Tax season!

It's tax season in my game. I do try to run my neighborhood like an integrated 'hood, I just focus on the story aspect of it because I'm not too great with details.

Tax season is a great time for me to catch up on all the other families in my game. I really do enjoy playing them all, but rotation playing is not for me. Mostly because I don't play on any sort of schedule. I pretty much play once a week, sometimes less. (And even while playing Sims 3, I get hankerings to play my hand crafted neighborhood.)

Since I've been visiting all the families, I figured I'd share the stories of some of those sims who are not part of the main story, but who I love all the same. I sort of hesitated to throw out characters that I might not write about regularly, but why not? These characters often appear in background shots, or they might become a part of the story. The war idea is brewing, and I'm thinking about how to build up an army of playables. *rubs hands evilly together*


Let me start with Ariana Mellon (17)...


Ariana is the daughter of Lucy Hanby, and the niece of Ann Mellon (my crazy witch who's now in hiding).

She lives on the Mellon farm in the outskirts of town. A large chunk of her day is spent trying to get her lazy twin brother Adam (also 17) to help her take care of the animals and the small crops. The rest of her day is usually spent at their little shop with her mother selling pies and fresh produce to the town. The last part of her day is spent preparing pies for sale the next day.

You must see the problem already, can't you? She has NO life. From time to time, she'll get out of the house on a weekend and go hang out with the normal kids in town, but even then she feels out of place. Everyone knows her story, even if they don't know her. Mention her name and the automatic association is "Lucy Hanby, service NPC" which then leads to the rumor "they got kicked out of the Legacy House."

Ariana is the third girl in line snickering at the fallout from a Kate fart.

Sims have asked her before about it. It annoys her to no end. For the record-- they did NOT get kicked out. Her father, Walter Mellon, moved out to the country with Lucy. And then they had like seven kids (six living currently). Walter moved the family to the farm because he enjoys the life and the time they spend together.

Ariana's parents-- aren't all couples in love just like this?

Though it has to be tough for Ariana. Since the day she became a teen, she wanted to fall in love. Growing up with lovely dovey parents like Walter and Lucy has to have some sort of effect on her view of romance. Perhaps she thinks that people literally (and I really do mean literally not figuratively literally) just fall into love. They stumble across it like they find a good TV program. He'll just be there, and she'll be interested, and after having a wonderful conversation over some coffee they'll just know. After a few babies, they'll grow old together and make out on the front porch just like her mom and dad.

******

I thought I had more pictures of her, but I was surprised to find out that I really don't. Ariana is one I'm always watching. Nothing much has happened in her in her young life (no first kisses or boyfriends), but there's something about her... I suppose it's that I see her as a slightly sad sim waiting for the type of impossible sim love her parents have.

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Inside the farm

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.


With the family farm house, I wanted to make a gift for a family of sims that I have come to enjoy. So I wanted a house that I would also enjoy.

I know it is silly to give a token to a sim family like that, but they are my pets since I can't have a true pet.

So I started with the kitchen. I scoured web sites with sim content to find the perfect start to Lucy's kitchen. In the old house, the family seemed to spend a lot of time together in the kitchen. And not always eating. The kitchen was right by the front door, so if guests called on the family, everyone would end up in the kitchen chatting, kids dancing, and Lucy and Walter taking turns serenading each other.

I found the perfect set for Lucy's kitchen. This basic set at MTS2 by buggybooz was perfect. I didn't want a country kitchen again, I wanted something different, something basic but natural.

For the family table, I use MsBarrow's country buffet table so that everyone can sit down comfortably together. Family meals are an important tradition in my hood.

The wall paper is from Tamalfra at TSR, and is the only country kitch I let Lucy get away with. The rest of the house is done in basic colors (except for the children's rooms, they get little murals for fun.)

Here's the living room, complete with a family photo!

Living room

Everyone gets their own room. Upstairs we have four rooms and a bathroom. Each room is fitted for each child with a bureau, a side table, bed, desk and chair and each in different styles that are appropriate for the sim who will be using it. This is something else that I felt was important for the family. Before, in the cobled together home, everyone was two to a room with a spare bedroom downstairs and behind the house.

Children's rooms

Here are pictures of the little old stable where they keep their animals. (The blocky thing there is a fish packing station from Paladin's Place. This family also sells fish by the carton on the strip.)

Here is Ariana feeding the cows. The cows were a great success. They reproduce quickly, so quickly that the family has to take them for meat, after taking their milk of course. Then everything is sold at The Fishmarket which should be renamed "The Farmer's Market" now and placed closer to the highway.

Most importantly, the family is now next door to Daniel. They can help him with his farm and he can come over for meals.

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Ugly kids, but an adorable family

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.


Walter Mellon, Ann Mellon's twin brother, married the maid. It was not the most ideal situation, and most of the other sim in the community did not make much of an effort to hide their contempt. So Walter and his wife, Lucy (née Hanby) moved out to the country to raise their children.

All the kids started out cute, but once they reached teen years, it was clear their faces were doomed to be horribly misshapen!

Poor Stephan was their first child. Here he is as a teen showing the beginnings of the facial deformity that would affect the entire family. Stephan, knowing that no sim would truly love that face, fed himself to a cowplant.

Do not worry. I am not just killing their children off willy-nilly, although I had considered it, I must admit. But their family grew on me. Because Walter and Lucy are so much in love (three bolters, so if I leave them alone for a minute he's singing to her or they're slow dancing), I allowed them to have quite a few children before the oldest became old enough to highlight the deformity. By then it was simply too late. The twins had been born.

Family picture! Left to right: Aden, Lucy,Walter,Daniel Next row: Adam, Ariana, Phillip

I took a family picture of the family today so that I can make them a family portrait to put in their brand new living room!



I built them a new home to live in. It was silly for them to have to "commute" over to Daniel every day to help him with his farm. So now they live right next door to him! Thanks to Phillip's influence (he's our future entrepreneur) the family will now focus on live stock, including fishing.



For fun:

Hard to tell, but the puppy is watching TV. XDD

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