In my experience, men never know how to bundle up. I'll pass by the park in the dead of winter and see high school and college guys playing hockey in t-shirts and shorts.

As a general rule they also have faster metabolisms than women do so supply more of their own heat. I know my own sprog, young adultish age, doesn't even own a coat. He has a jacket he loves and wears shorts around the house for a good part of the winter. Our winters aren't horribly cold, almost always warm enough in the daytime that if we got any snow overnight it melts off by about noon, but I usually only keep the house about 66-68F in the winter so it's not like it's too warm in here.

I had a similar problem in my game. In my case, it turned out to be an issue with load order. I have an old mod by Motoki that makes some of the NPC clothes and career outfits buyable. As long as that mod loads before my default outfits, I'm fine. Otherwise I end up with invisible mail carriers, bartenders, and ambulance drivers.

http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...540#post5405540 (Shelley feels much better now that her body is no longer invisible. )

I did have trouble with a couple of DR outfits that never did work regardless of load order. I think both were by Lemonlion. Mrs. Crumplebottom's feet turned invisible and one of the gardener outfits refused to appear in the game.

I am not surprised that it does not always help, but anyway I have all of my Default stuff load last:
z-default_replacement-clothes
z-default_replacement-hair
z-default_replacement-makeup
z-default-replacement-eyes_only_one_allowed
z-default-replacement-Pet-eyes_only_one_allowed
z-default-replacement-vehicles
zz-default replacements_etc

Some defaults don't like subfolders. I have a couple that won't work unless they're directly in the Downloads folder.

I do have NPC and career outfits available by some mod-so probably that one. I'll look into it, thanks

So I spent all my play time from two entire days reorganizing mods. Then I load up my game to play and Sims were, oh I don't know what to call it but I've seen it before when I have problematic mods, as in they are stuck in place, click on another Sim with the active one and they turn a part circle. At one point I unpaused and just sat here and watched them turn-turn-turn-turn. That's all they could do. I started doing the 50/50 Shuffle trying to figure out the cause. I emptied the entire Mods folder and nothing worked! I was about ready to kick myself wondering why I hadn't thought to back them up before I started messing with it. Than I remembered I had actually backed up the whole Downloads folder about four days ago, restored my old Mods folder and it's back to working.

So what's the lesson here? I'm not even sure! All I did was rename the files, like if they are TwoJeffs I added TJ_ in front of the file names and removed the spaces (he always put spaces in the names), stuck them into different folders to try to make better sense (like all critical fixes in the same folder, different folders for expansion packs, etc.) and it broke my whole game.

Maybe you gave yourself a load order problem when you renamed and reorganized?

I wondered about that. I took time to read things and make sure I put what had read-me files that indicated a proper load order together in the same folder and added letters to their names to get them to load correctly, like start one with a and another b that were related, but there is really no way of knowing what other conflicts could be created by moving them around. I even went so far as to pull every single mod out and it still didn't work. I think my brain is too broken to think about it now other than remind myself "if it ain't broke don't fix it." When I have more energy I'll try adding the new ones I found a few at a time and see how that works.

a music video inspired me even further on headcanons with Vidcund Curious and Cassandra Goth or should I say a story I like in my own head? Well in conclusion it's a story I'll never be able to write bc I do not trust my own time and skill and if I know myself right I'm just gonna procastinate the story in like 3 years...
Conclusion: I really wanna write Plasticbox but it's never gonna happen.

There's nothing wrong with daydreaming things, but if you do in fact want to write this (as opposed to wanting to have written it; that's a different thing), it's 100% up to you whether it happens or not. You'll never have time if you don't make time. You'll never have skill if you don't Do The Thing, and then do it some more, and then do it some more.
It's fine not to do it - but doing or not doing is a choice, and you cheat yourself if not doing is your default mode.

Oh I have the skills
I just don’t trust my own skills
The same count my art, my gaming, and pretty much everything in life.

Also how to play the sims. Even though we have such a big freedom my brain goes like: nope you’ll be hated for doing that shit here and don’t post that to simblr and so on and so forth

That part of your brain is the devil and doesn't want you to do anything. Build a box in your head, shove it in, nail down the lid, and tell it to STFU. It's the only way to have a life worth living.

I don't know. We had to wear shorts at my all-boys school until I was in 3rd year at the senior school, i.e. when I was 14. That included the notorious 1963 winter when the temperature stayed below freezing, and the snow lay deep in the Edinburgh streets for weeks. (I know residents of North Dakota may think that very mild, but by our standards it was COLD!)

