Tiny Town part 11
Here's what I know about Frank Stem.
In addition to having a green thumb and being eco-friendly, he also loves the outdoors, is a party animal, and is a coward. He quickly mastered the gardening skill, and his lifetime wish is to grow ten kinds of perfect plants. He has around 6 or 7 so far. He also has a fondness for playing skee ball, skinny dipping, and playing in the sprinkler. Once I got sprinklers to help him with watering, I always had to redirect him. He managed to earn enough money to get a greenhouse constructed in time for the cold weather, but it took a little while to construct and furnish his house. In the meantime, he stayed in Opal's guest room.
I have been making him concentrate on his goal of building his house, so he hasn't gotten to know too many people, and he was just acquaintances with his Tiny Town neighbors, though closer to Beatrice since they both share an interest in gardening. He also has been getting wishes to improve his cooking skills and learn new recipes.
I have decided to go with a barndominium for his house - I think it could be considered a "modern farmhouse." I built it on the diagonal, so it was a bit of a challenge placing walls inside. Here's how his lot turned out.
Most of his art work was donated by Azure.
Beatrice has been baking and gardening and occasionally going on dates. She hasn't settled on anyone, but seems interested in this guy she met.
His name is Terry Grossman, and he lives in the old Victorian house that used to belong to the crazy cat lady Hetty Lionheart. Beatrice dislikes children, so I think she wanted to make sure this guy wasn't wanting them either. He's not family oriented. He's easily impressed, handy, unflirty, a daredevil, and an animal lover. Beatrice is BFFs with Cyprus' dog, but she doesn't love all animals - especially the ones who help themselves to her garden like the neighbor's horse and this guy.
Cyprus gave Bea one of his harvester machines, but she isn't all that impressed with it. It seem kind of inefficient. I wonder if he can build improved versions of it. Maybe if Bea pointed it in the other direction if would work better. 😉
The elixir store has a red dragon in it, but I had placed the dragon under a sales table and it was inaccessible for the sims to interact with. I eventually moved it out where they could interact with it and one of my chuckleheads brought it home (shoplifted, I think.) Both Beatrice and Annie are quite taken with it.
Beatrice and Annie are still thick as thieves and enjoying spending time with each other.
They both learned martial arts and enjoy sparing and spending time together at the gym working on their skills.
Annie is still seeing Tracy Upchurch, but he never asks her out. All the elder townies and married townies are constantly blowing up her phone asking her out on dates, which I have her refuse. Tracy does call on occasion to talk and will come over if she invites him. I think they are both just a little too busy to take their relationship to the next level.
Annie is pursuing her interest in photographing ghosts and has extended this interest to aliens as well. She heard of this place called Strangetown, where is seems some extraterrestrials have taken up residence. She decided to go see for herself and perhaps provide the proof in photo form for an article. Frank Stem, having worked so hard to get his house finished, deserved a vacation, so he went with her.
NOTE TO SELF: Before sending Annie on a trip, make sure she doesn't have the snake charming basket or red dragon in her inventory! Trying to get her to do her job is a real struggle!
She went around town, taking pictures of the buildings and meeting the locals. Frank did some fishing and mostly just wanted to stay at their vacation house and lounge in the pool.
They stayed in the "Helluva Hacienda" (Front view)
(Back view with Frank enjoying the pool.)
I think this is a different version of Strangetown than I thought. There was one that was really popular that involved a trailer court and Juno Mars, but I think that one was taken down at some point. This one has "good bones" but needs a little tweaking. Some of the rabbitholes were missing, I think because I don't own the worlds that contained those particular ones. I had to place the movie theater and the spa. I found some rabbithole buildings that worked okay for this aesthetic.
There are some iconic lots replicated from Sims 2, including this lot.
I didn't do much to change this lot, but I fixed the inside to the "general store" because it looked like all the shelving was missing and there wasn't anything interactive to do there. One side of it looked set up as a cafe, so I put in a food register, and I placed Savvy Seller rugs and items on the other side along with a produce cart that items can be purchased from.
It was on this lot that Annie met her first townie, Viclund Curious. It turns out, Annie's ability to bore people to death pales in comparison to Viclund's.
Next, Annie went to the park where she met Erika Stark and tried to impress her by showing her the red dragon. Erika, while polite enough, wasn't that impressed. In fact, she was more interested in her book. There must be far stranger things in Strangetown than a silly little dragon, I guess.
"Excuse me, ma'am. Do you have a license to have a dragon? I'm in law enforcement, and I'm off the clock right now, but thought I should warn you that you need to register that critter or there could be some steep fines. Since I'm not on duty, I'll let it slide, but do be careful, won't you?"
"Thanks for inviting me along. The scenery isn't much to look at but the sunsets are spectacular. This is also known to be an award-winning fishing destination."
"Did you see all the weird potted trees around town? Is there something wrong with the soil here? Dang, I forgot I was a vegetarian! We need to head on home soon. I think I'm going to be sick."
Just before they left, Annie met her first resident alien. His last name is Smith, and I think he's the son of a Pollination Technician.
After they went home, I snooped around town a bit. The big city square seemed to be missing some trees. There were little fenced in areas that suggested there should be some kind of vegetation there, and the potted trees Annie mentioned were lining the lot. I added some trees in the fenced off areas a little later, but left the potted trees. This is Strangetown, after all.
