Haunted 1-9
Dolly placing Landgraab Apartments: Ok, so Spice Market is Jackson Heights, obviously, which would suggest the Casbah Gallery is in Brooklyn—likely Bushwick or Williamsburg—but when I think galleries I think Chelsea, especially in the late nineties when gentrification just started picking up steam, and Chelsea is probably close to or in Fashion District. So Xiyuan would probably want to be near the M for work, and probably also has an office in Fashion District, where the E would be the best choice but you can also get there on the 1 or 9 if you really like walking, and of course he’d want a straight shot to either Museum Mile or Lincoln Center, which suggests he’d ideally be around 53rd and Lex. Does make you question which direction north is, and how “up” uptown is, but whatever. Oh, and this is right around when the stuff with the 6 happened. Hahaha, he’s going to be so pissed when he realizes he has to transfer to get to Lincoln Center, hahaha
Dolly placing the Von Haunt Estate: It’s in England somewhere
(The last three pages have been low key, but the next one is. A. Doozy. I’ll try my best. There’s a high chance I’ll miss an update, but I’ll do my best.)
(And if you’re a fellow SimLit author who wants a Sim cameo, now is the time to strike.)
Your art! San Myshuno is San Francisco, for me, and Windenburg is…. Somewhere in Europe? Northern? But not Finland.
Cameo please! My most autistic Simself is on the gallery, probably the most recent version of me.
Got it! I do also have an appearance for Case and Kiana planned; Case gets to wear his noise-cancelling headphones in the big city, of course.
Hmmm—even if your SM is SF, I hope you appreciate rapid-fire jokes about the late-’90s NYC subway system! I’ll accept “not Finland” for Windenburg.
Oh! Cool! Let me think about Case and Kiki…. I haven’t loaded them to the gallery yet. And I happen to love NYC subway humor very much! It’s sort of a niche humor for me that I adore… read a lot of NY nonfiction for the subway references….
… This is the best possible response.
I don’t need the Sims, just a reference picture. And I’ve got plenty from Another Legacy!
Oh, then! OK! I’ve been trying to figure out what could possibly draw them to San Myshuno, and haven’t been able to figure out how they’d justify the environmental impact of travel, nor how they’d want to leave home for a day, but if all you need is a pic, go for it! Sounds awesome!
OMG This is perfection! The wistful look in Yuan’s eyes, the scarf in the wind, the contrast of the soft golden beauty of those lovely trees with the pile of bags of rubbish… I love everything about this! Especially the bags of rubbish. Without them, you’d look at it and be like oh yes, it’s an idealised fantasy, but no, you will unapologetically shove them bags smack bang in the middle. It’s brilliant.
(I realise that without tone the above can sound incredibly snarky, but for the record, I’m being serious here! I am the person whose story has been described as a serving of pancakes with a side of poo, so I dig that sort of thing, clearly.)
Heh, I mean I’m European and I consider Windenburg nondescript Europe too. It’s such a mishmash that it doesn’t really feel like one specific place to me. The San Myshuno districts do look distinct, but they don’t necessarily feel like they’re all in the same city to me – to me the closest equivalents would be New York for the Spice District (I know, very broad for someone who actually is familiar with New York, haha), “a city in Japan, maybe Tokyo” for the Fashion District (clearly we’re going even more vague now) and, uh, whatever the capital in the Hunger Games was called for Uptown 😆 This realistic tour has been brought to you by The Plumbob. (Also, in line of what you said about the subway, that would be one hell of an impressive transcontinental/transdimentional train system! Quite the commute, haha.)
My simself is always game for cameos! I don’t know about my characters, you probably wouldn’t want those trainwrecks around 😅
Ah oops, I’m on top of my commenting game again – not! 😅 Sorry Cathy, I did not mean to hijack your comment there!
I’ll try to track down your Simself, but I do also have an appearance planned for Cordelia and Micah 🙂 Imagine how happy Micah will be when he realizes vampiricism doesn’t exist in this universe.
Now that I’ve heard your and Cathy Tea’s takes, I don’t feel quite as bad for immediately calling it a day on Windenburg, lol.
Dawg (and now you know that me calling everyone ‘dawg’ probably has something to do with being in NYC during the ’90s and aughts), it’s true that SM looks modern and generic compared to a longstanding city like NYC, so I’m going to add a whole lot more personality back in. Oh yes. We are skipping right over mainstream rom-com portrayals where conventionally attractive white kids run around 1/4 of Manhattan, and going straight to “I got slapped by a homeless guy in K-town” and “I saw a woman taking a dump in a tree lawn in broad daylight.”
