Adventureland #11- Relationship Drama; The New Folks

 We have some new families in town, but before I introduce them, let's spend a little more time with some of the established families. 

I was wanting Naomi Pyle and Graciela Gann to get to know each other and spend some quality time together since they are next door neighbors and both are elders who are married to supernaturals. They have a lot in common. 

I sent Naomi over to the Gann house, where she was met by Geraldo (the brick lover). He had been to the Russo's costume party the day before, and apparently was so fond of his costume he didn't bother to change out of it afterward.

Naomi went right in and made herself at home.

She and Graciela became acquaintances. She discovered that Graciela enjoyed painting, and suggested they get together with a few other ladies for a Sip and Paint party at the art gallery. Then Naomi went home to have supper with Denny.

They grumbled about the state of their home, but when you're under the werewolf curse, what can you really do about it? Maybe they could start by shooing the cat off the counter. That's so unsanitary!

I think Nova is looking for some bacon bits. 

Naomi set up the Sip and Paint party and went to tend to her bees before the party started.

She's been wanting to make an angry bees potion lately. She definitely has the angry bees, now if she can just bottle the dang things!

The painting party went well; Sally Hardy and Eunice Goddard joined the group. Graciela really showed them up, though.

Rocco Sample is always hanging around. Maybe he oversees these types of events.

I was switching back and forth  between all the group members, and went home with Graciela because I wanted her to stay and finish her painting. When she got home, Geraldo, still in his hotdog suit, was playing kicky ball in the living room with that sketchy dude Roger Kadukin.

It was getting late, and Roger was showing no signs of going home on his own,

so Geraldo had to ask him to leave.

Now on to Eunice Goddard and Jaron Belanger who live out by the waterfall.

Just to recap, these guys are roommates who know each other from high school. They aren't romantic. Jaron works at Plumbob Studios, but he wants to be a magician. He's a pretty good sculptor, and he has a degree in education, so I think he's one of those guys who hasn't found himself yet. Eunice, despite the witchy hat she is so fond of wearing, is really a werewolf. She wants to be an astronaut someday and works in the military career. She's a flirty party animal who dislikes children. She loves the outdoors. 

I tried sending Jaron to the  junkyard to collect some items to "refurbish" and sell at the art gallery, but for some reason this household's "storage box" isn't working. Nothing he collected was in the family inventory, and I couldn't move anything on their home lot to the family inventory. I reset the town, but maybe I need to reset the lot and/or reset the sims. I haven't tried using the family inventories of the other households yet, so I don't know if this is just a problem with this household or all of them. 

But moving on . . . Jaron decided to quit his film job and focus his energies on sculpting. Despite the problem with the family inventory, I discovered something I didn't know: sculptors can create sculptor's eggs on the gem cutter, even if they have no experience cutting gems! He found several gems of high value and did this, so worst-case scenario, he could sell those at the art gallery. 

While he was at the junkyard, he met Virginia Thompson. They struggled a little with building a relationship, though it started out positive. As it started to slide, I had Jaron back off.

He then got a call from Korie Devine; she had heard that he quit his job at the film studio and asked him out on a date. Maybe there's trouble at home for her? She's married to that muscle-head Cliff Fillmore, and they have two kids. I decided to have Jaron accept and see what happened.

They met at the soon-to-be cemetery, an open space next to the city hall, featuring just the mausoleum at the moment. They talked a bit about the film industry, and Jaron explained he reached the conclusion that acting just wasn't his niche.

Korie started making some romantic moves, and he responded.

They made a couple snowmen together,

Then the date started going downhill. For some reason, Korie started insulting Jaron's intelligence.

Perhaps she thought it was stupid to quit a paying job to become a "starving artist." He argued back, telling her that he hasn't seen her in any movies or prominent TV shows lately, so who's being stupid? At least he recognized that his talents lie elsewhere,

which triggered Korie's memory of her father trying to convince her to go into the technology field rather than acting.

For this outburst, Jaron was rewarded with a slap! (I was only observing during this exchange, wondering what was going on between them, so the slap caught me off guard and I didn't get a screenshot.)

Jaron told Korie to wait and see, someday he was going to be rich and drive fancy cars and live in a large, expensive house. She was clearly getting bored with all his bragging.

