The good news is: I got the job!
The bad news is: I have no idea what it will do to my playing and posting schedules :).
This really is the perfect arrangement for me, but they want to be start fast, and it’s a telecommuting position, so I’ll need to set up my office.
But I am here and reading other people’s blogs even if posting slows down. Or it might not. My posting has slowed down anyway just due to the pressure of the job hunt, so who knows?
Forest?
Wow, color me astonished.
Somebody who reads this blog likes to play with me. I checked about an hour before the poll closed, and we had a three-way tie with a gratifying 16 votes cast, which is the same state it had been for over 24 hours. I come back at the end of the poll and, yep, one more vote, this time pushing Forest over the edge.
From my informal statistical survey of simblog heir polls, Forest was the least likely to win. Most likely to win are attractive females. After that, sims whose physical appearance is distinctive from the rest of the heirs. Traits and the personality written in the blog seem least relevant. Oh, and Evil sims in particular almost never win.
All of this shows me that not only did I get 16 votes (removing mine, since I did vote), but pretty much everyone actually reads this blog. That’s just so awesome.
The inconvenient thing is that Sky is my choice for heir.
I honestly don’t think I can write Forest as the legacy patron. I’ve spent ages griping about how we never see Evil sims heading up legacies, particularly Wishacies where I think they’d be really interesting and different. But now that I have one, he’s developing as a character in ways that will make this legacy a bit too much for me if he’s he primary focus.
Additionally, I have some plans for Sky’s Commitment Issues.
But hmmm. I guess I will think about this. At the very least, Forest will get extra focus as his story unfolds.
So, I have a character-building event involving Forest that I wanted to post, but I thought that I’d post the poll and go forward. Forest’s nature isn’t THAT mysterious.
Now, at this point, I think that this poll gets more and and more advisory as time goes on. I think I’ve probably decided who the heir is going to be. I really love all three of the triplets, and I’m going to keep both spares around as long as possible.
Still, I’d like to see what you guys think and see if you can change my mind.
So…. Our options are:
Forest
“If you’re going to simplify life down to its most important points, you get the game of chess. Someone is always out to destroy you. Your choice is to either be a king or to be a pawn. I intend to be a king.”
Traits: Evil, Absent-Minded, Ambitious, Genius, Brave
Lifetime Wish: Emperor of Evil
Hunter
“All living things have a way of communicating. If you’re quiet and pay attention, you can learn how to talk to them. One thing that’s really nice about animals is that they can communicate clearly. Humans often don’t even know that they’re saying different things with words than they are with their body language.”
Traits: Clumsy, Heavy Sleeper, Shy, Animal Lover, Brave
Lifetime Wish: Not chosen, but may be Adopt a Unicorn. Will not be anything involving adopting strays.
Sky
“Music is the window into people’s souls. It reaches into your heart and binds you to everyone who is listening or making music with you. Once you’ve felt that kind of connection, it’s hard to go back to just talking to people. I think I want to make music as much as I can for the rest of my life.”
Traits: Virtuoso, Slob, Lucky, Brave, Commitment Issues
Lifetime Wish: Not chosen, but will probably be either 5-Star Celebrity or Master Romancer. I think it will not be One Sim Band.
I’m going to keep this poll up for the full week, I think, since the decision doesn’t affect me for a little while. I’m going to leave the poll on the sidebar for now, but I’m experimenting with embedding it in the post itself. If you don’t have access to the sidebar, feel free to drop me a comment. 🙂
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?
And here is our first true Simantics post for Avalon!
But first, in Sunset Valley, Forest had mixed feelings about aging up.
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A fresh new way to look up a girl’s skirt.
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The lawn gnome barely crawled across the desert wasteland of the dining table to find food.
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A new form of seated meditation taught at Charles’s academy.
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And here we have Emma Voss at a local fishing spot.
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With the fish.
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Uhhh….. below the fish?
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And herein I discovered that I had set up the fishing spot lots wrong in Avalon. Hmmm.
Town Update:
Becky Mentary and Sebastian Hodgins planned for a long engagement, but they had to step the the pace and elope when Becky became unexpectedly pregnant. Becky now-Hodgins moved out of U’s house and in with Sebastian, taking both her children Ali (teen) and Arma (child) with her. She also changed their names. U was left with Weston, the love child who broke his marriage up to begin with. Poor U.
Ariel and David Doctor broke up!
Echo Weaver and Wu broke up!
Zuzu Weaver and Chris Doctor broke up!
Chris Doctor married Tara Crystal, a sim bin sim who I really love and will probably dump into other towns.
David Doctor proposed marriage to Zuzu! I guess I might have landed myself a David Tennant after all!
Ariel and Puzzle Hodgins started going steady. That’s almost… well, kind of ewww.
