Nov 23, 2014

Dissappointed

I have nothing more to say of the Mare's latest post regarding their opinion on transgender issues than that I am extremely disappointed that such an influential blog is pushing such a harmful message. I am unsurprised that they removed my blog's link from their sidebar. To be honest, I was expecting it, and I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

I'm not going to try and fight them on this, or rebutt their post. They appear to be very set in their ways, and they aren't worth the effort. I have better things to spend my time and energy on.

Since I have better things to spend my time on, I will no longer be giving any time to their blog. This will be my last post on the issue.

EDIT: I stand corrected, the Mare's have simply moved my blog down on their sidebar. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Nov 20, 2014

OMG - The Baby's KICKING!

This is the second time I've spotted some stupid 'virtual life' website advertising on Facebook using a Sims screenshot. The first time was Sims 3. Now they're using Sims 4, too.

Well. Not much more to say about that I guess.

Nov 17, 2014

HOLY SAVED GAMES BATMAN

SAVING THE FILE UNDER A NEW NAME WORKS

I'M BACK IN BUSINESS BITCHES

Four Months ??????

Well, it has somehow been four fucking months since the last time I posted on here. I've had the new post page in my pinned tabs since early September.

As you can probably guess, a shit ton of stuff's gone down since I last posted here. I'll go over some key highlights, but before I get into real world stuff, let's talk Sims.

I am all read up on Sims 4 and the fucking disaster that ensued post-release. I can't see myself ever buying that mess of a game. EA trying to win people back by adding features back via game patch is very sad to watch. This game is a train wreck. I'm not very optimistic about the first expansion pack picking up the slack. They fucked up so badly, I don't think anything can save them now.

As for Sims 3, I haven't played it since July for three main reasons. The first reason that's less of a reason not to play and more of a peeve is that, for whatever reason, the blurry texture glitch has returned to my game. The second reason is that with school starting up, I hardly have the amount of time required to really get into a game. The third reason, and the most spectacularly angering one, is that two of my favourite game files, the two files that I put the most time and effort into, will not save. I have deduced that the save process is getting stuck on deleting the old file before the creation of the new one. If I force my game to close while it's still trying to save, when I reopen the file, it resumes at the last time it successfully saved. My game is totally up to date, which is unfortunate, because I can't just try a new patch to see if that fixes it because EA's stopped patching Sims 3. I'm going to go back in today and try saving it under a new name as a new file to see if that old file deletion is the only process it's getting stuck on. It'll be annoying to constantly have to save my games under new file names every time, but it'll be a damn sight better than not being able to save at all.

And now, back to reality. That'll be under the cut for anyone who wants to read.

Jul 18, 2014

The Sims 4 Create-A-Sim Demo

Today I installed the Sims 4 CAS demo and played around with it a little. Here are my thoughts.

The interface was a little confusing at first. I had trouble navigating because there are no clear instructions, directions or hints at how to access the different menus for the body and head options. It's a little fussy to figure out which things on the head you can change in Detail Edit Mode and which are changeable in regular viewing. I did figure my way around after a couple of minutes though.

The hairs may look like stupid fucking lego hairs, but at least there's some variety. I'm impressed with the amount of wavy and curly hairs, something that was definitely neglected in Sims 3.

The makeup selection is okay. The blush comes off too strong with the limited colour selection and the lack of opacity slider. Otherwise, eye liners and shadows are good. The lipsticks are basic and there's just enough shine, nothing too strong like the default glossy lipstick in Sims 3. I'd like to see more makeup for dudes. There's some selection of eye liner and eye shadow, but no blush or lipstick at all.

There are a lot of eyebrows and they all look really good. Yeah.

I like the fact that there's a sizeable selection of premade facial features. They all look good, too; nothing has incredibly sharp corners in places there shouldn't be, or strange mushy shapes that don't look human at all. The premade body types are also very well done. There are a variety of body types to pick from as bases, though with a system so customizable I think there should be more bodies, at least as many as there are premade facial features.

As for the new click-and-drag CAS features, I already mentioned the fuss with the Detail Edit Mode. Otherwise, I really enjoy it, to a certain extent. While having to fiddle with a bunch of sliders fucking sucked, I feel like it was a little easier to fine-tune things that way. The click-and-drag system can be very finicky sometimes when it comes to finding the right area to click and dragging around in the right direction. I really enjoyed the new ways to customize the body, though. It's a very basic division of what can be changed, but it's a new system, what can you do.

The clothing selection is alright. Having to use premade colours fucking sucks, but what else is new. All of the clothes seem to mesh well with every body type, which is definitely a plus.

