#it was originally gonna be a test swatch

[ame-to-ame]

i did it my hair might be red tmr when it dries

[gaypleasantview]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☆ say my name. // Autumn Drop Day 2 ☆₊‧⁺˖⋆

⋆ TF-EF, necklace, binned as accessory (layerable) or BV jewelry

⋆ 512x256 textures on a 158 poly mesh

⋆ 26 simlish letters in two color options

⋆ compressed, tooltipped, come with thumbnails

Link, swatch, detailed credits and more info under the cut ♡

Hi all! Here comes my second creation this month. I love scrolling through older MTS downloads because it's full of absolute gems, and one day I stumbled upon these super cute necklaces from 2006 made by crosieramanda. I knew I needed to have them, but I also love using as much Simlish instead of English as possible in my game, so then I decided I might as well just use these as my base and go for it!

While the original necklaces have bold letters that make a statement, I felt like choosing something that would be a little more on the elegant side. I ended up using all the 26 English-to-Simlish capital letters of a font called Petal to the Metal by Franzilla. I don't know if I will ever understand which letters came from which Sims game but I'm just gonna assume these ones are something that makes sense in the TS2 universe because the first time I thought to question it was after I was halfway done with the textures. There was no going back at that point. They are labeled so you can check the tooltips in-game if you're not sure which letter is in front of you, and be careful because like a third of them just look like the letter F.

The necklaces use the well-known and well-loved mesh by Dr Pixel. Because of that, these are only available for TF to EF for now. Most of the stuff was just copied from the original files, so these pendants shine under lights just like the original ones. From the technical side of things, the files look neat but there's a couple of seemingly unused resources left in there that I first tried deleting to my best ability, which led to the necklaces not showing up in my game at all. I decided to leave those be because they are literally just a bunch of TXMT strings that barely affect the file size anyway.

Known issues: during one of my play tests I would get white seams showing up at the bottom of the mesh when zooming out. I could barely replicate that to double check so I still have no idea if it's a mesh issue or something with my recolors, and I don't really know how to fix it either, so let's hope it won't appear too much for anyone else :] Aside from that, I really should play test more because I noticed too late that on the silver necklaces, the chain and the pendants are slightly different shades. I think it happens irl too so I'm telling myself it's fine because modifying 52 files again would probably make me cry.

Credits: crosieramanda at MTS for the original English initial necklaces (check them out, they're great), Dr Pixel for the mesh, Franzilla for the Petal to the Metal font, and this source for the graphics in the post

♡ Download ♡

Mesh by Dr Pixel (MESH_DPXLalphaEaringsNecklace080405) is included. Please check if you have it in your game already before installing it.

⋆ Accessory/glasses bin: SFS | Mediafire ⋆ BV jewelry bin: SFS | Mediafire

♡ Swatch ♡

[improbable-implosions]

This particular mend was an interesting journey, I think. It really had me considering the process and approach in the second half, when initially I started with a real napkin sketch of an idea, and hurriedly threw it down onto the fabric.

So first off, here, we just see some black thread whip-stitching a hole in place, nothing special, right?

Turns out, WRONG! It's not just a satin stitched circle, it's gonna be a cat paw! Here's where I pause for a bit, though, because I'm realizing that the black thread really doesn't show off the shape and detailing in the satin stitches, so it just sort of looks like two vaguely shaped blobs, and that won't do!

So, I settle in for a bit of a think, and, additionally noticing that Magnus, the cat who's paw I started this with in mind, has black toe beans, realize I've gotta take a bit of a left turn away from the impulse of "put cat paw over cat holes". I did a little digging, turns out, there's a tool that generates DMC color codes based on color code (over here: https://www.thread-bare.com/tools/match-closest-dmc-thread-to-color-tool), and decide that color-picking from Library's beans would be a fun way to solve the problem. Color picking from the reference picture of his beans here:

revealed an additional minor trouble, the color that would have perfectly matched the center bean there on his front paw was discontinued, but good news, the second and third closest colors are super easy to get! I did a little test swatching to find that the way I was planning to blend those two colors didn't quite work as intended (alternating stitch by stitch satin stitches, and adding a ceylon block of the second, pinker color on top of the third, greyer color satin stitches), like so:

Made it so I had to make a third pivot from the original idea, and I came up with this!

In a nutshell? split the difference by bean! Have the main one in the middle be the reddish-pink color I thought was slightly too directly pink for the whole thing, since like you can see in the reference photo, the center bean is a bit more flushed, and use the greyer color for the toe beans, since they're a bit less red in tone.

Especially with the test swatching I did to cover up some burn marks on a rag that had an Unfortunate Encounter with the stove, it really felt like I was actually making artistic decisions here, rather than just going "hm, lemme just toss some cute little thisn'that over some holes in my wardrobe".

Sure, anchoring those pink satin stitches onto the black threads that stretched over the original hole made it a bit more of a process, (knotting the thread to get it to hold still didn't 100% work out, like you can see with those two small horizontal stitches) but at the end of the day, I really like the look of how it all came together, and I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't see it from the inside, as it goes with art projects. Now I've got a little cat-paw that reminds me of both of my cats, and I get to wear it around for people to see!

[storiesbyjes2g]

Hi, Friends. My name is Jess, and I am addicted to eyes. I hope someone said hi back lol. But seriously... I’m very picky when it comes to my sims eyes, and I keep jumping around from set to set trying to find the “perfect” one for me. I figured because I mentioned earlier I had settled on some for my difficult folks, I’d show you what we’ve got. Enjoy!

