Tag Archive | forest

4.54 Leisure

Leisure Day dawned on Avalon.

Charles was up at dawn to catch the plumpest fish.

When he made it home with his catch, Veronica was waiting for him. “We are going to thumb our noses at old age,” she said.

“What do you have in mind?” Charles asked warily. Veronica was the one prone to midlife crisis.

She laughed. “Something wild and crazy, but you’ll like it,” she said. She loaded him up into the Vaguester, and off they zoomed.

“This is Tinkerbell’s Beautique,” Charles said.

“I knew you were a smart boy,” Veronica agreed.

The plan was to be inked together as a sort of romantic tribute to each other. Charles hadn’t gotten a tattoo in a long time, and Veronica was right — he liked the idea.

But a little help to dull the pain wouldn’t hurt.

It turned out that he and one of the tattoo artists had a lot in common.

Veronica had to haul him away to actually choose a design.

They settled on an Avalonian flying mouse. Veronica loved the imagery of a creature flying free.

Charles appreciated the fact that it was an endangered species.

When they were done, someone recognized Veronica from her lecture series on the spirit world.

It was nice to have a name for yourself.

Forest, Hunter, and Sky hooked up with their Crumplebottom cousins for a trip to the Little Cottage Park for the Summer Festival.

Jeanna was staying home to rest. “She’s pregnant,” Shanni confided in stunned excitement. “I can’t believe she wanted to have my baby. She never ceases to amaze me.”

Shanni might be elderly, but you wouldn’t know it to watch her behave. When Forest saw Ali walk into the park, he slipped away to talk to her, and Shanni took his place.

Every moment with her these days was worth enjoying.

You just never knew when it would be the last.

Forest was completely captivated by Ali. She was the most amazing creature he had ever owned.

The best part was that the spell hadn’t changed her at all. She was the same brilliant imagination and ambitious business mind. It was just that now, the sun rose and set in his eyes. He could talk to her for hours and never run out of things to talk about.

Sky saw them together, gazing into each other’s eyes, and she thought of Adam. As the water balloon fight broke up, she headed over, breathless and dripping, to join the conversation. “Hey there, Ali!” she quipped. “I’ve been seeing you around a lot recently, and I wanted to know your intentions toward my brother.”

Forest rolled his eyes. “Come ON, sis.”

“Well, I was really talking to Ali,” Sky said. “Ali? What’s up? How’s it going?”

Ali blinked and turned disdainful eyes on Sky. “Excuse me? I’m kind of busy here.”

“Nothing,” Sky said coldly. Wow, she really was a bitch. What did Adam see in her?

She stalked off and grabbed Hunter by the arm. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going roller skating.”

“*I*’m going to roller skate?” Hunter scoffed. “You have got to be kidding.”

Then he saw Miyuki Mai turn up with skates, and he changed his mind.

Ali had to head home, and Forest tried a bit of skating himself. He turned out to be better at it than either Sky or Hunter.

Charles and Veronica showed up, with freshly swollen tattoos to join in the last of the fun.

Hunter struggled a few times around the roller rink, and when he saw Miyuki take a break, he jumped at the chance to get off and talk to her. The excuse to take off the wheeled shoes of death was a great way to overcome his shyness.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Miyuki answered.

All right, Forest and Sky could do it. What did he have to lose? All she could says was no. And laugh in his face. But let’s be reasonable. Miyuki wasn’t the kind of girl to laugh in his face.

“I want you to know I really like you,” Hunter said. “Really. A lot. A whole lot.”

Dang it, get your foot out of your mouth already! “I mean — are you going to prom with anyone?”

“Wow, Hunter, you’re such a great guy,” Miyuki said. She didn’t look happy, though. She looked embarrassed.

“But you’re going with someone else?” Hunter prompted despondently.

“I wish I were going with you,” Miyuki said, “but i just don’t like you like that. I can’t. You see– I was going to ask Alice Bookabet, but she already has a date.”

“Oh,” Hunter said. “Oh! I see. Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t work out.” He didn’t know whether to feel good that she didn’t laugh at him or embarrassed that he didn’t catch the hint earlier that she only liked girls.

“You should go anyway,” Miyuki said. “You don’t have to have a date to go to the dance. I’m going to go without one. You never know what might happen.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said. “I’ll think about it.”

———-

It turns out that StoryProgression rolled Miyuki was gay, so poor Hunter’s crush was never going to work out.

I’m not sure why Charles’s new tattoo is not on the shot of him eating a snowcone. I could have sworn it was taken after his trip to the tattoo parlor.

Charles and Veronica both rolled wishes to get a tattoo at about the same time, so I thought it would be fun if they got matching ones as part of aging up.

I am very displeased with how the tattoo turned out on Charles, which I’ll probably fix with MasterController rather than making a plot item. It’s a really cute image, and it looks good on Veronica (need a pic), but apparently the tattoos only look good on that metal skintone at maximum opacity.

I haven’t seen anything in StoryProgression updates from Ariel in ages. I think she’s still seeing Puzzle, and now they’re living together. Apparently she doesn’t roll romantic wishes here either. But she REALLY has the hots for Charles. Heh.

4.53 That Love Thing

Mar5

Mom and Dad getting older was a great opportunity for three teenagers with romance on their minds. Music was playing, the adults were drinking, and there was lots of dancing.

Leah squealed when Sky asked her to be her girlfriend.

It seemed a foregone conclusion that Forest would be taking Ali to the prom, though nobody was quite sure why.

And Hunter took a deep breath and made himself go talk to Miyuki.

“Um, hi. I was wondering if you ever danced?”

“Not really,” Miyuki said. “I’d be really bad at it anyway.”

“Me too,” Hunter agreed. Then he wasn’t sure where to take the conversation. It was a relief when Dad went to blow out the candles.

Everyone else seemed to have this love thing down.

Mom and Dad couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

And were always sneaking off to strange places to do unspeakable things with each other.

Sky and Leah were so head over heels for each other that they stood out in the rain to tell each other sweet nothings.

Even Forest was composing poetry for Ali. It wasn’t terribly good poetry, but nobody dared tell him that.

Why couldn’t Hunter even manage to start a conversation?

Sky was the only person Hunter could talk to without feeling self-conscious. She never made him feel awkward or foolish. So she was really the only person he could turn to for romantic advice. “You make it look so easy,” he told her. “How do you tell someone that she’s all you think about?”

Sky looked wistful. “I don’t think I do,” she said. “I never know how to tell Leah what I think of her. She just seems to know.”

Romantic, but not terribly helpful for Hunter.

It wasn’t all bad. Far from it. The new program at the Round Table Culinary Institute had finally made learning fun. Hunter had always loved to cook, but this wasn’t just about cooking. It was about the entire food supply, including sustainable agricultural and livestock techniques. Hunter was fascinated.

It combined his love of food and flavors with his love of living things.

Hunter started spending a lot of time in Charles’s garden.

