Quin Rambles On

Quin: Lvl 34, ve/vir, dedicated Sims 2 player, autistic aroace ungender air elemental, fantasy worldbuilder, generally random. Playing Kulo Sena since 2007. I like creating cultures and settings that don't reflect earthly history. Also, I ramble about my worldbuilding, a lot. If any of that bothers you, please move along. :)

[equinoxts2]

Intro to the Senaverse

In June 2022, I wrote up a statement of what my sim world of Juvash is. A lot of it still applies now, but as I've done a lot of personal healing and grown as a simmer as well, I wanted to update it for its latest iteration.

The original post started with, Juvash is a fantasy world, but it is not a standard pseudo-medieval world with medieval practices and prejudices. It doesn’t assign universal traits to its peoples (“all orcs are evil, all elves are good archers”) and there are no major rivalries between groups/species – “out-decorate the neighbours” yes, “elves and dwarves hate each other” no. All the species of Juvash live together; there are no “elven nations” or “orc tribes” and even if most of the sims in Kulo Seeri [now called Kulo Sena] are of mixed human and dragonspark ancestry, that doesn’t make anyone else unwelcome. This is still very much the case. Here's a run-down of what's new:

The Sheltering Unity of Lake Lulla encompasses Kulo Sena and a handful of other villages. Most of its inhabitants are descendants of the Nuidya tribespeople who long ago settled on the shore of the enchanted salt lake, but recently there have been new arrivals from other parts of Juvash - and even other worlds of the cosmos that Juvash is part of. Although they were wary of the first outsiders, the Nuidya now welcome friendly strangers, and the off-world envoys were no exception. What will happen as they navigate this shift in their traditional ways?

Their story is intended to be a cosy, uplifting, lore-rich, science-fantasy comfort read. That's not to say there won't be tension or trouble in places, but I'm not aiming for "soap opera" or "epic battle of good versus evil" here. One of my simming affirmations now: Interest != Drama. I would much rather discover new facets of my sim world and the people within it than watch ACR break up another couple. My goal is for my love for these sims to shine through in what I write. The Senaverse is my safe place, and as I said in the original intro post, I hope it's a welcoming one for others too.

[twentyfourfirst-sims]

Garden of Shadows: a preservation effort

Like many of us, I grew up with Garden of Shadows. To me, it was more than just a forum. It was a place I could ask for help, learn new skills and, best of all, find amazing content in any style I could possibly want. I loved the board names, the people, the themes; everything, really.

And I admit I was more than a little heartbroken to find it gone.

After mulling it over, I decided that I wanted to preserve what I possibly could. I spent a few hours yesterday running through strategies and ideas about how to best go about it, and the best I could come up with was, well, exactly the same.

So, here it is: the Garden of Shadows mirror forum.

I've only just started, but I hope to add a little bit to it every day. The primary focus will be on preserving all the knowledge and custom content. I'm tackling it myself, but if you feel so inclined, you're more than welcome to join in.

--

PS. I am not here to offend, break Terms of Use, or to step on any toes. This is simply an effort to preserve content and knowledge for a game I have played and loved for over twenty years. Thank you ♥

[equinoxts2]

Hearthday, 16th of Tidesband, 1st Year Post-Incorporation

Following the highly informal clasping ceremony, life on Steamrock Island takes a few more difficult turns. An infestation of roaches near the nest that holds Risimolni's egg has everyone worried, but thankfully it's able to be contained quickly.

One thing that isn't as easily contained is Risi's ever-increasing ill will toward her sister's new clasping circle. Zyulo is the target of most of her insults, which usually require Sutama to swoop in and distract her with a question about food supplies or a theory about what might have become of the older generations. Both concerns are usually enough to get Risi to help out instead of picking fights, at least for a while.

Still, Zyulo's not sure how much more he can take. Would the other incarnations of Sena Yuleng have stood for this? What would they have done? And, more to the point, what should he do, in this lifetime, to help keep his family together?

