Deception Pass

hack babble

2009-05-11T18:16:58Z

I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about a few hacks that helped me immensely when I was redoing the first seven parts of this beast, hacks that I'll no doubt be abusing in all my future simmage. They're not exactly new hacks, but apparently I'm quite good at my hermity existence, and thus didn't really know about them until quite recently.

The first is the Freezer Clock by treeag (requires the Apartment Life EP). I've been using this pretty much since it was released back in October, and it's, hands down, the most useful tool I have. With it, you have the ability to pause sims individually rather than hoping like hell your anims sync up well. I wouldn't exactly call it a time saver, however, because now I've found myself spending ages making sure everyone is absolutely perfect. XD

The next one is the Facial Overlay options on the Custom Modeling Poses Overlay Hack V2 by decorgal. Yes, this has been out forfreakingever, but I never bothered to download it as the poses were of no interest to me; turns out I was missing out on a fantastic tool in the facial overlay portion of the box. These allow you to run basic facial expressions over other animations, therefore salvaging some pretty great poses that were otherwise ruined by goofy faces. Another great thing about it is its ability to combine several expressions, thus giving you an even greater degree of control. I get a lot of use out of the neutral expression, using it to tone down the otherwise over-the-top expressions sims are famous for.

Finally, the Look At Me global hack by maybesomethingdunno. I'd attempted to use the 'look at me' option from the allmenus cheat, but it always caused my sims to throw an error. This hack actually works. With it, I'm able to control exactly what an individual is looking at. Before, if I wanted a pair of sims to look at one another, I'd spend ages moving one of them in and out of the room, hoping the stupid things would look in the right direction. Now, with a click of the mouse and a small amount of camera maneuvering (I spent quite a bit of time literally in sims' heads over the last few weeks), I was able to get perfect results in almost no time. It is a bit tricky to get the timing right on it, as the 'look at me' function has a finite amount of 'run time,' but it's worth the occasional fight.

Part 23 is a good example of all three hacks in action.

That's it for now.

Season One 'Remastered' - On Dreamwidth

2009-05-09T02:26:02Z

I've posted the 'remasted' version of the first chunk of Season One over on Dreamwidth (link goes to part one; other parts can be accessed by clicking 'next' at the top of the posts). I have no plans to post it here on LJ, but you're welcome to read and comment via openid using your LJ info if you wish, or comment on the post here. Both work just as well. :)

I'll be posting all future episodes in the same manner, with a teaser pic and a link to the episode on this LJ.

And just to make things a bit easier, here's a link to the main journal.

just a test post

2009-05-03T18:42:35Z

Don't pay this much mind; I'm just testing the cross-post feature on Dreamwidth. :D

There should be an actual update coming sooooooooooooooon.

(OMG loooooove the x-post! This will make my life so much easier!)

Edit: Er... that's 'soon' as in 'next few days' rather than 'soon' as in 'next few hours.' Sorry for any confusion. XD

Episode Seven - Outtakes

2008-09-13T02:54:50Z

Outtakes for Episode Seven.

Episode Seven - Part 1

2008-09-13T01:51:53Z

Please forgive any formatting issues. I didn't know LJ would eat my formatting until I went to post this earlier, at which point I nearly lost my mind as I tried to sort it out. In the end, I decided to post the episode anyway and fix any formatting issues later.

The Xenon was fairly busy for a Thursday night. While not as packed as it would become on Friday and Saturday, there was still a decent sized crowd gathered both on the dance floor and around the bar. Andy found it difficult to work up any sort of joy in the success of this particular investment, instead finding himself brooding over a martini (extra dry, two olives) in a dark corner of the room at a graffiti-covered table while a steady stream of 80s music pulsed from the speakers.

His bid for mayor was going better than he imagined; it wasn’t difficult to dig up dirt on your opponents when you basically owned the entire town. He was still trying to work out what Mary McMally could possibly be up to, but he was certain he’d find out soon enough. In the mean time, she wasn’t hurting him in the least. He hadn’t seen more than a handful of hand-drawn posters from her campaign, let alone any sort of commercial spots on television or the radio. He wasn’t quite ready to believe she was anything less than serious, but he was beginning to have his doubts.

On top of everything else, he had to admit that Peterson’s sudden departure and subsequent absence from Deception Pass had him moderately concerned. He should have been relieved to have the slimy bastard out of his hair, but he didn’t like not knowing where he was. It was as if he could feel him lurking in shadows waiting to jump out like some sort of deranged Jack In The Box.

Just as Pat Benatar started accusing him of being a heartbreaker, a few words of a conversation came drifting to him from the bar and instantly caught his full attention.

Nate: “…Velvet Oblivion was going to be huge, man. Huge.”

Josh: “Yeah, I mean, it sucks they had to split up. Who knows, though, maybe they’ll do a reunion thing in a year or so.”

Nate: “I guess, but it just doesn’t seem very likely. They were the best.”

Josh: “I saw them once or twice; they seemed to have their shit together. I wonder what happened. I bet it was a clash of egos; you can’t have too many talented people in one place without that shit happening.”

Nate: “That might be part of it, but not all.”

Josh: “I bet it was a chick, then.”

Nate: “I’ll tell you what really happened. The real problem was the drummer.”

Josh: “I thought he was good.”

Nate: “Oh he is, probably the best in a hundred square miles. Listen, though. You know about Selwyn and Payne, right?”

Josh: “The other two dudes?”

Nate: “Yeah.”
Josh: “What about them? Are they gay?”

Nate: “What? No, I don’t think so. They may swing both ways for all I know, but it’s not important. Do you know what they are?”

Josh: “Oh! Yeah! Basil was talking about how he saw one of them show up at one of the Order’s meetings not that long ago. ‘Course, Basil was tripping on Bliss at the time, and started talking about how Jesus had been there, too. What of it?”

Nate: “Thing is, Green’s not like them. He’s mortal, even has a day job. I think he’s the reason they had to split up. It really pisses me off.”

Josh: “That just su—“

Gigi: “Hey Josh! I thought I saw you in here!”

Josh: “Gigi, doll! How was California?”

Gigi: “Shallow as hell, but a nice change. Hi, Nate.”
Nate: “Gigi.”

Gigi: “Did you guys want to dance? They’ve been playing the best stuff tonight!”

Josh: “I was just heading out to the dance floor. Nate, you coming?”

Nate: “Nah, I think I’m just going to go home.”

Josh: “Nate’s still stinging over the loss of his most favorite band.”

Gigi: “Aw, I’m sorry Nate. Are you sure you don’t want to join us? It’ll get your mind off it for a while.”

Andy finished his martini, never taking his eyes off the scene in front of him. He’d thought the young man had looked familiar, and now he had a good idea why. He’d been at almost all of This Velvet Oblivion’s shows over the last few years, always in the front row, and occasionally milling around after the fact.

It was only a few minutes before he was alone. With an idea already fully planned out, Andy made his way over to the bar.

Andy: “Excuse me, but I wondered if I might have a moment of your time.”
Nate: “What about?”

Andy: “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, and I think we may be able to help one another out.”

Nate: “How so?”

Andy: “Come join me at my table and we can talk. What were you drinking?”

Nate: “Rum and coke.”

Andy smiled and ordered their drinks, then led the way back to his table.

Andy: “I’m Andy Stone.”
Nate: “Nathan Holt. Aren’t you that dude running for mayor?”

Andy: “Among other things, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about. I’m more interested in discussing a particular member of a band you seem quite fond of.”

Nate looked intently at Andy with bright interest. It was a good start.

Nate: “What about them?”

Andy: “They were quite the trio, weren’t they?”

Nate: “Oh man, they were phenomenal. It was like every one of their songs spoke to me, you know?”

Andy: “I can relate.”
Nate: “You don’t really look like the type to be into TVO.”

Andy: “Looks can be deceiving.”

Nate: “Can you believe they broke up? And for such a bullshit reason, too!”

Andy: “Because of Markus Green?”

Nate: “Exactly. I bet they figured he’d end up dying and ruin everything or something.”

Andy: “That would put a bit of a damper on any tour plans they might have.”

Andy smiled as Nate let out a bitter laugh before taking a long drink.

Nate: “You might think I’m crazy, but I’d love to get my hands on that guy. I mean, just give me a few hours alone with him and there’d be no reason for TVO to stay disbanded.”

Andy: “Are you saying that you’re—“

Nate: “For five years now. It was this chick I was totally into back when I was a freshman at DPH; she used to hang out at the Viper Club before it burnt down. It was right after my kid brother was killed.”

Andy tried to look at interested as possible; one thing he couldn’t stand was having to hear a whiny vampire’s life story. He gently steered the conversation back on track.

Andy: “What’s stopping you from having your little chat with Mr. Green?”

Nate: “Well it’s not the law, that’s for sure. Dunno, really. Now that you mention it, I guess it wasn’t something I thought about in any real way ‘til now.”

Andy: “I’m surprised. Not because I think you’re unstable or anything, but because you seem to care about this so much and have a real way to solve it.”

Nate: “If I just knew where to begin…”

Andy: “I think we can help each other out.”

Nate: “How so?”

Andy: “I’ve got information, you’ve got the determination to put it to use.”

Nate: “What sort of information?”

Andy: “Schedules, addresses, things like that. Information I believe you could find invaluable.”

Nate: “What’d Green do to you?”

Andy: “Let me get one thing straight with you up front: in order to get the information I have, there’ll be no questions. Got it?”

Nate: “Sure, sure.”

Andy: “Good boy. I’ll have everything you need delivered to you before the end of the night.”

Nate: “How do you even know where to send it?”

Andy: “No questions, Nathan. What you do with the information is entirely up to you; I would never even think about telling you what you should or shouldn’t do with it. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, you can choose to do absolutely nothing at all.”

Nate: “Right, gotcha.”

Andy stood up, indicating the end of their impromptu meeting.

Andy: “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Holt. I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavors.”

Nate: “How will you know… right, no questions.”

Andy: “It was nice to meet a fellow fan.”

Nate: “Yeah, seriously.”

Andy smiled, then made his way out of the bar and to the parking lot. He slid into the plush comfort of his car, but didn’t leave right away.

Talking to Nathan Holt had been a risk, and he knew this. However, it was far too tempting to bring chaos into the life not only of Markus Green, but also that of his friends. While he’d already set several traps for Selwyn and Payne, he hadn’t been able to really get to Green. Andy wasn’t looking to get him killed, though he couldn’t say it would necessarily cause him any loss of sleep. As a vampire, he’d be easier to deal with than as a human. Most of the vampire population of Deception Pass existed in within their own subculture, almost completely separate from living society. There were a few grey areas, but for the most part, the undead were more or less nonexistent as far as the living were concerned. Either way, he could deal with whatever the outcome of tonight’s discussion was.

In the mean time, he had work to do.

Outtakes Episode Six

2008-03-13T22:50:46Z

Small collection of outtakes for Episode Six

Episode Six - Part 1

2008-03-13T21:16:22Z

Glass blinked against the searing bright light that caused his eyes to tear and burn. The world had taken on a blazing whiteness, leaving only the faintest impressions of his surroundings.

Ever so slowly the brightness began to give. Blurred shadows began to emerge, which in time (though he knew instinctively time was meaningless here) became tall hulking buildings.

Glass exhaled sharply into the empty surroundings. Opening the barrier had been simple, crossing the barrier had proven considerably more difficult than he’d expected. Still, in the end he’d succeeded in doing what very few before him had.

A vile, loathsome grin spread easily across his face.

Glass: “Perfection.”

His surroundings continued to take shape as he stood pondering his next move. His original intent had been merely to see if it was even possible for a mortal to move into the Underworld, but now that he was here he didn’t see much sense in wasting the opportunity. After a few more minutes, he’d adjusted to his new surroundings enough to take a good look around.