And time he spent with Ghost and Enigma became fresh windows into the world of other animals.

He even had new techniques to persuade Enigma to be less destructive. They didn’t always work, but it was progress.

His parents still helped him with his homework, but now it felt more like a conversation than a battle.

Sometimes he and Sky would just sit at the dinner table and work together in companionable silence.

And to his own surprise, he also started gong to the Monmouth Archives library after school to read about exotic plant and animal species.

He’d made huge progress in his special reading class. Dyslexia was a challenge to live with, but now that he knew its name, he could make progress. He couldn’t describe how liberating it felt to spend hours with his nose buried in a book.

Meanwhile, Charles and Veronica were coming to terms with getting older. Or perhaps they were forcing age to come to terms with them.

Charles started to get a taste for the nightlife.

Veronica was hatching schemes for a new invention.

And now that Sky and Leah were settled into their relationship, there was some time for other friends. She started hanging out a lot with Adam Bookabet after school.

They shared a passion for music.

Sometimes they’d head next door to Honeyduke’s just to grab some jam time at their rehearsal space.

Adam was one heck of a drummer.

But these days he looked really sad and distracted, and he’d become too good a friend for Sky to let that unhappy look pass over his face day after day without saying anything.

“What’s wrong?” she asked after a jam session. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I thought Ali Mentary-Hodgins and I really had something,” Adam said. “All of a sudden she won’t return my phone calls. She dashes away before I can talk to her after school. And now I hear through the grapevine that she’s going to prom with your brother. I would never do anything on purpose to hurt her. She won’t tell me what’s wrong, and it’s tearing me apart.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sky said. “You’re right. I’ve seen her with Forest a lot recently, but my brother really keeps to himself. I’ll see if I can find out something for you.

Adam gave her a grateful smile. “You’re really the best kind of friend,” he said.

———-

So apparently StoryProgression thinks that Adam Bookabet and Ali Mentary are a match made in heaven. Forest used the voodoo doll to max out his relationship with Ali, but she kept having to leave before he asked her to be his girlfriend, and then SP would pair her off with Adam again immediately. Forest had to break them up like 3 times. I could have turned off Ali’s ability to start new townie relationships, but considering that she’s ensorcelled, it didn’t seem right.

I have reduced the frequency that SP runs most of its scenarios. It does seem a little nuts that it can run 2-3 cycles and send someone on a couple of dates and make them committed SOs within 24 sim-hours.

4.52 It’s Time

Mar1

Sky was walking on air. She and Leah spent every spare moment together.

It was if there was magic binding them together, and their relationship progressed quickly.

For Forest, there was most certainly magic in the air. He spent a lot of time alone with his dusty books and arcane equipment.

Hunter couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone to call Miyuki. He desperately wanted to talk to her, but what if she didn’t want to talk to him?

He poured his heart out into love letters, but he couldn’t bring himself to mail any of them.

Veronica made some time to continue her study in Sim Fu after she returned from China. She could always get a special session with the instructor.

But mostly she blew things up.

A lot.

The Charles Sample Sim Fu Academy had grown larger than Charles could possibly have dreamed. Day and night, it was filled with students young and old.

There were far too many classes for Charles to teach them all anymore, so he focused on teaching the advanced students and hiring the best of them to teach the beginners.

One day, he came to work to find an old friend waiting for him.

“You’ve come a long way,” Wu said. “I wonder if you’re ready now.”

Charles nodded. He appreciated that this was not a social call. “I can only try,” he said.

“Then let’s have at it.”

When the spar was over, both men were panting and covered in sweat. Charles’s entire body was buzzing. He knew he had never fought so well. Wu had forced him to find parts of himself he would not have found on his own.

Wu’s face broke out in a smile. “I knew you could do it,” he coughed between breaths. “I’m honored to call you an equal.”

That day, Charles Sample was inducted into the order of the great masters of Sim Fu.

This was the situation Charles found himself one afternoon as he ordered a drink from the Garden Gnome pub.

The young man who blew out the candles on his birthday cake and took the reins of this family’s future had been lonely, frustrated, and frightened. The future he’d seen for himself had been a simple, solitary one spent fishing.

He wondered if his younger self would ever have believed he could be a husband, father, mentor, and adventurer. That he would have a family and would migrate that family away from their ancestral home to a truly strange and alien place. That he would be a respected teacher that martial arts students came from all over the simworld to study with. That he would make a real difference in helping creatures like himself live as equals with other sims.

Probably not.

Maybe it was just as well.

When you were surrounded by family and friends and the knowledge that you’d made a difference, growing old didn’t seem so bad.

Happy Birthday.

———-

Charles has been my favorite sim, bar none. And he’s lived FOREVER. Aside from 2012 being a year of turmoil for me, probably the biggest reason his generation has taken so long is that I gave him a World Adventures LTW and have been sending him on so much travel. I think he’s lived through enough days for two sim-lifetimes at this point.

I officially pass the torch at the YA birthday of the heir, which will be in 2-3 more posts. But Charles’s story is well and truly told at this point, I think, and he’s already been stepping aside to give the limelight to his kids. I’ll miss him, but it’s time.

BTW: That’s Cherimoya Marmalade in the foreground while Charles is smashing blocks.

4.51 Companions

Feb12

It was a time of compromises, of mending bridges and building new ones. You could even see it in the ghosts. Fabian and Cyclone seemed to be doing pretty well in the afterlife..

“Hey,” Veronica said.

“You should get a shower,” Hunter said. Another potion experiment had blown up in her face. It happened several times a week these days. Veronica seemed to have a better knack for wiring than she did for chemicals.

“That can wait,” Veronica said. “I saw the report your guidance counselor sent home.”

“Oh,” Hunter said. “That.”

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Veronica said. “I’ve been an ass to you about your grades. What I should have been doing was trying to figure out why you were having so much trouble. I’m sorry.”

Hunter gulped. “Thanks, mom. Really.” He was quiet for a minute, while she looked at him expectantly. At last, he managed, “So what do I do now?”

The evaluations were back, and it was pretty clear that Hunter was dyslexic. On one hand, he felt relieved to know that there was a reason school was so hard, and it didn’t mean he was stupid. On the other, it didn’t look like things were going to get any easier any time soon.

“You have a lot of options,” Veronica said. “Let me help you work through them. The most important thing is to find a school environment where you get to do more things that you enjoy.”

After an hour of sifting through the websites of various educational programs, and after Veronica had had that shower, Hunter admitted that what he really wanted to learn right now was something that didn’t involve reading — he wanted to learn to drive.

Veronica smiled. “You’re the one kid I’d actually trust with the car. Let’s do it.” She insisted that they take the Vaguester. That was the last thing Hunter would have expected.

But he had to admit, privately, that it felt pretty good to be behind the wheel of that sexy car.

When he crept the car back to the house after his first lesson, he said quietly, “I think I know what I want to do, Mom.”

“Tell me.”

