Holidays are wonderful times of the year. People have fun and spread good cheer!
Our holiday season was definitely a different one last year and people found ways to stay connected while homebound. This year, the mood is brighter as people are able to do more outside the home and see loved ones.
We’re continuing to stay connected within Our Community, whether homebound or less restricted, as virtual friends gather from one screen to another, sharing our love of all things Sims.
Whether posting positive notes on player walls or sending cute links to images and gifs, Simmers stay in touch and spread good cheer.
Another way to spread good cheer is by participating in a Sims 3 gift exchange!
Interested? SIMtastic!!! Please read on …
This is a SECRET EXCHANGE. Please do not reveal your Buddy before the gifting period opens.
Certain communication will only be done via private messages so each Buddy will need to check their Inbox on a regular basis.
For those returning, welcome back! Please note that the section titled Hello, Buddy! under Rules (3rd post) has a new addition.
Checklist: Be a Buddy! Use the Buddy Form Letter found in the 4th post. Chat & ask generic questionsin the thread. For specific questions concerning gifts & such, send me a PM. Follow the Rules (3rd post) & note the Important Dates (2nd post). During gifting time, compliment & click the “Recommend It” button. Above all, Have FUN!!!
Better late than never, I hope. @MiaSkywalker , your second gift is my first attempt at building a Victorian. I know there are many different styles, and I think I managed to capture the essence of none of them, but it was still fun to try.
https://i.imgur.com/B6S8hCA.jpg
In what I like to imagine is true oversized-Victorian-house-owner fashion, the house has three formal living rooms and one tiny guest bedroom in case someone gets stuck hosting the in-laws. The bedroom could be converted to a child's room easily enough. I also left a little empty space so that the sims living there would have room to add their own stuff.
What I said about learning new stuff about the game applies more to the other thing, which you'll see tomorrow, or later today, or whatever day it is once I pass out and wake up again.
Thank you to everyone for the positive feedback. I was actually pretty nervous about how my gift would be received, but you all made me feel so good about the process and my contribution. It's very much appreciated.
I've just caught up on recs and downloads on the Exchange, and I'll be checking out everyone's gifts while I still have all my packs and store stuff installed. I'm thinking I'll add some of them to my current limited-content save too, even with the missing items, because they're just so pretty and it makes me happy to look at them.
@ADWilson Have you come across thejigsawpuzzles.com ? I've used it on occasion while sort of paying attention to other things or people. (On Zoom, no one can see your screen, thank goodness.) What I like about it, aside from the fact that it's free, is that I can choose not only the puzzle but the number of pieces and the style of cut. It's certainly not the same as handling a physical puzzle, but the pieces do give a satisfying thwack when connected, so that's something.
I finally, finally, had the time to download my gift and take a good look in-game (it's been one of those days), and I want to say thank you again @Kesminlix for the lovely gift. I really appreciate how you took the time to incorporate everything I was looking for and made it work in Dragon Valley too. The house and yard are so versatile, I think I could put just about any combination of sims in it and they'd all have space to develop their separate interests. I also like how it's not overly expensive—while not a starter home, it's something my sim parents could afford to buy when it's time for one of their kids to move out. I never use money cheats for sims I play; they have to earn everything they get, including housing.
I have a few kids that are about to age up to young adult and partner up, so I haven't decided who's moving in yet. I've been playing rotationally, and my town had a bit of a baby boom, so there are plenty of candidates.
And you're right, this is the first time I've ever participated in a gift exchange. I almost didn't, I mean I went back and forth for days and posted a buddy letter about an hour before the deadline. But I'm very glad I joined: it's a lot more fun to participate than to watch from the sidelines.
@MiaSkywalker Aww they all look great! and love their bios, love that you included Dustin, he's one of my favorites, I'm missing a few store items, but that's okay my game replaced them with similar items.=)
Edit: OMG! you included the song grim grinning ghost! that's my cryptonite lol
Just for everyone's enjoyment, muppets made a haunted mansion movie one of the songs includes some of the graves that are at the haunted mansion disneyland Perfect song to fit Mia's graveyard!
