Generation III—Part Four

Hannah ages to Child, with ‘Loves Outdoors’ being her first “real” trait. Ironically, she’s never spent a lot of time outdoors. Far too much skilling to do inside. (She only played the violin this once, though—for fun—and hasn’t touched one since.) 

Eli, on the other hand, becomes Silly. 

Hannah teaches Rebeca Rebeca teaches Hannah about responsibility—

—leading Hannah to (autonomously) take charge of her little brother’s education the next day. 

She does her own homework religiously, as well as any and all extra credit and projects. She’s in range to earn the Responsible trait before teenhood. 

(FYI, that picture of her molding clay is just there because it’s one of the few pics I have of her as a kid.) 

As Rebec Hannah finishes up her first project, Zaiden—now an Adult—enters through the back door, dazed from having just been abducted. (I wasn’t paying attention to him, so I have no clue why he was even outside.) Is this going to be a tradition? 

Having worked until she’s ready to drop, Hannah goes to bed.

Then Eli has a nightmare, and crawls up the stairs to wake her….Only to turn right back around once he’s done so, return downstairs, and dance to the stereo. Little brothers are so annoying. 

The next day, Zaiden barely stays awake at work, but still manages to diagnose two patients (one more than necessary), and thus is promoted to R.N. He can now determine the gender of Rebeca’s baby.

So I tell him to do that—but before he gets through the front door, Rebeca’s in labor anyway. Oh well, maybe next time. 

She gives birth to Jason Blackburn (who’s probably—inexplicably—my favorite of her sons.) Guess she and Zaiden better start trying for another baby. Pretty soon, this household is going to be full. 

Eli actually is upset over a new sibling, but has no dollhouse to smash. 

The next day is a very good one for Zaiden: He diagnoses and cures all three patients required for promotion, and just needs to boost his performance. 

Jason ages up with the Inquisitive trait. Impressively, he’s blonde too, despite Zaiden’s dominant black hair; Rebeca’s genes are strong. 

Eli will age up in one day. He’s lonely because his parents and Hannah are too busy to spend time with him, and talking to Jason doesn’t raise his Attention need at all.

Neither does playing with Grandma. Just because she’s a ghost.

Ageist much? 

Zaiden determines that Rebeca’s pregnant with—Oh, damn it! His name is Arthur Blackburn, and he’s got the Fussy trait and starts making messes all over the place. What’s worse is that Jason soon follows his example.

Thankfully, however, it doesn’t follow in the footsteps of the Paint-Chocolate-Flour Epidemic of Generation Two. 

(Soon after Arthur’s birth, Rebeca is pregnant with her fifth child. She’ll have at least as many kids as her mother.)

Child safety: You’re doing it wrong. 

Zaiden takes family leave. Meanwhile—

Oh my God, stop that, go to bed. 

Eli becomes a Child, and I convert one of the basement rooms into a bedroom.

Because there are two spare bedrooms upstairs, but I don’t like how most beds clip through the curtains. It looks horrid. 

Rebeca is pregnant with yet another boy. Son of a bitch. 

Elise had a son and four daughters; Rebeca has a daughter and four sons. How many more pregnancies before she strikes gold again? Will Hannah really be heir and this is all for nothing? (Now that Hannah’s a Young Adult, I’m not too fond of Victoria, and Angie is just…all right…..It’s kinda’ looking that way. Part of me wishes she was an only child.) 

While Rebeca plays the violin to raise her Fun, and Eli watches cartoons, Zaiden (autonomously) chats with Jason.

A little while later, Eli comes upstairs to hug Hannah. ( :3 ) 

Zaiden finishes building a rocket for his Aspiration.  

Jason becomes a Child, and takes one of the upstairs rooms because I managed to make it look decent. I love him so much that he even gets an expensive computer. 

Hannah’s grade drops from a A in elementary school to a B in high school. And she wants to call someone, but sadly has no one to call. 

Her Aspiration is Painter Extraordinaire, despite that she isn’t Creative nor has she ever picked up a paint brush, and her only skills are 1 Fitness and 1 Video Gaming. OK… 

She takes Rebeca’s old room in the basement and enlarges it a little. She has an expensive new easel of her own, as well as a desk for homework. 

Scott, Rebeca’s fourth son, becomes a Wild toddler. 

The boys will move out when Eli becomes a teenager in 5-6 days (it’s not that I don’t love them; it’s just that if Trent couldn’t stay in the house past YA, they don’t have a chance), and I don’t care if they do their homework…but they usually choose to do it anyway, sometimes together. 

I should’ve taken a picture, but basically: Rebeca became pregnant again not long after Scott was born, in Zaiden’s newly-completed rocketship. Now she’s in her second trimester (third in 10 hours), and Zaiden has announced that she’s pregnant with another girl—Victoria Robinson! 

(Before Angie’s birth, I could probably count on one hand the number of Sim days that Rebeca WASN’T pregnant as a YA.) 

Rebeca needs a Writing and Logic skill for promotion to Level 8 of her career, ‘Fan Favorite’. Zaiden is at Level 7 of his (Doctor—General Practitioner), and has 12 days ’til Elder; I’m going to give him a Potion of Youth when Rebeca is an Adult or close. 

Each work day is more or less the same for Zaiden, and his job isn’t that hard (mainly my problem is stopping him from washing nonexistent dishes), so I don’t take many pictures. 

Early the next morning, Hannah completes her first painting. She’s just sat to read the first volume of the Parenting skill books (interesting choice…) when I tell her to sell it to a collector, and this is the face she gives me. 

She carries the book downstairs and buries her nose in it while she sells the painting. Now Inspired, she wants to make a group meal—But by the time she puts the book down, that whim disappears and she’s just…making grilled cheese for the heck of it. Then she goes over to prune the bonsai. 

A few hours later, Jason needs Social, so I scan the area for people. Lo and behold, Uncle Trent is fishing across the street. Hi, Trent! 

Eli’s motives are fine and he has nothing of importance to do; both boys head over to talk to him. 

That night at 8:51 p.m., Rebeca comes home from work and drags herself to bed. Zaiden’s making Arthur a cake, to rid the household of a toddler, and Hannah is playing chess with Eli to up her Fun and Social simultaneously. 

Scott is moved to the little nursery on the first floor, and Arthur takes his old room. 

The next morning, Rebeca is full term. Hannah does homework despite being tired, because her Responsibility will drop if she doesn’t, not to mention her grades. 

A little over three hours later, she finishes the extra credit with Zaiden’s help. Then he and Rebeca go to bed, while Hannah takes a sleep replacement. 

Almost two hours after that, at 8:19 a.m., Rebeca goes into labor. 

Trent brings her to the hospital, but predictably has ditched her by the time she gets to the front desk. 

1:18 p.m. She’s still being checked in. 

3:02 p.m. A popup says Rebeca is going to the hospital to give birth—who do I want to join her? I pick Trent again, and she spins into a hospital gown. But I don’t see Trent anywhere. 

6:20 p.m. She’s STILL being checked in. 

8:21 p.m. She looks as fed-up as I feel. 

11:31 p.m. She lives here now. 

1:30 a.m. I click on Rebeca and tell her to Have Baby at Hospital, choosing Trent for the third time. Trent’s making a Baked Alaska and can’t possibly tear himself away. 

1:41 a.m. Holy crap, is she walking to the surgery table?! I hope she doesn’t stop doing that because I told her to check in at the front desk again and then cancelled—NOPE. We’re good! ( 😀 ) 

2:45 a.m. After spending almost nineteen hours in labor, Rebeca delivers Victoria. The bassinet is invisible, so it looks like Rebeca’s catching her before she hits the linoleum. ( XD )

I wish Sims were still born of their mother’s—father’s, in the case of aliens—plumbobs, and that this is how all deliveries went. 

BTW: This is the first time I’ve played an eight-Sim household in TS4. Maybe ever. I can’t remember. 

Two days later at 2:36 p.m., Eli becomes a teenager and the boys move out, leaving Rebeca free to have two more children, for my planned total of eight.

After giving rid of virtually all their things save toys, the family has $28,156. 

Rebeca—who has 1 day to Adult—tries for another baby but fails. Zaiden goes to work. Normally he avoids kids like the plague and just treats patients aged teen+, but for his son Jason he’ll make an exception.

I’m surprised Jason isn’t wearing a hospital gown. Is that normal for kids and I never noticed…? Yeah. A kid waiting to be seen in another room is dressed in pajamas too. 

Zaiden gives Jason a flu vaccination. The latter leaves, and Zaiden starts to attend to an adult, before I check if more of his children are in the lobby and find Arthur. He doesn’t get to do much with him before the end of the day, though. 

The nurse is Kyra Joyson-Eubanks, Landon’s wife. 

I never knew that Independent toddlers potty-train themselves! 

While Victoria is busy with that, Zaiden is asleep, and Hannah is doing homework, Rebeca comes home and is promoted to ‘Fan Favorite’!

She and Zaiden try again for a baby almost an hour later. The live-in nanny, Ashaya Mahajan—seriously, he never leaves—walks in on them just as they’re climbing into bed. ( XD ) 

She’s pregnant. SCORE!

(As you can see with Hannah, this wasn’t the only time Ashaya walked in on one of the family’s private moments… >->;)

The following evening, Zaiden is promoted to Medical Specialist—he and Rebeca are both at Level 8 of their respective careers, and the family has an astonishing $39,338! 

Victoria poses like this after she comes downstairs to listen to Hannah say something to her (I don’t know what), then goes to make a mess but I cancel the interaction. 

Hannah paints for hours while Rebeca teaches Vicky to dance. 

Rebeca learns that she’s having Eli’s newest roommate: Luke Blackburn. 

Hannah pays a visit to the Dennys now that they’ve joined the Willow Creek community. ‘They’ being Prince and his son Edwin. 

Prince was an Adult, you see, and I thought it a shame that he and Jade Rosa-Denny—along with Johnny Zest, Candy Behr, Akira Kibo, and a number of other townies—should die without any kids. So I hooked them up via CAS, and generated Edwin and 4 younger siblings (Graham, King, boy-whose-name-I-cannot-recall, and Juliet). Later, I decided I didn’t like the siblings and deleted them. Jade died of old age by the time Edwin was a teenager; Prince lives until shortly after he becomes a YA. He still thinks about them constantly. ( Q-Q )

As I hoped, Hannah and Edwin get along swimmingly, and she stays at his place so long that she gets home a few minutes after curfew. 

Luke is born at home two days later, at 4:20 a.m. That night, Rebeca becomes pregnant for the final next-to-final time. 

The next morning @ 8:12: Victoria takes and expands Eli’s old room. The family is so wealthy—thanks to Rebeca and Zaiden’s lucrative jobs on top of Rebeca’s $4,000+ in daily royalties—that that I can spend $11,000 on books for their bookworm and scarcely bat an eyelash. 

Then Luke gains the Fussy trait, and is unceremoniously booted out of the house.

(That’s what he looks like right now, as a Child.) 

By the end of teenhood, Hannah is once more a straight-A student. At 7:39 p.m., the day after Luke is gone, she enters YA-hood with the Loner and Responsible traits, and signs up for the Painter career. For all intents and purposes, she is the heir, until I decide that I like Victoria or Angie better. 

The morning after, Hannah goes to the Denny residence and asks Edwin to move in. He’s a Genius, Music Lover, and Slob two days older than her, and somehow already in the Entertainment career; he is switched to Tech Guru because that seems more appropriate for the Computer Whiz Aspiration.

A couple hours later, Hannah is at work; Victoria at school; and Rebeca and Zaiden asleep. Edwin plays video games for his work task. 

Edwin: “BEST. JOB. EVER.” 

After that, he practices programming. 

He needs to play video games for five hours for his Aspiration, by the way; I guess I did select a good career. (Actually, being a Tech Guru is part of the Aspiration. Wow!) 

Next day, 12:22 a.m.: Hannah and Edwin’s relationship isn’t high enough for them to sleep together yet, so Hannah bunks with Victoria instead. 

Meanwhile, Desmond is born and left to Ashaya to raise per usual. (I take so few pictures that I often have next-to-no context, and for the longest time thought this baby was Luke.) 

Also meanwhile, Zaiden stays up all night upgrading the rocket, and takes family leave at 10:10 a.m. so he can get some shut-eye. 

Edwin earns $71 from hacking and completes his programming task requirement, then goes to work. Hannah is also at work, Victoria at school, Desmond who cares, Rebeca pregnant.

I know I said Desmond would be the last, but I saw Try for Baby and had an impulse to use it, and listening to my impulses is why Rebeca exists (in a manner of speaking). I would’ve been quite displeased to have to put up with Mary as heir. 

That afternoon, Friday, 4:52 p.m.: Hannah is promoted to Watercolor Dabbler, and Victoria de-stresses from school by “analyzing” a book. Whatever that means; she doesn’t write a report on it, or anything. 

Saturday, 6:04 p.m. FUCK YES, IT’S A GIRL. Also, Zaiden maxes Cooking. His job performance is Excellent, so I hope the next time he goes to work, he’ll get to deliver a baby so he can rise to Surgeon (Level 9); Rebeca has just been promoted to Bestselling Author (Level 9). And Edwin was promoted too. 

