Author Archives: Silver Arrows

I Met Calvin Jones Again and He Remembered Me!

I don't know why it's taken me this long to post this. The show was in February. I've been lazy and neglecting my blog. Anyway, here it is. My homie Calvin Jones! Don't forget, HE asked for MY autograph!

I have to offer tribute whenever I go. So this time, I made some Park Tool themed desserts!

park tool blue iced doughnuts made from air dy clay

Apparently, I seem to have left an impression on people. They recognised me and my boss at reception. They asked if we were there yesterday. We said no, they must be remembering us from last year.

I was surprised that Truman Purdy was here this year!

Continue reading →

Almost Done — Raindrops is Almost Finished

It's done! It's finally done! After many, many weeks, I have finally written Jasmine's last chapter! Twenty years later, Jasmine finally gets an ending to her story!

It's only a first draft, so it'll need a lot of polishing. And there's still a load of missing screenshots for the previous chapters to do, as well as the final chapter's, plus the epilogue. But the end is in sight!

Not spoilery picture for you!

saffron and jasmine on a garden wall, melissa approaching with a bike Continue reading →

The Resurrection of Jasmine Elemita

Man this rewrite is turning into a major project.

All the on-screen characters from Chapter One were originally just my normal playable Sims. I was actually playing this town for a while before I got involved with the storytelling community on the *whispers* bad site. So couples had already paired up, homes had already been bought and furnished with whatever the sims earned from their jobs.

I think Jack Faerie was the first Sim I ever made, probably why he's my favourite. In any case, the playables were the cause of some decisions I wish I didn't make. Like Ash buying the big house. It's because he got promoted in his in-game job and was minting it. So I had to confect that storyline where he has the research side hustle to explain it. And I didn't like it, because it really looks like rich guys are Jasmine's type. Also, Milton is not an Irish name, because them being Irish didn't come up until I actually started writing the story and I just used the names they already had. They'd really fit better with a good old fashioned Irish surname, but it's too late now. They'll just have to have some sassenach ancestor haha. According to this site, there were some farming Miltons in Sligo in 1901, let's say they're Ash ancestors.

In any case, Jasmine's story was meant to be a simple, light hearted two-parter. A slightly longer companion to Tony's story. I had the amnesia plot, but that was meant to be it, resolution in chapter 2 or 3, the end. I had no real plan other than that and was literally making it up as I went along. And then the story just went ahead and did its own thing and got really dark, which I never intended. Since I'm redoing all the screenshots and doing some really heavy handed editing, I could have just ditched the new house thing altogether, but it's too late now and the side hustle thing pops up too many times for me to bother myself editing it out. But there are a lot of things I am editing out. I am taking an axe to a lot of this and giving Jasmine the rewrite she deserves.

Continue reading →

Reworking Cloud Magna

Following on from the last post, since I've got TS2 (mostly) working, I thought I may as well make the most of this short burst of energy while I have it. My intention is to finish Jasmine's story by the end of the year. It's literally the last chapter! I can do this!

So Sims 2 works, but whenever I open the Deco > Misc menu and scroll to page 2, the game crashes and closes, so I'm doing the whole clear out downloads and binary sort method. The only problem with that is the actual game takes ages to load. I don't mean the way it takes ages ON the loading screen to load up all the CC. I mean I'll double click, it's there in Task Manager, but it's five minutes before anything comes up on screen. Okay, even with the downloads folder removed, it's still crashing when I open that menu, but it works fine on my old Win7 netbook. But from browsing via Room > Decor I think it might be an outdoor object? Maybe I should restore the disc version of the exe and see if it's just a no-cd crack issue. Guess I'm just screwed, it's not easy to keep the removable DVD drive attached to the tower.

Continue reading →

Revisiting Jasmine’s Story

I've been neglecting this blog a lot lately. This year is the 20th anniversary of the start of Jasmine's story.