January Callender was turned into a creature of the night by Nesferatu.
Matt Doctor started going steady with January and moved in with her. Then Nesferatu turned him into a vampire too.
At this point, I’m going to crank the frequency of Twallan’s Vampires and Slayer personalities WAAAAY down. The teams seem to be well-matched and spend most evenings turning the same people into vampires and back again.
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
“So, you designed this place yourself?” Charles said as he looked their new home up and down.
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“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.
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Avalon was certainly… different. The more they wandered around to meet the locals, the more they realized just how different.
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Charles spent a lot of time supervising the construction of the Charles Sample Sim Fu Academy.
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Veronica hit the gym when she wasn’t working.
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And she made a friend or two almost immediately.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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The Avalonian bartender knew his job, and drinks flowed as fast as anyone could drink them.
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The only person who didn’t seem to be having a great time was Jeannette Crumplebottom.
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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.
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The soft musical noodling began to resolve itself into melodies under her fingers. She started to play louder without realizing it.
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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.
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“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.
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It was if they cast a magic spell between them.
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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.
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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.”
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“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.
This is my *drumroll* 200th post!
No really. Blogger said so.
I suppose it’s sort of fitting that a landmark post like this should be an introduction to the new world.
First, I introduce to you my Simselves:
Echo Weaver
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Her traits are: Computer Whiz, Artistic, Childlike, Hotheaded, Charismatic
Lifetime Wish: Professional Author
Zuzu Weaver
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Traits: Handy, Hopeless Romantic, Overemotional, Absent-Minded, Slob
Lifetime Wish: Creature-Robot Crossbreeder
All of those traits pretty much describe me :-p.
Why do I have two simselves, do you ask? Well, I put in a request with the DNA Request Team at thesims3.com, and while I was waiting, I decided to take a stab at it myself from the same photograph I gave them and compare the two. The first (Echo) is my effort and the second (Zuzu) is the DNA Team’s.
I think it’s striking how similar they are. People who know me in person say that Echo is a better likeness, though neither of them quite hit it. One friend said that she didn’t think that Echo looked like me but she could see a lot of similarity to my daughter, ha! Zuzu’s hair color is a very close hit to mine.
Oh, and who could forget our cat Mist
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Who is Playful, Clueless, and Skittish, pretty much like her real life counterpart.
The Weavers are our playtest family for a brief tour of some Avalon public lots to be sure that the lots and Jynx rabbitholes are working properly.
First, let us see an aerial view of lovely Avalon Island.
I should have taken one after I added all the lots, but I forgot. When I can play again, I’ll see about taking one.
Here are the sisters Echo and Zuzu more appropriate for Avalon:
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These are the custom content ear sliders. Shortly after this playtest, the Supernatural patch came out, and I had to redo everyone’s ears in the entire town. Sigh. I don’t know why Zuzu’s ears are quite so large, but they’re smaller now.
Together they have moved in to Caramel Cottage.
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Echo’s first wish, being an Artist, is to take a class in painting. I send her over to Avalon’s primary school, Chivalric Preparatory.
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This is the charming lot School “Not So New” from ModtheSims. Beside it, you can see Honeyduke’s Sweetshop, which I have set up as a hangout.
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Echo wanders through the door to stand on the Jynx rug
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and *poof*, she’s gone.
Meanwhile, some of the Marmalades dropped by to wander around the building.
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The Marmalades get ears later. And eventually I notice that Grape Juice has a random hair of the wrong color and fix it. Sadly, it doesn’t happen during the playtest, so you’ll be stuck with brown and balding wherever you see him.
It occurs to me that this building has a lot of floors with a bunch of sort of random furniture on it. I’ve never really figured out the strategy that builders have in mind when they put together these complex furnished buildings to house rabbitholes. After this, I take out all the furniture and wall off the rest of the building. Then, I certainly hope, visitors will stay in the playground area outside, which is where you’d expect them to be outside of school hours.
*Poof* Echo’s done with her class.
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She heads home. Muscadine Marmalade is pretty happy about it.
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Meanwhile, Zuzu thinks about a career in crime.
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She makes her way to the sinister Crypt Keeper’s Keep. Dark dealings are known to take place in the mausoleum there.
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This doesn’t seem to be the right thing for her. Did you know that criminals do illegal things? She turns down the job offer and heads off to take a class in handiness.
At which point I get this message:
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Huh what?
Seeing as Zuzu’s sitting alone with the cabbie and the only other sims she knows in town are her sister and cat, the implications are frightening. And Echo’s in a class right now. I’ve gotten this message a few times since then, and I’ve started to hypothesize that it’s actually being generated by some NPC action from Twallan’s StoryProgression. I should stop agreeing to dial it down and see what that does to some of the townie relationships.
