Dienstag, 26. Mai 2015

My Medieval Veronaville


I have been playing a medieval hood for a while now, located in Veronaville. I don´t have the patience and language skills needed for a story, but still I would like to share some images and infos about the families I play. I don´t know how long my talkative mood will last, but have at least the start!

The hood started out as a Victorian/Steampunk Hood but slowly and quietly morphed into a medieval hood. This doesn´t really make any sense, but that is the way it was.


Tybalt Capulet

The three Capulet siblings Tybalt, Juliet and Hermia lived with their grandfather after their parents had died in an accident.

Tybalt was an insecure, clumsy teenager who struggled to come to terms with his preference for men by constantly getting into fights with other boys, preferably the Montague boys Mercutio and Romeo.




He had sort of an affair with Stella Roth, a much older woman and married to Mortimer Roth, and for a moment she thought of leaving her husband for young Tybalt, but then decided to stay with him.



Tybalt was devastated.

Until he took a closer look at Puck, his younger sister´s friend. But he soon realized that Puck was way out of his league. And he became even more depressed.


To top it all off, Tybalt´s grandfather Consort decided that he as his successor should earn his own spurs, so Tybalt had to move out of the spacious Capulet Manor and find a place of his own.


To say Tybalt was miffed was clearly an understatement.


Things took a change when Tybalt stumbled upon Puck at the local pub. He gathered all of his courage to approach Puck, who - surprise, surprise - didn´t mind the attention. Not at all.

Then Puck grew up.



And moved in with Tybalt, bringing some elven flair into the humble hut. Tybalt was not too happy at first.





But after a few weeks living with Puck, he knew he was the one.



 They visited the Temple of Venus near Veronaville to receive their blessings.








 Other citizens of Veronaville went there on a pilgrimage, too.


They married, and were allowed to move back into Capulet Manor.



Puck, being his sexy as heck self:




When you´re in love, even burnt pancakes taste great.



Becoming a father was not so easy for Puck. But they managed, and had two cute children, Paris and Allasea.



 Especially Puck showed a great amount of dedication raising their kids.



As an interesting side-note, I am intrigued both kids have blond hair when clearly their parents are redheads.


Both Paris and Allasea turned out really cute.



Oh really?


Allasea with her aunt Juliet


When Paris joined the military training camp, he became unhappy very quickly. He hated spending his days and nights at the barracks, learning how to fight was not what he wanted. 

Aelfric Gossamer, Oberon Gossamer´s son, couldn´t agree more.


Tybalt, who himself was in the military, was rather upset about Paris´ disinterest. It took Puck a lot of sweet talking and persuasion to let Paris spend his training year with the Elves. 



Paris was overjoyed when he heard the news.



In the meantime, Allasea met Benoit Montague, Mercutio´s son, and fell in love.





Madly in love. I expect you two to remain faithful until you are grown up and can be married!


Have a totally unrelated picture of Veronaville´s gardener, because he is adorable:


Paris was elated when he came to the Elven Realm. He met Laethlaeril Druindar and his two sons Vaeril and Khyssoun.




He stayed until his birthday, and friends and family came to his birthday.


For the time being, this ends the little tale of Tybalt Capulet. Expect more when the stars align again in the proper position for me to be in a sharing mood :-)

Have a picture of that beautiful elf Laethlaeril as a parting gift:




The self-sufficient toddler or Parenting made easy in the Sims 2



Are you tired of constantly taking care of your little one´s needs? Worry no more, I have gathered a list of items and mods that make baby- and toddler-raising even easier than it already is in the Sims 2 (and I know what I am talking about, I raised twins in RL).

Some basic observation first: Your toddler is selectable! Yes, indeed, you can click on your toddler´s icon and tell him or her to do certain things, like staying away from the cat food.

When I first started playing, I was not aware of this wonderful feature, and became really desperate when Cassandra Goth had her first child, and it would not stop splashing in the toilet.

Feeding




I never understood why Sims didn´t throw away the empty feeding bottles, but dropped them on the floor. TwoJeffs at Simbology invented the Self Exploding Bottles and a few other useful mods for baby care.

An alternative version would be Inge´s Bottomless Bottle at Simlogical.

I have no experiences with that, though.

Recently I discovered Beck´s Toddler Eating Table and Beck´s Toddler PicnicTableNChair.




Toddlers use it autonomously when they are hungry and also gain cooking skills. I noticed though that lazy toddlers rather like to starve then use it, so you have to check on them once in a while and direct them to eat.


Children are able to bake muffins in the Rip Co. Little Baker Oven which comes with the base game, and will do so once they are hungry. When they have used Beck´s Toddler Eating Table before and thus gained a few cooking points, the muffins will not be burnt and quite filling.



Potty
Toddler Potty Fix by TwoJeffs: Maids clean the potties, and adults can train toddlers if the potty is dirty. This only works on Maxis potties, as far as I am aware.



Sleeping



Really useful for babies are two other mods by Inge Jones:

Crib Fix - "This is for the problem of parents and nannies getting babies and toddlers out of one crib only to place them in another" and Toddlers sleep though the night patch. There is a whole bunch of other child-related mods on her page, too.


Another must have object is HugeLunatic´s Toddler Blanket Bed. Toddlers use it autonomously when they are tired, so no more "put toddler in crib" - "take toddler out of the crib" hassle. I delete my cribs as soon as baby has aged up, and place the blanket in the nursery. The animations are very cute, too.




Hygiene

A real god-send are xptl297´s Bathable Fountains, unless you decide to use TwoJeff´s "No playing with the toilet fix". Toddlers and children use the fountains autonomously after they have set the bathroom under water, or their hygiene has become low generally.



Others

A great toy is the Bits o Wood Garage by leefish, it builds mechanic skill and raises fun.



Two very useful mods that make child raising in Sims 2 much more enjoyable:

Infant & Toddler - No Puke Global Mod by Rebecah and Cuddle Infant - Comfort, Fun & Higher Relationship


These mods stop babies from puking on you when you play with them, and raise the adult´s comfort and fun meter during cuddling.


If you need more stuff for your offspring, a huge list of child-related objects can be found at the MTS Sims Wiki.

I hope you enjoyed this compilation. It is by no way complete, but these are the mods and items I use in my different hoods, and they work really well.