Hello, hello! Welcome back to this episodic saga of madness that I call The Gregory Legacy. I've been trying to power through the special difficulty of this generation (generations? I mean, the aliens are technically gen. 7 but the kiddos are gen. 8. Oh, my head...) and get to my next plans for Simon to start his life with (yes, I finally figured out what to do with him besides the usual). Let's jump right in...
In a fit of pique, I changed the family description after the particularly difficult play session in which Astra, our 12th sim, was added to the house. I think it's rather fitting. Please also note the Gregorys have a cool three million on hand. They're doing alright for themselves, especially considering only two of them (Celeste and Andres) even have jobs.
Speaking of Astra, we find her dad conversing with the trash plant on next load. Folks, this is the essence of Rafael. I'm going to lose my mind playing 12 sims. Something has to give.
Kenzie: "Eleanor, I know you've got your hands full with your kids in school and your half-sisters still in diapers, but you're really doing okay. When I first moved in, I was worried about you, and I wanted to make sure you'd manage. But you've done so much more than that. I think it's time for me to move on to greener pastures."
Eleanor: "And take your excellent repair skills with you? I think not!"
Kenzie: "El, it's time, and you know I'm not family."
Eleanor: "I was just joking, geez. And you might as well be family! You're my best friend, Kenzie, and I couldn't have done any of this without your support. You believed in me when no one else did."
Kenzie: "Still do."
Eleanor: "Thank you for everything. You can always come visit."
Kenzie: "I most certainly will not. This place is nuts."
Kenzie: "Wait!!!"
Eleanor: "Ahh! What? Oh my God, what's wrong?!"
Kenzie: "The interface says I can't move out and leave more than 8 in the house."
Eleanor: "Geez, Kenzie. You scared the crap out of me! Well, what do you want to do?"
Kenzie: "Well I am sure as shit not taking any of the kids with me, so I guess I'm staying for a while longer."
Eleanor: "You're always welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to lie down to avoid a heart attack here."
And then fate intervened and found another way to lower the sim count. Finally. I do note he had to choose the absolute tightest spot in the house, the basement hall that is smaller than even the bathrooms and right in the turn of it by the stairs, too. Anyway, farewell--
"Wait!"
Raf: "Wait! I have...a last request..."
Great. Make it quick. Your baby is squalling.
Raf: "Which one?"
Don't test me. What's your final wish?
Raf: "I wish...for my wife...to mourn me in...the most inconvenient spot...for your picture taking. So spake Rafael." *dies*
And she did. Can't even put the walls up. Grumble grumble.
As I was saying, farewell, Rafael. You were mostly very annoying and you did give me two totally useless alien babies, but all of your children were quite good-looking and you managed our garden and finished your first aspiration, so we'll call it a draw. Go haunt the bar. I know you want to.
Stella is very sad, so Andres (HOW is he still alive?) cheers her up with some play time.
Then it's off to the nursery where, uh, this is waiting. I downloaded some "costume" heads for tots to use as Spooky Day costumes possibly without really looking at them closely, but this one is both not playing nice with Astra's hair and really, really creepy. Those dead eyes. *shiver*
After a quick exorcism of her head, Astra is very, very, very cute, as we've come to expect from Rafael's alien spawn. I love that she's a different color than Stella but has the same eyes. It's also nice to see a dark brunette, which hasn't been seen in this family for a while.
Chatterbox Stella gets to know her half-sister instantly, and although Astra is initially wary, they are soon fast friends. They also have the same ear shape, which is just a coincidence since they have different Pollination Technicians, but still cool.
Speaking of interesting appearances, Kenzie is rocking something different in the garden. It's Spooky Day and I got excited and changed the adults into the costumes I had picked out while the kids were still in school. Once everyone is home, we're having a party since I love Halloween. Kenzie is supposed to be a biker chick.
Pretty different from Eleanor, our cotton candy dancing queen.
I noticed that it was Kenzie's birthday just in time, so they have a little pre-party party in the kitchen to celebrate Kenzie becoming a mature adult. You can see the party room is already all set up in the background. Happy birthday, Kenzie!
