#Repository Pattern

[hellowahab]

Implementing Specification Pattern in our eShop using asp net core (part 9)

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to implement Specification Pattern in an ASP.NET MVC application along side Repository Pattern, step by step. 🔍 What You’ll Learn in This Tutorial Understanding the Specification Pattern Eager Loading Explained in Entity Framework Creating the ISpecification Interface Overview of Expression Trees in C# Understanding Func Delegates and Function Pointers in…

[scoldingdarjeeling]

Am I turning into the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland?

Every time some random Tumblr account starts following me — no likes, no reblogs, just... appears — I’m like: What in the bot-phishing, OnlyFans-fronting scam is this?

Also, shout-out to the stans who follow creators’ blogs just to hoard reblogs from bigger names — not like the blog itself is posting actual content or anything. Wouldn’t want to support that. 🫠

[gemmahale]

I'm contemplating frogging the Heartnut Accessory Set and changing it to a vest pattern instead.

I have two scarves to wear in the winter, and I've got a hat I prefer to wear. Another cowl, hat and (maybe) fingerless gloves doesn't excite me like I was hoping it would.

The pink is a color I think I'd wear, I've got a number of pieces I can pair it with. I've found a pattern with my bust size (ugh please more 60"+ patterns - with ease considered!) that I'd have enough yarn for (I think).

Two patterns actually. One that has some texture and the other that's just straightforward and simple. Here's the catch though: I know there are other vest patterns from designers that no longer use Ravelry (they've had some pretty significant missteps in the past, and some people chose to step away entirely) because I follow them and get emails.

I was reminded of the Size Inclusive Repository - I found a few others that might make the cut. Patterns have a certain minimum size they have to meet to be included and are geared toward fat (neutrally used) makers.

Regardless, I'm limited because I only have 800m of my main color. Maybe less. And I don't have one central place to look.

But anyway, that's what's likely going to happen, which is going to be a PAIN because of the suri floof yarn. hooray.

[tinchicus]

Hoy veremos uno de los patrones que mencionammos paraa utilizar con Domain-driven design. Espero les sea de utilidad y buen inicio de semana!

[tvickiesims]

4t2 Artist Studio Kit

A conversion of everything from the Artist Studio kit.

Key features:

23 objects;

20 walls (10 but cut in half to preserve pattern, will appear sorted next to each other in build mode);

Smoothed out meshes, no shine (except when necessary), quarter tile placeable;

All surfaces have slots;

Two functional bookcases, one sink;

All shadows are repositoried to Lord Crumps' shadow file (it's included but as always, you don't need multiple copies of it in your downloads folder, so delete if you have it already);

The easel has two versions - normal one and faster painting as in Paint Faster mod by Chaavik. Be sure to keep only one!

Drafting tablet was cloned from a similar object by @jacky93sims - it's a "novel" writing tablet but edited by Jacky to look as if sims were drawing on it, mine functions in the same way. Some clipping is present;

The woodworking table was cloned from @deedee-sims' functional woodworking table so works in the same way and uses almost the same objects. I however made some changes to it: edited all meshes, removed shine, added shadows (though they tend to appear at their own will), replaced some textures and made recolors to objects that were updated by Maxis, made everything quarter tile placeable and made some other more or less tiny quality of life changes. Craftable vanilla Sims 2 objects (chair, violin, guitar and hot tub) were replaced with a 4t2 chair, a sofa, a cabinet and a bookshelf. This crafting station is now also translated into Russian.

Objects for woodworking station, almost the same as in DeeDee's station (converted by DeeDee, HugeLunatic, HafiseAzale and me):

Compressed, clearly labelled, picture and collection file are included.

🖌️🧑‍🎨Download at SFS🧑‍🎨🖌️

UPDATE 01/10/2024

Fixed restocking from inventory function on some woodworking table objects. The archive was updated, but if you just need the updated objects (replace old ones with these) - they are here. Thank you @episims for the hint on where to look.

