#otherwise I’ve just been playing without cc

[aquarifiend]

Icl I lost my mods folder for both ts2 and ts3 last year after building them for like 11/12 years and I was super bummed out and couldn’t bring myself to remake my folder for ts2 again but with the legacy version being released I’ve actually started to download little bits and pieces again instead of playing cc free like I have for a year

[thesirensims]

The Bikini Bottom Legacy

Hi Guys! Oooooo🎙️🎶🎵🎼🧜🏽‍♀️! My name is SirenSims & I have been thinking for a long while about a legacy challenge that I could create that was a bit different from the other challenges I have been seeing. So I thought about the personalities of the Spongebob Squarepants Characters, and so The Bikini Bottom Legacy was formed! There are a ton of personalities to play with in the Sims 3. So this Legacy will help you discover those and have some juicy Storylines to keep it engaging! It was hard to pick just 10 archetypes, and some of these features I’ve never used before so I’m excited to try this out! 

If you decide to do this, tag me thesirensims or bikinibottomlegacy so I can see! And feel free to let me know what you think. This is my first challenge so if there are things I could do differently/better let me know!

Important! - This Challenge is not Basegame only, if you find a way to convert it to Basegame or to the Sims 2, Please tag me! I would love to see that! Also, This Challenge is Story Driven to help it not get boring fast. So try to stick to the required storylines as needed. And please do not use the money or needs Cheats in this challenge if you can manage ( Makes it more fun IMO) <3

And without further ado, the challenge.

Generation 1 - SpongeBob Squarepants

You have a heart of gold and just want to make others happy with your Cooking! Your Family raised you to be positive, helpful & friendly (even to your detriment!). Moving into a new town you bring light, laughter, and good food. You bought a two-story tiny house for you and your feline friend (Cat with any G name you want). You made two best friends, one Grumpy and one Lazy ( Make them in CAS or find sims with those traits in town). By the time you reach level 6 or 7 seven of your Culinary Career, you feel like spreading your love by extending your family. So you adopt a kid-aged sim ( Easily Impressed & Couch Potatoe Trait required). At this point you know everyone in town & go out whenever you are invited (despite the inconvenience). You have a lot of experiences on your belt and you boast a jellyfish you caught yourself and a few different Butterfly Species you collected on days off (atleast 3 types). You end your life as a wise Chef that people can't help but love!

Traits Needed - (You can use This mod to add more traits if you want, or just choose 5. Natural cook and childish being required.) Natural Cook, Childish, Cat Person, Easily Impressed, Good, Workaholic, Neat, Lucky.

Lifetime Wish - Celebrated Five Star Chef

Career Needed - Culinary (Specifically a Dinner, not the Bistro)

Recommended Town - Any European World You like or Monte Vista.

Aesthetic Color - Yellow (Pastel, Golden, Sunshine, etc...)

Create A Sim Addons - Freckles and or Moles. Bunny or Buck Teeth (Using Sliders and Teeth CC). Blonde hair with any race of sim. Blue Eyes. Uniform for Everyday Outfit (Colored in red, white, and khaki brown). Sim's name must start with Sv or Sp (Otherwise call them a Variant of Bob or Bobbie).

Favorite Food - Burgers (Obviously LOL)

Favorite Music - Island Life

Zodiac Sign - Sagittarius

Voice Pitch - High (Male or Female)

Charity - Give up to $5,000 to charity.

Starter Money - $1,500 (After Decorating or just struggling with bare necessities)

Romance - Meet a Mermaid or Scientist and marry them.

Pet Goal - Become Best Friends with Cat.

Heir - Adopt a sims of child age.

Get up to level 4 or up to 7 in Martial arts skill.

Max the Chef Skill and Charisma Skill.

Brighten 10 Sims day.

Generation 2 - Patrick Star

You have a soft place in your heart for your parents. Especially the one that adopted you, because life was hard before you met them. You only moved out of their home after you became an adult since you were so comfy. You miss their cooking and how they accepted you for who you are. But since they passed, it's been hard to look at the walls of bright yellow memories. You move into a tiny house or apartment because you don't require a lot to live comfortably. People expect a lot from you, however, you don't have the same work ethic as your parents. You start off as a Day Spa attendant for the perks and to help others relax and have a good time. You go to clubs every weekend and get sloshed. You even have a one night-stand or three. As a hobby, you love to fish (Maybe you could do it for money one day). You just want to relax and live free. Can you survive on a reckless low-maintenance lifestyle?

Traits Needed - Couch Potatoe, Childish, Easily Impressed, Party-Animal, Slob, Absent-Minded, Heavy Sleeper or Angler.

Lifetime Wish - Master Romancer or Presenting the Perfect Private Aquarium.

Career Needed - You can either become a self-employed fisherman or Only work in Part-time Jobs (Specifically the Spa Career).

Recommended Town - Any Island or City World You Like, or Pleasant View

Aesthetic Color - Pink ( Pastel, Hot pink, Rose Gold, etc...)

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must have a few Moles and maybe even a scar. Give sim Pink Hair. Sim must have a fat or thick body type due to years of eating a lot. Beach style or Beach theme party outfit for Everyday wear. Have a piercing or two and tattoos once you become a teen/adult. Sim`s name must start with Pat (Can also be a variant of Patrick or Patricia).

Favorite Food - Tri Tip Steak

Favorite Music - Beach Party

Zodiac Sign - Aquarius

Romance - Have some one-night stands.

Heir - A baby you had because of a one night. (Must have the traits - Grumpy and Artistic)

Charity - Give up to $2,500 to charity in honor of Last Gen Founder.

Catch 3 different Types of Butterflies.

Throw at least 3 Successful Parties.

Visit Parents grave once a week to mourn.

Brighten 5 sims day.

Generation 3 - Squidward Tentacles

Your Parent was definitely not strict, but they gave you so much freedom that you ended up resenting them and the rest of the town. Their lack of attentiveness caused you to fall off a slide and break your nose, as a preteen, so you had to get it fixed. However, a mishap occurred at the plastic surgeon that made your nose a little longer than normal. You had to move to the City where people are as rude and isolated as you are. One thing that you do thank your parents for is their overbearing but consistent support of your love for Painting and music. Once settled in the new City you make one friend who is so positive you don't see them very often (On Purpose!). You also make an enemy on the first day that infuriates and intrigues you at the same time. Your Dream is to be a composer for Movies, but you`ll be happy just making a living in the arts in general. You hate Butterflies and Jellyfish cause they remind you of your Parent, but you do get a pet and name it after your Parent. (Maybe you do miss them). Hopefully, a life of semi-solitude will fulfill you and help you live your dreams.

Traits Needed - Grumpy, Loner, Artistic, Dislikes Children, Hot Headed, Snob.

Lifetime Wish - Master of Arts or Rockstar

Career Need - Hit Movie Composer or Self-Employed Artist.

Recommended Town - Any City town you want or Bridgeport.

Aesthetic Color - Irish Green (Light green, Pastel, soft green hue, etc...)

Create A Sim Addons - Give Sim a longer Nose. Allow the sim to have a grunge aesthetic with brown and green colors. Sims' hair can also be colored or highlighted a shade of green. Sim can have a nose piercing and one to two tattoos.

Favorite Food - Philly Cheesesteak

Favorite Music - Classical

Zodiac Sign - Aries

Romance - Enemies to lovers (You can have a love child or get married and have a baby accidentally)

Heir - An accidental baby (Must have traits - Frugal and Mooch)

Max any instrument skill in the slowest time possible (Reach lvl 10 as an elder!)

Reach at least Lvl 6 in Cooking skill.

Join or start a band and host at least 1 SUCCESFUL performance (Getting over 100-300 Simoleans in tips)

Heckle at least 5 different sims.

Generation 4 - Eugene H. Krabs

Even though your Parent did not plan for you, you still had an okay childhood. To make up for the distant Parenting you grew an attachment to the idea of Financial stability. Your parent loved their dream more than providing for the family. You plan to never make that mistake! You are brilliant at selling things and decided to move to an island. This was a strategic move to sell more modern things to natives who live in older comfort. You have a love for food like your grandparents that caused you to sell muffins and lemonade in your childhood. Now as an adult, you are considering being either a Restauranteer or Hotel Mogul. You will use anyone for a quick buck, causing you to sell out your best childhood friend, making them a lifelong nemesis. Despite your success, you feel lonely and have love hidden in your heart that you want to share. So you adopt a girl toddler that looks nothing like you. You shower her with love and even a bit of your money (Through kicking and screaming!). At the apex of your career and wealth, you feel a hole in your heart only a warm body could fill. You meet a sim that makes you feel romantic and alive, you spend some time wooing them. And although it didn't work out, you can look back on your life and say you loved every bit of it.

Traits Needed - Born Salesman, Frugal, Mooch, Ambitious, Natural Cook, Lucky

Lifetime Wish - Swimming in Cash or Resort Empire

Career Need - Self-Employed Resort Owner, or Own The Bistro & Diner

Recommended Town - Any Island World you Like or Isla Paradiso

Aesthetic Color - Green

Create A Sim Addons - Sim has a pudge due to eating well when they made meals. Sim must dye their hair red by Young Adulthood. Sim must wear a suit with blue colors.

Favorite Food - Waffles

Favorite Music - Electronica

Zodiac Sign - Libra

Romance - Fall for someone Older ( One Life State Above Yours - Adult or Elder)

Heir - An adopted Toddler (Must have Traits - Snob & Dramatic)

Mooch over 100 Simoleans from one sim.

Reach Cooking lvl 10.

Only shop with Coupons.

Never buy anything over 300 Simoleans.

Generation 5 - Pearl Krabs

You loved your childhood and your Single parent. You love the life that you were afforded and you have no desire to give it up. You are a bit of a brat, but that's only because you're a star (Obviously). You plan to make it big in the movies and keep up the family legacy by keeping up the money. So of course you move back to the city of dreams your grandparents used to live in. However, that might be hard considering your eclectic taste in decore and cars. Hopefully, a high-paying profession will make up for your purchases. Despite your Big Features, you`re attractive to most sims around, and you take advantage of this by starting an affair with a wealthy celeb. Hey don't judge, we only mess with sims that impress us. Maybe we will settle down with that same sim one day, or maybe another (😉). During your 7th year as an actress (Level 7), you remember your Parent and what they did for you. So in a moment of passion, you adopted a smart kid and funded their dreams the way your Parent did for you.

Traits Needed - Snob, Dramatic, Schmoozer, Star Quality, Irresistible, Great Kisser

Lifetime Wish - Lifestyle of The Rich & Famous or Superstar Actor

Career Need - Actor or Socialite (Find Socialite Career Here)

Recommended Town - Any City World you Like or Anne Arbor

Aesthetic Color - Hot Pink

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must have Blonde hair despite race. Sim must have some big features and a shapely body type. Must wear Girly pink dresses. Sim must have blue eyes and bangs.

Favorite Food - Lobster Thermidor

Favorite Music - Pop

Zodiac Sign - Leo

Romance - Have an Affair with Married Celebrity. Marry a Celebrity (It can be the one you had an affair with if you like)

Heir - Adopt a child sim. (Must have Traits - Genius & Computer Whiz)

Befriend at least 4 Celebrity sims.

Have one Scandal.

Dance on table at the Club at least once.

Generation 6 - Sandy Cheeks

You love your Mother for how she supported your dreams. It gave you a leg up in school and allowed you to have some fun while studying in University, You have a logical yet fun spirit that leads you to make the world better using science. You have the spirit of your great-greatx2 grandparent. This pushes you to help others and make advances to make others' lives easier. You have a love of your body that was shared with your mom. However, you take to a different place by learning Martial arts. You gain a high level in that skill during a trip to China. China is where you also find the love of your life (another martial artist) and bring them home with you after a small wedding ceremony in their community. As you advance in your Career as a scientist, you feel further fulfilled by teaching sims martial arts on the side. You cap off your life (aka level 7 of the science career) by making your own offspring. You have a plant-sim baby. This decision will change the lives of others down the line. Was this unnatural child a mistake?