“The Round Table Culinary School has a gardening program. I want to learn more about all kinds of living things.”

Veronica nodded. “That sounds perfect. Let’s go sign you up.”

“Let’s hang out after school!” Sky had said to Leah. “It’ll be great fun!” But now that Leah agreed, she wasn’t sure what Leah would find fun.

She shouldn’t have worried so much. Leah was full of ideas. “Did you know Helpless Hearts is showing at the Excalibur Uniplex?” she all but squealed. “I’ve been wanting to see that movie for ages! Would you go with me?”

Sky gulped. That was the sappiest romance of the summer. She used to love making fun of the trailers with Hunter and Forest. “Sure!” she said. “I’ve been dying to see it too!”

The great thing about movies was that you didn’t have to come up with anything to say. You could just sit near someone and enjoy being close without having to justify it.

So that’s just what Sky did. Afterward, she couldn’t have told you much about the except that the heroine looked very nice in a nightgown.

Afterward, they sat down under the stars to talk.

“Don’t you ever wish you could follow your heart like that?” Leah asked wistfully. “I don’t know that I could do it. I’d be so afraid of losing.”

“I bet you could,” Sky said. “You’re a really determined person.”

“I have a secret,” Leah said. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course I do!” Sky said.

Leah leaned over and whispered, “I think you’re cute too.”

Well, it was done. Hunter signed up at The Round Table Culinary Institute, and he’d be starting at the new school at the start of the week.

Hunter got away from his family to take a long walk and ponder whether he was more hopeful or more scared.

He heard a whuffling sound in the tall grasses, and when he looked he was rooted to the spot.

The wolf was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

She looked up then, and their eyes met. To his surprise, she was neither frightened nor aggressive. If anything, she seemed tired. He reached out instinctively, and she sniffed his hand.

She was a wild thing. She lived and breathed freedom.

But she was also lonely — the same way Hunter was lonely. Something between them connected that evening, and he knew they should never be parted again as long as they lived.

He didn’t feel that he had the right to name her, but he had to call her something. So he called her Enigma, which is what she was.

“I don’t know what Mom and Dad will say,” Hunter said as she curled up protectively at his feet. “Just be sure to take care of them too, ok?”

Hunter found an old sofa cushion for her, and she seemed to think she was sleeping like a queen.

Forest still had the Problem of Ali. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. He got up the nerve to try to talk to her again after school, but she told him she didn’t have time. She was meeting her boyfriend, Adam Bookabet.

Forest’s heart squeezed. He had absolutely no chance with her.

At least, he had no chance if he followed the rules. So the question was what rule had to break to get what he wanted.

“This is an amazing house,” Ali said as she walked in the door.

“Thanks. My mom designed it. She has a pretty strange aesthetic.”

“So where do you want to study? I’m free until seven, and then I’m meeting Adam for dinner. Which Economics lesson did you say you were having trouble with?”

“Well, the books are in the basement,” Forest said. “But first, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am that I went running off to the bathroom when we first met. It was pretty rude.”

Ali looked at him awkwardly. Forest hadn’t just run to the bathroom. He’d wet himself, and they both knew it. “Well, you know, you gotta go when you gotta go, right?”

It was now or never. Forest took a deep breath. “Hey! Is that a bird in the house?”

“Where?” Ali said, looking where he pointed. “What are you talking about?”

Forest pulled the voodoo doll out of his pocket and pushed it toward her, whispering the words of power he’d learned from the dust-covered book in the back of the library.

Ali stopped. Tremors ran through her body, and she stood still.

“Ali?” Forest asked. “You there?”

“I’m here,” Ali said. Her voice was hollow. She stared straight head.

The spell had worked. She was waiting for his instructions. Completely suggestible. Completely his.

He raised the doll again and caressed it against his cheek. “You love me, Ali,” he said softly. “You’ve never met anyone who completes you the way I do.”

Ali still looked past him, but she clutched her hands to hear heart and sighed.

Forest put away the doll. Then he spoke another word of power, and Ali looked at him again. “What were we talking about?” she asked. “Didn’t you want me to tutor you in Economics.”

Forest grinned. “Nah, I figured it out after all. How about dinner instead?”

Ali’s face lit up. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

He took her to The Round Table.

They had a lovely evening out. Forest spared no expense. She couldn’t stop gazing into his eyes, and sometimes she blushed.

As he was picking up the check, Ali’s face flashed with surprise. “I was supposed to do something tonight!” she gasped. “I was supposed to meet Adam!”

Forest pulled her into his arms. “Adam who? You don’t need Adam.”

Ali relaxed against him. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess I don’t.”

———-

So this is what I wanted to post before the heir poll. I wonder if it would have affected anyone’s vote. Forest is taking me in a pretty creepy direction as of this writing.

Sorry about those awful seams on Enigma’s. It was some kind of graphics card issue. I thought it was Mac related, but now I’m not so sure. I was able to fix it after switching to Windows, though. I set up the wolf as a stray, but Hunter was out there with her all night, building up their relationship to max, and I STILL never got the Adopt option. I gave up and used MasterController to add her to the household. I now have a new theory that you have to pick actions in the same category, like romance. But I don’t know which one. Affection? Has anyone ever successfully adopted a stray?

Here is the link to the gray wolf I’m using.

4.49 When the Cats Are Away…

Jan10

Hunter loved to cook, and he often got up a little bit early so he could have breakfast fresh and waiting when everyone else woke up. He was just flipping the last pancake when Forest followed the smell down from their bedroom.

“Lime pancakes?” he said. “That’s an interesting choice.”

Hunter shrugged. “It’s what was ripe in the garden. With a bit of cinnamon and some extra sugar, I think it works pretty well.”

“I’ll follow your food instincts anywhere,” Forest said.

“Well, if it isn’t the early risers,” Charles said from behind, grinning.

“Dad!” Forest and Hunters said in unison.

“I don’t think we’re going to stay for breakfast this morning,” Charles said. “Your mom and I were up talking last night. We’re going to take a vacation.”

“A vacation?” Hunter said. “Just the two of you? That sounds like a great idea, but who is going to look after the house?”

“We think the three of you are responsible enough to keep the house from burning down while we’re gone.”

“Us?” Forest choked. “Responsible?”

“I suppose you could prove us wrong,” Charles said, “but you’re going to be grown up and responsible for yourselves soon enough. We expect all walls standing and nobody in jail when we get back.”

And with that, Charles and Veronica loaded up their luggage and were gone by the time the sun was rising.

“Can you believe this?” Sky asked. “They’re just handing us the house keys and leaving?”

“I guess they really trust us,” Forest said. “And I don’t see why not. I could use the extra quiet around here to get some reading done. A great introduction to General Relativity just came in at the library, and I want to check it out before someone else gets it first.”

They all gathered up their lime pancakes and sat down to breakfast. It seemed strangely quiet without Mom and Dad.

“You know what I think?” Sky said. “We should throw a party.”

