Life in Pleasantville - Part 5 - Danika's trials and Kori's "true love"

 I have finished up all the empty shells in Pleasantville. The last ones completed were the festival lot, school, and the final house. Here's the final house. 

The main level has the living area, a full bathroom and an eat-in kitchen.

Upstairs has two bedrooms and room for a desk on the landing. 

It was quickly occupied by Elvis Case the potato face, who was extremely vain. I gave him a makeover to give him more character a little later on. Elvis was working at the new school's cafeteria until I switched to his household to see who had moved into the house. Elvis is flirty, unlucky, ambitious, a green thumb, and a vegetarian.  He wanted to have a high-quality garden, which makes sense. His favorite music is Epic.

 

The plaque on his house translates to " A new journey awaits you beyond Pleasantville," which makes me wonder if there isn't some hidden underground room somewhere with a time machine or something. If there isn't, there should be.  There seem to be a lot of plaques that hint at a secret that can change everything. The one at the fishing lot says "The letters accurately reveal the deadline for the revelation. Be careful not to reveal the secret you are about to reveal [uncover? discover?] Maybe there's something up there somewhere. 

I sent Elvis around to meet some of the people in the town. 

He met the bartender at the only bar in town, but kept rushing  back to the bathroom to check himself out or gussy up. Since he wanted a garden and to learn gardening, I sent him to the store to buy some groceries, including some things he can plant; (however, it's late fall, so the things he planted outside probably won't grow for quite some time. I gave him a couple planters that he can use in his dining area, and he planted some things there too. He also took a gardening class at the science center. While he was at the store, he met some of the kids in town: Shanta Blackmon and Michaela Butler.

(Shanta is pictured above.) 

After going home and planting some seeds, Elvis went to the Fall Festival.

(Building this took some trial and error as there are 5 versions with some items that stay year 'round and others that are only there for specific seasons. I learned that building any structures, for example a stage or gazebo, would stay the entire year, and there were some cases where I duplicated some items because I couldn't see them as permanent when I was building each season, for example the bathroom stalls. I don't have any pictures of each season because I'm in the fall so far, but winter is coming in a few days.)

It was at the Fall Festival that Elvis met Kori Coffey, and they really hit it off. 

In fact, I was showing him around the lot, when I got the notification that he was about to "be smooched." Here she comes! Easy, lady, we just met you!

It turns out Elvis didn't mind at all! 

The one in the robot costume is Danika. Who'd have thought that in a town this size there would be two sims running around making a spectacle of themselves in this way. (The other is Keenan Gold, the local fireman from a previous episode.) The toddler is Lynda Benoit. Apparently Danika was tasked with taking the kids to the festival. Her parents treat her like a nanny. I see her carting these kids all over town. 

It was just a few sim-days earlier when Kori discovered that her house was haunted. 

Garrett Dean made his presence known. 

I tried to get Kori to start up a conversation with him, but all she could do was ask him to pose. He was eager to take a shower, however, and woohooing with him was an option available to her, so what the heck. 

Afterward, Garrett took a little walk (or float) around the block to visit his son, I assume, since he stopped at the Hebert house before disappearing. 

 

Speaking of the Hebert family, Corinna's oldest child, Ellis has grown into a teen and is looking quite a bit like Sylvester Stallone in my opinion. 

He was randomly generated and placed in Pleasantville as a toddler, so maybe Sly Stallone IS his father. Or maybe I've just been watching too much "Tulsa King" lately. 

Speaking of teens, Danika should be aging up any day now, and she can't wait to escape this life of being the free nanny of the house. She apparently stayed home from school to watch the kids, and her dad shows up in his fancy duds coming from who knows where, and bawls her out for having bad grades! How is she supposed to keep her grades up, take care of a bunch of kids, and have a social life? She was forced to take a time out. 

Of course Kelvin and Zoe has to chime in on the matter, being the bratty little kids they are. (I took this opportunity to give Zoe some hair to make her look more "normal." 

After doing her time, Danika slipped away with Taylor Mattingly, the local babysitter. They went to a late movie. 