Traits Needed - Handy, Eccentric, Disciplined, Genius, Computer Whiz, Green Thumb

Lifetime Wish - Scientific Specialist or Martial Arts Master

Career Need - Science

Recommended Town - Any Town World or Riverview

Aesthetic Color - Lilac

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must have light brown hair. Light brown eyes. Sim should have buck teeth (which can be simulated using sliders and bunny teeth cc). Sim if a woman must be slim thicc (Small waist, medium boobs, big butt). Sim can wear glasses if you want to show their intelligence that way.

Favorite Food - Grilled Cheese

Favorite Music - Geek Rock

Zodiac Sign - Virgo

Romance - A martial artist from China ( Have a whirlwind romance that ends in marriage before the trip ends).

Heir - Plant-Sim (Must have traits - Evil & Bot Fan)

Max the science skill.

Make your Imaginary friend real.

Have a collection of animals. (Turtles, and other small pets)

Max the Martial Arts Skill.

Max the Yoga & Meditation Skill (Here is the Yoga Mod)

Generation 7 - Sheldon J. Plankton

You lived in a level of solitude, as your hero parents were not into your brand of social interaction (Klepto and Mean Spirited behavior). Even though you were pretty smart, you still felt the need to take things that weren`t yours. Despite all of this, you somehow managed to be a scientific prodigy like your mom. You had a childhood friend that you had a bad betrayal from, and that sim became your nemesis for life. This betrayal made it hard for you to make friends. You decided to go to University online to hone your skills. After you graduate, you leave home and find a new job to reinvent yourself. So you join the Criminal career so you can become The Emperor of Evil. There's always been an emptiness in your soul that you fill with machines so you won't be alone. In the end, you live life with a robot who loves you and start a makeshift family from that union.

Traits Needed - Kleptomaniac, Evil, Computer Whiz, Eccentric, Bot Fan

Lifetime Wish - Emperor of Evil or More Than A Machine

Career Need - Criminal

Recommended Town -Any Country Town or Lunar Lakes ( You do not have to move for this gen)

Aesthetic Color - Green

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must keep a lean or skinny physique. You can use plant-sim skin and detail replacements. This sim can wear glasses if you like. Sim can wear shades of grey with either a suit or overalls (You decide their aesthetic)

Favorite Food - Hamburger

Favorite Music - Digitunes

Zodiac Sign - Cancer

Romance - Fall in Love with the Sim Bot you plan to make Sentient. ( Call simbot Karen)

Heir - Baby you had with Karen. (Must have Traits - Neurotic & Handy)

Steal candy from a baby.

Burn down a home.

Steal from at least 2 Homes.

Build the Perfect Simbot.

Generation 8 - Mrs. Puff

Growing up with an Evil parent and a stressed robotic mom didn't help the anxiety you were born with. You always had the uncomfortable feeling that something was going wrong. You helped yourself destress with food, which made you gain a plumb physique. To help you pass the time you gained an obsession with cars. Your evil parent was a mechanical genius and you learned to drive at a young age. You even knew how to fix vehicles as well. However, above all else, you have a knack for home decor and design. you became used to homes as you stayed inside often as a kid to avoid danger. It was your dream to become an interior designer. You find love unexpectedly with a younger wealthy sim. You have a love child by that sim. That boy was born brave and took care of you until you found inner strength.

Traits Needed - Neurotic, Unstable, Hopeless Romantic, Vehicle Enthusiastic, Handy, Frugal.

Lifetime Wish - Home Design Hotshot

Career Need - Interior Designer

Recommended Town - Any Comfy World You Like or Strawberry Acres (you do not have to move for this gen)

Aesthetic Color - Aqua

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must have a bigger body type (Not fit). Sim must have Platinum blonde Hair despite race. Sim must have Hazel eyes. Sim can wear an academia-style outfit with red blue and white color patterns.

Favorite Food - Cobbler

Favorite Music - Soul

Zodiac Sign - Capricorn

Romance - Get into a Relationship with a Wealthy Sim (Get pregnant from this relationship)

Heir - Baby Boy (Must have Traits - Brave & Loves to Swim)

Max the Handiness Skill.

Freak out on at least 2 Sims.

Build one Car.

Own 3 Cars apart from the one you built.

Make all appliances in your home unbreakable.

Generation 9 - Larry The Lobster

You didn't have much of a childhood, since you spent most of your time protecting your worrying Mother. You were a nice kid who never made friends until you were a young adult. You are all about helping people with their fitness and helping them have safe fun at the beach. So your best path was becoming a lifeguard. One day you get abducted by an alien (Do you become pregnant? Do you keep it?). This experience causes you to take life more seriously and makes you want to protect people even more. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alternate Option; Instead of Alien pregnancy and a possible love story. You can find love with a mermaid sim.

Traits Needed - Athletic, Brave, Loves to Swim, Daredevil, Charisma, Good

Lifetime Wish - Perfect Mind/ Perfect Body or Seaside Savior

Career Need - Lifeguard

Recommended Town - Any Beach / Island World or Sunlit Tides

Aesthetic Color - Red

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must have Red hair and Green eyes. Sim must have an athletic build. Sim can have freckles. Sim can have a Scar or two. Sim must have Beach type of Attire for every day wear (For males an open shirt, for girls a crocheted top)

Favorite Food - Stu Surprise

Favorite Music - Hip Hop

Zodiac Sign - Scorpio

Romance - Fall in love with Alien or Mer Sim. (Have a half-alien or mermaid sim baby)

Heir - A Female Occult Sim (Preferably a mermaid, but it can be alien too). (Must have Traits - Adventurous and Shy)

Save at least 10 Sims (5 if you're trying to speed up the Challenge)

Break up with 2 Sims before Settling Down.

Host 3 Epic Parties. (Can be any type of Party)

Generation 10 - Princess Mindy

You grew up in a warm and loving home with a great father who believed in you and protected you. He emboldened you to follow your dreams. Now you want to travel the world and document it with your trusty camera. You have always loved taking pictures and having new experiences, even though you are shy. You want to break out of your shell and become a brave explorer. You are also a good person who always gains bravery from being able to help people. Maybe you will find love during your adventures. And if not who cares!! You`re In love with The Journey Anyway!

Traits Needed - Adventurous, Lucky, Photographer`s Eye, Shy, Good

Lifetime Wish - Seasoned Traveler or Grand Explorer

Career Need - Self Employed Photographer or Monarch (Find Monarch Career Mod Here)

Recommended Town - Any World you Like or Sunset Valley

Aesthetic Color - Turquoise

Create A Sim Addons - Sim must wear glasses. Sim must have Short Black hair. Sim can wear a girly top and a long jeans skirt.

Favorite Food - Kelp

Favorite Music - Island Life

Zodiac Sign - Pisces

Romance - Do whatever feels right to Finish your story!

Max the Photography Skill.

Collect 3 Butterflies (2 must be RARE)

Befriend 1 rich Sim.

Reach at least to lvl 6 or 7 of Model Skill.

[aheathen-conceivably]

Tag Game for Historical Simblrs! 📖

1. What has been your favorite time period to play in or which one are you most excited for?

As far as actually playing the game? The 1900s. I really did a lot of gameplay and overall it was just a wholesome, pleasant time to play the game. However, it’s definitely my least favorite story wise and I feel like not a lot happened.

So as far as the actual plot goes, I’ve been looking forward to the 20s literally since I began this challenge. While difficult, it has also been so fulfilling to actually see it all come to life. Now, I’ve got my eyes set on the 1940s 👀

2. Do you have a favorite piece of historical cc? (CAS or BB)

Oh this is…impossible 😅

I have gone through so many styles and eras already that I have mainstay pieces for each as well as pieces that just stop my heart. I think the one that I’m fixated on right now is Zelda’s 1920s bob. Of course she’s grown it out a bit now but it’s still iconic in my heart.

3. Who is your favorite sim currently?

Okay another one that is basically impossible. Because like, how do I pick between my pixel babies right now? Antoine and Jo are absolutely my baby angels, and are both my favorites at various points in the narrative.

But it’s so difficult to pick them as my overall favorite over Zelda, just because I’ve been playing and writing as Zelda quite literally since she was born.

4. What is your favorite world?

Currently? Willow Creek hands down. This is more because I’ve transformed it into New Orleans than it is because of any merit it has on its own. I use mods and put in a lot of work to make it look this way, but now, it’s by far my favorite.

5. Are you more gameplay or story focused?

Well….I think we know the answer to this one 😂

Storytelling drives my gameplay without a doubt. I write very far in advance, and that plot is what determines how I tell the story. Often I try and recreate these things as close as possible in gameplay, but let’s be honest, that isn’t always easy in this game.

6. Do you like to play with pets in your historical saves?

Ah, not an awful lot. Because I’m usually in storytelling mode posing sims and trying to get from one scene to another, I can often find them cumbersome. Of course we did have Daisy in the 1900s and she was lovely to have at Darlington Cottage, but I think that’s because I was doing more gameplay in that era so it made more sense.

7. What’s your biggest immersion breaking pet peeve with the game?

Sigh. What always got me was when a family member from another world showed up at my sims doorstep or is just walking in the background. So I’m in downtown “New Orleans” and all of a sudden, oh look! There’s Virginia walking in the background of a scene.

Luckily now I have this mod to get everyone to stay in their world 😉

8. What’s your favorite in-game historical item? (CAS or BB)

Honestly, just to make my life easier, I often filter by Custom Content and call it a day. This is especially true in CAS because I find all the assets overwhelming, I don’t even really use many in-game items there (except for a pair of base game lace up boots I use constantly).

In BB I find there’s a number of small items that I like using, such as the BG coat rack, the flowers from Cottage Living, the round BG dining table, the Tiffany lamp from Cats and Dogs, and a number of others!

I also used quite alot of the Realm of Magic Assets in Zelda and Antoine’s apartment, so I’m really fond of those, especially the Art Nouveau parquet floorboards and wallpaper.

9. What would you like to see as a new pack or asset to the game?

This is a personal one for the story going forward (👀) but absolutely horses. Otherwise, I would love to see more functionality for music and bands in the game, maybe even with some vintage assets to complete that vibe.

10. What pack do you think is invaluable as a historical simmer?

Like I’m sure most people would say, Cottage Living. It just offers so much gameplay for historical simmers as well as a gorgeous world that I’ve gotta select it (see my whole long list of pack recs here).

11. Do you have a favorite mod to enhance historical gameplay?

The mod that is absolutely invaluable to me is Timeless. It is what allows me to get so many scenic screens without pesky objects in the way and also simply makes the worlds so much more immersive to me.

12. What’s your ideal family size for playing?

The 1900s Darlingtons are frankly as large as I can go with the family. So a household of six, max, plus maybe a pet. Even then, I get very overwhelmed. So I usually prefer households of 4-5 although I do also like a household of 3 with an only child 😉

13. Do you use poses?

Goodness gracious, yes. All the poses all the time for everything. Even when I try to use in game animations I get more annoyed that I can’t control the angles as much.

14. Do you use any overrides in your game?

I actually don't! I suppose it would be very useful but its just not really something I've ever delved into.

15. Do you, or did you, play off-the-grid during your game?

Yes, I played off the grid for all of the 1880s and 1890s. I now slightly regret it because this means I was taking all of my photos with candles, and that lead to that heavy yellow tone in all of my early interior photos.

I also played off the grid for most of the 1900s until darlington cottage got that upgrade that included the inside bathrooms. Best moment of the game lol

16. What lifespan do you play on?

I play with custom lifespan settings where 4 in game sim days equal 1 IRL year.

17. What inspired you to start playing a historically?

Whew. Well I was playing my own version of the NSB challenge that I wrote when I hit gen 6. This gen was meant to be a film star, so I kind of had this idea that as her career progressed, her fashion would also go through the eras of old Hollywood. Looking back, I now also realize that this was me getting fed up with the lack of time progression that inevitably comes from playing a “modern” legacy challenge.

