Award | Sunshine Blogger Award

Somehow, the Sunshine Blogger Award made it to my silly little blog as well. It was nominated for it by Jowita from NeverDoItAgain. I only started reading her story lately, but I’ve enjoyed it – and Jowita’s amazingly detailed list of the CC she uses – immensely 🙂 If you’re into drama, go have a read. It’s great!

EDIT: I’ve also just been nominated by Lila Remonn of the Kingston Legacy. Thanks so much for that 🙂 I’m only on gen 1 of her legacy, but I can already tell she’s a talented writer and the more recent pictures on her blog are jaw-droppingly beautiful. I’m jealous. I’ll add her questions after Jowita’s 🙂

Now, onto award-y stuff. First, the rules are as follows:

1. In a blog post, thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
2. Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.
4. List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or your blog.

I’ve done 1 and 4, so let’s move right on to Jowita’s questions:

1. What do you most enjoy about being a member of the WordPress community?
   I enjoy the easy access to good quality stories that I can read. I used to spend hours – and I mean hours – reading posts on Reddit and I often found myself drawn to negative stuff about bad relationships, disease, and disaster of various kinds. That’s bad if you’re a bit of a neurotic as I am. I’d literally read stuff that made me scared and gave me nightmares in a time when I already struggled (and still struggle to some extent) with low self-esteem and social/performance anxiety. I knew there were Sims stories aplenty to read online, so I’ve started reading you guys’ stories when I need to relax instead and it’s just way better for my health.
2. How often do you check to see if there’s anything new out here on WordPress?
   On a regular day? Just like a few times. On a day when I’ve posted? Every five seconds or thereabouts. Ha, ha!
3. What makes you call a person a skillful writer?
   The fact that I can tell that they put thought into their writing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be crazy plot twists or these super complex plots or anything, just that I can tell that they thought about where they took the story. If I can tell that they thought about the implications of their characters actions and the way it influences their actions, that’s true skill right there 🙂
4. What do you do when you feel like you’re stuck on a particular storyline and don’t know where to take it?
   I talk to my darling boyfriend about it. He’s a very logical, introspective, and insightful person. He reads my stories as I post them and he just always seems to get the characters and their core as I intended them. Okay, honestly, talking to anyone about the issues tend to help, but as he’s the person in the world I feel most comfortable with, he’s the best and the one I love talking to most (I just generally love him). If I don’t do that, I sometimes do stuff like just… walk away from the story for a while. Play a videogame, watch a tv show, read a book or I just sleep on it. The silliest thing I do sometimes is find random plot generators online. They’re super silly, but they can actually help.
5. The prettiest Sim you’ve ever had in your game?
   Aaaah, don’t make me choose! I’m not going to choose either of my current characters because I created them myself by tweaking premades, so instead I’ll go for these two (from my old story the Talented which is still on the blog for it so you can read it if you like but pls no):
   

   

   

   
   

   The first is Milena Hartfield who was actually the result of a union of Leighton Sekemoto from Sunset Valley and (aged up) Star Shue from Hidden Springs. She’s so gosh darn pretty for a Sim that’s never been edited by a player’s hand, but she’s not a pudding face either – Star Shue has a super amazing pretty face that just creates the most unique, amazing-looking babies.
   The other is Danaë ‘Dani’ Ithaca. She’s a result of my old Ithaca legacy but she never appeared in it before I stopped. I just fell so much in love with her that I couldn’t help but use her in my later story.

6. Your favorite couple in your gameplay/stories?
   These dorks:
   

   Seen here at their very dorkiest.

   They’re a joy to write because they’ve got obstacles to overcome, but I also think there’s the sense that they CAN overcome them. Compare that with Carlo and Vittoria who are 100 % super in love, but their issues are… worse. I like writing healthy relationships and with a little work, Nadir and Genevieve will have one. Carlo and Vittoria… they tried? 😛
   
   

7. Your favorite non-romantic relationship in your gameplay/stories?
   I’ll have to go with another Champion of Moonlight relationship: Genevieve and Celeste. They’re not truly friends because they only ever see each other for the Tournament (the sad fact of Gen’s character is that she pretty much does nothing but work), but they’ve got a nice dynamic anyway. Celeste is very aware of Gen’s flaws but she’s also one of the few people who bother to see her good qualities – even if she also teases her relentlessly.
8. Have you had a Sim that you fell in love with right away?
   