Sunday, 11:31 p.m.: Edwin is thrilled that Hannah is pregnant with Mark.

This is weird—mother and daughter both expecting. 

The family has $50,081, and Rebeca’s about to publish yet another book. 

Tuesday, 11:28 a.m.: Angie Robinson has been born and is a toddler, and Rebeca is finally, finally, FINALLY an Adult. (Trent, Mary, Dawn, and Cadence have all died of old age; Kyra—the wife of Rebeca’s nephew—was an Adult before her; and she and her daughter were in the same lifestage. It was getting pretty damn awkward.)

Zaiden takes one last Potion of Youth, so they’re the same age and will stay that way until Elderhood. I clicked on their bed, saw Try for Baby, and only considered it for the briefest flicker of a second before deciding, “Nahhhh…” 

Scott invites little sis Victoria to play hooky at the Ancient Ruins in Windenburg. Why he picked somewhere without a playground or…you know…literally ANYTHING to do, I don’t know. Less chance of getting caught? (I’ve played Sims 2 a lot lately, and similarly can’t fathom why EA/Maxis/whoever no longer allow Sims to raise their Fun through interaction besides WooHoo.) 

Scott has no sense of humor. Every time Victoria tries to be funny with him, he gets bored and she loses double relationship points. Oh, right, he’s Mean. He insults her, so she insults him back and goes home. 

That night, Edwin’s promoted to Code Monkey, and awww, his father is dead—Prince’s ghost calls to invite him someplace. 

Obviously Zaiden was abducted again—I heard him get picked up, but usually play with the volume off and couldn’t figure out what that noise was, until I saw the UFO drop him off in front of the house later—and now has an alien son. (Naturally it’s a son. This is Zaiden we’re talking about.) 

And obviously I didn’t take pictures of any of it. ( X_X ) I really need to get better about that. 

What’s his name, you ask? It’s…um…er…well…Kellan. Kellan Blackburn. I chose that name out of a randomized list of ten, but I don’t think I want it to be permanent. 

The funny thing about “Kellan” is, despite that he has -0.99999999% chance of inheriting and isn’t even a blood relative of Elise (nor would I bet a penny that he’ll stay in the house past YA-hood)…I don’t want to send him to Sixam, or to Eli like the other boys. He’s so unique—my first alien since before TS3 was released—that I actually want to be there as he’s growing up. 

---

Before I do anything else with the family, let’s play catch-up: 

• The Robinsons’ main household funds stand at $48,743. Considering that they used to have over $100,000, this makes me feel alarmingly poor. However, Zaiden is still no longer the resident repairman. Something’s broken? BOOM! Gleaming, brand-new replacement. 
  • Maybe full-time jobs will be a thing of the past in a couple generations? Or they might even get so rich that the bills practically pay themselves, and they only earn money on accident. *daydreams* 
• Rebeca and Zaiden were the same age. I swear they were. But when I loaded the game to take notes for this section of the blog post, I discovered that she’s now 9 days to Elder while Zaiden’s got 13. He’s younger than her for a change. 
  • Rebeca has reached the top of the Writer career (Author branch); she’s a Creator of Worlds. 
  • Rebeca’s skills are Writing (10); Violin (8); Parenting (6); Charisma and Logic (5); Comedy and Painting (4); Handiness (3); Dancing, Piano, and Video Gaming (2); Baking, Cooking, Fitness, and Gardening (1). 
  • If Rebeca can read to Angie for just one Sim hour, she can advance to the next stage of her Aspiration. In order to complete it, she’ll then need [1] Hannah, Victoria, or Angie to have three friends; [2] to be friends with 3 of her 9 kids (√); [3] one of her children to get married (two of them already are); [4]; to socialize ten times with a child or grandchild (ridiculously easy); [5] to have four grandchildren (Mark, George, David, and Carol); and [6] to become good friends with four children or grandchildren (also simple). Angie needs reading to, and Rebeca needs to read to her, so that’ll be a major goal moving forward. 
• At long last, a pregnant Sim got lost and wandered into Zaiden’s hospital—so now he’s a Surgeon. (I believe he’s delivered 1-2 more babies since.) His job performance is Excellent and he has work in 59 minutes. If he can diagnose and treat two patients in his next shift, he might get promoted to Chief of Staff (Level 10). I’m so proud of him and Rebeca—Ulysses married in at Level 10, and so did Andrea Hogan-Franklin (the co-founder of one of my TS2 legacies a looooong-ass time ago), but I can’t remember ever having a Sim climb a career ladder from bottom to top before. 
  • Zaiden’s skills are Cooking and Logic (10); Rocket Science (9); Handiness and Parenting (7); Gourmet Cooking (6); Charisma, Comedy, and Video Gaming (3); Dancing and Painting (2); and Fitness, Guitar, Singing, and Violin (1). 
  • Zaiden completed the Nerd Brain Aspiration and switched to Soulmate. But I haven’t felt motivated to work on that one with him. I just chose a second Aspiration because I had to. (…Right? O-O)
• Ostensibly, Hannah has 13 days to Adult—but will probably be a YA for much longer than that because she’s yet to give birth to a daughter. 
  • Hannah is currently at Level 7 (Artist en Residence) of the Painter career, Master of the Real branch. She’s finished her ‘Create Paintings’ daily task, her performance is Excellent, and she has work in two hours. 
  • Hannah’s skills are Painting (8); Logic (5); Comedy (3); Dancing, Fitness, Parenting, and Video Gaming (2); and Charisma, Cooking, Gardening, Handiness, Mischief, and Writing (1). 
  • I really think Hannah can complete her Aspiration if I put a little more work into it: She needs to create one more emotional painting; go to the museum to view or admire three works of art; and make 10 Excellent paintings and 5 Masterpieces (I don’t know if the ones she’s already done will count). 
• There’s a Potion of Youth in Edwin’s inventory, and the millisecond I unpause the game, he needs to be drinking it; he has 1 day to Adult, and after taking the potion he’ll almost certainly again be older than Hannah by the time she stops having kids. 
  • Edwin is at Level 6 (Development Captain) of the Tech Guru career. He’s finished his daily programming task and just needs to raise his performance. (Right now, it’s Good.) He has work in 59 minutes. 
  • Edwin’s skills are Programming (7); Video Gaming (5); Comedy and Cooking (2); and Charisma, Dancing, Logic, and Parenting (1). 
  • Edwin can’t make video games yet, but he’s in the process of making an app. All he’ll need to do to complete his Aspiration once that’s done is spend 100 hours on a computer. (Who knows how many he’s already logged?) 

• Victoria has 2 days to YA. Hannah isn’t yet pregnant with a third baby, but with any luck it’ll be a girl and I can tell Vicky sayonara. It’s not that I hate her. I just don’t like her very much. 
  • Victoria is a B student. Her performance is Good, so maybe she’ll earn an A by the time she’s ready to grow up.
    • She’s working part-time as a Barista (‘Bean Blender’, Level 2). She’s finished her ‘Reach Level 2 Mixology’ promotion task, and just needs to raise her performance from ‘Good’. 
  • Victoria’s skills are Fitness (3); Mixology and Video Gaming (2); and Charisma, Comedy, Dancing, and Mischief (1). 
  • Victoria has performed 2 of 10 mean or mischievous interactions (although I couldn’t tell you what they were to save my life). However, ‘Public Enemy’ seems all wrong for her—she’s not exactly sweetness and sunshine, but neither does she strike me as an awful person. Maybe I’ll change her Aspiration at YA? 

• Angie has 5 days to Teen. 
  • Angie is a B student. Her performance is Excellent. She needs a Level 4 skill and to do her homework, but she’s at school right now, so I can’t work on either of those. 
  • Angie’s skills are Creativity, Motor, and Social (3), and Mental (2). 
  • I SERIOUSLY doubt she even has a chance at completing Whiz Kid. (To be honest, I seriously doubt any of my Sims could do that: ‘Craft 3 emotional potions’ Three wut nao? o-O How do I pull that off? Angie, why didn’t you tell me you’re a witch?) 

• The Robinsons own several high-dollar items (a jungle gym; an observatory, etc.), and their house has undergone major renovations. 

• Eli Blackburn (YA) is a married father of two-and-counting. Meet his wife, Shari Zest-Blackburn; and their children, David and Carol Blackburn. 

• Jason, Arthur, and Scott Blackburn are teenagers (and Luke and Desmond are children, but you’ve already seen their photos). 

• Mark Denny and his younger brother George live with Uncle Eli. 

• Karlie Dietrich-Eubanks has also died of old age. Her son Landon Eubanks is an Adult, and he and his wife Kyra have three sons: Hayden, Anthony, and Wade. 
  

  

  
• Landon’s younger sister Melissa is also an Adult, and a single mother to twins Renee and Jodi Eubanks. Their father is Kirk Zest, the older brother of Shari Zest-Blackburn. 
  • However, Kirk lives with Shari. (They’re the children of Johnny Zest and Candy Behr-Zest; first cousins of Veronica and Zayne Kibo, who’re the children of Akira Kibo and Yuki Behr-Kibo.) And I’m not sure how to link family trees on the Plum Tree App site, nor if I care to create a new tree just for his sake—he’s a nobody. 

• Kayaan Banerjee-Robinson has also died of old age. His daughter Olive Robinson is an Adult. She’s married to a townie named Jeremiah Calloway (who inexplicably seems to know and be friends with everybody in town), and they have two children: Taylor Robinson and Spencer Calloway. 

Generation III—Part Three

Rebeca is alone with Zaiden, whom I consider moving back in with his brothers and just leaving as her boyfriend, since it’d shrink the household and they don’t have much chemistry. 

She wants to plant something, and finds a packet of starter flowers in the mail—I have her put the two daisies in her mom’s carved, homemade planter. 

She and Zaiden make out on their bed and snuggle, but…I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel like the right time to have a baby. 

On the other hand, Rebeca’s wanted one since she was a teenager, so…YEP. 

Part of Zaiden worries about a potential pregnancy, but he’s too excited after his first time having sex to care. 

He’s relieved she isn’t pregnant.

I’m disappointed that she isn’t upset enough about that for him to be able to console her. 

After that, I join Zaiden at the hospital.

Apparently his co-worker—Ben Rawls, Cadence’s father—has died. It’s okay, Ben, everybody will understand if you retire; let someone else have the j—

Ben: “Screw you, I’m still paying off student loans.” 

Zaiden’s promoted to Medical Assistant. ( :3 ) 

Rebeca sends Cadence a Happy Text, and the latter invites her to a park. (Earlier, another of Zaiden’s co-workers invited him to a nightclub to celebrate his promotion, but he’s beat, so…Darn it.) She stumbles across Olive there, and I try to play Space Monster, but Olive gets off the jungle gym before she can. 

That man on the bench is Cole Snyder, a YA pizza delivery guy. He passed by Trent’s birthday party, but I didn’t have a reason to say hello. Now I think, He’s not half bad-looking. There’s a chance he and Rebeca could start an affair and hit it off. 

Rebeca does a Polite Introduction (which gives them a huge automatic relationship boost; that greeting-literally-everyone thing she did as a teenager really paid off), and I wasn’t sure what she could compliment Cole on, given that he bears more than a passing resemblance to a hobo…But leave it to her to find something: She says he has a nice smile. 

He’s tired and sleeps on a bench, so Rebeca goes back to chatting with Cadence until she has a chance to play Space Monster with her niece, probably wanting a baby more than ever. 

LOL, Cadence joins in, too. (I guess because she’s Childish.) I knew I liked her for a reason. 

Rebeca teaches Olive about responsibility, kisses her on the cheek (which Olive doesn’t particularly care for), and says it was good to see her. 

Then she joins Cadence’s chess game, and learns her BFF is Unflirty and a Secret Agent, which I suspected when the career icon appeared above her head earlier.

Cole joins Liberty Lee’s game at the next table over, and Rebeca finds out he’s Insane. So much for that affair idea. 

She ends up stuck in the public restroom (as if we need more reasons to avoid them), so I send her home. She wants a promotion and has work in four hours—she takes a sleep replacement potion, and eats leftover mac and cheese whilst fulfilling whims with Zaiden. She’s ready, and Zaiden needs to treat three patients, so I have to follow him. 

He has to scan a patient in one of the two X-ray machines.

He’s successful in calibrating the second machine….Yet he uses the first. So clearly the ‘calibrate’ option doesn’t actually do anything. Why is it there, again? 

Is there a reason he’s getting a massive radiation dose without a lead apron? 

Zaiden: “…Shit.” 

Seriously, every time he does this to someone, I cringe. 

[After the X-Ray Scan is Done] Um…Why didn’t that count for ‘Scan a Patient’s Body’? *reads task instructions* Because it has nothing to do with X-rays, that’s why. Silly me, where ever could I have gotten that idea? 

Welp. That’s several hours of shift time down the drain. 

….Oh, NOW I’m supposed to scan a patient in the X-ray machine. Greeeeeat. Fuck this job.