The filter feature is a good way to cut down on clutter. It's really handy for finding what you want. It's definitely a good addition to the game.

I'm not impressed with the new trait system. It's a piece of shit. Also, "Bro" is a trait? Really, EA? That's just fucking sad.

The walking styles are an interesting new feature but they're just a stupid gimmick. EA wasted so much time on this crap and it pisses me off.

The new voice system is cool. I like how you can change the intonation of your sim's voice without any of them sounding flat out stupid. The differences are subtle, but they're there. I like it.

The Gallery is a nice feature for saving your creations. You cannot save single sims, only households. You can share and download if you please, but I won't be uploading or downloading anything into my game.

All in all, I'm not sure what to say. There are some parts of it that I very strongly like, but there are other parts that are utter trash. I've got to give this one a 6/10. I liked it, but it didn't live up to expectations for me. I was really excited for the new CAS click-and-drag features (they were the only thing I was looking forward to in Sims 4), but they didn't quite perform.

Despite my iffy review, I will definitely be playing the shit out of this. Since you can save your households, this is all I'm going to need. Fuck the game, I'm just going to create a million little simmies.

I will command an army of plastic Barbie doll lego-haired Sims and we will rule the earth!
~BookyGirl17~

P.S. If you want a look at the sim I created, Marina Crash, read below the cut.


Jul 17, 2014

Summer Fun Part 2

Part 1 consists of all my saved game pics from mid-May to current day (which isn't as many as it sounds) and other simming things. Part 2 consists of my real life summer shenanigans.

Wow, okay. So a lot has happened since I last posted about the real world on here.

The biggest thing would be the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation. I finished my grade eleven year. I have survived! My first full year at my new school went amazingly well. I'm actually excited to be returning in September, which is definitely a pleasant feeling. I'm really hoping September doesn't come too soon, though, seeing as I still haven't started really digging into college and university programs yet, since I'll need to start applying in fall (eek).

After that, my ease into summer was a whirlwind. I attended a Pride celebration on June 21st, which was a total blast. I met some awesome people and it was so amazing to see so many queer people in one place! Same goes for the next event, Toronto Pride Prom. Rose asked me to the dance in the cutest way possible. It was on June 23rd. I was incredibly anxious for the first hour or so, but after I loosened up I talked and danced with Rose and others and had a blast. The 25th I went to an event that was part of the Bent Lens Pride celebrations at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. The event was In Conversation With... Laverne Cox. I am a HUGE fan of the Netflix show Orange is the New Black where Laverne Cox plays a transgender inmate, and Laverne Cox's trans activism is so spectacularly amazing. She's a goddess, I swear. The whole experience was out of this world. She just fucking went to town. It was beautiful.

The weekend of June 27th - 29th, I went to a camp with my Rangers group. It was a tent camping trip, a co-ed with Scouts on a Scouting camp site. It was real tent camping, not like that Girl Guides shit. Empowering young girls? Fuck, Guide camps are such baby shit. I had no idea. Scout camps are actual camping. We had no electricity or indoor plumbing. We had to share an outhouse for the weekend. It wasn't that bad actually, but it still really sucked. One of the girls in my group brought a fucking hair straightener to camp. She seriously fucking did. It became a running joke through the weekend. We're never going to let her live that down. Our tents were also fucked up. They're the area's tents, so all of the Guiding groups in my town use them. Whatever group had them last fucking fucked them up. One of them had some fucked up busted-ass zippers, there were no pegs (used to pin the tent to the ground), and one of them was missing the fucking fly (the thing that goes over the tent to protect it from rain)! We ended up having to tie a tarp over it using some surrounding trees.

My latest weeks have been occupied with my summer job. I don't believe I've ever mentioned my co-op here, but I did a co-op during second semester (a co-op is a co-operative education course where you are given a workplace placement and you attend that work placement instead of attending classes for that period of time [2-credit co-op takes two class periods, 3-credit is three, 4-credit is all four of your class periods aka your whole day] and you must complete a certain number of hours to gain your credits [2-credit = 200, 3-credit = 300, 4-credit = 400). I was placed at a children's art studio helping with their after school group an doing some special work with their kids on the autism spectrum. This has lead into a summer job helping at their summer camp. The kids are all super sweet and my supervisor and co-workers are all really great. I adore this job! It's going to lead into a part-time job in September teaching art classes in the studio.

Otherwise, I've been using off-days to play Sims and hang out with Rose. That's been my summer so far!


Have a lovely summer!
~BookyGirl17~


That's all my real world stuff. To read about my simming adventures, click here.

