Phantasmal Reading Circle III: Newness Returns!

The order looks right. Thanks for remaking the circle thread, @katrinasforest

Some Meli x Vin sweetness to properly open this thread up :)
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49406117166_6f0a05a5ba.jpg

Aww...love it, @NyteRose!

Okay, now that I've gotten organized, let's open up the chat proper. @rainbowwithfangs, what are some questions you have for us readers this week?

This is the first mermaid-based challenge I've seen, so I'm curious how the idea came about. :)

@katrinasforest @Firande @rainbowwithfangs
I hope I'm not spamming the thread, but I'd like to share some writing programs/apps that I frequently use and swear by.

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WPS Office- A full-featured, free, and easy-to-use alternative to MS Office/Word. This is my staple word processor. WPS Office offers 1gig of free Cloud storage, various templates for documents, interface skins, and both free and paid (premium) versions. The free version has minimal ads, the paid option is an ad-free experience offering more templates, interface skins, and 20gigs of Cloud storage.

Hello all. :) This might be too late to post this, but I was wondering if I could join the reading circle? I have a story (Supernatural Misadventures) with 7 chapters so far, and I update twice a week. It is a supernatural drama/mystery with some romance. I've been wanting to read some new stories, and participate more in the forums.

Always up for new suggestions, @NyteRose! I'm a fan of Scrivener myself.

@rainbowwithfangs Replying to your question from the old thread, the basics of the circle is this: Each week, starting on Sundays, we spotlight a different story. When it's your turn in the spotlight, you can ask us questions about it, and we can answer them and ask new questions in return. Then the next week, we move to the next story in the list. You can also feel free to post whenever you've added a new chapter or have something cool to share, regardless of whether it's your week or not.

We occasionally take a week off if everyone happens to be really busy all at the same time.

You're up first, so we'll start with chatting about the Eventide Legacy. I was curious how the idea for it came about, but feel free to shoot us any questions you like, too. Some writers like to ask readers to make predictions about what will happen or just ask what we think about a particular character. It's pretty open and relaxed. :)

@lone_cat Of course you're welcome to join! I'll add you to the list. :)

We must have posted at almost the exact same time. When I started to type my last reply, I didn't see your comment; I only noticed it when I came back to check the forums later. I hope it didn't look like I was ignoring you!

@katrinasforest Thanks for adding me. :) I just saw your reply now. It was pretty late where I am from and I went to sleep after my post. So no, it didn't look like you were ignoring me. :)

I'll get caught up on Eventide Legacy, so I can participate in the discussion this week.

@lone_cat Welcome! There's only two chapters so far, so it'll be easy. haha

@katrinasforest Awesome, thanks! To answer your question, I decided I wanted to do the Legacy Challenge. I had also been toying with the idea of trying to make it into a SimLit. I chose mermaids for the challenge because they're a life-state I haven't really played with much. Plus, I'm a water child; I love the water, swimming, and anything to do with it. So, it seemed appropriate and like a fun challenge.

So, if y'all are not familiar with The Legacy Challenge, you basically play through 10 generations of one family. So, by converting this into a SimLit, each generation will be broken up. I really want to do a story arch for each generation, in about only 10-15 chapters per generation. I didn't realize how limiting the rules of the Legacy Challenge would be when it comes to exploring a lifetime of a particular Sim. Again, if you're not familiar with it, the rules state that the lifetimes must be set to normal in-game and you can only use something to reverse aging (like a potion of youth) once per generation. So, you really have to hit the ground running in order to make the most of your challenge. I am a little worried that this will make my story feel a bit rushed, though.

My story is pretty young still (though admittedly, I've played WAY ahead in the game), so there's not really a lot to say yet. I WILL say that Gemma will have to make some tough decisions in the future.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

Hey everyone! First of all, thank you so much for creating a new thread @katrinasforest. You're the best. <3 I totally forgot about the order too, but this sounds about right. :blush:

@NyteRose Thank you for the recommendations on writing programs! I'm always looking for some new ones. I have always used OpenOffice even though I do also have Microsoft Office, but I've been wanting to use an online program so I recently tried out Google Docs but man... I write a LOT, and Google Docs is really sucky with bigger documents, since it gets so much slower so much faster.

Also loving the Meli/Vin sweetness as always! <3 These two are just so great.

@lone_cat Welcome! I can't wait to start your story. As for mine, it's currently already at chapter 42, so I apologize in advance for that LOL. If you want to, though, you can also just hop in at Chapter 40. I've divided this story into seasons, and Season 4 just started at Chapter 40 so if you just start there, you'd be totally OK too. There'll be some things you might not understand but it shouldn't be all too much. If you check out my Tumblr, I have some snippets of stories on there too that might help out a little bit and won't take as much reading as catching up on my blog does.

@rainbowwithfangs That's so interesting as to the why's of your current story! I'm a water child too, totally grew up with it, so this story brings me an extra lot of joy. :blush:
It's so cool that you're doing the legacy challenge! I would've loved to do something like that too but unfortunately for me, I always end up getting way too attached to my founders LOL. I do have somewhat of a legacy going right now, but because I alternate between aging on long and aging off and have a whole lot of immortals to boot (all of my founders/gen 1 Sims are immortal LOL), it isn't going all that fast. I always have major respect for people who can play on normal aging and still make a super cool story out of their legacy with these super fleshed out characters to boot!

I just read your chapter 2 and it's looking so good! It's so nice to see Gemma interacting with all these people... she's already building quite the social circle from what I'm seeing! I do have experience with following legacy challenges and have been following my friend's, who also turned it into a story, and she's currently at generation 7 so I'm beginning to kind of notice how the whole thing is generally played out. I see you looking about for a proper suitor, there. ?
So this is the first time you're doing the Legacy Challenge? Is this also your first SimLit you've written? What is your usual play style, when you're not doing this challenge?
What are your goals for this generation? Or is that gonna be too spoiler-y? I'm thinking it through now and it probably is LOL, so feel free not to answer.

To everyone: So I finally decided to put like, a bit of a regular schedule to my story LOL... felt like it was much-needed. You can expect a new chapter for Xaos every Sunday or Monday!

@Firande If you're looking for an online word processor you may like this one. I tried it and liked it but prefer the downloadable programs I can install on my PC. It has an offline/desktop app, and you can configure it to publish posts to WordPress.
Zoho Writer