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.

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.