[crispsandkerosene]

A Kit for (Fake) Above Ground Pools

You may know the technique for raising a pool using the CFE cheat. See this post or this video. The wonky foundation stuff annoyed me. I ended up making "specialized" objects for it: -> A fence with the look of an above ground pool wall. -> Wall and floor coverings to match it. -> A tall ladder and diving board. The fence has two variations, with and without the half-circle pattern on the "external" side. I did my best to have it line up with the wall covering, but it's not perfect. The ladder and diving board are fully functional and animated. Though as you can see, there is some foot sliding, clipping, and snapping into place. Their target height is a pool raised by six clicks. They can be used with an unaltered one, but the snapping will be more obvious. Both are texture-repositoried to their Maxis equivalents. I included a simple set of recolours for those, seen in the first preview picture. Both ladder and diving board can be placed over fences and walls (by the water) without the MoveObjects cheat. However, placement may still be finicky. Place them directly on the ground. Make sure you have enough space for their full footprints, and that your pool water is flat. Thank you to Gayars for helping me test :) (Turns out pool stuff in general can be tricky. Any ladder or diving board placed on a foundation will have Sims swimming through the ground!) -> Download at SimFileShare.

[herbcitty]

Cross stitch for @heropartnerweek day seven! Here we are in Apple Woods (with flowers), my favourite dungeon!

Couldn’t decide whether I like the printer scan which shows the stitches tidier or the phone photo which is brighter and the ground colours more true to life better, so have both! =)

Must also give the hugest shoutout to the folks at spriters-resource.com and the pmd sprite repository bc man they have everything on there and actual game sprites and tiles and backgrounds I could edit together with some ms paint magic for my cross stitch pattern was an incredible thing to have. Check those out if you ever need the game pixel art!

[exeggcute]

interesting links roundup #10

>>> permalink <<<

reading

Animals as chemical factories

Are "algorithms" making us boring?

Big Food Gets Jacked

Can the Human Body Endure a Voyage to Mars?

Century-Scale Storage

Crypto trader kills himself on X live to create a meme coin

A Dark History of the World’s Smallest Island Nation

The End of Children

The Getty Family’s Trust Issues

The hardest working font in Manhattan

How Diablo hackers uncovered a speedrun scandal

I Tasted Honda's Spicy Rodent-Repelling Tape (And I will do it again unless someone stops me.)

If You Ever Stacked Cups In Gym Class, Blame My Dad

The Kiss That Changed Video Games

Patterns in confusing explanations

Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits

The Real-Life Consequences of Silicon Valley’s AI Obsession

Removing Jeff Bezos From My Bed

‘Technofossils’: how humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones

The “Unhinged Bisexual Woman” Novel

Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE

What a Crab Sees Before It Gets Eaten by a Cuttlefish

When Your Last Name Is Null, Nothing Works

Who Killed the Footless Goose?

The Worst 7 Years in Boeing’s History—and the Man Who Won’t Stop Fighting for Answers

tools/reference

Ableton: Learning Synths

Cover Your Tracks: See how trackers view your browser

European word translator

OneLook

Refuge Restrooms

River Runner Global

other

BLUEJEWELED

jacksonpollock.org

London Transport 25: ride 25 different forms on transport in one day

What if Eye...? [warning for some flashing graphics/gifs]

10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories

[somedaythesun]

3t2 World Adventure Windows: Repo'd!

I've been using the repository technique on my favorite 3t2 windows and doors so I can have more uniform color schemes with my build objects. I love this technique since it shrinks the file sizes and it allows the windows to pickup textures and recolors that you already have in your game. Win-win!

This particular batch is a series of three windows from World Adventures which have already been converted, but I repo'd them to the Bon Voyage Mulberry Window and the WorkOfArt Door. GUIDs are unique so they should not conflict with previous conversions.

The prettiest window IMHO is the King Qing's window which originally had a flower screen in TS3, but looks lovely with the Bon Voyage paper patterns as well. Just note that the BV rice paper patterns look a little too busy, but I think the other three look amazing.

Also look at the window with Yuxi's retextures of the BV door! So gorgeous!

Here's the full set in Maxis colors:

Windows prices match prices in TS3 and diagonals are included.

Enjoy, and let me know if you run into any issues!

Download

[gerbithats]

The sims 4 is not a lost cause, it just needs some love.

SO i recently came back to playing sims 4 after a long hiatus and i have to say i'm surprised. I'm no EA apologist, they are indeed cashgrabby. But to see that lots of new features were integrated over the last few years that facilitated different styles of gameplay actually surprised me.

It seems tho that a pattern has been set, were they will release the most lackluster pack (whatever it is) and keep fixing it over the next few years. Pack reworks became a thing and thank god for it, since the releases don't seem to be stoping in order to give us better results.

