Now I don’t hardly know her

I wish she’d come walking over. Now I’ve been waiting to show her, crimson and clover, over and over.

Hybel 8th, 1513 – Merchant District, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Sims2EP9-2014-05-04-11-19-38-12

Tawny twisted her hands around each other, her teeth cruelly locked around her bottom lip. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. All she was doing was meeting a friend of Annette’s who taught piano lessons. That was all. Maybe it was the fact that Miguel was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of her taking the lessons in the first place. But for Wright’s sake, she was a sim. She needed something to do other than think of new and different ways to seduce her drunken husband!

Continue reading

House of the Rising Sun

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy and God I know I’m one…

Hybel 6th, 1513 – Finessa Estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

track-27_002

The window Charlie was looking out rattled, as probably every window in the entire estate as a door slammed above.

“What d’you think that’s about?” Sev asked from the place where he lounged on his bed, a book propped up on his stomach, wrinkling the silk of his waistcoat. Charlie tipped his head to the side and shrugged. Leo was home and he’d just gotten back from the FitzChivalry estate. It could be anything. Vivi was a powder keg whenever their brother was around. He’d suspected that something was–wrong–between Leo and Vivi probably before Vivi and Leo suspected that something was wrong between them.

Continue reading

This Diamond Ring

This diamond ring can mean something beautiful. And this diamond ring can mean dreams that are coming true. And then your heart won’t have to break like mine did

Hybel 6th, 1513 – Fitz-Chivalry estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

track-26-v2_004

The summer sunlight streaming in the windows hit Caroline’s tinted hair, exaggerating the brassiness of the tinting and highlighting the sallow color of her face over the mourning dress that Katherine insisted she wear. The forced laughter didn’t help any. If he lived to be ninety, Brandon would never understand why Katherine insisted that Caroline and Leo be chaperoned. All they ever did was sit and have awkward discussions until one of them lost their tempers. Then one of them would stalk off and sulk and the other would go home.

Continue reading

Stand Still, Look Pretty

I’m not strong enough to deal with it. I am slowly falling apart. I wish you’d take a walk in my shoes for a start. And you might think it’s easy being me. You just stand still, look pretty.

Hybel 4th, 1513 – Carico Estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire Albion

Sims2EP9-2014-01-11-19-38-51-37

The words on the page in front of him were wavering for the third time, Josh closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The problem he’d found with choosing poetry as the subject he was being “tutored” in was that for so many years poetry had been his refuge from the craziness that came with being a Carico. But now every time he sat down to read one of those volumes, all he could hear was Darin’s deep voice, practically see him sitting in that chair by his desk, that half a smile on his lips. And that was just another bit of craziness that truthfully Josh didn’t need.

Continue reading

Site stuff and a wee bit of RL intruding.

So, I’m sure that Van will tell me that I don’t need to explain myself, she usually does, but I sort of have a compulsive thing about explaining myself whenever my routine is disrupted, so even if I don’t have to, I figure it’s better to anyway.

1. I am in the process of a site redesign. I know I said that I was going to do that way back when but my focus has been on the story. Then it got to be the new year and the orange has just finally snapped me. I’ve got to get this site design done. I even have an idea, but it’s not coming as easily as I had hoped. I like wordpress for updating, not so sure how much I like it for working on site design. And also my pictures all suck. Or at least I’m not happy enough with any of them to spend the next four to six months seeing it every time I log onto my site.

So if you should happen to log on and the whole thing is neon colored with copious amounts of comic sans, either I’m trying to get something to line up or I’ve finally snapped and you should call the nice young men in their clean white coats… You know, one or the other.

2. Some character design issues. I had made Josh and Reggie both LBB, and I’m regretting that. It is how I see them. But I don’t work the right way to use bodyshapes. It is an added complication that I just don’t want to fight with right now, so I’ll be reverting them to Maxis size from here forward. Also, on Reggie… One of the problems I have had with Reggie is I could always see him very clearly in my head as a story character, but I su~uck at trying to sculpt anything other than very Caucasian features in bodyshop, and I’m not a whole lot better with choosing CC that will get me other ethnicities either.

