Just wanted to say that Yima on GOS was kind enough to turn Astiee's Extreme Skin : Sparkling Flesh into a vampire default. She made one using Sussi's Mirror Gold eyes, which you can find here--

Someone posted on MATY asking if it would be possible to create vampires like the ones in *Twilight*--sparkling, don't burn up in the sunlight, all that stuff. Well, of course, a Maxis vampire is going to have most of those vampire characteristics, like smoking in the sunlight and stalking with their arm over their face and saying "Blehhh!! The sun!!! I must flee!!!" With the exception of biting everyone in sight, I like those characteristics, but I still thought it was an interesting question, and of course. . .

Ulysses, this means you must become a sparklepire again.

( More vamp skin experiments )CC links, in case you're curious:

Lyran default skins.
Eye Candy eyes and contacts.
Dylan TK's Vampire Paste.
Do I Dazzle You? Default.
Extreme Skins "Sparkling Flesh."
Bruno's Gemstone Eyes.

I can't remember who started the post on what your "white whale" would be for Sims 2 CC. No surprise to anyone who has listened to my whining about it, it is, of course, CC wedding cakes that actually work.

And now! Thanks to eris3000 on MTS2, and thanks to dicreasy and dizzifulbliss , who let me know about them---

Wedding cakes that work!

"The whiiiite whaaaale!"



DANG, doesn't that look pretty? There are six different ones. There's even a *chocolate* one. MMM. And the same creator has a bunch of other wedding CC--tables (seen above) and arches and things of that sort that do not require Celebration Stuff!

You can set them for sale if you have Lord Darcy's and Numenor's mods--I checked, using (of course) Gilbert Jacquet as my guinea pig. You can't put them in the Decra-Chills because they are too big. But they really do actually work, as the following pictures of Rosie and Shane's second wedding will show.
( Wedding and cake picspam! )Also, my unauthorized opinion on SimSecret this week--BO-ring.  Also confusing.  I have no clue what the rules are now--the same old nasty cracks seem to be ok, but the nicer ones like "I really love your stuff" aren't--even, confusingly, a Johnny and Ripp one that was a shade naughty but not more.  If Ripp/Johnny isn't a SimSecret, what the heck is?  

If you don't take breaks while grading, suddenly students are getting grades that are not quite so good.  Well, not the grades so much, but the comments start to veer towards the snarky. Even worse right now, because my MRI test results came back and it turns out that Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis are what I *don't* have.  It's a couple of other tendons, and it's probably what's sometimes called "dancer's tendonitis."  It's kind of too bad, because the heel raises I was supposed to do as physical therapy really aggravate it.  I have to go see an orthopedist now, and chances are they will probably put me in some kind of a boot cast.  Bleh.  

I got offered a chance to give a paper on werewolves in *Harry Potter* and *Twilight*  at the Harry Potter convention in July ("Azkatraz"). It's a good incentive to get my taxes done, as I decided I'll go if I get enough of a refund to cover it.  I'd better speed it up, though, as hotel rooms are going fast and the film tickets are already gone (double bleh).

So naturally, with a pile of grading and a cold, and feeling a bit blobby because I haven't been exercising properly for weeks, I decided to direct my snark elsewhere.

Chances are I don't have to re-introduce this gentleman:
( Sim Sparklepires ahoy! )

Sigh.  Back to work and doing a few crunches and trying to figure out how to exercise and not aggravate the darned tendons.

 Seriously and publicly, HUGE thank yous to you.  You would not believe what these guys went through to extract my Generation Eight sims.  It was like something out of freakin' ER or *House* or the medical drama of your choice.  

I'm hoping to start cleaning and aging up and zipping up the files.  I always like to export them as adults, and once I've done that I can clean them up from CC and label them and make them available for download.  But meanwhile I am just rejoicing in having Penelope!  --and Ulysses, and Achilles, and Max, and Lucy and Carmilla.  And the others, of course, too, but they are my nearest and dearest.

I'm way behind on writing that paper--my own fault, I'm just being lazy--but after that I will probably forcibly grab a little time to put together the next chapter.  A lot of it is shot and sorted already, and I already have a cover.  