It's a bittersweet feeling for sure. The game has more than 70 packs released and somehow it can still feel dead when it comes to live mode. And that's what this post is about: how could they bring the love the other games had for live mode in a base game that's so purposefully made for cas and build/buy?

Part 1: Nostalgia driven gameplay

Seeing the UI from the sims 1, 2 and 3 brings me back a lot of memories. It was a staple to this series that was lost due to a cleaner redesign. Not only that, but a core mechanic was also changed: the wants and fears system.

I believe that what makes me so nostalgic is TO KNOW that this worked so perfectly and hardly needed any refreshes.

Your sims now have emotions and yet, they rarely feel like something integrated to a goal or something you can truly affect while in gameplay.

Bringing back the wants and fears system would not only make our decisions during gameplay more impactful to our sims emotions, but also help to choose the direction any story could go.

An aspiration meter that's connected to the rewards shop would make decisions much more impactful (rather than getting them just by working through what is currently known as the "tutorial aspirations").

Your sims moods should be important, and so what makes them feel that way.

Part 2: World overload

With the amount of packs released, the world selection menu quickly became a problem. When seeing that screen, it all just feels like a blur of information that's been set in a certain way for convenience.

Maps such as these became popular in the community for a reason. The experience of playing needs to be inviting from the get go. It's clear tho that the reason behind not giving us something like this is no long term planning and pack exclusive experiences.

So what if it just became a larger sims world? A concept were you wouldn't select the city at frist, but the entire region were it is located in order to acess the one you prefer.

That would also make this refresh friendly to a future create a world tool (whenever that may come).

Part 3: Pack refreshes are the bread and butter of the future

Let's face it: we're stuck with this game for another 10 years at least. So other than dwell on the fact that we don't have open worlds or things of that nature, we should look at what can reasily be solved, and that's pack refreshes.

From seasons coming out without properly made textures and snow depth to functions that will simply not work as they should, I like to believe we do have a voice in this community. I made this post several years ago and now, looking back at it, I see so much improvement over things that we were desperately asking for.

Don't get me wrong, by that I don't mean that EA developers are searching through my page or yours to find what we think and expect for The Sims 4. But talking about these things openly as a community is what makes the difference.

Part 4: Simmers Unite

In conclusion: uniting our voices to ask for these things to come as refreshes and revamped features are crucial for the next few years. Let's, together, avoid a "my first snowdepth pack" or similar things that could yet come our way.

I created a blog called @sims4-communitywishes to reblog rants and wishes such as these. Our blogs and separate voices may be small, but a repository of it is much more impactful.

So thank you for reading this all the way through and in case you want to share your wishes for the future of The Sims 4, tag it as #s4comunitywishes

[kaluxsims]

Treat 3 is comfy and casual, but still brings some spoop. LittleCakes scoop neck tunic tees for TF-EF, in a variety of graphics, solids, and patterns.

Download: SFS or MediaFire

More details and swatches under the cut.

They're set as Everyday, PJ, Gym, and Undies. Standard morphs. 46 textures in total, all numbered in the same order as the swatches. Both repository and standalone are included in the download.

Swatches:

@simblreenofficial

Credits: littlecakes (retired) for the TS4 mesh and textures, patterns by whoever made them (got them on Pinterest, sorry!)

[xponentialdesign]

Was totally inspired today by GheeBeomKim wonderful tessellations today, I couldn't reproduce the exact pattern but I made a fun setup with Trapcode TAO, soliciting both repeaters & allowing easy keyframing of custom color offset animations *Source File on repository (patreon)

[ltash]

"Wicked" Pt-3

SimonGhostRileyxf!"Rose"reader

From her highschool bully to her wicked bodyguard, from Simon to Ghost.

Palm Jumeirah, Dubai - Midnight.

The lights inside the mansion flickered, once-just a glitch, a flutter of voltage-but Rose's pulse skipped all the same. It always did now. The walls felt too close. The air, too quiet. No house this beautiful should feel like a cage, but hers did. Behind its manicured gardens and imported marble, the mansion wasn't a home. It was a gilded prison.

Massimo had made sure of that.

