The Maximized Early Teen Days of Miss MaxineIn today's episode: Alistair gets juiced, Max gets some food, and Brielle gets forgotten
We start with a glorious summer morning. The last summer morning. Max writes in her journal. For this picture, I've skilfully hidden the floating outdoor light behind a pillar! Now no one knows!
Concerning Maxine, this day is spent with much saying sorry, the doctor playset, and emotional control -- diary, piano, violin.
What?! Not smart enough. I'm obviously doing this wrong if you fail to see how brilliant you are Maxine.
After her piano recital of a Chopin etude, technically flawless (obviously) but lacking expression (omg! She's just a kid, it's fine! Stop judging her!) she started doubting herself. She's her own worst critic. The kid that has maxed all child skills, has level 6 in piano and 4 in violin... battles with her homework. Apparently. What homework is this? Does she need to intimately understand the stall characteristics of the floor of a Formula 1 car? Come on, Max, be kind to yourself. You know stuff! To avoid this inferiority complex in the future, I think there's nothing else for it: we shall have to choose optimal skilling traits for this sadly incompetent child! No worries Max, you're gonna know stuff. All the knowing.
By that evening, Max had done a lot of character development. (Edit: Oh, and she dislikes yellow.)
I felt it was time to age up to teen. She'd be a teen at Sunday's awards, and start school on Monday. This pleases my neat, orderly soul more than starting midweek. I can't find any indication of a child being able to win a Starlight Accolade, and she hadn't yet been nominated for any of her videos. So there's that. --Children do lack options for nominations, understandably. And normal lifespan doesn't allow me to experiment. I have absolutely had a child get nominated in the past though.
At about 11pm on Saturday, the same cake that was used for her previous birthday (made to last, very impressive build quality) was dusted off and she aged up to teen.
It's not Landgraab Chic™, but I take the hint from the shirt that she'd like to be in the computer club. Noted. As promised, to mollify the fears of mental ineptitude, she's gone for some skill boosting traits. A knowledge aspiration for Quick Learner, and Overachiever for more learning. And she'll quickly complete two aspirations -- Mansion Barron and Fab Wealth -- for points she spends on Savant, Morning Sim, and Night Owl. Just a little bit of skilling. Which obviously combines with the family club which has every perk, Top Notch Toddler, all the childhood reward traits, and gold scouting.
Aging up also brought Max within a whisker of level 3 fame. She immediately starts a stream with the drone, and heads to the kitchen. She's going to make one meal to get her to at least level 4 cooking, because she's peckish, and then make diet ice cream. As a chef, her mother has maybe overeaten once or twice, especially at festivals to unlock new recipes.
That single tortilla wrapped veggie dog took her all the way to level 9, and nearly level 10.
And while eating, which she streamed (the world is pretty weird, right?), she reached level 3 fame. It goes without saying she has a pristine reputation from all those friendly greetings as a child.
... and reached global stardom after selling two violins. She's unlocked Easy Street, and also Instant Besties. Her overachiever trait carries a penalty to making friends, a big part of one of the aspirations, but her fame perk can overcome this. All the strategy! It was important to get her to this level of fame before school.
Having maxed cooking already with the ice cream, she flew back to her bedroom on a broom. That's just how this house works.
Saturday was all character development, Sunday was spent trying to get a nomination before 6pm. A bit of cloud gazing for inspiration, then many hours in the fame room.
She maxed -- oh my gosh that's so similar to her name! -- media production. Obviously. But you can't flood the airwaves with multiple song releases. It was 'outstanding' quality, but no nomination. And no nomination for her beauty tips vid either. Meanwhile, her dad was writing a motivational book about Going Commando. This is both a bestseller, and nominated for an award.
We're not going to the awards in a townie outfit, so finally, a trip to CAS. Here is Maxine Landgraab, and her big blue eyes, as a teen:
No cas.fulleditmode magic at all. No structural changes to her face at all. If I flip between Max and Brielle quickly, they're actually quite different. Maxine definitely gets some of the face shape from her dad. The bridge of her nose looks like someone punched it in with a blunt object, a bit like Alistair's -- no offense to his big fan base -- but not gonna change a thing. That athletic outfit pic at the top is without makeup.
Max gets Sloane's autograph. Given that she wasn't going to win anything, she spent much of her time outside the theatre gossiping and pranking distant family members.
Inside, (and I admit I had neglected Alistair for a bit while doing aspiration stuff with Max), things weren't going so well. He didn't win an award, and had spent the evening drinking at the bar, and clearly needs the bathroom.
And then it was school.
I wasn't kidding about private school.
Day 1 involved a lot of making friends and being mean on social media. Max even tried to prank someone's locker, but it backfired. Yes, hers is the preppy one on the left. Fun fact: Molly Prescott (middle pic, far table) is still a teen and still at school. I suspect special coding.
After school is still drama club, and Max reached Junior Artiste (this girl doesn't blink enough, there are more unnerving pics like this) and received a Drama Club Accolade...
... which sits on top of her desk.
She then immediately quits drama club to make room for detention the next afternoon. As you do. One strives to get in trouble as quickly as possible! (don't quote me on that)
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Aspirations are going fine. She's started to get some Social Bunny followers, but it's too soon for me to know whether that 250 follower requirement is bugged for her or not. I'm also hoping that because of the dozens of friends she has, that getting a party invite (on the weekend?) will go smoothly. I've renovated the ground floor bathrooms to have sneaky windows. "I'll be out in a minute mom, I swear!"
On Friday or Saturday of her sim week it'll be a good time to go into some depth about where she is, and what she has to do still. (Hysterically, she's already got the graduate early option, but obviously won't take it.)