He only ends up treating that patient, and I don’t know if he completes all his work tasks, although he stays two hours late. He’s close, at least!

Rebeca is promoted to Advice Columnist. ( 😀 ) And…somehow that didn’t fulfill her ‘get a promotion’ whim. WHAT THE FUCK!!! Do I have to actually be on the home lot when she gets the promotion?! *groan* 

In other news:

• The house is paid off.
• Rebeca is at Level 4 Writing skill (where she needs to be), and if I can get her to go to work Inspired, she might have high-enough performance for a promotion. If not, probably the day after. Just in case whims are glitched right now, though, I’ll unpin it so as to allow her to potentially roll one to get engaged to Zaiden. 
• Zaiden chooses to sleep in the nice bed now that it’s free.

• Elise’s ghost makes its debut. 
• Rebeca also wants to sleep in the nice bed. 

When Zaiden wakes, he wants to WooHoo with Rebeca, and repair an object. The downstairs stereo happens to be broken. 

( o: )

OMG REBECA WANTS TO MARRY ZAIDEN. NOT GET ENGAGED. MARRY. 

( O: )

…But she has work in three hours, and needs Fun. Hm. I’m pretty sure WooHoo counts as fun. ( O-O ) 

Pictured: Fun. 

I send Zaiden to work alone today, partially because he’s tense after trying for a baby, and partially because I just can’t stand the suspense. 

SHE’S PREGNANT!

….What are those—her work clothes? Yep, time for her to go to work. ( 🙂 ) Unfortunately, she isn’t Inspired. Oh well. 

She comes home sans promotion and blows a kiss at Zaiden, and he expresses his fondness toward her. ❤

They get engaged. I’ll wait ’til they’re in a better mood and have more money before I throw them a wedding, though; the event costs $1,000 before altars, cake, catering, seating, etc. 

What’s this—a Hates Children Sim reacting realistically to the prospect of being forced to deal with a small, annoying child soon?! 

Sims 4: “PSYCH!”

Rebeca’s feeling Confident. Everything is looking up: She’s pregnant, she has a good job and husband, and the house is paid off so they can start to accumulate money…. She plays the violin for fun, raises her skill to Level 6, and becomes Inspired. ( 🙂 ) 

Ulysses’ ghost is out tonight. He and Elise may not have completed their Aspirations, but they came closer than any of my previous TS4 Sims (except maybe one, but that’s because Soulmate is Easy Mode). He comes inside to watch Rebeca play. 

After she tells him of her pregnancy, she goes to bed and he prunes the bonsai. 

Zaiden WooHoos with Rebeca as per his whim. Then she goes back to sleep, and he eats scrambled eggs and bacon. So does Ulysses. 

Zaiden: “You realize you can’t starve to death, right?” 

All that about wanting a promotion because you’re Responsible…You just want a more flattering uniform, don’t you? 

Rebeca: “Please.” 

Zaiden finishes a Handiness book—in order to both upgrade objects and satisfy his Aspiration requirement for reading more books—and repairs one of the upstairs toilets. Now he has the spare parts to upgrade said toilet.

And he wants to gain Logic skill, which—what a coincidence!—is something he happens to need for Aspiration progress. 

That day, Rebeca is promoted to Regular Contributor. 

She has morning sickness in her second-going-on-third trimester. (The violin pic is just because I think she looks gorgeous while she’s pregnant.) 

Now ready to give birth any time, she invites Elise to feel her stomach. 

Mary takes Rebeca to the hospital, since I don’t think she’d want to bother Zaiden with it. She invites Mary to feel the baby.

Then Mary leaves. ( 😦 )

Gee, thanks, big sis. 

Hannah Robinson—a.k.a. the world’s cutest baby—is born at 10:56 a.m. 

Rebeca cuddles the crying baby and smothers her with kisses, both at the hospital and home. I move Hannah’s bassinet out next to the founding graves, so Rebeca can show her off to Zaiden. Then she breastfeeds her, cooing softly and chuckling. 

She leaves her there to go and make out and WooHoo with Zaiden for whim purposes—A LOT (meanwhile I’m watching Hannah at 1x speed, marveling at how I’ve never thought a sleeping Sim infant could be so adorable)—then she changes Hannah and gives her attention. 

After that, Rebeca tries to feed herself, only to be interrupted by Ulysses asking her something. Now she has to pee. Hannah is crying again; Ulysses bottlefeeds her while Rebeca takes care of business. 

Rebeca Hannah grows up at 12:43 p.m. the following day, with the Inquisitive trait. She plays with her cat toy (I can’t wait for the Robinsons to have an Actual Cat!) and investigates the office toilet. 

Rebeca asks her to please not splash around in it, which regains some of the Responsibility that Hannah lost. And then Mommy and Baby spend quality time together. She is a joy to follow around right now, with only one toddler in the house and no other children. 

While Rebeca potty-trains Hannah, and Zaiden upgrades one of the toilets for his Aspiration…Ulysses calls, inviting Rebeca to meet him at a park. I’m thinking, Dude! It’s 5:58 p.m., she can see you at home in a couple hours anyway!

Cadence invites Rebeca to Ladies’ Night, to “take advantage of the cheap drinks.” Being that I’m in such a good mood and this is a matriarchy and I should really stop avoiding the game’s ‘juice’ bars like they have teeth, how can I say no? 

Poor as she still is, Rebeca splurges on a couple drinks—even buying a round for Dawn when she turns up, because that’s what sisters are for—and chats with the girls.

Also Grim. I felt like giving her a positive relationship with him/her/it for some reason, probably the politeness thing. 

I changed my mind about the wedding party.

I’m too damned impatient for my own good. 

Zaiden is promoted to Medical Technologist (Level 4), and Cadence asks Rebeca if she wants to hang out at her house. 

…It turns out the house I moved Cadence into is empty. Heh. I send them to shop at the clothing store in Magnolia Promenade. There’s nothing in their limited selection that the Robinsons can’t get from Buy Mode.

Rebeca does purchase an Uncommon Space Rock at the shop next door, though, from a game-generated employee named Prince Denny. (He’ll be relevant later.) She finds Olive at the park across the street, sad that her ice cream cone fell on the ground or something. 

After that, Olive leaves and Rebeca talks to Melissa (who was also playing on the jungle gym) for a bit. She leaves, and Rebecca goes to the public restroom (!), then catches up with her down the street. Landon—now a teenager—happens to walk up to them. 

Melissa disappears after Rebeca’s almost maxed their friendship bar, so Rebeca goes home. When she gets there, Hannah is waiting on the front walkway to ask her to read her a book. Awww. 

Hannah will grow up in about three Sim days, which means it’s time for Rebeca to be pregnant again. Zaiden is none too pleased, but still finds her attractive, which is what got him into this mess. 

Zaiden does a Fantastic Job two days in a row and is very close to promotion; Rebeca was promoted to the Author branch of her career! When Zaiden comes home, he finds her reading the Handiness Vol. 2 book, no doubt to fix her busted computer. (She surprises me by already having three Handiness skill. There’s no way you’re ready for Vol. 2, Zaiden does all the repairs, what are you doing? …Apparently, I was right.) She repairs the computer without a hassle, though. 

Meanwhile, Hannah is adorable playing with her butterfly. 

Zaiden is promoted to Assistant Nurse (Level 5). 

Hannah’s Attention is at rock-bottom, and she needs a bath, so Zaiden wakes up and gives her one. I take pictures because I can’t stop taking pictures of her. The first step is admitting you have a problem—I have a problem. 

After a disappointing shift—in which his promotion requirement was treating two patients, but he didn’t manage to diagnose a single one because he spent much of his day at a house call…giving medicine to people who didn’t even live at the house in question (Mary and Dawn’s), including the guy he’d been running tests on before he got the call (I’ve ignored house call requests ever since)…and thus wasn’t able to finish his work tasks—Zaiden comes home, ready to face-plant on his bed. Rebeca is shown as being at work, but when I click on Hannah’s icon, knowing she’s back from daycare now, I find her with Rebeca in the bathroom by the master bedroom.

A few Sim minutes later, a bassinet appears and Rebeca starts to give birth. (This is how most of Rebeca’s pregnancies end: With Zaiden coming home to a little surprise.)

Eli Blackburn is born at 6:40 p.m. 

Hannah destroys her dollhouse right after, Because Reasons.

She isn’t upset about having a new sibling. Or about anything else, for that matter…other than the fact that the dollhouse is smashed. 

The next morning while Rebeca is painting, Zaiden rocks Eli to get him to stop crying. He relaxes in his father’s arms and seems ready to fall asleep. 

A couple Sim hours later, Rebeca is pregnant again—

—because I’m really not sure I want Hannah to be heir, given that she’s almost a clone of Rebeca. (At least, it seemed that way when I wrote this. She does have Rebeca’s hair color, eye shape, and lips…but also Zaiden’s eye color, nose, and possibly his chin and smaller cheekbones.) 

Generation III—Part Two

—then going to the bathroom, and heading upstairs to nap on the couch.

However, she dies when she reaches the landing, at 6:49 a.m.

Ulysses is pissed off by his failed plea to Grim, and he and his daughter and future son-in-law mourn. 

(I’ll probably create a graveyard at some point.) 

Both amusingly and irritatingly, Grim gives zero fucks. He hangs about, reading their Violin Vol. 2 book and messing with their iPad tablet. 

Zaiden attempts to cheer Rebeca up, and—to feel better—she goes out volunteering with him. 

I’m not quite sure why he’s crying buckets too. He barely knew Elise. 

Meanwhile, Trent invites Ulysses to Oasis Springs’ park. They stay there for hours, just talking, laughing, hugging, and dancing, and eating Ulysses’ grilled chicken. This will probably be the last time Trent sees his dad. 

(Spoiler alert: It’s not the last time he sees his dad. Poor Trent.) 

Trent gets up from the lounge’s loveseat, where he was sitting next to Ulysses, and jogs to a sink in one of the bathrooms.

He stands there, doing absolutely nothing. The fuck?

While whatever that is is happening, Ulysses autonomously cleans a mess on the playground (blasted kids) with one of those newfangled fold-up pocket mops. 

I am absolutely floored to see the Grim Reaper, playing chess on Ulysses’ penultimate(?) day. Like Grim’s killing time (no pun intended) waiting for him to drop dead, because it just makes more sense than traveling all the way to the afterlife and having to turn around and come back. 

I send Ulysses to give him a Rude Introduction on behalf of his late wife. 

Meanwhile, Trent stands at the sink in the other bathroom. 

I have Ulysses shove Grim in the hopes of starting a fight between them, and soon that option is available! 

Ulysses loses and declares Grim his enemy. They fight again, this time with an audience—a kid coming over from the playground to watch because they’re much more entertaining than the jungle gym. 

Trent laughs his ass off. 

Despite being dazed, Ulysses wins this time. :3 

Then he hurries off to pee while Grim resumes his(?) solitary chess game. (Maybe Grim is actually a her, given that he/she/it turns up for ladies’ night later.)

Ulysses rants and raves to Trent, who congratulates him on his victory. Then as per his latest whim, he invites Trent to stargaze. 

Next, he wants to be mischievous toward Grim. I have him do so, then cuss Grim out, because c’mon—when am I going to get another opportunity to do that?

Finally it’s time for Ulysses to go home, since he doesn’t have much energy left. 

That was a fun send-off. 🙂  

When he comes back, Zaiden is chipper, playing Incredible Sports on the tablet to ignore Rebeca’s depression. (Her lip is trembling. ;~; ) 

Ulysses drags himself inside and walks straight into the dining room table. Seeming to realize his mistake, he turns, still clipping through the furniture, and now his arm is impaling Rebeca’s hand. 

Ulysses manages to extricate himself and goes upstairs, leaving Rebeca to finish her animal crackers. Animal crackers fix everything. 

Zaiden sits to talk to her, and she autonomously “Discuss[es] Food Flavors”, grinning and laughing like, “Animal crackers are the best thing since butter came in a stick!” Then resumes being depressed;

“ZAAAAIDDDDEENNNNNN!”

“What?!”

“My mom is deaaaadddddd!” *sob* 

“Would you like some cheese with that whine?” 

*throws animal cracker at him, still sobbing* “You asshole!” 

He marches to the bathroom, smiling at her. 

She cries in the upstairs closet, while Zaiden glitches, walking from bathroom sink to bathroom sink to wash nonexistent dishes. The interaction disappears and reappears in his queue, over and over, as he stands there.

(Apparently that’s what Trent was doing at the park.) 

Now he’s napping on the upstairs sofa. And—LOL, Rebeca emerges from the closet to “Wash Dishes” at a bathroom sink. 

Rebeca: ;~; “My turn…” 

She goes to the bathroom across from the closet, then down to the kitchen sink to “Wash Dishes.” The interaction keeps popping up, so I send her to play the violin as a distraction. I check on Ulysses (still sleeping) and Zaiden (still napping), aaaaand…Rebeca is back to sink-moping. 

I have her write a Sad book, and she thinks about how Ulysses is going to die soon. 

Meanwhile, Zaiden is up from his nap, and the first thing he does is “Wash Dishes” at a bathroom sink. Yep. Definitely a glitch. 

