Man this rewrite is turning into a major project.

All the on-screen characters from Chapter One were originally just my normal playable Sims. I was actually playing this town for a while before I got involved with the storytelling community on the *whispers* bad site. So couples had already paired up, homes had already been bought and furnished with whatever the sims earned from their jobs.

I think Jack Faerie was the first Sim I ever made, probably why he's my favourite. In any case, the playables were the cause of some decisions I wish I didn't make. Like Ash buying the big house. It's because he got promoted in his in-game job and was minting it. So I had to confect that storyline where he has the research side hustle to explain it. And I didn't like it, because it really looks like rich guys are Jasmine's type. Also, Milton is not an Irish name, because them being Irish didn't come up until I actually started writing the story and I just used the names they already had. They'd really fit better with a good old fashioned Irish surname, but it's too late now. They'll just have to have some sassenach ancestor haha. According to this site, there were some farming Miltons in Sligo in 1901, let's say they're Ash ancestors.

In any case, Jasmine's story was meant to be a simple, light hearted two-parter. A slightly longer companion to Tony's story. I had the amnesia plot, but that was meant to be it, resolution in chapter 2 or 3, the end. I had no real plan other than that and was literally making it up as I went along. And then the story just went ahead and did its own thing and got really dark, which I never intended. Since I'm redoing all the screenshots and doing some really heavy handed editing, I could have just ditched the new house thing altogether, but it's too late now and the side hustle thing pops up too many times for me to bother myself editing it out. But there are a lot of things I am editing out. I am taking an axe to a lot of this and giving Jasmine the rewrite she deserves.

So as well as addressing the mental health issues better this time round, I've made a lot of big changes.

So anyway, SPOILERS!!!!!!! Here are some of the bigger edits.

1. Amber was so nothingy before. I put long red curly hair and a hippie dress on her and all of a sudden she became a manic pixie dream stoner and I'm loving it! She's exactly the type of woman Jack would go for. She's only a bit player, so I don't need to develop her too much, but gosh, she's so much better now, she actually is a character and not just a prop. Also she and Jack are not married anymore, they're just dating (Jack doesn't seem the marriage type).

2. Proposal scene at the end of chapter 1 was so damn reg flaggy. Just because I'm the kind of person who would agree to marry someone the moment they confess their love, it doesn't mean it's healthy or romantic! So I've changed it to just a sweet little love confession and the fancy house is because Ash had enough to buy a house with a big garden to grow stuff, which is his favourite thing, and it's walking distance to his daughter's. It has nothing to do with Jasmine. He just wants to show her because he's excited.

3. Jasmine is less "not like the other girls". The bit where she zones out at the Faeries' poolside is not because women like boring things like fashion anymore, but because she was married to an actor for three years, so celebs are no big deal to her. It's more poking fun at the small town going crazy over the most tenuous of links to a celeb.

4. Amber has a reason for making Jack cut his hair. I didn't want controlling women to be his type, so now it's because Amber is a manic pixie stoner.

5. I'm showing, not telling, why Jasmine finds herself enjoying Ash's company despite her grumpiness and asociableness in the first chapter. I really channelled my inner culchie for those!

6. Rereading the story all these years later, Ash comes across as so autistic coded. This was not intentional (I didn't know about this flavour of autism until about 3 years after I wrote this), but I'm making it canon. No one in the story knows, but he's A Team. He is one of ours. Also, Ash is probably demi, but the way I wrote Jasmine and Ash, they acted like an ace platonic couple. So I'm trying to make them more lovey dovey without being heavy handed about it and it's not easy! Listen, when you're ace, it doesn't come naturally to write romantic couples. There's a reason I prefer friendship and family dynamics in my fiction to romantic dynamics!

7. The kitchen scene before Jasmine goes out with the Faeries was also pretty red flaggy. Rewrite makes it clear Ash isn't trying to take away Jasmine's agency or independence.

8. The Lotus thing seemed a bit too "showering with fancy gifts" like with David. In the rewrite, it was dirt cheap because it's not roadworthy. Ash got it as a passion project for Jasmine since she mentioned one time she regrets not finishing her mechanic training and missed working on cars.

9. Jazz's chat with Saffron about her therapy. I was on the right track, but the old version was very glossed over and understated how much work Jasmine has ahead of her. Also, given her later behaviour in the story is right back to codependency and anxious attachment, shows that she's learned NOTHING and as far as the story goes, she may as well not have even gone to therapy at all. So now that I know more about complex PTSD, I can write this scene more realistically and have Jasmine apply what she's learned in therapy when she feels her unhealthy patterns emerge.

10. With the rework of Jasmine's therapy, chapter 6 (now 7) has to be completely rewritten. So I've unlinked it and pretty much rewriting like 90% of it.

Even as I write this, there are going to be many changes to what's already up. I doubt anyone is actually reading this, I'm really only finishing this as a personal goal, but on the off-chance, if you read a chapter today, it may not be the same as what's uploaded tomorrow! At the mo, I think chapters 1-3 (I split chapter 2, so by cheating, I achieved my goal of having 7 chapters up) are pretty much done. I'm making sporadic minor tweaks to the early chapters, but overall it won't make a difference. From 4 onwards, the changes may get bigger. 7 is having a total rewrite, so it'll be a while before we find out who Jasmine was arrested for killing. Heh. Okay, bye.