Mr. Posh Spice lives in East Midtown but likes to hang out in the UES, the UWS, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Inwood, Flushing, Jackson Heights, Chinatown, the Theater District, and TriBeCa. I promise to have at least one scene in 2003 where he and Bernard are walking down 110th and there are three separate cars blasting “Magic Stick.” I promise Mom & Pop shops with great names (special shout-out to Three Star Coffee shop and 90′ Nuts, which my friends and I called “90-Foot Nuts”; ultra-mega special shout-out to Two Star Coffee Shop). I PROMISE ST. MARKS PLACE.
(There was no fanfare about it, no warning. I was crossing the street and the guy walked up to me, slapped me lightly in the face, and walked off.)
Cover page time! Nice movement in this one. I really dig your use of texture overlays, too.
I’mma admit something to you.
Sidewalk & street: texture overlays of public-use images or photos I took myself
Windows & tree: Brushes I started using that I didn’t realize had a built-in texture and then I was like, fuck it, he’s a painter anyway, it works
OHH sooo FAB … I would love a Bob N Bee
Did you catch Bee’s cameo in the little community garden?
OHH I missed it and went back to look closer (took me a couple of times – Guess I lack the powers of observation) .. I love it so much LOL she is tending a garden … SOOO ME .. ty for that
Yes, I thought it would be very you! But next time I’ll zoom the camera in closer, haha.
I took a snip to save it to show it to my grand .. she loves the sims and will be so excited for it
This makes a perfect cover! I see that you do use it at the very top. It’s beautifully done.
I know it’s NOT Disney font, but (for whatever reason) it reminds me of it. It feels a bit whimsical. Especially with the pink. It’s not frightening or gory with dark colors and dripping fonts.
I like how you did the leaves. It looks like a painting.
The leaves and Scarf blowing in the wind.
Love!
The wind may have something to do with the symbolism. (Sorry, I’m sitting here laughing harder every time I type that.)
Also, yesss! Thank you! I’m still happy with how it turned out, so it counts as a win.
WIND
SCARF
TITLE
PINK
LOVE
WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED
Anyways, I was talking to Ferosh the other day about where shit is, and while my knowledge of American geography is somewhat basic, this is my thinking, requested by no one, and as relevant for the Duchelli Legacy:
Brindleton Bay is Maine or Nova Scotia or some New England shit like that.
Britechester is half Stanford, half MIT, half Oxford and half not good with fractions, so I choose to believe that Britechester can be anywhere – but somewhere on the East Coast and within viewing distance of San Myshuno (the skyscapers in the distance).
Copperdale is in the Montana/Idaho panhandle area, due to the northern climate and the copper mining I DID RESEARCH OK
Del Sol Valley is clearly Hollywood.
Evergreen Harbor is probably in Washington. WA has quarries, right? (Just kidding, I know it does I DID RESEARCH)
Forgotten Hollow is tricky so for future story purposes, this is just a darker part of the same forests that Copperdale is surrounded by.
Glimmerbrook is also the same forests as Copperdale/Forgotten Hollow, just a different part.
Granite Falls is also the same forests.
Henford-on-Bagley is obviously England. (Which means it’s somewhat easy to catch a direct flight from Brindleton Bay, see Erics’ wedding)
Magnolia Promenade is the shopping district of Willow Creek.
Moonwood Mill – I hate to say it, but same pseudo-magical forest near the Idaho panhandle.
Mt. Komorebi is SIM JAPAN AND ALSO RANDOM ASIAN SHIT because who needs nuance?
Newcrest has zero personality. It is truly the beige of towns. So, like Jacksonville, FL, idk.
Oasis Springs is Arizona and thus near Strangerville. Because desert.
San Myshuno is THE BIG CITY. So probably New York and within reasonable distance from Britechester.
Selvadorada is like, all of Latin America because we are doubling down on not giving a shit about nuance.
Strangerville is Area 51.
Sulani is probably Hawaii idk.
Tartosa is meant to be a general Mediterranean thing but it just screams Southern Italy at me so loudly I can’t hear anything else.
Willow Creek is painfully and obviously New Orleans because back in the early days nuance mattered, apparently.
Windenburg is probably meant to be a sort of general Europe, but as a certified European I can confidently say that it’s extremely old Germany-like and bears little to no resemblance to most other parts of Europe. (Fuck off with your “Lykke Centre”, there’s nothing Scandinavian about this shit.)
Why did I just type all this out? No one knows, but there it is. Insert your favourite “It’s a Christmas gift” gif here.
THIS IS THE BEST
Ok so this is covering a lot more breadth than CT (partly because I don’t have any of the magic expansions, so there is a lot of goofy shit missing from the panhandle), but I may quietly steal and canonize things. Love the panhandle research.
Here are the CT canonizations that diverge from that. Spoiler alert, the reason why is East Coast East Coast East Coast:
I LOVE THAT YOU TYPED THIS ALL OUT.