Reflections
This is less emotional than the decision to cease play in Drama Acres or to abandon the Genderswapped Uberhood after completing the Conquering Nose, but I wouldn’t have been playing and documenting had I not been attached to this neighborhood. So what will I miss most?
I have some couples I’m exceedingly fond of, which are unlikely to repeat in later iterations and even if they did, wouldn’t be the same. Vidcund/Monica and Lola/Gunnar in particular are huge ships that were so serendipitous that I can’t see attempting them again. Vidcund and Monica were a perfect storm of prickly responsibility takers and as for Lola and Gunnar - ! Gunnar all tenderness and repeatedly choosing to interact with her over her triple-bolt sister, obsessively work-driven, self-effacing Lola relaxing into pillowfights and talking about books - I heard them talking to each other as clearly as I ever used to hear Ernest and Sage Ann, and that’s the gold standard.
The two up-and-coming relationships I mourn the most are Anthea/Euclid and Kriemhild/Tycho. I love it when they pair themselves up. Quite apart from Euclid and Tycho being the children of my favorite, Vidcund, both these relationships had a lot of spontaneity and the self-propelling energy of couples made up of equally strong personalities that complement each other. Kriemhild would dominate most partners to the point of annihilation; but not Tycho, who was all set to be the guy who didn’t see all the girls hurling themselves at his head because his eyes were already full of the one for him. Anthea and Euclid have a more domestic potential, the domesticity of hard work and shared goals. He had a City Planner LTW; she was yet another Hand of Poseidon wannabe - what would Research Beach have ultimately become under their influence?
Good lord, Research Beach! It was a great idea and I really wanted to see it grow past the single apartment and two community lots, but such is life.
I had been looking forward to moving everyone into their new homes. Delilah was supposed to propose to Buck during the Singles round and then he would have moved into the smallest trailer in the Manufactured Homes and married her into it on Monday. Jill and Sharla wouldn’t have had many rounds to be roommates in before Gallagher and Gabriella graduated and moved in, but then they’d be waiting for Juan to graduate, at which time Sharla would abruptly be one person too many - but Isaiah would be graduated by then. Ripp, Ophelia, and Creon would move into the third trailer and start the second kid there. It would’ve been nice to see how that little community played out. I had some really cute houses set up for Kristen and Lyla (no General, no military housing!), David and Tank and Isherwood, Gavin and Tina and Gary, and the Love family to move into, but I’ll never play them now.
Kelly was supposed to move into the fourth apartment in Tech Center Flats; but would she and Meredith really have married, and would it have worked, with Kendall so fixated on Meredith? I’ll never know, now. And would Elroy Holloway and Emily’s baby (Thomasina? Emil? Lee?) have had time to interact enough to be friends before they finally moved into single-family residences?
Would Will Wrightley, Creon Nigmos, and Pippin Williamson have made a posse? Would I have been able to play Creon and Pippin as nonbinary, as they were shaping up in my head? Would Mitchie and Edward have worked out? Would Jared ever have gotten that first kiss? What would Gary Newson and Moon Williamson and Elroy Holloway have looked like? What would Mary Gavigan’s third child and Eric and Marla’s and Emily’s firsts have been? Would I have really gone through with Nathan/Zoe and how would that have worked out? Would there ever have been fallout from Eve’s true parentage? How would the new teen cliques have formed up? Would Matthew ever have gotten his act together? Would Isaiah and Juan ever forgive each other for existing? Would the Non-Sleazy Game Shack ever have reached Level 1?
But there is no place to stop playing a sims neighborhood at which such questions do not remain. That’s the beauty of the game, isn’t it? Always some new thing to try, some storyline to resolve and three others to set up, births and deaths and birthdays and graduations and weddings counting down toward. Sooner or later, the player has to stop playing, but - like the best books - we can see how the story would proceed, how life goes on without us in some nebulous plane where the boy and his bear are still playing.
The End