#technically a stromboli...maybe

[calzoneaficionado]

A "Stromboli Quesadilla" from Tony's Top Cat Bar & Grill in Catasauqua, PA.

Clearly, the stromboli aspect isn't helping matters, but it's actually perfectly fine. Lots of cheese (no ricotta, though), filled with toppings, and sauce on the side.

[glowyjellyfish]

Okay! I have finished building houses in Lake Buena Vista, the Disney BaCC!

I then got about halfway through assigning traits to everybody and realized I was missing some (Honest John needs to be a Kleptomaniac guys), so quit out to inspect that. I think it was just a matter of having a stew of medieval-themed trait duplicates that were supposed to replace some, so I’ll see if that has done the trick tomorrow. I also started on some organizing and cleaning of this downloads folder; it was basically a copy of my standard modern game CC smorgasboard with some recent skintones/makeup/hair/mods from the medieval hood added to the mix, so it is a tad messy.

Honest John Foulfellow

...and his partner/roommate Gideon Gatti. I mean that literally, they’re not into each other. Well, they have one bolt, and not a lot of prospects, so I might let it happen. Gideon’s more into Snow White than anyone else, hilariously. I want them to be at the forefront of founding the Thieves’ Guild (or whatever I decide to call the guild hall for the Criminal career), but Honest John wants to be a City Planner and Gideon wants to be the head of SCIA. Crooked, I assume.

Their house. Like the other commoner houses, it is fully furnished and decorated because I didn’t start by going overboard and overbudget. I tried to make it a little scrubby, but that is not my preferred aesthetic, sooooo...

See, they have a damaged couch and Honest John’s bed is just fancy sheets on a pile of box springs, and all the nice art is probably forgeries! ...I am very fond of the Calvin and Hobbes triptych on Gideon’s wall though, I feel like that suits him.

Then Mangiafuoco Stromboli, who lives with

Romeo Lampwick, a Teen! I think those are canon first names for the both of them; I would not have named Lampwick Romeo. My brain wants his first name to be Chester, thanks Simpsons. As previously mentioned, Stromboli is probably going to get Lady Tremaine to run off with him. There are literally only two teens in the hood right now and they’re both boys (technically I should have made Snow and Cinderella be teens but dammit if they’re old enough to get married they are adults), and I have yet to see if they hit it off; more likely they will just have to wait for new sims to be born/age up or move to town. Lampwick wants to be a Professional Party Guest, which is appropriate, while Stromboli wants to be Hand of Poseidon, which... sure, Stromboli, you do you I guess.

The Stromboli house. I think this time I succeeded at giving it a strong lower class aesthetic from the outside!

...not nearly so much on the inside, but it’ll do.

Next up is Pecos Bill, whose hair does not fit under his required cowboy hat. He can’t go without the hat; I might try to find him hair that works with it better.

And Slue Foot Sue, shown here in the process of flirting. She’s got the same issue, but I like her hair too much, so eh. Pecos Bill wants to be an Icon, which can’t happen as he is uneducated, and Slue Foot Sue wants to be Media Magnate, which could. If I was using Sun & Moon’s Star Factory products in this town, I would have them literally raising cows and horses, but I do not want the hassle of figuring that out. They might have a non-CC farm, and/or raise dogs maybe?

Their house. Many houses in this hood ended up teetering on the edge of a cliff. I should have set it up in a flatter hood instead of the Aesthetic Mountain Lake, but try and tell that to Last Year Me.

Fortunately, it was not hard to have a light cowboyish vibe to their decor.

Johnny Appleseed, with his two apple trees in the background!

I made his house a little too big, so it ended up a little more sparsely decorated. But he has everything he needs (the sun and the rain and the apple trees~), and he’s super ready for a partner to move in and start a family with him. He wants to be a Mad Scientist despite my apple plans for him, and this ambition matches that of Doc Goodmountain who is the person he is most attracted to, so... we’ll see!

