4.12 Picspam
Hello! Guess what I have? Why yes, it is post update picspam. I've been feeling very lethargic with the heat here lately so it comes less promptly than usual, plus, it's long, in spite of the fact that there's not a whole lot I can yammer about in regards to this past chapter without being spoilery. If you haven't read 4.12 yet, clicking the cut would be spoilerific, as I'm sure you'd guessed :)
Also I've literally just noticed that the space ship has a liscence plate, that is not in simlish, and seems to say ANM8R...Cool!
I never know where to start BTS stuff, but the middle of the update seems like a good place right? More specifically this one's abduction.
Dee getting abducted was entirely unplanned and unpredicted. In fact I think it was her first time using the telescope ever. I hadn't figured out everyone's predestined hobby yet, so I stuck Dee on the telescope as part of my quest to find out and sure enough I got a pop up telling me this was what she was keen in. Sure, fine. I left her there to skill logic for a little while and go pay attention to Artemis in the greenhouse. Next thing I know there are telescopes in everyone's queue. I go "Whuuu?" sure enough Dee is clamped onto the telescope fighting the inevitable abduction.
I had to laugh. This sort of thing just seems to...happen to Dee.
Incidentally she got a positive memory from it because I gave Dee knowledge as a secondary following the discovery that she was a science and gaming geek (LTW: Top Gamer).
Not everyone was so thrilled.
"My sister is the world's biggest moron."
The non knowledge sims of the family had little freakouts, now River and Zoe are pretty consistently fearing someone getting abducted.
The first thing Dee did when she got home was walk up to her brother and give him a family kiss. It was sort of adorable.
The abduction was pretty glitchy at the beginning actually. See the spaceship beam all the way over there in the corner of the lot? And see Dee holding the telescope on the back porch. Yeah it did that for some time before giving me a proper looking abduction.
In terms of plot I wasn't entirely suer what to do with this whole thing. I mean I already have enough going on this generation without throwing aliens in the mix. In the end I just decided to sort of file it away as a possible blank cheque for the future and use it to have River fret about his daughter's safety and get Dee a brain scan, which I was going to have her beg out of nurse Elise somewhere down the line anyway.
Speaking of Dee. Her birthday. Oh man.
Even though there are only 2 days between Turner and Rhapsody there are quite a few kids between them, that I teened after Turner and before Dee. Rhapsody's party was the first time I had all these new Teens and their ACR tokens in the same room and wow was that ever fun.
Turner really did go in for an autonomous first kiss with Abbey Chen. (Apollo -> Orpheus -> Abbey, via adoption) She's a Romance sim and wants 20 woohoos and is seeing several other people. She's his second cousin but because she's adopted I'm not really that bothered by it.
Seeing as they were already Best Friends Turner immediately gave me a big red heart for Abbey.
It took her a little while to return the sentiment though.
Turner however is apparently not anxious to settle down any time soon though. This was a GAH! moment for me because, second cousins yet again. This is Gavia Tegenaria (Gibson -> Kestrel + Norris -> Gavia). I don't know what it is about Legacy main that make him so anxious to use his ACR token.
I've also discovered that the new ACR makes coupley couples dance together apparently, which is cute.
Jane Austen (Wren and Charles's daughter) also took advantage of Dee's party to behave very Unregency like and nab her first kiss off Hugo LeTourneau.
He's Romance she's knowledge, but you know, fair enough. Although he does was 20 Lovers.
I did want to show all this happening but unfortunately the chapter just didn't click with the addition of more stuff at Dee's party. So I just made reference to it in passing when Hugo and Turner were taking at Cayenne's birthday.
I actually did shoot a quick scene for flashback purposes in which Charlie busted Jane and Hugo making out on the couch and then Lark and Ashley's twins busted on them about it. It would have been a nice way to show some extended family I thought. But it just didn't fit in again, so I just referenced it.
And Jane for that matter is, as advertised, one of Turner's best friends, and in fact was his first best friend after his parents I believe since she's just a smidge older than he is.
And Hugo is also seeing Abbey. Although she is not one to need to wait for the guy to make the first move.
