Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 5, The Dragon(s)

Richard attends his high-school graduation with his siblings.  They take lots of photos for him to take to uni with him.

On his way home, Richard meets a time traveller, who asks for help repairing his time portal, and then invites Richard to come and visit the future with him.

Richard's feeling confident right now.  He's young, he's in love, he's about to start university...the only question is, exactly which shade of brilliance his future will be.  So he goes, and he asks about the future.

Richard has descendants!  This is the first time I've had descendants show up in the future, so that's exciting.  They all have Hannah's last name, which is odd, because Richard is a rich and famous celebrity and Hannah is a snob, so it would make more sense for them to have his name.  He doesn't meet any, but he does take a class in bot-building - because why would you not take a class in future technology if you had the chance? - tries to find out about winning lottery numbers - no luck - and, on his way out of the town hall, decides to check out a protest that's happening.

...and that's where he sees her.  It's love at first sight.  Richard thought he was in love before - with Hannah, and with that French girl who made him a werewolf - but this is different.  He's never felt like this before.  And, from the way she looks at him, he hopes she returns his feelings.

But...he does have a girlfriend.  He was thinking of proposing to her when he'd finished his degree, assuming it all went well, because he is loyal, and family orientated, and he thought she was everything he wanted.  She could have been - as he's just learned, they would have a large family, and would live very comfortable lives.  Because Richard's famous, everyone here knows who he is and constantly asks for photos.  That also means that she - Chelsea Gateway - knows who he is.  And she knows that he stays with Hannah.  It already happened.

They talk about this, quietly, while Richard poses for pictures with excited fans.

Richard has no counter-arguments.  He has a girlfriend.  He will - and, in this world, already did - marry that girlfriend, leaving descendants for this future world.  He never left Hannah, and he never ended up with Chelsea. 

He takes a picture of Chelsea, to remember her by.

He knows he should leave, but he doesn't.  He stays, and he dances with her, in a future world where he married someone else, and lived a long and happy life, and died a very long time ago.

They try to keep to safe topics, like what this future world is like.  Chelsea offers to take him to bar.

When they arrive, she gives him flowers.  She says she thought he would like to see what flowers look like in the future.  No one's ever given him flowers before.

After a few hours of talking and drinking, knowing that it will break Hannah's heart, knowing that it might condemn his future descendants to never existing, he goes in for a kiss.

Chelsea rejects him.  They both know he will already has been married.  He never left Hannah.  He will have always been married to Hannah.  How could he do this, knowing that?

Chelsea leaves.  Richard goes home, where he calls one of his old high school friends.

"Hey buddy," he says.  "What do you think about - well, just supposing you'd seen the future, and you knew for a fact that if you stayed with your current girlfriend - no, I know mate, just imagine you have one - you would have all these kids, and they would have descendants, and those descendants exist.  They're real people, and they have lives and careers and loved ones, and they're older than you are because, you, like, went into the future.  Just stay with me here.  What if...what if you left your girlfriend for someone else, because you loved someone else, knowing that it would mean those descendants - all those lives, all those hopes and dreams - never existed?"

"Bro, are you high?  Sleep it off."

Richard hangs up, and yawns.

"I am trash," he says.  "I am actual human garbage".

...and yet, even as he says that, he wishes he could change the future.

The next day is Spooky Day.  He calls Hannah to invite her out or invite her over, but she refuses to see him, so he visits her instead.  They talk about nothing.  He asks how she is.  The conversation is utterly superficial.

Richard leaves, with nothing resolved.  He's leaving for university the next day and, though he knows it's cowardly, he's glad that this will give him some respite from thinking about the issue.

Hialeah and Remy come to see him off, Remy wearing his own graduation robes, possibly to inspire Richard.  "I'm proud of you, little brother," Hialeah says in the elevator.  "And mom and dad would be too."

 And so Richard sets off for university, still debating his future.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 5, The Dragon(s)

 

Hialeah and Richard bonded by showing off their vampire and werewolf teeth.  There is no clear winner.  And, yes, I am consciously referencing Being Human by putting a werewolf, vampire, and ghost in the same house.  That's the only reason Richard's a werewolf.

Then Hialeah starts on an ice sculpture of Richard.

Then, Richard leaves for a date with a girl he met at school, Hannah Smythe.  They hang around on the festival grounds at night because they're teenagers.  The date goes well!

Hialeah didn't notice that her teenage brother, whom she is caring for since the death of their parents, has been out until 4am because she was working on her sculpture.  Unfortunately, it went wrong.  She'll fob it off on one of her architectural clients.