It wasn’t anything like any of the mythologies he’d studied, and in fact it didn’t seem any different than any of the rougher areas of Deception Pass on any given Friday afternoon. Other than the seeming complete lack of people, of course. The streets were empty under a steel-colored sky, and deathly quiet. He found that if he concentrated he could just make out the sounds of a far-off city.

Xero: “Well if it isn’t Glass Akira! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Glass whirled around quickly, startled by the all too familiar voice calling to him from a shadowed doorway.

Glass: “Xero? Is that you?”
Xero: “In the flesh. I can’t believe how long it’s been!”
Glass: “It’s been, what, nearly a year?”
Xero: “Longer than that. Why don’t you come in and have a drink? I’ve got beer in the fridge, or some Orange Crush if you’d rather have that.”

Glass looked around warily but didn’t see another soul on the entire block. While he wanted desperately to explore further, he also knew it would be foolish to pass up the chance to have a look at how the dead ‘live.’

Glass: “Sure, I’ll have a beer. Thanks.”
Xero: “Come on in. Good thing I’m off today or I’d have missed you completely.”
Glass: “Funny how that works out sometimes, isn’t it?”
Xero: “One of life’s mysteries!”

Xero: “So when did you get here?”
Glass: “Not that long ago.”
Xero: “Not what you were expecting, is it.”

It was more of a statement than a question.

Glass: “No, even though I was careful not to expect anything at all.”
Xero: “I was expecting fire and brimstone to be completely honest. It took me a while to work out what had happened, myself. I wandered around for probably a good four or five days before it hit me. I still can’t believe that bastard shot me! Sorry to leave you guys hanging like that. By the way, I hope you don’t mind Pike Pale Ale.”
Glass: “Sounds good to me.”

Xero: “So yeah, there I was looking like an ass thinking I was still alive. I mean honestly, can you blame me? This place looks just like Deception Pass. Finally it just sort of hit me one day, probably like it did you just now.”
Glass: “It’s disorienting, sure.”
Xero: “Lots of people never get it; they just go about their business like nothing happened. I guess it’s like The Matrix in that way.”
Glass: “And what, are you Neo?”

Xero laughed noisily.

Xero: “A bit, but I don’t have anything to do with helping people ‘see the light’ as it were.”
Glass: “You work for The Underworld?”
Xero: “Yep. Accounting, in fact; I have my own department. I can put a word in for you if you want.”
Glass: “Thanks, but numbers aren’t my thing.”
Xero: “I’m sure they’d have a lot of use for someone with your abilities.”
Glass: “Still, I think I’ll just bum around for a few hundred years if it’s all the same.”
Xero: “Sure, sure.”

Glass: “So what happens if you never get it, and you reach what you think is the end of your life-span?”
Xero: “They start over. You’d be surprised how many people end up that way, living out their afterlives just like their normal lives over and over again.”
Glass: “That’s sort of unsettling.”

Xero: “I guess. I don’t think about it too often anymore. So did he get you?”
Glass: “Pardon?”
Xero: “Stone! I’d heard rumors before I took the job, of course, but who the hell believes something like that?”
Glass: “No, it wasn’t Stone.”

Glass took a long drink of his beer as Xero narrowed his eyes and seemed to study him from across the small table.

Xero: “How did you get here?”
Glass: “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that just yet.”
Xero: “I think that maybe you should start to open up a bit before you get yourself in trouble, if you know what I mean.”

Glass: “I didn’t ‘open up’ to you when you were alive, why would I start now?”
Xero: “You’re new here. Don’t fool yourself into thinking anything’s the same on this side.”
Glass: “I would be surprised to find otherwise. For now, I think I should be going. I appreciate the beer—“

Xero: “They’ll find you, you know. It took me a while to work it out, but there are a lot of people who’ll spot you instantly. In fact, I bet they already know you’re here.”
Glass: “I’ve taken plenty of precautions.”
Xero: “Didn’t stop me.”
Glass: “So what do you want?”

Xero: “Take me back with you.”
Glass: “That’s absurd!”
Xero: “Why? Some stupid ancient mumbo-jumbo about a balance of souls? I’ve seen their numbers and they do not always add up. What do you think ghosts are all about?”
Glass: “Doesn’t matter. I flat-out refuse.”

Xero: “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”
Glass: “I’m not scared, I’m just not stupid. Sorry, Xero. I won’t take you with me.”
Xero: “Can’t help but feel that’s a crock of shit, but whatever. If you want to be an ass, that’s your prerogative. Just watch yourself, Akira.”

Glass stood up and turned toward the door, intent on crossing back over as soon as he possibly could, even if it meant ripping open a portal right there in the kitchen. What Xero had said about others being able to sense him was probably all too true, especially given how quickly his story had unraveled. He glanced hastily back at Xero, and something in the dead man’s eyes set off an inner alarm.

Episode Five - Part 1

2007-10-04T21:50:17Z

She wanted to scream, but Tristan was still within earshot and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Not that he would be satisfied by hurting her. No, he would probably come back to make sure she was okay, and that would make her even angrier and feel even stupider.

Instead, she picked up an empty glass from the table next to her and threw it at the door with such force that it exploded into a dust cloud of glass. The crash succinctly made the exact statement that, when spoken, was strangely lacking somehow: "Get the fuck away from me and don't come back."

Deanna sighed and sank into a chair by the table. She knew this had been coming, and yet it was as shocking and disappointing as not winning the lottery. Intellectually and outwardly, one knows they won't win, but secretly they're surprised and disappointed when their numbers don't come up.

Common sense told her that this relationship wouldn't work out. Deep inside, she knew it wouldn't. Nevertheless, she'd held on, some part of her certain that Tristan would grow up, be reasonable, and see how he loved her, deep inside. That he would see she was healthy, happy, and stable, that she was ready for a relationship, and that she loved him more than anyone else ever could. She was sure eventually he'd see that Emily was still so young and still had so much growing to do, and he'd realize Deanna was right here, right now, ready and better for him.

Deanna stared at the wall for a while longer before deciding that she had to get out of the apartment. She needed to be around people, but not around people she knew.

Episode Four Outtakes

2007-06-30T03:01:25Z

Outtakes for episode four this way...

PLEASE NOTE: Something somehwere got messed up with this entry, so if you try to use the green arrow to continue to the next episode, it won't work. Episode Five starts here.

Episode Four - Part 1

2007-06-29T23:00:26Z

Lois: "It wasn't your fault, you know. Sometimes bad things just happen. No one can really explain why, that's just the way the world works sometimes."
Jacob: "I know."
Lois: "Your Great Uncle Jon, his was the last funeral I went to. You remember that, right? Such a horrible year this has been, so much tragedy. We can help each other through this, though. We'll be OK."
Jacob: "This isn't right."

Lois: "I know, I know. It's so hard to believe. I never thought I'd have to bury my nephew, but at least you survived."
Jacob: "What's going to happen to me?"
Lois: "You'll be living with me, Jacob. We've only got each other now. I'll clear out the sewing room for you, lord knows with the way my vision's been going lately I don't get much sewing done these days anyway."
Jacob: "I don't want to be here anymore."

Emily: "It'll be ok, Jacob, we're almost home. Hang in there, sweetie."
Jacob: "It hurts. Everything hurts so bad."
Emily: "I know, I'm so sorry."
Jacob: "Is this real?"

Lois: "I wish you'd quit talking like that. You do not hear 'voices.' There's nothing wrong with you -- you still have to go to school. What is your mother going to say when she finds out how you're behaving?"
Jacob: "Mom and dad are dead, Aunt Lois."
Lois: "Why would you say such a horrible thing just to get out of going to school?"
Jacob: "They've been dead for a year. I killed them."

Emily: "Jacob, honey? We're at the house, but it's getting pretty bright outside so we're going to have to make a run for it. Do you think you can manage that?"
Jacob: "I'm so tired."
Emily: "Hey, stay with me. You're not allowed to give up."

Jacob blinked hard against the blinding light that was streaming through the windows and opened door of the car. Beyond the pain he could smell her -- an intoxicating blend of fear and adrenalin carried by a rapid pulse through her veins. He tried to focus on it, to let it anchor him, but soon the scene was shifting again.

Lois: "I don't want you hanging out with those kids anymore! They're bad news!"
Jacob: "I don't hang out with anyone."
Lois: "Don't you sass me, young man! You're grounded for the next two weeks. No friends, no telephone, no TV, and no records!"
Jacob: "Yes, ma'am."

Emily: "Good. That's right, focus on me. We can do this, I know we can."
Jacob: "…not safe."
Emily: "That's why we have to run for it, and now. We're only a few feet from the door. On three…"

Lois: "Have you seen my hairbrush?"
Jacob: "It's next to your comb in the bathroom."
Lois: "Is everything all right, Carl? You seem so distant tonight."
Jacob: "I'm not Carl, I'm Jacob."

Lois: "What's bothering you?"
Jacob: "Nothing. I'm just reading."

Lois: "You've always been such a quiet boy. Sometimes I really wonder what's going on in that head of yours."
Jacob: "You can't even begin to imagine."
Lois: "If you ever need to talk about anything, I want you to know you can come to me. Jon and I love you like you were our own son."

Jacob: "This isn't happening!"

Emily: "Shh, Jacob, it's ok. We're inside now. Do you know who I am?"
Jacob: "Emily Laine."
Emily: "Right, good. Stay here; you'll be safe until I can close off the drapes upstairs. Try not to be scared, OK? I'll be right back."

Piper: "Hey, just relax. Drake and Vinnie won't be bothering us."
Jacob: "I don't think I want to do this."
Piper: "Kissing me isn't that bad, is it? Don't tell me you're a queer!"
Jacob: "I'm not a homosexual."
Piper: "Then why don't you prove it?"

Emily: "Is it dark enough in here for you?"
Jacob: "Yes."
Emily: "Good. Drink this, then lay down and try not to move."

Jacob studied the mug filled with viscous red fluid before hesitantly swallowing a single mouthful. The metallic taste was only mildly unpleasant, and he began to feel a little less lost in the chaos. He quickly finished the entire glass before lying back on the soft velvet of Emily's comforter.

Emily: "What happened, sweetie?"
Jacob: "He was right -- I'm not so smart after all."
Emily: "It wasn't your fault. What happened to you? Did The Order do this to you?"

Jacob: "Tristan."
Emily: "You saw him? Is he OK?"
Jacob: "I don't know. He left me in the parking lot."
Emily: "Tristan did this to you? Are you sure?"

Jacob: "Yes, quite."
Emily: "I don't understand. Why? Why would he do something like that?"

Vinnie: "Come on, man, this ain't funny anymore!"
Jacob: "It was never funny."
Vinnie: "It wasn't nothin' personal! We were just bored, OK? We didn't think you'd even survive! I'm sorry! Now let me go!"
Jacob: "How do you forgive an injustice?"

Vinnie: "It wasn't even my idea! Drake and Piper were the ones who came up with it!"
Jacob: "Some things are unforgivable."
Vinnie: "You're a fucking psycho! Let me out of here, you little freak!"

Emily: "Can you still hear me?"
Jacob: "Yes."
Emily: "My friend Markus is on his way over, he's going to take care of you. Try to stay with me for just a little while longer."
Jacob: "They gave you datura on purpose. I have papers…"

It was getting more and more difficult to stay grounded -- whatever mild relief the blood had brought was now completely gone. The scent of blood and fear was nearly overpowering, though now he realized it was his own fear he smelled. A primal force stirred deep within him, causing his canines to lengthen involuntarily. He fought the nearly uncontrollable urge to drag Emily down and tear into her flesh -- while he knew her blood would help to heal his wounds, he was all too well aware that it would also leave him drifting in a lingering madness for several days. If he killed her in the process, he wasn't sure he'd ever escape its grasp.

The dull ache in his head suddenly exploded into an all-encompassing agonizing pain. His entire body felt as though it were being held down by unseen hands as he gasped for air, struggling against the coming darkness. The last thing he was aware of was Emily's hand resting gently on his forehead before there was nothing at all.