Before I get to the commoners from the last few movies, check out Katrina’s new outfit! The pink isn’t a perfect match, but the whole look of it suits her I think.

Meet Brom Bones, in theory a potential suitor for Katrina but in practice Brom is much more into 1. men or 2. the fairies. Good for him!

His house is slightly bland, I did my best but was definitely getting tired of making small starter houses.

Ichabod Crane! Looking WAY more handsome than his cartoon counterpart, I might add, despite an effort to match his features. He wants to be a Professional Party Guest, but I might force him to work on Education instead and get the guild set up and university unlocked for the first born generation. He’s got a chance with Katrina, actually, but he’s also equally into Grumpy for some reason.

I have some interior pictures, but there really isn’t a lot going on there. He has a chess table.

The last household is Souris, aka the Mice From Cinderella as human sims. I think I’ll save that for a post tomorrow as this is already quite long and there are a full 8 mice with a fairly large house to match. At first I was only going to use Jaq and Gus, then I was desperate for more female characters and looked up whether the lady mice were named, and then I discovered the two identical mice and the little one also have names, and there was nothing for it but including them all. I’ll get into it more when I post their pictures. And then, assuming the trait cleanup worked, I will finish assigning traits, copy the hood for duplication and backup, and then play!

[shitty-check-please-aus]

re: the english college thing, it’s kinda more messy than in the us!!! instead of all graduating at 18 like here, you kind of graduate at 16 after taking the GCSEs (literally just the OWLs from giuseppi stromboli) and after that you can either go to college or take A-Levels, a two year program that ends in another big series of tests. After that you can go to university, which I believe is slightly different than college. Or you can apprentice after GSCE’s! Yours, American who lived in England

this is so fucking confusing (I am also reading through all the replies on the post).

I am revoking the rights of UK people to ask “what’s a sophomore” bc this system is like “sometimes you graduate at 16, sometimes you do two more years of ‘college’ but you don’t get a degree from that you just take tests and then maybe you do three years of university” is just baffling me.

Like technically colleges and universities are different things in the US but whether you go to one or the other you’ve still done high school first? 

[90at90]

25/90: Plastic Cups Part 2: The Betrayal

We have a good start to this breakfast. I go to get my Coke Zero, and disposable plastic cups are back! I had previously mentioned how they are fun even if a bit smaller than the nomrl ones, but these emergency replacement cups are actually bigger than normal! Score! Great start.

To continue the good streak, I saw someone with a whole donut. There’s always donut holes on the weekend, but a whole donut? Surely not. I check and there they are, entire donuts! In several flavors too. This is where things get bittersweet before they get bitter.

They have football shaped cookies and sports team colored cupcakes. At face value, it’s just a fun way to celebrate the big game today. But what are the implications?

The 90 celebrates a football game more than Halloween.

This is the beginning of the betrayal, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. I make my way towards the breakfast section, and that is when the knife is planted deep in my back. There is no breakfast. None. It’s just gone. There’s just mad and cheese, vegetables, and whatever dried up meat they’re offering.

The 90 is advertised as offering “brunch” from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM on weekends. Did I sleep in past 4:00? As I type this, a gruesome thought occurs to me. Is this the new normal? I shudder to even imagine it, but could breakfast on the weekends be gone forever?

My breakfast crusade has a simple reason behind it, but it bears explaining. It’s simple: the breakfast food at The 90 is consistently better than the lunch and dinner food. I don’t want to eat bean soufflé or whatever the heck they’re offering in what is supposed to be the breakfast section. The grill isn’t even operating right now, so there’s no chicken nuggets or anything. I’m already a picky eater and the questionable quality of this establishment is not the right setting to branch out and try new things.

So I’m eating cereal. When I could be eating sausage and biscuits, or maybe even Stromboli most divine. They are offering French toast on the Mongolian grill, but I’m saving room for a donut, so course 2 will be peanut butter toast.

