Arbordale Prologue- Meet the Residents
I've played the Prosperity Challenge many, many times, and I finally decided to publish one of my stories. I based my neighborhood on the descendants of some of the base game playable characters. I've played this game for awhile, so I have a developed "mythos" for the game, also explained in some detail here.
The only expansion pack I have is Nightlife, and I'm not sure if I'm going to score yet.
I forgot to raise the image quality when creating the characters, so forgive the poor quality!
Pleasants
My memory is a little fuzzy here. I was married to a beautiful, but boring woman. Mary Sue, ah, Mary Sue… so obsessed with your career, your obsession destroyed your career. I probably shouldn’t have done what I did. I shouldn’t have cheated on her in a family sim society. She called Madam Zaria’s Insane Asylum, and I was taken away. I didn’t even know that I left a pregnant woman behind…
Lia-Maria. Supposedly, she took after Mary-Sue in appearance; I saw countless images of her in fashion magazines. She looked so much like Mary-Sue that I realized she must have been her daughter, but when I said this to the doctors, they declared that I had gone into remission. Twenty years of treatment for nothing; they resorted to zapping me. Twenty years of zapping later, and I found myself a different person entirely, interested in nothing more then dating a single person. Maybe. “A pleasure sim… I bet that’s the best we’ll make of him,” Doctor Von Evil said. (I did not make up the name. It’s her real name. A clone of the Simself Zaria…)
Then I found out that Lia-Maria was my daughter. Oh, she was my daughter, indeed… And she took after me.
At the same time I was cheating on Mary Sue, Don Lothario and Cassandra Goth got married. Don… he should have been in that asylum, too. But Cassandra snapped when she found Don cheating on her, and she murdered him. Their son, Carlos, is the only remains of Don’s legacy. Supposedly. I’ve seen too many people that look like Don running around…
But Carlos was like his crazy murderer mom, except not a crazy murderer. A normal man entirely, with a normal job, and a normal desire to have twenty six babies. Lia-Maria married him because he was rich; having been raised by the famous artist Darren Dreamer and the rich Cassandra Goth, he didn’t even understand the concept of being poor.
Their relationship didn’t last very long. At about the same time I left the asylum, my daughter left Carlos with a son. I’m pretty sure that the immortal nurse that dropped me off then ran off to go pick her up.
Carlos told me of a land. Zaria had no control over it, nor did the other simself Tilly. Another variation of herself, Lexie, was boss. Lexie, though, wasn’t a psychopath. Afraid of what would happen if I stayed in this evil place any longer, I picked up my adorable little grandson and left.
All I know about him is that his name is Jose. Carlos didn’t want to leave him behind, especially with an ex-romance sim. But… he couldn’t run. He was a politician, an average Joe politician, and he knew of the approaching doomsday. So though it pained him that he would never see his son again, he left him with me, and we ran.
When we moved in, the newspaper read, “Zaria’s Past Revealed! True Zaria was killed years ago, replaced by evil clone.” It said nothing of the upcoming doomsday. Perhaps Carlos can stop it?
For now, I, the 90-year-old, psychologically tortured, elixir-fed ex-romance sim Daniel Pleasant will do my best to raise a child properly. Peace be with you, Pleasantview, and your efforts to resurrect the ‘real’ Zaria.
I wonder what has happened to Angela and Lilith? Mary Sue’s dead; I saw her grave. Don and Cassandra are all dead… All those youngsters gone. Maybe someday I’ll find out. But for now, I’ll do my best to raise this youngster, my grandson…
Subjects
My name is Nervous Subject, and I came from Strangetown. I’ve been an adult for a long time now. I was kidnapped from my mother at a young age, aged unnaturally quickly into an adult and experimented on. Then when I became an adult I discovered that I had stopped aging. The Simself Lexie assures me that the readers are familiar enough with me to know that I’m the Grim Reaper’s son…
The reason I had stopped aging was because my mother had died, so the former Grim Reaper retired to live the rest of eternity with her. That’s when I became the Grim Reaper, the Grim Reaper living on the mortal realm. Until I die of an unnatural cause, I will be the Grim Reaper.
I was originally a Family sim, as Lexie assures me you should know. I was a stuffy fellow, too, letting my conservative nature get in the way of my lovelife. In other words, I rejected the hand of Pascal Curious because the concept was gay, and instead took the hand of my abusive captor Circe. I have no clue what I was thinking. Only one good thing resulted from it:
..The birth of my son, Helios. He’s a lot like Pascal now that I think of it. A serious, studious boy… I began to realize my foolishness. Being of one aspiration too long had clouded my goals. So I elected to have it changed, and because I am immortal, every generation or so I think I will change it again, to keep it fresh. I’m currently a pleasure sim. Helios was a little annoyed by my choice, but happy that I had used that change of mind to make my smartest move:
Get the hell out of there. It didn’t really matter anymore, though. Loki had died in an experiment long before; Circe was aging and old; and their children had no interest in studying the Grim Reaper once it was determined that immortality could not be taken from my genetic code or from the taking of my life.
We moved here because the brochures suggested it would be nice. I’m waiting for them to make a downtown, myself…
Grunts
Hello, reader. My name is Joanark Grunt, and I also came from Strangetown. Now, when I was told I needed to write this document by the simself Lexie, I headed straight to city hall to ask for specifics. She wanted me to describe my genealogy, but insisted there was no need to describe Strangetown’s past. I pried deeper, so I must admit I know a fair amount about you, reader; as much as I should have any right to know, at any rate. Most likely, you have played this “game.” I am a little confused as to what this means, but the game “shipped” with three neighborhoods- Pleasantview in the days before the infamous Mortimer Goth married the even more infamous Dina Calinete; Strangetown when both of my parents were mere teens; and Veronaville when Romeo and Juliet’s forbidden romance was just beginning to bloom.