Here we are at Tintgagel Fortress, home of the Avalon Home Guard.
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Afterward, rather than head home, Zuzu decides to read a book on a random bookshelf placed for atmosphere. More stuff to strip from the buildings.
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Alone in the house Mist is nervous.
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She hides under the bed.
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Echo emerges from the Mighty Pen Monastery, located in Camelot, where she just finished her writing class.
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She heads from there
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Across the courtyard to Camelot’s Great Hall, where she registers as a self-employed writer.
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Across the street from Camelot, the Mentaries are visiting Faux Paw Dog Park, and Becky Mentary seems to be having some trouble.
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I hope that doesn’t require surgery.
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Whew!
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With her is her ex-husband and roommate Doc U. Mentary and U’s son Weston.
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They stop to watch some pigeons flying through the park.
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Zuzu has finally remembered that her life’s ambition lies in the science career, so she takes a cab to the Sufficiently Advanced Technology Center.
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Just a quick pop into the magic carpet in the lobby
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And now she’s a bona fide Test Subject. Piece of cake.
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Zuzu now wishes to learn to play the string bass, so she heads to Chipping Simsburg, the town market, where she can take a class at the Excalibur Uniplex.
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She heads into the theater to take her class…
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And I return to Echo to find her still inside Camelot’s Great Hall.
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Nemo Hodgins seems to be keeping her company.
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After a few more attempts to get her out the door, Echo is still route-failing, and now she is joined by Grape Juice Marmalade, who also can’t get out and really wants to pee.
We seem to have found City Hall California. You can drop in anytime you want, but you can never leave.
While Echo’s waiting for me to fix the door to City Hall, Zuzu finishes her class and is eager to jam, so I send her to The Moon nightclub.
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I have expanded the little DJ booth to accommodate a full band, and I want to be sure it works.
Zuzu can’t find the bass.
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Or the guitar.
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Or the keyboard.
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ARGH.
I finally get the bass shuffled around so that she can use it backwards.
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But there’s no way to make the keyboard accessible, and anyway the guests are now trapped in the club.
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Back to the drawing board on this place.
Mist is sick of being left alone in the house, and she makes her displeasure known.
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Echo has escaped from City Hall California and decides to do some reading.
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There’s a rusty bathtub on the grounds of a castle? Not sure I get that design logic. However, since I made the place Visitors Allowed, maybe I ought to actually provide real benches.
Echo heads to Monmouth Archive library, where she really hits it off with Ceridwen Bookabet.
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Tam Butterfield-Callender drops by to peek in the windows, but apparently not to actually read.
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Echo and Ceridwen both really like art! Yay! They should go to the Art Museum, which I have placed but neither named nor tested.
After this, Echo and Zuzu return home with bars in the red to pet their poor cat.
Town Update, from the playtest session and the first couple of days of actual play:
I wasn’t going to reveal the celebrities who I loaded into the town, but Ariel Hodgins is engaged to David Tennant! (The 10th Doctor from Doctor Who and my personal heartthrob. The three reboot doctors are currently living together as brothers Chris, David, and Matt Doctor.)
True to form, Ariel also moved out to her own place and adopted a cat she named Sebastian, which is making my life very confusing.
Becky Mentary immediately took up with the real Sebastian Hodgins. After a whirlwind courtship, the two quickly became engaged, though Becky was still living with her ex-husband U to help raise their children.
February Callender was also had the world’s shortest career as a Vampire. She was turned by the town Nesferatu and then defeated and turned back by the Slayer two sim-hours later.
Echo Weaver has fallen in love with and is now engaged to Zhan Wu. I guess she/I like older men, but how can I fault her taste??
Zuzu Weaver dated David Doctor for a while before he hooked up with Ariel and is currently going steady with his older brother Chris. Man, my simselves really are like me! But MAAAAN why didn’t she hold on to David while she had him??
Morand and Bella Bachelor Cagley gave birth to a son they named Freddy.
Laura and Alan Berg gave birth to a daughter Alexandria.
It’s one hour until Christmas as I post this, so MERRY CHRISTMAS if you celebrated it, and GREAT DAY if you don’t! Hee!
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?”
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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.
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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.
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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?
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.”
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And Wu….
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“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…
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Then Hunter…
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And at last Sky…
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They ate their cake in the yard as the sun set and listened to the waterfall.
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“I guess I’m going to miss this place, at least,” Sky admitted.
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“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
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Hubba hubba! Our evil boy has grown up into quite the fantasy fodder.
Hunter
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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
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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 🙂 :).
Just wanted to say that my new ISBI We’re All Mad Here is up and running! I’m hoping to put up an advisory mate poll in the next day or two, so come check it out!