Anywho, I was looking for CC for this when I came across the wonderful lookbooks of Pixelnrd. This of course led me to their challenge and I started reading one afternoon. By the next day I had the idea for the Darlingtons already forming in my head 🥹

Thank you so much for the tag my dearest @antiquatedplumbobs I’ll pass the love along to @heartblobs @alainas-sims @taanoir @miraplayssims @lovecidik @someplumberrys @sims-half-crazy @greatbritishsimchallenge and @come-hell-or-high-water

And anyone who feels like answering a whole long list of questions! 🤗

[tau1tvec]

hi im the anon who sent the ask about the loose teeth i think theres some confusion, these arent sims who lost them before the update they werent even Born before they added the teeth back in, but when they lose their teeth their skin glitches out and their entire outfit and hair changes, fixing the missing tooth makes them go back to normal but i dont know whats happening, strangely one of the children is exempt from this and when she lost her tooth it never happened to her, her older brother who had ti happen temporaily but i quitted without saving to undo it originally aged up completely fine so i dont know whats going on at all

That’s wild, and I wish I could help, but I’ve honestly been avoiding playing a few of my families with children lately, let alone updating my game purely bc of issues like this, so I only know what I’ve seen of others’ experiences, and conclusions.

Your best bet honestly is just to hit up the EA Help site, and hope others who are also experiencing hit “me too” so it can take priority, or someone in the comments might find a culprit if it’s cc or mod related.

Otherwise reddit can only help so much, and a lotta the sims related subs are kinda weird about what they allow when it comes to bugs and glitches, unless it’s intentionally for laughs.

[mapsofnonexistentplaces]

QUESTION TIME !!! any recent game or movie recs you’d like to give ?? i know youre a big prog rock guy but are there any other genres you like or any bands/artists u feel dont fit under the prog descriptor that you enjoy a lot ? & maybe somebodys asked this before but i would love to know if you have any inspirations for ccsimulacrum ? i mean just in general but i would also really love to know how you came up with the name specifically !

ALRIIIIGHT much to talk about! lets bite into it

friends and i have been noting down some movies though we haven’t watched any of them and are simply going off of reviews and images. earlier tonight we found a movie called zardoz from 1974 which looks like complete shit and i’m so excited to see it

in terms of games i’ve been rotating a couple! discovered i’m just very fond of roguelikes and Number Go Up games so naturally i’ve been insane about balatro. i also played vampire survivors ages ago back when the mobile port came out but i decided to get the desktop version literally yesterday because i miss playing that game and it’s a bit better on my eyes on the wide screen hah. have also been playing a lot of darkest dungeon. uhhh i’ve also recently checked out a handful of games that have just like. incredible art direction but are a bit all over the place regarding genre so rapid fire round of that: blasphemous, where the water tastes like wine and the shrouded isle. have also been getting into them’s fighting herds that’s a very fun fighting game to learn :+)

QUESTION 2 for genres i’d say i hang around adjacent genres quite a lot, big into math rock especially. i’m also big into prog pop but that overlaps so much with prog rock i hardly think it counts hah. otherwise i like most other kinds of like. ‘quick and dirty’ metal. like power metal thrash etc. however leaving the realm of rock i fucking love jazz (and jazz fusion. goes without saying) and funk, also new wave though i’m picky with that shit, and have also been slowly delving into both afrobeat and italo disco LOL i’m a simple man who loves good baselines more than god what can i say

with regards to specific artists, i think the biggest non prog rock one for me is everything everything HOWEVER their main designation is art rock which is basically just prog rock and i do very much consider them progressive pop so lol. otherwise hmmm…. there’s this one moldovan band called zdob și zdub that i’ve been really into lately and uh rule of thumb for most romanian/moldovan bands is that they’ve GOTTA throw in some traditional folk instruments so it’s kind of just. weird eastern european folk rock. it’s funny. similarly rubycone is a moldovan math rock band that does a little bit of that shit but they’re actually fairly based in like. more english conventions of both lyrics and the genre itself. very interesting to listen to

bringing up jazz fusion again one of my favorite bands in there is acoustic ladyland real good shit. oh also i’m not like. the most well versed with any kind of electronic music, i’m actually very picky with stuff esp if it’s meant to be more listenable than danceable but osamu sato’s music is extremely evocative to me and i love it a lot

special mention also goes to talking heads i’ve had a lot of their songs on my rotation recently but after learning of the remain in light 2020s tours with adrian belew singing for part of the sets i’ve just been like. way more smitten with those versions than anything with byrne in there hah. take a listen

AS FOR THE CCS QUESTION. god i could literally talk about that shit all day and i absolutely have when it comes to minute character references and whatnot but to speak about inspirations for the story broadly….

i started writing it in the midst of getting into the coheed and cambria album ‘the afterman’ which is about a guy travelling into space to investigate a series of planets that end up hosting the dead souls of everybody in the world. something roughly like that. and then also when i was getting into psychonauts! so the two kind of crossed in my mind to form a story about a kid with great magical prowess who usurps a space journey to save people from something, and as i furnished the concept and made it more ‘its own thing’ and changed it into a space train instead of a spaceship, made the space train actually go into a place between dimensions rather than space, and then i decided it’d be more interesting to have the train itself be a point of conflict rather than something external. and i also added a lot of interpersonal drama and themes of communication and character interaction that resembled psychonauts’ a lot, since that was the most memorable and charming part of the game to me

i’ve wanted to write about this point in the past and kept forgetting but initially the main conflict centered around some kind of cosmic serpent that wanted to kill everyone and dalisay was going to bargain with it. uhhh and there was a very blunt side plot about the spaceships being advertised as ‘cruises’ of some kind that were in fact intentionally made by rich people to supply the serpent with sacrifices. it ended up feeling very determinist and impersonal so i did away with a lot of that and instead framed the story around the concept of voluntary isolation and the idea of being an ‘outcast’ in society and the ways people may try to refute that or fall into that role…. a lot of those ideas are kind of just natural philosophies i’ve argued with myself about over the years as an extremely schizoid guy and they’re themes i feel are very uhhh. inaccessible? just not talked about or represented in a lot of media. but it’s something that hits home very hard and if my story’s like one of the only stories to depict the schizoid dilemma in a non-clinical fashion i’m pleased

i have all kinds of things to mention about the development of the narrative but honestly i’ve been thinking about just making an actual little zine or something detailing the various changes in the plot and why i made them + more detailed pointing out of inspirations. from the beginning i’ve preserved a lot of old documents and a lot of old variations of them entirely for the sake of revisiting early ideas and tracking progress so im excited to put that to work :+) we’ll see! but for now getting into how i makes the thing

i actually have a complete record of the process! basically what i did was just note down the names of various things i liked that had very pleasant names, not necessarily informative ones (which was an intentional choice — i wanted ccs to sound like the title of an overdone pompous concept album!) and i tried to brainstorm similar titles based on the word order, syllable structure, etc of those titles while also reeling in some tangential concepts that i felt were cool. and then once i had enough of them i whittled down those ideas into smaller and smaller groups until i eventually just had one title i liked best

first i want to note that ‘trainstory’ as a title is part of the tradition i have of just naming new projects very simple two-word descriptive titles, and i often still use those as ‘informal’ names for said projects. among others i have are wizardworld (corpusmancy) and moldaviaworld (argent rattle LOL)

i wrote the top and bottom lists out first and then slotted the titles list in the middle, to sort of visualise the mixture of the two. i was initially trying to think of words relating to retro technology, navigation, and human incoherency, ambiguity, attitude, etc. i think simulacrum stood out to me because initially i conceived of ccs as a game that was very. busy and complicated in terms of being a communication based jrpg with characters changing their regard of you quickly and doing things like lying, etc etc it was just meant to convey the flighty changes in the human mind and then it ended up being very appropriate when it became a story about technological progression and artificial life and ghosts and shit. and also matched the setting from the get-go since i always wanted it to have the basic principle of ‘yeah, it’s the future and people everywhere are trying to emulate retro fashion and architectural styles’

there was a mild fixation with blood and circulation at first? i wasn’t feeling it though, obviously. also i’m never really fond of just giving a project a one word name partially because i dont want to make searching for things a pain in the ass and also because i like the novelty of nonsense word salad names that sound cool. as you can clearly tell from the fact i like prog rock and also kurt vonnegut novels

i’m still fond of stage one simulacrum honestly, but i think that sounded far more scientific for my taste, which was also the problem with ice cold simulacrum. i think with that one i realised i wanted something that’d relate to dalisay’s weather theming, so i remembered the term ‘cold case’ existed and i thought it was appropriate considering the story dealt with the unsolved mystery of the fornax train while also being a pun on being a ‘cold’ case. like snow or something. and then i just tossed the word simulacrum on there and called it a day, which is a lazy way to put it but it is basically all there is. uhhh i’m very fond of it now though, ccs is a snappy acronym and the c in the middle of simulacrum does just give the whole thing a nice rhythm

that’s all i got this successfully tired me 🫡 hitting the hay now thank youuu

[tommeraas-cc]

A warning about high polycount custom content - for downloaders and creators

I don't claim to be an expert on custom content, but I've been making CC for nearly 4 years now and I think I've learned a thing or two about how to spot custom content that might not be best for your computer/game. I only recently got a computer that can handle some of the CC out there, so I wanted to make a guide on how to spot CC that might not be right for you if you want fast loading times, minimal overheating, or your computer isn't as powerful. This guide will mostly be about clothing, but I'm sure most of these things can be applied to other types of CC.

Disclaimer: Absolutely no hate to anyone who makes CC that is high polycount -- I am guilty of doing this without disclosing it earlier in my CC making journey. We are all learning and improving every day and we all have different preferences for our own CC making which is the fun part of this community :) If you are a CC creator who needs help avoiding high polycount please message me and I would 100% be willing to you help you 

High polycounts 

3D content is made up of vertices that connect to each other to create a 3D model that can be molded into different shapes (the small segments that make up these larger shapes are called polygons). The more little dots you have, the more detailed the item can be. However, there are ways to include detail without using a high number of these vertices and polygons, it just takes time and practice.

Why should I be wary of downloading CC with a high polycount? 

There is a reason that clothing made by EA/Maxis has a limit to the number of polygons they can use in their meshes. If an item of CC has too high of a polycount, it could drastically slow down your game, overheat your computer, cause your game to crash, or even permanently damage the hardware of your computer. Of course, there are different tolerances for high polycounts based on the specs of your computer, so be aware of this before downloading. If your computer cannot run smoothly on the ultra graphics setting without CC installed, you should probably be proactive about the kind of CC you download to avoid these issues. 

However, even those with high end computers can run into issues when trying to play with a lot of this kind of CC, so it is up to the individual player to decide what they want for their game. I permanently damaged my last computer by busting a fan due to graphics rendering in the Sims 4. Please do not make the same (very expensive) mistakes I have.

The case for high polycounts:

There are certain clothing items that would not be possible to model in the sims without a high polycount. The creators who make these very detailed meshes are super talented and have my utmost respect, but my old computer just couldn’t handle them! My rule of thumb for my own personal game is that if I’m going to download something with a crazy high poly count, it better be something special. In my opinion, there’s no reason a simple tank top should be 3x the polycount of an average EA mesh. A handful of high polycount items aren’t going to crash your game (probably-- know your own computer’s limits), but considering most people will download many items from the same creator, the collection of all of those items may cause issues.

CC creators make their meshes for fun and creativity, and many don’t create for the express purpose of having many people use a bunch of their meshes in their games at once. It’s totally fine to make high polycount custom content, but if you’re a CC creator it would be respectful to people who download your items and support you to be warned of these possible issues (especially if they are paying for them!!!). Most CC creators have high-end computers, but downloaders might not, which is something to keep in mind :)

How high is too high?

This is honestly a personal preference. For me, anything with more than double the average polycount is “unacceptable without disclosing” and must include a disclaimer when I post it. For toddler full body outfits, which is what I normally make, I would consider this to be around 10-12K as the max acceptable polycount to post without a disclaimer. This number varies based on the type of CC, with adult polycounts being higher usually (given that items are quite literally larger than toddler items). For adult full-body outfits, I try to stay under 15K, and anything over 20k I would consider needing a disclaimer. But, again, this is up for personal debate, and there are a lot of factors that go into this. I am just basing this information on EA’s limits and my personal experience from playing this game on lower end computers.

How to spot high poly-count CC 

So, you’ve decided that for your personal game, you want to avoid high polycount CC. Unfortunately, many creators do not disclose when their CC has an high polycount, so it’s up to you to figure out which is which.

Before you download the item: for clothing, the easiest way to spot high polycount CC from preview photos is to look for folding in the fabrics. I don't have a high polycount CC of my own that is completed to show you, and I don’t want to put another creators CC here out of respect, so here is an example of an unfinished mesh that can get the point across. 