“A party!” Hunter cried. “You have go to be kidding! You want to be the kind of kid who trashes the place when the parents are gone? Mom and Dad would never trust us again.”

“It doesn’t have to be THAT kind of party,” Sky slobbered around her pancakes. She really was gross when she ate. Hunter and Forest tried not to look.

“So what kind of party?” Hunter asked.

“It can be a nice party. We’ll invite over people we like from school and hang out in the basement. Nothing would have to get trashed, and we can clean up so the house is spotless when everyone leaves. Mom and Dad wouldn’t need to know. It would be a great chance to get to know more kids our age in– gakk!”

Sky choked on her food. Served her right.

“It sounds all well and good, but you know it’ll never work out that way,” Hunter said.

Sky grinned. “We won’t know unless we try.”

Forest sighed. “You guys can do what you like. I’ll find someplace else to be. Parties aren’t my thing.”

Well, it was hard to stop Sky when she knew what she wanted, so sure enough, there was a party at the Sample house that evening.

And, well, she’d only invited a few kids from her class, but well… the word got out. And those kids invited their friends, who invited their friends. And it turned out a lot bigger than she had in mind.

Leah Mai was one of the first people to arrive, and her face lit up when she saw Sky’s musical instrument collection in the basement. “I didn’t know you had a piano! I used to take lessons, but I haven’t played in years. Do you mind if I give it a try?”

It’s not like Sky would ever turn down a chance to make music. “Sure!” she said. “Mind if I join in?”

“I don’t know how to play with other people,” Leah said shyly.

“That’s ok,” Sky said. “I’ll just follow along.”

“Hey!” Garry Crumplebottom cried when he saw Sky and Leah start playing. “Don’t leave me out!”

And thus the great Sample teen party got off to a very musical start.

Meanwhile, Forest decided to find someplace quiet to wait the party out. On a whim, he ended up at Dad’s academy. He’d been meaning to get Dad to show him some pointers, since it was never a bad thing to be able to defend yourself. Dad wasn’t here, but he could learn a lot from watching people practice.

And then he saw her.

Forest could never say afterward exactly what happened, but once he looked at her face, he couldn’t look away. She was captivating.

And she was looking at him too. “Uh, hi,” he said. “I’m Forest Sample.”

“Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Ali Mentary. Well, Ali Mentary-Hodgins now. My mom just got remarried, and she wants us kids to change our names. She’s kind of obsessed about it.”

“I’m, uh, sorry to hear that?” Forest said. Inside, he was beating himself for sounding like such an idiot.

“It’s OK. My folks have been divorced a long time. I’m happy to see Mom happy. I just keep forgetting about the name. Did you say your name is Sample? Does your dad own this place? I hear he’s pretty amazing. What’s he like?”

“He’s, uh, I — I have to go pee!”

He’d met the girl of his dreams, but for Forest Sample it was a nightmare.

Another guy at the party, Adam Bookabet, turned out to know a little bit about the drums, and now the party was really getting its groove on.

The musicians weren’t just having fun. Everyone seemed to be loving the live entertainment.

But more than that was going on.

Charles and Veronica didn’t exactly lock their liquor cabinet. Sky was lost in a world of music, and the party was starting to get extra lively before Hunter even realized what was going on.

Hunter knew he should have stopped Jian Wu before he poured his first glass, but Jian was a popular guy at school, and Hunter found him terribly intimidating. And anyway, this was Sky’s party. She said she could handle it. So she should handle it, right?

Hunter escaped his growing sense of dread to go upstairs and pick up the pizza.

When he got back downstairs, he suddenly noticed that his classmate Mizuki Mai looked like she was holding back tears.

He forced down a surge of shyness and tried to catch her eye. “Hey, are you OK?”

Mizuki’s face crumbled. “I’m ok,” she choked out. “It’s just– It’s always like this. Everybody looks at Leah, and I end up in a corner with nobody to talk to.”

Hunter’s heart went out to her. “Hey, I know what it’s like to have trouble with lots of people. Would — would you believe I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to talk to you all night?”

“Really?” Mizuki said. “I mean, you’re so nice. Everyone likes you.”

“I’m sure THAT’s not true,” Hunter said. “Nobody notices me.”

Mizuki forced a smile. “I’m sorry I’m being such a drama queen.”

And so they started talking. And talking. And Hunter forgot to be worried about what happened at the party.

At last the jam session wrapped up. As she set down her guitar, Sky looked around at the crowd and felt a surge of elation. They’d been listening to her! To everyone, but especially to her!

“This was so awesome!” she gushed to Leah Mai. “We sounded great together!”

“I know!” Leah giggled. “I’ve never played that way before! You are so easy to play with.”

“You too,” Sky said. She reached for something else to say, but it died before she could say it. She found herself lost in Leah’s eyes. She was so beautiful.

Right then, things started to get out of hand.

Fion Baerwyn was the first person to really have too much to drink.

Garry wasn’t long after, and he handled it worse.

Hunter hand to take the situation in hand. “All right,” he said. “Party’s over! I think it’s time everyone headed home.”

Especially you, he added silently.

People were starting to get tired, so it didn’t turn out to be that hard to get them out of the house.

When the house was empty, Hunter let out a breath. “I can’t believe we made it through,” he said. “No help from you.”

“Are you kidding?” Sky said. “That was amazing! Didn’t I tell you everything would be fine?”

“You realize we could have gotten in trouble with way more than Mom and Dad,” Hunter said severely. “If someone called the police about the noise, we could have gotten in trouble with the law.”

“But we didn’t,” Sky said. “Everything was fine. Why worry?”

In the end, there wasn’t even that much to clean up. The whole thing HAD turned out just fine. Hunter couldn’t help but think that it was better than Sky deserved, but who knew? Maybe he was the one who worried too much.

———-

So THAT was the most successful teen party I’ve ever seen.

Ok, not that anyone is surprised, but I am a total geek. I got frustrated at how long it was taking me to assemble pictures for posts, so I learned AppleSript to write a little script that would take the pictures I have in an image viewer and create the HTML for them. Right now, that’s speeding me up a lot. We’ll see how fast I stay once the, “Hey, I did a cool geek thing” feeling wears off :).

And it turns out Sky is a lesbian. It turns out that Twallan’s mod didn’t play nice with playable ghosts for the free vacation scenario, and Charles was flagged as a glitch and deleted from the game twice. I ended up playing partway through the first day of highschool three times. At the end of each day, Sky had wishes to learn the signs of three girls. By the end of the third time, she’d wished to learn the signs of all the girls in school at least once, and no guys. That seems pretty clear.

Hunter wished to learn Mizuki Mai’s sign that first day too, but he was too shy to do anything about it on his own. The fact that Mizuki was looking upset at the party was a perfect push to get him to talk to her. Of course, the game doesn’t tell you WHY random sims are looking upset, so I just had to make that part up.