Thanks again, guys!

PB

I've been continuing my search for new alien stuff and a good Multi PT hack.  Because I have laundry, and 30+ midterms to grade, and a seminar paper to write, and let's not even get into the legacies I'm trying to catch up on.

Clearly, I didn't have enough to do.

I'm not planning some kind of alien invasion of Pleasantview, but I do have the Abduction Increased Odds hack in.  I don't want all my sims to be half-brothers and sisters, and I'd like to get some variety in there, and the only real way to know is to test drive it. While I was at it, I thought it would be fun to share, and also, if anyone is trying to decide about Multi PT hacks or alien skins and eyes, maybe this will be helpful.

I'll put all the CC links in at the end, *above* a cut, so anyone who wants to can check them out.

First, I thought I'd try out yet another default:  the Laverwinkle Sims skin, and the Bruno Obsidian eyes made into alien defaults.  Results:

( Cass goes lavender. . .  )

Anyway, it was back to a look for Multi PTs.  And this time I needed somebody who could serve as a lab rat.  Someone, ideally, with recessive hair.  Someone I didn't like very much.

Cypress:  Help meeeeee.



That would be Cypress Vetinari, from the Vetinari Dualegacy by docnerd . Actually, there's no reason to think Cypress hates being alien pregnant.  He's done it a lot, after all.




There's no reason for you to look surprised, Cypress.  Get used to it.  This is going to happen a lot.

You'll also notice Dora Ottomas is there as a kind of midwife.  I needed someone living with Cypress for other, unrelated reasons, and since Dora is dumb enough to like Cypress, she got the job.

What follows is a lot of alien baby, toddler, and kidspam. 

The first Multi PT set I tried out was the Polychromatic Set by simgaroop . These use the Galaxy Explorer skintones by Astiees.  I didn't think it was too likely that I'd wind up using those, because they're pretty extreme and would stick out in my little pinky world, but I did want to see them.  I shot these out of order, by the way.  The first time I had Cypress give birth to the babies in the Polychromatic Set, I didn't have Theo's Unlock Alien Eyes for All Skins, and the kids were born without eyes.  All I can say is. . . you think they look creepy *now*?  Shudder. In these pictures, I think they're all wearing  Ren Sims Confutatis Alien Defaults. I know the last kid is.

( Polychromatic babeez. . . )

I know you can't really tell until you get a kid to teen, but I was a tad impatient, so I exited without saving and loaded up a different set of skins. 

These are the Graslaxian Sims, also by simgaroop .  They're a strong contender for me, because they are sort of normal-alien looking.  They're all using Maxis skin and eyes, because, y'know, what's wrong with Maxis skin and eyes?  In fact, I'm beginning to think I like the Maxis alien skin best.  I use the Lyran skins as defaults, and the Maxis skins work with those.

The Graslaxian skins are all based on born in game Sims from the Broke legacy.  I don't have lots of pictures of these, because frankly, all the little green alien babies looked more or less the same to me, except for Wintergreen, who was born with Cypress' dark blue eyes.  Oh, Cypress, how I loathe you.  But as you can see, all the babies were thrilled that new members kept being added to the family.


( Graslaxian babeez. . .  )


These guys were fun.  It was hard to exit without saving for them, but I have plans and they don't include Cypress having four little lima beans of his own, so. . .

By the way, these were also the only kids for whom I noted personality stats.  I was pleased to see that they all had "extreme" alien personalities.  All different, but they were mostly all 10s and 0s.  I don't know why I didn't think of that, but it makes sense, come to think of it.

Finally, I tried a Multi PT by a different creator.  This one is by widget_sims .  The skins and eyes mostly seem to be from GOS, though some of them are from MTS2.  I know the eyes are the Galaxy oddity eyes, except for one Pollination Technician, who uses default.  She has them all credited on her MTS2 page, with links.  This one looked interesting to me, because all the PTs are very different, but they still look as though they might work with Squeaky Clean.  

The Almighty Robinoli says that squeeing is inappropriate at my age, but howsabout this:  I *would* have squeed a lot if I was allowed to.



