Miranda Capp - Freshman Year

Miranda's last days as a teenager before leaving the family home for college is here.

Because I was unable to play Miranda Capp's first year at college when it was actually her turn on the alphabetical list, I am going back to her now. 

She started out originally at a different dorm, but when I was still trying to fix the problems with my Ultimate Collection, I moved her and the other playable students here, to Casteroff Dormitory. It is more practical, too, because it has only 8 rooms, the max number of playables to a household anyway. 

Here she is, just gotten off the taxi, now a young adult. Miranda's aspiration is Romance, but thankfully her lifetime want is not about 20 lovers or 50 dream dates or something exhausting like that - she really just wants to become a Celebrity Chef.

The other playables here are, left to right: Mercutio Monty, Jace Lee (former teenage townie made playable because of his surname) and Puck Summerdream. 

I swear they all had different hairstyles when I last saw them! Now they look a bit daft, if I'm honest, but maybe that's what young men sometimes do (and young women) when they think they need to be "cool" students, and so for now I am leaving them as they are.

What I am not going to leave unchanged are their rooms at the dorm. The students have over 14,000 Simoleons between them, so there is no need to sleep in the cheapest beds and one room not even having a desk but a bulky wardrobe. 

This is what I have done with the rooms, and they still have over 10,000 Simoleons left.

Of course, the first thing they all do is to claim their rooms on the ground floor. Then they visit each other; here, Miranda is greeting Mercutio Monty, who is the oldest student here, already in his Junior year. 

Then she has her first meal at the cafeteria and is joined by fellow Freshman Jace Lee. Puck Summerdream had to leave for class almost immediately; he is a Sophomore.

Miranda has slept well in the comfortable bed, and on waking up, she knows exactly what she wants to do today. 

First she has breakfast at the cafeteria, where Jace joins her again. She is surprised to note that he seems to find the elderly dorm cook VERY attractive. 

After breakfast she returns to her room to do what she decided on when she woke up: Declare her Major in Psychology. How useful this will be for her career in the culinary field remains to be seen.

So far, Puck is the only one to wish to write his Term Paper, and doesn't he look happy when he presses the "send" button at the end! (Goodness, that hairstyle really DOES look daft, doesn't it?)

Something odd happens when I have Jace use the Thinking Cap for a skill he wants: Although he is on Platinum because of his daily wishes being fulfilled, the moment he starts to study a message appears, informing me that "sometimes one can burn out from too much thinking" (or something along those lines), and his energy drops so low that he almost doesn't make it to his bed.

I try again the next day, and the same thing happens; also, his aspiration never seems to waver from Platinum, so I guess it's a bug with him. Maybe sending him to community lot will fix it, but with everyone on such different schedules for class they won't have their exams all at the same time anymore, and I want to keep it that way.

The end of the first semester of her Freshman Year comes quickly, and Miranda duly returns from her exams with an A+ grade and her name on the Dean's List. 

Also, she seems to have won the admiration and attraction of her three playable co-students. The same is true for the other playables except for Jace, who "only" managed a B and instead of the full grant of 1,200 receives only 700 Simoleons. 

The Campus Coach pays one of his dreaded visits and starts to "subtly hint" at Mercutio's need to work on his fitness just as the young man is tucking his well-deserved lunch at the cafeteria. Mercutio does indeed need a body skill point this semester, and he promises to work out as soon as he returns from class, which must have priority - surely even a coach can see that?

Meanwhile, Jace (still in only his PJ bottoms, since he woke up just in time to rush to his exam and had to head to class traight afterwards) and Miranda return from class at the same time, and he develops a crush on her at this very moment. 

It takes another day or so until Miranda shows a pink heart for Jace, too. There is only one chemistry bolt between them, so it remains to be seen whether they'll stay together or it is really just a college romance. 

I never know whether it's the dorm cooks who are to blame for the common cafeteria fires or their equipment is worn out from so much use, but here we go again - good job the sprinkler works! 

Miranda does her best to talk to her family back home a lot. She arrived at college being friends with her Dad and her siblings, but not with her mother. Hopefully, one day that will change.

The boys love a good game of darts, and Mercutio is only slightly distracted by Jace pulling horrible faces and growling at him.

He then has a meal at the cafeteria and joins one of the NPC students at her table; I am surprised to see that these two are best friends now.

Exam Day is here, and our two Freshmen Jace and Miranda calm their nerves in their own way - after which they are well and truly in love with each other :-) 

It must have worked, because even Jace who previously did not quite as well as the others finishes the year with an A+ and the full grant just like the other three.

Miranda appears to be particularly relieved at having completely her Freshman Year. 

They now have over 19,000 Simoleons between them and could invest into some improvements to the dorm.

Who is going to join the group of playables next? 

The Contender-Baldwin Family - Week 3

The previous week with this family is here.

