The Gregory Legacy, Chapter 41

Hello again! Welcome to a Gregory Legacy chapter where stuff actually happens, unlike last chapter, which was mostly Taylor and Eleanor bickering and the family playing around on an outing. This chapter we'll get a pet and teens, so we're going to make some progress. Read on . . .

First though, we need a doggie. Eleanor is going to adopt our first pet to be her companion as our heiress. She calls up the agency and asks for them to bring over their three cutest dogs.

After some careful consideration, Eleanor settled on Mochi here, whose little pink nose just about did me in. She initiated the sparkly adoption process . . . and promptly crashed the hell out of my computer, necessitating a hard reboot.

Needless to say, new scenario, new adoption worker, new dogs. We could not get Mochi back and I was very upset about this for an embarrassingly long few days until I actually played again and had a new puppy to coo over.

The first time, Mochi had been chosen by virtue of cuteness since all of the dogs had nice personalities and liked Eleanor. This time, Jonah the adoption worker brought some of the delinquents, apparently. Puppy #1 barks at Eleanor and rejects her cautious introduction.

Puppy #2 growls at her.

He's also high as a kite right now, so not really the kind of baggage we're looking for in a puppy (despite the heterochromia).

Finally Ellie meets puppy #3, a little girl named Ruby, and she seems sweet enough that Eleanor doesn't even bother learning all her traits. She's a couch potato sleuth who isn't mean and/or a stoner, so sign us up!

Eleanor looks pretty pleased with her choice, and Ruby is just as cute as can be. It seems things are finally back on track.

That is, until Ruby is possessed by the spirit's of Taylor's outfit textures. Eep!

Jonah: "Little girl, what in the world did you just do to that dog? It looks like a tank top and jeans ensouled by Satan himself."
Eleanor: "Can I choose again?"
Jonah: "Already signed the paperwork, I'm afraid."

Luckily, Ruby's possession was short-lived and these two could begin their friendship on the right foot. I can tell already they're going to be adorable together. Eleanor sets up a Simstagram account for the puppy that we have now renamed Nova - because she's going to be a star - and instantly takes about a million pictures of her. Nova's followers are in the triple digits within a few hours of her joining the family.

Nova's third trait, we have learned, is jumpy, and boy is she ever. She's afraid of practically every appliance in the house, but the coffee maker has earned her special fear. Unfortunately, you have to go through the kitchen to get to many areas of the house, so she spent a fair amount of time fearfully worshipping the fickle coffee gods.

Meanwhile, our other two girls are working hard on their aspirations. Eileen topped hers shortly after this pic. Taylor has a ways to go.

They still get some time off, and these two are pretty close. After the bonding of last chapter, Taylor became closer friends with Eileen and actually became friends at all with Eleanor, though their relationship is still pretty fraught at times. But that's often how it is having a sibling, especially one close in age to yourself. Eileen and Eleanor are tight, though.

Having a dog - provided you actually look after it - is great for building responsibility in kids. Eleanor takes a break from water sliding to potty and pick up after Nova. Nova, for her part, is pretty easygoing in the needs department, although I have played to the point where she is an adult and she never eats autonomously. I have a feeder set on a timer, and I tell a sim to call her to the bowl whenever we get a notification that she's hungry, but she never seems to eat on her own. I don't know what her deal is.

After that, Eleanor joins in with her mother's pool workout routine and our two heiresses spend some quality time together.

Then it's back with the nose to the grindstone. Eleanor is skilling motor for her second aspiration. She's doing really well, so I'm going to see if I can maybe get her all four.

A little homework help from Andres frees her up for other pursuits. Meanwhile, Celeste exclaims over the taste of her coffee and her outfits exclaims its lack of taste.

You guys! THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Natalie and Jaron finally haunted on the same night, and we got a picture of them! The couples' photos wall is (so far) complete now. You have no idea how happy this makes me, even if Natalie was embarrassed in the photo.

Taylor: "How come Eleanor gets a dog?"

She's the heiress.

Taylor: "I want a dog."

Maybe when you're living it up spare-style, but considering we're letting ours fall asleep on the grass and we have no more space in the house roster, I think we've got all the trouble we can handle right now.

Taylor: "I want my dog to be part eggplant."

Whaaaa?

Taylor: "Or maybe beet."

I think you're just hungry, you weird little vegetarian.

Taylor: "Turns out I shoulda had a V8."
Eleanor: "You didn't eat my puppy, did you?"
Taylor: "Is she made of meat?"
Eleanor: "Pretty sure, yeah."
Taylor: "Then you have your answer."

Across town, Faye is breaking sinks in Oasis Springs, working on her Chief of Mischief aspiration, the sixth one she's attempted and what will probably be her last, as her days are definitely numbered.

