Wednesday 16 November 2016

Satisfied mind

Round 36: February 2044 (Summer)
Lane 2 household profile

Luc Lane is 51, Asha is 47, Ruby is 17, Marcus is 15 and Felix is 13. 
(Grace is 14)

Narrated by Marcus Lane

Dad is semi-retired from touring now, so he’s been at home a lot more recently.



He’s at the stage where he doesn’t need to tour to make money - he makes enough off royalties and record sales - so he doesn’t feel the drive to go out on the road as often as he once did.

He used to go once or twice a year but now he’s saying he probably won’t go for maybe the next five years. Possibly not even then.

Mum’s pretty happy about that. She’s done a little touring herself but never as often as Dad.

I guess because Mum and Dad both have sort of non-traditional careers and because Mum never went herself, they’ve never really pushed college as the be-all and end-all.

Despite the lack of pressure though, Ruby’s going off to college next year, so this is our last year all together as a family.

She started interning at Ramona’s mum’s work after school a few years ago and has decided she wants to be a fashion designer.

She did pretty well on the SAS, as well as earning some additional scholarships, so she’ll have a bit of money to play around with too.

Ruby can’t wait to go and I personally can’t wait to see her off!

Some days I could almost imagine missing her but most days, I’m happy she’s going.

She thinks it’s her duty as big sister to be an asshole whenever the mood strikes her.

Occasionally though, we’ll also have the best laughs together.

I’m still looking forward to taking over her room when she leaves though. I’m changing everything in there.

For now though, Ruby’s room has become her “design studio”. She bought this ancient looking sewing machine at a garage sale, moved some things around and set it up.

To me, it looked old enough that it wouldn’t even work any more but Ruby didn’t care for my scepticism.

I was wrong anyway. The machine is pretty loud though, which makes me glad our bedroom is the floor below Ruby’s. Ruby is often sewing late into the night these days, after everyone is in bed.

I still share a room with Felix, which isn’t too awful, except for all the sports crap he hangs up everywhere.

Including over my bed. I used to be a lot more interested in sports when I was younger but these days, I really don’t want anything to do with it at all.

Felix is still very into it. I dread PE and he lives for it.

I prefer metalwork and even though it’s probably not cool, I like the more academic parts of school as well.

Right now, I’m working pretty hard on a presentation we have to do for history class. We were put into pairs and I was matched with Grace Benton.

She’s not really who I would have chosen to work with. I’m good friends with her brother Everett but I’ve never had all that much to do with Grace.

I have to admit that we were a bit awkward together at first. We couldn’t seem to agree on anything.

Seeing we had no choice but to stick it our or get a bad grade, we pushed through and ended up finding out that we do have a couple of things in common.

We both hate sports, for one thing and we bonded a little bit over that.

We also both want to see the world outside Sullivan some day. I don’t even know where I want to go first but somewhere, definitely.

And even though we each have a few years before we have to worry about college or finding a job, we’re already developing some solid ideas for what we want to do.

Grace is thinking about journalism or something in the restaurant/food industry. I’m also thinking about journalism but I’m also considering architecture or game development.

Mum says my cousin Josh’s girlfriend is in game development and suggested I talk to her about it before I decide anything.

I might but I’m not thinking too seriously about it yet. I’m just glad to have some ideas to look into a little bit more closely when the time comes.

Notes:

  • Ruby scored a 52 on her SAS. Not enough to get half-tuition normally but because she also earned the Quigley Visual Arts Scholarship and is choosing a creative major, she'll get half-tuition based on that. Not that Luc and Asha would have any trouble affording full price anyway - kind of a power couple, like Rob and Patience!
  • The thing with Marcus and Grace was a little experiment of mine. I've always known negative bolts could disappear but I was curious to see exactly what it took. So when I noticed Grace and Marcus had negative chemistry and hadn't yet met (and so had a 0/0 relationship), I wanted to see what would happen. And what happened was that they became friends and the negative bolt was still there. But the next time they saw each other, it disappeared. They now have neutral chemistry but with matching turn-ons, I could probably get it up to positive. I'm just seeing what will happen though. I don't have too many expectations that they'll ever date. They're good buddies now though. 

16 comments:

  1. Nice morning coffee read for me, thank you! I've not played a household with teenagers or children in a while and am really looking forward to that in my game.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it. :) I rarely go very long without playing a house with kids or teens. I'd say most of my households have at least one or the other. My sims raising families is my favourite part of the game.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  2. I always like reading about this household! Luc and Asha seem like a very sable couple and their children are fun. I love that all 3 of their children look so different from one another, but still you can see they are siblings.

    I've teleported all of the 'free' townies in for some of my current sims as well. I never tried to do anything with negative chemistry though. It's fun that it went away. Maybe now Grace and Marcus can become best friends instead of a couple.

    I'm excited to see Ruby in college! I'm sure she's going to have a lot of fun. And I'm looking forward to seeing what Marcus will eventually pick as his career.