I’ll put everything under the cut in case this isn’t your jam.

So, what is it you like, Jess?? Well, since you asked, here is my criteria:

Slightly Realistic

I like Maxis Mix sims, so I don’t want the eyes to be too real but I also don’t want them to be cartoonish. Real eyes also tend to have less white whites, and I like to be able to see the whites of their eyes.

Depth

I. Do. Not. Like. Flat. Eyes. Give me some texture! And catch lights! And maybe a  LITTLE bit of red in the corners.

Natural Colors

I don’t mean I want EA colors only. That means I want the colors I do have to be natural looking. Like, I don’t want my green-eyed sims to have super boomtastic neon green eyes. I want the colors to look closer to something you may see in real life.

DIFFERENTIATED BROWNS!!!

I can’t tell you how many sets of eyes I’ve tried where browns #2-4 look the same. What’s the point of having multiple swatches if they’re all going to be near duplicates of each other?!

[ahem]

Anyway... As I said, Nadia, Nate, Noemi, Anissa, and Rodney all have unnatural eye colors from this set. Frankly, I LOVE this set. I think they are beautiful. But they are a bit too bright and sometimes clash with my Maxis Mix sims with my cinematic G-Shade preset. You’ll see what I mean. Anyway, so I’m gonna give you a comparison of what I picked. Let me know what you think!

(Here are my current defaults. Mel and Kam are sporting them.)

Anissa’s natural eyes are brown but I think they have greenish undertones? I can really tell.

Originally I had settled on Rivix eyes by @pralinesims​, but then she reminded me of the Irene eyes and I switched to them.

Noemi and Rodney have the same color eyes, but I can’t usually get away with using the same ones for them. Noemi can get away with many grievances because her eyes are so small whereas I notice more with Rodney.

I think I settled on Rivix for her. They have a nice...twinkle? lol Plus the pupils are bigger with Irene and you can tell since her eyes are so small.

Nadia is my biggest problem. Not only does she have the most unnatural color on earth lol, but also her eyes are HUGE. Many eyes (”contacts,” rather) don’t do well on big eyes, so finding contacts for her was VERY difficult. Then @softerhaze​ remade Solar Sailor eyes.

They’re beautiful AND the pass the big eye test! *shimmy* Of course the color isn’t 100% right, but it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten and they just work!

I also tried the Rivix on her since that is what I put on Nate who has the same color eyes. I...like it? Not sure if I want to switch to them though. What do you guys think? 

Speaking of Nate, I’ve had a better time finding contacts for him because, like Noemi, he has little eyes and can get away with more. You can’t tell what color his eyes are half the time, and I’ve used more contacts on him than anyone lol.

However, I decided to use Rivix.

I’ve tried many eyes on Rodney too, but you’ve only ever seen like two. My strategy with Rodney is “don’t mess with perfection” lol. Even though I love his OG eye color, contacts of similar colors look way too bright. Like...he’s a vampire or something LOL. So I usually give him a darker gray, the same color as Bryce’s contacts.

I love the Rivix eyes on him because they’re gray but kinda hazelish too which is reminiscent of his OG color which I do not wish to forget. So thanks for that, Rivix!

That’s it! What do you think?? Do you think I should change Nadia’s eyes? Yes, I’m really letting you decide lol. It won’t happen until after the wedding though. Sound off!!

[shakey-wakey]

Done yarn! The yarn is done!

Yarn details and then rambling below the cut <3

I get to finally participate in the yarn gauge bullshit (affectionate) that ive seen from other spinners! This is 105 grams and about 447 meters which puts it at a fingering weight, and on the thinner end no less, BUT. either like 9 or 14 wraps per inch, which is dk or worsted weight (i measured it two different ways, i think the more correct way is what got me 14).

Im guessing it should work up like a sport weight but i havent knit a swatch with it yet so oh well, we shall see

Fiber is from Supernova Dye Works, which is local to mid-michigan! Its polwarth in the colorway swamp monsters in l♡ve

My original plan for this was to spin sock yarn, but i got 2 different braids of fiber at the shop and i mixed up which was which. Theres this one, and then i got some malabrigo cloud, which is superwash, but i thought the polwarth was the superwash one... and it isnt. I know socks dont have to be superwash and that people have been making nsw, 100% wool socks for forever, but i dont wanna handwash my socks, and i didnt want to make the supwerwash fiber into the socks, so i had to change gears.

(Yeah ive been spinning this since before i finished the other one, dont worry about it)

That said, my tentative plan for this yarn is to make a mallorn shawl (the one that looks like leaves). Skein one was split into 7 strips which i spun end to end, and skein two was split into 8. Hopefully this makes the yarn work up very variegated, and if i alternate skeins as i work, im almost guaranteed no pooling. Im gonna start on the shawl and once im a good way in and i can see how the colors sit and what the stitch definition is like, i might decide to frog and knit it into a daft days shawl (by creabea). If i do decide to do that, i have some wool of the andes floof that i can spin up to match and use as the other color, and i think theyd look really good together. Not gonna start knitting until december or january, but im very excited work with it whatever i end up doing. I might also end up liking the mallorn shawl but not having enough yarn and frogging it all anyway...