Then she showed off a cute little robot she had purchased online. According to the website, it was custom crafted and one of a kind. Jaron proved her wrong.

Of course the paparazzi were hanging around, so Korie's story of being swindled will be all over the tabloids by tomorrow. Buyer beware! The date ended on a sour note, which left Jaron ranting on about sunshine and happiness.

Then he went home to warm up by the fire and mull over the events of the evening. Did he completely blow his chances of a romantic relationship with Korie? Could they even be friends? Why didn't he control his temper?!

I thought there was probably no chance for Korie and Jaron, but I could be wrong. The next evening the Wonzys had a party and invited Jaron and Eunice. I was focused mainly on Eunice, but I caught Jaron and Korie dancing together, so maybe they mended fences.

Eunice's goal was to meet and mingle and see if there was anyone she was interested in romantically.

She went up and introduced herself to Anton Bain, who immediately began to mock her!

"You think you are such a party girl, do you? Is that your party hat?"

Meanwhile, Gwen is wondering how sketchy Roger Kudukin got into her bedroom. 

"Anton, you don't know how stupid you are, mocking me!"

"You'd better run, Anton!" I can't believe Gwen invited this jerk! (Anton is thinking the same thing.)

"I'm so sorry! I didn't know! Have mercy!"

Too bad! In her anger, Eunice delivered the werewolf curse! Then she went home and called her friend Jack Ransone about her embarrassing experience at the party. 

Don't mock a werewolf!

It's time to leave this household and move on to some of the new residents. 

Meet Boyd Medley, he is a loner, but also a schmoozer, so I guess he excels at socializing, but doesn't enjoy it. He is also artistic, a savvy sculptor, and a bookworm. 

He took the initiative (or rather the game's AI did) of moving into the Teeny shell challenge house because I forgot to remove the fridge before going back to live mode. 

This house was designed to be a three bedroom house, and I was wanting a family to live here, so I improvised.

I changed one bedroom that originally had bunkbeds into an art studio. As for the other, it was intended for a teenage girl. Also, there's a lot of purple in this house, but that's not Boyd's favorite color. His favorite color is orange.  You might also notice someone sleeping in the purple room. This is Boyd's niece Lakisha South, whose parents recently died in an accident. Lakisha's mother was Boyd's sister, and being her only living relative, Boyd decided to shoulder the responsibility of raising his niece. They don't know each other well - they are barely acquaintances as Boyd lived far away from his sister and never had the chance to get to know Lakisha. Most of the furnishings for this house came from Lakisha's home - her mother's favorite color was purple. 

Boyd and Lakisha are new to town. They just moved here when Boyd accepted a position at the local school. Lakisha has questionable choices in TV programs, preferring scary and suspenseful programs to the kiddie channel.

Boyd thought this was a good opportunity to get to know her a little better. He asked her if she liked going to school and told her that he is looking forward to meeting all the students there.

He asked her what she liked to do for fun, as Snowflake day was approaching and he had no idea what to get her for a gift. She said she used to cook with her mom, . . . 

and her dad used to take her fishing.

Boyd told her that he liked sculpting and painting in his spare time.

He heard there was a nice art museum in town as well. Maybe they could go there together sometime.

Lakisha said she liked art too, especially if it was "spooky" art. Then they went outside and she told him a ghost story.

Boyd doesn't know if all this fascination with spooky things if healthy for a growing child, but he's never been a parent before. Maybe he's just out of touch with what kids do outside of school.

The next day, Boyd sent Lakisha to attend a fishing class as he was not very skilled in fishing, and it seemed like something she wanted to do. While she was taking the class, I lurked around the grocery store and watched the other sims. 

I was taken aback at seeing Jaron wielding a sharp object in a dangerous way! The guy is definitely glitched. 

Later that afternoon, Boyd took Lakisha to the school to look around and get the feel for what to expect on her first day. It was a Sunday evening, and a full moon. He and Lakisha painted together for awhile, then she went home. It was probably just as well. There was plenty going on to feed her obsession with spooky things.

Boyd completed a sculpture - his first one. He did a good job.

