1.4 A Spring of Love

Last chapter Christopher got a boyfriend, something that we did not expect but that was very well received by both of us. That had a negative consequence, though.

Thanks to Lisa's inappropriate trait, she and Chris are romantic interests. And thanks to the archaic system of this game, Chris is a cheater just for kissing a girl before having a boyfriend.

She really seems to be into my founder, Lisa calls him every so often and sends him daily love letters. Unfortunately for her, Chris doesn't seem to be interested in her. Ever since he started dating Mortimer, he has a lot of wishes towards him, such as hanging out together, going on a date, kiss him. None for her.

So to fulfill one of those wishes, Chris asked Mortimer to hang out. The first day of spring seemed like the perfect day for a first date.

Mortimer doesn't seem very interested in Christopher's advances. 

Chris: But you're my boyfriend, what's the problem with me hugging you?

Mortimer: I don't know why I'm rejecting you, to tell you the truth.

Me neither, because you made the first interaction flirting with my founder without problem, but when he initiates the flirting, you reject him.

Look at that disappointed face, Chris has a wish to kiss him that can't be fulfilled yet. Don't worry, we will change our strategy and you will see that it will work.

Mortimer had to leave right away, so Chris began a very spring task, picking flowers, which was interrupted by the phone ringing.

It was Lisa who wanted to talk to him. 

This girl complicates my plans. I generally let my sims choose their partners, usually based on their wishes. Chris has no wishes for Lisa, they are all for Mortimer, but she showers Chris with attention through calls, letters and gifts. So I started to think that if Mortimer continues to ignore my founder, maybe Lisa would be a good choice for a future spouse.

And then the next day...

Chris accepted the call and spent several hours talking with the boy. In order not to tempt fate, I preferred that they not see each other for a few days, plus Christopher has been paying too much attention to his love life and little to his finances. 

So the following days were just to raise simoleons.

Chris: This is slave labor, not even the rain stops her.

While Chris was doing slave labor, ignoring Mortimer seems like the right strategy.

So when love day came, Chris invited Mortimer on a date at the spring festival.

Chris: If you let me kiss you, you'll know I taste better than the best meat you can find.

Mortimer: I think I want to find out.

That horrible flirtation worked because Mortimer is not a vegetarian. 

It also started to rain, nothing better than for a first kiss.

Susan: Young love, good to see it still exists.

Susan: But do they have to flaunt their youth in front of me? If Boyd and I try that, we both end up in the hospital with broken bones.

I can't stop looking at Susan's socks.

Boyd: What a beautiful wife I have.

Ahh love. Young and Old, they are all cutes.

Mortimer: Do you trust a machine to know what we feel?

Chris: Of course, machines are never wrong.

If you said so.

But this time we are going to listen to it.

Chris: Oh wow, we're so in love!

Mortimer: Yes! You were right, machines are never wrong. I love you Chris!

Dorks. I love that shot.

Unfortunately, Mortimer had to go to work his part-time job despite it being a holiday.

Mortimer: I was having a great time, why did the game have to ruin it by forgetting that it was a holiday?

It's how the sims 3 works, Morty.

Morty: Don't call me Morty.

Too late.

Although the date was short, it was very good one and Christopher was happy with it.

Chris: Now with this happiness that I radiate plus my great moves I'm sure I'll win as spring dance king.

He didn't. Dancing for an hour a single day was not going to be enough. I'm getting ahead of myself a couple of days, but Miraj Alvi was the winner.

Arriving home, Chris found this notification.

We may not be accepting Lisa's advances, but her gifts we are. It's a good decoration, the girl has good taste.

Chris: Of course, she has good taste, I'm a good example.

I prefer not to say anything.

Well, Christopher, only two days left of your teenage life. We have to think about your future.

Chris: Yes! pancakes! My favorite!

Your priorities do seem to be in order. 😒

Since it's the one of the days of his teen years, I decided to give the day to Chris so he can do whatever he wants. He wanted to go to the park and as soon as he got there, he decided to look for eggs. We even found a fancy one.

And as always happens every time a sim steps on a festival, a series of wishes follow one another so that all the attractions can be tried. Chris particularly likes skating.

And he is advanced enough in the hidden skill that he can already skate to across the lake.

Chris: The game lets me do it now that I'm moving out in two days.

His last day as a teen started fulfilling a wish to write a love letter to Mortimer. 

Speaking of Mortimer, since he's younger than Chris and it's going to be a couple of days until the teenager joins Chris in adulthood, I decided a date between them was a perfect last day.

Aww the cuteness!

Morty: Your watcher seems to be excited about our future.

Chris: Yes, she wants you as my husband/partner/whatever gives babies.

To be honest, I'm excited to find out how the combined genetics of both of them is going to turn out.