Essentially, the purpose of focusing a little on Hugo and his escapades was to suggest that maybe Turner is not entirely unjustified in being protective of his little sister with this guy, in spite of him being among his best friends and to give an idea that Cayenne was getting involved with a bit of skirt chaser, to put it mildly.
Hugo and Cayenne have been friends since childhood, so all it took was one flirt to have them fall in lurve. They're 3 bolts of Pleasure/Romance which pleases me to no end :-)
Of course I have 2 other girls who are pleasure this generation. Both Elise and Rhapsody also have 3 big bolts for Hugo, which could be awkward. Neither of them has made any type of move on him or anyone else for that matter.
I get the feeling Dee would be the type of girl to be toooootally oblivious to the fact that someone liked her of that she was hot in any way. Which is great because I need to keep her away from family members, no matter how distant they might be.
"Hi gus!"
"Hey hot stuff."
"I know it is hot out here today isn't it?"
Gus and Dee have actually been on one date. It was mostly to get some rollover in her want panel when it was full of stuff I couldn't fulfill and because his LTW is 50 first dates. But I kept it to non romantic interactions all the way.
He's been out with Elise too, for similar reasons. As you can see she seems well pleased about it. Her LTW is 50 dream dates and dammit she's not settling for just a GOOD first date.
When you consider on top of this that Gus's first kiss was with Abbey and that he lives with Hugo, and that they were born at the same time and basically raised as twins (though there is zero relation there except for the fact that Gus's grandfather Paul built Hugo's father Zola the servo) it all begins to look like a great big and vaguely incestuous love...octagon.
As you've probably surmised, most of my sims this generation are Pop, Pleasure or Romance, and not just in the main house either. In fact I think the only two family sims I have as teens at the moment are Riley and Ashton Pitts. And I think they're feeling a bit left out. Anyway, Ashton brought Elise home off the Bus with him and in spite of the one bolt she was just....convenient I guess. He spent most of the afternoon stalking her with "First Kiss (ACR)" in his queue while little miss Pleasure sim went "Oooh! Bubbles"
Finally he did score a first kiss with her in the kitchen that evening, which I only caught because of first kiss noises happenign while I was paying attention to something else.
"Score! First kiss!"
Ashton's a sweetie, single nicepoint or not. Though I doubt he and Elise will become a permanent thing.
I would have loved to been able to fit this in, but again there was just no way to put it in the chapter the way the structure ended up working out.
Speaking of the twins and things I couldn't fit in. The lot crashed the first time I did their birthdays and I had to replay from the night before because I'd forgotten to save, because I'm smart like that. Second time around they got a Burgulary.
You would thing that loud beeping alarm next to Gordon's head would be a sign to run away, but no.
Naturally he experienced a smackdown courtesy of the Love Officer. But the Olshfskis are still making Grrr faces and flamy thought balloons about this.
I would have loved to use this slide too, I just think it's such a sweet little domestic scene.
"Mommy! Mommy! Look at me! I got an A, Mommy look at me!"
"No Look at me Mommy! I got an A too! Mommy!"
But I sort of figured I'd already had basically 3 chapters worth of childhood. Did you guys really need to see more children. Which is why the first half of the chapter was basically a big push into teenhood. With waaaaay too many birthdays. Birthdays had me beating my head in with a keyboard as I tried to write them.
I attempted to use different moments of the caking for each set of kids, but there was no other way to do it ultimately than show all of them. Turner's I wanted to open the chapter, Dee's and Journey's were naturally gling to be shown because they're main house kids, and Cayenne's I wanted to use for her hooking up with Hugo, which left the twins and that was only one birthday so...
Cori's birthday I did just skip over though. There is such a think as too much confetti and I figured it sufficed to just show her as a Toddler.
While I'm on the subject of the adorable ACR accident child, have some toddler picspam of my brown eyed girl with the mutant personality ;-)
She's actually already friends with her grandmother I think. Toddler adult relationship scores go up insanely fast and so I've just had her ask for attention a few times while Artemis was visiting and voila. I want to take her on vacation with them quite soon after she kiddifies because Gen 3 is running out of time and will probably be going in a chapter or 2, most likely before she reaches teenhood. So I'm just going to do a very short grandparents' vacation like I did when last gen were teens, except to Three Lakes this time. Not for any good reason, just a change of scene :-)
"Mom Just so you know. now I'm a teen I kind of get the baby thing. And just so you know...Ew."
