A full year had passed since the fire that had killed the McNally siblings' parents. The public believed that Gordon and Mia had burnt to their deaths, too, but here they were, returning to the place of their early childhood under different names. Much to their surprise the house itself still stood. The Knights of the Hedge had renovated it and were using it as their local headquarter now.
Gordon: "There. Remember this place?"
Mia: "No."
The answer didn't come completely unexpected. The baby girl had mostly seen the chateau from the inside or from the backside.
Even to Gordon it felt unfamiliar.
Suddenly a spectre appeared and Mia felt drawn to it...
On and on the apparition went, as if it had a destination.
"Wait! Mia shouted. "Dada, wait!"
Gordon, too, screamed at the strangely determined ghost: "Wait, father!"
The ghost stopped at the piano, still not uttering one word or making any sound, for that matter.
"Why are you showing me this, father?" Gordon asked. "Do you want me to play?"
Slowly, deliberately, as if moving his astral form too his utmost effort, the ghost nodded.
Gordon remembered how much fun he'd had playing the pipe organ in Forgotten Hollow, in the precious moments he had for himself.
Maybe when Mia was older...?
No, then he'd have to dedicate his lifetime to his revenge on the vampire!
"I'm sorry", the boy gulped. "But I have a mission."
At this the ghost turned around sharply. An other one emerged from out of the shrubbery.
They passed through each other, unaware of the other's presence, it seemed, hardly aware of their own.
Beholding all of this the children were close to tears.
"Mother!"
What little was left of the woman's self consciousness was enough to react in the hoped for manner:
The children slept on the chateau's stairs that night, not caring if they were seen by passersby or the Knights.
Come morning they started walking back through the countryside to the harbour and to Forgotten Hollow.
Lord Bernard Shallot: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Bernard
He matches adult Mia well enough to believably be her father (who was in fact derived from a totally unrelated promo sim).
The wiki has the family's official story, which, a half truth in my game. They siblings will learn the full truth soon enough.
Mia McNally still knew how to get her way with adults. Just ask and nobody can refuse!
In-story this is due to her latent fairy-blood.
She still distrusted priests when they tried to lecture, as is evident in keeping her distance in this picture:
But Mia was not above using the clerics for her own gain, up to the point where they got more smelly than the girlchild:
And of course Mia still loved flowers:
Sometimes the blossoms were not colorful enough, so Mia helped them to become bright and happy.
However, knowing her limits wasn't the girl's strong suit. For example the concept of distance:
"Mia?! Where are you going at this time of day?"
"Oh, just going to ask Mrs. Bjergsen about helping me potty. She's close by, right there on the opposite side of town!"
"Come back here at once!"
All the time Gordon stayed good friends with Elke Bjergsen. One day she invited him to her home to play on her new submarine playtower. The boy brought Mia and made himself useful by setting the table, for example. By now he had learned how to make the best impression and especially how to move and act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Gordon wondered if his way of making himself Always Welcome could perhaps be amplified by vampires so that they could ignore the rule of having to get invited into a home? Perhaps the one who had torched his home had mastered this art in a way Gordon couldn't even dream of?
As of now that was a hypothesis only, one he couldn't even double-check against his lore book. Gordon was a slow reader and many paragraphs simply were too complicated for the child. There was no was around it, in hiding or not, he'd have to get some form of schooling.
So at the age of nine, the bare minimum age, Gordon started working as a miner. The company that worked a shaft in the outskirts of Forgotten Hollow and prospected in the region, was held by the law to provide a teacher for their youngest employees. Gordon knew that his parents, too, had hired teachers for their factory schools in Windenburg, but he'd never expected to be benefit from this law one day.
The boy was working hard, but it was a neccessity to stay eligible for no-questions-asked schooling. Gordon could have made more money in the same time by fishing, which he did in his freetime. But as a minor he could hardly enroll himself at school, for that he needed his employer.
Slowly, but steadily a stash of coins accumulated. Perhaps one day he'd have enough money for a nice room!
School was tricky, because Gordon insisted on running all the way up to Straud manor, the lot the children are assigned to.
I had to relocate the household to the abandoned house.
Every day before work, Gordon took some time to hone his thinking skills in addition to diligently doing his homework.
One day Jerome Villareal was on a trip to Forgotten Hollow with his family.
And he's looking remarkably like his descendant Jacques
Jerome: "Say, do I know you, boy?"
Gordon: "Sure you do, Mister! I work in the mine right over there! You'll have seen me last tuesday when the stockholders came to visit!"
It was a lie, of course. When the gentlemen had taken the tour, Gordon had taken care to stay out of sight, but more than enough other kids his age had been around and Jerome wouldn't have memorized every last one of them.
Jerome: "I wonder why I memorized your face."
Gordon: "Ey, that's easy, Mister! I look like someone you know!"
Jerome: "Yes, I think you are right. You remind me of a boy that died. He'd be your age now, but he was way less insolent. And he'd known that it is "Sir", not "Mister"."
