lillith - dreamer

obviously, the most profound moment of ilya "lost in the sauce" rozanov is at the cottage. post-iloveyous, post-shanewakesilyaupinthemiddleofthenighttoplanthenextdecadeoftheirlivestogether. it's that moment when they're tangled up together in the soft sunlight, rain pitter-pattering on the wide glass windows, shane looking back at ilya so sweetly asking "this is real right" with his big, strong hand gripping at ilya's curls. and i think we can all agree that moment is the first moment they don't use condoms so ilya is trying to answer--to give shane the verbal confirmation he needs--but his entire body is buzzing with sensation at how warm, tight, soft, close shane feels like this. his mind is just drowning in loud tingling pleasure, his body also. all of him honed in on shane, shane, shane. he couldn't think of anything else if he tried. all he can do is nuzzle his nose into shane's pit, smear kisses over his ribs, lap helplessly at shane's nipple, and watch shane beneath him. watch his pretty face as his freckles bunch up, as his big brown eyes water with pleasure, as his cheeks get ruddy and his brows pinch then relax as his beautiful boy sinks into the sensation. and when they're both done, ilya stays tight to shane's back, just stroking up and down the thick muscle of his lover's thigh, kissing at his ribs, enjoying the afterglow. enjoying it the way he's wanted to for so long, with nothing between them and no need to wash away his longing by showering as fast as possible.

maybe not that first summer but after a year or two ilya manages to convince shane to smoke a blunt with him. and shane is terrible at it; he complains that the smoke burns his lungs and he coughs violently and chokes on each inhale, barely taking any in. so, of course, ilya takes over. presses his mouth, damp and hot and full of smoke, to shane's and pushes his tongue past shane's lips. and that's how shane gets high, breathing in the smoke ilya traps behind his teeth. they smoke out on the dock, at sunset. shane says he feels nothing and ilya just hums, says "sure, hollander" and pokes shane's flushed cheeks, laughs at shane's wide pupils, lounges back against the wooden dock with a wicked quirk to his smart mouth. and he feels it. in his limbs, that heavy warm floaty buzzy feeling that makes him kinda feel like sleeping and kinda feel like bursting into a fit of childish giggles. it takes about ten minutes for shane's body to loosen, for him to turn to ilya with heavy, hazy eyes and then crawl over top of ilya, pushing him down into the dock to kiss him all sloppy and demanding and hot. and ilya's had sex high before, made out high before, but suddenly his heart is frantic. shane is heavy in his lap, shirtless and drenched in orange-gold light, freckles stark over his cheeks and shoulders. he's beautiful, his brown eyes turned amber in the sunset, his pouty mouth swollen and dragging heated kiss after heated kiss from ilya's lips. and ilya's heart is pounding, so fucking loud in his ears, he can feel the hectic thumping of it in his throat, in his chest, banging on his ribcage. actually, he's so violently turned on and the adrenaline is pumping so fast he feels sick and he wrenches away with a gasp and feels lightheaded and has to hold off shane who is pouting and whining for more kisses. all the blood in ilya's body has travelled to his dick and all that's left in his brain is a druggy haze of lust and cotton. this is the first time ilya rozanov ever freaks the fuck out on weed -- because his high brain got so turned on he nearly forgot to breathe between kisses. he has to lie flat on the dock breathing in through his mouth and out his nose for twenty minutes before he can get up and go inside.

i think their wedding night they are too drunk and delirious with joy to manage anything more than a sloppy, messy, grinding makeout in bed after everyone leaves. they're both coming in their pants and showering afterwards together and kissing some more and then falling asleep in a heap of tangled limbs. their honeymoon, however, is full of ridiculous, ilya "lost in the sauce" rozanov sex moments. the most notable being after a night out at some club. shane had been just so fucking sweet and hot and joyful all night. dark hair styled nicely, big arms on display in the tight little sheer black t-shirt ilya buys him to wear out to the club, his fingers tucked into ilya's waistband most of the night, just a little possessive and a little clingy. but ilya just has such a nice night. he does shots with a drag queen and meets fun, attractive, queer people. he dances in public with his husband under pulsing neon lights and kisses shane in the corner underneath the speakers throbbing ear-splitting club music. he feels a little trashy and a lot young and infinitely in love with his husband who mostly just bobs his head awkwardly to the music and holds ilya's hand with a besotted look on his handsome face. and when they get in the uber back to the hotel at 4 in the morning shane doesn't even flinch when ilya plasters himself to his side, kisses all over his neck, gropes his chest in the backseat. and when they're finally in the hotel room and stripped naked there's glitter on shane's skin from brushing up against the other bodies on the dancefloor and he's sweaty and he smells a little musky and a little like alcohol and ilya just loves him. loves his husband for coming out with him to a club and indulging everything ilya wanted all night even if he was nervous. loves his husband for the way he'd just had eyes for ilya all night, not even noticing anyone else looking at him, dark eyes never straying from ilya. and they go into the bathroom to shower the night off their bodies but ilya gets distracted looking at shane in the mirror, looking at him standing there all naked and glorious in the soft yellow light, and he can't help but drop to his knees behind shane and pry apart his asscheeks and bury himself there, tongue lapping, pressing, smearing, sliding over shane's hole. and he sucks kisses into the skin, pushes his tongue in, drools over his own chin as he presses his face in deeper. eats shane out for so long that his neck cramps and his knees hurt but he's entirely lost in it. moaning and groaning and whimpering when shane pushes his hips back, when shane reaches back to grab his hair and hold him closer, when shane curses and pleads and whines for more. ilya isn't even thinking of fucking shane--he is enjoying this too much. at some point he started jerking himself off tho and he comes like that, tongue buried in his husband, moaning loudly and dripping saliva down his chin.

