it's your day: Jack & Nessa

April 24, 2087. Happy 10th wedding anniversary to Jack and Nessa Phoenix! 


digging through the old family photo albums, from April 24, 2077
(click for bigger)


 






business profile: Iceberry Cafe // Cloud 9 // Potomac Herbal

venue: residential // home cafe, home bar, AirBnb
location: Potomac Heights
owner: Aura Jackson (managed by Beau Jackson and April Hutchins)

Since so much of my last update took place on this lot, I thought I'd throw together a little lot tour. This lot has grown quite a bit since I showed it off before in a profile for April's cafe

As far as the books go, neither the Jackson boys nor April own any of this. They manage it all for their mom. In TS2, Aura owned a fashion boutique, Jolie Jolie, which did exceptionally well until one day when she "sold it" (game glitch) to run for office, a position she still holds today, Treasury Secretary. Then Adrian did well for himself, too, running a very popular arcade. Between the two businesses, their home and vacation home, the Jackson family had amassed somewhere around $400,000 simoleons in net worth, a nice tidy fortune among my sims, probably second only to the Riley family in riches. But the boys won't inherit that for a long while still—although Adrian passed away, I expect Aura to stick around for a long time. 

In TS4, the Jackson family owns two properties now, and this is one which Beau and April manage. (The other is the Adventure Fitness Park in Sierra Nova, which Tyler is working on.)


we used to be kings

April 13th, 2087. Angelo Shaw is 24, Devon is 15, Valerie is 51. Aldous Jones is 15. Aliyah Sylvester is 26. April Hutchins and Beau Jackson are 23.



In another life, fifteen-year-old Devon Shaw might have grown up a spoiled mafia princess. She sighed and fantasized about that life as she sprayed degreaser on the coffee machines, because in this life, her dad is in the slammer and most of their assets were repossessed and her mom works two jobs to barely cover their rent. But a teenage girl needs pocket change sometimes to buy new earrings or see a movie with her friends, or you know, help her mom cover the electric bill occasionally. So Devon picked up her first job at IceBerry Cafe. She had a lot to learn, but she was eager.

movie premiere: Final Fantasy XV Comrades

notes: There was a mention of Summer doing a fan event for her movie in a recent story post, so I wanted to take a quick minute to talk about her movie. This is a thing I'd like to do for my actor sims, whenever any of them are lucky enough to snag a role. 

I have always enjoyed giving my actor and writer sims "real" projects for their stories. Like Violet Deppiesse's sci-fi novel series having real titles and even plot summaries. Or describing what kind of short stories Aurora Harris used to write. Or that Nathan Lind once wrote a flop of a pulp legal thriller. Or knowing exactly what kind of soap opera Bella Bradshaw (stage name Isabelle Gibson) used to act in. My sims are never allowed to just make up filler titles and descriptions for their work. I suppose, as a writer in real life, I'd be annoyed that they got to fake it so easily, lol!

Summer was lucky enough to be picked  for this project before acting was even a thing in TS4. I needed a character to be my avatar in FFXV Comrades, and she fit the bill! The story goes that she was drumming with her awful band one night and a producer saw her banging on things and thought, hey, she'd look really great with a sword. So he asked her to audition. The film was meant to be a minor B movie spin-off in a niche franchise, so it was no big deal that she was a complete unknown to the acting world. She had the right look, so she landed the part. As these things sometimes go.  

Now that we have a real acting career in TS4, I've decided that my sims can enter it in two ways. (Because it would be no fun for me if every sim who ever caught a whim to be an actor could just become one, barring all skill, talent, and luck.)

1.) I might pick them, the way I picked Summer, hand out of the sky, to exist in some other non-TS4 game. I will imagine them to be actors in a movie based on that game, and I'll make up a little "movie" with the screenshots. Then in TS4 gameplay, I'll assign them a certain number of gigs in a corresponding genre that they're allowed to perform for money. 

2.) Otherwise, they'll have to wait for a role provided by a TS4 sim movie producer. I have a couple of aspiring directors among my sims. Whenever one of them is ready to produce a film, TV show, or commercial, they will audition hopeful actors and pick their favorites for the roles. That sim producer will assign how many gigs and what kind of scenes they can perform for their pay. As they work, I may take a few screenshots to make up a little "movie" and blurb to show off their project. 

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