I'm pleased to welcome you back to The Gregory Legacy, especially with this chapter being the first cover appearance of our new heiress, Laurel. Last chapter we saw Leo born, bringing the total (and final) number of kids in this generation to four. Unfortunately, legacy joy is always tempered with sadness, and we lost Nathan to old age. Now Marjorie is close to following her husband and Dayna, who has almost no skill in gardening, is left trying to care for Nathan's rather large garden and baby cowplant. Let's check in on how that's going . . .
Swimmingly by the looks of it. No, like, literally, you could swim in this garden. That is how big the puddles are. Dayna's watering skills are a little off, bless her heart. She sometimes gets some in the planters apparently because no plants have died. The garden takes up a lot of her time and I'm not really sure why I'm keeping it around except that the plants are high quality and Nathan (and I!) worked really hard on it. It's a little sentimental at the moment, I guess.
Marjorie is still having a really hard time of it with Nathan's passing. She may be a prickly sim, but she always loved her husband with her whole heart, and his death has taken a toll on her. When she's awake, she passes the time crying it out in various people's beds. I happened to catch her in her own for the picture, but she just wanders around the house, hopping into the kids' beds to cry and such. It's super depressing.
With the addition of a very tricked-out patio, Marjorie has reached the Mansion Baron aspiration, meaning she completed both fortune aspirations in her lifetime despite being only the second generation of this legacy. Unfortunately, in order to finish it while she was still alive, I used quite a bit of their savings, and the house is so expensive now that the first round of bills wiped out a little less than half of what was left. >:(
Leo is doing well, as is Aaron. He is such a great father. I wasn't sure about him when he first rolled a family aspiration, especially with his personality, but it really suits him. He's just happiest around his kids.
Marjorie's last few days were rough. Even once her 'witnessed death' moodlet was over, she kept running out to mourn Nathan, giving her another sad moodlet for a while.
That wasn't enough, though, so then she got sick.
And then she nearly had a stove fire. Aaron, meanwhile, is trying out the Gregorys' new ice cream maker.
My verdict? Kind of underwhelming, actually. The variety of flavors is nice and the final product does look pretty good, but it doesn't really do anything, you know? I know that some of the flavors have special properties and stuff, but for the most part, it's just food. I still like the pack for the hairs and clothes that came with it, and their new kitchen is mostly Cool Kitchen stuff, but the ice cream will probably not see a lot of use.
Nathan's cowplant finally grew up, several days too late for him to finish the Freelance Botanist aspiration. Unsurprisingly, Marjorie and the carnivorous plant seemingly have a bond right away.
Dayna has a bit more trouble with him. She's actually attempting to feed the cowplant, which we have named Roy, but Roy was giving her sass. It looks like he's about to slap her with the cake, doesn't it? Poor Dayna. She never wanted this garden and its myriad trials.
That's kind of similar to her relationship with being a mother, but at least she seems to get some enjoyment out of her kids. She was there to see Leo grow up.
Here's Leo's makeover. I forgot to take a pic of him in CAS like I did with the other kids, but you can see him pretty well here. He is squinting a bit, though. Anyway, just like the other three, Leo is adorable! Leo is outgoing, so he also got a positive trait. Maybe my luck is changing?
Leo's aspiration is Whiz Kid, as is Liam's second aspiration now that he's finished Social Butterfly, so they get in a few rounds of chess that they both need while Natalie supervises.
This craptastic picture is me realizing, "Hey, maybe I should take a picture to commemorate Aaron's first non-woohoo-related space mission? Oh shoot, he's almost disappeared. Eh, this will do." This doesn't help with his job yet because the Sim Space Agency is still making him work out until his shoulder muscles crush his ears (which is imminent), but I wanted to see what it was like. He skirted the edge of time or something and went through a debris field, but came back successfully with some upgrade parts to show for it. It didn't make a lot of sense, to be honest.
While Aaron is out exploring the cosmos and the kids are all in school, the ladies of the house have a little time to themselves. They spend it sitting nearby each other but not talking. Okay, whatever. You'd think these two would have more in common what with the being child-hating mothers, but they have the most marginal of relationships. Dayna is reading books for her new writing job. Since she's working on Bestselling Author as her second aspiration and we have the world's most expensive house now, it seemed like a good idea for her to get a job in writing.