ilya has been injured for a week, on IR, out of commission. he's miserable about it. not just because of the hockey--not just bc he is captain and feels like a sack of shit for abandoning his team, to which shane had said "baby, it sucks but it's good it happened now and not later in the season. you'll be back on the ice in time to make sure we still make it to the playoffs"--but also because his injury has prevented him from doing much with his husband. shane has been on a roadie and ilya has been with yuna and david, being dotted on, which is a bit overkill -- it's just a sprained groin not even a severe sprain, the doctor had said it was only grade two and he'd been fine in a few weeks. but before that he hadn't been allowed to do much either -- nothing at all in the bedroom -- and he is miserable. when shane gets back he picks ilya up from his parent's place and anya too and they all go home to their quiet ottawa place. anya runs off to her favourite corner of the yard to reacquaint herself with her favourite pile of dirt in the bushes and shane fusses over ilya on the couch. ilya is NOT sulking at all, not at all bitching and whining like a child. he's just saying that he doesn't need all this fuss hollander, it's fine, please just come here and let me blow you at least. and shane--who is currently been bumped from A to C--is trying to be responsible and telling his husband "no, you will not go on your knees and strain your groin further just to suck me off" and ilya groans and says "okay, i will lie flat and you can sit on my face, do all the work yourself" and, well, shane's dick is a little interested in that. but no, he shakes his head. so ilya pulls out the big guns, he pouts, flutters his thick lashes, looks up at shane with his eyes all pleading and says "i miss you" and shane groans, rubs a hand over his face and stomps away. ilya thinks his tactic has failed but then shane is coming back, dropping lube onto the couch then climbing behind ilya, dragging ilya back to lean his back against shane's chest. and ilya is confused by this turn of events but says nothing as shane kisses at his throat, runs a featherlight touch up and down the ladder of his ribs, the other hand massaging ilya's thick thigh muscle, careful of where ilya's muscle tore. and shane does this for ages, just kissing at ilya's neck, biting at the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder, scratching blunt nails over ilya's sides and rubbing his thumb over ilya's nipple. ilya is hard as fuck and wants to squirm away but shane holds him tighter and sucks a bruise into the soft skin behind his ear. eventually he's pushing down ilya's pants and briefs and slicking his hand with lube and slowly, torturously, meanly, stroking ilya's cock in lazy drags. his palm and fingers applying the faintest amount of pressure, dragging over ilya's cock lazily, like he has all the time in the world. and ilya can't fucking do anything about it. shane has one leg clamped over ilya's knee to keep him from moving and has his other hand wrapped firm around ilya's hip. he keeps kissing wet and messy and biting at ilya's throat. keeps stroking just on this side of too little. he maybe spends half an hour like that, nosing at ilya's jawline, murmuring softly to him saying "baby, baby, shh, just like this" and ilya is going fuzzy at the edges. forgetting all about being annoyed abt being on IR, forgetting all about feeling lazy and useless. "let me take care of you, you do so much, work so hard," shane sighs "just enjoy it" and ilya, strangely, does. the world's slowest, lightest, sweetest handjob reducing him to a puddle of goo melted between shane's thighs. when ilya eventually comes it's with a soft whimper and then shane is cleaning up his tummy and kissing his forehead and making him a nice meal and getting him an icepack for his groin.

Step 1: install your game through your respected platform.

Just follow the regular steps and install the game without adding any other stuff yet whatsoever.

(I personally have a legit copy of the Sims 3 on Steam. If you use another app and have any questions, I'll probably not be able to help you.)

Step 2: run the game once through the official launcher. Once you get to the main menu, you can quit again.

It is very important you run your game through the original launcher at least once after installing it. Not doing so can cause problems with programs like CC magic. You only need to do it the first time. After that, we'll be skipping the launcher entirely.

Step 3: Create a short cut of TS3W.exe on your desktop.

You'll be skipping the launcher from now on. This helps with performance and it starts up your game much faster. It is also important to do this because of DXVK.

You can find TS3W.exe in your bin folder. For me (Steam version) it's in this location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

Right click TS3W.exe, click 'show more options' and choose 'create a shortcut'. Place this shortcut on your desktop and Run Sims 3 from there from now on.

Step 4: Run the GPU Add-on Support patcher

You can find this patcher here. It is essential to run this because Sims will otherwise not recognize your graphics card unless it's over 10 years old. This patcher helps to get your GPU recognized.