Outtakes - S2-03

2007-04-30T00:23:07Z

There wasn't much in the way of actual out-takes this time around, so I threw in some of my test shots and some random stupid comments.

25 Gallery View | Pictures go to 1280x1024

Episode Three - Part 1

2007-04-29T21:37:20Z

James drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring blankly at the license plate of the car parked in front of him. He knew he'd already let this go on for far too long, yet he was hesitant to engage in the conflict he was sure would be waiting for him inside his friend's house.

Finally, with a frustrated sigh, he got out of his car and headed for the front door.

He waited several minutes after knocking and still got no response. Out of sheer stubbornness, he tried opening the door and was surprised to find it unlocked.

James: "Tristan! I know you're home! Stop hiding."

There was no reply.

James glanced quickly into the living and dining rooms, noting a mostly-empty bottle of wine and a dirty plate -- Tristan's equivalent of trashing the house.

James: "This is ridiculous."

James: "Get up."
Tristan: "Fuck off."
James: "You can be as foul-mouthed as you please, I'm not going anywhere. We're long overdue for a serious discussion."
Tristan: "I don't feel like talking, leave me alone."

James: "Well then don't talk, just listen."
Tristan: "Not really up to listening, either. Get out."
James: "What you're doing is wrong, and I'm not going to just stand by and watch anymore. You need to stop acting like such an ass."
Tristan: "You're one to talk."
James: "Shut up and listen. I have no idea what's gotten into you over the past few weeks, but it's got to stop. You can't do this to Deanna. She deserves better."

Tristan: "And just what am I doing to her that's so horrible?"
James: "Don't act like you're not aware of your own actions. You're leading her on, toying with her emotions."
Tristan: "Why would I do that?"
James: "Hell if I know. Maybe you're afraid of being alone. I do know that you don't really love her."
Tristan: "You need to stop watching daytime television, it's making you get all pop-psychologist on me. Besides, I don't see how any of this is your business."

James: "Maybe it's not, but I'm not going to stand idly by while you act like a damned fool. At least tell me there's a reason why you're acting all crazy."
Tristan: "Everyone has their limits, James. Maybe I've just reached mine."
James: "How so?"
Tristan: "You can only push someone around so much before they decide to fight back."

James: "Who's pushing you around? What are you talking about?"
Tristan: "I really don't want to talk about this."
James: "Tough shit. Is it still Emily? You need to either sit down and talk to her or get the hell over her. I, for one, think you need to get over her. She's a mortal, you're not. It can only end badly as far as I'm concerned."
Tristan: "Thank you so much for your support."
James: "I'm just trying to help you."

Tristan: "I'm sick of being rejected all the time, being lied to, tossed aside for someone else."
James: "So your answer is to turn all evil? You sure do like extremes."
Tristan: "Evil? That's a delicious piece of hyperbole."
James: "What you're doing to Deanna is no different than what Andy did to Emily. Is that what you want?"

James watched as Tristan shifted his gaze out the window, silently staring into the night.

Tristan: "It's not the same. I really care about Deanna."
James: "Who are you trying to convince?"
Tristan: "No one."

James didn't reply. If he'd learned one thing about his friend in their decades together it was that there was a delicate balance to be kept when he got in his 'moods'. Tristan wasn't stupid, but he was almost painfully high-strung. He would eventually come around, but not by being yelled at for hours -- doing so would only be a waste of both their time. He was more than ready to call it a night.

Tristan: "I remember what happened, James."
James: "What?"
Tristan: "The Underworld, everything that happened to us while we were dead. Mary and Emily forgot, but I brought it all back with me."
James: "I'm going to assume you had a really good reason to not tell anyone about this until now."
Tristan: "It's not exactly as cut and dry as you'd expect."
James: "How is it not? You visit the Land of the Dead and manage to hold on to memories that both Mary and Emily have lost, and you don't fill in the rest of us? Are you trying to spare us from something horrible?"

Tristan silently crossed the room and retrieved an ancient looking journal from an overstuffed bookshelf. James took it cautiously, as if the slightest jolt would cause the pages to disintegrate.

Tristan: "It's all in there, everything I could remember."
James: "When did you get this thing?"
Tristan: "Nineteen Seventy-Seven."
James: "It looks like it came from Eighteen Seventy-Seven. You do have a computer, right? Why the notebook?"
Tristan: "I didn't trust writing this out on my computer for one. Plus the paper and ink made it more real."

James flipped the book open to the first page and quickly scanned through the hurriedly written words. It was, for the most part, a simple stream of consciousness, as if his friend were afraid his memories would vanish before he had a chance to write them down. Most of the words seemed to be little more than random associations- 'Delphaso Mall', 'mirror of truth', 'hedge maze', 'the kiss'. A few pages later came a list of names- 'Charlie', 'Stephanie', 'James?', 'Sherlock Holmes'.

James: "Are you sure you didn't write this out after a night of heavy drinking?"
Tristan: "And you wonder why I never told anyone."
James: "It's insane. I mean literally insane."
Tristan: "You can thank Mary for that one -- it was her Afterlife we were running around in."

James: "Don't you think you should fill the girls in on all of this?"
Tristan: "What would it accomplish? They were made to forget for a reason and I'm not about to mess with the natural order of things."
James: "You mean any more than you already have."
Tristan: "Yes, and what did that get me? Just more heartbreak."

James closed the notebook, setting it aside carefully.

James: "What's really wrong with you? I cannot believe that you're this upset and crazy just because of what happened with Emily before that wedding. Honestly Tristan, what sort of reaction do you expect from someone who's gone through what she has?"
Tristan: "She lied to me! She tells me she'll never be able to be in a relationship again and the next thing I know she's in a public hallway groping her demented psychopath of a neighbor."
James: "Wait… the kid?"
Tristan: "Yes."

James: "She was groping him in public?"
Tristan: "Well… maybe not groping. There was definitely something happening between them though."
James: "And I assume you've spoken to her about this?"
Tristan: "Not exactly."

James: "You're seriously a dumbass. You know that, right? The sad part is I used to think you were the smartest person I'd ever met."
Tristan: "What? Why?"
James: "Listen. If there's one thing I know about Emily it's that she's fundamentally a caregiver -- it's ingrained in her. When you were sick that one time she fell right into caring for you when the rest of us could hardly breathe. That neighbor of theirs is probably like a stray kitten to her."
Tristan: "They're always together, James. Always."
James: "Stray kitten, Tristan. Stray kitten. For Christ's sake, he's a teenaged kid!"

Tristan: "But-"
James: "Ok, once more with feeling. I'll go over this for you slowly because your brain seems to have gone on vacation without the rest of you. First off, you've got to be honest with Deanna. She's a grownup; she may kill you first, but eventually she'll forgive you. The longer you let this drag on the worse it'll be for everyone involved. Second, stop making assumptions and talk to Emily. I'll lock you two together in a room if I have to because this nonsense has got to stop. I've told you my feelings on the situation, but I know you well enough by now to know you'll go and do whatever you want regardless."
Tristan: "As if any of this is that simple."
James: "Why isn't it? Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy suffers brain damage and does a series of really stupid things. There's very little complicated about the situation at all -- you just like your misery too much."

Tristan: "Why does everyone seem to think I enjoy being miserable all the time?"
James: "Because you have so many opportunities to be happy and you go and do whatever it takes to avoid them, Mr. 'I Like To Be Depressed When I'm In The Bath'."
Tristan: "I never said anything like that!"
James: "But you wish you had."

James smiled softly as a slight sparkle of humor he hadn't even realized had been missing returned to Tristan's eyes.

Tristan: "Maybe."
James: "You know I'm right about this. You know you've messed up or you wouldn't have spent the last few days hiding under the covers. So, are you going to straighten up and fly right or are we going to have to come to blows over this?"
Tristan: "I'm going to have to pass on the chance to beat the piss out of you. I think I still have several cracked ribs from the other night."
James: "Yes, another stunning display of intelligence that was."
Tristan: "I have some really wicked bruises at least."
James: "I'll take your word for it."

Tristan: "This is so ridiculous. How the hell do things like this even happen?"
James: "Just one of life's little mysteries, my friend. Now do what you have to do to set things right again."
Tristan: "If I get killed, you have to promise me you'll avenge my death."
James: "Tristan, at this point I'm about to help get you killed."

James paused as a small white card lying on Tristan's desk caught his attention.

James: "What's this? 'The Order of the Waning Moon'? Is this Chinese take-out?"
Tristan: "I really haven't a clue what it is. I got it at the Xenon the other night."
James: "'Meet With Us Fridays, 8:00PM at Club Crimsyn'. 'Crimsyn'? Are they serious?"
Tristan: "Sadly I think they are."

James: "You weren't planning on going, were you?"
Tristan: "Me? No. Not really. I thought about maybe lurking around to see what it was all about, assess threat levels or whatever, but I hadn't made any actual plans or anything."
James: "Which is exactly why you're suddenly acting guilty."
Tristan: "I'm not acting guilty!"

James: "I've known you for how long now? I think I can tell when you're up to something."
Tristan: "Honestly, James, I hadn't decided if I was really going."
James: "If you do, don't go alone, all right? Anyone reckless enough to spell crimson with a 'Y' isn't to be trusted."
Tristan: "No, not at all."

James: "Well then, I'll let you get to cleaning up the mess you've made. Ring me later if you manage to survive the night and we can check out this 'Order' together. I'm spectacularly void of plans this evening."
Tristan: "Right, I shall do."

202 Outtakes

2007-03-26T17:54:38Z

Outtakes are up!

I'm having issues with my LJ Scrapbook dealy, so these are currently located in my photobucket account. Don't miss the subgallery called 'Jacob Test Shots'. ^_^

Episode Two - Part 1

2007-03-26T08:51:48Z

A large black spider crawled quickly through the dust, its tiny legs leaving no trace of its passing. Through a haze of pain and lingering delirium, Jacob stared at the creature with detached disinterest.

Jacob: "Itsy bitsy spider, crawling on the floor…"

His words trailed off in a series of wracking coughs that ended in a splattering of blood on the ground in front of him, which he looked at unblinking until shifting patterns began to emerge. His ribcage ached with every breath, though his focus was more on the searing pain in his neck and throat.

The day had been unbearably hot and had seemed unnaturally bright, though now that the sun had set it had cooled considerably. A light breeze had found its way through a broken windowpane, but it was hardly enough to ease even a small portion of his discomfort.

There were voices coming through the darkness, and through half-closed eyes he could just begin to make out vague shapes through the grimy windows of the disused factory. He'd been hoping they wouldn't return, that they'd have found something else to hold their interest, but they weren't going to forget him so easily. He tried to sit up but was hit with a bolt of pain so severe it knocked the breath out of him and sent him falling back to the floor in exhaustion.

Drake: "Well lookit that--the retard had enough sense to climb out of the daylight! Wonder if he had to get scorched first."
Vinnie: "Can't tell through all that dirt all over him."
Drake: "You owe me fifty bucks."
Vinnie: "Man, that's bullshit."

Drake: "You said he wouldn't make it through the day, yet there he is."
Vinnie: "He ain't moving very much."
Drake: "Nobody said nothing about what shape he had to be in, now pay up."
Vinnie: "Aw shit, man."

Piper: "Drake, this is getting really boring. Can't we go out somewhere?"
Vinnie: "Yeah, seriously. This place gives me the creeps. There's rats everywhere."
Drake: "Jesus, Vinnie, you're a hunnert times bigger than them. It's not like they can hurt you."
Vinnie: "Yeah but there's a hundred times more of them than me. Plus they're disgusting."
Drake: "Yeah? They probably think the same about you."

Piper: "Really, really bored now."
Drake: "Then why don't you just leave instead of yapping about it?"
Piper: "Because it's more boring to go do things on my own."

