Liebster Awards

     

    Well, I had just finished my spring semester, and now that I have time to kick back and write some new aftermaths and chapters for the second generation of the Holland clan, it only makes sense that I'd drop by and dust off the ol' blog. While I refreshed myself by reading up on older chapters, I found this in the comment section of "Tinkering Teen":

as well as this comment on the official Sims forums:

    Carlimact and french_vanilla13 (click on their names to go to their respective blogs!) have both nominated myself for the Liebster Award, which one can find more information about here. Considering just what the award stands for, I'm really honored beyond belief to have garnered the nomination. There's no way I can merely just say "thank you" to Carlimact and French, so they'll receive a "thank you" and a GIF! 

     "The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to bloggers, to promote the blogging sites we love and support.

Accepting the nomination comes with these conditions:

1. Post the award on your blog.

2. Thank the blogger who presented the award and link back to their blog.

3. Nominate 5-11 bloggers whom you feel deserve this award and have fewer than or equal to 3,000 followers.

4. Answer 11 questions posted by the nominator, and ask your nominees 11 questions."

So, 22 whole questions about me and my blog. Hooo boy. But first, my nominees!

1. The Grey Witches - A Magical Legacy by Freja64 

2. Twisted Color by FruHurricane

3. What Are You Even Doing? by Cyazurai

4. The Gashlycrumb Legacy by ebonwings13

5. The Party People! by yoursharona34

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             QUESTIONS FOR MY NOMINEES

1.) Did an important person/event in your life or piece of media (TV, video games, film, book, music, etc.) inspire you to start writing?

2.) What made you believe The Sims is the best avenue for telling your story?

3.) Do you liken your Sims experience as an escape from everyday reality or do you play as realistically as possible? (Basically, do you enjoy fantastical elements in your gameplay or no?)

4.) Which is your absolute favorite & least favorite expansion for TS1/TS2/TS3, and stuff pack for TS2/TS3 and why?

5.) Are there any stuff/game/expansion packs you'd like to see made for TS4 -- and if you don't own it, would it make you consider buying the game?

6.) Do you have any favorite EAxis premade household or family from any game + EP, and why (not)? 

7.) Which Sim of yours do you think resembles you most in terms of looks and/or personality, career choices, pastimes, etc. that isn't a Simself?

8.)  If you could use only one Sims-related cheat code in your life, what would it be (even if you never use cheats)?

9.) If you write stories or craft machinima, are you planning to enter any careers that rely heavily on creativity? 

10.) When was the first time you saw or played a Sims game?

11.) Do you speak Simlish? ;-)

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CARLIMACT'S QUESTIONS

1.) How long have you been playing the sims and what got you into it?

     I have been playing The Sims since about October 2002 - I had just turned 8 years old and hadn't found the perfect birthday gift. My parents gave me an unused Best Buy gift card they had lying around so I could buy myself a video game, and lo and behold, I found The Sims Deluxe Edition and Hot Date on a BOGO 50% sale, so I grabbed them and showed them to Mom and Dad. They both proceeded to have a heart attack, snatched HD away and grabbed Unleashed -- which had just been released -- for me. What grabbed me was the fact it was a virtual dollhouse, and could make my Sims look like whatever I wanted. (That alone killed my interest in actual dolls.)

2.) How long have you been writing and when did you first get into it?

     For as long as I could remember, I was always the impromptu class peer editor -- my friends and classmates would come up to me for advice on spelling, grammar, etc. English was always one of my strongest subjects in school.

3.) Where/How do you get your inspiration?

     I was bored playing a "normal" family, and 100 Baby Challenges sounded the most appealing. Forcing a Sim to have as many children as possible is the textbook definition of a train wreck; it's awful, but you can't bring yourself to look away.

4.) Who is your favourite Sim that you've created?

    A Drama major student I created for The Sims 2 University named Candace Moreno. Really pretty in a really quaint way! (And I finally managed to find default skin and eye replacements that don't make my Sims look like corpses.)

5.) What is the first story, Sims or not, you've written?

     I can't recall, but I did begin writing fictional stories in middle school. "Middle school" should give you a hint about their quality. ;-)

6.) What are your other interests and hobbies?