I am a perfectionist, anyone who has ever talked to me for more than five minutes can tell you that I am a perfectionist to the point of basically being OCD about it. And nothing nags me more than saying something is “good enough”. With Reggie, he has very distinctive features in my head and they are not something I am good at translating to the screen. (Honestly if you want to know what Reggie looks like outside of my Sims sculpting talent, think Michael B Jordan in ten or fifteen years with a dash of Idris Elba in his build, coloring, and smile. Maybe a smidge of Ving Rhames too, but that’s more in presence. With long dark curls.) If you’re familiar with the actors named above or you just followed the links, you can probably tell why I am so not happy with his sculpt.

I think that he will probably be tweaked as far as CC, facial sculpt, and what not several times yet, but he’s due for another tweak now as I’ll be swapping his skintone over to one that isn’t LBB linked anyway. It is so much easier with characters who I don’t have such a clear idea of what they look like. Whatever is close enough.

Also I would like to do a small amount of tweaking, mostly just in CC to Charlie and Severus as I’m not really happy with either of their current hairstyles and might try a little different face shaping type cosmetics.

3. Real Life. Why oh why does there have to be “real life”? This has been a pretty difficult weekend for me. I’ve spent way too much time in my own head and it was a pretty shitty weekend to begin with. My parents got divorced nineteen years ago yesterday and my grandfather passed a year ago Sunday.

I haven’t had anyone around to talk to really, my F-list has been very, very bare, nobody’s logged on for days, really. Plus some other stuff that I’d rather not get into. So pile depressing times onto general depression onto no one to talk to but myself and it’s no wonder I’m climbing the walls.

4. It ain’t all bad. I have a bunch of STUFF that has accumulated on my harddrive that I’m going to try to get pictures of and get uploaded. (Some that only helps people who play a Georgian/Regency game or at least a mixed one, some that would work for most period games. Even a tiny bit of stuff that’s Medieval in nature.) A ton of male dressing gowns, some female dressing gowns, the updated version of the bra I did for my underwear defaults. A couple of corsets. A ton of Georgian suits. Also a ton of Regency suits. Recolors of my SS gifts to Winter (’12) and Heimskur (’13) in my Disney palette. A bunch of AAS party gowns I recolored to black for the funeral. Also, once upon a time, I redid the men’s tunics that I did for my first SS gift (to Ann) with shading what makes sense with the necklines on the tunics. I want to get those recolored. I think about them every time I see those tunics in Van or Winter’s games. Not sure what all to recolor them in (Albion? Disney? Winter’s or Van’s colors? Color actions? Would so take suggestions) and then I need to sling them onto the meshes and import them for CM-AM.

Also, I have a whole resource folder just lounging on my back-up drive full of shading overlays, fur trim, ribbon, boots, that I’ve been meaning to get put up, but I keep thinking that I would like to do a couple of tutorials to go with them. Plus I have no concept of time beyond ‘it’s time to sleep’. And I have a tutorial half done on making shading overlays/color action ready things from other people’s textures. Plus another half a tutorial on putting wear on an outfit.

Although, truth to tell, I would kind of like my own space for some this stuff, not that the Keep isn’t awesome, it is, but I end up feeling a lot like other people’s rules matter more than my own. Like my previews should be done X way. Like my content ought to follow X person’s rules. I know that’s not true, but I feel it and as long as I feel that way, I’m prone to putting it off as long as possible.

5. In closing. I hope to get time, inspiration, whatever all I need to get a lot of this stuff done soon, but updates might be a tad sporadic as my inspiration is easily effected by my mood. (The more depressed I am, the more I stress over the flashing of the cursor.) Although I am hoping not too much because I’m starting to get ahead again on my shooting.

Thanks for reading.