She hadn't been allowed to leave in weeks. Her phone was replaced. Her laptop filtered. The staff now wore polite smiles that never met their eyes. Rose had grown used to surveillance: the cameras hidden in chandeliers, the microphones embedded in vent grilles, the locks that clicked shut when they weren't supposed to.

But she still had one ghost left in the machine.

She padded barefoot into the darkened study, the only room she was never searched in. Inside the antique desk drawer was a tiny circuit board connected to a hidden port-one she'd built herself back when she still had freedom. It looked like a piece of the HVAC system, but under the hood was a different story.

She was about to use her only remaining ally: an old AI security system she had personally installed before her staff were replaced. It's disguised under the house's climate control and lighting apps-Massimo's men never even noticed it.

Late at night, she writes a command.

A hidden SOS, encrypted and buried under code.

She can't name herself, can't give details.

Just:

Her fingers trembled as she typed into the dim screen.

>High-value civilian. Palm Jumeirah. Hostile containment. Request immediate covert extraction.

She uploads it to an old abandoned GitHub repo registered under a pseudonym she once shared with a boy who used to sit at the back of her chemistry class.

Simon Riley.

The message was anonymous. There was no name, no coordinates. Just metadata buried in lines of an old GitHub repository registered under a long-forgotten pseudonym.

A joke. A nickname from school. One she had once shared with a boy who never smiled.

She didn't even know if he was still alive.

She hit send.

And hoped the wind still remembered her name.

Location: Undisclosed SAS Safehouse, Northern England

Simon was SAS now. Special Forces.

Callsign: Ghost.

The alert came through on a cold Thursday night.

He monitors that GitHub repo out of habit. It's nothing but sentiment, a scar he keeps reopening.

He hasn't checked it in years.

Until he does.

Simon Riley sat in the quiet glow of his monitor, the rain painting war patterns against the window behind him. He barely touched the internet. Except for this.

He hadn't checked the repo in years. It was a dead habit, something he did every few months. Nostalgia with no reward.

Until he saw it.

> Last push: 2 hours ago.

Encrypted within the code wasn't just a distress call.

It was her.

Rose.

He didn't breathe for nearly a full minute.

Ghost stood slowly, fingers curling into fists as a cold burn lit up in his chest. He hadn't heard her name since he'd buried it. Since the night he left without a goodbye.

His blood runs cold.

Encrypted in the code is a name he hasn't heard in half a decade:

"Rose."

He goes to his superiors.

The request is unofficial. Shadow ops.

But the words hostile containment and high-value civilian raise flags.

It gets buried under a private bodyguard detail ordered by a powerful British defense ally with silent interest in Massimo's dealings.

No name. No address. Just Palm Jumeirah, high-value civilian, hostile containment.

Enough for an unofficial op.

And the name that gets assigned?

Lieutenant Simon Riley.

His name was the first one on the assignment.

48 Hours Later a black SUV rolled past the iron gates like it belonged there.

Rose stood in her hallway, arms wrapped around herself, watching from behind the curtains.

One man stepped out. Alone.

Massimo's guards stood straighter.

Tall. Broad. Black tactical gear that looked too sharp for Dubai's heat. A skull mask covering his face, balaclava beneath it. His eyes were cold, unreadable. Like winter.

He didn't speak as he passed the guards. Just handed a sealed letter.

Authorization for close protection detail.

One of Massimo's men, it said.

Rose didn't buy it. But she didn't argue.

She stood at the top of the stairs as he entered, heart hammering.

He looked up at her.

And she, she froze.

There was something about him.

Something terrifying and familiar.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

He stopped just a few steps from her, the skull mask gleaming under the crystal chandelier.

"Ghost," he said. Just that.

The name tasted like ash.

Her voice trembled. "You're one of Massimo's men?"

"Something like that," he answered. Low. Controlled. British accent like frostbite.

She swallowed. The fear in her blood was real. She'd seen hitmen. Thugs. Brutes.

But this one was different.

An Alpha among the wolves.

Massive, silent, lethal.

The black cargo pants hugged his powerful thighs like a sculptor's sketch in motion. Every inch of him said: do not cross.

She stepped back as he approached. He didn't follow.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," Ghost said quietly, almost too softly for a man like him.

But she was.

Terrified.

Because deep inside her, something screamed that she knew him.

And that scared her more than anything else.

The mansion was quiet. Too quiet. Not the peace of luxury, but the silence of surveillance, the kind of silence that watches you breathe.