Oh i almost forgot, i also wanted to show the lil test spins i did! When i realized it wasnt superwash, i decided to do a swatch for sock yarn and a swatch for lace yarn to help me decide. Just grabbed a handfull off the end of the braid. I spun, washed, and knit both swatches all in one day

I did the lace swatch in an actual laceweight and then saw that the mallorn shawl calls for a sportweight but it was still nice to see, and im glad to know that i am in fact capable of spinning sock yarn

Fulllll full full cop

(Skein 1 is 50 grams, the tp tube and the spindle are both 25-ish and will become another 50-g skein)

Chain-plying tomorrow, plus washing if i get done early enough💫

[yeehaww-sims]

My husband and I keep getting frustrated with how most pieces of pride cc have so few flag swatches, so one again I am taking matters into my own hands sfdjkldfsklj

[itsonlythee-sims]

Eli's Simblreen 2022 Masterpost

Thank you everyone who sent Delta and I asks the past 2 weekends! We really enjoyed the cheesy jokes and nice messages!

I had a lot of fun my first time participating in Simblreen. I hope you enjoyed your treats! For everyone who missed out, I've scrounged up some leftovers to hand out. I'll leave them out on the porch for you to grab at your leisure ;)

Download my Simblreen treats after the cut!

Week 1

On day 1, I shared this silly Bony Hands Skirt set. I was inspired after @thatsimslady sent me the pic on the left and knew it would be a great addition to the game.

base game recolor

deep purple with fluorescent green hands print

both frames

2 swatches each

color tagged & thumbnails

Download at SFS

On day 2. I shared the Chalk-or-Treat blackboards, a simple recolor of a base game wall deco with fresh wood and chalk art.

base game recolor

6 swatches

color tagged & thumbnail

Download at SFS

Day 3 was a small CAS set for kids. First, the Hallow-onesies set, a 5 piece recolor of a kids' Get Together pajama, great for watching scary movies in.

requires Get Together

kids' full body category, both frames

5 seasonally appropriate swatches

There was also this kids' facepaint set which I had a lot of fun making. I hope your sim kids enjoy them too :)

facepaint category

requires Spa Day (I think? it was cloned from the Spa Day face masks)

9 hand painted swatches

tested across different skintones

Download both sets at SFS

Week 2

Had a bit of trouble getting the first gift of week 2 working correctly without its original pack but I did manage to do it. (thanks Esther!)

Day 4's Have A Sweet ottomans seemed like a good candidate for some Halloween recolors. Originally an SE mesh, I've made them base game compatible.

BGC

7 cute swatches + 1 creepy eyeball swatch

color tagged & custom thumbnails

Download at SFS

And finally, here's the treat I was most excited to share, my Spooky Mingos as they appear to be called at retail? I saw these guys IRL one time and they're so silly. Skeleton flamingo is one of my favorite Inexplicably Skeletal Animals for Halloween time. I upscaled & cleaned up the original flamingo texture, and then painstakingly hand painted the skeleton swatch. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

BGC retexture

5 spooky swatches

kitschy goodness

color tagged & custom thumbnail

Download at SFS | MtS

Hope everyone has a great Halloween! I'm gonna follow Delta's lead and take it easy (and try out all the cool things you all shared!)

[oneefin]

puzzle rojak solutions are out! i had a lot of great moments with these puzzles and i'll share some of them below. long post with spoilers incoming!

i'll lead by saying that at the time we finished the hunt 100%, we were one of the only teams to have forward solved everything - so we got a very full experience out of the hunt.

ups and downs

this was our first solve of the hunt, we figured out what was going on pretty quickly. shoutouts to DOINK, which isn't a snake or a ladder but we cherish nonetheless:

chemistry test

we thought the answer to this was pretty appropriate to how we (non-chemists) felt about it

pig-tac-toe

this is one of those ideas that's just like. awesome. one very neat, very simple idea with a novel extraction method that feels fresh despite being very puzzle-hunty.

for this one, niv fetched us a pig gif and we had fun conversations about rice

fast time

i had a powerful eureka moment here upon seeing "RED CAR" and shouting "IT'S RUSH HOUR". i didn't know any of these people or about the film called rush hour, so after i said this luny thought i had just popped off and made a movie trivia get for the first time in my life. sadly not

selective sounds detection

our team had the fastest solve on this one! we're all musicians so this was right up our alley

find waldo

we briefly added MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 to our team roster after seeing this, but we left our actual names in there so that other teams would know that it's not part of it. there was another team who actually erased all of their members and left Puzzle Potluck 4, which we figured could be ruled out - but i saw a couple other teams weren't so lucky

shoutouts to galactic trendsetters violet for making and sticking with this play:

jenga

oh boy, onto a real one.

so we knew this was going to be really sprawling. anything that requires you to track the state of something across a span of time usually ends up being pretty complex. i know other teams were notating for efficiency and clarity - but for us it was extremely important that our notation looked beautiful.

that's form over function for ya

we had to finagle with borders a lot when putting this together, but it was totally worth it. i also visualized the tower toppling at the end by screenshotting the final state and rotating it:

zebra puzzle

honestly, i've seen similar things before, but this was still pretty and cool. both halves of the solve were breezy and satisfying, and the extractions just made sense. a picture perfect hunt puzzle

i know my abcs!

i just really liked the numberlink :) also given the restriction placed on this puzzle by the later puzzle i know my patterns!, it's amazing to me that this construction was so potent.

even though it's not a big deal, i gotta say that i'm a bit let down by the aesthetic of the spreadsheets shown on the solution page for this puzzle. ours looks like this:

and theirs looks like this:

(i asked them about this and it's gonna get corrected so horray! ty rojak team)

game theory

this was another really sick idea - not quite as self-contained as pig-tac-toe was, but brilliant nonetheless.

measuring kurrent

loved the moment when we (by we i mean luny) realized what this puzzle was about. had an awesome time piecing together the mechanic at play here, and the google sheet they made for this puzzle is absolutely gorgeous.

