Monday 31 August 2009

Ketchum

Round 19: Spring 2010
Lake Draper is 53, Ottilie is 50, Rose is 15 and Patience is 8.
(Joanna Gottlieb is 15)

Narrated by Rose Draper (warning: partial nudity)

Ever since I broke up with Luc, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Joanna. I think I might really like her. Is that bad? To be thinking of dating someone else right after breaking up with someone? Anyway, I haven't told anyone except Cordy but I guess I'll probably need to say something to Joanna eventually, huh?



I invited Joanna over after school to "test the waters" and see how it went. But wow, she really likes to talk about studying and school! The whole time she was over, that was pretty much all we spoke about.

When she stood up to leave, I think we both felt a little bit awkward. Maybe she knew I liked her?

I reached for her hands, hoping that if she wasn't interested, I could lie and say I didn't mean anything by it.

I must have been lost in thought because I didn't realise Joanna had leant in to kiss me, so we ended up bumping noses instead.

After an awkward giggle, we finally kissed for real.

I was prepared for Joanna to not be interested - what were the chances that she'd like girls too? - but I'm really glad it didn't work out that way. I'd like to go on a real date soon but Joanna loves studying about as much as she loves talking about studying. She really needs to let her hair down a bit.

But Joanna has been a good influence on me. I'm studying a bit more and I have an after school job at Mum's law firm - just answering phones and stuff. I'm hoping I can get a scholarship if I do well enough there.

I think Luc might want to get back together with me. He's been leaving weird gifts outside our house (a floor mirror? Huh?). We've been able to become friends again over the last couple of weeks but I hope that didn't give him the wrong idea.

Mum has been nagging Dad about starting up my grandpa's shop again. He's been dragging his heels about it and it's even worse now that Drusilla (Grandpa's former employee) is gone. He's going to have to find a replacement, and that'll mean more work for him.

Mum would do it herself but she hasn't been well lately. She doesn't have much energy to do anything apart from lying in bed. She's sleeping in my grandparents' old room, because she's not sure if she's contagious.

So we're picking up the slack with the housework. Well, Dad and Patience are. I have to admit, I haven't really done that much to help!

Dad was bringing Mum her breakfast one morning, really early, when he found her body crumpled on the floor. Of course, we'd heard about people in this neighbourhood dying of the same illness Mum had but you never think it's going to be someone in your family.

Especially not your mother. I feel like we didn't even get to spend very much time together near the end. I've been so preoccupied with work and school and Joanna.

To make things worse, Dad has been flirting with other women. It's only been a couple of weeks! I don't know, I guess he's lonely now but it doesn't seem right.

When we all went to the shop on the weekend to prepare for reopening, I felt like asking him about it, asking him what he thinks Mum would think. I didn't though. I don't really feel like getting into it with him. So I just kept my head down and continued studying all the different pottery techniques. When we reopen, Dad is going to need my help to keep up with the stock. Neither of us is as talented as my grandpa was.

Random pic:

Patience being ever so helpful at the store. She pretty much swung on the refrigerator door the whole time until I bought her an arcade machine to play with instead. Typical kid.

WHAT?!? That's Kendal naked on the bed with Lake, by the way. And yes, they did woohoo. I didn't quite know how I'd work this in, seeing I wanted to write from Rose's perspective and there's no way she would have seen this.

Notes:
  • I'm still tossing around some ideas about how (or if) I'm going to write this into the next Clarke update (which will be Summer 2011). It's a little out of character for Kendal but it might make some nice conflict for her. You know, because she hasn't been through enough!
  • If you're curious, Ottilie's death was not planned or an ROS. Just another tragedy my game felt like inflicting on me. I think I might be a little sadder about this than I was about Samson, though his death was very sad too.
  • Last update of Round 19 (the Royces) should go up within a day or so, along with a round summary!

19 comments:

  1. Gosh, that realistic sickness mod is a killer-I don't think I could handle that much death.

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  2. Awww! And see, we were just talking about your Sims dying of illness in one of your recent entries! The poor family! RIP Ottilie :(

    And wow, Lake jumped right back into things, didn't he?! I guess everyone copes differently. Though it kind of makes sense, I think, that he and Kendal might find comfort in each other. Maybe you could imagine he was the aggressor, and she, being so solitary, welcomed his company?

    Isn't she quite a bit younger than him? (not that that matters for a casual thing...)

    But awww, so sad. Rose and Patience are just about exactly the ages my Summer and Ryanne were when they lost their mom :(

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  3. OMG! Is there a plague going around in Sullivan?! It's too sad for Rose and Patience... Lake seems to have a different approach to grieving though. Is that Mina flirting with him? Wouldn't surprise me if it was.

    I'm glad Rose has Joanna to help her get through this.

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  4. Realistic Sickness strikes again. I just added it into my game and now I am nervous. I hope now of my sims get sick and die.