Drake: "Fine, whatever. Let's go. This game's done I guess."
Vinnie: "So what do you want to do with him? Just leave him here?"
Drake: "Eh, why not? He's mostly dead anyway."
Piper: "What if Big Momma finds out about this? Remember what she said about messing with the locals? We could get in some serious trouble."

Drake: "Cripes, Piper, you're such a baby! She just likes to scare us, I'm sure there's nothin' to her stories. You know how those elders get after a few decades--their brains start to decay and they go all batty. It comes from growing up in the old days or something."
Vinnie: "All the same, we better not just leave him here. What if he, I dunno, survives by eating rats or something?"
Drake: "Fine, let's just dump him off the bridge and be done with it. I'm pretty sure he won't be able to feed off fish. Piper, go get the car."
Piper: "Oh hey that's a good idea!"

Time jolted and shifted forward--one moment they were standing above him, the next moment there was blinding pain and the harsh scraping of pavement under his hands. The stars above them glared down with a preternatural harshness, glinting off every surface in a dazzling display of glittering lights. Every sound seemed suddenly amplified, from the laughter of his tormentors to the distant chirping of crickets in the forest surrounding them and the rush of water nearly two hundred feet below.

A blind panic gripped Jacob as the realization of what they planned to do sunk in. He began thrashing against their grip in a desperate attempt to pull free, but to no avail.

Vinnie: "Damn, I thought this kid was nearly dead. Why's he suddenly flailing around like this?"
Drake: "Just help me get him over the side. Piper, grab his feet."
Piper: "Ok but if he kicks me I'm gonna be pissed. I just got this outfit!"
Drake: "It's not like you paid for it."

Random...ness.

2007-02-04T04:55:35Z

In case anyone is interested, I've decided to start posting all my Deception Pass/Sim related entires in a weird sort of community, sorrow_by_name (which was an old unused journal of mine, thus the odd name). It's only open to posts from me, but anyone can join/read/comment on/whatever. I'll be including my personal sim-related entires as well as any Deception Pass related musings/entries/whatever in there so I can stop cluttering up my own personal journal with them. This will also spare any of you from having to read about my visits to the dentist or who I left at the airport type entires in my personal journal. XD There will be spoilers, but I'll make sure those are under a cut in case anyone wants to see sims stuff without stumbling on spoilers.

I just thought I'd post this here in case anyone was interested. XD

-aikea_guinea

S2 Episode 1 Outtakes

2007-01-22T08:22:49Z

There were quite a few outtakes with this episode, some caused by things not quite looking how I expected them to and some caused by general distractions. A couple of these were posted over in simchantment. Some of these will go to 1280x1024, others are just in-game caps.

| plus 50 |

Episode One - Part 1

2007-01-22T05:25:03Z

Emily: "Remind me again why we thought doing this ourselves was a good idea."
Mary: "We wanted a fresh start without any strings attached?"
Emily: "You don't think we could have paid the guys off with some beer and pizza?"

Mary: "The thought hadn't even occurred to me. Actually, I'm sort of wishing they had helped us."
Emily: "It's a bit late for that now. We'll just have to keep that in mind for when we move out, which will have to be under cover of darkness if Tristan and James are going to be helping."

Emily: "We are planning on eventually moving out of here, right?"
Mary: "Hey, it may not be a mansion in Beverly Hills, but it's ours. It's nice to be doing things for ourselves for a change."
Emily: "That's true. I do appreciate you letting me follow you around again."
Mary: "It's not like you didn't pay the deposit and won't be paying half the rent. You're not exactly mooching off me."

Emily: "True, though I'm still seething over my credit being destroyed."
Mary: "You still think Stone was behind that one too?"
Emily: "No doubt. Just another game…"

Emily's voice trailed off, her eyes focusing on a small area of worn hardwood a few feet in front of her. The last six months had been filled with quiet healing, both the physical and emotional wounds mending slowly. The days had flowed together, hours bleeding into hours with little to distinguish one from the other. Summer had been replaced by autumn in the blink of an eye.

Mary: "Hey, are you all right?"
Emily: "Yeah, just thinking again. Wondering where all the time went."
Mary: "It went into getting better."
Emily: "I suppose that's true, but it still seems like it sort of vanished."

Mary: "You had some good pain meds at the beginning. I'm still jealous actually."
Emily: "About the only thing I remember about those is the floor being all squishy. Oh and the glowing wall-worms."
Mary: "That's how you know they were good."

Emily smiled. So much had happened between them, yet they'd managed to come out from it all stronger than ever. They'd never talked about what had happened, instead sharing a silent understanding of forgiveness and gratitude. Emily figured they could always talk about it if they needed to, when the time was right. In the mean time, there was no reason to dwell on terrible events that had happened that night.

Emily: "So did we get all our stuff over here?"
Mary: "I'm pretty sure. It still feels like something's missing."
Emily: "We got all the pots and pans from the kitchen, right?"
Mary: "Yeah, I dragged that beast of a box up here first thing. Did we remember the bathroom stuff? The hamper and all that?"

Emily: "Yep. That's the box I dropped down the stairs three times."
Mary: "I hope that scale broke. It's a lying piece of crap."
Emily: "Knowing our luck it's still in one piece. I think we got everything."

Mary: "Can't we just pretend we have furniture?"
Emily: "Sure, we can sit on imaginary chairs while we eat dinner at our imaginary table. Then we can sleep in imaginary beds. It'll be great, like when we were kids and had that imaginary pirate ship, complete with imaginary parrots."
Mary: "Shit. At least we managed to remember to bring the Old Radiation King."
Emily: "Which is still in the back of the car."

Emily: "So the question is, are there any non-seedy furniture-type stores open right now that will deliver a pair of mattresses for us tonight without costing us an arm and a leg each?"
Mary: "You may be asking too much."
Emily: "Then I guess we spend one more night at the old homestead, or sleep here on the floor. Pick your poison."

Before Mary had a chance to open her mouth, she was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. She looked at Emily, who merely shrugged, before heading to the door and looking cautiously through the glass panes, letting out a stifled laugh as she worked her way through the half-dozen locks.

-Season Two Promo Shoot-

2007-01-07T10:31:41Z

We're very close to having a complete (and crazy-long) episode for you. While we work on the finishing touches, I took some time tonight to put together some 'promo' type pictures. All of these images go full size.

Complete Gallery This Way
43 Pictures Total | Character Shots

See you again soon!

Brief update

2006-12-18T19:40:55Z

Hello Everyone,

rosewalker here. And yes, that means you won't be getting any pretty, pretty pictures to tide you over until the next update, sorry!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are (still) not dead. As some of you in the Pacific Northwest may know, the area was hit by a massive storm last week. aikea_guinea has been without power since Thursday. Fortunately, she got power back today, but unfortunately, the interwebbing is still down.

I hope anyone else who got hit by the storm is doing okay.

In other news, our season two premier is about 75% written, and about 25% simmed, but unfortunately, until aikea_guinea has the internet back, we can't send scenes back and forth.

Okay, as I said, no pictures, but I'll give you a sneak peak. One line is all you get, because I hate spoilers:

Emily: “Feathers, Mary! Opera gloves with Hot. Pink. Feathers.”

Love,
rosewalker

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-25T18:36:38Z

Image goes to 1024x768

I know I'm a little early, but I won't have a chance to do this before it's actually Halloween. I threw a little bash last night for everyone in Deception Pass, a sort of 'pre-shoot' cast party if you will. There are two sections of photos as I got bored with free-will pretty quickly.

The Party | 74 Pictures | Utter Insanity
Posed | 76 Pictures | Moderately Controlled Chaos

Enjoy! The next update will be an actual episode!

"dancing in your darkness
dancing in your fear
forgetting all your hidden monsters
shedding all your tears"

update on the update

2006-10-19T22:44:42Z

Mr. Twinkles is alive! And trying to escape!

I know I mentioned in the comments on the previous post that rosewalker and I wanted to have the forthcoming episode up before the end of the month, but I can't see that happening at this point.

For those of you who don't know, Sara's getting married in just over a week. I'll be flying out for the wedding in less than a week, and even though the episode is well underway as far as writing goes there's just no way I can get it simmed and online before then.

The good news is that we're not willing to rush the episode, so hopefully it'll be up to everyone's standards when we do post it. It's a really long episode already, so you'll have a lot to read.

In random sim related news, I got my grubby little mits on the new Pets EP yesterday. In case anyone wants to see really stupid pictures with even stupider commentary from me, I set up a gallery:

67 pictures | Tristan, Jacob, a few of me!sim, and a large assortment of pets

(No, Tristan will not be getting a pet any time soon. XD)

Also, I'm not sure how many of you are members of beautiful_sims, but I've been posting far too many photoshoots unrelated to the Deception Pass plot over there.

That's all for now!

-aikea_guinea

Update!

2006-09-21T23:22:07Z

I think it's safe to say that our hiatus has officially come to an end. I started writing the first episode of season two last night, and unlike when I tried it a few weeks ago this time I actually got more than two words out before I closed Word in disgust.

I'm afraid I can't give much of a timeline, but I thought I'd at least post and let everyone know we're not dead. XD

Off to Dragon*Con!

2006-08-30T23:07:42Z

[18 Images | Gallery View | Full-Size 1024x768]

This is a really silly and pointless entry, but I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of last year and make a post before we head off to Dragon*Con!

We'll ~~probably~~ (probably??? we will!) be getting to work on Season Two after we return and recover. XD

A Behind The Scenes Look At Deception Pass - Part III

2006-08-11T18:12:41Z

My question is similar to lilith_sternin, when setting up scenes, how and where do the characters live? In the same house or different houses? Also, in the hospital. Is it like a residential or community lot?

aikea_guinea: No one really lives anywhere. They all exist in this perpetual state of limbo, floating around in the ether waiting to be called upon to act out their roles. As far as the houses seen in the series go, those are all actual fully decorated houses. Each of those lots has a 'place holder sim' (a random game generated sim that never appears in the series and never moves off the lot) so as I'm teleporting everyone all over creation the lot doesn't inadvertently become empty, thus losing all the decorating.

That hospital… what a nightmare of a lot that is!! It's this amazing building I downloaded from MTS2, and it's a residential lot, but it's so HUGE that even my computer lags like mad when I'm on it. No one is ever going to the hospital again. If they need medical assistance they can go to a smaller facility somewhere in town. XD

In many of the episodes, the sims drive their car to another sims house. Do you temporarily have the characters all move into the same house to play out the scenes with them driving or do you use cheats?

aikea_guinea: All I do for that is have the sims sit in the cars and use moveobjects to stick the car in the road. Add in a few creative angles and I'm able to make it look like they've driven large distances when in reality they've hardly gone from one end of the lot to another.

Do you normally work with only one neighborhood or do you have more than one custom neighborhood? (For instance, when explaining the past of James/Tristan, did that involve a custom neighborhood or just a block was set aside to play it out?)

aikea_guinea: I have a total of 10 custom neighborhoods in my game and have since deleted the default Maxis ones. There's a town of Deception Pass where most of the action takes place, the Underworld got it's own neighborhood, and the others are just random towns where I can test certain genetic things out like skin tones without cluttering up the other neighborhoods with a million clones.

Just for the record, next time we revisit James and Tristan in the past that will be getting its own neighborhood as well. In the time since that initial episode was shot I've gotten a hold of some flat-out amazing lots I'd love to use.

When showing the characters as children/teens, did you age them down or are there Emily/Mary clones running around somewhere in your game? :)

aikea_guinea: I aged them down, but there are also an insane number of clones running around. In this outtake I had two Jamesessess (Jamesi?) on top of each other in order to do a trick shot with double exposure. There were also two Marys used to create the illusion of a mirror in the scene with the 'Mirror of Truth' game. You don't even want to know how many Tristans there have been.

