Whooo Boy...

Well...life can be fun sometimes. After three more weeks of waiting, my laptop is finally back from the repair shop. It's apparently a Frankenstein of a contraption, which, coupled with the complicated software problems Alienwares can have, led to a ridiculous amount of fiddling in order to get it working. It is working now, but...there was a miscommunication between the information I gave the shop and the information the woman who did the intake for my laptop gave the man who did the repairs. I told her it had been rebooted clean, but that after putting my files back on and running most of my games again that it was still having driver issues. Unfortunately, the way she wrote that on the intake told the repair worker that it had been rebooted clean but not that most of my stuff was on there. And so, in the craziness that it took him to makes things right, he wiped the laptop clean again. He had no idea until I went to pick it up yesterday and asked about the files when he went to show me the updates he had made. I did have the most important stuff backed up on a flash drive, my novel mostly, and he ran some sort of program throughout the night that brought back what he could. I was told the program typically didn't bring back game files though, so...

As of right now, the 100 Majesties, the Perfect Genetics challenge, and my old The Goddess' Order files are completely gone. All my custom content too. I have a copy of the Color My World save to still make that work in addition to the Vampire Coven save. I also have the .sim files for pretty much all my Sims, my Mods folder, and my Exports folder containing the .sims3pack files of my sims as a backup for the .sim files.

Pretty much what the program brought back was all the picture files, all dumped into one nice big folder for me to sort through. 13,194 pictures to be exact. A lot of it is weird stuff that was extracted as the program grabbed ALL jpeg files on my computer, so stuff like the album icons from iTunes, icon images for programs, etc.

Needless to say, I now get to redownload and reinstall all the Sims stuff AGAIN after I just finished getting it all set up, and I'm missing even more stuff than before. There is a hope that my family friend who did the first wipe might still have all the files copied, but he can be hard to get a hold of as he frequently travels. If not, well, I can rebuild 100 Majesties and possibly Perfect Genetics, but those are getting pushed to the back burner once more. I still want to shoot for a CMW comeback in October, so my focus is finding the items for that first.

And, as soon as I can afford it, I'm getting a BackBlaze account XD

Color My World Generation Two In-Depth Summary

     Years have passed for Ethereal and Amaranth, and their life after facing the trials The Company placed before them is perfect. That is what their third son, Coal, believes the first ten years of his life were anyway. His parents' marriage is peaceful, he and his family have a large house to live in, they have lots of money, and all of the family friends live right nearby where their children are his own circle of friends. There is also always something interesting going too. With a household as full as his, there was no way it could be any other way. Wisp is his oldest brother, who is about to enter his final year of high school. Then there's the fraternal twins- the albino brother Prism and the red and green sister Desire. Coal came after them, and that leaves the little toddler sister Cerise to finish up the pack.

     Once a month, the family piles into the car to meet the rest of the extended family at the city park to enjoy their time together. Coal thinks it's interesting how his Uncle Eden married a woman also named Eden. Hunter is his oldest cousin, although Uncle Eden had him with Allium's mother, Rose. Next after him is Malachite and Rosemary, the two children Eden and Eden, usually called Deny, adopted. Purity and Sap, who had married, also adopted a son, Cyclone, as well. They had then had their own son, Azure. Both Rosemary and Azure are a third of Coal's group of friends. The other two thirds are made up by Midas, Frost and Sunflower's only son and child, and Hollyhock, known as Holly, and Mimosa, the identical twins and younger daughters of Allium and his wife, Dahlia.

     Coal remarks that back in those days there were only three things that disturbed his seemingly perfect life- his parents' general frugalness despite their wealth, Prism's incessant brotherly teasing, and Mimosa's eternal over-affection for him. The adults tell him that it's hard for Mimosa to help herself, as the mental illness she was born with sends her emotions all over the place. Her constant hugs, wishes to hold hands, and generally clinginess tends to irritate him, but Coal still enjoys her company as a close friend regardless. That day at the park, he and Mimosa and a few of his friends have a skeeball competition where Coal comes out on top. Amaranth doesn't think his score is too impressive though, and Coal turns his father's teasing that he can do way better into a bet. Amaranth has to beat the top score within one round, or else he'll have to buy Coal a motorcycle when he's older. So confident, Amaranth doesn't even request a payment from Coal is he's successful. Coal's hopes soon sink when it becomes clear Amaranth will indeed be successful. That's why he and Azure playfully interrupt to mess with Amaranth's game. Fun tricks back and forth are had for retaliation, and the day continues on like normal.

