Going away for a while...

[strangetomato]

I said I wouldn't abandon this story, like I have with so many other projects over the years, but I'm going on hiatus, at the very least. I don't want to abandon it, and I'll still attend to the things I've committed to (like the Round Robin legacy) and my SST duties, but I probably won't be posting much else in this journal for a while.

Happy simming, everyone!

Comments

Part one. (Damn LJ word limits.)

[(Anonymous)]

Obviously, you don't know me. I don't use any blogs, I don't write Sim Stories or legacies, I'm not apart of the Sims community. I play the game, love the game, in fact, but never saw the point in anything else. I'm twenty-seven, and always felt the Sims community was too young for me, as odd as that sounds. I saw the Sim stories on the main site, and had a fondness for them -- kids and teenagers posting immature and ... bland stories. But I was happy. Anything that encourages anyone to write, read, or express creativity thrills me. I can't stand people that point out flaws, that throw ego and cruelty into any form of art. I believe this kills the spirit. People know when something they do is bad, or at the very least not as good as it should be. And what does telling them so do? Crushes their spirit, creates self-doubt so that some of them will never turn to creativity again. Better to encourage, praise, and watch their slow evolution as they grow. So, for this reason, I was aware of them, had an almost motherly fondness for them, but never bothered to create or really read one.

Until I found yours. I don't even remember how, I think someone must've mentioned it on community boards, and I thought, "What the Hell?" It didn't disappoint.

It may sound strange, coming from a woman my age, but The Sims 2 is very important to me. I'm a geek at heart - literature, gaming, graphic novels, art, etc, are my passion. And I had major back surgery two and half years ago. I was stuck in bed, in traction, for six months. A mind active but a body unable to move. It was Hell. And stupid as it sounds, The Sims 2 got me through that. It allowed to me to enjoy a favorite hobby, to experience creativity while I was stuck in a wretched place. And I'm still recovering, still unable to do much after all this time, it'll be another year before I'm back to "normal," and the game helps me cope with that.

I love Maxis. Art means the world to me, but I freely admit I'm much more of a verbal person. Writing, reading. And photography, but that's not the point at the moment. I cannot draw, design graphics or create custom content to save my soul. And while I always admired many of the things people created for the game, I didn't like the "realisticness" of it, I loved the Maxis style, the blend of life and quirky amusements. Yet another reason stories and legacies never really reached out and grabbed me.

...Ha. I guess I'm kind of going the long way around, aren't I? You're probably wondering what the Hell my point is, or thinking I'm some crazy stalker. I apologize. So I digress.

I became rather disenchanted with the game for quite sometime -- the sims community, what little I had seen, was wretched. All the custom content I found seemed to take the soul out of it. The stories we're cute, but ultimately bland for someone of my age/interests/etc. And so I found yours. You brought the game back to me. Your story threw me into a whole new world of creativity I had never considered, making me WANT to play the game, adoring the Maxis-style tastes and ideas, wanting to write my own story - a chronicle of Pleasantview, in fact, though I haven't yet as I didn't want to step on any toes, as strange as that sounds. As you were the one who inspired the idea, it felt odd to do it without your permission.

You have a fantastic way with words. Without ego, I admit I have read some of the best in all forms of literature. And your story brought art and life into a computer game. That's huge. That's fucking amazing.