their final semester, and after a bit of dinking around, we're almost ready for some graduations and weddings.  There may be another chapter before the wedding one.  There are a few loose ends that it might be convenient to tie up separately, and a few amusing things, like Achilles doing a whole lot of makeovers. But I sure am ready for those weddings.  I can practically taste it.  

Chapter 15.4: Penelope's Choice.


So finally you get to find out what happened and we can move along with weddings and babeez!  Because I really am going to enjoy that.

It was a good day.  I did practically none of the things I was supposed to do, but I went to a brilliantly weird performance of *Das Rhinegold* and finished the chapter, so I'm happy.

PB

 Because all the cool kids are doing it, and because I am a shameless copycat, and because I am tired of re-uploading to the Exchange for the same reasons everybody is, I've got some Goodytwoshoes here.

I ought to say that I wouldn't have these guys at all without the hard work of other simmers, especially orikes13 and ndainye . 

Cecil, Cecilia, Sophia, Lytton, De Beers, Sunny, and Mortimer also seem to be on the Exchange, but you never know, right?

( Sims, CC links, pictures, and other goodies. . . )

I've been continuing my search for new alien stuff and a good Multi PT hack.  Because I have laundry, and 30+ midterms to grade, and a seminar paper to write, and let's not even get into the legacies I'm trying to catch up on.

Clearly, I didn't have enough to do.

I'm not planning some kind of alien invasion of Pleasantview, but I do have the Abduction Increased Odds hack in.  I don't want all my sims to be half-brothers and sisters, and I'd like to get some variety in there, and the only real way to know is to test drive it. While I was at it, I thought it would be fun to share, and also, if anyone is trying to decide about Multi PT hacks or alien skins and eyes, maybe this will be helpful.

I'll put all the CC links in at the end, *above* a cut, so anyone who wants to can check them out.

First, I thought I'd try out yet another default:  the Laverwinkle Sims skin, and the Bruno Obsidian eyes made into alien defaults.  Results:

( Cass goes lavender. . .  )

Anyway, it was back to a look for Multi PTs.  And this time I needed somebody who could serve as a lab rat.  Someone, ideally, with recessive hair.  Someone I didn't like very much.

Cypress:  Help meeeeee.



That would be Cypress Vetinari, from the Vetinari Dualegacy by docnerd . Actually, there's no reason to think Cypress hates being alien pregnant.  He's done it a lot, after all.




There's no reason for you to look surprised, Cypress.  Get used to it.  This is going to happen a lot.

You'll also notice Dora Ottomas is there as a kind of midwife.  I needed someone living with Cypress for other, unrelated reasons, and since Dora is dumb enough to like Cypress, she got the job.

What follows is a lot of alien baby, toddler, and kidspam. 

The first Multi PT set I tried out was the Polychromatic Set by simgaroop . These use the Galaxy Explorer skintones by Astiees.  I didn't think it was too likely that I'd wind up using those, because they're pretty extreme and would stick out in my little pinky world, but I did want to see them.  I shot these out of order, by the way.  The first time I had Cypress give birth to the babies in the Polychromatic Set, I didn't have Theo's Unlock Alien Eyes for All Skins, and the kids were born without eyes.  All I can say is. . . you think they look creepy *now*?  Shudder. In these pictures, I think they're all wearing  Ren Sims Confutatis Alien Defaults. I know the last kid is.

( Polychromatic babeez. . . )

I know you can't really tell until you get a kid to teen, but I was a tad impatient, so I exited without saving and loaded up a different set of skins. 

These are the Graslaxian Sims, also by simgaroop .  They're a strong contender for me, because they are sort of normal-alien looking.  They're all using Maxis skin and eyes, because, y'know, what's wrong with Maxis skin and eyes?  In fact, I'm beginning to think I like the Maxis alien skin best.  I use the Lyran skins as defaults, and the Maxis skins work with those.

The Graslaxian skins are all based on born in game Sims from the Broke legacy.  I don't have lots of pictures of these, because frankly, all the little green alien babies looked more or less the same to me, except for Wintergreen, who was born with Cypress' dark blue eyes.  Oh, Cypress, how I loathe you.  But as you can see, all the babies were thrilled that new members kept being added to the family.


( Graslaxian babeez. . .  )


These guys were fun.  It was hard to exit without saving for them, but I have plans and they don't include Cypress having four little lima beans of his own, so. . .

By the way, these were also the only kids for whom I noted personality stats.  I was pleased to see that they all had "extreme" alien personalities.  All different, but they were mostly all 10s and 0s.  I don't know why I didn't think of that, but it makes sense, come to think of it.