[equinoxts2]

Tradesday, 15th of Tidesband, 1st Year Post-Incorporation

Sutama and Zyulo both know they're not a formal clasping circle yet. There are no elders around to witness a ceremony, no fully-fledged shaman to read omens and ask the spirits to bless the bond. They could have invited one of Shaman Mari's apprentices to their nest, but those rites would mean very little to Javiera, and they don't even know what she'd expect to mark such an occasion.

Still, Sutama brings it up to Javiera, explaining that, among her people, clasping is a form of trial pathbonding and mentoring. Zyulo adds that both of them have thought about and discussed it, and they'd like to form a clasping circle in a way that would have meaning to all three of them. Given Risi's increasing hostility toward them, Javiera accepts.

In place of the typical, multi-day ceremony led by the prospective nestkeeper - that would be Sutama - they choose a simple joining of hands before the nest's shrine, declaring themselves to be bonded to each other. It might not be accompanied by an auspicious sign or the favour of the ancestors, but it's theirs, and the spirits can hardly disapprove. To stand in the path of love itself is to break the First Pact.

[equinoxts2]

Brightday, 14th of Tidesband, 1st Year Post-Incorporation

Jealousy is not an emotion Nuidya elders encourage. It's commonly believed among Risimolni's people that harmony is best achieved when there's no sense of possessiveness in a bond. But the elders are missing, and no diviner or scouting party has located them yet.

So there's no one to stop Risi lashing out at Javiera - who's not even in her clasping circle, but her sister's - for spending too much time with Zyulo. The newcomer isn't speaking to Risi any more, and Risi's interactions with Zyulo are quickly moving from functional to hostile. Finally, her own twin gives her an ultimatum: leave their nest as soon as another one is established, and be prepared to treat Sutama's bond with respect until then, or be cast out into the cold now.

Since when does Sutama so much as shake a leaf at a caterpillar? Risi thinks one night, walking angrily from her hut to the latrine. That time away has changed her. It's enough to make anyone sick.

By the time Zyulo comes across her, on her knees gagging by one of the crystal formations on the beach, she's wondering if there might be another reason she's not feeling too good.

Curse that Javiera beyond the Void. No one told me she was a bee.

-----

*Note from Quin: A bee, in the Senaverse, is someone who's set as "alien" with the RCC and can infuse hearthprinces (sims without that setting) of their own gender. It's usually the case that bees are born from eggs nurtured by males, and hearthprinces from female nurturers.

[equinoxts2]

Risingday, 13th of Tidesband, Year 1 Post-Incorporation

Before meeting the two young Nuidya, Areksutama and Kuvamatazyulo, during their companion journey, Javiera had always preferred to keep to herself and her studies. She never expected to be drawn to either of them in such a way, let alone both. So when she returned to their homeland with them, she mostly expected to carry on as before, maybe run a few experiments with the mystical waters of Lake Lulla. Certainly not to catch the eye of anyone else.

Sutama's twin sister, Risimolni, quickly disproved her theory. While she can't put her finger on what about herself drew the attention of these people, members of a close-knit tribe with no great love for artifice, Javiera also finds it difficult to understand what would put a Nuidya off - or at least let one down gently.

By the time she figures out that Risi could be taking advantage of that lack of knowledge - a strange thing for Javiera to admit to having - it might already have gone too far.

[equinoxts2]

I didn't take too many screenahots in the early days, because I was just that happy to be playing. But I did get these ones on day 1 - the polyamorous bond between Zyulo, Javiera and Sutama is coming back into play.

(After that, it degenerated into ACR chaos very quickly, as usual. I wish I could break up with that mod.)

[equinoxts2]

Guess who's simming again?