Have any of your characters gotten married in the sim world? Had kids? etc.

aikea_guinea: Well… my me!sim has spawned with Andy and Tristan (*hides face in shame*), Andy and Jade have spawned (the result of which was the scariest ass toddler I have EVER seen), and a really long time ago I spawned Tristan and Emily. I never saved the results of any of these strange genetic experiments. And when I say 'spawn' I mean 'spawn' using the tombstone of life and death. I don't breed sims really. No one's gotten married, and no one's ever died. I mean ever. I still have my very first sims running around-I couldn't even let them age to elders.

Last one, promise. Just like all good soaps, certain secrets may carry on and on. Will Mary/James ever realize that they kissed and liked it!!!??? Okay, that might be a spoiler. Maybe I should ask, will more of Andy's dark plots start coming to light in the next season??? (hope that's safer to answer...)

rosewalker: We haven't even seen the half of Andy's dark plots. Hell, I don't think we've even seen the eighth of them. ;)

aikea_guinea: muwhahahahahahaha…

In most literature, there is a character that speaks primarily for the reader-- the person who says what we all really want to say. Of the main bunch, who would you all say serves this role?

rosewalker: Probably Markus, who is sort of what Mary is (or should be) striving for. Although with all the crap we keep putting him through, he may not be able to stay that way. He's the rational one, and I identify with that. He's the reader who pulls back from the story and says, "They're going to do what?!?! That's insane!" We do like to sort of spread the rationality around a bit, especially in exposition scenes. I think that Mary has been an observer for a lot of things, she's been the only one to see that Andy is bad, that Tristan loves Emily, and that Deanna is the total rebound girl. Meanwhile all the things that are happening directly to her have to get pushed aside while she tries to force everyone else to see what she sees.

Which character do you each identify with personally? Were any of the characters in the original stories shaped after the writers?

rosewalker: I identify with at least some parts in nearly everything. If there are characters I don't identify with, they sort of mirror me; Chris has been the embodiment of many of my fears and a few of my desires, but he's never really been fleshed out enough for me to identify with. Hopefully that will be forthcoming.

Mary has always kind of been "my" character. I've given her a lot of my own fears, hopes, weaknesses and experiences to work with. I did want to explore some things within myself without making her a Mary Sue clone, so I took a few very specific experiences and ideas and magnified them. One of the most important things is her very black and white world, where everything is clearly defined and there are no gray areas. I'm not sure if it will ever come out in the story why she's this way, but it has served a very specific purpose for her. It makes her life simpler for much of the time, but when she starts to run into gray fuzzy areas like emotion, it makes her downright crazy and she goes to the strangest extremes. This is what she's going to spend a lot of time trying to overcome.

But she's also quite different from me, which is what makes writing for her so much fun. She's quick with her tongue and doesn't ever seem to consider the things she says, whereas I quite often agonize about what to say and usually end up saying nothing at all. She's loud, and she's kind of ditzy, although if she wants to learn something she can be pretty resourceful. But she really doesn't care about knowledge that doesn't serve an immediate purpose just as she doesn't like to dwell on what-ifs.

Then there's Emily. I have a hard time expressing why I identify with her. One of the biggest reasons is her attraction to Andy. She's so used to crap relationships that she intentionally forces herself into something that seems "normal" and "good" on the surface. This is definitely somewhere I've been, and although my "normal" guy didn't turn out to be an evil mastermind, he did turn out to have horrendous personal hygiene. I also identify with Emily's relationship to Mary's parents. Although I do have two parents of my own, Danielle's mom pretty much raised me through much of my middle and high school life. Except she's way cooler than Mary's mom is. Emily is also the caretaker and the down-to-earth responsible one. She's also not quite sure who she is yet, especially who she is not in relation to someone else, and I'm looking forward to her journey to figure this out in the coming season.

And Deanna - oh yes, I've been the rebound girl. Sucktastic. If she was a stronger woman than I, she'd get the hell out of Deception Pass immediately. Sadly, I like her far too much, so she'll probably need to kid herself and stick around awhile longer.

Markus - I identify with his rational side. His normalcy, and his reaction to the chaos surrounding him.

Tristan - I identify with his geekiness. He's a nerd. A cool nerd, but still a nerd, and I love him. He's smart, quiet, a little shy, and he's can't get enough books to read.

James - We wanted to give James a very realistic duality. He's incredibly charming and romantic, every woman's dream. But he's also a player. BUT, he's also extremely loyal and loving and will do anything to help is friends. DOUBLE BUT, he won't take people's shit, he'll lash out if he's being attacked. I think that duality is in everyone to some extent.

aikea_guinea: Just like Sara, I relate to certain aspects of everyone, putting a little bit of myself in all of them to a certain extent and at the same time making sure that none of them are carbon copies of myself.

Tristan is probably the character most like me. He's my artistic and creative self coupled with my (not-so) inner geek. He uses music to express himself where I use words and art, and if we don't have an outlet for that we go a little crazy. He's got this darkness to him, but he hasn't lost his sense of humor. We both may mope a lot and appear to be afraid of our clothing involving color of any kind, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to laugh. We're both highly uncomfortable in social situations, rather awkward until we get to know someone, and we're both dreamers. And right now we both have purple hair.

At the same time, there are differences. He's meticulous-very neat, tidy to a fault. He's a bit more forgiving than I am, though he's far quicker to anger.

I think Emily is second closest to who I am. I haven't been through exactly everything she has, but I took things out of my life and sort of twisted them around to something else that I felt was comparable without putting too much of myself out there. We both moved ungodly amounts growing up, we were both lost until we found our soul-mate. She's as emotion-driven as I am, we both feel things very deeply and we're both weepers. We've both fallen into the trap of measuring ourselves against our relationships with other people rather than who we really are. We're both huge slobs, too. I think Emily is a much younger me.

Deanna represents my feelings of always being on the outside looking in, of watching everyone in their own pre-formed groups not fully opening up to me. We both struggle with wanting to fit in and hating that we feel the need to at all. And I know she's going to kid herself and stick around. I can't bear to let her leave. She has amazing potential. I can't wait to utilize her more in the coming seasons, to play her off others and watch how everyone reacts.

Mary is a bit how I wish I could be. I love the way she's not afraid to just come out and say what's on her mind. I think a lot of the things she's not afraid to say, but I could never bring myself to actually come out and say them.

Markus and I are both in very stable long-term relationships. He's a great balance to the anarchy around him, though he surely can't be immune forever.

James- what can I say about James? He's been around me for so long… he's like another older brother to me. As a matter of fact, much of his relationship with Emily is based on interactions I had with my older brother growing up-the pet names (though my brother called me things like 'Grub'), the feeling of being watched over and cared for without judgment, and he always kept me laughing even when it felt like the world was falling down around me. James is a hero, but I like to think he's a realistic hero with faults and failings like everyone else.

Andy is slightly more evil than I am, but we both have the same sort of control issues. We're both terribly manipulative and fundamentally insecure.

Jacob is the embodiment of my fears, of getting to the point where the voices in my head drown out the sound of my own voice. Not that I'm Schizotypal exactly. I'm starting to get ahead of myself now.

Do you secretly let any of the characters sleep over each other's homes? Are there spare rooms when everyone is at one spot? Can we see pictures?

aikea_guinea: Like I said, it's perpetually 8AM on Monday in Deception Pass. No one ever really sleeps. No wonder they're all insane…

In game, who has the most chemistry bolts with whom? Who's in love with whom?

aikea_guinea: No one has any chemistry bolts with anyone. In reality the sims hardly know one another! I'll occasionally change their relationship scores if I need a certain reaction-for instance, if I need a scowl I'll make sure that the scowler has a very low relationship score with the scowlee. (Ker and Andy are a good recent example of me using this technique.)

Do you keep playable versions of the DP folks?

aikea_guinea: Nope. Sometimes I wonder if I could even play the game anymore. I briefly tried to run a business when OFB came out, but gave up and cheated my way through it.

Where does Abigail live when she's not visiting? Does she have a house too?

aikea_guinea: Abigail lives in Los Angeles and is a psychic to the stars. She does indeed have her own house-it appeared in the very beginning of the dream arc. Or… at least she used to have her own house. It may have been lost in a recent reinstall. Regardless, if need be I'll build her a new one. ^_^

How old are James, Jacob, Deanna, and Chris exactly?

aikea_guinea: Here are everyone's birthdays and ages as of posting. If you're really into Zodiac signs and the like, these are the dates you should be going off rather than whatever signs the sims ended up with--

Emily, 27: Feb. 10, 1979
Mary, 26: September 6, 1979
James, 143: August 17, 1862
Tristan, 144: March 6, 1862
Markus, 29: September 25, 1976
Andy, 38: October 31, 1968
Chris, 78: April 7, 1928
Deanna, 42: May 8, 1964
Jacob, 18: July 7, 1988

I always wondered how you get the perfect facial expressions for the shots, though. Does it take a long time, and do you often have to redo some parts because the sim's face wouldn't cooperate? (or something like that) Especially in the shots with multiple characters, and they all have to look correct...

aikea_guinea: I sometimes wonder if my neighbors think we have a large number of very uncooperative children with the amount of yelling at the screen I do. ^_^

Actually it's not all that difficult to capture the right facial expressions as I constantly run the game at slowmotion 3. Once in a while I'll slow it down to 6 or 7 if I need to get something exactly perfect. Synching everyone up is a challenge, and I have to admit repeated dumb luck and the patience of a madman for the success of multi-character shots.

How do you figure out the actions your Sims have to use to get the desired effect? I noticed that in the last episode, you had Mary handcuffing someone (I believe?) in order to look right.

aikea_guinea: I spend an ungodly amount of time messing around with the different animations I've pulled (nearly 900 now), running test shots and basically burning the look of the actions into my brain. I take several thousand screen shots as a way to sort of practice and come up with different ways of combining actions in new and strange ways.

Sometimes I'll run a scene through once or twice to see which animations work better for what I need the person to be doing.

How difficult is it to stage the objects and people in your shots correctly? It can't be easy…

aikea_guinea: I don't find it overly difficult unless I'm trying to place a pair of sims close to one another. They tend to like to stick to each other's hands when it's most inconvenient. A lot of the time if a shot isn't working because something is in the way, I simply move the thing out of the way. Objects and sims are moved around as needed.

My questions are related to the simming part - I would like to know whether Tristan was in-game born sim or CAS or Bodyshop made. You had several versions of him, but then you imply that he looks like his father which makes me think you eventually used a sim born in game for the final version.

aikea_guinea: Tristan was one of the first sims I created using Bodyshop (Mary was another very early Bodyshop sim). He was the first sim I made based off an actual person (a young Simon Gallup, bass player for the Cure), which I think is what makes him unique.

I believe you're referring to me saying he looks like his father in one of the random pictures in my gallery. I just meant that he looked like the clone I made of him and slightly altered and stuck in Victorian clothing in order to represent his father in the story. ^_^

Second question is about animations, maybe you and gelydh would like to share your knowledge with the rest of us and post a tutorial on how to pull animations from the game. It will be much appreciated.

aikea_guinea: gelydh and I followed a tutorial put together by echo here on MTS2. ^_^

I'm another one who wants to know how you manage the characters! :D How do you get them all in the right places? Do you have clones of all the characters on each lot, so that you can directly control their actions, or do you invite them over? Which lots are community and which are residential? How does it all WORK?!

aikea_guinea: I get everyone on the right sets by using the tombstone of Life & Death to teleport whoever I need.

I actually don't use community lots at all. I don't like having random extras wandering around trying to get in the scenes. All the sets you see are residential and just made to look like a community lot by use of unlocked community objects.

As far as how it all works… it's probably far more boring than one would expect. I see scenes play out in my head and do my best to translate that with the Sims. It involves hours of tedious work.

And no free will EVER!

Will we ever get to see screenshots showing the layout of each house? I'm always curious as to how other people's lots are planned out and built.

aikea_guinea: Absolutely! Take the guided tour of 'The Lots of Deception Pass and Slightly Beyond'!

Does the fact that half the main cast are vampires and can't be exposed to the sun ever affect your simming?

aikea_guinea: There's a huge challenge involved in constantly shooting nighttime scenes. The lighting is particularly difficult to get right, finding indoor lighting that isn't too harsh.

