I was wondering if anyone would notice the skid marks!

Yup, there are lots of fiddly details in there. It takes a lot of time but I like to play with the fiddly details. It's fun, and if I don't do it, then I notice the errors later. For instance, in the second image in chapter 279, I neglected to include Narcissa's shadow on the van. And in chapter 278, you can see the llamas logo on the team picture. I should have just created a team picture in Contentious Cows livery but after spending three days setting up that scene I was growing impatient.

Fantastic work, Greg! Love the images, looks like you spent alot of time on them.

Quote:

Yup, there are lots of fiddly details in there. It takes a lot of time but I like to play with the fiddly details.

That sure is the truth!
Greg you really get some GREAT shots. I love the skid marks!
Great job!

There really is quite a story behind that last episode. It would fit better in the Tale of the Tale, but it will have to wait until after I've tried out this new Smart Door.

Tales of Happy Valley
Chapter 280: Reviewing the Bidding, Again

Spoiler Warning: This note gets ahead of the story as we left it in chapter 279. It doesn't really advance the plot. I'm just doing some wool-gathering to try to figure out where I left all the story threads.

In the interregnum since the last entry on July 11, we've visited places all over the universe and engaged in all sorts of other adventures. Happy Valley has been in a state of suspended animation all that time, and I need to remind myself of where we are and where we are going.

In the story, we're somewhere near GD 135 in Happy Valley.


At Boveena Bridge

Up at Boveena Bridge, Narcissa is in the process of dumping Lucy and her van into the gorge. Narcissa wants to make her name for herselves as a super villain. Lucy just wanted to get home with some shoes that she bought for Sheba and get back to making beds and cleaning toilets, though at the moment not being killed in a drop into Boveena Gorge would be an important priority on her mind.


Lucy is in a heap o' trouble!


Baumdbout Valley

Sheba is out of town. She's out of the universe, in fact, visiting her husband Gregsim and her wives Dallas and Meadow in Baumdoubt Valley. They are puzzling over how some of great mysteries of the cosmos:

How did some of them come to be living in two universes at once?
Why are elves moving into Bonnyview Shores and who is The Drow?
What is The Gift and just what can they do with it?
Why do Greg and Dallas always know what their alter egos in Happy Valley are doing, but Meadow does not?
How is it that Barry and Sheba were able to travel between universes?
Now that they're here, what's the best way to get home? Can they get home?

Happy Valley


The Bennett Family on Saturday, Day 141

Greg, Sheba, Dallas. The boys Hiram, Norman, Irvin, and baby Oberon.
This is a bit ahead of the story.

The family picture above is from GD 141. It shouldn't be much of a spoiler since you know that there's zero chance that I'll kill off any of the star line characters.

Back in Happy Valley, Gregsim is taking care of the boys. At Sheba's insistence, Dallas moved in with him there to take care of the children. In the story, Irvin was born just before Barry and Sheba left for Baumdoubt Valley and is still an infant. His brother Hiram and half-brother Norman were both toddlers. You can see from the screen shot that in the near future they all will grow to be a fine young boys.

Norman's mother, Monica Backlace, still visits her son after work every day. She is thinking she might want to have another child but is only interested in doing so if Sheba will lend her the same source of genetic stock that produced her first child.

Although Meadow is married to Greg and Dallas (and now Sheba) in Baumdoubt Valley, in Happy Valley she leads a completely different life. She is happily married to General Cornelius Tellerman and has a daughter by him, the pescaphilic Bernadette as well as her twins (Greg's children) Arthur and Arlene.

The Schuyler family is still living in their garage.

Sheba's baby sister Karen is still looking for Mr. Right and wondering if her cousin Arthur Thayer might be the one.

The muck-raking reporter Amarilla Allspin moved back to town after an abortive attempt to start her own newspaper in Strangetown. She is living with editor Perry White and, after suffering multiple alien abductions during her pregnancy, had a child by him whom she named Loretta White.

Greg's father Ralph is mayor of Happy Valley. His grandfather Olis is pastor at the First Christian Church in Happy Valley. Olis and his wife Ada are still living with Greg's parents, Ralph and Marie, but they are thinking of moving to the little parsonage next to the church.

His brother Ralphie is happily married with kids on the way. He's chief of police now.

His sister Joyce lives down the block from mom and dad. She's married to Dr. Jay Van Cura.

His sister Jana is a nurse, married to the county sheriff, Roger Stewart.

