Whoa, no wonder that took so long! And here I got to leave in 15 minutes...This big an influx of kids can really shake things up in a town this size. I laughed when I saw Sadie checking out Gavin - she's the best thing that ever happened to him, in my played-on version, and it looks like Virgie's not quite settled on Scot yet, either. But if Gavin's the option you were thinking of for River, both those girls are just outta luck. Woody shouldn't write himself off so quick - he has no idea what leagues Ginger's been playing in.

They really need to watch out for Rich. Blackmailing indigent kids would be beneath him in the regular way of business, but if he's got a use for one, the most efficient recruitment technique is the one he'll use.

Overboard. It's where I live. I don't see Rich concerning himself about their secrets so blackmail is probably off the table. He's not terribly interested in them but one never knows when a streetwise kid or two might come in handy. Annoying Daytona is also always a bonus.

David might be the tiniest bit jealous, as a pop sim, that some of that new cool kid shine has been displaced onto Gavin and he was more actively guarding/claiming Goldie than Scot seemed to feel the need to do with Virgie, at least at first. But David's more interested in befriending him, he can sense the street cred, which makes the Newsons automatically cool. Even Goldie latched onto Ginger but Virgie will try to take over there, too. Reassert her dominance. Gavin's an allurement but Ginger's a little bit of a threat, especially since perceptions about their relationship are so confused. She loves Scot but he's so safe and steady. And familiar, so her eyes do wander.

Gavin's not the one, he's not gay. And as may prove to be good news to Virgie or Sadie (or both) he does love a redhead.

Well, the teens will sort themselves out. Ginger could do a lot worse than Woody; who, when you finally get him somebody to love, tends to be such a sweet boyfriend, he'll rot your teeth. Plus the lack of social points gives him access to the most adorable flirt animations (like Goldie).

The death of Mr. Bastard is actually a little more shocking if he didn't rape Ginger. Realistically, once he started pursuing her they'd have to move whatever they did or didn't do in retaliation, because with a person like that it can only escalate. They were between a rock and a hard place - the less likely he is to call the authorities on them, the more likely he is to resort to violence. They can't live somewhere Ginger's afraid to go to the laundry room. Even if she can handle a threat to herself, it wouldn't take a manipulative genius to realize that a threat to one of the littles could be effective.

Perhaps Gavin figured (he is young, after all) that if he could beat the guy down once, hard enough, he'd back off and they wouldn't have to leave. That sort of thing never works, long term, but people keep acting like it will, and that is one of the ways manslaughter happens. If he refuses to back down to a kid, and the kid brings it harder, and he retaliates, and there's a knife - well,there we are.

Gavin and Ginger don't seem to blame each other for it, which is good. All that time under prisoner tokens has bonded them properly, it looks like. It's frustrating to me that the bios indicate a tight family unit, but they aren't friends with each other as they come out of the bin.

That's a very Widespottian house they've got, with so much "base game cheap" in it, a little bare and makeshift, just as it ought to be. Rich may be taking advantage of them, and they may have trouble affording it, but compared to what they left behind, it probably doesn't feel like they're paying more than it's worth. The cost of living's bound to be cheaper here than in the city, and it's entirely possible they were paying as much for that tenement as they're paying now for the house.

Of course the Lands and the Beeches are the welcome wagon! Sandy and Dixie are even the ones with the time to do it; though Sandy obviously felt awkward. Looks like she'll have her work cut out for her opening a pipeline to Virgie via Dixie. Dixie never felt awkward a day in her life, and it must be great to have another poor Fortune sim to talk to. And of course the Lands show up bearing gifts, though they can't have a lot to spare themselves. How much is kindness and how much is curiosity we needn't examine. They don't cancel each other out.

I don't doubt that Woody, or any of the Widespot boys really, would be good for Ginger but first she'd have to be disabused of that unfortunate belief that boys her own age just aren't 'her speed'.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like even that incident did much to cure her need for attention from men. Gavin does blame her somewhat even though he doesn't hold it against her, that's easier to do and the whole thing's easier to try and forget as long as they never talk about it. Or so he thinks.

Gavin knows Ginger better than anyone. His assumption that she was somehow at fault even after learning that her altercation was with a man and not a woman might seem insensitive, especially in light of what we've seen that he hasn't, but he knows Ginger provokes situations, which isn't the same as believing she deserves what she gets, that's why he had to go handle it.