The patcher will create a new Graphicsrules.sgr and new Graphicscards.sgr for you in your bin folder. After installing this, you can move the ones that have _old behind them somewhere else (or delete them).

Step 5: Install DXVK

Make sure you follow step one of this guide (will add my own instructions here later).

I'd say DXVK is pretty essential nowadays, especially if you have a modern graphics card with 6GB of VRAM or higher. It'll greatly help to keep your game stable and can prevent a lot of crashes. The way Dxvk works, is that it loads textures through your VRAM instead of your RAM. Especially when you use a lot of CC or HD textures, this will make a huge difference for your RAM usage. Sims 3 can only use 4GB of RAM at once and will start crashing once you hit the 3GB mark in your task manager. With DXVK, you will use a lot less RAM and it'll take much longer for your game to reach this hard cap.

When not to install DXVK: if you have a shitty GPU (like an integrated graphics card on a laptop, or one with 4GB of VRAM or less).

Step 6: Start up the game

Use your new desktop shortcut that also has 'run as administrator' permissions now if you followed the DXVK guide properly.

Step 7: set up all your settings through the ingame options menu

The best graphics settings for you will highly depend on what computer you're using. But there are some things you should always turn off because they negatively affect performance. I will share my (relevant) settings with you (I use a custom UI so your screen style will look a little different from mine). Click on the images to enlarge them so you can read them:

Things of note about these settings:

I recommend you play in windowed mode, especially if you plan to use ReShade. Playing fullscreen is possible, but it does make Reshade presets behave differently in your game. I will include a step in this guide that you can follow to play windowed borderless. So, when you plan to do this: make sure you set the resolution to your display resolution.

Enable object hiding helps with performance. Advanced rendering is essential because otherwise your game looks like absolute shit.

Set your High Detail Lots to any value between 2 and 4. Don't go lower or higher, because you'll get rendering issues that lag out your game.

All other graphics settings can be set to your heart's desire. I'd say start with the highest settings and only go down if you notice your frames per second are bad.

Disable shop mode and lessons and fully disable memories or use this mod to severly limit them. Disable interactive loading screens as well. These are all performance eaters. Interactive loading screen also causes crashes. Memories also don't do anything for your sim, it's just a scrap book with no in-game effects.

Disable any online mode feature. This also lags out your game. Unless you really want to use these features it's best to just play fully offline.

Save your settings, close the game again.

Step 8: Install Sims 3 Settings Setter

This is the most recent magic genie that Sims 3 was blessed with. Especially combined with DXVK it is a life changer. Installing it is simple. You download the most recent version here and drop the .asi file in your bin. Also grab 'wininet.dll' from here (the 32 bit one) and drop that one in your bin too.

Start up your game and load up a save. Once you're inside your save, you press 'insert' to open up the menu for Sims 3 Settings Setter. Go to the 'patches' tab and enable what you like. These are my enabled patches and they all work really well for me, but feel free to experiment with them to find your own performance sweet spot:

Only enable uncompressed textures if you have a GPU with at least 8gb of VRAM. My game will use over 6gb of VRAM easily with this enabled, so you've been warned.

Once you have everything you desire enabled, press 'file' in the top left corner and click 'save settings'.

Step 8.5: if you're playing windowed mode: go into the Other/QoL tab and enable 'Borderless Window'. Set it to 'Full Screen'.

Save your settings and close your game again. No need to save the game you entered for this unless you want to.

Step 9: Install Nraas Errortrap, MasterController and Overwatch

These 3 mods by Nraas are pretty much essential to keep your game from breaking down in the long run. You can download the mods here. Have you never installed a mod for Sims 3 before? Here's a guide (skip the part about Sims3pack and go straight to the part where it explains how to install .package mods).

That's it! You can now play The Sims 3 and it'll be as smooth and stable as it'll ever be. From here on, you can stock your game with more mods and CC (check out my mods masterlist!), or you can install Reshade (here's a guide).

Some important things to keep in mind while playing:

Clean up your game regularly. You can easily do this by using Regul Save Cleaner.

When you install a new mod or update/change Sims 3 Settings Setter, always restart and clear your caches.

Use CC Magic for installing CC, because it merges your files and this really helps with performance. Here's a handy guide on how to use it. Don't put your script mods in here, just your CC.

If you plan to travel to vacation destinations in the EP World Adventures, Nraas Traveler is a must to prevent most of the bugs and crashes that happen in this expansion.

Always keep in mind: mods and corrupt CC can still break your game, make it laggy or unplayable. Always be mindful of the mods you add, so you can always trace any issues you're having back to the mod causing it. I highly recommend not downloading a ton of mods in one session, but adding them step by step and see what they do to your games performance.

Use 'Reset the entire town' from Nraas MasterController at least every other sim week. It'll help clear up any lag that happens because of NPC sims getting themselves stuck routing or annoying stuff like that.

Got a slow CAS? Use Nraas MasterController Compact mode! (Make sure you have the Nraas MasterController Integration module installed).

Navigate to NRaas > MasterController > Settings > CAS.

Set the following to True:

Show in Compact Form: Accessories

Show in Compact Form: Clothing