This picture is to show that Dayna walked past the bookcase to deposit her finished book outside on the sun porch, since someone had already placed a book in the most coveted book-placing spot, which is on top of the half wall. Sigh. Would it kill any of you to just . . . you know . . . put your books away like normal adults?
And Aaron has returned from his mission, seemingly none the worse for wear. Good job, Aaron! We'll make an astronaut of you yet.
Marjorie's bar is pretty much full, so I had her say her goodbyes. The only one in the house she really likes is Aaron, so it was a short list of goodbyes. She's never been able to build relationship with the kids since they make her angry and she yells at them and insults them, and she and Dayna just never really hit it off. It's kind of sad if you think about it.
And the kids return home from Leo's first day of school. They're a colorful bunch, aren't they? I'm really happy with this crop of kids, even if some of them (I'm looking at you, twins) have questionable personalities so far.
While studying up on rocket science so he can make more upgrades, Aaron tells himself a story and pulls some awesome faces. I'm going to miss this single part of having insane heirs.
Then again, Laurel can pull some pretty awesome story faces too, even if she does require another person to tell her story to. I guess it'll be all right.
Aaron presides over a little homework party that evening. I think Luke was in the bathroom at the moment. Laurel gets help with her homework because she's the heiress, but everyone is sure to do theirs. Shortly after this, Laurel finally joined her older brothers in being an A student, and Leo got to a B, not too far behind his older siblings.
"Dad! Dad! You're not going to believe what Grandma just called me . . . to my face, even!"
"Now, sweetie, don't tattle on Grandma."
"Yeah, ya brat."
"Mom! Would it kill you to be nice to my children?"
"As soon as I finish this cake, I'm going to go traumatize some of your other kids."
"Thanks for the warning, I guess."
True to her warning, Marjorie has an insult queued up for Liam, but he's too busy playing another game of chess with Leo to pay attention. However, you don't just not pay attention to a sim like Marjorie, so she comes up with a better way to scar the children.
"Oh! Small sims! My time, it has come. I'm dying! Oh, the agony, the misery! Hey, are you two even listening to me? No, seriously, I'm dying here!!"
Trust Marjorie to go in front of the kids.
Aaron: "Mom?! Oh my god, I can't believe it!"
Please note that Liam is taking up Marjorie's mantle and insulting his brother while their grandmother is dying in front of them. Priorities.
Dayna: "Oh no! Is that Marjorie?"
Luke: "Grandma?! No!"
This was the most drawn-out death. One sim after another arrived and started sobbing, except for Laurel, who you can just barely see is on the monkey bars outside the window. Liam and Leo didn't seem to mind the spectacle at all, though. They just kept playing chess.
While Grim arrives to finally take Marjorie, Liam is once again aggravating his brother. Sigh. This family.
Laurel: "Hey, did I miss something?"
Squeamish Dayna is skeeved by witnessing death, apparently, so she got rather nauseous on top of being sad, and probably would have thrown up if I hadn't sent her to bed before that. Aaron and Luke, who were the only two blood relations to actually witness the death (Liam and Leo could apparently not care less about their grandmother dying at their feet), got the two-day sadness moodlet, while Dayna got the shorter one since she wasn't really close with Marjorie. Grim played Blicblock for a few hours without any interference from the family. It was a very strange death.
And so Marjorie joins Nathan and her parents out in the mausoleum.
Although I've been rather flippant about it in this post, Marjorie's death hit me kind of hard. The first sim you raise from a baby to death in a game always does, or at least does for me. Marjorie was really my introduction to The Sims 4, toilet storytelling and all, and now she's gone. She was a pain right up until the end, but I am rather sad about her. She did mostly competently raise three children and had four grandchildren, and she was a devoted wife. She topped her career and was a killer gamer, programmer, and cook. Goodbye, Marjorie.
"Ugh, I'm so sad about Mom dying. It sucks, you know?"
"I know, honey. Here, have this."
"What's this? A candy?"
"It's a treat . . . and a sign of things to come."
That's right! We've reached the end of the chapter, but it is October, so perhaps there are some 'spooky' surprises around the corner in the next chapter . . . You'll just have to wait and see, but I do already have the pictures laid out, so it shouldn't take too long. Thanks for reading, and check back next time to see the Gregorys work through their loss and come back strong, celebrating and living their lives. In the mean time, check in with me at SiMania and Boolprop. Bye!
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