Still, there are some things Ginger wouldn't want him or anyone ever knowing. Gavin definitely thought he could get the message across with his fists and that would solve the problem. But that was surely not the first beatdown that 'Mr. Bastard' had ever had and he'd never "learned his lesson" so it would not have worked, regardless. And I think it not implausible that that boot print on his head is the direct result of his revealing an ill-timed truth in the midst of the pummelling, taunting Gavin that he was wasting his time and his energy on a -bleep- like that.

For better or worse the Newsons are in this thing together and the good thing is that solidifying those bonds was pretty much automatic. For the most part there wasn't much fun-advertising stuff around so they naturally turned to each other but even tv or music or toys are no fun alone, they're always pushing for a sibling to join it seems. Of course, that co-dependency may have its own consequences further on but that bond is what's kept their heads above water.

This house is the safest haven they've had since leaving Gloria's and especially after that last leg of their journey it looks pretty perfect to them! Compared to the nook Dixie's occupying in her sister's house, she's wondering why she didn't think of finding some way to finance her own place. Of course, she'd have to actually work, and do it regularly. She's got no privacy but Mary doesn't charge rent so that's the trade-off. Gavin and the gang managed to pay their rent to Rich and taxes to Daytona and still have some petty cash left even though I did lock the bulk of what they start with away in an account. Dixie could actually learn a few things from him about thrift and industry—the latter being precisely what the Lands never mastered.

I laughed out loud when Dixie and Sandy showed up together but Sandy was bound to be dismayed to see that even Dixie is kind of cold to her. And Dixie's one of the kids to her so she'd never guess (at least not yet) it could have something to do with them in any way being rivals.

So the $64 question will be, Just how dumb is Rhett? He waited till Dixie grew up, but she also didn't come on to him till then. Can he handle himself around attention-seeking jailbait? Tune in tomorrow or the next day, and we'll see. Having a little sister her age should apply a brake. I certainly hope so. But with Rhett it can't be taken for granted.

Ultimately I expect Dixie's natural habitat will wind up being a shared trailer with her makeover chair in the front room or on the porch. Privacy isn't likely to be a big deal to a Land, compared to free rent and somebody else cooking, as long as no one is trying to control her. Whether Lana decides to control her or ignore her will depend on circumstances. Whatever happens, living with her sister can only ever be an interim arrangement. She'll have to figure something out sooner or later. Maybe she can teach the Newsons how to make your own fun in a small town, and they can teach her how to scrounge an independent life. She might like helping out in the store, though I suspect you'll have to constantly watch her to keep her from proposing games of catch and tickling customers, instead of working the sales floor.

Of course, it's Rhett. Who else but Rhett. And Ginger already has him in her sights. He has once expressed his sense that there is a line there best not crossed, at least as regards his little sister, and with the Harts' history he couldn't just play dumb about being on the wrong side of the age gap. He had no control whatsoever over what Candy did and no part in that mess but it was the fallout from that which laid the foundation for something resembling a scruple. But that's all in the abstract and possibly too tied to the specific consequences that wouldn't seem relevant to his circumstances. Whether in practice he can actually be the adult and remember he's the adult with the jailbait in hot pursuit of him remains to be seen.

(I've just stumbled across the story you mentioned before, where Rhett's a rapist and Mary commits suicide. Oh my.)

Privacy might be a bigger deal than Dixie realised when she volunteered herself as housemate when she can't even get to the bathroom except through Mary & Junior's room. They might find there is such a thing as one knowing too much about a sister's sex life. But Dixie's not easily embarrassed and anything's better than living at home under Mama's roof and Mama's rules.

Oh, yeah, that thing makes your Newson backstory look like Sesame Street. On the one hand, I put Widespot out there for people to use in ways that I wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't; on the other hand - holey cheese! The whole time I was building I tried my best to think of the worst things people could do with it, telling myself that if I couldn't face anything and everything I shouldn't go public, and I've thought of several things nobody's done yet (where I could see them), but Grammapat went places I wasn't prepared for! Which I'm glad she felt able to do. But it's not on my list to reread.

Oh, Rhett...you know, if he can remember he's the adult, it'll show real progress. The double standard is strong with him, so he won't feel any exterior pressure to behave. If he does so, it'll be because he's learned to extrapolate his sense that Goldie shouldn't mess with older guys onto Ginger and to recognize himself as an "older guy." It'd be a major advance, especially if he does it all himself, with no admonishments from Valentine. I'm far from sanguine, but I'm pulling for him.