Steamrock Island, off the coast of Kulo Sena proper, is going to be home to one nest at the start of the new KS setup. That nest is called Legacy of Sena - though please note that this is not a legacy challenge. It refers to the dragonspark Sena Yuleng, who is the first ancestor of most Nuidya living today, and the fact that two of the nest's sims are ninth-generation direct descendants of the mi Avira line - the only clan of the Nuidya tribe that can trace an unbroken female lineage back to Sena - and a third resident is the fifth known reincarnation of Sena. There's also a trio of quirky pets, and a remake of a TS3 premade who I (and two of the other sims) got attached to during a side project.

Ready to meet them?

The man in the green tunic in the background is Kuvamatazyulo zan Serena, the current incarnation of Sena Yuleng and the first of said reincarnations who is neither one of Sena's female descendants nor a cat. (Actually, Zyulo has no Nuidya blood whatsoever, technically.) It came as a major shock when it was discovered that Zyulo was the reincarnation, instead of ex-headwoman Etan. But the elders have somehow up and vanished*, so does it matter any more whether they approve?

In front, holding Skunky the pet skunk, there's Risimolni mi Avira - one-eighth of the Supernatural Twin Boom of 13 BI (Before Incorporation). Risi and her twin sister Sutama are demigods, born to a mortal mother and the Transmuter, an angel whose sphere of influence includes alchemy, transformation, the cycles of life, and the seasons. Both twins inherited elemental powers from it, and Risi's element is air.

On the other side of the pic, there's the TS3 premade: eccentric scientist Javiera Batista from the Island Paradise expansion. Long story short, I sent Zyulo and Sutama to Isla Paradiso as a bonding thing since I wanted them to get together. Next thing I knew, both had become friends with Javiera, and she invited them to move in with her. After that, kaboom threesome. I'm not sure how she'll take to the Nuidya lifestyle - maybe she'll treat it as one of her experiments?

In these two pics, we have Areksutama mi Avira (Risi's much more introverted twin, whose element is water, and who also has some knowledge of herbalism) anf the other two pets, El Bandito and Oyster. Oyster doesn't look very happy that I've snapped a screenshot of him.

That's the first nest introduced, and at the moment it's just them. I'll add new sims as and when I need them. Nearly time to zzz anyway, in my timezone, so I'll leave off rambling here.

*I wanted to focus in on the lives of my favourite teen sims. So I aged them to adult and put just them in this rebuild. Don't worry, no sims were harmed in the making of this hood - and maybe we'll see the older generation again later? ;)

[equinoxts2]

I feel much better since my last post. I've made a start on setup, talked to my mum and assured her that I'm not as stressed over it as I was, and worked out a plan of action for the rebuild.

Since my object limit crashes only ever seem to happen on unoccupied lots - which makes building community lots hard - I've decided to gamify that a bit, almost BACC style. I'll say that each community lot I want to add has to be donated by one or more nests using the OFB lot system. They will use their resources to develop the structure of the lots, then donate it back to the community - no receiving extra esteem for that! (Esteem is what wealth and family funds represent in my game.)

For the home lots and their inhabitants, I'm doing one first rotation where I add a single nest, play them for a week to get them established, and then add the next one. It means I'm not doing huge piles of building or sim making or SimPE all at once, and it lets me spend a little time with each of my families in turn before I throw out the strict rotations.

And my mum? She's a lot more tired than she was around the new year, but she's not as affected by it as I thought she was. I've promised to give her plenty of love and support, like she has done for me, and to offer lots of mugs of tea, and to have the complainy "I hate building but I know I have to do it and there's no way round it" conversations with the turtle plushie on my desk, instead of rehashing the same frustrating thing with her. My family is "dysfunctional in a loving way" as we often put it; we'll pull through. :)

[equinoxts2]

I need help. I desperately need support. Remember in January when my mum had to be taken into hospital for a while? She's still not doing great, according to my dad, and I think she's masking that for my sake. I've been so stuck and frustrated with wanting to play that I haven't been able to find a way to get through the building, and dad says that all the conversations I've had with her about finding solutions are just adding to her stress. I feel so guilty because I never even noticed. I thought she was better. I'm scared and I feel like I'm collapsing.