But she also described that you, reader, have the ability to “delete” these neighborhoods at will. So I feel hers is an inaccurate assumption on her behalf. To describe my complex genealogy, I must describe Strangetown as I know it.
Strangetown is the science and military center. The town is small, as most people head there to work, not to live. Back then, its only residents were a few scientists, the top of the military, and aliens. Because of the town’s acceptance and harboring of aliens, and its knowledge sim population, it became known as a fairly liberal and perhaps excessively tolerant town. Even General Buzz Grunt accepted aliens on a personal level. It was societal fear of this unknown and potentially threatening new force, along with a fear of losing his job due to these societal pressures, that made him declare the crash-landed alien Pollination Technician #9 “Pete” Smith his enemy.
And I’ll give you that knowledge sims are more tolerant in general. Aliens, vampires, all the non-threatening “Supernatural” species; familial ‘threats’ like romance sims and gays; and, for the longest time, even Fairfolk. Even now, knowledge sims are more likely to accept a Fairfolk that claims to have changed his ways and joined the Sim side of the fight…
No matter how foolish, Knowledge sims tend to be more tolerant… It’s quite unfortunate… Foolish sims like I- I mean, like Knowledge sims- would definitely make the mistake of falling in love with a Fairfolk after becoming a Fairfolk hunter. They would definitely make the mistake of falling for someone like Oberon Summerdream’s charm. They would make the mistake of marrying them, having their kids, and then finding out they were the leader of the Fairfolk Army the entire time… And having to destroy them with their own hands, and take their part-Fairfolk children and run away…
I’m sorry. I’ve gotten ahead of myself, a bit too emotional. I still need to describe how my parents met, and who they are.
As I was saying… Knowledge sims are accepting of supernaturals even when others believe they’re threats. Aliens proved to be anything but a threat, an ally against the cruel Fairfolk, truly. But Knowledge sims also, on a societal average trend, tend to marry family sims. And family sims are very, very conservative. And who want to upset their husband/wife?
So even though the Strangetown sims were liberal folk who accepted aliens as the non-threat they were, ‘familial threats’ were still frowned upon. Knowledge sims did not want to upset their family sims, and so gay marriage was not allowed. And so Johnny Smith hid his own sexuality, and made enemies with the one he had a crush on, Tank Grunt. Tank was happy to return the enemy-ship, for even though he liked Johnny on a personal level he was still iffy on the whole “alien” thing. Especially because the aliens hadn’t even bothered to explain themselves to the Sims yet. They honestly thought that kidnapping them and impregnating them was the best method of gaining acceptance. Well, it sure worked in Strangetown, but it just scared everyone else out of their wits… Some towns are still bigoted against aliens.
But anyway, oddly enough, it turned out Johnny’s skin color was not what prevented him from fitting in. His parents kicked him out when he revealed he was gay, though they did not mind keeping the then-adult son with them beforehand. Jenny, my grandmother, spoke to him on an as-needed basis. Pete talked to him more often; I actually got to know him before he died.
At this point, aliens had corrected their game and proved themselves to not be a threat. So General Buzz did not mind taking homeless Johnny in, and because he was secretly a fairly liberal man, approved when Tank asked to take his hand in marriage.
I forgot to mention one clarification point here, didn’t I? Lexie assured me you would know of it, but: Aliens impregnated men, which added to the hysteria. Johnny must have learned the secrets of male impregnation, because very soon I, Joanark, was born. I was named after Joan of Arc. My younger sister, Teressa, joined us later. She was named after Mother Teresa.
Teressa’s a sweetheart, but… she’s a popularity sim, like our parents. Unlike them, she was more obsessed with partying then with school. Plus, I get the feeling that she’s afraid of me.
As a high schooler, Johnny dated Ophelia, a “beard.” Ophelia never approved of his relationship either, but for more personal reasons. For other personal reasons, she ended up moving to Pleasantview, and falling in love with Dirk Dreamer. By some astronomic coincidence, their daughter, Gertrude, met Teressa and they fell in love. I guess Ophelia’s blood was destined to join with Johnny’s at some point or another.
By some process I won’t pretend to understand, they had children. Adorable little twins girls: Voluminia and Cordelia.
As you may have guessed by now, it is something of a Strangetown tradition to give themed names to your children. Gertrude and Teressa never broke the tradition, and I didn’t either. Whenever we talk about this, Gertrude says something among the lines of, “Acting normal, huh, Joanark?” Then she feels genuinely apologetic for saying such a thing. She fears me too, but this I don’t mind. She fears my sons… I mind this.
But, that is truly off topic! As I was saying, I named my children, too. After presidents from your world.
George was named after the first “American” president (The terminology is correct, isn’t it? Lexie said not to ask, as this was a sore spot for some people. I don’t understand your world very well…) He’s a nice boy, interested in nothing more then fitting in and being popular, like his grandparents and his aunt. Because he wanted to fit in, he would hide his growing magical powers. He hated the mask that was incarved upon his face more then anything else. But perhaps here, now, far away from the memory of his father, he’ll have a chance to let his powers grow, and to accept it.
And here’s my other son, Barack. So far, he hasn’t shown any sign of magical power. A mask hasn’t even appeared on his face yet. Perhaps it is for the best; or perhaps he’ll develop power later…
But in this place, Teressa, Gertrude and I hope to start fresh. I still miss Oberon, evil as he was. I still love that evil man… I’m a fool. But in this new town, I hope to repent for my foolish actions.