I'm anxious to see him with Proxy, too. Nothing like a baby in the house to grow a boy up. And Rhett tends to have an - interesting - dynamic with small children.

The new additions to both the Hart and the Junior Mann households are so drastic that I'm looking forward to those rounds a lot. Dixie and Sandy-Proxy are bound to change the dynamics of both houses, but how? Dixie could increase tensions, or she could ruthlessly drag them out into the open and stomp on them. Sandy could go - oh, so many ways! The departure of Candy, the death of Angel, and Valentine's attempt to go cold-turkey on Mary have left an adult-female void in the house that it would be natural for her to try to fill; but her own experience of that niche is not a positive one. Sure, she could become the reliable cook/housekeeper/babyminder, insinuate herself into Valentine's good graces that way; but she's been there, done that, and didn't like it. If she doesn't want to be Rhett's wife, how much less will she want to be Valentine's daughter-in-law? How prickly will she be about being the last word in raising Proxy? How willing is she to use her daughter to get what she wants from the other family members, and where does she draw her lines?

I hope Goldie can make friends with Ginger all her own. They both need peer girlfriends badly. Much as Goldie longs to be in with Virgie, even if she manages it, their relationship will never be free of the shadow cast by Rhett and Sandy. Ginger is someone her own age she could make friends with on her own hook, from outside local teen politics, who is simultaneously more and less experienced. Messy as it is, Goldie's life will look marvelously stable to Ginger. (Hey, she's still got one whole parent! And all these links to her mom!) Neither one will feel entitled to judge or look down on the other's life situation. Ginger can even advise her on the auntie gig. In return, Goldie can be Ginger's entry into the small town teen community and ease the culture shock. Much as Goldie feels like an outsider, Ginger is even more so, which could make Goldie at last feel like an insider as she guides her new friend through the Widespot teen angst minefield. That would be good all around.

But before then, the Beeches, and Virgie negotiating that springtime rising of sap and that new boy smell coming off Gavin. Not just new boy - by local standards he looks like a bad boy - certainly when standing next to Scot. And she is her mother's daughter...

With holidays coming up, I'll do my best not to expect anything more till after the New Year. But if you could surprise me by being faster, I won't complain. :)

Of course, reading that I automatically start hearing the Sesame Street theme and in some ways the lyrics are pretty apt; whatever else Widespot may be, the air is clean!

One of the great things about your having put it up on MTS is that its bigness as a site has a kind of neutralising effect. For myself, if I had stumbled across it elsewhere, even on a community like pixeltrade where whole hoods were traded instead, I'd have hesitated. And if I'd still decided to give it a try, whatever version of this story evolved would be safely tucked away in my game folders. But amidst so many other players and potential players it seemed safe to assume there was nothing I could do to rival the sheer ingenuity for sim torture that might come out of that. Has anyone done the Widespot Apocalypse yet? What's curious is how consistent characterisations tend to be, given a brief bio and opening scenario, for Maxis characters as well. We, more often than not, follow what we perceive as the script as though there's an implicit narrative directive in those few words about them. Every play-through of a previously made sim is an alternate universe version of them but it's interesting to try and pinpoint at what point characterisation "breaks" so that one can say (to oneself) something like "that is not Cassandra Goth", and mean it. Hmm...Ok, end ramble.

As for my favourite comic relief rascal, Rhett's been learning that the financial consequences for baby-making are the least of his troubles. There will indeed be a couple of Rhett-Proxy interludes forthcoming :-)

It's probably a good thing Dixie doesn't know Mary's secret because I can't imagine she could keep it, she'd use whatever was handy for putting those mannish in-laws in their place if she felt they were getting in her face or in Mary's. Even just a passing barb about Mary bein' better off as a Hart's babymama, especially if she specifically mentioned Valentine, would be enough to ignite a firestorm. Junior wouldn't take it any better than Lana, not coming at him like that.

Sandy is an interesting case. She doesn't want to live alone, certainly not in penury, and her discomfort is nowhere near a good enough reason to take Proxy away from the safe comfort of her family. But they're not Sandy's family! And how much she wants to make them hers versus maintaining her independence like she retains her (husband's) name she's still working through.

