Welcome back to the Spotlight BACC! I actually just finished playing through this rotation, so I am, in fact, behind on the updates. I’ll do my best to catch up, though.
The household at the beginning of the update, left to right: Maci, Isaac, Elliott, Lancelot, Nina, and Ginny.
The household guide is here, and their extended family guide is here.
As you might recall, the Random Occurrences Wheel rolled this for Jude and Naomi, but I decided to save it for Maci and Lancelot instead. I actually really liked them together until I installed the Have Some Personality Please mod, at which point its coding made Lancelot’s Jealous trait constant and impossible to deal with.
These two started out the week in the new favorite hangout spot for neighborhood Children.
Lancelot, meanwhile, started it out by trolling the forums. ;;
This is, in fact, when I began playing with a reshade. I am so happy with how much brighter the game is now! There are some lots where it is actually still pretty dark, even with the reshade (shoutout to the Seagraves’ house) so I’m glad that I did go ahead and brighten the game.
That real awkward moment when trying to give your best friend the flowers in your inventory to be helpful looks like you’re trying to woo her instead.
I actually have someone else I want her to woo instead. This was not how I was expecting their first interaction in this rotation to be. ;;;;;;; Weirdly domestic.
When I first decided to break up Lancelot and Maci, I wasn’t sure who to pair Maci with. Then I thought of Sofia–who I also wasn’t sure what to do with now that Jaxson moved in–and it just clicked. Sofia’s actually shown interest in women before (see also: that time she flirted with Mabel while pregnant with Charles’s baby) and I think she’d be good for Maci.
Me: Wait, is this the ONE relationship Lancelot approves of Maci having???
Me: …. never mind. ;;;;
Will I photograph every single Toddler hug that ever occurs in this save? Yes, yes I will.
I decided to send Maci and Elliott over to the original house so that Elliott could hang out with his dad and Maci could woo Sofia without Lancelot around. Two birds, one stone and all that.
I also got a peek at Leia and Jaxson’s second son! I’m going to rename him Raymond, but the game has named him Rocky and I keep thinking of him as Rocky. Maybe Rocky will be his official nickname.
The initial wooing process was a bit hit or miss.
Elliott’s autonomous bonding time with Darien (Leia & Jaxson’s older son) and Diane & Kirsten (Sofia’s daughters) was much more harmonious.
The other side of the neighborhood with the reshade!
Some cute Nina & Isaac Toddler bonding for you.
The one (1) thing where I feel bad for Lancelot in all of this is that he won’t be living with the kids anymore. Most of the time he is autonomously a really great dad.
Most of the time.
An exception to that rule: this moment, featuring Lancelot getting jealous about Maci talking to their daughter.
Meanwhile, here’s great dad Jaxson chilling with Elliott.
Phoebe also does not approve of her uncle Lancelot.
It was really strange watching the Toddler gatherings dwindle in size as the rotation went on. There were still quite a few Toddlers at this point, but by the last household there are only three!
Educational moments during the gathering.
Cute Toddlers, improved lighting, good times.
Isaac woke Ginny up, which would be unremarkable except…
SHE WOKE UP IN BEAR FORM.
Rotation 10 Bears Counter: 2
I’m telling y’all, computer addiction is a side effect of the Bear Phase. First Marcella, now Ginny.
See, Lancelot, why can’t you just be cute all the time instead of a total brat??? We coulda had it all.
Lancelot also got in some cute moments with Isaac and Nina. ❤
Unsurprising: Naomi invited herself over for a visit.
More unsurprising than it should be: someone dared Jaxson to go streaking. ;;
A complete shock: despite my efforts to edit their relationships so that they recognize each other as cousins, NAOMI HIT ON LANCELOT AGAIN.
Naomi, probably: “So you have your cousins, and then you have your first cousins-” /Mean Girls reference
Brielle wisely kept out of the way of that mess and just rage-homeworked in the rain.
In the midst of all this chaos, it was time to age Isaac up! He randomized the Insider trait, like Elliott, and I gave him the Creative aspiration. I kept him in pink clothes (I’m more or less color coding the kids throughout the save). My big takeaways so far: he has a whole lot more Lancelot in him than Ginny does, and wow is he skinny.
I also redid the boys’ room to set up Isaac’s side. I realize the beds and all the blue are a bit of an odd choice given that Elliott’s color is red and Isaac’s is pink, but I dunno, something about them having quilts just works for me and this is the only quilt swatch I have that really suits kids all that well.
Birthday parties mean lots of opportunities to watch the residents interact.
And when Lancelot is at work, they also mean lots of opportunities for Maci and Sofia’s relationship to progress.
Awwww, look at her looking at Maci. ❤
Maci/Sofia is Jude Morgan approved.
If I remember right, this is from the next day, when I invited more people over. Isaac and Sofia took a moment to color coordinate together.
My sims’ new favorite thing–crowding in the bathroom to interact–continued.
Just the kids basking in the weather after arriving home from school, being real cute while doing so.
Isaac brought Jordan Seagraves home from school, which made me really happy. Jordan is one of my favorite sims in this generation, I think, so I love it when he turns up.
… JORDAN! AFTER ALL THE NICE THINGS I SAID ABOUT YOU!!
I mean, Ginny, I’m not entirely sure how you’re going to eat one bowl of soup in that outfit, let alone two, but all right.
I love family shots. ❤
I also love love. ❤
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about shower woohoo, but if they love it then I’m happy for them.
Ok Sofia Cullen.
Sofia spent a lot of time staring at their family portrait, like she was envisioning how it would look when Lancelot was out of it and she and her girls were in it. Bless.
…. charming, Lancelot.
HARVESTFEST TIME! At this point I was planning to keep Maci and Lancelot married until the end of the week, and then move Lancelot out and Sofia in. That way Lancelot would still be played all 7 days of the week, which would keep his aging in line with everyone else. And I didn’t want to have them divorce partway through the week, since I figured that them living together after the divorce would be awkward.
So I went ahead and had Maci invite Natalie and her kids over. Natalie’s kids and Maci’s kids are cousins (since Natalie’s husband, Brock, is Maci’s twin brother) so I figured they’d have a morning family gathering and then I’d invite the Royals over (Leia is Lancelot’s sister and Naomi is his cousin) and they’d have the afternoon family gathering.
I mean, Lancelot was still getting pressed every time Maci interacted with anyone, so it wasn’t a perfect Harvestfest morning.
But he had his good moments, too.
UNTIL HE FLIRTED WITH NATALIE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MACI.
This was the last straw for me, so I had Maci divorce him then and there.
……. and then realized their kids and nieces and nephews had all witnessed it. Oops.
I recently added a mod that causes children to react more realistically to divorce, so they were all set to be sad for four days instead of two. ))))):
Caleb, I’m not entirely sure why your new hobby is chatting with the women in your family while they’re working on the stove, but maybe find something safer to do?
Maci is just like, there are one too many things happening around me and I can’t even anymore.
Divorce or no divorce, I still wanted to keep Lancelot in the house until the end of the rotation to keep his age in line, as I mentioned earlier. So I settled in for three more real awkward days of gameplay.
And I’ll end this half of the update with your missed narrative moment of the week: this so would have been Lancelot telling Leia about the divorce and asking if he can move in with her.