The kids arrived home from school and it was almost time for the party, but first let's take a peek at costumes. Rowan is some kind of animal mishmash with a panda hat (which gave him a sad moodlet but was outweighed by his cheery demeanor and good school moodlets), a cat onesie, and dog slippers.
Rowan: "I'm a zoo!"
Simon is a hot dog with mustard because I'm good to my heirs.
The triplets are Day of the Dead celebrators because kids don't have a lot of options and I'm bored of the usual, but not so bored that I wanted to make something up for them.
Speaking of missing out, I can't believe I have all the packs and still only have these terrible options for toddlers. Obviously, that is what they are so sad about and not that I woke them prematurely from their nap because I wanted to get them into costume.
So I designed some cuter costumes for the toddlers with the help of much CC. They then immediately went back to bed because I did wake them prematurely from their nap because I wanted to get them into costume, and they slept through the whole party so that was the only appearance of these outfits. Still totally worth it.
Everyone in the household was enjoying the party. As usual, the guests were slow to arrive. Eleanor is waiting very patiently to tell the guests a Selvadoradan tale.
Simon tries out some mischief on Kenzie. She actually likes Simon so she laughed it off.
Ah, here's most of our guests. SimRoxy is a captain, I guess? Eleanor's sister, Taylor, is a fairy. And simJ reprises her role as mail carrier from the Spooky Day party many generations ago in which she met Liam of gen. 4. Throwback: simJ is good and Liam is evil, and they had a very "opposites attract" short-lived romance when Liam was a teen. Now that my rl sister is 21, I aged simJ up to a young adult, but she's still not settling with Liam (who is married, after all), or anyone else. She and simRoxy continue to live in a very nice Gallery house with their special guest, a sim who will be playing an important role later on, in another chapter.
Eileen, twin to Eleanor, also showed, dressed as a witch.
It was nice to have all three of the sisters from gen. 7 there (I'm not counting Stella and Astra, although they are -- sigh -- half-sisters of these adults). In fact, while Taylor and Eleanor were enjoying a dance down in the basement, I had a great idea to commemorate this get together and the hard-won sister relationships these three carved out.
Kenzie got the ladies set up for portraits.
And soon we had some wonderful over-saturated, colorful Spooky Day mementos to grace our party room!
And then the party was over and things were back to normal. Well, as normal as they get around here. Simon needs to write songs for his aspiration and he's not there yet, so he practices a lot when he's not working on his scouting badges.
Astra and Stella enjoyed some leftover ham dinner from who knows when. Since Andres' food doesn't spoil due to completing Master Chef, we probably have enough random food stocked in the fridge for the rest of the legacy. Anyway, these young extraterrestrials seem to wildly disagree about the temperature in the house, but they are getting along pretty well. It'll soon be time for Stella to hunt down new people to chat to endlessly (at least for a while), because...
...it is finally her birthday! Eleanor helped her with minimal fanfare. We've had a lot going on and I can't wrangle everyone for kids that aren't even technically spares since they're not part of the bloodline. Sorry, Stella.
Nonetheless, fanfare or no, Stella is a gorgeous kid! I got confused and dressed her more in pinks when she was more purples and Astra is more pinks, but eh, whatever. She wants to be an Artistic Prodigy and she's lazy, so that means she'll be leaving laundry piles all around like her slobby niece, Alison. I plan to do absolutely nothing about her aspiration: she is on her own for that one. I'm just surprised (and pleased) that this chatty sim didn't get Social Butterfly, because I double wouldn't have done anything about that one.
I do care that the kids get good grades though, for some reason, so Eleanor follows up the birthday with a homework session.
Simon is one of those sims that just pulls all kinds of faces, and because of his big, light green eyes, they're very striking faces. What's got you so down this time, buddy?
Simon: "It's Rowan's birthday."
So?
Simon: "So we were best friends since being kids with me as the cool older brother, so..."