On one hand, I do want to get the building done now, so that's one less stress she has to deal with. On the other hand... yeah, I'm scared. I don't feel like I can face anything now. I depend on my mum for pretty much everything - I literally cannot cope with daily life at all and I've been getting increasingly fearful for my own future as my parents have aged. I don't want to lose my best friend. Not like this... not when I still have the stress of building hanging over both of us. I feel terrible.

Hug me... please... *cries*

[equinoxts2]

Status Update on my hoods

Kulo Sena is coming along, but it's too many sims to recreate while I'm still between rebuilds. I've been batting around ideas with my mum, and I now have two smaller side hood ideas to share. The idea is that I'll play these littler hoods while I remake Kulo Sena.

First off, I have the idea of pets/other animals transformed into sentient sims. My idea is that they'll have either 0, 5 or 10 in each personality point to start with, mirroring the three-point scale of TS2 pets' personalities. I don't play to get through generations, so - instead of having the traits evolve with each generation born - I'm planning to adjust their personality points whenever a life event warrants it, sort of a personal growth and self-discovery thing. I'm still fleshing out this hood, but I like the idea that they're descended from sims bound to animal form by probably-forbidden spiritbinding magic.

The second idea began with the thought: what if family life and relationships weren't the core of these sims' lives? I decided to give most or all of the ten sims in this hood Knowledge primary aspiration, and the basic concept is that they are Juvash's celestial lorekeepers - almost like muses. Each has a different sphere of interest: Trade, Arts, Ritual, Nature, Dreams, Magic, Mischief, Sport, Sustenance, Culture. (I kind of vaguely mapped them to the ten hobbies at first.) They're not immortal, but are very long-lived, and they're more fun-loving than their aspirations and purpose would suggest - they have engaged in experiments and practical jokes on mortals throughout Juvash's history. (You know, For Science!)

I'm just about to set the second one up now - the name of this hood is Love's Bastion, from a random phrase that popped into my head once and got noted down: "Love's Bastion leads to a Phantasm." Of course it does. The first idea is one for tomorrow. Anyway, back to CAS!

[equinoxts2]

Hmm... where might the story of the Senaverse go next? ;)

(Credit to @furbyq-sims for the terrain default. I just added pink aetherways for personal use, and do not intend to share it. Please share some love with this talented simmer who has been going through a very rough time!)

[equinoxts2]

Hiatus is over already. Turns out it was (probably) not coming off the meds that caused the mental health crash. I have never once in my life happy-cried due to it being my least favourite part of the lunar cycle. Well, there's a first time for everything.

On the subject of sims, I tried taking an emptied version of Riverblossom Hills and placing fourteen of my RPG characters' assorted infant/toddler offspring, simmified and aged to adults, in the playables' houses. Lazy shortcuts to dodge building? Those never work for me, and oh boy, this is why.

My first household (twins Indell and Raia, and their roommate Saran, who's also a half-sibling of their half-sibling - loooooong story) had about a day of peace. Then I loaded again after a break, and Indell was squished by a satellite within the first half-hour of sim time. I quit without saving. But.

A few sim hours after I reloaded, the mystic crystal (computer) broke. Saran tried repairing it. He got zapped, started a fire, and died in the fire while Raia was trying to put it out. Raia didn't have the chance to mourn, because she also caught fire. I literally just managed to cancel Indell's dig for treasure interaction and get him into the study in time to save his sister. RIP Saran (and the reward catalogue that contained all the aspiration points the trio had accumulated in the first day...)

There was another zap (from Indell finishing the dig for treasure with the utilities mod by @lamare installed) and another fire (from Raia putting some pastries in the oven, then going to have a bubblebath while they cooked). Both twins survived this time. The toaster pastries weren't so lucky.

I played with NPCs and townies in this save (I usually don't) and on day 3, the repoman showed up. After that, for some reason, every single door on the lot stopped letting Indell through... he just stood there doing the route failure waving gesture. Raia was fine. I sent Indell to a community lot, thinking that might fix the issue. The NPC evil witch showed up, caused a thunderstorm, which zapped the grand vampire with lightning... you think I don't know an omen when I see one?!