As for boys being able to stand the cold better than girls, I don't know about that either. In most schools today boys, even very young ones, can wear long trousers even in summer, but girls often wear skirts. And in private schools in the UK, and sometimes even in state schools, a school uniform with a skirt is often mandatory. The Maxis school uniforms for boys and girls are typical of British private schools. And many girls choose to wear their skirts as short as they possibly can, regardless of the weather.

It doesn't just apply to school-age teens either. I clearly remember, during a spell of particularly bitter weather, seeing a young woman getting off the 'bus in barely-there hot-pants. I thought to myself, "I think that's meant to look sexy, but all it does is make me feel cold!"

My Sims of both sexes are of course (in)famous for invariably wearing the shortest of shorts and miniskirts, but they never get cold -- because I haven't got Seasons!

Our school had a dress policy of skirts must be knee length and knee socks pulled up and prefects who would tell you off otherwise (my socks were always down as I despised the feel of them up!) lol as you can imagine some tried to get away with shorter skirts but on the most part dress length was obeyed as short skirts could see you in the principles office. This was a private Anglican school with nuns. Probably it was also less an issue because it was an all girls school and the only boys to impress was on the train or bus home!

The whole what's cold and what's not is often not a lot more than a person gets used to but there is still a thing, maybe more noticeable some places than others, of men generally being warmer than women. I've sometimes thought about my ancestors who came from Wales to the state of Georgia here in the U.S. Imagine what a shock that had to be for them! I've seen news over the years of "heat waves" in Europe that would be a welcome relief from the summer heat here. Even so I used to freeze half to death in the winter despite it not being really cold here.

In my experience girls wearing skirts as short as they could had nothing to do with weather and everything to do with vanity. I never wore shorts or skirts like that but at one point I was young enough to be a little more concerned with my looks than with my comfort. It didn't last too long because I ended up marrying a really sensible guy who knew the value of comfort over fashion. :D

Before getting back to the States last week, the last country I stopped in was Portugal, where they had, for them, a very hot week. Temps were in the 90s (Fahrenheit), but it was constantly being talked about on the news and they definitely experienced it as being exceptional. The streets were quieter than usual, except where people were wading in public fountains, heh. OK, 90s isn't the most comfortable range, but then again...I used to live in southern Arizona, where temps can exceed 110 in the summer and you learn not to casually touch metal surfaces on your car if it's been parked without shade.

Similarly, a couple years ago, I was in New York for the summer after spending most of the year in countries at or very close to the equator. I felt like I was freezing my butt off almost the whole time, though by American standards the weather was fine.

Earlier this year, I had a long series of conversations with a lovely German couple who have never yet been to the U.S.; they told me of their ongoing amazement at how Americans can deal with such cold winters. "Chicago, shut down by freezing rain or blizzards!" they exclaimed as an example. To them, the idea seemed close to apocalyptic; I admit I'd never before thought anything about that sort of thing, other than that's just how winter can be across the northern U.S. So I agree---it's funny what you get used to.

On topic, my simming machine is in transit and arrives sometime in the next 12 hours. I haven't played since last September. So it's kind of like night before Christmas for me at the moment. So meanwhile, I'm gonna work on a post or two to finally tell Hood Building Group what I did with a couple neighborhoods of theirs...

I found your stories to be very interesting, as I still go to school myself and some things are very different now, while others don't seem to change.

Question for today:do you think about your sims outside of your game? I mean like making up conversations they might have, wondering "what would [sim] do in this situation?" or just imagining parts of their life that you can't even recreate in-game, almost like making up a movie about them inside your head. Please tell me I'm not the only one, because I always felt like I'm a bit weird about this.

It's probably not that unusual but no because my Sims aren't that real to me.

Now I'm wondering if the 90F weather in Portugal is unusual or just unusual for that time of year. Here when it warms up to 90 in May we're practically dying but that's because most likely the temperatures jumped from 60 to 90 practically overnight. Our spring and autumn weather has a habit of jumping around a lot before it finally settles in for the long haul. Thankfully our summers aren't usually quite as hot as Arizona. It only gets to about 105F where I live.

Of course we do. It's perfectly normal. Sims are, or have the capacity to be, fictional characters just like the ones in books and drama, and to play them is to exercise the same creative muscles that writers, actors, and readers/viewers use to create and engage with book and drama characters. Thinking about the development of those characters while and in between playing them is no different from the character analysis that writers, actors, and readers do in order to engage with more traditional characters and their stories. For many, possibly most, people it is an important part of the experience of the game, book, or drama.