Finally, I tried a Multi PT by a different creator.  This one is by widget_sims .  The skins and eyes mostly seem to be from GOS, though some of them are from MTS2.  I know the eyes are the Galaxy oddity eyes, except for one Pollination Technician, who uses default.  She has them all credited on her MTS2 page, with links.  This one looked interesting to me, because all the PTs are very different, but they still look as though they might work with Squeaky Clean.  

The Almighty Robinoli says that squeeing is inappropriate at my age, but howsabout this:  I *would* have squeed a lot if I was allowed to.



( Widget PT alien babeez, OMG so cute. . . )


If I chose the Widget PT, I'd be committing myself to having those eyes and skins in my game pretty much forever (though you *can* change Multi PTs if you don't want more with the same PT, though I think you have to leave the Sim file in or he disappears from their family tree), but face it, those are some CUTE alien kiddos.


Anyway, that took a while, and I probably should have spent it playing my legacy or sorting pictures, or actually getting some work done, but it was an awful lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it, or maybe even found it a little helpful.

Here are the CC links:

In the first picture, Cass is shown with Laverwinkle Sims skin and Bruno's Obsidian Eyes made default for aliens, here.  I'm a fan of DK's Vampire Paste, but since I can't use the skin without changing all my aliens (a grand total of one), I'm kinda stuck.

If you want any of the custom skins to show up and for your alien kids to be born *with eyes*, you absolutely have to have this:

Theo's Unlock Alien Eyes for all Skins.  You only need the package labelled "Alien Eyes." 

The first two Multi PTs are Simgaroop's Multiple Pollination Technicians to Suit Every Taste--the Polychromatic Edition and the Graslaxian edition. There are two more--some classic looking PTs, and one using Enayla's fantasy skins.  I recommend reading the page anyway, and the Maxian Invasion/tutorial/LJ entry she made here.    It's fun and it tells you a lot about what goes into making a Pollination Technician--a real eye-opener for those of us who don't have SimPE and can't get it.  The skins she uses are Astiee's, here, and the eyes are Ren Sims Confutatis Default Alien Eyes, here. I'm thinking about making them my new default.

The last Multi PT is Widget's Multi PT With Or Without Custom Genetics. Love it, really.  The pictures don't properly convey what they're like in game, especially Piranha's skin.  The green looks almost radioactive.  It's cool.  There are a lot of links from all over, which you can find on her page, but the eyes are Gelydh's Space Oddity on Club Crimsyn (under TSR Sets/Eyes).   NB:  while you can find the "Ivory Tattooed" skin used for Creamer on Garden of Shadows, it's also on MTS2, here. 

I also found a handy-dandy little mod by BlueBlood that makes contacts out of your defaults, including your aliens!  That's helpful, because evidently aliens often "lose their eyes" when they are teenagers.  What you do if your aliens have custom eyes, dunno--either it isn't a problem or you find some contacts, or don't take any pictures until they're in college. EDIT:  The Space Oddity eyes have contacts!  You can find them under "makeup" at Club Crimsyn.  D'oh.  I wouldn't have known that, but it's a good thing to know; at least this way if I use Widget's set, I can handle the teen eye issue :)

Hope you enjoyed it!



PB

 It turns out that the problem uploading lots may have been that they were too "big," with too much history (and I'm beginning to suspect having vampires doesn't help, but I'm not sure.)  Anyway, I uploaded a test lot (hurray for Gilbert Jacquet, guinea pig extraordinaire!) and Orikes was able to access it just fine.  So I won't be able to get Penelope et. al extracted until she graduates, and then we're going to put her on an empty lot with some other sims and upload that way, and with any luck at all, that'll work.  Which is a HUGE relief, right there.  Thank you so much, Orikes and Pen!

So that means I can move right along, and I am.  All the households are Juniors now; Penelope is well into Junior Year.  I figured I'd give us both a treat, so I sent her on a date--her first, actually. Went very well, which wasn't a surprise, and everybody rolled the want to get engaged, which is very gratifying.  I hate it when Sims don't do that, especially Family Sims.  I know there's a reason for it, but it's still annoying.  Simselves in particular are terrible offenders in this way.  Since Penelope rolled the want to ask her date home, I let her do that, not that it made any difference, but it did help make the toga party Victoria wanted to throw a roofraiser.  

A lot of Carmilla's redheaded juicing candidates are BV tourists and locals!  Can you believe that?  We don't need victims hanging around for three days, for crying out loud.  Though it might be interesting if Lucy vamped them all.  I wonder if they would all "bleh! The sun!  I must flee!"  That would be one way of getting rid of a houseguest.