Mortimer ended the date because he had to go somewhere else, and Christopher immediately decided he wanted to eat at the diner. And since it's his last night in this part of the challenge I let him do it as a reward. For some reason when he left the diner, he had Jamie Jolina as a good friend. I don't know how that happened, so I'm not going to take it as failing the challenge for talking to an adult.

Tomorrow begins your life as an adult. How do you feel about that?

Chris: You're not fooling anyone with that question, you only took this screenshot to show all the knick-knacks you've collected in these 4 weeks.

So true.

Early in the morning, Chris had his birthday.

Chris: You could have at least invited Mortimer.

It was going to take a long time, I want you on the legacy lot as soon as posibble.

Chris: You didn't write asap so you can have more words to count for the SimNaNo.

You know me so well.

A mooch Christopher. I think I like that.

I was so close to leaving that hairstyle. The fashion sense, so much lol.

Here's young adult Christopher Steel. His traits are Friendly, Natural Cook, Angler, Daredevil and Mooch. His lifetime, which he chose in another chapter, is Renaissance Sim. His favorites are the same as always, Pancakes, Lime and Indie Music.

Before moving into his new lot, Christopher went through the mail to find another letter from Lisa. This girl is not giving up.

And with Chris running out of his 8x8 house we finished this part of the challenge.

1.3 Of Crossing Frozen Lakes and Others Weird Things

 Another day in the life of runaway teen, Christopher Steel.

That rare sunny day in autumn was used to scour the vast expanse of Sunset Valley land in search of collectibles to help increase our young hero's funds.

In the afternoon, the young man had the difficult task of searching through the rubbish thrown by the town's residents...

Chris: Enough with the melodrama, we already established that this isn't that kind of story.

Here is our killjoy, Christopher Steel.

Chris: I don't understand why I'm doing this, it takes a lot of time and it's not very lucrative.

It's something that those who have tried this challenge have done many times, so I wanted to do it too. Plus, it's fun to stop following you for a few hours and focus on the townies around here.

Like Vita Alto and her pregnancy clothes.

Judy: That brown belt doesn't go very well with the rest of the clothes.

Vita: Yes, I know, the downside of not having a watcher.

Judy: But the advantages are greater, so I think it's better to have a brown belt that crashed with the rest of the clothes than being controlled by one of those humans obsessed with us.

Vita: Definitely.

I didn't expect this from you, Judy. From Vita, yes, to be honest. We, watchers, are not so bad.

Chris: Can I go home now? My legs are cramping and I can't move my arm anymore.

Judy: I rest my case.

Since I've been making him work too hard and not have enough fun, I let him carve a pumpkin or two get his fun bar up.

Chris: Her idea of fun is making me work on a pumpkin. The key word here is work.

Beyond Chris' grumpiness, the pumpkins now decorate the front of the house.

Chris: And that's the real reason she made me carve pumpkins, not for me to have some fun, of course not. It was just to have something to decorate the front without spending money.

Well, now you can't say you're not doing something fun.

Chris: I better not say what I'm thinking right now.

I must admit that my great idea of having Chris's lot away from the rest of town was not the best I've ever had. When I chose the remoteness of his house I didn't take into account the weird ways this game decides the sims routes. Serious mistake on my part after playing this game for over a decade.

Chris: For some reason, I find that slowly crossing the frozen lake is less effective than going around it.

He had finished crossing the lake and was only a few steps from his house when the game decided that the police had to arrest him.

And so, begins a sequence worthy of this game.

Cross the lake again to reach the nearest street, running through the long path between the slopes.

Chris: If only this counted as working out.

Get to where the police were waiting for him, get in the car without the agent doing it.

Cop: Now get out of the car, we've already reached our destination.

Chris: This is ridiculous.

I know.

Chris: The tires of your car are not well positioned, Mrs. cop.

Cop: Strange.

No so strange. The game did a weird thing where the policewoman got into the car for just a second and immediately got out, while the car turned slightly and then stayed in the same spot.

Cop: What is not strange in that?

In that it's a typical sims 3 behavior?

Cop: Yeah, you're right.

Chris: I hate this lake!

Christopher finally got home at about 3 a.m.

The next day I expanded his house a little more and added a bedroom upstairs. I bought him an easel and he spent half the day painting.

With that new addition to his house, Chris can now use the cell phone per the rules of the challenge.

The first thing I did was invite Lisa over. 

Chris: What do you think? Not so bad for a poor runaway teen, right?

Christopher hasn't shown any interest in Lisa so far, so for now I'll leave their relationship as a simple friendship, plus she has the infamous VJ Alvi as a boyfriend. If later on he starts to have some wishes about her, then I...