As you can see, the folds in the sleeves look like they are mostly physically present, and that the folds aren't a result of the texture. This often results in sort of a "bumpy" look to the CC. If you're seeing clothing that has this tell-tale bumpy look with many folds that you can tell are 3-dimensional, you should probably avoid this CC (if you have decided to avoid high polycount CC). A small amount of bumps is normal but as you can tell by this skirt it's a little more extreme. 

Below you can see the low polycount version of this cc item where the folds look much smoother and are not as 3 dimensional. I added details like the folds in the sweater and at the top of the skirt with textures and mapping rather than a high polycounts as you might be able to tell by the fact that there are smooth edges rather than 3D folds. I have a small section of ruffles on the sleeves that have maintained a higher polycount which you can see by the physical ruffles. Details like this are impossible to do with just textures.

There are many CC creators much more talented than I that are very good at using texture images to give off the illusion of detail without high polycounts. Look at the edges of the item where folds appear and if there’s a smooth line there, the creator might be using textures and mapping to give the illusion of folding!

After you download the item: Of course, you can always download Sims4Studio, the program CC creators use to import their meshes into the sims format, to check polycounts. If you open CC in this program and click the meshes tab, the polycount will be displayed here. I only do this for items that I think might be insane polycounts (like 100k+ or something ridiculous for clothing, which is about ten times higher than I would recommend) that might crash my game, otherwise, I usually just go by how the item looks in the previews with the tips I just told you.

There are some CC items that are pretty much guaranteed to have high polycounts. The vast majority of alpha hair will have high polycounts -- this is unavoidable and does not mean the CC is not high quality, it is just a necessity for that kind of CC. Just be aware that having many alpha CC hairs in your game might cause slowdown/overheating. 

I am a CC creator who wants to start making lower polycount stuff that still has detail. How do I get started?

I started figuring out how to do detail via textures and normal mapping about two years ago. The main resource that helped me was this fantastic tutorial by SLYD. The main thing you need for this method is a lowpoly AND highpoly version of your mesh. It takes more time to do this versus making a highpoly mesh but I think the payoff is worth it to make good quality cc that everyone can enjoy :) (Also, another benefit is you won’t have to spend so long waiting for sims4studio to import your mesh) If you would like some tips on how to do this or have questions from that tutorial feel free to message me anytime! I also have a discord server where you can get help with CC making. Again, I am not the best expert around but I might know enough to help you.

Here is another discussion on this topic that I think is a really good read if you are interested :)

TL;DR if you’re a creator who makes high polycount stuff, please put a disclaimer on your downloads. If you’re a downloader, be aware of what your own personal game and computer can handle.

[cupids-darling-love]

- RP Rules/Info

⋆ Please be literate to advanced literate (the minimum a few paragraphs). I love DETAIL, tell me every little thing about your oc and the setting. Of course make it make sense but give me DETAILSSS. I don't do anything, nor will I accept anything less than a paragraph. I just don't enjoy roleplays like that, sorry.

⋆ Help in making the plot! Coming up with ideas and keeping it alive. I’ve had to be the one so many times keep the rp going good and alive. Roleplaying is a team effort and I would like us both to bring in ideas and all. Of course please ask before doing anything and I’ll do the same. This includes asking me to do big timeskips! Ask and I’ll usually always say yes. I just want there to be enough communication between us :).

⋆ Oc’s do not have to be in wikis for me! I love coming up with new characters all the time for roleplays and all! I also do not mind animated or realistic face claims (depends also whether the fandom is animated or realistic). I’m a bit picky when it comes to drawings, especially traditional just bc it’s hard for me to imagine. (No hate to anyone that uses their art work! Honestly that’s so cool just I’m picky about it myself). Under no circumstances will I ever rp with a gacha oc OR furry. (If the fandom is something like bastard then I’ll maybe make an exception, but fandoms like that I usually humanize the characters bc I feel uncomfortable otherwise).

⋆ I have school and work! Yes I have a life outside of roleplaying and all that. So please do not spam me or constantly ask when I’ll reply. When I can, I will. Ofc if it’s been a few days you can remind me! Sometimes I forget bc I’m so busy. Usually I’ll always say when I can’t reply tho so don’t worry. All I ask is that you do the same. Tell me when you can’t reply, tell me if you get bored or don’t want to rp anymore! I completely understand. Like I said I just want there to be communication between the two of us outside of the roleplay.

⋆ I love doing double ups, yes it can get a bit overwhelming but I do love them! Especially for fandom roleplays. For doubles ups I please ask that you don’t put more effort only to your side and not to my side. I’ll keep things even all the time and I ask that you do so as well so the both of us are happy :). I can do ocxoc, ccxcc (depending on the cc), or ccxoc! I can usually always play any cc so don’t be shy to ask.

⋆ I will only be doing double ups for ocxcc, I won’t play a canon character for your oc and receive nothing back in return. If it’s not a double up then I will only play MY oc. But I don’t find that really fair either so I’m more than open to doing a double up! (If you'd prefer ccxcc for your side then that's totally fine with me). I'm open for doing double ups without it being tied to a fandom as well!

⋆ No ‘uwu subs’ or ‘Mary-sue emo’ or super op characters😭. I can not stand these types of oc’s. Please give me characters with actual stories to them and not ones that just want to be babied bc I won’t baby your oc like that. And pls, you’re oc that looks and acts like a f-ing child isn’t gonna be paired with one of my ocs that looks and acts like an adult. I’m warning now I’ll honestly just leave if I see this starting to happen :P.

⋆ Depending on the fandom and storylines, triggering topics will be brought up throughout the rp. So please tell me any triggers you have beforehand as I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. My only triggers are weird kinks like necrophilia, vomit, scat, anything with kids like age play, etc.

⋆ I'm very open to writing out NSFW content BUT it can't be the whole premise of the plot. There has to be an actual story before we get to the NSFW side.

⋆ Please let me know if you're going to be leaving or if the roleplay isn't what you expected. I don't want to be wasting my time either coming up with a plot, talking ooc, getting into the story then you disappear and leave. Let me know if my writing isn't your style or if you want to change the story up, that's completely fine with me! I'm more than happy to make sure we both have a fun time :).

[murfeelee]

Simblr Asks - TS3

I saw these questions here, and I’m in a procrastinating mood.

1. are you going to buy the new pack (cottage living) when it comes out? Thoughts on Cottage Living:

Should’ve been a Game Pack. Another display of EA cramming TS4 with crap that’s as big as the ocean, but with the depth of a frikkin puddle. How TF an EXPANSION PACK came without any new skills or careers is beyond me, but Cottage Living did it, so hey. Speaking of hay, at least the cows & chickens are better. They’d better be, for $40. Thank god for the Llamas though, otherwise I would’ve never been interested in this dang pack.

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

Fortunately for me, half the TS3 content I have I won in contests & giveaways, or it was Gifted to me. The rest I bought on DEEP sales, cuz eff buying anything from EA at full price. And I got TS4 when EA gave it away for free, cuz patience is a freaking virtue. But there's definitely some garbage out there (*cough* Kits) I legitimately think you’re morally obligated to Yo Ho Ho.

3. what’s your favorite world?

EA: Shang Simla (World Adventures). CC: Boroughsburg (Potato-Ballad-Sims). My wish is to have a world/save that incorporates BOTH--an Asian Boroughsburg, or a futuristic/modern Shang Simla, but Japanese.

4. if you use a queue, how many posts per day do you set it as?

1 post on my main blog, 2 on my personal/inspo blogs, and anywhere from 1-5 on my CC finds blogs (depending on how much CC there is to catch up on).

5. do you watch sims on youtube?

Plenty. I miss Lazy Game Reviews--I think he’s effing done with EA & TS4, which is equally hilarious and sad at the same time. The Red Plumbob is probably my fave right now. I watch Pleasantsims for nostalgic TS2 content. And I watch A LOT of TS4 simmers, out of morbid curiosity to see just how bad the Kits and packs are.

6. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (dream home decorator)

Strong contender for Y’all Hear Sum’n? on Kenya’s scale. 🙄

7. how many packs/kits do you own?

I will never buy or even bother pirating those dumba$$ Kits, EA can eff right off. Anyone can do clothes & clutter for free; what 👏  is 👏  the 👏  point 👏 , other than a total effing cash grab.

8. what’s your origin id? is it the same as your url?

I only ever sim offline.

9. is your simblr your sideblog or main blog?

Main blog. Then I realized how expansive Tumblr is, and created 1001 sideblogs for stuff I do outside of simming.

10. do you have a cc finds blog?

Plenty, plus extras I don’t even advertise the way I probably should. U_U

11. are you wcif friendly?

Yes. I understand that some people are shy though, which is why I try to add CC Credits to my gameplay posts, with links to the CC I use. But I’m so effing lazy that sometimes I don’t. 

12. what’s your favorite sized household to play with? (ex. 1 sim, 4 sims)

Because my gameplay is often tv or video game inspired, my households are often massive (a dozen+ sims). Sometimes I break off the nuclear unit from the auxiliary characters (often my top 4-6 characters), and have them in my active household to control them directly, while I let the other sims roam free in another house(hold) or something.

13. if you have c&d, do you play with pets?

I love the Pets EP. I can't decide which I like more: cats, dogs, or horses. The horses are 100% essential for my historical gameplay, I can’t even. And I like that we can directly control the animals--I actually wish we could do more with the small pets, too (reptiles, birds, fish, etc). IMO, TS4′s C&D is a crying shame, and MFPS can go straight to hell. TS3′s unicorns would like a word with MFPS.

14. what lifespan do you use?

Young Adult, though I use Kids a lot more now, thanks to PuddingFace’s Enhanced Witches Mod letting kids use magic.

15. if you own a lot of packs, how many of them have you actually played through?

Everything in TS3, though I’ve never been able to play through all the content. Even in Supernatural there are things I haven’t done yet. I have no intention of owning even 1/3 of TS4′s packs.

16. what do you do as you play sims? (ex. listen to music)

Listen to music--I have specific playlists for specific gameplay.

17. which sims challenges have you tried?

I don’t do challenges, I cheat too much.

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

Eff swatches; they don’t hold a candle to CASt. Hair in TS4 is 100% garbage. That clayfied crap makes my blood boil. The only time I even marginally like it is when people do those rainbow recolors; those are super cute.

19. post the latest screenshot you took 📸

That’s top secret information; I have CC sets I’m preparing for upload.

20. what is the cc/ingame hair that looks the most like your own?

That’s never been made.

21. who is your favorite sim of yours and what is their story?

Sakura Rain is my Japanese cherry tree fairy from the future.

Nasir ibn Hema is my smol hissing Syrian from the past.

22. if you use cc, are there any cc creators that you have like ALL of their items?

Luna & Silfantasy.

23. what’s one pack you think is underrated?

TS3: Into the Future Expansion Pack. TS4: Vintage Glamour Stuff Pack.

ITF is hands down the most unique pack EA ever made. If you like sci-fi, there’s no way you can pass up on it, ITF adds waaaaaay too much good content & gameplay. But there are so many simmers that hate fantasy in general, as a rule, and they crap all over Supernatural, too. So ITF got a lot of heat mostly cuz it was the very last EP, and the very last chance simmers could get something they wanted. But considering the lack of futuristic gameplay we tend to have, it was high time EA did a pack like ITF for once.

As for VG, that was when I first started realizing that EA was doing something drastically different with the SPs in TS4. It’s a sad state of affairs that the SPs in TS4 are becoming some of its most interesting content, particularly since they’ve started adding in new lifestates, gameplay, and premium content. That was never the case in TS3, and very very rarely in TS2. Even though people scoff at the Butlers & Bar Globes, I love that kind of content, particularly for historical gameplay.

24. what are your favorite sims stories/legacies?

I really like the holiday stories @danjaley​ does; over at 3 Hazelnuts.

25. if you could change certain small thing(s) about ts4, what would it be?

Where do I even effing begin, EA.

______________________________________________

Thanks for reading!

[rebelpeas]

captain puffy lore q&a!

notes taken while listening to her stream tonight (july 14 stream, “[DreamSMP] Lore School and Lore Q&A!”) feel free to add on if i missed anything - i probably zoned out a bit and missed some questions!

