Hey there, Virgie...y'okay? You...wanna talk about it? Maybe? Okay then, you go on ahead and wake that llama. You wake that llama good!
Show 'em a Beech is always boss. (I'll be here when you're ready.)


This round was a long time in the making but here we go, BaCC Info:

Residents: Beech (4), Hart (5), Land (5), Mann (3), Jr. Mann (6), Ottomas (8), Weiss (5), and Newson (6).
Community Lots: The Makeout Spot, Forest Lake, Forest Lake Park/Camp (Daytona), Municipal Clearings (Daytona), The Dugout (Valentine), The Barleycorn Farm Shop (Ottomas), Woodworks Furniture (Penny), and new this round are the Widespot Post Office (Daytona) and Round Barn General Store (Junior & Mary).


Sim Multiplier: 3 Population:126
Treasury: Since I shortened my seasons I had to alter tax collection to suit, what would have been $14750 for a full week's worth of taxation became $6390 for the winter. Not bad. (Funnily enough the Mann and Junior Mann households had to contribute the same amount despite being in different tax brackets because the Juniors have acquired twice as many mouths to feed.) I haven't yet decided how I will scale some of the other rules for unlocking stuff to keep apace but it doesn't matter right now, they (I) didn't unlock a damn thing.

No fires, no burglaries, no illnesses. Still. (Food poisoning doesn't count, it's not contagious.)
Furious sims: Not that it matters since the law career was already unlocked but I think Lana is still furious from Round One. Everyone else is less agitated over whatever they were mad about but she's clinging tightly to that grudge. I have to say that considering how Rich dumped her and why she's kind of got a right to that one.

Overachievers: 8 (Rich, Skye, Homer, Beulah, Scot, Sandy, Virginia, plus Georgia Newson)
Underachievers: 3 (Candy, Dixie, and now Ginger Newson)
Babies who haven't toddler-ified yet don't count and all other new arrivals are of 'average' motivation.




And under the cut a bunch of pics that I liked but had no other use for plus bonus (superfluous) commentary. Cuz.





Bored, Candy? How can you be bored, you had a hella eventful winter!
You finally got let out of that room your lover locked you in. You had a baby. He took him and then took you away, too, but he gave him back! C'mon.
And he put a ring on it!
You are now Mrs. Rich, what's your deal?

Fine, fine. I'll come back to you later.



Your little sister had her own (scaled down) time of it and all but when she came up a winner at least she knew how to smile abou it.

Goldie found a boy she liked and lost him, or so she thought, but he came back for her.
(She had a similar rapport with her new dog.)

Meeting his big ol' family for the first time was a bit overwhelming (and their huge doggies were sometimes mean) so Goldie opted for first
ingratiating herself with Ted Ottomas (never call him Teddy, he doesn't like it) until David (that's her boyfriend) managed to draw her out.

And he's drawn her out a lot since then! In the tradition of young Harts, Goldie is the latest reigning queen of The Makeout Spot.




She and David are inseparable. And having a popular boyfriend has upped her profile.
She's got friends now (well, his friends and they're sometimes mean, too, but not lately). Life's good.


Even Rich has begun to notice that this little sister-in-law of his may not be a complete nonentity.


Yeah...y-yeah...
Um, Candy, are you seeing this?



Guess so. Didn't know you could move so fast. So, uh, whatcha gonna do with a hatchet, huh? Huh? Candy...?



But Goldie had more immediate concerns than that old guy everybody says her sister married for the money.

Because what Virgie wants, Virgie gets...


...usually.

(And actually she did get him, in a way, in the real scene. It was only during this attempt to restage the picture after David & Goldie
had become 'official' that Virgie was rebuffed. If it had really gone down this way, Miss Virgie would've never let it, or him, go that easily.)


As it is, she would not stop heart-farting David. Even after a more sensible porta-chugging on Scot's part brought them up to
2 bolts while she and David have just the 1, she only heart-farts him. I blame it largely on aspiration affinity but it isn't mutual.


The pull of the triple bolts has claimed him.
No, really, he was on idle for mere seconds when I got them all on lot.
David's wants have stayed pretty reasonably balanced but sometimes his queue goes on Goldie overload.



While the Widespot teens were teen-ing it up, another Land kid decided to join them.
River grew up and lost his head. Well, he lost his face.



