from myself, extras and author's note

first, a note on the ending of stories:

Since this is kind of the first storyline that's been well and truly wrapped up in this blog, I thought I'd do a little author's note. I'll also probably want to give them each their own author's note when they're finished. For a time, I was doing the author's notes by round, but I think this works better, maybe.

But on the ending of stories in general, this is how it will work:

The storyline tags cover the arc of the story itself, from beginning to middle to end, and only the story. Both Micah and Mariah existed as Sims/characters before this story took shape, and those entries are not included. Likewise, the whole Buchanan family will still exist in Lakeside Heights in the future. You'll still hear from them in other stories, and they'll still get their once-a-round family update. But as far as I'm concerned, this story is finished, and I'm happy to let them have their peace, lol!

Basically, the storyline tags contain only what I would include if I were writing this as its own stand-alone book. It's still a work-in-progress, but main characters are also getting their own name tags as well, and those name tags will span the entire collection of stories, any entry they make a meaningful appearance in. So for further reading, you can continue to follow their tags: Mariah, Micah, and for entries relating to the whole family, Buchanan.

And James too. James is one of those who doesn't really have his own storyline, yet plays an important role in about three or four different stories. Or maybe he does have his own story, and I just haven't discovered what that is yet.

Anyway...

This obviously contains major spoilers, so if you haven't read through all the from myself stories, you'll want to finish those first.

Author's note on the "from myself" storyline:
The hows, and whys, and hitches in the writing of...

I never imagined them having to go through all of this when I first hooked them up. It was fast from the beginning. I liked her with Micah - when they were together, I felt their "light up the room" factor. I saw them straight into the future, and I think I pushed that decision on her too fast. You see, characters/Sims are their own people! I can push her into what I want, or what you all want, or what we think is "right," but in the end, she's got to go there herself. And she just wasn't ready.

Every step of the way, she kept not being ready. But her life wasn't waiting for her.

At some point, I thought a small push might be good for her. But no. Mariah knew what she wanted all along and she never got it.

And oh wow, not to point fingers or anything, but I think Micah has to share a little bit of the blame in this - as very eager as he was. We were all very quick to poke at Mariah, but I don't know if any of us ever pointed the finger at Micah in this. She told him all along - she wasn't ready, she wanted to take it slower, she needed time and space, she wanted to be by herself for a while, she wanted a long, no-pressure engagement... She never got any of it.

So that was being naive on his part. I don't think he ever imagined he'd cause such a mess just by wanting to love someone. He didn't understand how loving someone could be a problem, and I don't think he believed that she really needed those things. But she did.

He did take blame for it though, in the end, though he never (and will never) knew exactly what the whole problem was.

We shall flashback...

The hardest part of this for me was to try to decipher what, exactly, her hang-up with James was even about. She was hung-up on James from the moment she broke up with him. Even as she did it, she thought "How do you know if you've done the right thing or not?"

She cared about him a lot. That much was always obvious to me. I'm not sure if that has to detract from the love she feels for Micah - I don't think it does. I think a person can truly love and care about their first love, and go on to truly love and care about the person they're supposed to be with even more. I didn't want to write the story of how she never really cared about James, because that obviously wasn't true.

What was it then? Nostalgia? Just wanting to know that he was okay? She didn't want him back. He didn't want her back. The right choice seemed obvious from the beginning, which was why I couldn't quite understand her hesitation. Her attachment to Micah was brilliant, so I couldn't understand what was stopping her from moving on. Every time she thought of James, it came with guilt. Every time she thought of James, it was tied to a thought of Micah (usually a want to talk to him), like she knew she wanted him to reconnect.

So the direction was clear, but the path was anything but clear.

So this story had a bit of a false ending point to it. I think I knew, when they got married, that it wasn't quite over. I'm curious to know if you all felt the same here at this point?