- she stressed multiple times throughout the q&a segment that her character was never intended to play a parental role. while she’s happy with a sort of guardian/protector role, she isn’t as much a fan of her character being a parent. the reason she’s not a huge fan of c!dream (or other characters besides c!foolish) being c!puffy’s child is because people then get angry about c!puffy making chaotic decisions because they view her in a purely responsible/parental role. she likes for her character to be there as a mentor for the younger characters, but still wants the freedom to make chaotic decisions for her character without being criticized for it!

- she doesn’t like when anything her character does is immediately related to other people’s characters. an example she offered is that if she were to blow something up, people would say “that’s not something a good parent figure would do.”

- if she were to have take a different direction with her character, she would’ve done a “chaotic girlboss” character type.

- when asked whether she prefers unplanned lore or big lore streams, she says she enjoys both. she finds semi-lore very fun because she loves interacting with chat and likes how community-focused unplanned and improv lore can be. big lore is fun for her too, but because of the high expectations and having to be zoned in to the story, she doesn’t get to interact with the chat.

- thinks of her chat as if they’re “looking down on” the dream smp universe rather than a physical being within it. referred to it as celestial beings and the dream smp being “the universe that we control” - chat is the stars that the captain navigates by.

- puffychu - “i don’t know. we’ll have to find out about that.” she says puffy and niki’s characters have ended up on completely different sides, so now they are trying to figure that out.

- her character’s skin has something more to its design than just being half sheep, half human. she says there’s an element that has more to do with her character’s “personal struggle” than with her species.

- she gave a hint about the next c!puffy lore stream: “it relates in a way to a billie eilish song. i can’t say which one because it would give too much away!”

- something in lore is going to greatly affect c!puffy eventually. “she’s going to have a switch sometime soon”

- quite a bit of c!puffy’s personality is influenced by cc!puffy’s personality. the character is evidently based quite a bit on how cc!puffy grew up as a child, which we will see more in later lore!

- c!puffy’s character flaws are that they’re a perfectionist and doesn’t want to disappoint people, and in turn ends up not being able to do things for themselves. they also have lots of patience until she’s pushed too far and then will snap.

- she would like to be more involved with the las nevadas lore!

- she was asked about tommy’s therapy and whether it has been happening “off-screen” as tommy has implied, but she said she was going to save the question for another day.

- c!puffy doesn’t necessarily agree with being an anarchist. they aren’t big on titles or labels, but they do respect order. they’ve taken on titles not because they want to but because it’s necessary to keep the peace of things.

- c!puffy uses any pronouns, but usually she/her mostly because so far no one has referred to her otherwise in lore.

- c!puffy’s alignment is chaotic good!

- c!puffy, c!ant, and c!bad have made up since the red banquet and there are few hard feelings between them. c!puffy felt less hurt by c!hannah since she was a new member to the smp and they hadn’t had any chance to form a relationship.

- when asked which character’s development surprised her the most, she answered that she really likes tommy and tubbo’s arcs, but bad’s caught her the most off-guard because of how different c!bad’s arc has turned out from how cc!bad is.

- she says tubbo’s character has gone through just as much as tommy even though people tend to focus more on tommy, and c!tubbo is one of her favorite lore characters.

- her favorite character dynamics are puffy and bad (she finds it fun how they go from a fun friendship duo as ccs into polar opposites in lore), tubbo and ranboo (she likes the very different dynamic they have from tubbo and tommy, saying tubbo didn’t replace tommy with ranboo but rather has a different kind of relationship to explore his character in), and tommy and techno (she likes how techno is a big and powerful anarchist and still was protective of tommy).

- her favorite canon character is c!dream. she says while his character arc always involves manipulation and dark aspects, they’re very clever and there’s always an interesting reason to be found behind what they do.

- as for her character’s thoughts on c!dream, c!puffy feels more disappointed in dream than guilty about his actions. puffy says she’s “always seen the underlying good” in dream and so is disappointed in him for what he’s done.

- she says sam’s character is very difficult. he tries to do what in his mind is the lawfully correct thing to do, even if it’s a bad thing to do or might hurt someone else.

- her favorite build is foolish’s summer home area!

- she thinks c!wilbur has been the best villain so far.

(( there might be more q&a later as she’s still streaming, but this is all i’ve got tonight! i’m off to bed, i’ll skim the rest of the vod tomorrow for any other tidbits i missed! ))

[thespoonisvictory]

fb is straight up just more tiring for me tbh so I’ve never been able to really get INTO them. like I can only handle so much before I get exhausted by it and have to dip out, it’s just a Lot to handle mentally and tbh auditorially too, those bitches can be Loud. I usually tend to prefer non 5/5 streams of them for that reason tbh. Like… 3/5 is my ideal. too much Sweaty Frat Boy Energy otherwise. not that they’re not friends or anything, it’s just… preference yknow?

sbi I prefer bc it’s a lot more sarcastic but like… toned down? again idk how to explain it I just vibe w it better bc it doesn’t make me Tired to watch them go sometimes they just be sayin words together n chilling while with fb it’s like a Thing when they’re together and it’s all hype and yelling all the time and like !! can we please take a breather sirs /hj

…now that I’m thinking critically on the topic I think it’s bc fb doesn’t have a real like… straight man to play off comedically. like they’re All the goofers but never the straight man so it’s just a constant up up up. Maybe sapnap or dream plays it sometimes, but really I can’t think of any of them that do it enough that I Think of them as playing straight man. And I get it totally, I have friend groups like that! and playing straight man usually means you don’t Get to have those big comedic moments (which is an extra bummer when you’re trying to specifically entertain) but without it there’s no balance.

maybe it’s like a result of their competitiveness with one another?? Gotta always be the Mega Funny one, so no one wants to bite the bullet and be the grounded one bc it’s the less funny role.

with sbi (imo), they can all be a little more flexible and play straight man with one another (though I’d say phil is probably the most dedicated to the role, with techno in second and wil in third) and it helps de-escalate the audience so they don’t get burned out so quick. idk! just my two sense I suppose

me, two seconds ago: no more asks we are practicing self care on this hell site

me, getting an in-depth ask abt cc group dynamics and what makes a funny streamer: well that was a lie

the straight man in comedy is so fucking important, especially in a nonprofessional setting. like in community with jeff, or in gilmore girls rory and lorelai are often the straight men to the wacky town residents. in new girl, they all take turns, which helps serve characterization as they are the 'normal one' in different situations.

I mean- look at wilbur and phil, and how often the bit is "wilbur is being quirky, phil is laughing and calling him silly!" it's effective and endearing to both parties: it brings a grounding element to wilbur's streams and livens up phils.

with sbi, it's usually like this (straight man is bolded)

wilbur and tommy

wilbur and phil

wilbur and techno (they alternate)

tommy and techno

tommy and phil

phil and techno

in a group, they usually take turns, like you said. as a result, the duos are uniquely enjoyable and balanced. they won't exhaust you, lmao, and it allows for everyone to get their chance in the spotlight and be comedic. it's what makes them so good, imo, and what the basis is for their content.

because they're all experienced ccs, they know when to back down, stay quiet and let others talk. not only that, but phil and techno being naturally quieter (and introverts?) compliments wilbur and tommy being louder and taking up more of the conversation. it just works like a well oiled machine, built on the basis of genuine friendship

fb never really got the chance to quite figure out that sophistication when it comes to content (not irl), and it means a ton of overlap and yelling to the point that some people find it overwhelming

[lazyliars]

The Quackity Meta: Justice without the Blindfold

[Anonymous asks: (DSMP) Somebody talk to me about Quackity and Eret’s character. I wanna talk about what Quackity’s views on power are with what he’s planning to do with Sam along with whatever he saw in the egg. I wanna talk about why Eret thinks reviving Wilbur is the best option for the sever to lead and their views on what a leader should be with them being the king of the Dream SMP. I wanna talk about Quackity planning to create a casino for the server to rise to the top. What does it mean to be king?]

[/rp. All mentions of dream smp members should be assumed as referencing the character, not the cc, unless specifically stated otherwise.]

At the heart of every conflict, if you look closely enough, you will find a similarity. Two contrasting ideals will reveal their own likeness, in the stage they play out their war – they both fight for the same result; to be known and followed and asserted, and in this they are the same. There would be no conflict if both sides shared nothing in common.

Lets talk about Quackity.

We'll gloss over a good deal of Quackity's history to get to the meat of this discussion, which involves Technoblade. But there are a a few lesser known facts about Quackity's early days on the server that are relevant to the discussion, like  that Quackity joined the server because of Tommy.

Namely, he joined for The Cartel, a short-lived organization comprised of him, Tommy, Tubbo and Jack Manifold, and their aims of obtaining power over the entire server by getting a monopoly on one object, the Phantom Membrane.

(Trivia: This is why Technoblade had to strike a deal with Tommy for the membranes – Phantoms are turned off on the Dream SMP now, so their monopoly actually ended up working. (Un)fortunately, Tommy traded nearly his whole supply for the priceless act of... making Techno scream really loud and talk in a funny voice. Worth it.)

However, Tommy's interest in the Cartel waned almost immediately, to Quackity's frustration. Tommy was constantly busy with his Vice Presidential duties in L'manberg. Quackity wasn't entirely left out, and he helped Tommy on multiple occaisions, but this was back in Wilbur's L'manberg, where non-europeans were strictly banned.

Quackity would slowly come to resent Tommy for this over time. He joined the server to be with him, took his side in nearly every conflict, including the ones that were L'manberg-oriented, and yet he wasn't allowed to be a citizen of his friend's own nation.

The resentment would reach a boiling point when Quackity discovered Wilbur's bid to consolidate power by running a sham election – with a one party system. Quackity challenged him, formed Swag 2020, and the rest is history...

The takeaway here is that from the start, Quackity has been shunted aside by people in power – Tommy, Wilbur, and then later, Schlatt. This wouldn't prevent him from executing his own immoral power grabs, but that trait – the distaste for people with power holding it over him, is one that would stick around, and become even more prominent later... Quackity has more reason than most to hate tyranny.

But “Tyranny” Is a word thrown around on the SMP often enough, that it's probably up there with “betrayal” and “pop-off” in total wordcount. But few use it more commonly, or more persuasively, than Quackity and Technoblade.

This begs the question: what is Tyranny in a M/inec/raft role play, and why do Quackity and Technoblade both detest it so much while still hating each other?

Well, after a moderate amount of research, I have discovered the following:

Tyranny is complicated.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

...No, but really. Tyranny is very old concept. The words originates in, you guessed it, Ancient Greece, but conceptually, the idea goes waaaay back.

Now, that last thing I wanna do is give anyone a history lesson. I'd suck at it and I haven't done that much research. But the takeaway here is that “Tyranny” has come to be defined in fairly vague terms. We'll look at a few different ones in reference to the SMP.

Oxford dictionary defines a Tyrant as: A cruel and oppressive ruler. / a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way. / (especially in ancient Greece) a ruler who seized power without legal right.

Lets look at the first and last definitions:  A cruel and oppressive ruler; (especially in ancient Greece) a ruler who seized power without legal right.

By these definitions, one could call Quackity tyrannical during his term as Tubbo's VP. He exercises the power granted to him as a government official to spearhead an operation to execute a man without trial. He violently invades the home of a citizen and then puts said man on house arrest, and to subdue the target of this operation he threatens a pet (-a vague but ostensibly severe criminal act in the terms of m/inec/raft specifically-) and then reveals to Techno that the reason he's doing this actually has nothing to do with the crime Techno was accused of, and it is instead a ploy to consolidate power.

Quackity is leveraging his position in the government to amass power, and using that power to harm individuals (Philza and Techno,) in process. As an added bonus, his position in that government came from usurping Schlatt, a legitimately elected official. Thus, Quackity is a Tyrant.

But there, in Schlatt's government is where things get complicated.

Quackity had some power in Schlatt's government. Not the same kind as he did in New L'manberg, but arguably a more unrestrained form – Quackity could basically do whatever he wanted, as long as it pleased Schlatt. In New L'manberg, Quackity needed to convince not only Tubbo, but the rest of the cabinet whenever he wanted to initiate a new project. New L'manberg, while still maintaining a ruling class, had a far more equal distribution of power than Manberg did. It was still democratic.

And while we're on the topic of Quackity as Schlatt's VP, Quackity had almost instant regret the day of the election. He was undermining Schlatt from the start, questioning him, trying to stop Tubbo from breaking the signs that read “if you break this sign, you hate your viewers” and freeing Niki when Schlatt trapped her in Jack Manifold's house and then whispering at her to run.