Forest didn’t have any romantic wishes until he met Ali, and that was my first experience with the attraction system. There was no silly popup about getting to “know you better.” Just the moment he introduced himself, they were surrounded by hearts. I honestly thought that, since Ali was cross-pollination sim, that she probably had the “Attractive” reward and that’s why Forest suddenly had this “Attractive Company” moodlet. I still figured it was love at first sight. Then I later found out what the hearts were all about.

And this is bar none the closest I have ever been to caught up. I’m going to put up that advisory heir poll pretty soon. I have enough material for three more posts, one of which is the vacation from Charles and Veronica’s point-of-view. I need to get playing! Who would have ever expected I’d say that?

4.48 Full Lives

Jan5

Veronica’s career was thriving in her new home.

In addition to her normal work collecting spirits, The Sufficiently Advanced Technology Center had her hosting seminars and giving lectures at Chivalric Preparatory School. Her name was starting to become a household world on the sleepy island.

Some Avalonians like Ariel Hodgins treated her like a local celebrity.

Ariel was full of questions about supernatural creatures that might be in the area. Most of them Veronica had never heard of, but she pretended to know what she was talking about.

Field work had never been more interesting. Current research indicated that Avalon Island lay on an undersea rift with the faery lands, leading to periodic magic eruptions and a higher level of ambient magic in general. That had affected the citizens in pretty eye-catching ways, though it didn’t appear to be dangerous.

Her home visits even took her out to the place where her ex-boyfriend Willem Yo was living with his new young fiance Faith Cagley. They’d apparently moved to Avalon for the climate.

Willem’s intentions were kind of creepy. The third time he asked her if she’d like to go out for drinks sometime, she pointed out that Faith was coming home, and he shut up.

Some relationships were better off dead dead dead.

Forest became even more of a loner than he had been before. It didn’t seem to bother him. He seemed to like it.

He headed out to the park a lot at dusk and never told anyone what he did there.

And then there were all those strange noises that came out of the basement in the middle of the night.

Sky’s eating habits were still disgusting, but she tried to keep them private most of the time.

Hunter’s troubles in elementary school compounded when he got to high school.

Charles and Forest spent a lot of time trying to tutor him, but it didn’t seem to help.

Veronica got really frustrated and yelled at him when his report card came home, which made the whole situation worse.

If so many people were working so hard to help him and his grades were still low, he figured he must be a real moron.

He was in that frame of mind when he had to visit the Sufficiently Advanced Tech Center (SATC) to finish a report for science class.

It happened to be Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and Sky was there with Veronica.

Veronica was called on an emergency house call just as the visit ended, so she left Sky and Hunter to find their own way home.

“Look,” Hunter said. “That’s a nice looking dog coming to visit!”

“Hunter!” Sky hissed! “That’s MacDuff Voss! Stay away from him!”

MacDuff belonged to Emma Voss, one of their new high school classmates. She had brought him to Avalon Island when she came to live with foster parents after her own parents died. MacDuff was the meanest, most dangerous dog on the island, and of course Emma and her foster parents would never believe how bad he was.

And here were Emma’s foster parents now: Tam and Martin-Luther Butterfield-Callender.

“He doesn’t look so bad,” Hunter said. “I think you just have to be extra gentle with him.”

“Hunter, don’t–!” Sky cried. But it was too late. Hunter reached his hand out for MacDuff to sniff. And MacDuff barked happily and nuzzled under Hunter’s hand for a scratch.

“How do you DO that?” Sky demanded.

“Do what?” Hunter asked.

“That,” Sky said in exasperation. “Make every nasty creature you meet into your friend.”

Hunter shrugged. “Animals aren’t that different from people. You just have to figure out how to talk to them.”

Sky sighed. “I don’t think you have any idea how talented you are.”

“I’m not talented,” Hunter said. “Besides, you make every musical instrument you meet into your friend. And Forest makes every math problem he meets into some kind of scientific advancement. I’ll never be like you guys.”

“Why would you need to be like us?” Sky asked.

“Because you guys are smart,” Hunter said scornfully. “I’ll tell you a secret. The only reason I’m not failing school is because I Forest lets me copy his homework. And even then I get it wrong half the time.”

Sky frowned. “I knew it was bad, but that’s even worse than I thought. Look, I know you’re not stupid. Mom says you’re just not applying yourself, but I’ve seen how hard you work. Have you ever thought that there might be something else making it extra hard?”

“What do you mean?” Hunter asked.

“I don’t know. But maybe you should at least talk to your guidance counselor. It’s their job to know things like why smart guys don’t do well in school.”

“Wow,” Hunter said. “I didn’t know you’d even noticed.”

“Of course I noticed,” Sky said. “You’re my brother. I love you.”

And lastly, Charles’s career also took off running. With all the sweat and love he poured into the old dojo building, he made a tidy profit from selling the Sample Spirit Dojo to a businessman from Japan. His business as a Sim Fu instructor was also turning a nice income, and he was able to fund the construction of an entirely new academy building at the top of Isolde Peak in Avalon.

There was no better atmosphere to train and meditate on the whole island.

Charles also officially received his black belt from a panel of Sim Fu masters assembled by Zhan Wu. He was well on his way to becoming a master of the art. And his reputation preceded him to the island. He had students signing up before the Charles Sample Sim Fu Academy opened its doors.

Not long after the academy officially opened, a familiar face turned up.

“I told you I’d make it out here to finish my training,” Adjo Ursine-Sample said with a grin.

Charles’s face lit up when he saw his uncle. “Did I ever say I doubted you?”

And so they got to sparring.

Adjo gave Charles a real run for his money. He’d more than earned his blue belt, and Charles was honored to grant it to him.

They hugged as they parted. Charles didn’t know it was the last time he’d see Uncle Adjo, but it was probably better that way.

Toya called not long after after Adjo returned home to report that her husband had died suddenly of a heart attack.

Adjo had lived a full life. He’d built a musical empire. He had the happy marriage and huge family he’d always dreamed off. Charmaine, Starr, Valerie, and Darrin were all grown and out of the house, and Brenna was about to graduate from high school, but their little late surprise daughter Karina was still a toddler. She’d never really know her father. Charles had lost his father Cyclone at about the same age. “You know I’m here if you need anything,” he told Toya, and he meant it.

“I know,” Toya said through tears on the phone. For an Evil politician, she’d always been a loving wife. “I’ll remember. Thank you.”

——-

Well, it had to happen sometime. Shanni’s still alive, but she’s pretty old. I’ll miss both the twins. I kind of hope Shanni has a child with Jeanna, but no such luck so far.

Hunter followed Forest around for most of his childhood, but soon after everyone’s teen birthday, Sky and Hunter rolled simultaneous wishes to be each other’s BFF. Sky really has come out of her shell, and not just with music :).

I pulled a bunch of interesting pets out of the simbin and scattered them in the town with random traits. One of those dogs was Emma Voss’s dog MacDuff. I get more StoryProgression notifications from him than any other dog, and all of them are about him mauling some poor sim or pet.