The following morning, Annie discovered a little township just outside of Strangetown, called Dead Tree. It consisted of a small park with a dead tree, a community meeting house, a bar, one empty residence, a library, and a general store. The bar just had a self-serve bar and didn't have anything lively to do - it had a chess table and some book shelves and tables, so I fixed it up to be more fun to go to. There was also a dairy, which seemed a little sketchy looking into it. (I thought I took pictures of these things, but I guess it was Annie who took the pictures. I might have to borrow them from her.)
Upper left - park and meeting house; Upper right - bar, house, library, and in the foreground, the park; lower left and right, the dairy from two different angles.
One of the strangest things that happened to Annie that day was walking into the library and finding her alien doppelganger!
🎶 Her name was Lola. She was an alien . . . 🎶
This is Lola Curious. Neither of them has a sense of humor and can bore people to death. I didn't check, but I bet Lola's favorite color is red too! We'll meet up with Lola a little later.
By the way, in addition to fixing up the bar and labeling it as a dive bar, I also put a consignment register in the general store (which looked to have mostly rejected items from town garage sales) and labeled the lot as a consignment store.
Another place Annie visited was a so-called casino, that looked like it may have been a project where the investors started the project but ran out of money. It looked like everything was done, and some of the furnishings had arrived in boxes, but were never opened and set up. Also, a few windows seemed appropriate, and sims couldn't enter the building because it was built on a diagonal on a small foundation, and needed stairs, but stair can't be placed on a diagonal - at least that's my experience, so that had to be reworked.
For a casino, it's very small - much like you would find at a truck stop or some such place. I didn't put any neon signs on the outside, but looking back, that tall section could use some. This building was next to a general store of sorts, so I dropped a consignment register in it too and changed the lot type. Both of these were "no visitors allowed." There's not a casino lot designation, and I considered making it an arcade, but settled on a rebel hangout.
That evening, Annie and Frank went to a movie, and sparred while waiting for it to start, which explains their attire when they followed up their movie with a trip to the bar.
They got themselves a pizza and some drinks.
I think this bald dude wanted to try out some pick-up lines on Annie, but luckily she got a call which prevented it. I gave him a makeover in case he decided to try again.
Meanwhile, Frank was drawn to the alien playing the guitar. Her name is Chloe Curious, and I suspect, is the sister to Annie's doppelganger Lola.
She took a break to order some food, and Frank timidly approached her and offered her a romantic drink.
Relax, Frank, you're doing fine. They actually hit it off.
But the poor girl was exhausted and needed to restore her brain power. At least he now has her phone number.
Meanwhile, Annie was wondering if the drinks were worth the price they were charging for them.
I think the bartender is wearing a hi-tech aluminum foil lined hat. Probably not a bad idea.
All in all, Annie was pleased with the quality of the drinks. It's getting late though, time to go home.
The next day while I was snooping around, I came across the iconic Specter residence. I've never played Sims 2, but I know this lot by sight. Olive's graveyard holds her victims, most of them ex-husbands. This lot just has generic gravestones, however. I may have to watch a lore video, take down names, and create them as ghosts and move them in and place their graves so they can haunt the place.
On this day, Annie went to check out one of the public graveyards to see if there might be any ghosts that could come out at night. (All the stones are generic.) It was here that she encountered her doppelganger again. They grouped up and decided to check out the casino.
I think Annie lost 60 simoleons through the course of the evening.
Is that Nervous Subject I see? He must have escaped his house.
I think he was having better luck that she was.
Meanwhile, Frank stayed home and swam laps.
While he and Annie were away, Beatrice became concerned about the state of Frank's garden. I found her out taking care of it when we returned. What a nice neighbor!
Here are some more pictures Annie took on her trip.
Actually, the UFOs were taken here in town. I really love the one of the teen in the sunset.
She also had some photobooth pictures taken with her and Frank and her and Lola. One outcome of the trip is that Annie and Frank are now best friends.
In other news . . .
We had another shoplifter on the premises. His name was Lester Carlisle, and he looked like such a nice, respectable old man!
I wonder if he stole one of Azure's paintings.
Crime doesn't pay, Lester!
As for Opal, she's still doing what Opal does. She went on a date with Saul Fox, and Elias Alder showed up and was very upset with her.
"You airhead! How can you go out with him after being with me? Don't you remember the special time we had in the photobooth at Mick's Karaoke? I thought we had something special!"
"It was just a casual thing for me. Do you mean to say you fell in love with me?"
"I was considering asking you to marry me, but no more!"
That dude needs to find someone new.
"Can you believe Elias? He didn't even bother to buy me dinner, and he thinks he's in love with me."
"Well, it's definitely not love if they don't buy you dinner."
"Cyprus, do you think Elias really wanted to marry me?"
"I think he was just looking for someone to wash his dishes. And that's definitely NOT you. I went to get a bowl of mac and cheese from your kitchen and this blasted bowl is now stuck to my hand!"
The whole incident has put Opal in a strange mood. Watch out, everyone! She is the only sim to autonomously use the face painting booth one of the residents bought with their festival tickets.
I think Opal is losing her mojo. Frank is always using her hot tub and he likes to skinny dip. She's tried to seduce him, but didn't get past cuddling.
She also tried to seduce Cyprus again, but he blocked her kiss.
Cyprus has been getting lots to calls to go out on dates, and he's tried the Simfinder App as well. He met Bianca Quigley that way. Things were going well, but I think he was moving too fast for her because she gave him what-for when he kissed her.
All these people need to stay single until I finish this challenge anyway. We have 7 sims if you count Mandie, and I only have room for eight in my household. When the challenge is done, I'll move on to a different household and let Story Progression take them from there. I'm curious to see what will happen with their lives.
Here's the wall of fame so far. Next episode will be the introduction of Mr. Perch.
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