@Kesminlix Thank you so much, the house looks great and is exactly what I need in my current save. It will definitely fit right into the neighborhood. I can already tell my Loves the Outdoors sims will love living there. Now I just have to decide who among them get the honor. The gender-neutral colors in the kids' bedrooms are also a nice touch; that's how I decorate most of my sims' houses too.
I'll download it and take a closer look (and some screenshots) when I have the chance to load my game in a couple hours. I can already see the pink flamingo in the screenshot though. It's a cute little dash of character.
You really don't need to apologize for posting today instead of yesterday, at least not from my perspective. 24 hours ago, I was so frazzled from wrestling with my own gift that I needed a break anyway, and I'm sure I'll enjoy unwrapping my gift even more today than I would have yesterday. So it worked out perfectly well on my end.
I have one more gift for you, a rather large one. But first, I want to explain something about the graveyard in the build I made for you.
Addy said that you play with large families, and don't mind large lots, up to 60x60. I took you at your word, and built on a 60x60 lot. I'm glad I did; it gave me enough room to make a rather large cemetery in the back. I had originally been planning that the graveyard in the back be filled with real ghosts and real gravestones, so I set about creating 20 ghosts, all with different death types.
It was only when I was trying to figure out how to get their gravestones out of their inventories and into the graveyard itself, that I learned, to my horror, that if I do that, I will be causing game corruption to anyone who downloads this lot. You cannot safely download a lot that has graves with actual ghosts on it; apparently it causes game corruption somehow.
You CAN save a graveyard that YOU create in one of your games to your library, and then use it in other worlds that you play with on your own computer. But you can't use someone else's. I have no idea why this is, but the Simmers who were discussing it seemed to be convinced that this is the case. They linked to someone's post who went into more details, but that post is no longer on the forums.
But that does NOT mean that I can't still gift you the ghosts as households, and then you can place them in the graveyard yourself. Or play them, if you want to. They're kind of funny; they really act out based on their deaths most of the time, especially if you have Free Will turned on. I had intended them to go in the cemetery, but since I can't, you can still play with the ghosts. The gravestones in the back are currently all deco; if you decide to make the graves with the actual ghosts, you can simply delete the deco tombstones that are already there.
So anyway, I created 20 ghost Sims for you, all with different death types from the game (yes, there ARE actually more than twenty death types in the game!), using the names on the gravestones in the crypt in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. The names are rather amusing, and I had fun creating ghosts of them. (I used Nraas to add the different ghost types; that's one of the reasons I needed Nraas installed in my game for making your gifts!)
I tried to come up with bios for every single one of them, and I *almost* managed to do it; I came up with bios for 17 of them. I just couldn't think of bios for the last three, although maybe you'll think of something, based on your own experiences as a ghost hunter. :)
While I haven't written down their favorites, traits, and lifetime wishes in this write-up, I did make them fit in with their death types and bios. The only exceptions are the three without bios; their traits match their death types as closely as I thought possible, but as I never came up with bios for them, they aren't as closely aligned.
For those not familiar, bios for a Sim can be found (and created) by going to the Sim's scrapbook, and selecting the Biography tab. (I hadn't known this until I started watching The Sims Lore videos. The things you learn about the game after all these years!)
I should probably also mention that besides these Sims all being ghosts, several of them are other Supernatural types. There's one werewolf, at least one vampire, two fairies, and several witches, I'm not exactly sure how many. No djinn; they always seem to want to revert back to the Showtime genie clothing, even if you've given them specific outfits, a game mechanic that I find irritating.
A = I. Trudy Deui (Jelly Bean death) B = Dustin T. Dust (Dehydration, merfolk) C = Love U. Trudy (Blunt force, aka Murphy Bed) D = C. U. Later (Thirst, vampire) E = Pearl E. Gates (Freezing to death) F = Asher T. Ashes (Fire)
If you wonder why the two on the far right look so terrified, they're standing next to a vampire. They don't realize he has the Good and Vegetarian traits. :)
I Trudy Deui (Jelly beans) Isabella Trudy was a sweet girl who had always dreamed of finding true love, although sometimes she was a little confused. She received a Jelly Bean plant from a relative one holiday, along with a warning about eating its fruit.
Forgetting about the warning, one day she ate one too many of the jelly beans from it....
