The Paraverse: Rotation 1.3

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As teased in my other two updates, Liv and Cole return - looking a little more different than the rest of the gang - to make up the last household in the first Paraverse rotation.

Now, I'm sure someone out there is wondering "but where is Carlotta?". I definitely considered adding her to the new save - there were lots of options for her university degree, like studying culinary arts at Britechester's rival school, or even studying villainy - but I didn't know what to do with her once she graduated?

Carlotta just doesn't have a lot of hobbies outside of being a bitch.
 
So, I decided I'd overhaul the Mortis siblings instead, and have them be a vampire/spellcaster duo. This way, I could start off my save with a full group of occults (yes, there is a secret mermaid already, and I'm sure you can guess who), without needing to create a brand new spellcaster sim.

I picked Liv (who has been renamed Olive in this save) to be my vampire, because the mental image of an outdoor-loving vampire wearing big floppy sun hats, and carrying around an umbrella so that she could garden in the sun was really cute.

Obviously I'll be working towards having her earn the sunlight immunity perk eventually, but it seemed like it would provide a little extra challenge in the first few rotations.

Olive kept her botanist aspiration and most of her original traits, so she is now a good, outgoing outdoors-lover. I'll probably jump between botanist and good vampire, since the botanist one can take a while to complete.

That left Cole to be my spellcaster, which seemed to fit him pretty well. I changed up his aspiration a little this time - I went for the painter one first, instead of grilled cheese, and I switched out one of his traits, so he is now a romantic, creative vegetarian.

I wasn't able to make him a spellcaster in CAS without remaking him from scratch, so I sent him off to the magic realm to take care of that.

(I just used cheats to turn Olive into a vampire, because I kinda forgot that you could ask another sim to turn you... haha oops.)

The mischief sage gives Cole some magical mote vision, and it doesn't take him very long to collect enough motes to appease her.

A fun thing I just learned - if your sim loses or destroys their glimmerstone, they can ask the sages for a replacement!

I made sure to have Cole pick up a broom while he was in the magic realm, because watching sims run from one portal to another gets tedious fast.

I picked the mop for him, because it seemed like something he would want to ride. Other than Felix, I mean.

And speaking of Felix, surprise, he joins the Mortis siblings in this save as well! I needed a ghost to complete my set of occults, after all.

Now, I have a... bad track record with keeping ghost sims around. Isobel, Eugene... I think my problem is that I keep trying to play them as vampires? When you think about it, it seems like a good idea because it gives them some more ~ghostly~ powers to play with, but in reality it just makes them way too easy to take care of.

So this time, I'm going full ghost, no powers. I guess a spellcaster ghost could work a little better, but I still worry that needs would get too easy to take care of.

Well, almost no powers.

Tiny Living really saved the day here with the addition of murphy bed ghosts - who have the ability to possess other sims, and drain their energy. That sounded like a neat feature to try out, so I decided to make Felix into one, so that he felt a little more ghost-y without making him straight-up overpowered.

After that, I had one more trick in mind to make him feel more like a ghost. I thought it might be cool to move him in with the new roommate system, so that he could hang around and haunt the place - and with the new possession power, actually haunt Cole and Olive - but in a way that I couldn't control.

One of the first things he did upon agreeing to move in was zap Cole's energy, so I was pretty pleased with how this set up seemed to be working out.
 
I would like to eventually move him in as a playable sim, I think I just want to get Cole and Olive through university before I add a third sim into the mix.

Since I am planning on playing with him, I went with renaissance sim for Felix's aspiration, and kept his gloomy, unflirty, perfectionist personality. (We'll see how ""unflirty"" this version of Felix actually turns out to be...) Like Olive and Cole, he got a bit more of a makeover than my other paraneighbours - I wanted to give him a sleepy, just-rolled-out-of-bed look.

My last concern with Felix was whether or not he'd act like himself as a roommate - since the game randomly assigns them quirks and hobbies - but he whipped out a violin on the first night, and all was right in the Paraverse.

I've spent a lot of this update rambling about my set-up, so let's get on to some actual gameplay!

I downloaded a starter home for them off the gallery and spruced up the living room a little, which ate up most of their funds, but they had a little money left over for Olive to have a few planters in the backyard.

Cole got an easel to help build his painting skill, and hopefully earn them some extra cash.