Indell went home. Glitch: not fixed, and now affecting Raia too. She actually froze in place in another bubblebath, her needs (including hygiene) kept plummeting, and I had to reset her and the bath before she died. She then couldn't use the toilet because a puddle was in the way and I've never seen that one before.

When Indell also got frozen in place in the bathtub, I said stuff it. The sim gods are sending me a message: no lazy shortcuts. Back to setting up for Lake Lulla I go. At least I managed to catch a few mod conflicts in my RBH save...

[equinoxts2]

Hiatus

Hi everyone. Just to let you know, I'm on indefinite hiatus due to increasing mental health crashes over the last week. I need to take some time away from the TS2 community to recharge. None of this has to do with interactions I've had in the community. It's just that my life has had too many disruptions this month and I can acknowledge that I need to step away from what little social media I'm on for a while.

I genuinely thought I was healing. I thought things were getting better for me. I've been gradually reducing my doses of the vile-tasting antidepressant I've been on longer than I can remember, and toward the end of April, I came off it completely. It just seems like my mental health has taken a major nosedive since then, and I don't want to believe that coming off the meds has caused that. I never wanted to take it in the first place - it felt like giving up, and it didn't stop me being desperately depressed for ten years. I consider it to be a violation of my mind and tastebuds, and not much else. I don't want to start taking it again.

I hope my simming friends are doing better than I am. I wish you all so much love and fulfilment. For now, though, I can't stick around - I need to meditate, heal, and just sim for me for a while.

[spockthewok]

Sims 2 Object Limit Fix

Soooo... I didn't intend for two highly requested fixes for The Sims 2 to drop within the space of a week and a half, buuuut...

Here's where you can download an experimental patch to fix the so-called 'object limit'!

https://github.com/spockthewok/TS2ObjectLimitFix

(Ultimate Collection only at the moment, I'm afraid).

The good news is:

Both @lordcrumps and @teaaddictyt have tested it with stupidly large CC folders and report that it works.

There isn't a dissertation the length of Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' you need to read through to understand wtf is going on.

The crashing wasn't caused by some hardcoded object limit at all! (That I know of).

An explanation of the issue for programmers:

And for everyone else:

The code for the Build/Buy menu was missing basic checks to confirm that the data it was trying to do things with was actually valid. No, I'm not joking.

Basically, it appears that all of the objects you can buy in the game are stored in something you can think of as being like a big, long list, which grows in size with the more custom objects you have.

The only purpose of the code that this plugin patches is to sort the items in the list into some kind of order. This is done by assessing if the value of the previous item in the list is larger than that of the item currently being looked at, and swapping their position if this is true (also known as an insertion sort).

In short, the game wasn't asserting that the data it was about to compare for sorting was valid before accessing it, and then promptly blowing up when it tried to do so and discovered it wasn't.

I imagine that the odds of the game making an oopsie and dumping some funky data into the list increases with the number of objects it is having to process - this might be why this issue only presents itself to those using multiple GB of Build/Buy CC. It was much easier to patch the code encountering the bad data within the list than to try and hunt down the mysterious culprit putting the data in there to begin with, so this is all the information I have at the moment unfortunately.

Either way, one of the first things you're taught when learning to code is to ALWAYS check that the data you're operating on has been initialised (i.e. it holds some kind of value). I guess someone at Maxis must have skipped that lecture :D

Is the 255 objects per subcategory limit theory true?

The Downloads folder I was using for testing had ~672 objects in the Deco/Misc subcategory (Maxis objects included). With the patch, I can freely navigate throughout the entire subcategory with zero crashes, so I guess not?

What about the whole OBJD limit thing?

People have varying beliefs of what the limit on OBJDs might be, but HCDU reports my Downloads folder had an OBJD count of 20,787. Again, without the patch the game would crash when switching categories in the Build/Buy catalogue, with the patch, no crashing.