There will be teen dramatics aplenty this spring!
The friendliness between Goldie and Ginger is making some headway toward friendship but there may be a hitch if Goldie suspects she's just using her to get to Rhett (Ginger's actually too bold to need subterfuge like that...but she will make use of proximity) or begins to worry that Ginger's not a girl to be trusted around brothers or boyfriends.

It really will be a festivus miracle if I can find my way to getting it done enough to post but we'll see!

MTS is where I hang out, and it's the ideal place for people to be able to find it when want it. Also, I had a good sense of the audience. I've encountered people who, when they say they're OCD, aren't joking about how fussy they are - they're using the game as a therapeutic tool to manage their symptoms, and ask for advice on how to loosen up the sense that there's a "right way" to play. Oh, here, have a neighborhood that I, as creator, can tell you has no "right way" - every important choice will hurt somebody, and every path to happiness will be thick beset with difficulty. But you can create order there, if that's what you want, so have at it. (I was so proud when one of them married Mary to Hamilton! I had never even considered that as a possibility!)

Being aware of the tendency for people to fall into stereotyping their stories, I did my best to subvert people's default assumptions in development. It's one reason the mess is so messy. Oh, of course the downtrodden girl should marry the rich...um son of a crimelord who has already knocked up somebody else, or maybe his dad did it? And when she fell in love with him she was cheating on her babydaddy? But she's a Good Girl...That's why all the grown-ups have both something sympathetic and something problematic about them (even Skye is a paradox), and so many characters have personality point distributions that don't mesh with the stereotypes of their aspirations. That started with Penny. The Manns were the first family conceived, but then I thought how hilarious it would be to have an alien Knowledge sim who was everybody's friend and a naked hot-tubber. Grown-up family members were roped into their household theme, but for the teens I looked at their points and took care to give them aspirations that people who assign aspiration by formula would never, ever give them. Lazy and playful? Fortune! And the babies were a marvelously efficient means to split up the obvious pairings and make people think twice. I also tried to make the bios as open-ended and morally neutral as I could, and I hoped some would provoke deeper thought in some players. What happens if Rhett becomes aware of his assumption of male privilege? Is Valentine telling the player, or his own conscience, to shut up? If Mary ever learns to say No, who will she say it to? Does Penny really love Rhett, or is the whole relationship an experiment?

Sims will tend to play consistently where similar mechanics act on the base personality points, but even within that consistency there is a lot of room for different decisions that remain in-character, and that's what I love most - seeing the way different people wind up different places from that starting point. Your Candy is very different from my Candy, but she's great! Nobody has yet explored the possibility that Lana doesn't know where her money comes from (that I know of) or done Widespot Apocalypse; but somebody will, sometime, I devoutly hope; and I hope, also, that I get a glimpse when they do.

God, I love Rhett. I love all of them, but - Bewildered diaper-changing Rhett. Hostile babysitter Rhett ("Gimme that kid, you're doing it wrong!"). Bear-talking Rhett - I haven't seen Goldie's bear in your Hart house, but he is far and away the most likely one to pick it up. If the game had strollers he'd totally be the guy using the baby to pick up girls in the park. One player moved Mary in and she had quads, so the rec room got turned into a nursery and every time the player lost track of Rhett he'd be in the there wrangling babies. Another realized that he'd think "Teach me the Ways of Darkness, baby" was a good come-on, and he wound up a witch. You know that challenge where a sim goes all around the uberhood breeding with one pre-made in each? That's got Rhett written all over it.

Sandy continues to only have substandard options. That must feel like the story of her life. She's bound to be scrutinizing every new development and every family that comes to town - is there an opportunity here that she can use to make her position less precarious? That's what she was doing in that welcome wagon, you mark my words.

Mary and Hamilton, you say. Well, at least one other player may have considered the possibility...But of course my Mary is married to Junior, isn't she? A perfectly age-appropriate and rather amiable relationship as it goes, so that 'ship' must already have sailed...

Ah Sandy. I won't say she's got TERRIBLE taste in men but it's certainly suspect and it does seem like that's on purpose, on some level, as a way of resisting the images people keep foisting on her. When she was married she kept up the affair with Rhett even after deciding that she loved Hamilton and her family more because he, at least, seemed to have no illusions about her. But now that she's the mother of his child, living with him, instead of being some dude's wife that he was banging on the sly, their dynamic has, naturally, shifted. Rhett may have been the baddest boy around but he is far from the baddest man so I'm curious to see just how much Sandy is willing to compromise herself (especially now that there is Proxy to think of) for a fleeting moment of feeling free.