The Franks Family still owns about a quarter of the real estate in the county as well as the old Stonewood estate in Bonnyview Shores. The Franks brothers have finally split up the old household, with the younger brothers Carl and Bobby moving out to continue their own families while Tommy Franks and his wife Ophelia (Nigmos) Franks maintain the original homestead. Ophelia and Sheba are still best friends, and between them are the most meddlesome force in Happy Valley society.

Edward and Sally Allardice sent their triplet girls off to college together. They have a new son, a toddler named Jason. The triplets have formed their own attachments to sundry Frankses and Bennetts while at Happy Valley University. (The Allardice triplets played a very significant role Gregsim's teenage years.)

The notorious Madame Arabella Skye still operates her brothel and visits with Sheba whenever she gets a chance.

Sheba's parents, Melvin and Lois Lund are still well and happy and living in Happy Valley. Her dad is a cop.

Billy Ray Baybrace is still living with three of his cousins, Amber, Connie, and Edna, and their baby-bomb children Caldwell, Dina, and Dorian.

Brother and sister Cherry and Wallace Reinhold are still going to high school, living with their parents Olaf and Bertril Reinhold.

Amelia Pardihardi married Bernard Eusaedi. Yeeta Eusaedi married Tobias Spicer. They all live at the Party Palace along with Charleroi Eausaedi. Amelia and Yeeta are both carrying baby bombs. (I think.)

Fredonia Finagle is still living by herself in her own little house on Main Street. (I think that Fredonia only has a speaking role in the tutrial about the Tombstone of Life and Death. In simality, she's a rather ubiquitous character in the daily life in Happy Valley.)

Roger's parents Clifford and Nadia Stewart are thriving in their big green house in the southeast part of town.

Scott and Darlene Toddulaunga sent their daughter Lacy to college and have another one, Muriel in grade school. They still live with Senator Lainey Mendoza and Scott's sister Holly Toddulaunga. Holly is president of her own company now. (Lacy was important in Gregsim's teenage life in Baumdoubt Valley, however in Happy Valley he grew up while she was still a toddler and hardly knows her at all.)

Darlene was pregnant with their third child when I stopped by just now. To my surprise, she jumped up from the breakfast table to deliver a beautiful baby girl whom she named Nadine.


Nadine Toddulaunga, Third Daugher of Scott and Darlene
Born moments ago on GD 141 in Happy Valley.

I did a test to make sure that Lainey and Holly were not pregnant, and they are not; this is not a surprise since they only sleep with each other. (Lainey was created in the game as a maid, the only Lainey Medoza that the game has created since installation of the first patch.)



Bonnyview Shores

The neighboring town of Bonnyview Shores has its problems, too. Nikki is raising twin babies fathered by the enigmatic Drow and playing the role of foster mother to the orphan teen Virginia. Virginia just got a job working at the Graviton Test Facility.

Noble elves have moved in next door to Nikki. On the night she met them, she also met Greg and Sheba, who flew over from Happy Valley. This event did even more damage to Nikki's denial skills.

A new family of aliens, the Vizidors, moved in down the street from Nikki.

She lives across the street from the multitudinous Grumleins, the First Family of Bonnyview Shores.

At Jeannie Jump's Weird Things Test Facility next door to Nikki's house, they're dealing with more alien babies and still merrily testing weird things.


I think that bring us up to date with all the characters I've mentioned in the Tales of Happy Valley and related stories. Did I overlook any dangling story threads?


Where do we go from here?

I noticed that Sheba and Barry went to Baumdbout Valley in January 2006. Since July 11, Tales of Happy Valley has been blocked by the amount of time and effort it takes to illustrate the action at Boveena Bridge, and that episode so far has been going on since April. I might just give up on illustrations and write it out as narrative so that the story can progress from there.



I'm going to leave this topic locked because it's getting to be so long. I'll start a new topic for the continuing adventures in Tales of Happy Valley when I get back to the story. If you want to respond to the story so far, use the topic about The Tale of the Tale.

Great story! I love this family, I spend quite a lot of my time reading this. Still haven't read it all!

Thanks!

Now that I've learned how to do it, I should be able to finish off the scene were the story has been stuck for so long and get back to the old mischief.

The same folks were last seen gadding about in supporting roles in a story that I've been posting on InSIMAdult. Due to the subject matter, I can't post that one here. PG-13 rule, y'know.

bump

To the best of my knowledge, this is as far as the Tales of Happy Valley ever got.