An in-depth Sims 4 project in which I populate the entirety of the in-game neighborhoods/worlds with my own characters, as well as characters from other media and canons, to give myself a higher stake in the world. Stick around and read some of the silly stories that come from this chaos, and check out my custom sim creations if you like!  (female she/her)
Ok, so...obviously I lost momentum again, but I'm still on this kick, so I decided to shift gears and change focus a bit, and I'm starting fresh - not from scratch, but with a shifted focus.
I'd realized that the way I had set things up had created a lot more work than I'd anticipated. While I enjoy being thorough, I realized it was killing my motivation to actually do the project. So I decided to focus on the most important characters - at least, where full families were involved. The biggest example is that characters like Vincent Dolan and Renard Bordeaux will no longer be teenagers but rather young adults. That way I don't have to spend so much time creating entire families. It wasn't such a big ask for these two characters in particular, since Renard had no family and Vincent's parents were both pretty important to his story and, as such, had been pretty well-defined, but for other characters, it was forcing me to actually create new people from scratch - and as I've described before, the process of making a sim involves a lot of extraneous work on my part with giving them skills, traits, jobs, etc. This allows me to focus on the important characters only and has greatly improved my ability to actually do the thing.
That being said, I've actually created most of the Sims already, so it's mostly about placing them at this point...so hopefully I can just ride this momentum and actually finish the darned thing finally.
The other major change is that I greatly reduced the amount of mods I was using. I won't create a new list, since I think all the mods I'm still using were on those lists, but they were creating a lot of extra consideration on my part. I removed some of the mods that were creating additional gameplay elements and many of the traits, opting to grab a few trait packs rather than individual traits, since they seemed to cover a broader range that I figured I could make work, even if they wouldn't necessarily be 100% accurate. But I realized that so many of the traits were almost synonymous with one another that it was just forcing me to keep that many more mods updated with each patch.
These are the trait packs I'm using:
6 Traits; Optimistic, Bossy, Vulgar, Extreme, Hypochondriac, and Learning Difficulty and 6 Traits: Pessimistic, Sarcastic, Cryptozoologist, Contemplative, Spiritual, Queen by jessienebulous
10 More Traits! by SpaceAce (I liked a lot of his "15 More Traits!" mod too, but there were a lot of duplicates, so I decided to pass on that one)
New Hobby Traits and New Emotional Traits by kutto (their emotional traits especially has been a wonderful addition, plugging up a lot of the gaps left by EA)
I am also using a few miscellaneous trait mods that I won't link to here since I linked them before, so you may see some mentioned in the individual character posts.
Finally, I had to decide which "override" mods I was going to use to breathe life into the game world, since the number I'd selected was...pretty optimistic. I decided to stick with Deaderpool's MC Command Center and Wonderful Whims by TURBODRIVER. MCCC does most of what I want, but I liked WW's ability to give your sims attractiveness likes and dislikes. It's also what I've been using to set sexual preference.
Anyways...time to start this again...and, y'know, hopefully finish this time...
My second family, like before, is Renard Bordeaux - not technically a family, but whatever.
Family Bio: Everyone knows Renard! ...or thinks they do. He’s a friendly, disarming young man who always has a smile on his face...though there’s an entire encyclopedia of meanings behind each of those smiles. Renard seems, on the surface, to be well-meaning, if not a bit bungling, but there is almost always something going on beneath the surface as he dispassionately plots and schemes for unknown purposes. Anyone who says they know Renard is either flat-out lying or deluded...as no one knows what truly lies beneath those multitudinous smiles.
Renard Bordeaux
Meta Bio: Renard was the second Sim I placed in my first pass of the Whimsyverse project, and he’s generally pretty similar to what he was then: a mysterious, often duplicitous, crafty individual who comes across as a well-meaning but mostly bungling doofus. Even I don’t remember his origins - I think he was just a random character I created in an early Sims game simply because I liked the name, but he has evolved over the years into a sort of Xanatos-ian trickster with machinations upon machinations. He usually ends up working towards the best interests of the heroes, but often in a roundabout way that puts him at odds with them until the very end. But no matter what he does, he always wears a multitude of smiles on his omnipresent mask hiding his true intentions. One of his defining characteristics is that he generally blends in wherever he goes, and he had a very forgettable demeanor, which is just how he likes it.