Energized by the nap, he does push-ups, then “Wash[es] Dishes”; reads the family board thingy in the office, continuing to ignore Rebeca’s misery; and “Wash[es] Dishes” in the office bathroom. I try ‘Reset Sim’—it keeps happening anyway. 

Ulysses wants to talk to Rebeca, so I have him go downstairs and they become Best Friends. “Ulysses and Trent have fallen out of touch and are no longer best friends” HOW?! I overkilled it last night with them interacting so much! I thought Trent would be like, “Um…so I’ve been here literally all day….Can I leave now?” Or, “JESUS CHRIST, I LOVE YOU TOO, DAD, BUT SHUT UP ALREADY!” 

(I find out later that Sims can only have one best friend. Thanks for the heads up, game. /sarcasm) 

Rebeca wants to be friendly with Ulysses, so she asks advice on how to deal with Elise’s passing. He cheers her up, and she becomes Happy and tells a knock-knock joke. :3 

They hug—

—and grab a plate of the mac’n’cheese that Zaiden the New Resident Chef just made. 

Rebeca: “Zaiden, WTF are you doing?” 

Zaiden: *washing Actual Dishes* 

#ActualDishes

While Rebeca naps on their bed, Zaiden mourns Elise. (He does that a lot; Rebeca hasn’t done it since Elise died, and she doesn’t mourn Ulysses either. Neither does Zaiden. Why? Search me.) 

Ulysses soon joins him, though he doesn’t shed a tear. He’s probably thinking about his encounter with Grim, or the fact that he’ll join Elise in the afterlife soon. 

Ulysses goes downstairs to play chess by himself while Zaiden naps on the living room sofa. 

Rebeca wakes up from her nap, cries in the closet, then goes to “Wash Dishes” again. Fuck. No. You’re going to play the violin and like it. 

Rebeca: *loves it* 

After that, she wants to start a Sad Painting, so I have her remove the diagram Ulysses started a couple days ago—and she’s Happy again, wanting to compliment someone. Jeez, that’s some harsh criticism. 

She and Zaiden—who’s sitting on the couch—become best friends, and she gives him a Heartfelt Compliment. Zaiden has wanted to ask her to be his girlfriend for a while, but I held off, afraid she’d reject him because of her depression. Better have him start flirting now, before Ulysses dies and her good mood with him. O-O; 

Ulysses, not you too!

Ulysses: “I’m just getting a glass of water, relax.” 

They’re having their first kiss in front of the bathroom door. Hot. 

Zaiden: “Will you play dolls with me?”

Rebeca: “What?” 

Zaiden: “A-as my girlfriend, I mean. Like, you…be my girlfriend—for real—and we play dolls.” 

Rebeca: “Um…Can we have cowplant dolls, and then Sim dolls start going missing around town, but police have trouble proving that the family is involved because they grow new cowplants and fertilize their garden with the old ones? And can we have a tiny pillow for the dolls to scream into when they get mad?” 

Zaiden: “I don’t see why not?” 

Rebeca: “YAY! This is going to be so much fun!”

Zaiden: “I know, right?! I call dibs on the neighbor who tips off the cops.” 

Rebeca: “Fine, but I get to kill them before they testify.” 

After taking a picture of them together, Zaiden showers. Ulysses sets his empty glass on their dresser and lingers for half an hour, watching Rebeca sleep. 😦 

He goes upstairs to dance to the music on the living room stereo. Then as he’s completing a mathematical diagram, Trent invites him to his birthday party. AW, TRENT’S GETTING OLD. 

Karlie, Landon, and Melissa are home when Ulysses arrives on the lot…

But the birthday boy is missing. 

Ulysses goes inside to talk to his grandson about what he’s learning in school. 

More guests arrive—Mary and Dawn! And Karlie’s brother Jonas; Riley Powell, the weird arm guy Karlie saw when she was a teenager at that nightclub; Jade Rosa; Penny Pizzazz; some guy named Kellan Shibata; and a teen named Vernon Wilburn.

They all look bummed out, like they heard that Trent ditched his own party. 

I consider making Ulysses leave, but no, he has family here. He and Dawn talk about how bored she is. 

Dawn: “Trent is such a dick.” 

Aww, Karlie and Jonas are hugging.

Meanwhile, Ulysses is all, “Animal crackers fix everything.” 

Kellan: “Is it over yet?”

Nope. Less than halfway through. 

Kellan: *GROOOANNNNN*

Really, Trent? You couldn’t have asked the guests to show up a little later—after you got off work, for example?

You couldn’t even have changed out of your uniform before coming home? 

Mary: “He is never living this down.” 

To remedy this, I have Ulysses ask to see Trent’s party outfit. I don’t know why I gave him cowboy boots. 

Mary: “He’s never living that down, either.” 

I have Ulysses congratulate Trent on his birthday, because that’s what you do. 

Trent hugs him, horrifying Rieko Syzuki (the woman passing by the house). 

Trent tells Ulysses a Deep Secret: He just found out that robots are taking over the world. 

Ulysses: “I’m not that senile, brat.” 

Trent ages up alone in the hallway. 

Trent: “I look pretty good for an old guy!” 

Ulysses reads a book in the kids’ room, then kisses Melissa on the cheek and teaches her a valuable lesson about how to escape from a cowplant’s digestive system. 

The party is almost done at 12:09 a.m., when Ulysses dies in front of everyone. I thought maybe that wouldn’t happen yet, since he isn’t at home. 

No one even seems to notice at first. He sinks to the floor (“Don’t mind me, I’m just passing away over here”), and Dawn smiles—“That’s nice, Dad. Would you like a grilled cheese?” 

Mary is careful not to trip over the soon-to-be corpse in her high heels, and Trent says he specifically requested there be no cake because it’d take forever to work off. 

Landon glances down at Ulysses, then continues walking. Holy shit. 

Then Mary covers her mouth, horrified—like at first she thought Ulysses was just taking a nap on his son’s hard wood floor in the middle of a birthday celebration. 

Grim: “Sorry I’m late, guys! Had to wait for that!” 

Karlie wakes up and comes out of the back room, and Melissa out of hers. Ulysses is surrounded by people—including three children, two grandchildren, and his daughter-in-law—but he has no one to plead for him. ( ;~; )

Grim: “Toooootally didn’t plan it this way.” *smirk*

A popup appears with Trent saying, “Well, that party could’ve gone better, huh?” Understatement of the millennia. 

Grim replaces Ulysses’ body with an urn, and—

LOADING SCREEN. 

Rebeca has to go to Trent’s at 1 a.m. to retrieve said urn. The children have gone to bed, and Grim is just leaving as she steps inside. 

She lingers a while, then thanks him for inviting her in at such a late hour, and they hug warmly. Karlie and Trent embrace just after she leaves.

Then Trent stands at their bathroom sink. 

Generation III—Part One

lol, the next interaction in Karlie’s queue after giving birth is to clean the filthy sink next to her. Priorities. :p

Landon Eubanks is born at 9:46 a.m. Sunday.

As of right now, Ulysses is 8 days to Elder.

He needs two more Parenting skill; a child with three positive character traits (like I said, Rebeca’s Manners are in range, and her Conflict Resolution is halfway there, followed by Responsibility, and then Empathy and Emotional Control as distant fourths—he might get this objective fulfilled, but I doubt it; that’d require a lot of work over the next 9 days); and to go into Full Parent Mode.

(Can he do that with a grandkid?) 

He has 9 Painting skill; 8 Parenting; 5 Gardening; 3 Cooking and Logic; 2 Handiness and Mischief; and 1 Charisma, Comedy, Dancing, Fitness, and Video Gaming.

(And 10 Surviving-Getting-Eaten-by-Cowplants.) 

At 9:23 p.m. Sunday, Ulysses and Elise plant a large garden while Trent comes behind them, watering. 

At 9:02 a.m. Monday, Rebeca finishes the watering and goes to school. The garden is complete—for now—and it’s up to their new scheduled gardener to keep it that way. 🙂 

Around 11 a.m., I get Landon’s almost-birthday notice, so after a shower, Karlie goes upstairs to age him up. 

How are you fat?! You almost starved because no one was paying attention to you!

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1:06 p.m. Somehow Landon gets downstairs and I find him crying for food. I buy a high chair. Jonas calls Karlie to chat, so she sets the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the tray. 

Landon is queued to eat the sandwich, he’s frozen for a while, standing there holding his sippy cup of milk and frowning.

I was planning for him to be an only child, but Karlie wants another baby. Which is a nice change of pace from me forcing children on my Sims.

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While Karlie potty-trains Landon, Mary invites Trent to the public pool in Windenburg. He brings up an embarrassing childhood moment, tells a joke, then dares her to jump. (Off what? Oh. The ladder. Into the pool.) 

Next, she insults him. Quite glad she’s not the heir. 

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So Trent has a fun time, and when he comes home, he wants to catch a fish. So I have him go across the street; he reaches Level 3 and catches a small, common fish. 

Right before he went home from the pool, he randomly got Flirty, and he’s still feeling that way. His…emotional whim is to ask someone to go steady. 

Yo, dumbass: 

YOU’RE MARRIED.

And you’re not getting a pool, either, so forget it.

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Elise is asleep. And Ulysses…has been abducted.

Fuck.

(Thankfully he isn’t pregnant.)

The next day at 11:34 a.m., Dawn invites Trent to try and win some contests with her at GeekCon. Whatever those contests may be; I can’t find any when he gets there. So he buys a hamburger, and looks at the available “swag” (nothing of interest)—

Then discovers and participates in the Ultimate Gaming Test. Which, of course, he fails, because his skill isn’t that high. And his programming skill is nonexistent, so he’d definitely lose Hackathon. He goes back to eating his hamb—I mean…To work. 

The gardener has finished, and for the second time in a row charges nothing.

If this is a glitch, don’t you dare patch it, Maxis.

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While Trent is at work and Karlie fishing, Elise bathes Landon and reads him to sleep. 

She goes outside to evolve plants and Ulysses goes upstairs to shower after harvesting them. Then he’ll pay the bills. Then he’ll sleep in his and Elise’s new, much more comfortable bed. 

As he ascends the stairs, I catch sight of the last thing he painted, and it’s kind of eerie.

I’ve neglected my own heir ever since Landon became a toddler. (I can’t help it, he’s just too adorable.) While Elise maxes the Gardening skill—it only took her until 4 days to Elder to do it—Rebeca tends to her Social by chatting online with Cadence. 

Speaking of Social, she’s 6 days to YA and has yet to meet any of the triplets…

I wake Landon and tell him to grab a grilled cheese.

No less than fifteen minutes later, he’s still sitting there.

DO SOMETHING, YOU LITTLE SHIT.

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Later that afternoon, Rebeca comes home from school with half-Hygiene, and less than half-Fun and Energy. Even though her condition is obviously less than ideal, I take her to meet the triplets.

…

Orrr…She could stand in the driveway and let her Energy decay instead of PICKING UP HER GODDAMN PHONE. I HATE THIS FAMILY SOMETIMES.

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I answer a text, then turn my attention back to the game and realize I left it unpaused: Rebeca is at the lot and going to sleep on a bench BECAUSE HER ENERGY IS EVEN LOWER, AND HOW CAN SHE TALK TO THEM NOW? WHY CAN’T I DO ANYTHING RIGHT?!??! 

…..So she goes inside and meets all of them…and her needs are really low, so I have to send her home. Fuck me.

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I think it’s cute that Rebeca spends so much time with Landon, of her own accord, even though she’s going through a distant phase and hates her family for some reason. 

(Karlie’s pregnant again. It’s possible that because of her and Trent, Rebeca will be having children until Elderhood.) 

Rebeca wants to volunteer “with family” (sending her alone doesn’t make a damned bit of difference; the whim still gets fulfilled), so I have her do that to build Empathy. She gets some Responsibility, too. 

Trent sets himself on fire making scrambled eggs and bacon. Luckily, Ulysses is across the room, painting, so he can extinguish him in time. *bans stoves and grills and campfires and bonfires and fireworks and hot showers*

The $500 that the family is compensated with isn’t quite enough to replace the damaged stove and counter.

Wow. Rebeca autonomously potty-trained Landon. O3O 

She goes on her phone while he’s doing that, and takes a selfie.

OMG, duck lips. XD

That’s kinda’ funny.

The next morning at 12:54 a.m., I get Ulysses almost-birthday notice. 😦

I don’t want him to die, but I want more room in the household… Eh, it’s not like he has much of an endearing personality, anyway.

6:38 a.m. Elise has 1 day to Elder, and can still Try for Baby. JFC.

9:50 a.m. Landon goes upstairs and just manages to crawl into bed….Then he crawls out of bed to pass out on the floor. Something is wrong with that child. 

Oh God, Elise. 

The next day at 7:36 a.m., Elise becomes an Elder.

Melissa Eubanks is born at 11:32 a.m.—and although it breaks my heart, I have to send her, Trent, Karlie, and Landon away. I don’t want Trent to have any more kids, and the game will age up the ones he already has for me.

Plus I seriously need space for more Sims. 

