The Gregory Legacy, Chapter 7

(I fixed the Photobucket links, but some of the formatting is weird and I don't have time to fix it. Sorry.)

Welcome back to The Gregory Legacy, which now has its very own blog! Isn't that fancy? When we left off, Corinne and Dorian got significant others, Marjorie had grown into an adult who was now younger than her younger brother, Aaron clinched the heirship to Tessa's everlasting despair, and Henry pooped in his diaper and stuff. Also Nathan did something or other. Fascinating! Where will they go from here? Let's find out . . .

 

Aaron and Jaron (hey, those rhyme!) get to know each other a little bit, and Aaron pulls some more weird faces. Standard stuff. The really strange thing is that Jaron isn't eating at the moment. As a gluttonous ghost, he raids the fridge all night every night that he appears. On another note, not a whole lot of progress happened in this chapter, and yet I have a bunch of pictures to post. Oh well, onward we go.

"Hey, Dorian. Your girlfriend Molly is visiting, huh? That's cool."

"Yeah, we were just having a flirty chat. Say, where are you heading, Nathan?"

"Oh, I thought I'd go do an autonomous rude introduction to your girlfriend for no apparent reason."

"Well, that's not very nice."

Ugh, cancel! Cancel that action! What is it with my sims and inappropriate introductions to family members' significant others? Still, in terms of epic wrongness, the alluring introduction by Jaron to his daughter's prospective boyfriend takes the cake.

With Nathan safely redirected out of the room, Molly and Dorian can continue their flirting. These two make a really cute couple. I've made up my mind that Dorian and Corinne are staying on until Marjorie reaches her aspirational goal, and then I'm going to set them up somewhere with their sweethearts. You can really see here that Dorian got some more lines on his face from becoming an adult. Not my sweet, hot, Dorian! The changes of age come to all . . . unless they don't live in this particular house in my game. Then they're basically immortal.

Dorian and Molly seal the deal on their date with a little woohoo . . . in his sister's bed. What? It's the only double bed in the house. What's a very flirty sim supposed to do? Not woohoo? That's ridiculous.

"Ugh, I still can't believe I lost the heirship when I am superior in every way to this fool."

"I am momentarily happy because I picked the right chance card at school."

"See what I mean? Way too dull for heir. He's either angry or smiling dopily. Why?! Why couldn't it have been me?"

As you can see, Tessa is still having adjustment problems when it comes to being a spare. So far she would have been my choice, but since I am using a random law, the die has spoken, and we must obey.

"Oh yeah! Stuck the landing!"

Speaking of spares, Henry finally grew up. Let's take a better look at him.

Henry has the self-assured trait, so I'm assuming he doesn't give a flip what other people think about the way he dresses, so some of his outfits are . . . unique. He's self-assured, a little in his own world, but very playful and active. His aspiration is rambunctious scamp, just like Aaron. He has the most of Marjorie's features, especially her nose and mouth, while having all of Nathan's coloring. I think I like him even better than Tessa, but don't tell her that. Sadly, the nose is the only remnant of founder Natalie's face or coloring. Everything else bred out remarkably quickly.

Also, I don't know why, but I just love glasses on sims in 4. Maybe it's because there's actually a good selection? I'm not sure, but I'm restraining from sticking all the kids in glasses when they're this cute on them.

Once Molly left, it was Corinne's turn to invite her beau over. Like a proper gentlewoman, she gave him a suave kiss after completing another novel. We get a good amount of royalties from all the things Corinne has written. I just wished they counted towards Marjorie's aspiration like when she sells Dorian's paintings.

"Children, as we descend from this giant hole in the ceiling, I want you to remember that you are Gregorys, and whether spare or heir, nothing can change that. We are a proud family."

"But Dad, you're not even a Gregory like us. Your last name is still Price."

"Yes, well, we've heard that cas.fulleditmode can cause bugs in the relationships between sims, and we're not willing to risk it. What was my point again? Ah, hell if I know. Let's go get breakfast."

