4 Seasons Challenge #2 - End of Summer: the first season

 4 Seasons Challenge #2 - End of Summer: the first season

First a brief bio on the characters:

Meet Vinny Winnibego: brave, charismatic, lucky, light sleeper, and couch potato. He aspires to be a fireman. He joined Aspen on her Walden adventure on a lark, and claimed he was doing it to make sure she doesn't cheat, but it turns out he must have had a crush on her. You can see by her traits that she might have been difficult to get to know in a traditional setting. He is blogging about his experience.

(Both were dealing with sunburn when these first pictures were taken.)

Aspen Colorado: loner, loves the outdoors, bookworm, frugal, and nurturing. Her lifetime wish is for a perfect body and perfect mind (maxing out athletic and logic skills).

Disclaimer: I didn't select traits for these Sims or make them with this challenge in mind. I created them to test out one of my 10x10 challenge houses and just grabbed them for the challenge as I hadn't really played them.  I thought they might not be compatible but be at each other's throats as their traits were so different from one another, but I guess opposites attract, and the heart wants what the heart wants.

Living was a little rough in the beginning. Sunburn, elusive seeds, and fish for breakfast lunch and dinner. (Aspen always makes a face when she eats - she either burns her food or it's fish, and she must not like fish very much.)

Vinny doesn't seem to mind the food, but by the middle of the summer, both were wanting to move to a high rise apartment. (wish cancelled 😉) I reread the rules and realize I was doing a couple things wrong.  They were taking cabs and didn't have the money for it. I bought them some bikes with the money from picking flowers, so that problem is solved. I also didn't realize they could buy one kind of each vegetable from the store to plant, so I did that as well, and now they have a nice garden producing well. 

I am allowing them to get coffee from coffee makers in town, make drinks from bars, and order drinks, but not food from professional bars. They are also not allowed to use candy machines, buy food at the festivals, etc. 

After one very embarrassing pants-peeing incident, (poor Vinny, how humiliating) they decided getting a porta-potty was essential as they live quite far from the nearest public toilet. They held out for the all-in-one bathroom, though in retrospect, building an outhouse and placing a public showerhead on the outside would have been much more expedient. Vinny is registered as self-employed angler and Aspen as self-employed gardener to keep them from taking a job when I'm not looking. As they haven't sold anything they caught or grew (stocking up for cold weather) they don't get any bonuses. Vinney has gotten a small donation or two from his blog, which surprised me, as every time I have had a Sim blog in the past, nothing like that happened. Still, they have only around 2000 simoleons or less in cash. They have a greenhouse recently built to prepare for the cold weather, and Aspen has improved her skill in gardening to the point she can plant some of the uncommon seeds (though not the rare or special ones at this point).

Vinny and Aspen had been directly selling the gems they found uncut, as I didn't think I had placed a gemcutter in the town (Storybrook lite) but just recently realized I had placed the school I rehabbed from a shell that was in Roseward in this town. It has so much the Sim can use and is much closer than the gym in this town. It even has an emergency shower in the engineering room.

Being a bookworm, Aspen has found a new favorite place to retreat from the heat. She used to go to the coffee shops and read from their limited selections, but this library actually has some skills books.

Vinny prefers the computer, so he can play video games.

Vinny has coaxed Aspen out on the town a few times and even got her to sing karaoke with him.

Even though this was marked as a "hotspot" the bartenders were the only people here except for them. This town currently has about 15 residents, and the rest are service people or paparazzi. Vinny has met some people, however, and is starting to get in with the rebel crowd.

This might be what convinced him to take advantage of this Sim's hot tub when they weren't home.

As for Aspen, she basically knows Vinny and the mailman as far as humans go, and she seems just fine with that. Her animal friends include a tortoise named Orlando that she caught and played with a lot until it finally escaped, a bird in the pet store that she likes to talk to . . .

She also, despite being frugal, fed the lizard at the tattoo parlor on the day Vinny was helping her with her logic skills. She doesn't have the animal lover trait, but I guess the combination of "loves the outdoors" and "nurturing" have created an affinity for animals of all kinds.

and then there's Balin, the unicorn that makes regular appearances at the nearby fishing hole.

Balin and Aspen are a little unsure of each other,

but their relationship is growing.

Meanwhile, Vinny has had some adventures of his own.

Neither Sim had space rocks in their possession, and none were on the lot, so I'm not sure why this happened, except that he was awake at the right time, but he didn't get pregnant (thank God) so I won't have to carry a baby through the winter. 

Vinny has been autonomously wooing Aspen, which is why I think he had a crush on her all along. Aspen has been autonomously reacting positively to his advances, but then changing to "safer" subjects. Both find each other a 10 on the attractive scale.

His persistence paid off, and by the end of the Summer, they were boyfriend and girlfriend. (I did have to nudge her a little to flirt back, but not much.)

We'll see what Autumn brings.  They seem to have a lot of fish and vegetables, so I think they'll be fine. They haven't been selling anything - just planting, eating, and using for fertilizer. Aspen earned enough happiness points to get the "immune to cold" reward, and I think Vinny will be able to get it by Winter.