At Casa Townie, things proceed pretty much as predicted last time.
The Romance sims begin falling in love.
Arcadia and Melissa are in adjoining bedrooms; they went first.
Everyone loves Melissa.
Later on I forgot that this had happened, with results that will be evident.
I was sort of hoping that Remington and Arcadia would also fall in love; that'd be a real "love triangle". But one day over at the Love Nest...
Remington walked by at the wrong time.
"How dare you cheat on me with Arcadia like I was cheating on you with Melissa!" (Note that the other Remington, the maid in the blue shirt, is fantasizing about some sort of Sally-Arcadia mixture in the background.)
Sally made up with him (mostly), but Arcadia didn't (I was too lazy to go back over into Casa Townie to ask her to); so Remington is not at all fond of his housemate Arcadia at this point (although she's still fine with him).
Meanwhile, the non-Romance residents of the house are having somewhat more placid lives.
Christy prospers.
Deep in her heart she's hoping someday to return to Team Hero (it's not her in-game LTW, but it makes narrative sense). Note the impossible way the sidewalk climbs the hill in the background.
The twins grew into toddlers (in a pair of birthday parties so utterly typical that I'm not even posting pictures of them). All of the residents seemed to enjoy having them around.
Joe tosses Rose (or Dawn).
I've lost track of which is which, yet again.
Although the place did get sort of cluttered up.
The Family Sims keep busy.
"We should change the mailbox to say 'Casa Toddler'."
Yet another toy.
Arcadia: "Sheesh, another toy to trip over."; Christy: "How nice, another toy for the twins."
Their Mom came by once or twice to visit.
Mutual recognition.
She didn't seem to take to them instantly like she did with Gabriel; too many other distractions in the house, maybe.
And they spent zoos full of happy hours playing and discussing life in the sun in the big hall, while adult life flowed on incomprehensibly around them.
"How about a huge chocolate elephant?"
More socializing babies! Although with all the adults around to play with, they didn't actually interact with each other all that much.
Eventually, they got bigger.
"Cool!"
"I look pretty much just like my sisters who I've never met!"
"Also cool!"
"So do I!" I could probably tell them apart if I was more observant. They should really meet Eleanor and Gina someday, too. I should have a big Raptor Reunion party. (Note Mitch and Joe swooning over how hot Arcadia looks in her red PJs and white hair.)
Mitch tucks in Dawn or Rose.
Awww! (He did this autonomously.) They're sleeping in his room for the time being. There's a Love Tub in the attic now, and some games and stuff in the basement. There's probably room down there for a bedroom too, though; we'll see.
So at this point, with the kids now able to access toilets and showers and beds and the fridge all by themselves, I decided to start a Bold Experiment in Autonomy at Casa Townie.
I resolved to allow any resident to act autonomously as long as (1) e was in platinum aspiration, (2) e didn't need to be ready for work in an hour or less, (3) I didn't need em for anything involving some other Sim, (4) eir needs were all acceptably high, and (5) e wasn't annoying me unduly. (Having the "no buskers" mod installed is helpful with that last one.)
Okay, so it's not a terribly bold experiment. *8)
It's been going pretty well. Some residents have shown unexpected interests.
Joe prunes the front hedge.
This reminded me that with six working adults in the household they can now afford to hire a gardener.
They do lots of things that I wouldn't have directed them to do.
Melissa likes the bingo machine; it reminds her of making out.
With a good income stream and a Fortune Sim (Joe)
to keep happy, we end up buying lots of stuff. And the autonomous Sims tend to go and admire the new acquisitions. There's a mod to reduce that, but I'm not sick of it yet; it's kind of endearing.
Christy and Remington play kickybag for a live audience.
I don't think I've ever told any Sim to play Kicky Bag, but they love it. (The Uni patch theoretically fixed the "leftover invisible bag" problem.)
Various residents admire the bushes in the twilight.
"Whoa!" "Hey!" "Yep, that's a bush!" "Wanna play Red Hands?"
And they tend to sort of ignore visitors.
Feeling neglected, Ivy Copur leaves through the back basement door.
First time anyone'd ever used that door, in fact.
But in general they do okay (well, for the couple or three Sim days that I've actually played them this way). Mitch even reached a very significant milestone.
Captain Fireman!
Team Hero decided to give him one of the precious spare Unobtainium-powered "flying and punching bad guys and being sort of invulnerable" suits, in recognition of his crime-fighting work as Chief of Police, and because there's been a rash of Criminal Masterminds lately. In the background, the twins check out some more new bushes ("Whoa! Bushes!"), and Christy misses her car-pool and thereby uses up her one vacation day from Police Detective. There may have been some bitterness involved over Mitch's success; she still dreams of one day rejoining Team Hero herself. Or maybe the stairs were just too crowded.
I don't adhere strictly to the autonomy rules above (this ain't no Challenge nor nothin'). Particularly during events like the Headmaster Visit.
One of the twins invites him over.
No need to wait for an adult to get around to it.
The visit didn't really go all that well.
Mitch burned dinner.
How often does someone with a cooking skill of like eight burn macaroni and cheese?
But the Headmaster ate it anyway.
"We don't have any chalk-boards; the school is entirely digital."
And Melissa was not the best schmoozer.
We got a moderate number of points from dinner, a small number from schmoozing, a small number from the tour (which the HM terminated for some reason after only like three rooms), and time was (well, was eventually going to be)
running out...
But the Headmaster must have been in a good mood; Rose and Dawn were accepted!
Maybe he likes chaos.
What actually put us over the edge was the ten points from the HM autonomously drinking some espresso that someone had autonomously made in the kitchen; clever Sims!
In the world of the Romance Sims, on the other hand...
"My God, you too, Melissa!?"
The first time Melissa and Arcadia woohoo'd, Remington was already asleep. But on this night when their wants lined up Remington was still awake, and I forgot that it mattered. It did.
Melissa reminds Remington of the complex nature of love.
While Arcadia gets back into bed.
All is friendly again.
Well, not all; Remington really, really dislikes Arcadia, having caught her with two different people he loves. We'll see if that has consequences as the Project goes on!
And that's all for this episode. Tune in next time for more pages full of 45K pictures of simulated people doing silly things!