Quackity only fell into step with Schlatt in the aftermath of Election day, when he saw a major desire fulfilled; the tearing down of L'manberg's walls. These walls were a symbol of L'manberg's isolationist roots that prevented Quackity from joining in the first place. It was one of his biggest promises whilst campaigning.

From this point on, up until the festival, Quackity would be in support of Schlatt. The things he did try to push back on would be downplayed and ignored, if not scorned. This period of time is difficult to pick apart where Quackity's personal morals and ideals begin, and Schlatt's influence ends. The steadily worsening abusive dynamic between them doesn't help this vagueness, either.

I point this out because I've seen people conflate Quackity's abuse at the hands of Schlatt, and his willingness to participate in Schlatt's rule as being of the same root; implying that Quackity only followed Schlatt because he was in an abusive relationship with him, when the reality is far more complicated. Yes, their relationship was a major factor in Quackity's actions, but downplaying his ambition and willingness to accept Schlatt's Tyranny when it helped him realize his own goals does a disservice to the nuance of Manberg-era Quackity.

What all of this points to is an individual who has a strong, some might say defining sense of Justice, yet also a susceptibility to Temptation. Quackity’s experiences with disenfranchisement by Wilbur and Tommy, coupled with his Dark horse victory in the election paints him in a sympathetic, even heroic light. But the way he slowly relinquished more and more power to Schlatt, and ended up indulging in the fruits of tyrannical gains when they proved they could get him what he wanted.

...

So, back to the question... Is Quackity a tyrant?

The answer to that question is a solid “mmmmaaaybe??”

It comes back to what you consider Tyranny. Quackity has never held complete power – he has always, always been scrapping and struggling and fighting to get a foothold in the machinations of the truly powerful, like Dream and Wilbur. He's very much an underdog story.

On the other hand, the times that Quackity has held positions of power, he's done some questionable shit. People like to forget that, while he was deeply disturbed by it, he wasn't exactly against Tubbo's execution at the festival. Putting Phil on house arrest and executing Techno without trial also count against him.

Like most things on the SMP, it's just complicated. Quackity's motivations run deep and aren't always obvious. He doesn't seem to want to hurt people just for the sake of hurting them, or use his power in arbitrary ways, but when he can personally justify it, the sacrifice of his moral integrity gets severe sometimes.

What it looks like is that more than anything else, Quackity wants control, and to never, ever lose his own autonomy. That is also why he despises Technoblade.

...And here we are at the Technoblade part of this meta, AKA the MASSIVE BULK OF THIS ANALYSIS. Which you can read HERE, because it’s too long to fit in just this one post.

[melsie-sims]

Holy Crap!! 400 Followers!?

Wow wow wow! I’m so appreciative of all the support and I can’t wait to share more sims content with you in the future! I’ve been having so much fun lately with the game and y’all are definitely a big part of that.  

I had other plans to celebrate reaching 400 followers but I need some more time for that little present... so instead here are some links to mods I use and CC creators that I love!

USEFUL MODS FOR BUILD A CITY CHALLENGES...

Those of you that follow my BACC have probably noticed I only use my played households as town population. That means no EA townies for me! I achieve that with Zero’s No Random Townies. It’s a completely free and up to date alternative to NPCC and it hasn’t given me any issues so far!

Kids and teens cannot go to school until the education career has been unlocked. I added an extra rule that there has to be a teacher in the education career as well, otherwise kids and teens have to remain at home. Did you know you can have sims quit school with MCCC? You go to the MC Career module and enable “Kids/Teens Quit School”. You can disable it once you have schools unlocked! 

SIMS HAVE ACTUAL PERSONALITIES?!

Want some personality mods? I have a TON!

Remember Sims 2 lifetime aspirations? You can have them as traits in Sims 4 with MissyHissy’s Personality Mod.  It has custom whims and everything! I add them to all of my teen+ sims. You can also get her Hobby Mod which works similarly and is also based on Sims 2 hobbies. 

I also use a lot of Lumpinou’s mods. You can check them all out by clicking that link. I use First Impressions. Along with Wonderful Whims’ attraction system, it’s how I usually decide on which couples I want to pair up. WW handles the physical attraction but Lumpinou has your back for compatible personalities!  

I use Lumpinou’s Woohoo Wellness for pregnancies and babies. It’s more or less PG-13 so you can use it and not burn your eyes out. There are a few things that may be triggering so skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to read about them. There is the chance of getting an STI, and your pregnant sims can get abortions. The one issue I noticed is that it’s not compatible with risky woohoo. Your sims will likely get pregnant if they don’t use protection... regardless of the risky woohoo percentage. I learned that the hard way.

I also use Lumpinou’s No Strings mod for friends with benefits. When your sims decide to be FWBs they can do romance options without developing a romance bar. It’s how Jericho and Andy started out their relationship! 

I have Zerbu’s All Worlds are Residential which I will be using when I unlock more worlds in my BACC. I’ll have the ability to move in sims to Granite Falls as well as other worlds that are usually only for vacations. 

I probably have 90% of LittleMissSam’s mods. They’re a must-have for me so I highly recommend looking through them if you’d like to spice up your game (or just fix annoying EA bugs). Some of my favorites are, in no particular order: SimDa Dating App, More Woodworks, Advanced Birth Certificate, Ultrasound Scan, Train Puppies, Retail Overhaul, First Love and Foster Family.

CC Creators I highly recommend:

Clumsyalienn (Lots of great cc! I love the boho aesthetic!) 

Rope’s Workshop (All of your male cc needs!) 

Rusty-Sims (More wonderful cc!) 

Marsosims (Awesome hairs!) 

SaurusSims (A lot of quality cc, including for children and tots!)

SheSpeaksSimlish (Lots of cute stuff! Afro textured hairs & ethnic clothes!) 

Simiracle (A whole butt load of amazing cc! All sorted to make things easy to download!)

RenoraSims (Just so much stuff! I love it all so much!)

CandySims (Another great creator with lots of stuff, mostly for females)

Message me if you want more recs, from cc creators to gameplay simblrs! I have a TON I’d love to share with you!

So that’s it for my little 400 follower gift! It’s not much, but I hope I’ve managed to help out at least one of you guys to spice up your game or maybe even find a new cc creator you weren’t aware of.  

Check out the free stuff I put over on my new Patreon (hopefully I’ll fill it up with a bit more cc soon!). Check out my Discord channel where we often post cc links.

Love y’all! 

[tigerkirby215]

5e Sona, the Maven of the Strings build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Shilin Huang. Made for Riot Games.)

(Shit meme by yours truly.)

Revealing my Champion Mastery just to say that I play a lot of Sona. Don’t flame me for playing Seraphine and Yuumi I swear to god, and I have no idea why Teemo is in my top 10 highest mastery champs ngl.

Anyways you have no idea how happy I am as a Sona main that my girl is now top tier. I came to League of Legends from Overwatch (yes really) and I used to main Lucio in OW along with some of the more “techy” characters like Symmetra and Torbjorn. (Came to OW from TF2 where I mained Engineer and Medic.) Sona was a natural fit for me as a champion who was both easy to play and very similar to Lucio. It also helps that I joined the Rift during the single most engaging meta to ever grace this game. I was kinda too shit to play Janna but the Ardent Censer meta is also why I have such a high mastery on Lulu tbh.

But enough about my history with League: Sona! Honestly when I think of an archetypical support Sona pops into my head a lot sooner than Soraka: a champion based on empowering their teammates in as many ways as possible with heals, shields, movement speed, and CC to hold the enemy team down. I’ve always loved playing her because she feels like much more of a macro oriented character than other supports, with team-wide support as opposed to keeping one person alive like Soraka or Yuumi or focusing on CC like Morgana and Nami.

I’m going to build most if not all the champions eventually but man I am happy to tackle Sona now. She’s always been on my mind as my main but it was pretty difficult to think of how to make her. I think this build is good enough though!

Wow that was much longer of an intro than I’m used to. You can really tell which champions I’m excited for lol.

GOALS

Everything in harmony - Sona boosts everyone on her team with her songs as they fill the air.

Triple time! - Sona’s ability to boost her whole team into a good position is always beneficial.

Crescendo! - Fun fact: Sona’s ultimate is canonically extremely painful as she forces you to contort your limbs against your will. Why is Sona needlessly macabre? Well remember that Riot also wrote Volibear as an Eldritch old god.

RACE

Sona is Human but if you want to be cool you can make her a Kalashtar for resistance to Psychic damage and advantage on Wisdom saves. Regardless we’re going to be making what’s known as a dollar store Kalashtar with Variant Human. Increase your Charisma by 1 as well as your Constitution because we kinda don’t need much else. You also get proficiency in one skill of your choice which will of course be Performance, and a language which you can pick as you fancy: you won’t be speaking it anyways lmfao.

That’s because “Only you can hear me summoner; what masterpiece shall we play today?” Grab the Telepathic feat to complete this dollar store Kalashtar package. Increase your Charisma score by 1 and get a 60 foot telepathy to speak while being mute. You also learn the Detect Thoughts spell and can cast it once without using a spell slot. "Did he want... four autographs? I don't understand."

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Charisma is tied to performance and all the other stuff a Demacian noblewoman is expected to be good at.

14; DEXTERITY - Something something medium armor; even if you wear a dress there’s no reason you can’t have some padding beneath it!

13; STRENGTH - Hey this isn’t something something medium armor!

12; CONSTITUTION - Sona may be squishy in League but I value not dying more than good skill checks honestly.

10; WISDOM - Speaking of not dying: Wisdom saves are more common, and Insight is more useful than most Intelligence skills.

8; INTELLIGENCE - We had to dump something so unfortunately Intelligence gets the short end of the stick. You may have studied under the illustrious Buvelle family but most of those lessons were music classes.

If you want a better stat array going 13 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 10 / 14 with Point Buy is perfectly viable, and if your DM is cool enough to let you multiclass without Strength then you’re more than welcome to dump it.

BACKGROUND

There’s two obvious backgrounds that fit Sona: the first is Entertainer for proficiency with Acrobatics and a skill of your choice (since we already took Performance lol.) You also get proficiency with Disguise Kits and your Etwahl! (That’s what Sona’s instrument is called btw.) Your background feature By Popular Demand allows you to play any stage once. "Some, just the once.” You can perform in exchange for a place to stay, and when you do so the local people will remember your wonderful performance!

But making an Entertainer Bard is kinda cliché, no? If you want to lean into Sona’s Demacian heritage go for the Noble background. This gives you proficiency with Persuasion and History as well as a gaming set of your choice: unfortunately Tellstones isn’t an option (unless your DM decides otherwise!) so a Dragonchess Set will do well enough. Oh and you get another language that you won’t speak: fun! Your Position of Privilege makes it easy for you to arrange meetings with other important people, and the commonfolk will be kind and cordial with you.

(Screenshot from the Tellstones: King’s Gambit trailer by Riot Games.)

I personally opted to go for Noble when making this build, but if you want to choose Entertainer go right ahead! Backgrounds don’t affect too much overall and it’s up to you (and your DM) to make your own Sona!

(Artwork from League of Legends Wild Rift. Made for Riot Games. RIOT PLEASE UPDATE MUSE SONA ON PC I’M BEGGING YOU!)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - BARD 1

I mean what else did you expect? Bards get proficiency in three musical instruments of their choice: a Lyre is the closest you’ll get to Sona’s Etwahl, though a Dulcimer is also pretty close. I’d also recommend grabbing a Lute since most magical instruments come in Lute variety.

You also get proficiency in 3 skills of your choice like Perception to watch wards, Insight to watch people, and Athletics for a bit of Tenacity to break out of grapples. (As well as potentially grab some people yourself! Although Acrobatics is also perfectly fine for escaping grapples.)

As a Bard you can boost your ADC with Bardic Inspiration, letting them add a d6 to attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. You have a number of these equal to your Charisma modifier and they come back after a Long Rest.

But of course the main reason to play a Bard is to do Demacian-banned Spellcasting! You learn two cantrips from the Bard list like Vicious Mockery for some diminuendo, making it harder for the enemy to hurt your allies while also cutting them down to size. (I don’t know if your DM will let you slap your Etwahl angrily and then point at them judgingly, but you may have to break your vow of silence every now and then.) You can also learn Prestidigitation for all sorts of general magic stuff that you really shouldn’t do in front of anyone important.