six flags

we had no idea what to do with this originally - then we unlocked a few more from this round, realized what was going on, and came back. from there it came together smoothly.

our sheet doesn't contain a visualization of these flags, but it should. we should've done it.

i know my patterns!

i alluded to liking this puzzle earlier in the post, but like wow that was cool. going from matching swatches of dropquote to the abcs grid, noticing that the black squares are all R-Z, and then going "suddenly sudoku????" was amazing, and getting the cluephrase ITS A ME WHO was incredibly powerful, like that's a cluephrase if i've ever seen one

altius meta

this is the sort of meta where we knew that solving it with incomplete information would be very, very hard. so on only five of the six answers, we cranked it out. it was a process of collaborative bifurcation - we managed to eliminate all possibilities of completing the middle grid, meaning that the missing answer had to go there, and then we managed to find the only possible arrangement for the left grid, then the right grid. very fortunate that we managed to extract the right answer from _EAKC_O_O - otherwise it would have been very unsatisfying!

niv then got us the aha for the last puzzle we needed right after finishing :P

communiter meta

ok, one last one. this round was great and i thought this pure meta was a great way to send it home.

i made the realization about the answers to the paired puzzles also having a matching letter that got us to the end, which was super satisfying. maybe there's a world where luny could have anagrammed GILE_ to the right answer, but that would have been less fun

our team finished puzzle rojak 2! i had a great time. i found most of the puzzles to be pretty straightforward in their design - but not so straightforward as to feel stale. the good kind of straightforward :)

we were hovering at placements around the 50s basically the entire time

when the hunt is over i will post goodies from our chat + google sheets logs

[cmescapade]

“The Brokini” - A TS4 Fullbody Male Swimsuit

inb4 “summer is already over cement, y r u posting this”  SUMMER NEVER ENDS

my brother called it a thong he’s wearing wrong and i have to agree

anyway last month this swimsuit was brought to my attention in a discord server im in and bc i love dumb shit i felt the ABSOLUTE NEED to have it in my game so here it is, existing

special thanks to @fataleromeo​, @gothaliens​, @simscapades​, @desira-sims​ & @chronicleangel​ for enabling me testing this cursed swimsuit lmao

Originally made for personal use 👙

Male Fullbody Outfit

20 Patterns

5 Fineapple and 5 Bromingo swatches in reference to the original swimsuit 🔫

BGC

Download and info below  🏊‍♂️

i was gonna go a simpler route wher i just draw it but bc i have default tops it rly be making them nipnops say hello winter so i covered my bases by making it worse a full body outfit

there’s some issues i can’t seem to fix like how the strap gets squiggly when u hike up the sliders for muscle 

maybe ill b able to fix it someday..................................when i figure it out...........

Download: [ DropBox ] / [ SFS ]

[ravenpaw-93]

Months ago I saw someone post a headcanon of Draco being like a beauty guru youtuber and I was like yeSSS.

But last night I went down a rabbithole watching Brad Mondo videos & he gave me big Draco energy and it made me remember that headcanon

& like I just imagine beautuber Draco dragging Harry into Sephora and using his arm to swatch stuff.

Posting a "My International Quidditch Star Boyfriend Does My Makeup" video bc he's Draco of course he's gonna flaunt it.

Vlog check ins when he's testing new products and kissing Harry to see if his lipstick is transfer proof.

Finally talking Harry into letting him do his makeup for a video and whinging the whole time about how unfair it is that he has such long thick eyelashes and tiny pores.

"Oh, honey.." when he's doing a reaction video to people bleaching their hair at home.

Being genuinely shocked when he asks Harry what he thinks of his makeup when testing new stuff & Harry actually kinda knows what he's talking about

Collabing with Luna to test out weird beauty products and doing challenge videos with her.

Whoever had the original headcanon I love you bc it's amazing.

[an0nymousghost]

simblr asks v2

here are my answers! find the questions here.

i wrote soo much ahaha. like however much you think i wrote, i wrote more than that. imo everything i write is gold though

1. are you going to buy the new pack (cottage living) when it comes out? no, it looks really nice but i legit never ever buy packs at launch, especially cause this one is a expansion and it will probably go on sale at some point

2. do you p*rate your dlc or buy it legitimately? buy it legitimately 👌

3. what’s your favorite world? brindleton bay, it gives like seaside cottage vibes. willow creek is good but it’s boring. 

4. if you use a queue, how many posts per day do you set it as? 3 or 4. i used to do like 12 lmaoo what even was wrong with me

5. do you watch sims on youtube? yes, i watch mainly malixa, oshinsims, and msgryphi

6. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (dream home decorator) those sectional couches look good! but honestly im kinda annoyed because now it’s even harder to have all the items filled in when i place lots from the gallery. like i’m just saying like a lot of builds will use that pack probably and if i don’t get it then i can’t really use builds/save files 

7. how many packs/kits do you own? lemme count

expansion: all - 10/10 game: 5/10 stuff: 9/18 kits: none xo

24/38 - 63%

8. what’s your origin id? is it the same as your url? 🤗 it’s in my title, it’s celeschul. it doesn’t look that nice in my title but i use celeschul in my package files and i’m guessing people search things like, “celeschul penny hair” or something like that in order to find my cc- so i keep it in there so the search results are easier. i do want to change it though..

but no it’s also not the same! well i mean it’s the username i use for cc. my origin id used to be an0nymousghost but i changed it. i wonder if anyone’s taken that one?

