Round Seventeen - Menzies II
Oct. 29th, 2024 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayleigh83
Last Round - Claire's romance with Nora Lewis wasn't totally over, but she doesn't seem serious about it long term. Ewan was acting a little erratic, and it seems he may have started some kind of cult (he calls it an "intentional community"). He convinced a townie named Abigail to move in and give him access to all of her money - for the community! Claire also started romancing a townie named Gavin and they went on a few dates.
Who's Who in the Zoo?
Trevor and Finn Menzies had four kids - Ewan, Claire, and the twins Katy and Cole. Ewan and Claire became adults during the same round, and moved out of the family home together. Ewan had an unplanned son, Ronin, with Louise Crosby - he lives with his mom and so far Ewan hasn't had much to do with his son.
Abigail is up at the crack of dawn to tend the garden beds.
Ewan eventually gets out there too, and tends to the bees.
Claire pitches in too! Everyone has to do their part to make this community work, like Ewan has envisioned.
Abigail makes lunch while Ewan bangs away at the piano.
It's important to him to take time to harmonize his energies with the crystals - while he does this, he does not like to be disturbed, except sometimes when he asks Abigail to play the bongos to amplify the celestial frequencies. But other than that, it's a strict do not disturb policy.
Claire is bored, so she invites over Clementine who she met at some point in this past round. And apparently someone else will be coming too!
He's really getting into it now.
It's Alice Park that shows up with Clementine!
Ewan sure likes the look of Clementine.
He immediately busts a move to try and impress her.
Which apparently works!
Ewan's got another scheme for making money for himself - I mean, the community! It involves more work for poor Abigail unfortunately. When she's done gardening and making food, it's straight to the flower bench to put together some bouquets.
Things are getting a little flirtatious between Ewan and Clementine meanwhile.
He invites her to sit in on one of his regular speeches he gives to their burgeoning community.
"You see, Abigail doesn't need worldly things like her own money! We have no need for such concerns here! We're all a family!"
"It's true, and I love cooking for all of you too! I just love it! Really!"
More developments over here...
The guests join them for dinner - Alice was still here but she was keeping her distance more, she didn't seem too interested in whatever that weird speech he was giving was all about. She just kept herself busy in some other part of the house.
Ewan and Clementine were doing a little table flirtation.
Another morning dawns early (especially for Abigail).
Ewan heads straight to his yoga mat today.
Claire heads out to the pool - I decided to make swimming her fitness hobby specialty. It was sort of Ewan's before (he had the loves to swim trait, because he also has fitness hobby) but clearly yoga has become his front runner. So I gave that trait, and now sub-hobby, to Claire instead.
Alice was there at that lot, seeing a lot of her this round!
Ewan tagged along too though, he's got to get out of the house sometimes to find more people to join their community. He also took the opportunity to get some pictures of himself.
He started pitching the community and its ethos to some of the townies who were there, but it involved a bit too much bragging on Ewan's part to really land with a lot of them.
Failing that, he entertained himself by using his powers of persuasion to get people pranking one another.
Claire was having fun socializing in a more innocent way. She doesn't really get why her brother has to be... like that.
Meanwhile at the homestead, Abigail is of course, working!
Ewan has become a bit concerned about powerful people in SimCity spying on their community and stealing their ideas for world harmony and renewal. Inside that mysterious and non-descript brick building on the property, he's employed some interesting gadgets to try and expose their schemes.
He's tasked Abigail with the important job of practicing her skills at lying, should she ever be captured by those nefarious evil-doers.
Ewan goes outside once it's dark, to try and get a better signal. While he's gone, Abigail gets curious about this other contraption Ewan's got in the room.
Did I mention that bunker is totally soundproof?
Ewan comes back in to find Abigail a little worse for wear.
Ok, a lot worse.
Warming up in his bathroom for the next speech.
His latest portraits got put up on display next to the last one.
Abigail got a decent amount of rest after yesterday's experience, but her fun is still tanked. She snuck out of bed extra early to watch a little TV before Ewan was up. She's not really sure if he's think this was a "productive use of her time" and he'd probably say that there were "better ways to be of service to building the community".
But what he doesn't know can't hurt him!
But before long the morning is getting on, so she heads to the kitchen to make breakfast.
Her brightest and cheeriest smile is ready to go when Ewan needs her bongos to channel the crystal energies.
Some other energies are also flowing between Ewan and Abigail today...
Claire is feeling less enthused about all this gardening with each passing day.
Ewan got a brisk workout with the punching bag in, followed by a nice soothing bath.
Without him hovering around, Claire and Abigail took it a little easier than usual and gabbed in the yard a bit.
Ewan wanted to see Clementine again, so he invited her around.
Claire also said hello to this walk-by townie Freddie. She really wants to meet somebody - or preferably several somebodies, since she's a serial romancer and friend of the world. She just really needs more people in her life, whatever the relationship status might be.
Lucky for her, he decides to gift her a nice, big, valuable TV. She decides to tuck that away in her inventory and not mention anything about it to her brother. She's sure he'd just insist she use it for the good of the community.
Poor Abigail is having a bit of a rough time. With all the gardening, cooking, and bongos, there's not much time for the things she wants to do.