Gordon: "No way! There are no nobles anymore, we are all Misters now."
Jerome: "Ahahaha...! Out of the mouth of children!"
After school Gordon told Mia everything he had learned. Soon he wasn't that far ahead of her anymore.
Mia is maxed out in thinking and can learn letters and spelling now! How sweet is that?
In time, her imaginary worlds and ordering around adults weren't enough for Mia anymore.
She wanted to grow up and do all the exiting things the big kids did!
Things to accomplish before turning five:
Get that dem pidgeon!!!
And Gordon and Elke became BFF at the romance festival.
They can even drink the tee and it makes them playful.
Poor Gordon, he'd done so well. But 23:20 at sunday, half a sim hour before the end of the challenge, he peed himself returning from the pond:
The reason why he had pushed himself that hard: It cost only 1200 San Myshuno thalers to rent an apartment!
Homeless no longer.
Gordon and Mia are in the gallery now.
One version unplayed, one version played and with parents. The parents version is marked as containing cc for some reason.
If you want to resurrect them quickly, there are several download of ready made Ambrosia on the gallery.
Teenaged Karl as he appears in a story of mine. In this universe he is Charly Ikeda, a member of the top team of Sim Nation's senior high basketball league, the "Myshuno Meadows Magicians".
Unfortunately Charly is such a minor character in the tale that these snippets are the best shots I have of him.
I just got to read the last bit, been a little busy.
I have to admit, Gordon and Mia are growing on me faster than I thought. Cant wait to see what happens now they have a place to live
The year was 1901. Twenty-five years ago the first contact with the aliens had happened in a remote place in New South Wales and by now their existance became common knowledge, first in europe, but spilling over to Sim Nation slowly. Mostly in the form of new household technology like the radio.
Naturally Mia Mc Nally wanted one! She'd grew up with x-rays, cars, microwave based food processors and home stereos, seeing them as expensive goods, but in no way strange or new.
So, a stereo it had to be for Mia, while her brother was harbouring such boring adult notions as wanting a stove, a bed and being able to pay the rent at the end of each week. What was this "rent" anyway?! Gordon bought it every week, but Mia never got to see it! But instead of asking, Mia just deduced that it had to be something akin to cigarettes, a vice that was kept from children and that even the adults weren't comfortable to admit indulging in.
On the upside, Gordon had given up mining. He was working for the city cleaning department now, a side branch of the company he was employed at.
Though it was unskilled work, it payed nicely and didn't even conflict with his school work. After one tour through the neighborhood new garbage had to accumulate and during this time Gordon was at school.
Before this challenge I collected the posters for the fun of it, but now that I payed attention to how much you can earn by removing the "wastepaper" from the streets, I have a new active job for my sims: City cleaning department.
Taking inventory:
- One wall lamp, weak
- One bat fish, dead
- One book about vampires, boring
- One emerald, shiny
- One set ofcubes, mine
- One older brother, weird
- One landlord, required
Portia Colch by vampiresteeth
Life in the big city wasn't all bliss, though.
For one, the children now had to deal with neighbors. Often they couldn't sleep due to their noise. It even reached them down in the streets.
Did people in the city ever sleep? It seemed someone was always active and that without being vampires!
Also the normal residents were far more clever than the festivalgoers the children had met. Had Mia been able to greet an adult who was eating and grab their plate from the table while they answered, the city people ate standing! So this trick was out of the picture.
In time Mia learned to grab food right from the counter.
But after her first contact with curry she became a picky eater, either letting the plate disappear somewhere or playing with it.
They wouldn't have to steal if the game properly sat down the plate instead of letting it disappear whenever Gordon cancels his eating action on legtitmately purchased food.
Fun seemed to be more important to the toddler than a full belly and Gordon was starting to worry. He was blowing hard earned money for nothing and out of idead how to reliably feed Mia.
Here's a mod that helps with feeding a street urchin: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=596233
It allows toddlers to order from the food carts, however, in my game it only works with manually placed ones, not with the ones the game spawns
One of these days Gordon asked the landlord for advice and, voila, a one-time investment of 80 thalers solved the problem:
From now on Portia would see to it that Mia ate when Gordon was at school. And to prevent her from escaping before she was full, Portia put the girl into a highchair where she ate under supervision.
Not that Portia's idea of a toddler meal (sweets) was significantly healthier than Gordon's (curry)...
But she never charged for her services or the food consumed.
The spice festival was an occasion to gorge and on top of that take hom everything one could carry:
Gordon won the curry eating contest in his first try - no wonder after what he had to stomach during his homeless days!
Some consumeables offered at the festival were less easy to digest:
After starting to see green llamas, Gordon vowed to never touch the buble blower again.
Now that the food problem was solved, the siblings could relax a little.
Setting out to discover the "tower", as Mia called the apartment building, the girl discovered that she wasn't the only child her age here!
