And Now For Something Completely Different…

When he showed up for dinner the next night (with his friend Mr. Smith in tow), Christal took him in her arms and gave him a gentle kiss. Mr. Smith arched an eyebrow as he observed their romancing.

Romancing the Joel

During their chat on the phone that night, Joel surprised Christal again by saying “I love you.” It seemed the kiss had done the trick.

I just called to say I love you

Christal wasted no time in asking Joel to move in with her. Unfortunately she still slept alone in her bed at night, because for whatever reason Joel preferred to sleep on the highly uncomfortable sofa. He did get a makeover, however, just to please her, and she thought he looked pretty snazzy.

Joel’s new look

[Gameplay note: The rules of the challenge state that you can only control the actions of the torch holder Sim – Christal, in this case – so even after Joel moved in, I couldn’t direct him to do anything, except buy clothes and change his appearance (which I did with Pescado’s Clothing Object). I couldn’t see his mood bars, skills, wants, or fears, either. You can direct them to do one action per lifestage, such as get a job, but I figured Joel, as a townie, already had a job, so I saved it for something else.]

Joel’s mission in life was to keep the house sparkling clean. He couldn’t take a shower without scrubbing it afterwards.

Washing the shower

His penchant for cleanliness didn’t carry over to his eating habits, however – sometimes he ate whatever was left lying around, even if it had flies swarming all over it.

Joel eats rancid food

Christal and Joel seemed fairly happy with their living arrangements. Joel kept the house clean and brought in loads of money from his job as a Theorist in the field of Science, and Christal…well, she didn’t do much except continue to work her way up the ladder at Bob’s Bistro. She still cared for Joel, but she couldn’t help wondering if there was someone out there who was better suited to her – someone who did more exciting things than work, scrub, mop, take out the trash, and play chess.

One night she invited Dorian the Fireman over for hamburgers and a dip in the hot tub. When Joel came home from work to find Dorian standing in their yard, he looked a little apprehensive.

Joel eats rancid food

The three of them soaked in the hot tub for awhile, and Joel seemed to get along with Dorian. However, he opted to do some cleaning in the house while Dorian and Christal ate hamburgers out on the deck, and Christal wondered if he wasn’t getting a little jealous.

Christal and Dorian eat burgers

He had good reason to be jealous when he came out to clean off the table and found Christal and Dorian hugging.

Huggy hug
Joel eats rancid food

Though Christal explained it was only a friendly good-bye hug, Joel remained suspicious. That night he decided to sleep in Christal’s bed for the first time.

Bedtime for Joel

Joel was more cheerful than ever in the car pool the next morning and suggested that they have a little date that night. Christal was intrigued.

The car pool

They spent most of their date in the hot tub, where Joel tried to show Christal what she would be missing if she went off with Mr. Fireman.

Hot tub loving

The next morning he sweetly made her some toaster pastries for breakfast…

Joel makes breakfast

…though she preferred to eat her pancakes instead.

Breakfast on the deck

On the whole, she was having more fun with him and noticed he was having more fun, too. He seemed a bit more bubbly than usual…

Joel is bubbly

In time, Christal’s belly started to grow. Either she was eating too much mac and cheese, or there was a little Chinchilla on the way. Christal decided it was the latter and took some time off from work. She spent most of her pregnancy lying around and reading romance novels.

Christal is pregnant

Joel was glad that Christal had forgotten all about Dorian the Fireman, but he silently cursed that infernal love tub – he was going to be a father, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it.

Joel sleeps

As it turned out, neither of them could.

20 thoughts on “And Now For Something Completely Different…

  1. Ahh! What a way to end it! This is the first time I have ever heard of this challenge and the premise is definitely intriguing. I can’t wait to find out what happens next! When you get bored it looks like you aren’t the only one who enjoys what you find to entertain yourself. ;)

  2. Hmm. I happened to have played all the Strangetown families and I like all of them. The Curious and the Smith family are related and my favorites and in the family bin is a house of roommates. There are two alien girls in that family who are also related to Curious and Smith families. And you should definetly check out Ophelia’s house. If you look in Olive’s memories you’ll see that she did it with the Grim Reaper. Nervous Subject is her son and if you look at his personality you’ll be appalled. Her neice, Ophelia, is dating Johny Smith and if you’ve never done this, you should look at the little description Maxis gave all the characters they invented. Strangetown is my favorite of all the Maxis made neighborhoods and almost everyone is related. I probably just stomped on your curiosity because of that little description but I just think those families are cool. I won’t give away the juiciest details of the Curious and Smith families though.

  3. I love her name ” Christal Chinchila” and the house is so cool!!!
    Everthing is so cool.
    And very cute storie!!!

  4. If I ever have another kid, I’m so using the random name generator. Heee heeee..Haa haa. I love the picture of Joel cleaning the table outside and looking at cristal hugging dorian. Maybe having a child in the house will make this into a “flying circus”? ;-)

  5. Lol, now thats what I call foreshadowing! I can’t wait till the next update especially because everything is so new and interesting! I hope the victorian era lives on though…

  6. This…had me giggling like a fool at work today. I love playing sims in Strange Town, but it’s a sucky town for legacy sims…this I learned the hard way…grr. Anyhow, I look forward to reading more.

    ‘ The infernal lovetub’

  7. Great story, Jen!! Christal reminds me a little of a kid I used to go to school with, and even my mum laughed at the Nervous Chinchilla bit!

  8. Ooooh yay a new story! Very interesting, but I’m not sure I could do it myself. I’d end up directing other sims instead of just the one, I couldn’t let my sims randomly wander around cleaning and playing in the bathtub…

    I can’t wait to read more about Christal Chinchilla!

    Oh, that name generator is great! I usually use a baby name book for my sims, but I will definetly be using that site in the future, as I like some of my sims to have weird names! xD

  9. This was funny. The way he decided that he wanted to sleep in her bed after seeing that she hugged the fireman..this was funny. quite nice

  10. Im baaaack *lol* – and WHOA – this is quite something to read about here! I guess I am in love with the Chinchillas already, Christal is a barbie none the less, but coool hair, definitely! And I like the fact that you can only control the torch holder, this would be perfect for me, as I am thoroughly stressed by my legacy family right now ;) – sooooo eager to read on! And btw, I guess I am more stuck to this than to all the victorian stories you wrote so far already, this promises to become so cool!

  11. Wow this was quite refreshing!
    I may need to check out that idiot challenge.
    Christal is very pretty and I was :lol: after her geeky friend got jealous with the fireguy and finally decided sleeping on the cough was not as good as sleeping in her bed

  12. .. Mindlink! After playing around with Don & Dina Lothario for a while I grew bored and decided I’d just make and play a single female Romance Sim. I haven’t made her yet, but this definitely serves as inspiration. :D It looks like tons of fun!
    I had no idea there was a challenge like this either. Mwahaha. I shared it with the hubby, and he’s apparently going to give it a try as well.
    Awesome story as always, Jen. More! More!

  13. That was a great update. So fun! The pictures look so great, everything was bright and clear. I think he looks much better after his makeover too, good job with that. :)

    I’m glad you are having fun!

  14. Hi Sarah H! I’m having a hard time finding the pink sweater outfit that Christal is wearing, but I’ll keep looking for it. I thought it was Simply Styling or Get Skintight, but I can’t seem to find it on those sites. Both of those sites have great clothes, though. Her nightie is by ChicChica and can be found on The Sims Resource. I don’t think it’s in the free section at the moment, though, so you’d have to have a subscription to TSR in order to download it.

  15. Pingback: Greetings from Mt. Geneva » Blog Archive » OK, I lied