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Delaney came back from her first mission to the alien planet, Sixam, to find her youngest child, Eric, no longer in his bassinet, but a few years older.
Eric was an inquisitive, creative little kid, and when Delaney enthused about how much she loved going on space missions, he seemed a little distressed at the idea. After all, his mom had missed his whole life up till now!
Delaney told him that she had installed a portal on Sixam that would allow her to come and go, in what seemed like no time at all. She would actually be gone, from Eric's point of view, fewer hours than if she were going to a job! Eric was happy to hear that, but until he saw her leave and come right back, he wasn't going to be convinced.
Delaney soon noticed that Eric loved nothing more than listening to music.
She also noticed that Ewan, her oldest son, had become interested in playing guitar, although this was just a side-hobby for him. His main interest was painting and photography.
He had also been picking up some babysitting work on the side, especially on weekend nights.
He had also been picking up some babysitting work on the side, especially on weekend nights.
Once everyone went to bed, Delaney took her specimens from Sixam down to the basement lab to begin analyzing them.
On her first trip, she had obtained a fire opal crystal, a microscopic slide of an alien plant (Fang Flower Tree), a geode, and a glowing fruit orb that she had harvested from another alien plant.
After analyzing the microscopic sample, Delaney decided to eat the fruit and see what happened, even though it was a risky thing to eat an unknown alien fruit. Eating it seemed to have no effect beyond the normal effect of eating fruit from earth. Strange.
Ewan had invited his best friend, Adrianna Walker, over after school. But Adrianna had a bad day at school, and nothing he could say would calm her down, even though they usually got along great.
That night, Delaney made another trip to Sixam, this time through the portal. Her mission objectives were to collect more specimens and map out the area around the site she had landed at before.
As soon as she arrived, she headed away from the wormhole generator and started uphill.
At a higher altitude, she found another of the orb plant.
This time, she took a microscopic sample, since she had not learned anything from eating the orb fruit.
"I wonder if this plant uses photosynthesis, or some other energy source," she thought.
Having no idea whether or not it would grow on earth, she harvested a cutting to attempt to graft onto a plant at home.
After finding what she could in the immediate area of the hilltop, she headed back downhill and towards a body of liquid or gas that was near the landing site. She couldn't swim, fish, or cross it, or even get a sample.
"I'll try exploring this area more next time," she thought. "I have to get home for Elise's birthday party."
Back home, Alexander had made a lovely cake, and little Eric was very excited about celebrating Elise's rite of passage.
As usual for him at celebrations, Ewan was more somber.
Elise also took after the Goth side of the family, and rolled the Gloomy trait to add to her Mean trait. She rolled the Knowledge aspiration, with an emphasis on learning several different skills well.
She felt strongly that she already knew a lot about a lot of things, and exasperated to have to put up with the idiots around her.
"Whatever"
But she was happy when doing her homework.
More than anything, Alexander wanted Ewan to earn A's. Although Ewan had been working hard in school, he had yet to earn an A average. He came home from school, still a "B" student.
He felt confident, though, after a good school day, and decided he wanted to use a bold pick-up line on someone. Right away, he called his friend, Adrianna.
He felt confident, though, after a good school day, and decided he wanted to use a bold pick-up line on someone. Right away, he called his friend, Adrianna.
He said something flirty and waited...
And she liked it!
Ewan decided to go for a first kiss.
But afterwards, he felt very unsure if that had been the right thing to do. After all, they'd been Best Friends for so long.
Adrianna seemed really happy though.
Meanwhile, Elise was beginning to learn from Delaney how to garden. Gardening was a skill that would be very helpful at the lab in Oasis Springs, if she decided to go into a career in science after high school.
In Magnolia Promenade neighborhood, Ryleigh, Rianna, and Rachel sat in their new bakery cafe, Roll With It, and ate a light supper.
Roll With It was still about a week of work away from its grande opening, and the family was working around the clock to get everything prepared.
Even willful Rianna was helping out.
Dante was busily baking to stock the store. He was currently on vacation from his job as a Chef, but would resign when those days ran out. Ryleigh was also planning to resign from her job as a vice president at Sim Corp, so she could help run the bakery.
The family stayed at the bakery overnight most of the time, instead of going home. They had a simple 2 BR/1 BA efficiency in the basement.
Early one morning, Ryleigh went for her morning run around Magnolia Promenade.
She happened to run right past Eliza Pancakes. Ryleigh was still seething over Eliza gunning for her job, back when she was on maternity leave. "I guess she'll be happy when I resign from the VP position," she thought bitterly. Uncharacteristically, she felt like punching Eliza's prim, smug face.
The rest of her run was ruined, with her heart pounding and just having to keep telling herself to let it go.
Living at the bakery, though, the family was having fun eating and working together. Rachel could really make her parents laugh.
