The Gregory Legacy, Chapter 33

Hello, dear readers! Sorry for the long break between chapters, but October was a really crazy month for me. Anyway, welcome to the first of Celeste's chapters as our cover model. There's a lot going on with the family so it may seem like Celeste doesn't get much screen time at first, but I promise that changes towards the end. Last chapter, we had abductions, a birth, birthdays, attempted seduction from beyond the grave, the usual science hijinks, and of course, parties. Whew! There was also that House Tour in a separate post, so if you missed that and you're interested, hit the Chapter List tab. Now, let's check in on Faye at work to start off with . . .

Faye: "Kody, as my dear friend, I hope you appreciate what I've done for you, allowing you to be part of my scientific 'progress.' You're welcome."

Faye: "Octavia, I don't even like you so I'm just enjoying this!"

Faye: "HA! You're frozen, Marianne, and it's all thanks to me. What do you think of that, you blue-haired jerk?"

simRoxy: "Faye, did you freeze Marianne again?"
Faye: "What? No . . ."
simRoxy: "You just said you froze her."
Faye: "Did I? Well, that must have been a misunderstanding."
simRoxy: "She's standing next to you, frozen."
Faye: "Weird, right?"
simRoxy: "I also saw you do it and we lost friend points because apparently I'm judging you for it."
Faye: "Oh. Well, in that case, don't go in the other room. Kody and Octavia are . . . um . . . busy."

Looks like Faye's having another productive day at work. She uses her sim ray more than anything else, and when the directive to freeze three sims comes up, she's always delighted to comply.

After all that mischief, Faye's supposedly good husband Andres is only too happy to welcome her home. Whatever happened to teaching Faye to love, Andres?

Andres: "Well, she does feel love in her familial relationships, and there's only so far you can take some endeavors. I believe my dear Faye may have an incurable mean streak that I am unable to affect."

Hmm, he's got that right. Mean since a kid, evil since reaching adulthood. I guess we can only expect so much improvement. I'll take what we've got, though.

Speaking of evil, Ava's busy tearing up the dollhouse at the same time that her parents are sucking face out on the driveway. These poor dollhouses never have a chance in this household.

Everyone's all dolled up as Faye and Laurel (painfully, it would appear) work together to help the younger two with their homework. What's the occasion? Kori did finish all of her parties for her aspiration, but Andres needs to cook a couple excellent dishes during an event, so Kori threw a dinner party.

It included all the regular, upstanding crowd: various aliens, Kellen in his stupid clown hat, Kori's other two evil daughters, her evil son (not pictured), and various and sundry other miscreants. Kori loves gathering the gang even though she doesn't need to for her aspiration anymore.

The girls seem to be enjoying dressing up for the party. I had to take a picture because they're so stinkin' cute.

After a dinner party full of Andres' great food, lots of various insults and yelling, and an alien mind-reading that I missed capturing, the party wound down with Andres having reached another tier of Master Chef, and another gold medal party for the Gregorys. They've gotten gold medals in everything but a black and white party, which we've never attempted, and the weenie roast, which we got a silver medal for back when Faye's generation were all kids. I decided I'm going to try to get Kori to have thrown a gold medal variant of every party while she's still alive.

After all the revelers have gone to bed, our ghosts are happy to clean up the leftovers - especially Nathan, who was a glutton in life.

Poor Isaac got awakened by the monster under the bed, and even worse, I had it on fast speed so I didn't get a chance to see it! The kids are all teens or above now in my game, and so far this has been the only appearance of the monster (those lights seem to work), so I've never seen it in my game. Isaac got up a few hours earlier than everyone else, but he had a full energy bar already, so he just used the time to play chess.

Celeste, however, apparently had a fantastic night of sleep, judging by her face while she makes the bed. She's just so cheery all the time. I love it. I'm so excited to have her as heiress but terrified of what traits she'll get as she ages. You just know with my luck what kinds of traits I'm expecting.