Yay!! I'm finally able to play again - so far without a hitch - thanks to Twoyys4me's advice to get the Legacy Edition, which I knew about but was not aware that it was specifically made for WIN10/11 users like me. Up until now, I've been struggling with the "Ultimate Collection", and as I've mentioned in nearly every post, could not get to the bottom of the frequent crashes and other issues with my game. What a relief to find out that it's been the incompatible version of the game itself and not something I had done! 

And here we are in Belladonna Cove at 310 Bay View Drive, Carlos Contender's house, for the second time this round. Why the second time? You may or may not remember that Carlos' niece Isabel Baldwin and her family moved in with him some time ago; it just didn't make sense for them to keep renting when Carlos had a big house all to himself and was beginning to feel a bit lonely. 

Here they are, the entire family gathered in the downstairs hallway on this Saturday morning. 

Carlos is 94 and still working as a Hall of Famer with no wish to retire. His niece Isabel Baldwin is 56 and working towards becoming Captain Hero, as per her lifetime want. Her husband Benjamin Baldwin is three years older than her and aspires to become Mayor of The Cove. Their children are Sofia (behind her mother), in her mid-teens, and her little brother Marcus, in his early teens.

Isabel has to go to work today, but she still has some time left before the car pool arrives, and because the outfit she age-transitioned into is really not nice, she decides to buy new clothes. Having a former boxing champion as her uncle who is still keeping fit at 94, it is no question of how the family are going to go to I N Clothing & Apparel - on foot, of course!

Isabel is happy to finally have a good choice of suitable clothes... 

...while Marcus and Sofia are equally happy to spend Uncle Carlos' generous top-up of their pocket money at the adjacent snack bar. 

Back home, Isabel is off to work and nothing remarkable happens the rest of the day. 

Everybody talks to a friend or two on the phone, they eat, Benjamin works on his charisma skill and Marcus shows Uncle Carlos that he actually deserves more pocket money (he is a Fortune Sim) and trims the hedges around the front door. 

Sunday goes by with not much happening; since the household already consists of relatives living together, no Family Sunday needs to be arranged. Isabel has to work but uses the hour or so before work to re-gain a body skill point she lost yesterday thanks to a chance card. 

Everybody else takes advantage of the beautiful spring weather, too, and the family members alternate between jogging and swimming in the pool. 

Neither Carlos nor his niece have to work on Monday, and so they go for a swim first and then for a round of jogging. (I would have done it the other way round, but those were the wishes they both rolled, in that order.)

The kids are back from school at 1:00 pm and make sure homework is out of the way before it's fun time. 

For Marcus, that means freestyling in his big sister's room with only her as his audience. She can't help but think that her little brother really has gotten the hang of this, and she'll miss him when she leaves for college soon. 

Benjamin's purposeful stride says it all when he returns from work: Meet The Cove's latest Congressperson!

With summer fast approaching, Carlos finds he does not want to spend all day, every day in a track suit, much as he feels at home in athletic outfits. He walks to Desprit Deals and gets a few things that should serve him well with the warmer weather.

A day off is always good to brush up on one's skills, and Isabel does that today with her fingerprint scanner.

It is Sofia's last day as a teenager - time to make the phonecall for scholarships and leave for college! "My big sis... I can't believe she's really going," Marcus thinks. 

Sofia's parents wave her good-bye as she boards the taxi, Benjamin clearly wondering when his little girl turned into a young adult all of a sudden. Carlos, who has always been very close to Sofia, appears stunned to see her leaving. It will be his 100th birthday soon, and he wonders whether he'll see her again.

Wednesday is a busy day: All three adults have to work, and of course Marcus is off to school. Carlos is up early enough for a morning swim, though, and then waits for the car pool still in his swimming trunks while doing the crossword.

It is obvious what's happening here, isn't it :-) Isabel has been promoted to Lieutenant and her husband to Judge. Benjamin's colleague is Hun Cho, still something of a newcomer to The Cove. 

Benjamin maxes his logic skill on Thursday morning before work. 

Isabel uses the hour before the car pool comes to work out; she'll needs the body skill for her next promotion.

That afternoon, Benjamin rides home in style - meet Senator Baldwin getting off the limo! 

An hour later Isabel arrives home with colleague Vivian Cho in tow. Although it looks like it here, she has not yet been promoted again, but I don't think she'll have to wait long. 

And indeed she's made SWAT Leader on Friday, the last day with this household (their week started on Saturday).

Unfortunately, her husband's decision with a chance card turned out to be the wrong one, and he was demoted to Judge. He can still make it to Mayor, unless he gets fired or dies before he achieves the necessary promotions (he is 66 now).

Isabel suggests to her uncle they go jogging together. You can tell from the look on Carlos' face that this centenarian thinks it's a great idea! 

In the early evening, Carlos rings in the first weekend of summer by flipping burger patties on the grill.