Portia and Mr. Rittenhaus seem less overjoyed at the discovery:
Some of the children were poor like the Mc Nally siblings, some were wealthy by their neighborhood's standards and some were neither, but just plain dumb:
"Where do YOU live?"
"Second floor, you?"
"Second floor."
"Nah, that' where I live already. So where do you live?"
"Second floor!"
"No, no, no!"
"Um... second floor to the left?"
"Yay! Nice to meet you! My name is Kika!"
Sooner than expected Gordon was able to fill up the little flat with all neccessitys. But hough the siblings owned their own bathtub now, Mia had become too heavy for Gordon to give his sister a bath, so Portia had to help with this. Yes, the girl sure grew and soon she'd no longer be a toddler.
It was a happy e...
Mia: "Aren't you forgetting something, Enki?"
Me: "No, what should I have overlooked?"
Mia: "WHERE IS MY STEREO?!"
Oops. Okay, here it is. Happy now?
And now let me tell you about the price your precious came with, Mia, because to buy a stereo your brother had to do a few more trash runs first.
While doing so he entered a phase and the game assigned him clingy.
Clingy! As in: doesn't want to interact with any person other than their primary guardian.
Which. Gordon. Does. Not. Have.
The boy missed his parents more than ever. Often he'd stopp in the middle of work to, well not cry, but sigh heavily and the weight of the world seemed to become unbearable.
At least he made some friends his age:
And he exterminated the roach infestion in the apartment. Or at least tried to.
The game lowered his responsibility for this when he meant so well
And finally Gordon recieved a letter. It was written on expensive, thick paper and sealed with a horse surrounded by a swarm of blue fish:
The Poseidontail they symbol was called and since the age of exploration it served as the crest of the Knights of the Hedge!
...who are definitely no cosplayer club in my game, but a globally operating secret society.
The Knights offered training and knowledge for the aspirering vampire hunter as well as full membership by the time Gordon became fourteen.
Now for a ten year old boy Gordon was scarily mature already, but that day he didn't think to ask how exactly the knights had learned about his existance or whether they knew who he really was.
Time passed.
Then, at long last:
"Believe it or not, but I've been waiting to be able to do this!"
"Yes, yes! Let's do this forever!"
"Wait, what, foever? Are you nuts? No, you're going to grow up right now!"
Gordon and Mia in front of Izumi's future apartment. It has the "historc" badge, so it stands to reason that is existed already in Gordon's time.
Mia never really shed her daydreaming habits. But she joined the Sim Nation Junior Pioneers (girlscouts) and in time she grew into a capable ranger that made the forests around the Windenburg Bay safer for travellers. She also gained the favour of the fairy court while accompanying diplomats to Sylvan Glade and back. Her husband and children knew that Mia wasn't cut out for full-time family life due to her early childhood experiences. Though they never begrudged her going on expeditions a lot, they couldn't help but worry each and every time.
Eventually the family settled down in San Myshuno and disappeared from history.
@EnkiSchmidt I can't see the pics. Where a pic should be, there is a message saying "3rd party hosting has been temporary disabled. To unlock your account visit photo bucket . com/p500"
Idk if I'm just getting this or its everyone.
Yes, I see it, too, it started yesterday. The linked site tells me I'm using 3rd party hosting and my account level doesn't allow for that. Probably I just exeeded my monthly bandwidth limit? Since there was no notification of changed terms of use *headscratch*
EDIT: Moving the pictures of the latest chapter to the inbuilt photoalbum feature now, links will break temporarily, will post again when there's something new to see
Yes, I see it, too, it started yesterday. The linked site tells me I'm using 3rd party hosting and my account level doesn't allow for that. Probably I just exeeded my monthly bandwidth limit? Since there was no notification of changed terms of use *headscratch*
EDIT: Moving the pictures of the latest chapter to the inbuilt photoalbum feature now, links will break temporarily, will post again when there's something new to see
Thanks for letting us know what's up. Hope it gets sorted out soon!
To navigate, do NOT use the left/right arrows, use the slider below the images. Otherwise the pictures won't get centered correctly.
Also layouting your text doesn't seem to be possible at all. (2,50 per month for a plus account that allows hotlinking would have solved that problem neatly, of course. If ever you are tempted to choose between getting a job or following your dreams, don't do like me, folks. Get that d* job!)
Glad to hear that!
I'm lazy, so I'm going to wait and see whether the bandwidth allowance refreshes come july. If not, I'll backedit the older chapters in album format, too.
Glad to hear that!
I'm lazy, so I'm going to wait and see whether the bandwidth allowance refreshes come july. If not, I'll backedit the older chapters in album format, too.
I'll post the finale in album form tomorrow.
I just read the last chapter, and love it! Can't wait to find out what happens to Gordon. I want to know if he gets his revenge or not!
For as long as the residents of Windenburg can remember, their wellbeing rested in the hand of three clans:
First there were the McNally, an unassuming clan based in the vast countryside. The McNally's wealth was based on their sheep.