9. is your simblr your sideblog or main blog? main blog ✌️ my old blog @stardze​ is a main blog as well.

my old old simblr was a sideblog but it had like 1 follower and it literally a bot so i don’t think that counts. i have a multifandom sideblog though 

10. do you have a cc finds blog? i wish. i was thinking bout it earlier and that would be sooo neat but sometimes i download stuff that doesn’t have a tumblr post attached to it, and also it’s stressful to keep up with so nah

11. are you wcif friendly? yes sir. in fact i bring the trouble of wcifs onto myself but doing them even when nobody asked.

12. what’s your favorite sized household to play with? (ex. 1 sim, 4 sims) gonna have to think on this one, honestly 1 sim is really fun and stuff goes by so fast. doing stuff with astrid when she was on her own, it was much more efficient. 

for families, i haven’t done that in a while actually. 5, 2 parents and 3 kids is cute tho. why did i write this this is honestly such a hard question

13. if you have c&d, do you play with pets? i feel like i haven’t played with cats and dogs in forever. honestly i just have no paitence. noelle fae was supposed to get a cat (there’s a food bowl + cat bed in her house) but when summer vacation started, the amount of time i spent playing ts4 decreased a lot. (this doesn’t really make sense, i have a lot more time. honestly it just has to do with my recent obsession with a certain anime/manga and some other personal thing)

i did random nightmares in may though and i had pets frequently. g5 didn’t because sofia scarlett lived in an apartment, but g2/3/4 had cici, and g1 had all the cats. but that was back in march so it’s been a while.

14. what lifespan do you use? i really want to do aging off but then i feel like it drags on. but aging legit stresses me out, sometimes i just want to sit down and do some cas stuff but i only have 2 hours in real time and there’s like 4 days left till one of my sims’ birthdays. 

15. if you own a lot of packs, how many of them have you actually played through? just so everyone is aware this question was made for me

i feel like eps require a specific save made for testing them out, but the only save i’ve ever made for an ep is noelle fae’s get famous save. 

that is literally a lie - i made a save for island living with one of my 100bc kids, maisie acapella. i did actually post it on tumblr BUT then i deleted all the posts BUT i reblogged them on my alt account BUT i privated my alt account so i honestly forgot about it

i have never played through discover university or watched anyone do it on youtube, i’ve read gerbits’ story about it so i think i’m pretty qualified. i’ve always wanted to do one with periwinkle acapella but i never got around to it

another ep i know nothing about is get to work

i tried doing a eco life playthrough but i hadn’t watched any videos and i was like..what is going on. so i quit lolx d ;;;;; i mentioned it but the whimsy stories legacy was the first time i had played with the eco lifestyle features so technically i think i know what im doing

i got outdoor retreat literally on monday of this week so i haven’t played through it yet. 

jungle adventure i still don’t know what’s going on. i remember last year before i bought the pack i was brainstorming, and wanted to do a ja playthrough with luna and cedar, who are a couple who i did a random legacy with and it was all queued to post when i deleted everything (if you’re wondering why, it’s because my queue was literally 200+ posts). except this time i didn’t save them to my sideblog so i lost them. 

i still havent had a restaurant in dine out 

also never did the vet thing from cats and dogs

i have no idea what that rock climbing thing is from snowy escape but i did most of the other stuff because rn g5

city living i did through psc stage 5 and also it was the first pack i bought anyways

the rest of them are either stuff packs or i ended up playing them through casual gameplay (seasons, parenthood)

16. what do you do as you play sims? (ex. listen to music) i listen to music most of the time, or listen to commentary youtube videos because i am an alpha chad. i also used to talk with my friends on voice call but i don’t do that anymore 🥲

17. which sims challenges have you tried? random legacy, whimsy stories, perfect sim challenge, 100 baby, legacy (just the plain get-to-10-gens one), random nightmares, berry zodiac, astrology legacy, apocalypse

i feel like im forgetting some.. honestly most of the stuff i did before simblr was either 100 baby (i love that challenge) or random saves that lasted for 2 seconds. 

18. do you like the new(ish) hair swatches? nah. 

i do appreciate that most cc hairs have a true (ish) black, thank god! and the fact that the hair update is what inspired me to update and fix a bunch of hairs with different issues is pretty nice. but will i use them? no. 

plus it takes up like 5 gb? depending on how many packs you have.

19. post the latest screenshot you took 📸

i live in cas

20. what is the cc/ingame hair that looks the most like your own? i think that dream home decorator side part hair looks a lot like my hair. honestly i havent see much like my hair but that one is kinda-? close

21. who is your favorite sim of yours and what is their story? noelle and alari fae i think! 

link to post

noelle is blonde and has blue-grey eyes. she wears purple contacts pretty often though (because she wants to 😌)

alari has light brown hair that is kinda curly, and she’s got pretty vibrant blue eyes. 

they’re sisters, alari is 3 years older than noelle. noelle was 19 and alari was 22 when they got spotted

they worked as models when they were young adults. their jobs involved dyeing their hair blue/pink, and they would model like clothes and stuff. anyways, they were pretty successful. like not ultra famous but they had enough money to not work for the rest of their lives. 

their modeling group was made of 4 girls, the others were named paisley autumn and they were green and red, respectively. some things are: 

paisley and alari started dating during this 

autumn was a single mother to a little girl named destiny

noelle dated many people during this but never ended up finding the one <3

when their contract ended after like 6 years, paisley and alari went to go live together and noelle decided to get into acting. so thats when get famous playthrough started!

there’s more but basically they’re like oc’s with sims on the side. xoxo

22. if you use cc, are there any cc creators that you have like ALL of their items? this is such a good question! i hoard hair very heavily (my folder is 11gb) i so i have like 97% from most of the popular hair creators. 

i think i had legitimately EVERYTHING from simstrouble though, i went through multiple times to check and i also have all of her retired stuff. 

i have everything from ridgeport i think-? because of the fact that she uploaded all her stuff in one big zip. 

i think that’s it.. for a long time i also had everything by clumsyalienn, but then i ended up deleting it and only keeping my faves. 

and looking at my collection, maybe ah00b? i might be missing a couple but i at least have like 99%.