For some inexplicable reason, Rianna had decided she wanted to be a famous comedian, even though as a child she was never that light-hearted or social. She was going to great lengths to try to make Rachel laugh.
Rachel, who was a cheerful sim, still wasn't laughing.
Rianna chalked that up to Rachel's ignorance as a child.
Then Rianna wrote a routine and set up a mike in the front of the store, seeing if she could draw a crowd.
After a while, Cassandra Goth came by. Cassandra told Rianna she had started working recently as a Supreme Villain.
That made Rianna laugh.
After all, Cassandra was not what Rianna would consider an intimidating person.
Rianna tried to get her dad to laugh at her jokes, but he was too tense about the business.
There was still so much work to do before they could open for business, and their savings wouldn't last too long, especially when bills started coming in.
For Rachel's birthday, the family returned home and threw one of their famous parties. Bella Goth, Colonel, apparently holds no grudge against her daughter, in spite of her dastardly occupation. Also, Cassandra had cut off her hair and changed her look, confident in her new role of villainy.
Rachel is Cheerful, and for her teen trait she rolled Hates Children. She also rolled the Serial Romantic aspiration. Her best friend is still Elise Tesla, and Eleanor Simsfan is slightly older than they are.
Delaney seemed bewildered and alarmed by Rachel's new hatred of children.
She and Elise are still partners in crime. Elise is exulting over a plan for Rachel and she to sell test answers. I think Rachel was a little embarrassed that Elise is discussing their nefarious plans in front of Elise's mom.
Elise looks a lot like her dad, Alexander, in my opinion, and she got the Goth Gloominess.
Unfortunately, neither of Dante's girls really got his looks; they both look so much like Ryleigh. But poor family-oriented, sweet Dante, living in a house of blonde mean girls.
During the party, Delaney got dejected, probably over an insult by either Elise, or Rianna.
But it passed quickly. She and Elise were really sweet, Elise kept following her mom and sitting near her during the party. At odd times I'll catch Elise saying something mean to her mom, but they have a strong relationship.
More plotting by the cronies.
And here are the Arias girls. Rianna's in the hat. It's part of her party get-up. She looks JUST like Ryleigh did as a teen.
Notes:
- Rianna rolled the Jokestar aspiration, which I thought was crazy for her. She's Evil and Hot-Headed! I guess she wants to be one of those super villains who quips cleverly while fighting good. Anyway, she kept getting whims to tell jokes and to tell jokes at the mike, but it was a dismal failure, for now. After she completes this aspiration, I plan to give her a Deviance Aspiration, since she is Evil, and I haven't done that aspiration yet because Barnaby was too sweet to do the mean interactions that were required.
- Rachel rolled Serial Romantic and for her Teen trait, she rolled "Hates Children."
- When I popped into the Goths to check on Bella and Desmond, the game had assigned Cassandra to be a Supreme Villain (Level 10) and Bella as a Colonel in the Detective/Police active profession. Very funny -- a musical creative, gloomy sim as a villain, and a socialite detective. More about that, next week.
- I love Elise! I plan for her to start the Science profession as a young adult.
- The game assigned Ewan to a part-time career, "Nanny." Evidently, with Get To Work, anyone not in a career is getting one, like it or not!
- Ryleigh's whim to fight Eliza lasted through the rest of play session, unpinned.
- Thank you, Echoweaver, for the input about how to solve the dilemma of Delaney's trips to Sixam and how much time she would be gone. Delaney took her first trip by rocket, but while there, she installed a portal (think, the movie Contact, where Jodi Foster's character went galaxies away but returned before it seemed she had even left) .
Haha. So assigning townies to jobs is one of the features of Get to Work? Haha. It seems like they're squeezing in Story Progression in fits and starts. Cassandra got all the way to Level 10 of Criminal!
ReplyDeleteElise is a really interesting-looking sim. I love sims with noticeably different faces. Did ALL the girls end up either Mean or Evil? That's a rough crowd.
Also, did Delaney's trip to the planet wash away more years back at home? Or was she able to walk through the gate this time? You said she explained it to Eric, but I didn't figure it out myself.
That's what I thought, too, that they are adding Story Progression elements by bits. Me too, that's one reason I especially love Elise is her unique look. Elise has the Mean trait, Rianna has the Evil trait, and other than that none of them have the mean trait. But I just noticed a theme when I wrote this, with Rachel Hating Children, which seems kinda mean, and Ryleigh wanting to fight Eliza, and Cassandra getting a job in villainy.
DeleteActually, as for the time slippage, I left it ambiguous because I didn't want to decide yet for absolute, if she's going to lose 3 or so years every time she goes to Sixam. It isn't built into the game, so it kind of goes against my blogging style to set an external limitation or requirement on the game, but at the same time I am leaning that way because it just seems to make more sense to me. I figured with Elise's birthday coming up after the trip, it left it ambiguous whether she was gone one night or a few years.