Faye: "Marianne, would you help me out with an experiment?"
Marianne: "Do I look stupid? You just froze me yesterday."
Faye: "And I'm probably very sorry for that. But just try this serum. It'll be fine."
Marianne: "Well . . . how do I know it's not tainted? It says 'untested.'"
Faye: "When have I ever given someone a tainted serum?"
Marianne: "Um, last Wednesday, the Monday before that, and both Thursdays prior to that."
Faye: "Okay, okay, maybe that's true. Wouldn't that mean I've been practicing a ton and must be really good at it by now?"
Marianne: "Hmm. Well, what does it do?"
Faye: "C'mon, Marianne. It's safe. Just drink it!"

Octavia: "Do you want to talk about it?"
Marianne: "No, I just want to eat my sandwich in sullen silence."

After that exciting day of ghost goo serum testing, it's time for a black and white party! I just let the game dress everyone. It did a not-completely-terrible job, but for some reason gave black caps to all three of the children, which is not as formal-looking as I'd hoped for. Bryson, generation 3 Tessa's husband, is the bartender for the event, but he went out back to the bar on the patio, so we won't be seeing him again at this party. Dignified black and white partygoers don't go outside for libations! Heavens, no.

We set up a very fancy affair in the party room/hall. Faye mixed some zebra fizzes with her absolute lack of mixology skill, but it still counted. The kids listened to Laurel playing the piano expertly, but for some reason that did not count. I tried several different ways to get three sims to listen to piano at once, but it would never register, so it's a good thing Kori gets a boost to her party scores from her Party Animal reward trait.

simRoxy: "Hey, I heard you gave Marianne ghost goo at work today. Think she'll be okay?"
Faye: "Yeah, she didn't even pass out. I didn't check, but that means it wasn't tainted, right?"
simRoxy: "I guess. Is that the reason for the party? You finally made an untainted serum?"
Faye: "Hardy har har. No. My eldest daughter is growing into a teen, I'll have you know."
simRoxy: "Cool. I'm going to steal food from your fridge and eat it in here, by myself, instead of attending the party."
Faye: "Sounds good."

Everyone else, however, gathered around to see Ava blow out the candles on her black and white cake. I have to say, this is the classiest birthday party we've thrown yet.

Ava seems to have missed the party theme memo on her teen outfit. We had met all the goals except that stupid piano one, but it was still a gold medal party thanks to Kori's boost. One party down, one to go!

Here's Ava's makeover. She got a really interesting eye and lid shape from her father, but otherwise she looks quite a bit like her mother in features. Her hair and skin color come straight from Andres, of course, but those are Kori's eyes, which apparently skipped a generation somehow. On top of being evil, Ava is now also neat, and she desires to follow in her father's footsteps and also be a Master Chef. I'll see how much of that I can get done before we kick her out when she's an adult. My friend Haleigh (meadowthayer) suggested I should maybe try different eyebrows for Ava because it gave her RBF, but that's totally what I was going for. I love her expression. She continued the yellow and black theme throughout her outfits. You'll get to see her full everyday outfit in a later picture. She's still a bit prim (which fits with her new neat trait!), but with a dark undertone.

Laurel's warning about the end of her life came up, so she had her youth potion while Ava began attempting her high school homework.

Ava: "Thanks for offering your help, Dad, but I just finished. What would have been more helpful is if you could get my grandmothers to stop flirting while I'm studying."
Kori: "And so I suggest we cap off this epic flirt session with a trip downstairs."
Laurel: "And why's that? Tell me you're not sleepy already . . ."
Kori: "No, no. I have some other ideas for what we could be doing."
Laurel: "Like woohoo?"
Kori: "Uh, yeah, that's what I was getting at, but yeah, just spell it out. Let's go!"
Laurel: "Woohoo!"
Andres: "Case in point, I suppose?"
Ava: "Oh yeah."
Andres: "At least we know they enjoy each other's company, right?"
Ava: "I guess."

While still in her black and white attire, Faye weeded the counter, because this glitch is still quite active in my game.

