Hey there! For once, I actually have mostly fairly recent gameplay to share. The very beginning is old, but the rest I've played recently. The reason? Haleigh (MeadowThayer) is playing her butt off in quarantine and reading all her stories is putting me in a sims frame of mind. :)
I wish I could say I did something fun for our 50th chapter of this legacy, but I did absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Still, congrats to me for making it this far and to you for sticking with me through all of the long pauses and unintentional hiatuses. We're going to see this legacy through! And on that note, objectively we don't have super long as the last of the gen. 8 spawn became kids at the end of the last chapter and eldest Simon (above) is the heir. However, we know my pace of writing and playing. Oh, we know... Anyway! Things were kind of crazy with the addition of Raf's alien daughter Stella bringing us up to 11, so let's check in and see what's up at Gregory Manor...
Simon seems shocked that all his siblings were so excited to come with him to the park, but to be fair, Gregorys don't get out much and three of them are just out of the nursery pretty much. As for me? I'm sad. Why?
1) I left the walls down in the picture and it's a tragedy and
2) Alison is the only one wearing a completely original outfit. Jason and Rowan have recolors of the same shorts, Simon and Logan have the same shirt, and Rowan and Logan have the same sandals. This is what happens when you dress your excessive number of kiddos months apart and don't remember what anyone has for hot weather wear.
As a refresher, Alison is on the left, then Jason, Simon, Rowan, and Logan. If you remember, Alison, Jason, and Logan are Eleanor's youngest, triplets with Owen, her long-term boyfriend. Heir Simon is the kid of scoundrel and deadbeat dad Kaiden, who recently had his ass handed to him by Eleanor. And Rowan is the middle child from Orlando, Eleanor's Selvadoradan fling whom Rowan looks absolutely nothing like. Check the family tree if you need to straighten all that out and actually care (although there is an additional spoiler there for this chapter, so maybe check afterwards). Now, moving on!
The reason they're at the park is for Simon to meet a bunch of people and finish his Social Butterfly aspiration. At this point, I wanted to get an aspiration done for each of the kids and definitely all four for Simon since he's the heir. I promise you absolutely none of that happens as I quickly got overwhelmed managing this household, and that was some of the reason I took so long a break. Eleven sims is HARD.
While Simon accosts strangers with his unwanted friendliness, the rest of the kids are on free will because I really did bring them just so they could leave the house once before I kick them out on their YA birthdays, as is tradition. I'm only kind of joking. The triplets played space together, while Rowan did his level best to cover the whole playground in messes, which is really not like him so I'm not sure where that urge came from.
Unfortunately for Rowan's newfound anarchy, his brothers are very conscientious and spend the rest of the park visit following him around, mops in hand. Alison does not give the tiniest bit of interest to any of this.
We spotted Taylor out for a run, looking like a million bucks, or at least the color (har har). Simon had just finished his aspiration (yay!) and the kids were exhausted and straggling off the lot, or I would have sent him over to say hi.
Back home, I was a bit more on the ball with decorating the triplets' room. They're sleeping three to the room that usually holds twins or just the heir. I didn't bother giving them individual color themes to their clothes and stuff, but most of it is a blue/green/turquoise kind of scheme. Also in this room is the first of many, many, MANY piles of clothes that slob Alison leaves all over.
With the kids tucked in bed, Eleanor is free to age up her half-sister, Stella. Good technique there, Eleanor.
Stella is very cute! For all the crap I give him, Rafael does have good genetics (physical, not mental obviously) and the Pollination Technician must be pretty too. Stella is fussy, which is just an absolutely fantastic addition to this over-full house.
I kid you not, I came straight out of CAS to this happening. Oh, Raf. Well, the cap is still at 12 for...reasons? Idk. But we wouldn't be that unlucky back to back, right?
In other news of bad decision-making, maybe you guys wouldn't be so embarrassed if you were doing this in your own bed instead of Kenzie's.
Kenzie: "Hey, guys. Quick question: what the hell?"
Faye: "Who is this rude redhead? Is she another one of our descendants?"
Andres: "I do not believe so, but honestly it's hard to recollect the identities and relations of most of the residents of this domicile."
Much like it's hard to remember the way to your own bed that you've been sleeping in for billions of years, I suppose.
Well, Rafael is back. By himself, hopefully. I wish you could take pregnancy tests with abducted males. By the second abduction, they certainly have some idea if the first one left them pregnant. Also, I feel like male pregnancy from abduction is frequent enough in this universe that there would be some common knowledge of the risks? We need like a Planned Alien Parenthood giving out brochures.
So, this juxtaposition shows you how far into Simon's life his first ever contact with his father was.
Simon: "I deleted the text."
Good lad. Also, Simon is now working on Artistic Prodigy. I don't have the least idea what career he's going to go into, so I just picked an easy next aspiration for him.
Unlike Kaiden, Owen is a very involved father. I'm sure part of that is because he's a keyholder, but he always seems to make a beeline for the kids when he does come over instead of playing video games or something equally stupid. Here he is distracting Logan from doing his homework, but at least it's positive contact.