I even like Mac and cheese, which they are offering, but I just got out of bed! Im not an animal, I eat certain foods at certain times of the day. It’s what gives them power mentally. Order is important to me, so is ritual. Doing things the right way. Mac and cheese is not for breakfast. At least I have a gallon of Coke Zero to drink.

BREAKING UPDATE: There is breakfast pizza at the pizza station, the kind with the sausage that looks like dog treats. I might be too full to eat it now, and also the whole concept is a little weird.

The peanut butter toast is fine. I preferred it in the real toaster we used to have. The conveyor belt burns the edges, but I can eyeball it in the actual toaster. I just have to trust the conveyor belt and hope I put the right number.

A brief peak inside my mind: the conveyor belt toaster can handle multiple pieces of toast at a time, but only one setting. If the second person wants to adjust the setting, they would alter the toastedness of the first person’s toast. The only thing to do would be wait for the time period where only the second person’s toast would be inside the conveyor belt and then adjust the knob past where they want it to compensate. I am pretty certain the knob just affects the speed of the belt. Assuming there is an optimal amount of time that each person wants their toast in the toaster, it would be realistically possible to calculate the amount of time needed before they put their toast in after another person’s toast so that after the first toast leaves the knob could be overadjusted to fit make the second person’s toast stay inside the toaster for the ideal amount of time. Of course, it would be impossible to calculate a lot of these variables such as the exact amount of time that suits each person’s toast tastes best. It would be realistic to calculate toast speeds/times at different knob settings. I do not think that I am a smart person for having these thoughts, just a person who thinks about toast and is mildly obsessive, and it’s just a thought experiment, I will not be doing toast tests anytime soon, promise.

My peanut butter toast got cold while I typed that. Is that ironic, coincidental, or fitting? I’m not sure, but I can barely stop myself from launching into another tirade.

Okay, wow, the donut makes up for a lot of the other things. It’s probably most closely comparable to Krispy Kreme, it’s got that texture down. Holy moley. I got the kind with the chocolate icing on top and it’s making my heart race (probably the sugar rush). Now this is a donut. It’s a good looking donut and it tastes as good as it looks. It was worth coming out this morning, and donuts are technically breakfast food, right? Right?

59/90

59/90 with all 59 points being provided by the donut, I’m very upset that The 90 didn’t offer any savory breakfast food for “brunch”. Donuts, French toast, and Mac and cheese is not brunch, but nice try fooling me.

PS I wonder if they know people will notice. I wonder if I’m the only one that notices. Do people just show up and eat food without thinking too hard about it? Am I the only person who shows up and expects certain things? Maybe there’s a small group of people like me out there, hidden amongst the mindless food eaters. There’s a few people I see here frequently, maybe they’re like me too. Probably not, I really doubt anyone else is running a blog for this place.

[birdiethebibliophile]

{fic} That Old Sweet Feeling (part 1)

Fandom:  The Adventure Zone:  Commitment Rating:  T Chapter Warnings:  None Relationship:  Nadiya Jones/Mary Word Count:  1,481

Here on AO3.

I was going to wait until I'd relistened to TAZ: Commitment before posting this, but hey, what the hell. I'm going to try to be updating this at least somewhat more regularly than my normal schedule of... not a schedule. So let me know if you want to be tagged!

Summary:  

The wonder triplets plus their Christian supervillain hacker girl are on the run. Fun times, romance, and team bonding. Also unbelievable cuteness and maybe a touch of angst.

__________________

By Nadiya’s count, it had been nine days since she’d first been told she landed the position at the Do-Good Fellowship. Five days since they had arrived at the ‘Berg via skimmer. Four since she’d gained what could broadly be labelled “superpowers” and arrested a seditionist – seditioner? whatever. Two since she and her companions (Remy, Kardala, and Mary Sage) had had to get the heck out of Dodge to avoid going from scientist to experiment.

“Could you please keep it down?” she said in the most annoyed voice she could possibly manage. “I’m trying to drive.”

“I said I’d do it,” Mary Sage complained from the passenger seat.