Color My World Generation One In-Depth Summary

     In the world in which the story takes place, people are made up of all sorts of colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, gray, and brown to be exact. However, ten-year-old Ethereal is without color. She is an albino, a physical state admired and glorified by the rest of the world. Yet, that world is something Ethereal knows nothing about. Kept in a pure white room with tall walls encasing the yard she's given to explore, Ethereal has lived her entire life isolated from everyone else. The scientists tell her she's an important part of a project they have planned. Ethereal finds she has no issues with that. Almost no issues, anyway.

     Ethereal grows up knowing only three people. The first one, Mr. Blue, is in charge of her physical health. She doesn't mind when he does a simple check of her state from time to time, but in the majority of cases Ethereal finds herself sedated in the small medical room attached to her living space. It is what he does when she's unconscious that bothers her about the project. Ethereal never finds herself hurt. Unfortunately, she always finds that blood has been drawn, there are multiple needle holes in her arms, and something simply feels off when she wakes.

     As much as Ethereal doesn't like Mr. Blue's visits, they don't happen often. Who she does see everyday is a woman named Ms. Yellow. This scientist who is neither nice nor mean brings Ethereal her meals, checks on her twice a day, and overall makes sure nothing has happened to her. Who is nice to Ethereal is the final scientist allowed in her room, Eden Yonder. Mr. Blue and Ms. Yellow tell Ethereal to call him Mr. Green, but Eden refuses to let himself be called by that title. Ethereal grew confused when Eden told her long ago that he was in charge of monitoring her psychological health as she had no idea what that word meant, so Eden simply smiled and stated he was in charge of making sure she didn't turn into a nut case. Ethereal enjoys his frequent visits. His visits majorly contain them playing together or relaxing on the grassy hill. Occasionally though, Ethereal grows mad at Eden when he tries to tell her of the outside, normal world. She has no interest in such tales, and Eden isn't supposed to tell her that stuff anyway.

     It would go on to be that Ethereal would find her mindset changing rapidly. Eden shows up for an unscheduled visit only to reveal in a contained rush that she has to make a choice. Ethereal can refuse a sedative he has brought, but if she does he has to leave never to return and she would never see him again. On the other hand, if she trusts him they can continue to be together. Knowing she would go crazy losing the lone source of love she's had, Ethereal chooses to trust him. She easily falls asleep. When she wakes, a small rundown brown and gray building is where she now finds herself. Eden is there too, of course, and after instructing that they have to keep the windows covered, he explains the truth.

Getting There

This little update should hopefully be the last one of these for a while. It turns out that my laptop had to be looked at again as a few days of using it revealed the problem hadn't been fixed entirely. It still runs most things perfectly well, but due to its age the graphic drivers and such are no longer supported by the parent company. This meant that my computer got stuck in a state of limbo where the drivers would work somewhat, but because of the lack of support it would no longer fully recognize them. Thus, I am now switching over to new drivers completely. The parts should be in soon, and they'll be better than what I had before.

After that's all taken care of, I do intend to start working on Color My World again as I mentioned in my comment on the previous update. The rough timetable has been pushed back somewhat due to this extra delay. However, I would like to start posting at least towards the end of September. If not then, it will be early October. October 6th, most likely. That was the start date for both Gen One and Gen Two, so it would make a fitting date for Gen Three as well.

Also, there will be two things coming out soon. I realize both Gen One and Gen Two contain a lot of content to read. I will be posting in depth summaries of the completed generations to serve as both a refresher for previous readers and a catch up point for those who want to read the story but find the backlog too overwhelming. They'll be out either tonight or tomorrow.