Morning jog. Empty parks.
Aurora Skies is very proud of its Spooky Day orange and black hot air balloon.
Outrun the cold. Go go go.
Astral just wants to plan her prom strat, but her father wants to talk politics all day. Sigh!
Her mother's lessons are slightly more interesting.
Though this deer does not seem impressed.
Just some pictures.
This restaurant is called Tacos & More.
Satsuma Rios, a young representative from Cuisine and Contracts, wanted to meet here to discuss a marketing deal involving the Aurora Skies Alpacas team.
"I've been anxious to try this place since it opened!" Satsuma exclaims. "No one ever wants to go though. Maybe it's the name..."
"Tacos & More sounds like a department store named by a kindergarten class," Fairuza agrees.
"I think I'm getting a burrito." The girl seems adverse to talking business right away, so Fairuza is forced to listen to half an hour of dull chit-chat.
"We might be in-laws someday," Satsuma chirps. "Mikkel is serious about Ivy. He's been sending her letters every single day. It's so cute."
Fairuza blinks. "You're related?"
"He's my half-brother. We shared a father."
"Sounds complicated."
Free ice cream is provided at the door, to offset the spicy aftertastes of much of the menu.
With both parents at work, Lynx and Epiphany are told to stay at the Tiny Prodigies Learning Center after school for a few hours. Lynx heads directly for the tiny arcade room...
...leaving his sister to entertain herself just down the hall.
Epiphany is fine for a few minutes, pretending to be a bird or whatever...
...but when the loneliness gets too much to handle, she seeks out other kids to play with.
"I'm Pippy," Epiphany introduces herself.
"I'm Emmy," Embla Wong responds.
"My big sister is in high school now and hanging with her cooler friends. I came here with my brother, but he won't play with me," Epiphany sighs. "So I was hoping you would."
"Sure," Embla says. "My parents didn't provide me with any siblings at all."
Astral is busy hanging out with Carrie Elliot.
As you can see, they are high school students, too mature to pal around with middle schoolers.
"Mom finally bought me the keyboard," Carrie reports.
"Awesome! Now all we need is to spice up your wardrobe, and we practically have a band."
"We tried that," Carrie reminds her friend. "Mom just threw all my trendy clothes in the garbage."
"Pffft, we'll just stash your clothes at my place. It'll be fine!" Astral declares. "And if we get your hair cut, your Mom can't exactly-"
"Make we wear a respectable wig?" Carrie arches an eyebrow.
"A tattoo, then," Astral says.
"You really want me grounded forever, don't you?"
"We'll both get a tattoo of our band name, just as soon as we figure out what it is."
"Hmm," Carrie makes a noncommittal noise.
"I was thinking Gateway Glam."
"Do we know what those words even mean?"
By the end of the week, Astral and Carrie are at the Voltaire Salon & Tattoo Parlor.
Astral thinks the tattoo artist, Mani Vinter, is a pretty cool dude, as he is perfectly willing to listen to her teen problems and take her money.
Carrie allows Astral to do the talking, as usual, so she can focus all of her attention on the fish swimming towards Mani's bicep.
Astral thinks Mani is far less of a cool dude when she learns about his prices. The girls will only be able to afford one tattoo. The most bang for their buck would obviously involve pissing off Carrie's mother, so Astral waits patiently for Carrie to select a design and get inked.
"What do you think?" Carrie couldn't be talked into a tattoo that said Gateway Glam, but she did get a tattoo on her face. The jellyfish seems to explode out from the small birthmark under Carrie's right eye, so Astral can only assume it was meant to somewhat mask it.
"A stinging marine thingie! Badass!" Astral responds.
"A jellyfish stung me once when I was swimming, so it's symbolic."
"Like how Batman was afraid of bats so he dresses up like one?"
"Yeah."
"Badass!" Astral says again.
"I was also kind of inspired by Mani's koi tattoo," Carrie adds, whispering now. "He's such a dreamboat."
"Less badass," Astral says flatly.
"Sooo do you think makeup can cover this, or is my mother going to prison for murder tonight?"
________
________
"Ivy and Mikkel are MARRIED?!" Fairuza screeches. "And they told YOU before ME?!"
Still grinning like a jackass after her adventures at Voltaire's, Astral returns home to find her mother causing drama on the front lawn.
"Don't blame the messenger!" Satsuma whimpers. Fairuza may be privy to Mikkel's work schedule since he took a job with the Alpacas, but Satsuma actually lives with the guy. "I think they did it in secret to avoid a fuss and a party... Mikkel just hopped on the train to visit Ivy at university and we didn't know they were planning on getting married..."