I really like the way you saw the time issue being part of Eric's concern, though. Maybe I'll slightly change the post to have Delaney explain that when she goes to Sixam she loses 3 years. Then I'll be locked into it, which honestly I don't mind. What do you think, from a reader's perspective?
Honestly, the idea of losing 3 years with my family every time I took a trip into space is too tragic for me to contemplate. Also, if that were my husband and I were left without him for a bunch of three-year segments like that, I'd divorce him. I might do it lovingly, but I couldn't live like that.
DeleteOne thing that occurred to me is that perhaps the first trip took that long because she needed to get there to install the portal that we saw her return through. After that, there could be transportation there without the time dilation. In Interstellar, the majority of the time slippage was due to hanging out on a planet too close to a black hole, but in more likely scenarios the relativity effects would be due to flying there at close to the speed of light.
I love that idea! (installing a portal). Like in the movie Contact, where she was gone only seconds or minutes? to the people at the site in Japan, but she had hours of blank videotape from her trip.
DeleteYou make a good point, I don't know how I would ultimately react to my husband being gone like that. One of my best friends is in a similar situation, where her husband works for USAID in Afghanistan, and since the kids are not allowed (by our government) to live there, she and the kids live in New England. They see him about 2 months out of 24. This has been going on for about 4 years and they are very ready for things to change for the better. We used to do sustainable development projects in Nepal before we moved to Florida, from about 1998 to 2006. But one reason we returned to the US is that our kids were getting to the age where our organization wanted them to go to boarding school and for us to travel even more than we were, and that wasn't acceptable to us. Also, many people in Nepal and India get work in the middle east and send money back to their immediate family (spouse and children) in the subcontinent, so they can survive. I guess I lived and worked with so many people, both South Asian, and other foreigners, who spent months every year, or years at a time away from their family to do their job or earn a living in a tough economy, that I didn't realize exactly how readers might take this. So I really appreciate your input!!
Good heavens. I've worked with people who are remote breadwinners out of necessity, but they speak of it with a lot of sadness. And of course there are military families with the military parent stationed remotely, but the ones I know either have the post for about 18 months on rotation, or the come home several times a year. I could see 4 or even 6 months, with nice gaps of time with her family in between. But three years --- I guess it would depend on how long she was home in between trips.
DeleteI don't know anyone like your friend whose husband works for USAID. You seem to have a much more colorful career history than I do! When my husband was a professor, we spent sabbatical in Madrid and London, but that's the extent of my experience living out side the United States. I could imagine accepting a three year trip ONCE, but not as a lifetime choice.
Madrid and London, wow. To be able to spend time in those places would be amazing! I spent 3 hours once on a layover and made a beeline for Westminster Abby, and back to the airport right away.
DeleteI personally would never (and I never use that word, at least rarely), accept that as a lifetime choice either. That's why we came back to the US, to be able to be together and give our kids stability instead of not knowing if we'd be able to stay in a place year to year. There are a lot of people in the world who have to do that though.
I was kind of surprised by Rianna wanting to be a comedian too! LOL, well, I guess we'll see how that works out for her.
ReplyDeleteThe game gave Ewan a job? It sounds like they're trying to work Story Progression back into the game (which is a feature I was never keen on at all in TS3). I wonder if people have been complaining? I don't keep up with TS4!
But speaking of Ewan, I'm pretty excited to follow him as he gets older. I don't know - he's become my favourite for some reason!
So it sounds like you are putting in a vote or at least an endorsement for Ewan to be the heir? :-)
DeleteI adore Ewan and Elise. They may both stay in the house until I can decide between their kids. Ewan looks so much like Delaney, and he's a quiet but very creative guy, and autonomously he's so helpful around the house and especially with Eric, and Elise when she was a child. I love it that he's going to be a painter/photographer. For his adult trait, he rolled "Childish," but I adopted the way Echoweaver rolls for traits, so the adult trait is my choice, either to use the rolled one or just pick one to round out the character the way I see it. I really don't see him going the way of being Childish at all.
Elise, on the other hand, has such a different look than any of my sims before her, which I like, and she's going to be a scientist, which I am excited about. She rolled Self-Assured for her adult trait, which I plan to use. She's best friends with Rachel, and together they've got some traits I haven't played before, like Mean and Hates Children. Like her mom, Rachel rolled Neat for her adult trait, which I think suits her well.
It seems that a lot of people do want Story Progression in Sims 4, and this does seem like a move in that direction. As long as the game doesn't change sims out of careers i put them in, putting sims in careers doesn't bother me.