Jul 16, 2014

Summer Fun Part 1

Part 1 consists of all of my saved game pics from mid-May to current day (which isn't as many as it sounds) and other simming things. Part 2 consists of my real life summer shenanigans.

PREFACE: My sincerest apologies to Iona and the rest on the LIFE modelling competition forum. I'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth like that. During that time I was overwhelmingly anxious about the end of the school year and was unable to submit the first assignment.

My summer vacation started roughly three weeks ago, and boy has it been a hell of a ride so far. I won't get into real life stuff here though. This is my Sims post. Let's hop right in.

I spend a good part of my time playing Sims. I finally purchased University Life and Seasons on sale, so I am now totally happy with the state of my game's expansion packs. As I play around more with University, the campus is getting pretty fucking boring, but I really enjoy the other features, objects and CAS items the game added, so it's totally worth it. Seasons is glorious. I love having seasons in my game. The festivals are kind of blah though, I rarely visit them.

I've worked a family up to the introduction of the third generation, but now the fucking game file's glitch and it won't save any more. I have no idea what fucked it up, but I'm so fucking frustrated. The same file also hit a glitch where I couldn't click for my sims to fucking walk anywhere, and I saved, quit, and reopened my game and the problem was fixed. There's also this random glitch where I can't click and drag an item from my sim's pocket to place it in the environment. So this file's fucked up, but I am so goddamn attached to this family, it is incredibly frustrating that I am now unable to save.

I have almost made it to the same point in a second files as well, and that file has not seen many glitches, if any at all. This was the first file I created after installing University and Seasons so both of the founders, Vanessa and Rayyan Ahmed, have university degrees. Vanessa has a Communications degree and Rayyan has a Science & Medicine degreee.

Before I get into the pictures, one more thing: Today I received an email from Origin informing me that I have been selected to access the free TS4 CAS trial. I will be posting about that as soon as I try it out.

Pictures below the cut!


Jun 7, 2014

Summer 2014 Simself

I don't think I updated here last time I made a new simself, did I? Well, either way, here is my summer 2014 simself.

I'm really excited because I got this haircut two weeks ago and I was able to find CC that's exactly it (although it's parted on the wrong side, but whatever).

Everyday


Formal



Sleep



Athletic



Swim


Tada! So that is my updated simself. I have some more pictures in the queue from actual gameplay, so stay tuned for that!

May 23, 2014

LIFE Cycle 1: New Model Shots

I wasn't feeling it with my old model, so I decided to switch it up. Look familiar? It's Marian Carter!


See the rest at the official forum!

May 18, 2014

New Blog Theme

I have FINALLY updated by blog theme from that wretched Homestuck theme. This is a Sims blog, why the hell would I give it a Homestuck theme? 14-year-old me had some strange ideas.

The new theme is a pastel pop and I really like it. I have unfortunately had to remove my little fish tank from the top of my blog because it has come to my attention that it has stopped working. I've also removed all of the outdated pictures from the sidebar. I plan on finding some newer pictures to put there some time soon just to spice things up a little bit.

So that's what's up with the new blog theme. Feedback? Yes or no? Is it a little too blinding?

More Clarification: Gender Neutral Bathrooms

Ten days late, I know, but I really cannot let this go because the shit that's being spewed is incredibly problematic.

In response to Even More Discussion Of Toilet Pan Sexualism (Because We've Nothing To Loos):

How was I supposed to know that your point was about disability washrooms when you never mentioned them in your post? I 'misunderstood' your intention because you clearly stated "...once the inevitable abuse cases start hitting the courts, everyone will start screaming for separate bathrooms once again..." This heavily implies that you were stating that gender neutral bathrooms would eliminate gendered bathrooms.

I agree, the bastardization of disability washrooms for the sake of gender neutrality is wrong and unjust, but that does not mean separate gender neutral bathrooms should not exist.

I stand corrected on the bullying of allies, I was too blinded by my anger to look past my own backyard while I was writing that post. That being said, I still believe my original point still stands: Day of Silence is not for allies.

This article quote only serves to further my point. These students experience harassment because of their gender identity and expression. Having a safe space - a gender neutral washroom - would help these students feel safer and more comfortable. That is the purpose of the gender neutral washroom; it is a washroom for the safety and comfortability of those whose safety is compromised in the washroom of their assigned gender. These washroom are not for the sake of, as you say, "political correctness". These washrooms are to keep people safe.

May 7, 2014

Adventures with the Carters

Do you remember in my last picture post, those two pictures of Marian and Roxy Carter? If you liked them, I've got good news for you! Here's a whole post full of Carter goodness.

