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. 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.
The Whittaker Saga: 1940s: Abigail's Legacy (11/03)
I was vastly inspired when reading the decades challenge, and as a history teacher, I could not stop myself from giving it a try. Of course, true to my nature or refusing to do things by the book, the first thing I did was break the rules. How? By creating as my protagonist a single, working woman living on her own! Gasp! Why? Partly because a story popped into my head, but also, partly, to honor the many women who - by choice or necessity - actually worked, and worked hard for their living in the 1890s. We tend to forget them, but the working women were there - from the hard working farmers that we often downgrade by calling wives, as if they weren't an essential part of the economy of the farm, to the working class women working as domestic help or in the factories where they were only payed half of a man's wages. So with that, I introduce Abigail Spencer, a single, working, middle class woman in 1890s Willow Creek: As middle class there is only a few jobs available to Abigail, that of governess or that of teacher. Abigail is therefore a teacher, teaching at Willow Creek Elementary School. She lives right next door to the school, in a small shotgun house with a few chickens and a patch of land to help her make ends meet (teachers really were not payed a lot during this time either). Obviously, her biggest goal in life is to find a husband, get married and start a family so that she won't have to work. (In fact, a teacher, as well as many other working women, automatically lost their job if they got married during this time.) But to get married, she needs to find a husband. Meet Willow Creek's eligible bachelors: Matthew Godeau: Matthew is one of the richest men in Willow Creek. A bit too old to still be a bachelor he lives with his widowed mother in Ophelia house (yes, eventually this family changed their names and became the Goths. Ophelia house is named from Matthew's mother). Pro: Matthew is creative, just like Abigail, as well as a romantic and would be sure to bestow lots of attention on a wife. He lives in one of the biggest houses in town, and is a wealthy business man. Abigail would have a good life with him. Con: His mother. Ophelia is a woman set in her own ways and she is not about to let some silly girl interfere with how she runs her house! Ophelia is mean, materialistic and an overachiever. She is not likely to see some middle class teacher as good enough for her son. Add that she has raised her son to be not only creative and romantic, but also incredibly self absorbed and the household may prove hard to be comfortable with. Joseph Whittaker: Joseph is a novellist, living in the stately Whittaker house, which with time, will be turned into the well renowned Willow Creek Archive. He has no mother (a definite pro), but two very young children. A son and a daughter, from a previous marriage. Pro: Joseph is a bookworm, just like Abigail and is sure look favourably on her past as a teacher. They are also both family orientated which means they are a good match in personalities and would likely find a lot of common ground. The house is ripe with books, and Joseph's two motherless children desperately need a mother to tend to their needs. With two live in maids it's a comfortable life focused on the family and the books she so loves. Con: Joseph very much mourns his dead wife, and keeps her picture on the wall over the fireplace. Can he ever truly love again, or will Abigail forever live in the shadow of the woman he loved and lost? Loyd Brennan: Loyd is the owner of Brennan's Groceries and Dry Goods, the biggest (only) shop in town. He lives with his sister Mary and their dachshund above the store. Pro: Loyd is outgoing and friendly and easy to get along with. He's self assured, but unlike Matthew, not self absorbed. He works hard and provides a good home. As a working man he does not mind a working wife, so Abigail would do more than sit around being pretty. He loves dogs, and anyone who does cannot be bad - right? Con: Living in a store would mean working in the store. There is no way the wife of a store owner is not in that store working along side her husband. Without money for a maid, this involves not just working in the store but running the household as well. The apartment isn't really big enough for a large family and unless Mary gets married, it's bound to be crowded. Then there is the fact that she and Mary does not really get along well. Paul Heydale: Paul is a farmer, living with his entire family at Garden Essence, a farm with a cow, chickens and a whole lot of crops. They're a tight knit family who works hard for what they have. Pros: Paul, like Abigail is both creative and family orientated. He dreams of becoming a painter rather than a farmer. By marrying him, Abigail would be wrapped up in a large family who would be there for her, something she'd never had before. His family is also very friendly, and Abigail teachers his younger sister and has already met and chatted with his mother and father and really likes the entire family. Con: Marrying a farmer would be a step down the social ladder, and the life of a farmer is hard! Is Abigail cut out for working out from early morning to late evening without ever more than making ends meet? And the house is crowded as is, with Paul's parents and two younger siblings (so far). Where would more children live? Is Abigail prepared for the hard life that accompanies this choice? Now I wanted to make a poll, but apparently you cannot do this in this section of the forums. So I'll leave you with a question instead - who do you believe Abigail will most likely fall in love with and why? Matthew Joseph Loyd Paul Finally, here is my Willow Creek in 1890: *** An important note about the future postings in this story: After trying and fighting the forum to get the posts up and running as they are supposed to work, I have now decided that it's simply too much work. Instead, I have started a blog that (hopefully soon) will contain all of the chapters from here and the old forum. I am currently at 1891 and moving forwards quite rapidly. Here the posts of each chapter will be replaced by a link to the chapters in the blog as I move forwards, though I will leave any comments as they are. The massive perk with this is that I do not need to worry about editing in all images manually, and the loading time will decrease enormously without them. The process of reading is also easier at the blog - and while the blog itself is in the wrong order, I have set up a list of all chapters in chronological order for new readers as well as a search function if you are looking for a specific chapter. Another perk is that I have some new options, like character pages where you can get a summary of each of the main character in the story (warnings for spoilers) and a separate page about the challenge, how time moves. I hope I will be able include a link to the family tree as well. It will take some time to get everything set up, and I do appreciate input in the process. I do promise that the story will go on, and hope you will keep reading it and commenting on it either here or on the new blog. Link to the blog.