He's none too thrilled that after putting his face back together it got covered over in acne.

It could've been worse, River, it could've been Maxis acne boils. That minor outbreak there no one can even really see!



Something else he might wish unseen. Or Daytona might.


But actually the random bathroom buddy seemed to bother no one.

It's weird.
Especially because Lana seemed to have purposefully come down here from upstairs for no reason other than to invade Rhett's privacy.


And how was Rhett faring? Well, he had acquired something like a wife when his second babymama moved in.
It was awkward and inconvenient sometimes but Sandy was cool, mostly,
and the easy woohoo access with her right in the next room, that wasn't a bad deal.

(Oh, and Scot, that's your intended future mother-in-law. Appreciating where you think Virgie gets it from is one thing but let's get a grip.)


Nobody never said nothing to Rhett (what is that, a triple negative?) about monogamy bein' part of that deal.
Clearly, no one around town actually expected him to honour that kind of commitment.



Though Rhett had not been Dixie's first or only notion.
She had no use for her virginity so somebody was gonna have to take it off her hands.
Honestly, she didn't much care who.
But she knew Rhett. And she knew he'd do.



Which he did. Didn't take very much coaxing.

Nevertheless, after the doing was done, Rhett jumped up and before they could
get their clothes back on he started right in on blaming Dixie for tempting him.

Like she lured him out here...to his place of work...where he
specifically arranged to meet her after making sure the coast was clear...

Rhett may have told Junior that his job meant 'Pop gets laid while he gets paid' but he did more than his fair share of 'the laying' 'round here.


Townie girls were different, though, that was just wham-bam until the next whenever you see 'em.

Dixie better not go catchin' feelings, that's all he knew, or thinkin' she was his girl or nothin'.
If she was gonna be cool, then cool. And if she didn't tell nobody, even cooler.
('Specially not her sister, man. Mary wouldn't understand. Might even start in herself with the lectures.)
Basically, Rhett just didn't need no more trouble.



Zephyr was a townie, what kinda trouble could she cause?


"Um, can I help you?"

Penny didn't know who she was but she knew it had to be one of Rhett's.
She wasn't even with him anymore! Why don't they go start getting in Sandy's face and leave her alone.
But Penny knew one thing, Rhett would need to make damn sure to keep all 'his womens' far the hell away from Una.
He wouldn't be getting any unsupervised daddy time any time soon.



But Zephyr had a roving eye.
She had to check her out, just cuz. Penny's the one he talks about.
But she and the other one can relax. He's a fun time, most of the time, but she had no designs on Rhett.



Somehow Nelson even managed to turn Beulah's head for a minute.


But he mostly only has eyes for Sandy.

The thing with Lana is more where business and pleasure meet.
Then again, perhaps so is this.


But she does seem to be able to get under his skin.



Hard to tell whether Sandy was trying to ingratiate herself with the other Harts by tending
to the dog or if she just needed a pretext for getting out and grabbing some time to herself.



Elsewhere, on the pig side of town: Pig. Yup.

(And I think I had to pick up Elden and move him. He didn't seem inclined to walk around.)


I'm not sure why exactly but that pig in particular really liked that location. And it seems to have inspired a copycat pig.

So the random 'there's a pig on the sidewalk' convo during the Land round, not actually all that random.
Well, at least, it was provoked by random pig behaviour.

And that's enough about pigs.



Penguin!

There wasn't much of a winter so far as the weather goes and yet this little cutie still
made an incongruous appearance...on the first day of spring, just as I was leaving the Lands.


Made another appearance later on, just in case I forgot there was a penguin on the loose in Widespot.
Still less trouble than Sandy's wolf, though.

And it occurs to me that Sandy does have real trouble distinguishing actual danger when she sees it.
Bit too complacent, that one. About all the wolves circling around her.



Tubby Tommy :-)

He's not the boy I was expecting to gain weight but in this outfit and his feety pjs he's just too cute.



Gallagher, that might not be the best idea with bunk beds.


Oh, it didn't hurt? Well, carry on then.



Gabby's braces are one of those details that only I'll ever get to see.

Sandy was admiring what pretty braces Gabby has and advising Ginger that they'll be hard pressed to
find an orthodontist even in the next town over so they might need to start making inquiries about that.