On the other hand, I don't like shooting in the daylight either as it's even more harsh than some of the indoor nighttime lighting, but without the ability to be (easily) controlled.

None of the cast are actually vampires. If I need them to have fangs I just use a set of fangs I have that are accessories, and I've made all the vamps their own custom red vampire contacts based on their own eyes. Before Night Life came out I photoshopped their fangs.

How do you make sure you only have your own NPCs in the background rather than default Sims2 ones which aren't dressed properly? (Or which look ugly.)

aikea_guinea: With moveobjects on, I just pick up random ugly sims and delete them from the shot. ^_^ Other extras (such as the nurses, orderlies, and doctors in the hospital) are spawned with the T of L&D and given touchups as needed, like custom eyebrows and new hair styles. If they're overly ugly, I delete them and spawn a new one. Having nice custom default eyes and skintones helps a lot.

How much editing do you do to the pictures you take for the body of the episodes?

aikea_guinea: That depends. I try to avoid post processing as much as humanly possible, but sometimes a scene needs a touch of special effects. Most post processing is blatantly obvious, though once in a while I have to edit out some damned Zs from a sleeping sim or add in something that just doesn't exist in the simulated world. I don't have the time or desire to go through and work a filter on the 300+ pictures that make up an episode. (400+ for each half of Episode 22!!) Pretty much what you see are straight screencaps.

I want to know more about what Tristan did when he went away and met Deanna. I want to know about Deanna. And more about the Akiras. And more Markus!

aikea_guinea: I'd love to do a flashback scene of that part of Tristan's life if we can fit it into the plot somehow. The whole thing played out in my head when it happened, down to every last detail. There was a lot of snow at first, and a very long drive…

Is it just me, or does Jade have a teeny tiny crush on Andy?

aikea_guinea: She does, and I'm insanely excited you noticed! It's one of those things we don't want to overplay, something that's just a subtle part of her character.

Is Serge just a normal guy, or is there more to him? I've been suspicious of him since he first appeared.

aikea_guinea: You can relax. He's normal. *shifty eyes*

Are we going to find out why Mary doesn't date artists?

rosewalkerProbably at some point. If we don't do anything to explain it specifically, it'll come out in the little details over the course of the story (there are a few in place already).

Has Andy done the whole "making a girl love me then dumping her on her ass" thing before, and does he realize how absolutely silly that is?

aikea_guinea: He's played people before, that's what he does-he's a user, a manipulator. It's a power thing. He's not done it exactly this way, however. He's not the type to do the same sort of thing more than once, as it's the challenge of new and different silly games that he enjoys.

How did you choose the character names? The Tristan/Emily Isolde thing is a very neat piece of handiwork and some of what compelled that is obvious. But what about James? Eminently English, yes, but is there something more compelling that? Is there a biblical element to Mary's name? I can see some parallels between her story and Mary Magdalene's, but there was also some "Mary as redeemer" work going on in the last chapter. (Mary as a Christ-figure? *puzzled*) Okay, next question . . .

aikea_guinea: Why, yes! All of those really deep reasons are PRECICELY why we named them all what we did! *shifty eyes*

Ok, not really.

Tristan used to be Simon lo these many years ago now. Then I met and married him so we had to give him a new name. I've always loved the name Tristan, and I happened to be going through a lot of J. W. Waterhouse's paintings at the time I was starting this up again and found myself transfixed by his painting 'Tristan and Isolde'. I'm starting to wonder if I was also listening to the song 'Tristan' by Dead Can Dance at the time. It wouldn't surprise me. It was the right name, I knew that much. Almost like it was being whispered in my ear.

Emily used to be… well… the base-character was everything from Danielle (gotta love writing yourself into a story) to Elise to Deanna to god knows what else at this point. I chose Emily for this incarnation because I wanted a soft feminine name. She was very briefly Emma before I started posting anything, but that didn't seem to fit her. Emily is one of my favorite female names of all time.

James has pretty much always been James. He was James Anderson for a very long time, even briefly when Deception Pass first started going online. Then Sara discovered that the 'James Anderson' LJ was taken, so she decided we needed to come up with a less common last name for him. A quick search of surnames brought us to Selwyn. 'James' is from Robert James Smith, front man of the Cure. Even at the tender young age of 12 I couldn't quite bring myself to come right out and call him 'Robert'. I think the fact that my dad's name is Robert could have something to do with that. There was one version of the stories where he was inexplicably renamed Robert. I'm still not sure what was up with that.

rosewalker: Oh, he was definitely named Robert in the very first version of the stories. Robert, Simon, Porl, and later on we added Roger and Perry, I believe. The band was the Cure. Only as vampires. I think the original original stories are what is known as "AU Fanfic." *cries*

aikea_guinea: I dunno… the only time I've seen him referred to as 'Robert' was in the 'Single Piece of Recycled Notebook Paper' version of the stories, and that had Porl, Roger, and Perry in it. That was definitely a mid-pre-Deception Pass version of the stories, I think from when we were 14 or 15? If there's an earlier version with Robert in it, I've blissfully erased it from my mind. XD

rosewalker: I think we changed his name when we typed up the first version. I think it was Robert in the very first hand-written stuff, you know, that notebook that Joss Whedon stole? Right up to the point when Mary got brought in and we realized we couldn't have Mary as Robert's wife and as me, so we decided the Cure would just be another band that looked exactly like the Cure only more single. And far more sensitive to sunlight. And named the Epidemic. It was a bizarro-world Cure. Hey, remember Roger's evil twin? Bwahahahaha.

aikea_guinea: Moving along…

Mary is from Mary Poole, Robert Smith's wife. We already had a Sarah in the story back when we started, so we couldn't name her Sara. Interestingly enough, Sarah became Laura and died in a tragic and purposeful house fire after we stopped talking to the real Sarah. Nobody seemed particularly upset by the loss. Sarah/Laura doesn't exist in Deception Pass, just for the record.

I don't know why Andy is Andy, but he's always been Andy.

What authors/works would you say most influenced your writing/story? What areas of mythology do you draw from the most? Are there any authors/works/sources that you purposefully avoid? You were all over the mythological landscape in the last chapter, and the treasure hunt for references was a ton of fun. If you had to make an "If you like DP, you might also like . . ." list, a la Amazon.com, what would be on it?

aikea_guinea: Neil Gaiman is a recent writing style influence, though when we first started I was reading a lot of Stephen King and P.N. Elrod. Later there was some Anne Rice, but her influence is minimal I think, and rather purposefully. We still to this day insist that Joss Whedon ripped us off when he made Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We even have a notebook where we were scribbling out future plot ideas and one of the girls would become 'a kick ass fighter' and the other would be a 'magician of some kind'. Hey Joss, I want my notebooks back! Still, I do love Buffy and most of Angel. Firefly is amazing and shouldn't be missed, either. I'm on board with Sara's idea for a House/DP crossover, too. XD

As far as areas of mythology, anything goes. I personally love it all. There's endless potential in it.

rosewalker: And don't forget that in our original story there was a vampire named Spike, who predates the Buffy Spike by at least a decade! Damn you, Joss!

I second Neil Gaiman. I've tried very hard not to rip him off, but some of his mythology in Sandman is so ingrained in my head that I didn't even realize I was kind of stealing the Furies from him in episode 22. I actually bought the hardcover of American Gods when it first came out, years and years ago, but never got around to reading past the first chapter. When we first came up with the idea for our season one finale almost a year ago, I desperately wanted to finish the book, but I purposefully avoided it so that I didn't totally rip it off.

As for my influences, anything with character development. Television has influenced me a lot just because of the visual nature of Deception Pass. I see the scenes played out in my head, I hear the music in the background. Buffy, Angel and Firefly were all great character dramas. As for current shows, I'm really loving Bones and House. I like CSI (just the original) because of the characters, even though it's more of a procedural show, though if you notice any similarities between that and Deception Pass, THEY ripped US off. Seriously. I'll be watching an episode and someone will blurt out this line that's word for word from Deception Pass. Weird.

As for books, I've been reading a lot of Alice Hoffman lately. I'll pick up anything that sounds like it has an interesting main character. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold was pretty excellent, also. Jennifer Weiner's humor has influenced me a lot, as well. These influences may not be strictly obvious, but they're there.

How do you (Danielle and Sara) overcome being separated by such a large distance? Do you IM a lot or have you perfected psychic communication? Or is it more like MST3K, and you're actually trapped in space, while a weird-ass "scientist" sends you missions?

aikea_guinea: Personally I do my best to not think about it. Once I do I start getting really really depressed and sort of slump in the corner for a while. We don't IM as Sara doesn't have the internetting at home and can't get away with it at work, so there's loads of emails exchanged. And we share a brain.

And now I'll be singing the MST3K theme song for a few hours.

rosewalker: What she said. Emails galore and plenty of phone calls. Actually it's probably good we live nowhere near each other, because it seems like whenever we're together we're either in tears from laughing very hard over god knows what, or huddled under blankets in the elevator lobby of a hotel talking about Really Deep Things. Not much actual writing takes place… could be all the vodka.

Who gives you the most trouble while simming? The characterization in the story leads me to Mary, but there is a certain twinkle in Tristan's eye at times, and I think Andy must be a drama queen. ("I will not cooperate until all the brown M&Ms are removed from my dressing room and replaced with green ones. And I said Evian spring water, not Dasani! I want to talk to my agent. Now." Then Chris comes along and pulls down Andy's pants and everyone has a giggle.)

aikea_guinea: Mary is one of my best actors, actually. Even before I had the ability to pull animations she was always right on target with the perfect expression just when I needed it. James and Emily are the troublemakers-they tend to want to do their own thing and will get around to the acting when they feel like it. Tristan can't seem to stop grinning and waving at everyone. I often have to remind him that he's supposed to be angsty. Chris is a 'one take' guy. He's rather serious about getting things right the first time and moving on. Andy is spoiled rotten, but rewards me with good… bad? …behavior.

How do you group the characters together in your mind? There are a lot of, um, entangling alliances that can make sorting them difficult. Who do you have marked as a loner? Who needs people? The story obviously revolves around Mary, James, Emily, and Tristan, but how do you sort the others? What relationships are more important--those between lovers or those between friends or between family members? There seems to be a definite preference to the family-you-choose, rather than the family-you're-born-with in your writing--see the relationships between Emily and her parents and between Mary and her parents, and contrast those to the relationships within the main quartet of characters.

aikea_guinea: First and foremost this is a story about friendships. Lovers can come and go, but there are ties that bind beyond that. It's an exploration of the kind of strains that can be put on a group of friends and still have them come out intact so to speak.

rosewalker: Hey, that was beautiful. You're the awesomest!

aikea_guinea: My 4AM ramblings were bound to come in handy sooner or later! ^_~

What's up between Markus and Abigail? Is he still experiencing culture shock when it comes to the paranormal, despite have a voudon priestess for a grandmother and two vampires as best friends? Or does his troubled past compel him to wash his hands of things and let fate take its course?

aikea_guinea: He's definitely more rooted in the real world. He can take things in stride, deal with them, but at the end of the day I think he's more likely to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground.

rosewalker: I think maybe his mother tried to keep him away from the voodoo stuff. He can deal with it, it doesn't seem too bizarre to him, and he doesn't have a difficult time believing in the paranormal, but he'd rather it kept its distance. It's sort of like violent crime. You know it happens, but you won't really freak out until it happens near you.

Is Abigail a voudon priestess or a voodoo queen or is she just some general practitioner of the dark arts? Why no sacrifices of black roosters? Ever tempted to have her make a voodoo doll of Andy and poke it mercilessly with pins?

aikea_guinea: General practitioner of the Dark Arts. And no, I've never been tempted to have her make a voodoo doll of Andy because I love him to pieces. :D

rosewalker: What Danielle said. I think her roots are in Voodoo because that's where she grew up, but I think she quickly moved beyond that to find the truth in all things magical.