You're worried he won't think you're cool enough anymore when he's a teen too?
Simon: "Heck no! I just wonder if he'll be able to keep up with all my coolness."
Hon, your great accomplishments in life are three scouting badges and four points of piano, and you know no teenagers at all. You don't have that much of a head start. Just go cheer him on.
Happy birthday, Rowan!
(Also, Alison is an orange bear and I am so ridiculously excited because I swear every simmer I read gets the "I'm a bear" phase all the time, but believe it or not, this is the FIRST time it has appeared in my game! My kids and teens usually just have mood swings and stuff. This one is actually fun.)
Looking good! He definitely looks a lot like a male Eleanor and very little like his father, Orlando - the Selvadoradan fling. But I do really like him. He stuck with the colorful stuff and animal prints/patterns, which are a lot harder to find in adult male clothes. He now wants to be a Master Vampire, which I like (especially since he'll move out long before I have to wait 20 days for him to complete the last tier), and on top of being cheerful from childhood, he's now also a music lover.
Simon: "Hey! Music is my thing. And he has such a cool look. A piercing? Really?"
It didn't look good on your eyebrows. I did try.
Simon: "Why didn't I get facial hair then and he does?"
I'm sorry, you just weren't ready for the responsibility.
Simon: What?
Rowan: *blissful ignorance* *probably thinking about vampires* *let's be honest...he's thinking of the actual animal, the vampire bat* *the kid loves animals* *in the time of these asides, his chin fuzz grows slightly longer*
Simon: What!
Then it's off the lot to Forgotten Hollow. Rowan is only three days behind Simon in age, so we don't have all that long to enjoy him as a vampire before he'll move out as an adult, so I wanted to get a jump start on that. When he gets there, Vlad, our first choice, isn't home. Neither is Lilith, but Caleb is...and then I remember that Faye, Rowan's great-grandmother, killed Caleb and he's a permanent ghost now. Whoopsie.
Luckily, Caleb doesn't hold that against Rowan and they actually take an instant liking to each other. Rowan is dressed to be a very terrifying vampire, isn't he? Regardless, Caleb agrees to turn him.
Rowan: *moans*
Caleb: "Sweetie, you're underage. Keep it PG...for now."
And that's literally all we had to do out in the world, so then it's back home. Stella needs somewhere to sleep now and the triplets' room is quite full, but Astra will also need a bedroom in a few days. I decided to move Rowan in with Simon, and I gotta say, besides the problem that I don't bother to give them more grown-up teen bedrooms, their styles do not merge all that well. Rowan's was already quite a lot, but it's A LOT A LOT on top of Simon's stuff.
Yeah, this room is a whole mess. Oh well, my work here is done. *dusts hands off*
I also made a room for Stella and Astra that is based on Stella being green and Astra blue, even though their clothing colors are pink and purple. I needed a slightly more soothing room in between the two really bright ones, so we ended up with this mint-colored retreat. It's boring, but I can't say I'm really giving them the best of anything. However, although I will eternally hold their existence against Raf, I don't hold it against them. I'm just really worn out on this generation. It really ballooned out of my control. Anyway, Stella has a bed now and Astra will too when she grows up. Thankfully I have no more adult males in the house who can be impregnated (I'm pretty sure they don't impregnate full aliens so Andres is safe), so I don't need to find any more corners to warehouse extraneous children in.
Kenzie has been around working on her Bestselling Author aspiration. She takes a dinner break while Simon gets help from his mom on his homework. Eleanor is close to finishing Super Parent, but she needs to enter full parenting mode (she hit level 10 with this interaction) and have Simon grow up with his three in-range traits. Hopefully nothing happens to his values, but he's been pretty good with them so far.
Nova sighting!
Simon: "Uh, Rowan, did you, er, grow or something?"
Rowan: "Nah, bro, you shrunk, I think."
Simon: "WHAT."
I downloaded a mod that makes teens shorter than adults, but since already existing teens need to have a tweak done in CAS to apply it that I can't use in the limited version I have access to in an over-full house, I also got a preset that also makes shorter teens, and I gave it to Simon.