The portion of your brain uneasily telling you that this is Weird and Somehow Bad is the same part of you that tries to block you from gaming at all, reading, writing, discussing creative works with others, cosplaying, etc. as a Waste of Time Unless You Are Paid for It. It is the devil and would prevent you from enjoying anything if it could. The people who tell you this are people who have succumbed to their own devils and wish to prevent other people from enjoying themselves except in certain prescribed and strictly limited ways. Knock the voice on its head, gag its mouth with your old middle school insecurities about being cool enough, stuff it into a mental closet, and nail the door shut. Tell the people who do that to you to mind their own business. And go right back to enjoying yourself however feels good to you.

Our creative abilities are our human heritage and our right. To not exercise them is to cripple ourselves. And this is not a grand fancy special separate heritage to be taken out and dusted and admired once a year or so. It's an everyday, ordinary, messy thing, like breathing and eating and loving. There is no activity too trivial to be worthy of it, or too important to be exalted by it.

You're certainly not the only one. As we prepare for a Real Life house move, I really don't have time to play just now. But I'm always thinking about my Sims. They are very "real" to me. I certainly imagine the parts of their lives that I can't easily re-create in game. I think of Veronaville as a "real" place, and I imagine myself walking round it chatting with them. I imagine them trying to teach me to speak Simlish and laughing at my Scottish accent. Andrew Jones, the boy in my avatar -- I created him the first time I started up the game -- has become my best friend -- a sort of invisible friend, who isn't really invisible, as I know what he looks like, where he lives, and who his mum is. I'm constantly imagining conversations with him. Young though he is, he's intelligent and I like to ask his advice in anything important. In fact he gives me his advice whether I ask for it or not. And, annoyingly, he's usually right!

Taking it to the extent that I do, I'm sure really is weird, but TS2 Sims have such well-developed personalities. They're so believable, I find it easy to think of them almost as real people.

My simming machine is here, and I've booted it up...but I'm not even going to load the game until I finish this post about Shady Shores. Otherwise I may never finish it, lol!



That's a good question. And Europeans generally have (and use) much more vacation time than we do, too, so it's always seemed to me that their cities clear out even more substantially than ours in August. Perhaps they were most upset that it was so hot AND they weren't already out of town or at least at the beach! (Wading in a fountain's no substitute for an ocean breeze...and with the Portuguese so proud of their maritime history, too.)

Edited to add: I don't think of my sims outside in the game in the sense that I wonder what they'd be doing in a given real-life situation. But...I definitely think about their lives and in-game situations, especially any quandaries they (or I as the player) might have or about how I might work something into the game that I'd love to see happen (usually some aspect of their economy, like whether a new bit of cc makes sense to add to the production chain). And I sometimes keep chewing on my happiness or sadness for particular sims about something that happened recently in game---or in the case of an ROS outcome that I'm procrastinating implementing because it's a good twist but such a big one, I work myself up to getting to it!

I think of mine a great deal, especially when I'm in a rotation with them and reminded of them. For example, there's Richard Martin, a stuffy little man who has never married and isn't really interested in such an exercise. He ran out of money and was forced to take a job in dentistry, an occupation he despises because it's messy, but he knows it's too late to change. He arranged to adopt a dog, cat, and a baby all on the same day. That way they all have the same birthday and he has exactly one of each.

I'm sad to report he was abducted recently, so....you can see why I have to worry about him.

My actual thought process...

I love Lamare's mods. I don't want to give up any that I'm using, including the one that allows YA pregnancy. Especially because I'm using the version that also allows impregnation of any playable female, even when she is not in the household being played---such a great bonus on an already great mod.

But I miss being able to have either sims gender become pregnant as part of woohoo with their partner, because TwoJeff's Preg for All Genders mod conflicts with Lamare's above one...

Ooh! Hey, what if I use Sophie-David's fertlity well to re-enable pregnancy in those situations?

Can't wait to figure out how to work that into my hood. Owned business maybe? (IVF clinic?) Or keep the magical aspect and have it be an overgrown forest-type lot? Maybe it could even be an abandoned type lot, with the well hidden by debris... Possibilities, possibilities!

"Originally Posted by Misaki Chan
Question for today:do you think about your sims outside of your game? I mean like making up conversations they might have, wondering "what would [sim] do in this situation?" or just imagining parts of their life that you can't even recreate in-game, almost like making up a movie about them inside your head. Please tell me I'm not the only one, because I always felt like I'm a bit weird about this."

I didn't see this original post, but yes, I do sometimes, depending on what's happened in game. Last night for example, I imagined conversations between Sims after the tragic death from flu of a 13 year old Sim, the only child of a successful couple.
At other times I might imagine conversations they have about the lack of action in the neighbourhood and where the Sim god might be because nothing's happening (for when I don't have time to play them).