I had precious little to do with the development of her relationship with Rich's head contractor, either; they have an odd bond, they kept popping up around town together but their interactions were sometimes flirty, sometimes prickly, but even the fact that they argue means that they've quickly established some sort of rapport, especially as I don't think it was always Nelson's dearth of nice points that started it. Sandy knew right off that he was an unsavoury sort so the fact that it intrigued her is troubling. And if Rhett assumes that their open 'arrangement' is only open for him and if Valentine is inclined to agree that this woman living in his house should at least be faithful to his son then she might soon have even more hard decisions to make. Dixie may not be the only one impressed by the Newsons' plucky independence. Of course, even that road, an actual homey home of "their own", fully equipped with basic amenities and things, still circles back to Rich.

I've got another family of more than the accumulated CAS points will allow coming. We'll soon see what Sandy, and the rest, make of them. Ha! (you'll see what I mean, shortly, I hope, since they won't be played at the end of the round but taking their alphabetical rank right off as Daytona has already planned for their arrival.) The Newsons aren't a gimme so much as they crash landed in Widespot (well, thankfully the car didn't crash!) and cut the line. Daytona (and I) will have to compensate somehow, she will proceed with her arrangements but some sort of ban may likely be instituted after that until she buys back enough points to increase the population cap. Always in some sort of debt for this town that one, but it will be worth it to magnify her legacy! (And tell the story the way I want it.)

Different mod cocktails can go a long way to re-routing game behaviour and, believe it or not, I'm actually playing with fewer mods in Widespot than are indispensable in my other hoods. I don't know if bear talking is allowed, I doubt it, but it's funny you mention it because one of the outtakes pics is of Goldie cuddling up to Tommy's Ted Buddy at the Ottomas house (before she and David became as close as they now are), which I then realised Rebecah had modded. Yet even though it's got a fun advertisement and has more interactions available to older sims, no one else in that house has ever bothered with it, not even the other kids.

Val's conscience is a very interesting mechanism; bit glitchy at times but very definitely present. And Rhett's got one helluva head start on the Moonbeam Trail (think that's what it was called, too lazy to check) challenge. The last thing he or Dixie need here is an oops baby binding them together forever and if he and his even less efficient conscience succumb to Ginger (whom I imagine may be as fertile as he is), that's a mess I don't see any of them climbing out of, not any time soon and certainly not gracefully. Sheesh. Well, let's hope for better choices. No foreshadowing here, that particular mess is not in my plans.

-dang character limits; last para not worth extra post, tho-

Yeah, Sandy is a loose cannon. I'm laying no bets on which way she jumps, because smart as she is, she can be terribly unwise, and getting with Rhett is seldom the last thing she does which is not in line with her own best interests. The stakes aren't this high in most neighborhoods, though. This Widespot has an actual dark side available to succumb to!

It'd be obnoxious for Valentine to have a double standard - but it is his house and he can be obnoxious if he chooses. It would be perfectly reasonable, though, for him to give the Under My Roof speech and lay down some ground rules, like No Cheating Where Proxy or Goldie Can See You, No Bringing 'Em Home, to apply to both of them, but not him. Because that horse is already out of the barn and hey, it's his house and he's single.

If you changed zoning so that shack Sandy stayed in is zoned Community, it could become a rival to the Makeout Spot. After all, it has walls and something approximating a bed! I don't know how your challenge points are going, but, as with the CAS points, when a rule interferes with play, it's worth bending.

Just as 'ships that have sailed have to come back to a dock at some point. Just saying, since you sounded wistful there. A lot would have to happen first, though, and Hamilton isn't getting any younger. (Not that age deters Mary at all.)

This would be the Pleasure-themed family coming aboard? It'll be interesting to see what could draw a bunch like that to Widespot!

I'll be interested to see how Ginger and Gavin handle the perception that everybody thinks they're a couple with babies, given Gavin's insistence on projecting respectability. That the adults here are treating them with more respect than they're accustomed to, in spite of that assumption, must be confusing.

One thing about adding the Ottomai and the Newsons - you've already effectively broken up the Great Hart Genetic Bottleneck. (At least, assuming Rhett is done spreading wild oats that take root.) At this pace it'll take a couple of years to get up to that, anyway, but it's good to solve problems early.

