August 11, 2009
Prologue
I’m writing this journal because one day my story will need to be known. My children and their children, and their children’s children, will need to understand what happened and why I chose the path I did. As of now, when I’m writing this, they’ll not only be affected by my choices but will need to continue with what I started as well for their own safety.
As a child I was very lucky. I had two parents who loved me and cared for me the way parents should. I would act innapropriately at times but they never seemed to mind. They both worked very hard for what we had and never seemed to stop working. My dad would work from home on the computer and my mom would care for household chores. I found ways to entertain myself during these times, usually cuddling up with Teddy.
My parents were very much loved in town. Mom was very friendly and my dad was one of the best workers in town. They participated in what seemed like every event. My mom was a natural cook and though she often used this talent for the town Grill-A-Thons it was a blessing for home meals as well. Since they were often busy, dinner was a special time of the day where we enjoyed eachothers company.
When I became a teen I continued in the path of my parents. They were both great schmoozers and I had become one as well, something I thought would surely help in life. Growing up and observing my parents nonstop work behavior I immediately hoped to get a job as well, I opted for the mail room assistant position at my parents office. Since they both worked there I was a shoe in for the spot. Yes siree (or however its spelled), I had a bright future.
It didn’t last long. It seemed like every other ordinary day. I woke up and had to take care of myself in the morning. My parents are usually gone before I wake up so I thought nothing of the fact that I didn’t see them then, but they’re home before I am so when mom wasn’t in the kitchen when I arrived I looked around the house for them. I couldn’t seem to find them anywhere until I reached their bedroom.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to handle a situation like this. My parents were pale, even their lips were tinted blue, and they were cold. I stood there looking at them for a brief moment, feeling nothing, I had become numb. A few tears began to roll down my cheeks and thats all it took for me to loose all control, I only had enough sanity in me to make the phone call to the police. My memory of that moment is fuzzy, I don’t really remember it. I just remember being confused, they were both young and healthy, and fine the day before. What did it mean for me now that I was an…I still shudder at the thought of the word…orphan. Two cops finally arrived and I ran out to them crying hysterically and beggin them to fix it, to bring them back to me. They tried to calm me but they had to do an investigation since it was such an unusual occurance and what they found could never have calmed me.
They found the missing statues from the art museum in the second room, and while they too couldn’t believe it the evidence was right in front of their eyes. I had never been in that room before. It was my fathers office and I had no business in there. They began asking questions and making accusations and I couldn’t handle it. My parents were dead and now that this was discovered it seemed as though their death no longer mattered! I didn’t know anything! I refused to believe it, I was distrought and unable to register all the current events around me. I started to run. I ran to the end of the street but that didn’t seem far enough so I ran further. Eventually I came to the end of town, still it wasn’t far enough. I don’t remember why I began running anymore really. I know I was running away but there were so many things to run away from, the loss of my beloved parents, the accusations against them, the badgering police officers who no longer seemed like help but as if they believed I too were part of the scandal they believed my parents created. I eventually found myself in a completely different town, it was days before I arrived there but it was like a breath of fresh air.
While I walked into town I forgot that people here wouldn’t know me, and that I wouldn’t know them. It only occured to me when a strange fellow seemed to be following me and I started to fear for my safety. I felt loads better when I found a park full of people and he didn’t follow me into it. It was then that I stole my first time. I was starving and couldn’t help but notice the picnic basket that was unattended. It seemed like such a horrible thing to do when I took that hamburger, I even began to wonder if this is how it started for my parents.
The hamburger was one of the best I’d ever tasted. Not sure thats because of its quality or because of the hunger I was dealing with but I still haven’t had one that good til this very day. I noticed that the park had fruit trees and not knowing where I’d be going next or when the next basket would be left behind I chose to gather some of the ripe fruit while I had the chance. I once thought that I would become a CEO in a business but while I was picking the apples from the tree a calm had come over me. I was able to even forget about the reason I even needed the fruit. Being part of a business field probbably would have been too much of a daily reminder of my parents. The sky seemed to become brighter and the birds seemed to sing lounder and even the creapy man no longer seemed so creapy, I knew that I would one day have the perfect garden that would allow me to feel like this when ever I desired to be there.