“You’re, like, a religious wacko, and that doesn’t even factor into the top ten reasons you aren’t driving,” Nadiya snapped back.

“What does religion have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Nadiya replied cryptically, jerking the steering wheel to the left and narrowly avoiding a bright yellow SCHOOL ZONE sign. “Also, you may or may not still have a concussion.”

Nadiya had taken the wheel out of necessity. Mary Sage had been coughing up blood, Remy said he’d failed his driver’s test five times, and Kardala (though she admitted Irene could drive, and drive well) declared that she cared not for the so-called rules and had run three red lights before Nadiya had banished her to the backseat. Nadiya technically had a license. She did. It was just that she hadn’t used it in, what, six years? Like she was spending her hard-earned cash on a gas-guzzling car when she had a faculty bus pass.

“I thought we’d decided my head was fine,” Mary Sage groused, slumping down in her seat. Her round, green-framed glasses were perched on the end of her up-tipped nose, the close-set freckles on her arms blending into a veritable mass of orange-brown at her folded arms, her hair just as red and wild as it had been in Halleluland.

“Your head is, in any and all ways, not fine,” Nadiya stated, thoughts still on Mary Sage’s hair. Sure, they were on the run, but would it kill her to use Remy’s pick?

Speaking of Remy, he was practically bouncing again, in a way that made the whole car shake now that he had kinetic energy built into his cells – or something like that. She hadn’t exactly had time to parse what the fuck was going on with the stimplants yet, what with being on the run. “Are we almost there?” he asked for the fifth time in the hour.

Nadiya groaned. “Ask Kardala.”

“The cabin is still many leagues away,” Kardala told the car at large. Large was right, Nadiya thought. They had, erm, commandeered the biggest car they could find on such short notice, a ridiculous exhaust-spewing distastefully off-white Range Rover, and Kardala’s head was still skimming the ceiling. Nadiya had delicately suggested Kardala shift into her “Irene prison” for the duration of the drive, but Kardala had outright refused. This also had the effect of squishing Mary Sage practically against the dashboard so Kardala had enough legroom. “Into the mountains.”

“Can’t you let Irene out for, like, five minutes so she can give me better directions?” Kardala had drawn a path on a map Nadiya had grabbed once they’d reached Kansas, but it was very… vague. Mostly, she’d been going on Kardala’s intuitions, which was a lot of Kardala pointing and Nadiya having to make hairpin turns at the absolute last minute.

“Kardala does not submit to anything or anyone –” Kardala started, but was interrupted by Remy.

“Stop! Stopstopstop.”

Nadiya hit the brakes, hard, skidding to the side of the street, and turned in her seat to glare at Remy. “What.”

“7-Eleven! Gotta get me some Dew.” Remy was out of the door and halfway to the convenience store before Nadiya had even shut the engine off.

“I, too, would like to partake of the Dew of which he speaks,” Kardala pronounced, unwedging herself from the backseat. “Do you know if the 7-Eleven has strombolis?”

“They probably have hot dogs,” Mary Sage said. “Dammit. I was super hoping for, like, something that wasn’t microwaveable. Whatever.”

Nadiya thought about attempting to actually park the Range Rover, then decided that it, unlike most things, was probably beyond her ability, so she shut the engine off. “I guess we do need supplies. You coming?”

“Might as well.” Mary Sage slammed her seat back, stretched her legs with a groan, and got out of the car. “You got any cash?”

“I spent the last of it yesterday, but I have my credit card –”

“Uh, no.” Mary Sage cut her off. “That’s how they getcha. They can track that shit, you know. It’s fine, whatever, I got it.”

Nadiya rolled her eyes and got out of the car, following Mary Sage over to the 7-Eleven. More specifically, to the ATM outside. “Gimme a sec.” Mary Sage squinched her eyes almost shut. “Cameras disabled.” Then, suddenly, the ATM whirred and bills started pouring out of the slot.

“Nice,” Nadiya said in appreciation, gathering up the large stack of twenties and stuffing them into a pocket in her vest.