Anyway, I'm already thinking ahead and shopping for more CC, and while I was at it, I thought I'd think about any future aliens that might come along.  Do I want a multi PolliTech?  The likelihood that it will be a problem with Free Time is very, very small, since there's very little chance of Free Time being released for Mac anytime soon.  So I began shopping for alien stuff, and found some I liked,  including a sort of fancy one from Eclipse.  I also liked the skin tone and the opalescent eyes, but they're alien defaults.  I figured "no problem; Judy and Ratna are off to Betelgeuse, so no continuity problems there," and then I realized, CASS.  Any alien default I picked would affect Cass.  Then I found some alien contacts by TreyNutz, which I could use to keep Cass' eyes the same, because while I like the opal eyes, their effect on an alien you already know is. . . well.

So what follows are some test pictures I did on Cassidy.

( alien test pics. . .  )

I guess I want a really different-looking alien, maybe a different Pollitech, maybe with a different skin tone.  Lavender would be cool.  Opal eyes or something like that would be cool.  A multiple Pollitech might be good, too, though I don't think it's likely that I'll have more than one alien birth next generation.  I'm not even sure of having one.  

I wouldn't mind switching alien defaults, either, *if* it wouldn't be too weird on Cassidy.  I'd love to hear some recommendations for alien defaults and replacement Pollitechs.  The only thing is it would have to work with the Lyran skins, so I don't think those fascinating Ren Sim ones will work.  There's also an alien skin tone that I know many people love, but to me it just kinda looks like creamed spinach.  

On to get something accomplished before I start to feel guilty about fooling around too much on my non-teaching day.

PB

This won't tell you who Mr. Goodytwoshoes #8 is going to be.  It will, however, tell you why there are three contenders for Penelope's hand in marriage.

( longish technical musing-- )

Anyway, if anyone else wants to do something like this, my advice (aside from simply, "don't"), is to try to have a reasonable pool of sims to pick from.  I may have to go shopping for some extra Romance, Pleasure, Pop and Fortune Sims.  I don't have a lot of those.  And leave yourself open to chance and random stuff.  That's where the good parts of Simming lie.

It may take a while for the next update, but I shot an important scene that amused me very much.  We'll see how it came out.

PB

I normally don't post too much about how there's going to be a chapter, but this is different, because I have a cold and it's making me stupid.  I look at the page, and I know what I'm going to write, because usually I "write" when I'm sorting the pages.  The problem is that my brain sort of fuzzes out. I'll probably have to take a nap before I get started again.

Still, I expect to have something out later tonight or tomorrow.

I mean Simming-type stuff.  I think this every so often when I'm looking over stuff at MATY and there are various "nuisance-avoiders."  I find myself thinking "why does this bug you?" I understand that everyone is different and is annoyed by different stuff, but sometimes I don't understand why.

( Some stuff that doesn't bug me )

Penelope is now halfway through sophomore year.  I'm taking advantage of the day off and doing some more playing.  I hope the next update won't take that long: I have some plotty things to do, so it might.  Also, expect to see some vacation shots.  It's a bit of a waste to take a vampire to sunny Twikki Island, but Carmilla would have pined without Lucy and Carmilla had a nice time and met (another) boy.

PB


 

 I hate it when I get to this bit.  Part of it is that I can't see the slides too well, so figuring out what goes where isn't easy.  Yes, I'm sorting, which means that almost everyone in Uni is at least a sophomore, and that there will be an SC chapter in not too long.

There was some kind of glitch at the boys' Greek house.  Dates weren't coming up with a timer, and there was something wrong with parties.  I think it is fixed now.  The date issue seems to be, anyhow, and now that Ulysses has been properly inducted into the Secret Society and Achilles has pledged, I'll be able to see if the toga party issue is resolved, too.  

I have a few more plotty shots to take.  I went over to Cypress Vetinari's house to take a few conversation shots, and--well, here's what happened:

( cranky mccrankypantses. . .  )And a final word of advice:

( He knows what he's talking about: )

PB

I "celebrated" twice: once East Coast time, with Rachel Maddow on the TV and some nice champagne, plus some cranberry-stuffed chicken breasts from Trader Joe's, and once West Coast time. I played my Sims right up till midnight. The story goes that you ought to be doing something that makes you happy, and I am really happy Simming on my new computer.

I'm playing all the college houses now, and I'm up through the first semester at Goodygirls and just finished with the boys' house. I've always loved playing my Goodytwoshoes boys: it's a cheat-free house, but I don't have to be as careful about what happens there.

And besides, who wouldn't like stuff like this?

( pictures )
Anyway, some progress has been made.  I need to get them extracted, but they wouldn't cooperate before.  I'm looking forward to finishing Uni.