Middlington

Welcome to Middlington




Middling (mid-dling) - 'mid -lən

1: of middle, medium, or moderate size, degree, or quality
2: mediocre second-rate
3: of, relating to, or being a middle class

thanks to Merriam Webster Online for that definition

Welcome to Middlington, a quiet little 'hood I cooked up with the intention of using it for some smaller challenges. I'd just gotten my new laptop up and running and while trying to convice the Holldumsto behave and run decently on it, I dcided to put together another, smaller hood where I could run challenges not related to my legacy or to my on-hiatus story Empty Musing. And so Middlington was born.

Middlington uses Plasticbox's Middleground neighbourhood. It's base game compatible, has just an eensy weensy bit of CC, and -- like anything done by Plasticbox -- is totally awesome.

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It wouldn't be one of my hoods if I didn't stick a Sim-Keth variant in there somewhere. While I was planning on making a bunch of custom townies, I didn't want Sim-Keth to be one of them. You see, I've been wanting for ages to create a hood where my simself is the town poker, but to do that she'd need to be the very first sim in the neighborhood. Middleground is an unpopulated 'hood; there are no character files, no NPCs, no population so it was very easy to make her and her feline companions the first folks in the hood, guaranteeing she would be the Mad Poker of Middlington.

Yes, I did have someone test this later and it was Sim-Keth who came to shove them around.

The two kitties with Sim-Keth? The orange one is my Bibby, naturally. The tuxedo kitty is Lisa's Atticus. I wasn't sure if you can turn pets into custom townie critters and I didn't want him to be left living alone on my test lot, so I moved him in with Bibby and I. Plus he looks similar to my own Goob Kitty who passed over a couple years ago.

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And this is the house that Keth built. Well not really but... This is one of several houses I'd built and tested in Muse Ridge, where Spencer's story takes place. This is the pure Maxis, no CC version I had packaged up. A slightly more tricked out, CC ridden version has appeared on the cover of several of Kasson's Sim-Realty Monthly magazines. It's going to be a while before Sim-Keth's place looks like that; she's kind of broke right now.

The Mad Poker is in place, so now it's time to start populating the neighborhood. This is the whole reason I created this little chapter. I'd adding some simselves to the population, and things are always interesting when that happens.

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In Strangetown, these lovely ladies and their downloaded hair all live with the super secret MBiBs Here they'll be custom townies who will wander by randomly, show up on community lots when I least expect it, steal my gnomes, and -- should I ever decide to try to run any sim-owned businesses -- cause all sorts of havoc. *grin* I can't wait.

SGT should be in a little red dress, but I've been waiting ages to find the right sim to use the sex-hay military uniform on. *chuckle* I also realized after everyone was on the lot that I probably should've put Lynn in her Zoe shirt instead of a Llama Mama one. *headsmack* Ah well. The Captain isn't fazed by any of this, though she is probably wondering about her MBiB November. And Lisa... ah... Lisa, I know you're not thrilled with the banana tunic but try to look a little excited, please.

Well, the simselves are here, but I can't add 4 ladies to the townie pool without adding 4 gents as well...

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So, with apologies to their creators, I found a few familiar manb... er fellows to add.

We have Bacillus Bacter from Heather's legacies, complete with Michigan hoodie. Considering my friend Sal has our living room done in OSU scarlet and gray, I could be in serious trouble if word of Bacillus' hoodie gets out *laughs* Joining Bacillus is Quavi Robbins from ASimWen's Prosperity Falls. Prosperity Falls is why I've always been nervous about trying a prosperity hood; I'd want to write about it and I know it would fall incredibly short compared to the Falls.

And the fellow in the critter skin who's looking a little lost at Bacillus' joke? That would be Cleveland Garth, the infamous Ugly Maid of Veronaville The Captain said he'd been hanging out in limbo, so I figured he could use a little exercise.

Wait, that's only 3 guys. Shouldn't I be adding 4, as I'm putting 4 simselves into the townie pool? Well...

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I figured that if I was adding simselves and other well known challenge sims to the townie pool, I better include some of my own sims, lest folks think I'm protecting my own favouring other peoples' sims/simselves over my own.

He wasn't very thrilled about it either.
(that or his pants were chafing)

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So 8 famililar faces will soon be heading into to the Middlington townie population. I really expected them to be a bit more active in CAS, but they all stood around like bumps on a log.

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And they weren't too much more exciting once I dropped on my test lot so I could townie-ize 'em either. Quavi and Lisa were the only two who showed any interest in the people they'd met in the CAS room.

Let me fix this...

