Getting Into Grad School

After seeing this post by Carla, I realized I needed to design better rules for attending uni, as I had none lol. I'm basically using Carla's system for the undergrads so you can click on the link above to read about that. I decided to take it a step further and create a system for my sims who seek to earn a degree above the undergraduate degree. You can click on the "Education in LaQuest" link to the right for more info on the master's program. Below are my shiny new requirements for grad school admittance:

Tales of Vasadori Sneak Peak

I decided to post an excerpt from chapter one to get opinions on the story. I'm making pretty good progress so far. I haven't finished playing through the uni update which is next so I figured I'd do this to fill in some of the time :).
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Paerolia was once a prestigious school for young elves where members of the royal court were trained for their duties. It was one of the few buildings not destroyed in the war, but had remained closed for centuries. It would open in a week to train the first royal court since the war.

“What’s so wrong with LaQuest Beach Preparatory School? All my friends are going there, not Paerolia!” Arwen said.

“Is she still going on about this?” Elvin asked as he walked into the kitchen.

“Of course she is. She’s been going on about it since her birthday last month,” Tessa said laughing.

“Well she needs to stop it,” he said with a frown.

“SHE can hear you. I’m standing right here,” Arwen said rolling her eyes.

“Then hear this: You are to be the Queen of Vasadori, a position of great honor and responsibility. Paerolia will prepare you for that position. Do you have any idea how many young females, human and elven, would love to be in your position?” Elvin asked.

“I don’t care! Why don’t you say what you really mean, Elvin? You want Vanya to be queen, just say it!” Arwen shouted.

“Arwen……..” Tessa began.

“I’ve made it no secret that I think my daughter would make a more fitting queen,” he said.

“Dad!”

“Well it’s true, Vanya. You are so much more better prepared, so much better suited…….”

“Do you think I asked for this? That I wanted this? Do you think growing up in a house with a step-father that despises you is easy?” Arwen said in a deadly calm voice. The red in her eyes began to glow ever so lightly.

“Arwen, calm down,” Tessa said.

“Do you see what I mean? Do you see how out of control she is? Truly her father’s daughter,” Elvin said distastefully. In a flash Arwen had him pinned up against the kitchen wall, slamming a hole into the drywall.

“Arwen, no!” Tessa yelled as she ran around the island.

“Yes, I am my father’s daughter. Which means I can end your pathetic existence without even trying……..but I won’t. Do you know why? Because no matter what you may think, I am not my father. His dark elf blood does flow through my veins, but it does not decide who I am. You would be wise to remember that. I’m going to Kiara’s, be back soon,” Arwen said as she let Elvin drop to the floor.

“I’ll come with you,” Vanya said quietly. Tessa helped Elvin up from the floor.

“She’s not ready. She’s out of control,” Elvin said.

“She’s only like that when it comes to you. It’s been twelve years Elvin, why must you still take your anger out on her?” Tessa asked sadly. 

 

Prologue to Tales of Vasadori

I decided to share this prologue as it doesn't contain any spoilers :). Let me know what you think!

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Elves exist. It may be hard to believe, especially for sheltered humans, but they do. I do. Although, technically I’m considered a half breed by most. We’ve been around for centuries, existing on a plane called Vasadori, not within human reach. We’ve had our wars, our tragedies, just as any other group of beings. My grandfather was king of Vasadori for a time. His name was Alberi Vasan. Now elves have their own races, just as the humans do. The light elves were considered to be far above the dark elves. Their powers were more pure, based on the goodness that lied within them. The dark elves thrived from anger and malice. So much so that any true love they felt for another elf would drastically diminish their powers. My grandfather was a dark elf. He was one in a long line of dark elf kings. His first in command and best friend was Veryan de Muse. Together they ensured that dark elves were not condemned by the light, that they were allowed to use their powers freely. King Alberi also allowed the dark elves to enter the human realm and wreak havoc. Soon the light elves rose up against him and a civil war began. With the help of Veryan, Alberi was able to regain control of his kingdom. During the course of the war, Veryan fell in love with a light elf named Faelwen Ghillon. It was illegal for a light and dark elf to marry at the time, a fact in which Veryan was well aware. So he waited. King Alberi also fell in love with a dark elf named Falathiel Loreyn. They were soon wed and quickly Falathiel became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Gurth Vasan. King Alberi would reign another five years before Veryan and his army he had gathered in secret attacked the castle. Because of the love that King Alberi felt for Falathiel and Gurth, Veryan was able to overpower and kill him. Falathiel was the most powerful female in Vasadori and Veryan knew that she would not take Alberi’s death lightly. So he had his army kill her as well. Young Gurth was five years old at the time and rushed in to save his mother, getting slashed across his right eye in the process. Veryan decided not to kill the boy and instead banished him and all of those who remained loyal to Alberi. Veryan assumed the throne and quickly married Faelwen. He changed all the laws and gave light elves more rights. He also formed a council of elder elves who enforced the rules. As a peace settled over Vasadori, Faelwen gave birth to she and Veryan’s first and only child, Elvin de Muse. Elvin grew up being the prince of Vasadori and had a wonderful childhood. When he was sixteen years old, Gurth and his army attacked the castle to seek revenge for Alberi’s death. Because Veryan loved Faelwen and Elvin so much, his powers were substantially weaker and he was killed by the hands of Gurth. Gurth also killed Faelwen and would have killed Elvin had the elders not stepped in. They were able to weaken him with the love of his parents, although they were not able to kill him. Instead his powers were stripped and he was banished to an isolated corner of Vasadori. The war almost destroyed Vasadori, leaving it in ruins. Most of the remaining elves decided to join the human realm. Others formed small villages and remained in Vasadori along with the council of elders. Later a scroll was found that told the story of the civil war that would lead to the destruction of Vasadori. It also spoke of a half elf, half human child who would take the throne and restore Vasadori to its former glory. I am that child. I am Arwen Vasan, Queen of Vasadori.