23. what’s one pack you think is underrated? dine out, it’s laggy af yes but it’s such a nice thing for my sims to do. 

24. what are your favorite sims stories/legacies? melons by gerbits always and forever

this question was inspired by this ask anyways so 

25. if you could change one small thing about ts4, what would it be? most of my suggestions are pretty complex but literally just - when you add tray files, they appear at the top. my life would be so much easier

this took me literal hours to answer

[ajduckie]

Crystal Hair // Saccharine Palette Recolor *UPDATED AND EXTENDED*

aslkdfjalsdkf okay so idk why but i've been in a weird mood lately where i hate everything i make? so i’ve been super reluctant to work on any of my million wips and even more reluctant to release anything. but i promised you guys more recolors SO i’m pushing through and getting it done. probs just gonna release them as I finish editing them rather than dump 20 hairs at once?

but sadlfkjadsl anyways here’s @aharris00britney’s Crystal Hair recolored in  saccharine my saccharine extension 🙃

Download and details below!

details and random rambling // 1 CAS item  •  16 natural swatches 30 swatches, 23 natural and 7 unnatural/pastel  •  custom thumbnail  •  match-hair function enabled with my saccharine eyebrow recolors [here]  •  works with matching bow accessory

download // via SFS (no ad-fly) *** UPDATED 10/25/2019 *** 

You must have the original hair in your mods folder in order for this recolor to appear in-game! Get Austin’s mesh for the Crystal Hair in EA’s standard 18 colors here. Thank you Austin for another gorgeous hairstyle!

Additionally, my recolor will work perfectly with the bow accessory that Austin created to match this hair. I highly recommend downloading the bow! Without it, both my recolor and Austin’s original mesh include a gray or black bow. With the accessory, you can choose from 30 different colors 🌻

ps // thank you to @arcanewonder and @simdobo and for your testing and support!

let’s have tea? ☕️

terms of use // don’t be a butthead  •  do not re-upload  •  do not claim as your own  •  do not use my graphics  •  always give appropriate credit  •  enjoy 💛

📣 // @maxismatchccworld  @mmfinds  @mmoutfitters  @s4library  @simblrcollective

[dexalu]

Dude *sigh* I bet my house talks So Much shit about me, to itself and all the other houses.

Damn place has been around years, with many owners. Hearing all the music, all the podcasts, shows, movies, and documentaries. Caught a couple pages of books, magazines...

It’s like “This bitch just said some dumb shit. I have seen fifty documentaries on this subject and I know that ain’t it sis”

Not to mention I live with six other people and when there’s drama it’s probably listening to us all individually tell our side and thinking with it’s first hand walls everywhere

“yeah, yeah, ehh kind of, no not really, def didn’t say that, um yes you did throw it not ‘lightly toss’, yeah replay that song, actually that soaking bowl is his and the ‘lost’ pan has been stinking up his room which I may add is my Favorite room, Sooo is anyone gonna vacuum Soon, well speaking on My behalf I’m getting tired of Hell’s Kitchen too, WAIT don’t go in there! they don’t look as good fucking as they think they do, oh off white walls-how original-why even bother painting? ya know maybe Tuscan orange this time-I liked that test swatch, babygirl shakespeare was not Italian but yes you’re correct Romeo and Juliet is SET in Italy, please call a plumber I’ve learned from experience you-in fact-Can’t fix this by yourself, I can’t watch The Godfather anymore please what did I do to deserve this?!, he likes you but he also clogged the toilet which is why he has to go, Pizza smells good, Uh I shut off the power to save you from getting hit again-here’s your chance to get out, I don’t like her-damn perfume is killing us both, No One Stole Your Shoes-Everyone thinks they’re ugly, Don’t cry-don’t cry-don’t cry-don’t cry everything’s gonna be fine, Fuck them Veronica, I really like the new curtains for the living room...”

[always5hineee]

Before It Rings- Chapter 12: The Experiments

Chapter warnings: Mild language

Word count: 1069

-----

       Jungwoo was very hesitant to allow WinWin into his little testing situation. Of course, they weren't working with actual zombies at the moment, but it was still dangerous. Not only that, but he didn't want anybody finding out. He was originally going to work on a cure, but he realized that this would be more effective for daily life. A cure was risky, this could save more lives. To put that hope in everyone's hearts, he couldn't bring himself to do that.

       Still, he admitted that he would prefer to be able to study another subject rather than himself. He wasn't sure whether WinWin knew the responsibility that came with doing so, though. He thought to himself that he'd be sure to give WinWin the ability to quit at any point, no matter how helpful he was. Jungwoo wasn't a monster.

       Finally, he agreed, laying down some ground rules. Most of it was boring lab stuff about what to touch and not to mess with, what you should wear to keep safe, the point of the experiments, to make sure you say something if something happened, all simple.        

       "And last but not least, don't die." Jungwoo said with a smile.