Second were the Shallot, whose ancestral seat was the chateau. They owned manufactories and later electricity powered textile factories in Windenburg's inner city.
And finally the Villareal controled the island and the harbour district. This oldest of the three clans used to be bandits who operated from the roman ruins nowadays called the Bluffs and who became ennobled sometime during high medieval times.
The Villarel's fortune was based on overseas trading, mostly shiping the wool and textile products that the other two clans supplied all over the world.
In the 19th century (or rather my AU version of our 19th century, but close enough for purpose of this story) the Shallot's and McNally's wealth declined, as cheap cotton became more and more readily available with the steam age. Faster ships and especially the opening of Takemizu Nation to the larger world increased competition on the market. Only the Villareal continued to prosper, also thanks to their involvement with the influential Knight of the Hedge.
Now around the turn of the century the McNally had only one heir, a young woman named Mimsy. Unwilling to "lose" her to some craftsman of "lesser" blood, the McNally agreed to wed Mimsy to Bernard Shallot, thus joining the two clans. This brought the joined clan back on par with the Villareal and there the story could have ended, of not for Mimsy Shallot-McNally.
Mimsy, who had fully expected to become head of the family instead of getting sold to the Shallot, had educated herself in the free market lore and especially the stock exchange. During the so-called "Sausage Crisis" she made a few moves that increased the Shallot-McNally's wealth tenfold.
Soon after the sausage crisis was resolved, Sir Bernard's canvas caught fire and everyone in the chateau died. Having no fertile relatives living elsewhere both the Shallot and the McNally ended there, leaving Windenburg to the Villareal.
Actually, there WERE surivors. A child boy and a toddler girl escaped the fire, Gordon and Mia.
Convoluted backstory continued behind the spoiler tag:
Unknownst to the public, the Villareal were behind the fire in the chateau. They had payed a vampire with the Eternally Welcome power (Vlad) to enter the Chateau and set Bernard's canvas on fire, making it look as if the artist had been dissatisfied with his work.
The fire, however, was never meant to kill every last Shallot, just give them a warning about growing too rich too quickly, because that would have severly unbalanced the clans' dynamics. The three clans' constant rivalry had made Windenburg powerful - one getting ahead of the the rest could have disrupted this balance. The Villareal had known this and thus always expanded carefully, thinking in feudal terms about their responsibilities as noble lieges towards Windenburg as the whole. They held it against Mimsy that she followed a capitalistic approach instead.
As a result of first the McNally/Shallot joining and later the fire, Windenburg's overall economic growth declined as predicted. It stayed the scenic tourist town we know today instead of becoming a major metropolis like San Myshuno. Up until today the Windenburgians blame this on the McNally and their greed.
(And as I learned during playing the backstory, the Knights the Hedge very much prefer only one clan to be in charge and don't want Windenburg to become too strong.)
Lady Mia married a good man, assuming his last name.
Gordon, to the contrary, never forgot what happened and cultivated his dreams of revenge, instilling it into his descendants.
He already rued his pact with the Knights of the Hedge and removed himself and his children from the order and the eye of the public.
Time passed.
The final generation of McNallys consisted of an an elderly nanny and a young adult woman living in the slums of San Myshuno.
The young woman got pregnant, but didn't survive the home birth. The nanny, knowing she wouldn't have to live much longer, too, came up with a plan: She bribed a nurse to take her place in the hospital, faked newborn Karl Baum's death and planted the McNally baby next in line for adoption. Then she persuaded Karl's parents to adopt a baby, the nameless McNally boy whom his new parents named Kyle.
The nanny left Kyle an encrypted file that opens at his 14th birthday and reveals everything about his identity as the last McNally as well as the family history to him. Kyle is to use the wealth he stands to inherit from the Baums (one of the richest family in the state) towards the revenge against the Villareal and rebuilding his clan.
(Ironically the furniture factory where Kyle grows up is the Shallot's old textile factory).
Meanwhile the nanny took Karl to San Myshuno where she hid him from the world, barely keeping him alive, never bothering to teach him anything or provide much affection. Four years old Karl escaped or maybe his kidnapper was under the impression he could survive on his own now, maybe she even died, anyway, the toddler was left to fend for himself.
And by merest chance (or fate?) Karl's path crossed that of his birth parents - and that of Kyle, the unsuspecting tool of the McNallys' revenge.
Now the Villareal aren't stupid. As an apprentice in the furniture factory Max Villareal often got tasked with babysitting Kyle. He suspects the boy might be related to Mimsy McNally, so he made a member of his gang, Alexander Goth, steal a copy of the file. Unfortunately when Max' sister in-law tried to decrypt it, her computer got damaged (a coincicence, but Yuki won't try again anytime soon). So the Villareal cannot confirm their suspicion so far.
And then there's the matter of what became of Mia's line...