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  5. Lake didn't waste any time did her and my god I'm way too scared of the realistic sickness to use it. I'm not sure I could stick to its results

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  6. Oh poor Ottilie! What a sad update for her family. I'm surprised how fast Lake moved on, wowza dude. Hope everything goes ok with the girls.

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  7. Oh my Kendal! Well, it's nice to see her out.

    Another sickness death. I'm thinking I might have to get that mod for more unpredictability. I just don't want it to kill off a character that I feel I need. XD

    And I just loved the pictures of Rose and Joanna. That suck face interaction is SO appropriate for their first kisses in such an awkward situation.

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  8. Thanks everyone!

    I had set Ottilie up on the bed reading and was focused on the other three Sims and I wasn't watching poor Ottilie. I'm still surprised she died though because I had *just* done maxmotives! They really do need a lot of TLC with Realistic Sickness in.

    To those of you thinking about that hack, the first time I put Realistic Sickness in, I had a Sim die! It was Justina Nihill (nee Novak), who I'm not sure how many of you remember. She was a teen at the time and I had her mother or brother save her. I was so sure the hack was cursed and was going to kill all of my Sims but the next Sim to get sick was Steffi Gottlieb (Mina, Petra and Nathalie's mother) and I took extra special care of her and she survived, without soup or orange juice. So it can be done but you really need to watch them.

    If one of my very favourite Sims died, it would take all my power not to save them. I say I have a no plead rule and I do but if someone dies and I don't like the direction I'd have to take the family after that, I reserve the right to change my mind. It's my game, huh? LOL.

    Laura, yes, there's a pretty significant age difference with Lake and Kendal. Lake is 53 and Kendal is 34.

    It definitely wouldn't be something Kendal would initiate (even though in game, I think she actually did) so Lake as the aggressor is the only way it would make sense to me. I'm glad I have some time to mull it over before I play them though. I'll be keeping a close eye on both of them as I play the other families!

    And I still get sad when I think about Summer and Ryanne, even though they seem to be doing well now.

    CissieMae, yes, that is Mina! I know you're all shocked. It figures she'd coincidentally come sauntering by the house to console a new widower.

    I'm surprised this is the first we've seen of Lake's Romance side actually. When Ottilie was alive, he had the generic "3 woohoos" style wants but nothing specific. He was faithful to Ottilie without my intervention, which was nice.

    "Suck face" is a godsend for bloggers and story writers. It fits much better for most first kisses than the actual first kiss interaction! It's so cute. I love the nose bump and how one of them lifts their leg up!

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  9. Aw, the first kiss between Rose and Joanna was so cute. :) I do love that "suck face" interaction, it is great for pictures.

    OMG, I wasn't expecting Ottilie to die! :( But wow, Lake is jumping right back into things pretty quickly, isn't he? Although maybe he just needed some comforting to cope with his loss, like my Sunny did when Cecil died and she slept with Eric Lloyd.

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  10. I wasn't expecting her to die either. I just glanced over at the panel and realised she was gone!

    I don't know about Lake. Maybe he's just lonely or maybe he's just being kind of a jerk. I'm not playing this family again until Summer 2012 but the Clarkes are up next and I'm wondering if I might get a handle on his behaviour from how he acts with Kendal.

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  11. she swung on the refrigerator? I've never seen that....now I want to. LOL.

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  12. They'll swing on the fridge if there is *nothing* else fun to do. Teens will do it as well. It's probably rarer than it was in the base game because they have fun stuff they can do that doesn't require objects when you have all expansions - skipping, blowing bubbles, etc. But as you can see, it does still happen.

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  13. Ahh so this must the tragedy you mentioned when I read about Samson dying. Man, it does seem like you had some kind of plague! I do have realistic sickness installed but my last sick sims got better before I knew about the mod. We'll see if it happens to kill off any favorites.

    But.how surprising that Kendal was there. I can't wait to see where this heads :)

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  14. Danielle, yeah, I think I used the word "drama" over "tragedy" but yes, this is what I was talking about! The whole story arc continues for a little while yet. I was so surprised to see Kendal on that bed though! They were on the bed before I even saw them walk in!

    I haven't had a Realistic Sickness death since Ottilie, I don't think. I always feed them soup when they get sick. Samson died because the soup didn't work and Ottilie died because I wasn't paying attention!

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  15. Haha that's right. "Drama" was the word. I would have been surprised too. Sometimes I wish ACR paid a little more attention to the sims personality. I had shy sims doing all kinds of crazy things. But then you wouldn't have nice surprises like these.

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  16. Sometimes I wish that too and I definitely did when this first happened. But then I thought of two things: 1) Even shy Sims have "needs" and Lake would have been a natural choice for Kendal, because they were working together and were very good friends and 2) you have to watch out for those quiet ones!

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  17. Good grief! That realistic sickness mod is merciless! Ack.

    Kendal and Lake? Both being unexpected widowers, I guess that makes sense...

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  18. Rachel, tell me about it! You really can't leave the Sims alone for a second!

    Kendal and Lake didn't make a lick of sense to me when this happened. I was actually a little annoyed at the time!

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