       "I'll try my best!" WinWin laughed, looking to the vials. "So, where do we start?" As he said this, though, something began to stir to their side. Looking over, they saw Mark, moaning and trying to sit up as he rubbed his head. Jungwoo knew he couldn't have heard anything due to how disoriented he was, but it didn't stop the beat in his heart from skipping.

       "What's going on?" Mark asked, trying to swallow the dryness in his throat.

       "We're back at camp. You're in my tent." Jungwoo mentioned, trying to speak slowly.

       "Johnny's camp?"

       "No, yours."

       "...You live with us now??" WinWin tried to keep from laughing, but a little breath escaped his lips. It didn't draw Mark's undivided attention.

       "Uh, yeah, I guess."

       "That's so cool!" Mark beamed. "Welcome to the crew!" Eyes lighting up, he asked, "Wait, did you guys get your tattoos? Can I see?" WinWin gladly showed his off, eliciting child-like reactions from his friend. Once he was satisfied, he looked to Jungwoo expectantly. Caught off guard, he began to stutter out a response.

       "Oh, uh, I- I didn't get one-" The happiness on his face fell.

       "What? Why not?"        

       "I- I mean, you guys kinda had a thing going here, a-and I didn't want to impose or-"

       "That's stupid! You're getting one the next time we go."

       "But I-"

       "No arguing!" Jungwoo sighed, figuring he could fight the boy on it later. Changing the subject, he looked to Mark's leg.

       "How are you holding up?"

       "Hmm?" He looked down to where Jungwoo's gaze lay. "Oh! Actually, a lot better. Surprisingly, having your bone in the right place feels pretty nice. I might even try to stand!" Jungwoo put his hands on the man's shoulders as he tried to get up, warning him against it.

       "I can take you wherever you want to go, but you definitely shouldn't try to put weight on it right now. No matter how good it feels, you're still fragile." Mark rolled his eyes.

       "Ugh, fine, I guess. I wanna see everyone!" Jungwoo laughed lightly as he helped the eager boy to his feet, looking to WinWin and muttering some quick instructions under his breath. Then, he took Mark out to see the others.

       With no jobs or real responsibilities, Jungwoo and WinWIn had plenty of time to work on the disguise. In essence, he wanted it to act as a pheromone to keep zombies away, both by recreating zombie smell as well as blocking some brain and heart activity by confusing their senses. He used his test samples from Johnny to check the reaction to zombie flesh, then did test strips on WinWin to figure out its reaction to humans.

       After a batch was finished, Jungwoo was very hopeful. All the elements were perfect, and all he had to do was make sure it wouldn't be harmful to humans. While he didn't predict any negative reactions, it was always good to check. Taking WinWin's arm and drawing a neat chart of boxes on it, he began swatching different formulas on his arm. Only one reacted poorly, giving him a slight rash, but he insisted that the others were comfortable.

       "This is great. We may even be able to draw out a lone zombie and test these in the field!" Jungwoo said excitedly. As somber a job as it was, he enjoyed the process of figuring out this problem. As they were both hyping each other up in celebration, the zipper to the tent opened. Quickly obscuring the vials, the boys looked up to see Taeyong.

       "Hey. I just wanted to let you know that Johnny's going a bit crazy, so if you're on the walkie-talkie, don't pay too much mind." He seemed passive about this, but it didn't sit right with Jungwoo.

       "Crazy? What do you mean?"

       "Something about how once we left a horde showed up or something, he's insisting that they're headed our way." Both of the boys' eyes widened.

       "That seems serious." WinWin warned.

       "Yeah, I thought so, but Taeil and I just took a round, we haven't seen anything for miles. He's probably just paranoid. He saw a few and called it a 'horde'."

       "Still..." Jungwoo muttered with concern. "Maybe it's better if we roll out."

       "We're more likely to encounter a zombie that way." Taeyong argued. "We can just stay here, it's fine." Before he left, he started to tag on, "Oh, and don't tell Mark. You know he'll listen to anything Johnny says, and I don't want him to do something rash. It's honestly-" Before he could finish, a few shouts rang out behind them.

       "Taeyong!" It sounded like a few of the boys were calling his name, frantic tones evident. Turning, he saw Mad trying to limp towards him, followed by Yuta and Haechan.

       "There's-" He was breathing heavily. "There's a horde coming, it's freaking huge." He finally stated, eyes wide. Taeyong looked horrified.

       "You can't be serious."

       "Jaehyun's already pulling stuff out of the car to go fight, but it's gonna take a minute, it's all stacked up. We don't have much time-" Yuta explained. In the distance, they heard another male yell. They were here.

Go to Chapter 13

[titleleaf]

ILLUSTRIOUS LUBES OF THE LATE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

~*~*a sequel~*~*~

writing about some post-1850, pre-2000 lubes

If my last post was focused mainly on Europe and Great Britain, the brand names in this post skew US-focused, I'm sorry I can't help the people writing filth set in the USSR or literally anywhere else around the globe but those lube resources are out there in archives and museum collections, waiting to be used in somebody's weird historical erotica, please find them and set them free. In addition to my previous post's disclaimer that this isn't health advice and you shouldn't put any of this stuff on your goodie bits without doing your own due diligence and maybe even a swatch test: this isn't remotely eyewitness testimony. If you’re reading someone’s memoir or smutty novel or firsthand account of a particular era and you spot an instance of plausible lube not mentioned here... I mean, come and tell me right away, but don’t discount that just bc it’s on this totally non-comprehensive and non-scholarly list.

definitely around, definitely in use

spit (timeless classic)

animal fats (also timeless, also classic)

body-safe vegetable oils -- coconut oil, olive oil, almond oil

other oil-based products -- baby oil, Crisco, mineral oil

all manner of lotions  -- body lotion, hand cream, cold cream

KY Jelly -- available for medical use ("catheters, sounds, and specula", so definitely inside the body) post-1904, adopted for sexy use pretty much immediately

Vaseline -- available for general use post-1870 and sold damn near everywhere, also waterproof; by at least the 1950s, it comes in portable tubes as well as pots, but would you believe how hard it is to find digitized sources for vintage lube?