After a quick change and a moodlet solver, she spent most of the rest of the night reading a novel to get breakthroughs for a promotion. This, of course, necessitated an evil laugh.

Celeste: "Good morning, Mom! Wow, I've never seen you read or like, think before."
Faye: "Geez, Celeste. Of course I think. I'm a scientist. What do you think I do all day?"
Celeste: "Harass your coworkers and make tainted serums?"
Faye: "Oh, I guess you do know what I do all day."

Speaking of which . . .

New Redhead: "Hi! I'm the replacement for the coworker you killed yesterday."
Faye: "Now wait just a second! I'm pretty sure I would remember something like that, and I don't recall . . . oh, wait."

Ha ha, damn! I guess that serum really was tainted, and quite badly at that. I had assumed that all tainted serums just made you pass out, but it looks like some of them have more . . . severe consequences. When Marianne failed to show up to work and the new redhead replaced her, I went looking for her, and sure enough, she's a real, honest-to-goodness ghost now. Whoops! On the bright side, this is entirely in character for Faye.

Kori: "So ladies, I caused unspeakable [redacted] around the world to be wrought in my name as the [redacted] in order to [redacted]. What did you get up to?"
Ava: "I pantsed my teacher and blew up half the chem lab."
Faye: "I found out I killed someone by accident."
Kori and Ava: "Ooooh!"
Faye: "Mom, are you crying?"
Kori: "No, no. It's just . . . I'm just . . . so proud of the three of us. Evil forever!"

I caught Isaac doing . . . some kind of trick, but with that splash and location, I'm not sure I want to know what it is.

Before the evening's activities, Faye gets a hug from her heiress. They may not see evil eye-to-eye the way Faye and Ava do, but these two are still quite close and Faye is a surprisingly good mom.

Then it's time for a (hopefully gold medal) weenie roast! Yay!
Ava: "I am really unimpressed with this weenie."

Once the guests showed up, we had a fun little weenie roast, and it benefitted from Kori's reward trait boost. Kori made grilled chicken on the grill, and the kids ate hotdogs. Laurel even pulled out her old camp guitar for a while. A good time was had by all.

So congrats, Kori! You've thrown at least one (and often many more) gold medal version of each party! This definitely feels like an accomplishment despite it netting no material benefit in the game, and definitely no material benefit in real life.

Laurel: "Hey, Dad. Remember our first weenie roast when we hired you as the grillmaster and you showed up out in Granite Falls but refused to grill and left early for work?"
Aaron: "Yeah, good times, right?"
Laurel: "They sure were."

Andres: "Faye, my dear, with our children becoming increasingly active and possessing increasingly complex personalities, not to mention the goings-on of your parents, it seems like there is hardly any time for us to have romantic conversations."
Faye: "You are so right, which is why I'm going to bed."
Andres: "Well, dream of me, I suppose. But . . . not that one dream?"
Faye: "No promises."

Andres needed mixology skill for a promotion, so he stayed up all night mixing cocktails until his girls came out to have their breakfast at the bar. Seems perfectly healthy.

Faye: "Hi, redheaded-coworker-whose-name-I-haven't-memorized-yet. I feel like we might have gotten off on the wrong foot yesterday. As the ranking scientist here, I just wanted to let you know we're happy to have you on the team, I don't regularly kill coworkers, and in fact, I treat my coworkers very well."
New Redhead: "Didn't you just force Octavia to change into her pajamas at 10:15 in the morning so she'll have to be humiliated by working that way all day?"
Faye: "Maybe."

Faye: "Kids . . .?"
Isaac: "Ava dared me."
Faye: "Oh, well, that's fine then. Celeste, help him set that later, won't you?"

Congratulations again to Kori, who is now the Supreme Villain! She's now topped the Secret Agent - Villain career.

Ava: "I am really unimpressed by these fish tacos."

Hey, you cooked them. Gotta start somewhere!

Celeste has completed Artistic Prodigy, her second aspiration. I have some plans for her when I get City Living that I hope I can fulfill. I wanted her to try Social Butterfly next but I wasn't really committed to it.

