6.15 Fresh Start

#sims3challenge #sims3legacy #sims3story #thesims3

Summer was drawing to a close. Some of the trees were already turning their leaves.

There were also thank-you notes to write for their wedding gifts.

“Wait? Fabian Sample? Is he a distant relative or something?”
“I don’t know. The only person I know of by that name is dead.”
Andria worked tirelessly to get a small first harvest out of her fledgeling farm.

Dylan wasn’t enthusiastic about the dirtiest work, but he enjoyed the labor.

Andria made a deal with the local farmer’s market to sell some of her produce. There wasn’t much this year, but hopefully next year she would have a lot to sell.

And then there were the chickens.

And the bees.


Abby’s phone rang. The display read NEMO HODGINS. It was now or never.

“Hello?”

“Hey, baby! You didn’t return my calls! I hope everything’s all right.”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “I just needed to think.”

“I want to see you. Meet me at Performance Park tonight?”

“Of course.”

She hung up, took a deep breath, and headed out to meet her challenge.

There he was. “My rising star! I’ve missed you!”

He reached out to put his arm around her, and she scuttled out of his reach.

He didn’t immediately catch the hint. “Sorry,” he said. “I know it’s public, but you’re just so luscious I can’t keep my hands to myself. Look, I have a great opportunity! I want you to be my personal assistant. We can go great places, you and I.”

“Your assistant?” Abby said. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Hey hey! Lots of actresses get their start in administration. Wait, you’re really not all right, are you?”

“I’ve been talking with all the other actresses you helped with their careers,” Abby said. “You’ve been hoping we’d never talk to each other, haven’t you? We’re all filing complaints right now. And giving interviews to the press. If you’re not scared of what you’ve done, you better be.”

Nemo froze. The friendly smile dropped from his face.

“You have got to be kidding!” he shouted. “Do you have any idea the favors I did for your talentless freaks? You wouldn’t have a career without me! Take me down, and you’ll never work again!”


For a minute Abby was afraid he was going to hit her. She took another step backward.
“It’s already starting,” she said. “Goodbye!”

She turned and walked away. Behind her, she heard Nemo shout, “Your career is over! You never had one, and now it’s done! I hope it’s worth it!”

When she got home, she stood in front of the mirror for the first time since Dion confronted her on Love Day. Did it hurt? Was she still ashamed of herself?

Maybe a little, but much less than before. If she could help any other actresses from making the same bad decision, then all of this would be worth it.

But Nemo was also right. She had acted only a few roles, and ever one of them was something he had handed her. Without him, she was back to square one. Worse, since she would get more publicity for trying to run a casting agent out of business than she’d ever gotten for her acting.



Was
 this the end of her career? Was it worth it?

Dylan found her there. “Did you meet him?” he asked.

Abby nodded. “Now I just have to brace myself for a lot of paparazzi and a bunch of horrible stories about me in celebrity journals.”

Dylan chucked her on the shoulders. “Think of it as research for your future starring role!”

Abby couldn’t help but giggle.

“Thanks for supporting me, big brother,” Abby said.

“Ahem,” Sawyer said.

Abby looked up in surprise. “What’s up Sawyer?”

“I was accepted to Sims University with a full scholarship,” Sawyer said. “I start this fall.”

Abby beamed. “That’s great! I never doubted it, though. I bet all the schools wanted you. I’ll miss you while you’re off growing your mind.”

“That’s just the point,” Sawyer said, scowling.
“What point?” Abby asked.
“You should come with me.”

“What? Me go to college?”

“It’s better than hanging around here while they make fun of you.”

“I — I never thought about. I haven’t applied to any schools. I didn’t take any standardized tests.”

“You’re not stupid,” Sawyer said. “They’ll let you in.”

Abby was touched. From Sawyer, that was the highest of compliments. “OK. I guess I’ll apply.”

The questions on the entrance exam were challenging, to be sure. But she came up with something.

And apparently, it was a good something. Her acceptance letter arrived quickly. She was surprised, but Sawyer just shrugged. “I told you. You can rent the truck. I have to pack up my research supplies.”



And that was how Abby found herself saying goodbye to her family

And heading off in a rental truck to Sims U to study Fine Arts.

———-

Woo. Stuff. I’m kind of burning out, but I’m still trying to plug at getting caught up.

I’m sure I could do myself a favor if I condensed. I’ll see if I can do University in one post.

14 thoughts on “6.15 Fresh Start

  1. Oh, they're going to University! That I didn't expect. But Sawyer is right, it will help Abby to be out of reach for all the paparazzis for a bit.