Rowan: "But not me?"
No, I think your father was probably pretty tall.
Alison: "Haha. My big little brother."
Simon: *incoherent noises of frustration*
Andres completed Fabulously Wealthy by selling Celeste's paintings that she's always leaving around. That was his third aspiration, I think? I gave him Mansion Baron and he mostly completed it, but I probably won't bother with the columns.
I don't know what's going on with Andres' life span. He does have Long-lived thanks to Bodybuilder, and I accidentally gave him and Faye extra youth potions, but that was a LONG time ago. For forever, MCCC has said Andres has had one day of life left, but his bar isn't even sparkling. I'm not sure if he's stuck. But I'm kind of stuck because I just love him so, so much. I've decided that if he doesn't pass away before Simon grows up, I will have to grow some courage and do something about it. Gulp.
(Sorry about walls down on the bathroom.)
While Rowan starts to feel some discomfort and the younger boys mope about their grandfather, Stella seems not to mind at all that Raf died, despite him being her father. She's just happy to have new audiences to chat to 24/7. To be fair, they really only did have two interactions in her life, so it's not like she probably even knows he was related to her.
Eleanor: "Stella, you have to stop telling the boys that 'we don't really know who that Rafael guy was anyway.' You may not mind our father passing, but the boys are sad. Give them a break."
Stella: "He's not my father! He just birthed me."
Eleanor: "I can accept that."
Random teen townie: "What the heck kind of house did I get invited over to?"
Also, incidentally, this is when Eleanor activated Full Parenting Mode, so she just needs Simon to grow up with the three positive traits we have locked in, and she'll complete this aspiration too.
Logan: "Oh, a beret? BORING!"
Alison: "I'm a bear and even I know your outfit is mismatched. Boo!"
Celeste: "My god, they were right. Everyone really is a critic."
(The kids are actually cheering her celebrity and Logan is really tired, but I think this is funnier.)
Owen is over and helping his kiddos with homework again. Love him.
Meanwhile, Eileen invited Andres to the opera, so what the heck, he donned his fancy duds and went. I did not even notice when he came back - I only noticed him again when he woke up the next morning - so I'm going to just assume they had an absolutely fabulous time.
Alison: *whispering* "I'm a bear."
After helping Jason with his homework, Owen engages him in a friendly chat. When Eleanor observed this, she just smiled like this at Owen. D'aww what a cute little family. Owen is a good dad.
Simon: "Do you think you could be my dad too?"
Owen: "I'm always happy to help you out, Simon, but you're a little short to be one of mine."
Eleanor: "Psst, don't. That's a sore subject."
*Simon runs from the room crying inconsolably.*
Judging by his face, he found solace in working out for his badges. Solace...or possibly magic mushrooms. Who can say?
He's racked up several more badges now. Looks like I might actually get him that scouting reward trait after all.
Rowan: "Whoa, what the heck? Why am I up so high?"
Simon: "If this is another joke about my height--"
Rowan: "WHOA WHOA WHOA. Is it happening?! This doesn't feel good!"
Rowan: "Simon, brother, my best friend! Help me!"
Simon: "Oh my god, what? You'll be okay, buddy. Stay with me!"
I know it's just the animation, but I love that Rowan looks like he's looking to Simon for help in the midst of his transformation.
Rowan: "Rawr."
The eyeball ring? How dare you.
Celeste: "Does it seem like things have gotten...a little weirder than usual this generation?"
Andres: "What do you suggest to reference with that, my daughter?"
Rowan: "Oh wow! This is a divine drink! I'm going to drink from you all the time now, bro."
Simon: "Hey, happy to help, dude. What's a brother for? Especially one with such tasty plasma?"
Rowan: "It must be more concentrated in that shrimpy body of yours."
Simon: "Dude."
Andres: "Hmm. Well perhaps you may have made a salient point after all."
Celeste: "I miss when the fact that some of us were blue and my mother murdered people with science were the weirdest things about the family."