You of course also learn 4 Bard spells like Cure Wounds and Healing Word for the atypical healing spells, Dissonant Whispers for some Hymn of Valor damage, and Detect Magic which you’ll likely be expected to cast as the designated support. *Sigh* Always gotta buy wards.

LEVEL 2 - BARD 2

Second level Bards could be called a Jack of All Trades, as you get to add half your proficiency bonus to any skill you aren’t proficient in. This means even if your ability scores are bad the skills you don’t have proficiency in are still good enough! You also get Song of Rest, letting your allies recover an extra d6 of health during Short Rests. And if you have Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything  Magical Inspiration will let your allies add their Bardic Inspiration to the damage or healing of a spell they cast!

And finally you can learn another spell: against as the designated support you’re expected to take Identify.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: Performance is an obvious must and Persuasion would probably be good as well.

But more importantly you get to choose your Bardic College and if you want to both shield your allies and speed them up look no further than the College of Glamour! That’s because Mantle of Inspiration grants 5 temporary hitpoints to a number of creatures within 60 feet of you equal to your Charisma modifier (which can include yourself by the way!) Additionally those creatures can move up to their movement speed as a reaction without provoking opportunity attacks, making this a great tool to reposition an ally who’s caught in a dangerous position!

You’re also capable of creating an Enthralling Performance: if you perform for at least 1 minute, you can attempt to inspire wonder in your audience. At the end of the performance you can choose a number of humanoids within 60 feet of you who watched and listened to all of it, up to a maximum equal to your Charisma modifier. Each target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you.

While charmed in this way, the target idolizes you, and speaks glowingly of you to anyone who talks to them. They also hinder anyone who opposes you, although they avoid violence unless it was already inclined to fight for you. This effect ends on a target after 1 hour unless they take any damage, you attack it, or it witnesses you attacking or damaging any of its allies. If a target succeeds on its saving throw the target has no hint that you tried to charm it, and you can use this ability once per Short or Long Rest.

Finally you can learn second level spells like Hold Person, for a one-man version of your ultimate.

LEVEL 4 - BARD 4

Ah the first of many Ability Score Improvements. You may have noticed our deliberately uneven Charisma modifier: that’s because I’m going to be taking the Fey Touched feat for +1 to your Charisma, the Misty Step spell (for Flash, of course), and the Gift of Alacrity spell from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount for a Song of Celerity! Accelerated movement? I concur.

You can also learn another spell as well as another cantrip! For your cantrip take Mage Hand for help warding those hard-to-reach areas, and for your spell take Lesser Restoration, because yeah it’s also your job to buy Mikael’s. *Sigh.*

LEVEL 5 - BARD 5

5th level Bards get a Font of Inspiration that lets their Bardic Inspiration come back after a Short Rest as well as a Long Rest. That’s good because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8, which also boosts your Mantle of Inspiration to grant 8 temporary hitpoints!

You can also learn another spell like Hypnotic Pattern: while it won’t do any damage and your allies can’t hit the dancing enemies it’ll still be the best recreation of your ultimate for now.

(Artwork by Katie “TeaTime” De Sousa. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 1

I hope you weren’t expecting this to be a pure Bard build, because then I’d just be building Seraphine again! Grab your something something Medium Armor as well as a shield (well technically you need both hands free to play a musical instrument) it’s Paladin time, master of auras! 

Paladins get a Lay on Hands pool equal to 5 times their Paladin level for some more healing. You can touch a creature to give them any amount of health from your Lay on Hands, or use 5 hitpoints from your Lay on Hands pool to neutralize a poison or disease affecting them. You also get Divine Sense to locate any Celestial, Fiend, or Undead as long as they’re within 60 feet of you and not behind total cover. Don’t worry it gets a lot more exciting later.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins can choose their Fighting Style and you’re still more of a mage than a warrior, so Blessed Warrior will give you two cantrips from the Cleric list that use your Charisma! Guidance is an obvious must for a support and Toll the Dead is a great option if you want to go full AP.

Should you have options for attacks to target enemies who have high Wisdom? Yeah probably: Sacred Flame might be a good choice.

Of course cantrips also imply more Spellcasting! You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level (rounded down) which is currently a freaking lot of spells. Let’s just go down the list, shall we?

Bless is great to buff your team and make them harder, better, faster, and stronger.

Command is a mostly harmless Enchantment spell that will force your foes to do as you, well, command. I’d argue “dance” is a reasonable Command.

Protection from Evil and Good is never bad to have in your back pocket in case you’re fighting either Kayle or Fiddlesticks.

And Shield of Faith will let you boost your ADC’s survivability with Ardent Censer!

I know you can prepare more spells but there isn’t much I want from first level of Paladin. I am contractually obligated to mention that you can also turn your spell slots into a Divine Smite if you hit an enemy with a melee weapon, but you aren’t really going to be using weapons in this build. That’s right boys hop aboard the caster Paladin train!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 3

Third level Paladins get to choose their Sacred Oath and Oath of the Watchers may seem weird but it’s really good at defending your allies. That’s because you get two different Channel Divinity options: Abjure the Extraplanar works similarly to the Cleric’s Turn Undead feature except it affects Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, Fey, and Fiends.

Watcher’s Will meanwhile lets you choose a number of creatures you can see within 30 feet of you, up to your Charisma modifier. For 1 minute, you and the chosen creatures have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws. This means that in a party of 6 this ability can give your whole party advantage on all mental saves, which is huge for keeping everyone alive against nasty casters! See? Demacia can use your magic!

Speaking of magic you get Alarm and Detect Magic as Oath spells. (Might want to swap Detect Magic from your Bard list with Mass Healing Word ty Tasha’s.) You can also use Harness Divine Power to regain a spell slot equal to half your proficiency bonus a number of times per Long Rest. And you get Divine Health, because you don’t take a sick day to stop complaining about Seraphine.

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 4

4th level Paladins get another Ability Score Improvement: cap off that Charisma for maximum AP scaling!

(Artwork by Kelly Aleshire & Esben Lash Rasmussen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins can finally prepare second level spells! As a Watchers Paladin you get access to Moonbeam as well as See Invisibility, both of which are very good for dealing with incoming gankers.

You can also prepare spells like Aid to boost your allies’ HP, Prayer of Healing (ty Tasha’s) for some out-of-combat healing, and Warding Bond for a Knight’s Vow.

Oh and you get an Extra Attack, which sure would matter if you were actually using weapons.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 6

6th level reasons get the main reason Sona’s a Paladin: Aura of Protection! All your saving throws are increased by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier, which is a full +5 currently! But what’s special about this ability is that it also applies to your allies within 10 feet of you, letting you give out auras a plenty to keep your allies safe!

You can also prepare another spell but again: not much I really want. So we’re going to be waiting a little while longer once again.

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 7

7th level Watchers Paladins get Aura of the Sentinel, or as I like to call it: Song of Celerity. When you or any creature of your choice within 10 feet of you roll for initiative, they gain a bonus to initiative equal to your proficiency bonus. While this may make positioning a little difficult (everyone’s going to have to huddle around you) this ability guarantees that you can speed up all your important allies to make sure they get their powerful abilities off!

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 8

8th level Paladins get another Ability Score Improvement or a Feat. You may have noticed your uneven Constitution score: grab good ol’ Resilient Constitution for a boost to your health and even more insurance on your Concentration checks. With your Paladin aura and proficiency you’d have a +12 total to your Constitution checks currently, meaning that if you take 24 damage or less you won’t even have to roll for Concentration!

LEVEL 14 - PALADIN 9

You are probably the only Paladin who cares about spells, so it’s nice that you get 3rd level spells now! Watchers Paladins get two very strong third level spells: Nondetection will help you deward and keep your allies safe from enemies that may try to sneak a peak at you, but Counterspell is the true best choice to stop danger from befalling your allies. What’s very good about Counterspell is that as a Bard you get to add Jack of All Trades to the skill check, meaning it’s far easier for you to deny an incomming spell than any other spellcaster! “Mages have enough problems without you.”

Of course you can prepare some more spells like Aura of Vitality for Aria of Perseverance, and Revivify for an ADC’s Guardian Angel. But having access to spells like Remove Curse, Dispel Magic, Crusader’s Mantle, and even Daylight on the Paladin spell list are all extremely useful to be able to prepare. Remember that you are doing yourself a disservice by not taking time to think about what the best spells to prepare would be for your current quest. "Every note is important."

(Artwork by Kelly Aleshire & Esben Lash Rasmussen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 15 - BARD 6

Now that we’ve got all our auras it’s time to go back to Bard for Mantle of Majesty! As a bonus action, you cast Command without expending a spell slot as you take on an appearance of unearthly beauty for 1 minute. During that minute you can cast Command as a bonus action on each of your turns without expending a spell slot. Additionally any creature charmed by you automatically fails its saving throw against the command you cast with this feature. You do have to concentrate on this feature (like a spell), and once you use it you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

You can also learn another spell but there isn’t much I want from the third level of Bard, really. Oh and you get Countercharm which is awful and I hate it, but since you didn’t take a 10th level in Paladin I suppose you have to use it. Spend an action to give allies advantage on their saving throws against charms and fears, I guess.

LEVEL 16 - BARD 7

7th level Bard; 4th level spells. Freedom of Movement will let you help either yourself or an ally with Mikael’s Crucible, and Dimension Door is great to get into lane fast, or back to base fast!

LEVEL 17 - BARD 8

8th level Bards get another Ability Score Improvement, and if you don’t like the look of something something Medium Armor then the Eldritch Adept feat might be able to help. Take the Mask of Many Faces invocation to be able to cast Disguise Self at will to change your skins as you please.

Could you have taken this earlier? Absolutely. Are there better invocations? Yeah probably, but by level 17 you can make some of your own choices. Build your own Sona: this is merely a guide and you can make your own choices.

Speaking of own choices: take whichever spell you want at this level. There’s plenty of great ones for a 4th level Bard and I can’t recommend anything in particular to you. Every musician has their own style, and it’s up to you to find your own!

(Artwork by Yan Li. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - BARD 9

9th level Bards get to pretend that increasing Song of Rest from a d6 to a d8 by total level 18 is helpful.

You do get access to 5th level spells like Mass Cure Wounds, which is like Mass Healing Word but better! "Harmoniously."

LEVEL 19 - BARD 10

10th level Bards get Expertise in two more skills: Perception is an obvious must to watch over your wards but beyond that? Honestly pick your poison with whatever skill you want since by level 19 you can make your own choices. (Though my personal choice would be Athletics to hopefully give some more safety against grapples.)

But of course the main boon of reaching level 10 in Bard is the Magical Secrets! ...I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you again: there honestly aren’t any spells in particular I want as Magical Secrets. Sure I could recommend spells like Haste or whatever but are they really going to be that great by total level 20? To be honest even the spells on the Bard list like Animate Objects, Greater Restoration, Hold Monster, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Scrying, and Synaptic Static are very good (although I’d sooner replace some of your old spells with them.)

Again I know this is supposed to be a “guide” but most people won’t hit level 19 anyways, so I don’t think it’s that bad for me to recommend you take your own steps to make your own Sona. Hell, build some AP if you want! I know I would!

LEVEL 20 - BARD 11

Our final level is the 11th level of Bard and I’ll be honest: it’s just to add Otto's Irresistible Dance to your spell list. It can only affect one person but it’s still your ultimate by total level 20.

Oh and you were supposed to get a cantrip last level. Uhhhhh I dunno take Mending lol.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

The rhythm connects us all - You have dozens of spells to keep your team alive and active during a fight, not to mention that all your Paladin auras and abilities really help them give 110%. It’s worth mentioning that Gift of Alacrity combined with Aura of the Sentinel is a d8 + 6 to an Initiative roll, which will almost always guarantee that whoever you want to go first will be going first!

A true masterpiece should celebrate living - Despite your somewhat weird level split you maxed out the only stat which matters for you: Charisma. And woah holy shit turns out Paladins are really good with maxed out Charisma! +5 to all saves means even your lowest save is a +4, and the saves your proficient in vary between +13 for Dexterity and Constitution (both very common!) and a whopping +16 save on Charisma!