Dustin T. Dust (Dehydration (merfolk)) Dustin was born a merman, and as a child he had always loved fairy tales about those who lived on land. When he grew to adulthood, he followed his dream of becoming a landsman, living with normal humans on lands away from the sea.
Unfortunately, he forgot that he still needed to soak in a bath or swim in an ocean at least once a day....
Love U. Trudy (Blunt force) Lovely Ursula was a good person, who loved gardening and cats, but was not always comfortable around other people.
She didn't learn, until it was too late, that owning a murphy bed in order to save space in your home isn't always the safest way to do things.
C. U. Later (Thirst (Vampire)) Cordelius Ulysses had always been a moody young man, a bit of a loner, yet strangely attractive to women. One night as he was on one of his solo meanderings, he encountered what appeared to be a lovely young woman, also walking alone.
After that the two would meet frequently on these nightly walks. Each time the woman was friendly, but never aggressive in her conversation. Often, she would hint about life after death or immortality. One morning he woke, not far from where he usually encountered her, having no memories of what had transpired the night before. A few nights later, he woke as a vampire.
As he had always been a vegetarian, he found that his new life as a vampire was incompatible. While he was aware of the existence of plasma fruit, he had never actually seen any, and had no idea how to obtain it. This led to his eventually wasting away, and ultimately became fatal.
Pearl E. Gates (Freezing to death) Pearl had always loved the cold and the snow, and had loved the winter holidays. She loved to stay out in the snow, building snowmen and making snow angels, all day long.
Her love of the cold meant that she didn't always remember to dress warmly enough when going outside, and one day it caught up to her.
Asher T. Ashes (Fire) Asher grew up in a poor family that had always struggled to make ends meet. He saw his parents struggle with multiple jobs, never quite making enough money to keep their entire family fed sufficiently. He always dreamed of running away to join the circus and become an acrobat, to escape the dreariness and misery of his childhood.
One day the circus came to town, and he followed his dream, applying to the circus for an acrobat position. Lying on his resume, he claimed to be well-versed in the art, so they tested him on one of the more advanced tricks, the fire hoop.
Not having had any actual experience, his tryout ended in disaster.
Living https://i.imgur.com/VsTvJWf.png https://i.imgur.com/6AGfrCF.png
Dead https://i.imgur.com/A52U2J9.png https://i.imgur.com/NXhOzYM.png
G = I.M. Ready (F, old age, good) H = Bea Witch (F, Haunting curse, witch) I = Hal Lusination (werewolf, Ranting about Death) J = M. T. Tomb (f, Time anomaly) K = Hail N. Hardy (ran out of air scuba diving) L = Rusty Gates (drowning)
I'm sorry about the changes in I (Hal Lusination). Originally I'd intended him for Death by Being Buried Alive (Showtime, a Magician trick death), but although I know it's an available death type in Sims 3, Nraas didn't give me a way to do it. I ended up changing him to Death by Ranting, so I had to completely change what sort of Sim I made him.
And yeah, these Sims decided to completely reverse what order they were standing in when they were ghosts, as compared to when they were living. No idea why. Neither order is the order in which I created them, nor the order they appear in the family portrait panels, so go figure.
I.M. Ready (old age, good) Iris Mildred led a full and happy life. Her lifetime goal was to be surrounded by her family, and when she passed on, surrounded by her children and many grandchildren, she died happy and content.
Bea Witch (F, Haunting curse) Bea came from a long line of witches, all of whom believed their family was superior to all others. It wasn't until a particularly nasty haunting curse rebounded on Bea that she realized that there just might be another witch stronger than she.
Hal Lusination (werewolf, Ranting about Death) An Angry Young Man, Hal was always fired up about some cause or another. Always venting to anyone he met, this proclivity drove away many who might otherwise have become his friends.
As his zeal progressed, one day he made the mistake of ranting about Death itself. Ever aware of those who spoke of him, the Grim Reaper himself showed up and, angered, made Hal pay the ultimate price for his hubris.
M. T. Tomb (f, Time anomaly) When Margaret discovered the time portal, and learned what it could do, she was delighted. She traveled many times to the future to visit her descendants. When the Time Traveler told her about the possibility of changing the future, she was intrigued, and she set about seeing in what ways she could make those changes occur.
