The Gregory Legacy, Chapter 18

Hello and happy December from The Gregory Legacy! I have fully emerged from my Nanowrimo cocoon, and I bring with me an update for you. When we last checked in with the Gregorys, Laurel had grown up during another spooky party, and she and Kori had become an item. Aaron had just landed his rocketship in time to see Laurel and Kori become girlfriends. I wonder what he thinks about that? Let's find out . . .

Aaron: "Grumble, grumble. Stupid Kori. Stupid time passing. That's my little girl. Just going to go back to space for a while. Grumble, grumble. Why do they have to grow up?"

Oblivious to her dad's parenting crisis, Laurel exchanges promise rings with Kori. It's been another very wonderful day for her, and they end their visit on a high note. Meanwhile . . .

"Hey, simJ. Fancy seeing you here."
"Your dad invited me, said you wanted to talk to me. Not really that much of a coincidence."
"Yeah, I thought we should give things another shot. Y'know, hang out a bit."
"Is this another half-baked prank, Liam? Because I know I'm good, but that doesn't also mean I'm stupid."
"No, no. I honestly just want to hang out. Give me a chance!"

"And that one looks like a fluffy bunny!"
"Really? 'Cause I thought it looked more like a shark with a laser on its head."
"Huh."

Liam was rather obsessed with simJ, ever since they had interacted at the party. If you remember, he's evil and she's good, but they always have such strong happy moodlets when they're around each other that the conflict doesn't show. Liam had been rolling whims for simJ, so I decided to see where things might go.

"Hey, Laurel. Can I ask you about woohoo?"
"What makes you think I know anything about that?"
"Well, you're flirty-talking to your trees, so I'm guessing you know a little."
"Oh geez, okay, come here, Leo."

The boys wander around on autonomy a lot and Leo really did come ask Laurel about woohoo! Lol!

"So that's why . . . and how . . . and . . . wow."

His face was priceless. Now you know, Leo. Let's just hope Laurel gave him good info.

Out front, and our serial romantic Liam has started getting his flirt on with simJ. I have never seen him look this sincere. He really does like her, though they are very much star-crossed lovers, what with having opposite personalities, him being a serial romantic, and her being my sister's simself.

Still, for the time being, things are going great. They started a date, but simJ ran out back to mourn Jaron for reasons unknown, so they had their first kiss in the mausoleum. Romantic.

Liam asks simJ to be his girlfriend, and once again all traces of the evil boy seem to be gone. He's smitten. SimJ agrees, fulfilling a big part of the first step of Liam's aspiration. They also had a gold medal date, despite most of it taking place in front of his ancestors' urns. I just want to point out that I did ask my sister for her permission before setting up her simself. She finds this just as amusing as I do.

"I can't go back to my urn because your brother is making out in front of it."
"What can I say, Grandpa? We're teenagers."
"Ugh, but really, in the mausoleum?"
"Okay, yeah, that's weird. That one's on Liam and simJ."

This is the first time I've seen these two haunt at the same time! They completely ignored each other, however. In this picture, they're actually just passing by each other and I happened to pause at a lucky moment. Marjorie's off to game some more, and work off the embarrassment of hearing her grandson's pickup lines.

We've been seeing a lot of ghosts lately, however. On another night, Natalie took a long snooze in the tub.

Back to the living. Luke and Laurel are still best friends, and they spend most of their time together sharing funny videos.

We're still really hurting for money. The bills on the house are around $14,000, and I don't think Aaron and Dayna make that much in that time period in their jobs. Dayna has been painting, but since they're just hanging around waiting to grow up, I thought the boys could contribute to the bill fund. Of course, they're total newbies at painting, so they start out with these pitiful watercolors.

There's only three easels and Dayna gets the third one, so insane Luke writes some truly bizarre books to bring in a little royalty money. I remember from Corinne that royalties go with the sim that wrote them, so we'll lose Luke's daily contribution when he grows up, but for now, every bit helps.

While her brothers are put to work, Laurel is working on skilling. She's actually seeing some improvement in her wellness skill, so her yoga is getting a lot better!

She's also been practicing piano and guitar and writing jokes. I want her to be a musician, but I thought I remembered that some of the beginning levels require comedy and music skill, so I got her all of them to be prepared.

"Hi, Mrs. Gregory!"
"Oh, hi, Kori! You can call me Dayna, you know."
"Okay, great. Is Laurel around?"
"Oh, she's in her garden."

Kori visits often and we always let her in, but Laurel is frequently too busy to socialize these days.

How's Aaron taking this relationship being out in the open? Oh, well. He's handling it. Definitely.

"No more of my kids will be dating anybody! This is the worst!"

Liam: "I'm totally dating somebody! This is the best!"

Now that they're not kids, Dayna enjoys spending time with her boys. Laurel is off skilling or gardening, of course.

Aaron finally reached level 10 rocket science skill and was able to install a wormhole generator, which enables a visit to Sixam. He visited and collected a bunch of stuff, including new plants for Laurel, but there's something a little off about the aliens he encountered.

"Hey, Dad. How was interstellar space travel?"
"Oh, fine . . . but what the heck are you doing up? It's like 3 in the morning."
"While we were all 'caring for ourselves' we all napped during the day and did everything else at night, so no one is tired now but we'll all crash at about 6 p.m., maybe 7 if we're lucky."
"Oh, well as long as you're taking good care of yourselves."