Mary Sage unsquinched her eyes and shrugged. “’T’s what Space Cadet does,” she said. “I guess. Oh, shit.”

The last statement was directed into the store, where both of them could see their companions causing what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a ruckus.

Nadiya stormed in. “Kardala! What the fuck?”

“This little man is refusing Kardala her hot dogs!” Kardala roared, pointing in indignation at the cashier, who was cowering behind the counter.

Nadiya stepped up and slapped a few twenties on the counter. “Five hot dogs enough?” she snapped at Kardala.

Kardala glowered. “That will be sufficient for now.”

“I got my Dew!” Remy bounced to the counter and set down a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. “Gotta get that good good juice!”

“Please never say that again,” Nadiya said. “Mary? Anything for you?”

Mary Sage plopped three bags of Ruffles, a package of beef jerky, and a Diet Coke onto the counter. Nadiya nodded. “So, all of that, and an extra-large black coffee,” she told the still-cowering cashier. When he didn’t respond, she snapped her fingers in his face. “Hey. Hey. Get it together.” Mary Sage snickered from beside her.

That seemed to jolt the cashier from his Kardala-induced shock. “Y-yeah, sure, sorry,” he stammered, scanning the items at what could only be described as the speed of light and shoving a small stack of hot dogs into Kardala’s hands and a cup of coffee into Nadiya’s.

Nadiya nodded briskly, handed over the appropriate amount of inappropriately obtained twenty-dollar bills, and led the way out of the 7-Eleven. They had almost reached the Range Rover again when Mary Sage froze, her hands clenching on her bags of Ruffles. “Shit! He’s calling the feds!” She whirled around, and they could see through the door as the cashier’s phone exploded in his hand.

Remy’s eyes were very wide. “Did it go through?”

“I think so. We gotta go!” Ignoring Nadiya’s protests, Mary Sage commandeered the driver’s seat. “Everyone in!”

They all piled in the car, and Kardala had barely closed the door when the engine roared to life and Mary Sage slammed down on the gas pedal. Nadiya swore, clutching the seat. “At least let us have a second to buckle in if you’re going to drive like a maniac!”

“No time!” Mary Sage swerved around a corner, and Nadiya was pretty sure the car went up on two wheels. “They’ll be here any second!”

“Aw, c’mon,” Remy said from where he was half-squished against Kardala. “Now you’re just being paranoid. Even they can’t –” He was interrupted by the sound of helicopter blades. “I guess they can. Uh. How?”

“They must’ve been monitoring the channels. We’re not going to be able to outrun ‘em, and I can’t control copters.” Mary Sage glanced at Nadiya – and grinned. “Looks like we’re going to have to fight. Ready for that, Reed Richards?”

Nadiya groaned. “Fuck you, Space Cadet.”

Remy wrenched his Mountain Dew open and chugged half of it. “WOO! Time to blow stuff up!” he said, giving his head a quick shake, his gaze more focused than before. “Kardala, you wanna blow stuff up?”

“Kardala does indeed!”

The two of them were out of the car before Nadiya could suggest that maybe, maybe, they could come up with a plan. “We gotta go after them,” Mary Sage said. “That copter’s more than a hundred yards away, and I just bet they’re useless without their powers, right?”

“You have no idea.” Nadiya stumbled out of the passenger side of the Range Rover, got her footing, and changed her left hand into a blade. “Are you ready, Gospel Girl?”

“That’s worse than Space Cadet.” But Mary Sage grinned again. “Hell, yeah. Let’s fuck up the feds.”

[steampoweredace]

Welcome! to the first in a series where I just talk about books. It might get a name at some point, but for now, it’s going to get to referred to by the book I’m talking about.

And what is this first book? Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a book by Jules Verne. It’s from 1864, and it’s about exactly what you’d expect from a title like that: people trying to travel to the centre of the earth. And it’s an English translation, because I don’t know anywhere enough French to get me through even a short story, let alone a novel.