Ava: "Sis, you've got such a bright future ahead of you. Just . . . see if you can't pick up that evil trait or something equally aggravating, will you?"
Celeste: "We'll see. And you've got a bright future too: living in a spare house for all eternity."
Ava: "Yeah, sounds pretty nice. From that base of operations, I can wreak a lot of havoc, and also keep the place quite tidy."
Celeste: "It's good to have goals in life."

Speaking of tidying up, The Gregory Helpers are meeting yet again because our ghosts had a productive night.

Isaac went out of his way to hug Judah, arguably the most questionable member of The Gregory Helpers. Do I sense a budding friendship here or is it just two weird dudes being weird?

As Celeste's childhood winds down, I let her battle Voidcritters with Isaac one last time, and he destroyed her. Not very nice, but very younger-brother-like.

Celeste then went to the park with her mother late at night to see if she can't scare up some possible future dating prospects. She rounded up a couple of teen boys out not-at-all suspiciously late at night, and I let her direct her conversation with them for a little bit. She decided to tell a dramatic story, which the redhead appears to find alarming and the brunet appears to find boring. Good start, Celeste. They soon wandered off.

Faye spent most of her time at the park fishing because, strangely enough, we have not found the merely-uncommon koi yet, but she did take a break to eat hamburgers with the park hobo while Celeste regales Kody, Cassandra Goth, and some other teen boy (her real target) with another dramatic story. She seems to favor those, which really amuses me. Maybe I'll have to get her the trait.

Amazingly, redhead came back for more weird conversations with a grade-schooler late at night in the park. Only in the world of sims is that considered promising.

This just seems like a really excellent way to get your lines tangled, but I don't even have waders, do what do I know? Faye still failed to find a koi, and even once she does, she still needs one other fish besides. This aspiration has been a lot more difficult than I anticipated when I set it for her in her teen years.

Spooooooooky party!! It's Celeste's birthday. She's the bear. I wanted Laurel to be some kind of opposite of Kori, but there's nothing like angels or anything, so instead she's a superhero. Ava is a boss gladiator in black and gold, and the other three have availed themselves of the Day of the Dead content.

A bunch of guests showed up, but none of them could be bothered to celebrate the birthday girl. In fact, Laurel missed being in this picture too because she kept wandering off to try to go to bed, despite it being the middle of the afternoon. Everyone else who's important was present, so happy birthday to our youngest heiress!

Andres: "Ava, I want to empathize with you!"
Ava : "Whoa! Geez, Dad, you could have just asked how I'm feeling!"
Kori: "Confetti!"
Isaac: "OH MY GOD, YES, CONFETTI!"
Faye: "I'm gonna go check on what's in the fridge. Cake is for losers."
Laurel: "Ha! I'm not even in the picture because I went to bed."
Celeste: "Well, happy birthday to me."

Once she got a costume in her favorite color, Celeste looked a bit more cheery. We'll take a closer look at her after the party, but I'm liking what I see so far!

Apparently the real party was out back, since that was where a good portion of the guests concentrated to dance to a stereo. Others were monopolizing the video games. Sigh. Sims.

Ava and Isaac were sacrificed to carve the pumpkins for the party. They're doing green ones since it is Celeste's birthday, after all.

Celeste: "My grandmas are so cute together. I hope I'm that happy someday. I just want to find someone to love."

Oh yeah, that reminds me: Celeste's aspiration is Soulmate, which I haven't done before but sounds fun and not too hard in a legacy. Her new trait is creative. I can't believe she has two positive traits, but it would have been nice if she had been creative when she was working on Artistic Prodigy. Oh well. Water under the bridge.

While the party winds down, Celeste gets a jump on her homework with help from her mother, right in the middle of the seating area.

After all their flirting on the couches, Death and Super Llama meet upstairs for a clandestine rendezvous. Let's just leave them be for now.

