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Sprottenham's avatar
Sprottenham
Seasoned Vanguard
23 days ago

The People of Simbria: Sunset Valley

Well, hi there. This is a story (of sorts) that has been going on for a while, so it won't be starting with the first chapter, but it doesn't matter to much, because it didn't start with the beginning even when I first started sharing it on the old forum. 😛

'Original' thread is found here, but I wouldn't recommend checking it out, because it lost all the images in the forum transfer...

The Concept

In general, the story takes place in several towns spread across a country called "The United Kingdom of Simbria", and now that the concept is a little more clear than when I first started out on the old forum, I will not lump everything together in one thread, but instead create one thread per. town. So, this thread will focus on the inhabitants of Sunset Valley - the small town that everybody knows, and which in my world is located on the southwestern tip of this country.

Map of the kingdom, with Sunset Valleys location marked with yellow text on the southwestern corner.

Sunset Valley Theme (Youtube)

Prologue: The Original Families. Moving into town.

The story of Sunset Valley began in 1977 sim time, when a young couple, Asgeir and Lucie Karlsen moved into town. They had moved all the way south from their hometown of Pamtere far, far to the north, hoping to settle in the city of Wad Nahadau, b ut the housing market in the city had proved to be much to expensive for them....

Asgeir aspired to be a world famous painter and writer and Lucie wanted to reach the top of the medical career. Since they used almost all of their money buying their first home at Water Lily Road 58 and as Asgeir's career as a painter and writer was a long way from taking off, they both started a job at the bottom ranks of the medical career. Camera technology was still very expensive and unaccessible to the general public back then. Only licensed photographers and the wealthiest of families usually owned one. Everyone else would either have to rent or borrow a camera, or go to the photograper to have their picture taken. Hence to tell this story, actors with pretty much identical looks and personalities were hired to reenact them moving into town....

Reconstructed photos of Asgeir and Lucie entering their new home for the first time. This is only what it might have looked like.

Asgeir often woke up feeling grumpy and irritable in the mornings, but this worked well enough for a while, largely due to Lucies kind and friendly nature.

Another couple, Ingmar and Eirin Motorsen, had moved to town just a month after Asgeir and Lucie. Ingmar wanted to move to town as he had read about the chess triumphs of H.K.H. Høigaffel and had early on felt compelled to become a world famous chess player as well. Ingmar was quite the slouch, but they needed food on the table, so he got himself a job in the medical career. His wife Eirin was a lucky and charismatic person, but often found herself struggling with forgetfulness and sometimes lapsing into periods of insanity randomly running off talking to herself. In spite of this, she got a job in the police force, where she is to this day doing quite well as a forensics specialist.



A reconstruction of Eirin and Ingmar engaging in flirtatious conversation in front of their new home. It's not that it's a trailer... it's just very long and narrow. ;)

Not quite one month after the Motorsen couple had moved to town, the young couple Egil and Frida Kråkesen moved in right next door to the Karlsens. Egil, a highly ambitious individual, quickly got himself a job in the business career, whereas Frida got a job in the medical career. Houses were much cheaper out here, compared to the capital city of Wad Nahadau, even in the suburbs. And who knows, they might just like it enough to make it their permanent residence.


Reconstructed photo of Egil Kråkesen admiring his looks in his new home at Water Lily Road 72.


Reconstructed photo of Frida Kråkesen reading the local newspaper in her new home.

  • Sprottenham's avatar
    Sprottenham
    Seasoned Vanguard

    New chapter Chapter 18.2 - January 2024: part II – The graveyard, mystical stones and voices of the past (and present). posted. This chapter overlaps in time with Chapter 6.1 - January 2024 - The nerd, the loser and thank you for the fish... (Lake Onebega/University) and continues off right after Oliver Freddy and Inge left for university.

    Quick Summary:

    As usual Ranveig stands outside for a while to wait as she watches them drive off into the distance...

    The next thing on her mind is to catch a death fish, so she heads up to the grave yard, because she has heard rumours that they may be swimming around in the pond there..

    Her brother Knut is also seen visiting the grave yard with his sons Anton and Bjørn-Yngve. Knut is as expected pretty terrified of the grave yard.. there are voices... but his sons are not. Anton points his father to a strange rock that has created a crater in a corner of the graveyard and wants to take it home, but his father is reluctant..


    Bjørn-Yngve meets a new teenager that has just moved into town, Sonja Bjørnøy. Sonja begins to flirt with him, and he eventually catches on to it, but at the end of the night as far as I can tell they both end up rejecting each other.

     

    Robert goes to the bookstore to buy the last of the books in logic and goes to the park to read it. When it starts raining he heads inside to the library and continues reading alongside another teenager (and Oliver Freddys cousin) Kleopatra Motorsen-Karlsen, as well as local police man Ethan Bunch.

    Ranveig has to leave for the night without getting the death fish she wanted, but she did catch a frog and a kissing gouramis whom she put in a fish bowl and named Mari-Ann just because she thought it was cute to cute to be used as bait. :P

    Robert gets his sleep interrupted by a phone call from Kristina Reppe (Inges sister) asking him to go to the school ball with him, which is inappropriate since both of them are already in a relationship, so of course he turns her down...