Remy did notice, because they got home at the same time.  Remy was out dancing at a bar to earn celebrity points.  He also met and woohooed in an elevator with another celebrity, who happens to be married to a woman, so that's a scandal.  I didn't take pictures of that because it felt a bit pervy.

Remy's mostly been busking in subways, which earns him a lot of money to advance his band career.  He got mugged once, which gave him a bad moodlet for 4 hours, but he just went straight back in and carried in, and made his money back in that time.  He's still not been offered any gigs, but he's rocketing up the career path, and he needs to master all his instruments anyway.  Hialeah's been working on her sculpting, just for fun.  She's mastered the skill, but I want all the achievements too.

Richard invited over - and defeated - his next-ranked chess opponent.  Apparently, that opponent did not realise he was being invited to the home of the Hialeah Locklear, and that distraction might have been a factor in his loss.

Since he's about to age up into adulthood, Richard did a university aptitude test which he proudly shows off to Hannah.  He also asks her to be his girlfriend.  She accepts, but then gets distracted by his brother Remy.  Richard's thinking about their future children.  I think he's found the one!  Also, after this, I edited her hair because, while I did wear ponytails at 17 - and still do at 32 - it looks weird on her.

Richard ages up and look at Bunny's pretty baby!  He has his mother's eyes and his father's height.  He may be the most attractive male sim I've ever had.  He dresses a little oddly but, fuck it, he's very rich and very famous, and he's a charismatic athletic genius, he can wear what the fuck he wants, the world will love him anyway.

In a last minute attempt to improve his university aptitude test, Richard works on his writing skills, watched over by a portrait of his great-great-grandfather Jake, who was also a charismatic genius who raised himself up from a shack in the woods to basically run the mafia in his hometown.

I'm not sure how much Richard and Hialeah (and Remy and Dan and Saoirse) know about their ancestry.  Jake wrote a whole book about his mother and, while Haven (Jake's daughter, Bunny's grandmother) never met her, she probably read the book and her father would have told her stories.  Avery (Haven's son, Bunny's father) would have heard these stories from his mother and his great-uncle Jasper.  While Avery died young, and maybe didn't have a chance to tell Bunny about their family, she did live with Haven and Jasper in her childhood and her aunt Libby lived until she left town.  Plus, it's not like their family wasn't known around town, and Jake's book still existed, even though I don't think Bunny ever read it.  Still, she would have told her children stories about their family.  I don't think anyone past Jake literally believed that Yuriko was the embodiment of starlight, sent down to better understand sim-kind, but they probably still know the stories.  So, yeah, Richard probably does know a lot about what he has in common with Jake, and that's why he's chosen to put Jake's portrait in his room.

Richard's life goal is to achieve 3 degrees which, to my mind, will be a bachelors, a masters, and a doctorate.  Incidentally, I am starting a Masters at the end of the month.  Richard may well finish his before I start mine, we'll see how I feel.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 5, The Dragon(s)

My Dragons - and Remy - have moved to Bridgeport!  Remy's lifetime wish is to master four instruments, and I might as well get him to the top of the band career and make him a 5 star celebrity while I'm at it, so I'll focus on that.  Richard is going to be a solid all-rounder - sporty, successful businessman, famous, well-educated - so he's working hard at his new school.  In my head, he's about 17, so he can go around the city on a scooter.  Hialeah, on the other hand, is building her skills and her home design business right now.  I also want her to be a five star celebrity.  Richard is the only one who's aging, so we're not in any particular hurry.

Remy and Richard enjoy a home-cooked meal (made by Remy) while Hialeah works on her sculpting skill.

While busking, Remy runs into a fan.  Apparently her reaction is "Oh my god, it's Remy Locklear, I have his poster on my wall, maybe I'll really impress him and we'll get married!".  Apparently, she is not aware that he's gay.

This is technically a new game.  I moved Hialeah, Richard, and Remy out of the ranch, saved them to my library, then started a new game in Bridgeport to move them in.  I actually had to do that twice because, the first time, I put the family portraits in the household inventory rather than Hialeah's personal inventory, so I had to go back into my original file to get them back.  The game has forgotten all of their relatives except their parents, and, apparently, has forgotten that Hialeah and Remy are gay, so they'll both need to be doing a bit of flirting to sort that out.

Speaking of flirting, Remy got an assignment to go to a specific club and dance for three hours.  While there, he met Ace Wilde, and they flirted and danced the night away.