Now, because this is the first go at this, the format might change later on, but for this it’s going to be a summary followed by some thoughts of mine on what I like, don’t like, or things that I find interesting. Why? Because I can. I will be more than happy to hear what you folks think of the books.

So, let’s begin. (Warning: Long.)

What’s the book about?

In one sentence? A professor, his nephew, and a guide try to make their way to the centre of the planet, get horribly lost, find a really awesome cavern, and end up making their way back to the surface in Italy by way of volcano.

With detail? (Note to self: practice summarising things.)

The book is narrated by Axel (sometimes Harry in English translations), the nephew of Professor Otto Lidenbrock (sometimes Professor Von Hardwigg in English translations).

It starts with Professor Lidenbrock returning home all excited because he found a copy of an old book by Snorri Sturluson (or, as all the copies I’ve found, regardless of the language, refer to him as, Snorre Turleson/Tarleson/Turlleson). As the Professor’s waving the book about, a scrap of paper falls out, and it turns out to be a coded note from a 16th century alchemist about how he found a path to the centre of the earth through a crater in a maybe extinct volcano in Iceland.

The Professor wants to go and starts packing so they can leave immediately. Axel doesn’t want to go, but he goes anyway, because his uncle is a force of nature and cannot be stopped. They make their way to Denmark, and from there to Reykjavik. There the Professor hires a man named Hans (also known as Hans) to help them get to where the craters are. They make it there and they’re able to find the correct crater, so they start making their way down. And here is where the fun starts.

There’s more than one possible path, and at first they end up following a path to a dead end, so they lose time and water to that. Then they have no ideas where they’re really going, and they’re down there long enough to run out of water. Axel nearly dies. Hans manages to find a spot in the rock where breaks through to an underground stream, so they don’t die, but then Axel gets separated from them. He ends up making his way through the dark until he falls down a vertical shaft, where he hits his head on a rock and blacks out. Ouch.

At least the fall managed to bring him to where his uncle and Hans were? Axel wakes up, is made to rest for some time because head injury and unconscious, and when he’s finally let up, he gets to see that wow that is a cavern. It’s got a beach, a sea, light, giant mushrooms, animals…  He mistakes it for the surface before he’s allowed up.

They try to cross the sea, because why not. They’ve built a raft, it’s the best way forward, it’s no more insane than anything else they’ve done. They end up on another coast, and from there they end up finding the trail of the 16th century alchemist. They blast through a wall of rock with gunpowder, and end up in a volcano. An active volcano. And it erupts. They end up on Stromboli. And then they get to go back to Germany and be famous, because that’s one hell of a trip and they kinda just threw some bits of what science accepted out the window.

So, thoughts?

It’s interesting. I can’t say anything about how the writing is in French, but the story itself is one I like, and a good and accurate translation is by far my favourite. The name changes are a little odd, and so is the fact that they’re measuring distance in miles and feet. The translation I was mostly going by was published in London in 1877.

In the less-good translation I have, Professor Lidenbrock gets described by Axel as choleric. After double-checking what that meant, I have to agree. He can be a jerk (okay, that’s darn near his default setting), but he does genuinely care about Axel at the very least. When they’re out of water and Axel’s nearly dying for the first time, the Professor turns out to have saved a bit of water for his nephew. Later on, after Axel nearly died for the second time, the Professor’s extremely worried and tries to prevent him from getting up before he’s rested more. (Smart move, because Axel’s been unconcious for a mystery length of time and just fell a pretty good distance.) (I question why I liked this part so much when I was 8/9.)

Hans is Hans. He’s quiet, and without him, the Professor and Axel would be very very dead. I have no problems with him. He returns back to Iceland after everything because he got homesick, and also, that’s where his family is. We don’t really get to know him because the narrator is Axel, so we don’t get to know any of Hans’s inner thoughts, and Axel gets separated from the other two for some time.

