#this also marks the first plumbob appearance in the story

[thebramblewood]

The Vampirification of Helena Zhao

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[livinasimminlife]

Prologue: Meet the Bagleys (Part 1 - MLWC)

In an effort to clean up my blogs, I am moving all MLWC still on my blogs to my Simblr. If you are unfamiliar with this series, you can start HERE to learn more. 

*Please excuse the headline effects. This was my very first Sims story, and I didn’t know much about using cheats to turn off the overhead bubbles or plumbob. This story is a spin-off series that follows the life of the Bagley family, particularly the youngest son, Sam Sherman Bagley, Jr. Sam is Gage Briody’s cousin from The Krazy Crazy Life of Kassiopeia Fullbright.

Meet the Bagleys₁ – we’re not your normal family. There’s Ma Bagley, the matriarch of the Bagley family and a retired jewel thief. There’s Rhoda Bagley, following in her parents footsteps, new to the crime scene, but working her way up in the ranks. And then there’s me… Sam Sherman Bagley, Jr. You can just call me Sam.

I just want a normal life and a nice family, but frankly that’s just not a possibility when you live with criminals and ex-criminals. All I can say is crime never pays, and it always hurts the people closest to you. That’s what my dad told me on his dying day. I’m determined to live by a higher code of honor. We’ll see how that turns out.

This is my family. My mother, Ma Bagley is in the center, and my older sister, Rhoda is on the left. I’m on the right, and I’m the youngest son, Sam Bagley, Jr. We live in Riverview, Illinoisim, SimNation on the banks of the winding Simomon River. Our farm town is small and quaint, a beautiful countryside escape for big city folks. Most of us want to live here peacefully, and we would describe the town as idyllic. Well almost idyllic.

This is my mother, Missouri Burroughs Bagley₂. Everyone calls her Ma, except for my sister (when she’s mad at her, she calls her Mommy Dearest). She’s had a hard life. Her parents, Erastus Burroughs and Clarissa Allen Burroughs₃ died when she was very young. Her older sister, Mississippi ran away with a rock star as she felt she was too young (at 17) to raise her siblings. Ma was separated from the rest of her siblings in foster care. Ma never saw her baby brother, Tennessee or her little sister, Virginia again.

Ma grew up on the streets in Bridgeport, Pennsimvania working as a petty crook. She managed to stay in school and graduated with a scholarship to a school of her choice. She picked Saint Simmons University₄ in Moonlight Falls, Alasimka in order to reconnect with her older brother, Dakota ‘Kody’ Burroughs₅.

Kody taught literature at the university in southern Alasimka. He was married to Vanessa Shelby Burroughs and had two children, Alex and Luci. He also supposedly had an affair with a student, half his age, according to Ma. She discovered them shortly before he died in a forest fire behind his home. Ma quit college and returned to Pennsimvania.

After an ill-fated affair with the wrong man₆, she was sent out of town by her crime boss. She met my father when he tried to hustle the Alto family in Sunset Valley, Califorsimia. The two discovered they were perfect for each other. They were married and lived 37 years together.

Now a widow, Ma lives with my sister and me on the family estate. She’s still dreaming of striking it rich. She just celebrated her 60thbirthday. Although she’s retired, she still dabbles in her old life. She recently announced that her latest desire is to infiltrate the Soil and Water Research Facility and steal plans. I don’t ask her much about her ‘extracurricular activities.’ I just ignore it and hope I don’t hear the wrong thing one day. Ma is snobby, only wanting the finest of things, but I believe she only wants the best for her family and is trying to accomplish just that. She is the bravest woman I know and was quite the daredevil in her day. More about my mother later.

I don’t remember a lot of good things about my dad, Sam Bagley₇. He wasn’t a horrible dad, but he wasn’t the best dad. Sadly, this is the one and only picture₈ I have left of my father, and even this one got partially ruined in a flood that happened last winter. This was taken in front of our barn right before he died.

When I was younger, I remember my parents being happy. Dad inherited a horse ranch from his father. It had been in his family for six generations. I was to be the seventh. I don’t know whether I’m relieved or sad that he lost the ranch.

Dad always wanted to strike it rich. It was his dream to open a resort in Isla Paradiso. He made some bad investments and lost the entire ranch. He barely managed to hang onto some of the property. We still have the original house and one barn and a small amount of property, but the rest was sold to Bluewater Real Estate₉. The surrounding remnants of the ranch now belong to other families₁₀.

Devastated, my dad turned to a life of crime and my ma reverted to her old life of crime. No one knows what happened exactly, but dad was supposed to be meeting an associate from Hidden Springs₁₁ late at night last Simgust. The next morning the police showed up and told us he had drowned in the river. More on my dad later.

This is my sister, Rhoda₁₂. She is six years older than me. We don’t really get along. Then again we never did.

Rhoda is determined to follow in Ma’s footsteps. She wants to be a master thief. She is quite the schmoozer, turning the charm on and off like a switch. She is a master manipulator and a born saleswoman. She could convince a homeless man to sell the shirt off his back and then sell it right back to him. She is hot-headed, a trait she shares with our Ma, resulting in many arguments when we were kids.