Hialeah found a secret vampire bar in the graveyard.  I sent her there to see if it would be a good place to stash the family graves.  She tried flirting with the bartender, but the bartender wasn't into it.

Hialeah also painted a portrait of Richard!  Really, I should get Remy to paint a portrait of the two of them together, once he's increased his painting skill.

Sims 3: Zodiac Challenge - Chapter 4, The Rabbit - Final

One day, while visiting the horse, Bunny starts to feel very peculiar.

Alerted by her cries, Hialeah and Dan run in, but they are too late to revive their mother.

Sequoyah mourns his wife.

Dan informs Remy of their mother's passing.

Remy and Dan comfort one another.  Remy sobs as he apologises to his younger brother.  He regrets not being there for their mother's death.

A heartbroken Sequoyah decides to join his wife in the netherworld.  Three of their children are adults, and they can care for the youngest two.  He needs to be with his wife.

The next day, Bunny and Sequoyah's children hold a funeral for them.  Dan and Richard each wonder what will become of them.  Even though Sequoyah realised his lifelong dream as a ghost, his tombstone is still the same as his first death.

Later that night, Remy says goodbye to Dan, his brother, bandmate and dearest friend.  Remy doesn't say this, but seeing his mother die has really brought home to him what his own immortality means.  He loves Dan, and he knows that, if they stay together, he will watch Dan grow old and die, like their father did with their mother.  He fears that, while he loves his brother, he doesn't love him enough to do what their father did, and he knows he will never forgive himself if he doesn't.  So he's going to leave now.

Hialeah and Remy are moving to the city, to try to achieve their dreams.  Hers is currently to be an architect to the stars, his is to be a star.  Richard is going with them.  Dan will inherit the ranch, marry the girl next door and become a gentleman farmer.  Saoirse is staying with him, to care for her horse and the many other horses she will raise.

We are going to follow Hialeah and Richard, our two dragons.  From the two challenges this one is based on (1 and 2);

A powerful sign,‭ ‬those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dragon are energetic and warm-hearted,‭ ‬charismatic,‭ ‬lucky at love and egotistic.‭ ‬They‭’‬re natural born leaders,‭ ‬good at giving orders and doing what’s necessary to remain on top.‭ ‬Compatible with Monkey and Rat.

Magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self-assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, eccentric, intellectual, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, artistic, generous, loyal. Can be tactless, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, intolerant, dogmatic, violent, impetuous, brash.

And;

Your home life was too perfect! You now feel the need to act out and explore all your options.

• Have Hot Headed trait
• Have at least one good friend and one enemy (can be siblings)
• Date two people before falling in love
• Have one child 

 

Traits to Consider:

• Charismatic, Flirty, Genius, Artistic, Hot Headed, Mean Spirited
• Lifetime Wishes to Consider:
• Leader of the Free World, Super Popular

According to this site;

The Dragon symbolizes power, nobleness, honor, luck, and success in traditional Chinese culture. The Dragon is a supernatural being with no parallel for talent and excellence. 

According to this site;

Men born in the Dragon year are steadfast in their beliefs. They will never slack off on responsibilities nor be unnecessarily suspicious. People rarely lose trust in these honest men.

They don’t waste money, but also don’t pay much attention to it. Adventurous entrepreneurs at heart, they dream of shooting to fame. Sometimes their efforts go to waste though. Still, their lives revolve around work.

These men are completely fine alone. They either marry at a young age or remain as a bachelor. For significant others, they need someone that can help and support his career.

So, this gives us some ideas for Richard.  He will work hard, be honest, be famous, and either marry young to a supportive partner or stay single.  

Women born in the Dragon year are mesmerizing and strong. If you underestimate them, they will stand up and defeat you.

They are serious in what they do and have high self-esteems. The only thing they require of others is respect. Feminism and gender equality are important to them.

Many forgo marriage to focus on their career. But if they do choose to marry, they also make great wives. Often, they only go to the extremes and should take the time to consider a balanced mix.

Hialeah will be powerful and respected.  Her family is important to her, but she may not marry.  

I don't yet know who their good friends or enemies are going to be, or which of them will date two people before falling in love.  I know Hialeah will have one child, who will be our next heir, while Richard will be free to live out his own life once he's on the way to achieving his ambitions.

 

The reason it took me so long to write this post is that I'm sad that Bunny died.  I loved her.  I played with her for over a year, which is the longest I've ever had a sim.  I loved her story, and watching her grow from this poor, neglected, abused child to a wealthy and respected woman with a loving family.

Goodnight my darlings.