She took the decision out of my hands, the pro and cons of the inappropriate trait. At least he seems to enjoy it.

She stayed the rest of the day, and Chris even invited her to stay the night.

I made a very noob mistake and bought a double bed so they could both sleep, completely forgetting that teens who aren't from the same household can't share a bed.

Chris: Why do you make these mistakes? Now Lisa is occupying my bed and I will have to sleep on the sofa.

No couch for Chris tonight.

Chris: The stupid game is going to makes me cross the lake again, right?

Do you want me to lie to you?

Of course, since it was past midnight, the police arrived. Because Chris being abducted by aliens doesn't seem like enough for this game.

Cop: I am very tired of this. This boy makes me work overtime that I don't get paid for.

Meanwhile the alien got tired of waiting for Christopher to slowly cross the lake and preferred to go kidnap another townie. Making all of this totally unnecessary.

Since the alien was gone, Chris was sent home by the game, making him cross the lake for the umpteenth time in two days, where he ran into Lisa on her way out.

Of course, as soon as he got to the door of his house, he had to go back. YES, he had to go all the way back to the policewoman.

Chris: Can I sleep in your car, please?

Cop: No, now get in the car so I can do that weird thing of moving the car's tires and then I can go home.

It was morning by the time Chris got home.

Chris slept a little during the morning hours and then I let him stay at home all day taking care of his plants and doing a little painting.

Of course, life can't be easy for Christopher. An hour after he went to sleep, I heard the music of a thief approaching. I looked for him around the house but I couldn't find him, Chris' lot is so small that the game generated the burglar inside the house. The criminal had to get out first so he could get back in and steal something.

The thief stole the sofa, I didn't even bother to wake up Chris and call the police, with the time it takes to get there the police were going to arrive hours after the incident.

The next day was a dumpster diving day, Chris was able to use it a couple of times before a piece of furniture appeared.

Chris: I thought you forgot about this activity.

I did not forget, I just do not want to abuse it because it really is a good way to make a lot of money, which makes this challenge very easy and then I lose interest. But since your sofa was stolen, I wanted to see if we could get one back this way.

Lisa was nearby and she approached Chris to ask him to build a snowman together.

Lisa: I direct and you build.

See Mortimer Goth approaching?

That innocent snowball throwing interaction with which he approached Christopher didn't turn out to be so innocent.

Mortimer had a secret agenda that I was not aware of at the time. And no, it wasn't posing together with Christopher as if they were in a winter vacation commercial (in bad clothes).

Mortimer: On the other side of the theater there is more room to play with the snow. Come with me?

And that was how Chris left with Mortimer, leaving Lisa alone, who had no choice but to start doing her homework in the middle of the snow. I was baffled.

Between snowball fights and conversations, both boys became friends.

Chris asked if he was single and Mortimer told him that he was in a relationship with Darlene Bunch. 

And you see Darlene in the background thinking about Chris, well this is why:

The Bunch family seems to want to appear in my story, I'm starting to suspect. After this awkward moment, Chris said goodbye to Mortimer and went to spend the last hours of the day at the winter festival.

At least living next to a frozen lake has its perks. Chris did a couple more spins before going home.

He was already leaving when he received a call from Mortimer.

This took me totally by surprise. It is true that both boys went from strangers to friends in just two hours, but with both in some kind of relationship with the Bunch sisters it is not something I would have expected, also out of curiosity I used the consider attractive interaction and that yielded an attraction of 1 of 10. So there was no indication that this would happen.

I said yes, of course. I love when the game throws me those types of curveballs, it usually makes me change my plans and that's great.

The next day I invited Mortimer over so they could ride together in the limousine to the prom.

Chris: Why am I considering a guy sticking out his tongue to taste the snow attractive?

Because you're that kind of guy too, I guess.

Unfortunately, my strategy did not work and Christopher traveled alone in the limousine.

While Mortimer was stranded at Chris's house trying to get in to do his homework.

Mortimer: The door is blocking my path.

You just have to open it. Very intelligent this boy, I see why Chris is interested.

Meanwhile, Chris has been crowned prom king, which doesn't make sense because he never went to school and most teens don't know him. 

Another thing that doesn't make sense because I know for a fact that Mortimer wasn't at the ball.

Mortimer: You don't understand how this is, Chris and I are at the dance together even though you see me here.

Er...

Chris: Yeah, we're having the time of our lives. I really like spending time with you, Mortimer.

Mortimer: Me too. 

I think I'm just going to give up on this game logic.

But like I said I love this game, illogical and all.

Chris said yes and now he has a boyfriend with which I had nothing to do with. This is really great!

Here's proof that even though I followed Mortimer home and he never came near the school, he was somehow there and took a picture with Christopher.

I'm going to say it a third time in case you missed it: I love this game.