The main branch of the family enjoys breakfast together for the first time now that Henry is a kid. Obviously, in the game, Tessa doesn't really know she's a spare, but she pulled so many hilarious grumpy faces for no apparent reason (despite being Good) that it makes it very easy to write her as a begrudging spare.

Later, after a long day at the office, Marjorie settles in with her breakfast-for-dinner and proceeds to annoy the crap out of her children by telling herself animated stories while they're trying to do homework. Why aren't they doing homework in the focus room, where there are two empty desks? Your guess is as good as mine.

So, Henry looks doubtful and worried despite supposedly being self-assured, Aaron is furious over some nonexistent slight, and Tessa is staring off into space, pretending she does not belong to this family. Sounds about right. On another note, Henry has had the whim to "become confident" since he aged up. Since this is the entire point of the self-assured trait, that they become confident randomly, I locked it figuring it would be an easy fill. Yet it didn't show up for many, many days. What's up with that, Henry?

Later that evening, Marjorie got another promotion in the tech guru career. To what? I have no idea! I take the worst notes. However, she is really dressing the part there. Navy stockings with open-toed strappy high heels and calf-length shorts? Styling! And she just wouldn't be professional without her sweater tied around her waist, a cap, and a large golden locket. Those are practically all the rage in corporate Sim City these days.

"And then the parents told the eldest baby doll that she couldn't run the family when she grew up and she was like, 'RAWWWWW' and the parent dolls were all like, 'Oh no! You can be the heiress! Please forgive us!' and then they lived happily ever after."

"What happened to the other two baby dolls?"

"Eh, who cares?"

"I'm going to go play with the stuffed animal now."

"Tessa, it has come to our attention that . . . er . . . um . . ."
 

"What Corinne's trying to say is, you're losing it. Chill, child."
 

"What are you saying, Uncle Dorian?"
 

"This is a Spare Intervention."
 

"We need you to calm down, sweetie. You're taking over the story."

 

Meanwhile, Nathan has quit his job in painting to upgrade everything in the new house. Overall, we have good fixtures and they're increasingly upgraded, but sometimes things still break, like this oven. Looks safe. Good form there, Nathan.

When he's not being useful, Nathan does this. What the heck?

"What? It looks great!"

"I can't believe that happened on the bus! I'm going to go beat on that stupid teddy bear!"

 

"Aaron, you really ought to calm down. You're going to blow up or something."

 

In the background . . .

 

"Sigh. I guess it isn't so bad that I'm not the heir. Maybe they have a point . . . I do get to live forever. Maybe this won't be terrible. I even heard Henry and I won't be kept in servitude for years and years. Yeah, this spare thing can't be too bad."

After Aaron takes out his aggression, Henry goes to make up with traumatized Blarfy or whatever his name is. Frustratingly, I can't get "play with" whims to register on the stuffed animals. They play forever and ever, but they never fulfill the whim. It should be easy points, but it doesn't work. Very frustrating. However, they're still worth it for how cute the pictures are.

I've found that when I click on the homework in their inventory, they often head to the dinner table. However, if I place the homework down in the focus room and then click on it, they do it in the right spot. Meanwhile, Tessa is playing Sims Forever to raise a school-depleted fun bar. This is just your chapterly reminder that I love emotion rooms. I want to develop an energized one too, but I'm waiting until I have a sim that wants to be a bodybuilder or astronaut or something so it's inline with my playing.

The Gregorys' backyard finally got a redo. The mausoleum, rocket, and monkey bars were already there, but the rest is new. They've got a pool and a small fountain, as well as a table and some decorations. There's a nice tree for shade, whose shade nonetheless points the wrong way. Finally, there's a pirate ship for the kids, which will keep my rambunctious scamps from needing to hit the park. Let's take a closer look at two of my favorite parts.