Forest has rolled a crazy number of wishes to play hopscotch. I added a game to the park, but there’s never anyone there when he shows up to play with him. I guess he’d want to keep it a secret anyway.

I didn’t have NewSea’s Elizabeth installed when I first ran the game, and thought the hair that Ariel rolled kind of suited her, so I left it. I did give Sebastian back Charles’s hair :).

Willem Yo really did hit on Veronica when I left her on autonomy at the end of a job, pretty much in full view of Faith. If that’s the kind of dirty old man he’s become, I’m no longer sorry for treating him so badly in this legacy. Then again, maybe it was all those rejections that twisted his soul…. At any rate, sorry Redhead about Faith! At least Morand is very happy :).

Well, my memory is upgraded and the Windows 7 virtual machine is running like a charm. The performance is a massive improvement on what I was getting, as tested with the Wonderlands. However, I have been really nervous about loading up the Samples for fear that there was something more wrong with them that was causing the crash on load.

As of this writing, I have loaded the Samples and played for 15 minutes before I had to shut down because my daughter woke up from her nap. During that time, nothing crashed, and that’s much better than I was getting before. That’s not a REAL test, but it’s encouraging. I’ll suck it up and actually try to play a real session soon.

And I’d better because it turns out I’m WAY closer to caught up than I thought. I have laid out one more post after this, and I have parts for about three more, but I have to actually finish playing some current stuff before those can be done. So, wow. I’m not sure if I’ve been that close to caught up this year. It’s a bit unnerving.

One note: I did find one big performance issue that was affecting both the Wonderlands and the Samples. I downloaded some custom content

4.47 Second Chances

Dec31

“So, you designed this place yourself?” Charles said as he looked their new home up and down.

“Designed the floorplans and supervised the construction!” Veronica said. “Surprise! I hope you like it!”

“It’s just the sort of thing you would have designed,” Charles had to admit. “And, it’s beautiful. It’ll just take some getting used to.”

“I made it with you in mind, my love,” Veronica said. “It has an outdoor dining room that doubles as shelter for an outdoor bed. We can sleep outside without getting soaked.”

“Really??”

Veronica smirked. “Really. I expect to be well-rewarded.”

The house also overlooked Isolde Falls. The view from the third story window was one of the most beautiful on the island.

Avalon was certainly… different. The more they wandered around to meet the locals, the more they realized just how different.

Charles spent a lot of time supervising the construction of the Charles Sample Sim Fu Academy.

Veronica hit the gym when she wasn’t working.

And she made a friend or two almost immediately.

It helped that she couldn’t get enough of Avalon’s residents, both professionally and personally.

The kids were less concerned with the exotic Avalonians. After all, Charles and Sky were strange enough that everyone pretty much took it in stride. The triplets started to settle into the house and make it their own.

Meanwhile, Shanni and Jeanna Yo were settling their family into Chateau Crumplebottom nearby. The boxes were barely unpacked when Charles and Veronica received an invitation to a wedding.

“We figured, why wait?” the note at the bottom said.

The ceremony was a small affair on the grounds of the chateau.

Shanni and Jeanna both wore white. “I’m a bride, and I’m old to boot,” Shanni said. “I can do whatever the hell I like.”

Jeanna took Shanni’s name and became a Crumplebottom, which let Shanni keep the same name as her children. “It also helps with the inheritance,” Shanni whispered to Charles. “I won’t be around forever, and I want to be sure Jeanna’s well taken care of. The money all passes down through Agnes. I do hope she wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m sure she’d approve,” Charles agreed.

After they tied the knot, the new Crumplebottoms took the family to the Sphinx nightclub, which they rented out for the afternoon.

The Avalonian bartender knew his job, and drinks flowed as fast as anyone could drink them.

The only person who didn’t seem to be having a great time was Jeannette Crumplebottom.

Whatever she thought of her new stepmother, she wasn’t talking.

Then Sky discovered the unused stage, which hosted a lovely grand piano. She couldn’t help but sit down and stroke the keys.

The soft musical noodling began to resolve itself into melodies under her fingers. She started to play louder without realizing it.

Suddenly, a voice cut through her thoughts.

“I don’t know if it’s too forward, but do you mind if I join you?”

Sky looked up to see her first-cousin-once-removed, Garry Crumplebottom.

“Oh” Sky said. “I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

“Are you kidding?” Garry said. “I’ve been dying to find someone to jam with.”

“I’ve never played with anyone,” Sky said, casting her eyes down shyly. “I don’t know if I’d be any good at jamming.”

“Let’s try and find out,” Garry said with a gentle smile.

So they tried.

It was if they cast a magic spell between them.

Sky had always loved music, but this… this was different. It was if she and Garry made an empathic connection, as if she knew what he’d play before he played it. The harmonies they built were far more than anything she had ever been able to do alone.

Soon the family began to drop what they were doing to come and listen.

When they finally stopped, Sky looked up to find everyone staring at her.

“I… I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know if we were allowed to play on the instruments. Are we in trouble?”

“Are you kidding?” Charles exclaimed. “I had no idea you were so talented!”

Sky blushed. “I didn’t know how to do it. Garry showed me how.”

Garry laughed. “You didn’t require much showing. You’re amazing, Coz.”

“We have to do this again,” Sky breathed as they got ready to go home. “Would you like to come over sometime to do more jamming!”

“Sure thing!” Garry said. “Just let me know when.”

Sky realized she’d found what she wanted to do with her life at last. Perhaps this move to Avalon was the right thing after all.

———-

So here we are! It didn’t take any time at all for Sky to come out of her shell. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the fact that children can’t play musical instruments (?!), but teens can. It’s nice to see her getting some screen time.

The new house is Utopia, downloaded from ModtheSims. The Samples will be living on a Steampunk theme for a while to match Veronica’s sense of style.

4.46 Moving On

Dec23

When Charles got up in the morning, Veronica was still up. She was even in her work clothes, so she definitely hadn’t been to bed the night before.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Clearly you are, and you should be sleeping.”

Veronica gave him a strange look. “I was wondering,” she said sheepishly. “How attached are you to Sunset Valley?”

Charles frowned. “I’m the fourth generation Sample to live here. I never thought about living anywhere else. Why?”

“Well,” Veronica said. “The Landgraab Science Center got a call from the Sufficiently Advanced Technology Center on Avalon Island. They have a unique paranormal situation out there, and they heard about me after that stunt at City Hall. They’re, um, trying to recruit me to work in their town.”

“Whoa,” Charles said.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Veronica said. “But I would really like to go.”

“I need to think about it,” was all Charles could manage.

That night, he found himself sitting at a bar in the club district of Sunset Valley.

He’d watched this town grow from a sleepy town to a flourishing community with an active nightlife and even a decent film business. In fact, his dojo had contributed something real to Sunset Valley’s growth.

Still, had he just assumed he would live here all his life because his parents and grandparents had? What else was out there? If he stayed, would it be because he loved his home town or because he was afraid of something new?