I'm not sure about that myself. Nothing toddler- or McNally related on my immediate playlist. I'm working to bring the Landgraab mob down in that save, but that's just a series of maxing Leader of the Pack plus a handful of careers, gameplaywise. And I've started a new legacy, so that'll distract me even more from Karl & Co..
About that legacy:
Filed under "what can be done with the vampires pack"
Anyone interested?
In this case I was inspired by a forum user. I don't remember who exactly, but somebody posted their vampire feeding on the racoons. And then there was the discussion whether a supernatural pack that was a clone of the Vampires GP (just with other terms) would be satisfactory or not. The ears, tail and fur I had lying around from an (abandoned) Star Trek save. So it all sorta fell into places
But still no immediate plans for Karl. I've seen unattended toddlers walk down the streets in my rotational save, but never Karl. Despite his cravings for adventure when I play him, when the K.I. has control over him he's very well behaved.
Comments
A full year had passed since the fire that had killed the McNally siblings' parents. The public believed that Gordon and Mia had burnt to their deaths, too, but here they were, returning to the place of their early childhood under different names. Much to their surprise the house itself still stood. The Knights of the Hedge had renovated it and were using it as their local headquarter now.
Gordon: "There. Remember this place?"
Mia: "No."
The answer didn't come completely unexpected. The baby girl had mostly seen the chateau from the inside or from the backside.
Even to Gordon it felt unfamiliar.
Suddenly a spectre appeared and Mia felt drawn to it...
On and on the apparition went, as if it had a destination.
"Wait! Mia shouted. "Dada, wait!"
Gordon, too, screamed at the strangely determined ghost: "Wait, father!"
The ghost stopped at the piano, still not uttering one word or making any sound, for that matter.
"Why are you showing me this, father?" Gordon asked. "Do you want me to play?"
Slowly, deliberately, as if moving his astral form too his utmost effort, the ghost nodded.
Gordon remembered how much fun he'd had playing the pipe organ in Forgotten Hollow, in the precious moments he had for himself.
Maybe when Mia was older...?
No, then he'd have to dedicate his lifetime to his revenge on the vampire!
"I'm sorry", the boy gulped. "But I have a mission."
At this the ghost turned around sharply. An other one emerged from out of the shrubbery.
They passed through each other, unaware of the other's presence, it seemed, hardly aware of their own.
Beholding all of this the children were close to tears.
"Mother!"
What little was left of the woman's self consciousness was enough to react in the hoped for manner:
The children slept on the chateau's stairs that night, not caring if they were seen by passersby or the Knights.
Come morning they started walking back through the countryside to the harbour and to Forgotten Hollow.
The visit had hurt more than it had comforted.
---
Lady Mimsy McNally: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Mimsy
Her features are similar enough to those of Kyle.
Lord Bernard Shallot: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Bernard
He matches adult Mia well enough to believably be her father (who was in fact derived from a totally unrelated promo sim).
The wiki has the family's official story, which, a half truth in my game. They siblings will learn the full truth soon enough.
Mia McNally still knew how to get her way with adults. Just ask and nobody can refuse!
In-story this is due to her latent fairy-blood.
She still distrusted priests when they tried to lecture, as is evident in keeping her distance in this picture:
But Mia was not above using the clerics for her own gain, up to the point where they got more smelly than the girlchild:
And of course Mia still loved flowers:
Sometimes the blossoms were not colorful enough, so Mia helped them to become bright and happy.
However, knowing her limits wasn't the girl's strong suit. For example the concept of distance:
"Mia?! Where are you going at this time of day?"
"Oh, just going to ask Mrs. Bjergsen about helping me potty. She's close by, right there on the opposite side of town!"
"Come back here at once!"
All the time Gordon stayed good friends with Elke Bjergsen. One day she invited him to her home to play on her new submarine playtower. The boy brought Mia and made himself useful by setting the table, for example. By now he had learned how to make the best impression and especially how to move and act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Gordon wondered if his way of making himself Always Welcome could perhaps be amplified by vampires so that they could ignore the rule of having to get invited into a home? Perhaps the one who had torched his home had mastered this art in a way Gordon couldn't even dream of?
As of now that was a hypothesis only, one he couldn't even double-check against his lore book. Gordon was a slow reader and many paragraphs simply were too complicated for the child. There was no was around it, in hiding or not, he'd have to get some form of schooling.
So at the age of nine, the bare minimum age, Gordon started working as a miner. The company that worked a shaft in the outskirts of Forgotten Hollow and prospected in the region, was held by the law to provide a teacher for their youngest employees. Gordon knew that his parents, too, had hired teachers for their factory schools in Windenburg, but he'd never expected to be benefit from this law one day.
The boy was working hard, but it was a neccessity to stay eligible for no-questions-asked schooling. Gordon could have made more money in the same time by fishing, which he did in his freetime. But as a minor he could hardly enroll himself at school, for that he needed his employer.
Slowly, but steadily a stash of coins accumulated. Perhaps one day he'd have enough money for a nice room!