Eleanor, the triplets' other parent, is back up to her totem shenanigans again because I'm bored with her. She completed Serial Romantic and Archaeology Scholar, maxed several skills, had five children with three fathers and the kids can now pretty much raise themselves, and she's almost exhausted her supply of dirt-shaped clumps and artifacts and she even blazes through the ones she gets from the museum pretty quickly. Her and Owen have a great relationship but it'll never go any further. I kinda wanted to send her back to Selvadorada with her kids, but now I feel like it'd be rude if we went without Stella, so I'm waiting for her to age into a child. Otherwise, what to do with Eleanor? Have her recklessly cast random curses and blessings on her family members and the ghosts, I guess. *shrug*
Rafael: "You know, Kenzie, I miss being pregnant."
Kenzie: "And I miss you not talking to me."
Well, only one of them got their wish. UGH.
Need I remind you all that Stella, while doubtlessly cute, is just barely a toddler, is younger than all of her niblings, and is completely superfluous to the legacy continuing? Ah, yes, what we definitely need is a sequel. *headdesk*
Celeste: "Eleanor, please!"
Eleanor: "What? I'm just singing for whatever random holiday today is. What's the problem with a little festive spirit?"
Kenzie: "It's not that, El. You're just crashing White Shirt Club. I mean, even the pudding faces on TV managed to come in the dress code."
Rafael: "How embarrassing for you."
Andres: "Sir, I imagine that you do not have metaphorical space to discuss being an embarrassment."
Still, Stella is very cute. This is just the absolute worst generation and the worst possible time in it for us to have two extra kids in the family tree.
Raf seems to be trying to assure that his second child is up to Stella's quality by continuing to drink heavily through his pregnancies.
Rafael: "I do what I can."
Which isn't much, I note.
For the second time in her young life, Stella gets to interact with Raf, but she had to ask for this time herself. She wanted him to read a book.
Stella: "I hope he do all the voices!"
Rafael: "Ooh, is this a bad time to admit I can't read?"
Stella: "Dude."
Haha, she really did get mad and walked away. Stella is a pretty discerning judge of value.
She loves Eleanor though. Unsurprising, since that's who's doing most of her care. Here her older half-sister is giving her some attention while Owen looks on approvingly.
Summer is really heating up so on a day when everyone came home from school with distinctly orange or red fun bars, I sent them all for a swim.
Then it's homework time for these three by the pool.
Hey! It's our first Nova sighting! Quick, Eleanor, scoop her up and pose for a cute pic for me!
This wrist-breaking nightmare was not really what I had in mind...
That's better. You see that Nova came back neutral but interacting with Eleanor made her happy. Awwwww. It's kind of frustrating that you can better tell what's going on with your pets when they're ghosts since even their emotions are a mystery when they're alive.
Rowan: "Grandpa! I need some advice..."
Rafael: "Maybe if I shut my eyes, he'll go away."
I don't know why they insist on asking the person with the least parenting skill, lower even than Kenzie who technically doesn't do any of the parenting!
Eleanor: "Dad, I'd really appreciate it if you could refrain from ignoring my children. If they need something you can't provide, at least send them my way. Do you think you could do that for me?"
Rafael: "Maybe if I shut my eyes, I can just enjoy my drink in peace..."
The kids are having more summer fun by having a huge water balloon fight, and let me tell you, this interaction is SO disappointing. The high point of the "fight" - if you want to call an activity that involves 95% standing around neutrally that - was Rowan getting absolutely taken out by Logan, which Alison found hilarious.
Then again, maybe my kids are just not very athletic. Nice form, Jason.
One of my custom holidays, Last Splash Pool Party, has come up. When I was in junior high, a friendly acquaintance of mine had a pool party on the last day of class all three years and it was always a high point for the end of the school year to be invited. Plus I feel like summer is kind of light on holidays. This one involves swimming, grilling, inviting guests, and something else that I don't remember. Eleanor gets started on the grilling since Andres is at work currently. Those steaks look so cartoony.
Everyone is enjoying the pool party, even if none of our guests ever actually managed to find the backyard. Alison is about to decapitate two of her brothers with her cannonball, so that's fun.
When Stella gets up from her nap, even she gets to have some water fun.
Owen wasn't a guest because he was already at the house when we threw the party. He didn't bother to participate in any traditions, but he did make sure to give Jason a hug! What a sweetie.
After a few moodlet-solver-assisted nights, Simon has completed Artistic Prodigy. I didn't even bother giving him a new one because he's growing up the next day and I am just burnt out on these kids right now.
I forgot who this was abducting, but at least no one got pregnant this time.
Speaking of our stupidly fertile Rafael, he's interacting with Stella again. And again, it's at her doing. She followed him down here while playing SimShape and tries to chat. He wasn't terribly interested.
I signed Simon up for scouts to try to get the skill boost and Stella finds a more receptive audience in her nephew while he does his homework. She's pretty chatty.