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That's a little better. Get that chemistry and attraction percolating folks. I don't expect crushes or anything similar to develop, but I'd like y'all to at least be friends... heck, I'd like you to at least know each other before I turn you loose in the townie pool. If flirting helps that friendship to build, I'm all for it.

I now run ACR (autonomous casual romance) all the time, since TwoJeff's has put a global override in that lets you turn off ACR completely for any 'hood. I used to take it out to play the Holldums and put it back to play Spencer, but now I can turn it off in Strangetown and leave it on in Muse Ridge. While it's fun to see what ACR gets our playable sims to do, its more fun to see what what it does with townies. Using it in a dorm is a riot.

Don't worry about Lisa not having any glowing sparklies...

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It seems she's had her mind made up from the beginning.

Somehow this did not surprise me in the least. *chuckle*

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So I sat back for a few minutes and let everyone do their own thing for a bit. Most of the interactions were not ACR triggered; lots of chatting, admiring. some kicky bag. Occasionally an ACR flirt would pop up, but no ones relationship was high enough for a crush to develop. That doesn't mean things weren't interesting.

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Some people weren't quite sure what they were supposed to be doing and came on a little too strong.

The Captain was having none of it.

(love that expression Ange)

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She felt a little sorry for Orry and his fumblings, so she figured she'd show him how it's done.

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I eventually had to separate these two so they could make friends with other people.

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I thought this was cute at the time. Quavi had been monopolizing SGT Heather's time, so I sent him off to the other side of the lot to give both of them a chance to talk to other people. When he finally got wandered back, he was none to thrilled to find her chatting it up with someone else.

Even without ACR running , chemistry and attraction makes sims do some strange funny things

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Which brings us back to Sim-Keth... the funny things that is... I wanted to make sure she knew all the minionettes that I'd be turning into townies, so I ported her to the test lot and had her chat up everyone just long enough to get them in her relationship panel. I was planning on playing her a bit and wanted her to have some folks she could call to build her friend pool for work.

Once her relationships were in the positive with everyone (teens for most, but only single digits for a couple) I sent Orrin over to ask her to leave (and that is the option he had for her... not "say goodbye" which comes from a higher str/ltr)

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This is how he told her to leave. *facepalm* Yeah, I couldn't believe it either Lisa. If The Sims had a "WTF" thought bubble, there'd be at least 3 of 'em on screen in this shot.

Would you believe their relationship is all of 17? (STR. LTR is a single digit still)

After this I townized everyone and sent them off into the big wide world.

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So Sim-Lisa's been rather annoyed with Sim-Keth the past few days. Some of it may be related to her getting caught peeping in the telescope though.

Either way, poor Sim-Keth's trashcan has a permanent dent. No roaches yet though, thankfully.

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Aw, you've made Sim-Keth cry now.

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And she does have a fair bit to cry over. Just because she got the big house doesn't mean she got the motherlode to go with it. Her belongings are a bit... sparse... and she went through 3 beds before she got the cats trained to use the scratching post. Then the chance card wiped her out. She finally got the "want to go downtown for an outing" invite from some old guy so I sent her out, hoping she'd meet someone. Alas, there were only 4 folks on the outing (all guys) and 2 of them were too young for her.

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The old guy apparently liked her though, because he called her back and asked her on a date. Sim-Keth's aspiration was red, so I sent her on the date. Somehow she managed get a dream date without having to get kissy kissy with him and was in a good enough mood/aspiration to get a promotion the next day. Her life's still pretty spartan and rough though. Thankfully the cats like each other so there's no fighting between them.

And because I felt bad about all this, I let Sim-Keth throw a New Year's party to try to get her in a better mood.

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Off to the left, you can see the backside of the nice looking bartender I want to get her interested in, but she ignored him the entire party. She met bartender boy (I think his name is Scot) while she was on her date with Old Guy. That's also how she got the dance sphere. While she could use the money she'd get from selling it, I let her keep it. Good for fun and body. I could not keep Cleve, Captain A, or SGT Heather out of it during the party. And where SGT Heather goes, Quavi follows. I'm sorry Heather; had I known he'd turn into a stalker I'd have never let him talk to you. As soon as someone gets high enough up in the law career I'll get that protection order for you.

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So that's how things shape up when you release minionettes into the wild of your game. There's been more facepalming OMGWTFBBQ!!1 action since I took these pics, but that will have wait till another post (if I get around to doing an update for here). I will say that someone in this picture did something that made me want to send them swimming in a ladderless pool (hint, it wasn't Atticus the cat). Admittedly, if I wasn't running ACR it wouldn't have happened (probably) but the fun would be decidedly lacking if I took ACR out.

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Next Chapter

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