How did James and Tristan come out like they are? They were born in the 1800s, correct? They're definitely different than then; hair, clothing, tattoos.

aikea_guinea: When I think of Tristan's tattoos I start to laugh at the absurdity of it all-a vampire better make damn sure they want what they're getting tattooed on their skin because they have to live with it a hell of a lot longer than most of us would.

rosewalker: They're quite different than they were, yes. Appearance-wise, at least. But then, I'm a lot different looking than I was just twenty years ago, and Danielle, please don't pull out pictures of the 80s Claw of Doom bangs. So they've just evolved with the times like everyone else.

aikea_guinea: I'll keep the 80s Claw of Doom bangs hidden if you keep Spiral Perm from Hell far from the light of day.

rosewalker: Oh wow, I forgot about the spiral perm. And the Sun-in! God bless the 80s. I'm suddenly really glad I didn't meet you until after my own spiral perm from hell.

aikea_guinea: But yes, even as people change appearance-wise through the years, subtle changes also take place with personality and the like. It's not necessarily anything drastic, but outside forces influence your perspective on the world. James and Tristan aren't time travelers, they aren't Victorian men thrown suddenly and violently into the modern world-they've had a leisurely stroll through time, adapting to the changes going on around them. They're still fundamentally the same people they've always been, just with a lot more time to think about it. As such, they can sometimes come across as somewhat outdated, but never exactly foreign.

I've done a lot of thinking about how people act at different ages. James and Tristan don't act like 145 year olds, Chris doesn't act like anyone's grandfather I know. To me, it's not about the age. People treat you as they perceive you, whether or not it's fair or accurate. If everyone around you thinks you're in your mid-20s they're going to treat you like they would treat someone in their mid-20s, even if you're in your 70s. With the absence of any of the typical physical changes from aging, without the aches and pains of growing old, I think you'd continue to act as you always had, just adapting it to the social norms of the present.

A Behind The Scenes Look At Deception Pass - Part II

2006-08-11T18:11:31Z

Your Questions Answered:

How much of DP is inspired by real life?

rosewalker: There are a few very specific things we've taken from real life. A lot of Mary and Emily's friendship has come straight from the pages of history, with a few modifications. A lot of it is contained in the episode in which Emily's life flashes before her eyes. aikea_guinea and I really did meet on a swingset at recess. And although we never spent the night in any abandoned, haunted houses, we did sleep on her balcony once in the middle of February.

aikea_guinea: With Sparky the Electric Blanket, no less. I'm still not sure how we're not dead.

We know that DP has seen several incarnations throughout the years. How did the ideas evolve into the way the story is now? What is your favorite element of the old stories not incorporated into DP and why did you choose to leave it out of the current version?

rosewalker: The one thing that has always been there is Mary and Emily's friendship. When we set out to do this version of the stories, we wanted to make sure that the central theme was that friendship. We actually had a conversation about how we wanted to really go back to the roots of the stories. The original stories were very funny (sometimes on purpose!), whereas some of the later versions got much darker and dramatic. I think my favourite thing that we purposefully left out was the relationship between the Tristan and Mary character. Originally, those two were always at each others throats, and later in the stories we found out that Tristan was Mary's long lost older brother. We left that out of Deception Pass because we decided to make Tristan much older. Oh, and also because it was incredibly silly.

aikea_guinea: I'm not sure you'd strictly call it an element, but there's this particular scene involving Mary, James, and a dryer that we left out. Basically James decided he was going to move in with Mary after only knowing her a few hours, and for whatever reason Mary didn't call the police and have him removed. He was making her more and more angry while she was making dinner so she threw a knife at him which, much to her surprise, stabbed him straight through the heart causing him to 'drop dead'. In a blind panic, Mary stuffs James's 'dead body' in a dryer in order to hide her crime. The reason we left that scene out is pretty obvious--it's impossible to sim someone being stuffed in a dryer. XP

As far as evolution of the story, there's always been a core group of five characters-Mary, James, Tristan, Emily, and Andy. They're recognizable but very different now than they were when we first started, a bit more evolved I hope.

Music obviously has a deep connection with the series. What kind of music/artists inspire the series as well as how you want TVO to sound? Have you two always had the same tastes in music?

rosewalker: I'm not sure that I've ever had a specific sound in mind for TVO. I hear them as sort of gothic, but with the charisma of something just a tad more popular, like The Cranes meets The Beatles.

aikea_guinea: I've pretty much always heard them sounding vocally much like The Mission, musically like early Cure circa 'Seventeen Seconds', 'Faith', and 'Pornography' for their first album and 'Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me' for their second album, a bit more musically advanced in other words. I think I may think about this too much.

And Sara and I have been into the same 'type' of music since we met. I was heavily influenced by the music my older brother listened to in the early 1990s- The Cure, U2, Cocteau Twins. He has phenomenal taste in music. ^_^ I made Sara a couple of mix tapes and the rest is history.

How do you two manage to come to conclusive decisions? E-mails are quite helpful but what about ideas that one may want to share with each other right away, especially if it may be a last-minute rewrite before an episode's premiere?

rosewalker: Plenty of phone calls. Since I don't have the internet at home, the phone is very important. One of my favourite calls is the one when aikea_guinea read me the coroner scene from the episode in which Tristan died. She did the voices and everything, and I still giggle when I think of her saying "Son, do you need to go to a hospital?"

aikea_guinea: I remember going from sobbing to laughing to laughing so hard I was sobbing during that phone call. I'm surprised I was able to read through it to be honest. XD

As for the last part of the question, I don't think there really are any last-minute rewrites because the simming aspect of DP takes so long. Small changes are constantly being made during the entire processes by both of us.

If approached by either a TV or movie deal, do you think either of you would consider taking it? Would you rather see DP as a TV show, movie, or in some other medium other than its current incarnation?

rosewalker: I would love to see it as a TV show. Deception Pass is very character-driven, and I think it would play better as a television series. I do, however, think the process of making a TV show is heartbreaking, and I'm not sure if I want to do that to something so beloved to both of us.

aikea_guinea: If it were a magical perfect world without the heartbreak I'd say a TV show as well. But it would have to be a soap opera if it were a TV show, where we could keep it going decade after decade. I think Deception Pass would work as a graphic novel as well.

Did you have any writing training in school, or was it always just a hobby?

rosewalker: Mostly just a hobby. I know Danielle has taken some creative writing classes, and so have I. I majored in Journalism in college, but it was more on the advertising side than on the writing side. I personally feel that I have a long way to go before I become a "good" writer, but I also believe that the best way to learn how to write is to read everything you can get your hands on.

aikea_guinea: I actually turned in an early chapter of 'the stories' for my one creative writing class. I got an A. XD I was an art major my first (and for all intents and purposes last) year in college. I'm not sure what it means that I failed every single one of my classes. It never occurred to me until recently that I was probably in the wrong major.

Like Sara, I also think I have a long way to go before I become a 'good' writer.

What sparked your interest for writing "the stories"? Has writing just always been your escape from the stressors of life (school, work, family, friends, etc.)?

rosewalker: This one day in band class, Danielle showed me some pictures she'd drawn. They went with a story she'd been writing about a time-traveling scientist, a vampire and a wizard. I fell in love with the vampire character. I insisted she write me into the story, and then I began writing my own story, which was very horrible and ended with "Six months later, they all died." At some point, sort of simultaneous with all of this, she showed me "The Stories" which were the beginnings of Deception Pass. She wrote me into that one, as well, as Mary (because there was already another character named Sarah). Soon we began trading off the notebooks and we were each writing. It was definitely an escape from the real world, which, in middle school, was horrible. We've kept it up on & off throughout the years. It's just too big a part of our lives not to. I cannot even begin to fathom my life without these stories.

aikea_guinea: I moved a lot growing up. A lot. Until I met Sara in 7th grade I never really felt I belonged anywhere. The people in my head kept me company when I didn't have anyone else. James was there living in his hut in Medieval England with its dirt floors and really nice mattress making me laugh and sharing adventures.

rosewalker: Oh my god, I'm so glad you didn't move again after you moved here and that your mom kept driving you to school after they changed the boundaries. What would I have done without you? I don't even want to think about it.

aikea_guinea: That's one of those singular defining moments that make your head spin if you think too hard about them. 'What if mom hadn't kept driving me to Pioneer?' It boggles the mind. I'd be dead or in an asylum.

Is the story mostly complete or do you just write as you go along? Do you refer to some of your older material?

rosewalker: It's kind of a mixture of both. There is a huge twist coming up in a later season that fundamentally takes the story to a whole new level. I'm a little apprehensive about how it will play to the readers, because I can see it as a "jumping the shark" kind of moment, but I'm hoping we can pull it off. There are also things we've foreshadowed already that will hopefully make people go back to older episodes and say, "Oh! Wow! They've been planning this since the third episode!". It was important for us to lay down a lot of the groundwork for things to come.

There's also a lot we don't know yet, and certain parts just write themselves. For instance, as far as the love relationships go, we're really not quite sure who's going to end up together (and who's going to stay together). The characters will let us know in time.

aikea_guinea: The foreshadowing has been my favorite part of the series so far. I love leaving clues for people to find, sort of making people slow down and pay attention rather than spelling everything out for them. That's not what you asked, but Sara covered every thing else. ^_^

Before making the DP LJ and using TS2, have either of you thought of publishing your work?

rosewalker: I never seriously have. It's always just been our thing, between the two of us. Sometimes we'd pick up another friend briefly along the way. It always seemed like we were writing it for our own entertainment, and that was cool because we never had to consider what anyone else might think of it.

aikea_guinea: I never seriously have either. I'm still writing this primarily for the two of us. You can't really afford to start thinking too much about how people may take a character's actions, you just have to do it. It's impossible to please everyone, at the end of the day the only person you can really hope to make happy is yourself.

Do either of you "favor" some characters while writing or do you switch them off equally?

rosewalker: I love Chris. I absolutely adore him. I think he and Mary are my favourites to write just because they can be so off the wall. I love that Mary just says whatever she's thinking, it's a nice release to be able to get into the head of a character like that when you've spent all day at work trying to be nice to idiots.

aikea_guinea: I adore writing for Andy. He's so multi-layered and has all these different games going on with everyone he knows; it's tricky. He's completely hilarious to me as well, sort of in a blunt crazy sort of way.

I also love writing Glass and Jade. Their sibling rivalry is a constant source of inspiration. Plus they're just cool.

I'm still a bit nervous around Mary, but only because Sara is so brilliant with her that she seems to pale a bit in my hands.

rosewalker: Sure, but if you picked out the top ten most brilliant Mary lines, you'll find they were written by Danielle. For instance, "Is there even a circus in town?" has always been one of my favourites, it was sort of a defining moment for Mary in my head. I've used it as inspiration for a few other lines, like Mary in the Underworld asking if the Furies got the Food Network.

Who is your personal favorite DP character (if it's possble to pick a favorite child)?

rosewalker: I really can't pick! They're all part of something larger, to me.

aikea_guinea: Exactly as Sara said, they're all part of something larger. Every time I think I have a favorite I think of any of the others and they become my favorite. I don't even have a least favorite.

Can you give us any hints about what's to come in the series?

rosewalker: Plenty more angst and fun.

I've always wondered what aspirations the characters were created with, yano, Sim-wise. Were they picked just to hurry the creation process, or do they influence their individual personalities?

aikea_guinea: Because certain aspirations and zodiac signs cause sims to act in different ways even when they're just standing around, I did my best to match the sim up with the strongest personality traits of the characters. Here's a rundown of their aspiration and in-game zodiac signs:

James: Popularity, Aquarius
Tristan: Family, Pisces
Emily: Family, Aquarius
Mary: Knowledge, Taurus
Markus: Knowledge, Cancer
Chris: Fortune, Aries
Andy: Fortune, Aries
Deanna: Knowledge, Aries
Jacob: Knowledge, Cancer
Glass: Knowledge, Virgo
Jade: Knowledge, Taurus

I seem to favor knowledge sims. :X

I've also always wondered how much of the story you have "in the can" as it were. Obviously you've been writing these guys for a long while but do you have an "evolved" storyline? Do you sort of know where the characters will go/end up etc?

rosewalker: There is a definite line of development that each of the characters are following. The series, as far as we have it thought out, has about three acts. We're still in the very beginning of act one.