If you want to hear my opinion on whether such a limit exists, watch this video.

Do I even need this patch if I don't use much CC?

As it adds some fairly important crash-prevention checks to part of the Build/Buy menu's functionality, I'd probably recommend using it anyway, just to be safe - we all know how much this game loves to crash!

Aaaah! I'm still getting crashes with the patch!

I'm aware that a few of you CC addicts out there have Downloads folders larger than the total size of everything ever uploaded to the internet, so if you still experience crashing in Build/Buy mode with this patch, please take a look at the mod's GitHub page and send me over the information requested there. Fingers crossed that shouldn't happen, but if it does, I'll try my best to investigate :)

Anyway...

Will

(I wish I had looked at this for my dissertation, as it was literally only a day's work).

[niamh-sims]

[fracturedmoonlight]

It's a Sims 2 Renaissance Era and I'm here for it.

[equinoxts2]

After many, many setbacks, I was almost ready to throw in the towel with my latest iteration of Kulo Sena... but then I had a brainwave that I'm super excited about, and I'm about to start playtesting it!

I've always felt obliged to keep seasons and ages exactly synced between households, even though I myself am not a scheduley, timekeepy person. My brain is so full of TS2 and RPG trivia that I can't remember simple things like dentist appointments unless they're on the kitchen calendar in huge neon letters... and sometimes not even then. Anyway, the time-sync style of play? Not for me, thanks, and it's only taken me nineteen years to shed it. My mum and I were chatting about this a few hours ago, and we came to the conclusion that, if I don't want my high-fantasy hood to feel like Earth (and I don't), then I should just embrace the chaos of seasons and ages not lining up exactly. Here are my plans... (under the cut, I will ramble...)

OK, so lots are always square or rectangular, and hood terrains are always square. I've decided that my way of making sense of that (working with, not against, the quirks of TS2) is saying that homes, gathering spaces and territories need boundary guardians - ceremonial statues or carvings for each of the four corners. Beyond those boundaries, things move, wild creatures and plants age and grow, and the Senaverse's Eternal Continuum of Omnipresent Love continues its flow towards a state of enlightenment.

Within a nest (home lot), or anywhere that sentient beings gather regularly, that flow is dependent on honouring the Five Gifts - the blessings bestowed on mortals at the dawn of time. They are: divine play and ritual; creativity and inspiration; magic; diversity; free will. If any of these aspects are missing or damped down, a nest will start to slow and eventually stagnate. (In other words, I'll just not play that family for a while.) This means that seasons, weekdays and age lengths are based on how long a nest - not the whole hood - has been in existence.

Aetherways (the roads on a terrain) provide connections between nests and gathering areas. Sims can move along aetherways within a territory (subhood) at any time, which is sort of a whooshy, teleportation kind of thing (represented by the load screen, from my perspective). To travel to another territory, there needs to be a mount or magical vehicle (e.g. a dragon, a griffin, or an alchart, which is my explanation for carpools in the Senaverse - they're alchemically powered) in the nest that can travel Without - that is, they're able to whoosh between territory borders. Again, Without resembles a load screen to those who travel that way.

I'm still developing the lore around it, but basically it means I don't have to worry about seasons not matching, nor do I have to drop one household in the middle of something interesting because exactly a week has passed since I started playing them. It's made me so much more willing to get on and do the setup.

So I'm going to. See you later :)

[furbyq]

EMERGENCY HELP NEEDED

water is off because the deadline passed. Still need $132.90 for the water and around $120-$130 for my power bill. Power gets cut off on the 27th. any amount helps, literally anything. Please reblog if you feel comfortable doing so, and send me some positive thoughts because I am cracking from stress

pa ypa l.me/furbyq

k o-f i.com/furbyq

v enmo: @/furbyq

[furbyq]

my mental health is declining really rapidly and I'm unsure what to do. Please help or share if you are able to.