Rianna rolling for the Jokestar aspiration is not what I had hoped; however, the animations are fun to watch when she's practicing on the mike or on those around her. Since it is a popularity aspiration, she gets the Gregarious trait with it, and she also has rolled to be more outgoing as an adult so I guess she's going to be a temperamental, evil, outgoing sim who makes friends easily, ha. j Sounds like a true Mean Girl in the classic sense. I am really looking forward to getting her started on one of the Deviance aspirations later, though.
Carla, thanks for reading and commenting!
Hee. Yes, I for one am dying for SP. I can see how it screws up rotational players, though. Eventually EA offered an Options menu choice to turn off Story Progression in Sims 3. By that time, I think most people who actually wanted SP were using the NRaas version, though :).
DeleteI will say that watching you rotational players has changed my style. I still only play one household, but I'm getting more casual about adding incidental sims to the household so that I can control them for important events. Recently, someone close to the household got married, and wanted to throw a wedding reception, but only active sims can cut the wedding cake. So I just added one of the couple to the household, then added her back after the party :). And it worked fine :).
That's interesting that you've adopted a little bit of the flexibility of rotational play. I always thought Sims 3 was great for a legacy with the strong Story Progression.
DeleteMaybe Sims 4 will eventually have a mix of programming and options that pleases more players :-). Story progression is really nice in a lot of ways-- like for this legacy I wouldn't have to switch so much between houses and I would go more with what the SP did with the other sims. (Even though I really like the control, bwahhaha!) Fortunately, the way Sims 4 is now, it isn't as difficult to switch Active Household as seemed like it was in Sims 3. So far i like the options in Sims 4 and its likely I'll roll with the way they evolve it. I just hope rotational play remains possible as it is now.
The thing that makes switching between households problematic for Sims 3 is that dreams and opportunities are wiped out. It seems like that shouldn't be a big deal, but for me at least it is. If you switch between households, you have to give up on all but the most immediately-achieved wishes. The NRaas mod suite added the functionality of "catching" dreams and holding them for your player households while they're inactive. This is apparently very resource-intensive, however, and not recommended for more than a few households. It's not immediately obvious to me why this is such a difficult thing to do.
DeleteYou also can't add a sim to your household and then add them back to their home household in a simple way with an unmodded game. But it turns out to be pretty straightforward to do in a modded game, and it doesn't screw things up :).
I also was inspired by your school chapter and added rooms in the schoolhouse building for after school activities. I don't have a good way to involve the inactives in this yet. I'd have to add them to the household for an afternoon or something. Hmmm.
Yes, that's the part I objected to in switching households-- losing what the sims were working for/wanting. I didn't want to do that just to pop in somewhere so it felt really limiting. I didn't realize NRaas helped with that, but takes a lot resources. I don't know anything about the programming; it doesn't seem like something that would take a lot of resources though.
DeleteI'm really happy that it worked out well for your sims' recent wedding to add an inactive to the household, that is great. It's nice that your mods let you do that-- which mod is that, that allows that pretty easily?
I hope you work something out for the after school activities, that will be fun to see.
Too funny that Ewan just got plopped into a Nanny career. I adore Elise's birthday, she is beautiful! And Rianna is too, though she looks like her Mom, her Mom is really pretty, so it's not a bad thing! Sad that she has missed so much of her children's childhoods though, if only this expansion pack had been released before she had all her babies. I like that the installed portal will be less time away now, that's something I could handle!
ReplyDeleteToo funny on Cassandra and Bella. All the traits are great, except maybe hating children for Rachel, but if you are going to be a Serial Romantic, then it makes sense that you might be looking to avoid children that would inhibit that behavior.
Glad things went well for Ewan when he went for it with Adrianna. She's adorable, and they make a cute little couple. Though, her grumpiness previously might make her a handful as a girlfriend.
It is so much fun reading your comments!
DeleteI think Adrianna just had a bad day at school that day, because she doesn't have the hot-headed trait. She is Self-Assured and Squeamish, and Gregarious. Occasionally the game sends kids home from school with a random mood like sad, embarrassed, angry, or confident, based on a random thing that happened at school. It's one of the things that makes sense to me with the emotions and it is sweet to see sims around them try to cheer them up or calm them down.
I agree, Hates Children goes well with Serial Romantic. Rachel's going to be a fun sim to play, especially as Elise's best friend.
Super cool to see what that planet looks like! I have yet to get GTW (trying to finish up a few of the challenges that don't require it first).
ReplyDeleteI love all these kids! So interesting looking and such interesting personalities!
I'm partial to all my sim kids too :-) Rolling for traits, especially if you can re-roll if you get one you've done and don't want to do again, does give a good variety.
DeleteGood for you, waiting on GTW. When you get it, they'll have the hiccups resolved.