Kenzie: "Holy crap, dude. Are you shrinking?"
Simon: "Haha."
Kenzie: "No, seriously, my guy. You're positively Lilliputian now."
Simon: "You all are just determined to employ an entire future generation of therapists at my expense, aren't you?"
She's not wrong. I was messing around with Rowan's dark form, trying to get rid of the atrocity pictured above, and I had to go into CAS a few times because with 11 sims in the house, I can't just go into normal CAS and switch back and forth between his normal and dark forms. At some point, this triggered the teen height mod so now Rowan is the height Simon was, but Simon still has the preset too, so he's eensy weensy now. I honestly laughed way too hard when I realized, and I'm not letting him regain his height until he ages up. Tough.
Anyway, speaking of Rowan, I spent ages on his dark form, only to realize that, since I can't see that part of the interface in CAS, I didn't have the opportunity to tell it not to link it to his normal form. So he just is going to look like this all the time for now. Some day, when he's out on his own, I'll restore his normal form. But I decided I would rather have him be all vamp than all normal. This is his everyday outfit now.
And his other outfits. He got a new theme. ;)
And here's Rowan up close. He's my rainbow sherbet vampire and I love him to pieces. I did forget to give him back his stubble at this point, though. He got it later on, but not in any of the rest of this chapter's pictures.
So. This is a situation that is happening. There were a creepy smattering of alien, reaper, and nudist gnomes in our garden from the last Harvestfest. I sent the kids out to appease them, and they disappeared, but I couldn't find them, so I bought a new set. However, before I could have the kids appease those, I forgot and they disappeared again. The lot is really big and busy, and I didn't look super, super hard, but I couldn't find them again so I bought a few more. And just when I remembered and had the kids go to get that set, the those and the missing ones disappeared from wherever the rest of them were hiding and the whole lot of them all materialized in the playroom, making me realize that I had accidentally created a gnome army. But it's fine, I'm sure.
Anyway, yes, it is Harvestfest. I'm like 99% sure our last Harvestfest was when Eleanor was pregnant with Simon, and it was a very different and tense time. To celebrate how far she's come, I let Eleanor lead the holiday this time, so she called everyone for one of Andres' excellent grand meals.
Celeste: "Are you sure you don't want me to handle it, darling? I am the oldest matriarch of this family."
Eleanor: "And I'm the reigning heiress and mother to two teens now, not a scared, pregnant newly-aged up young adult. I know how to make good decisions now. I got this!"
Rowan: "Mom, what are you doing?"
Eleanor: "Astra's hungry."
Rowan: "I know. I'm bringing her a plate of food so she can be part of our dinner at the table."
Eleanor: "I really think she'll like sitting on the floor better."
Rowan: "So you're going to give her food down there?"
Eleanor: "No, I'm just going to set her on the ground and walk away. Good decisions, baby!"
Rowan: "Mom."
While Rowan and Eleanor argue about Astra (Eleanor won, sigh), everyone else tucks into the fish dinner. Unfortunately, the family is way too big for the dining table, but at least everyone made it in the same room.
Rowan's kind of hard to see because he's blending into the painting, but see? Everyone is present and accounted for, dressed up for a nice dinner. Even if Astra did have to eat by herself in the corner. Thanks for nothing, Eleanor.
Simon: "Just think, someday I'll be presiding over my own family's feast! It's kind of cool to think of myself as the head of the household. I bet I'll be the best at it yet!"
That's a tall order.
Simon: "Please, no..."
I mean, it's a long shot but I don't want to make you feel small.
Simon: "...show me mercy..."
But it'll just be a short time before that happens, I'm sure. So we'll see how you measure up in the end.
Simon: *falls out of his chair, apoplectic*
Eleanor: "See, Mom? The holiday went off without a hitch."
Celeste: "Well, I mean, your heir is lying on the floor, sobbing, and your vampire son didn't eat dinner, but yeah, otherwise it was good."
Eleanor: "I can't be held responsible for Simon's sensitivity at the hands of our controller, and honestly, Rowan had a protein shake before dinner. He said so."