Finally the time has come, and Raf is once again assisted by our subject matter expert for abduction births. This is a fun picture, right? Well, we can't take it facing the other direction for a nice shot because...
I decided to mess around with custom cribs and apparently got some that aren't updated for some patch or other, so they were blocking Raf from approaching the "real" crib - with the placeholder white rectangle there for placement. I shoved the beautiful custom crib to the side so we could get on with this. Later, I just deleted the pretty custom meshes and am currently experimenting with reskins of the basegame bassinet, but they're pretty buggy too. I'm just so tired of those four colors.
Raf gives birth to a bluish-purple daughter who we named Astra. I'm just so, so tired, guys.
Then it's Simon's birthday later that day. Everyone but the young aliens shows up for the birthday and plenty of fists are pumped in the air in honor of our heir.
Then they really pull out all the stops. Let's see what we have to work with.
Hmm, interesting. I find him a little weird-looking for some reason. His head is kind of round and his irises are really large, but he's definitely a new face, and frankly I am just so bored of the upper lip that has plagued my heiresses for generations (descended from generation four spouse Kori). Simon is now childish in addition to good and wants to be a Musical Genius which is...okay, I guess? I mean, it's not terribly interesting. Hopefully our prim but now childish heir will find some ways to spice up his character.
Out in the real world, Simon pulls some faces and models his pastel jacket. He's mostly dressed in yellows now since the triplets kind of subsumed his yellow, green, and blue theme from childhood into their aesthetic.
He gets some expert homework help from his grandmother while his mom works on the very last of her artifacts in her inventory behind them. Simon seems pretty chuffed about this situation. Good for him. It's been a bit of a press to get here. I finally decided to move Kenzie out and write about how she had decided that Eleanor was stable enough now after her rocky start and Kenzie now felt she could manage. Then Kenzie would possibly start her own family, though she is unflirty so I hadn't made my mind up yet. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how you go about moving someone out when there are over eight sims, because the normal interface won't let me unless I get this household down to no more than eight. I guess I need to move the spares out en masse when it's time. They've been kind of shunted aside but it seems Simon's future family is on hold for a while, so let's check in with the spares a bit.
Rowan is actually my favorite of the generation. He's such a happy guy and he's so fun to dress with his bright colors and animal themes.
Alison and Jason are the closest of the triplets, but all the kids have pretty good relationships with each other. Since they're on free will a lot, like here, they socialize often. Simon is also still best friends with Rowan.
Logan is kind of independent and seems to like playing by himself.
Although not part of this generation, I guess Stella is technically a spare, though not one that was ever eligible since, you know, the heiress of her generation already has kids. Hmmph.
And then there's Astra in a buggy recolor bassinet that I can't change .
Simon heads off to his scout meeting that weekend, and I really question what is going on with his hips. Are his pants too tight, his shirt too loose, or is this outfit just all kinds of messed up? I'm not sure. He's making good progress in scouts, by the way. I think there's an excellent chance he can at least get that trait and of course his high school A to show for his teen years. I'm only halfheartedly working on his aspiration now since it's so boring and it'll take a career in music eventually.
So, also that weekend, Kenzie showed up at the Starlight Accolades, which she was hilariously underdressed for. After completing their aspirations last chapter, both Celeste and Kenzie are in Bestselling Author right now. I forget who I signed up first and who was the unoriginal duplicate, but again, a casualty of long breaks. Anyway, one of Kenzie's books was nominated for an award and she never gets to do anything fun, so I sent her. Much like when she once put out a laundry fire using her mind, her sheer force of will is enough to overcome the velvet rope's restrictions, and she just waltzes right in despite having not even one star of fame.
And, surprisingly, she won! Congrats, Kenzie!
Kenzie: "I'd like to thank the Gregory clan for providing endless fodder for my series of tragicomedy romances, The My Grandfather's Alien Lovers trilogy. Thanks also for giving me nothing interesting to do so I can crank out books until one eventually won an award."
Kenzie: "Here's to you, you legacy nutters."
Presenter: "What the heck is going on here? Who let this lady in? Is that dress...cotton???"
Better make a quick escape, Kenzie.
She headed to the nearby gym since she was already in Del Sol and enjoyed this glitch-tastic float in the pool. I don't even know what the game is trying to do right now. But there's a group icon above her head, right? Who did she bring along?
Simon needs some exercise for his scouting badges, and as you can see, my kiddos continue to rock it in the physical activity arena. Such coordination. Much muscles.
And that brings us to the end of the fiftieth chapter of The Gregory Legacy! It looks like it'll probably be until the triplets grow into young adults before Simon can get a good start on his family, but he does have the rest of his teen years to live first. I suppose I could raise the cap, but I'm not sure that's advisable with my luck. Of course, Rafael could just...die...and free up some space too. That would be nice. Andres the former bodybuilder is older by a whole generation but he, unlike Raf, is not only useful but also not actively harmful to the household limit. We'll see.
Thanks for reading! Check in with me at Boolprop and be sure to keep an eye out for more chapters in this legacy. :)
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