July 2085: everybody loves Ezra

Ezra Dunning is 26.


Everybody loves Ezra, which is a phenomenon he finds quite honestly baffling, since for the first quarter-century of his life, he was nothing but a tall geek with unruly red hair, immature and sometimes lazy, decidedly not charming, and he hadn’t had an actual girlfriend since high school. And then he moved to Sunrise Shores and met Lola, who was beautiful, sweet, and sexy. This is not Lola though. This is her roommate Joelle, and Joelle loves Ezra too.

July 2085: how to make castles

Paige Roberts is 11.


It had rained all night, and the morning of her eleventh birthday, a heavy fog settled over the neighborhood. "We can do whatever you want later," Paige's mom said. "Do you want to go out for dinner? Or I could take you to the mall?"

“Can I ride my bike?”

“Not now, maybe later if the fog clears.”

“Can you drive me over to Tara’s house?”

“Sure, I'll drive you over when the fog clears.”

Her mother liked everything to be safe. Her mother liked to see where everyone was and that they were okay.

"Why don't you go try out your new barre for a little while? Your daddy spent a whole night installing that for you."

"I know," Paige said. "I like it."

goldfish, pt. 3: playing cupid

This is something that has been plaguing me since I started playing TS3. Attraction scores. You guys know how much I used to love using them in my TS2 stories, and how useful they are as a numerical representation of something that is otherwise pretty intangible—human compatibility.

Well in TS3, attraction is pretty much useless. For some reason, all of my Sim couples chart a 10/10, and they roll pretty much zero wishes to indicate any preference for one romantic choice over another. And though I know TS4 is coming along in a few more months, I don't have much confidence that the attraction system there will be any better, at least not to start. And I won't be playing it in any real capacity from the beginning anyway, because I like to wait until there are a few EPs out. So I'm going to be sticking with TS3 for a little while here, and I'd like to make this work for me.

I've been working on a little project. It requires a basic set of calculations using traits, aspirations, and zodiac, which are factors taken from both TS2 and TS3, because I do note both for each of my Sims. Because of that, perhaps this system will be completely useless to anyone but myself. But if any of this is useful to you at all, by all means, feel free to mix it up and use it!

July 4th, 2085: little explosions

Gabby is 12, Charlie is 20, Ian and Ingrid are 22, Laney is 26, Andreas is 27, Kyle is 28, Carly is 30.


12:15pm:

"Pass it over," Gabby said. "Give me a try. Come on. I can do it. I’m pretty good. I mean, you're really good, but I’m pretty good too. Okay? Pass it over."


Sophia said, "But... you're wearing flippers."

July 2085: work ethic

Quinn Buchanan is 14, Mariah is 36, Lily is 13. Tommy Daniels is 24. 


"Can I give you a name?" Quinn said to the chicken. "Myrtle. Myrtle the chicken. It's a pleasure to meet you, Myrtle. Because I thought we should be on a first name basis, seeing how we're going to be spending so much time together this summer."

The chicken tilted her head. Quinn imagined she was listening.

"Myrtle, can you keep a secret?"

July 2085: if looks could kill

Gabby Roseland is 12. Lily Riley-Kim is 13.

Soundtrack: "If Looks Could Kill" by Heart


It was just an ordinary hot and hazy day in July. Gabby Roseland didn't think anything about wearing her green spotted flippers to the beach...

June/July 2085: postcards

Extras, outtakes, and updates from our supporting cast. Many of these photos were also posted on my Tumblr, but Tumblr is chaotic and lacks structure. So for the sake of documentation, and to choose favorites, these were some of the things that happened in the background of other stories in June and July of 1985.

The Lind and Roberts family: 


Paige and her little bestie, Tara Lind. Tara is a year younger than Paige, and going into fifth grade this fall.