I've always wondered if your story for dp has been in anyway shaped by what you can and can't do in sims 2? For example, you can't write into the story that the characters turn into dogs because you can't have dogs in sims 2(well not yet any way, the new expantion pack will fix that)

rosewalker: I pretty much just write whatever I can think of and then Danielle magically makes it happen. There are a few things she hasn't been able to do, like the three-headed dog in the Underworld. We ended up just writing all of the beasties we needed as various vampire incarnations, and it made sense since that's really the only kind of demon Mary knows.

aikea_guinea: I still think I could have pulled off the three-headed dog if I'd had to. I'm just glad I didn't have to. XD

I think that I may subconsciously write things I know I can sim, but I don't go out of my way to actively avoid things because I may not be able to do it. There's always a way to get a scene done.

I know that Jacob and Tristan each have their own specific song (being Jacob's Ladder and Tristan). Does the rest of the cast have a song specifically for them? Meaning, if you hear the song on the radio, you immediately envision ... say ... James?

rosewalker: I usually have specific songs for specific scenes, rather than characters. But there are definitely certain songs that remind me of the characters. I just can't seem to think of any at the moment… maybe I'll come back to this.

aikea_guinea: Very recently I redid the character page over at the website and used song lyrics that reminded me of each of them:

Emily: 'Girl', Tori Amos
Mary: 'Spark', Tori Amos
Andy: 'Wake', The Mission
James: 'Lover I Don't Have to Love', Bright Eyes
Tristan: 'Tristan', Patrick Wolf
Markus: 'Fight', The Cure
Jacob: 'Jacob's Ladder', Patrick Wolf
Deanna: 'Here in my Head', Tori Amos
Chris: 'Climbing up the Walls', Radiohead
Glass: 'Suede', Tori Amos
Jade: 'Datura', Tori Amos

There are countless others that also make me think of everyone. I was just thinking about how when I hear 'Mercy Street' by Peter Gabriel I think of James. I think it has to do with the one line "Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips of kissing Mary's lips". The song 'Reptile' by the Church has been making me think of Andy, I think it was what had me have Abigail call him a 'viper' to Emily during the dream episodes and again more recently. Generally speaking it'll be a single line or two that will remind me of someone, the list could be endless if I sat down and thought about it.

We have learned about Emily, Tristan, James, and Andy's past, but how come we learned almost zilch about Mary and Markus. I've always wondered why Mary shuns affection (especially with her parents still together and obviously caring). Yeah we got peeks at them, with the rape and Markus getting his ass beat, but there is always more to it. Should we be expecting some more insight in the up coming season?

rosewalker: I think the very first thing we wrote for DP was the character histories. So we already know what's happened to them up to this point. Our plan is really to use those histories to figure out how the characters react to things, and there are little pieces of everyone's history in nearly every episode. By the end of the series, you'd probably have a good idea as to all of the important things that have happened to the characters. We may have some more specific flashbacks at some point, if they serve the plot. There are certainly some interesting characters from the past who might show up.

Where in the world did you come up with Zombie Platypus' from?

rosewalker: Ah, still one of my favourite episodes. This ep actually started out as Mary's parents coming to dinner and the interactions between everybody. When we got to the end we realized something was missing, and I went through a list of supernatural stuff we hadn't done yet. It included zombies. When we were kids, I had pet hamsters that had babies constantly. So Danielle & I always had these rodents running around, and hamsters seemed like the obvious choice for a zombie pet. The platypus thing was all Danielle, though, and I still giggle thinking about when she read that scene to me over the phone.

aikea_guinea: I'd been thinking about my little brother who was living in Australia at the time, and how weird all the animals there are to me. Platypuses are just fundamentally hilarious creatures.

Andy was bit, how come he didn't turn? Did he and we not know it? Was not enough blood taken? I was expecting to seem him suddenly go nocturnal on us. I'll spork you (ok not really, I just like sporks).

rosewalker: I think we have a very specific mythology for turning someone into a vampire in this series. We've already hinted at the vampire virus, so there needs to be an exchange of blood under some very specific circumstances in order to turn someone.

What are the characters bad habits? Do any of them bite their nails, twirl their hair, tap their feet, hum, spit a lot. Hmm?

rosewalker: Mary talks to herself constantly. She also always needs to be moving, she's not good at sitting quietly. I think Emily bites her lip when she's lost in thought, and I could see her being a hair-twirler. Chris smokes really stinky cloves, so he always kind of smells acrid and sweet. I think Tristan always has music in his head, so he either has a foot or a hand going along in time to it, but quietly, no tapping. James does this hand gesture in which he (lightly) pounds his fist into his palm when he's trying to emphasize something.

aikea_guinea: Deanna's a fiddler. Not that she plays a fiddle, but her hands have to be doing something all the time. If you were to see her sitting at a table, she'd undoubtedly have a pen in her hands absentmindedly doodling or something. She's a pen-clicker.

If you were each of the main characters (Chris included), step in their shoes and tell me what you think they would say is their best quality.

rosewalker:
Emily: I love deeply.
Mary: I'm independent.
Tristan: I'm intelligent and talented.
James: I'm so damn pretty.
Chris: James is a poof, I am the hawtness. And I'm really good in bed.
Markus: I'm strong enough to do what needs to be done.

aikea_guinea:
Andy: I'm damn good at getting what I want.
Deanna: I'm balanced and very comfortable with myself and who I am.

I've always wanted more Tristan/James back story. What happened after undead!Tristan scared the crap out of his family? How long did it take him to forgive James? What happened to the classy blonde chick (sorry, forgot her name!)? Will you ever give us a Chicago flashback?

rosewalker: There will definitely be some more back story. We actually laid some of the groundwork for it already in the season finale, though I doubt anyone will catch it until they go back to read it after this future episode comes out. I believe our blonde was named Anne, and yes, we do have her contracted to return for a future episode or two.

Okay, cos I'm selfish, what's the background/life-story-so-far for Jade and Glass?

rosewalker: I'm not certain, but I think it was pretty messed up and involved a genetics experiment gone wrong.

Has there ever been a time when Tristan and James have had a huge falling out that could have ruined their friendship?

rosewalker: Tristan wasn't particularly happy with James over the whole turning him into a vampire thing. We'll probably explore that more in episodes to come.

If DP was ever made into a movie or television show, who would you pick to play each character and why?

rosewalker: I think I would be drawn to lesser known actors, honestly. But for the sake of argument, here are the more well-known people I might choose:

Emily: Kate Beckinsale. I think her range from soft to strong is really fantastic. She can be both at once. And she's got this dark but innocent look going on that I just love.

Mary: Scarlett Johansson. She has a strong voice and she can say a lot just with a look. She's sexy but not dainty, she looks strong.

James: This is a toss-up… Jake Gyllenhaal. Because… yum. And the blue eyes. He can be scary and a teddy bear. Or Ryan Reynolds. Because he cracks me up.

Tristan: I'll have to concur with Danielle on this one and go with Johnny Depp, but only because I can't think of anyone else that fits quite right in my head.

Chris, Andy, Markus.. .my head hurts too much now. But I think Markus could be the hot guy from CSI. I'm pretty sure I actually have some really excellent people in mind for Chris & Andy, but they just aren't coming to me at the moment.

aikea_guinea: Sara covered them all pretty well. Just for amusement and confusion I think it'd be hilarious to see James Marsters playing Chris. To add a bit more to the Johnny Depp as Tristan thing, I primarily go that route because at the very beginning I found myself channeling a bit of Edward Scissorhands for Tristan.

What cheats and hacks do you primarily use?

aikea_guinea: I have very few hacks in my game. My most recent tool of choice has been the pulled animation painting I made myself that allows me to use any animation in the game at will. Because I made it myself I have complete control over what animations I have without having to rely on someone else to get the animations for me if/when they have time. Learning about how the animations work has been great fun as well as frustrating, but it's worth the blood sweat and tears to help bring more life into the pictures.

As for cheats, there's no way I could do this without them. My game is set up to run with testingCheats on as a default for instance. I also use the following:

boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false
boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true
maxmotives
motivedecay off
sethour [generally 19 since so much of this takes place at night!]
moveobjects on
showheadlines off
slowmotion [1-8]

What are the hardest types of scenes to set up?

aikea_guinea: Believe it or not, scenes that are mostly dialogue are the most difficult for me. It's challenging to give the reader something interesting to look at that doesn't pull away from the words.

Are these what the characters were originally intended to look like, or have they drastically changed over time?

aikea_guinea: I think the state they're in now, with their custom genetics, is pretty much how we've always seen them. Or at least how we've seen them the longest. Though Mary started out as a brunette now that I'm thinking about it. Emily was always supposed to be exotically beautiful, half-Japanese half-Caucasian. Tristan was always the 'pretty' one while James was always more traditionally masculine.

What one custom object/hack/mesh could you not live without?

aikea_guinea: The cheats. At this point I'd also be lost without my pulled animations.

Do you play these sims as a different story line, and then just take photographs for this story, or are they only used for Deception Pass?

aikea_guinea: I don't actually ever play the sims as a game anymore! It's become an illustration tool (not just for Deception Pass, but also for silly little photoshoots I do, and the handful of videos as well) above all else. Once in a while I'll go in and let everyone run around crazy with free-will because otherwise I'd forget certain aspects of the game.

Who lives in what "household," as The Sims defines a house? Do you just have 8 characters per lot, do only the major characters have their own lots...how does that work?

aikea_guinea: I found that I had to approach Deception Pass from a different angle than the way the Sims 2 is meant to be played as a game as far as households go. In the very very beginning I built Mary and Emily's house on the largest lot available at the time and built a fake road down the middle of it. Across the street was the studio everyone was supposed to work out of. Everyone was pretty much on one lot. Needless to say that didn't last very long. These days there are hundreds of lots and everyone gets moved around as needed via the tombstone of life and death. I rarely, if ever, save after shooting a scene. I think it's perpetually 8am Monday in Deception Pass.

Is there anything you have wanted to add to the story that you just haven't been able to make work in terms of getting the characters to act it out within game confines?

aikea_guinea: You know, I don't think there has been. If there is, I get artsy with the pictures, like in Episode 21, Part 3.

Once the Pets expansion comes out, will you utilize that in the game?

aikea_guinea: Jacob has a cat named Mr. Twinkles, so he'll at least get to have her in a state where she can move and not just stare blankly at him as she's been doing up to this point. Not that we've seen her in the series yet… At any rate, she was around when Jacob first came to me last year so it's more like the EP will give me a way to have her in the story rather than the EP inspiring the pet.

What mood/time of day do you find yourself at your most creative?

aikea_guinea: I think I do my best work after midnight during the week. The sun makes me irate and on the weekends my husband likes to spend time with me outside of my head. As far as mood goes it depends on the scene. There's a dance that goes on between scenes influencing my mood and my mood influencing the scenes.

rosewalker: I usually write whenever the mood strikes me. Most of the time it's pretty late at night, or at least after dark. It seems like the magic doesn't come out until the sun sets. But I also write a lot during the day while I'm at work, usually after everyone else has gone home for the day. I suppose really it's the absence of people that helps me, because then I can just let go and be completely myself. I have a hard time tuning in otherwise.

aikea_guinea: I can't write with anyone around, either.

I would like to find out more about Deanna. Ok, ok I'm not a huge fan of hers. I'm a Tristan/Emily shipper. But I've always been curious about her.

aikea_guinea: This will certainly be in a future episode.