The next day was Snowflake Day, and Boyd and Lakisha took some time to explore the town a little, getting some groceries and going to the bookstore and second-hand store. Then Lakisha wanted to go ice skating on a pond. They went together, and Lakisha tasted snowflakes while Boyd tested out the ice to see if it was safe.

Boyd felt the ice was a little too thin for skating, so instead Lakisha played in an igloo while Boyd built a snowman.

As the day came to an end, they returned home, where Boyd presented Lakisha with an aquarium and a goldfish. As she slept, he decided to create some "spooky" artwork for her to display in her room.

We'll let these guys get settled in while we go meet the other new family who moved to town. The Whipsnake family includes Zac Whipsnake of Appaloosa Plains, his girlfriend Sonja, and their toddler son Antwan. At his point in his life Zac is an elder. 

Here is what The Sims Wiki has to say about Zac.

Zac Whipsnake is a pre-made young adult male Sim who is 18 days away from becoming an adult and lives in Appaloosa Plains with his roommates. He has four riding skill points (despite not having a horse) and one skill point in cooking. He is also doing poorly at his job and needs to improve and gain three more cooking points in order to be promoted.

As his biography states, Zac is often mistaken for a mean-spirited man because of his gruff appearance and rebel attitude, but in truth, he is only over-emotional and all he wants to do is become a celebrated chef. He also has the Pyromaniac hidden trait, which can allow the player to make Zac set something on fire, which he can easily put out because of his Daredevil trait.

It appears Zac has given up being a chef for a living or he wouldn't have moved to a town without a restaurant. 😉 Instead, he autonomously decided to be a computer hacker. He does look angry all the time, but he's an attentive father to his son Antwan Sw0rd.

Antwan doesn't have the Whipsnake surname because Zac has commitment issues and never married wild child Sonja Sw0rd, who is the granddaughter of Sunset Valley's Cycl0ne Sword and the sister of my LEPacy heir for the 3rd generation. I was torn between choosing her or going with her brother Stanley for the heir, so I decided to save her and her household to the bin and follow Stanley, coming back to play her at a later time. Now is the time. 

The relationship between Sonja and Zac isn't the greatest. In fact I think Zac might leave her when she ages up to adult, (going out to find a younger companion). But like I said, he seems rather fond of his son, so maybe he'll stick around for his sake. 

Sonja is a party girl and a rebel. In fact she was driving me crazy with getting on her soapbox and ranting with the speaker thingy while the baby was trying to sleep, so I took the speaker thingy away from her. She and Zac have this thing going where he flirts with her or kisses her, and she starts responding, 

then she autonomously throws him a kiss because she has the irresistible trait, and he gets creeped out.

This has happened three times so far. . . 

I know, Sonja, I'm as confused about it as you are. Maybe you need to lay off the blowing kisses and opt for other romantic overtures. 

Sonja wanted to join the law enforcement career, which is interesting as what Zac chose to do for a living is pretty shady. After she took the job, she went downstairs to the cafeteria for a snack and met the barista. They hit it off. I wonder if a romance might form between them. I gave him some facial hair to make him more interesting. 

They enjoyed gossiping, but the relationship didn't grow. I noticed that I turned Story Progression off, which might be why all these relationships aren't advancing. Now that there are more people in town, I think I'll turn it on, at least for a little while. I don't think anyone will move, but if they all start pairing up, I expect I'll get a lot of notices that there's a housing crisis. Maybe I'll turn it on and off intermittently. I also have aging on, but with a long life span rather than my usual "normal." 

Upon returning home, Sonja went to take a shower in the master bath, while I sent Zac to do some tinkering on the computer because I don't see any hacking options yet. Before you know it, the computer and Zac are on fire!

He takes off to the shower in the main bathroom to put himself out. Meanwhile, Sonja comes charging out of the master bathroom.

"Oh my!"

"Zac! Zac! There's a fire in the bedroom! Fire in the bedroom Zac! Where are you?"

"Fire! Fire!"

"I've got it! No worries!"

Then he goes outside where Sonja is waiting (She left the baby in the living room in her panic, I guess.)

He starts flirting; she blows him a kiss . . .

"Stop it! That's so gross!"

"What is your problem, Zac!"

These guys sleep in separate beds as they aren't even at the friendship level. Will this relationship last? Do I need to bring in my psychiatrist from Barnacle Bay? More to come.