And also, when I said that Axel’s the narrator? Yeah. It’s in first person. We get to hear Axel complaining, which he does a lot. He really just wants to stay in Germany and study rocks and marry Grauben. Grauben gets referred to as the Professor’s god-daughter or ward depending on what you read. She and Axel get married at the end. They’re definitely smitten with each other.

Which brings me to the scrap of paper found in the book. It was written in runes, and then they have to decode a cipher, and then when that’s done, it’s a string of letters that don’t make any sense at first. Axel figures the last bit out by accident, and then a day or two later, he has to show it to his uncle. It was backwards. The letters were in reverse order. And then it turns out to be kinda bad Latin. But why is this connected to the thing with Axel and Grauben? Well, when the Professor is first unscrambling the letters, he tries something with Axel, telling him to think of a phrase and then write it down in X way. Axel, who was just looking at a picture of Grauben, accidentally confesses that he’s in love with her. His uncle reads the letter, seems surprised to hear the message, and then promptly ignores it. I just find this really funny for some reason.

So, overall, it’s definitely science fiction, and it’s 150 years old. It’s not accurate, and there’s a brief thing where Grauben says she wishes she could go (she also likes rocks and science), but she can’t because she’s a girl. Because, like I said, 150 years ago. That’s a thing you want to keep in mind.

So if you can handle that, translations of dubious quality, and weird science, I recommend at least trying to read it. Or maybe find the Classics Illustrated adaption or the Great Illustrated Classics adaption. That’s how I was introduced to this book back when I was 8 or 9. (Classics Illustrated is comics, Great Illustrated Classics is technically aimed at kids, but it has large print and is easy to read.)

And next month I’ll pick a book that’s from rather more recently.

[calzoneaficionado]

A remarkable "Italian Meats Stromboli" from A Taste of Italy in Allentown, PA. Sure, it's not a calzone, but as you can see there's no sauce inside, so it's close enough. Ridiculously good.

[calzoneaficionado]

Friends of the site, Dave and Dianne, with what we'll call the EmergencyZone. It may have started as a pizza which had an accident during the oven-loading stage... but one quick foldover, and they had themselves a mushroom, peppers, and broccoli calzone when all was said and done. Well, maybe it was more of a stromboli, but capital A for effort! And it looks pretty good, too!.

[calzoneaficionado]

NOT A CALZONE. Instead, a "stuffed pizza" from The Pizza Joint in Allentown, PA. Basically a stromboli (calzone!) you eat like pizza.

[calzoneaficionado]

Buffalo chicken calzone with tomatoes and broccoli from Catty Corner in Catasauqua, PA. No ricotta inside, but it doesn't need it. Really, the vegetables make it sing.

[glowyjellyfish]

Lake Buena Vista part 2:

Yesterday I made almost all the noble houses; today I finished the Tremaine estate and built Gepetto’s house. Funnily enough, I was able to 100% complete Gepetto’s house whereas all the noble houses were left unfinished and half-furnished; this is because I have been trying to follow the canon houses as much as possible, Gepetto’s house is a very small peasant shop, and in my setup Gepetto is not only a merchant, but also an Adult Human Jiminy Cricket was created separately and moved in, giving them a rather absurd bonus. I am considering charging them more for their first round of taxes--maybe make the first round be a net worth tax and every other round be income?

Anyway, the remaining poor quality pictures from yesterday:

Lucinde Verene, aka the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. I believe I totally made up that name. You can’t really see it in this blurry picture, but she’s got some aging makeup on to disguise the fact that she’s... just an adult. I figured it would be more interesting if most of the clearly elderly characters were marriageable adults in my game, especially the women, plus she’s magic she can be any age she wants. I’m going to adjust their ages a bit to put these older characters at the higher end of the Adult section, but they will all have a chance to start families if they want to.

I did work hard to give her house a Grandma vibe though; that seems like her style.

Interior pictures will arrive when I sit down to play the lot. I don’t know why I decided to make it a fairly bland brownstone, but here we are. Also, I am kind of distraught over the ugly lot elevation I couldn’t work with very well, but I don’t think I can do much beyond moving her to a new lot, and it’s a little late for that right now.