Rebeca ages up to YA, and gains the Compassionate, Good Manners, Perfectionist, and Responsible traits (after I spent her last days as a teen making her do homework and a school project, and volunteering over and over). 

So now it’s just Elise, Ulysses, and Rebeca—the bare minimum household. Soon to get even minimal-er, as the former two are Elders. 

The weird thing is, she’s lived 141 days and is already about a quarter of the way through said lifestage, while Ulysses (despite being a mere Sim day younger than her as an Adult) has only lived 97. She’s a Vegetarian. That used to matter. 

Rebeca complains about having just cleaned one of the upstairs sinks….which I instructed her to do because she rolled a whim to clean, via her Good Manners trait. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 

Also, she needs a job. Or some form of income. Lesse’…She’s Creative—Writer or Painter, perhaps? I’ll go with Writer. 

Rebeca’s needs are low; I need to get them up so she can start her relationship with one of the triplets, haven’t decided which. 

When she wakes up, she wants to get a promotion thanks to being Responsible. Perhaps the triplets will have to wait. (Are they even YAs yet? Apparently not. Allow me to correct that. *ventures into CAS and gives makeovers*

……They’re not teenagers, they’re Young Adults.) 

Despite each room being just large enough to function, the Robinsons’ new house—which I built, and am so proud of that they may or may not live here for the remainder of the legacy(!!!)—costs $123,378 furnished. This leaves them ~$32,000 in debt. Basically, I’m right back where I started with the last house. XD

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They move in, and Rebeca plays the violin until two hours before she’s scheduled to start work. She calls in a vacation day, then heads over to meet the triplets, who’ve transferred to Willow Creek. 

Before she even gets there, I’m almost 100% positive she won’t marry Kurtis. Why? OCD. Her dad had brown hair—so does Kurtis. Not to mention that the names ‘Ulysses Eubanks’ and ‘Kurtis Blackburn’ are uncomfortably similar. 

So, she splits her attention between Tevin (the most handsome brother) and Zaiden (the kind, nerdy brother). Zaiden teaches me something about TS4: You can throw your trash in your neighbor’s can. 

After embarrassing herself somehow and making a self-deprecating joke, she runs away to ‘Clean Up’ something (because Good Manners). It’s a mess made by a toddler or child. If I had to guess, Trent probably did this as a kid, before he went over to Dawn. Or maybe that was…Yeah, that was another street. 

They joke and talk for a while longer, and she can now invite Zaiden to move in with her. Tevin’s not far behind, relationship-wise. But I’m still not decided, Rebeca needs to pee, and their house isn’t furnished. Guess she has to go home temporarily. 

I send her back, and before long, she can invite Tevin, too. She’s tired and needs to go home for real soon. Time to make a choice: Who does she ask? 

Well, after giving each triplet a randomized third trait (Tevin is Clumsy; Zaiden Hates Children; and Kurtis is Ambitious)….I’ve decided on Zaiden, because Tevin is so conventionally hot that he’s kinda’ boring. And he has the Angling Ace aspiration, and I’ve had enough fishing for a little while.

 I tell Rebeca to take a pic with Zaiden when they’re at the main residence. But apparently they prefer to act like they’re taking a picture instead.

o-o

Weirdos. 

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Zaiden joins the Doctor career because he’s Good, and because fuck social events, so I’m never going to complete his Master Mixologist aspiration anyway. (I end up switching that to Nerd Brain because….I’m sure you can fill in the blank.) 

I make Elise get a Potion of Youth, and stick it in his inventory—Rebeca is 22 days to Adult and somehow he’s 12, and no way am I going to stand for that. 

Soon after that, I have Rebeca get out of bed and spam-interact with Zaiden so they’ll become Best Friends and sleep in the same bed; I can’t afford to buy him one. Once that’s done, Zaiden slouches down to their basement room and Rebeca gets to Level 4 Violin skill before following. 

With time running out for Elise and Ulysses to complete their Aspirations, Elise helps the gardener and Ulysses browses parenting forums. Before Elise is done, she runs inside to draw the bowl of fruit on their dining table for some reason. 

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Then she hugs Ulysses, and I marry them there and then because I’d regret if they died without it ever happening. They embrace and WooHoo afterward, because Elise wanted the former and Ulysses the latter. 

Ulysses maxes the Painting skill that day. 

Somehow, this is a masterpiece. 

Zaiden wants to read, so I give him Parenting Vol. 1. Meanwhile, Ulysses wants to meet someone new, and it turns out that he hasn’t formally met his future son-in-law yet. 

Take a good look, Zaiden: That will be you sooner than you think. 

Rebeca is late to her first day of work, but a Chance Card boosts her performance. Zaiden’s shift is uneventful. 

Elise (halfway through Elderhood now) is asleep after evolving her plants, and Ulysses has to water some of them, because the gardener didn’t. THAT IS NOT WHAT I DON’T PAY HER FOR! 

Zaiden has fun playing chess to gain Logic for his Aspiration. 

A day or so later, Rebeca gossips with Elise. 

Zaiden’s promotion requirement is to have two active days, meaning I follow him around. 

The first time, he finishes his “tasks” (talking to co-workers, drinking coffee, and washing his hands) before noon (the end of his shift being 3 p.m.) After that, there’s one last task: Deliver Food to a Patient. And I figured he might as well do something useful. Lo and behold, Landon is there, diagnosed and waiting for a shot. 

After that, he makes Landon’s bed, researches health reports, mops about six lawsuits waiting to happen puddles all over the hospital, and talks to his co-workers some more. He does a Fantastic Job. ^w^

Elise harvests, while Rebeca gains the second Writing skill point that she needs for promotion. At 6:58 a.m., a notice appears, saying to make the most of Elise’s final days. :c 

It doesn’t look as though the founding couple will complete their Aspirations after all. Maybe not even see the birth of their grandchild.

I really need to get on that, by the way. Somehow I got wrapped up in promoting Rebeca and Zaiden, and completely forgot to work on their relationship. 

Zaiden doesn’t go near patients on his second active day, but again completes his tasks with time to spare. He’s promoted to Orderly. 🙂

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*sigh* It feels like I don’t take nearly enough pictures.

But my Sims aren’t doing anything interesting: Ulysses is asleep. (I got a bunch of potions—five fun, two sleep, two hygiene, and three Potions of Youth for a rainy day—from his and Elise’s satisfaction points, seeing as they won’t have time to use them for anything else.) Elise calls Trent to get her Social need up, then weeds the garden. Rebeca plays the violin while Zaiden reads, then as soon as he’s done with that, she’s tired and her Fun’s still low, but they need to build a romantic relationship. 

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The next day, Mary’s daughter Olive—evidently now a child—comes to the hospital. Then Landon shows up. 

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A day or two later, while Zaiden’s at work and Rebeca is chatting with Cadence (after completing her daily tasks) to fill her Social need, Elise eats what might be her final meal, alone, thinking about her beloved firstborn. Speak of the devil and he shall—invite you to a karaoke bar? 

She asks about his future plans, and then he just…disappears from the lot, abandoning his elderly mother. Wow. 

Not cool, Trent.

Not cool. 

I have her invite him back so she can kick his ass, and while she waits, she autonomously starts singing. A couple Sim hours later, Trent hasn’t shown up. >:C

She goes home. 

She spends quality time with Ulysses and Rebeca—at least somebody appreciates her—then browses Simpedia. Zaiden follows her downstairs to tell a joke. Meanwhile, Trent calls to ask her if he can come over, and she okays it; Rebeca greets him at the door. 

Rebeca and Trent max their friendship bar, then she goes to bed and Elise tells him about being an astronaut “Back in My Day”. They become Good Friends over the course of the conversation, and then dance together. Then they and Zaiden play a video game. 

Trent goes home, and Elise tells a joke to Zaiden, before doing some mischievous interaction—-

Generation II—Part Four

They said it didn’t exist. They said I was crazy. But I knew—I knew that it was out there, and someday I would find it. O-O 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: An unmade bed in Sims 4!

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I send Elise and Ulysses out to water the garden. When that’s done, Ulysses runs to the barn to play with the same cowplant who ate him. It takes a snap at his hand, and he’s terrified at first, but then he’s like, I’M WARNING YOU, BITCH. 

(Unfortunately, he doesn’t remember that it ate him—he then goes over and repeats the process with the cowplant on the other end of the row. Because these Sims’ skulls are deceptively brain-shaped.) 

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What are they feeding the cowplants, anyway? It looks like a package tied with string. Why in hell would they salivate over that? 

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Karlie invites Trent to the nightclub again.

He hasn’t done any schoolwork, but my Sims leave the house so rarely, and I figured the nightclub had a closet. It did indeed, and Karlie received a long-overdue makeover. 

They flirted some, which included him giving her a rose, then her returning the favor—which delighted him. :3

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They had their first kiss, then made out in the closet. 

(I don’t think arms work like that, EA.)

They go steady.

When Trent gets home, he rolls a whim to send an Energized Text to Karlie—and so he does, before doing push-ups in the “driveway,” then going inside to Enthuse about Interests with his mom. He looks so cute when he’s excited! Are we sure this is still a matriarchy?

*checks*

Yep. :c

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He does sit-ups, hip-bumps Elise, and jogs. Then it’s 8:41 a.m., and he’s tired but he goes to school. 

(This chair’s design makes it look as though Ulysses’ arm is clipping through it.)

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The following Saturday (maybe it’s the next day, I don’t know), Trent plays an online game with Karlie, then starts on his homework c. 7:21 a.m. Right before it’s time for him to go to his first day of work. 

Meanwhile, Ulysses helps Rebeca with her homework in the hour that he has before work. (They finish juuuuuust before he leaves. But he hasn’t got that third of four hours helping his kids with schoolwork yet.) And Mary and Dawn’s almost-birthday notices pop up. *rubs hands together eagerly*

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Trent brings home $295, while Rebeca is at the park, playing on the….

*SLAPS FOREHEAD*

Well, she came to the park Playful, and was playing on the monkey bars (which I thought was the jungle gym, because I’m a certified moron). 

Then she made a mess and I made her clean it, which did away with that playfulness right quick—

—and now she’s playing on the jungle gym with a girl named Cadence Rawls. (I have a Rawls townie family on another save file, too. I guess S4 just likes that name.) Unfortunately, because she’s going through a mean phase, she insults Cadence. 

She finishes the first part of her Aspiration and goes home. Now the family needs a computer so she can type. 

Elise and Ulysses make out in the closet.

Later, Ulysses helps Trent with his homework and gets that fourth hour!

That same night at 10:35 p.m., I get a notice that Dawn can’t fish at her current location anymore, so I head over to find something else for her to do, and…well…

Fuck you. 

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At almost the same time the next day, Mary gets the Freelance Botanist Aspiration and the Loves Outdoors trait—while Dawn gets Mansion Baron and Jealous. (As if I needed any more confirmation that Dawn won’t be heir; this family doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of living in a house worth $350,000 until at least Generation 9, if that.)

A few hours later, I test what would happen if Rebeca tried to sleep in the same bed as Trent, even though he’s already asleep, and it’s against the wall. Trent surprises me by getting up and standing aside, then waiting for her to scoot over. 

O-O Neat.

Only Dawn is awake, using her paint-slinging powers for good because her lifetime want … yes, I seriously just typed ‘lifetime want’ … Aspiration requires her to own 15 pieces of art. (This was before I realized just how much Mansion Baron demanded.)

I sell her painting for $45, because apparently homemade art doesn’t count.

See? Roof! *points*

😀

Er…I mean…

Now Elise wants a wedding arch. To look at. Because she certainly doesn’t want to use it for anything.

Like a wedding. 

Ulysses has fun browsing parenting forums to increase his skill. 

Early the next morning, Elise finishes watering her plants and goes to the barn to Eat Cake, with Ulysses running out of the house to do likewise.

You know what? If you’re so stupid that you prefer cake and dying to not-cake and not-dying, next time I’m letting them kill your asses. You aren’t having any more kids, anyway; as long as Trent and Mary or Rebeca survive, I’m OK with it—

WTF I CANCELLED THE INTERACTION

You got lucky today.

Dawn comes home, Enraged because of a mood swing. I don’t know if that’s the highest level and can kill her, but if it does…Oh well. Since she became a teen I’ve stopped wanting to actively kill her, but I won’t shed too many tears if it happens just ’cause.

I send her to the basement to listen to loud music as per her emotional whim. But no matter how many times I do the interaction, the whim isn’t fulfilled. Bed it is.

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The next day at 2:39 a.m., the family has $401 after Rebeca’s room is given a makeover—ON ACCOUNT OF HER TEEN BIRTHDAY! 😀 😀 😀 Trent had turned YA a few Sim hours before and received the Dance Machine trait. Rebeca gets Self-Assured; her Aspiration is Big Happy Family.

I can finally grant her wish to level up in violin skill, now that she can play a violin.

Karlie passes by the lot about 8 a.m., so Trent asks her to move in.

I find out that she has the Super Parent Aspiration (which I swear I didn’t give to her); the Foodie, Gloomy, and Snob traits; and a family: Her parents, Patrick and Marisa, and a teenage brother, Jonas. She’s acquaintances with all of them.