The family - minus Sofia, who's at college - enjoy Carlos' burgers together. 

What a good week it has been for them all! The Baldwins still have some work ahead of them before they will have reached their LTWs, and Marcus can't wait to go to college, too. We'll see Sofia there probably long before the round is over, depending on the teenagers from which families are going first.

I can't begin to tell you how lovely it is to play without constant crashes again, and to have the clearer graphics and detailed textures back that I remember from before 2023, when I was still using my former computer.

Now I need to think whether to go back to Capp Manor, which I was unable to play this round because of the crashes, or move on with the round and see about the Capps later.

Justin Cleveland: Freshman Year

There is no need to link to the previous post with Justin and his family, since all you have to do if you want to (re-)read that one is go back one post.

Sim State Uni, and more precisely, Pinenut Plaza Dorms is our next stop. Justin Cleveland is the first student to arrive and has free choice of the 8 rooms. 

He goes for the room in the corner at the far end from the main door, on the ground floor. 

It only contains a cheap bed and clunky dresser, but Justin sells these and replaces them with more practical and modern things, even though still on the cheap side - he is a student, after all, with no income other than the grant he received for starters. 

It looks much better now, doesn't it! The computer was a gift from his parents.

Because the only items in Justin's wardrobe are two sports outfits (the brown one and the same one in a light blue), after class his first stop are the University Way Shops. 

He makes his purchase, and just as he starts to walk back to the dorm, the game crashes... and the same thing happens after a repair run and restart :-( 

I don't want to waste more time and have Justin get a head start on his Term Paper instead. Just before he can press "send", I make him stop - who knows, he might want to wish to "Write Term Paper", and then I can easily make that happen. 

The next morning, he has breakfast at the cafeteria. It is the first time he interacts with any of the other students here at the dorm, but the girl doesn't stick around - she eats her pancake and then moves to a different table to work on an assignment.

Returning from class, Justin finds a student in his bed. He doesn't even know the bloke's name, and to avoid similar suprises from now on, he locks his door. 

Can you believe I have never actually seen a Sim putting up that sign? Normally, I don't keep the doors of my playable students locked, but with seven non-playables here, Justin will never have his bed to himself otherwise!

One of his big wishes is to lose weight, and while he is not yet quite as fit as wants to, his shape improves much after he's been jogging that evening.

After he'd been out running last night, he went straight to bed, and so Justin is VERY hungry the next morning and can hardly wait for the dorm cook to have the omelettes ready. "He's up early, this young man; not like most other students..." the cook muses.

Mail from home! (Of course it's just the bills, but I like to think there are some personal letters to the students among the stack of bills, too.)

Without anyone telling him to, Justin mops the floor at the cafeteria after the cow mascot has had "fun" with the sprinkler. The cook is impressed: This young man really isn't the typical student! 

The next morning, a fellow student joins him in the cafeteria. Her name is Nancy Fancey (I'm not kidding!), and I've seen her at the clothes shop wearing a Secret Society jacket. It looks like she's trying to recruit Justin :-) 

He is off to his end-of-term exam, though, and returns a few hours later with an A+, his name on the Dean's List and the full grant - and all that without ever having completed his Term Paper! 

Autumn chill is in the air, and I am glad that Justin has the sense to don something warmer now for his way to class - I still haven't managed to send him to the clothes shop on Campus without the game crashing on his way back. 

He finally decides on Drama as his Major. Although I was glad when he wore something else than the boring old sports outfit all the time, I didn't mean he should now remain in his winter clothes even while indoors! 

A different community lot turns out to be the solution - when I send Justin to "Cold Issue Clothing" in downtown Belladonna Cove, he is finally able to buy clothes and return with them to the dorm without the game crashing. 

I would have liked him to do all his shopping on campus while he's at uni, but my game had other ideas. 

The next day, Justin invites NPC student Kenya Kim over. They have become friends through several phone conversations, and friends they shall remain - there is negative attraction between them, but she's eligible to become playable because of her surname. 

Justin looks as puzzled as I am when, after she has asked if she can bring along a friend, Kenya turns up with Armand De Bateau in tow - I didn't know the two know each other! 

He could have just as easily sat at Nancy Fancey's table that evening in the cafeteria, but apparently it is more fun to have a conversation across the floor with your neck twisted round like Justin is demonstrating here. 

Exam Day is here, and Justin gets up with several hours to spare, so he won't have to rush.

When he returns at noon, his smile says it all: Justin has just finished his Freshman Year with an A+, his name on the Dean's List and the full grant transferred to his account. 

In spite of the crashes when I tried to have him shop for clothes on campus, I enjoyed the "year" with Justin, and although at the moment he is the only playable student at this dorm, time passed quickly. No doubt other kids from Belladonna Cove will soon join him; there are several teenagers waiting in the wings. 

For now, though, we'll move on to the next name on the list, which is Contender.