 

I got a little fancy with the pool tool even though the shape is not terribly practical. The decals are totally symbolic of how the family has two supposed adult leaders and three kids following along every generation (at least so far). Deep, no?

This is the kids' corner, where I can pretend that they can play with the awesome boats that should totally be toys. Totally. I like how it looks, and if they ever get around to having a weenie roast, I'll replace one of the butterfly chairs with the fish chair.

"Aaron, I need you to listen closely."

 

"But Mom, I'm doing homework."

 

"No, no, this is really important . . ."

 

"Long, long ago, in a neighborhood far, far away, a llama, a freezer bunny, and I started out on a magical adventure . . ."
 

"Mom, is this another one of your insane stories?"

"Maybe."

"Right. Back to the math."

 

Later, Aaron broke the focus room computer (AGAIN!) so he's back in the creativity room working on his typing. This is also my typical picture where I get to say that someone completed an aspiration but I wasn't there to capture it. Aaron is now going to attempt to be a whiz kid.

 

However, he'll still join Henry in his rambunctious scamp-ing on the jungle gym. Tessa spent a lot of time with Aaron when he was a baby, but I was so busy with the adults and children that only the adults really formed relationships with Henry before he grew up. Aaron and Henry get along pretty great pretty quickly, though.

 

Tessa is the only member of the family that seems to regret that the founding couple are dead, and she didn't even know them. The only other sim who ever comes out here is simRoxy. I usually cancel Tessa's action to mourn if I catch her, but sometimes she slips out here without me noticing. It's kind of weird that she mourns them on at least a daily basis.

 

"So, you're my grandfather, huh? That's news to me." *sip*

 

"Really? Because you come out and mourn me regularly, so I thought maybe we had some relationship already."

 

"Nope." *sip*

 

"Well, that's interesting. I'm glad my descendents are so well-adjusted . . . . . . . . say, are you going to finish that milk? Because I am a glutton . . ."

Tessa's birthday finally came around. Time to see our first teen of the generation. I feel like this one has taken forever, but that may just be because I haven't been writing regularly. Corinne is also there for the party, but she hid in the corner behind the refrigerator, so I couldn't get her in the shot.

See? There she is. And here's Tessa. I don't think a hat and baseball tee really fit our fussy little princess. Let's get her made over and then I'll introduce her better.

Here's Tessa again, and wow, does she take after her dad! She traded her little girl braids for a big girl braid. Tessa's aspiration is to be a Mansion Baron, which actually might still be possible to complete before she grows up. Her second trait is bookworm, which is . . . okay, I guess. It's fine. Nothing special.

Here's Tessa's complete outfit. I dressed her like a teenaged real estate agent, since I figured she'd be into that kind of thing, what with wanting to be a Mansion Baron and all. I think she looks really cute.

The front yard now gets a makeover to attempt to complete Tessa's aspiration. It was pretty easy to get through the first several steps, but we're stalled out at needing 20 columns (which isn't so bad, I just have nowhere useful to put them) and I think (I'm away from my notes right now) needing a house worth $350,000. We don't even have that much money right now. The current house is worth something like $250,000 so maybe Tessa won't reach her aspiration as a teen, but at least she forced me to beautify the house finally. I also bought and then sold a large pink tree of some kind once it registered for Tessa's aspiration since it was overshadowing the house. There is a small topiary garden back between the rocket and the pool, consisting of an elephant and two llamas. My final note on the house is that I carved out a small nursery for future babies, in between the two dormers on the front, and I forgot to re-paint the outside wall, which is why it is blank in this picture. I don't have a picture of the nursery yet, so that will have to wait for next time.

Speaking of next time, we've reached the end of the chapter. Thanks for reading and visiting the Gregorys' new blog. Check back soon for more Gregory-style madness, and maybe we'll even get a bit farther in the story. In the meantime, visit me at SiMania or Boolprop. Thanks again! <3