She then binds her doll to Johnny Zest, who lives in this poorly-lit house instead of his trailer now for some reason (I have a bunch of legacy loves in Oasis Springs so I probably moved him, but who knows?) and proceeds to torment him with voodoo.

Faye: "This is for spotlighting the wall instead of lighting areas where people could actually use a light! Feel the pain!"
Johnny: "Nothing happened?"

I never said Faye was good at voodoo.

This is the face that one should make when seeing Faye Gregory approach, especially if she is approaching you from inside your bathroom. Letting her in was your first mistake, Alison.

Alison: "My beautiful sink!"

Faye is now almost Chief of Mischief. She just needs to raise her mischief skill a little higher.

The Humor and Hijinks festival started just then, and seeing as how she was already on a mischievous roll, I sent Faye to cause havoc. She and Mortimer are going to be on the same team, it seems. He probably shouldn't be so proud of that.

She proceeds to annoy and prank anyone in the vicinity, whether they are on her team or not, while the rest of her hijinks teammates just guzzle tea.

Surprisingly, this does lead to a Team Hijinks victory, and Faye comes home with a bunch of fireworks, which I really did not use to their full potential with the one sim capable of wielding their destructiveness as irresponsibly as possible.

Back home: Eleanor and Nova are irrepressibly cute together. I have so many pictures of them just cuddling and being adorable.

Nova also needed a bath and she is comically tiny in this huge bathtub.

Eleanor bangs out the last skill point in the Rambunctious Scamp aspiration on this computer with a really atrocious texture that I have just now noticed. Really, that is ugly. Next up is Artistic Prodigy.

With a serenade from Nova and the gazillions of creativity points she's gotten out of playing imaginary games with her monster toy, Eleanor zooms through this aspiration and just has Social Butterfly to work on now.

The other kids are not neglected, but there's a lot going on and I can't take pictures of everybody, especially when there's a puppy who needs to be followed around by the camera for sim-hours at a time while I coo at my screen. Oh, and they're all like, doing stuff or whatever.

Andres's athletic prowess is slipping (ha, get it?) in his old age, but he still likes to relax from all the stuff-doing on the water slide.

Celeste prefers a mud soak . . .

. . . and a strenuous exercise regime. (She's so scary, you guys. I should never have let her have that aspiration and get that buff. She's way too intense!)

Faye takes Ellie out to the park to meet people for her aspiration. They start with the park bench sleeper, because why not?

Eleanor: "Hey other redheaded girl, you're the coolest person in this park! Come socialize with me!"
Teens Ronnie and Luna: "Hmmph."
Eleanor: "Sorry, chumps, it only says to make friends with kids and adults. You guys are on your own."

This is Kenzie Fontaine, and she and Ellie made friends there in the park that afternoon. I love Kenzie's outfit. She's a perfectionist, and it really seems to fit her. Kenzie and Eleanor got along famously and I got totally distracted from Eleanor's aspiration as I watched their relationship bar shoot up.

Faye had worn out her welcome at the park and dusk was approaching, though, so we needed to go home.

Back home, and Celeste is getting abducted. Good. I hope they fix her outfit.

Although Eleanor had a great time with Kenzie, she knows who her best friend really is: her twin! They declare themselves as best friends, and Eleanor gets that much closer to getting all four childhood reward traits.

Meanwhile these two are still at the water slide, in sunglasses no less.

Eleanor still needs to make several child friends and she speeds up the process by forming a club of them. One you may recognize is the boy in blue with glasses - that's Eileen's friend, Dale.

Inside, Taylor finishes her Whiz Kid aspiration under the watchful eyes of Nova.

Outside, Eleanor finishes Social Butterfly, and not a moment too soon, as the twins' birthday party is just about to start.

The friendship club is all enjoying hugging it out while our sweet twins step up to their cakes, baked by Andres, of course.

Happy birthday, Eleanor and Eileen!

Eleanor: "What happened to you?"
Eileen: "I . . . I'm not sure. I think something bedazzled me."

Here's Eleanor madeover. She adds romantic to her trait list, which is handy because she also wants to be a Serial Romantic. Whyyyyyyyyyyy? I've already done this aspiration and it sucked. Granted, that was in the early days of the game when the aspirations were much harder before they went back in and patched them, but still. I didn't want to do this again, and certainly not with my heiress. However, Eleanor is a very pretty girl so I have no doubt she'll have all the dates she could possibly want and then some.

Here's Eileen, who is also very pretty (duh, they're identical). She picked up self-assured and wants to be a Freelance Botanist, so I kept her in yellow and blue but made sure she had some flowers on her dress. Eleanor's hair and Eileen's hair are actually still the same shade, but Eleanor's mesh is a little dark and Eileen's is a little light.

Taylor: "Oh my God, WHAT is she wearing?"
Raphael: "If I don't look, she's still my sweet little girl."