The Many Lives of Mirana
My name is Mirana. Last name doesn't matter. It will change a few times. "Many" might be optimistic. I might get tired of the whole rebirth thing and opt for moving on. I started as an overweight elder with gray-brown hair and glasses. I acquired a cat, Enigma, and moved into Moppy Manor in Ravenwood. There I set to work writing my third bestseller. At the same time I worked on my bucket list, improving my photography skill and eventually taking a few pictures in Willow Creek and Oasis Springs. But my old life wasn't very interesting. Once I completed my Soul's Journey, there wasn't much to do except wait for death. I picked up a few tarot cards, explored the crypts, and even tried being a ghost. While waiting for Grim, I picked out the family would be reborn to. I had met Geoffrey Landgraab a few times and found out that he was family-oriented and good -- excellent traits for a future parent. I checked out his house while taking pictures and observed that it was spacious. A bit modern for my taste, but there would be enough money to change that, I hoped. So I made him my heir and the guardian of Enigma.👽 Miller Legacy 🛸
Sul sul fellow simmers! The Miller Legacy is my first Legacy Challenge and the way I found to explore the (for me) new The Sims 4 game in the moment I decided to buy it. It's the translation of what I originally posted in Italian here, and the new chapters are being posted on my blog here. I'd also like to point out that this legacy is currently being shared also on the parallel Sim Creative forum. This small forum has practically the same template as the old one and is not buggy, making it a very cozy place where to share the old conversations we used to have in the former Creative corner. I suggest you to give it a look! ;) Back to the introduction, with this legacy I'm basically novelizing what happens when I'm playing my game, introducing as many mysteries and issues to overcome for my sims as I can. For sure, the Miller's are not a family like the others. I'm not a fan of too strict gaming rules, thus my main rule is just: "reach generation 10 without cheating". This legacy is definitively more story-driven than rules-driven. So I'm not taking track of points in any way, often instead of choosing traits or careers randomly I choose what I think would be funnier for me to play or better for the story progression, I often move the family to new houses (not built by me because I'm a horrible builder) and so forth. In particular, I'm taking a lot of freedom about a certain cat, but also in that case I found a way for doing it without technically being cheating. As for the heir, I don't follow a strict rule but just choose the one for which I can imagine the best character development and who can give more in terms of story progression. The only rule I'm following in that sense is that I want every heir to be the biological child of the previous heir, because I'm curious to see how the genetics algorithm in TS4 work over a 10 generations span (consider this as a small experiment :P ). The full story index (beware, it's long!) can be found HERE. I'm closing this premise here because I don't want to spoil the story, so I wish you a pleasant reading through the most mysterious sides of this game ;)
Texansky's 112-Day Challenge Sims
This discussion is for reporting the progress and completion of my 112-Day Challenge by @BlackSand Edited to add: The link above no longer works. I had a copy of the original challenge rules from March 2016, so I "rescued" the challenge and put it on my blog. IDID NOT create the rules for this challenge, I am simply hosting it. Full credit goes to @BlackSand on the previous Sims 3 forums. I believe they are HotBlackSand on these forums. You may find the rules located here: BlackSand's 112-Day Challenge (rescued) I plan to create several Sims for the duration of this project. Each will be added as I work on their unique challenges along the way. Each Sim was created using random dice in CAS, from the name to their sign, traits, likes, and lifetime wish. The only thing that I personally selected was the Sims' sex and their current career for the challenge. I reserve the right to change the random clothing they were created with, though I will keep what the game assigned to them unless they look like a total dweeb. :wink: My First Sim: Lane Douglas Young adult human Male Aries Traits: Loves to Swim, Flirty, Vegetarian, Gatherer, and Snob Likes: Geek Rock music, Cheese Tofu Steak, Irish green Lifetime Wish: CEO of a Mega-Corporation Current Career: Education Everyday Outfit: Formal Outfit: Sleepwear: Athletic: Swimwear: Outerwear: Career Outfit:Precious Joy Forsythe Legacy Challenge
I started a new legacy challenge - the Precious Joy Forsythe Legacy Family Challenge. Precious Joy Forsythe is the first-born of the 10th generation from the Precious Forsythe Legacy Family Challenge. These chapters are published every Friday at 8:00 Central Time [13:00 GMT - on November 8th it will be posted at 14:00 GMT] Background on Precious Joy when this challenge begins.
