Winter.In this heart-warming episode: Max asks a question, Max sits on a chair, and Max invites herself over.
We left Miss Maxine building the electricity experiments school project. Molly was merely a Moral Support. She's like an honorary Landgraab at this point. She often eats here. She gravitates to the big bedroom in the east wing, which is widely regarded as her room.
And an excellent project, too. Max completed all 3 child projects, and this is her 2nd excellent teen project. She did the robotics one first to learn programming. (The computer team reward trait for learning programming faster must stand out as one of the most useless. For Max, at least. By the time she is computer team captain, she could have maxed programming three times over.) For her side goal completing all 7 school projects, she only has the rocket and the bridge remaining.
Sunday was the next instalment of Disappointment in Del Sol Valley for Max who didn't win anything. Bur Brielle did!
Brielle had no nomination in the time since the last award show, so I guess the nomination for her video was still valid? Either way, the moral of the story is if you've got famous sims, always go to the Starlight Accolades. The host just wants Brielle to finish her theatrics and be gone.
I did my very best to keep Alistair away from the bar this time.
Maxine's school situation is thus. Having made mistakes with her homework, she's only completed homework 4/5 times for the aspiration. I'm not too worried about having missed a few as that goal is checked off on Monday, before Career Day on Tuesday. That's all that really matters. Okay, it might be argued that she's made no progress toward the "Earn and Keep an A", true, but the slowest goal of them all is level 3 of computer team. If shed hadn't had drama club right at the start of high school, she'd have been further along.
After a long day of computer club, homework, streaming, practicing programming and so forth, Max gained the techie lifestyle in the early hours of Tuesday,
Her streaming computer is now overclocked, which
isn't something to put on every computer --especially if you have a writer who'd rather be inspired than focused -- but for getting a powerful focused moodlet it's really great to have it on some.
Having never done Career Day before, Max had an active school day, just to be safe. I've not been following Max to school every day, but this is one of the days I did.
She's learned a bit of archaeology and Selvadoradan culture from her social studies class. A
leetle bit of cross-pack integration. So now she can go on an jungle adventure and learn the recipes there instantly. In fact, she has enough Selvadoradan culture to show pictures... from her trip? And can raise that skill more on her own. I like the light coming in through the windows! Sue me. Regarding those skills, she's been a teen for 10 days.
Career Day.
Because of the slow-mo head turning when you pause, Max turned to no longer be facing the nice scientist man. Now it's looks like she's asking (the principal?) "for real? is this guy the expert? You want me to talk to him?"
Wednesday, Winterfest.
Every year the family puts up a tree in the entrance hall, which is larger than some of my other sim houses.
After opening a present and a bit of decorating, I have shockingly sent Maxine to school.
This is because of the state of her Goal Oriented aspiration. She only got to part 2 of the aspiration on Monday afternoon when she did her homework. (Of course she's been an A student for a long time already, but none of that counts.) To earn, and maintain an A would therefore take the rest of the week -- Tuesday, Thursday, Friday -- unless she popped in on Winterfest. It worked, and now she's got 2/3 for both computer team and maintaining an A. She would now reach 3/3 for her grades on Thursday, and I was hoping to reach the top level of computer team that same day too. Max even bought the Entrepreneurial trait to try to boost career gains, not to mention she has Easy Street from being so famous. Did this work? No.
Back to Winterfest for a small sims experiment! I know who Father Winter is. It's Bernado Barfield, and he's had the role for a while. Brielle invited him over -- here he is in civilian clothes -- and asked for a present, which worked as per usual. No waiting until 8pm!
Alistair did the same, and so did Maxine when she got back from school. On Winterfest. I know.
Bernado was then... invited to join the household! Presumably this would force the game to generate a new Father Winter at 8pm.
Sidebar: in past saves I've had children with Clement Frost
after he's been replaced as Father Winter, and those kid still inherited the magic trait. Bernie is getting replaced here, but maybe doesn't lose the ability to pass on the trait? Once Father Winter... always Father Winter? To that end, he did a quick try for baby with a random townie, Ai Matsuda, who turns out lives in Windenburg. After writing this update, I'll see what the result of that is. Apologies for the suspense and tension!
Sure enough, a new, perhaps less interesting Father Winter. (They have identical traits, and yes, I've forgotten the new guy's name already. I don't want to say McMuffin, but I'm sure he's McSomething.) Bernado was swiftly moved out to a place of his own in Willow Creek.
Thursday in winter is when the bug hit, and Max became a neighbour visiting her own house.
She could interact with objects and people just fine, but not herself. Needing to climb through the window to get in the house was a fun twist.
It wasn't immediately an inconvenience either, so I kept going. The "Neighbor" tag disappeared for some reason, but her ability to go through the front door like a normal sim didn't come back. As an aside, despite already having good job performance, she
still didn't reach level 3 of computer team on Thursday, which would have to wait until Monday for completion.
This is Friday.
Chopstick Savvy! No Spice Hound yet. But this point Max had completed Admired Icon, and she has that trait.
With no after-school stuff to worry about for a few days, or 5:30am streaming, Max worked on her school projects. You can see the problem immediately.
Yup, that one is only "good" quality.
The rocket project is my favourite. I can remember in my own youth looking at and dreaming about model rockets. It seems to be the most inherently difficult project to make excellent, and Max will have to try again.
A useless teen decided he wanted to cook! Is that supposed to happen? Or maybe he thinks he lives here, the opposite of what happened to Max?
One of Max's school buddies cost us a few thousand simoleons.
I know the neighbour bug was still an issue because on New Year's Eve, the next day, Max couldn't make a resolution. She couldn't perform any-self-interaction. At that point I tried moving her out of the household, and then moving her back in. The game would reload with Max standing on the edge of the lot, as expected... but still a neighbour.
So we travelled... to the school... and Max is no longer a Neighbour in her own house. (I wondered who would be at school on a Saturday. I expected it to be empty, and it was.) She can interact with herself! If you had to guess what New Year's resolution she chose, it was to raise a skill. Of course.
Sunday was spent chasing a Starlight Accolade nomination, and after an unsuccessful music track, and unsuccessful video, Max's book got a nomination at 5:37pm!
So you ask, "Starlight time already and no prom?". I suppose there was one, but Maxine skipped it to stay home on Friday and Saturday as much as possible, hoping to get an invite to a college party she could sneak out to. None was forthcoming. There is a bug report for this. It seems invites are real, but phenomenally rare. Maybe it'll get tuned in a future patch. Also, let's be real, Max hasn't gone in for partying in a big way. She's an over-achiever. A nerd. It might be that a Party Animal has a higher chance of those invites.
Very keen at the chance of an award, Max and Brielle both got new formal looks. And Max took her seat early. So keen!
Obviously the keenness was not rewarded, and we won nothing.
Alistair waves at a flower pot. He's just really into waving. Brielle thinks back at the time he waved at her at dinner... and now?... she isn't sure he wasn't just waving at a different flower pot. Like, wow. This is probably Traumatic for Brielle.
That's quite an emotionally weighty moment to sign off with. I'm all amazement as I make it up, I assure you.
-----
Next time: Max's final week at school, and the dear, sweet supersim makes an enemy. Gasps all around.