Dum, Dum, Dum..........

So I realized today that it has been almost a month since my last post. Between all the holiday craziness and a new project, my poor sims have been neglected. So I guess I'm taking a small hiatus. The new project that I'm working on actually is kinda sim related. I began working on Arwen's story for the spinoff and realized that I really love writing this story! So much so that I've decided to finish it in it's entirety (however long that may be). It's a bit of a stretch to call it a book, maybe a novella? Anyway, I'm really excited about writing it while the wheels are turning. I have a tendency to get writer's block after too long. I'm sure I'll come up for air soon, especially since classes start back next week. I don't know if I want to post it here as I am definitely going to still do a sim story with it.......I'll still post, but it will be pretty sporadic. I've had Christian Brown's bio written for a while, I just need to make his photo collage so that should be up soon. So I'm not gone and maybe it's not technically a hiatus, the posts will just be pretty spread out for a while. Thank you so much to all my readers, love you guys!

Delays

This is not story related, something I'm trying to get away from on this blog, but not everyone follows my behind the scenes blog.......I'm still around and waaaaay behind on my blog reading :(. I also have not had the time to play to create a new update which I hate because I'm so excited about the new alien baby, who I haven't even seen yet myself!!! The beginning of the semester is always rough and this is my second to last semester of classes before 750 hours of internship so my classes are a bit more time consuming, i.e. consultations with counselors, program planning, honor society meetings; it's all really one big headache! But I see a light at the end of the tunnel and I should be able to get some play time in and have a new post by the end of the week. It's strange to go from posting almost every other day, to barely having time to read everyone else's great blogs! But that's part of being an adult right? I mean, I can't disregard all these things and shut the world out and play the sims for a few days.......can I? Nah, probably not a good idea :). Anyway, I'm still here and so is LaQuest Beach and hopefully we can return to our regularly scheduled program soon :)

New Ramble Blog

This is the last non sim related post for this blog. I've created a ramble blog to put all of the behind the scenes stuff so that the entries here flow better. I'm going through today and deleting any post of me just talking about randomness or game related posts. I'll transfer any important ones over there so I don't lose them completely, but the rest are just getting trashed. I'm linking to the blog on the sidebar and I've already made my first post over there, which can be found here. It's a history of what happened with Vasadori and is a few of my plans for Arwen. I'll leave this post up for a week or so and then it's coming down too! So please follow my babble blog for all behind the scenes stuff!

Surfing!

So for those who aren't aware, maybesomethingdunno at modthesims has created a hack that allows surfing!  As the proud owner of a neighborhood filled with beach lots, this excited me beyond reason :). I've installed it and it works beautifully and it's amusing to watch as well lol. Young Caleb Henderson was so kind as to be my test subject :):

He started off well enough.......he actually looked pretty good up there. But you know how cocky young adult men can be sometimes..........

It wasn't long before poor Caleb wiped out! He'll need to work on his body skill more because that's the only sure fire way to conquer the waves :). There is even a feature for sims to surf with other sims. I'm sure Caleb will invite Ricky along next time he decides to go out. The best part is that all you have to do is buy a board and put it in the sim's inventory. After that, they can surf whenever they are near an ocean. It really adds to the beach lots to see sims surfing and being able to place surfboards knowing they'll actually get some use. The only downside I've found is that once they wipe out they have to get out of the water first before they can get back on the board. Anyhow, just thought I would help spread the word for those who didn't know about it.

Mellow Metal Stuff

I have been playing around in body shop and created some gear for my Mellow Metal fans :). It took me a while and they aren't the best but I'm happy with how they turned out. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, but it did take quite a bit of time to get the placement right. Anyhow, Caleb Henderson and Kayla Knowles were so kind to be my models:

This is actually an outfit (I didn't see a suitable shirt for it). The original outfit is from Club Crimsyn.

This is a shirt only and the original is also from Club Crimsyn.

I also made a new poster for my sims to hang up in their rooms:

* I dunno if anyone would want these but I would be willing to put them up for upload. I have to check Club Crimsyn's sharing policies first though. (*EDIT- I check their site and they don't mind people recoloring their stuff so I could upload them.........)

* I really wanted to do just a shirt for the guys too but I didn't have a shirt that was appropriate. They are a rock band and those little base game shirts aren't very rockish lol.