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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Woods Random Legacy: Chapter 16 - Correspondance

From: woodsc2@lefromage.fr
To: naturegrrl415@smail.com
Subject: Settling in!
Body:
Hey sis, how's it going back home?  I've been getting settled here, finding all my classes, and everything.  They started the day after I got here!
My roommate's name is Melissa, and she's so cool!
She's from Bridgeport, you know, the big city!  She's into drama, and wants to sing in musicals when she graduates.  I think you'd like her, she's a vegetarian.  She's always up late at the parties down the hall though, which means I have to throw my pillow at her in the morning sometimes to get her up for class.
The classes are hard, but worth it.  I'm still getting adjusted to having everything be in French, but my teachers are very understanding and have been helping me a lot.  Also, Melissa's French is better than mine, so she's been giving me a few lessons.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Love,
Crystal


From: naturegrrl415@smail.com
To: woodsc2@lefromage.fr
Subject: Re:Settling in!
Body:
Hi!
Melissa sounds awesome!  Don't you start going to those parties too, though, or else both of you will sleep right through everything.  I don't know if you guys have a cooking room in your dorm, but I attached a recipe for cookies(vegan, so she can eat them) that are totally delicious!  You should make them if you can.

So, please don't hate me, but I totally redecorated our room.  Since you're not here and all.  I took all your art stuff and put it in the garage, and I've started an indoor garden to get some fresh produce, even during the cold years!
It was this guy from school's idea, Tyrone Kimura-Campbell.  He loves nature, just like me!  He's cute, but kind of forward - he just came up to me in the halls the other day and said that I was hot!  It was like, um, I don't even know you, really!  I guess he's fun to talk to, though.
Lane carved a face in a pumpkin, said it was a Spooky Day decoration.  You light it up at night and it's supposed to be...spooky, or something like that.  Seemed like a bit of a waste of a good pumpkin to me, but it's not like he asked!  He's been super-weird lately.
James is going to start elementary school next week.  He's way more excited than we ever were.  Why are we related to such weirdos?  Oh, and he has to share my room with me until Lane graduates, which really sucks.  I told him that if he so much as touches my plants, I'm going to compost his books.  So far he's behaved.
Write back soon!
~ Faye <3 ~


From: woodsc2@lefromage.fr
To: naturegrrl415@smail.com
Subject: Stuff
Body:
Sis,
Lissa and I made the cookies, they were tasty!  Well, the second batch was, because we burned the first one.  But that wasn't your recipe's fault!
So that guy at school just came up to you in the hall and called you hot?  What a loser!  Look, he might actually like plants and stuff, or he might just be saying that to get your attention.  Why take the chance?  There's got to be other boys to date that are just as cute, and not so...losery.

It's awful that mom and dad are making you share with James!  I'm guessing he has my old bed?  You'll be lucky if he doesn't jump down off of it and land in one of your pots on purpose.  I guess composting his books is a good threat, and might keep him in line until he moves down the hall.

What's going on with mom and dad?  I want details!
Love,
Crystal


From: naturegrrl415@smail.com
To: woodsc2@lefromage.fr
Subject: Re:Stuff
Body:
We have to skype ASAP.  Something crazy's happened.  Lane went and turned himself into a werewolf monster thing!  I don't even know what happened, I'd taken James to the festival in town and when I got back Lane and Locke were both there in the kitchen saying goodbye.  They said they were moving out together to some town up north called Moonlight Falls, that Lane already had a job up there as a journalist, like they'd been planning for a while.  He was wearing dark shades, but I still saw his eyes, they were all freaky and glowy, like when Pudding sneaks up on you in a dark room.  I'll try to get to the library this weekend so we can talk, because I don't even know what to say right now.

*lots of freaked-out hugs!* ~Faye~

P.S. Of course I'm not going to date that loser!  Why would you even think that?

~ * ~

I'd pay to have seen the look on some of your faces when you read the very Faye-ized glossed-over description of the full moon events.  Also, I'm not going to write out the skype chat, so...yeah.

This is my first real experimentation with posing and using those funny platform things to move sims around to where I want them.  Also, I spent almost 2 hours building these sets, and then only photographed little corners of them.  I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. :\

Please ignore the weird height thing that Crystal has going on, most obvious in that hug.  I use Grow on my children and teens, and while I remembered to turn it off for Crystal the night before she left for school in my real game, the copy of her that I exported for storytelling purposes still had it turned on, and it messed up her sliders.

7 comments:

  1. LOL @ the threat to compost his books!

    Love the email interaction, very cool perspective.

    I've seen the Grow mod. Would you recommend it?

    ~Margaret Pendragon

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    Replies
    1. I haven't experienced any bugs with the Grow mod. I'm not sure how it behaves with vacation hoods or boarding schools, so I turn it off for those. I also don't have it on for the whole town, only my family and sims I frequently interact with, so I'm not sure how bad the lag would be. I don't notice any lag when playing, and I usually have under 10 sims on Grow at a time. I do like how it makes it look like sims are actually older than their siblings of the same age state(for example, now that James is a teen where I'm playing, he's much shorter than Faye).

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  2. I love the emails, it was great getting the story from Faye's perspective. And to see life in the boarding school with Crystal.
    I know what you mean on spending hours on sets and hen only showing the smallest bit of them. I do that all the time!

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  3. But... You are going to tell us the full Lane story next chapter... Yes...?

    Emails was an amazing idea!! Loved it :D Loved the sets too, even though you don't see much. I spent ages building a set the other day, and then decided it would make more sense for the event to happen at home, so didn't use it at all! Haha, I suppose it's there now though :)

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  4. Love the emails! Makes a great change of perspective for storytelling.

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  5. I really loved the emails, especially that you included the addresses that were quite cute and believable. I might file that away for later use. ;)

    I really like how each girl tells their story but it's different, just slightly from what they say and what they actually experienced. Especially the werewolf transition. Can't wait to see how that really went down.

    Also, now that Crystal and Faye are separated, I like Crystal a little better. Before, she just seemed boring and kind of stuck up. Now she has much more of a personality developing while she is on her own, something Faye has had all along.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a huge fan of alternate narrative styles(journal, letters, etc), and I'm glad that I was able to make good use of them here. I think I'm going to use the e-mails again later, though probably not an entire chapter's worth.

      I enjoy playing with unreliable narrators, whether it's an outright lie, devious manipulation, a twist of the truth to get out of trouble, or even a case of the narrator lying to themselves in their own head. Again, it's something that I can only rarely use, since I usually write in 3rd person. But things like journal entries, correspondence and, to a lesser extent, dialogue, allow me to have some fun with it.

      Crystal was strange before. Even though she didn't have the grumpy trait, she always came across as a major grump whenever I wrote her, and I couldn't pin down why. I think it was because there were too many people living in the house, and she was introverted to the point that it was making her constantly stressed out, and so she was getting all snappy. But she has more freedom to find quiet corners by herself at school, and evenings alone in the dorm room a lot, so she's much happier.

      At least, I think that's what's up with her. My characters tend to write themselves, and sometimes I'm just along for the ride, trying to figure things out as they happen!

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