A Trip Down Memory Lane & Fodder.

[kunoichikatie]

First cut is not sims related, rather tells the heart wrenching story of a young child struggling to make her career as a writer - or at least, it involves laughing at a young child's imagination. Second cut is some rambling about neighbourhood fodder in the sims 2.

A few days back I mentioned uncovering a story I wrote when I child (well half wrote, I never finished). It's 9.19 AM in the morning and I have nothing better to do as of yet (what's a job ? I dunno) I thought I'd do a bit of a "Show & LOL", in other words show off my primary school story. If you have to blame anyone for this (besides me of course) I suggest pointing the finger at David Eddings, my first true book love and the first "real" book I read. Apparently I believe that one page about this size was equal to one chapter. I was rather pleased to find my spelling wasn't as bad as I expected and when you got right down to it, I was pretty creative (yet cliche at the same time, talk about juxtaposition). Once in primary school, when studying Australian history (The gold rush, miners etc) I wrote that John Howard had killed them, how's that for imagination ?

Anyway here a few things that made me go "LOL WUT?" Things in [brackets] indicate words I've left out etc.

- “Emma was in her bedroom at the boarding school for orphanages. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen/dinning room, a small sitting room and a bathroom.” I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking, but I must have been under the impression that an orphanage was like a holiday hotel, this was suppose to be the living quarters she shared with her best friend and every single orphan lived in the same condition. Pretty sure that’s a small house, I dunno mate, just saying.

- “They were on the yellow orphan bus.” Yeah, not only do these orphans have epic living conditions, they also have a bus.

- “Nathan and Rob are the bullies. Meg and Britt the snobs. Jayne and Emma the nice ones. Tim and Brandon the athletic ones.” Apparently I hadn’t heard of the idea of “show your readers, don’t tell them”.

- “Another world, it’s being taken over by Demons! We need you to stop them!” “Of course!” answered Jayne, Brandon, Time & Emma. Not only are you all nice, athletic, spoilt little orphans. You all believe in demons and are willing to throw yourself at them for a lady you’ve never met who says about three sentences to you. Of course, the other characters are more 3D as I’m sure you can tell by the next quote.

- “What’s in it for us?” asked Britt. “Money, jewels, more then your wildest dreams” came the reply. “Fine!” said the others. MORAL OF MY STORY: When a strange person talks to you in the forest and offers you money and jewels to help them, say yes without question because you will obviously receive the said jewels. They're even more trust worthy if they're standing next to a white van.

- “Things can’t get any-” said Emma but was interrupted by a sudden down pour of rain. “Excuse me, but were you going to say worse?” asked Brandon. Oh man, I’m so realistic.

- At the sight of his food [escaping] the Demon yelled “NOOOOOOO!” and begun to chase them. Rocks began to fall. Knocking the creature unconscious, one rock brained it, another crushed it’s eight finger hand. Claws flew everywhere. I really only thought that happened in movies. I hope those kids thanked the convenient rock fall.

- Nathan and Rob came over carrying the claws. “We could use these for weapons” said Rob. Everybody took one. And they never mentioned them again.

I’m going to take a quick momment to say that when they were transported to this magical land of demons, they were told to find the 100 year old man. I love how original I was/am.

- “Excuse me Sir, but can you give us a room for the night? Asked Britt. “Of course” said David. Strangers are always willing to help, ALWAYS.

- “Are you the 100year old man?” asked Britt. “Yep, call me Moe.” I’m not even going to comment on this. Apparently (that seems to be my new favourite word) I tried to rewrite it when I was still in primary school, I go as far to insult the readers.

[context: characters singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall]. Well, you get the idea… it could go down to one, but it wouldn’t be as interesting as finishing the story would it? Anyway no one wants to read about beer… if you do I think you need help. Anyways, everyone was singing.

If I had been able to get my ass onto the Exchange story section I could have been in the GOS worst find section. All I’m missing is teen pregnancy and maybe something about emo/Goths (“Oh no!” cried Jayne. “I think I’m turning goffick. I want to slit my wrists!”). Err, anyway, after discovering all this and laughing at myself I decided to rewrite it properly (Seriously, if all my half-started stories and that were combined I’d probably have a dozen novels). I’ve rewritten about the first three chapters (At the orphanage, excursion and meeting with mysterious lady in the woods) which originally were three pages long, are now 27 typed A4 pages all up. I’m so damn proud of myself. I’ve also moved the story back in time (Think Pirates of the Caribbean era, minus the guns and with Gods, demons and mages, set in a fictional world), remade the entire orphanage and have characters that aren’t blathering idiots.

Moving on to something a little more relevent to the Sims, I've decided how I'm going to populate my neighbour, "Styx". I'm going to pick a whole bunch of character quirks (I love them) from all different places (eg. here) and assign one to each sim. They don't have to actually be able to demonstrate their quirk (although bonus points to me if they do), but it'll make them a little bit more then being neighbourhood fodder. Plus it will give me a sort of theme for their living spaces.

A few chosen quirks I have at the momment:
- Has the urge to flatter people they hate, while cursing them mercilessly in their brain.
- Enjoys scrap booking, collects random things (clothing tags, old postcards, gum wrappers, movie tickets etc) to either post in scrap book or around home.
- Cries whenever someone is upset at them or when they get in trouble - no matter how minor the situation.
- Character always has reading material with them. If they dont have something to read they'll resort to clothing tags, or insist on stopping at a store.
- Steals tiny packets of ketchup, mustard, sugar etc from restaurants and carries them around just in case. Goes mental if any condiment is missing from their arsenal. Is also known to horde boxes of food etc, and doesnt get rid of them when they're empty.
- Talks to animals like they're people [I'm guilty!].
- Constantly catches bugs and keeps them as pets in containers. Doesn't seem to be aware of their need for sustance and is deeply upset when they die. Frames them etc, after death.