Poor girl is still waiting for her happy ending. I didn't even realise tripod.com is gone, so her story has just been dead links all this time.

Anyway, as I mentioned on her story splash page, there's a lot of things that haven't aged well. I've reread it and her mental health issues are not addressed in the way they should be. She obviously has Complex PTSD, which I don't believe was a known thing back in 2007, and her anxious attachment is obvious.

Continue reading →

Chemical Burns Caused by Isopropanol

The other day I found out the hard way that you can get chemical burns from isopropanol/isopropyl alcohol/IPA. I was cleaning Dolly Baby and spilt some isopropanol on my trousers. I didn't think much of it, assuming it would evaporate quickly.

Four hours later I felt like my skin was sunburnt. It had turned red in the areas where the fabric had kept the IPA in prolonged contact with my skin (as I'd moved throughout the day, there were two smaller patches and one big one where the initial spill was). The next day it had blistered.

Strangely, I can't find any info on getting chemical burns from isopropanol, so I'm putting this out there as a warning. If you do spill isopropanol on your clothes, please change and wash the isopropanol off thoroughly! Someone suggested it may have reacted with a chemical residue in my trousers (eg fabric conditioner, detergent or maybe this set of joggers was in one of the loads I use laundry sanitiser in) and that otherwise it would have been fine. In any case, do not take the risk! It CAN cause burns if kept in contact with skin, so please do be careful and don't allow it to sit on your skin! Hand sanitisers are different as they are mixed with something like aloe vera and your hands will be exposed to air, which will evaporate the IPA.

Okay, that's all, bye.

I Made a Miniature Mancave

I think my boss was a little miffed that I made a sort-of replica of the vinyl shop nearby, but didn't make a replica of our shop. I told him it's only because I would need a fancy 3D printer to be able to do that. So I made him a mancave instead.

starting off with the main structure of the room and sofa

I knew I wanted to go for a 70s theme. I've always made contemporary styles, so this was really going out of my comfort zone, but I was relishing the challenge!

Continue reading →

I Made a Book Nook Kit

I bought two booknook kits. I'd never heard of them until my sister called my niece's pegbox house a booknook. So I bought a couple and made one of them for her. I don't know who to give the second one to, but I do know I want to customise it a lot more.

book nook under construction
I didn't like the original pink design for this house, so I used a scrap of handmade paper to change it to an ivory colour.

Continue reading →

I Made a Miniature Game Room

I made this last winter as a gift for someone, but they gave it back. I don't really know what to do with it. It was very personalised, so it would look a bit weird giving it to anyone else.

This is the first mini dollshouse kit I have lit up myself! I had to learn to solder, and it did take me quite a while to figure it out. And while I'm still quite a messy solderer, I can get it good enough to work! So yay me! I know I've been very lazy keeping up with this blog since I got Mastodon and I'm disappointed in myself! I mean I'm paying for this, I should make the most of it! Anyway, here is the gameroom:

shot of the game room, showing both floors from a side angle

Continue reading →

I Got The Sims 2 to Run on Windows 10

I started the install process back in December 2023. I kept hitting a wall when trying to install Uni, but there is a fix for it. You need to do a manual update (directions here). Once you've sorted that, you're good to go.

I got all my EPs installed (UNI, NL, OFB, SNS). I copied my old no-cd crack from my netbook (I'm still paranoid about Securom haha. Also I don't have an onboard optical drive on here either). But then my screen went like this.

Continue reading →

Autistic Anxiety and CBT

I'm 6 sessions into my anxiety CBT and I feel like I've made no progress. My therapist said she doesn't know anything about autism and she's not here for that. She also dismissed my social difficulties as "overthinking". Unlike my phobia CBT, where I was making visible progress each session, I feel like I've made none with this therapist. I'm starting to realise that CBT is maybe not the right approach for what I used to describe as anxiety, but might be better described as "overwhelm".

In search an article explaining autistic anxiety, I found this brill article by Dr Megan Neff. Continue reading →