Moving on, here's Celeste. I am just in love with her. I think she's so cute and quirky, and it's fun to play with makeup on the blue skin. I couldn't find light or bright green glasses that suited her. According to the swatch, these are a forest-y dark green, but they just look black to me. She's mostly inherited her mother's facial structure, but she got Andres' fairly prominent nose. From the front it looks just fine, and it's not that bad from the side either, but it's definitely different from the noses the Gregorys have been rocking before. Anyway, like I said, I think she's adorable. She also got Kori's actual eye color rather than the green eyes Faye has.

Her clothes were super fun to pick too. The shorts are a slight deviation from her green scheme, but they look kind of yellow-green to me, and they go well with her slightly romantic, slightly playful aesthetic.

Literally as soon as the party was over, redhead from the park invited Celeste out to dinner. I guess he really does want to be in this legacy. They took a picture right away, and I have to say, they do look cute together. If he's going to try this hard to be in the legacy, I suppose I could give him a name. Everyone, meet Rafael Rivers. Amusingly, I tried some short hairs on Celeste and I was actually thisclose to picking the one that Rafael has (except in black), so it's a good thing I didn't or they'd be too matchy-matchy.

Oh my goodness, Jamal is out to dinner again, this time with this shifty-looking fellow instead of his wife. This guy is always out when we go to the bistro. He really likes dining out, I guess.

Celeste and Rafael took their seats and a few tentative flirts were tried out. They landed successfully, and a strong flirty-dinner moodlet prevailed, which definitely helped things along.

What did not help was the waiter tossing their dinner in a really gigantic heap on the ground and then standing in it. Rafael was a bit peeved and Celeste kept an eye on that, because you can tell a lot about a person from how they treat waitstaff. He got over his huffiness pretty quickly, though, so it seemed okay after all.

Once dinner version 2.0 was served (a very teenaged meal of pizza and rootbeer floats), they got back to their flirting. Things were going really, really well and these two were just hitting it off like crazy. A boyfriend would be advantageous for Celeste's aspiration - it is in the first tier, after all - so I let them court with abandon.

Soon they were sharing their first kiss.

Celeste: "Rafael, I know we met like yesterday when I was still a kid and just started hanging out today, but I really like you."
Rafael: "I like you too, Celeste. You're just fun to be with, and you make me feel like less of a dork being around someone as cool as you."
Celeste: "Aw, no, if anyone's a dork, it's me. You're awesome. In fact, would you be my boyfriend?"
Rafael: "Yes!"

Rafael: "Yay, girlfriend!"
Celeste: "Yay, boyfriend!"

Okay, it's official: you're both dorks.

So here's a better look at the probable husband of generation six. If all goes according to plan, he'll help Celeste complete her Soulmate aspiration. We can tell now that he loves the outdoors and is a bro, but his final trait and his aspiration are a mystery for now.

Getting back late from dinner, Celeste was conscripted to help her mother, still in costume, with the garden. Every generation needs a gardener to take care of this ridiculous thing.

And she weeded the mailbox. Of course.

As morning dawned, the very-uncomfortable mother and daughter shared moodlet solvers on the bench to prepare for their big days. This should be the day that Faye gets her second-to-last promotion, and of course it will be Celeste's first day of high school.

First, though, Faye works on the overgrown bonsai a little and maxes gardening.

Andres: "Ah, this appears to be a delicious and nourishing meal that I have prepared. I shall enjoy it in solitude -- wait! Who are you?"
Mail lady: "Oh, I'm just delivering your mail. I was curious so I steamed open your letter in your bathroom then brazenly walked through your house. Your bills are now over $20,000, by the way. How scandalous!"
Andres: "I am not sure that falls within the ethics of your profession."

Ridiculous bills aside, we have reached the end of another chapter. Thanks so much for reading, and be sure to check back next time as Faye heads towards the top of the science career, the kids continue to grow, and Celeste and Rafael begin what could be a lifetime of love together. Before then, stop by SiMania or Boolprop to comment or chat. The next update could be a little late because November is Nanowrimo and I'm participating as always, but I've played ahead really far so updates are coming. Bye!