Age: Teenager
Gender: Cis Male
Sexuality: Pansexual; Polyamorous
Aspiration: Chief of Mischief
Lifestyle: People Person
Walk Style: Normal
Style: Normal
Degree: N/A
Career: Drama Club
Skills: Acting (5); Baking (2); Charisma (6); Cooking (2); Fitness (3); Guitar (4); Logic (3); Persuasion (4); Piano (6); Pipe Organ (3); Research and Debate (4)
Likes: Comedy; Mischief; Guitar; Piano; Acting; Red; Brown; Alternative Music; Blues Music; Singer Songwriter Music; Classical Music; Pop Music; Retro Music; Romance Music; Easy Listening Music; Jazz Music
Dislikes: Green
(this is a re-upload as I made some major changes to my mod situation, specifically the CC traits I'm using...nearly all of the traits from here on out will be from Chingyu's trait pack, just for simplicity's sake)
After a long delay of straightening out my many (many, many) mods and just generally fighting with my lack of motivation to do...things...I've finally placed my first family: the Dolans! Pictures above (left to right) are: Vincent, Donovan, Lucinda, and Lillian.
You may recognize Vincent, at least, from my first Whimsyverse project...that'll be an ongoing theme, of course, since I'm remaking all of these characters again. This time, though, instead of making them all adults, I'll be defaulting most of my major characters to teenagers for no real specific reason besides that it feels like I'm starting at the beginning of their stories. Also it's more work for me to make all of their families and I
am nothing if not a masochist...
Family Bio: Donovan Dolan is a dangerous and brilliant criminal for hire, performing everything from high-profile heists to hitman-style assassinations dispassionately for the highest bidder. However, this was not the case when he first met Lillian, an aspiring model, and their whirlwind romance ended with them married and Lillian pregnant with twins. While establishing himself as one of the most dangerous men alive, the twins Vincent and Lillian were growing up with their gentle and loving mother, who all but gave up her own aspirations to raise them. Vincent and Lillian resent their absentee and dangerous father for how he neglects his family, and for his part, it is clear that Donovan expects at least one of them to continue in his footsteps...though which one has yet to be decided.
Vincent Dolan
Meta Bio: Vincent is my version of that character we all make around high school/early college - the hyper-competent badass that’s just there to be awesome and to let us write super cool scenes. He was super cool and good at everything and had a tragic backstory and was super emo and edgy and graargh! However, as I grew, Vincent stuck with me and became a character I reused many, many times over, and as I became more competent of a storyteller (I said more competent!), he grew too. He remained the hyper-competent badass he started as (a bit of self-indulgence on my part, perhaps), but the tragedy of his backstory and the psychology of him wrestling with his trauma became more pronounced in how I wrote him. He was no longer just a bad-ass, he was a more complex character who, despite appearing to be unaffected by everything around him, was really hyper-repressed to a dangerous degree. I started writing him less as that hyper-competent Gary Stu and more as a normal man (or boy) who simply didn’t know how to express himself or process the trauma of his past - in which he watches his father kill his mother and threaten to kill his twin sister - without letting the pain that comes naturally to that trauma overwhelm him. So he simply shuts it all out. At the same time, he has drilled into his head (thanks, again, to his father) that he simply isn’t good enough. This no longer manifests as a sort of infantile, impotent angst, but rather a silent drive to always do better at everything he does - an intense focus that earned him the very fitting title “a model of intense apathy” from my friend. But one of the most fun parts of the character isn’t writing him being exceptional at everything (I actually enjoy emphasizing that he is not good at everything...anything that requires a modicum of creativity or personal expression is utterly beyond him), it’s watching him, with the help of people around him, discover the young man that he could have been. I recently wrote him smiling for the first time and it was very sweet.