School was tricky, because Gordon insisted on running all the way up to Straud manor, the lot the children are assigned to.
I had to relocate the household to the abandoned house.
Every day before work, Gordon took some time to hone his thinking skills in addition to diligently doing his homework.
One day Jerome Villareal was on a trip to Forgotten Hollow with his family.
And he's looking remarkably like his descendant Jacques
Jerome: "Say, do I know you, boy?"
Gordon: "Sure you do, Mister! I work in the mine right over there! You'll have seen me last tuesday when the stockholders came to visit!"
It was a lie, of course. When the gentlemen had taken the tour, Gordon had taken care to stay out of sight, but more than enough other kids his age had been around and Jerome wouldn't have memorized every last one of them.
Jerome: "I wonder why I memorized your face."
Gordon: "Ey, that's easy, Mister! I look like someone you know!"
Jerome: "Yes, I think you are right. You remind me of a boy that died. He'd be your age now, but he was way less insolent. And he'd known that it is "Sir", not "Mister"."
Gordon: "No way! There are no nobles anymore, we are all Misters now."
Jerome: "Ahahaha...! Out of the mouth of children!"
After school Gordon told Mia everything he had learned. Soon he wasn't that far ahead of her anymore.
Mia is maxed out in thinking and can learn letters and spelling now! How sweet is that?
In time, her imaginary worlds and ordering around adults weren't enough for Mia anymore.
She wanted to grow up and do all the exiting things the big kids did!
Things to accomplish before turning five:
Get that dem pidgeon!!!
And Gordon and Elke became BFF at the romance festival.
They can even drink the tee and it makes them playful.
Poor Gordon, he'd done so well. But 23:20 at sunday, half a sim hour before the end of the challenge, he peed himself returning from the pond:
The reason why he had pushed himself that hard: It cost only 1200 San Myshuno thalers to rent an apartment!
Homeless no longer.
Gordon and Mia are in the gallery now.
One version unplayed, one version played and with parents. The parents version is marked as containing cc for some reason.
If you want to resurrect them quickly, there are several download of ready made Ambrosia on the gallery.
Unfortunately Charly is such a minor character in the tale that these snippets are the best shots I have of him.
I have to admit, Gordon and Mia are growing on me faster than I thought. Cant wait to see what happens now they have a place to live
It's been two sims weeks since the beginning of the challenge. Shall I grow them up one lifestage or continue as toddler and child for another week?
Naturally Mia Mc Nally wanted one! She'd grew up with x-rays, cars, microwave based food processors and home stereos, seeing them as expensive goods, but in no way strange or new.
So, a stereo it had to be for Mia, while her brother was harbouring such boring adult notions as wanting a stove, a bed and being able to pay the rent at the end of each week. What was this "rent" anyway?! Gordon bought it every week, but Mia never got to see it! But instead of asking, Mia just deduced that it had to be something akin to cigarettes, a vice that was kept from children and that even the adults weren't comfortable to admit indulging in.
On the upside, Gordon had given up mining. He was working for the city cleaning department now, a side branch of the company he was employed at.
Though it was unskilled work, it payed nicely and didn't even conflict with his school work. After one tour through the neighborhood new garbage had to accumulate and during this time Gordon was at school.
Before this challenge I collected the posters for the fun of it, but now that I payed attention to how much you can earn by removing the "wastepaper" from the streets, I have a new active job for my sims: City cleaning department.
Taking inventory:
- One wall lamp, weak
- One bat fish, dead
- One book about vampires, boring
- One emerald, shiny
- One set ofcubes, mine
- One older brother, weird
- One landlord, required
Portia Colch by vampiresteeth
Life in the big city wasn't all bliss, though.
For one, the children now had to deal with neighbors. Often they couldn't sleep due to their noise. It even reached them down in the streets.
Did people in the city ever sleep? It seemed someone was always active and that without being vampires!
Also the normal residents were far more clever than the festivalgoers the children had met. Had Mia been able to greet an adult who was eating and grab their plate from the table while they answered, the city people ate standing! So this trick was out of the picture.
In time Mia learned to grab food right from the counter.
But after her first contact with curry she became a picky eater, either letting the plate disappear somewhere or playing with it.
They wouldn't have to steal if the game properly sat down the plate instead of letting it disappear whenever Gordon cancels his eating action on legtitmately purchased food.
Fun seemed to be more important to the toddler than a full belly and Gordon was starting to worry. He was blowing hard earned money for nothing and out of idead how to reliably feed Mia.
Here's a mod that helps with feeding a street urchin:
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=596233
It allows toddlers to order from the food carts, however, in my game it only works with manually placed ones, not with the ones the game spawns
One of these days Gordon asked the landlord for advice and, voila, a one-time investment of 80 thalers solved the problem:
From now on Portia would see to it that Mia ate when Gordon was at school. And to prevent her from escaping before she was full, Portia put the girl into a highchair where she ate under supervision.