(Interestingly, her father is Good but her mother’s Evil. Which I suspect are the traits that Suzanne Collins would give Katniss Everdeen’s parents. They don’t have jobs, but her Insane, Creative brother is a babysitter. Oh, yeah…That bodes well. They also have much darker skintones than her or Jonas, which leads me to believe the latter two might be adopted.)

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At 9:21 a.m., Rebeca wants to write a Happy Text, and one of the only people she can send it to is Cadence. Now that she’s out of her mean phase (I think?), they should make a real attempt to become friends.

As they’re gossiping, having been at the Desert Bloom park a while, an Adult—Carrie Rawls—stomps onto the lot. Oh shit, Cadence, wut u do nao, gurl?!

….Nothing, apparently. 

That’s disappointing.

Maybe Carrie is just Hot-Headed.

Rebeca leaves at 4:30 p.m., almost friends with Cadence but too tired to stay.

At 4:18 p.m. (yeah, we’ve actually gone backwards), Mary asks Trent for advice, like she would their parents. I guess just because he’s older? Interesting.

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Karlie comes packaged with Level 5 Fishing skill, so she’ll do that to bring in money. After she catches a $35 fish, Trent proposes to her at the river. Then they marry, and Try for Baby in their basement room. Karlie Dietrich-Eubanks, welcome to the family!

(I wish your Sims could be proposed to, and you choose whether to accept. :c )

Meanwhile, somebody *cough*Ulysses*cough* has cheated death YET AGAIN.

*slow clap* Bravo, sir. 

Trent and Karlie learn they’re expecting! 

((It sounds like Trent exclaims, “Huh?! Nooboo?!” in shock. [ XD ] ))

He’s still Flirty and wants to take a cold shower. That’s when it occurs to me: Couples should be able to shower together, and WooHoo in the shower. :c

Trent enters the Athlete career.

No way in hell are you eating cake! I will sell every last cowplant you have before I let that happen!

Trent: “Challenge accepted.” 

*sighs* Whatever, cowplants aren’t good for anything, anyway. *deletedeletedelete*

*stage whisper* Psst! Pick C…

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A day or so later, the family’s debt is finally paid off. I move Mary into Dawn’s Windenburg cottage (btw Dawn moved out jsyk), since there’s no longer any chance of Rebeca becoming cowplant food, and I don’t want to play two heirs in a row with the Freelance Botanist Aspiration. 

Rainy made triplet boys—Tevin, Kurtis, and Zaiden Blackburn—as love interests for Rebeca. (I kept having to tell myself, “He’s not a Young Adult, he’s a teenager” as I edited them, so that I’d remember to dress them as such.) The day after Mary leaves, Dawn invites Rebeca to the Romance Festival, and I hope she’ll run into one of them there.

Let’s see… *looks around festival grounds* Adult. Adult. Adult. Adult. Adult. Adult. Adult. Adult. All the males on the lot when she arrives are Adults. x_x 

Oh, a Young Adult now. Mixing things up a bit. 

But Rebeca does get Manners points every time that she makes a Friendly Introduction. So I have her meet literally everyone who shows up, and by the end of the night she’s in range of the Good Manners trait.

I’m impressed with myself; none of her siblings even came close to getting a trait. 

“Time has not run out for you…Yet.” Seriously? That’s Rebeca’s “romantic destiny”? If the requirements for being a romantic guru include ‘tell teenagers they’re still young enough to find someone to fall in love with,’ and ‘dispense nuggets of wisdom such as, “Life without love is not worth living”,’ then sign me the fuck UP!

Rebeca harvests a rose plant; an alien plant; and two bird of paradise plants, then buys a snowglobe, eats ramen, and gets an eye-full of this fashion gem. 

After staying there all night and passing out several times, she runs out of people to give Friendly Introductions to and goes home.

Without having talked to a single teen.

And the first thing she does when she gets there, despite her Energy being so far in the red that it’s a wonder she’s still upright, is head toward the living room to watch comedians on TV. 

Sure enough, as soon as I cancel that interaction from her queue, she drops onto the walkway.

Then I get a notice that social services is providing a bassinet, and Karlie is giving birth. She was in labor when I was at the festival, aww. 😦

Now, where’s the father…?

TREEEEEEENT! >:O

Generation II—Part Three

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Trent cooks something on his own for the first time. Q-Q He’s so grown up.

Then he leaves his sandwich on the counter and goes upstairs for a nice, long bubble bath. Before returning downstairs…To play basketball. (He gains a Fitness point on his way down the stairs just thinking about it.) 

Aren’t you forgetting something? 

Trent: “Oh yeah….I’m too tired for basketball right now. I should go up to bed.” 

*cringe*

I figure Trent can start on his Angling Ace Aspiration while earning money for the household. He reaches Fishing Level 2, but his first total catch doesn’t bring in more than $30 or so. 

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He spots a fellow teen, Karlie Dietrich—(better write her name down now, because I’ll never remember it)—downriver. I almost never get two unrelated teens on the same lot, and so pounce on the opportunity. 

Is it too early to start thinking about marriage?

(Mary confuses me by dribbling a good distance away from the hoop, on the back porch; I assume she’s glitching. But I guess she can do that anywhere.)

(Rebeca—unlike her older siblings—has no interest in sports, it seems. She’s one with the violin, practicing at all hours, her Creativity skill flying through the roof.)

When she’s not doing that, she can often be found chatting with her big sisters. I find their closeness heartwarming. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll last forever. 

Karlie asks to come over—but she arrives angry, and her emotional state negatively impacts their relationship as they hang out. I think him trying to calm her down would end badly, too. 

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Wow.

Wow. He asks about her career (a fast-food hamburger place), then tries to ‘Fire [her] Up’ via his Active trait to distract from whatever’s pissing her off. And she rejects him (their budding friendship takes another hit in the process), then goes inside and stands against the front door with her back to him. 

I tell him to apologize—but before he gets a chance, she emerges, Happy, and initiates the Gossip interaction. Literally all it took was her going through that door and out again. Guess she likes the farmhouse too. 

---

I think Karlie just stole their tablet. 

She messes with it while hanging out with Trent in the living room, until he asks her to play a video game. Then she carries it over to the armchair; it disappears; and she returns to sit on the couch and picks up a controller.

I have no way to make her give it back. >->

On the bright side, their relationship bar is almost halfway full by the end of the night. 

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At 4:04 p.m. the following day, as I’m attempting to raise Trent’s Fun by having him fish, Ulysses comes home from work with a $10/hr raise due to “superior work performance”! I didn’t even know that was a thing! He even got a $1,918 bonus, and now makes $338 an hour. After selling Elise’s harvest and her repair parts from fixing the sink, as well as a repair part Ulysses had and a book that he stole from work, the family has $6,656 in the bank.

Elise also has about $90 worth of rare and uncommon frogs in her inventory that I don’t want to sell yet.

Ulysses wants to buy a wedding arch; wish granted—! 

Now he wants a pool. Shouldn’t you, um…I don’t know…maybe…use the arch? For something? No? Okay, I’m selling it back. 

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Trent is hired as a Manual Laborer, the second-highest-paying teen job, then goes to bed at 10:51 p.m. Shortly thereafter, Karlie invites him to Bear Night. Uh…No thanks.

After bulldozing their house and selling almost everything they own, the family has $45,188. (Better than the $41,000-something they had before camping…) Their new, rather sparsely-furnished house (also built by allysimbuilds! <3) costs way more than that; it’s cheating, but my compromise is that they’re now a little over $38,000 in debt and must pay it off little by little with whatever they earn.

I reduce their funds to $2,500. (They can live without electricity, but I can’t choose to just pay the water and sewer bills.)

Their first day living there, Elise makes food to fill the empty fridge, and Ulysses crafts a barstool at the woodworking bench in the basement. Meanwhile, Karlie invites Trent to play hooky at a nightclub. During the day. All-righty, then. 

He raises his Hygiene by washing his hands and brushing his teeth, then goes out to join her on the dance floor. He uses a bold pickup line on her, and she likes it!

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A bit later, I have Trent tend bar, hoping he’ll earn some money. And in his eagerness, he proves that two objects can TOO occupy the same space! 

(That same day, Elise and Ulysses are able to replicate his results.)

Unfortunately he just stands there and doesn’t get a dime. Now where did Karlie go…? 

Apparently she left without saying goodbye.

Rood.

When Trent comes home, Mary is standing the driveway, sad because she’s not wearing a bear costume. I don’t care. Sim phases are stupid. Let’s see what the rest of the family is up to. 

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Elise, Ulysses, and Rebeca are simultaneously playing with the cowplants in the barn. They look like they’re being hypnotized. XD

When I go back to Trent and Mary to take pictures, it occurs to me: Where’s Dawn? I click on her icon and zoom over to her, and she’s—

Guess.

Just…

Just guess.

I cancel the interaction.

Now clean that up.

….Does anyone else remember Cleaning skill?

She makes another mess. I tell her to clean it up, but before I’m able to send her home, another ‘Make Mess’ interaction pops up in her queue.

You are, in fact, my least-favorite child. Do you know that? Do you care, heathen?

I pause and have her clean it up, then go home. 

She wants to play with the cowplant. Fine. Yes. Go. Do something non-destructive. 

Too bad I fed them earlier.

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Meanwhile, Trent fulfills a whim to ‘Pack a Sack Lunch’ by taking a slice of apple pie out of the fridge and putting it in a bag.

Then he takes it out of the bag, goes to one of the living room couches, and eats it. Mary and Rebeca talk beside him, and by the time I pay enough attention to take pictures, something about their conversation has royally pissed Rebeca off; she stomps down to the basement mirror to calm herself.

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Early the next morning, Rebeca pauses doing homework (in the adjoining bathroom between her room and the twins’) to run out to the barn and hug Ulysses. Then he takes a picture with her. 

Or tries. All he gets is the inside of the cowplant’s mouth.

Rebeca: “Ewww!”

Then they head inside to do Rebeca’s school project together. Um, Ulysses? Should she really be the one tinkering with delicate electronics like that? 

By working carefully, Rebeca earns an Excellent. (Although the castle is only worth $90 sold, compared to $100 for the other kids’—which were in the box and totally unassembled. Remind me why I should spend valuable skilling time on these?)

(…Oh yeah. Grades. Right.) 

It’s at this point that I name her heir. Because I’m seriously considering feeding Dawn to a cowplant when she grows up, and Mary just kinda’…exists.

(After Trent, Elise is closest to Rebeca anyway.)

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That afternoon at 3:40, the principal calls Trent as he’s walking home from next door: Because his school performance is Poor—(I’ve no idea why; he only left early that once)—he could drop to a D if he isn’t careful. 

I really doubt teens can be removed for an F, though, and it’s not like that’d make it harder for him to find a job. Sooo…

*shrug*

Oh well. What will be will be. 

Karlie asks to come over, and while Trent is hungry and bored, he can deal. 

….You tablet-stealing whore.

Thankfully, Karlie sets the tablet on the dining table to play on her phone; I snatch it up and put it in Trent’s inventory. 

At 4:50 a.m. the next morning—after Karlie’s left, and Trent is awake again and has first gone on a jog to improve his emotional state, then on a normal jog just because—he heads into the barn to feed the cowplants. 

Just as he’s finished with one, the cowplant on the opposite end of the row vomits, blindsiding me by spitting up Ulysses.

I CAN’T BELIEVE I ALMOST LOST HIM. Suicide is not the answer, dude! Make a bowl of fucking cereal if you’re that hungry! Q-Q

Ulysses leaves to take a bath, and Trent milks the cowplant, which somehow has his father’s essence although he survived.

(I swear the barn has a roof. With shingles and everything.)

By the way, that’s Dawn coming to ask Trent to spray the monster under the bed—EVEN THOUGH SHE AND MARY HAVE A DOUBLE BED, AND I PUT A COOLALA LIGHT IN REBECA’S ROOM, WTF!!!

…

Oh, Rebeca’s still sleeping. Which obviously means there’s no monster.

Huh?

Trent? Trent? You’re making a mess, Trent. Stop that. 

Eventually he gets the hang of it, though, and catches most of the essence in the glass he was carrying around for some reason. “+1 Essence of Stress” I…assume it makes the Sim who drinks it stressed?

That doesn’t sound right…

*looks it up* Yes, that’s exactly it. WELL, NO SHIT ULYSSES WAS STRESSED—HE WAS BEING EATEN! O-O

The essence sells for exactly $0. Not like they need it anyhow.

Trent goes to his basement ‘lair’ to ask Ulysses for advice—(I don’t know what Ulysses is doing there, because he was just in the master bathtub)—about how to choose what to do with his life when he’s a YA; all of his peers seem to have figured that out already.

In that spirit, Trent takes a vacation day from school (which is something I wish I could’ve done) to raise his grades. (Even though, again, it won’t really matter.) I go to his desk to click on the homework that’s been sitting there for a day or two, and am shocked to discover a tablet behind it. How did that get there? 

