Lancelot Royal

### Grandchildren

Willa Seagraves, Artemis Tellez, Hudson Tanielu, Ashley Tanielu, Tobias Tanielu, Julia Royal

## Stats

### Career

Criminal track (maxed)

Lancelot Royal was the first sim to be added to my Build a City Challenge. Despite his Good trait, he's one of the messiest characters in the entire save, which is saying something. He was a notably great father to his four children and two stepchildren, but he was also a terrible husband to his first wife, Maci Redmond, leading to the first divorce in the save. Once I switched his Jealous trait to Gloomy, I decided I trusted him enough to let him remarry, this time resulting in his much more successful marriage to Kiersten Hill.

## Original Save

Lancelot was from the first Sims 4 save I ever played. I played the game very off and on for the first couple of years, setting up a couple of households in that save and then quickly abandoning them and the game in general. Finally I decided to try playing a legacy and created a sim for the purpose, Megan Royal. She married a sim from one of those other households, and over time all three were interwoven into the legacy. Megan and her spouse had two daughters and I couldn't choose which I liked more, so I decided the legacy would have dual heirs. Lancelot's sister, Leia Royal, and their cousin, Naomi Royal, were the generation five (or was it four?) heirs, but I got bored and wandered off from the save during their reign. However, I liked them a lot as characters, and when I decided to create the BACC with sims from pre-existing saves I quickly decided that Naomi and Leia would be the ones to represent their save. Lancelot is the only other resident originally from that save.

## Rotations 4-9: First Rotations & First Marriage

Lancelot joined the save during the fourth rotation, and he and Maci immediately hit it off. (He also hooked up with Natalie Morgan during that week, but Maci hooked up with Jude Morgan, too--Wicked Whims was in the game at the time.) Lancelot also got straight to work on building up his Charisma skill, making it to level 8 in his first rotation. I almost immediately noticed that thanks to Slice of Life his eyes were constantly filled with tears, more so than anyone else's. (Put a pin in this for later.)

Lancelot and Maci became boyfriend and girlfriend near the end of their fourth rotation, and moved out together and formed their own household at the beginning of rotation 5. They later hosted the save's Winterfest and New Year's Eve gatherings at their new home. Rotation 5 also marked the beginning of Lancelot's deep friendship with his brother-in-law, Brock Redmond.

During another fifth rotation visit to the Original Household Maci hooked up with Jaxson Hill, just like most of the other female sims, and as a result gave birth to Elliott Redmond. Unfazed, Lancelot proposed to Maci during the beginning of their fifth rotation week, and they got married at the beginning of their sixth rotation week. Maci gave birth to their first child together, Ginny Redmond later in the sixth rotation.

Unfortunately, the sixth rotation is also when Lancelot's Jealous trait began making itself known. He would have angry outbursts for seemingly no reason, particularly directed at Maci. Since they otherwise got along well as usual, I overlooked it for the time being.

Lancelot and Maci again hosted Winterfest and New Year's Eve gatherings at their home during the seventh rotation. Maci ended said rotation by giving birth to their second child together, Isaac Redmond. Their third child, Nina Redmond, was born during the eighth rotation. They also hosted yet another holiday gathering, this one being Spookyfest. Lancelot was always not just a great dad with his own kids but great with other kids, too--there are multiple points throughout the various rotations when he can be seen taking care of the kids, which is one of the reasons I had such a soft spot for him despite everything going on with the Jealousy coding.

Speaking of the Jealousy coding, rotation 9 was when a number of elements in Lancelot's life started going downhill. His best friend, Brock, died suddenly. Meanwhile, Lancelot's Jealousy was becoming notably worse (thanks in part to the Have Some Personality Please! mod)--he reacted angrily to Maci just talking to Siobhan Fyres during one visit, and to Maci officially becoming Best Friends with Natalie during another. This had been bothering me ever since it started, but really ramped up during this rotation. (Especially since Maci became the first sim to reject a romantic overture in the whole save when Ricardo Tellez tried to hit on her!) At this point I was still determined to ride things out and maybe find a mod that would tone down the Jealousy, since Lancelot and Maci were otherwise working well together. Their family got one last nice day at the end of their ninth rotation, when they all went to Pirate Wedding Park for the day.

Aaaaaand then at the end of the day they returned to the house, where Lancelot autonomously pickpocketed Jaxson before starting his first day of work on the Criminal track. The next time he was seen was at the Seagraves' house, where he autonomously hooked up with Natalie in what was presumably a complicated, grief-fueled moment but is still also another example of him being a general Menace.

## Rotations 10 & 11: Divorce & Starting Over

Rotation 10 was when I decided that Lancelot's behavior was so bad that I didn't want Maci to be stuck with him anymore. Not only did he spend the Original Household's rotation yelling at Maci from another room for interacting with someone else, they went out for lunch with a group of other sims and he spent the entire meal yelling at her every time she would interact with someone, to the point where he didn't consume his food or drink. This culminated in him slapping her when Ricardo flirted with her in front of him. (Slapping when witnessing cheating is truly one of my least favorite features in the game.) The game attempted to take its own revenge on Lancelot by striking him with a lightning bolt (right after he saved Leia from a grill fire, I do have to give him that one) but that wasn't enough.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously if Lancelot had been acting like this from the jump his time in the game would have gone very differently, and none of his behavior is condoneable in real life. Since I could trace the course of his behavior over time (remember, back in rotation 5 he wasn't pressed that Maci had a baby with someone else) and attribute it to specific mods (none of which cause that in game now, I should mention!) I still felt comfortable playing him while making changes along the way (more on that later).