I wish I hadn't thought of Rhett doing Moonbeam Trail, because now I keep thinking about it, and challenges don't fit my playstyle a bit. I could call it "the Nose that Conquered the Uberhood" and end with him going into politics on a "For god's sake, we need cheap effective birth control and we need it 18 years ago" platform. Genetically it'd be more fun to do it with Candy, because male premades have more varied and interesting faces. But I can't imagine Candy producing that many kids if she couldn't foist them off on other people during their boring stinky babyhoods. Maybe if I attached a normal Widespot RFD to a genderswapped Uberhood...

As for that particular ship, not wistful, more like coy, since Round 3 will reveal whether that pairing could ever come to be or whether it sinks completely out of the realm of plausible and/or good happenings.

I don't know how my challenge points are going myself; think I'll go and get that all tabulated in a minute. But I know the CAS points tally was something I decided not to let deter me from bringing on the Newsons and the other new folks so I'm pretty sure I'm fresh out now. The first family aren't Pleasure but I suppose it could end up seeming like they should be and I'm right at the point where I'll need to decide whether to bring in the ones I had earmarked for Pleasure or wait for Round 4. I'd actually loaded up the lot to play for this last round but I didn't really have much for them yet so I passed on. Prisoner tokens are such handy little things. :-) Mostly my decisions are about generational alignments, oh, and that B&B lot I was planning on. If it has to wait until Round 4 then re-zoning the shack is an intriguing possibility. I'd have to kick out the placeholder sim and find her somewhere else to squat but there's some interesting potential for mischief in that idea! The lack of adult supervision in the Newson home is already quite the temptation for my "twitter-pated" teens.

I doubt Rhett's completely done with baby-making but I'm hoping the next ones don't come along until he's better prepared or can at least afford them. Val is really over having to cover Rhett's child support debts when his check comes up short.

(And much as I love Valentine, being a bit obnoxious is not entirely out of character.)

Rhett the politician is as funny to me as Junior thinking I was going to let him be Widespot's doctor. But Rhett could totally pull that one off. I'll be on the lookout for "the Nose that Conquered the Uberhood", y'know, just in case you find that's an itch you can't help but scratch...genderswapped Uberhood sounds like the perfect playground for Rhett's favourite game!

Edited 2014-12-05 12:56 am (UTC)

Maybe next time I get too sick to do real stuff I'll start the Nose on its appointed rounds. But I'm reluctant to take on a new simming project - I've already got Drama Acres, Widespot, and Strangetown, and it takes a very long time to do anything in any of them! I'd have to do a Moonbeam Trail in a very different playstyle than my usual.

Valentine certainly can be obnoxious when he feels like it - it's the flipside of that effortless dominance. Even my happy domesticated Valentine, when he happens not to be engaged in following Mary around giving her backrubs, has been known to noseflick a stranger or decide that it's been too long since anybody squashed Junior and it's on him to take care of that. (Rhett really does take after his old man; he just lacks that Certain Something that makes all the difference.)

And Val may justifiably feel that a little calculated obnoxiousness directed at Rhett and Sandy is what's needed to motivate them to figure out a better solution to their lifestyle problems than living off of him. It's time Sandy put those smarts of hers to practical use!

This was a great chapter! It felt time to add some characters to Widespot, but the Newsons came as a surprise nevertheless. And yours is such a good angle on them with that backstory and the looks and all. I really loved this road trip which of course had to end up in Widespot, and when they finally got there it felt like I as reader also kind of met the inhabitants of Widespot anew. This turn deepened the overall plot even more.
And for each updates your pictures get even more awesome. This narrative style of yours remind me a little of Simtopi (I know I’ve mentioned that to you before) where one also really got the feeling of an open hood game that the characters moved through. This story just keeps on getting better.

Glad you liked it, I'm rather pleased with it myself because I really pushed to get it all pulled together before real life plopped it back on the shelf, though I did expect that this one, going well beyond the standard fare Widespot shenanigans (apart from some of Rich's antics), would be hit or miss.

The Newsons have been waiting quite a while for their moment and Widespot is definitely a welcome respite from life on the road but it probably won't take them long to get caught up in its little dramas.

One extra detail about the pictures this time around are the signs in the background that I didn't really stage but started to frame pics around when I noticed how ironic or poignant they seemed, even though they didn't all end up showing clearly. So there's the anti-violence signs when Jack Bastard first appears on the scene and then that 'no smoking' sign while he's puffing away and only the word 'offer' is visible when Rich approaches Gavin at the post office and one of the 'no trespassing' signs where they are trespassing is graffiti-ed 'Pigs' right behind Ginger flirting with a man twice her age. Little things like that definitely amused me in the process.