"Hi Liam!"
"Do I know you?"
"I'm Olivia. I'm that girl you met and the controller wanted you to date, but you could never call me on the phone, and now I'm visiting your house."
"Oh, well I don't know if you've heard, but I'm taken now . . . by a simself, even."
"Don't rule her out, son!"
"Butt out, Mom. SimJ and I are forever!"
"Eesh. Maybe visiting was a bad idea. I'm going to go back to blocking your number, I think."

My sims are starting to remember that they have a pool! They still won't autonomously swim, but they do roll up whims for it, so Luke here got to take a few laps. This is where I installed the December patch. I had to take out a lot of mods, one of them being the Same-Sex Pregnancy that I'll need for Kori and Laurel so I'm really hoping it'll get fixed soon. Everything else seemed to be okay once I figured out which mods I could still play with.

However, the patch apparently made Aaron decide that it was Casual Friday on Sixam. Hope the atmosphere is breathable, buddy!

Of course, Aaron wanted to make a good impression on the aliens, so he changed into his Sexy Suit that he wore to his wedding. I'm sure they appreciate it. Anyway, the reason I sent him to Sixam right away again was twofold: there are a lot of collectibles that sell for good money there, and I was trying to figure out a bug. All of the aliens on Sixam in my game have this same medium-peachy skintone instead of alien skintones. This happened before and after the patch, with and without mods. I'm at a loss and I can't really find anyone with a similar problem. If you know anything, please let me know! I want to marry one in someday, but not if they have a boring/broken skintone!

"See, you've even got the makeup! You would be so much cooler if you were also green or blue or something."
"And you'd be cooler if you weren't wearing a reflective suit."
"Geez, you don't have to be mean. It was just an observation."
"Oh, I thought we were trading insults. Is that not a custom on your planet?"

Dayna likes Aaron's suit, though. Also, he's able to give her a 'suave' kiss because he's confident from finding out that aliens that aren't disguised and are wandering around an alien planet . . . are aliens. Yeah, great observation skills there, Aaron.

And now December is in full swing and it's time for ugly sweaters and ridiculous hats! I sent Aaron to go collect some more stuff, and he got to wear his Christmas outfit to Sixam. I'm sure that helped his relationships with the aliens. Come to think of it, though, they didn't really want to talk to him this time. I can't imagine why.

Well, you lot look cheery. And Laurel - what happened to your sweater, missy?
"Took it off as soon as you weren't looking. And yes, I'm tense, Liam and Luke are both embarrassed, and Leo is angry."
That's . . . a lot of angst in one high school.
"Well, you did send us to school in these outfits, so . . ."

I sent them to school in the outfits because I wanted to take a family photo for Christmas when everyone was home! The real final photo (which is even centered) is at the end of the post, but I thought I'd show off the outfits. Luke is not sane enough to wear pants in December. We're pretending it's cold outside even though we don't have weather yet. Dayna is very tense from her job and a low fun bar, so she made ticked-off faces the whole time I was corralling these silly sims to stand roughly in formation. Make sure to look for her surly face in the family photo at the end! Wouldn't be a holiday family photo without at least one relative spoiling the perfection.

Anyway, after the picture I got rid of their holiday outfits, which they kept changing out of anyway, even though I made them their Everyday 1 outfits. It's like they knew it was degrading somehow. This picture is to show Dayna publishing another book. I think she just has to publish a few more to finish her aspiration step!

Here's Aaron, disgruntled from his hot-headed trait again. I like to think it's actually because simJ and Liam are flirting in the background. However, it is Liam's birthday, so I hope Aaron will at least give him a pass today!

Yes, Luke baked a cake for his and Liam's birthday, but Liam went first. Ah, the twins are finally becoming young adults and I can move them out soon. Liam steps up to the cake first. Most of his family manages to celebrate the birthday, though Laurel looks a little lost.

Dammit, Luke! Put that slice back!
Luke: "If there's no cake, I don't have to grow up. Now Liam's older than me!"
Liam: "My hand hurts for some reason. So weird."

After the baking of another cake (grumble) Luke grew up to be the same age as his twin. Again, there were some major problems with everyone celebrating on time, so the picture kind of sucks.

"Okay, simJ. It's your turn to grow up and then you and I can live in blissful happiness forever in the spares' house!"
"Ooh. Yeah. How to break this to you? I'm a simself and an immortal, eternal teenager. It's just not going to happen. We're no longer boyfriend and girlfriend."
"You're breaking up with me?"
"Already happened thanks to the age difference. Sorry, Liam."
"I can't believe it! You're breaking my heart, and you didn't even warn me! I thought I was supposed to be the evil one."
"Ouch, Liam. Can't you just . . . take it gracefully?"
"Oh, is that an option? Okay, well, have fun being a teenager forever, I guess."
"Yeah, best wishes in the House for Wayward Spares II."

Liam and Luke say their goodbyes to Laurel and the others before heading off. It really is best that Liam and simJ broke it off, because I wasn't going to marry her off to an evil serial romantic, even if it was fun to watch them date. Their romance was short-lived but fun. Sometimes, especially when you're young, those are the best kind.

Here's one last shot of the first kids of generation four while they still lived in the house. They're very handsome. I'm looking forward to seeing Laurel's kids since she'll grow up in a few days too - that is, as soon as the mod is fixed. >:(

And that brings us to the end of the chapter! I plan on playing a bit more with the new Christmas stuff, but knowing me, I probably won't have another chapter up before actual Christmas, so here. Whatever you celebrate, have a lovely end of the month and a happy New Year.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check in at SiMania or Boolprop. Check back soon, with the Gregory legacy (hopefully) continuing on into the halfway generation before too long!