Night seemed to come too soon that day. I still wasn’t sure what I would do in this new town. I was a teen, not many options were open to me. The rest of my teen days seemed to remain that way too. I spent a lot of time at the park. I never returned to school since I didn’t have parents to enroll me, and though I could have gotten a job everytime I thought about doing so I thought about my parents and always shyed away from it. While I didn’t hate my parents for what they might have done it still hurt to think about them so anything that caused thoughts of them usually were avoided. Before long I became an adult. As a teen without school or work I found stealing to be a way to survive and as an adult it had become more than survival but also enjoyable. Stealing was now part of my very being.
kansine said,
August 11, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Wow, this is so good!!!! How did you make the pictures like that? O_O
Samantha said,
August 12, 2009 at 12:26 am
I used Gimp for all the editing of the pictures. The scrapbook is actually an image I found through the sims and I just edited it so that each page was unique. I’m still learning the program even though i’ve been using it for awhile, I didn’t even realize it could do so much til reading in the valley of the sun.
though I can’t help you figure out the program if you’d like to download and play with it for yourself heres a link….its free (or i wouldn’t use it, lol)
http://www.gimp.org/
kansine said,
August 12, 2009 at 11:17 am
I have Gimp already, but it’s so difficult to use that I’ve given up XD At least it’s difficult when I’m too used to photoshop for many years… even if I don’t own a good version of photoshop nowadays :S
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:30 am
Where did you find the scrapbook thing? I don’t know where to find all this stuff lol
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:35 am
To find the scrapbook I did a search online, simple enough…its editing it that gets tricky
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:40 am
what did you search? Sims3 scrapbook??
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I actually did a ton of searches to find scrapbook pages and I don’t remember which keywords gave me the scrapbook. It took quite sometime to find it though, and I’m pretty good about not giving up on a search and digging deap into the pages so it could have been several pages into the search (like page 30-50).
when I’m trying to find something and only have a general idea of what i’m looking for (like an old photo album) I open a page and search for just that general thought and then I open in new windows/tabs a few of the suggested searches. Sometimes I follow the suggested search, or searches made my other people that also searched the same key words til I have a pretty interesting path of how I get to my current point…another reason i dont remember my keywords. I could have several windows open to search pages and I just click next on all of them and cycle through til i find what i want, saving possible pictures in a file in case I can’t. just be persistant and determined and you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for.
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 1:58 pm
one more thing! REALLY sorry!! how do you get the pictures onto the thing like if I found the scrapbook thing how would I get the pictures onto it? I have the Gimp thing.
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I’m still learning gimp myself so i really can’t help out much with learning the program but if you make sure the layer is alpha (write click it in the list of layers and choose set alpha) then when you delete a part of the picture you can see the picture behind it. so thats how i get my pictures framed.
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Ok so there’s two things for Alpha, which one?
Add Alpha channel? Or Alpha to selection?
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 2:34 pm
alpha channel is the one i use
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Ok so right now I have all these layers and stuff and an alpha channel. I have I think 1 layer and an alpha channel so I don’t know how to get like a border around the picture or a background like a scrapbook or something. I’m stuck.
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 10:17 pm
change it to add alpha to selection. what should happen is when you erase part of the image the layer behind it becomes visible in the erased section.
Kayla said,
August 15, 2009 at 11:10 am
Ok but I was testing things out and I dont know where my pictures went. I saved them to my photos and I looked in the My Photos and it’s not there and I also looked in sims 3 screenshots and it’s not there either. I was testing something out with one of my sims3 pictures and I made a frame around it. But I can’t find it.
Samantha said,
August 15, 2009 at 9:45 pm
you may not have changed the file type from the gimp file type. look for a white paper with a brown animal thingy on it that is the gimp animal, when you save add a .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp (something you know and like) and then it will be like any normal image
for example a picture named simfounder would need to be saved as simfounder.jpg
Mikayla said,
August 16, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Ohh ok lol I found it now I just needed to save it as something different I think and then I found it. So far I now know how to make a frame around it and add some effects so I’m going to try them out and actually I am writing another story right now, I’m still trying to update Clair’s though and so far on the new one I have 2 posts, I will probably make it public when I add the 3rd one later today…
Thanks for the help!!
celara said,
August 11, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Awesome backstory, Samantha! I love the fact that you made use of scrapbook pages for this intro. The water/coffee mark made it feel very realistic.