Not that Portia's idea of a toddler meal (sweets) was significantly healthier than Gordon's (curry)...
But she never charged for her services or the food consumed.
The spice festival was an occasion to gorge and on top of that take hom everything one could carry:
Gordon won the curry eating contest in his first try - no wonder after what he had to stomach during his homeless days!
Some consumeables offered at the festival were less easy to digest:
After starting to see green llamas, Gordon vowed to never touch the buble blower again.
Now that the food problem was solved, the siblings could relax a little.
Setting out to discover the "tower", as Mia called the apartment building, the girl discovered that she wasn't the only child her age here!
Portia and Mr. Rittenhaus seem less overjoyed at the discovery:
Some of the children were poor like the Mc Nally siblings, some were wealthy by their neighborhood's standards and some were neither, but just plain dumb:
"Where do YOU live?"
"Second floor, you?"
"Second floor."
"Nah, that' where I live already. So where do you live?"
"Second floor!"
"No, no, no!"
"Um... second floor to the left?"
"Yay! Nice to meet you! My name is Kika!"
Sooner than expected Gordon was able to fill up the little flat with all neccessitys. But hough the siblings owned their own bathtub now, Mia had become too heavy for Gordon to give his sister a bath, so Portia had to help with this. Yes, the girl sure grew and soon she'd no longer be a toddler.
It was a happy e...
Mia: "Aren't you forgetting something, Enki?"
Me: "No, what should I have overlooked?"
Mia: "WHERE IS MY STEREO?!"
Oops. Okay, here it is. Happy now?
And now let me tell you about the price your precious came with, Mia, because to buy a stereo your brother had to do a few more trash runs first.
While doing so he entered a phase and the game assigned him clingy.
Clingy! As in: doesn't want to interact with any person other than their primary guardian.
Which. Gordon. Does. Not. Have.
The boy missed his parents more than ever. Often he'd stopp in the middle of work to, well not cry, but sigh heavily and the weight of the world seemed to become unbearable.
At least he made some friends his age:
And he exterminated the roach infestion in the apartment. Or at least tried to.
The game lowered his responsibility for this when he meant so well
And finally Gordon recieved a letter. It was written on expensive, thick paper and sealed with a horse surrounded by a swarm of blue fish:
The Poseidontail they symbol was called and since the age of exploration it served as the crest of the Knights of the Hedge!
...who are definitely no cosplayer club in my game, but a globally operating secret society.
The Knights offered training and knowledge for the aspirering vampire hunter as well as full membership by the time Gordon became fourteen.
Now for a ten year old boy Gordon was scarily mature already, but that day he didn't think to ask how exactly the knights had learned about his existance or whether they knew who he really was.
Time passed.
Then, at long last:
"Believe it or not, but I've been waiting to be able to do this!"
"Yes, yes! Let's do this forever!"
"Wait, what, foever? Are you nuts? No, you're going to grow up right now!"
Gordon and Mia in front of Izumi's future apartment. It has the "historc" badge, so it stands to reason that is existed already in Gordon's time.
Mia never really shed her daydreaming habits. But she joined the Sim Nation Junior Pioneers (girlscouts) and in time she grew into a capable ranger that made the forests around the Windenburg Bay safer for travellers. She also gained the favour of the fairy court while accompanying diplomats to Sylvan Glade and back. Her husband and children knew that Mia wasn't cut out for full-time family life due to her early childhood experiences. Though they never begrudged her going on expeditions a lot, they couldn't help but worry each and every time.
Eventually the family settled down in San Myshuno and disappeared from history.
As for Gordon...
Idk if I'm just getting this or its everyone.
EDIT: Moving the pictures of the latest chapter to the inbuilt photoalbum feature now, links will break temporarily, will post again when there's something new to see
Thanks for letting us know what's up. Hope it gets sorted out soon!
http://s288.photobucket.com/user/enkischmidt/Sims 4 homeless challenge/Mc Nally - latest chapter/story
To navigate, do NOT use the left/right arrows, use the slider below the images. Otherwise the pictures won't get centered correctly.
Also layouting your text doesn't seem to be possible at all. (2,50 per month for a plus account that allows hotlinking would have solved that problem neatly, of course. If ever you are tempted to choose between getting a job or following your dreams, don't do like me, folks. Get that d* job!)
I'm lazy, so I'm going to wait and see whether the bandwidth allowance refreshes come july. If not, I'll backedit the older chapters in album format, too.
I'll post the finale in album form tomorrow.
I just read the last chapter, and love it! Can't wait to find out what happens to Gordon. I want to know if he gets his revenge or not!
First there were the McNally, an unassuming clan based in the vast countryside. The McNally's wealth was based on their sheep.
Second were the Shallot, whose ancestral seat was the chateau. They owned manufactories and later electricity powered textile factories in Windenburg's inner city.
And finally the Villareal controled the island and the harbour district. This oldest of the three clans used to be bandits who operated from the roman ruins nowadays called the Bluffs and who became ennobled sometime during high medieval times.