Age: Teenager
Gender: Cis Male
Sexuality: Asexual
Aspiration: Renaissance Sim
Lifestyle: Energetic
Walk Style: Tough
Style: Basic
Meta Bio: Donovan has never been especially well-defined, and as such, this will be a pretty short bio. He only ever really existed as a vessel to drive Vincent’s trauma. He’s gone from being a petty thug to a master criminal to a dangerous madman. But I tend to enjoy playing him more as a sort of mirror into what Vincent could become - a hyper-competent, dangerous psychopath - a term I use more or less literally here, to emphasize his utter lack of empathy/sympathy. Like many psychopaths, he appears, outwardly, to be extremely well-adjusted, even charming and charismatic, but without the ability to relate to others. He is highly focused on his job, whatever that may be at the time.
Age: Adult
Gender: Cis Male
Sexuality: Straight
Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy
Lifestyle: Workaholic
Walk Style: Tough
Style: Basic
Likes: Retro Music; Fitness; Rock Climbing;
Dislikes: Video Games; Comedy; Backyard Music; Winter Holiday Music; New Age Music; Summer Strut Music; Tween Pop Music; Lullabies Radio Music
Traits: (*deep breath*) Abusive, Bad-Natured, Brilliant, Psychopath, Well-Balanced, Mentally Gifted, Argumentative, Emotional Control, Good Manners, Insensitive, Faster Relationship Gain, Physically Gifted, Socially Gifted, In the Know, Influential Individual, Mastermind, Natural Leader, Faster Friendship Gain, Over-Achiever, Connections, Brave, Carefree, Fortune Sim, Cold Acclimation, Savant, Great Kisser, Entrepreneurial, Shameless, Needs No One, Heat Acclimation, Hardly Hungry, Business Savvy, Alluring, Career-Minded, Dastardly, High Metabolism,
Lucinda Dolan
Meta Bio: Lucinda is even less defined than Donovan, usually. Once again, she exists simply to die and provide fuel for Vincent’s tragedy. She is usually described as being exceptionally kind and gentle, the opposite of her husband, and having made a strong impression on Vincent and Lillian during their childhoods. For the Sims version, I liked to imagine her as being full of life and energy and happiness. She leans a bit more into creative endeavors, which neither of her children took after. She still lives for her children, though, and the decision to give up her dreams as a model was her own...she wanted to be a parent more than she wanted anything else.
Age: Adult
Gender: Cis Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Aspiration: Super Parent
Lifestyle: Close-Knit
Walk Style: Feminine
Style: Basic
Likes: Alternative Music; Singer Songwriter Music; Pop Music; Easy Listening Music; Americana Music; Color Black; Color Purple; Dancing; Painting; Piano; Singing
Dislikes: Baking; Cooking; Mischief
Traits: Emotional; High-Spirited; Tender; Light-Hearted; Family Oriented; Role Model; Mediator; Kindness Ambassador; Responsible; Beloved; Incredibly Friendly; Good Manners; Emotional Control; Compassionate; Family Sim; Domestic; Gregarious
Lillian Dolan
Meta Bio: Unsurprisingly, Lillian, like her parents, has never been extremely well-defined, but I have had her appear occasionally in stories - I just never really cemented what kind of character she was. In the past, she was the polar opposite of Vincent: energetic, cheerful, impetuous. Other times she took more after their mother and was more quietly calm and confident. In this case, I decided to make her sort of a high-strung workaholic who doesn’t really know how to relate to people, mostly because that’s how she was in one of her more recent appearances. So hey, maybe that’s now her canon personality!