But she believes in what Ewan is building! So she takes a deep breath, and gets back to repairing that darn leaky faucet.
Claire feels bad for Abigail, so she tells her to go take a nap while she takes care of lunch today.
Ewan's aspiration is technically popularity B (public enemy) but I think this perk will be very handy for a charismatic, would-be
Their guests join them for spaghetti dinner, apparently using the tomatoes from their very own crops!
Ewan puts his newly beefed up social skills to work. Freddie seems to be interested in some of what he has to say!
Meanwhile, Abigail is trying to have a minor breakdown in the kitchen as unobtrusively as possible.
She pulls it together yet again, and comes out to enthuse to Freddie about how great it is to be in on the ground floor of such a marvelous community. It's really, really great! Really!!
The crops get more tending in the morning, as always!
Ewan calls Freddie to check in and see if he's thought about the concepts he introduced to him last night in conversation. Mainly it was about crystals.
He takes his own turn on the bongos today too.
Out of nowhere, Gavin - the townie Claire was seeing last round (now bald thanks to the salon) shows up and wanders in for some woohoo. I don't have ACR booty call enabled, but you'd think I did...
Ewan invited Clementine out for a date, and since it's getting close to winter, he took her to the rinks downtown.
It's bad enough Ewan was less than skilled on skates, but now he's gotta watch this lady practically mocking him with her skill and prowess!
This townie seems to not know what personal space is! Some people are trying to make out lady!
The date ends very well!
Gavin and Claire's not really a date is also going very well!
Abigail has a little free time on her hands, and Ewan recommends meditation for filling up free time, so that's what she does!
But soon the bees need some tending.
She can't resist taking a break to catch some beautiful butterflies though.
But it does push her schedule back a bit, so she's working at the flower bench until well after dark.
Abigail is impressed by Ewan's latest breakthrough on understanding the complex interplay of wavelength frequencies emanating between the sound vibrations of the bongos and the light refraction of the crystals. She doesn't really get it, but still, she's impressed!
Feeling confident, Ewan decides to practice his own lying skills.
It's actually a little harder than he anticipated.
The girls enjoy breakfast together before it's time for another one of Ewan's speeches.
They sit at rapt attention (he gets mad if they don't).
Ewan had a passing fancy to buy a guitar. Unfortunately for Abigail, her room was the only place that had enough space. As long as her bed got downgraded to a single bed!
Clementine came over.
That's a very interesting want to have!
Claire meanwhile decided to go out clubbing with Gavin.
She loved the dance sphere.
They had a really fun, and late, night together. She thinks she could really see a future with this guy... or at least a way out of the farmhouse. She's really not sure if her brother's community is the life she envisions for herself.
Ewan encourages Clementine to try out her oratory skills at the podium.
She gives a long, impassioned speech about dogs.
Ewan compliments her profusely for her passion and insight. He had no idea one Sim year was equivalent to seven dog years!
Ewan asks Clementine if she would like to move in and help him grow his community, by his side. She accepts!
It feels... interesting that the very first thing she does is sit down and have a meal at his place at the table. No one else would even dare!
She is a rapt audience for tonight's piano recital though.
Clementine is a little absent minded (she has the trait) so it doesn't really occur to her that playing the guitar while Abigail is sleeping in the same room might not be the best idea.
But somehow, she sleeps through the whole thing. She does not have the heavy sleeper trait! Guess she's just used to a certain level of chaos.
These two settle in for the night.
Meanwhile, Claire and Gavin have decided to take a chance on each other too.
Next round, Claire and Gavin will be seeing where life takes just the two of them, as Gavin becomes the latest playable resident of Brightmaple!
Gavin MacDougal - Fortune A/Popularity B (Hard Worker/Public Enemy) - Gemini 4/7/8/3/3 (outgoing, active, grouchy)
Hobby: Sports (sub-hobby football)
Traits: ambitious, grumpy, athletic, schmoozer, terrible cook
Turn Ons: Blonde Hair, Outdoorsy; Turn Off: Indoorsy
I've just swapped out my turn ons/offs mod from Epi's to Pforest's, so please just disregard all previous TO's I've mentioned. I'm sure you have them all memorized!
Lots of interesting things in development for Ewan and his little community. To be honest I've had it in my mind for quite a while now that Clementine would eventually be joining it. I thought up this direction for her while she was still a teen. But I didn't know their romance would play such a part in it to be honest, but it makes sense! She has serial romancer as her primary aspiration, but huge family is her secondary. Why wouldn't she want to become part of a growing community where everyone is family? That sounds great!!
I also feel the need to point out that sadly (but kind of unsurprisingly) Ewan had nothing to do with his son Ronin this round. He rolled no wants for it, and considering his whole vibe, I didn't really see it being top of mind for him, so I didn't get him to pursue it either. Louise is going to have to continue raising him mostly by herself it seems.
So next time we'll see where that goes, whether Ewan can recruit anyone else to join, and what Claire and Gavin get up to together in their new beginning!
no subject
Date: 2024-10-30 05:01 pm (UTC)Poor Abigail doing everything by herself 😔 At least get some more members to help out, Ewan!
But honestly, I'm glad that Claire got out 😅
no subject
Date: 2024-10-30 07:24 pm (UTC)