The Bachelor(ette) Challenge

PART 1

Here's my version of the Bachelor/ette challenge, by PA Vicky! Be aware that I have ACR, so...the Sims got frisky way faster than the challenge's normal schedule.

Heh. Heh. Heh. (thunder rumbles ominously)

And now, ON with our STORY!



Let's start with establishing shots of the mansion. Here's the whole place from the outside.



Right side of the house and bowling lane. Like all good bowling lanes, it's on the edge of a cliff.
What, yours isn't?



The hot tub (of COURSE, can't have a sleazy romance "reality" show without one of those) and ice skating rink. I am just way too amused at the fact that there are CACTI in a DESERT right near an OUTDOOR ice skating rink. Hee hee.



First (ground) floor. Sorry about the angle; it was the only way to show everything at once with that GYRUMPUS TV in the way. Amenities here include the Biggest TV in Minnesota--er, Strangetown--video game system, dart board, chess board, jukebox, piano, whole bunch of easels you can't see 'cos they're on the opposite wall, mah-johng table, really freaking expensive and comfy furniture and the best (and by "best" I mean priciest) kitchen setup money can buy.
(Buffet table? Screw that, they can make their own damn meals when they get hungry. There's an alarm. They won't die in case of fire.)



One of the four elegant bathrooms, shown in what I think is a rather artsy picture if I do say so myself. (Hey, I hardly ever do that well--let me brag on myself the rare times it happens.) Looks almost like something out of "Better Homes and Gardens", what with the sunlight dappling the floor like that. No need to show the other bathrooms 'cos, except for slight differences in exactly what shade of off-white/cream/taupe they are (and different plants), they're all the same.





The downstairs bedrooms. Not much to say here except that I kinda tried to theme them a bit, colours-wise. Yes, one of them has a coffin. For reasons.
Oh and there are the easels you couldn't see before. Hi easels!



The upstairs bedrooms. This time I went for...sort of pastels & patterns? (I dunno, I was running out of ideas at this point.)



A fuller view of the upstairs hallway--there's a pool table, massage table and poker table.

Now, time to meet the cast!




Our Bachelorette, Belinda Rose. Isn't she pretty? I thought this picture turned out especially well, too.
...and no, you are NOT reading those numbers wrong. She really does have only one nice point. Count it. ONE. (And she's a Popularity Sim--HA!) Usually I play challenges (and normal free-form households) with more or less nice, well-balanced Sims...so I thought it might be interesting to try one where the star has a personality type I almost never play.



Our Lonely Sim between her two "true loves"!...or ARE they? On the left, Nick Knight, a (glitched) vampire (yes, he IS smoking in the sun--don't worry, I didn't kill him just to get a picture). On the left, Jack Chaney, a werewolf. In case you haven't figured it out by now, yes, Belinda IS totally a parody of Bella Swann and this is totally a sporking of Twilight, with more crazy.
Nick Knight is named after the main character of "Forever Knight" and Jack Cheney after Wolfman Jack and Lon Cheney. I don't remember, but I must've given them random personalities 'cos Nick should really have more active and neat and less playful and nice, if I was doing him even vaguely accurate.



Two other contestants--an evil (of course, knowing Bella) wizard and a zombie. Again, since I was low on originality, I named them after established characters. Raistlin Majere is from the Dragonlance novels and Reginald Shoe is the bright-eyed, eager young zombie who started the whole UNDEAD RIGHTS! campaign in Discworld. Note that since I just turned Reg into a zombie using the magic picture thingie instead of killing him off and then bringing him back via the Necrotelicomniconn and not paying enough for a proper resurrection, he kept his original personality instead of getting the decrepit zombie one. This is why he's much smarter, neater and more civilised than the average zombie.



Our alien contestant, J'onn J'onnz (pronounced like "John Jones"), aka the Martian Manhunter. I didn't have his proper outfit and wasn't about to shut down my game just to look for it, then take another 20 minutes loading the damn thing so I slapped the first sci-fi-ish looking outfit I came across in the catalog that I wasn't already using on another Sim on him.
So he ended up wearing Kyle Rayner's "Ion"-version Green Lantern costume. Why? Why the heck not. At least it's still the DCU. :P



GREETINGS MEATBA--HUMANS. MY NAME IS R. DANEEL OLIVAW. I AM HERE TO SERVE YOU.
In case you didn't get it, here is our robot member! I used that boolprop trick to change his appearance, but it makes them look like a RANDOM human, so...it is sheer dumb luck that he turned out wearing a spacesuit and retro slicked-back hairdo. Isn't that PERFECT? Oh, he could so totally be on a sci-fi magazine cover from the '50s.