    ---

    This new girl Sonja Bjørnøy that showed up is a story progression generated sim, and if the situation between her and Bjørn-Yngve develops into a more serious relationship I will give her the same treatment I ended up giving to Oliver Freddys girlfriend Inge (who appeared first in just the same way as a teenager) and her family - that is to give her a non-default face according to how I see her as, and potentially some different outfits. I hope she shows up again and isn't just a one off character, but that's still out in the open. She may just as well never be seen again...

    Next update I'm going to switch household as one of Ranveigs relatives will celebrate his birthday and age up.

  • Sprottenham's avatar
    Sprottenham
    Seasoned Vanguard

    Back at university again

     Here is the next chapter, where Oliver Freddy and Inge return to university for their 6th semester.. I considered making a new thread for this one, since they are now travellling to a new town which has its own story as well. However after giving it some thought I chose not to because after all this is a continuation of the Sunset Valley story and for this branch we will be following a couple of sims who has their origin in Sunset Valley. Well, that and I don't want to clutter up the forum with to many of my threads. ;)

    Chapter 6.1 - January 2024 - The nerd, the loser and thank you for the fish...

    This link will take you to a new blog for the university town, which I have called Lake Onebega (see map in first post). The town has its own backstory which has been revealed in previous posts - it is basically a town and an area that once used to belong to the indigenous population of the Simbrian nation, inspired by the story of the Sámi people - the indigineous population of northern Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. The name 'Lake Onebega' is derived from Lake Onega in Russia where the Sámi culture is said to have originated.

    Quick Summary:

    Inge just barely gets time to set foot on the lot of their dorm before she receives a message from Jefferey Dean about missing a party invitation..

    The other students occupying their dorm arrive, and Oliver Freddy quickly walks over to Liz Tarry to have some friendly chat before asking her for a sample of her DNA.. he's going to need it to maybe, hopefully, one day figure out if its possible to create human/plant hybrids.. a pretty insane idea don't you think? :P

    Liz is hesitant of his question at first, but once he has taken the sample she is happy that her DNA is now in his hands.. perhaps a little to happy...

    Oliver Freddy continues the science-ing to make his first successful clone of a living thing, Ansgar the Anchovy. Even though the clone looks like a goldfish at first, it will probably find its anchovy form a little later..

    Inge then spends her time playing games at the Student Union, before getting another party invitation from Jefferey Dean. It's of course a swimsuit party in the middle of winter, because, well, why not.... Inge is excited about the invitation, but in spite of a couple of the guests even removing their swimsuits, Inge is left with the feeling that the party never really takes off and she starts to question if she's just not enjoying it like she used to because she's 'getting old' (even though she's only 21...).

    PS: Somebody dies in this chapter, but it's not a very prominent character, and in some way a version of this character may just exist for all eternity anyway.. :P

    ----

    Note: To keep things in chronological order the updates while they are are at university will alternate between covering what happens in Sunset Valley and what happens at university.

  • Sprottenham's avatar
    Sprottenham
    Seasoned Vanguard

    Now after that introduction I'll give you two choices that I think makes the most sense...

    You can start with the prologue (Chapter 0) that follows after the prologue explaining how I started this game/story...

    Chapter 0: What are memories but snapshots in time?


    ..where we follow Ranveig Motorsen where she has a dream about some strange person called Aaron* who, as it would seem, has invented some machine that for whatever reason forces her to look back at her own childhood...

    ..or you can skip everything in between then and now, and continue with the latest chapter posted.

    Chapter 18.1 - January 2024 - Family, lessons and a staircase

    In medias res has always been my favourite way of starting stories anyway.. don't worry, you'll probably learn what you need to know anyway.. 😉


    In this chapter we are at Ranveigs house - in the real sims world - where her oldest son Oliver Freddy along with his girlfriend Inge is going back for their 6th semester at university.

    Robert Bråge as a teenager is still undecided about his future. Does he want to go to university and study science like his brother, or does he want to live a more free lifestyle and become and author? And perhaps maybe he is ever so slightly jealous about his two year older girfriend Margrethe getting start taking drivers lessons soon this upcoming summer. ;)


    Inge makes sure to spend her last day in Sunset Valley for now wisely, hanging out in the park with her youngest sister and father. 

    The relationship between Oliver Freddy and Inge is as strong as ever, and Inge definately has their future mapped out... Maybe their relationship is going a little bit to strong for Ranveig still, but she has no choice but to settle with it...

    ..and then the kids are off again to start another semester of long hours of studying, partying and silliness..

    ------

    * The character known as Aaron was at first invented solely to have a reason to look back into the past as another foundation for the story, and to bridge the gap between the original sims moving into town and the more present day sims... but then again, maybe Aaron got his own story of sorts somewhere... if you can find it... 😉.. but before you try to find it, a word of caution. That story is of a sometimes darker nature than this one, hence it is also more hidden away and won't be mentioned much here from this point onwards... (it's also not at all up to date, but I am slowly working on it.... and maybe one day I will finish it...)