Chapter 33: Instant Success

Invasion of the cousins. Josephine thinks the world of Pavel's singing voice.

Arthur does not think highly of Josephine's aspirations to follow her mother into the music career.

Halen Hill-Archer is a name well known around studios, but not for anything positive. Why does Josephine think her mother's "connections" will get her anywhere?

Cody will go into science. He may discover the secret of the Archers' blue hair.

Martin does his homework in Pavel's room. So much junk in this house...

Drumheller flipping out. Sacha assures Martin it's normal and healthy, when one's mother is Halen.

 
Arthur meticulously checks his sleeves for dust after sculpting.

Why did he stay up late over this?

What? AGAIN?

This time the police mean business, so they send an elderly woman to handle the burglar.

Even the sight of the criminal doubled over in pain doesn't make Jazz feel better.

Cough!

"Turning into an adult vampire already?"

Arthur frowns seriously. "Don't even joke about that, I love hoagies."

"Dad bought a cake today. It's your birthday, you know."

Arthur had forgotten, to be honest.

"What?"

Pavel sneers, "Scared? My big brother? Scared?"

Upstairs, Jazz produces a skull cut pink diamond. Now he's old, and pragmatic, and will sell what gems don't ultimately fit into his experiments or the collection he will leave behind. Sacha wouldn't know the first thing about selling gems; she'd be ripped off in an instant.

Jazz is slowly being surrounded by skulls.

Staying in shape.

Driving home from school. Pavel isn't going 20.

Arthur's birthday party is small, with only the immediate family in attendance, plus Drumheller (who wasn't invited, but just happened to be there). After the candles are blown out, the party animals (Martin & Jazz) dance like fools in front of the stereo, while Arthur shares his future plans with his mother. He's going to return to China to meditate and figure out his future and-... get out of the picture, Drumheller! Seriously. You're creepy.

Sacha is sad to see her firstborn leave, but gives him a supportive goodbye hug.

And Arthur says goodbye to his father and brothers.

"Uh... there's no KICK ME sign this time, is there?"

Pavel is unaffected by his brother leaving the house. He'd like to get out and see the world himself someday, though he's lost his fascination with tents. There won't be any tents involved. Tents were lame.

"No girl can resist a bass player."

The morning after Arthur leaves is just another morning. Another morning Pavel is wearing the awful panda shirt.

 "You know," Martin says, "the panda shirt clashes with your, uh... hair."

 "Get away from me."

"Soo... can I copy your homework?"

"Such a genius..."

Dragons in the washing machine? It's more likely than you'd think, in this house.

Jazz heard this family threw out plutonium. He wasn't wearing his hearing aid at the time.

The boys board the school bus, and a concerned, nauseous mailman hurries to deliver tiberium from the gemcutters.

Jazz finds some perfectly good virtual reality gadgets in Lori Grisby's garbage can.

"Getting some stvange tvicorder veadings, Mister Spock."

Another embarrassing age-up for Martin. He grew up too fast for the planned party.

Since he's an adult now, Martin's part time job at the day spa isn't enough for him. Luckily the national chain Barney's Salon & Tattoo has just opened for business in Riverview, and they're pleased to have someone with Martin's spa experience and enthusiasm as their stylist.

Jazz makes sure the omniplant knows who's in charge.

Martin's first day at work is slow. He spends half of it playing catch behind the salon with Rita Burr, the tattoo artist.

Lara Burnham-Holloway isn't very confident getting a makeover from a man dressed like Martin.

But Martin shows her some of his clothing designs and explains that he's actually wearing a uniform; the same thing all male stylists at Barney's start out with. Lara doesn't see the sense behind Barney's system, but she's impressed by Martin's designs.

After a single makeover, Martin is promoted to "level 7" within Barney's stylists hierarchy. Martin is truly amazing.

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Etc.: I know what careers Cody and Josephine go into because as I write this, they're adults in my game. Drumheller also went into the music career. That's the last place I think you'd go, if you had such an embarrassing name.

The salon was in the town the entire time. I never saw anyone use it until Martin joined the stylist career; that's just the nature of the game. Rita Burr didn't exist until Martin got his new job either. I took her into CAS and hit randomize for her face. She's always pointing and laughing at people after Martin styles them, so I should probably check her traits and figure out why she does that. It's funny.

Martin's first customer was actually Judith Grisby, but for once I forgot to take pictures.

Luckily, Melody is only a day or two younger than Martin, so there won't be the long waiting period I had with Jazz & Sacha. It didn't matter with them because Sacha sis STILL a young adult, but in future generations the timing will matter quite a bit.

Also that makes THREE burglaries for Sacha's generation, which is now over. All parameters were met. I may make another post with spare pictures of the house, to show just how well (or disastrously) generation three performed its "expansionist" goal.