However, she had not been warned of the consequences of her meddling, and it was only when she began to see bits of herself disappearing and reappearing that she grew alarmed. She was unable to find the Time Traveler again in order to ask him about what she was encountering. Soon she felt herself fading from existence, and eventually she faded completely away.
Hail N. Hardy (ran out of air scuba diving) Hail had lived his entire life in Sunset Valley, following the path directed for him by his family and parents. When Isla Paradiso was discovered, and his best friend came back from there with tales of mermaids, Hail didn’t believe his stories. Finally, after much badgering about how boring his life was going to be, Hail went with his friend on a trip to the fabled land.
When he finally met a mermaid, he fell instantly in love; unfortunately, the mermaid did not reciprocate his feelings. He taught himself to scuba dive, following her to one of her favorite spots, but in his inexperience, he stayed under for too long, and didn’t return to the surface in time to get the air he needed to breathe.
Rusty Gates (drowning) Rusty hated the water, hated it with a passion, and would avoid swimming pools and even bathing whenever possible. He was, however, an extremely outgoing young man, and when some of his friends rented a houseboat to party in, they urged him rather strenuously to join them. Being weak-willed, and rather easily swayed by peer pressure, he eventually gave in to their urgings.
When an unexpected storm struck as they were entering deep water, he had reason to wish that he had – despite his dislike of water – learned to swim when he was a child.
This had originally been "Gracey Manor Spooks", but the Exchange censored "spook" in the title and replaced it with *****. Um... really, EA? I decided to see if there's an offensive aspect of the word that I just didn't know about, and looked it up on dictionary.com.
spook
See synonyms for spook on Thesaurus.com ? College Level noun Informal. a ghost; specter. Slang. a ghostwriter. Slang. an eccentric person.
verb (used with object) to haunt; inhabit or appear in or to as a ghost or specter. Informal. to frighten; scare.
verb (used without object) Informal. to become frightened or scared: The fish spooked at any disturbance in the pool
Yeah... I didn't think so. Whatever, EA. :tired_face:
Living https://i.imgur.com/XUybL4H.png https://i.imgur.com/df4Q9nN.png
Dead https://i.imgur.com/0UFW2TM.png https://i.imgur.com/p4FahJ7.png
M = Claire Voince (F, Fairy, Shark attack) N = Manny Festation (M, Mummy’s Curse) O = Rustin Pease (M, Meteor) P = I. Emma Spook (F, Starvation) Q = Wee G. Bored (F, Jetpack crash, aka “Fall from Sky”) R = Paul Tergyst (M, Watery Grave) S = Hap A. Rition (M, Electrocution) T = Metta Fisiks (F, Fairy, Transmutation)
Full bios: Well, Ok, not all of them have bios. :(
Claire Voince (F, Fairy, Shark attack) Despite her family’s warnings, Clare loved deep sea diving. Until the day that a shark attacked and got the better of her.
Manny Festation (M, Mummy’s Curse) Manny had always dreamed of visiting Al Simhara, but had never believed the tales of monsters and mummies until it was too late.
Rustin Pease (M, Meteor) Russ had always been an avid astronomer, which left him no time for such civil niceties as making friends or having any sort of family life. He named many planets and stars that he had personally discovered, and he became quite prominent in his field. He saw and noted many meteors impacting the planet, that he was later able to collect and evaluate.
Then came the day that the meteor he was noting, instead of heading off in another direction where he could go to collect it, was heading instead straight at him. No time to move; this time he felt the full power of the meteor as it struck the earth.
I. Emma Spook (F, Starvation)
Wee G. Bored (F, Jetpack crash, aka “Fall from Sky”) Winnette Gloria – nicknamed “Wee” by her father – fell in love with the future, from the first time she visited it. She had to pick up every new gadget that she could find – from watches to hoverboards – and try them all out.
It was the hoverboard that was her final downfall; she tried out some stunts she had seen others do, and the hoverboard went out of control, ending her life prematurely.
Paul Tergyst (M, Watery Grave)
Hap A. Rition (M, Electrocution) Hap was a clumsy fellow who always tried to fend for himself, and absolutely hated any technology. His dislike of technology eventually backfired on him, and left him as he is now.
