Sunday 3 July 2005

Pic of the day: A picture of our three heroes as teens in the Mayflower house, before they moved to college. From left to right: May (parent), Richard, Cara, Jenna (parent) and Maren. The subdued atmosphere just might be related to the fact that Maren had at this point kicked over the trash can three times in one evening... Youth is a difficult time, at least if you don't have Pescado's tools for eliminating unrealistic wants. (But you hear more than enough about eliminating unrealistic wants in my real life entries, I am sure.) Onward to the Sims!

Filler: My Sims

Today's entry will be about my Sims, since they surely lead more interesting lives than I do. How can you be interesting alone? Especially when you think of emotions as bodily functions, little more than by-products of the cognitive processes. In fact, people who use expressions like "cognitive process" are by default not living interesting lives. Well, my Sims sure don't use big words. They use speech balloons with a small icon in. A small, random icon. But what a tangled web they weave!

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The focus right now is on three college students of the second generation. Two of them are brother and sister, legally if not genetically. Cara (the oldest) and Richard Cameron are the two adopted children of Jenna Cameron and May Mayflower, the lesbian couple I have written about before. (Actually Cara was adopted before they married so on paper she is only Jenna's daughter, but this never was a problem. May has always been like a second mother to her.)

The third student is Maren Itland, daughter of Magnus and Magnhild Itland. (Magnus is roughly modeled on yours truly, except he has 1 social point instead of 0. You have to distribute all 25 points. Magnhild is a clone of Magnus but with XX chromosomes instead of XY. The two get along great, because Magnus gets along great with himself, QED.)

Cara used to live in the 16-student dorm at La Fiesta Tech, together with Melissa "The Cow" Fancey. This is the same cow mascot that Nerevar the Novelist fell in love with in college. Nerevar later graduated and moved back to Pleasantview. Melissa stayed at LFT, now as a regular student together with Stella Terrano, the green-skinned girl. And that's why our small band of adventurers are called the "Terrano household", even though Stella graduated years ago. As long as at least one member of the household is still studying, the household retains its name and all the money they may have accumulated.

Melissa originally lived in the largest dormitory at La Fiesta Tech, the one with room for 16 students. After Stella graduated, Melinda Itland moved in. She is the oldest of the Itland's children. While she lived there, they bought several music instruments and earned quite a bit of cash by playing them. Melinda fell in love with one of her professors. This was good for her grades, but she paid a terrible price for it. It turned out that he was the kind of man who will "hit on" any woman he meets, and simply cannot imagine that anyone would find anything wrong with that. Now Melinda hates his guts, but she still misses him every evening.

Around the time when Melinda graduated, Cara came to the college and moved in with them. Melissa "the Cow" was inducted into the secret society, and moved out of the household. She is still on campus somewhere, even though she has taken her final exams. She likes to party, belch and fart at the table, urinate in the shower and bathe naked in the spa. Cara was not too sorry to see her go, especially since her childhood friend Maren Itland moved in.

The two girls are around the same age, Maren half a year younger, but half a year older than Richard. The three of them were always together when they were teenagers, usually Maren came over to the Mayflower house to hang out with the two others. She and Richard were even in love for a short time. Actually Richard had always been most interested in her older sister, Melinda. But the age difference was simply too large for romance, and besides she had moved to campus while Maren was still there every day. So one evening he told her that he loved her, and they were in love for a while; but they did not take it any further. And when Maren grew up and went to college, they both forgot the whole thing. But now all three of them are living together. They bought a small house on campus for the money that the household had saved up over the years. They are still expanding it as money is coming in, but they are still sharing one big bedroom and one big living room with kitchen.

Since they began living under one roof, Maren and Richard have grown very close. Even though none of them have talked about love yet, they are almost always thinking about each other and wanting to do things together: Talk, play, even dance together. (In Sims2, each person has a row of "wants", from four to six depending on their level of education. Their wants depend on their life aspiration, their personality, their family status, their age and their habits. The "dance together" want is normally found in romantic relationships.)

***

Meanwhile, back in Pleasantview, the Itland twins - Martin (boy) and Mette (girl) - are also in their teens and looking toward college, as is their childhood friend Marsha Bruenig. Will history repeat itself? Will history even happen in the first place? Will the world be overrun by a new generation of small Itlands, and finally achieve global peace, lasting happiness, collective platinum mood and an endless supply of Elixir of Life? Or will the last Itland die loveless and alone in a small cabin on the outskirts of Pleasantview? Only Maxis' horribly broken random number generator knows...