Age: Teenager
Gender: Cis Female
Sexuality: Bisexual
Aspiration: Figuring it Out
Lifestyle: Coffee Fanatic; Workaholic
Walk Style: Normal
Style: Preppy
Degree: N/A
Career: Lifeguard
Skills: Logic (4); Persuasion (2); Research and Debate (5); Rock Climbing (2); Writing (3)
Likes: Wellness; Research and Debate; Rock Climbing; Fitness; Writing; Color Black; Color Purple
Dislikes: Video Gaming; Comedy; Mischief; Cooking; Baking; Dancing; Color Pink
I found this wonderful mod: http://www.xurbansimsx.com/2021/03/more-trait-slots-in-create-sim-early.html (warning, automatic music player), which allows you to add more traits to a sim right in CAS, which is something I have been waiting for FOREVER. And from there, I (re)discovered the breadth and depth of Chingyu's amazing mods. I have since downloaded many of her mods, so I will just include a link to her update list here:
I especially liked her "Traits in the Reward Store" mod, which removes the need for workarounds like adding traits via cheat and is a GODSENT for a project like this...so THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
I did not know that there was a character limit on Tumblr posts. Oh well. Live and learn. Here's the second part of my mods list - specifically the aspirations (there's a few) and traits (there's a lot). With traits in particular I feel like EA has been pretty negligent. As I mentioned in my previous post, I tried to play the game without mods, and the traits in particular felt so lacking...the sims have so little personality. So...yeah. Here's a bunch of aspirations and traits.
So...yeah. I tried to play without mods, I really, truly did, and I enjoyed it for a very, very short while...the game is just such a hollow shell of what it could be, and I love that there are so many amazing people in this community willing to put in the effort that EA won’t to flesh out the admittedly-fun systems they put into place.
I just can’t play this game without mods.
Anyways, just like before, I have a lot of mods, and I like to give credit where it’s due without having to link to the mod pages every single time I reference them like before. So this post is going to be an archive of the mods I’m currently using, both for my benefit as well as to give props to the mods I like. I’m not planning on going into much detail about each mod here...which means I probably will because I always write too much.
Please note, I haven't used a lot of these yet, so I can't wholly vouch for their quality, but they all come from reputable sources with good reviews from other players, so I can at least attest that they work!
(mods in no particular order...or maybe they are, who knows what I’ll be doing by the time I get done with this list?)
Etheria Romance Overhaul - I liked a lot of what I read about this, including a ground-up remaking of the TS3 attraction system (which was woefully incomplete in itself, like everything in that game). I also liked the promise of unbalanced relationships - you liking someone who doesn't like you back. I miss that from TS2. Whatever the case, this is a huge mod that is worth a look for anyone who wants their Sims' romances to seem that much more realistic.
MC Command Center - One of those "everything and the kitchen sink" mods that would take longer to describe what it doesn't do than to try and tell you everything it does. One of the primary things I like it for is that it makes it easier to edit Sims on the fly, which is a pretty big draw for a project like this.
Better Sims - Not gonna lie, this one had me at the name. The promise to be able to add more personality and variety to the Sims in my game was nice too. I saw EA was adding some of this functionality in an upcoming patch, but I'm not holding out hope that they'll do better than this.
Interaction Sorter - There are a lot of social interactions in the Sims 4, and the game does a crap job at sorting them for easy use. Figured this might help.
Little Ms. Sam's mods - Lots of stuff here, some little, some not so little. I picked up a few, including the New Potions mod and the Personal Objects mod to stop people from randomly breaking into my room and using my computer. Ugh. The nerve of some people.
Improved Practical Spells
Mermaids Can Take Mud and Soak Baths
New Vampire Powers
Slower Writing
Wonderful Whims - Another wonderful "everything but the kitchen sink" mod to add some life to the game.
Social Network Interactions Crossover
Autonomous First Kiss - I am always trying to get the game to take a little goddamn initiative. It sucks that everything relies on you pushing things forward, romance especially. I'm always looking for mods to tweak the autonomy just a bit.
Invisible Fence - Stay off my lawn >:-(
Control Any Sim - Another helpful tool for this nightmare project of mine.
Stand-Alone Robot Arm Accessory - needed this for literally only one sim, but it looks pretty neat regardless.