“I can always go back,” he said softly to himself. Charles was a traveler. He loved new places and new experiences. In the end, wasn’t moving to a new home just a kind of travel? He was hardly barred from living in Sunset Valley again if that was what he really wanted to do.

All right then. He’d go, but only if the kids wanted to do it.

That last part didn’t turn out to be as hard a sell as he expected.

“I think Mom’s going to find us an amazing new place to live,” Sky told Forest as they played in the park after school one day. “It can’t be worse than here.”

“The people of Avalon Island are supposed to be pretty weird,” Forest said. “There could be all sorts of things to learn there.”

Hunter was so unaffected by the whole thing that he took a nap.

“Wow! I can’t believe it,” Aunt Shanni said when he told her.

“You know,” she said once it had sunk in, “There’s a Crumblebottom Chateau on Avalon Island. Agnes left her fortune to me, and, well, I’ve been thinking about moving to someplace that doesn’t make me think of her every moment. You see… Jeanna Yo asked me to marry her, and I said yes! Does that make me crazy? She’s young enough to be my daughter!”

Charles couldn’t help but smirk. “Well, only if you got pregnant in high school.”

Shanni laughed a bit self-consciously. “Well, yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Nobody’s going to think you’re crazy for being happy,” Charles said. “I’m really happy for you.”

Adjo took the news pretty well all told.

“I’m the retired husband of a workaholic politician,” he said. “I have frequent flier miles. You’re going to instruct me in my next belt, don’t worry.”

And Wu….

“There’s no Sim Fu instruction on Avalon Island,” Wu said. “It’s a perfect place to establish a fresh branch of the art if you think you’re ready. Did you know I have a nephew who lives there? I visit Avalon more often than I visit here. Though I warn you… you may find the people there a little surprising.”

All told, by the end of the day, moving across the world felt a lot like moving to the next street.

The one real loss was Jabari. Charles had known they were drifting apart for some time, but breaking the news of his departure made it clear. They sincerely wished each other the best, but Charles knew that with an ocean between them, their once brotherly closeness was a thing of the past.

In light of the big news, the Samples decided to have a private birthday party for the triplets before they moved. The intimate affair seemed like the right way to say goodbye to their home.

First Forest…

Then Hunter…

And at last Sky…

They ate their cake in the yard as the sun set and listened to the waterfall.

“I guess I’m going to miss this place, at least,” Sky admitted.

“Me too,” Charles agreed. “Let’s hope the next place is better.”

———-

We made it to the last Sunset Valley post! Did you think it would ever happen? I’ve been playing in Avalon for months, and I love it. Which of course means that I have a huge queue of posts again. I will never be caught up. I need to accept it. It’s the nature of the beast.

Here’s a closeup of our triplets:

Forest

Hubba hubba! Our evil boy has grown up into quite the fantasy fodder.

Hunter

I assumed that Hunter had dark brown eyes like Veronica, but it turns out his eyes are very dark green. I’m not sure where THAT came from. Could Layla have had very dark green eyes? At any rate, it really does make him a good case for an identical twin of Forest, though he came out normal weight and Forest is skinny.

Sky

She rolled glasses when she became a child, and I forgot to give them to her. So maybe her ghostliness made it take longer for the bad vision to show up. Heh. Charles didn’t get glasses until teenagerhood either, despite having terrible genes for eyesight.

I redid her clothes and glasses later, but I don’t seem to have taken a CAS shot of it. And she’s in the process of blinking here. Argh. I’ll have to see if I can’t provide a better CAS shot of her later.

Their faces are so similar that they could almost be identical triplets. Fortunately, I think that face is pretty awesome.

I haven’t been posting much here because I can’t play the Samples right now, and I was wasting all my time for the family on figuring out why. I still would like to dedicate a post to the excruciating process of discovering this because I’m going to bet there are other Mac users who are getting the same behavior and are pulling their hair out. I friggin’ learned to read crash logs to figure this out. I can never get that part of my brain back. Blast you, EA.

So here’s the technical jargon: Windows 7 is a 64-bit operating system. Mac OSX is a 64-bit OS too. In fact, Mac OS has been 64-bit for longer, and it’s arguably better-integrated and more efficient about it. However, The Sims on the Mac is run in a wrapper called Cider that emulates Windows. I knew this, and though it provided slightly slower response times, it did all right, so it seemed like a decent tradeoff to be able to play the game when it was released like an ordinary Windows user.

But it turns out that the emulation used on the Mac is Windows XP. No really. So all the beautiful computing power of my i7 MacBook Pro has been wasted running a game inside an emulation of 10-year-old 32-bit Windows. This did all right until I installed the last three expansions all at the same time, and then it gave up the ghost. I can play my new Wonderland legacy, probably because it’s a brand new game in an EA world, but the Samples Error 12 and crash to desktop as soon as I load them up.

Somebody said, “They call it Cider because it squeezes the juice out of your Apple.” Damn. They’re right.

The sad solution is that I’m going to have to play the game in Windows 7. To be able to do that without switching to running Windows all the time, which I don’t want to do because I’m a !@#$ Mac user because I like the !@#$ Mac, I intend to run it in a Windows 7 virtual machine within my OSX. To do THAT, I need to upgrade my memory. The memory arrived yesterday, but now my parents are visiting for the holidays, and I won’t be able to upgrade for at least a week.

Then again, the effect should be seamless because I’m about 10 posts behind anyway. At least I won’t be wasting so much stupid time troubleshooting.

So there, DragonWife, is the medium-length version 🙂 :).

4.44 Where Did the Time Go?

Nov27

Stories about the scene Veronica had made at City Hall were all over the papers the next day. Within a week, the science center phones were ringing off the hook. Some people just wanted to learn more about the program, but many had some kind of supernatural event going on in their house.

Business for Veronica was hopping.

Some customers got a lot more demanding. Genvieve Goth was the worst person Veronica had ever worked with. She spent the entire time Veronica was there screeching. “I called you here to do something about this thing! So do it! What are you waiting for!”

“Waiting for you to get out of the way, ma’am,” Veronica said with a smirk.

“I mean, I could have let you step into the beam, but that tends to send your individual atoms on separate vacations.”

Genvieve stopped talking then and went to pour herself a drink.

Her reception at the Ursine-Langerak residence was very different.

Charmaine was out, but Maya was home and watched everything Veronica did with reverent appreciation.

She treated Veronica like some kind of celebrity. “This is more like it,” Veronica said to herself.

“It’s finished!” Veronica announced.

“What’s that?” Charles asked.

“Why, the treehouse! The ultimate in scientific child entertainment.”

Charles looked the monstrosity up and down. “Usually people build treehouses with wood.”

“Wood isn’t very scientific!”

“I guess it’s more scientific if it has a lot of rivets.”

“Maybe we should be the first to play in it.”

The kids would never know.