I wasn't taking screenshots at the beginning, but the first one I took was because of this crazy coincidence. I happened to pause my game at just the right time that this fucking bird was flying right in front of my damn camera.

Then there was this. I was doing some CAST stuff and the bed glitched and started showing the fucking University Life logos and shit.

This is where the real screenshots start.






Remember how I was saying Marian was somehow friends with Odine Perry the Townie Vampire? I decided that they'd be great life partners, and got them into a relationship. Odine visited all of the time on her own without being invited over and shit was swell. Marian proposed and Odine gladly accepted. They aren't married yet, but I'll definitely be taking screenshots and keeping you posted.


Here we see our other budding romance, Roxy and Jupiter Belle. They were close friends as kids, so I decided why the hell not push 'em together? This was their first kiss. Look at Roxy's face in the second pic, that shit's so fucking adorable!

Their first kiss went down at Roxy's birthday party, shortly before her becoming a young adult.

Roxy and Jupiter after Roxy blew out the candles

Roxy starting to age up. As you can see, party guests were starting to get into it.

Here we have the party scene right before Roxy spun into a young adult. Let's analyze further, shall we?

On the far left, we have these assholes, Mr. Celebrity and that laughing prick.

Way in the back we have two guests who are very much enjoying the party and someone very angrily blowing their party horn.

On the far right we have Marian, Odine and some dick whose name I don't know. Marian does not seem happy to see her baby girl growing up. Odine seems overjoyed. That other dick is not-so-angrily blowing his party horn.

And, last but not least, we have Jupiter and Roxy. Jupiter looks like he's pretending to play smooth jazz really intensely.

The aftermath: Young Adult Roxy Carter. I forgot to take post-makeover shots, but you'll see her in full in later shots.


Marian's social meter got so low that she autonomously started talking to the Sawed Off Lightcaster in the bedroom. She's in her formal wear because the two of them had just gotten back from Roxy's graduation, which I was unfortunately not able to get any good shots of due to some stupid thought bubbles.

Roxy painting. Her lifetime wish is Illustrious Author, master both painting and writing skills. As of the end of my session, she's at painting level seven and writing level four.

Roxy's birthday was on a Saturday, so I gave her a little time and had her take the Sims University aptitude test on Monday morning. I didn't really want her to go to university, it's a waste of money for a self-employed painter since it gives no career boost, but I sent her anyway for the Lifetime Happiness points and the extra bucks you can earn on campus from day jobs.

I signed her up for one six-credit semester in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program.

Off she goes!


On her first night on campus, she went to a formal dress keg party and did a keg stand with some old guy. In her formal dress. I just thought there were some interesting physics going on there.

While on her way to her first class Monday morning, I got a notification that "A fire has started on your home lot." Turns out that this stupid arse set the dorm on fire trying to make waffles.

Another angle. I just thought this looked really pretty. It also makes it look like she's on fire.

Shortly after, this poor gal landed in the kitchen in her sleepwear.

One more person came in and freaked out, and then the fireperson finally got there and put that shit out.


These are some candid shots of Roxy at her first lecture on Tuesday. They speak to me on an emotional level.

Roxy at her Thursday class activity, sketching in her sketchbook with the rest of the Fine Arts students.

Saturday morning, this stupid arse set the dorm on fire trying to make waffles. Again.

This poor chap came downstairs and fainted.

Since it was Saturday and no one had classes, everyone was home for this one. Here's the rest of the dorm crew joining in for a roaring good time. Roxy, however, was out doing a day job, ushering for an event at the local theatre.

Another angle of this wonderful bunch of people.

And finally the fireperson arrived  on the scene and put that shit out. Again.

Saturday evening, leaving campus. She seems happy to get out of that flaming hellhole.

Arriving home. She's got this look on her face that I just love.

I'm not a model, I'm just casually posing. 

I feel like we need more shots of Marian, so I'll just end off with this one.

So goes the adventures of the Carter family. Mainly Roxy, but still. Marian doesn't have much going for her right now. She sculpts CONSTANTLY. I'm trying to earn her all of the skill achievements for sculpting. She's got the skill mastered, and has Chiselmeister (make at least 20 sculptures) and Prolific Sculptor (make at least 35 sculptures). I'm working with her on Master Sculptor right now (make at least five sculptures from each material) and then I'm going to bust Ice Personality (make at least 25 ice sculptures). Other than that, there's her wedding with Odine coming up. Yeah!

That's all for now! Catch you later, darlings.