I knew it wasn't over, but I didn't know she'd slide back again so far. It was unresolved still, and I knew there would come a point where she had to basically validate the place she's ended up in, and say for herself whether this was what she wanted for her life or not.

So they had Quinn, and they made it work for a long time.

The big meltdown actually started here, at this party. James never saw her here, as he was leaving, but all she had to do was walk past him for a moment and it sent her into a tailspin. This was discussed already, so we won't go there again.

Basically, it was stirred back up again after her being fine and content with her life for two years. She had done the whole bury it deep and see if it disappears kind of thing. Put a blanket over the problem and see if it goes away. That never works does it?

It was at Bella's wedding when I figured it all out. She slighted him so fast when they broke up. He had meant more to her than she gave him credit for. I kind of said that out loud here. ;)

He had meant so much to her at the time, and yet he was such a non-event in her public life. And she never got the space she needed to heal from that, or the dignity to make that relationship known.

In the end, that conversation she had with her mother was all on the storytelling level. Really, there's no way to reflect that epiphany for her in the game, and Mariah the Sim could very well continue rolling wants for James until the day she dies. I don't care if she does, basically. The real Mariah was just flat-out exhausted of the whole thing, and ready to move on. And I want to let her.

And so she shall.

But that wasn't the end of it for me. After four years of feeling her disconnect, it would slight Micah to believe he wasn't damaged by it as well.

And I said in the comments here: Mariah felt fine to me, but it was Micah that I was still worried about. For a minute, I didn't know if he was going to buy her little half-truth there. There was something wrong between them, and he must want to know. And she can't ever tell him without causing him further damage. He doesn't want to hear that she was still kind of stuck on her ex-boyfriend for the entire length of their relationship. That truth could be enough to sink the whole boat.

But really, he wants to put this behind them as much as she does. And so I'm calling it closed, lol! Considering she isn't planning on giving him any reason to change his mind, I think he'll be able to bite the half-truth and move on.

The end :)

And here's where it gets shamefully dorky:

Maybe we love the Buchanan family so much that they get their own extras post? ;)

This was the actual shot that I made one of Micah's drawings from.

And the making of their family picture turned into a little photo shoot, lol!

I thought you might find it interesting to see what a hug really looks like behind the scenes. Does that spoil the illusion for you? ;)

Most of the time, if I'm cropping the shot close anyway, I don't even bother to recolor the OMSPs, lol!


The proud moment Micah figured out we could do colored drawings at the drafting table! You'll want to follow Carla's snapshot swapping technique for this trick.

And Quinn!!! In her parents' drama, she just didn't get enough screentime!

I think more Sims should be able to do the grooming interaction, lol!

Mariah adores her husband's artwork, lol! She could stand here all day! Really!

Just because I love Madison's office...

And snow! I'm very excited to play through the winter! I feel like I haven't had any real snow in my game in ages!

If you look in the window there, you can see Micah working on his bus stop project, earning a little extra money. Everything he was talking about here in this update was totally true - they've really outspent themselves a bit, so that extra work was needed. Just the mortgage payment alone on that house is $4000 per play-session, and that's on top of regular bills, taxes coming up, toys and clothes for Quinn, groceries, Mariah's tuition payments, Mariah's credit card bills...

And being in Mariah's head is funny, because I didn't think twice before I had her offer to buy Jane's wedding dress - even if I should have, lol! She's a Riley girl at heart, and even if she isn't as spoiled-rotten as her sister, she's still spoiled. But she's definitely a share-the-wealth kind of rich girl. She loves to host dinner parties and cook fancy meals for her friends. She wouldn't think twice about helping them when they need it.

But she grew up with money, and she obviously never learned the difference between having her daddy pay off her credit card bills and having her husband pay them off. Big difference, lol! They might have to have a talk about that one of these days ;)

So hopefully that'll tide you over on your Buchanan family fix until their next family update. I'll be sad not to be writing their story anymore, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I'm happy to let them have some peace.