"I wanted a party!" Fairuza whines.
______________________________________________________
Etc.: Several Mexican restaurants in my old hometown offered free ice cream cones at the door. Just cheap soft serve, nothing great, but it reportedly helped wash down regrets.
Hmm. There's an awesome barbecue place that has free soft serve after, we just use it make rootbeer floats with our meal.
ReplyDeleteShe got a tattoo on her face! Good thing in the Sims this does not make her unemployable. I'm trying to remember Ivy's new husband. I'm sure he showed up somewhere.
Ivy and Mikkel have been dating since chapter 1.10 :)
DeleteBut how much free soft serve does it take to wash down the regrets of getting a jellyfish tattooed on your face?? I feel kind of bad for Carrie. After following your legacies for so many generations, you still manage to surprise XD
ReplyDeleteAstral is rocking that haircut more than any other sim I’ve ever seen before!
We haven't seen the last of that tattoo (probably).
DeleteIt's always fun to turn a generally ugly haircut into something that works! Sometimes all it takes is the right face shape, outfit or color to make it shine... or at least look less unappealing.
Astral's hairstyle works much better on her than its previous owner (with the pink 'fringe'), and I think Ivy has some 'splaining to do!
ReplyDeleteAstral wouldn't understand your complement, but she'd take it!
DeleteWow, so! I actually read this chapter a while ago (around the time it came out, I assume) but I just realized now I never commented!
ReplyDeleteI'm totally exposing myself here, but I've always been up-to-date on your blogs, even when I wasn't involved in the forum. I stumbled across them (don't remember how) back in... high school, I think? It was during your big hiatus, and I remember being SO SAD when I realized the blogs hadn't been updated in a while and would probably never be continued. I had fallen head over heels for the Archers and the way you wrote them, their story that became steadily more intricate, how you built this world full of magic and time-travel and multi-dimensional hijinks that also had deep lore and was also post-apocalyptic and like, why is this so good it's a sims blog?? So of course I thought I would be forever heartbroken, but then I checked back for nostalgia's sake (again, don't remember exactly when) only to find out that you were back and continuing! And I've been lurking every since.
Yikes, what is this? A love letter? Embarrassing. I'm done now.
Anyway, the photos in this chapter are absolutely gorgeous. The entire color scheme/visual atmosphere of Fairuza's story so far has been, actually. Do you edit your photos at all, or is it just the natural look of the town? It's great either way.
Thank you so much! It's always encouraging to hear my stories are enjoyed. :) So don't be embarrassed, your nice comment means a lot to me. <3
DeleteI'm sorry if you felt any lack of closure, especially with the long hiatuses; the bit with Acheron in my Goldbeards RLC was meant to provide at least some form of "ending", for longtime readers. I've always intended to go back to the Archers in Hidden Springs, but the task is very daunting, and I'm so much busier now than I was then.
As for the pictures... Aurora Skies just looks like this. :D Mostly. The salon was downloaded from TSR, and the festival grounds come from Owly (I did some slight editing on both). Tiny Prodigies is a heavily altered EA lot. I built the Law house from scratch, trying to make it look like it belonged in AS though. Notice how it's surrounded by flower terrain paints... that's because the ground is naturally so dark in that spot, it's unnerving. Notice where the flowers end in the distance, it looks black, even in broad daylight. x.x
I also built the taco place, though I'm not that proud of it. Something just seems off. I dunno. It has a stage in the back. I wanted to make sure I didn't have to switch towns in the event of rolling a Showtime career, so several places in my Aurora Skies have stages for entertainers.
Sometimes I make bad decisions and take screenshots in poorly lit areas, and I have to "brighten" them, but they end up looking a bit faded (because I am bad and lazy at photo manipulation). I don't see any of that in this chapter, so the pics must be all natural.
Oh man, don't apologize! I think part of the fun of Sim blogs is that they're enjoyable whether they have a proper "conclusion" or not--there's still the idea that the story can always continue and the legacy can stretch into infinity. But I am, of course, always happy when there's an update. :)
DeleteI did thoroughly enjoy Acheron's arc; I felt like it was a satisfying explanation that, while having an Ultimate Answer, didn't make any stories that followed any less interesting. Plus, him running around with all his "cousins" (or whatever familial bond they considered themselves? it's been so long!) was very fun.
Ugh, I should get Aurora Skies at some point. The online reviews were lukewarm, but these pictures are enough to sway me. And I think the taco place looked great! Especially the decor, it's so bright and fun.
I like Aurora Skies a lot. :)
DeleteMost of the taco place decor came from here: https://aroundthesims3.com/objects/room_downtown_21.shtml