Ghost stood by the edge of the marble balcony, framed by the dim amber of Dubai’s dying sun. The call had come. The assignment given. No backup, no fanfare, just a flight, a briefing, a skull mask, and a destination: Palm Jumeirah.

He hadn’t expected it to be real. The message hidden in the GitHub code had been too poetic to believe. Too her.

But it was real.

Rose was here.

And she was in trouble.

48 Hours Earlier, She had stared at the blinking cursor for what felt like hours.

> "High-value civilian. Palm Jumeirah. Hostile containment. Request immediate covert extraction."

No names. No cry for help. No traceable language.

Just enough to mean something, to the right person.

Rose encrypted the text in base-64, nested it into an update in an abandoned GitHub repository linked to a fake climate control API, something she and Simon had once joked about building back in school. Back when he was still just Simon. Before he disappeared like mist.

She hit commit.

And prayed.

Now...

The skull mask stepped through the threshold like a shadow that had grown legs. Black tactical gear. Gloves. Thick black cargo pants that stretched over thighs built like war machines. Combat boots that echoed like the ticking of an ending.

The guards nodded, not questioning his clearance. Massimo trusted him now. The cover had been placed well.

She was in the living room. Pale as bone, curled up in a silk robe on the ivory settee.

She looked up, and froze.

The skull.

The mask.

The height.

The weight of him was a presence.

“Who are you?” she asked, voice small, breaking.

He stood still.

"Name's Ghost," he said finally, voice deep and northern, cracked like winter pavement. "Massimo brought me in for security. I’m here to watch you."

Her brows creased, fear threading through the delicate angles of her face. “I don’t need another one of his men watching me.”

He tilted his head, slowly.

“No offense, but I’m not one of his men.”

Her throat worked. She stood, slowly. The robe fell just enough to show a bruise. Faint. But there.

His jaw ticked under the mask.

“I don’t trust anyone,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said. “That means you’re not stupid.”

A beat passed. The chandelier hummed above them.

She turned away, but not before he saw the tremble in her hands.

He had to earn her trust. Carefully. Quietly. Not with the truth, because the truth was dangerous. To both of them.

Not yet.

So he watched. And waited. And followed. Like a loyal shadow.

Simon Riley was gone.

There was only Ghost now.

And she didn’t know him.

Not yet.

But soon, she would.

The sun bled orange into the Gulf, casting golden ripples across the water as the massive white yacht sliced through the marina like a predator in silk. Palm Jumeirah, glittering like a crown in the ocean, had seen its fair share of luxury, but even here, the arrival of Don Massimo Toricelli turned heads.

Ghost watched from the top floor of the mansion through a sliver in the blackout curtain. He recognized the yacht, custom-built, three decks, helipad, and a private lounge with imported marble flooring. He’d studied it in the brief.

His yacht, a gleaming, multi-million dollar Leviathan, rocked gently in the turquoise water, tethered just off the private dock of her Palm Jumeirah estate. It gleamed like his ego, always visible, always looming.

Massimo was coming.

And that meant trouble.

The Italian stepped off the yacht with the confidence of a man who owned the world and everything in it. Black suit sharp enough to cut, sunglasses shielding eyes that never missed a detail.

The black Maserati had barely stopped outside the mansion before Massimo Toricelli stepped out, flanked by his two most loyal bodyguards. He wore his usual armour of a designer three-piece suit, sunglasses despite the low golden sun, and that chilling smirk that made Rose’s stomach turn. The man smelled of cologne and control.

He carried a box in his hand. Velvet black. The kind of box that didn’t contain anything simple.

Rose was summoned to the lobby. Always summoned, never invited.

Inside the mansion, Rose was being prepped. She didn’t want to go downstairs, Ghost could see it in her face. Her robe was replaced by a floor-length designer dress, her makeup immaculate. A doll on display.

She descended the marble staircase slowly, her every step echoing in the grand, hollow luxury of the mansion she couldn't escape. The lobby was vast, double height ceilings, Italian chandeliers, crystal vases she didn’t pick, all curated to reflect a life she no longer had control over.

He stood in the corner of the marble lobby, arms crossed, skull mask reflecting the light from the chandelier above. Every nerve in his body burned.

Then the door opened.

Massimo entered like a storm in human skin.