Smustle-face.


But Gavin really caught me off-guard. I was minding my business in freecam mode trying to
frame the shot of Ginger and the kids dancing and out of nowhere he jumped in front to do...that.



In other teenage shenanigan news?

That looks unnerving.
Woody may be in over his head here.

Not meant to be spoilerish, though, as this is actually from a test hood (those aren't Woody's pjs)
when I had to make sure the deactivated servo meshes I clumsily cobbled together actually worked.



No, Penny, no. It shouldn't even be a thought.


That's better, I guess. But I am seeing a trend here and, Penny, there is no reason whatsoever for you and Dixie to have the same taste in men.


No, seriously. Stop it.

Find something else in common, if you must.




Ah, there she is. Mary. Favourite sister and best friend.

Mary was having a baby, or two, but she temporarily misplaced them.
It's probably a good thing she did not know this. Mary's not Candy, she'd have panicked.

(I showed a similar glitch with Candy's preg morph last round but that was just a glitch, it corrected itself
as soon as she left the lot. This was a PITA trying to track down when and where an old, unfixed version of
HP's mesh could've sneaked into my downloads because the right one was still there where I left it.)



And then she went and exploded.

Although that was completely my fault, I'd messed up the morphs when sexyfeeting the nightgown.

Fixed 'em but that's how she ended up in Junior's shirt.
I had been saving that for a possible second pregnancy but I hate shutting down the game once I'm all set to play.



So Mary got her shit together, physiologically, and she and her secret love had some unfinished stuff to settle between them so, um, yeah.


But I don't care if it is the latest trend, you know good and doggone well that Beulah would not approve!



Not that Beulah minded getting a little attention thrown her way herself, especially from a
handsome young man (with a thing for grandmas—no, really, wait for it) but he kept a respectful distance.

(Lana doesn't do 'respectful'.)



But she wasn't the only one to have noticed Homer's quiet charm.


Dora kept on noticin' too. What's the harm in takin' notice? She wouldn't never act on it.



So, I was surprised to later find Robbie seemingly so keen on Penny since throughout
most of the earlier round he'd made his preference known whenever he popped up.



An earlier version of the post office, a few tings have been rearranged; Dora was none too pleased.
And it ain't the PDA, it's the folks involved. Just when she was thinkin' a man like that Valentine
might have his uses she found out things was more complicated than it might be worth.

The post office has got some sentimental value for Dora, too, but still...minus star.



However...What?

And why?

And No.


Come on, now, I know you know better.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's only attraction and all but I'm going to go ahead and say
you're doing it wrong if between the two of them your knees go weak over that one.


I don't know what Valentine said, I wasn't paying attention :-P but he and his, uh, son-in-law don't appear to be seeing eye to eye.



I think I might have a hunch as to why.

Oh, and introducing Doomsday Device, the Amazing Hover-cat!



Much fuss had been made contingent on the fact that Candy had a baby.
Only she didn't make much fuss about it so Richie Rich's care fell largely to his kidnapper, that is, I mean, his 'father'.

It was an uneasy truce but Rich was willing to give the little...troublemaker the benefit of the doubt. For now.





D.D. took it upon herself to keep watch for the master.


Meanwhile Rich considered with himself whether oughtn't have another set of eyes keeping tabs on his sweet, untrustworthy wife.


But Rich still left the baby trap for her, rigging up that bouncy right by the tv.
Every day she had to feed it and clean it and shit when he left. She really could have used a nanny.

And not that Peach chick either, Candy knew what her game was. Some of it. But maybe with a real
nanny the baby wouldn't just be staring at her all the time and not sayin' shit, not even that baby babble they do.



He was just always watchin' her and waiting. Crazy kid. But never mind him, what's on with the soaps...


Alien abductions? Yeah, whatever you say, but this show was still great, it had everything. Half the town was
knocked up and always by the wrong dude cuz they were all screwin' around with everybody else's boyfriends and husbands
and sometimes you just had to get in a quickie with the poolboy or somethin' cuz that's how it is, y'know. Candy loved it!




Rich thanks you all for attending to the festivities in Widespot this winter and wishes everyone a very merry holiday.
Just kidding. (Look at that face.)
But I do! Happy Holidays!