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    1. I think Luc had so much time to have his fun pre-marriage that by the time he got married, he was totally ready to settle down and be nice and stable the way he is now. :) It's worked out well.

      I actually hadn't taken much notice of the kids' genetics until recently but you're right. Just the kind of genetics I like - family resemblances but not clones!

      I think I'm open to just about anything with Marcus and Grace. We'll see how it goes. Friends, best friends, a couple or strained acquaintances - who knows?

      Cannot wait to send Ruby off to college! Feels like so far away!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. Ruby is quite the character. I also love the friendship/bolt experiment you did and how it resulted in a history group project. I might have to start doing that for my teens as well.

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    1. The history project was a good excuse to have Marcus and Grace suddenly spending a lot of time together. It served my little experiment very well!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  4. Ruby and Marcus are pretty opposite, hopefully they grow more fonder as they grow up and move into their own spaces. Too funny seeing him scope out her room, I can imagine he's excited to have his own space. This family has such a nice house that fits their careers and personality, it's always a treat to see this family. It's nice that Luc is home more often, it makes sense with his advancing age that he'd do tours when he wishes.

    Excited to see Ruby off to university, and it was interesting with the negative bolts for Grace and Marcus. I haven't played with negative bolts before, that's cool that it could be removed with friendship.

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    1. Time will tell with Marcus and Ruby, I think! Neither of them are too inclined to compromise with anyone, which is not a fantastic trait. ;)

      I really like this house too, though it's probably a bit smaller than what they would have ideally. I explain that away by thinking of Luc and Asha as the kind of people who would really value location, lol! The house is right in the midst of my downtown. :)

      I've seen negative bolts disappear before but I was never sure if it was just a positive relationship that did it or if you needed romantic interactions or what. I actually just checked Cyjon's chemistry study and he does mention relationships in it, very briefly. He says the bolts can actually go from -1 to +2, if one of the attraction benefits is involved, which is crazy! Neither Marcus or Grace have any of that going on though, so they may well stay platonic. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. That would be interesting if Marcus and Grace both went into journalism, with or without a romantic relationship. Luc and Asha are just amazingly cool people, I can definitely see them valuing location. Hard to believe Ruby's about to go off to uni.

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    1. It would be cool to have two sims working towards the same career at roughly the same time, as I haven't had that before (though I will soon, with Ruby and Bianca Moretti). I can see Grace in journalism more than Marcus. I'm leaning towards Games Development for Marcus, partly because I want Elspeth to have a coworker, lol!

      I love Luc and Asha. I let them wear all my young stuff, because I just think they would. ;) I'm sure they can't believe they're old enough to have a kid going off to uni but here we are. :) They'll be empty nesters in no time! :O

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  6. I liked that you did a little experiment in game. If my sims get the negative moodlet that they don't like another sim I normally just stay clear of them. lol But maybe I should do the opposite and see what happens, you never know what sort of friendship might develop! ;)

    Sounds like Marcus is the black sheep of the family! I think he's a cutie though. :)

    Nice update!

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    1. Experiments can be fun. :) Negative chemistry doesn't always mean the sims are a terrible platonic match, so I was curious to see what would happen. Interesting how quickly the negative bolt disappeared!

      Marcus is a little bit of a black sheep, though sometimes I feel like it's Asha who is the true black sheep. She's a really sweet woman, surrounded by her total jerk family, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. Did you ever talk about what you do for touring for your musicians? Is it just for story, or do you actually send them somewhere? I always liked the idea of arranging a band and sending them on tour around the different neighborhoods or vacation destinations, but my only sim that's been a rock musician (or anything like it) toured kind of off-camera just for story. And my other musicians have all been symphonic.

    Maybe I'll have to add that to my list of things to do. :D

    LOL at your comment about Asha's jerk family, and the comment about Ruby being an asshole as a sisterly duty. Marcus is quite a force to be reckoned with! As is Ruby, so I'm sure the two of them have had quite enough of each other by now. These kids are all at a really fun age.

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    1. No, because I still haven't really worked it out! Luc is the only one I've ever had do any sort of real touring. It seems like sort of a waste to do it on screen when he doesn't really have anyone else to work with, so it's all been behind the scenes. I would love to arrange a band! I've never had enough sims interested in music at the same time though.

      I think Ruby and Marcus are definitely over each other at this point. Time apart can only do them good. They both have pretty strong personalities and they do tend to clash right now.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  8. Lol! I have had my younger sister going in my room before I went to college, measuring where she wanted her furniture too. I just mentioned Val's touring behind the scenes too because I couldn't put a band together.

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    1. LOL, that's funny! I'm sure a lot of younger siblings get quite excited at the idea of all that extra space when their older siblings go off. Especially in Marcus's situation, where he's still sharing with Felix.

      I have done the behind-the-scenes touring as well but I'd like to do a real band one of these days!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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