    Fun note: when I read "her acceptance letter arrived", the picture of an owl with a letter immediately popped into my head o:-)

  2. Yep! University! I always figured that Dylan would go too, but there's no job boost to self-employed careers as far as I can tell, and Dylan's literally at like level 9 of photography already. Considering he married a technophobic fae and started a small farm, it's really not clear what he'd do with a university degree. I ought to add a bit from his point of view reflecting on how his life turned out differently than he expected.

    So it's Sawyer and Abby on my first trip to University!

    The owl post image made me grin.

  3. Ahhh, I LOVE University, and can't wait to see what sort of hijinks Abby and Sawyer get into! Good for Abby for standing her ground with that cad! Are she and Dion officially over?

    Also, LOVE the chickens…where did they come from…?

  4. Yeah, Dion never wants to see Abby again. I had her break it off because 5 days to fix a relationship is a long time, and I couldn't imagine Dion being interested in working things out after she already hadn't been paying him a lot of attention.

    The chicks are store content. Over the course of about a year, I picked up several farm-themed premium items, and I threw them all into this generation.

  5. It’s so nice to see that Sawyer and Abby are going to study at the university together! I totally didn’t see this coming. Anyway, I think Sawyer is right – she can escape all the mess that is about to come…

    I love all the store farm-themed content! I’ve purchased some of it as well, but still waiting for the right occasion to use it in my story 🙂 The little chicken are so cute!

  6. Hey hey hey Susan! I know I’ve read some of this, but I’m backtracking and trying to catch up. It’s been SO LONG…but one of the things I wanted to say is my gard, your pictures are so freaking vibrant! I love how colorful they are, and how much the Samples just pop off the screen. It’s been a while since I’ve actually read anything on a computer instead of a tiny phone screen, so they really took my breath away. At any rate, I’m so glad to be catching up with the Samples; I’m very excited to see (or…re-see…maybe…) what Abby and Sawyer get up to at University. University is, surprisingly, one of my favorite EPs; I hope they have a good time with it.

    • OK, WordPress is balking at me commenting on MY OWN BLOG. ARRRGH.

      I am so excited to see a comment from you! Ohmigerd!

      I don’t edit my screenshots in any way, so all the vibrance you see is the world. Bakafox’s Avalon is gorgeous. I don’t know how people create worlds like that.

      • What is it with you and commenting problems? You have got the worst luck! How have you been liking WordPress otherwise?

        Ha, I know it’s been ages, but I have more down time at my new job, which means catching up on everyone…or, rather, everyone who’s left…and even…UPDATING. Le gasp. I updated the Callenders, and was planning to do the Simptoms as well, but I have to actually play with them to get anything new out, and that’s been more challenging than I’d expected. I’d forgotten about the wonderful lagging issues I get with Sims 3…:-(

        There are so many talented folks who do such amazing things on Sims…I’m so jealous, but I can’t hate them, because I get to look at all their pretty!

        • I’ve never had connecting troubles before, so somehow I think it must be you’re fault.

          I didn’t even know you had a new job. Is it interesting? And I didn’t know you’d updated the Callenders! How did that happen?? I must go check.

          I have spent a stupid amount of time getting my game running smoothly. Maybe we should start a thread on the Facebook group about game optimization. The Samples still run more slowly than the Wonderlands, and it’s less about game response actually than about autonomy. The Samples do less autonomously and spend more time standing around looking stupid.

          • IT’S NOT MY FAULT, SUSAN. AUTOCORRECT SAYS SO!

            I do have a new job! I’m still in a library, just a different one. A *better* one, though that is hard to accept sometimes. One where I have more time to catch up on sims blogs…AND, I just today discovered that one of my coworkers is also a closet sim nerd, so squee!!!

            So yes, after working on it for the first few months after I started here, I got a Callender update up! But it didn’t show up as updated because the date I started it was two years ago. ::the tears of laughter emoji here:: It’s so stupid long, but I’ve finally gotten to the point in gameplay where I actually decided to start blogging, and I am just really excited to get March’s story out there, FINALLY.

            I second starting a thread on fb; I almost did, but I can’t tell if anyone is actively even playing anymore. So I will go do that now!

            Funny that you mention that about the Samples standing around autonomously, though; I had just started a test family to see if it’s my game that lags or my family that lags, and I noticed that they seemed to be doing that a lot. I thought at the time that maybe a setting had just gotten screwed up, or that maybe it was always a little like that and I’m just rusty, but you saying that makes me wonder about it a bit more…

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