Where is Alex Blackmon, her boyfriend, in all of this? I'm not sure. The Blackmon boys aged up to young adults, so maybe Alex broke things off with her. I didn't orchestrate these two initially, they were just talking in the nursery, when it looked like Taylor was asking her out, so I had them form a group and go to a movie. I guess I should have paid attention to the clock because I think I got poor Danika in even more trouble with her father. 

"Oh why can I never catch a break?" she sobbed. 

"Your father sent me looking for you, young lady. Do you know what time it is?" the officer called. 

She put on a brave, defiant face, balled up her hands into fists, but went quietly. 

As predicted, Lawrence was very unhappy with her. 

Taylor tried to take the heat, and even offered to help Danika out with her studies, asking Lawrence to cut Danika some slack. 

When I spent some time with Kori. I had her go play-test the Fall Festival - this was before she met Elvis. The festival is one of the favorite haunts for the Benoit kids.

Danika was hanging out with Billy, her boyfriend's brother, when he was still a teen. Then Kori was invited over to the Benoit house for a party - and what a party it was. 

It was the night of a full moon, and Lawrence, the host of the party turned Zombie!

He was sitting at the dining room table preparing to eat with his alien daughter Zoe. Of course he has chosen the brain freeze dish. Apparently this didn't sooth the savage beast, because it wasn't long until Danika came home from the festival and he attacked her! 

Kori took everything in stride, the zombie host, the singed hostess, . . . 

but she decided to call it a night when Danika started zombifying. 

Who could really blame her? 

This wasn't the only party Kori attended while I was with her. Her neighbor Kesha Herzog invited her to a fancy-schmancy party, so she got all gussied up and checked that out. 

Other party attendees included Corinna Hebert and Billy Blackmon, now grown up. 

A few episodes back, Corrina seemed overly interested in one of the Blackmon boys, and I'm pretty sure it was Billy. Now he's of age. I get the feeling that Kesha still doesn't think he attention to the boy is appropriate. 

She seems to be expressing her concern about the situation to Kori. 

"I swear that woman's behavior is just barely within the bounds of being legal!" she confided. 

I guess she didn't have much to be concerned about, however. It turns out Billy has a girlfriend named Sandy Gavin, and they are getting serious. The name didn't sound familiar to me, and I suspect she too is an older woman, but I'll just have to put it on my list of things to investigate. I was going to send him, his brother Alex, and Danika to college, but if he's already found what he wants here in Pleasantville, I might just let him stay here - provided I can find a house for him. To be fair, he could probably move into to the starter home, and Kori could move in with Elvis as they seem to be glued to each other. 

I went back to playing him and heard some noise out in the park behind the houses. So I sent him out there to join the fun. 

He was sitting at a picnic table reading a book, when who should show up with her puppy in hand but the chick from the festival that had the hots for him? 

He said hello, of course, and she pounced. 

"Being outdoors turns me on," she confessed. 

Their public display of affection really got old lady Reisa McQueen's goat! "That's disgusting!" she groused. 

"Instead of standing around playing kissy-face, these youngsters should be doing something productive - like raking up all these damn leaves!"

While all this was going on I heard a slap fight. It was Corrina and singed Catrina. I'm not sure what they were going on about. It appears that Corrina had it out for everyone, and there was someone there with a camera to make sure the altercations made tomorrow's local tabloid. 

I think Kori suddenly had to go to work because she changed into athletic gear and ran off the lot. She called Elvis just a few minutes later. 

"Yes Kori, I miss you already. Good luck with your game." 

And that is what happened at the park that day. 

Before I end this, here's a look at the school. I only have overview pictures so far. 

The school is a three-story building across from the fire station. 

The main level has the rabbithole rug, the restrooms, the library (right) and a small cafeteria with a food register (left). Outside is a small playground and a couple picnic tables for eating lunch outside when the weather is good. 

The second floor has a regular classroom, a room for biology and chemistry, and a music room. (I have fixed the landing at the top of the stairs since there pictures were taken.)

The top floor has a rooftop observation area with telescopes, an engineering room, and an art room. 

That's it for now. More to come.