When we were little, she was often cruel, stealing my stuff, making fun of me, playing nasty pranks on me, and running off all the friends I ever really had. Now that we’re adults, she’s cool at best towards me, critical and angry at worst.

Rhoda is a hard-core athlete and works out for many hours at a time. She’s religious about going to the gym, a place where she claims she can find all her best marks, or working out in the barn. For some reason, Ma doesn’t like Rhoda’s choice to pursue a life of crime. Ma doesn’t want us kids to have to be thieves like she was. This causes many heated disagreements between them. More on Rhoda later.

And then there’s me – Sam Sherman Bagley Jr₁₃. I think I turned out a pretty handsome fellow if you don’t mind me saying. No doubt thanks to Rhoda stopping all her crazy pounding on me once I turned fourteen and started beefing up to protect myself.

I have no interest in taking over the family enterprise, but I’m loyal to my family, even if they are all crazy crooks. I’d like to give back to my society, not take from it. My dream is to someday be an astronaut. I would love to leave Riverview and explore the world beyond. My hobbies are pretty simple for a nineteen-year-old – stargazing, reading, fishing, and donating to my favorite charities.

I always liked to imagine if I built myself a little boat, I could sail away from my crazy family and away from Riverview. I would explore the world beyond. I always wanted to know what was beyond those beautiful green hills. Well, that’s my family in a nutshell.

—

Chapter 1 Coming Soon!

Story Extras:

The Bagley family actually exists in The Sims 3 – Riverview. I took the liberty of editing the characters and their traits slightly, and adding a back story. This version of the Bagley’s will follow Sam Sherman Bagley Jr.’s life and legacy in my SimWorld.

As Ma Bagley doesn’t really have a back story provided on Sims Wikia, I created one. I tweaked her appearance a good bit, making her appear softer and prettier. Missouri is the daughter of Erastus Perry and Clarissa Allen Perry, younger sister to Mississippi Burroughs and Dakota Burroughs, older sister to Virginia and Tennessee Burroughs, wife/widow to Sam Bagley, and mother to Rhoda and Sam Sherman, Jr. Bagley.

Fun fact: I came across Erastus and Clarissa Burroughs on a Google search and their middle daughter was named Missouri ‘Missy’ Burroughs. I liked it and so I used the names for my stories.

Saint Simmons University is a higher education institute located in Moonlight Bay, Alasimka. Fun fact: The college name is very loosely based on a Saint Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska.

Dakota ‘Kody’ Burroughs is the older brother of Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia and the younger brother of Mississippi. He grew up in Sim City and was nearly adopted by a wealthy family. The elderly couple died before adoption could be finalized, but their wealth and estate was left to Dakota. He attended university in Sim City and eventually moved to Moonlight Falls to teach literature at Saint Simmons University. He married Vanessa Shelby, an art professor, and they had two children, Alex and Luci. His appearance is loosely based on Professor Renaud Kody. His affair was with Brigit Briody, and he is the father of Gage Briody.

Missouri had an ill-fated affair with someone in Bridgeport. There’s speculation that it was the married thug, Wogan Hemlock, and she was sent out of town to avoid discovery of the affair by his wife, or Rohan Verma, a police officer who was going to turn her in and she left before being arrested.

As Sam Bagley doesn’t really have a backstory provided on Sims Wikia, I created one. I also tried to make his sim-self look as much like his bio picture as possible. His bio picture has Sam in his formal attire. Sam Bagley’s parents aren’t mentioned by name but it’s implied he inherited the family ranch from his father. Sam lost the majority of the property, including the horses, due to bad business investments. He met and married Ma in Sunset Valley. He is the father of Rhoda and Sam Sherman Jr. Sam died mysteriously by drowning.

I had problems saving the screenshots at one point, hence the bad picture of Sam Sr. But since they live in Riverview, I thought it only apt that the photograph was damaged in a flood.

Bluewater Real Estate is mentioned in a Wikia article about the Landgrabb family under the sub-heading Landgrabb-associated businesses, but is no longer in the Landgrabb possession.

The story mentions ‘other families’ who received the bulk of the former Bagley ranch. We can assume this is the McDermott family as they live right next door, or even perhaps Don Lothario.

The story mentions an associate of Sam Bagley, Sr.’s in Hidden Springs. Since Sam had connections with the Alto family in Sunset Valley, we can draw the assumption that Sam’s “associate” was Bert Alto. Bert may have murdered Sam because he didn’t want his family relations to find out where he was, but this is unclear.

Rhoda Bagley does have a small biography on Wikia. I tweaked her traits a bit, but left her appearance relatively unchanged. Rhoda is the daughter of Sam, Sr. and Missouri (Ma) Bagley and the sister to Sam Sherman Jr. We know Ma Bagely doesn’t approve of Rhoda following in her footsteps.

I took the most liberties with Sam. In the unaltered Sims world, Sam is actually Sherman Bagley. In my SimWorld, Sam is named for his father, hence the Sam Jr. and his middle name is Sherman. Sam doesn’t get along with his sister, Rhoda. Sam/Sherman’s appearance has been altered also. Sam’s traits are mostly different – Good/Loner/Bookworm/Brave/Neat – with the exception of the last one. Young Sam also had the Coward trait but as he says he started “beefing himself up” to avoid getting pounded on by his sister.