Celeste: "I'm pretty sure he meant Simon's plasma since they have a weird thing going on now with that."
Eleanor: "Oh, well that probably didn't help Simon falling over just now, huh?"
Just a random pic of Stella. She is seriously so pretty, and this outfit is super sweet. I gave her her bow back from her toddlerhood for this outfit, and I think it goes really nicely with the dress. I have no idea why she is out here, though. I watched her for a minute and she just sat in the chair, tapping her legs. Mysterious.
Stella: "I think I figured it out! I'm an alien. You're an alien. That Raf guy, from what I hear, well...who knows. But clearly, you must be my real dad!"
Andres: "Dear child, I believe you are mistaken. We do not even have any relation to one another, though I do recognize you as being partly of my species."
Stella: "Well, then where is my real dad?"
Andres: "He resides now within the mausoleum, Stella. But if you delay looking, you will doubtlessly find him at the bar some nights hence."
Stella: ". . ."
Andres: ". . ."
Stella ". . . okay."
Andres: "Okay?"
Stella: "Yeah, it's whatever. But I'm going to keep talking your ear off anyway."
It's really not, though. I had Rowan supervise the triplets with a game of cards because I don't trust those gnomes. Amazingly, he made good friends with all three of them simultaneously at the exact moment the game started. People can't not love Rowan, even when he looks this silly.
Speaking of silly, Astra snuck out to the playground when I wasn't looking and is having a good time on it. I took so many picture of her. Yes, speaking of silly, I'm not speaking of her. I'm speaking of me and my ridiculous obsession with these unnaturally cute aliens whose presence galls me, but whom I love nonetheless. Very silly.
And then Eleanor got a call...
Owen invited her on a date, and it seems like things are speeding up to focus less and less on Eleanor, so I let her have this. She was able to get her favorite drink (a fine glass of nectar, apparently) and flirt up a storm with Owen in a nightclub.
The club was graced by none other than Natalie and Jaron, the original couple of the Gregory legacy, presumably out on a date from beyond. Eleanor made sure to chat with them. She already knew Jaron because he haunts the house a lot, but this was her first time meeting Natalie.
Also, when I took this pic, I realized there's a kitchen there and at first I was like, huh, I don't remember this nightclub having a kitchen. How strange. But then I remembered this was from a birthday party that gen. 4's Kori threw here when she was working on Party Animal and she needed to bake a cake, and we just come here so rarely that I had never fixed it. Although, I still didn't fix it so maybe how often we come here has nothing to do with my laziness, haha.
Eleanor spied Kaiden there (this boy gets out on the town, for sure! He's everywhere we go, pretty much) and she challenged him to a dance-off.
Eleanor: "There. You see what you're missing out on now, you loser?"
Kaiden: "You popped your back almost instantly and gave up on the moves."
Eleanor: "Well, you didn't even try to dance. We just dropped the interaction."
Kaiden: "I feel like that makes me the winner."
Eleanor: "I don't think so..."
Eleanor: "...because my great-great-great-great-grandmother seems to dig my moves."
Natalie: "Woo! Yeah! That is a descendent of mine but honestly I can't remember the relation. You go, honey! Tell that boy he's a scrub!"
Eleanor: "No one says that anymore, Natalie, but I appreciate your support."
Kaiden: "Honestly, I dodged such a bullet not getting caught up in this family."
Your loss, Kaiden! And that's where we'll leave this for now. Planned for the future is a Selvadoradan reunion tour for Eleanor with all her kiddos and assorted half-sisters, Rowan's life as a technicolor vampire, and Simon growing up, having adventures, and eventually continuing the legacy into generation 9! I have a little bit of time off in a couple weeks in between spring and summer terms, and then after four weeks of an accelerated summer term, I have actual summer break for a month and a half. So hopefully I can make some good progress. Thanks, as always, for reading, and be sure to stay healthy out there! Check in with me at Boolprop and check back (hopefully soon!) for more Gregory chapters. Bye for now!
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