Massimo sat in one of the velvet armchairs like he owned the place. Because he did. Or at least, he owned the cage around her.

"Bellissima," he purred, his voice smooth and poisonous. “Dubai suits you.”

Rose managed a smile, tight, hollow. “Massimo.”

Ghost stood in the corner, near the mirrored console table. He was motionless, silent, a black sentinel in full tactical gear. Skull mask on. Hands behind his back. The perfect blend of menace and restraint.

Massimo glanced at him once, indifferent. "You can leave us."

Ghost didn’t move.

Rose lifted her chin. "He stays."

Massimo gave a faint chuckle and gestured dismissively. "As you wish, tesoro."

He reached into a bag one of his men handed him and pulled out a velvet box.

"Cartier," he said simply, like it was an apology. "For your good behavior."

She took it with stiff fingers, murmured a thank you that made her mouth taste like ash. The necklace inside was encrusted with diamonds. Cold. Lifeless. Like a chain pretending to be a gift.

Ghost’s hands curled into fists in the shadow of his sleeves.

Massimo’s eyes flicked toward him.

“And you must be the new shadow. What do they call you? Phantom? Skull?”

Ghost didn’t move.

“Ghost.”

Massimo chuckled. “Fitting. Let’s hope you’re as loyal as the last one.”

Rose shifted, her discomfort palpable. Ghost could feel it in her silence.

Massimo turned his attention back to her. “I’ve missed you. We’ll have dinner this weekend. I’ll have the chef flown in from Florence. You’ll wear the necklace.”

He leaned in closer, voice a whisper of threat and lust. “Say yes.”

She didn’t answer. Just nodded.

Massimo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You look tired. Are they feeding you well? Are you sleeping?"

Rose said nothing.

He smiled wider. "Still so stubborn. That’s what I like about you. We’ll talk again soon."

Massimo straightened, pleased with himself.

“Until then, cara mia.”

And then he stood. Kissed the air beside her cheek.

Left as quickly as he arrived.

He left the box in her hands and turned, his coat swaying as he walked out. The doors shut behind him.

Only then did Rose exhale.

Ghost stayed still. Watching. Planning. Rage crawling up his spine like wildfire.

He couldn’t move. Not yet.

He hadn’t called Task Force 141.

Because this wasn’t the moment.

But it was coming.

And when it did, Massimo wouldn’t walk away.

The moment the double doors shut and his footsteps faded, she turned and ascended the stairs quickly, almost running.

Ghost followed, his boots quiet behind her.

She reached her bedroom, the velvet box still clutched in her hand like it had burned her.

Once inside, she hurled it across the room. The lid snapped open. The necklace hit the floor with a sharp, cold clatter, scattering light across the marble.

She sat down beside it. On the floor. In her silk gown. Head bowed, fists clenched, tears pooling in her eyes like they had nowhere else to go.

Ghost stood by the door. Watching. Silent.

She didn’t notice when he stepped closer.

Until he knelt down beside her.

"You don't have to do what he says," he said softly.

She looked up, startled.

He reached forward, hesitantly, almost reverently, and wiped the tear trailing down her cheek with a gloved thumb.

Her breath hitched.

And then...

He extended his hand.

Palm up.

The same way she had, years ago, trembling in a glittering gymnasium, her heart in her throat as she offered her hand to a boy who never took it.

"You don't have to deal with this alone," he said gently.

Her eyes widened.

She stared at the hand. At the shape of it. The calloused palm. The curve of his fingers. So familiar.

Her voice was barely a whisper. "Simon...?"

He didn’t say anything at first.

Just nodded.

The silence cracked around them like thunder.

Her lips parted, her chest rising with a thousand emotions she couldn’t name.

He slowly removed the mask.

And there he was.

Simon Riley.

Older. Harder. Scarred. But still him.

His eyes locked onto hers.

"I came back for you, Rose."

And this time, when she took his hand, he didn’t let go.

[katsurinssims]

I recently became tangentally interested in 'Hamatora' style, which evolved out of high end fashion in Yokohama in the 80s. I made this as a recolour of one of my favourite average ladies dresses inspired by the style, though I'm not 100% if it's hit the mark, as it's a pretty difficult style to research. What I've ended up with is a set of skirt and shirt seperates which would fit fairly easily into both modern and vintage style games.