   ^^^^Dork^^^^
   A dork I haven’t even played, but who cares. He’s my darling, shy little dork.
9. If you ever did any storylines, what is the one you’re most proud of? If you didn’t, post the oldest picture from your save.
   If it’s not obvious from all the stuff above, I’m really pleased with Champion of Moonlight. It’s the first longer story I’ve finished since I was a teenager living at home (we’re talking 7-8 years, here), and I’m super proud and super pleased. There’s the edit of A Monte Vista Story which is also shaping up to be pretty good, but for now, CoM is the one I’m most proud of 🙂 Especially the relationship that develops between Nadir and Gen though I kinda want to edit the whole thing again and flesh it out.
10. Have you had any Sims that remind you of someone?
    I’m not really sure about this one. Most of my Sims, in the stories at least, remind me of someone I know or of myself. I can’t help but write some of my reality and my experiences into the stories, after all. As for Sims in-game, they rarely remind me of real people because they’re so cartoony in their behaviour.
11. Is there any random fact about your blog story you want to share?
    Okay, let’s give Monte Vista some love: A Monte Vista Story is the second story I’ve written where I involved Carlo. The first was The Ithaca Legacy. When I wanted a new legacy-type story for the blog, I thought back to what made me love writing my first story so much, and part of it was Monte Vista and the sort of dangerous-love type of thing with Carlo. It wasn’t AT ALL explored in that story, so I dived a lot more into his character here and gave him a love interest that isn’t a slab of concrete personality wise. I also looked at the facts that are in-game – he’s artistic, for example. There’s also a Marco Mancini at the Monte Vista graveyard who MIGHT be his and Camillo’s dad, though there aren’t any ties in-game. I ran with it, though, and in my story, he’s their dad.
    I also have confession: Vanilla Carlo has a stupidly small nose and is four days from being an elder. I edited his nose and age when I started playing and I only feel a little bad about it.

Welp, that was a lot of rambling. Stop me.

EDIT: Here come the other questions:

1. Which of your characters can you relate most to, and why?
   Nadir. Oh, poor, darling Nadir. Most of my other characters are confident, but he’s just a bundle of nerves and really anxious and kind of self-loathing… I relate. A lot.
2. How often do you work on your story?
   It depends. Lately? CONSTANTLY. It’s literally what takes up most of my time. When I’m more busy with school stuff, I have less time, but right now I’m free until the start of March, so I work on my stories most of the time. I wish it could last, but all that stuff out in the real world will probably take up more time later on. So I’m enjoying it while it lasts 🙂 
3. What is your favourite genre of simlit?
   Legacies with lots of romance and juicy drama. But there’s also something to be said for storybased stuff that’s staged with gorgeous screenshots. As a general rule, I prefer storybased over observational/gameplay based ones. Looking at my Reader, that’s also most of what’s left. I followed a few gameplay based ones, but they haven’t posted in a while and I’m afraid they won’t come back. Don’t even get me started on the storybased ones that stopped updating. My poor heart…
   
   
4. Is there a personal tip for storywriting that you might like to share?
   Editing and re-writing is underrated. They’re wonderful things. Writing should never end with the first draft. Also, it’s easy to fall into thinking your old stuff is irredeemably bad, but if you go back later and read it with fresh eyes, you’ll often find that there’s good stuff that can be re-worked and tweaked to become even better. Sometimes, you’ll just need to let something go and give up on it, but I think it’s worth taking a look back and seeing if some simple edits can’t make it shine again 🙂
   
   
5. What kind of protagonists do you like the most?
   I likes them flawed, but with potential for change. And not just like ‘Oh, she has this flaw where she’s really clumsy and she trips into the cute guy’s arms teehee.’ No, real flaws. Like, a protagonist that’s an arrogant prick. Who can’t talk about their feelings and therefore mess up. Who are so scared to talk to people that it’s an actual problem or significantly lowers their quality of life. All my favourite characters are severely flawed characters who learn a lesson. Emma Woodhouse (Emma), Scarlet o’Hara (Gone with the Wind), Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney). Character development is my favourite thing in the world.

Thanks again to Jowita and Lila Remonn for the excellent questions. It’s always fun to get to ramble a bit about my writing 🙂

As for my own tagging, I can say that pretty much all my favourite bloggers have been tagged by either Jowita or others who’ve had the awards. The only ones I haven’t seen are RipuAncestor and Socallucyfan. These are some cool people with cool stories that you should check out. Consider yourselves tagged, except if you’ve already done it or you don’t want to. Now, I’m not going to make up more questions, but I’d like to challenge the two of you to answer Jowita’s questions as well, because they’re excellent (I hope that’s okay with her):

1. What do you most enjoy about being a member of the WordPress community?
2. How often do you check to see if there’s anything new out here on WordPress?
3. What makes you call a person a skillfull writer?
4. What do you do when you get bored in your game and don’t know what to write about for your new chapter? [for the game-driven blogs] / What do you do when you feel like you’re stuck on a particular storyline and don’t know where to take it? [for the story-driven blogs]
5. The prettiest Sim you’ve ever had in your game?
6. Your favorite couple in your gameplay/stories?
7. Your favorite non-romantic relationship in your gameplay/stories?
8. Have you had a Sim that you fell in love with right away?
9. If you ever did any storylines, what is the one you’re most proud of? If you didn’t, post the oldest picture from your save.
10. Have you had any Sims that remind you of someone?
11. Is there any random fact about your blog story you want to share?

And that’s all I have for now. I hope this wasn’t the most boring post on the entire planet, and I’ll see you for the next update. Cheers!
~Louise/NotJustaBook