Curtains up; I'm ready - Jack of All Trades also does quite nicely to help your middling skills. Even though I dumped most of your mental skills you’re still proficient enough that you won’t be completely helpless when caught off guard. And when you’re in the zone with Persuasion or Performance you are easily the best girl around!

CONS

Don't make me get off stage - It was my intention to recreate Sona’s positional gameplay with this build but it does present some gameplay issues when trying to maximize your effectiveness. Where do you position yourself as a character who’s still primarily a squishy caster despite your good saving throws and AC? Can you give everyone in your party support, or are they too spread out to get value out of your 10 foot range auras?

Quiet, please! - You have a damn good concentration check, but what do you concentrate on? Not only do you have a ton of spells but they all scale very good with levels and you have spell slots that go far higher than your maximum level spell. It can be hard to choose what to do with those 7th and 8th level slots.

The world is cruel... Until that changes, I'll never stop playing - One of many “meta” problems with this build was my choice to focus almost entirely on support. Sure Toll the Dead is a great damaging cantrip but your only two damaging spells are Moonbeam and Dissonant Whispers. Again: you don’t have to follow my build point-for-point and while you’ll be flamed in League for building Sona full AP I don’t think your friends will mind if you take some damaging spells.

But if you can’t tell it was really hard for me to come up with those downsides. With the exception of the positional requirements a Bardadin is a very strong build and Sona is a very strong support. Boost your teammates with your own amazing power and make sure everyone’s alive and jamming! Your power may have been forgotten over the years but no one’s ever upset to have a great support at their side. And remember: Seraphine may be in K/DA but you’re in Pentakill, and you have your own label! No one can replace DJ Sona!

[silverhammersims]

Hello! And goodbye :(

Heya folks! This has been a long time coming and has probably been pretty obvious, but I’m making it official. I don’t see myself coming back to creating any time soon.

I got into CC creating and really intensely playing the Sims at a point in my life when I was so depressed I didn’t get out of bed most days. I was skipping all my college classes and didn’t see any sort of future for myself. I ended up taking a leave of absence from my dream school and living at home for a year to heal and work on getting better. After a year, I was able to go back and attempt to finish out my final year and graduate... then COVID hit. I graduated virtually, applied to grad school, didn’t get in, got a middle school teaching assistant job, changed my mind about what I wanted to do, and am going to go for a second bachelors soon (I can transfer gen ed credit from my first degree, so it should only take a year or two) and then a master’s, hopefully in social studies teaching and students with disabilities.

Basically, my life is drastically different than it was when I started creating, and I don’t even really play the Sims any more-- it’s so associated with a time in my life where I was so absolutely miserable that I didn’t realize how bad it was until I pulled out of it that I can’t play it without starting to feel that way again. And that makes me really really sad, because this game, this hobby, this community was almost the only thing giving me any sort of purpose and connection to others. But I just can’t.

This absolutely breaks my heart, which is why I’ve been on “temporary hiatus” for almost a year and a half, but I don’t want to leave you guys hanging. I won’t be updating any old cc or uploading any new cc in the foreseeable future. Of course, please feel free to take my cc and mods, play with them, update them, edit them, modify them, reupload them if the links are broken, whatever. If it’s still recognizable as mine, please credit me, but otherwise, go ham. If you have a question about something like how I did a certain thing or whether you can edit it, please DM me instead of sending an ask-- I’ll see it much more quickly. If you have a question about whether or when I will update something, the answer is no and never. If I do ever come back to CC, it will be by making brand new stuff.

[kira-quartz]

My Sims Yu-Niverse: The Wheelers

Previous: Yugi | Next: Ryo and Tristan

From now on, I’ll be posting a few Sims at a time, because otherwise I’ll be doing this for 5 years, 😅.

Joey and Serenity live together in San Myshuno. Joey has his hands full right now, juggling three part-time jobs and history courses at Foxbury as well as competing in “tournaments” (read: playing cards against randoms and hoping I keep track of his moodlets to see if he’s winning). He’s been casually dating a townie named Mapuana Parata, but sometimes he can’t help but wonder where Mai is. (Little does he know- *sandwich to the head*) His aspiration is Master Chef (note to self: download more aspirations or learn to make my own), and his traits are Active, Outgoing, Glutton and Restless (by Kuttoe).

I think his Battle City outfit was the easiest to recreate without making any CC myself. All I did was recolour his hair (look at the floof. LOOK AT IT) and combine most of the skin details I used into two overlays. 

Serenity is just about to graduate from high school, and plans to study biology at Foxbury. She recently had her first kiss with her friend Ayaka Uchiyama. Her aspiration is Musical Genius, and her traits are Cheerful, Loves Outdoors and Gentle (from @chingyu1023vick’s 100 Traits Pack).

I’m looking forward to experimenting with her clothing style during her university years. I’ve downloaded at least a game pack’s worth of clothes for that specific purpose, XD.

Next up: Ryo and Tristan, because Protectshipping. 🥰

[xiuxxvisims]

so your PTs are missing from your sims’ family trees? how to fix with simPE!

DISCLAIMER: i figured this out myself messing around with simPE and i’ve only been playing around with this programme for a few months so i’m not fantastic with it... but this is how i fixed my PTs and alien sims when i accidentally opened my hood with no cc.and therefore no multiPT mod... 

first. backup your hood!! back ! that! shit ! up!!!! we will call this backup 1. i backup my hood by right clicking and selecting the winrar option ‘add to N006.rar′ and rename to the date usually but this time. fixPTtutorial. no excuses for not backing up! 

now that you’ve backed up let’s get into it!

things you need: sims 2 (duh), hood checker, simPE, a bit of patience!

!! you need to run hood checker first and allow it to delete the broken family ties otherwise simPE will get an error when you try to open your alien sims’ family ties !!

when i broke my PTs i ‘fixed’ it in a way where i just removed the borked relationship using hood checker and then manually removed a broken memory from the two sims who had been abducted.. they basically had a memory like ‘met unknown sim’ and it kept showing up in hood checker like ‘sim does not exist’ but hood checker couldn’t/wouldn’t delete it. so probably do that first.. it should be somewhere close to the abduction memory. just open the sim’s description, select more>open memories, and slowly scroll through until you find the broken memory and remove it. commit the change.

my original process for this was a little more fiddly because i didn’t know of this trick pointed out to me by curiousb and found by mootilda here that makes it so simPE should show the multiPT’s names and portraits. if you follow this then you can skip to ‘part 2′ 

Part 0

find your multiPT files in your downloads and COPY them (not move) from downloads into your hood’s ‘characters’ folder. for me that’s sims 2>N006>Characters. this will make it so that simPE can show the names of the PTs and if portraits are generated it can also display portraits

look at my guys all hanging out.. you do want to leave them in the downloads folder so that they’ll be added as PTs to any new hoods created but you’ll also have to copy and paste them into all your hoods’ characters folders if you want to see their info in simPE... now you can skip forward to Part 2 because you don’t need to do the step where you identify each PT (unless their portraits don’t show in simPE) it could still be beneficial to read through Part 1 because i don’t go into as much detail in Part 2 on how to add the family ties but you won’t have to do the STEPS in Part 1

Part 1

the multiPT mod PTs are listed in simPE as ‘unknown’ which makes it hard to figure out which is which. for me apollo (born after the cc-less game disaster) had the same PT as ujin and arina so i could easily just add them to this PT’s family tree. for my other alien sim i just guessed and added her to a random PT because i don’t even remember who her PT is lmao.

if you don’t have any sims born since the family tree break/you don’t want to just add them to random PTs like i did with eunji you’re gonna have to do a trial run. (please backup your hood before u start, ive already warned u!!!!) by simply adding one sim to each of the PT’s family trees, opening your game and checking the family tree to see the portrait and noting down which PT you linked to which sim. this will probably be quicker if the test sims are all from the same household. i also think it is best to choose non alien sims as test sims just so they can stay on the family tree until you’re fully finished fixing your aliens!

NOW adding a family tie is relatively simple. open the PT’s family ties. from the dropdown menu at the top make sure its set to ‘[all households]’ and scroll down until you find the party of unknowns hanging out with toddler new year (if they’re located in the same place as mine...)

next locate your test sims on the left (i think this will be easier if you DONT use your aliens because that way when you’re adding the correct family ties you won’t have to remove the test sims until you’re sure you’ve got all the right PTs) right click on them and click on ‘add [sims name]’ (my simPE cuts this pop up off but i assume the end is like to family or something..) the default relationship will be sibling

for the sake of the test sims it doesn’t really matter what the relationship is set to because we just want them to show up on the family tree. hit commit in the bottom right and repeat for all your PTs (i’m just doing 3 here because my other PTs already have their family ties fixed.) commit any changes and close simPE make sure you save the hood before you close/as you close

!! now backup your hood AGAIN (this is backup 2) !! with the PT family ties edited but don’t replace backup 1. this secondary backup is just so you can safely open your game with no cc so it’ll load quicker. we’ll be restoring this backup immediately after we check the family trees in game.

you can now remove most of your cc from your downloads but make sure your multiPT mods are still in there! all of them! i have a few folders i always leave in my downloads and my multiPT mod is in one of these. i learnt my lesson! they might look something like this:

launch your game and see how quickly it loads w/ no cc and wonder why you subject yourself to a 45 minute load time when things could be so much quicker... and now we can see which PT is which! and also that hilariously one of my PTs is called ‘Pollination Last Name’ lmao??? and we can laugh at how silly my sims look without cc. ALSO i was confused why there were 5 ‘unknown’ sims in my hood but the unknown sim i added to frankie’s family tree didn’t show anything in game so i’m still non the wiser for what that unknown file is (also it’s gone from the family ties menu now and crashes frankie’s family tree so i’m ASSUMING it’s a remote control car cc that i’ve since deleted.. luckily i backed up my game so it doesn’t matter). but moving on

!! RESTORE back up 2 !! so the cc-less hell you just created is gone but you still have the family ties we just created

Part 2

open simPE and you can start adding your actual alien sims to the right PT’s family tree the same way you added the test sims. (select the PTs family ties, locate the alien sim on the left, right click and add to family tree) but this time choosing child ! this will add PT as the alien sim’s Parent B.. which since i don’t have any alien sims that need fixing right now just gives my test sims two parent bs

once you’ve added all your alien sims to the correct family trees you can remove the test sims. you’ll need to do this on both the PT’s family tree AND the test sim’s family tree to properly remove the relationship! 

commit all changes and save your hood! the last step is just a little bit of garnish if u like. i don’t think it’s necessary and what we’ve done up until now should fix the family tree with no issues. so this can be Optional.

Part 3

when an alien sim is born the game by default sets the PT to ‘know’ the parent sim and has the child sim set to ‘family’ like this (ALSO when i was looking at an old backup of my hood before i borked my PTs.. the PTs get memories of their child too like my PT had a memory of ujin being an over achiever in school......... it’s so sweet...... i’m not fixing that shit tho i don’t have the patience) 

to do this correctly for each PT select their family ties so you can see which parents and children you need to add relation to. then right click on the PT on the left and choose ‘open sim description’ i assume it’s description,, again,, simPE is cutting off this menu

choose ‘relations’ select the family of the sims you want to add and make sure ‘not related’ is ticked to have the sims show up. for this test we need to add saeed as ‘known’ since he’s the parent and georgia as ‘family’ since she’s the child

this is super easy! just right click on the sim and choose ‘add relation to’ 

the default relation settings need to be changed however. for the child i had to change spouses to parent. untick known and only tick family on both boxes and change not defined to child. i’m not sure why it said spouses.. idk if i accidentally changed that from the default before i took the screenshot or if simPE was just weird because they have family ties...

for the parent the default settings should be absolutely fine 

when you’ve finished this for one PT go back to the family ties, locate the next PT and open their sim description by right clicking and selecting ‘open sim description’. it’s a bit of a convoluted way to open the sim description but it’s the only way i’ve found to ensure you’re opening the CORRECT PT’s sim description. 

commit your changes and save! close simPE and your PT and alien childrens’ family ties should be fixed! if all goes to shit for whatever reason restore backup 1 and start again...

as i said at the start i’m new to using simPE but if you have any questions about this i will try my best to help! so don’t hesitate to ask. i hope this is helpful and you can fix your family trees with confidence!