Here we have the Grand Duke from Cinderella, who I have named Raymond Lamaire. As a single male nobleman who is neutral, he’s kind of a hot commodity; in theory he should get paired off with one of the Wicked Stepsisters, if I am true to the rules and the hierarchy, but he really can’t stand them, and they each have someone they prefer. I’m testing the waters for many relationship options, but it’s likely he’s gonna end up with a Humanized Mouse that he hit it off with.

(Look, there were some animal characters I always wanted to make into human sims for this hood, and eventually for the sake of maximizing the female characters, adding some diversity, and sticking to a fair rule for the whole project, I decided with few exceptions I would just make every sentient, named animal character into human sims to add to the hood. I made the mice human because they talk; I did not make Lucifer human because he doesn’t. And I haven’t so far added any animal characters as animals because I’m bad at playing pets in the Sims 2, and I have to keep my sanity somehow.)

...the Grand Duke’s estate. Those roof pieces are expensive; he really has a lot of work to do to make this place actually livable.

A picture from today, after I got rid of the blur! ...but the Tremaine estate is the lot I used to make everybody meet one another, and as such it loaded at night. Well, whatever. It’s Lady Tremaine! I gave her the first name Eleanor, and I might come back and give her a touch of age makeup. She’s in the same “should technically be an elder but it’s more interesting this way” boat as Lucinde, and her remarriage prospects are hilariously interesting: she is into Stromboli from Pinocchio! It’s not terribly in character, but highly amusing, especially as she also wants to be a Prestidigitator. Lady’s got her priorities, wherever they came from. I like to think she’s allowing herself to pursue a valueless lower-class relationship because she’s putting everything into her daughters bringing in the wealth and prestige.

Anastasia Tremaine! I will tell you right now, when I got the citizens aquainted with one another and checked them for chemistry, I set everybody as Bi just to see if sparks would fly. No true love anywhere in the hood yet, but Anastasia is VERY interested in THE EVIL QUEEN. Isn’t that amazing? Of course Lady Tremaine would set aside any bigotry to get her daughter married to a queen! Maybe Anastasia will learn witchcraft from her and they’ll conspire together to raise the status of their royal house and overthrow Cinderella! It’s so perfect, OUAT can eat its heart out. (just kidding OUATW I still love you)

And Drizella Tremaine! Her romantic prospects aren’t nearly as interesting as the other two, and she might wind up just marrying a mouse or a dwarf and be forced to maintain the family name while Anastasia gets to marry up and Lady Tremaine gets to indulge her wild side.

The Tremaine estate; I did my best. It is *very* sparse within, and I didn’t even build the tower yet. They need so much money.

On to our merchants; here we see Gepetto talking to a dwarf. Yet another character aged down for the Drama this may create. I don’t have many plans for him yet, though; he’s just got his toymaking business.

Pinocchio, one of the few children amongst the founding families. And he’s absolutely surrounded by dwarves.

And a nice humanized Jiminy Cricket! Again, I went to some effort to not just copy OUAT on his design; I think I did okay. I am not sure there were *any* romantic prospects for him, which saddens me. I’ll check again when I play, I just have not recorded any chemistry so far. Perhaps he’ll be into the White Rabbit or somebody when I unlock Alice in Wonderland.

Gepetto’s house and shop! It is the BEST house I’ve made for this hood so far, probably. Perhaps only because it’s pretty much finished.

Look, interior shots, because it’s actually furnished throughout! Although I see I forgot all the lessons I learned about roofs and ceilings from the medieval hood, le sigh.

I probably modeled it after the canon house a little too much; they have $40,000 left I can probably build them a small extension to put their kitchen someplace more private.

Currently, there are two small bedrooms and a bathroom at the back; Pinocchio and Jiminy have to share.

That’s about it for now; my report is caught up. Next I’ll do Katrina Van Tassel’s house, then the (beat) eight commoner houses I gotta build. And then it will be time to start playing!