It's Chandler's birthday. As he turns into a teen, he becomes a Pleasure / Popularity sim with a dream of becoming a cult leader. He's interested in entertainment, culture, fashion, work, and sci-fi. Definitely lots of Melissa in there!
Pizza for the birthday dinner...
...is followed by another haunting from Amin. Happy birthday, Chandler, now go change your pants.
This time, Orlando acts smart and leaves to wait the haunting out at a nearby 24/7 store. He buys coffee, chats with a cute cashier, and grabs some groceries while he's there. By the time he returns home, it's almost dawn.
Orlando: Shouldn't have bothered with the groceries, I guess. Bunch of babies, couldn't wait until I get back.
Cue the teen-level guitar angst. How horrible of Orlando's parents was to get him a guitar when he got bored of the piano. Woe!
Year 1 is over, Annie Rich is starting Year 2 with these stats.
To join Annie at the Flea Market Go to Page (74)
To check out the Waterside Warble Go to Page (75)
The ball's back in the Coxs' basket. 'Cause Kennedy is mostly into basketball, and he's showing Chandler his best throws while the weather still allows it. Meanwhile Orlando endures his mother's intrusion on him trying to make friends with his townie classmate. She just has to include herself, doesn't she, even though she doesn't actually care with whom Orlando spends his free time?
Uncle Benjamin is being... Uncle Benjamin.
Kennedy: Ben, what are you teaching my boys?
As we're moving on to the second season, I can start giving some stats. The first rotation was for me to get a feel for the neighborhood and see if I was going to stick with it. In real time, I'm well into the town's first spring by now, so I can safely say I am sticking with Townieville for now.
So, the stats. Traits are 99% randomized, I only tweak them if something really doesn't fit. Aspirations (secondary for adults and both for growing teens) are picked based of ~vibes~ An idea of how a certain sim is is then born out of the combination of their info and gameplay.
Kennedy Cox
Scorpio: 6/5/8/3/3
Fortune / Family
LTW: Earn 100000 Simoleons
Traits: night owl, unflirty, brave, natural cook, photographer’s eye
Kennedy is a businessman with a business tan. While he’s mostly into sports, he has a creative streak and likes creative women, which explains how he ended up married to Melissa of all people. Ironically, he’s a way better cook than his cook-wife.
Melissa Cox
Taurus: 5/5/3/8/4
Romance / Fortune
LTW: Become a Celebrity Chef
Traits: insane, star quality, born salesperson, commitment issues, vegetarian
Melissa is a huge narcissist, basically. She has to be the only cook in the kitchen, and the menu’s gotta be her way or highway. Naturally, it creates all sorts of setbacks in her career, no matter how big of a fish she presents herself as. Being a chef is probably just not for her but she’s dead-set on it. Also she’s a cheater.
Orlando Cox
Leo: 4/10/4/4/3
Family / Knowledge
LTW: Marry Off 6 Children
Traits: inappropriate, star quality, clumsy, brave
Colors: +black, -blue
Turn-ons/offs: +cologne, +charisma, -formal wear
OTH: music and dance
Interests: entertainment, culture, sports, sci-fi
Career: none
Orlando and his mother are more alike than he likes to admit. He’s not close with his dad either, but Melissa is a special case of nope for him, although he inherited her creativity and her social quirks. Because his relationships with his parents are so brittle, he dreams of creating his own family one day. It’s gonna be big and happy. As of right now, though, he’s most attached to his brother and to Uncle Ben.
Chandler Cox
Scorpio: 6/5/8/3/3
Traits: brave, over-emotional, supernatural fan
Colors: +blue, -purple
OTH: sports
Chandler is his father’s son through and through, but there are definitely some of Melissa's genes, too, especially when it comes to his ambitions. When it comes to Kennedy's genes... let's not talk about it.
Benjamin Cox
Sagittarius: 2/3/9/7/4
Knowledge / Popularity
LTW: Max 7 Skills
Traits: ambitious, hydrophobic, never nude, loser, kleptomaniac
Benjamin is the weirdest little guy. Grief changed him. A former extrovert, he became sort of a shut-in, spending his days on lone hikes and nights by a telescope. He has no desire to get an actual job, the ultimate crazy scientist type.
The family gets another dog. It's a beautiful lady that they name Screamer. Screamer is supposed to be a husky, but she looks nothing like it - that's what you get buying a dog online, I guess. Other than being a fake husky, though, it's a wonderful dog, and Stinker is immediately smitten with her.
Screamer is hyper, friendly, and also cowardly (2 / 1 / 3 / 3 / 2). The money is tight after the move, so she'll be following the Service career path.
Side note about Stinker: he turns out to be a singer. The whole family is fond of music, it seems.
There's a wolf problem in the trailer park, it being surrounded by quite a bit of wilderness and all, so the family adopts a dog affectionately called Stinker. Thing is, though... Stinker is a cowardly dog (2 / 2 / 1 / 3 / 2).
A bit about Roxie now that she can crawl. Roxie is a libra (5/7/5/8/10), very playfull and very nice. Being such a good girl, she's also kinda eccentric, if you can say that about a toddler.
Her favorite color since early childhood is pink, but she throws toddler tantrums when presented with anything purple.
Having lost her radio show in SimCity because of a poorly thought-out tweet, Charlie Williams took a DJ-ing gig at Radio 24 - the one and only station available at the highest mountain stretch of Route 24. The good news is, she still has a job. The bad news - she has to woman the station all on her own, living by a highway in bumfuck nowhere with bumfuck nothing around. Good times!
Charlie: Look, if I post an apology, can I go back to SimCity?
Management: Absolutely not.
Charlie is a
night owl, virtuoso, charismatic, ambitious, natural-born performer, animal lover;
aries (4/7/5/5/4);
popularity / pleasure sim.
She dreams of having 20 pet best friends (but that's not gonna happen) and considers music and dance to be her one true passion. She likes herself an athletic man with facial hair as long as he doesn't stink. Her favorite color is green; she's not a fan of white.
[The idea to play a "radio DJ" was partly inspired by the game Killer Frequency of which I watched a very cozy letsplay while working once upon a time. Charlie's OTH being music and dance was a very lucky coincidence. The radio station is, of course, more expensive than a single sim would be able to afford, but hey, it's technically all company owned!]
