That’s what I called this save game – “Sheridan’s Shenanigans”. LOL But he’s finally found THE ONE. He searched hard. He searched often. He searched PASSIONATELY.

But Becca Clarke, his first fling, was his true soulmate. He just knew it. Well, I just knew it. LOL Lemme tell the story to fill you in…

Becca was only a few months older than Christopher. While he was deeply committed to working his way up the police force, she was a college student studying communications.

Despite his ability to fly up the ranks of a prestigious and respected career path, he (rather immaturely) played the field as often as he could. Meanwhile, Becca was (may I say, maturely) grinding out papers and presentations and trying to ignore the fact that he seemed to be flirting with other ladies.

But one day, that fact was impossible to ignore any further. She sighted Christopher and some other woman sneaking into the bushes together – and she knew it was over between her and “her cop”.

So she threw herself into her studies and forgot all about Christopher Sheridan. Ignored his calls. Threw darts at his picture in the student lounge (therapeutic, doncha know). The dried roses she’d saved from their first date were angrily crushed under her feet and later swept up and disposed of by a sympathetic dorm mate.

Six months passed. Christopher was looking at his life outside the police force seriously for the first time – over a mediocre drink at a dive where he’d just arrested his third teenaged criminal in as many weeks. What was up with these youth? What was up with the world? What was up with him?

His memories went back to Becca. That gorgeous long brown hair, those happy eyes, that willing smile… Sure, Nina Caliente was hot – ALL the time! – and Jade Rosa was the best of friends – with benefits… but Becca… Becca had been all those things and so much more.

He pulled out a photo he’d taken on their second date:

He sat there and remembered that night. He’d found out she only drank tea. Oolong tea, to be precise. “Who needs other teas where there is oolong?” she’d stated.

She was also a very animated, active sort of person. He could tell from they way she talked. Particularly, the way she talked about the latest book she was reading. Huuuge book lover. She went on and on and on… while he feigned interest and watched her lips move and wondered what kissing her would be like.

Of course, being Christopher, he found out what kissing her would be like later that night.

It was heaven.

He sighed and downed the rest of his drink, tucking away the photo. He’d thought he’d been in heaven several times since that night. More than several, if he were being honest. But none of that had been true. None of it.

Only that night. Only with that girl.

What would it take to get her back, he wondered? If he could just ignite that old flame within her, make her forget about how he hurt her for just a moment – to give him time to apologize before she threw him out on his sorry ass…

THAT’S when he remembered his newly-learned talent: how to Beguile someone!

He smiled as he slammed some simoleons down on the bar. Maybe everything was not lost after all.

You know, playing The Sims was always more fun when I had a community to share it with. I think that’s what I’ve felt has been lost. Those good old forum communities that could become both a repository of shared files AND a spot where stories and simming lives could be shared.

They’ve been replaced by Discord channels, tumblr, and now, Patreon. And can’t leave out good old YouTube, of course. 😉

But this is not new news where I am concerned. I’ve been sad about the loss of good forums for a long time. Ha! It just seems that there must be some way for me to still share my game with others.

Of course, to be completely honest here, sometimes that sharing of the game – and/or files and stories and such – became more of a job than fun! So we are really in between a rock and a hard place here, aren’t we?

I think, for now, I’m going to play when the feeling hits me and post for myself here on this blog. Maybe even upload an image or two. LOL Just so I can go back and re-live some of the funnier or more enjoyable moments of my own gameplay. And if someone happens to venture along and find this poor neglected blog and enjoys something, that will merely be the cherry on top of this ice cream cone. 😉

With that in mind, here is where I am currently in the game:

Christopher Sheridan was a sim who was supposed to be an “Annie”, but I went through the story/character creator, he popped up, and after a few tweaks, I really liked him!

The answers to my questions had him set up as a Detective (Level 3 already!), had a bit more money than usual single sims ($20,000), and he was a Serial Romantic. (Thus the cheesy moustache there…)

He settled into Proprietor’s Square in Windenburg:

I’ve updated his house as he went along and earned money. That was fun. And I decided that I would satisfy his aspiration and get him to the top of his career and then I’d start all over with another story-made sim in another world in this game save.

So it’s been fun working on finally getting to the top of the detective career, as I’m not sure I’d done that before. Here he is on one of his cases:

I found it hilarious that the crime scene was at a plane crash site! Haa! Only too fitting, doncha think!

He’s put a few criminals behind bars now – a disturbing number of them were teenagers. * le gasp * He is almost at the top – one more promotion to go! And he’s fulfilled his aspiration, woot! (BTW – I’ve done that aspiration before and they’ve made it way too easy… 😛 )

After all those girlfriends, and knowing that I would be moving on soon to a new sim, I wanted to have him finally settle down and get married. You know, for “world back story” kind of stuff. So he “ran into” his first girlfriend one day – they’d not been close for ages so there was no romantic bar left! But since he now has the “Beguile” trait, it wasn’t hard to turn her heart around again. LOL I changed his aspiration to be Soulmate and I think I will get two aspirations done with Christopher Sheridan! There may be wedding picture spam coming up. Just sayin’.

As for downloading TS3 to play – well, it’s downloaded. Ha! That’s as far as it got, because I started up with Christopher while it was downloading and got hooked! 😀 I don’t mind. TS3 will be there for the day when I’m ready for it. 🙂