( Widget PT alien babeez, OMG so cute. . . )


If I chose the Widget PT, I'd be committing myself to having those eyes and skins in my game pretty much forever (though you *can* change Multi PTs if you don't want more with the same PT, though I think you have to leave the Sim file in or he disappears from their family tree), but face it, those are some CUTE alien kiddos.


Anyway, that took a while, and I probably should have spent it playing my legacy or sorting pictures, or actually getting some work done, but it was an awful lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it, or maybe even found it a little helpful.

Here are the CC links:

In the first picture, Cass is shown with Laverwinkle Sims skin and Bruno's Obsidian Eyes made default for aliens, here.  I'm a fan of DK's Vampire Paste, but since I can't use the skin without changing all my aliens (a grand total of one), I'm kinda stuck.

If you want any of the custom skins to show up and for your alien kids to be born *with eyes*, you absolutely have to have this:

Theo's Unlock Alien Eyes for all Skins.  You only need the package labelled "Alien Eyes." 

The first two Multi PTs are Simgaroop's Multiple Pollination Technicians to Suit Every Taste--the Polychromatic Edition and the Graslaxian edition. There are two more--some classic looking PTs, and one using Enayla's fantasy skins.  I recommend reading the page anyway, and the Maxian Invasion/tutorial/LJ entry she made here.    It's fun and it tells you a lot about what goes into making a Pollination Technician--a real eye-opener for those of us who don't have SimPE and can't get it.  The skins she uses are Astiee's, here, and the eyes are Ren Sims Confutatis Default Alien Eyes, here. I'm thinking about making them my new default.

The last Multi PT is Widget's Multi PT With Or Without Custom Genetics. Love it, really.  The pictures don't properly convey what they're like in game, especially Piranha's skin.  The green looks almost radioactive.  It's cool.  There are a lot of links from all over, which you can find on her page, but the eyes are Gelydh's Space Oddity on Club Crimsyn (under TSR Sets/Eyes).   NB:  while you can find the "Ivory Tattooed" skin used for Creamer on Garden of Shadows, it's also on MTS2, here. 

I also found a handy-dandy little mod by BlueBlood that makes contacts out of your defaults, including your aliens!  That's helpful, because evidently aliens often "lose their eyes" when they are teenagers.  What you do if your aliens have custom eyes, dunno--either it isn't a problem or you find some contacts, or don't take any pictures until they're in college. EDIT:  The Space Oddity eyes have contacts!  You can find them under "makeup" at Club Crimsyn.  D'oh.  I wouldn't have known that, but it's a good thing to know; at least this way if I use Widget's set, I can handle the teen eye issue :)

Hope you enjoyed it!



PB


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I'm assuming everyone knows that InSimenator has been sold?  There's some talk of the new owner going pay. 

I use the 2.7b DEST edition, which for some reason, gives the SIM options.  Weird.  I couldn't play without InSim; there are too many things it does that a Mac player can't really do any other way, and it's much better than turning on boolproptestingcheatsenabled true every time I need to use something like that.  I just downloaded all three versions of 2.9, just in case Mac owners ever DO get FT and AL.  I did the same thing when Squinge did his flounce some time ago; he eventually came back and updated Wear Anything While Pregnant.  The old one doesn't work in my game, and I don't use the EP8 and up version, but it's nice to have it, just in case.  Frankly, I don't use any Squinge hacks anymore, except for Lord Darcy's prettier version of the Date Counter and the Cheese Counter, which are on MTS2.  I used to use MorePetsandFamily, but eventually took it out, because eight or nine sims plus two pets is hair-rippingly stressful, and I decided that the game makers knew what they were doing.   But I know some people still love them. 

I don't mean to start a panic.  The new owner isn't charging right now, and there's no indication that he wants to shut it down.  If you do want to snag something just in case, know that the server is going nuts right now with people freaking out about the new owner.  It does eventually come back up, so be patient. 

Just consider this an FYI.

Since 
fireflowersims 
 put together a nice list of the custom content she uses, I thought I'd do the same.  Some of the stuff is stuff almost everyone knows is wonderful, so I won't spend too much time talking about that.



This is already longer than I thought it would be, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

PB