Thank you, that's a wonderful compliment! Are you still playing Widespot?

I've said this elsewhere but the Widespot cast really are like seasoned character actors to me, they hit their marks and give Great face but they don't know their lines for anything so that's where I come in. And while I'm translating and polishing up their gibberish into some semblance of characteristic speech I may as well tweak the scenery and then re-position them to suit, so on and so forth, until it becomes a very good thing that I'm playing timed rotations and have to leave well enough alone.

Ah, I've never played legacy style either. This bacc is the most structured gameplay I've attempted and I'm bending rules all over the place (and foisting the consequences onto Daytona). 10 gens is a good long time to last!

PHEW! That was dark! It took me two days to read it, and, like Gavin, I thought that Jack Bastard had raped his sister. It was absolutely captivating reading, a bit like a modern teenage version of The Grapes of Wrath. Ginger and Gavin kept my sympathy right through (even though there were occasional bits of dialogue that I didn't quite get -- I'm a good bit older than they are!). Widespot must seem like the promised land after what they've been through. I do hope their past never catches up with them. It bother me a bit that I want Gavin to get away with homicide, but the circumstances and provocation were so extreme! They deserve a break now!

I came to this journal following a link by Peni in an MTS thread about the Newsons, so this has been my introduction to your story; I am for the most part meeting the Widespot residents as the Newsons meet them, and therefore seeing them through their eyes.

Your story and the MTS thread have together persuaded me that I want to play the Newsons too, even though I don't play Apartment Life. With the help of friends on MTS, I have now added them and they are moving into Veronaville. I think in my game, they won't have quite such a hard time as they've had in yours. My nerves wouldn't stand it!

New reader, yay! I'm pleased to hear you liked it, thank you! And there's a thread about the Newsons, you say? Guess I'll pop over to see what others have been doing with this motley crew. I always go straight to the downloads section at MTS, especially when I'm scouring for something old, nowhere else could I find a gem like Mr. Bastard's outfit. As J.P. Slumlord in my other hood he's a bit more dapper. I did let him keep his pinky ring, however, and turned it into a plot device...and you may have noticed that he's no longer wearing it at the end. So a respite for the Newsons, absolutely, and hopefully they make good on it, but I'm afraid this isn't quite over yet.

The Newsons are fun, they're a hectic household but I love them. My last time with them pre-Widespot was in a gender-swapped hood and it's the only time I ever did separate out the toddlers, having them adopted by aged-down Goodies (and if there are any typos I didn't catch calling the “little monkey” Georgie instead of Georgia, that's why). But I don't think I've ever seen them in Veronaville, that should be interesting to play, especially if the premade teens are still teens in your hood.

Wow, I will never look at the Newsons the same way again! Once again you have created incredibly deep characters, often through very subtle ways.

Every update is truly a joy to read!

Neither will I! This is definitely my most involved Newsons play-through. I'm very attached to them...poor things.

I'm delighted to hear you say that! Since I can't seem to help but get sucked in and carried away with this thing it's nice to know when someone's enjoying watching how it all comes out:-)

I've only just started reading your Widespot BaCC, but had to cheat and take a peek at what you did with the Newsons :)

Your backstory of this familiar bunch is nothing short of marvelous. I love good characterization, and you knocked the Newsons out of the park here! Your depiction of the kids' relationships with Gloria makes their family structure, the genetics, everything really, make total sense and in a way that makes them all very endearing.

LOL, at the kids' diet of grilled cheese. In my version, Ginger doles out a lot of Sugar Flakes...

Again, wonderful job!

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it! The Newsons' is probably the most standalone chapter since they spent half of it not even in Widespot, perfect for peeking :-)

The way Peni created the hood each of the original families represented a basegame aspiration so when I started I decided to work in the other two as well. But I couldn't resist the Ottomas family and the next family arriving in spring won't be Pleasure either. It's kind of funny to remember that this chapter basically evolved out of my needing to figure out what could make these kids so fixated on grilled cheese!

This is a side of the Newsons I've never considered before;it's so....ghetto, but in a good way.

:-D Ginger would say she's ghetto fabulous. She features pretty heavily in scenes I'm writing right this very minute for the next one so it's kind of funny to me that you found this particular chapter. Thanks for reading!