The Villarel's fortune was based on overseas trading, mostly shiping the wool and textile products that the other two clans supplied all over the world.
In the 19th century (or rather my AU version of our 19th century, but close enough for purpose of this story) the Shallot's and McNally's wealth declined, as cheap cotton became more and more readily available with the steam age. Faster ships and especially the opening of Takemizu Nation to the larger world increased competition on the market. Only the Villareal continued to prosper, also thanks to their involvement with the influential Knight of the Hedge.
Now around the turn of the century the McNally had only one heir, a young woman named Mimsy. Unwilling to "lose" her to some craftsman of "lesser" blood, the McNally agreed to wed Mimsy to Bernard Shallot, thus joining the two clans. This brought the joined clan back on par with the Villareal and there the story could have ended, of not for Mimsy Shallot-McNally.
Mimsy, who had fully expected to become head of the family instead of getting sold to the Shallot, had educated herself in the free market lore and especially the stock exchange. During the so-called "Sausage Crisis" she made a few moves that increased the Shallot-McNally's wealth tenfold.
Soon after the sausage crisis was resolved, Sir Bernard's canvas caught fire and everyone in the chateau died. Having no fertile relatives living elsewhere both the Shallot and the McNally ended there, leaving Windenburg to the Villareal.
Actually, there WERE surivors. A child boy and a toddler girl escaped the fire, Gordon and Mia.
At this point in the timeline the latest chapter fits:
http://s288.photobucket.com/user/enkischmidt/Sims 4 homeless challenge/Mc Nally - finale/story
Convoluted backstory continued behind the spoiler tag:
The fire, however, was never meant to kill every last Shallot, just give them a warning about growing too rich too quickly, because that would have severly unbalanced the clans' dynamics. The three clans' constant rivalry had made Windenburg powerful - one getting ahead of the the rest could have disrupted this balance. The Villareal had known this and thus always expanded carefully, thinking in feudal terms about their responsibilities as noble lieges towards Windenburg as the whole. They held it against Mimsy that she followed a capitalistic approach instead.
As a result of first the McNally/Shallot joining and later the fire, Windenburg's overall economic growth declined as predicted. It stayed the scenic tourist town we know today instead of becoming a major metropolis like San Myshuno. Up until today the Windenburgians blame this on the McNally and their greed.
(And as I learned during playing the backstory, the Knights the Hedge very much prefer only one clan to be in charge and don't want Windenburg to become too strong.)
Lady Mia married a good man, assuming his last name.
Gordon, to the contrary, never forgot what happened and cultivated his dreams of revenge, instilling it into his descendants.
He already rued his pact with the Knights of the Hedge and removed himself and his children from the order and the eye of the public.
Time passed.
The final generation of McNallys consisted of an an elderly nanny and a young adult woman living in the slums of San Myshuno.
The young woman got pregnant, but didn't survive the home birth. The nanny, knowing she wouldn't have to live much longer, too, came up with a plan: She bribed a nurse to take her place in the hospital, faked newborn Karl Baum's death and planted the McNally baby next in line for adoption. Then she persuaded Karl's parents to adopt a baby, the nameless McNally boy whom his new parents named Kyle.
The nanny left Kyle an encrypted file that opens at his 14th birthday and reveals everything about his identity as the last McNally as well as the family history to him. Kyle is to use the wealth he stands to inherit from the Baums (one of the richest family in the state) towards the revenge against the Villareal and rebuilding his clan.
(Ironically the furniture factory where Kyle grows up is the Shallot's old textile factory).
Meanwhile the nanny took Karl to San Myshuno where she hid him from the world, barely keeping him alive, never bothering to teach him anything or provide much affection. Four years old Karl escaped or maybe his kidnapper was under the impression he could survive on his own now, maybe she even died, anyway, the toddler was left to fend for himself.
And by merest chance (or fate?) Karl's path crossed that of his birth parents - and that of Kyle, the unsuspecting tool of the McNallys' revenge.
Now the Villareal aren't stupid. As an apprentice in the furniture factory Max Villareal often got tasked with babysitting Kyle. He suspects the boy might be related to Mimsy McNally, so he made a member of his gang, Alexander Goth, steal a copy of the file. Unfortunately when Max' sister in-law tried to decrypt it, her computer got damaged (a coincicence, but Yuki won't try again anytime soon). So the Villareal cannot confirm their suspicion so far.
And then there's the matter of what became of Mia's line...
Those pics of Gordon fighting the Vatores were great btw
About that legacy:
Anyone interested?
There's always the link in my signature
Judging by the lack of notes it is a uge failure, but, man, do I love this tale!
The new legacy is here: The Keatons - a werewolf legacy
But still no immediate plans for Karl. I've seen unattended toddlers walk down the streets in my rotational save, but never Karl. Despite his cravings for adventure when I play him, when the K.I. has control over him he's very well behaved.