Dr. Charles Dunnavant stepped off the sailboat onto the crooked old dock and glanced up at the grandeur of Mt. Sabastian. After marveling at it a moment, he followed the rippling ridges of the mountain down to where the rest of the island spread out before it in a swell of green trees and pale sand, which caught the afternoon sun and cast it back against his eyes in a blinding shimmer.
Don’t you hate it when your breadbox spontaneously combusts?
Hello again, dears! Maude here, taking up where I left off with the Kilman family. I’ll waste no time this morning and get right back into the thick of it!
After Bailey suffered her sudden attack of nausea and ran off to the bathroom, Joey sat at the table waiting for her, a pensive expression on his face. I could tell he wanted to check on her, but she had lit a spark of anger in him for the first time, and it glued him to his chair. When at last he heard her exit the bathroom and go upstairs, he rose solemnly and busied himself with the after-dinner chores.
Later that night, Bailey came down to watch television with him, but she said very little and answered most of his questions with shrugs of indifference. I recognized this behavior immediately, and I’m sure you would have, too!
That’s right, it’s a classic example of the cold shoulder routine. Bailey hadn’t gotten her way, and she wanted to punish Joey for making her suffer. (I know it all too well, dear readers, because my stubborn old sisters excelled at it!)
I felt sorry for Joey. He seemed to have forgotten his anger and merely wanted to have a nice conversation with his wife, but she was more interested in those irritating television commercials than anything he had to say.
Good evening, dears! It’s me, your old friend Maude. I hope you’ll forgive my being gone for so terribly long, though it’s not really my fault, you see. I’ve actually been here all the time, just brimming with stories to tell you, but I never got the chance! Not with those upstart Shanleys at the top of the hill, populating half the town with their ever-expanding brood, bringing poor souls back from the dead, and who knows what else. I have to say, it’s all been a bit unsettling.
Let me take this opportunity to assure you that I would never desire being brought back to life. I’m quite happy in my ghostly existence, drifting about the town, scaring off the ruffians that try to vandalize Berthiaume Manor, observing all the residents of Mt. Geneva (and there are a good many of them now)…now that’s “life†to me. Being truly alive again would be rather inconvenient, I should think – I wouldn’t be able to spy on anyone at all!
So I’ll continue being a phantom, thank you very much, and if some misguided fool should try to bring me back, well…he’ll wish he hadn’t!
Ahem. Excuse me, dears – I get rather snippety (and long-winded) when I think about such things. On to much pleasanter topics, like…the Kilmans! Some of you might remember Tiffy and her brother Joey, who married that dreadful Bailey Singleton. Well, she’s Bailey Kilman now, and much has happened since that fateful union! I’ve been eager to tell you all about it, and now I finally have the chance. Let’s catch up with them, shall we?
Hey guys, thanks a ton for the feedback! And thanks for understanding about the Braytons. I have a feeling I’ll get back to them sooner rather than later, so they won’t be gone for long.
The most popular options seem to be Maude’s Tales and the Royal Kingdom Challenge. So here’s what I’m going to do:
I’m going to create all my families for the RKC, build their houses, and play each family for a little bit, just to see how the gameplay goes and whether or not I can make some decent stories out of it. Since that will probably take awhile, I’m going to tell some Maude stories in the meantime. How does that sound?
Personally, I’m really excited about them both — I get to use the Victorian stuff I love (and build Victorian houses) and also tell stories about modern families who will be able to take full advantage of Nightlife once it comes out (cars! clubs! karaoke!). And I might try Option 2 just for fun — if it turns out to be interesting enough, maybe I’ll make it a Maude Tale.
A couple of things:
I wanted to let you guys know that I’m having a few problems with the Braytons, so I’m going to put their stories on hold for awhile until I can get things straightened out. I’m not giving up on them by any means — I’m very fond of them — but I would rather do some other stories for awhile until I resolve these issues. I know some of you will be disappointed, especially since I left the story hanging, and I’m sorry to do that to you. I hope when I finally return to the Brayton saga, it’ll be worth your wait.
So what stories am I going to tell in the meantime? Well, there are the Shanleys, but even they seem to have worn out their welcome a little bit, and I have to admit I’m a teensy bit tired of them myself. I don’t think it’s the Shanleys themselves, but the whole Legacy thing — I think I’ve had enough of it (for myself, anyway — I still enjoy reading everyone else’s Legacy stories). However, I don’t want to give up the Shanleys completely; I’ll probably keep playing them at least until I get to 20th generation. I just may not post about them as much.
What I’d really like to do is work on something completely new and/or bring back some of my old families, but it depends on you guys. I have about five ideas brewing in my head, and all of them are equally interesting to me. Even if I weren’t sharing my stories, I’d be tackling these ideas, but since I’m sharing, and you guys are taking the time to read my blog, I thought I’d ask you what ideas interest YOU the most.
As Ruby Shanley became a teenager, her relationship with her ill-fated father improved somewhat. Though she was nicer and more caring than Juan had ever been (or ever would be), she very active – almost hyper – and highly interested in sports, as he himself had been before his botched resurrection, and he was proud that they shared those characteristics.
“ROO-BEE! ROO-BEE! ROO-BEE!â€
Ruby loved her father and was glad to have him back, but she had to admit it was a little bit strange living with a zombie. She still hadn’t gotten used to it.
With the family safely ensconced in their new, ultra-secluded home (the address of which was made known only to the schoolbus driver, the grocery delivery guy, the mailman, the paperboy, the gardener, a few chaffeurs and a dozen assorted family friends), Mia Shanley could get back to doing what she did best: foiling the plots of SimNation’s most detestable villains.
Upon realizing that she wasn’t getting any younger, and that there would always be bad guys around, Mia decided to take on a sidekick to whom she could pass on her super-secrets. She put the following ad in the Sunday paper:
“Grammanator seeks capable and fearless cohort to assist in the fighting of crime. Apply at my super-secret hideout – IF you can find it…â€
Within days, Mia had found a suitable sidekick: a young man by the name of Amadeo. Besides being frightfully handsome, Amadeo was fit as a fiddle, well-versed in the ways of villains (“I’ve read all of Marcel Shanley’s crime novels,†he said with pride), and properly worshipful.
“You’re an angel in bulletproof, waterproof, flameproof armor! You should be called…‘The Captivator’!â€
Mia was amused by Amadeo’s adulation but didn’t let it go to her head.
“Don’t worry, you’re hired!†she told the youth. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a birthday party to attend.â€