"Thanks for that opinion Cayenne"
"Any Time"
"Mine. Give it. You suck! I want it!"
"Umm...ok, but you're a kid, and I'm skilling."
"I don't care! That's mine."
Journey. Oh Journey. He is a cranky little one. But he gets on very well with his sister in game, which might be because Dee is 10 nice and gets along with everyone.
For whatever reason I really wanted to have a scene between the two of them this chapter, with him as a child acting older than her as a teen. Even growing up I think Dee has held onto alot of childish charm and sweetness, whereas Journey is just in a hurry to grow up.
Eventually the swing scene happened very naturally. At the twins' birthday Phoenix went up to talk to his friend and Journey went and gave me lots of Cranky face and then walked off into the garden and started playing on the playset and I sent Dee out to chill with him.
Look at that, my sims know how to set up symbolism laden scenes all by themselves.
What's probably plenty clear though is that Journey and Cayenne aren't the biggest fans of each other. This came about from the fact that somehow, as children, they mananged to get into negative relationship with each other, and kept that up. Journey has no problem being openly hostile about things so their relationship kind of turned into this little bickerfest they have going on. I eventually had to go in invite her over and force them up to friends in game though, because I was getting fed up of Journey not being able to get her over to the house.
I think their relationship will most likely evolve as they get older though and stuff happens around them and to them. After all they have to live together in college.
Moving onto the final scene. Hey look! Phoenix really is sick. He spun too long on the merrygoround and ended up making himself ill. Poor baby. This was just before he teened. It was another thing I couldn't/didn't end up using in the final cut of the chapter. But I did want to end this one with Phoenix's condition really getting serious.
The original idea wa that I was going to end the chapter on Phoenix collapsing during some sort of sports game, since I just got Free Time and I like to use new stuff. The idea to tie it in with more plotty Dee disappearing act came sort of later. I only pretend to plan things, usually they sort of just happen and it all works out.
I was going to use a football pitch that I probably could have just build really easily with two nets and stuck all the kids in FT uniforms. But the problem is that all the houses in the hood are either on the last day of fall or first day of winter, so I figured I'd go for basket ball, the inside sport. A couple of the community lots that come with FT have basketball courts, but that would have been too complicated to shoot on, so I just used Simgarooop's exceedingly well build Belladonna High, which I remembered seeing on her SimPage as having a basketball court. And even though I only needed one room of it and the fact that it was a school was sort of incidental, it worked really well.
Incidentally since the school lot is a residential lot, I had to have someone lived there. I didn't want to CAS up a teacher or something so I was flipping through my Bin Sims, considering moving FT premade Julian Cooke into the school, and I remembered that Death was still living in my bin. I thought it would be sort of morbidly humorous for me to have death run my highschool, and when I was considering doing that, I sort of decided it might be time to advance Dee's plot a little bit. I have a specific point where what is going on with her is going to be resolved, but I want to sort of...keep it as active plot point until then so that it doesn't come as a sudden switch of gears in a chapter or two.
Anyway, the other reason I show you this slide is because, I made Death a knowledge sim, and upon moving him into the lot I discovered this extremely ironic LTW. I did not tamper with this, he rolled it up all on his own. I laughed.
Similarly the woman who I made in CAS as a nurse to own the community lot hospital set I'm using, rolled up the LTW to be chief of staff. The game knows.
On the topic of weird stuff. This is a weird cool object I found at MTS. It's a TV shaped like a crysal ball. To advance Dee's plot a bit I wanted to add a new element that is part of the whole deal, while being a little cryptic, and have her being watched. However my photoshopping skills, while once proficient enough that I could do art projects digitially in highschool, are now completely non existent, so I went searching for something that would compensate for my lack of ability and...voila.
I sort of did the best I could with chosing an image from it that resembled a human figure, but, you know, sometimes you're going to have to just indulge me in these things ;-)
I will leave you with this shot of the eldest trio at the end of this long rambling picspam. I may have no idea how to play this game but Requiem certainly seems to know very well. And Dee's pretty good at knocking over her tiles.
Hope you enjoyed the picspam and the chapter and that everyone is very well :-)