I've made 10 swatches in various Aelia colours and patterns, 6 with skirts and shirts and 4 with an added knit vest. The belt buckle is actually a modified 80s Chanel one, and I added nylons and shoes nicked from @goatskickin's recolours of this mesh. These are all categorised as everyday only.

About the mesh: it's orignally converted by @moyokeansimblr here for TF-EF, but for the AF age I've included @pforestsims edited AF mesh. The fixed AF mesh has a lot of fixed bones, so the TF and EF meshes can look quite wonky in comparison, especially with the oddly squished belts, but I've included the ages anyhow. You can have them standalone or repo to AF (made using the repository wizard). Meshes are included, and everything's fully compressorised.

Download EP13 DressBelt Yokohama recolours standalone

Download EP13 DressBelt Yokohama recolours repo to AF

Buy me a coffee? I have a Ko-Fi!

[simstationdance]

HAPPY BIRTHIVERSARY part 2 - Crop Tops & Punk Skirts

FUN FACT: The Sims 2 (2004) was released 3 days before the date upon which I was released from my mother's womb, therefore making me younger than The Sims 2 by 3 days as of September 14th 2024, but objectively older by 6 years as of September 17th 2024. As of this post, it is now my birthday. I can feel the hands of time slowly pulling me into the earth. Let's celebrate!

Today's Very Special Birthiversary post includes a set of stylish, vaguely Scene-inspired clothes for ladies: 24 recolors of the Urban Primitive skirt, separated from the Maxis outfit by Skell, and 5 Goth themed patterned recolors and 5 bright solid recolors of the 4t2 Bow Crop Top by MDPthatsme, with black tank top undershirts attached using textures by DeeDee. The clothes are for AF and TF, with Standalone and Repositoried options for TF, and they come with all morphs.

All meshes are included and special characters that would make the game load slower (specifically hyphens) have been removed from the filenames. Since the skirt is from the ever popular Maxis Match Repository Project, you probably have the mesh for the skirt lying around in your Downloads somewhere, so make sure you don't have duplicates.

For the skirts, there are two versions with tights - one of which is a mashup of fishnets by Io (colored red and black) and the Maxis black and white stockings, and the other is the Maxis shorts+fishnets texture because I liked it - and one version with bare legs, which can be used with @themeasureofasim's stockings accessory boxes. (actually only a handful work, see under the cut)

The crop tops and the skirts are 'meant' to be paired together but, being separates, you can mix and match with any other top or bottom you want.

CROP TOPS SWATCH | PUNK SKIRTS SWATCH

See under the cut for more (not very important) information.

DOWNLOAD (sfs)

Mesh credits: @mdpthatsme, Yuichen, @deedee-sims, Skell Texture and alpha credits: DeeDee, Ghanima Atreides, Creesims, Io, and Maxis Pattern credits: andrea_lauren, nerd-and-vine, ophelia_payne (@ Spoonflower), Blue Moth Fabrics, and VictoriaBat.

I have done my best to credit everyone who's resources I used. If I have misattributed or missed anybody, or if I have broken a rule in someone's TOU somewhere, please let me know.

Secondly, this is my first time 'retexturing' clothing instead of just recoloring it, as well as the first time I've done anything clothes-related in a very long time, so please be gentle to me with your criticisms and let me know if anything needs fixing <3

I wanted to recreate this outfit using only textures, because I know nothing about meshing and Milkshape scares me. As you can probably tell, I got a little carried away from the original goal.

I mashed a bunch of patterns, textures, and colors together on top of the crop top and skirt in an effort to learn 'advanced' recoloring of clothes in GIMP, as the most I've ever done before was just recoloring using pre-made PSDs. it was a bit of a disorganized disaster and there was quite a bit of blood, sweat, and tears. But the end results look... mostly nice, I think.

The arm warmers and fishnet gloves shown in the preview are a pair of accessories created by katsurinssims that I used to try to 'complete' the look, and are not included in this download.

Edit: im very sorry, I only tested a handful of the accessory stockings on the bare legs skirts, because I was very tired and there are A Lot of them, and assumed they would all work. But after a bit more testing, some of them have small gaps or poke through the boots, and the ones that are supposed to go over the crotch area end up looking like over the knee socks. Other than that, most of the knee high socks and tights work, but only on AF. I don't consider this a huge problem though, because a good amount of the tights work and the ones with gaps are barely noticeable.