Please continue with this; such an excellent beginning deserves to continue.
Samantha said,
August 12, 2009 at 12:36 am
wow, thank you! I havn’t really advertised this yet so I wasn’t expecting comments already. I am really proud of the background story, and the scrapbook just seemed right for the story seeing as its suppose to be a journal of sorts. I’m still debating on how to continue the story, after writing so well for the intro I’m a bit stuck on how to continue with an equal quality (I actually read a really good book’s chapter before writing and I wonder if that didn’t help, lol)
This comment has given me a boost of confidence, thank you
kansine said,
August 12, 2009 at 11:22 am
LOL, I know the feeling when you get an excellent beginning to a story, but then you get pressured to continue it with equal quality and it feels too challenging O_O (Luckily Eafi’s story started quite badly and cessalin’s started boring, so I don’t have any problems, LOL XD) I hope you don’t take too much stress – you’re a good writer anyway, so I’m sure that your story will be great even if you don’t try a lot
Samantha said,
August 12, 2009 at 12:54 pm
wow! thanks kansine, its amazing to me that you think i’m a great write…I thought Mitsy’s story sort of sucked, lol…and then my stats make me feel that way too at times but I try not to let that influence me any. You’re a good writer too, I started reading Eafi 2 months after you started writing it but I enjoyed it so much I set aside 3 nights to read it. And I think you’re too hard on yourself with Cessalin’s story because I thought it started out rather interesting, not boring at all. Just because its an intro post doesn’t mean its boring. I really enjoyed learning about the friends and actually had wished I’d done something like that, lol.
Kayla said,
August 13, 2009 at 6:46 pm
this is sad but really great!!
Samantha said,
August 13, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Well in general I really wasn’t trying to make a sad story, was just trying to explain why she was alone and had no relatives in town and also why she has the traits she does. I did try to express sadness in the part where she finds her parents dead, that was a bit tricky.
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:24 am
Ohh, so in your she’s by herself just like mine is. For me, I had to make this random person and move Clair in with the random person on the place she’s living in now that I built. So then I killed off the random person I made so now she’s living by herself with her family in the same town. Does it make a little sence at least lol
But it’s really weird because she sees her mom and sisters everwhere she goes, I haven’t seen her dad yet….
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:33 am
Yes she’s on her own but the story takes place when she’s an adult so I didn’t have to do the random person thing (I’ve had to do that before too so I understand what you’re talking about). Because I’m creating a legacy story this is how I decided to explain her situation (living alone in a town where she has no relatives with no money) and her traits (klepto in particular). The background story helps make some of the rules of the legacy make sense for a story and though I didn’t realize it at first the way I’ve started writing this enables me to actually continue the story for the 10 generations if I am able to continue it for that long.
Kayla said,
August 14, 2009 at 11:45 am
wow that would be a long story!!
but good….:)
Samantha said,
August 14, 2009 at 12:41 pm
well the legacy challange is 10 generations…I’m not sure i’ll continue to write for that long but I’m bad with finding a way to end something so who knows.
Sara said,
August 20, 2009 at 7:16 am
I like it. very long I like to read so that’s no prob for me.
Samantha said,
August 20, 2009 at 2:27 pm
it is a bit on the longer side and I apologize for that. When I realized that I was making posts a bit long I tried to lghten them up a bit. It might be several posts before I find a happy medium.
Kleptocy « Simology101 said,
August 31, 2009 at 1:11 pm
[...] She is not allowed to sell stolen items for money. Its a very creative and unusual blog and you can read it here It gave me an idea for an actual type of [...]
Yumiki said,
September 1, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I love your story Samantha. You’re really good. Please make some more.
Samantha said,
September 1, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Thank you so much for that comment. I’ve been busy with school starting and then also having technical difficulties so its taking quite a bit more time to make then planned. I’ll be working on the next post tomorrow but not sure if thats when it will be posted.