Pack Tests (Frankk) - just needed this to make some other mods work.
Permanent PlantSims (Gulbasaur) - PlantSims should be permanent regardless. Every other occult lifestage is...
Hates Children Tweaks (Zuperbuu) - I grabbed a few random “tweak” mods that improve the performance of certain traits or mechanics, just to improve the experience.
Height Slider (GODJUL1) - A marvelous effort and one of the most popular mods out there for a reason. Not sure why EA hasn’t bothered trying to implement height into the game yet...
Helaene Socials - some tweaks to the social mechanics and some traits and how they interact with each other.
Argue Pack
Emotions
Insult Pack
Good vs. Evil
Neat vs. Slob
Pet Lover
Easy Sentiment Cheats (lazarusinashes) - this one allows me to play with sentiments more easily for the prepping stage.
Mega Siblings (MiraiMayonaka) - makes sibling interactions more interesting.
The Personality Mod (MissyHissy) - another mod that attempts to insert a little personality into the game.
No Mosaic (Moxie Mason) - I’m a pervert, what can I say? (also, the mosaic is a bit unimmersive)
Don’t Prep Food Where You Angry Poop (Scumbumbo) - these two mods are just common sense. I don’t know why, but my sims always seem to go out of their way to use bathroom sinks to clean up after themselves.
Don’t Wash Dishes Where You Angry Poop (Scumbumbo) - ditto
Copy any Outfit (Scumbumbo)
Self Configurable Autonomy Mod (Scumbumbo) - this one allows you to customize the autonomy of sims, which we used to have to download dozens of mods to do!
Menstruation and Fertility (Neon Ocean) - A little more immersion.
No Intro
Walk in Style (onlyabidoang) - Allows you to change walk cycles on the fly (sometimes I just plain forget to set them in CAS)
Personality Please! (PolarBearSims) - another mod that inserts a bit of personality in the game.
Spellbook Injector (r3m) - a mod that allows you to download custom spells (the spells I downloaded follow):
Vampirify (Vampire Creation Spell)
Climatio (Weather-Controlling Spell)
RoM SpellCurses SageProof (TwelfthDoctor1)
Forbidden Spells (Kuttoe)
Meaningful Stories (roBurky) - another mod to make the game more immersive.
Uncomfortable Overhaul (roBurky) - a tweak to the uncomfortable mood.
Fitness Controls (PolarBearSims) - improvements to the fitness mechanics.
CAS FullEditMode Always On (Tmex) - saves some keystrokes!
Simulation Timeline Unclogger (TURBODRIVER)
Robot Dermal (voidsims) - for aesthetics on a couple sims
XML Injector (Scumbumbo)
Storytelling Socials (lazarusinashaes) - for immersion
So...yeah, it’s been a long couple month--huh? What’s that? THREE YEARS?!
...oof...
So I’ve been getting back into the Sims 4 again despite my best intentions (really hoping Paralives takes off so EA is no longer the only game in town for life sims) and as it turns out, I am utterly incapable of just enjoying this game without making it tons of work for myself...so here we are again.
(don’t be like that, baby, you know you love it)
I was just gonna go ahead and do it without the Tumblr, but last night I wanted to go back and check a few things to see how I’d done them before and I realized that A) it was super useful for when I inevitably failed and came back to the project fresh THREE YEARS later, and B) it’s kinda fun for me to read through how much the characters have changed. If nothing else, it’s a fun little archive for myself, and now all of you have to suffer along with me!
So...here we go again! ;^_^
Like before, I’ve separated this into three phases (even if I do tend to do them simultaneously in a lot of ways). Phase 1 is prep, wherein I gather up all of the copious complex and unnecessary mods needed to actually enjoy the game (seriously, the characters are so boring and devoid of character without mods); Phase 2 is where I design the characters - though in a way, they end up being sort of rough drafts in this phase because in Phase 3, I place them in the world and add the traits, rewards, jobs, and relationships that I couldn’t set in the first place.