There's a shoe swap that makes all of the boxes work with these skirts and I'll make another versIon of them with that mesh later.

[city-of-ladies]

"Mycenaean women put their own spindles to splendid use, producing luscious cloaks and long, richly patterned or striped skirts. Far from resigning themselves to the weaving rooms, they travelled in chariots, performed songs or poetry to the accompaniment of lyres, and carried wheatsheaves for public ceremonies and rituals, as vibrantly coloured frescoes from the palace at Mycenae reveal. In one of the most enigmatic paintings, one woman holds a sword, another a spear, while two tiny men, one painted red and the other black, float mysteriously between them, like toy models or thought bubbles. Through their contact with the divine, perhaps, the women pictured gain agency over the men’s fate. Hera, Zeus, Poseidon and a female birth and death goddess known as Potnia were among the deities the Mycenaeans are known to have worshipped. While Mycenaean women clearly played an important role in religion, their political position within the palaces was weaker than that of their Minoan counterparts, and secondary to the men’s. Each Mycenaean palace complex was presided over by a male ‘wa-na-ka’ or wanax.

Surviving clay writing tablets provide just as fascinating an insight into the lives of women in the real palaces of the Mycenaean era. The fullest collection of tablets comes from a pair of rooms in the palace complex of Pylos, but Knossos, the former Minoan capital, was also a key repository. A total of 4,476 tablets have been preserved across the two sites. Among these there are references to more than 2,000 different women. Unlike Linear A, the Minoans’ writing system, the Mycenaeans’ similarly syllabic Linear B has been successfully deciphered. Working (as opposed to non-working elite) women were denoted by signs resembling an abstract impression of the female form. ‘Woman’ was conveyed by two dots for breasts, legs joined to suggest a long skirt of the kind Mycenaean women wore, and a curved line where her head would be, suggestive of long or dressed hair (in the sign for a man, by contrast, there is a straight line for the head).

The women referred to in the tablets were employed in a wide range of jobs, many of them familiar from the Homeric epics. In the Odyssey, women grind wheat and barley, ‘the marrow of men’, at mills. There were ‘flour-grinders’ at the palace in Pylos. In both epics, women weave, whether royal or servile. Andromache works in the Trojan palace with a loom and distaff while ordering her servant women about their work. Helen embroiders a purple cloth with scenes from the Trojan War as if she were telling the story of the poem herself. And as we have seen, Penelope weaves and unweaves a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. The women who wove at Pylos and Knossos were no less versatile in their handiwork. They managed something like a textile industry, producing goods for export as well as the palace community, and worked in groups according to specialism. There were wool-spinners and carders, linen- and leather-workers, finishers and headband-makers for horses. These women usually worked separately from men, but at Pylos there is evidence that at least two women, Wordieia and Amphehia, formed part of a mixed leather-making group. 

Working groups were the modus operandi at the Mycenaean palaces. Women were usually accompanied by boys and girls, presumably their own children, as they went about their tasks. Many were divided also according to their geographical region. Pylos was split into sixteen districts over two provinces, Nearer and Further, separated by Mount Aigaleo. The palace-workers came from more than 200 named places, some of which may have been local streets, while others, including Lemnos, Miletus and Knidos, lay further afield. It is possible that, like the Sidonian (Phoenician) women carried to Troy by Paris in the Iliad to weave fine robes for the court, some of the women working in the Mycenaean palaces had been enslaved.

Although the women were engaged in hard, practical labour, their work was recognised as highly skilled, and the Mycenaeans took some pride in it. Men were sometimes described on tablets as being the offspring of women of particular crafts, for example, ‘sons of flax-workers’. Female workers were allocated the same amount of food in the regular distributions as their male counterparts, and twice as much as their children, whereas in Babylonia, men typically received three times the female ration.

A mysterious senior class of priestess at Pylos known as ‘keybearers’ (did they open and close shrines within the palace complex?) even owned land. A landowning keybearer named ka-pa-ti-ja (‘Karpathia’) was wealthy enough to donate almost 200 litres of grain to the palace, probably for a religious festival. Given the historical prominence of women at the court of Pylos, it is fitting that a mythical Pylian king should intervene in the dispute over Briseis in the Iliad. Old Nestor urges Agamemnon to return the woman to Achilles and to end their feud."

The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World, Daisy Dunn