Named after the main artificial character from Isaac Asimov's famous "Robot" series, 'cos again I couldn't think of anything. This is not at all meant to be an accurate representation of R. Daneel's appearance or personality, from the actual books--for one thing, I am DAMN sure he wouldn't be Romance aspiration. I made this Sim character here romance, simply because I realised I didn't have any of those in the group.
(And yeah, since he's a robot Romance Sim, he is indeed a LUV machine. And he won't work for nobody but you, baby. Well, until somebody better comes along.)



UH! Work it out! And we finish off the intros with our PlantSim contestant, Buddy Isley. Again, he's got a random combination-of-references name: Buddy is, well, DUH (plant...bud) and "Isley" is not referencing the Isley Brothers, to make this a full-out early rock-reference name (although it SOUNDS like a rockabilly-era name) but is instead after Pamela Isley--the real/original name of the supervillainess known better as: Poison Ivy.



The whole group, posed together before anybody starts getting eliminated. Twilight would've been SO much cooler if it also contained aliens, zombies and robots. And, ya know, writing.



And here's the original picture of Buddy and R. Daneel that I thought I'd lost. Aren't they just cute together? Seriously, on the first day all they did was hang out chatting and tell jokes to each other. It almost made me want to write a buddy-comedy for them. ("He became a plant-based life form after an accident with experimental chemicals. He's a lecherous robot from the future. Together, they're COPS. This fall on NBC.")



Okay! Enough with the formal posing, let's get this show on the road. On the first day there is no scheduled activity--it's just meet-and-greet. Here, J'onn immediately tells a joke about...handcuffs...to Nick. I'm not sure I want to know.
WAIT, wait, I just remembered--the original versions of the characters are both cops in their "normal" lives. I'll just say he's telling a funny story about dumb criminals he's known. Yeah. That's right. Criminals.
Of course, the really big question for Nick here is: WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO JOKES OUTSIDE INSTEAD OF SLEEPING IN YOUR COFFIN? It's noon!



And then Belinda engages in one of the STUPIDEST passtimes ever: Werewolf-Punching!



Nick is on fire--literally--and in terrible danger, his motives dropping like stones every real-life second he's out in the sun, and so what does he do? Why, go spy on the neighbors (read: Vidcund Curious) with a telescope, of course!
Lookit Belinda over there. Lookit that! You can totally SEE the "What the FUCK is wrong with you?" in her eyes.



The afternoon wears on, I keep WAITING for Nick to find the coffin that is RIGHT IN THE VERY FIRST ROOM YOU COME TO WHEN YOU WALK IN THE FRONT DOOR, I MADE IT AS CONVENIENT AS POSSIBLE but he continues to lie down on normal beds to get his comfort and energy back up, wonders why it doesn't work, randomly try to interact with people then hiss and run away, and fulfill his least important-to-survival need--fun. I've already maxmotived him like five times, 'cos CLEARLY he is glitched somehow and I don't think it's fair to let a contestant die for fake reasons. I keep hoping every time his needs hit zero he'll figure it out and go for the coffin, but he never does.

So, if you were a vampire dying in horrible agony, what would you do? That's right--throw axes! Outdoors. In the summer sun.
WAT.

DUMBEST. VAMPIRE. EVER.



Meanwhile, R. Daneel shows us his ~artistic~ side. Which isn't very artistic yet, as nobody has any skill points.



So, an alien, a plant-person, a zombie and a robot all sit down to play Mah-Johng and...wait, you mean this ISN'T the setup to the awesomest nerd-joke ever?



Nick, who has FINALLY stopped dying every two seconds because it's now nighttime (and he only made it that far because of me, stupid glitchy programming) decides that his nearly very first interaction with Bella--I mean, Belinda--will be to flirt with her! Note that this "charm" is NOT an ACR-caused interaction, but normal Maxis code.


Unsurprisingly, considering they haven't even spoken yet, the flirt...didn't go well. Aww. Wook at his poor widdle face...! :(



He tries it AGAIN on his own, but Belinda is having none of it.



Meanwhile, Vidcund Curious comes over to smack some sense into Raistlin for spying on him with the telescope...several hours after he stopped. Delayed reaction much?



MORE mah-jong! Seriously, this is still the same session. I've heard of poker-related Sim deaths; I hope this isn't quite THAT addictive.



In the middle of all this RIVETING. GAME. ACTION, Belinda decides to go "hustle pool". As in, cheat other players out of their money.
By herself.
Yeah, you do that, honey. Have fun.



Then, the first meal of the challenge is made by our star herself. She decided on egg-and-cucumber canapes, which are an excellent choice for someone with absolutely zero Cooking Skill 'cos they don't require fire. Good work!



Then Raistlin paints an ANGRY picture, because nobody understands his PAIN.
Or he's just painting an abstract because he feels like it; your call.



And it's now noon on the next day--time to tally up the scores! Who's in--and who's out? Find out on the NEXT: Bachelorette Challenge! See ya there!