As you might be able to guess from the palm trees outside, I moved them to Oasis Springs in this save, for a little change in scenery. I don't know why, I but I just associate Cole with hot climates. Sulani, Oasis Springs...

...maybe StrangerVille eventually? Olive taking on the Mother could be interesting.

I was able to make enough money off Cole's first few paintings to buy them a laptop for university - I think I might have also sold some of their landscaping to afford it.

Once Olive has sunlight immunity. I'll probably go the Scott route and have her fish to make her plasma packs, but for now she'll need to find a few victims to feed off.

They really don't have enough money to order packs, so I'll be putting off the good vampire aspiration until she can afford to feed differently.

The three planters she has isn't quite enough to build up her gardening skill, so I've also bought her some skill books on gardening and flower arranging, to help her get into the biology program.

I don't think I'll be sending her to Foxbury, so like Jeff she probably doesn't need to worry too much, but unlike Jeff I'd actually like her to do well in class, so building up as many skills as she can beforehand will probably be beneficial.

I think the welcome wagon skipped Jeff and Alec, but they did show up for Cole and Olive, so two out of three ain't bad.

Much like Andy, it consisted of a former partner for Olive - Zoe Patel.

I feel like she looks a little... green? in this save? But am I playing with different default skins, so maybe that's why.

Anyways, I'm not actually sure that I want to set her and Olive up again this time. They're cute, but I think I want at least one of my sims to end up with someone new - and someone who's also an occult, preferably.

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So far, the only un-Felix-like behaviour I've noticed is that he seems to have ended up with the party roommate quirk. Hilariously, the first time he decided to throw a party he ignored all of the guests, and only talked to Cole. That was pretty Felix-like.

I might eventually swap it out with some cheats for something that feels a little more like Felix. (There's one quirk that makes them flirty/affectionate, and I think that would be highly entertaining given his """unflirty""" behaviour in my main save.)

I think the other "quirk" he has is the fixer-upper one, which means he's prone to fixing anything that breaks around the house.

That one's actually super handy for him to have, because ghosts seem to break things like plumbing whenever they possess them.

He's also pretty good about mopping up the puddles that form whenever he breaks something, which is nice, but it means that he's seen a lot of Olive and Cole already...

I do remember these three walked in on each other a lot in my main save, so it's funny to see it happening with them again.

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I bought Olive a beebox as soon as they were able to afford it, because it turns out bees will actually pollinate your plants if you keep them both outdoors!

I haven't had much of a chance to play around with Cole's magic yet, but he has learned a couple of the practical spells through practice.

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Cole's been too busy focusing on painting to build much of his cooking skill, so I decided to send him out to a vegetarian restaurant for some dinner one night.

I downloaded this one from the gallery, and it's absolutely gorgeous! It's got such a lovely patio area, and it looks great in Oasis Springs. I think it's called 'SolCaf', if anyone's interested in tracking it down for their own games.

I did do a little editing when it came to the menu and staff uniforms, but overall it's a solid restaurant.

Cole's food - I kid you not - was served to him in thirty minutes. I was absolutely shocked, it normally takes my sims hours to get their food!

I think this might have just been a stroke of luck, though.

He seemed to enjoy his meal, even if he couldn't quite work out how to use the chopsticks - and since it was actually a food stand recipe, he learned how to make it at home!

I spotted a roller rink outside the restaurant, so I sent Cole to check it out after dinner.

Once the sun started to set, I sent him over to a pool next door.

 With the sun starting to set, Olive was finally able to get out of the house, and join him at the pool.

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I sent their university and scholarship applications off towards the end of the rotation, and they were both accepted into Britechester.

Cole will be doing a distinguished degree in the fine arts, and Olive will be doing her degree in biology. The floral design career is actually linked to the arts degree as well, but I didn't want to have two sims doing the same degree. So, biology it is!

They were both able to get the helping hand scholarship for having really low household funds, so that should cover most of their classes. It's a shame there isn't an arts-related scholarship, though. :(

The romance festival rolled around again at the end of their rotation, so I sent them down to the fashion district to collect some free flowers for Olive's garden.

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I wasn't able to invite Felix to tag along, so Cole entertained himself with some bubbles, and finished a quick, flirty painting.

Get ready for some university gameplay next rotation!