Charles’s work was also hopping. His skills as a martial artist and as a teacher grew stronger every day.

One afternoon, a familiar face came walking onto the grounds of the dojo.

Charles couldn’t believe his eyes. “Sensei! It’s been a long time!”

“You invited me to visit your dojo a lot time ago,” Zahn Wu admitted, “but it’s a bit of a long trip.”

While Charles and Wu caught up on each other’s lives, Adjo and Toya arrived with baby Karina. “No time like the present to take up Sim Fu!” Toya announced. “Adjo’s going to give me some pointers.”

Charles looked at the new baby and wondered if that was such a great plan, but who was he to judge?

“So what do you think of teaching?” Wu asked.

“I never realized how much I would enjoy it. I learn more about martial arts every day just by helping people understand,” Charles said.

Wu nodded wisely. “Spoken like a true master,” he said.

They were interrupted by the sound of angry shrieking from the dojo. Adjo stalked outside and paced around the front lawn, fuming. “This better be baby hormones,” he growled. “That woman is making me crazy!”

“Uh, yeah,” Charles said. “Sorry about that.” Better to stay far away from Adjo and Toya’s relationship. Nobody understood it. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure they understood it.

“You sound like a true master of Sim Fu,” Wu continued. “I wonder if you fight like one.”

Charles grinned. “Let’s find out.”

Charles couldn’t remember ever being in a sparring match that intense.

They opened with a few attacks and feints to size each other up.

Then Charles threw his very best attack.

And Wu knocked him to the ground with a flick of his hand.

Wu then proceded to pummel him.

He was so fast Charles couldn’t even see the blows coming.

“Wow, sensei, I’m well and truly humbled,” Charles said. “I may talk like a master, but you fight like one.”

“You’re closer than you think. Work on your technique, and we should do this again soon.”

“Absolutely, sensei!”

Charles got right to work that night.

The treehouse was a big hit, especially with Hunter.

He would declare it a space station, orbiting an alien world of energy beings, and he’d only let Sky and Forest up if they could tell him the airlock password.

It was the most assertive anyone in the family had ever seen him.

The other two triplets were quick to follow along.

Even Forest, who usually liked to be in control of everything.

“I was wondering,” Hunter said wistfully as he sat with Forest in the treehouse with Forest. “Do you believe in magic?”

“Hmmm,” Forest said with an unnerving gleam in his eye. “Magic.”

Zahra had a brilliant idea for enhancing the mysterious lawn gnome that made it back from Egypt with Charles. Charles didn’t remember picking it up, but it started appearing around the house right after he returned from his last trip there.

After Zahra blasted it with the experiment ray, she discovered the most unpleasant tasted of old fridge in the back of her throat.

The gnome started spending most of its time watching television.

This couldn’t have been what was supposed to happen.

“Let me check my notes,” Zahra said.

———-

Man, Zahra’s experiments NEVER turned out right!

Maya Langerak kind of got hit with the ugly stick. I wish I knew who exactly her parents were.

This is the composite post, combining about three things that would have been their own posts. But since I didn’t have a lot of text in mind, this seems like it worked out pretty well as a montage of Sample life.

4.41 Wedding Aftermath

Nov15

Romance was in the air when everyone returned from seeing Ada off. Charles and Veronica didn’t have many occasions to dress to the nines, and they liked what they saw.

“Eww,” Forest remarked. “Isn’t is supposed to damage our young minds to watch our parents being gross on each other?”

“I didn’t read that child psychology book,” Veronica said with a chuckle. “But I suppose we can help your delicate mind by going to our own room.”

Charles glanced over at the dining table, where Sky was sitting alone, arms crossed, staring down. “I’ll be right up,” he said. “I’m going to grab a slice of cake first.”

He tapped his daughter on the shoulder, warm ectoplasm touching same. “I’ll cut you a slice too.”

“Check this out,” Forest told Hunter. “It’s awesome. Dad just taught me how to play. I didn’t know he ever engaged in any exercise of the mind.”

“Ok…” Hunter said warily. “It looks really complicated.”

“It is,” Forest said. “That’s the beauty of it. “All the pieces do something different, and you have to line up a bunch of moves and counter-moves in your head.”

“You’ll trounce me,” Hunter said. “I know you’re a lot smarter.”

“It’s Ok,” Forest said. “Sure I well, but you can still think of it as a learning experience.”

“You know what’s the most awesome about this game?” Forest continued as he showed Hunter the complex moves the pieces were supposed to make. “It’s a little model of society. You have pawns that can’t do much, and their job is to be sacrificed to save the leader. Then it’s the leader’s job to get all the most powerful pieces working together to protect him from the powerful pieces on the other side that want to destroy him. It’s just like life.”

“Hmmm,” Hunter said. “I guess that’s like some people’s lives.”

Forest immediately took his queen.

Charles sat down with Sky for an evening snack. “So,” he said quietly, “What’s with the face?”

“You have Mom. Forest and Hunter have each other. Great Aunt Shanni and Great Uncle Adjo are close. Everyone was so eager to see each other at the wedding. Except me. Nobody’s ever eager to see me.”

“Wait,” Charles said. “I’m eager to see you every day.”

“You’re supposed to say that,” Sky pointed out. “You’re my dad.”

“You know, we’re fish of the same color,” Charles said. “I’m a ghost man, same as you. I know it’s hard.”

“You’re like a Sim-Fu god. Everyone respects you. You don’t have to go to school where everyone keeps their distance because you’re so creepy.”

Charles remembered back on his childhood, where people didn’t keep their distance because they almost never saw him. At the time, he’d have given anything just to be more than a shadow. But he couldn’t say anything like that. It would come out as, “You think you have it hard? When I was your age….”

So he just said, “It will get better. It doesn’t seem like it, but trust me.”

She forced a smile. “Thanks for trying anyway. Here, let me clean up.”

“Good grief, Sky!” Charles said. “That is NOT cleaning!”

———-

Not much to this one, but it was a little bit of character activity right after the wedding with everyone in their formals, and it didn’t seem appropriate to let this stuff steal Ada’s thunder.

I’m going to start trying to pick up the pace here. I’m at a point where I want to do an heir vote, and I want everyone to meet Generation 5 as teens before I post one. Plus, it’s high time everyone got to see Avalon and hear what’s going on with your cross-pollination sims.

It’s HARD for me to pick up the pace, though. I seem to have a psychological block against leaving out anything interesting. I have sorted the pictures for the rest of the posts I’m planning to do in Sunset Valley, and it looks like there are five more after this one — that’s including a montage post that includes several episodes I’d expected to post separately. Heh. I’ll see how fast I can put text to them and get them out.

Also, following my strategy of buying expansions from Amazon Download when they go on deep discount after the release of ANOTHER expansion, I now have Showtime. Nobody in Gen 5 will probably have much to do with it, since those characters are essentially complete, I’m not clear how many special lot spaces I’ll need in my almost built-out Avalon to be able to do much with it. We’ll see :).