I check his inventory. Sure enough: The tablet Karlie set down is still in there, which means it was the one she stole at the old house! SCORE.

I sell one of them for $800. 

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The family currently has $2,000, and owes $27,010. 

ELISE: 

• 17 days to Elder. 
• Needs to evolve ten plants to Excellent, and gain two more Gardening skill. 
• 8 Cooking and Gardening; 6 Parenting; 4 Handiness and Logic; 3 Charisma and Comedy; 2 Dancing, Fitness, Gourmet Cooking, and Video Gaming; and 1 Baking, Fishing, Mischief, Painting, and Writing. 

ULYSSES: 

• 18 days to Elder. (I might try widening their age gap after their next birthday.)
• Needs to help children with schoolwork for two more hours, and have a child ‘within range’ for a character value trait. (Mary’s Manners are c. halfway green, and Trent’s Responsibility is c. halfway red.)  
• 9 Painting; 7 Parenting; 4 Gardening; 3 Logic; 2 Cooking, Handiness, and Mischief; and 1 Charisma, Comedy, Dancing, and Video Gaming. 

TRENT: 

• 7 days to YA. 
• Needs to fish at one more location (to advance to the next phase). 
• 2 Fishing, Fitness, Gardening, and Video Gaming; 1 Charisma, Comedy, Cooking, Dancing, and Mischief. 

MARY: 

• 4 days to Teen.
• Needs to draw two pictures while Inspired. (She’s drawn several, but none in that emotional state.) 
• 4 Creativity and Social; 2 Motor; 1 Mental. 

DAWN: 

• 4 days to Teen. 
• Needs to play on a jungle gym while Playful. (I don’t have the money for them to buy one, and I don’t feel like sending her to the park.) 
• 3 Creativity and Social; 2 Mental and Motor.

REBECA: 

• 7 days to Teen. 
• Needs to play on a jungle gym while Playful. (I may send her to the park, though.)
• 6 Creativity; 3 Social; 2 Motor.

Generation I

Succession Laws: 

• Gender
  • Strict Matriarchy
    • (If a generation has ten boys and no girls, bury the legacy, ‘cause eet dead.)
• Bloodline
  • Traditional. 
• Heir
  • Whomever I despise the least. 
• Species
  • Tolerant. 

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Elise’s makeover. 

(Legacy Goal #1: Breed out that jaw. Legacy Goal #2: Ummm…Don’t…fail…? I don’t know, I’ll get back to you on that.)

Elise’s yard sale home.

She’s an Astronaut (because Geek + Loves [the] Outdoors = tech support or professional video gaming won’t suit her very well). 

She wants to tell a joke and enthuse about vegetarianism. So I send her across the street to meet Johnny Zest—the potential father of her unborn children. (I know, how cliche of me.)

Whilst there, she also speaks to the elderly neighbor who came to welcome her to the area, as well as an adult male who happens to come on-scene. And she has an option to “Help Fix [a] Bad Relationship” between them. (I don’t know if that came with Parenthood or what; I’ve never seen it before.) 

She breaks it worse.

Skill problem fixed (by which I mean she now has none and is useless, just the way I like it!)

And I consider moving Johnny in, since he and Elise are friends. Butttt…I don’t feel that they have much chemistry. Plus their relationship isn’t high enough for them to sleep in the same bed yet, and I can’t afford another.

Using her first paycheck, and the proceeds gained from selling a plant and her lamp and nightstand, she buys a chess table and two metal folding chairs. Then she waters her remaining plants and texts Johnny.

She has $172, and is finished with Level 1 of her Aspiration. She needs to start evolving plants and get two more Gardening skill. 

I may have given her too big a farm to handle by herself, though; I expect a lot of these plants will die, or else she’ll become a full-time farmer.

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Virtually every Simoleon she has is spent on acquiring beds of ever-increasing comfort, so that she can spend more time working on her garden and non-sleep-related needs. If she wasn’t consistently improving job performance and being promoted (which, like, practically never happens to any Sim I’m in charge of), I’d make her quit, no question.

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Slowly but surely, Elise pieces a house together. 

When she starts making scrambled eggs and bacon, I’m like, “Oh, cool, Cooking skill!” Then I realize she could’ve just as easily gotten a bowl of chips and not spent money. 

I’m faced with even more fuckery when she sets the plate on the counter and goes to grab yogurt like a moron. I direct her to eat the eggs instead, and she makes this face.

What the…?

I read her moodlet. Oh…Right…Vegetarian…

…

THEN WHY DID YOU SPEND THREE OF YOUR PRECIOUS SEVEN SIMOLEONS ON IT? YOU’RE FINE WITH COOKING AN ANIMAL AS LONG AS YOU DON’T ACTUALLY EAT IT? WHAT KIND OF A VEGETARIAN ARE YOU?!

Johnny invites her to haggle at the flea market, and it’s only once I arrive that I realize, ‘Hey. O-O I have exactly four Simoleons. What am I supposed to do with that?’ So all she ends up doing is talking to him.

She also introduces herself to a cute vendor (whose jaw is also longer than hers!) named Ulysses Eubanks. (I don’t pay attention to what he’s selling, but knowing him, it’s a table of things he knicked from work; with as often as he does that, I shudder to imagine the sort of blackmail preventing him from being fired.) He’s Family-Oriented, and a Patron of the Arts—OHMYGODMONEY! *kicks Johnny to the curb so fast it makes his head spin*

(Initially, because of his more…defined features, I assume Ulysses is an Adult.)

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Ulysses invites her to Bear Night, which turns out to be a mistake because for some reason, everyone NOT in a bear costume finds the bear-costume people infuriatingly annoying. Three words, missy: Get. Over. It.

Despite this, they have a nice chat and remain friends.

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Ulysses is a life-saver when he moves in, enabling Elise to sleep more, and to not worry about her plants while she’s at work either—seeing as he himself only works 3-4 days a week, and is watching TV and painting the rest of the time. 

The first time he does go to work, he brings home a used dish. Because Kleptomaniac. 

Of all the things to steal.

Ulysses: “Have you seen how we live? We need all the dishes we can get.”

Fair point.

I buy a shelf to showcase the plate, but later on, Elise autonomously grabs it and disappears it into the sink. 

Elise: “This place looks bad enough without bringing actual garbage into the mix.” 

Elise blows off some steam via her new journal. Ulysses is so going hunting for that thing later.

FINALLY, they sleep in the same bed. 

Ignore the toddler bed, she’s not pregnant yet; Ulysses has the Super Parent Aspiration—originally it was Master Mixologist, but I changed it because of his non-culinary job—and that’s part of the $1,000 he’s spending on kids’ stuff. Only $100 to go.

The house as it stands. (And Johnny as he’s ignored.)

Ulysses and Elise’s relationship continues to escalate, until he wants to go steady and so proposes. (Funnily enough, they haven’t exchanged engagement rings since, much less married.) 

The Robinson household soon becomes the proud owner of a poetry book he brings home. (From work. Because where else do my Sims go?) Maybe they didn’t notice that, but I’m guessing they may have realized something’s up when another copy went missing.

Ulysses: “I’m thinking about starting a book club. Shh.”

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The next day, they have some quality bonding time over household repairs. Then Ulysses sits to watch television, and has an anxiety fit over not stealing anything recently. (Because he doesn’t count yesterday as ‘recently’).

I have them watch the Romantic channel to become Flirty. However, Ulysses gets tired and goes to bed before they can get around to baby-making. 

Elise learns how to graft, and only needs one more Gardening skill to reach the next phase of her Aspiration.

This next chapter of their lives, I like to call, ‘Where Will We Sleep Tomorrow?’

Since they’ll have a child soon, they need a decent house with two-or-more bedrooms. Instead of a functional, vaguely house-ish building. Bad news? They’re still poor. They’re still very, very poor.

My first attempt, I give them a kitchen, living room, and bathroom, but can’t afford anything else—so they’re back to sleeping on the lawn for a night, until they scrounge up enough for an expansion.

And that’s how Elise Robinson’s first child is conceived on an expensive bed set out in front of her porch.

Elise starts training with the punching bag.

Really, Ulysses?

Ulysses: “What?!”

They expand their farm with plants of all kinds, and it becomes so large they have trouble keeping it alive; they’re in the process of attempting a revival when Elise goes into labor. She can’t water or weed while that’s going on, but she can evolve plants, and reaches Gardening Level 6.

Then I send them to the hospital in case it’s the heir, because I want a birth certificate.

Ulysses: *comes into operating room with can of soda* “Hey, doc, how’s it going; did I miss it?”

Hamza: “Nope, lining up the claw to yank the prize out now.”

Generation II — Part One

x_x It’s a boy. Goodie. 

Trent Eubanks is born at 12:59 a.m.

As expected, Elise and Ulysses are no longer three days apart. (Why? Seriously, why do pregnant Sims become temporarily immortal? It can’t be for the sake of Adult Sims not turning Elder before they give birth—that problem can be fixed by shutting off pregnancy as an option 4 days before their birthday. Or even 5, just to make absolutely sure.)

Strangely, Ulysses goes to bed when they arrive home, because his energy is pretty low….But Elise feels better than ever, all of her motives full green. O-o

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Trent gains the Wild trait, and Makes Messes constantly.

This being a matriarchy, I do have to at least try my ass off for a daughter, so Elise is pregnant again almost immediately.

Her garden has been pared down (again), to the couple strawberry and snapdragon plants needed to grow a cowplant for her Aspiration. Not much work to be done on that front. She doesn’t need Logic for a promotion, and she can’t work out with the punching bag, so I have her collect rocks and fish to earn money. 

Hamza Jaouad, the same nurse who delivered Trent, starts to deliver her next baby. I say ‘starts’, because apparently his shift ends in the middle of the procedure and he changes into an Everyday outfit and walks out.

Elise: “I will sue you for everything you have!”

Hamza: “No, you won’t, they haven’t patched in that feature yet.” *whistles*

Elise: ;~; … *shouts forbidden words*

Elise: “I could be doing this at home!”

After a little while, she leaves the delivery room still in labor, and waddles outside to chat with a doctor about video games—

—then joins Ulysses in the cafeteria for a soda. They sit in uncomfortable silence until he leaves for work.

Then she’s alone in the dark, empty room.

A popup appears, saying that Elise is going to the hospital to give birth, and it asks who I want to accompany her. In retrospect I should’ve covered my eyes and picked a random Sim, but I couldn’t imagine choosing anyone over the baby’s father….So Ulysses comes home from work early, with less than half pay. Sims 4, ladies and gentlemen.

Then Elise has to be at work in an hour. HA. Like she’ll make that. I can’t have her take family leave or a vacation day, because those options are grayed out: ‘This Sim is at work!’

I’m beginning to think she’ll be pregnant for the rest of her life.

Oh, look, Hamza’s back! For…Some reason. 

And he’s in uniform. 

Elise goes out to talk to him, then wanders away from the hospital TO GO TO WORK. I can’t even…

Well, no, actually she doesn’t go to work. It says that’s where she’s headed, but she turns up at home instead; I turn her around and send her back to the hospital. Ulysses too, because might as well. She promptly returns to the delivery room, and is attended by another doctor, Johnny Dang. (That poor soul.)

Kim Robinson is born at 3:40 p.m., so perhaps it’s all worth it. She might be the ugliest girl—nay, toddler—that I’ve ever had not-on-purpose, but she’s a girl nonetheless. At the time of her birth, Trent has four days before Childhood.

Kim hasn’t been on the home lot for two Sim minutes before I think: Maybe the family should lawn-live for a bit, while I save money to build them a real house. 

First there was the place with the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, expanded so that everybody could sleep in the living room. Then I tried out two or three floor plans from the Internet that ended up looking like garbage. Then I tried to build a house piece-by-piece, room-by-room—also garbage. It got to the point where they’d get a new house or two practically every day, because I wanted to give them something nicer but they just couldn’t afford it without cheating.

Ultimately, I opt for bunker-living instead. 

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Kim gains the Silly trait.

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So….That bunker-living thing lasts for all of five minutes. I bulldoze the lot (AGAIN), and build them a kitchen/dining room/living room; two bathrooms (one more than I planned), and a loft area for sleeping. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

And I do.

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Trent gains the Active trait—(It’s cool that he grows up in space-themed pajamas, considering Elise is an astronaut)—

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—And wastes no time trashing the house. (His Responsibility is pretty well in the red.) After some deliberation on how far along the strictness spectrum she’d be, I have Elise Tell Him Not to Make a Mess. He responds positively.

Mary Robinson (right) and Dawn Robinson (left) are born without hassle, at….

Shoot, I forgot to write down the time! (Due to the fact that I kept playing until their birth instead of going to sleep, and thus had to choose from a list of names at 2 a.m., whilst struggling to remain conscious.) *shrug* Oh well.

I’m mostly sure that they complete this generation, and that one of them will be heiress.

The family has $1,744.

P.S.: I lied. Elise is pregnant again.