If you're curious about packaging, Ebay and similar auction sites feature antique KY Jelly and Vaseline packaging; just watch out for listings for "Vaseline glass", whatever that is.

(Ebay link)

(Ebay link)

Sticks, jars, little tins, big toothpaste-style tubes, little first aid kit-size tubes. You get the picture. Put it in somebody’s butt.

(image from “A Suitcase Full of Vaseline, or Travels in the 1970s Gay World” by Lucas Hilderbrand -- originally featured in gay lifestyle magazine Queen’s Quarterly 1969) 

KY Jelly and Vaseline both become effectively synonymous with gay sex, though both quietly receive plenty of mileage in heterosexual coupling as well. But people are fucking and jerking off with whatever they can get their parched little hands on, and they have more lubey options available than ever before, sort of the Whig historiography of lube. 

 (Later on KY gets a big marketing push during the 1980s aimed at heterosexual women; ads for it pop up in magazines like Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, and Parents, and its advantages over Vaseline are touted as its mimicry of natural lubrication and its nonstickiness.)  

Eventually in, eeeeeh, I'm gonna say the second half of the 20th century we really get to purpose-built sexual lubricants, stuff marketed specifically for the purposes of sex -- for sale in drugstores, sex shops, bathhouses, and in print media like magazine ads (both in gay interest publications and in straight-up porno mags) and catalogues. I have a hard time pinning a firm timetable on this; you're getting ads for personal lubricants (dodgy ones, too) in the back of Playgirl by 1975, and the market in ostensibly numbing/sensitizing/orgasm-enhancing/orgasm-delaying products was already going strong. Scented lubes, flavored lubes, numbing lubes, mystery lubes with undisclosed ingredients, heavily scented lotions. Should your characters use these? Are these butt-safe and/or vag-safe? Probably not, and probably not, but they're there during this period and they're in use. Scented lubes get a shout-out in the groundbreaking safe-sex pamphlet Play Fair! (1982), and not in a good way

Post-1982: Safer Sex

By the HIV/AIDS era, safer sex is a pretty different situation than fifty years earlier, and it's likely on many characters' mental horizons as they approach intimacy in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and beyond. "Does safer sex matter in fanfic?" is an old, old, old debate in the fanfic world  and I'm not going to resolve it here. (see also: https://fanlore.org/wiki/AIDS_and_Fandom.) For material-culture purposes, the awareness of the importance of barrier protection coincides with an increased availability of water-based lubricants less likely to damage latex barriers. However, people did (and still do) continue to use oil-based lubes with latex condoms for a variety of reasons with a variety of results. Use your discretion about what you’re writing.

Definitely Around, Definitely In Use, Better With Latex Condoms Than 18th Century Wig Pomade 

once again, KY Jelly

water-based lubricants (jars, bottles, tubes, little squeezy packets… big bottles! little bottles! tiny little portable plastic tubes! big honking bedside table tubes like toothpaste tubes! single-use packets! pump bottles both big and small! mix it up)

silicone-based lubricants (around by the 1990s, initially in lubricated-condom form and eventually as a stand-alone product)

once again, spit… kinda

Side Note: Brand Names???? ??? ?????

There's a shitload of possible brands here, in addition to the established sexual uses of KY and Vaseline -- one 1992 survey of lubricant use mentions by name Foreplay and Probe (water-based) as well as Elbow Grease (oil-based) but I suspect listing off every lube brand name I can find in a period source would be a fool's errand and would require a much better catalogue of sources than I currently possess. Ted McIlvenna's Complete Guide to Safe Sex (published out of Beverly Hills, CA in 1987) lists "K-Y Jelly, Lubafax, Slip, Probe, Astroglide, ForPlay, Ramses and Lubraceptic" as the most common brands of lube for safer sex; a few years later, Dena Taylor's Women of The 14th Moon lists "Astroglide, Lubrin, Replens, and Creme de la Femme" as common brands used by menopausal women. Creme de la Femme is still around, you guys, holy shit.

If you're interested in cribbing specific brand names, check out archives with collections related to safer sex such as the Wellcome Collection’s Lubrication and Lubricants tag, or contemporary publications from your target era focused on safer sex/the joys of gay sex/sexual wellness (as applicable).

Don't Do It, Dude, Not Now, Not Then:

- soap, shampoo, conditioner (ow, ow, and ow)

- mystery lube full of mystery ingredients you bought out of the back of a porno mag

- the standard weird fanfic stuff -- eggs, ice cream, water, whatever

- still please don’t put linseed oil in anybody’s orifices, I am begging of you

[qwertysims]

i set out to do a modified ea palette that just made changes to the colors i don’t like (dotted in the picture above) and ended up just finishing out the set and making my own mm hair color actions? 

the first row is the original mm swatches, the second is aveirasims actions and the third are my actions. i got them to match ea’s pretty closely while still preserving the highlights from the original texture. definitely gonna test them out a little to make sure they work well on all the different textures. i think if i put them up for download i’d have one straight maxis match download and another in my slightly modified palette for other people to use because it’s uh. better imho