At the time I was using ophelia-nygmos's Random Occurrences Gameplay Wheels, and during rotation 10 Jude and Naomi got a divorce roll. I didn't want to divorce them, though, so ultimately I decided to have them roll something else and use that divorce roll for Lancelot and Maci. I wanted Maci to have a nicer second romance, so I looked at my options and thought Sofia Bjergsen might be a good match for her--it was a bit of a rocky start, but they did hit it off and I helped them build their romance during rotation 10.

My plan was to keep Maci and Lancelot married until the end of the week, then divorce them and move Lancelot out and Sofia in at the end of the rotation. That way I could play Lancelot for the entire week and keep his aging in line with everyone else, rather than moving him out partway through the week and playing a few days with him separately, and I could also avoid having them divorce partway through the week but keeping them in the same house and having things be awkward. The plan changed, however, when Lancelot flirted with Natalie on Harvestfest, right in front of Maci. I couldn't deal with it anymore, so I had Maci divorce Lancelot right then and there. Unfortunately, several of their kids and Natalie's kids were witness to all of this. I ended up just keeping Lancelot in the house for the rest of the week, so while he was sad and it was kind of awkward I decided that he deserved it and just focused on continuing Maci and Sofia's relationship. Lancelot was pretty miserable but mostly kept it together and just focused on the kids, and even had a few positive interactions with Maci.

(Rotation 10 was also when we had the Mayor Naomi and criminal Lancelot exchanging a huge briefcase of cash thing, which has nothing to do with the divorce but which I just always feel obligated to bring up.)

Lancelot lived in the Original Household for rotation 11, along with his sister Leia and her family. For the most part this worked well as a temporary living arrangement, except that he and his nephew, Darien, did not get along at all and in fact became official enemies to fulfill one of Darien's wants. He got along with the other members of the household, though, and his own children came to visit often. (He also almost had another child via a closet hookup with Mabel Seagraves, but I terminated the pregnancy because both of their family trees were complicated enough already!)

Lancelot was also seen several times during the Redmonds' week--namely at Maci's first crime scene and later hanging around the police station. An extra bold choice given his career path! The obvious read on this situation would be that he was stalking her, but I'm going to be charitable and say that he was trying to remind me to invite him over to see his kids. Which I mostly failed to do. Oops.

While Lancelot was also spotted spending the eleventh rotation doing things like jumping in the trash and falling in mud puddles, I did have Emilia Fitzhugh visit him and give him a voodoo doll, which he needed to complete his lifetime aspiration.

Somewhere in the midst of rotations 11 and 12 I also changed Lancelot's traits. I do remember being willing to let him get involved with another sim but not willing to let him keep the Jealous trait in the process. Remembering the Slice of Life days when he perpetually had teary eyes, I went ahead and traded his Jealous trait for the Gloomy trait.

## Rotations 12-: Second Marriage & San Myshuno

During rotation 12 Lancelot got married to Kiersten Hill, one of Jaxson's daughters from his first marriage. Unfortunately I don't have most of the photos from rotation 12 and nothing from any of the previous rotations that indicates how Lancelot and Kiersten met, much less how they got together. I always thought that they balanced each other out well, Kiersten being very calm and low-key while Lancelot was more emotional and high-strung.

Lancelot and Kiersten moved into Naomi and Jude's starter home during rotation 12, forming the Hill-Royal household, along with Kiersten's sons Darryl and Justice. Lancelot was a great stepfather to the boys. His own children spent plenty of time at the house and they all got along well. Lancelot and Kiersten got married on Winterfest, and two days later Kiersten discovered she was pregnant. They closed out their week by hosting a New Year's Eve celebration for their family and friends. Later in the rotation Kiersten gave birth to their daughter, Parker Royal.

In rotation 13 Lancelot was seen doing the usual round of parties and gatherings, which apparently gave him the opportunity for a couple of closet hookups with Candy Behr at the Original House. (I could have a whole Wiki page charting all the random closet hookups, honestly!) More wholesomely, he put in a number of appearances at the Redmond house for his kids' birthdays and to visit his kids in general (aaaaaand less wholesomely he had *another* closet hookup with Candy Behr during Isaac's birthday party). There were pretty big time gaps between my simming sessions at this point, so I don't think I noticed this pattern at the time, but now I have questions. Lancelot was also spotted at the Karaoke Restaurant during the Seagraves-Behrs' rotation, though I don't know who he was there with. Possibly the wildest relationship development was Lancelot calling Moses Hill to try to romance him, but given that I don't see Lancelot as being interested in men at all I'm handwaving that.

His actual household's week was pretty wholesome, though. He kept being a good stepparent to the boys and a good father to his own kids. They also hosted Harvestfest and had the usual gatherings of family and friends. Even Maci came over. It was also a big week for birthdays, including Lancelot's! I gave him a new scar for the occasion, since I figured he might have acquired it in his line of work.

Rotation 14 Lancelot sightings included autonomously bonding with his voodoo doll at the Original House, looking disgusted by Jude and Naomi's PDA at the Royal House, helping Roger with his homework at the Fyres house, and dressed up for a Romance Festival date with Kiersten.

Once it was time to play Lancelot's household for rotation 14, it was time for them to have another notable development--they moved from the starter home in Newcrest to an apartment in San Myshuno! (Lancelot and Kiersten remain one of my favorite BACC couples I've ever decorated for because I had such a specific idea of their shared aesthetic.) Lancelot immediately invited his kids over and made sure they had apartment keys. He also got in extra time with Isaac when Isaac autonomously showed up at the Humor and Hijinks festival. Lancelot bought the festival t-shirt and got to cuddle his beloved voodoo doll. It was a really cute week for their family in general--their folder was full of pictures of cute family moments, including Lancelot getting a front-row seat to Kiersten's Elder birthday and flirting with her afterwards.