---

I hate this game right now. I HATE THIS GAME, I HATE THIS GAME, I. HATE. THIS. GAME. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH “H’S” OR EXCLAMATION MARKS TO CONVEY HOW FUCKING PISSED I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been doing nothing. But making sure that toddlers don’t starve to death. For…I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER HOW LONG IT’S BEEN. I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME ULYSSES PAINTED SOMETHING. OR THE LAST TIME THAT HE AND ELISE INTERACTED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. TO TOP IT OFF, KIM WAS TAKEN AWAY AFTER SHE ACTUALLY -DID- “STARVE TO DEATH”. 

AND MARY AND DAWN WON’T STOP MAKING MESSES ALL OVER THE GODDAMN HOUSE. IT WAS CUTE WHEN TRENT DID IT THE FIRST COUPLE OF TIMES, BECAUSE I’D JUST INSTALLED PARENTHOOD AND IT WAS A NEW THING! BUT NOW, IT HAPPENS EVERY DAY. PRACTICALLY ON THE HOUR!!!!! I CAN’T REMEMBER IF REBECA DOES IT TOO, GIVEN HER ANGELIC TRAIT, BUT I WOULDN’T PUT IT PAST HER, GIVEN THAT IN SIMS 4 TRAITS DON’T MEAN A FUCKING THING! 

REBECA IS GOING TO BE THEIR LAST CHILD, OR SOMEBODY HAD BETTER SLAP ME UPSIDE THE FUCKING HEAD.

*HEAVY BREATHING*

…Ahhh, that makes me feel better.

Somewhat.

---

YEP. REBECA DOES IT TOO. SAME AS HER NON-“WELL-BEHAVED” SIBLINGS. *CURSES LOUD ENOUGH FOR THE NEIGHBORS ACROSS THE STREET TO HEAR*

…On the bright side, Ulysses finally rolled a whim to become engaged to Elise, who has three cowplant berries.

Yep. Another Sim day, and I’m starting it out by checking everybody’s needs. Because that’s all I ever seem to do in this game. Satisfy needs. Because the AI technically has free will, but is too stupid to take care of itself. How is this fun, again?

“Rebeca is very hungry. Be sure to feed her before she gets taken away!” *removes glasses* *drags hand down face, breathing deeply* OH, IS SHE NOW? AND IN OTHER NEWS, THE MOON IS SCHEDULED TO COMPLETE ANOTHER ORBIT AROUND THE EARTH!

---

Elise becomes pregnant almost right after the twins’ birth, just because I feel like giving her another child, even if it’s a boy. (Spoiler alert: It’s not a boy. Poor Trent.)

The next day, when Dawn becomes a toddler, she’s hungry. I drag a bowl of chips and salsa out of the fridge, and set it on her bedroom floor—but before she can retrieve it, Elise comes in, sits on her bed, and eats it instead. 

Dawn (already on the verge of a fit) waddles in and makes a mess in front of her. Even though Ulysses needs to discipline the children five times for his Aspiration, I let her get away with it.

This time, however…

So….I have anger issues?

As in, I know what these Sim toddlers feel like when they throw a fit? 

I tell Ulysses to Give [Dawn a] Second Wind, in the hopes it will restore at least some of her energy, so she can eat. At first, he just stands at her bedside while she fumes. I cancel the interaction and do it again, and he talks to her, but nothing happens to her needs. “That didn’t do shit,” I say to myself stiffly—but on the inside, I’m screaming and throwing things across the room.

Fuck it. I’ll set out another bowl of nachos (my Sims don’t know what ‘healthy diet’ means), and if she eats it, she eats it; if she’s taken away, she’s taken away. I do so after ten million tries—the game keeps returning it to the refrigerator even when I don’t try to place it on Dawn’s mess (“PUT IT DOWN!” I shout)—and Ulysses picks Dawn up (“PUT-!”), only to set her down again. Then she passes out.

…So yes—at that point I do end up screaming bloody murder into a pillow. If they have a sixth child before Elise is almost ready to sprout gray hairs, somebody please slap the shit out of me.

……

WILL SOMEBODY REPAIR THE FUCKING TOILET? IT’S THE ONLY ONE YOU HAVE.

……

I have to tell Elise to do it, since she’s this close to bladder failure.

Perfect, the only shower needs repaired too. FUCK MY LIFE. I purchase the Free Services reward for Elise, and tell her to get a nanny in there immediately. Oh, and the repair service too. And a one-time maid and gardener while she’s at it.

Then I break down and buy a high chair, because the nanny won’t just get food from the fridge and bring it to the toddlers when there’s no other option, EVEN THOUGH THAT WOULD MAKE FUCKING SENSE, WOULDN’T IT?

I pan the camera away from the lot, and leave the game on autopilot. When I return five Sim hours later, Mary is starving while standing in front of the empty high chair. And Elise, whose own hunger and bladder needs are in the red…DECIDES TO PLAY GAMES ON THE FUCKING TABLET! 

*INCOHERENT RAVING*

Great, Dawn’s starving too. Elise, Ulysses, BOTH OF YOU GET OFF YOUR ASSES!

Also, the nanny was apparently still there. Remind me to fire her.

…

Oh, yes, good, Elise, very good: Pee, and then stand next to Dawn for-fucking-ever instead of feeding her—or bathing her, for that matter (there are green fumes coming off of her)—until she passes out. Excellent idea. I am going to murder all of you. You see if I don’t!

*sigh* So basically, what’s going on in this picture is: All of Dawn’s needs except for Bladder are in the red. Com-plete-ly. Kim is in the same boat.

Mary, that ungrateful brat, is doing a little better; even though her Hunger is in the low yellow, she smacks her food off the high chair. All of her other needs are red.

Trent is okay, other than his Hunger and Fun being low, too. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the girls are taken away and he ends up heir after all. I certainly wouldn’t mind.

Ulysses is in bed with next-to-no Energy (same as Elise, except for the ‘in bed’ part), half Social, and low Hunger. Hygiene? Fun? Nonexistent. 

I’m SORELY tempted to cheat, but NOPE—if the children are removed, so be it. Even though that’s never happened to me before. And right as Elise is calling the nanny service again—or rather, as she’s about to call the nanny service before she passes out…There goes Kim. I can’t even adopt her back. 

Ulysses is crushed. And since Dawn is in the same condition, I expect her to follow quickly after. Welp…good thing Elise is pregnant, right?

Just as this is going on, Trent enters a Rebellious phase where he’ll “seek to challenge parental authority.” Like they really need his attitude. Okay, scumbasket, you can get taken away too for all I care.

Elise calls the nanny, and has work in less than an hour when she passes out again, in front of the fridge. The nanny I can’t yet fire because Elise doesn’t have the wherewithal to do so AND survive places Mary—covered head-to-toe in dirt—in the high chair.

Elise goes to work, and Trent to school, and the nanny leaves Mary to fall asleep in her peas while she goes upstairs to where Dawn is asleep on the landing. When Mary wakes, the interaction to eat her peas is cancelled but won’t go away, and she won’t do anything else. Just sits there. I seriously want to cry.

Generation II — Part Two

Almost fourteen hours after Kim’s taken away, the family gets a new house. 

Elise pays the bills after work, leaving the family with $1,326. (It’s sad that that amount makes me feel rich.) Ulysses is fully rested and back to normal. 

Elise is dead tired, but I expect she’ll be fine soon, too. I’m really thinking of having her quit and be a farmer/carpenter/stay-at-home mom; the novelty of her being an astronaut wore off long ago.

Trent is fine. Just depressed like everyone else. As the only boy, he gets his own room (like my maternal uncle).

The twins still suffer the most—Mary has low everything except Hygiene (after the nanny bathes her upon request), and Dawn is pretty tired, and has low Hygiene, Fun, and Attention.

Ulysses tries to hug it out with Trent after he finds him crying in the bathroom, but Trent waves him away. (Nevertheless, he still gains Emotional Control points…)

Elise quits her job. Then a few hours later, she goes into labor. 

Aaaaand…

That’s when I shut off the game so I can pick names in the morning. :3

Rebeca Robinson is born c. 8:33 a.m., the day after the catastrophe.

Ulysses completes the second(?) phase of his Aspiration when he scolds Dawn for creating YET ANOTHER mess. WHY HAVEN’T HE AND ELISE PUT ALL THE FLOUR, PAINT, AND WHATEVER-ELSE IN A LOCKED CUPBOARD YET?!

OR BETTER YET—BURIED THEM?!?

Elise does some carpentry, making her own planter box, and the horse sculpture which sits atop their living room bookcase.

(Ulysses reading while Trent watches the Kids’ Network.

No real reason for this picture, I just like it.)

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Rebeca gains the Angelic trait, and looks like she might be the spitting image of Elise.

(…Quite self-explanatory. >-> <-< >-> )

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Just as I’m about to lose my mind, the twins become children. (Mary gets the Artistic Prodigy Aspiration like Trent, and the Cheerful trait, while Dawn gets ‘Rambunctious Scamp’ and ‘Gloomy.’ However, Dawn seems like the sunnier of the two. #Sims4traitsareuseless)

Ulysses is able to sell a few paintings. He even rolls a whim to get engaged to Elise after spending some quality time with her on the living room couch, which is something he hasn’t done in I-Haven’t-The-Faintest-How-Long.

I briefly switch to another household and experiment with building them a restaurant. When I come back, Trent and Dawn are standing at opposite ends of a street across the neighborhood. Trent runs over to make fun of her face, or something like that, and finds her making a mess. I AM SICK OF THIS SHIT!

After he mocks her, his…relationship with her improves. And she responds by teasing him about a crush. Which also gains them relationship points.

Okay, I know that some siblings (my younger brother and I, for example) have that kind of rapport to where they can insult each other, and both know that it’s all in good fun. But I have a feeling that if this exchange occurred between Trent and Mary—or any other pair of siblings—it would have the same result.

Isn’t Parenthood supposed to introduce sibling rivalry?

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The current house, which I’m considering knocking down because I don’t much like the J-shape design. Plus, there’s no space in the twins’ room for Rebeca, and she’ll be a child in four days. (She’ll age up the same day as Trent.)

Ulysses has 15 days to Elder, but is only 110 Satisfaction points from that Potion of Youth he so desperately needs, now that Elise is almost an Adult too. She still isn’t pregnant again. *crosses fingers*

Elise hasn’t made any progress on her Aspiration since she was pregnant with Rebeca. She still needs three more Gardening skill; to evolve ten plants to Excellent; and to grow a cowplant. (Well, I suppose ‘hasn’t made any progress’ is a bit strong—she does have three cowplant seeds now. She just needs to find an opportunity to plant them.) Ulysses needs to help a child with schoolwork for four hours, and have a child within range to receive a character value trait. (The closest is Trent, and his Emotional Control isn’t even halfway green yet.)

Trent’s Rebellious streak is ongoing. In fact, it seems like it’s never going to end. Thankfully it’s so inconsequential that I forgot about it.

The family has $2,160.

Three or four house-building attempts later, I give lawn-living (more like, camping at home, because I need some semblance of order) a real shot. Including tents, a toilet and shower, outdoor activities, and all, they have ~$30,000 in the bank.

Only real problem? No fridge; those baked potatoes need to be eaten as soon as Elise makes them, or they’ll go to waste.

Some things never change, though—Here, we see Elise reaching Parenting Level 6 by yelling at Rebeca for making a mess, because my patience hit ‘running on empty’ about thirty miles back, and I imagine hers did as well. 

For fuck’s sake, Dawn. 

You know, out of all the girls, I’m pretty sure that Mary’s made the fewest messes. That alone could wind up winning her the heirship title—

x_x *sigh* 

Never mind…

….

And it’s not being responsible if she only cleans because I tell her to, so why does she get points?

As you may have noticed in the last picture, the Robinson-Eubanks’ staycation is over; allysimbuilds kindly built me a five-bedroom, two-bath farmhouse, which came with this lovely little feature.

I don’t know why my Sims go near the sink anymore. 

She noted that because of budget constraints (the family has $214 left over), the children’s rooms lack toys, but thought I could quickly remedy that.

And I do. I buy three toys for them to share, and Dawn finds this triceratops in the log across the street. 

The morning after they…move in, so to speak (they don’t have to switch lots), Elise collects wild plants, rocks, and frogs while the kids are at school.

Then at 10:07 a.m., while I’m controlling Elise—there’s no way I accidentally tell Dawn to do this—Dawn comes home for no apparent reason, and I can’t make her go back. Her school performance is only on the high end of Okay; I wonder if she’ll need to do all her homework just to avoid flunking.

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Two-three days later, after school, Dawn is dropped off(?) at the house next to hers. Maybe because she’s embarrassed about being the subject of class gossip, and doesn’t want anyone to know where she lives. 

(Actually, no—I find out later that it’s just because she’s in the habit of running out the back door and up the hill to the other driveway to disappear to school. For some reason.)

The next morning at 12:16 a.m., Ulysses has fifteen whole points after he buys a Potion of Youth. Now he’s a day younger than Elise.

Not as much as I wanted, but it’s better than 11 days older. 

Dawwww! Look at the wittle baby cowplants and their precious pink snouts! ❤ 

What do you mean I can’t name them?!

NOT FAIR. ;~;

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I can’t stop taking pictures of them. XD 

I’m obsessed…