I’ve already done a large chunk of Phase 1 (though I’m always finding new mods to break the game and make it unplayable, so I’ll probably add more as I go), and I intend to write up a post following this one with the mods I’ve settled on (as much for my benefit as anyone else’s, though I’ll link to the sources for download, so maybe it’ll help the creators).Â
I’ve also got a lot of Phase 2 done with probably about half of the cast created (though like with Phase 1, I’m always remembering more people I forgot to add). This time, though, I’m sticking with my own OCs predominantly over characters from other canons. I may change my mind later, but...eh, gotta limit myself somehow or I’ll be here until the heat death of the universe, especially since I have a lot more characters than last time around (thanks Masks: the Next Generation)
Hello to my throngs of (10) followers! I’ve decided to get back into Sims...and by that mean I will actually play Sims in about three months after I update all my characters with new mods and new features! Kid’s dying for his best buddy, Cat!
I’m in the process of redoing my mods and, once I get there, will have to find some funds to get the new expansions and what not. But after that, I’ll get to updatin’, and I’ll post some patch notes =3
i was going to wait to do something big once i hit 1,000 but then this game pack was announced and i just couldn’t wait!!! so now i am giving away one (1) free copy of the new parenthood game pack!!!!!!
rules:
since this is a follower gift, you must be following to enter
reblog this post once (i want everyone to have a fair chance and i don’t want people to spam other people’s dashes)
you can like to bookmark, but it won’t count
must be a simblr (side blogs are allowed)
have inbox or private messaging on so i can contact you
must be willing to share origin id so i can gift it to you
i will put all the names into a random generator to draw. winner will be notified privately and then announced publicly if winner allows.
So I think, from a combination of completeness and laziness, I’m going to call the end of Phase 2 here. Part of me is sick of making characters and the other part of me is sick of writing about them, and I think all of me just wants to play the Sims,Â
That being said, without plumbing the depths of my mind for more characters to make, I have hit the end of my list...for the most part. There’s a few other families - some of my OCs and a few from other canons - that I have thought fleetingly about creating, but I think I’ll leave those for later and maybe just create them as “homeless” NPCs in the Whimsyverse. Some of the characters are simply threatening to me a bit more work than I want to put into them...for instance, I kind of want to create Marty McFly and “Doc” Emmett Brown and while I wouldn’t mind creating Clara, I wouldn’t want to go through the trouble of making his children, and I definitely wouldn’t want to waste time creating Jennifer (Marty’s girlfriend/wife). I could just make them as lone characters in the world, but...I dunno. With most characters, I don’t feel comfortable creating them without their significant others (most characters...)
So I might make a few more characters down the line, but for now, I think I’m going to move onto Phase 2.5, which is to put all of these families into the world, which will take some planning. I want to try and fill every single lot so I can freely create NPCs without the computer moving them into the remaining lots. We’ll see how well that works.
Here’s a few random characters I made. I don’t feel like writing their whole “character sheets” out, so here they are. If you’re curious about my take on the characters, let me know and I can write them out.
I’m not actually sure I like how Taiga turned out...but as one of my favorite anime characters, I’d feel bad leaving her out. So here she (they!) is (are!), I guess (I guess!).
With the robot trait suite (another plug because I fucking love it), Rock and Roll both experience emotion and decaying "mental” needs (fun and social) because of their advanced AI. Blues does not experience emotions (I know technically he does, but I felt like implying the less advanced AI was more accurate) or need to recharge those mental needs. He does need to “sleep” however (to recharge) because of his less advanced power core.
Albert Wily
Aspiration: Computer Whiz (Completed), Public Enemy Number One
Career: Criminal (The Boss)Â Wily was a scientist at first, but I figured criminal fit better
I decided that the robot characters would be children because I prefer them that way rather than teenagers. I’ve always liked Rock being a little more light-hearted rather than the angsty version that is X (not that I don’t like X, I just prefer the younger version), and I feel like them being children kinda captures that more than them being teenagers.