With the double whammy of romantic and Serial Romantic, I let Eleanor's clothes stray towards the flirty and revealing, while still being basically in her dress code of blue and pink, and this is her party outfit.

These are the girls' everyday outfits. Apparently, Eleanor swam so much as a little girl that she ended up a radically different size than her twin.

Ellie also got a back tattoo to remind us of the little angel she used to be. *sob*

I guess I'm looking at this all wrong (and a little judgmentally!). I'm sure there's a way she can have many partners and still do it ethically. It doesn't all have to be Sims 2 style lechery. If she can keep from getting caught until she has the player trait, then I can just pretend she's polyamorous.

In great Gregory twin tradition (remember Luke and Liam?) the girls study their new high school homework in a not terribly ergonomic way. Their grandparents and Nova provide knowledge and moral support, respectively.

Cutie patooties after the first bath that Eleanor could give Nova herself.

Faye: "Wow, Bianca, if I knew you dressed so terribly, I would have invited you over before this so we could have laughed at you more."
Bianca: "Why did I accept this invite?"

That is a very good question. Bianca, in case you don't remember, is Faye's rival from the science career. They've never seen eye to eye, but Bianca was still totally willing to show up on Faye's home turf despite many insults, being hit with Faye's Vengeance Ray, and ingesting tainted serums at work multiple times back when Faye used to show up to work. (She had so many paid days off that she just used them instead of ever retiring.)

Tricks abound. The reason for this visit is that Faye wanted to annoy someone and finish off her aspiration by maxing the mischief skill, and it's easier for them to come to us when others are doing their various things at home.

One person who is not doing anything important is Andres.

Faye: "Geez, Bianca, you come into my house and just rip one like that? Disgusting!"
Bianca: "That wasn't me! Andres - we've all heard that you're a stand-up guy - are you just going to stand for this?"
Andres: *sip* "You are excused for your flatulence, miss." *sip*
Bianca: "ARGH!"

Faye: "I feel good about myself."

Sixth aspiration achieved! Faye got the Tormentor trait, which I unfortunately did not use before her death, which was really a missed opportunity. She's been such a fun sim to play. Also, this is such a quintessentially Gregory screenshot with Faye gloating and the space rocks and the portraits.

Eileen: "Hey, Dale. I almost didn't recognize you. Congrats on your birthday."
Dale: "You too, Eileen. I'm glad we could hang out today."
Eileen: "Yeah, about that. I've . . . I'm just going to be brave here and say I've kind of had a crush on you for a while, and I was wondering if you'd like to go on a date."
Dale: "OH! Uh, you do? I . . . er . . . that is, I don't know. Maybe not."

Both: *cringe so hard*
Eileen: "Well, then let's just hang out as friends. No big deal."

Eileen: "Why did he reject me? Did I read the signs wrong? I like him so much. I don't know if I can really just be friends."
Dale: "Why did I reject her? Ugh, I'm such an idiot! I like her so much. I don't know if I can tolerate only being friends with her, but how do I fix this?"

Their visit was mercifully cut short, as both were feeling rather awkward. There's something here, I'm telling you! I guess Eileen just went in too soon. I'll wait for a better time, but these two are meant to happen.

Speaking of going in soon, Eleanor embarks on her aspiration by going on a date with Owen, a guy she met at the park. They're pretty handsy right away.

Eleanor: "Owen, there's no game mechanic for this, so this is just all in the controller's head, but I just wanted to let you know I'm not really looking for monogamy at this point. I just want us to be on the same page."
Owen: "Okay, well, one of my traits is jealous so that definitely won't be a problem. We're cool."

They then proceeded to the kissing.

So much kissing.

That's pretty much all they did.

Owen: "Wow, great date! I feel like I know you so much better after all this conversations we didn't have in favor of locking lips."
Eleanor: "Me too! Owen, would you do me the honor of being my first boyfriend?"
Owen: "Aww, I'm flattered. Of course, hot stuff. Owen and Eleanor for life!"
Eleanor: "Or not."
Owen: "Yeah, totally. That's what I meant."

Hmm, this aspiration will be tricky, especially if Eleanor keeps unintentionally dating jealous sims. My game plan is to build really high relationships and get the first kiss and boyfriend status out of the way on each date so when they decay, she won't have to do quite as much juggling to keep up with the aspiration objectives. If I can, I'd like to bang it out in her teen years and move on to other things.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of another chapter! Next chapter: Taylor and Nova both grow a little older, the adventures of three teen girls, several dates, and some developments in the family. It's another Camp NaNoWriMo month, and my writing goal this month is just to get caught up on a bunch of various projects, so hopefully we'll see some more updates here and on my other stories. Thanks for reading! Check in on Boolprop, keep waiting for SiMania's return, and happy simming!