      Gaming, reading novels and watching television (too many genres to name, and I enjoy both live-action and animated shows), writing stories and essays, communications studies, casual work outs, drawing/painting, and I know the bare basics of guitar playing. I'm pretty much usually indoors.

7.) What's your favourite song? Do you listen to anything while you play?

      Too many to name, but I either listen to the game itself or the playlist of original Sims music I keep on my desktop.

8.) Out of all your characters, which one would you like to make real?

      Heather Holland from this challenge. She's definitely the "sassy" one in the family, and seems like she'd be really fun to hang out with!

9.) What is your favourite world to play in?

      For The Sims 2, it would be Veronaville, followed closely by Riverblossom Hills. For The Sims 3, Moonlight Falls and Sunlit Tides are in dead heat with each other. I adore all these towns in particular mainly for their aesthetics and themes, but the EA premades in these worlds are pretty interesting people. It's too early to tell for The Sims 4.

10.) What is your favourite career to play through?

     The Thief branch of the Criminal and the Agent branch of the Law Enforcement career tracks are tied in the 1st spot. I always make a pair of "good and bad" siblings and it amps up the drama in any given world. Runner ups include Journalism and Culinary.


11.) Would you rather build a house or buy one?

     Buy, and I wrote that without hesitation. House building is not my gameplay focus. I wholeheartedly recommend Curtis Paradis, James Turner/Sims Supply, and ruthless_kk's builds -- they're phenomenally made and are made with so much passion!

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       FRENCH_VANILLA13'S QUESTIONS



1. Why the sims? Why not say, World of Warcraft or Minecraft or some other franchise?

    To be fair, those three games are so wildly different from one another, outside of being in control of "avatars". Minecraft's block-based graphics turn me off as does WoW's MMORPG gameplay -- that, and I think you need some NASA supercomputer to even run that game decently.

2. Why did you chose the legacy that you did?

     For the drama and lulz. Also, seeing how well a baby mama's genes mesh with the EA premades can be pretty interesting, to say the least!

3. Who is your favorite sim and why did you pick that name?

     Like I said above, that'd be Candace Moreno, who currently attends Pleasantview's Sim State University. Her name came from this generator; I typically randomize my Sims' names, but TS2 doesn't have such an option in Create-A-Sim.

4. Do you have any other blogs? If so what are they and what are they about?

    I don't have any other blogs at this point in time, sorry! Writing these chapters take up my writing time.

5. What is your favorite blog to read?

    All of my Liebster nominees! :-)

6. Do you often explore for new legacies to read? If so, what do you look for?

    Can't say I look much, but when I do, it's typically for other 100 Baby Challenges, Prettacies and Uglacies. Once in a blue moon will I look for straight-up narrative stories, like romances, mysteries and adventures.

7. What catches your attention in a legacy to make you want to read it?

   A legacy's premise -- admittedly, it's not all that different from a person scanning through their TV's channel guide or their tablet's bookstore to find things that appeal to them.

8. Once you do read it, what makes you want to keep reading it?

    If the characters are decently-written, and the author finds new ways to keep their challenge interesting without making it seem like it's a total chore to do, I'll be satisfied. When you read something you enjoy, don't you want a great payoff in the end?

9. What kind of things turn you off of opening a legacy?

    The way the story is written. I'm not going to pretend to be some superior being that has never, ever made a typo or grammatical error in my life, but wen a person tpyes like this & axpects me too take there story seriosly its like "yeah noo"!1

10. What kind of things turn you off of continuing to read a legacy?

    Some things TV Tropes likes to call Romantic Plot Tumor, Strangled By The Red String, and Derailing Love Interests. Basically, whenever an author is so in love with the idea of love that they make their setting bend backwards to accommodate their characters really bugs me, especially when there's way bigger fish to fry with their story.

11. So finally, do you ever plan on getting published? If so, is it one of your sims challenges or is it another novel that you want in print?

   I'm still in college, so penning and publishing any type of work is a no-go . . for now! Seeing a published Sims challenge would be sort of funny as one of those quirky coffee table books that many use as decor, but few actually read.