~Andavri

Good Lives Are Gold

Promise that forever we will never get better at growing up and learning to lie I’m on my way back home now. Good lives are gold, like the oldest story. Will mine be told while I’m still young and horney? I know my role is to be a confusion. Set the clock back when I’m growing old

Hybel 2nd, 1513 – Finessa Estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Sims2EP9-2014-01-08-00-25-41-17

Knowing it would be all too brief, but enjoying it all the more for the brevity, Firenze Finessa, known to most as “Squeak” pulled his wife a little closer to his side. It was a bright, sunny summer day, his younger three children were here, and they were expecting company in the form of old friends who’d be staying for a few days. If he thought about it that way he could almost forget all of the stress that came with why their company was coming, of what was happening here.

Continue reading

Tougher Than The Rest

The road is dark and it’s a thin thin line. But I want you to know I’ll walk it for you any time. Maybe your other boyfriends couldn’t pass the test…

Trigger Warning! So as not to be all spoilery, there is character death and other stuffs in this post. Proceed with caution.

Ververe 29th, 1513 – Riding grounds, outside River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Sims2EP9-2013-12-31-17-11-44-02

It seemed strangely quiet this morning. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had been riding all by herself. As it was officially Hybel break as of yesterday afternoon–despite it not yet being Hybel–there were no lessons, including riding lessons. Then Vivi had something that she was doing with her father and brothers, Elizabet had known that for a good couple of weeks. Then this morning her father told her that the FitzChivalries had sent over a servant, Marianne had sent her regrets but she wasn’t going to make it either. Still, Elizabet would be damned if she was going to spend the first day of her break sitting around the estate doing nothing.

Continue reading

Don’t Take the Girl

A little girl came through the front gate holdin’ a fishing pole. His dad looked down and smiled, said we can’t leave her behind. Son I know you don’t want her to go but someday you’ll change your mind.

Ververe 29th, 1513 – Outskirts of River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Eric stood up as he heard the unfamiliar clatter of horse hooves stopping outside. He was used to hearing them continue on down the street toward Sara-Beth’s by now, but he wasn’t used to hearing the sound of a horse being tied up to his post box. His mouth was a little dry. Johnny might have been a bit more troublesome at home, but Anna-Marie was all spit and spark like her mother without her mother’s natural sense of when to cut it back.

Sims2EP9-2013-12-29-19-33-18-24

Continue reading

Found Out About You

Whispers at the bus stop, I heard about nights out in the school yard. I found out about you. Rumors follow everywhere you go

Seryl 23rd, 1513 – Dead Man’s Alley, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Sims2EP9-2013-12-17-18-00-36-37

A much younger Reggie would have thought by the time that he was this age, this level of success, he would have been finished having to drink in disreputable taverns in bad parts of town. That Reggie had thought that when you got old enough and successful enough, you could pay people to do it for you. And he could’ve, but if he wanted it done right, he’d have to do it himself.

Continue reading

Break Down Here

I’d sure hate to break down here, nothing up ahead or in the rear view mirror. Out in the middle of nowhere knowing, I’m in trouble if these wheels stop rolling. God help me keep me moving somehow. Don’t let me start wishing I was with him now. I’ve made it this far without crying a single tear I’d sure hate to break down here.

Seryl 14th, 1513 – Carico Estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

The new maid, Mrs. Hearst’s niece, ducked her head and looked to the side, she was taller than Elizabet–who wasn’t?–but between the ducked head and the hunched shoulders and slouched posture she didn’t seem it. “No, m’lady. I haven’t seen Lord Joshua.” Her tone was deferential and–almost scared. Like I’d blame her for the fact that I seem to have misplaced my brother. Maybe Fern thought that Elizabet would. She didn’t think her father was that unreasonable and he was by far the most unreasonable person in the entire household from pot boy straight on up.

Sims2EP9-2013-12-14-19-51-13-90

“That’s just like brothers. They’re always around when you don’t want them and not around when you do.” She shook her head. Fern raised her head slightly, a small smile poking at the corner of her lips. “You have brothers, right? Isn’t that just like them?”

Continue reading